October 24.

ISAIAH XXVI, 4. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.

ROMANS V. 3. Tribulation worketh patience.

The Rev. WILLIAM BURKITT died 1703. In his childhood he appeared to be endowed with an excellent memory, which, through the effect of divine grace and good education, became a sacred repository. While he was at school, it pleased God to visit him with the small-pox, which was a happy dispensation to him, for then God began, by the influence of his Holy Spirit, to move him to attend in earnest to the things of his peace, and wrought a holy change in the temper of his mind. He entered upon the ministry very early after having been advanced by Bishop Reynolds, and not long after, was settled at Milden in Suffolk; at which place he was minister about twenty-one years, preaching evangelical truth. In 1692, he removed to Dedham in Essex. He preached much, and spared not himself at home or abroad, and delighted in his Master's work. In his preaching he was clear and easy to be understood, calculating his discourses to profit his hearers. Besides his heavenly matter and acceptable words, there was something of a charm.in his voice; and it pleased God to crown his public labours with great success to many of his hearers. In his visits to the poor, he not only ministered to their souls, but inquired into their bodily wants, and procured to them the supplies they needed. Among his intimate acquaintance he was cheerful, but yet always inclined to quit the innocent pleasantry, and turn the discourse into a serious channel. In his common conversation, he conducted himself with sobriety, justice, humility, and affability. No spots were to be found in his feasts; no unworthy behaviour stained his holy character; wherever he went, there appeared the Christian and the minister. I am assured from one (says Mr. Parkhurst) that he enjoyed an uninterrupted calmness and serenity of mind, and lived in the comfortable hope of God's love to his soul, and his title to glory, for several years before he died; a mercy that those who are involved in the business of the world, and swallowed -up in the pleasures of sin and sensuality, are strangers to,

and will not believe. Some treated him unkindly, but he forebore speaking either bitterly or contemptibly of his enemies; and, if they needed his service, he was ready to afford them it, heaping coals of fire upon their heads. Knowing the mischiefs of animosities, he used his persuasions, his interest, and his friends, to reduce his jarring neighbours to peace, and left nothing in his power undone to effect a reconciliation. The declaration of several persons by his dying bed, that he had been the instrument of their conversion, put him into a transport of joy. His patience in his last sickness was very exemplary. He said he had preached patience, and written of patience, and that therefore he was bound to practise patience. His frame, in his sickness, was a continued series of prayer, thanksgiving, and cheerful resignation to the divine will. A little before he poured out his last breath, he prayed, " Come, Lord Jesus, make a short work of it."

October 25.

PSALM. xvi. 6. The lines have fallen to me pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.

-KING GEORGE III. ascended the throne 1760. The declaration made by his Majesty on coming to the crown was highly favourable to religious liberty. He said, "that it was his fixed purpose, as the best means to draw down the divine favour on his reign, to countenance and encourage the practice of true religion and virtue, and maintain the toleration inviolable." And in one of the last speeches of his Majesty, he says, "It affords me peculiar gratification to reflect, that during my reign, the advantages of religious toleration have been more generally and extensively enjoyed than at any former period." And it must be confessed, that however gloomy things have been in other respects, in no king's reign have we seen such striking and extraordinary events as have transpired during this.. Not only have societies been formed for the protection of civil liberty; for the encouragement of the liberal arts; for establishing the rights of humanity; for the amelioration of the condition of the poor, the wretched, and the destitute; but for the

noble purpose, if possible, of illuminating the world at large. The institution of Bible, Missionary, Tract, and other societies, too numerous to be named here, form some of the most delightful events of his Majesty's reign. No Christian can recollect former times; can think of the persecution and hardships of our forefathers, without feeling emotions of gratitude to God, for the privileges he now enjoys. Religious liberty is better understood; places of public worship are greatly increased; useful publications more widely diffused; and wealth itself, in various instances has become tributary to the gospel of Christ. Happy art thou, O England, who is a people like unto thee!

October 26.

Rɛv. i. 8, 11, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last.

