How Saints May Help the Devil
A Sermon
(No. 264)
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, July 24th, 1859, by the
REV. C.H. SPURGEON
at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
"That thou mayest bear thing own shame, and mayest be confounded in all
that thou hast done, in that thou art a comfort unto them."–Ezekiel
16:54.
IT IS NOT a comfortable state to be at enmity with God, and the sinner
knows this. Although he perseveres in his rebellion against the Most
High, and turns not at the rebuke of the Almighty, but still goeth on
in his iniquity, desperately seeking his own destruction, yet is he
aware in his own conscience that he is not in a secure position. Hence
it is that all wicked men are constantly on the look out for excuses.
They find these either in pretended resolutions to reform at some
future period, or else in the declaration that reformation is out of
their power, and that, acting according to their own nature, they must
continue to go on in their iniquities. When a man is willing to find an
excuse for being God's enemy he need never be at a loss. He who hath to
find a fact may find some difficulty; but he who would forge a lie may
sit at his own fireside and do it. Now, the excuses of sinners are all
of them false; they are refuges of lies; and therefore we need not
wonder that they are exceedingly numerous, and very easy to come at.
One way in which sinners frequently excuse themselves is by endeavoring
to get some apology for their own iniquities from the inconsistencies
of God's people. This is the reason why there is much slander in the
world. A true Christian is a rebuke to the sinner, wherever he goes he
is a living protest against the evil of sin. Hence it is that the
worldling makes a dead set upon a pious man. His language in his heart
is, "He accuses me to my face; I cannot bear the sight of his holy
character; it makes the blackness of my own life appear the more
terrible, when I see the whiteness of his innocence contrasting with
it." And then the worldling opens all his eyes, and labors to find a
fault with the virtuous. If, however, he fails to do so, he will next
try to invent a fault; he will slander the man; and if even there he
fails, and the man is like Job, "perfect and upright, and one that
feared God and eschewed evil;" then the sinner will, like the devil of
old, begin to impute some wrong motive to the Christian's innocency.
"Doth Job serve God for nought?" said the devil. He could find no fault
with Job whatever, his character was untainted and unblemished; but,
says he, "he keeps to his religion for what he gets by it." I reckon it
to be a glorious accusation when we are falsely charged with being
religious for the sake of gain. It shows that our enemies have no other
charge that they can bring against us. They have ransacked all the
flies of their calumny, and they can find nothing tangible, and this is
the last they can bring–an imputation upon the motive of the man who
has no other motive in all the world than to glorify his God and win
sinners from destruction. In this, then, let us glory. If sinners
slander us, it is because we make them uneasy. They see that our lives
are a protest against them: and what can they do? They must somehow or
other answer the Bill which we have filed against them in Heaven's
Chancery, and they do it by issuing a Rejoinder against us, and
bringing us in as defendants in the case. We glory in this, that we are
defendants who can prove our innocence, and we are not ashamed to stand
before the her of God to have our motives tried. There is much I say to
cheer us in the fact of such a libel. We know the work is done. We are
sure our shots have told on their armor, when they are driven to return
on us their calumnies and the venom of their wrath. Now we know that
they feel the might of our arm, now we know we are not like them, mere
drivellings and dwarfs. They have felt our might, and against it they
kick, they foam, they forth their wrath. In this, I say, we glory. We
have smitten them hard, or else they would not rise against us in this
fashion.
Alas! alas! however, sinners have not always to use calumny and lies.
It is too true that the church has given a real bona fide cause to the
wicked for excusing themselves in their sin: the inconsistencies of
professors, the want of heart in piety, the absence of devout
earnestness, have given sad grounds to the ungodly to justify
themselves in their sin. It is upon this melancholy subject that I am
about to enter this morning; and may God grant unto all his people who
shall feel convicted in their consciences, the spirit of mourning and
contrition, that they may vex themselves before God, and confess this
great iniquity that they have done, namely, that they have comforted
sinners in their sin by their own inconsistency, and have justified the
wicked in their rebellion by their own rebellings and revoltings.
