disciples were concerned about temporal food, we hear of something of greater moment to him than the supply of his bodily wants. "I have meat to eat that ye know not of." "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish his work." Then, again, when the cup of bitterness was in his hand from which his very nature seemed to recoil, with a majestic calmness, a serene spirit, and a sweet acquiescence, looking up to heaven, he could ask, "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" It must not be forgotten either that Christ was under no obligation to enter the work and to endure the lot he did. It was his own free choice. But so ready was he, so far elevated above everything else in importance appeared the will and the appointment of his Father, that he is represented as entering upon it with the exclamation, "I delight to do thy will, O God."

3. It was a peace springing from a confiding trust in the purpose of God. Christ came into the world to achieve the most stupendous work that was ever attempted. To reform society, to lead man back to God, to heal the world's woes, and to win over the world to the acceptance and the practice of the truth of God. But who could have said, judging from outward appearances at his death, that his work was a success? We find him after a brief ministry of three years, during which, with much opposition and persecution, he had scattered a few seeds of living truth, and made a few poor, humble, unlettered, despised disciples, preparing for the most ignominious and degrading of all deaths, yet with the confident assurance that he had triumphed, that he had conquered the world, that he had struck the keystone of sin's arch, that he had sapped the foundation of Satan's empire, that he had given birth to principles that would revolutionize the world and bring all nations under the sway of truth and righteousness. The outward circumstances that surrounded him at his death, adverse and unpropitious as they appeared, produced not a ripple upon the calm surface of his soul; his Father's purpose, in which he had an abiding confidence and trust, was more to him than all these. Although his life appeared cut short in its prime; although his work appeared arrested before even the foundation was laid; although, judging from outward appearances, sin, Satan, and the

world had triumphed, he could die peace, assured that the purpose of 1 Father would be realized. It was not t success that had attended his ministry, was not the auspicious circumstances th closed his earthly career, but a confidi trust in the purpose of his Father th enabled him to say as he contemplated departure, "I have glorified thee upon t earth; I have finished the work which th gavest me to do." Such then was Chris peace, and such is the peace he has queathed to us. Look,

II. At the mode of its communicati and enjoyment. "My peace I give un you." Note the mode," I give." It is blessing that comes to us not as the fr of obedience, not as the reward of dut but as Christ's free gift. It is a gift grace out and out. It is not a thing to done, but a thing to be received; not peace of which we are to be the creato but a peace of which we are to be t recipients. Let us endeavour to illustre it by the peace which we have seen Chr enjoyed.

1. It is a peace springing from an abidi consciousness of God's favour. The wa of a sense of God's favour is one of t bitterest sources of our unrest and di quietude. Now the favour of God is blessing not to be bought, not to be m rited, not to be won; not one for whic we have to labour and to toil: but it one that Christ gives us. It is a blessi which Christ has recovered for us and cured to us by his humiliation, his agoni his sufferings, and his death. Are we n many of us seeking this peace in the wro way? Are we not labouring, and toili and praying, and singing, and attending this duty and to that, with the hope a the expectation that we shall obtain Go favour, and consequently inward per thereby? Quite wrong. If our faith Christ be an appropriating faith, the favo of God is ours before and independently all these. The favour of God is ours account of what Christ has done, and n on account of anything we can do ot selves. The work of Christ therefore, a not any services, not any duties, not a prayers, not any works, not any feeling not any experiences of ours, must be ground of our confidence for the possessi and the enjoyment of God's favour. are reconciled to God, we are God's lov ones-it is a thing done, and not that whic has to be done. You may ask, Is there

value or importance to be attached to the things we may do ourselves? Yes, they are valuable and important as an effect, but not as a cause. See by a homely illustration. At autumn you go into your garden, and in the middle of it you see a tree hanging with delicious fruit. Now you would not say that that fruit was the cause of the sun's shining; you would not say that it drew forth and gave brightness and energy to the sun's rays. But you would reason quite the opposite. You would regard that fruit as the evidence or the effect of two things-of the tree's enjoyment of the rays of the sun, and of the tree's power of appropriating to itself all the nutriment which the sun's rays call into existence. That fruit would be valuable and of service to you, not as a power or a means of giving existence to the sunshine, but as an evidence of the tree's enjoying and rightly appropriating it. Just 80 with us and God's favour. Just put God's favour in the place of the sunshine, yourselves in the place of the tree, and your good works and services in the place of the fruit, and you have just the right position and relation of these to one another. Now Christ gives us that sunshine; by his finished work he cleared our sky of all the clouds that sin and evil had caused to gather there. We have now to appropriate and to enjoy it. And we may bask in it as freely and as fully as we may bask in the rays of the sun of nature in summer. And the more freely and fully we enjoy it, the more numerous will be our works of faith and labours of love, the more ardent will be our zeal and constant our service. And where the favour of God is thus realized, where the sun of his love is allowed to shine in upon the soul in all its power and glory, there there must be peace. What if all the world be up in arms; what if men frown; what if false friends betray; what if foes obstruct; what if everything goes cross and adverse-we can retire into the secresy of our own souls, and there realize the love, the favour, the smiles, and the friendship of our heavenly Father. If Christ be yours, this is the peace he gives you the favour of God in all its fulness, in all its plenitude, in all its bliss, and in all its power. Open your hearts and let it flow in in full stream and volume. The favour of God is already yours; it is Christ's gift, he has purchased it for you, and it is his wish that you should enjoy it, and rest in peace.

