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Is it in harvest, when you fee the corns cut down through the fields? Think how death with his fickle will cut you down in like manner, Rom. xiv. 15

See you a tree growing? Think how the ax of death and fpiritual judgments is laid to the root of the barren tree, or fruitless profeffor. Again, think how night and day are like too axes hewing at the root of the tree of man's life, without reft, when the one is up, the other is down: Every day a fpell flies off, and every night a chip goes; and fo, ere long, our bones will ly "fcattered about the grave's mouth, as when one cutteth wood," Pfal. cxli. 7. I fee my neighbours as cut trees daily falling about me: I find myself beginning to totter and thake with the frequent blows I am getting O that in the mean time I may be inclining Chrift-wards and heaven-wards for, has the tree falls for will it ly. See you a worm crawling on the ground Think up) on the worm of confçience that never dies, but gnaws the wicked to all eternity. It is my highest wisdom to make confcience my friend, for it is a friend that sticks clofer than a brother;"it will faithfully attend us on a death bed, and at a tribugal, and adminifter cordials tod us then. But, if confcience be thine enemy, next to: God himself, thou wilt find it the moft terrible enemy that ever a poor foul had; thou canst neither refist it, nor flee from it: It is a meffenger thou canst not des force, a witness thou canst not caft, a judge thou danst not decline, and an executioner thou canst not with ftand: Poor Chriftlefs finner, it will ferve inftead of all: these against thee. O labour to get it sprinkled in time with Chrift's blood, and this will pacify it! 1.5

Again, think, What is man but a worm? He is twice fo called in one verfe, Job xxv. 26. What a poor weak helpless creature is a worm it is easily cruthed by the foot, and can make no resistance. So weak and helpless is man, with refpect to God; he is more calily crushed by the feet of his juftice, than a worm is by ours. What madness then is it for a worm to rebel against the Creator of the world? what are the kings and princes of the earth but as fo many worms crawling upon his footstool? Each of us muft ere long take up

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our dwelling with the worms, and fay to them, "Ye are my brethren and fifters."

Again, behold, as worms, when they creep into the earth, leave their flime behind them about the hole's mouth; fo believers, when they creep into the grave, leave all their fin and corruption at the grave's mouth, and their fouls afcend to God, " without spot or wrinkle."

Concerning our Behaviour at Home on the Sabbath

Evening.

Affoon as poffibly you can win home after fermons, fet about your fecret work, and family-duties: Confider, that though the fermons be over, the Sabbath is not over: Therefore ftudy to spend the rest of the day in God's fervice, and keep ftill the impreffions of what you have been hearing upon your fpirits. And if you would do this, take thefe directions:

I. Retire presently for fecret prayer and felf-examination: Pray over what you have been hearing, and beg that" the Lord, may keep it in the imagination of the thoughts of your hearts." This a good way both to help your memories, and procure a bleffing on what you have heard. Confider whether you had any thing of God's fpirit and prefence through the day. If God withdrew, then lament after him, and fearch into the caufe. If he " fhewed himself through the lattice," then blefs him for it, and go on to "walk in the light of his countenance." Hath any good motion been raised in your hearts by the word? Pray for the prefervation of it. Hath the word been refreshing and edifying to you? Lay it up in your hearts, and commit that to God to keep for you, which frail memories cannot retain, pleading, that God may make it forthcoming to you against the time of your need. Hath the word difcovered any particular fin or luft to you? then bewail and mourn for it, and beg mortifying grace to fubdue and conquer it. Have you been negligent in hearing? Lament it, put on new refolutions, and cry to God for ftrength; and forget not to employ your great AdveVOL. IV.

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cate Jefus Chrift to apologize for your weakness and fhortcomings, and to feparate all the defects from your performances, and offer them up in his cenfer, perfumed with the incenfe of his merits. Was thy confcience ftupid, thy heart hard, and thy mind carnal, while hearing a foul-rouzing sermon? Be afhamed of it before God, and chide with thy heart, and fay to it, "Art thou worse than Felix a heathen? For his heart, "trembled, when he heard of judgment to come," Acts xxiv. Art thou worse than devils? For they believe and tremble," James ii." Oh! fhall heathens and devils be fooner moved than my hard heart? Haft thou reaped no benefit through the day? Let it be matter of exercife and lamentation to thee before the Lord. Let never bare ordinances fatisfy thee, without communion with God therein. As Zaccheus climbed up into the fycamore tree to fee Jefus, and when once he had got a fight of him there," he came down joyfully," fo oughteft thou to go up to the fycamore tree of ordinances for this purpose, to fee God in Chrift; and, unlefs this fight be granted thee, "come down forrowfully." When men go to meet their beloved friend at a certain place, and they mifs him, how discontentedly do they go away? Alas! what are ordinances without God, but as a table without meat, a well without water, from which a needy foul must needs depart hungry and thirsty ?

