SUNDAY II-CHAP. II.

only act a part in the closet or in the church, as a player does on the stage: we appear in a character

THE ADVANTAGES OF A JUST CONVICTION OF THE SOUL'S which is no more our own, than that of the king or

EXCELLENCY.

THE incomparable excellency of the soul has been attempted to be shown by various proofs. A clear, strong, and abiding conviction of this excellency is the foundation of all real religion, and on many accounts is indispensably necessary.

For want of a just perception of the worth of the soul, the amusements of folly and the pleasures of sin are looked upon by the young as the chief sources of delight. They are shy of religion, notwithstanding its promises of peace, of joy, of eternal life; and they regard it as a malevolent enemy to their happiness. But no sooner do they once truly apprehend the excellency of the soul, than acquaintance with spiritual objects is sought after and highly valued. Thus informed, the language even of youthful hearts is this: The bloom of my days and the vigor of my life shall be devoted to my best, my everlasting interest. A sight of the worth of my soul has delivered me from the fascinating power of polluting lusts, and has broken all the magic force of their cruel enchantments."

hero on the stage is his. Hence multitudes constantly engaged in acts of devotion, remain grossly ignorant, and utterly unaffected by every thing which they profess to believe, and day by day seem to implore: their confessions are deceitful, their prayers void of fervor, and their thanksgivings without gratitude. But such devotion must be as unsuccessful as it is insincere. God is a God of truth. He must receive services just as they are; and where nothing but outward homage and fine words are offered to him, nothing is obtained. Sin is not pardoned, nor evil tempers subdued. All the fruit of such feigned intercourse with the God of heaven is to flatter self-love, and to harden men in presumption, till their hypocrisy is at once fully discovered and punished.

On the contrary, are you conscious of the worth of your soul? This will dispose you for every devout exercise. Godly sorrow for sin will accompany the confession of it, when lamented as an enemy to your best, your immortal interest. Ardent and urgent will be the pleadings for grace and pardon, when their importance, as connected with a soul of inestimable worth, is seen and felt. Most hearty and affectionate will be the thanksgivings for mercies already vouchsafed, when every instance of favor from above is considered as a pledge of the eternal felicity of the soul.

The natural result of such an impression will be diligent care for the salvation of the soul.

The same knowledge of the worth of the soul is absolutely necessary to preserve men inviolably honest amidst the temptations which abound in trade, and in every profession. For on the Exchange, in the University, the coffee-house, in almost every circle of private company, infectious discourse in praise of riches and honor is poured It follows, therefore, that in the same degree in forth, and contaminates the principles of those who which it is necessary to resist temptations to evil, hear it. From the worldly lusts natural to man or profitably to engage in the solemn acts of relithus inflamed spring all the diseases of trade.-gion, it is necessary also to be impressed with the Hence the extortion, the falsehood, the imposition, worth of the soul. the spirit of extravagant speculation, by which the character and the peace of thousands are ruined.-a They are endangered by a rage for money, and a boundless desire of filthy lucre. Nothing can control this wide-spreading evil, but a perception of the soul's inestimable worth. Let this take place, and immediately the deformity of the former false, defiling ideas of worldly advancement and gain is discovered. Trade will then be carried on with temperance of affection. An enlightened conscience, like a vigilant sentinel, will sound an alarm in every hour of danger; it will keep the man of trade and merchandise punctually true to his best, his greatest interest, and enable him with ease to conquer those temptations which before led him away captive; "What," he will say, "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"

The necessity of a strong and abiding perception of the worth of the soul, appears also from this consideration, that it is the only ground of real prayer, and the cause of its success. In addresses from man to man hypocrisy is detestable: how much more in addresses from man to God! But how is it possible prayer can be any thing more than hypocrisy, when the supplicant is not impressed with a due sense of the worth of his soul! Who can deprecate the wrath revealed against sin, implore deliverance from its defilement, or earnestly entreat a supply of his spiritual wants, who does not perceive the worth of the soul? In the nature of things we can have no deep concern, where we apprehend no great misery if we fail of success, or advantage, if we are crowned with it. We may indeed personate in our closets or at church, a man in earnest pursuit of spiritual blessings; and be constant in the use of those very prayers which such a one, with the noblest sensibility, would pour out before his God. But unless we feel the same spirit, through the same knowledge of the excellency of the soul, we

Now the supreme wisdom of such carefulness is most evident from comparing beauty, honor, knowledge, riches, or whatever else is usually valued amongst men, with the soul.

The elegant lovely form, which captivates the eye of almost every beholder, and fills the mind that possesses it with perpetual vanity, ill rewards the anxious carefulness used to preserve it. No cautious attention, no human power or skill, is able to protect it from the waste of time, the blast of sickness, or the untimely stroke of death.