2. It is a peace springing from a cheerful submission to God's appointment. Discontent with our earthly lot is another source of disquietude and unrest. But this, too, Christ removes by the peace he gives. But he gives it, remember. You cannot obtain it by labour, or school yourself into it by discipline. Your lot may appear a hard one, your path may appear rugged and thorny, you may think your lot the hardest and the worst of any. Now it is evident that as long as you entertain such views and feelings you cannot enjoy peace. From what quarter, then, can relief come? Not from any outward source. You have tried a thousand ways and a thousand times to alter your lot, but you have met only with failure and disappointment. The peace you want is a peace that shall spring up from within, and not dependent upon anything without-a peace springing from a cheerful submission to God's appointment and a sweet contentment with your lot. But to enjoy such a peace you must have the assurance that your present lot is one of the best, and one that God can and will turn to the best account. This is the peace that Christ gives you. He tells you by his life and by his word that it matters but little what your earthly lot may be; that the thing of highest moment to you is soulculture and preparation for heaven; that the most humble circumstances are frequently the most favourable to it; and that frequently the most adverse circumstances call into play and develop the highest and noblest powers. He tells you that one of the purposes secured by his death is not only that all your sins may be forgiven, but that all things may work together for your good. See, then, this great result is not to be the effect of any cause you may put in operation; not the fruit of any labour or toil on your part; not to be the issue of any bright or ingenious scheme your own wisdom may devise: it is a result already secured by Chris's work. It is the regulating principle of all God's appointments and dealings with you. Where this assurance which Christ gives is accepted there there must be peace. If, then, Christ has died to secure this result, and if God has pledged himself to bring it about, let God have his own way; let him do with you as it seemeth him good; and knowing that this is the process now actually going on, let your language ever be, "Father, not my will but thine be done," and in that will you may find repose.

3. It is a peace springing from a confiding trust in the purpose of God. You may sometimes feel anxious about your own security and salvation, your feelings may chime in with the doleful complaints some love to sing; or you may fear that in some future conflict the enemy may prevail against you: "I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul." Now you cannot overcome these fears and doubts, or have a brighter and fuller evidence of your part in Christ's salvation with eternal glory, by any labour, or toil, or effort on your own part. If your soul were thrilled with joy, if it burned with zeal, if it yearned for God's house, if it were filled with ecstasy and rapture, these would be but poor grounds of confidence and objects of trust, very fickle, very deceptive, very uncertain. In the peace that Christ gives us he gives us something better; a knowledge of his own, and his Father's purpose. Here it is: "In my Father's house," &c.; "I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go," &c.; Because I live ye shall live also " "Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory"; "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." Now, see, our confiding trust in God's purpose should not be dependent upon our progress in the ways of God, but our progress in the ways of God is dependent upon our confiding trust in God's purpose; but then God's purpose has not been, will not be, secured by any effort on our part, but by the finished work of Christ. The stronger our faith in that purpose the more rapid will be our progress, the more stable and profound our peace. This, then, is the peace that Christ gives us. He tells us that his Father's purpose in our complete salvation has been already secured by his own work. What we have to do is to confide in it, and to lay hold upon it. If Christ be ours, Poplar.

if we have laid hold of him with a liv operative faith, the flesh may rage, world may tempt, Satan may obstr enemies may assail; we can withstand defy them all, and say with Paul, "I persuaded that neither death, nor life, angels, nor principalities, nor powers, things present, nor things to come, height, nor depth, nor any other creat shall be able to separate us from the of God, which is in Christ Jesus Lord." "I know whom I have belie and am persuaded that he is able to that which I have committed to against that day."

And as with your own salvation part larly, so with the ultimate triumph salvation of the Church generally. So times you may be disquieted with gloo apprehensions and dark forebodings as her onward progress and universal premacy. Your only refuge is in the p pose of God; but a confiding trust i will secure you peace. The artillery hell may be levelled at her walls, the genuity of sceptics may sap her four tions, the faithlessness of false friends surrender her gates; let us maintain posts, not in fear, but in confidence; ne confidence in human skill, in human po in Acts of Parliament, but in the purp of God. By and bye, when her enem are in hot pursuit, when mountains of ficulty hem her in on either side, and red sea of destruction towards which appears fast hasting rolls before her, shall hear a voice from heaven, "Be and see the salvation of God"; and, some divine rod stretched over the see some modern Moses, it will divide, e plete deliverance will be afforded to Church, but complete destruction to foes. Rest, then, through Christ's w the results of which he offers you, in Father's favour, in the Father's will, an the Father's purpose, and then the pes Christ will be yours.