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THE FALL OF SOLOMON.

FOR many years Solomon reigned over Israel.

The morning of his life was indeed a morning without clouds: the brightness of his course was indeed splendid and brilliant, exceeding all that had preceded him in the equity of his administration, and the excellency and consistency of his personal conduct. The meridian of his reign was no less memorable, for all that tended to promote admiration of the monarch, and to secure happiness among the people. But how dangerous is even prosperity of the most exalted kind, when men are left to themselves. How few indeed can be trusted. Who ought not to say, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me?" Towards the close of the life of Solomon, when there ought to have been the full maturity of an honourable old age consecrated to God, we find his heart was lifted up; and through the fascinating influence of sensuality and idolatry, he brought dishonour on his name, and distress on his country; and the thing which he did displeased the Lord. The mournful record is faithfully given to us in 1 Kings, xi. We are told of his licentious connexion with the women of the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Edomites, the Zidonians, and the Hittites; who tempted him to rival, in the establishment of his court, the luxury and splendour of Asiatic magnificence. By these evil associations idolatry was established. "It came to pass when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father." Many, and painful indeed, were the circumstances in this case which gave it peculiar aggravation. He had been in early life dedicated to God. He had had signal proofs of the divine favour. He had been singularly prospered in his reign. He had been the means of extending national happiness on a wide scale. How, then, can we account for an apostacy like this? Our knowledge of the sad principles of human nature, and of the power of human depravity, can alone account for it. He could not stand the trial of the admiration of the singular degree of glory and honour with which he was surrounded. We find, therefore, that riches and influence and the high admiration he possessed, brought him into the most dangerous circumstances, exposed him to evil communications-these corrupted good manners: and when a man is left to himself -when a man is forgetful of his dependance, it matters not what may be his !alents, or what may be his character. No standing in the Church, no usefulness in the world, no honour resulting from past achievements, can in itself furnish a single moment's security to any man from the power and assaults and fatal influence of temptation. Temptation presented to the young and inexperienced, we know is too often fatal, too often successful; but temptations to those who have been long established in the profession of religion, and surrounded by all that is calculated to preserve them, have often proved successful; to teach the established, as well as the commencing believer—the mature, as well as the infant, in the family-to teach all, the necessity of constant, habitual watchfulness, and humble dependance on the preserving grace of God. REV. J. FLETCHER, D.D.

THE PRESENT BLESSEDNESS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS OF

BELIEVERS.

REV. J. H. EVANS, A.M.

JOHN STREET CHAPEL, KING'S ROAD, AUGUST 31, 1834.

"For the Lord taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation. Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds."-PSALM, cxlix. 4, 5.

We know not what the occasion was which gave rise to this Psalm, neither is it to us of any moment. Whatever were the circumstances that led to its composition, nothing appears more manifest than that the Eternal Spirit raised the writer of it above the occasion, and filled his soul with the "joy that is unspeakable and full of glory."

It is a Psalm of praise: he calls it "a new song." "Praise ye the Lord. Sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise in the congregation of saints. Let Israel rejoice in him that made him: let the children of Zion be joyful in their King. Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp." Then he gives us the reason: "For the Lord taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation." And then, as if carried beyond the precincts of time, he addresses the saints in glory, calling upon them to be joyful; " Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds." Praise is comely for the upright: he that offereth praise glorifieth God: and never is the soul more under the influence of the Spirit of grace, than when under the influence of the Spirit of praise. May the Holy Spirit direct our minds to some of the great, and blessed, and delightful truths, which open themselves to us in these two verses.

Observe, in the first place, the present blessedness of God's people: "The Lord taketh pleasure in his people." Secondly, their future prospects: "He will beautify the meek with salvation" Thirdly, the exhortation: "Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds."

