be hurt by either of them he may bring them into trouble, but he will preserve them from the evil of it, and make it really good for them; and all, because he is still with them in it. Thus he was with Noah in the ark, with Joseph in prison, with Israel in the midst of the sea, with Job upon the dunghill, with David upon the mountains, with the three children in the fiery furnace, with Daniel in the lions' den, with Jeremiah in the dungeon, with Jonah in the whale's belly, and with the Apostles in the common prison and being always with them, how wonderfully did he preserve them, altering often the very course of nature, rather than any thing should hurt them who set him always before them! BEVERIDGE. It He hath scattered the proud, &c. is undoubtedly the secret pride and selfishness of our hearts that obstruct much of the bounty of God's hand in the measure of our graces, and the sweet embraces of his love, which we should otherwise find. The more we let go of ourselves, still the more should we receive of himself. O foolish we, who refuse so blessed an exchange! Of all the evils of our corrupt nature, there is none more connatural or universal than pride, the grand wickedness, self-exalting in our own and others' opinion. Though I will not contest what was the first step in that complicated first sin, yet certainly this of pride was one, and a main ingredient in it; that which unbelief going before, and disobedience following after, were both servantsto; and ever since it cleaves closely to our nature. Augustin says truly, "That which first overcame man, is the last thing he overcomes." Some sins, comparatively, may die before us; but this hath life in it sensibly as long as we. It is as the heart of all, the first living and the last dying; and it hath this advantage, that whereas other sins are fomented by one another, this feeds even on virtues and graces as a moth that breeds in them and consumes them, even in the finest of them, if it be not carefully looked to. This hydra, as one head of it is cut off, another rises up. It will secretly cleave to the best actions, and prey upon them. And therefore is there so much need that we continually watch, and fight, and pray against it, and be restless in the pursuit of real and deep humiliation, daily seeking to advance further in it; to be nothing, and to desire to be nothing; not only to bear, but to love, our own abasement, and the things that procure and help it, to take pleasure in them, so far as may be without sin : yea, even in respect of our sinful feelings, when they are discovered, to love the bringing low of ourselves by them, while we hate and grieve for the sin of them. And, above all, it is requisite to watch ourselves in our best things, that self get not in, or, if it break in or steal in at any time, that it be presently found out and cast out again; to have that established within us, to do all for God, to intend him and his glory in all, and to be willing to advance his glory were it by our own disgrace; not to make raising or pleasing thyself the rule of exercising thy when thou art called parts and graces, to use and bring them forth, but the good of thy brethren, and in that the glory of thy Lord. Now this is indeed to be severed from self and united to him, to have self-love turned into the love of God. And this is his own work; it is above all other hands: therefore, the main combat against pride, and the conquest of it, and the gaining of humility, is certainly by prayer. God bestows himself most upon those who are most abundant in prayer; and those to whom he shows himself most are certainly the most humble.-LEIGHTON. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty "He giveth grace to the away. lowly," pours it out plentifully upon humble hearts. His sweet dews and showers of grace slide off the mountains of pride, and fall on the low valleys of humble hearts, and make them pleasant and fertile. The swelling heart, puffed up with a fancy of fulness, hath no room for grace. It is lifted up, is not hallowed and fitted to receive and contain the graces that descend from above. And again; as the humble heart is most capacious, and, as being emptied and hollowed, can hold most, so it is the most thankful, acknowledges all as received, while the proud cries out that all is his own. The return of glory that is due to grace comes most freely and plentifully from an humble heart: God delights to enrich it with grace, and it delights to return him glory. The more he bestows on it, the more it desires to honour him with all; and the more it doth so, the more readily he bestows still more upon it; and this is the sweet intercourse between God and the humble soul.-LEIGHTON. The nativity and circumcision of John. The prophecy of Zacharias, both of Christ, and of John. 57 Now Elisabeth's full time came that she should be delivered; and she brought forth to circumcise the child; and they called him Zacharias, after the name of his father. 60 And his mother answered and said, "Not so; but he shall be called John. 61 And they said unto her, There is none of thy kindred that is called by this name. 62 And they made signs to his father, how he would have him called. 63 And he asked for a writing table, and wrote, saying, 'His name is John. And they marvelled all. horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David; 70 As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began: 71 That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; - 72 'To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; 75 The oath which he sware to our father Abraham, 74 That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, waxed strong in spirit, and | d was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel. f ver. 14.-g Gen. xvii. 12. Lev. xii. 3.-h ver. 13. In this condition, lost, poor, base, yea cursed, the Lord Christ, the Son of God, found our nature. And in infinite condescension and compassion, i ver. 13.-k ver. 20. Or, things.- ver. 39-m ch, ii. sanctifying a portion of it to himself, 19, 51.-n Gen. xxx. 2. Psalm 1xxx. 17; & lxxxix. 21. Acts xi. 21.-o Joel ii. 28.-p 1 Kings 1, 48. Paalm xli. 13. & lxxii. 18; & cvi. 48.—q Ex. iii. 16; & iv. 31. Psalm exi. 9. ch. vii. 16.