Let Israel rejoice in him that made him : let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.-Psalm cxlix. 2.

WHAT is Israel?

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"Seeing God:" for this is the meaning of the name Israel. He who seeth God, rejoiceth in him by whom he was made. What is it then, brethren? we have said that we belong to the church of the saints: do we already see God? and how are we Israel if we see not? There is one kind of sight belonging to this present time; there will be another belonging to the time hereafter the sight which now is, is by faith; the sight which is to be, will be in reality. If we believe, we see; if we love, we see see what? God. Ask John: God is love; let us bless his holy name, and rejoice in God by rejoicing in love. Whoso hath love, why send we him afar to see God? Let him regard his own conscience, and there he seeth God. If love dwelleth not there, neither doth God; but if love dwell there, so doth God. Perchance he wisheth to see him seated in heaven; let him have love, and so he dwelleth in him, as he doth in heaven. Let us then be Israel, and let us rejoice in him that made us. Let Israel rejoice in him who made him. We, my brethren, commend not ourselves to you: we commend God to you, for we commend you to God. How do we commend God to you? For you to love him for your own good, not for his good; for if ye do not love him, it is to your own hurt, not to his. For God will not the less possess his Godhead, because man hath not love towards him. Thou increasest through God, not he through thee: and yet so greatly did he love us first before we loved him, that he sent his only-begotten Son to die for us. He who made us, became one of us. How made he us? All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made. How became he one of us? The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. This then is he in whom we ought to rejoice. Let no man claim to himself what belongs to him: from him is the joy, which maketh us happy. Let Israel rejoice in

him that made him.

And let the children of Zion be joyful in their King. The sons of the church are Israel. For Zion indeed was one city, which fell amid its ruin certain saints dwelt after the flesh :

but the true Zion, the true Jerusalem, (for Zion and Jerusalem are one,) is eternal in the heavens, and is our mother. She it is that hath given us birth, she is the church of the saints, she hath nourished us, she, who is in part a pilgrim, in part abiding in the heavens. In the part which abideth in heaven is the bliss of angels, in the part which wandereth in this world, is the hope of the righteous. Of the former is said, Glory to God in the highest; of the latter, and on earth peace, good will to men. Let those then who, being in this life, groan, and long for their country, run by love, not by bodily feet; let them seek not ships but wings, let them lay hold on the two wings of love. What are the two wings of love? The love of God, and of our

I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content.

DR. BATES.

I know both how to be abased, and how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed, both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound, and to suffer need.-Phil. iv. 11, 12.

WONDERFUL scholar! In the school of Christ how vast were the acquirements of Paul! So accomplished was he in heavenly wisdom, that, in prosperity, he was lowly and temperate, ready to resign all at the first call of the Giver: in adversity, he was content, as if he had a secret treasure, a concealed fountain issuing from within. He was rich in his deep poverty; for it is not acquiring possessions, but the retrenching our desires, that makes us truly rich. All the gold and silver of the West, and the pearls

and jewels of the East, can not truly enrich the soul. This lesson he had learned in the school of heaven, and by experience and exercise made it familiar to him; as our Saviour learned obedience by his sufferings.

This is a duty as difficult as excellent; therefore a wise and holy man, either conscious of his own weakness, or suspicious of his strength, so earnestly deprecated the extremes: Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: lest I be full and deny thee, and say, who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal, and take the name of the Lord in vain. He was not without doubt or danger, lest he should be corrupted by prosperity, or foiled by adversity: there is great hazard in either, but more in fullness than in want. He that rows in a shallop near the shore, needs not the skill and courage of a pilot that directs a ship through the tempestuous seas. The tempta tions of prosperity are more numerous. A swarm of flies comes to sweet things; and are very grateful to the sensual appetites. The temptations of adversity are troublesome and grievous, and at their appearance, nature recoils from them; and accordingly the tempter manages them: he insinuates into the heart like a serpent by pleasures, and transfuses his poison imperceptibly; but like a roaring lion, he pursues the afflicted. Experience instructs us, that many have made an easy forfeiture of their integrity when prosperous, and in sharp afflictions have been recovered. But in heavy calamities, we are apt either to be fired with discontent, and constructively to dispute with God about the righteousness of his proceedings; or to faint and languish, by bleeding inwardly. Vexation and immoderate sorrow hinder the free exercise of reason and religion; and men's sufferings occasionally increase their sins. As when physic does not work well, it improves the disease, and brings death more speedily and painfully.

