A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, January 19, 1862, By Pastor C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? No: but by the law of faith. (Ro 3:27)

1. Pride is most obnoxious to God. As a sin, his holiness hates it; as a treason, his sovereignty detests it; as a rebellion, all of his attributes stand leagued to put it down. God has touched other sins with his finger, but against this vice he has made bare his arm. There have been, I know, terrible judgments against lust, but there have been ten times as many against that swelling lust of the deceitful heart. Remember, the first transgression had in its essence pride. The ambitious heart of Eve desired to be as God, knowing good and evil, and Adam imagined that he should be lifted up to divine rank if he dared to pluck and eat. The blasting of Paradise, the sterility of the world, the travail of human birth, the sweat of the brow, and the certainty of death, may all be traced to this fruitful mother of mischief, pride. Remember Babel, and how God has scattered us and confounded our tongues. It was man’s pride which led him to seek for an undivided monarchy so that he might be great. The tower was to be the rallying point of all the tribes, and would have been the central throne of all human grandeur, but God has scattered us, so that pride might not climb to so high a pitch. Pride, you have indeed suffered severe strokes from God. He has furbished his sword against you and prepared his weapons of war. The Lord, even the Lord of hosts has sworn it, and he will surely stain the pride of all human glory, and tread all boasting as straw is trodden for the dunghill. Do not speak so very proudly any more; do not let arrogance come out of your mouth, for the bows of the mighty have been broken, and the haughtiness of man has been bowed down. Remember Pharaoh and the plagues which God brought on Egypt, and the wonders which he performed in the field of Zoan. Remember the Red Sea, and Rahab cut, and the dragon broken. Think of Nebuchadnezzar, the mighty architect of Babylon, driven out to eat grass like the oxen until his nails grew like birds’ claws, and his hair like eagles’ feathers. Remember Herod, eaten by worms, because he did not give God the glory; and Sennacherib, with the Lord’s hook in his jaws, he returned by the way came to the place where his sons became his murderers. Time would fail to tell of the innumerable conquerors and emperors and mighty men of earth who have all perished beneath the blast of your rebuke, oh God, because they lifted up themselves and said, “I am, and there is no one else besides me.” He has turned wise men backward, and made their knowledge foolishness, and no flesh may glory in his presence. Yes, when pride has sought to shelter itself in the hearts of God’s chosen people, still the arrows of God have sought it out and have drunk its blood. God still loves his servants, but he abhors pride even in them. David may be a man after God’s own heart, but if his pride shall lift him up to number the people, then he shall have a choice between three chastisements, and he shall be glad to choose the pestilence as being the least of the plagues. Or if Hezekiah shall show to the ambassadors of Babylon his riches and his treasures, there shall come to him the rebuke—“What have they seen in your house?” and the threatening “Behold they shall take your sons to make them eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” Oh, brethren, do not forget that God has uttered the most solemn words as well as issued the most awful judgments against pride. “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” “He who has a high look and a proud heart I will not tolerate.” “I hate pride and arrogance.” “The Lord will destroy the house of the proud.” “The day of the Lord shall be upon everyone who is proud and lofty, and upon every one who is lifted up, and he shall be brought low.” “I am against you, oh you most proud, says the Lord God of Hosts.” There are hundreds of terrible texts like these, but we cannot recount them all now. Now notice that to put an everlasting stigma upon human vanity, and to hurl once and for all mire and filth upon all human glorying, God has ordained that the only way in which he will save men shall be a way which utterly excludes the possibility of man’s having a single word to say by way of bragging. He has declared that the only foundation which he will ever lay shall be one by which man’s strength shall be broken in pieces, and by which man’s pride shall be humbled in the dust. I ask your attention upon this subject this morning. I shall try to enlarge and amplify the sentiment of the text. “Where is boasting, then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? no: but by the law of faith.”

2. We shall notice first of all, the rejected plan or law; then we shall note the excluded vice; having done so, we shall notice in the third place, that the very fact that boasting is excluded permits the reception of the worst of sinners; and we shall close by observing that the same system which excludes boasting includes humble and devout gratitude to God for his grace and mercy.

