High Doctrine, a sermon delivered on Sabbath morning,
June 3rd, 1860, by the Reverend C.
H.
Spurgeon at Exeter Hall Strand.
And all things are of God.
Second Corinthians 518.
I would have you look on this text
as being a summary of all the things
which we have preached to you these years.
It has been my endeavor, constantly and continually,
to maintain that salvation is of God's good
will, and not of man's free will.
That man is nothing, and that Jesus Christ
is both Alpha and Omega, the beginning and
the end, the first and the last.
And I think I may truly say, now
of the things which we have spoken, this
is the sum.
All things are of God.
And oh, my brethren, what a large summary
it is.
It contains words which grasp the compass of
everything that your mind can think upon.
All things.
And it proclaims Him to whom all things
owe their being, God.
Grasp this total if you are able.
All things.
What is here omitted?
Surely whatsoever the Christian can desire is to
be found in those words, all things.
But lest even that that should not be
comprehensive enough, our summary contains a still greater
word, one which is supreme over all, inasmuch
as all things spring from His loins, and
yet He remaineth still the same, as full
as ever.
All things are of God.
If we be thirsty, here are streams that
can never be exhausted.
If we be hungry, surely here is bread
enough and to spare.
If we be poor, here are treasures and
riches that are utterly inexhaustible, for here we
have all things, and all things in God.
I shall hope this morning to do two
things.
First, to lay down clearly and distinctly the
doctrine of this sentence, and then secondly, to
show the excellent practical tendency of each doctrine.
To begin with, the doctrine itself.
All things are of God.
In enlarging upon that doctrine, I shall have
need to subdivide it, taking it first as
to what, and then as to how, and
then as to why.
All things are of God.
What is meant here by the term, all
things?
The reply is to be found in the
context.
All things of the new creation are of
God.
It is not necessary for us to remind
you that all the things of the old
creation are of God.
None but the infidel will ever for a
moment affirm that there is anything which exists
apart from the Creator.
We believe that He hath laid the beams
of His chambers in the waters, He hath
spread out the heavens like a tent to
dwell in, the isles have been created by
His hand, and the winds still are as
they ever were under His guidance and control.
Nothing is and nothing shall be but that
which He ordains, determines, and supports.
Concerning the matter of the new creation, it
is wonderful that there ever should have been
any controversy.
Do we call that man an infidel who
should teach that some things of the old
creation were of man?
What name shall I give to the being
who will dare to say that anything in
the new creation of grace is of man?
Surely, if the first be in heresy, the
second must be in heresy equally damnable, and
perhaps more so.
For the one doth but teach the external
works of God, while the other thrusts its
sacrilegious hand into the eternal works of His
grace, plucks the brightest jewel from His crown,
and treads it in the dust.
We hold, and ever must maintain, that all
things, without exception, in the new creation are
of God, and of God alone.
What things do you say again?
We answer, all things that refer to the
new nature, all things that refer to our
new privileges and to our new actions.
Whatsoever things refer to the new nature are
of God.
The personal desire after Christ which is found
in the sinner's contrite heart is of God.
The first new hope which gilds the darkness
of the poor benighted mind is of God.
The first glimpse of new faith when that
man turns his eye to the Saviour is
of God.
The first beginnings of divine love in the
soul are of God.
Leave men to themselves, and the corruption of
their nature may fester and rot and breed
the fungus of a vile imagination.
But the life of God never yet sprung
naturally from a dead heart.
Whatsoever thing is good in its beginning, as
well as in its perfecting, cometh down from
the Father of lights, with whom is no
variableness, neither shadow of turning.
Some seem to teach that man is to
take the first step in salvation, and God
will take the rest.
No, sirs, if man can take the first,
he can take the last, and take the
whole.
If man, dead in trespasses and sins, can
quicken himself, he certainly can maintain the life
of which he himself is the author.
If man, corrupt, debased, and cast away from
God, can say, unawakened by grace, I will
repent, I will change my ways and turn
to God, and if he can carry out
that resolution to himself and by his own
unaided mind, then there is no room for
God in salvation at all.
Let man have the whole of it, and
let him have all the glory.
