high opinion of his friends. They praise him beyond all decent measure, cry up his talents, his attainments, his discernment, his piety, the great things he could do. Thus the glory of God is engaged against him still, and he continues inefficient.-After all, in the ordinary course of things, most good is effected by plain, unpretending characters, going to work in a plain, unpretending way.

XXXIV. One gift now especially needed by us, is the faculty of adapting our efforts to the times, and of varying our endeavours to do good, and our plans of usefulness, as circumstances vary. All cannot now sit down and say, Here is my line of duty; I will occupy myself in such and such things till the end of my life. We must learn to seize new opportunities as they offer; and be ready also to meet Satan, at whatever new points he may attack. We must be willing to be unsettled in all our plans, and so to hold ourselves, for the glory of God. No person can hope to do much good in a day like the present, when events so rapidly succeed each other, if he rejects this principle.

XXXV. There is much evil in the church, as well as in the world. There are many false professors-many vain talkersmany persons who promote religious societies without walking consistently-many whose great rule is expediency—many bad things besides. Therefore, religion is not spreading; all our talk about the good done by the circulation of the Scriptures is mere delusion, &c. &c. &c.-Is this sound reasoning? Is it fact? I am beginning to suspect, that it is an infernal lie.

XXXVI. The worst things are done under the plea of duty. Who can say any thing to me, if I plead duty?

XXXVII. Avoid the habit of speaking humbly of yourself, as a snare of the devil. Can you submit, not to speak of yourself AT ALL? That is the question.

XXXVIII. When our Lord told his Apostles to watch and pray, lest they should enter into temptation, he does not appear to have given merely a general precept, but one peculiarly adapted to the state in which they then were. We, consequently, ought not to take the precept merely as a general rule, but as one particularly belonging to us when in such a state as they were in. And what was this? It was a dull, drowsy, unconcerned, sluggish state. In that state, the Lord warned them of temptation. The temptation followed-they yielded, and forsook their Master. Had they, when warned, watched and prayed, as directed, they might not thus have fallen. Let us apply this to ourselves. Let us mark in ourselves the particular state in which this watching and praying is called for. Let us remember, that often, after the dead and drowsy state, the state

of strong, active temptation very soon follows. Such is the fact. For example: when we experience but little of the divine life within us; when we find ourselves to be heavy, careless, and unfeeling, indifferent to our eternal interests, cold as to our brethren, and dead to the glory of Christ; when the spirit seems almost overcome, by the weakness and weariness of the flesh; when we scarcely seem to know of any thing to pray for: then let us watch and pray; then let us make this particular prayer, that we enter not into temptation: for then it is, that temptation is apt to come. Perhaps we may be able to make this prayer, when we cannot make any other. Perhaps we may make it just in time, to prevent some deadly calamity to our souls. If, at such a season, we omit to watch and pray, the next stage may soon arrive,-temptation may come; and before that temptation we may fall. If, on the contrary, we attend, under such circumstances, to our Lord's directions, and pray, then, not to enter into temptation, we may make a happy discovery of their peculiar fitness, by the peculiar benefits which result from our obeying them: the evil may be cut short in its progress; we may be raised again from our dead state to one of life, instead of falling from it into one of actual sin; and rejoice in our experience of the difference between departure from God begun in the soul, but now by God's grace suspended; and departure permitted, through our neglect, to take its course, and issuing in an awful catastrophe.

XXXIX. It may please the Lord to make us humble, by years of unfruitfulness: and, when he has done this, he can keep us so, during years of fruitfulness.

XL. The grossest and most absurd flattery is sweet. At any rate, we think, it is kindly meant. But praise belongs to God alone. Is it kind to expose a man to the jealousy of God?

XLI. Faith is to spiritual things, what money is to the things of this life. It procures them all; and therefore to have it is a kind of equivalent to having them all. When men feel the want of any temporal good thing, they wish for money. So, when we feel the want of any spiritual good thing, we should wish for faith. Such was the conduct of the Apostles. The Lord commanded them to practise a duty of the most difficult kind, namely, the repeated forgiveness of repeated provocations. "And the Apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our FAITH." (Luke xvii. 3-5.)

XLII. If it be true that the tone of religion amongst Evangelical people has fallen, one reason seems to be, that we have been less strict of late as to doctrinal points. By relaxing here, we have opened the gates: the mob has rushed in; and what

was once the church of Christ, holy and beloved, is now a mixed multitude. Well. Having got them, we must do the best we can with them. We must not follow the example of some, and begin to rail at them. If we repel any, we certainly shall not shew ourselves the followers of Him, who said, "him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." But then they must not be suffered to dictate, fix the standard of doctrine, hold back others, govern religious societies by secular principles, or lord it over ministers.

XLIII. How is it that the Reformation succeeded in some countries, and not in others? think I see the reason. May it not have been, as the Reformers made the apostolic doctrine of justification the grand point? Not, perhaps, that it was entirely forgotten, in any part. But in some countries the great contest seems rather to have been about abuses, corruptions in church discipline, &c. This was not striking at the root. The same contest had been going on for centuries, and no good came of it. Perhaps, (though others are far better able to speak upon the subject) if the true doctrine of justification had been the great thing urged, the Reformation might have succeeded in Spain, France, Tuscany, &c. This is the point in which the glory of God was really concerned, more than in any other.

