obedient subjects, to devote ourselves to its progress, then our desires will be given to us, our wishes granted.

If our genuine desire is, not that we should have the credit of extending God's kingdom, but that by any and all means the kingdom of our God may increase, and its subjects become more numerous, united, and holy, then our desires will always be given to us. We shall, moreover, have eyes to see the great glory of our Lord where once we could discern nothing of His presence. We shall become aware of His working in regions where once we could only see His enemies. Delighting ourselves in Him, we shall receive the desires of our hearts. We know that the designs of God are along the lines of His universal kingdom, and that He is daily bringing souls into willing homage, into loving surrender. By His Word, by His holy day, by the energies of His Church, by the afflictions of His hand, by disappointments and trials and pain, and by the pleadings of His Spirit He reveals the attractions of His sway, the worthiness of His deep purposes, the infinite beauty of His nature, the awful loveliness of truth, the grand rewards of purity, the blessed peace of submission. If we know anything of the misery that is in the earth, the foul libels on the name of God, the curse that crushes human hearts, the infinite burden laid on the frail spirit of man by his ignorance and corruption and rebellion against the authority of this unknown Royal Father,

then our desires for the world must be an intense longing after the diffusion of the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, after the extension of the kingdom of truth and righteousness and Christ. These desires of ours cannot be so deep as God's desires are for ends like these. Our sympathy with sorrow is not to be compared with that of Jesus; our longing after the glory of God in humanity cannot be equal to the longing which dictates all the deepest purposes of the Almighty. If we delight in Him, He will give us this our heart's desire; for He has given, indited, communicated to us out of His own eternal bosom, the desire itself. May it be realized! May Thy kingdom come! Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven! For Thine, O God, our Father, is the kingdom, and power, and glory for ever, Amen.

K

SERMON VII.

REST IN THE LORD.

PSALM XXXVII. 7.

Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.

It was more difficult for David to do this, than for us to do it. He had more at stake, and less to help him; he had all the mysteries which beset us, and many more peculiar to his age and to the dispensation under which he lived. That which we look back upon as prophecy since fulfilled, as supernatural anticipation of better days, was, as it passed through his mind, only a hope and an aspiration. For him there was very little light thrown around the darkness of the grave; it was a pit of destruction and forgetfulness, haunted by strange fears. He had no very large experience, nor wise induction from God's providence to fall back upon; he was surrounded by enemies, and often well-nigh crushed by misfortune. He found it harder than we do, to sever temporal disasters from Divine inflictions; and yet he could use this inspiring language, and summon his brothers to rest in Jehovah, and wait patiently

for Him. My most anxious task as a preacher of the gospel has always been to create the uneasiness and distress which could find its only true solace in the everlasting righteousness, power, and love of God-to awaken that distrust of self which can only be soothed by appropriating the grace and promise of God. Fatalism, quietism, and indifference to unseen things are so common, that advice very different from that contained in my text is often imperatively needed. Yet, when we look more deeply into this matter we shall find that the indolence engendered by self-indulgence and worldliness, the indifferencé and self-confidence from which we seek to awake the slumbering conscience, and the sloth from which the Church has need ever to be aroused, are all opposed to "resting in God," and "waiting patiently for Him." There are men who turn the grace of God into lasciviousness; and there may be men who turn the rest of God into stoicism and sloth: but the licentious man does not understand the first principle of the gospel, nor does the stoic or the sleepy worldling know anything of " the peace of God which passeth all understanding." Moreover, it seems to me that there are now abroad many symptoms of overwrought excitement, of jaded effort, of perilous assumption, of discontented inquiry, of restless searching after the impossible, of an arrogant hurrying of God, which render this gentle remonstrance peculiarly seasonable; and I am sure that there are few Christians who do not

find every day of their lives abundant need for the consolation which the words of my text administer.

There are three senses in which we are accustomed to think of rest, and each of these is destined to take an important part in the development of the Christian life. There is (1) The rest of weariness; (2) The rest of strength; and (3) The rest of victory.

The first, or the rest of weariness, is that which is almost forced on our bodies and our spirits when they are overborne by undue effort. The second is that which we voluntarily take in view of great difficulties, and which does, in fact, accompany all noble exertion. The third is the deep calm which flows out of triumph and conscious success, and which is neither weariness nor strength so much as a new

nature.

I. The rest of weariness.-The body rests: it is this rest which "knits up the ravelled sleeve of care," which is "sore labour's bath," "balm of hurt minds," great nature's second course," "chief nourisher in life's feast." All life is submitted to this law. The leafless winter, the hushed songsters of the forest, the infant slumbering on its mother's breast, the sealed eyes of the shipboy cradled on the surge, and all the "magic of night as she moves from land to land and touches all with her opiate wand," tell the same story. Work demands rest, and rest is the stimulus of work. The intellect itself must have its quiet places and still retreats, where holy calm, and unconscious growth, and secret renovation, re