acceptation, that he came into the world to save sinners. O God, do thou give us an interest.in him. Wash us from all our iniquities in his atoning blood; clothe us with his all-perfect righteousness, and impart to our souls the peace which has been purchased through the blood of the cross, the peace which passeth all understanding; and the joy in believing which is full of glory. And save us from the power of sin, and enable us to walk in the paths of righteousness for thy name's sake. Blessed Jesus, thou who didst feed the hungry and heal the sick, do thou evermore feed our souls with the bread of life. Heal our backslidings, receive us graciously, and love us freely; and enable us to render unto thee the calves of our lips. In every season of difficulty and danger, be thou present to deliver us: that our souls may live and praise thy name. heaven. Preserve us, O God, during the darkness of this night. Give us refreshing sleep and if it be thy holy will, do thou raise us up on the morning of the Sabbath day. We would hail with gladness, the approach of this day of holy rest. May we be prepared for improving it aright. May thy name be hallowed, and may our Sabbaths on earth be anticipations of the rest which remaineth for the people of God, in We commend to thy holy keeping, all who are near and dear to us. May they be blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus. We pray for all men. May the knowledge of the Lord soon cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. In every place, may incense and a pure offering be sented to the Lord. Comfort the afflicted: prepare the dying for death, and teach us to live in mind of our latter end. Hear our prayers, and accept of us in Christ Jesus our Lord, and to thy name be the glory. Amen. FOURTH WEEK. SABBATH MORNING. PRAISE PSALM XCII. 1-4. SCRIPTURE-PSALMS XIV. XV. XVI. pre EXPLANATORY REMARKS. PSALM XIV. ver. 1-4. All the impiety and wickedness of man has its commencement in the estrangeTrent of the heart from God, and in driving him far from our thoughts; and, when irreligion prevails among a people, corruption and wickedness of every kind are the natural and invariable results. Ver. 5-7. Yet God does not forsake or cast off his peo ple. The salvation of Israel has come out of Zion: Christ hath led captivity captive, and glad tidings of great joy have been proclaimed to the spiritual Israel. PSALM XV. ver. 1-5. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Evil cannot dwell with him, nor the fool stand in his sight. There is no safety, no sure or permanent happiness to any but those who possess the character of his children. In explanation of the XVI. PSALM there is reason to think that, in the first part of the Psalm,, David speaks in his own person, and, whilst he disclaims the idea of being profitable unto his Maker, as a man may be profitable unto himself, he gives thanks to God that he had not been led away by the error of the wicked, and that he had been enabled to choose the Lord as the portion of his inheritance and his cup; that the lines had fallen unto him in pleasant places, and he had received a goodly heritage. In the latter part of the Psalm, David may be considered as personating the Messiah; predicting his resurrection, and anticipating the fulness of joy, in the prospect of which Christ endured the cross, despising the shame. PRACTICAL REMARKS. PSALM XIV. ver. 1-7. How many are there among and folly of an unregenerated heart, practically say men professing Christianity who, in the blindness 'No God;' deliberately putting away from them the thought of a present Deity, the witness of their thoughts and actions, that they may do their abominable works, and walk in the way of their own hearts! Justly may it be said of such that they have no knowledge. Let us seek to have our place and our lot in the generation of the righteous, and among the sons of God, that he may visit us with his salvation; that we may see the good of his chosen; that we may rejoice in the gladness of his nation, and may glory with his inheritance. PSALM XV. ver. 1-5. If we have been taught the with him, 'one thing have I desired of the Lord, spirit of the holy Psalmist, and have learned to say, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple,' let us bear habitually in mind that we cannot, with acceptance, enter the tabernacle of God upon earth, and cannot possibly dwell in his presence in heaven, unless we have attained, in some good measure, to the uprightness and sincerity, the brotherly love and the kind affection of true believers; and let us be continually engaged in cultivating these amiable qualities. PSALM XVI. ver. 1-11. We cannot sufficiently value the unspeakable privilege of regarding God as our Lord, and the object of our confidence, and of having recourse to him as our preserver and deliverer in every season of difficulty and danger. Those who take refuge in lies, and hide themselves under falsehood, shall have their sorrows multiplied; while all true believers shall find that, trusting in the Lord, mercy shall compass them about. Let us imitate the example of our