Gadsby’s Sermons

Preached on Tuesday Evening, May 21st, 1839, in Gower Street Chapel, London.

“Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.”—Ps. 17:5.

One difference betwixt the presumptuous professor and a child of God, blessed with a tender conscience, is this: the presumptuous professor seems anxious to know how far he may go without being particularly criminal, what steps it is possible for him to take in pleasure or in vice without bringing himself in as false and vile; but the child of God, with a tender conscience, is constantly praying, “Hold up my goings in thy paths.” He is not wanting to know, “Can I do such a thing that is pleasing to flesh and blood, and yet not be criminal?” But he wants to be preserved tenderly walking in the fear of God, and giving proof…

Continue reading

Preached, on Lord’s Day Morning, Nov. 1st, 1840, in Manchester.

“I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving.”—Ps. 116:17.

Under the Jewish dispensation, God had appointed a variety of offerings and sacrifices for the Jews, under certain circumstances, to be attended to; and if you turn to Leviticus 7, you will find that the offering of the sacrifice of thanksgiving was to be accompanied with unleavened bread, mingled with oil, with wafers anointed with oil, and with cakes fried in oil. Now in reality, beloved, there is no sacrifice of thanksgiving without this oil; and it is…

Continue reading

Preached on Tuesday Evening, Sept. 13th, 1838, in Jewry Street Chapel, London, on Behalf of the Aged Pilgrims’ Friend Society.

“The Lord hath done great things for US, whereof we are glad.”—Ps 126:3.

There are three things in the great mysteries of salvation that many professors of religion seem almost alarmed at. One is that God really saves sinners. If a minister of Jesus Christ is led to describe a sinner half as he really is, for to the bottom of him he never can, he shocks their delicate minds, and they are almost paralyzed, and call it the high road of licentiousness to suppose that God saves such naughty sinners as those; whilst a poor soul under the…

Continue reading

“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord.”—Isaiah 1:18

Here is a special people addressed, “a small remnant.” They tremble and fear under a feeling sense of their guilt and utter unworthiness; but God mercifully calls unto them, saying, “Come, let us reason together.”

Some people think they are as good as any of their neighbours, and a deal better than most; and they try to thus comfort themselves. But unless God brings them to repentance and teaches them to place entire dependence upon Christ, they will sink into black despair. The Lord does not say, “Come pious, come virtuous;” but “though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow; though they he red like crimson they shall be as wool.”

The Pharisees have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge; they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, go about to establish their own righteousness, not submitting themselves to the righteousness of God; and thus they delude their own souls. But the characters alluded to in our text feel themselves to be double-dyed sinners,—outcasts from society and from…

Continue reading