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LECTURE IX.

In all time of our tribulation; in all time of our wealth; in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment,

Good Lord, deliver us.

HAVING prayed for deliverance from particular evils, and humbly submitted the grounds of our hope of such deliverance, which hope rests upon the many proofs already manifested of our Redeemer's love, upon all that he has already done and suffered, and achieved for us upon earth, and is still perfecting in heaven,--we conclude the Second, or Deprecatory Part of the Litany, by a general supplication for deliverance at those periods when we seem more especially to need it, whether in the gloom of adversity, in the dazzling glare of prosperity, the hour of death, or the day of judg

ment.

In "time of tribulation" we seldom fail to pray for deliverance. When the world appears to be sinking from under them, when all human resources fail, and vain is the help of man,-the most ungodly have recourse to a power which they feel, at last, to be greater than their own. Pharaoh, amid

his torturing plagues; Belshazzar, amid his feverish anxieties; the rich man of the parable, tormented with the flame: these, and all such, though they may have been living without God in the world, so long as the world pleased and gratified them, and served their purpose, we find ready enough to fly to God for deliverance, when the spell is broken, when the vanity of all else is seen, and they are bowed down with vexation of spirit. But, if God is only thought of at such times as these, our applications evince an instinctive terror only of present evil; no fear of God, but fear for ourselves; they are assuredly no evidence of piety, nor can we expect God to heed them. We have his own authority for saying so:-" Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity: I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as a desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me*."

Far different are they who, like Abraham, and David, and Daniel, and all the other worthies of old, have as frequent recourse to God "in all time

* Prov. i. 24-28.

Did the Lord comfort

of their wealth" also. Abraham, in his "tribulation," returned from Moriah, but not yet recovered from the agony which he had felt, and which a parent only can conceive, upon being required to shed with his own hand the blood of his only and beloved son? It was because Abraham had faithfully served the Lord in the time of his prosperity, in his hours of earthly ease and happiness. The aged father's happiness in the possession of such a son did not intoxicate him, and make him forget God. The state of his mind, amid all the blessings which he had enjoyed, and when fixed upon the yet greater blessings promised to his seed after him, may be seen at once from the readiness with which, at God's command, he prepared to perform an act, which would blast his fondest anticipations, and bring down his gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. But the Lord had given: he was content that the Lord should take away, and still blessed the name of the Lord, -and hence his consolation. Did the Lord deliver David from the persecutions of Saul? It was because David had humbly trusted in God, amid all the fame of his victory over the Philistine. Did the Lord rescue Daniel from the den of lions? It was because Daniel had faithfully prayed, had zealously acquitted himself to God, amid all the idolatries and the luxuries and temptations of the palace.

And we, my friends, must do the same.

F

If we

would have God to hear and deliver us "in all time of our tribulation," we must apply for deliverance "in all time of our wealth," or prosperity, or ease; for this is the sense in which the word is here used, not in the mere sense of riches, so that it includes all classes of mankind, the poor as well as the rich.

Is it asked what deliverance we need, when all around us is comfort and enjoyment,-when all is calm and quiet, and there is not a breath of anxiety to ruffle the smoothness and composure of our minds? My friends, it is precisely at such a period as this that we most need deliverance. It is when we are attaching ourselves too closely to the world, that we need divine grace to tear us from its fascinations, and raise our minds to higher and holier objects. It is when we are bidding our souls take their ease, that our souls are most perilled, and deliverance is most needed. And as, without this careful preparation and discipline in the "time of our wealth," in the hour of our earthly happiness, we cannot expect deliverance in the "time of our tribulation," so neither can we, without such preparation, hope for deliverance in the "hour of death, and in the day of judgment." As well might the culprit who has wilfully and justly entailed on himself disgrace and banishment, think that he has only to ask, and he shall obtain pardon, when being hurried from his native shore; as the hardened sinner, who has despised all warn

ings, scoffed at all reproof, spurned at all advice, ridiculed all proffered means of grace, spent his whole life in mocking Him who "is not mocked," calculate on certain deliverance from the torment of hell, if he will but ask it, when death is hurrying him from the scene of his iniquities into the presence of his offended Maker. As well might that culprit have demanded acquittal from an earthly tribunal, as the hardened and irreclaimable sinner demand it, at the tribunal of Jesus Christ, when the Judge is seated upon his throne to "render unto every man according to his deeds * * * * tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil **** But glory, honour, and peace to every man that worketh good"

So that, when we pray for deliverance, whether in all time of our tribulation, in the hour of death, or in the day of judgment, we indirectly profess,or it is a mockery to pray at all,-our readiness and anxiety to devote ourselves, at all other periods of our existence, to God's honour and service, and so to qualify ourselves for the reception of that mercy which we ask.

Oh! may we all of us think in earnest, and while an accepted time, a day of salvation, is before us, of these things so essential to our everlasting peace then may we safely and profitably * Rom. ii. 6, 9, 10.