heart to love and experience, no hands to act for Christ, no feet to walk in the obedience of God; but all-all ear! A new preacher, a fine preacher, a long sermon, sermon after sermon, discourses about the talents of preachers and the beauty of sermons, and sometimes matters not quite so good as these, are objects of supreme delight for too many, who rather wish to hear about Christ than to live upon him, and to have a good seat under the sound of the gospel, than to be enjoying the power of it. O what a poor sort of professing life is this! To mistake air for food, and mere hearing for godliness, alas! what will this avail the soul, when it shall need strength and courage to resist the powers of darkness, and to enter the gloomy valley of the dead!

The true servants of God have, in a certain subordinate sense, their ears opened or pierced, according to the meaning of the rite in the law; and thus they are made his own for ever. They come willingly, in the day of his power, to the door of his house, even to Christ the only door of the true tabernacle which God hath pitched and not man; and there each of them joyfully declares; "I would not, and in thy strength I will not, go away, O Lord, from thee, because I love thee and I love thine house, and because it is good for me to be with thee." By this spiritual operation, they are made alive to God, and are enabled spiritually to hear his word, and to have it written in their inward parts, and thus to serve and live for God in Christ with life eternal. They cannot endure another service; and any voice, but the voice of their Master, they will neither delight in, nor obey. As dutiful servants, and adopted children, they listen to his holy word, follow his heavenly will, seek not their own but his honor and glory, and count nothing of so much value beneath the sun as to finish their course with joy. O my soul, mayest thou be found with these, when the

Lord shall make up his jewels, and shall spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him! Thou shalt then enter into his house indeed, and dwell with him for ever and ever.

Another type in the law shows the inward virtue of the divine life. The sanctifying oil was not only to be put upon the right hand, the right foot, and the right ear of the leper, but upon the extremities, the thumb, the great toe, the tip of those right members; in order to show, that in our renewing by the Holy Spirit, we must expect all true strength, even the least and to the utmost, all our right obedience, and all our hearing to profit, from that unction of the Holy One. This anointing, which is received of Christ, even the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot receive, abideth in the real Christian; and by this, in fact, he becomes a Christian, that is, an anointed person; and the same anointing teacheth him all things, and is true and not a lie. Thus he hears, and hears aright. He hears inwardly, and with life; and by grace in this hearing increases life. Sounds, mere sounds, are nothing, and words alone, nothing; but the word and truth of Christ, spiritually received and experimentally digested, are in his eye, and heart, and ear, the all in all of every ordinance and proclamation of the gospel.

I would come into the power of these things, O my Lord, more and more; and I lament with deep compunction, that my progression is so small, my true hearing so dull, my affections so cold, my faith so weak, my hope so drooping, and my whole man so often disordered and defiled by sin. O how great and difficult a thing is it to be a Christian! To live, and hope, and walk, truly by the faith of thee the Son of God! Do thou, who art the High Priest of my profession, circumcise and pierce my ear, that I may be made affectionately like thine own for ever; anoint it also with thine holy oil, that I may receive rightly and understand

truly the words of eternal life, the rich and profound mysteries of thy kingdom. So shall I hear, and live, and learn, and love, till I see thee in thy glory; and then, stripped of all my own imperfection and frailty, be cloathed with thy righteousness and salvation, I shall magnify thy holy name in the great, the universal, the everlasting, Hallelujah.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

UPON DECLENSIONS FROM GOD.

ALAS! how prone I am to fall into sin, and to leave the fountain of living waters! My infirmities often prevail against me, and, contrary to the better will of my soul, drag me into the snares and bondage of corruption.

I have sinned: what shall I say unto thee, O thou preserver of men! If thou leave me to myself, if thou recover me not; I am gone for ever. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death!

Thus I mourn and am vexed, when my corruptions are ready to over power me. I should be lost, but for thy merciful aid: I must perish entirely, if the blood and righteousness of my dear Redeemer were not again and again applied to save and to comfort me.

O what a miserable body do I bear about with me! It is the very load, and plague, and prison of my soul. And yet how foolishly do I love it, and care for it; and how much more time do I spend in nourishing this evil flesh, than in seeking the peace of God, or the advancement and prosperity of my immortal mind?I am ashamed, as a Christian, that I am not more ashamed of these things.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

ON SOBRIETY OF SPIRIT.

A Christian should desire, as a great privilege, the constant sobriety and calm recollection of his mind.Worldly things often flutter the animal spirits; and the disorder of these will too frequently throw the soul into confusion; so that it is liable to be carried away into what it condemns through the sudden liveliness of its affections, or to be turned aside from what it approves by the vehement onset of its passions. This want of inward sobriety is one great cause of all the irregularities, which believers feel and bemoan in their passage to heaven.

Be sober, be vigilant; is a most necessary admonition to us, while we are in this unstable flesh, and within reach of such an adversary as the devil. If we are not abstracted, in due measure, from the crazy and drunken spirit of this world, to which we are naturally inclined, and from which grace only can deliver us at all; we shall be distracted with a thousand foolish and useless things, be exposed to numberless dangers and snares, be harassed with doubts and disorders, and often in our giddiness shall forget where we are, whither we are going, and what must shortly pass upon us. O this golden, glittering, dazzling cup of the mystic Babylon, this evil world! How often is it in her hand, held out towards us! How ready are we to take and to drink of it! But how full is it of the abominations and filthiness of her spiritual fornication and departure from God!

How difficult, duly considered, is the Christian's passage through life! how marvellous his safe arrival in heaven! It appears indeed to be nothing less than one of the greatest wonders of Almighty goodness and power.

If a man were commanded to put to sea by himself in a small open boat, without any sustenance but what might fall from the skies, and with no direction but a chart and compass, and thus to pass over a wide and tempestuous ocean; it may give some faint idea of the Christian's voyage to heaven. He too in a feeble bark has no chart but the word of God, no compass but the Spirit of God, no provision but the daily grace of God in Christ, no safety from the raging waves of the world or the roaring winds of the evil spirit but the power of God, no ability to keep himself for one moment from sinking but through faith in the mercy of God, and no hope of getting safe to the heavenly shore but by the truth of God in Christ Jesus. Indeed, and indeed, when a Christian considers all these perils on the one hand, and his own weakness on the other; it seems an act of most astonishing love and omnipotence, that he should ever inherit the kingdom of heaven. He feels it to be mercy, and faithfulness, and rich bounty, and kindness altogether, from beginning to end, and is at times lost in wonder, love, praise, and gratitude, for so great and unmerited a salvation.

Seeing that these things are so, verily he ought to watch and pray, that he may continue in faith and charity, and in holiness with sobriety unto the end.

CHAPTER XL.

THE HEART MUST BE GIVEN TO GOD.

If we could offer to God the whole world, and yet keep back our heart; it would be to him a worthless and an odious offering. He considers not the greatness or outward grandeur of human works, but the spirit