may bear them with patience and resignation. Let thy Holy Spirit direct and support me under every trial, and enable me so to walk in thy faith and fear, that I may at last be received into thy heavenly kingdom, through the merits and mediation of thy son Jesus Christ, our blessed Lord and Saviour. Amen. 21. PRIVILEGE OF THE BELIEVER IN AFFLICTION. (Concluded from page 112.) 7. It is the privilege of the believer to regard his afflictions as evidences of his adoption in Christ into the family of God. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." The design of our Heavenly Father in these afflictions is full of loving kindness, nothing less than that the believer may be a partaker of the Divine nature, and be nourished by the "peaceable fruit of righteousness." 8. It is his privilege, even in those afflictions which are the fruit of his own guilt, to regard them as the precious result of the everlasting covenant. If the covenant made no provision for the punishment of sin, not in anger but in love, it would not be adequate to the deep depravity of man. Therefore judgment and mercy are met together: "I will visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips." Broken-hearted, penitent backslider, here is comfort for thee! The covenant is not with the believer ; if it were, it would have been broken: it is with Christ, his representative, and therefore is a covenant ordered in all things and sure. Lastly. It will be his privilege to find that his sorrows in this life, with their blessed fruits, will contribute to the Redeemer's glory at his coming. "For a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations; that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than that of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." Then shall the mystery be fully explained, how the Lord Jesus can be "glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe." My brother in sorrow, if thou art a believer, here are rich and copious streams of consolation for thee. They are provided for all believers; but the streams cannot comfort thee unless thou drink. Remember that JehovahJesus is thy good shepherd. If thou wilt confide in him, he will,make thee to lie down in pastures of tender grass, and lead thee beside the waters of quietness. WHEN all thy mercies, O my God, O, how shall words with equal warmth That glows within my ravished heart! When worn with sickness, oft hast thou Ten thousand thousand precious gifts Nor is the least a thankful heart, Through every period of my life, When nature fails, and day and night Thy mercies shall adore. Through all eternity, to thee A joyful song I'll raise, O BLESSED LORD, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comforts. We beseech thee, look down in pity and compassion upon Thou writest bitter this thy afflicted servant. things against him, and makest him to possess his former iniquities; thy wrath lieth hard upon him, and his soul is full of trouble. But, O merciful God, who hast written thy holy Word for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of thy holy Scriptures, might have hope; give him a right understanding of himself, and of thy threats and promises; that he may neither cast away his confidence in thee, nor place it any where but in thee. Give him strength against all his temptations, and heal all his distempers. Break not the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax. Shut not up thy tender mercies in displeasure; but make him to hear of joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Deliver him from fear of the enemy, and lift up the light of thy countenance upon him, and give him peace, through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 22. VIEWS OF GLORY. (Written by the REV. DR. PAYSON on his death-bed.) MY DEAR SISTER,-Were I to adopt the figurative language of Bunyan, I might date this letter from the Land of Beulah: of which I have been for some weeks a happy inhabitant. The celestial city is full in my view. Its glories beam upon me, its breezes fan me, its odours are wafted to me, its sounds strike upon my ears, and its spirit is breathed into my heart. Nothing separates me from it, but the river of death, which now appears but as an insignificant rill, that may be crossed at a single step, whenever God shall give permission. The Sun of Righteousness has been gradually drawing nearer, appearing larger and brighter as he approaches; and now he fills the whole hemisphere, pouring forth a flood of glory, in which I seem to float, like an insect in the beams of the sun, exulting yet almost trembling while I gaze on this excessive brightness, and wondering with unutterable wonder why God should deign thus to shine upon a sinful worm. A single heart and a single tongue seem altogether inadequate to my wants. I want a whole heart for every separate emotion, and a whole tongue to express that emotion. But why do I speak thus of myself and my feelings? Why not speak only of our God and Redeemer? It is because I know not what to say. When I would speak of them, my words are all swallowed up. I can only tell you what effects their presence produces, and even of these I can tell little. Oh my you but very sister, my sister! could you but know what awaits the Christian, could you only know so much as I know, you could not refrain from rejoicing, and even leaping for joy. Labours, trials, troubles, would be nothing; you would rejoice in afflictions, and glory in tribulations; and like Paul and Silas, sing God's praises in |