Mr. Beecher’s trial lecture was the first sermon which he preached as a clergyman. It may be interesting, both from that fact and because, as Mr. Beecher himself once remarked, it shows how commonplace a sermon a man might write who subsequently attained to some eminence as a preacher.

For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth; it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.—Isaiah lv. 10, 11.

No one can read the Bible, even superficially, without observing how much it brings in the natural world to illustrate the truths of the moral. Of the truths of God’s government or of his own Being it may be said “the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.” The passage assigned as the subject of this lecture is remarkable in this respect, since two departments are compared—the truth of God is compared with the elements.

It will be particularly noticed here that no formal analogy is set up between the effect of truth and the effect of natural causes. Nor are the two compared in all respects.

It is not intimated that truth acts as natural causes act—that truth produces effects on mind in the same way as rain does upon the earth and its vegetation. Nothing of this. The comparison instituted respects one thing, and only one thing, and that is the equal certainty of two things. The passage teaches simply and only that there is as much certainty that the truth of God will produce its appropriate results, in its own way, as there is that natural elements will, in their own way, produce their natural results. Those who attempt to draw a parallel between the operations of God’s moral government and His natural one, and call upon this passage for witness, neither understand the import of this text nor the nature of the thing whereof they treat.

It is a comforting declaration, and to none more so than to Christians who love truth. We often fear that it will be covered up, its influence destroyed; that through the weakness of men, or the power of evil, or some disastrous reverse of events, its power will be lost. And particularly are ministers, whose chief duty it is to study truth, to promulgate and confirm it throughout the community, liable to despond when they find themselves coping with so many malign influences, so much coldness, and scepticism, and worldliness, and ignorance. If they look only upon the narrow scale upon which they labor, it often would seem as if there were indeed no power in truth, no certainty that it would fructify.

It is an assurance, then, to our faith, and a great comfort to us in our toil, when we listen to Him who sitteth in the heavens, and before whom all things are open and naked—who sits serene above all the whirl which distracts and confuses us on this dusty earth, and hear Him say, seeing the beginning from the end of all things: “For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth; it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”

We design at this time to draw from our text a few obvious inferences, to confirm and illustrate and apply them.

1. We may infer that truth is adapted to produce moral results in this world.

How it produces them we shall not examine. It is a matter of philosophy, of speculation, and we concern ourselves with the practical bearing of our text.

This inference will appear the more plainly true if we consider—

1. That the Bible is explicit upon this head. Paul says to Timothy: “From a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”

And not satisfied with specific assertion, he generalizes and makes it a general principle: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy iii. 16–17).

Could anything be more untrue, if truth has not an adaptation to produce what it is said to do?

Throughout the Bible God regards truth as sufficient to accomplish His purposes, and nothing is so severely dealt with, by rebuke and judgment, as that deficiency and sin which comes of neglecting or refusing truth.

“What more could I have done for my vineyard than I have done? Wherefore, when I looked, that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?”

A constant visible Providence, mighty acts, the record of wonderful deliverances and mercies, and the institutes of a beneficent law—were not these adapted to produce the required obedience in the Jews? If truth have not adaptation to produce moral results, the Jew very pertinently might have replied to this severe rebuke: What has been done to produce obedience? Nothing but a series of truths have been given which have no adaptation or tendency to produce holiness.

Nothing has been done to make us other than we are. And in exact accordance with the spirit of this was Christ’s teaching when He said: “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin” (John xv. 22).

2. The very object for which truth was revealed confirms the truth of our inference. It was revealed either for something or for nothing. If for nothing, it was foolishness. But if for something, then either it was fitted to produce what it was created for, or it was not. If it was not adapted to produce that for which it was created, then God attempted to bring to pass an end with means ill-adapted to that end. He raised up an instrumentality without adaptation to do what he desired. But what is meant by instrumentality, which has nothing of an instrument in it? What is instrumentality without any adaptation to do anything? Consequently if we would avoid imputing such weakness, such double folly and failure to God, we must admit with the Bible the adaptation of truth to produce its appropriate moral results.

Men travel across the express declarations of His word, and cross reason, to support a philosophical theory which, after all, destroys the very thing for which they framed it.

3. Our inference becomes still more apparent in truth if for a moment we admit the opposite doctrine and watch its results.

(1) The law is composed of truths respecting God, His relations to us, and ours to Him—the duties flowing thence, the penalties and rewards respectively of disobedience or obedience, our duties to one another, etc.; and all this professedly is given to restrain from evil and produce good.

