tried it, that God heareth prayer: therefore we say to you, go to him and test him, for he will be gracious to the voice of your cry. God has been pleased to set up a mercy-seat; answer me, O doubting one, would there be a divinely-appointed mercy-seat for the presentation of prayer if the Lord did not intend to hear prayer? He has sprinkled that mercy-seat with the blood of his only-begotten Son, that through that atonement the guilty might approach him. Would he shed that matchless blood, and yet reject the sinner who comes trusting therein? In addition to all this, he has promised to give the Holy Spirit to assist in prayer, helping our infirmities, because we know not what we should pray for as we ought. Would he give that Holy Spirit, and still suffer prayer to be ineffectual? It is not conceivable. It delights God to listen to the cries of his creatures. Your voice may be very cracked and inharmonious, and your prayer may be like an infant's wailing, or like the cry of a young bird in its nest when it is hungry; but he who heareth the young ravens when they cry will hear your inarticulate, discordant utterances, therefore pour out your heart before him.

He will answer thee, too, and that very quickly. "When he hears thy prayer, he will answer thee"-so says the text. Has he not said, "Before they call I will answer, and while they are yet speaking I will hear"? Where there is true prayer for grace in the heart the prayer is heard before it is offered; for it is grace that makes us pray in such a fashion. He who asks for grace sincerely has grace already in a measure or else he would not be inclined to ask for more. Let this encourage us. Since God waiteth to be gracious, and hath in wondrous condescension endued prayer with such privileges in his sacred courts, who among us will not turn unto him now, with all our heart, and cry to him, "My Father, save and help me now ?"

I am pleading for my God, and I know that I am advocating the best of causes, but my tongue and my mind fall short in the argument. I do not, however, much regret my want of eloquence in this matter, for it is better that the theme should plead for itself. May the Lord by his Eternal Spirit make the reasonableness and the blessedness of the claim to appeal to your conscience and your heart, and instead of searching elsewhere for succour may you now turn to your God in loving trustfulness. If you required further confirmation of your faith beyond the three truths which I have laid before you, namely, the promise itself, the nature of God, and the efficacy of prayer, I could ask many in this house to-day to give their personal testimony as to the result of faith in God and supplication to him. We can speak positively, for we speak from actual trial of faith and prayer. I have now reached middle life, and having known the Lord from my youth up I can speak from eight-and-twenty years' experience. Through the favour of God I have led a very happy life by faith in his name. I have not been without many trials, sicknesses, and difficulties, and some of these are daily with me, but in all things faith sustains me. I bear my witness that confidence in man is utter folly, and brings sorrow to the soul: but I am more than ever certain that confidence in God is always wise, never leads to disappointment, and never causes regret. I mourn that I have not trusted my Lord more fully, and I lament that I have not attempted greater things in reliance upon his word; but I have no

question that faith is right, and I am sure that it will always be justified by results. Speaking deliberately, as though I were bearing witness concerning my fellow man in a court of justice, I have no word to say by way of questioning the faithfulness, and goodness, and truthfulness of my Lord, but I am bound to declare that he has heard my prayers, not once nor twice, but evermore, and hath been gracious to the voice of my cry. Why speak I thus? Why must the objectionable "I" be introduced? Because I cannot ask anyone else in the audience to stand up and speak without disturbing the order of our service; but if I could do so, my brethren and sisters here by the hundred would each one offer similar testimony. Dear friends, your troubles have been different from mine, you have tested God in other directions than I have done, but you have equally found him true: have you not? Is not his word like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times? Some of you are older than I. The snows of many a winter whiten your brows, but in no one day of all those seventy years has the Lord been unfaithful to you. Are you verging upon fourscore? Still in that long period there has not been a single breach of covenant on the part of your Lord. Your last days are freer from doubt than your former years; though your spirits are by no means so elastic your peace is less disturbed. Each year of your life trust in God grows easier, for facts prove the reality of his working, and fellowship with your invisible Friend makes his influence over you to be more constant and powerful. The path of faith increases in brightness: every hour accumulates evidence for its support. We know and are persuaded of the love which God hath towards us. Verily he is gracious, and inclineth his ear to his people.

