A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Evening, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

“Turn, oh backsliding children,” says the Lord; “for I am married to you.” (Jeremiah 3:14)

1. These are dainty words—a grateful analgesic for a troubled conscience. Such singular comfort is suitable to cheer up the soul, and put the brightest hue on all her prospects. The person to whom it is addressed has an eminently happy position. Satan will be very busy with you, believer in Christ, tonight. He will say, “What right have you to believe that God is married to you?” He will remind you of your imperfections, and of the coldness of your love, and perhaps of the backsliding state of your heart. He will say, “What, with all this that is wrong with you, can you be presumptuous enough to claim union with the Son of God? Can you venture to hope that there will be any marriage between you and the Holy One?” He will tell you as though he were an advocate for holiness, that it is not possible that such a one as you feel yourself to be, can really be a partaker of so choice and special a privilege as being married to the Lord. Let this suffice for an answer to all such suggestions: the text is found addressed, not to Christians in a flourishing state of heart, not to believers upon Mount Tabor, transfigured with Christ, not to a spouse all chaste and fair, and sitting under the banner of love, feasting with her lord; but it is addressed to those who are called “backsliding children.” God speaks to his church in her lowest and most abject state, and although he does not fail to rebuke her sin, to lament it, and to make her lament it too, yet still in such a state he says to her, “I am married to you.” Oh! it is grace that he should be married to any of us, but it is grace at its highest pitch, it is the ocean of grace at its flood tide, that he should speak thus of “backsliding children.” That he should speak in notes of love of any of the fallen race of Adam is “passing strange—’tis wonderful”; but that he should select those who have behaved treacherously to him, who have turned their backs to him and not their faces, who have played him false, although, nevertheless, his own, and say to them, “I am married to YOU”; this is lovingkindness beyond anything we could be accustomed to or know about. Hear, oh heaven, and admire, oh earth, let every understanding heart break out into singing, yes, let every humble mind bless and praise the condescension of the Most High! Cheer up poor drooping hearts. Here is sweet encouragement for some of you who are depressed, and disconsolate, and sit alone, to draw living waters out of this well. Do not let the noise of the archers keep you back from the place of the drawing of water. Do not be afraid lest you should be cursed while you are anticipating the blessing. If you only do trust in Jesus, if you have only a vital interest in the once humbled, now exalted Lord, come with holy boldness to the text, and whatever comfort there is here, receive it and rejoice in it.

2. To this end let us attentively consider the relationship, which is spoken of here, and diligently enquire how far we are practically acquainted with it.

3. I. IN CONSIDERING THE RELATIONSHIP WHICH IS SPOKEN OF HERE, you will observe that the affinity of marriage, though a very close relationship, is not one of birth.

