Extracts from Rev. Robert Murray MacCheyne’s Sermons

1. Be Sober.—Be sober in the griefs of this world. Weep as though you wept not. This world is a vale of tears. It is a Boehim. There are always some mourning. No sooner is the tear dried up on one cheek than it trickles down another. Still the believer should be sober and chastened in his grief. Weep not for those that died in the Lord: they are not lost, but gone before. The sun, when it sets, is not lost; it is gone to shine in another hemisphere. And so have they gone to “shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” Weep not for those who died out of the Lord. When Aaron lost his sons, “Aaron held his peace.” Weep not over bodily pains and losses. Murmur not, be sober. If you are in Christ, these are all the hell you will ever bear. When we win to the presence of Jesus, all our griefs shall look like children’s griefs. A day in His banqueting-house will make you “forget your poverty, and remember your misery no more.” Sit loose to this world’s enjoyments. Be sober. In a little while you will be at your Father’s table above, drinking the wine new with Christ; you will meet with all your brothers and sisters in the Lord; you will have pure joy in God through ceaseless ages. Do not be much taken with the joys that are here. If ever you are so much engrossed with any enjoyment here that it takes away your love for prayer, or for your Bible, or that it would frighten you to hear the cry, “Behold the Bridegroom cometh”—then your heart is overcharged. You are abusing this world.

2. The Character of the Saved Ones.—All that are on the road to heaven are not only a justified people, but a sanctified people. This was God’s end in choosing us. “Whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son.” If any man be chosen to salvation, it is through sanctification of the Spirit. He has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy. This was Christ’s great end in dying for us, that He might make us a holy nation. “Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of water through the Word.” He laid down the unspeakable price for this. He became a man, He became a curse, for this. He groaned, sweated blood, was bruised, bowed His head, gave up the ghost, for this—that He might have liberty to make us free, humble self-denied, loving, pure as He Himself is pure. This is the Holy Spirit’s end in dealing with us. It would not be righteous in Him to dwell in an unjustified soul. It is no rest for the dove of heaven. He, therefore, awakens the soul—discovers to the man his guilt, depravity, loathsomeness. He glorifies Christ in the man’s soul—destroys the face of the covering that is over the carnal heart. He softens the rocky heart, and inclines and engages the will to cleave to the Lord Jesus Christ alone for righteousness. Then He sees no iniquity in that man. He says of that soul, “This is my rest; here will I dwell, for I have desired it.” He writes all the law in that heart.—Jer. xxxi. 33. He does not omit one of the commandments. The man cries out, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man,” Rom. vii. 22. And not only does He give him the will, but the ability, to serve God: “It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.”—Phil. ii. 13. “I have now made a new question,” says Rutherford, “Whether Christ be more to be loved for giving sanctification or for free justification? And I hold He is more and most to be loved for sanctification. It is in some respect greater love in Him to sanctify than to justify; for He maketh us most like Himself, in His own essential portraiture and image, in sanctifying us; justification doth but make us happy, which is to be like the angels only. God be thanked for ever that Christ was a told down price for sanctification.” O my soul, art thou one of those that do His commandments? Have I come into the bonds of the new covenant, and got the law put in my inward parts, and written on my heart? Does Christ stretch forth His hand to me, saying, “Behold my mother and my brethren. For whosoever shall do the will of my Father, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother?”—Matt. xii. 50. On this my eternity hangs. If I receive an unholy gospel, I shall perish. They are ungodly men who “turn the grace of God into lasciviousness.” The branches that bear no fruit He taketh away. They that are saved are they that do His commandments.

“Had I a throne above the rest,
Where angels and archangels dwell,
One sin unslain within my breast
Would make that heaven as dark as hell.”

1. Holiness and Happiness.—Holiness is its own reward. To be holy is to be happy. God is happy because he is infinitely holy. The devil never can be happy, because he has lost every spark of holiness. The first rest of the believing soul is when he comes to Christ and finds pardon. But there is a further and sweeter rest when he learns of Christ, who is meek and lowly in heart.—Matt. xi. 28, 29. Holiness is the river of God’s pleasure, and therefore it fills the soul that drinks of it with divine joy.

2. Divine Mercy.—Mercy dwells in God as in a fountain. All the mercy that is in the universe flows from Him. Mercy is compassion to those who deserve no compassion, but infinite wrath. It was mercy that made God spare fallen man, and not cast the world speedily into hell. It was mercy that made Him give His only begotten Son. It was mercy that made Him choose, awaken, and draw any sinner to Christ. He never saved any but out of free sovereign mercy. There is none so vile but God can save him without prejudice to His justice, truth, holiness, or majesty. God has saved as vile wretches in time past as any vile wretches that need now to be saved. Manasseh, once a monster in human form, is now a white-robed saint before the throne. The dying thief is this day with Christ in paradise. The murderers of Jesus are now tuning their harps of gold, and singing “Worthy is the Lamb!”

