Our Manifesto

Our Manifesto

(No. 2185)

A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JANUARY 25, 1891,

BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT AN ASSEMBLY OF MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL.

DELIVERED ON FRIDAY MORNING, APRIL 25, 1890.

"But I make known to you, Brethren, that the Gospel which was preached
of me is not after man."

Galatians 1:11.

To me it is a pitiful sight to see Paul defending himself as an Apostle
and, doing this, not against the gainsaying world, but against
cold-hearted members of the Church! They said that he was not truly an
Apostle, for he had not seen the Lord. And they uttered a great many
other things derogatory to him. To maintain his claim to the
Apostleship, he was driven to commence his Epistles with, "Paul, an
Apostle of Jesus Christ," though his work was a self-evident proof of
his call. If, after God has blessed us to the conversion of many, some
of these should raise a question as to our call to the ministry, we may
count it a fiery trial–but we shall not conclude that a strange thing
has happened to us. There is much more room to question our call to the
ministry than to cast a doubt upon Paul's Apostleship! This indignity,
if it is put upon us, we can, by His Grace, cheerfully bear for our
Master's sake. We need not wonder, dear Brothers, if our ministry
should be the subject of attack, because this has been the lot of those
who have gone before us–and we should lack one great seal of our
acceptance with God if we did not receive the unconscious homage of
enmity which is always paid to the faithful by the ungodly world! When
the devil is not troubled by us, he does not trouble us. If his kingdom
is not shaken, he will not care about us or our work, but will let us
enjoy inglorious ease. Be comforted by the experience of the Apostle of
the Gentiles–he is peculiarly our Apostle–and we may regard his
experience as a type of what we may expect while we labor among the
Gentiles of our own day.

The treatment which has been given to eminent men while they have lived
has been prophetic of the treatment of their reputations after death.
This evil world is unchangeable in antagonism to true principles,
whether their advocates are dead or living. They said, more than 1,800
years ago–"Paul, what of him?" They still say so. It is not unusual to
hear dubious persons profess to differ from the Apostle and they even
dare to say, "There, I do not agree with Paul." I remember the first
time that I heard this expression. I looked at the individual with
astonishment. I was amazed that such a pigmy as he should say this of
the great Apostle! Altogether apart from Paul's Inspiration, it seemed
like a cheese-mite differing from a cherub, or a handful of chaff
discussing the verdict of the fire! The individual was so utterly
beneath observation that I could not but marvel that his conceit should
have been so outspokenly shameless. Notwithstanding this objection,
even when supported by learned critics, we still agree with the
Inspired servant of God. It is our firm conviction that to differ from
Paul's Epistles is to differ from the Holy Spirit–and to differ from
the Lord Jesus Christ, whose mind Paul has fully expressed! It is
remarkable that Paul's writings should be so assailed! But this warns
us that when we have gone to our reward, our names will not be free
from aspersion, nor our teaching from opposition. The noblest of the
departed are still slandered. Be not careful as to human judgment of
yourself in death or in life, for what does it matter? Your real
character, no man can injure but yourself, and if you are enabled to
keep your garments clean, all else is not worth a thought.

To come more closely to our text. We do not claim to be able to use
Paul's words exactly in the full sense which he could throw into them,
but there is a sense in which, I trust, we can each one say, "I make
known to you, Brethren, that the Gospel which was preached of me is not
after man." We may not only say this, but we ought to be able to say it
with thorough truthfulness. The form of expression goes as far as Paul
was known to go towards an oath when he says, "I

make known to you, brethren." He means, I assure you most certainly–I
would have you to be certain of it–"that the Gospel which was preached
of me is not after man." On this point he would have all the brethren
know past all doubt.

From the context we are sure that he meant, first of all, that his
Gospel was not received by him from men. His reception of it, in his
own mind, was not after men. And next, he meant, that the Gospel itself
was not invented by men. If I can hammer out these two statements, we
will then draw practical conclusions from them.

I. First, TO US THE GOSPEL IS NOT AFTER MEN AS TO THE MODE BY WHICH WE
HAVE RECEIVED IT. In a certain sense we received it from men as to the
outward part of the reception, for we were called by the Grace of God
through parental influence, or through a Sunday school teacher, or by
the ministry of the Word, or by the reading of a godly book, or by
other agency. But in Paul's case, none of these things were used! He
was distinctly called by the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself, speaking to
him from Heaven and revealing Himself in His own light. It was
necessary that Paul should not be indebted to Peter, or James, or
John–even in the way in which many of us are indebted to
instrumentality–so that he might truly say, "I neither received it of
man, neither was I taught it, but by the Revelation of Jesus Christ."
Yet we also can say this in another sense. We, also, have received the
Gospel in a way beyond the power of man to convey it to us–men brought
it to our ears, but the Lord, Himself, applied it to our heart. The
best of the saints could not have brought it home to our hearts, so as
to regenerate, convert and sanctify us by it. There was a distinct act
of God, the Holy Spirit, by which the instrumentality was made
effectual and the truth was rendered operative upon our souls.

