Regeneration

Regeneration

A Sermon

(No. 130)

Delivered on Sabbath Morning, May 3, 1857, by the

REV. C.H. SPURGEON

at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

"Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of God."–John
3:3.

In daily life our thoughts are most occupied with things that are most
necessary for our existence. No one murmured that the subject of the
price of bread was frequently on the lips of men at a time of scarcity,
because they felt that the subject was one of vital importance to the
mass of the population? and therefore they murmured not, though they
listened to continual declamatory speeches, and read perpetual articles
in the newspapers concerning it. I must offer the same excuse, then,
for bringing before you this morning the subject of regeneration. It is
one of absolute and vital importance; it is the hinge of the gospel; it
is the point upon which most Christians are agreed, yea, all who are
Christians in sincerity and truth. It is a subject which lies at the
very basis of salvation. It is the very groundwork of our hopes for
heaven; and as we ought to be very careful of the basement of our
structure, so should we be very diligent to take heed that we are
really born again, and that we have made sure work of it for eternity.
There are many who fancy they are born again who are not. It well
becomes us, then, frequently to examine ourselves; and it is the
minister's duty to bring forward those subjects which lead to
self-examination, and have a tendency to search the heart and try the
reins of the children of men.

To proceed at once, I shall first make some remarks upon the new birth;
secondly, I shall note what is meant by not being able to see the
kingdom of God if we are not born again; then I shall go further on to
note why it is that "except we are born again we can not see the
kingdom of God;" and then expostulate with men as God's ambassador
before I close.

I. First, then, THE MATTER OF REGENERATION. In endeavoring to explain
it, I must have you notice, first of all, the figure that is employed.
It is said a man must be born again. I can not illustrate this better
than by supposing a case. Suppose that in England there should be a law
passed, that admission to royal courts, preference in office, and any
privileges that might belong to the nation, could only be given to
persons who were born in England–suppose that birth in this land was
made a sine qua non, and it was definitely declared that whatever men
might do or be, unless they were native born subjects of England they
could not enter into her majesty's presence, and could enjoy none of
the emoluments or offices of the state, nor any of the privileges of
citizens. I think if you suppose such a case I shall be able to
illustrate the difference between any changes and reforms that men make
in themselves and the real work of being born again. We will suppose,
then, that some man–a red Indian, for instance–should come to this
country, and should endeavor to obtain the privileges of citizenship,
well knowing that the rule is absolute and can not be altered, that a
man must be a born subject, or else he can not enjoy them. Suppose he
says, "I will change my name, I will take up the name of an Englishman;
I have been called by my high-sounding title among the Sioux; I have
been called the son of the Great West Wind, or some such name; but I
will take an English name, I will be called a Christian man, an English
subject." Will that admit him? You see him coming to the palace gates
and asking for admission. He says, "I have taken an English name." "But
are you an Englishman born and bred ?" "I am not," says he. "Then the
gates must be shut against you, for the law is absolute; and though you
may have the name of even the royal family itself upon you, yet because
you have not been born here you must be shut out." That illustration
will apply to all of us who are here present. At least, nearly the
whole of us bear the professing Christian name; living in England, you
would think it a disgrace to you if you were not called Christian. You
are not heathen, you are not infidel; you are neither Mohammedans nor
Jews; you think that the name, Christian, is a creditable one to you,
and you have taken it. Be ye quite assured that the name of a Christian
is not the nature of a Christian, and that your being born in a
Christian land, and being recognized as professing the Christian
religion is of no avail whatever, unless there be something more added
to it–the being born again as a subject of Jesus Christ.

