thereby curbeth the enemies of his people at pleasure, so that the most potent of them all cannot lift up his heel against a child of God without his divine permission. He never grants a permission to any of them without a proper limitation; "Hitherto thou mayest come," is the permission. but thou shalt go no farther," is the restraint; even as Satan obtained leave to destroy every thing which belonged to pious Job, but was prohibited touching his life. Thus it is, that the feeblest of the Redeemer's flock dwell secure from real danger, beneath the covert of divine protection.

My dear Honora, our great Lord is a husband to the widow; he is a wise director, a rich provider, a powerful protector, and as such he is yours; yours in the strongest obligations; yours in time, and to all eternity. The confidence I have in these things makes me willingly resign the wife of my bosom, and my tender offspring, to the will of that beneficent Being who hath a sovereign right to dispose of me and mine as he shall see most for his own glory.

My dear friends and fellow-travellers, beware of immoderate care; for you may greatly injure, but never can you thereby profit your children at all. Think not that their settlement in the world depends either less or more upon you; for when you have cared your last for them, the Sovereign Ruler will dispose of them just as he sees meet, without so much as once consulting you in the matter. Ah, my brethren, when you lie, as I do now, upon a deathbed, you will see, that all immoderate carefulness springeth immediately from ignorance of, and enmity against the ways of an holy God. Alas! how many Christian people are woefully perplexed with fruitless care all the days of their lives, and are thereby preented of that usefulness which they might otherwise be of to the church of Christ! Believe me, the best thing you can do for your children, is solemnity and seriously to dedicate them unto God, leaving them and all their concerns at his disposal. If you do this

in good earnest, by an habitual act, both you and they will reap the advantage of it; yours will be the peace, and theirs the profit. Remember what young Samuel got by his early dedication.

He ceased here, his strength being exhausetd, and after some time one of his friends thus addressed him: Dear sir, I cannot persuade myself but a mind thus stayed on the Lord must be filled with the most joyous transport.

To which the good man replied: My mind is composed, and calmly fixed on the unalterable word of an ever-faithful God; my peace is settled, though my joys are far from being elevated. It is not on inward frames and feelings that my hope is stayed, but on the promises of the everlasting covenant, which are in Christ, yea and amen to every believer. Inward feelings are indeed extremely pleasant, but I have not dared for many years to trust them, for at best I have found them, fleeting and transitory; now enjoyed-dead anon! now like the full-blown rose, my comforts have flourished-immediately stripped of all their beauty like the winter vine! Whilst I lived upon my frames I was all upon extremes, either ravished on the mount of enjoyment, or gone down to do business in the deep waters. One hour I said, My mountain stands sure, I shall never be moved :" perhaps in less than another, I supposed myself, like Peter, sinking into the bosom of a fatal billow. No solidity could I ever find in the frames and dispositions of my own heart; but I never found the promise to fleet, nor the Lord to depart from the word he hath spoken. In all my trials, his immutable word hath been my stay, and on it alone will I lean, when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. And thus in quietly resting on his word, he will finish the salvation of my soul.

Indeed, if the Lord should be pleased to indulge me now with the sensible comforts of his felt love, shed abroad in my heart by his holy Spirit, it would make this lonesome valley, into which I am entering, by far more delightful, and my passage through it

abundantly less thorny.. But if, in his wisdom, he should see meet to with-hold from me such a desirable measure of sensibe manifestation, I bless him for his unalterable word, and I bless him for strength to rely upon it.

My dear brethren, beware of making to yourself a Christ, of the dying comforts with which your holy Redeemer is pleased occasionally to indulge you. Remember that if his tender concern for your peace and pleasure, induce him to privilege you with the sheddings abroad of his love in your heart, the same tenderness of you will induce him to withdraw his comforts, when he sees himself supplanted, and you live upon those comforts rather than upon his person, grace, and righteousness. Remember always that salvation, and the comforts thereof, are two very different things: the fulness of the former being often possessed, where there is but a very small degree of the latter. In my early days of grace I was generally wont to frame to myself notions of the love of God, according to the glimmering twilight of my own mind, and the good or evil frame I found myself to be in: but through rich grace, and amazing mercy, I have been taught rather to judge thereof by the written word of God, by which I have been piloted through seas of difficulty, when darker sensations have lost sight of shore. And I trust the Holy Ghost will guide me by the said written word, till in his good time he is pleased to land me on the glory-shore, and bring me into the more immediate presence of the great Three in One.

This said, he remained silent for a considerable time, and the venerable Veratio turned himself to me, and thus he accosted me. Now Novitio, you behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile. This is the good Stabilius, a Christian of the right kind; one who may be called a father in Israel: he can well distinguish between husk and kernel, shadow and substance, truth and error, a faithful one in the household of God. His holy soul can feed upon nothing but what is spiritual and divine; such bread,

and such only, as descended from God out of heaven is pleasant to his taste. In his life-time, which hath been an uninterrupted succession of crowding sorrows, the good Stabilius could live as well and as satisfactorily upon a word of promise, as some others could do upon five hundreds a year. Thus in his life-time he was so happy as to live by faith in the promises, and now he is dying he is still the same. The word of the Lord is his comfort and stay. But although his unbelief appears now to be banished from him, I can tell you it was not always so; for the time was, when under dark dispensations of Providence, he complained with Jacob that all those things were making against him, though now he is better informed. Yea, whatever infidelity we can find in Job, David, Asaph, one part or other of the life of good Stabilius hath furnished him with a sad remembrance of theirs; though upon the whole his faith has prevailed gloriously; and I imagine he will never more feel an impulse from unbelief.

Now, Novitio, I have a mind to unfold an amazing scene to you; such a scene as you have never before surveyed. Then he touched my eyes with an eye-salve of divine preparation, and instantly I saw what was extremely amazing: I saw a numerous troop of restless infernals beleaguering the bed of the sick-man, which was well defended by a brilliant minister of heaven, divinely superb in his immaterial array. Clothed with impenetrable armour; the martial guardian waved a flaming sword, with which he kept all the furies of the pit at a proper distance: so that although the most implacable hatred and rage glowed in every breast, they were not able to come near to disturb the mind of Stabilius. Sometimes they tipped their tongues with falsehood, and accused him of the most abominable crimes to the guardian, who with holy contempt disregarded all their clamours. Repulsed in this, they turn their accusings into the most fervent entreaties to the angel, that he would scabbard his sword for a season, and allow them the pleasure of distracting the dying man:

But the benevolent protector, firm as a rock, remained inflexible to their entreaties, and deaf to their accusations, resolving, in obedience to the will of his God to defend his charge to the last extremity. Being thus repulsed, even hell itself became hotter within them, and irritated with fierce revenge, they rushed in fearful numbers against the heavenly centinel. Thick as atoms in the sun beams, their hissing arrows were shot against him and his beloved charge; but skilled in martial encounters, he received their charge, and quenched their fiery darts with his shield, with which he also covered Stabilius. With his brandished falchion, which emitted streams of fire as he waved it, he made the infernal tribe to give back; but filled with indignation, and fired with revenge, they instantly rallied their broken force, and returned resolvedly to the charge: and I had the pleasure of observing, that as often as they rallied, the heavenly Chieftain put them to the flight. Being indulged with a view of the angelic war, I thought of an ancient saying," The angel of the Lord encamps round about those that fear him*;" and turning to my guide, I said, O Sir, it was well said of that Hebrew prince, who spent his youth in rural employments, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance." Ah, Sir, they are well kept whom the Lord doth keep, and the man is blessed whom he thus preserveth. To which Veratio replied, Now, Novitio, you have had a sight of faithful Abdiel, so justly celebrated by the famous Milton, for his constant and firm adherence to Immanuel, even, when left alone

"The angel of the Lord encamps round about those that fear him. There is a surprising beauty in these words of the Psalmist, as expressive of the highest safety which the most timorous heart can wish for. "He encamps, with a view to continue in this situation." It is around them," rather than beside them. Beside them would have argued great safety, but encamping " around" implies infinitely more, because every passage is guarded, and no way left for