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The retreat from the world which the Scripture recommends, is temporary and not total; it is advised, not indeed that we become disjoined from the world, but that we may be the fitter for intercourse with it.

I. RETIREMENT IS EMINENTLY FAVOURABLE TO SELF-EXAMINATION. It is only by a searching inquiry into the purity of his motives, and the tendencies of his actions, that the Christian can be enabled to discern and correct what in them has been amiss, and to "walk worthily of the high vocation, whereunto he hath been called."

II. RETIREMENT IS FAVOURABLE TO THE CHRISTIAN, INASMUCH AS IT ENABLES HIM TO RECOVER THAT SPIRITUAL TONS OF MIND SO ESSENTIAL TO HIS HAPPINESS, which, in his unavoidable collision with the world, must necessarily have been disturbed, as well as to take off that tendency to evil which its presence always generates. As the health of the plant is affected by its soil, and the nature of the animal by the pasture on which he feeds and couches, so must the character of man catch a line from what is immediately about him, and his mind be tinged by the circumstances in which it lives and has its being. But in solitude we are in a world of our own, where we can to a great extent command our ideas and feelings.

III. RETIREMENT IS FAVOURABLE TO THE CHRISTIAN, AS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR PRAYER.

IV. RETIREMENT IS EMINENTLY FAVOURABLE FOR THE CONTEMPLATION OF GOD.

V. RETIREMENT IS FAVOURABLE FOR THE CONTEMPLATION OF THE SUFFERINGS AND LOVE OF HIM WHO HATH BROUGHT "LIFE AND IMMORTALITY TO LIGHT, THROUGH THE GOSPEL."

VI. RETIREMENT IS FAVOURABLE FOR THE CONTEMPLATION OF YOUR ETERNAL DESTINY.

(Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)

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KJV: Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.

WEB: Come, my people, enter into your rooms, and shut your doors behind you. Hide yourself for a little moment, until the indignation is past.