desert, solitary, alone, surrounded by no evil | my sins, and let thine own glory be so revealed communications' from without, its experience in my heart, the believing view of it so implanted would be, the good that I would I do not: but the evil that I would not, that I do.' But more than this also comes upon it. The believer will have to say, with the prophet of old, 'I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.'

The relations in which the believer stands with the world, become snares, and trials. The soul's communion with God is interrupted by them. Impressions of divine objects are weakened. And, alas, the evil affections inherent in the heart itself are awakened, called into unholy exercise, and felt to be strengthened by that exercise; and the spiritual views of the soul darkened, and clouded: iniquities, it must confess, do prevail against it. Though the soul may have to say, 'Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts,'-though it did expect, that more deep and abiding impressions should have been made, by what it had spiritually seen, and felt, and learned, such expectations are too frequently, grievously disappointed; the world from without, and evil principles from within, have cast down the soul, and leave it in heaviness and in fear. But where grace reigns, where it has been given, it will teach the soul, still to wait upon God, and that for more grace.

Now, O my soul, what hast thou, this very day, experienced and learned? How have the manifestations of his own goodness and mercy and grace, which the Lord gave thee, in days past, this day, drawn thee to himself? Has not the world indeed prevailed, has it not been turning thee aside, has it not been weakening thy spiritual life; and what hast thou drawn from its communications and pursuits, but spiritual apathy, and insincerity of purposes toward God?

Let me not remain for another hour, in this backsliding condition. O, let not my soul let go its view, or its hold of God, revealed in Christ Jesus, as my God. Where is there a remedy to be found for these evils, but in God himself, and in his abounding grace? Let me draw near to his throne of grace now, and let me seek in the same spirit as animated the soul of Moses,-Lord, show me now thy way, that I may know thee. Let thy grace so come to me, that I shall not lose sight of thee, in my daily conversation and walk. O, make thou that grace sufficient for me, and in my soul. Vouchsafe to me, altogether unworthy as I am of the least of thy mercies,-yet through the blood of atonement shed for remission, take away

in my spirit, that it shall prevail to the subduing and the crucifying of my sinfulness, and to the keeping of my soul 'unspotted from the world.' Let me feel, in that blessed revelation according to thy grace, the greatness of that end to which I am called by thee in thy glorious gospel. Quicken me now to call upon thee, and preserve my soul in the habitual attitude of waiting upon thee as the God of my salvation, that I may know thee in truth, that I may find grace in thy sight, and that thy grace may reign in my soul, through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ.

Where this grace does reign, the fulfilment of God's gracious promises in Christ will be found needful, necessary, the one thing needful. Moses had the promise of an angel to go with him; but he seeks to know this, to have the experience of it in full reality. Blessed be the name of God-there is a greater promise-the angel of the covenant-the Lord Jesus-to abide with his people, and they abiding in him, shall not faint or fail. He is 'the way.' O my soul, know thou this way, and walk in him, and in communion with God through him.

NINTH DAY.-MORNING.

Yet I am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me; for there is no saviour besides me,' Hos. xiii. 4. How lamentable this history! How perverted and unworthy, and base, the returns made by this people to God, for his multiplied works of loving-kindness, and almighty power, manifested by him in the midst of them. They had set up idols, in place of the living God; yea, they had multiplied their idols,-lying vanities, the works of men's hands, and had refused to acknowledge that God who had been their God from the land of Egypt, and who had made it so clear in the midst of them, that he alone is God indeed, and that besides him there is no Saviour. It is sorrowful to think, that through the multiplying of sins and transgressions, on the part of those who were so highly favoured of God, sins of the deepest dye, sins the most expressly forbidden, under sanctions so solemn, and so clearly of divine and eternal authority- he should have in this manner to expostulate with his backsliding, rebellious, and unthankful people. And here, in those wonderful, long-suffering expostulations,

us.

how adorable is the mercy of our God! Truly ness and in faithfulness warned and admonished his mercies are over all his other works, in wonder and in excellency; if we think at all of the creature's demerit and worthlessness, and of God's divine and eternal glory in his own uncreated being.

