Sermons

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PRELIMINARY PLEA FOR CLASS-MEETINGS, 21

I.— MEMORIES OF THE WAT, 43

II. The Belie Vee's Sufficiency

" Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves ; but our sufficiency is of God." — 2 Corinthians, iii. 5.

The promise contained in these words is one of the most encouraging and one of the most comprehensive in the Bible. It is the essence of all Christian experience ; it is the moral which the Scriptures continually inculcate, and it stands in the heraldry of heaven as the motto on the believer's arms. The all-sufficiency of God has been the support and comfort of the faithful in all ages of the Church. On this rock Abraham built his hope ; to this refuge in all times of trial the sweet Singer of Israel fled; by this confidence the great Apostle of the Gentiles was constantly and perseveringly upheld. The all-sufficiency of God gives strength to patience, gives solidity to hope, gives constancy to endurance, gives nerve and vitality to effort. The weakest believer, with this great treasure in possession, is enabled to go steadily forward, sacrificing no duty, resisting all sin ; and, amidst every horror and every humiliation, feeling within him the still, clear light of life. To this the most eminent saints are indebted for all they enjoy, for all they are enabled to perform ; and though assailed by various foes without, and by various fears within, by this they can return from every conflict, bearing the spoils of victory ; and as with the trophies of their triumph they erect the grateful Ebenezer, you may see this inscription written upon them all : " Having obtained help of God, we continue unto this day," feeling most deeply the impotency of the nature they inherit, and penetrated with the sense of the difficulties by which they are surrounded. When faith is in exercise, they point to this as a never-failing source of strength ; and in the course of their untried and unswerving pilgrimage, this is their language : " Let the wise man, if he will be so foolish, trust in his wisdom ; let the rich man glory in his wealth ; let the proud man vaunt his own dignity ; let the trifler make the world his defence; we dare not trust to such refuges of lies, we dare not build upon foundations that are palpably insecure. We feel our own nothingness ; but we feel our own might, because our sufficiency is of God.

From the commencement of the chapter out of which these words are taken, we learn that the same exclusiveness of spirit existed in the days of Paul which exists in certain quarters now, and that the same charge — that of false apostleship — was brought against him that has since been so plentifully flung at eminent ministers of Jesus Christ. It is no small consolation to find that we are thus unchurched in good company. The apostle, however, answers the accusation just as any man would do, who had no particular interest to serve in surrounding a great question with a crowd of arguments anything but luminous — he appeals to the Church amongst whom he had labored, and asks their verdict as to his success as a minister : " Do we begin again to commend ourselves, or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you ? Ye are our epistle [your changed hearts, your holy lives, your transformed affections, your heavenly deportment — ye are our epistles] written in our hearts, known and read of all men : forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink [nor anything so fading], but with the Spirit of the living God ; not in tables of stone [nor anything so hard], but in fleshy tables of the heart ; and suclj trust have we through Christ to Godward ;" then, so anxious is he even in this moment of his triumphant vindication to avoid all appearance of boasting, that he puts in a great disclaimer : " not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything of ourselves ; all that, whether in us as subjects or by us as the instruments, has been done by the sovereign power of God, who also hath made us able ministers of the "New Testament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit ; for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." The Apostle in these verses unfolds the great secret both of ministerial call and of ministerial

70 THE EELIEVEIi's SUFFICIENCY.

efficiency. It is God, not man, that makes, not finds, a"ble ministers of the ]STew Testament. The tones of his voice are heard, saying to them, " Son, go work to-day in my vineyard." And it is a remarkable fact, one which we should never forget, that this voice is never heard in a heart where there is no faith ; consequently, the prime qualification for a minister of the Christian religion is the heart that has been melted by its love, and a consciousness which has felt it in its power. Without this, all else is unavailing ; the attainment of the most profound and extensive knowledge, the grasp of the loftiest and most scholarly intellect, the possession of the most commanding eloquence, the treasures of the most imperial fancy, the research of the most accomplished scholar, all these are useless, worse than useless, if they be not consecrated by the Spirit of the Holy One ; only the trappings that decorate the traitor, and make his treason yet the fouler ; only the weapons of more imminent danger, and the portents of more terrific and appalling ruin. The most distinguished minister within the compass of the Catholic Church, however eminent he may be, however signally his labors have been blessed, has reason to remember, every moment of his ministerial career, "I am nothing, less than nothing; but my sufficiency is of God." The comfortable and scriptural doctrine contained in the text is not more true of ministers, of whom it was immediately spoken, than of Christians in general, to whom it may be properly applied. The station is different, the strength is the same. Your sufficiency, as well as ours, is of God. To take the words in this extended sense, we may find in them matter of profitable meditation, by considering first the nature of this sufficiency and then the authority which believers have to expect this sufficiency for themselves.

