1. That the ground of condemnation is personal character. The Bible puts it nowhere else. " If I had not come and spoken unto them they had not had sin." "Ye will not come to Me that ye may have eternal life."

2. God governs every man as a free agent. He is left to choose between good and evil. But God will not force his choice, not even to save him.

3. The provision of grace is ample for all who will accept it. None are excluded from its scope. "Christ tasted death for every man."

4. Life is tendered to you and urged upon you; the means of enlightenment, of conversion and training for heaven are all in your hands.

II. THE ONLY REMEDY — the only way to escape the eternal doom of the self-destroyer. "In Me is thine help." The sinner can destroy himself, but he cannot save himself. Salvation from sin and death is all of grace. It is a supernatural provision outside of and independent of human device and human merit.

(J. M. Sherwood, D. D.)

I. THE NATURE OF GOD. As Creator and Author of every being that exists, and of everything that results from their existence, God seems the only cause of the miseries of His creatures. There are two ways in which we may satisfy ourselves on this subject. One is, to obtain a complete idea of the decrees of God, and to compare them so exactly with the dispositions of sinners, as to make it evident by this comparison that sinners are not under a necessity of committing such crimes, as cause their eternal destruction. The other is, to refer the subject to the determination of a being of the most unsuspected knowledge and veracity, whose testimony we may persuade ourselves is unexceptionable, and whose declaration is an infallible oracle. The first of these ways is impracticable, and always must remain so. Who can boast of knowing the whole arrangement, all the extent and all the combinations, of the decrees of God? Try the second. The question is whether, allowing the decrees of God, God doth any violence to sinners, compelling them to commit sin? God Himself declares that none of His decrees offer violence to His creatures; and their destruction can proceed from none but themselves. He has given this answer in those pathetic expostulations, in those powerful applications, and in those exhortations which He employs to redeem the greatest sinners. He has given the answer by tender complaints concerning the depravity of mankind; by express assurances that He would have all men to be saved; and by such passages as the text, that there are no difficulties insurmountable in our salvation, except such as we choose to seek there.

II. THE NATURE OF RELIGION.

1. As to evangelical morality — how clearly it is revealed. Heresy may attack our religious mysteries, but propositions that concern moral virtues are placed in a light so clear that nothing can diminish its brightness. Religion clearly requires a magistrate to be equitable, and a subject obedient; a father tender, and a son dutiful; a husband affectionate, and a wife faithful; a master gentle, and a servant diligent; a pastor vigilant, and a flock teachable. Religion clearly requires us to exercise moderation in prosperity and patience in adversity. Our moral relations are regulated in a manner so clear, distinct, and intelligible that we not only cannot invent any difficulties, but nobody hath ever pre tended to invent any.

2. The next character of Christian morality is dignity of principle. Why did God give us laws? Because He loves us, and would have us love Him. How pleasant it is to submit to bonds which the love of God imposes on us.

3. Another character is the justice of its dominions. All its claims are founded on justice and equity.

4. Another feature is a character of proportion.

5. Power of motive is another.

III. THE NATURE OF MAN. There are implied four vague and erroneous notions of human depravity.

1. When we speak of our natural impotence to practise virtue we confound it with an insurmountable necessity to commit the greatest crimes.

2. We confound the sure virtue that religion inspires with other virtues, which constitution, education, and motives of worldly honour are sufficient to enable us to practise.

3. We confound the natural depravity of a man born a pagan, and with only the light of reason, with that of a Christian born and educated among Christians, and amidst all the advantages of revelation.

4. We confound the condition of a man, to whom God hath given only exterior revelation, with the conditions of him to whom God offers supernatural aid to assist him against his natural frailty.

(James Saurin.)

I. THE ACCIDENT TO THE SUBJECT. "Destruction." Destruction is opposed to construction, as corruption to generation. In the text destruction is the pulling down of the state, and downfall of the kingdom of Israel. All politic bodies are in some sort subject to the condition of natural bodies. As these, so they, have their beginning or birth, growth, perfection, state, decay, and dissolution. If the state of kingdoms and monarchies is so fickle, what folly, or rather madness, is it for any private man to dream of perpetuities and certainties! To compose the seeming difference between God's promises to Israel and His threats against Israel, we must distinguish divers kinds of promises made to Israel, and divers Israels to whom the promises may appertain.

II. THE SUBJECT OF THIS ACCIDENT. Israel may signify, properly, either the whole posterity of Jacob, or the Ten Tribes which were sent from Rehoboam; figuratively the spiritual kingdom of Christ over the elect. There is a threefold Israel.

1. According to the flesh only.

2. According to the spirit only.

3. According to the flesh and spirit.Some of the promises are absolute, some conditional, some temporal, some spiritual.

III. THE CAUSE OF THIS ACCIDENT IN THIS SUBJECT. Praise God, O Israel, for thy former prosperity, but now thank thyself for thy imminent desolation. Are not all mixed bodies corrupted on the disagreement of elements, and the elements themselves by the strife of contrary qualities within them Are not all metals defaced with their own rust? God is the cause of our woe, and we are the cause of our woe. God punisheth us, and we punish ourselves.

1. Let us then confess our sins to be the fuel of God's wrath, and the fountain of all our miseries.

2. Let us compose ourselves to endure that with patience which we have brought upon ourselves.

3. Let us forsake our beloved sins; let repentance be our practice, and a speedy reformation our instruction, so God s judgments shall not be our destruction.

(D. Featley, D. D.)

