shadow increased or diminished, as we move towards the light, or recede from it; so familiarity with our religious affections will enable us to discern whether our love is greater or less; will readily tell us just how much we are advancing or retrograding with relation to Him who is the Light of the world. And, surely, our christian love must ever be estimated chiefly by the relation it bears to Christ himself; as also his great love to us must always be the standard of the love we are to bear towards HIM. But the human heart is surprisingly mutable and fickle; and there is not a minute of the day or night in which some mutation backwards or forwards is not passing within it. What then should be our perpetual aim, but to realize the Divine presence constantly with us, especially as our experience of it in every way will be proportionate to the thoughts we have about it? He who, with the confiding disposition of an affectionate child, sets God always before him, goes on easily; not so easily he who regards him' only as a stern lawgiver and judge. A traveller over the Alps does not find it needful to be incessantly contemplating the precipices or perils he sees around him: he keeps his eye upon the track at his feet, and proceeds in safety."

"Certainly it can be no small thing in the sight of the Divine Majesty itself, to have the charge of a handful of good persons who are destined to become the salt of a whole country, and to serve for a seed and revival in the kingdom of God upon earth. Persons are disposed enough to value the favour of their fellowmortals; the present season is peculiarly suited for finding favour with God, as the labourers for his kingdom are so few, and the number of those who are quite devoted to him is so small. No sellers in a market can be so ready to obtain buyers as God is to receive us into his service. He is ever presenting himself to us, though we are not always ready for him. The more, therefore, is that person likely to be commended, who is ever in earnest to serve him. It is worth while to notice in this respect, how much often depends on a single happy moment of the day or night, when God is found to be specially

near to us.

"Satan makes our worldly matters his pretext; for while these make inroads upon our love, he, by them, designs an assault upon our faith. But by overcoming the Wicked One, we overcome the World. Let a person who has once escaped from

the snares of Satan, keep the heart, with all diligence, in the love of God; and he will retain the victory, and prosecute it with advantage. For who is the soldier that keeps his ground, and "abideth for ever?" It is "he who doeth the will of God;" he as truly abideth for ever, as doth the everlasting God himself. 1 John ii. 17.

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Many err in imagining there is only one way to be right in a thing; whereas, there may be many ways leading directly to the same object, all in equal conformity with the Divine will. Decided personal religion depends upon a good state of the heart, more than upon any intellectual penetration, or coincidence with others. Our thoughts bear sometimes too lightly, and sometimes too gravely upon our spiritual and practical difficulties. Only let self be sacrificed to God; let us give ourselves up, without any reservation, to his blessed and holy will; and we find ourselves blest with a new will, which may well be called, ¿¿ovoía rov idiov Oeλýμaros, 'power over our own will;' (1 Cor. vii. 37;) thus we act uprightly of free choice, and no longer need to be anxious at every step lest we should do something offensive to God. For we thus live ingenuè, like free-born children, with a liberty nowise dangerous, the liberty of faith and love. The soul in this state may say to itself,

'Eat now thy bread with cheerfulness,

Thy doings please Him well.'

Only let not the sweetness of this be considered so essential to our life, as to make us unwilling to forego it, should God see fit to withhold it."

"The life of man in the present world is appointed to warfare and conflict. God would have conducted him to everlasting happiness by the best and easiest way, but as he became unwilling to walk in it, (and his unwillingness is now natural to us all,) the Divine appointments are like those for the Israelites in the wilderness, who, whereas they might have accomplished their journeys in eight days by the direct way, had to spend forty years about it. Let us therefore acquiesce in such appointments, however much we may long to get to heaven; for we do not yield ourselves up to the will of God, till we are quite willing to remain here as long as it shall please him, though it may be for a hundred years.' "There are many things in which we may be either totally

unsuccessful, or constantly experiencing our defects and shortcomings; but such things should not dispirit us, for God's goodness and long-suffering exceed all human thought. On the other hand, we should never say in our hearts,' If I can but be saved, I shall be contented with the lowest place in heaven;' for thoughts of this sort flatter indolence, and he who indulges them, may soon care nothing about heaven itself. As ambition stirs men in worldly matters to advance what is called their fortune, and to push it as far as they can; so a far nobler ambition well becomes every christian believer. The inequality between the highest and lowest rank in this world is as nothing compared with the least degree of inequality in the glorious world above. Who is it that pauses sufficiently to consider this; and who is it that acts accordingly?"

