that these may not separate me from God, nor | continually. That grace the Lord will give. destroy thus my communion with him. But, alas! there are idols of gold-objects that are more highly prized by my vain and earthly and ungovernable affections, and which I can scarcely think of, but they come, I fear, as if into competition with God in my soul, and they turn me aside continually. When shall I hate them as idols-when shall I feel the actual guilt of cherishing them in my soul, and preferring them to God as my God? Subdue, O Lord, my soul, into the love and obedience of thine own good and gracious will; for thou offerest thyself to me, to be my God in Christ Jesus, and that I may truly be thine. Sinner-seek him, call upon him while he is near. Believer, who hast acknowledged thy sins to God-draw near and wait for this grace, until thy soul experience its true, and real, and sanctifying power. FIFTEENTH DAY.-MORNING. 'Doth not he see my ways, and count all my steps?' Job xxxi. 4. YES, assuredly, this is the truth. Job felt this. The Spirit of the Lord made him to see and to feel it. The believer has, with Job, the witness I desire to hate the idolatry that is in my concerning it in his own soul. But it may be heart. I feel that there the evil root of bit-rebelled against, and the deceitfulness of sin causes terness is. God bestows upon me many precious it to be lost in the mind. There is nothing in mercies and gifts day by day-he continues me which sin may be more easily detected than this; by his goodness, in many endearing relations- whenever it begins to be cherished in the heart, and, O, why turn these into idols-why imagine it rises up, as if a thick mist before the eyes of that in these objects my good and my true enjoy- the understanding, even although in some effectment consist? It is unbelief-it is the darkness ual measure it may have been spiritually enlightof sin—the evil of its very nature in my own ened—the soul's perceptions of the being of God, soul which causes this. Those objects, my pos- even his very existence, are hindered, obscured, sessions, my relations, my children, my friends,- darkened, and as sin proceeds in its secret workthey are thy good gifts, thou bountiful and mer-ings-God proportionally, then, is forgotten; and ciful Giver the sin is mine, that turns them as if into idols of gold-which I think most precious, and hesitate to turn from as idols, and to derive my highest enjoyments from God. But as idols-teach thou me to cast them from me— to be crucified to the world, and to be devoted in heart and spirit to thyself. then it is but one step to his divine authority being acted against his claims upon the soul— these now are no longer realized, and sin is then committed. cess. The one holy, living, and true God is cognizant of every step of this sinful and guilty proWhile this is secret, that the mind itself scarcely perceives its own workings, and, indeed, does not perceive them at all-God beholds all that is now going forward-and every step by which the soul is turned aside from following him, and from glorifying his name by a life of faith. Now, let it never be forgotten, as proof of the work of grace in the soul, that it brings the soul more habitually to realize the being and the perfections of God, and to feel his omniscient eye upon itself in all circumstances, and in every place. Let every professed believer inquire and know, whether this realizing power of faith is making advancement or progress in his own soul. Is it felt by you, in your going out, and in your coming in? Let not this matter remain in doubt or uncertainty. Prove it. Know yourselves whether ye be in the faith. O, let me not judge as if I had already attained -as if I had already apprehended that for which thou dost apprehend thy people-until I be enabled day by day to sit very loosely to every created object to hold them only as such, and not as my portion-to esteem them as thy gifts, and thy property committed to me as thy steward-to occupy whatsoever thou art pleased to bestow, as talents of thine own! O reveal to my soul of thy glorious majesty, that I may worship and serve thee in truth-and that other lords may not have dominion over me. Reveal to me the holiness of thy character, that I may, in the exercise of filial fear and love, continually fear to offend thee, glorifying thee as the God of my salvation and health, who hast condescended to look down in mercy upon me a miserable, ruined, and guilty sinner, and to send thy well-beloved Son to seek and to save me. Let me not depart from thee. Reprove me in thy mercy, but not in thy wrath, for my innumerable backslidings; and by thy grace unite my heart to love and fear thy name | him.' It is only by this advancement in the knowledge of God, that he can be glorified by you. The just shall live by