I. ISRAEL IS IN A STATE OF DESTRUCTION AND MISERY. Consider this charge with regard to all mankind. If the misery is real, it must be felt. It may be felt, however, and yet not be acknowledged. Men are often ashamed to confess their real feelings on this subject. Can it be denied that man is in a state of wretchedness and destruction?

II. HE IS HIMSELF THE AUTHOR OF HIS OWN DESTRUCTION. He hath himself entirely to blame for all the misery which hath come upon him. Sin has brought the curse upon this lower world. "The soul that sinneth it shall die" is an irreversible decree of the Divine government. As long as a man continues a sinner, he must be miserable in the very nature of things. To bring the matter a little nearer us, let each of us put the question to his own breast, Canst thou plead exemption from that general corruption which hath universally affected the human race?

(James French.)

(Brereton E. Dwarris, M. A.)

I. NO MAN IS DESTROYED IN HELL FOR EVER SIMPLY BECAUSE HE IS A SINNER. All have sinned, and all would inevitably perish had not Omnipotent Love intervened to prevent it. The sinner that dies at last, dies not because he is a sinner, but because being a sinner he refused the pardon and grace offered.

II. A FREE AND FULL SALVATION HAS BEEN WROUGHT OUT AND IS PROFFERED TO EVERY SINNER. The physician is at hand. There is "balm in Gilead" to heal sin's dreadful malady.

III. GOD WANTS LONG AND GRACIOUSLY TO WELCOME THE SINNER BACK TO LIFE. He restrains His anger. He affords every opportunity. He sends forth His messenger.

IV. GOD PUTS NO HINDRANCES IN THE SINNER'S WAY, IMPOSES NO RESTRAINT ON THE FREE EXERCISE OF HIS WILL.

V. EVERY IMPOSSIBLE INDUCEMENT IS HELD OUT, AN AMAZING SYSTEM OF MEANS AND AGENCIES IS PUT IN FORCE, to morally constrain him to obey and live; so that, if he destroys his soul at last, it can only be by personally resisting and overcoming the combined efforts of God and man to prevent it!

(J. M. Sherwood, D. D.)

(W. Hay Aitken, M. A.)

I. IN ITS RELATION TO THE NATURE OF GOD. We cannot comprehend God. Between the Creator and the creature there is an immeasurable distance. If God foreknows that this or-that man will finally perish, how can it be affirmed that he destroys himself? In reply we ask, Does the foreknowledge of God as to any particular action imply that He is the Agent? All that can be said is that God permits these actions to be wrought. We must not confound what God foreknows with what God appoints. The future punishment of the wicked is represented in God's Word as the product of sin, — sin the grain sown, punishment the harvest to be reaped. If, then, the sin is the sinner's own, and the punishment is the legitimate product of the sin, is not the conclusion just, that it is the man him self who commits the sin who destroys himself! Suppose that the decrees of God are apparently inconsistent with the doctrine that man destroys himself. There are two methods by which the question might be set at rest. One is through our being made fully acquainted with all those decrees, in all their relations to time and to eternity. But this method is inapplicable in our case, for we have not the capacity to comprehend the decrees of God. The other is our accepting the assurance that the purposes of God are not at variance with our personal responsibility. Life and death are before us, and we can choose. Therefore man's undoing must be of himself. God's decrees we cannot comprehend, His invitations we can

II. THE QUESTION IN ITS RELATION TO THE PROPOSALS OF THE GOSPEL. Some have attempted to show that the requirements of the Gospel are in effect the main hindrances to its acceptance. They are so rigid and unyielding, that practically they operate as a barrier to our embracing the proposals of mercy which the Gospel brings. With the requirements of the Gospel it is certainly no easy matter to comply. No man can comply with them in his own strength. But we must remember that the Gospel is of God. It is the plan which infinite wisdom contrived, and shall feeble man presume to say that the wisdom of Jehovah has erred? Bear in mind that the precepts of the Gospel are framed for the happiness and well-being of mankind; and note how care. fully the Gospel adapts itself to our moral constitution in the appeal which it makes to those motives which have the most power to influence human con duct. It may, however, be further objected, that there is such an inherent weakness and depravity in human nature that practically it is impossible to attain to the standard of obedience which the Gospel demands. Least of all will this plea serve. We fully admit the depravity of human nature. But bear in mind the nature has been redeemed. The Son of God has taken our nature into union with the Divine, that He might redeem and sanctify and save it. Say not, then, that it is the nature of man which makes it impossible for him to be saved. The nature has been redeemed, and the redemption would be incomplete if it left any man in this life beyond the reach of being saved. If there had been no interposition in behalf of the fallen; if mankind had been allowed to multiply, and no movement on the part of God had been set on foot for their deliverance, there might then have been ground for the excuse. There is, how ever, nothing in the nature of God, nothing in the proposals of the Gospel, nothing in the moral nature of men, to render salvation impossible.

(R. Bickersteth, D. D.)

( Matthew Henry.)

1. The folly of those who seek salvation in themselves. It is all very true that the sinner who seeks salvation must strive against sin, shun temptation, deny himself, guard well his heart, or he will not be saved. But when he relies upon himself and not on God, when he seeks to help himself instead of seeking help from God, he is leaning on a broken reed. Man must depend, and work while he depends.

2. The reason why so many of those who are awakened to a sense of Divine things, and begin to seek salvation, never attain it. They wish to take themselves out of the hands of God.

3. We learn why sinners who are making some attempts to be saved sometimes continue so long in affliction and trouble before they find peace with God.

