"I AM hath sent me into you."--EXODUS iii. 10.
Every day I find it more and more true, that the Bible is full of good news from beginning to end. The _Gospel_--that is good news--and the best of all good news, is to be found in every book of it; perhaps if we knew how to search the Scriptures, in every chapter and verse of it, from beginning to end. For from beginning to end, from Genesis to Malachi--from the Gospel of St. Matthew to the end of the Revelation--what our Lord said of the Bible stands true: "They (the Scriptures) are they which testify of ME" (John v. 39). The whole Bible testifies, bears witness of Him, the One Unchangeable Christ, who said to Moses, "Say unto the people, I AM hath sent me unto you."
Now let us think a while what that text means; for it has not to do with Moses only, but with all G.o.d"s prophets, evangelists, preachers. David might have said the same to the Jews in his time, "I AM hath sent me unto you." Elijah, Isaiah, St. Matthew, St. John, St. Paul, might have said the same. And so may G.o.d"s ministers now. And I, however sinful, or ignorant, or unfaithful to my duty I may be, have still a right to say, as I do now say solemnly and earnestly to you, "I AM hath sent me unto you" this day.
But what do I mean by that? That ought to depend on what Moses meant by it. Moses meant what G.o.d meant, and unless I mean the same thing I must mean something wrong. And this is what I think it does mean:
First. I AM--the Lord Jesus Christ told Moses that his name was I AM.
Now you perhaps think that this is but a very common place name, for every one can say of himself--I am--and it may seem strange that G.o.d should have chosen for His own especial name, words which you and I might have chosen for ourselves just as well. I daresay you think that you may fairly say "_you are_," and that I can say fairly that "I am."
And yet it is not so. If I say "I am," I say what is not true of me. I must say "I am something--I am a man, I am bad, or I am good, or I am an Englishman, I am a soldier, I am a sailor, I am a clergyman"--and then I shall say what is true of me. But G.o.d alone can say "I AM" without saying anything more.
And why? Because G.o.d alone _is_. Everybody and everything else in the world _becomes_: but G.o.d _is_. We are all becoming something from our birth to our death--changing continually and becoming something different from what we were a minute before; first of all we were created and made, _and so became men_; and since that we have been every moment changing, becoming older, becoming wiser, or alas! foolisher; becoming stronger or weaker; becoming better or worse. Even our bodies are changing and becoming different day by day.
But G.o.d never changes or becomes anything different from what He is now.
What He is, that He was, and ever will be. G.o.d does not even become older. This may seem very strange, but it is true: for G.o.d made Time, G.o.d made the years; and once there were no years to count by, no years at all. Remember how long had G.o.d Himself been, before He made Time, when there was no Time to pa.s.s over? Remember always that G.o.d must have created Time. If G.o.d did not create Time, no one else did; for there is, as the Athanasian Creed says, "One uncreated and One eternal," even G.o.d who made Time as well as all things else.
Am I puzzling you? What I want to do is to make you understand that G.o.d"s life is quite utterly different from our life, or any way of living and being which we can fancy or think of; lest you make to yourselves the likeness of anything in heaven above or of the earth beneath, and think that G.o.d is like that and so worship it, and have other G.o.ds beside the true G.o.d, and so break the first and second commandments, as thousands do who fancy themselves good Protestants, and hate Popery and idolatry, and yet worship a very different sort of G.o.d from the "I AM," who sent Moses to the children of Israel. Remember then this at least, that G.o.d was before all things, and all worlds, and all Time; so that there was a time when there were no worlds, and a time when there was no Time--nothing but G.o.d alone, absolute, eternal, neither made nor created, the same that He is now and will be for ever.
When I say "G.o.d is," that is a very different thing from G.o.d Himself saying, "I AM." A different thing? Oh! my friends, here is the root of the whole Gospel, the root of all our hope for this world and for the world to come--for ourselves, for our own future, and the future of all the world. Do you not see how? Then I will try to explain.
Many heathen men have known that there was one eternal G.o.d, and that _G.o.d is_. But they did not know that G.o.d Himself had said so; and that made them anxious, puzzled, almost desperate, so that the wiser they were, the unhappier they were. For what use is it merely knowing that "_G.o.d is_"?
