At New Park Street
Hebrews 6:4-6
"For it is impossible for those who were
once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers
of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the
world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance;
seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open
shame."—
Let me show you why. First,
O Christian, it is put in to keep thee from falling away. God
preserves his children from falling away; but he keeps them by the use of
means; and one of these is, the terrors of the law, showing them what would
happen if they were to fall away. There is a deep precipice: what is the best
way to keep any one from going down there? Why, to tell him that if he did he
would inevitably be dashed to pieces. In some old castle there is a deep
cellar, where there is a vast amount of fixed air and gas, which would kill
anybody who went down. What does the guide say? "
If you go down you will
never come up alive." Who thinks of going down? The very fact of the guide
telling us what the consequences would be, keeps us from it. Our friend puts
away from us a cup of arsenic; he does not want us to drink it, but he says,
"If you drink it, it will kill you." Does he suppose for a moment
that we should drink it. No; he tells us the consequences, and he is sure we
will not do it. So God says, "My child, if you fall over this precipice
you will be dashed to pieces." What does the child do? He says, "Father,
keep me; hold thou me up, and I shall be safe." It leads the believer to
greater dependence on God, to a holy fear and caution, because he knows that if
he were to fall away he could not be renewed, and he stands far away from that
great gulf, because he know that if he were to fall into it there would be no
salvation for him.
If I thought as the Arminian thinks, that I might fall away,
and then return again, I should pretty often fall away, for sinful flesh and
blood would think it very nice to fall away, and be a sinner, and go and see
the play at the theatre, or get drunk, and then come back to the Church, and be
received again as a dear brother who had fallen away for a little while. No
doubt the minister would say, "Our brother Charles is a little unstable at
times." A little unstable! He does not know anything about grace; for
grace engenders a holy caution, because we feel that if we were not preserved
by Divine power we should perish.
We tell our friend to put oil in his lamp,
that it may continue to burn! Does that imply that it will be allowed to go
out? No, God will give him oil to pour into the lamp continually. Like John
Bunyan's figure; there was a fire, and he saw a man pouring water upon it.
"Now," says the Preacher, "don't you see that fire would go out,
that water is calculated to put it out, and if it does, it will never be
lighted again;" but God does not permit that! for there is a man behind
the wall who is pouring oil on the fire; and we have cause for gratitude in the
fact, that if the oil were not put in by a heavenly hand, we should inevitably
be driven to destruction. Take care, then Christian, for this is a caution.
2. It is to excite our gratitude.
Suppose you say to your little boy, "Don't you know Tommy, if I were not
to give you your dinner and your supper you would die? There is nobody else to
give Tommy dinner and supper." What then? The child does not think that
you are not going to give him his dinner and supper; he knows you will, and he
is grateful to you for them. The chemist tells us, that if there were no oxygen
mixed with the air, animals would die. Do you suppose that there will be no
oxygen, and therefore we shall die? No, he only teaches you the great wisdom of
God, in having mixed the gases in their proper proportions. Says one of the old
astronomers, "There is great wisdom in God, that he has put the sun
exactly at a right distance—not so far away that we should be frozen to death,
and not so near that we should be scorched."
He says, "If the sun
were a million miles nearer to us we should be scorched to death." Does
the man suppose that the sun will be a million miles nearer, and, therefore, we
shall be scorched to death? He says, "If the sun were a million miles
farther off we should be frozen to death." Does he mean that the sun will
be a million miles farther off, and therefore we shall be frozen to death? Not
at all. Yet it is quite a rational way of speaking, to show us how grateful we
should be to God. So says the Apostle. Christian! if thou shouldst fall away,
thou couldst never be renewed unto repentance. Thank thy Lord, then, that he
keeps thee.
"See a stone that hangs in air; see a spark in ocean live; Kept alive with death so near; I to God the glory give."
There is a cup of sin which would damn thy soul, O Christian. Oh! what grace is
that which holds thy arm, and will not let thee drink it? There thou art, at
this hour, like the bird-catcher of St. Kilda, thou art being drawn to heaven
by a single rope; if that hand which holds thee let thee go, if that rope which
grasps thee do but break, thou art dashed on the rocks of damnation. Lift up
thine heart to God, then, and bless him that his arm is not wearied, and is
never shortened that it cannot save. Lord Kenmure, when he was dying, said to Rutherford . "Man! my
name is written on Christ's hand, and I see it! that is bold talk, man, but I
see it!" Then, if that be the case, his hand must be severed from his body
before my name can be taken from him; and if it be engraven on his heart, his
heart must be rent out before they can rend my name out.
Hold on, then, and trust believer!
thou hast "an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, which entereth
within the veil." The winds are bellowing, the tempests howling; should
the cable slip, or thine anchor break, thou art lost. See those rocks, on which
myriads are driving, and thou art wrecked there if grace leave thee; see those
depths, in which the skeletons of sailors sleep, and thou art there, if that
anchor fail thee. It would be impossible to moor thee again, if once that
anchor broke; for other anchor there is none, other salvation there can be
none, and if that one fail thee, it is impossible that thou ever shouldst be
saved. Therefore thank God that thou hast an anchor that cannot fail, and then
loudly sing
"How can I sink with such a prop,
As my eternal God,
Who bears the earth's huge pillars up?
And spreads the heavens abroad?"
How can I die, when Jesus lives,
Who rose and left the dead?
Pardon and grace my soul receives,
From my exalted head."
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