How upon me with healing in his wings. Mal. iv. 2. many lie in woeful bondage under sin and Satan; while my Saviour hath freed me from those hellish chains, and brought me into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. How many are miserably misled into the dangerous paths of error; while he hath graciously kept me in the plain and sure way of his saving truth. If we do not sometimes make these humbling and thankful comparisons, and look upon ourselves, not with direct beams, but by reflection upon others, we shall never be sensible enough of our own mercies. True Happiness. THE christian is in a very happy condition; for no man will envy him, and he can envy no body. None will envy him, for the world cannot know how happy he is; how happy in the favour of God, and how blessed in the enjoyment of that favour. Those secret delights that he finds in the presence of his God, those comfortable pledges of love and mutual interchanges of blessed interest which pass between them, are not for worldly hearts to conceive; and no man will envy an unknown happiness. On the other hand, he cannot envy the world's greatest favourite under heaven; for he well knows how fickle and uncertain that man's felicity is. He sees him walking upon ice, and perceives every foot of his sliding, and threatening a fall. He hears that brittle pavement at every step crackling under him, ready to give way, and to swallow him up. And if those pleasures of his could be constant and permanent, yet how poor and unsatisfying they are, and how utter'y unable to yield true contentment to the soul. The christian therefore, while others look upon him with pity and scorn, laughs secretly to himself in his bosom; well knowing that there is none truly happy but himself. Easter Sabbath. It was a high and honourable embassy on which the angel Gabriel was sent down to the blessed Virgin; that There is a con- she should be the mother of her Lord and Saviour. Nor was that inferior, of the glorious angel that brought the joyful tidings of the incarnation and birth of the Son of God, to the shepherds of Bethlehem. But a far more happy errand was that which the Lord Jesus, after his resurrection, committed to the two Marys: Go to my crethren, and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God. John xx. 17. He says not, I am risen, but I ascend;' as if he had forgotten the earth from whence he arose, and thought only of that heaven whither he was going. As there had been nothing but discomfort in death, without a resurrection; so there had been little comfort in a resurrection, without an ascension to glory. tentment in the very act; I ascend.' tious, and we all desire to mount higher; to come down is death. But this height, like the ascendant, is infinite; 'I ascend to my Father.' There was the glory which he put off in his humble incarnation; there was the glory which he was now to resume and possess to all eternity. And as if nature and adoption could give a like interest, he puts both together; My Father and your Father, my God and your God.' His mercy vouchsafes to style us brethren; yet the distance is immeasurable, betwixt him, the Son of his eternal essence; and us, the naturally wretched sons of his election. Yet as if both he and we should be coheirs of the same blessedness, though not in the same measure, he says, My Father and your Father. First, my Father, then yours; and therefore ours, because his. It is in him that we are elected, that we are adopted; without him, God were not only a stranger but an enemy. It is the Son that must make us free; it is the Son that must make us sons. If we be his, the Father cannot but be ours. Oh the unspeakable comfort and happiness of a christian, even in respect of his corporeal nature! He cannot but say with Job, to the worm, thou art my mother and my sister. Job xvii. 14. But in his spiritual right, God the Son hath authorized him to say to the Almighty, Thou art my Father; and in regard to our frail and dying condition, willingly to I descend to the grave. Faith makes abundant say, amends in him, and he can as cheerfully say, I ascend to my Father. And what son that is not altogether graceless, would not be glad to go to his father, though it were to a meaner house than his own; and therefore is ready to say, I will descend to my Father. How much more, when his many mansions are infinitely glorious, and when all our happiness consists in his blessed presence, must we needs say, with a joy unspeakable and glorious, I ascend to my Father! Cruelty to Animals forbidden. GOD made man the lord of his creatures, not the tyrant he gave the creaturss to man for his lawful use, not for wanton cruelty. Man may therefore exercise his just sovereignty over the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea; not his lawless will, to their needless destruction or misery. Had man made the creature, he might have had an absolute dominion over the work of his hands; but now that he is only a fellowcreature to the meanest worm, what an insolent usurpation is it, licentiously to domineer over his fellow-dust. God, who gave being to the creature, and therefore hath a full and unlimited power over his own workmanship, takes no pleasure in the vexation and torture of what he hath made. That all-wise and bountiful Creator, who hath put into the hands of man the subordinate dominion over all these inferior elements, hath limited his command to mere necessity or convenience. If man go beyond these, and destroy the creature only because he will, and put it to pain because it is his pleasure; he abuses the sovereignty to a sinful imperiousness, and shall be accountable for his cruelty. When the apostle asks, Doth God take care for oxen, 1 Cor. ix. 9; can we think he meant to question the regard that God hath to so useful a creature? Do we not hear the psalmist say, He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens that cry? Psal. cxlvii. 9. Do we not hear our Saviour say, That not a sparrow falls to the ground without our heavenly Father? Matt. x. 29. Of how much more value is an ox than many thousands of sparrows! Even the young lions seek their meat from God, and he gives it them in due season. He openeth his hand, and filleth every creature with good. Psal. civ. 21, 27, 28. Is God so careful for preserving, and shall man be so licentious in destroying them? A righteous man, saith Solomon, regardeth the life of his beast. Prov. xii. 10. He is no better therefore than a wicked man, that regardeth it not. To offer violence, and to take away the life of our fellow-creatures without cause, is no less than tyranny. Surely, no other measure should a man offer to his beast than that which he could well justify, if his beast like Balaam's could expostulate with him; no other than that man, if he had been made a beast, would have been content should have been offered by man to him; no other than he shall expect to answer for to a common Creator. I blush and grieve to see how far we are exceeded by Turks and Infidels, whom mere nature hath taught more tenderness to the poor brute creatures, than we have learned from the holier rules of christian charity. Let me rather applaud the harmless humour of that miscalled Saint, who with indiscreet humility called every wolf his brother, and every sheep, every ant his sister, associating himself with every thing that had life; than be found to exercise the tyrannical disposition of those who take pleasure in the abuse, persecution, and destruction of their fellow-crea Lures, upon no other quarrel than because they live. MEDITATION ON THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 1. The Love of Christ passing Knowledge. WHAT is it, blessed apostle, what is it, for which thou dost so earnestly bow thy knees, in behalf of the Ephesians, unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? Even this, that they may know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.' Ephes. iii. 14, 19. Give me leave, first, to wonder at thy suit; and then, much more at what thou suest for. Were thine affections for the saints raised so high, that thou shouldst crave for them impossible favours? Did thy love so far overshoot thy reason, as to pray they might attain to the knowledge of that which cannot be known? It is the love of Christ, which thou wishest they may know; and it is that love, which thou sayest is past all knowledge. What shall we say to this? Is it because there are heights of grace, which we can never hope actually to attain; or is it rather, that thou supposest and prayest they may reach to the knowledge of that love, the measure of which they could never fully comprehend. Blessed Jesus, thou hast loved us, we know: but how much thou hast loved us, is beyond the comprehension of angels. Those glorious spirits, as they desire to look into the deep mystery of our redemption, so they wonder to behold that divine love whereby it is wrought; but they can no more reach to the bottom of it, than they can become infinite; for no less than an endless line can serve to fathom a bottomless depth. Such, oh Saviour, |