redeemed thee; I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burnt, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee;" Isaiah, xliii, 2. "Offer unto God thanksgiving, and pay thy vows unto the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me;" Psalm 1, 14, 15. "Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and sup plication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God; and the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus;" Phil. iv, 6, 7. Here is a foun dation for faith. while IV. Signal deliverance was the result of the conduct of Asa; and after the conflict, a man of God was sent to express to him the Divine approval, and to animate him to future zeal and confidence. The Lord smote the Ethiopians before Asa, and before Judah; and the Ethiopians fled, and Asa, and the people that were with him, pursued them unto Gerar; and the Ethiopians were overthrown, that they could not recover themselves, for they were destroyed before the Lord, and before His host; and they carried away very much spoil;" ver. 12, 13. And afterwards the Spirit of the Lord came upon Asariah, the son of Oded; and he went out to meet Asa, and said unto him,-" Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin :-the Lord is with you ye be with Him; and if ye seek Him, He will be found of you; but if ye forsake Him, He will forsake you. ye strong, therefore, and let not your hearts be weak, for your work shall be rewarded;" chap. xv, 1-8. This message of the prophet inspired the king with new vigour; for when Asa heard these words," he took courage, and put away the abominable idols out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the cities which he had taken from mount Ephraim, and renewed the altar of the Lord that was before the porch of the Lord;" ver. 8. And he gathered all Judah and Benja min, and the Israelites that had resorted to him, and they offered sacrifices, and made a covenant, and re Be joiced together, and sought the Lord with their whole desire, and He was found of them, and gave them rest round about. Blessed are they that trust in God; they will be able to surmount every difficulty, and to be more than conquerors through Him that hath loved them. They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abideth for ever. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people, from henceforth, even for ever. His servants are directed to encourage them. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God; speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; and though the youths may faint and be weary, and the young men utterly fail, they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint; yes, they shall go from strength to strength till they appear perfect before the God of gods in Zion; and nothing shall harm them so long as they follow that which is good. V. But afterwards the heart of Asa got inflated by human ambition; and when he subsequently came into difficulties, he did not seek unto the Lord, but unto Ben-hadad, the king of Syria; in consequence of which he was tenderly admonished by a man of God. Hanani the seer, said unto him,-"Because thou hast relied upon the king of Syria, and not relied on the Lord thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine hand. Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubims a huge host, with very many chariots and horsemen? yet, because thou didst rely on the Lord, He delivered them into thine hand. For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards Him. Therein thou hast done foolishly; therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars;" chap, xvi, 7-10. Whenever we get too much connected with, or attached to, the present evil world, there is very great danger of our seeking that succour and satisfaction from it which we ought to seek from God only. The world draws the heart from the simplicity of faith, and fills it full of self-confidence and ambition. How needful is the caution, and how true is the assertion of the beloved apostle,-"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world! If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." In looking over your past life, can you remember a time when you were in a great strait ? You then called upon the Lord, and He delivered you. Then your faith and love grew cool, and you launched out into the world. In awhile, trouble came again, and you forgot the deliverance which God wrought out for you before; and you sought to the men of the world for help, and they failed. Be admonished, or you shall have wars. VI. Pride and ambition had so hardened the heart of Asa, that instead of listening to the prophet with humility and penitence, he cruelly and unjustly put him in a prison-house, for he was in a rage with him because of this thing; and Asa oppressed some of the people at the same time; chap. xvi, 10. If we give up ourselves to the love and service of this world, we shall neither love the truth nor those who declare it; our hearts will become alienated from God, and we shall be ready to blame, and censure, and oppress those who oppose us and venture to tell us of our declension and change for the worse. When you rejoiced in the simplicity and freshness of your first Divine love, you were grateful when a kind friend told you of a fault; but when you left that first love, and grew cold and worldly, you shunned that friend, and treated him as a foe. VII. Asa had imperceptibly, but yet rapidly, retrograded to such an awful distance from God, that when he came to his latter end, and "was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great, he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians;" ver. 12. To apply to physicians was his duty; but to trust solely in them, to the neglect of God, was his sin and folly. If we once begin and continue to depart from the living God, there is no telling whither thoughtlessness and folly may lead us. We may, in the time of trial, trouble, or disease, be led to trust in ourselves, or in some arm of flesh, rather than in God. Let us beware, and at all times cleave unto the Lord. In his neglect of God, king Asa took care not to forget his own ambition, and love of posthumous honour, and fame. He ordered for himself a new tomb and a splendid funeral. "And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the one and fortieth year of his reign; and they buried him in his own sepulchre which he had made for himself in the city of David, and laid him in the bed which was filled with sweet odours and divers kinds of spices prepared by the apothecaries' art; and they made a very great burning for him." Was there hope in his death? I trust there was. Although a cloud is thrown upon his memory, I hope before he closed his eyes in death, he obtained repentance unto salvation; for he was, upon the whole, a good and prosperous king, and we will hope that, after all, he died in peace. Let us by all means avoid his failings, and copy his virtues; and as we hope for mercy, let us also extend it to the living and to the dead. THE PEARL OF SAYINGS. 1 TIM, I, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." PURE inward godliness never fails to improve and humble the heart. It inspires the soul with love and gratitude to God, and with affability and kindness towards mankind. These gracious and generous principles were strikingly manifest in the Christian character and life of St. Paul, who was changed from a proud, persecuting zealot, to a meek and humble disciple of Jesus, and to a faithful and successful minister of the grace of God. In this chapter he gives to Timothy, his own son in the faith," a short, but very affecting narrative of his past experience, and shows him how the gospel was made the power of God to his salvation, and that it was the design of its Author that it should be the means of saving the whole human family; ver. 12-17. In the text we have, I. A saying. II. Its credibility. III. Its excellency. I. A saying. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. 1. Christ Jesus! The anointed Messiah! Prophets, priests and kings were, under the Mosaic Dispensation, anointed to their office; and Christ was the great antitype, uniting in Himself all the three offices. He was foretold by the prophets as the Lord our Righteousness; as the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace as the Prophet, like unto, but superior to, Moses, who should make reconciliation for iniquity, and bring in everlasting righteousness. It required an Almighty Saviour to do this; and He who came into the world to save sinners was the WORD; that WORD was GOD, by whom all things were made, and by whom all things exist. The names, attributes, works, and benedic tions of God are ascribed to Him. He assumed our nature, became Jesus, the Saviour, made in the likeness of man, and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, made Himself of no reputation, took upon Him the form of a servant, and came into the world. 2. But what was the object of His mission into the world? It was to save sinners. Sinners in their natural state are lost. They are not in the right place. They have gone astray, every one to his own way-but all from God. He is not in all their thoughts; they love Him not; they fear Him not; they serve Him not. Their carnal mind is enmity against Him; the way of peace they know not, they care not, they seek not. Ever since the fall, that has been the state of all mansoul. They were lost, but they felt it not; dead, but they cared not. But there was One that felt and cared for |