<h2><SPAN name="FROST_AND_THAW" id="FROST_AND_THAW">FROST AND THAW.</SPAN></h2>
<p class="small">"He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. He
casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold? He sendeth
out his word, and melteth them: he causeth his wind to blow, and the waters
flow."—<span class="smcap">Psalm</span> 147:16-18.</p>
<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">Looking</span> out of our window one morning we saw the
earth robed in a white mantle; for in a few short hours
the earth had been covered to a considerable depth with
snow. We looked out again in a few hours and saw the
fields as green as ever, and the ploughed fields as bare
as if no single flake had fallen. It is no uncommon thing
for a heavy fall of snow to be followed by a rapid thaw.</p>
<p>These interesting changes are wrought by God, not
only with a purpose toward the outward world, but
with some design toward the spiritual realm. God is
always a teacher. In every action that he performs he
is instructing his own children, and opening up to them
the road to inner mysteries. Happy are those who find
food for their heaven-born spirits, as well as for their
mental powers, in the works of the Lord's hand.</p>
<p>I shall ask your attention, first, <i>to the operations of nature
spoken of in the text</i>; and, secondly, <i>to those operations
of grace of which they are the most fitting symbols</i>.</p>
<p>I. Consider, first, <span class="smcap">the operations of nature</span>. We
shall not think a few minutes wasted if we call your attention
to the hand of God in frost and thaw, even
upon natural grounds.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>1. Observe the <i>directness</i> of the Lord's work. I rejoice,
as I read these words, to find how present our
God is in the world. It is not written, "the laws of
nature produce snow," but "<span class="smcap">he</span> <i>giveth snow</i>," as if every
flake came directly from the palm of his hand. We are
not told that certain natural regulations form moisture
into hoarfrost; no, but as Moses took ashes of the furnace
and scattered them upon Egypt, so it is said of the
Lord "<span class="smcap">he</span> <i>scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes</i>." It is not
said that the Eternal has set the world going and by
the operation of its machinery ice is produced. Oh,
no, but every single granule of ice descending in the
hail is from God; "<span class="smcap">he</span> <i>casteth forth his ice like morsels</i>."
Even as the slinger distinctly sends the stone out of his
sling, so the path of every hailstone is marked by the
Divine power. The ice is called, you observe, <i>his</i> ice;
and in the next sentence we read of <i>his</i> cold. These
words make nature strangely magnificent. When we
look upon every hailstone as God's hail, and upon every
fragment of ice as his ice, how precious the watery diamonds
become! When we feel the cold nipping our
limbs and penetrating through every garment, it consoles
us to remember that it is <i>his</i> cold. When the
thaw comes, see how the text speaks of it:—"<i>he sendeth
out his word</i>." He does not leave it to certain forces of
nature, but like a king, "<i>He sendeth out his word and
melteth them: he causeth</i> <span class="smcap">his</span> <i>wind to blow</i>." He has a special
property in every wind; whether it comes from the
north to freeze, or from the south to melt, it is <i>his</i> wind.
Behold how in God's temple everything speaketh of his
glory. Learn to see the Lord in all scenes of the visible
universe, for truly he worketh all things.</p>
<p>This thought of the directness of the Divine opera<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</SPAN></span>tions
must be carried into providence. It will greatly
comfort you if you can see God's hand in your losses
and crosses; surely you will not murmur against the
direct agency of your God. This will put an extraordinary
sweetness into daily mercies, and make the comforts
of life more comfortable still, because they are
from a Father's hand. If your table be scantily furnished
it shall suffice for your contented heart, when you
know that your Father spread it for you in wisdom and
love. This shall bless your bread and your water; this
shall make the bare walls of an ill-furnished room as
resplendent as a palace, and turn a hard bed into a
couch of down;—my Father doth it all. We see his
smile of love even when others see nothing but the black
hand of Death smiting our best beloved. We see a
Father's hand when the pestilence lays our cattle dead
upon the plain. We see God at work in mercy when
we ourselves are stretched upon the bed of languishing.
