will give you all the rest you need. The Lord finds music in his children's cries. "Oh," say you, "I would cry, but mine is such a discordant and foolish cry.' You are the very man to cry, for your sorrow will put an emphasis into your voice. Of all the cries your children utter that comes closest home to you which arises out of their pain and deep distress. A dying moan from a little one will pierce a mother's heart. See, she presses the babe to her bosom! She cries, "My dear dying child," and weeps over it. Thou too shalt be pressed to the bosom of everlasting love if thou canst only groan, or sob, or sigh.

Only be thou careful that thou be not happy in a dry and thirsty land; be careful that thou be not content away from God, for if thou wilt not rest till thou get at him thou shalt soon have him; if thou wilt groan after him thou shalt find him. A sigh will fetch him. May there be much longing, panting, and pleading among us at this hour.

Do not let anyone here be satisfied to remain in a dull state. Do not say, "Well, but he says a child of God may get there." Yes, I know I did; but I did not bid you fall into it, above all, I did not tell you to abide in it. One of your children may fall and cut his knees, but I should not recommend all his brothers to try a tumble, nor should I exhort him to lie on the ground. The dry and thirsty land is really a dry and thirsty land to the believer, but if you can be satisfied to dwell there it is not a dry and thirsty land to you. Now, child of God, if you have fallen into a dull state, I beseech you now to labour to rise out of it; and I do this first because you are not a fit person to be in such a state. Yours is the land that floweth with milk and honey; you are like David, driven out of Canaan for a time, but you must never be satisfied till you get back to Jerusalem. Oh, cry unto the Lord to bring you back that you may see the king's face and sit at the king's table, and delight yourself with the marrow and the fatness which you ought to feed upon every day. You are a king and a priest unto God; will you go about in sordid beggar's rags and forget your dignity and sit on a dunghill with the paupers of this miserable world? No, come away, come away; the dry and thirsty land is not for you, but the land of plenty and of joy. Think of your obligations to your Saviour. You have been bought with his precious blood, your sins are forgiven you, you are a joint-heir with him, are you going to be cold and careless towards the Well-beloved of your soul? I was about to say three-fourths of all the Christian people in this world live in such a way as rather to disgrace the Redeemer than to honour him. I have not said that, but if I had chanced to make the statement I would not retract it, for I am afraid it is true. I am afraid that many of us are no credit to Christ. If worldlings look at us they say, "Is that a Christian?" If my Lord were to send some of his sheep to a show, they would be far enough from winning a prize. If the prize were for joyous piety some would fail utterly; if the prize were for consistent courage and strength of heart, how few of us would be "highly commended." Many of his sheep are no credit to their feeder, and reflect no honour upon their Shepherd.

Out of your dumps, my brethren! Why should you be sitting in darkness any longer with such grace to be had, and such a Saviour to give it. Bethink you, you are losing a world of joy! You are sitting

like an owl in a haunted ruin, blinking your eyes, when you might be flying like an eagle straight up to the Sun of righteousness, in full communion with the great Lord of day. Why are you down there, down in the dens and caves of the earth, among the dragons howling away, when you might be up there among the cherubim and seraphim magnifying the Lord, for "He hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus"? I said you were children of God, and therefore I am not condemning you, but I would brush you up if I could, and bestir you to walk somewhat more worthily of the obligations imposed upon you by the grace of God.

Think, my dear brothers and sisters, if you and I all get into a dull, sleepy state, what is to become of this poor world. You have to go to your class this afternoon, are you going there half awake and half asleep? Are you going to dream among your children all the afternoon? "Oh," say you, 66 we do not do that." Do not you? Why, many a preacher is not above half awake when he delivers his sermon, and rather snores it than preaches it. Few of us ever were awake

all through. We are awake half way. Oh that we were thoroughly awake, thoroughly alive, thoroughly in earnest. No wonder that sinners are given to slumber when saints sleep as they do. No wonder that the unconverted think hell a fiction when we live as if it were

SO.

No wonder that they imagine heaven to be a romance, when we act as if it were so little a reality. Oh Lord, awake us, even if it be by thunder claps! Oh God, for Jesus Christ's sake, bring us out of the dry and thirsty land. Hast thou not said that if we drink of the river of the water of life out of our belly shall flow rivers of living water, so that we shall neither complain of thirst ourselves nor shall there remain a desert around us? Help us, then, to drink abundantly.

I have thus spoken to as many as believe in Jesus Christ, but to you that are unbelievers much of this may equally well apply, for you too are in a land more dry and thirsty still. Do not go about to sacraments and sermons, much less to priests, but go straight to God in Christ Jesus. Cry to him! O sinner, cry to him, "O God, though thou be not my God, yet still early will I seek thee. My heart longeth for thee, come to me and save me." Jesus will come to you and save you, even you, to the praise of the glory of his grace. Amen.

PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON-Psalm lxiii.; Isaiah XXXV.

HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK "-136, 63 (Song III.), 758.

THE TRUE POSITION OF THE WITNESS WITHIN.

A Sermon

DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 11TH, 1878, BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself."-1 John v. 10. SOME time ago I tried to set forth the manner of the witness and sealing of the Spirit, and I have no doubt that the subject will still remain upon the memory of many of you; but I am led to refer to it again, and to go over the same ground again, because I meet with so many instances in which mistakes are made in reference to it,―mistakes which cause great sorrow and much sin. The letter which I will now read I received yesterday, and it is one of many of the same import. "Dear Mr. Spurgeon,-May I ask your prayers, and the prayers of your congregation, to God, that he will, by the Holy Spirit, reveal himself unto me. I have for a long time past, I may say years, been trying to serve him, and have a strong desire openly to join with his people; but I have not the witness in myself that I am saved, and until then I dare not take the step." Now, this letter breathes an anxious desire to be right and sincere in all things, and this is to be highly commended. We ought to be jealous over our spirit, fearful of hypocrisy, and resolved to do all things in truth and sincerity. We ought to abhor the idea of making a profession of that which is not true, and so far this letter shows a spirit worthy of imitation. Everyone should be anxious that he should in nothing be a hypocrite, and should not allow the profession of his lips to go one single inch beyond the feeling of his heart. It is, again, a most proper thing that every man should desire to have the very best possible evidence as to his soul's salvation, and if there be an evidence to be had of a very special, decisive, and certain kind it is but right that every man should cry to God for it, and should feel unsatisfied until he

obtains it.

Yet, when all this has been said, we are bound in honesty to add that it is very possible for this anxiety to become an obstacle to faith, and for the desire after special evidence to become a hindrance to No. 1,428.

our receiving the evidence which the Lord has given us in his word. In our ignorance we may be overlooking the true source of peace and assurance; while straining our eye-balls by looking for that which God will never reveal to us, we may be missing rare consolations which lie near at hand. While craving for something unusual we may be neglecting that which infinite wisdom has put within our reach, like the foolish child which utters hungry cries for the moon, but forgets to eat the bread upon its own plate. There be many who in their sincerely earnest desires to gain some token for good are forgetting that earnest of the Spirit which is already within their own bosoms, and thus, through darkness of spirit, they miss present comforts, and are too feeble for present duties. They sit in fetters forged by their own fancy, when they might as well arise and walk at large. May the Holy Spirit, therefore, instruct us so to handle this matter that many who are seeking for this inner witness may know that they have it already, or may at least obtain it this day through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Here, then, is our text-" He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself."

I. Our first observation is that BELIEVING ON THE SON OF GOD COMES BEFORE THE INNER WITNESS. "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself"; he believes before he has that witness, and it is only as a believer that he obtains it. This is self-evident in the text. No one can read these words without seeing that a man must be a believer before he has the witness in himself. It does not say, "he who has the witness in himself becomes a believer," but the order is reversed" He that believeth hath the witness in himself." He believes first, and then he obtains the inner witness.

