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Testament, who does not see God calling on him to turn over the pages of this history, when he says to the Jew, Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years.' He sees God teaching the Jew to look at the records of his deliverance from the Red Sea, of the manna showered down on him from heaven, and of the Amalekites put to flight before him. There are such grand events in the life and experience of every Christian. It may be well for him to review them often. I have, in some cases, vowed before God to appropriate yearly remembrances of some of the signal turns of my life. Having made the vow, I hold it as obligatory: but I would advise others to greater circumspection; as they may bring a galling yoke on themselves, which God designed not to put on them.

TRUE grace is a growing principle. The Christian grows in DISCERNMENT: a child may play with a serpent; but the man gets as far from it as he can: a child may taste poison; but the man will not suffer a speck of poison near him. He grows in HUMILITY: the blade shoots up boldly, and the young ear keeps erect with confidence; but the full corn in the ear inclines itself toward the earth, not because it is feebler, but because it is matured. He grows in STRENGTH: the new wine ferments and frets; but the old wine acquires a body and a firmness.

TENDERNESS of conscience is always to be distinguished from Scrupulousness. The conscience cannot be kept too sensible and tender: but scrupulousness arises from bodily or mental infirmity, and discovers itself in a multitude of ridiculous, and superstitious, and painful feelings.

The head is dull, in discerning the value of God's expedients: and the heart cold, sluggish, and reluctant, in submitting to them: but the head is lively, in the invention of its own expedients; and the heart eager and sanguine, in the pursuit of them. No wonder, then, that God subjects both the head and the heart to a course of continual correction.

Every man will have his own criterion in forming his judgment of others. I depend very much on the effect of affliction. I consider how a man comes out of the furnace: gold will lie for a month in the furnace without losing a grain. And, while under trial, a child has a habit of turning to his father: he is not like a penitent, who has been whipped into this state: it is natural to him. It is dark, and the child has no whither to run, but to his father.

DEFILEMENT is inseparable from the world. A man can no where rest his foot on it without sinking. A strong principle of assimilation combines the world and the heart together. There are, especially, certain occasions, when the current hurries a man away, and he has lost the religious government of himself. When the pilot finds, on making the port of Messina, that the ship will not obey the helm, he knows that she is got within the influence of that attraction, which will bury her in the whirlpool. We are to avoid the danger, rather than to oppose it. This is a great doctrine of Scripture. An active force against the world is not so much inculcated, as a retreating, declining spirit. “Keep thyself unspotted from the world.'

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THERE are seasons when a Christian's distinguishing character is hidden from man. A Christian merchant

on 'Change is not called to show any difference in his mere exterior .carriage from another merchant. He gives a reasonable answer if he is asked a question. He does not fanatically intrude religion into every sentence he utters. He does not suppose his religion to be inconsistent with the common interchange of civility. He is affable and courteous. He can ask the news of the day, and take up any public topic of conversation. But is he, therefore, not different from other men ? He is like another merchant in the mere exterior circumstances, which is least in God's regard ;-but, in his taste !-his views !-his science! his hopes !-his happiness ! he is as different from those around him as light is from darkness. He waits for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,' who never passes perhaps through the thoughts of those he talks with, but to be neglected and despised !

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The Christian is called to be like Abraham, in conduct; like Paul, in labours; and like John, in spirit. Though, as a man of faith, he goes forth not knowing whither, and his principle is hidden from the world, yet he will oblige the world to acknowledge: "His views, it is true, we do not understand. His principles and general conduct are a mystery to us. But a more upright, noble, generous, disinterested, peaceable, and benevolent man, we know not where to find." The world may even count him a mad-man; and false brethren may vilify his character, and calumniate his motives : yet he will bear down evil, by repaying good ; and will silence his enemies, by the abundance of his labours. He may be shut out from the worldcast into prison-banished into obscurity-no eye to observe him, no hand to help him-but it is enough for him. if his Saviour will speak to him and smile on him!

CHRISTIANS are too little aware what their religion requires from them, with regard to their WISHES. When we wish things to be otherwise than they are, we lose sight of the great practical parts of the life of godliness. We wish, and wish-when, if we have done all that lies on us, we should fall quietly into the hands of God. Such wishing cuts the very sinews of our privileges and consolations. You are leaving me for a time; and you say you wish you could leave me better, or leave me with some assistance: but, if it is right for you to go, it is right for me to meet what lies on me, without a wish that I had less to meet, or were better able to meet it.

I COULD write down twenty cases, wherein I wished God had done otherwise than he did; but which I now see, had I had my own will, would have led to extensive mischief. The life of a Christian is a life of paradoxes. He must lay hold on God: he must follow hard after him: he must determine not to let him go. And yet he must learn to let God alone. Quietness before God is one of the most difficult of all Christian graces-to sit where he places us; to be what he would have us be, and this as long as He pleases. We are like a player at bowls: if he has given his bowl too little bias, he cries, "Flee :" if he has given it too much, he cries, "Rub :" you see him lifting his leg, and bending his body, in conformity to the motion he would impart to the bowl. Thus I have felt with regard to my dispensations: I would urge them or restrain them: I would assimilate them to the

severe visitation.

habit of my mind. But I have smarted for this under It may seem a harsh, but it is a wise and gracious dispensation toward a man, when, the instant he stretches out his hand to order his affairs, God forces him to withdraw it. Concerning what is morally good or evil, we are sufficiently in

formed for our direction; but, concerning what is naturally good or evil, we are ignorance itself. Restlessness and self-will are opposed to our duty in these cases.

SCHOOLING THE HEART is the grand means of personal religion. To bring motives under faithful examination, is a high state of religious character: with regard to the depravity of the heart we live daily in the disbelief of our own creed. We indulge thoughts and feelings, which are founded upon the presumption that all around us are imperfect and corrupted, but that we are exempted. The self-will and ambition and passion of public characters in the religious world, all arise from this sort of practical infidelity. And, though its effects are so manifest in these men, because they are leaders of parties, and are set upon a pinnacle so that all who are without the influence of their vortex can see them ; yet every man's own breast has an infallible, dogmatizing, excommunicating, and anathematizing spirit working within.

Acting from the occasion, without reflection and inquiry, is the death of personal religion. It will not suffice merely to retire to the study or the closet. The mind is sometimes, in private, most ardently pursuing its particular object; and as it then acts from the occasion, nothing is further from it than recollectcdness. I have, for weeks together, in some scheme, acted so entirely from the occasion, that, when I have at length called myself to account, I have seemed like one awakened from a dream. who could think and speak so and so? Am I the man who could feel such a disposition, or discover such conduct?" The fascination and enchantment of the occasion is vanished; and I stand like David in similar circumstances before Nathan. Such cases in experience are, in truth, a moral intoxication: and the mar: is only then sober, when he begins to school his heart.

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6 Am I the man,

VOL. III.