July 7

"The Church is in danger." We know it is not in danger—It cannot be in danger while his word is true; "On this rock will I build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." And this is as true of every individual believer as of the whole Church collectively. Not one child from the family, not one sheep, not one lamb from the fold, ever has been or ever shall be lost. "They shall never perish." Though the righteous fall, they shall not be utterly cast down. They may be chastened of the Lord, but they cannot be condemned with the wicked—There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us."

Mark the cause of its security. Fire devours, and the bush was combustible. Why then was it not burnt? The "angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire, out of the midst of a bush;" or, as it is subsequently expressed, "The LORD saw that Moses turned aside to see, and God called unto him out of the midst of the bush." While this leaves no doubt as to the divinity of the Being who displayed himself, so it explains the mystery of the continuance of the bush, and of the perpetuation of the Church typified by it—"God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved; God shall help her, and that right early." "Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee." God's presence with his people is a delightful reflection; and it is founded in the most perfect certainty. He is with them always; with them in their lowest estate; with them in all their dangers and afflictions; with them to pity them, to assist them, to support them, to preserve them, to deliver them. "For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee." To change the metaphor of our text, but keep the meaning; when the storm arose in the lake of Galilee, the disciples were thrown into a needless alarm—"Carest thou not," said they, "that we perish?" Perish! How could they perish? Was not He on board? And if so, his safety ensured theirs. He could not sink, and therefore they could not. And see how they derived from his presence not only security, but immediate and full deliverance—"He arose and rebuked the wind; and there was a great calm."

We cannot conclude without adverting to the notice Moses takes of this event in the dying benediction which he pronounced on the tribes of Israel. When he came to Joseph he said, "Blessed of the Lord be his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath, and for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon, and for the precious things of the earth, and the fulness thereof, and FOR THE GOOD WILL OF HIM THAT DWELT IN THE BUSH." The scene, though it had passed forty years before, vividly rushed upon his imagination, and he derives from it the greatest good he could implore, whether for a nation or a man only. What pains we take, and what sacrifices we make, to gain "the good will" of a fellow-creature, which, if attained, can do nothing for us in our greatest exigences and interests. But the "good-will" of him that