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richness of her reveries afford her de- | residence at Jerusalem, he taught in

light then she ascendeth from herself to her Creator, from earth to heaven; and, haply, to assist her meditations, she strayeth to the sacred habitations of the dead, or wandereth beneath the lonely ruins of ancient temples, when the solemn moon, queen of silence, stealeth forth to rule the darkness of the night, and the stars come forth to attend her course. Then looking up unto the heavens, to the moon, and to the stars, which God hath ordained, we feel with the psalmist, "What is man that thou art mindful of him, or the Son of man that thou visitest him?" and when we look upon the earth, falling asleep under the watchful moon, the birds silent in their nests, and the beasts on their grassy couches, and the hum of busy men silenced by sleep, the sister of the grave; then, if ever, the voices of immortality lift themselves within the bosom of man, and he feeleth his dignity of nature, which the commerce of the world obscureth, and he calmly looketh forward to his change, and he loveth the Saviour who opened up life and immortality beyond death and the grave; his soul passeth upwards to the communion of GoD, and in this recess from worldly turmoil, he hath the presence of divine thought, and a sort of intermediate state between the activity of life, and the rest of the grave.

Our Saviour in the days of his flesh, sought the aids of silence, and solitude, and shade, to hold communion with his heavenly Father.

the temple by day, and at night he withdrew to the mount of Olives. Shewing to us that the infirmities of mortality which he partook of, required to be healed with these solacements of quiet and meditation in order to act in concert with the higher faculties of the divine spirit within him. So also we shewed in one of our evening discourses, that his servants in the ministry have found their strength in such secret retirements from the busy world. Our fathers perceiving the fitness of this did erect those ancient cathedral churches, monuments of their piety and art, and as it were a grove of stony arch work, where with the dead beneath your feet, and monuments of the worthy dead around the walls, and clustering arches over our head, with a dim religious light, like the light of twilight, around you, the soul might partake a solitude in the midst of populous and noisy cities, and have all the advantages which place and association and surrounding scenery can give for solemn and devout thoughts; and oh! I do grudge the loss of that spirit of the olden time which, though leagued with superstition, did so much for the honour and accommodation of religion, putting to shame the mercantile spirit of these days, which findeth infinite means to waste on assembly rooms, and club houses, and domestic villas and regal palaces, while it is content to do worship under the most meagre, unsubstantial shell-work, which will hardly bear the strife of the elements, much less the hand of destructive time.

Even the Heathens, both the philosophers and priests, were alive to the

After the bustle of crowds and severe occupation at Capernaum, when all the sick of the neighbourhood, had been brought unto him to be healed, and he had healed them, he retired by break of day, he | connexion between retirement and relideparted and went into a desert place.gion-between the mystery of twilight So also, after feeding the multitude with the loaves and fishes, he departed unto a mountain, and spent the whole night in prayer. So also, during his

and the mysteriousness of things unseen. The Pythagoreans, who brought philosophy into Greece from eastern climes the Druids, before whose

doth only prove more strongly the universality of the principle concerning which I discourse, that religion is essentially connected with retirement, and solitude, and meditation, and can hardly be felt in full power apart from them.

fearful altars our fathers bowed, followed their science and their religion beneath the canopy of shady grovesand the sybils dwelt in solitary caves, and the ancient mysteries were transacted in darkness, and the most revered shrine of Jove was hid in the bowels of the desert, and the superstitions which, from time to time, brought Israel under heaven's scourge, were transacted in groves and under high places. All which being combined in the examples of holy writ, and confirmed by every one's experience, proves it to be the voice of nature, ever certifying that the things of the world unseen, are fostered by meditation and retirement, and that these are essential parts of a religious man's occupation; proving that no people have been so ignorant as not to perceive that the things of futurity are best reflected on when the things of time are out of sight, and that the world to come ariseth before us as the world that is departeth from us, and that GoD cannot come where Mammon or Belial or any god of this world is exercising their sway; which great truth it doth only establish the more, that designing men have been able to take advantage of seclusion and mystery, in order to dupe and deceive mankind. If GOD were not more easily apprehended in solitude than in open busy places, heathen priests and Christian monks, would not have foregone the pleasures of life, and retired to cells and privacies in order the more effectually to overawe the people; and there would have been no hermits in caves of the earth, nor dervises upon the edge of deserts, nor any other form of mortification and concealment; these tricks of superstition are addressed to real pro-gagement, or as active dissipation, is pensities of the mind, otherwise they would take no hold, and bring no profit, and the universality with which these devises of Satan have succeeded,

