THE STRAIT GATE

A SERMON

Preached on Lord's Day Evening September 11th, 1859

Volume 1 Number 42

Preached on Lord's Day Evening September 11th, 1859

By Mister JAMES WELLS

AT EXTER HALL, STRAND

Volume 1 Number 42

“Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leads unto life, and few there be that find it.” Matthew 7:14

WE are at the head of this chapter pre-monished by the Lord himself to judge righteous judgment; “Judge not, that you be not judged.” It does not mean that we are not to exercise our judgment as to what is right or wrong; it means only that we are to judge righteous judgment; for with what judgment we judge, we are to be judged; and with what measure we use, we are to be dealt with. I will, therefore, this evening, in going through this text which I have thus read before you, try and preach to myself as I go along, to the end that I may not judge others with that judgment from which I myself would shrink; but desire to judge others by that judgment by which I myself would wish to be judged. I will notice then, first, the way to life; the gate is strait and the way narrow; secondly, the life itself; and thirdly, the fewness of those that find this life.

I notice then, first THE WAY TO ETERNAL LIFE; and in order to make the matter as clear as I can, I will first describe to you how plain and how easy the Lord makes the way of life to his people; and then when I have done that, I will show the respects in which the gate is strait and the way narrow. These are the two ideas with which I shall try to read out the meaning of the first part of my text. Let me then first show how the Lord makes the way as plain as possible. He makes the way of eternal life plain by bringing a sinner into certain circumstances, and into a certain state; and then in the dealings of his mercy with that sinner appearing to him in that state and making the way of eternal life perfectly clear and perfectly easy to him. I shall therefore try in this first part of my subject to bring every one of you, (if it be the Lord's will,) to the test of his truth, as to whether you are in the way or not; whether you are seeking to enter on that way in which you will gain access or not; for many shall seek to enter in but shall not be able. Therefore, the Lord when he takes hold of a poor sinner brings him into a certain state; and if you ask what that state is or place, I would call it; first he brings him into a place; he brings him into a place of solitude; he brings him into a desert, he brings him into a scene of things he has never been in before. Hence, you read that “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them;” meaning that the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for the great tidings of the gospel, which are set before us in the chapter but one preceding that 35th of Isaiah. If you are brought into the right way, you will know what it is meant by the wilderness; you will be brought into a wilderness state before God; you will feel that you are in the wilderness of sin; you will look back at your origin and say, I see nothing but sin; you will look forward to death, and judgment, and eternity, and see nothing but sin; you will feel that you are in the wilderness of sin; and then, when you have found out that you are in the wilderness of sin, you will next find out that you are as a sinner in the wilderness of Sinai, where the Lord's law is the ministration of death, the ministration shall I say of degradation, the ministration of banishment from him. Now my hearer, this is a matter of personal conviction and of personal experience. Then the next part of this is that it is a solitary place; you will feel that you are without Christ; and you will begin to reason like this; how can I get out of the wilderness of sin? how can I get out of the wilderness of Sinai? Ah, I am without Christ; and therefore, without Christ I must wander to all eternity in this wilderness of sin; without Christ I must wander to all eternity amidst the thunderbolts of heaven, amidst the terrible, inextinguishable, and eternal threatening of the everlasting God. You will thus become a solitary man, and you will wander about in a solitary way; an ungodly world will cease to be any company for you; mere creatures will cease to be any company for you; you will thus be brought into the house of mourning, thus be brought into solitude, and thus be brought to feel that you would give a thousand worlds if the Lord would but break that solitude by speaking home a word to your soul; if the Lord would but break that solitude, and say of you spiritually as he did of Lazarus literally, “Loose him and let him go;” you would give a thousand worlds if the Lord would break that solitude by coming in and saying, “I am your salvation.” This is one step towards the way of life; for if you are brought into this wilderness of sin, and see you are in it as a sinner; and see that you are in the wilderness of Sinai; then you will find that Jesus Christ is the only way by which you can get out of the wilderness of sin, the wilderness of Sinai, the wilderness of God's terrible, but righteous and eternal law. This then is the state. There is a promise that this wilderness shall rejoice, that it shall blossom as the rose, that it shall blossom abundantly; that the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon; that they shall see, these same persons who are brought into this solemn solitude before God, these same persons shall see the glory of the Lord and the excellency of our God. And we shall see presently what this excellency is, and what this glory is. There are the promises that this scene is to be changed; instead of the wilderness of sin, it shall be a Paradise of plenty; instead of being the wilderness of Sinai, where there is nothing but the threatening's of the everlasting God, it shall be a garden of eternal tranquility. But let us look again at these persons in the wilderness of sin. I am coming now to very close quarters; may the God of heaven help you every one of you to test yourselves by what I am going to say. The Lord says, “Strengthen you the weak hands.” Now my hearer, are you brought to feel that the demands of God's laws are such as your hands can never minister? Your hands are unholy; you have not one thread of righteousness that you can bring in your hand to present to that law; you have not one merit of your own that you can bring towards paying the terrible debt that you owe as a sinner; and your hands are weak. And then again, do you know what it is to feel that your sins, if they are laid to your account by Jehovah; if he places your transgressions upon you, that they constitute a yoke that you cannot bear, a burden you cannot stand under? If so, you will know something of what is meant by the weak hands and the feeble knees. “Strengthen you the weak hands;” we shall presently show how this is done; “and confirm the feeble knees.” But we must first know our weakness and our feebleness. My, hearer, you must know, whether you have been thus brought down before God, to feel and to say truly with the poet,

