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cannot surely be so absurd, as to suppose, God gave us riches as instances of his favour, from any particular regard he had for us. If not, he gave them for other purposes. What these purposes are, we have frequent intimations from Scripture. We are ordered to use our talents in proportion to their value; to be liberal to the poor; and to distribute our means, according to the abilities which God hath given us.

Thus then, if riches increase, instead of setting our hearts upon them—that is, instead of making them the means of a mere self-indulgence, we should make to ourselves friends of this mammon of unrighteousness; and hope, through the mercies of God in Christ, they may assist in procuring us a joyful sentence in the last great day,

XIII.

Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts. —
Matt. xv. 19.

EVIL thoughts sprout up in every heart. If they are indulged, they soon corrupt it; but if checked, and immediately discharged, they produce no bad effect. For the sake, however, of some well-meaning people, who turn every bad thought into a sin, I should wish to offer a sort of criterion.

In the case of malice, for instance, you conceive a malicious thought against an enemy. A wish arises, that he may be ruined -you take a pleasure in hearing of any mischief that may befal him. You ask, is not this malice?

Let us examine: Do you indulge these thoughts? No. -Do you think them wrong, and immediately reject them? Yes.-If you had it in your power, would you wish to ruin your enemy? By no means, certainly. Would you be glad to do him a service? I think I should. - Why

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then, notwithstanding your malicious thoughts you have no malice in your heart. Your bad thoughts mark only your malevolence of nature: your good resolutions are the heavenly work of grace upon your affections.

The same mode of reasoning may be applied to other bad thoughts. The first rise of them in the mind shews only the natural pravity of human nature: the kind affections are afterwards introduced by the grace of God.

XIV.

I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God. -Acts, vii. 55.

THE imagination is not always the most usefully employed in matters of religion. Here it is the holy martyr, St. Stephen, animates himself in the midst of his sufferings, by seeing, in a beatific vision, the happiness that awaited him after death. Instead of letting his mind rest on the cruel sufferings he underwent, he fixed it, by an ardent act of faith, upon a scene which occupied all his thoughts - he saw heaven opened, and Jesus sitting on the right hand of God.

This account of St. Stephen's martyrdom, seems to be given us as the proper appendage of a state of trial: as an incentive to make us bear more properly the different situations in which it engages us. In some happy hour, when we are surrounded with the gaieties of the world, and prone to give way to intemperate joy, let us check the delirium. Cheerfulness is the garb

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of religion a gloomy melancholy is religion in mourning, which is a dress it should seldom assume; intemperate joy is religion intoxicated. This world is not meant as a state of enjoyment. When we would indulge our minds, therefore, with real enjoyment, let us banish all the little, selfish joys of this world, by letting our imagination loose among the glories of eternity; and seeing, with the dying martyr, heaven opened, and Jesus sitting at the right hand of God.

Again, in the hour of distress, when the world scowls upon us, and all his darkness around, let us endeavour to catch a ray of light through the gloom that surrounds us - let us carry our imagination, on the wings of faith, into the celestial regions above; and comfort ourselves with the thoughts of seeing heaven opened, and Jesus sitting on the right hand of God.

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