every sinner, would have been entirely and eternally eclipsed. But this forgiveness being worthy of God, proceeding from the infinite. riches of grace, and equal to the wants of the most enormous transgressor, behold, there is hope for the vilest. FORGIVENESS! charming word! Forgiveness with God! with him against whom we have sinned; with him who has authority to pardon, as well as power to punish: solid foundation for your hopes, O trembling sinner! Believing this declaration, building on this basis, what should hinder, or who has a right to forbid, that our hopes should rise sublime to heaven; that they should be firm as the Divine declaration, and bright as the sun in his meridian glory?-Booth.

PREPARATION FOR DEATH.

When you lie down at night, compose your spirits as if you were not to awake till the heavens be no more. And when you awake in the morning, consider that new day as your last, and live accordingly. Surely that night cometh, of which you will never see the morning, or that morning of which you will never see the night; but which of your mornings or nights will be such, you know not. know not. Let the mantle of worldly enjoyments hang loose about you, that it may

be easily dropped when death comes to carry you into another world. When the corn is forsaking the ground, it is ready for the sickle; when the fruit is ripe, it falls off the tree easily. So when a Christian's breast is truly weaned from the world, he is prepared for death, and it will be the more easy for him. A heart disengaged from the world is a heavenly one, and then we are ready for heaven when our heart is there before us.-Boston.

SANCTIFIED AFFLICTIONS.

There is a certain pleasure and sweetness in the cross to them who have their senses exercised to discern, and to find it out. There is a certain sweetness in one's seeing himself upon his trials for heaven, and standing candidate for glory; there is a pleasure in travelling over these mountains where the Christian can see the prints of Christ's own feet, and the footsteps of the flock who have been there before him. How pleasant is it to a saint, in the exercise of grace, to see how a good God crosseth his corrupt inclinations, and prevents his folly! Of a truth there is a paradise within this thorn hedge. Many a time the people of God are in bonds, which are never loosed till they be bound with cords of affliction. God takes them, and throws

them into a fiery furnace that burns off their bonds; and then, like the three children, Dan. iii. 25, they are loose, walking in the midst of the fire. God gives his children a potion, with one bitter ingredient; if that will not work upon them, he will put in a second, and so on, as there is need, that they may work together for their good with cross winds he hastens them to their harbour. Worldly things are often such a load to the Christian, that he moves but very slowly heavenward. God sends a wind of trouble that blows the burden off his back; and then he walks more speedily on his way, after God hath drawn some gilded earth from him, that was drawing his heart away from God.--Boston.

THE REVEALED REMEDY.

In this darkness, or this light of nature-call it which you please-revelation comes in; confirms every doubting fear which could enter into the heart of man concerning the future unprevented consequences of wickedness; supposes the world to be in a state of ruin; teaches us, too, that the rules of Divine government are such as not to admit of pardon immediately and directly upon repentance, or by the sole efficacy of it; but then teaches, at the

same time, what nature might justly have hoped, that the moral government of the universe was not so rigid but that there was room for an interposition to avert the fatal consequences of vice; which, therefore, by this means, does admit of pardon. Revelation teaches us that the unknown laws of God's more general government, no less than the particular laws by which we experience he governs us at present, are compassionate as well as good, in the more general notion of goodness; and that he hath mercifully provided that there should be an interposition to prevent the destruction of human kind, whatever that destruction unprevented might have been. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth "-not, to be sure, in a speculative, but in a practical sense-" that whosoever believeth in him should not perish;" gave his Son in the same way of goodness, to the world, as he affords particular persons the friendly assistance of their fellow-creatures, when, without it, their temporal ruin would be the certain consequence of their follies; in the same way of goodness, I say, though in a transcendent and infinitely higher degree. And the Son of God "loved us, and gave himself for us," with a love which he himself com

pares to that of human friendship; though, in this case, all comparisons must fall infinitely short of the thing intended to be illustrated by them. He interposed in such a manner as was necessary and effectual to prevent that execution of justice upon sinners which God had appointed should otherwise have been executed upon them; or in such a manner as to prevent that punishment from actually following, which, according to the general laws of Divine government, must have followed the sins of the world had it not been for such interposition.-Bishop Butler.

REASONABLENESS OF FAITH.

Since we neither know by what means punishment in a future state would have followed wickedness in this; nor in what manner it would have been inflicted had it not been prevented; nor all the reasons why its infliction would have been needful; nor the particular nature of that state of happiness which Christ is gone to prepare for his disciples; and since we are ignorant how far anything which we could do would, alone and of itself, have been effectual to prevent that punishment to which we were obnoxious, and recover that happiness, which we had forfeited; it is most