Holy Violence

Holy Violence

A Sermon

(No. 252)

Delivered on Sabbath Morning, May 15th, 1859, by the

REV. C.H. SPURGEON

at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

"From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven
suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force,"–Matthew 11:12.

WHEN JOHN THE BAPTIST preached in the wilderness of Judea, the throng
of people who pressed around him became extremely violent to get near
enough to hear his voice. Often when our Saviour preached did the like
scene occur. We find that the multitudes were immense beyond all
precedent. He seemed to drain every city, every town, and every
village, as he went along preaching the word of the gospel. These
people, moreover, not like our common church-and-chapel-goers,–content
to hear, if they could, and yet more content to keep without hearing,
if it were possible,–were extremely earnest to get near enough to hear
anyhow. So intense was their desire to hear the Saviour that they
pressed upon him, insomuch that they trod one upon another. The crowd
became so violent to approach his person, that some of the weaker ones
were cast down and trodden upon. Now, our Saviour, when he witnessed
all this struggling round about to get near him, said, "This is just a
picture of what is done spiritually by those who will be saved. As you
press and throng about me," said Christ, "and thrust one another, with
arm and elbow, to get within reach of my voice, even so must it be if
ye would be saved, For the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and
the violent take it by force.'" He pictured to himself a crowd of souls
desiring to get to the living Saviour. He saw them press, and crowd,
and throng, and thrust, and tread on one another, in their anxious
desire to get at him. He warned his hearers, that unless they had this
earnestness in their souls, they would never reach him savingly; but if
they had it, they should certainly be saved. "From the days of John the
Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the
violent take it by force."

"But," says one, "do you wish us to understand, that if a man is to be
saved he must use violence and vehement earnestness in order to obtain
salvation?" I do, most assuredly; that is the doctrine of the text.
"But," says one, "I thought it was all the work of God." So it is, from
first to last. But when God has begun the work in the soul, the
constant effect of God's work in us is to set us working; and where
God's Spirit is really striving with us, we shall begin to strive too.
This is just a test whereby we may distinguish the men who have
received the Spirit of God, from those who have not received it. Those
who have received the Spirit in verity and truth are violent men. They
have a violent anxiety to be saved, and they violently strive that they
may enter in at the strait gate. Well they know that seeking to enter
in is not enough, for many shall seek to enter in but shall not be
able, and therefore do they strive with might and main.

I shall this morning, first, direct your attention to these violent
men. Look at them. Secondly, we shall show their conduct. What makes
them so violent? Are they justified in this impetuous vehemence? We
shall next rejoice in the fact, that they are sure to be successful in
their violence. And then, I shall endeavour to arouse in your hearts,
by the help of God's Holy Spirit, that holy violence, without which the
gates of heaven will be shut in your teeth, and you will never be able
to enter the pearly portals of Paradise.

1. First then, LET US LOOK AT THESE VIOLENT MEN. Understand that what
they are, they have been made by divine grace. They are not so
naturally of themselves. But there has been a secret work of grace in
them, and then they have become violent men. Look at these violent men,
who are violently in earnest to be saved. You will observe them when
they come up to the house of God; there is no yawning with them, no
listlessness or inattention, no imagination that if they do but sit in
the place the hour-and-a-half which is regularly allotted to divine
worship, they will have done enough. No; they hear with both their
ears, and they look with both their eyes, and all through the service
they have an intense desire that they may find Christ. Meet them as
they go up to the house of prayer, and ask them why they are going
there. They know right well what they are going after. "I am going
there to find mercy, and to find peace and rest to my soul; for I am in
anguish about sin, and I want to find the Saviour; I am in hopes that
being in the way the Lord will meet with me, so I am about to lay
myself down by the side of the pool of Bethesda, in the hope that the
Holy Spirit will stir the pool and enable me to step in." You do not
find these people like the most of modern hearers, critical, or else
careless. No; they are all awake to see whether there is not something
to be had which may be a balm to their wearied spirits, and a cordial
to their troubled breasts. Mark these violent people after they have
gone home. They go to their chambers and they begin to pray; not that
prayer between sleeping and waking that some of you are used to attend
to, not that drowsy supplication which never gets beyond the ceiling of
your bedroom; but they fall on their knees and with a holy anxiety they
begin to cry, "Lord, save or I perish; O Lord save me; I am ready to
perish, Lord; I beseech thee, stretch out thine hand and rescue my poor
soul from that destruction which now haunts my spirit." And see them
after they have prayed, how they turn over the Word of God. They do not
read its chapters as if the mere looking at the letters was enough, but
they read just as Watts says in his hymn,

"Yet save a trembling sinner, Lord,

Whose hope, still hovering round thy word

Would light on some sweet promise there,

Some sure support against despair."

And down they are on their knees again. "O Lord speak to my soul
through thy word! Lord help me to lay hold on the promise, enable me to
grasp it! Oh, let not my soul perish for lack of thy help and thy
grace." And then see these violent men whom God has really made in
earnest about being saved. You will not find them leaving their
devotions in their closets, or in their house of prayer. Wherever they
go there is a solemn earnestness upon them, which the world cannot
understand. They are seeking after Jesus, and rest they neither will
nor can until they find him. Their nights are disturbed with dreams,
and their days are made sad with their pantings after the
blessing–without which they cannot live, and without which they dare
not die.

My hearer, have you ever been one of these violent men, or are you so
now? Blessed be God if this holy violence is in your spirit: you shall
take heaven by force yet; you shall take it by storm, and carry the
gates of heaven by the battery of your prayers. Only persevere with
importunity; still plead, still wrestle, still continue to strive, and
you must at length prevail. But ah! my hearer, if thou hast never had a
strong unconquerable anxiety about thy soul, thou art as yet a stranger
to the things of God. Thou dost not understand that violence victorious
without which the gates of heaven never can be stormed. Some of us can
look back to the time when we were seeking Christ. I could myself awake
of a morning easily then. The first ray of light that came into my
chamber would awaken me to take up Baxter's Call to the Unconverted
that lay under my pillow. I believed I had not repented enough, and I
began to read that. Oh! how I hoped that would break my heart. And then
I would get Doddridge's Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, and
Allen's Alarm, and read them. But, still, I think I might have read
them to this day, and not been a whit the better, if I had not
something better than alarm, in remembering that Christ came into the
world to save every sinner who was willing to cast himself upon his
blood and righteousness, and take him at his word, and trust God. Have
ye not seen many–and are there not many among us–men who have said,
"I must have mercy, I must have it: it is not a thing which I may have,
or may not have; but I am a lost soul if I have it not?" And when they
have gone to pray they have seemed like Samsons; they have got hold of
the two posts of heaven's gate of mercy, and they have pulled as if
they would pull them up by their eternal roots sooner than not get the
blessing. They have hammered at the gates of heaven until it seemed as
if they would split the golden bolts rather than be turned away. No man
ever gets peace until he gets into such a passion of earnestness to be
saved, that he cannot find peace until Christ speaks pardon to his
soul, and brings him into life and liberty. "The kingdom of heaven
suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force."