divine Redeemer, the chief leader and the perfecter of faith, Heb. xii. 2. Like him let us set the Lord always before us, and, in the assured H hope of a blessed resurrection, and the joyful antici- | pation of the pleasures which are at God's right hand, let us endure with patience every affliction, and strenuously and perseveringly perform all our duties to our Father in heaven. wants of thy people who may be reluctantly detained from the house of prayer. Speak peace to their souls, and give them bread to eat which the world knoweth not. Have mercy on the sabbath-breaker, and the despiser of thine ordinGracious and merciful Jehovah, we look up too late, and their feet stumble on the dark ances, and give them true repentance ere it be PRAYER. to thee as the God in whom we live, and move, and have our being. Thou didst breathe into our nostrils the breath of life, and thy merciful visi tation sustains our spirits. We lay ourselves down and sleep: we awake again; for thou, Lord, sustainest us. We thank thee that thou hast been pleased to spare us to behold the light of this day. We bless thee that it is the day which thou hast made; the day of the Lord. May we have grace to account it a delight, the holy of the Lord and honourable; and may we be enabled to honour it, not thinking our own thoughts, or speaking our own words, or doing our own works. Especially may we be enabled to remember, with faith and holy joy, that on this day of the week our blessed Redeemer rose from the dead; the first- fruits of them that sleep; and may we have it, as the testimony of our consciences, that we are risen together with him, our affections being set on the things which are above; the things which are at the right hand of God, where Jesus Christ sitteth. May we be in the Spirit on thy holy day, spiritually minded, which is life and peace. We would confess, with deep humility, our misimprovement of the means of grace, and the scantiness and deficiency of the fruit which we have brought forth unto thee. Justly mightest thou say, with regard to us, Cut them down, why cumber they the ground?' and justly mightest thou remove our candlestick out of its place, and give our privileges to others who should bring forth more abundantly than we the fruits of righteousness. But, behold, thou waitest to be gracious. Thou continues to give us free access to a throne of grace. Our eyes see our teachers; and, on each returning sabbath, we hear the call addressed to us, 'Let us go into the house of the Lord.' Mercifully forgive our unworthiness; cast all our sins behind thy back, and visit us, this day, with the light of thy countenance and the joy of thy salvation. May we profit by every opening of the mouth, and know, in our happy experience, that it is good for us to draw near to God. SABBATH EVENING. PRAISE-PARAPHRASE XXII. 5-8. SCRIPTURE-PSALM XVII. EXPLANATORY REMARKS. We do not know for certainty, on what occasion this psalm was composed. But we have the strongest reasons for supposing that it was penned by David, at the time of his persecutions by Saul. The psalm has every appearance of having been written by one who, at the time, or shortly before the composition of it, was persecuted with deadly hatred by a multitude of cruel and malignant enemies; and, in these circumstances, 'encouraged himself in the Lord his God.' There is no person whose history is recorded in the Old Testament to whom the description in the psalm so accurately applies as David; whether we consider the circumstances in which the writer appears to have been placed, o his confidence in God in the time of affliction. not improbable, however, that there may also be a reference to the sufferings of Christ the Son David, and the anti-type of the king of Israel, and to his confidence in his Father amidst the persecu tions to which he was exposed. PRACTICAL REMARKS. It is O continual dependence upon God, and in all our ap Ver. 1-6. Let us bear habitually in mind, ou proaches to him; let us rely on the all-prevailin intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ. But let also remember that the character of an Israelite in deed, is described by our Lord in these words, man in whom is no guile,' and that our prayer car Thou hast said that thou wilt dwell with him not be accepted, if it go not out of unfeigned lip that is of an humble and contrite spirit, to revive God has been enabled to keep himself from the pat and, if it be not the prayer of one who by the word the spirit of the humble, and to revive the hearts of the destroyer. Ver. 7-15. Marvellous is the lo of the contrite ones. Visit, this day, we beseeching-kindness of God to his people, when they p thee, the tabernacles of Jacob, and supply the their trust in him. The protection which he afford the time of danger and perplexity, is perfect. It is in infinite wisdom and almighty power. In the present peaceful times of the church, we feel but little of the persecuting hatred of the men of the world. But our adversary, the devil, goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour-as a lion greedy of his prey, and as it were a young