And one more word about this first part of my text:  the result of that direct action is complete—­’the God of hope fill you’ with no shrunken stream, no painful trickle out of a narrow rift in the rock, but a great exuberance which will pass into a man’s nature in the measure of his capacity, which is the measure of his trust and desire.  There are two limits to God’s gifts to men:  the one is the limitless limit of God’s infinitude, the other is the working limit—­our capacity—­and that capacity is precisely measured, as the capacity of some built-in vessel might be measured by a little gauge on the outside, by our faith.  ‘The God of hope’ fills you in ‘believing,’ and ‘according to thy faith shall it be unto thee.’

II.  Notice the joy and peace which come from the direct action of the God of hope on the believer’s soul.

Now, it is not only towards God that we exercise trust, but wherever it is exercised, to some extent, and in the measure in which the object on which it rests is discovered by experience to be worthy, it produces precisely these results.  Whoever trusts is at peace, just as much as he trusts.  His confidence may be mistaken, and there will come a tremendous awakening if it is, and the peace will be shattered like some crystal vessel dashed upon an iron pavement, but so long as a man’s mind and heart are in the attitude of dependence upon another, conceived to be dependable, one knows that there are few phases of tranquillity and blessedness which are sweeter and deeper than that.  ’The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her’—­that is one illustration, and a hundred more might be given.  And if you will take that attitude of trust which, even when it twines round some earthly prop, is upheld for a time, and bears bright flowers—­if you take it and twine it round the steadfast foundations of the Throne of God, what can shake that sure repose?  ‘Joy and peace’ will come when the Christian heart closes with its trust, which is God in Christ.

He that believes has found the short, sure road to joy and peace, because his relations are set right with God.  For these relations are the disturbing elements in all earthly tranquillity, and like the skeleton at the feast in all earthly joy, and a man can never, down to the roots of his being, be at rest until he is quite sure that there is nothing wrong between him and God.  And so believing, we come to that root of all real gladness which is anything better than a crackling of thorns under a pot, and to that beginning of all true tranquillity.  Joy in the Lord and peace with God are the parents of all joy and peace that are worthy of the name.