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by my ftupid inconcernednefs about them all the while. Notwithstanding of them all, I was clean in mine own eyes, though not washed from my pollutions, Prov. xxx. 12. In the puddle whereof I had long wallowed. I was whole as to my own fense, though the plague fore run upon me. Rev. iii. 17. “While I thought I ftood in need of nothing, I was poor, miferable, wretched, blind and naked. How canft thou fay I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim? fee thy way in the valley, know what thou haft done, &c. I have not found it by fecret fearch,but upon all these, Yet thou fayeft, because I am innocent, furely his anger fhall turn from me. Behold I will plead with thee, because thou fayeft,I have not finned." Jer. ii, 23.24.

I.

Reflections on this first period.

When

7Hen I confider, how many fins long fince done and forgotten, many of them of an older date than any thing else I remember, and in their commiffion attended with no fuch remarkable circumstances, as can rationally be supposed to have made any deep impreffion on the memory, and fo have any influence in their recovery, after fo long oblivion, were now by the Lord brought to mind with unufual diftinctnefs, I cannot but herein observe, 1. What exact notice the holy God takes, and how deeply he refents thofe things, which men, generally, will scarce allow to be faults, or at most but mean ones, pardonable follies rather than fins. God carly obferved, that man's imaginations are evil from his youth, and will have us mind, and be humbled for the fins that have cleaved to us from our youth. • This hath been thy manner from thy youth, that thou obeyeft not my voice,' Jer. xxii. 21. is an aggravation of other fins he charges on his people, and in it felf one heavy article, 2. How much reafon is there for reckoning it up as one great part of the wickeds

mifery,

mifery that they ly down in their graves with bones full of the fins of youth? Job xx. 11. How much reafon is there for David's prayer that God may not remember against him the fins of his youth? Pfal. xxv. 7. How just reafon have we oft, with Job, Job. xiii. 26. to fufpect that in the strokes that fall on us in riper years, God is making us to poffefs the iniquities of our youth? How much reafon have we with holy Auguftin Aug. conf. Lib. . to confefs and mourn over the fins of child-hood, and trace original corruption in its firft out-breakings, even up to infancy! 3. I here obferve what an exact regifler confcience, God's deputy, keeps; how early it begins to mark, how accurate it is, even when it feem to take no notice and to what a length it will go in juftifying God's feverity against finners at the laft day; how diftinctly and clearly it will read it out, and how far up it will fetch its accounts of those evils which wè' mind nothing of, when God fhall open its eyes to read what is written, and difcern thofe prints which as Job fays, God fets upon the heels of our feet ;' Feb xiii 27. and give it a commiffion to tell us of them, when the books fhall be opened, and the dead fmall and great judged out of them,' Rev. xx. 12.

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2. When I review this first period of my life, what reafon do I fee to be afhamed and even confounded, to think that I have spent ten years of a short life, without almost a rational thought, and undoubtedly any that was not finful. After that 1 was inftructed, I fmote upon my thigh I was afhamed, yea, even confounded, becaufe I did bear the reproach of my youth,' Jer. xxxi. 19.

3. The whole of what I have fet down before, being matter of undoubted experience, of which I can no more doubt than of what I now fee and feel; I have herein a ftrong confirmation of my faith, as to the guilt of Adam's fin, its imputation to his pol terity, and of my concernment therein in particular.

