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health. "Our strength is not the strength is he to be accounted of?" Sometimes of stones; nor our bones, brass." Who the hope of nearly all his connections is can tell what a day may bring forth-removed; and the man, stripped and what accidents may strike us-what dis- peeled, looks round upon dreariness, and eases may invade? The seeds of dissolu- asks, What do I hear, and what do I tion, now invisibly lodged in the frame, feel?' "Lover and friend Thou hast put may, ripened by external influences, soon far from me, and mine acquaintance into be matured, and "bring forth fruit unto darkness." death." I have known marriage rites soon followed by funeral solemnities. A man has commenced a journey, and he has been turned back in order to die at home, or has expired upon the road. The little Shunammite went out into the field to his father, and cried, "My father, my father! my head, my head!"-and he was conveyed home, and died before the evening on the lap of his mother.

Behold also insincerity and perfidiousness. There are some, who, as friends, are rotten at the very core: they flatter only to deceive and to betray. Hear the language of David: "It was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me, that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him: but it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company." So, where there is no treachery, there may be weakness. Thus it was with Job's friends.

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his friends came down as far as Appii Forum and the Three Taverns, in order to meet him, and escort him unto the metropolis of the world. But, says he, "At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me : I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion."

This reminds us of another source of disappointment. "Children are the heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is His reward." It is said, that "Eve conceived and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord." My brethren have dealt deceitfully as Cain signifies Possession; and many have a brook; and as the stream of brooks supposed, that Eve imagined, upon the they pass away; which are brackish by birth of Cain, that she now had the pro-reason of the ice, and wherein the snow mised Messiah; and the words might be is hid. What time they wax warm, they rendered, I have begotten the Man, the vanish; when it is hot, they are consumed Lord." If this were the case, we see how away out of their place." Thus it was unanswerable were the event to fond ma- with Paul, too, when he was going to ternal expectation; for what had she got-Rome, to appear before Nero. Many of ten? Only a murderer. When children are born, who can tell what they will prove? They may be successless in their pursuits; they may be unfortunate in their connections; they may be impaired in reason; they may be cripples for life; they may be victims of disease. Here is Rachel holding up their little robes which are to be used no more, "weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are not." The father looked for an engaging and entertaining companion; but the cares and expenses Wealth is another source and subject of ten or fourteen years terminate in the of disappointment. Many who were dust, while he, bleeding at the heart, ex- once surrounded with affluence, are now claims, "Thou destroyest the hope of living in want, or depending on alms. I Here is a greater affliction still; think I recently mentioned, that Orton here is a child becoming vicious, the has observed, that, a friend having some companion of fools, and travelling the money left him to distribute in the way downward path. "Weep ye not for the of charity, he was applied to, in the dead, neither bemoan him; but weep sore course of one year, for assistance, by for him that goeth away: for he shall thirty-four individuals who had once rode return no more, nor see his native coun- in their own carriages. A female who try." was at once the granddaughter of the Lord Chancellor Clarendon, and the niece of the Queen of England, is said to have died in a workhouse. Where is the lad here, who has not read of Belisarius, the conquer or, and the poor blind beggar for bread!

man."

Friendship is another source of confidence, aud therefore of disappointment Is it the Scripture alone, that has said to you more than once, "Cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for wherein

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What can be so uncertain as human popularity? Why, it hangs on the wavering breath of the multitude, and it trembles before every blast of disrespect or falsehood; and, for the bellowings of today, "Hosannah !"-are heard to-morrow from the same lips, Away with him! away with him!" Where is the man who has not had, in some instances and respects, reason to say, "Behold, for peace I have had great bitterness."

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Let us make two reflections before we proceed.

The first is, Take care and be soberminded. This is the way to escape dis appointment: not to allow your hopes to be raised too high. You, young people, this peculiarly regards you. You are now in the age of inexperience; you are now in your sanguine age. Beware; look not for more from any of those things in your passage through life, than they are able to afford; and judge of their ability by the testimony of Scripture, by history, and by the confession of wise and good men who have gone before you. If, after this warning, you will go forward into the world, dreaming that it is a paradise, something will soon awaken you; and the thorns and the briars, the reptiles and the beasts of prey, will soon convince you that you are in a desert, and that the "wilderness hath shut you in.

The other is, Make the Lord your trust. He will not, He cannot, disappoint you. If creatures are "broken cisterns," He is "the Fountain of living waters;" if they are "broken reeds," He is "the Rock of Ages." "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God: which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever."

"nigh unto death," and on the very verge of immortality. Now see how unimportant the distinctions of the world are.

You would do well to consider a man in the condition of Hezekiah. He was a great king, and he had been very successful: but disorder arrests him, lays him by. One day he is on the throne, another on the bed of languishing; one day an object of envy, another of pity. No human greatness can secure a man from the ordinary infirmities of nature, or the common calamities of human life. The guards may surround his palace and keep off beggars, but they cannot keep off the king of terrors. In his glory, men may flatter, and say, "Ye are gods;" but sooner or later the truth will come out-" They shall die like men :" and "when he dieth, he taketh nothing away with him; his glory shall not descend after him."

But you will observe, again, his restoration from this perilous state. He was "delivered;" that is, recovered. He speaks of it as a privilege; and he ought to have spoken of it as a privilege. When the apostle is giving the Corinthians an inventory of the Christian's treasures, among other things he says, "Life is yours;" and it is an inestimable blessing, and capable of infinite improvement. The Christian, with regard to his own personal enjoyment, indeed, may say, "It is better to depart and to be with Christ;" but to abide in the flesh is more useful. Life is not only attended with the only opportunity of securing the salvation of the soul, (and how important is it in this view!"the accepted time," "the day of salvation !")-but also as a season, and the only season of usefulness. You must exercise candour towards those who differ from you, and you must forgive those who have offended you, now, or you will never be able to do it. This is the only opportunity you will have to teach poor children to read their Bibles; the only opportunity to disseminate the Scriptures, and to call men to repentance. There is one privilege, therefore, which the saints on earth have over the glorified in heaven; and this is, an opportunity to do good. And I am fully persuaded, that any of those glorified beings there, Now observe here, first, his danger. if it were the will of God, now that their It was "the pit of corruption." That benevolence is completed, would readily means the grave; where you will by and come down again here, and pass years in bye "say to corruption, Thou art my this vale of tears, in order to glorify their father; and to the worm, Thou art my Saviour, and serve their generation acmother and my sister." He was "sick,"cording to the will of God. What, then,

Let us proceed from the disappointment of hope, to

II. THE RELIEF OF AFFLICTION. "Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption."

are you doing? Are you seizing these opportunities?

moved pain, but enlarged your circle of usefulness; if you have repaired with You will observe, also, that he ac- eagerness to His house, to praise Him knowledges the Author of his deliver- there with fresh appetite; and if you have ance: "Thou hast, in love to my soul, made a new surrender of yourselves to delivered it from the pit of corruption." Him, determined by His grace to "walk It is always the Lord's doing; He before the Lord in the land of the living," killeth, and He maketh alive; He and to "show forth all His praise" you bringeth down to the grave, and He may be fully satisfied that He has done raiseth up. Now note here, Hezekiah it in love to your souls: "He has, in was recovered by the application of pre-love to my soul, delivered it from the pit scribed and proper means; for "Isaiah of corruption." had said, Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaister upon the boil, and he shall recover:" but this only shows God's order in working. God chooses to use means in His agency, and therefore we must use means too. But what ever means we employ, we must rely for their success entirely upon Him; for "without Him we can do nothing."

But, my brethren, you will observe, that he not only ascribes the deliverance to God, but he views it as springing from His favour. Observe how he expresses himself here" Thou hast, in love to my soul," done it. Our temporal mercies never taste so sweet, as when we taste the love of God in them. God sometimes denies His people in love. They know not what to ask as they ought; and therefore when they implore things which would be injurious to them, His kindness leads him to refuse their desires. And as He sometimes denies in love, so He sometimes grants in wrath. The Israelites, dissatisfied with His own government, said, "We will have a king :" and "He gave them a king in His anger, and took Him away in His wrath." Discontented with the bread which came down from heaven, they said, "We will have flesh." 'You shall have it,' says God; and "He gave them their heart's desire, and sent leanness into their souls."

