27. The Security of the Believer

I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it.—ESSEXEL XXXVI, 36.

WHEN in a sultry summer day the sky gets overcast, and angry clouds gather thick upon its brow, and bush and brake are silent, and the very cattle, like human beings, draw close together, standing dumb in their untasted pastures, and while there is no ripple on the lake, nor leaf stirring on the tree, all nature seems struck with awe, and stands in trembling expectation; then, when the explosion comes, and a blinding stream of fire leaps from the cloud, and as if heaven's riven vault were tumbling down upon our head, the thunders crash, peal, roar along the sky, he has neither poetry, nor piety, nor sense, who does not reverently bow his head and assent to the words of David, "The voice of the Lord is full of majesty."

When the God of glory thundereth in nature, his voice is full of majesty; when, in still louder thunders, the God of providence speaks by calamities that shake the nation, or shake to its foundations the happiness of our home, his voice is also full of majesty; and when the ear of faith listens to these august and lofty words, "I have spoken, and I will do it," the voice of the Lord again is "full of majesty." This language is stamped with divinity. And to God we may, with the highest propriety, address the words which the flatterers of royalty blasphemously offered to an orator, whose proud assumption of divinity the worms soon refuted. The lie of their adulation to Herod changes to truth on our lips, when—speaking of him who says, "I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it"—we exclaim, "This is the voice of a God, and not of a man."

The words of my text fit not mortal lips. Of that truth, Jephthah's calamity and Herod's crime afford memorable illustrations. In the full tide of patriotism, in the fierce excitement of the fight, with a warrior's proud ambition to win the field, Jephthah made his vow, and resolved to keep it—to do what he spake. And little did he dream, that the first to leave his house, the victim for sacrifice, should be the daughter of his heart—his only child. And as little did Herod foresee, upon what a bloody path of remorse and crime the rash pledge extorted by the fiendish hatred of a paramour would lead him.

Often, we have not the power to do what we say, and to perform what we promise. "If the Lord will," should qualify all the future. And although the power were ours, some vows, some resolutions, are more honored in the breach than in the observance. The language of my text, therefore, belongs only to him whose glance penetrates eternity; to whose omniscience nothing is impervious, to whose power nothing is impossible. Weak, short-sighted, ignorant, erring mortals, such words in our mouths were impudent and impotent presumption; and we have no more right to assume the imperial tone of Divinity, than we have ability to launch his thunderbolts, or wisdom to guide his counsels.

These great words of power are also words of mercy. Connect them with the exceeding precious promises, the exceeding lofty offers of the Gospel, with such a passage as this—"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved;" or this, "Come unto me all ye that labor, and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest;" or this, "My grace shall be sufficient for thee, and my strength made perfect in your weakness;" or this, "With my dead body shall they arise." "Awake and sing, all ye that dwell in the dust. For thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead"—and these words are as full of mercy as of majesty. God in them speaks with absolute confidence. And how is his confidence calculated to create and sustain in our hearts the firmest assurance that he can and that he will do all he says? He speaks "as one having authority." There is no obscurity about his language, or hesitation in its tone. He speaks as one whose word is law, whose will is power, whose smile is life, whose frown is death. He speaks as one who has entire confidence in his own resources, and whose word is as efficient now as on the day when he issued the creative fiat, and said, "Let there be light, and there was light." Were you ever at sea in a storm, when the ship recled to and fro like a drunken man, and struggling, as for life in the arms of death, now rose on the top of the billow, now plunged into the trough of the sea? Partially infected with others' terror, did you ever leave shrieking women and pale men below, to seek the deck, and look your danger bravely in the face? In such circumstances, I know nothing so re-assuring as—when we have staggered across the slippery planking, and are holding by rail or bulwark—to see amid these weltering foam-wreaths, that fierce commotion, the hurricane roar of the wind among the shrouds, and the loud dash of the billows beneath—calm con fidence seated on the brow of that weather-beaten man who, with iron strength, leans upon the wheel, and steers our ship through the roaring billows. Such - only much higher - is the confidence which we draw from the confidence of God, as expressed in the words - "I have spoken, and I will do it."

