A PECULIAR PEOPLE
J.C. Philpot
Preached on Lord’s Day Evening, 11th July, 1841,
at Zoar Chapel, Great Alie Street, London
A peculiar people
(1 Peter 2:9)
WHAT an involuntary testimony do ungodly persons often bear to the truth of the Scriptures! What, for instance, is
more common in the world, and amongst those who are lying dead in a profession, than language of this kind:
What an odd kind of people there are at such a chapel! what particular notions they have! what peculiar sentiments
they entertain! There is only a set of peculiar books suited to them, and there are only a few peculiar preachers
whom they will hear; and in all their words and actions they manifest an exclusiveness, a bigotry, a narrow-
mindedness which is very different from what you witness at other places!
Is not this bearing a testimony to the truth of God’s Word? Does not truth unwillingly fall here from the lips of
enemies? Has not God Himself said that they are a peculiar people? Then this very peculiarity which is stamped
upon them, and which the keen eye of the world discovers, is an evidence that they are those, of whom God has
said that they are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that they should show
forth the praises of Him who hath called them out of darkness into His marvelous light. This peculiar people has
existed through all ages from the days of the first promise, and will exist until the final consummation of all things.
Abel was one of this peculiar people; and the peculiar blessings that God favoured him with, drew down upon him
the wrath of his murderous brother. Noah was one of this peculiar people, whom God directed to build the ark, as
typical of Christ Jesus the Lord, in whom His dear people find a refuge from the deluging waves and showers of
God’s wrath. Lot in Sodom was one of this peculiar people, who vexed his righteous soul from day to day by
witnessing their ungodly deeds. Abraham in the land of the Canaanites, Isaac his son, Jacob his grandson, were the
ancestors of a peculiar people, upon whom God had set his own stamp that He had separated them from the
nations of the earth, as typical of a people foreordained to eternal glory.
The separation of the Jews, the lineal descendants of Abraham, from all nations, typified the separation of the elect
from all the people that dwell upon the face of the earth; and the enmity that was manifested against that peculiar
people was but a manifestation of the enmity which exists in the heart against the people of God -the development
of that enmity which God said He would Himself put between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.
Ge 3:15 When they were in Egypt, their being a peculiar people called forth the enmity of that king that knew not
Joseph. After the captivity, when they were dispersed through various lands, they called forth the enmity of
Haman. He therefore went to the king his master and said, "There is a certain people scattered abroad and
dispersed among the people in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws are diverse from all people, neither
keep they the king’s laws: therefore it is not for the king’s profit to suffer them. If it please the king let it be written
that they may be destroyed; and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver to the hands of those that have the
charge of the business, to bring it into the king’s treasuries" Ester 3:8,9.
Here was the discovery of the venom that ever dwells in the heart of the reprobate against the elect; here was the
manifestation of that hidden enmity, which exists in the world against the peculiar family of Jehovah. These
manifestations, then, of enmity are marks and testimonies, not merely to the truth of revelation, but in favour of
those people against whom these envenomed arrows are shot. And depend upon it, friends, if you and I have
never been aimed at by the bitter shafts of contempt, if we have never experienced persecution, if our fair fame
has never been tarnished by the malicious slander of the world, if we have never been held up to scorn and
execration as having such a peculiarity stamped upon us as the world hates, we carry with us no evidence that we
are of the number of that peculiar people whom God has chosen in Christ, and blessed with all spiritual blessings in
Him.
There is a peculiar people, then; and the desire of every heart that God has touched with His finger is sweetly
breathed forth in the language of Ruth, when she said, "Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God" . Ru
1:16 "Yes", says the living soul whom God has quickened into a new and spiritual existence -"yes, they are the
people of God; my heart cleaves to them with affection, I desire to be one with them; may my lot and portion be
among the living family of God. Though there are in them many things which grieve me, though there are in them
many divisions, though there is much lacking in them which I desire to see present, and much present in them
which I desire to see absent, yet with all their failings and all their imperfections and all their infirmities, they are the
people of the living God. With them I desire to live, and with them I desire to die." Then, friends, if you and I are
walking in the strait and narrow path that leads to eternal life, we shall carry about with us some stamp, some
evidence, that we belong to this peculiar people; we shall bear with us some marks that God has separated us, by
a work of grace upon our souls, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth Exodus 33:16.