The place of honor, and the name of applause, for which thousands are glad to sacrifice their ease and sell their liberty, is of little value, since it is subject to all the caprice of fickle-minded man.— How many, once the favorites of a court, the idols of a kingdom, have lived to see all their blooming honors wither, and their names sink into oblivion, if not contempt.

Are you ambitious to climb the envied summit of literary fame; and shine without a rival in the acquisition of knowledge? In one fatal hour, a paralytic stroke, a violent fever, may disorder the structure of your brain, rifle all the cells of knowledge, and wipe away from your memory the very traces of all that has been committed to its keeping. Thus you may be left the sad survivor of yourself: a mor tifying spectacle to human pride; a melancholy, but irresistible proof, how much men may rate the attainment of human knowledge higher than its precarious tenure justifies.

nence in your trade, able to command all outward If your great aim is to become rich, of chief emithings which can minister to your vanity or pleasure, still how unworthy of your supreme desire and care is such a condition, because absolutely insecure! Life itself, the foundation of all temporary enjoyments, is but as a beauteous vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanishes away.—

Each day, we know, is translating some of the opulent sons of industry, into a world, where not a mite of all their gain can follow them.

Nay, if you are engrossed by the care of providing for those tender pledges of God's love to you, the offspring of your own body, whom you were a monster of cruelty to neglect; yet here you may be suddenly, be wholly disappointed. Your darling child, the living image of yourself, how unable are you to preserve its invaluable life from perils, and from fierce disease! When parted from you on visit or some business, you may, like Sisera's fond mother, be chiding its delay, and with all the impatience of love, asking, Wherefore is my son or daughter, so long in coming? whilst some appointment of God has taken away the desire of your eyes

with a stroke.

the allwise and merciful Refiner, to purge away every base mixture that still cleaves to and defiles your soul. The welfare of your soul, dearer to you than all external comforts, will induce you to welcome the visitations, which are of such sovereign use to promote its health. In short, in sickness the whole man is a miserable sufferer, where the soul has been forgotten; where earnestly cared for, and instructed in divine truth, the inferior part alone feels the pressure.

To advance still farther; death, the detector of all cheats-death, the touchstone of all true worth, and therefore the king of terrors to those whose care every thing has shared but their souls, even death itself will confirm the supreme wisdom of your conduct. The death-bed, on which the gay, the prosperous, and the noble, lay down their heads Thus, if you take a full survey of every thing appalled and confounded, is the theatre for displaywhich the children of men seek with greatest anxie- ing the fortitude of those who have sought, as the ty to enjoy; compared with a supreme concern for one thing needful, the salvation of their souls. The the salvation of the soul, and steady regard to its in- former are confounded, because unprepared. The terests, how vain is it? Nay, whatever it be, ex-loss of all they valued is coming upon them; their cept the soul, about which you are careful, it has approaching change can promise them nothing; it is this most degrading circumstance attending it, it has much if it forebode not dreadful consequences.the condition only of an annuity for life; each But to the latter, every thing wears another aspect. successive year makes a considerable decrease in Must the world be left by them? It has been alits value, and at death the whole is at an end for ready renounced and vanquished. Must all temporal good be forsaken for ever? How placid, how calm the surrender, when the riches of eternity are theirs; no striving, no querulous repining against the irresistible summons to depart, when that very departure has heen habitually expected as a translation of the soul to its proper everlasting happiness.

ever.

But if your principal care and solicitude is for the salvation of your soul, all the unexpected disasters, disappointments and losses which harass the sinful children of men, will become affecting proofs of the supreme wisdom of your choice, and the unrivalled excellency of your pursuit. Even the tears that stream down the cheeks of the miserable, and the complaints of those who are disappointed in worldly schemes, will pronounce you blessed, who are athirst for your immortal soul's salvation, Are you conscious of its worth? Are you striving in daily intercourse with God, its Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, to secure its eternal welfare? Then you may set all the evils that terrify the human race at defiance. Your inferior dying part they may wound, but they cannot strike deep enough, or reach high enough, to hurt your soul. In the midst of what otherwise would prove ruin unsupportable, your wise choice will cover you like armor, and render you invulnerable.

Are you poor, and treated with scorn by the sons of pride, you will have examples and prospects more than sufficient to support you. You will see your own case in the instructive history of the saints of God, who are destitute and afflicted; and in that wonderful contrast of meanness and grandeur, extreme poverty and immense wealth, the dying LaWith patience, with gladness of heart, you will see, that the deepest distress, and the surest title to glory, may be for a small moment united. In every case where proper care for the soul hath prevailed, you will see that poverty, however extreme, sufferings, however long and grievous add both to the weight and brightness of future glory.

zarus.

