duty and privilege is, to be continually "looking unto Jesus."Least of all, do we suspect an enemy, when we are contemplating God in his works of creation, of providence, or in his law; but even in these instances we may be diverted from looking to Jesus. God was, is, and ever will be in Christ.

No. XC.-EXCELLENCY OF THE BIBLE.

Ir christians knew of one impenitent sinner at the remotest part of the globe, who did not possess a Bible, it would be their duty, if possible, to teach him some language in which he could read it: then putting the book into his hand, in the language of inspiration, assure him "these things were written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God; and that in believing, you might live through his name."

When that interesting missionary Des Granges, at Vizagapatam, was dying, he was asked about what object he was most anxious. His answer was, "the translation of the scriptures!" The word of God corresponds to his character. Holiness and justice, truth and faithfulness, sovereign authority, patience and goodness, mercy and grace, wisdom aud blessedness, constitute his character; and these are the excellences it displays and requires. These are commanded and enforced by precepts and promises, doctrines and threatenings, counsels and example.

The word of God is real truth, in opposition to error, deceit, and falsehood. It is not a phantom, an imagination, or a shadow of truth; it is "the truth." Error is mutable and various; it assumes various forms and semblances; but the bible is truth,-pure and unchangeable truth. It is also spiritual truth, and, therefore, the most important, as adapted to the spirit and spiritual wants of fallen man. The sciences provide for our temporal accommodation; they contain natural, philosophical, and political truth: but the gospel promises deliverance from spiritual evils and blessings-spiritual in their nature, tendency and design. It enjoins spiritual dispositions and aims; spiritual conversation and conduct; spiritual worship and enjoyments; spiritual principles, conflicts and ends. Instead of rank, wealth, honour, and ease, it exhibits knowledge, faith, holiness, pardon, peace, intercourse with God, love to Jesus, imitation of him, victory over sin, satan, self, the world and death; and the prospect of eternal life to our desires, hopes, and pursuits. As "the ministration of the spirit," it is designed to render us "spiritually minded." It forms a spiritual taste, excites spiritual thoughts, and inspires spiritual affections. The cares it produceth, refer to "the one thing needful;" and this regulates the hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows, the self-denial and exertions of " the spiritual man."

No. XCI.-BROTHERLY LOVE.

NECESSITY is one bond of society; but brotherly love greatly strengthens that union, which is formed by necessity.

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We are partakers of one nature, the same rational similar inclinations and affections. "Of one blood." Our advantages and disadvantages are similar. Brotherly love has the best influence on civil society. Prevents craft, and violence. It will render the conduct open, just, kind, and peaceable. It shields society from fraud, injustice and discord. It unites us as christians.

It prevents that envy and revenge, that hypocrisy, which loves only in soft words, and a fair address. It bears, forbears, forgives. It is tender of character, of peace and prosperity. The principles, and motives of christians are peculiar to themselves.

No. XCII.-ON THE RESURRECTION.

THE gospel reveals the doctrine of the resurrection to us, as a matter of fact. The body must rise again; it must become a body which shall be no clog to devotion, no snare to integrity, no source of disease and pain, no seat of mortal qualities. What surprising monuments of divine power and grace will such bodies be!

No. XCIII.-GOD'S VOICE IN DEATH.

IN funeral orations, as they are called, the law of custom obliges ministers to comfort them that mourn. The addresses at the grave, of course, breathes nothing but consolation.-But are ministers right in this uniformity of design? has God but one design in painful dispensations? and are we sure that we concur with his design, by insisting on consolatory hopes only. Our design, as ministers, ought to be, to interpret the dispensation. The LORD'S VOICE calleth to the family; and to him and his voice we should direct the attention of the mourners. "It is the Lord's hand that "takes away" our relatives and friends; and, in so doing, strikes us. We should endeavour to discern, acknowledge, and submit to HIM in the dispensation. ""Tis God that lifts our comforts high,

Or sinks them in the grave."

In such seasons, we are called to self-inquiry, to "great searchings of heart," to "search and try our ways.' We are then summoned to enter into judgment with ourselves; "to bring our sins to remembrance," to "humble ourselves, under the mighty hand of God." To what sin does the finger of God point? What lesson does he design to teach us? What error is he correcting? Perhaps

he intends to awaken sympathy for others whose sufferings we have neglected, to subdue some carnal affection we have indulged, to arm us against temptation, to qualify us for peculiar usefulness, or prepare us to glorify God in some greater trial of our faith and patience. Or, whilst some object is removed which we loved too much, we are taught the worth of some mercy which we valued too little, Possibly, God may have "spoken once, yea twice," in former dispensations, and we" perceived it not," but " despised the chastening of the Lord." If so, we must not wonder, that God should speak with a louder voice and strike with a heavier hand, to "open our ears, and seal instruction" on our minds. And if we have rashly censured others under the cross, and boasted of our own strength, we are by a suitable trial, called to repent of our severity and presumption, by learning a little more of "the evil and plague of our own hearts." If found under lukewarm dispositions and formal devotions, the trial may make us feel the necessity of "the power" of Godliness, " to support and improve our spirits."

No. XCIV.-EXPERIENCE OF RELIGION.