“Nothing in my hand I bring; Simply to your cross I cling.”

But again, they are said to have “A fearful heart.” Do you know what this is? Yes, says the real child of God, I do; I look at the wilderness of sin, and I am of a fearful heart; I look at my solitary state, without Christ, without hope, and without God in the world, and I am of a fearful heart; I look at my feeble hands, unable to do anything for law's demands; and I am of a fearful heart; I look as it were at my feeble knees, and there is a load under which I cannot stand; oh, if only one sin be laid to my account, I must sink. But notice further, they are also spoken of as being blind; and so, you will now confess that you are blind. You hardly ever find a natural man very freely confessing his ignorance. It is a great blessing to know our blindness by sin; to know that there is something to be seen that we have never yet seen; something to be known that we have never yet known; something to be felt in salvation and in the mystery of the kingdom of God that we have never yet felt. Then again, they are said to be deaf. And so, you will feel, ah, I can hear the minister's voice, I can hear his words, I can hear with the outward ear; but I cannot feel that the tidings are for me. And then further, it is said they are lame, cannot help themselves, lame in their thoughts, lame in their walk, and lame in their doings. The sinner when taught of God is brought to this conclusion, to confess that his own doings are but a lame concern altogether; and the Word of God declares that there must not be an offering of anything that is either sick or lame, or blind, or deficient. Well then, says the poor sinner, I shall not do for an offering, for I am a poor lame creature altogether. Again, it goes on to say of such a one that he is dumb; mark that; his mouth is shut, he is dumb; his guilt has stopped his mouth. There he is before God; he has not a reason in and of himself to assign why he should not be banished from the presence of the blessed God. Now have I some before me this evening that have been brought experimentally into this wilderness; conscious of their being in the wilderness of sin, in the wilderness of Sinai; conscious of being in this solitude; conscious of the feebleness of their hands, the weakness of their knees, the fearfulness of their hearts, the blindness of their eyes, the deafness of their ears; and their lameness, and their being unable to speak; their mouths completely stopped? Then notice the remedy. “In the wilderness shall waters break out?” Oh, what are these waters that shall break out in the wilderness? I answer, it is that water of eternal life which is by Jesus Christ; and when the Lord comes in, and brings in the water of eternal life, in contrast to the burning law of Sinai, the fire of Sinai; where there was nothing but fire; the Lord rolls in his mercy; and what is the result? Why, the results are such as he there describes. “Strengthen you the weak hands?” when the Lord speaks with power, such a one says, ah, now I can lay hold of eternal life; now,

“My faith can lay her hand

On that dear head of thine;

While like a penitent I stand,

And there confess my sin.”

And also “Confirm the feeble knees.” Ah, he says, now the Lord has taken my burden from me; I have now no burden to bear; I can stand upright now, standing upon the Rock of Ages; the fear of my heart is gone; for “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?” Now all my fears are gone, and I can sing with the Poet,

“Bold shall I stand in that great day,

For who nothing to my charge shall lay?”

