Sermon 164. The Loved Ones Chastened

(No. 164)

Delivered on Sabbath Morning, November 22, 1857, by the

REV. C.H. SPURGEON

at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

"As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent."-Revelation 3:19.

THE DEALINGS OF GOD towards the sons of men have always puzzled the wise men of the earth who have tried to understand them.Apart from the revelation of God the dealings of Jehovah towards his creatures in this world seem to be utterly inexplicable.Who can understand how it is that the wicked flourish and are in great power? The ungodly man flourishes like a green baytree; behold, he stretcheth out his roots by the river: he knoweth not the year of drought; his leafwithereth not; and his fruit doth not fall in an untimely season. Lo, these are the ungodly that flourish in the world;they are filled with riches; they heap up gold like dust; they leave the rest of their substance to their babes; they addfield to field, and acre to acre, and they become the princes of the earth. On the other hand, see how the righteous are castdown. How often is virtue dressed in the rags of poverty! How frequently is the most pious spirit made to suffer from hunger,andthirst, and nakedness! We have sometimes heard the Christian say, when he has contemplated these things, "Surely, I haveserved God in vain; it is for nothing that I have chastened myself every morning and vexed my soul with fasting; for lo, Godhath cast me down, and he lifteth up the sinner. How can this be?" The sages of the heathen could not answer this question,and they therefore adopted the expedient of cutting the gordian knot. "We can not tell how it is," they might have said;therefore they flew at the fact itself, and denied it. "The man that prospers is favored of the gods; the man who is unsuccessfulis obnoxious to the Most High." So said the heathen, and they knew no better. Those more enlightened easterns, who talkedwith Job in the days of his affliction, got but little further; for they believed that all who served God would have a hedgeabout them; God would multiply their wealth and increase their happiness; while they saw in Job's affliction, as theyconceived, a certain sign that he was a hypocrite, and therefore God had quenched his candle and put out his light indarkness. And alas! even Christians have fallen into the same error. They have been apt to think, that if God lifts a manup there must be some excellence in him; and if he chastens and afflicts, they are generally led to think that it must bean exhibition of wrath. Now hear ye the text, and the riddle is all unriddled; listen ye to the words of Jesus, speaking tohis servantJohn, and the mystery is all unmysteried. "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent."

The fact is, that this world is not the place of punishment. There may now and then be eminent judgments; but as a rule Goddoes not in the present state fully punish any man for sin. He allows the wicked to go on in their wickedness; he throws thereins upon their necks; he lets them go on unbridled in their lusts; some checks of conscience there may be; but these arerather, as monitions than as punishments. And, on the other hand, he casts the Christian down; he givesthe most afflictions to the most pious; perhaps he makes more waves of trouble roll over the breast of the most sanctifiedChristian than over the heart of any other man living. So, then, we must remember that as this world is not the place of punishment,we are to expect punishment and reward in the world to come; and we must believe that the only reason, then, why God afflictshis people must be this:-

"In love I correct thee, thy gold to refine,

To make thee at length in my likeness to shine."

I shall try this morning to notice, first, what it is in his children that God corrects; secondly, why God corrects them; and thirdly, what is our comfort, when we are laboring under the rebukes and correctings of our God. Our comfort must be the fact that he loves us even then. "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten."

