Sermon 182. Particular Redemption

(No. 182)

Delivered on Sabbath Morning, March 7, 1858 by the

REV. C.H. SPURGEON

at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

"No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him."-John 6:44.

COMING to Christ" is a very common phrase in Holy Scripture. It is used to express those acts of the soul wherein, leavingat once our self-righteousness, and our sins, we fly unto the Lord Jesus Christ, and receive his righteousness to be our covering,and his blood to be our atonement. Coming to Christ, then, embraces in it repentance, self-negation, and faith in the LordJesus Christ, and it sums within itself all those things which are the necessary attendants of thesegreat states of heart, such as the belief of the truth, earnestness of prayer to God, the submission of the soul to theprecepts of God's gospel, and all those things which accompany the dawn of salvation in the soul. Coming to Christ is justthe one essential thing for a sinner's salvation. He that cometh not to Christ, do what he may, or think what he may, is yetin "the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity." Coming to Christ is the very first effect of regeneration. No sooneristhe soul quickened than it at once discovers its lost estate, is horrified thereat, looks out for a refuge, and believingChrist to be a suitable one, flies to him and reposes in him. Where there is not this coming to Christ, it is certain thatthere is as yet no quickening; where there is no quickening, the soul is dead in trespasses and sins, and being dead it cannotenter into the kingdom of heaven. We have before us now an announcement very startling, some say very obnoxious. Coming toChrist, though described by some people as being the very easiest thing in all the world, is in our text declared to bea thing utterly and entirely impossible to any man, unless the Father shall draw him to Christ. It shall be our business,then, to enlarge upon this declaration. We doubt not that it will always be offensive to carnal nature, but, nevertheless,the offending of human nature is sometimes the first step towards bringing it to bow itself before God. And if this be theeffect of apainful process, we can forget the pain and rejoice in the glorious consequences.

I shall endeavour this morning, first of all, to notice man's inability, wherein it consists. Secondly, the Father's drawings-what these are, and how they are exerted upon the soul. And then I shall conclude by noticing a sweet consolation which may be derived from this seemingly barren and terrible text.

I. First, then, MAN'S INABILITY. The text says, "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him." Whereindoes this inability lie?

First, it does not lie in any physical defect. If in coming to Christ, moving the body or walking with the feet should be of any assistance, certainly man has allphysical power to come to Christ in that sense. I remember to have heard a very foolish Antinomian declare, that he did notbelieve any man had the power to walk to the house of God unless the Father drew him. Now the man was plainly foolish, becausehe must have seen that as long as a man was alive andhad legs, it was as easy for him to walk to the house of God as to the house of Satan. If coming to Christ includes theutterance of a prayer, man has no physical defect in that respect, if he be not dumb, he can say a prayer as easily as hecan utter blasphemy. It is as easy for a man to sing one of the songs of Zion as to sing a profane and libidinous song. Thereis no lack of physical power in coming to Christ. All that can be wanted with regard to the bodily strength man most assuredlyhas,and any part of salvation which consists in that is totally and entirely in the power of man without any assistance fromthe Spirit of God. Nor, again, does this inability lie in any mental lack. I can believe this Bible to be true just as easily as I can believe any other book to be true. So far as believingon Christ is an act of the mind, I am just as able to believe on Christ as I am able to believe on anybody else. Let his statementbe but true, it is idle to tell me I cannotbelieve it. I can believe the statement that Christ makes as well as I can believe the statement of any other person.There is no deficiency of faculty in the mind: it is as capable of appreciating as a mere mental act the guilt of sin, asit is of appreciating the guilt of assassination. It is just as possible for me to exercise the mental idea of seeking God,as it is to exercise the thought of ambition. I have all the mental strength and power that can possibly be needed, so faras mentalpower is needed in salvation at all. Nay, there is not any man so ignorant that he can plead a lack of intellect as anexcuse for rejecting the gospel. The defect, then, does not lie either in the body, or, what we are bound to call, speakingtheologically, the mind. It is not any lack or deficiency there, although it is the vitiation of the mind, the corruptionor the ruin of it, which, after all, is the very essence of man's inability.

