ed, they would count it some alleviation of their misery.

Dreadful thought! Awful count! far surpassing the arithmetic of man, and perhaps that of angels!

Yet neither indeed shall this take place; for as their offences have been against the infinite God, who deserveth an infinite satisfaction, and as they can never be able to give that, they must be punished through all eternity. All dread, all horror, and all de-. spair, they are forced to wait their final doom, with all their crimes full in their face, written in the page of their memory in legible characters as with a sun-beam, which shall be declared before men and angels.

But, on the other hand, the righteous are as much transported with love, joy, and happiness, as the wicked are racked with despair, misery, and woe. With joy they lift up their heads, see their Lord and Saviour; not in the manger and stable of Bethlehem, not as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, not despised of the people, nor having where to lay his head,

not arraigned at Pilate's judgment-bar, nor suffering on the bloody cross and giving up the ghost; but coming in the clouds of heayen with power and great glory; in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels; the Almighty God, the Judge of quick and dead, their Friend, who once did die for them; and are joyfully caught up to join the happy train, and meet him in the air.

The wicked, as trees twice dead, plucked up by the roots, Jude 12., shall be adjudged and cast into eternal burnings; while the righteous, as trees planted by the Lord, shall be acquitted from all the aspersions thrown on them by men and devils, and removed to the highest heavens, there to flourish and grow ever green with happiness, glory and joy, through all the countless ages of eternity.

Here is an apple tree, which in its wild state bears nothing but crabs, hard and sour fruit, which are only fit for feeding swine; whereas if, contrary to nature, it were cut out of its natural stock, and ingrafted into a good tree, the fruit of it

might be much improved, and rendered useful to its owner. Just so is it with respect to men while in their natural state; all the fruits they bring forth are corrupt, hard, and sour, fit only for feeding their swinish lusts, hateful to God, and destructive to themselves.

Their own righteousness, a fruit being produced from the soil of a broken covenant, instead of nourishing the soul that eateth it, will only poison it at last, if it be not prevented from feeding thereon; whereas, when they are cut out of their own natural stock, and ingrafted into Christ Jesus, they bring forth the fruits of righteousness and true holiness in, and through him, acceptable to God, useful to themselves, and grateful to others.

How much then doth it concern me to know whether I have been cut out of my natural stock in Adam, and ingrafted into Christ Jesus, that true vine, John xv. 1. who maketh every branch that abideth in him fruitful: And by the following marks I know if I be in him,

may

Am I bringing forth the fruits of love to him, more for what he is in and of himself, and what he hath done for me, than on account of what he hath purchased for me? and the fruits of love to men, and good works, as a test of this love to him, in a cheerful compliance with his authority in his commands, depending nothing on my own righteousness for salvation, but entirely on his active and passive righteousness for that alone. If so, then I may conclude I am certainly in him..

Here and there are trees cut down, of various ages, kinds, and sizes: Here lies an aged elm, and there a young ash; in that place a small chesnut tree, and in this a lofty oak. So death is doing his work upon persons of all ranks and all ages, on our right hand and on our left, behind and before us every day, and yet how little are we concerned! almost as little attentive to those warnings of mortality as the insensible standing trees are to the fall of their neighbours, which know not how soon the axe will be laid to their own roots, nor we how soon we must die.

Strange stupidity! to be every day as it were in the midst of deaths, and yet think so little about our own! How many of us live here as if this world were to be our eternal home, and as if it had been the main end of our creation to indulge the flesh, and amass wealth together; scarcely ever considering that this world is only as an inn by the way to the next, and its good things conveniences of it; and we as travellers and way-faring men, who turn aside to tarry therein for a night, Jer. xiv. 8. and must quickly be gone: Therefore, as a traveller sets light by all that are in an inn, farther than what serves his own convenience while he lodges there; so ought we with respect to the things of this world.

There grow a few mulberry trees, the leaves of which are greatly esteemed in some places for feeding the silk-worm, and the berries for making a kind of wine; but for neither of these purposes do I so highly esteem those, as for that great deliverance and victory which the sound of a going on the tops of them was made a signal of to Israel's king, from and over his and Israel's enemies, 2 Sam. v. 23, 24.