This morning I shall deal thus with the subject. First, I shall point
out the fact–the different acts of Christians which have helped to
comfort sinners in their sin; and then, secondly, I shall observe the
consequences of this evil–how much the world at large has been injured
by the deeds of professed followers of Christ; and then I shall come
with a solemn warning, bringing out the great battering ram, to dash
against these refuges of lies and moreover crying with a loud voice to
those who are the faithful servants of Christ, to withdraw their hands,
and no longer to assist in keeping up the Jericho in which the wicked
have entrenched themselves.
I. First, then, it shall be my sad and melancholy business this morning
to show certain facts which it were dishonest to deny, namely, that THE
ACTS OF MANY OF CHRIST'S FOLLOWERS HAVE BEEN THE CAUSE OF JUSTIFYING
AND COMFORTINGS SINNERS IN THEIR EVIL WAYS.
1. And first I would observe, that the daily inconsistencies of the
people of God have much to do in this matter. By inconsistencies I do
not exactly mean those grosser crimes into which, at sad and mournful
periods, many professors fall; but I mean those frequent
inconsistencies which become so common indeed that they are scarcely
condemned by society.
The covetousness of too many Christians has had this offset. "Look,"
says the worldling, "this man professes that his inheritance is above,
and that his affection is set not on things on earth, but on the things
of heaven but look at him, he is just as earnest as I am about the
things of this world; he can drive the screw home as tightly with his
debtor as I can; he can scrape and cut with those that deal with him
quite as keenly as ever I have done." Nay, beloved, this is not a mere
tale; alas! I have seen persons held up to commendation as successful
merchants, whose lives will not bear the test of Scripture, whose
business transactions were as hard as griping, as grasping, as the
transactions of the most worldly. How often has it happened that some
of you have bent your knee in the sanctuary, and have said, "Forgive us
our debts, as we forgive our debtors," and one hour afterwards your
finger has been almost meeting your thumb through the jugular vein of
some debtor whom you had seized by the throat! The church of Christ
appears to be as worldly as the world itself, and professors of
religion have become as sharp in trade and as ungenerous in their
dealing as those that have never been baptised into the Lord Jesus, and
have never professed to serve him. And now what does the world say? It
throws this in our teeth. If it be accused of loving the things of time
and sense, it answers, "And so do you." If we tell the world that it
has set its hopes upon a shadow, it replica, "But we have set our hope
upon the self-same thing in which you are trusting; you are as worldly,
as grasping, as covetous as we are; your protest has lost its force;
you are no longer witnesses against us–we are accusers of you."
Another point in which the sinner often excuses himself is the manifest
worldliness of many Christians. You will see Christian men and women as
fond of dress, and as pleased with the frivolities of the age, as any
other persons possibly could be, just as anxious to adorn their outward
persons, so as to be seen of men; just as ambitious to win the praise
which fools accord to fine dressing, as the most silly fop or the most
gaudy among worldly women. What saith the world, when we turn round to
it, and accuse it of being a mere butterfly, and finding all its
pleasures in gaudy toys? "Oh! yes," it says, "we know your cant, but it
is just the same with you." Do you not stand up and sing,
"Jewels to me are gaudy toys,
And gold but sordid dust?"
And yet you are just as fond of glittering as we are; your doctors of
divinity pride themselves just as much in their D.D. as any of us in
other titles. You are Just as punctillious about terms of honor as any
of us can be. You talk about carrying the cross; but we do not see it
anywhere, except it be a golden cross sometimes hanging on your bosom.
You say you are crucified to the world, and the world to you: it is a
very merry sort of crucifixion. You say that you mortify your members
and deny yourselves: your mortification must be suffered in secret, for
it is but very little that we can see of it! Thus the worldling casts
back to our challenge, declaring that we are not sincere, and thus he
comforts himself a his sin, and justifies himself in his iniquity,
Look, too, at the manifest pride of many professors of religion. You
see members of Christian churches as proud as they possibly can be.
