changes and chances; this mere lottery, in which "time and chance happen to all men," and "the wise man dieth even as the fool," and they go to the grave together; are we to believe, in the face of facts, that even the righteous man shall prosper in every thing he undertakes? When we see the best men disappointed and sore broken, beat down by oppression and chastened by calamity, how can we admit the idea of his invariable prosperity? The fact is, that men judge falsely as to what is the promised prosperity. Their notion of prosperity is invariable worldly success. They conceive that in a rightecus man there are the same unchecked cravings and speculations after this world's good; the same labouring, and plotting, and contriving to obtain; the same consciencestifling, and the same dishonest use of means, as others adopt: and that the prosperity here promised is a success in all these measures which they cannot secure,-a going forward before the wind to those heights of dignity, and that attainment of wealth, on which the world builds for happiness. Experience, however, will correct these notions, and remove the seeming paradox by rightly explaining what is here meant by prosperity. It shall be our endeavour to aid the explanation of this seeming difficulty, and then to draw some practical inferences from the assertion in Psa. i., "Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." We look, first, at the causes stated to be in operation for the accomplish ment of this prosperity, and, secondly, at the nature of the prosperity itself. I. The CAUSES. These are stated in the second verse of the Psalm: "His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law doth he meditate day and night.” There is nothing irrational or extravagant in the kingdom of God; there is no such thing as great effects produced by inadequate causes; and if in any portion of mankind a great, manifest, and essential change takes place, so that their present and ultimate lot differs from that of others, we may rest assured that there are different moral elements at work adequate to explain the change. If in the season of drought we perceive a tree richly clothed with fruit, full and ripe, and at the same time its leaf still green and flourishing, and we know the nature of the tree to be such as requires moisture, we conclude directly that this could not be unless it is planted by the river of water, or in some other situation in which the adequate portion of nutriment shall reach it. It is the same with the righteous man, of whom God declares that whatever he doeth shall prosper. There are causes of that prosperity in operation adequate to produce the result; and these are, delight in God's word and habitual meditation upon it. This is God's appointed way of blessing: His revealed word is the river of water, by which the souls of the righteous are to be fed and nourished in all fruitfulness unto life eternal. It is able to make men wise unto salvaable to build them up in their most holy faith. tion; Let us notice, then, secondly,— the first point is delight in God's word: "his delight is in the law of the Lord." The law or word of God, the revealed will of God, is a declaration of all that man should know of God here, and all by which his conduct and his hopes should be regulated. Now the source of real pros 'perity is to take delight in it; to feel it to be what it really is, a guide and comforter: the very wisdom of God graciously adapted to the wants and weakness of the fallen creatures of this earth. Many say that they approve of the Scriptures; but their conduct proves the reverse; their delight is evidently in other things. A man's delight is in that to which he gives the choice of his time and attention. But the really righteous man is he in whose heart the Spirit of God has awakened this perception of the infinite superiority of the Divine word to all other kind of instruction, so that the affections are really drawn out towards it as the fount of sacred, saving, and profitable meeting between the Almighty Father and the human soul. By that word he is guided to a right knowledge of God himself; his mind is opened to perceptions of the glory of God of which he once knew nothing. And not only is his mind enlarged by suitable apprehensions of the glory and majesty, the might and the holiness of the Eternal, but he attains to the knowledge of God as a covenant God and Redeemer in Christ Jesus. And this is the grand subject of communication in that word. Its main object is, that the guilty and condemned creature should arrive at a rational and comforting view of God's means of help for the lost soul, and of God as a reconciled Father. It is there we read of the Son of God's love,-having loved us and died for us in the flesh; having justified us freely by His righteousness and blood; having put away our sin by the sacrifice of Himself; having reconciled us wholly and opened for us a new and a living way to the Father: so that though we have been alienated from God and accursed in our persons, we are made accepted and beloved in His. On this blessed and consolatory truth the word pours a clear, unwavering light, and makes it more practically evident and effectually useful to us as we go forward. And what a blessing it is thus to know by daily application to an unquestionable testimony, that God is no more angry with us, that the atonement is offered and accepted, and that we are become the children of God, and that He will never leave