But this violence does not end when a man finds Christ; it then begins
to exercise itself in another way. The man who is pardoned, and who
knows it, then becomes violently in love with Christ. He does not love
him just a little, but he loves him with all his soul and all his
might. He feels as if he could wish to die for Christ, and his heart
pants to be able to live alone with his Redeemer, and serve him without
interruption. Mark such a man who is a true Christian, mark his
prayers, and you will see there is violence in all his supplications
when he pleads for the souls of men. Mark his outward actions, and they
are violently sincere, violently earnest. Mark him when he preaches:
there is no dull droning out of a monotonous discourse, he speaks like
a man who means what he says, and who must speak it, or else woe would
be unto him if he preached not the gospel. As I look around on many of
the churches, yea, on many members of my own church, I am apt to fear
that they are not God's children at all, because they have nothing of
this holy violence. Have ye ever read Coleridge's Ancient Mariner? I
dare say you have thought it one of the strongest imaginations ever put
together, especially that part where the old mariner represents the
corpses of all the dead men rising up,–all of them dead, yet rising up
to manage the ship; dead men pulling the ropes, dead men steering, dead
men spreading the sails. I thought what a strange idea that was. But do
you know I have lived to see that true: I have seen it done. I have
gone into churches and I have seen a dead man in the pulpit, and a dead
man as a deacon, and a dead man holding the plate at the door, and dead
men sitting to hear. You say "Strange!" but I have. I have gone into
societies, and I have seen it all going on so regularly. These dead
men, you know, never overstep the bounds of prudence,–not they: they
have not life enough to do that. They always pull the rope orderly, "as
it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end,
Amen." And the dead man in the pulpit, is he not most regular and
precise? He systematically draws his handkerchief from his pocket, and
uses it just at the regular period, in the middle of the sermon. He
would not think of violating a single rubric that has been laid down by
his old-fashioned church. Well, I have seen these churches–I know
where to point them out–and have seen dead men doing everything. "No,"
says one, "you can't mean it?" Yes, I do, the men were spiritually
dead. I have seen the minister preaching, without a particle of life, a
sermon, which is only fresh in the sense in which a fish is fresh when
it has been packed in ice. I have seen the people sit, and they have
listened as if they had been a group of statues–the chiseled marble
would have been as much affected by the sermon as they I have seen the
deacons go about their business just as orderly, and with as much
precision as if they had been mere automatons, and not men with hearts
and souls at all. Do you think God will ever bless a church that is
like that? Are we ever to take the kingdom of heaven with a troop of
dead men? Never! We want living ministers, living hearers, living
deacons, living elders, and until we have such men who have got the
very fire of life burnings in their souls, who have got tongues of
life, and eyes of life, and souls of life, we shall never see the
kingdom of heaven taken by storm. "For the kingdom of heaven suffereth
violence, and the violent take it by force."

Frequently complaints are made and surprise expressed by individuals
who have never found a blessing rest upon anything they have attempted
to do in the service of God. "I have been a Sunday-school teacher for
years," says one, "and I have never seen any of my girls or boys
converted." No, and the reason most likely is, you have never been
violent about it; you have never been compelled by the Divine Spirit to
make up your mind that converted they should be, and no stone should be
left unturned until they were. You have never been brought by the
Spirit to such a passion, that you have said, "I cannot live unless God
bless me; I cannot exist unless I see some of these children saved."
Then, falling on your knees in agony of prayer, and putting forth
afterwards your trust with the same intensity towards heaven, you would
never have been disappointed, "for the violent take it by force." And
you too, my brother in the gospel, you have marvelled and wondered why
you have not seen souls regenerated. Did you ever expect it? Why, you
preach like one who does not believe what he is saying. Those who
believe in Christ, may say of you with kind partiality, "Our minister
is a dear good man;" but the careless young men that attend your
ministry, say, "Does that man expect to make me believe that which he
only utters as a dry story, and to convince me when I see him go
through the service with all the dulness and monotony of dead routine?"
Oh, my brethren, what we want today in the churches is violence, not
violence against each other, but violence against death, and hell,
against the hardness of other men's hearts, and against the sleepiness
of our own. In Martin Luther's time, truly the kingdom of heaven
suffered violence. The whole religious world was wide awake. Now, I
fear for the most part it is sound asleep. Go where you may, our
churches have come to be old-established businesses. They do not care
to extend themselves. We must have new blood, nay, we must have new
fire from heaven to fall upon the sacrifice, or else, like Baal's
priests, we may cut and hack our bodies, and distract our minds in
vain; there will be "no voice, nor any to answer, nor any that
regardeth." The sacrifice shall lay unburnt upon the altar, and the
world will say our God is not the living God, or surely we are not his
people, "And thou shalt grope at noon-day, as the blind gropeth in
darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be
only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee."
Violent men, then, are those that take the kingdom of heaven by force.

