A SERMON
Preached on Sunday Morning, May 11th, 1862
By Mister JAMES WELLS
AT THE SURREY TABERNACLE, BOROUGH ROAD
Volume 4 Number 177
THESE words, as most of you. know, were our text last Lord’s Day morning; and I did then intend to set before you the signs that accompany the progress of this kingdom; secondly, the order of this kingdom; and thirdly, the ultimate certainty thereof. But the describing the signs that accompany the progress of this kingdom occupied all the time and space we had. I therefore felt that I could not very well let these words go without once more bringing them before you, which I hope and trust will not be unprofitable unto us, to notice this morning the two remaining departments, namely, the order of the kingdom, and the ultimate certainty of the kingdom.
I notice then, first, the order of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ; and I take up this second part, in a great measure, for the same purpose that I dwelt upon the other, namely, to distinguish those who belong to this kingdom from those who do not belong to this kingdom; for, after all, there is no medium between the two; either we are born of God or we are not; either we are in a state of nature or in a state of grace; either we are under the powers of darkness or under the government of grace; there is no medium between the two, we must be in one of these two states. And I need not remind you of the fearful consequences if we are still dead in sin, dying in that state, the destiny of such is fearful to think of, and its realization terrible, of course, beyond all description. But my object this morning, in the first part, is to notice the order of this kingdom pertaining to the people. Now, the order of it is an order of faith. That little word has been, is, and will be, of great use to us, to enable us, while we live, to understand things. So many things we cannot understand without faith. We cannot understand how we can live, or how we can be pardoned, or sanctified, or justified, or saved, or accepted, or how the Lord can dwell with us, or how we can dwell with him, in any other way than by faith. That beautiful little word explains the whole. Let us, then, notice the Savior’s account of this matter in the 16th of Mark, and again in the last chapter of Luke. In the 16th of Mark, the Savior, when sending his apostles to preach the gospel to every creature, only it must be the gospel, and also it must be preached, not offered. Now to preach simply signifies to proclaim; and it is to be proclaimed east, west, north, and south, to every creature, he did not command the apostles to offer the gospel, but to preach it, proclaim it. And I think that 1st verse of the 55th chapter of Isaiah, is a very beautiful explanation of the Savior’s words; for while the New Testament, in a great many respects, explains the Old, the Old also throws light upon a great many passages of the New Testament. Hence, the ancient proclamation was, “He, everyone that thirsts”, now that was to be publicly proclaimed, “everyone that thirsts, come you to the waters, and he that has no money, come you, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price.” Now, this is not offered to any, but it is proclaimed; and while it is proclaimed, the persons to whom the blessings belong are characterized by what is their state, “everyone that thirsts.” Then, of course, the answer is, Where is the propriety of preaching it to those that do not thirst; of proclaiming it in the ears of those that have no thirst for God's mercy, that are not brought under any conviction of their state, and therefore know nothing of the feverish state of soul engendered by conviction of sin, and under the tuition of God's fiery law? it may be said, Where is the propriety? The answer is that by means of the proclamation of the gospel the Lord quickens the dead, the Lord brings conviction, the Lord creates the thirst, the Lord himself does the work. And hence, in another scripture it is said that “He shall send out his angels with a great sound of a trumpet;” and while the sound is to be sounded out in the hearing of all, yet we know that the ingathering will be governed by the good pleasure of God. “For he shall gather together from the four winds his elect;” for “the election has obtained it; and the rest were blinded.”
But my business this morning is to set forth the order of this kingdom. Now, “He that believes and is baptized shall be saved; he that believes not shall be damned” or shall be judged, as the words, with equal propriety, might be rendered. Let us, then, look at these words. “He that believes and is baptized shall be saved.” Now, the faith there spoken of does not mean mere natural faith; it means a supernatural, vital faith, such as none but the Lord can give, and such as I will, with all the care I can, as I go along, describe. Now, what shall we understand by the words connected therewith, “He that believes and is baptized”? If that means the ordinance of baptism, then the meaning must be, that he that believes and is not ashamed of my commandments, is not ashamed to own me, but comes forward, and publicly puts on Christ, obeys his command, goes through the ordinance of baptism, he that believes, and is not ashamed thus to own me, he shall be saved. He that believes, and is ashamed publicly to own me, ashamed of me, and of my words, and of my commands, and of my way's, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels. That is the way in which I interpret these words, if the word “baptized” there mean the ordinance of baptism. Of course, there are some who say that it does not there mean the ordinance of baptism, but that it means the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Well, perhaps it does. I will give way to that. I will even give up the idea of its meaning the ordinance of baptism at all in that scripture. I am a Baptist, a decided Baptist, a strict Baptist; but I can afford to believe that the baptism of the Holy Ghost is there intended, without at all giving up the position I occupy as a Baptist. But why do I say I am a strict Baptist? Why, nearly all are Baptists. The Church of England is one of the strictest Baptists. Why, they will not even bury a child that has not been what they call baptized. The Independents are Baptists; only they make baptism to consist of sprinkling; and nearly all the Dissenters are Baptists. Why, the Wesleyans are Baptists; only they make it to consist in sprinkling. The Church of England are Baptists; the Independents are Baptists, except here and there one. There are some of them, certainly, that neither sprinkle nor immerse; but the majority of them are Baptists; only I do not myself believe that any of them are scripturally Baptists; nor does Dr. Wiseman either, for he tells us, in his work contrasting Protestantism with Catholicism, that in the process of time, when the Church saw the inconvenience of immersion, and I suppose the Doctor thought the Almighty had made a mistake in instituting immersion, he says, the Church interposed her authority, and substituted sprinkling for immersion. So, the Roman Catholic Church is a strict Baptist church; the Church of England is a strict Baptist church; Independents are Baptists; and Baptists are Baptists. Why, after all, there are more Baptists than people suppose; if they would but just have it in the right way, that is all. So that, if the Catholics would just come to immersion, and the Church of England just come to immersion, and our Independent brethren, if they would just come over to immersion, why, we should be all right at once then; there would be no more dispute, then, as to baptism. I thought I would just make these remarks because people call us bigoted, you bigoted Baptists.
But let us come back, then, to business, and let us take baptism to mean the baptism of the Holy Ghost; I have no objection to that. Then here, again, you meet with an objection. Some of our Baptist brethren believe that the baptism of the Holy Ghost never means his ordinary work at all, but that it always means the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost. John Andrew Jones wrote a work some years ago in favor of baptism, a work that never was, and never will be refuted; it will do that venerable man of God’s name honor when he is no more; the only blemish in the work is that he holds the idea that the baptism of the Holy Ghost means always his miraculous gifts, but never means his ordinary work. I was rather sorry to see that in it; it is no very serious blemish to the work, but it is, I think, a little blemish. It might seem presumptuous in me, with my humble experience and judgment, and comparative nonage to some of these venerable divines, it may seem, perhaps, presumptuous on my part to differ from them, but when I read the 13th verse of the 12th chapter of 1st Corinthians, there I have these words, and they make me feel that the Holy Spirit’s ordinary work is called baptism. You have there these words: “For by one Spirit are we, all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” You perceive that there is in these words an allusion to both the ordinances; in the first place, “By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free;” there is the ordinance of baptism referred to as a figure, clearly so; and then at the close of that verse he says, “and have been all made to drink into one Spirit;” now that drinking has an allusion evidently to the Lord’s Supper. And before I come back to this believing and being baptized, I must just drop one word, which I want your attention to very particularly, because it is of such vital importance. “We have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” Now, the two questions are, first, What spirit is that? and the second is, Do we ourselves drink into that spirit? If you ask the question, which is a proper one, What is the spirit to which the apostle there refers? the dear Savior shall answer the question. He said, “Take this; this is my blood in the New Testament.” So, then, it is a new covenant spirit, the spirit of a covenant that is ordered in all things and sure; the spirit of the covenant where the dear Savior, I cannot help calling him dear, for who that knows him in this new covenant can but love him? having by his infinitely precious blood sealed the covenant, made it unbreakable, impregnable, invulnerable, infallible, immutable, eternal, triumphal; this everlasting covenant that the dear Mediator has sealed by his blood, having put away sin, destroyed the whole, brought in eternal righteousness, established a conquest worthy of an incarnate God; this is the blood of the New Testament.
Now, my hearer, if you are a Christian, this is the gospel into which you will drink, this is the spirit that you will be of, this is the spirit to which your soul will answer. It is the spirit of the new covenant, all embodied in the new covenant shall know me, from the least to the greatest; not one shall be left in ignorance; all your children shall know the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children. Thus, then, I think that if you look to that passage in 1st Corinthians, you will feel with me that while the baptism of the Holy Ghost does refer very frequently, and mostly, to the miraculous gifts bestowed in ancient times, it does also refer to his usual work, saving work, in bringing sinners to know the Lord. All baptized by one Spirit into one body, into ono mystic body: and that body has one Spirit as the life of it, and that spirit is the Holy Spirit, and that spirit is a free spirit, that spirit is an eternal spirit, that spirit is on almighty spirit, uniting us with an Almighty Savior, an Almighty Father, and bringing us thus to know that God in the new-covenant is our eternal portion. Well, now, he that believes, then, and is baptized by the Holy Ghost. Now, baptism conveys two ideas, death and resurrection; and if we believe, and are not baptized by the Holy Ghost, then our faith is vain. Before I enter into it, I will remind you of a like scripture in the 11th chapter of John: “He that lives and believes in me, shall never die. Believe you this?” said the Lord to Martha. Notice that, “he that lives and believes.” There are a great many scriptures which say, “He that believes has everlasting life,” where the qualities of that faith are not described, but only implied. People say, Oh, simply believe, and only believe, and only believe. Ah, my hearer, you may put yourself off with this, and like other people to put you off with it, but it is “He that lives and believes.” If there be not the life of the Spirit at the root of your faith, if your faith in Christ does not arise from life in the soul, then that faith, having no root, will by-and-bye wither, will come, to nothing, and leave you to lie down in eternal despair. Well, then, “he that believes, and is baptized.” Baptism signifies death; you go down into the water, and, as it were, for a moment die. Just so with true faith, as it unites you to Christ, who is the end of sin: and by his becoming to you the end of sin, it is there, in Christ, not in yourself, but in Christ, you become dead to sin, but alive unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ. In Christ Jesus there you die to the law; you become dead to all human works, human merits, everything of the kind; you acknowledge the majesty of the law, and Christ Jesus becomes to you the end of the law, and you die to the law, and the law dies to you. Third, Christ Jesus is the end of the world; this world in its irreligion and in its religion both, they are no longer your element or your hope; you are at any rate, as far as spiritual things are concerned, dead thereto, but alive to another order of things, to another world, even to that covenant that is ordered in all things and sure. And then, fourth, Christ is the end of death; he has swallowed up death in victory; he has taken away the sting of death. And so if my faith be by the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and I am united to the mystic body of Christ, initiated into his kingdom, brought by his quickening power into his kingdom, I shall see my need, and feel my need of Christ as the end of sin, and by his being the end of sin, I am dead to that, and that to me; by his being the end of the law, I am dead to the law, and that to me; by his being the end of the world, I am dead to it, and it to me; by his being the end of death, I am dead to that, and that to me. I think, therefore; that the usual work of the Blessed Spirit, taking this view, may well be called baptism; it brings us under this mystic death; and, says the apostle, “I through the law am dead to the law;” and again, “Sin revived, and I died;” and again, “I die daily;” all meaning the same thing. Now, my hearer, let us ask the question, Is it so? Are we convinced that sin is that which can never die but by the infinite efficacy of the death of Christ? Are we convinced that the law of God is that that we can never reach its end, but by Christ being unto us the end of that law? and are we convinced that Jesus Christ alone can sever our hearts from the world that now is, and set our affections upon a better world? and are we convinced that death is that which cares nothing for anything but Christ, that he has swallowed up death in victory? Now he that thus believes with this vital faith, this faith by which he is brought to Christ, to receive Christ as the end of all these deadly powers, that man shall be saved. And then, as baptism signifies death, it signifies resurrection as well and so, as you are dead to sin, what is the way in which the man that is dead to sin rises above it? We are thus raised up to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; or, according to the Old Testament, “I am poor and sorrowful, let your salvation, O God, set me up on high.” Again, “They shall be exalted in your righteousness,” and again, “O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory? The strength of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, that gives us the victory by our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Thus, then, the order of Christ’s kingdom is that he that believes with this faith that brings him under conviction of his need of Christ and is led to receive Christ of necessity. Nothing short of this will do; you may have all the faith of the stony ground, thorny ground, and wayside hearer; you may have mental faith, and moral faith, and natural faith, and a comfortable faith as far as nature is concerned; but all this is nothing; it is all very well as far as moral and social purposes are concerned; but when we come to salvation matters, there stands the declaration, never to be altered, “You must be born again;” and unless we possess that faith that makes way for Christ in the respects that I have stated, then our faith is a thing of nothing, and we are no more in the kingdom of God than Satan himself is there. No, my hearers, let us not deceive ourselves; Jesus Christ came to do a work which none, but an incarnate God could do, and God the Father has declared that Christ shall be honored even as the Father is honored; and he knows whether we possess that faith that brings us to nothing, and thus makes Christ everything.
Then, this faith goes on to repentance, and to remission of sins, and to power from on high, and, said the Savior, “Thus it behooved Christ to suffer;” it became him to suffer; “Ought not, Christ to suffer?” The original word there translated “ought,” there would have been no violation to the original if we were to say it was Christ’s duly to suffer, it was the debt that he owed. But how did it become his debt? How did he become a debtor? How did it become his duty? Must not the Scriptures answer the question thus, that his goings forth were from of old, even from everlasting; that he entered as a Divine Person into eternal covenant with the Father and with the Spirit, to become, in the fulness of time, the Babe of Bethlehem, to take upon him the seed of Abraham; and by virtue of his own loving, gracious, free, eternal undertaking, it became right that he should do what he undertook to do; it became Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory. He thus became a debtor voluntarily in the high counsels of eternity; voluntarily while he was on earth, he became a debtor to do the whole law, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached among all nations in his name. Now, mark the order of this kingdom, that those who are blessed with this faith, this faith embodies in it repentance. The original idea of repentance is that of change; it is a change from enmity to love; it is a change from ignorance to knowledge; it is a change from hostility to sweet harmony. And so, it is remarkable the Savior places his death and resurrection, interposes his death and resurrection, and then brings repentance into connection with that. He is appointed to give repentance unto Israel. And if I have that faith that includes repentance; if the repentance that I have had, and have, be true, it is that kind of change in which I am brought to love Christ; brought into harmony with Christ; brought to know him; and be one with him. I repent of all hostility against him; I repent of all objection to him; I repent of, and loathe, and renounce, my former state, and come into sweet fellowship with him who has said, “Him that comes unto me I will in no way cast out.”
Now, then, let us have a word in this part, if I can, for the little ones. Perhaps there may be one saying, Well, I can see that if ever I reach the end of sin, the end of the law, and the end of the curse, and the end of trouble, and the end of the world, and the end of death; and if ever I reach the plains of life, the worlds of light, the kingdom of glory, I see it must be by Jesus Christ; but I don’t feel that he is made all that unto me, and I am afraid he never will be. In the second place, perhaps you can say, Well, so far from my having any hostility to him on the ground of that perfection of his work which I know to be generally disliked, but which perfection, if I have any hope at all, that is my hope; I have no other hope but that, if I have any hope at all; and, perhaps, I have no business to encourage myself with any hope in God. I can go with all you say, and acquiesce in it all, and nothing else will do; but, after all, I am afraid it is not mine. Well, I say, if these are your feelings, you will by-and-bye realize more yet; though your faith may be small, it is real; though your repentance be not, perhaps, that which you could wish, so as to assure you that a real change is wrought, yet there you stand on that ground of hope that is every way encouraging, nay, assuring, for Jesus has said, “Him that comes unto me I will in no way cast out.” The chief thing that I insist upon is poverty of spirit, a right sense of need. If there is no terror, yet there must be a sight and sense of need. He will begin to pray; he will begin to seek; he will begin to long after the Lord. This is the order of his kingdom. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of God.” If you are saying, Well, I cannot say that I am justified, or sanctified, or forgiven, or saved, or that I am a Christian; I hardly know what to say. But perhaps you say, I can say one thing; I can say that I am poor and needy! I can say that nothing else will do for me but such a Jesus Christ as this. Now, did you always see and feel that? Were those your convictions always? Perhaps you will say, Well, not exactly, but still I was not convinced of my poverty in that conspicuous, instantaneous way I could wish. Never mind that; you know the Lord brings light into the mind instantaneously, or by degrees, as seems good in his sight. While on the one hand, therefore, you must avoid delusion, on the other hand, I would not unnecessarily discourage; even where there be a grain of faith I would aim to water that grain of faith; where there be but a little, hope, I would aim to nourish that hope; and if there be but a little love to the Lord, because of so many doubts and fears enslaving the soul, I would not say a word of discouragement. And you will find that if you watch your own feelings, and own experience, and own exercises, you will find that you will be able to say one thing when you can say nothing else, namely, “I am poor and needy.” Why, you may get so low, the apostle says, “To will is present with me;” say you, I do not even feel that. You may get so low that you have not the least spirit of prayer, you seem to be stripped of everything spiritual; and yet, with all your destitution, you can say that you are poor and needy. And then, I should wish you to observe something else, the great use of this sense of poverty to you. When you hear gospels preached wherein the creature is called upon to do a great part of the work, what a tantalization such a gospel is to you. You are poor and needy; you have no strength; you have no power; your strength and power are gone; so that this poverty keeps you where the real gospel is, keeps you to the truth; no other gospel is of any use to you; and so, I find it. Men cannot distinguish, or do not, at least, between the spirit and the letter of God’s word. The letter of God’s word tells us to do many things, but we know those things can be done only as the Lord enables us. We are to work out our own preservation, for the word salvation there means preservation; we are to work out our own preservation by abiding in the truth. “Take heed unto yourself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them; for in doing this you shall both save,” that is, preserve, “yourself and them that hear you.” We are to work out our own preservation by abiding in the truth, with fear and trembling; that is what the word of God orders us to do. But have we this precept at command, or any precept at command? No, says the apostle; as though he should say, You will say. Well, but I do not abide by the truth with that delight I could wish; I do not profit by it as I could wish; I do not go on in prayer and in the things of God as I could wish. And where is the secret of it all? Why, it is God that works in you, to will and to do of his good pleasure; not only does it depend upon him, but he makes his good pleasure the rule, mark that; and. that good pleasure is in Christ; for the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in the Redeemer’s hands. Now, this is the order of his kingdom.
He will leave in the midst of Zion an afflicted and poor people. What will he do with the others? Send them away. He will gather out of his kingdom every one that is not poor and needy. Every one that is not poor and needy enough to need his righteousness as their wedding garment, shall be bound hand and foot, and cast out; but he never did, and never will, cast out the poor and needy. He shall leave in the midst of you an afflicted and a poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord.
