if he adulterates it, or is unfaithful and inac tive in applying it?

I may conscientiously take the wages for the work, when have a distinct consciousness that I would do the work without the Wages.

To relinquish, or intermit parochial labour, because it is not attended with success, would be terribly inexcusable. Labour on; commit the matter to God; wait patiently;. get a feeling of the bowels of Christ; and die praying, "Lord, pity the people !”

The declarations of scripture concerning the guilt of sin, and the damnation of sinners, may be assented to; but are fully and efficaciously believed by few. Hence faintness of endeavour to snatch others out of the fire; cold prayer, speaking, preaching, and writing, without real pity and heart-felt con

cern.

"But we will give ourselves unto prayer and the ministry of the word." Remember this, O my soul, it is for eternity.

A poor country parson, fighting against the devil in his parish, has nobler ideas than

Alexander had.

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As a minister of the gospel, must either. be despised or hated. choose the latter. Am a minister of Jesus, with his bowels for souls! called! willing to be spent! regardless of worldly preferment! owned of God! hated of men! happy in myself!

Intrusion into the ministry for worldly

ends, and with absolute unfitness for it; in great ignorance of Christ; great unconcern for the salvation of souls; consequent sloth. and remissness; squandering a large income in sensual pleasures; and when I was something awakened, doing what I did in selfdependence and self-seeking-How awful!

Dreamed that J. M. and S. E. were under soul concern. I interpreted it as a call to go and speak with them. But what shall I say to J. for not speaking more to him, and to all others, without a dream?

CHAP. XV.

HEAVEN.

MY heaven upon earth is communion' with God; and therefore nothing else would be my heaven in heaven.

We shall never know any degree of hap-› piness in this life, till we are settled in a clear conviction of judgment, that it is chiefly hereafter, and that we are in the way to it.God forbid should ever think myself at home till am in heaven.

Heaven is not a place or state of idleness.

Perhaps the highest angels have a task and> work assigned them, which keeps them continually employed. What is considered as greatness and happiness on earth is, having nothing to do.

Happiness will be the necessary result of gospel holiness, when external impedi-. ments are removed; but heaven itself would loose its nature if the inward dispositionwere wanting.

Our future existence will be the same kind of life, or state of being continued,which we are fixed in here. Death makes no alteration in our condition, it only clears up our mistakes about it.

Thankfulness and happiness imply each other. We must be thankful to be happy, and happy to be thankful. God's house is an hospital at one end, and a palace at the other. In the hospital-end are Christ's members upon earth, conflicting with various diseases, and confined to a strict regimen of his appointing. What sort of a patient must he be, who would be sorry to be told that the hour is come for his dismission from the hospital, and to see the doors thrown wide: open for his admission into the presence?

Nothing can be our happiness in this life, but what is to be the foundation of it in the next. If I cannot serve God and my Saviour with delight, and make a kind of heaven of it here, they have no other heaven for me hereafter.

We shall never know the thousandth part of our mercies, deliverances, and protec tions, temporal and spiritual, till we come to another world.

In heaven, sin known and pardoned is the song of praise; sin known and unpardoned

is hell.

If ever I thank Christ as I ought, it must be in heaven; it is in vain to think of doing it here.

Heaven is heaven rather as a state of exemption from sin than suffering. We must die for perfect conformity to the will of God; and it is worth dying for.

Delight in the will of God is the perfection of all intelligent beings, the essence of happiness, the joy of angels, heaven upon earth, and the heaven of heaven.

Heaven is whatever God is; in my heart, if I desire it, and delight in his presence.

Ten thousand years in this world wouldnot complete my happiness; I should never be wise and good, have an absolute command of my will, passions, and affections, without one irregular thought, vain wish, or spot of sin. If we are really aiming at and longing for this perfection, how desirable is death, which alone can can put us is possession of it? By death, we do not go out of life, but into life.

The Christian's hope of heaven is the sweetness of prosperity, and the support of adversity, and cures us at once of all at-

tachment to the world, or expectation of rest in it.

If Christ had not brought down heaven to us, we could never have raised ourselves up to it.

This world is the reign of darkness, pain, and sorrow; and we must not expect fully to find God here as a present portion. The Christian believes that he shall know him, better, and enjoy him fully hereafter. O my soul, hold fast, and be very thankful for this sweet hope.

"Let us labour to enter into that rest." We like the rest, better than the labour of attaining it; but cannot so much as have an ideaof it, if we do not think it worth all the labour we can bestow upon it.

It is a vain thing to think we can take any. delight in being with Christ hereafter, if we care not how little we are in his company here.

The highest state of the greatest saint upon earth, is only a small taste or glimpse of heaven, in the first fruits and earnest of the Spirit. The full harvest is beyond the grave, and is not to be expected in this world.

When I can truly say, "thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," I shall long to be in heaven, that I may do it perfectly.

What is the reason that we do not keep. our eyes steadily fixed on the light of scripture, and follow it as our guide to heaven, but because we do not really think of heaven: