he sent to him his servant Naaman for a cure of this disease, “Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy!" The cure of leprosy under the Jewish dispensation was reserved for the immediate hand of God, without the intervention of any human means. The office of the priests was merely to examine the suspected leper; to separate him from society, and from the ordinances of religion, until the will of God concerning him was manifested; and then to pronounce him "clean," or "unclean;" terms which, among the Jews, were indicative of ceremonial purity or pollution, rather than of bodily soundness or disease. And here was evinced the faith of these ten lepers in the power and willingness of Christ to heal them, that, at his bidding, they proceeded forthwith to exhibit themselves to the priests, not to be healed by them, but for a certificate of health, though the disease was still upon them; for we are expressly told, that it was " as they went they were healed." And they must have felt the disease still upon them when they set out, for the Samaritan's return to glorify God was immediately consequent upon the sensible evidence of his cure; "one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back."

This office of the priest, as respected the leper, typified the office of the law, as respected sin, which could shut the sinner up unto the faith, but which could not justify or sanctify, and which was therefore but a schoolmaster to bring him unto Christ, that he might be justified by faith. The chief features of resemblance between the leprosy and sin, not to dwell longer upon general considerations, were these; that both were loathsome and infectious, mortal, and incurable by human power; that both separated their subjects from all lawful or profitable intercourse with man, and from all communion with God.

In those ten lepers, then, afflicted by this loathsome, contagious, and incurable disease, we have a lively emblem of all those who are infected by sin, that more loathsome and fatal leprosy of the soul; which, whenever it has made a lodgment in the conscience, spreads throughout the whole moral man; disseminates contagion and defilement amid all within the sphere of its influence; and defies the efficacy of every natural mean for its cure.

In those ten lepers, separated from the society of all but their alike polluted companions, and from the ordinances of religion; condemned to wander, wretched and destitute, far from the dwelling of man, and the temple of God; ceremonially unclean; and suffering all those privations, civil and religious, which the Divine law had interposed to inflict, and which the well-being of society required; Jew and Samaritan alike exiles from the communion of God's people, and, in despite of every opposing barrier of birth and privilege, linked in a reciprocally defiling connection, by mutual sympathy, and by the levelling influence of their common disease, -in these we have a selection from the world of prosperous sinners; we have those upon whom the arm of retributive justice has seized, or stern adversity has fixed her iron grasp those who have experienced the necessary consequences of a life of abandoned sensuality, or dissipated extravagance, in a tarnished reputation, a ruined fortune, a shattered constitution; or those whom the hand of God himself has arrested by an immediate judgment, in the full tide of their vain or vicious course : and has suddenly translated from the covetous and absorbing pursuits of

worldly business, from the gross or boisterous pleasures of the animal man, or from the more refined gaieties of a life of pleasure, falsely so called, of the theatre, the card-table, or the ball room, and fixed, wearied, and exhausted, to the dark and still chamber of pain or sickness, and to the bed of languishing.

In those ten lepers, "who stood afar off, and lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us :" who, sensible of their uncleanness, dared not to draw nigh unto Him; yet, equally sensible of their misery and impotence, joined earnestness to humility, and lifted up their voices in supplication: who addressed Him not only as Jesus, a Saviour, as a Physician to heal, but also as a "Master" to direct and rule them: who appeal, not to His justice, but to His compassion: who claim no rights, and specify no details, but simply beg for mercy: we have a still narrower circle enclosed from the wide range of careless, prosperous, or even suffering sinners: we have those few who have felt sin in its convictions, as well as consequences; whom, in the intervals of dissipation, perhaps during the stillness of midnight, or when they lay upon the bed of sickness, the voice of conscience has awakened to a painful sense of a judgment to come, and an awful and undone eternity; who, when the heart throbs with strange misgivings in the hour of present or anticipated distress, have dared to call upon that God whom, in the hour of prosperity, they had contemptuously neglected, perhaps by open sin had often crucified; and whom they had often insulted by the violation of those vows, which terror of conscience, or the fear of death, wrung from their reluctant and unsanctified hearts; but who now again, in the hour of distress, would have recourse to the abused mercy of a long-suffering God; and feeling, in the alarms of conscience, their moral pollution, and consequent alienation from a holy God, would stand, as it were, "afar off," and, self-abased, "lift up their voices, and cry, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us."