4. 1. Marriage is not by a blood relationship. It is contracted between two people who may, during the early part of their lives, have been entire strangers to one another; they may scarcely have looked each other in the face, except during the few months that precede their nuptials. The families may have had no previous acquaintance, they may have lived afar off as the very poles of the earth. One may have been opulent, and in possession of vast domains, and the other may have been indigent, and reduced to constrained circumstances. Genealogies do not regulate it: disparities do not hinder it. The connection is not of natural birth but of voluntary contract or covenant. Such is the relationship which exists between the believer and his God. Whatever relationship there was originally between God and man, it was stamped out and extinguished by the fall. We were aliens, strangers, and foreigners, far off from God by wicked works. We had henceforth no relationship to the Most High; we were banished from his presence as traitors to his throne, as condemned criminals who had revolted against his power. Between our souls and God there could be no communion. He is light and we are dark. He is holiness and we are sin. He is heaven, and we are far more akin to hell. In him there is consummate greatness, and we are puny insignificance. He fills all worlds with his strength, and as for us, we are the creatures of a day, who know nothing, and who are crushed before the moth. The gulf between God and a sinner is something terrible to contemplate. There is a vast difference between God and the creature even when the creature is pure, but between God and the fallen creature—oh! where is the line that shall measure the infinite leagues of distance? Where was there a means of ever bridging so terrible a chasm unless the Lord Jesus had found it in his own person, and in his own passion? How could we have ever perceived the infinite design, unless it had been revealed to us as an accomplished fact, by which he has reconciled us and brought us into communion with himself, so that we should be married to him? Now, Christian, just contemplate what you were, and the degraded family to which you belonged, so that you may magnify the riches of his grace who espoused you in your low estate, and has so bound himself with all the pledges of a husband that he says, “I am married to you.” What were you? That is a black catalogue of foul transgressors which the apostle gives in the first epistle to the Corinthians, I forbear a recital of the filthy vices—at the end of which he says, “But you are washed, but you are sanctified.” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) In those crimes he enumerates, many of us had a share, indeed, all of us! What was our father, and what was our father’s house? What was our aim? What was our practice? What were our desires? What were our tendencies? They were earthly, downward, hellward. We were at a distance from God, and we loved that distance well. But the Lord Jesus took upon himself our nature: upon him the Lord laid the iniquity of all his people. And why? Not merely to save us from the wrath to come, but that we, being lifted up out of our degradation by virtue of his atonement, and being sanctified and made fit by the power of the Spirit, should have a relationship established between us and God which was not formed by nature, but which has been achieved and consummated by astounding grace. To the Lord let us give thanks tonight, as we remember the hole of the pit from where we were dug, and call to mind the fact that now we are united to him in ties of blood and bonds of love.

5. 2. Marriage union is the result of choice. Any exceptions to this rule that might be pleaded, are void in reason, because they arise from folly and transgression: there ought to be no exception. It is scarcely a true marriage at all where there has not been a choice on each side. But certainly if the Lord our God is married to us, and we are married to God, the choice is mutual. The first choice is with God. That choice was made, we believe, before the foundation of the world:—

   Long ere the sun’s refulgent ray
   Primeval shades of darkness drove,
   They on his sacred bosom lay,
   Lov’d with an everlasting love.

God never began to love his people. It would be impossible for the spiritual mind to entertain so unworthy a thought. He saw them in the glass of his decrees; he foresaw them, with his eye of prescience, in the mass of creatureship, all fallen and ruined; but yet he beheld them, and pitied and loved them, elected them and set them apart. “They shall be mine,” says the Lord. Here we are all agreed; and we ought to be all agreed upon the second point, namely, that we also have chosen our God. Brethren, no man is saved against his will. If any man should say that he was saved against his will, it would be a proof that he was not saved at all; for reluctance or indifference betrays an entire alienation of all the affections of the heart. If the will is still set against God, then the whole man is proven to be at enmity with him. By nature we did not choose God: by nature we kicked against his law, and turned aside from his dominion. But is it not written, “My people shall be willing in the day of my power?” Do you not understand how, without any violation of your free agency, God has used proper arguments and motives in order to influence your understanding? Through our understanding our will is convinced, and our souls are spontaneously drawn. Then we throw down the weapons of our rebellion, and humble ourselves at the footstool of the Most High; and now we freely choose what we once wickedly abhorred. Do you not, Christian, at this very hour, choose Christ with all your heart to be your Lord and Saviour? If it could be asked of you over again to choose whether you should love the world or love Christ, would you not say, “Oh! my Beloved is better to me than ten thousand worlds! He captures all my love, engrosses all my passion: I give myself up to him most freely; he bought me with a great price; he won me with his great love; he enraptured me with his unspeakable charms, so I give myself up to him?” Here is a mutual choice. I wish that some of our friends would forbear to make such a stand against the doctrine of God’s choosing us. If they will only read Scripture with an unprejudiced mind, I am quite sure they will find it there. It always seems inexplicable to me that those who claim free will so very boldly for man, should not also allow some free will for God. I suppose, my brethren would not like to have to be married to someone whom they had not chosen, and why should Jesus Christ not have the right to choose his own bride? Why should he not set his love where he wishes, and have the right to exercise, according to his own sovereign mind, that bestowment of his heart and hand which no one could by any means deserve? This know, that he will have his own choice whether we impugn the doctrine or not; for he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and he will have compassion on whom he will have compassion. At the same time, I wish that those friends who believe this truth, would receive the other, which is quite as true. We do choose Christ in return, and that without any violation of our free agency. Some people cannot see two truths at one time; they cannot understand that God has made all truth to be double. Truth is many sided. While divine predestination is true, human responsibility is also true; while it is true that Christ chooses us, it is also true that the unrenewed mind will not choose him: “You will not come to me, so that you might have life.” This is the sin and the condemnation of man, that “light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” Settle it, however, in your minds, that when God says, “I am married to you,” it implies that there is a blessed choice on both sides; and so it is a true marriage.