II. NOW, BRING THESE VIOLENT MEN FORWARD, AND LET US ASK THEM WHAT THEY
ARE ABOUT. When a man is very earnest, he ought to be ready to give a
reason for his earnestness. "How now, sirs, what is all this strife
about? why all this earnestness? You seem to be boiling over with
enthusiasm. What is up? Is there anything that is worth making such a
stir about?" Hear them, and they will soon convince you that all their
enthusiasm and striving to enter the kingdom of heaven by force, is not
a whit more strong than reasonable.

The first reason why poor sinners take the kingdom of heaven by force
is, because they feel they have no natural right to it; and, therefore,
they must need take it by force it they would get it at all. When a man
belongs to the House of Lords, and knows that he has got a seat there
by prescriptive right and title, he does not trouble himself at the
time of the elections. But there is another man, who says, "Well, I
should like a seat in the House of Commons, but I have no absolute
right to it. If I get it, it will be by a desperate struggle." Do you
not see how busy he is on the day! how the carriages fly about
everywhere; and how earnest are his supporters that he may stand at the
head of the poll and win the day! He says, "I have no absolute right to
it; if I had, then I would just take it easy and walk into my seat at
the proper time." But now he labors, and strives, and wrestles, because
without so doing he does not expect to succeed. Now, look at those who
are saved; they have no right to the inheritance they are seeking. What
are they? Sinners, the chief of sinners; in their own esteem the vilest
of the vile. Now, if they would get heaven they must take it by force,
for they have no right to it by birth or lineal entail. And what are
they else? They are the poor ones of this earth. There stands the rabbi
at the gate, and he says, "You can't come in here; this is no place for
the poor to enter." "But," says he. "I will;" and pushing the rabbi
aside, he takes it by force. Then, again, they were Gentiles too; and
Jews stood at the gate, and said, "Stand back, you Gentile dogs, you
cannot come in." Now, if such would be saved, they must take the
kingdom of heaven by storm, for they have no rights to assert. Ah, my
fellow men, if ye sit down and fold your arms, and say, "I am so good I
have a right to heaven,"–how deceived you will be. But if God has
convinced you of your lost, ruined, and undone condition, and if he has
put his quickening Spirit within you, you will use a bold and desperate
violence to force your way into the kingdom of heaven. The Spirit of
God will not lead you to be obsequious in the presence of foes, or
faint-hearted in the overwhelming crisis; he will drive you to
desperate labour that you may be saved.

Ask one such man, again, why is he so violent in prayer; he replies,
"Ah, I know the value of the mercy I receive. Why, I am asking for
pardon, for heaven, for eternal life, and am I to get these with a few
yawns and sleepy prayers? I am asking that I may wear the white robe,
and sing the never-ending song of praise; and do you think that a few
poor supplications are to be enough? No, my God; if thou wouldst make
me tarry a hundred years, and sigh, and groan, and cry through that
long century;–yes, if I might but have heaven at last, all my prayers
would have been well-spent; nay, had they been a thousand times as
many, they were well rewarded if thou wouldst hear me at last. But,"
says he again, "if you want to know why I am so earnest, let me tell
you it is because I cannot bear to he lost for ever." Hear the earnest
sinner when he speaks. You say to him "Why so earnest?" The tear is in
his eye, the flush is on his cheek, there is emotion in every feature,
while he says, "Would to God I could be far more earnest; do you know I
am a lost soul, perhaps before another hour is over I may be shut up in
the hopeless fires of hell! Oh, God, have mercy on me, for if thou dost
not, how terrible is my fate. I shall be lost–lost for ever!