Now it is a rare wonder, to see a person wisely to manage these wide extremes, without exhibiting in the variable passions, the external changes in their condition. If the sun should make a search, it would discover but few, who enjoy prosperity without insolence, or suffer adversity without impatience, or such dejection as exceeds the rule of the passions. To endure the burning Line, and frozen Pole, without distempering the blood and humors, proceeds from a sound and firm constitution. To re

ceive no hurtful impressions by great changes of condition, discovers a habit of excellent grace and virtue in the soul. Thus when a person retains an humble mind with rising honor, when affability, modesty, and condescension, are joined with courtly dignity, it is the effect of great virtue. It is said by the psalmist, The sun knoweth its going down; when arrived at the meridian, and shining in its richest beams, the revolution is certain, and he sets in the evening. So when those who are in their highest elevation of honor, understand themselves, and with sober thoughts consider they must shortly decline, and set in the dark grave, it is the effect of excellent virtue. When those who from a mean condition, come to abound in riches, do not set their hearts upon them, remembering they often take wings and fly to the heavens, and the possessors must shortly fall to the earth; when they do not furnish provisions for their lusts, but use them with discretion; when they employ them for sacred and merciful uses, considering they are not proprietors, but stewards; when they consider their receipts and expenses, and the strict account they must give of all; this adorns the gospel.

And in the sudden fall from a prosperous into a calamitous condition, when men look upward to the sovereign Disposer of all events, with meek submission, and resign themselves to the will and wisdom of God; whose end is to refine, and consume them by a fiery trial; when they are more solicitous to have their affliction sanctified than removed, and bless God for taking, as well as giving his benefits; this is the effect of excellent grace, and has a rich reward attending it.

By faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark, to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.-Heb. xi. 7.

GOD first giveth warning of the flood: Noah believed it; not with a lifeless, but a working faith, that first moved in him a self-preserving fear. This fear moved Noah to obey the Lord in the use of means, and to prepare the ark; and all this was to save himself and his house from a flood, that was as yet unseen,

and of which in nature there was no appearance. Thus doth God warn the sinful world of the day of judgment and the fire that is unquenchable; and true believers take his warning, and believing that which they can not see, by fear they are moved to fly to Christ, and use his means to escape the threatened calamity. By this they become the "heirs of that righteousness which is by faith," and condemn the unbelieving, careless world, that take not the warning, and use not the remedy.

By this you may see that the life of faith is quite another thing, than the lifeless opinions of multitudes that call themselves believers. To say, I believe there is a God, a Christ, a heaven, a hell, is as easy as it is common; but the faith of the ungodly is but an ineffectual dream. To dream that you are fighting, wins no victories. To dream that you are eating, gets no strength. To dream that you are running, rids no ground. To dream that you are plowing, or sowing, or reaping, procureth but a fruitless harvest. And to dream that you are princes, may consist with beggary. If you do any more than dream of heaven and hell, how is it that you stir not, and make it not appear by the diligence of your lives, and the fervor of your duties, and the seriousness of your endeavors, that such wonderful, inexpressible, overpowering things, are indeed the matters of your belief? As you love your souls, take heed lest you take an image of faith to be the thing itself. Faith sets on work the powers of the soul, for the obtaining of that joy, and the escaping of that misery, which you believe. But the image of faith in self-deceivers, neither warms nor works; it conquereth not difficulties; it stirs not up to faithful duty. It is blind, and therefore seeth not God; and how then should he be feared and loved? It seeth not hell, and therefore the senseless soul goes on as fearlessly and merrily to the unquenchable fire, as if he were in the safest way. This image of faith annihilateth the most potent objects, as to any due impression on the soul. God is as no God, and heaven as no heaven, to these imaginary Christians. If a prince be in the room, an image reverenceth him not. If music and feasting be there, an image finds no pleasure in them. If fire and sword be there, an image fears them not. You may perceive by the senseless, neglectful carriage of ungodly men, that they see not by faith the God that they should love and fear, the heaven that they should seek and