"But," says this red Indian, "I am prepared to renounce my dress, and
to become an Englishman in fashion; in fact, I will go to the very top
of the fashion; you shall not see me in any thing differing from the
accepted style of the present day. May I not, when I am arrayed in
court dress, and have decorated myself as etiquette demands, come in
before her majesty? See, I'll doff this plume, I will not shake this
tomahawk, I renounce these garments. The moccasin I cast away for ever;
I am an Englishman in dress, as well as name." He comes to the gate,
dressed out like one of our own countrymen; but the gates are still
shut in his face, because the law required that he must be born in the
country; and without that, whatever his dress might be, be could not
enter the palace. So how many there are of you, who do not barely take
the Christian name upon you, but have adopted Christian manners; you go
to your churches, and your chapels, you attend the house of God, you
take care that there is some form of religion observed in your family;
your children are not left without hearing the name of Jesus! So far so
good; God forbid that I should say a word against it! But remember, it
is bad because you do not go further. All this is of no avail whatever
for admitting you into the kingdom of heaven, unless this also is
complied with–the being born again. O! dress yourselves never so
grandly with the habiliments of godliness; put the chaplet of
benevolence upon your brow, and gird your loins with integrity; put on
your feet the shoes of perseverance, and walk through the earth an
honest and upright man; yet, remember, unless you are born again, "that
which is of the flesh is flesh," and you, not having the operations of
the Spirit in you, still have heaven's gates shut against you, because
you are not born again.

"Well," but says the Indian, "I will not only adopt the dress, but I
will learn the language; I will put away my brogue and my language that
I once spoke, in the wild prairie or in the woods, far away from my
lips. I shall not talk of the Shu-Shuh-gah, and of the strange names
wherewith I have called my wild fowl and my deer, but I will speak as
you speak, and act as you act; I will not only have your dress, but
precisely your manners, I will talk just in the same fashion, I will
adopt your brogue, I will take care that it shall be grammatically
correct; will you not then admit me? I have become thoroughly
Anglicized; may I not then be received?" "No," says the keeper of the
door," there is no admittance, for except a man be born in this
country, he can not be admitted." So with some of you; you talk just
like Christians. Perhaps you have a little too much cant about you; you
have begun so strictly to imitate what you think to be a godly man,
that you go a little beyond the mark, and you gloss it so much that we
are able to detect the counterfeit. Still you pass current among most
men as being a right down sort of Christian man. You have studied
biographies, and sometimes you tell long yarns about divine experience;
you have borrowed them from the biographies of good men; you have been
with Christians, and know how to talk as they do; you have caught a
puritanical twang, perhaps; you go through the world just like
professors; and if you were to be observed, no one would detect you.
You are a member of the church; you have been baptized; you take the
Lord's Supper; perhaps you are a deacon, or an elder; you pass the
sacramental cup round; you are just all that a Christian can be, except
that you are without a Christian heart. You are whitewashed sepulchres,
still full of rottenness within, though garnished fairly on the
outside. Well, take heed, take heed! It is an astonishing thing, how
near the painter can go to the expression of life, and yet the canvas
is dead and motionless; and it is equally astonishing how near a man
may go to a Christian, and yet, through not being born again, the
absolute rule shuts him out of heaven, and with all his profession,
with all the trappings of his professed godliness, and with all the
gorgeous plumes of experience, yet must he be borne away from heaven's
gates.

You are uncharitable Mr. Spurgeon. I do not care what you say about
that, I never wish to be more charitable than Christ. I did not say
this; Christ said it. If you have any quarrel with him, settle it there
; I am not the maker of this truth, but simply the speaker of it. I
find it written, "Except a man be born. again, be can not see the
kingdom of God." If your footman should go to the door, and deliver
your message correctly, the man at the door might abuse him never so
much, but the footman would say, "Sir, do not abuse me, I can not help
it; I can only tell you what my master told me. I am not the originator
of it." So if you think me uncharitable, remember you do not accuse me,
you accuse Christ; you are not finding fault with the messenger, you
are finding fault with the message; Christ has said it–"Except a man
be born again." I can not dispute with you, and shall not try. That is
simply God's Word. Reject it at your peril. Believe it and receive it,
I entreat you, because it comes from the lips of the Most High.