The Rejected Plan

3. I. First, then, THE REJECTED PLAN.

4. There are two ways by which man might have been for ever blessed. The one was by works:—“Do this and you shall live; be obedient and receive the reward; keep the commandment and the blessing shall be yours, well earned and surely paid.” The only other plan was—“Receive grace and blessedness as the free gift of God; stand as a guilty sinner having no merit, and as a rebellious sinner deserving the very opposite of goodness, but stand there and receive all your good things, simply, wholly, and alone from the free love and sovereign mercy of God.” Now, the Lord has not chosen the system of works. The word law as used twice in the text is employed, it is believed by many commentators, out of compliment to the Jews, who were so fond of the word, that their antagonism might not be aroused; but it means here, as elsewhere in Scripture, plan, system, method. There were two plans, two systems, two methods, two spirits,—the plan of works and the plan of grace. God has once and for all utterly refused the plan of merit and of works, and has chosen to bless men only, and entirely through the plan, or method, or law of faith. Now, brethren, we have placed the two before you, and we ask you to notice that there is a distinction between the two, which must never be forgotten. Martin Luther says:—“If you can rightly distinguish between works and grace, thank God for your skill, and consider yourself to be an able divine.” This indeed is the basis of theology, and he who can understand this clearly, it seems to me, can never be very heterodox; orthodoxy must surely follow, and the right teaching of God must be understood when we once and for all are able to discriminate with accuracy between what is by man—works, and what is of God—faith, and grace received by faith. Now, the plan of salvation by works is impossible for us. Even if God had ordained it to be the way by which men should labour to be saved, yet it is certain that no one would have been saved by it, and therefore all must have perished. For if you wish to be saved by works, remember oh man, that the law requires perfection from you. One single flaw, one offence, and the law condemns you without mercy. It requires that you should keep it in every point, and in every sense, and to its uttermost degree, for its demands are rigorous to the extreme. It knows nothing of freely forgiving because you cannot pay, but like a severe creditor, it takes you by your throat, and says, “Pay me all;” and if you cannot pay even to the uttermost farthing, it locks you up in the prison of condemnation, out of which you cannot come. But if it were possible for you to keep the law in its perfection outwardly, yet, remember, that you would be required to keep it in your heart as well as in your external life. One single deviation of the heart from the right, one reception of even the shadow of a passing temptation, so as to become a partaker of sin, would ruin you. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and your neighbour as yourself.” Fail here, and oh! who among us can be such a hypocrite as to think he has not failed ten thousand times!—fail here, and although your life was virtuous, though your exterior was such as even criticism itself must commend, yet you must perish because you have not kept the law and yielded to its full demands. Remember, too, that it is clear you can never be saved by the law, because if up to this moment your heart and life have been altogether without offence, yet it is required that it should be so even to your dying day. And do you hope that as many temptations come upon you every moment, as your trials invade you numerous as the swarms which once thronged from the gates of Thebes, you will be able to stand against all these? Will there not be found some joint in your harness? Will there not be some moment in which you may be tripped up—some instant when either the eye may wander after lust, or the heart is set on vanity, or the hand stretched out to touch what is not good? Oh! man, remember, we are not sure that even this life would end that probation, for as long as you should live and be God’s creature, duty would still be due, and the law still your insatiable creditor. For ever your happiness would tremble in the scales; even in heaven itself the law would follow you; even there, since your righteousness would be your own, it would never be finished; and even from those shining battlements you might fall, and amid those harps, wearing that white robe, if you were to be saved by your own works, there might be a possibility of perishing. The obedience of a creature can never be finished; the duty of a servant of the law is never over. As long as you were the creature of God, your Creator would have demands upon you. How much better to be accepted in the Beloved, and to wear his finished righteousness as our glory and security. Now in the face of all this, will any of you prefer to be saved by your works? or, rather, will you prefer to be damned by your works? for that will certainly be the issue, no matter what you hope for.

5. Now I suppose that in this congregation we have only very few—there may be some—who would indulge a hope of being saved by the law in itself; but there is a delusion abroad that perhaps God will modify the law, or that at least he will accept a sincere obedience even if it is imperfect; that he will say, “Well, this man has done what he could, and, therefore, I will take what he has given as though it were perfect.” Now, remember against this the Apostle Paul declares peremptorily, “By the works of the law shall no living flesh be justified,” so that that is answered at once. But more than this, God’s law cannot change, it can never be content to take less from you than it demands. What did Christ say? “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail,” and again he expressly said, “Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” The law’s demands were met and fulfilled for believers by Christ; but as far as those demands are concerned to those who are under it, they are as great, as heavy, and as rigorous as they ever were. Unless his law could be altered, and that is impossible, God cannot accept anything but a perfect obedience; and if you are hoping to be saved by your sincere endeavours to do your best, your hopes are rotten things, delusions, falsehoods, and you will perish wrapped up in the shrouds of your pride. “Yes,” some say, “but could it not be partly by grace and partly by works?” No. The apostle says that boasting is excluded, and excluded by the law of faith; but if we let in the law of works in any degree, we cannot eliminate boasting, for to that degree you give man an opportunity to congratulate himself as having saved himself. Let me say broadly—to hope to be saved by works is a delusion; to hope to be saved by a method in which grace and works are co-acting, is not merely a delusion, but an absurd delusion, since it is contrary to the very nature of things, that grace and merit should ever mingle and cooperate. Our apostle has declared countless times, that if it is by grace it is not by works, otherwise grace is no more grace; and if it is by works, then it is not by grace, otherwise work is no more work. It must be either one or the other. These two cannot be married, for God forbids the banns. He will have it all grace or all works, all by Christ or all by man; but for Christ to be insignificant, for Christ to supplement your narrow robes by patching on a piece of his own, for Christ to tread a part of the winepress, and for you to tread the rest; oh! this can never be. God will never be yoked with the creature. You might link an angel with a worm and bid them fly together, but God with the creature—the precious blood of Jesus with the foul ditch water of our human merits—never, never. Our paste gems, our varnished falsehoods, our righteousnesses which are only filthy rags, put with the real, true, precious, everlasting, divine things of Christ! Never! Unless heaven should blend in alliance with hell, and holiness hold dalliance with impurity! It must be one or the other, either man’s merit absolutely and alone, or unmixed, unmerited favour from the Lord. Now, I suppose if I were to labour ever so arduously to hunt out this evil spirit from the sons of men, I would miss it still, for it takes so many forms, and therefore let me say, that in no shape or form, in no sense, in no single case, and in no degree whatever, are we ever saved by our works or by the law. I say in no sense, because men go to such extremes to save alive their own righteousness. I will show you one man who says, “Well, I do not expect to be saved by my honesty; I do not expect to be saved by my generosity, nor by my morality; but then, I have been baptized; I receive the Lord’s Supper; I have been confirmed; I go to church, or I have a seat in a meeting house; I am, as touching the ceremonies, blameless.” Well, friend, in that sense you cannot be saved by works, for all these things have no avail whatever upon the matter of salvation, if you have not faith. If you are saved, God’s ordinances will be blessed things to you, but if you are not a believer you have no right to them; and with regard to Baptism and the Supper, every time you touch them you increase your guilt. Whether it be Baptism or the Lord’s Supper, you have no right to either, except you are already saved, for they are both ordinances for believers, and for believers only. These ordinances are blessed means of grace to living, quickened, saved souls; but to unsaved souls, to souls dead in trespasses and sins, these outward ordinances can have no avail for good, but may increase their sin, because they touch unworthily the holy things of God. Oh! do not rest on these; oh! do not dream that a priestly hand and sacred drops, or a God ordained baptism in the pool, can in any way redeem you from sin, or land you in heaven: for by this way salvation is impossible. But if I drive the lover of self-righteousness out of this haunt, he runs to another. You will find others who suppose that at least their feelings, which are only their works in another form, may help to save them. There are thousands who think, “If I could weep so much, and groan so deeply, and experience so much humiliation, and a certain quantity of repentance, and so much of the terrors of the law, and of the thunders of conscience, then I might come before God.” Souls, souls, this is work mongering in its most damnable form, for it has deluded far more than that bolder kind of trusting in works, which says, “I will rely upon what I do.” If you rely upon what you feel, you shall as certainly perish as if you trust in what you do. Repentance is a blessed grace, and to be convicted of sin by God the Holy Spirit is a holy privilege, but to think that these in any way win salvation, is to run completely counter to all the teachings of the Word, for salvation is by the free grace of God alone. There are some, moreover, who believe that if their feelings cannot do it, still their knowledge can. They have a very sound creed; they have mapped out this doctrine and that; they believe in justification by faith, and their sound creed is to them a confidence. They think that because they hold the theory of justification by faith, therefore they shall be saved. And oh! how they plume their feathers; how they set up their peacock tail because they happen to be orthodox! With what awful pride do they exult over their fellow professors because they hold the truth, and all the rest of the Church they think is deluded with a lie. Now this is nothing except salvation by works, only they are works performed by the head instead of by the hand, and oh! sirs, I will tell you—if you rest in creeds, if you hope to be saved because you can agree with the thirty-nine articles of an Episcopalian prayer book, or with the solemn league and covenant of the Presbyterian, or with the confession of faith of the Calvinist—if you imagine that because you happen to receive truth in the head you shall be saved, you do not know the truth, but still lie, because you cling to Satan’s falsehood—that salvation is of man and not of God. I know that self-righteousness was born in our bones and that it will come out in our flesh, and even that man in whom its reigning power is kept down will still feel it sometimes rising up. When he has preached a sermon and has done very well, the devil will come up the pulpit stairs and say “Well done.” When he has prayed in public and has had unusual fluency, he will have to be careful lest there should be a whisper behind, “What a good and gifted man you are.” Indeed, and even in his hallowed moments, when he is on the top of the mountain with his Lord, he will have to watch even there, lest self-congratulation should suggest—“Oh, man, greatly beloved, there must surely be something in you, or else God would not have done this by you.” Brethren, when you are thinking about your sanctification, if you are tempted to look away from Christ—away with it; and if when you are repenting of sin you cannot still have one eye on Christ, remember it will be a repentance that will need to be repented of, for there is nothing in ourselves that can be offered to God. There is a stench and putridness in everything that is done by the creature, and we can never come before God except through Christ Jesus, who is made by God to us, wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. I have thus tried to denounce the plan which God has rejected.

