friends. So Satan's accusation is proved false; for Job, in the most abject condition, is cast upon God, and so cast that his own miseries are lost sight of in his interest for others, and then his captivity in essence, as, in fact, ends. When we wear the yoke of Jesus and learn of Him, we find rest unto our souls.

It is one of the greatest practical difficulties that we have to contend with-seeking a sign. It is saving the soul the deep and holy exercise of faith, which is repugnant to nature; and the more dangerous, because it works in the mind of the awakened, and may, therefore, be often mistaken for true zeal. It is superstition which is the action of fear; faith, on the other hand, is confidence, and, in a word, without it, "it is impossible to please God." Every sentiment, however commendable, consequently falls behind faith, and how much more any which would pre-occupy its place. But I may be told, evidences are not against faith, they are only sought for to confirm faith. The answer is simple-Faith wants no evidence. It is itself an evidence. Faith rests on the word of God. I cannot ask your faith for aught else; but if you have faith in God, the moment His word is brought before you you can accept it and start from it, because it is God's, in whom you believe. But the fact is an evidence or sign is generally to confirm one in an opinion which is asserted to be founded on the word of God, and which to convince me of, something additional is required. This will not be allowed; but is it not so? Take the case of Irvingism. The originators of that heresy did not doubt as they asserted the truth of their propositions, for they said, "Scripture was on their side"; but scripture was not deemed sufficient to convince me, and therefore they pretended that God would corroborate them by miraculous signs. This was plainly saying that miraculous signs would have greater weight with me than the word of God, in whom my soul was resting with confidence. Was it not, in fact, making the word of God of none effect? No miracle yet had the power of the word of God. Nothing, in my mind, is a greater proof of the soul's dubitancy of the word of God than the impatience we sometimes feel to see it verified:-and here

I come to a very interesting trait of faith. If I have faith in God touching any particular fact or hope, the more my faith is, the more patient am I, because the more I am convinced of the certainty, the more present comfort have I from it, because I am as sure of it as if I possessed it. "He that believeth shall not make haste.'

When a promise engages the soul more than the Lord, the eagerness to obtain its benefits is sure to be a snare. The promise becomes thus, not as it should be, an exposition of the love of God, but a guarantee for a certain benefit-all the promises of God are Yea and Amen in Christ Jesus, and faith finds them in Him and never separates them from Him, because He is the fountain of faith. The moment the promise (though it declares the goodness of God to me) is my hope, I am dwelling more on its fulfilment than on the Lord. Is the Lord all my expectation and hope without it? Would the fulfilment of the promise glorify Him, or is it to satisfy a want in my own soul? If it is the latter, that, which should have linked my soul with God and counted (because trusting in Him)" things that are not as though they be" is taken up by nature, and while believing in the promise I have not faith in God, and my haste will, to my confusion, reveal it. Thus Eve called her first-born Cain, as the man gotten from the Lord, in allusion to the promise that her seed should bruise the serpent's head; and, as if filled with the hope, Cain undertakes the task in which he so fatally and signally failed. If Eve trusted in God while she rejoiced in the promise, she would have interpreted events with divine accuracy-the son of the fallen could not repair what the innocent could not retain. The holiness of God would have rejected such a thought, and if she believed God and not the promise apart from God,, she had not made haste. Abraham believed the promise of God because he believed in God, and that though great was the promise, he knew God was able to fulfil it. The belief of the promise only vouched his belief in God. Esteem the promise above God, and you are sure to be in error respecting it, for God alone can guide you in discovering and ascertaining that which is of Him. Let the mind swerve from Him

and there is nothing to check its folly and wandering. Abraham, for a moment, was engrossed with the promise which he believed in because he believed in God, and so was the proof of his confidence in God, but when anxious for its fulfilment, he cried "O, that Ishmael might live before thee!" it is evident he lost both promise and faith. This error is very common and fatal in its effects, a great difficulty to faith-we are in trouble of some kind or other-the Lord is our comforter, and instructs us by his unchanging purposes (as revealed in His word), how we may escape. A promise is laid hold of. I don't say always, for the soul abiding in the Lord and guided by His eye will discover the way to escape without searching for a distinct promise to rest on: yet the promises are given to assure the soul and guide it to a happy issue from all its afflictions, only let the soul not regard it more than elucidating the love of God, and therefore but the handmaid to it; for thus the promises will be a snare to expose the selfishness of our hearts. For instance, if one comforts himself that he will not suffer from poverty and want because it is written, “He who gave His Son will He not with Him freely give us all things?" and because of this promise, is idle and improvident, it is evident that he is dwelling more on the benefits accruing to him from the promise than on God, whom such a promise ought to have magnified in his soul, and if so would have instructed him in the ways of God, would have taught him the righteous judgment of God upon man on this earth, that by the "sweat of his brow he should eat bread," and this, the hourly expectation of the coming of Christ was neither to interrupt nor mitigate, as we read in second of Thessalonians. We are not to content ourselves with believing the promises. Faith and hope must be in God. If we believe in God we shall believe in the promise. "He being not weak in faith" was the secret of Abraham's power to confidently lay hold on the mighty promise. Jesus Christ ought to be to my soul the guarantee and accomplishment of every promise of God. If faith rests in Him, the promise is but an exponent, and never valued apart from Him. This error

as to promises is constantly committed respecting precepts. If we are acting from faith in God touching a precept, we should always maintain God supremely to the precept. There would be no apparent upholding of the latter, for a precept is only a divine mode for the soul to increase in the knowledge and service of God. God is paramount, and this always faith asserts. The closest following of precepts is not faith-faith always reaches unto God and we may rest satisfied when we find a man arguing for the maintenance of a precept more than for the honour of God, that faith is not lively then, nor the soul looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of faith. Faith has to do with God, and reckons assuredly that He will give grace and faithfulness to adhere to His precepts, but the eye must be on Him seeking His glory, and not even the strictest obedience of a precept.

Like a promise, a precept may be observed apart from God, and then it is a snare to me. "Obey the powers that be," but if not held in faith that is acknowledging God, Peter would never have said, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to obey God rather than man, judge ye." Again, "We ought to give our lives for the brethren," and yet it is enjoined, "If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha."a Finally, if faith leads us, we are drawing it from Christ the author of it. We hold neither promise nor precept apart from Him, we know Him, we can touch Him, and the promise and the precept we are assured He will fulfil and confirm in His own time, and we do not “make haste,” we are not uncertain, and consequently not nervously anxious to see the issue. Faith appropriates to us the fruition of each, and so we are patient as if in full possession.

But to the man of faith perhaps no difficulty is so great as the proper use of means, and it is the resolving

a To the general reader, it may appear startling to say that the apostle alludes even to professing brethren when he enjoins such terrible judgment on those who love not our Lord Jesus Christ. To this I shall merely say here that it is possible that we may not sufficiently, in our love for the Saviour, embrace all the distinct glories which the names Lord Jesus Christ unfold, and if not, let us beware.

practically this difficulty that an important trait of genuine faith is best seen. Faith always recognises God— Jesus is the author of it, for He only has done so we draw from Him. And in Him we learn that in all his course down here, He always found God's creational or political arrangements suited to Him-if not apparently so, faith declared them so. A fig-tree with only leaves on it, affords no hospitality to the hungry Lord of glory, and yet it was a needed symbol to disclose to his disciples the condition of Israel, and his faith accepted it and pronounced its destruction. The persecution of the storm. on the sea-the clamour of devils-no boat to cross the lake, etc., these and so many more were all, though apparently antagonistic to the author of faith, but right and useful. He knew God was equal to any emergency, and only seeking his glory in it, He must find God's succour therein, for God is ever true to His glory. No circumstance-no appearance to the contrary could alter his full repose and confidence in God; but this was not all. Every circumstance he encountered in his path suited him. The thought was never admitted, much less acted on, that the present means were inadequate to the exigency, whatever it might be. They were reckoned as of God, and faith made them sufficient. Faith never overlooks any-the least of God's arrangements. It does not disparage his arrangements, but so rests on Him, that through Him they are found full and abundant for

our need.

Faith so finds its region with God that demonstration is not of its seeking, though perception of its power is. It can connect itself with the smallest gift of God, and recognising God there, find it equal to any demand. Christ fed the five thousand by five loaves. Philip considered that it would require "two hundred pennyworth, that every one might take a little"-human calculation! Another communicates all the provision God had supplied them with. He who trusted in God at all times accepts with thankfulness the mercies provided, proves that God is able to make them sufficient for all their need, and more, for there remained twelve baskets full. This is a remarkable trait of faith, but surrounded