what have you done? If you were to write your own history, it would be little better than that of Belzoni’s toad, which existed in the rock for three thousand years; you may have lived like it, but you have done nothing. What souls have you ever won to the Saviour? How has his name been magnified by you? Have you ever served him? How have you ever worked for him? What have you done for God? Have you not been cumberers of the ground; taking the nourishment of the earth where some better tree might have grown, and bearing no fruit to the great husbandman, or at least, only a few sorry crabs, that were not worth his acceptance. For all you have done, the world might as well have never known you. You have not been even so much use as the glowworm, which, at least, serves to light the steps of the traveller. The world may possibly be glad to get rid of some of you, and rejoice when you are gone. Perhaps you have assisted in destroying the souls of those with whom you have been connected in life. You can remember the time when you led that young man first into the ale house. You can remember the hour when you swore a most horrible oath; your child was within hearing, and learned to be profane also. You may look upon some souls who are going even now to damnation through your example; and in hell you may see spirits springing up from their iron beds, and hear them shrieking in their woe: “Who is it that led me here, and caused my soul to be destroyed? — you are the author of my damnation.” Is the indictment true? Will you not be compelled to plead guilty to the charge? Do you not even now repent of your great transgressions? Even if it is so, my Master authorises me to say again, “Thus says the Lord, I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, and will not remember your sins.”
8. Again, there are some who may be termed sanctuary sinners — sinners in Zion — and these are the worst of sinners. I can usually tell whether enquirers have been the children of pious parents or not, if after a confession of great guilt they feel unable to proceed at the remembrance of what they once were. Groaning, and sobbing, and tears running down their cheeks, are the silent language of their woe. When I see this, I always know that the language that succeeds will be: “I have been the child of pious parents; and I feel that I am one of the worst of sinners, because I was brought up religious; and yet I disregarded it, and turned aside from it.” Oh yes, the worst of sinners are sinners in Zion, because they sin against light and knowledge; they force their way to hell, as John Bunyan says, over the cross of Christ; and the worst way to hell is to go by the cross to it. Many of you now before me were consecrated to God by a beloved mother, and your father taught you to read and love the Scriptures of truth. You were brought up like Timothy; you well understand the theory of the way of salvation, and yet you come here, young men, some of you enemies to God and without Christ, and despisers of his word; some of you are even scoffers, or if not actually scoffers, you say religion is nothing to you, and by your actions, if not by your words, declare it is nothing to you that Jesus should die. Ah! when I speak to you, I would not forget myself. Should it ever be my lot to wake up in hell, I should be among the most horribly damned there, for I had a most pious training, and should be forced to take my place with the sanctuary sinners. And you who are such, whom I am addressing now, are you not afraid? Ask yourselves now, “Who among us shall dwell with devouring fire?” Do you tremble and shake for fear, and with a penitent heart desire forgiveness? If so, then I say again, in my Master’s name — who spoke nothing but love and mercy to penitent sinners, who said, “Neither do I condemn you” — Jehovah now declares “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and will not remember your sins.”
9. Yet, once more, we have here men who had wearied God: “You have made me to serve with your sins, you have wearied me with your iniquities.” You see the man who has been a professor of religion, and can look back twenty years ago, when he was a member of a Christian church; he was apparently walking in the fear of the Lord, and all men thought he had received the grace of God in truth; but he has turned aside into the paths of sin; sometimes his lips have been defiled with oaths, and his soul the bondslave of sin; but even now he is often found in God’s house; sometimes he is affected to tears, and says within himself, “Surely I will return to the Lord, for then was it better with me than now.” Self-condemned, he stands and weeps in the bitterness of his heart; and see, it may be this morning he has stepped into this vast assembly, and that his knees are knocking one against the other, yet it may be that his goodness shall prove like the morning cloud and the early dew, that passes away; or it may be that the turning point is now come; “Now or never,” as Baxter used to say; now God or Satan, now accepted or condemned. Poor backslider return to the Lord, and he will have mercy upon you; he will blot out all your sins, and so blot them out that he will not remember them against you any more for ever.
10. These, then, are the characters who receive mercy. Some of you may say, “You seem to think we are a bad lot” — and so I do. Others exclaim, “How can you talk to us in this way? We are an honest, moral, and upright people.” If so, then I have no gospel to preach to you. You may go elsewhere if you will, for you may get moral sermons in scores of chapels if you want them; but I am come in my Master’s name to preach to sinners, and so I will not say a word to you Pharisees except this — By so much as you think yourself righteous and holy, by so much shall you be cast out of God’s presence at last. Your sentence will be eternal banishment from the presence of him who has said to every repenting sinner, “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, and will not remember your sins.”
11. II. The second point is, THE DEED OF MERCY. We have identified the people to whom God will give mercy; now what is mercy’s deed? It is a deed of forgiveness, and in speaking of it, I shall speak first of its being a divine forgiveness — “I, even I, am he.” Divine pardon is the only forgiveness possible; for no one can remit sin but God only, and it does not matter whether a Roman Catholic Priest, or any other priest shall say in the name of God, “I absolve you from your transgressions,” it is abominable blasphemy. If a man has offended me I can forgive him, but if he has offended God I cannot forgive him. The only discharge possible is pardon by God; but then it is the only pardon necessary. Suppose I have so sinned that the king or the queen will not pardon me, that my brethren will not forgive me, and that I cannot pardon myself; if God absolves me, that is all the acquittal that will be necessary for my salvation. Perhaps I stand condemned by the law of my country: I am a murderer and must suffer on the scaffold; the queen refuses to pardon, and perhaps she is right in such a refusal; but I do not want her forgiveness in order to enter heaven; if God acquits me, that will be enough. Were I such a reprobate that all men hissed at me and wished me gone from existence, if I knew that they would never forgive my crime — though I ought to desire my fellow creatures forgiveness — it would not be necessary that I should have it to enter heaven. If God says, I forgive you, that is enough. It is only God that can forgive satisfactorily; because no human pardon can ease the troubled conscience. The self-righteous Pharisee may be content to give himself into the hands of a priest to be rocked to sleep in the cradle of delusion, but the poor convicted sinner wants something more than the arrogant dictum of a priest — ten thousand of them, with all their enchantments, he feels to be all in vain, unless Jehovah himself shall say, “I have blotted out your sins for my own sake.”
12. Again, it is surprising forgiveness; for the text speaks as if God himself were surprised that such sins should be remitted: “I, even, I”; it is so surprising that it is repeated in this way, lest any of us should doubt it. And it is amazing to the poor sinner when first awakened to his sin and danger. It seems to be too good to be true, and he “is amazed to feel his own hardness depart,” the mercy offered is so overwhelming. It is said that Alexander, whenever he attacked a city, put a light before its gate; and if the inhabitants surrendered before the light was burnt out, he spared them; but if the light went out first, he put them all to death. But our Master is more merciful than this; for if he had revealed grace only while a small light would burn, where would we have been? There are some here seventy or eighty years of age, and God has mercy on you still; but there is a light you know which when once quenched, extinguishes all hope of pardon — the light of life. See then, grey headed man, your candle is burnt almost to the socket — it has only the snuff left. Seventy years you have been here living in sin, and yet mercy waits on you; but you shall soon depart, and then there is no hope for you. But surprising