Boasting Is Excluded.

6. II. I shall now, in the second point, SHOW THAT BOASTING IS EXCLUDED, for in a blessed sense God has accepted the second plan, namely, the way of salvation by faith through grace.

7. The first man who entered heaven, entered heaven by faith. “By faith Abel offered a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain.” Over the tombs of all the godly who were accepted of God, you may read the epitaph—“These all died in faith.” By faith they received the promise; and among all that bright and shining throng, everyone confesses, “We have washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” The plan, then, which God has chosen, is one of grace alone. I will try and picture that plan before our mind’s eye. We will imagine Boasting to be exceedingly desirous to enter into the kingdom of heaven. He marches to the door and knocks. The porter looks out and demands, “Who stands there?” “I am Boasting,” he says, “and I claim to have the highest seat; I claim that I should cry aloud and say, ‘Glory be to man, for though he has fallen, he has lifted himself up, and worked out his own redemption.’” And the angel said, “But have you not heard that the salvation of souls is not of man, nor by man, but that God will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and will have compassion on whom he will have compassion? Go away, Boasting, for the highest seat can never be yours, when God in direct opposition to human merit, has rejected the Pharisee, and chosen the tax collector and the prostitute, so that they may enter into the kingdom of heaven.” So Boasting said, “Let me take my place, then, if not in the highest seat, yet somewhere amid the glittering throng; for instance, let me take my place in the seat of election; let it be said and taught, that although God chose his people, yet it was because of their works which he foresaw, and their faith which he foreknow, and that, therefore, foreseeing and foreknowing, he chose them because of an excellence which his prescient eye discovered in them; let me take my seat here.” But the porter said, “No, but you cannot take your place there, for election is according to the eternal purpose of God, which he purposed in Christ Jesus before the world was. This election is not by works, but by grace, and the reason for God’s choice of man is in himself, and not in man; and as for those virtues which you say God foreknew, God is the author of all of them if they exist, and what is an effect cannot be a first cause; God foreordained these men to faith and to good works, and their faith and good works could not have been the cause of their foreordination.” Then straight from heaven’s gate the trumpet sounded—(“For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, so that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not by works, but of him who calls;) it was said to her, ‘The elder shall serve the younger.’” Then Boasting found that since works had no place in election, so there was no room for him to take his seat there, and he thought to himself where he could sit next. So after a while Boasting said to the porter, “If I cannot sit in the chair of election, I will be content to sit in the place of conversion, for surely it is man who repents and believes.” The porter did not deny the truth of that, and then this evil spirit said, “If one man believes and not another, surely that must be the act of the man’s will, and his will being free and unbiased, it must be very much to that man’s credit that he believes and repents and is therefore saved, for others, having similar opportunities as himself, and having the same grace no doubt, reject the proffered mercy and perish, while this man accepts it, and therefore let me at least take my seat there.” But the angel said in anger, “Take your seat there!” Why, that would be to take the highest place of all, for this is the hinge and turning point, and if you leave that with man then you give him the brightest jewel in the crown! Does the Ethiopian change his skin and the leopard his spots? Is it not God who works in us to will and to do of his own good pleasure? By his own will he fathered us with the word of truth, and it is not by the will of man, nor by blood, nor by birth. Oh, Boaster, your free will is a lie; it is not man who chooses God, but God who chooses Man; for what said Christ, “You have not chosen me but I have chosen you;” and what did he say to the ungodly multitude, “You will not come to me so that you might have life;” in which he gave the death blow to all ideas of free will, when he declared that man will not come to him so that he might have life; and when he said again in another place, as if that were not enough, “No man can come to me except the Father who has sent me draws him.” So Boasting, though he was not happy to admit it, was shut out, and could not take his place in heaven upon the stool of conversion; and while he stood there only a little abashed, for he does not know how to be bashful, he heard a song floating over the battlements of heaven from all the multitude who were there, in strains like these, “Not to us, not to us, but to your name, oh Lord, be the praise.”

