godly in the present world." Zeal is to appear in every thing. here. Our faith is to be active as well as real; for unless it produce good works it is "dead, being alone." Our hope is not only to be living, but lively. "We are to love one another." But is this all? "We are to love one another with a pure heart, fervently." "We are to pray." But is this all? "We are to pray and not to faint." "Then shall they find me," says God, "when they seek me with all their heart." The apostle, in addressing the Romans, says, "Be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." The Greek word is "boiling hot," in opposition not to coldness only, but to lukewarmness. And we should remember the address of our Saviour to the professors of Laodicea :—“ Because thou art neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth." We are engaged in running a race, and surely a race requires haste; and thus it is that we are enjoined "so to run that ye may obtain.” But we are not to be concerned only to grow in grace ourselves, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, but this haste will apply, Thirdly, to our efforts in seeking the welfare of others. This also has devolved upon us. We are required to "look every man, not on his own things, but on the things of others." We are not only required to be diligent in gaining good, but in doing good. "As we have opportunity," we are to "do good unto all men, especially to them who are of the household of faith." There are a thousand ways in which we may be useful, if we are so disposed; "and be not weary," says the apostle, "in well-doing, for in due season ye shall reap if ye faint not." We should be concerned to obtain the Saviour's approbation, who said of one of the churches, "Thou hast laboured and hast not fainted; and I know thy works, and the last to be more than the first." And there should be no delay here— no indolence here. Solomon says, "Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it. Say not unto thy neighbour, Go, and come again, and to-morrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee." We are commanded, therefore, to make haste to be useful.

FEB. 1.-How can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred? Esther viii. 6.

RELATIVE affection, so far from being sinful, is amiable and praiseworthy. Alas, there are but few Christians but have some irreligious friends and relations. Surely for them they may and ought to be peculiarly concerned. There is a father who is thinking of his unruly son, and saying, "My son, if thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine." There is a sister sorrowing over an ungodly brother; a believing wife mourning over an unbelieving husband. And how natural it is, how becoming, thus to say with Esther, "How can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?" But the concern of the Christian is not to be confined here. It must reach others; it must extend to strangers, and even to enemies. It must cause us to resemble Paul, who said to Agrippa, "I would to God that not only thou, but all that hear me this day, were both almost and altogether such as I am, except these bonds." This disposition is always the result of divine grace. Divine grace always produces a concern for the welfare of others. A Christian cannot conceal the rich and heavenly stores he has discovered, but will rather be for making them known. As the woman of Samaria felt, so will be his feelings and conduct: he will say,—

"Now will I tell to sinners round
What a dear Saviour I have found;
I'll point to his redeeming blood,
And say, Behold the way to God."

Nor have Christians to go out of their own proper stations for this, but may preach to their children, their servants, their friends, and their neighbours. They need not go abroad as foreign missionaries, but they may be Home Missionaries,—such as our Saviour would make the delivered demoniac. He besought the Saviour that he might be with him. No, says he; but, "Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee." All Christians are under a twofold obligation to do this. First, An obligation of gratitude. Where much has been forgiven, the same ought to love much. And, Secondly, An obligation of duty. We should, therefore, seek to be useful. We may go to our fellow-sinners and say, I was once in the same state with you; oh that you were now in

the same condition with me! Oh that the Lord would open my mouth, that I might show you what a change I have experienced in having been delivered from this present evil world, from the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son! Oh, come, taste, and see for yourselves that the Lord is good. Thus we have seen that a man cannot keep his religion to himself. If he has any it will show itself; "for we cannot," said the apostles, "but speak the things which we have seen and heard." "And," says our Saviour, "if these should hold their peace, the very stones would cry out."

FEB. 2.-That your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment. Phil. i. 9.