- Psalm cxxxii. 17.-s Jer. xxiii. 5, 6; & xxx. 10. Dan. ix. 24. Acts iii. 21. Rom. i. 2.- Lev, xxvi. 42. Psalm xcviii. 3; & cv. 8, 9; & cvi. 45. Ezek. xvi. 60. ver. 54.-u Gen. xii. 3: & xvii. 4; & xxii. 16, 17. Heb. vi. 18, 17.- Rom. vi. 18. 22. Heb. ix. 14.-y Jer. 2 Thes. ii. 13. 2 Tim. 1. ix. xxxii. 39, 40. Eph. iv. 24. Titus ii. 12. 1 Peter i. 15. 2 Peter i. 4.-z Is xl. 3. Mal. iii. 1; & iv. 5. Mat. xi. 10 ver. 17.-a Mark i. 4. ch. iii, 3. Or, for. Or, bowels of the mercy. Or, sunrising, or, branch. Num. xxiv. 17. Is. xi. 1. Zech. iii. 8; & vi. 12. Mal. iv. 2.- Is. ix. 2; & xlii. 7; & xlix. 9. Mat. iv. xvi. Acts xxvi 18.-c ch. ii. 40-d Mat. iii. 1; & xi. 7 READER.-Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed his people, &c. Our nature, in the original constitution of it, in the persons of our first parents, was crowned with honour and dignity. The image of God wherein it was made, and the dominion over the lower world wherewith it was intrusted, made it the seat of excellency, of beauty, and of glory. But of them all it was at once divested and made naked by sin, and laid grovelling in the dust from whence it was taken. And all its internal faculties were invaded by deformed lusts, every thing that might render the whole unlike to God, whose image it had lost. Hence it became the contempt of angels, the dominion of Satan, who being the enemy of the creation, never had anything or place to reign in but the debased nature of man. Nothing was now more vile and base; its glory was utterly departed. It had both lost its peculiar nearness unto God, which was its honour, and was fallen into the greatest distance from him of all creatures, the devils excepted, which was its ignominy and shame. And in this state, as to any thing in itself, it was left to perish eternally. he took it to be his own; in a holy ineffable subsistence in his own person. And herein again, the same nature, so depressed unto the utmost misery, is exalted above the whole creation of God. For, in that nature, God hath set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principalities, and powers, and might and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. Those who engage this nature in the service of sensual lusts and pleasures, who think that its felicity and utmost capacities consist in their satisfaction, with the accomplishment of other earthly temporal desires, are satisfied with it in its state of apostasy from God. But those who have received the light of faith and grace, so as rightly to understand the being and end of that nature whereof they are partakers, cannot but rejoice in its deliverance from the utmost debasement into that glorious exaltation which it hath received in the person of Christ. OWEN. As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, &c. It is said of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he declared unto his disciples in all the Scriptures, the things concerning himself; Luke xxiv. 27. It is therefore manifest that Moses, and the prophets, and all the Scriptures, do give testimony to him and his glory. This is the line of life and light which runs through the whole Old Testament; without the conduct thereof, we can understand nothing aright therein and the neglect hereof is that which makes many as blind in reading the books of it as are the Jews, the same veil being upon their minds. -OWEN. That we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, &c. We are delivered from the cruel servitude of sin and the prince of darkness, not to licentiousness and libertinism, but to true liberty. "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed;" John viii. 36. Delivered from the power of our enemies, to what end? to serve him without fear, that terror which we should be subject to if we were not delivered; and to serve him all the days of our lives. And that all, if many hundred times longer than it is, yet were too little for him. It is not such a servitude as that of Egypt from which we are delivered; that ended to each one with his life; but the misery from which we are redeemed begins but in the fulness of it when life ends and endures for ever.-LEIGHTON. In holiness and righteousness before him. Nor is the true and genuine beauty of the soul anything distinct from its purity and sanctity. This is the true image of its great Creator; that golden crown which unhappily dropped off the head of man when he fell, so that, with the greatest justice we may lament and say, "Woe unto us that we have sinned." And it is the general design and intention of true religion, in all its mysteries and all its precepts, that this crown may be again restored, at least to some part of the human race, and this image again stamped upon them; which image when fully completed and for ever confirmed, will certainly constitute a great part of that happiness which we now hope for and aspire after. Then, we trust, we shall attain to a more full conformity and resemblance to our beloved head. The Father of mercies has made choice of us that we may be holy; the Son of God, blessed for ever, has once for all shed his blood upon earth, in order to purify us, and he daily pours out his spirit from heaven upon us for the same purpose.LEIGHTON. Whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light, &c.—That light which frees the soul, and rescues it from the very kingdom of darkness, must be somewhat beyond that which nature can attain to. All the light of philosophy, natural and moral, is not sufficient; yea, the very knowledge of the law, severed from Christ, serves not so to enlighten and renew the soul as to free it from darkness or ignorance. St. Paul, writing to Jews who knew the law and were instructed in it before their conversion, calls those times wherein Christ was unknown to them, the "times of their ignorance. Though the stars shine ever so bright, and the moon with them in its full, yet they do not altogether make it day; still it is night till the sun appear. Therefore the Hebrew doctors, upon that word of Solomon's, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," say, "Vain even the law until Messiah come." Of him Zacharias says, "The dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light |