It is ever our Father's act and deed. Do not let us get
beyond this; but rather let us enlarge our view of this
truth, and remember that this is true of the little as
well as of the great. Let the lines of a true poet strike
you:—</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza">
<div class="line small">"If pestilence stalk through the land, ye say the Lord hath done it—</div>
<div class="line ip5 small">Hath he not done it when an aphis creepeth upon the rosebud?</div>
<div class="line ip5 small">If an avalanche tumbles from its Alp, ye tremble at the will of Providence—</div>
<div class="line ip5 small">Is not that will as much concerned when the sere leaves fall from the poplar?"</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>Let your hearts sing of everything, Jehovah-Shammah,
the Lord is there.</p>
<p>2. Next, I beg you to observe, with thanksgiving,
the <i>ease</i> of Divine working. These verses read as if the
making of frost and snow were the simplest matter in
all the world. A man puts his hand into a wool-pack and<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</SPAN></span>
throws out the wool; God giveth snow as easily as that:
"He giveth snow like wool." A man takes up a handful
of ashes, and throws them into the air, so that they
fall around: "He scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes."
Rime and snow are marvels of nature: those who have
observed the extraordinary beauty of the ice-crystals
have been enraptured, and yet they are easily formed
by the Lord. "He casteth forth his ice like morsels"—just
as easily as we cast crumbs of bread outside the
window to the robins during wintry days. When the
rivers are hard frozen, and the earth is held in iron
chains, then the melting of the whole—how is that
done? Not by kindling innumerable fires, nor by sending
electric shocks from huge batteries through the interior
of the earth—no; "He sendeth forth his word,
and melteth them; he causeth his wind to blow, and
the waters flow." The whole matter is accomplished
with a word and a breath. If you and I had any great
thing to do, what puffing and panting, what straining
and tugging there would be: even the great engineers,
who perform marvels by machinery, make much noise
and stir about it. It is not so with the Almighty One.
Our globe spins round in four-and-twenty hours, and
yet it does not make so much noise as a humming-top;
and yonder ponderous worlds rolling in space track
their way in silence. If I enter a factory I hear a deafening
din, or if I stand near the village mill, turned by
water dropping over a wheel, there is a never-ceasing
click-clack, or an undying hum; but God's great
wheels revolve without noise or friction: divine machinery
works smoothly. This ease is seen in providence
as well as in nature. Your heavenly Father is as
able to deliver you as he is to melt the snow, and he will<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</SPAN></span>
deliver you in as simple a manner if you rest upon him.
He openeth his hand, and supplies the want of every
living thing as readily as he works in nature. Mark the
ease of God's working—he does but open his hand.</p>
<p>3. Notice in the next place the <i>variety</i> of the Divine
operations in nature. When the Lord is at work with
frost as his tool he creates snow, a wonderful production,
every crystal being a marvel of art; but then he is
not content with snow—from the same water he makes
another form of beauty which we call hoarfrost, and yet
a third lustrous sparkling substance, namely glittering
ice; and all these by the one agency of cold. What a
marvellous variety the educated eye can detect in the
several forms of frozen water! The same God who solidified
the flood with cold soon melts it with warmth;
but even in thaw there is no monotony of manner: at
one time the joyous streams rush with such impetuosity
from their imprisonment that rivers are swollen
and floods cover the plain; at another time by slow degrees,
in scanty driblets, the drops regain their freedom.
The same variety is seen in every department of nature.
So in providence the Lord has a thousand forms of
frosty trials with which to try his people, and he has ten
thousand beams of mercy with which to cheer and comfort
them. He can afflict you with the snow trial, or
with the hoarfrost trial, or with the ice trial, if he will;
and anon he can with his word relax the bonds of adversity,
and that in countless ways. Whereas men are
tied to two or three methods in accomplishing their
will, God is infinite in understanding and worketh as
he wills by ways unguessed of mortal mind.</p>
<p>4. I shall ask you also to consider the works of God
in nature in their <i>swiftness</i>. It was thought a wonderful
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</SPAN></span>
thing in the days of Ahasuerus that letters were sent by
post upon swift dromedaries. In our country we
thought we had arrived at the age of miracles when the
axles of our cars glowed with speed, and now that the
telegraph is at work we stretch out our hands into infinity;
but what is our rapidity compared with that of
God's operations? Well does the text say, "He sendeth
forth his commandment upon earth: his word runneth
very swiftly." Forth went the word, "Open the
treasures of snow," and the flakes descended in innumerable
multitudes; and then it was said, "Let them
be closed," and not another snow-feather was seen.
