renunciation; no scent after God and glory; no hungerings nor thirstings after spiritual consolations and assurance; no motion toward divine enjoyments and evangelical holiness.

VICISSITUDE.

God's people are travellers.

Sometimes they are in dark lanes and deep vallies; sometimes on the hills of joy, where all is light and cheerful.

WORKS.

Mount Sinai, or the hope of being saved (in part at least) by our own works, may be compared to a dreary rock. The soul of man is the Andromeda, chained to this rock. Satan is the monster, that gapes to devour. Christ is the Perseus, who, by the sword of his Spirit, slays the monster's power, breaks the legal chain, and sets the awakened soul at liberty.

Mount Sinai (i. e. salvation by works) is labour in vain hill. Do all you can, you will never get to the top of it, nor so much as half way up.

The business of Christ's blood is to wash our bad works out, and to wash our good works clean.

WRITINGS.

Some men's writings resemble a dark night, enlivened by a few occasional flashes of lightning.

I was lately asked, what my opinion is of Mr. John Fletcher's writings: my answer was, that in the very few pages which I had perused, the serious pas

sages were dullness double condensed; and the lighter passages, impudence double distilled.

YOUNG CONVERTS.

Young converts are generally great bigots.When we are first converted to God, our brotherly affection too often resembles the narrowness of a river at its first setting out. But, as we advance nearer to the great ocean of all good, the channel widens, and our hearts expand, more and more, until death perfectly unites us to the source of uncreated love.

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EXCELLENT PASSAGES

FROM EMINENT PERSONS*.

ACCEPTANCE.

It is a fallacy of satan's, to argue, from the sinfulness of our duties, to the non-acceptance of them. "Will God," says he, "take such broken groats at thy hand? Is he not a holy God?"-Learn here, to distinguish. There is a twofold acceptance. 1. A thing may be accepted as a payment of a debt; or, 2. As a proof of love.-God, who will not accept of broken money in a way of payment; will nevertheless kindly accept of it from his friends, as a testimony of gratitude.

It is true, O Christian, the debt thou owest to God must be paid in good and lawful money: but here, for thy comfort, Christ, and Christ only, is thy paySend satan to him; bid him bring his charge against Christ, who is ready at God's right

master.

*In the course of various readings, these judicious extracts are professedly transcribed by our author, from the writings of several protestant divines of the last (and a few of the present) age; they will be perused with pleasure and peculiar advantage by those who have a prevailing regard for dignity of sense and plain truth, delivered in honest and open language, unlike the delicate race of our refined preachers, who "scorn to mention hell to ears polite." These selections are a specimen of the subjects that employed the tongues and pens of those intrepid champions in the cause of God, who, having fought the good fight, and exemplarily executed the commission received from their Lord and master, are now set down in the kingdom of heaven, crowned with glory and immortality. EDITOR.

hand to produce a clear account, and show his receipt in full for the whole debt.-As to thy performances and obedience, they fall under a quite contrary class; as mere tokens of thy love and thankfulness to God. And, so gracious is thy heavenly Father, that he accepts thy bent sixpence, and will not throw away thy crooked, broken mite. Love refuses nothing that love sends. Gurnall.

ACTIVITY.

Industry on our parts is not superseded by the greatness and freeness of God's grace. As when a schoolmaster teaches a boy gratis, the youth cannot attain to learning, without some application of his own; and yet it doth not therefore cease to be free, on the teacher's part, because attention is required from the learner; so it is here. Arrowsmith.

AFFLICTIONS.

Sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions.

Dr. Dodd of the last cent.

There is no affliction so small, but we should sink under it, if God upheld us not: and there is no sin so great, but we should commit it, if God restrained us not.

ibid.

A good old Scotch minister used to say, to any of his flock, when they were labouring under afflic tion, "Time is short: and, if your cross is heavy, you have not far to carry it."

When the grace of an afflicted saint is in exercise, his heart is like a garden of roses, or a well of rosewater, which, the more moved and agitated they are, the sweeter is the fragrance they exhale.

Anon.

As no temporal blessing is good enough to be a sign of eternal election; so no temporal affliction is bad enough to be an evidence of reprobation: for the dearest Son of God's love was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Dr. Arrowsmith.

Afflictions scour us of our rust. Adversity, like winter weather, is of use to kill those vermin, which the summer of prosperity is apt to produce and nourish. Dr. Arrowsmith.

Every vessel of mercy must be scoured in order to brightness. And however trees in the wilderness may grow without culture; trees in the garden must be pruned, to be made fruitful: and corn-fields must be broken up, when barren heaths are left untouched.

ibid.

The church below is often in a suffering state. Christ himself was a man of sorrows; nor should his bride be a wife of pleasures.

ibid.

God may cast thee down, but he will not cast thee off.

Mr. Case. Afflictions are blessings to us, when we can bless God for afflictions.

Dyer. God had one Son without sin, but none without sorrow he had one Son without corruption, but no Son without correction.

ibid.

Christian, hath not God taught thee by his word and Spirit, how to read the short hand of his providence? Dost thou not know that the saint's afflictions stand for blessings? Gurnall. Those whom God loves, he takes to pieces; and then puts them together again.

Anon.

Through Christ's satisfaction for sin, the very nature of affliction is changed, with regard to believers. As death, which was at first the wages of sin, is now become a bed of rest (they shall rest upon their beds, saith the prophet); so afflictions are not the rod of God's anger, but the gentle physic of a tender Father. Dr. Crisp.

All the afflictions that a saint is exercised with, are neither too numerous, nor too sharp. A great deal of rust requires a rough file.

Mr. Moses Browne, in conversation, Oct. 24, 1769. If we have the kingdom at last, it is no great matter what we suffer by the way. Dr. Manton.