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REV. C.H. SPURGEON
At the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens
"To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them."—Isaiah 8:20.
When men will not learn of God, how huge their folly grows!
If they despise the wisdom that is from above, how grievously does God allow them to prove
their own ignorance! When a man will not bow down before God the Most High, immediately he
buildeth for himself an idol; he maketh an image of wood or stone, and he degradeth
himself by bowing before the work of his own hands. When men will not receive the
Scripture testimony concerning God's creation, straightway they begin to form theories
that are a thousand times more ridiculous than they have ever endeavoured to make the
Bible account of it, for God leaveth them, if they will not accept his solution of the
problem, to grope for another, and their own solution is so absurd, that all the world
except themselves hath sense enough to laugh at it. And when men leave the Sacred Book of
Revelation, ah! my friends, where do they go? We find that in Isaiah's time they went to
strange places; for he says in the 19th verse, that they sought unto familiar spirits,
unto wizards that did peep and mutter; yea, they sought for things concerning the living,
amongst the dead, and became the dupes of necromancers. It is marvellous that the men who
most of all rail at faith are remarkable for credulity. One of the greatest unbelievers in
the world, who has called himself a free-thinker from his birth, is to be found now
tottering into his tomb, believing the veriest absurdity that a child might confute. Not
caring to have God in their hearts, forsaking the living foundation, they have hewn out to
themselves cisterns which are broken, and hold no water. Oh! that we may each of us be
more wise, that we may not forsake the good old path, nor leave the way that God hath
prepared for us. What wonder we should travel amongst thorns and briars, and rend our own
flesh, or worse than that, fall among dark mountains, and be lost amongst the chasms
thereof, if we despise the guidance of an unerring Father. Seek ye in the word of God, and
read, Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and these are they
that testify of Jesus Christ.
I feel at this particular crisis of religious affairs, it is imperative upon the Christian
minister to urge his people to hold fast the doctrines of the truth—the words of God.
This seems likely to become the age of preaching, rather than the age of praying. We now
see everywhere large congregations assembling in halls and abbeys to listen to the Word
preached; and it is an ominous sign of the times, that these preachings are not only
espoused by the orthodox, but even by those whom we have considered to be at least
somewhat heretical from the old faith of the Protestant Church. It becomes, therefore, a
serious thing; for it is most probable—and may not every wise man see it?—that
whosoever may now arise who hath some powers of oratory and some graces of eloquence, will
be likely to attract the multitude, preach he what he may, though the word that he should
utter be as false as God's Word is true, and as contrary to the gospel as hell is opposed
to heaven. Doth it not seem probable that in this age he would attract a multitude of
followers? and is it not also very likely that through that spurious charity which is now
growing upon us, which would gag the mouths of honest reprovers, we shall find it hard to
rebuke the impostor when he arises, and difficult to expose the falsehood, even though it
may be apparent unto us. We are now happily so well commingled together, the Dissenter and
the Churchman have now become so friendly with each other, that we have less to dread the
effects of bigotry, than the effects of latitudinarinism. We have some reason now to be
upon the watchtower, lest haply some should arise in our midst, the spurious offspring of
these happy times of evangelical alliance, who will claim our charity, whilst they are
preaching that which we in our hearts do totally condemn. And what better advice can the
minister give in such times as these? To what book shall he commend his hearers? How shall
he keep them fast? Where is the anchor which he shall give them to cast into the rocks? or
where the rocks into which they should cast their anchor? Our text is a solution to that
question. We are here furnished with a great answer to the inquiry—"To the law
and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no
light in them."
First, I shall endeavour this morning to urge you to bring certain things, to which
we are afraid a superstitious importance may be attached, "to the law and to the
testimony." Secondly, I shall try to show the good effects that will follow,
if each of you rigidly bring everything you hear and believe, "to the law and to the
testimony." And, thirdly, I shall give you some powerful reasons why you
should subject everything to this sacred touchstone; and close by offering you some
little advice how you may do this truly and profitably.
I. Permit me to urge upon you the bringing CERTAIN THINGS "to the law and to the
testimony."