lion, lurking in secret places:' and we have constantly need to pray that the Lord would disappoint and cast him down, that he would deliver our souls from the wicked one.' The Son of God, the Captain of our salvation, will bruise satan under our feet shortly: and if we commit the keeping of our souls to him in well-doing, he will enable us to be faithful unto death; and when we awake at the resurrection-day, our best desires shall be fully gratified; we shall behold the face of God in righteousness, and, seeing him as he is, we shall be satisfied with his likeness. PRAYER. O Lord, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty. Thine understanding is infinite-thy wisdom is unsearchable-thy kingdom ruleth over all. When we consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, it well becomes us to say, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? Blessed be thy name, unworthy though we be, thou hast permitted, yea, commanded, us in Christ Jesus to regard thee as the object of our confidence and love ;-in our perplexities to look to thee for wisdom to direct us, in the consciousness of guilt and sinfulness to east the burden of our sins and our infirmities upon thee; and in the hour of temptation and duty, to rely on the grace which thou hast promised to give us abundantly. Thou hast been the dwelling-place of thy people in the generations that are past, and thou wilt be their refuge and their strength in the generations that are yet to come. May it be given unto us to believe on the name of the Son of God, and believing, may we have life through his name. May Christ be made unto us, wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. We unite in thanking thee, O Lord, for the mercies and the privileges of this thy holy day; for the opportunities which we have enjoyed in public or in private of waiting upon thee, and for every good impression which may have been made upon our minds by the ordinances of thine appointment. We would be humbled before thee when we think of the sins of our holy things, of the distraction of our minds, and the coldness of our affections while engaged in the solemn services of religion; and the imperfection that has cleaved to our purest desires and our most holy and devout aspirations. Lord, show us thy mercy in the forgiveness of the sins of this day, | and in pouring out so rich and abundant a blessing on our solemn religious observances, as shall assure our hearts before thee, and enable fices, to say that a day spent in thy courts is us on looking back on this day's spiritual sacribetter than a thousand. Gracious Lord, perfect that which concerneth us. Confirm every good impression made in the private exercises of religion, or in the house of prayer. Hold up our goings in thy paths, that our footsteps may not slip. We know that thou wilt hear us: keep us as the apple of thine eye: and let not our spiritual enemies prevail over us. Give us the victory over the fear of man : and animate us to stedfast and persevering obedience by the assured hope of a glorious resurrection. Bless thy word preached and heard this day. Let not the seed which has been sown, be caught away by the wicked one, or wither away before temptation and persecution, or be choked by the cares, or the pleasures, or the riches of the world; but may it be as good seed sown in a good soil, and bring forth in some a hundred fold, in some sixty, in some thirty. Watch over us during the darkness of the night, and, if it be thy will, raise us up in health and comfort on the morning of the coming day. Prepare us for all thy will and all our duty. May goodness and mercy follow us all the days of our life; and may we dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. For all that we ask is for Christ's sake, to whom, with the Father and blessed Spirit, be glory and dominion, for ever and ever. Amen. MONDAY MORNING. PRAISE-PSALM CXXI. REMARKS. Scarcely has the blessing been pronounced on Jacob ere he begins to suffer for the deceit by which he has procured it. His brother seeks his life, and to escape his malice, he is obliged to leave his father's house and flee to Syria. It is a long journey through an inhospitable wild; and to avoid suspicion and remark, he undertakes it alone. In the course of it, a very singular incident occurs. Weary and benighted, the pilgrim lays him down to rest: the earth his bed, a stone his pillow; a glorious vision bursts upon him in a dream: a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, with angels ascending and descending on it; the Lord himself stands at the top of it in visible shape, and solemnly ratifies the benediction of Isaac, and vouchsafes to him his promise of perpetual protection. Jacob awakes out of his sleep-reverently confesses a present deity-rises up and consecrates the stone on which he lay, as a pillar of memorial -names the place Bethel, 'the house of God:' and vows a vow of devotion to the worship and service of heaven, during all his future life. us. his holy name. It is a pleasant thing to give thanks unto the Lord; to sing praises unto thee, O thou Most High; to show forth thy lovingLet us contemplate in the ladder, an emblem of kindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness Jehovah's providential care. Even from his habi- every night. Thou hast never left thyself withtation on high he holds constant intercourse with out a witness on the earth: we would rememhis creatures, and controls all their affairs. And the ber the wonders done of old, O thou Spirit, figure is a striking one, which represents this great who didst speak to the fathers by the prophets. truth by angels seen ever and anon descending from Thou art he who made a covenant with Abraheaven to earth charged with commissions from him; ham; who taught thy servant Moses from the and again, in turn, incessantly re-ascending to report flame of fire in the bush; who gave the living them fulfilled, and to ask new ones. Specially let us contemplate in the ladder, an emblem of the Lord oracles from Sinai; who brought up Israel from Jesus Christ. It was the mystic glimpse of Im- Egypt, through the wilderness; who showed manuel which it revealed that made it so interesting beforehand to thy church, by type and symbol, to the patriarch, and makes it still so interesting to the great things which were to come. In these By him it is, that a communication has been last days thou hast spoken to us by thine own opened and perpetuated between earth and heaven. Son. We have seen what many of old sought to He is the day's man that stands between the sinner and God. Through him alone it is, that grace and see, and were not permitted; we have boldness peace descend from the throne; by him alone can to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. the believer rise to the image of heaven here, and Our souls would magnify the Lord; our spirits to its fulness of joy and holiness hereafter. I am would rejoice in God our Saviour. Now, lettest the way, and the truth, and the life: no man cometh thou thy servants depart in peace, for our eyes unto the Father but by me.' Let us learn that have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared the Lord is a very present help in times of trouble. before the face of all people, a light to lighten It was when Jacob needed him most, a poor solitary wanderer, at midnight, far from the home and the Gentiles, and the glory of Israel. O God, the ordinances of his fathers, that he manifested help us to see that we need a Saviour; help us himself to him in peculiar glory. And the experi- to feel that the Lord Jesus Christ is the very ence of believers in every age has confirmed it, that Saviour we need; deliver us from the pride the consolations of the gospel are sweetest far, and of heart which prevents men from embracing so strongest when the trials of life are bitterest. thy day, so shall thy strength be,' is an eternal pro- proclaims; dispose us to accept of him humbly As humbling a salvation as the gospel of his grace and heartily in all his offices, as our Prophet, and Priest, and King. He is the only mediator between God and men; by him alone have we privilege of access to thee; our only hope of heaven is in thy mercy through his blood. The Lord make us partakers of his righteousness; the Lord renew us after his image; the Lord sanctify us through his truth. We believe in him; help thou our unbelief. Build us up, stablish, strengthen, settle us in the faith; every day may we be drawing out of his fulness and living to him. And O evermore, give us to enjoy the consolations of his word in affliction; to be guided by his counsel in difficulty and peril; to be strengthened by his grace and truth in times of temptation. May we find him an ever present God; may we never be ashamed to confess him, and to remember him in his ordinances; may we devote ourselves, heart and soul, to his service, and find strength to keep our vows. Lord, bless this family and all connected with us. Be thou our shepherd and we shall never want. Deliver us from the pestilence that walketh in darkness, and from the arrow that wasteth at noon-day; hide us in thy pavilion, mise, and it never fails. How often at eventide is there light! how often is the valley of Achor given for a door of hope! The Lord is indeed in every place at all times, and Jacob knew well his omnipresence, even though he cried 'surely the Lord is here.' But, in peculiar times and places, his presence is often more sensibly felt than in others; and every Christian has his Bethel and his stone of memorial. O how many have cried in their hearts in the sanctuary, on a holiday of Zion, over the memorials of Christ's sacrifice, 'This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.' Jacob, after the mystic vision, yielded himself up most solemnly to the God of his fathers. How doth it become us to inquire,—What have we rendered unto the Lord for all his goodness? Have we ever seriously begun a religious life? Have we avouched the Lord as our God, and sworn to honour him and serve him in the world? O Lord God, thou knowest. Our hearts' desire is that he would enable us this very morning to consider, in right earnest, the things that belong to our peace-that he would