’Twas the same love that spread the feast
 That gently forced us in;
Else we had still refused to taste,
 And perished in our sin.

8. “But then,” Boasting said, “if I may not have such a high a place, let me at least sit on the lowly stool of perseverance, and let it at least be said that while God saved the man and is therefore to have the glory, still the man was faithful to grace he received; he did not turn back to perdition, but watched and was very careful, and kept himself in the love of God, and therefore there is considerable credit due to him; for while many drew back and perished, and he might have done the same, he struggled against sin, and thus by his using his grace he kept himself safely; let me sit, then, on the chair of perseverance.” But the angel replied, “No, no, what have you to do with it? I know it is written, ‘Keep yourselves in the love of God,’ but the same apostle forbids all fleshly trust in human effort by that blessed doxology,—‘Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and for ever. Amen.’ That which is a command in one Scripture is a covenant promise in another, where it is written, ‘I will put my fear in their hearts so that they shall not depart from me.’” Oh! brethren, you and I well know that our standing does not depend upon ourselves. If that Arminian doctrine, that our perseverance rests somewhere in our own hands, were true, then damnation must be the lot of us all. I cannot keep myself a minute, much less year after year.

If ever it should come to pass,
That sheep of Christ should fall away;
My fickle, feeble soul, alas!
Would fall a thousand times a day.

