HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD

A SERMON

Preached on Sunday Morning, September 4th, 1864

Volume 6 Number 298

Preached on Sunday Morning, September 4th, 1864

By Mister JAMES WELLS

AT THE SURREY TABERNACLE, Borough Road

Volume 6 Number 298

“Holy unto the Lord; it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more forever.” Jeremiah 31:40

WE are assured that “without holiness no man shall see the Lord;” and to get an interpretation of that we may substitute several other words in the place of the word “holiness,” in order to explain what the apostle means when he says that “without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” Without Christ no man shall see the Lord. He that has seen Christ has seen the Father, so that Jesus Christ's blood cleansing from all sin, in that way we have holiness with which to see the Lord. Also, it will read this way, that without the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us personally, fitting us for that eternal inheritance, we cannot see the Lord. Thirdly, without the sanctifying counsels of the Father, for we must have God the Father in his sovereignty, in order that we may he severed from all delusions, and without this sanctification of God the Father no man can see the Lord. “Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up.” You will at once, therefore, recognize the solemn importance of our subject this morning in the very commencement of it. “Holy unto the Lord.” I am fully aware that those who are holy unto the Lord are very unholy in the eyes of the world. There has not been any people ever in the world so low in the estimation of the world as those that are really holy unto the Lord. The world may boast of its wisdom; but just go to Bethlehem; just go to the Savior's wondrous, spotless life; just go to his death, and to his resurrection, and see how the world viewed that perfection of holiness, and see how they dealt with it, and how they treated it. They could receive a ceremonial-holiness; they could contend for creature holiness; but when this divine holiness came, this Holy One, and did really and truly, in a way none other ever could, put an end to unholiness and to unrighteousness, that he put an end to sin, finished transgression, brought in everlasting righteousness, we see the way in which the world treated him, and treated his followers, and will do down to the end of time. Gog and Magog are still living, and they still despise the camp of the saints, and will do. But, nevertheless, it is a great mercy to be one of those who are cast out of the world for the truth's sake, and to feel that we have a better inheritance to look for, and honestly to confess that we are strangers and pilgrims on earth, and that we seek a better country.

Our text, then, contains, by what it implies and by what it expresses, three things. The first is that of consecration, “Holy unto the Lord.” The second is that of limitation, here are some, a certain people and none other, holy unto the Lord. And the third is that of duration, “It shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more forever.”

