A Persuasive to Steadfastness

Delivered on Thursday Evening, February 29th, 1872, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

'For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our
confidence steadfast unto the end.''Hebrews 3:14.

HOW IS IT POSSIBLE for the preacher to say too much about faith, or to
extol this grace too highly! It is of vital importance, not at one
stage of the Christian's history only, but throughout the whole of his
career, from his setting out even till he reaches the goal where faith
is turned to sight. By faith we begin the life of obedience to Christ,
and by faith we continue to lead the life of holiness, for 'the just
shall live by faith.' This is the point of honor and of safety with all
the just'the justified ones. The whole compass of their well-being,
though it take in the sternest sense of duty and the highest grant of
privilege, is to believe simply, to rely implicitly, and to confide
cheerfully, in their covenant God. The beginning of their confidence is
a hopeful sign. Time will test its value. The result of that profession
has yet to be shown. Hence it is necessary that the beginning of their
confidence should be held fast, steadfast even unto the end. When we
begin in the spirit we do not proceed with a hope to be made perfect in
the flesh. We do not start with justification by faith, and then look
for perfection by works. We do not lean upon Christ when we are little
children, and then expect to run alone when we are men; but we live by
drawing all our stores from him, while as yet we are naked, and poor,
and miserable. When most enriched by his grace, we still have to say
and delight to say it, 'all my springs are in thee.' Faith at the
beginning and faith at the close; faith all the way through is the one
important matter. A failure in this, as we observed in our reading,
shut Israel out of the promised land. 'They could not enter in because
of unbelief.' Unbelief is always the greatest mischief to the saints;
hence they have need earnestly to watch against it. Faith is always the
channel of innumerable blessings to them: they ought, therefore, most
watchfully to maintain it.

We shall have to show the value of faith while we try to open up the
text before us, in which I see, first, a high privilege: 'we are made
partakers of Christ;' and secondly, by implication, a serious
question'the question whether or no we have been made partakers of
Christ and, then, in the third place, an unerring test. 'We are made
partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence
steadfast unto the end.'

I. First, then, here is A VERY HIGH PRIVILEGE. 'We are made partakers
of Christ.'

Observe that the text does not say, 'we are made partakers with
Christ.' That would be true, a very precious truth too, for we are
joint-heirs with Christ, and because all things are his, all things are
ours. Christ holds for us the entire heritage of the faithful as our
representative, and as we are made partakers with him in the Father's
favor, and in the world's hatred, so we shall be partakers with him in
the glory to be revealed, and in the bliss which endures for ever and
ever. But here we have to do with our being partakers of Christ, rather
than our being partakers with Christ.

Neither does it say we are made partakers of rich spiritual benefits.
That is a fact which we may greet with thorough trust and hearty
welcome. But, dear brethren, there is more than that here. To be
partakers of pardoning mercy, to be partakers of renewing grace; to be
partakers of the adoption, to be partakers of sanctification,
preservation, and of all the other covenant blessings, is to possess an
endowment of unspeakable value; but to be made 'partakers of Christ,'
is to have all in one. You have all the flowers in one posy, all the
gems in one necklace, all the sweet spices in one delicious compound.
'We are made partakers of Christ''of himself. 'It pleased the Father
that in him should all fullness dwell,' and we are made partakers with
him of all that he is ordained to be of God unto us''wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.' We are partakers of
him; this is a privilege that no tongue can ever utter, no thought of
finite mortal can ever grasp. But ah, it would need more time than we
can afford, and far more spiritual teaching than we profess to have
attained, to dive into this great and profound utterance, 'We are made
partakers of Christ.' Still, as we stand spell-bound on the margin, let
us venture to sail out just a little upon the surface of this ocean of
goodness and of grandeur.

