THE VEIL OF THE TEMPLE

A SERMON

Preached on Lord’s Day Morning April 6th, 1860

By Mister JAMES WELLS

AT Mount Zion Chapel, Hill Street, Dorset Square

Volume 2 Number 74

“And behold the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom.” Matthew 27:51

IT is a most delightful truth that the Savior died substitution-ally. He certainly did not die for himself; he died for sin, and he also died for sinners; he loved and gave himself for us; This is the sweet hope, the living hope.

Our text contains one of the significant circumstances that stood connected with the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. I say it is one of the significant circumstances; I will not notice the others, because that would take me astray from the main subject which our text brings before us. I shall therefore venture to assume that our text has a spiritual meaning; that it indicates something well worthy our attention. And in going through, then, the language of our text, I will notice in the first place that this veil that separated the holy place from the holy of holies was the way into the holy of holies; secondly, that it indicates the abolition of that which could not save, and the establishment of that which could save; and third, that it indicates that the mercy-seat of the blessed God is thrown open unto all nations, all the nations of the earth. I think these are three things that are fairly indicated in these words. First, the way into the holy of holies, and this will give us an opportunity of noticing some of the things that are intended by this veil being rent from the top to the bottom; then, as I have said, it will denote the abolition of a covenant or testament which could not save, and the establishment of one that does save; and then the throwing open of the mercyseat unto all the nations of the earth.

First: First then, I glance for a few moments at the truth that this veil was the way into the Holy of Holies. Now the first point that I wish to linger upon is this: that the High Priest was to go into the holy of holies alone; there was to be no person with him. Even to bring strange fire, to attempt to offer strange fire before the Lord, was, as we see in the case of Nadab and Abihu, death; and to enter into, to attempt to enter into the holy of holies apart from the priest, or without the priest, yes, or with the priest, was death, or if not death, at least highly displeasing to the Majesty of Heaven, as we see in the case of Uzziah. Let us then bring the matter close home. Now the priest was to atone for sins; and he was to go in alone, he was to go in by himself into the holy of holies with the blood of that sacrifice with which he had atoned for the sins of the people. So, the Lord Jesus Christ, he takes our sins, but he takes them by himself; of the people there is none with him; none can help him. Hence, he speaks as man, and he also speaks as God, in prediction upon this matter of his standing alone, bearing our sins alone, when he says, “I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold;” there he speaks as man; he looked around, and he saw one universal solitude, one universal blank; “there was none to uphold.” What then is to be done? He immediately falls back upon his own personal Godhead, falls back upon his own omnipotence; as though he should say, if there were any to help, I should not need such help; no; “therefore my own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me.” Here let me speak plain, once and for all, that sin is of that ponderous kind, of that ponderous nature, I mean when attached to its penalty, that none but an incarnate God could bear the weight thereof, and survive the same; that the curse is of that terrible nature that none but such a Person as this could bear that curse, and yet survive it. So that he must stand alone. And this is one thing in order to our salvation that we must be taught, that he bare all our sins, that his blood cleanses from all sin, that he by himself purged our sins; and when you are brought to feel this, then you will acknowledge him as your Representative; and you will have no hope from God or in God by anything of your own, but simply and exclusively by what he has done; Again, this priest was to enter with the breastplate into the holy of holies, and there to represent the people, without the people, mind; they were not to go in with him; he was to go in alone; because if one were to go in with him; it would have been almost like saying this, I need the priest to atone for me; but I do not exactly need him to plead my cause; and so I am come with him to hear him speak for others, but I am come to speak for myself. No, my hearer, it would have been death to attempt it. And just so with you, if you are taught of God your mouth will be stopped; and you will feel sure that if Jesus Christ does not plead your cause you cannot plead it yourself; you have not a single reason to assign why you should not be banished from the presence of God and from the glory of his power; so that you will now, being brought thus far, understand the meaning of the apostle Paul upon this matter; hear you the word of the Lord upon this matter; for Christ entering into the holy of holies for poor sinners, why, this great matter of his appearing before God for sinners, lost sinners, this great matter, the apostle Paul would teach us in the 6th of the Hebrews, is a matter of immutable oath; “He could swear by no greater, he swore by himself; surely blessing I will bless you;” and that he might reveal unto us the more clearly the immutability of his counsel, he confirmed it by an oath; that by two immutable things, his counsel and his oath, we might have strong consolation. How, where, which way, what is the order of this immutable oath; how, where, what is it? It stands thus; “Who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us; which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters into that within the veil.” Ah, when the right-minded Israel saw the priest go in he said, there goes my hope in the holy of holies; there go my prayers; there goes my desire, there goes my expectation; the priest is gone in, my hope is gone in with him; that is my anchorage ground; and God helping me, I will ride at anchor here, for the moorings are good, the cable is good, the anchor is good, and all is good; I will ride at anchor here; I shall not move from this; for by and bye the priest will return from the holy of holies, and return in all that ministerial blessedness that will satisfy my soul. And hence, the apostle, that we may not misunderstand this matter, says, “Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made a High Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.” Now my hearers, as the veil then between the holy and the most holy was the way to the mercy-seat, just so now if we are taught of God we can have no hope that can reach heaven only by Jesus Christ; we can have no hope that can reach to God but by Jesus Christ; we can have no consolation that will terminate tribulation but by Jesus Christ. Thus, much then, friends, for the entering in within the veil; but none, I say, but the priest; so, none but the Lord Jesus Christ could atone for sin: none but the Lord Jesus Christ could conquer death; none but the Lord Jesus Christ could thus appear acceptably before God for us.

