peoples heaven with both sexes, that for ought we know, the greatest saint there is of the weaker sex. Christian Courage. NOTHING is more easy than for a man to be courageous in a time of safety, and to defy those dangers which he neither feels nor sees. While the coast is clear, every one is ready to say with Peter, Though all men, yet not I if I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise. Mark xiv. 29, 31. But when the evil hour cometh, when our enemy appears armed in the lists ready to encounter us, then to call up our spirits, and to grapple resolutely with dangers and death; this is the praise and the proof of a true christian. This is what the apostle calls standing in the evil day; both in opposition to falling and fleeing; falling out of faintness, and fleeing for fear. It will not be possible for us thus to stand, if we trust to our feet. In and of ourselves, the best of us are but mere cowards; nor are we able so much as to look our enemy in the face. Would we be perfect victors; we must go out of ourselves, into the God of our strength. If we have made him ours; who shall, who can be against us? We can do all things, through him that strengthens us; all things, therefore conquer death and hell. If we be weakness, he is omnipotence. Put we on the Lord Jesus Christ by a lively faith, and what enemy can come within us to do us hurt? What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee. In thee, oh God, have I trusted; I will not fear what flesh or spirit can do unto me. Psal. Ivi. 3, 4. The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation. I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised; so shall I be saved from mine enemies. Psal. xviii. 2, 3. Time and Eternity. THE apostle calls the things that are seen temporal. 2 Cor. iv. 18. Be they ever so glorious, yet being tran sitory, they cannot be worthy of our hearts. Who would care for a house of glass, if ever so curiously painted and gilded. All things that are measured by time are thus brittle. Bodily substances, of what kind soever, lie open to the eye; and being seen, are known to be in a fading condition. Even that goodly fabric of heaven, which we see and admire, must be changed; and in a sort, dissolved. 2 Pet. iii. 7, 12. How much more vanishing are all earthly glories! And by how much shorter their continuance is, so much the lower must be their valuation. What madness then were it in us, to set our hearts upon these perishing objects which we must soon leave; we them, or they us. Eternity is only worthy to engage the thoughts of a wise man that being added to evil, makes the evil infinitely more intolerable; and being added to good, makes the good infinitely more desirable. Oh eternity! thou bottomless abyss of misery to the wicked; thou indeterminable pitch of joy to the saints of God: what soul is able to comprehend thee? What strength of understanding is able to conceive of thee? Be thou ever in my thoughts, ever before mine eyes. Be thou the scope of all my actions, of all my endeavours; and in respect of thee, let all this visible world be to me as nothing. Since only the things which are not seen by the eye of sense, are eternal,' Lord, direct thou the eyes of my faith, that I may see those invisible realities; and in that sight may I enjoy thy blessed eternity. Preservation of a Good Conscience. WHAT is all the world to us, in comparison of our own conscience. In vain shall all the world acquit and magnify us, if that secretly condemn us; and if that condemn us not, we have confidence towards God,' and may bid defiance to men and devils. Now that it may not con demn us, it must be both pacified and purged; pacified in respect of the guilt of sin, and purged from its corruption. For so long as there is guilt in the soul, the clamours of an accusing and condemning conscience can no more be stilled, than the waters of the sea can stand still in a storm. There is then no pacification without removing the guilt of sin, no removing of guilt without remission, no remission without satisfaction, no satisfaction without a price of infinite value, answerable to the magnitude of offended justice; and this is no where to be had, but in the precious blood of Christ. All created and finite powers are but miserable comforters, physicians of no value. And the same power that pacifieth the conscience from guilt, must also purge it from the filthiness of sin; even that blood of the Son of God, who is made. unto us of God, sanctification and redemption.' That faith which brings Christ home to the soul, by the efficacy of his blessed Spirit, purifies the heart from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit. Being justified by this faith, we have peace with God. When once the heart is quieted from the uproars of self-accusation, and cleansed from dead works; what in this world can so much concern us as to keep it so? This may be done, if we give Christ the possession of our souls, and commit the keys into his hands alone; so nothing shall be