we to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for, and hastening to the coming of the day of God?""Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." Do all these plain and pathetical Scriptures stand for ciphers in your eye? methinks they should not. But not to stand upon the proof of it to be a duty, it matters not whether there be an express command for it or not: this that I am speaking of is not so much the duty of godly persons, as the very nature, genius, and spirit indeed of godliness itself. Methinks a godly soul, that is truly touched with divine goodness, influenced by it, and impressed with it, as the needle is with the loadstone, must needs strive powerfully within itself to be in conjunction with it: a holy soul, that after all its wearisome defeats, and shameful disappointments in the creature, finds itself perfectly matched with this infinite, full, and perfect object, must certainly and necessarily be carried, without any other argument, with fervent longings after union to it, and communion with it. The spouse might say concerning Christ, as he concerning her, "Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadib:" and every godly soul may, in some degree, say with that spouse, "My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him I rose up," &c. Tell me, friends, how can divine grace, that well of living water in the soul, choose but spring up into eternal life? I hesitate not to affirm, that that which is of God in the soul must needs carry the soul after God: as it belongs

to heaven, so it will be longing towards heaven. That which is of a divine original must needs have a divine tendency; that which is of divine extraction, will have in it a divine attraction, and pursue a divine perfection. That divine life and spirit that runs through godly souls, doth awaken and exalt, in some measure, all the powers of them into an active and cheerful sympathy with that absolute Good that renders them completely blessed. Holiness and purity of heart will be attracting God more and more to itself; and the more pure our souls are, and the more separate from earthly things, the more earnestly will they endeavour the nearest union that may be with God; and so, by consequence, methinks they must needs, in some sense, desire the removal of that animal life, and dark body that stands in their way; for they know, that that which now letteth will let, (such is the unchangeable nature of it,) till it be laid in the dust, till it be taken out of the way. The thirsty king did but cry for water of the well of Bethlehem, and his champions broke through the host of the Philistines, and fetched it; and will ye not allow the thirsty soul, if not to break through to fetch it, yet at least to break out into an "Oh that one would give me to drink" of the living water, of the fountain of grace, and peace, and love? Will ye allow hunger to break down stone walls? and will ye neither allow the hungry soul to break down these mud walls, nor to wish within itself that

they were broken down? In a word, then, give me leave earnestly to exhort you to an earnest pressing after perfect fruition of, and eternal converse with

God; and, to change the apostle's words, Seeing we are compassed about with so great a divine light, and glory, and brightness, let us be willing and desirous to lay aside this weight of flesh, and this body, that so easily resists us with sins and snares, and run with eagerness to the object that is set before us. me, we will run after thee. Amen, Amen,

Draw

THE

ANGELICAL LIFE.

Are as the angels of God in heaven.—MATTH. xxii. 30.

THE doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the great things of the Christian religion, as they were accounted strange things by all the world when they were first published and preached, so indeed by none less entertained, or rather more opposed, than by the wisest of men living in that age, namely, Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, who were the "disputers of this world," as the apostle's phrase is: a thing of wonderful observation, not only to us in our day, but even to our blessed Lord himself in the days of his flesh, who fetches the cause of it from heaven, and adores the infinite wisdom of God in it-" I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." Amongst other set disputations that the Sadducees held with our Saviour, the one in this chapter is very famous; where they dispute against the resurrection of the