But if truth has no adaptation to produce moral effects, the law was designed to do what it had no adaptation to do. It could have no influence and no power, and God is represented as framing a law to do what it had no relevancy to do.

(2) The character of God—why is it held forth to excite admiration and love, if that has no adaptation to excite such feelings?

There is nothing in God, nothing in His attributes, which can awaken the least emotion, unless truth can work out moral results.

(3) And precisely so of all the recorded doings of God since creation, especially that stupendous spectacle—the Atonement. All is thrown away as respects influence upon intelligent moral beings, they are utterly worthless, if they have no power to do anything. In short, this theory, so unfounded, so monstrous either in philosophy or fact, so repugnant to every declaration of God, would destroy every influence which the Bible was sent to produce.

It cuts off the mind from any influence except that by which a stick or stone might be moved from place to place. The strong declaration of the Bible that men resist the truth—how, if nothing to resist?

We admit that truth, as a matter of fact, does not produce its legitimate results without the influence of the Holy Spirit. But then the reason lies in the depravity of our hearts, and not in any want of adaptation in the truth.

God made it ample, it was enough to create infinite obligation, and, if unresisted, to have kept us from sin and trained us up in holiness. Our depravity resisted its action, and would always; and this is the ground and necessity of the interference of the Holy Spirit.

Not the want of light, but men love darkness better; not the want of adaptation in truth, but men resist it, and will do so for ever, unless God shall send the Holy Spirit. In His hands truth becomes omnipotent. He pierces with it the darkest eye, and sounds it upon the deafest ear, and rouses up the deadest heart, “enlightening by it their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ, being made willing by His grace.”

We are not, however, to rest satisfied with this mere intellectual view of this point. It has very deep, practical importance, which I shall briefly lay open to you.

1. It shows you the importance of knowing what the truth is exactly.

God has made truth to produce certain results of good, and no substitute for it will. The husbandman who would raise a harvest of wheat must sow wheat, not something which is only very much like it. The Christian who would have the fruits of truth in his heart must believe the truth, and not something that is very much like it.

He who would have the fruits of God’s love in his heart, who would grow rich in the graces of the Spirit of God, must understand God’s character just as it is revealed—i.e., just as it is, for it is the truth of His character which will produce salutary results, and nothing else will. Hence those who entertain false views of God have a deficient condition of mind and heart in exact proportion as they deviate from the truth; and this is the reason why those who reject the Divinity of our Lord and Saviour wane in piety, in happiness, and finally experience from their view of God hardly one beneficial result. They have expected that what was not true would produce in them the effect of what was true. Consequently we find the sacred writers anxiously inculcating a diligent, careful study of the character of God, as Paul to the Colossians (chap. ii. 2, 3): “That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

And just before: “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.”

So, too, Eph. i. 17: “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.”

2. So also respecting doctrine. We are bound to know exactly what God has revealed, for that is to produce the good effect in the hands of the Spirit, and not an imagination which we think is true. If by total depravity we teach something else than that which the Bible teaches, will the same results flow? If, instead of regeneration, as Christ and Paul explain it, we vamp up a theory aside and different from it, will the effect be the same? Will the Holy Spirit employ it equally with the other?

Nay, he who does not preach truth, and believe truth, preaches error and believes error. Truth saves, and error destroys. And this is the reason why it is some matter what a man believes, provided he is sincere. God does not regenerate and save by sincerity, but by truth. Error received sincerely is only error placed where it shall work out its fullest evils with the greatest certainty, and with every help which the heart can afford. Error sincerely received is death cordially embraced.

3. Hence we see how deeply important it becomes for Christians to employ prayer and diligent study of the Bible, that the Holy Spirit of God may enlighten their minds with all truth.

All that which constitutes a pure and holy heart must come from truth; ourselves and our hearers are to be saved by truth in the hands of the Holy Spirit. How earnestly, then, should we seek His divine, unerring guidance! If He teach us, we shall have truth indeed; but if left to our depraved hearts how soon shall we draw in error, how soon shall we be spoiled by vain philosophy and deceit after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of this world, and not after Christ! And if deserted forever, how rapid will be our deterioration from bad to worse, until eternal death do close upon us!

4. The importance of propagating, through all the world, the Bible, is most particularly taught in the text, and is most appropriately deduced from our position. God has promised that His Holy Spirit shall go with it, shall make it effective. Would we fill the earth with the power of God’s Spirit, send abroad the Bible, by which He has graciously determined to act, and through which He will sanctify and save.

