much to be done in the vessel. There was a sounding, a casting of anchors out from the stern, and a lightening the ship. (vv. 28, 29.) And he gives great encouragement and cheer of heart. (vv. 33-38.) But he will have nothing to be trusted but the promise. (v. 31.) If the boat be resorted to, confidence is at once placed in other resources, in provisions of safety independent of God, and then the promise will be rejected, and death must follow. The waters will swallow all who are not in the ark of the promise. But according to the same promise, the ship goes to pieces. It is worth nothing, never to be used again. But the lives are spared. Not a hair of the head of any perishes. Some swim, some float on planks, but all get their life, according to the promise that they who were in company with Rome's prisoner, but God's witness and treasurer, should be safe. "And so it came to pass, that they all escaped to land.”

And in all this, farther notices of the divine mystery show themselves. There is a voice in it all, which may be heard. We have already noticed the prisoner as the saviour the despised and bound one in the scene, being the only vessel of all the true glory and blessing that was there. How sensibly, how visibly, how audibly, all that meets the eye, and the ear, and the heart of him that is taught of God. It needs no interpreter. It is full of God's way, as I have already observed. But here we have even more than that. The vessel goes to pieces. The lives of all are preserved. But it was not the vessel, but the promise that preserved the travellers. They had been committed to the ship; but the ship breaks asunder, and the promise is their ark in the waters again. All stewardships fail, and prove unfaithful. The church, as the witness or candlestick, is broken and removed; but that which is of God Himself-His truth, His love, His promise—survives as fresh and perfect as ever; and none who trust in Him, and in Him alone, shall ever be confounded. The voyage may end in complete wreck. The dispensation

may end in apostacy; but all who hang on the promise, all who trust the word of man's Prisoner, God's Messenger, survive. Some swim, others float on planks. Some may be strong, and work their way more in the solitary strength of the Spirit, others weaker may hang about fragments that float around on the surface here and there, inviting the timid and the unskilled; but whether they swim or rest on the planks, all, strong and weak together, reach the shore; they cannot perish, for the God of the promise has them in His hand, and no wind or wave can dash them thence.

Is there not then, I ask, a parable or mystery in all this? This is not Paul's voyage only, but ours. It is the safety of wrecked mariners, the safety of all believers who trust in the promise, the God of the promise, the covenant sealed and made sure, the purchased, as well as promised, blessing and security of a poor ruined, helpless, and tossed soul, who has by faith found his way, and taken refuge in the sanctuary of peace, though all props and stays here fail him. Cisterns may be broken, but the fountain is as fresh and full as ever. Chorazin and Bethsaida may disappoint Jesus, but the Father does not. Hymenæus and Philetus may disappoint Paul, but God's foundations do not. "All men forsook me," says he on a great occasion, "but the Lord stood by me." And the Psalmist in triumph exclaims, "If the foundations be destroyed, what shall the righteous do? The Lord is in His holy temple!" Yes; the way to magnify our security, is to see it in the midst of perils and alarms. The very depth of the waters around honoured the strength and sufficiency of the ark to Noah; the ruthlessness of the sword in passing through Egypt, glorified the blood that was sheltering the first-born of Israel; and the solemn terrors of the coming day of the Lord will but enhance the safety and the joy of the ransomed, whether with Jesus in the heavens, or as the remnant in their "chambers" in the land.

7

THE WORK OF THE HOUSE OF GOD AND THE WORKMEN THEREIN.

EZRA iii.

THE books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, and Zechariah hang together. In Ezra, we get the temple built and worship restored; in Nehemiah, the restoration of the city; Haggai opens out the secret of the hindrances to the work; in Zechariah we have truth presented by which God strengthened the hearts of the remnant.

Truth meets persons in our days in external things; it is common to see Christians opening the Scriptures and being struck with the fact of how unlike the things there presented are to what they see around them. Man would set to work to put things in order. God's remedy is to meet practical departure in oneself, to begin with self. We have "the word of the Lord."* Are we bringing our consciences to it, not asking for increase of light, increase of power, but more honest, holy obedience to what we know, just doing that, in all our weakness, which God teaches us to be right? I read (Phil. ii. 13), "It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure;" if I am waiting for more power, before I work out that which it is His will I should do, I am denying that He is working in me to accomplish it by His power, to will and to do.

We are to walk, step by step, as God gives the light. Some will say, "Yes, when the door is opened, as it was for the Jews—when power is put forth, as it was for the Jews, then we will go forth, not seeing that, when the Jews walked

* There was a moral appeal to conscience in the Jew-"You know what Moses says, and you have departed from it." "How came you Jews out of the land?"

disobediently, God raised up enemies from without, standing by to sanction their captivity." The Jew could say, "We must be in bondage until the years of the captivity be ended." Not so the Christian. God has set him free from all captivity, in Christ. If he get into bondage, through the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, or the pride of life, the moment God gives him light to see where he is, that moment the word to him is, "Cease to do evil, learn to do well." The question at the Reformation (and so now) was, "Is the word of God to be obeyed or not? The Lord hath spoken, and shall not we obey?" It is for God to see in us obedience to His word, so far as we know it, and more knowledge will be given? “To him that hath shall more be given."

But here it is necessary for us to see that conduct may go beyond faith. If it does, it will break down. Right conduct on a wrong motive must fail. In Ezra iii. we have the Jews working for God, and that from the written word; for what Moses commanded, they observed (v. 2), and what David did, they set themselves to do. (v. 10.) But they failed. The adversaries of Judah came and stopped the work. (Chap. iv.) Looking at the outward form, we should have said, "Now here is obedience." But God's eye saw through it all. Self-complacency was there; the corrupt heart was there. Haggai furnishes the key. The heart was unpurged. These adversaries, what were they? The remnant had escaped, had got into the land, had begun to build; and why did they not go on? God was using the adversaries of Judah, as the occasion to show the cause of their failure. Circumstances bring out the cause of failure; but occasion and cause are constantly confounded. The cause of failure was not in the adversaries of Judah, but in the hearts of the people, which were set upon their own things, and not upon the things of God-upon their own ceiled houses, and not upon the house of the Lord. And so we find through the whole of the word of God, the

occasion one thing, the cause another. done to the Lord, is not done in faith.

That which is not

Have we a purpose? Jesus had a purpose to which He ever turned. Oh how little purpose of soul have we for God! The Jews had plenty of thoughts; but when difficulties sprang up, they had no purpose. God, therefore, had to teach them purpose, to teach them whether it was His energy or their own they were walking in, to teach them to trust in Himself. Action, in the time of difficulty, is what God expects from us, as knowing and acting in the strength we have in Him-to go forward in the purpose of God, as the channels for His energy to flow in, to show that there is strength and energy in Him, far beyond all the hindering circumstances which may come to try our purpose.

Divine energy will never lose its purpose for God. Human energy will say, "The time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built" (Haggai i. 2), and will be amusing itself with its vineyards, and fields, and houses; squandering the time, instead of carrying on with untiring energy the settled purpose of the soul, amidst all the difficulties and dangers which may threaten or oppose.

In Haggai I find God acting; and there I get a lesson for myself; for I have to do with God. I see the hypocrisy of man doing a right thing; but not doing it to God, doing it from a wrong motive. Whatever is not done in faith to God will fail. As soon as there is confession, when the people "did fear before the Lord," there is the gracious answer, "I am with you, saith the Lord."

Thus we have three great points brought out:

1st. Are we walking in what we know, up to the light we have?

2nd. The course of conduct the light brings into will not do for the flesh to walk in, but the energy of faith alone.

3rd. Whatever connection the circumstances of Providence may have with the things of God, they are not of