ponding increase of love in the heart; even until the hour of his setting an hour of glorious beauty. love to God becomes the supreme and dominant Progress upon the whole, however, is the law of affection, and the desire to be with Him in the Christian life. Retrogression is the excepheaven triumphs over the interests and inclina- tion, not the rule. Nor did the wise king mistions which bind to the earth. read the experience of the saints, when he ventured to give a place among his Proverbs, or maxims of general truth, to the beautiful and consolatory saying, The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.' Is not joy also a progressive sentiment? Sometimes, no doubt, the believer's joy is more vivacious immediately after conversion than at a later stage. As the first outbreak of morning light is peculiarly sweet to the watcher's eye, from its succeeding a season of darkness; so the joy which the sinner experiences when he first finds rest in Christ, is often characterized by a liveliness not afterwards felt. But joy may gain 6 EIGHTEENTH DAY.-EVENING. in depth what it loses in liveliness. The deep-Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory est and strongest wave is not that which breaks in sparkling foam; and the happiness of a confirmed believer may be all the deeper and purer, that it does not flow over in glittering and transient effervescence. Let the young convert's 'joy in believing' be what it may—is it once to be compared with the calm and steadfast assurance of him whose interest in Christ is certified by the mature fruits of the Spirit? What can the inexperienced Christian know of the 'rejoicing' which flows from the testimony of a good conscience? or of the delight which results from conscious and growing likeness to Christ? or of the joy'joy in the Holy Ghost'-which arises from a persuasion of the indwelling of the Spirit of God? Such exquisite joys as these are reserved for an advanced stage of sanctification; and are, therefore, decisive of the progressive sweetness of the believer's joy. Equally progressive is the Christian's path in humility, in hope, in tenderness of conscience; in short, in all the separate rays which, by their combined and blended loveliness, form his shining light. His progress, indeed, is not always invariable or uninterrupted. He is not exempt from periods of stationariness, and even of declension. Faith sometimes wavers; love sometimes waxes cold; hope sometimes becomes obscured; and joy, in particular, being dependent more than any other grace on constitutional temperament, is liable to frequent ebbs and flows. His path lies sometimes high up on the mount, and some times low down in the valley. And, as there are Christians, on the one hand, whose joy is lively at the outset of their course, and comparatively languid during their remaining journey; so there are also Christians, on the other hand, whose path resembles that of the sun in a cloudy day, which, after struggling in vain at morning and at noon to pierce the murky sky, suddenly breaks forth with cheering radiance at eventide, to make of the Lord is risen upon thee,' Isa. lx. 1. THIS is the salutation of the prophet to the church, in the prospect of the advent of Christ, 'the light of the world,' and 'the glory of Israel.' Nor are the terms in which it is couched, too glowing to express the great and happy change which the coming of the Saviour effected on the intellectual and moral condition of the human family. Reflect, for instance, on the light which Christ shed on the character and government of God! The world had long lost all just conceptions of the Divine nature and attributes. While the mass of mankind had 'changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things; even the enlightened few had no higher idea of Him than a material Being confined to some local temple, or a pure abstraction without the power or the will to attend to earthly concerns. What a new and benignant light, then, must Christ have thrown into men's minds, when he revealed the sublime doctrine, that God is a Spirit pervading all space with his presence that he is continually in active communication with every part of creation—and that, so far from being regardless of this world and its inhabitants, he exercises a providence which extends as well to the humble lily and the tiny insect as to the starry sphere and the heavenly seraph! Yet this was but the rudiments of what Christ taught respecting Deity. He showed men the care and condescension of God in providence, only as a prelude to the display of his mercy in redemption; he pointed to the works of his bountiful hand, only that he might encourage them to trust in the love of his paternal heart He drew aside the vail of the unseen world, and exhibited the Father of mercies thinking of the well-being of his children-planning a scheme to deliver them from their sin and misery-surrendering his only begotten Son to humiliation and death