II. The second inference which I draw from this passage is that, when the truth is properly explained and applied, we are both allowed and bound to expect corresponding auspicious results.

1. So Christ and His apostles taught by example. Christ refused to throw away labor when nothing could be expected from it. Hence He never would open to the Pharisees and bigoted doctors of Jerusalem the nature of His message, nor descant upon the character of God, nor urge upon them His claims, nor urge them to repent, nor work miracles before them. He knew the heart of man, and knew that no good would follow. If, then, the ground of exclusion from the labors of His ministry was that there could be no hope of success, then where He did labor it must have been upon the ground of hope of success.

So Paul repeatedly rejoices in the power of the Gospel to save mankind, and gloried in this with great exultation, proclaiming that on this account he was not ashamed of it.

Now, was it the mere fact that Paul felt that the truths of the Gospel had the power, abstractly, to save mankind, without any particular expectation that they would do so, or did his heart fire because he most confidently expected that nations would be born to Christ by his preachings? No one whose heart ever burned with a desire of glorifying God by gathering in souls to His kingdom can hesitate to say which of these inspired Paul. It is no joy, no subject of particular gratulation, that the Gospel can save mankind, unless we also believe that it actually will.

The only reason why we rejoice in its adaptation to save the world is because we believe that the world should be saved.

How wide of the truth are they who think that a faithful, sincere Christian or minister has no right to expect the fruits of their labor, but are bound to rest as satisfied that it should not as that it should happen! It is a spirit utterly repugnant to the Gospel. Some would imagine that we should not so expect—expect confidently the fruit of our labors—because God is a Sovereign and worketh according to the counsel of His own will.

But this is the very ground upon which we build our confidence.

It is because God, as a Sovereign, acting most freely and according to the purposes of His own will, hath joined to truth its appropriate results, and has encouraged us to expect them. If God were no Sovereign, we should have no confidence, never knowing what might or might not happen. But now, since He is Supreme, and hath joined truth, well applied, to a certainty of corresponding results, we shall most shamefully do violence to His Divine Sovereignty if we affect to doubt whether it will in fact be as He hath ordained that it shall be. If He had not joined means to ends it would be temerity to expect the one from the other.

But since He has, it would be doubting Him, contradicting Him, if we were not so to do.

To the diligent farmer God gives abundant increase, to the laborious artist remuneration corresponding to his skill. To the faithful minister, who rises betimes to sow the seeds of life and waters them with his tears, God will give him an abundant harvest; and the diligent Christian who employs all the means of truth within his reach, in humble reliance upon God, shall not be disappointed. He may expect growth in grace, and God will not falsify his hopes.

The Sovereignty of God is the sure ground upon which every one may build his hopes and not be disappointed. For God is not a man that He should lie, hath He said, and shall He not do it?

2. Success of ministry and Christian effort demand it for very constitution of our nature.

3. Only ground on which the multiplied institution of the Gospel can be available.^[21]

III. The third inference which I draw from this passage is that the instrumentality of the truth, the efficiency of the means, does not detract from the power of God, but highly illustrates it.

1. It will be observed in this passage that, although so much efficiency is given to truth, yet God is continually speaking, and speaking, too, in the air of most sovereign authority. Truth is made to appear perfectly subservient to his Divine Will. “So shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”

2. The reason why it illustrates and does not detract from God’s supremacy and power may now easily be seen. It shall do just what God wishes to be done, and for which He appointed it, and for which He made it efficient. Besides this it can do nothing else. It can only do this because God so wills. Truth is not an agent acting, since God made it, independently of God, self-moved; nor is it to be turned by man to do as he wishes. It does what it was made to do, and God made it, so that all its effects are but new examples of the power of God. It hangs where God placed it, and shines in the sphere He circumscribed, and nowhere else.

3. It accomplishes this result, which belongs to it, not from any inherent virtue which redeems it from the power of God, and causes its effects to illustrate only its own power, but simply and always because God pleases that it should do so. As its powers are enlarged and encompass greater results, so must be the conception of His power who clothed it with such efficiency.

And God always sustains truth, and those circumstances by which it can produce fitting results, and if He dropped them for one moment from His care they would perish.

Whoever, then, finds that the employment of means of truth is producing a forgetfulness of God, may be assured that he is using them wrongfully. It is a pernicious result wrought in him by abusing our constituted mode of action.

He who properly appreciates the notion of means and instrumentality will ever have most occasion to admire both the power and goodness of God, and His wisdom too, in that constitution of things which He has made. [Blank Page]