In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of following Christ faithfully and enduring the trials and suffering that may come with it. He describes the reward of eternal life and likeness to Christ as a great treasure, surpassing any temporary hardships. The preacher laments the lack of heroism and courage in the current age, contrasting it with the noble acts of sacrifice witnessed in Scotland. He urges believers to go forth from the comfort of the camp and bear the reproach of Christ, rather than trying to reform the imperfect world.

Let us go forth. A sermon. Delivered on Sunday morning, June 26th, 1864. By the Reverend C. H. Spurgeon. At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington. Hebrews 13, verse 13. Let us go forth, therefore, unto him without the camp. Bearing his reproach. Modern professors have discovered a very easy way of religion. There is a method by which a man may attain to great reputation as a Christian. And yet avoid all the trials of the believer's estate. He may go through the world finding his path as smoothly turfed as the flesh could desire. Blessed with the smiles of friendly formalists. With the admiration of the ungodly. He may pass from his first entrance into the church to his grave. Without experiencing so much as a single shower to damp his delight. But on the contrary. The sun may smile sweetly upon him all the way. The birds may sing. Not a raven may dare to croak. Not a single owl may hoot. His road to glory and immortality shall be all that ease could wish. Let him adopt the modern theory of universal charity. Let him believe that a lie is a truth. And that whether to be a lie or a truth is of no consequence at all. Let him be complacent towards every man. And with a smooth and oily tongue chime in with every other man's principles. Having none of his own worth mentioning. Let him trim his sails whenever the wind changes. Let him in all things do in Rome as Rome does. Let him yield at all times to the current and float gently with the stream. That he shall come to the haven though I fear not the desired one. He shall come to some sort of haven at last without any storm or tempest by the way. But a dark thought comes across one's mind. Is this the kind of religion which we read of in the Bible? Is this the way in which scriptural saints went to heaven? It would be a very pleasant thing if we could please men and please God too. If we could really make the best of both worlds. And have the sweets of this and of the next also. But a warning cry arises from the pages of Holy Scripture. For the word of God talks very differently from this. It talks about a straight and narrow way. About a few that find it. It speaks of persecution, suffering, reproach and contending even unto blood. Striving against sin. It talks about wrestling and fighting, struggling and witnessing. I hear the Savior say not, I send you forth as sheep into the midst of green pastures. But as sheep in the midst of wolves. I hear him prophesy that we should be hated of all men for his name's sake. Truly these things are enough to startle those good easy souls who go so delicately onward. Surely they may at once inquire. Can it be that this smooth faced godliness, this very delightful way of getting to heaven can be the right one? Is it not all a delusion? Are we not buoyed up with a false hope if that hope is never assailed by trouble and persecution? All is not gold that glitters. May not the glittering religion of the many be after all only a pretense and a sham? O ye lovers of carnal ease, woe unto you. Inasmuch as ye take not up the cross, ye shall never win the crown. The disciples of Christ must expect to follow their master. Not merely in obedience to his doctrines, but also in the reproach which gathers about his cross. I do not find Christ carried on flowery beds of ease to his throne. I do not find him applauded with universal acclamations. On the contrary, wherever he goes he is a protester against things established by human wisdom. And in return the things established vow his destruction. They are not satisfied until at last they gloat their cruel eyes with his martyrdom on the cross. Jesus Christ has no life of pleasure and of ease. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Let us rest assured that if we bear faithfully our testimony, we shall discover that the servant is not above his master, nor the disciple above his Lord. If they have called the master of the house the Elzebub, much more shall they call them of his household by titles as ignominious and shameful. We must expect, if the Christian soldier be really a soldier, then not a mere pretender to the art of war, that he will have to fight until he joins the host triumphant. If the church be properly imaged by a ship, she must expect to have storms, and every man on board her must look to bear his share. From the first day when Cain and Abel divided the first family into two camps, even until now, the flesh lusteth against the spirit, the evil contendeth with the good, and the good wrestleth with the evil. Wherever the true and the good have pitched their tents, there the enemy have gathered to attack them. Righteousness courts no peace or truce with sin. Our peaceful Savior came not to form an alliance so unhallowed, hear His own words. Think not that I come