But, if you have any clearness concerning your intereft in Chrift, the fight of God's goodness to you in a full table, should cause you rejoice in him, and fay, "All this and heaven too! O what a good Master do we serve !"

When you have eaten, and are full, fee that ye forget not God your Maker and Benefactor, but with heart and mouth, in a folemn manner, give thanks to him. O believers, you have four things particularly to give thanks for; 1. That God gives mercies to furnish your table. 2. Health to use them. 3. Peace to meet together. 4. That ye have a right to them; I mean not a common, but a covenant-right, a right by virtue of Christ's purchase.

It were very agreeable to conclude all by finging a pfalm of praise.

I do not offer to stint any Chriftian family to any precife particular method of performing dutes on the Sabbath evening, but must leave that to be determined by the prudence of matters of families, according to the circumstances of their families. Some may find it convenient to catechise their children and fervants, and repeat the fermons before fapper, fome after; fo fome may perform family-worship before, fome after; others both before and after. Let every man be fully perfuad ed in his own mind; only labour that no duty incumbent be omitted.

I do not say that all the forenamed duties, in all their folemnity are indifpenfably neceffary every Lord's day; for time and circumstances may fo ftraiten us, that we cannot get them performed fo fully as before directed, efpecially as to the inftruction of children, and examination of ourselves; but what cannot be overtaken in one Sabbath let it be done in another. I have chosen to be pretty full in this directory, because it may be ufeful alfo for other days in the week.

Concerning Secret Duties at the clafe of the Day.

WHEN family duties and fupper are over, and the condition of our weak and weary bodies begins to call

for

for fleep and reft, let us endeavour to close this holy day in a due and fuitable manner. Take these few direc tions;

I. When you find fleep beginning to affault you, think, "O how foon are we tired of doing good! O that we could fay, Though we may be fomewhat weary with our work, yet we are not weary of our work! And it is our regret, that we fhould be laid under à neceffity of lofing fo much of our time in fleeping, and fhould lie fe long, incapable of ferving either God or man. Let this make us long to be there, where there fhall be no need of fleep, but we fhall be like the angels of God, who never fleep nor rest from serving and beholding God.

II. Think how terrible is it for a Chriftlefs unconverted finner to lie down this night with fo many mik lions of unpardoned fins on his back, to fleep fecurely within the flood mark of God's vengeance, and within a ftep of hell! O unconverted man, conficer your continual hazard; you never lay down with affurance to rife again; you never flet one Sabbath night, with affurance you would fee another Sabbath, or hear another fermon; and low can you live at peace in such a vondition? Death and hell are ever before you: it is a wonder you do not think on them by day and dream of them by night, lie down in fear, rife in fear, and live in fear, left death come before you be converted; it is a wonder you can get any fleep in this condition. If your body want but meat, drink or clothing, yea, if you have but an aching tooth, it hinders you to fleep; and yet wilt thou fleep, O finner, when both foul and body are on the brink of hell, and the devil gaping and roaring for you? O then refolve you" will not give fleep to your eyes, nor flumber to your eye-lids," till your foul be in a better condition; at least, till you pour out your heart, confefs your fins, lay down your weapons of rebellion, and bemoan your cafe before the Lord, and took up to Chrift for pity and pardon. We fhould 1 ct willingly venture to fleep in that cafe we would not venture to die in. How many have been hurried into eternity in, a moment! O think with yorfelf. "Death

may

may be within a day's march of me: to day I am finning, but to morrow I may be dying. O what if death take me doing the devil's work? will it not fend me to him to receive my wages?"

..III. Before you lie down this night, confefs and mourn over the fins of the bypast day; lament your manifold fhortcomings in public, in private, and fecret duties; fay, "Alas for the mean and low conceptions I have had of God, the great object of worthip this day! What formality and hypocrify in my approaches to him! O how vain and wandering were iny thoughts, when they fhould have been moft fixed and intent upon God! How dark and blind was my understanding, when God's truths were laid before me! How little of the evil of fin, or beauty of holinefs, d'd fe! Lord how hard and flinty was my heart, little affected by all the strokes of the hammer of thy word upon it? How dead and carnal were my affections, little moved by all the rich difplays and offers of Chrift's love and beauty! How fleepy was my confcience, little tarled by all the reproofs and threatenings of thy word! How falfe and treacherous was my memory, in letting flip the iweet counfels and comforts I heard! Oh what by ends have I had in duty this day? How little have I been concerned for the intereft of Chrift's church and kingdom in the world! How idle and unedifying have my words. been, when in company! Oh how little have I done for God's glory, or my neighbour's good this day!". And, having thus humbly confeffed your fins and thortcomings this day, make application to the blood of Chrift for pardon, and to his interceffion for acceptance with God, that fo you may lie down this night in a reconciled ftate with him.

IV Commit, your felves by fervent, prayer to God's tuition and protection through the night, even to the protection of him that keeps Ifrael, who never flumbers nor fleeps." You cannot fleep in fafety, unless God watch for you; for, while you are fleeping, there are many enemies and evil fpirits about you, feeking your hurt; and you have no friend then but God to look to you: You are then both infenfible of your danger, and unable to help yourself. Pray then that God may VOL. IV.

G g

fet

fet a hedge about you, that fatan cannot break through, and that he may appoint his angels to pitch their tents round about you, and all you have. Pray that God himself may watch over you while you are fleeping, and may keep you from being difturbed or defiled by evil dreams or imaginations in the night. Would you have your reft refreshing your fleep fweet, and your dreams inftructing, and God himself to be your Keeper and Guard in the night? Then close this day with fervent and believing prayer to God in Chrift: He were a foolish governor of a city, that would betake himself to reft before he fet the watch for the city's fafeguard.

V. Endeavour to lie down this night with thankful hearts to God; let us blefs God for the Sabbath, and for all the mercies of it, especially for the joyful found of the gospel, and the news of Chrift. But O let us not be content with hearing the joyful found, without knowing the fame; with the news of Chrift, without an interest in Christ, with Chrift revealed to us, without Chrift revealed in us. Let us not be like foolish children, that play by the light of that candle which is fet up for their preparing for going to reft, left the light be extinguished, and we go at lait to the bed of the grave in the darkness of fin and forrow. Have you any comfortable view of your intereft in Chrift? or had you any thing of his Spirit or prefence this day in the ordinances? then rejice in God, and fay with the Pfalmift, "Blefs the Lord, O my foul, and forget not all his benefits: Return unto thy reft, O my foul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.",

Again, blefs God for health and peace to lie down with. "Some are diftreffed, they dare not lie down for lack of breath; others are chafed from their beds and dwellings by the raging fword or peftilence; and behold, I may lie down without any to make me afraid "

Further, let us blefs the Lord that we have warm beds to lie on, and not the cold ground, with a ftone for our pillow, as Jacob had. Many of God's dear faints, of whom the world was not worthy, were put to

lie in in dens and caves of the earth," Nay, "the Son of man had not where to lay his head," while he lived in this ungrateful world. Wonder at his humiliation, and fay," Had it not been for him, instead of a refreshing bed, I might have been lying down this night in the flames of hell.”

VI. It is very proper this night, as well as every night, to lie down with thoughts of death and eternity. Think, now I have one Sabbath less to live in the world; and, O that thereby I may be a Sabbath-day's journey nearer heaven, where I fhall celebrate an eternal Sabbath, that will never draw near an end? O to be there where there is no fleep, no night to interrupt the faints communion with God! When you are putting off your cloaths, think, the time is near when you must put off this earthly tabernacle. When you lay afide your garments, think, fo muft I fhortly lay afide the garment of this body. O may I then expect immediately to be cloathed upon with glory and immortality! and, fhall I not long for that time? This body, in its beft ftate, is but a prifon to a believing foul, and detains it from its happinefs. Plato, though a heathen, had fuch clear apprehenfions of the immortality of the foul, that he said to one that fed highly,." What mean you to make your prifon fo ftrong?" Am I a believer in Chrift, and fhall not I be looking long through the grates of mortality, till the jaylor come and open my prisondoor, knock off the fetters of fin, and fet me at liberty, that I may with joy fly to my eternal reft? Moreover, think how willing we are to put off our cloaths at night, that we may go to reft, efpecially when we are weary; and with and fay, O that I were in a condition to put off the body at death with as great willingness and fatisfaction! and, with Paul, long "to be diffolved," and to put off this clay tabernacle. Mr Dod, a holy man, faith, "If parents fhould tell children who have played all day, that they must go to bed; they begin to cry, and fhew reluctancy: But a labouring man is glad when night comes, that he may go to relt. So (lays he) to the wicked, who have mif- fpent the day of their life, death is an unwelcome guest; but the godly are

Gg 2

toffed