soul. This witch, when she can, entices men into her bed. “There,” she says, “there, how daintily have I spread it!” It is a bed, its pillars are pleasure; above is the purple of rapture, and beneath is the soft repose of luxurious voluptuousness. Oh, what a bed is this! Solomon once laid in it, and many since his time have sought their rest there. They have said, “Away with your gold and silver: let me spend it, that I may eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow I die. Do not tell me about fame, I do not care for it. I would sooner have the pleasures of life, or the joys of Bacchus, than the laurel of fame. Let me give myself up to the intoxication of this world’s delights, let me be drowned in the cask of Burgundy of this world’s joys.” Have you ever seen such men as that? I have seen many and wept over them, and I know some now, they are stretching themselves on that bed, and trying to make themselves happy. Byron is just a picture of such men, though he outdid others. What a bed was that he stretched for himself. Was any libertine more free in his vices? was any sinner more wild in his blasphemy? was any poet more daring in his flights of thought? was any man more injurious to his fellows than he? And yet what did Byron say? There is a verse which just tells you what he felt in his heart. The man had all that he wanted of sinful pleasure, but here is his confession —
I fly like a bird of the air,
In search of a home and a rest;
A balm for the sickness of care,
A bliss for a bosom unblessed.
9. And yet he did not find it. He had no rest in God. He tried pleasure until his eyes were red with it; he tried vice until his body was sick; and he descended into his grave a premature old man. If you had asked him, and he had spoken honestly, he would have said, the bed was to short to stretch out on. No, young man, you may have all the vices, and all the pleasure and mirth of this metropolis, and there is much to be found, of which I make no mention here, and when you have it all, you will find it does not equal your expectation nor satisfy your desires. When the devil is bringing you one cup of spiced wine, you will be asking him next time to spice it more; and he will flavour it to your fiery taste, but you will be dissatisfied still, until at last, if he were to bring you a cup hot as damnation, it would fall tasteless on your palate. You would say, “Even this is tasteless to me, except in the gall, and bitter wormwood, and fire that it brings.” It is so with all worldly pleasure: there is no end to it; it is a perpetual thirst. It is like the opium eater; he eats a little, and he dreams such strange wonders; and he awakens, and where are they? Such dreamers, when awake, look like dead men, with just animation enough to enable them to crawl along. The next time, to get to their next high, they must take more opium, and the next time more and more, and all the while, they are gradually going down an inclined plane into their graves. That is just the effect of human pleasure, and all worldly sensual delights; they only end in destruction; and even while they last, they are not wide enough for our desire, they are not large enough for our expectations, “for the bed is too short to stretch out on.”
10. Now think, for a moment, of the Christian, and see the picture reversed. I will suppose the Christian in his very worst state, though there is no reason why I should do so. The Christian is not necessarily poor; he may be rich. Suppose he is poor. He has not a foot of land to call his own; he lives by the day, and he lives well, for his Master keeps a good cupboard for him, and furnishes him with all that he requires. He has nothing in this world except the promise of God with regard to the future. The worldly man laughs at the promise, and says it is good for nothing. Now look at the Christian; he says, —
‘There’s nothing around this spacious globe,
Which suits my large desires’;
To nobler joys than nature can give,
Your servant, Lord, aspires.
What, poor man, are you perfectly content? “Yes,” he says, “it is my Father’s will that I should live in poverty. I am perfectly content.” “Well, but is there nothing else you wish for?” “Nothing,” he says, “I have the presence of God; I have delight in communion with Christ; ‘I know that there is laid up for me a crown of life that does not fade away,’ and more I cannot want. I am perfectly content; my soul is at rest.” In the Christian religion there is a rest that no one can enjoy elsewhere. Oh! I can say as in the sight of God, my soul is perfectly at rest. “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin is destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God.” {Job 19:26} I know that my sins are forgiven, that I am accepted in the Beloved. I know there is nothing more that I want except what I have already, for Christ is all and more than all. What more can my soul desire? As for temporals I can leave them in my Father’s hands; as for spirituals I can leave them also with him. “My soul is even as a weaned child,” resting on its mother’s breast. I can ask for nothing more. And now let me stretch myself upon this bed. Let me think of the largest desire that heart ever had, and I find it is smaller than this bed. What do I ask for? I ask for immortality, I have it here. What do I pant for? I pant for ceaseless, boundless bliss, I have it here. I pant to be God’s child, I have it here. I pant to be rich to all intents of bliss, I have the promise here, and I shall have the fruition of it hereafter. I long for perfection. Is that a stretch indeed? And that I have, “perfect in Christ Jesus.” I have the promise that “the Lord will perfect what concerns me.” Oh! I wish you would try and stretch yourselves a moment. Come, let your spirits stretch themselves with all their might. Put out your hands until they grasp the east and west, and let your head and feet lie at either pole of this round world, and is there not room for you in the promise, room in the gospel? No, reach into the far off eternity, and let your soul desire the utmost it can conceive, and still the bed is long enough: — “He is able to do exceeding abundantly above what you can ask or even think.” Now, try and think your best, and he shall exceed it; come and ask your most, and God shall give you more. Oh! blessed is the sleep of the Christian. He sleeps in a bed supported by the everlasting arms of the Saviour. He sleeps there fanned by the breath of the Spirit, and knowing that when he wakes up he shall wake up in the likeness of his Saviour, in the likeness of his God.
11. Thus, I think I have given you some idea of the meaning of this text, “The bed is too short to stretch out on.” Now, just for a moment think of this bed in the sense of another world. And here we may say of all the sinner’s hope, that it is a bed too short to stretch out on. Sinner, you who are without God and without Christ, ask yourself this question, “What is your bed for eternity? What is your rest in another world?” Perhaps, that is a question you have never asked yourself. Ask it now. “Oh,” one says, “I am no worse than my neighbours.” Is that bed long enough for eternity? No, assuredly not. “No,” one says, “I do not care how I shall fare, I shall take my fate.” And is that long enough for eternity? You cannot draw any consolation from that when you stand at God’s judgment bar. “No,” another says, “I will not think about it.” And is that long enough for eternity? “Ah,” cries another, “I go to church, and chapel, and so forth, and that will do.” Is that long enough for eternity? You have now to stretch yourself. Let conscience strain you, let death put you on the rack, and pull you out a little, and the bed is not long enough for you. You are obliged to feel that you are uneasy. No, there is not a man outside of Christ that is not uneasy at times. Harden your conscience as you may, sometimes it will arouse you. Put Mr. Conscience down in a back street, so that the daylight cannot come to him, but you cannot silence him; he has a voice as loud as thunder, and sometimes he will awaken you. I do not care who the infidel is, or what he says: it is merely bragging, there is nothing in it. Men who cannot fight are always very proud and conceited before they come to the battle. So it is with the Infidel, the Atheist, the Socinian; they are very great men when they talk to us, but they know they have none of the greatness that they pretend to have; they have none really, for their own consciences cannot rest. I do affirm, again, that there is no man who has a solid peace, a perfect satisfaction in his own mind, but the man who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, trusts him entirely for his soul’s
