will be his portion, and establishment in the truth his exceeding great reward; affection to the Godhead will lead him on; and the strength which sustaineth the humble will be his reward. the strength of the Lord shall his right hand get victory-even in the name of the Lord of Hosts. His soul also shall flourish with the fruits of righteousness from the seed of the Word, which liveth and abideth for ever."

Thus delivered from prepossessions of all other masters, and arrayed in the raiment of humility and love, the soul should advance to the meeting of her God; and she should call a muster of all her faculties, and have all her poor graces in attendance, and any thing she knows of his excellent works and exalted ways she should summon up to her remembrance: her understanding she should quicken, her memory refresh, her imagination stimulate, her affections cherish, and her conscience arouse. All that is within her should be stirred up, her whole glory should awake, and her whole beauty display itself, for the meeting of her King. As his hand-maiden she should meet him ; his own handy-work, though sore defaced, yet seeking restoration ; his humble, because offending servant-yet nothing slavish, though humble-nothing superstitious, though devout

nothing tame, though modest in her demeanour; but quick, and ready, all addressed and wound up for her Maker's will.

How different the ordinary proceeding of Christians, who with timorous, mistrustful spirits, with

an abeyance of intellect and a dwarfish reduction of their natural powers, enter to the conference of the word of God! The natural powers of man are to be mistrusted, doubtless, as the willing instruments of the evil one: but they must be honoured also as the necessary instruments of the Spirit of God, whose operation is a dream, if it be not through knowledge, intellect, conscience, and action. Now Christians, heedless of this grand regeneration of the mighty instruments of thought and action,at the same timecoveting hard after holy attainments, do often resign the mastery of themselves, are at once taken into the current of the religious world—whirling around the eddy of some popular leader—and so drifted, I will not say from godliness, but drifted certainly from that noble, manly, and independent course, which under steerage of the word of God, they might have safely pursued for the dignity and salvation of their immortal souls. Meanwhile these popular leaders, finding no necessity for strenuous endeavours and high science in the ways of God, but having a gathering host to follow them, deviate from the ways of deep and penetrating thought—refuse the contest with the literary and accomplished enemies of the faith-bring a contempt upon that cause in which mighty men did formerly gird themselves to the combat-and so cast the stumbling-block of a mistaken paltriness between enlightened men and the cross of Christ! So far from this simple-mindedness (but its proper name is feeble-mindedness,) Christians should be-as aforetime in this island they were wont to be—the princes of human intellect, the lights of the world, the salt of the political and social state. And till they come forth from the swaddling bands in which foreign schools have girt them, and walk boldly upon the high places of human understanding, they will never obtain that influence in the upper regions of knowledge and power of which unfortunately they have not the apostolic unction to be in quest. Nor will they ever become the master and commanding spirits of the time, until they cast off the wrinkled and withered skin of an obsolete age, and clothe themselves with intelligence as with a garment, and bring forth the fruits of power and of love and of a sound mind.

While we thus invocate, to the reading of the Word, the highest strains of the human soul, mistake us not as derogating from the office of the Spirit of God. Far be it from any Christian, much farther from any Christian pastor, to

, withdraw from God the honour which is every where his due, but there, most of all his due where the human mind laboured alone for thousands of years, and laboured with no success—viz. the regeneration of itself, and its restoration to the lost semblance of the divinity:-Oh! let him be reverently inquired after, devoutly waited on, and most thankfully acknowledged in every step of progress from the soul's fresh awakening out of her dark oblivious sleep-even to her ultimate attainment upon earth and full accomplishment for heaven. And that there may be a fuller choir of

a

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PREPARATION FOR CONSULTING, &c. awakened men to advance his honour and glory here on earth—and hereafter in heaven abovelet the saints bestir themselves like angels, and the ministers of religion like archangels strong! And now at length let us have a demonstration made of all that is noble in thought, and generous in action, and devoted in piety, for bestirring this lethargic age, and breaking the bands of hell, and redeeming the whole world to the service of its God and King!

As He doth know this to be the desire and aim of the preceding Discourse, so may

it to the salvation of many souls, that to his poor servant, covered over with iniquities, may flow the forgiveness and honour of those who turn many from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to the service of the living God.

he prosper

ORATION II.

JOHN V. 39. SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES.

THE MANNER OF CONSULTING THE ORACLES OF GOD.

God, being ever willing and ever ready to second and succeed his word, and having a most longing anxiety for the recovery of all men; when his Word fails of converting the soul, (as it doth too often) that failure cannot be due to any omission upon

his

part, but to some omission or transgression upon ours.

If

any one, however, incline to refer the failure to a want of willingness, or a withholding of power, upon the part of God, whereof it is not given unto man to discover or remove the cause—then in this his opinion, such a one must needs remain beyond the reach of help. If he think that, though possessed of revelation, we are yet in the dark as to the putting forth of divine power—that to a sinner's salvation there is an element still undisclosed that the information delivered in the Scriptures is not enough and the means there prescribed not adequate, and the divine blessing there promised not to be surely calculated on; but that over and beyond all, there is something to be tarried for-then, for one so opinioned, there is nothing but to tarry.