And their judgment is founded in truth. The most awful evils are spiritual evils. And these are more peculiar to the dispensation under which we live. Temporal judgments were common under the law, when offenders were often punished immediately, sensibly, visibly. We see this in the case of Lot's wife, Miriam, Uzzah, and many others recorded in the Old Testament. But under the Gospel inflictions are more spiritual. Here men are given up to a hard heart, a reprobate mind, a seared conscience; to vile affections; to strong delusion; to believe a lie. The spirit of slumber falls upon them. The word and ordinances of religion become barren and unprofitable. By the fascinations of error they are so bewitched that they cannot obey the truth. Yet they are easy. For these are judgments that do not alarm; it is the very nature of them to stupify. Oh! it would be a thousand times better to lose all your substance and beg your bread from door to door; a thousand times better to be robbed of health, and never enjoy another hour of ease, than for God thus to punish you. And though you will not and ought not to pray for sufferings absolutely, if you are like-minded with David you will be willing that God should deal with you in any way rather than say, "He is joined to idols, let him alone"And this will be your most earnest prayer: "Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy Spirit from me."

But was David in danger of this? We do not like to get rid of an apparent difficulty by denying a revealed truth. And such appears to us the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints. We are therefore confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in them will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Yet first, the effect deprecated may take place in a measure and degree. God was provoked to leave Hezekiah in the business of the ambassadors of Babylon, and it showed what was in his heart. And God may be so grieved as to suspend the comforts of the Holy Ghost, and all joy and peace in believing. And secondly, by yielding to temptation, a partaker of divine grace may be reduced to such a state of darkness and horror and anguish, as to apprehend God's entire abandonment of him for ever. This was David's case. His fall had broken his bones, closed his lips, deprived him of the joy of God's salvation, and made him fear that he was cut off from before his eyes.

Such an evil and bitter thing is it to sin against God. So surely will our backslidings reprove us. If his children walk not in my judgments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod. Nevertheless, my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. The way to walk comfortably is to walk consistently. I am always sorry to see some professors so calm and happy as they are. With their levity of temper, and vain conversation, and worldly conformities, and neglect of the means of grace-were they the Lord's people, surely he would show that they are not walking so as to please him. Them that honour me, I will honour. Blessed is the man that feareth always.

APRIL 16.-" Ye were as sheep going astray."-1 Pet. ii. 25.

THE words seem to be, if not a quotation from, yet an allusion to the language of Isaiah-" All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way." If there be truth in this supposition, two things are asserted by the prophet which are not repeated by the Apostle. The one is, the universality of the charge -All we like sheep have gone astray. There is no difference between Jew and Greek. The Scripture has proved all under sin. The other is, the diversification of the depravity-We have turned every one to his own way. Though all are guilty, each has some particular iniquity to which he is attached, by his constitutional complexion or his outward circumstances. And here it is that many are deluded. They flatter themselves by comparison, and are satisfied because they are free from some crimes chargeable upon others; not considering that they also are wanderers, only in another road. A straight line is always the same; but there are millions of crooked ones. There was only one ark by which any could be saved; but there were numberless abysses in which they could be drowned. Nothing, says a good writer, is more lamentable, than to hear people who are all wrong disputing among themselves which is right. Yet this is common. But the lover of pleasure and the lover of gold; the profligate and the pharisaical; the open offender and the close hypocrite; the superstitious Papist and the formal Protestant, are all in the same condition with regard to their safety. Let us remember that the Scripture is our only rule of judgment, and that it matters not what we think of ourselves, or others think of us-if we are destitute of faith in Christ and true holiness. "He that believeth not the Son hath not life:" and "without holiness no man shall see the Lord."