In sickness, also, the supreme wisdom of having been careful above all things for your soul, will display itself with peculiar lustre. For though health is absolutely essential to a sensitive happiness;though the least ache, or bodily disorder, deprives the proud and worldly-minded of their enjoyments, yet the soul, if with due care it has been exercised in the ways appointed by God, finds sources from whence to derive consolation under the most violent pressures; consolation sufficient to banish both outward impatience and inward dejection from their accustomed throne, the chamber of sickness and pain. With a lovely and edifying meekness, you will regard such discipline, though trying to sense, and oppressive to the flesh, as prepared by

In fact, dying Christians, that is, all that have duly sought in a right method, the salvation of their souls, have given proofs of the supreme wisdom of their conduct in the hour of nature's sorrow and distress; so that those fine lines of Dr. Young, are most justly descriptive of the happy few, whose souls have been more precious to them than every temporal concern or comfort.

The chamber where the good man meets his fate
Is privileg'd beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven;
Heav'n waits on the last moment; owns her friends
On this side death, and points them out to men,
A lecture silent, but of sovereign power.

All these advantages, arising from supreme carefulness for the salvation of the soul, are still more worthy of regard, because not at all uncertain.You may be braving the thickest dangers of the field of war, to get the name of valor and the place of command; yet fall an early victim in the bloody battle, or after it your services may be neglected.You may burn with inextinguishable ardor, to stand high in the rank of scholars, and ruin your health by intense study, yet die mortified at the littleness of your reputation. Your labor to succeed in business may be incessant, yet through a thousand circumstances which you have no power to prevent, you may repeatedly suffer disappointment, of patrons, friends, relations, may be assiduously and poverty still remain your portion. The favor wishes; and yet others may supplant you, and, recourted, and appear promising to your earnest ceiving the benefits you were grasping in idea, make the very name of patron, friend, relation, odistances of bitter disappointment, in each of the cases ous to you. The world is every day exhibiting inabove described.

But if with all the strength of desire you have sought for the salvation of your soul, through Jesus

*Night Thoughts, Book II.

Christ, you have nothing to do with the changes them life, could again reduce them to their original ever incident to the things of time and sense. You nothing. nave to do with the blessed God, in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. You may be therefore rich, or you may be poor: raised, or depressed; beloved, or slighted by those on whom you are dependent; you may enjoy health, or be oppressed with mortal disease, whilst in each state were you to ask yourself, what course could I have best taken for my present peace and felicity? Reason, conscience, Scripture, will all reply, the very course you have taken, that of caring, in the first place, for the salvation of your soul.

On the contrary, God has ever existed; the same in essence, felicity, and perfection: from all eternity he has been what he now is, and what he will eternally remain. The existence of things which are seen, compels us to acknowledge this incomprehensible truth; and agreeable to it is his own account of his eternal power and Godhead: “I AM,” saith he, "that I AM-The high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity," is his title. "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were formed, from everlasting to everlasting he was God."

To say no more; the quick succession of years, which exceedingly impoverish, as they pass by, Nearly allied to this perfection of eternal existevery man whose soul is not his chief care, will, on ence, is the unchangeableness of God. His love and the contrary, be accumulating for you the true hatred remain immutably the same towards their riches. Like a prudent factor, who, instead of la- respective objects. "I am the Lord, I change not," vishing his gain in present luxury, yearly remits it is one of those sovereign titles by which he manihome, that he may return to enjoy life in his native fests himself to us: with him "is no variableness, country, after all his toils, with ease and honor; so neither shadow of turning." In proof of this exwill you be growing rich towards God; sure to re-cellency, God is called a rock. This metaphor inturn, by death, to that happy country, where, amidst timates, that as a rock continues steadfast and imcongratulating saints and angels, you shall enter moveable, whilst the surrounding ocean is in a perupon the possession of an inheritance prepared for petual fluctuation: so though all the creatures of your soul, incorruptible, and undefiled, and that God, from the lowest to the very highest of the infadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you. telligent kind, are subject to change; capable of new additions or alterations with respect to their knowledge, their power, or their blessedness; God alone is absolutely the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.

SUNDAY III.-CHAP. III.

THE SCRIPTURE CHARACTER OF GOD.

THE first duty of a Christian is to conceive of God only according to the revelation which he has given of himself: to meditate on this revelation with humility, diligence, and prayer, not daring to indulge fallacious reasonings, lest he should form an imaginary god, and then worship the creature of his own brain.