But know thou, my hearer, if thou hast
but one good thought in thy heart, it
is of God, and if there be a
something which says to thee, Arise, and go
to thy father, that voice is God's voice.
If thy bowels begin to yearn towards the
Father, whom thou hast angered and aggrieved, and
if thy feet desire to leave the mountains
of sin and vanity, and to tread the
right road, it is a Father's hand that
draws thee, it is a Savior's voice that
sweetly impels thee to seek his face, for
all things are of God.
Everything, moreover, with regard to the new nature
is of God, not merely as to its
first implanting, but as to its subsequent outworking
and full development.
As the believer's strength, it is of God.
Does he stand, and if he kept from
falling, his standing is of God.
Is he preserved in the midst of temptation
true to his covenant, and does he stand
in the day of trial firm to his
master, then his integrity is of God.
There is nothing in him by nature apart
from God which is not vile and deceitful.
In me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth
no good thing.
If there be anything good in my nature,
if I have been transformed by the renewing
of my mind, if I am regenerate, if
I have passed from death unto life, if
I have been taken out of the family
of Satan and adopted into the family of
God's dear Son, and if I am now
no more an heir of wrath but a
child of heaven, then all these things are
of God, and in no sense and in
no degree whatever are they of myself.
And still further, as the new nature is
of God, so the new privileges of the
new nature are all of God, and what
are these?
Rich and precious assuredly they are.
There is pardon, the washing away of all
my sins, and who shall say that is
not of God?
There is justification, the being robed about with
a snow-white garment which shall make me
meet to be the partaker of the inheritance
of the saints in light, and is not
that of God?
There is sanctification, which cuts out the very
root of sin and treads the old Adam
nature beneath the feet of the newborn babe
in Christ, is not that of God?
There is the privilege of adoption, which the
Father has given to as many as believe
on His only begotten Son, that they may
have power to become the sons of God.
O Lord, surely this adoption is of Thee.
There is communion, by which through Christ Jesus
we have access by one Spirit unto the
Father, but whoever dared to think of communion
apart from the unspeakable grace of the Most
High?
I am sure, my brethren, you who have
traced the heights and depths and lengths and
breadths of covenant mercies and covenant privileges have
never yet met with the single privilege which
was not of God.
You have walked the broad acres of God's
rich grace, but you have not seen there
a plant or a flower which was not
of His sowing and of His rearing.
When you have gone into the treasure house
and have taken down those shoes of iron
and that helmet of proof, that sword of
steel, when you have laid hold upon that
crown of eternal life that fadeth not away,
you have been constrained joyfully to confess that
all these things are of God.
You cannot imagine such a thing as a
single boon of grace, a single gift of
mercy, which is of yourselves and not of
God.
Once again, to conclude this summary, all the
actions of the new nature are of God.
See yonder missionary leaving house and home and
all the comforts of his native land to
go and do battle for Christ among a
people who will scorn him, mistrust his motives,
and repay his self-denial with persecution?
Do you see him with his life in
his hand, venturing even unto death?
That man, oppressed with fever, incidental to the
land in which he has come to live,
as he lays on his bed with a
melancholy interval for reflection, never repents of the
step which he had taken.
He recovers strength enough to crawl out beneath
a tree, and there he stands.
And instead of recanting the vows he made
of dedication to his master, he confirms them
yet afresh by once again preaching the word.
He continues to labor until worn out.
He commits his body to the earth far
from his fatherland and the homestead of his
native land, a witness against the unbelievers that
God hath sent the gospel to them.
Shall we applaud the man?
Shall we with clamorous songs sing his praise?
Let us give him his meat of tribute.
He hath done valiantly.
But let us remember that everything in him
that was good was of God.
He would have been idle and indifferent and
careless to the souls of men.
But had not God made him what he
was, does the martyr burn at the stake?
Does the confessor lie and rot in the
dungeon?
Does the heroic child of God do battle
against the current of his times, and seem
to stem the flood with his own strong
arm?
Are Christians prepared to suffer contumely and scorn
and rebuke and reproof for Jesus' sake?
Surely all these things are of God.
Is there a Christian, magnificent, generous, thoughtful of
the woes of others?
