November 7

"less than nothing and vanity." "Cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils; wherein is he to be accounted of? Trust in the Lord for ever; for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." "Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength." Creatures may die, but he liveth; and blessed be our Rock, and let the God of our salvation be exalted. "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you." The heavens and the earth may pass away; but his covenant is everlasting, ordered in all things, and sure. As he is eternal, O Christian, thy happiness, which is bound up in him, is secure. He is the strength of thy heart; he is thy portion for ever. Realize thy union with him in all thy exigencies, feebleness, and dangers. "THE ETERNAL GOD is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms."

NOVEMBER 7.—"We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdeped." 2 Corinthians 5:4.

By "this tabernacle" the Apostle means the body, which is the same to the soul as a dwelling to the inhabitant. Only it is observable that he does not call it a palace, a mansion, a house, but a tabernacle. Paul was familiar with the structure of such a kind of residence, for he was by craft a tent-maker. He knew that it had a roof, but no foundation; that it was a temporary accommodation, a moveable abode, easily taken down, easily injured, easily overturned, easily destroyed. Do what you will with your bodies, they are no better than tabernacles, earthly tabernacles. Nurse them, pamper them, dress them, adorn them, idolize them as you please, dust they are, and unto dust shall they return.

But see how he distinguishes the soul from the body, and places it above the body. He speaks of the body as if it did not belong to our persons, "We that are in this tabernacle"—as if we could live and act without it. And this is possible. The soul is the man. The soul is the inhabitant. It is in the body, but not of it. It is immaterial, immortal, and capable of endless improvement. We cannot save the dwelling, but we may save the inhabitant. And should not this be our supreme concern? Does not he who knows the value of the soul, from the price he paid for the redemption of it, ask, "What is a man profited if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Yet there are persons who live as if they deemed the soul unworthy of a moment's thought; yea, and they often die so too. They send for the physician, they employ the lawyer, they dispose of their substance, they arrange their funerals, and tell their friends where and how they choose to be buried: but not a word escapes them concerning the nobler and never-dying part—and none of the cruel and infamous wretches in the room will dare to break the delusion, and

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ask, What, have you no soul? Is this disposed of? Is this provided for? Where will this be found in the day of the Lord Jesus?

We have seen their residence, let us hear their complaint—"We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened." With what? The oppressions are numberless. There are the common evils of life. We need not read the Scriptures to know that earth is a vale of tears; and that man is born to trouble. Who is secure from failure in their schemes? from worldly losses? family bereavements? bodily accidents and diseases? But, common as they are, some might have supposed that the friends of the Almighty would be exempted from these calamities. Yet many are the afflictions of the righteous. They have frequently more of these sufferings than others. The husbandman does not prune the bramble, but the vine. The stones designed for the temple above require more cutting and polishing than those which are for the common wall. Correction is not for strangers, but children—"What son is he whom the father chasteneth not?" Neither is a Christian required to be senseless under these afflictions. They are not joyous, but grievous; and only yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness to those that are exercised thereby. He is no more to despise the chastening of the Lord than to faint when he is rebuked of him. In some respects he feels these troubles more than others: for he cannot have recourse to the diversions and stupefactions of the world under them; he sees in them all the dreadful evil of sin; he often fears they are proofs of God's anger towards him; and trembles lest they should not be sanctified.

There also the hatred and opposition of the world. What did the Maccabean Jews, and the first Christians, and our own forefathers, suffer? We do well to remember the former times, and compare them with our own. Yet what cannot be done legally may be done really; and many wives, children, servants, and dependants, are at this hour enduring persecution, even in this country. The strongest ties of affection towards a man will, upon conversion, relax and loosen, like the cords of life at the breaking up of the constitution; and what was warm friendship before, degenerates into mere civility, perhaps into open malignity. The carnal mind is enmity against God; the tongue can no man tame. They that go forth to the Redeemer without the camp must bear his reproach. The people of the world will never act justly and candidly towards real religion. They always affect to pity or despise it. It is weakness, or derangement, or enthusiasm, or mercenariness, or hypocrisy. "Speaking evil of you"—"Cruel mockings—"

There are also grievous temptations. What do some suffer from this quarter! Yet each Christian, as knowing only his own heart's bitterness, is ready to exclaim, "No one endures such temptations as I do—They not only attend me in the world, but follow me to the throne of God and the table of the Lord—They often lay waste my comfort, and I fear will prove my destruction at last"—"The enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath smitten my life down to the ground; he hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead." Yet is not the Christian life always spoken of as a warfare? And did not even Paul and his fellows say, "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers,