is come to save sinners, and every ear would be attentive, every eye would be fixed, and every heart would be wide open to receive the truth. We would have said, judging favourably of our fellow creatures, that there would not exist in the world a monster so vile, so depraved, so polluted, as to put so much as a stone in the way of the progress of truth; we could not have conceived such a thing; yet that conception is the truth. When the gospel was preached, instead of being accepted and admired, one universal hiss went up to heaven; men could not bear it; its first Preacher they dragged to the brow of the hill, and would have sent him down headlong: yes, they did more, they nailed him to the cross, and there they let him languish out his dying life in agony such as no man has borne since. All his chosen ministers have been hated and abhorred by worldlings; instead of being listened to, they have been scoffed at; treated as if they were the offscouring of all things, and the very scum of mankind. Look at the holy men in the old times, how they were driven from city to city, persecuted, afflicted, tormented, stoned to death wherever the enemy had power to do so. Those friends of men, those real philanthropists, who came with hearts big with love, and hands full of mercy, and lips pregnant with celestial fire, and souls that burned with holy influence; those men were treated as if they were spies in the camp, as if they were deserters from the common cause of mankind; as if they were enemies, and not, as they truly were, the best of friends. Do not suppose, my friends, that men like the gospel any better now, than they did then. There is an idea that you are growing better. I do not believe it. You are growing worse. In many respects men may be better — outwardly better — but the heart within is still the same. The human heart of today dissected, would be just like the human heart a thousand years ago: the gall of bitterness within that breast of yours, is just as bitter as the gall of bitterness in that of Simon of old. We have in our hearts the same latent opposition to the truth of God; and hence we find men even as of old, who scorn the gospel.
6. I shall, in speaking of the gospel rejected, endeavour to point out the two classes of people who equally despise the truth. The Jews make it a stumblingblock, and the Greeks account it foolishness. Now these two very respectable gentlemen — the Jew and the Greek — I am not going to make these ancient individuals the object of my condemnation, but I look upon them as members of a great parliament, representatives of a great constituency, and I shall attempt to show that if all the race of Jews were cut off, there would be still a great number in the world who would answer to the name of Jews, to whom Christ is a stumblingblock; and that if Greece were swallowed up by some earthquake, and ceased to be a nation, there would still be the Greek to whom the gospel would be foolishness. I shall simply introduce the Jew and the Greek; and let them speak a moment to you, in order that you may see the gentlemen who represent you; the representative men; the individuals who stand for many of you, who as yet are not called by divine grace.
7. The first is the Jew; to him the gospel is a stumblingblock. A respectable man the Jew was in his day; all formal religion was concentrated in his person; he went up to the temple very devoutly; he tithed all he had, even to the mint and the cummin. You would see him fasting twice in the week, with a face all marked with sadness and sorrow. If you looked at him, he had the law between his eyes; there was the phylactery, and the borders of his garments of amazing width, that he might never be supposed to be a Gentile dog; that no one might ever conceive that he was not a Hebrew of pure descent. He had a holy ancestry; he came from a pious family; a right good man was he. He could not endure those Sadducees at all, who had no religion. He was thoroughly a religious man; he stood up for his synagogue; he would not have that temple on Mount Gerizim; he could not bear the Samaritans, he had no dealings with them; he was a religionist of the first order, a man of the very finest kind; a specimen of a man who is a moralist, and who loves the ceremonies of the law. Accordingly, when he heard about Christ, he asked who Christ was. “The Son of a carpenter.” “Ah!” “The son of a carpenter, and his mother’s name was Mary, and his father’s name Joseph.” “That of itself is presumption enough,” he said, “positive proof, in fact, that he cannot be the Messiah. And what does he say?” “Why he says, ‘Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.’ ” “That will not do.” “Moreover,” he says, “ ‘It is not by the works of the flesh that any man can enter into the kingdom of heaven.’ ” The Jew tied a double knot in his phylactery at once; he thought he would have the borders of his garment made twice as broad. He bow to the Nazarene! No, no; and if so much as a disciple crossed the street, he thought the place was polluted, and would not tread in his steps. Do you think he would give up his old father’s religion — the religion which came from Mount Sinai — that old religion that lay in the ark and the overshadowing cherubim? He give that up? not he. A vile impostor — that is all Christ was in his eyes. He thought so. “A stumblingblock to me! I cannot hear about it! I will not listen to it.” Accordingly, he turned a deaf ear to all the Preacher’s eloquence and did not listen at all. Farewell, old Jew. You sleep with your fathers, and your generation is a wandering race, still walking the earth. Farewell, I am finished with you. Alas! poor wretch, that Christ who was your stumblingblock, shall be your Judge, and on your head shall be that loud curse: “His blood be on us and on our children.” But I am going to find out Mr. Jew here in Exeter Hall — people who answer to his description — to whom Jesus Christ is a stumblingblock. Let me introduce you to yourselves, some of you. You were of a pious family too, were you not? Yes. And you have a religion which you love — you love it so far as the chrysalis of it goes, the outside, the covering, the husk. You would not have one rubric altered, nor one of those dear old arches taken down, nor the stained glass removed for all the world; and any man who would say a word against such things, you would set down as a heretic at once. Or, perhaps you do not go to such a place of worship, but you love some plain old meeting house, where your forefathers worshipped, called a dissenting chapel. Ah! it is a beautiful plain place; you love it, you love its ordinances, you love its exterior; and if anyone spoke against the place, how vexed you would feel. You think that what they do there, they ought to do everywhere; in fact your church is a model one; the place where you go, is exactly the sort of place for everyone; and if I were to ask you why you hope to go to heaven, you would, perhaps, say, “Because I am a Baptist,” or, “Because I am an Episcopalian,” or whatever other sect you belong to. There is yourself; I know Jesus Christ will be to you a stumblingblock. If I come and tell you that all your going to the house of God is good for nothing; if I tell you that all those many times you have been singing and praying, all pass for nothing in the sight of God, because you are a hypocrite and a formalist. If I tell you that your heart is not right with God, and that unless it is so, all the external is good for nothing, I know what you will say — “I shall not hear that young man again.” It is a stumblingblock. If you had stepped in anywhere where you had heard formalism exalted; if you had been told “this must you do, and this other must you do, and then you will be saved,” you would highly approve of it. But how many are there externally religious, with whose characters you could find no fault, but who have never had the regenerating influence of the Holy Spirit; who never were made to lie prostrate on their face before Calvary’s cross; who never turned a wishful eye to yonder Saviour crucified; who never put their trust in him who was slain for the sons of men. They love a superficial religion, but when a man talks deeper than that, they set it down for a sect. You may love all that is external about religion, just as you may love a man for his clothes — caring nothing for the man himself. If so, I know you are one of those who reject the gospel. You will hear me preach; and while I speak about the externals, you will hear me with attention; while I plead for morality, and argue against drunkenness, or show the heinousness of Sabbath breaking, all well and good; but if once I say, “Except you are converted, and become as little children, you can in no wise enter into the kingdom of God”; if once I tell you that you must be elected of God — that you must be purchased with the Saviour’s blood — that you must be converted by the Holy Spirit — you say, “He is a fanatic! Away with him, away with him! We do not want to hear that any more.” Christ crucified, is to the Jew — the ceremonialist — a stumblingblock.
8. But there is another specimen of this Jew to be found. He is thoroughly orthodox in his sentiments. As for forms and ceremonies, he thinks nothing about them. He goes to a place of worship where he learns sound doctrine. He will hear nothing but what is true. He likes that we would have good works and morality. He is a good man, and no