4. We learn what is the great struggle of the sinner in coming to salvation. It is to give his wicked heart to God.

5. Sinners when awakened are often doing, or attempting to do, something directly contrary to what they suppose.

6. They are often guilty of resisting the Holy Spirit.

7. Sinners are their own destroyers.

(J. S. Spencer, D. D.)

I. MAN'S DESTRUCTION OF HIMSELF. What is this destruction? It is not a temporal loss; not the loss of the body, but the loss of the soul. Not the loss of its physical being and faculties, but the loss of its well-being and its happiness and its hope. At whose door is the blame to be laid? We make five appeals.

1. We appeal to the cause of your continuance in the state in which you are. Ii it were so, that you were not accessory to your own depraved and mortal state, surely you are accountable for your continuance in it. God has provided a fountain for sin and uncleanness open and free always; but if you love your pollution better than cleansing, your destruction will be of yourselves.

2. To the nature of Christianity. If in the Gospel call any had been overlooked, you might fear that you were in the number. If hard conditions and meritorious qualifications were required to be performed and possessed, you might despair. If the truths of Christianity were hard to be understood, you might complain of ignorance. If these benefits were sold at a high price, you might complain of poverty. If these duties were to require for their performance a power that was nowhere to be found, or was unattainable by you, you might complain of weakness. If upon making trial you could not succeed, if upon praying you were refused, you might then complain of the providence and the grace of God: but what can you complain of now?

3. We appeal to experience. Your experience: the experience of a sinner, the experience of the true penitent. The true penitent is not only awakened, he is enlightened; and in God's light he sees light.

4. To the Divine testimony. Let us defer at once to a Being whose judgment is always according to truth. Ask God whether we are compelled to sin, and whether, if we perish, the blame will be our own?

5. To the proceedings of the last day. Then every one must give account of himself to God. What will you do when He rises up, and when He judges? The hour cometh when "every mouth will be stopped, and all the world shall be found guilty before God," whatever they now allege in their own defence or extenuation.

II. OUR SALVATION IS OF GOD, Sinners of themselves cannot repair the con sequences of their transgressions. The reason why so many think of being their own saviours is, because they have such defective views of their fallen state itself, and because they have never seriously and earnestly made the trial of their supposed ability to deliver themselves. God's help is —

1. The most gracious in its source. Whence did this scheme arise? Compulsion is out of the question. But may not merit have some influence? Alas I all our desert is on the other side. Has desire had no influence? Why, the scheme was not only formed, it was accomplished too, long before we had any being. "According to His mercy, He saved us."

2. The most wonderful in its procurement. Not only is the agency entirely the Lord's, but He accomplishes the thing in a way the most peculiar. God does not save us by the mere volition of His will, or a mere exertion of His power. We see the "Word made flesh and dwelling among us," and suffering for sin, "the just for the unjust."

3. The most suitable in its supply. Is light adapted to the eye? Is melody adapted to the ear? Is food adapted to the taste? So correspond the blessings of the Gospel with all our wants and woes and weak nesses. Here is wisdom for the ignorant, pardon for the offending, renovation for the depraved, strength for the weak, riches for the poor; a sun if you are in darkness, a shield if you are in danger.

4. The most perfect in its efficiency. He who "speaks in righteousness is mighty to save."

5. The most extensive and accessible. None of you are excluded unless you exclude yourselves. This subject should preach —(1) Candour. Persons differ in their opinions, and all are not equally clear in their religious views; but if they keep between the two grand lines of the text they cannot materially or essentially err.(2) Terror. Self-preservation is the first law of nature. You can "destroy yourselves."(3) Encouragement. Not to those who wish to continue in sin, but to those who are desirous of deliverance from it, and of obtaining salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. What compassion there is in God, who hath remembered you in your lost estate!(4) Admonition. Though there is help in Him, there is help in Him only. In Him only is the hope of Israel. And there is only help now. "Now is the accepted time."

(William Jay.)

(Thomas Jones.)

I. MAN HATH TO THANK HIMSELF FOR HIS OWN DESTRUCTION. That man is, by nature, in a destroyed and ruined state is too clear to be denied. Men do indeed try hard to soften down the fact. They strive to put the fairest face they can upon their situation and their prospects. Whatever other charges man is open to, self-hatred surely is not one of them. Yet man is said to be a self-destroyer. Both these things are true — man is a self-lover, and man is a self-destroyer. In proof see this. We have turned our backs on our best friend. We have rushed into the arms of our worst enemy. We have done, with our eyes open, things of which we have been perfectly well aware, that they work the death of the poor soul. And he is of all self-murderers the most determined who, having inflicted the wound, will not let it be bound up.

II. SINNERS HAVE TO THANK GOD FOR THE WORK OF THE SALVATION. In this work man has no part or lot. What a humbling truth! Why cannot we help and save ourselves? Because we have reduced ourselves so low. The words of the text mean: I am qualified to help you. There is in Me all the sufficiency your case requires." Nor is it a help up only which the Saviour offers, but a help forward.

(A. Roberts, M. A.)

I. SELF-DESTRUCTION IS POSSIBLE TO US MEN; even the destruction of the highest, noblest, and Divinest part of our nature. Man, too, is the only being upon the earth to whom self-destruction is really possible; the being whose capacities are the noblest has the power of self-injury. A man cannot put out his life, but he can blight and blast all that is bright and blessed, happy and holy in his nature and life.