The words are a metaphor; a metaphor often used by the sacred writers, and therefore just and pertinent. Indeed nothing can be more significant of the danger and misery of a sinner than a strayed sheep. The welfare of the sheep depends on the care of the shepherd. If they wander beyond his protecting arm, they are liable to be destroyed by beasts of prey; or if they leave his pasturage they are likely to perish for want of food: for though they can go astray of themselves they cannot defend themselves, nor provide for themselves, or of themselves find their way back. They are therefore lost unless sought after. The metaphors of the Scripture, however, though strong in their allusion, are often only partial. But they are more forcible by being limited; for by stretching a comparison to reach every thing, we weaken it as well as render it ridiculous. Sheep in going astray are not guilty, but they would be criminal. and deserving all they suffered, if they were possessed of reason, and after having been under the superintendence of the kindest shepherd, and allowed to want no good thing, they should knowingly abandon him, and wilfully incur every kind of peril and wretchedness. And is not this the emblem of our conduct? Did not God make man upright? Did not the inspiration of the Almighty give him understanding? Was he not placed in a condition of safety, peace, and happiness? Was he not fenced in by divine commands? Ap

prized of the consequences of going astray? And warned against them?-Yet astray he went!

And thus we reach the fact which the words were intended to express the natural state of men as alienated from the life of God -They are as sheep going astray. They go astray from their duty to God. Thus they forsake him as their Lord and owner. As he made them, and gave them all their powers, possessions, and enjoyments, they are bound to serve and obey him: but they prefer their own will to his authority, and live in the violation of his laws which are all holy and just and good. They go astray from their happiness in God. Thus they forsake him as their portion, following after rest and satisfaction apart from the supreme good. All wish for happiness; but where do they naturally seek it? In the pleasures of sin, in the dissipations of the world, in science, fame, riches, power, friendship. They do not seek it in the favour, the image, the presence, the service of God. They wish to be happy without God. They ask, "Who will show us any good?" but do not pray, "Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us." If ever they go to God, it is when fear or affliction urges them. Do they delight themselves in the Almighty? Do they always call upon God? They go astray from their recovery by God. Thus they forsake him as their Saviour; who, instead of abandoning them when they departed from him, remembered them in their low estate, and provided means the most suitable and adequate for their restoration. He spared not his own Son, but gave him up as a propitiation for their sins. He sends them the gospel; beseeches them by his ministers; and urges the message by a thousand motives-But they make light of it: they turn away from him that speaketh, and neglect so great salvation. Yea, they oppose it; and if ever they think of returning to God, it is by a way of their own devising in preference to his. They go about to establish their own righteousness, instead of submitting themselves to the righteousness which is of God; and act in their own strength, instead of being strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus; thus frustrating him in his greatest delight, and robbing him of his highest glory.

Reflect upon each of these: and remember, Christian, this was once your own state. Look back; and acknowledge that ye your selves also were once foolish and disobedient. But after this the loving-kindness of God our Saviour, towards you, appeared. If you are justified, you were once condemned: if alive, you were once dead: if found, you were once lost. How happy that you can be addressed as those who were once going astray, but are now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls!

APRIL 17.-" He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified."-Heb. ii. 11. THE Apostle here speaks of Christ and of Christians as concerned in the same work, but differently concerned. He is the agent, they are the subjects-He sanctifieth, and they are sanctified. We are not however to suppose that in this work they are passive; or that he acts upon them as a mechanic operates upon stone and wood, which are insensible and unconscious of the process. He does not sanctify them without their knowledge, and consent, and choice, and

exertion. According to his good pleasure he works in them to will and to do. He makes them the instruments, as well as the subjects; and so engages them, that the work is represented as their work as well as his. Hence it is enjoined, as well as promised, and we are called upon to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit; and are assured that he who has the hope of Christ in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

But there is no inconsistency here. We believe, but he enables us to believe. We exercise repentance, but he gives us repentance unto life. We bear the fruit, but it is the fruit of the Spirit, and in him is all our fruit found-and therefore we are called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that he may be glorified.