3. Amazing Depravity.—”No man can come unto me,” said Christ, “except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him.” There never was a teacher like Christ. “Never man spake like this man.” He spoke with such authority, not like the scribes, but with a heavenly dignity and power. He spoke such wisdom; He spoke the truth without any imperfection; His teaching was pure light from the Fountain of Light. He spoke with such love, with the love of one who was to lay down His life for His hearers. He spoke with such meekness, bearing the contradiction of sinners against Himself, when reviled, reviling not again. He spoke with such holiness, for it was “God manifest in the flesh.” And yet all this did not draw them. There never was a more precious gift laid at the feet of sinners. “My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” The very Saviour their perishing souls needed was now before them. His hands were stretched out to them. He was within their reach. He offered Himself to them. Yet they would not come to Him. Oh this desparate blindness, hardness, deadness, and wickedness of the unconverted heart! Nothing but Almighty grace can change it. O graceless man! your friends warn you—your ministers cry aloud to you—the whole Bible pleads with you—Christ, with all His benefits, is set before you—and yet, unless the Holy Spirit be poured upon your heart, you will remain an enemy of the cross of Christ, and the destroyer of your own soul. “No man can come unto me, except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him.”

4. Power of Divine Grace.—A Jew was sitting at the receipt of custom, near the gate of Capernaum. His brow was furrowed with the marks of covetousness, and his jealous eye exhibited all the low cunning of the publican. Very probably he had heard much of Jesus; perhaps he had heard Him preach by the shore of the Lake of Galilee; still his worldly heart was unchanged, for he remained at his wicked trade, sitting by the receipt of custom. The Saviour passed that way, and as He bent His eyes upon the busy Levi, said, “Follow me.” He said no more. He used no argument, no threatening, no promise. But the God of all grace breathed on the publican’s heart, and he was made willing; “he arose and followed Him.” It pleased God, who worketh all things according to the council of His own will, to give Matthew a saving glimpse of the excellency of Jesus; a drop fell from heaven upon his heart, and melted it; he smelled the sweet savour of the Rose of Sharon. What is all the world to Matthew now? He cares not for its gains, its pleasures, its praises, any more. In Christ he sees what is sweeter and better than them all. He arose and followed Jesus. Let us learn that a simple word may be blessed to the saving of precious souls. Often we are tempted to think there must be some deep and logical argument to bring men to Christ. Often we put confidence in high-sounding words. Whereas it is the simple exhibition of Christ carried home by the Spirit, which awakens, enlightens, and saves. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.” If the Spirit be breathing on the people, these little words, “Follow Jesus,” spoken in love, may be blessed to the saving of a whole congregation.

5. A Contrast and a Question.—What a powerless thing the gospel sometimes appears! The minister is half ashamed of it. The people slumber under its most affecting statements. Again, at another time, the gospel is evidently “the power of God unto salvation.” An unseen power accompanies the preached Word, and the sanctuary is felt to be the house of God, and the very gate of heaven. Then the word of Jeremiah is fulfilled: “Is not my word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?”—(Jer. xxiii. 29). Then stout-hearted sinners are awakened. Old, and middle-aged, and little children, are made to cry, What must I do to be saved? An awful stillness pervades the assembly. The arrows of the King of Zion are sharp in the heart of the King’s enemies, and the people are brought down under Him. O sinner! has the gospel come thus in power to you? Has the hammer of the Word broken your rocky heart? Has the fire of the Word melted your icy heart? Has the voice that is “like the noise of many waters,” spoken peace to your soul?

6. The Love of God.—There is no love in this world like a mother’s love. It is a free, unbought, unselfish love. She cannot account for it. You cannot change it. You must break to pieces the mother’s heart before you will change it. It is the fullest love with which a creature can love. She loves with all her heart. But the love of God to a soul in Christ is far above a mother’s love. It is a love ingrained in His nature, and God must change before His love can change. It is a full love. The whole heart of the Father is as it were continually showered down in love upon the Lord Jesus. And when a sinner comes unto Christ the same love rests upon that soul—(see John, xvii. 26). When the sun showers down its beams on the wide ocean, and on a little flower at the same time, it is the same sunshine that is poured into both, though the ocean has vastly larger capacity to receive its glorious beams. So when the Son of God receives the love of His Father, and a poor guilty worm hides in Him, it is the same love that comes both on the Saviour and the sinner, though Jesus is able to receive infinitely more.