good thing to us, and the Lord has declared that he will not withhold any good thing from those who walk uprightly; but a talent which we could not receive so as to use it properly would be only a curse to us, and hence he does not burden us with it. All that we can hold we shall have all that we really need, all that we shall be sure to employ to his glory, all that will minister to our highest good, God will pour forth from his inexhaustible fulness, and only when he sees that the gifts would be wasted by becoming superfluities, or burdensome responsibilities, or occasions for temptation, will he restrain his power, and the oil shall be stayed. Rest assured that God's bounty will keep pace with your true capacity, and "verily thou shalt be fed." : The same principle holds good with regard to THE BESTOWAL OF SAVING GRACE. In a congregation the gospel is as the pot of oil, and those who receive from it are needy souls, desirous of the grace of God. Of these we have always too few in our assemblies. Many are the vessels of oil, filled to the brim and fastened down-the full Pharisee, the self-satisfied professor, and the proud worldling are such for these the miracle of grace has no multiplying power, for they are ready to Overflow even now. A full Christ is for empty sinners, and for empty sinners only, and as long as there is a really empty soul in a congregation so long will a blessing go forth with the word, and no longer. It is not our emptiness, but our fulness which can hinder the outgoings of free grace. While there is one soul conscious of sin and eager for pardon, grace will flow; yea, while there is one heart weary of indifference and anxious to be wounded, grace will flow. "I feel," saith one, "exceedingly unfit to be saved." You are evidently empty, and there is room in you for the oil of grace. "Alas," cries a second, "I feel nothing at all. Even my own unfitness does not distress me." This only shows how utterly empty you are, and in you also the oil will find space for its flow. "Ah," sighs a third, "I have become sceptical, unbelief has made me hard as the nether mill-stone." In you also there is large storage for grace. Only be willing to receive. Stand like the oil-jar with opened mouth, waiting for the oil to pour forth from the miraculous pot. If the Lord hath made thee willing to receive he will not be long before he has given thee grace upon grace. O that we could meet with more emptied souls! Why should the Lord's wonders be cut short for lack of persons who need to have them wrought upon them? Are there no needy souls about? Have all men waxed rich, or is it a vain presumption which possesses so many hearts? Hidden away in corners where they weep their eyes out because they cannot weep, and break their hearts because their hearts will not break, and cry before the Lord because they feel they cannot pray, or feel, or hate sin; -hidden away in corners, I say, there are truly empty souls, and for these the heavenly oil is running still, is running now. "Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." No exception in the narrative before us was taken to any vessel so long as it was empty; there was one qualification, and only one, the power to receive indicated by emptiness. Come, then, ye needy souls, come to the eternal fountain and receive a wealth of blessing, freely given because ye need it, and because the Lord Jesus loves to bestow it. The like is true with regard to OTHER SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS. All fulness dwells in our Lord Jesus, and, as he needs not grace for himself, it is stored up in him, that he may give it out to believers. The saints with one voice confess, "Of his fulness have all we received." The limit of his outpouring is our capacity to receive, and that limit is often set by our straitened prayers; 66 we have not because we ask not, or because we ask amiss.' If our desires were more expanded, our receipts would be more extended. We fail to bring empty vessels, and therefore the oil is stayed. We do not sufficiently see our poverty, and do not therefore enlarge our longings. O for a heart insatiable for Christ, a soul more greedy than the grave itself, which is never satisfied: then would rivers of the heavenly oil flow in upon us, and we should be filled with all the fulness of God. Frequently we limit the Holy One of Israel by our unbelief. Nothing hinders grace like this impoverishing vice. "He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief." Unbelief declares it to be impossible that more oil should come from the oil-pot, and so refuses to bring more vessels under the pretence of a humble fear of presumption, thus robbing the soul and dishonouring the Lord. Shame on thee, thou mother of famine, thou drier up of flowing wells! What shall be done unto thee, thou lying traitor! What coals of juniper are fierce enough for thee, thou wicked unbelief? We mourn that our joy is departed, that our graces languish, that our usefulness is restrained. Whose fault is this? Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Are these his doings? Nay, verily, we have ourselves stayed the bottles of heaven. May infinite mercy save us from ourselves, and lead us now to "bring hither vessels, even empty vessels not a few." Pride also has a horrible power to stay the divinely given oil. When on our knees we feel no pressing necessity, no urgent want, no special danger; on the contrary, we are rich and increased in goods, and have need of nothing. Do we wonder, then, that we are not refreshed and feel no delight in the holy exercise? Have we not heard the Lord saying, "Bring me yet a vessel"? And as we have answered, "There is not a vessel more," need we be surprised that the oil is stayed? The Lord save us from the parching influence of self-conceit. It will turn an Eden into a wilderness. Soul-poverty leads to fulness, but carnal security creates barrenness. The Holy Spirit delights to comfort every hungry heart, but the full soul loatheth the honeycomb of his consolations, and he leaves it to itself till it is famished and cries out for heavenly bread. Of this one thing let us be sure, that there is abundance of grace to be had so long as we hunger and thirst after it, and never shall a single willing heart be forced to cry, "The oil is stayed," so long as it has an empty vessel to bring. The same truth will be proved in reference to THE PURPOSES OF GRACE IN THE WORLD. The fulness of divine grace will be equal to every demand upon it till the end of time. Men will never be saved apart from the atonement of our Lord Jesus, but never will that ransom price be found insufficient to redeem the souls that trust in the Redeemer. "Dear dying Lamb, thy precious blood Shall never lose its power, Till all the ransomed church of God Neither will his intercession lose any of its prevalence for those who come to God by him. To the last hour of time it shall never be said that a single sinner has sought his face in vain, or that an empty vessel has at last been found which Jesus cannot fill. The power of the Holy Spirit to convict, convert, console, and sanctify shall also abide the same to the end of the age. Never shall there be found a weeping penitent whom he cannot cheer with a lively hope and lead to Jesus for eternal salvation, nor a struggling believer whom he cannot lead on to certain and complete victory. Perfection itself, he shall always be able to work in all the saints, even meetness for their holy heritage above. None of us should despond when we discover anew our own natural inability and deadness. Our hope was never based on created power; a lively hope has its foundation in the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit, and that cannot be the subject of question or of change. For the salvation of all the elect the sacred Trinity will work together till all shall be accomplished. Whatever remains behind as to the purposes of God he has power to achieve. If there should stand before us a row of empty vessels bearing the names of Babylon overthrown, the Jews converted, the nations evangelized, the idols abolished, and so forth, we must by no means be disheartened, for all these vessels of promise shall be filled in due time. The church of the present day is feeble, and her supplies are quite inadequate to the enterprise before her, yet as out of one oil-pot many vessels were filled which were far greater than itself, so by his poor and despised church, through the foolishness of preaching, the Lord will fulfil his august designs and fill the universe with praise. "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." With this assurance believing men may boldly go forth among the heathen. The nations are empty vessels, and there are not a few of them; God has given us his blessing upon our cruse of oil, and all we have to do is to pour out and continue to pour out till there is not a vessel more. We are very far from that consummation yet. In our congregations all are not saved; even in our families many are not converted: we cannot say "there is not a vessel more," and, blessed be God, neither may we suspect that the oil will be stayed. With hopeful earnestness let us bring the empty vessels beneath the sacred outflow, that they may be filled. How glorious will be the consummation when all the chosen shall be gathered in! Then there shall not remain a seeking soul to be saved, nor a praying heart to be comforted, nor a wandering sheep to be sought. Not a vessel shall be found throughout the universe needing to be filled, and then shall the oil of mercy cease to flow, and justice hold her court alone. Woe unto the ungodly in that day, for then the empty vessels shall be broken to shivers; as they would not receive the oil of love they shall be each one filled with the wine of wrath. From which terrible doom may infinite grace preserve each one of us. Amen. TWO SORTS OF HEARERS. A Sermon DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed."-James i. 22-25. JAMES has no speculations. "By their fruits ye shall know them," seems to have taken possession of his mind, and he is always demanding practical holiness. He is not satisfied with the buds of hearing, he wants the fruits of obedience. We need more of his practical spirit in this age, for there are certain ministers who are not content with sowing the old seed, the selfsame seed which, from the hand of apostles, confessors, fathers, reformers, and martyrs, produced a harvest unto God; but they spend their time in speculating as to whether the seed of tares grown under certain circumstances may not bring forth wheat; whether, at any rate, good wheat would not be the better for the admixture of just a little sprinkling of tare seed. We want somebody to take these various preachments, put them into a cauldron, boil them down, and see what is the essential practical product of them. Some of you may have seen in the newspapers a short time ago an article which fastened itself upon my mind an article with regard to the moral state of Germany. The writer, himself a German, says that the scepticism of the professed preachers of the word, the continual doubts which have been suggested by scientific men and more especially by professedly religious men as to revelation, have now produced upon the German nation the most frightful consequences. The picture which he gives makes us fear that our Germanic friends are treading upon a volcano which may explode beneath their feet. The authority of the government has been so severely exercised that men begin to be weary of it; and, meanwhile, the authority of God has been put so much out of the question that the basis of society is undermined. I need not, however, ground my remarks upon that article, for the French revolution at the end of the last century remains in history as an enduring warning as to the dread effects of philosophy when it has cast suspicion upon all religion and created a nation of infidels. I pray God that the like may not happen here; but the party of "modern thought" seem resolved upon repeating the experiment. So greatly is the just severity of God ignored, and so trifling an evil is sin made out to be, that if men were to be doers of what they hear, and to carry out what has been taught from certain professedly Christian pulpits, anarchy would be the result. Free-thinking always leads that way. God keep us from it. While preachers too often toy with preaching, how much there is among hearers of the same fashion. Hearing is often merely a critical exercise, and the question after a sermon is not "How was that truth fitted to your case?" but "How did you like him?" as if that had anything to do with it. When you hear music, do you ask, "How did you like the trumpet?" No, it is the music-not the instrument, that your mind thinks about; yet will persons always consider the minister rather than his message. Many contrast one preacher with another, when they had better contrast themselves with the divine law. Thus hearing the gospel is degraded into a pastime, and judged to be little better than a theatrical entertainment. Such things must not be. Preachers must preach as for eternity, and look for fruit; and hearers must carry out what they hear, or otherwise the sacred ordinance of preaching will cease to be the channel of blessing, and will rather be an insult to God and a mockery to the souls of men. shall, not at any very great length, but I hope with much earnestness, speak of two classes of hearers, the first, the unblessed class, and the second, the class who, according to the text, are blessed in their deed. I I. First, THE UNBLEST CLASS. They are hearers, but they are described as hearers who are not doers. They hear some of them pretty regularly, others of them only now and then just to while away an hour; and they hear with considerable attention, because they appreciate good speaking. They are interested in doctrine, perhaps, having some little knowledge of the Christian system, and they like to discuss a point or two. Moreover, they are anxious to be able to say that they heard such a one preach, of whom a fame has gone abroad. But as to doing what they hear, that has not entered their minds. They have heard a sermon on repentance, but they have not repented. They have heard the gospel cry, "Believe!" but they have not believed. They know that he who believes purges himself from his old sins, yet they have had no purging, but abide as they were. Now, if I address such, let me say to them,-it is clear that you are and must be unblest. Hearing of a feast will not fill you; hearing of a brook will not quench your thirst. The information that there is gold in the Bank of England will not enrich you; you need cash in your own pocket. The knowledge that there is a shelter from the storm will not save the ship from the tempest. The information that there is a cure for a disease will not make the sick man whole. No boons must be grasped, blessings must be appropriated and made use of, if they are to be of any value to us. O sirs, you know what you should do, but you have not done it! You have been half inclined to attend to eternal things, but you have let them go, and still you are among those unblest hearers who hear in vain. |