But now note the manner in which this regeneration is obtained. I think
I have none here so profoundly stupid as to be Puseyites I can scarcely
believe that I have been the means of attracting one person here, so
utterly devoid of every remnant of brain, as to believe the doctrine of
baptismal regeneration. Yet I must just hint at it. There be some who
teach that by a few drops of water sprinkled on an infant's brow the
infant becomes regenerate. Well, granted. And now I will find out your
regenerate ones twenty years afterward. The champion of the prize ring
is a regenerated man. O! yes, he was regenerated, because in infancy he
was baptized; and, therefore, if all infants in baptism are
regenerated, the prize-fighter is a regenerated man. Take hold of him
and receive him as your brother in the Lord. Do you hear that man
swearing and blaspheming God? He is regenerate; believe me, he is
regenerate; the priest put a few drops of water on his brow, and he is
a regenerated man. Do you see the drunkard reeling down the street, the
pest of the neighborhood, fighting every body, and beating his wife,
worse than the brute. Well, he is regenerate, he is one of those
Puseyite's regenerates–O! goodly regenerate! Mark you the crowd
assembled in the streets! The gallows is erected, Palmer is about to be
executed; the man whose name should be execrated through all eternity
for his villainy! Here is one of the Puseyite's regenerates. Yes, he is
regenerate because he was baptized in infancy; regenerate, while he
mixes his strychnine; regenerate while he administers his poison
slowly, that he may cause death, and infinite pain, all the while he is
causing it. Regenerate, forsooth! If that be regeneration, such
regeneration is not worth having; if that be the thing that makes us
free of the kingdom of heaven, verily, the gospel is indeed a
licentious gospel; we can say nothing about it. If that be the gospel,
that all such men are regenerate and will be saved, we can only say,
that it would be the duty of every man in the world to move that gospel
right away, because it is so inconsistent with the commonest principles
of morality, that it could not possibly be of God, but of the devil.

But some say all are regenerate when they are baptized. Well, if you
think so, stick to your own thoughts; I can not help it. Simon Magus
was certainly one exception; he was baptized on a profession of his
faith; but so far from being regenerated by his baptism, we find Paul
saying, "I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the
bond of iniquity." And yet he was one of those regenerates, because he
had been baptized. Ah! that doctrine only needs to be stated to
sensible men, and they will at once reject it. Gentlemen that are fond
of a filigree religion, and like ornament and show; gentlemen of the
high Beau Brummel school will very likely prefer this religion, because
they have cultivated their taste at the expense of their brain, and
have forgotten that what is consistent with the sound judgment of a man
can not be consistent with the Word of God. So much for the first
point.

Neither is a man regenerated, we say, in the next place, by his own
exertions. A man may reform himself very much, and that is well and
good; let all do that. A man may cast away many vices, forsake many
lusts in which he indulged, and conquer evil habits; but no man in the
world can make himself to be born in God; though he should struggle
never so much, he could never accomplish what is beyond his power. And,
mark you, if he could make himself to be born again still he would not
enter heaven, because there is another point in the condition which he
would have violated–"unless a man be born of the Spirit, he can not
see the kingdom of God." So that the best exertions of the flesh do not
reach this high point, the being born again of the Spirit of God.

And now we must say, that regeneration consists in this. God the Holy
Spirit, in a supernatural manner–mark, by the word supernatural I mean
just what it strictly means; supernatural, more than natural–works
upon the hearts of men, and they by the operations of the divine Spirit
become regenerate men; but without the Spirit they never can be
regenerated. And unless God the Holy Spirit, who "worketh in us to will
and to do," should operate upon the will and the conscience,
regeneration is an absolute impossibility, and therefore so is
salvation. "What!" says one, "do you mean to say that God absolutely
interposes in the salvation of every man to make him regenerate?" I do
indeed; in the salvation of every person there is an actual putting
forth of the divine power, whereby the dead sinner is quickened, the
unwilling sinner is made willing, the desperately hard sinner has his
conscience made tender; and he who rejected God and despised Christ, is
brought to cast himself down at the feet of Jesus. This is called
fanatical doctrine, mayhap; that we can not help; it is scriptural
doctrine, that is enough for us. "Except a man be born of the Spirit he
can not see the kingdom of God; that which is born of the flesh is
flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." If you like it
not, quarrel with my Master, not with me; I do but simply declare his
own revelation, that there must be in your heart something more than
you can ever work there. There must be a divine operation; call it a
miraculous operation, if you please; it is in some sense so. There must
be a divine interposition, a divine working, a divine influence, or
else, do what you may, without that you perish, and are undone; "for
except a man be born again, be can not see the kingdom of God." The
change is radical; it gives us new natures, makes us love what we hated
and hate what we loved, sets us in a new road; makes our habits
different, our thoughts different, makes us different in private, and
different in public. So that being in Christ it is fulfilled: "If any
man be in Christ he is a new creature; old things are passed away,
behold all things are become new."

