Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

commemoration will continue even until his coming again; but it is also a service full of immediate blessings, a fountain unceasingly pouring forth living waters. It is one of those means appointed for conferring strength and support upon his faithful people; one of those channels through which the divine influences flow upon the soul. It was instituted as a means whereby we might receive these spiritual influences, and as a pledge to assure us that we shall receive them. Can we then, knowing our helplessness, conscious of our insufficiency, sensible of our danger, still neglect the means through which we may procure for ourselves help, and strength, and safety? It is his own institution, in remembrance of his own. most precious death, and there, at his table, we may surely expect that he will be present; that, if we turn to him in repentance and in faith, he will look down upon us in mercy, and make all his goodness pass before us. Let us daily and hourly, in humble contrition, confess unto him that we have sinned. Let us

pray for an increase of faith which shall enable us to look more constantly, more earnestly, more confidingly, to him, who has himself purchased remission and forgiveness for us. Thus supported by his word, upheld by his power, comforted by his ordinances, and proceeding from grace to grace, from virtue to virtue, from faith to faith, may we renew our strength; and, finally, through his mediation, rise to the life eternal, immortal, in that blessed kingdom, where the serpent can no longer wound, where sin can no more defile.

DISCOURSE IX.

CHARACTER OF BALAAM.

N

DISCOURSE IX.

CHARACTER OF BALAAM.

NUMBERS Xxiii. 7-10.

or how shall defied? For

And he took up his parable, and said, Balak, the king of Moab, hath brought me from Aram, out of the mountains of the east, saying, Come, curse me Jacob, and come, defy Israel. How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed? I defy, whom the Lord hath not from the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him: lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations. Who can count the dust of Jacob, and the number of the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!

ISRAEL had now wandered forty years in the deserts of Arabia, thereby accomplishing that period of punishment to which

« ForrigeFortsæt »