for a moment that there such people. God has unanswerably met your objection; for, strange to say, the great number of those who are saved are just the most unlikely people in the world to have been saved while a great number of those who perish were once just the very people whom, if natural disposition had anything to do with it, we would have expected to see in heaven. Why, there is one here who in his youth was a child of many follies. Often his mother wept over him, and cry and groan over her son’s wanderings; for what with a fierce high spirit that could brook neither bit nor bridle, what with perpetual rebellions and ebullitions of hot anger, she said, “My son, my son, what will you become in your later years? Surely you will dash in pieces law and order, and be a disgrace to your father’s name.” He grew up; in youth he was wild and wanton, but, wonder of wonders, suddenly he became a new man, changed, altogether changed; no more like what he was before than angels are like lost spirits. He sat at her feet, he cheered her heart, and the lost, fiery one became gentle, mild, humble as a little child, and obedient to God’s commandments. You say, wonder of wonders! But there is another here. He was a fair youth: when only a child he talked of Jesus; often when his mother had him on her knee he asked her questions about heaven; he was a prodigy, a wonder of piety in his youth. As he grew up, the tear rolled down his cheek under any sermon, he could scarcely bear to hear of death without a sigh; sometimes his mother caught him, as she thought, in prayer alone. And what is he now? He has just this very morning come from sin; he has become the debauched, desperate villain, has gone far into all manner of wickedness and lust, and sin, and has become more damnably corrupt than other men could have made him; only his own evil spirit, once confined, has now developed itself, he has learned to play the lion in his manhood, as once he played the fox in his youth. I do not know whether you have ever met with such a case; but it very frequently is so. I know I can say that in my congregation some abandoned, wicked fellow, has had his heart broken, and been led to weep, and has cried to God for mercy, and renounced his vile sin; while some fair maiden by his side has heard the same sermon, and if there was a tear she brushed it away; she still continues just what she was, “without God and without hope in the world.” God has taken the base things of the world, and has just picked his people out of the very roughest of men, in order that he may prove, that it is not natural disposition, but that “Salvation is of the Lord” alone.
13. Well, but some say, it is the minister they hear who converts men. Ah! that is a grand idea, for sure. No man but a fool would entertain it. I met with a man sometime ago who assured me that he knew a minister who had a very large amount of converting power in him. Speaking of a great Evangelist in America, he said, “That man, sir, has got the greatest quantity of converting power I ever knew a man to have; and Mr. So-and-So in a neighbouring town I think is second to him.” At that time this converting power was being exhibited; two hundred people were converted by the converting power of this second best, and joined to the church in a few months. I went to the place some time afterwards — it was in England — and I said, “How do your converts get on?” “Well,” he said, “I cannot say much about them.” “How many out of those two hundred whom you received in a year ago stand fast?” “Well,” he said, “I am afraid not many of them; we have turned seventy of them out for drunkenness already.” “Yes,” I said, “I thought so: that is the end of the grand experiment of converting power.” If I could convert you all, anyone else might unconvert you; what any man can do another man can undo; it is only what God does that is abiding.
14. No, my brethren; God has taken good care it shall never be said conversion is of man, for usually he blesses those who seem to be the most unlikely to be useful. I do not expect to see as many conversions in this place as I had a year ago, when I had far fewer hearers. Do you ask why? Why, a year ago I was abused by everyone; to mention my name was to mention the name of the most abominable buffoon who lived. The mere utterance of it brought forth oaths and cursing; with many men it was a name of contempt, kicked about the street as a football; but then God gave me souls by hundreds, who were added to my church, and in one year it was my happiness to see not less than a thousand personally who had then been converted. I do not expect that now. My name is somewhat esteemed now, and the great ones of the earth think it no dishonour to sit at my feet; but this makes me fear lest my God should forsake me now that the world esteems me. I would rather be despised and slandered than anything else. The assembly that you think is so grand and fine, I would readily part with, if by such a loss I could gain a greater blessing. “God has chosen the base things of the world”; and, therefore I reckon that the more esteemed I may be, the worse is my position, so much the less expectation shall I have that God will bless me. He has put his “treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of man.” A poor minister began to preach once, and all the world spoke poorly of him; but God blessed him. By and by they turned around and petted him. He was the man — a wonder! God left him! It has often been the same. It is for us to remember, in all times of popularity, that “Crucify him, crucify him” follows fast upon the heels of “Hosanna,” and that the crowd today, if dealt faithfully with, may turn into the handful of tomorrow; for men do not love plain speaking. We should learn to be despised, learn to be condemned, learn to be slandered, and then we shall learn to be made useful by God. Down on my knees have I often fallen, with the hot sweat rising from my brow, under some fresh slander poured upon me; in an agony of grief my heart has been almost broken, until at last I learned the art of bearing all and caring for nothing. And now my grief runs in another direction. It is just the opposite. I fear lest God should forsake me, to prove that he is the author of salvation — that it is not in the preacher, that it is not in the crowd, that it is not in the attention I can attract, but in God, and in God alone. And this thing I hope I can say from my heart: If to be made as the mire of the streets again, if to be the laughing stock of fools and the song of the drunkard once more will make me more serviceable to my Master, and more useful to his cause, I will prefer it to all this multitude, or to all the applause that man could give. Pray for me, dear friends, pray for me, that God would still make me the means of the salvation of souls; for I fear he may say, “I will not help that man, lest the world should say he has done it,” for “salvation is of the Lord,” and so it must be, even to the world’s end.
15. III. And now WHAT IS, WHAT SHOULD BE, THE INFLUENCE OF THIS DOCTRINE UPON MEN?
16. Why, first, with sinners, this doctrine is a great battering ram against their pride. I will give you an example. The sinner in his natural estate reminds me of a man who has a strong and almost impenetrable castle into which he has fled. There is the outer moat; there is a second moat; there are the high walls; and then afterwards there is the dungeon and keep, into which the sinner will retire. Now, the first moat that goes around the sinner’s trusting place is his good works. “Ah!” he says, “I am as good as my neighbour; twenty shillings to the pound down, ready money, I have always paid; I am no sinner; ‘I tithe mint and cummin’; a good respectable gentlemen I am indeed.” Well, when God comes to work with him, to save him, he sends his army across the first moat; and as they go through it, they cry, “Salvation is of the Lord”; and the moat is dried up, for if it is of the Lord, how can it be of good works? But when that is done, he has a second entrenchment — ceremonies. “Well,” he says, “I will not trust in my good works, but I have been baptized, I have been confirmed; do not I take the sacrament? That shall be my trust.” “Over the moat! Over the moat!” And the soldiers go over again, shouting, “Salvation is of the Lord.” The second moat is dried up; it is all over with that. Now they come to the first strong wall; the sinner, looking over it, says, “I can repent, I can believe, whenever I like; I will save myself by repenting and believing.” Up come the soldiers of God, his great army of conviction, and they batter this wall to the ground, crying, “ ‘Salvation is of the Lord.’ Your faith and your repentance must all be given to you, or else you will neither believe nor repent of sin.” And now the castle is taken; the man’s hopes are all cut off; he feels that it is not of self; the castle of self is overcome, and the great banner upon which is written “Salvation is of the Lord” is displayed upon the battlements. But is the battle over? Oh no; the sinner has retired to the keep, in the centre of the castle; and now he changes his tactics. “I cannot save myself,” he says, “therefore I will despair; there is no salvation
