Isa storehouse from which they get all they require. Its fruit is their rood, its juice their beverage, from its bark they prepare their clothing, [rom its wood they builcl their houses and fashion their weapons, its leaves make their thatch, its fibres their cor<lage So the grace of God is all-sufficient-Protean in its forms, fitting each necessity as it arises, and shaped so as to give to every one of us the very thing which character and circumstances at the moment require. Shall we fear to be ever left to fall before enemies or to be crushed by our sorrows, when we have such an ever-full fountain of various grace to draw from? II. ANOTHER GROUND OF CONFIDENT ASSURANCE IS Goo's OWN ACT, WHICH WOULD BE STULTIFIED IF WE WERE NOT UPHELD. He "called us unto his eternal glory in Christ." .Here the act of calling, and that to which we are called, and the Christ in whom we are called, are all alleged as a threefold cord on which we may hang the whole weight of our confidence. They make it inconceivable that God should not do for us all which the next clause assures us he will do. He will not leave his purpose half accomplished. Nobody shall ever have to point to his incomplete work, and say that he began to build and was not able to finish. His gifts and calling are subject to no change of his solemn purpose. He is not a son of man that he should repent. And if he wills au end, he wills the means to that end. He will assuredly provide for his children all that is needed to bring them to the glory to which he has called them. Does God summon men to his eternal glory, and forget to provide them grace? Will he call them to his own palace, and not give them an outfit for their journey? Does he send out his soldiers without ammunition or stores? "It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" was Christ's great reason to his little flock why they should not fear; as if he had said, "Do you suppose that the Father who gives you a crown at last will not give you all you need on your way to it?" So a joyous temper of triumphant confidence in the face of all suffering and temptation should be ours; " for faitbful is he that calleth you, who also will" carry out his purpose to the blessed end. 111. THE FINAL GROUND ON WHICH WE MAY BUILD OUR CONFIDENCE IS Gon's APPOINTMENT OF BUFFERING AND ITS MEANmG. The words, "after lha.t ye ha.ve suffered a while,'' must be connected more immediately with the preceding. They teach that the way to the eternal glory is through transitory, brief suffering. The apostle comes back to the thoughts with which he began his Epistle about "for a season beiog in heaviness." These sufferings, then, were included in the Divine purpose. 'l'hey are as much a part of bis scheme, are as much a fruit of his inexhaustible love, as the glory to which they lead. They do not break in upon the Divine pb.n. Ti,ere is no fear of their threatening its fulfilment. They are not excrescence,, but csseuti,11 parts of that deep counsel of the unfathomable wisdom according to which all our circumstances are appointed by him. He will not, th.en, be taken at unawares by them, nor will any accumulation of sorrow or suffering be any hindrance to his Divine purpose of strength- ening us, The electric spark finds no resistance to its passage in the deepest sea, and thou~h all the waves and billows go over us, his sustaining grace can none the less make its way to our hearts, Nor nrc they only his appointment, but their direct purpose is to fit us for the eternal glory to which we are called. Joy alone would not do that. The heart needs to be refined by sorrow, and the experience of desolation, ere it can fully receive the grace now which leads to the glory hereafter. So we are not only strengthened for, but by, sorrow; and one of God's ways of "stablishing" us is to cut away all other props, that we may lean all our weight upon him. Faith, then, out of the lion brings honey, wrings hope and assured triumph out of the very pains and foes that beset us, as if one should draw lightning to guide him on his road from the heavy thunder-cloud~ that frown abol'e him. \Vhen sorrow cw:nes, see in it a part of that Divine ].Jlan which issues in eternal glory, see in it one of the chnnnels by which that plan shall be accomplished, that glory reached, and the grace of the God of all grace enter more abundantly into your heart. So good cheer will be born of sadness, as radiant morning from night, and your light affliction, which is but for a moment, will bring you even now a confidence in God and an enlarged strength, which are precursors and pledges of an eternal weight of glory.-A. M.
Ver, l0 (latter halt).-The manifold gifta for mariifold need. Tho apostle has so f22 THE FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF PETER. [011. v. 1-H: