have a portion in any other. We need not take any extreme case, such as the covetous man, eaten up with his greed of gold, as with a canker, wasting health for it, injuring the poor for it, robbing God for it; nor the ambitious man whose idol is ever before him, the enshrined divinity of his heart, worshipped night and day in the church, in the closet, in the family, everywhere; nor the man of pleasure, whether the low sensualist revelling in his coarse tastes and unchastened appetites, or the empty-hearted followers of this vain-glorious world-we take only a common simple worldly man, whose aim is simply to have a tolerably well-to-do position in society, to see his children comfortably established, in short, to get out of the world as much as to zealous industry and prudent thrift the world may be reasonably expected to yield. Still the man's hope is here; whatever touches that touches the apple of his eye; and something does touch it or may touch it every ♦ day. He is never free from the fear of disappointment, or the fear of losses, or the fear of miscarriage and failure from some source. He cannot make a league with providential ills—with the recklessness of this man that it shall not hurt him, or with the unprincipled conduct of that man that it shall not ruin or destroy; and, then, on the first misadventure, the first heavy and discouraging blow, there will arise all the fretfulness, and discontent, and allowed thought of some wrong God is permitting; and envious soreness that some are getting on so much better will generally accompany a man with one hope only, and that hope not in God. Thus, the whole life of such people is a life of unrest, uncertainty, anxiety, lest some hurt should come to their chief good, yet never finding any solid satisfaction in the good they have chosen, even if they are able to keep it as it is. Well, who can doubt that all this feeling of self-dissatisfaction, this doing well to be angry because the gourd which came up in á night withered in a night, comes of a misplaced trust, of a seeking after happiness where God never intended we should find it; of a holding on by the loose and shifting stays of things seen and temporal, instead of making for ourselves a sure anchorage within the vail of the unseen and the eternal! Brethren, we are apt to forget that the sadness and sickness of heart which worldly men feel proceeds from their doing violence to a law of their being. They have taken up with something below the level of their nature, below their capacities of moral enjoyment, below what their souls were made and fitted for; and, therefore, that they should droop and sicken, and be of a sad countenance, and carry within them a wearied and withered heart, is no more to be wondered at than that a tropical plant should languish under the chilling influences of a northern sky. We have elements in our moral constitution which expressly link us with God, and Christ, and with the unseen world; elements whose life must be fed and nourished from these higher sources, just as much as the plant demands to have nourishment supplied to it from a congenial soil. Hence, though there may be life in a worldly-minded man, there will be no health,

no vigour, no happiness; he has been crossing the Divine purpose in his creation, he has transplanted himself to an ungenial soil, he has suffered s torpor and paralysis to come over those powers of the soul which connect him with higher natures, and the spiritual world—and the consequence is he is not at ease, not at rest. The wonder would be if he were. God had so made man's heart that it should find its rest in him; and if it will not seek its rest in him, it shall find it in nothing else. Our heavenly Father knew that he had placed us in the midst of a conflicting, shifting, unstable world, where there was nothing for the heart to hold on by, nothing that continued in one state, and so as an anchor of the soul he gave us himself, and this hope stands when nothing else will. The fig-tree, vine, olive yards, fields, fold and store-" they may fail every one," says the prophet; "yet I will rejoice ⚫ in the Lord, and joy in the God of my salvation." Rejoice in the Lord, observe, not in his gifts, but in himself, in the persuasion of his all-sufficient grace, in the sense of his near presence, in the felt waving of his banner over us, fanning us in the noontide heat with the breath of a Saviour's love. This is what the worldly man has to learn, and ignorance of it makes him restless, unsettled, drifting hither and thither, in his pursuit of false reliefs, not knowing that the only relief, and the best, is at hand always—“Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him."

