said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my Therefore I take infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then am I strong" (2 Cor. xii. 7— And if you would ask 10). It may be thus with you, dear reader. favours at the Lord's hand, you must allow the Lord to dispense those favours when, and where, and by what means He pleases. Listen again to the apostle's testimony. "Christ shall be magnified in my body," said he in writing to the Philippians, "whether it be by life or by death." As much as to say, "I am perfectly indifferent about it; it is of no moment with me; I am not careful in this matter." "For to me to live is Christ, and to die gain." * * WILLIAM HUNTINGTON Somewhere says, that the apostle "had not a wife and children dragging at his heels when he wrote thus." Very true; hence he would seem to have a confirmation of that mutual" carefulness" which the husband and wife have for each other, as spoken of in We are well the seventh chapter of his First Epistle to the Corinthians. aware that this falls as a rebuke upon the minds of those who know practically the truth of Dr. Watts' words : "The fondness of a creature's love, How strong it strikes the sense; "Our dearest joys, and nearest friends, How they divide our wavering hearts, Yet there are mercies which these experience, and blessings of which they are mutually and socially the eye-and-heart-witnesses, which those who have not their domestic ties see not. The Lord graciously "suits the back to the burden." "I wonder how you can manage them all," said one Christian brother to another, when speaking of his family of fifteen children, the whole of whom, with but one exception, took their station at the family board from day to day. "It is not my management," was the memorable reply. "It is the Lord's work; and I feel that He can manage the many quite as easily as the few." Persons with their heavy domestic requirements and responsibilities, commonly complain of their want of faith; those without those requirements and responsibilities have much more cause to complain of that want. The former approach the throne day by day with their large requirements and correspondingly large requests; the latter, on the contrary, having but few requirements, have also but few requests. The godly parent is, as it were, divided into as many parts as he has children; each child forms the counterpart of himself; and in each of those several counterparts he has, day by day, to contemplate at least the providential goodness and care of his Covenant God and Father. Hence, in his continuous application to the throne for the supply of all his and their innumerable wants, his language is, "Here am I, Father, and the children whom thou hast given me.' And how blessed the testimony of the Psalmist upon this very ground, "I have been young," said he, "and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread" (Ps. xxxvii. 25). The gracious injunction is, "Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it " (Ps. lxxxi. 10). The more we want, the more we ask; and the more we ask, the more we have. Such of Israel of old as gathered much of the manna had nothing over, and they who gathered little had no lack (Exod. xvi. 18). Jacob, upon his return to Canaan, said, "With my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands" (Gen. xxxii. 10). And so liberally were those two bands supplied, numerous as they were, that when he came to the close of his career, and looked back upon the way by which the Lord his God had led him, he could but exclaim, "The God which hath fed me all my life long unto this day; the Angel which redeemed me from all evil bless the lads" (Gen. xlviii. 15, 16). David was naught but a shepherd boy, and little accounted of in his father's house; yet he was raised to the throne of Israel: and whilst contemplating the mass of material--so rich, so costly-which he had been the highly-favoured instrument of collecting for the building, and furnishing, and ornamenting the temple, exclaimed, "But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee. For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding. O Lord our God, all this store that we have prepared to build thee an house for thine holy name cometh of thine hand, and is all thine own" (1 Chron. xxix. 14-16). "Is there any thing too hard for the Lord ?"-Reader, it may be that thou, as a parent, art contemplating the advance of years-thine own increasing infirmities-the decline of life-thy numerous family, with its many claims-the world in which thou art about to leave them—the fearful aspect of the times in which we live-and the tribulations as well as temptations to which thy dear flesh-and-blood ties will be exposed ? Well, is there anything in the present generation, or in the present crisis, to change that encouraging exhortation, "Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive, and let thy widows trust in me ?" (Jer. xlix. 11). "A Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of the widow [was] God in his holy habitation " (Ps. lxviii. 