Now the first thing is that of consecration. I may as well read the whole paragraph, because I have to go through the same, and unless I read it, some of the friends, perhaps not very familiar with it, may hardly know what I am talking about; so I will just read the paragraph to which our text belongs, beginning at the 38th verse: “Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that the city shall be built to the Lord” now notice that it is to the Lord, “from the tower of Hananeel unto the gate of the corner. And the measuring line shall yet go forth over against it upon the hill Gareb and shall compass about to Goath. And the whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, and of all the fields unto the brook of Kidron, unto the corner of the horse gate toward the east, shall be holy unto the Lord; it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more forever.” Before I enter into the several parts of this beautiful scripture, for a beautiful scripture it is, and as plain as A B C, as I think even the least in the household of faith will see as we go along, before I do so, I would just remind you of a parallel scripture, of another scripture very similar to this, and which will throw some light upon this, and must be understood in the same spiritual way in which this must be understood. I refer now to the 14th chapter of Zechariah; it is there said that “all the land shall be turned as a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem; and it shall be lifted up, and inhabited in her place, from Benjamin's gate unto the place of the first gate, unto the corner gate, and from the tower of Hananeel unto the king's winepresses.” You observe there the land is to be turned as a plain, so that the word “plain” there, everything being made level, has the same meaning as the word “holiness” in our text; the land being turned as a plain to denote nothing is to be too high nor anything too low, but everything is to be made level. Now, then, the Lord Jesus Christ has brought this about; that which was too low he has brought up by his mediatorial perfection into a level with all the demands of law and justice, and that which was too high he has brought down; in a word, he has made everything level, everything plain. And David, referring to this, says, “My foot stands in an even place; in the congregation will I bless the Lord.” So that by faith in Jesus Christ you stand level with all the demands of law and justice; by faith in Jesus Christ you stand equal to, or level with, all the purposes of God's eternal mercy. Here everything is made so level and so comfortable; here mercy and truth, to form this level, meet together, and here righteousness and peace embrace each other. It is only another way of setting forth the end of sin and setting forth the delightful truth that Christ has made everything right between God and those who are brought to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it there says, “It shall be lifted up.” There, of course, it means the people; the container mentioned, but the contained meant. Does not the salvation of Jesus Christ lift us up? Has not sin in the first Adam brought us down? have not our own personal sins in many cases brought us down? And do we not find some of the Old Testament Saints crying as out of the depths? What brought them into those depths? Sin. Who gave them a consciousness that they were in those depths? Grace; the Spirit of God. We find another crying out of the low dungeon. What brought him into that dungeon? Sin. What made him sensible that he was in that dungeon? The Holy Spirit giving him a consciousness of it. And we read of another shut up in prison; “Bring my soul out of prison.” What brought him into prison? Sin. What made him feel he was in prison? The Holy Spirit's work. So, then, it is sin that has brought us down into this prison; it is the grace of God by which we are made sensible of our being in this prison. And so, these people shall be lifted up out of that den into which sin has brought them; they shall be lifted out of death into life, and out of darkness into light, and out of degradation into honor, and out of bondage into liberty. Is there anything difficult in this? And then it goes on to describe the progress of this, from the gate of Benjamin unto the place of the first gate, unto the corner gate. By the term gates you are to understand, at least, I think so, the truths of the gospel. Let us look at the literal topography as meant to represent spiritual things, and then the gates represent the way of access to the temple, of access to God, where God dwells. So that these gates represent the truths of the gospel, and when spoken of in the singular represent Christ, as in the 118th Psalm: “This gate of the Lord, into which the righteous shall enter.” Therefore, these gates are called the gates of righteousness. Is there anything difficult in this? Is there not something that vitally concerns us? By sin everything is wrong with God; by Jesus Christ everything is made right. By sin we are degraded; by the salvation of Jesus Christ, we are set on high; lifted up, and made to dwell in that gospel place which the Lord has prepared for us. Here are the gates by which we have access to the city of God, by which we have access to the temple of God, the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. And then it says, “From the tower of Hananeel.” “The name of the Lord is a strong tower.” And Cruden says that the word “Hananeel” means the grace, mercy, and gift of the Lord; all of which will apply very beautifully to the Lord Jesus Christ; for the grace of God is by Jesus Christ, the mercy of God is by Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is the gift of God, and all that ever God gives to man to do him good is by Jesus Christ. Thus, then, the tower of Hananeel in connection with a consecration of the people represents the dear Savior; as said the wise man, “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runs into it and is safe.” And then this consecration as there described refers to the king's winepresses, and what do these winepresses represent but the blood of the everlasting covenant? What does this pure blood of the grape mean but the eternal cheerfulness of the people? Do you not sometimes sing that truth that has warmed the heart of many a child of God?

“Dear dying Lamb, your precious blood

Shall never lose its power,

Till all the ransomed church of God

Be saved, to sin no more.”

The king's winepresses, therefore, taken mystically, spiritually, denote that vintage, that eternal cheerfulness, that eternal delight, which the people of God shall enjoy. And then it says, “And men shall dwell in it;” that is, in this level, where everything is made right with God; men shall dwell in this elevation, men shall dwell in these gates of Zion, men shall dwell by the tower of Hananeel, by the name of the Lord, where there is grace, and where there is mercy, and where there is every good and every perfect gift that comes down from above. “And there shall be no more utter destruction; but Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited;” meaning the new Jerusalem. The old Jerusalem has been several times utterly destroyed, and there it lies now, a mere den of infamy at this time; it is at least but little better, for Jesus Christ is not there. No; it is the new Jerusalem that shall abide safely. Thus, then, you see that that scripture in Zechariah is beautifully expressive of the same things contained in my text. Let us now come to our text and let us go through it part by part, at least, that paragraph to which our text belongs. Now the city is to be built from the “tower of Hananeel unto the gate of the corner.” You observe our text says, “Holy unto the Lord;” consecration is, therefore, the first and reigning idea of our text. Now let us take this tower of Hananeel as a figure of Jesus Christ; we can do so. David again and again said of the Lord, “You are my high tower.” I am not at all wrong in spiritualizing it in this way. Now Jesus Christ certainly, then, was holy unto the Lord. I had almost said, and I shall say right if I say it, therein lay his stability; or, at least, one of the essentials of his stability was that he was holiness unto the Lord. Bless his dear name I every day, every night, all through his wondrous pilgrimage in this world, his whole thought, his whole concern, his whole soul was to do the good will of God, and to work out, according to the grace of God, eternal salvation; to work out, according to the eternal mercy of God, eternal redemption; and to work out, according to the gift of God, that eternal victory by which the people shall come into possession of all that is indicated in the glory that should follow his work. That part, therefore, is not at all difficult to understand. Was not Jesus Christ holy unto the Lord? Let us have another scripture, which will change the figure, but present the same thing. Have you not read, some of you at least, with delight, that scripture in Exodus where it is said of the high priest that he was to have on his mitre, on his forehead, “Holiness unto the Lord;” and that he was to bear the iniquities of the holy things? I understand that in this way, that the sins of the people were ceremonially imputed to the sacrifices; those sacrifices ceremonially, but not of course actually, only ceremonially, typically, put those sins away; and then the priest, with this “holiness unto the Lord,” went into the presence of the Lord, and represented the people before God that which the sacrifices had made them, namely, “holiness unto the Lord.” Just dwell upon this a moment, Christian; those of you that groan from day to day under the burden you feel, and sometimes long for the time to come when this earthly, leprous house of your tabernacle shall be dissolved; just look at it for a moment, that the Lord Jesus Christ appears in heaven as holiness unto the Lord, and he represents you there by what he has made you, namely, that he has perfected you by his one offering, and so he there presents you as holiness unto the Lord. And the Lord will not see a fault in you, nor find a fault with you, nor blame you for anything; all forgiven and forgotten. Is it any wonder in this order of things that the soul that is brought into heaven by Jesus Christ (and the soul can be brought into heaven by none other), is it any wonder that the soul thus favored should have an abundant entrance into the kingdom, and that it should have an infinite welcome into the kingdom? Is it any wonder that the mountains of heaven should leap at the approach of every redeemed soul? Is it any wonder that the immortal trees of paradise should clap their hands at the approach of every soul thus presented, and appearing there by the perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ? It is no wonder. Here, then, is holiness unto the Lord. And then, while this city is to begin at the tower of Hananeel, that is, to begin in the grace, and mercy, and gift of God, it is to be built, “unto the gate of the corner.” We have already observed that Jesus Christ is the gate. “Strive to enter in at the strait gate.” Jesus Christ did no sin, and therefore the way remains open. “I have set before you an open door, and no man can shut it.” And though all our sins lay at his door, bless his dear name! he has justly and adequately atoned and suffered for the whole. Here then, again, is holiness unto the Lord; and if we are holiness unto the Lord, it must be by the Lord Jesus Christ. “The gate of the corner.” Was he not thus consecrated to God as the tower of stability and safety? Was he not consecrated to God as the way of access to God? The corner, if the whole building be reckoned safe by a certain cornerstone, that is the idea; Jesus Christ is the cornerstone, and he never lost his position, the head of the corner. Adam lost his position; Jesus never lost his position; he still remains the head of the corner, and thus holiness unto the Lord. But now let us go on. We have got Jesus Christ first, you see; here he is as the tower of safety; here he is as the way to God; here he is as the cornerstone. Now, then, we have found that way of holiness unto the Lord; let us now search after the people; let us see what they are now, let us bring them in, and let us see whether you, as I go along, each can say, That's me; that's me; because if you can say so, then you are citizens of this heavenly city which is to be built thus, not unto man, for it wouldn't have been built upon the same foundations it now is, nor after the order it now is, if it were to be built unto man, or after the wisdom of man; but it is to be built unto the Lord, and after the order of his counsel, and upon the foundation he has laid in Zion. Now “the measuring line shall yet go forth over against it upon the hill Gareb, and shall compass about to Goath.” This is the first appearance of the people. Gareb signifies “leper,” the “hill of the leper,” “the mountain of the leper.” And what a solemn representation that is of our nature spiritually! Leprosy, a deadly disease; the leper, the house, the garment, all deadly together. And just so spiritually; our nature is unrighteous, unclean, devilish, and contains the very dregs of hell. Men when brought into the light of God's law, God's holiness, Saul of Tarsus did not for a moment dream that there was anything like uncleanness, or unrighteousness, or infidelity, or devil-ism, about him. But when God