us to final triumph! It would be a pain to the conscious delivered, not to know and thank their deliverers; it would be of no use to know and see them now, the sight of them would fill us with unspeakable terror. In the other state they will make themselves known to us; we shall be able to endure their splendor, and converse with them face to face. "And he went out and followed the angel." This was a different going from what Herod intended, from what Peter himself had expected, or his friends who were pray. ing for him, as they thought, in vain. They went out through three gates; and the last gate, the iron gate, opened of itself! How many wonders in a few minutes, and the last the greatest! Thus was he set free; there was no detainer against him; he had no debts to pay, no fees were demanded of him. What a deliverance was this! to be thus set free once more in the plain of liberty. What an astonishing impulse and momentum must it give him, to have been thus retained by one force, and torn away suddenly by another force!

The angel went a little way with him; conducted "him through one street," till his amazement had somewhat subsided, and then "departed from him." He had other work to do; he did not wait to receive homage or offer felicitations; he left him for this time. Peter had to take a longer journey some other night with his Deliv. erer; he had the whole length to go from earth to heaven, to travel the long tract, if it be a long tract, we know not what it is, nor how, nor where!

What adoring gratitude must Peter feel at this wonderful display of Divine care and kindness! What veneration must he feel for a cause whose servants were to be defended by such interpositions! a cause of which not only angels condescended to be the servants, but to be the servants of its servants; satisfied with promoting its success, yet taking no credit for it to themselves. A cause like this, he would say, deserves all my devotion. We are told of Herod's miserable and terrible end. The same power which had rescued the servant of this Divine cause was employed to destroy its adversary. Can we close without saying, Is that religion here still for which all this was done; which occasioned all this exhibition of mercy and terror? Can we help exclaiming, This also shall be my cause? Can we suffer such a cause to be in the world, without devoting ourselves instantly and earnestly to its service, and feeling an exalted triumph that such a cause exists in our own time, and condescends to accept of such servants as we? If there be such a God (surely we must say), if there be a Master, who can thus pro

tect and deliver His servants when exposed to the most awful perils, let me be His servant. I know not what difficulties I may have to encounter, nor in what situation I may need such a friend; but I do know of death. I know I must be committed to the hand either of an angel or a devil at the last time. This shall be my cause. Let me also be surrounded and protected by angelic powers, and the force of Divine influence. Thus engaged and supported, for very shame I shall bestir myself; not one hour shall see me idle, or thoughtless, or dissipated, or profligate. I shall be ashamed of every moment in which I am not employed as the angels of heaven are employed, and by the same God.

DISCOURSE THIRTIETH.

RICHARD WATSON.

NEXT to the name of its distinguished founder, that of Richard Watson reflects the highest luster upon Wesleyan Methodism.

He was born at Barton, Lincolnshire, February, 1781, and from childhood displayed superior talents. Soon after he was fifteen years old, at which remarkably early age he began to preach, we find him a regular local preacher, and at the age of nineteen he published an "Apology for the People called Methodists." Soon after this, some slight disaffection led him to unite with the Methodists of the New Connection, with whom he especially co-operated several years. In 1812 he resumed his station. in the older Wesleyan body; and his history, from this point onward, affords abundant evidence of the expansion of his mind and heart, and his extraordinary powers of appealing to the consciences of all classes of men. His chief appointments were in the English cities and larger towns, and he every where drew around him the liberal and the intelligent.

But it was as Secretary of the Missionary Society of his denomination that Watson was to act a most important part. To this appointment he brought the vigor of his understanding, and the matured fruits of his penetrating judgment. From the pulpit, the platform, and the press, he plead for the sacred cause, with a force of argument, an originality and beauty of illustration, a sublimity of thought, and a power of persuasion, rarely, if ever excelled. Consumed by the quenchless ardor of his zeal, his frail constitution prematurely gave way; and in the year 1833, he peacefully departed this life, repeating, among his last words, the lines

"A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,

On Thy kind arms I fall," etc.

