The Leafless Tree
A Sermon
(No. 121)
Delivered on Sabbath Evening, March 8, 1857, by the
REV. C.H. SPURGEON
At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.
"But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and it shall be
eaten as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when
they cast their leaves; so the holy seed shall be the substance
thereof."–Isaiah 6:3.
OUR FIRST business to-night will be briefly to explain the metaphor
employed in the text. The prophet was told that despite all the
remonstrances he was instructed to deliver, and notwithstanding the
eloquent earnestness of his lips, which had been just touched by a live
coal from off the altar, still the people of Israel would persevere in
their sins, and would therefore be certainly destroyed. He asked the
question, "Lord, how long?" that is, How long will the people be thus
impenitent? How long will thy sore judgment thus continue? And he was
informed that God would waste and destroy the cities and their
inhabitants, till the land should be utterly desolate. Then it was
added, for his comfort, "Yet in it shall be a tenth." And so it
happened; for when "Nebuchadnezzar carried away all Jerusalem," the
historian gives this reservation–'none remained save the poorer sort
of the people of the land." They were left by the captain of the guard,
"to be vine-dressers and husbandmen." Thus in it there was a tenth;
this small remnant of the people, however, was to be nearly destroyed
too. "It shall return and shall be eaten;" the sense is, eaten up or
consumed. The poor creatures left in the land, many of them fled into
Egypt at the time of the conspiracy of Ishmael (not Ishmael, the son of
Hagar, but an unworthy member of the royal family of Judah), and there
in Egypt most of them were cut off and perished. "But," says God,
"although this tenth only shall be preserved, and then even this small
part shall be subjected to many perils yet Israel shall not be
destroyed, for it shall be as a terebinth tree and as an oak;" their
"substance is in them, when they cast their leaves," and so lose their
verdure and their beauty; thus, in like manner, a holy seed, a chosen
remnant, shall still be the substance of the children of Israel, when
the fruitful land is stripped of its foliage, and that fair garden of
earth is barren as the desert.
The figure is taken, first of all, from the terebinth or turpentine
tree–here translated the teil tree. That tree is an evergreen, with
this exception, that in very severe and inclement weather it loses its
leaves; but even then the terebinth tree is not dead. And so of the
oak; it loses its leaves every year, of course, but even then it is not
dead. "So," says God, "you have seen the tree in winter, standing naked
and bare, without any sign of life, its roots buried in the hard and
frozen soil, and its naked branches exposed to every blast, without a
bloom or a bud; yet the substance is in the tree when the leaves are
gone. It is still alive, and it shall, by and by, in due season, bud
and bloom; so," says he, "Nebuchadnezzar shall cut off all the leaves
of the tree of Israel–take away the inhabitants, only a tenth shall be
left, and they shall well nigh be eaten up; still the church of God and
the Israel of God never shall be destroyed; they shall be like the
terebinth tree and the oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast
their leaves; so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof."
I hope I have made the meaning of the passage as plain as words can
make it. Now, then, for the application–first, to the Jews; secondly,
to the Church; thirdly, to each believer.
I. First, TO THE JEWS.
What a history is the history of the Jew! He has antiquity stamped upon
his forehead. His is a lineage more noble than that of any knights or
even kings of this our island, for he can trace his pedigree back to
the very loins of Abraham, and through him to that patriarch who
entered into the ark, and thence up to Adam himself. Our history is
hidden in gloom and darkness; but theirs, with certainty, may be read
from the first moment even down till now. And what a checkered history
has been the history of the Jewish nation. Nebuchadnezzar seemed to
have swept them all away with the huge broom of destruction; the tenth
left was again give over to the slaughter; and one would have thought
we should have heard no more of Israel; but in a little time they rose
phoenix-like, from their ashes. A second temple was builded and the
nation became strong once more, and though often swept with desolations
in the mean time, yet it did not abide, and the scepter did not depart
from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh came.
And, since then, how huge have been the waves that have rushed over the
Jewish race! The Roman emperor razed the city to the ground, and left
not a vestige standing; another emperor changed the name of Jerusalem
into that of Eliah, and forbade a Jew to go within some miles of it, so
that he might not even look upon his beloved city. It was plowed and
left desolate. But is the Jew conquered? Is he a subjugated man? Is his
country seized? No; he is still one of earth's nobles–distressed,
insulted, spit upon; still it is written, "To the Jew first, and
afterward to the Gentile." He claims a high dignity above us, and he
has a history to come which will be greater and more splendid than the
history of any nation that has yet existed. If we read the Scriptures
aright, the Jews have a great deal to do with this world's history.
