“That those things which cannot be shaken may remain.” Hebrews 12:27
IF there be anything in which uniform, entire, and eternal infallibility is needed, it is in the salvation of man; and were it not all entirely of God from first to last, not a soul could reach those realms of bliss. If sinless angels fell, if sinless man fell, if the Jews could not maintain their standing, even to acquire an earthly and temporal land so as to keep it, how much less can a sinner dead in sin do anything to lift himself from the gates of death and hell, and form himself into that purity and perfection to which the grace of God alone can bring him? I am aware that men, not being conscious of where they are in the eye of God’s eternal law, make a great to-do about human responsibility; but the truth is, that in order for a sinner to be saved all the legal responsibilities of the sinner must be transferred to another that is able to bear them and carry them out, and righteously to maintain all the sanctions of law, holiness, and justice; so that on behalf of the sinner mercy and truth may meet together, righteousness and peace embrace each other. It is in this way only, by the coming in of the Mediator to take their sins and the consequence thereof, that they can be saved. There is no other name under heaven given among men, and we bless God there is not another, for we should be confused if there were more than one, but there is but one name by which we are to be saved. To us there is but one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
Now if I take what is suggested in the preceding parts of the verse containing our text, and which is all summed up in out text, there will be three things for us to attend to this morning; and the Lord enable me to speak them out clearly, and you to leave your worldly cares and troubles, and attend to those things that will very soon be our all and in all, when all other things shall have passed away and ceased for ever to be. The first thing, then, will be the ingathering of the people; gathered into that stability of things of which our text speaks. Secondly, the change of dispensations. Thirdly, the stability of these eternal things by which we are saved.
First, the ingathering of the people. This is always a matter of vital importance. It is one thing for us to come by human suasion, the mere letter of the word, and the dictates of conscience, into a profession of the name of Jesus Christ, and another thing to be brought in by the grace, the Spirit, the Christ, and the power of God. Let us then, trace out the first part of our subject in the experience of it and in the doctrine and practice of it, very carefully. The apostle shows here that the Israelites, when they were brought to Mount Sinai, as a type of the foundation part of the experience of every saved soul, witnessed such a scene, the burning majesty of God, the living fiery character and power of God’s eternal law, that there was not anything which did not stand against them; there was not the slightest ray of hope of any kind; it was blackness, and darkness, and tempest; and even Moses, so terrible was the sight, said, “I exceedingly quake and fear;” and you read in the 19th of Exodus that the whole mount quaked greatly, as a type of that trembling into which every saved soul must more or less be brought. Now just mark the language, that the people entreated that this voice should not be spoken to them anymore. Here is a branch of vital experience which I must be very careful to point out. Of course, the voice there meant the voice of God’s law, demanding internal perfection in purity, in love, in a word, in everything that that law itself is. Hence the apostle says, that when that law entered into his conscience and heart, sin revived; and that was all the law found in him; when the law entered into his heart, it found nothing but sin in him, all manner of concupiscence; and he, trembling and astonished, fell to the ground, exclaiming, “Lord, what will you have me to do? Let us ask ourselves, in the presence of a heart-searching God, whether, if we have not been brought under the terrors of the law, yet we are brought to see that if God speaks to us by his holy law apart from Christ Jesus, he has not a word to say to us but in wrath and judgment. From the first iota of the law to the last we stand guilty. The law entered that the offence might abound, that sin might appear as sin, and that the whole world, as far as they are convinced of sin, should thus become guilty, and every one’s mouth be stopped. Oh, it is a great thing for you to see that there is nothing in your favor there, that everything stands against you; to see yourself a vile, loathsome, lost, ruined, helpless sinner. Nothing short of this can make the soul good ground, nothing short of this can prepare the heart to receive the testimonies of the glorious gospel of God. The people entreated that the voice should not speak to them anymore. Now when I hear a legal sort of sermon, half law and half gospel, I fly from it, because there is law enough in the sermon to condemn me, but not gospel enough to save me, and so I fly from it. That is the reason why I detest and reject all legal preaching, because it is delusion; it puts people off