II. THE ONLY POWER by which we can destroy ourselves is the power of sinning. Sin does its work most rapidly and completely. Sinning darkens the understanding, impairs the judgment, makes a man a fool, disorders the imagination, deadens the best susceptibilities of the heart, and sears the conscience. It enslaves the will, and prevents peace of mind. It depraves the whole spiritual nature. And sinning is the breach of God's law of love. God takes notice of every breach of His law.

III. EVERY FINALLY DESTROYED MAN IS SELF-DESTROYED. God will not destroy a man except as punishment for sin. The devil cannot permanently hurt you, excerpt as you combine with him to hurt yourselves. Two things are certain. The sin which finally destroys men is sin for which they are responsible. And the sin which inflicts most injury is the sin which men love, and which, because they love, they think lightly of.

IV. THE SELF-DESTROYED MAY BE SAVED FROM DESTRUCTION. "In Me is thy help" — thy deliverance, thy salvation.

1. A man cannot save himself. All that he can do for himself is to submit to be saved. At first all men try to save themselves.

2. No fellow-man can save the sinner. God never sends a man to His priest; He invites the man to Himself.

3. Think of the encouragement to return to God. While God is speaking to you of salvation, you may have it. Self-destruction by sinning is the natural order. Salvation does not come in any natural order, but as the result of an extraordinary provision on the part of God. If after God has spoken to you, you be finally destroyed, your destruction will be self-destruction — wilful, inexcusable, and unbearable.

(Samuel Martin.)

II. SINNERS ARE SELF-DESTROYERS. It will be found that the blame is all our own, that there is an obstinate persistence is sin against the remonstrances of conscience and the admonitions of God.

III. THERE IS SALVATION IN JESUS CHRIST, EVEN FOR SELF-DESTROYING SINNERS. There is sufficient help for every purpose of our salvation. There is grace abounding for the greatest sinners.

(G. Burder.)

II. MAN'S RECOVERY IS OF GOD. "In Me is thine help." The doctrine here is, that the salvation of man is of the grace of God. "By grace ye are saved." He delivers us from the evils which involve our ruin. The guilt of conscience, the defilement of the heart, the disorder of the faculties, the dominion of the passions, the bondage of sin. He restores to us the blessings that involve our happiness.

(D.V. Phillips.)

I. GOD IS WILLING TO HELP US BY GIVING US THE HOLY SPIRIT TO SHOW US JUST THE POSITION WE OCCUPY. What is the use of conviction? Without it, a man does not want Christ and His salvation. The Holy Spirit coming into the heart, a man wakes up to see his true state.

II. GOD IS READY TO HELP US, BY GIVING US REPENTANCE. There is a great difference between seeing my sin and turning from it. Conviction and conversion are not the same thing.

III. GOD IS WILLING TO HELP US, BY ENABLING US TO EXERCISE FAITH IN CHRIST. The most exhausting work to which I ever put the energies of my soul was to believe in Christ. Indeed, it is so great an undertaking that no man can accomplish it of himself.

IV. GOD IS WILLING TO HELP US, BY GIVING US THE PARDON AND PEACE OF THE GOSPEL. He can save you.

(T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)

1. Adam ruined himself and all his children by sin (Romans 5:19, 21).

2. We have destroyed ourselves by actual transgression (Romans 3:23).

3. The intellect or understanding is ruined (Jeremiah 8:7).

4. The will is become a rebellious faculty (Romans 8:7).

5. The conscience is rendered past feeling (1 Timothy 4:2, 6).

6. The passions and affections of the soul are equally defiled (1 John 2:16).

7. He is destroyed both in body and soul, but for Christ (Psalm 9:17).

II. CHRIST IS OUR SALVATION AND HELP.

1. Christ is the true light (Malachi 4:2).

2. He shines in our hearts and understandings (Psalm 36:9).

3. He restores to us an enlightened conscience (Hebrews 10:22).

4. The soul is now sensible of the least transgression (2 Corinthians 1:12).

5. He strengthens our memories to retain Divine things (John 14:26).

6. He rectifies and restores all our affections (Psalm 73:25).

7. Provision is made for the everlasting life of the Church (John 6:37).

8. He is our help in delivering us from the wrath to come (John 14:3).

III. THE IMPROVEMENT.

1. This help is omnipotent in its energy (1 Corinthians 1:24).

2. It is prompt in its manifestation (Isaiah 59:19).

3. It is always successful in its undertakings (Colossians 2:15).

4. It will not admit of any co-operation in the work (Ephesians 2:8, 9).

5. It is unceasing in its application (Isaiah 41:17).

(T. B. Baker.)

I. MAN'S RUIN IS FROM HIMSELF ALONE. Our first father sinned voluntarily. But is it our fault that our natures are depraved If the fault be not yours, it must be imputed to God, or to the tempter, or to Adam. The first would be no less impious than absurd. The second cannot be entertained. Satan cannot constrain. The fault must lie between Adam and yourselves. And you cannot separate yourselves from him.

I. Adam was the head and representative of the entire human race. The consequences of Adam's sin are witnessed in all his posterity. They all sin, invariably; they all die, invariably. Do you complain that, instead of giving man a general law, God entered into special covenant with him? Then you complain of that which is, in fact, the strongest argument of Divine goodness and condescension; for a law contains no promise. But a covenant holds out the certain prospect of a recompense in case of fidelity. Would it have been better that the fate of the human race should not have been entrusted to the hands of one? It is not only a fact that we are implicated in the first sin, but that fact is demonstrably consistent with the righteousness and. goodness of God. Instead of evading the charge, we are called upon to confess its truth.

2. Men have universally followed in the footsteps of the first transgression, and have thus made it their own. The original act is not repudiated and disavowed, but is repeated and imitated. There has never been one individual exception. All have sinned, are sinning every day and every hour. Every individual gives ample ground for his own condemnation.

3. Down to the present day the sins of men are committed of their own free will, and without any external restraint. Consult your own reason. Do you not feel that you are free? You are not conscious of any foreign force, or of the pressure of inevitable necessity. It is true that you are tempted; but the tempter can employ no compulsion. Since men sin willingly and by choice, they cannot be exculpated.

4. Men have added to the guilt of a single act of disobedience an immense multitude and variety of new transgressions, clustering about it from age to age; so that it stands not alone, but is only the first, and yet not the worst, of all sins. It is difficult to conceive how they could have done more to appropriate Adam's guilt The torrents of iniquity have been deepening and widening from generation to generation.

5. Men choose to abide in their present depraved condition, though a method of recovery is proposed to them in the Gospel. This is the crowning evidence which ought to produce conviction. No sooner was the guilt incurred than redeeming mercy was proclaimed; and how has that proclamation been treated by the world? On the ground of all these considerations, we insist that all transgressed in Adam, and have, in point of fact, made themselves partakers of his sin. Man is the author of his own ruin. The recognition of this truth is necessary to excite repentance, without which there can be no escape from perdition. Whom else can the sinner accuse? Will he lay the blame upon God, because He endued man with a free will? That liberty of choice is the glory of human nature. Or because He subjected man to a test, in token of the homage due to His supremacy? Or because He did not render man immutable in holiness from the very first? Will you quarrel with the permission of evil? Would you lay the fault upon the tempter? Or upon Adam? Vain evasions all!

II. MAN'S RECOVERY IS FROM GOD. This truth meets the second delusion of man. He looks generally to himself for salvation. Four considerations will set this truth in a clear and convincing light.

1. Man wants a proper sense of his own condition and danger, and therefore he never will (even if he could) take the very first step towards his own recovery. There is no adequate motive. If it had been left to man, the least effort never would have been put forth to recover the friendship of God, and to restore His lost image in the soul.

2. Man has lost all his love of righteousness, and, therefore, never would have sought recovery of his own accord. There is a great deal of virtue in the world, but whence is it derived? Take away all that has been wrought for the morals of mankind by the indirect influence of religion,, and how much will be left? There is not to be found, anywhere in the world, any hatred of sin as sin, nor love of righteousness as righteousness, except in the man renewed and sanctified by the Spirit of God, and by the blood of Christ. If a righteous and holy God had not seen and pitied the want of righteousness in man, that want had never been perceived, never lamented; and, for this cause, there could have been no salvation.

3. Man has no means of satisfying the justice of God for his sins; and, therefore, even if willing, he could not be the author of his own recovery.

1. Some satisfaction is necessary.

2. Man has none to offer which can be acceptable.

3. He has not that moral strength which is necessary to the renewal of his heart and the amendment of his life; and, therefore, he cannot be the author of his own recovery.God alone can awaken the soul to a conviction of danger, implant in it a love of holiness, provide the means of reconciliation, and by the influence of His Holy Spirit renew the heart, the character, and the life. Salvation belongeth unto the Lord."(Daniel Katterns.)

I. DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE. In every religion there must be doctrine and practice. Christ came to show us that God's will is our sanctification. The age, the nation, and the Church, supremely need this lesson. "Get sincerity. Simplify your lives, simplify your religion; return to the simplicity which is in Christ Jesus. Whatever our belief may be, whatever our worship may be, unless we keep innocency, and do the thing that is right, we have missed the one thing, and only thing, which will bring any human being peace at the last."

II. THE BRIDGE OF LIFE. There is on every side of us a false life, and on every side of us a sham religion. There is open to us all a blessed life and a real religion. Christianity in nearly all of us produces fruits so crude, so scant, so hunger-bitten, as to be little better than a store of Levitism or a godless heathenism. Christianity smitten through and through with the curse and the blight of our unreality, — that is the reason why it makes such little way, and is losing its hold of the masses of the population. Yet let us not despair. God judges not as man judges.

III. HELP IN GOD. Life is short. There is nothing which the world, the flesh, or the devil can offer us which is not profoundly unsatisfying. Yet God who giveth more grace, can deliver us from that fraud or subtlety of the devil or man, which is the only final irremediable curse of our mortal lives. He can. give us. holiness; He can give us peace; He can give us happiness in Him. There m nothing to complain of in life, but only in ourselves, who pervert, and dwarf, and degrade, and poison it; and so God ever calls to us, and pleads with us through His Son, our Lord. "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in Me is thy help."

(Dean Farrar.)

I. WE HAVE DESTROYED OURSELVES. Most men, though self-destroyers in a spiritual sense, yet appear to be quite unconscious of it. By many sin is thought to be a thing quite harmless, altogether innocuous; but a more dangerous or poisonous reptile does not exist. You must be judged by the rigorous demands of the law of God, and that law requires obedience, in thought, word, and deed, and that without the smallest deviation. You cannot discharge the debt you owe to this law. You are in this respect helpless, hopeless, remediless.

II. WE CANNOT HELP OURSELVES. Our own obedience to the law cannot possibly justify, and consequently cannot save us. This fact the Scriptures declare. Some say, but God is merciful. Will He show mercy at the expense of justice? He delights in mercy when His justice is satisfied.

III. WHEN AND HOW DOES GOD BECOME THE SINNER'S HELP? When the sinner believes on Christ to salvation. He could not obey the law perfectly, so as to be justified thereby, but when he believes in the Saviour, Jesus becomes to him justification. He could offer no sacrifice to God for his sins. Jesus is to the believer an all-sufficient sacrifice. The sinner could not redeem his soul from death. Jesus becomes to the believer "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption."

(G. M'Clelland, A. B.)

I. THE NATURAL PROGRESS OF MAN IN THE WORLD IS A STEADY LAPSE TOWARDS CORRUPTION AND DESTRUCTION. In spite of the arts, institutions, and triumphs of civilisation, the natural development of the race is a descent towards misrule, oppression, anarchy, and ruin. Reason, revelation, and history make this evident.

1. Consider the nature of the ideas of civilisation and progress as they are held by men, and as they operate in the world. That there is a "law of progress" in relation to man's material interests cannot be overlooked, and ought not to be denied. On behalf of his various needs, man is a ceaseless worker. Thus there is progress in the art of living, in mechanical inventions, in the range of the fine arts, and the scope of great enterprises, and in the fellowship of nations. One age profits by the mistakes and successes of those which have preceded it. Great results are produced, dazzling to the eye, and flattering to the pride of man. But when this process is closely surveyed, and its real tendencies are accurately noted, what is it more or better than a reconstruction of the tower of Babel, in which railroad iron, and telegraphic wires, and social comforts, are substituted for asphaltic brick, and the fine arts for the builder's lofty plan, but the intent of which is equally with that of the ancient enterprise, to exalt man upon the earth, and screen him from the scrutiny of God! Expand it, modify it, or disguise it as you will, the fact remains that a process of development which rests upon these ideas and aims at these results is rotten to the core, and from it there can only spring corruption. In material prosperity we have the real end of progress, so far as it is sought by any human institutions, and in this there cannot be a single element of conservative effect, or a single principle of enduring force.

2. This view is confirmed by the lessons of history. "History" is philosophy teaching by examples. In the light of the solid facts of history we learn the real tendencies of that refinement and civilisation of which those who see things in the present only, are so prone to boast. Every nation that has culminated in such a civilisation as has been described, has found thereto the elements of its decay and ruin. Illustrate from Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Rome, India, Ottoman Empire, States of Italy, South American Republics, etc.

3. Refer to our own land, and the influence of our own institutions. We have received a goodly heritage. Our institutions were founded in the hatred of oppression and the love of right. The broad Atlantic rolls between us and the corruptions which have vitiated the older nations of the world. But what has been the direction of our progress Has there been ascent or descent in the march of empire? It is true that, in our national career, we have gained in territory, and increased in revenue, and advanced in culture and refinement, but amid all this the primal vigour and intensity of the nation's life has wasted. Republicanism does not check depravity. Consider the fierce partisanship of politics, the strife of interests between different sections of the Union, the corruption of our legislators, the apologies for oppression, the insecurity of our cities, our eagerness in the pursuit of wealth for its own sake, the recklessness of our expenditure, and the fearful increase of crimes of darkest hue, and you cannot but acknowledge the general tendency towards license and corruption.

II. AMID THESE DESTRUCTIVE TENDENCIES THERE IS HOPE FOR MAN IN THE HELPING HAND OF GOD. God is continually averting perils, reconstructing ruined institutions, and infusing new life into the organisms which man has corrupted. Among the vivid creations of the Scandinavian mythology there is one which represents Life under the similitude of a Tree. Igdrasil, the ash-tree of existence, has its roots deep down in the very kingdom of death. At its base sit the three Fates, who water these roots from the sacred well, while its trunk mounts high towards heaven, and its branches spread into every land. Its boughs are the histories of nations. Its rustle is the sound of human life, swelling onward from of old. It grows there in spite of death below, and storms above, the true emblem of man's life and progress, by means of the forces through which God sustains him in the midst of moral evil. Out of the very elements of death He is evolving a progressive revelation which will change the tendencies of the race: The process by which this is being accomplished is not natural, as men understand the laws of nature. It is a process of miraculous effect, and supremely glorious to the grace of God. The formal statement of this Divine method we find only in the Word of God. It is by implanting living ideas of truth and righteousness, and by renewing sinful human hearts in the Divine likeness, that man's ruin is turned aside. In the spiritual influences of the Gospel lies the help which His Word has promised, and which His hand affords. Christianity is the one power of real progress in the world. Christianity saves the world from corruption and destruction. By it society would be truly civilised, the State be reared on the great principles of righteousness, and the highest welfare of the world be secured by a prosperity which should be at once material and spiritual, temporal and eternal.

(R. R. Booth.)

I. THE FIRST PROPOSITION. "We have destroyed ourselves."

1. By the immediate effect of sin. When once holiness departs from the soul, life itself departs, in its highest sense. The destruction attributable to sin is brought upon us by ourselves. No constraint was laid on man's will. St. James gives the whole history and progress of iniquity in the heart, in his first chapter. God is so far from being the cause or author of sin, that He has, by an infinity of methods, endeavoured to draw us away from it; and is, on the contrary, the giver of every gift tending to life and holiness. As little can we excuse ourselves by alleging any fatal necessity; there can be no such constraining power, independent of the Divine purposes.

