extravagance so wild or wicked, that may not find an entrance, and assume an absolute sway. Hence it may come to pass, that ghosts, hobgoblins, and ideal devils, the forerunners and brokers of a real one, have been believed in, have been imprecated, have been consulted, as powers that know every thing, and could do every thing. Opposite to a mind so wretchedly groveling, there is another, of high and wide capacity, that having by a right use of reason and a continual application to revealed religion, filled itself with objects, of magnitude immense, hath left itself neither room, nor time, for an attention to trifles. These hardly weigh as the lightest dust on its balance. Its greatest condescension is to astronomy. With systems, suns, and worlds, it sometimes amuses itself, and then only because they are the works of God. To him, to the eternal world, and to the road thither through Christ Jesus, it devotes itself in such a manner, that other things, as too minute for consideration, are lost to its meditations. A creating, a governing, a redeeming, a sanctifying God engages its gratitude, fires its love, confirms its faith, trust, hope, and by its goodness excites its wonder more than by all the demonstrations of wisdom and power displayed throughout the universe. In self-abasement this mind draws near to Christ, and through him, the way, the truth, and the life,' struggles upward to the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort. Folly, sin, and time, are left behind, and eternity strains the eye of faith, till every thing below disappears, and retires from attention. This mind meddles not with the mysteries of Divine Nature, but with those only of its mercy, patience, love; and is not at leisure to quarrel with other men about ceremonies, or metaphysical refinements, or the senseless whims of heretics, or the refractory spirit of schismatics. He is indeed engaged in a sharp controversy; but it is with himself, as a sinner, and with the devil, the world, and his own fleshly lusts, as the enemies of God, and his poor soul. In this he watches with all the severity, prays with all the ardour, and fights with all the vigour, that God hath given him. Having drawn this short character of a true Christian, it will be easily seen, wherein the fanatic, the enthusiast, the zealot, differ from him, and are culpable. The fanatic believes, or would have others believe, that he is divinely inspired and we shall believe that he really is, and that extraordinarily, as soon as he proves it by working miracles, as the apostles of Christ did. But no volubility in praying or preaching, especially with a mixture of nonsense; no shaking, no falling into

fits, or dancing; no bitter railing; no splitting or dividing the church of Christ, can ever prove any thing like it, but must prove the very reverse; as must also, in a still stronger manner, the advancement of opinions and practices contrary to, or not authorized by, the word of God. If the sacraments instituted by Christ, and the peace and charity of the church, placed by him and the Holy Spirit, as among the first fundamentals of our holy religion, are, in the smallest degree, slighted by any sect, that sect is not of God. There is not, there cannot be a clearer demonstration than this. So infinitely important and interesting are the principles of our divine religion, that it is utterly impossible to be too zealously affected towards it. No feelings of the most grateful heart can ever rise in warmth, equal to the demand made on it by a dying Saviour. No zeal, no enthusiasm can carry the human heart too far, or too high, for the acknowledgment of such goodness. Let no man therefore call him, by way of reproach, a zealot or enthusiast, who cheerfully gives his life on the rack, or in flames, in return for that God who shed his blood for him on the cross, for he repays but a little for that which is immense; a trifle not his own, for that which Christ held in property. But this enthusiasm, this zeal should be according to knowledge.' If our own vanity or our worldly interest, or our prejudice, or our attachment to a sect or party, hath any share in it, so far it is but base hypocrisy ; and it had been even better for us to have classed with the Laodiceans, perhaps with the infidels. Blessed Jesu! Thou hast offered up thy blood to redeem us from the torments of hell; thou hast entitled us to the joys of heaven. We are thine by creation, by redemption, by sanctification; what then have we of our own? Nothing, but a will and a heart, a vagrant will, and a corrupted heart, which, without thy influence, can hardly be said to be at our own disposal. Poor offerings indeed, if brought to thy altar, unless they flame up in gratitude and love! Yet if they should, what would that be to thy pity, and thy love for us, which drew thee from the glories of heaven to the infamy of the cross? Our warm and steady adherence to the saving truths of thy religion, instead of stirring us up to any degree of animosity against such as differ from us concerning those truths, inspires us with pity for their errors, and charity towards themselves, for this is one of those most sacred truths to which we adhere, that we should love all men, and particularly all that call themselves by thy name, howsoever imperfectly they make good their title to

that glorious name, in the midst of sincerity and honest dealing. Thy prayer on the cross for them, who knew not what they did, when they murdered thee, is more than a sufficient direction to us for our behaviour towards men, who as little know what they ought to believe.