And now also the visual power is cleared up: “He from thick films shall purge the visual ray,

And on the sightless eyeball pour the day,”

Such then are some of the steps towards eternal life, towards a right knowledge of the truth. You must be brought into this wilderness, into this solitude, into this experience of what you are; and it is that which prepares you for the waters of the everlasting gospel. Now, unto such the way of life is clear as A B C. “And a highway shall be there.” Before I touch upon that, let me just remind you that it says, “In the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass, with reeds and rushes.” The dragons there will mean this: first, that when you were under the law, and in the wilderness of sin, and could not see Jesus, your sins appeared like dragons, like wild beasts, as though they would swallow you up, and would prey upon you, and devour you; and Satan would appear like a dragon, and his hosts against you like dragons; but when Christ comes in, all these dragons are cast out, and you have then nothing to fear, the victory is gained; and then you tread upon the lion, the adder, the young lion, you do then begin to tread under foot, and to rejoice that God has triumphed gloriously in giving you this everlasting victory. “And a highway shall be there.” It is a question whether we might not have had some English word that would have better conveyed the meaning of the original there than the word, “highway“ There shall be a lifting up, and a way that is, the sinner shall be lifted up as from the dunghill of his sins; the sinner shall be lifted up from the dust of degradation; and then, when he is lifted up, there is “a way; and it shall be called, The way of holiness.” Why, says that poor sinner, I know what that way is; I used to think my formalities were the way of holiness; I used to think my smooth behavior was the way of holiness; I used to think my benevolence was the way of holiness; I used to think my goodness before men was the way of holiness; and all these are very well in their place; but when I come before God, I have learned that there is but one way of holiness, and that way is Christ Jesus. And now notice, “The unclean shall not pass over it.” The meaning of that is this: the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and ultimately the Romans, crossed the path of the Jews that led to the temple; and they cut off that path to the temple; they destroyed the city and the temple, and scattered the people. But here, in Christ Jesus, “the unclean shall not pass over it;” that is, there is no enemy can cut you off if you are brought into this way: Sin cannot cut you off, because Christ's atonement has cut sin off; Satan cannot cut you off, because Christ has bruised his head, and cut him off; the world cannot cut you off, for Christ has overcome the world; death cannot cut you off; delusion cannot cut you off. “The unclean shall not pass over it.” So that the way will remain open to you to all eternity. The city to which you are led by this way is a city which has foundations; the temple in which you are to see the blessed God in this way, is a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. It is as plain as A B C. I hope some of you can say, I am as convinced from my own experience, and God's word, that Jesus Christ is the way, and the only way, of vital, saving holiness before God, as I am of my own existence. Well, if you can say that what does the Lord say of you? “The wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there.” They cannot find it out, cannot come there; they may destroy your liberty on earth, and even kill the body, but they cannot touch you there. It is a hidden way, which the vulture's eye has not seen, which the lion's whelps have not trodden. There you are safe from the roaring lion of hell, from the roaring lion of Rome, from the roaring lion of sin, from the roaring lion of death; there you may walk and defy the whole. “The redeemed shall walk there; and the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” Thus then, friends, the way of life is made plain, made clear, made easy: “The wayfaring man shall not err therein.”

