useful always." Ah, to be useful! How many men live like Belzoni's toad in the pyramids of Egypt, which had been there two thousand years; and what had it done but sometimes sleep and sometimes wake the whole time through. And so some men live and do nothing. "But if I had my desire," I think I hear many of you say, "I should like to be useful; to win crowns for Christ, to save souls for him, to bring in his lost sheep." Brother, delight thyself in the Lord, thou shall have thy desire. Perhaps not exactly as you would like to word it. You may not be useful in the sphere you aspire to, but you shall be useful as God would have you useful in his own way and in his own measure.

I must say one thing though. I have a desire which if now I might offer it knowing that it should be granted me, it would be this: I desire to see you all converted. Mothers and fathers can you not say, "My heart's desire is that my children might be saved, for I have no greater joy than this that my children walk in the truth." And I as a minister say, my earnest desire, the highest desire I know, that which my soul feels most when it pants the most and aspires the most after some big and great thing, is that I may present every man of you perfect before God at the last; that I may not only be clear of your blood which is a great thing, but that I may have you with me, when I shall say, "Here am I, Lord, and the children thou hast given me for Christ." Oh, you who are members of this Church, will you pray that your minister may delight himself in God, that he may have this desire of his heart. And will you yourselves also delight in God, so that when you come to God in prayer, and pray for this congregation, you may be sure he will give you the desire of your heart, because you have delighted yourselves in him. They said of Martin Luther as he walked the streets, "There comes a man that can have anything of God he likes." You ask the reason of it. Because Luther delighted himself in his God. Give us some such men in this congregation and in this Church who love the Lord and rejoice in him, what an effect their prayers will have. These are the men who have the keys of heaven, and of death, and of hell. These are the men that can open heaven or shut it up, that it rain or rain not. The Church of Rome pretends that she has the keys; but the Church of Christ has the keys without pretending to have them, and these keys swing at the girdles of the men who delight in God. You can by your prayers bring down such showers of the Spirit upon the Christian Church, that the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose; and if you cease to delight in God you can shut up heaven itself, so that no rain descends, and the whole Church becomes barren and unfruitful once again.

Now to wind up. Mark this, this is the only thing that a man can delight in and get his desires. There is a man that delights in money, but he does not get his desire. He gets his money, but he never gets the satisfaction he expected. We read in the papers but the other day of one who had a singular success in his profession, but who lately attempted suicide under the notion that he should lose his all through the American war. We remember in this great city one of the largest merchants who died worth more than three millions of money, for at that amount I think his property was sworn, who during the latter part of his life

was accustomed to be paid the same wages as his gardener, and believed that he should certainly die in a workhouse. He had got his broad and wide estates, and money that could not be told, but he did not get the desire of his heart. He had delighted in his gold, and he had not the desire of his heart. So have we known men that have delighted themselves in fame, and when they have got it they would have been only too glad to get rid of it. They have been great statesmen or mighty warriors, and they have been greatly renowned; but when they have gained all the fame and stood on the very top of the pinnacle, there was not that in it that they expected, and they have said," Would that I had lived in obscurity, for then I might have known some satisfaction." And look at many of you. When you were apprentices, the desire of your heart was to be journeymen. Well, when you became journeymen, what then? You wanted to be masters, and set up in trade for yourselves. Well, you have set up in trade and got on pretty well. Have you the desire of your heart? Oh, no; that has gone on a little further. Now, you are waiting till you have brought up this large family of yours, and then when you have your children started in life, you are looking out for a villa in the suburbs where you can retire and spend the rest of your days. And some of you have the villa in the country, and have wound up your business affairs. Have you the desire of your heart yet? Well, not quite yet. There is still something else that you want. Ah, yes-getting the desire of a man's heart is like chasing a phantom. It is here-there-and everywhere; now on the hill, now down in the valley; you leap down on it, and it is away again on the next hill, and then on the next, and you find your chase is fruitless. Satisfaction in this world is like the diamond which the fool sees lying at the foot of the rainbow. So he runs after it, and as he runs the rainbow is ever in the distance, and he can never find what he expected. But if you would have the desire of your heart delight in your God, give him your love; give him your heart. Plunge deep into this stream, and you shall have all that you can wish for; the desire of your heart to the full extent shall be granted.

Are there not in this house to-day those who cannot delight in God?— cannot-cannot-cannot? "How," say you, "can I delight in God? he is angry with me." You are right, you cannot. How can he delight in God whose sins are unforgiven, upon whom the wrath of God abideth always? Can a man delight in a roaring lion, or in a bear robbed of her whelps? Can a man delight in a consuming fire? Can a man delight in a naked sword that seeks to reach his very heart? Yet God is such to you so long as you are out of grace. How then can you delight in God? There is one step that is necessary: believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and then you shall delight in the Lord. That is, trust yourself to be saved by Christ. Go and put yourself into Christ's hands to have all your sins put away, and when you have trusted Christ you shall know that your sin is forgiven, that you are reconciled to God by the death of his Son, and you may go your way and delight yourself in God, for the promise is this, your desire shall be granted you.

"THE LOVE OF JESUS, WHAT IT IS

NONE BUT HIS LOVED ONES KNOW."

A Sermon

DELIVERED ON WEDNESDAY EVENING, JUNE 18TH, 1862, BY
REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

AT SURREY CHAPEL, BLACKFRIARS ROAD.

"And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge."-Ephesians iii. 19. IT is the distinguishing mark of God's people that they know the love of Christ. Without exception all those who have passed from death unto life, whatever they may not know, have learned this. Without exception, all those who are not saved, whatever they may know besides, know nothing of this. An ungodly man may know something about Christ's love; he may believe in the fact of it; he may perceive something of the theory of it. He may even be able to follow believers in certain expressions of its enjoyments. But to know the love itself, to taste its sweets, to realise personally, experimentally, and vitally, the love of Christ as shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, is the privilege of the child of God, and of the child of God alone. This is the secure enclosure into which the stranger cannot enter. This is the garden of the Lord, so well protected by walls and hedges that no wild boar of the wood can enter. Only the redeemed of the Lord shall walk here. They, and only they, may pluck the fruits and content themselves with the delights thereof. We may begin the exercises of this evening with a question of self-examination, and we may continue them throughout the whole service, trying to press that question home to your consciences-Do I know the love of Christ? Have I felt it? Do I understand it? Do I feel it now? Is it now shed abroad in my heart? Do I know that Jesus now loves me? Is my heart quickened, and animated, and warmed, and attracted towards him through the great truth that it recognises and rejoices in, that Christ has really loved me and chosen me, and set his heart upon me?

We have started the first point. Every child of God knows the love of Christ. We advance another step. All the children of God do not know this love to the same extent. There are in Christ's family, babes, young men, strong men, and a few who are fathers. Now, as they grow and progress in all other matters, so they most certainly make advances Penny Pulpit, 3,719-20.

Nos. 455-56.

here. Indeed, an increase of love, a more perfect apprehension of Christ's love is one of the best and most infallible gauges whereby we may test ourselves whether we have grown in grace or not. If we have grown in grace, it is absolutely certain that we shall have advanced in our knowledge and reciprocation of the love of Christ. Many here present have believed in Jesus, and they do know the love of Jesus. But oh! they know it not as some others here do who have gone into the inner chamber, and have been made to drink of the spiced wine of Christ's pomegranate. Some of you have begun to climb the mountain, and the view which lies at your feet is lovely and passing fair, but the landscape is not such as would greet your eyes if ye could but stand where advanced saints are standing now, and could look to the east and to the west, to the north and to the south, and see all the lengths and breadths, and depths and heights, of the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. To change the figure: the love of Christ is comparable to Jacob's ladder; some of us are standing on the lower rounds, and there are others who are ascending and who rest half way; others still are getting up so high that we can scarce see them by reason of the dimness of our sight; and there are some, perhaps, at this hour, who have just reached the topmost round of this knowledge, and are now stepping as it were into the arms of Christ who awaits them at the top; they have attained unto their perfection. Here they shall find repose. They shall rest in his love, and with the eternal songs of heaven they shall rejoice for ever and for ever.

