Do we answer, I cannot? It is a reproach, it is a calumny, upon the Gospel of Divine grace. That is the very revelation of the Gospel—God giveth more grace: more, as we need more; more, as we ask more; more, as we look and wait and make room for more. I cannot? No; but God can. Ask, and ye shall have.
Or do we answer, I need not? I am well enough as I am—God is very merciful—He knows our frame, and whatever deficiencies He sees in me, Christ will make them up? Alas! it is too often the evangelical reply—if not with the lips, then in the heart! Christ died to make sin less sinful, to make sin less dangerous, by substituting a figment of justification for a reality of holiness, watchfulness, and self-control! Thus even the Blessed Lord Himself is made a minister of sin, and man turns the very table of his blessing into a new occasion of falling!
Or do we answer, finally, I will not? I love the breaches of my soul’s house; I do not wish that the gusts of passion should be fenced out; I do not wish that there should be no crack or cranny through which I may peep out on the world’s vanities, nor any secret neglected postern through which some delicious delirious lust may creep in to intoxicate me? Oh! worst of all, most hopeless, this last answer—the answer of many consciences, will they but speak, in this great Congregation; the answer which not only virtually denies, but wilfully refuses, the Gospel; which makes the Cross an offence, and Christ to have died in vain!
May it please God, by some one of His thousand, His myriad agencies, to make us feel! to bring us to our knees in hearty repentance before Him; and then, even as it is written, humbling ourselves first under His mighty hand, at last to exalt us in due time!
RECENT WORKS BY DR. C. J. VAUGHAN.
THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST DAYS. Lectures on the Acts of the Apostles. I. The Church of Jerusalem, SECOND EDITION. II. The Church of the Gentiles. SECOND EDITION. III. The Church of the World. SECOND EDITION. Fcap. 8vo, cloth, price 4s. 6d. each.
LECTURES ON THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN. SECOND EDITION. Two Vols. crown 8vo, price 15s.
WORDS FROM THE GOSPELS. Sermons preached in the Parish Church of Doncaster. NEW EDITION. Fcap. 8vo, price 4s. 6d.
NOTES FOR LECTURES ON CONFIRMATION. With suitable Prayers. SIXTH EDITION. 1s. 6d.
LECTURES ON THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. SECOND EDITION. Price 7s. 6d.