feat their Lord's gracious intentions and desires, and Satan may, for a time, frustrate them, the hour is coming, "when as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations:" when the accuser of the brethren shall be cast down, and bound with a great chain, and "the whole earth is at rest, and is quiet, and they break forth into singing, How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" The very few specimens we are permitted to see, in this our day, of the effects of this holy principle, when in full operation on the heart and conduct, which makes it to us like "meeting as it were an angel unawares," falling in with them, may enable us to form some idea, however faint, of the day-now we trust not afar off, but a day nigh at hand when "holiness unto the Lord" shall stamp all the vessels of the Lord's house, and the way shall be the way of holiness, along which the unclean can never pass.

But we must also recollect, the unbelief of men can never make the faithfulness of God of none effect, in that "the day cometh," too, "that shall burn as an oven, when the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be as stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." Yea, and

that we are to connect this threat, under the Law, (Mal. iv. 1,) with that of our Lord under the Gospel, that it is "a fire that never shall be quenched;" "for if they escaped not who refused Him that spoke on earth, how much more shall not we escape if we refuse Him that speaketh from heaven? For God, who at sundry times, and in divers places, spake unto our fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, and how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation!" Men's merely disbelieving a future judgment will not deliver them from it, or absolve them from falling under the effect of it, but their believing it here, and living under the influence of it; and “herein, like the apostle, exercising themselves to have a conscience void of offence towards God and towards man," will effectually deliver them from its fatal effects; for if we have known and believed the love of God in delivering us from the present evil world; and if this love of God to us, says the apostle, has filled us with love to God and all men, then, “he that thus dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him; and herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness at the day of judgment," because,

66

as He is, so are we in this world." Christ, for His own merits, enjoyed the favour of God, as a perpetual sunshine on his soul: and we for His sake only, never for our own merits, are joint heirs with Him in

And if we now are

"the

the favour of God now. sons of God, when he shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." When He who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory," whose lives have been hid with Him in grace; for then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of His Father. "I ascend unt omy Father and your Father," saith our Lord; "and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also ;" and we shall be heirs with Him of a kingdom that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us who are kept, by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation.

To conclude, "Happy is the man," saith St. Augustine, "who loveth his friend in thee, and his enemy for thy sake." And "as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them!" "for the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace, of them that make peace."

CHAPTER VIII.

THIS, then, is that christian confidence, which "makes none ashamed that trust in it;" and one well worthy of the name, being founded on no false view of God's character, and on no fiction concerning our own; on no false hope that God may prove to be less holy in His nature, and less righteous in His judgments with us, than we imagined; or that we may prove less guilty, and so have less reason to dread encountering that final judgment, than our faithful monitor, Conscience, had represented. But a confidence, founded on a real knowledge of the truth of God's awful majesty, and our own great unworthiness, and which yet allows of our "fleeing for succour to Him, who for our sins is justly displeased;" and of our "committing our souls into His hands, in well doing, "as to a faithful Creator,"

"who is able to keep that which we have committed to Him against the great day." A confidence, worthy of being given by "a God of Truth and uprightness," to creatures made in His image; and who, however they may have degenerated from their high original, yet retain such an instinctive sense of what is needful for the peace of their minds, as to be unable to rest satisfied on any less secure basis;-a confidence so sufficient for our present comfort, as to "keep them in perfect peace whose minds are stayed on it," and to fit them for all duties, and to fortify them for all difficulties; for "in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength;" as well as to still all anxious misgivings with respect to their prospects of finally attaining the mark of their high calling; they "being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun the good work in them will continue and perfect it against the day of the Lord Jesus," "for what He hath promised He is able also to perform ;" and one, too, which enables him to look the last and worst enemy of his soul, Death, in the face without alarm; for "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep his heart and mind in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." A confidence which no calamity can deprive him of; yea, though he should lose the whole world, and everything, and every one