1. First, I would have you bring the ideas engendered in you by your early training, to
the test of the Book of God. It is very much the custom of people to say, "Was I not
born in the Church of England? Ought I not therefore to continue in it?" Or, on the
other hand, "Was not my grandmother an Immersionist? Ought not I, therefore, to
continue in the Baptist denomination?" God forbid that I should say aught against
your venerable and pious relatives; or that you should pay any disrespect to their
teaching! We always respect their advice, even when we cannot receive it, for the sake of
the person who offers it to us; knowing that their training, even should it have been
mistaken, was nevertheless well meant. But we claim for ourselves, as men, that we should
not be fed with doctrines as we were fed in our helpless infancy, with food chosen for us:
we claim that we should have the right of judging whether the things which we have
received and heard, are according to this Sacred Book; and if we find that in aught our
training has been erroneous, we do not consider that we are violating any principle of
affection, if we dare to come forth from our families, and join a denomination holding
tenets far different from those which our parents had espoused. Let us each recollect that
as God has given every man a head on his shoulders, every man is bound to use his own
head, and not his father's. God gave your father judgment. Well and good: he judged for
himself. He has given you a judgment: judge for yourself too. Say, concerning all that you
have received in your early childhood, "Well, I will not lightly part with this, for
it may be sterling gold; but at the same time, I will not blindly hoard it, for it may be
counterfeit coin. I will sit down to the study of the Sacred Book, and I will endeavour,
as far as I can, to unprejudice myself. I will read the Bible, just as if I had never
heard any preacher, or had never been taught by a parent; and I will there endeavour to
find out what God saith, and what God saith, be it what it may, I will believe and
espouse, hoping that by his grace I may also feel the power of it in my own soul.
2. Remember, also, to bring the preachers of the gospel to this standard. A great many of
you know but very little about what gospel is. The general notion of the mass is, that we
are everyone of us right; that though to-day I may contradict some one else, and some one
else may contradict me, yet we are all right; and though it is treason to common sense to
believe such a thing, yet this is a common idea. Some men always believe like the last
speaker. Should they hear the most hyper of hyper-Calvinists, they believe with him the
fulness of the doctrine of reprobation; should they hear on the morrow the lowest of
Arminians, they believe with him the most universal of redemptions and the most powerful
of free-wills. Should they then hear the genuine Calvinist, who preaches that man hath
destroyed himself, but in God is his help found, perhaps then they think the man
contradicts himself, and for once they rebel against their teachers. But it is probable
that should they hear such a person again, they will be easily reconciled to seeming
contradictions; for to them it is just the man's appearance, just the man's way of saying
the thing, that they like, and not the thing that he says. Just as I have heard of holy
Mr. Durham, the writer of that sweet book on Solomon's Song. If I had lived in his time, I
should never, I think, have wanted to hear any other preacher; I would have sat, both by
night and day, to receive the sweet droppings of his honied lips. But in his time there
was a young preacher, whose name is totally forgotten, whose church was crowded to the
door, and Mr. Durham's meeting-house hard by forsaken. The reason of that is, because the
mass of people do not lay hold upon what is said, but upon how it is said: and if it is
said smartly, said prettily, and said forcibly, that is enough for them, though it be a
lie; but if the truth be spoken, that they will not receive, unless it be attended by some
graces of oratory and eloquence. Now, the Christian that has got above his babyhood, does
not care about how the man says it; it is the thing that is said that he cares about. All
he asks is, "Did he speak the truth?" He just gets hold of the corn. To him the
straw is nothing, and the chaff less. He cares not for the trimming of the feast, nor for
the exquisite workmanship of the dish; he only cares for that which is solid food for
himself.