AFTER all we know of Christ and divine things, how slight is our acquaintance with the one or the other! There is a hope laid up for the Christian in heaven, but what know we of it as yet? Believers partake of a joy, but that joy is "unspeakable and full of glory." The Saviour, therefore, addressing Nathanael, says, "Thou shalt see greater things than these." The apostle prays for the Ephesians, that they might be "able to comprehend, with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that they might be filled with all the fulness of God." He allows that this love is incomprehensible, yet he prays that they may be able to comprehend it; he allows that it passeth knowledge, and yet desires that they may know it; that is, that they may have more enlarged and influential views of it. There is not only a real but a wonderful difference as to knowledge between believers and others, and between their present and their future state, as much difference as between night and day. But in God's light they see light; that is, they see things divinely; or, as Archbishop Usher expresses it, "As the sun can only be seen by its own shining, so God can only be known by his own revelation." The apostle speaks of God's revealing his Son in him, as well as to him; and when the eyes of our understanding are enlightened by the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, in the knowledge of Christ, there are no new revelations made to the mind; that is, no new revelations that are new in themselves: they are indeed new to us. They were, however, all in the

Scriptures before we saw any of these things, but the Saviour promised to his disciples that the Spirit of truth should guide them into all truth; not only into the belief of it, but into the enjoyment of it, into the experience of it, and into the power of it. Christians not only see the reality of the things revealed, but their infinite excellency. They are supremely enamoured with them. They feel their infinite value. They live under their influence. And thus they evince that they are "neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."

FEB. 3.-THAT WHICH I HAVE COMMITTED UNTO HIM against that day. 2 Tim. i. 12.

THE apostle, in the prospect of that day, deposited something in the Redeemer's hand. Let us inquire what this deposit was. It is evident it was something personal, and something in which he acted as a believer. And it is not necessary to exclude any thing from the transaction, but principally we are to understand the eternal concerns of the soul. And if this required any confirmation, it may be derived from Stephen the Protomartyr, who, when he was dying, said, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit;" and from the experience of David, who in an hour of danger said, "Into thy hand I commit my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth." The act means, therefore, simply believing. Various are the views given us, in the Scriptures, of faith in the Son of God. When the sacred writers spoke of faith, they never placed it before the people in the nakedness of metaphysical abstraction. They described rather than defined, and exemplified rather than described. One thing we may observe, that in all their representations of faith they made it to have to do immediately and expressly with the Lord Jesus. But then they held forth this faith as clothed in attributes and varied in its actings. Sometimes this faith was a "coming" to Christ -sometimes a "fleeing" to him-sometimes a "receiving" him -sometimes a "trusting" in him-and here a "committing" of the soul into his blessed hands; this is the evidence, this is the consequence, of real faith; and there is no one single term that enters so fully into the nature of saving faith, as confidence or trusting in Christ. The apostle's representation of faith here will remind us of several things. The committing our eternal

all into his hand implies, in the first place, conviction. The man before was deluded by error and blinded by ignorance, but now the eyes of his understanding are opened. Now he is convinced. of the value of his soul, and sees that the worth of it is beyond all comparison, according to the language of our Saviour:"What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" He is now convinced of the danger of the soul: it is ready to perish,-not as to the physical destruction of its being or powers, but as to the destruction of its welfare, its happiness, and its hopes. And now, too, he is convinced of his inability to save his own soul; he sees and he feels that he cannot atone for his offences-that he cannot furnish for it a justifying righteousness in which to appear before God—that he cannot renew and sanctify it, without which it can never enter into the kingdom of God. And this act implies also, Secondly, A concern for its security and welfare. His language now is, "How shall I come before the Lord, and bow before the high God? What must I do to be saved?" Before it was chiefly, "What shall I eat? and what shall I drink? or wherewithal shall I be clothed?" But a man who is acting as Paul did always, "against that day," he would be ready to say, "It is of little importance what becomes of this poor body let the worms devour it, let flames consume it, let the sea engulf it, let wild beasts feed upon it, provided my soul is safe in the day of the Lord Jesus." The act of committing the soul to Christ also implies application to the Redeemer for the purpose of salvation. O thou Restorer of the human race! let this ruin be under thine hand. O thou heavenly Physician, heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee. O thou Refuge from the storm, and Covert from the tempest, oh, receive and shelter me. Fourthly, It implies submission. The man is resigned to his method of salvation. This committing of the soul to his hands is as much an act of resignation as it is of application; and it is absolutely necessary; for, though the Lord Jesus is ready to undertake our case, we should remember one thing that he will have the whole management of it, or he will have nothing to do with it. And a convinced sinner is brought to this; he is brought to say, "Lord, I yield to thy pleasure; I must indeed be saved: but, O Lord, I am not come to dictate nor to prescribe; make known thy will, and I acquiesce.”