Then spake the Master, "Let the south wind blow
and the snow be melted": lo, it disappeared at the
voice of his word. Believer, you cannot tell how soon
God may come to your help. "He rode upon a cherub
and did fly," says David; "yea, he did fly upon the
wings of the wind." He will come from above to rescue
his beloved. He will rend the heavens and come
down; with such speed will he descend, that he will
not stay to draw the curtains of heaven, but he will rend
them in his haste, and make the mountains to flow
down at his feet, that he may deliver those who cry
unto him in the hour of trouble. That mighty God
who can melt the ice so speedily can take to himself the
same eagle wings, and haste to your deliverance. Arise,
O God! and let thy children be helped, and that right
early.</p>
<p>5. One other thought: consider the <i>goodness</i> of God
in all the operations of nature and providence. Think
of that goodness negatively. "Who can stand before
his cold?" You cannot help thinking of the poor in a
hard winter—only a hard heart can forget them when<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</SPAN></span>
you see the snow lying deep. But suppose that snow
continued to fall! What is there to hinder it? The
same God who sends us snow for one day could do the
like for fifty days if he pleased. Why not? And when
the frost pinches us so severely, why should it not be
continued month after month? We can only thank the
goodness which does not send "His cold" to such an
extent that our spirits expire. Travellers toward the
North Pole tremble as they think of this question,
"Who can stand before his cold?" For cold has a degree
of omnipotence in it when God is pleased to let it
loose. Let us thank God for the restraining mercy by
which he holds the cold in check.</p>
<p>Not only negatively, but positively there is mercy
in the snow. Is not that a suggestive metaphor? "He
giveth snow <i>like wool</i>." The snow is said to warm the
earth; it protects those little plants which have just begun
to peep above the ground, and might otherwise be
frost-bitten; as with a garment of down the snow protects
them from the extreme severity of cold. Hence
Watts sings, in his version of the hundred and forty-seventh
Psalm—</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza">
<div class="line small">"His flakes of snow like wool he sends,</div>
<div class="line ip5 small">And thus the springing corn defends."</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>It was an idea of the ancients that snow warmed the
heart of the soil, and gave it fertility, and therefore
they praised God for it. Certainly there is much mercy
in the frost, for pestilence might run a far longer race
if it were not that the frost cries to it, "Hitherto shalt
thou come, but no farther." Noxious insects would
multiply until they devoured the precious fruits of the
earth, if sharp nights did not destroy millions of them,
so that these pests are swept off the earth. Though man
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</SPAN></span>
may think himself a loser by the cold, he is a great ultimate
gainer by the decree of Providence which ordains
winter. The quaint saying of one of the old writers
that "snow is wool, and frost is fire, and ice is bread,
and rain is drink," is true, though it sounds like a paradox.
There is no doubt that frost in breaking up the
soil promotes fruitfulness, and so the ice becomes bread.
Thus those agencies, which for the moment deprive
our workers of their means of sustenance, are the
means by which God supplies every living thing.
Mark, then, God's goodness as clearly in the snow and
frost as in the thaw which clears the winter's work away.</p>
<p>Christian, remember the goodness of God in the frost
of adversity. Rest assured that when God is pleased to
send out the biting winds of affliction he is in them, and
he is always love, as much love in sorrow as when he
breathes upon you the soft south wind of joy. See the
lovingkindness of God in every work of his hand!
Praise him—he maketh summer and winter—let your
song go round the year! Praise him—he giveth
day and sendeth night—thank him at all hours! Cast
not away your confidence, it hath great recompense of
reward. As David wove the snow, and rain, and
stormy wind into a song, even so combine your trials,
your tribulations, your difficulties and adversities into a
sweet psalm of praise and say perpetually—</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza">
<div class="line small">"Let us, with a gladsome mind,</div>
<div class="line ip5 small">Praise the Lord, for he is kind."</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>Thus much upon the operations of nature. It is a very
tempting theme, but other fields invite me.</p>
<p>II. I would address you very earnestly and solemnly
Upon <span class="smcap">those operations of grace, of which frost
and thaw are the outward symbols</span>.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>There is a period with God's own people when he
comes to deal with them by <i>the frost of the law</i>. The law
is to the soul as the cutting north wind. Faith can see
love in it, but the carnal eye of sense cannot. It is a
cold, terrible, comfortless blast. To be exposed to the
full force of the law of God would be to be frost-bitten
with everlasting destruction; and even to feel it for a
season would congeal the marrow of one's bones, and
make one's whole being stiff with affright. "Who can
stand before his cold?" When the law comes forth
thundering from its treasuries, who can stand before it?
The effect of law-work upon the soul is to bind up the
rivers of human delight. No man can rejoice when the
terrors of conscience are upon him. When the law of
God is sweeping through the soul, music and dancing
lose their joy, the bowl forgets its power to cheer, and
the enchantments of earth are broken. The rivers of
pleasure freeze to icy despondency. The buds of hope
are suddenly nipped, and the soul finds no comfort. It
was satisfied once to grow rich, but rust and canker
are now upon all gold and silver. Every promising
hope is frost-bitten, and the spirit is winter-bound in
despair. This cold makes the sinner feel how ragged
his garments are. He could strut about, when it was
summer weather, and think his rags right royal robes,
but now the cold frost finds out every rent in his garment,
and in the hands of the terrible law he shivers like
the leaves upon the aspen. The north wind of judgment
searches the man through and through. He did
not know what was in him, but now he sees his inward
parts to be filled with corruption and rottenness. These
are some of the terrors of the wintry breath of the law.</p>
<p>This frost of law and terrors only tends to harden.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</SPAN></span>
Nothing splits the rock or makes the cliff tumble like
frost when succeeded by thaw, but frost alone makes
the earth like a mass of iron, breaking the ploughshare
which would seek to pierce it. A sinner under the influence
of the law of God, apart from the gospel, is hardened
by despair, and cries, "There is no hope, and
therefore after my lusts will I go. Whereas there is no
heaven for me after this life, I will make a heaven out
of this earth; and since hell awaits me, I will at least
enjoy such sweets as sin may afford me here." This is
not the fault of the law; the blame lies with the corrupt
heart which is hardened by it; yet, nevertheless,
such is its effect.</p>
<p>When the Lord has wrought by the frost of the law,
he sends <i>the thaw of the gospel</i>. When the south wind
blows from the land of promise, bringing precious remembrances
of God's fatherly pity and tender lovingkindness,
then straightway the heart begins to soften
and a sense of blood-bought pardon speedily dissolves
it. The eyes fill with tears, the heart melts in tenderness,
rivers of pleasure flow freely, and buds of hope
open in the cheerful air. A heavenly spring whispers
to the flowers that were sleeping in the cold earth; they
hear its voice, and lift up their heads, for "the rain is
over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth, the
time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of
the turtle is heard in our land." God sendeth his
Word, saying, "Thy warfare is accomplished, and thy
sin is pardoned;" and when that blessedly cheering
word comes with power to the soul, and the sweet
breath of the Holy Spirit acts like the warm south wind
upon the heart, then the waters flow, and the mind is
filled with holy joy, and light, and liberty.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza">
<div class="line small">"The legal wintry state is gone,</div>
<div class="line ip5 small">The frosts are fled, the spring comes on,</div>
<div class="line ip5 small">The sacred turtle-dove we hear</div>
<div class="line ip5 small">Proclaim the new, the joyful year."</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>Having shown you that there is a parallel between
frost and thaw in nature and law and gospel in grace, I
would utter the same thoughts concerning grace which
I gave you concerning nature.</p>
<p>1. We began with the directness of God's works in
nature. Now, beloved friends, remark the <i>directness of
God's works in grace</i>. When the heart is truly affected
by the law of God, when sin is made to appear exceeding
sinful, when carnal hopes are frozen to death by the
law, when the soul is made to feel its barrenness and
utter death and ruin—this is the finger of God. Do not
speak of the minister. It was well that he preached
earnestly: God has used him as an instrument, but
God worketh all. When the thaw of grace comes, I
pray you discern the distinct hand of God in every beam
of comfort which gladdens the troubled conscience, for
it is the Lord alone who bindeth up the broken in heart
and healeth all their wounds. We are far too apt to
stop in instrumentalities. Folly makes men look to sacraments
for heart-breaking or heart-healing, but sacraments
all say, "It is not in us." Some of you look to
the preaching of the Word, and look no higher; but all
true preachers will tell you, "It is not in us." Eloquence
and earnestness at their highest pitch can neither
break nor heal a heart. This is God's work. Ay, and
not God's secondary work in the sense in which the philosopher
admits that God is in the laws of nature, but
God's personal and immediate work. He putteth forth
his own hand when the conscience is humbled, and it is<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</SPAN></span>
by his own right hand that the conscience is eased and
cleansed.</p>
<p>I desire that this thought may abide upon your
minds, for you will not praise God else, nor will you be
sound in doctrine. All departures from sound doctrine
on the point of conversion arise from forgetfulness
that it is a divine work from first to last; that the faintest
desire after Christ is as much the work of God as the
gift of his dear Son; and that our whole spiritual history
through, from the Alpha to the Omega, the Holy
Spirit works in us to will and to do of his own good
pleasure. As you have evidently seen the finger of
God in casting forth his ice and in sending thaw, so I
pray you recognize the handiwork of God in giving you
a sense of sin, and in bringing you to the Saviour's feet.