9. But what do the Scriptures say?—“I give to my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall anyone pluck them out of my hand, my Father who gave them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.” And what does the apostle say—“I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” I do not have time to quote all the innumerable passages, but it is absolutely certain that if there is one doctrine in Scripture more clearly revealed than another, it is the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints by the power of the Holy Spirit, and the man who doubts that precious truth, has quite as much reason to doubt the Trinity, to doubt the divinity of Christ, or the fact of the atonement; for nothing can be more clear in the plain, common sense meaning of the words than this, that those who are in Christ have, even today, eternal life and shall never perish. Now since this perseverance is not dependent upon our works, but like all the rest of salvation is a result of the bottomless love of God, boasting is obviously excluded. But once again, and lastly, Boasting sometimes asks to be admitted a little into glorification. I fear sometimes that a doctrine which is popular in the Church, about degrees of glory, is not altogether unassociated with that old self-righteousness of ours which is very loath to die. “One star differs from another star in glory” is a great truth—but this the stars may do without differing in degrees. One star may shine with one radiance, and another with another; indeed, astronomers tell us that there are many varieties of colour among stars of the same magnitude. One man may differ from another, without supposing a difference in rank, honour, or degree. For my part, I do not see anything about degrees in glory in Scripture, and I do not believe in the doctrine; at least if there are degrees, notice this, they cannot be according to works, but must be by grace alone. I cannot consider that because one Christian has been more devoted to Christ than another, therefore there will be an eternal difference, for this is to introduce works; this is to bring in again the old Hagar marriage, and to bring back the child of the bondwoman, of whom God has said, “The son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.” Oh! brethren, I think we can serve God from some other motive than that base one of trying to be greater than our brethren in heaven. If I should get to heaven at all, I do not care who is greater than I am, for if anyone shall have more happiness in heaven than I shall, then I shall have more happiness too; for the sympathy between one soul and another will be so intense and so great there, that all the heavens of the righteous will be my heaven, and therefore, what you have I shall have, because we shall all be one in fellowship far more perfectly than on earth. There the individual will be swallowed up in the common body. Surely, brethren, if any of you can have brighter places in heaven, and more happiness and more joy than I, I will be glad to know it. The prospect does not excite any envy in my soul now, or if it did now, it certainly would not then, for I should feel that the more you had the more I should have. Perfect communion in all good things is not compatible with the private enrichment of one above another. It is all joint stock in heaven. Even on earth the saints had all things common when they were in a heavenly state, and I am persuaded they will have all things common in glory. I do not believe in gentlemen in heaven, and the poor Christians behind the door; I do believe that our union with each other will be so great, that distinctions will be utterly lost, and that we shall all have such a joint communion, and interest, and fellowship, that there will be no such thing as private possession, private ranks, and private honours—for we shall there, to the fullest extent, be one in Christ. I do believe that Boasting is excluded there, but I think that if there were these degrees in glory, I mean if they are dependent on works done on earth, Boasting would at least get his tail in; if it did not insinuate its whole body, it would at least get some of its unhallowed members over the wall, whereas, the text says it is excluded. Let me enlarge this one word, and then proceed. It does not say, “Boasting, you are to be allowed to come in and sit down on the floor.” No, shut the door and do not let him in at all. “But let me in,” he says, “and I will be quiet.” No, shut him out altogether. “But at least let me put my foot in.” No, exclude him; shut him out altogether. “But at least let me sometimes go in and out.” No, shut him out altogether; exclude him; bolt the door; put double padlocks on it. Say once and for all, “Boasting, go away; you are hurled down and broken in pieces, and if you can recover yourself, and come once more to the gate to ask admittance, you shall be driven away with shame.” It is excluded; it cannot be let in, in any sense, in any term, nor in any degree. As Calvin says, “Not a particle of boasting can be admitted, because not a particle of work is admitted into the covenant of grace;” it is by grace from top to bottom, from Alpha to Omega; it is not of man nor by man, not by him who wills, nor by him who runs, but by God who shows mercy, and therefore, boasting is excluded by the law of faith.

The Fact that Boasting Is Excluded Permits the Reception of the Worst of Sinners.

10. III. And now, thirdly, and very briefly. Beloved in Christ Jesus, what a precious truth I have now to hold up to the eyes of poor lost sinners, who today are aware that they have no merits of their own. Soul, THE VERY GATE WHICH SHUTS OUT BOASTING, SHUTS IN HOPE AND JOY FOR YOU.

