the desire may fit us for its answer, and that the open mouth may be ready for the abundant filling which His grace designs.  He works upon us, therefore, by making us desire a gift, and then He gives that which He desires.  So let us cherish these longings, not for the accident of escaping death, nor as choosing the path by which we shall reach the blessed issue, but longing for that great issue itself; and try to keep more distinct and clear before all our minds this thought, ’God means for me the participation in Christ’s glorified Manhood, and my attaining of that Manhood is the end that He has in view in all that He does with me.’

III.  So I must say one word about the last thought that is here, and that is the certainty and the confidence.  ’Therefore we are always confident,’ says the Apostle.

‘He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God.’  Then we may be sure that as far as He is concerned, the work will not be suspended nor vain. This man does not begin to build and is unable to finish.  This workman has infinite resources, an unchanging purpose, and infinite long-suffering.  He will complete His task.

In the quarries of Egypt you will find gigantic stones, half-dressed, and intended to have been transported to some great temple.  But there they lie, the work incomplete, and they never carried to their place.  There are no half-polished stones in God’s quarries.  They are all finished where they lie, and then borne across the sea, like Hiram’s from Lebanon, to the Temple on the hill.  It is a certainty that God will finish His work; and since ‘He that hath wrought us is God,’ we may be sure that He will not stop till He has done.

But it is a certainty that you can thwart.  It is an operation that you can counterwork.  The potter in Jeremiah’s parable was making a vessel upon his wheel, and the vessel was marred in his hand, and did not turn out what he wanted it.  The meaning of the metaphor, which has often been twisted to express the very opposite, is that the potter’s work may fail, that the artificer may be balked, that you can counterwork the divine dealing, and that all His purpose in your creation, in His providence and in His gift of His Son for your redemption, may come to nought as far as you are concerned.  ’I beseech you that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.’  ’In vain have I smitten your children,’ wailed the Divine Love; ’they have received no correction.’  In vain God lavishes upon some of us His mercies, in vain for some of us has Christ toiled and suffered and died.  Oh, brother! do not let all God’s work on you come to nought, but yield yourselves to it.  Rejoice in the confidence that He is moulding your character, cheerfully welcome and accept the providences, painful as they may be, by which He prepares you for heaven.  The chisel is sharp that strikes off the superfluous pieces of marble, and when the chisel cuts, not into marble, but into a heart, there is a pang.  Bear