THE evidence which a good man enjoys of the truth of the scriptures and the reality of religion, is like the evidence of the sweetness of honey, the nourishing quality of food, the pleasurable effects of the sun, or the delight occasioned by music. Should a bad man say he does not enjoy that evidence or feel such conviction, and therefore the religion is not a reality, his inference is unjust. He who has never tasted honey, seen the sun, or has no ear for music, cannot be a judge of either.

No. XCV.-DIVINE VISITATIONS.

WHEN God enters a careless family and smites the first-born, as one that will be heard, he calls aloud. Eph. v. 14.

With such a LIGHT, he will rouse the sleeper; and by his minister death, he will arrest the attention of him who has slighted every other minister. He takes him apart from noise and occupation into the secret and silent chamber, speaks to his heart and seals the most important truths on it, by the most affecting impressions!

Conscience, no longer stifled or amused, discovers the contender; and trembling before him, cries. Jer. xxxi. 18.

Here a soul marks (obtains) that gold, which the thief cannot steal; builds on that foundation which no tempest can shake; feels that life, over which death hath no power; and that peace which the world can neither give nor take away. In the wreck of human affairs, God makes his truth appear; and causes his gospel, like a plank thrown out to the perishing mariner, to be properly known and prized.

No. XCVI.-CHARACTER.

We see little of the world in which we live; we see bodies and faces, but not spirits. Yet the spirit is the MAN. In reality, therefore, we cannot see a man, but as we perceive his very soul. The spirits of men, are a world in a world: an invisible within a visible world. It is the SPIRIT of a man which is the seat of reigning sin, or of " the kingdom of God." Here is the seat of misery and of happiness. How little real knowledge then, do we possess! How difficult the attainment of self-knowledge and yet how important! How awful, how amazing will be the manifestations of character, at the great day!

No. XCVII.-READING SERMONS.

Reading sermons and prayers, originates in sloth and encourages it. Sermons and prayers may be bought and repeated, without study, experience or concern. Surely, this is not suitable to the divine office of an ambassador of Christ. It requires neither grace nor talents, to read the works of other men. A school-boy may do it, or even a bad man. But is this man one of the pastors or teachers, whom Christ" is exalted to give?" Is this " God's heart?

a pastor after In what profession does equal indolence prevail? On the bench, where property, liberty and life are concerned, the judge does not read but speak his address to the jury, to the accused, and to the accuser. At the bar, the advocate pleads, answers objections, conciliates, persuades, as one who understands and feels for, his client. In the senate, whether men be actuated by love of their country, by partyzeal, by vanity, by love of place, or any other motive, they speak, not read. And even on the stage, the actor would not be heard in a well-read address, however good the composition. No, he speaks from memory, and from the heart, as one that would engage and impress his hearers. What a reproach to the minister who idly reads the compositions of others, or even sermons of his own composing!

Garrick was once asked, to account for the faint impressions made by many preachers on their audience, considering the advantages they possesed in the importance of their subject, when he and other speakers on the stage, could fix the attention and command the heart, with subjects infinitely inferior. "Because," answered Garrick, "preachers deliver truth, as if they believed it false; and we deliver fictions, as if we believed them to be true!"

Distrust of God, induces a disposition to read rather than preach. A corrupt custom forms and strengthens a vicious taste; and therefore many ministers and hearers prefer reading to preaching.—

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When a minister reads, because he is afraid of offending this taste for reading sermons, he proves that "the fear of man bringeth a snare." Let a minister live, walk and preach "in the Spirit," and he will not fulfil "this lust of the flesh."

Pride, a principle opposed to faith, has no small share in this practice. This principle paralizes a "concern to preach Christ," and convert souls, by raising a concern to shine as a scholar; to please and astonish by long periods, high style, smooth sentences, and ingenious thoughts.

What would conscience say to the minister, who, after drawing the attention of his hearers to himself rather than to Christ, should have occasion to quote the declaration "we preach not ourselves; but Christ Jesus, the Lord?"

Reading, instead of preaching sermons, is also supported by the opportunity it affords to graceless persons to become ministers. Were thousands of such men obliged to study, and preach their sermons, instead of copying and reading the sermons of others, the door would be shut against them. Thousands of Arians, Socinians, and mere moral preachers, would be prevented from entering the pulpit; and men of scriptural knowledge, experimental wisdom, "the gift of utterance," and ardent zeal, would be encouraged to occupy their places, and "speak the truth in love."

The disadvantages of this method to the minister and hearers, are many and great.

Should he lose his notes, as has been the case, the people cannot expect a sermon. Such a minister is ill-qualified to preach in the evening; and if his eyes grow din, he will read with pain to himself and his hearers. If the subject be committed to memory, after being well digested, a man feels the weight of it. In the reader, the book is full of the subject; in the speaker, the soul is filled with it. The reader's eyes are on the book; the preacher's on the people. One uses his eyes and his tongue; and his exertions may be merely mechanical; the other puts his heart into his sermon, and gives both to his hearers. Whatever solemn, unexpected occasion presents itself, the mere reader of sermons and prayers cannot adapt either to it, by a train of thought, or by various aspects of truth, different from those contained in his book.

A solemn providence may render the sermon in the minister's pocket unseasonable, at least without some addition or alteration: still his faculties are confined, his thoughts and expressions bounded, and his feelings counteracted by this slavish practice.

No. XCVIII.-THE PRAYERLESS.

When a man avoids speaking to his neighbour, we suspect some secret ill-will concealed as the cause. Is not that man an enemy