130. Our Saviour tells us, that God knows better what we stand in need of than we do ourselves, and therefore orders our words to be few, and our prayers short, when we address ourselves to the majesty of heaven. We ourselves ought to consider, how little good it is, that we deserve at the hands of God. These considerations lead to modesty and brevity in our devotions, which ought ever to be preceded by meditation. The above serve for reasons in the minds of some infidels, for not praying at all. With these that other precept of our Saviour, to pray always, passes for nothing. It is much that they allow his doctrine to be just and right, when it seems to fall in with their own way of thinking. But may not our prayers be short and comprehensive, and yet frequently offered up? It is most true that God knows our wants much better than we do. This is not a reason why we ought not to be sensible of our own wants, of our great inability to supply them, and our continual dependence on him alone who can do it. Hence it is that prayer should be made ever unto the great Provider and Helper,' and that He ought daily to be praised for' being always more ready to hear, than we to pray.' All our addresses to the throne of mercy should be founded on a profound submission to his infinite wisdom; should not be offered by way of information or direction to him, but purely as representations of our wants and weakness, and of a humble sense in us of both. He that hath not this sense, is become a god of his own making, sets up for independence, and if left to his own presumption, must surely perish. To the Fountain of all goodness and power, the weak creature should continually pray, that he may be made stronger; the wicked creature should incessantly cry, that he may be converted; and the good creature, if such there is among mankind, should constantly solicit that he may become better. Not one of these can help himself; the world is more ready to corrupt, than aid him; and the devil is on the watch utterly to destroy him. What then can he do, but turn himself to God, ever present with him, ever full of pity for him, and mighty to save him? Cut off prayer, the sweet and comfortable communication between God and him, and he is lost for ever. This wretched

being is not less accountable nor less helpless, for not thinking himself so. How much happier is the devout dependant of God, who hath infinite wisdom to direct him; infinite power to protect and support him; infinite goodness to infuse itself into his selfdiffident heart, until it become a heart after God's own heart! At the age of twenty, and in the dog-days, I was taken out of my bed one morning, by three or four young creatures like myself to a kind of exercise common in the country where I then lived, and received a blow with a cannon-ball, which fractured my scull. This, and the evacuations necessary to prevent a fever at that season, left me in a low state of health and spirits. This again left me, instead of a most hale and animated, a shattered and debilitated constitution for the remainder of my life. On recollecting that this affliction fell on me that sole day, since I was eight years old, whereon I had not recommended myself in prayer to the protection of Providence, I drew a lesson for which, dearly as it was purchased, I bless God to this day. Let those (I fear there are many) who expose themselves to such dangers, without prayer, and escape them, not dare to draw from thence an argument for indevotion or infidelity, till the winding up of their trial, and the settlement of their mode of existence for ever. At that period I verily believe, my correction will be found to have the advantage of their escapes, howsoever more capable they may think themselves, and really have been, of leading good lives, without such chastisements, than I was. Somewhat similar to my case, as above related, but of an infinitely more dreadful nature, was that of Origen, than whom a greater genius never adorned the Christian world, on going out one day without having, by prayer in the morning, put himself under the protection of Divine Providence. The lamentation, after his fall, recorded in his own words by an ancient ecclesiastical historian, is a picture of woe, if possible, more affecting and more shocking than even those of Jeremiah; but his case, in regard to a particular circumstance, is not so proper as mine, to be exposed to the eye of a common reader, or I should here give it at full length. Bishop Hall, a writer abounding with admirable sentiments, maintains, that prayer is a universal remedy for evils of all sorts. If I forget not, he insists more on its curative than preventive powers, the latter being less apparent, and therefore less capable of being dwelt on. But who would not rather be saved, than relieved, from evils, particularly the evil of sin? Yet it is here that prayer performs its noblest work,—

here the great Benefactor conceals his protecting hand, and prevents our acknowledgments. Could we see how many and how great miseries the power of prayer, prevailing with Providence, averts from us, our gratitude would be more awakened, than by all the reliefs we enjoy from evils actually suffered. An attentive Christian sometimes catches at these, and gets a glimpse of the protecting hand, as it is drawn back from his unwary head. Faith ought, in this case, to interpose, and teach us how much oftener our prayers have been heard, than creatures, so blind, are apt to conceive. That the unseen blessings of God are more than the visible, not only our faith, but the knowledge of our miserable weakness, and of the hourly dangers we are ever surrounded with, should convince us, and guide us to a degree of gratitude, which we are little aware of. We are fed, we are clothed, we are healed, we are delivered out of prison; these blessings are visible, though they too often pass by our observation as things of course; but how do we know, whether these temporal blessings are not all turned by our own folly and wickedness into so many curses? And, at the best, what are they to the maintenance of piety, virtue, and eternal life in the soul? Who feeds these in the soul? God. What prevails with him to do it? Prayer, almighty prayer; for the power of prayer is as the power of God. If by frequent, which approaches to continual, meditation and prayer, the soul opens and applies itself to God, like fruit ripening under the solar influence, that soul improves in piety and virtue under the celestial irradiation, till it acquires a purity and sublimity, similar to those of the Divine Being. The source of good, continually called in, illapses into the soul and heart, and drives out before it all folly and wickedness, which it soon replaces with the wisdom and love, wherein consists the true life of a Christian. The piety of prayer, and the foulness of sin; the great God, and the foul fiend, can never dwell together in the same mind. This is that exorcism, which is wrought in every wicked man, when he becomes a true Christian. Thus dies the old man, and thus revives the new, in one and the same person; and this happy change is owing, so far as the person himself is employed in the operation, to a perseverance in warm and earnest prayer. If we fail not on our part, the infinitely gracious Being will never fail on his. He must cease to be God and good, before he will relinquish a soul thus devoted to him. And thus it is habituated to a self-renunciation, and finds a better self in Jesus, the way, the truth, and