Permit me to show you wherein this inability of man really does lie. It lies deep in his nature. Through the fall, and through our own sin, the nature of man has become so debased, and depraved, and corrupt, that it isimpossible for him to come to Christ without the assistance of God the Holy Spirit. Now, in trying to exhibit how the natureof man thus renders him unable to come to Christ, you must allow me just to take this figure. You see a sheep; how willinglyit feeds upon the herbage! You never knew a sheep sigh after carrion; it could not live on lion's food. Now bring me awolf; and you ask me whether a wolf cannot eat grass, whether it cannot be just as docile and as domesticated as the sheep.I answer, no; because its nature is contrary thereunto. You say, "Well, it has ears and legs; can it not hear the shepherd'svoice, and follow him whithersoever he leadeth it ?" I answer, certainly; there is no physical cause why it cannot do so,but itsnature forbids, and therefore I say it cannot do so. Can it not be tamed? cannot its ferocity be removed? Probably it may so far be subdued that it may become apparently tame;but there will always be a marked distinction between it and the sheep, because there is a distinction in nature. Now, thereason why man cannot come to Christ, is not because he cannot come, so far as his body or his mere power of mind is concerned,but because his nature is so corrupt that he has neither the willnor the power to come to Christ unless drawn by the Spirit. But let me give you a better illustration. You see a motherwith her babe in her arms. You put a knife into her hand, and tell her to stab that babe to the heart. She replies, and verytruthfully, "I cannot." Now, so far as her bodily power is concerned, she can, if she pleases; there is the knife, and thereis the child. The child cannot resist, and she has quite sufficient strength in her hand immediately to stab it to its heart.Butshe is quite correct when she says she cannot do it. As a mere act of the mind, it is quite possible she might think ofsuch a thing as killing the child, and yet she says she cannot think of such a thing; and she does not say falsely, for hernature as a mother forbids her doing a thing from which her soul revolts. Simply because she is that child's parent she feelsshe cannot kill it. It is even so with a sinner. Coming to Christ is so obnoxious to human nature that, although, so far asphysical and mental forces are concerned, (and these have but a very narrow sphere in salvation) men could come if theywould: it is strictly correct to say that they cannot and will not unless the Father who hath sent Christ doth draw them.Let us enter a little more deeply into the subject, and try to show you wherein this inability of man consists, in its moreminute particulars.

I. First, it lies in the obstinacy of the human will. "Oh!" saith the Arminian, "men may be saved if they will." We reply, "My dear sir, we all believe that; but it is just theif they will that is the difficulty. We assert that no man will come to Christ unless he be drawn; nay, we do not assert it, but Christ himself declares it-"Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life;' and as long as that "ye will not come'stands on record in Holy Scripture, we shall not be brought to believe in any doctrine of the freedom of the human will."It is strange how people, when talking about free-will, talk of things which they do not at all understand. "Now," says one,"I believe men can be saved if they will." My dear sir, that is not the question at all. The question is, are men ever foundnaturally willing to submit to the humbling terms of the gospel of Christ? We declare, upon Scriptural authority, that thehuman will is so desperately set on mischief, so depraved, and so inclined to everything that is evil, and so disinclinedto everything that is good, that without the powerful. supernatural, irresistible influence of the Holy Spirit, no human willever be constrained towards Christ. You reply, that men sometimes are willing, without the help of the Holy Spirit. I answer-Didyou ever meet with any person who was? Scores and hundreds, nay, thousands of Christians have I conversed with, ofdifferent opinions, young and old, but it has never been my lot to meet with one who could affirm that he came to Christof himself, without being drawn. The universal confession of all true believers is this-"I know that unless Jesus Christ hadsought me when a stranger wandering from the fold of God, I would to this very hour have been wandering far from him, at adistance from him, and loving that distance well." With common consent, all believers affirm the truth, that men will notcometo Christ till the Father who hath sent Christ doth draw them.