For

For, 1. The bent of my foul from a Child, was fet against the Lord: Nor was this the effect of Custom and education; for there was a fweet confpiracy of precept, difcipline and example of thofe, with whom I converfed, during this first part of my life, to carry me another way. Nor can I charge the fault of this on my conftitution of body, or any fuch thing, as might be alledged to proceed from my parents in a natural way. For those lufts which are of the mind, Eph. ii. 3. and are not influenced by any conftitution of body, were as ftrong, fenfible, active and prevalent as any other, nay, more than thefe which may be pretended to depend on the frame of the body. And as my foul in in its accurfed inclinations was thus opposite to the Lord, fo the oppofition was of that ftrength and force, as was not to be fuppreffed, much lefs to be overcome and fubdued by the outmost care of parents, and the best outward means. This is undoubted at. 2. I cannot at all conceive it confiftent with the wildom, goodness or equity of God, to fend me thus into the world, without any fault on my part. To fay I was thus originally fram'd without refpect to any fin chargeable on me, is a pofition fo full of flat contrariety to all the notions I can entertain of the diety, that I cannot think of it. without horrour much lefs can I believe and give affent to it.. 3. Penal then this corruption muft be, as death and difeafes are. And whereof can it be a punishment, if not of Adam's fin? While thofe things are fo plain in fact, and the deduction fo eafic from them; whatever fubtile arguments any use to overthrow this truth, I have no reason to be much fhaken or moved with them, or call the truth in question. If once I am fure, that God hath done a thing, there is no room left for difputing its equity. I am fure, I was corrupt from my infancy. I am fure, God could not have made me

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fo without caufe, or fent me into the world in fuch a cafe if it had not been for fome fault wherein I am concerned. If there is any attempt to charge God on this fcore, I look upon it as highly injurious. There is no more left for me in this cafe, but humbly to endeavour to clear God of any feeming hardship. If we cannot eafily do this; then I will much rather own my ignorance, and ftop under his incomprehenfibility, than lay any charge of injuftice against him. This has ftaid my foul against the most fubtile arguings of men of perverfe minds, and even of Satan, who hath oft affulted me in this inftance, Be their arguments what they will, Job xxxiii. 12, 13, 17. Behold, in this they are not just: I will answer thee, that God is greater than man. Why dost thou strive against him? For he giveth not an account of his matters. That he may withdraw men from this, among other evil purpofes, of measuring God by his fhort line, and hide pride from his eye.

4. Hence alfo, I am taught what eftimare to make of the pretendedly good and virtuous inclinations, wherewith fome are by deifts and pelagians alledged to be born: If it be not in these few and rare instances of the early efficacy of fanctifying grace all that which is looked on as good, is really no more but the fruit of education, cuftom, occafional reftraints, freedom from temptation, or perhaps, a natural temper influenced by fome of those, and by the conftitution of the body to fomewhat of oppofition to thofe grof. fer actings of fin, which makes the most noife in the world. In a word, whatever there is of this, fave in the rare inftances before-mentioned, is but fin under a difguife. The odds is not great. The one fort, of fin ners feem to promife good fruit, but deceive: Whereas the openly profane give a plain refufal, and forbid expectations. And yet of this laft fort moe receive the gospel than of the former, But what think ye? Matth xxi. 28, 31. A certain man had two fons, and

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he came to the first, and faid, fon, go work to day in my vineyard. He answered and faid, I will not; But afterward he repented, and went. And he came to the fecond and faid likewife. And he answered and faid, I go to, Sir; and went not. Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They fay unto him, the firft: Jefus faith unto them, Verily I fay unto you, that the Publicans and the Harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.

PART II.

Containing an account of the rife, progrefs, interruptions, revivals, and Iffues of the Lord's ftrivings with me, during the ten or eleven enfuing years of my life, from May 1685 to August 1696.

CHAP. I.

Containing an account of the first rise of my concern about religion, its refult, revivals, and other occurrences thereto relating, for the first two years of this time,

I.

N the month of May 1685, my mother being by the heat of the perfecution obliged to retire to Holland, I went along with her. While we were at fea, being in fome real or apprehended danger, my confcience, which had for all the bygone ten years, fo far as I can now remember, been fast asleep, began to awaken; I was challenged for fin, terrified with the apprehenfions of hell and death, and the wrath of God, which I had no thought about before I was brought to this diftrefs; Jer. ii. 27. They have turned their back unto me, and not their face: But in the time of their trouble they fhall fay, Arife, and fave us.

2. All this concern was nothing more than a fad mixture of natural fear, and a selfish desire of preferB 2

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