But before I come to the rending of the veil, there is another matter I must notice, and that is this; that by the fall of man we were rent away from God, shall I use the expression, from the top of the law to the bottom. We were joined to God by that law which he gave us; but by the fall we were rent away from God from the top of the law to the bottom. Being thus rent entirely asunder from God, what is the position we came into? A position which we are ignorant of until God makes us sensible of it. I will try in very few words in this part, for it stands connected with our subject, to point it out to you. You recollect such words as these in the Bible; “your heaven that is over your head shall be brass, and the earth that is under you shall be iron.” This is just what our being rent from God brought us to; our sins form a brazen canopy between us and God, and shut us out from God for ever; our sin forms an iron pavement burning with God’s wrath, upon which we must walk to all eternity. We have thus worked out for ourselves a tremendous prison, a prison roofed with brass, paved with iron, and closed with all the terrible commandments of God’s eternal law. When a sinner is brought to feel that as a sinner he is thus rent asunder from God, and that he is already in prison; and will by and bye be in the prison of hell; the heavens that we are under by nature are brass; the earth that we spiritually stand upon by nature, if I may speak in a spiritual sense of this at all, hardly consistent so to do, is of iron. Now the Lord Jesus Christ came; he came down and rent these heavens, he tore down the brazen canopy of our sins; he has torn down this brazen canopy, he has torn up the iron pavement upon which we have stood; and he brings us out from under our sins to bring us under his mercy, to bring us under his loving-kindness, to bring us under a new heaven, where our sun will always shine, where our moon will not withdraw itself; and where prophetic and apostolic stars will shine to all eternity; where we have the former and the latter rain, and where we have not the earth as iron under our feet, but where we have a paradisaical land, our bed is green, everything paradisaical; the scene although changed; so that he rent the heavens, and then came down. Some people think that religion is a very simple matter. My hearer, let me tell you as a dying man, that God, and God only, is the only mystery that exceeds godliness; and I do not know that even I am right in saying that, because he himself in his being and doings is the godliness of his people; all my springs are in him. You think a few formalities, a few little bits of doings, are all that are required. Why, what can you do towards breaking down these brazen heavens, towards tearing up the iron pavement of your sins? And yet it must be done, or you are lost forever. Ah, says one, am I in such a state as that; is that how I am shut out from God? is that the prison I am in? is that my condition? Ah then, if that be true, I may well have no hope but in him that could break in pieces the gates of brass, that could cut in sunder the bars of iron; I may well have no hope but in him that can open this tremendous prison house: it was a prison house that nothing but his atoning power could open, his almighty power could open, his omnipotent arm could open; but in doing so he himself body and soul must be rent asunder; for the veil here spoken of means not only the way of access into the holy of holies, but it also means the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. This we can prove, or else we must not assert it, this we can prove from the holy scriptures. It means first the death of the Lord Jesus Christ; and it is rent from the top to the bottom. In the first place it conveys a kind of violence, not injustice, I do not mean that, but a kind of violence. To rend a thing indicates something violent, something forceful, something terrible, something awful. And so here the Lord Jesus Christ, our sins as it were rent his body and soul apart; the sword of justice severed as it were his body and his soul; our sins and God’s wrath all joined mightily, and shall I say violently upon him. Here the kingdom of heaven suffered violence; yes, the kingdom of heaven here suffered violence in a way none ever did. Rent from the top to the bottom; that, I say in the first-place parries with it the idea of something violent. Ah, it was an awful moment, it was a solemn hour when the Almighty Redeemer died. Again, it denotes, as I have hinted, the completeness of his death; rent from top to bottom. And so, Christ’s death was no make belief; it was a real thing; he died such a death as no person ever did die, no person ever can die; he died, I make no apology for saying it, he died ten thousand deaths in one. Take all his people, whatever may be their number, and it is a number that no man can number, and each of these must have died the second death. Christ took that second death due to his people, and died all their deaths in one. I am persuaded of it friends, that we are as little in reality acquainted with the deeps and the wonders of Christ’s death as we are with the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of that love of which Christ’s death is both the effect and the expression. He died all these deaths in one. No wonder, therefore, that rocks were rent; no wonder that graves should open; no wonder the earth should tremble; no wonder that this terraqueous globe should feel a shock it never felt before and never will again until his majestic voice shall awaken the dead, and send the globe back into its original nothingness. It was rent from top to bottom. It denotes then the completeness of his death. And then it denotes something else, that as his death was complete, so his separation from God, in a way we cannot explain, was complete also, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” We cannot explain it metaphysically, nor do we desire so to do. As Mister Hart says,