II. And, now I must come to the second point. I trust I have explained
regeneration, so that all may see what it is. Now, WHAT DOES THE
EXPRESSION, "SEEING THE KINGDOM OF GOD," MEAN? It means two things. To
see the kingdom of God on earth is to be a member of the mystical
church–it is to enjoy the liberty and privileges of the child of God.
To see the kingdom of heaven means to have power in prayer, to have
communion with Christ, to have fellowship with the Holy Ghost; and to
bring forth and produce all those joyous and blessed fruits which are
the effect of regeneration. In a higher sense, "to see the kingdom of
God," means to be admitted into heaven. Except a man be born again, he
can not know about heavenly things on earth, and he can not enjoy
heavenly blessings for ever–"he can not see the kingdom of God."

III. I think I may just pass over the second point without remark, and
proceed to notice, in the third place, WHY IT IS THAT "UNLESS A MAN BE
BORN AGAIN, HE CAN NOT SEE THE KINGDOM OF GOD." And I will confine my
remarks to the kingdom of God in the world to come.

Why, he cannot see the kingdom of God, because he would be out of place
in heaven. A man that is not born again could not enjoy heaven. There
is an actual impossibility in his nature, which prevents him from
enjoying any of the bliss of Paradise. You think, mayhap, that heaven
consists in those walls of jewels, in those pearly gates, and gates of
gold; not so, that is the habitation of heaven. Heaven dwells there,
but that is not heaven. Heaven is a state that is made here, that is
made in the heart; made by God's Spirit within us, and unless God the
Spirit has renewed us, and caused us to be born again, we can not enjoy
the things of heaven. Why, it is a physical impossibility that ever a
swine should deliver a lecture on astronomy; every man will clearly
perceive that it must be impossible that a snail should build a city;
and there is just as much impossibility that a sinner unmended, should
enjoy heaven. Why, there would be nothing there for him to enjoy; if he
could be put into the place where heaven is, he would be miserable; he
would cry, "Let me away, let me away; let me away from this miserable
place!" I appeal to yourselves; a sermon is too long for you very
often; the singing of God's praises is dull, dry work; you think that
going up to God's house is very tedious. What will you do where they
praise God day without night? If just a short discourse here is very
wearying, what will you think of the eternal talkings of the redeemed
through all ages of the wonders of redeeming love? If the company of
the righteous is very irksome to you, what will be their company
throughout eternity? I think many of you are free to confess that psalm
singing is not a bit to your taste, that you care naught about any
spiritual things; give you your bottle of wine, and set you down at
your ease, that is heaven for you! Well, there is no such a heaven yet
made; and therefore there is no heaven for you. The only heaven there
is, is the heaven of spiritual men, the heaven of praise, the heaven of
delight in God, the heaven of acceptance in the beloved, the heaven of
communion with Christ. Now, you do not understand any thing about this;
you could not enjoy it if you were to have it; you have not the
capabilities for doing so. You, yourselves, from the very fact of your
not being born again, are your own barrier to heaven, and if God were
to open the gate wide, and say, "Come in," you could not enjoy heaven,
if you were admitted; for unless a man be born again, there is an
impossibility, a moral impossibility, of his seeing the kingdom of God.
Suppose there are some persons here who are entirely deaf, who have
never heard sounds; well, I say they can not hear singing. Do I when I
say it, say a cruel thing ? It is their own disability that prevents
them. So when God says you can not see the kingdom of heaven, he means
that it is your own disability for the enjoyment of heaven, that will
prevent you ever entering there.

