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put one another to shame, to degrade one another; but God works for an expected end. He only humbles us in order to exalt us; He suffers us to hunger in order to “ prove us, and do us good at our latter end."

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The time is come when judgment must begin at the house of God. He will search each individual Christian, and make him consciously know the ground on which he can stand before God. "If it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? and if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" We can understand the meaning of the word scarcely," when our path is winnowed. It does not imply either uncertainty or imperfection in the salvation which is of God, but we learn that salvation must be of God, and our constant need of it. Finished and complete in itself, faith apprehends it as continually needed, as though our whole life was one of escapes, and "He that is our God is the God of salvation." "He hath delivered, He doth deliver, in whom we trust that He will yet deliver." Those who, in exercise of soul, find out what is in their own hearts, well know that all that is going on in the world around them is but the manifestation of the very evil, the principles of which God has been discovering, and they have been judging, in their own hearts.

There is a present restraint, under God's hand, on man's evil. Once for a moment God removed it: "This is your hour, and the power of darkness." Again He will remove it, and men will be given over to "strong delusion, to believe a lie: that they all may be damned who believe not the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness." The present moment is a solemn one—popery and semi-popery spreading on the one hand, rationalism and infidelity on the other. Of our own selves we must judge righteous judgment. "Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God." (vv. 19, 20.) If He is sifting His own people, He will judge all this proud Christianity, whether sacerdotal or sacramental efficacy, or despising lordship and government. But is the knowledge of being delivered from the wrath to come to settle us in self-complacency? By no means; but under the sheltering certainty that God has searched and known us (as expressed in the first verse of this psalm), we can turn this truth into a prayer, and say, in the words of the concluding verses, Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts and see if

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there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." (vv. 23, 24.) None but he who knows the shelter of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the mercyseat of God, and is conscious that God has already searched him, and known him, could put up such a prayer. God must be acknowledged as Omniscient. We need Him to help us in searching ourselves, because we are partial in self-judgment. The beam is in our own eye, the mote in our brother's eye, and nothing but the Spirit of God can enable us to get the beam out. It is He who searches the reins and hearts who has said, "Your sins and iniquities will I remember no more;" and it is because He remembers them no more, that we can ask Him to show us what debtors we are to His grace.

There was once a man of like passions with ourselves, one who had cursed, and sworn, and denied his Lord, but for whom that Lord had prayed, "Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." And after this

terrible sifting, when the Lord searched him, twice he answered readily to the challange, as oft repeated—“ Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee." But the question was repeated a third time: "And Peter was grieved because He said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto Him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee." The Lord, in order to get at the bottom of our hearts, may have to remove a great heap of rubbish, such as self-confidence, pride and vanity; but He knows what His own grace has done for us, and He will find His love at the bottom of our hearts. He had to remove a great deal from Peter, a mass of fleshly confidence and forward zeal; He may have to take away from us much of that in which we have gloried; but after all He will bring out, "Thou knowest that I love thee," personal affection for Himself. In the winnowing of our paths, much may have to be winnowed out that has been cherished more than Christ Himself, but there is at the bottom faith in Christ, and love to Christ. What a mixture of double-mindedness, of pride, of vanity, there is in the best thing we do. Our prayers, our praises, and our service are so poor and worthless, and yet we are proud of them. We seek praise from our fellow-men for the very things we have to confess, as tainted with sin, before God. What need therefore to bare our hearts, and say, "See if

there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting"? We, perhaps, are not able to detect some particular evil in our own souls, and others may not suspect it. There are instances in which we may thankfully say, "I know nothing by myself;" yet how needful to add, "yet am I not hereby justified; but He that judgeth me is the Lord." But when the Lord applies Himself to His priestly discerning judgment, as the One who searcheth the reins and trieth the heart, we may be led to one discovery after another of some crookedness of motive, sufficient of itself to disturb our peace, but used by the Lord to lead us into "the way everlasting." And is not this way Christ Himself, the only way, the true way, the living way, the way everlasting?