us nor forsake us, but having loved us, will love us to the end, and give us an abundant entrance into His kingdom and glory. By this word, also, the servant of God is guided to a right apprehension of his actual circumstances before God, and of the conduct incumbent on him under them. In whatever state a man is, he may know it accurately by the word. He has only to come to this light that his deeds may be reproved, if they are evil; or made manifest, if they are wrought in God. If he is yet unchristian, a stranger and unconverted; if he is beginning to see his darkness and danger, and to inquire the way; if he is liable, through ignorance or false teaching, to build upon a false foundation, either on his own merits or on an unscriptural view of God's mercy; if he does not rightly apprehend the fulness of Divine love in Christ Jesus, and the ample breadth of the foundation of hope; if he is declining to a worldly temper, or becoming listless, cold, and indifferent, or mistrustful and unbelieving; if any unholy passion or habit has taken possession of him, and obscured his christian hope and darkened his religious comfort; if he has been led, on the authority of men, to take up any unscriptural notion what ever, or to give any undue, and consequently delusive, prominency to any scriptural truth;-all this may be detected by coming simply and honestly to the standard of truth; by entering the only school of religious knowledge, the study of the word of God. Let a man only prayerfully seek that word, and use all the various appointed means for understanding it, and it will shew him to himself; it will pour light upon his path, and into the deepest recesses of his bosom: it "is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart ;" it is framed expressly by infinite wisdom to lay open the whole soul to itself, as in the blaze of day. Now let a man be once in earnest about his moral state, and let him discover the power of this penetrating light, detecting, disclosing, correcting, healing, sanctifying, and elevating towards God and heaven, and he will delight in it supremely. Thirdly. By this word, the believer is supplied with the effectual motive to true obedience. We never can feel rightly towards God, till we know what He has done for us. It was an infused mistrust of His goodness to us, and consequently a decline from the simplicity of love, which led us into all our present degradation and misery; and only as we shall be brought back really to love God, shall we ever sincerely serve Him. Now there is nothing on earth that points effectually the way back to the love of God, but the revealed word. And that it does by shewing us the truth of God's love to us. "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath be stowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God." "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." We see His everlasting and unfailing love in a crucified Saviour; we read it in His humiliation and agony; in His pierced hands and feet; in His dying prayer; in His sleepless watchfulness from the thrones of light. And, believing this to be the gratuitous work of the Eternal to restore our lost souls, we begin to call in question our former mistrust and hardness of heart; and as we grow in the conviction, that God has loved us and delivered us, notwithstanding our rebellion and ungodliness, we begin to feel the principle of love to God forming in our hearts; we draw affectionately towards this immensity of mercy; the will of our trembling spirit is to repose under the brooding shadow of the Almighty's wing; we cleave to the bleeding side of the atoning Lamb, the mysterious Emmanuel; we dwell on what He has done for us, as the doing of God; and thus gradually find a new principle established in us for obedience. To serve God is no longer a hard bondage; it is our delight. We are assimilated to God in our principles and preferences; we love what He loves. We dwell in love, and find it to be an effectual principle for the fulfilling of the law. Fourthly. The word of God infuses into the soul the living principle of holiness. The Scripture is not a human composition: its words are the dictate of the Eternal Spirit, and they are the appointed channel of His blessed influences. We see the hand of God in His works, but we come in contact with the mind of God in His word; and as the spirit of man communicates his thoughts to another man, so the Spirit of God communicates to men the mind of God, by the written word, and gives it a power and an influence such as the mind of God should have over His rational creatures, so that the mind is effectually moved to do His will. As the tree is nourished by the river, and gradually imbibes by its roots the nourishment that forms, and sets, and ripens the fruit; so man's soul receives, through the Scriptures, from a Divine source, the water of life, and is nourished by it unto life eternal. He lives by every word that cometh out of the mouth of God. This is found to be practically true by those who give themselves to the word; and consequently, in proportion as they find it the source of life, they delight in it. And this is not mere assertion, which literally comes to nothing, for, 2. It is said of the blessed man, that he meditates in the law of God day and night. Mere theoretic and speculative approbation of the word is little. It is not of such characters that our subject speaks, but it is of those who have found so real a delight in God's