lost all hope of comes suddenly upon us, like a flash of lightning or a burst of sunshine. There is another reason; these facts teach us to trust more implicitly in God. When we see that the fulfilment of God's grandest promises does not come to us by our help; when we lie in the dust, and learn that lesson which we do not like to learn, how much we ought to do, and how little we can do, we begin to trust more implicitly in God. So long as you can wade the stream, or touch the bed and channel of it with your feet, you will not cast yourself upon the waters and swim. So long as you can hang, or lean, or trust in, human means, it is very difficult to induce you to look above. But when the fig-tree ceases to blossom, when the loaf has failed, when all means and all probabilities of success have been utterly swept away, then we have the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God that raiseth the dead. She that is a widow indeed trusteth in the Lord. And blessed be God, whatever he sends us; for if the wave, however fierce, however mighty, shall wash away our wealth, and our health, and our homestead, and all that we love, on the ground it leaves it will reveal to us the foot prints of our Father and our God. It is mercy, not wrath; it is love, not punishment.

66

We are taught, in the next place, in the worst of circumstances in which we are placed, not to despair. Abraham never dreamed of disappointment. He believed what God said, and left the issue to him. Jehovah-jireh - In the mount it shall be seen," which was the answer to Isaac, translated into an aphorism of the 19th century, means, "Man's extremity is God's opportunity:" the best modern epitome of the twenty-second chapter of Genesis. He saves by many, or he saves by few; and even when we see no outlet to an affliction, we are not to despair. Despair is not a Christian grace at all; there is no such grace in the

catalogue of Christian virtues. It is hateful to God; it is injurious to man. We have nothing to do with despair. It does not belong to this dispensation, it belongs to the devil and his angels. There is no circumstance in which we can be placed, where we have not reason to hope; and even where nothing can be done, something still remains. "Stand still," like the Israelites with the Egyptians behind and the Red Sea before, "stand still, and see the salvation of our God."

Having gathered these lessons, let me notice an allusion that seems in some degree a contradiction. It is said that Abraham "offered up his only begotten son," and received him from the dead "in a figure.” How can it be said that Abraham offered up Isaac, when as a matter of fact he did not? God looks upon a thing as done when it is intended bonâ fide to be done. You are answerable for intending to do the good; but if circumstances of God's creation render it physically impossible, you are not answerable for not doing it; you are responsible for the design of doing a thing, and for your best efforts to do it. And hence it is said, "Since it was in his heart to build a house." So that, if there be a willing mind, it is accepted by God. "I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin;" but God did not wait for his confession, but forgave him at once. Thus God takes the purpose for the act, the will for the deed.

David said,

And, in the next place, this special instance of Abraham's faith seems to have rested on God's power. Of Sara it is said, "Through faith she received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised." Of Abraham it is said, "Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead." Abraham seems to have rested chiefly upon God's power. But these two things are the pillars

ever.

that sustain the promises of God, — his truth which cannot lie; his power which cannot fail. God may disturb the course of creation; he may arrest the sun in his orbit; he may cause the earth to pause, as he did of old, in its daily march; heaven and earth may pass away, but one jot or tittle of his word shall not pass away till all be fulfilled. The monuments of creation may crash and fall to pieces; but the syllables of his everlasting promises shall endure for The mightiest orb that God has made may be consumed and calcined by fire, as science tells us orbs have been consumed and calcined before now, but the least jot that God has promised shall not fail. To use a manufacturing phrase, there is no waste in God's truth; there is no dross in God's promises. We are very apt to take his promises, and think there is a great deal of waste, a great deal of course to be cast away. It is not so. We are very much mistaken. God's syllables are just as necessary to his promises as the most eloquent language that they were ever written in. And if we thus lean upon God's power and promises, believing that wherever there is a promise in the Scriptures, there is also the power to fulfil, we may cherish the consolatory thought, that whatever God has committed himself to, he is not only willing, but able to perform. Hence, the Apostle Paul speaks of the exceeding greatness of his power, and the working of his power, and also, "I can do all things, through Christ which strengtheneth me." The Sadducees denied the resurrection of the dead, because they knew not the power of God. Notwithstanding the apostasy of the Jews, God is able to graft them in. Thus we have abundant reason for expecting in all their fulness the fulfilment of the promises of God; for God's truth is pledged, and his power is adequate to make that pledge actual and real.

Let us study God, and let us rejoice in his promises.

Our God is able to deliver us. Look at any sphere of his power, and commit the keeping of your souls to him. You will find that God's creative power, his providential power, his personal power, are all grounds of the fulfilment of his promises. Do you think of his creative power: commit the keeping of your souls to him as to a faithful Creator. Or of his providential power: Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the Creator of the ends of the world fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no fainting in his arm, no dimness in his eye, no wrinkle on his brow, no failure of his love, or power and omnipotence to save.

Such is an illustration of Abraham's faith. Have we faith at all analogous to this? I do not ask, if you were called upon to engage in some dread sacrifice like that of Abraham, could you do it? It would be wrong for me to do so. I do not speak of an age when martyrs must suffer, and martyrs' faith only can triumph. I do not ask you whether you could die as martyrs. When God wants martyrs, he will give martyr spirits. When the crisis comes that needs a hero, the hero comes upon the stage. When God requires suffering and death to test faith and give him glory, the martyr will not be wanting, thousands will come at the bidding of Him who can make these stones the children of Abraham. But I ask, Does your faith lead you to walk with God? Have you the faith that accepts the promises of God? Have you the faith that feels more the least word that God speaks, than the loftiest prospects that man can point out? Do you live by faith? and if you live by it, do not doubt that you will die in faith.

CHAPTER X.

THE LORD WILL PROVIDE.

"Peace, my proud aim,

And hush the wish that knows not what it asks;
Await His will who hath appointed this

And every other trial. Be that will

Done now as ever. For thy curious search,
And unprepared solicitude to gaze
On him the unrevealed-learn hence, instead,
To temper highest hope with humbleness.
Pass thy noviciate in these outer courts,
Till rent the vail -no longer separating
The holiest of all; as erst disclosing

A brighter dispensation."

"And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?'

GEN. xxii. 7.

A THOUGHT that strikes us as needing explanation, apparent in the whole patriarchal economy, is, Why this ceaseless slaughter of innocent and inoffensive lambs, this pouring out of blood continually upon the altars, this consuming of victims, and presenting them as acceptable offerings to the God who made them? Why were there not offered flowers, fragrant and beautiful, selected from earth's yet unblighted gardens? why not some sacrifice less painful in its nature, more picturesque and beautiful in character, than this slaughter and shedding of the blood of goats, and bullocks, and of rams? There was nothing surely at all pictorial in the spectacle, there was nothing in itself that would