Their backs are as stiff as if an iron rod were in the center, they
come up to the house of God, and it is a Christian doctrine that God
has made of one flesh all nations that dwell upon the face of the
earth, but the Christian is as aristocratic as anybody else, just as
proud and just as stiff. Is the Christian clothed in broad cloth? How
often does be feel it a condescension to own a smock frock! and how
often do you see a sister of Christ in satin, who thinks it something
wonderful if she owns a fellow-member in an unwashable print. It is of
no use denying it. I do not think that the evil is so common amongst us
as it is in some churches; but this I know, that there are respectable
churches and chapels in which a poor man scarcely dares to show his
face. The pride of the church surely has become almost as great as the
pride of Sodom of old. Her fullness of bread and her stiffness of neck
hath brought her to exalt herself; and whereas it is the real glory of
the church that "the poor have the gospel preached unto them," and that
the poor have received the Word with gladness, it becomes now the honor
of the church to talk of her respectability of the dignity and station
of her members, and of the greatness of her wealth. What, then, do
worldlings say? "You accuse us of pride, you are as proud as we are.
You the humble followers of Jesus, who washed his saints' feet? Not
you; no, you would have no objection, we doubt not to be washed by
others, but we do not think it likely that you would ever wash ours.
You the disciples of the fishermen of Galilee? Not you; you are too
fine and great for that. Accuse us not of pride: why, you are as
stiff-necked a generation, as we ourselves are."
Now, these are only mentioned amongst us as inconsistencies–not as
sins. Sins they verily are; and they are such sins that they restrain
the Spirit of God from blessing the church. Sins, too, they are that
render the wicked callous in their sins, blunt the edge of our rebukes,
and prevents the Word of God from working in the hearts of men.
I might mention another sad fact with regard to the church, which often
stings us sorely,–the various enmities, and strifes, and divisions,
that arise. You tell the worldly man that Christians love each other.
"Ah!" says he, "you should go over to Ebenezer or to Rehoboth, and see
how they love each other. Don't talk of leading a cat and dog life!
Look at many of your churches; see how the minister is treated, and how
the deacons are in arms, and how the members hate one another. They can
scarcely hold a church meeting without abusing each other!" How often
is this proved to be true in many churchesl And then the worldling
says, "You tell us that we bite and devour each other, and that our
wars and fightings come from our lusts. Where do your wars and
fightings is come from? You tell us that our anger and wrath are the
effect of sin that dwelleth in us: what causes your divisions and your
strifes?" In this way, you see, the testimony of the children of God is
rendered invalid, and we help to comfort sinners in their sins.
2. Now it is my mournful duty to go a step further. It is not merely
these inconsistencies, but the glaring crimes of some professed
disciples, thee have greatly assisted sinners in sheltering themselves
from the attacks of the Word of God. Every now and then the cedar falls
in the midst of the forest. Some one who stood prominent in the church
of God, as a professed follower of Jesus, turns aside. "They go out
from us because they were not of us; for if they had been of us,
doubtless, they would have continued with us, but they went out from
us, that it might be manifest that they were not of us." We have wept
over high professors becoming drunkards; we have seen mighty men at
religious public meetings becoming scoundrel bankrupts. We have had it
dashed in our faces, dozens of times, that religion how often become a
cloak for fraud, and that when the world has trusted a religious man
with its wealth, that religious man has carried it off with him, and
has not been found at the proper time. Oh! this is the great curse of
the church. I was thinking only yesterday, with much sorrow in my
heart, of the present age, and I could not but come to the conclusion,
that all the burnings of Pagan tyrants, that all the tortures of Popish
executioners, that all the bloody deaths to which God's people were
ever put, in any one age of the world, have never done so much hurt to
the cause of Christ as the inconsistencies of professors of the present
time. It was about three years ago I think, that failures among
religious men seemed to be the order of the day, and our papers
literally teemed with accusations against the church of God. O my
brethren, let us not talk of these things, except with mourning and
tears. Wrap thyself in sackcloth, O church of God; put away thy
laughter, and cast ashes on thine head, for the crown of thy glory is
departed, thy garments are stained, and the filthiness of thy skirts
witnesses against thee. O church of Christ, thy Nazarites were purer
than snow, they were whiter than milk, but now their visage is blacker
than a coal, and their hands are defiled with iniquity. Remember thou
the time of thy purity, when thy priests were glorious, and thy sons
and daughters were clothed in royal apparel. How art thou fallen! how
art thou cast down from the high mountains! Thy princes are clothed in
rags; the veils are plucked from the face of thy daughters, and thou
thyself art become disconsolate and a widow, by reason of the iniquity
of thy sons and of thy daughters. Woe unto us, for thy glory is
departed, thy sun is covered with thick darkness, and thy stars
withhold their light. The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us
that we have sinned.