True faith, then, brings us to a sense of need, brings us to receive the truth. True repentance brings us into harmony with Christ’s death, and resurrection, and eternal, glory, together with the certainty of his truth; and herein is remission of sins. And when am I to have that remission of sins? Why, the words the Savior addressed to the disciples may apply to us in another sense, “Tarry you in Jerusalem, until you be endued with power from on high.” These words, referring primarily to the disciples, waiting in Jerusalem till the day of Pentecost, unquestionably have another meaning as well, may be applied, in another, sense as well. And have not the words encouraged many a poor, self-despairing soul, “Tarry you in Jerusalem until you be endued with power from, on high”? Ah! say you, what is the good of my reading the Bible, or going to chapel anymore? What is the good of my seeking the Lord anymore? My hope is vain; my hope and strength are perished from the Lord, Here I go, month after month, perhaps year after year, and I labor, and toil, and am anxious about my soul at times, and then it seems to go off again; and what am I to do? There is the direction, “Tarry in Jerusalem,” Tarry there, and don’t go away; the vision is for an appointed time. And there is a vision for you; for just so sure as the Lord has given you an humbling vision of yourself, for vision means revelation, something seen, and as the Lord has given you to see your own poverty and destitution, and thus humbled you, there is a vision of glory for you in time; for Christ is exalted that he may have mercy upon you, and he will wait his own appointed time. Ah! I can hardly find language to express, shall I say? the trembling I feel at the delusions almost everywhere abroad. “Come to Christ, at once,” say they; “come tonight. You may be justified this moment if you like. Believe now.” Why, all this, my hearer, is that which the natural man likes to hear; and all such oratory may work up the fleshly feeling, and bring people into a profession of the name of Christ; but such professors are met with the solemn declaration, “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his” and “Every plant which my Father has not planted shall be rooted up,” When I hear men talk about coming to Christ, as though it was something the creature could do something towards, it betrays a something somewhere, either that such men are out of the secret, or else they are dreadfully left to Satanic delusion; themselves deceived, and deceiving others. You, perhaps, some of you, may not like my thus speaking; but the last two or three days I have to live, I must be what I have been; I must be honest and decided. And, as the Lord lives, I would not give a single rush for my coming to Christ, if I am not brought by the attractions of God the Father, by the quickening power of the Eternal Spirit. If I am not brought under a sight and sense of need, so as to feel that in laying hold of Christ in what he has done, I lay hold of something I cannot part with. It is mine all for time, it is mine all for eternity. Never let a man persuade you, you are come to Christ, when you are not. Don’t be so deluded. Never let a man persuade you, you are a Christian; don’t come to that conclusion by any human persuasion whatever. Well, say you, but you have been trying to encourage us this morning. I have not been encouraging you to believe that you are what you are not. I have been saying, if you know your poverty, and your need of Christ in those respects that I have stated, then it is the Lord that has thus taught you your poverty-smitten state, and he will hear the prayer of the destitute; and I say to such, that you are born of God. I believe that you are, and that you can go nowhere else but to where the truth is. Nothing else will do; you will tarry in Jerusalem until you shall be endued with power from on high.
Then I intended, secondly, to show the certainty of this kingdom. This world is so full of uncertainty; every day reminds us of this. We have, pretty well every week, to lift up our eyes and hands at something, somewhere or another, giving way. Not so here, in the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a certainty about it; no danger of its breaking down.; Now, take Isaiah, take the angel, take the Savior’s own words, take the ultimate glory, whichever view you take, you are presented, in every department, with the certainty of this kingdom. Take Isaiah; Christ shall go living on, and on, and on; “of the increase of his government, and of peace, there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom.” Now, kings have reigned; and do now, in some parts of the world, that if they can enjoy themselves in their palace, and on their throne, they care nothing for their subjects; but here the peace is to be upon the throne and the people. Notice that. There is nothing to be laid to their charge. Now, I let some of you into the secret the other night. Well, say you, what secret is that? Why, the 121st Psalm: “The Lord shall preserve you from all evil.” How? Why, by keeping you in Christ Jesus, in whom you are justified from all things. And who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? There no evil shall touch you no plague shall come near your dwelling. A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, but no evil shall befall you there. “Of the increase of his government, and of peace, there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth, even forever.” Peace shall pervade the whole; the king happy, God rejoicing, and the people glorying in him. Ah! say some, I am afraid that is rather a dangerous doctrine. I care no more for human quibbles than I do for the chirping of a grasshopper. There is God’s word; and I never expect to see his face with joy, but by the perfection that is in Christ Jesus. I never expect to be presented before his throne without blame, blemish, spot, or wrinkle, but by Christ Jesus. And if that be dangerous, God be praised for such a dangerous doctrine! It is a doctrine dangerous to Satan’s kingdom; dangerous to the craft of your free-will and duty faith parsons. It overturns their trade, swallows up the rods of the magicians, and leaves them nothing to do, and nothing to work with. Gabriel, the archangel, if a free-willer, or a dutyfaith man, could have met the archangel half-way from heaven, Gabriel, Where go you? I am going to see Mary, the appointed mother of the coming Savior. What doctrine are you going to preach? Well, I am going to say that he shall be the holy child; and I am going to say his name shall be called Jesus; that he shall be great.