In illustration of this, take the night of the storm in Galilee. The disciples gather round our Lord, and wake him, crying, Master, Master, "Carest thou not that we perish?" Look up, and see these mountain waves! Hark to the roaring of the storm! the boat fills - we sink. Save, Oh save, we perish! Had they known him fully, would they not have drawn courage from his very slumbers? With a beat-cloak protecting his wasted and weary form from the flying spray, they would have let him sleep on; and bold faith, arresting the arm of fear, had said, "Hush! wake him not; let him take his rest; he would not, could not sleep, were disciples in danger."

When a mother, on a watch by a cradle where life has been feebly flickering, falls asleep, we are sure that the crisis is over - the worst is passed. Before sleep sealed these kind and anxious eyes, they had seen the tide, that had ebbed, returning. Let the storm wreck a hundred boats, and carry disaster, widowhood, orphanage among the fishing hamlets upon Galilee's shores, to my eye the disciples had full assurance of safety in the fact that Jesus slept, and slept as soundly in that storm-tossed boat as when Mary rocked the cradle, or sung him over on her gentle bosom. In that sleeping form "there was the hiding of his power," and the confidence of high and worthy faith. But my text is one that meets the weakest faith; for who can doubt that God will make good all his promises, who marks the firm, unqualified, determined, supreme, sovereign tone of the words, "I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it." Man is often confident when he should be diffident; and yet, if the confidence of man inspires us with hope, and speaks peace to the apprehensions of a troubled heart, how much more should the confidence of God? With these words in our eye, we can look on the starry dome of heaven and this solid earth, and believe that sooner shall that arch fall, and bury a crushed world in its ruins, than that one good word spoken of his people shall fail till all be fulfilled.

I. The text announces a most important truth.

So long as there was pulse and breath in Lazarus, his sisters often left their brother's couch, and went to door and window to see if there was yet any sign of Jesus. Days ago a messenger had been dispatched with the tidings, "He whom thou lovest is sick;" and they felt like the mother of Sisera, when, wearying for her son's return, she looked for him in the glare of day, and listened for him in the gloom of night, crying, Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariots? Death at length quenches hope. The funeral is over; and, when four days have elapsed, a lingering Lord is seen descending the heights of Olivet in his approach to Bethany. One enters the house of mourning and whispers, "The Lord is come." Martha rises, advances to meet him and pour forth her regret for his absence, and her confidence in his power in this bitter cry, "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." When we look at our text, we feel, in reference to the sad event of Eden, much as Martha did when she turned her weeping eyes on Jesus. Would his presence have preserved the life of Lazarus? No less certainly had these words been present in their power to Eve, they would have preserved her innocence, and saved the world. Not Lazarus only, but no man had died; there had been neither sin, nor sorrow, nor griefs, nor graves, in this suffering world, had Eve, when she stood by the fatal tree, but remembered, believed, felt this sentence, "I have spoken, and I will do it." Then, on the serpent saying, "Thou shalt not surely die," with a voice as prompt and peremptory as her Son's, she had replied, "Get thee behind me, Satan, thou savorest not of the things that be of God." The honor reserved for her seed had been her own. She had placed her naked foot upon the serpent, and, stamping down a heel unbruised, had crushed his head. Oh, the world had been saved, had she, taking up her position on the high ground of my text, answered the tempter thus, "The Lord hath said, In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. He hath spoken, and He will do it." Entrenched more strongly within these lines than ever army that, behind batteries—bristling with cannon—beat back the fierce sortie, she had stood alone; within the impregnable barriers of God's word, she had defied the powers of hell; and, omnipotent in God, she had received the battle on her single shield. Eden had still been ours, and our family had still been blessed and holy, with God for a father and Paradise for a home. Some years ago, when autumn floods wrought great devastation in our country, a strong man was swept away into the swollen river. It bore him—as he and others thought—by good fortune, to a tree, which stood bravely up amid the sea of waters. He caught it and climbed it. Seated on a bough he stretched out his arms for help to the distant banks. Attempts were made to rescue him before nightfall, but all in vain. The day wore on, and the night at length came down; and now a frantic wife, and weeping little ones, and some kind neighbors, were left nothing to do, but to listen amid the pauses of the tempest for his long, shrill whistle. Ever and anon that came across the flood to cheer them up; for he sounded it to let them know that he was still alive, and that the tree was yet breasting the roaring stream. About midnight this signal ceased. They strained their ears, and heard nought but the hoarse roar of the angry river, mingled with the shrieking of the storm. Morning at length arrived; the man was gone—tree gone—and where it stood they saw but the whirling waves of the red roaring flood. At this moment, one—considered little else than a fool—stepped forward to say, “I could have saved him.” Any other but that heart-broken group would have laughed him to scorn; and yet he showed them how, by attaching a rope to a float, and sending that away from the very bank where the lost man had been carried off, he could have saved him, since the current that bore the man to the tree would have been certain to carry to him this means of communication with the shore. The plan was perfect; no doubt of it. But it came too late; and they had to leave the scene with their grief exasperated and embittered by the thought, that had they possessed but the wisdom of this fool, their desolate home had received a joyous family, to give God thanks for the “dead that was alive again, and the lost that was found.” I have told you, that had my text been present to he mind, and felt in its power by the heart of Eve, we had not been lost. But when the deed has been tone, and it is now too late, my object is not to show how man might have been saved. There is little kindness in telling me of a medicine that would have cured my dead. To tell me that had this or that been done, the grave had not held their loved dust this day, is not to close but open my wound—to drop not balm, but burning acid upon a raw and bleeding sore. Glory to the grace of God, I tell not that my text, if believed in, would have saved man, but, if believed in, shall still save him.

