ever." Now, what say you about our glorifying him now? Oh, brothers and sisters, do you make it your prayer this morning, "Lord, help me to glorify thee; I am poor, help me to glorify thee by contentment; I am sick, help me to give thee honour by patience; I have talents, help me to extol thee by spending them for thee; I have time, Lord, help me to redeem it, that I may serve thee; I have a heart to feel, Lord, let that heart feel no love but thine, and glow with no flame, but affection for thee; I have a head to think, Lord help me to think of thee and for thee; thou hast put me in this world for something, Lord, show me what that is, and help me to work out my life-purpose; for I do desire to say amen. I cannot do much; my amen is but a feeble one, but as the widow put in her two mites, which made a farthing, which was all her living, so, Lord, I put my time and eternity too into thy treasury; 'tis all thine; take it, and thus I say, 'Amen' to Peter's apostolical doxology."

And now, throughout this year will you go forth, my brothers and sisters, and say, amen to this? I pray you do so. You who love not Christ, cannot say amen. Remember you are under the law. There is an amen to all the curses to you; there is none to the blessings while you are under the law. O poor sinner, under the law, may this be the day when thy law-slavery shall come to an end! "How can it be?" you say. By faith in Christ, I answer. "He that believeth on him is not condemned." Oh that thou mayest believe on him, and then thy joyful heart will say, amen. Then wilt thou say, "Loudest of all the saints in heaven, I will shout amen, when I see the royal crown brought forth, and Jesus is acknowledged Lord of all." May God grant that this year may be the best year this Church has ever had. This year concludes eight years of my ministry among you, and seven years of Printed Sermons are now before the public. How much of blessedness God has caused to pass through our mind, and how much he has been pleased to own his Word, we cannot fully measure. But we know that he has been with us in deed and in truth. Now that we begin this year, may the Lord make it so that all the past shall seem to be as nothing compared with that which is to come. I bless you my brothers and sisters in the name of the Lord, and commencing this year, I beg again for renewed tokens of your affection by a renewal of your prayers; and on my part, I only trust that it may be mine through. this year, and long as I live, to be giving my amen to that doxology"To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen."

It is earnestly hoped that every subscriber will labour to increase the circulation of these Sermons, now that the type is new, clear, and readable. May God increase their usefulness in answer to fervent prayer.

A CURE FOR CARE.

A Sermon

DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, JANUARY 12TH, 1862, BY
REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you."-1 Peter v. 7. No one precept contains the whole of a believer's duty; but usually in Scripture, the precepts rise one above the other, like those stone steps by which the traveller in Egypt ascends to the pinnacle of the pyramid. Ye must first plant your feet firmly upon the preceding duty, before ye shall be able fully to climb to the next command. Let me, then, call your attention to the precept which precedes my text: "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time." You know, beloved, that there are some selfish, carnal cares which we must not cast upon God; it were an insult to him; it were an act of infamy on our part if we should venture to ask for his assistance in them. Those are cares which would never molest us at all if we were obedient to the precept: "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God." This cuts off the head at once of many of those anxieties into which Christians sometimes fall. For instance, covetous cares if I desire to get and grasp more than is absolutely necessary, that I may hastily grow rich, I cannot on my knees ask God to carry this care for me, because it is none of his sending. He has taught me to say, "Give us this day our daily bread," and he has given me a blessed example in Agur, that I may pray, "Give me neither poverty nor riches;" but I cannot go on my knees before God, honestly, as a miser, and ask that he would enable me to add house to house, and field to field. But then, that care I never ought to indulge, and I never should endure it if I attended to the precept, "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God." There is, also, the care of ambition, when men desire to attain honours, eminence, and fame; to stand foremost, to be exalted upon the pinnacle, to be looked up to by all, and to be almost adored by some. But if we allow ambition to creep into our minds, we cannot go to God with it. It is a care which we dare not cast on God, for that were to empty the filth of our house upon the altar of God's sanctuary. But then, I say, it is a care which would never fret us, if our souls were lowly before the Lord.