6. 3. Our third reflection is, that marriage is cemented by mutual love. Where there is not this mutual affection, it does not deserve the name of marriage. The dark shadow of a blessing they cannot realise must be a heavy load for either heart to bear; but where there is true and genuine love, it is the sweetest and happiest mode of living. It is one of the blessings of paradise which has been preserved for us after the fall. Without love, wedded life must be a very purgatory above ground. In the solemn contract which has brought our souls this night to God, the marriage is sustained, cemented, strengthened, and made delightful by mutual love. Need I speak to you of the love of God? It is a theme we are scarcely competent to speak of. You need to sit down and weep about it for very joy, joy which fills the heart, and makes the eyes overflow, but nearly chains the tongue, for it is deep, profound, and inexpressible. “He loved me, and gave himself for me.” “Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us.” “Just as the Father has loved me, even so I have loved you.” Oh, the love of God—it would surpass the powers of an angel to proclaim. Surely, surely, it shall be the blest employment of eternity’s long ages for us to comprehend it; and, perhaps, when myriad’s of ages have rolled over our happy souls, we shall still be as much struck with wonder with it as we were at first. The marvel does not diminish on inspection: familiarity cannot make it common. The nearer we approach, the deeper our awe. It will be as great a surprise that God should love such cold, such faithless, such unworthy beings as ourselves, at the end of ten thousand years as it was at first, perhaps more so. The more thoroughly we shall know ourselves, the more fully we shall understand the good of the Lord; thus will our wonder grow and swell. Even in heaven, we shall be lost in surprise and admiration at the love of God for us. The rapture will augment the reverence we feel. Well, but, brethren beloved, I trust we also love him in return! Do you never feel one soft affection rising after another as you muse on the Christ of God? When you sometimes listen to a sermon in which the Saviour’s dear affection for you is expounded, do you not feel that the unbidden tear wets your cheek? Does your heart not swell sometimes, as if it were unable to hold your emotions? Is there not a “joy unspeakable and full of glory” that comes over you? Can you not say—

   Jesus, I love thy charming name,
      ’Tis music to mine ear;
   Fain would I sound it out so loud
      That earth and heaven should hear?

I hope you do not need to sing tonight—

   ’Tis a point I long to know.

but, I trust, that in the solemn silence of your souls you can say, “You know that I love you”; grieved that the question should be asked, but still ready to answer, with Peter, “Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you.” Now, it is impossible for you to love God without the strong conclusive evidence that God loves you. I once knew a good woman who was the subject of many doubts, and when I got to the bottom of her doubts, it was this: she knew she loved Christ, but she was afraid he did not love her. “Oh!” I said, “that is a doubt that will never trouble me; never, by any possibility, because I am sure of this, that the heart is so corrupt, naturally, that love for God never did get there without God’s putting it there.” You may rest quite certain, that if you love God, it is a fruit, and not a root. It is the fruit of God’s love for you, and did not get there by the force of any goodness in you. You may conclude, with absolute certainty, that God loves you if you love God. There never was any difficulty on his part. It always was on your part, and now that the difficulty is gone from you, none whatever remains. Oh let our hearts rejoice and be filled with great delight, because the Saviour has loved us and given himself for us. So let us realise the truth of the text, “I am married to you.”

