WARMTH AND REST

A SERMON

Preached on Sunday Morning, September 25th, 1870

By Mister JAMES WELLS

Volume 12 Number 620

“Let them that love him be as the sun when he goes forth in his might. And the land had rest forty years.” Judges 5:31

MOST of you are aware that these words were our text last Lord's day morning, when we dwelt chiefly upon those majestic interpositions of the Great Eternal on behalf of all those that are brought to know their need of that provision which he has made, and are brought to receive his dear Son in that way that endears the eternal God. For wherever, of course, the Lord is the teacher, he will teach us so to receive his word as to make us acquainted with his loving- kindness, his great mercy, and bis great salvation, and thereby endear himself unto us; and then come in with exceeding great and precious promises to all them that love him; “Let them that love him be as the sun when he goes forth in his might.” Our sermon closed with some few remarks upon the meaning of this 13econd part. This morning I make just a few more remarks upon the two remaining parts. First, a word or two more upon the meaning of their being as the sun when he goes forth in his might; secondly, the repose here stated, the “land had rest forty years.”

First, then, our sermon last Lord's day morning closed with noticing that scripture in Psalm 19 where the sun is spoken of in its circuit, thereby shining upon everything it was destined to shine upon; and which I then said and now say I think represents the dear Savior, that he travelled, as it were, over the whole compass of God's eternal truth, that his goings forth were from everlasting to everlasting. “And there is nothing,” it is said, “hid from the heat thereof.” Now let us bring in, in this department, the people of God. As the Savior himself compassed the whole of God's eternal covenant, that new covenant truth by which we are saved, and as the sun thus extends to everything to which it is assigned, it is a figure of that completeness of knowledge to which all the people of God shall come. There is something amazing; pleasing in that; let us hear a word or two upon it, that completeness of acquaintance with God’s truth which awaits us. What little we know now of Jesus Christ, of God our Father by Christ Jesus, and of the testifying and comforting of the eternal Spirit endear the Lord; and what must it be when we come to that described by the apostle! He goes on to say that now we know only in part, and so we prophesy in part; now we see through a glass. darkly, but then face to face; now we know thus only in part, but when that which is in part is done away, then that which is perfect shall come. This, I think, is one thing here intended, the ultimate completeness of the peop1e of God in their knowledge of God's eternal truth. And I am sure we live in a day when we cannot be too well acquainted with the true and everlasting gospel of the blessed God. Then, again, notice something else. As nothing is hid from the heat thereof, as the sun receives, if I may so speak, that which it shines upon with warmth, so all the people of God shall be led to receive the truth of God in all the warmth, heat, and fire of that love which the Lord places in their hearts. I think this is one thing fairly represented, “there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.” I shall make use of this just to say that there is not one truth of the everlasting gospel that shall not be warmly and joyfully received by the saints of God. Now just trace this out for a moment. First, we shall warmly, that is, lovingly and joyfully, receive him who is the great embodiment of all truth, Christ Jesus the Lord. What is said of Zacchaeus is true of every Christian, he received Jesus Christ joyfully; and just so it is now in the reception of the Lord Jesus Christ. Only think of it, just look at what, we are and where we are, poor, sinful, lost, ruined, creatures; and simply by receiving the dear Savior we receive that atonement that makes everything right between us and God, makes us clear as the sun, makes us free from sin, we receive it joyfully. And then look at his righteousness; we receive it joyfully. And then look at the truth of his eternal love; we receive it joyfully. Then, again, look at the great truth of eternal election, chosen in Christ, and blessed with all spiritual blessings there, all the blessings we can need while travelling through the wilderness, and all the blessings we can need when time shall be no more; we receive it joyfully. And then as to the exceeding great and precious promises of God, we are led to receive them joyfully. So, as the sun goes forth an receives, as it were, its proper objects, and brings forth fruit joyfully, so the people of God shall receive these truths joyfully. And then that great truth that embodies all truth again, namely God’s covenant, upon which I will not now enlarge; oh, how joyfully the people of God, when they understand it, receive that blessed truth! Did not Abraham receive the sworn promise of God joyfully? Did not Isaac receive the promise of God joyfully? And when Jacob was going to Padan-aram, and the promise was made there to him, did he not receive it joyfully? And has it not been so in all ages? Whenever the Lord has appeared to his people, and ministered to them his promises, they have received them joyfully. Oh, my hearer, what a vast amount of unbelief and infidelity have we in us! and Satan works sometimes trying to persuade us that we have no business to hope in Christ, we have no business to look at the promises of God as being our promises, or belonging to us; that we have no right to look to eternal salvation; and that therefore we are not a part of the number that may call the promises their own. But let us hear what the Savior says, referring back again to Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus received him joyfully, and the Savior said, “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Therefore, I will just once more make the remark, if you have faith: enough to receive Christ as this substitute, he is yours fast enough; if you have knowledge enough of your need of God's eternal counsels to receive his sworn promise, he is yours fast enough. No one ever received the Savior as the pearl of great price but those who were taught by the Holy Spirit of God; and no one ever joyfully received the blessed and sworn truth, the yea and amen promise of God, but those that are born of God. Oh, what a precious treasure is this! I have often thought of the early disciples; it is said of them that they continued steadfastly in the apostle’s doctrine; and just so here, if we receive, these great truths in the love thereof, we shall ask ourselves, Which can I part with? I shall presently want them all. As to the substitution of Christ, I want that every day, and I shall want it more still when I die; and I shall need it at the last great day, and to all eternity; and so, of the rest of the great and blessed truths of the everlasting gospel. Let them, then, be as the sun; let them go forth, and thus receive the blessed truths of the everlasting gospel joyfully. Then, again, the next thing is that of power; when: the sun goes forth “in his might.” I observed last Lord's day morning that it conveys the idea of infallibility, of the certainty of the people of God coming to all the Lord has designed for them. The sun has never failed; and the Lord himself uses that, as you are aware, as a simile to express the stability of his blessed truth. But let us go a little further. Now those that thus receive the Savior, and receive the testimonies of God, they may be well said to go forth in their might. I do think it is not always our lot to understand the strength that is on our side; and yet you observe in the Holy Scriptures that the saints of God in all ages have rejoiced in the blessed truth that the Lord is their strength. But the point I would here just say a word upon in relation to this part is, power with God. We do not always clearly apprehend the power we have with God. How seldom it is when we pray that we can come to where the Savior describes when he says, “When you pray, believe that you receive the things, and you shall receive them”! Well, then, if I pray for pardon, then I am to believe that I receive it; and if I do not realize it in my own soul, yet in receiving Christ Jesus we receive that and every other blessing. Therefore, the people of God have power with God, going forth in their might. I need not here remind you of the circumstances of this book, or of the circumstances of the Old Testament, or of the New; all quite enough to show that religion is a self-acting, a self-living, and a self-moving power. We rejoice in the thought that the Lord himself is our strength. But one more thought here; that, as the sun represents Jesus Christ, of course this beautiful request is simply that they may be whatever he is. That is the great source of consolation, and the way of strength and everything else that they are to be as Christ Jesus. This is what we cannot always believe, nor always feel, nor always enjoy; and yet there is the secret of our present welfare and of our eternal salvation; that, whatever Jesus Christ is, that the people are looked upon to be in their indissoluble oneness with him.