My hearers, my soul has carried me away; breathless and panting I
return to my humbler but not less earnest style. Remember how vast your
powers for mischief! Your ministers may preach as long as they will;
but you undo their preaching if you are unholy. If you are inconsistent
in your lives, Paul, Apollos, and Cephas might preach with power; but
they have not half the power to build up that you have to pull down.
You are the mightiest workmen ye professors of religion; you can undo
infinitely more than we can accomplish.
And now I pause, and relieve the shadow of this subject with something
which, I fear, is in the sight of God equally vile. How often do the
people of God comfort sinners in their sins by their murmurings and
their complaints? Oh beloved, we are too much in the habit of covering
our faces with sadness, on account of our temporal trials, and too
little in the habit of weeping on account of the failings of the church
of God! Hour frequently do you meet with a true Christian full of
unbelieving cares! Ah! he says, "All these things are against me." He
has food and raiment, but he is not content with it; he has more than
that, but his store is a little diminished, and he is very cast down,
and he has no faith, and cannot trust the Lord. "Oh!" says the
worldling, "see these Christians; they talk about faith, but their
faith is not of half so much service to them, as my desperation is to
me that hardens my heart, and makes me stand up against affliction a
great deal better than their faith in God's providence can do. Why,
just look at these saints:–a drivelling set of crying creatures, they
never have either peace or joy; they are everlastingly pulling long
faces, and talking through their noses, about their sad trials and
troubles; they never have an hour of happiness. Who would be a
Christian? I don't want to be converted," says the worldling. "Why
should I pluck out the sunbeam from my eye, and take the smile from my
brow? Why should I profess to follow a God whose servants only worship
him by weeping, and never offer any sacrifice but that of groans, and
sighs, and murmurs?" Might not a wicked man come in often, when
Christians are grumbling together about the badness of the times, about
the high price of commodities, and the low rate of wages, and so forth;
and might he not say, "Yes, I can see your God treats you very badly;
if I were you I'd strike, and have nothing to do with him?" And he
would go away laughing, and saying, "Ah! Baal treats me better; I get
more pleasure in this world than these Christian people do. Let them
have their brave heaven to themselves, if they like; I'm not going
snivelling through this world with them; let me have joy and rejoicing
while I may." Don't you think that in this way you and I have done a
world of damage to the cause of Christ, and may have helped to comfort
sinners in their iniquities?