It would have kept us out of the grave. It can raise us out of it. It is like Jesus Christ. Had he been present, Lazarus had not died, but he who could have saved Lazarus from the tomb, when it has closed upon his friend, calls him out of it. The power that would have proved the sick man's remedy, stands at the mouth of that yawning sepulcher the dead man's resurrection. Let my text lay hold of the redemption of Christ, and it has all, and more than all the power it ever had—the cross, the crown, peace, pardon, grace in life, hope in death, heaven throughout all eternity— these are all wrapped up in a deep, solemn, heartfelt, divine conviction of this truth. "I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it."

Take, on the one hand, these precious invitations—

"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters;

come ye, buy and eat, yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price;" and this, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth;"

and this, "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin;" and this, "I will take out of you the hard and stony heart;" and this, "Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and I will cause you to come up out of your graves, and ye shall live;" and take, on the other hand, these:—"They that sow to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption;" and this, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die;" and this, "The wicked shall be cast into hell." Now, would God by his Spirit help us to lodge in men's hearts an earnest, cordial belief of these truths as they appear in the light of the text, man would not—man could not be lost. At once warned and won by it, the Gospel would be glad news. Men with all their hearts would embrace offered mercy. Churches would become sanctuaries, and the place of worship would be a gate to heaven. And ministers—disheartened and despondent—would not have to return so often to their Master, saying, "Lord, they are perishing; yet they will not come to thee that they may have life. I have brought back thine offer. They will not take it. No man hath believed my report, and to none has the arm of the Lord been revealed." II. The comforts this truth imparts to a true Christian.

Through his confidence in this truth, the believer commits all his earthly cares to God.

I do not say that we are not to embrace any opportunity of improving our circumstances, and acquiring lawful objects of pursuit. Far from it. The Gospel inculcates diligence, even in our worldly calling. "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways, and be wise." Nor shall our lawful calling, whatever it be, interfere with the best interests of our souls. Religion is none the worse, but all the better for work; and a man's work is all the better for his religion. The morning prayer does for a good man's heart what the morning meal does for his body. It braces him up for the day and its duties. He has least need of a master's watchful eye, who feels that the eye of God is ever upon him. You may safely trust most to those who make conscience of the meanest work; who, in kindling a fire or sweeping a floor, have an eye uplifted to the glory of God; who ennoble life's humblest employment by aiming at a noble end; and who address themselves to their business in the high and holy belief, that when duty—however humble it may be—is well done, God is glorified; just as he is glorified as well by a lowly daisy, as by the garden's gaudiest and proudest flowers.

But while this truth gives no encouragement to indolence—to a languid and idle waiting upon providence—and no encouragement to cast our work itself on God, it teaches his people to cast the cares of the work upon him. Are not these among the words that he hath spoken, and will do, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord." "Cast thy burden on the Lord, he shall sustain thee." "The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord?" Child of God! put in, then, a fearless hand into this lottery, and draw. With faith in God's superintending providence and his unfailing word. Child of God! shield thy heart from cares that are the torture of others, and from temptations that are often their ruin? Between a man, torn with anxieties, tossed with fears, fretting with cares, and the good man, who calmly trusts in the Lord, Oh! there is as great a difference as between a brawling, roaring, mountain brook, that with mad haste leaps from crag to crag, and is ground into boiling foam, and the placid river, which, with beauty on its banks and heaven in its bosom, spreads blessings wherever it flows, and pursues the noiseless tenor of its way back to the great ocean, from which its waters came. "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes." "They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed."

Through his confidence in the truth of my text, the believer is sustained amid the trials of life.

God casts his people into trial for the very same reason that the refiner commits his silver to the furnace. He tries them to purify them. He does not afflict willingly. Be assured that he has no more pleasure in their sufferings than a kind surgeon in his patient's groans, or a parent in his children's tears.

Trials are ill to bear. To be reduced from affluence to poverty—to become dependent on cold charity—to lie on a bed of languor—to pass nights of sleepless pain—to be exposed to evil tongues—to be hissed on the stage where we were once applauded—to sit amid the ruins of fortune—to lay loved ones in a lonesome grave—such things are not "joyous, but grievous." Winter, no doubt, is not the pleasant season that summer brings, with her songs and flowers, and long, bright, sunny days. Bitter medicines, no doubt, are not savory meat. Yet he who believes that all things shall work together for good, will be ready to thank God for physic as well as for food; and for the winter frost that kills the weeds, and breaks up the soil, as for the dewy nights and sunny days that ripen the fields of corn. May God give us such a faith! With nature weak and grace imperfect, when there is no lifting of the cloud, and trials are severe and long-protracted! ah! though it may be easy for an on-looker to preach patience, it is not easy for a sufferer to prac tice it. In such circumstances, how prone we are to take the case out of God's hands, and, getting discontented with his discipline, how ready we are to cry, "How long, O Lord, how long?" "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me;" or, take away this, and give me any one else to drink. Yet let me have a firm faith in God's truth and love, let me be confident that he will do what he has said, and perform all that he has promised, and I shall discover mercy's bow bent on fortune's blackest cloud, and, under most trying providences, shall enjoy in my heart, and exhibit to others in my temper, the blessed difference between a sufferer that mourns, and a spirit that murmurs.

Through his confidence in the truth of my text, the believer cheerfully hopes, and patiently waits for heaven.

Home! to be home is the wish of the seaman on stormy seas and lonely watch. Home is the wish of the soldier, and tender visions mingle with the troubled dreams of trench and tented field. Where the palm-tree waves its graceful plumes, and birds of jeweled luster flash and flicker among gorgeous flowers, the exile sits staring upon vacancy; a far away home lies on his heart; and borne on the wings of fancy over intervening seas and lands, he has swept away home, and hears the lark singing above his father's fields, and sees his fair-haired boy brother, with light foot and childhood's glee, chasing the butterfly by his native stream. And in his best hours, home, his own sinless home—a home with his Father above that starry sky—will be the wish of every Christian man. He looks around him—the world is full of suffering; he is distressed by its sorrows, and vexed with its sins. He looks within him—he finds much in his own corruptions to grieve for. In the language of a heart repelled, grieved, vexed, he often turns his eye upwards, saying, "I would not live here alway." No. Not for all the gold of the world's mines—not for all the pearls of her seas—not for all the pleasures of her flashing, frothy cup—not for all the crowns of her kingdoms—would I live here alway. Like a bird about to migrate to those sunny lands where no winter sheds her snows, or strips the grove, or binds the dancing streams, he will often in spirit be pruning his wing for the hour of his flight to glory.

The holier the child of God becomes, the more he pants after the perfect image and blissful presence of Jesus; and dark although the passage, and deep although the river may be, the more holy he is, the more ready will he be to say, "It is better to depart, and be with Jesus." "Tell me," said a saintly minister of the Church of England, whose star but lately set on this world, to rise and shine in better skies—"tell me," he said to his physician, "the true state of my case; conceal nothing;" adding, as his eye kindled, and his face beamed at the very thought, "if you have to tell me that my dissolution is near, you could not tell me better or happier news."

Paul said, "I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better: nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you." He judged it best for himself to go, but for others he judged it best to stay. And there are few nobler sights than to see that man, with his foot on the door-step of heaven, return to throw himself into the very thick of battle, and spend and be spent in his Master's work. The crown of martyrdom often within his reach, he drew back a hand that was eager to grasp it. He took as much care of life as the coward guilt that is afraid to die. He was not impatient of the hardships, wounds, and watchings of the warfare, so long as he could serve the cause of Jesus. It was sin, not suffering that he felt intolerable; and which wrung from him the bitter cry, "O, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?" His a Saviour's spirit, he chose rather that Christ should be glorified through his labors on earth, than that he himself should be glorified with Christ in heaven. And so long as he had a tongue to speak for Jesus, and an arm to hold high above the battle's tumult the banner of the faith, he was willing to work on—not impatient for death and his discharge. His was a higher and more heroic wish than to get to heaven. He wished to make a heaven of earth; and, persuaded that nothing could separate him from the love of God, or, finally, from heaven, believing that all which God had said of him he would do for him, and knowing that, though the vision tarried, it would come, he possessed his soul in patience and peace—waiting for the Lord. It is a cowardly thing for a soldier to seek his discharge, so long as his country's banner flies in the battle-field. The Christian should be a hero, not a coward, and with such faith as all may get, and many have enjoyed, God's people, while they look to heaven, will with patience wait for it. On his way home, the saint will prove himself a good Samaritan; ready to stop even on a heavenward journey, that he may raise the fallen, bind up the wounds of humanity, and do all the work that meets him upon the road. Nor shall this go unrewarded. "The sleep of a laboring man is sweet." And, Oh! heaven shall be sweetest to him who has wrought through the longest day, and toiled the hardest at his work. Now and then he will be lifting up a weary head to see now the hours wear by—if there be yet any sign of his Master coming. But upborne under the heat and burden of the day by the confidence that "he who shall come will come, and will not tarry," he works patiently, and he suffers patiently. The most importunate and urgent prayer he ventures on, that of one, who, trembling lest patience should fail and religion suffer dishonor, cried, when her pain deepened into agony, and the agony became excruciating—"Come, Oh come, Lord Jesus! come quickly."

II. Both nature and providence illustrate the truth of my text.

Nature assures us, that what God hath said, he will do.

It can never be wrong to do what Jesus did. That must be sound reasoning, in the use of which he sets us an example. I see him bring a flower to the pulpit, and choose a lily for his text. He bids the people listen to that sweet preacher—the little bird—that, seated on the bending spray, with providence for its song and sermon, neither sows nor reaps; without harvests, suffers no wants; and without a barn, feels no fears. Thus he taught his hearers to cast their cares on God, and thus have I the highest authority for summoning Nature here to bear witness to the character of God. We ask her then to say, whether her God, who is our God, is true to his word? whether he ever says, and fails to do? By the voices of the sun, the stars, the hills, the valleys, the streams, the cataracts, the rolling thunders, and the roaring sea, she returns a majestic answer—it is an echo of the text. Spring comes with infant nature waking in her arms; Summer comes bedecked with a robe of flowers; Autumn comes with her swarthy brow crowned with vines, and on her back the sheaves of corn; old Winter comes with his shivering limbs, and frozen locks, and hoary head; and these four witnesses—each laying one hand on the broad table of nature, and, lifting the other to heaven—swear by him that liveth for ever and ever, that all which God hath said, God shall do.

