ease.

being in the same condition of health or fortune as he is at present? The seeds of change are every where sown in our state; and the very causes that seemed to promise us security are often secretly undermining it. Great fame provokes the attacks of envy and reproach. High health gives occasion to intemperance and disThe elevation of the mighty never fails to render their condition tottering; and that obscurity which shelters the mean exposes them, at the same time, to become the prey of oppression. So completely is the fashion of this world made by Providence for change, and prepared for passing away. In the midst of this instability, it were some comfort, did human prosperity decay as slowly as it rises. By slow degrees, and by many intervening steps it rises. But one day is sufficient to scatter and bring it to nought.

BLAIR.

INSUFFICIENCY OF EARTHLY

POSSESSIONS.

YE sons of men, if these things are even so, and ye tread every moment upon the brink of time, and live upon the eve of judgment, what avails your many cares and your unresting occupations. Will your snug dwellings, your gay clothing, and your downy beds, give freshness to the stiffened joints, or remove the disease which hath got a lodgment in your marrow and your bones? Will your full table and cool wines give edge to a jaded appetite, or remove the rancour of a rotted tooth, or supply the vigour of a worn-down

frame? Will a crowded board, and the full flow of jovial mirth, and beauty's wreathed smile, and beauty's dulcet voice, charm back to a crazy dwelling the ardours and graces of youth? Will yellow gold bribe the tongue of memory, and wipe away from the tablets of the mind the remembrance of former doings? Will worldly goods reach upwards to heaven, and bribe the pen of the recording angel that he should cancel from God's books all vestige of our crimes? Or bribe Providence, that no cold blast should come sweeping over our garden and lay it desolate ? Or abrogate that eternal law, by which sin and sorrow, righteousness and peace, are bound together? Will they lift up their voice, and say wickedness shall no more beget woe, nor vice engender pain, nor indulgence end in weariness, nor the brood of sin fatten upon the bowels of human happiness, and leave wherever their snakish teeth do touch the venom and sting of remorse? And when that last most awful hour shall come, when we stand upon the brink of two worlds, and feel the earth sliding from beneath our feet, and nothing to hold on by that we should not fall into the unfathomed abyss; and when a film shall come over our eyes, shutting out from the soul, for ever, friends and favourites, and visible things; what are we, what have we, if we have not a treasure in heaven, and an establishment there? And when the deliquium of death is passed, and we find ourselves in the other world, under the eye of Him that is holy and pure, where shall we hide ourselves, if we have no protection and righteousness of Christ?

VOL. I.

X

IRVING.

ON PRAYER.

If there be any duty which our Lord Jesus Christ seems to have considered as more indispensably necessary towards the formation of a true Christian, it is that of prayer. He has taken every opportunity of impressing on our minds the absolute need in which we stand of the divine assistance, both to persist in the paths of righteousness, and to fly from the allurements of a fascinating, but dangerous life: and he has directed us to the only means of obtaining that assistance in constant and habitual appeals to the throne of Grace. Prayer is certainly the foundation stone of the superstructure of a religious life: for a man can neither arrive at true piety, nor persevere in its ways when attained, unless, with sincere and continued fervency, and with the most unaffected anxiety, he implore Almighty God to grant him his perpetual grace, to guard and restrain him from all those derelictions of heart, to which we are, by nature, but too prone. I should think it an insult to the understanding of a Christian to dwell on the necessity of prayer, and, before we can harangue an infidel on its efficacy, we must convince him not only that the Being to whom we address ourselves really exists, but that he condescends to hear and to answer our humble supplications. As these objects are foreign to my present purpose, I shall take my leave of the necessity of prayer, as acknowledged by all to whom this paper is addressed, and shall be content to expatiate on the strong inducements

which we have to lift our souls to our Maker in the language of supplication and of praise; to depict the happiness which results to the man of true piety from the exercise of this duty; and, lastly, to warn mankind, lest their fervency should carry them into the extreme of fanaticism, and their prayers, instead of being silent and unassuming expressions of gratitude to their Maker, and humble entreaties for his favouring grace, should degenerate into clamorous vociferations and insolent gesticulations, utterly repugnant to the true spirit of prayer, and to the language of a creature addressing his Creator.

There is such an exalted delight to a regene. rate being in the act of prayer, and he anticipates with so much pleasure, amid the toils of business, and the crowds of the world, the moment when he shall be able to pour out his soul without interruption into the bosom of his Maker, that I am persuaded, that the degree of desire or repugnance which a man feels to the performance of this amiable duty, is an infallible criterion of his acceptance with God. Let the unhappy child of dissipation-let the impure voluptuary boast of his short hours of exquisite enjoyment; even in the degree of bliss they are infinitely inferior to the delight of which the righteous man participates in his private devotions; while in their opposite consequences they lead to a no less wide extreme than heaven and hell, a state of positive happiness, and a state of positive misery. If there were no other inducement to prayer, than the very gratification it imparts to the soul, it would deserve to be regarded as the most impor

tant object of a Christian; for no where else could he purchase so much calmness, so much resignation, and so much of that peace and repose of spirit in which consists the chief happiness of this otherwise dark and stormy being. But to prayer, besides the inducement of momentary gratification, the very self-love implanted in our bosoms would lead us to resort, as the chief good, for our Lord hath said, "Ask, and it shall be given to thee; knock, and it shall be opened to thee;" and not a supplication made in the true spirit of faith and humility, but shall be answered; not a request which is urged with unfeigned submission and lowliness of spirit, but shall be granted, if it be consistent with our happiness, either temporal or eternal. Of this happiness, however, the Lord God is the only judge; but this we do know, that whether our requests be granted, or whether they be refused, all is working together for our ultimate benefit.

When I say, that such of our requests and solicitations, as are urged in the true spirit of meekness, humility, and submission, will indubitably be answered, I would wish to draw a line between supplications so urged, and those violent and vehement declamations which, under the name of prayers, are sometimes heard to proceed from the lips of men professing to worship God in the spirit of meekness and truth. Surely I need not impress on any reasonable mind, how directly contrary these inflamed and bombastic harangues are to every precept of Christianity, and every idea of the deference due from a poor worm, like man, to the omnipotent and all great