on which our eternal welfare rests. Nay, it is the only support which preserves us from sinking into endless perdition:- There hangs all human hope: that nail supports Our falling universe. This renders his intercession prevalent. He is an advocate, a successful advocate with the Father. Why? Because he is Jesus Christ the righteous. From hence results his ability to justify. He shall justify many,' saith the Lord Jehovah. On what consideration? Because he is my righteous servant:'+ this, and no other, is the meritorious cause of our salvation. Judah shall be saved,' shall escape damnation, and inherit glory. On what account? On account of the righteous Branch raised up unto David." Since then our acceptance, justification, and salvation; since our comfort in time, and our happiness to eternity, all depend upon the righteousness of Christ, how should we delight in contemplating its faultless, its matchless, its transcendent excellency! Grand! All-sufficient! In every respect perfect! Nothing equal to it on earth, in heaven, throughout the universe! Surpassing the enormity of our guilt; surpassing the reach of our imagination; surpassing all that we can express or conceive; being truly, properly, absolutely divine! And is this righteousness mine? Is this righteousness yours, Theron? Is this righteousness free for every sin ner? Pleasing, captivating, rapturous thought! Who can forbear exulting and triumphing in this boundless, this infinite blessing! On such an occasion, methinks, some sallies of enthusiasm, or even some starts of tau. tology, are the language of sensibility, of propriety, of nature. Sing, O ye heavens, for the Lord,' the Lord himself, 'hath done it.' Our justifying righteousness is finished; finished by Jehovah sojourning in ho 1 John ii. 1. + Isa. liii. 11. Jer. xxiii. 5, 6. I believe it will be needless to observe, that the salvation, mentioned in this and other passages of like import, is not limited to a temporal deliverance, but extends to a state of spiritual and eternal happiness. The temporal is only a subordinate blessing, a kind of appendage to the other, somewhat like the halo round the globe of the moon, or that faint and se condary range of colours which frequently attends the glowing rainbow. man clay. Shout, ye lower parts of the earth: break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein: for the Lord hath' most marvellously 're. deemed Jacob, and' no less illustriously 'glorified him. self in' the recovery of Israel." O for the tongue of a seraph! But even this would be defective, such ardour cold, and such energy languid. I have done: I add no more: I leave it-to some future letter? to some more laboured essay? No, but to the hymns of heaven, and the adorations of eternity, to supply the deficiency of my acknowledgments. In the mean time let me entreat my Theron to contemplate our Lord Jesus Christ under that most illustrious character described by the prophet, a Priest upon his throne;'+ dignifying the sacerdotal censer by the regal diadem, adding all the honours of his eternal divinity to the sacrifice of his bleeding humanity: then, I promise myself, you will find it almost impossible not to adopt the emphatical and ardent protestation of the apostle, 'God forbid that I should glory,' that I should confide,' save only in the' obedience and the cross of Christ Jesus my Lord!' When you made the tour of France and Italy, and, crossing the Alps, gained the summit of some commanding ridge; when you looked round with astonish ment and delight on the ample plains which, crowded with cities and adorned with palaces, stretch their beauteous tracts below: when you surveyed the famous rivers that roll in silent but shining dignity, stat ing the boundaries of kingdoms, and wafting plenty through the gladdened nations: when you shot your transported view to the ocean, whose unmeasurable flood meets the arch of heaven, and terminates the landscape with inconceivable grandeur, did you then choose to forego the pleasure resulting from such a prospect, in order to gaze upon the naked crag of some adjacent rock? or could you turn your eyes from those magnificent objects, and fasten them with pleased at tention upon a shallow puddle that lay stagnating at your feet? You who have beheld the scene, can accommodate † Zech. vi. 13. Isa. xliv. 23. the simile with peculiar advantage: for which reason I shall waive the application, and only beg leave to transcribe a wish that is now warm on my heart, and is often breathed in supplication from my lips: May the Father of our spirits, and the fountain of wisdom, ' give us an' enlightened' understanding, to know him that is true" grant us the inestimable blessing, that we may be in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ: for this Saviour is the true God, and' that privilege is 'life eternal," My Theron needs no argument to convince him that such a prayer is an act of rational and real friendship, is the most genuine and substantial proof that I am His truly affectionate, ASPASIO. LETTER IX. Theron's account of the Western Cliffs-the Wonders of the Ocean-and the Benefits of Navigation. DEAR