took hold of him, and brought him into the light of his purity, oh, how it changed the scene! “In my nature all manner” and what could you say more than that? “all manner of concupiscence.” Do you thus see yourself? Do you see yourself this loathsome creature, this depraved, helpless, poor creature? Do you know what it is before God thus to put your hand upon your mouth, and to say, “Unclean, unclean,” and to say, “Woe is me! for I am a man of unclean lips” that is my nature, “and I dwell among a people of unclean lips; ” woe is me? God does make this a burden to those that he intends to save. Now this measuring line goes on to Goath. Goath, as Kitto well observes, wants only the prefix to make it Golgotha; and this Goath was on the western side of Jerusalem, just where the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. So that you will see that the leper and the death of Christ are in this paragraph united. Here are the lepers near to Calvary, and here is the remedy; here is the fountain that is opened for sin and for uncleanness. And you will, in relation to your state as a sinner, say to Jesus, as the leper did in relation to his bodily state, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” “I will; be you clean:” pardoning mercy rolls in, and you become conscious of the great truth that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. And now this poor leper becomes holiness unto the Lord. Ah, I am free from that deadly disease; I am free from that putrefaction; I am free from that that made me an infinite nuisance to the great God. And no doings of my own ever could have altered the house, the garment, the sore, or anything else; no, if I had died in that state, I must have died under the solemn declaration, “He that is filthy, let him be filthy still.” Here, then, by the precious blood of the Lamb cleansed, and thus become consecrated unto God. That is the first step to the people. Now our text goes on to the valley of Hinnom, the valley of dead bodies; that measuring line went over this valley of dead bodies. That valley of dead bodies, I suppose, was one of the most horrible places upon the face of the earth. You read much of the valley of Hinnom, and I will not harrow up your feelings by describing this morning the awful things in every shape and form perpetrated there. Why, then, is the measuring line said to go over this valley? Why, to set before us this great truth, that the gospel would gather in the filthiest, the guiltiest, the most wretched, the most miserable, that no case could be too bad. The dead bodies here, of course, mean spiritually dead souls, every way offensive. And so the glorious gospel of God in the apostolic age went into all sorts of dons of infamy; for what were heathen towns but dens of awful infamy? yet the gospel went there, quickened their souls, gave them life, washed them, sanctified them, justified them, turned them into saints. And the apostle might well say to the Corinthians, for, perhaps, of all the ancient comparatively civilized cities, none was so bad as Corinth. I will not, as I have suggested, because I do not think it would be right, I do not think it would do any good, set before you what that city really was. The apostle might well say to those Corinthians that had been gathered up out of the most abominable, and wretched, and filthy state people could be possibly in, “The testimony of Christ was confirmed in you.” And what is the testimony of Christ? Why, he came to save sinners, and you are saved, and that quite confirms his mission. He came to save the lost, and as though he should say, You Corinthians, some of you were almost, trebly lost, and yet you are now saved; so that the testimony of Christ is confirmed in you; that is, in what you are. If Jesus Christ had come to call the righteous, not one of you had been called; if he had come to save good people instead of sinners, not one of yon had been saved; but you are saved. Bless the Lord, then, there are plenty of cases too bad for man, but there is no case too bad for the Lord. What cannot the grace of God do? The Christ of God, the salvation of God, the Spirit of God, can turn these dead bodies, that is, these dead persons, these dead souls, into living saints, cleanse them, make them fear God, and love God, and glory in God; in a word, make them holiness, as our text says, unto the Lord. But I am a little suspicious here, lest I should be feeding the Pharisee-ism of any of you; lest you should be saying, Oh, well, I was not like that. Well, an overruling Providence kept you from being outwardly what they were; but you are no better in your nature. You wouldn't like all the thoughts you have every day of your life to be written on your forehead, or written anywhere; no, you wouldn't like that. You, go to the house of God sometimes, listen to hardly five words that you hear thinking about the vilest things that can be thought. Ah, you wouldn't like, that to be written, would you? And yet the great God sees it all; he sees what a heart you have got; he sees the swarm of hell-born elements, of imps, I was going to say, proceeding from your heart. Ah, and you may be a child of God, and experience these thoughts; these are the persons that do, and lament over it, and say, It is a wonderful thing that I should have such thoughts, sitting even in the very house of God. Ah, that is the place for Satan to come, because that is the place where Satan is injured, that is the place where his kingdom is 'injured, that is the place where he loses his hold, that is the place where men get out of his hands; therefore, when the sons of God assemble, Satan also comes in their midst, in order to stir up their bad nature, and if possible to render the Lord ineffectual; lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine effectually into their souls. Well, if we are thus sensible, then, of what we are, we shall say, “Are we better than they?” In “no way.” If, therefore, we are holiness unto the Lord; it cannot be by what we are in the flesh, it cannot be by what we are in self, but it must be by what we are by the regenerating grace of the eternal Spirit of God, by what we are by faith in Christ Jesus the Lord. Thus, then here is the leper, and then the dead body, and both these applying to the same person. A sinner first finds out he is a leper and then he finds out he is dead. And then it says, “ashes” That is just what the poor sinner comes to; that perfects his humiliation. He finds out that all his doings are ashes; that he himself, as Abraham says, is dust and ashes, “I am dust and ashes.” And what can dust, and ashes do? What worthless, passive things are dust and ashes! So, the Christian feels what a worthless thing he is in and of himself. And yet this dust and ashes, this poor creature, shall become holiness unto the Lord; for “the Lord remembers our frame, he knows that we are dust;” and therefore, deals gently with us, and his gentleness shall make us great. Thus, then, there is no difficulty in this text.

Now, then, you observe there is a great change takes place. After the sinner has thus discovered his leprosy cleansed by the blood of the Lamb, found out he is a poor dead sinner, that he has life only in Christ; finds out he is dust and ashes, nothing; Christ becomes all in all; now a change takes place. “All the fields unto the brook of Kidron.” Why, the soul of this leper, this dead soul, is all at once turned into a field. Here is the field, and the smell of this field is as the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed. Here, then, the soul that has undergone this experience, undergone this discipline, undergone this work, knows something of these things, he so receives the truth that his soul becomes as a watered garden, his soul becomes as a field which the Lord has blessed. That man savors of the rose of Sharon, he savors of the truth of God, he savors of eternal things. And then another change takes place; you see the Scriptures very often change the imagery very rapidly. The next thing you come to is “the horse gate.” The horse gate there evidently represents victory. Just see first, here is the sinner humbled down; then the soul is compared to the field, the Lord's paradisiacal field, in which he dwells; and then comes the horse gate, or the gate of victory. And what is the ultimate end of the Christian? Victory. Is there something that I cannot exactly get over? I shall do by-and-bye; there is a set time for the victory. Is there a certain trouble I cannot get rid of? I shall by-and-bye; there is a set time for the victory. Is there some dog barking at me, and I cannot quiet him or stop him? Never mind, I shall do by-and-bye; for ultimately not a dog shall move his tongue against one of the children of Israel. And is there some calamity I fear, cannot get over the fear? I shall by-and-bye. And do I fear death? Am I afraid to approach the dark valley of the shadow of death, and not able to get over it? Get over it by-and-bye; there is the victory in reserve. Do not let us suppose that we are not to be conquerors because we are not in every respect conquerors now. Gad, a troop, shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at the last; and that certainly is the victor that overcomes at the last; that certainly is the victor that stands upon the Rock of Ages, and rejoices that the dear Savior has swallowed up death in victory. And so, they shall obtain the victory at the last. And then the last point here, which is very worthy your attention, is that this horse gate is on the eastern side, or by the sunrising. There you are. First, here is the sinner in the dark; second, he discovers his leprosy; third, he is washed in the blood of the Lamb; then he goes on to see what a poor dead body he was; then he goes on to see he has life in Christ Jesus; then he goes on to feel that he is as worthless and helpless as dust and ashes; then the soul is turned into a beautiful garden; then he gains the victory by faith in Christ; now he is left in the east, by the sunrising; he is left in the light of the Sun of Righteousness. “The wicked shall be silent in darkness but the man thus led and thus taught is thus left at last in the light.

