'Tis not enough your admonition's just; Prudence must guide it, or the labour's lost. True Christian love is of an enlarged, disinterested nature. It loves all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Party spirit is confined within the limits. of a sect; but Christian love oversteps the narrow boundary, and can recognize a brother in each humble believer, who practically exemplifies the holy doctrines of the Gospel. When we love our own party exclusively, or persons only of our own peculiar train of thinking, we love ourselves in them. We see our own image, and admire it. But when we love those who differ from us in nonessentials, because we discover in them the humility, meekness, purity, patience, and benevolence of the Redeemer, then our love is truly Christian. It is Christ in them whom we love. How little of this enlarged affection, on pure Christian principles, do we discover in the professing world. We hear much about it, but see little of it. It is highly extolled, but little cultivated, As love is the surest evidence of faith; so obedience is the truest test of love. Poets are more dangerous than prose writers, when their principles are bad. Do not be ashamed of having never read the fashionable poem of the day. A Christ ian has no time, and should have no inclination, for any reading that has no real tendency for improvement. In trying to be kind, attentive, and compliant to the habits of worldly people, there may be a danger of strengthening them in evil, and of injuring our own consistency as Christians. There are four evils, which mark the degenerate state of professing Christians in general:-their love of the world-their love of ease their fear of mantheir distrust of Providence. The primitive believers were just the reverse of all this. They despised the world, and its flattering allurements; they took up the cross, and denied themselves; they boldly confessed Christ, and suffered for his sake; they trusted God for all things, and so took joyfully the spoiling of their goods. And what was the blessed fruit? They abounded in consolation; they grew in grace; they shone as lights in the world; they felt joy and peace in believing. Society is pleasant-yet it becomes a snare if it lead us from our secret chamber by its incessant attractions, and thus makes us strangers to our God and our own hearts. It is often better to pray for those who are mistaken, than to dispute with them. Prejudices may often be more easily undermined than stormed. The farther the experienced Christian advances in his earthly pilgrimage, the more he learns how needful to his safety is watchfulness and prayer. The world, and the things of the world, press upon us at all points. Our daily avocations, yea, our most lawful enjoyments, have need to be narrowly watched, lest they insensibly steal upon our affections, and draw away our hearts from God. True Christians must come out and be separate from the world, in its principles, spirit, and practice; for it is unequivocally declared, "If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his." "Shall I eat of this delicacy, while a poor man wants his dinner?" inquired the pious Leighton, who thought people in general much too expensive and curious in the preparation of their meals, and wished this domestic profusion were turned into a channel of distribution to the poor. Everything beyond the mere necessaries of life he termed the overflowings of a full cup, which ought not to run to waste, but descend into the poor man's platter.-LEIGHTON. Being told of a person who had changed his profession, all he said was, "Is he more meek, more dead to the world? If so, he has made a happy change."IBID. Our Saviour tells us expressly, that man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesseth. (Luke xii. 15.) Think you, great and rich persons live more content? Believe it not. If they will deal fairly, they can tell you the contrary, that there is nothing but a show in them; and that great estates and places have great griefs and cares attending them, as shadows are proportioned to their bodies.— IBID. Better to be in the midst, between the two pointed rocks of deep penury and high prosperity, than to be on the sharps of either.—IBID. Philip Henry used to say, that many Scripture parables and similitudes are taken from the common actions of this life, that when our hands are employed about them, our hearts may the more easily pass through them to divine and heavenly things. He has been heard often to blame those whose irregular zeal, in the profession of religion, makes them neglect their proper business, and let the house drop through, the affairs of which the good will order with discretion. He would tell sometimes, how a pious woman was convinced of this her fault, by means of an intelligent, godly neighbour, who, coming into the house, and finding the woman, far in the day, in her closet, and the house sadly neglected, he said, "What! is there no fear of God in this house?" which much startled and affected the good woman, who overheard him. He would often say, "Everything is beautiful in its season; and that is the wisdom of the prudent, so to order the duties of their general callings as Christians, and those of their particular callings in the world, as that they may not clash or interfere. It is observable, from Ecclesiastes vii. 16, that there may be over-doing in well-doing."-PHILIP HENRY There is a mean, if we could hit it, between foolhardiness and faint-heartedness.-IBID. In those things where all the people of God are agreed, I will spend my zeal; and wherein they differ, I will endeavour to walk according to the light which God hath given me, and charitably believe that others do so too. IBID. No one knows how much good he may do by dispersing books of piety, which may have a tendency to make men wiser and better. It was a noble action of some good men, who, a little while ago, were at the charge of printing thirty thousand of the "Alarm to the Unconverted," written by Joseph Alleine, to be given away to such as would promise to read it.-COTTON MATHER. A man of no great fortune has been known to give away, without much trouble, nearly a thousand books of piety every year, for many years together. Who can tell but that, with the expense of less than a shilling, you may "convert a sinner from the error of his ways, and save a soul from death?"-IBID. I see in this world two heaps, of human happiness and misery. Now, if I can take the smallest bit from one heap, and add to the other, I carry a point. If, as I go home, a child has dropped a half-penny, and if, by giving it another, I can wipe away its tears, I |