2. Again, not only is the will obstinate, but the understanding is darkened. Of that we have abundant Scriptural proof. I am not now making mere assertions, but stating doctrines authoritatively taughtin the Holy Scriptures, and known in the conscience of every Christian man-that the understanding of man is so dark, thathecannot by any means understand the things of God until his understanding has been opened. Man is by nature blind within.The cross of Christ,so laden with glories, and glittering with attractions, never attracts him, because he is blind and cannot see its beauties.Talk to him of the wonders of the creation, show to him the many-coloured arch that spans the sky, let him behold the gloriesof a landscape, he is well able to see all these things; but talk to him of the wonders of the covenant of grace, speak tohim of the security of the believer in Christ, tell him of the beauties of the person of the Redeemer, he is quite deaf toall your description; you are as one that playeth a goodly tune, it is true; but he regards not, he is deaf, he has nocomprehension. Or, to return to the verse which we so specially marked in our reading, "The natural man receiveth not thethings of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned;"and inasmuch as he is a natural man, it is not in his power to discern the things of God. "Well," says one, "I think I havearrived at a very tolerable judgment in matters of theology; I think I understand almost every point." True, that youmay do in the letter of it; but in the spirit of it, in the true reception thereof into the soul, and in the actual understandingof it, it is impossible for you to have attained, unless you have been drawn by the Spirit. For as long as that Scripturestands true, that carnal men cannot receive spiritual things, it must be true that you have not received them, unless youhavebeen renewed and made a spiritual man in Christ Jesus. The will, then, and the understanding, are two great doors, bothblocked up against our coming to Christ, and until these are opened by the sweet influences of the Divine Spirit, they mustbe for ever closed to anything like coming to Christ.

3. Again, the affections, which constitute a very great part of man, are depraved. Man, as he is, before he receives the grace of God, loves anythingand everything above spiritual things. If ye want proof of this, look around you. There needs no monument to the depravityof the human affections. Cast your eyes everywhere-there is not a street, nor a house, nay, nor a heart, which doth not bearupon it sad evidence of this dreadful truth. Why is it that men arenot found on the Sabbath Day universally flocking to the house of God? Why are we not more constantly found reading ourBibles? How is it that prayer is a duty almost universally neglected? Why is it that Christ Jesus is so little beloved? Whyare even his professed followers so cold in their affections to him? Whence arise these things? Assuredly, dear brethren,we can trace them to no other source than this, the corruption and vitiation of the affections. We love that which we oughtto hate,and we hate that which we ought to love. It is but human nature, fallen human nature, that man should love this presentlife better than the life to come. It is but the effect of the fall, that man should love sin better than righteousness, andthe ways of this world better than the ways of God. And again, we repeat it, until these affections be renewed, and turnedinto a fresh channel by the gracious drawings of the Father, it is not possible for any man to love the Lord Jesus Christ.

4. Yet once more-conscience, too, has been overpowered by the fall. I believe there is no more egregious mistake made by divines, than when they tellpeople that conscience is the vicegerent of God within the soul, and that it is one of those powers which retains its ancientdignity, and stands erect amidst the fall of its compeers. My brethren, when man fell in the garden, manhood fell entirely;there was not one single pillar in the temple of manhood that stooderect. It is true, conscience was not destroyed. The pillar was not shattered; it fell, and it fell in one piece, andthere it lies along, the mightiest remnant of God's once perfect work in man. But that conscience is fallen, I am sure. Lookat men. Who among them is the possessor of a "good conscience toward God," but the regenerated man? Do you imagine that ifmen's consciences always spoke loudly and clearly to them, they would live in the daily commission of acts, which are as opposedtothe right as darkness to light? No, beloved; conscience can tell me that I am a sinner, but conscience cannot make mefeel that I am one. Conscience may tell me that such-and-such a thing is wrong, but how wrong it is conscience itself doesnot know. Did any man s conscience, unenlightened by the Spirit, ever tell him that his sins deserved damnation? Or if consciencedid do that, did it ever lead any man to feel an abhorrence of sin as sin? In fact, did conscience ever bring a man to suchaself-renunciation, that he did totally abhor himself and all his works and come to Christ? No, conscience, although itis not dead, is ruined, its power is impaired, it hath not that clearness of eye and that strength of hand, and that thunderof voice, which it had before the fall; but hath ceased to a great degree, to exert its supremacy in the town of Mansoul.Then, beloved, it becomes necessary for this very reason, because conscience is depraved, that the Holy Spirit should stepin, toshow us our need of a Saviour, and draw us to the Lord Jesus Christ.

