dispenses them to us; to eye him in all our afflictions, and consider the paternal wisdom that instructs us in them; how would this increase our mercies, and mitigate our troubles! To eye him in all his creatures, and observe the various prints of the Creator's glory stamped upon them; with how lively a lustre would it clothe the world, and make every thing look with a pleasant face! What a heaven were it to look upon God, as filling all in all, and how sweetly would it, erewhile, raise our souls into some such sweet seraphic strains: Holy, holy,—the whole earth is full of his glory! To eye him in his providences, and consider how all events are with infinite wisdom disposed into an apt subserviency to his holy will and ends; what difficulties would hence be solved! what seeming inconsistencies reconciled! how much would it contribute to the ease and quiet of our minds! To eye him in Christ, the express image of his person, the brightness of his glory; and in the Christian economy, the gospel revelation and ordinances, through which he manifests himself: to behold him in the posture wherein he saves souls, clad with the garments of salvation, girt with power, and apparelled with love, travelling in the greatness of his strength, mighty to save; to view him addressing himself to allure and win to him the hearts of sinners, when he discovers himself in Christ, upon that reconciling design; to behold him entering into human flesh, pitching his tabernacle among men, hanging out his ensigns of peace, laying his trains, spreading his net, the cords of a man, the bands of love to see him in Christ, ascending the cross, lifted up to draw all men to him; and consider that mighty love of justice and of souls, both so eminently conspicuous in that stupendous sacrifice; here to fix our eyes looking to Jesus, and beholding him whom we have pierced to see his power and glory, as they were wont to be seen in his sanctuaries; to observe him in the solemnities of his worship, and the graceful postures wherein he holds communion with his saints, when he seats himself amidst them on the throne of grace, receives their addresses, dispenses the pledges and tokens of his love: into what transports might these visions put us every day!

Let us then stir up our drowsy souls, open our heavy eyes, and turn them upon God, inure and habituate them to a constant view of his (yet vailed) face, that we may not see him only by

casual glances, but as those that seek his face, and make it our business to gain a thorough knowledge of him. But let us remember, that all our present visions of God must aim at a further conformity to him; they must design imitation, not the satisfying of curiosity: our looking must not therefore be an inquisitive, busy prying into the unrevealed things of God. Carefully abstain from such over-bold presumptuous looks. But remember, we are to eye God as our pattern. Wherein he is to be so, he hath plainly enough revealed and proposed himself And consider this is the pattern, both to which we ought and which we shall be conformed, if we make it our business; so will sense of duty and hope of success concur to fix our eye and keep it steady. Especially let us endeavor to manage and guide our eye aright, in beholding him, that our sight of him may most effectually subserve this design of being like him; and herein nothing will be more conducible, than that our looks be qualified with-reverence, and-love.

to us.

Let them be reverential looks. When this is the intimate sense of our soul, Who is a God like unto thee in holiness? there is none holy as the Lord: this will set our powers to work; such sights will command and overawe our souls into conformity to him. Let us greaten our thoughts of God. Let us look to him with a submissive, adoring eye. Let every look import worship and subjection. This will secure holy impres

sions on the soul.

Let them be looks of love. It is natural to affect and endeavor likeness to them we love. Let love always sit in our eye, and inspirit it; this will represent God always amiable, will infinitely commend to us his nature and attributes, and even ravish us into his likeness. The love of God will make us desire to bear his image in our hearts.

Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation. Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.— Psalm v. 1, 2.

My soul thirsteth for thee, O Lord, in a dry and barren land, where no water is; O that thou wouldst distill, and drop down

the dew of thy heavenly grace into all its secret chinks and pores. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, and behold his glory: for a day in thy courts is better than a thousand, and I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. All the kings of the earth they are thy tributaries; the kings of Tarshish, and of the isles, bring presents unto thee; the kings of Sheba and Seba offer gifts. O that we could but pay thee that which is so due unto thee, the tribute of our hearts! The heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled: help us, O God of our salvation, and deliver us, and purge away our sins from us, for thy name's sake! O that the Lord, whom we seek, would come to his own house, and give peace there, and fill it with his glory! Come and cleanse thine own temple, for we have made it a den of thieves, which should have been a house of prayer! O that we might never give sleep to our eyes, nor slumber to our eyelids, till we have prepared a house for the Lord, and a tabernacle for the God of Jacob! The curse of Cain is fallen upon us, and we are as vagabonds in the earth, and wander from one creature to another. O that our souls might come at last to dwell in God, our fixed and eternal habitation! We, like silly doves, fly up and down the earth, but can find no rest for the sole of our feet; O that, after all our weariness and our wanderings, we might return into the ark; and that God would put forth his hand, and take us, and pull us in unto himself! We have too long lived upon vanity and emptiness, the wind and the whirlwind; O that we may now begin to feed upon substance, and delight ourselves in marrow and fatness! O that God would strike our rocky hearts, that there might spring up a fountain in the wilderness, and pools in the desert; that we might drink of that water, whereof whosoever drinks, shall never thirst more; that God would give us that portion of goods that falleth to us, not to waste it with riotous living, but therewith to feed our languishing souls; lest they be weary and faint by the way! We ask not the children's bread, but the crumbs that fall from thy table; that our baskets may be filled with thy fragments: for they will be better than wine, and sweeter than the honey and the honeycomb, and more pleasant. to us than a feast of fat things. We have wandered too long in