How prone are we to depart from this way, therefore is He pleased to search out our own ways, that He may lead us therein, to show us that Christ must be practically to us that which He declares Himself to be in His word-"The first and the last," our "Alpha and our Omega." Happy is it if we are under that process which, however humbling to ourselves and humiliating in the eyes of others, leads us still to justify God in using it, and to say, "Search me, O God."

All is well that leads us "in the way everlasting," that beats us out of our own ways and brings us there, that makes us in result value Christ for the way as well as at the outset, and the end-Christ learnt as our portion to live upon, as well as known for the pardon of our sins.

The Lord grant to all His people the blessed secret of selfjudgment. "If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged." But if we do not, and are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, "that we may not be condemned with the world."

When the flesh is not put down as nothing, the Holy Ghost acts in controversy, not in energy.

Faith, though it has a large stock to draw from in God, has no purse or scrip in man wherein to carry about the expenses of the journey. "Sufficient unto the day is the

evil thereof."

The Lord will neither hasten, nor delay, nor change His movements because of our thoughts; neither will He teach concerning His movements those who will argue and think out truth, instead of praying it out.

In the Bible, in the church, in the dispensations of the

whole of God's providence there are things to be joined, but God must join them; there are difficulties to be reconciled, but we cannot solve the problem.

See that the wound which sin hath made in thy soul be perfectly cured by the blood of Christ, not skinned over with duties, tears, enlargements, &c. Apply what thou wilt besides the blood of Christ, it will poison the sore.

If any one, instead of looking for the Holy Ghost's guidance, dabbles with his own mind in Scripture, he will see either something in the book which is not there, or the contents of the book out of their proper order and relative importance. It is safer to be humble with one talent, then proud with ten.

Depend upon it, if there is not the slaying of the lion and the bear in secret, there will be no killing of Goliath in public. (1 Sam. xvii. 36.)

A man is really what he is before God, and no more.

When Christ was praying, Peter was sleeping; when Christ was submitting, Peter was fighting; when Christ was suffering like a lamb, Peter was cursing and swearing. This is just the flesh—in energy when we ought to be still; sleeping when we ought to be working.

It is better to trust God in doing His will, than the consequences which doing His will may produce, however blessed. It is a very sad thing to say, but we like our own flesh, generally, a great deal better than we do the flesh in others.

Growth in grace manifests itself by a simplicity-that is, a greater naturalness of character. There will be more usefulness, and less noise; more tenderness of conscience, and less scrupulosity.

Self-will is so ardent and active, that it will break a world in pieces, to make a stool to sit upon.

He that never changed any of his opinions, never corrected any of his mistakes; and he who was never wise enough to find out any mistakes in himself, will not be charitable enough to excuse what he reckons mistakes in others.

ABIGAIL, THE WIFE OF NABAL THE CARMELITE. 1 SAM. XXV..

In order to have practical communion with the mind of God, through the Scriptures, whilst the conflict still remains between the flesh and the Spirit, it is needful that the soul be established in grace. Now Satan seeks to hide the simplicity of this grace; but it is simple grace towards those who were dead in trespasses and sins that has met us. As the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so was Jesus on the cross, and He is presented to us by God as the object of our faith. When we look to Him, God says, "Live." The next thing that Satan seeks to hide from us, is God's preserving grace; and this he does by bringing in many inventions of His own. God preserves us by something hidden in heaven. We may be looking at our experience, to outward observances, to an outward priesthood, and the like; but if it is not that which is hidden in heaven, connected with the precious blood of Jesus and His priesthood, to which we are looking, it must come from him who is the "father of lies." All those things which tend at all to promise the soul preservation, apart from this, lead astray.

There is, then, to all believers, sure and everlasting acceptance, because of the precious blood of Jesus which has been shed for them. "Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves; but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption." (Heb. ix. 11, 12.) This secures their blessing and peace for ever. Nothing can shake or alter the peace that subsists between the Father and the Son, nothing that crosses our path here, none of the circumstances of earth, can alter the peace of the sanctuary. It is established for ever between the Father and Jesus. So that whenever a believer seeks it, whatever the condition of soul in which he may turn towards God, the peace of the sanctuary is there unchanged. How precious the assurance of this! The soul that has learned any thing of God, and of His holiness, knows how every hour many a thing crosses the

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