But there are some other reasons; there are reasons why

"Those holy gates for ever bar

Pollution, sin, and shame."

There are reasons, besides those in yourselves, why you can not see the
kingdom of God, unless you are born again. Ask yon spirits before the
throne: "Angels, principalities and powers, would ye be willing that
men who love not God, who believe not in Christ, who have not been born
again, should dwell here?" I see them, as they look down upon us, and
hear them answering, "No! Once we fought the dragon and expelled him
because he tempted us to sin; we must not and we will not, have the
wicked here. These alabaster walls must not be soiled with black and
lustful fingers; the white pavement of heaven must not be stained and
rendered filthy by the unholy feet of ungodly men. No!" I see a
thousand spears bristling, and the fiery faces of a myriad seraphs
thrust over the walls of Paradise. "No, while these arms have strength,
and these wings have power, no sin shall ever enter here." I address
myself moreover to the saints in heaven, redeemed by sovereign grace:
"Children of God, are ye willing that the wicked should enter heaven as
they are, without being born again? Ye love men, say, say, say, are ye
willing that they should be admitted as they are?" I see Lot rise up,
and he cries, "Admit them into heaven! No! What! must I be vexed with
the conversation of Sodomites again, as once I was?" I see Abraham; and
he comes forward, and he says, "No; I can not have them here. I had
enough of them while I was with them on earth–their jests and jeers,
their silly talkings, their vain conversation, vexed and grieved us. We
want them not here." And, heavenly though they be, and loving as their
spirits are, yet there is not a saint in heaven who would not resent
with the utmost indignation the approach of any one of you to the gates
of paradise, if you are still unholy, and have not been born again.

But all that were nothing. We might perhaps scale the ramparts of
heaven, if they were only protected by angels, and burst the gates of
paradise open, if only the saints defended them. But there is another
reason than that–God has said it himself–"Except a man be born again,
he not see the kingdom of God." What sinner, wilt thou scale the
battlements of paradise when God is ready to thrust thee down to hell ?
Wilt thou with impudent face brazen him out? God has said it, God hath
said it, with a voice of thunder, "Ye shall not see the kingdom of
heaven." Can ye wrestle with the Almighty? Can ye overthrow
Omnipotence? Can ye grapple with the Most High? Worm of the dust! canst
thou overcome thy Maker? Trembling insect of an hour, shaken by the
lightnings when far overhead they flash far athwart the sky, wilt thou
dare the hand of? Wilt thou venture to defy him to his face? Ah! he
would laugh at thee. As the snow melteth before the sun, as wax runneth
at the fierceness of the fire, so wouldst thou, if his fury should once
lay hold of' thee. Think not that thou canst overcome him. He has
sealed the gate of Paradise against thee, and there is no entrance. The
God of justice says, "I will not reward the wicked with the righteous;
I will not suffer my goodly, godly Paradise to be stained by wicked
ungodly men. If they turn I will have mercy upon them; but if they turn
not, as I live, I will rend them in pieces, and there shall be none to
deliver." Now, sinner, canst thou brazen it out against him! Wilt thou
rush upon the thick bosses of Jehovah's bucklers? Wilt thou try to
scale his heaven when his arrow is stringed upon the bow to reach thine
heart? What! when the glittering sword is at thy neck and ready to slay
thee ? Wilt thou endeavor to strive against thy Maker? No potsherd, no;
contend with thy fellow potsherd. Go, crawling grasshopper; go, fight
with thy brothers; strive with them, but come not against the Almighty.
He hath said it, and you never shall, you never shall enter heaven,
unless you are born again. Again, I say, quarrel not with me; I have
but delivered my Master's message. Take it, disbelieve it if you dare;
but if you disbelieve it, rail not at me, for it is God's message, and
I speak in love to your soul lest, lacking it, you should perish in the
dark, and walk blindfold to your everlasting perdition.