7. 4. My fourth observation is, that this marriage necessitates certain mutual relationships. I cannot say “duties,” for the word seems out of place on either side. How can I speak of the great God making pledges of faithfulness? and yet with reverence, let me word it so, for in any vocabulary I hardly have words to explain it. When God becomes a husband, he undertakes to do a husband’s part. When he says, “Your Maker is your husband,” you may rest assured that he does not take the relationship without assuming (well, I must say it) all the responsibilities which belong to that condition. It is the part of God to nourish, to cherish, to shield, to protect, to bless those with whom he condescends, in infinite mercy, to enter into union. When the Lord Jesus Christ became the husband of his church, he felt that he was under an engagement to us, and inasmuch as there were debts incurred, he paid them.

   Yes, said the Son, with her I’ll go,
   Through all the depths of sin and woe;
   And on the cross will even dare
   The bitter pains of death to bear.

He never shrank from the doing of any of those loving works which belong to the husband of his chosen spouse. He exalted the word “husband,” and made it to be more full of meaning than it had ever been before, so that the apostle could see it glittering in a new light, and could say, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.” Oh, yes! dear friends, there is a responsibility arising out of this relationship, but he of whom we speak has not departed from it; you know he has not. And now, what about our side? The wife has to reverence her husband, and to be subject to him in all things. That is precisely our position towards him who has married us. Let his will be our will. Let his wish be our law. Let us not need to be flogged to service, but let us say—

   ’Tis love that makes our willing feet
   In swift obedience move.

Oh Christian, if the Master condescends to say, “I am married to you,” you will not any longer ask, “What is my duty?” but you will say, “What can I do for him?” The loving wife does not say, “What is my duty?” and stand coldly questioning how far she should go, and how little she may do, but all that she can do for him who is her husband she will do, and everything that she can think of, every thing she can devote herself to, in striving to please him in all things, she will most certainly do and perform. And you and I will do the same if we have realised our union with Christ. Oh beloved, do not grow sentimental and waste your energies in drivelling fancies as some have done. Do you speak of a wife?—where the family is large, the work is heavy, and the responsibility is great. I could gladly remind you here, if time permitted, of the words of King Lemuel, and the prophecy that his mother taught him. Bear with me at least while I admonish you to such a one, that the heart of your husband may safely trust in you. Let it be your care to give food to your household. Lay your hands to the spindle; do not allow your industry to fail; do not eat the bread of idleness. Stretch out your hand to the poor, and reach out both your hands to the needy. Open your mouth with wisdom, and in your tongue may the law of kindness be. Yes, and consider this with yourself, that in your regard for all the duties of your station, you are fulfilling your contractual obligations to your Lord. Short words, but mighty, matchless deeds have told how Jesus loved us. May it be ours to carve our song of love for him on the hearts of some tender nurslings who are cast in our way, and committed to our care. Oh that the life I now live in the flesh, by faith in the Son of God, might become a poem, and a grateful response to him who loved me, and gave himself for me. I hope we do know, then, that when God says, “I am married to you,” it necessitates mutual relationships.

