but in some good fits of devotion, obtain nothing but denials. He dares not press to God's footstool in his own name: he is conscious enough of his own unworthiness; but he comes in the gracious and powerful name of his righteous Mediator, in whom he knows he cannot but be accepted; and, in an humble boldness, for his own sake craves mercy. No man is either more awful or more confident. When he hath put up his petition to the King of heaven, he presumes not to stint the time or manner of God's condescent; but patiently and faithfully waits for the good hour, and leaves himself upon that infinite wisdom and goodness. He doth not affect length so much, as fervour: neither so much minds his tongue, as his heart. His prayers are suited according to the degrees of the benefits sued for. He, therefore, begs grace absolutely, and temporal blessings with limitation; and is accordingly affected with the grant. Neither is he more earnest in craving mercies, than he is zealously desirous to be retributory to God when he hath received them; not more heartily seeking to be rich in grace, than to improve his graces to the honour and advantage of the bestower. With an awful and broken heart, doth he make his addresses to that Infinite Majesty, from whose presence he returns with comfort and joy. His soul is constantly fixed there, whither he pours it out. Distraction and distrust are shut out from his closet, and he is so taken up with his devotion, as one that makes it his work to pray. And, when he hath offered up his sacrifices unto God, his faith listens, and looks in at the door of heaven to know how they are taken.-HALL. In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.-Were the matter referred to our modelling, we would assign the church constant peace and prosperity for her portion, and not consent that the least air of trouble should come near her. We would have no enemies to molest her, nor stir against her, or if they did stir, we would have them to be presently repressed; and these, in our judgment, would be the fairest and most glorious tokens of his love and power whose spouse she is. But this carnal wisdom is enmity against God, and to the glory of God, which rises so often out of the wrath of his enemies. Had God caused Pharaoh to yield at the very first to the release of his people, where had been the fame of those miraculous judgments in Egypt and mercies on the Israelites, the one setting out and illustrating the other? God is more careful of his own glory than we can be, and the greater height man's wrath arises to, the more honour shall arise to him out of it. Did not his omnipotency shine brighter in the flames of that furnace into which the children were cast, than if the king's wrath had been at first cooled? Certainly, the more both it and the furnace had their heat augmented, the more was God glorified. Whether its course be longer or shorter, 4 761 13 And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. b с 14 I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, "even as I am not of the world. 15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them through thy truth: "thy word is truth. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be 'sanctified through the truth. a ch. xii. 23; & xiii. 32.-6 Dan. vii. 14. Mat. xi. 27; & xxviii. 18. ch. iii. 35; & v. 27. 1 Cor. xv. 25, 27. Phil. ii. 10. Heb. ii. 8.-c ver. 6, 9, 24. ch. vi. 37.-d -ych. xviii. 9. 1 John ii. 19.-2 ch. vi. 70; & xiii. 18.a Ps. cix. 8. Acts i. 20.-6 ver. 8.-c ch. xv. 18, 19. 1. John iii. 13.- ch. viii. 23; ver. 16.- Mat. vi. 13. Gal. 4. 2 Thes. ii. 3.-1 John v. 14.- ver. 14.-g ch. xv. Ps. cxix. 142, 151. ch. viii. 40.-i ch. xx. 21.-k i Cor. i. 3. Acts xv. 9. Eph. v. 26. 1 Pet. i. 22.-h 2 Sam, vit. 23. 2, 50. I Thes. iv. 7. Heb. x. 10.- Or, truly sanctified. READER.-Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee. - The transcendent and supreme end of all, is the glory of God; all things returning in a most beautiful circle to this, as the original source from which they at first took their rise. The end of true religion, as far as it regards us, which is immediately connected with the former, and serves in a most glorious manner to promote it, is the salvation and happiness of mankind.-LEIGHTON. This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.-God calls us from carnal and temporal things, to mind heaven and eternal glory. He sees and observes how eager we are in prosecuting of the world's vanities, and therefore calls upon us to leave doting upon such transitory and unsatisfying trifles, and to mind the things that belong to our everlasting peace; not to be conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of our minds, that we "may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God," Rom. xii. 2. To "set our affections upon things above, and not upon things that are upon the earth," Col. iii. 2. To "seek the kingdom of God and his 18. liii. 11. Jer. ix. 24.-e 1 Cor. viii. 4. 1 Thes. i. 9. righteousness," Mat. vi. 33, in the ch. iii. 34; & v. 26, 87; & vi. 29, 57; & vii. 29; & x. 36: & xi. 42.-g ch. xiii. 31; & xiv. 13.-h ch. iv. 34; & v. 36; & ix. 3; & xix. 30-i cli. xiv. 31; & xv. 10.- ch. i. 1, first place. Hence it is styled "an 2; & x. 50: & xiv. 9. Phil. ii. 6. Col. i. 15, 17. Heb. heavenly calling," Heb. iii. 1; and 3, 10-7 ver. 26. Ps. xxii. 22.-m ver. 2, 9, 11. ch. vi.37, 39; & x. 29; & xv. 19.-n ch. viii. 28; & xii. 49; & xiv. 10.-o ver. 25. ch. xvi. 27, 30.-p 1 John v. 19.-q ch. xvi, 15.-r ch. xiii. 1 ; & xvi. 28.-s Pet. i, 5. Jude i.- ver. 21, &c.