"Still," says one, "as far as you have hitherto gone, it appears to me that you consider that the reason why men do not cometo Christ is that they will not, rather than they cannot." True, most true. I believe the greatest reason of man's inabilityis the obstinacy of his will. That once overcome, I think the great stone is rolled away from the sepulchre, and the hardestpart of the battle is already won. But allow me to go a little further. My text does not say,"No manwill come," but it says, "No man can come." Now, many interpreters believe that the can here, is but a strong expression conveying no more meaning than the word will. I feel assured that this is not correct. There is in man, not only unwillingness to be saved, but there is a spiritual powerlessnessto come to Christ; and this I will prove to every Christian at any rate. Beloved, I speak to you who have already been quickenedby the divine grace, does not your experience teach youthat there are times when you have a will to serve God, and yet have not the power? Have you not sometimes been obligedto say that you have wished to believe. but you have had to pray, Lord, help mine unbelief?" Because, although willing enoughto receive God's testimony, your own carnal nature was too strong for you, and you felt you needed supernatural help. Areyou able to go into your room at any hour you choose, and to fall upon your knees and say,"Now, it is my will that I shouldbe veryearnest in prayer, and that I should draw near unto God ?" I ask, do you find your power equal to your will? You couldsay, even at the bar of God himself, that you are sure you are not mistaken in your willingness; you are willing to be wraptup in devotion, it is your will that your soul should not wander from a pure contemplation of the Lord Jesus Christ, but youfind that you cannot do that, even when you are willing, without the help of the Spirit. Now, if the quickened child of Godfindsa spiritual inability, how much more the sinner who is dead in trespasses and sin? If even the advanced Christian, afterthirty or forty years, finds himself sometimes willing and yet powerless-if such be his experience,-does it not seem morethan likely that the poor sinner who has not yet believed, should find a need of strength as well as a want of will?

But, again, there is another argument. If the sinner has strength to come to Christ, I should like to know how we are to understandthose continual descriptions of the sinner's state which we meet with in God's holy Word? Now, a sinner is said to be deadin trespasses and sins. Will you affirm that death implies nothing more than the absence of a will? Surely a corpse is quiteas unable as unwilling. Or again, do not all men see that there is a distinction betweenwill and power: might not that corpse be sufficiently quickened to get a will, and yet be so powerless that it could not lift as much asits hand or foot? Have we never seen cases in which persons have been just sufficiently re-animated to give evidence of life,and have yet been so near death that they could not have performed the slightest action? Is there not a clear difference betweenthe giving or the will and the giving of power? It is quite certain, however, that where thewill is given, the power will follow. Make a man willing, and he shall be made powerful; for when God gives the will,he does not tantalize man by giving him to wish for that which he is unable to do; nevertheless he makes such a division betweenthe will and the power, that it shall be seen that both things are quite distinct gifts of the Lord God.

Then I must ask one more question: if all that were needed to make a man willing, do you not at once degrade the Holy Spirit?Are we not in the habit of giving all the glory of salvation wrought in us to God the Spirit? But now, if all that God theSpirit does for me is to make me willing to do these things for myself, am I not in a great measure a sharer with the HolySpirit in the glory? and may I not boldly stand up and say, "It is true the Spirit gave me the will to doit, but still I did it myself, and therein will I glory; for if I did these things myself without assistance from on high,I will not cast my crown at his feet; it is my own crown, I earned it, and I will keep it." Inasmuch as the Holy Spirit isevermore in Scripture set forth as the person who worketh in us to will and to do of his own good pleasure, we hold it tobe a legitimate inference that he must do something more for us than the mere making of us willing, and that therefore theremustbe another thing besides want of will in a sinner-there must be absolute and actual want of power.

