annot sway Him with our
changes: "if we are faithless, He abideth faithful, for He cannot deny
Himself." And therefore it is presently added that "the firm foundation
of the Lord standeth sure, having" not only "this seal, that the Lord
knoweth those that are His,"--but also this, "Let every one that nameth
the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness" (2 Tim. ii. 12, 13,
19, R.V.).

The Lord knew that Israel was His, yet for their unrighteousness He
sware in His wrath that they should not enter into His rest.

It follows from all this that the new name of God was no academic
subtlety, no metaphysical refinement of the schools, unfitly revealed to
slaves, but a most practical and inspiring truth, a conviction to warm
their blood, to rouse their courage, to convert their despair into
confidence and their alarms into defiance.

They had the support of a God worthy of trust. And thenceforth every
answer in righteousness, every new disclosure of fidelity, tenderness,
love, was not an abnormal phenomenon, the uncertain grace of a
capricious despot; no, its import was permanent as an observation of the
stars by an astronomer, ever more to be remembered in calculating the
movements of the universe.

In future troubles they could appeal to Him to awake as in the ancient
days, as being He who "cut Rahab and wounded the Dragon." "I am the
Lord, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed."

And as the sublime and beautiful conception of a loving spiritual God
was built up slowly, age by age, tier upon tier, this was the foundation
which insured the the stability of all, until the Head Stone of the
Corner gave completeness to the vast design, until men saw and could
believe in the very Incarnation of all Love, unshaken amid anguish and
distress and seeming failure, immovable, victorious, while they heard
from human lips the awful words, "Before Abraham was, I AM." Then they
learned to identify all this ancient lesson of trustworthiness with new
and more pathetic revelations of affection: and the martyr at the stake
grew strong as he remembered that the Man of Sorrows was the same
yesterday and to-day and for ever; and the great apostle, prostrate
before the glory of his Master, was restored by the touch of a human
hand, and by the voice of Him upon Whose bosom he had leaned, saying,
Fear not, I am the First and the Last and the Living One.

And if men are once more fain to rend from humanity that great
ass