I. First, then, beloved, WHAT IS IT IN THE CHRISTIAN THAT GOD REBUKES? One of the Articles of the Church of England saithright truly, that, naturally, "man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil,so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deservethGod's wrath and damnation. And this infection of nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerated;whereby the lust of the flesh, called in the Greek, phronema sarkos, which some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the affection, some the desire, of the flesh, is not subject to theLaw of God. And although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized, yet the Apostle doth confess, thatconcupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin," and because evil remains in the regenerate there is therefore anecessity that that evil should be upbraided. Ay,and a necessity that when that upbraiding is not sufficient, God should go to severer measures, and after having failedin his rebukes, adopt the expedient of chastening. "I rebuke and chasten." Hence God has provided means for the chastisementand the rebuking of his people. Sometimes God rebukes his children under the ministry. The minister of the gospel is not alwaysto be a minister of consolation. The same Spirit that is the Comforter is he who convinces the world of sin, of righteousness,and of judgment; and the same minister who is to be as the angel of God unto our souls, uttering sweet words that arefull of honey, is to be at times the rod of God, the staff in the hand of the Almighty, with which to smite us on accountof our transgressions. And ah! beloved, how often under the ministry ought we to have been checked when we were not? Perhapsthe minister's words were very forcible, and they were uttered with true earnestness, and they applied to our case; but alas!we shutour ear to them, and applied them to our brother instead of to ourselves. I have often marveled when I have been preaching.I have thought that I have described the cases of some of my most prominent members. I have marked in them diverse sins, andas Christ's faithful pastor, I have not shunned to picture their case in the pulpit, that they might receive a well-deservedrebuke; but I have marveled when I have spoken to them afterward, that they have thanked me for what I have said, becausethey thought it so applicable to such another brother in the church, whilst I had intended it wholly for them, and had,as I thought, so made the description accurate, and so brought it out in all its little points, that it must have been receivedby them. But alas! you know, my friends, that we sit under the sound of the Word, and we seldom think how much it belongsto us, especially if we hold an office in the Church. It is hard for a minister when he is hearing a brother minister preach,tothink, it may be, he has a word of rebuke to me. If exalted to the office of elder or deacon, there groweth sometimeswith that office a callousness to the Word when spoken to himself; and the man in office is apt to think of the hundreds ofinquirers unto whom that may be found applicable, and of the multitudes of the babes in grace to whom such a word comes inseason. Ay, friends, if we did but listen more to the rebukes of God in the ministry, if we hearkened more to his Word ashe speaks tous every Sabbath day, we might be spared many corrections, for we are not corrected until we have despised rebukes, andafter we have rejected those, then out comes the rod.

Sometimes, again, God rebukes his children in their consciences, without any visible means whatever. Ye that are the people of God will acknowledge that there are certain times, when, apparentlywithout any instrumentality, your sins are brought to remembrance; your soul is cast down within you, and your spirit is sorevexed. God the Holy Spirit is himself making inquisition for sin; he is searching Jerusalem with candles; he is so punishingyou because you aresettled on your lees. If you look around you there is nothing that could cause your spirits to sink. The family are notsick; your business prospers; your body is in good health; why then this sinking of spirit? You are not conscious at the time,perhaps, that you have committed any gross act of sin; still this dark depression continues, and at last you discover thatyou had been living in a sin which you did not know-some sin of ignorance, hidden and unperceived, and therefore God did withdrawfrom you the joy of his salvation, till you had searched your heart, and discovered wherein the evil lay. We have muchreason to bless God that he does adopt this way sometimes of rebuking us before he chastens.

At other seasons, the rebuke is quite indirect. How often have I met rebuke, where it never was intended to be given! But God overruled the circumstance for good. Have younever been rebuked by a child? The innocent little prattler uttered something quite unwittingly, which cut you to your heart,and manifested your sin. You walked the street, may hap, and you heard some man swear; and the thought perhaps struck yourmind, "How little am I doing for the reclaimingof those who are abandoned!" And so, the very sight of sin accused you of negligence, and the very hearing of evil wasmade use of by God to convince you of another evil. Oh! if we kept our eyes open, there is not an ox in the meadow, nor asparrow in the tree, which might not sometimes suggest a rebuke. There is not a star in midnight, there is not a ray in thenoon-day, but what might suggest to us some evil that is hidden in our hearts, and lead us to investigate our inner man, ifwe werebut awake to the soft whispers, of Jehovah's rebukes. You know, our Saviour made use of little things to rebuke his disciples.He said, "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. Behold the fowls of the air, how they are fed!" So he made liliesand ravens speak to his disciples, to upbraid their discontent. Earth is full of monitors: all that we need, are ears to hear.However, when these rebukes all fail, God proceeds from rebuke to correction. He will not always chide; but, if hisrebukes are unheeded, then he grasps the rod, and he uses it. I need not tell you how it is that God uses the rod. Mybrethren, you have all been made to tingle with it. He has sometimes smitten you in your persons, sometimes in your families,frequently in your estates, oftentimes in your prospects. He has smitten you in your nearest and dearest friend; or, worsestill, it may be he has given you "a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet you." But you all understand, if youknowanything of the life of a Christian, what the rod, and the staff, and the covenant are; and what it is to be correctedby God. Let me just particularize for a few minutes, and show what it is that God corrects in us.