God is a Spirit. The distinguishing properties of spirit, are understanding and will, consciousness and activity. By virtue of these properties, every spiritual substance differs totally from dead matter or body, and is infinitely superior to it in its nature and essence. But though this difference between spiritual substances and those of matter, is sufficient to help our weak conceptions; yet we are taught in Scripture, that the ever-living God surpasses in exNor will such an absolute submission of the un-cellence all created spirits, infinitely more than derstanding to revelation, in this matter, be thought they do, in their nature and properties, merely aniin the least grievous or dishonorable, when it is mal substances. For God not only declares of himconsidered, that of ourselves and in our present self that he is a spirit, but that he is "the Father of state of darkness and corruption, we are utterly un- spirits, and the God of the spirits of all flesh." It able to form any just conceptions of the divine na- follows, therefore, that it is not sufficient merely to ture and perfections. When once we forsake the conceive that God is a spirit, meaning, by that guidance of Scripture, we are left to uncertain name, a living, intelligent, and active being, essenguesses; we put ourselves in the condition of the tially distinguished from the material frame our unenlightened heathen; and their errors, on this eyes behold: for though this is most truly affirmed most important subject, as universal as they were of him, yet must you add to him perfections, which lamentable, are a sufficient evidence of the short-no other spirits possess; as well as separate from sightedness and vanity of unassisted reason, and him every kind of imperfection which adheres to of the ignorance of man in the things of God. them. They exist within certain limits, they are I shall therefore present you with a transcript of ignorant of many things, they are defective in powwhat the sacred oracles have delivered to us, on er; but the Father of spirits himself, is omniprethis important point of belief. In absolute submis-sent, and infinite alike in knowledge and in power. sion to them, I shall endeavor to delineate the cha- God is omnipresent. The universe, which owes racter of the blessed God, as drawn by himself, and its formation and existence entirely to his creating explain his nature and will, his acts and provi-power, is not only governed, but is continually sus dences, his decrees and purposes, as exhibited in tained by him. The whole immeasurable frame of the Bible. Thus, knowing the God with whom we nature must therefore be pervaded by his all-enlivhave to do, we may be faithful to the light he hathening influence. Accordingly, this most grand and given us, and regulate our conduct towards him, by majestic interrogation is put by himself to the childthe infallible standard of his own plain and positive ren of men: "Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith declarations. And may he himself render them the Lord." Jer. xxiii. 24. And in the cxxxixth effectual to enlighten the understanding; so that Psalm, this perfection of God is described with every reader, in the devout fervor of his soul, may equal sublimity and force. The enlightened and cry out before him, "Great and marvellous are thy inspired prophet begins with making the inquiry, works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy whether it was possible for him to hide himself ways, thou king of saints; who shall not fear thee, from the Author of his being and the former of all O Lord, and glorify thy name?" things: "Whither," says he, "sha!! I go from thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence?— If I ascend up into heaven," into the regions above the firmament, "thou art there;" I should not only find myself still within the limits of thy sovereign dominion, but under thy immediate inspection.—

In the first place, the Scripture represents God, as possessed of the incommunicable perfection of eternal existence. All other beings once were not: there was a period when the most excellent of them first began to exist; and the same power which gave |

The steady course of nature, which thoughtless and profane men are wont to consider as the effect of necessity, rather than of all-wise direction, is wholly owing, we are taught, to the almighty power of God. "It is he alone," saith the Scripture, And as God is perfect in knowledge, so is he in "who makes the day-spring know its place, and the attribute of wisdom, which is the best exercise stretcheth out the shadows of the evening-that and improvement of knowledge. By virtue of this commands the sun to shine by day, and the moon quality he superintends and so adjusts all the parts by night that prepares a place for the rain, and a of the universe, that, whatever changes any of way for the lightning and thunder-that maketh the them may undergo, their usefulness and connection herbs to grow upon the earth. The hand of the with each other may be uniformly maintained. By Lord doth all these things."

strong, full and frequent in its representations of the holiness of God.