To sanctify admits of two imports. The first is separation or setting apart from common to sacred use. Thus the tabernacle and all the vessels of the sanctuary under the law, were sanctified. No change took place in their qualities, but only in their appropriation and use-They were sanctified by consecration. And there are some who contend that in this sense only are we sanctified by the purpose of God. To plead for a real change of nature, for a growth in grace, or for any thing in ourselves, though not derived from ourselves, is legal, genders to bondage, and obscures the glory of the Gospel. So it was always. Jude tells us of ungodly men who turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness: and James mentions those who relied on a faith without works, and which was dead, being alone. This sense of sanctification indeed applies to the people of God, but it involves another. "The Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself." "God hath from the beginning chosen them to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth."

The second meaning therefore is renovation-Hence we read of being renewed in the spirit of our minds; of being made partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the pollutions of the world through lust. There is a real operation in all the subjects of divine grace, which delivers them from the power of darkness; and destroys the love of sin; and renders true holiness their delight and pursuit. Paul therefore says, "Be ye transformed by the renewing of the mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God"-The latter depends upon the former. We cannot be consecrated to God till we are renovated. The reason is that by nature we are depraved, and have no love to God or concern to please him. But when this divine change takes place, then what God purposed is actually exemplified, and we dedicate ourselves to him, considering ourselves as no longer our own, and using all we are, and all we have, to his service and in his praise.

Hence sanctification is more than natural amiableness, outward reformation, and mere morality. Morality does not include holiness, but holiness includes morality, and makes provision for it in the surest and noblest way.

Sanctification too is not confined to any particular faculty, but extends to the whole nature of man. We read of being sanctified wholly, body, soul, and spirit. The work is not finished in any part, but it is begun in every part. There is a difference between the operations of art and of life. The progress of the former is succes

sional, the latter simultaneous. The painter or the sculptor, while advancing one part of the picture or the statue, leaves for the time the rest: but in a flower and a tree the whole goes on at once towards maturity. The child is not a man, but he has all the lineaments and faculties, and though they are imperfect, they grow together to manhood in due time-So it is with the Christian.

How defective are they in their religious views and concerns who do not look to the Lord Jesus as the Sanctifier as well as the Redeemer! If I wash thee not, says he, thou hast no part in me. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.

is.

APRIL 18.-"Casting all your care upon him."-1 Pet. v. 7.

To understand this injunction two remarks will be necessary. First, The Apostle refers to cares pertaining to the life that now As to the affairs of the life to coine, we are not only permitted but required to be careful. Yea, we are commanded to "seek first," that is, before all other things, "the kingdom of God and his righteousness." And it is to enable us to pursue these objects in a manner becoming their importance, that other cares are forbidden. Yet, Secondly, The Apostle does not design, even in temporal interests, to dispense with a wise use of means and a strict attention to duty. For these are encouraged in other parts of Scripture, and every word of God is pure. "The hand of the diligent maketh fat." "The prudent man foreseeth evil and hideth himself; but the simple pass on and is punished." "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest." Hence also the general caution. "Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established." If professors of religion, therefore, under a notion of casting all their care upon the Lord, neglect exertion, refuse opportunities of improving their condition, and in their expenses exceed their income, they are tempting God, but not trusting in him. And Paul, a very compassionate man, made no scruple to enjoin, "If any will not work, neither should he For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busy-bodies. Now them that are such, we command and exhort, by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread. But ye, brethren, be not weary in well doing." Jacob had to meet his brother Esau, who was coming towards him in the fury of revenge. But what does he? He does all that his means would admit, or his prudence could dictate. He divides his company, sends forward a present, studies a soft answer which turneth away wrath; and then retires and casts all his care on him who cared for him, and made even his enemy to be at peace with him. Why did not his father and mother throw Moses into the river at once? God could have easily preserved him, and the deliverance would have been the more remarkable. But as if every thing depended upon their diligence and precaution, they hide him as long as possible, and then build a little ark, and pitch it within and without, and when the vehicle is

eat.