First, THE PRESENT BLESSEDNESS OF GOD'S SAINTS. These who are spoken of are God's people; they were chosen in him from eternity; they are redeemed by precious blood; they are called by special grace; they are made partakers of the Holy Ghost; and they are sanctified by that faith that is of divine operation. They have a high interest in God; for, blessed be his name, he giveth us courage to say, that such an interest have his people in him, that there is not one perfection of his nature in which he does not enable them, from time to time, to have communion with him. He has a deep interest in them, and in all that concerns them: his eye was fixed on them in eternity,

and all through the winding vale of time his eye watches over them for good: he brings them safe to glory at last, and there enables them to sing victory through the blood of the Lamb. They love him, though with but a poor and imperfect love, unworthy of themselves, and mingling itself continually with their own imperfections. But yet they love him sincerely; their hearts are towards him; he has drawn and overcome them by his grace; so that they are enabled to love him and to say, "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth whom I desire in comparison with thee." Still their love is like themselves-poor, imperfect, unworthy. But His love is like Himself-perfect, immutable, eternal. He loved them for nothing that he saw in them, but he loved them for his own Name's sake; and though he sees in them continual cause wherefore he should love them no more, yet, seeing them in his Son, he rests in his love, he rejoices over them with singing, and loves them to the end. These are the Lord's people; and he has never left himself without such; though the world knows them not, they are known to Him, and will be known to Him when time is no more.

The Lord taketh pleasure in them. He takes pleasure in their persons: he sees them as one with his own beloved Son. Oh to realize this truth through the stages of our eventful pilgrimage! Oh, to enter into its sweetness at this moment! Notwithstanding all that a pure and holy God, not only may see, but must see, in us, unworthy even of ourselves-much more of his infinite purity, yet there is not one moment of our existence, if we are his people, in which the Lord sees us not in his Beloved, viewing us as one with Him, and as accepted in Him "The Lord taketh pleasure in his people:" not merely, as some will tell us, in their graces, but in their persons; they are personally dear to him, and ever will be so.

The Lord taketh pleasure in their graces. All the workings of his own blessed Spirit in them-their repentance, poor as it is—their prayers, imperfect as they are every thought, every struggle with sin, every contest with the enemy, every real desire after heavenly progress-in the exhibition of each and of all these graces, God taketh pleasure in his people. You that are light in your own eyes, you that are poor in spirit, you that have been taught to think meanly of yourselves, (or, rather, let me say, to think justly of yourselves,) though you are ready to say, "The Lord hath forgotten me, and my God hath forsaken me," yet look up, ye heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, when you are told that there is not one going forth of desire after God, but the Lord taketh pleasure in it for his own Name's sake. Your attempts to glorify him, your desires to walk in his ways, your cup of cold water, your widow's mite, your inward struggles and your inward pangs-though the world knows them not, and though even the saints of God cannot discern them-it is your mercy to know (and let it be your mercy to-night, if it be the Lord's blessed will) that "the Lord taketh pleasure in his people.", If you did but realize this truth in your hearts, that subtle delusion of Satan should he silenced in your spirit— "Do not these things lead from God?" You should find that they lead to him: they draw the heart to him; they humble the heart in abasement before him, and raise it up in holy affection. Often are you thought meanly of by the world; often are you ready to confess yourselves less than the least of all saints, if a saint at all, and the chief of sinners. But though this be the work of the

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Spirit bringing you downward, yet, be assured of this, "The Lord taketh -pleasure in his people."

Secondly, regard THEIR FUTURE PROSPECTS. "He will beautify the meek with salvation.”

We have in the text a beautiful unfolding of that observation frequently made, that we see the characters of God's saints inclosed within their privileges: so that we cannot see the promise but we see the channel through which the Holy Ghost brings the enjoyment of that promise; we cannot see the mercy but we see the adaptation of the character in order to the enjoyment of that mercy. Who are they whom the Lord beautifies witli salvation? The meek. And who are they? Those whom the Lord teaches to feel their own nothingness; those whom the Lord has disciplined in his own school and made poor in spirit. The world days its stress on outward appearances (and too much of that passes current in the Church), but if you turn to the Sacred Volume and ask, "What is that great grace on which the Holy Spirit Lys especial emphasis?" it is the grace of humility. With whom does the Lord begin in the fifth chapter of Matthew?" Blessed are the poor in spirit." To whom does the Lord look? To him “who is of a broken and contrite heart." "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble." And who is it makes them humble? God himself. Their hearts were as proud as pride itself. There is not a fancied excellency that we have or had which we made not our vantage ground, and sought to purchase heaven from the hand of God himself. However contemptible the acquirement (and there is not a saint of God who is not made to know this) there is not the least advance or advantage either in nature or in grace, with which Satan will not, from time to time, as he can prevail, cause our hearts to be puffed up; so that even the confession of our sins has a pride in it, and we cannot acknowledge the pride, but there is a pride in the confession of it. Who can make such poor, proud, wretched creatures meek in spirit, but God himself? Hence all the operations of the Spirit within a man: hence it is he brings, from time to time, a sentence of condemnation into his own soul: hence the more the believer knows of himself, the more does he feel his own nothingness: hence at the close of the day he sees spot, and defilement, and defect, and short coming in all that he does, and speaks, and designs, and thinks; hence, in his solemn approaches to God he has to confess, "The good I would do, that I do not; but the evil I would not, that I do:" hence, when he turns over the page of conscience, and thinks of God's tenderness, mercy, compassion, and love; God's goodness inevitably brings him to repentance; and the more that goodness is revealed to him, the lower ground he takes; and the more subdued he is in spirit, the nearer does he approach the likeness of Him who was "meek and lowly in heart."

