WE set forth in a former Paper the grounds of encouragement which we may derive in entering upon another year, from the appeal of Jehovah to Abram-" When Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me and be thou perfect." None could then anticipate that, ere the New Year dawned upon us, events would occur, so startling and so solemn, as to proclaim with fresh power the oft-repeated warning, "Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." Desolation has entered our palaces, and bereavement has created in the heart of our beloved Sovereign a void which none but the Almighty can fill, and withdrawn a support which none but He can supply. We have lost one who had regulated with the most careful solicitude the Royal home and household; who had discharged with the most scrupulous exactitude and untiring affection the duties of the Consort of our Queen; and who, with marvellous discretion, had shared the burthens and guided the counsels of the Sovereign. This loss has come upon us most unexpectedly, and, according to human judgment, at a most unfavourable crisis; but is it not thus that God is ever dealing with us? He cuts short the lives which we deem most precious, and breaks the staffs upon which we are leaning with the utmost confidence; He often does this, too, at the moment which seems to us most inopportune; and the very voice which sounds forth from these dark clouds of the immediate presence of Jehovah is surely this, "I am the Almighty God." Nations as well as individuals must learn the lessons of Divine teaching, and be brought to rest in simple, child-like confidence upon the unerring wisdom, the unfailing power, and the inexhaustible love of God. "Some put their trust in

chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the Lord our God:" " Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God."

We recur, then, to the subject of the encouragement to be derived from the consideration of God as the Almighty God with quickened interest, and may be allowed, in addition to what has been already said, to urge the following practical points in connexion with it.

First. Let this attribute form the subject of deep and prolonged meditation. There are abundant materials for such meditation in the Word of God, and it will be found profitable, in our ordinary daily perusal of the Holy Scriptures, to have before our minds some specific point for illustration and investigation each time we read through the sacred volume. The habit of many is thus to read the Bible carefully through once in each year, or perhaps the Old Testament once and the New Testament twice in that period. This year, then, let the attributes of God be a prominent object to our minds, and we shall be surprised to see how every page of history, and prophecy, and sacred poem combines to set forth in the clearest and most glorious light the nature of that God who, although He dwelleth in the light which none can approach unto, is thus fully manifested to our view, and whom to know is life eternal.

The

The work to which God Himself appeals, as giving the strongest evidence of Almighty power, is that of creation. "Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power. everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth." The same evidence of omnipotence is dwelt upon when the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind. The connection between. omnipotence and creation being thus laid down, it is instructive to follow out in our meditations the remarkable way in which this is everywhere presented for the encouragement of God's people. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help; whose hope is in the Lord his God, which made heaven and earth, the sea and all that therein is." "Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth." Our meditations upon God's word will show us that there is scarcely a position in which we can be placed in which our trust in God may not be thus confirmed. The Psalmist sees here a proof of God's faithfulness, "Thy faithfulness is unto all generations. Thou hast established the earth, and it abideth ;" and of His care for His servants, "Praise him, ye heavens of heavens,

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and ye waters that be above the heavens... for he commanded, and they were created. . . . He also exalteth the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints; even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him.”* The prosperity of the church is assured by like language: "Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself. . . . That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure; even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid." So, also, the punishment and destruction of the church's enemies: "Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called: I am he; I am the first, I also am the last. Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens; when I call unto them, they stand up together... The Lord hath loved him, He will do his pleasure on Babylon, and His arm shall be on the Chaldeans." These are a few of the many instances which an observant perusal of the Scriptures will give us of the way in which God brings his attribute of Omnipotence, as evidenced in the creation, to bear upon all His dispensations with man. We can understand in some imperfect way how the Almighty One was glorified when He said, "Let there be light, and there was light;" when "He spake and it was done, he commanded and the world stood fast." Faith is the evidence of things not seen; and by the visible display of His power God would have us confirm our trust in that which is secret and unseen. But God is only to be known as He is traced out by careful search in His revelation of Himself; and it is to be feared that such careful search is neglected by a generation which is too fond of ease, or too absorbed by occupation, to give more than minutes in the place of hours to the prayerful study of the Bible. And yet both interest and duty demand this at our hands; the real happiness of the rational creature is identified with the glory of the Creator, the more nearly we can, by the Holy Spirit's teaching, come to know God as He is, the more securely and the more happily shall we commend ourselves to the controul and keeping of our Almighty God; and when God has been pleased to place in our hands the inestimable deposit of revealed truth, every principle of obedience and of gratitude is involved in our fitting improvement of that sacred trust.