The question for poor human creatures is, "But what sort of a being is G.o.d? Is He far off? Millions of miles from this earth? Does He care nothing about us? Does He let the world go its own way right or wrong?
Is He proud and careless? A self-glorifying Deity whose mercy is _not_ over all His works, or even over any of them? Or does He care for us?
Does He see us? Will He speak to us? Has He ever spoken to any one? Has He ever told any one about Himself?" _There is the question_--the question of all questions. And if a man once begins thinking about his own soul, and this world, and G.o.d,--till he gets that question answered, he can have no comfort about himself or the world, or anything--till in fact he knows whether G.o.d has ever spoken to men or not.
And the glory of the Bible, the power of G.o.d revealed in the Bible, is, that it answers the question, and says, "G.o.d _does_ care for men, G.o.d _does_ see men, G.o.d is not far off from any one of us." Ay, G.o.d speaks to men--G.o.d spoke to Moses and said, not "G.o.d is" but "I AM." G.o.d in sundry times and in divers manners _spoke_ to our fathers by the Prophets and said "I AM."
But more--Moses said, "I AM hath sent me." G.o.d does not merely love us, and yet leave us to ourselves. He sends after us. He sends to us. In old times He sent prophets and wise men one after the other to preach repentance and righteousness, and to teach men all that was good for them; and when men would not listen to them, but shut their ears to them and drove them out, killing some and beating some, G.o.d was so determined to send to men, so unwearied, so patient, so earnest, so loving still, that He said, "I will send now my own Son, surely they will hear Him."
Yes, my friends, this is the I AM. This is G.o.d--this is our G.o.d--this is our Heavenly Father; not a proud and selfish Being, who looks down haughtily from afar off on all the misery and ignorance of the world, but as a wise man of old said, "A most merciful G.o.d, a revealer of secrets, who showeth to man the things which he knew not." This is our G.o.d--not a tyrant, but a Deliverer--not a condemning G.o.d, but a saving G.o.d, who wills that none should perish, who sends to seek and to save those who are lost, who sends His sun to shine on the just and the unjust, and is good to the unthankful and the evil. A G.o.d who so loved the world which He had made, in spite of all its sin and follies, that He spared not His only begotten Son, but freely gave Him for it. A G.o.d who sits on His throne for ever judging right, and ministering true judgment among the people, who from His throne beholds all those who dwell upon the earth, and fashions the hearts of them, and understandeth all their works. A G.o.d who comes out of His place to visit the wrong done on the earth, and be a refuge for the oppressed, and a help in time of trouble, to help the fatherless and poor unto their right, that the men of this world be no more exalted against them.
This is _our G.o.d_. This is our Father--always condescending, always patient, always loving, always just. And always active, always working to _do good_ to all his creatures, like that exact pattern and copy of Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." (John v. 17).
But again: "I AM hath sent me unto _you_."
Unto whom? Who was Moses sent to? To the Children of Israel in Egypt.
And what sort of people were they? Were they wise and learned? On the contrary they were stupid, ignorant, and brutish. Were they pious and G.o.dly? On the contrary they were worshipping the foolish idols of the Egyptians--so fond of idolatry that they must needs make a golden calf and worship it. Were they respectable and cleanly livers? Were they teachable and obedient? On the contrary, they were profligate, stiff- necked, murmurers, disobedient, unwilling to trust G.o.d"s goodness, though He had shown them all those glorious signs and wonders for their sakes, and brought them out of Egypt with a mighty hand and a stretched-out arm.
Were they high-spirited and brave? On the contrary, they were mean-spirited and cowards, murmuring against Moses and against G.o.d, if anything went wrong, for setting them free; ready to go back and be slaves to the Egyptians rather than face danger and fight; looking back and longing after the flesh-pots of Egypt, where they eat bread to the full, and willing to be slaves again and have all their men children drowned in the river, and themselves put to hard labour in the brick kilns, if they could only fill their stomachs. And even at best when Moses had brought them to the very edge of that rich land of Canaan, which G.o.d had promised them, they were afraid to go into it, and win it for themselves; and G.o.d had to send them back again, to wander forty years in the wilderness, till all that cowardly, base, first generation, who came up out of Egypt was dead, and a new generation had grown up, made brave and hardy by their long training in the deserts, and taught to trust and obey G.o.d from their youth; and so able and willing to conquer the good land which G.o.d had promised them.