I hope I have made it plain. And by understanding several scriptures in this way it enlarges your coast in reading the Scriptures. Mind, I am not going to place your salvation, or welfare, in understanding every scripture in the Bible; but still, it is a privilege, it is an advantage, when you read it, to understand what you read. “Understand you,” said Philip to the eunuch, “what you read?” And he had sense enough to know that he did not, and therefore was glad for someone to tell him; that is more than some are. Because Philip well knew that it was the good-ground hearer, who understood the word, that held the word fast, understanding the value thereof, he could never part from it. Now, then, this is holiness unto the Lord; that is, consecrated entirely unto the Lord.

I must, secondly, notice what, perhaps, some would wish me to leave out, but I must name it; namely, the limitation. You observe, here is the measuring line, dividing one part from the other. The number is limited. The Lord passes the measuring line first where he pleases. There are two men in the field; he sends the measuring line between those two men; the one is left outside of it, the other is taken inside of it. There are two men slumbering in the same bed; the measuring line includes the one, excludes the other. Two women grinding at the mill; the measuring includes the one, excludes the other. Here, then, is the sovereignty of God. Let us look a little closer into this matter. You recollect that scripture that I quoted just now, “Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up.” When people tell you to come and trust in Christ, trust in Christ, and you are saved; don't you trust in such a faith as that. I say, trust in Jesus Christ, but not apart from the Holy Spirit's work; no, no. If God the Father has not planted you, you will be rooted up. If your religion be merely mental, merely moral; if you are converted by the working of natural conscience, and the letter of the word, the eloquence of the minister, the persuasion of friends; then you may depend upon it, just as you will need vital godliness, you will find out, when you come to the Jordan of death, that you are destitute of the root of the matter, that you have not been planted by a hand that is divine. I know men trifle, with these things, and that just shows to me where they are. Never trifle with vital godliness. Now here, then, is the sovereignty of God, the work of God. And a minister should never attempt to receive a person, at least not knowingly, until he is pretty satisfied the Lord has received him. “They first gave their own selves unto the Lord, and then unto us by the will of God.” A man without experience is a man without life; a man without experience is a man without savor; a man without experience is a man without any true understanding; a man without experience is a man without any true love to the truth; for why should a man abide by the truth as a matter of necessity if he has no experience that demonstrates the necessity of true faith? All the time the truth is held as a mere matter of opinion, it may be easily parted with; all the time you hold these truths as mere doctrines, mere articles of faith, they may easily, be parted with. But if you have come the path in any measure I have described this morning, then the truth will be with you a matter of necessity, and you will say, Let friends go, let health go, my name go, life go, everything go; but let not the truth go; for that is my shield and my buckler, there is my eternal all. The promise of the blessed God is more to the Christian than ten thousand such poor dying lives as those we have in this world.

I notice the duration, “Not be plucked up.” Here the people are compared to trees. And why are they not to be plucked up Plucked up in the first Adam, and plucked up, torn up, rooted up, from all confidence in the flesh; but now they are planted in Christ, why are they never to be plucked up? For several reasons, which I will just name, without amplifying. First because there is no sin in their root. Jesus Christ is their root, and therefore there is no worm at that root; there is no sin at that root, and consequently such persons, their leaf cannot wither, they cannot cease from yielding fruit. Sin alone can pluck up the creature; it plucked up angels, and Adam, and the Jews, and has plucked us all up from our original root; but there is no sin here in Christ; here the Christian is as a green olive tree in the house of his God, and that forever. That is one reason why they are not to be plucked up. Another reason is that the Lord loves them too well to suffer them to be plucked up. Yes, he loves you with all his heart. There is no weakness about his love; his love has no tide, sometimes ebbing and sometimes flowing; always the same; always in one full and eternal flow. Another reason why they shall not be plucked up is because they cannot, if they were, be put into a better place, I do not believe the Lord would have suffered his people to have been plucked up in the first Adam if he had not prepared a better place to plant, them in; but having prepared a better place to plant them in, he suffered them to be rooted up in the one, that they may be planted in the other. Cannot be planted in a better place than Christ; they are planted there where there is no winter, where there is no night, where there is no curse, where there is no calamity, where there is not an adversary nor an evil occurrent, Ah, when the Lord plucks you up in providence in one place, it is because he has another place for you which he deems better; you may not deem it so good.