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matter of no small difficulty and pain; which, therefore, without much use and exercise cannot be accomplished; but with it, may; so that by frequent practice the bent of our heart being turned, the strangeness of the thing ceasing, the difficulty of the work being surmounted, we shall obtain a good propension to the duty, and a great satisfaction therein.-Barrow.

REPENTANCE.

REPENTANCE, of all things in the world, makes the greatest change; it changes things in heaven and earth; for it changes the whole man from sin to grace, from vicious habits to holy customs, from unchaste bodies to angelic souls, from swine to philosophers, from drunkenness to sober counsels; and God Himself, "with Whom is no variableness or shadow of turning," is pleased, by descending to our weak understandings, to say that He changes also upon our repentance, that He alters His decrees, revokes His sentence, cancels the bills of accusation, throws the records of shame and sorrow from the court of heaven, and lifts up the sinner from the grave to life, from his prison to a throne, from hell and the guilt of eternal torture, to heaven and a title to never-ceasing felicities. If we be bound on earth, we shall be bound in heaven; if we be absolved here, we shall be loosed there; if we repent, God will repent, and not send the evil upon us which we had deserved.

Repentance is restitution to the state of righteousness and holy living for which we covenanted in Baptism. For we must know that there is but one repentance in a man's whole life, if repentance be taken in the proper and strict evangelical-covenant sense, and not after the ordinary understanding of the word: that is, we are but once to change our whole estate of life from the power of the devil and his entire possession, from the state of sin and death, from the body of corruption to the life of grace, to the possession of Jesus, to the kingdom of the gospel; and this is done in Baptism. After this change, if ever we fall into the contrary state, and be wholly estranged from God and religion, and profess ourselves servants of unrighteousness, God hath made no more

covenant of restitution to us, there is no place left for any more repentance or entire change of condition or new birth; a man can be regenerate but once. But if we be overtaken by infirmity, or enter into the borders of this estate, and commit a grievous sin, or ten, or twenty, so we be not in the entire possession of the devil, we are for the present in a damnable condition, if we die; but if we live, we are in a recoverable condition; for so we may repent often. Our hopes of pardon are just as is the repentance; which, if it be timely, hearty, industrious, and effective, God accepts; not by weighing grains or scruples, but by estimating the great proportions of our life. A hearty endeavour, and an effectual general change, shall get the pardon.-Taylor.

A PEACEABLE TEMPER.

A PEACEABLE deportment is one of the great duties enjoined in religion: and the rule and measure of that is to be charity, of which divine quality the apostle tells us, in 1 Cor. xiii. 7, that it “suffers all things, hopes all things, endures all things." The very genius and nature of Christianity consists in this, that it is a passive religion; a religion that composes the mind to quietness, upon the hardest and the most irksome terms and conditions. And the truth is, if it drives on a design of peace, we shall find that the consequences of revenge make as great a breach upon that as a first defiance and provocation. For were not this answered with resistance and retribution, it would perhaps exhale and vanish; and the peace would at least be preserved on one side. For be the injurious person never so quarrelsome, yet the quarrel must fall, if the injured person will not fight. Fire sometimes goes out as much for want of being stirred up, as for want of fuel. And therefore he that can remit nothing, nor recede, nor sacrifice the prosecution of a small dispensable right to the preservation of peace, understands not the full dimensions and latitude of this great duty; nor remembers that he himself is ruined for ever, should God deal with him upon the same terms.

The great God must relax His law, and recede from some of His right; and every day be willing to put up

and connive at many wrongs, or I am sure it is impossible for Him to be at peace with us. He shines upon

His enemies, and drops the dew of heaven upon the base and the unthankful. And in this very instance of perfection, Matt. v. 48, He recommends Himself to our imitation.

If revenge were no sin, forgiveness of injuries could be no duty. But Christ has made it a grand and a peculiar one; indeed so great, as to suspend the whole business of our justification upon it, in Matt. xviii. 35. And in the foregoing verses of that chapter, treating of the unmerciful servant, who exacted a debt from his poor fellowservant, we find that "his lord was wroth with him, and delivered him to the tormentors." Neither could it have profited him to have said, that he exacted but what was lawfully his own, what was due to him upon the best and the clearest terms of propriety. No; this excused not the rigour of a merciless proceeding from him, who had but newly tasted of mercy, and being pardoned a thousand talents, remorselessly and unworthily took his fellow by the throat for a hundred pence.

