not the lawful business of the world, which contains all the evil. In his calling and concerns, a believer is to glorify God: and he is enabled to do this, first, by the prayer of faith over them, and then by the life of faith in them. That business, and those intentions, which will not admit of these, are to be avoided as the very plague.

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Lord, how and vile are all the poor modes of this world, compared with the simplicity and enjoyment of thy truth! How beggarly and unsatisfying are its vanities, how low and crawling its ambition, how foolish and cheating its hopes, how vain and unprofitable its cares, how various and continual its troubles, how wretched and horrible its end! O give me thy wisdom and love, thy grace and thy truth; for this is that better part which shall never be taken from me!

CHAPTER XVI.

On Conversation among Professors.

THERE are many professors of religion, who are always craving for company. They think, that to be alone is to be dull, and that, without conversing with creatures, they must be silent and stupid, whimsical or melancholy. Such persons are to be pitied, who have not learned the divine secret of talking with God in private by fervent faith and prayer, who know not how to listen to the still small

voice of the Spirit in his holy Word, who cannot find an endless delight in discovering and tasting the sweets of redemption, and who loathe to commune with their own hearts, in their closet or their chamber, and be still.

When such persons get into company, and especially into a great company, they soon discover how unfit, as Christian professors, they are to be in it. The discourse, if of God and his truths, will be light and unsavoury, without unction or solid experience; or if their converse turn, as it generally will, upon men and earthly things, it will only differ from the language and spirit of this world, by being spoken by persons who wish to be thought of as living for another.

It is a melancholy truth, that the levity, dissipation, envy, calumny, and detraction, too often found among companies and parties professedly religious, as well as among the people of the world, make retirement very necessary to the Christian, who would walk much with God, and far more cheerful than the generality of talkative professors can conceive it to be. But the soul which is led to the true enjoyment of divine communion, finds it a relief, rather than a burden, to 66 cease from man."

The Christian should not, if possible, get into company, but either to impart some spiritual good, or to receive it. If he hath grace and talents for the former, he will, before discourse, secretly look up to God for aid and blessing, and afterwards will desire rather to be humbled for what he could not say, or for the manner of saying it, than to be

pleased on his own account, for any thing he did say, or for the satisfaction afforded to others. If, on the other hand, he hath received edification from godly conversation, he will then pray that it may abide with him, that the sweet savour may not be lost, that it may be carried into lively act and experience, and that, like good seed upon good ground, it may increase with the increase of God, and bring forth fruit abundantly to perfection.

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All this implies, that large and mingled assemblies must be more noisy than profitable. There hath been of this at all times very sufficient evidence. Great entertainments, and many persons called together to enjoy them, may serve to keep out the calm serenity and sweet possession of divine reflections, but, perhaps, too rarely promote them. many words there will probably be errors and folly: nor do numbers in a company always multiply wisdom. The flesh may be gratified and feasted, while the spirit may be starved, and wearied, and dry, and at last be sent empty away. It must be grievous to a real Christian, thus to come out of worse or less happy man for entering it.

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It is the way of God to "feed his people with the rod" (of his gracious and selecting power,) even "his flock, his heritage, which dwell solitarily in the wood, in the midst of Carmel," (the field of the world). And they do feed (like Abraham and the patriarchs, who were strangers and pilgrims upon earth,) "in Bashan and Gilead," (the lands appointed for them,) "as in the days of old:" Micah vii. 14. They were ever " a people dwelling alone,'

(in abstraction from the spirit of this world,) "and not reckoned among the nations :" Numb. xxiii. 9.

If I have thee, O my God, I have plenitude of society, though (like the blessed John at Patmos) no creature should be nigh, or though I should be an outcast from all the world. Thou canst talk with me by thy works, by thy providences, and chiefly by thy Spirit and word. O what delight have I felt in the testimonies of thy faithfulness and truth, of thy mercy and grace, of thy presence and love, of thy glory and power! Surely, surely, when I have enjoyed these in their genuine sweetness, retired from every eye but thine, it hath seemed hard to go forth again into the world, or even into the converse of those whom thy own providence and grace have endeared to me. And if this be so divinely delightful, in a mortal body and a miserable world, O what shall my felicity be, when I become a pure exalted spirit, with vivid ecstatic life, in the calm and unspotted regions of glory!-When I think of these unutterable mercies, how can I but long and pant, how can I but hunger and thirst for God, the living God, my God, my own God, and my own for ever!

CHAPTER XVII.

On the Changes of Time.

How do the things of this world pass away ! One generation followeth another, and another that, and so on from age to age, filling up the long rolls of time in melancholy array. They appear long to me, because my rule of comparison is taken from the shortness of human life: but to eternity, to the everlasting existence and infinitude of my God, these ages are almost a nothing. Into this eternity all that can be called time is continually passing, as into a gulph which hath neither bottom nor bound. Thus time is full of changes and vicissitudes, while eternity is not only a perpetual now, but also a perpetual

same.

When I look into the histories of ancient days, and review the confusions and violences that have passed, (for the history of the world is little more than a record of its sins;) I ask my heart, to what purpose have all these things been, and where is now the profit to those evil men who promoted them? Their works are in the dust, or, at best, upon paper; so that, excepting perhaps for punishment, they have neither remained here, nor followed their authors. All their hopes, and cares, and commotions; their own restlessness, and their inquietudes to others, are buried all in everlasting gloom. The pleasant remembrance of their gayest