Is there another mighty in prayer and diligent
in service?
Can you meet with a third who lives
so near to Christ that his face seems
to shine with the luster of Jesus' love?
All these things are of God, set down
no virtue to man.
Good things are exotics in the human heart.
They are not like the weeds which spring
up naturally in such poor soil as human
hearts are made of.
But they are rare choice flowers brought down
of the spirit's hand from above, and then
planted in this unkindly soil.
Oh, let us ever know that anything we
can ever do or feel or think that
is right is of God.
My brethren, discard forever with detestation and abhorrence
any doctrine which would lead you to think
that any work or grace, anything just, pure,
lovely, or of good report in man is
of man himself.
Depend upon it, though it come to you
in the garb of earnestness and paint its
cheeks and look fair enough to you.
It is the harlot of potpourri in another
dress.
For they let such doctrine be pushed to
its fair conclusion, and you come at once
to salvation by works.
Ever stand by the good old Calvinistic banner,
the banner which Augustine waved of old and
which Paul handed down to us direct from
our master Jesus, and hold and believe and
affirm, never swerving from it, that all things
in the new creation are of God.
But the second division of the doctrine was
to be how.
How and in what respect are all things
of God?
All things in the new creation are of
God in the planning.
God from before all worlds planned the new
creation with as much exactitude and wisdom as
he did the old.
There are some men who seem to think
that God does his work bit by bit,
altering and making additions as he goes on.
They cannot believe that God had a plan.
They believe that the most ordinary architect on
earth has prefigured to himself some idea of
what he meant to build, though it were
but a mud cottage.
But the most high God who created the
heavens and the earth, when he says, Behold,
I make a new heaven and a new
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, hath no plan.
But what is left to the caprice of
manhood, he is to have no decrees, no
purposes, no determinations.
But men are to do as they will,
and so virtually man is to usurp the
place of God, and God is to become
the dependent of man.
Nay, my brethren, in all the work of
salvation, God is the sole and supreme designer.
He planned the time and the manner how
each of his people should be brought to
himself.
He did not leave the number of his
saved ones to chance or to what was
worse than chance to the depraved will of
man.
He did not leave the choice of the
persons to mere accident, but on the stones
of the eternal breastplate of the great high
priest he engraved the names of those he
chose.
He did not leave so much as one
tent pin, one single line or yard of
canvas to be afterwards arranged.
The whole of the tabernacle was given by
pattern in the holy mount.
In the building of the temple of grace,
every stone was squared and chiseled in the
eternal decree, its place ordained and settled, nor
shall that stone be dug from its quarry
till the hour ordained.
Nor shall it be placed in any other
position than that which God, after the counsel
of his own will, ordained.
Everything in the new creation is of God
in the planning.
Alas for us, however, if God had simply
planned and left the execution to us, everything
in the new creation is of God in
the purchase and of God in the procuring.
One price hath bought his people, that price
the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,
who contributed so much as a mite to
that wealth of treasure which bought our souls.
Did he not tread the winepress alone, had
his people a part in enduring the load,
the intolerable load of guilt that overwhelmed our
suffering Lord, when he in his own self
bare our sins in his body on the
tree?
What arm helped him, or what other foot
but his tread the foeman down?
Nay, O Lord, thou hast redeemed us by
thy blood.
We have not contributed thereto.
Thou art Alpha and Omega in this, and
unto thee be all the honour.
And as it was of God in the
planning and of God in the purchasing, so
it is all of God in the applying
and bringing of it home to each individual
conscience.
The cross of Christ is not put up
there merely for every man to look at
and then left to chance as to whether
men will look or no.
There stands the cross free to every soul
that lives, but nevertheless God has determined that
it shall not be neglected.
There is a number that no man can
number who shall by all constraining grace be
brought to clasp that cross as the hope
of their souls.
Jesus shall not die in vain, and that
because God will make men willing in the
day of his power.
They are hardened.
He can break their hearts.
They are stubborn.
He can bend their knees.
They will not come, but he can make
them come.
He has a key that can wind up
the human heart and make it run at
his pleasure.
Think not that man is an independent being
so free that God cannot control him.