Altogether the Children of Israel, to whom G.o.d sent Moses, were plainly an ignorant, brutish, cowardly set of people, fallen lower far than the negroes of South America, fit to be slaves and nothing better.
Then why did G.o.d take such trouble for them? Why did G.o.d care for them, and help them, and work wonders for them? Why? Exactly because they _were_ so bad. He that hath ears to hear let him hear, and understand by this example of all examples what manner of G.o.d our G.o.d is. Just because they were so bad, His goodness yearned over them all the more, and longed to make them good. Just because they were so unclean and brutish His holiness longed all the more to cleanse them. Because they were so stupid and ignorant, His wisdom longed to make them wise. Because they were so miserable, His pity yearned over them, as a father over a child fallen into danger. Because they were sick, they had all the more need of a physician. Because they were lost, there was all the more reason for seeking and saving them. Because they were utterly weak, G.o.d desired all the more to put His strength into them, that His strength might be made perfect in weakness.
True, G.o.d"s goodness seemed of little use to too many of them. Their history during the next forty years was a very sad one. With many of them G.o.d was not well pleased, the Bible tells us, and their carcases fell in the Wilderness. A sad forty years they were for Moses also, as he says in that sad and glorious Psalm of his (Ps. xc. 7, 8): "We consume away in thy displeasure, and are afraid of thy wrathful indignation. Thou hast set our misdeeds before us, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance, for when Thou art angry our days are gone: we bring our years to an end as a tale that is told."
But that was all their own fault. G.o.d never left them for all those forty years. He fed them with manna in the wilderness, and the angel of His presence preserved them.
And now, my friends, remember what I have said of G.o.d in this text, "I AM hath sent me unto you," and see how it preaches to you an almighty, unchangeable Father, whose mercy is over all His works, full of love and care for all, longing and labouring for ever by His Son Jesus Christ to raise us from the death of sin (which is the only death we need to be afraid of) to the life of righteousness--the only life worth living here, the only life which we can live beyond the grave! A just G.o.d, a merciful G.o.d, a patient G.o.d, a generous G.o.d, a gracious G.o.d; a G.o.d whose glory is to save--a G.o.d who is utterly worthy of our love and respect--a G.o.d whom we can trust--a G.o.d whom it is worth while to obey--a G.o.d who deserves our thanks from our cradle to our grave--a G.o.d to whom we ought honestly, and from the bottom of our hearts to say, now and for ever:
"We worship Thee, we bless Thee, we praise Thee, we magnify Thee, we give thanks to Thee for Thy great glory, oh! Lord G.o.d, Heavenly King, G.o.d the Father Almighty."
VI. THE ENGLISHMAN TRAINED BY TOIL.
"All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers. And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy G.o.d led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. . . . Thou shall also consider in thine heart that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy G.o.d chasteneth thee."--DEUT. viii. 1, 2, 3, 5.
As G.o.d led the Jews through the wilderness, so He leads us through the journey of life. As G.o.d called on the Jews to rejoice in Him, and to bless Him for going with them, and teaching and training them by dangers and sorrows; so He calls on us to lift up our hearts and bless Him for teaching and training us in the battle of life.
But some of you may say, "Why do you ask us to thank G.o.d for lessons which we have bought by labour and sorrow? Are not our sorrows more than our joys? Our labour far heavier than our rest can be sweet? You tell us to be joyful and thank G.o.d for His mercies; but why all this toil? Why must we work on, and on, and on, all our days, in weariness and anxiety?
Why must we only toil, toil, till we die, and lie down, fairly conquered and worn out, on that stern mother earth, from whom we have been wringing our paltry livelihood from our boyhood to our grave? What is our life but labour and sorrow?"
Are not some of you thinking in this way to-day? Have I not guessed the hearts of some of you at least? And is not this a strange way of making you joyful to remind you of these thoughts?
