in grounding your hope of salvation on this, you are still building upon the sand.

"Do you go farther yet? Do you add, to the doing no harm, the attending all the ordinances of God? Do you, at all opportunities, partake of the Lord's Supper? use public and private prayer? hear, and search the Scriptures, and meditate thereon? These things, likewise, ought you to have done from the time you first set your feet towards heaven. Yet these things also are nothing, being alone. They are nothing without the weightier matters of the law; and those you have forgotten; at least, you experience them not; faith, mercy, and the love of God; holiness of heart; heaven opened in the soul. Still, therefore, you build upon the sand.

"Over and above all this, are you zealous of good works? Do you, as you have time, do good unto all men? Do you feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction? Do you visit those that are sick? Relieve them that are in prison? Is any a stranger, and do you take him in? Do you even prophesy in the name of Christ? Then go and learn what is written, "By grace ye are saved through faith. Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but of his own mercy he saved us." Else thou art still on the sand.

"Lord! increase my faith, if I now believe. Else, give me faith, though but as a grain of mustard seed!But, what doth it profit, if a man say "he hath faith, and have not

works? Can faith save him?" Oh no! That faith which hath not works, which does not produce both inward and outward holiness, which does not stamp the whole image of God upon the heart, and purify us as he is pure;-that faith which does not produce the whole of the religion described in the foregoing chapters, is not the faith of the Gospel, not the Christian faith, not the faith which leads to glory. O beware of this, above all other snares of the devil, of resting on an unholy, unsaving, faith! If thou layest stress on this, thou art lost for ever; thou still buildest thy house upon the sand. When the rain descends, and the floods come, it will surely fall, and great will be the fall of it.

"Now, therefore, build thou upon a rock. By the grace of God, know thyself. Know and feel that thou wast shapen in wickedness, and in sin did thy mother conceive thee; and that thou thyself hast been heaping sin upon sin ever since thou couldst discern good from evil. Own thyself guilty of eternal death; and renounce all hope of ever being able to save thyself. Be it all thy hope to be washed in His blood, and purified by His Spirit, who himself bare all thy sins "in his own body on the tree." And abase thyself before Him, in a continual sense of thy total dependence on Him for every good thought, and word, and work, and of thy utter inability to all good, unless He water thee every moment.

"Now weep for your sins, and mourn after God, till he turn your heaviness into joy. And even then,

weep with them that weep, and for them that weep not for themselves. Mourn for the sins and miseries of mankind: and see, just before your eyes, the immense ocean of eternity, without a bottom or a shore, which has already swallowed up millions of millions, and is ready to devour those that yet remain. See here, the house of God eternal in the heavens; there, hell and destruction without a covering. And hence learn the importance of every moment, which just appears, and is gone for ever.

"Now add to your seriousness, meekness of wisdom. Hold an even scale as to all your passions, but in particular as to anger, sorrow, and fear. Calmly acquiesce in whatsoever is the will of God. Learn, in every state wherein you are, therewith to be content. Be mild to the good; be gentle toward all men; but especially toward the evil and unthankful. Beware not only of outward expressions of anger, such as calling thy brother Raca, or Thou fool! but of every inward emotion contrary to love, though it go no further than the heart. Be angry at sin, as an affront offered to the Majesty of heaven; but love the sinner still; like our Lord, who "looked round about upon the Pharisees with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts." He was grieved with the sinners; angry at the sin. Thus be thou " angry and sin not."

"Now do thou hunger and thirst, not "for the meat that perisheth, but for that which endureth unto everlasting life." And beware of

| quenching that thirst (if it is already excited in thy soul) by what is vulgarly called religion, a poor dull farce, a religion of form, of outside show, which leaves the heart still cleaving to the dust as earthly and sensual as ever. Let nothing satisfy thee but the power of godliness, a religion that is spirit and life; the dwelling in God and God in thee; the entering in, by the blood of sprinkling, within the veil, and sitting in heavenly places with Christ Jesus.

"Now, seeing thou canst do all things through Christ strengthening thee, be merciful, as thy Father in heaven is merciful. Love thy neighbour as thyself. Love friends and enemies as thy own soul. And let thy love be long-suffering and patient towards all men. Let it be kind, soft, benign; inspiring thee with the most amicable sweetness, and the most fervent and tender affection. Let it rejoice in the truth, wheresoever it is found, the truth that is after godliness. Enjoy whatsoever brings glory to God, and promotes peace and good-will among

ing holiness in the fear of God." Being, through the power of his grace, purified from pride by deep poverty of spirit; from anger, from every unkind or turbulent passion, by meekness and mercifulness; from every desire but to please and enjoy God, by hunger and thirst after righteousness. Now love the Lord

thy God with all thy heart and all thy strength.