faith; but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in To the unconverted sinner, the soul still at enmity with God, such a recognition of God presents no attraction, nothing desirable. Nay, he would dread it, and does dread it, just because he is ignorant of the glory of God, and seeks not the teaching that is from above, to instruct him. If you can follow your own desires, without this recognition of God in your heart, you have truly cause to fear that you have not yet been reconciled to God. He sees thy way and manner of life. He counts all thy steps. And if thy steps be taken without this recognition and knowledge of God prevailing in thy mind, then art thou not serving or glorifying God. How can he be served or glorified but in the exercise of such knowledge concerning himself? It cannot be. And when the soul is brought into this real spiritual and saving knowledge of God, having this abiding and living sense of his presencenot saying in words merely, but feeling and realizing: Thou God seest me,' then, at each step, it will inquire-it will be an inquiry of the heart-what am I now doing-what step is this which I am about to take, which I propose to myself, or to which I am urged? Is it a step that will bring me nearer to God? Is it a step by which his name will be glorified in and by me? Is it a step on the way to heaven, or one that may lead me further astray from God, incurring his displeasure, and dishonouring his glorious name? It is but vanity and deceit to imagine concerning ourselves, that we have taken God to be our God, if we be found practically strangers to such a believing view of him, or to such communion with him. And again, if we have taken God to be our God indeed, we can trust in him—that he can, and will bless and sustain us in our ways. We can trust, that it is by abiding in his fear, by keeping, so to speak, within sight of his holy omniscience, we shall be preserved from falling, and from all evil. He sees our ways, he counteth all our steps; and can he bless us, in that wherein we sought not to be seen of him, in that which we desired to conceal from God? Nay, the believer will not seek to conceal his ways from the Lord, or if he be overtaken by sin, through its deceitfulness and power, to forget the Lord, and to take his own way-God will soon manifest to him, that his ways have been seen, and all his steps counted. He will visit his own people with the rod-their sins with chastisements. They procure these to themselves, by their forgetting the Lord, as their God and Redeemer. And hence, the sorrows of his peo ple, their perplexities, their frequent darkness, their experienced burden of guilt, and of indwelling sin; their feeling as if they were left almost to themselves, and as if God had forsaken them. Blessed and glorious God, how precious is thy grace, and thy faithfulness. Thy people forget thee; but thou forgettest not them. Thou watchest over them in thy love-thou chastenest them for their good. But let me learn the true knowledge of thee continually. O! vouchsafe the Teacher and the Comforter to come to me, and to abide with my erring and wayward soul, that I may be kept nigh to thee. Teach thou me, thou blessed and gracious Spirit, to see my own ways in the light of the knowledge of the glory of God-in the face of Jesus Christ-to know thy will, and to delight in doing it. In the exercise of this heavenly wisdom, may I be found counting all my own steps, walking circumspectly, not as fools do, but as the wise, made wise by thee, and redeeming the time, because the days are evil. FIFTEENTH DAY.-EVENING. ‘Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do,' Heb. iv. 13. He 'HE that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see? that chastiseth the heathen, shall he not correct? He that teacheth man knowledge, shall he not know? The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity. Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law; that thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked.' God is the Father of lights, and with him there is no darkness at all. O! how vain, how worthless, many empty professions made by men of their believing in God! Is there any thing pertaining to the very being of the Godhead, more consistent with reason itself, one would say, to believe, than that he is omniscient? And yet, what is there, of which men are practically so ignorant, so forgetful, so utterly and entirely careless! Reason's power is boasted of-we call, and we think ourselves to be, wise; but alas, truly the thoughts of men are vanity. Reason is powerless, to bring in the realizing of God's omniscience into the heart. And how can we presume to say, that we O! at all. believe in God, when we walk from day to day, | whatsoever they be, are not only seen, but and from hour to hour, without realizing or searched of God; with him there is no darkness