sciences; reproves our faults; encourages our virtue; and the like; to all such impressions of his, which we at any time experience, we must be yielding and compliant, as wax is to the seal; and that cheerfully and with a thankful alacrity; lest, by our stubbornness and hardened obstinacy, we grieve and force from us that life-giving power, whereby we are sealed to the day of redemption. For although God hath, to our unspeakable comfort, declared, (and blessed be his goodness for ever!) that he "desireth not the death of a sinner; but "rather that he should turn from his wickedness, "and live;" and hath afforded such effectual means of recovery, that none can destroy us but ourselves; yet there may be, through an irreclaimable course of wickedness, so great an indisposition and unfitness in the soul for vital union with the holy Spirit of God, as utterly to drive him out; and then, though destruction must follow, and that without remedy, yet the blame must be wholly our own.

To this we must add a serious, affectionate, and constant attendance, as we have opportunity, upon the distribution of that bread of life which we receive in the holy sacrament of the Lord's supper.

This is the noble nourishment of the souls of Christians, and the staff of our heavenly life; and those that have experienced it can tell, that nothing makes religion more sensibly delightful, nor conduces more to the health and vigour of the inner man: and it is so necessary, where it may be had, that Christ himself hath said, we have no lifed in us without it. It is the great conveyance of the grace of God; assures us of his favour; unites us to the e Eph. iv. 30. d John vi. 53.

Son of his love; and is an earnest of our eternal enjoyment of him in his glorious kingdom: for he that with due appetite and suitable affections eateth of this bread shall live for evere.

And when at any time we find our spiritual appetite grow weak and sickly and irregular, and we begin to nauseate the substantial food of righteousness and true holiness, and hanker after filth and trash, and can relish nothing but sensual enjoyments; as it is an evident sign that there is a secret disease lurking within, and which will prove mortal, if not checked in time; so nothing more proper to rectify that false and vitiated appetite, and recover those religious relishes again which we had lost, than often to partake of that celestial manna, and drink of that invigorating cup; which will diffuse new spirits throughout our half dead souls, and create in us afresh such a love and liking to the things of God, as will make our hunger and longings after them as importunate as ever. But withal we must remember, that even this divine restorative will not be effectual, unless we do what in us lies to contribute towards its kindly operation: we must take it with sincere though weak desires of receiving benefit by it, and humbly pray to Jesus for his blessing, and resolve to abstain from what our great Physician hath told us will hinder its taking due effect: and then, though not immediately, and all at once, which must not be expected, yet by degrees, we shall perceive the blessed alteration, and enjoy the pleasures of a confirmed spiritual health.

And, to secure all, we must go on in this good course, with a persevering steadiness, to the last e John vi. 58.

moment of our lives. The food of our souls must be as constantly and regularly taken as that of our bodies, or else they will soon be famished; and we may neglect holy duties so long, till our appetite for religion is gone before we are aware, and sin gets strength apace, and the divine life faints and dies away, and all our hopeful beginnings come to nothing. And no relapse so dangerous as that of him, who, having been once raised by the great goodness of God from a state of spiritual death, wilfully sinks himself again into it. It must be something beyond the ordinary methods of grace that can quicken a soul twice dead in wickedness. But where is the least encouragement to hope for such a miracle? We have rather all the reason in the world to fear, that this second death of the soul in trespasses and sins here in this world, is but too certain a forerunner of that other second deaths, in the extremest misery and torment, which shall be for ever in hell; when men shall seek that which is death indeed, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them 1.

It becomes us all therefore, according to St. Paul's excellent advice, to walk circumspectly in this great affair, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time1. And what folly can be greater than to court damnation, and shun eternal life! One would think much thought and circumspection should not be needful to keep us from such strange unnatural choices as these. But so it is; and without extraordinary care so it will be still; so blind are we to our best interest, stupid and dead when we should be vigor

f Jude 12.

g Rev. xxi. 8.

h Rev. ix. 6. i Eph. v. 15.

ously pursuing it, and alive to nothing but what belongs to the world and to sense. However, it is not yet too late; there is such a thing as redeeming the time; as yet we may arise and live; and we are often called upon to do so by him who earnestly desires our happiness, and will assist our first faint efforts, strengthen our weak endeavours, and bring them to perfection.

Now it is the voice of a Friend that cries to us, Arise; and he gives us his blessed hand too, to lift us up: but if we still remain insensible and cold and stiff, notwithstanding all his applications to revive us, those whom his small still voice could not awake, the angel's trumpet shall; and then the mild affectionate persuasives of a Saviour will be changed into the peremptory summons of an angry Judge.

THE FIFTH MIRACLE.

A cripple cured at the pool of Bethesda, who had been so thirty-eight years.

JOHN V. 1, &c.

After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches, &c.

CONCERNING this pool of Bethesda, and the medicinal virtue of it, to those who should first step into it after the water was troubled by an angel, there is variety of opinions. Some, from the silence of the Old Testament about a thing so very remarkable, conclude that these waters had their healing property but a little before the coming of our Saviour; and look upon this pool as a miraculous prefiguration and forerunner of his all-healing, purifying blood; that divine fountain which the prophet Zachary says should in that day be opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness". And the angel that is said to trouble the waters, and put them into a kind of ferment or commotion, they suppose to be a heavenly spirit sent by God for that purpose, that the infirm and sick might know by that sign when they should step in. Not that they think the angel was visible, but that the sudden bubbling up of the a Zech. xiii. 1.