8. 5. Fifthly, it also involves mutual confidences. How shall we call that a marriage where the husband and wife are still two people, maintaining individuality as if it were a scrupulous condition of the contract? That is utterly foreign to the divine idea. In a true marriage, the husband and wife become one. Henceforth their joys and their cares, their hopes and their labours, their sorrows and their pleasures, rise and blend together in one stream. Brethren, the Lord our God has said it, “The secret of the Lord is with those who fear him, and he will show them his covenant.” “Judas says to him, not Iscariot, ‘Lord, why is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?’” There was the secret, because there is a union between Christ and his people which there is not between Christ and the world. How joyously do the words sound—they have a silvery ring in them—“Henceforth I do not call you servants; for the servant does not know what his lord does: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” Christ keeps nothing back from you. Remember another word of his: “If it were not so, I would have told you.” Oh, how delightful! He says, “I go to prepare a place for you.” He tells them that he is going to prepare a place for them, and then he says, “If it were not so, I would have told you—I keep no secrets back from you; you are part of me, my flesh and my bones. I left my Father’s house in glory, so that I might become one with you, and reveal myself to you, and I keep back nothing from you, but reveal my very heart and my very soul to you.” Now, Christian, just see: you stand in the relationship of a spouse, and you must pour out your very heart to Christ. No, do not go and tell it to your neighbours, nor your friends, for, somehow or other, the most sympathising heart cannot enter into all our grief’s. There is a grief which the stranger cannot comprehend; but there never was a pang into which Christ could not enter. Make a confidant of the Lord Jesus—tell him all. You are married to him: play the part of a wife who keeps no secrets back, no trials back, no joys back; tell them all to him. I was in a house yesterday where there was a little child, and it was said to me, “He is such a funny child.” I asked in what way, and the mother said, “Well, if he tumbles down and hurts himself in the kitchen, he will always go up stairs crying and tell someone, and then he comes down and says, ‘I told someone’; and if he is upstairs he goes down and tells someone, and when he comes back it is always, ‘I told someone,’ and he does not cry any more.” Ah! well, I thought, we must tell someone: it is human nature to want to have sympathy, but if we would always go to Jesus, and tell him all, and leave it there, we might often get rid of the burden, and be refreshed with a grateful song. Let us do so, and go with all our joys and all our troubles to him, who says, “I am married to you.” I know the devil will say, “Why, you must not tell the Lord your present trouble: it is too little, and besides, you know you did wrong, and brought it upon yourself.” Well, but you would tell your husband, would you not? and will you not tell your Lord? You could not tell a master, but you can tell a husband. Oh! do not go back into the old legal state of calling Christ Baali, “my lord,” but call him Ishi, “My man, my husband,” (Hosea 2:16) and put that confidence in him which it is expected that the wife should place in a husband who dearly loves her.

9. 6. We must go on to a sixth point. This marriage implies fellowship in all its relationships. Whatever a husband possesses becomes his wife’s. She cannot be poor if he is rich; and what little she has, whatever it may be, comes to him. If she is in debt, her debts become his. When Jesus Christ took his people, he gave them all he had. There is nothing which Christ has which he has not given to us. It is noteworthy that he has given his church his own name! “Where?” you say. Well, there are two passages in Jeremiah that most remarkably illustrate this. In the one it says, “This is the name by which he shall be called,” (Jeremiah 23:6) and in the other, “This is the name by which she shall be called.” (Jeremiah 33:16) In both, the name is identical. “Jehovah Tsidkenu, the Lord our righteousness.” What “She shall be called?” Yes, as though he said, “She shall take my name, and with the name, of course, the entire open acknowledgment of his interest in her and her interest in him.” As such she is partaker of all his glory: if he is a king, she is a queen; if he is in heaven, “He has raised us up together, and made us to sit in heavenly places with him”; if he is heavenly, she also shall bear the image of the heavenly; if he is immortal, so shall she be; and if he is at the right hand of the Father, so shall she be also highly exalted with him. Now, it is saying only very little when I add, that, therefore, whatever we have, belongs to him—oh! it is so little, so very little, but one wishes it were more. “Oh that Christ were not so glorious as he is”—I have sometimes thought. It was half a wicked wish, but I meant it well, that I might help to glorify him. Oh that he were still poor, that one might ask him to a feast! Oh that he were still in this world, that one could break the alabaster box of ointment and pour it on his head! But you are so great, most blessed Master, that we can do nothing to increase you! You are so high, we cannot exalt you! You are so happy, that we cannot bless you! Yet, what am I saying? It is all a mistake! He is still here. He calls every one of his people “Members of his body”; and if you wish to enrich him, help the poor; if you want to feed him, feed the hungry. Those who clothe the naked, put vestments upon the Lord himself. “Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it to me.” I hope we can sincerely sing that verse of Dr. Watts’s:—

   And if I might make some reserve,
      And duty did not call,
   I love my God with zeal so great,
      That I could give him all.

