ant, and gives pleafant difcoveries; but it cannot be without fenfe told or conceived, what fatisfactory difcoveries, what quickning warmth the noon-day's fun affords.

Solemn Jelf-examination.

January, 11th, 1708, In the morning I arofe great

ly indifpofed with a loofnefs, but fomewhat relieved before I went to church; yet immediately after fermons, feiz'd with a vomiting. Lord teach and lead me to fome fuitable improvement.

Queries to be confidered as to my private cafe.

1. Are daily fins, fins of infirmity, searched, obferved, weighted, mourned for?

6 2. Is there care taken to exercise faith distinctly in order to pardon of them?

3. Is peace taken, when not powerfully by the Lord spoken ?

" 4. Does the impreffion of the neceffity and excellency of Chrift's blood decay?

< 5. Are the experiences of its use and efficacy diftinct as before?

6, Am I formal in worship, duties fecret, private, craving bleffing to meat, returning thanks, prayer, meditation, and reading, &c.

7. Is there due care of educating my family?

8. Are rods obferved, and suitably improven? < 9. Is there due concern for the flock? And finglenefs and diligence in minifterial duties, prayer for the flock, vifiting the fick, &c.

10. Is there fympathy with afflicted faints and

churches ?

11. Are the fins of the day mourned for?

12. Is the voice of the rod heard calling to, 1. Deniedness to relations, the deareft, 2. Deniednefs

to

to the world. 3. To life, 4. Preparation for death. 5. Spirituality in duty.'

January, 1709. In fecret I look'd up to God, and reviewed the state of my foul for the last year fince January 12, 1708. Thefe queries had not been, alas fuitably regarded as they should.

2. Another year added, under many new calls to repentance and reformation, is not suitably impro

ven.

3. Is not this the defign of prefent indifpofition to rebuke for this?

4. Ah! the power of remaining fin and enmity against duty appearing in diverting from fecret duties, indifpofition for them, and for fpirituality of mind, meditation, felf-examination, prayer, reading the word, and liveliness in them.

15. Is it not a rebuke for failures as to faithfulness in my station, that I'm now put to filence?

6. Is there not a call, if the Lord fpare, to give myself wholly to the duties of my general and par ticular calling?

7. May not this indifpofition be a check from profecuting fcholaftick ftudies, and invite to apply myfelf to a continuation of my experiences.

1.

Mercies 1 noticed this last year.

Utward. 1. Tho' the Lord has chaftifed fore, yet he has fpar'd. 2. When my work did call for it, about my own and others facraments, I was ftrangely ftrengthned. 3. The Lord gives fome profpect as to an iffne of the confufions of my worldly affairs. And here, 1. Not all at once; this might tempt me to depend no more, or turn flack. 2. Not till the Lord had long exercifed with difficulties; this serves to humble and keep fober, 3. Least all this

fhould

15

Part IV fhould not do, he holds the rod over my head. O the goodness, mercy and wifdom of God!

2. As to my foul's cafe, 1. The Lord kept from defpondency, though the diftemper I labour under fofters that evil, yet I was kept from follitioufnefs as to events. 2. The Lord kept from being altogether fecure and inconcern'd, and kept up a defire of divine teaching while I was chaftned. 3. I have been kept compofed, and in a watching frame, tho' much under hiding. 4. He has not altogether ceafed to be a reprover. 5. Sometimes I have had fome blinks of his countenance, and hopes as to the iffue. 6. Some evidences of more than ordinary providence about me and my concerns.

As to my family, 1. The Lord has preferved us. 2. God has increafed it. 3. God has directed to fer. vants fober and concerned; and however flowly we move, which I defire to lament before the Lord, yet we are defiring to look the fame way as to our eternal concerns, at least, there is none venting any thing of a diflike to either truth or Godliness in my family. Bleffed be God for thefe. Lord forgive unthankful. nefs. Above all bleffed be God for the gofpel.

If the Lord fpare me to labour among this people, the following truths offered in meditation as most fuitable to my cafe and theirs.

1. In the gofpel there is the moft fweet,honourable, profitable, fuitable, and in all refpects, fatisfying offer and propofal made, 'A`marriage with the king's fon,' &c.

2. In the event the generality of them to whom this is made, even the more fober that are not among "the remnant that ufe the fervants defpitefully, reject it, will not come, but make excufes.'

3 An undue regard to things, in their own place lawful, is that which gives rife to this ill enter. tainment among the fober fort of people, at leaft, this is that whereby they countenance themfelves in

that

1

that infidelity, which otherwife without blufhing they could not continue in, I have married a wife, I have bought a yoke of oxen, a field,' &c.

4. In times of profperity,or when the church is un der no present trial, even the godly may decay and turn fecure, fall from first love, and with the foolish virgins fleep.

5. The rife of this evil is to be carefully discovered; 1. Remainders of enmity. 2. Change of condition, with the want of judgment how to give every duty its own place and time, fo that one may neither justle out another, nor drive to a careless management, doing this, without leaving the other undone. 3. The cunning of Satan enforcing one duty to a neglect of another, as in Christ's temptation.

This night I got fuch a view of my guilt, that nothing could have kept from difpondency, but a view of that grace that cannot be measured, but is beft conceived by that aftonishing evidence of it, Rom. viii. 32. He that fpared not his own fon, but delivered him up for us all, how fhall he not with him alfo freely give us all things? In the view whereof I defire to live and die, and spend eternity.

At night I was much refreshed in converse about fome of thefe things.

Clouds return after the rain: This in time of a fore fit of fickness impreffed me. Lord keep from fecurity, mind, pity. Lord thou knows my frame.

His health was much broken for fome years before. his death, and fomewhat of his exercife in fickness may be learned from the following instance.

October 12, 1709, I was feized with a violent flux, attended with painful grippings, in three days time I was brought to the gates of death; but it pleased the Lord to blefs the means that were used, and it began to abate.

OB.

OBSERVES.

He caufes of the Lord's contending were many,

Till reducible to this one, woful remiffness in the tenor of my walk, and neglect to stir up myself to take hold of God in the lively fpiritual attendance on the Lord in all the ways of his appointment.

2. I found myself on the approach of the trouble, at a great lofs, the Lord hid himself, the fpirit breathed not on the promifes; all was dark.

3. I had a multitude of preffures my worldly bufi, nefs, my wife's condition with a child in her belly; there was no place as to these things, but to roll them over on the Lord. That which weighted me most, was, concern about my foul's ftate. As to this I obferve. 4. That tho' I found not that comfortable evidence of it, that fometime I have done yet I durft not quit this hold, That the Lord had made with me an everlasting covenant, &c And though many challenges from all hands furrounded me, I ftood refolved to throw myfelf on free redeeming love, and to venture my furviving wife and children on the Lord's tender mercies.

2 Sam.

xxxiii, 5.

5. As to my trouble, God keeped me, 1. Submiffive, juftifying the Lord without repining at my cir. cumftances, 2. He brought me off follicitude about events in a great meafure, and to commit the difpofal to the Lord, crying for a removal of any averfion to the Lord's will.

6. As to my work, tho' I wanted not heavy challenges, especially as to the want of fecret wrestling, and that frequency in it, for the fuccefs of the word among my people, and their falvation; yet it was refreshing, (though I durft not truft in any thing but fovereign grace) that I durft say in the fight of God,

without