The Spurgeon Series 1855 & 1856. Charles H. Spurgeon
incarnate God upon the cross; a substitute atoning for mortal guilt; a sacrifice satisfying the vengeance of heaven; and delivering the rebellious sinner. Here is essential wisdom; enthroned, crowned, glorified. Admire you men of earth, if you are not blind: and you, who glory in your learning, bend your heads in reverence, and admit that all your skill could not have devised a gospel equally so just to God, so safe to man.
19. Remember, my friends, that while the gospel is in itself wisdom, it also confers wisdom on its students; she teaches young men wisdom and discretion, and gives understanding to the simple. A man who is a believing admirer and a hearty lover of the truth, as it is in Jesus, is in a right place to follow with advantage any other branch of science. I confess I have a shelf in my head for everything now. Whatever I read I know where to put it; whatever I learn I know where to stow it away. Once when I read books, I put all my knowledge together in glorious confusion; but ever since I have known Christ, I have put Christ in the centre as my sun, and each science revolves around it like a planet, while minor sciences are satellites to these planets. Christ is to me the wisdom of God. I can learn everything now. The science of Christ crucified is the most excellent of sciences, she is to me the wisdom of God. Oh, young man, build your studio on Calvary! there raise your observatory, and scan by faith the lofty things of nature. Take a hermit’s cell in the garden of Gethsemane, and wash your brow with the waters of Siloah. Let the Bible be your standard classic — your last appeal in matters of contention. Let its light be your illumination, and you shall become more wise than Plato; more truly learned than the seven sages of antiquity.
20. And now, my dear friends, solemnly and earnestly, as in the sight of God, I appeal to you. You are gathered here this morning, I know, with different motives; some of you have come from curiosity; others of you are my regular hearers; some have come from one place and some from another. What have you heard me say this morning? I have told you of two classes of people who reject Christ; the religionist who has a religion of form and nothing else; and the man of the world, who calls our gospel foolishness. Now put your hand upon your heart and ask yourself this morning, “Am I one of these?” If you are, then walk the earth in all your pride; then go as you came in; but know that for all this the Lord shall bring you into judgment; know that your joys and delights shall vanish like a dream, “and, like the baseless fabric of a vision,” be swept away for ever. Know this, moreover, oh man, that one day in the halls of Satan, down in hell, I perhaps may see you among those myriad spirits who revolve for ever in a perpetual circle with their hands upon their hearts. If your hand is transparent, and your flesh transparent, I shall look through your hand and flesh, and see your heart within. And how shall I see it? Set in a case of fire — in a case of fire? And there you shall revolve for ever, with the worm gnawing within your heart, which shall never die — a case of fire around your never dying, ever tortured heart. Good God! let not these men still reject and despise Christ; but let this be the time when they shall be called.
21. To the rest of you who are called, I need say nothing. The longer you live, the more powerful will you find the gospel to be; the more deeply Christ taught you are, the more you live under the constant influence of the Holy Spirit, the more you will know the gospel to be a thing of power, and the more also will you understand it to be a thing of wisdom. May every blessing rest upon you; and may God come up with us in the evening!
Let men or angels dig the mines
Where nature’s golden treasure shines;
Brought near the doctrine of the cross,
All nature’s gold appears but dross.
Should vile blasphemers with disdain
Pronounce the truths of Jesus vain,
We’ll meet the scandal and the shame.
And sing and triumph in his name.
{a} Halberd: A military weapon, especially in use during the 15th and 16th centuries; a kind of combination of spear and battle axe, consisting of a sharp edged blade ending in a point, and a spear head, mounted on a handle five to seven feet long. OED.
Spiritual Liberty
No. 9-1:61. A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, February 18, 1855, By C. H. Spurgeon, At Exeter Hall, Strand.
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. {2 Corinthians 3:17}
1. Liberty is the birthright of every man. He may be born a pauper; he may he a foundling; his parentage may be altogether unknown; but liberty is his inalienable birthright. Black may be his skin; he may live uneducated and untaught; he may be poor as poverty itself; he may never have a foot of land to call his own; he may scarcely have a particle of clothing, except a few rags to cover him; but, poor as he is, nature has fashioned him for freedom — he has a right to be free, and if he does not have liberty, it is his birthright, and he ought not to be content until he wins it.
2. Liberty is the heirloom of all the sons and daughters of Adam. But where do you find liberty unaccompanied by religion? True it is that all men have a right to liberty, but it is equally true that you do not find it in any country except where you find the Spirit of the Lord. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Thank God, this is a free country. This is a land where I can breathe the air and say it is untainted by the groan of a single slave; my lungs receive it, and I know there has never been mingled with its vapours the tear of a single slave woman shed over her child which has been sold from her. This land is the home of liberty. But why is it so? I take it, it is not so much because of our institutions as because the Spirit of the Lord is here — the spirit of true and hearty religion. There was a time, remember, when England was no more free than any other country, when men could not speak their sentiments freely, when kings were despots, when Parliaments were a sham. Who won our liberties for us? who have broken our chains? Under the hand of God, I say, the men of religion — men like the great and glorious Cromwell, who would have liberty of conscience, or die — men who, if they could not reach kings’ hearts, because they were unsearchable in cunning, would strike kings low, rather than be slaves. We owe our liberty to men of religion, to men of the stern Puritanical school — men who scorned to play the craven and yield their principles at the command of man. And if we ever are to maintain our liberty (as God grant we may) it shall be kept in England by religious liberty — by religion. This Bible is the Magna Charta of old Britain; its truths, its doctrines have snapped our fetters, and they never can be rivetted on again, while men, with God’s Spirit in their hearts, go forth to speak its truths. In no other land, except where the Bible is read — in no other realm, except where the gospel is preached, can you find liberty. Roam through other countries, and you speak with bated breath; you are afraid; you feel you are under an iron hand; the sword is above you; you are not free. Why? Because you are under the tyranny engendered by a false religion: you do not have free Protestantism there; and it is not until Protestantism comes that there can be freedom. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, and nowhere else. Men talk about being free: they describe model governments, Platonic republics, or Owenite paradises; but they are dreamy theorists; for there can be no freedom in the world, except, “where the Spirit of the Lord is.”
3. I have commenced with this idea, because I think worldly men ought to be told that if religion does not save them, yet it has done much for them — that the influence of religion has won them their liberties.
4. But the liberty of the text is no such freedom as this: it is an infinitely greater and better one. Great as civil or religious liberty may be, the liberty of my text transcendently exceeds it. There is a liberty, dear friends, which Christian men alone enjoy; for even in Great Britain there are men who do not taste the sweet air of liberty. There are some who are afraid to speak as men, who have to cringe and fawn, and bow, and stoop, to anyone; who have no will of their own, no principles, no voice, no courage, and who cannot stand erect in conscious independence. But he is the free man, whom the truth makes free. He who has grace in his heart is free, he cares for no one; he has the right upon his side; he has God within him — the indwelling Spirit of the Holy Spirit; he is a prince of the royal blood of heaven; he is a noble, having the true patent of nobility; he is one of God’s elect, distinguished, chosen children, and he is not