Therefore, drooping soul, cast not off thy confidence in him. A meteor will expire when the earthly matter is spent that maintained the blaze for a time. Profession may carry to a high elevation. Persons may appear as fixed stars in the church of Christ, but time may discover them to be no other than shining meteors, or shooting and falling stars. Yea, angels kept not their first estate; but the Lord’s chosen people is his portion.

The neglect of this brings on leanness of soul. If this enemy gains ground, it is alarming; if he prevails, it causes mourning; but when he is kept low, and supplies are cut off, his power is weakened, and victory over him is easily gained. Such are the sensitive powers, carnal affections, and sinful inclinations which compose part of our present frame, the body; a body of sin and death.

The truths of the gospel are undoubtedly great mysteries to carnal reason. We have naturally no ideas of their existence; but being plainly revealed by the Spirit of truth, they cease to be hid from our knowledge. They are no longer secret mysteries, as to their matter, but plain and open truths to faith. True, the manner of their existence is incomprehensible to reason, and so they will ever remain mysteries to us.

In the busy scenes of life, in the awful moments of death, the formal professor, as well as the profligate and profane, will desire to escape misery and woe, and enjoy heaven and happiness. But alas, how vain and fruitless are such desires. If these may be called good desires, ‘the way to hell is paved with them,’ saith an ancient father of the church. But in this, the wisdom of the children of God is manifested. They are diligent in the use of such means, which, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, will be crowned with a blessed end. They cannot rest in desiring, but in possessing; not in wishing, but enjoying. They find and feel that their souls want continual supplies of…

In the glass of God’s holy and righteous law we see what an unholy and unrighteous thing sin is; it is hateful in the eyes of a pure God; it has separated between God and the sinner, and tends to his eternal destruction. The gospel in no wise renders sin less odious to God, less heinous in his sight; far from it. Yea rather, it paints sin in the blackest colours, and shews its deepest malignancy, by the gracious method of its atonement.