I. First, the sufficiency of God may be considered either as proper, or communicated. By his essential, or proper sufficiency, we mean that he is self-existent, selfsufficient, independently happy ; angels and men may declare that they cannot increase his glory ; it is eternal, underived, perfect. He has said that he will never give it to another. There was no necessity in his nature impelling him to create the universe ; he could have existed alone, and he did exist alone, long before the everlasting silence was broken by a human footstep, or interrupted by a human .voice ; and that Divine solitude was the solitude of matchless happiness. The best praises, therefore, the most extensive services of his worshippers, are but reflections of the glory which dwells originally in himself. But it is of the sufficiency of God in relation to his creatures that it is our province especially to speak. And it is in this sense God is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works.

1. He is sufficient, in the first place — let us take low ground first— for the preservation of the universe which his hands have made. From the sublime account which the Scriptures give us of creation, we learn that the heavens were made by him, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth ; and as we know that nothing earthly has within it the power to sustain itself, we are further assured that he upholdeth all things by the same word of his power. It is by this ever-breathing word, constantly in exercise, that the sun shines, that the moon walks in brightness, that the stars pursue their courses in the sky ; the clouds are marshalled by his Divine decree, and when he uttereth his voice there is a multitude of waters in the heavens. Reason looks at this systematic and continuous regularity, and admires it, and refers it to the operation of second causes, and argues very philosophically about the nature and fitness of things ; but piety looks through the complications of the mechanism to the hand that formed it. The universe is to her but one vast transparency, through which she can gaze on God ; her pathway and her communion are on the high places of creation, and there, far above all secondary and subordinate agencies, she discovers the hiding of his power. The symmetry of nature is to her more beautiful, because God has produced it. The deep harmonies of the systems come more tunefully upon her ear because the hand of the Lord has awakened them.

"What though no real voice nor sound Amid the radiant orbs be found?

In faith's quick ear they all rejoice, And utter forth a noble voice,

For ever singing as they shine,

' The hand that made us is Divine.' "

And what a contemplation does this open to us of the majesty and power of God! Who can understand it? The planets are kept in their orbits, and the seasons continually alternate. Old Ocean dashes himself upon the shore, and every day finds " hitherto " written upon the sand, and the mad surge respects it. The earth yields her increase ; vegetable life is evolved ; circulation takes place throughout the animal system ; man walks and lives, and all these diversified operations are produced at one and the same moment, perpetuated from one moment to another by the simple word of God. Extend your conceptions still further ; take hold of the far-reaching discoveries of astronomy. Glance at the numberless suns and systems that are scattered in the broad field of immensity, and remember (for there is no Scripture against it, and probabilities are strongly in favor of the opinion), that they are all inhabited by dependent creatures somewhat like ourselves. Glance at the almost infinite variety of existences with which we are acquainted — whether we walk the earth, or cleave the air, or swim the sea — connect with all these the Scriptural announcement that these are but parts of his ways, and how little a portion is known of them ; and then how thought shrinks from the aggregate ! how the brain recoils from the contemplation of the sum ! and we may well finish the quotation, and say, "The thunder of his power, who can understand?" All our reasonings npon the subject only serve to demonstrate that man by searching cannot find out God. Could you, with the swiftness of a sunbeam, dart yourselves beyond the limits of the known creation, and for ages upon ages continue your pilgrimage in infinite space, you would never — who can grasp that thought ? it is too large for us — never be able to reach a place where God is not, never light upon a spot where this glorious Being is not essentially and influentially present. The whole universe is one vast laboratory of benevolent art, over every department of which the Deity presides — a sanctuary, every part of which the Divinity inhabits — a circle, whose circumference is unfathomed, and whose every section is filled with God. But I stop here just for a moment, to remind you of the thrill that comes through the heart of the believer, when, after this exhibition of boundless and colossal power, he can go home, singing—

" This all-sufficient God is ours, Our Father, and our love/'

Our sufficiency is of God.

2. Then, secondly, and chiefly, he is sufficient /br the preservation and for the perpetuity of the Gospel plan, in the salvation and idtimate happiness of every individual believer. Christianity is not to be viewed by us merely as a moral system - ; that were to place it on a level with the speculations of Confucius, and Socrates, and others. It is something more, it is a course of

Divine operations. We are not to regard it as a mere ethical statement of- doctrine made known to us by a bundle of books ; we must remember the Divine agency always, by which it is conducted and inspired. We observed before, that no mere man has the power to produce an abiding change upon the hearts of his hearers. Human eloquence is a mighty thing, I know ; human reason is a persuasive and powerful thing, I know ; under certain favorable conjunctures of circumstances, they have sometimes achieved mighty results. They can shame a Herod, they can make a Felix tremble, they can almost persuade an Agrippa to become a Christian, but they can do no more. I know that immense multitudes have been swayed by the power of a single tongue. The passions have become excited, either to madness or to sympathy, either to deeds of lawless aggression, or to deeds of high emprise; but then there is only a transient mastery obtained. We read of a harp in the classical fables of old, which, when the winds swept it, was said to discourse sweet strains ; but then, unhappily, the breeze and the music died away together. So it is with, the triumph of the orator : the moment the voice of the speaker ceases the spell is broken, the charm is dissipated; reflection begins to remonstrate against excitement, and the whole affair is forgotten, or comes upon the soul- only as the memory of some pleasant song. Nay, truth, celestial truth, can produce no abiding change. Pardon and sanctification are not the necessary consequences of statements of doctrine.

Scripture cannot produce them ; the truth may appear in all its cogency and in all its power before the mind — it may appear so clear as to extort an acquiescence in what it propounds ; bnt it is uninfluential ; it lacks energy, and it lacks a selfappliant power. It may enlighten — that is its province — it can never save. "Without the Spirit it is useless ; let the Spirit animate it, and it is the power of God. Hearers who sit under the ministrations of the truth without the Spirit may be likened to a man standing upon the brow of a hill which commands the prospect of an extensive landscape. The varied beauties of flood and of field are before him ; nature is clad in her richest livery, there is every variety calculated to interest and to inspire ; rugged rocks frown as if they would keep sentinel over the sleeping valley ; the earth yields her increase, the crystal streamlet leaps merrily along, impressions of the beautiful are everywhere visible, there is just one drawback to the picture, and that one drawback is, that the man who stands upon the summit of the hill is blind. That is precisely the state of the case in reference to truth in the Bible. It is there in all its grandeur, but the man has no eyes to see it. Let the Spirit come and take the scales away and shred off the spiritual ophthalmia, and he sees the landscape stretching before him in all its hues of beauty, and his soul is elevated and he feels the full rapture of the scene. Prevailing truth, therefore, is not of the letter but of the Spirit, for " the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." This Spirit it is that is promised for the carrying out of the Gospel, and it therefore must be successful. I know there is a good deal of difficulty about his mode of procedure : God's word must be fulfilled, that is one thing ; man's freedom must be maintained, that is another thing. Man is a moral agent; God has endued him with talents and invested him with an immense delegation of power, and in the distribution of these talents -and in the exercise of that power, he has said, in effect, Let him alone ; he may do as he lists — just as he lists. He is allowed, for the present, to act as if he had no superior, but for all he is holden finally most strictly responsible. But no coercion is applied, no force is ever in any conceivable instance made use of. One of our most eloquent senators once said, that an Englishman's cottage was his castle. The winds may whistle through every crevice, and the rains penetrate through every cranny, but into that cottage the monarch of England dare not enter against the cotter's will. That is just the state of the case between Christ and the human soul. He has such a respect for the will of that immortal tenant that he has placed within us, that he will never force an entrance. He will do everything else ; he will knock at the door —

" He now stands knocking at the door Of every sinner's heart ; The worst need keep him out no more, Nor force him to depart."

But he will not force an entrance. Often, disappointed and grieved, he turns away from those whom he would fain have enriched and saved, saying, "Ye will not come unto me, that ye may have life." But notwithstanding all this formidable opposition, the Gospel, as the administration of God's truth, backed by the energy of the Holy Spirit, shall finally triumph. TV x e can conceive of no enemies more subtle, more malignant, more powerful than those which it has already encountered and vanquished. Memory cheers us onward and bids hope to smile. God is with the Gospel ; that is the great secret. She does not trust in her inherent energy ; she does not trust in her exquisite adaptation to man's every necessity and peril ; she does not trust in the indefatigable and self-denying labors of her ministers ; God is with the Gospel, and under his guidance she shall march triumphantly forward, subjugating every enemy, acquiring a lodgment in every heart, reclaiming the world unto herself, until she has consummated her victory in the ecstasies of a renovated universe, and in that deep and solemn moment when the Son, who gave his life a ransom for al], shall see of the travail of his soul and be abundantly satisfied. O brethren ! what a comfortable doctrine is this ! If this Gospel is to be conducted from step to step in its progressive march to conquest, do you not see how it guarantees individual salvation and individual defence by the way?

Where art thou in the chapel to-night (would that 1 could discover thee !) timid and discouraged believer who art afraid of the fatigues of climbing the Hill

Difficulty, and croucliest back abashed and cowering at sight of the lions in front of the Palace Beautiful ? Lift up thy head, be not discouraged ; thy sufficiency is of God. What frightens thee ? Affliction ? God is thy help. Persecution ? God is thy crown. Perplexity ? God is thy counsel. Death ? God is thy everlasting life. Only trust in God, and all shall be well. Life shall glide thee into death, and death shall glide thee into heaven. " Who (asks the exulting Apostle, in the 8th of Komans), who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" That is rather a dark catalogue ; but mark how the Apostle answers it : " Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors." It is not a drawn battle ; night does not come on to separate the combatants ; we have not to send a herald, as they used to do in ancient warfare, to ask permission to bury our dead ; we do not come from the field with the dishonored banner trailing in the dust, and the armor hacked, scarred with the wounds we have gotten in the fight. " We are more than conquerors." Oh, the royalty of that language! — "more than conquerors, through him that hath loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death" — he puts that first, because it generally threatens believers most — " neither life," which is really a more solemn and a more perilous thing than death, rightly considered — "neither death, nor life, nor angels" — if any of them should forget themselves so far as to come and preach another

Gospel and try to deceive the very ele6t — "neither principalities nor powers " — for although the captain of the hosts of darkness may plant all his most formidable battery against us, he cannot shake the palisades of strong salvation, nor snatch away a solitary sheep from the fold of the great Shepherd. " No, nor things present" — though those things present may include famine, nakedness, peril, and sword — "no, nor things to come" — though, in those things to come, there may be an originality of diabolism never dreamed of yet — " and no creature" — nothing but sin, and that is not a creature, that is a foul excrescence, a vile abortion upon the universe of God — keep clear of that — and "no creature shall be able to separate you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Oh, the blessedness, the ineffable blessedness of being in the love of God ! The blessedness of an approving conscience, the blessedness of increasing knowledge, the blessedness of complete victory, the blessedness of Gospel peace, the blessedness of perfect love ! I do not know what that sea of glass means about which we read in the Revelation ; I do not pretend to an intimate acquaintance with Apocalyptic disclosures ; but I know nothing that can better image the deep, serene, reposing, kingly rapture of the spirit that has finished its course with joy. It is a sea of glass ; it hath no billows; not a breath ever, by any possibility, ruffles it. And on this sea of glass, as on a wide and waveless ocean, the believer stands forever, chanting eternally the song of Moses and the Lamb. Oh, lift up your heads and come back to Zion with singing, and let this be the burden of your song :

11 Let doubt, then, and danger my progress oppose, They only make heaven more sweet at the close ; Afflictions may damp me, they cannot destroy, For one glimpse of His love turns them all into joy. And come joy, or come sorrow, whate'er may befall, One hour with my God will make up for it all."

It were very little use our talking in this strain to you, if you were to find out, after all, that it was some aristocratical blessing, some privilege reserved only for the peerage of the faithful, for the favored ones in the family of the King of kings.

II. I come, secondly, to notice the authority which

BELIEVERS HAVE TO EXPECT THIS SUFFICIENCY FOR THEM- SELVES. And, very briefly, we have a right to expect it, because it is found and promised in the Bible. Every believer, the moment he becomes a believer, becomes an inheritor of the promises. The Bible is not my Bible, nor your Bible — it is our Bible. It is common property ; it belongs to the universal Church. We have no sympathy, of course, with those who would monopolize this sacred treasure, and keep this light of the Gospel burning, and that, with a precious dimness, only in the study of the priest, or fettered, as it used to be, like a curiosity, to the altars of the Church. Thank God, these days of darkness are forever gone by. And yet there is a Church, somewhere, professedly Christian, which denies to its members the light and comfort of the Bible, in direct opposition to the command of Him who has said to every one, " Search the Scriptures," thus most absolutely exalting itself against all that is called God. Oh, most foul corruption ! Deprive us of the Bible ! As well forbid us to gaze on the jewelled sky, or to be fanned by the winged and searching air. Deprive us of the Bible ! Call it sin for us to look at the sun, and to bask in the blaze of his enlivening beams. The very same hand which launched yon orb upon his ocean of light, and bade him shine upon the evil and upon the good, has sent this orb into the world, and has sent it on purpose that it may be a lamp to all our feet and a lantern to all our paths. We devoutly thank the good Spirit of the Lord, that he put into the minds of our forefathers to protest against so flagrant and monstrous an impiety ; and, thank God, we are Protest-ants still.

We cannot afford to be thus robbed of our birthright, to be thus cheated out of our inheritance, to be thus basely swindled out of the possession of the Book of God. It is the legacy of the Apostles' labor ; the bulwark of the confessors' faith ; the purchase of the martyrs' blood. Thank God for the Bible. Let us prove that we love it, by drawing from it all the comfort and blessing, and guidance, and warning, which its heaven-inspired pages are calculated to afford. "Well, we have a right, each of us — if we are in Christ — we have a right to expect this sufficiency, because it is promised in the Bible. We gather it from the declarations of Scripture. Listen to them, they are yours : " Thus saith the Lord who created thee, O Jacob, who formed thee, O Israel, Fear not, I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name" "What a beautiful thought that is ! Just get the meaning and beauty out of it. How many thousands of believers, thousands upon thousands of believers, have there been in the world from the beginning of its history until now — thousands in the patriarchal ages who looked through the glass, and who saw, dimly, the streak of the morning in the distance, and, even with that streak of light, were glad — thousands, in the prophetical times, who discerned it in the brightness of a nearer vision — thousands who basked in its full-orbed lustre, when Christ came into the world — thousands upon thousands, since that time, who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb — thousands, who are now upon the earth, working out their salvation with fear and trembling — thousands upon thousands that shall come into the Church in the time of its millennial glory, when the gates of it shall not be shut day nor night, because the porter shall have no chance of shutting them, the people crowd in so fast.

Now, get all that mass of believers, past, present, and future, a company that no man can number ; and to each of them God comes in this promise, and says, "I have called thee by thy name, I know all about thee' — that is, I have not a merely vague, indefinite knowledge of thee ; as an individual believer I know thy name, I could single thee out of millions, I could tell the world all thy solicitudes, and all thy apprehensions, and all thy hopes, and all thy sorrows — "I have called thee by thy name." Oh, precious promise ! Take it to your hearts. " I have called thee by thy name ; thou art mine ; when thou passest through the waters I will be with thee ; and through the rivers" — deeper than the waters — " they shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flames kindle upon thee." Listen again : " The Lord God is a sun and a shield" — light and protection ; that nearly embraces all our wants — "he will give grace and glory." Is there anything left out? And if there are any of you so perversely clever and so mischievously ingenious in multiplying arguments in favor of your own despair, that you can conceive of some rare and precious blessing that is not wrapped up either in grace or glory — " ISTo good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." "Fear not, for I am with thee ; be not dismayed, for I am thy God." "Cast all thy care"— " Nay," the rebel heart says, "there is some little of it I must bear myself; something that has reference to the heart's bitterness, that it alone knoweth ; or to the heart's deep, dark sorrow, with which no stranger intermeddles — that I must bear myself." " Cast all thy care upon me, for I care for thee." What ! distrustful still ?

Can you not take God at his word ? Hark ! lie condescends to expostulate with you upon your unbelief : "Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, my way is hid from the Lord" — how often have you said that in the time of your sorrow ! you know you have — " my way is hid from the Lord, my judgment is passed over from my God. Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faint eth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint." He does not merely take his swoon away and leave him weakly, he makes him strong. " He giveth power to the faint ; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength." Are you still dissatisfied ?