September 4

Consolation of Israel.—Luke 2:25.

IN this world of trouble and affliction, man stands in frequent need of consolation. His condition as a fallen guilty being, renders him the subject of conscious distress, anxiety, and fear. And the intense distresses of a guilty heart, can only be removed by a saving acquaintance with the Lord Jesus Christ. We must bear our oppressive yoke of vassalage, and be pressed beneath our burden of sin, until we come to Jesus, who invites us to take his yoke which is easy, and his burden which is light. With what eagerness thousands of contrite sinners have laid hold upon Jesus, in the day of spiritual awakening and alarm! When all has been tempestuous around them, when the dread sentence, like the sable cloud has hovered over them, and when fear has seized them, as an armed man, then to Christ have they repaired, and in him they have found abundant consolation. And who can tell how sweet, and how precious that consolation has been? Never did the thirsty traveller rejoice so much, when he had found the living stream in the desert, never did the manslayer enter more joyfully into the city of refuge, never did the condemned malefactor receive with greater happiness the pardon of his sovereign, at the last hour, than the guilty trembling sinner has received Jesus, as the consolation of his heart. Now is the blackness of Sinai, exchanged for the glory of Zion. Now night is exterminated, and a day of celestial light hath visited the mind. Now is the sterility of winter ended, spring, verdant spring has arrived, and the time of the singing of birds has come. Old things have passed away, and all things have become new. The mind has lost its wretchedness, and the spirit its bitterness, and the consolation of Israel dwells and reigns in the heart. How desirable it is, that poor miserable sinners should savingly enjoy the knowledge of the consolation of Israel!