Very frequently, God corrects inordinate affection. It is right of us to love our relatives-it is wrong of us to love them more than God. You, perhaps, are yourselves to-dayguilty of this sin. At any rate, beloved, we may most of us look at home when we come to dwell on this point. Have we notsome favored one-perhaps, the partner of our heart, or the offspring of our bosom, more dear to us than life itself? HaveI not heard some man whose life is bound up in thelife of the lad, his child?-some mother, whose soul is knit into the soul of her babe-some wife, some husband, to whomthe loss of the partner would be the loss of life? Oh, there are many of us who are guilty of inordinate affection towardrelations. Mark you, God will rebuke us for that. He will rebuke us in this way. Sometimes he will rebuke us by the minister;if that is not enough, he will rebuke us by sending sickness or disease to those very persons upon whom we have set our hearts;andif that rebuke us not, and if we are not zealous to repent, he will chasten us: the sickness shall yet be unto death.The disease shall break forth with more fearful violence, and the thing which we have made our idol shall be smitten, andshall become the food of worms. There never was an idol, that God either did not, or will not pull out of its place. "I amthe Lord thy God; I am a jealous God;" and if we put any, however good and excellent their characters may be, and howeverdeserving ofour affection, upon God's throne, God will cry, "Down with it," and we shall have to weep many tears; but if we had notdone so, we might have preserved the treasure, and have enjoyed it far better, without having lost it.

But other men are baser than this. One can easily overlook the fault of making too much of children, and wife, and friends,although very grievous in the sight of God; but alas! there are some that are too sordid to love flesh and blood; they lovedirt, mere dirty earth, yellow gold. It is that on which they set their hearts. Their purse, they tell us, is dross; but whenwe come to take aught from it, we find they do not think it is so. "Oh," said a man once, "if you wanta subscription from me, Sir, you must get at my heart, and then you will get at my purse." "Yes," said I, "I have no doubtI shall, for I believe that is where your purse lies, and I shall not be very far off from it." And how many there are whocall themselves Christians, who make a god out of their wealth! Their park, their mansion, their estate, their warehouses,their large ledgers, their many clerks, their expanding business, or if not these, their opportunity to retire, their moneyin theThree per Cents. All these things are their idols and their gods; and we take them into our churches, and the world findsno fault with them. They are prudent men. You know many of them; they are very respectable people, they hold many respectablepositions, and they are so prudent, only that the love of money, which is the root of all evil, is in their hearts too plainlyto be denied. Every one may see it, though, perhaps, they see it not themselves. "Covetousness, which is idolatry," reignsvery much in the church of the living God. Well, mark you, God will chasten for that. Whosoever loveth mammon among God'speople, shall first be rebuked for it, as he is rebuked by me this day, and if that rebuke be not taken, there shall be achastisement given. It may be, that the gold shall melt like the snow-flake before the sun; or if it be preserved, it shallbe said, "Your gold and silver are cankered; the moth shall eat up your garments, and destroy your glory." Or else, the Lordwillbring leanness into their souls, and cause them to go down to their graves with few honors on their heads, and with littlecomfort in their hearts; because they loved their gold more than their God, and valued earthly riches more than the richesthat are eternal. The Lord save us from that, or else he will surely correct us.

But this is not the only sin: we are all subject to another crime which God abhors exceedingly. It is the sin of pride. If the Lord gives us a little comfort, we grow so big that we hardly know what to do with ourselves. Like Jeshurun of old,of whom it is said, "Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked." Let us for a little time enjoy the full assurance of faith; self-conceitwhispers, "You will retain the savor of that all your days;" and there is not quite a whisper, butsomething even fainter than that-"You have no need to depend upon the influence of the Holy Spirit now. See what a greatman you have grown. You have become one of the Lord's most valued people; you are a Samson; you may pull down the very gatesof hell and fear not. You have no need to cry, 'Lord, have mercy upon me.' " Or at other times, it takes a different turn.He gives us temporal mercies, and then we presumptuously say, "My mountain standeth firm; I shall never be moved." We meetwiththe poor saints, and we begin to hector over them, as if we were something, and they were nothing. We find some in trouble;we have no sympathy with them; we are bluff and blunt with them, as we talk with them about their troubles; yea, we are evensavage and cruel with them. We meet with some who are in deep distress and faint-hearted; we begin to forget when we werefaint-hearted too, and because they cannot run as fast as we can, we run far ahead, and turn back and look at them, call themsluggards, and say they are idle and lazy. And perhaps even in the pulpit, if we are preachers, we have got hard wordsto say against those who are not quite so advanced as we are. Well, mark, there never was a saint yet, that grew proud ofhis fine feathers, but what the Lord plucked them out by-and-by. There never yet was an angel that had pride in his heart,but he lost his wings, and fell into Gehenna, as Satan and those fallen angels did; and there shall never be a saint who indulgesself-conceit, and pride, and self-confidence, but the Lord will spoil his glories, and trample his honors in the mire,and make him cry out yet again, "Lord, have mercy upon me," less than the least of all saints, and the "very chief of sinners."

Another sin that God rebukes, is sloth. Now I need not stop to picture that. How many of you are the finest specimens of sloth that can be discovered! I mean notin a business sense, for you are "not slothful in business;" but with regard to the things of God, and the cause of truth,why, nine out of ten of all the professors of religion, I do hazard the assertion, are as full of sloth as they can be. Takeour churches all around, and there is not a corporation inthe world, however corrupt, that is less attentive to its professed interest, than the church of Christ. There certainlyare many societies and establishments in the world that deserve much blame for not attending to those interests which theyought to promote; but I do think the Church of God is the hugest culprit of all. She says that she is the preacher of thegospel to the poor: does she preach it to them? Yes, here and there: now and then there is a spasmodic effort: but how manyare therethat have got tongues to speak, and ability to utter God's Word that are content to be still! She professes to be theeducator of the ignorant, and she is so in a measure: there are many of you who have no business to be here this morning-youought to have been teaching in the Sabbath-school, or instructing the young, and teaching others. Ye have no need of teachersjust now; ye have learned the truth. and should have been teaching it to other people. The church professes that she is yettocast the light of the gospel throughout the world. She does a little in missionary enterprise; but ah! how little! howlittle! how little compared with what her Master did for her and the claims of Jesus upon her! We are a lazy set. Take thechurch all round, we are as idle as we can be; and we need to have some whipping times of persecution, to whip a little moreearnestness and zeal into us. We thank God this is not so much the case now, as it was even twelve months ago. We hope thechurchmay progress in her zeal; for if not, she, as a whole, and each of us as members, will be first rebuked, and if we takenot the rebuke, we shall afterwards be chastened for this our great sin.

I have no time to enter into all the other reasons for which God will rebuke and chasten. Suffice it to say that every sinhas one twig in God's rod appropriated to itself. Suffice it to say, that in God's hand there are punishments for each particulartransgression; and it is very singular to notice how in Bible history almost every saint has been chastened for the sin hehas committed by the sin itself falling upon his own head. Transgression has been first a pleasure,and afterward it has been a scourge. "The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways," and that is the severestpunishment in all the world.

Thus I have tried to open the first head-it is that God rebukes and chastens.

II. Now, secondly, WHY DOES GOD REBUKE AND CHASTEN? "Why," says one, "God rebukes his children because they are his children;and he chastens them because they are his children." Well; I will not go the length of saying that is false, but I will gothe length of saying it is not true. If any one should say to a father, after he had chastened his child, "Why is it you havechastened the child?" he would not say, it is because I am his father. It is true in one sense; but hewould say, "I have chastened the child because he has done wrong." Because the proximate reason why he had chastened hischild would not be that he was his father, though that would have something to do with it as a primary reason; but the absoluteand primary cause would be, "I have chastened him because he has done wrong, because I wish to correct him for it, that hemight not do so again." Now, God, when he chastens his children, never does it absolutely; because he is his father; but hedoes it for a wise reason. He has some other reason besides his fatherhood. At the same time, one reason why God afflictshis children and not others, is because he is their Father. If you were to go home to-day and see a dozen boys in the streetsthrowing stones and breaking windows it is very likely you would start the whole lot of them; but if there is one boy thatwould get a sweet knock on the head it would be your own; for you would say, "What are you at, John? What business have youhere?" You might not be justified, perhaps, in meddling with the others-you would let their own fathers attend to them;but because you were his father, you would try to make him remember it. Certain special chastisements are inflicted on God'schildren, because they are his children; but it is not because they are his children that he chastens them at any one time,but because they have been doing something wrong. Now, if you are under chastisement, let this truth be certain to you. Aretheconsolations of God small with thee? Is there any secret thing with thee? Art thou chastened in thy business? Then whatsin hast thou committed? Art thou cast down in thy spirit? Then what transgression has brought this on thee? Remember, itis not fair to say, "I am chastened because I am his child;" the right way to say it is, "I am his child, and therefore whenhe chastens me he has a reason for it." Now, what is it? I will help you to judge.

Sometimes God chastens and afflicts us, to prevent sin. He sees that the embryo of lust is in our hearts; he sees that that little egg of mischief is beginning to hatch and to producesin, and he comes and crushes it at once-nips the sin in the bud. Ah! we can not tell how much guilt Christians have beensaved from by their afflictions. We are running on madly to our destruction, and then some dark apparition of trouble comes,and stretches itself across the way,and in great fright we fly back astonished. We ask, why this trouble? Oh! if we knew the danger into which we were rushingwe should only say, "Lord, I thank thee that by that direful trouble thou didst save me from a sin, that would have been farmore troublous and infinitely more dangerous."

At other times God chastens us for sins already committed. We perhaps have forgotten them; but God has not. I think that sometimesyears elapse between a sin and the chastisement for it. The sins of our youth may be punished in our gray old age; the transgressionyou did twenty years ago, those of you who have grown old, may this very day be found in your bones. God chastens his children,but he sometimes lays the rod by. The time would not be seasonable perhaps; they arenot strong enough to bear it: so he lays the rod by and he says, as surely as he is my child, though I lay the rod by,I will make him smart for it, that I may at last deliver him from his sin, and make him like unto myself. But mark, ye peopleof God, in all these chastisments for sin there is no punishment. When God chastises you he does not punish as a judge does,but he chastens as a father. When he lays the rod on, with many blows and smart ones, there is not one thought of anger inhisheart-there is not one look of displeasure in his eye; he means it all for your good; his heaviest blows are as much tokensof his affection as his sweetest caresses. He has no motive but your profit and his own glory. Be of good cheer, then, ifthese be the reasons. But take care that thou dost fulfil the command-"Be zealous, therefore, and repent."

I read in an old Puritan author the other day a very pretty figure. He says, "A full wind is not so favorable to a ship whenit is fully fair as a side wind. It is strange," says he, "that when the wind blows in an exact direction to blow a ship intoport, she will not go near so well as if she had a cross wind sideways upon her." And he explains it thus: "The mariners saythat when the wind blows exactly fair it only fills a part of the sails, and it can not reach thesails that are ahead, because the sail, bellying out with the wind, prevents the wind from reaching that which is furtherahead. But when the wind sweeps sideways, then every sail is full, and she is driven on swiftly in her course with the fullforce of the wind. Ah!" says the old Puritan, "there is nothing like a side wind to drive God's people to heaven. A fair windonly fills a part of their sails; that is, fills their joy, fills their delight; but," says he, "the side wind fills themall;it fills their caution, fills their prayerfulness, fills every part of the spiritual man, and so the ship speeds onwardtoward its haven." It is with this design that God sends affliction, to chasten us on account of our transgressions.

III. And now I am to conclude by noting WHAT IS OUR COMFORT WHEN GOD REBUKES AND CHASTENS US?

Our great comfort is, that he loves us still. Oh! what a precious thing faith is, when we are enabled to believe our God, and how easy then it is to endure andto surmount all trouble. Hear the old man in the garret, with a crust of bread and a cup of cold water. Sickness has confinedhim these years within that narrow room. He is too poor to maintain an attendant. Some woman comes in to look to him in themorning and in the evening, and there he sits, in the depthsof poverty. And you will suppose he sits and groans. No, brethren; he may sometimes groan when the body is weak, but usuallyhe sits and sings; and when the visitor climbs the creaking staircase of that old house, where human beings scarcely oughtto be allowed to live; and when he goes into that poor cramped up room that is more fit to accommodate swine than men, hesits down upon that bottomless chair, and when he has seated himself as well as he can upon the four cross pieces of it hebeginsto talk to him, and he finds him full of heaven. "Oh! sir," he says, "my God is very kind to me." Propped up he is withpillows, and full of pain in every member of his body, but he says, "Blessed be his name, he has not left me. Oh! sir, I haveenjoyed more peace and happiness in this room, out of which I have not gone for years,"-(the case is real that I am now describing)"I have enjoyed more happiness here than I ever did in all my life. My pains are great, sir, but they will not be forlong; I am going home soon." Ay, were he more troubled still, had he such rich consolation poured into his heart, he mightendure all with a smile and sing in the furnace. Now, child of God, thou art to do the same. Remember, all thou hast to sufferis sent in love. It is hard work for a child, when his father has been chastening it, to look at the rod as a picture of love.You can not make your children do that: but when they grow up to be men and women how thankful they are to you then! "Ofather," says the son, "I know now why it was I was so often chastened; I had a proud hot spirit; it would have been theruin of me if thou hadst not whipped it out of me. Now, I thank thee, my father, for it."

So, while we are here below we are nothing but little children; we can not prize the rod: when we come of age, and we go intoour estates in Paradise, we shall look back upon the rod of the Covenant as being better than Aaron's rod, for it blossomswith mercy. We shall say to it, "Thou art the most wondrous thing in all the list of my treasures. Lord, I thank thee thatthou didst not leave me unafflicted, or else I had not been where I am, and what I am, a child of God inParadise." "I have this week," says one, "sustained so serious a loss in my business, that I am afraid I shall be utterlybroken up." There is love in that. "I came here this morning," says one, "and I left a dead child in the house-dear to myheart." There is love in that. That coffin and that shroud will both be full of love; and when your child is taken away, itshall not be in anger. "Ah!" cries another, "but I have been exceedingly sick, and even now I feel I ought not to have venturedout; I must return to my bed." Ah! he makes your bed in your affliction. There is love in every pain, in every twitchof the nerve; in every pang that shoots through the members, there is love. "Ah!" says one, "it is not myself, but I havegot a dear one that is sick." There is love there, too. Do what God may, he can not do an unloving act toward his people.O Lord! thou art Omnipotent; thou canst do all things; but thou canst not lie, and thou canst not be unkind to thine elect.No,Omnipotence may build a thousand worlds, and fill them with bounties; Omnipotence may powder mountains into dust, andburn the sea, and consume the sky, but Omnipotence can not do an unloving thing toward a believer. Oh! rest quite sure, Christian,a hard thing, an unloving thing from God toward one of his own people is quite impossible. He is kind to you when he castsyou into prison as when he takes you into a palace; He is as good when he sends famine into your house as when he fills yourbarns with plenty. The only question is, Art thou his child? If so, he hath rebuked thee in affection, and there is lovein his chastisement.

I have now done, but not until I have made my last appeal. I have now to turn from God's people to the rest of you. Ah! myhearers, there are some of you that have no God; you have no Christ on whom to cast your troubles. I see some of you to-daydressed in the habiliments of mourning; I suppose you have lost some one dear unto you. Oh! ye that are robed in black, isGod your God? Or are you mourning now, without God to wipe every tear from your eye? I know that many ofyou are struggling now in your business with very sharp and hard times. Can you tell your troubles to Jesus, or have youto bear them all yourself-friendless and helpless? Many men have been driven mad, because they had no one to whom to communicatetheir sorrow; and how many others had been driven worse than mad, because when they told their sorrows their confidence wasbetrayed. O poor mourning spirit, if thou hadst, as thou mightest have done, gone and told him all thy woes, he would nothave laughed at thee, and he would never have told it out again. Oh I remember when once my young heart ached in boyhood,when I first loved the Saviour. I was far away from father and mother, and all I loved, and I thought my soul would burst;for I was an usher in a school, in a place where I could meet with no sympathy or help. Well, I went to my chamber, and toldmy little griefs into the ears of Jesus. They were great griefs to me then, though they are nothing now. When I just whisperedthem on my knees into the ear of him who had loved me with an everlasting love, oh! it was so sweet, none can tell. IfI had told them to somebody else, they would have told them again; but he, my blessed confidant, he knows my secrets, andhe never tells them. Oh! what can you do that have got no Jesus to tell your troubles to? And the worst of it is, you havegot more troubles to come. Times may be hard now, but they will be harder one day-they will be harder when they come to anend. Theysay it is hard to live, but it is very hard to die. When one comes to die and has Jesus with him, even then dying is hardwork; but to die without a Saviour! Oh! my friends, are you inclined to risk it? Will you face the grim monarch, and no Saviourwith you? Remember, you must do it; you must die soon. The chamber shall soon be hushed in silence no sound shall be heardexcept the babbling watch that ever tells the flight of time. The physician shall "Hush!" and hold up his finger, and whisperin a suppressed voice, "He can not last many minutes longer." And the wife and the children, or the father and the mother,will stand around your bed and look at you, as I have looked at some, with a sad, sad heart. They will look at you a littlewhile, till at last the death-change will pass o'er your face. "He is gone!" it shall be said; and the hand uplifted shallbe dropped down again, and the eye shall be glazed in darkness, and then the mother will turn away and say, "O my child, Icouldhave borne all this if there had been hope in thine end!" And when the minister comes in to comfort the family, he willask the question of the father, "Do you think your son had an interest in the blood of Christ?" The reply will be, "O sir,we must not judge, but I never saw anything like it; I never had any reason to hope: that is my greatest sorrow." There, there!I could bury every friend without a tear, compared with the burial of an ungodly friend. Oh! it seems such an awful thing,tohave one allied to you by ties of blood, dead and in hell.

We generally speak very softly about the dead. We say, "Well, we hope." Sometimes we tell great lies, for we know we do nothope at all. We wish it may be so, but we can not hope it; we never saw any grounds that should lead us to hope. But wouldit not be an awful thing if we were honest enough to look the dread reality in its face-if the husband were simply to lookat it, and say, "There was my wife; she was an ungodly, careless woman. I know at least, she never saidanything concerning repentance and faith; and if she died so, and I have every reason to fear she did, then she is castaway from God." It would be unkind to say it; but it is only honest for us to know it-to look dread truth in the face. Oh!my fellow-men and brethren! Oh! ye that are partners with me of an immortal life! We shall one day meet again before the throneof God; but ere that time comes, we shall each of us be separated, and go our divers ways down the shelving banks of the riverof death. My fellow-man, art thou prepared to die alone? I ask thee this question again-Art thou prepared to arise inthe day of judgment without a Saviour? Art thou willing to run all risks and face thy Maker, when he comes to judge thee,without an advocate to plead thy cause? Art thou prepared to hear him say, "Depart ye cursed!" Are ye ready now to endurethe everlasting ire of him who smites, and smiting once, doth smite forever? Oh! if ye will make your bed in hell, if youare prepared tobe damned, if you are willing to be so, then live in sin and indulge in pleasures;-you will get your wish. But if ye wouldnot; if ye would enter heaven, and ye would be saved, "Turn thee, turn thee, why will ye die, O house of Israel?" May Godthe Holy Spirit, enable you to repent of sin and to believe on Jesus; and then you shall have a portion among them that aresanctified: but unrepenting and unbelieving, if ye die so, ye must be driven from his presence, never to have life, and joy,andliberty, as long as eternity shall last.

The Lord prevent this, for Jesus, sake.