IV. Now, my friends, A LITTLE EXPOSTULATION WITH YOU, and then
farewell. I hear one man say, "Well, well, well, I see it. I will hope
that I shall be born again after I am dead." O, sir, believe me, you
will be a miserable fool for your pains. When men die their state is
fixed.

"Fixed as their everlasting state,

Could they repent, tis now too late."

Our life is like that wax melting in the flame; death puts its stamp on
it, and then it cools, and the impress never can be changed. You to-day
are like the burning metal running forth from the cauldron in the mold;
death cools you in your mold, and you are cast in that shape throughout
eternity. The voice of doom crieth over the dead, "He that is holy let
him be holy still; he that is unjust let him be unjust still; he that
is filthy, let him be filthy still." The damned are lost forever; they
can not be born again; they go on cursing, ever being cursed ; ever
fighting against God, and ever being trampled beneath his feet; they go
on ever mocking, ever being laughed at for their mockery; ever
rebelling and ever being tortured with the whips of conscience, because
they are ever sinning. They can not be regenerated because they are
dead.

"Well", says another, "I will take care that I am regenerated first
before I die." Sir, I repeat again, thou art a fool in talking thus;
how knowest thou that thou shalt live ? Hast thou taken a lease of thy
life, as thou bast of thy house? Canst thou insure the breath within
thy nostrils? Canst thou say in certainty that another ray of light
shall ever reach thine eye? Canst thou be sure that, as thine heart is
beating a funeral march to the grave, thou wilt not soon beat the last
note; and so thou shalt die where thou standest or sittest now? O, man!
if thy bones were iron, and thy sinews brass, and thy lungs steel, then
mightest thou say, "I shall live." But thou art made of dust; thou art
like the flower of the field; thou mayest die now. Lo! I see death
standing yonder, moving to and fro the stone of time upon his scythe,
to sharpen it; to-day, to-day, for some of you he grasps the
scythe–and away, away, be mows the fields, and you fall one by one.
You must not. and you can not live. God carries us away as a flood,
like a ship in a Whirlpool; like the log in a current, dashed onward to
the cataract. There is no stopping any one of us; we are all dying now!
and yet you say you will be regenerated ere you die! Ay sirs, but are
you regenerated now? For if not, it may be too late to hope for
to-morrow. To-morrow you may be in hell, sealed up for ever by
adamantine destiny, which never can be moved.

