triumph like our Master in the breaking of his head. Till then depend upon it the enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman will continue, and there will be no truce to the war.

Do I hear another tried one saying, "Alas, it is not the devil; it is myself that I fear. I feel the flesh revolting and rebelling. Lusts that I thought were slain have a terrible resurrection. When I would do good, evil is present with me. Sin assails me with an awful power by reason of the weakness of my spirit and the strength of my flesh, and I cry, 'O wretched man that I am!" Hearken again. Did the Lord ever promise that you should have peace with the flesh? Oh no, the moment you were converted there began a battle between the flesh and the spirit, and that battle will last till that flesh of yours shall lie low in the dust from whence it came, and your spirit, delivered from its bondage, shall ascend to God. You must not suppose that as long as you are in this body the flesh will help you. Ah no, you will cry with Paul, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" You are harassed and hampered by the rising corruption of your nature, and it will still rise. Your brethren will still say of you, "What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies." The flesh is striving against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; and though the lion shall one day lie down with the lamb, the flesh will never agree with the spirit. As the Lord hath war with Amalek for ever and ever, so there is war between the spirit and the flesh so long as the two are in the same man. There is no promise of peace with the flesh, then; but we have peace with God. 66 Ah," says another, "I have little peace, for I am surrounded by those that vex me. When I serve the Lord they malign and misrepresent me with scoff and slander. They take up an evil report against me. Woe is me that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar. My soul is among lions, even amongst them that are set on fire of hell. They give me no rest." Yes, but I smile as I think of it. Did you ever dream of having peace with the wicked, peace with such as turn aside to their crooked ways, peace with the workers of iniquity? Vain thought! Peace in this world where your Lord was crucifiedpeace with those that hate you for his sake? Why, did he not say to you at the first, "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." What do you expect to wear a crown of gold where he wore a crown of thorns? The confessors and martyrs of ancient times never reckoned upon peace with the world. Nor did the apostle Paul, for he said, "The world is crucified to me, and I unto the world." You have no promise of the world's love, but you have a promise of this sort, "These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." "And this is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith." I pray you, then, do not misconstrue the text. It does not say that you shall either have peace with the devil, or peace with the flesh, or peace with the world; but it does say that you have peace with God, which is infinitely better. "Still," says one, "I find every day that I sin, and I hate myself for

sinning. I cannot get to my bed at night but I feel grieved in my sonl that I am not more like Christ, and that I cannot grow in grace as I desire. I do not seem to make the advance in the divine life that I hoped I should, and I am full of sin. Whatever I do is stained with defilement. Wherever I go I seem to fall one way or another into something that wounds my conscience and hurts me." Yes; and the Lord never said that you should have peace with sin. I am delighted to find that sin stings you, and that you hate it. The more hatred of sin the better. A sin-hating soul is a God-loving soul. If sin never distresses you, then God has never favoured you. Unless you hate sin you do not love holiness; and if you hate sin you cannot have any peace with it. You will never be satisfied till you are perfect, and when will you be perfect? Why, when you wake up in your Lord's likeness. That will be the hour of your perfection, but till then sin will vex you. Then shall you have no Canaanite to harass you, and there shall be war with Amalek no more, when the last enemy is slain, when sin is extirpated, and you shall be near and like your God. You have no promise of peace with sin, nor need you wish for one, but you have peace with God.

To come back again to what is promised, and indeed to what is not only promised but really bestowed and communicated to us-"Being justified by faith, we have peace with God."

Most assuredly we do enjoy peace with God in this respect-that we know he loves us. He would not have given his Son to die for us if he had not. He would not have devised this matchless plan of justification if he had not loved us. Moreover, we feel a fervent love to him in return. We do not love him as we wish to do, nor as we hope to do, but we do love him for all that. We can say, "Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee."

"Yes, I love thee and adore,

Oh for grace to love thee more."

Of the excellence and virtue of this peace we make daily, hourly proof; for now we are not afraid to go to our covenant God for all necessary things, and to seek his face for help in time of trouble. Why, to some of us this resorting to God has become so habitual, that we speak with him every hour of the day. Nothing happens but we fly to him for counsel or for succour. We no longer ask leave to do so, for he has given to us the private key and the perpetual permit of access. We have not always such settled peace with our fellow creatures, for at times we so much lack confidence in them that we could not divulge to them our troubles; but we have peace with God; such an amity that we can always have recourse to him, assured of his sympathy and his readiness to come to our relief in every time of need. Our habitude of prayer proves that we have peace with God; we should not think of praying to him if we believed that he was our adversary, or if we doubted his goodwill. If we felt any enmity in our hearts to him we should not go to him as we do, with a childlike hope, in time of distress.

This peace with God makes us delight in him. I am sure that every soul here that has been justified by faith delights in God. You do not always feel him equally near, but when he is near it is the joy of your spirit. What are the best and happiest moments you ever know? Are

they not those in which you have communion with God? What days can you reflect upon with the greatest satisfaction and ardently wish to have repeated? Are they not those in which his majesty and mercy have been so revealed to your spirit that with mingled awe and sweetness you have realized intensely his power and his presence? Oh, what a good God he is! Bad as we are, how good he is! Now, take care that you indulge this delight very often. If you delight in anything else you will be an idolater, but he has said, "Delight thyself in the Lord, and he will give thee the desire of thy heart." You cannot be too delighted with your God. Is he not perfection itself? Are we not, in all respects, rejoiced to have such a God? We would not have one attribute changed; nor one appointment of his sovereign will in the least degree moved from its order. Let him be as he is, and do as he pleases, and our souls shall delight in him. "Yea, though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” Now, when you can delight in God, though you cannot delight in yourself, it shows that you have peace with him, and are justified.

