6; Job v. 17-19, 27; 2 Cor. iv. 17). It is not necessary that they should know that their afflictions shall be removed or diminished; they may exercise faith, confidence, submission, patience, and even joy, while they know that the Lord is their God, and will certainly teach them to profit by those things which would otherwise sink them in sorrow and despair. APPLICATION:-1. Since God makes use of afflictions to keep His children near Him, it is clear that they are extremely prone to forsake Him. He does not grieve nor afflict them willingly, but only because they will not regard His milder means of instruction. It is a certain sign that a child is very undutiful and disobedient, if nothing but repeated and severe corrections will restrain or reclaim him. We should humble ourselves before God because of our waywardness. 2. Seeing that God chastises His children for their good, and teaches them to profit under His correcting hand, those who are suffered to live on in uninterrupted prosperity have reason to inquire whether they belong to the household of faith. Prosperity is a thing to thank God for; but it is as frequently granted to the evil as to the good; and those who have been long in the enjoyment of it have good cause seriously to inquire whether their hearts are right with God, and whether He has not been granting their requests for outward prosperity and sending leanness into their souls. 3. Since God afflicts His children only for their good, they have the best of all reasons for being submissive and cheerful in seasons of sorrow. 4. Since God afflicts His children only for their good, the severer the sufferings through which they are called to pass, the greater is the profit they may expect to derive from them in the end. The oftener He puts them into the furnace of affliction, and the longer He continues them there, the brighter He means to bring them out. 5. Since God teaches His children to profit by their afflictions, afflictions afford us a means of determining whether we belong to His family or not. 6. Since God can make afflictions profitable to His children, we may justly conclude that He can make them profitable to others also. Though sinners hate instruction and despise reproof, yet they are not beyond the reach of divine power and divine grace. God has often used affliction as an instrument for the conversion of sinners (2 Chron. xxxiii. 12). — Dr. Emmons: Works, vol. iii. pp. 52-66. THE PROFIT OF LIFE. (A New Year Motto). xlviii. 17. I am the Lord thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go. Inscribe these words on the banner that waves over our heads as we march through the year, that they may be always in sight, ready for use in all the varying turns of our experience. They are stored with rich promise, wise direction, sustaining comfort. This is a voice from heaven to explain God's dealings with us, to elevate our aims and to encourage our trust. I. The end which God has in view in the guidance of our lives, "profit." This is His aim, and He would have us make it ours. "Profit" in heaven's vocabulary has not the meaning it bears on earth. The profit which the world pursues is material, but this is spiritual. That is often lost, and must be left behind at death; this endures unto life eternal, and is the only real profit, for it is a part of our very selves. The solemn utterance of Christ on this matter runs (Mark viii. 36, 37)—a statement which is reversed by those who mind earthly things. Not what you will get, but what you will become should engage your attention. Your greatest wealth lies in yourselves, in your being renewed and sanctified. All other profit is of no value in comparison. Every advantage, talent, opportunity, which is not minted into this coin is wasted. Is this, then, the lofty purpose which you are throwing into your life? How few inquire What will tell upon my spiritual interests? how many-How can I add to my worldly gains, and make a comfortable livelihood? I do not say you should never ask such a question, but only that it should have a subordinate place. Lot had an eye to worldly gain in selecting the plain of Sodom for his residence. The religious disadvantages and dangers of the step did not enter into his calculations. He first "pitched his tent toward Sodom," and then thought it would be a fine thing for his family to be settled in the city, where he would be held in consideration as a man of growing wealth. But spiritual profit-growing sympathy with what is pure and beneficent, closer resemblance to Christ—is the loftiest aim in life, and all our plans should be formed with a view to its acquisition. If this profit be wanting as the years roll by, life is a losing concern, leading to spiritual bankruptcy. II. God engages to teach us how to extract profit from life. Everything may yield us profit, if we learn the happy art of taking the profit out of it. A naturalist has said that "the seeing eye is never in want of its proper aliment;" and the Christian soul never lacks the means of spiritual profit. The bee may find it delightful to roam far and wide through the long summer day, looking into the flowers and breathing their fragrance; but he is an idle drone if he bring home no profit for the hive. One man has neither the will nor the power to extract the honey from life's experience, while another finds profit in all that meets him. Two persons take a tour through an interesting country. One sees but little, and carelessly hurries past the grandest scenes and through the finest cities. The other comes home with large additions to his information, and with scenes impressed on his mind which he can recall long after with delight. Let me specify some of the departments of our life, and show how real profit may be derived from them. Take our daily Bible-readings and our visits to God's house. These are occasions of richest profit, but many miss it. Not to speak of those who lay aside the Bible for books that have a stronger interest for them, and rarely, if at all, frequent the sanctuary, to others these privileges come as a matter of course. No wonder there is small profit when none is expected. Believing prayer makes the Lord's day a day of blessing, and extracts profit from the poorest sermon. By the sorrows and difficulties of the week God sometimes sends us to His house with quickened appetite.