11. Let me state this truth broadly, so that the ignorant may catch it. You say today, “Sir, I never attend the house of God, and up to this time I have been a thief and a drunkard.” Well, you stand today on the same level as the most moral sinner, and the most honest unbeliever, in the matter of salvation. They are lost, since they do not believe, and so are you. If the most honest are saved, it will not be by their honesty, but by the free grace of God; and if the most roguish wish to be saved, it must be by the same plan. There is one gate to heaven for the most chaste and the most debauched. When we come to God, the best of us can bring nothing, and the worst of us can bring no less. I know when I state it in this way, some will say, “Then what is the good of morality?” I will tell you. Two men are overboard there; one man has a dirty face, and the other a clean one. There is a rope thrown over from the stern of the vessel, and only that rope will save the sinking men, whether their faces are fair or foul. Is this not the truth? Do I therefore underrate cleanliness? Certainly not; but it will not save a drowning man; nor will morality save a dying man. The clean man may sink with all his cleanliness, and the dirty man may be drawn up with all his filth, if the rope only gets its hold on him. Or take this example. Here we have two people, each with a deadly cancer. One of them is rich and clothed in purple, the other is poor and wrapped up with a few rags; and I say to them—“You are both on a par now, here comes the physician himself—Jesus, the King of disease; his touch can heal you both; there is no difference between you whatever.” Do I therefore say that the one man’s robes are not better than the others rags? Of course they are better in some respects, but they have nothing to do with the matter of curing disease. So morality is a neat cover for foul venom, but it does not alter the fact that the heart is vile and the man himself under condemnation. Suppose I were an army surgeon, and there had been a battle. There is one man there—he is a captain and a brave man; he led his rank into the thick of the battle, and he is bleeding to death from a terrible gash. By his side there lies a man of the rank and file, and a great coward too, wounded in the same way. I come up to both of them, and I say, “You are both in the same condition; you have both the same kind of wound, and I can heal you both.” But if either of you should say, “Go away; I will have nothing to do with you,” your wound will be your death. If the captain should say, “I do not want you; I am a captain, go and see to that poor dog over there.” Would his courage and rank save his life? No, they are good things, but not saving things. So it is with good works, men can be damned with them as well as without them if they make them their trust. Oh! what a gospel is this to preach in our theatres; to tell those hedge birds, those who are full of all manner of loathsomeness, that there is the same way of salvation open to them as to a peer of the realm, or a bishop on the bench; that there is no difference between us in the way of mercy, that we are all condemned; that there may be degrees as to our guilt, but that the fact of our condemnation is quite as certain to the best as to the worst! “Oh” you say, “this is a levelling doctrine!” Ah! bless God if you are levelled. “Oh,” you say, “but this cuts at everything that is good in man!” Ah! thank God, if it kills everything in which man glories, for what man thinks to be good is often an abomination in the sight of God. And oh! if all of us together, moral or immoral, chaste or debauched, honest or unholy, can come with the rope around our neck, and with the weeds of penitence around our waist, and say, “Great God, forgive us; we are all guilty; give us grace; we do not deserve it; bestow upon us your favour, we have no right to it, but give it to us because Jesus died.” Oh! he will never cast out anyone who comes that way, for that is the way of salvation. And this morning if we can put our hand on Jesus’ head—no matter if it was black last night with lust, or red up to the elbow with murder—yet if we can believe on him—God’s dear Son, cleanses us from all sin. Where is boasting now? You who have done so much for humanity—you cannot boast, for you have nothing to boast about. You fine gentlemen and noble ladies, what do you say to this? Oh be wise, and join in the prayer, “But you, oh Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable sinners!” And may the Lord then pronounce over us his sentence, “You are clean, go and sin no more; your iniquities are all forgiven.”

The Same Plan Which Excludes Boasting Leads Us to a Gracious Gratitude to Christ.

12. IV. I close by just observing, that THE SAME PLAN WHICH EXCLUDES BOASTING LEADS US TO A GRACIOUS GRATITUDE TO CHRIST.

13. We are sometimes asked by people, “Do you think that such a thing is necessary to salvation?” or, perhaps, the question is expressed in another way, “How long do you think a man must be godly in order to be saved?” I reply, dear friend, you cannot understand us, for we hold that these things do not save in any sense. “Why, then,” they say, “are you baptized?” or, “Why do you walk in holiness?” Well, not to save myself, but because I am saved. When I know that every sin of mine is forgiven, that I cannot be lost, that Christ has sworn to bring me to the place where he is; then I say, Lord what is there that I can do for you? Tell me. Can I burn for you? Blessed would be the stake if I might kiss it. If you have done so much for me, what can I do for you? Is there an ordinance that involves self-denial? Is there a duty which will compel me to self-sacrifice? So much the better.

Now for the love I bear his name,
What was my gain I count my lost;
By former pride I call my shame,
And nail my glory to his cross.

This is the way to do good works; and good works are impossible until we come here. Anything that you do to save yourself is a selfish act, and therefore cannot be good. Only what is done for God’s glory is good in a scriptural sense. A man must be saved before he can do a good work; but when saved, having nothing to get and nothing to lose; standing now in Christ, blessed and accepted—he begins to serve God out of pure gratitude and love. Then, virtue is possible, and he may climb to its highest steeps, and stand safely there without fear of the boasting which would cast him down, though he will feel even then that his standing is not in what he has done, nor in what he is, nor in what he hopes to be, but in what Christ did, and in the “It is finished,” which made his eternal salvation secure.

14. Oh for grace, that we may live to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he has made us accepted in the Beloved, bringing forth the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. Of him, and through him, and to him are all things; to him be glory for ever. Amen.