feeling that his omniscient eye is upon us. how much less can we be said to have received him as our God in the way of acceptance, to be united to him in the bonds of faith and of love, if so be, that we thus walk, even as if God did not behold us; if we desire not that he should behold, that he should search and try us, but rather, that we should withhold from his knowledge the thoughts of our heart, the words of our mouth, and the works of our hands. O! my soul, examine thyself, and be admonished of thy own actual condition with God. Be not satisfied with the empty profession of the world, as if that were faith. What I find here recorded concerning God, is a truth to be realized, and experienced in the minds of his people. And do I not find the true people of God recording their living experience of it, as the psalmist does: 'O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting, and mine uprising, thou understandest my thoughts afar off. Thou compassest my path, and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue but, lo! O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.' The psalmist experienced the difficulty of this attainment to flesh and blood, its contrarity to the power and the habits of natural understanding. Yet he sought the power, which alone can raise the soul to this spiritual attainment-that grace, which through the merits and intercession of the adorable Saviour, is purchased for blinded, apostate, rebellious sinners, and which the blessed Spirit bestows; this precious enlightening of the eyes of the understanding, this bringing nigh of the soul to God. How earnestly the psalmist pants for this! 'O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee; my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee, in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; to see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.' Ah, how soon are effaced, by the empty vanities of the world, the impressions thou receivedst in the sanctuary of God, the views there bestowed upon the soul; yea, when it even rejoiced in that light! And is not this the great source of actual transgression, as if the license which sin takes to itself in the earthly mind, this sad forgetting of God, this sad practical, prevailing unbelief? Not more is it the happiness and the glory of saints in heaven, that they see God as he is, than it is the safety and the peace of the believer in this wilderness, that he should see the king in his beauty, and the land that is afar off. All creatures Sinner and saint are seen and searched, by the omniscient eye of Jehovah. Sin in its most secret guise is seen by him, in its remotest workings, as well as in its most overt acts. The lurking idol that is seated in the secrecy of the soul, his omniscient eye is fastened upon it. O! for light in my soul, to be habitually alive to this most solemn truth, this first principle of the true and real knowledge of God. And he is called, 'the God with whom we have to do.' And is it not with him I have to do, in all things? Is he not my omniscient Judge, the righteous Judge, who judgeth righteously according to his omniscience-not according to the outward appearance. He is the God who made us—who sustains us; and who graciously calls sinners, to be unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works— to abhor that which is evil, to cleave to that which is good. In present business, whatsoever it be, if I realize that I have to do with the world, in its relations, and dealings, and interests, and cares infinitely more have I to do with God. Let my soul learn this, let it be ever found under the living power of this blessed knowledge. I have to do with him now, for grace, saving grace— through his beloved Son. He offers freely this grace to my individual soul-and O! if I turn away from him, what must the end be? How just the condemnation! I shall have to do with God in judgment-when every secret of every heart shall be revealed. And when shall that judgment be, with respect to my individual soul— when it shall enter the eternal world, and stand unclothed of this mortality at the judgment-seat of Christ? The day or the hour knoweth no man'-the when, the where, or the how-this most awful message shall come, the irresistible mandate of him with whom now I have to do, and who then shall pronounce the irrevocable sentence, and my soul receive its unchangeable, eternal portion. Lord, this very day now past, what is my evidence that I have received of thy saving grace? Has not my stupid, earthly heart gone astray from thee has it not forgotten thee? Sin has separated the soul from God, from his knowledge, and then from his fear and love. But thy precious grace, O thou God of salvation, brings back the soul to thyself, to walk before thee in newness of life. This is the object of thy marvellous love in Christ Jesus-so to redeem the soul. O! in me, is grace working this blessed effect? Is thy Spirit dwelling with me, and teaching me truly to know thee? Do I desire to know thee, and to realize habitually thine omniscience? Sin must be prevailing, where this is not desired? Blessed God, blessed Saviour, blessed Spirit, Teacher and Comforter, thou seest me-all things are naked and open unto thine eye. Thou knowest my need of grace-to enlighten and quicken my soul. Even so, come, in thy love and power-and enable me to walk in the light of the Lord. SIXTEENTH DAY.