My friends, be sure I only remind you of these sad thoughts, because they are _true_ thoughts, because G.o.d meant you to bear them and _face_ them like men; because you must have these thoughts, and let them make you sad, and make up your minds to face them again and again, before even you can thank G.o.d really like redeemed, immortal Christian men and women. And believe me, I would not mention these sad thoughts, if I had not a remedy for them. If I had not a message to you from the living G.o.d, and Christ the King of the earth, whereby I tell you now to rejoice and give thanks to Him in spite of all your labour and sorrow. Ay more, I say, Rejoice and give thanks _on account_ of all your labour and sorrow, and count it all _joy_ when ye fall into divers tribulations.
It is true, my friends, we are a hard working and a somewhat sad race of men, we English. The life of the working man is labour and sorrow, and so is the life of the scholar, and so is the life of even many a rich man. All things are full of labour in England. Man cannot utter it, the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing; we are the wisest of all nations; and yet as Solomon says, behold in much wisdom is much grief; and in increasing knowledge, we still increase sorrow.
Truly, I may say of us Englishmen, as Paul said of the Christians of his time, that if Christ be not raised from the dead, and if in this life _only_ we have hope in Him, we are of all nations one of the most unhappy. When we look at all the hundreds of thousands pent up in our great cities among filth and smoke, toiling in factories, in workshops, in dark mines under ground--when we think of the soldier on the march under the sultry sun of India, the sailor on the stormy sea--when we think of this our bleak inclement climate, our five months of winter every year;--no man"s food and clothing to be gained but by bitter toil, either of himself or of others--and then when we compare our lot with that of the dwellers in hot countries, in India and in Africa, and the islands of the South Seas, where men live with no care, no labour--where clothes and fire are never needed--where every tree bears delicious food, and man lives in perpetual summer, in careless health and beauty, among continual mirth and ease, like the birds which know no care--then it seems at moments as if G.o.d had been unfair in giving so much more to the savage than He has to us, of the blessings of this earthly life; and we are led to long that our lot was cast in those fruitful and delicious climates of the South, in a continual paradise of mirth and plenty, and beauty and sunshine.
But no, my friends, we are more blest than the careless Indian who never knows what labour is; his life is but the life of the b.u.t.terfly, which flutters from flower to flower and sports in the sunshine, and sucks sweets for a brief hour, and then perishes without hope. His life is a dream, he sees no heaven before him, he knows no glorious G.o.d, with the sight of whom he is to be blest for ever. His body may be in perpetual ease, and health, and beauty for a few short years, but what care has he for his undying spirit, that is blind and dead within him?
But to bring a man"s soul to life, to train and educate a man"s soul that it may go on from strength to strength, and glory to glory till it appears in the presence of G.o.d--that wants a stern and a severe training of sorrow and labour, of which the poor, pampered, luxurious savage knows nothing. This is why Christ brought our forefathers into this bleak, cold, northern land, and forced them to gain their bread by the sweat of their brows, and the sorrows of their hearts, and to keep their land by many wars.
Now this is the reason of our carefulness, of our many troubles, that G.o.d is educating and training us English; that He will not have us be savages, but Christian citizens; He will have us not merely happy, but _blessed_ through all eternity. He will not have us to be like the poor Indians, slaves to our flesh and our appet.i.tes--slaves to the pleasant things around us; but He will have us fill the earth and subdue it; He will have England the light of the nations--and Englishmen preach freedom, and wisdom, and prudence, and the gospel of Jesus Christ to all the nations of the earth. Therefore Christ afflicts us because He loves us, because whom He loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. Because He has ordained England to preach the Cross, therefore He will have England bear the cross.