“The mystery here we cannot discuss;

But this we know, it was for us.”

But let us turn to another truth here, that as Christ’s soul and body were thus rent asunder, then, if we are joined to God by what he has done, there is no more separation. But let me authenticate what I am saying by the word of God. And this matter of Christ dying, this matter of his pouring out his soul unto death, this matter of soul and body being rent asunder, this matter of God forsaking him, and he crying in the anguish of his soul under that, is a new covenant affair, a new covenant matter, The apostle Paul in the 10th of the Hebrews speaks of it delightfully, and refers to this very point; “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts;” these laws, these laws of truth, these laws of faith, laws of love, laws of prayer, and so on; “and in their minds will I write them;” law of pardon, law of oblivion; “and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. “Now,” says the apostle, “where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he has consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh.” Now I think this scripture, friends, clearly shows that our text bears reference to the death of Jesus Christ; “a new and living way;” it is a new way; everything is new in it; it is a living way because there is no death in it, not to a poor sinner; for he that believes in Jesus, he who is brought by faith into this way has everlasting life, passed from death unto life, and cannot come into condemnation; “which he has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh.” Thus, then, Jesus is the way, and this Jesus was rent asunder for us, died for us, and has thus become the way of access unto the blessed God.

Second, I notice this veil also as expressive, the veil being rent, of the abolition of that which could not save, and the bringing in of that which does save. And I may, and I think I ought in connection with this, just to observe that in connection with this change of things, the abolition of that that cannot save, and the establishment of that that can, I think I ought in this part just to notice another veil, that of ignorance, under which we all are by nature. What is it, where is the ignorance? Just bear with me here, friends, for it is a most solemn part of our subject; when I say that we are by nature utterly ignorant of what, if we are connected with the better hope, we are made acquainted with. Let us try ourselves by the test; let us ask whether we have ever been brought into that knowledge, or out of that ignorance, which the apostle describes. In 1 Corinthians 3 the apostle describes spiritual knowledge in a very beautiful way. He says, “You are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ;” and after that he goes on to show two things with which they were made acquainted; but before I go on to those two, I just linger on that point for a moment; “manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink.” The Jews had a register; and as their children were born, the names of those children were registered with ink; but when they died their names were blotted out and that was called the book of life. Now if our names were written in that way, there would be no permanence about it; so they are not written with ink, for that is too weak, that would not last; that is destructible, that is temporal; “but with the Spirit of the living God;” it is the truth of God in its living power, written by the Spirit of God in your soul; so that that truth has brought life to you: so that you are a praying man to prove that you are a living man; you are a believing man to prove that you are a living man; you are a Christ loving man to prove that you are a living man; and you are a God seeking man to prove that you are a living man. So then not written with ink, namely, the old covenant in the letter; that would soon be blotted out. But again, he says, “Not in tables of stone;” the ink would be too soft, and the tables of stone would be too hard; for the tables of stone contain such conditions that you can never meet them: the tables of stone would speak to you in this way; “Cursed is he that continues not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them; he that is guilty of one point is guilty of all; by the works of the law shall no flesh living be justified.” So then write your name in the old covenant, the mere letter, it is soon blotted out; write your name in the law, and be determined to follow God by the law, you will find the marble tables such hard terms that you can never come up them. But the apostle tells us that it is neither of these; “Written not with ink,” that may be blotted out, “but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone,” for the terms would be too hard, “but in fleshly tables of the heart.” There God in characters of blood has written your peace, written your pardon, written your freedom, written your justification; he inscribed this upon your soul; and you walk about, and bear with you this inscription, a pardoned sinner, a justified sinner, a saved sinner, a loved sinner, a brand plucked from the burning; “written in the fleshly tables of the heart;” and thus you become a living, practical witness that the Lord is good, and that his mercy endures forever. Here then the veil is taken away; here you begin to see out of obscurity; and here you begin to see God and the way to God. But the apostle is very particular upon two points; namely, the law and the gospel. The law, he says, is the ministration of death. Let me ask this assembly, one and all, what you know in your own conscience about that; for it is a matter of personal feeling. Have, you been or are you so convinced that the law is spiritual and you are carnal. that you have a consciousness of death within you; that the law of God has put a negative upon all your holiness, and righteousness, and goodness; that the Spirit of God has blown upon your fleshly excellency, and it is all withered and gone; there you stand, a law condemned sinner. If so, then the ground is prepared for the good seed; you are prepared to receive the other