ASPASIO, Theron to Aspasio. YOUR two letters have reached my hand, and I hope they have not missed my heart. I might inform you what pleasure they gave me, and how highly I esteem. them; but you desire no such compliments; you desire to see me impressed with the sentiments, and living under their influence. This would be the most acceptable acknowledgment to my Aspasio, because it would. be the most happy effect to his Theron. May every day, therefore, bring a fresh accession of such gratitude to me, and of such satisfaction to you! To watch for my soul, and pray for my salvation, I am thoroughly convinced, is the truest instance of rational and exalted friendship. Every claim to that amiable character is defective and vain, if it does not extend to our spiritual interests, and our everlasting #1 John v. 20. welfare; for which reason I need not entreat you to continue and perpetuate this best expression of social kindness; or if I do, it is rather to testify how much I prize the favour, than to prompt your affectionate and ready mind. Your last found me at a friend's house, which lies pretty near the western ocean. Yesterday, waked by the lark, and rising with the dawn, I strolled into the fragrant air and dewy fields; while, as Shakespeare with his usual sprightliness expresses himself, Jocund day Stood tip-toe on the misty mountain's top. Sweet was the breath of morn, and sweet the exhalations of the freshened flowers; grateful were the soft salutes of the cooling zephyrs, attended with the charm of earliest birds; delightful the sun, painting with his orient beams the chambers of the firmament, and unveiling the face of universal nature. My mind, but little affected with these inferior entertainments, was engaged in contemplating an object of infinitely superior dignity; in contemplating that adorable Being, who raised, from nothing raised, this stu pendous system of things! and supports, with his word supports, the magnificent frame: who (to speak in the language of his own Spirit) openeth the eyelids of the morning, and commandeth the day-spring to know its place' commandeth the light, by its punctual and pleasing ministrations, to draw aside the curtain of darkness, and discover the skies shining with glories, and disclose the earth blooming with beauties. Father of light and life, said my transported mind, O teach me what is good! teach me Thyself. Evandrum ex humili tecto lux suscitat alma, Et matutini volucrum sub culmine cantus-Virg. Lux alma-a lovely expression! describing the mildness, the beauty, and the cheering efficacy of the rising sun. It is, I think, incapable of an equal translation, but reminds me of a very fine comparison in our sacred eclogues, which represents the charming appearance, and the benign influence of the gospel church, at its first opening on the Gentile world: who is this that looketh forth as the morning? Cant. vi. 10. +Job. xxxviii. 12. Save me from folly, vanity, and vice, From every low pursuit! and feed my soul With faith, with conscious peace, and virtue pure, Wrapt in wonder, and lost in thought, I rambled carelessly along till I was insensibly brought to the shore, which in these parts is prodigiously high and strong, perfectly well fitted to stand as an everlasting barriert against the impetuous stroke of conflicting winds, and the ponderous sweep of dashing surges, not that the omnipotent engineer has any need of these impregnable ramparts. Here, it is true, they intervene, and not only repress the rolling invader, but speak the amazing majesty of their Maker. In other places, all such laboured methods of fortification are laid aside. The Creator shews the astonished world, that he is confined to no expedients, but orders all things ' according to the pleasure of his own will.' He bids a low bank of despicable sand receive and repel the most furious shocks of assaulting seas; and though the waves thereof toss themselves' with incredible fierceness, yet can they not prevail;' though they roar, and seem to menace universal destruction, yet can they not pass over't this slightest of mounds. A winding passage broke the declivity of the descent, and led me by a gradual slope to the bottom. The moon being in her last quarter, and the tide at its greatest recess, I walked for a while where briny waves were wont to flow; the ebbing waters had left a vacant space, several furlongs broad, equal in length to a very extended vista; smooth on its surface as the most level bowling-green, and almost as firm as the best compacted causey; insomuch that the tread of a horse scarce impresses it, and the waters of the sea never penetrate it. Exclusive of this wise contrivance, the searching waves Thomson's Winter. These doubtless are the doors and the bars,' which the Almighty mentions in the course of his awful interrogatories to Job. The massy doors which can never be forced, the solid bars which can never be broke, and I may add, the conspicuous columns on which his providence has inscribed that sovereign mandate, 'ne plus ultra;' or, as the prohibition runs in bis own majestic words, hitherto shalt thou go, but no farther.' Job xxxviii. 10. 1 Jer. v. 22. |