Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

centre your affections; on this fix your most intense desires. Immortal being love, and seek unto, Him who gave thee being and immortality with a breath! Say with David, "As the hart panteth after the waterbrooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God," Psa. xlii. 1, 2. And again, "My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God," Psa. lxxxiv. 2. If the heavy affliction under which you lie, prevent your rising to such a full,ardent, and undivided desire after God, yet let not the strong current of your affections be lost in other channels. Call home your thoughts, summon your utmost resolution, look to the Holy Spirit for strength, and give yourself to fervent, unceasing and importunate prayer. See how earnest and importunate the psalmist is under

a similar affliction, which again sets him forth to view as a type of the Man of Sorrows. Hear how he pleads and prays, how he supplicates and entreats, "Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul. O God, in the multitude of thy mercy hear me, in the truth of thy salvation. Deliver me out of the mire; let me not sink let not the water-flood overflow me; let not the deep swallow me up. Hear me, O Lord, turn unto me; hide not thy face from thy servant, for I am in trouble; hear me speedily; draw nigh unto my soul, redeem it; deliver me,” Psa. lxix. Imitate this example; set no bounds to your prayer, no limit, no termination, but success. Pray till you be heard. Pray till you obtain admission to his favour again. You shall not require to use such impor

tunity long.

"In due season you

shall reap, if you faint not." Like David, you shall be enabled to add, "I will praise the name of God with a song: I will magnify him with thanksgiving," ver. 30. Or, like your Lord, your darkness shall be turned into light, and while you are yet speaking, God will answer, and cause you, by the blessed nearness of his presence, to exclaim, "Thou hast heard me."

THE GRATITUDE.

VER. 22.-I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.

:

HAVING thus obtained relief from the oppressive darkness, and regained conscious possession of the joy and light of his Father's countenance, the Redeemer's thoughts and desires flow into their accustomed channel. What is that channel? The glory of God, in the salvation of his Church. These were the two objects for which he had lived more than thirty years. He never had a thought or wish that was not intimately connected with the one

or the other.

But we must not call

them two, as though they were entirely distinct. In the heart of Christ these two were one. It was not only God's glory for which he lived; it was not only man's salvation for which he died; it was for both; it was the one in the other. It was to glorify God in saving man, and to save man in glorifying God, that Christ lived and died. God was glorified in the declaration of his name; man was saved by means of that declaration; Christ's thoughts therefore ran instantly to their grand, their twofold object. He bursts forth with an acclamation of praise; he utters aloud his Father's goodness and his own gratitude; he expresses anew his determination and delight to do the duty he had undertaken, "I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee."

« ElőzőTovább »