ion. Are
you in Christ because you love Him and trust your soul to Him? If not,
if not, you are amongst those 'that are without,' though you be ever so
much joined to the visible Church of the living God.

And then there is one more remark that I must drop in here before I go
on, namely, that whilst I thankfully admit, and joyfully preach, that
the most imperfect, rudimentary faith knits a man to Jesus Christ, even
if in this life it may be found covered over with a great deal that is
contradictory and inconsistent; on the other hand there are some people
who stand like the angel in the Apocalypse, with one foot on the solid
land and one upon the restless sea, half in and half out, undecided,
halting--that is, 'limping'--between two opinions. Some people of that
sort are listening to me now, who have been like that for years. Now I
want them to remember this plain piece of common-sense--half in is
altogether out! So that is my answer to the first question: Who are they
that are outside, and what is it that they are outside of?

I cannot carry round these principles and lay them upon the conscience
of each hearer, but I pray you to listen to your own inmost voice
speaking, and I am mistaken if many will not hear it saying: 'Thou art
the man!' Do not stop your ears to that voice!

II. Notice next the force of this phrase as implying the woeful
condition of those without.

I have said that it is full of pathos. It is the language of a man whose
heart yearns as, in the midst of his own security, he thinks of the
houseless wanderers in the dark and the storm. He thinks pityingly of
what they lose, and of that to which they are exposed.

There are two or three ways in which I may illustrate that condition,
but perhaps the most graphic and impressive may be just to recall for a
moment three or four of the Scripture metaphors that fit into this
representation: 'Those that are without'; and thus to gain some
different pictures of what the inside and the outside means in these
varying figures.

First, then, there is a figure drawn from the Old Testament which is
often applied, and correctly applied, to this subject--Noah's Ark.

Think of that safe abode floating across the waters, whilst all without
it was a dreary waste. Without were death and despair, but those that
were within sat warm and dry and safe and fed and living. The men that
were without, high as they might climb upon rocks and hills, strong as
they might be-