So I note that not one among us has received the Gospel by birthright.
We may be the children of holy parents, but we are not, therefore, the
children of God. To us it is clear that, "that which is born of the
flesh is flesh," and nothing more. Only, "that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit." Yet we hear of persons whose children do not need
conversion. They are spoken of as being free from natural corruption
and born children of God–having a Divine Grace within which only needs
to be developed. I am sorry to say that my father did not find me such
a child. He found out early in my life that I was born in sin, shaped
in iniquity and that folly was bound up in my heart! Friends and
teachers soon perceived in me a natural depravity and, assuredly, I
have found it in myself! The sad discovery needed no minute research,
for the effect of the evil stared me in the face in my character.

This tradition as to our being born with a holy nature is gaining
foothold in the professing church, though contrary to Scripture–and
even to the confessions of faith which are still avowedly maintained!
Certain preachers hardly dare formulate it as a doctrine, but it is,
with them, a kind of chaotic belief that there may be productions of
the flesh which are very superior and will serve well enough without
the new birth of the Spirit. This tacit belief will lead up to
birthright membership and that is fatal to any Christian community,
wherever it comes to be the rule! Without conversion, in certain
fellowships, young people may drift into the church as a matter of
course, but the church becomes only a part of the world–with the
Christian name affixed to it!

May we never, in our Churches, sink into that condition! That religion
which is a mere family appendage is of little worth! The true seed are
"born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of
man, but of God." We have not received our faith by tradition from our
parents–and yet, some of us, if true faith could be so received, would
certainly have thus received it, for if we are not Hebrews of the
Hebrews, but, according to our family tree, we are Puritans of the
Puritans, descended throughout many generations of Believers. Of this
we make small account before God, though we are not ashamed of it
before men. We have no father in our spiritual life but the Lord,
Himself, and we have not received that life, or the Gospel, by any
carnal parentage, but of the Lord alone!

Brothers, we have not received the Gospel, nor do we now receive it,
because of the teaching of any man, or set of men. Do you receive
anything because Calvin taught it? If so, you had need look to your
foundations. Do you believe a doctrine because John Wesley preached it?
If so, you have reason to mind what you are doing. God's way, by which
we are to receive the Truth of God, is to receive it by the Holy
Spirit! It is helpful to me to know what such-and-such a minister
believed. The judgment of a holy, godly, clear-sighted, gifted Divine
is not to be despised–it deserves to have due weight with us. He is as
likely to be right as we are and we should differ from a Grace-taught
man with some hesitancy. But it is a very different thing to say, "I
believe it on this good man's authority."

In our raw state as young Christians, it may not be injurious to
receive the Truth of God from pastors and parents, and so on, but if we
are to become men in Christ Jesus, and teachers of others, we must quit
the childish habit of depend-

ence on others and search for ourselves! We may now leave the egg and
get rid of the pieces of shell as quickly as may be. It is our duty to
search the Scriptures to see whether these things are so–and more–it
is our wisdom to cry for Grace to appropriate each Truth and let it
dwell in our inmost nature. It is time that we should be able to say,
"This Truth of God is now as personally my own as if I had never heard
it from lips of man! I receive it because it has been written on my own
heart by the Lord, Himself. Its coming to me is not after men."

There is an opinion current in certain circles that you must not
receive anything unless it is taught you of men–the word, "men," being
swallowed up and hidden away, but being there, after all, under the
term–"the church." The church is set up as the great authority! If she
has sanctioned it, you dare not question it! If she decrees, it is
yours to obey! But this is to receive a gospel "after man" with a
vengeance. And the process involved is a strange one. You must trace a
dogma as coming through a continuous visible church and this will lead
you through the Cloaca Maxima of old Rome. Though the Truth of God is
manifestly clear and pure and proves itself to be the Water of Life to
you, yet you must not accept it–you must take yourself to the mudded
stream which can be traced through the foul channel of a continuous
church, which for ages has apostatized!

