"ENDRAVOURING TO KEEP THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT IN THE BOND OF PEACE." "JESUS CHRIST, THE SAME YESTERDAY, TO-DAY, AND FOR EVER. WHOM TO KNOW

VOL. V.]

OCTOBER, 1845.

[No. 58.

FIRST THE CROSS-THEN THE CROWN.

AND THE LORD SHALL DELIVER ME FROM EVIL WORK, AND WILL PRESERVE ME UNTO HIS HEAVENLY KINGDOM; TO WHOM BE GLORY FOR EVER AND EVER. AMEN.-2 T:M. IV. 18.

BELOVED, as the Lord shall enable us, we will consider four things.
First, what the apostle here calls the evil work.
Second, the Deliverer.

Third, the preservation, and to what end.

And, lastly, the ascription of praise.

First-the evil work. As the apostle was wholly absorbed in the ministry of the word, doubtless what he intended to set forth by the evil work, was the opposition which was set up-raised against himfor and on the account of that work. This would appear from the previous verses. After forewarning his son Timothy, of those who would "not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts should heap to themselves teachers, having itching hears," who "should turn away their ears from the truth, and be turned unto fables," he says, "Demas No. 58, VOL. V.-New Series. 2 H

hath forsaken me, having loved this present world ;' "Alexander the coppersmith had done him much evil;" and farther he declares," at my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me." This was the apostle's position, and thus was he assailed with enemies, and by those who opposed both him and the glorious gospel he preached. Notwithstanding," says he, "the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me this preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles night hear and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion." Then follows the words of our text; "And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen." Thus, however great his trouble-surrounded as the apostle might be with annoyauce and mortification-still there was a vivid recollection of past deliverance, and a fixed and very blessed confidence of future and com. plete victory. But, in order to bring the subject to the reader's own case and circumstances, we would contemplate this "evil work" in another form.

Strictly speaking, there is no evil work nothing that can be deemed evil, to or in connexion with a child of God. In itself considered, there may be evil; he falls into many a snare-is entrapped by many an evil-and ofttimes led astray by an unbelieving heart, and a tempting devil; but such is the wisdom and such the power of Jehovah, that each and every of these apparently evil circumstances is caused to work together-mark the expression, work together-for good. They are so blended, so enwrapped one with the other, as to be productive of real and lasting advantage to the child of God.

Now, to investigate the subject for a moment. Suppose the readerwe are presuming him to be a heaven-born soul-has what the apostle had, enemies; slanderous, backbiting, evil-disposed towards him very painful, very galling to flesh and blood; but how, as overruled by the Lord, does the trial operate? After himself striving to contradict this statement, and show the fallacy of that; after endeavouring, but in vain, to establish his own character and reputation, he sits down-relinquishes his task--and contents himself that he can appeal to God, to whom all hearts are open. The best of earthly friendships thus being overturned, he is led by the blessed Spirit into a closer intimacy, a more constant waiting upon, and holier familiarity with, the Friend who sticketh closer than a brother; who thus having brought down the stub. born, and proud, and restless mind of his poor weary child, takes now his own peculiar method of showing the integrity of heart of that child. He will reprove him for his follies-correct him with a gentle hand for his own ten thousand indiscretions-and then smite his foes in a way that shall draw forth not a carnal triumphing, but a holy admiration of the Lord's wisdom, and a deep humiliation on account of distinguishing mercy and forbearing goodness.

Reader, are you under dark providences ? Does wisdom fail, and strength fail, and even heart fail? Doth no way of deliverance appear? Is the pathway so narrow as to leave scarcely room to squeeze through? Is it so dark that you cannot see your way? Doth it appear you never

shall reach the end of the pathway you are now walking in, or rather groping through? Will you be overwhelmed? Shall not light again break in, and deliverance be once more vouchsafed? Ah! it may appear an "evil work," but good shall come out of it; good shall stand in its connexion: some blessed results shall flow forth from your present trials, heavy as they may be, as the consequence of the very position through which the Lord is now leading you.

"Tarry his pleasure, then,

And, though he tarry, wait;
The promise may be long delay'd,

But cannot come too late."

And how are you, poor disconsolate one? What! no deliverance yet? No cheering rays from the Sun of Righteousness yet? No breaking away of the clouds; no clear shining after the rain; no sweet genial warmth to nourish, and animate, and refresh your apparently poor, parched up, dry-and-barren soul? Aye, it is all right it is not an "evil work." Trying in itself-wearying, discouraging, almost overwhelming, to wait week after week, month after mouth, and it may be year after year, for a sight of Jesus-a word from Jesus; and not a sight nor a whisper yet. Still the burden upon the shoulders; sin hanging heavy upon the soul; unable to cast it upon the Surety, and the hand of faith too feeble-too powerless to grasp Him who is mighty to save. "Oh! one look-one word-one sweet soft whisper of mercy,' says such a soul, "would pacify-would quell my every rising fear in a moment." And can such an experience such a conviction of sin such a sense of helplessness-such a consciousness that none but Christ can save and such a determination that "if I perish, I perish," be an evil work? Ah! no.

"The soul who to Jesus thus looks for repose,
He'll never, no never, desert to his foes;

That soul, though all hell may endeavour to shake,
He'll never, no, never, no, never forsake."