Secondly, I notice the repose here stated. Now when they gained this victory, which was but a temporal victory, “the land had rest forty years.” The question then arises, and upon that I will enter, though I am not able to speak very long this morning, as I feel too ill so to do, how was it that the land had rest forty years, and how was it that the land had rest no longer than forty years? and how is it that there is an everlasting rest remaining to the people of God? How is it that they had rest forty years? Well, they had rest, liberty, and quiet, enjoying all the privileges of the promised land during these forty years, by one of the most simple things, I was going to say, under the heavens. It was by simply rejecting a false gods and abiding by the God of Israel, and just bringing up a little of past history, and learning that this God, who had delivered them from Egypt; this God, who had sustained them through the wilderness in that miraculous way in which he did, that God that brought them into the promised land and planted them there, he, and he alone, was God; and so they simply abode by him, would have no false gods; and the consequence was that their liberty remained, their harvests were good, their vintage was good, their flocks and their herds increased, and they were every way happy. Just so now, if we would have spiritual rest, spiritual settlement, and real prosperity, it must be by simply abiding by that truth that represents the great God to us as a Savior, that represents him in a covenant ordered in all things and sure, simply abiding by that. And this one circumstance of rejecting all other gods and simply abiding by him, I never could, and, I suppose, never shall, find language to describe the value of such a spirit in the sight of God. Oh, there is not anything that the blessed God more esteems and respects in his people than that immoveable decision for his truth, his name, his kingdom, and his glory; there is not anything that he more respects than this. Hence, whenever there is any wavering, shall it be wholly of grace, or partly of grace and partly of works? what then do the Scriptures say? “Let not him that wavers think that he shall receive anything of the Lord;” for that man does not know what he wants, does not know which way to go; and in olden time the prophet said, “Why halt you between two opinions?” The truth that Abraham received he abode by; so, with Isaac, so with Moses, and with the prophets, and so with the apostles. Never mind about the world calling you bigots, and narrow-minded, and I don’t know what all; never mind that. If you know what a poor lost creature you are, and that your salvation is entirely of the Lord, then you will abide by him according to what he has described: “Other lords beside you have had dominion over us, but by you alone will we make mention of your name.” I most solemnly declare that, in the prospect of a dying hour, if my conscience could charge me with ever once deviating from, making light of, or giving up, any one of the truths of the everlasting covenant, I believe that would have made a sort of hole in my religion through which the enemy might have levelled plenty of darts. I believe, when a man comes to die, if he can in a dying hour say this one thing, “I have kept the faith,” it is more blessed than language can describe. When the apostle Paul tells us he had fought a good fight, he means that he had held fast the truth and abode by it; and therefore, when he says he had finished his course, he means that he had not deviated from his course; he had been brought into the truth, and abode by it; and he sums up the whole of it in this way, “I have kept the faith.” And so of the Old Testament saints, “These all died in faith.” So, then, the reason that they had rest was because, while other lords had had dominion over them, yet now by the Lord alone could they make mention of his name. Oh, this sweet feature! I do love this sweet feature in the character of the Christian. And when I receive letters from some of our friends that have been away from us many years, removed by Providence, some into one foreign part, some into another, some the other side of the globe, or our antipodes, when I receive testimonies from them that they are just where they were when they left us in God’s blessed truth, delighting in it and thirsting for it, though bitterly complaining that they meet with very few companions that are like-minded, still it is no discredit to a congregation to have scattered over the world these grains of salt, hoping that the Lord may be with them and bless them; for he has a meaning in all the movements of his hand. When I hear this, I rejoice in that decision in which they have been kept This is the way the people had rest.

Now how was it they had rest no longer than forty years? well, I can tell how it was; and yet I can hardly tell, either. I can hardly tell; but you do not get through the next chapter before you stumble upon an altar, and say, What altar is this? This is not the Lord's; no, it is Baal's; and here is a beautiful grove. and gardens-everything made pleasant to the flesh, Catholicism-like, Puseyism-like-a great display. Well, how in the world Baal got in again I do not know, but I should not wonder if it was either by trade affairs, or else by matrimonial affairs, or else by both. Of course, there would come in a little worldly interest. Well, now, don't you be bigoted; you and I might trade well together; I could be a wonderful customer to you; I could bring hundreds of pounds to you; but then you are so bigoted. You must not suppose that the God of the Hebrews is to be worshipped only in one way; my dear sir, he is to be worshipped in a great many ways; it doesn't matter so that you worship him. Never mind which way you worship him so that you do worship him, that is all. Therefore, we have Baal, and Baal represents the sun, and we think that is one of the ways in which God should be worshipped. And our neighbors there, they have Chemosh, and they think that is the way in which he should be worshipped. Mind, they kept up the name of God to a Well, says the man, I don’t know; I think so too. Very well, then, I will give you this order, and be a good customer to you. Also, in connection with this, perhaps, matrimony, some of the Israelites marrying some of the heathen women; and the woman would say, Well, you know, I cannot leave my way of worshipping altogether. Of course, I worship the supreme God, but then I do it through a different medium, namely, through Baal, and therefore, if I have you, you must come to where I come sometimes. And therefore, by a variety of these worldly interests and carnal feelings God’s truth was by degrees put aside, Baal was brought in; and then, of course, when Baal was brought in, in came Satan, and brought in his Midianites, and they were all impoverished, in bondage, degradation, and wretchedness together. This is the way it was done, and this the way it was done, and this is the way in which it is done in our day, not with literal images, but false doctrines are under various pretenses brought in. Why, I have known this, some men professing to love the truth marring women that are of a very legal cast; and they actually made it a sine qua non that you shall leave that bigoted high doctrine place, and come and join my charitable, moderate place, or else I will not have you; and I have known some, men they call themselves, you may call them what you please, but I have known some that have actually done that. And on the other hand, bless the Lord, I have known a great many that have had temptations of this sort, but have nobly disdained them, despised them, and fled from them. Liberty, but only in the Lord. Oh, I like that man’s and that woman s religion that would not sell the liberty they have in the gospel for anything, that would not sell the freedom they enjoy there for anything; that religion wherein we are made willing to buy the truth at any price, but to sell it at no price. So, then, the reason they had rest no longer was because they brought in false gods, and thus went away from the truth as it is in Jesus. Let us, therefore, be quite sure that all the doctrines we hold are of God, and that all the ordinances we contend for are of God; let us look to this, and then the Lord will be with us in his own truth, his own ordinances, and his own ways.