That were to make man God, deify humanity
and undeify the Godhead.
Man is free to be responsible, but he
is not free from a perpetual bias and
inclination to evil.
But man is subject to the restraint or
the constraint of God.
If he doeth right, then it is God's
constraint and not his free will.
When he doeth wrong, God hath left him
to himself.
But as sure as ever he doeth good,
it is because a master hand hath got
him now.
Man by nature is as a wild horse
dashing yonder to the precipice.
If he be restrained in his course and
turn thitherward away from danger, it is because
he hath a mighty rider and one that
knows how to pull the bit and guide
him as he pleases.
And though he kick and plunge and long
to turn away, his rider can pull him
up upon his very haunches and turn him
around and make him go as he wills
and lead him as he pleases.
In this matter is it true that all
the bringing home of the gospel to the
soul of man is of God.
Nor is this all.
The works of the new creation are of
God, not only in the planning, procuring and
applying, but in the maintaining of them.
Leave the Christian to himself to maintain the
grace already begun, and he is gone.
The candle is a light, but the devil's
breath would blow it out.
The gas is burning.
Cut the connection between it and the great
gasometer, and the light is quenched.
The Christian lives, but it is because Christ
lives and because he is one with Christ.
O Lord, if thou should cease to send
forth the streams of thy grace, thy glorious
church with all her beauty must be as
a fading flower.
All her strength would be fainting weakness, and
she herself, though she be as a tower
in her glory, must crumble down to the
very earth and lie with the base stones
of the valley.
All is of grace then, and all of
God in the maintaining, and still more must
it be all of grace in the completing.
When you and I shall go up the
celestial hills to the gates of paradise, those
last steps shall be of God as much
as the first steps.
And when we shall stand upon the golden
streets and wear the white robe, I am
sure we shall not have a word to
say about free will or about self, but
our cry will be unto him that loved
us and washed us from our sins in
his own blood, unto him be all the
glory for ever.
Men may hold what doctrine they like on
earth.
They cannot hold any doctrine in heaven but
that of free, rich, and sovereign grace.
The song never was divided yet, and it
never will be.
There shall be no selfishness to mar its
melody, but every heart shall send forth the
same melodious notes of music, and every tongue
shall mingle in the same undivided song.
Thou hast done it, O Lord, thou hast
done it.
Grace, O the work, shall crown through everlasting
days.
It lays in heaven the topmost stone and
well deserves the praise.
My third point upon this doctrine was to
be the why.
Why is it that all things are of
God?
How can we clearly see this?
I shall use no arguments, but such as
would be manifest and palpable to us all.
Everything in grace must be of God, because
we are quite clear there cannot be anything
of man.
Man is in such a position that there
can be nothing of him.
Lazarus was laying a corpse in his tomb.
He comes forth quickened.
The grave clothes are taken from him.
He lives, he breathes.
Do you tell me that his resurrection was
in part owing to himself?
Well, sir, your mind must be strangely deluded
indeed.
What could that dead man do towards his
own resurrection?
Surely it must be a fact in philosophy
which might strike every rational man that that
which does not exist cannot put itself into
existence.
And so my new nature, which did not
exist before God gave it to me, could
not bring itself into being.
And yet you say a dead man makes
himself alive or at least does something towards
it.
Oh, sir, you cannot mean it.
You cannot mean it.
To reason with you, you were ridiculous.
You must feel that if a man be
dead, there is nothing he can do.
It must be a work of some superior
power that can give him life.
And so with a sinner dead in sin,
what can that sinner do unless the Scripture
be an exaggeration?
Unless you are prepared to cast overboard that
passage where we are spoken of as being
dead in trespasses and sins, I cannot see
how you can dream that a man is
capable of doing anything in the work of
grace.
He may work when God sets him working,
and he will.
He may move when God gives him power
to move, and move he will then with
joyful alacrity.
But till then, how helpless, guilty nature lies,
unconscious of her load, the heart unchanged can
never rise to happiness and God.
Till the stone shall of itself fly upwards
towards the sun, till the sea shall of
itself beget fire, and until fire shall by
its own nature distill the shower from its
own bowels, then and not till then shall
depraved humanity breed goodness within itself.
