you could feel it is so. You are, it is true, a poor trembling creature, groaning under the weight of a body of sin, disease, and death, You have many a thorn in the flesh to buffet you; you have much that discomposes and makes anxious your spirit, but, for all that, you are the tender object of angelic love and care. The Lord Jesus is your peace: He is 66 the new man "" within you. The heavens will open one day for you, if only you abide in Christ, even as they opened to receive back our heavenly Lord and God. Your's is not a peace that is only half-made; it is not a peace like that too often cemented between men, where the memory of the old animosity chills the re-commenced friendship. God has put from you all your iniquity. He has said He will not remember your sins. Oh that He may keep you in the faith, grounded and settled! And it is a scriptural assurance, that He who hath begun a good work in you, will carry it on to the day of Christ. So then, even on this cold, weary earth, whereon your spirit so often tires and faints for peace that is marred by no disquiet, and for happiness without alloy, you are a citizen of the heavenly Zion away from home. You are no more "a stranger and a foreigner, but a fellow-citizen with the saints, and of the household of God. You are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone; in Whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in Whom you also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." Surely there is enough in all this to reconcile you to the trials and sorrows of earth! Would you change your troubled condition, having Christ for your portion for ever, with that of the wealthiest, or the most honourable, of those among the earth's nobility, who are not Christ's people? No; look up, dear brother, for your redemption draweth nigh. Bear your suffering patiently a little longer. If you suffer with Christ, you shall also reign with Him. Trials are wearying to both flesh and spirit while they last, and "hope deferred maketh the heart sick." But if you are intent on a blessed immortality, you will feel bye and bye, that "when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life." Oh pray earnestly for more faith, more patience, more complete submission to all God's Holy Will concerning you. "Yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry." Prayer. OH Lord Jesus Christ, Whom to know is everlasting life, grant us fully to know Thee, who art the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Graciously quicken, we beseech Thee, our spiritual perceptions, that, being made earnest-hearted in Thy service by the Holy Spirit, we may realise, to our deep joy, the glorious fulness of the deliverance Thou hast wrought out for us. Oh keep us looking away from ourselves to Thee all the day long. Make us very watchful, and very prayerful, and in time of temptation be nigh to succour us. Thou, oh Lord Jesus, art our only hope of deliverance from the bondage of sin into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Give Thy grace, we pray Thee, to Thy sick servant. Cause him to hunger and thirst for Thy righteousness, that, according to Thy blessed promise, he may be filled. Preserve him from becoming discouraged by the plague of an evil heart that belongs to us all, and graciously save him from the carnal slumber of self-righteousness. Oh deepen his present religious impressions; let them not pass away as the morning dew. Be in him "the new man," by resting on Whom he may be reconciled to God. Whensoever his flesh and his heart fail, give him to know Thee as the strength of his heart and his portion for ever. And grant that having in him Thyself, his peace, his hope of glory, he may, through Thy blessed Spirit, purify himself even as Thou art pure. Grant that from henceforth, he may be led by Thee to use this world as not abusing it. Oh may he, hidden with Thyself in God, press forward towards the mark for the prize of his high calling in Thee. Put away his sins far from him; let them not distract his mind from following hard after Thee. In penitence, faith, humility, and well-doing, may he henceforth walk as one whose citizenship and conversation are in heaven. Hear us, oh merciful Lord, we humbly beseech Thee, for Thine own precious merit's sake. Amen. XVII. THE LORD JESUS AT THE POOL OF BETHESDA. ST. JOHN v. 1-9. SOME one has aptly compared the world in which we live to a vast hospital. It is a world that, for the present, lies under the dominion of a stern, unmerciful master, whose evil sway over it is abundantly shown every day, not only in the passions that degrade mankind to the level of the brute creation, but in the miseries, the diseases, the deaths, that are visited alike upon the servants of God and those of Satan. "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." How blessed a thought then it is, that this waiting-time for redemption is growing shorter and shorter: that even now there are signs abroad in the earth, that point to the speedy and sudden coming of Him, Who will once again rescue His noble and beautiful creation from the destroyer,drive away all misery, disease, and death, and will restore universal happiness, under His Own Personal reign, to all who love His Appearing! Surely our every day experiences teach us all that we have urgent need to join heartily and earnestly in that last cry uttered in the Scriptures of Truth, by those who are oppressed by the usurper, to the world's rightful Sovereign and God-" Even so, come, Lord Jesus." It must be very precious to all who love the Lord Jesus Christ, to ponder, in seasons of heaviness and gloom, on His unfailing compassions for the poor distressed family of Adam, on the infinite sacrifices He has made for their eternal good, on the Omnipotence He manifested when on earth, which, : |