MED. plucking them out of the fire *.

་

VIII. Some are slow of attainments, and may be slow in believing. Others are rapid in every movement. These must be encouraged lest they relapse into despair: those must be checked, lest their repentance be inefficient and superficial. The spiritual director must watch, with steady diligence and discriminating observation, such different qualifications of the heart. "Brethren, "if any man be overtaken in a fault, ye, which are spiritual, restore such "an one in the spirit of meekness †." "Sufficient unto such a man is this punishment. So that contrariwise, ye ought rather to forgive him, and "comfort him, lest perhaps such an

one should be swallowed up of over"much sorrow." But this tenderness, manifested in its proper place, should induce no man to compromise, his duty. The Almighty, who shed

* Jude, 22. + Gal. i. 6.

2 Cor. ii. 6, 7.

special graces by the mouth of his Son, MED. spake in thunders from Mount Sinai.

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May the penitent be reclaimed, by whatever means it may be necessary to use for his recovery! May he be always ready to receive the full benefit of repentance, by freeing his heart from all vain imaginations, and by accepting all holy helps, so essential to his spiritual restoration. "It is not in man that walketh, to direct his own " steps *." It is not in man that erreth to direct the steps of another. But Thou, O God! hast given to every man some gift to profit withall. May we use our several gifts and graces to thy honour, and our salvation! May we, like John on the banks of Jordan, preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins; and may all sinners flock to this great baptism, confessing their sins, and fleeing from the wrath to come. O blessed

* James x. 23.

H

VIII.

MED.

VIII.

Lord God! who hast provided various means for promoting the salvation of man, and hast by thy grace made us sensible of sin, "Grant that, we, who " for our evil deeds do worthily deserve "to be punished, by the comfort of thy

grace may mercifully and speedily be "relieved, through our Lord and Sa"viour, Jesus Christ. Amen *.'

* Fourth Sunday after Easter.

MEDITATION IX.

MARK i. 15.

Repent ye-and believe the Gospel.

IX.

HAVING brought you to the door of med, the temple, my heart's desire and prayer to God for you now is, that you may enter in, and be saved. I would introduce you into the very inmost recesses of this sanctuary, and place you at the very foot of the altar. At the delivery of the old law, when the Ten Commandments were given on Mount Sinai, the approaches were indeed awful. The mountain might not be touched; it burned with fire; it was enveloped in blackness, and darkness, and tem pest; the sound of a trumpet was heard, and the voice of words; and so terrible was the sight, that even Moses, who had

MED. not been unaccustomed to a miraculous IX. revelation of God's will, said, "I ex

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ceedingly fear and quake*." And who can wonder that such was the effect, and that such may be the effect, when we hear a law disclosed which we have woefully transgressed; particularly when we know the punishment of it to be both inevitable and dreadful?

But a second covenant hath rescued us from fears of so alarming a nature. If the former was a law of works, this is a law of grace, and holds forth to the penitent a restoration to all those privileges, which, by the actual commission of sin, he had forfeited and lost. "For this man-this High Priest, this "Saviour, to whom you are now pre"sented-after he had offered one sa"crifice for sins, for ever sat down at "the right hand of God. For by one offering, he hath perfected for ever

*Heb. xii. 19-21.