We are made partakers of Christ, beloved, when first of all by faith in
him we-procure a share in his merits. Sinful and sad, covered with
transgressions and conscious of our shame, we come to the fountain
filled with his blood, we washed in it, and were made white as snow. In
that hour we became partakers of Christ. Christ is the substitute for
sin. He suffered the penalty due from the unjust, for whom he died, to
the violated law of God. When we believe in him we become partakers of
those sufferings, or rather of the blessed fruit of them. The fact of
his having borne what we ought to have borne becomes available to us.
We present the memorial thereof at the altar of God, the throne of the
heavenly grace, in prayers and professions, and in spiritual worship.
The blood pleads our cause. The blood of Jesus, which speaketh better
things than that of Abel, intercedes for mercy, not for vengeance. By
its rich virtue, its real value, its vital merit, it puts our sins for
ever to death and lays our fears for ever to rest. Oh, how blessed to
be a partaker of Christ, the sin-atoning sacrifice'to stand before God
as a sinner that deserves nothing but damnation in himself, and yet
knows by precious faith, that

'Covered is my unrighteousness,

From condemnation I am free''

'that I am a partakerof the meritorious sacrifice of the great high
Priest, who, having once offered one sacrifice for ever, now sits down,
his work being done, at the right hand of God. What a privilege is
this!

Moreover, we are partakers of Christ, inasmuch as his righteousness
also becomes ours by imputation. We are not only freed from sin through
his atonement, but we are rendered acceptable to God through his
obedience as our responsible surety. We are 'accepted in the beloved,'
we are justified through his righteousness. God seeth not us marred in
the likeness of the first Adam who sinned, but he seeth us in Christ,
the second Adam, remade, redeemed, restored, arrayed in garments of
glory and beauty, with the Savior's vesture on, as holy as the Holy
One. He seeth 'no sin in Jacob nor iniquity in Israel.' When Jacob
learns to trust in the Messiah, and Israel hides behind his
representative, the Lord our Righteousness, Jacob ceases to wrestle,
for he prevails, and Israel stands in honor, for he is a prince with
God. Blessed, thrice blessed, are they who are partakers of Christ in
his righteousness.

After we are thus saved from sin, and righteousness is imputed to us by
faith, we further become partakers of Christ by living upon him,
feeding on him. The sacramental table represents our fellowship. Though
it does no more than represent it, it represents it well. At that table
we eat bread, and we drink wine, and the body is thus fed, typifying
that through meditation upon the incarnate Christ our soul is
sustained, and by remembering the passion of the Lord, as the wine cup
sets forth his blood, our spirits are comforted and revived, and our
hearts are nourished. It is not that the bread is anything or the wine
anything, but it is that Christ is everything to us. He is our daily
bread, his atonement makes glad our heart'makes us 'strong in the Lord
and in the power of his might.' Brethren, you know what it is to feed
upon Jesus, and what satisfying food it is! When nothing else can give
your soul rest and peace, remembering the incarnate God will do it, a
study of the suffering Savior will bring the refreshment and
consolation you want. Jesus Christ when he is our food makes us to be
partakers of himself.

But, is there not a doctrine concealed here of deeper significance? The
union of believers with himself was among the latest of all the
revelations which our blessed Lord when on earth made known to his
disciples. With a parable he showed it, and without a parable he
declared it plainly. Every true child of God is one with Christ. This
union is set forth in Scripture by several images, to which we will
just refer, but upon none of which can we just now enlarge. We are one
with Christ and partakers of him as the stone is cemented to the
foundation. It is built upon it, rests upon it, and, together with the
foundation, goes to make up the structure. So we are built into Christ
by coherence and adhesion, joined to him, and made a spiritual house
for the habitation of God by the Holy Ghost. We are made partakers with
Christ by a union in which we lean and depend upon him. This union is
further set forth by the vine and the branches. The branches are
participators with the stem, the sap of the stem is for the branches.
It treasures it up only to distribute it to them. It has no sap for
itself alone, all its store of sap is for the branch. In like manner we
are vitally one with Christ, and the grace that is in him is for us. It
was given to him that he might distribute it to all his people.
Furthermore, it is as the union of the husband with the wife, they are
participators the one with the other. All that belongs to the husband
the wife enjoys and shares with him. Meanwhile she shares himself, nay,
he is all her own. Thus it is with Christ. We are married unto
him'betrothed unto him for ever in righteousness and in judgment, and
all that he has is ours, and he himself is ours. All his heart belongs
to each one of us. And then, too, as the members of the body are one
with the head, as they derive their guidance, their happiness, their
existence from the head, so are we made partakers of Christ. Oh,
matchless participation! It is 'a great mystery' saith the apostle;
and, indeed, such a mystery it is as they only know who experience it.
Even they cannot understand it fully; far less can they hope to set it
forth so that carnal minds shall comprehend its spiritual meaning. The
day cometh when we shall be partakers of Christ to the highest and
uttermost degree that symbols can suggest, prophecy forestal, faith
anticipate, or actual accomplishment bring to pass; for, albeit, though
of all that our Lord Jesus Christ is in heaven we have a reversionary
interest to-day by faith, we shall have a share in it by actual
participation ere long.