It has often struck me, my friends, as a beautiful and a deep sign, a blessed ordinance of the great and wise G.o.d, that the flag of England, and especially the flag of our navy--the flag which is loved and reverenced through all the world, as the bringer of free communion between nation and nation, the bringer of order and equal justice and holy freedom, and the divine majesty of law, and the light of the blessed gospel wherever it goes; that this flag, I say, should be the red-cross flag, the flag of the Cross of Christ--a double sign--a sign to all men that we are a Christian nation, a gospel people; and a sign, too, to ourselves, that we are meant to bear Christ"s cross--to bear the afflictions which He lays upon us--to be made perfect through sufferings, to crucify the flesh with its affections and l.u.s.ts, that we may be brave and self-denying; going forth in Christ"s strength, remembering that it is He who gives us power to get wealth; that we ought to fight His battles, that we ought to spread His name at home and abroad; and rejoice in every sorrow, which teaches us more and more the blessed meaning of His saving name, and the share which we have in it.
I have said that we are a melancholy people. Foreigners all say of us, that we are the saddest of all people; that when they come to England, they are struck with our silence, and gloominess, and careworn faces, and our want of merriment and cheerfulness. And yet, with all this, we are the greatest of nations at this day--the strongest and the most industrious and the wisest. The gospel of Jesus Christ is preached oftener, and more simply, and more fully here in England than in any nation, and I dare to say it, that in spite of all our sins, there are as many or more of G.o.d"s true saints, more holy men and women among English people at this moment, than among any people of the earth. And why?
because there are so many among us who have hope in Christ beyond this life, who look for everlasting salvation through all eternity to His name. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, truly of all people we should be most miserable; but Christ is risen from the dead, and He has ascended up on high, and led captivity captive, and received gifts for men. He sits even now at G.o.d"s right hand praying for us. To Him all power is given in heaven and earth, and He is our covenant G.o.d and Saviour, He is our King. He is ours; and He will have us put on His likeness, and with Him be made perfect through sufferings--_through sufferings_, for sorrow is the gate of life. Through much tribulation we enter into the kingdom of G.o.d; without weary pain none of us is born into the world; without weary labour not a harvest in England is grown and reaped; without weary thought, and teaching, and correction, not a child among us is educated to be a man; without weary thought and weary labour, not one of us can do his duty in that station of life to which Christ has called him. Not without weary struggles and arguings and contentions, by martyrdoms, by desperate wars, our forefathers won for us our religion, our freedom and our laws, which make England the wonder of the world.
This is the great law of our life--to be made perfect through sufferings, as our Lord and Master was before us. He has dealt with us, as my text tells you He dealt with the Jews, His chosen people of old, as He deals with every soul of man on whom He sets His love. "All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers. And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy G.o.d led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments, or no. And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live . . . Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy G.o.d chasteneth thee."
For, believe me, my friends, whatever nation or whatever man Christ chooses to be His own, and to be holy and n.o.ble and glorious with Him, He makes them perfect through suffering. First, He stirs up in them strange longings after what is great and good. He makes them hunger and thirst after righteousness, and then He lets them see how nothing on this earth, nothing beautiful or nothing pleasant which they can get or invent for themselves will satisfy; and so He teaches them to look to Him, to look for peace and salvation from heaven and not from earth. Then He leads them, as He led the Jews of old, through the wilderness and through the sea, through strange afflictions, through poverty, and war, and labour, that they may learn to know that He is leading them and not themselves; that they may learn to trust not in themselves, but in Him; not in their own strength: but in the bread which cometh down from heaven; not in their own courage, but in Him; and just when all seems most hopeless, He makes one of them chase a thousand, and by strange and unexpected providences, and the courage which a just cause inspires, brings His people triumphant through temptation and danger, and puts to flight the armies of the heathen, and the inventions of the evil fiend, and glorifies His name in His chosen people.
So He calls out in the heart of men and of the heart of nations, the two great twin virtues, which always go hand in hand--Faith in G.o.d, and Faith in themselves. He lets them feel themselves foolish that they may learn how to be wise in His wisdom. He lets them find themselves weak that they may learn how to be strong in His strength. Then sometimes He lets them follow their own devices and be filled with the fruits of their own inventions. He lets their sinful hearts have free course down into the depths of idolatry and covetousness, and filthy pleasure and mad self- conceit, that they may learn to know the bitter fruit that springs from the accursed root of sin, and come back to Him in shame and repentance, entreating Him to inform their thoughts, and guide their wills, and gather them to Him as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wing, that they may never more wander from Him, their life, their light, and their Saviour. Then, sometimes, if His children forsake His laws and break His covenant, He visits their offences with the rod, and their sin with the stripes of the children of men. That is, He punishes them as He punishes the heathen, if they sin as the heathen sin. He lets loose upon them His wrath, war, disease, or scarcity, that He may drive them back to Him.
