best of men are when left to themselves. You have only to be left in order to see the desperate depravity of your nature, which would break out then into open sin. Now if you deny this, you do not know yourself. God's people are a humbled people; and they are kept through the knowledge of this inward depravity a dependent people; and a happy state, too-for it is a safe state. Now, this does not make God the Author of sin any more than God was the Author of Adam's sin; God had only to leave Adam to himself, for Adam to fall under the power of the devil. Adam with all his native advantages found the devil too mighty for him when God withheld His restraints; and how much more the saints of God, who are born under his rule and reign, and who lie under his power till the time comes for the Lord to deliver them out of his hands! And the Lord's taught children know that God has but to restrain light, love, liberty, and gracious communications to them, and they are no better than the very devil himself. Ah, it is a blessed thing to be kept humble by the knowledge of this-that we are ready for any evil when left to ourselves. My friends, there is no iniquity that a child of God may not be caught at when left to himself; and, though it will not bring him to hell, it will bring hell to him, as perhaps some of you have found to your cost. Oh, what a wonder the saints are so careless-so ready to court the enemy -to run in his way, and, as old John Berridge says, "draw a chair for the devil to sit down."

The spirit of the text seems to me to be this: "O Lord, if Thou hadst not left us, we had not done all this. We justly deserve all this misery, for it is the fruit of our own doings." So you see it is not laying it at God's door, but their own; they confess they erred. This was their doing, and they acknowledge God's sovereignty, that if He had been pleased to keep them by His power, they had not done it. It is a confession that God's doctrines are according to godliness, and His grace is all-powerful to preserve from evil.

IV. Let us draw our attention to the prayer, in which we will consider the plea and the petition-"Return, O Lord, for Thy servants' sake, the tribes of Thine inheritance." Now here are two pleas named the servants' sake and the tribes' sake. What servants? Why, probably those named before-Abraham and Jacob. Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation; the chosen, separated, favoured, beloved servant of God. Thence God is said to do many things for Israel because of His love and covenant promise to Abraham; and so for His regard to David; He had mercy on David's offspring; though sinful, yet He remembered mercy for David's sake, for His promise sake, for His covenant sake. Thus we see who are His servants here meant; and here further we may see upon whom He will still have mercy, those who, like Abraham and Israel, are called, chosen, pardoned, kept, loved notwithstanding sin, never cast off for sin, but for whose sake Jesus came to put away sin. And what He did for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is but a sample of what He does for all His people now, because of what He purposed and promised before all worlds. But we have a second plea-for the tribes' sake: "Return for Thy servants' sake, the tribes." The Lord had set up the tribes, planted them, settled their borders. And why? To keep them separate and distinct; because the Lord Jesus Christ was to spring out of the tribes, and, be genealogically proved to come from Judah according as foretold, the Son of David after the flesh. Hence the tribes must be kept distinct, that He might be known as the Lion of the tribe of Judah; and the reason of

this plea of the tribes shows the faith of the Church in looking to a Gospel day, when the purpose of God in keeping the tribes separate should be clearly developed: and, though their present case was a low one, yet they plead God's promise in and through the promised Seed. And how could this have been accomplished but by the tribes being preserved till the fulness of time, when the promised Seed should come? So see how faith was manifested in these pleas, God reminded of His covenant engagement, His promise to His servants, His purpose by the tribes.

Friends, it is blessed when we can go to God with His own promises; when the promise is set home upon the heart, and made food and sweetness to your souls, so that you know and feel the Lord has given it to you; then, like Jacob of old, you can go before the Lord with a "Thou saidst." Oh, this is a blessed plea! This is food for faith; this puts power into prayer. Now, what else can give peace in time of trouble but this felt application of the promise? I speak to the children of God. Is it not for this you run to the word, and search your Bibles? Your case is desperate-you want a promise, both for support and deliverance. But some here know nothing of this. The promises are the children's bread-faith's food; and, as fire feeds upon fuel, so the promises are as fuel to strengthen and feed faith. When fuel is not supplied, the fire goes out; but God has engaged "that His work in the soul shall never go out." Thence food must be given. Thus the Church is brought into difficulties, trials, and perplexities, to prove the promises, to know God's methods of deliverance, to see God's dealings with the saints, and His preservation to the very end.

