heart from God? This is the grand evil, from which all others proceed. Let us then think less of our own cup, whatever it may be, (since it will surely prove medicinal,) and think more of Him who drank a cup of wrath, even to the dregs, in order to provide for us a cup of consolation. Eminent Christians have generally an especial discipline, in proportion to that usefulness to which they are designed. Thus St. Paul had a thorn in the flesh and many other travellers to Zion have likewise found something rankling, festering, and harassing them, like a thorn, which they were unable to extract. For this divine discipline we should stand prepared. Luther writes to John of Hesse, "You have entered the ship with Christ; what do you look for? Fine weather? Rather expect winds, and tempests, and waves to cover the vessel, till she begins to sink. This is the baptism with which you must be first baptised; and then the calm will follow, upon your awakening Christ and imploring his help; for sometimes he will appear to sleep for a season. The process of affliction is intended to prepare and make room in the heart for the grace of Christ: because the tendency of the human heart is to pride and self-dependence. Another important end of affliction is, that it quickens to earnest heart-prayer. Our blessed Saviour in the garden prayed yet more earnestly, till "His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." And this urgency of prayer was effectual to obtain the sustaining and strengthening influences which his human nature required. So the afflicted Christian is driven to lay hold of God by prayer; he flies to the bosom of his Saviour, where alone he finds true repose, derives strength, and is enabled to maintain that spiritual communion and intercourse with God, which is the life of

the soul, which is to fit him for heaven, and which distinguishes the true believer from the hypocrite.

And, by degrees, the Christian perceives the design of all his afflictions, and acquiesces in the process by which God is training him for glory; he obtains a humble and resigned spirit, and learns to say, with the subject of this Memoir, "I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me."

Shall the servant

Lastly. The subject addresses itself to Professing Christians generally, leading them to take a right view of their calling as the disciples of a crucified Saviour. As Christians, we have been "baptized into his death!" Let us embrace the doctrine of the cross as the true and proper joy of man upon earth. expect a smoother path than his Lord? Let it suffice that "neither tribulation, nor distress, nor persecution, nor famine, nor peril, nor sword, shall be able to separate us from the love of Christ." In every trial our Saviour seems to say to us, "Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" His estimate was, when about to suffer, "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.” "Let us arm ourselves with the same mind: being "strengthened with all might by his glorious power, unto all long-suffering with joyfulness." "There remaineth a rest to the people of God," which must be ardently desired by weary pilgrims. But though delayed, the inheritance is certain, and the promise is sure. "Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name," Rev. iii. 12.

MADE BY HIM IN CONVERSATION WITH MRS. HAWKES,

ON

VARIOUS SUBJECTS.

Fragments and Abstracts of Sermons.

ON PROVIDENCE.

And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of all his servants. And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is? GEN. xli. 37, 38.

WHEN God goes before a man, every thing that is good for him shall follow him. "Promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one and setteth up another." A great part of the Bible is to show us that all creatures are in God's hand; and that he will either make our afflictions work together for good, or remove them. But the believer must wait for God's time of deliverance: he may think it long in coming,-forgetting that God's time is the best time. There is a tide in our affairs: how easily does the vessel move with the tide; but let that go down, and leave it upon the sands, and no human arm can remove it; whereas, when the tide returns again, it needs no help from man. "If the vision tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry." Hab. ii. 3.