In those ten lepers, strictly submissive to the Saviour's commands, when, for the trial, or exercise, of their faith and obedience, He directs them to the use of previously instituted means, "Go shew yourselves to the priests," we contemplate a circle of professing Christians, within whose limits experience shews that fear will enter. We have here all those persons whom conscience, or the Spirit of God, has stimulated to a diligent use of the appointed means of grace: who, as it were, "shew themselves to the priests," by a frequent attendance upon those services of the Church, to which the apostolic command, "Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together," obliges them; and to which the Divine promise, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them," has graciously invited them: who shew themselves to the priests by a frequent participation in those memorials of a Saviour's sufferings and love, which a Saviour's command, "Do this in remembrance of me,"which the parting promise of a dying Saviour's love, "I shall no more drink of this fruit of the vine, until I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom," which this command, and this promise, have imposed upon them by an union of obligations the most solemn and the most affecting: who are frequent in their study of the Divine word, in their devout addresses to the throne of grace, and in spiritual converse with the ministers and people of God: who are living a distinct society, separate from the vices, the follies, the habits, of a CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 49.

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world which lieth in wickedness, and is at enmity with God, and who, as far as the eye of man can discern, or the judgment of charity should pronounce, are sincerely desirous of walking in the narrow and unbeaten path of inward and outward holiness, in the filial fear, and in the love, of God.

Alas! how few, whose habits, even were conscience silent as to the animating spirit and principle, would permit them to say, of this little flock I am one. "I was glad when they said unto me, We will go into the house of the Lord." "Every day will I give thanks unto thee, and praise thy name for ever and ever." "The law of thy mouth is dearer unto me than thousands of gold and silver." Alas! how few are there. And yet, amid this little band, which the eye of charity would select from a world that scarcely deigns even to possess an allegiance to the Omnipotent God, or to offer the homage of a few heartless ceremonies to that Father of spirits whom angels adore, and before whom even Satan trembles; and whom she would deem not only professing but praying Christians; amid this little band, will the eye of Him, who seeth not as man seeth, discern many a hollow and unsound heart; many who, ignorant of the spirituality of the Divine law, and of the very nature of salvation, are but seeking to lull the storms of an excited conscience into the treacherous calm of a selfjustifying obedience: whom conscience can sometimes lash into the paths of duty, but who reject the leadings of the Spirit of God : whom judgments can alarm, but mercies cannot win: who know not God in his real nature, nor have ever been won to worship the Lord by the beauty of holiness, and who therefore may tremble but cannot love: upon whom the eyes of a crucified Redeemer are even now fixed, and while he beholds them, in the hour of sickness or affliction, amid the awful terrors of the tempest or the thunder storm, crouching beneath the rod of His chastisement, or cowering beneath his protecting hand; but in the hour of restored health, and prosperity, and sunshine, again fearlessly entering upon the forbidden paths of renounced pleasure, heedless of their Benefactor; and while, in this rebellious and apostate world, He beholds some solitary stranger, some Abdiel, faithful found among the faithless, not selfishly rushing upon the blessings which a gracious Providence bestows, forgetful of the Giver; but preferring the Saviour to even His choicest gifts; returning from amid this host of ingrate deserters, even before he has secured the anxiously desired object of his supplication, to prostrate himself before his Saviour, to pour out his soul in praises and thanksgivings, and with a loud voice to glorify God,-asks, in amazement at this miracle of base ingratitude, "Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God save this stranger."

And can men seriously believe that a religion of mere forms and ceremonies, and even these too but sparingly and grudgingly bestowed, can satisfy the claims of that God who is a Spirit, and must be worshipped in spirit and in truth? Can they believe that the cold offering of an estranged and alienated heart, wedded to this world's vanities, can satisfy the jealous affection, and the infinite desires of that God who is love, and who claims the whole heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, of every sincere worshipper? Let them ask their own hearts, whether cold formality would satisfy them from the object of their own affections, and then measure by their own desires the demands of a jealous God? Or is it that the task is too difficult, the service too painful? Is it then too severe an obligation to quit in spirit those distracting cares which rend the heart, those gross and sensual indulgences which entomb the soul in flesh, while the indwelling spirit, which, unrestrained, would soar to heaven's light and liberty, pining amid the glooms of this charnel house, drags on a living death? Is it too harsh and self-denying a duty to quit these vain pleasures of the world, which, like the drunkard's intemperate bowl, may intoxicate. but cannot satisfy; and of which those who have drunk the deepest confess, when the heart dares to speak out, and acknowledge its own bitterness, that they have not yet found in its overflowing cup one full draught of enjoyment, to allay, were it but for a moment, their feverish thirst after happiness? Hear the testimony of a Chesterfield, when the curtain is about to drop, to the hollowness of this world's promises and pleasures.* Is it then, I ask, too harsh an obligation,