CHAPTER II.

AS A PREACHER AND PASTOR.

SECTION I.

HIS MANNER OF PREACHING.

BENGEL enjoyed all along from his seventeeth year,* to the close of his life, opportunities of preaching the gospel; and this under a variety of circumstances. Even while he was a student at the university, the regulations of his college required him to preach in his turn before the society; and in the vacations he occasionally volunteered the same services at Maulbronn, where his mother resided after her second marriage. He next undertook regular pastoral charges as a curate; had occasionally to preach when he afterwards became assistant college tutor at Tübingen; and still oftener during his two years at Stuttgart, where part of his duty was to assist the town clergy in preaching and catechising. Likewise at Denkendorf, though without any parochial charge, preaching was all along attached to his office as seminary tutor, except for the last two years. Finally, as provost of Herbrechtingen he had to preach there constantly, whenever he was not called to Stuttgart, to attend either the Synod, or the sessions of the Provincial Estates. But when he was elected councillor of Consistory, and provost of Alpirsbach, which required his constant residence at Stuttgart, he became exempt from such official preaching; but he always continued his private expositions and prayer-meetings there, as he had been used to do at Herbrechtingen. We are now, therefore, to view Bengel as a preacher and curate of souls, that we may not only be informed of what he actually did

* In 1704, (Oct. 28,) he preached his first sermon as a divinity student in the university of Tübingen.

in that character, but may perceive how he endeavoured to do more; for with the exception of some funeral addresses, none of his sermons have ever appeared in print; yet the compiler of this work has before him a considerable number of Bengel's unpublished writings, rich in homiletical and pastoral theology.

His sermon texts were ready to his hand in the portions of Scripture appointed for our church services. In earlier life he wrote every word of his sermons, with "very diligent preparation;" indeed he always considered this exercise as indispensable to the formation of a good preacher. But in later life, "he occasionally left a portion of his sermons unwritten, (though even that he took care to meditate well;) as he now wished to habituate himself by degrees to connect his thoughts off-hand, so as to be prepared to preach extempore when occasion might require it." Though at this he soon found himself remarkably ready, (and we know that he generally followed his maxim to "think much and write little,")* yet we find him even at an advanced age regularly composing at least a sketch of every sermon; thus, the very last he preached at Herbrechtingen, is drawn up with great particularity and exactness. He said, with special reference to preaching, that "we ought to consider it a general axiom, that grace begins where natural means can go no farther; but that as far as these means are available, we are not warranted to expect extraordinary help." That the very apostles were subject to this rule, and it was only for extraordinary emergencies that the consoling and encouraging admonition was given, "Be not careful what ye shall speak :" which by no means proved that they did not meditate their addresses on common occasions." He also remarked, that "when a preacher of the gospel forbears doing the very things for which he has excellent (natural) ability, just because he wishes to preach Christ more clearly and simply, such a man will find an abundant blessing in his work." That "it does not become us to teach every thing we know, much less every thing just as it occurs to us, but only that which is best adapted to the benefit of our hearers." That "in whatever any one wishes to be wise, let him first of all regard himself as a fool in it, and then he will be wise."

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In meditating for his sermon, his custom was first to consider the text with exegetical minuteness, and then carefully to select, by the help of a concordance, such parallel passages as served to form a rich assemblage of scriptural thought and expression.

* See Part II., ch. i.