They shall be gathered in; Messiah shall come, the Messiah they are
looking for–the same Messiah who came once shall come again–shall
come as they expected him to come the first time. They then thought he
would come a prince to reign over them, and so he will when he comes
again. He will come to be king of the Jews, and to reign over his
people most gloriously; for when he comes, Jew and Gentile will have
equal privileges, though there shall yet be some distinction afforded
to that royal family from whose loins Jesus came; for he shall sit upon
the throne of his father David, and unto him shall be gathered all
nations. O!
"Ye chosen seed of Israel's race,
A remnant weak and small,"
ye may indeed,
"Hail him who saves you by his grace,
And crown him Lord of all;"
your church shall never die, and your race shall never become extinct.
The Lord hath said it. "The race of Abraham shall endure for ever, and
his seed as many generations."
But why is it that the Jewish race is preserved? We have our answer in
the text: "The holy seed is the substance thereof." There is something
within a tree mysterious, hidden, and unknown, which preserves life in
it when every thing outward tends to kill it. So in the Jewish race
there is a secret element which keeps it alive. We know what it is: it
is the "remnant according to the election of grace;" in the worst of
ages there has never been a day so black but there was a Hebrew found
to hold the lamp of God. There has always been found a Jew who loved
Jesus; and though the race now despise the great Redeemer, yet there
are not a few of the Hebrew race who still love Jesus, the Saviour of
the uncircumcised, and bow before him. It is these few, this holy seed,
that are the substance of the nation; and for their sake, through their
prayers, because of God's love to them, he still says of Israel to all
nations, "Touch not these mine anointed, do my prophets no harm. These
are the descendants of Abraham, my friend. I have sworn, and will not
repent; I will show kindness unto them for their father's sake, and for
the sake of the remnant I have chosen."
Let us think a little more of the Jews than we have been wont; let us
pray oftener for them. "Pray for the peace old Jerusalem; they shall
prosper that love her." As truly as any great thing is done in this
world for Christ's kingdom, the Jews will have more to do with it than
any of us have dreamed. So much for the first point. the Jewish nation
is like "a terebinth tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them,
when they cast their leaves; so the holy seed shall be the substance
thereof."
II. And now, secondly, THE CHURCH OF CHRIST, whereof the Jewish people
are but a dim shadow, and an emblem.
The church has had its trials; trials from without and trials within.
It has had days of blood-red persecution, and of fiery trial; it has
had times of sad apostacy, when an evil heart of unbelief and departing
from the living God has broken out, and a root of bitterness springing
up has troubled many, and thereby they have been defiled. Yet, blessed
be God, through all the winters of the church she still lived, and she
gives signs now of a sweeter spring-tide, a fresher greenness and a
healthier condition than she has shown before for many a day. Why is it
that the church is still preserved, when she looks so dead? For this
reason: that there is in the midst of her–though many are hypocrites
and impostors–a "chosen seed," who are "the substance thereof." You
might have looked back a hundred years ago upon the professing church
of Christ in this land, and what a sad spectacle it would have
exhibited! In the Church of England there was mere formality; in the
Independent and Baptist denominations there was truth, but it was dead,
cold, lifeless truth. Ministers dreamed on in their pulpits, and
hearers snored in their pews; infidelity was triumphant; the house of
God was neglected and desecrated. The church was like a tree that had
lost its leaves: it was in a wintry state. But did it die? No; there
was a holy seed within it. Six young men were expelled from Oxford for
praying, reading the Bible, and talking to poor people about Christ;
and these six young men, with many others whom the Lord had hidden by
fifties in the caves of the earth, secret and unknown–these young men,
leaders of a glorious revival, came out, and though ridiculed and
laughed at as Methodists, they brought forth a great and glorious
revival, almost equaling the commencement of the gospel triumphs under
Paul and the apostles, and very little inferior to the great
Reformation of Luther, of Calvin, and Zwingle. And just now the church
is to a great degree in a barren and lifeless state. But will she
therefore die? you say that true doctrine is scarce, that zeal is rare,
that there is little life and energy in the pulpit and true devotion in
the pew, while formality and hypocrisy stalk over us, and we sleep in
our cradles. But will the church die? No; she is like a teil tree and
an oak; her substance is in her when she has lost her leaves; there is
a holy seed in her still that is the substance thereof. Where these are
we know not; some, I doubt not, are here in this church–some, I hope,
are to be found in every church of professing Christians: and woe worth
the day to the church that loses her holy seed; for she must die, like
the oak blasted by the lightning, whose heart is scorched out of
it–broken down, because it has no substance in it.