Now, my dear friends, I claim for myself, when I enter this pulpit, the right of being
heard; but I do not claim the right of being believed, unless the words that I speak shall
be in accordance with this Sacred Book. I desire you to serve me as I would have you serve
everybody else—bring us each "to the law and to the testimony." I thank
God, of my Bible I have no need to be ashamed. I sometimes am ashamed of this translation
of it, when I see how, in some important points, it is not true to God's Word; but of
God's own Word I can say, it is the man of my right hand, my meditation both day and
night; and if there be aught I preach that is contrary to this Word, trample it in the
mire, spit upon it, and despise it. The truth lieth here. It is not what I say, but what
my God saith, that you are demanded to receive. Put myself and put all my brethren into
the sieve; cast us each into the fire; put us into the crucible of truth; and what is not
according to God's Word must be consumed like dross.
3. There is another class of men quite contrary to those I have referred to. These men are
their own preachers; they believe no one but themselves, and without knowing it, there is
every reason for them to hate the Pope, because "two of a trade never agree,"
they being Popes themselves. These persons, if they hear a truth preached, judge of it not
by the Bible, but by what they think the truth ought to be. I have heard a person, for
instance, say, when he has heard the doctrine of Election, or of particular Redemption,
"Well, now the doctrine does not please me, I do not like it." And then he
begins to urge some objection which he has forged upon his own anvil, yet never trying to
quote a Scripture text to refute it, if he can; never turning to some old saying of the
Prophets, and endeavouring to find out that the doctrine was an error, but only judging of
it by his own opinion, by his wishes as to what the truth ought to be. What would you
think of a man who should say to an astronomer, "Now, it is of no use your telling me
that the constellation of Scorpio of such-and-such a shape; I tell you, I do not like the
look of it. My dear fellow, I don't think that the constellation of Scorpio ought to have
been made that shape; and I think this star ought to have been put just here, instead of
there: and then all would be well." The astronomer would simply smile at him, and
say, "Your opinion does not signify, because it does not alter facts. If you think I
am wrong, your right way to disprove me is not to say where you think the stars ought to
be, but just come and take a look through my telescope and see where the stars are."
now, it is just the same with the truth. People say, "I do not like such a
truth." That is no refutation of it. The question is,—Is it in the Bible?
Because if it is there, like it or not like it, it is a fact, and all the minister has to
do is to report the facts that he finds there. Why, the astronomer cannot put the stars in
a row, like a row of gas lights, to please you; and the minister cannot put the doctrines
into a shape in which you would wish to have them cast. All the astronomer does is to map
them out, and say, "That is how they are in the sky:" you must then look at the
sky, and see whether it is so. All I have to do is to tell you what I find in the Bible;
if you do not like it, remember, that is no refutation of it, nor do I care for your
liking it or not liking it; the only thing is, Is it in the Bible? If it is there I shall
not stop to prove it. I do not come here to prove a doctrine at all. If it is in the
Bible, it is true: there it is; I tell it out; reject it, and you do so to your own
condemnation; for you yourself believe the Bible to be true, and I prove it to be there,
and therefore it must be true.
Should it be according to thy mind? Wouldst thou like to have a Bible made for the devices
of thine own heart? If it were, it would be a worthless thing. Wouldst thou desire to have
a Gospel according to thy wishes? Then with some of you it would be a Gospel that allowed
lasciviousness. Wouldst thou wish to have a revelation made that should pamper thee in thy
lusts, and indulge thee in thy pride? If so, this know, God will never stoop to feed thy
haughtiness or wantonness. The Bible is a God-like book; he demands thy faith in it; and
though thou kickest against it, this stone can never be broken; but, mark thee, thou
mayest be broken upon it, yea, it may fall upon thee and bruise thee to powder. Bring,
then, I beseech thee, your own thoughts and your own sentiments to the touchstone of the
truth; for "if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light
in them."
4. And just do the same with all books that you read. This is the age of book-making and
book-writing. Now-a-days, what with periodical literature and the books upon our shelves,
our Bibles do not get much read. I will tell you a truthful story as it was told to me
yesterday. There was a young man, who is now a student for the ministry, so
extraordinarily ignorant was he of his own Bible, that upon hearing a young minister
mention the story of Nebuchadnezzar's being driven out from men, until his nails did grow
like birds' claws, and his hair like eagles' feathers, he said to the minister at the
close of the sermon, "Well, that was a queer story you told the people, certainly:
where did you fish that up?" "Why," said the minister, "have you never
read your Bible? Can you not find it in the Book of Daniel?" The young man had read a
great many other things, but never read his Bible through, and yet was going to be a
teacher of it! Now, I fear that the same ignorance is very current in many persons. They
do not know what is in the Bible: they could tell you what is in the Churchman's Penny,
or the Christian's Penny, or the Churchman's Magazine, or the Wesleyan
Magazine, or the Baptist Magazine, or the Evangelical Magazine, and all that;
but there is one old magazine, a magazine of arms, a magazine of wealth, that they forget
to read—that old-fashioned book called the Bible. "Ah!" said one, when he
came to die, who had been a great classic, "I would to God I had spent as much time
in reading my Bible as I have spent in reading Livy! Would to God I had been exact in my
criticisms of Holy Scripture as I was in criticisms upon Horace!" Oh! that we were
wise, to give the Bible the largest share of our time, and ever to continue reading it,
both by day and night, that we might be as trees planted by the rivers of water, bringing
forth our fruit in our season! Let us remember, as ministers of the Gospel, what M'Cheyne
beautifully said; "Depend upon it," said he, "it is God's Word, not man's
comment upon God's Word, that saves souls;" and I have marked, that if ever we have a
conversion at any time, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the conversion is rather
traceable to the text, or to some Scripture quoted in the sermon, than to any trite or
original by the preacher. It is God's Word that breaks the fetters and sets the prisoner
free; it is God's Word instrumentally that saves souls; and therefore let us bring
everything to the touchstone. "To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not
according to this word, it is because there is no light in them."
II. Now I pass to my second point. Brethren, let me show you some of the GOOD EFFECTS that
you will derive from a minute and careful study of the law and testimony of God.
1. First, remember, that unless you study the Word of God, you will not be competent to
detect error. A man may in your hearing preach downright falsehood, but you will not be
qualified to judge concerning that falsehood unless you have studied the Word of God. You
and I would not be fit to sit on the judgment bench of some of the superior courts of our
land, because we are not acquainted with the intricacies of the law. We could not quote
precedents, for we have not been learned therein. And so no man is able to judge
concerning the thing that he hears, unless he is able to quote Scripture—unless he
understands the Word of God, and is able to perceive and to know what it means.
But I hear some one say, that the Bible is so difficult a book that he is sure he never
could understand it. Mark thee, man, the Bible is so plain a book that he that is willing
to understand it may do so; it is so plain that he that runs may read, and read while he
runs; yea, it is so plain, that the simpler a man is, the more easily he can understand
it. All the learning that man ever received is rather a hindrance than a benefit when he
comes for the first time to read the Word. Learning may untie many a knot afterwards; it
may unravel many a mystery in after times; but we have heard deep-minded critics say, that
at first they would have given all the world, if they could have thrown their learning
aside, just to read the Bible as the humble cottager reads it, and believe it as God's
Word, without any quibbles of criticism. You know how Mrs. Beecher Stowe represents Uncle
Tom reading it. He could not read it fast; so he just spelt it over letter by letter, and
word by word; and the Bible is one of the books, she says, that always gains by that way
of reading. You recollect how he read it.
"Let—not—your—hearts—be——;" and then he stopped at
the long word; and he fumbled it out at last, and it was, "troubled. Ye
believe in God, believe also in me." Why, it gets sweeter from your being a long time
reading it; and so far from your want of learning disqualifying you from understanding the
Bible, the mass of it is all the more understandable from the simplicity of your heart.
Come ye, and search the Scriptures; they are no such mysterious fables or learned volumes
of hard words as some men say. This is no closed book, as the priest would tell us; it is
a volume which the Sunday School child may understand, if the Spirit of God rests upon his
heart. It is a book which the horny-handed workman may comprehend as well as the learned
divine, and many such have become exceedingly wise therein. I say again, read your Bibles,
that you may be qualified to detect error.
