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So far as they live under the power of religion, they will pursue their trade for sustenance and provision; but not even that, with unseasonable attention and with eagerness: much less will religion suffer them to bury themselves in it, when its objects are something beyond these: and, least of all, will it leave them to deceive themselves with certain commercial maxims, so far removed from simplicity and integrity, that I have been often shocked beyond measure, at hearing them countenanced and adopted by some religious professors.

EVERY man should aim to do one thing well. If he dissipates his attention on several objects, he may have excellent talents entrusted to him, but they will be entrusted to no good end. Concentrated on his proper object, they might have a vast energy; but, dissipated on several, they will have none. Let other objects be pursued, indeed; but only so far as they may subserve the main purpose. By neglecting this rule, I have seen Frivolity and Futility written on minds of great power; and, by regarding it, I have seen very limited minds acting in the first rank of their profession-I have seen a large capital and a great stock dissipated, and the man reduced to beggary; and I have seen a small capital and stock improved to great riches.

To effect any purpose, in study, the mind must be concentrated. If any other subject plays on the fancy, than that which ought to be exclusively before it, the mind is divided; and both are neutralized, so as to lose their effect. Just as when I learnt two systems of short-hand. I was familiar with Gurney's method, and wrote it with ease; but, when I took it into my head to learn Byrom's, they destroyed each other, and I could write neither.

THERE should be something obvious, determinate, and positive, in a man's reasons for taking a journey; especially if he be a Minister. Such events and consequences may be connected with it in every step, that he ought, in no case, to be more simply dependent on the great Appointer of means and occasions. Several journies, which I thought myself called on to take, I have since had reason to think I should not have taken. Negative, and even doubtful reasons, may justify him in choosing the safer side of staying at home; but there ought to be something more in the reasons which put him out of his way, to meet the unknown consequences of a voluntary change of station. Let there always be a " Because" to meet the "Why?"

I SOMETIMES see, as I sit in my pew at St. John's during the Service, an idle fellow saunter into the Chapel. He gapes about him for a few minutes; finds nothing to interest and arrest him; seems scarcely to understand what is going forward; and, after a lounge or two, goes out again. I look at him, and think, "Thou art a wonderful creature! A perfect miracle! What a machine is that body! curiously,-fearfully,-wonderfully framed! An intricate-delicate-but harmonious and perfect structure! And, then, to ascend to thy soul!-its nature-its capacities!-its actual state-its designation! its eternal condition!I am lost in amazement!"-While he seems to have no more consciousness of all this, than the brutes which perish!

SIN, pursued to its tendencies, would pull God from his throne. Though I have a deep conviction of its exceeding sinfulness, I live not a week without seeing some exhibition of its malignity which draws from me-" Well! who could have imagined this!" Sin would subjugate heaven, earth, and hell to itself. It would make the Universe the minion of its lusts, and all Beings bow down and worship.

It is one of the most awful points of view in which we can consider God, that, as a righteous

Governor of the world, concerned to vindicate his own glory, he has laid himself under a kind of holy necessity to purify the unclean, or to sink him into perdition.

IT is one of the curses of Error, that the man, who is the subject of it, if he has had the opportunity of being better informed, cannot possibly do right, so far as he is under it. He has brought himself into an utter incapacity of acting virtuously since it is vicious to obey an ill-informed conscience, if that conscience might have been better informed; and certainly vicious to disobey conscience, whether it be well or illinformed.

THE approaches of sin are like the conduct of Jael. It brings butter in a lordly dish. It bids high for the soul. But, when it has fascinated and lulled the victim, the nail and the hammer are behind.

I HAVE met with one case in my ministry, very frequent and very distressing. A man says to me 6. I approve all you say. I SEE things to be just as you state them. I see a necessity, a propriety, a beauty in the religion of Christ. I see it to be interesting and important. But I do not FEEL it.

I cannot feel it. I have no spirit of prayer. My heart belies my head: its affections refuse to follow my convictions." If this complaint be ingenuous, it is an evidence of grace; and I say "Wait for God, and he will appear." But, too often, it is not ingenuous: the heart is actually indisposed: some tyrant holds it in bondage. The complaint is a mockery-because there is no sincerity of endeavour to obtain the object of which it pretends to lament the want-there is no sincere desire and prayer for the quickening and breathing of God's Holy Spirit on the torpid soul.

THE man who labours to please his neighbour for his good to edification, has the mind that was in Christ. It is a sinner trying to help a sinner. How different the face of things if this spirit prevailed!-if Dissenters were like Henry, and Watts, and Doddridge; and Churchmen like Leighton! The man who comes prominently forward in any way may expect to be found fault with: one will call him harsh, and another a trimmer. A hard man may be reverenced, but men will like him best at a distance: he is an iron man: he is not like Jesus Christ: Christ might have driven Thomas from his presence for his unreasonable incredulity-but not so! It is as though he had said, "I will come down to thy weakness: if thou canst not believe without thrusting thy hand

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