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PRIVATE SABBATH DUTIES.

genial rain and sunshine of the gospel. With a few practical directions on this point, I shall close this chapter.

1. Spend as large a portion as possible of the intervals of public duties in your closet. The time thus spent should be employed principally in the devotional reading of the Holy Scriptures; meditation upon divine truth, with the view of affecting the heart;

self-examination; and prayer. If you have very

much

time to spend in this way, you may employ a part of it in reading some devotional book; but I think our reading, on the Sabbath, should be principally confined to the Scriptures. But prayer should be frequent, and mingled with every thing.

2. Spend no part of the Lord's day in seeking your own ease or pleasure. We are required to turn away our foot from finding our own pleasure on God's holy day. All our time is the Lord's; but the Sabbath is

his in a peculiar manner. On other days of the week, he allows us to do our own work; but on this day, we must do his work only. There is no room, then, for the indulgence of idleness, indolence, or sloth, upon the Sabbath. The duties of this holy day are such as to require the active and vigorous exercise of all our faculties. That you may not, then, be tempted to indulge in sloth, use every means in your power to promote a lively state of your bodily energies. Make all your preparations on the afternoon of Saturday. Spend a portion of the evening in devotional exercises, for the purpose of banishing the world from your mind, and bringing it into a heavenly frame, and retire

WATCH YOUR THOUGHTS.

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to rest at an early hour. By this means, your animal powers will be refreshed, and you will be prepared early to meet the Lord, on the approach of his holy morning. But, in case of bodily infirmity, or the unforeseen interruption of rest on the night before the Sabbath, it is better to take time for rest, than to have all the duties of the day marred by lassitude or drowsiness. Yet great care should be taken not to drive the business of Saturday so far into the night, as to trespass on the hours of sleep, and thus rob God and your own soul of a portion of the holy Sabbath. you will cast your eye forward down the stream of life, you will see that consequences of vast importance to your own soul, and to your influence upon those associated with you in life, may depend upon the early habits which you form in these respects.

If

3. Watch over your thoughts. The Sabbath is a season when Satan is exceedingly busy in diverting our thoughts from holy things. Evil thoughts also proceed from our own depraved hearts. But the Lord's day is as really profaned by vain and worldly thoughts as by the labor of our bodies. O, if we could realize this, how much food should we find for bitter repentance in the thoughts of a single Sabbath! Strive, then, to "bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." "I hate vain thoughts," says the Psalmist; "but thy law do I love."

4. Set a guard over your lips. Conversing about the affairs of the world is a direct breach of the holy Sabbath. But we are not only required to refrain from worldly and vain conversation, but from speaking

166 SET A GUARD OVER YOUR LIPS.

our own words. All unprofitable conversation, even though it be about the externals of religion, should be avoided. It has a tendency to dissipate the mind, and to remove any serious impressions which the truth may have made. Our thoughts should be fixed on divine things, and our conversation should be heavenly. We are not only required to refrain from finding our own pleasure, speaking our own words, and doing our own ways, but we are to "call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable." And so will every one regard God's holy day who lives in the lively exercise of spiritual affections. Nor will the restrictions here proposed be regarded by such as burdensome, nor the sacred hours of the holy Sabbath drag heavily along; but the hours will pass too swiftly away, and the close of this blessed day will be followed by a feeling of regret that it was not longer, and that we have not accomplished all the good we hoped for and designed.

CHAPTER XI.

MEDITATION.

RELIGIOUS MEDITATION is a serious, practical, and devout contemplation of divine things. It was the delight of holy men of old, as it is now of all who set their affections on things above. It is inseparably connected with our growth in grace; for it is by

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beholding the glory of the Lord," that we are "changed into the same image." And how can we behold the glory of the Lord, but by the devout contemplation of his infinite perfections? The natural tendency of our minds is to assimilate to those objects which we contemplate. If, then, our thoughts are occupied with earthly things, our minds will be earthly. Moreover, the word of God is "a lamp to our feet and a light to our path;" but, if we do not open our eyes to its truths, how can they guide our steps? It is by the practical contemplation of the "lively oracles," that we are to understand our duty; and, by a devout contemplation of them, that we are to drink into their spirit, and hold communion with their Author.

Meditation should be constant. Divine truth is the element in which the devout mind moves, as the fish plays upon the bosom of the deep, and the bird mounts aloft in the air; and, when deprived of its accustomed

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THE DEVOUT MIND.

element, it is in a condition not unlike that of the one thrown upon the dry land, or the other pent up in a cage. Like the magnetic needle, when violently turned from the pole, such a mind will revert to the object of attraction, when the force which held it is removed. Its tendency is upward, as the needle to the pole. David says of the godly man, "His delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night;" and the writer of the 119th Psalm says, "O, how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day." This is true Christian feeling; and we ought to be in such a frame continually that our minds will dwell voluntarily upon the precious doc trines, facts, precepts, and promises, of the word of God. But, so long as we are beset with temptations without, and compelled to maintain a warfare with indwelling corruptions, we must labor and watch, with great diligence, to maintain a devout mind, and keep our hearts affected with spiritual things. Indeed, nothing is to be attained, in the divine life, in our present state, without great labor and strife; "for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary, the one to the other; so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." One of the most difficult matters in Christian experience is to keep the mind habitually upon heavenly things, while engaged in worldly employments, or surrounded by objects which affect the senses. Satan will be continually seeking to divert your mind, and indwelling corruptions will rebel. Vain thoughts will intrude; but if you hate them, and love the law of the