It must be grace.
It must be grace alone.
Let me give you another reason why we
are quite sure that all things in the
work of grace are of God.
It is expressly told us that every good
gift and every perfect gift cometh from above.
Now that word every is very comprehensive.
It does not exclude a single case.
Is there any good gift?
I am not told that some good gifts
and some perfect gifts are from above, but
every one, and I am quite sure this
rule must apply to any good gift you
have, any good gift in fact that is
in the heart of any man living upon
the face of the earth.
God were only in part the father of
light if there were light streaming from somewhere
else.
God were only in part the world's benefactor
if there were other fountains out of which
the world could draw and other helpers who
could raise up souls to heaven.
Yet again, we are quite certain that all
things are of God because all the glory
is God's.
Now if all the glory be God's, it
stands to reason that the work must have
been his.
For where the work is, there must be
the merit.
If man hath done it, man can claim
the honor.
If I have been my own savior, I
will claim the honor and the dignity, and
nothing but superior force can wrest from me
the glory which I deserve.
But if God hath done it, and if
I must feel that I have been passive
in his hands until he made me active,
then must I lay all my honors at
his feet and crown him Lord of all.
I am quite certain we do not differ
here about God's having all the honor, and
yet if we should differ about his doing
all the work, we might have fair ground
on which to dispute his right to take
all the glory.
O men and brethren, if I want argument,
your own experience shall bear witness.
You as Christians are compelled to feel thou
best wrought all our works in us.
You can say we are his workmanship, created
of God in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained that we should
walk in them.
Set it down then for a certainty.
I have tried to explain it as best
I can.
All things are of God.
Grasp every mercy of the covenant and every
blessing of grace, but say that all things
in all senses are wholly and entirely of
God, the great giver of all.
And now I am proposing in the second
part of my subject briefly to show the
excellent tendencies of this doctrine.
There is one thing about the doctrines of
the gospel which, to my mind, always commends
them.
They always enlist the attention of men and
rouse them to think.
If you hear a sermon in which God's
grace is magnified, you are perhaps offended.
You are angry because the doctrinal sentiments are
not in keeping with your own carnal pride.
For you to be angry is one of
the healthiest things that can happen to you.
Do not imagine that the sermon has been
wasted when it has made you vexed.
Conceive not that it has been lost upon
you when it has made you angry with
it.
Perhaps there was but that joint of harness
through which the arrow could reach you, namely
your own anger against the truth.
I have known many who have frankly confessed
that after they have been to this place,
they felt disturbed.
They could not sleep.
They hated the preacher and they hated the
subject, yet in about a month's time they
felt they must come again.
They disliked it so much they were compelled
to hear again of this matter.
They could not quite see it, in fact,
they would not.
They would still hold to their own opinion.
But they said within themselves, I never thought
so much about religion in all my life.
There is something in these doctrines that drives
right into the soul of a man.
Other forms of doctrine run off like oil
down a slab of marble, but this chisels
them, cuts into the very quick.
They cannot help feeling there is something here
which if they kick against it has nevertheless
force and they must ask themselves, is the
thing true or not?
They cannot be content with huffing it and
making themselves easy.
It takes hold of their thinking powers and
wakes them up to inquiry whether these things
are so or not.
And it is remarkable that wherever the doctrine
that salvation is of God and God alone
has been revived, it has always happened that
God has sent a revival of true religion.
To give you a practical illustration, on the
continent I have been informed by many who
had good reason to judge that the Lutheran
church is to a very great extent fallen
from its faith and becoming unitarian and neological
and the like.
But the Calvinistic church is never.
There they stand just the same.
There is a salt in these doctrines which
preserves truth.
There is a savourness and pungency about them
which keeps the constitution of men right.
It is a great big sheet anchor.
It may seem cumbrous and in these modern
times it may be said to be rather
rusty, but in days of storm that great
big bower anchor will have to be thrown
out into the sea again.
The more I preach, the more am I
concerned not to give a double testimony about
this matter, but to lay it down clearly
and distinctly that salvation is of God, that
all things in fact in the new creation
of grace are of God and God alone.