Dr. DODDRIDGE died at Lisbon, whither he went for the recovery of his health. The following will shew us how he was preserved from error by the examination of the above passage. "This has been interpreted," says the Doctor," by many, as spoken by the Father, but it will be difficult to give sufficient proof of it. Most of the phrases which are here used concerning this glorious person, are afterwards used concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. But if, after all, the words should be understood as spoken by the Father, our Lord's applying so many of these titles afterwards to himself, .plainly proves his par taking with the Father in the glory peculiar to the divine nature, and incommunicable to any creature."

"That the titles should be repeated so soon, in a connection which demonstrates they are given to Christ, will appear very remarkable. And I cannot forbear recording it, that this text has done more than any other in the Bible toward preventing me from going into the scheme which would make our Lord Jesus Christ no more than a deified creature."

This was the passage which the Doctor records as being particularly useful to him in respect to doctrine; but he mentions another also as much blessed to him in regard to his experience. As he was riding through a

country village, he was greatly strengthened and comforted, at a time when he was greatly distressed in soul, by hearing a child at a door reading to his mistress those words, "As thy days, so shall thy strength be.”

One day, conversing with his pupils on the various manner in which real Christians died, he said, I wish that my last words may be those lines of Dr. Watts:

.

A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,

On thy kind arms I fall;

Be thou my strength and righteousness,
My Jesus, and my all.

Whether he uttered these words on his death-bed is not certain, but it is well known that the spirit they breathe was that, in which Dr. Doddridge lived and died. Thus will all who know themselves; who are truly taught of God, be brought to depend on mercy, and on mercy alone. "If it be asked," said Mr. David Some, when on his death-bed, "how David Some died, let it be answered, That he sought and he found mercy."

October 27.

PSALM XXXVII. 37. Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace.

Mr. JOHN JANEWAY born, 1633. He was Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and died at the age of twenty-four. The above passage is admirably illustrated in his dying experience. "O (said he to his friends) that I could but let you know what I now feel! O that Í could but show you what I now see! O that I could express the thousandth part of that sweetness which I now find in Christ! My dear friends, we little think what Christ is worth upon a death-bed. I would not for world live any longer. The very thought of a possibility of a recovery makes me even tremble. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly! Death has lost its terror. Death is nothing; I say death is nothing through grace to me. I long to be with Christ; I long to die. O that glory! that unspeakable glory I behold! My heart is full, my heart is full. Did you but see what I see, you would all cry out with me, How long, dear Lord, how long! Come,

Lord Jesus, come quickly! O my friends, stand and wonder: come look upon a dying man and wonder. Was there ever a greater kindness! Was there ever more sensible manifestations of rich grace! O why me, Lord, why me! Sure, this is a kin to heaven! If this be dying, dying is sweet. Let no Christian be afraid of dying; death is sweet to me. This bed is soft! O that you did but see and feel what I do! Come and behold a dying man more cheerful than ever you saw any healthy man in the midst of his sweetest enjoyments. O why should you be sad, when I am so glad! This is the hour I have waited for. I want now but one thing, and it is a speedy lift into heaven.-Come let us lift up our voices in praise. I will with you as long as my breath shall last, and when I have none, I shall do it better." Thus departed to glory the Rev. John Janeway, in the month of June, 1657.

October 28.

MARK V. 48. And they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men.

ALFRED the GREAT died on this day, A. D. 900. He was a prince of a most amiable disposition; and the following will afford us an instance both of his liberality and his trust in divine providence. During the retreat of Alfred at Athelney in Somersetshire, after the defeat of his forces by the Danes, the following circumstance happened, which, while it convinces us of the extremities to which that great man was reduced, will give us a striking proof of his pious, benevolent disposition. A beggar came to his little castle there, and requested alms; when his Queen informed him, "that they had Only one small loaf remaining, which was insufficient for themselves and their friends, who were gone in quest of food, though with little hopes of success." The king replied, "Give the poor Christian one half of the loaf. He that could feed five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes, can certainly make that half loaf suffice for more than our necessity. Accordingly, the poor man was relieved, and this noble act of charity was soon recompensed by a providential store of fresh provisions, with which his people returned.