We pray

It is or may be the case of every one of us. every day for forgiveness; nay, we are so hardy as to pray that God would "forgive us just so as we forgive others;" and yet oftentimes we can be sharp, furious, and revengeful; prosecute every supposed injury heartily and bitterly; and think we do well and generously not to yield nor relent: and what is the strangest thing in the world, notwithstanding an express and loud declaration of God to the contrary, all this time we look to be saved by mercy; and, like Šaul, to be caught into heaven, while we are breathing nothing but persecution, blood, and revenge.

But as to the great duty of peaceableness which we have been discoursing of, we must know, that he who affronts and injures his brother breaks the peace; but withal that he who owns and repays the ill turn, perpetuates the breach. By the former, a sin is only born into the world, but by the latter it is brought up, nourished, and maintained. And perhaps the greatest unquietness of human affairs is not so much chargeable upon the injurious, as the revengeful. The first undoubtedly has the greater guilt; but the other causes the greater dis

turbance. As a storm could not be so hurtful, were it not for the opposition of trees and houses; it ruins nowhere, but where it is withstood and repelled. It has indeed the same force when it passes over the rush, or the yielding osier: but it does not roar nor become dreadful, till it grapples with the oak, and rattles upon the tops of the cedars.-South.

LESSONS OF WISDOM.

WISDOM instructs us to examine, compare, and rightly to value the objects that court our affections, and challenge our care; and thereby regulates our passions, and moderates our endeavours, which begets a pleasant serenity and peaceable tranquillity of mind. For when, being deluded with false shows, and relying upon ill-grounded presumptions, we highly esteem, passionately affect, and eagerly pursue things of little worth in themselves, or concernment to us, as we unhandsomely prostitute our affections, and prodigally mis-spend our time, and vainly lose our labour; so the event not answering our expectation, our minds thereby are confounded, disturbed and distempered. But when, guided by right reason, we conceive great esteem of, and are zealously enamoured with, and vigorously strive to attain things of excellent worth, and weighty consequence, the conscience of having well placed our affections, and well employed our pains, and the experience of fruits corresponding to our hopes ravishes our mind with unexpressible content. And so it is: present appearance and vulgar conceit ordinarily impose upon our fancies, disguising things with a deceitful varnish, and representing those that are vainest with the greatest advantage; whilst the noblest objects, being of a more subtle and spiritual nature, like fairest jewels enclosed in a homely box, avoid the notice of gross sense, and pass undiscerned by us. But the light of wisdom, as it unmasks specious imposture, and bereaves it of its false colours: so it penetrates into the retirements of true excellency, and reveals its genuine lustre. For example, corporeal pleasure, which so powerfully allures and enchants us, wisdom declares that it is but a present, momentary and transient satisfaction of brutish sense,

dimming the light, sullying the beauty, impairing the vigour, and restraining the activity of the mind; diverting it from better operations, and indisposing it to enjoy purer delights; leaving no comfortable relish or gladsome memory behind it, but often followed with bitterness, regret and disgrace. That the profit the world so greedily gapes after is but a possession of trifles, not valuable in themselves, nor rendering the masters of them so: accidentally obtained, and promiscuously enjoyed by all sorts, but commonly by the worst of men; difficultly acquired, and easily lost; however, to be used but for a very short time, and then to be resigned into uncertain hands. That the honour men so dote upon is, ordinarily, but the difference of a few petty circumstances, a peculiar name or title, a determinate place, a distinguishing ensign; things of only imaginary excellence, derived from chance, and conferring no advantage, except from some little influence they have upon the arbitrary opinion and fickle humour of the people; complacence in which is vain, and reliance upon it dangerous. That power and dominion, which men so impatiently struggle for, are but necessary evils introduced to restrain the bad tempers of men; most evil to them that enjoy them; requiring tedious attendance, distracting care, and vexatious toil; attended with frequent disappointment, opprobrious censure, and dangerous envy; having such real burthens, and slavish incumbrances, sweetened only by superficial pomps, strained obsequiousness, some petty privileges and exemptions scarce worth the mentioning. That wit and parts, of which men make such ostentation, are but natural endowments, commendable only in order to use, apt to engender pride and vanity, and hugely dangerous, if abused or misemployed. Why should I mention beauty, that fading toy; or bodily strength and activity, qualities so palpably inconsiderable? Upon these and such like flattering objects, so adored by vulgar opinion. Wisdom exercising severe and impartial judgment, and perceiving in them no intrinsic excellence, no solid content springing from them, no perfection thence accruing to the mind, no high reward allotted to them, no security to the future condition, or other durable advantages proceeding from them; it con- · cludes they deserve not any high opinion of the mind, nor any vehement passion of the soul, nor any laborious

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