hold of Christ, God did not spurn the sacrifice you brought. When you said, for the first time in your life,

"My faith doth lay her hand

On that dear head of thine,
While like a penitent I stand,
And here confess my sin,"

he did not reject the offering which you then presented to him, but he spoke with loving voice and said, "Go, and sin no more. Thy sins, which are many, are all forgiven thee." Since that time you have brought the meat-offering of your prayers, and they have been heard, you have had answers of peace. In looking back upon the past, you can remember many times and seasons when God has especially answered you as though he would rend the heavens and put out his right hand full of the mercies which you needed. Now, would the Lord have heard you? Above all, would he have accepted Christ for you? Would he have accepted your faith and saved you in Christ, if he had meant to destroy you? What! can you trust him with your soul, and not trust him with your shop? Can you leave eternity with him, and not leave time? What! trust the immortal spirit, and not this poor decaying, mouldering, flesh and blood? Man! shame on thee. If the Lord had meant thee to die, he would not have accepted the offering at thy hand. But, you say, he will forsake you in this trouble. Remember what things he has shown to you. See how Manoah's wife said, "Would he have shown us such things as these?" Why, what has your past life been? Has not it been a wonder? You have been in as bad a plight as you are in to-night scores of times, and you have got out of it. "There is a big wave coming over my head;" ay, but there have been fifty waves as big as that which have passed over your head without drowning you and this will not. "It is a deep river I have to ford." Ah, but ye have waded through as deep streams as that, and ye have not been drowned. Besides, remember how he showed you his love in a strange city, and his faithfulness, perhaps, in a far-off land. When there was none to comfort you, and none to help you, his own right hand defended you, and his right hand brought salvation to you. I can say joyfully and cheerfully:

"When trouble like a gloomy cloud,

Has gathered thick and thundered loud,
He near my side has always stood,
His lovingkindness, O how good!"

And I often think myself the biggest fool in the world for ever daring to doubt my God again after such singular interpositions both of providence and grace as you and I have seen in this Church and in the midst of this congregation. If he had meant to destroy us, would he have shewn us such things as we have seen? After such kindness in the past, will he let us sink at last? God forbid!

Besides this, Manaoh's wife gave a third reason, "Nor would he at this time have told us such things as these." He meant that he would not have given them such prophecies of the future as he had done, if he meant to kill them. It stood to reason, she seemed to say, "If I am to bear a son, we are not going to die." And so, remember, God has made one or two promises which are true, and if they be true, it stands to reason he won't leave you. Let us have one of them. "No good thing will I withhold from them that walk uprightly." Then, as you are to have every good thing, you must have it; it is absolutely certain that God is not going to leave you without good things now. Or take another, "When thou goest through the rivers I will be with thee, and through the floods they shall not overflow thee." Mark that! It is certain that God will not permit the floods to overflow you. Then it stands to reason that you cannot be drowned. It is a good thing for a Christian who is much tried in business, to carry his cheque book in his pocket, but mark what kind of cheque book I mean. Get a copy of "Clarke's Precious Promises." They are the promises collated from Scripture put under the different heads. I generally have kept a copy in my pocket, so that when I have had a trouble of a particular sort, I could turn to the head under which my trouble would come, and I never turned there without finding a promise to meet it. Or whenever your trial comes, go home to your Bible, open it, ask the Lord to direct you, and with a little search I think you will soon find a promise that was made on purpose for you. It may have suited twenty cases before, but you can only say if an angel had come down from heaven to bring a message precisely adapted to your peculiar trial, it could not have been better worded, the arrow could not have hit the centre of the mark more surely than it has. Well, then, if the Lord hath meant to destroy you, would he have given you that promise? Would he thus have deluded you? Oh, this be far from him! Let the fact that he has accepted Christ for you, that he has already shown you so much favour, and that he has given you such precious promises,

THE ELDERS BEFORE THE THRONE.

A Sermon

DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH 23RD, 1862, BY
REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"And round about the throne were four-and-twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four-and-twenty elders sitting clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold."

"The four-and-twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created."

Revelations iv. 4; 10, 11. THE universe of God is one; heaven and earth are not so separate as unbelief has dreamed. As the Lord hath but one family, written in one register, redeemed with one blood, quickened by one Spirit, so this whole household abides in one habitation evermore. We who are in the body abide in the lower room which is sometimes dark and cold, but bears sufficient marks that it is a room in God's house; for it is to the eye of our faith often lit up with heavenly lustre, and we, even we, while we are yet here, are by blessed earnests made partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. It is the same house, I say; but ours is the lower room, while our glorified brethren are up there, in the upper story, where the sunlight streams in everlastingly, where no chilling winds or poisonous breath can ever reach. It was well said that God's great house seems to have two wings; the one was a hospital and the other a palace. We are as yet in the wing on the left hand side, which is the hospital. We came into it sick even unto death, leprous to our very core, polluted from head to foot, having no soundness in us anywhere; and in this hospital we are undergoing the process of cure-a cure which is already certain, which is soon to be perfected; and then we shall pass from the hospital, the lazar-house, into the palace, where "without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing," we shall be recognised as the aristocracy of God, princes of the blood-royal of the universe, "sons of God, and joint-heirs with Christ Jesus." Still is it but one building: one roof covers the whole, both lazar-house and palace; one family, we dwell in it-one Church, above, beneath, though now divided by the narrow partition of death.