We who live in cities are, in a great degree, cut off from imitating the example of Jesus, and the Patriarchs, and holy men. We cannot go forth into the field at eventide to meditate ; nor is there any mount hard by, like the Mount of Olives, to which we can retreat when night falleth upon the earth. And though no walls be around our city, and no barriers defend our going out or coming in, we are shut in by its very extent, and cannot easily escape from its noise and occupation; and the twilight is chosen by layers in wait, to molest the goings out and in of the inhabitants, and temptation spreadeth its wiles for the unweary, and unseemly sights are obtruded before our eyes; and so most of us are effectually hindered from the enjoyments of these meditative moods, which it is the object of this discourse to recommend. We live the most of us in business and bustle, activity is in the movement, and anxiety in the countenance of almost every face we meet through the live-long day; the interests and concerns of life infix and entwine with us, and will not be rebuked away from our thoughts, and when an interval of leisure and relaxation hath occurred, it is so forestalled by pastimes and public amusements, and there are outstanding so many engagements to gay and social companies, that truly, time is too short to fulfil them all; our spirits are exhausted; everything but active en

excluded, and the mind never comes into that quiet and repose which is necessary for reflection and meditation on its own estate. Nature speaks

and cries aloud against the spoliation to which cities subject her, and so soon as we are able she prompts us, for a part of the year, to escape out of the midst of the unnatural excitement, and leave her to her own various moods and inclinations; or, if we allow not ourselves these occasional relaxations, and drudge it all the year, at our mechanical or commercial callings, it is in the distant hope-most fondly cherished though distant-of being at length able to leave altogether these abodes of bustling men, and embosom our family in some sweet rural retirement, where we may pass our lives in peace. But, alas! ere that much desired time arrives, it generally happens that the mind, which cannot always endure, hath lost the noble faculty of exciting herself by thought, or of being excited by nature's silent and changeful moods; and being removed from what agitated and stirred her powers in populous cities, she grows stagnant and corruptive, and breeding melancholy and disquiet humour, seeks in self-defence the world's agitations again; and so it cometh to pass that the powers of reflection and meditation, and prayer and self-examination, and heavenly mindedness, and whatever else is above the world, are utterly lost, and the soul is bound down and fettered to things seen and temporal, and lost from almost every occasion of being acted upon by the creation or providence of GOD. The active world which was to be only her stage, hath become the city of her habitation; the body and the things of this world which were intended for the furniture and dress, with which she was to play her part, have become the ornaments and only happiness of the soul, the end and object of her very being, her consummation of good or of evil.

I do not know how it is with other men who endeavour to serve their GOD, and keep him ever present in

their minds, but I can speak for myself, that the greatest obstacle I find to such heavenward communication, is the frequency of engagements. and the invasion of business, the one savouring of the other so much, that both avail equally to divert the soul from her own precious cogitations; duties press one upon every side, which by reason of their multitude, being only half discharged, the mind hath no pleasure to reflect upon when they are past, and so many remain undone, and so many stand over against the first unoccupied moment, that from morn to even, from the time we leave our bedchamber, till we enter it again, what is it, but a succession of waves succeeding each other, and wearing us out till sleep comes more delicious than activity, and oblivion more pleasant than consciousness, and dreams more happy, because more tranquil than realities. Who, during the day, can stretch his limbs upon his couch, and say, now it is over and ended, I will sequester myself, I will give my mind the reins, and let it have its course? Who can say, now the world is shut out, nothing waits for me, and I wait for nothing, let me have a space for meditating my latter end, and considering the end and issue of my days? Now will I make me glad with a little converse and communication with my Maker. I will exalt my thoughts to heaven; I will put the earth under my feet, and I will meditate upon the providence of GoD, which ruleth over all.

Now also will I escape from the span of time, and the house of my earthly tabernacle, and give my soul up to thoughts of eternity and infinity. With Job I will meditate the ancient of days, and lose myself amongst the unsearchable wonders of his power. With David I will contemplate the history of his loving kindness to everything that liveth, and call upon all things in all parts of his dominions, to

magnify his name, or with Solomon I will go to the depths of wisdom, and discover the vanity of all things beneath the sun; or with Paul, I will endeavour to apprehend with all saints what is the height, and the length, and the depth of the love of GOD in Christ Jesus, which passeth knowledge; or with John in Patmos I will unravel the mysteries of the future, and hold communion with the inhabitants of the world unseen!