No man looks for sunrise in the west. No soldier stands beneath the falling shell, expecting to see it arrested in its descent, and hanging like a star in empty space. We build our houses in confidence that the edifice will gravitate to the center; nor ever doubt, when we set our mill-wheel in the running stream, that as sure as man is on his way to the grave, the waters shall ever take their way to the sea. We consult the Nautical Almanac, and, finding that it shall be high water to-morrow at such an hour, we make our arrangements for being on board then, certain that we shall find our ship afloat, and the seamen shaking out their sails to go away on the bosom of the floating tide. If fire burned the one day, and water the next; if wood became at one time as heavy as iron, and iron at another as buoyant as wood; if here the rivers hasted to the embraces of the sea, and there, as in fear, retreated from them, what a scene of confusion this world would become! In truth, it whole business rests on faith—on our belief, that God will carry into unfailing effect every law which his finger has written in the books of nature and of providence. This is the pillow on which a sleeping world rests its weary head; this is the pivot on which its business turns. Now let us remember, that there are not two Gods; a consistent Divinity who presides over nature, and a capricious Divinity who presides in the kingdom of grace. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord." In regard, therefore, to all the precious promises and solemn warnings of the Bible, Nature lifts up her voice, and cries—"O Earth, Earth, Earth, hear the word of the Lord."

Providence assures us that what God hath said, he will do.

Some time ago the heavens were pouring down torrents of rain, the streams had risen into rivers, the rivers were swollen into seas, and, our fields changed into lakes, boats were plying were ploughs were wont to go. It looked like the beginning of a second deluge; and to some who had fled from their beds for safety to cottage roofs, the howling of the wind, the incessant pouring of the rain, the waters steadily rising on the walls, may have recalled the memory of that day when the ark began to float, and men hung round it knocking on a door which God had shut in judgment against a wicked world. Yet, I will venture to say, that the dread of a second deluge aggravated no man's sufferings, nor changed a sinner's curses into a penitent's prayers. Why not? Ah! men say the sea has never left her bounds. Apart altogether from the records of revelation, geology tells us that she has, and that round the rock where the eagle now has her nest, monsters of the deep have swam, and that the highest peaks of earth's highest mountains were once the islands of an ancient sea. Yes! but then, it is said, there is the bow in the cloud, and the promise in the Bible, "Neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither 17* shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. This is the token of my covenant that I will make between me and you, and every living creature that is with you for perpetual generations. I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth." That indeed is a security against a second flood. Now, shall God keep his word to this doomed, sinful, polluted world—shall he keep the covenant of the bow, and not keep the covenant of the cross? The providences of four thousand years assure us that he who is true to his covenant with Noah, shall not be less true to the blood-sealed covenant made with his beloved Son.

The voice of every storm that, like an angry child, weeps and cries itself asleep—the voice of every shower that has been followed by sunshine—the hoarse voice of ocean breaking in impotent rage against its ancient bounds—the voice of the seasons as they have marched to the music of the spheres in unbroken succession over the earth—the scream of the satyr in Babylon's empty halls—the song of the fisherman, who spreads his net on the rocks, and shoots it through the waters where Tyre once sat in the pride of an ocean queen—the fierce shout of the Bedouin as he careers in freedom over his desert sands—the wail and weeping of the wandering Jew over the ruins of Zion—in all these I hear the echo of this voice of God, "I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it." These words are written on every Hebrew forehead. The Jew bartering his beads with naked savages—bearding the Turk in the capital of Mohammedan power—braving in his furs the rigor of Russian winters—over-reaching in China the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire—in Golconda buying diamonds—in our metropolis of the commercial world standing highest among her merchant princes—the Hebrew every where, and yet every where without a country; with a religion, but without a temple; with wealth, but without honor; with ancient pedigree, but without ancestral possessions; with no land to fight for, nor altars to defend, nor patrimonial fields to cultivate; with children, and yet no child sitting under the trees that his grandsire planted; but all floating about over the world like scattered fragments of a wreck upon the bosom of the ocean—he is a living evidence, that, what the Lord hath spoken, the Lord will do.

True to his threatenings, Almighty God will be true to all his promises; and to both we can apply the words of Balaam—"Rise up, Balak, and hear; hearken unto me, thou son of Zippor: God is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent. Hath he said, and shall he not do it? hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?"

THE END.

BS1545 .G8 1891

Guthrie, Thomas, 1803-1873.

The Gospel in Ezekiel illustrated in

BS Guthrie, Thomas, 1803-1873.

1545 The Gospel in Ezekiel, illustrated in a

G8 series of discourses. New York, E. B.

1891 Treat & company [1891]

vi, 395p. 20cm.

1. Bible. O. T. Ezekiel--Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title.

CCSC/mr