How often, in tender mercy, God has told us, in answer to our prayers, "I love you too well to give you the desire of your hearts." We have been pressed, we have been oppressed, and often depressed; we have imagined both wind and tide running counter to our wishes; we have supplicated the Lord to take away the pressure; we have been earnest with him to remove that difficulty out of our way; but we have been taught that our Father loves us too well to take it away, and that it is, through the operation of the blessed Spirit, the

medium of discipline, by which our Father brings us down in the dust, that we may declare ourselves to be nothing, and Christ every thing. Who are they with whom we have most communion? Not those who are high talkers, but the meek we may have more communion with some of God's people in a minute than with others in a year. Those whom the Spirit clothes with their own nothingness, bringing them down to the dust, and keeping them therethese are the ornaments of the Church, and of their profession; these are they with whom we have the sweetest communion, and the most blessed walking together towards our eternal home.

The meek are those whom God has rendered poor in spirit; they are those whom God has emptied; they are those whom he disciplines continually to come as poor as ever to the foot of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. How many a dear child of God is brought to learn this lesson: "The longer I live, the more I seem to want the blood and righteousness of the Son of God; for if there were but one thing required-if there were demanded of me but one holy thought, pure and spotless, and that was the hinge on which my salvation were to turn, I must be excluded from all blessedness and all hope." How many a lesson have you learned in the withering of your gourd, in the breaking of your cisterns! How often has God the Spirit been teaching you painful, but wholesome truths, in the valley of humiliation! How often, by reason of the creature's unkindness and your own emptiness, have you been taught to feel that you are nothing, and that Christ is every thing to you.

"He will beautify the meek with salvation." He prepares for them better things than they have in this world. Called by grace and believers in Jesus, though poor in themselves, the people of God are beautified even here. I thought, as we sung that hymn, describing the comeliness which the Lord puts on us, the perfect robe of righteousness, that covereth us from head to foot, that pure unsullied robe, every thread of which has the glory of Deity in it-I thought, as I seemed to join with you in our poor song, there was an infinity of beauty in that comeliness which the Lord puts on us even in this vale of tears. Keep fast hold of it; and pray that it may be wrapt about you by his blessed Spirit. For as the water in the brazen laver is one thing, and the application of it to our conscience is another thing-as pardon recorded in heaven is one thing, and the record on our conscience is another thing-so is the robe of righteousness; recorded in our judgmen's, we ourselves convinced that we must have an interest in it, is one thing; but to have it round about us, to enter into the glory of it-to remember that the angels of God, in all their glorious dress, are not so gorgeously arrayed as we are in the righteousness of God-this is another thing; and that other thing God alone can teach us.

The saints of God even in this world are beauteous. He says, "Let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely." And seen clothed, clothed in his righteousness, amidst all the changes of our changing selves, amidst all the defilements that still cling to us, yet this is our mercy, that, from the beginning of the year to the end of it, he that believeth is made the righteousness of God in him.

The people of God are beauteous by reason of the workmanship of God the Holy Ghost within them. The Psalmist says of the Church, she is "all glorious." And where is she glorious? She is "all glorious within." And the Apostle Paul,

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