My dear Brethren, a doctrine's being believed by what may, in courtesy,
be called "the church," is no voucher for it! The most of us would
almost regard it as being a question to be raised whether teaching can
be true which has been vouched for by those great worldly corporations
which have usurped the name of churches of Christ. Several sects claim
Apostolic succession and if any possess it, the Baptists are the most
likely, since they practice the ordinances as they were delivered. But
we do not even care to trace our pedigree through the long line of
martyrs and of men abhorred by ecclesiastics. If we could do this
without a break, the result would be of no value in our eyes, for the
rag of "Apostolic succession" is not worth warehouse-room! Those who
contend for the fiction may monopolize it if they will. We do not
receive the Revelation of God because it has been received by a
succession of fathers, monks, abbots and bishops! We are right glad
when we perceive that certain of them saw the Truth of God and taught
it–but that fact does not make it the Truth of God to us. We would,
each one, say, "I make known to you, brethren, that the Gospel which
was preached of me is not after man." We never think of quoting the
community of men called "the church" as the ultimate authority with
conscience. "We have not so learned Christ."

Furthermore, I hope I shall speak for all of you here when I say that
we have received the Truth of God personally by the revelation of it to
our own souls by the Spirit of the Lord. Albeit that in so large a
company as this I fear there may be a Judas, and the, "Lord, is it I?"
may well be passed round with holy self-suspicion, yet we can all say,
unless fearfully deceived, that we have received the Truth of God which
we preach by the inward teaching of the Holy Spirit. Let us turn to our
diaries, though the dates are now far away in the long-ago. We remember
when the Light of God broke in and revealed our lost estate and thus
began the groundwork of our teaching. Ah, Friends, the darker doctrines
which make up the foil of the priceless jewels of the Gospel–do you
not remember when you received them with power? That I was guilty, I
believed, for I was so taught–but then and there I knew in my soul
that it was so! Oh, how I knew it! Guilty before God, "condemned
already," and lying under the present curse of a broken Law, I was
sorely dismayed. I had heard the Law of God preached and I had trembled
as I heard it, but now I felt an inward conviction of personal guilt of
the most piercing character. I saw myself a sinner–and what a sight is
that! Fearfulness took hold upon me and shame and dread. Then I saw how
true was the doctrine of the sinfulness of sin–and what a punishment
it must involve. That doctrine I no longer received of men!

The precious doctrine of peace through the precious blood of Jesus we
also know by inward personal teaching. We used to hear and sing of the
great Sacrifice and of the love of Him who bore our sins in His own
body on the tree. But now we stood at the foot of the Cross–for
ourselves we beheld that dear face and gazed into the eyes so full of
pity–and saw the hands and feet that were fastened to the wood for our
sakes. Oh, when we saw the Lord Jesus, as our Surety, smarting for our
offense, then we received the Truths of Redemption and Atonement in a
way that was "not after man"!

Yes, those gracious men who have gone to Heaven did preach the Gospel
to us fully and earnestly–and they labored to make known Christ to us!
But to reveal the Son of God in us was beyond their power! They could
as easily have created a world as have made these Truths of God vital
to us! We say, therefore, each one from his inmost soul, "I make known
to you, brethren, that the Gospel which was preached of me is not after
man," so far as the way by which we have come to know and feel it
within our own souls!

Since our first days we have experienced a gradual opening up of the
Gospel to our understanding, but in all that process, our real progress
has been of God–not of men. Brethren, you read commentators–that is
to say, if your own comments are worth hearing you read the books of
godly men–that is to say, if you, yourselves, ever say anything worth
reading, yet your spiritual learning, if it is true and real, is of the
Lord's imparting. Do we learn anything, in the most emphatic sense of
learning, unless we are taught of the Lord? Is it not essential that
God the Spirit should lay home the Truth of God which has been spoken
to you, even by the ablest instructor? You have continued to be
students ever since you left College, but your Tutor has been the Holy
Spirit. By no other method can our spirits learn the Truth of God but
by the teaching of the Spirit of God. We can receive the shell and the
outer form of theology, but the real Word of the Lord, itself, comes by
the Holy Spirit who leads us into all Truth.

How sweetly the Spirit has taught us in meditation! Have you not often
been surprised and overcome with delight as Holy Scripture has opened
up as if the gates of the Golden City had been set back for you to
enter? I am sure that you did not, then, gather your knowledge from
men, because it was all fresh to you as you sat alone with no book
before you but the Bible and yourself receptive, scarcely thinking out
matters, but drinking them in as the Lord brought them to you! A few
minutes' silent openness of soul before the Lord has brought us in more
treasure of Truth than hours of learned research! The Truth of God is
something like those stalactite caverns and grottoes of which we have
heard, which you must enter and see for yourself if you would really
know their wonders. If you should venture there without light or guide,
you would run great risks, but with blazing torch and an instructed
leader, your entrance is full of interest. Look! Your guide has taken
you through a narrow winding passage where you have to creep, or go on
bended knees! At last he has brought you out into a magnificent hall
and when the torches are held aloft, the far-off roof sparkles and
flashes back the light as from countless jewels of every hue!

