"interpretation *." Let this check the excess of solitary meditations; but let it promote, regulate, and improve those that arise from those precious promises which are the food of our spiritual life. Let us not, on account of any danger which we may imagine might arise from a profound contem-· plation of religious truths, avoid that train of thought which leads us to them. Never let us turn away our eyes from the path that leadeth unto life, the high-way of the redeemed of God. The view which revelation gives us of those blessed abodes where God reigns for evermore, the prospect which the good man has before him of the leader of the way, are surely objects of divine contemplation, which no reasonable person would forego for all the political discussions or philosophical reveries, which the world could afford besides. * 2 Pet. i. 20, Thankful is the pen which writes these Meditations, and thankful is the heart which dictates them, that the writer hath been allowed so many hours of pleasing solitude and religious retirement, as to arrange them in a course of salutary reflection. They are the plain sentiments of an undisguised faith, springing up in a rural seclusion, where the voice of war and tumult, however felt, are only at a distance heard. The kingdom of God is the country to which I am now looking:-Saints and angels are our expected companions: purity is our qualification, but Christ is our only passport. Give us, blessed Lord, give us this key to heaven, and we resign joyfully and thankfully the short-lived pleasures of the world. "We know that "the whole creation groaneth and tra"vaileth in pain together until now. "And not only they, but ourselves also, "which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within our "selves, waiting for the adoption, to "wit, the redemption of our body: "for, we are saved by hope *."-And "O God! in whom is all dependence, " and the hope of all the ends of the "earth, let me never be destitute of a well-grounded hope, nor yet possessed "of a vain presumption; suffer me not "to think that thou wilt either be re"conciled to my sins, or reject my repentance: but grant me such an hope, as may be answerable to thy righte"ous promises; even such an hope as may both encourage and enable me "to purify myself from all filthiness of "flesh and spirit, that so it may indeed "bring me to everlasting life through "Jesus Christ, my Lord and Saviour." Amen. Rom. viii. 22, 23. |