2. By incurring the punishment and misery due to sin. It is an eternal law that misery follows transgression; and that law is God's law; but His it would not be, were it not founded in justice and benevolence, the essential basis of His holy character; and not in any despotic exercise of bare authority. In this consideration we discover the inconvenience of looking on the means and instruments of the punishment of reprobate sinners, as belonging wholly to a place, and got likewise to a state. There is positive punishment; but the loss of our original privileges, which may be called the negative part of punishment, is not of much less fearful character. It is the state of degradation and ruin, into which, while here on earth, the sinner plunges himself. By the practice of habitual sin, the activity of the conscience is at length suspended, the eye of the understanding is closed, the ear is shut, the heart is hardened, the Holy Spirit retires. But if God withdraws His grace, He must not be thought the cause of the destruction. We "quench" the Spirit — we expel, we drive Him away, when we pollute His temple with sin. The Word of God confirms the fact that the destruction of those who perish is from themselves; and is a thing wholly alien from the intention and desire of the Almighty. This is implied in the precepts and commandments, wherewith Scripture abounds. The same is expressly urged in persuasions, exhortations, entreaties, remonstrances, and reproaches.

II. THE SECOND PROPOSITION. "In Me is thy help." Emphasis is put on the word "Me." It is pointedly exclusive. Can a conscience pierced by guilt be healed by indulgences that will heap upon it more guilt Is it in the power of pleasure effectually to banish remorse? If we have "destroyed ourselves," — if we have burdened our consciences, corrupted our hearts, ruined our peace, there is but one source whence the remedy is to be obtained; but it is a source deeper than our unworthiness, more abundant than the sins of the whole world; a source ever present and ready to send forth its healing waters. It is the bosom of God. Whatever our distress, God has the power to help. He is almighty, and can do all things; unless the will of the creature be obstinately opposed to His will and influences. And in Him is willingness to help. And He has provided the requisite means and methods of help. They are ever within the reach of those who need and will apply them. His help is never too late, never ineffectual. No case is without hope, if there be repentance. If the destructive workings are but little advanced, God's help may arrest its progress. Should it, unhappily, have proceeded so far as to have corrupted our hearts and seared our consciences, He can convert, restore, and renew us.

(R. Gattermole, B. D.)

I. THE MEANS BY WHICH SINNERS DESTROY THEMSELVES.

1. They do so by departing from God, whose favour is their only safety. Apart from God there is no security for man. The world may pretend to throw over him the shield of its protection, but it will prove as the spider's web before the wrath of offended heaven. The favour of God is a strong tower, to which the righteous run and are safe. But unregenerate men have turned their backs upon this hiding-place and rock of defence. They are utterly destitute of an asylum as long as they disregard the favour of God. And this destitution is chargeable wholly on themselves; because God has graciously used all kinds of agencies in order to influence them.

2. By indulging in sin, which is ruinous in its very nature. We argue the nature of a thing from its uniform effects. If we find sin always pouring forth streams of misery, we say it is ruinous in its very nature. Wherever sin has trod with unholy foot, there misery in some form and degree has been spreading its withering and deadly influences. Test sin by what it did to the Lord Jesus. See what it has done to man as a race. It has scattered desolation, mourning, and woe, over the face of the whole earth.

3. By exposing themselves to the destructive judgments of God. God has armed Himself against sin with righteous but fearful judgments. Many of these overtake the sinner during his earthly career. All the miseries which come upon men in time are only the first-fruits of the abundant harvest of wrath, which those shall reap who continue to sow to the flesh.

4. By refusing to obey the Gospel, which brings the only remedy for their miseries. Notwithstanding all His wrath against sin, God has set before sinners an open door of escape from its guilt and consequences. The sinner can close this door against himself by rejecting the Gospel of God's Son. And there is no other way of escape than that God has provided. Sometimes the sinner sets himself to work out a righteousness of his own. Sometimes he comes after the Lord has arisen and shut to the door.

II. WHERE HELP IS FOUND FOR US IN GOD. There are many quarters in the Divine character to which we need not look for help. None is to be found in His absolute holiness; or His absolute justice; or His absolute power; or His absolute and general mercy.

1. There is help for us in the gracious mercy, of God. By this we mean His free and undeserved compassion, exercising itself through Christ for the deliverance of lost sinners. Christ has removed all obstacles arising from the absolute holiness and justice, and the general mercy of God. Hence comes to us — along the channel Christ provided — the forgiving and sanctifying mercy of God.

2. There is help for us in the gracious power of God. God's power, in Christ, is the strong arm sent down from above to draw the sinner from the depths of sin and misery. It is the mighty energy by which his heart is changed, his nature reversed, and by which he is drawn to the Saviour. It is the mighty rod by which God breaks the power of sin in the believer. It is the storehouse out of which God gives the believer strength to perform the duties assigned to him. It is the house of defence in which the believer may obtain protection from every calamity.

3. There is help in the gracious faithfulness of God, whose promises are so numerous and so varied as to suit all our wants and circumstances. The ground on which a man may lay hold on these promises is the faithfulness of God in Christ.

4. In short, there is help for us in the all-sufficiency of God. Learn how lamentable it is that we should have destroyed ourselves. And what reason we have for praising God with all our hearts. If God had not said, "In Me is thy help," where would we have been?

(A. Ross, M. A.)

I. THAT IN GOD IS OUR ONLY HELP, AND THAT WE HAVE NO OTHER MEANS OF DELIVERANCE BUT IN HIM. That aversion from God which constitutes our guilt and misery, prompts us to seek relief anywhere else, rather than from Him. That might be prudent, if any dependence could be placed in those refuges which we rely on. That God is our only help is obvious from the circumstance of His having interposed on our behalf. Infinite wisdom can do nothing unnecessary. We could not by any means accomplish our own deliverance. Reason and conscience tell us that no future repentance, though we were disposed to repent, can atone for the guilt of a single transgression. And we do not want to repent; we are unwilling to return to our allegiance, or to be reconciled to our offended Judge. Some say that, under the Gospel, the demands of the moral law are abridged, and that it is now satisfied with a sincere, though imperfect obedience. Can this be true? The fact is that we can do nothing towards relieving ourselves from that destruction and misery in which we are involved by sin. It is not in our power, though we were willing; and we are not willing, although it were in our power. It is impossible that our circumstances should be retrieved by any other means than those which God Himself hath appointed.

