company, good thoughts solace, instruct, and entertain the mind like good company. And this is one great advantage of retirement, that a man may choose what company he pleases from within himself.

But as in the world we oftener light into bad company than good, so likewise even in solitude we are oftener troubled with impertinent and unprofitable thoughts, than entertained with agreeable and useful ones. And a person who has so far lost the command of himself as to lie at the mercy of every foolish or vexatious thought, is much in the same situation as a host, whose house is open to all comers ; whom, though ever so noisy, rude, and troublesome, he cannot get rid of; but with this difference, that the latter hath some recompense for his trouble; the former none at all, but is robbed of his peace and quiet for nothing.

And let no one imagine, as too many are apt to do, that it is a matter of indifference what thoughts he entertains in his heart, since the reason of things concurs with the testimony of Scripture to assure us, that "the thought of foolishness," when allowed by us, "is itself sin." Therefore, in the excellent words of an excellent poet",

Guard well thy thoughts; our thoughts are heard in heaven.

"Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are "the issues of life."

And thou Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets

b Dr. YOUNG.

are hid, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy name, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

332

DISCOURSE XXIII.

LIFE A JOURNEY.

PSALM CXIX. 19.

I am a stranger in the earth.

AND was it, then, peculiar to the son of Jesse, the sweet Psalmist of Israel, to be so? No, surely; it is a character in which every son of Adam appears and acts upon the stage of life. but that home is in heaven.

We have all a home;
We are strangers in

the earth; we are here in a foreign land, through which we travel to our native country, there to possess everlasting habitations. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, having, in the eleventh chapter, celebrated the Old Testament worthies, and the wonders which they wrought, through the divine principle that was in them, sums up the account in the following words-" These all died in faith, not "having received the promises, but having seen them "afar off, and were persuaded of them, and em"braced them, and confessed that they were strang"ers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say "such things, declare plainly, that they seek a coun"try. And truly, if they had been mindful of that

country from whence they came out, they might "have had opportunity to have returned; but now

"they desire a better country, that is an heavenly: "wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their "God: for he hath prepared for them a city."

Agreeably to this account, if we look into the story of those friends and favourites of heaven, the ancestors of the Israelitish nation, we find them sojourning in a land that was not theirs; dwelling only in tents, soon pitched, and as soon removed again; having no ground of their own to set their foot on, save only a possession of a burying place (and that purchased of the inhabitants), where they might rest from their travels, till they shall pass, at the resurrection of the just, to their durable inheritance in the kingdom of God.

Such was Jacob's notion of human life, expressed in his answer to the Egyptian monarch, who had inquired his age-"The days of the years of my pil"grimage," says the patriarch, "are an hundred and thirty years; few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage."

Look at the posterity of Jacob, the chosen people of the Most High, after they had been delivered from the house of bondage. View them likewise dwelling in tents; sojourning for forty years in a vast and howling wilderness; attacked by enemies; stung by serpents; and in danger of perishing for want of provisions; but still supported by the hand of Providence, and at length conducted to the land of promise. Consider, O Christian, this history, and in it behold thy pictured life!

When the children of Israel had taken possession of Canaan, they might be said, in some sense, to have obtained a settlement. But, in truth and propriety, what settlement can any man be said to have obtained, to whom will soon be brought (and he knows not how soon) the message which was brought to king Hezekiah," Set thine house in order, for thou "must die!" This was the case with the Israelites, no less after their settlement in the land of Canaan than before it. Notwithstanding, therefore, the rest which God had there given them, you find David, in the ninety-fifth Psalm, speaking of another future and distant rest, still remaining for the people of God, in a better country, that is, an heavenly. And, accordingly, though settled in the promised land, you hear him still crying out, in the words of the text "I am a stranger in the earth.”

And what shall we say with regard to the Son of God himself, when for us and for our salvation, in the form of man, he honoured this world with his presence? Did he not pass through it as a foreigner returning to the celestial mansions from whence he descended? Did not he live and act as such, and was he not treated as such by those to whom he came? Yes, verily, he was a stranger and a sojourner here below, as all his fathers according to the flesh were before him, and as all his children according to the spirit have been, and must be, after him upon the earth. The rule is a general one, and admits of no exception.

A consideration thus striking and affecting, cannot be without its use in the regulation of our manners: