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MARCH 7.

R. WATSON.

Return unto thy rest, O my soul.-Psalm cxvi. 7.

GOD is the rest of the soul. He is so,

1. As the light of the intellect. That men are indifferent to religious truth is a fact which, degrading as it is, must be acknowledged. God in his mercy does not, however, always suffer the spirit to rest; and a feeling after that which it knows not, that which it enjoys not, is excited. Where then shall the soul find that rest from its darkness and perplexity which it seeks ? Its views of God, of itself, of the means of pardon, of spiritual things are obscure. Thus the soul is bewildered, till, with simplicity and docility, it returns to God in Christ. Then his character opens; then the helplessness of man is seen and felt; then the wondrous method of salvation by faith is discovered; then are seen the nature and beauty of holiness; then the methods of a holy walk with God are discerned; all is light. Good and evil then display their boundaries and distinctions. The paths of life and of death are set before the eye; this life is connected with another; and in that knowledge which the soul needs for its safety and comfort, it rests with a demonstration which dissipates all doubt. The morning has broken upon the steps of the traveler; and he has that rest of mind which results from his having found the path which leads to the end of his journey. “I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it."

2. God is the rest of the soul, as the refuge from the charges of our consciences. Conscience implies a knowledge of sin, with a sense of its evil, and a just apprehension of death as its consequence. In proportion as we come to the knowledge of the real fact of our condition, this "conscience of sins" must be more poignant. Perhaps none on earth know the extreme of the case. We must so know it, as that it may alarm, produce dread, and an effort to "flee from the wrath to come." But whither shall we flee? Shall we flee to God? But he is the offended party, the judge. It is his wrath we dread. True; and yet, such is the glorious mystery of the case, from that very dread he is the refuge. Through Christ he may be approached without dread. He enjoins faith, as the term of acceptance, instead of obedience; and the testimony of his reconciliation gives rest to the soul.

What shall disturb it?

"Who," says the apostle triumphantly, "shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?" So, when those charges occur again, we must plead guilty to them: but the same faith brings the same peace and rest.

3. God is the rest of the soul, as our chief good. Man's chief good was a subject of discussion and dispute for ages; philosophers not agreeing in what it consisted. All, however, acknowledged this, that in whatever it might consist, the soul could rest in nothing inferior. Here they were right. That chief good is revealed to us. "I am God all sufficient," said the Lord to Abraham. Meditate on this. He is sufficient for himself, and for all others. Like his emblem, the sun, he has a fullness of light in himself, and yet, with regard to the sun, were a thousand millions more creatures to crowd the earth, not one of them should want light and heat; and were a thousand more earths placed in the sweep of space, there are light and vitality sufficient for them all. The same remark applies to God. Here then the Spirit rests. That which prevents rest in the creature is, that there is a degree of desire in us beyond what the creature can gratify. You see and feel the proof of this everywhere. But can you extend your desires beyond what you see in God, or beyond what he can supply? He could make the creature to you far more excellent and satisfying than it is; for all good in the creature is already from him; and one effect of his blessing is, to make the creature more satisfying. If he give, for instance, a thankful heart; if he sanctify, and take the curse from your lawful enjoyments; if he give his grace to your children and friends, and array them with his image; he can thus make them more satisfying to you. In heaven he will make the creature more full and felicitous. What then is he, the Fountain? "Whom have we in heaven but him?" He is all purity, all power, all constancy, all condescension, all fullness. "The Lord is my light and my salvation," says the Psalmist. "The Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory : no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." It is under these views that the soul rests in him.

4. God is the rest of the soul, as our almighty protector. It is not possible for us seriously to look around at our dangers, without being convinced how much we need a guardianship higher

"When my

than our own caution and strength. Evil lies in ambush in every circumstance. Satan employs his artifices and malignity; the world its enticements and snares. Sometimes the malice of men assails us. "Let me not fall into the hand of man," says David. He feared THAT more than pestilence. There is sometimes a formidable array of perplexing circumstances, which no human hand can turn, any more than it could prevent the collection of clouds and storms, rising in some dark quarter of the heavens. Great is the disquiet of the soul if it has no hope in God. But God is the refuge of his saints; and, as such, the soul rests in him. "What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee." "But David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.” heart is overwhelmed," tossed, agitated, as by waves, "lead me to the Rock that is higher than I." From that Rock the soul sees the swelling of the storm, but is secure. So the prophet rested in God when the Syrian army was about him. His servant saw only the Syrians; he saw the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire. Hence the lofty language of the psalm, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof."