How has my mind, notwithstanding, been exercised?

Here, God says, as on many other occasions, 'Thou shalt know no God but me.' Not only that we should not give the homage and service to other objects, due to himself alone; but that we should not seek to know any object so as that it might draw the heart from God himself, or from the supreme reverence due to him. And yet the heart inquires after objects to set up as idols there. The very dispensations of the kind providence of God, by which he was sustaining even our temporal lot, and securing our privileges, and multiplying our comforts, we have, alas, abused, as so many ways of departing from God, and have set up the mercies which he bestowed, as idols on which we lavished our heart's affections, and by which, the love which we thought we had to God, waxed cold indeed. It is of his mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

Alas, the people of Israel are not, in all this wickedness, singular. How clear the word he has sent to us! How marvellous are his works, how adorable and unspeakable his grace in Christ Jesus; and how wonderful his condescension and his love in drawing near as God the Spirit to an individual soul;-dealing with it, and causing the light of the knowledge of his own glory to arise as the day-star, in the individual heart. And yet amongst those who have been so highly privileged, how true it is, that many of them walk, even contrary to all this! Have we followed the light which he gave us, the truth which he has made us to feel to be the truth indeed? Have we not been guilty, with Ephraim, of setting up idols in our heart, of giving to created objects the homage in heart and affections that was due only to God! How prone to this is the And what are these objects which have so turned evil heart of unbelief; and how have we yielded us aside, which we have so sinfully set up as idols ourselves to its dictates, and to the dishonouring to ourselves, and as objects of esteem and regard, of God and the ever blessed Redeemer! We more than God in Christ. Are they not said that we should never forsake the Lord; that vanity? What can they profit us? What can verily he was God, and our God: but, O how they do to the soul? In themselves they are unfaithful the conduct, how inconsistent the per- vanity. To the soul they are snares-they can sonal walk! The word of God has been follow-be, and they will be, if followed, the means of its ing us, addressing us, God revealing himself by everlasting destruction, alienating the soul here it to the soul; and yet in the face of all this, we from God, and preventing its preparation for the have been forgetting him, and giving to the kingdom of God in heaven. creature the glory and the service due to the Creator alone. The kind and merciful dealings of his providence have ever been following us,yea, God going before us in them, sustaining, protecting, delivering us, and doing us good, from day to day unweariedly, both when we yet knew him not, and by his dealings in word, and providence and grace, so overruling our lot, as to cause us to see somewhat of his own glory, and of our need of his own sovereign mercy and grace in Christ Jesus.

An idol, indeed, is nothing-in any spiritual sense. And how cruel the self-delusion practised, of esteeming it, as if it could do me good, as if its possession could benefit my immortal soul. O! how glorious is God as a Saviourthe Saviour, to forgive such iniquity, and transgression, and sin! The riches of his grace are indeed unsearchable, when he is yet ready to forgive, and still waiting to command the blessing upon me a sinner, of such aggravated guilt.

The soul must be turned from idols to serve the He hath indeed shown to us, and can we living God. Turn thou me, and I shall be turned. deny it, 'that which is good,'-the riches of My soul, draw near to God-O be humbled under his grace in Christ, his willingness, not that we his mighty hand, confessing thy sins. And may should perish, but that we should remember that grace in its sovereign abundance, so quicken him, and turn to him, and that he should and strengthen me, that I shall forsake all things, bless us with all spiritual blessings in hea- and truly follow the Lamb, whithersoever he venly places in Christ. And yet, have we goeth.

not to confess acts and habits of a practical idolatry? He has not visited us according to our sins. His long-suffering has been greatly extended towards us. He hath frequently in kind

NINTH DAY.-EVENING.

cannot profit; objects which in their very nature are positively nothing; which have no spiritual

'The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God,' existence, no enduring quality in them at all—

Psal. xiv. 1.

and wishing now its own separation from God, and that there were no God to interfere with its own maddened pursuit of such empty and vain objects.

THIS shows to what an evil extent, to what a rebellious and degenerate condition sin reduces the soul, that creature of God which once bore his own image! There is much that is very But this is a wish. It is said in the heart. awful to contemplate in this fact, in any soul of It is not even an imagination; it is not a mere man being brought to such a condition as to say thought. It is a wish of the degraded and this. It is said in the heart. This clearly signi- foolish soul. It is not an exercise of the underfies that it is a wish-the wish of the individual standing. No! If the wretched, infatuated soul, here represented, that there were no God! We read permitted itself to exercise its understanding on in the scriptures of angels that sinned. We read the subject, it could not but perceive truly that that there was war in heaven. And the angels there is a God. Yea, and this wish is in who rebelled were cast forth from the kingdom opposition to the understanding and the conof glory, and reserved they are in chains of dark-science. It is the not wishing to retain the ness to the judgment of the great day. They had said in their heart what is here expressed. They wished that there were no God to rule over them, and that they themselves should be exalted even to the place of God.

This is the very nature, the essence, and the real being of sin in the soul. It is the sin which we inherit by nature, through original apostacy. We carry it with us in our own hearts. And by every exercise which sin has, which is given to it, this, the being of it in the soul, is actually strengthened, and the sinner becomes more foolish, more audacious, more rebellious in practice, the longer that sin is cherished and indulged.

When, contrary to the admonition of conscience, to the declarations and warnings of the divine word, the mind sets up to itself idols, lying vanities; to which it renders the homage, and service, and affections due to God alone, it becomes more and more hostile to the claims of God upon itself. It cannot now bear that God should demand any service, any real serIvice of the heart from it. It is giving the whole of this to the idols which it has set up, and thinks it an interference that God, and not these idols, should demand its services and its affections. The sinner becomes 'mad upon his idols; and here is the madness-here the height of foolishness-wishing that there were no God. How fearful is this condition! An immortal soul, dependent upon God, and by his divine goodness sustained; yea, by his divine goodness and grace called, and invited, to be made a partaker of the favour and of the kingdom of God throughout eternity, spurning those gracious offers, those eternally precious and glorious privileges, which have been purchased for it by Jesus Christ, and preferring, What? Vanities, lying vanities, which

knowledge of God. The voice of reason is perverted. It is rebelled against. It is put to silence. How like a fool is this conduct! It does render man a fool in the most true sense of that expression. He may not be a fool in the world's estimation. Far from it. He is active and eager, intelligent, shrewd, keen-sighted; perhaps signally successful and prosperous in this world's pursuits. He is obtaining from the men of the world the tribute of their admiration, for his success, and his expertness in this world's business. Perhaps he is the object of envy to many a neighbour of the like worldly heart with himself.

But the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God; and with respect to God, how clear it is that such wisdom is foolishness indeed! Can a wish of the heart make God cease to be! Can such wishes affect the eternal Being, the supreme and eternal perfections of the one living and true God? Can the united wishes of all his creatures, should they all be thus rendered rebellious against him, once affect the eternal throne of the omnipotent Jehovah! The word of his power, the breathing of that almighty power, could, in one moment, annihilate their united and contemptible union, and cast them down, wretched apostates from God, into eternal torments. But yet this 'fool' proceeds to act as if even his wish had had effect upon God himself-he proceeds to act as if there were no God, and as if God had no right to demand any homage, or service of the heart, or of the life, from him at all!

And is not this the very picture brought out to our view by the adorable Saviour, in the description he gives of the rich man in the gospel, whose lands brought forth abundantly, and who said to his soul to take now its ease, in the multitude of its possessions, in the wretched gratification of his own polluted and degraded