Then, brethren, this peace also shows itself in our acquiescing in all that he does in his rough providences. You know that a hypocrite is like a strange dog that will follow a man as long as he casts him a bone or a bit of meat; but a true believer is like a man's own dog that will follow him when he gives him nothing, and even when he deals him a cuff or a blow. A true believer says, "Shall I receive good from the hand of the Lord, and shall I not also receive evil? If he chasten me, I would sooner be chastened by my Father than I would be caressed by Satan." It were better to smart till one were black and blue under the rod of God, than to be set upon a high throne by the world or the devil. When he offers thee the kingdoms of this world be sure that thou say to the foul fiend, "Get thee behind me "; but when the Lord hands thee the bitter cup be sure to say, "Thy will be done," and take it cheerfully at his hands. If we feel an agreement with our Lord's will it shows that we are at peace with him.

One more evidence of being at peace with God is when you can with confidence look forward to the time of your departure out of this world and say, "I can dic, if thou, O Lord, be with me." When you can fall in with the words of the hymn we were singing just now

"Bold shall I stand in that great day,
For who aught to my charge shall lay?
While through thy blood absolved I aın,
From sin's tremendous curse and shame,"

We are not afraid of the day of judgment because we have peace with God, and hence we are not afraid to die.

There is concord and harmony between the righteous God and his redeemed people, and hence fear is banished. He has given to us his Spirit to dwell in our hearts, and now we desire that each rising wish may be prompted by his will. Our mind is agreed with the mind of God. He wishes us to be holy, and we wish to be holy. He would kill sin in us, and we long to have it killed. He wishes us to obey, and we desire to obey. He would have us seek his glory, and we desire that he should be glorified in us, in our whole spirit, soul, and body. The lines of our life run parallel with the life of

God, though upon a lower level: we can never be as he is in the glory of his nature, but still we desire to be holy as he is holy. The life within us is divine, for we have been begotten again by himself, and henceforth we are in Christ, and Christ in us, and so we are at peace with God.

Go your way, my brethren, and swim in this peace. Bathe your weary souls in seas of heavenly rest until you come to the place where not a wave of trouble shall ever roll across your peaceful breasts; and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and preserve you blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it. Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON-Romans v.

HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK "-775, 397, 708.

LETTER FROM MR. SPURGEON.

MENTONE.

Dear Friends,—The sermon is so long that only a line or so is left for me. I will say the less of myself. The warm sunny days which I have spent in this retreat are, by God's blessing, bringing back to me health and strength. I shall be happy indeed if my mental and spiritual vigour should also be renewed by the removal of the daily care which pressed upon me; if it be so my hearers shall be the gainers, for all my strength has been and ever shall be laid out in my ministry.

I am right glad to hear that special services are commencing at the Tabernacle, and I entreat all the brethren there to throw all their energies into them. Pray that the Holy Spirit may work mightily and glorify the Lord Jesus in the midst of the congregations; and then set to work to fetch in the people from the outside. Gather them! Gather them from hedge and highway, and crowd the gospel feast. The preachers are among you whom God has widely blest, but how can they benefit the people if they do not come to hear them. Make the services known and press those to come who do not usually attend public worship. We long to see souls saved,-do we not? My heart cannot be content while men are being lost. I cannot be among the crowds to preach, but my inmost soul prays for those who are indulged with that privilege, and for you also who have the joy of helping on the work of the Lord.

I am bound to thank those generous friends who continue to send aid to the various works under my care: the Lord reward them. To each and all my hearers and readers 1 send my hearty Christian salutations.

C. II. SPURGEON.

"According to the commandment of the Lord they were numbered by the hand of Moses, every one according to his service, and according to his burden: thus were they numbered of him, as the Lord commanded Moses."-Numbers iv. 49. ISRAEL in the wilderness is admitted in some respects to have been a type of the church in its present condition. The tribe of Levi was in a peculiar and inner sense the type of that peculiar people who under the great high-priest are set apart for the service of the Lord and his church. To them the carriage of the holy vessels from place to place was committed, each family of the tribe being made responsible for the safe and reverent transport of a certain part of the sacred furniture. Since nothing in the service of the God of order may be left to hazard but everything must be done decently and according to arrangement, all the Levites were counted, and then appointed each man to his service. Those persons who in hackneyed phrase cry out against "system" ought to be told that the Lord has always had a system, not only in nature and providence, but also in his own courts. There is an admirable "economy in the palace of the great King: whatever of disorder, waste, and riot there may be surrounding other monarchs, nothing of the kind will be found beneath the shadow of the divine throne. He who counts the stars and calls them all by their names, leaves nothing unarranged in his own service. His church, therefore, should exhibit the discipline of an army, and all his warriors should know how to keep rank. Though we are not under the law, we are not without law to Christ, nor do we wish to be, for his commandments are not grievous.

At this season, when our church is making a most earnest effort to glorify the Lord by seeking conversions, we would muster all the servants of our Master and summon each one to take his appointed place and service. The work of the Lord is to be done, and should be done well, and done by us all most cheerfully and heartily. Gather, therefore, yourselves together and let each redeemed one take up his burden, and bear it before the Lord in due order to this end, like Moses, we would call you out one by one, and give you a charge as from the Lord.

Our text contains authority for the muster-roll, appointment for the individuals, and account of the actual execution of the command. Upon each of these an absent officer of your company would try to say a little as the Holy Spirit may enable him.

I. Here is, first, AUTHORITY FOR THE MUSTER-ROLL, "according to the commandment of the Lord they were numbered." It was not No. 1,457.