impress on us evermore his own words, When thou vowest a vow, defer not to pay it. For God hateth the sacrifice of fools.' PRAYER. Bless the Lord, O our souls, and all that is within us be stirred up to bless and to magnify The scribes and pharisees made void the law by their traditions; and under the pretence of superior precision and sanctity, were the bitterest enemies of the truth. Jesus knew their hearts and took many them a spiritual feast in his gospel, and invited them all to partake of it, and given them the assurance of a hearty welcome and abundant provision. Let us that whoso is privileged to eat of it never hungers never forget that himself is the bread of life, and again. Lord, evermore give us this bread! PRAYER. O Lord, we would receive it as a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. In his name, and through his merit, we would approach thee in prayer; our only hope of thy favour is for the sake of what he did and suffered for us. O do thou show us more and more of the perfection of his sacrifice, and the fulness. of his compassions, and the riches and freeness of his grace. Do thou send down the Spirit of truth to open our understandings, that we may understand aright those things which are spoken of him in the scriptures. Do thou unite us to him by true and living faith; do thou dispose us to cleave unto him as the Lord our righteousness, and the Lord our strength, that our inmost occasions to expose their deceit, and refute their cavillings, and rebuke their malice. And what he has denounced against them, applies to all in every age, who love sacrifice rather than mercy; who sub-hearts may cry out, None but Christ, none but stitute the form for the power of godliness; who draw nigh to God with their lips, and honour him with their mouths, while their hearts are far from him. What is the hope of the hypocrite though he hath gained, when God taketh away his soul? From His death-bed, does he look back to his prayers? they were a mockery of omniscience; to his solemnities? they were a fashion and a pretence; to his zeal for the truth? it was a lying profession with seifish reserves; to the seemliness of his morality? t was a cloak, to hide from the spirit of the law. H's religion is found a shadow, just when he needed is consolations most-his trust is as the spider's web. How wonderful was the faith of the poor woman of Canaan! see her disregarded, repulsed, scorned, yet still persevering in her suit; see her hoping ainst hope, and with singular ingenuity, turning the very objections argued against her into an argunt in her favour! O how beautiful an instance is Christ! O let our souls be nourished by him, from day to day as the hidden manna—the bread which came down from heaven-and when they are ready to faint, let him be to us as water in the wilderness, as a spring in the desert. Lord, deliver us from the hypocrisy of those who desire to appear righteous before men; who are satisfied with a barren profession; who have a name to live while they are dead. God forbid that ours should be merely a religion of show. Create thou in us clean hearts; renew a right spirit within us; and by our daily walk and conversation, may we approve the sincerity of our faith. Our earnest cry, morning and evening, would be, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on us. O give us grace, to be humthis of the efficacy of importunate prayer of the ble, and importunate, and persevering in our triumph of humility; of the riches of gospel grace; devotions; let us wait patiently on the Lord, how admirably calculated to animate the faint and and though he slay us, still trust in him. Lord, Weary penitent! How doth it become each one of we pray for the downfal of satan's kingdom, and us to take up her cry, O Lord, thou Son of David, the triumphs of the Redeemer's cause among the bave mercy upon me;' and despite all disappoint-heathen nations; we pray for peace and charity ment and delay, never to let him go without a blessThe miracles of Christ were not less remark- among all of every name, to whom the tidings able for their love than for their power; not only of salvation have come; we pray that our Sovewere they fitted to demonstrate the divinity of his reign may reign long and happily over mission, but also to illustrate the doctrines he taught. native land; we pray for our beloved Zion, that We have been reading that he had compassion on a grace may be poured out abundantly on all the great multitude who were three days without food ministers and all the congregations; we pray in the wilderness, attending to his instructions; and for the sick, the afflicted, and the dying: that also that after having fed them abundantly with seven Laves and a few little fishes, seven baskets of frag ents were gathered up. Let us never forget, that besides ministering on all occasions of distress to the Lemporal wants of his people, he has prepared for all our trouble. Accept of our thanks for thy goodness may find thee a very present help in time of to us during the past day; we commit us to thy care and keeping during the watches of the night; |