serves his distance, and superiority in the scale of being; but he knows that, how high soever the station is of which he stands prepossessed at present, the inferior nature will at length mount up to it, and shine forth in the same degree of glory.

With what astonishment and veneration may we look into our souls, where there are such hidden stores of virtue and knowledge! Such inexhausted sources of perfection! We know not yet what we shall be, nor will it ever enter into the heart of man to conceive the glory that will be always in reserve for him. The soul, considered with its Creator, is like one of those mathematical lines that may draw near to another to all eternity, without a possibility of touching it. And can there be a thought so transporting, as to consider ourselves in these perpetual approaches to him, who is not only the standard of perfection, but of happiness!

A THOUGHT UPON MARRIAGE.

If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

1. I AM not now about to speak to men of the world, or to them that have only the form of religion; but to you who have experienced, if you do not now, the faith which worketh by love. And in speaking to you I do not peremptorily assert any thing. I barely propose a thought that rises in my mind, and beg you to consider it.

:

2. You have some thoughts of altering your condition and we know, Marriage is honourable to all men. But is your eye single herein? This is worthy your most serious consideration. Retire a little into yourself, and ask your own heart, "What is it moves me to think of this ?"

3. I will tell you how it was with me. Though I do not know I was ever low-spirited, (my spirits being always the same, whether in sickness or in health,) yet I was often uneasy. Even in vigorous health, in plenty, and in the midst of my friends, I wanted something: I was not satisfied. I looked about for happiness, but could not find it. Then I thought, " O, if I had but such a person with me, I should surely be happy." I mused with myself, "How lovely is her look! How agreeably she talks I thought of Sappho's

words:

"Blest as th' immortal gods is he,
The youth that fondly sits by thee;
And hears and sees thee all the while,
Softly speak and sweetly smile."

Surely This is the very thing I want; and could I attain it, I should then no more be solitary! For,

"Thou from all shades the darkness wouldst exclude,
And from a desert banish solitude :"

Therefore with her, I can be happy: without her, I never can." 4. Perhaps your case is something like mine. Let me then ask you a few questions.

Were you ever convinced of sin? Of your lost, undone state? Did you feel the wrath of God abiding on you? If so, what did you then want to make you happy? "To know my God is reconciled." You had your wish. You were enabled to say boldly, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." And were not you then happy? "Indeed I was." In what? "In the knowledge and love of God."

5. And if you now have the same knowledge and love of God, does it not answer the same end? Will not the same cause still pro❤ duce the same effect! If therefore you are not happy now, is it not because you have not that intercourse with God, which you then had? hard you are seeking to supply the want of that intercourse, by the enjoyment of a creature! You imagine that near connexion with a woman will make amends for distance from God! Have you so learned Christ? Has your experience taught you no better than this? 6. You were happy once: you knew you were: happy in God, without being beholden to any creature. You did not need

Love's all-sufficient sea to raise

With drops of creature-happiness.

And is it wise to seek it now any where else, than where you found it before? You have not the same excuse with those who were never

happy in God. And how little is the seeking it in any creature better than idolatry? Is it not, in effect, loving the creature more than the Creator? Does it not imply that you are a lover of pleasure more than a lover of God?

7. O return to Him that made you happy before, and He will make you happy again. Repeat your prayer,

Keep me dead to all below;
Only Christ resolv'd to know:
Firm, and disengag'd, and free;

Seeking all my bliss in thee!

Seek, accept of nothing in the room of God. Let all the springs of your happiness be in him. Seek first, just as you did before, the kingdom of God and his righteousness: the knowledge and love of God; fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ and all other things shall be added unto you: particularly joy in the Holy Ghost. Again,

Know God, and teach thyself to know
The joys that from Religion flow:
Then ev'ry grace shall be thy guest;
And peace be there to crown the rest!

Lisburn, June 11, 1785.

THOUGHTS UPON DISSIPATION.

1. PERHAPS nothing can be more seasonable at the present time, than to bestow a few thoughts on this. It is a fashionable subject, very frequently spoken of, especially in good company. An ingenious writer has lately given us an Essay upon the subject. When it fell into my hands a few days since, i was filled with a pleasing expectation of seeing it thoroughly explained. But my expectation was not answered: for although many just and lively things are said there, yet in above twenty pages I could find no definition of Dissipation, either bad or good.

2. But the love of dissipation," says the Author, "is the reigning evil of the present day." Allowing it is; I ask, What do you mean by dissipation? Sometimes you use the word pleasure as n equivalent term. But what pleasure do you mean? The pleasures of sense, or of the imagination in general? Or any particular pleasure of one or the other? At other times you seem to make dissipation the same with luxury; at least with a high degree of it. Sometimes again you use "the love of amusement," as the same with "love of dissipation." But the question recurs, What amusement do you mean? For there are numberless sorts. So that still, after

talking about them so long, we have only a vague, indeterminate notion of a dissipated age, a dissipated nation, or a dissipated man; without having any clear or distinct idea, what the word dissipation

means!

