Did it ever occur to you that that man was wonderfully like another Benaiah? Did you ever think he was wonderfully like the Lord Jesus Christ, who, on one of the dullest and darkest days that ever the world saw, went down into the pit, and encountered, face to face, the devourer and the destroyer of men. And He had nobody to encourage and nobody to cheer. All His disciples forsook Him and fled; and single, unaided, and alone, He went down into the pit, and slew the lion, the dragon, the devourer. He fought and He won.

Up from the pit He arose

With a mighty triumph o'er His foes,

He arose a Victor from the dark domain,

And He lives for ever with His saints to reign.

Hallelujah, Christ arose !"

Did it ever occur to you that that man down there in the pit, in that deadly conflict, is a type and figure, in his action, of what every believing soul has to go through?

My dear brother, my sister, there is a lion-like strength of evil in every one of us, and we are not saved till our foot is upon its neck, and its power is broken. With some, the lion is out, ranging and roaring, as that lion might be supposed to have been before this snowy day when he fell into the pit. That is to say, the power of sin is apparent they are notorious drunkards, they are notorious sinners in some form or another. But with others, the lion is in a pit, and-God help such foolish people!-they think they are all right when they have driven sin in out of sight. If only they can keep sin from breaking out openly in their faces, in their speech, in their conduct-the poor dupes think that all is well.

No, my brother, the big work is to be done yet. Go down into the pit; go down into the deeps of your own fallen nature, the depths of Satan in you; go down there quick, in the

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strength of Benaiah, and win that fight, or you are not saved yet. None of us, old or young, ignorant or learned, has a right to feel safe until he has done Benaiah's deed, and gone

down into the depths of sin that are in himself with the lamp of God and the sword of God, and stabbed to the heart the life of sin that is in the very deep places of his soul.

That is to be done; and that is why some of us are so far back, because it is not done yet. That lion is not slain; that battle is not fought between me and my own sin down in the pit. Go down to him to-day. Where you sit, go down; listen to the growlings of the brute in you. Listen! Feel, almost, the lashings of his tail. and fight, and in God's name win down there. the lion in a pit on a snowy day."

Go down

"He slew

Shammah's "Waterloo" came to him, Benaiah had to make his. Don't wait for that wonderful day that is to be, so you fondly think, when you will find your opportunity, and rise to the occasion, and come out bright and bold for God. Nay, but on this dull, unheroic, December day, unseen, untrumpeted by man, find and fight and win your soul's Waterloo.

The last thing I want you to notice is the little point of extra light that comes from the name. What does Benaiah mean? Benaiah means, literally, the man whom God built. There is something in a name, after all! The man whom God built from the protoplasm upward and onward, the God-built, God-strengthened, God-nerved, God-sustained man. May God grant that all of us shall have that pedigree! May God grant that out from this church to-day a multitude may go of whom this is the generation: "Born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of man, but born of God." Born again! Spiritual men, whose foundations God

hath laid in Christ Jesus; and out of whom God is making strong, stalwart, heroic, spiritual men, because He has built them and founded them on the Eternal Rock of His own dear Son.

Have we that strength, my brother, my sister? Men whom God hath built! Otherwise, no wonder we are weaklings, and no wonder we are continually overcome in the day of battle and the shock of conflict.

May the Lord Himself appear to us to-day in all His saving strength, and turn, for all of us, defeat into victory and the shadow of death into the morning! All appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, the Lord is with us. There is no cause for fleeing, and the very dark condition of things will only give us opportunity to glorify God, and to do something to do something that shall find for us an honourable mention in the great day. Cease to be dispirited; cease to talk despondingly; let us lift our hearts into the light of the face of our great Captain and King. "Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee."

It is a day of splendid opportunity for the individual. The battle is the common soldier's battle, and the Great Captain's eye is searching the field that He may show Himself strong in the behalf of every one who is making a stand against sin.

Henderson & Spalding, General Printers, Marylebone Lane, London, W.

THE TRUE PHYSICIAN.

A Sermon

DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, DEC. 8, 1889, IN

REGENT SQUARE CHURCH,

BY THE

REV. JOHN MCNEILL.

MARK V. 22-23.--" And there cometh one of the rulers of the syna. gogue, Jairus by name; and seeing Him, he falleth at His feet, and beseecheth Him much, saying, My little daughter is at the point of death: I pray Thee, that Thou come and lay Thy hands on her, that she may be made whole, and live."

35-36.—“While He yet spake, they come from the ruler of the synagogue's house, saying, Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master any further? But Jesus, not heeding the word spoken, saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, Fear not, only believe."

How the sovereignty of grace, to use a good old phrase, comes out in this chapter, as in all the narrative of God's dealings with the children of men ever since that record began! We have the Lord, in His grace and mercy, landing upon human wretchedness, which has its fount and spring in human sin; landing upon it as He pleases, where He pleases, and when He pleases: gracious truly; yet sovereign in the exercise and manifestation of His grace. In this same chapter we see His grace and mercy lighting down upon a madman, curing that sorely vexed lunatic. Then we see His grace and mercy lighting down upon just the other extreme —a very, very wise man, as wise as any of ourselves, a ruler of the synagogue, Jairus by name; a naturally calm and

self-possessed religious man. And also we see His grace lighting down upon that poor, unknown, nameless creature in the midst of the crowd, who stretched her hand forward to touch the hem of His garment, thinking within herself, “If I may touch but His clothes, I shall be made whole."

"Sovereign grace o'er sin abounding,

Ransomed souls, its praises swell,
"Tis a deep that knows no sounding,
Who its depth or lengths can tell?
On its glories

Let my soul for ever dwell."

May this Jesus in His sovereign grace visit us to-day, and exercise His saving power when and where and on whomsoever it may please Him! Only let us do our part; even as this poor man who cried, and the Lord helped him and saved him out of all his distresses.

Looking at the narrative which occupies us to-day, how true it is that "a little child shall lead them." The story opens darkly for Jairus, as he thinks of his child; but we who stand at this late date, and quietly and calmly look back on what has so long been finished, can easily see how that remark is illustrated. That little girl was being used through her sickness and sore calamity, in the purpose of God, to bring to Christ a man, a household, who without this powerful, providential leading very likely would not have come. Remember, this man by his ecclesiastical position, by birth, blood, and upbringing, naturally belongs to Christ's murderers: to the class who put Christ to death, who inflamed the multitude against Him, who seduced the people from their Messiah when He came and when they would have received Him gladly. The rulers of the people, the elders of the synagogue, the chief men in Israel after watching Him for a little, took sides against Him, and, naturally, "like priest like people," the mass of the people took the side of their religious leaders, and cried, "Away with Him: crucify Him!"