to send peace on earth. I come not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man as variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. Turning to Scripture, then, I find nothing about this pretty by-path meadow and its quiet respectable walk to heaven. I find nothing about riding in the gilded chariots of ease or walking in silvery slippers. But I do find contention and strife, rebuke and suffering and cross-bearing, and, if need be, resistance unto blood, striving against sin. Our text seems to convey that thought to us most powerfully. Let us take it up, and may the Holy Ghost lead us to its true meaning. We have before us, first of all, the believer's path. Secondly, his leader. Thirdly, his burden. Fourthly, his reason for following that path. First, we have the believer's path. The believer's path is, let us go forth without the camp. The divine command is not, let us stop in the camp and try to reform it. Things are not anywhere quite perfect, let us therefore stop and make matters right. But the Christian's watch cry is, let us go forth. Luther caught this note. Many there were who said, the Church of Rome has in it good and true men. Let us try and reform her. Her cloisters are not without piety. Her priests are not without sanctified lives. Let us try and restore her purity. But Luther heard the voice of God. Come ye out from among her, lest ye be partakers of her plagues. And therefore he led the van, taking for his watch word, let us go forth without the camp. To this day, the Christian's place is not to tarry in the camp of worldly conformity. Hoping, perhaps I may aid the movement for reform. It is not the believer's duty to conform to the world and to the world's ways. And say, perhaps by so doing I may gain a foothold. And men's hearts may be the more ready to receive the truth. No, from the first to the last day of the Church of God, the place of witness is not inside, but outside the camp. And the true position of the Christian is to go forth without the camp, bearing Christ's reproach. So, in this respect, Abraham becomes an example to us. The Lord's first word to Abraham is that he should leave his father and his kinsfolk in the idolatrous house in which he lived, and go to a land which God should show to him. Away he must go. Faith must be his guide, providence his provision, and a living God his only keeper. The separate life of Abraham in the midst of the sons of Canaan is a type of the separated walk of the Church of God. Again, when Israel had gone down to Egypt, they were not commanded to stay there and subdue their oppressors by force of arms, or petition the legislature that they might obtain gentler usage. No, but with a high hand and an outstretched arm, the Lord brought forth his people out of Egypt, for Egypt was no place for the seed of Israel. And while they wandered in the wilderness, and afterwards, when they settled in isolation in the midst of the promised land, God's word was fulfilled, the people shall dwell alone, they shall not be numbered amongst the nations. As if to keep up the type, the Jewish people at this very period, though mingled with all the nations of the world, are as distinct as men can be. You cannot pass by a Jew without remarking at once in his very face that he is distinct and separate from all mankind. This, I say, is but a type of the Church of God. The Church of God is to be distinct and separate from all other corporations or communities. Her laws come from no human legislator. Her officers claim no royal appointment. Her endowments are not from the coffers of the state. Her subjects are a peculiar people, and her spirit is not of this world. What is meant then, dear friends, by this going forth without the camp? I understand it to mean, first of all, that every Christian is to go forth by an open profession of his faith. You that love the Lord are to say so. You must come out and avow yourselves on his side. You may be Christians and make no profession, but I cannot be sure of that, nor can any other man. While you make no profession, we must to a great extent judge you by the non-profession. Since you do not acknowledge yourselves to be a part of Christ's Church, we are compelled to judge you as not a part of that Church. We cannot suppose you to be better than you profess to be, for the most of men are not half so good as their professions. Usually, as a rule, no man is so good as his religion, and certainly no man is ever better than his religion. If you do not profess to be on Christ's side, with all charity, we are forced to accept your own confession of having no interest in Jesus. Come out, Christians! Your Master commands you and warns you that if you are ashamed of him in this generation, he will be ashamed of you in the day of his glory. He bids you acknowledge him, for if you confess him before men, he will confess you when he comes in the glory of his holy angels. I pray you, then, come out from among them by taking up the name of a Christian. Why, what is there to shudder at? Are you a soldier, and will you not wear your captain's livery? Do you love Christ, and blush to own it? You ought to be glad to plead guilty to the blessed impeachment. Why stand ye back? Let not fear or shame restrain you. If you be Christians, there is really nothing discreditable in it. Up, and stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of God, and say, I will go with you, because the Lord is with you. This done, the Christian is to be separate from the world as to his company. He must buy and sell and trade like other men in the world, but yet he is not to find his bosom friends in it. He is not to go out of society and shut himself up in a monastery. He is to be in the world, but not of it. And his choice company is not to be among the loose, the immoral, the profane. No, not even among the merely moral. His choice company is to be the saints of God. He is to select for his associates those who shall be his companions in the world to come. As birds of a feather flock together, so the birds of paradise are gregarious. Like the speckled birds they are pecked at by the common flock. As idle boys were wont to mock at foreigners in the streets, so do worldlings jeer at Christians. Therefore the believer flies away to his own company when he wants good fellowship. The Christian must come out of the world as to his company. I know that this rule will break many a fond connection, but be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers. I know it will snap ties which are almost as dear as life, but it must be done. We must not be overruled even by our own brother when the things of God and conscience are concerned. You must follow Christ. Whatever may be the enmity you may excite, remember that unless you love Christ better than husband or father or mother, yea, and your own life also, you cannot be his disciple. If these be hard terms, turn your backs and perish in your sins. Count the cost, and if you cannot bear such a cost as this, do not undertake to be a follower of Christ. The follower of Jesus goes without the camp as to his pleasures. He is not without his joys nor his recreations either, but he does not seek them where the wicked find them. The mirth which cheers the worldly makes the Christian sad. The carrion which delights the crow would disgust the dove. And so those things which are delightful and full of pleasure to unrenewed men shock and grieve the hearts of the regenerate. If thou hast no separation from the world as to thy pleasures, since thy heart is generally in thy pleasures, thy heart therefore is with the wicked, and with them shall thy doom be when God comes to judge mankind. Furthermore, the true follower of Christ is divided from the world as to his maxims. He does not subscribe to the laws which rule most men in their families and their business. Men generally say, everyone for himself and God for us all. That is not the Christian's maxim. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others, is the Christian's rule. Some men will sail very near the wind. They would not absolutely cheat, but still they use very sharp practice. They would not lie, but their puffs and recommendations are not quite the truth. The Christian scorns all this questionable dealing, and in all matters keeps to the rule of uprightness. If the believer is true to his master and goes without the camp to follow him, his actions are as the noonday clear. His word is his bond, and in his trade he would as soon think of becoming absolutely a thief as to condescend to the common tricks of trade. From my soul I loathe those men who under the pretense and profession of religion use the very respectability of their position to gain credit. Among others, that they may defraud by obtaining credit which they do not deserve. Such persons are the greatest possible disgrace to the Christian church. The bankruptcy courts may whitewash them, but the devil has blackened them beyond all power of bankruptcy to cleanse them. Their black deceitfulness shows through after all. Men may escape censor when standing at the easy bar of the commissioner for a certificate. They will find it very difficult to get a certificate when God comes to judge them in the last great day. Our laws in England really seem to me to be made on purpose that men may thieve and rob with impunity so long as they do it under the color of commerce. Well, if man's law will not touch such men, God's law shall, and the church should see that she cleanses herself as much as possible from them. If we be followers of Christ, we must go forth without this camp of petty fogging and thieving, and ours must be a downright and honest religion that will not let us swerve a hair's breadth from the straight line of integrity and uprightness. Once more, and here is a very difficult part of the Christian's course, the Christian is to come out not only from the world's pleasures and sins and irreligion, but there are times when the true followers of Christ must come out from the world's religion as well as irreligion. Every nation has a religion. In the days of Abraham, the little nationalities round him all had their God. In the days of Christ, there was an established religion in Judea, and I trove that out of its synagogues our Lord Jesus Christ was thrust with fury. There was an established religion with its priests and its proud Pharisaic professors, but our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ boldly bore his protest against its distortions of Scripture, its want of true spirituality, its worldliness, its pomp, and its pride. In his day, Jesus Christ was as true a dissenter as any of us, and separated himself and his little company from the authorized and established ecclesiastical camp. Judaism was not now the religion of Abraham, neither were the Pharisees the true exponents and successors of Moses. Therefore, Christ with burning words, though full of charity, with loving heart, but with thundering tongue, bore an awful witness against the religion of his own age. He knew how the multitude respected it, and how the great ones lived upon it, but for all this, though his life must be shed for his protest, Christ led his disciples away from the national religion to something better, nobler, and more sublime. And you and I too, brethren, must see that we never fall in with the religion of the times, because it happens to be fashionable, and because the multitudes follow it, or the law of the land patronizes it. If there exists anywhere on earth a church which teaches for doctrine the commandments of men, come out of her and bear your witness for the truth. I see before me now a church which tolerates evangelical truth in her communion, but at the same time lovingly embraces puseism and finds room for infidels and for men who deny the authenticity of Scripture. This is no time for us to talk about friendship with so corrupt a corporation. The godly in her midst are deceived if they think to mold her to a more gracious form. Her bishops will not touch the burial service, although four thousand clergymen petition for a little ease for their consciences, nor will they give up reading in God's own worship the filthy story of Susanna and elders, nor the nursery tale of Baal and the dragon, though one of their priests avers that he would quite as soon read Jack and the Beanstalk. We have waited long enough. Her space for repentance has been already too long. Flee out of her, all ye who love your souls. Come ye out from among her, be ye separate. Touch not the unclean thing, lest ye be partakers of her plagues, for her plagues are many. Often have I read works in which the Puseites call the Church of Rome their sister church. Well, if it be so, let the two harlots make a league together, but let good and honest men come out of both apostate churches, and those who love the Lord Jesus, whether clergy or laity, must leave them to their doom. I know it is hard work. It calls upon many to be poor and to give up their livings, but they must do it. Scotland witnessed a few years ago one of the noblest spectacles the world ever beheld. My heart would break with joy for England if I should live to see such a day and such a deed of heroism, but there is not spirit enough left in us. There is not grace enough left in us. I fear we have fallen upon a degenerate age. The land of brown heath and shaggy wood, land of the mountain and the flood, has nurtured a noble race of brave, bold men, and these could give up house and home and living for the truth and for God's sake, but it is not so in England. No, they will sell their consciences. They will cower down and mutter a lie at the command of the state. They will bury adulterers and seducers in sure and certain hope of a blessed resurrection. They will teach a catechism which their conscience tells them is untrue for pelf, for station. For the sake of the loaves and fishes, the men of God, and many of them we hope are such, will hold still to the false church. But our protest is lifted up against her and our foot standeth altogether without her camp. Come ye out from among her, be ye separate, touch her not, have no communion with her false doctrines. As for each of us who know the truth, our place is with Christ without the camp, bearing his reproach. I am sure my text contains all this and more, and I would to God that his church would take up her true position now and be separate in all things from anything that defileth and maketh a lie. But now secondly, we have in the text the Christian's leader. It does not say, let us go forth without the camp, merely, but let us go forth, therefore, unto him. Here is the pith of the text, unto him. Beloved, we might leave society, we might forsake all its conventionalities and become nonconformist in the widest sense and yet not carry out the text, for the text is, let us go forth unto him. O beloved, it is this point that I would urge upon you. I am no politician. I care not one whit what church has the state pay or what has not. I care not for political dissent, but I do care for following my master's word and will. And when I read this text, let us go forth, therefore, unto him. I set myself to learn what the word means. It means first, let us have fellowship with him. He was despised. He had no credit for charity. He was mocked in the streets. He was hissed at. He was hounded from among society. If I take a smooth part, I can have no fellowship with him. Fellowship requires a like experience. Come then, my soul, don thou the Savior's garb. Walk through the mire with him. Off with thy silver slippers. Go barefoot with Christ. Be thou thyself like the bush which burns, but is not consumed. Be content that thy shoulders should be raw with his rough cross. He carried it. Do not thou shirk the labor. Expect not to wear the crown where Christ carried the cross, but for fellowship's sake, follow him. Again, if I am to follow him, I am to follow his example. What Christ did, that I am to