Join together in heartily praising the wonder-working
God, who doeth all things according to the counsel of
his will.</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza">
<div class="line small i6">"Our seeking thy face</div>
<div class="line small i6p5">Was all of thy grace,</div>
<div class="line small">Thy mercy demands, and shall have all the praise:</div>
<div class="line small i6p5">No sinner can be</div>
<div class="line small i6p5">Beforehand with thee,</div>
<div class="line ip5 small">Thy grace is preventing, almighty and free."</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>2. The second thought upon nature was <i>the ease with
which the Lord worked</i>. There was no effort or disturbance.
Transfer that to the work of grace. How easy
it is for God to send law-work into the soul! You stubborn
sinner, <i>you</i> cannot touch him, and even providence
has failed to awaken him. He is dead—altogether dead
in trespasses and sins. But if the glorious Lord will
graciously send forth the wind of his Spirit, that will
melt him. The swearing reprobate, whose mouth is
blackened with profanity, if the Lord doth but look<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</SPAN></span>
upon him and make bare his arm of irresistible grace,
shall yet praise God, and bless his name, and live to his
honor. Do not limit the Holy One of Israel. Persecuting
Saul became loving Paul, and why should not that
person be saved of whose case you almost despair?
Your husband may have many points which make his
case difficult, but no case is desperate with God. Your
son may have offended both against heaven and against
you, but God can save the most hardened. The sharpest
frost of obstinate sin must yield to the thaw of grace.
Even huge icebergs of crime must melt in the Gulf-stream
of infinite love.</p>
<p>Poor sinner, I cannot leave this point without a
word to you. Perhaps the Master has sent the frost to
you, and you think it will never end. Let me encourage
you to hope, and yet more, to pray for gracious
visitations. Miss Steele's verses will just suit your
mournful yet hopeful state.</p>
<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="line small">"Stern winter throws his icy chains,</div>
<div class="line small i1">Encircling nature round:</div>
<div class="line small ip5">How bleak, how comfortless the plains,</div>
<div class="line small i1">Late with gay verdure crown'd!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="line small ip5">The sun withdraws his vital beams,</div>
<div class="line small i1">And light and warmth depart:</div>
<div class="line small ip5">And, drooping lifeless, nature seems</div>
<div class="line small i1">An emblem of my heart—</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="line small ip5">My heart, where mental winter reigns</div>
<div class="line small i1">In night's dark mantle clad,</div>
<div class="line small ip5">Confined in cold, inactive chains;</div>
<div class="line small i1">How desolate and sad!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="line small ip5">Return, O blissful sun, and bring</div>
<div class="line small i1">Thy soul-reviving ray;</div>
<div class="line small ip5">This mental winter shall be spring,</div>
<div class="line small i1">This darkness cheerful day."</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>It is easy for God to deliver you. He says, "I have<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</SPAN></span>
blotted out like a thick cloud thy transgressions." I
stood the other evening looking up at a black cloud
which was covering all the heavens, and I thought it
would surely rain; I entered the house, and when I
came out again the sky was all blue—the wind had
driven the cloud away. So may it be with your soul.
It is an easy thing for the Lord to put away sin from
repenting sinners. All obstacles which hindered our
pardon were removed by Jesus when he died upon the
tree, and if you believe in him you will find that he has
cast your sins into the depths of the sea. If thou canst
believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.</p>
<p>3. The next thought concerning the Lord's work
in nature was the <i>variety</i> of it. Frost produces a sort of
trinity in unity—snow, hoarfrost, ice; and when the
thaw comes its ways are many. So it is with God in
the heart. Conviction comes not alike to all. Some
convictions fall as the snow from heaven: you never
hear the flakes descend, they alight so gently one upon
the other. There are soft-coming convictions; they
are felt, but we can scarcely tell when we began to feel
them. A true work of repentance may be of the gentlest
kind. On the other hand, the Lord casteth forth
his ice like morsels, the hailstones rattle against the
window, and you think they will surely force their way
into the room, and so to many persons convictions come
beating down till they remind you of hailstones. There
is variety. It is as true a frost which produces the
noiseless snow as that which brings forth the terrible
hail. Why should you want hailstones of terror? Be
thankful that God has visited you, but do not dictate
to him the way of his working.</p>
<p>With regard to the gospel thaw. If you may but<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</SPAN></span>
be pardoned by Jesus, do not stipulate as to the manner
of his grace. Thaw is universal and gradual, but
its commencement is not always discernible. The
chains of winter are unloosed by degrees: the surface
ice and snow melt, and by and by the warmth permeates
the entire mass till every rock of ice gives way.
