But, you will perhaps inquire, wherein uprightness consists. I answer with the Word, that uprightness, or what is the same thing, a good conscience, consists in a desire to live honestly in all things. To be upright does not necessarily imply to be very advanced in faith, piety, and love. A man is upright in heart when he wishes not to retain with him a single sin; when he fights against all with some degree of sincerity; when he prays to God to be enabled to fight against them more sincerely. A man is upright, when he can say with sincerity, I ought to give myself entirely to God; it is true, that of myself I cannot do this ; but, I feel that I ought to do it, and I will beseech God to give me the power. I have no secret reserves, or, if I discover any, I spread them before the Lord, and entreat him to take them away. I present myself before Him, as I am, with all my misery, and with a sincere desire, or at least petitioning for a sincere desire, to be healed of every sin, and enabled to serve him with a perfect heart.

I have said that uprightness is inseparable from trust in the Lord. The word of God every where declares this. Job, speaking of the hypocrite, says,

The hypocrite's hope shall perish ; whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be a spider's web.

He shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand; he shall hold it fast, but it shall not endure." Job, viii, 13, 15. Isaiah says, “Fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites,” Is. xxxiii. 14; and in another place, “ They have made them crooked paths : whosoever goeth therein, shall not know peace.” Is. lix. 8. To the exhortation, “Trust in the Lord,” David adds the exhortation,“Do good,” thus connecting confidence in God with uprightness. In the 119th Psalm, he shews us that it was only in the way of uprightness that he trusted in

66

a

God, when he says: “ Lord, I have hoped for thy salvation, and done thy commandments.” ver. 166. The Apostle Paul, also, unites these two things, when he says: “ Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith.” In a word, the Scripture identifies in the same promise the man who trusts in the Lord, and the man who is upright of heart. “He that trusts in the Lord,"it tells us,"mercy shall compass him about. Be glad and rejoice ye righteous; and shout for joy all ye that are upright of heart.” Ps. xxvii. 10, 11.

And how, in fact, could there be any trust in the Lord without uprightness! The Spirit of God, which is a Spirit of truth, cannot bear witness to a heart that is not upright. Besides, Christ, who is in us the hope of glory, can never enter a heart without purifying it: God, it is said, purifies the heart by faith. So long then as a heart is without a desire to be purified, it is evident that Jesus has not entered it, and he cannot give it hope. Christ cannot be divided : he brings to the soul at the same time two blessings which he never separates,-pardon and sanctification; he blesses us by turning away every one of us from his iniquities; and he who wishes the first of these, without the second, obtains neither.

We often deceive ourselves as to the cause of the disquietude which we feel, and the difficulty we have in laying hold of the promises of God. The cause is found more frequently than we imagine in some want of uprightness, some cursed thing which we are unwilling to put away. Think not that I mean to speak of those infirmities and sins, which we honestly bring to the foot of the cross ; no, I refer to those which we do not bring there, and which we wish to retain with ourselves. Let each of us examine himself attentively in this respect, and be always ready to suspect some

want of uprightness as the cause which weakens his confidence. At least, it will be well for us frequently to say to God, with David: “Let my heart be sound in thy statutes, that I may not be ashamed,” Psalm cxix. 18; and with Job, “Wherefore hidest thou thy face? what I see not teach thou me; if I have done iniquity, I will do it no more.” xiii. 24.

Having said thus much in reference to Hezekiah's trust in the Lord, we shall now speak, with as much hrevity as possible, on the effects and success of that trust.

THE EFFECTS OF HEZEKIAH'S TRUST.

When we speak to the worldly of this trust in the Almighty, and would induce them to resign themselves entirely to that God who is faithful and is able to fulfil all his promises, they seem to be shocked. It would be convenient, indeed, say they, to trust God and do nothing for one's self; they accuse those who preach the necessity of faith, of leading men to live in carelessness and indolence, and they repeat continually that favorite maxim of human wisdom,“ Help thyself and God will help thee.” To such I would answer, It may

be

easy for a man to say, “ I have faith in God," while he remains careless and indolent ; I know it may be easy to say so; but this, too, I know, that these are not the fruits which a true faith produces. Faith is the calm, the repose, but not the sleep of the soul. It is not a soporific which congeals the blood in the veins, but a balm which diffuses its soothing and healing influence through the whole frame, and imparts to it health and vigor, and strength to act. “Faith," saith the Sc

Scriptare, “ worketh by love.” He who conceives of it as a thing that lulls the faculties of man to sleep, and enchains his activity, has no true idea of its nature.

- And how do we find that it influenced Hezekiah ? We read that “in the first year of his reign and in the first month," he set himself to work to commence a reformation in his kingdom. For sixteen years the people had been plunged in an idolatry sanctioned by the king ; they had become habituated to it by long practice; the priests had countenanced it ; the high priest himself had given no opposition to the orders of the impious Ahaz;" he did," as the Scripture tells us,

, s all that king Ahaz commanded." 2 Kings, xvi. 16. It was under these unfavourable circumstances that Hezekiah ascended the throne ; but, far from being dis

; couraged by difficulties, he set his hand to work to execute what he owed to God. He did not say to himself, I must wait, I must have patience, I must go on quietly ; I shall meet with too many obstacles, I am not yet sufficiently established on my throne. He made none of these false calculations of man's wisdom which are founded on human probabilities. He made but one calculation, that of trusting in the Lord, and being persuaded that in dependance upon his strength he ought confidently to attack an idolatry which he could not allow to exist for a moment without sin.

Such, my brethren, is the effect which the faith of a Christian, when lively, produces. It makes him act with energy, being strengthened by the grace of Christ. It makes him say, like the apostle in the midst of his weakness; “ When I am weak then am I strong ; I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me. I am more than conqueror through him that loved me.” On the contrary, nothing is more discouraging than looking to men, to possibilities, to events. It is when we do this that we are led to say with Moses, seeking to evade the commission with which the Lord had entrusted him, “ Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh, and

that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? Behold they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice, for they will say, the Lord hath not appeared unto thee~I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue_0 my Lord, send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send.” Exod. iii. 11; iv. l, 10, 13, It is then we say with the Israelites : “ We are not able to go up against this people : for they are stronger than we.” Num. xii. 32 ; xiv. 3. It is then that, waiting to think of our misery and pondering over it with a spirit of despondency, we say with the Jews : “Our bones are dried and our hope is lost;" and with Jeremiah, in the time of his despondency: “ Thou hast removed my soul far off from peace : I forgat prosperity. And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord.” Lam. iii. 17, 18.

But in what consisted the reform which Hezekiah undertook ? In two things : first,“ he removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves," and thus he destroyed all that pertained to the worship of idol gods. Then - he brake the brazen serpent that Moses had made: for unto these days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan,” that is, “a piece of brass."

Such are the effects which an evangelical trust produces, when it is first implanted, or when it is revived in the soul. It gives a man courage and strength to destroy“ the high places,” pride and self-conceit ; “ to break in pieces the images ;" all those images of the creatures which we set up in the heart and worship ; “to cut down the groves,” those secret lurking places of the soul where iniquity is committed. It overturns the idols set up in secret ; cuts off the right hand and plucks out the right eye;" and establishes in the heart, upon the ruins of the idolatrous worship of self and