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Memorials of mercies received, and deliverances experienced, appear to have been common in every age of the world; whether dedicated, in the enlightened sincerity of true religion, to the honour of the only Jehovah, or appropriated, by mistaken superstition, to the idolatrous reverence of some imaginary Deity, the work of men's hands, wood, and stone (see Genesis 8:20; Genesis 13:18; Joshua 4:1-9; 1 Samuel 7:12). Altars and temples, statues and pictures, arches and obelisks, hospitals and churches, nunneries and convents, schools and almshouses, have abounded in all ages as marks of the founder's vanity or thankfulness. Where they testified the undissembled sincerity of the latter feeling it well demands our respect and imitation. The gratitude due to God for the bounties of His providence, or the higher and nobler gifts of His grace in Jesus Christ, may not be recorded upon tables of stone, to attract notice, and challenge admiration. But no mercy should be received, no blessing enjoyed. without its recollection being engraven on fleshly tables of the heart; that He who seeth in secret may read the memorial.

I. It is, then, because you have obtained PROVIDENTIAL HELP of God that you continue in life unto this day. Amidst perils of every description, by which the life of a persecuted man could be beset, Paul was still delivered. Hazard less apparent, danger less imminent, may have accompanied you in your journey through life. But preserved as you are from the pestilence that walketh in darkness, and from the destruction that wasteth at noonday, while thousands have fallen at your side, and ten thousands at your right hand, to what is your safety owing, except to the unslumbering watchfulness of Him who called you into being, and whose providence has been your guard. Visited, as many of you have been, by sickness — nearly as you have viewed, and closely as your feet have trodden the borders of the eternal state, it is of the Lord's mercy that you have not been consumed. Will anyone presume to say that he hath continued unto this day by some of those lucky combinations of fortuitous circumstances, by which a ship, deprived of mariners, sails, rudder, and compass, might float upon the ocean, the sport of every wind, and yet escape shipwreck and utter loss? Shall we not rather confess that He who, in the person of His dear Son, bought our dying souls with the sacrifice of Himself, and would save us from everlasting woe, did we flee to the refuge of His Cross, now upholds us in life? Shall we not glory to acknowledge that, however long may be the chain of second causes, and however invisible its termination, God, as He sits upon the throne of providential dominion, holds every link in His hand? Are you in prosperity? it is the gift of God; in adversity? it is His messenger of reproof and love; in health? it is His loan; in sickness? it is His memorial. He is providentially with you; He ministers to the life He gave: and however little His interference may be discerned, or His love acknowledged, it is because you have received help from God that you continue unto this day.

II. I turn now to matter of still higher and more solemn import. Let me then admonish any here who are living insensible of their soul's danger, prospect, and hope, and careless of the salvation of Jesus Christ that, only because you have obtained from God the help of His LONG-SUFFERING MERCY, and of His unmerited, unsought, undervalued FORBEARANCE — you continue unto this day, blessed with the gospel, and not separated forever from its redemption. Saul, the injurious blasphemer, continued his daring career, when a single word from on high would have freed the suffering Church from his malice, and hurried him before the judgment throne of that Saviour whom he had persecuted in ravaging His Church. Now, who among you is living in the spirit and temper of Saul, unbelieving and unconverted? Who among you is a law unto himself? Who has preferred his sin to his salvation, or been a lover of pleasure more than a lover of God? Whence, then, is it that you continue to this day? Whence is it that the Spirit is still pleading with you, that ministers, conscience, the Scriptures, and the voice of God, uttered in almost every mode in which He speaks, and man can hear, are soliciting you to be happy? It is simply because, insensible and disobedient as you are, you have received help from God, and therefore continue to this day. It is because He would not that any should perish, but that all men should come to repentance and live. Oh see, then, ye whom it may concern — see, while yet sight may profit, that ye receive not this grace of God in vain.

III. And now, who are believing, obeying, and journeying heavenward, with the patient undivided perseverance enforced in Paul's motto, This one thing I do — let me remind you (although I know your own hearts in the humility and thankfulness of Divine experience will gladly own it) that, having received help from God, you continue unto this day. You feel for the danger in which those to whom I have just spoken are placed by their insensibility to the salvation of Christ. Why, such were some of you: but ye are washed; but ye are sanctified; but ye are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. Whence, then, is this good derived? Was it wrung, as it were, from the hand of the Most High, as the merited price and purchase of your own godliness, virtue, piety, and love? No, it is with you, as with the apostle, you have obtained help from God; and therefore you continue to this day to run the way of His commandments, and to live by faith on His Son, who loved you, and gave Himself for you. It was His Spirit which found you in unbelief, and rooted out the infidelity, deeply seated as it was; and enabled you to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that you might be saved. That same Spirit, in mercy, subdued the enmity of the carnal heart, mortified the love of sin within you, and made the love and service of Jehovah your pursuit and your delight. His goodness induced you to flee for refuge to the hope set before you. You were not sufficient of yourselves to think anything as of yourselves, but your sufficiency was wholly of God. While, therefore, I earnestly exhort you to believe that this is the true grace of God wherein you stand, I as affectionately beseech you to believe that you still continue in it, only because you have received help from Him. Are you liberated from all need of working out your own salvation, because you know that God worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure? Far, very far otherwise. The same Paul who declared, "By the grace of God, I am what I am," was not a whit behind the very chiefest of the apostles; nay, he laboured more abundantly than they all, though he added, "Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me."

1. Let me now commend the obvious deduction from this Scripture "to those who live in entire disregard of that help from God, upon which alone depends the life of the body and the life of the soul." Let me say to each of them, "Truly as the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, there is but a step between thee and death." If you continue to neglect the gospel pardon and redemption, there is no other refuge whither the endangered spirit may betake itself and live. The compassions of heaven, however, still wait, although their wings may be plumed for flight; because they are unwilling to forsake and carry the last hope away with them forever: "Why sit ye here then until ye die?"

2. In conclusion, I affectionately exhort those whom the help of God, in the provisions of His Son's mercy, hath quickened to newness of life, to run the way of His commandments with earnest zeal, and yet with simple reliance upon the effectual power of His grace.

(R. P. Buddicom, M. A.)

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KJV: Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision:

WEB: "Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision,