THE HOUR OF THE GREATEST DISTRESS OFTEN, IN GOD'S GOVERNMENT, IS THE PERIOD OF THE MOST COMPLETE DELIVERANCE.

But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and besides all this, to-day is the third day since these things were done. LUKE XXIV. 21.

NEVER were the faith of the Church, and the hopes of all the godly, apparently, being so near extinct, as on the morning of the Resurrection. This was the darkest hour in the darkest day in the development of God's great plan of salvation. The enemy, it was dreaded, had completely triumphed. The promise made to the fathers, and in which the fathers had trusted through the long period of 4000 years, had failed; and the blackness of despair covered almost every face, and almost every heart, among those who were waiting for the consolation of Israel. And yet the reverse of all that was apprehended was the true state of the case. The promise had been literally fulfilled. The seed of the woman had bruised the head of the serpent: The Son of God had triumphed over death and Hell, and had upon the cross spoiled principalities and powers, making a show of them openly, and triumphing over them in it. A full and free salvation even deliverance to the captives, and the opening of the prison doors to them that were bound, was now to be proclaimed to all people and nations and tongues-and this proclamation was to be continued till the last generation of men.

Nor is this a solitary case, though it may be one of the strongest, in the history of the church of God. The hour of deliverance to the church and to particular individuals, has frequently been just at hand when human hopes and human efforts were at the lowest ebb. It was so at the giving of the first promise, in the form of a threatening against the deceiver and destroyer of our race. It was so when Abraham called the name of the place Jehovah Jireh. It was so with good old Jacob when, during a long night, he wept and made supplication, and yet had power with God and prevailed;-and it was again so with him when, in the anguish of his heart, he said, "Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me." It was so with Judah, when in the presence of the stern governor of Egypt he said, "Now therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brethren. For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me? lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my father." It was so in the deliverance from Egypt. As the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn to Abraham, the sorrows and depressions of the people who were to be delivered, increased in a fearful ratio. "And the officers of the children of Israel did see that they were in evil case, after it was said, Ye shall not minish aught from your bricks of your daily task. And they met Moses and Aaron, who stood in the way, as they came forth from Pharaoh: And they said unto them, the LORD look upon you, and judge; because ye have made our savor to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us. And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said, Lord, wherefore hast thou so evil-entreated this people? why is it that thou hast sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath done evil to this people: neither hast thou delivered thy people at all." It was so in the case of every one of the Judges, whom God raised up for the deliverance of his people during the space of 450 years. It was peculiarly so in the days of Mordecai and Esther. "Then Esther bade them return Mordecai this answer, Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day I also and my maidens will fast likewise and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law; and if I perish, I perish." The Psalmist found it so in cases without number, in his eventful life. "When my spirit," says he, "was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path. In the way wherein I walked have they privily laid a snare for me. I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my

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soul. I cried unto thee, O LORD: I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living."

Other examples might easily be given, but these are sufficient to establish the fact, that it is one of the fixed principles in Jehovah's government of his creature man-and particularly of redeemed men -the appointed time for divine aid; the time for the most glorious display of divine wisdom and power and goodness, is frequently when all human hopes and all human efforts are nearly gone.

"Just in the last distressing hour,
The Lord displays delivering power.
The mount of danger is the place
Where we shall see surprising grace."

What practical application, therefore, are we to make of these and similar facts, and of the general principle deduced from them?

I. Every professor of religion ought to know whether he has been indeed shut up to the faith, and has had all his hopes of deliverance from the wrath which is to come, cut off from every quarter but one. As long as any hopes of salvation are indulged directly or indirectly from deeds of law, whether supposed to be connected or unconnected with the Lord Jesus Christ, these hopes are vain. No sinner ever yet had any solid evidence of his being in a justified state, who was not reduced to absolute despair of deliverance from all other quarters, but by simply throwing himself on the sovereign mercy of God through the only Mediator. "God be merciful to me a sinner," was the effectual prayer of the Publican. "I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came sin revived and I died," was the experience of the Apostle Paul.

II. We are never to despair of the Church of God, nor of the cause of truth and righteousness.

If our Lord's kingdom was safe when he was extended upon the cross, and laid in the tomb-if, when he was bearing our sins in his own body on the tree, and when all created help had forsaken himif, even then, he triumphed and made conquest, shall his kingdom ever be in danger now, when he is seated on the throne of the Universe, and has all power in heaven and in earth committed unto him for the express purpose of giving eternal life to as many as the father. hath given him? His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth. He shall reign till he hath put all his enemies under his feet. Change who will-fall and disappear who may-the Redeemer is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever; and the memo

rial of his proudest foes, shall be known, as it often has been, only because it is registered in the triumphs of his cross.

III. The friends of the Redeemer must cease from having undue confidence in man, and in the plans and schemes of men.

Cursed be the man, whoever he be, whether within or without the visible Church, who maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the living God."

Fallen man, even when redeemed, is prone to idolatry. He is continually placing his confidence somewhere else, than on the Rock of his strength. He is of course liable to many disappointments, and to many severe and long chastisements.

Human wisdom is only folly, and human strength is only weakness, when they are not accompanied with a deep sense of our depravity and of our liability to go astray, and forget to whom we are indebted for our all. "Pride goeth before a fall, and before honor is

humility."

Redeemed men ought to remember that they are not their own, but that they are bought with a price. Hence, however extensively we may devote our time or our talents or our wealth or our influence to the service of our Lord and Master, we can never bring Him into our debt-we can never make an acceptable or successful move in his service where he is not our all in all. The more extensively we may be employed in his service the more deeply are we indebted to him in condescending to make us fellow-workers with himself in his great work of reconciling the world.

IV. Each friend of the Redeemer ought to get nearer to his Lord and Master than ever he has been, and under his direction to study the Apostles and Prophets more attentively than ever he has done.

For an illustration of this, read attentively and with the spirit of devotion, Luke xxiv. 25, to the end. The Lord Jesus Christ is the light of the Gentiles, as well as the glory of Israel.

V. While every man, and particularly every redeemed man, ought to be very rigid and severe with respect to himself, he ought to exercise, in thought and word and conduct, great charity to his fellowmen, and particularly towards his fellow professors.

All are liable to err, and every man is occasionally overtaken in some fault. That man who is most intimately acquainted with himself, knows best how much he daily needs the forbearance and the charities of his fellow-men. And it may be that in many cases the man who is the most active in finding out, and in condemning what is wrong in his fellow church members, is the very man whose own heart and whose own house are the least able to stand a rigid investigation.