man on the pavement by
his side that keeps him up. It is the other man's hand that holds you
up, but it is your hand that lays hold of him. It is God that saves, it
is God that guards, it is God that is able to keep us from falling, and
to give us an inheritance among all them that are sanctified. He will do
it if we turn to Him, and ask and expect Him to do it. If you will
comply with the conditions and not else, He will fulfil His promise and
accomplish His purpose. But my unbelief can thwart Omnipotence, and
hinder Christ's all-loving purpose, just as on earth we read that 'He
could there do no mighty works because of their unbelief.' I am sure
that there are people here who all their lives long have been thus
hampering Omnipotence and neutralising the love of Christ, and making
His sacrifice impotent and His wish to save them vain. Stretch out your
hands as this very Peter once did, crying, 'Lord, save, or I perish';
and He will answer, not by word only, but by act: 'According to thy
faith be it unto thee.' Salvation, here and hereafter, is God's work
alone. It cannot be exercised towards a man who has not faith. It will
certainly be exercised towards any man who has.

Help us, O Lord, we beseech Thee, to live the lives which we live in the
flesh by the faith of the Son of God. And may we know what it is to be
in him, strengthened within the might of His spirit.

SORROWFUL, YET ALWAYS REJOICING

'Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be,
ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.'--1 Peter i. 6.

You will remember the great saying of our Lord's in the Sermon on the
Mount, in which He makes the last of the beatitudes, that which He
pronounces upon His disciples, when men shall revile them and persecute
them, and speak all manner of evil falsely against them for His sake,
and bids them rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is their reward
in Heaven.

Now it seems to me that in the words of my text there is a distinct echo
of that saying of Christ's. For not only is the whole context the same,
but a somewhat unusual and very strong word which our Lord employs is
also employed here by Peter. 'Rejoice and be _exceeding glad_,' said
Christ. 'Ye _rejoice greatly_,' said the Apostle, and he is echoing his
Master's word. Then with regard to the context; Christ proposes to His
followers this exceeding gladness as evoked in their hearts by the very
thing that might seem