But I will go to a subject that I like better than I do this controversial sort of way of speaking. Now how is it the people of God have everlasting rest? for their rest is an everlasting rest. I will assign three reasons why their rest is an everlasting rest, whatever may be the things implied in the word “rest,” and of course they are many. And the first thing implied in the word “rest,” as you are aware, is that of release; therefore, the people of God have an everlasting release, because the righteousness of Jesus Christ is everlasting. That is the first reason I shall assign. Hence that beautiful scripture, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justified,” by imputing unto them the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that righteousness releases them from condemnation once and for ever, though thousands of times after this release by that righteousness they come into doubts and fears and seeming condemnation. Many a child of God has thought, Well, I am very sadly ill, perhaps I am going to die, and I shall be lost; I shall go to hell. I feel I have something like condemnation in my conscience; I feel there is something wrong. But there is not anything wrong. No Satan may work in this way. What then is to be done? Why, the Lord will appear unto such, and say, What ails you? Condemned? No, how can that man be condemned that believes with all his heart in the eternal righteousness of Christ, in the infinite value of it? “Be it known unto you, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and that all that believe in him are justified from all things, from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses.” That is one reason why our release is forever. Again, let me say, then, that faith does the work: “Be it known unto you, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, that by him all that believe.” Does my conscience tell me, then, that I do believe? You recollect that beautiful scripture we have often touched upon, “He that believes has the witness in himself.” What a number of pieces have been written, in magazines especially, as to what is meant by him that believes having the witness in himself! I recollect a piece some time ago wherein the writer rather despised the idea; he said, “Some people say that this witness is a consciousness that you do believe, but that is not the witness.” Well, notwithstanding his saying it is not, I think it is. “By him all that believe;” “he that believes has the witness in himself.” What witness? Why, he has the witness of a good conscience that he does believe. Is my belief in Jesus Christ a make-belief? No. I can say in the sight of a heart-searching God, and you can say the same if you are a Christian, that you do as sincerely, conscientiously, and earnestly, believe in Jesus Christ as you believe in your existence. Therefore where there is this faith, your conscience bears you testimony that your faith is not a put-on thing, that you have not adopted a creed in order to please your fellow-creature, or in order to adapt yourself to certain circumstances; but that simply you stand condemned before God as a sinner, and that your conscience bears you testimony that you do believe in the power of Christ’s righteousness to exempt you from condemnation. What is this witness in yourself, then, but a consciousness that you do believe? and thus you must know whether you do or not. But, say you, devils believe also. True, but then they believe only to hate; but your conscience must go on to bear testimony of this also, that where true faith is, where there is a real believing, it endears the Savior, and reconciles you to God. How often does the child of God say, If I could feel sure that this righteousness is set to my account, and that I am thus released, ah, how I should leap for joy, and how I should praise the Lord! Well, if you have the faith of which I have spoken, the time will come when you will feel sure. When the Lord has kept you, I was going to say, in Doubting Castle as long as he thinks proper, he will then come and open the prison, bring your soul out, and then shall you praise his name. So, then, this is one reason why the release, the rest, is everlasting, because the righteousness of Jesus Christ is everlasting. Then, again, I need not remind you of his atonement. Jesus Christ died only once, and the reason that he died only once was because he did by that one death accomplish all that was to be accomplished; “he has by his one offering perfected forever all them that are sanctified.” Now the Lord enable you to take a firm position here, and to say to the Lord, “Lord, you see what a poor creature I am, how little faith I have; and yet my conscience bears me testimony that I do most solemnly believe that nothing but this substitutional work of Christ can release me from hell, from sin, from death, from the curse, from Satan; that nothing but this substitutional work of Christ can set me free, or bring me into the realms of eternal bliss.” If you can bear testimony that you do thus believe, then the promises are made to them that believe. “To him that works not,” says the apostle, “but believes on him that justifies the ungodly;” and what are we apart from what Jesus Christ has made us but poor ungodly creatures? Bless the Lord, then, for this precious faith. The apostle might well say, “We that believe do enter into rest.” So that our release is once and forever; of course, our assurance of it is quite another thing. This one reason, then, we may sum it up in one, the substitutional work of Christ enduring forever is one reason why the release, the liberty, the rest, must remain forever; set free, and free forever. You will always find eternity connected with this. If the Holy Spirit speaks somewhat definitely of regeneration, what does he say? “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and abides forever.” And when the Lord speaks of our being brought into the light, what is it? Why, an everlasting light: “You sun shall not go down, neither shall your moon withdraw its brightness.” And if the Holy Spirit present to us the ultimate object and ultimate destiny of the saints in this matter, what is it? Why, it is everlasting joy, and pleasures for evermore. Here, then, is eternal rest. The second reason I shall assign why our release, rest, and prosperity must remain for ever and ever is the immutability of our dear covenant God. There must be a meaning in that scripture, and what little I say this morning, and what little I may say this evening, if I am able to come, which I hope I shall be, will bear very much upon that, namely, that “he is abundantly willing to show to the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel.” He loves us now just the same as he always did; he approves of us now m Christ just as he always did; he thinks the same precious thoughts concerning us now that he always did and is more ready to help us than we are to be helped and is more ready to hear us than we are to pray and is more ready to minister the good than we are to receive it. He rests in his love; “with him is no variableness, neither shadow of turning;” faithful and unchanging God. What a blessed truth is this of immutability, amidst the many changing scenes of this poor dying world! I was thinking over this matter last night, looking back at our deacons; and I in my time have outlived thirteen deacons. Now, I thought, that is a good many deacons for one minister to outlive. I ranged over, as far as I could, the great number of friends we have lost since I have been with the friends; and of course, it all points to this, that it is a very changing world. Good health one hour, and a corpse the next; one day seeming as though you would live to be a hundred years old pretty well, and the next day on a bed of sickness or of death. Oh, to have something that is infallible, something that is unchanging, amidst all these changing scenes, is indeed a treasure of treasures. You often sing in your hymn that while he takes this away, and that and the other away, he does not take himself away. Even to old age, those whose lot it is to live to that time, there is a promise to lighten that old age, to soothe, to strengthen, and to make it happy. “They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing; to show that the Lord is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.” He makes a positive promise, and abides by that promise, nothing can move him; because his promises point to the removal of all those things that would hinder us, but those things that would hinder us cannot hinder him. What a blessed truth is it, then, that our God is immutable, of the same mind, and none can turn him! You know that we rise and fall in one another’s estimation; but it is not so with the Lord’s people in his sight. He does not highly respect them today, and care nothing, or comparatively nothing, about them tomorrow; he respects them in all places and at all times just the same; there is no alteration whatever.