-u ch. x. 30. ch. vi. 39: & x. 28. Heb. il. 13. an "high calling," Phil. iii. 14, be cause we are called by it to look after high and heavenly things. He that made us hath so much kindness for us, that it pities him to see us moil and toil, and spend our strength and labour about such low and pitiful, such impertinent and unnecessary, things, which himself knows can never satisfy us, and therefore he calls and invites us to himself, and to the enjoyment of his own perfections, which are able to fill and satiate our immortal souls. BEVERIDGE. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.Christ is glorious, in the very same degree with his Eternal Father; coequal and co-essential with him; arrayed with light and majesty; controlling all the powers of heaven: who, with an awful reverence, bow at his dread commands, and, with a winged speed, fulfil his pleasure. Yea, the Apostle hath almost racked and tortured language for an expression of it: Heb. i. 3. He is "the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person." Why! what is glory, but the lustre of excellence? Brightness itself is but the streaming forth of glory. So that, to be the brightness of his Father's glory, is to be the glory of his glory. It was a high and excellent conception of that philosopher who said, That light was but the shadow of God: if then, God's shadow be so pure and radiant, how infinitely illustrious is his brightness; and the brightness of that which is most illustrious in God, his glory? And yet, this bright and glorious God was pleased to eclipse his light, lay aside his rays, and immure himself in a house of clay. He, who was "in the form of God," took upon him "the form of a servant." He, who "thought it not robbery to be equal with God," thought it no shame to be made inferior to the angels, by becoming man; yea, and inferior to man, by becoming a curse for them. And, certainly, if our love be commended and heightened by the great advantages we quit for the sake of others, how infinitely inexpressible must the love of Christ towards us be! who, being the ever-blessed God, by whose power all things were created and do subsist, dwelling in unapproachable light and glory, attended with legions of angels-that he should be pleased to forsake his palace, discard his retinue, shrink up himself into a poor helpless infant, shroud and veil all his Godhead, but only what sometimes displayed itself in the miracles which he wrought, and scarce more in these than in his patient suffering—what could persuade him to so great an abasement, but only the greatness of his love? for love is of an assimilating and transforming nature: and therefore, saith the Apostle, Heb. ii. 14; "Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself took part of the same; that, through death, he might destroy him that hath the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage."-HOPKINS. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.-The word sancti fies both by particular exhortation to the study and exercise of those graces, sometimes pressing one, and sometimes another, and by right representing to them their objects. The word feeds faith, by setting before it the free grace of God, his rich promises, and his power and truth to perform them all, shews it the strength of the new covenant, not depending upon itself, but holding in Christ, in whom all the promises of God are yea and amen; and drawing faith still to rest more entirely upon his righteousness. It feeds repentance, by making the vileness and deformity of sin daily more clear and visible. Still as more of the word hath admission into the soul, the more it hates sin, sin being the more discovered and the better known in its own native colour: as the more light there is in a house, the more anything in it that is uncleanly or deformed is seen or disliked. Likewise it increaseth love to God, by opening up still more and more of his infinite excellency and loveliness. As it borrows the resemblance of the vilest things in nature to express the foulness and hatefulness of sin, so all the beauties and dignities that are in all the creatures are called together in the word, to give us some small scantling of that Uncreated Beauty which alone deserves to be loved. Thus might its fitness be instanced in respect to all other graces. But above all other considerations, this is observable in the word as the increaser of grace, that it holds forth Jesus Christ to our view to look upon, not only as the perfect pattern, but as the full fountain of all grace, from "whose fulness we all receive." The contemplating of him as the perfect image of God, and then drawing from him as having in himself a treasure for us, these give the soul more of that image in which consists truly spiritual growth. This the Apostle expresseth excellently, 2 Cor. iii. 18, speaking of the ministry of the Gospel revealing Christ, that "beholding in him," as it is, ch. iv. ver. 6, "in his face," "the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord:" not only that we may take the copy of his graces, but have a share of them.LEIGHTON. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.-That which Papists fabulously say of some of their saints, that they received the impression of the wounds of Christ in their body, is true, in a spiritual sense, of the soul of every one that is indeed a saint and a believer it takes the very print of his death by beholding him, and "dies to sin ;" and then takes that of his rising again, and "lives to righteousness. As it applies it to "justify," so to "mortify," drawing virtue from it. Thus said one, "Christ aimed at this in all those sufferings which, with so much love, he went through; and shall I disappoint him, and not serve his end?"-LEIGHTON. HYMN. Saviour, hail! enthroned in glory, All the heavenly hosts adore thee, |