III. There I leave this matter, and I close by the third observation, which is this: THE ASSURANCE OF THE TEXT BEING SO WELL CONFIRMED SHOULD BE PRACTICALLY ACCEPTED AT ONCE. If God will be gracious to the voice of our cry, and when he hears it will answer us, let us renounce at once all earthborn confidences. Let us defile the covering of our graven images and cast them away, and say unto our false confidence, "Get thee hence." "We have done so," says one. Do it again, brother, for the tendency of thy heart is still to rest in that which is seen rather than in the invisible Jehovah. Idolatry is bound up in our hearts. Cast out the idol yet again. Alas, some of you have never done so; your carnal hope still usurps the place of God. Let me put it to you. What is your confidence for life? You all have some confidence or other; what is yours, young man? What is your reliance, O man in middle life? Especially, O greybeard, what is thy confidence now? Thou hast good reason to examine it, for soon thou wilt need it; and woe to thee if it be found to fail. What is your confidence, my brother? Is it your wealth? Is it your strong common sense? Is it your stalwart frame-that strong pair of arins which hitherto have enabled you to stem the current? What are you relying upon? Will it support you in death? Will it stand you in good stead in eternity? I know it will not if it be anything short of the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Come let us flee from all creature confidence as from a filthy thing, for it is base to the last degree for a creature to be trusting in another creature and putting that creature into the place of its Creator. Let us abhor such idolatrous

trust. Let us shun it also as a vexing and deceitful thing, for it is treacherous as the smooth, deceitful sea, and it mocks us as the mirage of the desert mocks the thirsty traveller. Let us flee from vain confidence in self or in man, for it is a poisonous thing; the fiery flying serpent of Egypt was not more deadly than confidence in an arm of flesh. Let us away from it and never return. O trusters in that which is seen, leave your idols, cast them to the moles and to the bats, even the dearest of them all. If your confidence be in yourself, fly from yourself, for you have no worse enemy. Flee from unbelief and carnal trust, and provoke not the Lord to jealousy by setting up another God, for there is no other. "Once have I spoken, yea twice have I heard this, that power belongeth unto God." Trust not then where there is no power, but set all your confidence upon the Almighty.

If this be done, and you flee away from other trusts, then let me commend you at the same time to refuse despair. When a man sees that his confidences are broken up like a potter's vessel till, to use the expressive figure of the prophet, there is not a piece left large enough to take fire from the hearth, or to take water out of the pit, then he is apt to exclaim, "Now it is all over with me, and I must needs perish." You loved your wife, she was all the world to you; but, alas, she is dead, and you cry, "Let me die also." You hugged your wealth, it has melted; that speculation has dissolved it, and left you a beggar: and now you cry, "What is there worth living for?" Beware of dark thoughts, which may beset you just now. In your worst moment, should Satan whisper in your ear a suggestion concerning rope, or knife, or poison bowl, or sullen stream, flee from it with all your soul. Obey the apostolic word, "Do thyself no harm." Nothing could be worse for thee than to break the law, which saith expressly," Thou shalt do no murder." Self-destruction, if done by a man in his senses, is a daring defiance of God, and the sealing of damnation. This is to leap from measured trouble into infinite woe, the depth of which none can guess. Why shouldst thou do this? Turn unto thy God; that is a wiser thing for a man to do than to destroy his own life; yea, there is something braver for a man to do than to rush upon the pikes of the foe because the battle waxeth too hot for him. Go thou to thy great Captain, even to him whom God hath given to be a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people, and he will make thee more than a conqueror. There are brighter days in store for thee yet. Yea, there are days to come, which shall never end, of everlasting life and blessedness if thou wilt but now in thy distress cast thyself upon the covenanted mercies of God in Christ Jesus his Son. It is grand to spring up from despair into the fulness of delight, and many a man hath done this at a bound. This earth moveth by slow degrees from the frosts of winter into the bright days of June, but God can make our souls to pass out of the deepest despair into the brightest hope in a single moment, and if we do but trust and rest in him it shall be done.

