and that guilt must be cleansed away; I feel sin, and I want to know pardon; I hear God proclaiming Himself as the Avenger of iniquity in a broken law, and I want to hear that same God proclaiming Himself to me on a throne of grace as "The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, trangression, and sin." My soul feels naked to my shame before the eye of the great Searcher of hearts; and if ever I stand before Him with acceptance, it must be alone in the robe of the Saviour's blessed righteousness. And depend upon it, if God the Holy Spirit has never brought you thus, more or less, to feel your sinnership and necessities, you will not be able to understand what I desire to speak about tonight, and what is couched in the portion I have just read for a text; "the captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail." May the Lord the Spirit, then, be our Teacher, while I proceed to notice

I. The "captive exile."-1. Now, doubtless, as this captive exile" was one who had been an inhabitant of Jerusalem, though then an exile from that favoured spot, he sets forth one of God's elect-one whom God the Father had chosen before time began, and who was predestinated to be holy and without blame before Him in love -one who was blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus, according as He had chosen him in Him before the foundation of the world (Eph. i. 3, 4). The Psalmist, David, cried to be remembered with God's ancient favour. He believed in sovereign grace, and he knew and felt that, if he were not remembered with that favour, eternal misery must be his end. God the Spirit had caused his heart to pant after a feeling interest and enjoyment of those blessings for which he thus pleaded: "Remember me, O Lord, with the favour that Thou bearest unto Thy people: O visit me with Thy salvation; that I may see the good of Thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of Thy nation, that I may glory with Thine inheritance." If God intends to save you, this has been, or will be sooner or later, the language of your heart: "I am a poor, helpless, and miserable sinner; I must be damned, for aught I can do to save myself; I have no claim on God for salvation; I justly deserve His wrath; and if He saves me, it must be of His own

sovereign will, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.' "" Have you ever thus felt election? Has your soul every longed after electing love to come into your heart? Oh, the many times my heart has panted and longed to know whether God had chosen me, and to have assurance that He has loved me with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness He has drawn me! And if God has made you to pant after these blessings in your heart, He will most assuredly grant your desire. May He keep you from being satisfied without this solemn assurance! may He keep you continually wrestling and crying to Him, as the widow did to the unjust judge," And shall not God avenge His own elect, that cry day and night unto Him? Yea, He will avenge them speedily, though He bear long with them." If thou desirest and pantest after electing love to be shed abroad in thy heart, verily there is some good thing found in thee towards the Lord God of Israel, and thou shalt surely one day rejoice in the Lord. I say this not to encourage you to rest where you are, but to encourage you on to seek to be brought believingly to the cross of Jesus, the true place to learn your election. However glad a living soul may be, and is, of any right encouragement while seeking, he cannot rest fully satisfied without being enabled to say, "I love Him, because He hath first loved me." There is a great difference between giving a traveller a cordial to revive, and helping him on the road, and making a couch for him to lie down in ease and contentment without reaching the city to which he is journeying.

2. This "captive exile" is not only one of God's elect, but one who has been blessed with a solemn enjoyment of this truth in his soul, though now in a state of exile. What a mercy if any of you have been blessed with a persuasion of interest in the Father's electing love! How it fills a soul with wonder and astonishment that he should have been loved before all worlds, that he should have been pitched upon as a vessel of mercy for the Master's use, that his name should have been written in the Lamb's book of life! And, though he who has once tasted this may have many painful doubts at times whether it was truly the work of the Spirit of God, yet he can never forget what he has felt when God has given him to believe that from all eternity He loved his soul,

and gave him into the hands of Christ to be redeemed, and that when He appears in His glory he shall be found among His chosen jewels.

3. This "captive exile" is also one of the redeemed, as we are told in the context, verse 11. He is one for whom Jesus shed His precious blood. And, oh, what amazing love was this in the dear Lord to take the guilty rebel's place, come into his wretchedness, and stoop under his guilt, endure the weight of all the crimes, and suffer the millions of hells deserved by all who shall join in the heavenly song, "Unto Him that hath loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father" (Rev. i. 5, 6). But what a mercy of mercies to be brought into a spiritual knowledge of one's own redemption by Jesus Christ; though, be it remembered, none are brought here until brought feelingly to need this blessed and complete redemption. The poor sinner who has been made to feel his wretchedness, nakedness, misery, and ruin and what a hell his iniquities deserve, seeks by faith to receive the atonement; and, as God the Spirit is pleased to lead him to realize his own redemption, and to look on Him whom he hath pierced, he can enter a little into that wonderful love of the Lamb of God displayed in the depths of His sufferings, and see a little of the amazing price His Church cost Him to redeem her from hell.