side; namely, that the gospel is the ministration of life. Mark that; just so sure as the law kills, the gospel makes alive; and just so sure as the law puts a negative upon all your righteousness, so the gospel brings in a righteousness for you; and just so sure as the law is done away by Jesus Christ, he being the end of the law, just so sure shall the gospel remain. But alas, alas, the veil is upon the hearts not only of Jews, but also of Gentiles till the everlasting God shall rend that veil of ignorance from top to bottom. And notice, the veil of the temple, rent as described in our text, was not rent by man, nor rent by angels, nor rent by Satan; it was rent by the living God. And so, it pleased God to put Christ to grief; and so, it is the work of God now to rend the veil of a sinner’s ignorance. It always begins at the top, not at the bottom if the sinner begins to look up, light comes down; he begins to see out of security; he begins to see something in God to be alarmed at, something to be terrified at, something to tremble at, something to shrink from; and then God rends the veil a little farther; and he will go on rending your ignorance till he has rent it from top to bottom; and you will come by and bye into the open daylight, the everlasting daylight, as the church is described in the Book of Revelation, clothed with the sun walking in the moonlight of the gospel, a crown of twelve stars upon her head; so shall it be with you if you shall be wrapped in the rays of the Sun of Righteousness, and walk in the moonlight of the gospel, and anticipate that twelve fold crown which you shall receive when you get to the end of your journey, and bless God that he who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in your hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Here then the veil of ignorance is rent; here is the abolition of that which cannot save us, and the revelation to us and the establishment of that, that does save us. And what is like it? I have not done yet with this part. The apostle says, “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” I have quoted the words; now. let us analyze them. “Beholding as in a glass.” What is this glass? I think in our analyzing that verse, the glass, will prove to be the gospel. Let me illustrate it this way; suppose there is a person upon whom your life depends; a frown from him means your death; a smile from him means your life, your pardon, and your freedom. Where can I see that person? Can’t see him at all sir; there is only one way in which you can see him; he occupies such a position that if you look into a certain glass, you may look all-round the room, east, west, north, south, you cannot see him but if you look into a certain glass he occupies such a position that in that glass you will catch a glimpse of his countenance; and if you look into that glass, and his eye meets yours, and you seem by the very movement of his holy lips to recognize him as saying to you, “Blessed is he whosoever is not offended in me; him that comes unto me I will in no way cast out;” poor sinner, look unto me, and be you saved, it would melt your heart, win your affections, and you would feel that you are free, and that all is well; for you have beheld as in a glass the glory of the Lord, and you are changed into the same image; it has assimilated you to him; you love him, you adore him, you admire him, and you will never forget that period when first you were inspired with love towards him, much less forget his love towards you: his eyes, as a flame of fire, penetrating your inmost soul, burning up all your troubles, warming your heart, and making Christ more precious than language can describe. Suppose now your life then, I say, depended upon a person that you could see only in a certain glass; what would you think of that man that should come and take that glass away? what would you think of that man that should be determined to cover up three parts of that glass? What would you think of that man that should turn that glass back side before? What would you think of that man who should take that glass down, and put one of his own manufacture into the place of it? What would you think of him? Why, say you, I hardly know what to think of him. Well I must leave you to guess who the man is. What do you mean, sir? Why, what are we to think of the man who would take the gospel from us? What are we to think of those men that are determined to obscure three parts of the glass, and to bring the glass into such a position that they give us in reality other glasses by which to see the Lord; and the Lord they give us to see is a Lord of their own making, a Christ of their own making. Many a poor sinner looks into the glass of a false gospel, and says, Oh I have seen the Lord, I have seen the Lord. What sort of a Lord have you seen? Well, I have seen one that makes it my duty to go to heaven. Ah, that is not God’s Christ. Then I have seen one whose blood cleans from some sin, and leaves me to do the rest. Ah, that is not God’s Christ. Well, I have seen one that tells people if they will not have him, though he has not love enough to put forth power enough to save them, he has hatred and wrath enough to put forth power enough to damn them; though he has not love enough to save them, he has wrath enough to damn them; and it is their own fault if they are damned. Ah, that is not God’s Christ; he is a good minister that can so hold the glass of the gospel as to reflect the person of Christ in his real dignity; to reflect the person of Christ in his real characters; to reflect the person of Christ in his real achievements; to reflect the person of Christ in his real glory; that minister is a very skillful man. But even this view of Christ in the glass of the gospel will not lay hold of us except the Spirit of the Lord be there: for it is by the Spirit of the Lord our God. Thus then, friends, when the veil of' ignorance is rent, we come to know that the law is the ministration of death; the gospel is the ministration of life; and it is in a free-grace glass, the glass of a free-grace gospel, that we behold the glory of God.

Third: I come now to the last proposition; that the rending of the veil indicates, in addition to all I have said, The throwing open of the mercy-seat unto all nations. What a sweet scripture is that; “preach the gospel to every creature;” every minister loves that scripture; “preach the gospel to every creature.” Some people speak of us as though we wanted to shut the gospel up under a bushel. Tell, their charge against us is not so heavy as ours is against them; for due solemnly, I say it without partiality, passion, or fear, or prejudice, I do solemnly believe that these men to a man that accuse us of shutting the gospel up in a corner are the very men themselves that really do it. You go and hear them; and if they preach one real, out-and-out gospel sermon in the letter of it, there are two or three sermons just after it to smother it and apologize for it; so that they are the very men that do it. We want to shut it up in a corner! Yes, they sent, as I named in my own pulpit the other night, some gentlemen sent a list to me, and they wanted to raise £500 to pay the expenses of preaching in the theatres; would I help them? But they didn’t ask me to preach; didn’t ask me for that; no. Why not? Because they do not like the gospel preached to every creature; they like their lies and their delusions to be preached to every creature; but they are not willing that God’s gospel, everlasting love, elective grace, mediatorial triumph, the Holy Spirit’s efficiency, God’s counsel, and that cuts the sinner up root and branch, makes his conversion real, brings him over into God’s order of things, to God’s Christ, to God’s righteousness, and into that liberty which is in Christ; that is the gospel they cannot endure. They are buying up all the young men now, buying them up. And they are quite welcome to all they can buy; for a man that will sell himself, he is not much account. I tell you this, that those young men, or old ones either, for there are some of both, that have professed the truth, and are now bought over to duty-faith, I will make no promise to pay or give a single farthing towards buying them back again, they are much better out of the way, for they have been deceiving us; we thought they were in earnest, that they meant it; but alas, alas, the hypocrisy of the heart was made manifest before the whole congregation. Depend upon it, if a man’s heart is not right, he is right nowhere. But keeping to the point, we love this scripture, “preach the gospel to every creature;” only mind it must be the gospel. What does your minister do in running up and down England? Why, he preaches the gospel to everyone who will hear him, certainly he does. I’d preach for any man; I would preach for the Archbishop of Canterbury, or for the Pope. We are to preach the gospel wherever we can. What a mercy for us, friends, that there are such scriptures as these to be realized; “God be merciful unto us, and bless us, and cause his face to shine upon us.” What then? Are we partakers of mercy? Does the Lord bless us? Does he shine upon us? What then? “That your way may be known;” ah, that’s it, that’s it, that’s it, when a poor sinner becomes himself a partaker of mercy, he will preach the same mercy to others; when a poor sinner derives it all from being blessed in Christ Jesus, he will preach the same to others. When the Lord shines upon the poor sinner, and sends him out to testify the same to others, “then your way shall be known upon the earth,” your “saving health” and that is Christ, he is our saving health, no health without him; he is the health of our countenance; it is by him that the Lord restores health unto us; “then you’re saving health