with a sort of half-conviction, on the one hand, of what they are in the eye of the law; puts them off, on the other hand, with a sort of halfway gospel, and everything is left in confusion. The law has its own province. Some people say the law is a transcript of God’s mind; it is a transcript of God’s mind as a Legislator, but it is not a transcript of his mind as a Savior; for the transcript of his mind as a Savior we must come to Christ Jesus; it is in Christ Jesus that the mind of God is known in a way of mercy and salvation. Let us have a scripture or two upon this matter. Are we then brought to see that the law so stands against us? If you have never committed in your life one fault, one outward fault, so far so good; but that does not alter your nature; that does not prevent the truth of the testimony that the heart within you is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Saul of Tarsus would not reckon that he did anything wrong in his life, because he thought that putting the Nazarenes to death was doing God service. But when you are thus made acquainted with what we are in our nature, in our heart, and what the law is, I am sure you will entreat that that voice shall speak to you no more. I will be plain here; the truth is, if you could become as holy as you were before the fall, and as righteous and good as you were before the fall, even that could only fit you for an earthly paradise; that could not fit you for anything heavenly, because it would not be divine holiness, righteousness, or goodness. And then, if you could do all that, what would become of your past sins? If you should now become perfect, and pure, and righteous in your nature, your past sins would hold you fast; they are there still. Great is the misery of man, and happy the man whose eyes are opened to see it, and to know something of it.
“Whose voice then shook the earth.” When the Lord begins a work in the soul of a sinner, he brings that sinner into the dust, and makes him see and feel that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Let us have a sample of the experience of two good men upon this matter. When Isaiah heard the hymn of the seraphim, “Thrice holy is the Lord of Hosts,” he does not seem at the first to have entered into their meaning. They meant what he afterwards realized. Isaiah contrasted the infinite purity of the Most High with what he himself was as a sinner, and there nothing but trembling, blackness, darkness, and despair. But the truth is, the real meaning of the seraphim when they said, “Thrice holy is the Lord of Hosts,” they meant on behalf of poor sinners; that God had imputed sin to his dear Son, and that thereby in holiness he was on the side of poor, lost man; and that Jesus Christ had made an end of sin, and therefore he was on the side of poor sinners in his holiness, and becomes their sanctification; that the Holy Spirit had testified of this, and therefore in his holiness he was on their side; so that God himself would sanctify them, Christ become their sanctification; and it is in this way, Christ being the end of sin, that the people are to give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. But Isaiah was not to see this at the first; he must first go down into a conviction of what he is. And what does he say? “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” I wonder if I am speaking this morning to any that may be in a similar state? If you are thus convinced of your entire depravity and wretchedness, of your lost and ruined condition, the very business of your existence, that infinitely exceeds in weight and importance all other things, is the eternal salvation of your soul. If there be any here this morning that have this feeling, the manifestation of mercy is not far off. “Then flew one of the seraphim’s unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar;”, the live coal representing the living promise of God, and its being taken from the altar to denote that the promise comes by the sacrifice of Christ. See how the Lord watches over the trembling of a sinner. When a sinner is cut down, it is God that has cut him down; when a sinner is convinced of his condition, it is God that has wrought that conviction, and so he sends the message. “And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged.” Ah, my hearer, look to one thing above all others, and that is, that while you profess the name of Jesus Christ, yet at the ground of that profession there must be an experimental, personal, and most solemn sense of your absolute need of just such a Savior as he is, of your absolute need of the sure and eternal mercies which are by him. Let me tell you, if you have not this sense of need, as the Lord lives there is something wanting at the root oi your profession, and your professed root will ere long wither, and circumstances will occur that by and by you will be carried away from what you now profess, and will turn out to be but a mere professor at the last, a plant which our heavenly Father has not planted, and you must be rooted up. But if you know what it is to entreat as it were, that the voice of divine threatening may not speak to you anymore; if you see your need of a Sin-bearer to bear all your sins, and see your need of a Surety to take all your responsibilities; if you see your need of a Substitute to bear all the penalties due to your sins, then you are as much prepared to receive pardoning mercy, as much prepared to receive the rolling in of God’s eternal mercy, as was Isaiah when the Lord, by the seraphim, said to him, “Your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged.” Ah, religion, when it comes only in that department of it, true conviction of our state, outweighs everything else. Let us hear the experience, of another, Habakkuk. He had been listening to the judgments of God upon the enemies of old, especially upon the Egyptians; and when the prophet looked at these, and then looked at himself as a sinner, and considered that God might justly deal with him in the same way, he said, “When I heard”, ah, it took hold of him, brought him down, solemnized him, humbled him to the dust, “when I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice.” Ah, what if this sin-avenging God should be against me; what if, after all, he should come with his fiery sword against me; what if he should let loose the reservoirs of his wrath upon me! “Rottenness entered into my bones.” The meaning of that is that under this conviction I became weak as water. If rottenness entered into a man’s bones, what would be the result? First, the man would lose his strength; and secondly, he would also lose his form, for it is by the bones, of course, that the human subject is kept in its shape and form; but let rottenness enter into the bones, the man loses his strength and his form, so that he becomes a helpless and as shapeless sort of thing. Just so under conviction of sin, all of us, till we are thus convinced, have some comeliness about us, some goodness about us; we think ourselves of a very good moral shape and form, and do not see much what there is to find fault with. But when this conviction enters, it makes the sinner feel that he cannot take one step towards meeting the law’s demands; and that while he was originally created in the image of God, he is by sin and so distorted, so deformed, yes he says, so far from my now being in proper shape and form, and my God, I am like the devil; I have fallen, I am one by nature was Satan himself; he is an object of wrath, and I by nature am a child of wrath, Habakkuk saw and felt this. “And I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble.” Ah, he knew the day of trouble would come; and you and I, friends, when we see an ungodly man, we say, ah, little does he think what a day of trouble there is in store for him; little does he think that it may overtake him at any moment; little does he think that ere the sun goes down this day a voice may come from heaven, “You fool, this night shall your soul be required of you.”
“Whose voice shook the earth.” “To this man will I look, that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembles at my words.” Now we shall never appreciate, we shall never prize, and we shall never properly glorify God for the stabilities of the gospel until we are brought under this conviction, to know our need. I do not ask you whether you were led were brought under the terrors of the law, but what I ask you this morning is, Where are you now? Do you see a majesty in the law which you never saw before? And do you see that if the Lord speaks to you in any other voice than that of Calvary he can speak only in wrath? See then how Moses and the Israelites trembled; see how Isaiah and Habakkuk trembled; and so, the Lord makes all his people know something of this fear and trembling before him. Ah, it is a good foundation for real religion; for wherever there is this downward work, such a one receives the truths of the gospel with all his heart and all his soul. He is not a mere speculator; he does not run about and say, This man is too high in doctrine for me, and this man goes too far for me. No, says such a one, I read in God’s blessed book that the riches of Christ are unsearchable; and if his riches be unsearchable, then how can any man out preach those riches? How can any man go beyond God’s promise? Can God out promise himself? Can God promise more than he can perform? What says the apostle? “We know only in part, and we see through a glass darkly.” And it is a remarkable thing that while I am very much blamed by some for going too far, I have a very serious accusation against myself upon that subject, and that is that I have never gone far enough. So that here are two classes of accusations. I have preached the gospel only in part, and but a very small and poor part; and I do really believe there are in my presence now, I have not my eye upon any particular individual that I know of, but I do believe that there are persons in my presence now, in the presence of the Lord, I should rather say, whose downward experiences, exercises, and trials are such that they are not only glad of all the gospel I preach, but even wish I could preach more, that I could go deeper into the remedy, that I could bring forth more of the riches of God’s grace. Do you say I go too far? No: you will say the love of God passes knowledge, and the deeps of his mercy are unfathomable. Oh, none but the thoroughly convinced sinner knows what real poverty is.
