And what was this better hope?  One, St. Paul says, by which we could draw nigh to God; come near to Him; as to a Father, a Saviour, a Comforter, a liege lord—­not a tyrant who holds us against our will as his slaves, but a liege lord who holds us with our will as His tenants, His vassals, His liege men, as the good old English words were; one who will take His vassals into His counsel, and inform them with His Spirit, and teach them His mind, that they may do His will and copy His example, and be treated by Him as His friends—­in spite of the infinite difference of rank between them and Him, which they must never forget.

But though the difference of rank be infinite and boundless—­for it is the difference between sinful man and God perfect for ever—­yet still man can now draw near to God.  He is not commanded to stand afar off in fear and trembling, as the old Jews were at Sinai.  We have not come, says St. Paul, to a mount which burned with fire, and blackness, and darkness, and storm, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which those who heard entreated that they should not be spoken to them any more:  for they could not endure that which was commanded:  but we are come to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the Church of the first-born which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling.

We are come to God, the Judge of all, and to Christ—­not bidden to stand afar off from them.  That is the point to which I wish you to attend.  For this agrees with the words of the text, ’Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.’

This message it is, which made this chapter precious in the eyes of the good men of old.  This message it is, which has made it precious, in all times, to thousands of troubled, hard-worked, weary, afflicted hearts.  This is what has made it precious to thousands who were wearied with the burden of their sins, and longed to be made righteous and good; and knew bitterly well that they could not make themselves good, but that God alone could do that; and so longed to come to God, that they might be made good:  but did not know whether they might come or not; or whether, if they came, God would receive them, and help them, and convert them.  This message it is, which has made the text an evangelical prophecy, to be fulfilled only in Christ—­a message which tells men of a God who says, Come.  Of a God whom Moses’ law, saying merely, ‘Thou shalt not,’ did not reveal to us, divine and admirable as it was, and is, and ever will be.  Of a God whom natural religion, such as even the heathen, St. Paul says, may gain from studying God’s works in this wonderful world around us--of a God, I say, whom natural religion does not reveal to us, divine and admirable as it is.  But of a God who was revealed, step by step, to the Psalmists and the Prophets, more and more clearly as the years went on; of a God who was fully and utterly revealed, not merely by, but in Jesus Christ our Lord, who was Himself that God, very God of very God begotten, being the brightness of His Father’s glory, and the express image of His person; whose message and call, from the first day of His ministry to His glorious ascension, was, Come.