And oh, what enthusiasm these truths will stir
up in the minds of those who believe
them.
I have heard them preached by simple, uneducated,
unlearned men and the congregations have been bathed
in tears.
There has been no stolidness upon the countenances
of the ears.
They have heard as if they were hearing
the very word of God and felt the
power of it.
I have preached during this week in the
simplest manner I could these truths to somewhere
about 20 or 30,000 Welsh people in
one congregation and such a sight I never
saw when all is one man.
They kept crying out, amen, amen, the whole
sermon through carried away with enthusiasm because they
heard again the good old truths that Christmas
Evans used to thunder out to them in
which the Welsh still hold intact, even though
the English may choose to reject and scorn
them.
There is something in them that would nerve
men on to do mighty deeds.
Cromwell's sword was so sharp and his arm
so strong because he knew the Lord of
hosts and trusted in his mighty power and
believed in God's overcoming grace.
This made the iron sides invincible.
There were never such men as they.
The Calvinist's arm is always strong.
He that is of God and knows not
man, he who looks to God's purpose and
grace and gives him all the glory is
not a man to bow before a tyrant
or to kick the feet of any being.
He knows himself chosen of God and he
stands upright and yet while standing he is
full of fire of an enthusiasm that makes
him work and compels him to serve the
cause of God and true.
That, however, perhaps is but by and by.
I have other tendencies to mention concerning this
doctrine.
The fact that conversion and salvation are of
God is a humbling truth.
It is because of its humbling character that
men do not like it.
To be told that God must save me
if I am saved and that I am
in his hands as clay is in the
hands of the potter, I do not like
it, saith one.
Well, I thought you would not.
Whoever dreamed you would.
If you had liked it, perhaps it had
not been true.
Your not liking it is an indirect evidence
of its truthfulness.
To be told that he must work all
my works in me, who can bring me
so low as that?
Where is boasting then?
It is excluded.
By what law?
The law of works?
No, but by the law of grace.
Grace puts its hand on their boasting mouth
and shuts it once for all and then
takes its hand off from the mouth.
That mouth now does not fear to speak
to man, though it trembles at the very
thought of taking any honor and glory from
God.
I must say, I am compelled to say
that the doctrine which leaves salvation to the
creature and tells him that it depends upon
himself is the exaltation of the flesh and
the dishonoring of God.
But that which puts in God's hand man,
fallen man, and tells man that though he
has destroyed himself, yet his salvation must be
of God, that doctrine humbles man in the
very dust, and then he is just in
the right place to receive the grace and
mercy of God.
It is a humbling doctrine.
Again, this doctrine gives the death blow to
all self-sufficiency.
What the Arminian wants to do is to
arouse man's activity.
What we want to do is to kill
it once for all, to show him that
he is lost and ruined, and that his
activities are not now at all equal to
the work of conversion, that he must look
upward.
They seek to make the man stand up.
We seek to bring him down, to make
him feel that there he lies in the
hand of God, and that his business is
to submit himself to God and cry aloud,
Lord, save, or we perish.
We hold that man is never so near
grace as when he begins to feel that
he can do nothing at all.
When he says, I can pray, I can
believe, I can do this, and I can
do the other, marks of self-sufficiency and
arrogance are on his brow.
But when he comes to his knees and
cries, oh, for this no strength have I,
my strength is at thy feet to lie,
then we think that God has blessed him
and that the work of grace is in
his soul.
Oh, sinner, I think not that thy own
unaided arm can get the victory.
Cry unto God and beg him to take
your soul in hand, for you cannot be
saved unless he doth it for you.
Bless him for the promise which says, him
that cometh unto me I will in no
wise cast out.
Oh, cry to him, Lord, draw me by
thy grace that I may run after thee,
work all my works in me, and bring
me to thyself and save me.
Not to yourself do we bid you look,
nor to your prayers, nor to your faith,
but to Christ and to his cross and
to that God who is able to save
unto the uttermost them that come unto God
by him.
And there is in this doctrine some consolation
for the troubled heart.
If all things be of God, my soul,
let not thy spirit be ruffled and affrighted
by the tempest.
