repeat the counsel-If you are in any trouble yourselves, or if any one dear to you is under trial, let it be temporal or spiritual, follow the course of Mary and Martha, send to Jesus, and make the trial known to him.

Let us now, secondly, consider THE GRACIOUS ANSWER returned by our Lord to their application.

"When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby." These words were sent for the present support and consolation of the sisters, until the application should receive a complete answer. The message is so worded, that whilst it might afford a sure ground for confidence, it would yet put their faith and patience to a severe test; since, for a season, the purposes of the Lord seemed to be involved in mystery. When the messenger returned to Mary and Martha, these amiable sisters would be immediately cheered. Our Lord has said, this sickness is not unto death, and therefore we may fully expect that our beloved brother

will be restored to health. But this bright gleam of sunshine was soon overcast-their brother's malady became still more dangerous; till worse and worse symptoms having appeared, he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost! Here was a trial for their faith for that strong faith which Abraham had when he offered up his son Isaac ; and when

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against hope he believed in hope, accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure." The way by which the Lord leads his people, is that of simple confidence in him. He directs them not to judge him by the outward appearance of his providence at a dark and unfavourable moment; but by his sure word of promise, according to the directions given by the prophet Isaiah : "who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay himself upon his God."* Let him remem

* Isaiah i. 10.

ber that He is faithful that has promised, who also will do it; that not one word that he has promised has ever failed, but that all has come to pass. It is to this simple faith we find him bringing his most honoured servants. Thus we find the patriarch Job, in his peculiarly heavy trial, addressing his friends: "Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him on the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him but he knoweth the way that I take: when he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold."*

The answer, therefore, which our Lord sent these sisters, whilst primarily intended for their consolation, may be viewed as his general answer to his people: "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God that the Son of God may be glorified thereby." We are told "that the sorrow of

*Job xxii. 8.
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the world worketh death;" that is, instead of leading the sufferer to Him that smiteth him, its tendency is to harden the heart. Thus at that season, when the Lord pours out his vials of wrath upon his enemies, instead of confessing their sins, and applying for mercy, this it is declared will be their miserable state: " They gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds."* But the trials of his people, whether they are those of a temporal or a spiritual nature, have a far different termination; they are "for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby." Thus it is written in the epistle of St. Peter, speaking of those who were scattered abroad for the truth's sake, and to whom an heavenly inheritance was reserved, "Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness, through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith," says the inspired

* Rev. xvi. 10, 11.

Apostle, "being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, might be found unto praise and honour and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ." This blessed end of the trials of the Lord's people is most consolatory. It clears up all those intermediate steps of his providence which are at the moment enveloped in such thick darkness. How mysterious must it have seemed to those affectionate sisters, that after our Lord's gracious word, "This sickness is not unto death," their brother should not only give up the ghost, but actually be carried to the grave, and then be immured in the silent tomb. But the mystery was afterwards unravelled; and that affliction, instead of terminating in his death, was the occasion not only of giving spiritual life to those who came to comfort Martha and Mary, but of strengthening their own faith, and kindling a still brighter flame of love in their hearts, and leading them with more profound adoration to venerate their Saviour.

Let me then, in improvement of the subject, recommend you to dwell upon that