The basis of faith is the testimony of God concerning his Son--the testimony of God as we find it in holy Scripture. I do not believe Christ Jesus to be the Son of God because of anything I feel within myself, but because God himself declares him to be such; neither do I trust my soul with Jesus because of certain emotions felt within, but be'cause God, in the book which I accept as his testimony, declares that he has set forth Jesus to be the propitiation for sin. In the Bible I see that God himself witnesses that whosoever trusts Jesus is thereby forgiven, accepted, and saved, and therefore I trust him. We have no other foundation for our faith to rest upon than the witness of God. "If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater." The testimony of God is surely enough for us. Dare we ask more? We must not go about to buttress the solid pillar of divine testimony. "Thus saith the Lord" is proof enough, and it is blasphemous impertinence for us to demand further evidence. Dare we look around for something which we have observed or something which we have felt to be a support to the solemn declaration of the Most High? If so, we are not believing in God at all, but are waiting for a surer witness than God, who cannot lie. In such a case we are still lost, for we cannot be saved while we are giving God the lie by refusing to believe him till he can bring corroborative evidence. If we were to obtain that additional evidence it is clear that our faith would not then stand in God, but in the additional testimony, and so we should remain as to God unbelievers still. The only basis for saving faith is the testimony of God himself

concerning his Son Jesus Christ, "and this is the testimony that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son."

Note that the words which follow our text assure us very solemnly that the rejection of this basis, namely, God's own testimony, involves the utmost possible guilt. "He that believeth not God, hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record which God gave of his Son." Now, it is quite clear that this does not refer to any inward witness, because the man who does not believe Christ has no inward witness, and cannot have any. He cannot be guilty of rejecting what he never had; but God has given an outward witness to all mankind, a witness contained in Holy Scripture, clear and express, and therein he declareth that Jesus Christ is his Son and the appointed Saviour of men, and he bids men trust in him, promising that they shall thus be saved. It is the rejection of the revelation of God which involves the unbeliever in transcendent guilt, because his unbelief is tantamount to saying that God speaketh lies, that he hath deliberately given us a book which is a fiction, that he hath set before us hopes which will end in disappointment, that he has threatened us with a doom which is a mere bugbear, that he has sent us a Saviour who cannot save, who has presented a sacrifice in which there is no real efficacy. The rejection of Christ as our Saviour is the most pointed way of giving to the Lord the lie direct. Surely we ought to start back from such guilt as this, for it stabs at God's honour, and inasmuch as it impugns his truthfulness it robs him of one of the brightest jewels of his crown. O beloved hearers, be not guilty of this, I pray you, but believe your God. What if all men contradict him-be it yours to believe him: "let God be true and every man a liar." Believe God, though every feeling of your nature should seem to controvert his testimony, for feelings deceive, and consciousness may be a dream, but God cannot lie-his word is truth itself. This, then, is the basis of faith, and the basis of faith which cannot be rejected without the utmost sin.

Let me put it in another shape. I hear and I read that God has sent his Son Jesus Christ to save sinners: and thus I learn that I must. trust Christ, and I shall then obtain the benefit of his salvation. I believe this; I trust Christ, and I am saved. This salvation gives me peace and rest, and I become confirmed in my belief. Now there are many who want this peace and rest before they will believe. They expect harvest before sowing, and will not sow unless their preposterous desire can be granted. My dear friend, you cannot expect to have the natural order reversed in this fashion. Why should you want it? Hath not God spoken the truth, and if it be the truth why do you not believe it? The essence of faith lies in believing that God speaketh the truth, and in acting upon his word because it is the truth. Is this more than God has a right to expect of you? Why should there be any refusal to render what is so manifestly his due? Why should we ask for further evidence whether it be in ourselves or in others? Should we not at once say, "God has said it: it is true: I will act upon it and since he saith Christ died for sinners, and saveth all that trust in him, I will trust him, and I shall be saved"?

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Now, this basis of faith is abundantly sufficient. I feel half ashamed to have to insist upon this most evident truth, for, if we were not desperately set on mischief and alienated from God, we should feel this at