be raised up, to the end that, in him, as Paul afterwards declared, "God might show forth all long-suffering for a pattern to them who should hereafter believe on him." Oh! then, who need despair when Jesus Christ came to save sinners, of whom the Apostle declared, "I am chief." But there were other seasons of distress in David's eventful life, arising from other causes than his own flagrant deliberate transgression. The sin of others as well as his own brought him woe, and it is scarcely to be decided whether, had not his refuge been with God, he would have been more truly wretched when Saul, the persecutor, hunted him like a wild beast on the mountains, or when driven forth from the throne, the palace, and the kingdom, by unnatural violence, and the son that came out of his bowels sought his life. Yet, alike in his dreary wanderings, and in his bitter exile, he thought upon "the path of God, all mercy and all truth, to such as keep his covenant and his testimonies;" he thought on them and was comforted, for he knew that "the thoughts of the Lord towards him were thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give him an expected end;" and though it had pleased his heavenly Father to cause him grief, yet would he remove it, according to the multitude of his tender mercies. He inclined his ear unto the Lord, and God raised him up out of the miry clay, and set his feet upon a rock, and established his goings. Oh! it is well recorded when he speaks of God's many wonderful works. Had he not before him the severely exercised but triumphant faith of Abraham? Had he not the example of Joseph restored to joy and gladness, after the iron had entered his soul? and that of Moses also, who, after 40 years of exile and servitude, was advanced to become the shepherd of God's people Israel, and to lead them through the wilderness to the promised land? All these composed a bright cloud of witnesses, which contained the pledge of Jehovah's faithfulness, and therefore in adversity he had the conviction of unbounded deliverance, and so exclaimed, with a grateful heart, "I will never forget thy precepts; for with them thou hast quickened me. Unless thy law had been my delight, I should then have perished in mine affliction."

Lastly, we may aver that even the moral purity of God's

statutes, though he had violated them, was a source of comfort to the Psalmist. Even under his heaviest affliction, he had the testimony of his heart, that he loved the law of God, that he tried to practise it, and that even in his wanderings and deviations he had seemed to approve its excellency, and deplore a violation of it. "I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost;" yet he added this argument, "Oh, seek thy servant, for I do not forget thy commandments."

David was doubtless well aware that love of the purity of God's precepts, love called up by that purity, was not a natural growth of the human heart; so far otherwise, indeed, that he gives the following graphic outline of the wicked, "The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts. He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it."

But the Psalmist well knew, and deplored his own depravity and infirmity, and desired the removal of the one and the strengthening of the other; and, instead of being repelled from God by a consciousness of his own unworthiness, he the more earnestly desires the attainment of holiness, that God might draw nigh to him, and that he might draw nigh to God. "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way ever· lasting."

In affliction, therefore, of whatever kind, he could delight himself with the remembrance that he had loved, and did love, God's word; and on the remembrance of this could he ground a sure confidence that a good work was begun in him which could not but be performed; for he himself said respecting it, "The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me." His soul was stayed on God and "They that trust in the Lord;" the words are his own, and to him therefore we may safely turn to describe his own experience. "They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever."

What then is the conclusion of the whole matter as it bears upon ourselves? Brethren, it is this, either we are,

or we shall be, afflicted; we cannot hope long to escape the general doom. Some of us are openly and manifestly afflicted even now; more perhaps, many more, have their own secrets, of which the world can take no recognition. "The heart knoweth his own bitterness: and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy." But whether this arises from distress of mind, by reason of former sins, or from the malice of any persecutor, as when David was an outcast upon the mountains, or from the consciousness or the apprehension of bodily decay, as when he said, "my loins are filled with a sore disease: and there is no whole part in my body." Whatever it be we ought to make, if we have not already made, provision to bear up under it. That provision is, to accustom ourselves, like David, to seek our delight in the word of God, in its exceeding great and precious promises-great and more precious, if possible, to us than to him; "for they are now all yea, and amen, in Christ Jesus ;" and so, again, in the vast and marvellous discovery developing to us, as they did not so clearly to him, that great mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. And so, again, in the purity of its moral precept, reflecting clearly to us what it could but indistinctly and prophetically reflect to him-the image and impression of One who did no sin, nor was guile found in his mouth, and in the following of whom, under the guidance of God's Holy Spirit, consists our best security. "Search the Scriptures," enjoined our Lord himself, "for in them ye think ye have eternal life." "Receive with meekness the engrafted word," enjoins the Spirit, speaking by one of the goodly fellowship of the Apostles, "Receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls."

Now to take delight in the word of God is not to forego all other pursuits and occupations that we may make it our exclusive study. These are not forbidden, and in many instances it would not even be desirable for us to make it our whole study. We should read, in an individual application of God's word, to take it home to our hearts, and hide it there, to find therein the description of our own minds and the development of our own character, to seek direction from it when uncertain as to what course of con

duct to pursue consistently with our obligations to the law of Christ; and, at all times, to have it written in our heart, that we may not sin against him. This last, indeed, may be considered as in an eminent degree characteristic of the true believer. The sword of the Spirit, if not always in hand, must be ready to be drawn and wielded in an instant. If temper arise, if passion arise, it must be calmed; it must be quenched by a seasonable recurrence to God's word. If interest or advantage is to be purchased at the expense of duty, the Word of God must promptly develope its real character and guilt, and both be spurned. If sudden affliction come down upon the servant of the Lord, he must try at once to seek the appropriate remedy in that which is the storehouse of all remedies, and thus will he be prepared for whatever may follow. Though he does not perish, the Lord upholdeth him with his hand; and though he had been wont, in prosperity, to find delight in God's law, in time of adversity he did not seek consolation therein in vain.

We close, as we commenced, then, brethren, by assuring you, who are afflicted, from the experience of David and of Paul, that for your special case there is a special remedy; and having said this, by exhorting you to seek it where it can be found-in the word of God. It is nothing new that faith should be tried, but it would be both new and strange, indeed, if any true believer were left to faint and to sink beneath the trial. You have but to call to your God, as David did out of the depths, and to cast your burden, as Paul did, on the Saviour, who is both able and willing to sustain it. A universal remedy for every ill might be found in that single text were it duly applied and fully believed," All things are working together for good." This opens a prospect of light beyond the thickest darkness: this presents the most languid and exhausted frame with the fruits of Paradise. What we need is faith to apply it aright; and who can tell but that faith will be conferred in a measure equal to our need, if we depart hence with the earnest prayer,-Lord, let thy word so become my delight that I may not perish in the time of my affliction. Lord, let me not forget thy statutes, for with them thou hast quickened me. My soul fainteth for thy salvation, but I hope in thy word.

ON HEAVEN.

It only remains to be added that, at the resurrection, the bodies of believers will be rendered immortal. "Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more." In this property they will resemble him. Dissolution will no longer be the necessary law of material existences. "This cor

ruptible must put on incorruption, this mortal must put on immortality." The incorruption in which our bodies are to be raised is a condition evidently the opposite of that corruption in which they are said to be sown. Corruption is the decay and separation of the parts of which the material frame is composed. By its very constitution that frame is, in every stage of its present existence, corruptible. It is always obnoxious to decay; always liable to dissolve. Death is but the carrying out of its inherent tendency into complete effect. Whatever is compounded is ultimately reduced to its component parts, whatever is complex is restored to its original simplicity. Hence the body is not only capable of dying, but must die; for to suppose that the elements of which it is composed can eternally cohere without a miracle, is to suppose what all reason and experience contradict. If the bodies of our first parents were, previously to the fall, exempted from liability to death, it must be remembered that they had access to "the tree of life;" which seems to have been planted in the garden in order that its fruit might be the means of perpetually renewing the vigour of their corporeal frames. A mode of counteracting the natural tendency of compounded substances to dissolve into their simple elements, as far as the human body was concerned, was thus devised by Infinite Wisdom, and, in consequence of it, had man retained his innocence, he would have retained also his primitive immortality. No such influence is now in operation; corruption therefore takes its course. But as corruption implies a tendency to decay and ultimate dissolution; so it is to be concluded that incorruption, its opposite and contrasted condition, implies exemption from such a tendency, indeed its utter extinction. None of its indications will be felt or seen. Millions of ages may pass away, but the bodies of the saints will still be in the vigour