One other point, and I will have done with this. Perhaps the greatest
evil has been done by the coldheartedness, and indifference of
religious professors. I charge thee not, O church of God, with
inconsistency; I lay no crime at thy door now; it is with another fault
I charge thee–one as grievous these. I pray thee, plead guilty to it,
for thou wilt but speak the truth, and then I pray God that this thy
guilt may be cleansed, and that thou mayest offend him no longer with
this thine evil. The church of God at the present age, is cold and
lukewarm, and lifeless, compared with what it used to be. When I was
preaching in Wales this week, I could not but observe the power which
attended the ministry, when there was a living congregation and an
earnest company gathered together to hear the Word of God. We have
become accustomed to sit in a kind of solemn silence to hear the
gospel. Not so in Wales. There is to be heard the voice of acclamation;
every person expresses the feelings of his soul in audible prayers and
cries to God; and at last, when the Spirit has descended, you hear the
loud cries of "Gogoniant,"–"Glory to God." As each precious sentence
drops from the lips of the preacher, it seems to be taken up and fed
upon by the people, while they shout aloud for joy. I believe it is a
great improvement on our English congregations, and some of our English
preachers could not go on in their dull style, if sometimes the people
had a chance of either hissing them or cheering them on. That, however,
is but an index of the cold state of the churches. We are a phlegmatic,
cold nation; even Scotch divines are more alive than we are, they speak
the Word of God with more earnestness than many of our ministers do in
England. Cold as we think the north is, yet hath even it become warmer
than we are. And now what says the world to all our coldness? Why, it
says–"Ah, this is the kind of religion we like," says the worldling;
"we don't like those raving Methodists; we can't stand them; we don't
like those earnest indefatigable Christians of the cars of Whitfield;
oh! no, they were a raving set of folks; we don't like them; but we
like these quiet folks." "Yes," says the worldling, "I think it is
quite right that every man should go to his church and his chapel on a
Sunday; but I never could go and hear such raving as Mr. So-and-so
gives." Of course you could not; you are an enemy to God, and that is
why you like a Laodicean church. That very church which the world likes
best is sure to be that which God abhors. The world says, "We like
everything to go on smoothly; we like a man to go to his own parish
church, and hear a good, solid, substantial sermon read; we like to go
up to the meeting house, and hear a sober, eloquent divine; we don't
like any of this furious preaching, any of these earnest exhortations."
No, of course you like that of which God has said, "Thou art neither
cold nor hot;" God hates such, and that is why sinners love it. But
what effect does all this have upon the worldling? Why, just this. He
says, "I like you, because you don't rebuke me; I like that kind of
religion, because it is no accusation against me. When I see a
Christian hot and in earnest about being saved," he says, "it rebukes
my own indifference; but when I see a professed Christian just as
indifferent about the salvation of men as I am, why, then I say, it is
all a farce, nonsense! they don't mean it, the minister does not care a
bit about whether souls are saved or not, and as for the church, they
make a great, deaf of noise every now and then at Exeter Hall, about
saving some poor blacks far away, but they don't care about saving us."
And so a worldling wraps himself up, and goes on his way in his sin and
his iniquity, and perseveres, even to the last declaring all the while
that religion is but a sham, because he sees us careless in solemn
matters, and cold concerning everlasting realities.
Thus I have, mournfully in my own soul, set forth the plan whereby
Satan comforts sinners in their sins, even by means of those who ought
most sternly to rebuke them.
II. And now for the second point–THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS EVIL. And
here I wish to speak very pointedly and personally to all of you who
are professors of religion, and I do hope that you will take every
point to yourself, in which you must feel that you have been and are
guilty.
Friends, how often have you and I, in the first place, helped to keep
sinners easy in their sin, by our inconsistency! Had we been true
Christians, the wicked man would often have been pricked to the heart,
and his conscience would have convicted him; but having been unfaithful
and untrue, he has been able to sleep on quietly, without any
disturbance from us. Do you not think, my dear brothers and sisters,
that you have each been guilty here?–that you have often helped to
pacify the wicked in their rebellion against God? I must confess myself
that I am guilty. I have labored to escape from the sin, but I am not
clean delivered from it. I pray each one of you, make a full confession
before God, if by your silence, when sin has been committed before your
eyes, or by a smile, when a lascivious joke has been told in your
hearing, or if by a constant indifference to the cause of Christ you
have led sinners to sleep more securely in the bed of their iniquities.