You now behold Nature's architecture and cathedrals are, therefore,
toys to you. As you stand in that vast pillared and jeweled palace, you
feel how much you owe to your guide and to his flaming torch. Thus the
Holy Spirit leads us into all Truth and sheds the Light of God on the
eternal and the mysterious! This He does in certain cases very
personally. Then He fills us with complete forgetfulness of all our
immediate surroundings and we commune only with the Truth of God. I can
well understand how philosophers, while working out an absorbing
problem, have seemed lost and oblivious to all the world besides. Have
you never felt a holy absorption in the Truth while the Spirit has
filled you with its glorious vision? It has been so with many of the
saints while taught of God. They are not likely to give up to popular
clamor what they have thus received!

How often has the Lord taught His servants His own Truth in the school
of tribulation! We speak well of meditation–it is as silver–but
tribulation is as much fine gold! Tribulation not only works patience,
but patience brings experience and, in experience, there is a deep and
intimate knowledge of the things of God which comes by no other means.
Do you know what it is to be in such pain that you could not bear one
more turn of the screw? And have you, then, in faintness fallen back
upon your pillow and felt that even then you could not be more happy
unless you were caught up to the third Heaven? Then has it been
verified to some of us that we can do all things through Christ who
strengthens us. While lying in passive peace, it may be you have seen a
Scripture come forth like a star between the clouds of a tempest, and
it has shone with such luster as only the Lord God could have given to
it. Depression of spirit and torture of body have been forgotten while
the bright promise has made your soul full of light!

There is a place in the far-back desert which you can never forget.
There grows a bush. A very unpromising object is a bush–but it is
sacred to you–for there the Lord revealed Himself to you and the bush
burned with fire, but was not consumed. You will never unlearn the
lesson of the burning bush! Do we know any Truth of God till the Holy
Spirit burns it into us–and engraves it on our soul as with an iron
pen and with the point of a diamond? There are ways of learning for
which we are very grateful, but the surest way of learning Divine Truth
is by having the Word of God engrafted so as to take living hold upon
the soul! Then we do not only believe it–we give our life to it–it
lives in us and, at the same time, we live upon it! Such Truth throbs
in every pulse, for it lives in us and colors our being. The devil
insinuates questions, but we are not accountable for what he pleases to
do, and we care the less, because he now whispers into a deaf ear. When
once the soul, itself, has received the Truth of God, and it has come
to permeate the entire being, we are not accessible to those doubts
which before pierced us like poisoned arrows!

I may add, concerning many of the Truths of God and the whole Gospel
system, that we have learned the Truth, thereof, in the field of
sacrifice and service with our Lord, so that to us it is not after man.
If you do not believe in human depravity, accept a pastorate in this
wicked London and if you are true to your commission, you will doubt no
more! If you do not believe in the necessity of the Holy Spirit to
regenerate, take charge over a cultured and polished congregation that
will hear all your rhetoric, and will remain as worldly and as
frivolous as it was before! If you do not believe in the power of the
atoning blood, never go and see Believers die, for you will find that
they trust in nothing else! A dying Christ is the last resort of the
Believer–

" When every earthly prop gives way He, then, is all my strength and
stay"

If you do not believe in the election of Grace, live where multitudes
of men come under your notice and persons most unlikely are called out
from among them in surprising ways–and it will grow upon you! Here
comes one who says, "I have neither father, mother, brother, sister,
nor friend who ever enters a place of worship." "How came you to
believe?" "I heard a word in the street, Sir, quite by accident, that
brought me to tremble before God." Here is the election of Grace! Here
comes another, dark in mind, troubled in soul and she is a member of a
family–all of them members of your Church–all happy and rejoicing in
the Lord. And yet this poor creature cannot lay hold upon Christ by
faith. To your great joy, you set before her Christ in all His fullness
of Grace and she becomes the brightest of the whole circle, for they
never knew the darkness as she did, and they can never rejoice in the
Light of God as she delights in it! To find a greatly-loving saint you
must find one who has had much forgiven.

The woman that was a sinner is the only one that will wash Christ's
feet. There is raw material in a Publican which you seldom find in a
Pharisee. A Pharisee may polish up into an ordinary Christian, but
somehow there is a charming touch about the pardoned sinner which is
lacking in the other. There is an election of Grace and you cannot help
noticing, as you go about, how certain Believers enter into the inner
circle, while others linger in the outer courts. The Lord is Sovereign
in His gifts and does as He wills–and we are called to bow before His
scepter within the Church as well as at its portal. The longer I live,
the more sure I am that salvation is all of Grace and that the Lord
gives that Grace according to His own will and purpose.

Once more, some of us have received the Gospel because of the wonderful
unction that has gone with it at times to our souls. I hope that none
of us will ever fall into the snare of following the guidance of
impressions made upon us by texts which happen to come prominently
before our minds. You have judgements and you must not lay them aside
to be guided by impressions. But for all that and at the back of all
that, there is not a man here that has led an eventful, useful life but
must confess that certain of those acts of his life, upon which his
whole history has hinged, are connected with influences upon his mind
which were produced, as he believes, by supernatural agency! A passage
of Holy Writ, which we have read a hundred times before, took us
captive and became the master of every thought. We steered by it as men
trust the pole-star and we found that our voyage was made easy thereby.
Certain texts are, to our memory, sweet as wafers made with honey, for
we know what they once did for us and the recollection is refreshing.
We have been revived from a fainting fit, nerved for a desperate
effort, or fired for a sacrifice by a Scripture which became no longer
a word in a book, but the very voice of God to our soul–even that
voice of the Lord which is full of majesty!

Have you not noticed how a turn of a word in a text has made it seem
all the more fitted for you? It looked a very small point, but it was
essential to its effect, just as a small notch in a key may be the
exact form which makes it fit the lock. How much may hang on what
seems, to the unspiritual, to be nothing more than a slight verbal
distinction, or an unimportant turn of expression! A thought of primary
importance may turn upon the singular of plural of a word. If it is the
Greek word, itself, the importance cannot be overestimated, but in an
English word, in the translation, there may be well-near equal force
according as the Word is true to the original. The many, who can only
read our marvelous English Bible, come to prize its words because the
Lord has blessed them to their souls. A simple Welsh friend believed
that our Lord must have been a Welshman, because, he said, he always
speaks to me in Welsh.

To me it has often seemed as if the Well-Beloved of my soul had been
born in my native village, had gone to my school and had passed through
all my personal experiences, for He knows me better than I know myself.
Although I know He was of Bethlehem and Judea, yet He seems like one of
London, or of Surrey. No, more–I see in Him more than manhood could
have made Him–I discern in Him a Nature more than that of man, for He
enters the inmost recesses of my

soul, He reads me like an open page, He comforts me as one brought up
with me, He dives into my deepest griefs and attends me in my highest
joys! I have secrets in my heart which only He knows. Would God His
secret were with me as mine is with Him up to the measure of my
capacity! It is because of that wonderful power which the Lord Jesus
has over us through His sacred Word that we receive that Word from Him
and receive it as not of man.

What is unction, my Brothers? I fear that no one can help me by a
definition. Who can define it? But yet we know where it is and we
certainly feel where it is not. When that unction perfumes the Word of
God, it is its own interpreter, it is its own apologist, it is it own
confirmation and proof to the regenerate mind. Then the Word of God
deals with us as no word of man ever did or could! We have not received
it, therefore, of men. Constantly receiving the Divine Word as we do,
it comes to us with an energy always fresh and forcible. It comes to
us, especially, with a sanctifying power which is the very best proof
of its coming from the thrice-holy God. Philosophers' words may teach
us what holiness is, but God's Word makes us holy! We hear our Brethren
exhort us to aspire to high degrees of Grace, but God's Word lifts us
up to them! The Word is not merely an instrument of good, but the Holy
Spirit makes it an active energy within the soul to purge the heart
from sin so that it can be said, "You are clean through the Word which
I have spoken unto you." When thus cleansed, you know that the Word is
true. You are sure of it and you no longer need, even, the most
powerful book of evidences. You have the witness in yourself, the
evidence of things not seen, the seal of eternal verity.

I have taken all this time upon how we receive the Gospel and,
therefore, I must be brief upon a further point.

II. TO US THE TRUTH ITSELF IS NOT AFTER MEN. I desire to assert this
plainly. If any man thinks that the Gospel is only one of many
religions, let him candidly compare the Scripture of God with other
pretended revelations. Have you ever done so? I have made it a College
exercise with our Brothers. I have said–We will read a chapter of the
Koran. This is the Muslim's holy book. A man must have a strange mind
who should mistake that rubbish for the utterances of Inspiration! If
he is at all familiar with the Old and New Testaments, when he hears an
extract from the Koran, he feels that he has met with a foreign
author–the God who gave us the Pentateuch could have had no hand in
many portions of the Koran!

One of the most modern pretenders to inspiration is the Book of Mormon.
I could not blame you should you laugh outright while I read aloud a
page from that conglomeration. Perhaps you are familiar with the
apocryphal New Testament books. It would be an insult to the judgement
of the least in the Kingdom of Heaven to suppose that he could mistake
the language of these forgeries for the language of the Holy Spirit! I
have had several pretended revelations submitted to me by their several
authors, for we have more of the prophetic clan about than most people
know of, but not one of them has ever left on my mind the slightest
suspicion of his sharing the Inspiration of John, or Paul. There is no
mistaking the Inspired Books if you have any spiritual discernment!
Once let the Divine Light dawn in the soul and you perceive a coloring
and a fashion in the product of Inspiration which are not possible to
mere men. Would one who doubts this write us a fifth Gospel? Would
anyone among our poets attempt to write a new Psalm which could be
mistaken for a Psalm of David? I do not see why he could not, but I am
sure he cannot. You can give us new psalmody, for it is an instinct of
the Christian life to sing the praises of God, but you cannot match the
glory of Divinely-inspired songs. Therefore we receive the Scripture
and, consequently, the Gospel as not after man.

