world, they might, as in a way unhedged, be subject to expatiate and wander out into the meadows of carnal pleasures that are about them, which would call and allure them, and often divert them from their journey.

And thus it might fall out, that Christians would deserve censure and evil speakings the more, if they did not usually suffer them undeserved. This then turns into a great advantage to them, making their conduct more answerable to those two things that our Saviour joins, watch and pray; causing them to be more vigilant over themselves, and the more earnest with God for his watching over them and conducting of them. Make my ways straight, says David, because of mine enemies; the word is my observers, or those that scan my ways, every foot of them; that examine them as a verse, or as a song of music; if there be but a wrong measure in them, they will not let it slip, but will be sure to mark it.

And if the enemies of the godly wait for their halting, shall not they scan their own paths themselves, that they may not halt ? shall they not examine them to order them, as the wicked do to censure them still depending wholly upon the Spirit of God as their guide, to lead them into all truth, and to teach them how to order their conversation aright, that it may be all of a piece, holy and blameless, and still like itself?

:

Honest: fair and beautiful: the same word doth fitly signify goodness and beauty, for that which is the truest and most lasting beauty grows fresher in old age, as the psalmist speaks of the righteous, those that be planted in the house of God. "Could the beauty of virtue be seen," said a philosopher, "it would draw all to love it." A Christian, holy conversation hath such a beauty, that when they who are strangers to it, begin to discern it at all aright, they can not choose but love it; and where it begets not love, yet it silences calumny, or at least evinces its falsehood.

The goodness or beauty of a Christian's conversation consisting in symmetry and conformity to the word of God as its rule, he ought diligently to study that rule, and to square his ways by it; not to walk at random, but to apply that rule to every step at home and abroad, and to be as careful to keep the beauty of his ways unspotted, as those women are of their faces and attire who are most studious of comeliness.

But so far are we who call ourselves Christians from this

exact regard of our conversation, that the most part not only have many foul spots, but they themselves, and all their ways, are nothing but defilement, all one spot; as our apostle calls them, blots are they and spots. And even they who are Christians indeed, yet are not so watchful and accurate in all their ways as becomes them, but stain their holy profession either with pride, or covetousness, or contentions, or some other such like uncomeliness.

Let us all, therefore, resolve more to study this good and comely conversation, the apostle here exhorts to, that it may be such as becometh the gospel of Christ. And if you live among profane persons, who will be to you as the unbelieving Gentiles were to these believing Jews who lived among them, traducers of you, and given to speak evil of you, and of religion in you, trouble not yourselves with many apologies and clearings when you are evil spoken of, but let the track of your whole life answer for you, your honest and blameless conversation: that will be the shortest, and most real and effectual way of confuting all obloquies; as when one in the schools was proving by a sophistical argument that there could be no motion, the philosopher answered it fully and shortly by rising up and walking. Be avenged on evil speakings by well-doing, shame them out of it.

Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. And he laid his hands on them, and departed

thence.-Matt. xix. 13-15.

AND wherefore did the disciples repel the little children? For dignity. What then doth he? Teaching them to be lowly, and to trample under foot worldly pride, he doth receive them, and takes them in his arms, and to such as them promises the kingdom; which kind of thing he said before also.

Let us also then, if we would be inheritors of the heavens, possess ourselves of this virtue with much diligence. For this is the limit of true wisdom; to be simple with understanding;

this is angelic life; yes, for the soul of a little child is pure from all the passions. Towards them who have vexed him he bears no resentment, but goes to them as to friends, as if nothing had been done; and how much soever he be beaten by his mother, after her he seeks, and her doth he prefer to all. Though thou show him the queen with a diadem, he prefers her not to his mother clad in rags, but would choose rather to see her in these, than the queen in splendor. For he useth to distinguish what pertains to him and what is strange to him, not by its poverty and wealth, but by friendship. And nothing more than necessary things doth he seek, but just to be satisfied from the breast, and he leaves sucking. The young child is not grieved at what we are grieved, as at loss of money and such things as that, and he doth not rejoice again at what we rejoice, namely, at these temporal things, he is not eager about the beauty of persons.