as a satisfaction for their sins-and setting in order a series of dispensations for the purpose of recalling them to happiness. And what the Saviour thus revealed in his gospel he manifested still more affectingly in his person and beneficent acts. Christ was himself the image and reflection of the Divine nature, softened, subdued, and contracted, to meet the conception and sympathies of men. Or, reflect on the light which Christ shed on the condition and destiny of man! A world which knew not God could know little either of the way of acceptance with him, or of the future destiny of his rational creatures. If a sense of sin was awakened, it could only fill the soul with terror; if the idea of a future life arose, it could only serve to throw a black shadow over present enjoyment. But, in truth, men had ceased to listen to conscience, or to anticipate retribution. The wisest shrunk from contemplating their moral relation to their Maker; and as for an after life, they deemed it merely a theme for scholastic speculation, or poetic invention. "Heathen philosophy halted at the grave; and even ancient revelation, though it accompanied its disciples a little beyond, and told them of Sheol and of Hades, deserted them in the middle of their darksome journey.' But where former wisdom had only made darkness visible, Christ shed full and resplendent light. He explained how man may be reconciled to his Maker; and rolled away the stone from the sepulchre of human hope. He empowered faith to look upward to a God reconciled to all who believe in his Son; and encouraged hope to look onward beyond the valley of death to a region of perfect and unending blessedness. Appearing as the Saviour from sin and the conqueror of death, and endowed with power to give eternal life to as many as received him, he assured his followers of forgiveness, adoption, and holiness here, and of public acquittal and everlasting glory hereafter. How truly was such a Redeemer the light of the world! How befittingly might the church in the prospect of his advent, be exhorted to arise and shine' in the light of her Lord! But Christ is still the light of the church and of the world, as truly as when the people that sat in darkness saw a great light:' and the prophet's salutation may still be addressed to the Christian community, and to the world at large, whenever the former receives an enhancement of spirituality, or the latter is turned from the pursuit of lying vanities to the service of God. As oft as a revival occurs in the church-as oft as the missionary standard is planted on a heathen shore-as oft as the kingdom of heaven makes an advance in the earth, the apostrophe may be re-echoed, ‘Arise, shine!' for in every such instance Christ, the only light, has arisen upon benighted souls! Nor are the words less applicable to individual Christians, than to communities. What scatters the darkness of the sinner's heart, when he first receives with joy the gospel-message, but the coming of Christ to him? What recalls the backslider from his worldliness, but a fresh view of Christ? What sheds sensible comfort into the soul of him who has experienced a season of spiritual despondency, but a returning perception of the glory of Christ? Whatever be the season of the believer's spiritual prosperity and joy--whether it be amid sorrows which he is enabled patiently and thankfully to endure; or at death, when his hope of glory is unwavering; or at his admission to heaven, when his joy shall be full-the single and sole strength of his happiness is Christ: nor can he be addressed, in each of these instances in more appropriate terms than these, ‘Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee!' O let me make sure that this day-spring from on high has risen on my heart! It is not enough to have an intellectual apprehension of what Christ is, and has taught. Even the eye of a corpse is capable, so long as its transparency continues, of receiving on the retina the picture of external objects; and so the understanding may take in the whole circle of Christian doctrine, while the soul remains in spiritual death! Nothing short of a believing view of Christ as a Saviour, can turn the darkness of nature into the light of peace, and joy, and hope. But O this can! A believing view of Christ is a view of God reconciled-of sin forgiven-of acceptance securedof heaven purchased: and how can the soul that is refreshed with sights like these, continue to wear its prison-garments, or to work in chains! No abiding light, or comfort, or purity, can dwell in the heart till Christ has entered it: but when once He becomes the object of its habitual contemplation and love, perpetual sunshine may settle on it! In a picture of Christ in the midst of his disciples, by one of the ancient masters, the artist has worked out the happy idea of making Christ the central object from which the light streams upon the other figures-so that the group of disciples are in light, only in the degree in which they are near to him, or turned towards him: all that is turned away from Him is in deep shadow. This is a pictorial illustration of the relation in which Christ stands to his people in al. ages. It is only in the measure in which they look on Him, and to Him, that their peace, and joy, and holiness abound. Their light, their only light, is light in the Lord! NINETEENTH DAY.