There are those cares too, which we make for ourselves-those anxieties which anticipate the future-those foolish fears which are only created in our brain, and which vex the head, and then fret the heartwe cannot ask God to take those upon himself; cares which have no existence except in our own fancies, we can scarcely cast on God. But then, beloved, we should never have 'them if we "humbled ourselves under the mighty hand of God." Then, in such a state of subjection to the divine will, and of resignation to the eternal purpose, our soul would sit in quiet and be still, and our spirit would not agitate itself with frivolities which it has itself imagined, with fancies which have no origin but in its own imagination. Oh that ye may have grace to obey the preceding command, and then I think, without any limitation, I may address you in the words of the text: "Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you." I repeat, sinful cares we cannot cast on God; but then, obeying the precept, "Humble yourselves," would uproot such vexations. He that is down, need fear no fall. He whose soul is even as a weaned child will fret and cry no more.

In addressing you this morning from so rich a text as this, I would rather pray that the Holy Spirit may deliver you from carefulness, than attempt to deliver you from it myself, for I am not even able to obey this precept myself, much less shall I enable you to do it. Only when the Spirit of God is upon the preacher can he cast his cares upon his God, and he is convinced by experience, that only as the Holy Ghost shall enable you, will you be able to do the same. However, that our word may be the means of your comfort and of your strengthening, let us speak on this wise. First, for a few minutes, let us expound this disease of care, giving some description of it; secondly, let us manifest the blessed remedy of the text, endeavouring in God's name, to apply it; and lastly, let us hold out the sweet inducement of the second part of the sentence, in order that believers may be led to attempt the practising of the precept, "He careth for you."

I. First, then, LET US ENDEAVOUR TO DESCRIBE THE DISEASE OF CARE.

The care mentioned in the text, even though it be exercised upon legitimate objects, (and in this it differs from the cares of which I spoke just now, which were cares concerning wrong objects;) care even when exercised upon legitimate objects if carried to excess, hath in itself the nature of sin. This will be clear if you think for a moment that anything which is a transgression of God's command is sin, and if there were no other command, the one in our text being broken would involve us in iniquity. But it is a precept earnestly repeated by our Saviour many times, it is one which the apostles have reiterated again and again, and one which cannot be neglected without involving transgression. Besides, the very essence of anxious care is the imagining that we are wiser than God, and the thrusting of ourselves into his place, to do for him that which we dream he either cannot or will not do; we attempt to think of that which we fancy he will forget; or we labour to take upon ourselves that burden which he either is not able or willing to carry for us. Now, this impertinence, this presumption, what if I say, this audacity, has in it the very nature of sin, to

attempt to know better than God, to snatch from his hand the helm by which he guides affairs, to attempt to correct his charts, to remap his providence, this indeed is such an impertinence that as the guardian Scripture pushes back the intruder, it demands of him, "Art thou also one of the King's counsel? What doest thou here? He took no counsel with thee when he made the heavens and the earth and balanced the clouds, and stretched out the skies like a tent to dwell in, how darest thou come hither and offer advice to perfect wisdom, and aid to omnipotent strength?" There is in anxious care the very nature of sin. But, further, these anxious cares very frequently lead to other sins, sometimes to overt acts of transgression. The tradesman who is not able to leave his business with God, may be tempted to indulge in the tricks of trade; nay, he may not only be tempted, but he may be prevailed upon to put out an unholy hand with which to help himself. The professional or literary man, if he has no firm trust in providence, may lend his skill to indirect and unlawful ends; and each man if he have no other snare, will be tried with this-to forsake prayer and to forget the promise in order to trust to the wisdom of a friend, or to the natural sagacity of some mentor in whom he puts confidence. Now, this is forsaking the fountain to go to the broken cisterns, a crime which was laid against Israel of old, a wrath provoking iniquity. Even if it led to no other act save this sin of preferring the counsel of man to the direction of God, excessive anxiety were to be reprobated and detested. But think, my brethren, of the many sins which our anxieties engender in our hearts. Our unbelief which makes us doubt our God, our want of love which is proven by our distrust of love, our want of hope which ruts out our eyes so that we cannot see the clear shining after the rain. Think, my brethren, how we fret and mistrust and thus vex the Spirit of God, and often cause him to depart from us, so that our prayers are hindered, so that our example is marred, so that we give ourselves rather to self-seeking than to seeking God. All these things are sins, the grapes of Gomorrha which grow on the vines of our cares. These base-born cares are the plentiful mothers of transgressions. Distrust is the egg out of which many a mischief is hatched; we indulge in these cares and think surely we are doing no wrong, whereas the indulgence in them is in itself a crime, and is besides a tempter which guides us onward to the commission of other iniquities, for the man that is full of care is ripe for any sin, but he who has cast his care on God standeth securely, neither shall the evil one be able to touch him.

To proceed further in uncovering this disease. As it is in itself sin, and the mother of sin, we note again that it brings misery, for where sin is, sorrow shall soon follow. He who would have his spirit bowed down even to the very earth, has only to fix his thoughts upon himself and his circumstances, instead of looking to God and his promises. Some of you are placed in a very happy position in life, but my dear brethren, you can make yourselves miserable if you please. Others of you are put in what the world considers unhappy circumstances, but if God enable you, you can be supremely blessed. Poverty does not necessarily involve sorrow, nor do riches of themselves bring peace or

happiness. If any of you wish for misery you need not go out of your own house, there is no need to travel far for causes of discontent; you can be surfeited with plenty and be poor; you can dwell in the midst of peace and be disturbed; you can possess the richest prosperity and yet be afflicted. We, to a very great extent make our own position. God ordains providence, and either grace makes us happy, or sin racks us with pain. God does not make our misery; the cause of our trouble lies at our own door, not at his. Do you see that Christian there with the sparkling eye, and the light footstep, the man who is swift to run upon his Master's errands? that man has many troubles; but when he wakes in the morning if he retains remembrance of them, he bows his knee and leaves them with his God: he goes home, and the day has had much of sorrow in it, but he shakes the weight from his own shoulder and leaves his burden upon God. That man, with all his troubles, is more blessed than yonder professor, who has very little to vex him except that he vexes himself, by making every little thing a ground for fretfulness, magnifying every small mischance into a strange calamity, and by losing all patience, when all things suit not his proud will and dainty taste. Oh brethren! it is an ill thing for Christians to be sad. Let them rejoice, "Rejoice in the Lord always," but they never can so long as they indulge in anxious cares.

Besides this, these anxious cares do not only lead us into sin, and destroy our peace of mind, but they also weaken us for usefulness. When one has left all his cares at home, how well he can work for his Master, but when those cares tease us in the pulpit, it is hard preaching the gospel. When cares buzz in the ear, the music of grace is hard to hear. What would you say of your workman who should come to you in the morning with a heavy piece of family furniture upon his back. He calls himself your porter, he is about to carry your goods, and you see him going out of the door with your load, which is properly proportioned to his strength, but beside that he is carrying a heavy piece of his own upon his shoulders. You say to him, "My good man, what are you doing there?" "Oh sir, I am only loaded with household stuff." I think you would say, "Well, but you are not fit to do my work which you are engaged to do. I do not employ you to carry your own load, I had you here to carry mine." "But sir," says he, "I am so weak, I cannot carry both." "Then leave yours alone," say you, "and carry mine." Or to use another simile. There was a great king who once employed a merchant in his service as an ambassador to Foreign courts. Now the merchant before he went away, said to the king, "My own business requires all my care, and though I am always willing to be your majesty's servant, yet if I attend to your business as I ought, I am sure my own will be ruined." "Well," said the king, "you take care of my business, and I will take care of yours. Use your best endeavours, and I will answer for it that you shall be nothing the loser for the zeal which you take from yourself to give to me." And so our God says to us, as his servants, "Do my work, and I will do yours. Serve me and I will serve you." Like Peter,-Peter is fishing, Christ needs a pulpit to preach in. He borrows Peter's boat, and preaches in it; well what about Peter's fishing? Oh the Master