Once let a man know that hell is beneath his feet, and if that does not
make him earnest, what would? No wonder that his prayers are
importunate, that his endeavours are intensely earnest, when he knows
that he must escape, or else the devouring fire will lay hold on him.
Suppose now, you had been a Jew in the olden time, and one day while
taking a walk in the fields you had seen a man running with all his
might. "Stop!" you say, "stop! my dear friend, you will exhaust
yourself." He goes on, and on, with all his might. You run after him.
"Pause awhile," you say, "and rest; the grass is soft, sit down here,
and take your ease. See, here I have some food and a bottle; stop and
refresh yourself." But without saluting you, he says, "No, I must away,
away, away." "Why? wherefore?" you say. He is gone so far ahead, you
run after him with all your might; and scarcely able to turn his head,
he exclaims, "The city of refuge! the city of refuge! the manslayer is
behind me." Now, it is all accounted for; you do not wonder that he
runs with all his might now. When the manslayer is after him, you can
well understand that he would never pause for rest until he has found
the city of refuge. So let a man know that the devil is behind him,
that the avenging law of God is pursuing him, and who can make him
stop? Who shall endeavor to make him stay his race until he enters
Christ, the city of refuge, and finds himself secure? This will make a
man earnest indeed–to dread "the wrath to come," and to be labouring
to escape therefrom.

Another reason why every man who would be safe must be in earnest, and
be violent, is this, there are so many adversaries to oppose us, that
if we are not violent we shall never be able to overcome them. Do you
remember that beautiful parable in John Bunyan's Pilgrim? "I saw also,
that the Interpreter took him by the hand, and led him into a pleasant
place, where was built a stately palace, beautiful to behold; at the
sight of which Christian was greatly delighted. He saw also upon the
top thereof certain persons walking, who were clothed all in gold. Then
said Christian, May we go in thither?' Then the Interpreter took him
and led him up toward the door of the palace; and behold, at the door
stood a great company of men, as desirous to go in, but durst not.
There also sat a man at a little distance from the door, at a
table-side, with a book and his ink-horn before him, to take the name
of him that should enter therein; he saw also that in the doorway stood
many men in armour to keep it, being resolved to do to the men that
would enter what hurt and mischief they could. Now was Christian
somewhat in amaze. At last, when every man started back for fear of the
armed men, Christian saw a man of a very stout countenance come up to
the man that sat there to write, saying, Set down my name, sir;' the
which when he had done, he saw the man draw his sword, and put a helmet
upon his head, and rush toward the door upon the armed men, who laid
upon him with deadly force; but the man, not at all discouraged, fell
to cutting and hacking most fiercely. So after he had received and
given many wounds to those that attempted to keep him out, (Matt. xi.
12. Acts xiv. 22.) he cut his way through them all, and pressed forward
into the palace; at which there was a pleasant voice heard from those
that were within, even of those that walked upon the top of the palace,
saying,

'Come in, come in,

Eternal glory thou shalt win.'

So he went in, and was clothed with such garments as they." And surely
the dreamer saw the truth in his dream. It is even so. If we would win
eternal glory we must fight.

"Sure we must fight, if we would reign;

Increase our courage, Lord!"

Ye have enemies within you, enemies without, enemies beneath, enemies
on every side–the world, the flesh, and the devil; and if the Spirit
of God has quickened you, he has made a soldier of you, and you can
never sheathe your sword till you gain the victory. The man who would
be saved must be violent, because of the opposition he has to
encounter.

But do you still condemn this man, and say that he is an enthusiast and
a fanatic? Then God himself comes forth to vindicate his despised
servant. Know that this is the sign, the mark of distinction between
the true child of God and the bastard-professor. The men who are not
God's children are a careless, stumbling, coldhearted race. But the men
that are God's in sincerity and truth, are burning as well as shining
lights. They are as brilliant constellations in the firmament of
heaven, burning stars of God. Of all things in the world, God hates
most the man that is neither hot nor cold. Better have no religion than
have a little: better to be altogether without it, enemies to it, than
to have just enough to make you respectable, but not enough to make you
earnest. What does God say concerning the religion of this day? "So
then because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spue
thee out of my mouth." Lukewarmness of all things God abhors, and yet
of all things it is the predominant mark of the present day. The time
of the Methodists, of Whitfield and Wesley, was a time indeed of fire
and of divine violence and vigour. But we have gradually cooled down,
now, into a delightful consistency, and though here and there there is
a little breaking out of the old desperado spirit of the Christian
religion, yet for the most part the world has so mesmerised the church,
that she is as nearly asleep as she can be; and much of her teaching,
and much of the doings of her religious societies, is sheer
somnambulism. It is not the wide-awake earnestness of them that walk
with their eyes open. They walk in their sleep; very nimbly they walk,
too and very nicely they "trim their way," but very little is there of
the life of God in aught they do, and very little of divine success
attending their agencies, because they are not violent with regard to
the matters of the kingdom of God.