Partakers of Christ! Yes, and therefore with him partakers in destiny.
When he shall come his holy ones shall come with him. That he has risen
from the dead is the earnest of their resurrection. At the day of his
appearing they shall rise and participate in the fruition of his
mediatorial work. Then, in the judging of the world, in the destruction
of all his spiritual foes, in the great marriage-day when the bride
shall have made herself ready, and he shall drink of the new wine in
the kingdom of his Father, and in all else that is to come, too
glorious to be described except by symbols like those of the
Apocalypse, his people shall participate with him, for this honor have
all his saints. All right and all might, all that can extol or delight,
all that for ever and for ever shall contribute to the glory of Christ,
shall be shared by all the faithful, for we are partakers not only with
him, but of him'of Christ'therefore of all the surroundings of glory
and honor that shall belong to him.

The language of the text reminds us that none of us have any title to
this privilege by nature. 'We are made partakers of Christ.' From our
first parentage He derived a very different entail. We all of woman
born became partakers of the ruin of the first Adam, of the corruption
of humanity, of the condemnation common to the entire race. Oh, to be
made partakers! This is a work of grace, of sovereign omnipotent
grace'a work which a man cannot sufficiently admire, and for which he
can never be sufficiently grateful. 'We are made partakers of Christ.'
This is the Holy Ghost's work in us, to rend us away from the old wild
olive, and to graft us into the good olive,'to dissolve the union
between us and sin, and to cement a union between our souls and
Christ,'to take us out of the Egyptian bondage and the Egyptian night
in which we willingly sat, and to bring us into the liberty and the
light wherewith Christ makes his people free and glad. This is work as
grand and godlike as to create a world. For it let the Lord's name be
magnified by each one of us if, indeed, we have been made partakers of
Christ. If'I say; and that 'if' leads me to the second point I proposed
to consider.

II. The privilege of which we have spoken suggests A SOLEMN SEARCHING
QUESTION. Are we made partakers of Christ? O beloved, many think they
are who are not. There is nothing more to be dreaded than a
supposititious righteousness, a counterfeit justification, a spurious
hope. Better, I sometimes think, to have no religion than to have a
false religion. I am quite certain that the man is much more likely to
be saved who knows that he is naked, and poor, and miserable, than the
man who says, 'I am rich and increased in goods.' It were infinitely
better to take the road to heaven doubting than to go in another
direction presuming. I am far better pleased with the soul that is
always questioning, 'Am I right?' than with him who has drunk the cup
of arrogance till he is intoxicated with selfconceit and says, 'I know
my lot; the lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; there is no
need for self-examination in my case.' Brethren, be assured of this;
all men are not partakers of Christ: all baptised men are not partakers
of Christ: all churchmen are not partakers of Christ: all dissenters
are not made partakers of Christ: all members of this church are not
made partakers of Christ: all ministers, all elders, all bishops, are
not made partakers of Christ. Yea, all apostles were not made partakers
of Christ. One of them, Christ's familiar friend, who kept the little
purse which held all the Master's earthly store, lifted up his heel
against him, betrayed him with a tender treacherous kiss, and became
the son of perdition. He was a companion of Christ not a partaker of
him?

