has no right to interfere; the same happens in a third instance, and in a fourth, with an increasing power of precedent; and so on, till at last the plea is lost sight of, having been found good in so many instances. In the upshot is a being callous to moral and religious arguments, or perhaps a literal infidel. And reason and imagination, these godlike powers, become ministers of a base propensity. Faith shuts her eyes and dies within him. He cannot wish for the Heaven of God and of the Holy Jesus,-and of the Spirit, that Watchful Fire, that lives above stain,-and of the Angels, beautifully styled in their purity of obedience and feeling, the Ardours of Heaven, -and of the sanctified from among men, "dovehearted saints and prophets eagle-eyed," walking pure from degraded sin,

"High in salvation and the climes of bliss."

THE TRULY WISE MAN.

WITH men, indeed, a little science may make a great show; but he only is wise in God's esteem who is wise unto salvation. Give me a man as full of policy as was Ahithophel, of eloquence as was Tertullus, of learning as the Athenians were in Paul's time. If with Ahithophel he plot against the people of God, with Tertullus have the poison of asps under his lips, with those Athenians be wholly given to superstition; for all his policy, eloquence, and learning, one may be bold to call him fool in scripture language. The learned logician, whom Satan daily deceiveth by his sophistry, and keeps from offering up to God reasonable service, is no better than a fool

for all his skill. Nor the subtle arithmetician, who hath not learned to number his days, that he might apply his heart to saving wisdom. No, nor the cunning orator, who, although he be of singular abilities in the art of persuading men, is of Agrippa's temper himself, but "almost persuaded to be a Christian."

THE BELIEVER'S PRIVILEGE.

THE Gospel's glory is, that it is the ministration of the Spirit. The great privilege of believers is, that the Lord manifests himself to them as he doth not to the world. When he manifests his authority in the command, it is then powerful; when he manifests his goodness and truth in the promise, it is full of sweetness; when he manifests his wrath in the threatening, it awes the soul; when he manifests his glory in the face of Christ, it is ravishing, reforming, attracting.

THE WAY TO A FULL CONVICTION OF THE TRUTH.

THE life of the active Christian is the labour of the bee, which all day long is flying from the hive to the flower, and from the flower to the hive; but all his business is confined to fragrancy, and productive of sweets. There are many promises made to perseverance in the divine life, and this is one "Then shall we follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the morning, and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth."

fled; and what do we behold in their room, but the funeral pall and shroud, a palace in mourning, a nation in tears, and the shadow of death settled over both like a cloud! O the unspeakable vanity of human hopes! The incurable blindness of man to futurity! ever doomed to grasp at shadows, to seize with avidity what turns to dust and ashes in his hand, "to sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind.”

A HAPPY LIFE.

THE happiest life of individuals, and the happiest state of society, is that which affords the fewest remarkable events. To live quiet and respected, to be peacefully useful in our circle, to possess a clear conscience, to enjoy communion with God our Saviour while we live, and to die at peace with God and man, form the substance of all that a wise man can desire as to this world.

DUTY OF LOOKING FOR AN ABIDING CITY.

SINCE we stay not here, being people but of a day's abode, and our age is like that of a fly, and contemporary with that of a gourd, we must look somewhere else for an abiding city, a place in another country to fix our house in, whose walls and foundation is God, where we must find rest, or else be restless for ever. For whatsoever ease we can have or fancy here, is shortly to be changed into sadness or tediousness. It goes away too soon, like the periods of our life; or stays too long, like the sorrows of a sinner. Its

own weariness, or a contrary disturbance, is its load; or it is eased by its revolution into vanity and forgetfulness. And where either there is sorrow, or an end of joy, there can be no true felicity; which, because it must be had by some instrument, and in some period of our durations, we must carry up our affections to the mansion prepared for us above, where eternity is the measure, felicity is the state, angels are the company, the Lamb is the light, and God is the portion and inheritance.

If we would wish our pleasures to be immortal, let us set them on things above; for all on earth is shadow; all beyond is substance.

HEAVEN THE PROPER OBJECT OF THE BELIEVER'S CONTEMPLATION.

SHOULD not our interest in heaven, and our relation to it, continually keep our hearts upon it? There our Father keeps his court. We call him, Our Father who art in heaven. Unworthy children! that can be so taken up in their play, as to be mindless of such a Father. There also is Christ our Head, our Husband, our Life; and shall we not look towards him, and send to him, as often as we can, till we come to see him face to face? Since the heavens must receive him until the times of the restitution of all things; let them also receive our hearts with Him. There also is New Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all. And there are multitudes of our elder brethren. There are our friends and old acquaintance, whose society, in the flesh, we so much delighted

in, and whose departure hence we so much lamented; and is this no attraction to thy thoughts? If they were within thy reach on earth, thou wouldst go and visit them, and why not oftener visit them in spirit, and rejoice beforehand to think of meeting them there? Socrates rejoiced that he should die, because he believed he should see Homer, Hesiod, and other eminent persons. How much more do I rejoice, said a pious oll minister, who am sure to see Christ my Saviour, the eternal Son of God, in his assumed fiesh; besides so many wise, holy, and renowned patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs! A believer should look to heaven, and contemplate the blessed state of the saints, and think with himself, "Though I am not yet so happy as to be with you, yet this is my daily comfort, you are my brethren and fellow-members in Christ, and therefore your joys are my joys, and your glory, by this near relation, is my glory, especially while I believe in the same Christ, and hold fast the same faith and obedience, by which you were thus dignified, and rejoice in spirit with you, and congratulate your happiness in my daily meditations."

CHRISTIAN VOYAGE.

How difficult, duly considered, is the Christian's passage through life! How marvellous his safe arrival in heaven! It appears, indeed, to be nothing else than one of the greatest continued wonders of almighty grace to man. If a man were commanded to put to sea by himself in a small open boat, without any sustenance but