Now, before I leave this statement, let me address myself to you for a moment. I am often charged with preaching doctrinesthat may do a great deal of hurt. Well, I shall not deny the charge, for I am not careful to answer in this matter. I havemy witnesses here present to prove that the things which I have preached have done a great deal of hurt, but they have notdone hurt either to morality or to God's Church; the hurt has been on the side of Satan. There are not onesor twos but many hundreds who this morning rejoice that they have been brought near to God; from having been profane Sabbath-breakers,drunkards, or worldly persons, they have been brought to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ; and if this be any hurt mayGod of his infinite mercy send us a thousand times as much. But further, what truth is there in the world which will not hurta man who chooses to make hurt of it? You who preach general redemption, are very fond of proclaiming the greattruth of God's mercy to the last moment. But how dare you preach that? Many people make hurt of it by putting off theday of grace, and thinking that the last hour may do as well as the first. Why, if we never preached anything which man couldmisuse, and abuse, we must hold our tongues for ever. Still says one, "Well then, if I cannot save myself, and cannot cometo Christ, I must sit still and do nothing." If men do say so, on their own heads shall be their doom. We have very plainlytold youthat there are many things you can do. To be found continually in the house of God is in your power; to study the Wordof God with diligence is in your power; to renounce your outward sin, to forsake the vices in which you indulge, to make yourlife honest, sober, and righteous, is in your power. For this you need no help from the Holy Spirit; all this you can do yourself;but to come to Christ truly is not in your power, until you are renewed by the Holy Ghost. But mark you, your want of poweris no excuse, seeing that you have no desire to come, and are living in wilful rebellion against God. Your want of powerlies mainly in the obstinacy of nature. Suppose a liar says that it is not in his power to speak the truth, that he has beena liar so long, that he cannot leave it off; is that an excuse for him? Suppose a man who has long indulged in lust shouldtell you that he finds his lusts have so girt about him like a great iron net that he cannot get rid of them, would you takethatas an excuse? Truly it is none at all. If a drunkard has become so foully a drunkard, that he finds it impossible to passa public-house without stepping in, do you therefore excuse him? No, because his inability to reform, lies in his nature,which he has no desire to restrain or conquer. The thing that is done, and the thing that causes the thing that is done, beingboth from the root of sin, are two evils which cannot excuse each other, What though the Ethiopian cannot change his skin,northe leopard his spots? It is because you have learned to do evil that you cannot now learn to do well; and instead, therefore,of letting you sit down to excuse yourselves, let me put a thunderbolt beneath the seat of your sloth, that you may be startledby it and aroused. Remember, that to sit still is to be damned to all eternity. Oh! that God the Holy Spirit might make useof this truth in a very different manner! Before I have done I trust I shall be enabled to show you how it is that thistruth, which apparently condemns men and shuts them out, is, after all, the great truth, which has been blessed to theconversion of men.