Am I made a partaker of Christ? Multiply the question till each
individual among you makes it his own. In this congregation there are
various classes. There are probably some here who are only
hearers'hearers about Christ, not partakers of Christ. It is one thing
to hear about a banquet, it is quite another thing to be fed at it. It
is one thing in the wilderness to hear of rippling streams, and quite
another to stoop down and drink the cooling draught'one thing for the
prisoner by night to dream of liberty, or by day to read of roaming
free through his native country, another thing to get rid of the
chain'one thing to hear of pardon, another thing to be pardoned'one
thing to hear of heaven, another thing to go there. O my dear hearers!
some of you are as familiar with the gospel as you are with the house
you live in; yet, though you live in the house, you never live in the
gospel, and I fear you never will. You hear it, and hear it, that is
all. God grant you may not have to hear of your hearing in another
world, where it shall be laid down among the chief of your sins that
you were of those who, when they heard did provoke'provoke because they
rejected what they ought to have received.

Others go farther than hearing. They become professors. May I remind
you'and I would not judge anyone harshly'certainly no man more harshly
than I would myself'it is one thing to profess to be a partaker of
Christ, and another thing to be made a partaker of Christ. I may
profess that I am rich and be all the while a bankrupt, a dishonest
bankrupt for having made the profession. I may protest that I am in
health, while a deadly cancer may lurk within. I may declare that I am
honest, but it will not clear me before the judge if I am proved a
thief. I may avow that I am loyal, but it would not save my life if I
were convicted of high treason. Professions; ah, I fear they are in
many cases but a painted pageantry that makes the road to hell
attractive. Professions there are not unfrequently upon which we may
gaze with a vacant wonder and turn away with a cold shudder, as from
the sombre gaudiness of a funeral, wherein prancing steeds, stately
mutes, nodding plumes, and velvet palls adorn the obsequies of the
dead. God save us from a lifeless profession! May we never be like
certain trees, of which Bunyan said, that they were green outside, but
inwardly they were so rotten that they were only fit to be tinder for
the devil's tinder-box. Many professors are too fair not to be false;
too comely outside not to be loathsome within; for there is an
over-doing of the sepulchre's whitewash. You feel convinced that there
would not be so much whitewashing without if there were not a good deal
of rottenness inside to be concealed. Essence of roses or of lavender
is sweet, but much scent excites much suspicion. Oh, let us, each one
who professes to-night, say to himself, 'I was baptised on a profession
of my faith, but was I ever baptised into Christ? When the Sacred name
of the triune God was named on me, did I then enter into the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost? I have come often to
the communion table; but have I communed with Christ there? My name is
on the church-book, but is it written in heaven? I have said to others
I am a Christian, but am I in very deed known unto Christ? Or will he
say unto me in that day, 'I never knew you: depart from me ye workers
of iniquity'?'