-MORNING. mighty and ever-present God-the disinterested love of a Saviour who once died for us, and ever lives to plead for and sympathize with us-the present and omnipotent help of the Holy Spirit of grace a hell of unutterable woe prepared for the impenitent - a heaven of unending blessedness secured to the faithful-what truths are momentous, if these are not? what discoveries are fitted to stir the soul through all its depths, and Who are kept by the power of God through faith to stimulate to a holy course of life, if these are unto salvation,' 1 Pet. i. 5. SUPERNATURAL aid is not more necessary to enable the sinner to make good his entrance on the path of life, than to preserve him from deviating from it afterwards. Accordingly the believer has the promise of the Spirit to abide with him for ever; and he is encouraged from first to last to rely on divine strength as his sufficiency. In keeping us, however, the Holy Spirit does not supersede the exercise of our own rational powers, or influence these by direct and immediate suggestion. He employs gospel-truths as the means of moving and actuating us. He takes of the things of Christ and shows them to our souls. And, in order to render the motives of the gospel influential and operative, he works faith in in us-faith being the instrument by which, according to the constitution of our nature, truth is borne home to the mind, and turned into a principle of action. The Spirit thus preserves us in the path of holy obedience by enabling us to exercise faith in the truth as it is in Jesus; or, in other words, we are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.' The efficacy of faith as an instrument of sanctification, depends not so much upon the mental act itself, as upon its object. Faith moves the will and affections, only when its object is of a nature to actuate them. The belief of a piece of intelligence which possesses no native interest or importance, cannot excite any emotion, or touch any spring of action. But if the intelligence be of vital interest or felt importance, it is sure, according to the law of our nature, to awaken, the moment it is believed, sentiments answerable to its own character-to gladden us, if it be joyful tidings—to alarm us, if it be of frightful import to kindle gratitude and love, if it speak of disinterested kindness. It is on this principle, that faith in the gospel is necessarily an effective engine of sanctification; for it brings truths to bear upon us which are of a heartmelting and sin-subduing character-truths which possess in their own nature a vast importance, an overwhelming interest; a prodigious moral influence. The paternal care of an Al not? These things may be intellectually apprehended without exciting a deeper feeling than admiration; but to realize them as undoubted facts, and yet not to be solemnized and sanctified by them, may be pronounced impossible. Can love to God fail to spring up in the bosom of him who is firmly persuaded of the divine love to his soul? Can sin fail to be hated and shunned by him who is habitually favoured with a believing view of Jesus dying for his sins on the cross? How should the lies of Satan find credence with the man who believes the truth as it is in Jesus? How should the baits and allurements of a wicked world prevail over the heart that is habitually gladdened with the smile of a reconciled God, and the hope of an unfading heaven? Temptation ceases to be tempting to the man of faith. He lives in communion with a world of purity. He breathes a different moral atmosphere from other men. He dwells apart on the holy and radiant summit of the mount of God, beyond the reach and influence of those motives and objects which chain down his fellows to the dust of the earth. Like Elisha's servant when endowed with powers of supernatural vision, he sees the mountains around him covered with horses and chariots of fire he sees God's power, and Christ's love, arrayed on the side of his salvation: and how should he refuse to throw himself afresh into the battle of the Lord? Let his faith flag or fail, and Satan may gain the advantage over him; the unseen world being withdrawn from his view, this world of sense and sin may resume the occupancy of his affections. But so long as faith keeps God, and Christ, and heaven, within the circle of things by which he perceives himself to be surrounded, his triumph over the devil. the world, and flesh, is certain! All things are possible to him that believeth.' Why is it, O self-righteous man! that with all thy laborious efforts