cross, we are blest with the free pardon of all our transgressions; do we shudder at the review of our own unaltered hearts; and from the bitter experience of the past, omen for the future nothing but a running up of new debts; with a long succession of broken resolutions going away one after another, like the early cloud and the morning dew?' Wash you, and make you clean,' saith the Lord; 'cease,' he continues, 'to do evil, learn to do well.' Once more, there is strength and not weakness, comfort and not fear in the command, for it is the edict of the same God who hath said, 'I will create a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within you.' To despair of our own strength then, is to charge God with weakness; and to omen nothing but a register of broken resolutions, is to doubt the faithfulness of an Almighty Saviour; for his grace is sufficient for our need; and his strength is made perfect in our weakness.' Let us look unto God with the earnestness and importunity of prayer in our faces and our hearts, and the holy eye that is continually upon us, will strengthen us for the fulfilment of his will. Put away,' says our King, the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; and if in our humble but sincere endeavours to do his bidding, we seek unto his sufficiency of grace for the needful strength; then shall the consciousness that all our doings are before his eyes, be unto us a source of strength; and ours in the end be the blessedness promised to the pure in heart, 'for they shall see God.' TWELFTH DAY.-MORNING. end in self-condemnation; for in the very sentence that enjoins the duty of a self-searching inquiry, does the prophet, without any alternative condition, exhort us to immediate repentance. And such a verdict, alas! may we always, without the gift of inspiration, foretell as the issue of every inquiry into the state of our hearts. Hence arises our natural repugnance to enter upon this duty at all, as well as our tendency to deal dishonestly with ourselves in carrying it through; for just as the heart is 'desperately wicked,' so is it 'deceitful above all things.' If we would estimate the importance and necessity of such an inquiry, however, we can have no surer or safer measure than just this reluctance of our nature to engage with it; and we can hardly have a more sufficient proof that our ways are wrong, than the tendency to deceive ourselves in comparing them with the will and the ways of God. Let us come close up then to the light of the searching scripture before us; and learn, as the preface to its revelation, that even in a state of grace, and in the very act of coming up from the wilderness, under the holy banner of our faith, we have a continual tendency to backsliding; and that even after the call of the Spirit has made itself effectual, in turning our hearts round to the bright and morning star; times without number must we hear and obey the self-same voice crying, 'turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die?' The sinner's road to heaven is not a straight one; nor is there much exaggeration of figure in calling it from beginning to end a continual turning. O! if in the moment of its first and decisive conversion, the heart were truly turned right round to God, like the sunflower to the rising sun; were all its sensibilities brought immediately under the Let us search and try our ways, and turn again benignity of the divine countenance, and into close to the Lord,' Lam. iii. 40. 'To know one's self' was regarded by an ancient sage as the beginning and the end of wisdom. In selecting this maxim as the motto of his philosophy, he signifies at once the importance and the difficulty of the lesson it conveyed. But when we take eternity into the account, and the simple, but vast, consideration that the present life is but a school for the next, the importance of the lesson in question is immeasurably dilated; and it consequently stands out before us, in the pages of scripture, in a greatness of size, and interest, which it never could assume in the writings of a heathen, whose wisdom aimed no farther than the grave. In the scripture before us, it is very remarkable too, that the result of the inquiry is here taken for granted; and we are given to ⚫ understand, before we commence it, that it must and clear contemplation of the divine glory; then might we suppose that direct as the path of the turtle-dove in the air, or of the fiery chariot that bore Elias to heaven, would be the course of that heart through all the thorny perplexities of life to its home in the 'habitation of holiness.' Such in the course of time and the history of ages has been the path of one single soul, unto whose first prayer our Lord answered, 'to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.' But O! let those who defer their first repentance till the day or the night of turning their face to the wall, bethink themselves, that many times must their repentance be repented of, and their tears washed away with tears ever purer and purer, before they shall hear a voice from the cross crying unto them, 'To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.' On a large and conspicuous scale do we see this tendency to backsliding, even in the right way of Zion, illustrated in the wanderings of the Israelites between the Red sea and the promised land. By a direct route, such as the way of the caravans, they had a journey to perform of about fourteen days. The Ishmaelites, in their way to Egypt with Joseph and their spices, were probably not so long upon the road. But the children of this world are, in their generation, wiser than the children of light; and it is one thing to go down to Egypt, and another to go up to the Holy Land. Instead of a fortnight, the Israelites, and among them Joshua and Caleb, were forty years on the road to Canaan. So far from proceeding in a straight line, their route was a series of circles. Like a chain, their course indeed, as a whole, was straight, but the parts of which it was made up were round links. A great portion of their travelling was in the backward direction of the very land from which they were flying; and hardly a single day did they proceed in the right line for the heritage of Abraham. And where, and who is the saint amongst us, who with his hand at the plough has never looked back, nor from his own painful experience been taught to remember Lot's wife. How many, and alas! how varied, are the delusions with which we have to contend! In the spiritual world it happens to us, as in the physical, that we often lose our latitude, without knowing it; and travel far and fast in a wrong direction, with the full persuasion that we are steadily advancing towards our journey's end. Strange too, that, when we are once on a wrong road, and especially when we begin to suspect it, we generally quicken our pace, as a bird hasteth to the snare and knoweth it not.' And O! stranger still, we are then afraid to ask the road of any one we meet; and rather proceed right on, under the cover of a fond delusion, to the mouth of the grave, than brave the truth, and retrace our steps to the chamber of the rising sun. We have thus a thousand motives to continual circumspection, watchfulness, and trying of our ways. O! the moment our perplexities begin about the great highway of holiness, it is time to suspect we are straying; and the moment we begin to suspect, we may be sure we are wrong. It is a plain and free though not a beaten road; and indicates at every step the place to which it leads-even the palace of our great King. It is marked, moreover, all the way with drops of blood, as of a lamb slain for the remission of sins. Can we mistake our road to Zion, as long as we bear about with us the dying of our Lord Jesus Christ; or forget that it is and must be a way of holiness? When we sin then we know that we are swerving either to the right hand or to the left. And O! just as in the physical world, so in the spiritual, whenever we find ourselves entangled with briars, or tearing our flesh among thorns, we may be sure we are off the road. Such thorns running themselves into the flesh, are in reality the voice of God crying, 'turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die; this is the right way, walk ye in it; or search and try your ways and turn again to the Lord.' Thus instead of a living man complaining for the punishment of his sins, let us obey the voice that speaks in all such punishments; and, searching and trying our ways, let us turn again to the Lord. And just as it is the Lord who thus intimates our deviation, unto the Lord let us address the prayer, Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.' TWELFTH DAY.-EVENING. Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God, 2 Cor. vii. 1. IT is surprising to find, among professing Christians, how very few there are who so much as aim at the perfection implied in their own profession. The ambition, that, even in childhood, works its daily wonders on the little theatre of temporal life, seems to forsake us the moment we enter upon the great career of the soul, and add the incitements of eternity to those of time. Thus do we find holiness generally regarded as an attainment beyond our reach; and the title of saint as a dignity at which none but fanatics would think of aspiring. It is no uncommon thing to hear the Christian delinquent pleading in defence of his infirmities that he is no saint, and this with a tone of complacency, rather than of sorrow, implying plainly enough that he has no desire to be one. So low indeed does the breath of our spiritual aspirations move, that in our religious vocabulary saint and hypocrite have become almost synonymous terms; and it is the ambition of many rather to shun than to seek the reputation of sanctity. All the while, however, the word of God abideth sure and stedfast, that without holiness no man shall see the Lord,' and hence do we know that just in as much as we suffer our aim to fall short of a pure and perfect sanctity in the inner man, as in the outward life, does it at the same ing. Hence are we taught, in the very same time fall short of heaven. It is remarkable too breath that conveys this gracious promise, to aim that no sooner do we fix our thoughts on the at the perfection of holiness as the condition of its mansions of heaven, and contemplate with ear- fulfilment. It is immediately preceded by a nest eye, that holy of holies into which our great peremptory summons to tear ourselves loose from High Priest has entered, to prepare the way for our unequal yoking with unbelievers, break off our admission, than we feel this truth in all its all fellowship with unrighteousness, come out force, and most clearly comprehend that unto from among sinners, and be separate from them, saints alone can the gates of that blessed abode and never more to touch the unclean thing; and and the fellowship of its righteous inhabitants then it is immediately followed up with the ever be laid open-that there shall in no wise strong exhortation of our text, let us therefore enter into it any thing that defileth,' and that cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh they who stand before the throne of the Lamb and spirit, and perfect holiness in the fear of with palms in their hand, are they who have God! We are required in a tone of authority, washed their robes and made them white in the softened and sweetened by affection, not to conblood of the Lamb.' tent ourselves with aiming at the remission of sins alone through the blood of Christ, but at the extirpation of every bitter root and sinful inclination from our hearts, to take up the cross, and deny ourselves to all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and dying daily unto sin, live daily more and more unto righteousness. The fear of God is the beginning, and likewise the end of wisdom. But in its own end it is the holy fear of offending a righteous and living Father, and the holy awe that hangs over the soul at the thought of approaching the habitation of divine holiness and glory, with a stain upon its raiment. Let us aim then at the highest in all things-in character, as in privileges; and at perfection in holiness as well as in bliss. God may pardon us for coming short of our aim; but to aim short of his requirements, to purpose less than implicit obedience, and perfect purity of heart and holiness, even as God himself is pure, is in reality making up our minds to fall short of heaven in the end, and sink, it may be, in the very act of laying our hands on its gates, for there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth.' Soon do we learn from experience in the ways of the life which now is, to aim even beyond our purpose, that we may be more certain of coming up to it; and though the children of the world are wiser in their generation than the children of light, let us beware at least of reversing in spiritual things our own natural wisdom, and, while actually meditating an entrance into the habitation of God's holiness and glory, aiming short of it, by satisfying ourselves with a standard beneath the requirements of gospel-purity. Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of us should seem to come short of it.' If such then be the actual experience of our own hearts, are we, in taking our aim beneath the requirements of scripture, conscience, and reason, actually renouncing the promises of the life which is to come, and giving up heaven as a prize too high for our ambition? O, no!' is the ready reply of every nominal Christian, and readiest is it ever in the mouth of those who are loudest in denouncing the very reputation of sanctity; refusing for themselves, and denying to their neighbours, the appellation of 'holy brethren;' and crying down the name of saints from the face of our spiritual world. There is here then some deadly delusion and contradiction of sinners,' at work about our hearts; and by the manifest inconsistency of its fruits with our profession, warning us to keep closer to the light of divine truth, that in so doing we may learn, in the very beginning of our Christian course, to take our aim aright, with the clear understanding, that just as God never promises more than he is both able and willing to give, so will he never take less than he asks. In the promises before us we find a source of incitements sufficient, not only to raise our aim to the highest, but to keep us in the right course, for following it up in our life and conversation to the end. These promises are, in substance, no less than the restoration of our fallen nature to the rank of divinity. In this blessing is manifestly comprehended every gift and blessing in the power of God to bestow; for it is making us heirs of his own infinite riches, and joint heirs with his Son Jesus Christ. We have here then a promise of the highest order, and consequently implying on our part obligations to a corresponding extent. For so is it with all the promises of God. Unto every one of them is annexed a duty, and the duty is always in harmonious proportion with the bless THE mind of man, especially in early life, lives much more habitually in the future, than either in the past or the present. We are almost continually looking forward on the days or the years that lie before us; and leaning in thought on 'the shadows of coming events. There is hence in the constitution and bias of our minds a natural preparation for the power of promises; nor have any of us, moreover, passed through the susceptible season of childhood without an abundant experience of their dominion. By the spell of a promise we can fasten the imagination of a child to a future hour-annihilate, in his estimation, all the interests of the time that lies between, and bind his eye or his car to the clock that tells over, one by one, the moments devoted to expectation. 'we look,' he says, 'for a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. amazingly relieved and enhanced by the terrors The brightness of this promise, moreover, is with which it is associated: for the period of its fulfilment is not only the great, but likewise the terrible day of the Lord. It is that awful day of final retribution when the Son of man, coming in his glory with all his holy angels, shall gather the dead and the living of all generations to judgment before his throne, and 'shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd separateth his sheep from the goats. And the King shall say unto them on his right hand, 'Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.' Into such a great and eventful scene may we not safely say that God has concentrated all the interests both of time and eternity; and that whether we regard it in the light of a promise or a threatening, it beckons us forward to its coming with all the power that the Almighty perhaps ever brings to bear upon the sensibilities of our nature? It is the strongest appeal to the most susceptible passions of our souls, our hope, our fear, and our love,—for the King who sits on that throne of judgment is Jesus Christ. How therefore, let us ask ourselves, has The power of this influence, however, depends entirely upon faith; which, in its turn again, derives its surest maintenance from faithfulness. Of all promises, therefore, we should expect those of the Almighty, in whom 'there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning,' to take the strongest hold of our hearts, and fasten our imagination most stedfastly on their day of fulfilment. In the vast concerns of the soul, how-it hitherto affected us? or how is it affecting us ever, and of the world that is yet to come, we misapply the lesson bequeathed to us by our blessed Lord, when, setting a little child in the midst of his disciples, he said unto them, 'Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven for just as to them a year, a month, or sometimes a week placed between them and a promise, is an impassable gulph, in which their imagination, like birds in the Dead sea, droop and drown by the way; so do we suffer our faith in the word of God, and with it all the interest and the influence of a great expectation, to wear themselves out on the apparent delay of fulfilment. In the words upon which our meditations are at present feeding, we find the apostle mildly reproving this spirit of unbelief, or rather reasoning it out of our way; as he seeks to turn our expectation in the direction of his own; and fasten them on the great fulfilment of all divine promises in the conflagration of