well nigh slipped?" even then the everlasting arms were beneath were beneath you, and brought you safely through, and, with the temptation, sent a way to escape, that you might be able to bear it. Might we not say to another, When your afflictions increased upon you, so that their dark waters went, as David says, even over your soul," and you thought that there was none that cared for you, how wonderfully did the Lord support you, and raised you up friends, or was himself better than all friends to you, and cheered your heart and sanctified your sorrow, and brought some of the brightest flashes of his love, out of the darkest clouds of his visitations! Might we not say to each, there are passages in your history, known only to God and your own soul, which ought to make you ashamed that you should even for one moment, doubt either his power or his will to bring you, in his own good time, in safety to your rest, and to give you an inheritance with all

them that are sanctified. "O ye of little faith, wherefore dost thou doubt?”

But are there any of you who think that your encouragements and consolations have fallen short of what the Lord had led you to expect when you cast in your lot with his people? then bear in mind, that "ye are not as yet come to the rest, and is it therefore wise, or grateful, or reasonable, that you should repine at the toils and trials of the way? If you had indeed arrived at the inheritance, and found it unworthy of you, unequal to your expectations, unsatisfactory to your soul, we can well imagine your repinings; but you are still on the road, you are at present but a way-faring man, and will you complain that God gives you not the same entertainment on the journey which he has pledged himself to give you at the journey's end? Ought it not in all reason to be enough, that he has made the way so plain, that "the way-faring man, though a fool, shall not err therein?"

That he has so carried you over its rough and stony places, and through its dark forests, and across its rapid streams, and away out of the reach of its lowering tempests, that you escaped, uninjured, even to the present hour? Do you complain that although you have been indeed carried, you have not been comforted, that you have been kept upon the road, but not as others have, in the fulness of assurance and joy? Be not dissatisfied though it be thus with you; there may be, and doubtless there are, fully sufficient reasons that some of God's strongest consolations should be withheld from you for the present, perhaps your very stability depends on this privation; were you to enjoy all of comfort and encouragement which some enjoy, it might be your ruin, by rendering you a careless, confident, and even an unholy walker. Be content that he who apportions your afflictions and your trials, apportions also your consolations and your strength, that

the one will always be regulated by the other, and that he withholds his consolations in love, quite as certainly as that he vouchsafes them in love; leave it, therefore, to him who has chosen your inheritance for you, to choose also the way by which, and the manner in which, you shall travel to it. Only rest calmly and unhesitatingly upon the promises of him, "who, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten you again to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." You have not yet approached the land of your inheritance; you have not yet descended to the brink of the dark waters of Jordan, which divide Canaan from the wilderness; you have not yet, therefore, needed the largest of the promises-"When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee, and through the rivers, they shall

11 St. Peter i. 4.

not overflow thee;" you have never yet required the strongest of his consolations, and God acts as carefully in the spiritual world, as in the world of his providence ; there is no waste, no unnecessary outlay, there is just so much bestowed, as you actually require, and no more. But, remember that all the consolations of God are yours, when you need them, as certainly as that they shall not be yours, before you need them. They are all "yea and amen in Christ Jesus," purchased for you by him, given to you through him, and laid for you As surely as that "in the world ye shall have tribulation," so certainly in that tribulation you shall have comfort, from Him who hath said to you, "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." As surely as that a day of trouble awaits you, so certainly, in that trouble, shall you have peace, from Him who hath said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto

up

1 Isaiah xliii. 2. 2 St. John xvi. 33.

in him.

3 Ibid.