I know that you have attended this Tabernacle ever since it was built, and listened to our
ministry for years, but boast not of that; away with that as a ground of trust; pull off that
garment. You have never failed in business; you have brought up your children well; you
never swear; you were never a drunkard; midnight orgies never saw you mixed up in
them. This is well, but I pray you, put not on this as your proper dress. The proper
dress for a sinner to go to Christ in is sackcloth and the rope. "Well," says one, "I never
will acknowledge that I deserve to be damned!" Then you never will be saved. "Well,"
says another, "I never will take the language of a great sinner upon my lips." Then you
shall never be saved, for unless you are willing to confess that God may justly damn you,
God will never save you. But if you feel in your heart tonight that if He sends your soul to Hell,
His righteous Law approves it well; if you wonder how it is that you are not in
the pit, and marvel why such mercy should be shown to you, come, brother, come.
Come as you are, for you wear the true court-dress of a sinner; When a beggar goes
out to beg at the door, should he put on a new black coat, a clean white cravat, and kid
gloves? Nay, verily, let him clothe himself in tatters--the more rents he has, the better--
for tatters are the livery of a beggar, and rags are the court-dress of a mendicant. So,
come in your sins; come in your doubts; come in your hardness of heart; come in your
impenitence; come in your deadness; come in your lethargy; come as you are -- fioul,
vile, flithy, waiting for no amendment, but with a rope uypon your neck, and a garment of
sackcloth about your loins. Come now, come now, God help you to come.
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