-MORNING. And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people,' 2 Cor. vi. 16. THE thought indeed is very awful, that an individual of the human race, soul and body, should be the temple of the living God! Yet so it is, with every individual believer. God takes possession of the believer to himself. In that day of power, when his Spirit comes to the soul, he calls the soul and body to this high and glorious privilege, this exalted, this holy station, this wonderful rank. The Lord God claims but his own creature, and O, how graciously does he make, yea, and enforce the claim, for the creature's own everlasting and perfect happiness. Thine they were,' says the blessed Redeemer, of his chosen disciples, and of every one of his people who shall ever be gathered unto him, and thou gavest them me.' O, what a scene does this temple present, when he comes!—'a den of thieves!' Every affection, every power of the mind, every act of body and mind together robbing God of the glory due to his name, and giving his praise to idols! Every affection that rules in the heart has been till then, excluding God from his own place, from his own temple, and turning the soul into a scene in which he is continually dishonoured and denied, and rebelled against, and causing the body to be in all its acts and doings an instrument of unrighteousness to disobey and dishonour the God who formed it, and who has placed in union with it the precious, immortal soul. health, who in his own everlasting love has been pleased so to visit his people, and so to ordain for them salvation, and honour, and glory. The Lord hath redeemed his people! The Lord Jesus has given himself for them, to raise them up: 'He remembered them in their low estate; for his mercy endureth for ever.' The exclusive, the sole business of the temple, is the service of God; and the place it is, where his glory is revealed, seen, beheld, and his name adored. Have I been thus apprehended? Have the buyers and sellers been yet expelled? Am I consecrated to this holy service? Is it my delight and my purpose to render it? Have I experienced the constraining power of divine love, thus drawing my soul to God, thus casting forth the other lords that have had dominion over me? But here is the relation in which his redeemed people stand to God, as their God. Ye are the temple of the living God. And can this relation indeed be formed, without the soul experiencing the drawing power, of which the blessed Saviour speaks? Surely it cannot. He is lifted up from the earth; but am I drawn to him? No man cometh unto the Father but by him. In the days of his flesh, he came into the temple on earth, and what majesty must there have been, even then, in the divine Saviour's presence, when his bitter enemies could not, dared not oppose him! And so is it still, when he is manifested to the soul there is submission, there is godly fear, there is love awakened-his enemies flee before him-the temple is consecrated by his presenceit becomes a temple, dedicated to the service and glory of the Father by him the Beloved. There is a surrendering of ourselves to God for this glorious end, to which the believing view of Christ constrains the soul. There is in this a reality, a full reality of experience, of desire, of purpose. So was it with an apostle, when it pleased God to reveal Christ in him; immediately, he informs us, that he conferred not with flesh and blood. And again he says, 'The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again.' Has this come to be a reality with me? Without this, how can I think, that I am yet raised to the high and holy estate and privilege here set forth? And surely the thought is overwhelming, that in the temple of the living God sacrifice should be Think, O my soul, upon this awful, sublime subject, and solemnly ponder it! Do not let go the thought, as if it were but a vain imagination. Seize, O my soul, the glorious and everlasting reality that is here; and thou blessed Spirit of truth, and grace, and power, bring offered to idols, in his own very presence-where thou me into full view of the reality; and he dwells! enable me to adore and praise the God of my To what objects are my energies of mind and body directed? Think of this, my soul, | reflection of that everlasting love, which