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is no less than divine. Creatures have not done it; nor have we done it ourselves. It is above the power of education, example, and moral suasion-He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God. But the work is as necessary as it is divine. In vain should we have a title to glory, without a meetness for it. Every office, every state, requires a qualification for it and the higher the state and the office, the more important and difficult the qualification becomes. Happiness is not derivable from any thing, without a suitableness to it. It does not depend upon the excellency of the object, but the conformity of the disposition. The acquisition must be wanted, desired, hoped for, before it can gratify and content. Have I, then, any thing in me that could find happiness in the heaven of the Scriptures?

If He has wrought us for the whole, he has bestowed upon us a part-He has given us, also, the earnest of the Spirit. The earnest is not only to insure it is a portion of the payment: and so is distinguishable from a pledge, which is returned at the completion of the agreement for the earnest remains, and goes on as a part of the bargain. This is very instructive. It tells us that what the believer has here in the possession and influence of the Spirit, is not only indicative of heaven, but like it—and a degree of it.

Is heaven perfect knowledge? The eyes of his understanding are now opened; already he spiritually discerns; and in God's light sees light.

Is it perfect holiness? He is already delivered from the power and love of every sin; he is renewed in the spirit of his mind; he delights in the law of God after the inward man.

Is it perfect happiness? exceeding joy? fulness of joy? pleasures for evermore ?-But even now, blessed are the people that know the joyful sound. There remaineth a rest for the people of God-but "we which have believed do enter into rest." They

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shall enter into peace-but now they have a peace which passeth all understanding." They shall enter the joy of their Lord-but now, "believing, they rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." They will then join the spirits of just men made perfect-but the saints are now their companions and their delight. They will then dwell in his house and be still praising Him-but they are already attempting and commencing his work: "I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.”

Such experience it is that weans them from the world, and makes them willing to depart. Heaven is not a distant, unknown good. They are come to the city of the living God. They are partakers of the glory that shall be revealed-They have everlasting life.

JAN. 27.-" And the inhabitant shut not say, I am sick." Is. xxxiii. 24.

WHO can say so here? How many of our fellowcreatures, the subjects of infirmity, languor, and nervous apprehension, are saying, "I am made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me. When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? I am full of tossings to and fro until the dawning of the day"Another is "chastened, also, with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain: his flesh is consumed away that it cannot be seen, and his bones that were not seen, stick out: yea, his soul draweth nigh unto the grave, and his life to the destroyer." There are few-perhaps none, who never feel indisposition or sickness.

Sickness is the effect of sin, which brought death into the world, and all our woe. It now (under the

providence of God, which is not only punitive, but salutary,) subserves various purposes. It is taken into covenant, so to speak, with the godly, and is one of the paths of the Lord, which to them are all mercy and truth. It checks them in going astray. It frees them from many a temptation, arising from more intercourse with the world. It gives them the most sensible proofs of the care, and kindness, and fidelity of their Lord and Saviour. He knows their frame, and has promised to be with them in trouble, and to comfort them on the bed of languishing-yea, to comfort them as one whom his mother comforteth; and she, while none of her children are neglected by her, will be sure to pay the most tender attentions to the poor little aching invalid.

Yet sickness is an evil in itself, and it is trying to flesh and blood. It not only deducts from the relish of all, and prevents entirely the enjoyment of some, of our outward comforts; but it injures, it hinders, the performance of a thousand duties, relative, civil, and religious. It also often brings a gloom over the mind, and genders unworthy apprehensions of God, and misgivings of our spiritual condition. It not only shuts us out from the loveliness of nature, but from the public means of grace, and fills us with a mournful pleasure at the thought of seasons when we went in company to the house of God, with the voice of joy and gladness, to keep holy day. Hence Hezekiah, anxious to ascertain his recovery, asked, "What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord ?" How feelingly has Watts described the Lord's prisoner, when the Sabbath comes.

"Lo! the sweet day of sacred rest returns:

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"Rest with the day. Ten thousand hurrying thoughts
"Bear me away tumultuous, far from heaven

"And heavenly work: alas! flesh drags me down

"From things celestial, and confines my sense

"To present maladies. Unhappy state!

"Where the poor spirit is subdued t'endure

Unholy idleness; and painful absence

"From God and heav'n, and angels' blessed work;
"And bound to bear the agonies and woes,

"That sickly flesh and shattered nerves impose."

Well-soon the warfare with the body will be accomplished; and we shall put off the flesh, and be in joy and felicity. And as there will be no more sin, neither will there be any more pain; for the former things are all passed away.

A union with the body, were it to rise as it now is, would be dreaded, rather than desirable. But the body will not only be raised, but improved: improved beyond all our present comprehension, but not beyond our present BELIEF. For we can trust Him who has assured us, that though it be sown in weakness, it shall be raised in power: though it be sown a natural body, it shall be raised a spiritual body-and that this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality. We shall bear, not the image of the earthly, but of the heavenly. Our bodies will not be made like the body of Adam in Paradise, but like the Saviour's own glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. No burdens, no depressions, then! No clogs, no confinements! No animal wants! No debasing appetites! No unruly passions! No fluttering heart! No aching head! "The inhabitant shall no more say, I am sick"

"These lively hopes we owe

"To Jesu's dying love:
"We would adore his grace below,

"And sing his power above."

JAN. 28.-" In the wilderness thou hast seen how the Lord thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son, in all the way that ye went." Deut. i. 31.

THE image is parental. In another part of this book, the reference is to a parent bird: "As an eagle

stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings, so the Lord alone did lead him." Here the allusion is to a human parent; and it is worthy of remark, how often the allusion is made in the Scriptures. Thus to mention a few of them"Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." "I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him." "If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father, who is in heaven, give good gifts to them that ask him?" The softer sex is also adduced, and maternal tenderness supplies feeling as well as thought. "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you." "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, she may forget, yet will not I forget thee."

Observe the image which Moses here employs. It regards a child, a young child; for it is too weak to go alone-it is borne. The father is here mentioned, not the mother: for the action of bearing requires strength, rather than tenderness. The mother may have been dead. When one parent is called to supply the place of both, an increase of care and kindness becomes necessary, and is soon felt. Imagine, therefore, an Israelite-deprived, in his journey through the wilderness, of the companion of his life-perhaps as soon as she had brought him forth a son-perhaps in consequence of it. The child, thus bereaved, is endeared by the decease of the mother, and he takes it, and bears it. How? Sometimes in his arms, and often in his bosom. How? Tenderly, softly-now pressing it to his lips, now soothing its cries, now lulling it to reposefeeding it, defending it, supplying all its wants!

All this God does in reality, and infinitely more What is the goodness, the gentleness, the care of the tenderest being on earth, compared with the

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