III. Having thus endeavoured to screen the violent men from harsh
criticism, I shall now invite you for a moment to reflect, that THE
VIOLENT MAN IS ALWAYS SUCCESSFUL. Do you think you are going to be
carried to heaven on a feather bed? Have you got a notion in your heads
that the road to paradise is all a lawn, the grass smoothly mown, still
waters and green pastures ever and anon to cheer you? You have just got
to clear your heads of that deceitful fancy. The way to heaven is up
hill and down hill; up hill with difficulty, down hill with trials. It
is through fire and through water, through flood and through flame, by
the lions and by the leopards. Through the very mouths of dragons is
the path to paradise. But the man who finds it so, and who desperately
resolves in the strength of God to tread that path–nay, who does not
resolve as if he could do nothing else but resolve, but who feels
driven, as if with a hurricane behind him, to go into the right road,
this man is never unsuccessful, never. Where God has given a violent
anxiety for salvation he never disappoints it. No soul that has ever
cried for it with a violent cry has been disappointed. From the
beginning of creation until now there has never been raised to the
throne of God a violent and earnest prayer which missed its answer. Go,
soul, in the strong confidence that if thou goest earnestly thou goest
successfully. God may sooner deny himself than deny the request of an
earnest man. Our God may sooner cease to be "the Lord God, gracious and
merciful," than cease to bless the men who seek the gates of heaven,
with the violence of faith and prayer. Oh, reflect, that all the saints
above have been led by divine grace to wrestle hard as we do now with
sins, and doubts, and fears. They had no smooth path to glory. They had
to dispute every inch of the way at the sword's point. So must you: and
as surely as you are enabled to do so, so surely will you conquer. Only
the violent are saved, and all the violent are saved. When God makes a
man violent after salvation, that man cannot perish. The gates of
heaven may sooner be unhinged than that man be robbed of the prize for
which he has fought.

IV. And, now I have to close, for I find my voice fails me this
morning, when most I need it. I have to close abruptly by endeavouring
earnestly TO EXCITE EACH OF YOU TO A VIOLENCE AFTER THE KINGDOM OF
HEAVEN. In this great crowd there are surely some of the class I am
about to describe. There is one man here who says, "I don't know that I
have done much amiss in my life: I am about as regular a man as there
is living. Don't I attend a place of worship regularly? I believe that
l shall most certainly be saved. But I don't take much trouble about
it, it never disquiets me particularly. I don't like"–says this man
"–that intrusive kind of religion that always seems to be thrusting
itself in everybody's way. I think it is quite right that people should
go to their place of worship, but why take any further trouble? I just
believe that I shall fare as other people fare: I am a steady
unpretending sort of man, and I have no reason to doubt that I shall be
saved." Ah, friend, you have never seen the gate of heaven? It is
obvious that you have never seen it, or else you would know better; for
at the gate of heaven multitudes are struggling, the gates of heaven
are thronged, and he that would enter there must press, and elbow, and
push, or he may go away certain that he can never enter. No! your easy
religion will just bring you in too late. It may carry you nine miles
out of ten; but what is the good of that to a man who must perish
unless he is carried the whole way? It will go a good way with you when
you follow the counsels of a gospel ministry with outward propriety;
but at the bar of God it will utterly fail you, when you lack the
inward witness of strong crying and supplications. No! an easy religion
is the way to hell, for it is not the way to heaven. Let your soul
alone, and you need not expect much good fruit to come of it, any more
than a farmer who leaves his fields alone, need expect to reap a
harvest. Your religion is vain and futile if that is all. "Ah" cries
another "but I am in quite a different case. I am a sinner so vile,
sir, that I know I never can be saved, therefore, what is the use? I
never think about it now, except with blank despair. Have I not long
rebelled against God; will he ever pardon me? No, no; don't exhort me
to try. I may as well take my full swing of pleasure while I am here,
for I feel I never shall enjoy the pleasures of heaven hereafter." Stop
friend, "The violent take it by force." If the Lord has taught thee thy
utter sinfulness, go and try–say,

"I can but perish if I go,

I am resolved to try;

For if I stay away, I know

I must for ever die."