I want to-night, to bring you who are the people of God to the bottom of the ladder; encourage you to put your feet upon the first round of it; and then go step by step with you, till, I hope, before we have done, if God the Holy Ghost be with us here, we shall have gotten very high up that ladder, and shall go away hoping never to come down again, only wishing, with Peter, that we may tarry in the mount, and build for us tabernacles that we may sit on the mountain-summit with our Lord for ever.

I. Well then, to come first of all to the bottom of the ladder. One of the lowest ways, of knowing the love of Christ may be described as the doctrinal method-a very useful one, but nothing to be compared to those that we shall have to mention afterwards. If a man would know the love of Christ, he should endeavour to study the Word of God with care, attention, constancy, and with dependance upon the Spirit's illumination that he may be enabled to understand aright. It is well for a Christian man to be thoroughly established in the faith once delivered to the saints. It is an ill day for a man when he ceases to hold fast to the form of sound words which was delivered to us by Christ himself and his holy Apostles. Depend upon it, doctrinal ignorance will always make Churches weak; but where saints are fed upon the finest of the wheat, and are made to suck of the honey out of the rock, and to eat of the manna and fatness of Gospel doctrine, they will, all other things being equal, become the strongest and most valiant believers on the face of the earth. There is a tendency in these times to depreciate the value of Gospel doctrines. Oh! I beseech you, be not led astray of this error. There are in the Word of God certain things really taught. Do not believe that

the Bible is a lump of wax to be shaped just as you please. Do not imagine that "Yes" is right, and that the "No" which contradicts it is right too. The Lord has written this Book intending to teach us something, and a moderate understanding, sanctified by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, will enable you to know what the Lord does mean to teach you, especially upon such a vital point as this. Do not, I beseech you, say, "Oh, it does not much matter what doctrines I hold." You are as much responsible for using your judgment as you are for using your hands and your feet. God never did yet free conscience from his jurisdiction. Conscience is free, but not before God. You have a right to your convictions as far as I am concerned, but if your convictions be wrong, you have no right to them before God. There are certain things that are truths, and there are others that are contradictions thereunto; see that ye get fast hold on wisdom, and that ye do not let her go. There is a tendency, however, on the other hand in certain quarters, to make doctrinal knowledge everything. I have seen, to my inexpressible grief, the doctrines of grace made a huge stone to be rolled at the mouth of the sepulchre of a dead Christ, and I have seen sound doctrine, so called, made as a very seal to seal in the dead Christ, lest by any means the energy of his grace should come out for the salvation of sinners. Oh, what is doctrine after all but a throne whereon Christ sitteth, and when that throne is vacant what is the throne to us? It is the monarch and not the throne that we reverence and esteem. Doctrines are but as the shovel and the tongs of the altar, while Christ is the sacrifice smoking thereon. Doctrines are Christ's garments; verily they all smell of myrrh, and cassia, and aloes out of the ivory palaces, whereby they make us glad, but it is not the garments we care for so much as for the person, the very person of our Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore, while I intreat you, (and I hope not to be misunderstood here,) while I intreat you to be very jealous and earnest in attaining unto a clear doctrinal knowledge of the love of Christ to his people, yet when you have got it, say not "I am the man! I have attained to eminence; I may now sit still and be content." Sirs, this is but the threshold. This is but one of the first arches of a long vista of glorious truths. This is but the lowest step of the ascent. You have but sat down on the lowest form in the school. You have much to learn yet; oh! be not wise in your own conceits, lest you loose the blessed things which as yet have not been discovered by you. Verily it is a sweet thing to know Christ's love in the doctrine, and to understand that it is without beginning; that it existed when as yet this world had not been made; when sun and moon and stars slept in the mind of God, like unborn forests in an acorn-cup; when as yet the solemnity of silence had never been startled by the song of seraph, and the wing of cherub had never stirred the unnavigated ether! It is delightful to believe that

"Before the day-star knew its place,

Or planets went their round,

The saints in bonds of sovereign grace,
Were one with Jesus found."

Equally precious is it to know the doctrine that this love is without end.