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LECTURE V.

NEHEMIAH'S ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF GOD'S HAND.

"And the King granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me."-NEH. ii. 8.

HARD by the altar of burnt-offering, stood the altar of incense, in the ancient Temple. As the one symbolized the atonement to be made by Christ, and the other the fragrant merits of that atonement: so did the former represent also the offering of prayer to God through Christ's mediation by His faithful people, and the latter the oblation of praise, presented through the same intercession as a sweet-smelling savour to the Lord. Prayer and praise are twin services. They should go hand in hand in the life of the pilgrim of faith. How beautifully are they linked together in the precepts of Scripture! This very evening you

have heard in one verse the injunction-" Pray without ceasing;" and in the next the kindred command—“ In every thing give thanks." So, when we are bidden to be "careful for nothing, but in every thing, by prayer and supplication, to let our requests be made known unto God"—it is added" with thanksgiving." Incense ought always to be mingled with the burnt-offering; the prayer that is not savoured with praise is lacking in sweetness. Yet such is the pride, the selfishness, and the unbelief of the human heart, that there is no duty-we ought rather to say, no privilege-more shamefully slighted than the duty -the privilege of praise. How many will sue to God in the storm, who straightway forget Him in the calm; how many will call upon Him in the day of their trouble, who fail to acknowledge Him in the day of their deliverance; how many will cry unto Him for succour in the hour of peril, who never own His hand, when rescued from their danger, in answer to their cries! If there be one token more than another that bespeaks the depth of our fall, it is the depth of our ingratitude. Ungodliness is the spiritual epidemic of our nature; unthankfulness is one of the most palpable evidences of that ungodliness. Men who will be grateful, most grateful, to the mother that bare and nursed them-men who will be grateful,

most grateful, to the father that fed and taught and trained them-men who will glow with gratitude towards the friend that stood by them in the hour of their distress ;-these very men will never think of the Father of their spirits-never think of Him who has loved them with infinitely more than a mother's tenderness, and be all coldness towards the friend who so loved them that He laid down His life for them. How loathsome is ingratitude towards man, even in the eyes of men! How would a person be reprobated, and almost execrated, as unworthy of the name of man, who should behave towards a mortal benefactor as too many of us behave towards the Father of mercies and God of all consolation!

Happy was it for the noble servant of God, whose lovely character unfolds more and more of its loveliness the more closely we examine it— happy was it for him, that he not only lifted up his heart in prayer when he was in distress, but that, after his prayer had been answered, he did not overlook the hand that had succoured himhappy was it for him, that he did not ascribe to himself the success of his measures, nor burn incense to his own vanity, and rob God of the glory due to His Name! We have traced out the spirit of devotion which pervaded his character; we have seen how he communed with God,

not only in the closet and the sanctuary; but how in the midst of multitudes, when encompassed with perils and insults and perplexities, he still held secret converse with the skies. Now, the same spirit of faith that led him thus to live in prayer, led him also to live in praise. The words to which our attention is directed, bring out his acknowledgment of God's interposition in a striking manner.

You will remember that his heart had been sad, because "the city, the place of his fathers' sepulchres," lay waste-that he had in his chamber poured out his heart to the Lord of all power and might, on behalf of Jerusalem; you will remember that when, in the discharge of his office, he presented the cup to the King; the King had questioned him concerning the sadness of his countenance, and had opened to him a door of appeal, by asking him, "for what dost thou make request?" You will remember how, perturbed as the devout Israelite was, he yet forgot not to wing a petition to the King of kings before he made his suit to his earthly monarch. And what was the consequence? Moved by the Spirit of God, it

pleased the King to send the devoted patriot to Jerusalem, and to give him "letters to the governors beyond the river, and a letter unto Asaph the keeper of the King's forest, that he might give him

timber to make beams for the gates of the palace which appertained to the house, and for the wall of the city." Thus he obtained all his desire: but he did not ascribe the happy issue to his own adroitness or address, to his influence with the King, or to the prudence with which he had conducted himself. No! he attributed all his success to Him on whom alone he had depended; he summed up his record of the whole transaction in this touching manner: " And the King granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me." He asked—the King granted; but all was of God. The same simple avouchment of the Divine hand shines forth on another occasion in this very chapter. When he came to Jerusalem, and found the people utterly disheartened, and strove to stir them up to gird themselves anew to the work, how did he encourage them? What was his most powerful incentive? In the eighteenth verse he says: "Then I told them of the hand of my God which was good upon me; and they said, Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for this good work." He might have boasted of his services to the King—of his place and authority in Babylon; he might have arrogated to himself the credit of his success. But he was of another spirit; he sought not his own glory, but the glory of his Master in heaven; therefore he told them