XVII.

Only a Fall.

"And Peter went out, and wept bitterly."-LUKE xxii. 62.

F the many circumstances which invest this chapter with so much solemnity, I wish now to arrest one, that I may leave it large and prominently on your minds, -a fall.

It is a bitter thing to fall. It is not Peter only, nor David only, thousands have wept more bitterly for one fall, than they did for all the sins of their unconverted state. And the reason is plain. When they did those sins, they had not tasted the love of God. But when they made that fall, they had. They knew what they had lost; they felt what they had grieved. This makes the bitterness. There is no bitterness till there has been sweetness. The great penitents, in the catalogue of the saints, have all been fallen believers.

It has boundaries;

It is very difficult to define a fall. you go into it, and you come out of it. Some conditions of sin have no boundaries. You could not tell when you went into it; and you certainly have not come out of it yet. Therefore, till the issue, we cannot absolutely pronounce upon any wrong state, and tell it is a fall. For there is no difference in the character and degree of the wickedness of

the sin of an unconverted man, and of the fall of a child of God. Very often, the fall is the worst. As the height was to which we had reached, so is the depth to which we sink. The rush of the stream corresponds to the barrier over which it had surged. And I am persuaded, that to those who have had to do with the great things of God, the devil always presents the greater temptation. Therefore, there is no difference in the dye of the guilt. The coming out shows the fall.

It rests with you so to get up at this minute from any sin that you have ever done, that you shall make it only a fall. "Only a fall?" Yes;-a parenthesis, a mere exception, to be absorbed back into the eternal grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. "Only a fall?" Every Christian can tell the almost irony there is in that word,-only a fall,the utter wretchedness, and misery, and horror there is in that only. "Only a fall." "Peter went out, and wept bitterly."

Now I wish to see in St. Peter the downward steps which go to make that long fearful slide which we name a fall. For doubtless, in the main, the picture is faithful; and there are many who will see themselves in Peter.

First, I say first, because this is the first positive thing which we are allowed to trace; I have no doubt there were many secret causes antecedent to it, for I believe the real first root of all evil is always an omission,-but first, Peter, presuming on his position, and elated with his high distinctions, began to compare himself with other people, and to prefer himself to them. He seems to say,"There is poor, impetuous James, there is weak, loving John, there is questioning Philip,—there is calculating Matthew, there is doubting Thomas,-there is money

loving Judas, they may go; but I shall not go;'Though all should forsake Thee, yet will I never forsake

I do not know whether to say that this habit of comparison was the child of,-or gendered,-the pride which took possession of Peter's heart. Certain it is that he was proud, and the reason he was proud was that he was dealing with a low level. Whenever you have proud feelings, it is a proof, not that your attainment is great, but that your standard is deficient. "We have left all, and followed thee,—what shall we have therefore?"

And Peter's pride proceeded to show itself in the usual way; he would not listen to warning, he would not accept reproof,-he would not brook blame. His Master sometimes tenderly, sometimes sharply, pointed out to him his danger and his sin. But Peter's mind was in that state when a man cannot see himself as others see him. He was happy in his self-ignorance, he was conscious that he had high aspirations; but he had no idea how much carnal ambition and self-pleasing mixed with those elevated thoughts. He had received truth, but he did not know what a fraction was the truth he knew compared to the truth which he knew not. He loved, and he knew that he loved Jesus, but he had no experience yet of the miserable weaknesses of a loving heart. He was strong, very strong, but he had yet to learn that the only real abiding strength of a man is to lean. Therefore it is no wonder that Peter gave up watching and praying. Here was a long stride, doubtless. The Lord said to him, as He often says to you in your conscience,-"Be on your guard,-there are temptations all about you,-many temptations;-pray!" But he did not, he kept up no connection with the true springs

of the life of all that is good in a man; and of course he began to feel unhappy.

But in his sorrow, he had no energy to counteract it; it was not, as it ought to be, a stimulating principle; and so he became heavy, indolent, dreamy, inert. In the holiest places, in the midst of the most solemn scenes, he was dull, he fell asleep. Then, the re-action of nature was what it was sure to be,-violent. He had been asleep, he must do something, he must make up for it. He waited for no orders, he remembered no teaching, he made indemnity for slumber by impetuosity, he took his own sword, and he struck.

Again he is reproved. But he was where all caution falls impotent. Without any measurement of himself, without any thought of past monition, he hurried on, and ventured into the very midst of scenes which were full of the ordeal which he was the least able, at that moment, to meet; and at once, he precipitated into the depth of his humiliation. A look of a maid-servant,—a sneer of a bystander, can throw him down. He is as weak as the slenderest reed upon the lake. You can scarcely recognize the man; that true heart has no loyalty in it. The hero is a mere poltroon. Lips that had conversed with Christ, and given out the most reverential confession, utter oaths and curses. The breast, lately stricken with sin,-is tossed with passion, and high-wrought into fury. He, whom we should have called characteristically and fearlessly honest, tells three base lies.

And where is his dear Master? Despised, denied, sacrificed to a fear and a blush!

O how differently do things look,—how differently does heaven look, and how differently does God look-through to-day's and to-morrow's medium! What a little change

in the standing-point will make all old things take new forms! What a transfiguration is sin! We were white, and we go down there, and it is all so black as no fuller on earth can blacken it!

Such was the incline, -with ever steeper and steeper descents, by which the noblest man that ever lived went down! And where? Despicable in the eyes of that degraded herd in Caiaphas's porch,—more despicable still, -utterly despicable to himself. The whole earth had not, at that moment, a darker spot, or a more shuddering spectacle. And there he lay,-"only a fall!"

Let me state it truly. The

But how was the return? eternal grace of God,-faithful to His own unchanging promises, the love, that when it has loved once, loves to the end, and for ever, and for ever,-the nature, the necessity of Jehovah,- the Father's character;—that was the return.

But how did the restoring mercy work? By the simplest of all possible simple processes, Peter's,—poor, fallen Peter's eye,—was still to Christ. In the midst of that distracting throng, notwithstanding all that he had done, despite his desperate sin, Peter's eye was still towards Christ. There was a fascination in the Saviour to him, even in his wickedness. There was a place in

Peter's heart, where Jesus was yet.

Here was the token

the sure

Christ was

of the Christian,-the one surviving ray of all the light that had been kindled there, and gone out, harbinger that it would not be night for ever. something, Christ was everything, to Peter. There was a relationship between that man and Christ which nothing could ever dissolve; he could not help but look at Christ. And as Peter looked, the face of Jesus "turned,