Let me now draw your attention, as a church connected with this place,
to this point–that the holy seed is the substance of the church. A
great many of you might be compared to the bark to the tree; some of
you are like the big limbs; others are like pieces of the trunk. Well,
we should be very sorry to lose any of you; but we could afford to do
so without any serious damage to the life of the tree. Yet there are
some here–God knoweth who they are–who are the substance of the tree.
By the word "substance" is meant the life, the inward principle. The
inward principle is in the tree, when it has lost its leaves. Now, God
discerns some men in this church, I doubt not, who are toward us like
the inward principle of the oak; they are the substance of the church.
I would feign hope that all the members of the church in some degree
contribute to the substance; but I can not think so. I am obliged to
say I doubt it; because when one hath fallen and another, it makes us
remember that a church hath much in it that is not life. There be some
branches on the vine that be cut off, because they do not draw sap from
the heart of it, they are only branches bound on by profession,
pretended graftings that have never struck root into the parent stock,
and that must be cut off, and hewn down, and cast into the fire. But
there is a holy seed in the church that is the substance of it.
Please to note here, that the life of a tree is not determined by the
shape of the branches, nor by the way it grows, but it is the
substance. The shape or a church is not its life. In one place I see a
church formed in an Episcopalian shape; in another place I see one
formed in a Presbyterian shape; then, again, I see one, like ours,
formed on an Independent principle. Here I see one with sixteen ounces
to the pound of doctrine; there I see one with eight, and some with
very little clear doctrine at all. And yet I find life in all the
churches, in some degree–some good men in all of them. How do I
account for this? Why, just in this way–that the oak may be alive,
whatever its shape, if it has got the substance. If there be but a holy
seed in the church, the church will live; and it is astonishing how the
church will live under a thousand errors, if there be but the vital
principle in it. You will find good men among the denominations that
you can not receive as being sound in faith. You say, "What! can any
good thing come out of Nazareth?" and you go through, and find that
there are even in them some true Nazarites of the right order. The very
best of men found in the worst of churches! A church lives not because
of its rubrics, and its canons, and its articles; it lives because of
the holy seed that is in it as the substance. No church can die while
it has a holy seed in it, and no church can live that has not the holy
seed, for "the holy seed is the substance thereof."
Observe, again, that the substance of the oak is a hidden thing; you
can not see it. When the oak or the terebinth is standing destitute of
leaves, you know that life is there somewhere. But you can not see it.
And very likely you can not and do not know the men that are the holy
seed, the substance of the church. Perhaps you imagine the substance of
the church lies in the pulpit. Nay, friend! Let us pray to God that
such of us as are in the pulpit may be a part of that substance; but
much of the substance of the church lies where you don't know any thing
of it. There is a mine near Plymouth, where the men who work in it, two
hundred and fifty feet below the surface, have a little shelf for their
Bibles and hymn-books, and a little place where every morning, when
they go down in the black darkness, they bow before God, and praise him
whose tender mercies are over all his works. You never heard of these
miners, perhaps, and do not know of them; but perhaps some of them are
the very substance of the church. There sits Mr. Somebody in that pew;
O! what a support he is to the church. Yes, in money matters, perhaps;
but do you know, there is poor old Mrs. Nobody in the aisle that is
most likely a greater pillar to the church than he, for she is a holier
Christian, one who lives nearer to her God and serves him better, and
she is "the substance thereof." Ah! that old woman in the garret who is
often in prayer; that old man on his bed who spends days and nights in
supplication; such people as these are the substance of the church. O!
you may take away your prelates, your orators, and the best and
greatest of those who stand among earth's mighty men, and their place
could be supplied; but take away our intercessors; take away the men
and women that breathe out prayer by night and day, and like the
priests of old offer the morning and evening lamb as a perpetual
sacrifice, and you kill the church at once. What are the ministers?
They are but the arms of the church, and the lips of it. A man may be
both dumb and armless, and yet live. But these, the heavenly seed, the
chosen men and women who live near their God, and serve him with sacred
fervent piety–these are the heart of the church; we can not do without
them. If we lose them we must die. "The holy seed is the substance
thereof."
Then, my hearers, thou art a church member. Let me ask thee–art thou
one of the holy seed? Has thou been begotten again to a lively hope?
Has God made thee holy by the sanctifying influence of his Spirit, and
by the justifying righteousness of Christ, and by the application to
thy conscience of the blood of Jesus? If so, then thou art the
substance of the church. They may pass by thee and not notice thee, for
thou art little; but the substance is little; the life-germ within the
grain of barley is too small for us, perhaps, to detect; the life
within the egg is almost an animalcula–you can scarcely see it; and so
the life of the church is among the little ones, where we can scarcely
find it out. Rejoice, if you are much in prayer; you are the life of
the church. But you, O you proud man, pull down your grand thoughts of
yourself; you may give to the church, you may speak for the church, and
act for the church, but unless you are a holy seed you are not the
substance thereof, and it is the substance which is in reality of the
greatest value.
But here let me say one thing before I leave this point. Some of you
will say, "How is it that good men are the means of preserving the
visible church?" I answer, the holy seed doth this, because it derives
its life from Christ. If the holy seed had to preserve the church by
its own purity and its own strength, the church would go to ruin
to-morrow; but it is because these holy ones draw fresh life from
Christ continually that they are able to be, as it were, the salvation
of the body, and by their influence, direct and indirect, shed life
over the whole visible church. The prayers of those living ones in Zion
bring down many a blessing upon us; the groans and cries of these
earnest intercessors prevail with heaven, and bring down very argosies
of mercy from the gates of paradise. And besides, their holy example
tends to check us and preserve us in purity; they walk among us like
God's own favored ones, wrapped in white, reflecting his image wherever
they go, and tending, under God, to the sanctifying of believers, not
through their vaunting any self-righteousness, but by stirring up
believers to do more for Christ, and to be more like him. "The holy
seed shall be the substance thereof."
III. And now I come to the third point. this is true of EVERY
INDIVIDUAL BELIEVER: his substance is in him when he has lost his
leaves.
The Arminian says that when a Christian loses his leaves he is dead.
"No," say God's Word, "he is not; he may look as if he were dead, and
not have so much as here and there a leaf upon the topmost bough; but
he is not dead. Their substance is in them even when they lose their
leaves."
By losing their leaves allow me to understand two things. Christian men
lose their leaves when they lose their comforts, when they lose the
sensible enjoyment of their Master's presence, and when their full
assurance is turned into doubting. You have had many such a time as
that, have you not? Ah! you were one day in such a state of joy, that
you said you could
"Sit and sing yourself away
To everlasting bliss."
But a wintry state came, and your joy all departed, and you stood like
a bare tree, after the wind had swept it in the time of winter, with
just perhaps one sere leaf hanging by a thread on the topmost bough.
But you were not dead then; no, your substance was in you, when you had
lost your leaves. You could not see that substance, and good reason
why, because your life was hid with Christ in God; you saw not your
signs, but you had your substance still, though you could not discover
it. There were no heavings of faith, but faith was there; there were no
lookings out of hope, but though hope's eyelids were shut, the eyes
were there, to be opened afterwards; there was no lifting, perhaps, of
the hand of ardent prayer, but the hands and arms were there, though
they hung powerless by the side. God said, afterwards, "Strengthen the
feeble knees, and lift up the hands that hang down." Your substance was
in you when you had lost your leaves. Good Baxter says–"We do not see
graces, except when they are in exercise; and yet they are as much
there when they are not in exercise as when they are." Saith he, "Let a
man take a walk into a wood; there lieth a hare or a rabbit asleep
under the leaves; but he can not see the creature until it is
frightened, and it runneth out, and then he seeth it to be there." So
if faith be in exercise you will perceive your evidence, but if faith
be slumbering and still, you will be led to doubt its existence; and
yet it is there all the while.
"Mountains when in darkness hidden,
Are as real as in day,"
said one; and truly the faith of the Christian, when shrouded by doubts
and fears, is just as much there as when he rejoiceth devoutly in the
display of it.
It is a common error of young converts that they attempt to live by
their experience, instead of tracing their life up to its precious
source. I have known persons rejoicing in the fullest assurance one
day, and sinking into the deepest despondency the next. The Lord will
sometimes strip you of the leaves of evidence to teach you to live by
faith, as John Kent says–
"If to-day he deigns to bless us
With a sense of pardoned sin;
He to-morrow may distress us
Make us feel the plague within;
All to make us
Sick of self and fond of him."