a barren and howling desert, where wild beasts, and doleful creatures, owls and bats, satyrs and dragons, keep their haunts: O that we might be fed in green pastures, and led by the still waters, that the winter might be past, and the rain over and gone, that the flowers may appear on the earth, and the time of the singing of birds may come, and the voice of the turtle may be heard in our land! We have lived too long in Sodom, which is the place that God at last will destroy: O that we might arise, and be gone; and while we are lingering, that the angels of God would lay hold upon our hands, and be merciful unto us, and bring us forth, and set us without the city; and that we may never look back any more, but may escape unto the mountain, and dwell safe in the Rock of Ages! Wisdom hath killed her beasts, she hath mingled her wine, and furnished her table; O that we might eat of her meat, and drink of her wine which she hath mingled! O that God would breathe into our minds those still and gentle gales of Divine inspirations, that may blow up and increase in us the flames of heavenly love! that we may be a whole burnt-offering, and all the substance of our souls be consumed by the fire of heaven, and ascend up in clouds of incense! That, as so many sparks, we might be always mounting upward, till we return again into our proper elements! That, like so many particular rivulets, we may be continually making toward the sea, and never rest till we lose ourselves in that ocean of goodness from whence we first came! Let but these be the breathings of our spirits, and this Divine magnetism will most certainly draw down God into our souls, and we shall have some prelibations of that happiness; some small glimpses, of which, is all that belongs to this state of mortality.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.-Psalm xxiii. 1.

ALTHOUGH God allure us gently to him by his benefits, as it were with the taste of his fatherly sweetness, yet is there nothing to which we are more prone, than by little and little to forget him in time of peace and mirth. Yea rather, prosperity makes many so delirious, that they not only overleap all bounds_in their joy, but it also begets insolence, so that they proudly fly in

the face of God, and thus scarce the hundredth man keeps himself stayedly in the fear of God, while enjoying his good things. So much the more warily then must we mark this example of David, who, in the highest degree of dignity, in the glory of riches and honor, in the abundance of wealth, and in the midst of princely pleasures, not only testifies that he is mindful of God, but also makes himself ladders of his benefits, whereon to climb up nearer to him. And by this means he not only bridles the wantonness of his flesh, but also spurs himself on more sharply to thankfulness, and to the exercises of godliness; according as it appears by the close of the Psalm, where he says, he will dwell in the house of the Lord all his life long. So also in the eighteenth Psalm, when there was clapping of hands at him on all sides, he shows how his heart was framed to humility by calling himself the servant of God; and at the same time professed his thankfulness, in setting forth his praise. Moreover, under the similitude of a shepherd, he commends God's providence toward him; as if he had said, that God had no less care of him than the shepherd has of the sheep committed to him. Now in that God often in the Scripture assumeth the name, and putteth on the character of a shepherd, it is no slight token of his tender love toward us; for seeing it is a lowly and homely manner of speaking, it must needs be that he is singularly well-affected toward us, that disdains not to stoop so low for our sake. It is a wonder, therefore, that so gentle and familiar an invitation should not allure us to him, to rest safely and quietly under his custody. But it is to be noted, that God is not the shepherd of any other than those who, acknowledging their own weakness and want, feel themselves to have need of his defence; and also who, willingly abiding in his sheepfold, yield themselves to be ruled by him. David, who excelled both in power and wealth, nevertheless confessed himself, willingly, to be a sheep, that he might have God as his shepherd. Which of us, then, will exempt himself from this necessity, who are all of us convinced by our own weakness, to be more than miserable, unless we live under the protection of that shepherd? It behooves us, then, to bear in mind, that the sum of our felicity consists in this; that his hand be stretched out to govern us, that we live under his shadow, and that his providence keep watch for our welfare. Wherefore, although we have abundance of all things, yet must we know that