5. God is the rest of the soul, as our great and ultimate end. We have an object in all things. Some objects are unlawful; others lawful; but when lawful, there ought to be an end beyond and above the objects themselves; and that end is God. We may make success, credit with others, the attaining of some good, the avoidance of some trouble, our ends; and lawfully, if they be subordinate ones. But the soul will not find its rest in them. Nothing but doing, and suffering, and enjoying all to the glory of God, can make them subservient to our rest. "Walk before me," in the sight of me. Then we have the "testimony that we please God." Then the soul rests.

"Return, my soul, unto thy rest;
From God no longer roam;
His hand hath bountifully blest;
His goodness calls thee home."

MARCH 8.

The glorious liberty of the children of God.-Rom. viii. 21.

HOME.

THE liberty of which the apostle here speaks, is the liberty of saints, as such, perfected in glory. It is a liberty from the servitude of sin, from the seduction of a misguided judgment, and the allurement of any ensnaring forbidden object: consisting in an abounding amplitude and enlargedness of soul towards God, and indetermination to any inferior good: resulting from an entire subjection to the Divine will, a submission to the order of God, and steady adherence to him.

This is the glorious liberty of the children of God; the liberty wherewith the Son makes free. Liberty indeed, measured and regulated by the royal law of liberty, and which is perfected only in a perfect conformity thereto. There is a most servile liberty, a being free from righteousness, which under that specious name and show, enslaves a man to corruption: and there is as free a service, by which a man is still the more free, by how much the more he serves, and is subject to his superior's will, and governing influences; and by how much the less possible it is, he should swerve therefrom. The nearest approaches therefore of the soul to God; its most intimate union with him, and entire subjection to him in its glorified state, makes its liberty consummate.

Now is its deliverance complete, its bands are fallen off; it is perfectly disentangled from all the snares of death, in which it was formerly held; it is under no restraints, oppressed by no weights, held down by no clogs; it hath free exercise of all its powers; hath every faculty and affection at command. How inconceivable a pleasure is this! With what delight doth the poor prisoner entertain himself, when his manacles and fetters are knocked off! when he is enlarged from his loathsome dungeon, and the house of his bondage; breathes in a free air; can dispose of himself, and walk at liberty whither he will! The bird escaped from his cage, or freed from his line and stone that resisted its vain and too feeble strugglings before; how pleasantly doth it range! with what joy doth it clap its wings, and take its flight! A faint emblem of the joy wherewith that pleasant, cheerful note shall one day be sung and chanted forth. Our soul is escaped,

as a bird out of the snare of the fowler; the snare is broken and we are escaped. There is now no place for such a complaint, I would, but I can not; I would turn my thoughts to glorious objects, but I can not. The blessed soul feels itself free from all confinement: nothing resists its will, as its will doth never resist the will of God. It knows no limits, no restraints; it is not tied up to this or that particular good; but expatiates freely in the immense, universal, all-comprehending goodness of God himself.

And this liberty is the perfect image and likeness of the liberty and likeness of God, especially in its consummate state. In its progress towards it, it increases as the soul draws nearer to God; which nearer approach is not in respect of place or local nearness, but likeness and conformity to him; in respect whereof, as God is most sublime and excellent in himself, so is it in him. Its consummate liberty is, when it is so fully transformed into that likeness of God, as that he is all to it, as to himself: so that as he is an infinite satisfaction to himself; his likeness in this respect, is the very satisfaction itself of the blessed soul.

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And increasing in the knowledge of God.-Col. i. 10.

To fruitfulness in good works, as proper to those who walk worthy of God, and study to please him, increasing in the knowledge of God is added. As they are fruitful in good works as far as respects an active life, so they increase and advance in the knowledge of God as far as respects a contemplative life. The apostle alludes to that increase in our spiritual stature, concerning which he also speaks in Eph. iv. 13, where he shows that we must increase till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.—We observe,

1. Increase in knowledge is no less necessary to a Christian man, than fruitfulness in works; because we are bound to both by the divine command, and we are taught to seek both from God by apostolic example.

2. From the circumstance of the apostle joining these two, he wishes to intimate that fruitfulness in works cannot exist,

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