merciful to them that hate me, and do good to those that persecute me; open their eyes, that they may see thy truth, and turn their hearts, that they may fear thy name. In all my tribulations be not thou far from me, and sanctify my great afflictions to me. Lord, in the multitude of thy mercies, hear me, and in the truth of thy salvation, help me; that I, confessing thee here before the children of men with undaunted resolution, may be enrolled in the kingdom of grace, by thy goodness, and hereafter reign in the kingdom of glory, in thy eternity.

THE SINNER.

His Account.

How I can flatter my own destruction, and with the common stream of frail mortality run into the dead sea of ever

lasting death! How soundly I can sleep in the wanton lap of treacherous security, until I wake, disarmed of all my strength, and turn a prey to that false Philistine that seeks my soul! When I call to mind the course that I have run, and set to view the steps that I have trod, how easily can I excuse my failings, and set them on the score of miserable Adam; but when I seriously consider whose law I have offended, and strictly examine my actions by that law, and justly proportion my punishment to those actions, oh, then I stand and tremble, and am swallowed up with despair! oh, then my sins appear too great for pardon, and my punishment too great for patience! Which way soever I turn, I turn to my disquiet: look where I will, I view my own discomfort: look up, I see a dreadful God: look down, I see a direful devil: look forwards, I see a roll of sins: look back

wards, I see a roaring conscience: look on my right hand, I see my bold presumption: look on my left hand, I see my base despair: look within me, I see nothing but corruption: look about me, I see nothing but confusion. I have sinned upon ignorance, ignorance will not excuse me: I have sinned upon weakness, weakness will not plead for me: I have sinned against my conscience, my conscience will accuse me: I have sinned against the law, the law condemns me. What canst thou say, my soul, that sentence of death should not be given against thee? Can the voice of thy sorrow outcry the language of thy sin? Can the tears of thine eye scour the stains of thy soul? Can the sighs of a finite creature satisfy for the offences against an infinite Creator? Or, art thou able to endure the punishments of eternity? He that made thee without thee, will not save thee without thee;

and what canst thou do towards thy own salvation?

PROSTRATE thyself, my soul; behold thy misery, and bewail thyself; renounce thyself; abhor thyself; fly to the horns of the altar, and call for the promise of mercy, in which thou mayst find comfort.

If the wicked shall turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. Ezek. xviii. 21.

when the times of refreshing shall

come from the presence of the Lord. 2 Pet. iii. 9.

The Lord is long suffering towards us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Ezek. xxxiii. 11.

As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live. Turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways, for why will ye die, O house of Israel?

His Soliloquy.

AN humble confidence is the mean betwixt the two extremes, presumption and despair that usurps God's mercy upon false grounds; this excludes it, and all means to it. The first takes away the sense of sin, the last blocks up the way to pardon. Take heed, O my dejected soul; plunge not thyself in that sad gulf, lest (wanting bottom). thou sink for ever: swim not without bladders, lest thou tire. Having fastened one eye upon the ugliness of thy sin, fix the other upon the merits of a Sa

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