But when does God give in love to our souls? I answer, When you not only pray for the thing, but pray subject to God's pleasure with regard to it; when you desire it, not merely, or principally, for your ease, or gratification, or distinction, as a creature, but for your spiritual good, and for the glory of God. You may also judge whether a thing is given in love to you from God by the effects. If, for instance, now, upon your recovery from sickness, your health and strength lead you away from God into the world again, you may be assured that they are a curse, and not a blessing. On the other hand, if they have not only re

But there is another thing to be observed, namely,

III. THE PARDON OF HIS INIQUITY. "For Thou hast cast all my sins behind Thy back." Some consider this "for," as the reason of God; and explain the words thus: "Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption, for" or because "Thou hast cast all my sins behind my back;" saying, that if the affliction was a correction for sin, the for giveness of the sin would remove it; withdrawing the cause, the effect would cease. Now it is true, that the Lord does chastise His people for sin; He has promised to do it; "If they forsake My law and walk not in My commandments, I will visit their transgressions with a rod and their iniquities with stripes;" but properly speaking, this is never done in the way of punishment. However severe the afflictions of the Christian, a believer in Christ, may be, there is nothing penal in them: their Saviour "has redeemed them from the curse of the law," having been made a curse for them. They are therefore pardoned when He does chasten them, pardoned before He chastises them, and chastised because they are pardoned. Therefore this word "for" is not mentioned here as a reason for the pardon, but as an addition to it: as the learned Bishop Lowth renders it—" Thou hast in love to my soul delivered me from the pit of corruption, and Thou hast cast all my sins behind Thy back."

Observe the manner in which he speaks of this pardon. He expresses it metaphorically: "Thou hast cast all my sins behind Thy back." What a man throws behind his back is out of his sight, and he regards it no more; "Out of sight," we say, "out of mind." But how does this apply to God? Nothing can ever be properly out of His sight or out of His knowledge. No; but the meaning is, that their sins will no more appear before Him to provoke His anger, or to call forth any

condemnation from Him. The grand thing with regard to your safety and lappiness is, not what you do with your sins, but what God does with them. It is not whether you forget them, but whether God remembers them. It is not whether you choose to cast them behind your back, and think no more of them; but whether God has cast them behind His back, so that, if sought for, they shall not be found. It is so with the Christian : 66 as far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed their transgressions from them." Then observe the extensiveness and mea sure of the blessing; for it is pardon. "Thou hast cast all my sins behind Thy back," however numerous and however enhanced. "Though your sins were as scarlet," says He, "they shall be white as snow; though they were red like crimson, they shall be as wool;" for "He will abundantly pardon." If one sin only remains unforgiven, it would be enough to ruin the soul for ever. But this is not the case. Oh!" who is a Rock like our God?" Oh! we may well exclaim, "Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity, transgression and sin?" We have all through life been provoking His Divine majesty; and He might have said to the sinner, "I have been evermore doing thee good, and thou hast been constantly transgressing My commands, trampling on My authority, defying My power, abusing My goodness, and insulting My truth; and I could plead against thee with My great power: how righteously could I destroy such a guilty creature, and how easily could I destroy such a feeble soul! But I am the Lord God, merciful and gracious; here is the golden sceptre; I stretch it forth: touch it and live. I will be merciful to thy unrighteousness; and thy sins and iniquities will I remember no more.'

Lastly, here is the knowledge of the privilege. He speaks without any hesitation : "Thou hast cast all my sins behind Thy back." There is a difference, you know, between the reality and the manifestation of the thing. There are persons whose pardon God hath sealed, who write very bitter things against themselves. They have not as yet "the full assurance of faith." Perhaps to try them. Nevertheless, in the mean time they are sustained by hope in His mercy; and if they seek it in His own way, He will in due time, " appear t their joy," and theyshall "not be ashamed." If they wait on the Lord, and keep His ways," He will "exalt them to inherit the land." If they throw themselves at

VOL. XII.

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His feet, He will take them into His bosom. If with Peter they cry, Lord, save, or I perish," they will be able by and bye to say with Thomas, "My Lord, and my God!"

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In conclusion; let me beseech you to seek after this inestimable blessing. "Blessed is the man," says David," whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered." There are few of you, I dare say, who have not known the pleasure of being reconciled to a beloved connection whom you had offended, and on whom you depended in some considerable degree for your welfare. But oh! to be " ciled to God by the blood of His Son !" to have the breach made up between heaven and earth! to be able to say, "O Lord, Thou wast angry with me, but Thine anger is turned away from me, and Thou comfortest me!" What is everything else without this? What, if you have been recovered from the grave, is your deliverance, compared with deliverance from hell? And what would your going down to "the pit of corruption" be, compared with your going down to the pit of damnation? What would it be, to have the body healed and the soul condemned? But if you are recovered, your recovery is not a pardon but a reprieve only. Hezekiah had fifteen years added to his span ; but these would soon pass away. You may not have such a number added to your day but Divine grace, if it does not preserve you from the grave so long, will prepare you for it, and be with you in passing through the valley of the shadow of death: and then-"O death, Iwill be thy plagues: O grave, Iwill be thy destruction."

Let me ask you, whether you are the subjects, like Hezekiah, of both temporal and spiritual blessings? If you are, if you have health of body, and your soul is in health too; if you enjoy civil freedom, and are made by the Son free indeed; if you are blessed with the blessings of the upper and of the nether springs, surely it becomes you to take your thanksgiving from the language of David, and to say, "Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that. is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies." And "bythe mercies of God, present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."

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BY THE REV. T. APPLEGATE.

LECTURE VII.-FAITHFULNESS.

"The fruit of the Spirit is faith."-Galatians v. 22.

FAITH is the ground or confidence of I believe, the grace of Christ will be suffi things hoped for, and the conviction of cient for me, and that His strength will things not seen. It is credit given to a be perfect in my weakness; I believe, declaration or promise, on the authority that the possession of pardon, peace of of the person who makes it. When our conscience and the earnest of the Spirit Lord said to the nobleman of Capernaum, are infinitely more valuable than any thing "Thy son liveth;" "the man believed the I shall lose by the cross of Christ; I be word that Jesus had spoken unto him, lieve, that in every conflict I shall come and went his way," confident that he off more than conqueror through Him should find his son alive and well. When that loved me," and that when I arrive at Jesus said to the blind man, "Go, wash home, "the Lamb, that is in the midst of in the pool of Siloam," he had faith, that the throne will feed me, and lead me to the means prescribed would be efficacious, living fountains of waters," and my heaand went his way, therefore, and washed, venly Father "wipe away all tears from and came seeing. The term, faith, is used my eyes." In the exercise of such faith in the same sense in common language. I must gird up the loins of my mind, and Inquiring the road to a certain place, I" press toward the mark for the prize of am told, that the right-hand path is the my high calling of God in Christ Jesus." safest and easiest : on the faith of The testimouy of God, thus received that information, that is, giving credit to and accredited, introduces us to an acmy informant, I take the road recom-quaintance with things not seen, and submended. A well-known impostor assures jects which fall not under our immediate me, that by following his directions and observation. "We walk by faith, not by paying him a good remuneration for his'ad- sight." Faith is the eye of the mind. It vice, I shall enjoy a long and prosperous beholds Christ in the beauty of His perlife: I have no faith in such assurances, fections, the dignity of His person, the I give no credit to such declarations, I splendour of His throne, the riches of pay no regard to them. It is exactly thus His dominion, and esteems Him the with the Christian. When he begins his "chief among ten thousand and altogether spiritual journey, he is told that the hea- lovely." It views Him as the Mediator vens are covered with blackness, threat of the NewCovenant, exalted far above all ening storm and tempest; that the road heavens, and filling the most important he proposes to go is dreary and rugged, offices for the benefit of His body, the infested with powerful enemies; that the church. It is the hand, by which we emworld on which he turns his back is re-brace Him, and " receive from His ful plete with the most exquisite charms and ness, and grace for grace;" the source of luxuriant enjoyments, and that should he our justification; the principle by which be so infatuated as to forsake it and per- we stand, and walk and live; "for the sist in his course, he will lose all the hap- life we now live in the flesh, we live by piness of the present life, and receive as faith on the Son of God, who loved us the reward of his rashness, sufferings and and gave Himself for us. trials of the severest kinds. To this he replies-I admit that the way is narrow, and that in travelling it, many difficulties must be surmounted, many privations endured, many self-denials exercised, and that it is through much tribulation I must enter the kingdom; but I believe it is the way of life ::

"The way the holy prophets went,
The road that leads from banishment;"

The

Considerable care is requisite to distinguish it from presumption, which is confidence without sufficient warrant. children of Israel, when they travelled through the channel of the Red Sea, believed the Divine promise, that they should be conducted safely. The Egypti ans had no such promise given them; they had no such declaration to credit; it was therefore not faith on their part,

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