shall be known among all nations; then shall the earth;” the gospel land, “yield her increase”, and God, our own God, shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth “shall fear him.” Oh, yes; they say, ah, well, these hypers they are very few now; they will soon be less. Well the few are not always to be despised; there are plenty of instances, a remark which has been made before, it does not originate with myself, I met with it somewhere, there are plenty of instances in the Bible of its being much better to be one of the few, than one of the many. I would rather be one with Noah in the ark than one with all the world out of it; I would rather be one with Lot coming out of Sodom than one with all the people in Sodom; I would rather be one with those few alarmed disciples that fled from Jesus, yet still loved him, than be one with the vast multitudes that crucified the Savior; I would rather be one with solitary Elisha than one with the great people of the earth. When the vast multitudes came against Elisha, his servant, poor young man, cried out, “Alas, my master; how shall we do?” He had not lost his great we yet, “how shall we do?” we do, we do? Astonishing how this editorial we, we, we, does follow us. “How shall we do, we do? we do?” A pretty do it would be. Why, you don’t know what to do, do you? No; how shall we, do? Do? why, do nothing; stand still, and see the salvation of God. Lord, open the eyes of the young man, and he will soon get rid of his we, soon get rid of his “How shall we do?” and get rid of his do as well. When the Lord opened his eyes, then he saw, “and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha;” and here was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with them. “Greater is he that is for us than all that that can be against us.” So, then, my hearers, the great question is not who is on our side among men, but whether the living God be on our side; and if he be on our side, if God be for us who can be against us? “Preach the gospel,” then, “to every creature.” You Wesleyans, you say we do not preach the gospel to every creature. Let me come and give you a sermon next Sunday in your chapel, and see if I don’t. You, Mister Duty-faith, come creeping in this evening; must break down, can’t preach above another sermon, come here to get a few ideas to mold into your own shape; it is a fact I could prove it, that nine-tenths, of your duty-faith parsons borrow their best ideas, although they cripple them and spoil them, from men of truth; you say, Ah, that man does not preach the gospel to every creature. Let me come and preach it to you on Sunday; I will let you know, let the place be as full as it may; I will venture to speak out that truth fully to the people which God has spoken to my soul.

So, then the mercy-seat is thrown open; there is not a poor sinner east, west, north, or south, let him be what he may, sensible of what he is that is not welcome here. Ah, take Peter’s vision; whether you are a creeping thing, a four-footed beast a wild beast a flying Pharisee; be you whatever you may have been, yet if made sensible of your need of mercy Jew, or Gentile, male or female, bond or free, old or young, the veil is rent, the mercy-seat is thrown open; “go you into all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you;” and in executing this commission, in thus abiding by the truth, “I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

[We had purposed to have given a double number this week, but Mr. Wells being unable to preach last Sunday, from loss of voice, we give this Sermon preached on Friday evening at Mr. Foreman’s chapel, Mount Zion, Hill Street, Dorset Square.]