But, ah! there is a worse phase to the subject than this. Some
Christians lose their leaves not by doubts, but by sin. This is a
tender topic–one which needs a tender hand to touch. O! there are some
in our churches that have lost their leaves by lust and sin. Fair
professors once they were; they stood green among the church, like the
very leaves of paradise; but in an evil hour they fell, the slaves of
temptation. They were God's own people by many infallible marks and
signs; and if they were so, though it is grievous that they should have
lost their leaves, yet there is the sweet consolation, their substance
is in them still: they are still the Lord's, still his living children,
though they have fallen into the coma of sin, and are now in a fainting
fit, having gone astray from him, and having their animation suspended,
while life is still there. Some, as soon as they see a Christian do any
thing inconsistent with his profession, say, "That man is no child of
God; he can not be; it is impossible." Ay, but, sir, remember what he
thought who once said–"If a brother err, ye that are spiritual restore
such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou
also be tempted." It is a fact, deny it who will, and abuse it, if you
please, to your own wicked purposes; I can not help it–it is a fact
that some living children of God have been allowed–and an awful
allowance it is–to go into the very blackest sins. Do you think David
was not a child of God, even when he sinned? It is a hard subject to
touch; but it is not to be denied. He had the life of God within him
before; and though he sinned–O! horrid and awful was the crime!–yet
his substance was in him when he lost his leaves. And many a child of
God has gone far away from his Master; but his substance is in him. And
how know we this? Because a dead tree never lives again; if the
substance be really gone, it never lives; and God's holy Word assures
us, that if the real life of grace could die out in any one, it could
never come again; for saith the apostle, "it is impossible, if they
have been once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have
been made partakers of the Holy Ghost"–if these fall away–"it is
impossible to renew them again unto repentance." Their tree is "dead,
plucked up by the roots." And the apostle Peter says–"For if, after
they have escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust,
they are again turned back, their last end shall be worse than the
first." But now take David, or take Peter, which you please. Peter we
will have. O! how foully did he curse his Master! With many an oath he
denied him. But had not Peter the life of God in him then? Yes; and how
do we know? Because when his Master looked upon him, he "went out and
wept bitterly." Ah! if he had been a dead man, hardened and without the
substance in him, his Master might have looked to all eternity, and he
would not have wept bitterly. How know I that David was yet alive? Why,
by this–that although there was a long, long winter, and there were
many prickings of conscience, like the workings of the sap within a
tree, abortive attempts to thrust forward here and there a shoot before
its time, yet when the hour was come, and Nathan came to him and said,
"Thou art the man," had David been dead, without the life of God, he
would have spurned Nathan from him, and might have done what Manasseh
did with Isaiah, cut him in pieces in his anger; but instead of that he
bowed his head and wept before God; and still it is written, "The Lord
hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die." His substance was in him,
when he lost his leaves. O! have pity upon poor fallen brethren. O!
burn them not; they are not dead logs; though their leaves are gone
their substance is in them. God can see grace in their hearts when you
can not see it; he has put a life there that can never expire, for he
has said, "I give unto my sheep eternal life," and that means a life
that live for ever; "the water that I shall give him shall be in him a
well of water springing up into everlasting life." You may choke the
well up with big stones, but the water will find its way out yet, and
well up notwithstanding. And so the heir of heaven may, to the grief of
the church and to the injury of himself, most grievously
transgress–and weep, my eyes, O weep for any that have done so, and O
bleed, my heart, and thou hast bled, for any that have so sinned–but
yet their "substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the
holy seed"–that is, Christ within them, the Holy Ghost within them,
the new creature within them–"the holy seed shall be the substance
thereof." Poor backslider! here is a word of comfort for you. I would
not comfort you in your sins; God forbid! But if you know your sins and
hate them, let me comfort you. Thou art not dead! As Jesus said of the
damsel, "She is not dead, but sleepeth," so let me say of thee, "Thou
art not dead; thou shalt yet live." Dost thou repent? Dost thou grieve
over thy sin? That is thee bud that shows that there is life within.
When a common sinner sins he repents not, or if he doth repent it is
with a legal repentance. His conscience pricks him, but he hushes it.
He does not leave his sin and turn from it.
