said to God, " Thou hast delivered my soul from death," he adds, " Wilt thou not keep mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling, that I may walk before the Lord in the light of the living'^?" This was a legitimate inference from the premises which he had stated: and St. Paul drew the same inference with a yet stronger measure of confidence and assu- rance ; saying to his Pliilippian converts, " I am confident of this very tiling, that He who hath begun a good work in you will perform it till the day of Jesus Christ "i." St. Paul, in particular saw that there was an inseparable connexion between grace and glory : for that " whom God did predestinate in eternity, them he also called in time ; and whom he called, them he also justified ; and whom he justified, them he also glorified^." And a sweet truth it is, that " He will not forsake his people, because it hath pleased him to make them his people*";" and that "whom he loveth, he loveth unto the ends."]
Address —
1. The lukewarm Christian —
[Having spoken favourably of good desires, I must guard with all possible care against a misapprehension of my meaning. It is said in Scripture, *' The desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labour''." This is a very awful truth : for there are many who rest satisfied with languid desires, instead of labouring for the things desired. Against such a state our blessed Lord very strongly cautions us, when he says, " Strive to enter in at the strait gate ; for many will seek to enter in, and shall not be able'." " The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence: and the violent must take it by force ^." And, whatever be your sentiments about the unchangeableness of God's love, you may be perfectly sure that you are not walking acceptably with him, unless you can say with truth, " My soul foUoweth hard after God."]
2. The earnest and zealous Christian — [Whatever attainments you make in the divine life, never
forget to whom they must all be ascribed. A ball would as soon return of itself to the cannon's mouth, from whence it had been shot forth, as you of yourself would ever have returned unto God. And a new-born infant would as soon provide for all its own wants, as you would have preserved yourself, by any power of your own, in the ways of God. It is God who in the first instance quickened you from the dead, and " gave you both to will and to do" what .was pleasing in his sight.
c Ps. Ivi. 13.
d Phil. i. 6.
e Rom. viii. 29, 30
f 1 Sam. xii. 22.
e John xiii. 1.
^ Prov. xxi. 25.
^ Luke xiii. 24.
k Matt. xi. 12.