LECTURE XXVI.

THE PURIFYING PROCESS.

"Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried ; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand."-DANIEL Xii. 10.

HAVING endeavored to shew the fulfilment of various predictions, let me here notice one moral and instructive. lesson for all. First, we are told that "many shall be purified, and made white, and tried." These are the redeemed out of every kindred, and people, and tongue. How delightful to believe many shall be so! The saved are not a tiny and a microscopic few, but a magnificent multitude that no man can number, with palms in their hands, and clothed in white robes, praising God and the Lamb for ever and ever. Every allusion in the Bible leads us to the conclusion that the overwhelming majorInfants dying shall all be whose perfection all past

ity of our race shall be saved. saved. Then an age comes to ages have been contributing, and in whose glory all past ages will be crowned, when all shall be righteous, and they shall no more teach every man his neighbor, saying, "Know the Lord," but "all shall know him from the least to the greatest." It is a most refreshing thought (94)

that Satan will not be able at the judgment day to show one solitary proof of the success of his dreadful experiment in Paradise; not one soul will be lost because Adam fell; if lost it will be because he rejects the second Adam, who is the Lord from heaven. All Scripture leads us to feel that they that are lost within reach of the Gospel are not slain, but are suicides; they perish because, dreadful criminality! they will not be saved. The language of the Saviour is, "Ye will not come unto me;" the remonstrance of God is, "Why will ye die?" the magnificent embassy for all nations is, "Him that cometh unto me,” whatever nation, kindred, tribe, or tongue, or whatever degree of guilt, or sin, or ruin; "Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out." Then if every individual that hears the gospel is not among the many that shall be saved and that are saved, it is not because God is unwilling, nor because he is unwelcome, it is not because there is not efficacy in the Saviour's work, nor because the Holy Spirit will not sanctify him, but because he puts it off, or puts something between it and him, or makes an excuse which has no foundation in truth, but satisfies his willingly satisfied heart in the mean time. Does not the Bible tell us that we have no power, and that unless God give us power we never can believe? I perfectly agree with that; but if that want of power upon your part be a want of physical power, then you have a valid excuse. God will not condemn a man at the judgment-seat who has a valid excuse for not believing the Gospel; that is equity, that is common justice. If you be physically unable to believe, you have a valid excuse. You would not think of blaming a stone,

or a dog, or a horse, because they do not understand or do not believe; they are physically incapable of it. But you forget that your inability to believe the Gospel is not physical, but purely moral; it is not want of physical power, it is want of moral will. There are two cannots that people very much confound with each other. For instance, a thief in prison cannot steal; an honest man cannot steal. Both these are perfectly true, but the distinction is tremendous; the thief cannot steal because he cannot get out of the prison; the honest man cannot steal because it is not his nature, or disposition, or will to do so. So you cannot believe is not the cannot of physical impossibility; if so it would be a valid excuse ; but it is the cannot of moral wilfulness. The lost in misery will never blame any one in the heights or in the depths but themselves for their everlasting ruin; they will feel, in all the tremendous force of that conviction, we might have been in heaven, and we would not go; and we are now in ruin because we set our faces thither. There are words I have already illustrated that seem to me most striking and suggestive; "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." "Come;" the olden invitation; "ye blessed of my father;" God the Father the fountain of all blessing; "inherit;" one inherits the title of his father not by his personal worth, but because he is the son; "inherit the kingdom prepared for you;" heaven the prepared place for a prepared people. But notice the obverse, where he addresses the lost. "Depart from me;" that is, continue the course you began. "Come unto me," is, continue the course you began.

"Depart from me," prosecute the course you have chosen; as if heaven were a centripetal force, by which the Christian is carried nearer and nearer for ever to Christ, and made happier the nearer that he comes; as if hell were a centrifugal force, the unbeliever departing farther and farther, and his misery increasing in the ratio of the speed and distance of his departure. "Depart, ye cursed," not of my Father, but "depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared," not for you, but "for the devil and his angels." In other words, hell is not meant for any human being; it was never meant or prepared for you; and if any man goes there, he will have the awful reflection for ever, I did it all myself; and nobody is to blame but myself: whereas the saved in heaven will have the thrilling reminiscence, We did none of it, we deserved none of it; grace, sovereign grace did it all. Such then is the distinction.

Now it is said, "many shall be made white." This passage in Daniel seems to be the original of what we find in Revelation vii., where one of the elders asked, "What are these which are arrayed in white robes? And whence came they?" And his answer is, "These are they which came out of great tribulation" "they shall be tried and purified," "and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." I understand, therefore, by "Many shall be made white," many shall be justified. "As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience shall many be made righteous," or made white. I understand, therefore, by this expression, "Many shall be made white," many shall be justified, that is, acquitted, absolved from all sin; first

5

a change of state, by transferrence from Adam, in whom we stand by nature, into union with Christ, in whom we stand by grace. Each of us at this moment by nature is born in the eclipse; we do not need to perpetrate some great crime to be guilty in God's sight; we are born sinners, we inherit a fallen nature, it is our connection with Adam that gives us that nature, and we aggravate our guilt by our own personal transgressions. But we are welcome and invited at this moment to step by faith from Adam, in whom nature leaves us, into Christ and his righteousness, in which grace and glory will always keep us. You are invited every one to leave the wrecks of ancient Paradise, where the flaming cherubim and the guarded gates, are, and to put on, without money and without price, that raiment which you have not to weave, which you have not to make, which you have not to pay for, but which you have to accept as a free gift, and justified through faith before God, to have peace with him in Christ Jesus. Such is the change of state. But there is more than that. There is not only a change of state; but it is said that those who are thus justified, those who are thus made white, shall be "tried." Tried; this is the lot of all God's people; and you will find it one of the marks of the people of God that they come through much tribulation. In the beautiful language of the Apocalypse, "They came out of great tribulation." We sometimes try to flatter ourselves that we shall get through the world casier and more softly than our fathers passed through it; all that is deceptive; you may depend upon it, as sure as you are living, if you be Christians, you will have something to try you, some care to vex you, some trouble to