February 18

For he is sure that God is alone the source and giver of it, and therefore to him he goes: "Rejoice the soul of thy servant." It is very desirable to see the morning after a dark night, and the spring after a cold, barren winter. But what makes the morning and the spring? Not all the lamps or fires in the world, but the sun. And the Lord God is the sun, as well as the shield of his people. All our light and life and bloom are from him, and in him is our fruit found. He is the God, not only of all grace, but of all comfort.

It is he that comforts us in any of our common mercies, otherwise our sleep would not refresh us, nor our food nourish us, nor our friends cheer us. And what would the means of grace be, if he was not in them? God, says the apostle, comforted us by the coming of Titus -not Titus, but God by Titus. Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as God gave to every man? Luther says it is as easy to make a world, as to ease a troubled conscience. But

"The troubled conscience knows thy voice:

Thy cheering words awake our joys;

Thy words allay the stormy wind.

And calm the surges of the mind."

"Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you. For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established." Romans 1:10, 11.

At this time Paul had not seen Rome. But how natural was it in a man of his taste and intelligence to wish to see it. Nothing had made such a figure in history as this imperial city. From a kind of village, it extended in a course of years till it became the mistress of the nations, and the metropolis of the world. How powerfully must curiosity have been awakened, by its extent, its majesty, its edifices, its institutions, its laws and customs. Paul was also a citizen, and while some, with a great ransom, purchased this privilege, he was free-born. Yet his longing to see it was not to indulge the man and the Roman, but the Christian and the apostle. He longed to impart to the beloved and called of God there some "spiritual benefit."

But see the order of divine grace. Before he was useful to them, they imparted some spiritual benefit to him, and established his wavering confidence. For when he had landed at Puteoli, and advanced towards Rome, the brethren came to meet him as far as the Appii Forum and the Three Taverns, "whom when Paul saw, he thanked God, and took courage." Here we see that the most eminent servants of God may be depressed and desponding, and that it is possible for them to derive assistance and comfort from those who are much inferior to them in office, condition, abilities, and grace. There is no such thing as independence. Let none be proud; let none despair. The Christian church is a body, and the body is not one member, but many. "If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?" The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee, nor the head to the feet, I have no need of you.

But how was this prosperous journey according to the will of God, for which he made so many requests, accomplished? How little did he imagine the way in which he was to visit this famous city. He enters it indeed, but in the character of a prisoner, driven thither by persecution, and after being shipwrecked upon a certain island. So high are God's thoughts above our thoughts, and his ways above our ways. So little do we know what we pray for. So often by strange, and sometimes by terrible things in righteousness, does he answer us as the God of our salvation. So fulfils he the promise, "I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them."