2. But again: I do not like a man who is always looking out for error. That man has got
some error in his own heart, depend on it. They say, "Set a thief to catch a
thief;" and it is very likely that there is some love of error in your heart, or else
you would not be so ready to suspect it in other people. But let me give you another
reason. Search your Bibles; for then, when you are in a matter of dispute you will be able
to speak very confidently. There is nothing gives a man so much power amongst his fellows
as confidence. If in conversation I am contradicted as to any sentiment that I propound,
if I have got Scripture at my fingers' ends, why I laugh at my opponent, and though he be
never so wise and has read ten times more books than I have ever seen, I just smile at
him, if I can quote Scripture; for then I am confident—I am sure—I am certain
about the matter—for "thus saith the Lord," is an argument that no man can
answer. It makes a man seem very foolish when he has to speak in a diffident manner. I
always think that certain elegant ministers, who are afraid of being called dogmatical,
and who therefore propound the gospel as if they did not hardly like to say they were sure
it was true—as if they thought so, they nearly thought so—still they did not
think so quite enough to say they knew, but leave it to their hearers. I always think they
show the littleness of their minds in so doing. It may be a great thing to doubt, but it
is a great thing to hold your tongue while you are doubting, and not to open your mouth
till you believe, and then, when you do open your mouth, to say the thing you know is
true, and stick to it, not as an opinion, but as an incontrovertible fact. No man will
ever do much amongst his fellows till he can speak confidently what he knows to be
revealed.
Now, Bible readers, you can attain this confidence, but you can get it nowhere else but at
the foot of Scripture. Hear ministers alone, and ye shall be led to doubt, for one of them
shall confound what his brought sought to prove; but read your Bibles, and when ye get the
Word legible by its own light, impressed upon your own hearts by the Holy Spirit, then
"Should all the forms that men devise,
Assault your faith with treacherous art,
You'll call them vanity and lies,
And bind the gospel to your heart."
3. Furthermore, search the Scriptures, and
bring everything you hear to this great test, because in so doing you will get a rich
harvest of blessing to your own soul. I suppose there is scarce a text in Holy that has
not been the instrument of the salvation of a soul. Now, "he that walketh among wise
men will be wise;" and he that walks amongst the wise men that wrote Holy Scripture
stands at least the highest probability of being made wise unto salvation. If I desired to
put myself into the most likely place for the Lord to meet with me, I should prefer the
house of prayer, for it is in preaching, that the Word is most blessed; but still I think
I should equally desire the reading of the Scriptures; for I might pause over every verse,
and say, "Such a verse was blessed to so many souls; then, why not to me? I am at
least in the pool of Bethesda; I am walking amongst its porches, and who can tell but that
the angel will stir the pool of the Word, whilst I lie helplessly by the side of it,
waiting for the blessing?" Yea, the truth is so great, that God has blessed every
word of Scripture, that I remember a striking anecdote of the conversion of a man by a
passage of Scripture that did not seem adapted for any such purpose. You know that chapter
in Genesis, that very dull chapter, where we read, "and Methusaleh lived 969 years,
and he died," and such a one lived so many years and he died? We have heard of its
being read once in public; and a man who stood there, when he heard the words often
repeated, "and he died," thought, "Ah! and I shall die!" And it was
the first note of warning that had ever struck his seared conscience, and was the means
under God of bringing him to Jesus. Now, read the Scriptures for this reason. If you
desire salvation, and if you are panting after mercy, if you feel your sin and want
salvation, come ye to this sea of love, to this treasury of light, to this wardrobe of
rich clothing, to this fountain of bliss; come ye, and have your wants supplied out of the
fulness of the riches of Jesus, who is "evidently set forth" in this Word,
"crucified among you."