But while thaw is universal and visible in its effects you
cannot see the mighty power which is doing all this.
Even so you must not expect to discern the Spirit of
God. You will find him gradually operating upon the
entire man, enlightening the understanding, freeing the
will, delivering the heart from fear, inspiring hope,
waking up the whole spirit, gradually and universally
working upon the mind and producing the manifest effects
of comfort, and hope, and peace; but you can no
more see the Spirit of God than you can see the south
wind. The effect of his power is to be felt, and when
you feel it, do not marvel if it be somewhat different
from what others have experienced. After all, there is
a singular likeness in snow and hoarfrost and ice, and
so there is a remarkable sameness in the experience of
all God's children; but still there is a great variety in
the inward operations of divine grace.</p>
<p>4. We must next notice the <i>rapidity</i> of God's works,
"His word runneth very swiftly." It did not take
many days to get rid of the last snow. A contractor
would take many a day to cart it away, but God sendeth
forth his word, and the snow and ice disappear at
once. So is it with the soul: the Lord often works
rapidly when he cheers the heart. You may have been
a long time under the operation of his frosty law, but
there is no reason why you should be another hour
under it. If the Spirit enables you to trust in the fin<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</SPAN></span>ished
work of Christ, you may go out of this house rejoicing
that every sin is forgiven. Poor soul, do not
think that the way from the horrible pit is to climb, step
by step, to the top. Oh no; Jesus can set your feet
upon a rock ere the clock shall have gone round the
dial. He can in an instant bring you from death to life,
from condemnation to justification. "To-day shall thou
be with me in Paradise," was spoken to a dying thief,
black and defiled with sin. Only believe in the atoning
sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.</p>
<p>5. Our last thought upon the operation of God was
<i>his goodness</i> in it all. What a blessing that God did not
send us more law-work than he did! "Who can stand
before his cold?" Oh! beloved, when God has taken
away from man natural comfort, and made him feel divine
wrath in his soul, it is an awful thing. Speak of a
haunted man; no man need be haunted with a worse
ghost than the remembrance of his old sins. The childish
tale of the sailor with the old man of the mountain
on his back, who pressed him more and more heavily, is
more than realized in the history of the troubled conscience.
If one sin do but leap on a man's back, it will
sink the sinner through every standing-place that he can
possibly mount upon; he will go down, down, under its
weight, till he sinks to the lowest depths of hell. There
is no place where sin can be borne till you get upon the
Rock of Ages, and even there the joy is not that <i>you</i> bear
it, but that Jesus has borne it all for you. The spirit
would utterly fail before the law, if it had full sway.
Thank God, "he stayeth his rough wind in the day of
his east wind." At the same time, how thankful we
may be, that we ever felt the law-frost in our soul. The
folly of self-righteousness is killed by the winter of con<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</SPAN></span>viction.
We should have been a thousand times more
proud, and foolish, and worldly, than we are, if it had
not been for the sharp frost with which the Lord nipped
the growths of the flesh.</p>
<p>But how shall we thank him sufficiently for the
thaw of his lovingkindness? How great the change
which his mercy made in us as soon as its beams had
reached our soul! Hardness vanished, cold departed,
warmth and love abounded, and the life-floods leaped in
their channels. The Lord visited us, and we rose from
our grave of despair, even as the seeds arise from the
earth. As the bulb of the crocus holds up its golden
cup to be filled with sunshine, so did our new-born faith
open itself to the glory of the Lord. As the primrose
peeps up from the sod to gaze upon the sun, so did our
hope look forth for the promise, and delight itself in
the Lord. Thank God that spring-tide has with many
of us matured into summer, and winter has gone never
to return. We praise the Lord for this every day of our
lives, and we will praise him when time shall be no
more in that sunny land—</p>
<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="line small">"Where everlasting spring abides,</div>
<div class="line small i2">And never withering flowers.</div>
<div class="line small ip5">A thread-like stream alone divides</div>
<div class="line small i2">That heavenly land from ours."</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>Believe in the Lord, ye who shiver in the frost of
the law, and the thaw of love shall soon bring you warm
days of joy and peace. So be it. Amen.</p>
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