II. Our second point is THE FATHER'S DRAWINGS. "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him." Howthen does the Father draw men? Arminian divines generally say that God draws men by the preaching of the gospel. Very true;the preaching of the gospel is the instrument of drawing men, but there must be some thing more than this. Let me ask to whomdid Christ address these words? Why, to the people of Capernaum, where he had often preached, where hehad uttered mournfully and plaintively the woes of the law and the invitations of the gospel. In that city he had donemany mighty works and worked many miracles. In fact, such teaching and such miraculous attestation had he given to them, thathe declared that Tyre and Sidon would have repented long ago in sack-cloth and ashes, if they had been blessed with such privileges.Now, if the preaching of Christ himself did not avail to the enabling these men to come to Christ, it cannot be possiblethat all that was intended by the drawing of the Father was simply preaching. No, brethren, you must note again, he doesnot say no man can come except the minister draw him, but except the Father draw him. Now there is such a thing as being drawn by the gospel, and drawn by the minister, without being drawn by God.Clearly, it is a divine drawing that is meant, a drawing by the Most High God-the First Person of the most glorious Trinitysending out the Third Person, the HolySpirit, to induce men to come to Christ. Another person turns round and says with a sneer, "Then do you think that Christdrags men to himself, seeing that they are unwilling!" I remember meeting once with a man who said to me, Sir, you preachthat Christ takes people by the hair of their heads and drags them to himself" I asked him whether he could refer to the dateof the sermon wherein I preached that extraordinary doctrine, for if he could, I should be very much obliged. However, hecouldnot. But said I, while Christ does not drag people to himself by the hair of their heads, I believe that, he draws themby the heart quite as powerfully as your caricature would suggest. Mark that in the Father's drawing there is no compulsionwhatever; Christ never compelled any man to come to him against his will. If a man be unwilling to be saved, Christ does notsave him against his will. How, then, does the Holy Spirit draw him? Why, by making him willing. It is true he does not use"moralsuasion;" he knows a nearer method of reaching the heart. He goes to the secret fountain of the heart, and he knows how,by some mysterious operation, to turn the will in an opposite direction, so that, as Ralph Erskine paradoxically puts it,the man is saved "with full consent against his will;" that is, against his old will he is saved. But he is saved with fullconsent, for he is made willing in the day of God's power. Do not imagine that any man will go to heaven kicking and strugglingallthe way against the hand that draws him. Do not conceive that any man will be plunged in the bath of a Saviour's bloodwhile he is striving to run away from the Saviour. Oh, no. It is quite true that first of all man is unwilling to be saved.When the Holy Spirit hath put his influence into the heart, the text is fulfilled-"draw me and I will run after thee." Wefollow on while he draws us, glad to obey the voice which once we had despised. But the gist of the matter lies in the turningofthe will. How that is done no flesh knoweth; it is one of those mysteries that is clearly perceived as a fact, but thecause of which no tongue can tell, and no heart can guess. The apparent way, however, in which the Holy Spirit operates, wecan tell you. The first thing the Holy Spirit does when he comes into a man's heart is this: he finds him with a very goodopinion of himself: and there is nothing which prevents a man coming to Christ like a good opinion of himself. Why, says man,"Idon't want to come to Christ. I have as good a righteousness as anybody can desire. I feel I can walk into heaven on myown rights." The Holy Spirit lays bare his heart, lets him see the loathsome cancer that is there eating away his life, uncoversto him all the blackness and defilement of that sink of hell, the human heart, and then the man stands aghast. "I never thoughtI was like this. Oh! those sins I thought were little, have swelled out to an immense stature. What I thought was amole-hill has grown into a mountain; it was but the hyssop on the wall before, but now it has become a cedar of Lebanon.Oh," saith the man within himself, "I will try and reform; I will do good deeds enough to wash these black deeds out." Thencomes the Holy Spirit and shows him that he cannot do this, takes away all his fancied power and strength, so that the manfalls down on his knees in agony, and cries, "Oh! once I thought I could save myself by my good works, but now I find that

"Could my tears for ever flow,

Could my zeal no respite know,

All for sin could not atone,

Thou must save and thou alone.'"

Then the heart sinks, and the man is ready to despair. And saith he, "I never can be saved. Nothing can save me." Then, comesthe Holy Spirit and shows the sinner the cross of Christ, gives him eyes anointed with heavenly eye-salve, and says, "Lookto yonder cross. that Man died to save sinners; you feel that you are a sinner; he died to save you." And he enables the heartto believe, and to come to Christ. And when it comes to Christ, by this sweet drawing of the Spirit,it finds "a peace with God which passeth all understanding, which keeps his heart and mind through Jesus Christ our Lord."Now, you will plainly perceive that all this may be done without any compulsion. Man is as much drawn willingly, as if hewere not drawn at all; and he comes to Christ with full consent, with as full a consent as if no secret influence had everbeen exercised in his heart. But that influence must be exercised, or else there never has been and there never will be, anymanwho either can or will come to the Lord Jesus Christ.