"In a word; let thy religion be the religion of the heart. Let it be deep in thy inmost soul. Be thou little, and base, and mean, and vile (beyond what words can express) in thy own eyes; amazed and humbled to the dust, by the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Be serious. Let the whole stream of thy thoughts, words, and actions flow from the deepest conviction that thou standest on the edge of the great gulf of eternity. Let thy soul be filled with mildness, gentleness, patience, long-suffering towards all men; at the same time that all that is within thee is athirst for God, the living God; longing to awake up after his likeness, and to be satisfied with it. Be thou a lover

of God and of all mankind. In this spirit, do and suffer all things. Thus show thy faith by thy works: thus do the will of thy Father which is in heaven. And as surely as thou now walkest with God on earth thou shalt also reign with him in glory.”

PSALM XLVI.

God is our strength and refuge found, A present help in danger near; Though troubles gather thick around, He is our stay.-We will not fear.

Christ cleanseth the leper; healeth the centurion's servant.

WHEN he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.

2 "And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou

canst make me clean.

3 And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was clean

sed.

6 And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.

7 And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him.

8 The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but 'speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.

9 For I am a man under au

thority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.

10 When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

11 And I say unto you, That ,many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.

12 But the children of the kingdom 'shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

13 And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.

a Mark i. 40, &c. Luke v. 12, &c.-b ch. ix. 30. Mark v. 43. c Lev. xiv. 3, 4, 10. Luke v. 14.-d Luke vii. 1, &c.-e Luke xv. 19, 21. f Ps. cvii. 20.-g Gen. xii. 3. Is. ii. 2, 3; & xi. 10. Mal. i. 11. Luke xiii. 29. Acts x. 45; & xi. 18; & xiv. 27. Rom. xv. 9, &c. Eph. iii. 6. -h ch. xxi. 43. ich. xiii. 42, 50; & xxii. 13; & xxiv. 51 ; & xxv. 30. Luke xiii. 28. 2 Pet. ii. 17. Jude xiii.

Reader. This is one of the many portions of Holy Scripture which are understood as soon as read. I need hardly tell you that the leprosy was a loathsome and fatal disease; and so contagious, that persons infected with it were shut out of society: a lively picture of sin, ruinous to the soul, odious in the sight of God, and that which disqualifies men for the society of heaven.

A centurion was a subaltern officer, or captain of a company, in the Roman army. The history from verse

5 to 13 is the same as that recorded by St. Luke (ch. vii. 1-10); who mentions the additional circumstance, that the centurion sent a deputation to our Lord, and that the message which he had prepared was delivered by his friends.

READER. Great multitudes followed him.-All ought to follow him; for "unto him shall the gathering of the people be." Of the multitudes who followed Christ, how few were faithful and true disciples! The multitude cried out, Crucify him!

Then came a leper and worshipped him. Thus let us come to Christ with deep humility and reverence.

Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst.-A persuasion of Christ's power lies at the foundation of faith. Meditation on the various manifestations of the Saviour's omnipotence may therefore become one means of strengthening

our faith. If thou wilt.-Believers may rest satisfied that God can confer temporal good things upon them, and that he will do so, if the grant, faithfully and humbly desired, be consistent with his wisdom and goodness; but this they must leave with Him. As to spiritual blessings, we know that there are none too great to be vouchsafed to those who truly believe in Christ. But these, also, let us remember, are bestowed because God wills the gift; they are the effects of free, unmerited favour. Thou canst.-Yes; thy merits, O blessed Jesus, are sufficient to atone for every transgression, and to purchase everything good and needful for our souls; thy grace is able to subdue every corruption, and to fill us with all the fulness of God. Thou canst make me clean. Thou canst heal the disease of sin, and deliver from its disgrace, and its wretched consequences.

I will.-How plainly the Deity of Christ appears in this declaration and exercise of sovereign and independent power!

Be thou clean.-This is the word which runs throughout the Gospel, in answer to the application of every faithful soul that seeks to be saved from the leprosy of sin. It is a word full of mercy, and of power. The priest under the law could pronounce men unclean or clean; Jesus Christ can make men clean. In all things he hath the pre-eminence. Rom. viii. 3.

Show thyself to the priest.-Notwithstanding the degeneracy of the priesthood in those days. And offer the gifts.

One instance, among

Then came unto him a centurion.— A heathen soldier: but Christ does not regard men's persons-he does not consider who we are, but what we are, when we come to him. This centurion, like Cornelius, was a pious man. The life and occupation of a soldier do not form any real excuse for impiety and unbelief. No man's lawful business or profession, of itself, keeps him at a distance from God.

Beseeching him.-Contrast this with the conduct of Naaman, 2 Kings v. 9-12..

My servant. Thus should we

take an interest in the welfare of all those who are in any way dependent upon us, and subject to our care or influence.

I am not worthy.-Such was his humility. And his humility had not been impaired by the gracious promises which he had received. The condescension of Jesus seemed to make him even more humble: and such will be the effect of divine favour bestowed upon ourselves, if rightly understood and received.

But speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.-Such was his faith. Humility and faith are kindred graces, and often appear in company with each other. Perhaps this centurion's faith was stronger and more simple than that of some other persons, who made a great effort in order to introduce a paraly