hereby learned the danger and vanity of reafoning with Satan: When I begun to anfwer him with my own reafonings, he had still great advantage; 1 Pet. v. 9. he easily evaded all my arguments, and easily repell'd my answers, and enforc'd his fuggeftions; James iv. 7. and when his fuggeftions were to be maintain'd in point of arguments, he injected them with that impudent violence that I was not able to ftand against: Matth. iv. 10, 11. Our fafeft courfe is to refift, and to hold at a distance, to avoid communing with him. Jude 9. 2, I muft obferve likewife the wife providence of God; that the greatest difficulties that ly against religion are hid from Atheifts All the objections I meet with in their writings, were not near fo fubtile, as those which were often fuggested to me: The reason of it from the nature of the thing is obvious; fuch perfons take not a nearhand view of religion; and while perfons stand at a distance, neither are the difficulties that attend it, nor the advantages of it decerned. Again, Satan finding all things quiet with them, keeps all fo; and finding that they are eafily enfnared, he ufes not force: Luke xi. 21. It is where he is in danger of lofing a perfon that he uses his utmost efforts; when Chrift is ready to caft him out, then he rages and tears poor fouls: Mark ix. 20. Befides the Lord in his infinite wifdom permits not all these hellifh fubtilities to be published, in tenderness to the faith of the weak, He that fets bounds to the raging of the fea, and fays, Hitherto fhalt thou come, and here fhall thy proud waves be stayed,' Job xxxviii. 11. keeps Satan under chains, and he cannot step beyond his permiffion.

Rev. XX. I.

14. This exercise had fundry effects upon me, 1. The fears I was brought under fixed a deeper fense of my frailty in general on me, and that I was but a man: Pfalm ix. 20. Put them in fear, that the nati« ons may know themselves to be but

men, Selah. z.

Hereby

Hereby the Lord withheld me from my vain projections about learning Now I was fo far from expecting, as fome time I had done, that I feared I should fall fhort of what was abfolutely needful to my own wellbeing: Ecclef. vii. 23. I said I will be wife,but it was far from me. 3. Whereas I was educate with an eye to the Ministry, and aimed that way; now I came to fee the difficulty, and repent my rash intentions: and laid down a refolution to look no more that way, unless the Lord fatisfied me full about those truths whereof I now doubted: I could not without hor. rour think of fpeaking to others what I believed not myself. 2 Cor. iv. 13. 4. My bondage through fear of death was increased and grew ftronger. Heb. ii. 15. 5. I was urged to fomewhat more of clofsnefs in the performance of duty, tho' often I was urged to give it over as vain; yet I ftill refolved to hold on there. 6. I was still more and more confirmed in the neceffity of further evidence for the truth of religion, than I either had attained, or knew how to attain.

15. All this while I was under fundry inconveniencies that increased my trouble, and gave advantage to my corruptions. 1. Moft of the converfe I had, was with fuch as helped forward my trouble. I was a companion of fools, and fo nigh to deftruction.

For he that walks with the wife fhall be wife, but ' a companion of fools fhall be deftroyed. Prov. xiii. 20. Again. 2, I had no friend to whom I could with freedom and any profpect of fatisfaction, impart my mind. Ecclef. iv. 10. Wo to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. 3. Endeavours to conceal intirely my concern and trouble, broke me. When I kept t filence, my bones waxed old.' Pfalm vxxii. 3. 4. I was laid afide from my studies, and had no diverfion, nor could follow any; I had heart to nothing, could not read, unless that fometimes I read the Scriptures,

or fome other practical book: Unless when there was an intermiffion of my trouble; for near a year and a half I read very little, and this flothful pofture laid me open to temptations, and made corruptions grow ftronger: Prov. xxiv. 30, 31. I went by the field of the fllothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding, and lo it was all grown over 'with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof. And the ftone-wall thereof was broken down." 16. Hercupon my corruption took vent several ways, 1. In vain and flothful defires. Prov. xiii. 4. I defired and had not.' 2. In foolifh contrivances and fearches, how to ease my smart. P/alm lxxvii. 6. 6 I communed with my own heart upon my bed, and my fpirit made diligent fearch,' but without a due eye to the Lord. 3. I spent my time in foolish complaints that difpirited me; I complained, and my Ipirit was overwhelmed. Palm lxxvii. 3. 4. I was fometimes at curfing the day of my birth, wifhing that I had never been born, or that I had died affoon as born: Job iii. 1 1. Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?' 5. I wifhed often that I had been in other circumftances, and that I had been bred to the plough, or fome fuch imployment, and that I might have in the defert a cottage, Jer, iii. 11. a place of wayfaring men, where I might give myself to continual grief. 6. My fpirit fometimes rofe in quarrellings againft God: P/alm lxxvii. 3. I thought on God and was troubled. I faid, Wherefor do I cry, and thou dost not hear me? Job xxx. 20. And frequently I was not far from that, Wilt thou always be to me as a liar, and waters that fail? Jer. xv. 18.

17. After I had thus wearied myfelf, after the edge, and violence of the temptations above menti oned, was by the formerly narrated confiderations blunted and fomewhat broke rather than removed, and I cafed by fatan's deparure for a feafon, I inclin

ed

ed to reft; and fatan hereon finding matters prepared for an affult, he made frefh attempts in another, and no lefs difquieting manner: Matth vii. 12, 43, 44. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walkefh through dry places feeking reft and finding none. Then he faith, I will return to my houfe from whence 1 came out; and when he com⚫eth, he findeth it empty, fwept and garnished. Then goeth he and taketh with him feven other fpirits, more wicked than himself, and they enter in and ⚫ dwell there: And the last state of that man is worfe than the first,'

The devil cannot be at reft, where he hath no mifchief to do to men. The devil fo leaveth none but he will be attempting to come unto them again, and he ordinarily fucceedeth, where Christ hath not prepoffeffed the foul; all other reformation proves but a fweeping and a garnishing, while the foul is empty of Chrift It may be swept from the filth of flagitious fins, and garnished with the paint of religion, or fome habits of moral virtue. But none of these will keep out the devil. Thus I found it to my coft. For, 1 Satan finding my foul, after all my fad toffings, empty of Chrift, returned, 2: And my foul being like the vineyard of the fluggard, Prov. xxiv. 31. by floth, defenceless, without its stone wall, he easily found opportunity to fow tares, and while I flept, to cultivate the thorns and nettles, which naturally grow there. 3. It was no hard matter to perfuade on fo wearied, Gen.xlix. 15. that rest was good, 'and that there was a lion in the way.' Prev xxii. 13. And, 4. Having thus poffeffion and quiet abode with his feven other fpirits,' my own corruptions, he quickly made my laft ftate worse than my firft.' Pfalm xxxviii. 19. My enemies grow ftrong and lively; my corruptions began vigourously to exert themselves.

18. Hereon the Lord minding his own work, brought the miniftry of the word, the law in its spirit

ual

Part III. ual meaning nearer. And then, r. Sin reviv'd and I died;' Rom vii. 9, I found more difcernibly the ftirrings of corruptions. viii. ibid. Yea, 2. Sin taking occafion from the commandment,' and being fretted by the light let into my foul from the word, 'it wrought in me all manner of concupifence.' Lufts of all forts, felf, floth, formality, etc. trove to maintain their own place. 3. Hereby I was plunged in a deeper guilt, Palm xxxviii, 4.ʻ mine iniquities went over my head. And, 4. Hereby my challenges were fharpned, and I found no reft in my bones' ver. 3• for fins that I had done.

19. Under this distress, I still as formerly, fought to other physicians, rather than to the Lord. For, 1, Having now, by the knowlege of the truth, escaped the pollutions of the world;' 2 Pet ii, 20. my exercife was much about the more fecret actings of fin, and its working in the heart; and as to thefe, I fometimes used extenuations and excuses, taken from the ftrength of the temptations I lay under, and other confiderations of that fort; and fometimes this was done not without fecret reflections on God. This was Adam's way; The woman whom thou gavest

me to be with me, she gave me and I did eat. Gen. iii. 12. 2dly, Sometimes after my engagements and vows, and breaches of them, when I found confcience disturb me,I begun to enquire whether the things were fin, and endeavoured to perfuade myself, That fome which were most disturbing were none, Prov. xx. 25. Thus, ' after vows I made enquiry,' 3. I. at last, when all thefe courfes failed, again faid, I will not tranfgrefs, and made new vows and refolutions, accompanied with forrow for my former breaches, and folemnly bound myself against my fins, those that predomined: Exod. x. 16, 17, Then Pharaob called for Mofes and Aaron in hafte, and faid, I have finned against the Lord your God, and against you. Now therefor forgive I pray thee my fin only this once, &c.

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