After these few remarks, which I think are somewhat essential to make the meaning of our text clear, I now come to notice the two-fold respect in which the gate and way that lead unto life, are straight and narrow. Two reasons I think will make the matter clear. The first reason why the gate is said to be strait, and why the way is said to be narrow, and also why there are but few that find it, is simply this. You perhaps will be almost surprised at the simplicity of the reason I am about to assign; and the reason is simply this: that it is because it is by faith, without works; that is the reason. Preach up a way consisting of faith and works, you will have everybody with you; but preach up a way that is simply by faith without works; you must not bring a single work; no, you must come just as yon are not a thread, not a particle of anything; you must come only as a sinner; it must be simply and exclusively by faith. What is the universal cry? The universal cry is, That is very dangerous; and that universal cry solemnly confirms the language of our text, that “strait,” (that is to say, difficult,) “is the way.” Why, it is one of the most difficult things in the world for a man to be nothing; no man likes to be made nothing of; and yet the Lord will make nothing of us, in order to make something of us, “Therefore it is by faith, that it might be by grace, to the end that the promise might be sure to all the seed.” But what is there so difficult in this? It is not difficult to the man that knows the Lord; but it needs a great deal of soul trouble, that brings to light in a sinner the knowledge of what a poor creature he is, before he is willing to be saved in God's own way. Therefore “strait is the gate.” Let me quote two or three scriptures to make this if possible, clearer. Just notice the following wonderful words; I wonder how many of you are brought down so far, are brought into such a position; and the position is this: “To him that works not, but believes on him that justifies the ungodly;” he justifies the ungodly; that is, he, by a Savior's blood, justifies that ungodly man; the man who is brought to see and feel what a poor, ungodly creature he is; God, by the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ, justifies that man from all past, present, and future ungodliness; so that that man stands eternally free before God and God will never alter his mind concerning Christ; and he will never alter his mind concerning that man until he alters his mind concerning Christ; for it is by Jesus Christ that that man stands justified, stands free, eternally free, from all ungodliness. You must have nothing within, nothing without, nothing to call your own but ungodliness; you must stand simply before God clothed as it were in nothing but filthy garments; and believe that Jesus Christ came into the world to save just such a sinner as you are; and believe that he is able to save to the uttermost all of them that come unto God by him. I cannot but stop here for one moment, just to say, is it not, my hearers, oh is it not a cause of the most solemn lamentation, that that very feature of the way of eternal life which makes it so suited to a poor sinner is the very reason that we blindly urge against it until the Lord teaches us better? Is it not a cause of deep lamentation that this great truth, that “it is by faith,” that the way of eternal life is by faith, “that it might be by grace; to the end that the promise might be sure to all the seed?” Is it not a cause of deep lamentation, that this very order of things, which makes the way of eternal life so exactly suited to poor sinners such as we are, is the very reason almost everywhere urged against it? the very thing that makes it so suited to us as sinners. This then, in consequence of the state man is in, and its being by faith in Christ, without works, this makes it difficult; this makes it a narrow way; it narrows the man down merely to one point. No doubt the ruler of the synagogue was astonished when they came to him and said, “Trouble not the Master anymore; for your daughter s dead;” and the Savior narrowed the point, and put this ruler as it were close to the strait gate; and he said, Only believe; only believe; that is all; just leave the matter with me; just believe in my ability; just believe what I have said, that your daughter shall rise from the dead; I do not want you to help; I do not want you to have any hand in it; I do not want you to touch your daughter, to help to raise her; I do not want you to do a single thing, or to pay a single penny; but simply believe, simply leave the matter with me. And the ruler went off with that little grain of faith in his heart; the Lord came; his daughter was raised from the dead; and thus, he entered in by the strait gate; faith without works; the end was gained; the object was accomplished; Christ was honored; the man was satisfied; God was glorified; the truth was established; grace reigned! And so, it is now only believe. Whatever may be your condition, your adversaries, your adversities, your drawbacks, your troubles, let me tell you, my hearer, there is an almightiness in Christ; and although this is a strait gate, although it is difficult to believe that it is all so entirely of grace, that it can save a sinner like you; yet, if the Lord gives you faith, even as a grain of mustard seed in this, the time will come when you shall say to all the mountainous impediments that stand now in your way, “Be you removed, and cast into the depths of the sea.” These mountains shall sink, these valleys shall rise, these crooked things shall be made straight, these rough places shall become plain; and you will say, Ah, I have at last found the strait gate, I have found the narrow way, the way of eternal life. Now I will not say a syllable against human learning, I love it, I love other languages, above all, the original Biblical languages; but I cannot but remind you that there is no human establishment under heaven that can lead the soul to this strait gate, that can bring it into this narrow way, that can make a man acquainted with what he is as a sinner, and so narrow the great matter of his salvation to this one point, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” Notice how the Savior narrows it to this point, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son; that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life;” narrows it simply to the belief, you see, friends. And again, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so also must the Son of man be lifted up; that whoso ever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” But then faith without prayer is no faith at all; faith without love is no faith at all; and there can be none of this faith of which I have spoken unless you know something of the wilderness, something of the solitude, something of your weakness, something of your lost condition; it is this that will bring you at the strait gate. The woman perceived in the distance this strait gate when she said, “If I may but touch his clothes, I shall be whole:” and she was right, she gave a believing touch; her disease fled from her; and she fell down before him, and told him all that was in her heart.

Well, perhaps you will say after all, what is the gate? Jesus Christ is the gate; he is the gate of the Lord into which the righteous shall enter; he is the gate of heaven; and as our text shows the gate of life and the way of life narrowed to that point, no works can be admitted; it must be simply by faith.

But there is another reason why it is called a strait gate and a narrow way. It is because the Lord does not save collectively merely; you cannot go in pell-mell, you cannot go in with the throng; that is not the way to heaven, that is not the way to be saved; no, the gate is so narrow; only one at a time; you cannot get to this life as you got into this hall this evening, crowding in one upon the other; no, friends, you will be gathered in one by one; it is a narrow way, admitting only one at a time. Let me then preach to one for a moment. What do you say for yourself? You have nothing to do with others; that is not your business; your concern is whether you are brought in at this strait gate, this narrow way.

Secondly: I will now make a few remarks upon the nature of the life to which this faith leads. In the first place, it is a divine life; the life by which the Christian lives is a divine life; it is not a mere human life. Adam before the fall had a mere natural life; that natural life became corrupted, is gone and lost. The Israelites had a temporal and associative life with the blessed God in his dealings with them, in distinction from other nations; but then it was but a temporal life, and that life is gone; when they departed from the covenant, they became dead to its privileges. Hence the words, “Why will you die, O house of Israel?” But these words have nothing to do with eternal death, or the second death. And the Lord said that he would rather they would turn, and live; that is, live with him in that order of things, that temporal covenant, which he had established; but then that has nothing whatever to do with eternal things. So that the life spoken of in our text is a divine life. And if you ask what this divine life is, my answer is, Jesus Christ is the life. “For me to live is Christ.” We are brought to life by Jesus Christ, he in his complex person is our life; it is a divine life, and therefore, is spiritual. Hence the bread that we eat comes down from heaven; the water that we drink comes down from heaven; the fruit that is sweet to our taste comes down from heaven; and our strength is from on high. “I will,” said one, “lift up my eyes unto the hills, whence comes my help; my help comes from the Lord, that made heaven and earth.” Then secondly, it is a sinless life. It is a delightful thought, I often think of it, that while the Christian's life after the flesh is filled with sin, that is to say, his inward life after the flesh, the working of his fallen nature from day to day present nothing but one scene of successive corruption; yet at the same time the Christian has a life wherein he never sins, wherein he is pure; and this natural life in which sin lies will by and bye die, and sin with it; and this life which we now live before men will by and by end with all its crooks, and faults, and troubles; be buried and gone, and gone forever; and then, when Christ who is our life shall appear, we shall also appear in that sinless life in glory with him. It is a sinless life; Christ himself must be corrupted before the believer can in that eternal life which he has in Christ Jesus be corrupted. If you set up your morality and your goodness before men as your preparation for heaven, you will be fatally deceived; it is all delusion. You must have something better than that; Christ must be your life; you must renounce your own life, reject the whole, give up the whole, live to God all he gives you grace to do; and when you have done all these things, whatever you have done for his cause, whatever you have done for his name, turn round upon it all and say, we are but unprofitable servants. The life that fits us for heaven is the life we have in Christ; a life divine; a life sinless, and a life everlasting. I need not say to you, in the next place, that it is a happy life; happy in the love of God, happy in the fulness of Christ, happy in the eternal indwelling of the Holy Spirit; happy in the presence of the Lord; “In your presence is fulness of joy, and pleasures for evermore.” Nor need I say it is an eternal life. How can it terminate? Christ dies no more; and the living God is the living God still, even were all the nations dead.

Thus then, my hearer, do you know what it is to be narrowed down to this point; that you must be saved simply by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you know what it is to be the subject of these experiences that have narrowed you to that point, so that you are brought to this strait gate, seeking to enter into that eternal life which is by Christ Jesus? You will not be disappointed; never. “Him that comes unto me;” says Christ; we must not overlook what is meant in that great pronoun ME; many come to a Christ, but it is not God's Christ; but “Him that comes unto me,” in what I am in my complex person, in my perfect work, in the relations I bear, “I will in no way cast out.” But if you come to this ME in what he is not, and crave a little room for some of your holiness and of your righteousness, then you will be cast out, depend upon it; God will not suffer his Christ to be set aside, and Christ will not give his glory to another; he will not give place to the devil, nor give place to your devilish pride; but he will break the neck of the whole of it. If you are brought to him in what he really is, he will not cast you out.

Thirdly. I will now draw to a close; “Few there be that find it.” Let me assign some of the reasons of this. The first is one I have already anticipated; described, by bringing them to feel their need of Christ, and then, they indeed I have in substance already anticipated all the reasons. First, unbelief. “They could not enter in, because of unbelief.” What, says one; for me to believe that Jesus Christ has perfected a sinner forever, without that sinner having any hand in it; for me to believe that that sinner was given to Christ before the world was! For me to believe that Jesus Christ is surety for a sinner without the sinner's efforts; without the sinner putting his name to the bond and becoming jointly responsible! Ah, says one, I could not believe that. That is the reason you cannot find this way, then, because you cannot believe it. Therefore, unbelief is one reason that so few find it. But how is it then that any find it? Why, because there are some to whom the Lord gives faith; for faith is the gift of God; and he gives them faith in the way I have described and are constrained to believe in that which alone can save them; and that is the way he works effectually in them, faith in his blessed name. The second reason that so few find it is that of blindness. “If our gospel is hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” “Who is the image of God;” there is the offence; preach a Christ that is the image of man, and no one is offended; but preach a Christ that is the image of God; set the Savior forth in all his mediatorial and eternal dignity; man can see no beauty then, no comeliness that he should adore him or desire him, or that he should seek him or go after him. But how is it there are some exceptions; that while all of us are thus blind by nature, yet some have their eyes opened? Who opened them? “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined into our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus.” Again, another reason is the native enmity of the mind. And here I will bring in a word or two of advice; and with that word or two of advice to a certain class of persons I will part with you, perhaps never to speak to some of you again. There may be in this assembly some persons that have never yet known the truth, but still begin to feel somewhat a little anxious about it, a little concerned about it: and my advice shall accord with the advice I gave last Lord's day evening; or rather I will give you the Lord's own advice, in the 13th of Luke. When one said to the Savior, Lord, “are there few that be saved?” instead of the Savior answering that question in a way that should accord with mere curiosity, he came to the solemnity of it. “I say unto you, strive;” mark that; it is an agonistical term is the original there translated “strive” “strive to enter in at the strait gate.” I say to the enquirer, you will hear men of truth spoken evilly of; but listen not to evil speakers; you will hear this strait gate, or that which makes it a strait gate, faith, simply faith, without works, evilly spoken of; but give no heed to man; read the Word of God. You will hear this way evilly spoken of; but it is God's way; and therefore, “strive;” whatever conflicts you may have; if your father, or mother, or wife, or husband, or children, or brother, or sister, neighbor or friend, let them be who or what they, if they are striving to turn you away from this strait gate, from this narrow way, then you must not listen to them; you must go striving on, praying on, running on, seeking on in the word of the word of the Lord, in the way of the Lord, and you may rest assured you will not repent having so done; knowing it is written that “Whoso leaves father, or mother, or wife, or children, or houses, or lands, for my sake,” and the gospels, “shall have a hundred fold;” in this world houses and lands; that is, gospel houses and gospel lands which will yield you heavenly and eternal delights; and brethren, that is, gospel brethren; and sisters, that is, gospel sisters; and fathers, that is, gospel fathers; and mothers; that is, gospel mothers; such as Hannah, Deborah, and Mary; and you will sing with these mothers, and they will be kind to you; they will bring you the good things upon which they themselves lived and flourished; and in the world to come you shall have life everlasting. “Strait is the gate.” “Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for I say unto you that many shall seek to enter in not to enter in;” at the strait gate, no; they seek the wrong way; “and shall not be able;” they cannot enter in because they cannot believe the truth, see the truth, nor love the truth.

The reader will see that although Mr. Wells, has outstepped in this Sermon his usual bounds, he has left much unsaid upon so vital a subject.

It would have done the reader good, to have seen with what solemnity, and earnestness, nearly five thousand persons listened to this sermon, as well as to the five preceding sermons preached by Mr. James Wells in Exeter Mall.