The principal productions which Watson left, are his "Exposition on Matthew," etc., his "Theological Institutes," "Biblical and Theological Dictionary;" and his Sermons, published in this country in two volumes. These writings afford sufficient evidence that Watson pos

sessed an uncommon grasp of mind, which was made effective by the accumulations of theological literature, and the embellishments of a chaste and sterling eloquence. The discourse which follows is by common consent allowed to be his masterpiece.

MAN MAGNIFIED BY THE DIVINE REGARD.

"What is man, that Thou shouldest magnify him? and that Thou shouldest set Thine heart upon him ?"-JOB, vii. 17.

It is the character of almost all speculative systems of unbelief that, while they palliate or excuse the moral pravity of our nature, they depreciate and undervalue that nature itself.

By some of them it is denied that "there is a spirit in man: the lofty distinction between mind and matter is confounded; and the organization of a clod is thought sufficient to give birth to reason and feeling; to all that dignifies the nature of man in comparison with the capacities of animals.

If a few allow that this frame, disorganized by death, shall live again by a resurrection, and thus only make death a parenthesis in our being, the majority take a wider sweep into speculative impiety; pluck off the crown of immortality which was placed upon the head of human nature by the Trinity in council; and doom him who in this life feels that he but begins to live, to live no more. Thus death is not the mere parenthesis, but the period of life; the volume closes at the preface; and vice exults at the news, that this portal of our present existence leads only to airy, empty nothingness.

Another stratagem of the philosophy which has no faith, is to persuade us that we are but atoms in the mass of beings; and that to suppose ourselves noticed by the Great Supreme, either in judg ment or in mercy, is an unfounded and presumptuous conceit. With David, there are persons who lead us out to survey the ample cope of the firmament, "the moon and the stars" which God "hath or dained," and cry, not like him in adoring wonder at the fact, but in the spirit of a base and groveling unbelief, "What is man, that God "should be mindful of him ?"

The word of God stands in illustrious and cheering contrast to all these chilling and vicious speculations. As to our moral condi tion, it lays us deep in the dust, and brings down every high imag ination. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately

wicked." In our unregenerate state, we are represented as capable of no good, and incapable of no evil. But it never abases our nature itself. In this sacred record, this testimony of God, man is the head and chief of the system he inhabits, and the image of God. He is arrayed in immortality, and invested with high and even awful capacities both of good and evil. Nay, more; low as he may be reduced by sickness and poverty, his interest in his Maker's regards continues unbroken and unforfeited. So in the text, Job, poor, diseased, unpitied, and forsaken, sees the hand, yes, and the heart of God, in his trouble; and in a strain of devout gratitude exclaims, "What is man, that Thou shouldest magnify him, and that Thon shouldest set Thy heart upon him!"

This is an important subject, and just views respecting it are connected with important practical results. That we may be truly humbled, we ought indeed fully to enter into those descriptions which the Scriptures have given us of our fallen condition; to every one of which we shall find our experience to answer, even "as face answers to face in a glass." But we are to remember both from whence we are fallen, and what we are capable of regaining by the grace of God; the mercy which He who made us is still disposed to exercise; and the natural powers which it is the object of that mercy to raise, sanctify, and direct; that, animated by this display of Divine goodness both in creation and redemption, we may "lay hold on the hope set before us," and be roused to the pursuit of that "glory, honor, and immortality" which are not only hopeful, but certain to all who seek them.

It is proposed, therefore,

I. To offer some illustrations of the doctrine of the text, that God "magnifies" man, and "sets His heart" upon him.

II. To point out the practical improvement which flows from facts so established, and so expressive of the Divine benignity.

1. We call your attention to certain considerations illustrative of the doctrine of the text.

ture.

1. God hath "magnified" man by the gift of an intellectual na

This circumstance, as illustrative of the Divine goodness, and of our obligation to grateful affection and a right conduct, is frequently adverted to in Scripture. He hath "made us to know more than the beasts of the field, and to be wiser than the fowls of heaven." "There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding." In the process of forming this lower world, and the system connected with it, various degrees of creating grace,