their virtue can alone be interesting. You will not value the cup of salvation until you know your desert of the cup of indignation. When this is the case, no subject will make impressions upon you equal to your Saviour's agony. While it assures you of a complete irrevocable salvation, it will influence you to every good word and work. I hope some of you have obtained an appropriating faith to know that Jesus drank the cup for you; and as one expression of your gratitude, you visit the table of the Lord in his Church, and take the cup of communion in his blood. As you are incessantly exposed to afflictions, I wish you to learn a lesson of instruction from your Sa'viour's resolution to drink his cup. Every child of God has a cup of affliction appointed him to drink; but, it is of a very different kind to that which Jesus drank for his sake. His was all wrath; yours is all love. His was from the hand of justice; yours from the hand of mercy, and only intended as medicinal, to correct your depraved appetites, and habitually to prepare you for heaven. Under all the temporal afflictions you experience, as a disciple of Christ, it is your duty and your privilege to say, The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it? When surrounded with afflictions, remember, the cup was found in Benjamin's sack. 'That was Joseph's cup, put there at his order; and though at the moment it was to Benjamine a cup of sorrow, it was designed as the means to bring him back to Joseph, to enjoy the sweets of fraternal embrace. For the same purpose the cup of affliction is found with you, that it may lead you to the charming manifestations of your heavenly Saviour. To him, therefore, who drank the bitter cup for us and redeemed us to God by his blood,-to him be ascribed, by all on earth, and by all in heaven, everlasting glory and praise.

LECTURE XLI.

HEAVENLY ARITHMETIC.

PSALM XC. 12.

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

God of eternity, from thee

Did infant-time his being draw;

Moments and days, and months and years-
Revolve by thine unvaried law.

Great Source of Wisdom, teach my heart
To know the price of every hour;
That time may bear me unto joys
Beyond its measure, and its power.

Doddridge

To estimate and improve our fleeting days should be our constant employ as rational beings. In this, however, we wilfully fail, and need the light of life from Christ to shine upon our minds, to teach us this heavenly and important Arithmetic. "Shine, therefore, O thou fountain of light, upon our souls! Chase the darkness from our eyes, and lead us safe through all our days, and months, and years, to the mansions of eternal bliss.". As the merchant would omit no day in the use of his day-book, nor allow himself to begin a new year without adjusting the accounts of the old, so neither should we intentionally omit a day's examination, especially on a birth-day, or a New-year's-day. May we therefore employ ourselves in a review of our days and years past, for the important purposes of improvement in faith, obedience, and spiritual happiness.

1. Let us now sit down to number the days of our NATURAL YOUTH. Not so much the period of sixteen or

twenty years, as the circumstances which have attended them. Our exposure to temptation; recovery from sickness; the errors of our hearts; our deliverance from dangers; our periods of education; the affection of our parents; these, and many other scenes of youthful life should carefully and frequently be reviewed. By this we may preserve, as it were, a map of our lives, and be led to admire the goodness and the mercy of God, who hath been the guardian of our youth, and is still the strength of our years.-The days of our SPIRITUAL YOUTH. Merciful indeed that we have such days to number! that ever we should be born again; be delivered from that state of corruption and iniquity in which we were naturally born into the world; and in which we must have lived, died, and perished for ever, if grace had not produced the change. Happy the time, when, like Ephraim, the Lord took us by the hand, and taught us to go. Our first views of ourselves, the law, sin, and of Christ in all the riches of his grace, and in the inestimable sweetness of his love; these cannot be forgotten. What animated commu. nion we then enjoyed with God! how precious the truths, the history, the promises, the precepts of the word of Christ! what zeal actuated our steps in the path of duty, and made our lips with pleasure to commend the Redeemer of our souls, to every companion, and in every circle! Happy days! how sweet their memory still! O let us, blessed Lord, increase in love to thee as we advance in years; and every fleeting day bear some new honour to thy precious name !—It is necessary also for us to number the DAYS OF OUR ERRORS, DISOBEDIENCE, AND DEPARTURE FROM GOD. O that I could omit this black list! Here are days to be remembered with tears. One would think it impossible, that persons who have

experienced so much mercy, goodness, love, and grace from God, should ever have a disobedient day to record! But, alas! it is too true. How often, against the convictions of conscience, the light of grace, the most solemn resolutions, and the warnings of former miscarriages, have we sinned in thought, in word, and in life! Our backslidings have been as atrocious as they have been innumerable. And it is only owing to the compassions, the grace, and the covenant of God in Christ, that our souls have been restored to the joys of salvation, and that we continue until this day.-The DAYS OF OUR ADVERSITY may next be named. For, surely, our backslidings are generally the root of our sufferings. There is, therefore, a need's-be for them. And when we attempt to review those dark days, O how dreadful they appear! some by sickness and pain; others, by thwarts of providence in our views, wishes, and callings of life. Some through the powers of Satan in hellish temptations within the circle of our own breast; others from near connections in families, and in the Church of God. No sweet without its bitter; no fragrant rose without its attendant thorn! With David we may say, Thou hast showed me great and sore troubles. Yet, the whole have been in just weight and measure; not a grain more of the bitter wormwood and gall than was absolutely necessary; and the fruit of all was, to take away sin, as medicine is in the hand of a faithful physician, or the rod in the hand of an affectionate parent.-But, amidst all, let us not forget to number the DAYS OF OUR SPIRITUAL REVI❤ VALS. These may have been in our closets; under the preaching of the word; in the fellowship of saints; and at the administration of ordinances. In these God hath been

pleased frequently to lift up the light of his countenance C. c. 2.

upon us, to alleviate our sorrows, and afford us a day of rest and joy! Thus, before we were aware, our souls were made like the chariots of Amminadib. Our mountain was made so strong, we said, it shall never be moved. Some such days, however few, we have certainly more or less enjoyed. They were to us days of richest mercy; for surely we merited them not. For the most part they were like the breaking forth of the sun in its brightness, after a day of blackness and tempest. Blessed be the Lord our God, for granting us a little revival in our bondage, and preparing a table of delicious refreshments in our passage through this wilderness of woe, in prospect of immortal joys!

2. Under the review of our natural and spiritual youth, our days of error, of affliction, and of visitations with the presence of God, what salutary influence should they produce? What now becomes our obvious duty? Our text informs us, to apply our hearts unto wisdom. Christ is the wisdom of God; and surely the review of our sinful and truly imperfect days should teach us to apply our hearts unto him, that we may be pardoned in his blood, accepted in his righteousness, and have our standing alone in the merit and riches of his grace. No less should we apply to Christ, the fountain of wisdom, in humble gratitude for the teachings already received, and to solicit a continued increase of them, to direct us in our remaining paths in honour and in usefulness.

But, by an application to wisdom, we may also understand that virtue, prudence, fortitude, holiness, which may, perhaps, be set in opposition to our former ignorance and many errors. Thus, the wise in heart shall see God. The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. How necessáry