WAITING ON GOD. 379 exhortation which he gives to himself and others: " Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thy heart ; wait, I say, on the Lord." ver. 14. Wait with courage and resolution, that thou faint not. And the apostle puts the blessed event of faith and obe- dience upon the avoidance of this evil : " We shall reap, if we faint not." Gal. 6 : 9. Hence we have both en- couragement given against it, and promises that in the way of God we shall not be overtaken with it. "Con- sider the Lord Christ," saith the apostle, " the Captain of your salvation, lest ye be wearied, and faint in your minds." Heb. 12: 3. Nothing else can cause you to come short of the mark aimed at. " They," saith the prophet, " who wait on the Lord," that is, in the use of the means by him appointed, " shall not faint." Isaiah, 40 : 31. This continuace in waiting, then, 1. Is necessary. They that watch for the morning, to whose frame and actings the waiting of the soul for God is compared, give not over until the light appears; or if they do, if they are wearied and faint, and so cease watching, all their former pains will be lost, and they lie down in disappointment. So will it be with the soul that deserts its watch, and faints in its waiting. If, on the eruption of new lusts or corruptions; if, on the re- turn of old temptations or the assaults of new ones ; if, on a revived perplexing sense of guilt, or on the tedious- ness of working and laboring so much and so long in the dark, the soul begins to say in itself, I have looked for light, and behold darkness; for peace, and yet trou- ble cometh; the summer is past, the harvest is ended, and I am not relieved ; such and such blessed means
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