You say, perhaps, "You are comparing books and forgetting that your
theme is the Gospel." But this is only in appearance. I do not care to
waste your time by asking you to compare the gospels of men. There is
not another gospel that I know of that is worth the comparison for a
single minute. Oh, but, they say, there is a gospel that is much wider
than yours. Yes, I know that it is much wider than mine, but to what
does it lead? They say that what is nicknamed Calvinism has a very
narrow door. There is a word in Scripture about a strait gate and a
narrow way and, therefore, I am not alarmed by the accusation. But then
there are rich pastures when you enter within and this renders it worth
while to enter in by the strait gate! Certain other systems have very
wide doors–but they lead you into small privileges–and those of a
precarious tenure. I hear certain invitations which might run as
follows–"Come you disconsolate! But if you come, you will still be
disconsolate, for there will be no eternal life made sure to you and
you must preserve your own souls, or perish after all." But I shall not
enter into any comparisons, for they are odious in this case.

The Gospel, our Gospel, is beyond the strain and reach of human
thought. When men have exercised themselves to the very highest in
original conceptions, they have never yet thought out the true Gospel.
If it is such a commonplace thing as the critics would have us believe,
why did it not arise in the minds of the Egyptians or Chinese? Great
minds often run

in the same grooves–why did not other great minds run in the same
grooves as those of Moses, or Isaiah, or Paul? I think it is a fair
thing to say that if it is such a commonplace form of teaching, it
might have arisen among the Persians or Hindus, or, surely, we might
have found something like it among the great teachers of Greece! Did
any of these think out the doctrine of free and Sovereign Grace? Did
they guess at the Incarnation and Sacrifice of the Son of God? No, even
with the aid of our Inspired Book, no Muslim, to my knowledge, has
taught a system of Grace in which God is glorified as to His justice,
His love and His sovereignty. That sect has grasped a certain sort of
predestination which it has defaced into blind faith, but even with
that to help them, and the unity of the Godhead as a powerful light to
aid them, they have never thought out a plan of salvation so just to
God and so pacifying to the troubled conscience as the method of
redemption by the substitution of our Lord Jesus!

I will give you another proof, which, to my mind, is conclusive that
our Gospel is not after men, and it is this–that it is immutable and
nothing that man produces can be so called. If man makes a gospel–and
he is very fond of doing it, like children making toys–what does he
do? He is very pleased with it for a few moments and then he pulls it
to pieces and makes it up in another way–and this continually! The
religions of modern thought are as changeable as the mists on the
mountains! Look how often science has altered its very basis! Science
is notorious for being most scientific in destruction of all the
science that has gone before it! I have sometimes indulged myself, in
leisure moments, in reading ancient natural history–and nothing can be
more comic. Yet this is by no means an abstruse science. In 20 years'
time, some of us may probably find great amusement in the serious
scientific teaching of the present hour, even as we do now in the
systems of the last century. It may happen that in a little time the
doctrine of evolution will be the standing jest of schoolboys. The same
is true of the modern divinity which bows its knee in blind idolatry of
so-called science.

Now, we say, and do so with all our heart, that the Gospel which we
preached 40 years ago, we will still preach in 40 years' time if we are
alive. [Less than two years later, Brother Spurgeon began eternity in
the Presence of his Master–EO.] And, what is more, that the Gospel
which was taught of our Lord and His Apostles is the only Gospel now on
the face of the earth! Ecclesiastics have altered the Gospel and if it
had not been of God, it would have been stifled by falsehood long ago.
But because the Lord has made it, it abides forever! Everything human
is, before long, moon-struck, so that it shifts with every phase of the
lunar orb. But the Word of the Lord is not after men, for it is the
same yesterday, today and forever.

It cannot be after men, again, because it is so opposed to human pride.
Other systems flatter men, but this speaks the Truth of God. Hear the
dreamers of today cry up the dignity of human nature! How sublime is
man! But point me to a single syllable in which the Word of God sets
itself to the extolling of man. On the contrary, it lays him in the
very dust and reveals his condemnation! Where is boasting, then? It is
excluded–the door is shut in its face. The self-glorification of human
nature is foreign to Scripture which has for its grand object the Glory
of God! God is everything in the Gospel which I preach and I believe
that He is All in All in your ministry, also. There is a gospel in
which the work and the glory are divided between God and man–and
salvation is not altogether of Grace–but in our Gospel, salvation is
of the Lord! Man never could nor would have invented and devised a
Gospel which would lay him low and secure to the Lord God all the honor
and praise. This seems to me to be clear beyond all question and,
therefore, our Gospel is not after men.

Again, it is not after men, because it does not give sin any quarter. I
have heard that an Englishman has professed himself a Muslim because he
is charmed by the polygamy which the Arabian Prophet allows his
followers. No doubt the prospect of four wives would win converts who
would not be attracted by spiritual considerations. If you preach a
gospel which makes allowances for human nature and treats sin as if it
were a mistake rather than a crime, you will find willing hearers. If
you can provide absolution at small cost and can ease conscience by a
little self-denial, it will not be amazing if your religion becomes
fashionable. But our Gospel declares that the wages of sin is death and
that we can only have eternal life as the gift of God–and that this
gift always brings with it sorrow for sin, a hatred towards it and an
avoidance

of it!

Our Gospel tells a man that he must be born again and that without the
new birth he will be eternally lost, while with it he will obtain
everlasting salvation! Our Gospel offers no excuse or cloak for sin,
but utterly condemns it. It presents no pardon except through the great
Atonement and it will give that man no security who tries to harbor any
sin in his bosom. Christ died for sin–and we must die to sin, or die
eternally. If we preach the Gospel faithfully, we must

preach the Law of God. You cannot fully preach salvation by Christ
without setting Sinai at the back of the picture and Calvary in the
front! Men must be made to feel the evil of sin before they will prize
the great Sacrifice which is the head and front of our Gospel. This is
not to the taste of this or any other age and, therefore, I am sure man
did not invent it.

We know that the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is not of men because
our Gospel is so suitable for the poor and illiterate. The poor,
according to the usual fashion of men, are overlooked. Parliament has
enclosed all the commons so that a poor man cannot keep a goose! I
doubt not that, if it were likely to be effectual, we should soon hear
of a bill for distributing freeholds of the stars among certain
sky-lords! It is evident that a fine property in the celestial regions
is, at the present time, unregistered in any of our courts. Well, they
may sooner enclose and assign the sun, moon and stars than the Gospel
of our Lord Jesus! This is the poor man's common. "The poor have the
Gospel preached to them." Yet there are not a few, nowadays, who
despise a Gospel which the common people can hear and understand! And
we may be sure that a plain Gospel never came from them, for their
taste does not lie in that direction. They want something abstruse, or,
as they say, thoughtful. Do we not hear this sort of remark, "We are an
intellectual people and need a cultured ministry. Those evangelistic
preachers are all very well for popular assemblies, but we have always
been select and require that preaching which is abreast of the times"?

Yes, yes, and their man will be one who will not preach the Gospel
unless it is in a clouded manner, for if he does declare the Gospel of
Jesus, the poor will be sure to intrude themselves and shock my lords
and ladies! Brothers, our Gospel does not know anything about high and
low, rich and poor, black and white, cultured and uncultured! If it
makes any difference, it prefers the poor and down-trodden. The great
Founder of it says, "I thank You, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth,
because You have hid these things from the wise and prudent and have
revealed them unto babes." We praise God that He has chosen the base
things and things that are despised! I hear it boasted of a man's
ministry, although it gradually diminishes the congregation, that it is
doing a great work among thoughtful young men. I confess that I am not
a believer in the existence of these thoughtful young men–those who
mistake themselves for such I have generally found to be more conceited
than thoughtful. Young men are all very well and so are young women,
and old women, also, but I am sent to preach the Gospel to every
creature and I cannot limit myself to thoughtful young men! I make
known to you that the Gospel which I have preached is not after men,
for it knows nothing of selection and exclusiveness, but it values the
soul of a sweep or a dustman at the same price as that of the Lord
Mayor, or her Majesty!

Lastly, we are sure that the Gospel we have preached is not after men,
because men do not take to it. It is opposed, even to this day. If
anything is hated bitterly, it is the out-and-out Gospel of the Grace
of God, especially if that hateful word, Sovereignty is mentioned with
it! Dare to say, "He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and He
will have compassion on whom He will have compassion," and furious
critics will revile you without stint! The modern religionist not only
hates the doctrine of Sovereign Grace, but he raves and rages at the
mention of it! He would sooner hear you blaspheme than preach Election
by the Father, Atonement by the Son, or Regeneration by the Spirit. If
you want to see a man worked up till the Satanic is clearly uppermost,
let some of the new divines hear you preach a Free-Grace sermon! A
gospel which is after men will be welcomed by men–but it needs a
Divine operation upon the heart and mind to make a man willing to
receive into his utmost soul this distasteful Gospel of the Grace of
God!