to attain such a measure of moral excellence as will secure the divine favour, thou art ever falling short of thy hopes, and never able to acquire that confidence in God's love, and that delight in his law, which thou professest to seek after? Know that it is because thou hast not faith! One believing, heart-melting look at Christ in his matchless love and inexhaustible fulness, would do more to dispel thy hard thoughts of God, and to win thee to cheerful obedience, than a thousand years of such legal and calculating service, as thou art fruitlessly attempting! Why is it, weak and wavering Christian! that thou art so inconsistent in thy practice, and so clouded in thy prospects- so often without sensible comfort, and so often an opprobrium to the Redeemer's gospel? Know that it is because thou art not habitually exercising faith! Holy affections and purposes can be kindled and kept in flame, only by direct exercises of faith; and thou art chargeable with daring presumption, if thou expectest that the power of God will keep thee unto salvation, otherwise than by bringing it to pass that thy 'faith fail not.' NINETEENTH DAY.-EVENING. 'I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth,' Psal. xvi. 8, 9. scourge, and to nail him to the bitter cross, and to turn his griefs into mockery, though with one frown he could have sunk them all in the gulf of perdition.' And even when he hung on the accursed tree-the victim alike of divine and human wrath, so calm and unwavering was his undaunted spirit, that he grieved more for his murderers than for himself, and expostulated with the women standing around, because instead of weeping for themselves and their children, they wept and wailed for him! How consolatory to reflect, that the Redeemer bore the penalty of our sins with such resolute zeal and cordial willingness! Ought this not to enhance our admiration of the holy Suffererto enliven our gratitude for his mercy-to strengthen our confidence in his readiness to save us? Ought it not also to form the subject of our imitation? 'Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow his steps.' Nor can we better evince our admiration of the constancy and cheerfulness with which he suffered for us, than by bearing our own cross in under the various trials of life, and not only a similar temper-possessing our souls in patience 'taking patiently,' but 'rejoicing in tribulation.' But the temper in which Christ suffered is not more deserving of our imitation, than the motives which enabled him to display this lovely temper. Why was it that none of these things moved him, and that his heart was glad, and his tongue rejoiced? He himself tells us, 'I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.' He kept in view the glory of God as his grand end; and he confided in the arm of God as his stay and defence. The maintenance of the divine justice and the manifestation of the divine love, were, in his estimation, objects which would be cheaply NOTHING Connected with our Lord's sufferings is more remarkable than his immovable firmness and cheerfulness, both in the prospect, and under the pressure of them. His whole deportment, while on earth, was a living comment on the words which the psalmist here ascribes to him, 'I shall not be moved; my heart is glad, and my tongue rejoiceth.' He foresaw from the first all that he was to suffer, whether from men, from devils, or from his heavenly Father; and yet instead of recoiling from his task, or undertaking it with reluctance, he entered upon it with the most reso-secured at any cost of suffering; and to these lute courage and alacrity. He appeared not objects, therefore, he cheerfully postponed all merely determined, but desirous to suffer. The regard to his own personal comfort. The assurprospect filled him with exultation, rather than ance of Almighty protection was to him a suffialarm. And his resolution, so far from being cient reason for dismissing all anxiety as to the shaken when the dark tempest closed around triumphant issue of his undertaking; and with him, only rose into mightier strength with each this as his reliance, he threw himself unhesitatsuccessive onset of the pitiless storm. 'He sted-ingly into the arduous course marked out for fastly set his face to go up to Jerusalem,' though him. It was thus a supreme regard to the glory, he knew that there he should encounter ignominy and a confident trust in the help of God, that and death. He sternly rebuked his disciples for nerved the Redeemer for his task and sustained attempting to dissuade from his purpose. He him in the execution of it. Let the same holy commanded Judas to execute 'quickly' his trait- motives support and animate us! Our trials, orous design. He entered of his own accord the indeed, cannot advance the honour of God in the garden where he knew that unutterable agony same degree as the sufferings of him who could awaited him. He allowed his enemies to drag him say, in a sense