And all the while He will have them _labour_. He will make them try their strength, and use their strength, and improve their strength of soul and body. By making them labour, Christ teaches His people industry, order, self-command, self-denial, patience, courage, endurance, foresight, thoughtfulness, earnestness. All these blessed virtues come out of holy labour; by working in welldoing we learn lessons which the savage among his delicious fruits and flowers, in his life of golden ease, and luxurious laziness, can never learn.
And all this Christ teaches us because He loves us, because He would have us perfect. His love is unchangeable. As He swore by Himself that He would never fail David, so He has sworn that He will never fail any one of His Churches, or any one of us. Lo, said He, I am with you always, even to the end of the world. Nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ; neither battle nor famine, nor anything else in heaven or earth.
All He wants is to educate us, because He loves us. He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. And because He is a G.o.d of love, He proves His love to us every now and then by blessing us, as well as by correcting us; else our spirits would fail before Him, and the souls which He has made. When He sees our adversity, He hears our complaint, He thinks upon His covenant and pities us, according to the mult.i.tude of His mercies. "A fruitful land maketh He barren for the wickedness of them that dwell therein, yet when they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, He delivereth them out of their distress. He maketh the wilderness standing water, and water springs of dry ground, and there He setteth the hungry that they may build them a city, that they may sow their lands and plant vineyards, to yield them fruits of increase. He blesseth them, so that they multiply exceedingly, and suffereth not their cattle to decrease; and again, when they are diminished or brought low through affliction, through any plague or trouble, though He suffer them to be evil entreated by tyrants, and let them wander out of the way in the wilderness; yet helpeth He the poor out of misery, and maketh them households like a flock of sheep." (Ps. cvii.)
O my friends, have not these words ever been wonderfully fulfilled to some of you! Then see how true it is that G.o.d will not always be chiding, neither keepeth He His anger for ever; but He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are but dust, and like as a father pitieth his children, so does He pity those who fear Him; and oftentimes, too, in His great condescension, those who fear Him not.
My friends, I have been trying in this sermon to make you feel that you are under G.o.d"s guidance, that His providence is trying to train and educate you. I have told you that there is a blessed use and meaning in your very sorrows, and in this life of continual toil which G.o.d has appointed for you; I have told you that you ought to thank G.o.d for those sorrows: how much more then ought you to thank Him for your joys. If you should thank Him for want, surely you should thank Him for plenty. O thank Him earnestly--not only with your lips, but in your lives. If you believe that He has redeemed you with His precious blood, show your thankfulness by living as redeemed men, holy to G.o.d--who are not your own, but bought with a price; therefore show forth G.o.d"s glory, the power of His grace in your bodies and your spirits which are His. If you feel that it is a n.o.ble thing to be an Englishman--especially an English soldier or an English sailor--a n.o.ble and honourable privilege to be allowed to do your duty in the n.o.blest nation and the n.o.blest church which the world ever saw--then live as Englishmen in covenant with G.o.d; faithful to Him who has redeemed you and washed you from your sins in His own blood. Do you be faithful and obedient to Christ"s Spirit, and He will be faithful to those promises of His. Though a thousand fall at thy right hand, yet the evil shall not come nigh thee. Blessed are all they that fear the Lord and walk in His ways. For thou shalt eat the labours of thine hand. O well art thou and happy shalt thou be. The Lord out of heaven shall so bless thee, that thou shalt see England in prosperity all thy life long. Yea, thou shalt see thy children"s children, and peace upon thy native land.
Oh, remember how G.o.d fulfilled that promise to England seventy years ago, when the French swept in fire and slaughter, and horrors worse than either, over almost every nation in Europe, while England remained safe in peace and plenty, and an enemy never set foot on G.o.d"s chosen English soil. Remember the French war, and our salvation in it, and then believe and take comfort. Trust in the Lord and be doing good; dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.