not believe that I can save while asleep as well as when awake. And so it is with us. When the storm of affliction is well nigh overwhelming us, we say, Surely, our dear Lord and Master who loved us so much as to come among us, and die for us, has forgotten us. So David thought when he said, “Up, Lord, why sleepest thou, awake, and be not absent from us for ever; wherefore hidest thou thy face and forgettest our misery and trouble?" God does not sleep; and, so, David in another Psalm says, "Behold he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." God does not forget; and, so, speaking in Isaiah of those most thoughtful; he says, "Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee." Hence, it is our duty to place a firm trust in God, however heavily affliction presses on us, and be ready to say with David, "Our heart is not turned backward, nor our steps gone out of thy way, no, not when thou hast smitten us into the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death." For this, this only is the way of peace in sorrow; as Isaiah says, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee."

Instead of doing so, we find that the disciples had no faith, and, so, both failed in their trial, and brought themselves great fear and distress. But, though failing, their Master at this time listened to their cry of terror; for, "he arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Peace, be still; and the wind ceased,

and there was a great calm." And the same, no doubt, he will still do for imperfect disciples in their fear. But, probably, the Lord does not usually do so to those of his people who cry to him in terror and despair : for David says, "The Lord shall save the righteous, because they put their trust in him." Probably, also, he would not have done it afterwards to these disciples; for he afterwards says to them, "In your patience possess ye your souls." He did so on this occasion to instruct them and us, that we should never suppose that Jesus does not watch over us, or allow our want of faith in him to rouse our fears, anxieties, terrors, or despair.

Let us, then, always trust in him; for as Isaiah says, "In the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength;" and as Jeremiah says, "The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." So doing, we shall, at his word, experience a great calm, perhaps suddenly, when we are past hope. Often, perhaps, in life there will be a calm for so after Saul's bitter persecution against the Church, we read, that "the Churches had rest throughout all Judea, and Galilee, and Samaria, and were edified." But there will be at least one calm, a great calm, in the grave, where, as Job says, "the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest," and in Paradise where they who die in the Lord rest from their labours ;" and one greater still,

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in heaven, where we shall see God, before whose throne is that "sea of glass like unto crystal," the type of rest, crystalized into an eternal calm. Let us, then, purify ourselves that we may "see God;" and remembering how the senseless wind and sea obeyed him, let us his free people cheerfully obey his just and holy Law.

SERMON XXIII.

GOD'S WILL TO BE CHOSEN.

LUKE XI, 2.

Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.

GOD Almighty, is the Maker and Ruler of this whole earth; "For the earth is the Lord's, and all that therein is, the compass of the world, and they that dwell therein." Hence, his will is the natural and proper rule of all things done in it and by mankind; and so, nothing happens to us but is of God's ordering through his Son, nor should we do anything but according to his good pleasure.

But we are by nature fallen from God, and we have in us strong feelings and passions which lead us in the contrary direction to God; so that whatever happens or whatever is to be done, there is in us something which continually suggests and produces a feeling contrary to the will of God, and makes us have a difficulty to do or suffer what God wills us to do or suffer.

The great end, then, of our Christian warfare, and

of the practice of religion is to fight against our will and to conquer it, so that we may be able to wish for nothing but what God wills. For our will, like a crooked line, must be made straight to the rule of God's perfect will; and, like a wandering path, must be made to join and go along with the highway of the will of God; so that there may not seem to be two wills, but only one.

Many things will lead us on far in religion: as for example, when we know that God is to be feared, and, so learn to fear him; or knowing that God is to be feared, we learn that he has loved us, and, so, learn to love him, and obey him from love. But unless these things enter deeper into us, and we begin to do and suffer things because they are the will of God, we shall never be able to conquer in our greatest difficulties. For example, when our Lord came to the last and greatest of his earthly trials, and he saw before him the bitter cup of his passion, and the burden of the sins of all, the manner in which he overcame was by yielding his will; "O my father," he says "if it be possible let this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt ;" and one submission of his will was not all he made; but three times he said the same words, teaching us thereby to go over again such exercises, and thoroughly to break the neck of our stubborn wills, if we would conquer in the great difficulties of life. Moreover, that we might continually act on this principle, he placed it amongst the petitions