Now we do see a very great deal, I will say that; it has been my lot at any rate to see it and experience it too, a very great deal of faithfulness, attachment, and sincerity among Christian friends one to the other. It is a good thing when we have a spirit of stability about us; still, we are but creatures, and infallibility can be found nowhere but in an infallible God; he will not leave us nor forsake us. These, then, are two reasons, the substitutional work of Christ and the immutability of God, why our release is complete and our rest eternal. And then the third reason I shall assign is the character of the people. You see the old covenant people were not a regenerated people; they did always err in their hearts, and did not know God’s ways, except that remnant according to election among them that were as the prophets, and those who understood the prophets were spiritually taught; but with the exception of those the people at large were blind to the beauty of God’s truth and were therefore unfaithful started aside like a deceitful bow. Now the Lord’s people are of a very different character. I will just in conclusion read the character of the people of God and let that be the last reason why their rest shall remain forever. You have their character beautifully pointed out from the 17th to the 20th verse of Psalm 44, “All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten you, neither have we dealt falsely in your covenant.” Here are, you see, the true people of God, “yet have we not forgotten you.” So those of us that know the Lord, we cannot so forget him as to put another God into his place. I do not apprehend that it means that we do not in any inferior sense forget the Lord; but that we do not so forget him as to put another God into his place; that I think is the meaning. “Neither have we dealt falsely in your covenant;” meaning that new, and true, and everlasting covenant wherein David found all his salvation and all his desire. “Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from your way.” “Our heart is not turned back.” Some seem almost staggered at such language as this, but this is the language we sing; we do not mind singing the language, and yet people say, Oh, but my heart has been turned back many times. Well, but let us look at the sense of this. Many people will sing certain lines, and then when they come to the scripture say, I can’t understand it.