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It concerns thee to call thyself to account for thy frame and carriage in hearing, reading, prayer, praise, giving alms, and every duty you have been employed in through the day. As God himself reviewed every day's work of his, and " faw it was good," Gen i. So fhould we review every day, and, in a fpecial manner, every Sabbath day's work, and fee if it be good or no. Let us " judge ourselves, that we may not be judged."

II. Read over those portions of fcripture which you have heard opened, with the fcriptures cited by the minister; think on them, and beg the illumination of God's Spirit to make you understand them. We fee the eunuch was reading the fcripture upon his return from the public worship, and God bleffed it and fent

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him an interpreter; and if you do so, you may expect the fame. He that fent Philip to him, will fend his own Spirit to help you; who, when he comes, brings fuch a divine light alongft with him, as will make you fee the truths of the gofpel with another eye, and difcover more in the word than ever you beheld in it before: So that, though you have read the fame chapters and verfes about Chrift many times over, yet then you fhall be made to fay, O where were my eyes till now, that I never fsaw what was contained here?

III. Labour by all means to keep up the remembrance and impreffions of the word thou hast been hearing, on thy mind: Let it not be as a wayfaring man to tarry with thee only for a night; but let it be an inhabitant to dwell with thee all the week over. Hath the Spirit made any warm impreffions by the word upon thy foul this day? Owatch over them and strive to preserve and entertain them through the evening, and look to God for help. Oh Lord, let me not lofe the heat of this day, in the cool of the evening. Thy word hath wrought wonderful changes upon others, O that I may likewise experience the fame, and have it to fay, I went forth proud, but am come home humble: I went out careless and hard-hearted, but am come back thoughtful and contrite in spirit: I went to church a bond-slave of fa tan, but am returned a free man of Chrift!"

Poor foul, much depends upon your care and watchfulness over yourself in the evening of the Lord's day, that "you lose not these things wrought in you by the word" through the day. There are many like thofe fol diers who are victorious in the day, but loose all at night through their fecurity and floth: they do not watch and stand to their arms but fuffer the enemy to furprize them, to beat up their quarters, and fpoil their tents, when they are fecure, dreaming of no hazard. Many are like Hannibal, that knew better how to obtain a victory, than how to improve it when got. Watch then against the devil, the world, and your own hearts, and beware of loling at night what you gained through the days f

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I fhall here give fome advices, in order to the cherishing and improving of those good motions, convictions, or refolutions, that may be begot in you by hearing of the word on the Lord's day. Thefe are (parks kindled by the breath of God, therefore do not smother them, but ftrive to blow them up into a flame by prayer and meditation.

1. Beg earnestly that God, who hath “begun a good work" in thee, may carry it on; that thefe convictions may terminate in thy conversion here, and thy falvation hereafter. Cry, Lord, fuffer not these tender fruits to be nipped in the bud, or blafted in the bloffom, by fatan's froft winds, or the world's cold blasts; but mercifully cherish and preserve them to maturity, to the praise of the glory of his grace."

2. Confider what a crying fin it is against God, to neglect or stifle thy convictions: He will treat thee as a murderer if thou do it: It is murder to destroy the "conception in the womb." Chrift alfo will take it as a folemn affront offered to him; for convictions are the meffengers which he fends to prepare the way of his entry into the foul: And will he not heinously refent it, to fee his meffengers killed or maltreated? O what horrid ingratitude is it to Chrift, after he hath opened the doors of our hearts half-way by convictions, to have it fhut against him, when he is just ready to enter; or, when he is half way in, to be thruft back again, and have the door thrown in his facebook

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3. Confider how prejudicial it is to thy own foul. The dying away of thy convictions threatens the life of thy foul. If you quench them, God may be provoked to pafs that dreadful fentence, "My fpirit fhall no longer ftrive with thee:" And fo there follows a midnight filence, and thou art loft for ever. O tremble for fear of God's judgments, for thy cafe is more dangerous than others: No water freezeth so fast, as that which hath been once warmed; and no iron is so hard, as that which hath been oft heated and oft quenched. Therefore,

4. Prefently ftrike in with thy convictions, Blefs God for awaking thee, when others about thee are ly

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