weakness of his agents, perfects, that is, displays his own praise. He entangles the rulers of darkness in their own nets, and ruins their designs by their By this holiness, is meant, that disposition essen own stratagems; the greatest cruelty of Satan and tial to his perfect nature, which regards the honor his instruments, he makes subservient to the designs of his own divine perfections; and which therefore of his mercy, and overrules even the apostacy of opposes the violation of his pure will, or the resist Adam, to display his own manifold wisdom to an-ance of his just government. As the power of God gels and to men. He has established the world in is opposed to all natural weakness, and his wisdom his wisdom, and stretched out the heaven by his to the least defect of understanding; so is his holidiscretion. He is wonderful in counsel and excel-ness opposed to all moral imperfection or sin. It is lent in working. The foolishness of God is wiser not to be considered as a single perfection, but than men, and the weakness of God is stronger rather as the harmony of all the attributes of God: than men. He disappointeth the devices of the it is therefore called the "beauty of the Lord.' crafty, so that they cannot perform their enterprizes. Psal. xxvii. Separate from holiness all other exHis counsels stand for ever, and the thoughts of his cellences of the divine nature would be inglorious heart from generation to generation." His wisdom might be styled subtlety; his power bc On this account only considered as dreadful. those exalted spirits who are best acquainted with the glories of the divine nature, dwell on this perfection. The courts of heaven resound with high adoration, whilst they cry, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts." And such a particular regard de we find paid to this attribute by the blessed Gol himself, that he swears by it, in confirmation of the promises of grace; "Once have I sworn by my holiness, that I will not lie unto David." Psal

These perfections, called, by way of distinction, the natural perfections of God, the more they are considered, the higher must they raise our wonder and astonishment. Who can meditate on eternity, omnipresence, omniscience, and almighty power, and not feel that they are subjects too big for any created understanding to grasp! But the moral perfections of God, we can comprehend with greater clearness. And it is possessed of these, that God claims from us the highest reverence, fear, love,

trust, and obedience.

lxxxix. 35.

Connected with this divine perfection of holiness The first of these perfections is his goodness. By in God, is the continual notice he takes of the bethis we mean that principle of good-will, by virtue havior of each individual towards himself and his of which his almighty power and infinite wisdom law. On this part of his character the necessity of are exercised in the liberal communication of hap-our absolute subjection depends. For were God piness to his creatures. His bountiful hand sup- either ignorant of what is done by men on earth, plies their wants, and pours out his benefits upon or did he judge it insignificant, we should have no them all. He makes no other distinction than what more cause to retain any awe of him upon our necessarily arises from the different qualities or ca- minds, or to impose any restraint upon ourselves, pacities of the respective objects: no other differ- than if there were no God. It is not the existence ence than what his own most perfect character re- of a God, but his moral government of the world, quires should be made. "The Lord," saith the that calls for our fear, and should excite us to obeScripture," is good unto all, and his tender mercies dience. To take away, therefore, all ground of are over all his works. He openeth his hand, and suspecting any inattention in our Creator to our be satisfieth every living thing. He is the Father of havior, arising from his own infinite greatness, and mercies, and the God of all comfort. The earth is our being less than nothing compared to him-to full of the goodness of the Lord." So strong is his root out this pernicious opinion, which the desire goodness in its propensity, and so wide in its ex-of sinning with impunity might lead us to cherish; tent, as to bless not simply his creatures, but even rebels against his government, and enemies to his truth. He causeth his sun to shine, and his rain to fall on the evil and on the good, on the unjust as well as on the just. He endures, with much longsuffering, the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction." He allures, and encourages their return to him. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Come now," says he," and let us reason together; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." And, lest these asseverations should not be sufficient to remove suspicions of his willingness to forgive the most enormous offenders, when they turn to him; he swears by himself, "As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth." And that all generations of men, who should ever receive his word, might form the highest conceptions of his glorious goodness, he passed before Moses, and proclaimed this to be his proper title, "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in good- duration, and in the day of universal judgment, But it is not only at the conclusion of this world's ness and truth; keeping mercy for thousands, for-that God makes a difference between those that giving iniquity, transgression, and sin."

But lest his goodness should be so misconstrued as to diminish our apprehensions of the evil of sin; lest it should lead us to imagine, that, where so much favor is shown to the workers of iniquity, there can be no abhorrence of it; the Scripture is

the glorious God teaches us to conceive of him, as taking the most exact cognizance of all our inward tempers, no less than our outward deportment, and that with an unchangeable purpose to deal with us accordingly. In the nervous language of his own inspired penmen, "His eyes behold, and his eye-lids try the children of men. The Lord is a God of knowledge, by him actions are weighed. I, the Lord, search the heart, I try the reins, even to give to every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings."

And lest, from the present outward prosperity of the wicked, any should be unreasonable and base enough to conclude, that God is not such an exact observer of our behavior, respecting himself and his law; the Scriptures are full of this alarming truth, which entirely removes the objection; that "God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or bad—that he hath appointed a day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness-that every man shall receive the things done in his body, whether they be good or bad.""

serve him, and those that refuse subjection to his laws. God represents himself as continually exercising peculiar and "distinguishing love to his faithful and obedient people," whilst he is insup portably terrible to his obstinate opposers. He is not content with giving to the former, assurances