—Our joys and sorrows may be made springs of profit. This is the very purpose of the Divine chastenings (Heb. xii. 10). -Our intercourse with others may furnish contributions to our spiritual wealth. Our closest friends should be the friends of Jesus, and from such companions we may get much profit by the interchange of thought and the influence of example; and even those who are otherwise minded may teach us to be gentle to the erring.-Our very temptations, if met with a firm resistance, will bring us a return of strength. -Our daily work may be made to yield us a better renumeration than mere wages, if we accept it as our Godappointed task. In all these departments, if we take God for our teacher, life, with its changing scenes, will become a school of precious instruction, and a mine of solid wealth. they may be sure that the experiences will be such as to yield the profit which they most need, as the bee's faculty and instinct do not lack flowers. This assurance ought to nerve us alike for life's trials and life's work. It should silence every murmur. All envying of the lot of others, all impatience with our own, will vanish when we feel that we are where God placed us. Even in the severest afflictions this thought will stay the soul. It is part of God's plan to send trials upon us; they stand in His programme of our lives. Were any of them withheld we should lose their intended profit. Our very work has been pre-arranged (Eph. ii. 10). We are disposed to think that if our talents were better, our opportunities more favourable, we would serve God to greater purpose; but these are precisely what God sees we can use. Be it ours to inquire at every step, What good may I get here what profit may I acquire ? Would it not bring a truly happy year to import these principles into your life? Do they not furnish a sufficient answer to the question that has recently been discussed-"Is life worth living?" If you live while you live, if you have been taught of God to extract profit from life's experience, certainly life is well worth living. The ship constructed at great expense does not lie anchored in some quiet bay. The owners expect a return, and send her across the seas to trade in the ports of many lands. Their end is profit, and every day their vessel is laid up is a serious loss. So it is with our lives. there is no real profit, there must be a sad, a fatal deficit.-W. Guthrie, M.A. SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY SECURED BY OBEDIENCE ONLY. Whatever may be the reason, in the Church there are frequently mournful complaints of the want of prosperity, both general and individual. Viewing the case only under one aspect, this might appear strange. For is not God with His people? &c. Whence, then, these complaints ? Their true cause is in man, not in God. The terms here employed show us, that though the complaint is in accordance with fact, the fact might and ought to have been avoided. The real cause is found in negligence and disobedience of man. God's complaint implies censure; and teaches us that the limitation of the blessing which was promised in the most abundant fulness, is a reproving judgment, calling us to "consider our ways," and by renewed obedience and carefulness to remedy the evils which we ourselves have occasioned. Observe the remarkable manner in which it pleases God to address His people. It is not said, generally and alone, "O that thou hadst hearkened VOL. II. U If to my commandments!" He speaks as sustaining certain characters, performing certain works. And in examining the terms employed in this divine record, we shall find that they include and suggest the reasons why the required obedience should be rendered. We have thus I. THE FUNDAMENTAL CHARACTER WHICH GOD SUSTAINS IN RELATION TO HIS PEOPLE, AND AS SUSTAINING WHICH HE REQUIRES THEIR OBEDIENCE. 1. "The Holy One of Israel." Redemption chiefly implies mercy, but by no means exclusively. It is set before us in the New Testament, with the strongest emphasis, as that exhibition and proof of love which, for its vastness and grandeur, claims to be regarded as the highest of all. But men are apt to take false views of love. These false views generally tend to very dangerous issues. With men, love is often an indulgent fondness, seldom rising above the limits of natural instinct, and possessing in 301 its character nothing distinctively moral. 2. "Thus saith the Lord." This is the basis of the whole (Exod. iii. 14). He is essential being, independent, perfect, eternal. Whatever exists, exists by Him and for Him; every faculty, by Him given, should be for Him employed. No creature possesses the excellence for which we are commanded to love, worship, and serve Him. As far as possible, there must be a difference as complete and manifest between the service we render to any creature, and that which we render to God, as there is between the creature itself and God. 3. "Thy Redeemer." Thus has He made Himself known to us. Thus will He be acknowledged, worshipped, and served by us. True, He is our Creator, our Preserver, our Sovereign; none of these truths are set aside by the evangelical revelation; still it is our duty to remember that the chief of His royal styles and titles, is that of Redeemer. It is as our Redeemer that we are to behold His glory, study His character, acknowledge, love, worship, and serve Him. Himself, our true and highest good, He only becomes so to us when we approach Him as our Redeemer; acknowledging all the wickedness and weakness in us which that term implies. In But there is one character which the Scriptures teach us God always must sustain,-that of the most exalted moral excellence. We must never forget that He is "the Holy One of Israel" (H. E. I. 2316, 2317). This, then, is the character in which God addresses to us the commandments to which He requires us to hearken. II. A PARTICULAR PROCEEDING IN WHICH IT PLEASES GOD, AS SUSTAINING THIS CHARACTER, TO REPRESENT HIMSELF AS ENGAGING. "I am the Lord thy God which teacheth," &c. 1. God teaches us. Advert to the principal methods which He is pleased to employ. But in whatever way the instruction is communicated, the object of it is always the same our benefit and advantage. 