III. And now let me endeavour as briefly as I can, to urge upon you yet again the constant
and perpetual reading of the Word of God, not only for the reasons that I have now
propounded, but for others more important. Many false prophets have gone forth into the
world: I beseech you, then, if ye would not be led astray, be diligent in the study of the
Word of God. In certain parts of Dr. Livingstone's travels, he tells us, that his guides
were either so ignorant or so determined to deceive him, that he could have done far
better without them than with them; and he had constantly to refer to his compass, lest he
should be led astray. Now, I would not say a hard thing if I did not believe it true; but
I do solemnly think that there are some professed teachers of the Word, who are either so
ignorant of spiritual things in their own hearts, or else so determined to preach anything
but Christ, that you might do better without them than with them; and hence you have an
absolute necessity to turn perpetually to this great compass by which alone you can steer
your way. I scorn a charity that after all is not charity. I must tell you what I believe.
Some would have me now stand here and say, "All that are eminent preachers are most
certainly truthful preachers." now, I cannot say it. If at any time I hear a man
preach the doctrine of Justification by Faith alone, through the merits of Christ, I give
him my hand, and call him my brother, because he is right in the main thing; but when I do
that I am long way from endorsing many other of his sentiments. It may be that he denies
the effectual power of the Spirit in conversion; it may be he does not hold the doctrine
of the entire depravity of the human race—does not insist upon free sovereign
grace—does not hold forth and teach the doctrine of substitution and satisfaction
through Christ. Now, I will not so befool myself as to tell you that wherein that man
differs from the Word of God he is true. No doubt that man may be blessed for your
salvation; but there may he a curse upon his ministry notwithstanding; so that while you
may be saved by it, you may be all your lifetime subject to bondage through it, and you
may go groaning, where you ought to have gone singing—crying, where you might have
had a sacred burst of joy. You sit under such-and-such a man who has been made the means
of your conversion; but he tells you that your salvation depends upon yourself, and not
upon the power of Christ. He insists upon it that you may, after all, fall from grace and
be a cast-away; he tells you that although you are saved, God did no more love you than he
loved Judas; that there is no such thing as special love, no such thing, in fact, as
Election. He tells you that others might have come to Christ, as well as
yourself—that there was no extraordinary power put out in your case, more than in any
others. Well, if he does not lead you to glory in man, to magnify the flesh, and sometimes
to trust in yourself, or else lead you to distress yourself where there is no need for
distress, I should marvel indeed, inasmuch as his doctrine is false, and must mislead you.
It may be the means of your salvation, and yet it may fail in may points to minister to
your edification and comfort. Therefore, if ye would not be thus misled, search ye the
Scriptures.
But ah! there is a solemn danger of being absolutely misled. Ye may hear all that the
minister says, but he may forget to tell you the vital part of the truth; he may be one
who delights in ceremonies, but does not insist upon the grace therein; he may hold forth
to you the rubric and sacrament, and tell you there is efficacy in obedience to the one,
and attention to the other, and he may forget to tell you that "Except a man be born
again of the Spirit he cannot see the kingdom of God." Now, under such a ministry you
may not only be misled, but alas! you may be destroyed altogether. He may be one who
insists much upon morality of life; he may tell you to be honest, just, and sober; but
mayhap he may forget to tell you that there is a deeper work required than mere morality;
he may film the surface over, and never send the lancet into the deep ulcer of your
heart's corruption. He may give you some palliating dose, some medicine that may still
your conscience; he may never say to you, "There is no peace, saith my God, to the
wicked;" he may be one of those that prophesy smooth things, that does not like to
disturb you. And oh! remember that your minister may be the instrument in the hands of
Satan of blindfolding your eyes and leading you to hell, while all the while you thought
you were going to heaven. Ah! and hear me yet: I do not exclude myself from my own
censure. It may be possible—I pray God it may not be so—that I myself may have
mistaken the reading of the Holy Scripture, that I may have preached to you "another
gospel which is not another;" and therefore I demand of you that my own teaching, and
the teaching of every other man, whether by pen or lip, should be always brought "to
the law and to the testimony," lest we should deceive you and lead you astray. Ah! my
hearers, it would be an awful thing, if I should be the means of leading any of you into
the gulf. Although in some measure your blood must be upon my head, if I deceive you, yet
I beseech you, remember that I am not further responsible for your souls than my power can
carry me. If you are misled by me, after this solemn declaration of mine, you shall be as
verily guilty as if I had not misguided you; for I charge you, as ye love your own souls,
as ye would make sure work for eternity, put no more trust in me than you would in any
other man, only so far as I can prove, by infallible testimony of God's Word, that what I
have said is true. Stand ye always to this. "To the law and to the testimony; if they
speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." I heard a
story once that I remember to have told before, of some young person going out of the
place, and saying, "Well, I don't like Mr. Spurgeon at all; he is so high in
doctrine; he said so-and-so." And then the young body quoted a text out of the Bible
as a very wicked thing that I had said—something about the potter having power over
the clay. So the friend who was with her said, "It was Paul said that, not Mr.