altogether peculiar and unparalto judgment, and to tear his flesh with the cruel leled, 'I have glorified thee on the earth.' Yet our trials are not less the appointment of God | scious spirit which inhabits it, it is yet, in comthan his; nor are they less designed to promote mon with the soul, a partaker in the disastrous in their own degree, the honour of their Author. effects of the fall, and consequently encompassed And nothing can be more certain than that this with infirmities which necessarily render it a will be their blessed issue—provided we habitu- clog and incumbrance to every spiritual man. ally recognize the gracious end for which they are sent, and look up for the promised grace to enable us to sustain and sanctify them. The proportion in which we subordinate our own wills to the will and glory of God, may be confidently taken as the measure of the divine support and approbation we shall receive. Nor can we run any risk of being ever 'moved,' whatever be the number and severity of our distresses, so long as we 'set the Lord always before' us. TWENTIETH DAY.-MORNING. For we know, that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven,' 2 Cor. v. 1, 2. Is not the body a burden, from its constant liability to pain and disease? How harassing are pain and languor to the mind! and that not only from their tendency to disturb its tranquil and salutary processes of thought, but from their operating as a drag upon pious affections and enterprises of usefulness! To long to throw one's self into the zealous and animated discharge of duty, and yet to be precluded from it by bodily infirmity !-to be equipped, as it were, with pinions ready for soaring flights of Christian usefulness, and yet to be constrained to dash them hopelessly against the cage of a frail and enervated tenement of clay !—what believer can feel this to be other than a galling thraldom? which it puts on the powers and aspirings of the Is not the body a burden, from the restraint soul? Our present bodily organs are wholly inadequate to give full play to the inherent energies of the soul. Such instruments as the telescope and microscope by which objects, too remote or too minute to be discerned by the unassisted eye, are made visible, afford decisive proof that the soul has powers of perception far greater than its bodily senses permit it to exercise. And what By the earthly house of this tabernacle,' in which the believer'groans, being burdened,' the apostle means the animal structure in which the soul at present resides; and by the 'house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,' the glorified body with which it is to be attired at the resurrec-is true regarding the faculty of external perception of the just. The allusion seems to be to the ancient Jewish tabernacle, in which the ark of the covenant was lodged. When the Israelites in the wilderness were called to break up their encampment and proceed on their journey, the tabernacle had to be taken down, and the ark to be carried by itself. So, the apostle informs us, when the period of our earthly sojourn is ended, the tabernacle of the body must be dissolved,' and the separated soul sent forth on its eternal journey. When, again, the Israelites arrived at a place of rest, the tabernacle was re-erected, and the ark restored to its original position within it. In like manner, adds the apostle, a time is awaiting the Christian pilgrim, when, having reached the heavenly rest, his body shall be reared anew-an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.' That the believer should feel his present earthly tabernacle to be a burden, and earnestly desire to be clothed upon with his house which is from heaven,' cannot occasion surprise. For, though the human body is admirably adapted upon the whole to be the organ and instrument of the con tion, equally holds of our powers of spiritual discernment. What regenerate man is not conscious of longings after a knowledge of divine and eternal things, to which his present restrained powers are incompetent? The glimpses of the divine love and holiness which sometimes break in upon his mind, pass like the lightning's flash; he cannot detain them; and though his soul follows hard after them, and would even go out of the body to regale itself with their beauty, he is ever dragged down to the dust by the clog of his bodily organization. He feels himself—to borrow an apt similitude—like a strong man fettered and hand-cuffed, who must content himself with meditating what he will do when set at large. Does not the body, moreover, possess various separate interests of its own, which clash and interfere with those of the soul? How many of our appetites have an exclusive reference to the welfare of the body! and how prone are our purely animal propensities, from their clamant and peremptory nature, to usurp and engross those thoughts and desires which ought to be employed by the soul in attending to its own paramount |