But let us consider the words of the text next, as addressed to a weary, burdened, conscience-convicted sinner. Here is a man who must have a rest of some sort. There is no such thing as getting accustomed to a troubled conscience, to a feeling that sin lies at its door, and that there it must remain. The question is no longer one of fortitude, or patience, or time; conscience will insist on having the alternative decided-a sufficient remedy or absolute despair. It cannot go on day after day vibrating in uncertainty between the two. It may be settled on a false foundation or on a true, but it must come to a state of rest. Like the Jews of old-every man goes about, as the apostle describes it, till he has established a righteousness, got a footing upon something which keeps conscience quiet for the time. It may be his moralities, his duties, his blameless life, and all these eked out and supplemented by the work of Christ upon the cross; still no matter how unscriptural the foundation, it is a halting place, and there he settles down and rests. But the thoroughly convinced sinner can find no comfort in such rest; he cannot set foot upon them without feeling the ground give way; his eyes are opened to see what the whole law of God is, how far it reaches, how deep it penetrates, how it pierces to the dividing asunder of the soul and Spirit, how it gathers into its mighty issues all the doings of an unremembered past, how it lays bare before the eye of God intents, plans, purposes which had never been allowed to proceed beyond the secret thought; and he sees what the infinite demands of the Divine government are, how impossible it is for a man to be just with God, or for a clean thing to come out of an unclean, and yet on the

other hand how impossible it would be for an unjust man to stand in the judgment, or for a soul with a taint of evil yet upon it to concert with the pure societies of heaven. And there is no going about after this; he must have a rest, something that will bear his soul, and all its burden of guilt and curse, and that will enable him to withstand the dread of death, and fear of meeting with God, and thoughts of the eternal world, what it is to be, and where it is to be; and but one such rest is there for any man, 66 one name given under heaven whereby we may be saved," one wisdom for his light, one righteousness for his plea, one sanctification to cleanse him from all spot of sin, one redemption to deliver him from its penalty, and curse, and power. He must hold himself on by Christ. Here is a ransom, full, perfect, available; every sin is covered by it, every law is satisfied by it, every perfection of the Divine nature is vindicated by it, every sinner is welcome to it; ay, the more welcome the more sinful, at least, if he only feel his sin. To bring us within reach of Christ's mercy, nothing is wanting but an affecting sense of our need of mercy. If we can get no rest in our sins, and no rest from them, from their assaults, from their oppressions, from their bitternesses, from their hateful enslaving power, we are exactly those for whom the proffered relief is prepared, exactly those whom Christ invites to partake of it-"Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

To all, then, who are oppressed, fearful, casting about for some settled and fixed relief, wandering from hope to hope, but never finding one to satisfy, we say, rest and wait. Rest in what Christ is, and wait patiently for what Christ will do; rest in the perfection of his righteousness, in the richness of his sacrifice, in the might of his intercession, in the boundlessness of his power, in the sufficiency of his grace, in the tenderness of his sympathy, in the perpetuity of his covenant engagements remaining in all their force unto all and upon all them that believe. "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? it is God that justifieth." And why does he justify? Because it is Christ that died, Christ the infinite, Christ the righteous, Christ the divine, Christ who is able to save all them to the uttermost that come unto God by him. And then "wait patiently for him;" that is, wait for the comfort, and peace, and joy of his salvation. God may have his reasons for not taking away all our spiritual disquietudes at once. "It is good," says the prophet," that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." An awakened conscience must lay its account with a season of distress; it is an interval of discipline-the soul's exodus from its estate of bondage and condemnation to one of liberty and sonship. "I will bear the indignation of the Lord," says Micah, " because I have sinned against him"-against the light of his promise, against the persuasion of his love, the motions of his spirit, the drawings and restraints both of his assisting and preventing grace. Yes, I will bear, but I will wait.' It is promised that

our labour shall not be in vain in the Lord; and least of all shall our waiting labour be in vain-the hard work of keeping silent watch while the reliefs of God are on their way, the patient toil of looking out for deliverance, when there is no visible door, expecting comfort to be brought to us, when there seems to be neither voice nor hand, the clouds of eventide getting thicker and thicker, and yet neither opening nor streak of light. This is waiting patiently, hoping on in the darkness and through the darkness, letting couscience speak, and the holy law of God speak, and a thousand sad and sorrowful memories speak, and listening to all they have to say against us, admitting that it is all true and far more, yet the foot never moved from its rest, nor the hand from its fast holding. Why should they? If either were to let go its trust, could they find any other? The waves of Divine wrath may dash me off the rock I am clinging to, but better that, than that with the wild leap of despair, I should plunge into the deep of myself. Though he slay me, he shall slay me trusting, slay me resting on his word, slay me waiting patiently for a faithful Christ to prove himself faithful, or to reproach the bold conscience that had dared to seek shelter in his cross; at all events my mind is made up to one thing, he shall save me or none else shall. I will go no further; my soul shall not waste her powers in going to this refuge or that; but I will say unto her, be what thou mayest, or be where thou mayest, accepted or a castaway, in life or in death, in the land of peace, or in the swellings of Jordan, hold thee on, be still, "rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him."

One other aspect of our text remains to be taken, namely, considering the words as addressed to the more established believer, under all the disquietudes and trials which he must expect to meet with in his Christian course, whether from the sorrows of life or the temptations of Satan, or the dark and difficult things in his own providential lot, or those harassing fluctuations in the feelings of his inner life, which, at times, almost move him from his hope. He has his share in outward afflictions; sorrow is a universal baptism; the measure to all men may not be the same, nor the reason always plain why one man should have so much more than another, but still the cup is always going round, and to the child of God it is commonly a full cup. Well, what enables him to drink it? Why, the persuasion that mixed, as full as it may be, and steeped as much with bitter herbs as it may be, it comes from a Father's hand. "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" Thus, he rests and waits; he does not distress and torment himself with speculations about how the evil came, what caused the sickness, whose was the blame of the misfortune, who was the author of the injury, who took the peace of his heart away; be they who they may, they were God's servants, their power was from him, their weapons were from him, the limit of their mischief was from him, and in this he rests. He knows that God has kind thoughts towards him, can have no other; and if, in addition to this, he whom he trusts is too wise to err, too faithful to forget, too omnipotent to be thwarted, what has he to do but to “wait patiently" for the expected end? and what that end is he knows, at least, so far as he knows that it is for his profit. This is the law of all chastening, that the effect of it may be to discover to us that which is weak, or correct in us that which is hurtful, or to make us take out of the way that which hinders our advance in godliness. Any how, the design is one to make us better. Chastening, to

the believer, never ends in chastening; it bears fruit, teaches the man to rest and wait, to hold himself still upon God while the affliction lasts, and to wait for those peaceable fruits of righteousness promised to them that are exercised thereby. And so with regard to other perplexities often permitted to the believer. See him in a time of great fear, when he sees some great calamity on the way; the cloud is so thick, dark, and close over his head that he feels it must burst, and yet he cannot, and will not, part with his hope. What is to sustain him in this oscillating condition of mental feeling? Human succours? They are of no avail. Human counsels? They are utterly at a stand. He no sooner rests upon a finite dependence than he is driven from it; he has no sooner pleased himself with the thought that he saw a bright opening than it closes in again, and things are darker than before: but he has his own relief, he rests in God. If the cloud is to break, break it will in the best time, and in the kindest way. Speculations, conjectures, restless thoughts, reading of signs, and interpreting of signs, all these take the mind off from its tranquillity, from its repose on that deep and unshaken centre, the covenant faithfulness and love of God. God is waiting to be gracious: we must wait to see him gracious. "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him."

Nor is the lesson any other when a good man's trials take a more mysterious form; when he is thwarted in his desires to do good: when the greatest helps to his spiritual advancement are removed; when new temptations are thrown in his way, when the messenger of Satan is sent to buffet him again and again; when no answer comes to the most lawful and permitted prayer; when the obstacle continues untaken away which hinders his enjoyment of a present God. In all such cases there is nothing for him to do but to "rest and wait." He must rest in the wise orderings of him whose way is in the sea, and whose path is in the great waters, and whose footsteps are not known. We are no better judges of what is good for us in relation to our spiritual than in relation to our temporal lot. We wish to have our rest in spiritual comforts, spiritual peace, spiritual aspirations after the joys of the eternal state; but God would have us rest in himself. "My flesh longeth after thee," says the Psalmist—“ All my springs are in thee." "Lord, whom have I in heaven but thee?" Brethren, God will not have his best gifts prized more than himself; not peace in prayer, not joy in ordinances, not near communion and fellowship with the spiritual and the eternal and unseen. And well for us is it that he will not; for who knows not how fluctuating these experiences are, how at the bidding of disease, of sorrow, of disappointment, or even a little vexation of spirit, they suffer interruption or decay? What is to save a good man from the tyranny of desponding thoughts, from old sins rising up before the mind afresh, and telling him that all his fancied interest in the promises is a delusion and a cheat, but the lifting himself up above the region of his personal experience altogether, and holding himself on by the saint's rest? "Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God." Yes, rest and wait, wait trusting, waiting, expecting, like the impotent man at the gate of the temple, looking to receive something. He that believeth must not make haste; though the vision tarry he must wait for it. The help will come, but it will be in God's time and in God's way. In no way can you hasten it so well as by sitting still, by resting in the Lord, and waiting patiently for him.