These are solemn questionings. Many persons are temporary followers of
Christ, and outwardly, as far as the human eye can follow, they appear
to be real followers of Christ. I believe in the final perseverance of
the saints; but I do not know, nor can any man know, how near a man may
approach to the likeness of a saint and yet after all apostatise. Nor
is any one of us able to say of himself, or of his fellow members, 'We
never shall fall away.' I remember one whose voice I, and many of your
heard in prayer, and we enjoyed the exercise of his gifts. The man had
been reclaimed from the lowest class of society, and he distinguished
himself by his devotion in such a way that he was accepted as a church
officer among us. I remember, when the first charge of sin was brought
against him, and of very grievous sin, one among us said, 'If that man
is not a child of God I am not a child of God.' The expression seemed
to me too strong, but in my heart I almost joined in it. I was ready to
pronounce him innocent before I investigated the charges. I felt
certain that there could not be in such a man as that the impurity laid
at his door; yet it was there, it was all there, and worse than tongue
can tell. He repented and though not received into the church because
the profession of repentance did not seem to be all we could wish it to
be, yet there was a turning aside from sin for awhile. But he went into
it again, and he wallowed in it. He died in it. As far as we could any
of us judge, he perished in it. He went from bad to worse. I feel I
might say without uncharitableness this man carried his iniquity, as
far as human judgment could track him. Therefore, without prejudice to
the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints, which I
implicitly believe, I will not venture to say of any among you'much
less will I venture to say it of myself, that I am sure I am so made a
partaker of Christ that I shall hold fast my confidence to the end. I
hope so. I rest in Christ, trusting in him. The possibility is that I
am deceiving myself; the possibility is that you may be self-deceivers.
At any rate, it is so far a possibility that I would beseech you to
have no confidence but such as the Holy Ghost gives you; to put no
reliance as to the future anywhere but in the eternal arms; have no
assurance but that assurance which is based upon the word of God and
the witness of the Spirit within your soul. That can give you
infallible assurance. Apart from that, I repeat it again, I will say
neither of you nor of myself, that I can be sure with all the
profession that is made, that you are partakers of Christ. Some go even
farther than being temporary followers of Christ, and yet after all
perish. They maintain a consistent profession before the eye of men
throughout the whole of their lives, as vessels that navigate the whole
of the sea and go down in the harbour. There are soldiers that have
held out and fought valiantly up to the very moment of victory, and
then have run away. And there are professors that have been
unexceptional in their lives, whose character has been apparently
without a blemish, and even those who knew them in private could not
detect any serious flaw in their conduct; yet, for all that, there was
a worm at the root; a fly in the pot of ointment; a failure as to the
sincerity of their grace. They had not, after all, the true faith which
hangs upon Christ, and they did not persevere in heart, though they
appeared to persevere in life. The difference between the Christian and
the professor is sometimes such as only God can discern. There is a
path which the eagle's eye hath not seen, and the lion's whelp hath not
traversed'a path of life into which God can bring us, end of which it
may be said that he knows all who are in it. But, there is a something
like it, a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are
the ways of death. There is a counterfeit of the true metal of grace so
well manufactured, that only omniscience itself can tell which is the
reprobate silver and which is the pure shekel of the sanctuary. Grave
reason have we, then, for raising the question as to whether we are
made partakers of Christ or not.

III. Now we come to THE UNERRING TEST. Patience comes to the aid of
faith here. Evidences accumulate till the issue is conclusive. 'We are
made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence
steadfast unto the end.'

This passage may be read in two ways, neither of which violates the
literal meaning of the original, either of which may express to us the
mind of the Spirit'as we have it in our version, 'the beginning of our
confidence,' or, as I would rather translate it, 'the foundation of our
confidence,' the basis on which our confidence rests.

Take your choice. We will expound and vindicate both. That man is a
partaker of Christ who holds fast they he had at first, having received
it, not as an education, but as an intuition of his spirit life; not as
an argument, but as an axiom he could not challenge, or rather as an
oracle he received joyfully and bowed to submissively. The confidence
which is based upon the true foundation, even Christ Jesus, is simple
and clear as one's own consciousness. It asks no proof because it
admits no doubt. In vain the sceptic comes to me now and says, 'Sir,
you are asleep, and dreaming.' I answer, 'No, sir, I am speaking to
these thousands, and they are listening to me.' Even so, when I first
believed the Gospel story it was with a childlike feeling that it was
so and I knew it. The man who is not a partaker of Christ hears the
gospel, professes to believe it, and in some measure acts accordingly;
but he perishes because this pure, unwavering faith does not abide in
him. He has not the faith of God's elect which never can be destroyed.
He has only a notion, a creed of his own making, and not a faith of the
Spirit's giving.

