different or dangerous, our prayers upbraid our spirits, when we beg coldly and tamely for those things for which we ought to die, which are more precious than the globes of kings, and weightier than imperial sceptres, richer than the spoils of the sea, or the treasures of the Indian hills.

He that is cold and tame in his prayers, hath not tasted of the deliciousness of religion and the goodness of God; he is a stranger to the secrets of the kingdom, and therefore he does not know what it is, either to have hunger or satiety; and therefore, neither are they hungry for God, nor satisfied with the world; but remain stupid and inapprehensive, without resolution and determination, never choosing clearly, nor pursuing earnestly, and therefore never enter into possession; but always stand at the gate of weariness, unnecessary caution, and perpetual irresolution. But so it is often in our prayers; we come to God because it is civil so to do, and a general custom, but neither drawn thither by love, nor pinched by spiritual necessities and pungent apprehensions; we say so many prayers, because we are resolved so to do, and we pass through them, sometimes with a little attention, sometimes with none at all; and can we think that the grace of chastity can be obtained at such a purchase, that grace, that hath cost more labors than all the persecutions of faith, and all the disputes of hope, and all the expense of charity besides, amounts to? Can we expect that our sins should be washed by a lazy prayer? Can an indifferent prayer quench the flames of hell, or rescue us from an eternal sorrow? Is lust so soon overcome, that the very naming it can master it? Is the devil so slight and easy an enemy, that he will fly away from us at the first word, spoken without power and without vehemence? Read and attend to the accents of the prayers of saints. "I cried day and night before thee, O Lord; my soul refused comfort; my throat is dry with calling upon my God, my knees are weak through fasting;" and, "Let me alone," says God to Moses, and, "I will not let thee go till thou hast blessed me," said Jacob to the angel. And I shall tell you a short character of a fervent prayer out of the practice of St. Jerome. Being destitute of all help, I threw myself down at the feet of Jesus; I watered his feet with tears, and wiped them with my hair, and mortified the lust of my flesh with the abstinence and hungry diet of many weeks; I remember that in my crying to God, I did frequently

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join the night and the day, and never did intermit to call, nor cease from beating my breast, till the mercy of the Lord brought to me peace and freedom from temptation. After many tears, and my eyes fixed in heaven, I thought myself sometimes encircled with troops of angels, and then at last I sang to God, 'We will run after thee into the smell and deliciousness of thy precious ointments;'"-such a prayer as this will never return without its errand. But though your person be as gracious as David or Job, and your desires as holy as the love of angels, and your necessities great as a new penitent, yet it pierces not the clouds, unless it be also as loud as thunder, as passionate as the cries of women, and clamorous as necessity. For every prayer we make is considered by God, and recorded in heaven; but cold prayers are not put into the account, in order to effect and acceptation; but are laid aside like the buds of roses, which a cold wind hath nipped into death, and the discolored, tawny face of an Indian slave and when in order to your hopes of obtaining a great blessing, you reckon up your prayers, with which you have solicited your suit in the court of heaven, you must reckon, not by the number of the collects, but by your sighs and passions, by the vehemence of your desires, and the fervor of your spirit, the apprehension of your need, and the consequent prosecution of your supply. Christ prayed" with loud cryings," and St. Paul made mention of his scholars in his prayers "night and day." Fall upon your knees and grow there, and let not your desires cool nor your zeal remit, but renew it again and again, and let not your offices and the custom of praying put thee in mind of thy need, but let thy need draw thee to thy holy offices; and remember how great a God, how glorious a majesty you speak to; therefore, let not your devotions and addresses be little. Remember, how great a need thou hast; let not your desires be less. Remember, how great the thing is you pray for, do not undervalue it with thy indifferency. Remember, that prayer is an act of religion; let it, therefore, be made thy business: and, lastly, remember that God hates a cold prayer; and, therefore, will never bless it, but it shall be always ineffectual.

They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.—John xvii. 16.

THE world of Christians, and their way of life, and their mind, and discourse, and practice, is one thing; and that of the men of this world, another. And the difference between them is very wide. For the children of this world are tossed to and fro by unsettled reasonings, by earthly desires, and a variety of gross imaginations, whereby Satan is continually sifting the whole sinful race of men.