But to go further still. Do you not think that very often, when a
sinner's conscience has been roused, you and I have helped to give it a
soporific draught by our coldness of heart, "Hush! Master Conscience,"
says the sinner, but he will not be still, but cries aloud, "Repent,
repent." And then you, a professing Christian pass try, and you
administer the laudanum draught of your indifference and the sinner's
conscience falls back again into its slumber, and the reproof that
might have been useful is entirely lost upon him. I am sure that this
is one of the great crying sins of the church, that we are not now the
witnesses of God, as we should be, but often quiet the witness of
conscience in the souls of men. Look now to your lives–I am speaking
personally to each one–look at yesterday, and the days that went
before, and I ask you, and I solemnly charge you to answer that
question, Have you not often assisted, in the first place, to keep
men's consciences quiet, and afterwards to send them to sleep when they
have been aroused?
Further; is it not possible that often sinners have been strengthened
in their sin by you? They were but beginning in iniquity, and had you
rebuked with honesty and sincerity, by your own holy life, they might
have been led to see their folly and might have ceased from sin; but
you have strengthened their hands. They have gone forward confidently,
because they have said, "See, a church member leads the way."
"So-and-so is not more scrupulous than I," says such an one; "I may do
what he does" And so you have helped to strengthen sinners in their
sins.
Nay, is it not possible that some of you Christians have helped to
confirm men in their sins and to destroy their souls? It is a
master-piece of thy devil, when he can use Christ's own soldiers
against Christ. But this he has often done. I have known many a case.
Let me tell a story of a minister–one which I believe to be true and
which convicts myself, and therefore I tell it with the hope that it
may also waken your consciences and convict you too. There was a young
minister once preaching very earnestly in a certain chapel, and he had
to walk some four or five miles to his home along a country road after
service. A young man, who had been deeply impressed under the sermon,
requested the privilege of walking with the minister, with an earnest
hope that he might get an opportunity of telling out his feelings to
him, and obtaining some word of guidance or comfort. Instead of that,
the young minister all the way along told the most singular tales to
those who were with him, causing loud roars of laughter, and even
relating tales which bordered upon the indecorous. He stopped at a
certain house, and this young man with him, and the whole evening was
spent in frivolity and foolish talking. Some years after, when the
minister had grown old, he was sent for to the bedside of a dying man.
He hastened thither with a heart desirous to do good. He was requested
to sit down at the bedside and the dying man, looking at him, and
regarding him most closely, said to him, "Do you remember preaching in
such-and-such a village on such an occasion?" "I do," said the
minister. "I was one of your hearers," said the man, "and I was deeply
impressed by the sermon." "Thank God for that," said the minister.
"Stop!" said the man, "don't thank God till you have heard the whole
story; you will have reason to alter your tone before I have done." The
minister changed countenance, but he little guessed what would be the
full extent of that man's testimony. Said he, "Sir, do you remember,
after you had finished that earnest sermon, I with some others walked
home with you? I was sincerely desirous of being led in the right path
that night; but I heard you speak in such a strain of levity, and with
so much coarseness too, that I went outside the house, while you were
sitting down to your evening meal; l stamped my foot upon the ground; I
said that you were a liar, that Christianity was a falsehood, that it
you could pretend to be so in earnest about it in the pulpit, and then
come down and talk like that, the whole thing must be a sham; and I
have been an infidel," said he, "a confirmed infidel, from that day to
this. But I am not an infidel at this moment. I know better; I am
dying, and I am about to be damned; and at the bar of God I will lay my
damnation to your charge; my blood is one your head;"–and with a
dreadful shriek, and one demoniacal glance at the trembling minister,
he shut his eyes and died. Is it not possible that we may have been
guilty thus? The bare idea would make the flesh creep on our bones; and
yet I think there are few among us who must not say, "That has been my
fault, after all." But are there not enough traps, in which to catch
souls, without your being made Satan's fowlers to do misehief? Hath not
Satan legions enough of devils to murder men, without employing you?