Now, beloved, what was the beginning of our confidence? Well, the
beginning of my confidence was, 'I am a sinner, Christ is a Savior; and
I rest on him to save me.' Long before I began with Christ he had begun
with me; but when I began with him it was, as the law writers say, 'In
formƒ pauperis,' after the style of a wretched mendicant'a pauper who
had nothing of his own, and looked to Christ for everything. I know
when I first cast my eye to his dear cross and rested in him, I had not
any merit of my own, it was all demerit. I was not deserving, except
that I felt I was hell-deserving: I had not even a shade of virtue that
I could confide in. It was all over with me. I had come to an
extremity. I could not have found a farthing's worth of goodness in
myself if I had been melted down. I seemed to be all rottenness, a
dunghill of corruption, nothing better, but something a great deal
worse. I could truly join with Paul at that time, and say that my own
righteousnesses were dung. A strong expression he used; but I do not
suppose he felt it to be strong enough. He says, 'I count them but
dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him.' Well, that is how we
began with Christ. We were nothing at all, and Jesus Christ was all in
all. Now, brethren, we are not made partakers of Christ unless we hold
this fast to the end. Have you got beyond that? Are you something
creditable in your own estimation? I am afraid of you. Are you richer
now in yourselves that you were then? I am afraid of you, brethren. Do
you mind the place you used to stand in? you dared not lift your eyes,
to heaven, but cried, 'God be merciful to me a sinner.' How in Christ
you have a far nobler place than that, for you are made to sit with him
in the heavenly places. But, I ask you, apart from Christ, have you any
different place from that of deep selfabasement? If you have, you have
not held the beginning of your confidence fast even until now. Begin to
suspect yourself. This is the position always to take 'having nothing
and yet possessing all things.'

'I the chief of sinners am

But Jesus died for me.'

Such is the beginning of our confidence. Brethren, where else was the
beginning of your confidence? May we not say of it that it was only and
wholly, entirely and exclusively, in the blood and righteousness of the
Lord Jesus Christ? In the beginning of your confidence you did not rely
upon any ceremonies, nor upon priests, nor upon your Bible readings,
nor upon your prayings, nor upon your feelings, nor your experiences,
nor your orthodoxy, nor your knowledge of doctrine, nor upon your
works, nor your preachings, your sanctifications or your
mortifications. No, in the beginning of your confidence the one
foundation was Jesus only. Nothing save Jesus would I know. Oh, if on
that day, I had met with a man who had any trust in his own
righteousness, I know I should have quarrelled with him. If he had told
me that he hoped that Jesus Christ would help him to save himself I
could have wept over him to think he should be such a fool. Why, Christ
is all or nothing. He must save us from top to bottom, or we never
shall be saved at all. If our foundation is partly on the rock of his
finished work, and partly on the sand of our own unworthy doing, the
whole house totters and it must come down.

Well, brethren, is there any correspondence between the beginning of
your confidence and your present look-out? Had you anything except
Christ to depend upon in the hour you first believed? Is there ought
now added to that one foundation that God has laid, or hath your trust
been supplemented by any fresh conceit of your own? Are you faithless?
God is faithful. With you, it may be yea and nay; with him it is yea
and amen. Some of the Israelites when they came out of Egypt depended
upon God. They saw that he had divided the Red Sea, and rained down the
manna, and refreshed them with streams in the desert, and so they
believed, but their faith did not hold out. While they could see
miracles of mercy, they relied on God, with nothing else to rely on;
but when they got into a little difficulty they did not hold fast the
beginning of their confidence unto the end, for they began to lose
faith in Moses, or to confide in a golden calf. So there are some that
begin, in a time of weakness, calamity, or despondence, by saying, 'I
trust in Christ, as a sinner.' They get beyond that when they recover
from their temporary depression. Then they qualify their confessions
after their altered circumstances, and elect their religion after their
own deliberate choice. But the God of Israel will not allow it. He will
not have us put any trust but in his dear Son. We must be stripped
naked of everything but that which Christ spins. We must have all our
bread mouldy til we cast it out because we loathe it, and we must feed
on nothing but the bread of heaven. If we get beyond that and feed on
anything else, we are not made partakers of him, for we have not held
fast the beginning of our confidence.