For in this do true Christians differ from the whole race of mankind besides. They have their heart and mind constantly taken up with the thoughts of heaven; and, through the presence and participation of the Holy Spirit, do behold, as in a glass, the good things which are eternal, being born of God from above, and thought worthy to become the children of God in truth and power; and being arrived, through many conflicts and labors, to a settled and fixed state, to an exemption from trouble, to perfect rest, are never sifted more by unsettled and vain thoughts. Herein are they greater and better than the world; their mind and the desire of their soul are in the peace of Christ, and the love of the Spirit; "they have passed from death to life." Wherefore the alteration peculiar to Christians doth not consist in any outward fashions, but in the renovation of the mind, and the peace of the thoughts, and the love of the Lord, even the heavenly love. Herein Christians differ from all men besides. The Lord hath given them truly to believe on him, and to be worthy of those spiritual good things. For the glory, and the beauty, and the heavenly riches of Christians are inexpressible, and purchased only with labor, and pains, and trials, and many conflicts. But the whole is owing to the grace of God.

Now if the sight even of an earthly king is desired by all men, (except those persons that are spiritual, who look upon all his glory as nothing, through their having experimentally known another heavenly glory ;) if, I say, the men of this world are so desirous to behold an earthly king, with his splendor and glory -how much more are those upon whom that dew of the Spirit of life hath dropped, and wounded their hearts with love for Christ; bound fast to that beauty, and the unspeakable glory,

and the inconceivable riches of the true and eternal king; with desire and long-suffering after whom they are captivated, turning wholly to him, to obtain those unspeakable good things, which through the Spirit they actually behold already; and for whose sake they esteem all the glories, and honors, and riches of earthly kings as nothing?

For they are wounded with the Divine beauty; their desire is towards the heavenly king; and placing him only before their eyes in the abundance of their affection, they, for his sake, disengage themselves from all love of the world, and draw back from every earthly clog, that so they may be able ever to retain in their hearts that only desire. And they that are Christians in truth and power, rejoice at their departure out of the flesh, because they have "that house which is not made with hands." And therefore if the house of the body be destroyed, they are in no fear; for they have the heavenly "house of the Spirit," and that "glory which is incorruptible."

Let us therefore strive by faith to be possessed of that clothing, that when we resume the body, there be nothing wanting which may glorify our flesh in that day. For every one, so far as he hath been thought worthy by faith to be made partaker of the Holy Spirit, in the same proportion shall his body also be glorified in that day. For that which the soul hath treasured up within, in this present life, shall then be made manifest outwardly in the body.

For as the trees that have got over the winter do, by an invisible power, put forth from within, and shoot out leaves, and flowers, and fruits, as their clothing-and in like manner, as the flowers of the grass come out of the bosom of the earth, and the earth is covered and clothed-so, in the day of the resurrection, and through the power of the "Sun of Righteousness," there shooteth out from within the glory of the Holy Spirit, covering the bodies of the saints, which glory they had before, within, hidden in their souls. For whatever the soul hath at present, the same cometh forth at that time outwardly in the body.

Therefore ought every one of us to strive, and be diligent in virtue, and to believe and to seek it of the Lord; that the inward man may be made partaker of that glory in this present life, and have that holiness of the Spirit, that we may have at the resurrection wherewith to cover our naked bodies, and refresh us

to all eternity in the kingdom of heaven.

For Christ will come

down from heaven, and raise to life all the kindred of Adam that have slept from the beginning of the world: and he shall separate them all into two divisions; and them that have his own mark, that is, the seal of the Spirit, he shall place on his right hand. And then shall the bodies of these be surrounded with a Divine glory from their good works, and themselves shall be full of the glory of the Spirit, which they had in their souls in this present life. So that, being thus glorified in the Divine light, and snatched away to meet the Lord in the air, we," as it is written, "shall ever be with the Lord," reigning with him world without end. Amen.

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FEBRUARY 3.

The God of all grace.-1 Peter v. 10.

LEIGHTON.

THE work of salvation is all of grace from beginning to end. Free grace in the plot of it, laid in the counsel of God, and performed by his own hand all of it; his Son sent in the flesh, and his Spirit sent in the hearts of his chosen, to apply Christ. All grace is in him, the living spring of it, and flows from him; all the various actings, and all the several degrees of grace. He is the God of pardoning grace, who blotteth out the transgressions of his own children, for his own name's sake, who takes up all quarrels, and makes one act of oblivion serve for all past reckonings between him and them. And as he is the God of pardoning grace, so withal, the God of sanctifying grace, who refines and purifies all those he means to make up into vessels of glory, and hath in his hands all the fit means and ways of doing this; purifies them by afflictions and outward trials, by the reproaches and hatreds of the world. The profane world know little how serviceable they are to the graces and comforts of a Christian, when they dishonor and persecute him; yea, little doth a Christian himself sometimes think how great his advantage is by those things, till he finds it, and wonders at his Father's wisdom and love. But most powerfully are the children of God sanctified by the Spirit within them, without which, indeed, no other thing could be of advantage to them in this. That Divine fire kindled within them, is daily refining and sublimating them, that Spirit