II. GOD IS AN ALL-SUFFICIENT HELP, BOTH ABLE AND WILLING TO BRING US RELIEF. It may be said, Is not God almighty, so that He can do whatsoever He pleaseth? Yes, He is able to effect any natural act whatever. But our circumstances are such that something else than mere power is necessary to bring us relief. The power of God cannot act in opposition to His other perfections. God is not only powerful, but just and holy. A plan must be devised by which all His perfections may be illustrated at once. God must be just, though man should perish. What circumstances render the scheme of redemption, which God hath wrought for us by Jesus Christ, fully sufficient for all the purposes of our salvation? Consider the dignity of the person of the Redeemer and His resurrection. His death was not more necessary to atone for our sins than His resurrection to apply the redemption He had purchased to the souls of His people. He hath not only begun, but completed the work of redemption.

(James French.)

     5876   helpfulness

Letter xxxvi (Circa A. D. 1131) to the Same Hildebert, who had not yet Acknowledged the Lord Innocent as Pope.
To the Same Hildebert, Who Had Not Yet Acknowledged the Lord Innocent as Pope. He exhorts him to recognise Innocent, now an exile in France, owing to the schism of Peter Leonis, as the rightful Pontiff. To the great prelate, most exalted in renown, Hildebert, by the grace of God Archbishop of Tours, Bernard, called Abbot of Clairvaux, sends greeting, and prays that he may walk in the Spirit, and spiritually discern all things. 1. To address you in the words of the prophet, Consolation is hid from …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

The Joyous Return
"When God's right arm is bared for war, And thunders clothe his cloudy car." e'en then he stays his uplifted hand, reins in the steeds of vengeance, and holds communion with grace; "for his mercy endureth for ever," and "judgment is his strange work." To use another figure: the whole book of Hosea is like a great trial wherein witnesses have appeared against the accused, and the arguments and excuses of the guilty have been answered and baffled. All has been heard for them, and much, very much against …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 37: 1891

"For if Ye Live after the Flesh, Ye Shall Die; but if Ye through the Spirit do Mortify the Deeds of the Body, Ye Shall Live.
Rom. viii. s 13, 14.--"For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." The life and being of many things consists in union,--separate them, and they remain not the same, or they lose their virtue. It is much more thus in Christianity, the power and life of it consists in the union of these things that God hath conjoined, so that if any man pretend to …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

How a Private Man must Begin the Morning with Piety.
As soon as ever thou awakest in the morning, keep the door of thy heart fast shut, that no earthly thought may enter, before that God come in first; and let him, before all others, have the first place there. So all evil thoughts either will not dare to come in, or shall the easier be kept out; and the heart will more savour of piety and godliness all the day after; but if thy heart be not, at thy first waking, filled with some meditations of God and his word, and dressed, like the lamp in the tabernacle …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

What the Scriptures Principally Teach: the Ruin and Recovery of Man. Faith and Love Towards Christ.
2 Tim. i. 13.--"Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus." Here is the sum of religion. Here you have a compend of the doctrine of the Scriptures. All divine truths may be reduced to these two heads,--faith and love; what we ought to believe, and what we ought to do. This is all the Scriptures teach, and this is all we have to learn. What have we to know, but what God hath revealed of himself to us? And what have we to do, but what …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Thoughts Upon Striving to Enter at the Strait Gate.
AS certainly as we are here now, it is not long but we shall all be in another World, either in a World of Happiness, or else in a World of Misery, or if you will, either in Heaven or in Hell. For these are the two only places which all Mankind from the beginning of the World to the end of it, must live in for evermore, some in the one, some in the other, according to their carriage and behaviour here; and therefore it is worth the while to take a view and prospect now and then of both these places, …
William Beveridge—Private Thoughts Upon a Christian Life

The Knowledge of God
'The Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.' I Sam 2:2. Glorious things are spoken of God; he transcends our thoughts, and the praises of angels. God's glory lies chiefly in his attributes, which are the several beams by which the divine nature shines forth. Among other of his orient excellencies, this is not the least, The Lord is a God of knowledge; or as the Hebrew word is, A God of knowledges.' Through the bright mirror of his own essence, he has a full idea and cognisance …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

The Quotation in Matt. Ii. 6.
Several interpreters, Paulus especially, have asserted that the interpretation of Micah which is here given, was that of the Sanhedrim only, and not of the Evangelist, who merely recorded what happened and was said. But this assertion is at once refuted when we consider the object which Matthew has in view in his entire representation of the early life of Jesus. His object in recording the early life of Jesus is not like that of Luke, viz., to communicate historical information to his readers. …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Hosea
The book of Hosea divides naturally into two parts: i.-iii. and iv.-xiv., the former relatively clear and connected, the latter unusually disjointed and obscure. The difference is so unmistakable that i.-iii. have usually been assigned to the period before the death of Jeroboam II, and iv.-xiv. to the anarchic period which succeeded. Certainly Hosea's prophetic career began before the end of Jeroboam's reign, as he predicts the fall of the reigning dynasty, i. 4, which practically ended with Jeroboam's …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament