And wilt thou run upon destruction, when God himself doth forewarn thee? If God doth ever change thy heart, it will appear in the change of thy company. O fear and flee the gulf, by which so many thousand souls have been swallowed up in perdition. It will be hard for thee indeed to make thy escape. Thy companions will be mocking thee out of thy religion, and will study to fill thee with prejudices against strictness, as ridiculous and comfortless. They will be flattering thee and alluring thee, but remember the warnings of the Holy Ghost, "My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. If they say, Come with us, cast in thy lot among us; walk thou not in the way with them, refrain thy foot from their path; avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away. For, the way of the wicked is as darkness, they know not at what they stumble. They lie in wait for their own blood, they lurk privily for their own lives." My soul is moved within me, to see how many of my hearers and readers are likely to perish, both they and their houses, by this wretched mischief, even the haunting of such places and company, whereby they are drawn into sin. Once more I admonish you, as Moses did Israel.2 "And he spake unto the congregation, saying, Depart, I pray ye, from the tents of these wicked men.' O flee them as you would those that had the plague-sores running in their foreheads. These are the devil's panders and decoys; and if thou dost not make thy escape they will draw thee into perdition, and will prove thy eternal ruin.

Direct. XVI. Set apart a day to humble thy soul in secret, by fasting and prayer, to work a sense of thy sins and miseries upon thy heart.

Read over our Lord's discourse,3 and write down the duties omitted, and sins committed by thee against every commandment, and so make a catalogue of thy sins, and with shame and sorrow spread them before the Lord.

1 Prov. i. 10-18, and iv. 14 19. Numb. xvi. 26.

3 Matt. V. K

A SHORT SOLILOQUY.

Ah! wretched man that I am! what a condition have I brought myself into by sin! Oh! I see my heart hath but deceived me all this while, in flattering me that my condition was good. I see, I see, I am but a lost and undone man, for ever undone, unless the Lord help me out of this condition. My sins! my sins! Lord, what an unclean, polluted wretch am I! more loathsome and odious to thee, than the most hateful venom or noisome carcase can be to me. Oh! what a hell of sin is in this heart of mine, which I have flattered myself to be a good heart! Lord, how universally am I corrupted in all my powers and performances ! All the imaginations of the thoughts of my heart are only evil continually! I am under a disability to, averseness from, and enmity against, everything that is good, and am prone to all that is evil. My heart is a very sink of all sin; and oh! the innumerable hosts and swarms of sinful thoughts, words, and actions, that have flown from thence! Oh the load of guilt that is on my soul! my head is full, my heart is full, my mind and my members are full of sin. Oh my sins, how do they stare upon me! how do they witness against me! woe is me! my iniquities are upon me; every commandment taketh hold on me, for more than ten thousand crimes, yea, ten thousand times ten thousand. How endless, then, is the sum of all my debts! If the whole world were filled up from earth to heaven with paper, and all this paper written over within and without by arithmeticians, yet (when all were cast up together) it would come inconceivably short of what I owe to the least of God's commandments. Woe to me! for my debts are infinite, and my sins are increased. They are wrongs against an infinite Majesty; and, if he that committeth treason against a simple mortal is worthy to be put to death, what have I not deserved, that have so often lifted up my hand against Heaven, and have struck at the crown and dignity of the Almighty?

Oh my sins, my sins! behold a troop cometh! mul.

titudes, multitudes! there is no numbering their armies. Innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me; they have set themselves in array against me! Oh! it were better to have all the regiments of hell come against me, than to have my sins fall upon me, to the spoiling of my soul. Lord, how am I surrounded! how many are they that rise up against me! they have beset me behind and before; they swarm within me and without me; they have possessed all my powers, and have fortified my unhappy soul, as a garrison, which this brood of hell doth man and maintain against the God that made me. And they are as mighty as they are many. The sands are many, but then they are not great; the mountains are great, but then they are not many: but woe is me; my sins are as many as the sands, and as mighty as the mountains; their weight is greater than their number! It were better that the rocks and mountains should fall upon me, than the crushing and insupportable load of my own sins. Lord, I am heavy laden; let mercy help, or I am gone. Unlade me of this heavy, this sinking guilt, Lord, or I am crushed without hope, and must be pressed down to hell. If my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my sins laid in the balance together, they would be heavier than the sand of the sea: therefore my words are swallowed up. They would weigh down all the rocks and the hills, and turn the balance against all the isles of the earth. O Lord, thou knowest my manifold transgressions and my mighty sins.

Ah! my soul! alas, my glory! whither art thou humbled? once the glory of the creation, and the express image of God, now full of uncleanness, yea, a mass of corruption. Oh, what work hath sin made with thee! Thou shalt be termed forsaken, and all thy faculties desolate; and the name that thou shalt be called by is Ichabod, or, "Where is the glory?" How art thou come down mightily! My beauty is turned into deformity, and my glory into shame. Lord, what a loathsome leper am I! The ulcerous

bodies of Job and Lazarus were not more offensive to men, than I must needs be to the most holy God, whose eyes cannot behold iniquity.

And what misery have my sins brought upon me! Lord, what a case am I in! sold under sin, cast out of God's favour, cursed from the Lord, cursed in my body, cursed in my soul, cursed in my name, cursed in my estate, in my relations, and all that I have. My sins are unpardoned, and my soul is within a step of death. Alas! what shall I do? whither shall I go? which way shall I look? God is frowning on me from above, hell gaping for me beneath, conscience smiting me within, temptations and dangers surrounding me without. Oh! whither shall I flee? what place can hide me from omniscience? what power can secure me from omnipotence? What meanest thou, O my soul, to go on thus ? art thou in league with hell? hast thou made a covenant with death? art thou in love with thy misery ? "Is it good for thee to be here? Alas! what shall I do? shall I go on in my sinful ways ? Why, then certain damnation will be my end: and shall I be so besotted as to go and sell my soul to the flames for a little ale and a little ease, for a little pleasure or gain, or satisfaction to my flesh? Shall I linger any longer in this wretched state? No! if I tarry here I shall die. What then? Is there no help, no hope ? None,

except I turn. Why, but is there any remedy for such woeful misery? any mercy after such provoking iniquity? Yes, as sure as God's oath is true, I shall have pardon and mercy yet, if immediately, and unfeignedly, and unreservedly, I turn by Christ to him.

Why, then, I thank thee upon my bended knees, O most merciful Jehovah! that thy patience hath waited for me hitherto; for, hadst thou taken me away in this estate, I had perished for ever. And now I adore thy grace, and accept the offers of thy mercy: I renounce all my sins, and resolve by thy grace to set myself against them, and to follow thee in holiness and righteousness all the days of my life.

Who am I, Lord, that I should make any claim unto

thee, or have any part or portion in thee, who am not worthy to lick up the dust of thy feet? yet, since thou holdest forth the golden sceptre, I am bold to come and touch. To despair, would be to disparage thy mercy : and to stand off, when thou biddest me to come, would be at once ruin to myself, and rebellion against thee, under the pretence of humility. Therefore I bow my soul to thee, and with all possible thankfulness accept thee as mine, and give up myself to thee as thine. Thou shalt be Sovereign over me, "my King and my God:" Thou shalt be on the throne, and all my powers shall bow to thee; they shall come and worship before thy feet. Thou shalt be my portion, O Lord, and I will rest in thee.

Thou callest for my heart. O that it were any way fit for thine acceptance! I am unworthy, O Lord, everlastingly unworthy, to be thine; but, since thou wilt have it so, I freely give up my heart to thee: take it; it is thine: O that it were better! But, Lord, I put it into thine hand, who alone canst mend it: mould it after thine own heart, make it as thou wouldst have it, holy, humble, heavenly, soft, tender, flexible; and write thy law upon it.

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Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly;" enter in triumphantly! take me up to thee for ever: I give up myself to thee; I come to thee as the only way to the Father, as the only Mediator, the means ordained to bring me to God. "I have destroyed myself, but in thee is my help; save Lord, or else I perish!" I come to thee worthy to die and to be damned. Never was the hire more due to the servant, never was penny more due to the labourer, than death and hell (my just wages) are due to me for my sins. But I flee to thy merits; I trust alone to the value and virtue of thy sacrifice, and the prevalence of thy intercession. I submit to thy teaching; I make choice of thy government. "Stand open, ye everlasting doors, that the King of glory may

come in."

O thou Spirit of the Most High, the comforter and sanctifier of thy chosen! come in with all thy glorious train, all thy courtly attendants, thy fruits and graces ;