Here's another with a poor delicate frame. Well, and what's the matter? Why, yours is not an evil work, because by it you are taught that this is not your rest,-it is polluted. Home and rest await you, but not this side of Jordan. If with all the good things God has given you in providence; if, to kind friends-pleasing associations were added a healthful body, how soon would you have settled down in carnal ease, satisfied with your state-contented with your condition, even though that condition were afar off in personal realization from God and the things of God. You seem to forget the weaker the frame, the less it will take to knock it down, and the nearer you may be to the full participation of those things which your soul is panting after. A poor weakly frame totters on the brink of the grave, and treads the threshold of heaven. And well may such a soul exclaim, if blessed with a personal knowledge of union to and interest in Jehovah Jesus, "I am in a straight betwixt two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better;"" for me to live is Christ, and to die gain. For I know if the

earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, I have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

Here is a fourth that has much relative sorrow. Well, take that profligate son-carry your unruly daughter, to the Lord. They are too much for you. Your shortest and best way will be to spread the case before the Lord. Your plans-schemes-your every effort, will prove in vain, as long as you strive by yourself. You are using your efforts, and asking the Lord to bless them, instead of resigning entirely your own wisdom, and going simply to the Lord, to ask him what you shall do. But good shall spring out of this seeming evil also. That is precious language as recorded by the Holy Ghost (2 Chron. xx. 12.) "Neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon thee." This is the simplest, best, and most successful way of going to work. Would to God that we were found more in the practice; for He hath graciously declared, "acknowledge me in all thy ways, and I will direct thy paths."

This brings us, secondly, to consider the Deliverer. Now, beloved, what the Lord has in view in all the trials, sorrows, and perplexities, with which He sees fit to exercise, is to bring us down to a sense-a deepfelt sense of our own personal nothingness, in order that upon the ruins of self, he may establish Himself. For "whilst we can call one mite our own, we're not completely free." And it is a blessed point to be brought to, to be as free from wisdom and strength as we are of personal or inherent righteousness; because, so to speak, it is by the Holy Ghost made the sweet introduction to the wisdom and the strength and the all-sufficency of our adorable Jesus. But the humbling consideration is that constant initation-that every day, over-and-over again, lineupon-line proof upon proof which we need of our own utter lost, helpless and undone condition. Did he not know to the contrary, one would suppose that the many failures he has had in self and about self, would lead to a total distrust of self, and to a corresponding espousal and prizing of Jesus; but no, such is not the fact. Self associates with all-mixes itself with all, so that the hardest thing a man has to learn is the denial-the total rejection of self, and the acknowledgment, the laying hold and firmly claiming of Jesus. Great, however, as is the failure in self, and human nature universally, the loss is infinitely more than made up in Jesus. And the Lord must be our deliverer from every evil work, or no deliverance shall we experience. It will take eternity to reveal the various ways-the infinite wisdom displayed, and the boundless compassion manifested, by Jesus towards and on the behalf of his poor helpless followers, in reference to this time-state. When compared with its vastness, we know nothing-absolutely nothing-of what Jesus does every day, and every hour and moment of the day, for each individual member of his church. We are so pent up in our own contracted minds-so absorbed with our petty trials, sorrows, and perplexities, as to lose sight-almost to be utterly regardless of the mercies, the tenderness, and the compassion which Jesus is momentarily displaying towards each and every object of his love. We misjudge him in his every movement. We think he does this in anger, and the other in displeasure; we imagine this trial might be dispensed with, and the other fancied good

bestowed; at the very time the Lord is granting us all that is for our real profit-withholding that which would do us inconceivable injuryand leading us by means of his infinite wisdom and Almighty power through this waste howling wilderness to a city of habitation. Beloved, we must get home-we must be dismantled-we must throw off this clay tabernacle, or by the Spirit's revelation to the eye of faith rise above all this fleshly conception, these fleshly arguments, and fleshly conclusions, ere we shall settle down contented that the Lord is guiding us by the skilfulness of his hand. The more complicated and difficult the path to reason's eye the more evident it is that it is the Lord who is sustaining us and leading us from day to day, month to month, and year to year. "The Lord shall preserve me from every evil work." And now thirdly, we come to speak a little-and it is but little we can say-upon Preservation, and what shall we say upon this? The subject is boundless-vast in its magnitude. There is not a child of God upon earth that has a thousandth part conception either of the mercy or extent of preservation. Let him look around upon his fellow man; let him contemplate the thousand times ten thousand snares into which those fellow-men have not only fallen, but by which are daily and hourly being led away; let him trace from infancy in his fellow the seeds of sinfollow him through youth into manhood, and from manhood to old age, and then see how in each and every stage snare upon snare-entrapment upon entrapment has presented itself, and into which he has so fallen as at length to be immersed in a course of unbroken guilt, depravity, and departure from the Lord God; let him, above all, connect with so painful a contemplation the unceasing remembrance of what he is in himself" and such were some of you"-hewn out of the same quarry-taken out of the huge mass of corruption-being " the child of wrath even as others." Ah! be it his to think over that watchful eye -that preserving care-that all-powerful arm, which not only snatched him as a brand from the burning, but hath kept him-sustained him— upheld and preserved him, when thousands of thousands have gone the downward road to destruction. But he must not stop here. May the Holy Ghost lead him to a grateful consideration of that gracious preservation which hath prevented him, since his profession of truth, from falling into those errors into which thousands of professors, and many a possessor too, have fallen. Why was not he among those who have been left a prey to temptation-who have fallen into sin, and under the deceitful nature thereof, become hardened-left as the 'salmist was, to a state of hardness and indifference-scarcely aware of what he had done-insensible to the extent of his fall-the magnitude of his sin? Why was he not left here, to have broken bones, and to be brought back with weeping, and bitterness, and sorrow? Ah! why? And how is it he has never been left to give utterance to those vile thoughts -those awful blasphemies-with which some arefexercised, so as to rise up and "curse his God and his King? Why has he not turned his back upon the truth; become a profaner, and denied the Lord that bought him? How is it that, amid all his chequered feelings-his varied frames--the conflict of flesh and spirit-heaven and hell within,