First, in arousing the attention

First, in arousing the attention of a negligent people to the gospel. There is nothing in the world that makes so much stir, as preaching Christ. You may preach anything else you like, and the people will slumber; but if you preach Christ out and out, simply, in plain Saxon — as Paul would have preached it, not with "wisdom of words" — you will find the people come together. I do not know why — but so it is, that even those who dislike the gospel will come to hear it; and though sometimes they gnash their teeth, and curse the man that preached it — yet they will come again — they cannot help it.

A gospel preacher has chains coming from his lips which bind themselves around men's hearts, and he holds them captives, unwillingly at first — but afterwards joyfully. They are captives to the power of sovereign grace. There will be little need for the simple, plain, bold gospel preacher to advertise.

You may put him down in a back street, give him a room down a court, do nothing more for him than let him speak to a handful of people, and the first news you hear of him will be that he is eccentric, that he is odd, that he is a fool, that he is a madman. This is good news, always: there is a man of God somewhere about, when you hear that. Immediately people want to hear this enthusiast, this Puritan, this babbler, and they rush to listen; and then it is, that a strange power is felt by the people.

They do not know what it is — but there is something in the preaching which seems to seize their hearts and hold them. It is nothing other than the fulfillment of the word, "If I am lifted up, I will draw all men to me." Where Christ is lifted up, there people will be drawn to hear; they must hear. We need not ask them to come; they must come. Where this body is, there the eagles will be gathered together. Where a full Christ is proclaimed, there they will come who need to find a Savior.

Does philosophy achieve this triumph? Where are the crowds that, year after year, hang on the lips of its learned men? You call it a poor triumph; so it may be in itself — but in its ulterior results it is a very great one. There are wise men of the earth who would give their eyes and their ears if they could only get the people to listen to them.

Where Christ is not preached, there are generally more spiders than human souls. Put Unitarianism into the pulpit, and you will soon see how the pews can be emptied, and the congregation shrink. A gospel-less gospel has great power of dispersion — and little power of attraction. But the gospel of Jesus Christ soon draws a multitude together, and the right hand of the Lord is exalted.

Yet you may say this is little; and I will confess that it is comparatively little, but mark it — if the gospel is preached, it does not end in men's coming to hear it and returning home; for soon that gospel comes like an eagle from afar and pounces down upon men's hearts, and makes them a prey to its power. Those who came to scoff — remain to pray; those who looked on out of curiosity like Zaccheus — receive the Savior into their house; and those who came even in enmity — are converted into friends.

How greatly the right hand of the Lord was exalted in the days of Whitefield and Wesley. The lives of those two eminent men have been written of lately by many loving pens; and I must confess that I am always delighted to read the narratives, however they may be written.

Though I have read them many times, I can always read them again. Oh, it was wonderful, that when the whole land was asleep — when the Church of England was asleep in the dark, and the dissenters were asleep in the light — there suddenly rose up a man who dared to stand on his father's grave in the church-yard and to preach the Gospel. And side by side with him flew a twin seraph, who went into the fields and began to proclaim the gospel; and all at once true religion stirred our country from shore to shore!

These men preached faith as a saving grace, the necessity of regeneration, and the work of the Holy Spirit, and these truths had power in them. Those were brave days the days of the early Methodists — when the time of the singing of birds had come, and the land was full of the Holy Spirit.

And it is just so now. Wherever the same gospel is preached with the Holy Spirit sent down from Heaven, there are conversions, there are broken hearts, there are spirits healed by Jesus' love, there are glad ones consecrating themselves to the Redeemer's service. "The right hand of the Lord is exalted — the right hand of the Lord does valiantly!"

And this becomes true — we have seen it — in some of the very darkest parts of London. What a wonderful instance of what God's grace can do may be seen by anyone who chooses to learn the history of such spots as Seven Dials, where God's love has placed earnest evangelists; or in Golden Lane, where a dear brother of our own labors amidst the poverty and sin of the masses. Why, when I have gone to see my brethren meet together there, the poorest of the poor, hucksters, men who were drunkards and blasphemers, women that were thieves and harlots, and have heard them sing the praises of Jesus and rejoice in his dear name — I have felt, "The right hand of the Lord is exalted: the right hand of the Lord does valiantly!"

And here and all around I need not quote instances, for you know them better than I do — lions are turned into lambs, ravens into doves, and the most unlikely spots in East London that were deserts, salt lands, and uninhabited, that looked as if they were cursed by God — have been made to rejoice and blossom like a rose when the preacher of the gospel and his master have set their feet upon them. Oh yes, the right hand of the Lord is exalted. They say that the gospel has lost its power.

I read the other day that some of us were the echoes of dead puritanism, that we were not abreast of the age, and were preaching a faith that was practically dead. Sirs, those that say so, carry a lie in their throats. Some of them know that they lie, and are full of malice because they know it. The gospel is no more dead than they are, nor half so much. It lives, and lives in all its energy. They do not love the truth who dare to say that it has lost its force; they are blind with hate who thus malign it.

But it is "unphilosophical." Hair splitters do not care about it; neological divines sneer at it as only fit for old women. Glory be to God, if it suits old women, it will suit us and all kinds of people; but inasmuch as it is not philosophic according to their declaration, that word of God is fulfilled in our ears, "The foolishness of God is wiser than man, and the weakness of God is stronger than man."

It is also common enough to hear men say, "But look at those who preach it: they are uneducated men, men that are not of the higher class of society, unskilled in classic learning, and not always able to give the original Greek or Hebrews words of the scripture on which they preach." Yes, sir, and it would be a difficult task for any man to prove that the early triumphs of the gospel owed a solitary jot to education and learning.

In looking at the inscriptions in the catacombs a few days ago when I was in Rome, I could not help the observation continually coming to my lips, that the earliest Christians — most of them, or almost all of them — must have been illiterate. They were scarcely able to write their friend's names, for the most common words on the slabs of stone placed on the graves of the early Christians, are very frequently badly spelled; Greek letters and Latin letters are intermingled, showing that they hardly knew how to finish a word in one language — but must piece it out with another, not completely knowing either the one alphabet or the other.

Ah — but it was because God had put his truth into the mouths of babes and nursings, and so established strength. When the world was conquered by such humble instrumentalities, and the truth was mighty when preached by such simple men — then it was that the right hand of the Lord was exalted. For the right hand of the Lord had done it — and not the wisdom, nor the craft, nor the energy of man. God's arm was more conspicuous, because of the feebleness of the instrumentality.

Much rather, then, would we glory in our infirmities, because the power of God rests on us. If we were able to preach with power of ourselves, and if we had the gifts that some contend for, we might share the praise of our usefulness. But if we are unlearned and ignorant as they say — yet God draws the people to hear the gospel, and God saves them by our preaching, then we rejoice in this; yes, and we will rejoice.

If we are vile for sticking to the old doctrine — we will be viler still; and if we are loathsome in the sight of the world — we will be more loathsome yet, and speak more boldly in this name. We will not seek to be found among the great and mighty — but rather among the feeble and foolish, by whose ministry the right hand of the Lord is exalted, and does valiantly.

But now I must, in the third place, say a few words, and only a few, for time fails us, upon,

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