III. And, now, we gather up our ends, and conclude by trying to make a practical application of the doctrine; and we trusta comfortable one. "Well," says one, "if what this man preaches be true, what is to become of my religion? for do you knowI have been a long while trying, and I do not like to hear you say a man cannot save himself. I believe he can, and I meanto persevere; but if I am to believe what you say, I must give it all up and begin again." My dear friends,it will be a very happy thing if you do. Do not think that I shall be at all alarmed if you do so. Remember, what youare doing is building your house upon the sand, and it is but an act of charity if I can shake it a little for you. Let meassure you, in God's name, if your religion has no better foundation than your own strength, it will not stand you at thebar of God. Nothing will last to eternity, but that which came from eternity. Unless the everlasting God has done a good workin yourheart, all you may have done must be unravelled at the last day of account. It is all in vain for you to be a church-goeror chapel-goer, a good keeper of the Sabbath, an observer of your prayers: it is all in vain for you to be honest to yourneighbours and reputable in your conversation; if you hope to be saved by these things, it is all in vain for you to trustin them. Go on; be as honest as you like, keep the Sabbath perpetually, be as holy as you can. I would not dissuade you fromthesethings. God forbid; grow in them, but oh, do not trust in them, for if you rely upon these things you will find they willfail you when most you need them. And if there be anything else that you have found yourself able to do unassisted by divinegrace, the sooner you can get rid of the hope that has been engendered by it the better for you, for it is a foul delusionto rely upon anything that flesh can do. A spiritual heaven must be inhabited by spiritual men, and preparation for it mustbewrought by the Spirit of God. "Well," cries another, "I have been sitting under a ministry where I have been told thatI could, at my own option, repent and believe, and the consequence is that I have been putting it off from day to day. I thoughtI could come one day as well as another; that I had only to say, "Lord, have mercy upon me,' and believe, and then I shouldbe saved. Now you have taken all this hope away for me, sir; I feel amazement and horror taking hold upon me." Again, I say,"My dear friend, I am very glad of it. This was the effect which I hoped to produce. I pray that you may feel this a greatdeal more. When you have no hope of saving yourself, I shall have hope that God has begun to save you. As soon as you say"Oh, I cannot come to Christ. Lord, draw me, help me,' I shall rejoice over you. He who has got a will, though he has notpower, has grace begun in his heart, and God will not leave him until the work is finished." But, careless sinner, learn thatthysalvation now hangs in God's hand. Oh, remember thou art entirely in the hand of God. Thou hast sinned against him, andif he wills to damn thee, damned thou art. Thou canst not resist his will nor thwart his purpose. Thou hast deserved his wrath,and if he chooses to pour the full shower of that wrath upon thy head, thou canst do nothing to avert it. If, on the otherhand, he chooses to save thee, he is able to save thee to the very uttermost. But thou liest as much in his hand as the summer'smoth beneath thine own finger. He is the God whom thou art grieving every day. Doth it not make thee tremble to thinkthat thy eternal destiny now hangs upon the will of him whom thou hast angered and incensed? Dost not this make thy kneesknock together, and thy blood curdle? If it does so I rejoice, inasmuch as this may be the first effect of the Spirit's drawingin thy soul. Oh, tremble to think that the God whom thou hast angered, is the God upon whom thy salvation or thy condemnationentirely depends. Tremble and "kiss the Son lest he be angry and ye perish from the way while his wrath is kindled buta little,"

Now, the comfortable reflection is this:-Some of you this morning are conscious that you are coming to Christ. Have you notbegun to weep the penitential tear? Did not your closet witness your prayerful preparation for the hearing of the Word ofGod? And during the service of this morning, has not your heart said within you, "Lord, save me, or I perish, for save myselfI cannot?" And could you not now stand up in your seat, and sing,

"Oh, sovereign grace my heart subdue;

I would be led in triumph, too,

A willing captive of my Lord,

To sing the triumph of his Word"?

And have I not myself heard you say in your heart-"Jesus, Jesus, my whole trust Is in thee: I know that no righteousness ofmy own can save me, but only thou, O Christ-sink or swim, I cast myself on thee?" Oh, my brother, thou art drawn by the Father,for thou couldst not have come unless he had drawn thee. Sweet thought! And if he has drawn thee, dost thou know what is thedelightful inference? Let me repeat one text, and may that comfort thee: "The Lord hath appearedof old unto me, saying, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee."Yes, my poor weeping brother, inasmuch as thou art now coming to Christ, God has drawn thee; and inasmuch as he has drawnthee, it is a proof that he has loved thee from before the foundation of the world. Let thy heart leap within thee, thou artone of his. Thy name was written on the Saviour's hands when they were nailed to the accursed tree. Thy name glitters on thebreast-plate of the great High Priest to-day; ay, and it was there before the day-star knew its place, or planets rantheir round. Rejoice in the Lord ye that have come to Christ, and shout for joy all ye that have been drawn of the Father.For this is your proof, your solemn testimony, that you from among men have been chosen in eternal election, and that youshall be kept by the power of God, through faith, unto the salvation which is ready to be revealed.