Are there no hands that may be red with the blood of souls beside
yours? O followers of Christ! O believers in Jesus! Will ye serve under
the black prince? Will ye fight against your Master? Will ye drag
sinners down to hell? Shall we–(I take myself in here, more truly than
any of you)–shall we, who profess to preach the gospel of Christ, by
our conversation injure and destroy men's souls?
III. Thus I think I have expounded the solemn consequences of this
fearful evil. And now I come, in conclusion, and I pray God to help me,
while I deal earnestly, and solemnly with you, AND BRING OUT THIS GREAT
BATTERING RAM, TO BEAR AGAINST THIS VAIN EXCCUSE OF THE WICKED.
Among this great congregation, I have doubtless a very large number of
persons who are not converted to God, and who have continually made
this their excuse, "I see so much of the inconsistency of professors
that I do not intend to think about religion myself." My hearer, I
conjure thee by the living God, give me thine ear a moment, while I
pull this vain excuse of thine to pieces. What hast thou to do with the
inconsistencies of another? "To his own master he shall stand or fall."
What will it better thee, if one half of all the professors of
religions be sent to hell? What comfort will that be to thee, when thou
shalt come there thyself? Man, will God require the sins of other
people at thine hands? Where is it said that God will punish thee for
what another does? Or dost thou imagine that God will reward thee
because another is guilty? Thou art surely not foolish enough for that.
I ask thee, what canst thou have to do with another's servant? That man
is a servant of God, or at least professes to be; if he be not so, what
busines can it possibly be of thine? If thou shouldst see twenty men
drinking poison, would that be a reason why thou shouldst drink it? If,
passing over London Bridge, thou shouldst see a dozen miserable
creatures leaping off the parapet, there would be a good argument why
thou thyself shouldst seek to stop them, but no argument why thou
shouldst leap too. What if there be hundreds of suicides? will that
excuse thee, if thou shalt shed thine own blood? Do men plead thus in
courts of law? Does a man say, "O Judge, excuse me for having been a
thief, there are so many hundreds of men that profess to be honest that
are as big thieves as I?" Thou wilt be punished for thine own offenses,
remember not for the offenses of another. Man! I conjure thee, look
this in the face. How can this help to assuage thy misery? How can this
help to make thee happier in hell, because thou sayest there are so
many hypocrites in this world?
But, besides, thou knowest well enough that the church is not so bad as
thou sayest it is. Thou seest some that are inconsistent; but are there
not many that are holy? Dost thou dare to say there are none? I tell
thee, man, thou art a fool. There are many bad coins in the world, many
counterfeits; do you, therefore, say there are no good ones? If you say
so, you are mad; for the very fact that there are counterfeits is a
proof that there must be realities. Would any man think it worth his
while to make bad sovereigns if there were no good ones? It is just the
quantity of good ones that passes off the few false coins. And so no
man would pretend to be a Christian unless there were some good
Christians. There would be no hypocrites if there were not some true
men. It is the quantity of true, men that helps to pass off the
hypocrite in the crowd.
And then again, I say, when thou comest before the bar of God, dost
thou think that this will serve thee as an excuse, to begin to find
fault with God's own children? Suppose you were brought before a king,
an absolute monarch, and you should begin to say, by way of appeal, "O
king, I have been guilty, it is true, but your own sons and daughters I
do not like; there are a great many faults in the princes of the
blood." Would he not say, "Wretch! thou art adding insult to
wickedness; thou art guilty thyself, and now thou dost malign mine own
children, the princes of the blood?" The Lord will not have thee say
that at last. He has pardoned his children; he is ready to pardon thee.
He sends mercy to thee this day, but if thou reject it, imagine not
that thou shalt escape by recounting the sins of the pardoned ones. The
rather this shall be an addition to thy sin, and thou shalt perish the
more fearfully.
But come, man, once again: I would entreat of thee with all my might.