But

Now a few words on the prayer, “Return, O Lord." Here we have a notable truth implied, that if God did not return they never would. who utters these words? Why, I think it is plain it must proceed from those who had known and enjoyed His presence. It represents the backslider, who has known the way of peace and forsaken it; but it is enough for God to return, and the soul comes back. Some of you know what this means. When you have been left to yourself, you return to your wretched, miserable place; nothing then can satisfy and make you happy: but a blessed thing it is to know where you have had peace, and where it alone can come from. He returns, and all is well again. But of the matter of prayer; "Return, for Thy servants' sake, the tribes of Thine inheritance." God hath an inheritance (Deut. xxxii. 9). I trust He has taken possession of some of you, and set up His kingdom in your hearts; and such of you as are destitute of this grace will never know true happiness unless He does, and then you will be enabled to say, "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will." But I add no more. The Lord command His blessing on His word.

SACRED MAXIMS.

Every step above the bottomless pit is a mercy to sinful man.

Dread trifling with matters of conscience; it leads to hardness of heart. There is no greater evil on this side of hell than hardness of heart-it is the growing evil of all impenitent sinners.

The righteousness whereby sinners are justified is quite independent of themselves.

Pilgrim Papers.

THE SHEPHERD.

WHAT a vocabulary of names and titles has been used for the purpose of describing our blessed Lord! All nature seems to have been ransacked in order to portray and describe Him who is "the altogether lovely." Yet all descriptions fail to do justice to this glorious Person. Well may Watts write

"All are too mean to speak His worth,

Too mean to set my Saviour forth."

Among the many endearing names ascribed to the Son of God, there is none, however, more delightful to contemplate than that of a Shepherd

"Our Shepherd watching us to bless."

The Holy Ghost, by the mouth of Isaiah, says that "He shall feed His flock like a Shepherd." And this title our Lord, when upon earth, claimed for Himself. Hence He says, "I am the good Shepherd." No merely human person could have said this without committing the most wicked blasphemy, and laying himself open to the charge of the vainest egotism. Viewed, however, as the words of the Son of God, we bow with reverence and love before Him, and recognize the truth and glory of this title

"Jesus is worthy to receive

Honour and power divine;

And blessings more than we can give,

Be, Lord, for ever Thine.'

We observe, then, that Jesus Christ is a Divine Shepherd. "Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts: smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones." "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." "Great is the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh." The Lord Jesus would have been of no use to His Church if He had not been God. We had fallen too deep to be raised by a human arm. No earthly physician could cure our malady. No human shepherd could restore our souls from the sinful and wandering paths in which we were travelling. There must be an atonement for sin. No human blood could erase the stains of our transgressions. All the sacrifices offered under the Jewish dispensation failed to atone

"But Christ the heavenly Lamb

Took all our sins away;

A sacrifice of nobler name,

And richer blood than they."

Rob the Saviour of His divinity, and He becomes like Samson shorn of his hair, weak and sinful like another man. He was indeed the mighty God and the Divine Shepherd.

He is also a human Shepherd. "Bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh." Made "in all points like as we are, yet without sin." As God He would not suffer, bleed, and die; but as the God-man, two natures united in one, He

bore the sins of the Church into the land of forgetfulness, and wrought out an everlasting righteousness, which is "unto and upon all them that believe."

What condescension of this glorious Being, who "though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich!" He proved His humanity by being hungry and weary, by weeping at the grave of Lazarus, and by being "a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." He said, a short time before His decease, "I lay down my life for the sheep." And the Holy Ghost by Peter declares, "We were as sheep going astray, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."