Now, to a great extent there is a likeness between the lower room and the upper room. As on earth we prepare for heaven, so the state

of the saints on earth is heaven foreshadowed. In many respects the condition of the child of God on earth is a type of his condition in heaven; and I may say without fear of question that what the character of the saints is above, that should be the character of the saints below. We may very safely take for our example those glorified spirits. We need not be afraid that we shall be led astray by imitating them, by learning their occupations, or by attempting to share their joys. Surely the things in heaven are patterns of the things on earth, and as they are before the throne so ought we to be, and so shall we be in proportion as we live up to our privileges, and receive the likeness and image of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Brethren, beloved, it is upon this subject that I want to speak this morning. God is making heaven very near to us. We are now so large a Church that according to the laws of mortality, we lose five or six every month by death, and frequently two or three are removed in a week. We can hardly hope to meet together upon a single Sabbath - without hearing that another of the stars is set. Some little time ago we went to the grave with an excellent elder of our Church, who had long known the Master, and had served him well: and now, during the coming week, it will be our lot to perform the same mournful office for another brother who has been in Christ, I suppose, these forty or fifty years, and who has served this Church for some little time with industry and zeal, but this week has been removed from our midst to join "the general assembly and church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven." The veil grows thinner and thinner, and our faith in the unseen grows stronger. As the advanced guard of the army wade through the stream, and we hear their triumphant shouts upon the other shore, this world fades away, and that better land stands out in stronger and more glorious reality than it did before. Come, let us talk to one another by the way this morning of that better land, and let us encourage each other's hearts to make ourselves through God such as they are who sit upon their thrones, and to make this land, through the Spirit, such as that land is where God sheds his light for ever.

With regard to the spirits before the throne, we shall have three things to say this morning. First, a little concerning their state and enjoyments: then, further, concerning their occupations and spirit; and a few words with regard to their testimony and precepts to us, as, speaking from the upper spheres, they urge us to follow their example.

I. First, then, brethren, with regard to THE STATE AND ENJOYMENTS OF THE SPIRITS BEFORE THE THRONE. In John's vision you perceive that the Church of Christ is represented by the four-and-twenty elders who sat round the throne. We are to look upon them as being the representatives of the great body of the faithful gathered to their eternal rest. Mark, then, in the first place, that the saints in heaven are represented as "elders," which we take to refer not merely to the office of the eldership, as it is exercised among us, although it seems most fitting that the officers should be the representatives of the whole body, but the reference is rather to the fulness of growth of believers before the throne. Here we have elders, and those who are elders in office should be chosen, because they have had spiritual experience, are well taught

in the things of the kingdom of heaven, and are therefore elders by grace as well as elders by office; but in all our Churches we have many who are babes in Christ, who as yet can only receive the elements of the gospel. We have many others who are young men, strong, but not matured. They have the vigour of manhood, but they have not yet the ripeness of advanced age. The elders in the Church are those who by reason of years have had their senses exercised; they are not the saplings of the forest, but the well-rooted trees; they are not the blades of corn up-springing, but the full corn in the ear awaiting the reaper's sickle. Such are the saints before the throne. They have made wondrous strides in knowledge; they understand now the heights and depths, the lengths and breadths of the love of Christ, which still surpasses even their knowledge. The meanest, if there be such differences, the meanest of the glorified understands more of the things of God than the greatest divine on earth. The rending of the veil of death is the removal of much of our ignorance. It may be that the saints in heaven progress in knowledge-that is possible, but it is certain that at the time of their departure they made a wondrous spring; they are babes no longer; they are children and infant beginners no more; God teacheth them in one five minutes, by a sight of the face of Jesus, more than they could have learned in threescore years and ten while present in the body and absent from the Lord. Their heresies are all cleared away with their sins; their mistakes are all removed; the same hand which wipes away all tears from their eyes wipes away all motes from their eyes too. Then they become sound in doctrine, skilful in teaching; they become masters in Israel by the sudden infusion of the wisdom of God by the Holy Ghost. They are "elders" before the throne. They are not unripe corn gathered green and damp, but they are all fully ripe, and they come to the garner as shocks of corn come in their season.

Perhaps they are represented as elders to show the dignity and gravity which shall surround saints of God in heaven. We sometimes hear complaints made about the younger members of Churches, that they are somewhat light in their conversation. Well, this has always been the fault of young people, and, as I said the other day, when one complained, I could not make lambs into sheep, and while they were lambs I suppose they would show some playfulness. It seems to be the natural failing of young people to be overflowing with mirth, and sometimes overtaken with levity. But there is a gravity which is very becoming in Christians, and there is a solidity which is extremely comely in the young believer; and I think when we make a profession of our faith in Christ, though we are not to cast away our cheerful faces, but to be more happy than ever we were before, yet we inust put away all unseemly levity, and walk as those who are looking for the coming of the Son of Man, hearing this voice in our ears, "What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation, and godliness!" Now that fault can never be brought against the Church of God before the throne; there they are elders, glorious, blissful, happy, but yet serene and majestic in their joy. Theirs is not the prattling joy of the child, but the deep silent bliss of the full-grown man. As the senators in the Roman senate sat down in solemn grandeur,