Now the Lord says he will shake the earth and the heavens; the meaning of that we will presently notice; he will shake the earth; that is a metonymical form of expression, to denote the people. Let us have a scripture or two to confirm this. In Haggai 2 you get these words: “I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come.” How far is Christ the desire of all nations? Just so far as they are shaken; and I will give presently a clear definition of what this shaking is, clearer than I have given, if I can. Mark, the shaking comes first, and then Christ becomes the desire, but not before. Oh, what childish nonsense you meet with in what the learned have written upon this! trying to make out that there was a universal desire after the Messiah before he came into the world, and therefore he was the desire of all nations. That is their account. Why, what delusion that is! Did they desire him when he came? Alas! alas! they saw no beauty in him that they should desire him. So far from his being the desire of all nations, he was not the desire even of his own nation as a nation; for he came to his own, and his own received him not. How then does he become the desire of all nations, or, as the meaning is, a people in all nations? “I will shake all nations.” When God brings a sinner under the trembling to which I have referred, now, poor sinner, what is your petition? What will your prayer be? Why, that God would be merciful to me a sinner. Now, poor sinner, what is your desire? My desire is to know that Jesus died for me, that Jesus has redeemed me, that Jesus has saved me, that he came into the world to save sinners; and my desire is to know that I am one of. the sinners he came to save. The shaking goes first, then he becomes the desire of all nations; and the glory of the latter house, the true church, shall indeed be greater than the glory of the typical house; the Lord will indeed fill the latter house, the new-covenant church, with his glory, and give peace in this place. But we will come, then, to the shaking; Ezekiel was taken into the valley “which was full of dry hones; there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry.” “Can these bones live?” The prophet well knew that they could not live unless the Lord himself gave them life, and the prophet did not know yet what the Lord meant to do, and he said, “O Lord God, you know.” Then the Lord said, “Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O you dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.” And what was the word of the Lord? Why, he says “I will cause breath to enter into you.” I will do it. Not a word about the creature, you see; notice that. Where is your unscriptural doctrine of universal invitation? “I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live; and I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live.” Now notice, “So I prophesied as I was commanded.” This is what he said to the bones, or the Lord by the prophet. Thus says the Lord to you, dead sinners, I will put breath in you, I will lay sinews upon you, I will bring flesh upon you, I will cover you with skin, and you shall live, and know that I am the Lord. Not I hope you dry bones will accept it; I hope you dry bones won’t reject it. It is at your peril to reject it. The prophet did not belong to that school; he was better taught. Ezekiel in his old covenant capacity exhorted and warned, and so do the rest; “Why will you die, of house of Israel?” But that was quite another matter from his gospel capacity, that men like to jumble up matters. What was the result? The prophet was sent with that message, not an appeal to the creature. “And as I prophesied there was a noise.”! The sinner, as regards eternal things in the salvation of his own soul, is as still as death; but when life enters into the soul, there is a noise; your sins make a noise for the first time, your conscience makes a noise, God’s word makes a noise, eternity makes a noise, and it is a noise that stuns and silences every other noise. “There was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above; but there was no breath in them” yet. They do not seem to live; they are formed, but they have not the breath of liberty yet; but the Lord says he will put breath in them. Oh, yes, the Lord has done so far, we hope you will not reject it now; not a word of appeal to them. What a remarkable thing that men should refer to that chapter to justify universal exhortation! and yet it is a chapter that cuts that doctrine uproot and branch. The voice said, “Prophesy again;” as though the Lord should say, I began, and I will go on. Prophesy to the bones? say that they are to do something? No. “Prophesy unto the wind,” or spirit, meaning, of course, the eternal Spirit of God; “and say to the wind, Thus says the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” And the second time the prophet says, “So I prophesied as he commanded me. What, then, Ezekiel, you think is God’s way is the best? you can trust God, can you, without calling to the bones to help? Yes; “I prophesied as he commanded me, I knew it would be done, “and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.” Here is the trembling, here is the shaking here is the ingathering. Look at the doctrine of it; it is all positively of God; look at the experience of it; the trembling, the being brought up into liberty, and the sweet hope of the gospel. Well, when they were first convinced of their state, what did they say? As the prophet is told, “These bones are the whole house of Israel. Ah! Say some, the national Israel. It has nothing to do with the national Israel. It is the spiritual Israel. That includes Gentiles as well as Jews; the whole house of Israel; the spiritual house of Israel, made up of Jews and Gentiles. And now, under conviction, they said, “Our bones are dried.” Can you say you are brought to feel that by the fall of man all the holiness, righteousness, and goodness you had by creation is completely scorched up by sin, completely dried up; that you are a poor withered things; your body withered to death, your soul withered away from God; and there you are, body and soul, spiritually and temporally nothing, as it were, but a poor withered paralytic? “Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost.” So it is; bless God for it; it is the best loss you ever had in your life, if you have lost your false, your carnal, your Pharisaic hope, your Pharisaic religion. It would have been the damnation of Saul of Tarsus if he could have retained his natural hope, his natural righteousness, and his natural supposed goodness; to hell he must have gone. God took that away from him, that he might give him a better hope; he took the hope from him that would lead to hell and gave him a hope that would bring him to heaven. “Our hope is lost; we are cut off for our parts.” Thanks to God for that, I mean for the conviction of it; to know that by the law you are completely cut off. How now, after this, can I be united to God? By faith in Christ; the unity of the faith, the unity of the Spirit, the unity of his love. Here, then, is the shaking, here is the ingathering, and here is the confession of the people.
I now just glance at the second proposition, the change of dispensations, which God alone could bring about. The religion of the Jewish nation was their sun, and it was their moon, and the rulers were their stars; and the people represent sea, and earth, and land. “I will shake,” the Lord says, “the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.” There the Jewish nation is compared to a world. “Once in the end of the world has Christ appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Therefore, as their religion was their sun and moon, their sun became darkened, their moon turned into blood, and then, again, their religion was confounded; their religion by their apostacy was ashamed and went away according to predictions: “In that day the moon shall be confounded;” that is, the Jewish religion. But will Christ religion ever be confounded? Never. “And the sun ashamed.” But will Christ, the son of righteousness, ever be ashamed? Never. When is this change to be brought about? “When the Lord shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.” And has not the Lord Jesus triumphed gloriously? Does he not reign gloriously? Here it is the Lord fulfills that Scripture in Amos, “I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.” We will pass by the darkness that took place that day the Savior died, and view that Scripture carefully. What noon, what clear day is this? Notice it was their sun that was to go down, it was their moon that was to die, that was to be darkened. Now just as their sun went down, they made sure it was all the time rising; and just as the midnight set in upon them, they made sure that that midnight was daylight. They did, in a most awful manner, put darkness for light, evil for good, and bitter for sweet. Ah, say they, it is noon day with us now; we have crucified him, we have buried him, he will be able to rise no more; now our sun is rising. Ah, poor deluded Jews, it is going down. Now our land is full of light. Ah, poor Jews, it is full of darkness; only they could not see it. Ah, now we have got the good. Oh no, you have not, you have got the evil. Now we have the sweet. Oh no, you have not, you will presently find it is the bitter. 11th of John, Caiaphas said, “You know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this spoke he not of himself; but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.” What is the meaning of that? Some have said, Dear me! it is wonderful that Caiaphas, an enemy, should prophesy like that. But he prophesied as a Pope; mark the language, he “being high priest that year, prophesied.” Cardinal Wiseman says that Aaron prophesied some things; and then, in his large volume, “Remembrances of the Four Popes,” he says, these Popes prophesied; “and no wonder,” he says, “that they prophesied; for their office is very much higher than Aaron’s.” Well, I thought, that is true; for Aaron certainly never pretended to put God Almighty down, as the Pope does; Aaron certainly never pretended to have a human race at his command, as the Pope does; Aaron certainly made no pretensions to infallibility; and he had, poor dear man, like the rest of us he would not have given much proof of it, for he showed his weakness as well as other people. Therefore, I have no doubt the office of the Pope is far above the office of Aaron; only it was God that put Aaron into his office, and the devil put the Pope into his office; that is the difference. Now Caiaphas his meaning was this: “You know nothing at all; I am the Pope, and therefore infallible; I tell you this, that this Jesus of Nazareth is so offensive to God, that if you were to put him out of the way and crucify him, our nation will be delivered from the Romans, and the 10 tribes that are now scattered abroad, will come back to their land, and we shall be happy altogether.” So, they listened to Caiaphas, of course; and he was wonderfully eager to have the Savior crucified, as you see, in the progress of the business. And so, they crucified him. Now our sun is rising; what a mistake! Our land is lighted up now; what a mistake! And so, in the Lord’s own time they found out. See, then, how they were deluded; the triumph of the wicked is but for a moment. And Jesus never showed himself after his resurrection to anybody but his own; therefore, the Jews thought their sun was risen. Oh, my hearer, whatever light, or life, or apparent good, we get by fighting against God and against Christ, his truth, his people, or his cause, you may depend upon it what we call light in that matter is