But did you ever see a child of God after he had been washed from a
foul sin? He was a changed man. I know such an one, who used to carry a
merry countenance, and many were the jokes he made in company; but when
I met him after an awful sin, there was a solemnity about his
countenance that was unusual to him. He looked, I should say, something
like Dante, the poet, of whom the boys said, "There is the man that has
been in hell;" because he had written of hell, and looked like it–he
looked so terrible. And when we spoke of sin there was such a solemnity
about him; and when we spoke of going astray the tears ran down his
cheeks, as much to say, "I have been astray too." He seemed like good
Christian, after he had been in Giant Despair's castle. Do you not
remember, beloved, the guide who took the pilgrims up to the top of a
hill called Clear, and he showed them from the top of the hill a lot of
men with their eyes put out, groping among the tombs, and Christian
asked what it meant. Said the guide, "These are pilgrims that were
caught in Giant Despair's castle; the giant had their eyes put out, and
they are left to wander among the tombs to die, and their bones are to
be left in the court-yard." Whereupon John Bunyan very naively says, "I
looked, and saw their eyes full of water, for they remembered they
might have been there too." Just as the man talked and spoke that I
once knew. He seemed to wonder why God had not left him to be an
apostate for ever, as the lot of Judas or Demas. He seemed to think it
such a startling thing that while many had gone aside altogether from
God's way, he should still have had his substance in him, when he had
lost his leaves, and that God should still have loved him. Perhaps,
beloved, God allows some such men to live, and sin, and afterward
repent, for this reason. You know there are some voices needed in music
that are very rare, and when, now and then, such a voice is to be
heard, every one will go to hear it. I have thought that perhaps some
of these men in heaven will song soprano notes before the
throne–choice, wondrous notes of grace, because they have gone into
the depths of sin after profession; and yet he had loved them when
their feet made hast to perdition, and fetched them up, because he
"loved them well." There are but few such; for most men will go foully
into sin; they will go out from us because they are not of us, for if
they had been of us they would doubtless have continued with us. But
there have been a few such–great saints, then great backsliding
sinners, and then great saints again. Their substance was in them when
they had lost their leaves. O! you that have gone far astray, sit and
weep. You can not weep too much, though you should cry with Herbert–
"O, who will give me tears? Come, all ye springs,
Dwell in my head and eyes; come, clouds and rain!
My grief hath need of all the water things
That nature hath produced."
You might well say–
"Let every vein
Suck up a river to supply mine eyes,
My weary, weeping eyes; too dry for me,
Unless they get new conduits, new supplies,
To bear them out, and with my state agree."
But yet remember, "He hath not forsaken his people, neither hath he cut
them off;" for still he says–
"Return, O wanderer, return,
And seek an injured father's heart."
Return! return! return! Thy Father's bowels still move for thee. He
speaks through the written oracles at this moment, saying, "How shall I
give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee, O Israel? How can I
make thee as Adimah? How can I set thee as Zeboim?" My bowels are
moved; my repentings are kindled together; for I will heal their
backslidings, I will receive them graciously, I will love them freely,
for they are mine still. As the terebinth and as the oak, whose
substance is in them when they cast their leaves, even so the holy seed
within the elect and called vessels of mercy, is still the substance
thereof.
And now, what have I to say to some of you that live in black sin, and
yet excuse yourselves on account of the recorded falls of God's people?
Sir, know this! Inasmuch as you do this, you wrest the Scriptures to
your own destruction. If one man has taken poison, and there has been a
physician by his side so skillful that he has saved his life by a
heavenly antidote, is that any reason why thou, who hast no physician
and no antidote, should yet think that the poison will not kill thee?
Why, man, the sin that does not damn a Christian, because Christ washes
him in his blood, will damn you. Said Brookes–and I will repeat his
words and have done–"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved,
said the apostle, be his sins never so many; but he that believeth not
shall be damned, be his sins never so few. Truly your sins may be
little; but you are lost for them without Christ. Your sins may be
great; but if Christ shall pardon them, then you shall be saved. The
one question, then, I have to ask of thee, is–Hast thou Christ? For if
thou hast not, then thou hast not the holy seed; thou art a dead tree,
and in due time thou shalt be tinder for hell. Thou art a
rotten-hearted tree, all touch-wood, ready to be broken in pieces;
eaten by the worms of lust; and ah! when the fire shall take hold of
thee, what a blazing and a burning! O! that thou hadst life! O! that
God would give it to thee! O! that thou wouldst now repent! O! that
thou wouldst cast thyself on Jesus! O! that thou wouldst turn to him
with full purpose of heart! For then, remember, thou wouldst be
saved–saved now, and saved for ever; for "the holy seed" would be "the
substance thereof."