Go home, go to your closet, fall on your knees, put your trust alone in
Christ and, my friend, if the Lord does not have mercy upon you, then
he is not the God we have preached to you, and he has not substantiated
his faithful promise: you cannot, you shall not seek in vain. But mark,
you must not think that your once seeking is enough; continue in it. If
God has given you his Spirit you will continue–you will never leave
off praying until you get the answer. Oh! my friend, if God hath given
thee this day a longing after his love; if he has caused thee to say,
"I will never give it up, I will perish at the foot of the cross if I
perish at all;" thou canst no more perish than the angels in Paradise.
Be of good cheer; use violence again and again, and thou shalt take it
by force.

And then, let each one of us as we retire, and if we have tasted that
the Lord is precious, determine to love him more earnestly than before.
I never leave my pulpit washout feeling ashamed of myself. I do not
remember a time when I have been able to go home without being suffused
with humiliation and cast down with self-reproach, because I had not
been more earnest. I very seldom flog myself for using an ugly word, or
anything of that sort; it is for not having been earnest enough about
the salvation of men. When I sit down, I begin to think of this vast
stream of people being swept along towards the gulf of eternity–bound
for heaven or hell; and I wonder how it is that I do not weep all the
time I am here–why it is that I do not find red-hot burning words with
which to address you. I find fault with others sometimes, but far more
with myself in this matter. Oh! how is it that a man can be God's
ambassador, and yet have so callous, so insensitive a heart, as many of
us have in this work? Oh! how is it that we tell the tale of death and
life, of heaven and hell, of Christ crucified and his gospel despised,
so quietly as we do? Condemn not the minister for excitement or
fanaticism; condemn him because he is not half in earnest, as he ought
to be. Oh my God! impress me, I beseech thee, more with the value of
souls, and then impress my hearers, also, with the value of their own
souls. Are you not going to-day, many of you, post-haste to perdition?
Is it not the fact, that your conscience tells you that many of you are
enemies to God? You are without Christ, you have never been washed in
his blood; never been forgiven. Oh! my hearers, if ye continue as ye
are, a few more rising suns, and then your sun must set for ever. Only
a few more Sundays have you to waste, a few more sermons have you to
hear, and the pit of hell must open wide its jaws, and then where are
you? But a few more days, and the heavens shall be rent, and Christ
shall come to judge the earth, and sinner where are you? Oh! I beseech
you now by the living God, and by his Son Jesus Christ, think of your
state; repent of your sins; turn you to God. Oh Spirit of God, turn, I
pray thee, turn the hearts of sinners now. Remember, if you now repent,
if you now confess your sins, Christ is preached to you. He came into
the world to save sinners. Oh! believe on him; throw yourselves before
his cross; trust in his blood; rely on his righteousness,–

"But if your ears refuse

The language of his grace,

And hearts grow hard like stubborn Jews,

That unbelieving race;

The Lord, in vengeance dress'd,

Will lift his hand and swear,

'You that despise my promised rest,

Shall have no portion there.'"

Oh! if I had the tongue of Whitfield, or the mouth of an archangel, if
I could speak like the cherubim, I would pour out my heart before you,
and pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. I must face
you soon before God's great bar, and shall your blood be laid to my
door? Shall you perish, and must I perish with you for unfaithfulness?
May God forbid it! Now may he

"Let you see your lost estate,

And save you ere it be too late,

Wake you to righteousness."

Lord have mercy upon you all for Jesus' sake!