thee, O Lord, holy Father, almighty everlasting God: therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, I laud and magnify thy glorious name, evermore praising thee and saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts: heaven and earth are full of thy glory. Glory be to thce, O Lord most high. Amen.

May such as this, O my soul! be thy daily tribute of thanks. Consider what thou owest to thy God-how great are his favours, how many, how endless-and bestowed on the most unworthy. Review his goodness in giving thee being, and in preserving it. Remember from how many dangers and pains he has delivered thee; what health and creaturecomforts he has vouchsafed of his mere bounty; and what a monument of his longsuffering thou art. O what a miracle! that one, like thee, should be out of hell. Then put to the account spiritual favours, what blessings thou hast received from the Father's love in Jesus; what blessings thou art entitled to in him, not only in time, but also in eternity. Cast up the mighty sum, and say,

How much it is! Canst thou tell the numbers thereof? No. It is beyond the power of the greatest arithmetician. If thou couldst write a figure upon every atom in the creation, thou wouldst want a new world, whereon to sum up the vast account: for thy mercies reach to the heaven of heavens, and they are also everlasting. Then consider to whom thou art thus indebted. Is it not to a justly offended God, who might have glorified all his perfections in punishing thee for thy sins? Whereas in wonderful grace he has chosen and called thee to the adoption of Sons. He is thy Father. This is the spring of all thy mercies. In love he gave his Son to finish thy salvation. And his Spirit has brought thee to believe in it, and to enjoy it. This is the source of all thy praise. The object of thanksgiving is thy covenant God, who is related to thee in such a bond of love, as will bring thee under eternal obligations. Thou art, therefore, in all thy praise to remember thy relation to Father, Son, and Spirit, thy debt to them for that most blessed relation, thy growing, ever growing debt. Praise

will pay none of it. The saints in glory do but acknowledge it. While they are praising more, the sum is increasing. O my soul, beg of thy God to give thee grace, that thine acknowledgments may be in some measure like theirs. They are crying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God; giving glory for the Father's love in Jesus, and for their experience of it by the eternal Spirit. May this subject be thine, more spiritual, more holy every day, till it be what theirs is, perfect and without intermission.

Since it is thy privilege, O my soul, to pray to thy covenant God, and to praise him for covenant mercies, then thou wilt highly prize the holy SCRIPTURES; because without them thou canst not know what to pray for, nor what is indeed a mercy. Thy faith has nothing to stand upon, but the word of God, and nothing to praise him for, but mercies therein promised, and by believing received. O how dear then should his word be to thee! how greatly studied, how diligently heard, that by it thou mayest grow in every grace, which is needful for thy holy walk with God.

爵

It is the appointed means by which the holy Spirit acts. It is his great instrument in beginning and carrying on spiritual life. He opens the understanding to know the scriptures; he inclines the will and the affections to receive them in the love of the truth, and he influences the whole man to submit to live under the obedience of faith. Whatever strength, victory, comfort, or blessing of any kind he bestows, it comes by obeying the truth through the Spirit. So that thou canst not go on in thy walk with God, but by constant and believing use of the scriptures. They should be thy study night and day, heard and read carefully, mixed with faith, treasured up in thy memory, received into thy heart, and brought into thy life, and all by the teaching of the holy Ghost, in order to thine enjoyment of the promised blessings of the Father's love through the Son's salvation. Thus the word will be the means of thy maintaining fellowship with the blessed Trinity. By mixing faith with it, thou wilt be constantly receiving from them covenant mercies and so thou wilt go forward. Thy

steps will be ordered aright according to the word, and thy way will be prosperous.

Consider then, O my soul, whether thou art making this use of the Scriptures. Dost thou find them the means of thy growth in divine knowledge, in faith and love? Do they really promote thy communion with God, and, on that account, are they daily more thy study, and thy delight? Never think of hearing or reading them without praying for the teaching of the holy Spirit, that they may be the means of keeping up fellowship with thy Father in Jesus. For this end they were revealed, and if this end be not answered, they profit thee nothing. Make it then thy constant practice-before hearing, to pray for a spiritual appetite, and as newborn babes desire the milk, so thou mayest hunger and thirst for the good word of lifein hearing, beg of God, that thou mayest feed upon the word and digest it, and thine inward man may be nourished up in the words of faith, and of good doctrine-after hearing, pray for a sanctified memory to treasure up for use, what thou hast learnt,