the first thing, to repent and come to God in Christ while there is time. The Spirit says, "Come." It is He who invites you to-night. Therefore, I say, do what you like with me; do what you like with my arguments; do what you like with my way of putting it; but, as you value your soul, see that you refuse not Him that speaks from heaven. The Holy Ghost says, "Come." See that ye grieve not the Holy Ghost. Quench not the Spirit," but yield. My friend, you are sawing off the branch that you are sitting on, when you resist the Spirit of God. Take care!

But, further, my text says, "The Spirit and the bride say, Come." In this expression, "the Spirit and the bride," you have the incarnation, not now of the Son, but a kind of incarnation of the Holy Ghost, to overcome an objection so strong to you and me, who only believe to far too great an extent in what we can see, and hear, and handle. He says, Well, I will do what I can to be visible, and vocal, and audible, and substantial;" and so He incarnates Himself, so to speak, through the bride. And what is the bride ? Well, that is plain. All through the Scripture, Old Testament and New Testament alike, the bride is spoken of as the whole company of God's true, saved, called, sanctified people, and what our text simply means is this—that you are invited, not simply in the name of the Holy Spirit, for that might be too far off, and, as I have said, too hazy and nebulous, but it is the Spirit and the bride—the Spirit with the bride, the Spirit through the bride. That is to say, He speaks to-night, in the name of all who ever drew the breath of everlasting life. In their name, in the name of the Spirit of God who cannot lie, and in the name of all whom He has ever quickened and brought to Christ, you are invited Now, are you not well bidden? Just think of it

to come.

for one moment, and ought there not to flash at last upon your soul this idea, the bona fides of God, and of God's people in this matter. We are in earnest the Spirit and the bride; that is to say, through me, through all like me who know Jesus Christ in their hearts as their living, loving Saviour by practical experimental knowledge. We are all summed up in this, and the Holy Ghost through us all is inviting you to come. I am speaking in the name of all who ever knew, and loved, and trusted Christ, whether they are yonder in glory or are now upon the face of the earth. "The Spirit and the bride say, Come." That is to say, O hesitating, unsaved men and women, if I could bring to this platform to-night all the redeemed from glory, and all who are now living the life of simple faith in Christ on the earth, and if they could all come and stand here, and if I could say to them, "Ye who constitute the bride, the Lamb's wife, there are men and women here who do not know Christ yet, what have you got to say?"—every hand would turn over the Bible just to where we are, I believe, and every glorious voice would be lifted up in this one grand, ringing welcome, "Come! Come!' The bride says, ' Come to Christ.'

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I like it for another reason. If you want to hear a man honestly praised, who should do it but the woman who was made his wedded wife yestreen"—his wife, his bride? If you want to hear Christ praised, and preached, and well set off-all His charms, all His advantages, all that He is, and all that He is worth-who ought to do it, do you think, but those of us who know Him a little? He is worth it. There was a woman in Samaria who got that idea, and she ran away back to the city, and she said, "Come." It was the bride saying, "Come." "Come," she said—“Come, see a man who told me all that ever I did. Is not this the

Christ?" And the whole city came out to see that Man. Oh, I wish that I had the tongue of men, and angels, and of women like her of Samaria, to set off Christ Himself, the graces, and dignities, and glories of His person, and character, and work. I cannot do it. Time would fail, and tongue would fail; and I am not asked to do it. But this is what I am asked to do in the Spirit's name—and He speaks for the Father, and the Son, and in the name of all of us who know Him-Sinner, sinner, do you hear me? Lend me your ear, and I will put this word into it: Come to Christ. He is not a cloud; He is not a mist; He is not a fog-bank; but He is a glorious human Divine Person, who can be known and loved. Come, O come to Jesus. I am speaking in the name of the bride; therefore, I am speaking to some of you in the name of your dead father, in the name of your dead mother. When your father died years ago, or when your mother died, you stood at the bedside, and then the last thing that you promised was, that you would come to Jesus. I am speaking in the name of your departed glorified father, your glorified mother. With something of their own reproach and pained surprise, I am saying to you, "What, John, John! What, Mary, not saved yet! not come to Christ yet! Still living in the giddy, dizzy round of the world?" "The Spirit and the bride say, Come."

Then, going on with this [same note, "Let him that heareth say, Come"-what does that mean? I have indicated it a little already. It is just this. From the point of view of this chapter-from the point of view of the actual fact and circumstance as represented by the Bible, and by God who stands behind the Bible-the whole work that lies to our hand in the little while, is just

to get men and women to come to Christ, and to get them to come still more largely. And in order to do that work, the Holy Spirit is willing to give, shall I say, with reverence, a roving commission to anybody, to everybody? The work is so urgent, the time is so short, the area is so large, that he that heareth is entitled to go and say to another, "Come to my Saviour.". The time is coming when a man shall no longer say to his brother, "Know the Lord, for all shall know Him, from the least even to the greatest." That will never be brought about by your coming to Regent Square once a week and going home again. Scarcely. That is the English of it, and the Hebrew of it, and the Greek of it. This London will never be evangelized, my friends, at that pace and at that rate. It was not simply that you and I might come and hear Gospel preaching and go home again that Christ died and went to the glory, and poured out His spirit, and sent forth the ambassadors of the Cross. No, verily; but if you know Him yourself, "let him that heareth say, Come." That is your work, that is your commission, whether you are ordained or unordained-whether the hands of the Presbytery have been laid on you or not. The Lord wants a great many irregulars and volunteers as well as a standing army. For the standing army evidently is never going to overtake the work. Go and preach. "Let him that

heareth say, Come."

How are we to do it? I stand here, and I charge some of you, and I wish you to take in the charge—I do it lightly, even at my heaviest—it will be done yon day with tremendous force-I am afraid that I am within the truth when I charge some of you, who yourselves have a sneaking interest in Jesus Christ, that you never yet have broken breath to

urge the face of clay to come to Him. Never yet.

"Well,

but," you say, "preacher-well, you are right in the main, but you have no consideration. You know, preacher, that

I am not a speaker." Speaker? You are far too much of a speaker, that is what is troubling you. Surely you could say, Come, if you can speak at all: could you not? And that is your text, and you are to stick to it, and you are not to try and divide it into one, two, three, and an application. It will not divide. Bless God, we have got such a simple text and such a simple sermon, that we have just to give it as we have got it, "Come." Do not argue. Do not try to be clever. Above all, do not try to preach a modern sermon, and do not try to be eloquent, and it will be wonderful how very eloquent you will be when you are not trying to be, but are just standing with kindling voice, and kindling eye, and kindling heart at a street corner or in some quiet lodging, sitting face to face with a friend, and saying, “Come, man. Come, John, come to Christ." I tell you that that has saved men when eloquent sermons have done nothing. “Let him that heareth say, Come." You could surely do that.

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Oh," you say, "I—I do not like to speak, and I—I am one of the quiet kind, who say so little." Yes, very likely, because you have nothing to say. Is not that why? My dear friend, if you know Christ, how can you hold your tongue-if you really know Him? We are forgetting what He said Himself in Israel. You remember how the children began to shout and cry. They got enthusiastic in their glad, free, untrammelled, unencumbered way. The children sang and shouted, and praised Him; and you remember what He said when they rebuked them. He said, "If these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry