the world? Yes, we are. Reason asserts our superiority; and reduces the most fierce, the most unwieldly, the most untractable of the brutal kind, under our yoke. By reason we put bits in the horse's mouth; tame the elephant, conquer the lion. Birds and fishes are catched in their own elements, and served up to our tables. This heavenly gift maintains our glorious prerogative. We ascend where they dare not soar, and trace the paths of the stars. Nor are the goods of fortune, glory, learning, much unlike the qualifications of the irrational kind, when compared with the superior excellencies of true wisdom, goodness, and religion. Be it so; the christian is not versant in mathematics, in history, in systems of philosophy; not a logician, not an orator. He never stormed a town, nor gained a victory. He has not what men call riches and honors. His clothes are not besmeared with gold. He plows not half a country with his oxen. He is not addressed with the high and sounding titles of your lordship, and your grace. He lives remote from courts and palaces, and is not surrounded with a numerous train of servants. The circle of his acquaintance is small. He lives not in the annals of time. He is not talked of among distant nations. But when he dies, he is forgotten.Yet let him not envy the great, the wealthy, the renowned; for, if true riches, if glorious honors, if refined pleasures can make him blessed, he is a happy man. He is not learned: but he is wise in what imports him most to know, as an immortal creature, wise unto salvation.-Behold his knowledge! for as the twinkling stars of night are eclipsed by the glorious star of day; so is the wisdom of the world, by that which cometh from above. He is not powerful: but he hath taken the kingdom of heaven by violence, laid hold on eternal life, and subdued his earthly affections. Behold the wonders of his might! He is not wealthy: but he is rich in faith, rich in hope: contentment is his natural wealth. He complains not of unsatisfied desires Behold his riches! He is not honorable

but God is his father, Christ his brother, angels his servants, righteousness is his garment, holiness his ornament, the cross is his coat of arms, heaven is his inheritance, christian is his stile.-Behold his dignity! He is not renowned: but God commends him, angels applaud him. His glory is not bounded by the stars, nor ended by the conflagration. Behold his fame! In bondage, he is free; in poverty he is rich; in obscurity he is illustrious.-Happy man! enjoy thyself in the possession of true felicity; while others hunt after the shadow, and weary themselves in vain.

On the certainty of the christian's perseverance in his happy state.

"FEAR not, thou worm Jacob; I will help thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer, the holy One of Israel." O heavenly soul, who art redeemed not with corruptible things, such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ; who are sanctified of God the Father; whose faith however weak, is yet unfeigned; know, to thy unspeakable comfort, no more thou shalt become a child of wrath, or slave of sin. No, sooner shall the mountains depart, being torn from their deep foundations; and the perpetual hills shall sooner be removed; sooner shall the sun, the glorious parent of the day; the moon, the silver regent of the night; be extinguished in their habita tion, and stars rush from the darkened sky.

Your adversaries are many; your strength is small; your fears are multiplied; yet shall the principle of life, the habit of grace, the seed of God, remain. He whom you love, whom you fear, whom you serve, is able, is willing, to keep you from falling.He who has begun the good work in you, will maintain, will increase, will accomplish the life of grace, and death of sin. Infeebled you may be, like a brui

sed reed; a sntoaking flax; a withered tree, whose fruits and leaves are nippen. by surly winter; but you shall not be destroyed. Rejoice not against them, ye enemies of their salvation; triumph not over them, ye powers of darkness; for though they fall, they shall arise again.

Question not his power. Thus saith the faithful and true Witness, my father is greater than all; and none is able, whether by power or guile, to pluck them out of my father's hand, John x, 29. Is any thing too hard for the Lord, who spoke into existence this solid earth, and yonder glorious orbs ?-who holds them in the hollow of his hand? How many are the wonders he has done, both in the heights above, and deeps beneath! but has he produced, and shall he be unable to preserve the vital principle, though like a living spark amidst the ocean of corruption?

It is

Doubt not his will more than his power. the will of God your sanctification. For, lo a Trinity of persons are in concert, as to produce, so to maintain thy grace.

