Gently each idol He removes, Gently He checks our rising pride, Who thus His work fulfil. Gently He leads each burdened soul, And gives the weary rest; Gently the little ones He calls, And clasps them to his breast. Gently He lays his hand on some now To bear, not do, My will. His gentle dealings with His own, FATHER! we praise Thy Name for all Ne'er may we need a rougher call, LOVED, WASHED, AND DIGNIFIED. A SERMON BY MR. GRACE, ECILA. PREACHED AT REGENT STREET CHAPEL, CITY ROAD, LONDON, "Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His Own blood and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever."—Rev. i. 5, 6. HE words of my text form the song of the church militant here below, at times, and furnish the church triumphant above with that unceasing praise and adoration, not only to Christ, the second person in the Trinity, or the Eternal Son of God, but to each Person of the blessed Trinity-one God, Who is Father, Son and Holy Ghost-one God in essence. Now, it appears from the scriptures of truth, from what is recorded here, that there was a needs-be that John the Divine,-who is so called, I suppose, to make a distinction between him and John the Baptist, that this man should be banished to the Isle of Patmos to have a revelation of the things of God concerning the church of God to the end of the world; and, if I recollect right, John was cast into a cauldron of boiling oil and came out unhurt. Now, dear friends, it is very evident to me that a man's life is preserved until God has accomplished all things that He has intended by him, and he is immortal till his day and generation work is done. And not only was it true that John's spiritual life was preserved; but his natural life was preserved also; and therefore they thought if they could not kill him they would banish him to Patmos; but that could not be done without the permissive will of God. No, no; in that Isle it was that John was to have the favoured revelation of the things of God. Now this should afford us some consolation. If John was preserved in the cauldron of boiling oil; if Daniel was preserved in the den of lions; if Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were preserved in the fiery furnace; "think it not strange," beloved, "concerning the fiery trial" of your faith, "as if some strange thing had happened unto you." You know the promise of God stands to you now, as much as ever it did to the patriarchs of old: "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the floods, they shall not overflow thee," &c. And why is it that all the elect are sometimes put into the furnace? Sometimes we have a variety of things outwardly and inwardly; but when I am brought to this consideration,-that there is not an inward conflict or an outward trial I have but what is ordained of God, it has often afforded me consolation in these things. He sits as a refiner, and you know we are His propertyHis gold-and not one particle of it shall be destroyed, because the reffner knows the very time when the metal must come out of the crucible: and so does our blessed Master. He knows when He will bring out a vessel fit for the Master's use: and it is not to purge us from our sins, as dear Kent says; no, but to purge us from our dross,— "They were numbered On the Scapegoat's head of old." Now, some people make so much of their afflictions, as if they were meritorious. No, no; I have merited all the afflictions I have had by my sins; but the blessed Jesus is the only atonement and only satisfaction that has been made to law and justice for all the sins of the church of the living God. Time would fail me, or any talented man, to preach to the full extent of the text I have got before me : "Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His Own blood," &c. Why, look; there is a volume contained in every word. But the blessedness of it is this; when we are enabled to adopt the language and say, "Who loved me;" "Who loved us," as John includes himself in the " us." 66 I. Now, first, it will be necessary to speak of character-the character of those who put in their claim to this us. If I have strength to speak a little about character, it will be no new doctrine. No; I know, dear friends, you have not only Christ preached here in the fulness of His salvation, but also you know what it is tc have the creature debased, and to be laid low in the dust; because ་ ན if we never know what it is to be laid low in the dust we shall never stand in need of washing. Now, if I have a people before me and I dare say I have some- a people who have never had the carnal enmity slain; well, friends, if you have not, you cannot heartily assent to the doctrines of grace. You may say the doctrines of grace and election are very harsh doctrines. Why now say you, Is it to be credited that ever God should make creatures, and leave them to be damned? When things come to be put in such a way as this, there is that in the human mind that revolts at it. But, friends, let me put it in such a way as that it will be more palatable,—I mean, that it will not so much grate on your ears. Some Now, when God put Adam in the garden of Eden, he told him the day he ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, in that day he should die. Well, he did eat of the tree, and did die spiritually, and the image of God was lost in him, and the image of the devil stamped on him. Now God would have been just if He had damned all the world: but it was His sovereign pleasure to set His love on a certain portion and part of the human race before ever Adam fell; and, therefore, remember it is an act of sovereign grace that even any should escape the punishment due to us. Well, then, what becomes of the others? They were left in the ruins of the fall, and there they are now. people seem to think it not right to speak of the doctrine of reprobation, as well as of the doctrine of election. They are both set forth in the scriptures of truth. But if you were to take an hour to talk about it, if God chooses to take one and leave another, are we to arraign Him at our bar, and say, "What doest Thou?" In Romans ix. you read: "Nay, but O man, who art thou that repliest against God? shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why hast Thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction." The one is fitted to destruction and the other is appointed to eternal glory. And shall we ask and say, "Why hast Thou done this?" My dear friends, when sovereign and electing love takes hold of poor sinners here, you see, we are all dead in trespasses and sins; but yet, according to the eternal purposes of Jehovah, predestinated to eternal life; and we find it runs in the glorious chain of salvation: "For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son. Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified." So that our glorification is also connected with and arises from the foreknowledge of God, and His love that emanated from Himself from everlasting. "Having loved His Own that were in the world," blessed be God, "He loves them to the end." Thus, though it does not appear so at times, those that He predestinated to eternal life are also predestinated to eternal glorification. Now, in their original condition there is no difference between the elect and the non-elect; and here it is where God first manifests that choice which, as one quaint author says, "He loved His people with a dateless love." There is no date to God's love; for "He appeared of old" to Jeremiah, "saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love." While I was meditating last evening a little upon the word "everlasting," I felt we didn't take sufficient notice of such a word. We look at it; but we don't sufficiently consider it. It never can be lessened; never can be lost. When you and I have no sense of the love of God, yet remember, there is no alteration of His love to us-it beats the same for ever and ever. This love was manifest first in the eternal council of peace, that was settled in eternity. Now, when we come to go back to the ancient settlements of God,—that is, the covenant transactions between the Three Blessed Persons of the Holy Trinity, we see the manifestation of this love. God the Father gave His people to His Son. Equal love was manifested by God the Son; as it is set forth in Isaiah vi.: "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? And the prophet said, Here am I, send Me." He that redeems His bride, His church, which He had accepted at the hand of His Father, that in time the whole of our sins should be removed, and He would render perfect satisfaction, and justice should be satisfied for every sin that the church of God should ever commit as long as there is a church in the world.* These are some of the things that were done before there was time. God foreknew-foresaw-that Adam, as a free agent to stand before God, would fall, and therefore provision was made. These are some of the things that you often hear in this place, and not only here, but I daresay in other places; and blessed it is to hear them-but more so to receive them in the heart. You may have all the knowledge of this in your judgment and not a particle of it in your experience. Oh, are you an experimental man? I am. And if you have not an experimental knowledge of these in your conscience, they will never bring salvation to your soul. I first begin with that verse that Brewer has written in his "Hiding* This may properly be termed an adaptation rather than an interpretation of the words in Isaiah vi. place." You know, he speaks there of having no hiding-place at all: "But thus the eternal council ran,- And found I had no hiding place." Oh, my dear friends, that the Lord might condescend of His goodness and mercy to grant that some poor sinner coming here this morning, knowing nothing of himself or of God, might know something of the goodness of God, by sending an arrow of conviction dipped in blood to arouse them. If you read Ephesians ii., there you will have it explained. In the first chapter the character is spoken of. The apostle says: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” Well, now, take the second chapter, at the beginning, and the apostle says: "And you." Who? Paul. You that were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world." You that were "predestinated unto the adoption of children." "You hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." "Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. Among whom also," and so on. Again, "and were by nature the children of wrath even as others.” But now comes such a sweet verse, that has sometimes so brought me to a stand, that I have wondered with holy admiration: "But God, Who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye are saved." Look, my dear friends, look! Loved us before we had a being in the world; when dead in trespasses and sins, loved us; and in open manifestation of this love, "quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye are saved." Now here begins the first evidence of that love. Well then, my dear friends, if your enquiry is: Am I really and truly one of those characters that are chosen to eternal life, and awakened, called, and quickened by God the Holy Ghost; one that is coming and fleeing to Him by the love of God? recollect you may want the internal evidence of it, and yet have it. Now I consider that the first awakening is neither more nor less than raising a poor sinner to newness of life in Christ Jesus. For if you go to the third |