My dear Brothers, do not try to make it tasteful to carnal minds! Hide
not the offense of the Cross lest you make it of no effect. The angles
and corners of the Gospel are its strength–to pare them off is to
deprive it of power! Toning down is not the increase of strength, but
the death of it. Why, even among the sects, you must have noticed that
their distinguishing points are the horns of their power–and when
these are practically omitted, the sect is effete. Learn, then, that if
you take Christ out of Christianity, Christianity is dead! If you
remove Grace out of the Gospel, the Gospel is gone! If the people do
not like the Doctrines of Grace, give them all the more of them!
Whenever its enemies rail at a certain kind of gun, a wise military
power will provide more of such artillery. A great general, going in
before his king, stumbled over his own sword. "I see, said the king,
your sword in is the way." The warrior answered, "Your Majesty's
enemies have often felt the same." That our Gospel offends the King's
enemies is no regret to us!

Dear Friends, if it is so that we have not received the Gospel from
man, but from God, let us continue to receive the Truth of God by the
Divinely-appointed channel of faith. Are you sure that you always will,
to the fullest, understand the Truth of God? With most of us, the
understanding is like a narrow rear gate to the city of Mansoul, and
the great things of God cannot be so cut down as to be brought in by
that entrance. The door is not wide enough! But our city has a great

gate called faith, through which even the infinite and eternal may be
admitted. Give over the hopeless effort of dragging into the mind by
efforts of reason, that which can so readily dwell in you by the Holy
Spirit through faith! We that speak against rationalism are, ourselves,
apt to reason too much–and there is nothing so unreasonable as to hope
to receive the things of God by reasoning them out! Let us believe them
upon the Divine testimony–and when they try us and even when they seem
to grate upon the sensibilities of humanity–let us receive them, none
the less, for all that. We are not to be judges of what God's Truth
ought to be–we are to accept it as the Lord reveals it.

Next, let us, each one, expect opposition if he receives the Truth from
the Lord, and especially opposition from one person who is both near
and dear to him–namely, himself. There is a certain old man who is yet
alive and he is no lover of the Truth of God, but, on the contrary, he
is a partisan of falsehood. I heard a gracious policeman say that when
he stood in Trafalgar Square and fellows of the baser sort kicked him
and the other police, he felt a bone of the old man stirring within
him. Ah, we have felt that bone, too often! The carnal nature opposes
the Truth of God, for it is not reconciled to God, neither, indeed, can
be! Let us pray the Lord to conquer our pride, that His Truth may
dominate us, despite our evil hearts! As to the outside world opposing,
we are not at all alarmed by that fact, for it is exactly what we were
taught to expect. We are now unmoved by opposition. The captain of a
ship minds not if a little spray breaks over him.

Remember that if you did not receive the Truth except through the power
of the Spirit of God, you cannot expect others to do so. They will not
believe your report unless the arm of the Lord is revealed to them. But
then, if faith is the Holy Spirit's work, we need not fear that men can
destroy it. Those who attempt to change our belief may well be a little
dubious as to their success in the task they have undertaken. If faith
is a Divine work within our souls, we may defy all sophistries,
flatteries, temptations and threats. We shall be divinely
obstinate–those who would pervert us will have to give us up! Possibly
they will call us bigots, or hard-shells, or even idiots–but this,
too, also signifies little if our names are written in Heaven!

Let us also conclude from our subject that if these things come to us
from God, we can safely rest our all upon them. If they came to us of
men, they would probably fail us in a crisis. Did you ever trust men
and not rue the day before the sun was down? Did you ever rely on an
arm of flesh without discovering that the best of men are men at the
best? But if these things come of God, they are eternal and all
sufficient! We can both live and die upon the everlasting Gospel! Let
us deal more and more with God and with Him, only. If we have obtained
Light from Him, there is more of blessing to be had. Let us go to that
same Teacher, that we may learn more of the deep things of God. Let us
bravely believe in the success of the Gospel which we have received. We
believe in it–let us believe for it. We will not despair though the
whole visible Church should apostatize!

When invaders had surrounded Rome and all the country lay at their
mercy, a piece of land was to be sold and a Roman bought it at a fair
value. The enemy was there, but he would not be dislodged. The enemy
might destroy the Roman State. Let him try it! Be you of the same mind!
The God of Jacob is our Refuge and none can stand against His eternal
power and Godhead. The everlasting Gospel is our banner and, with
Jehovah to maintain it, our standard never shall be lowered! In the
power of the Holy Spirit, the Truth of God is invincible! Come on, you
hosts of Hell and armies of the aliens! Let craft and criticism,
rationalism and priestcraft do their best! The Word of the Lord endures
forever–even that Word which, by the Gospel, is preached unto men!

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–2 Corinthians 4