"Well," cries another, "I do not care much about it; for I see very
little in being shut out of Paradise." Ah, sir, it is because thou dost
not understand it. Thou smilest at it now; but there will be a day when
thy conscience will be tender, when thy memory will be strong, when thy
judgment will be enlightened, and when thou wilt think very differently
from what thou dost now. Sinners in hell are not the fools they are on
earth ; in hell they do not laugh at everlasting burnings; in the pit
they do not despise the words "eternal fire." The worm that never
dieth, when it is gnawing, gnaws out all joke and laughter; you may
despise God now, and despise me now, for what I say, but death will
change your note. O, my hearers, if that were all, I would be willing.
You may despise me, yes, you may; but O! I beseech you, do not despise
yourselves; O! be not so fool-hardy as to go whistling to hell, and
laughing to the pit; for when you are there, sirs, you will find it a
different thing from what you dream it to be now. When you see the
gates of Paradise shut against you, you will find it to be a more
important matter than you judge of now. You came to hear me preach
to-day, as you would have gone to the opera or playhouse; you thought I
should amuse you. Ah! that is not my aim, God is my witness, I came
here solemnly in earnest, to wash my hands of your blood. If you are
damned, any one of you, it shall not be because I did not warn you. Men
and women, if ye perish, my bands are washed in innocency; I have told
you of your doom. I again cry, repent, repent, repent, for "unless ye
repent ye shall all likewise perish." I came here determined this
morning, if I must use rough words, to use them; to speak right on
against men, and for men too; for the things we say against you now are
really for your good. We do but warn you, lest you perish. But ah! I
hear one of you saying, "I do not understand this mystery; pray explain
it to me." Fool, fool, that thou art; do you see that fire ? We are
startled up from our beds, the light is at the window; we rush down
stairs; people are hurrying to and fro; the street is trampled thick
with crowds: they are rushing toward the house, which is in a burst of
flame. The firemen are at their work; a stream of water is pouring upon
the house; but hark ye! hark ye! there is a man up stairs; there is a
man in the top room; there is just time for him to escape, and barely.
A shout is raised–"Aho! fire! fire! fire! aho!"–but the man does not
make his appearance at the window. See, the ladder is placed against
the walls; it is up to the window sill–a strong hand dashes in the
casement! What is the man after, all the while? What! is he tied down
in his bed? Is he a cripple? Has some fiend got hold of him, and nailed
him to the floor? No, no, no; he feels the boards getting hot beneath
hit, feet, the smoke is stifling him, the flame is burning all around,
he knows there is but one way of escape, by that ladder! What is he
doing? He is sitting down–no, you can not believe me–he is sitting
down and saying, "The origin of this fire is very mysterious; I wonder
how it is to be discovered; how shall we understand it?" Why, you laugh
at him! You are laughing at yourselves. You are seeking to have this
question and that question answered, when your soul is in peril of
eternal life! O! when you are saved, it will be time then to ask
questions; but while you are now in the burning house, and in danger of
destruction, it is not your time to be puzzling yourselves about free
will, fixed fate, predestination absolute. All these questions are good
and well enough afterward for those that are saved. Let the man on
shore try to find out the cause of the storm; your only business now is
to ask, "What must I do to be saved? And how can I escape from the
great damnation that awaiteth me?"

But ah! my friends, I can not speak as I wish. I think I feel, this
morning, something like Dante, when he wrote his "Il Inferno." Men said
of him that he had been in hell; he looked like it. He had thought of
it so long, that they said, "He has been in hell," he spoke with such
an awful earnestness. Ah! I if I could, I would speak like that too. It
is only a few days more, and I shall meet you face to face; I can look
over the lapse of a few years, when you and I shall stand face to face
before God's bar. "Watchman, watchman," saith a voice, "didst thou warn
them? didst thou warn them?" Will any of you then say I did not? No,
even the most abandoned of you will, at that day, say, "We laughed, we
scoffed at it, we cared not for it; but, O Lord, we are obliged to
speak the truth; the man was in earnest about it; he told us of our
doom, and he is clear." Will you say so? I know you will.

But yet this one remark–to be cast out of heaven is an awful thing.
Some of you have parents there; you have dear friends there; they
grasped your hand in death, and said, "Farewell until we meet you." But
if you never see the kingdom of God, you can never see them again. "My
mother," says one, "sleeps in the graveyard; I often go to the tomb and
put some flowers upon it, in remembrance of her who nursed me; but must
I never see her again?" No, never again; no, never, unless you are born
again. Mothers, you have had infants that have gone to heaven; you
would like to see your family all around the throne; but you will never
see your children more, unless you are born again. Will you bid adieu
this day to the immortal? Will you say farewell this hour to your
glorified friends in Paradise ? You must say so, or else be converted.
You must fly to Christ, and trust in him, and his Spirit must renew
you, or else you must look up to heaven, and say, "Choir of the blest!
I shall never hear you sing; parents of my youth, guardians of my
infancy, I love you, but between you and myself there is a great gulf
fixed; I am cast away, and you are saved." O, I beseech you, think on
these matters; and when you go away, let it not be to forget what I
have said. If you are at all impressed this morning, put not away the
impression; it may be your last warning; it will be a sorrowful thing
to be lost with the notes of the gospel in your ears, and to perish
under the ministry of truth.