If there be any immutability of thy purpose; if any stability of thy covenant; if any veracity of thy promise, O eternal Father! we shall not die, but live. From the beginning hast thou chosen them to salvation; and it is not possible they should be deceived, even by those impostors who do great signs and wonders, Matthew xxiv, 24. Once hast thou sworn by thy holiness; thou wilt not lie unto the mystical David, that he shall see his seed, and that they shall be established before thee. Thou wilt not retake thy gift of thine eternal Son; for thou art not a man that thou should repent. But, in what smiling promises hast thou plighted thy veracity, and declared the perpetuity of thy counsel ? "I will be to them a God: I will give them one heart and way to fear me all the days of their life; and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them to do them good; and I will put my fear in their hearts, and they shall not depart from me for ever,

Jer. xxxii, 38. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills shall be removed, but my loving kindness shall not depart from thee, and the covenant of my peace shall not be removed, saith the Lord, that hath mercy on thee, Isa. liv, 10.

And shouldst not thou, O blessed Jesus ! preserve with the most inviolable regard the gift of thy heavenly Father ? Too dear they cost thee, O suffering Son of God! to suffer any, the least believer, to fall away and perish. For them thou left the skies; for them didst weep, and sweat great drops of blood, and groan, and die. And shall they not persevere unto the end? Yes if prayers, if intercessions ean ought avail. Holy Father, keep them through thing own name. Thus he addressed the glorious throne, while yet a sojourner of earth. Nor is he now unmindful of his brethren in the realms on high; for, while he breathed terrestrial air, he promised his drooping friends, "I will pray the Father, and he shall send yon another Comforter, and he shall abide with you for ever." See him surrounded with prostrate se raphim! What joy and gladness in his countenance ! what heaven in his eyes! Mark how the keys of hell

and death depend upon his girdle! "Fear not, my beloved people, because I live ye shall live also. I am he which liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore; and I have the keys of hell and death;" to lock the prison doors upon these ugly monsters. O blessed Redeemer! if we, being ene mies, were reconciled to God, our incensed Creator, by thy death; much more being reconciled, shall we be saved from falling away by thy life.

Nor dost thou, almighty Spirit, less insure our final perseverance; who dwellest in our souls, and makest our bodies thy living temple; who abidest in us a well of living water, springing up into everlasting life. Thou art the abiding unction, the incorruptible seed of God, the joyful earnest of the heavenly inheritance. By thee are we sealed unto the day of redemption who shall dare to break up these living epistles,

and deface the sacred characters of thy law, which thou hast written in our hearts ?

On assurance of present and future happiness.

THE assured christian is a rare and happy per son, whose conscience bears him witness in the Holy Ghost, that his faith is unfeigned; his love sincere; his fear filial; his repentance evangelical. And being pleasingly conscious of those prints of divine grace in his own heart, which are the fruits of past election, and the buds of future glory, firmly conclndes that he is in a state of favor with God, and an heir of the heavenly inheritance. He does not at all pretend unto extraordinary revelations; but comparing the frame of his own soul with the characters of the children of God, he is persuaded, both from the outward declarations of the word, and the inward testimony of the Spirit, that he dwelt upon the heart of a loving God from everlasting; and that every gracious promise shall be his inheritance at the last. For, by the mouth of these two witnesses, the Spirit and the word, he is established in the truth of this delightful persuasion. Therefore he knows, that it is no enthusiastic dream, or diabolical suggestion: but a sober certainty of walking bliss. It is true indeed he may not on all occasions be able to maintain such an exalted frame as this. Through temptation, desertion, the prevalence of corruption, he may walk in darkness, and have no light. But while he trusts in the name of the Lord, and stays himself on his God, the clouds are scattered, and his former assurance returns to him again with brighter evidence; as clear shining after the rain, or blooming health after a fit of sickness.

But, O the blissful serenity of his soul, when drinking in the cheerful rays of the Almighty's countenance. He is calm as the evening of the summer; and peaceful as the shades of the night. The sun