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lation on account of our ignorance, cannot be bright; for if, when the great Teacher told us of earthly things, we could not understand them, how much less if he should tell us of heavenly things, and least of all if he should reveal to us the mysteries of his eternal Godhead!

Alas! am not I, in some respects, a Christian heathen, if I may be allowed the expression, while I pay my devotions to the unknown God? I walk in the twilight, I adore in a cloud, and worship I know not whom. But do I not worship God? well, what is God? Is he not a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable; wise, powerful, holy, just, good, gracious, faithful, omniscient, and omnipresent? But what it is to be infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, I neither can conceive nor tell. I stretch my thoughts on either hand in his infinity, till I lose myself in the unfathomable abyss; I revolve his eternal duration ere time began, and when time shall be no more, till all my thoughts are swallowed up. But when I have done my utmost, my conceptions are only forming some grand ideas of a creature; for as my thoughts of his infinity are circumscribed within bounds, and of his eternity come to an end, they belong to a creature, and not to the Creator. How, then, can I repair the indignity done to his majesty by my grovelling meditations? Only thus, by confessing, that after all my stretch, his every perfection is still infinitely beyond all that I can say or think.

Hence, let me join reverence with my ignorance; holy dread, with my shallow conceptions of God; and ardent love, and profound humility, with all my devotions. Mindful that the awful mystery could be re

vealed by none, because none hath seen, none hath known God, let me be thankful, that "the only-begotten Son, who lay in the Father's bosom, hath declared him."

Every divine perfection, every adorable attribute, is more than sufficient to engross the study and attention of men and angels for ever; and the more they search, and the longer they learn, the more they see and confess God to be infinite and unknown.

When shall that glorious morning dawn, when my ignorance, like the early fogs that fly the rising sun, shall be no more, and the great Apostle and HighPriest of our profession, shall, in the light of glory, declare to me the God whom now at best I ignorantly adore?

MEDITATION LXVIII.

NOTHING CAN PURCHASE CHRIST FROM THE SOUL.

Under sail, Feb. 13, 1759.

WHAT is thy Beloved more than another belov

ed?" was once asked of the spouse by those who knew him not so well as she did. Now, worldlings! let me hear what you will lay in the balance with my Beloved, that, in refusing your largest offers, it may appear how much I esteem my dearest Lord, and best beloved. Will ye, then, give me gold and silver till I can desire, till I can stow no more? Ah! your heaps of shining dust will not, cannot purchase him from me. Will ye give me titles, honour, and glory for him? Ah! empty sounds shall never take away from me, him who is true, solid, and substantial bliss,

Will ye give me the earth for my possession, subjugate its kingdoms to my sway, tell over the stars into mine inheritance, and make the whole universe mine own? This, even all this, will not balance the loss of my Beloved; for, compared with his excellencies, all things are but loss and dung. Finally, will ye give me another beloved instead of him? But where can such an one be found? In him all perfections meet, in him all glories shine; in him all excellencies reside, in him all plenitude abounds. All I can wish for, or desire, is to be found in him; yea, more than I can receive superabounds in him. Now, have ye any thing in reserve to offer me for him? No!Then take up, and remove your dust and ashes, food for worms, and fuel for the flames. These could not all purchase from me one kiss of his mouth, one glance of his countenance, and far less the Beloved himself. But, one word of comfort to you ere you go. Though I may not, cannot, will not sell my part and interest in my dearest Lord, yet, on his own terms, you may be possessed of him in all his glorious fulness, in whom alone you can be blessed, and without whom, in the midst of all your plenty, you must be extremely poor, and exquisitely miserable.

But now, my soul! one reproof to thee. Thou wilt not sell thine interest in Christ for any thing, nor exchange thy portion for the universe: Why, then, should not Christ, and an interest in him, be an all-sufficiency to thee? And if the universe could not content thee without Christ, why should not Christ content thee without the least dust of the universe?

MEDITATION LXIX.

TORMENT.

Under sail, Feb. 14, 1759.

MEN, and I among the rest, have a mistaken no

tion of torment. I shudder to hear of protracted agonies on the dying malefactor;-to hear of the rack (invented by boundless rage, and improved by infernal cruelty) decreed by the powerful offended party, to torture to death my fellow-creature. Yea, the groans of dying mortals pierce mine ears, and make me sharer of their pains. But what are all human inventions, when we look beyond them? What is the glittering sword, or sharpened axe? What the musket, with its deadly explosion? What the gibbet, with ten thousand spectators? What the bastinadoing clubs, the stamping elephant, the quartering horses? What the piked barrels, the breaking wheel, the boots and thumbkins, the suffocating dungeon, or the calcinating flame? How do they all disappear before these words-DIVINE VENGEANCE-ETERNAL WRATH!

But how do the tormentors fall short of their de signs, when the guilty wretch, a parricide, or a regicide, is condemned to be put to the torture so long every day, and by unfriendly intermissions of the rack, death is parcelled out in the most cruel manner which can be invented, till justice is satisfied, cruelty glutted, or till the sufferer, sinking under his pains, expires, and is no more! Now, suppose this miserable wretch (whom we conclude happy, because the scene no more affects our eyes) to die impenitent; and suppose him also to have his choice, whether to

stay in the anguish of the invisible world, or to return to the torments he lately left. How soon should we see him fondly (so to speak) embrace the flames, present his gaping wounds to the boiling oil and scalding lead, and his naked body to the scourging steel, and weary his tormentors! Such is the difference between the rage of man and the wrath of the Almighty. That reaches to the body, but this, in all its terrors, transfixes the soul. The one, finite in its nature, terminates in death; the other, infinite in its degrees, preys on every faculty, and swallows up the whole soul, and in its duration measures with eternity.

How amazing the love of the Father that gave his Son for sinners! How amazing the love of the Son that gave his life a ransom for many! that sustained the burning load of his Almighty Father's wrath, that our torments might sit light, and that our last pangs might translate us into the joy of our Lord.

MEDITATION LXX.

THE SOUL'S GROWTH.

Under sail, Feb. 15, 1759.

FROM my present ignorance, gloomy thoughts

sometimes arise, but by some considerations I shall turn this shadow of death into the morning.

When I look back a few years, I recollect, that my thoughts about common things were much contracted to what they are now. "When I was a child, I thought as a child;" for though I heard surrounding sounds, and the speeches of all about me, yet they were too vast for me to comprehend; nor could

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