10. 7. A seventh observation, and then I shall refrain from dwelling any longer on this point. The very crown of marriage is mutual delight and complacency. The wife of a Persian nobleman, having gone to a feast which was given by the great Darius, was asked by her husband whether she did not think that Darius was the finest man in the world. No, she said, she did not think so; she never saw any one in the world who was comparable to her husband. And doubtless that is just the opinion which a husband forms of his wife and a wife of her husband where the marriage is such as it should be. Now, certainly Christ sets a very high value upon us. I remember thinking over that passage in Solomon’s Songs, looking at it and wondering how it could be true—believing it, and yet not being able to comprehend it—where Christ says, “You are all fair, my love; there is no spot in you!” Oh, what eyes he must have! We say that love is blind; but that cannot be true in Christ’s case, for he sees all things. Why, this is how it is: he sees himself in us. He does not see us as we are, but in his infinite grace he sees us as we are to be, as Kent sings:—

   Not as she stood in Adam’s fall,
   When sin and ruin covered all;
   But as she’ll stand another day,
   Brighter than sun’s meridian ray.

The sculptor he says can see a bust in a block of marble, and that all he has to do is to chip away the extra marble, and let the bust appear. So Christ can see a perfect being in every one of us, if we are his people; and what he is doing with us day by day is taking off the excesses, making us to be like himself. He can see us as we shall one day be before the throne of God in heaven, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. Ah! beloved, he sets great value by us. His delights are with the sons of men. He loves to hear our praise, and to listen to our prayer. The songs of his people are his sweet perfume, and communion with his people is like the beds of spices, the beds of lilies, where he feeds. And as for us, who are his people, I am sure we can say that there is no delight which can equal communion with Christ. We have tried other delights—shame upon us!—we have tried some of them, but after having done so, we find that there is nothing like our Lord. “‘Vanity of vanity, all is vanity,’ says the preacher”; but when we come to Christ, we find no vanity there, but can say:—

      Where can such sweetness be
   As I have tasted in thy love,
      As I have found in thee?

11. The Christian’s heart is like Noah’s dove: it flies over the wide waste, and cannot rest the sole of its foot until it comes back to Christ. He is the true Noah, who puts out his hand and takes in the weary, fluttering dove, and gives it rest. There is no peace the whole world over except with Christ.

   There’s no such thing as pleasure here,
      My Jesus is my all;
   As thou dost shine or disappear,
      My pleasures rise or fall.

12. Thus much, then, by way, as it were, of skimming the surface of this delightful phrase, “I am married to you.”

13. II. I have two or three sentences only upon the second point. HOW FAR DO YOU AND I PRACTICALLY UNDERSTAND THIS?

14. I am afraid some of you think that I am half crazy tonight. You are saying, “Well, I do not understand this; whatever is the man talking about? God married to us! Christ married to us! I do not understand it!” God have mercy upon you, my poor hearer, and bring you to know it! But let me tell you, if you only knew it, there is a secret here that would make you a thousand times more happy than all the joys of the world can ever make you. You remind me of the cock in the fable, who found a diamond on the dunghill, and as he turned it over, he said, “I would rather have found a grain of barley.” That was according to his nature. And so with you. This precious pearl of union to God will seem to be nothing to you: a little worldly pleasure will be more to your taste. One could weep to think there should be such ignorance of true joy and true delight! Oh! blind eyes, that cannot see beauty in the Saviour! Oh! stone cold hearts, that can see no loveliness in him! Jesus! they are besotted, they are mad, who cannot love you! It is a strange infatuation of the sons of men to think that they can do without you, that they can see any light apart from you, you Sun of Righteousness, or anything like beauty in all the gardens of the world apart from you, you Rose of Sharon, you Lily of the Valley! Oh that they knew you!

   A thousand sorrows pierce my soul,
   To think that all are not thine own.

15. Do I address any tonight, who, while they pretend to be religious people, hold loosely by their allegiance to the Lord? There are many such, and we occasionally encounter them here. They cannot appease their conscience without some show of profession, so they join with us as hearers and spectators in the solemn assembly; but they never unite with the church, because they have not devotedly yielded up their hearts to Christ. Ask them the reason, and their answer sounds modest, and yet the reserve it implies is anything but chaste. Do you tell us that you are afraid you should not walk consistently? Would it not be more true to admit that your relationship with the world, your service for mammon, your ordinary pastimes, and your occasional revelry, harmless as you try to persuade yourselves they are now, if viewed in the light of espousals to Christ, must be accounted a very shame? As far as the principles of Christianity are concerned, you endorse them with your private creed, and you are “Protestant” enough to prefer the most evangelical doctrines; but the reserve in your conduct is a clear index to a most fatal reserve in your character. You might admit God to be the supreme, but not the exclusive Lord of your heart. You would give the Lord’s altar more honour than any other altar, but still you would not remove the high places which desecrate the land. Your opinion is that there is no god in all the earth but the God of Israel, yet your practice is to bow down in the house of Rimmon. You wish to have all the promises of God bestowed upon you, but you decidedly object to make any vows in his sanctuary. It is to such as you that these delicate appeals are most distasteful, “‘Turn, oh backsliding children,’ says the Lord; ‘for I am married to you.’” Nothing in your experience responds to this. You stand aloof as if you were aggrieved. I must warn you, therefore, that God can be your God only in these bonds of covenant union. But, Christian, I speak to you. Surely you know something about this, that God is married to you? If you do, can you not say with me, “Yes, and he has been a very faithful husband to me?” Now, there is not one of you who can demur to that! Thus far he has been very faithful to you, and what have you been to him? How kind and tender has he been; how faithful, how generous, how sympathising! In your every affliction he has been afflicted, and the angel of his presence has saved you. Just in your extremity he has come to your help. He has carried you through every difficulty, even until now. Oh! you can speak well of him, can you not? And as for his love, Christian, as for his love, what do you think of that? Is it not heaven on earth to you? Do you not reckon it to be—

      Heaven above
   To see his face, to taste his love?

Well, then, speak well of him, speak well of him! Make this world hear his praise! Ring that silver bell in the deaf ears of this generation! Make them know that your Beloved is the fairest of the fair, and compel them to enquire, “Oh you fairest among women, what is your Beloved more than another beloved?”

16. As for you who do not know him, I should like to ask you this question, and do answer it for yourselves. Do you want to be married to Christ? Do you wish to have him? Oh! then, there will be no difficulties in the way of the match. If your heart goes after Christ, he will have you. If, when you get home to your bedside, you say to him, “Dear Saviour, here is my heart, take it, wash it, save me,” he will hear you. Whoever you may be, he will not refuse you. Oh he looks for you, he looks for you! And when you look for him, that is a sure sign that he has found you. Though you may not have found him, yet he has found you already. The wedding ring is ready. Faith is the golden ring which is the symbol of the marriage bond. Trust the Saviour! Trust him! Stop trusting in your good works. Stop depending upon your merits. Take his works, his merits, and rest alone upon him, for now he says to you, “I will betroth you to me for ever; yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth you to me in faithfulness: and you shall know the Lord.” So may he do to every one of you, and may Christ’s name be glorified for ever. Amen.

[Portion Of Scripture Read Before Sermon—Jeremiah 3]