But this people are a peculiar people in several points of view. They are a peculiar people by the original separation
of them in the eternal councils of the Three-one God. They were chosen in Christ before all worlds, that they might
be a people in whom the Lord Jesus might eternally delight, and in whom He might eternally be glorified. Their fall in
their first parent was foreseen and foreprovided for. The Lamb of God was slain, in the mind of God the Father,
before the foundation of the world, and they stood eternally one with Christ, justified in His glorious righteousness,
holy in His spotless innocency, perfect in His perfection, and comely in His comeliness.
And thus this peculiar people were blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, Eph 1:3 before
time had an existence; before this world had a being; before the all- creative voice of God made the sun and stars
shine in the skies; when eternity alone existed, and the Three-one God dwelt alone in sacred communion, without
any one object of Their creative hand. This people had a being then in the mind of God; and in virtue of this original
being, they are brought forth first in time (each according to the moment that God has foreordained) and then in
God’s appointed season, are brought forth by the quickening operations of the Holy Ghost into a new and spiritual
existence.
But how, as a matter of individual inquiry, shall we know that we belong to this peculiar people? Shall we turn over
the leaves of our Bible, and read, Eph 1:1 or, Ro 8:1 and seeing there that God has an elect people, at once
conclude that we belong to them? Shall we turn to the first epistle of John, and reading there The blood of Jesus
Christ cleanseth us from all sin, therefore conclude that our iniquities are pardoned? Shall we cast our eyes on the
text Who is he that condemneth? it is God that justifieth; - and by reading that text of Scripture, without further
ado, believe in our own personal justification? No; this may do for a dry professor, for one dead in a form; but it
will never do for a living soul, whose conscience God has touched with His own finger. Before he can realize his
interest in those blessings, wherewith God has blessed His people before all worlds, he must have a personal
manifestation and revelation of those blessings to his own soul, under the operations of the Holy Spirit; and if they
are not sealed upon his conscience, and evidenced to his heart, by the witness of the Holy Ghost, he can never be
satisfied that he is a sharer in those blessings that are stored up for the elect in Christ Jesus.
But there are certain marks and evidences, which fall short of the manifestation of Christ with power to the soul;
there are testimonies which do not amount to a full and complete satisfaction; and when a child of God is in deep
poverty and strong exercises of soul, he will be glad to accept a little token when he cannot get a greater. The
beggar in the street will take a copper coin; he does not turn away from that with contempt; his hunger and his
poverty make the smallest gift acceptable. A man in good circumstances would turn away from such a pitiful
donation, and think it an insult; but he that is deeply sunk in poverty is glad to have anything that may relieve his
pressing want. Many times, when the Lord lays poverty as a deep and galling load upon the souls of His dear
family, He makes them glad to get hold of those little coins (I mean apparently such, for no coin is little that comes
from heaven’s mint), which proud professors despise.
We will, then, with God’s blessing, endeavour to trace out a few of the peculiar marks that are stamped upon this
peculiar people; and if the Lord shall be pleased through my mouth to convey from the courts of heaven one of
these coins into your heart, He will lock it up safe in that treasury; He will sometimes bring it out for you to look
upon; and thus you will have at times a sweet evidence that you are interested in that love which knows no
bounds.
1. The peculiar people, then, have peculiar exercises. No man knows anything of spiritual exercises, except he is a
spiritual man. He may have convictions, it is true; he may have passing doubts and fears; he may have some dim
and dismal apprehensions of the wrath to come; but as to spiritual exercises, he knows them not, for they are
peculiar to spiritually taught people.
But all God’s family, each according to their measure, have spiritual exercises. Sometimes, for instance, they are
powerfully exercised with unbelief; that is, the unbelief of their hearts so powerfully works in their carnal mind, as to
obscure every evidence, hide every testimony, and deface every inscription that the Holy Ghost has engraved upon
their souls. But it is not the mere existence of unbelief, that manifests a child of God, for unbelief reigns and rules in
the hearts of the reprobate; it is the exercise of the soul under unbelief, that shows the existence of spiritual life; it
is the conflict, the opposition, the struggle, that is carried on in the bosom; for this implies a counteracting principle,
the existence of the company of two armies.
To be shut up in unbelief is no testimony of being a living soul; but to find in our hearts a counteracting principle
w