should you be in an holy ecstacy of wonder, and wish that you had hearts of seraphims burning in love to God, and the voices of angels to make Heaven ring with God's praises!

Thomas Watson, 1670.

MARCH 31.

And when He had given thanks, He brake it and said, Take, eat: this is My body, which is broken for you... After the same manner also He took the cup, when He had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in My blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me." I Cor. xi. 24, 25.

PREPARE thyself, O my soul, for the important ordinance of the Lord's Supper. Trim up thy lamp, and go to God for new supplies of grace. Get anointed from above with fresh and refreshing oil. Old grace will not serve thee for new duties. Search thy heart and life, review thy sins and graces, look to thy principles and motives in these approaches to God. Above all, awake my faith towards a crucified Saviour. Consider who He is that suffered, and for whom; it was the innocent for the guilty, the just for the unjust, the mighty God for the weak

man. O my soul, bring all thy sins, and lay them on this scapegoat; bring all thy wounds to this Physician; bring all thy doubts to this Counsellor. What dost thou want or desire that is not to be had in abundance here? The streams are sweet, but what is the spring? The means are good, but what is the end?

Oliver Heywood, 1668.

APRIL I.

"Many are the afflictions of the righteous." Psa. xxxiv. 19.

GOD, who is infinite in wisdom, and matchless in goodness, hath ordered troubles, yea, many troubles, to come trooping in upon us on every side. As our mercies, so our crosses seldom come single; they usually come treading one upon the heels of another. They are like April showers, no sooner is one over, but another comes. And yet, Christians, it is mercy, it is rich mercy, that every affliction is not an execution, that every correction is not damnation. The higher the waters rose, the nearer Noah's ark was lifted up to heaven: the more thy afflictions are increased, the more thy heart shall be raised heavenward. Thomas Brookes, 1659.

APRIL 2.

"And berily thou shalt be fed.”

Psa. xxxvii. 3.

SHEPHERDS are very careful to provide good

pasture for their sheep. The Good Shepherd

will provide for His sheep. Thou shalt have thy constant bread of allowance. He will rather make ravens feed thee, as they did Elijah, than see thee starve. If our hearts were settled in the belief of this, it would be a means of freeing us from much perplexing care. Sheep, you know, will make shift to pick food where your other cattle, horses and kine and oxen, cannot. They can graze upon the tops of hills and barren mountains, or in fallow fields, and do well enough. The people of God, that know what it is to live by faith in the promise, can find that sweetness and contentment in a low, despised condition in the world, which others can never find in such a condition. Philip Henry, 1657.

APRIL 3.

"There is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared.” Psa. cxxx. 4.

FORGIVENESS invites us to return to God, obliges us to return to God, and take it as God dispenseth it; it inclines us to return to God, and encourages us to live in a state of amity and holy friendship with God, pleasing and serving Him in righteousness and holiness all our days. Man stands aloof from a condemning God, but

he may be induced to submit to a pardoning God; and it obligeth us to return to God, to serve, and love, and please Him who will forgive so great a debt, and discharge us from all our sins; for she loved much, to whom much was forgiven. It inclines us to serve and please God for where God pardons He renews; He puts a new life into us, that inclines us to God. Thomas Manton, 1678.

APRIL 4.

"That ye be not slothful."-Heb. vi. 12.

LOVE is a busy passion, a busy grace. Love among the passions, is like fire among the elements; love among the graces, is like the heart among the members. Now, that which is most contrary to the nature of love, must needs most obstruct the highest actings of it; the truth is, a careless frame of spirit is fit for nothing; a sluggish, lazy, slothful, careless person never attains to any excellency in any kind; what is it you would intrust a lazy person about? Let me say this, and pray think on it twice, ere you censure it once: Spiritual sloth doth Christians more mischief than scandalous relapses. Dr. Annesley, 1670.