and on threatenings too. To the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet,' saith Solomon. All that is good and wholesome goes down well where Christ is with the spirit." Oh, for the Master's smile to impart a relish to his dainties! Weakness is the unavoidable result of the Lord's displeasure. "The joy of the Lord is our strength,” and if this be wanting we necessarily become faint. "His presence is life," and the removal of it shakes. us to our very foundation. Duty is toilsome labour, unless Christ make it a delight. "Without me ye can do nothing," said the Redeemer; and truly we have found it so. The boldness of lion-like courage, the firmness of rooted decision, the confidence of unflinching faith, the zeal of quenchless love, the vigour of undying devotion, the sweetness of sanctified fellowship-all hang for support upon the one pillar of the Saviour's presence, and this removed they fail. There are many and precious clusters, but they all grow on one bough, and if that be broken they fall with it. Though we be flourishing like the green bay-tree, yet the sharpness of such a winter will leave us leafless and bare. Then the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall there be fruit in the vine; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the field shall yield no meat." "Instead of sweet smell there Lockyer. shall be a stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well-set hair, baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty." * It is then that we shall cry with Saul, "I am sore distressed, for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets nor by dreams." + Good it is for us that He is not clean gone for ever, but will turn again lest we perish. Not to weary ourselves upon this mournful topic, we may sum up all the manifest effects of a loss of the manifest favour of Christ in one sad catalogue -misery of spirit, faintness in hope, coldness in worship, slackness in duty, dulness in prayer, barrenness in meditation, worldliness of mind, strife of conscience, attacks from Satan, and weakness in resisting the enemy. Such ruin doth a withdrawing of Divine presence work in man. From all grieving of thy Spirit, from all offending of the Saviour, from all withdrawing of thy visible favour, and loss of thy presence, good Lord, deliver us. And if at any time we have erred, and have lost the light of thy countenance, O Lord, help us still to believe thy grace and trust in the merits of thy Son, through whom we address thee. Amen. * Isa. iii. 24. +1 Sam. xxviii. 15. TO THE UNCONVERTED READER. SINNER, if the consequences of the temporary departure of God be so terrible, what must it be to be shut out from him for ever? If the passing cloud of his seeming anger scattereth such grievous rain upon the beloved sons of God, how direful will be the continual shower of God's unchanging wrath which will fall on the head of rebellious sinners for ever and ever! Ah, and we need not look so far as the future! How pitiable is your condition NOW! How great is the danger to which you are every day exposed! How can you eat or drink, or sleep or work, while the eternal God is your enemy? He whose wrath makes the devils roar in agony is not a God to be trifled with! Beware! his frown is death; 'tis more 'tis hell. If you knew the misery of the saint when his Lord deserts him but for a small moment, it would be enough to amaze you. Then what must it be to endure it throughout eternity? Sinner, thou art hasting to hell, mind what thou art at! Do not damn thyself, there are cheaper ways of playing fool than that. Go and array thyself in motley, and become the aping fool, at whom men laugh, but do not make laughter for fiends for ever. Carry coals on thy head, or dash thine head against the wall, to prove that thou art mad; but do not "kick against the pricks;" do not commit suicide upon thine own soul for the mere sake of indulging thy thoughtlessness. Be wise, lest being often reproved, having hardened thy neck, thou shouldest be suddenly destroyed, and that without remedy. XI. THE CAUSES OF APPARENT DESERTION. "Show me wherefore thou contendest with me.”—Job, x. 2. Ir would be a grievous imputation upon the much tried children of God, if we should imagine that their greater trials are the results of greater sin. We see some of them stretched upon the bed of languishing year after year; others are subject to the severest losses in business, and a third class are weeping the oft-repeated bereavements of death. Are all these chastisements for sin? and are we to attribute the excess of trouble to an enlarged degree of transgression? Many of the Lord's people are free from the extreme bitterness of such affliction: what is the cause of the difference? Is it always the result of sin? We reply, Certainly not. In many cases it is, but in as many more it is not. David had a comparatively smooth |