SERMON I.

GOD OUR REFUGE.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble; therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed.-PSALM XLVI. 1, 2.

WHAT God is to us, is the all-important question, in respect to the present life, and the eternal future; but it is what occupies the least of the attention of many. They are careful and anxious about many things, constantly asking how this thing and that will affect them, and they rejoice in the possession of treasures seeming to be "laid up for them for many years.' They make no inquiry as to what God

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purposes concerning them. They say not, "where is God my maker." Many are religious, and evince much zeal in religious exercises, and yet neither know, nor seek to know, what God is to them! They seek to know all the things of the world, but have never sought to know peace with God.

All will hereafter be brought to know what God is to them-what God is to them will become their everlasting experience. Those who, like Pharaoh, say, they know not the Lord, shall know him, and they shall know in what relation he stands to them. The flames of hell will shortly tell them what God is to them. Will you receive the testimony of none concerning him? Go on, then, like the old world and Sodom, but you shall yet, like them, know that there is a God, and you shall feel what he is. He HIMSELF will tell you "that he is," and that he is such an one as deserves your attention. He is here below the notice of the ungodly; "The wicked through pride will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.

His ways are always grievous: his judgements are far above out of his sight." He thinks God has sent his law, and his gospel into the world, without ever caring what reception would be given them! But God will show that he seeks, and deserves to be attended to, and honoured, in what he is, and in what he has done. What he is to us will constitute the heaven, or the hell, we shall inhabit on the other side of the grave. "I am tormented in this flame," is a language expressive of what God will be to the wicked: and what he will be to his saints will be expressed by the glory of heaven.

God is our refuge. None required the city of refuge of old but those whose lives. were in danger. All men are in danger, their lives are in jeopardy, and there is no refuge suitable for them but GOD in Christ. "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath must be the everlasting arms."

The refuge was a place of safety by appointment, and not by might, or force. The law appointing the place, and securing

the safety of all within, was under no dishonour where it left those without to destruction-the appointment itself implied the danger. Justice protects the life of the man whose refuge is God, and it withholds its protection from all besides. When the Lawgiver becomes the refuge of the transgressor, through the atonement, the law is not disgraced but honoured and glorified.

The city of refuge secured the safety of all alike who had fled to it-none were delivered up; its language to each was, "Here thou art safe." The weak and the strong, the faint, and the valiant, were in the same circumstances. The strength of the fortress stood between all and all danger. Neither the weakness of the weak, nor the fears of the timid, made any difference as to safety; but these affected the comforts and the joy only. So also it is with those in God, they are safe alike, however they otherwise differ-personal qualities and feelings affect only the comfort.

The refuge was open to all that fled to

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it-its gates were shut against none. also God in Christ reconciles the world unto himself. "Whosoever will let him come," is written over the gate of this city, "WHOSOEVER COMETH UNTO ME I WILL IN NO WISE CAST OUT." These gates have received the most unworthy and the worst-within them are Manasseh aud Saul. "Turn you to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope." There was formerly no necessity for forming a refuge, by the party requiring it; it was provided, it was ready for the occasion; and so it is now, in a spiritual sense there is no refuge to be provided or prepared-it is ready, and offers itself to the distressed: the place of safety has only to be sought by flight.

The city of refuge in Israel defended from only one of the evils to which the fugitives were subject: the city itself was subject to the attacks of the enemy, and required to be guarded and defended. But our refuge is above the reach of attacksthe "gates of hell" have no power to disturb it. "Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep."