Waymarks.

BY THE

REV. J. M. WARD, M.A.,

INCUMBENT OF ST. STEPHEN'S, CANONBURY.

"Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat : because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”—Matt. vii. 13, 14.

"BEHOLD the goodness and the severity of God," exclaimed the apostle Paul, in the 11th of Romans, in declaring his wonderful dealings towards Jew and Gentile: "Behold the goodness and the severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in that goodness." We see the same combination, the same harmony, of two opposing elements in the Divine character throughout the inspired Word of God. Sometimes Divine goodness displays itself most strikingly, and speaks with gentle and winning voice; but even while that voice is speaking, we cannot help but realize other and sterner sounds in the distance. On the other hand, sometimes severe threatenings, even from the lips of the Lamb of God, make themselves to be heard, rolling like thunder over the impenitent, but even that storm is not unaccompanied with indications of mercy! Even terrors conceal mercies, and clouds of wrath burst with blessings on the head of him who repents! Let us look into the Bible, and we shall find illustrations of this truth. Hear those oft-heard and well-remembered words of Jesus, which fall so gently and so winningly on our ears, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." They are indeed cheering words! But have they not a dark as well as a bright side ? A bright side indeed turned towards us, but a dark side felt to be in the background! There is rest indeed for the weary who come to Christ; but for those who will not come to Christ, trouble-eternal trouble! Again, witness those affecting tears which Jesus shed as He gazed on Jerusalem,

SERMON XVII.

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and hear those affecting words.-"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" Truly there was displayed unbounded goodness of heart, compassion of soul! But there was a dark side also to that picture: "Behold your house is left unto you desolate!" On the other hand, even Jesus sometimes threatened with words of stern severity: "Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish;" and, "he that believeth not shall be dammed." But, behind the severity, goodness shows itself. 'Repent ye, and believe the Gospel ;" and, "He that believeth shall be saved."

We may mark the same combination of two opposite qualities in the text. Our blessed Lord is speaking of the soul's important journey to the eternal world. He mentions the two everlasting homes to which that journey tends-destruction and life. He points out, faithfully, two distinct roads, leading to the one and to the other. He lays down certain broad waymarks, which distinguish these ways, and then He gives the urgent counsel to avoid the one, and to adopt the other. Now, here, the design of the blessed Saviour has goodness in it, and goodness only; but in what He says, there is an air of sternness and severity. His counsel is good and gracious, to enter into the road which leads to everlasting life. But the waymarks of that road are not very encouraging in their tendency. Looking at them, we should say that the man must be bent upon attaining to eternal life, who would venture to enter in and pursue his way along it. But it will be profitable, I hope, for us, my brethren, to look at both sides, while we proceed to review,

I. The Waymarks and their Difficulties.

II. The Counsel and its Encouragements.

I. Let us try to distinguish between the road to destruction, and the way to life, by the waymarks laid down. They are broad and clear, and by them the ways are easily distinguishable, one from another. The way to destruction is marked by an easy entrance"wide is the gate;" by a broad and capacious road, offering no difficulties of travelling-" broad is the way; 22 and this road is much frequented-it is thronged by travellers; "many there be which go in thereat." These are clear and palpable waymarks; and so, again, of the way to life. It is marked by a confined and contracted entrance. "Strait is the gate,"-by a narrow pathway, demanding caution and circumspection on the part of the traveller-"narrow is the way;" and the road is not a favourite road: since it offers but few attractions, and these only to such as are bent on pursuing their journey, till they reach the home at the end; it is unfrequented except by the few; it is not like the other, thronged by travellers. "Few there be." And these also are clear and palpable waymarks. Let us notice these points carefully. They seem to convey to us. two distinct points of instruction.

1. The two roads are differently frequented-the one by a throng, the other by few. And this is a point too important to be passed over in silence. For how many are there, my brethren (especially among the young), who choose the broad road and eschew

the narrow way, simply because they prefer going with the stream, and joining themselves to the many, to casting in their lot with the despised few! They prefer the one because it is thronged; they eschew the other because they would be singular if they walked in it. It is well for them to know that these are waymarks, which the Saviour Himself has noted down-beacons which He Himself has set

up to warn souls. The crowding of the one is a decided mark of danger; the abandonment of the other by the giddy crowds of the world is a decided mark of safety. So the Saviour teaches us.

And is it not true? Let us glance along each highway, and view for a moment the travellers along them. There is the " way which leadeth to destruction." See its diversified crowds! We need not speak at length of those who are outside the pale of the visible church, (alas! how many are they!) who "know not God, and obey not the Gospel of His dear Son." Surely you do not find them in the narrow way, of whom it is said, that "they sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death.” But what shall we say of those within the church's pale? What of those who deny the sacred truths of God's inspired Word, "bringing in damnable heresies, and denying the Lord that bought them?" What of those who have the light of the Gospel, but who "love darkness rather than light," and who will not "come to the light, lest their deeds should be reproved?" What of those whose knowledge of Divine things is extensive, and who yet "run into every excess of riot ;" who "profess that they know God, and yet in works deny Him;" who palliate grievous sins, and misname them with innocent names, regarding iniquities which God abhors, as human weaknesses; "whose sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment ?" See the multitudinous throng, travelling onwards and onwards, on the broad road! And behold other groups! There are those whose hearts are given up to habitual worldliness, who forget God, and who are careless for eternity; those, too, who "have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof," and "who are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God;" those, too, who make a plausible, high-toned profession of spiritual religion, but who only put it on as a cloak. They say they love Christ, but their heart is not right with him. Thus thronged is the road which "leadeth to destruction." "Many there be that go in thereat." And we are bound not to conceal the fact, that the converse is equally true. The way which "leadeth to life" is, comparatively, an unfrequented way. Both Scripture and experience testify to this. The Saviour Himself conceals it not from us. speaks of that flock as a "little flock," to whom it is "the Father's good pleasure to give the kingdom." "The whole world (St. John tells us) lieth in wickedness;" and the people of Christ are said to be "given to Him out of the world," and called out of the world, and chosen, as if they were indeed a remnant. 'Many are called, but few are chosen." And when we turn from the voice of Scripture, to listen to that of experience, does not the one corroborate the testimony of the other? Must we not say with Jeremiah, "Where is he that engageth his heart to approach unto the Lord ?" And with Isaiah," Who is he that stirreth up himself to take hold upon

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God?" "Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed ?" Are all "seeking first the kingdom of God?" Have not covetousness and the love of this present world taken hold of the hearts of many, very many professors of religion? Surely, if the Saviour's requirement of his church of old be His requirement of His church still-" if any man will come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me;' ""for "Whosoever taketh not up his cross and followeth after me, cannot be my disciple," then, how true must it be of the way to life-" few there be that find it."

2. But the mention of this leads us to other waymarks laid down in the text. Distinct truths are conveyed to us by the "wide gate' and the "broad road" on the one side, and the "strait gate" and the "narrow way" on the other. As to the former, the gate is wide indeed the gate is broad indeed! So wide, that all men enter in, as soon as they are born into the world, for "as soon as they are born, they go astray." So broad is the road that it is world-wide, and all the generations of mankind have walked in it, and have found room in it; for let us not forget that the world is a lost world, that "the whole world lieth in wickedness"-in the wicked one-and that we and all are of that world at first, and must perish with it at last, unless through mercy we come out of it, and enter into life through Christ, having become “ new creatures in Christ Jesus." And, again, in another sense, the gate is wide indeed, and the way is broad indeed! It is easy and agreeable to our corrupt and fallen nature. It requires no exertion and no crucifixion of self to walk in it. It is very accommodating to self-will; there is no thwarting of that tyrant. In that road self has the mastery; it does as it lists without let or hindrance; its pride is not humbled. This was the bait of Satan which our first father took, and which led him into the broad way and kept him there: "in the day that ye eat thereof, ye shall be as gods." It is the way of self-indulgence; carnal lusts and passions are unbridled. As one of old has illustrated it, "sinners have elbow room there for their lusts." They do what they list, and say, "Tush! how shall God perceive it? Is there knowledge in the Most High ?" Then, again, as to the road to heaven, the gate is strait indeed, and the way is very narrow! It is a contracted entrance. Encumbrances must be thrown away, for only by "pressing" through can you effect an entrance. Conversion to Christ, brethren, is a humbling process; it is a humbling of the natural man, and that humbling, I conceive, constitutes mainly the straitness of the gate; and the way, when entered, how narrow! What antagonism presents itself at once to all the efforts of corrupt nature! that master-lust, self-will, must be mortified; the body of sin must be kept under; the "flesh, with its affections and lusts,' must be crucified. Satan must be resisted; the world itself, through which we are passing, must be regarded as an enemy; watchfulness must be maintained; hardness must be endured; the cross must be taken up; the great Master's infinitely holy and self-denying example must be followed, "through good report and through evil report;" and, in the midst of all these difficulties, hope must be kept in lively exercise, implicit confidence placed in God for a recompense

out of sight-"a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."

Now, we may very naturally suppose that there are some who would be deterred rather than encouraged by these waymarks of our blessed Lord. Some, convinced indeed of sin and of need, may hang back from entering into the kingdom of Christ, because the step forward seems to be so difficult, and the way seems to offer such hindrances. What then must be done? Shall we hide from your eyes that which seems to be repulsive, and try to find a plainer and an easier path to heaven than that which we find here? Can we make that easy which Jesus pronounces to be hard, and that wide and broad which Jesus declares to be strait and narrow? Nay, brethren, how can we do this? He is God who speaks in the text. It is the King's highway, concerning which the King Himself is giving His own directions. He is "the truth." He has said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away." The word has gone forth out of His lips, and it shall stand for ever. "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way," and woe be unto us if we preach another gospel. Then, what must be done? Shall we encourage you in a delay to arise at once and to press in? But delay is most dangerous. You would not reason thus in the case of some deadly disease by which your earthly life was imperilled. If one limb of the body were diseased, and the disease were of a deadly nature, and the only alternative of safety and of life were the removal of the limb from the body, however painful that operation may be, and however you may shudder at the prospect of it, you would submit to it, and your friend, though he might sympathize with you in your suffering, and in your anxiety in the prospect before you, would urge you, in the very kindness of his heart, in tones most earnest, to submit to the operation without delay. My brethren, the only hope of the soul's everlasting safety is in its immediate entering in at the strait gate. Nothing but this will save. The gate is strait, but enter it you must; the way is narrow, but choose it for your pathway to heaven you must, if you would ever arrive there. What, then, is left for us to do, but to take up the Saviour's urgent counsel, and press it faithfully upon you?

II. "Enter ye in at the strait gate." And while we press the counsel, let us inquire whether there are not some things to encourage us in the consideration of it.

1. "Enter ye in," says Christ. And what a comfort, brethren, to know that however strait the gate may be, and however narrow the way, there is yet a gate, and there is yet a way to heaven, into which it will lead you! Strait is the gate"-but there is a gate! "Narrow is the way"-but there is a way! Oh! what a mercy! For might it not have been otherwise? Might not God, and that justly too, have shut us out, and have opened no door of entrance whatever into His kingdom? Need we have wondered if there had been no Mediator-no daysman betwixt us and God-if the cross of Jesus had never been planted on Calvary-if the Beloved of the Father had never shed His precious blood. My brethren, the requirements of the text may seem to be stern, but the heart which dictates