Let me call back your thoughts again, beloved, to the love of your
espousals, when you acknowledged the Lord and went after him into the
wilderness. Did you not then have confidence in Christ of a very humble
character? Oh, at that time you did not want to be among the first of
God's people to play the part of Diotrephes. When you were at the foot
of the cross, and looked up as a poor sinner, you had no notion about
being a distinguished man in the church. I know it did not come into my
head that day that I should be a leader in God's Israel. Ah no, if I
might but sit in the corner of his house, or be a door keeper it had
been enough for me. If, like the dog under the table, I might get a
crumb of his mercy, were it but flavoured by his hand, because he had
broken it off that is all I wanted. That is just how we ought always to
live'lowly, humbly, gentle, and broken-spirited, and ready to be
anything, so that Christ may he glorified. It shows the risings of the
old nature when we get to be such consequential people that if anybody
should say a hard word, we wonder, or if anybody slanders us, instead
of saying, 'Ah, if he knew us he could say something a good deal
worse,' we are in a high and mighty temper because our brilliant
character is injured.

Verily, I think, that when I was first converted to God if the Lord had
said, 'I have taken you into my house' and I am going to make use of
you, and you shall be a door-mat for the saints to wipe their feet on,'
I should have said, 'Ah, happy shall I be if I but take the filth off
their blessed feet, for I love God's people; and may I minister to them
in the slightest degree, it shall be my delight.' But when we get away
from that position we are in danger. If we are made partakers of
Christ, the proof will be in our continuing to be of a meek and lowly
spirit'willing to serve him in any capacity'in our becoming like little
children, for 'except we become as little children, we shall in no wise
enter the kingdom of heaven.' Little children we were in the beginning
of our confidence; little children we must continue to be, or else we
may gravely question whether we have been made partakers of Christ.

When we were first made partakers of Christ, we received him very
gratefully. How thankful we were for one look from Jesus' eye. Half a
promise seemed precious in those days. The sermon, though it was
uncouth perhaps, if full of Christ, fed us to the full. Now, alas, how
many professors despise precious truth if it does not happen to be
clothed in the most polished phrases; they run hither and thither where
there is no food for them: not hungering and thirsting after
righteousness as of yore, they admire the banquet spread out with all
flowers and no fruit: they look after gaudy periods, where pure silver
and polished sham do sparkle, though there be no food for the soul to
feed on. Did they hold fast the beginning of their confidence they
would prize the truth and love the truth, and account that if it were
but the truth, it did not matter in what shape it came to them, so long
as they could get hold of a promise, have a smile from Christ's face or
enjoy one ray of the blessed Spirit's consolation in their souls. But
now the starving beggars have become dainty epicures; those who once
were glad enough to come and feast on broken crusts from the Master's
table, become connoisseurs of their Master's food; their soul 'loatheth
this light bread,' though it is the bread of angels, and drops from the
granaries of God. We should suspect ourselves, when we get into that
squeamish condition. Such a proud captious state of heart does not
evidence that we have been made partakers of Christ at all.