In want of such devout exercises of calm thought and undisturbed meditation, our city religion hath in it little mellowness; it is formal, ceremonial, fashionable, active, talkative, and worldly; and it hath little tenderness of feeling and softness; it is shut up in doctrines which can only pass current from mouth to mouth, which doctrines want expansion over the soul and spirit of human fellowship. City congregations have, in general, no taste for the contemplative moods of the mind, but call out for the strong excitement of controversy, declamation, or passion; something that may stir them in the way after which they are accustomed to be stirred by the occurrences of every-day life; the simplicity of the pastor must be cast off, and pastoral duties foregone for a sort of religious agency, and business, and a commerce of religion, to all ends of the earth, producing in spiritual matters such a character and spirit as are produced in secular matters by the commerce of merchandize; and prayer is the exercise of a formal hour, and hath its stated intervals; but there wanteth the spirit of prayer which ever converseth with God, and beareth the soul on high to commune with his holiness; for the domains of GoD and of Mammon border so closely upon each other in cities, that the noisome vapours and exhalations of the one, hinder the plants and fruits of the other from reaching their full

growth, and putting on their fairest appearance. We ought, therefore, men and brethren, whose lot is cast in this populous city, and whose appointment from God it is, to do our offices therein faithfully and well, to be upon our guard against these the temptations of our dwelling place, and take precautions that they do not destroy our knowledge of ourselves, and our fellowship with GOD. For whatever we may gain is a poor reward for the loss of those sweet enjoyments which grow out of an examination of our ways, and a well ordering of them before the Lord, and whatever we may do outwardly for the sake of our happiness, is nothing so important as that which we may do inwardly, by a right regulation of our desires and affections and passions, from which inward discipline we are cut off if we lend ourselves to the incessant calls that accumulate upon us from without.

Therefore, I do recommend to my flock, and to all who hear me, to make a stand against the oppression of the world, however it may recommend itself, and to have of every day a clear and vacant space to themselves, to make of it what they please. Let no pushing of business, as it is called, let no harvest of gain, let no promises of pleasure, nay more, let no desires to serve another, or to profit the commonwealth, or to superintend charities, or to do and transact any thing however good and noble it may be, hinder you of a period in every day, whereon this world hath no claims, and wherein you may do or not do, read or not read, write or not write, but be yourselves your own free masters to attend to those interests in which none in the universe save you yourself is concerned. This world with all the good or ill, profit or loss, within its continent, can nothing avail to gain you that other world in which you are to be

for ever miserable or happy, seeing all | ye make, and all men ye oblige and serve with all ye enjoy, can ye stand in no stead to obtain an abundant entrance into the joy of your Lord, which, whenever it is obtained, is obtained through solitary reflexion on our ways, and solitary prayer for mercy, and solitary perusal of the Scripture, solitary meditations, reflexions and resolutions. Seeing these future things are so attained unto, do I ask of you who are candidates for them, too much, when I ask you to have a season of each precious day to the exercise of such solitary avocation with the things of the world unseen. Although you may already be advanced in the knowledge and enjoyment of these everlasting things, they will fade from your possession if ye do not court them and converse with them alone, even as love fadeth when its object is never present or never thought of, or transferreth itself to some object which is always soliciting the eye with its presence, and the heart with its winning charms. This call, therefore, for a season of each day, is not to be prudently resisted by any one, saint or sinner, to whom I now speak, and though it be true that God in calling sinners to repentance, doth generally use the ministry of the word in public places, the well timed counsels of religious friends, good examples, and other things not met with in solitude; yet when we are by these means called to thought, if we take not our refuge in solitary meditation, the seed will not take root, but will be plucked away by the angels of the evil one, or burnt up by heats and fires of pleasure, or choked by the cares and anxieties of active life. And besides, it seemeth to me a kind of degradation of ourselves, thus to commit the vessels in which our eternity is embarked to the random influence of wind and tide, instead of steering by the guidance of our own

reason, and that better light which GOD hath shed on us from above. This interval of self-possession which I move every one to enquire after, and desire and claim as his own right for GoD and eternity—and which no master would refuse to his most menial servant, if he knew that it was sought for an end that would return him profit manifold-this interval which all who hear me may possess without trenching upon necessary action or necessary rest, I would have you to fill up with those employments of the mind that are intermediate between action and rest, necessary to bring the one gently on, and to invigorate and direct the other to calm thought and meditation; I would have it devoted to the remembering of the past, to the weighing of the present, and to the forecasting of the future. But, verily, though the mind were to do nothing but lie upon its wearied oars, and gather her strength again, it is her sacred right, and if you refuse it, she will lose sprightliness, originality, determination, and all the other noble qualities of selfguidance, and fall into the drudging regularity, the measured pace and joyless occupation of slavery, being truly a slave, not to another, perhaps, but to that great leviathan which enslaves us all, the present evil world. To favour these contemplative moods, let every one who can, escape into the solitude of nature, and stretch himself at ease amidst her soft and silent scenes, and let those to whom this is forbidden, separate themselves to theit private chambers, and spreading before them the book of GoD, give themselves largely and liberally to consider all his wonderful works and gracious ways unto the children of men. Their chequered life let them review-its wayward courses-its sinful wanderingits various escapes-its utter unprofitableness; and over against these set the bounty of GoD, his long suffering,

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