do. I am to go forth unto him. It is never to be a rule unto me that Mr. So-and-so did such-and-such a thing or Mr. So-and-so. What Christ did is to be my rule. Some men are for hanging on what Luther did or what Calvin did. That is nothing to the Christian. He says, I am to go forth unto Jesus. Follow Jesus Christ and none but Jesus Christ, and then you will be separate indeed from the rest of men. I am to go forth unto him. That is, I am to go forth to his truth. Wherever I see his truth, I am to espouse it. Wherever I see error, I am to denounce it without hesitation. I am to take his word to be my only standard. And just where his word leads me, there I am to go no matter where. I may have been educated in one way. I am to bend my education to this book. I may have conceived prejudices, but they must give way before his truth. I may know that such-and-such a belief is profitable to me, but my profit shall go for nothing in comparison with the word of God. And then I am to go forth to Christ's witness-bearing. The present age does not believe in witness-bearing, but the whole Bible is full of it. The duty of every Christian is to bear witness for the truth. Christ says, For this purpose was I born and came into the world. He who knows the truth but lays the finger of silence on his lips saying, Peace, peace when there is no peace is a sorry Christian. But if you have been washed in Jesus' blood and saved by his righteousness, I do implore you take your position with Christ as witness-bearers for the truth as it is in Jesus. My master wants today a band of men and women who are prepared to be singular, so long as to be singular is to be right. He wants men and women of bold, searching, lion-like hearts who love Christ first and his truth next. Happy souls shall they be who dare to take their stand with Christ today. The struggles of the covenanters of old need to be renewed at this moment. The strife of the Puritanic age needs to return once more to the church. And what if the stakes of Smithfield come again? And what if the times of persecution return to us? The good old vessel which outrode the blood-red storm will outright exude and she will reach her haven with all her passengers and crew safe on board to be received by the king and honored with his gracious smile. We ought to take care, however, that it is to Christ we go. Not to party, not to denomination, not to anything but Christ and his truth. Out upon denominationalism or anything else which save us not of Christ Jesus. Whether it be the Baptist church or the Episcopalian or the Presbyterian church which errs from Christ's way it is nothing to any of us which it may be it is Christ we are to care for and Christ's truth. In this we are to follow over all the hedges and ditches of men's making straight away to Christ clinging to Christ's mantle fighting away straight through where he himself fought and opened the path to his crown. Thus then have we spoken of the Christian's leader. Now in the third place we have the Christian's burden. He is to bear the Lord's reproach. The reproach of Christ in these days takes this shape. Oh say they the man is too precise. He is right but still truth is not always to be spoken. The thing is wrong no doubt which he denounces but still the time has not come yet. We must be lenient towards these things. The man is right in what he says but we must not be too precise nowadays. We must give and take a little. There must be charity. God's word in this age is a small affair. Some do not even believe it to be inspired and those who profess to revere it set up other books in a sort of rivalry with it. Why there are great church dignitaries nowadays who write against the Bible and yet find bishops to defend them. Do not for a moment think of condemning their books or them. They are our dear brethren and must not be fettered in thought. How many days ago is it since a bishop talked in this way in convocation. Some believe in potpourri but here again the plea will be they are our dear brethren. Some believe in nothing at all but still they are all safely housed in one church like the beasts clean and unclean in Noah's Ark. Those who come out with Christ get this reproach. They are too precise in fact they are bigots. That is how the world brings it out at last bigots a set of bigots. I have heard say that the word bigot took its rise from this that a certain protestant nobleman being commanded in order to gain his lands to kneel down and in some way or other commit the act of idolatry towards the host said when he came at last to the point by God I will not and they called him henceforth a bigot. If this be the meaning of the word bigot we cheerfully adopt the title and were it right to swear we would aver by him that lives by heaven we cannot speak a lie and we cannot bend our knee to the shrine of Baal bigots or no bigots. The truth is first and our reputation next. Then they say oh these people are behind their time the world has made such advances we are in the nineteenth century you ought to know better the discoveries of science put your narrow views out of court. Very well Christian be content to be behind the times for the times are getting near to judgment and the last plagues ah but they say these people seem to us to be so self-righteous they think themselves right and nobody else very well Christian if you are right think yourself right and if everybody else should call you self-righteous that does not make you so the Lord knows how we cling to the cross and as poor sinners look up to Christ in Jesus Christ alone our conscience is void of offense in this matter ah they say they are not worth noticing they are all a pack of fools it is very remarkable that in the judgment of their own age good men always have been fools fools have been the men who have turned the world upside down Luther and Calvin Wesley and Whitfield they were all fools but somehow or other God managed by these fools to get to himself a glorious victory and then they turn around and say it is only the poor only the lower orders have they any of the nobility and gentry with them well this reproach we can pretty well bear because it is the old standard of Christ that the poor have the gospel preached unto them and it has ever been a sweet reflection that many who have been poor in this world have been made rich in faith brethren you must expect if you follow Christ to endure reproach of some sort or another let me just remind you what reproach your master had to bear the world's church said of Christ he is a deceiver he deceives the people incarnate truth and yet a deceiver then they said he stirs up the people he promotes rebellion he is no friend of good order he foments anarchy he is a mere demagogue that was the world's cry against Christ and as that was not enough they went further and said he is a blasphemer they put him to death on the charge that he was a blasphemer they whispered to one another did you hear he said so and so last sabbath in his sermon what a shocking thing he did in such a place he is a blasphemer then came the climax they all said he had a devil and was mad surely they could go no further than this but they supplement by saying when he cast out devils that he did it through Beelzebub the prince of devils a sorry life your master had you see all the filth in earth's kennels was thrown at him by sacrilegious hands no epithet was thought coarse enough no terms hard enough he was the song of the drunkard and they that sat in the gate spake against him this was the reproach of christ and we are not to marvel if we bear as much well says one i will not be a christian if i am to bear that scope back then thou coward to thine own damnation but oh men that love god and do seek after the eternal reward i pray you do not shrink from this cross you must bear it i know you may live without it if you were fond and cringe and keep that part of the price but do not this it is unworthy of your manhood much more it is unworthy of your christianity for god and for christ be so holy and so truthful that you compel the world to give its best acknowledgement of your goodness by reeling at you it can do no more it will do no less be content to take this shame for there is no heaven for you if you will not no crown without the cross no jewels without the maya you must stand in the pillory if you would sit in glory you must be spit upon and be treated with shame if you would receive eternal honor and if you reject the one you reject the other we close by noticing the christian's reason for bearing his reproach and going without the camp it is in the text let us go forth therefore there is the reason why then first because jesus did jesus christ came into the world pure and holy and his life and his testimony were a witness against sin jesus christ would not conform if he would but have done this he might have been king of the jews but no the most loving spirit that ever lived was also the most firm nobody shall say that christ was either self-willed or harsh or that he hated other men nothing of the kind never was there such pure generosity such overflowing affection for men as you find in christ but yield the truth yield holiness no, never not a grain of it be silent no, he rebukes the pharisees and when the lawyer pulls his coat and says master in so doing thou rebukest us then jesus christ begins woe unto you lawyers all classes have their portion from his mouth the herodians come to him does he for a moment yield to them or when the opposite party tempt does he side with them does he either side with the saducee or with the pharisee no christ's course was ever an independent one he committed himself unto no man and for he knew what was in man the whole of his life through you cannot mistake him for a pharisee or a saducee or any one of the other teachers he stands out like a lone mount of light separate and apart from the chain of dark mountains and so must the christian christ was separate and so must you be christ was pure holy truthful so must you be i pray you either renounce your profession or else seek grace to carry it out moreover the connection of the text tells us that christ set apart his people by going without the camp that he might sanctify his people he suffered without the camp christ's separation was in order that his people might be separated the head is not of the world and shall the members be of it the head is despised and rejected shall the members be honored if any man loved the world the love of the father is not in him the world rejects christ shall the world receive us no if we be truly one with him we must expect to be rejected too christ's