dwells now, while it is yet called to-day! Do we in its divine fulness with God! This apostle had not sacrifice to idols, when the great end is forgotten, and when meaner and lower ends are pursued as our ultimate object and aim? Meaner! -to make comparison is scarcely lawful. How utterly, how utterly unworthy the beggarly elements of this world, however laudable in the sight of men the pursuit, when they cast forth the remembrance of God from the soul, and bind it to the service of earth, yea, of lusts and pleasures, which have as their author and origin, sin, and the very author of sin himself! This temple, if indeed consecrated to the Lord, he purifies more and more—he cleanseth, he builds it up spiritually to be the habitation of God, through the Spirit. It is by the presence of Christ the Redeemer there, that this is effected-he dwelling in the heart by faith. Then the hope of his calling prevails, and whoso hath this hope in him, purifieth himself even as he is pure. The covenant is manifested to them, in its fulness, in its perfection, in its everlasting bonds, made strong in him who is its living head. God is become the God in covenant of those in whom the Son is thus revealed, and in whose souls he dwells by faith, and they are his redeemed people. O my soul, expect not the comforts, the joys of the divine life, till thou hast been brought so to accept the Saviour; that must go before thine abiding in him. And, 'except ye abide in me, and I in you,' the Saviour himself declares, 'ye can do nothing. Why is my soul so far off, so earthly, so darkened? Grace, divine power, is offered, is promised! Let me draw near, let me never depart, let my soul now, wait upon God, and not let him go, until he have blessed me, revealing his Son in me, and bringing my soul nd body to be a temple where his glory shall be revealed, and where he shall ever be served, with the sacrifices of thanksgiving, in the obedience of love. SIXTEENTH DAY.-EVENING. "Little children, keep yourselves from idols,' 1 John v. 21. How full and overflowing is the love of the Spirit! We admire the beloved disciple, who leaned on the Saviour's bosom. Our very hearts seek to be knit to him, in the fulness of his tender affection, and his very endearing character. But O, how prone are we to forget, that all his loveliness of character and of utterance, is but the nearness, peculiar nearness through the Spirit to the Saviour. It was there, that his soul was moulded into this heavenly element. It was there that he caught the language of heaven; and it was thence that he carried forth to address the church, those words of tenderness and of love, on which he so delights to dwell. He was changed into the same image which he beheld so clearly, from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord. Blessed apostle, peaceful and happy wast thou, even in thy desolate banishment-even then didst thou lean indeed on thy Saviour's bosom, by the power of faith. But O, adorable fountain of love, and truth, and grace-the God of mercy, of tenderness, and compassion, thus addressing thy children as God the Spirit, through thy servant, so blest, himself, in thy love. If we have been drawn, and turned to God, these accents of love will fall upon our hearts, as dew upon the tender grass, to invigorate it, to make it spring and grow. Little children!'— the appellation is tenderness itself. The Redeemer is watching over them with more than a parent's care. He sees their feebleness, he knows their weakness, he remembers that they are dust. He beholds their inexperience, the foolishness that is yet bound up in their hearts-he pities, he loves, and he delights to succour them—he carries the lambs in his bosom. Surely to be interested in this love is the high privilege of the soul-to be without an interest in it is deepest misery. And here let me learn, the cause of the warning, the ground of the faithful and tender admonition. Here there is intimated, the strong tendency of the foolish heart to idols. O will not the love of God persuade me, to give myself wholly to him!-to be devoted to his service, and to his glory's cause. Those whom the beloved apostle was here immediately addressing, were surrounded with heathen examples of idolatry; and that idolatry continually accompanied, indeed its abominable service consisting of, sinful indulgences, sensual gratifications, inordinate pleasures, and enticing allurements. Think, O believer, what is the scene of thine own habitation and converse. What beholdest thou in the world around thee? Is it the love of God prevailing, and purifying, and drawing the souls of men to him, to be his temples? Ah, no! Is not the world itself the great idol to which homage is paid, and service rendered—the souls of men bowing down to it, their very bodies its abject slaves! And is there no principle in my soul, to |