too self-denying a service, too painful and laborious a task, to quit these, to pluck from our bosoms the poisoned arrows which rankle there, to fling from us the instruments of our own torture, the materials of our own misery and ruin, to burst the bonds which chain us to a dungeon, and to ascend into a calmer region, and anticipate a happier scene, by a spiritual communion with a spiritual God?

In this life, each must decide for himself this important question;

and are as serious in following a feather, and in the pursuit of that which they confess is vanity, and dying in their hands, as if indeed they knew it to be true felicity. They are like children, busy in hunting butterflies; or like boys at football, as eager in the pursuit, and in overturniug one another, as if it were for their lives, or for some desirable prize; like to a heap of ants that gad about as busily, and make as much ado for sticks and dust, as if they were about some magnificent work. Thus doth the vain deceived world lay out their thoughts and time upon impertinencies, and talk and walk like so many noctambulos in their sleep. They study, and care, and weep, and laugh, andlabour, and fight, as men in a dream; and will hardly be persuaded but it is reality which they pursue, till death come and awake them. Like a stageplay, or a puppet-play, where all things seem to be what they are not, and all parties seem to do what they do not, and then depart, and are all disrobed and unmasked; such is the life of the most of this world, who spend their days in a serious jesting, and in a busy doing nothing."

From this survey, this heavenlyminded man, while agreeing with Chesterfield that the world is "a stage-play and a puppet-play," did not shroud himself in an affected apathy which concealed the most poignant anguish, or talk of dozing away the remainder of the journey of life in the carriage, startled in his slumbers by the most mortifying dreams of the past, and alarming apprehensions for the future; but, on the contrary, was inspirited to be "stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord," well knowing that his "labour was not in vain in the Lord;" while also he was looking forward with joyful hope to that "everlasting rest of the saints" which he has soglowingly described. The seraphic Leighton also turned the Chesterfieldian view of the world to salutary account; and he reminds those who wish to "sleep on in the carriage, of what their feelings will be when they "awake" upon a death-bed or in eternity. He says:

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"A natural man may have sometimes a glance of such thoughts, that all these things he is either turmoiling or

delighting in, are vanity, yet he awakes not, but raves on still in them; he shifts a little, turns on his bed as a door on its hinges, but turns not off: does not rise.

"But the spiritual minded Christian, that is indeed awake and looks back on his former thoughts and ways, oh, how does he disdain himself and all his former high fancies that he was most pleased with, finding them dreams! Oh, what a fool, what a wretch was I, while my head was full of such stuff, building castles in the air, imagining and catching at such gains and such preferments and pleasures; and either they still running before me and I could not overtake them, or if I thought I did, what have I now, when I see what it is, and find that I have embraced a shadow? false hopes, and fears and joys. He thinks he hath eaten, and his soul is empty.' Isaiah xxix.

"And you that will sleep on, may ; but sure I am when you come to your death-bed, if possibly you awake then, you shall look back with sad regret upon whatsoever you most esteemed and gloried in under the sun. While they are coming toward you they have some shew, but as a dream that is past, when these gay things are flown by, then we see how vain they are. As that luxurious king caused to be painted on his tomb two fingers as sounding one upon another, with that word all is not worth so much: Non tanti est.

"I know not how men make a shift to satisfy themselves: but, to take a sober and awakened Christian, and set him in the midst of the best of all things that are here, his heart would burst with despair of satisfaction, were it not for a hope that he hath beyond all that this poor world either attains or is seeking after.

"Oh! the blessed Gospel, revealing God in Christ, and calling ling up sinners to communion with him; dispelling that black night of ignorance and accursed darkness, ess, that otherwise had never ended, but passed on to an endless night of eternal misery! Says not Zacharias, with good reason, in his song, (Luke i.) that it was through the tender mercy of God that this day-spring from on high did visit us?"