When we first received our confidence, we were obedient in word and
deed. I wish all disciples of Christ had the like scrupulous
conscience. I speak my own experience. The first week after I was
converted to God, I felt afraid to put one foot before another for fear
I should do wrong; when I thought over the day if there had been a
failure in my temper, or if there had been a frothy work spoken, or
something done amiss, I did chasten myself sorely, and had I known at
that time anything to be my Lord's will, I think I should not have
hesitated to do it; to me it would not have mattered whether it was a
fashionable thing or an unfashionable thing, if it was according to his
word. Oh, to do his will! to follow him whithersoever he would have me
go! Why, then it seemed as though I should never, never, never be slack
in keeping his commandments. Dear brethren, have you held fast the
beginning of your confidence? I smite upon my own breast when I
remember that, in that respect, I have not held fast the beginning of
my confidence. To the cross again! Beloved, if any of you have doubts
aroused in your mind by such bitter reflections upon yourselves, do not
dispute with your doubts; go to the cross again. Never dispute with the
devil. He can always beat you. Go straight to the cross. If he says,
'Thou art no saint,' say then 'Very likely I am not, but there is one
thing even thou canst not deny thou canst not say I am not a sinner; a
sinner I am. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners and if I
never trusted him before, I will begin now. If I never yet did know the
life of God, I will look to his death forthwith. Oh, if I never was
healed of the disease of sin, there is healing in those dear wounds,
and I, by faith, will have it while yet it is called to-day.' Jesus, I
trust thee; I trust thee wholly, and thee alone. I have heard that some
years ago there was a coal-pit in work, the shaft of which by some
means got blocked up, and the men could not get out of it. They were
very nearly perishing. One of them had heard that there was an old
working which led to another mine, and though he was afraid it might be
blocked up, yet the best thing they could do would be to go along, if,
perhaps, they might come to the mouth of another shaft. This old
working had not been traversed for some time; it never was very lofty.
They had to go along on their hands and knees, and generally needed to
crawl lying flat on the ground. At length they came to the mouth of
that old shaft, were soon extricated, and they gladly found their way
to the upper air again. Peradventure, some of you have been living
heretofore by frames and feelings; that experience has been the shaft
by which you have been coming and going; and this shaft has been
blocked up to-night. Well, I am not sorry for it. Come, now, brethren,
let us all go along on our hands and knees where the sinners go. Let us
crawl to the old shaft: let us prostrate ourselves, confessing, 'Lord,
I am vile, conceived in sin. Lord, I am unworthy: Lord, I am earthly,
selfish, devilish. Lord, I am a mass of wounds and a mass of
loathsomeness. I am unworthy of thy favor and thy love.' Let us just
creep along in that fashion till we come to Christ, and say,

'Just as I am, without one plea,

Save that thy blood was shed for me,

And that thou bidst me come to thee,

O Lamb of God, I come.'

You will find that old shaft is not shut up. There is light. Look up!
There is the cross above you. Jesus is still willing to receive
sinners, still able to save sinners, for he is 'exalted' on high 'to
give repentance unto Israel and remission of sins.' O come to him just
that way; and, brother, when you get back to Christ in that way by
which you went years ago, the advice of the text, with which I will sum
up all, is keep on coming to him in that same way always. Keep on
coming always. Keep on coming always. Perhaps you have been on the top
of a mountain such as the Rigi or as Snowden. You know these mountains
do not move. They are good solid rock under your feet. But people erect
platforms on the top of them to see the sun rise a little sooner, or
something of that sort. From the top of one of those platforms a man
may come down with a crash and break his limbs. That is something like
our erections which we put up over our simple faith in Christ. Our
beautiful frames and feelings and experiences'they will come down with
a crash some day, for they are rotten stuff; but, when a man stands
upon this''Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and I am
resting upon him: he is all my salvation and all my desire: his
precious blood is all my confidence. The love of his heart, the power
of his arm, the merit of his plea,'here I rest myself,''O beloved,
there is no fear of that confidence ever giving way beneath your feet.
There may you stand and serenely rejoice when worlds shall melt and the
pillars of the earth shall reel. God bless you, and keep you ever
holding the beginning of your confidence steadfast unto the end. So
shall it be proved beyond question that you are partakers of Christ.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON'Hebrews 3.

'THE SWORD AND THE TROWEL.' Edited by C. H. SPURGEON.

Contents for April, 1872.

Advice Gratis. By C. H. Spurgeon.

The Story of an Eventful Life.

The Gospel in France.

Recollections of the Rev. Rowland Hill. By an Old Member of Surrey
Chapel.

Remarks on Beecher's Life of Christ. By Vernon J. Charlesworth.

Cromwell's Puritanism. By E. Leach.

A New Interpretation of Pilgrim's Progress. By G. Rogers (Continued.)

Parental Duties. By Edward Dennett.

The Sinners of Mullion.

Report of Visitor from the Sunday School Union (Lambeth Auxiliary).

Reviews.

Memoranda.

Pastors' College Account.

Orphanage for Girls.

Stockwell Orphanage.

Colportage Association.

Price 3d. Post free, 4 stamps.

London: Passmore & Alabaster, 18, Paternoster Row, and all Booksellers.
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Glorious Predestination

A Sermon