that are faved are monuments of mercy; and the work of heaven, is to fing the loud praifes of mercy.

It melts the heart to think, that God is as full of mercy, as I am of fin; he is as free to forgive as I am to offend; he bath daily mercies for daiby fins.

The heart of man is such a barren foil, that no good can grow therein, unless almighty grace plant it.

Grace is an immortal feed, caft into an immortal foil, that brings forth immortal fruit.

OF TEMPTATIONS.

Temptations are inftructions.

He is over-wife that goes out of God's way to efcape a cross,

God will either keep his faints from temptations by his preventing mercy, or in temptations by his fupporting mercy, or find a way for their efcape by his delivering mercy.

A chriftian that lives here among his enemies, fhould never ftir abroad without his guard. Satan tempts to fin, the fpirit counfels against fin.

If you follow Satan, you will find the tempter prove a tormentor; if you follow the fpirit, you will find the counfellor prove a comforter.

OF THE WORLD.

If the world be our portion here, hell will be our portion hereafter.

We muft neither leave the world, nor love it. The world promifes comforts, and pays for

rows.

Riches and profperity will either kill with care or furfeit with delight.

Be not proud of riches but afraid of them,left they be as filver bars to cross the way to heaven. We put a price upon riches, but riches can not put a price upon us.

We must answer for our riches, but our rich es cannot answer for us.

Riches are as indifferent things; good or bad as they are used: be then as indifferent to them as they are to you.

If there be too great an affection for any thing here, there will be an answerable affliction.

It is a fad thing when a man can have no comfort but in diverfions, no joy but in forgetting himself.

Love the men of the world, but not the things of the world.

To have a portion in the world, is a mercy; to have the world for a portion is a misery.

Whatever we make an idol of, will be a cross to us if we belong to Chrift; a curfe to us if we do not.

We thould endeavor to pafs thro' this world with a cheerful indifferency.

Covetoufness betrayed our faviour, envy accufed him, and the friendship of the world condemned him.

Man is not made for the world, but the world for man.

It is our bufinefs in this world, to fecure an intereft in the next.

The things of the world, the more they are known, the less they are admired; but the things

of God, the more they are known, the more they are admired.

There is no mifs of the creature, where there is a full enjoyment of the creator.

If thou art not afraid of the world, I fear thou art a friend of the world, and an enemy to God.

As you love your fouls, beware of the world, it bath flain its thousands, and ten thousands. What ruined Lot's wife? the world. What ru ined Judas? the world. What ruined Simon Magus? the world. What ruined Demas? the world. And, what fhall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lofe his own foul? Matt. xvi. 26.

To speak the truth freely; riches are duft, honors are fhadows, pleafures are bubbles, and man a lump of vanity, compounded of fin and mifery.

OF THE WORD OF GOD.

The word of God muft be nearer to us than our friends, dearer to us than our lives, fweeter to us than our liberty, and pleasanter to us than all earthly comforts,

Take the candle of God's word, and search the corners of your heart.

We fpeak to God in prayer; God fpeaks to us in his word.

Two things are to be trembled at; the prefence of God which fills all places, and the word of God which reacheth to all times.

All arguments against the word of God are fallacies; all conceits againft the word are delufions; all derifion against the word is folly; and all oppofition againft the word is madnefs.

When God threatens, that is a time to repent ;

when he promises, that is a time to believe; when he commands, that is a time to obey.

If a man believed the threatnings of the word of God, he would tremble, and fly to the promises for refuge.

As Chrift came out of his father's bofom, so the promises came out of Chrift's fide.

The church cannot live without faith, and faith cannot live without the promises.

We have less power to ftand than our first pa. rents, but we have better promises.

Whatever promifes faith takes hold of, it makes the good thing there promised to be our own. God's promises are a defence against man's threatenings.

The promises of the gospel are fealed to us by the oath of the father, the blood of the son, and the witness of the spirit.

OF THE LAW.

The moral law was weak through the flesh, the ceremonial law was fo in its own nature; but Christ was the end of the moral law to fulfil it, and the end of the ceremonial law to answer its intention, by offering himself a facrifice.

Chrift was God's righteous fervant to perform all the duties of the moral law; and our devoted facrifice to bear all the penalties of it.

By the law is the knowledge of fin, by the gofpel is the knowledge of Chrift.

God hath written a law, and a gospel; the law to humble us, and the gospel to comfort us; the law to caft us down, and the gofpel to raife us up; the law to convince us of our mifery, and the gol pel to convince us of his mercy; the law to dif

cover fin, and the gospel to difcover grace and Chrift.

OF PROVIDENCE.

Providences are fometimes dark texts that wants an expofitor.

God's providence fulfils his promise.

Count every day, as well as you can, the pro vidences of God towards you that day.

Without God's providence nothing falls out in the world; without his commiffion nothing ftirs; without his bleffing nothing profpers.

OF AFFLICTIONS.

'Tis a worse fign to be without chastisement, than to be under chastisement.

Two things fhould comfort fuffering chriftians, viz. all that they fuffer is not hell; yet it is all the hell they fhall fuffer.

Afflictions are not fo much threatened, as promifed, to the children of God.

To be a chriftian, and a suffering christian, is a double honor.

By affliction God feparates the fin which he hates, from the foul which he loves.

The more a man fears fin, the lefs will he fear trouble.

Afflictions are of God's fending, but of fin's deferving.

Sin is the poifon, affliction the phyfic.

When God is humbling us, let us endeavor to humble ourselves,

May every one do what he will with his own,

but God?

If the fervants of Chrift are never fo low; yet his heart is with them, and his eye upon them.

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