Spurgeon." "Ah!" said she, "and I think the Apostle Paul was a great
deal too high too." Well, we are very glad to incur censure of that sort, and will
not at all object to go with Paul wherever he may go; but we do beseech you never at any
time to take our bare saying for a thing, but always to turn to your Bible and see whether
it is so. That is a good habit some Christian fathers have; when the boys and girls come
home, they say, "Well, now, what was the text?" And then the father wants them
to tell over what the minister has said; and even the small boy knows something, and tells
something or other that the minister said from the pulpit. Then the fathers turns to his
Bible to see whether these things are so. Then he endeavours to explain the hard things;
so that they become like those noble Bereans, who were more noble than those of
Thessalonica, because they searched the Scriptures, whether those things were so.
And now I may just hint at one or two peculiarities in that which I have ever preached to
you, which peculiarities I desire you most anxiously to inquire into. Now, take nothing at
second hand from me, but try all of it by the written Word. I believe, and I teach that
all men by nature are lost by Adam's fall. See whether that be true or not. I hold that
men have so gone astray that no man either will or can come to Christ except the Father
draw him. If I be wrong, find me out. I believe that God, before all worlds, chose to
himself a people, whom no man can number, for whom the Saviour died, to whom the Holy
Spirit is given, and who will infallibly be saved. You may dislike that doctrine; I do not
care: see if it is not in the Bible. See if it does not there declare that we are
"elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father," and so on. I believe
that every elect child of God must assuredly be brought by converting grace from the ruins
of the fall, and must assuredly be "kept by the power of God, through faith, unto
salvation," beyond the hazard of ever totally falling away. If I be wrong there, get
your Bibles out, and refute me in your own houses. I hold it to be a fact that every man
who is converted will lead a holy life, and yet at the same time will put no dependence on
his holy life, but trust only in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. And I hold,
that every man that believes, is in duty bound to be immersed. I hold the baptism of
infants to be a lie and a heresy; but I claim for that great ordinance of God, Believer's
Baptism, that it should have the examination of Scripture. I hold, that to none but
believers may immersion be given, and that all believers are in duty bound to be immersed.
If I am wrong, well and good; do not believe me; but if I am right, obey the Word with
reverence. I will have no error, even upon a point which some men think to be unimportant;
for a grain of truth is a diamond, and a grain of error may be of serious consequence to
us, to our injury and hurt. I hold then, that none but believers have any right to the
Lord's Supper; that it is wrong to give the Lord's Supper indiscriminately to all, and
that none but Christians have a right either to the doctrines, the benefits, or the
ordinances of God's house. If these things be not so, condemn me as you please; but if the
Bible is with me, your condemnation is of no avail.
And now I charge you that are now present to read your Bibles, for one thing. Read your
Bibles to know what the Bible says about you; and some of you when you turn the
leaves over, will find the Bible says, "Thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the
bonds of iniquity." If that startles you, turn over another page, and read this
verse—"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest;" and when you have read that, turn to another and read, "Therefore being
justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord." I pray
you, put not away your Bibles till their dust condemns you; but take them out, bend your
knees, seek for the Spirit of divine teaching, and turn ye these pages with diligent
search, and see if ye can find there the salvation of your souls, through our Lord Jesus
Christ. May the blessing of God rest upon you in so doing, through Jesus Christ. Amen.
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