2. God is also our Guide. "Which leadeth," &c. Distinctly asserted in the Word of God. The wisdom of ancient philosophy could never realise the doctrine of a particular providence. To the wisdom of the world it is still a stumbling-block. Observe the character of the guidance: "In the way that thou shouldest go." That we may perceive what that way is, let us remember what man is, and for what he is destined. There is nothing merely casual. Everything is wisely appointed or wisely permitted. And thus, putting together all these representations, is a foundation, broad and stable, laid for that enlightened, that deliberately chosen obedience which He requires. III. THE OBEDIENCE WHICH HE CONSEQUENTLY REQUIRES FROM US. 1. God teaches us for our profit; it is therefore our duty to be learners, and that from first to last. 2. God leads us, &c.; it is therefore our duty to follow His guidance. But how No pillar of cloud and fire goes before us, marking the way to sense. We walk by faith. What are the indications which faith must follow (1.) His revealed will. He never leads in opposition to that. (2.) The specific duties indicated by every particular providence must be fulfilled. Let there be unhesitating submission, unreserved devotion. The old Vulgate employs a word that may suggest an illustration. Gubernans te in via. A vessel sails from harbour destined to a certain port. To guide her safely is the task of the pilot, the Gubernator. In modern times, when navigation is so well understood, such a person is usually only employed where the navigation is difficult, from dangers known to himself, but unknown to the crew-perhaps close by the port where the voyage ter minates. 3. God condescends to speak to us! it is therefore our duty continually and reverently to hearken. "O that thou hadst," &c. It is not said, "O that thou hadst obeyed!" but, "O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments!" Of course, obedience is implied, but the word actually used teaches us the real character of the obedience. The master issues his orders. The servant stands by attentively. He hearkens to them, perceives his duty, and goes to perform it. And thus must it be with us. (1.) We must hearken to His commandments in their evangelical order; (2.) universally; (3.) attentively, thoughtfully, so as to make their very meaning our own; (4.) exclusively. Other voices will sound in our ears. To none must a moment's heed be given; (5.) supremely and constantly. IV. THE RESULT OF THAT OBEDI ENCE. Great shall be the prosperity you shall thus certainly secure. "Your peace," &c. The imagery is as instructive as it is beautiful. (See other outlines on this text.) APPLICATION.-Assume the exist ence of religion in some degree. Seek to realise it in all its blessed fulness as here set forth. Wherever personal religion revives, zeal for the spread of religion revives also. Then efforts to do good will be better sustained, and the prospering blessing of God will be more richly given. The consequence will be numerical increase. (Note Delitzsch's translation of ver. 19.) Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine, 1849, pp. 913-934. THE LOST IDEAL. xlviii. 18. O that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments! &a Exile and home-coming, captivity and deliverance, judgment and mercy, these are the things of this chapter. In the immediate context there is an expression of the deepest regret on God's part that it had been necessary to bring on His people heavy judgments; while the text is a tender wish and longing that they had chosen the better way. Three thoughts are suggested for our instruction I. THE LOST IDEAL. What might have been, and ought to have been. There had been an unattained national, and, therefore, individual possibility, which was now unattainable, at least to the extent that things could never be exactly as if they had attained it. So, too, there is to each man an ideal life as a matter of abstract possibility, not abstractly imaginable, but real and true as the life of God. The ideal life is the life. But what is it? There is a natural outline in every man's life. Sin depraves, but it does not obliterate the organic powers and the natural peculiarities and tendencies of the individual. There is an outline of what might have been left in each man. There are diversities; but the question is about each man's own ideal. What is it each of us has missed all these years-getting a glimpse of it now and again? This lost self is the self that must be found, else happiness cannot be found. It is descried in some of our best states, in elevated moods, or in quietness; and also in working earnestly towards some good practical object; or when, weary with all this world's wilfulness and folly, we can, notwithstanding, leave it all with Him who made and can rule the world: in these, and like exercises or states of mind, we can get some glimpses of the wonderful picture that stands clearly out in the Divine ideal, and from which it will never fade away. IT. II. THE DIVINE LAMENTATION OVER God continues to have a Divine preference concerning human life. What depths of love and compassion are in the words, "O that thou hadst hearkened," &c. Certain images are chosen because they are known to all the world: "Peace like a river; |