the labours of his Babylonian slavery, not only to that appointed deliverance and return to their native land which God had promised to his tribes, but to the still more glorious deliverance which the Almighty should accomplish for his nation and all other nations of the world in the coming and triumph of the Redeemer, so has the faithful Christian, whose ransom from sin is already paid, and who awaits but the second coming of the Lord for his full and perfect release, so has he abundant reason to count all things as nothing which he may in this world endure, in comparison with that glorious hope which the Gospel holds out to him of " a treasure in the heavens that faileth not1."

It was this second life, indeed, to which, though with a dimmer light and a hope less sure and certain, the ancient Jew looked forwards,—as well as ourselves, when, under the calamities of his nation, he fled to the promises of God for comfort. Without this hope the very promise which was held out of deliverance from captivity and of the glories of a future Messiah, would have little power in comparison to support the afflicted under the present burthens of his lot, or make the just rejoice on his death-bed.

I do not deny that the lover of his country might be glad to learn that her slavery was not to be perpetual; that the father of a family might feel considerable comfort on finding that, though he and his

1 Luke xii. 33.

sons were to live and die in bondage, the chains of his grand-children would be broken; that the lover of mankind would be happy in the prospect of a Saviour to be born in after-times from the nation of the Jews and the family of David, who should undeceive those millions who had, till then, been fettered with the errours of a false religion, and the ceremonies of a foul and bloody idolatry. But there is evidently something more personal, something closer to the heart, and more immediately interesting to the feelings in that hope which Isaiah holds out as arising from the consideration of Christ's coming, and which was to support the righteous under the severest weight of national misfortune. And what could this be but the expectation that, lay down their lives in God's cause when they might, they should not lay them down for ever; that whether their bones were laid to rest in the distant land of their captivity, or consumed to dust amid the ashes of their burning temple, those bones should be clothed anew with flesh, and that dust should wake into life at the call of the promised Messiah; that fall where they might, their spirits should rest in peace, and that they should see their Redeemer for themselves, and "stand in their lot at the end of the days'."

But, if such was their hope on the promise of God alone, a promise less declared, less explicit, less positive and clear by far than those assurances which

'Dan. xii. 13.

are made to us in the Gospel, how much more should we depend on those stronger and clearer revelations of a life after death which the Gospel contains, supported as they are by the greatest proof which God could give of His power and will to perform them, in giving up His Son Jesus to death, that the debt of our nature might be paid in His blood, and in raising Him up from the dead as a proof that His atonement was accepted?

There is only one observation more which I shall make on the present chapter, and that is the moral consequence which, in the words of my text, is drawn from all the considerations of God's power and promises wherewith the prophet comforted his countrymen. I mean the fitness of an unshaken faith in God, and a fearless discharge of our duty under whatsoever calamities and against whatsoever opposition. It is a glorious thing to have a courage independent of chance or change; a breast from which the arrows of danger fall blunted, and which neither the rage of the people nor the frown of the mighty can turn from the line of wisdom and of duty. But this is, on every ground both of reason and Scripture, most likely to be the portion of him whose heart is right with God, who is firmly persuaded that all things are governed by Divine Providence, and who extends an humble but reasonable hope that his own life, his own best interests, his only happiness in this world and in the world to come, are the objects of Divine protection. "I fear God," it was the noble saying of a foreign

writer, "and I have, therefore, no other fear." Such a courage indeed is often laid claim to in Scripture as the usual and distinguishing privilege of the truly religious. Of the wicked it is said in the book of Proverbs, that they "flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion"." "Are not two sparrows," saith our Lord, "sold for a farthing, and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. Fear ye not, therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows."

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Why are ye fearful, Oh ye of little faith?" were the words of the same Divine Person to His disciples in the tempest. "I, even I am He that comforteth you," said God through His prophet to the pious Israelites. "Who art thou that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass?"

Still, however, "fear," it will be said, "is a natural and unavoidable passion. The protection of Heaven, though it is doubtless promised to the righteous in such a degree and such a manner as that all things shall eventually work for their good, and that they may be delivered from many evils which must otherwise befall, or supported in many which must otherwise overwhelm them, yet are they no where promised an exemption from all miseries, from their fair proportion of the natural evils of mortality, from pain, from poverty, from oppres

Racine, Athalie, Acte i. scene 1. "Je crains Dieu, cher Abner, et n'ai point d'autre crainte."

* Prov. xxviii, 1.

3 St. Matt. x. 29. 31. viii. 26.

sion, or from death. There are some sufferings, in themselves sufficiently terrible, to which the righteous in their present state of mortal imperfection are exposed as well as other men; there are some, if Christ's words be true, to which, even more than other men, and out of their very righteousness, and for the sake of Christ and His Gos

And so

And so long as God

pel, the righteous are liable. gives power to the oppressor to kill, diseases to vex, and hunger and cold to torment us, the mere present suffering which will arise from such causes is, in itself, a sufficient ground for fear in the breast of every one whose body is sensible to pain and privation."

I allow the reasonableness of the objection; I am ready to admit that it is only comparatively and not absolutely that the religious man can hope to be free from fear of worldly evils, and that the degree of his fear must in a great measure depend not only on the strength or weakness of his religious principles, but on the state of his nerves, and the degree to which he has been already accustomed to danger and suffering. But, if he cannot hope to get rid entirely of his fear of worldly calamities, he may make that very fear an argument for a still greater fear of Him by whom all good or evil are, in this life, ordained, and on whom depend the far greater and everlasting good or evil of the life which is to follow. Are we by our nature or habits so sensible to the loss of worldly comforts, that the dread of approaching poverty is enough to