mon, were sure of hearing another from him, and that of the most instructive and animating kind.

In short, his conversation was in heaven; and hence, from the fulness of his renewed, loving, and generous heart, he was enabled with gentleness and authority, to inculcate in private, as well as in public, the precepts and doctrines of the Gospel. Once on a visit, finding a merchant in his counting-house, where he saw none but books of business on his table, but all his books of devotion on the shelf; "Sir, said he, here is earth on the table, and heaven on the shelf; pray do not sit so much at the table as altogether to forget the shelf; let not earth by any means thrust heaven out of your mind."

His views of practical godliness, to which he made it the business and study of his life to conform, may be learned from his paraphrase on that passage, Our conversation is in heaven. The antiquity of the style in which it is written, does not in any measure lessen the value of the grand truths with which it is replete. "Behold, saith he, the ancient and excellent character of a true Christian; it is that which Peter calls holiness in all manner of conversation; you shall not find a Christian out of the way of holy conversation. For, first, a seventh part of our time is spent in heaven, when we are duly zealous for, and zealous on the sabbath of God. Besides, God has written on the head of the sabbath, Remember; which looks both backwards and forwards; and thus a good part of the week will be spent in sabbatizing. Well! but for the rest of our time! why, we shall have that spent in heaven, ere we have done. For, secondly, we have many days for both fasting and thanksgiving, in our pilgrimage and here are so many sabbaths more. Moreover, thirdly, we have our lectures every week; and pious people will not miss them if they can help it. Furthermore, fourthly, we have our private meetings, wherein we pray, and sing, and repeat sermons, and confer together about the things of God: and being now come thus far, we are in heaven almost every day. But a little farther: fifthly, we perform family duties every day; we have our morning and evening sacrifices, wherein, having read the Scriptures to our families, we call upon the name of God, and every now and then catechise those that are under our charge. Sixthly, we shall also have our daily devotions in our closets; wherein, unto supplication before the Lord, we shall add some serious meditation upon his word: a David will be at

this work no less than thrice a day. Seventhly, we have likewise many scores of ejaculations in a day; and these we have, like Nehemiah, in whatever place we come into. Eighthly, we have our occasional thoughts, and our occasional talks upon spiritual matters; and we have our occasional acts of charity; wherein we do like the inhabitants of heaven every day. Ninthly, in our callings, in our civil callings, we keep up heavenly frames; we buy, and sell, and toil, yea, we eat and drink, with some eye both to the command and the honour of God in all. Behold, I have not now left you an inch of time to be carnal; it is all engrossed for heaven. And yet, lest here should not be enough, lastly, we have our spiritual warfare. We are always encountering the enemies of souls; which continually raises our hearts unto our Helper and Leader in the heavens. Let no man say it is impossible to live at this rate; for we have known some live thus, and others that have written of such a life, have but spun a web out of their own blessed experiences. New-England has examples of this life; though, alas! it is to be lamented that the distractions of the world, in too many professors, do becloud the beauty of an heavenly conversation. In fine, our employment lies in heaven. In the morning, if we ask, Where am I to be to day? our souls must answer, In heaven. In the evening, if we ask, Where have I been to-day? our souls may answer, In heaven. If thou art a believer, thou art no stranger to heaven while thou livest; and when thou diest, heaven will be no strange place to thee; no, thou hast been there a thousand times before."

"In this language, says his biographer, I heard him express himself; and he did what he said."

With a most exemplary zeal, Mr. Elliot remembered the sabbath day, to keep it holy. He statedly began his preparation for it the preceding evening; and when the Lord's-day came, he was eminently in the Spirit. Every day was indeed to him a sort of sabbath, so humbly and closely did he walk with God; and hence he not only called the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable, but proved it to be so, by drawing water with joy out of the wells of salvation. He carefully and conscientiously abstained from every thought, as well as word and action, incompatible with due obedience to the fourth commandment; and what he practised in this, as well as in every other instance of christian obedience, he enforced, both in public and private, with the authority of a divine ambassador.

8

Through life, he was remarkable for a strict performance of the necessary duties of self-denial, mortification, and taking up the cross. To him, the grandeur of the world was just what it would be to a dying man. He highly prized his morning hours being persuaded, that early rising is equally favourable to the acquisition of grace and knowledge. And, for more than twenty years before he died, he slept in his study, in order that being there alone, he might enjoy his early mornings, without giving the least disturbance to any of his friends, whose affectionate concern for him, would otherwise have led them to say, spare thyself. Neither rich varieties, costly viands, nor delicious sauces ever appeared upon his own table; and when he found them on other men's, he rarely tasted them. One dish, and that a plain one, was his dinner; and with respect to supper; (to use the words of Mr. Mather,) "he had learned of his loved and blessed patron, old Mr. Cotton, either wholly to omit it, or to make a small sup or two the utmost of it." His drink was generally water, and whenever he used any other, it was of such a quality, and he took so small a quantity of it, as proved him to be not only a man of temperance, but of abstemiousness. He delighted in abstinence; and so desirous was he to prevail on others to partake of similar pleasure, that when he thought the countenance of a minister indicated that he had lived too freeely, he would say, Study mortification, brother! Study mortification! and all his addresses were attended with a becoming majesty.