word, that they can and do occupy themselves with it day and night; that is, habitually and frequently; providing by it for the duties and difficulties of the day, and preparing by it for the unconsciousness of sleep and the contingencies of night. Nor is it merely, that they place themselves before the Bible, and read a certain portion with little interest as a slavish service, but what is intended, is, that the Bible gives real and serious occupation to the mind. "In His law doth he medi tate." It is the dwelling on Divine truth, ruminating upon it, making it the main subject of contemplation. We know how we meditate upon a desired worldly object, or consider and reconsider a serious difficulty in our earthly course: that is what is meant here; the giving the whole soul to the substance of the word more earnestly than it is given to every thing else; so that the characteristic description of the man in this world shall be, "His delight is in the law of the Lord; and in His law doth he meditate day and night." Now here we have a view of the cause of scriptural prosperity. We trace the soul to a direct, an appointed, a blessed connexion with the revelation of God's will, for the eternal salvation and prosperity of the soul. We trace in that soul the formation of habits of continual application to that source of peace and holiness. We trace as direct a connexion in him between God and practical godliness, as we do between the fruit of the tree and the fertilizing stream on whose bank it grows. And in him, therefore, who is thus devoted to God's appointed channel of blessing, we see satisfactory reason why he should prosper. But here, again, we must not allow ourselves to be led into error as to the nature of prosperity, lest being deceived at the outset by false expectations, we should be ultimately disappointed, and call the truth and the goodness of God in question, and make even His blessed word a stumbling-block and a cause of unbelief. We inquire, therefore,— II., into the NATURE of the prosperity here spoken of. And, first, as the knowledge of God, of the soul's immortal nature and interests, and even its present spiritual enjoyments in the worship and love of God and of His Church, tend at once to cast the concerns of this present life into the shade, it is quite evident that uniform prosperity in this world cannot be the thing spoken of. We learn this, also, from the actual state of the Church: for "many are the afflictions of the righteous;" and, though "the Lord delivereth him out of them all," yet the present affliction is a proof that uniform and perpetual prosperity is not the promised inheritance of the saints. We must place before our minds the object of God with respect to His people. It is one which makes this world's experience, though an important, yet a small part of the concern; it is the fitting the soul for His eternal presence and glory; and it is the bringing in that soul, once alienated from Him, to terms of reconciliation, and gradually raising it, by means consistent entirely with its rationality and freedom, to a capacity for serving and enjoying Him in perfection, and for ever. Now, when man is actually brought into that state of delight in, and habitually feeding on God's word, then that reconciliation is complete. The nature of the man is changed from death to life, from carnal to spiritual; and the reconciliation, though not the sanctification, is complete. For wise purposes, the soul is not immediately removed to heaven; but it is recognised as the object of God's love, the purchase of Christ's death, the temple of the Holy Spirit. All his interests and concerns are watched over and cared for by God, consistently with their real value in the scale of things; and guided, as his ways are, by Divine Providence, and his thoughts and inclinations by God's Spirit, all his doings are overruled to the accomplishment precisely of that which, in the main, infinite wisdom sees best for him, and for the general interests of the cause of the whole Church of Christ. The wisdom which brings about universal results, without injury to particular interests, and accomplishes particular objects, without disturbing general laws, but secures both, and the perfect harmony of both,-that wisdom watches over the believing, submissive, zealous student of the revealed word, and so prospers every thing he does, that in no respect is it injurious to him, but it becomes part of the plan of sequences which God has ordained as the means of his salvation, and by which he is made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light: as it is written, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." Everything to which he applies himself, under a right measure of scriptural guidance, shall issue to the glory of God, and the good of his own soul. His endeavours after sanctification, and more manifest, real, and influential deliverance from sin, shall be blessed;-not always, perhaps, in the way that his short-sighted wisdom might select; but in the way in which most certainly and safely the object can be accomplished. In these matters we must not judge by immediate results; we must look to the end of things, so as to be enabled to ascertain what are the issues of the wide and seemingly inextricable labyrinths of second causes, and then we shall see that really and truly whatsoever he doeth, who honestly makes the word of God his guide, shall be prospered by God's blessing; and the records of truth, the history |