November 26

My people have forgotten their resting-place." Jpn. 10:5.

God has provided every creature he has made with some convenient good, in the possession of which it reposes. Natural bodies have their proper places towards which they are carried, and declare, by resting in them, that they are where they ought to be. Sensitive beings are led towards sensitive, and animal beings towards animal indulgence, as agreeable to their nature; and these look no farther. But God himself is the resting-place of man; and it has justly been remarked, that herein lies man's excellency; that he alone, of all creatures in this lower world, was made capable of communion with his Maker, and designed for it; and being designed for it, and made capable of it, he is necessarily unsatisfied and restless without it. For though he has been turned away from God by sin, he retains the same natural relation to God as his end; so that he can enjoy no true repose till he meets with God again. He feels not only sentiments of misery, but of grandeur; and whatever may be employed to quiet and content him, will be found perfectly inadequate; and from every fruitless experiment to supply the immense cravings of a fallen, yet immortal mind, he will ever be asking, "Who will show us any good?"

There was a time when the "people of God" themselves attempted to live without him in the world. But they were dead while they lived. They were strangers to every thing like satisfaction, till they happily inquired, "Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night?" But since they sought and found him, they have been able to make their boast in the Lord: "The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him." "Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever." He, therefore, is "their resting-place" actually and by conviction, and choice and enjoyment. And what a resting-place is he! There is no repose like that which we possess in him. It is a peace that passeth all understanding. How then can it be described? Who can express the blessedness of viewing him as our own God in the covenant of his dear Son, ready to pardon, able to enlighten, to renew, to support, to defend; presiding over all our affairs, and making the most adverse events conduce to our welfare, and promising, on oath, that his grace shall be sufficient for us, and that he will supply all our need from his riches in glory, by Christ Jesus. All we can do is to invite others to come and learn—it is the only way to know—by experience. "O taste and see that the Lord is good! blessed is the man that trusteth in him." Incomparable as this resting-place is, it is equally secure and durable. Nothing can destroy it, nothing can injure it, nothing can invade it. We live in the midst of uncertainty and change; but the Lord changes not. There is therefore something sure, something lasting. It is that very one thing, O Christian, upon which thou hast laid all thy hope, and from which thou drawest all thy comfort. The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.

And yet they are charged with forgetting their resting-place. The charge cannot be taken without limitation. As fainting is not death, and as backsliding is not apostasy, so this forgetfulness is not constant and total. But it cannot be denied that it is occasional and partial. Our ingratitude shows it. This is at once the effect and the proof of our forgetfulness of God, and is therefore expressed by it: "Thou hast forgotten the God that formed thee." It sometimes appears with regard to the means of grace. In proportion as we feel our need of him, we shall value them, because it is in these that God is to be found and enjoyed. Hence it is said, "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you." But we may read the Scriptures less than we did, and be less alone, and less regardful of the Sabbath, and suffer excuses to keep us from the sanctuary that once would have had no influence over us. It shows itself in our looking to ourselves for what we want, when in the Lord we have righteousness and strength, and from him is our fruit found. We betray it in our creature dependence. Instead of committing our way unto the Lord, and waiting patiently for him, we weary ourselves for very vanity in running from creature to creature for help, and learn by our folly and suffering that our strength is to sit still. "In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength." And do we not forget him when we faint in the day of adversity? "Oh," says one, "if such a comfort was removed, mine eye would no more see good." "Oh," says another, "my loss is irreparable; my wound is incurable." We do not wish you to be insensible, or to undervalue your deprivations; but is it a lamp or the sun of which you have been deprived? David, in the desolations of Ziklag, did not forget his resting-place: "Then David encouraged himself in the Lord his God." Our regard to the world will also show our regard to God. We forget him just in proportion as the world strikes and allures us. In sight of him it can do nothing with us. But where is the spring, when we stoop to the puddle? Are not the consolations of God small with us when we repair to worldly attractions and delights?

But the charge is too obvious to require proof; and every Christian will readily confess,

"Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; Prone to leave the God I love."

Yet how humiliating is the fact; and how wonderful, too. "Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me days without number," "who am their beauty, their glory; all their salvation, and all their desire." How little would they themselves have supposed this possible when they first returned to him, from darkness to light, from bondage to liberty, from a wilderness to the garden of the Lord. "Thus saith the Lord, I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown." And still, after renewed manifestations, and under lively impressions, they are often ready to think they can never be the same dull and ungrateful creatures they have often been.

"When my forgetful soul renews The savor of thy grace, My heart presumes I cannot lose The relish all my days.