3. Those who are content with slight and superficial views of things, may rest in the general account, that a dissipated age is one, wherein the bulk of mankind, especially those of any rank or fashion, spend the main of their time in eating and drinking, and diversions, and the other pleasures of sense and imagination. And that we live in a dissipated age, in this meaning of the word, is as plain as that the sun shines at noon day. Most of those that are commonly termed innocent amusements, fall under this head, the Pleasures of Imagination. Whenever, therefore, a general fondness of these prevail, that is a dissipated age. A dissipated nation is one, where the people in general are vehemently attached to the pleasures of sense and imagination. The smaller vulgar in England are at present passionately fond of the lowest pleasures both of sense and fancy while the great vulgar are equally engrossed by those they account a higher kind. Meantime they are all equally dissipated, although in different ways. And so indeed is every man and woman, that is passionately attached to external pleasure.

4. But without dwelling any longer on the surface of things, let us search the matter to the bottom, and inquire, Wherein lies the original ground of human dissipation? Let this be once pointed out, and it will place the whole question in the clearest light.

5. Man is an immortal spirit, created in the image, and the for en

joyment of God. This is the one, the only end of his being; he exists for no other purpose. God is the centre of all spirits; and while they cleave to him, they are wise, holy, and happy: but in the same proportion as they are separated from him, they are foolish, unholy, and unhappy. This disunion from God is the very essence of human dissipation: which is no other than the scattering the thoughts and affections from the Creator to the creature. Wherefore fondness for sensual enjoyments of any kind, love of silly, irrational pleasures, love of trifling amusements, luxury, vanity, and a thousand foolish desires and tempers, are not so properly dissipation itself, as they are the fruits of it, the natural effects of being unhinged from the Creator, the Father, the Centre of all intelligent spirits.

6. It is this against which the Apostle guards in his advice to the Christians at Corinth; This I speak, that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction. It might as well be rendered without dissipation, without having your thoughts any way scattered from God. The having our thoughts and affections centred in God, this is Christian simplicity. The having them in any degree uncentred from God, this is dissipation. And it little differs in the real nature of things and in the eye of God, the Judge of all, whether a man be kept in a state of dissipation from God, by crowns, and empires, and thousands of gold and silver, or by cards, and dancing, and drinking, and dressing, and mistressing, and masquerades, and picking straws.

7. Dissipation is then, in the very root of it, separation from God: in other words, Atheism, or the being without God in the world. It is the negative branch of Ungodliness. And in this true sense of the word, certainly England is the most dissipated nation that is to be found under heaven. And whether our thoughts and affections are dissipated, scattered from God, by women, or food, or dress, or one or ten thousand petty trifles, that dissipation (innocent as it may seem) is equally subversive of all real virtue and all real happiness. It carries its own punishment: though we are loaded with blessings, it often makes our very existence a burden; and by an unaccountable anxiety gives a foretaste of what it is to be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord!

Hilton Park, March 26, 1783,

A CLEAR AND CONCISE DEMONSTRATION OF THE DIVINE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

THERE are four grand and powerful arguments which strongly induce us to believe that the Bible must be from God, viz. miracles, prophecies, the goodness of the doctrine, and the moral character of the penmen. All the miracles flow from Divine Power; all the prophecies from Divine Understanding; the goodness of the doctrine from Divine Goodness; and the moral character of the penmen from Divine Holiness.

Thus Christianity is built upon four grand pillars, viz. the Power, Understanding, Goodness, and Holiness of God: Divine Power is the source of all the miracles; Divine Understanding of all the prophecies; Divine Goodness of the goodness of the doctrine; and Divine Holiness of the moral character of the penmen.

I beg leave to propose a short, clear, and strong argument to prove the Divine Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures.

The Bible must be the invention either of good men or angels, bad men or devils, or of God.

1. It could not be the invention of good men or angels, for they neither would nor could make a book and tell lies all the time they were writing it, saying, Thus saith the Lord, when it was their own invention.

2. It could not be the invention of bad men or devils, for they would not make a book which commands all duty, forbids all sin, and condemns their own souls to hell to all eternity.

3. Therefore I draw this conclusion, That the Bible must be given by Divine Inspiration.

SOME THOUGHTS ON AN EXPRESSION OF ST PAUL, IN THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS, CHAP. V. VER. 23.

1. THE words, as literally translated as the English tongue will bear, run thus: May the whole of you, the spirit, and the soul, and the body, be preserved blameless.

What does St. Paul here mean, by dividing man into three parts, the spirit, and the soul, and the body.

This creates what has been thought an insurmountable difficulty, by those who argue thus:

"How is it possible to contradistinguish the Soul, both from the Spirit and from the Body? For it must be either material or im