nothing but darkness. On says Haman, it is midday with me now; my sun is rising brilliantly. Is it? It is just going down. Oh, it is a clear day now! You will find you are mistaken presently. Ah, but Mordecai will be on that gallows soon. Suppose you happen to be there yourself. Oh, that can’t be, see what a lot of money I have. I don’t care for that; let God step in, and he will hang you and your money to. Now the change of dispensations was a greater matter than is generally supposed. That change that was wrought in the two dispensations, the one abolished, and the other established, was a change that none but God himself could bring about. Who but God himself could bring in a sacrifice that could take away sin, in the place of those sacrifices that could not take away sin? Who but God himself could bring in a priest that should be a priest for ever and ever, according to his consecration by his eternal oath? Who but God could bring in such a priest as this into the place of the many priests that were not suffered to continue by reason of death? But this High Priest continued by reason of death; that very death that took them away confirms him on his throne; for he shall be a priest on his throne and shall reign forever and ever. Who but God could bring in a covenant, which in this change of dispensation he did, ordered in all things and sure? Here in is all our salvation and all our desire. Thus, then, God shook the Jewish heavens; it’s sun went down, it’s moon died or turned into blood, it’s rulers fell, it’s mountains were shaken, and the first earth passed away, to return no more forever; and those who prophesy of the Jews return to Canaan might just as well prophesy of their going to live on the moon; the one will come to pass as soon as the other. There is no hope under the broad canopy of heaven for Gentile or Jew but Christ Jesus the Lord; he is the only meeting place; “that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ.” What a mercy thus to be drawn to Jesus, to the better priesthood, the better covenant, the better land, the better city, the better Mount Zion, the better Jerusalem, the better promises, the better country!
But lastly, the suitability of these eternal things by which we are saved. What is that that remains? “That these things which cannot be shaken may remain.” In the eighth of Romans, you will get the things that cannot be shaken; therefore they must remain. First there is a certain truth that cannot be shaken. I know some of you will boggle a little at it, and as you are stronger than I am; I wish I could always believe it; and what is that that cannot be shaken? Why, “that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to his purpose.” Can you believe that? I believe it a little, when things are pretty smooth; but when things are rough, and everything seems going against me, well, this never can be part of the “all things.” Jacob, what do you say? Oh, “all these things are against me.” Well, then, I will have no more talk with you just now; I will have a word with you when you come to die. Now you are dying how is it now? Ah, all things have worked for good; he has fed me all my lifelong, and the angel has redeemed me from all evil. God has made every circumstance subservient to the forwarding of my heavenly, my greatest good, and of his greatest glory. That truth must remain; whether you can believe it and enjoy it or not, it will remain; he abides faithful; he knows what poor creatures we are. Martha’s unbelief could not hinder Lazarus being raised from the dead. What poor unbelieving creatures we are! we must have first one evidence, then another, before we can come to a comfortable conclusion that all things are working together for good. The freedom of the people is another thing that must remain, must stand good. “Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” Again, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” That cannot be shaken. There is no contrivance in hell nor on earth, nor ever can be, that can substantiate before God one final charge that can be brought against his elect at the judgment day. Christ will present them without spot, or wrinkle, or fault, or any such Thing. “It is God that justifies. Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that dies, yes rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.” Ah, but then we may come short. Do you think so? The oneness of Christ and the people is one of the things that must remain. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation or distress?