assaults of the enemy. I feel myself stronger in proportion as this hope increases; the weight of the flesh is less burthensome, and its risings against the spirit are less powerful and less frequent. But this calm does not put my vigilance to sleep; I too well know that it is not promised to us while here below, that it shall continue long at any one time; and the use I wish to make of it during the happy moments in which I enjoy it, is to unite all the powers of my soul in praising thee and celebrating the wonders of thy power and goodness.

VERSE 8. The LORD is their strength, and he is the saving strength of his anointed.

O MOST great and glorious God! All that is in man is but weakness; thou only art the strength of those who love and obey thee,-of that chosen people who will praise and bless thy name eternally. They have nothing in themselves but a propensity incessantly to step aside from the pathway of righteousness into the devious ways of sin. This is all that thou findest in them, and if thou shouldst withdraw for a moment, if thou shouldst leave them to themselves, they would immediately fall. It is not sufficient for thee, therefore, to shed thy grace upon thine anointed, and turn them from the ways of sin for once; thou must also be their continual protector, and carry on to perfection the work of salvation which thou hast begun in their hearts. This continual dependence on thee, instead of being burthensome to them, is all their consolation, as it is all their safety. How delightful it is, O God, to live always as in thy hands! not to be able to act and move but under thy notice, and under the care of thy paternal goodness? How light and pleasant is that yoke! And what more terrible punishment canst thou inflict upon sinners than to deliver them up to themselves, to their passions,-to their remorse,-to their

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secret agitations,-to the terrors of their own consciences! This is a misery the unhappy beginnings of which thou makest them feel in this life, and which will be fixed and consummated in eternity, if they persevere to the end in their hardness.

VERSE 9. Save thy people, and bless thine inheritance : feed them also, and lift them up for ever.

CONTINUE then, O God, to save the people whom thou hast chosen, and cease not to shed upon them the aids and blessings of thy grace. Defend thine inheritance, and leave it not, for a moment, exposed alone to the enemy, who watches for an opportunity to spoil it. The blood of thy Son has purchased it; let a price so valuable render it still more dear to thee. Purify it more and more, and enrich it daily with new gifts of thy Spirit, to the end that it may be fitted to become a glorious and eternal kingdom which shall never be destroyed.

PSALM XXIX.

Thanksgiving rendered to God by a new convert, for that gracious and powerful voice which had so wonderfully called him to a sense of sin, and finally to a knowledge and love of the truth.

VERSE 1. Give unto the LORD, O ye mighty, give unto the LORD glory and strength.

YE children of God, ye pious souls! who have the happiness of loving and serving so good a master, join in praise with me; unite your thanksgivings with mine, and offer unto God not the blood of victims, but your pure praises and your fervent homage. By the greatness and fervor of your gratitude, supply what is deficient in that which I feel in my heart; come to the help of my insufficiency, and assist me to testify to that merciful father who has recovered his son, for so long a time a rebel against him, all the grief and all the gratitude with which a sense of my sins and of his mercies now inspires me.

VERSE 2. Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.

RENDER to the Lord the honor and glory which are due to him alone, for the wonderful change wrought by him in my heart. He found in me nothing but an impious hardness and inveterate habits of sin; and in this deplorable condition, when there appeared no resource for me, he changed me into a new man, that the glory of his name and the power of his grace might be displayed, with the more magnificence. To him only it belongs to work such wonders. Proud unbelievers, who refuse to acknowledge him in the structure of the universe, and in

the other works of his hands, ought, here at least, to perceive the finger of the most high. Nothingness, O most great and glorious God! cannot resist thee; it obeys thy voice; but a heart hardened by sin opposes thee, and thou often callest upon it in vain. Thou wast not, therefore, so great and wonderful when thou calledst the heavens and earth into being from nothing, as thou art when thou commandest the stubborn, rebellious sinner to come forth from the abyss of sin, and enter into thy ways, and when thou createst in him a new heart. This chaos of sin and darkness which thou bringest into order and harmony by the power of thy word,-upon which theu pourest out thy Holy Spirit, and thus givest light to it, proclaims to man thine almighty power and infinite goodness much more than the magnificent order and light which thou broughtest forth from the darkness and confusion of the primitive chaos. At the view of what God hath wrought in my soul, go then, ye who doubt whether there is above us a supreme being whose power, wisdom, and goodness gave existence, motion, and order to this vast universe, go into his holy temple, and humble yourselves before his terrible majesty; cast at his feet your foolish doubts, the impious fruit not of your reason and reflection, but of your sins; and confess that your unbelief is rather a dreadful desire that there was no Ged -no just judge to call the wicked to account, than a real and serious doubt of the dis viae existence.

VERSE 3. The voice of the LORD is upon the waters: the God of glory thundereth: the LORD is upon many wa

ters.

GREAT God! The torrents of tears which run from my eyes proclaim thy divine presence in my soul. My heart, before so dry, so withered, so hard,

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