Secondly. When the mind has been exercised and enlightened by meditation upon God's exhibition of His own power in His Word, then faith will follow up and improve its fresh perception of the Divine perfections, by pleading them in

Compare Isaiah xl. 26–31. + Compare Is. xlv. 11-13; Jer. xxxiii. 2—5. Compare Jer. li. 12-16; Zech. xii. 1-3.

prayer. We have seen how God's power operates in enlarging and strengthening our expectations of answers to our prayers: but in addition to this, the same consideration should act as a motive to prayer, and prompt us to more diligent and continual applications to the Almighty God. The subject, in fact, should be viewed in the light of duty, as well as of comfort. For we are not to look upon God and the wonders of His revelation, as we gaze upon some beautiful painting, simply in the spirit of admiration; but we are to improve every aspect of the Divine character by personal application, in the way of praise or prayer or active duty. Especially have the servants of God found it right to make the omnipotence of God the ground-work of their earnest pleadings at the throne of grace. Nehemiah seems to have caught the spirit of the Scriptures, to which reference has been made, when he commenced his fervent prayer with the words, "Thou, even thou art Lord alone; Thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens with all their host, the earth and all things that are therein, the seas and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all... Now therefore our God, the great, the mighty and the terrible God, who keepest covenant and mercy, let not all the trouble seem little before thee, that hath come upon us." Thus there should be found in our prayers that matter and those arguments, with which God Himself has supplied us. We may in our pleadings remind Him of what He has done, implore fresh manifestations of His almighty power, and even suggest the dishonour which might result to His great name and to His attribute of Omnipotence, if there be even the semblance of failure in the developement of His plans and the fulfilment of His counsels, with respect to His church and people. Such was the prayer of Moses, "Remember thy servants... lest the land, whence thou broughtest us out, say, Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land, which he promised them... hath he brought them out to slay them in the wilderness." The soul that thus realizes God as the Almighty God, will find it good thus to commune with Him upon the unfailing ground of His own attributes.

II. The appeal of God to Abram contains DIRECTION as well as encouragement; in other words, it places before us consistent walking as the necessary consequence of holy trusting. "Walk before me and be thou perfect," is the charge founded upon God's revelation of Himself as the Almighty God. Thus, under the Patriarchal and Levitical dispensations, as well as under the Christian, God called His people to the very highest degree of spiritual holiness. "I am the Lord your God; ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy."

This is not the place to enter into the abstract question of the possible attainment, in our earthly state, of absolute and

sinless perfection, as held by some portions of the Christian church; it would seem as though each man's knowledge of his own heart would determine sufficiently that point. We are met, however, in this appeal of God to Abram, by the injunction, "Be thou perfect ;" and to this charge from God's own mouth we must attach some clear and definite meaning. Now, there are several of the Old Testament saints, whom the record of holy Scripture sets forth as perfect; thus it is written, “Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God." "The Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man." The same testimony is borne to David. "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." Of Asa we read, "Asa's heart was perfect with the Lord all his days." And Hezekiah, in one of the most solemn moments of his life, turning his face to the wall and praying to the Lord, could appeal to the heart-searching One and say, "I beseech thee, O Lord, remember now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart." With these instances of those whom God's word describes as perfect, we at once reach the negative conclusion, that whatever the term comprehends, it is not used of sinless perfection. Noah offended God by grievous sin when he was upwards of six hundred years old, and during the whole of that period had had remarkable experience of God's grace and power, and for a hundred and twenty years had been the selected "preacher of righteousness" to the generation which was fast filling up the measure of its iniquity. David's sins are painful to refer to, and were also committed after long and intimate acquaintance with God, and after he had been "the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, by whom the Spirit of the Lord spake, and God's word was in his tongue." Job failed in selfrighteousness and hard thoughts of God. Asa, in ungovernable rage, cast into prison the seer that warned him of his inconsistency, and in the season of sickness trusted in his physicians and sought not to the Lord. Hezekiah, too, "in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to inquire of the wonder that was done in the land, was left of God to try him ;" and his heart was lifted up with pride, and the temporal judgments of God were denounced against his house and country. It is one of the excellencies of the Holy Scriptures, that in their severe truthfulness they record the failings as well as the graces of God's distinguished servants; were it not so, we should feel that we were reading the lives of ideal men, too far removed from our own state and