Therefore he said, of such is the kingdom of heaven, that by choice we should practise these things, which young children have by nature. For since the Pharisees from nothing so much as out of craft and pride did what they did, therefore on every hand he charges the disciples to be single-hearted, both darkly hinting at those men, and instructing these. For nothing so much lifts up unto haughtiness, as power and precedence. Forasmuch then as the disciples were to enjoy great honors throughout the whole world, he preoccupies their mind, not suffering them to feel'any thing after the manner of men, neither to demand honors from the multitude, nor to have men to clear the way before them.

For though these seem to be little things, yet are they a cause of great evils. The Pharisees at least, being thus trained, were carried on into the very summit of evil, seeking after the salutations, the first seats, the middle places, for from these they were cast upon the shoal of their mad desire of glory, then from thence upon impiety. So therefore those men went away, having drawn upon themselves a curse by their tempting, but the little children a blessing, as being freed from all these.

Let us then also be like the little children, and "in malice be we babes." For it can not be, it can not be for one otherwise to see heaven, but the crafty and wicked must needs surely be cast into hell..

“0 let me still

Write thee great God, and me a child:
Let me be soft and supple to thy will,
Small to myself, to others mild,
And love no ill."

MAY 28.

AUGUSTINE.

And after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep.―John xi. 11.

He said true.

To the sisters Lazarus was dead; to the Lord he was asleep. To men he was dead, seeing they could not raise him. For the Lord waked him from the grave with as great ease as thou wakest a sleeping man from his bed. Therefore in respect of his power he spoke of Lazarus as sleeping, as indeed other dead are often in the Scriptures spoken of as sleeping; as the apostle says, But concerning them that sleep, I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that ye sorrow not, even as the rest who have no hope. And in fact the apostle too spoke of them by the term, them that sleep, as foretelling their rising again. Consequently, every dead person sleepeth, both good and bad. But just as in our daily sleeping and rising from sleep, it makes a difference, what one sees in his sleep: some have joyful dreams, some tormenting, so that on awaking, the man fears to go to sleep, lest he fall back upon the same dreams: so every man sleeps with his account which he must render, and with his account rises. It makes a difference too, into what sort of custody a man is taken, to be after produced before the Judge. For the bestowal of persons to be tried varies according to the merits of the causes for which they are to be tried: some are ordered into custody of the lictors, whose business is to treat their prisoners humanely and mildly, and as citizens; others are handed over to the bailiffs; others are sent to prison: and even in the prison not all fare alike, but some, as the graver complexion of the charges against them may require, are thrust into the lowest dungeons. As then the descriptions of custody exercised by officers are diverse, so there are diverse sorts of custody into which the dead are taken, and diverse the merits of them that rise again. The poor man was taken into custody, the rich man was also taken; but the one into Abraham's bosom, the

other into a place where he should thirst, and find not a drop of

water.

All souls, then, my beloved,-that I take this occasion to instruct you, all souls, I say, when they depart this life, have their diverse receptions. The good souls have joy, the bad have torments. But when the resurrection shall take place, both good men's joy shall be more ample, and bad men's torments more grievous; when they shall be tormented with the body. Received in peace were holy patriarchs, prophets, martyrs, good believers; all however yet waiting to receive in the end that which God hath promised: for the promise is resurrection of the flesh also, the destruction of death, eternal life with the angels. This we shall all receive together: but that rest which is given immediately after death, if a man is worthy of it, each receives just when he dies. First the patriarchs received it; see what a time it is since they have been at rest: afterward the prophets more recently the apostles, much more recently the holy martyrs, every day good believers. And some have now been long in this rest, others not so long, others a few years, others scarce any while. But when from this sleep they shall awake, they shall all together receive that which is promised.

Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness.—Col. i. 13.

HAVING shown in a preceding exercise, Who the deliverer is, and what sort of persons they are who had been and are delivered; it now remains to explain from what they have been delivered, From the power of darkness; that is, from the power of the devil, of sin, and of hell; or, in one word, from the state of corrupt nature, under which all those things are comprehended; or, as others are accustomed to say, from the darkness of ignorance, of unrighteousness, of misery. All these come to the same point: we need not therefore labor for words.

1. We are said to be delivered from the power of darkness, because we are delivered from the power of the devil, who is the prince of darkness, and labors more and more to darken and to blind his subjects. We are all born under his kingdom and power, so that before our deliverance he worketh in us according