separation is the type and symbol of the separateness of all the elect again christ would have his people separate for their own sanctification you cannot grow in grace to any high degree while you are conformed to the world the path of separation may be a path of sorrow but it is the path of safety and though it may cost you many pangs and make your life like a long martyrdom and everyday a battle yet it is a happy life after all there is no such life as that which the soldier of christ leads for though men frown upon him christ so sweetly smiles upon him that he cares for no man christ reveals himself as a sweet refreshment to the warrior after the battle and so blessed is the vision that the warrior feels more calm and peace in the day of strife than in his hours of rest believe me the highway of holiness is the highway of communion you cannot live near to christ and yet truckle a plot on your conscience will certainly separate christ from you as to communion be sure be clear be chaste as before the lord and you may walk as on the mountain tops having christ for your companion enjoying with him a heaven on earth the covenanters and martyrs tell us in their diaries that they were never so happy as they were in the dungeon alone with christ for company nay their best days were often their days of burning they called them their wedding days and went to heaven singing and chanting the triumphal peen as they mounted in their chariots of fire let us close with this last thought and reason thus we shall hope to win the crown if we are enabled by divine grace faithfully to follow christ in all respects oh the crown the crown the crown come let me hold it up to you is it not this of great treasure eternal life likeness to christ sitting at his right hand do you not hear them the harps of angels the songs of the redeemed do you not hear them i say as in one perpetual song of joyfulness they salute the lord their god with thanksgiving it is but a flea bite here and then an eternity of bliss a moment shame and then an eternal honor a little while of witness bearing a little while of suffering a little while to be rebuked and then forever with the lord this reward is so great that it transcends the light affliction which is but for a moment i will not put so little shame in contrast with it all why in this age we suffer nothing a few hard words a jeer a sneer now and then a friend who leaves us because we speak the truth but what is that oh brethren we are denied the honor of those favored saints who died for jesus our weak spirits love these softer times but after all the days of honor were the days of persecution and the times when saints won brightest crowns were when they suffered most i fear me the church of christ is growing sleepy men of god have lost muscle and nerve our forefathers died for half a truth and we will not bear rebuke for a whole one two women were tied to the stake at wigton and drowned in the rising tide do you know what for simply because they would not say god save the king you say what does that matter well it was comparatively a theological trifle they held a certain theory concerning the bearing of the headship of christ upon the political position of the king because they thought the thing was wrong though i for my part would say god save the king a thousand times yet they would not say it once and died in constancy to their belief the two women were actually tied to stakes by the seaside the tide came up and when the elder woman of the two was drowned they asked the younger whether she would say it now but no she would not she believed it to be a truth concerning christ and his kingdom and though it only touched one of the smallest jewels of his crown yet she would not do it and therefore the gurgling waters came up to her chin and at last rolled over one who had faithfully borne witness to a portion of truth which seems very trifling to us nowadays but which to her seemed to be worth dying for nowadays I say we would not die for the whole bible though in other ages saints would have died for the dot of an I or the cross of a T we turn tail and are frightened because somebody has said a hard thing to us for defending the truth which concerns Jesus and has the salvation of man wrapped in it I say we cannot fight for the great and they would fight for the little oh may god restore to us dear friends more grace more piety more love for souls more care for the kingdom of christ a sterner prizing of the truth and a determination solemnly avowed before the lord of hosts that come what may we will contend earnestly for the faith once delivered unto the saints we stand upon the rock of ages confident that god will defend the right and that right in the end shall come off victorious god give you grace you especially the members of my charge from this day more than ever you have done to take your place without the camp and cheerfully and joyfully to bear christ's reproach some of you cannot do this you cannot bear his reproach you cannot go outside the camp for you have no vital faith you have not believed in jesus oh sinner you are not to carry christ's cross first but look to that cross for salvation and when he has saved you as he will if you trust in him then take up your cross and carry it and praise the name of god from this time forth even forever