the world. For in that final 'melting of the elements with fervent heat,' even now? Are we looking for, and hasting unto the coming of the day of God?' We who live so much in the future; who in the very act of sitting down to the banquets of to-day, are saying, 'what shall we eat to-morrow;' and while reaping the harvest of the present year are ploughing the ground for the next; are we thinking within ourselves, on which side of the throne the Judge of that day shall place us; or where, and what manner of persons we shall be, when its solemnities shall all be over, and the day of judgment added to the records of the past? Alas! thousands, and tens of thousands, yea, the vast majority of mankind, are eating, and drinking, and sleeping in the very same manner, as we might safely suppose, if the coming of such a day had never been revealed. The apostle ascribes this forgetfulness or unbelief to the apparent slackness of God in bringing his own promises to pass. But did God ever tell us when the end of the world was to come? Let it be sufficient for us to know that it lies before us on a road that we must all travel, and that a time is coming when we shall look back upon it as we now do on the creation of the world, the deluge, or the death of Christ. his And O! above all things, let us read aright this apparent slackness of God in bringing his own judgments to pass; and may his grace save us from the crimson sin of turning his own mercy into a weapon of offence against the honour of his name. Why is God so slow in the accomplishment of his threatenings, or the fulfilment of his promises? Why is the day of judgment so long delayed? O! just because the heart of man is hard, and God is gracious. In the plans of grace he has a great work to accomplish before the coming of the great day; a work no less than the total reformation of the human race, and putting all things under Christ. If God then be slow it is because the hearts of men are slow in ceasing from evil, and learning to do well.' And so is it in regard to individuals, and the judgment that awaits us all at death. Why, we may ask ourselves, are we still alive? O! it is because God is willing that we, as indeed all men, should be saved. And therefore does he give us time to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. There is a time allowed, in sufficient measure, for all men; for God hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but desireth rather that all should come to him by repentance and live.' Why then should a single soul be lost? And why, O God, should that soul be mine? THIRTEENTH DAY.-EVENING. 'Likewise, I say unto you, There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth, Luke xv. 10. As the resources of redeeming love are, like itself, infinite, so is there an endless variety in its ways of winning souls to God. Of the many strings in the human heart, there is not one which the author and finisher of our faith has left untouched and untried, or rather upon which he has not brought every imaginable influence to bear, in his persevering endeavours to awaken within them a response of love, and wring out of them a tear of repentance. When he has tried us with the power of terror, and the fearful looking for of judgments, he addresses himself to the tenderest chord of our nature, and seeks to allure us over to himself and to heaven by voices of love and visions of delight. To change, after his own example, the figure, he is at one time checking us on the road to ruin by an exhibition of its unutterable woes; and when he has terrified but not turned us, or turned us in the outward man, but not the inner, he opens as it were the gates of heaven, and directs upon our softest sensibilities the power of all its allurements. In the passage before us, we find the untiring. Saviour bringing into action the power of sympathy, and endeavouring to soften us into repentance by an impression of the joy, excited by this greatest of all revolutions in the life of man, among the sinless inhabitants of heaven. Our Of our fallen state, and our natural alienation from God, it is one of the many symptoms that we ourselves have no fellow-feeling with the holy angels, and are consequently slow to comprehend that they can have any sympathy with us. wrong feeling upon this subject is fed by wrong thinking, and the heart defrauded of a pleasing and powerful sympathy by an error of the head. For in attempting to conceive the happiness of heaven, and its holy angels, we are apt to suppose that just because it is perfect and equable in its own nature, it can derive no accession from the events of human life; which, being in themselves fluctuating and uncertain, would seem to imply similar fluctuations in any order of felicity that can be affected by their changes. We suppose, in short, that just as happens to ourselves, if joy be diffused over the family of heaven by the repentance of a sinner, or any tidings of great gladness from the earth, their joy must have been incomplete before; or, what amounts to the same thing, would have been less had such a repentance not taken place. And thus do we think ourselves forced, as long as we admit the perfection of their blessedness, to doubt the participation of angels in our welfare. We should observe, however, that as they are said to rejoice in the arrival of glad tidings from the earth, it is never said that the amount of their joys is thereby enlarged, and then we have only to conceive that the joyous events of our globe, such as the accession of a human soul to the kingdom of grace, may be one of the many sources that feed the ever-full and equable river of their bliss. Now this is just what Christ tells us; and there is therefore no other barrier between our hearts and the influence of such a beautiful truth but the want of all fellow-feeling, on our part, with the holy inhabitants of heaven, occasioned by sin, and perpetuated by impenitence. Are we inclined, moreover, to marvel at such an insignificant event as the repentance of a single sinner, extending its effects all the way to heaven, and contributing to the bliss of all the holy angels? Can such a ripple in the stream of time communi |