nothing of any desire after it, or of any feeling about it; but by this power he knows that unless he attains to it he must certainly perish; he knows, by the teaching of the Spirit, that this righteousness is only to be had by the infinite merits of Christ, and only to be received as He puts it on us by faith; and where God has put this power forth He will never finally withdraw it so it is" kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." If it be not so, how can any stand

"When temptations, foes and storms
Press them close on every hand?'

Who

O, those who are so exercised want to lean upon Jehovah's arm; they don't want to make flesh their arm; they want to say "My soul, wait thou only upon God;" they want none of the willingness that comes from the flesh. The prophet lamented the lack of this when he said, "Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed ?" Let us put this question close this morning amongst us. amongst us fear God? Who believes? Unto whom is the arm of Jehovah revealed, making us willing to trust and put all our confidence in God?-really to hang our helpless souls on Him for that help which God hath laid on One that is mighty? Here is a willing sinner prepared for a willing Saviour; and this is the language of such, "Behold we come unto Thee, for Thou art the Lord our God. Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of the mountains; truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel?"

All this, Jehovah here testifies, shall be accomplished "in the beauties of holiness ;" and I believe this is to proclaim to us the harmony of all the attributes of Jehovah. This is not absolute power. He has power to create a world and to consume it; but this is power mingled with grace and longsuffering, bringing His chosen ones to repentance: and this is "in the beauties of holiness." Man has forfeited all claim; he has, by the demerit of his sins, only merited God's justice to be poured upon him. The vessels of God's wrath shall be

the vessels of His wrath to all eternity. But "the beauties of holiness" proclaim how mercy and truth can meet together, how righteousness and peace can kiss each other. They proclaim whence truth can spring out of the earth, and righteousness look down from heaven; and so the Lord can give that which is good, and our land can yield her increase, righteousness going before Him and setting us in the way of His steps. Where is all this meeting but in Jehovah's Son, in Him to whom Jehovah said, "Sit thou at My right hand until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool" Infinite payment was required by divine justice: Jesus yields His soul an offering for sin; He pays the demand to the fullest amount. Here is reconciliation and pardon; here transgression is finished; He magnified the law and made it honourable; and that soul who has felt the power of God will never find rest till he finds it here, in a perfect sacrifice, in a perfect atonement, in a spotless righteousness; and where is this to be found but in a dying Saviour? He lays down His life, not the life of a mere man but the veriest life of the God-man Christ Jesus. Our finite minds cannot penetrate the infinite greatness, the infinite glory, the infinite merits of that sacrifice"When Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin." What a fulness there is in that word, "He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied"! I can't enter into it. The good Lord grant you and me to have some little entrance into it, that we may know how it is that

"Hell is vanquished, heaven appeased;
God is reconciled and pleased.'

Thus He meets the poor, lost, ruined, undone sinner; and thus the poor, lost, ruined, undone sinner meets Him. Hence we have boldness to venture on Him-to venture to that "fountain opened for sin and uncleanness." He that has ventured here is, according to the measure of his faith, absorbed in that one theme. There was a time when other things, things of time, had attractions; but now "the beauties of holiness" are what attract him. "Having boldness to enter into the holiest by

the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way."

covenant; but now, "boldness to enter.'

There

could not be a step taken into the holiest by the old "by the blood of Jesus," we have Now, would you come any other way? And are you willing to come this way! Is it Christ, and Him crucified, you want? more you desire of these things, the more you want of God's clothing you with the garments of salvation, and covering you with the robe of righteousness.

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The

these the things you are panting after? "O," say you, my pantings are so weak." But it is of God to give them. I felt I could say, as I lay awake most of the night

"Mv poor heart cries out for God;"

and I was enabled to feel in that matter that it was a helpful struggle, for my poor heart would not have been crying out for God, had it not been for His work.

I think a further developement of these things is set forth in the words, "from the womb of the morning." I don't know what is pregnant with such glories as the morning of the resurrection. "It is Christ that died; yea, rather that is risen again." Drop that branch of the truth, and you drop all; receive that, and you receive all. O, it is by the resurrection of Christ that you and I obtain all our revivings. There never would have been a resurrection in the Church of Christ had it not been for this. He hath "begotten us again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Our hopes had before been dead, but now they are revived. O, what "beauties of holiness " are here! From the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth." Literally, the dew of the Saviour's youth was more manifest in His death than it had been during His life. So His disciples found it. When the day of Pentecost was fully come, and they were endued with power from on high, see thousands converted under one proclamation of the Word; and when God poured out His Spirit on His servants and His handmaidens, it was markedly fulfilled, that "whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved;" so that "the dew of

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thy youth" is fulfilled in that power of the proclamation of His Word.

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The Lord may not continue my breath long enough to see much of these things, but they warm the heart; and down to the end of time we are encouraged to pray, 'Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.' So it is as affecting our souls individually; for what is spoken to the Church is spoken to each soul. "Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power." Oh, I would for a moment reflect on the power of God in such a case as that of the prodigal, making him willing to come to his father with weeping, according to His word, "They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them." So, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. God in mercy

grant to you and me the riches and substance of these things, "the fulness of Him that filleth all in all." And may the Lord in mercy bless His own Word. Amen.

SUMMARY.-Christ, the everlasting covenant: all therein

promised shall be fulfilled, as in Him, so in His chosen, despite all the powers of darkness and man who, infected by their rebellion, chooses any way but God's... God will have His will-sends "the rod of His strength out of Zion," "the foolishness of preaching," but "the power of God." . . Desolation and barrenness is felt and bemoaned, but "joy shall be there;" and He "shall bring again Zion." Christ's rule is in judgment and in mercy: He makes His people go to Him by willing constraint, the quickening power wrought in Christ, and the effect is seeking God from a sense of perishing need.

By the same power He keeps them: but who really hangs on Him-" mighty to save"? . . All is through "the beauties of holiness "-the harmony of His power, grace, justice, mercy, righteousness, and peace, all meeting in His Son, a perfect sacrifice of infinite merit. . Thus God meets the sinner, and the sinner is attracted by this beauty. . . Is it Him

you want and pant for, though weak. . It is His work... "The womb of the morning," Christ's resurrection, pregnant with glory. . . All revivings, begettings to a lively hope, are through this. . . He had the dew of youth in death, and it was fulfilled in the outpouring of the Spirit, in the preaching of the Word... So in each one, made willing, as the prodigal, to "come with weeping.. and supplications.'

SUNDAY MORNING, JULY 12, 1874.

"Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember The in Thy ways; behold Thou art wrath, for we have sinned; in those is continuance, and we shall be saved."--ISAIAH lxiv. 5.

"THOU meetest him." Have you and I come to this building this morning with the anxiety, with the desire, with the expectation of God meeting us? God meeting us! And is there, or has there been any part of this morning, any part of the week, in contemplating the coming Lord's day, anything like this, "Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down; that the mountains might flow down at thy presence"? You know these are solemnly and certainly parts of God's Word affecting our immortal souls; and it is these united testimonies bearing upon us that prove the certainty of God's having to do with us, and our having to do with God. I tell you certainly, no other religion will stand. Religion is not the matter of going out and coming in, of reading or talking; but it is being brought to do with God, in having a continual intimacy, so to speak, with God, and God meeting with us. The prophet had this; he was mouth for God; and he pours out the petitions to God in this and the latter part of the preceding chapter; and here the petitions seem to be brought to this, "Behold, Thou art wrath, for we have sinned." Here is one of the "wicked" confessing their state for the whole. It was a consciousness of this that brought the publican to plead for mercy.