God may be said also to deliver a good man from a general calamity, by enabling him to bear it through the influence of divine grace. Happiness and misery are to a man as he feels them. What is misery to one man, is comfort to another. God, therefore, may rescue a good man from calamity by arming him in a way to repel it. We have every reason to believe, God fortified his holy martyrs in this way; and we have no reason to disbelieve, that, on extraordinary occasions, he may extend the same heavenly aid to us.

There is still another way, in which God may deliver his faithful servants and in their estimation often the best-and that is, by taking them to himself. By this happy exchange they leave a vale of tears for a mansion of happiness.

Since, then, God has these several means of delivering his righteous servants from general calamity, let us never despair under the worst that can happen; but trust in his goodness. Let us only form in our minds an habitual endeavour to please him; and we may be confident, he will never forsake us; but with the temptation or trial, however great, will find out for us a way to escape.

LXXVI.

Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. Colossians, iii. 3.

THIS beautiful and comprehensive text is a short history of the life of a pious Christian. He must not consider his living in this world, as his real life. His real life is to exist in heaven ; and is hid, as it were, with Christ in God.

St. Paul here seems to have had one of his favourite allusions in view, that of the growth of corn. In the 15th chapter of the first of Corine thians, he adduces it to illustrate the resurrection of the body. Here he probably alludes to it in explaining (if I may so express myself,) the resurrection of the soul.

LXXVII.

And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man until the Son of man be risen from the dead.Matthew, xvii. 9.

IN this passage, Jesus alludes to a connection between his transfiguration and his resurrection. It was improper to mention the former, till the latter had taken place. I shall endeavour, first, to show you why it was improper to mention the transfiguration before the resurrection— and, secondly, why it was properly mentioned after it.

First, it was improper to mention it before the resurrection, because Christ's life, till that time, was under such a veil of obscurity; and had, in every part of it, so little of splendour, that the wonderful transaction of his transfiguration could hardly have been received as a probable account. And if it had been believed, it could have answered no end. Its general intention was by no means obvious.

But

It

But after Christ's resurrection, the recital of it appeared in all its force. Its character was then, that of a typical representation of that glory which Christ was about to resume. tended also to establish, with all pious Christians, the credit of his resurrection, and still more of his ascension, by the coincidence of a similar fact.

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LXXVIII.

And when the woman saw that-it was a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.-Gen. iii. 6.

THE tree of knowledge of good and evil seems not only to have been intended by the great Creator as a test of obedience to our first parents; but also to have had a mystical meaning for the use of their posterity. It seems to have been a kind of land-mark set up to warn mankind against trusting to their own wisdom. The tree of knowledge of good and evil should never be forgotten.

One should have thought an example involving such woeful consequences, might have deterred succeeding generations from copying a crime so big with mischievous effects. But mankind, undismayed, have in all ages plucked, and eaten the same baneful fruit. Instead of obeying what we know, we unsettle our minds too often

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