“E’er since by faith I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply,

Redeeming love has been my themes

And shall be till I die.”

Well, then, you have never gone back from that to disbelieve and despise it? No. What is this but the work of the Holy Spirit keeping them faithful unto death, that they might at the last receive a crown of eternal life? That is another reason why their rest remained forever. “Though you have sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death;” you have all this explained in Romans 8:35, “If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god;” and what is the name of our God? “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; this is my name and my memorial unto all generations.” “If we have forgotten the name of our God or stretched out our hands to a strange god;” why, we have no more desire to do such a thing than we have a desire to go to hell; nothing can be more loathsome to the man that knows the true God than stretching out his hand to a false god. “Shall not God search this out? for he knows the secrets of the heart.” So says the apostle, “Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel;” and so solemnly he felt upon this matter that he said, “Neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.” Thus, then, if we look at those three things, we shall see what assurance we have of the mercy and goodness of the Lord; first, the substitutional and eternal perfection of Christ; secondly, the immutability of God; and thirdly, the character of the people. Why, what does the Lord say? “This people have I formed for myself;” And now let me come in conclusion to the little one; don’t feel that while yon are formed for him you suit him? You say, I cannot see how I can suit him, because I am such a poor creature. Why, that is the very reason. Mark the words, “the unsearchable riches of Christ.” Do you feel you are formed for that? Jesus Christ came into the world to seek and to save that which was lost; and I feel I am just suited to that; and so, of the immutability of God, and his great and precious promises. Well, then, “this people,” that are thus formed for me, convinced of their need, just suited to what I have provided for them, “they shall show forth my praise;” and so they have everlasting rest. Hence there is a scripture very solemn upon this matter of faith in contrast to unbelief, but a scripture from which every Christian might take a great deal of comfort, where it is said that “they entered not in because of unbelief.” What an encouraging scripture that is! Nothing else could shut them out but their shutting out God’s truth; and when they shut God’s truth out, they shut God out, and in shutting God out they shut themselves out. By setting up the golden calves, setting God’s truth aside, shutting him out, therefore they could not enter into rest. As though the Lord should say, This is my land that I have chosen, and I only can be your rest there; I only can give you fruitful seasons, and food and gladness; I only can make you happy, I only can make you safe. But then you do not want me, you have done with me, you would none of me; and therefore, to bring you into the land would be to bring Satan into the land, and God himself must go out. So, they could not enter in because of unbelief. I look at this faulty one, and I look at that faulty one and I look at a variety of faults found according, perhaps, to the temperaments and circumstances of the people of God; yet with all their faults they have this one dear excellency, they hold fast the truth, they stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made them free. And so, they hold in their faith the remedy for all and the Lord, as pass along towards their heavenly home, whispers again and again, “I am the Lord that heals you.”