good to rebuke and chasten us without a cause, then shall we lie quiet in His hands, and, like the Psalmist, be dumb and open not our mouths, because He has done it; yea, we shall be thankful that we have fallen into the hands of the Lord, and not into the power of Satan, or into the hands of wicked men.

3. Never forget that He who sits over you is One who can be touched with a feeling of your infirmities. He knows what human nature is, for He took the manhood into God; He is our near kinsman, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. He knows, too, what sore afflictions and temptations are; for He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; yea, and Satan thrust sore at Him that He should fall. He can therefore enter into our feelings, sympathize with us in our trials, and compassionate our infirmities. Yes, He who tempers the ungenial east wind to the shorn lamb, and will not quench the smoking flax, but rather fan it into a steady flame, will not forget your frame, or allow you to be tried above what you are able to bear. He is as powerful, too, as He is compassionate; and as He not only preserved Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego in the burning fiery furnace, but brought them forth uninjured and untainted, so He will preserve you under the refining process, and bring you out of it like gold seven times refined by fire, the better and holier for the discipline. Ever trust, then, ye afflicted and tried ones, in the tender, powerful, and compassionate Refiner who sits over you. He notes your every sigh, and pang, and tear; His everlasting arms are beneath you and around you; and when He sees His own image of meekness, submission, and

purity reflected in you, He will either stay the process or call upon you to go up higher, and to enter into His rest and joy.

To those who belong not as yet to the holy priesthood of the Lord, I would say, Ponder the saying of the apostle, If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? Such may have great present impunity; they may come into no trouble as others; they may be clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day but this impunity, exemption from evil, and prosperity, do not prove that all is well with them, or that all will be well with them; yea, so long as they are without God and without Christ, they are also without hope, either in the world that now is, or for that which is to They must indeed appear before the great white throne, and the Judge who sits upon it; but they cannot stand in the judgment. The Judge will condemn them, and conscience will render them speechless. But, O ye ungodly and sinners, why will ye die? the Lord has no pleasure in your death; He even now says unto you, Come unto Me; the Spirit and the Bride reiterate the cry, and say, Come. May the Lord make you willing to respond to this invitation, Lo, we come—come in sorrow, contrition, and faith! And may you be accepted in the Beloved, and embraced with the arms of God's mercy!

come.

273

THE ANCHOR OF THE SOUL.

HEB. vi. 19.

"Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil."

FI were asked what principle acts the most powerfully upon man, I might without hesitation reply, Hope; for is it not hope which emboldens the soldier to brave the dangers of the battle-field, and even to volunteer to lead the devoted band which must first mount the breach, and be subjected to all the unknown horrors that human skill has accumulated there? Is it not hope, too, which leads the merchant to adventure his property in distant lands?—the manufacturer to invest it in massy buildings and curious machinery?-the husbandman to employ it in the cultivation of hitherto neglected wastes? Is it not hope which leads the student to expend months and years in close and attentive study, and which reconciles the artist to many a year of illrequited and ill-appreciated toil? Yes, hope is the principle which inspires and supports all. The soldier anticipates honour and distinction as the reward of his hardihood and valour, and thinks not of the gory grave which probably awaits him. The merchant, the manufacturer, the husbandman, overlook the tempests, the commercial embarrassments, the unfavourable seasons, which may mar their glowing prospects,

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and consider only the hope of profit and advantage which the present holds out to them. The student and the artist, though the present may promise little, are notwithstanding equally sustained by hope: they have a hope of fame and distinction at a future day; and that reconciles them to present toil and self-denial, and even privation.

And as hope is evidently the mainspring of exertion in temporal things, so is it equally influential in spiritual things. Take away hope from the sinner, and you effectually stifle exertion, and bring on that recklessness and desperation which paralyze every good feeling, and make a man a reprobate. But when man has a good hope through grace that he shall not labour in vain, or spend his strength for nought and in vain, he will press on to the mark; he will be steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.

Christian hope, which evidently differs very widely from the hope of the mere worldling, though it is productive of effects quite analogous, is likened in Scripture to two things, very dissimilar to each other. St. Paul, for example, in the Epistle to the Thessalonians, compares it to a helmet: "Take," says he, “for a helmet the hope of salvation." And hope is very properly compared to a helmet; for it is designed to fortify the soul, to uphold it even in deep waters, and to protect it from the deadly strokes of Satan, just as the helmet is designed to defend the head from the ball or from the sword of an enemy.

In the text, however, the same apostle likens hope not to a helmet, but to an anchor. "Which hope,"

says he, we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil."

Let me, then, direct your attention, first of all, to the anchor of the believing soul. And here I may premise that the believing soul needs an anchor. The believer has a haven in view; for he is bound unto those fair havens into which the Forerunner, even the Lord Jesus, has already entered, to prepare a place for him. But though heaven is the haven to which his course is directed, he is as yet on the troubled sea of life, and is liable to be diverted from his course by unpropitious gales, as well as to be endangered by sunken reefs of rocks, by fierce tempests, or by sudden hurricanes. Even when moored, even when he has reached the desired haven, though he has not entered into it, he is by no means out of danger. Unwonted tides, or sudden squalls and gales, often put him in jeopardy, and threaten to drive him amongst the breakers, or upon the rocks, by which he is surrounded; so that even there he needs a strong and tenacious anchor to preserve him from driving, and to enable him to ride out every gale in safety.

Laying metaphor aside, however, it is quite clear that so long as the believer is in the body, he will meet with much to put his steadfastness to the test. The winds of false doctrine will be brought to bear upon him; and if he be not very careful to prove all things, and to hold fast that which is good, he may be driven about by them, and be diverted very far from a straight and consistent course. The under-current, too, of custom and prejudice, though less sensible in