486 REMNANTS OF TIME. loved' the Son, and hath given all things into his hand :" And may I not venture to says, This whole treasure is made over to the saiñts, " All things are yours ;" 1 Cor. iii. 22. A. Id they are parcelled out into bills of promise,. and notes under the Father's hand. So the whole treasure of a nation sometimes consists in credit and in promissory notes more than in present sums of gold and silver. Some of these divine bills are payable at sight, and we receive the stun: as soon as we offer the bill, namely, those that must supply our present wants ; such as, " Call upon mein the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me Psalm 1._15. And there have been many examples of such .. speedy payment. Psalm cviii. 3. " In the day when I cried thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul." Some are only payable in general at a distant time, and that is left to the discretion of Christ the treasurer, namely, " As thy day is so thy strength shall be ;" Dent. xxxiii. 25. and we need never fear trusting him long, for this bank in the hands Of Christ can never fail ; " for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the godhead bodily :" Col. ii. 9. And Eph, iii. 8. we are told of the unsearchable riches of Christ. Sometimes Christ may put us off with a general kind an- swer, or give us a note under his hand payable at demand in several parcels, instead of a full payment all at once : Thus he dealt with his dear friend and servant Paul, in 2 Cor. xii. 9. Doubtless Paul, in his seeking the Lord thrice for the removal of his thorn in the flesh, had pleaded several large promises of God, had offered those divine bills to Christ for acceptance and payment ; but instead of this our Lord gives him a note under his own hand, which ran in this language, " My grace is suffi- cient for thee." And if we had but the faith which that blessed apostle had, we might live upon this hope. This would be as good as present payment ; for if he delay to give the full sum, it is only because he sees we have not need of it at present : He knows our necessities better than we ourselves ; he will not trust us with :too much at once in our own hands ; but he pays us those bills when he sees the fittest time, and we have often found it sá and contest. his faithfulness. At other times he pays us, but not in the samekind of mercy, which'ismentioned in the promise, yet in something more useful and valuable. If the promise mention a temporal blessing, he may give ,us: a spiritual one: if it express ease, he may give patience ; and thus his-father's hills are always honoured, and we have:no.reason to complain. So the banker maj' discharge a bill of a hupdrtd pounds not, with, money, but with such goods and merchandise as may yield us two hundred, and we gladly confess the bill is well paid.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=