But whether it be in sorrow, or whether it be in joy, he who would enlarge his faith must feed upon promises. To dwell on a promise,-to take that promise to God, -to pray over it,—to wait, and then to see an answer,—to do this again and again,— sometimes do it about temporal things, and sometimes about spiritual,—to go about all the day long picking up the returns of your own petitions everywhere, such promises become histories, and desires become facts. And that makes faith rock-like. If the centurion's faith was strong when he came to Jesus, how much stronger, think you, was it, when he went home, and found his servant quite well?

But, far more than anything else, the greatness of faith is the Christ we have in our hearts. Once to have found and felt Christ a Saviour, that gives faith its best impulse. The more you live with Christ, and the more you live on Christ, and the more you live to Christ, the more and the faster will your faith grow. And there is no limit. The last meltings into sight are faith; and the Christ you love becomes gradually the Christ you see.

But remember this, the measurement of everything to a Christian is the falling and the rising of his faith. In every step he takes on the journey of life, even to that moment when he goes down low into the last passages which lead to unknown worlds, God's word is still what it was that day at Capernaum,-"Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee."

II.

God's Immoveable Love.

"He will rest in His love."-ZEPHANIAH iii. 17.

IN

N this restless world, it is very pleasant to turn to anything so perfectly restful. It is a great thought that a sinner may rest in his love to God; but that God should rest in His love to the sinner, this is a thought as much higher than that "as heaven is higher than earth." And if ever a man do find a resting-place in that love he feels to God, let him be assured of this,-that he never would have rested in his love to God, if God had not first rested in His love to him.

We might, perhaps, conceive of a man, by an act of his reason, or under some strong impulse of his affections,being attracted by the loveliness of God,—or being compelled by His magnificence,—to love God for a little time, -but to continue up in that high and holy atmosphere, this is a thing impossible to nature; and I do not hesitate to say that no man ever did rest in his love to God. If any man does rest, it is not really that he rests, but that God rested; and if the history of that man were written by an angel, we should find that all his experience to his final glory, was only the fulfilment of this single prophecy which we are going to consider,—“He will rest in His love."

For, brethren, it is not ours to "rest." It is ours,—ever

since the great moral law was framed, which held us to the One Great Centre of our being,-it is ours to wander, and to be cast about in a capricious and wild uncertainty, just as we might imagine the planets would start from their orbits, and be flung about in lawless confusion, if the natural law were severed which binds them to roll round the sun. Nothing rests till it rests, or rather is rested, on a resting God.

So that we are going now to the ground of everything, -of all comfort and all hope, of all affection and all happiness, when we say that God "rests in His love." Shall we take it altogether out of man, and out of self, and lay it somewhere in the character, and the attributes, and the work, and the covenants, and the being of God? Now God has not left us without sufficient evidence on which to rest the blessed assurance. Let us trace it.

First, we see God in creation. There He began to unfold His love; and this first manifestation was a beautiful world, in which everything reflected back God to Himself. God was pleased;-"He saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good." And to show His satisfaction, "on the seventh day He rested." Now of all the manifold intentions of mercy to man which lay in the fact of the holy calm of that first appointed Sabbath, I account this to be the foremost,-it showed God resting in His love.

By-and-by, we find God's love pitching upon a certain man, and in him, on his descendants. Why that love pitched there, why it took its irresponsible course, and floating over the nations, settled upon Ur of the Chaldees,-it is not for us to lift the veil to see; but we are to see, we are to consider deeply, and we are to admire, this,-that where it

once pitched, there it rested for ever. Much there was afterwards, very much,-to make that love, if it were possible, unrest itself and go away;-for a more intensely ungrateful, or a more wilfully stupid, or a more determinately rebellious people than that seed of Abraham, never existed on the earth, or could exist. Its wretched history seems to be left on record for this very end, to enhance the marvel of God's immoveable love. Yet in the midst of all their unparalleled provocations, hear God saying, by the mouth of His prophet Isaiah, of this very people,-"I will take my rest, and I will consider in my dwelling-place like a clear heat upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest." Or observe that prayer which God taught them to make whenever they halted upon a journey,

"Arise, O Lord, into Thy rest, Thou, and the ark of Thy strength." Or, again in the hundred and thirty-second Psalm, listen to that remarkable expression, with the same significancy,-"This is my rest for ever."

Accordingly, the whole narrative of the Jews marks only a series of instances in which God returns again and again to them,-after punishments, after captivities, after expulsions, however long,-back and back to His own once chosen resting-place of love. His whole heart yearns over them,

'How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? Mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together." And though they are banished now into their weary exile, is that ancient love of God worn out? O no! The text is one among thousands which in their first and literal application belong to the Jews, foretelling the time when God shall return to brood over them again, in all His early tenderness.

"In

that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not: and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack. The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; He will save; He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love; He will joy over thee with singing."

Or if from that wide view of nations, you reduce your observations to individuals, listen to the experience of one who perhaps had more spiritual trials and more varied difficulties than any other man who ever lived. David had been greatly exercised in mind that he should lose the love of God,-"Is His mercy clean gone for ever? doth His promise fail for evermore? hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath He in anger shut up His tender mercies ?" And now hear him returning to his confidence,--“ And I said, This is my infirmity; but I will remember the years of the right-hand of the Most High."

He

Or read the history of Christ and His disciples. had chosen them,-wherefore I know not, but yet He had chosen them; they were an ignorant, unbelieving, treacherous people,-yet He loved them still. Do you ask why? St. John, who knew more of His mind than any other, gives us this explanation,-"Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end." So that we arrive at a simple faith, a truth which cannot go before it, or beyond it. Why do we go on to love God? Because God goes on to love us. And why does God go on to love us? Because He began to love us. And why did God begin to love us? Because He chose us. And

why did He choose to love us?

Because "He is love."

And where God loves once, He loves for ever. "He rests in His love." It might have been that God had said, "I will rest in my hate." We never read of God resting