4. This "captive exile" is one who has been brought out of darkness into God's marvellous light. He has been brought out spiritually from that state in which the children of Israel were literally in Egypt, and he has been brought into that state which Canaan prefigured. He has not only been brought out of bondage, but he has been brought into liberty. He has, through grace, left Egypt, travelled through the wilderness, and entered Canaan. Only those to whom God had a favour came into that favoured land; and 66 even they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but God's right hand, and His arm, and the light of His countenance, because He had a favour unto them" (Psalm xliv. 3). It is possible for a person to "separate himself" from the profane world, and yet never have been led truly out of nature's darkness into God's marvellous light. Remember, my

hearers, you must, if ever you go to heaven, know what it is to be brought out of a state of nature into a state of grace-out of death into life-out of the bondage and service of sin and contentedness with a natural religioninto a spiritual enjoyment of the mercy, grace, and favour of God, through faith in the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you ever been so brought out and so brought in? Has something been done in your heart and soul which you could not do for yourself? Have you ever had such a sense of your own sinfulness and helplessness, as no self-righteousness, no self-imposed duties, could relieve? And have you found it in your heart to plead the promises, and seek after just such a Saviour and such a salvation as the gospel reveals. Have you been constrained to wait upon God for Him to give you faith in His promises, and to bring you into a blessed enjoyment of your own interest in the glorious doctrines of distinguishing favour? Oh, what a mercy ever to have been brought out, through a sense of the holiness and justice of God, and your own sinfulness and helplessness, both from profanity, self-righteousness, and presumption! But what makes this solemnly felt as a mercy, is the blessed experience of being brought into the spiritual enjoyment of interest in the love, mercy, grace, and power of the Eternal Three. But how many trembling fears, sinkings, down-castings, and temptations have the bulk of God's people to wade through, after being brought out of Egypt, before they feelingly enter into Canaan, and can use the language of the Psalmist, "Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living."

Thus, then, this "captive exile" is one who is interested in the Father's electing love, the Son's redemption, and the Spirit's convincing and converting work on the heart.

II. But where is he an exile from ?-1. He is an exile from Jerusalem. Therefore he must have been an inhabitant of Jerusalem, and have stood upon the foundation upon which the city is built; and “other Foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. iii. 11). Hast thou ever entered into the experience of David when he said, "I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined unto me, and

heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God" (Psalm xl. 1-3). Oh, who can tell a thousandth part of the blessedness of having one's feet set upon the Rock of Ages, when we have felt confident that otherwise we must sink to hell, and eternal misery be our portion; then for God the Holy Spirit to lift us out of the mire of death, despair, and wretchedness, and set our feet of faith upon the Rock Christ! And if ever thou hast had thy feet set there, God will most assuredly carry on "the good work" which He hath begun in thee, and "will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ."

"Did Jesus once upon thee shine ?

Then Jesus is for ever thine."

2. But this "captive exile" must have known, having been in Jerusalem, what it was to be surrounded by its walls, its gates, and bulwarks; "I will make her walls salvation, and her gates praise." The prophet Isaiah knew what it was really to feel thus surrounded, when he broke out in that blessed language, "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels" (Isaiah lxi. 10). And if thou art, or indeed if ever thou wert, made feelingly to enter into these blessed walls of a complete salvation (by which Zion is surrounded), which was planned from all eternity, wrought out by Jesus, and brought in and applied to the heart through faith by the Eternal Spirit, nought shall pluck thee thence; for it is wrttten, "I give unto my sheep eternal life; they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand."

6.6

3. This captive exile " must have known also what it was to join in the temple service, and to offer up sacrifices to God, to join with His people in praising and calling upon His name, and he must have received the blessing from the priest, "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: the Lord make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace" (Num. vi. 24-26). God's people are