I know some who do not trust their all with God because they have picked a quarrel with him. They resemble a little child I have heard of who one night would not say his prayers. His fond mother said to him, "Dear child, why do you not pray?" "Mother," said he, "I shall not say

my prayers to God any more, because he let my little bird die." Do not some people talk thus against God? They have a quarrel about their dead child, or their lost property. Now, if you get into such a state of sullenness it will go hard with you; it would be far better if you would bow to the divine decision and believe that God meaneth your good. Oh, do believe the words of my text. May his Holy Spirit lead you to believe them. "He will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry."

Those two counsels being followed, namely, the renunciation of carnal hope, and at the same time the determination not to despair, there remaineth only this, that we do now try the power of prayer and childlike confidence in God. But you say, "There is no hope for me." Have you ever sought for mercy? "I do not think I should be heard." Have you ever tried? Dear heart, have you ever gone into your chamber, and shut to your door, opened the word of God and found out a gracious promise, and then said, "Lord, fulfil this promise to me. For Christ's sake be gracious to me. I trust thee, and expect thee to be gracious to me"? If any one of you has tried this and it has failed, please let me know it, for I am in the habit of continually saying that "him that cometh to Christ he will in no wise cast out," and I do not want to spread a falsehood. If you find that Jesus casts you out, do let me know it, for I would not like to go about telling lies. I have asked others, and I have tried for myself, but I have never found any exception to the rule-" he that believeth in him shall not be ashamed nor confounded;" nor of that other rule-"every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." If I can have evidence true and certain that God does not honour faith and does not hear prayer, I must revise my convictions, contradict my statements, and disbelieve my own consciousness. Have you ever tried believing prayer? Most of the people who disbelieve the Bible have never read it with care and attention; those who doubt the faithfulness of God have never tried it; and those who deride prayer have never practised it. But, mind, I am speaking of real prayer, not of repeating certain good words. I am not talking of formal prayer, but of going with your heart to the unseen God, and telling him what you feel and what you want, and trusting him to supply your wants, and help you. Have you done this? Go and try prayer at once, I beseech you. Divine Spirit, help these poor souls to pray this day. If you do pray and trust this day it shall be unto you as the beginning of days, and from henceforth you shall delight yourselves in the abundance of peace. O believer, it shall be true of you, "His soul shall dwell at ease, and his seed shall inherit the earth.” From the Lord's good Spirit there shall come to you such grace that you shall be blessed, and become a blessing to others. You shall walk happily before the Lord in this land of the dying, and then shall abide with him for ever in the land of the living above. God bless you all for his name's sake. Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON-Isaiah xxx.

HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"-125, 747.

DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 23RD, 1878, BY

C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord: O Lord, I beseech thee, send now prosperity."-Psalm cxviii. 22-25.

It would be difficult, if not impossible, to fix with certainty the occasion which first suggested this psalm: it has even been thought to be purely prophetic, and rather foretelling history than narrating it. I rather incline to the opinion that some Israelitish hero, chosen of God to high office in the midst of his people, had been rejected by their rulers, had passed through many struggles, some of them of the most violent kind, and at last, notwithstanding the rejection of the people and their leaders, had attained to a prominent position, nay, to a chief place in the midst of the nation. The psalm is applicable to Christ, and to him it is referred in the New Testament several times, but probably from the human point of view it was at first intended to celebrate the victory of some chosen man of God who, despite his divine election, had been rejected by his countrymen. Providence conducted him to a crowning success, and he magnified the Lord for it. In some way or other a stone has come to be connected with several persons whose history was of this character. Remember Jacob. He flees from his father's house because Esau threatens to kill him: he appears to be the rejected member of Isaac's family, by whom the house would never be built up. At the end of a day's journey he lies down with a stone for his pillow, and as he sweetly slumbers he sees heaven open, beholds the mystic ladder, and rises assured of the love of the Almighty God. By faith thus infused into his soul he becomes strong for his future life, and so lives that now the house of Abraham and Isaac stands represented in the seed of Jacob alone, and Esau with all his dukes has utterly passed away.

The next occurrence of the stone happens in reference to Joseph, of whom the dying Jacob said, "From thence is the Shepherd the stone No. 1,420.