5). Is He, or will He be less so in time to come? Shall He establish and maintain that great name-that glorious character-well nigh to the final termination of all things; and will He at last forego his covenant, or forfeit his word? That be far from Him! Under what circumstances didst thou thyself enter more immediately upon thine earthly career? Did a loving father-an anxious mother→→ long and tenderly rear thee; or was it thy lot early to stand at a father's and a mother's grave? Who took charge of thee thence? Who provided ?-who protected ?-who preserved? Who gave thee favour here, and opened channels there? Perhaps then-at that most momentous crisis-thou wert a stranger to thy father's God; or, if otherwise, perhaps thy fears ran high in prospect of the stormy, lonely pathway of the wilderness? But has He left thee? Hath He in aught forsaken? Look back! Behold the chequered course! How zigzag, yet how wisely, well arranged! See the stream of mercy, grace, and goodness, as it followed thee so uninterruptedly! Trials, temptations!-sorrows, snares! Well, indeed mayest "thou remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart" (Deut. viii. 2); but hath “aught failed of any good which the Lord thy God spake concerning you?" (Josh. xxi. 45; xxiii. 14). And what the Lord hath done for thee, is He not able to do for thine? Supposing the times are critical, and that even a season of trial such as was never known awaited the rising race; "Is his hand shortened that it cannot save, or his ear heavy that it cannot hear?" (Isa. lix. 1). Should it be thy Lord's will and pleasure to take thee hence before that direful day shall dawn, is He less able to protect, provide for, and preserve thine offspring? Would thy poor puny arm afford a safeguard? Might it not enhance the danger? Who knows that their very sense of loneliness may arouse the cry, "My Father, be THOU the guide of my youth" (Jer. iii. 4). "Do Thou take charge of me! Do Thou vouchsafe thy gracious counsel, care, and comfort. Hide me as in the hollow of thy hand! Keep me as the apple of thine eye! Protect amid these dangers! Or if my body suffer, bleed, and die, let my ransomed spirit wing its way to Thee! Let me have a life in Christ which neither sin, nor Satan, nor the world, nor death, nor the grave, can touch!—a life hid with Christ in God, that when He who is my life shall appear, I may also appear with Him in glory" (Col. iii. 4). Beloved, these are great things-yea, unspeakable and glorious; but if the Lord has thus blessed thee, yea, more, if He hath put it into thy heart to ask for the same blessings for thy children, why shouldst thou doubt his power, or call in question his most gracious promise? That was a blessed assurance made to Abraham, "And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Gen. xxii. 18). "And he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness" (Gen. xv. 6). And if the same Lord who is rich unto all who call upon him, puts faith into thy heart, by which thou seemest able to venture upon his divine word and faithfulness, verily "there shall be a performance of those things which were told [thee] from the Lord" (Luke i. 45). If thou art able to lay hold upon the precious promises in Psalm xlv. 16, and Isaiah liv. 13, which, though they have a primary reference to the spiritual seed of a covenant Head, yet are such as thou canst embrace in reference to any or all of thy natural offspring-an embrace founded upon a deep spiritual wrestling, and as blessed an assurance from the Lord himself to thy heart and conscience, we say, verily it shall be well! Thou mayst never see it. It may be that thou wilt have to go out of life, resting simply upon the promise and the great Promiser, but inasmuch as our God is not confined to times or seasons, nor fettered by life or death, the promise, though now in its wintry season hid, shall be drawn forth by the genial showers of covenant mercy-the clear shining of the Sun of Righteousness and shall burst forth from the branch to bud, and blossom, and bear fruit, when, perhaps, thy head shall long have been laid low beneath the clods of the valley. "Is there any thing too hard for the Lord?" Furthermore, who can estimate the satisfaction, the gratitude, the joy of those parents who, after spiritual soul-travail for their children, at length are permitted to see this and that one raised from the grave of nature to a resurrection-life in Christ? Such a privilege were worth a : thousand years of travail to enjoy. A much-tried, but blessedly-taught, woman said to us one day, "The Lord has promised He will take two of a family and one of a city, and bring them to Zion, but he seems to have taken all mine." The same dear woman at another time remarked, "If He should but be pleased to make one of my dear children a witness for Himself." Her desire was granted, although not till many years after she had gone to her rest! What encouragement for faith and prayer! The Psalmist says, "Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them" (Ps. cxxvii. 