All things are of God.
If there were one thing of me, I
were a lost man.
If I were about to build a great
bridge and would let me have the placing
of one stone, you shall build it as
you please, and it will fall.
Let me have the management of the keystone,
and I will undertake that it shall not
stand.
So if in the work of salvation there
is one thing left dependent upon myself, it
must all fall.
But if everything be guaranteed and settled by
eternal wills and shalls, then it stands fast
and rests secure.
O joyous thought to the Christian!
His soul is safe.
He has given himself up into Christ's hand
to be kept, and now the keeping rests
with Christ.
He has surrendered himself to his Lord and
Master to be preserved, and now he knows
that come what may, Christ is his buckler
and his shield, and nothing will hurt him,
because Jesus keeps daily watch and ward, and
will preserve him safely to the end.
I do not know where our Arminian brethren
get their consolation from.
I know if I believe their doctrine I
should be driven to distraction, but believing as
I do that those whom God begins to
save he will completely save, and that there
is not a single atone in the entire
building that can ever fail or give away,
my soul can sing this covenant stands secure,
though earth's old columns bow, the strong, the
feeble and the weak are one in Jesus
now.
I have one more thing to say about
this doctrine.
It encourages the sinner.
Sinner, sinner, come to Jesus, for all things
are of God.
You are naked.
The robe in which you shall be dressed
is of God.
You are filthy.
The washing is of God.
Come and be washed, but you are unworthy.
Your worthiness must be of God.
Come as you are, and he will cleanse
you.
You are guilty.
Your pardon is of God.
Come to him, and his pardon shall be
freely given.
But you say you are hard-hearted.
A new heart is of God.
Come to him.
He will give you the heart of flesh
and take away the heart of stone.
But you say I cannot pray as I
would.
True prayer is of God.
He will pour out upon you the spirit
of supplication.
But you say my very coming must be
of God.
Hey, blessed be God for that, and therefore,
if now you feel something saying to you,
let me go and trust in Christ.
That is of God.
Oh, come with cheerfulness.
There is nothing wanted of you.
Everything is of God.
Is your heart barren?
Fruitfulness is of God.
Is your heart stubborn?
Obedience is of God.
Can you not repent?
He is exalted on high to give you
repentance.
Repentance is of God.
Do you say I cannot believe?
Faith is of God.
It is one of his unspeakable gifts.
But do you say I am afraid I
shall not be able to persevere?
Perseverance is of God.
All you are bidden to do is simply
to be a receiver.
Come with your empty pitcher and hold it
now to the flowing fountain.
Come with your empty lap and receive the
golden store.
Come with a hungry mouth to feed and
with thirsty lips to drink.
You are asked to do nothing.
You are asked to be nothing.
Cease from thyself, O man, and begin with
God.
Leave off now to do and feel and
be and come and trust in him who
did and was and felt for you.
And then afterwards, being saved, you shall begin
to be and to feel and to act
through a new energy leading to a new
life.
To live to Christ, you must first die
to yourself.
Every hope of mortal nature must be killed
before you can receive a divine hope within
you.
Come bruised and mangled, crushed and broken.
Come and take Christ to be your all
in all.
And if thou canst not stretch out thine
hand of thyself, as indeed thou canst not,
I speak in my master's name, in the
name of Jesus of Nazareth, by his spirit's
power, believe.
It is the duty of God's servants not
only to exhort, but with divine authority to
command.
Man with the withered hand, in the name
of Jesus, stretch out thine hand.
Thou who hast never believed or repented, God
commandeth all men everywhere to repent.
Dost thou receive the command?
The power goes with it.
Art thou willing to obey it?
That will is God's gift.
The power is with the will.
Believe Christ.
Trust Christ.
Take him to be everything and you are
saved.
Your sins are washed away.
You are an heir of paradise.
You may rejoice.
Clap your wings, ye angels.
Tune your harps anew, ye seraphs, ye redeemed.
Louder, louder, let your strains of music rise
toward heaven, O ye cherubim and seraphim.
Sing loud unto his name, of whom and
to whom and by whom are all things,
unto whom be glory for ever and ever.
Amen.