suffered to enter in that may disturb or defile it, if we settle a firm resolution in our breasts, never to yield to the commission of any known or enormous sin. Failings and slips there will be in the holiest of God's saints, while they carry their clay about them: for these we are allowed, by daily prayer, to fetch a pardon from that infinite mercy of our God who hath set a fountain open to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness. Zech. xiii. 1. But if through an over-bold security and spiritual negligence, we suffer ourselves to be drawn away into some heinous wickedness, it must cost warm water to recover us. Neither in such a case can it be safe for us to suffer our eyes to sleep, or our eye-lids to slumber, till we have made our peace with heaven. This done, and carefully maintained, what can make us other science hath not condemned him, and who is not fallen from his hope in the Lord.' Ecclus. xiv. 2. Christ at the right hand of God. As heaven is in itself a place of wonderful resplendence and majesty, so it is also the palace of the most high God, wherein he exhibits his infinite magnificence. It is also the happy receptacle of all the elect, the glorious rendezvous of the blessed angels, and of dear friends whom we truly loved on earth. Such is the power of love, that it can endear to us any place where the object of our regard resides, much more that which is heavenly and divine. If it be a loathsome gaol, our affection can make it a delightful bower. The very grave itself cannot keep us off. The women could say of Mary, that she was gone to the grave of Lazarus to weep there; and the zeal of those lovers of Christ carries them to seek their crucified Saviour, even in his tomb. Above all conceivable apprehensions then is heaven endeared to us, by that which the apostle mentions, that there' Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.' Col. iii. 1. If we have a husband, a wife, a child whom we dearly love, confined in some tower or castle afar off, whither we are not allowed to have access, how many longing eyes do we cast thither; how do we please ourselves to think, within those walls is he enclosed whom my soul loveth, and who is also enclosed within my heart. But if it may be possible to find a passage to the place, though with some difficulty and danger, how gladly do we engage in the adventure. When therefore we hear and certainly know, that our most dear and blessed Saviour is above in heavenly glory, and that the heavens must contain him till his second coming; with what full satisfaction should we look up thither. How should we break through all these secular distractions, and be carried up by our affections, towards a happy fruition of him! Good old Jacob, when he hears that his darling son was yet alive in Egypt, gathers up his spirits, and takes up a cheerful resolution, Joseph my son is yet alive; I will go and see him before I die!' Gen. xlv. 26. Do we think his heart was any more in Canaan, after he heard where his Joseph was! And shall we, when we hear and know where our dearest Saviour is; that he is gone before, to provide a place for us in the rich Goshen above; shall we be heartless in our desires towards him, and take up with earth? How many undertake tedious and perilous voyages to that land, which only the bodily presence of our Saviour could denominate holy, only to see the place where our dear Saviour trod, where he stood, where he sat, where he lay, where he placed his last footing; and find a kind of contentment in this sacred curiosity, though they return never the holier, never the happier. How then should I be affected with the sight of that place where he is now in person, sitting gloriously at the right hand of Majesty, adored by all the powers of heaven ! Let it be a covenant between me and my eyes, never to look up to heaven, without at the same instant thinking of my blessed Saviour, sitting there in his glorified humanity, united to the incomprehensibly-glorious Deity, attended and worshipped by thousand thousands of saints and angels, preparing a place for me and all his elect in those eternal mansions. The Eternal City. ABRAHAM looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Heb. xi. 10. What city was this but the celestial Jerusalem, the glorious seat of the great empire of heaven? The main strength of any building is in the foundation: if that be firm and sure, the fabric, well knit together, will stand; but if that be either not laid, or lie loose and unsettled, the tottering frame only waits for the next wind to complete its ruin. The good patriarch had been used to dwell in tents, which had no foundation. Probably he and his ancestors wanted not good houses in Chaldea, where they were formerly planted. God calls him forth from those fixed habitations in his own country, to sojourn in tabernacles or booths, in a strange land. His faith carries him cheerfully along; his present fruition gives way to hope for better things. Instead of those poor sheds of sticks and |