God in whom that friend trusted, still remains ; he asks not for Elijah, but for Elijah's God. It was much that he possessed the prophet's mantle, a double portion of his spirit; but more, infinitely more, that he knew, he felt, that he possessed that prophet's God.

Brethren, in the darkest hours of nature's trials, when those you love the dearest and the best are taken from you, let this be your consolation. In the still deeper darkness of spiritual bereavements, when your joy, and hope, and peace are all forsaking you, still seek your surest refuge here; if you have been enabled, by Divine grace, "This God is our God for ever and

to say,

ever;"* though frames and feelings

change, He

in whom you trust shall never alter. The waters of your sea may ebb and flow, and as long as you carry about with you a body of sin and death, they will do so, but your Rock cannot, for it is "the Lord God of Elijah, even He!" "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever."

* Psalm xlviii. 14.

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LECTURE II.

2 KINGS ii. 21.

"And he went forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast in the salt there, and said, Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters."

AT the close of the last lecture, we left Elisha at Jericho, whither he had gone after the translation of Elijah, and where there was a school of the prophets. While he tarried there, as the inspired historian informs us, the men of the city came unto him, and said, “Behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my Lord seeth; but the water is naught, and the ground barren. And he said, Bring me a new cruse, and put salt therein. And they brought it to him. And he went forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast in the salt there, and said, Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters; there shall not

be from thence any more dearth or barren land. So the waters were healed unto this day, ac

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cording to the saying of Elisha which he spake.' How remarkable, and how contradictory, yet, how prevailing and all-powerful, are the means by which God works, whether in nature or in grace. A little salt, a new cruse, and the bitter waters and the barren land are healed. So has it ever been, so is it now; with the Almighty there is no apparent proportion between the means and the end, the cause and the effect. It pleased Christ, by putting clay into the eyes of the blind man, to restore him to sight again. "It pleased God," says the Apostle, "by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe." Who will venture to assert, that the salt, or the cruse, or the clay, or the preaching, bears any proportion to the healed water, the restored eyesight, the saved soul? It is enough, that thus saith the Lord, "I have healed these waters;" it is enough, that God is the doer of it. He who alone can render any means effectual, is equally able to bring to pass * 2 Kings ii. 19.

his wonderful designs, either with means, or without means, or by the most contradictory of means, as seemeth him best. Remember this, brethren, in the most trying circumstances of your lives; neglect not the prayerful, and persevering use of every mean which the Almighty has placed within your power; but having done so, esteem it your highest privilege, and greatest comfort, to trust implicitly, and to rest calmly upon a God who is entirely above all means, and wholly independent of them, and who not only can, but constantly does, deliver his people, when all created means of safety, or escape, are utterly hopeless.

But, brethren, we have said, that this is as true in the kingdom of grace as of nature; and does not your own spiritual experience corroborate the assertion? Have you never lamented your great coldness towards God in prayer, your very inadequate feelings of love and gratitude to the Saviour of sinners, for all the unnumbered mercies of which he has made you the partakers, the general obduracy and hardness of your hearts? We cannot doubt it; for what child of God was

so;

ever entirely free from these roots of bitterness? And you have pleaded these deficiencies, anxiously and perseveringly, at a throne of grace, and you have faithfully expected that God would hear your prayers, and send you the promised remedies. He has done so, or is, perhaps, at this moment doing but the means he is using, are those which you neither anticipated, nor desired. You have asked him to teach you to love him more, and, strange reply! he has taken from you some dear relative or friend. You have pleaded that your heart is hard, and he has sent you some great worldly disappointment. You have earnestly besought him to make you feel the truths, which you already know, and he has cast you upon a bed of sickness, or brought upon you some domestic, or mental, or bodily trial; and you look at these things with wonder, perhaps almost with discontent; you see no analogy between your petition and God's replies. Take the incident before you as a key to this. God reserves to himself, the right of conferring his own undeserved blessings by his own means, and in his own manner.

You