What! canst thou be so foolish as to imagine, that because another man
is destroying his own soul by hypocrisy, that this is a reason why thou
shouldet destroy thine by indifference? If there be thousands of untrue
Christians, so much the more reason why I should be a true one: if
there are hundreds of hypocrites, this should make me more earnest to
search myself, and should not make me indifferent about the matter. O
sinner! thou wilt soon be on thy dying bed, and will it comfort thee
there to think, "I have rejected Christ, I have despised salvation, I
am perishing in my sins," and to add, "But there are many Christians
who are hypocrites!" No, death will tear away that excuse. That will
not serve you. And when the heavers are in a blaze, when the pillars of
the earth shall reel, when God shall came on flying clouds to judge the
children of men, when the eternal eyes are fixed upon you, and like
burning lamps are enlightning the secret parts of your belly, will you
then be able to make this an excuse–"Good God! it is true,I have
damned myself, it is true, I have wilfully transgressed; but there were
many hypocrites?" Then shall the Judge say, "What hast thou to do with
that? Thou hadst nought to do, to interfere with my kingdom and with my
judgeship; for thine own offenses thou art lost; for thine own
rejection of Christ thou shalt perish everlastingly."
And now I conclude, by addressing the people of God with equal
solemnity and earnestness.
My dear hearers, if I could weep tears of blood this morning, I could
not show too much emotion concerning this most solemn point. I do not
know that this text ever struck me before yesterday, but I no sooner
noticed it than it came home to me as an accusation. I plead guilty to
it, and I pray for forgiveness. I only wish that a like power may
attend it to you, that you may feel that you have been guilty too. O
friends, can you bear the thought that you may have helped to drag
others down to hell? Christ has loved you and pardoned your sins; and
will you push others downward? And yet if you are inconsistent, and
especially if you are cold and lukewarm in your religion, you are doing
it. "Well," says one, "I don't do much good, but I do no hurt." That is
an impossibility. You must be either doing good or evil. There is no
borderland between truth and sin; a men must be either on land or in
the water; and you are either serving God or serving Satan; each day
you are increasing your Master's kingdom, or else diminishing it. I
cannot bear the thought that any of you should be employed in Satan's
camp. Suppose there ever should be an invasion of this country by
France. The tocsin rings from every church steeple, the drum is
sounding in every street, and men are gathering at every market-cross.
Peaceful men spring up to soldiers in an instant; and multitudes are
marching away to the coast. When we come near it we behold a troop of
soldiers who have climbed our white cliffs, and with bayonets fixed
they are marching against us. We, with a tremendous cheer, rush on
against them, to drive them back into the sea which girds our beloved
country. Suddenly, as we rush forward, we detect scores of Englishmen
marching in the same ranks with our foes, and seeking to ravage their
own country. What should we say? Seize these traitors; let not one of
them escape; put them all to death. Can Englishmen take the side of
England's enemies? Can they march against our hearths and homes, betray
their fatherland, and take the side of the tyrant Emperor? Can this be?
Then let them die the death!" And yet this day I behold a more mournful
spectacle yet. There is King Jesus marching at the head of his troops;
and can it be that some of you, who profess to be his followers, are on
the other side; that professing to be Christ's you are lighting in the
ranks of the enemy–carrying the baggage of Satan and wearing the
uniform of hell, when you profess to be soldiers of Christ? I know
there are such here: God forgive them! God spare them; and may the
deserters yet come back, even though they come back in the chains of
conviction! May they come back and be saved! O brethren and sisters,
there are enough to destroy souls without us–enough to extend the
kingdom of Satan without our helping him. "Come out from among them;
touch not the unclean thing; be ye separate." Church of God! awake,
awake, awake to the salvation of men! Sleep no longer, begin to pray,
to wrestle, to travail in birth; be more holy, more consistent, more
strict, more solemn in thy deportment! Begin, O soldiers of Christ, to
be more true to your colors, and as surely as the time shall come when
the church shall thus be reformed and revived, to surely shall the King
come into our midst, and we shall march on to certain victory,
trampling down our enemies, and getting to our King many crowns,
through many victories achieved.