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cannot surely be fo abfurd as to fuppose, God gave us riches as inftances of his favour, from any particular regard he had for us. If not, he gave them for other purposes. What these purposes are, we have frequent intimations from fcripture. We are ordered to use our talents in proportion to their value; to be liberal to the poor; and to distribute our means, according to the abilities which God hath given us.

Thus then, if riches increase, instead of setting our hearts upon them-that is, instead of making them the means of a mere felf-indulgence, we fhould make to ourselves friends of this mammon of unrighteousness; and hope, through the mercies of God in Christ, they may affift in procuring us a joyful fentence in the laft great day.

XIII.

Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts.

Matt. xv. 19.

EVIL thoughts fprout up in every heart. If they are indulged, they foon corrupt it; but if checked, and immediately discharged, they produce no bad effect.-For the fake, however, of fome well-meaning people, who turn every bad thought into a fin, I fhould wish to offer a fort of criterion.

In the cafe of malice, for inftance, you conceive a malicious thought against an enemy. A wish arifes, that he may be ruined-you take a pleasure in hearing of any mischief that may befal him. You afk, is not this malice?

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Let us examine: Do you indulge thefe thoughts? No.-Do you think them wrong, and immediately reject them? Yes.—If had it in your power, would you wish to ruin your enemy? By no means, certainly. Would you be glad to do him a fervice? I think I should.-Why

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then, notwithstanding your malicious thoughts, you have no malice in your heart. Your bad thoughts mark only your malevolence of nature: your good refolutions are the heavenly work of grace upon your affections.

The fame mode of reasoning may be applied to other bad thoughts. The first rise of them in the mind fhews only the natural pravity of hu man nature the kind affections are afterwards introduced by the grace of God.

XIV.

I fee the heavens opened, and the Son of Man ftanding on the right hand of God.—Acts, vii. 55.

THE imagination is not always the most usefully employed in matters of religion. Here it is: the holy martyr, St. Stephen, animates himfelf in the midst of his fufferings by feeing, in a beatific vision, the happiness that awaited him after death. Inftead of letting his mind rest on the cruel fufferings he underwent, he fixed it, by an ardent act of faith, upon a scene which occupied all his thoughts-he faw heaven opened, and Jefus fitting on the right hand of God.

This account of St. Stephen's martyrdom, feems to be given us as the proper appendage of a state of trial; as an incentive to make us bear more properly the different fituations in which it engages us. In fome happy hour, when we are furrounded with the gaieties of the world, and prone to give way to intemperate joy, let us check the delirium. Cheerfulness is the garb

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of religion: a gloomy melancholy is religion in mourning, which is a drefs it fhould feldom affume; intemperate joy is religion intoxicated. This world is not meant as a ftate of enjoyment.. When we would indulge our minds, therefore, with real enjoyment, let us banish all the little, felfifh joys of this world, by letting our imagina tion loose among the glories of eternity; and seeing, with the dying martyr, heaven opened, and Jefus fitting at the right hand of God.

Again, in the hour of diftrefs, when the world fcowls upon us, and all is darkness around, let us endeavour to catch a ray of light through the gloom that furrounds us-let us carry our imagination, on the wings of faith, into the celestial regions above; and comfort ourselves with the thoughts of feeing heaven opened, and Jefus fitting on the right hand of God.

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