The lust of the eye he so mortified, that it appeared a matter of indifference to him, whether he was rich or poor. He did not seek great things for himself; but what estate he possessed, arose from the blessing of God upon the industry of some in his family, rather than from any of his own endeavours. His wife, who was well acquainted with his heavenly-mindedness, once asked him to whom the cattle which stood before his door belonged, and found, that though they were his own, he knew nothing of them.

(To be continued.)

SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATED.

ILLUSTRATION OF MATTHEW XXviii. 19.

"Go ye, therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Matt. xxviii. 19.

THIS passage is decisive in proof of the proper Godhead of each person in the "holy blessed, and glorious Trinity." Many other passages of sacred writ demonstrate the truth of that doctrine, to all such believers in divine revelation as admit, that their inability to conceive how the unity of the Godhead is compatible with a Trinity of persons, is no argument against the unity and trinity in question. To confound facts, the truth of which rests on infallible testimony, with absurdity, from the circumstance of their being connected with some particulars for which we cannot account, is in effect, to say, that by searching we have found out God, nay, found him out to perfection. But what arrogance is this, in creatures who are of yesterday, and know comparatively nothing!

In proof, that the doctrine of the Trinity is sufficiently clear to be admitted as a fundamental Article of the Christian faith, the very able, learned, and orthodox Dr. Waterland, reasons as follows:

He observes, that what is said to be "clear, may be consid ered in two views, either with respect to the matter of the doctrine, or with respect to the proofs upon which it rests.

"It may be suggested, that the doctrine is not clear, with respect to the matter of it: it is mysterious doctrine. Be it so; the tremendous Deity is all over mysterious, in his nature, and in his atrributes, in his works and ways. It is the property of the divine Being to be unsearchable; and if he were not so, he would not be divine. Must we therefore reject the most certain truths concerning the Deity, only because they are incomprehensible, when almost every thing belonging to him must be so of course? If so, there is an end, not only of all revealed religion, but of natural religion too; and we must take our last refuge in downright Atheism. There are mysteries in the works of nature, as well as in the word of God; and it is as easy to believe both, as one, We do not mean by mysteries, positions

altogether unintelligible, or that carry no idea at all with them, but we mean propositions contained in general terms, which convey to us general ideas, not descending to particulars. The ideas are clear as far as they go; only they do not reach far enough to satisfy curiosity. They are ideas of intellect, for the most part, like the ideas we form of our own souls; for spiritual substance at least, (if any substance) falls not under imagination, but must be understood, rather than imagined. The same is the case with many abstract verities, in numbers especially, which are not the less verities, for being purely intellectual, and beyond all imagery. Reason contemplates them, and clearly too, though fancy can lay no hold on them, to draw their picture in the mind. Such, I say, are our ideas of the divine Being, and of a Trinity in Unity; ideas of intellect, are general; intelligible as far as the thing is revealed, and assented to so far as intelligible. We understand the general truths, concerning a Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; we understand the general nature of an union and a distinction; and whatever we understand we believe. As to the minute particulars relating to the manner, or modus of the thing, we understand them not: our ideas reach not to them, but stop short in the generals, as our faith also does. For, our faith and our ideas keep pace with each other, and we believe nothing of particulars whereof nothing is revealed, neither expressly nor consequentially.

"Such a general assent as I have mentioned, is what we give to the truth of the divine perfections, necessary existence, eternity, ubiquity, prescience, and the like. Whatever obscurity, or defect there is in our ideas of those divine attributes, we think it no good reason for denying either the general truths, or the im portance of them. So then, no just objection can be made against the importance of any doctrine, from its mysterious nature. The most mysterious of all are in reality the most impor tant; not because they are mysterious, but because they relate to things divine, which must of course be mysterious to weak mortals, and perhaps to all creatures whatever. But even mysterious doctrines have a bright side, as well as a dark one; and they are clear to look on, though too deep to be seen through.

"It has sometimes been objected, that however clear the doc trine may seem to be to, men of parts and learning, yet certainly it cannot be so to common Christians. But why not to common Christians, as well as to others? It is as clear to them as most