Jesus Christ is a wise Shepherd. "Never man spake like this Man" was the language of His enemies. Sheep are silly things, needing a wise shepherd. Jesus is this to His flock. He is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life." He guides them into all truth. He leads them into " green pastures, and by the still waters." "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given to him." What need the believer has of this heavenly guidance! Oh, what snares are laid for our feet, our eyes, our hearts! But how blessed to know that He will pluck our feet out of the net! He is made to His people "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption."

22

"A weak and helpless worm,

On Thy kind arms I fall;

Be Thou my strength and righteousness,
My Jesus and my all."

He is also a faithful Shepherd. "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and for ever. "I the Lord change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." We live in a world of unfaithfulness. We do not need a large space to put our faithful friends in. But the most faithful of earthly friends is but a faint and imperfect type of Him "who loveth at all times," and "who sticketh closer than a brother." While a brother is, as dear Berridge says,

ness.

"Sometimes hot, and sometimes cold,
Our Jesus is the same."

What was the language of Jacob when at the end of his pilgrimage? "The angel that fed me, and redeemed me all my life long.' No unfaithfulness. Yet Jacob was greatly tried. And this will be your language, O believer, when you come to tread the verge of Jordan. You will not be able to charge your blessed Lord with one act of unfaithfulLike the disciples who returned to their Master, when He put that important question, "Lacked ye anything?" you will reply with them, "Nothing, Lord." Consider His faithfulness in watching over His people in the days of their unregeneracy. What hairbreadth escapes some of them had! Yet, lest any hurt them, He kept them night and day. None have been lost, but, in the set time, have been called with a holy and effectual calling. "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth His Spirit into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." How faithful also was Jesus to the Father! He fulfilled the law to the very letter. He bore the whole weight of the Church's sins. He trod the winepress alone. Visit Gethsemane and Calvary, and behold Him agonizing and bleeding. He was faithful unto death. One act of unfaithfulness then, and the Church would have been for ever lost. But "He humbled Him

self, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name."

"The head that once was crowned with thorn:

Is crowned with glory now;

A royal diadem adorns

The mighty Victor's brow."

He is also a tender Shepherd. "A bruised reed will He not break, nor quench the smoking flax." All human tenderness fades before His. The tenderest love of a mother will not approach it. "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands." Oh, believe what tenderness He has shown thee from the first day that He drew thee with the cords of love! How oft hast thou wandered from Him! Has He not restored thy soul -bore with thy sins and ingratitude-taught thee "line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little?"

Even the gentlest of the under-shepherds fall far short of the forbearance and affection of the Master. The apostles themselves were greatly deficient in this respect. Did they not rebuke the parents who brought their children to the Saviour? But He said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

And, when that poor woman cried after Him, did not the apostles say, "Send her away; for she crieth after us?" But that which was weariness and discord to the disciples, was music in the cars of this tender Shepherd. "O woman," He said, "great is thy faith!"

Eli thought Hannah drunken: but it was the Spirit of God working in her groans which could not be uttered.

Remember her also who anointed her Lord's feet, having first bathed them with tears. What indignation it produced! But hear the gracious words, "She loveth much."

The Lord Jesus appears to manifest His tenderness in a peculiar manner at two remarkable periods of the believer's life-his first love and the hour of death.

Of the former season some of us must say, "Whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell," reminding us of that beautiful incident in the life of Elijah, when he "lay and slept under a juniper-tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said, Arise, and eat. And he arose and did eat and drink, and laid down again. And the angel of the Lord came the second time, and touched him and said, Arise, and eat; because the journey is too great for thee." Has not the young believer to take a journey which is too great for him? so the Lord bestows a double portion of His grace. And, however long we live, we never forget this glorious manifestation of the Lord's tenderness. We continually long for the time to come over again; and thus, by this means, this tender Shepherd keeps us hungering and thirsting after Him.

"Where is the blessedness I knew

When first I saw the Lord?

Where is that soul-reviving view
Of Jesus and His word?"

H