3-5). This may, primarily, apply to Zion, or the spiritual Jerusalem (Gal. iv. 26), and to Christ as the everlasting Father of his elect offspring (Isa. ix. 6); it does, however, subordinately, apply to the blessings of a family. And again we say, that there is nothing more blessed to contemplate than godly parents bringing their dear children from time to time before the Lord, and presenting them, though it may be with a trembling hand and a tried heart, with all their multitudinous wants; asking-yea, imploring-a blessing upon them; temporal favours and spiritual favours; reminding him of his own dear testimony, and pleading it as the very ground why they should be heard and answered, "If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil [ah, reader, mark it well], know how to give good gifts unto your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" (Luke xi. 11-13). Beloved, do you feel it in your hearts to pray this prayer before the Lord? Does He seem to put power, and virtue, and efficacy into the promise? And do you feel that you can come with at least a little measure of faith thus to plead for spiritual blessings upon your dear children? All hail! " According to your faith be it unto you" (Matt. ix. 29). "Go in peace; and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him" (1 Sam. i. 17). It may be, however, that others of our readers are troubled on the ground that they have no spiritual travail for their children; and hence are disposed to think this an unfavourable omen, at least as far as their children are concerned. God the Holy Ghost is the enkindler of soultravail, and the author of every spiritual breathing. Well is it for us to be aware of this very destitution, that thus we may more clearly see the necessity for the self-same Spirit who first breathed upon our dry bones that they might live (Ezek. xxxvii. 9), now afresh to move upon us and upon ours, that thus a holy importunity may he awakened, and heavenly blessings vouchsafed. Jehovah, as a sovereign, varies in the dispensing of his favours. It is not improbable that the very absence of that importunity on account of which you mourn, may, in reality, constitute very much of that soul-travail of which you fain would be the subject. Soul-travail does not consist in set forms nor phrases, nor is it confined to times, seasons, or places. Travail varies spiritually as well as naturally. It may be lingering, and consequently of little service. The sharper the pains the sooner the deliverance. Whether the sufferings be protracted or otherwise, in either case the object is the same; and this it behoves us ever to keep in view. Our measure of suffering or sorrow is not the object, but deliverance! There is, moreover, the temporal, as well as the spiritual, bearing of our text, relative to the claims of a family. "Is there any thing too hard for the Lord?" may well be the inquiry of a parent as he gazes upon his children with their numberless and constantly-increasing wants. And it is unspeakably blessed, not only to witness the Lord's bounty, but to observe how He enables his dear children to plead for a display of that bounty. And in the latter sense it is remarkable how the Lord most encourages and emboldens faith, when that faith has but little if anything else, but the bare promise of the Lord to base its arguments upon. All things outwardly, and according to appearance, may be making directly against the interest and temporal well-being of its possessor; and yet faith, at this very juncture, is in sweetest exercise. Yea, perhaps never so little dreads privation as when privation seems inevitably to be its portion; never so little suspects supply as when that supply is exhausted. Although the fig-tree shall not blossom," said the prophet, " neither shall fruit be in the vine; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation" (Hab. iii. 17, 18). Now what is the condition, what the claims of faith, under these critical circumstances? Το take the Lord at his word-yea, to plead that word before him-to present his own promissory-note for payment; telling him, with all reverence, yet resolution, that it is due that day! Observe the reading of this said document; see whether it is your Father's language, and whether it has your Father's signature. "I say unto you, Take no thought [that is, no anxious thought-no overwhelming concern] for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air; for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek): for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Beloved, do you observe that precious clause, "YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER KNOWETH THAT YE HAVE NEED OF THESE THINGS?" Oh, the volumes that those words contain! Does He overlook-does He forget-does He become indifferent to the fact? Nay, nay. "Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows" (Luke xii. 6, 7). But observe, again, the promise-the pledge in the language before quoted, "all these things SHALL be added unto you." Be |