XLIV. I can no more give a man a consciousness of sin, than I can give him a new sense. When persons have not a sense of propriety, how hard it is to make them feel that they have done any thing improper. When persons have not a sense of fairness, how hard it is to make them feel that they have treated you unfairly. The difficulty in these cases, however, is nothing to the first. Here it is merely natural; there, supernatural. Nay, when a man is first made to feel himself a sinner, it is something more than a miracle. It is a wonderful, an adorable, a spiritual manifestation of the power, of the goodness, of the mercy of God in Christ. It is the inward operation of the Holy Ghost. It is the purchase of the Cross.

XLV. Milton has feigned a place in hell where the fallen angels discussed election and predestination. I would feign one, where they shook their heads, and said, "Let us not talk of such things: these are not proper subjects to be mentioned." In such expressions I seem to hear the language of the pit, quite as much as in profane controversy. What! Are there No terms, then, in which doctrines of the Bible may be spoken of? -. XLVI. The swallowing a camel, and the straining at a gnat, our Lord places together, as meeting in one and the same character. And they do so infallibly go together, in point of fact, that wherever we see the legs of the unswallowed gnat

hanging out of a man's mouth, there we may almost take it for granted, that he has got the camel in his belly.

XLVII. Behold that man sitting alone in his study, with a vacant, musing look, and nothing before him. Presently he hears a knock at his door; starts up; composes himself; takes a Bible; and lays it opposite to him on the table.

Instantly an evil angel, who, unseen, has been watching his solitary proceedings, flies off with joyful speed to hell, and, almost choked with malignant laughter, relates the deed to the assembly; who raise a general shout of infernal scorn and exultation.

But another angel went upwards, and recorded the action differently. The man was a saint of God, humble, true-hearted, and devout. The knock at his door he knew for that of an injurious, undisguised, domineering infidel; who hated the word of God, and made a practice of scoffing at all who professed to read or believe it. He chose to meet him so prepared.

CALVARY*.

THE CROSS.-Luther says of the Book of Psalms, that it is a little Bible in itself. In like manner we may say of the doctrine of Christ crucified, that it is a little Gospel in itself. Every doctrine of salvation besides flows from the doctrine of the cross. And every doctrine besides, viewed in connection with this, is viewed in its best light.

THE PENITENT THIEF.-One person resides for years at a university, and takes his different degrees at long intervals. Another takes his degrees together by a summary process; or, as it is called, by accumulation. Thus it is with Christians. One advances from grace to grace, from strength to strength, by slow gradations. Another, by a different and more speedy operation of the Holy Spirit, is rapidly led forward, enlightened, strengthened, confirmed, and settled, in all the requisites of the Christian character. Every class of persons is said to have its representative, in some individual in Scripture. The representation of this last class is the penitent thief upon the cross: whose Christian experience did not begin, till after he was placed there; and was perfected before he died.

CHRIST UNDER THE LAW.-There is every probability that our Lord died under the sentence of Levitical uncleanness. This must have been so, if there were certain cases of such unclean

* The following reflections having a more particular reference to the last sufferings of our Lord, and to the circumstances connected therewith, it has been deemed advisable not to blend them with the preceding Thoughts, but to keep them separate, with a view to the approaching season of Passion-Week.

ness, amongst any of the persons who held him, smote him with their hands, spit upon him, &c. A person who, under such circumstances, contracted uncleanness from others, continued unclean till the even, or till the sun was down. But before the

sun was down, our Lord was dead.

THE BUNCH OF HYSSOP.-Every thing may be regarded as typical in the Jewish sacrifices, even to the bunch of hyssop. This was used as a rod, or, as it would now be called, a whisk, for the sprinkling of the blood. Thus it served to typify the scourging of Christ. Every one who knows, or has had an opportunity of witnessing, what is the nature of a really severe and cruel scourging, must at once perceive the fitness of this

emblem.

THE THEOLOGY OF THE CROSS.-While there are many systems of so-called divinity, without the pale of Christ's church, I observe two systems amongst true believers. The one, which is perfectly orthodox, and which cannot be gainsayed, dwells much on certain essential points of doctrine; such as the depravity of human nature, the necessity of regeneration, justification by faith alone without works, good works as the evidence of faith. The other sort not merely maintains Christian doctrine, but takes every thing in connection with the person, performances, and sufferings, of our Lord Jesus Christ himself: dwells upon the ideas of being crucified with him, of being dead with him, of being buried with him, risen together with him. This latter style of divinity, we may call the theology of the cross. Whatever degree we may have attained to of the former, let us, without despising it (for it is not to be despised by any means, but of essential value), strive and pray to get more and more of the latter. Let us build upon the mount of Calvary. Here is joy. Here is peace. Here is communion with God. Here is deliverance from the power and penalty of sin. Here is the life of faith. Here is firm footing. Here is solid ground.

THE FRUITS OF THE CROSS.-The extent of benefits, resulting from the sufferings of Christ, lies beyond our knowledge. While in our unconverted state, we went on, perhaps, throughout our whole life, daily receiving benefits from the cross of Christ, of which we were utterly unconscious. Perhaps, since we have professed to know him, the case has been the same.

EVE AND HER DAUGHTERS.-Behold the women, standing by the cross of Christ. The promise that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, was to Eve: the daughters of Eve stand by, and see the promise accomplished. As the woman stood alone by the tree of knowledge, now women stand alone by the tree of life. The tree of knowledge bare its fruit,