cient unto the day is the evil thereof." Let us but ask His guidance who maketh darkness light, and crooked things straight, and all is well. "He will guide us with His counsel, and after that receive us to glory".... The result of that "to-morrow" was even as it was foretold. The men of Israel fled before the Philistines. Three sons of Saul have already fallen. Saul still remains. Sore wounded by the archers, he requests in vain his armourbearer to fall on him. Determined not to become a prey to the rage of his enemies, he pierces himself with his own sword; his last act is to rush unbidden into the presence of his God. Thus perished Saul on that fatal field. "And it came to pass on the morrow when the Philistines came to strip the slain, that they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa." "So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the LORD, even against the word of the LORD,'which he kept not; and also for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to enquire of it, and enquired not of the LORD, therefore he slew him?""...

Brethren, mournful is the history we have been tracing. Those hopeful beginnings so soon darkened by sad declension, working 1 Samuel xxxi. 8. 2 1 Chron. x. 13, 14.

out a miserable end. Mournful as it is we may profit by it, by God's grace. The lesson which it teaches we believe to be this-Beware of estrangement from God. To this spirit indulged, we trace the headlong course of the unhappy Saul. The rebuke of the Lord met him in his first departure from his command, accompanied with the sentence that he is cast off from being king. From that time we see in Saul, one who read anger and wrath in all God's acts towards him. Instead of calling to mind past mercies, instead of dealing with the sentence of expulsion as the people of Nineveh with Jonah's message, and looking by faith to the character of JEHOVAH as to Him who is Love, the sore festered in Saul's heart; unbelief was the interpreter, and the carnal mind broke forth in enmity against God. This is the shoal on which so many are cast away; you sin against God; the conscience is smitten; you are afraid; you think the door is shut; that there is no return; you trust not in God as a reconciled Father in Christ Jesus, but brood over your state with fancy misery, which is at length succeeded by hopeless indifference, ending in despair. Oh, judge not thus harshly Him, who calls you to himself, arise and go to thy Father; no bolts are there

on His door when a suppliant knocks in Jesus' name. HIM THAT COMETH TO ME, I WILL IN

NO WISE CAST OUT," meets your need, and healing and a cure will follow. God may seem not to answer you, but His own word is your warrant that the blessing will come to the seeking soul. "Sore distressed" you may be, but He who is "The Comforter" will speak peace. War may arise against you, but He will turn the battle to the gate. You may urge in your complaint, " God hath departed from me," but it is only that you may "acknowledge your offence and seek His face." He will not fail you, or forsake the returning soul. You shall not be like the despairing soul fallen on Mount Gilboa, but forgiven, restored, you shall by faith triumph in your redeeming, your forgiving God. "And in that day thou shalt say, O LORD, I will praise Thee: though Thou wast angry with me, Thine anger is turned away, and Thou comfortedst me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; He also is become my salvation.”1

Isaiah xii.

XVIII.

MANASSEH.

2 CHRONICLES, chap. xxxiii. 12th and 13th verses.

"And when he was in affliction, he besought the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto Him; and He was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD He was God."

GOD contents not Himself, to have left on record in His word declarations and promises of grace as beacons of hope to the sinner. We have examples also of His acts of grace, written for our instruction; of grace too in no common measure," exceeding riches of grace," bestowed on " the chief of sinners." As there is no height of fancied security, whence God cannot bring the sinner down; so is there no depth of misery, from which God cannot raise the sinner up. Instances are set before us

amongst others, of presumptuous sinners, whose case, nevertheless, is proved not to have been beyond the reach of His mercy, Who" came to seek and to save that which was lost." Manasseh king of Israel, was such an one; whose heart, filled, as it once was, with all evil, the sovereign grace of a forgiving God pardoned and cleansed; whose life, abounding, as it once did, in iniquity, became, by the mighty workings of that same grace, a life of godliness and holy zeal. Cause, LORD, these exhibitions of Thy love to win us more fully to Thyself, and so to trust Thy mercy, that we may be, "no longer faithless but believing!" Abounding iniquity, and more abounding grace, are the special features presented to us in this history of Manasseh.

1. Abounding Iniquity, marked Manasseh's course. He was the son Hezekiah the servant of the Lord. We place this foremost as an aggravation of his sin, that in spite of a father's example, he cast off the fear of the LORD, and sinned with a high hand, against his God. That father, indeed, was early taken from him, for Manasseh was but twelve years old when he began to reign; still, the memory of Hezekiah's piety could not have been utterly forgotten. Too marked had been the interpo