"-burn herself." Ah! how many fport with lufts and temptations, fport with hell and damnation, till they be confumed !

"LET me look out at this window. How far "fhines yon lamp in this dark night!" So fhines a good deed in a noughty world. But how fhines Jefus' deed of deeds, in loving us, and giving himself for us! "What folemn noife I hear from yonder 66 city! the guns roar, the fire-works play: it is to"celebrate the birth, the coronation, or the ap16 proach of our prince." Thrice happier day, when the artillery, the fire-works of God, shall be played off, to celebrate the birth of eternal glory, the fecond coming, and public coronation of our Redeemer! At his prefence, creation fhall be in agony; the luminaries" of heaven fhall be fhaken: the heavens fhall pass away with a great noife: the elements shall melt with fervent heat: the earth and the works therein shall be burnt up: a fire fhall go before him; it fhall be very tempeftuous round about him :" awful fight! being on being wrecked! and world on world! all nature trembles to the throne of God! · ---O to hear the joyful found! to see the folemn scene!

In wide eternity I dare be loft; for the eternal God is my own:- Thrice well found, when loft

in love divine!

"Now I worship God by myfelf." Be serious and earnest, my foul; it is, perhaps, thy last service of the kind whom should I praife, but him who gave me a tongue to praife! Let my highest view of advantage on earth be to praise: and let all my heaven be the enjoyment of him: let me, by more than feeble faith, lay hold on the Supreme, and call his rich unfathomable mines my own; let me pour

U 3

my:

my heart, into his bofom, and leave myself on him as the rock of my falvation.

66

"Now I am undreffed: would I not blush to ap-. pear thus in the ftreet?" Alas! how many are like devils before God, and in fecret, who are like. angels in public! "Could not I go lighter, run. fafter, and work better without clothes?" Curfed then be fin, which introduced, the need of them; that teacheth most to deify them;, and not a few to wear them at the expence of the merchant.. When, Lord, fhall fin and fhame bid me a final adieu! and I be clothed upon with my robes, my house which is from heaven!

"My candle is near wafted." What though my candles of earthly comforts, of friends, and of enjoy. ments, be almoft wafted; it is near the day-break of eternal glory. "Now extinguifhed, it goeth. "out with a stench." Such is the death of the wicked; but may I, like a wax-taper, leave a sweet and edifying favour of Chrift behind me.---May Jefus quickly extinguish fun and moon, thefe perennial lamps of creation, and make his own bright glory all in all.

"I LIE down on my bed." Sure emblem of my fpeedy entrance into the cold, dark manfion of the grave.Ever fince I was conceived, I have been dying; and the things of this world dying from me.

-Ah! how often I have loved, have married my heart to them, while they uttered their expiring groans but bleffed be the Lord, who diffolved thefe marriages, and at laft fixed my foul to his ever-living Self.---O to have an intimacy with death; or rather with him that hath the keys of hell and death, that I may as cheerfully welcome the grave, as my weary bones do this eafy bed!" But now, my

"confcience,.

confcience, let me examine thee, as in God's fight, "whither I have made my road to-day." What fin have I committed, or mortified? What temptations have I refifted or conquered? What communion. with God have I enjoyed? What graces have I exercifed? What have I done to the glory of God, er to be profitable to men! From what motive, and to what end, did I perform that which is materially good?-Lord, haften the day, when fuch calling of myfelf to account fhall be no longer necef fary; but my work be one eternal round of praise. "My travel through the day makes my bed doubly. "fweet." O how fweet is Jefus to the foul, who finds. himself wearied with purfuing after other lovers! how fweet is glory, to thofe that enter it through, much tribulation.

"WHAT odd noile is this! I with fome demon "do not haunt the place." No, no; it is but a mouse, a rat, an owl, a cat, or cur, that disturbs me :. let not me use this puny creature's din, as a bell to, invite me to the fear, the worship of thofe demons, who fo haunt my heart.. -But is not this flavish fear an evidence of my guilt?---a token of my Atheifm and unbelief?---Doth not God fee me? doth not he watch over and keep me night and day, lest any hurt me?Let then his greatnefs, and nothing else awe my heart. "Fear him, my foul, who, after he hath killed the body, can caft foul and body into hell-fire; yea, I fay unto thee, Fear him."O to dwell in the high places of the Lord, where their reft is never disturbed with fear in the night.

"Now I have fallen off my fleep." Let me fix on my Saviour: let my meditation of him be fweet; let my foul follow hard after him, in the fecret watches

of

of the night and fo turn them into the dawn of everlasting day. "Juft now I dreamed that I was "great; was at a rare banquet."-What, my foul, are all outward enjoyments, but the fancies of a dream, that will flee away, as foon as confcience, death, or the last trumpet awaken us?-In our embrace, the earthly vifions die: nothing is worth thy joys, nothing lovely or certain, as thy God!How often have I been deluded concerning things of eternal moment!-Oh! to be where there is no night; no illufions; where endless realities fhall fill my whole heart and mind; where I fhall know God himself, even as I am known, and fee him as he is?! Amen. Even fo, come Lord Fefus.

THE

THE

CHRISTIAN JOURNAL

OF A

WINTER-DA Y.

"WH

HAT a frightful dream hath awakened me!" Often through the multitude of idleness, and of evil bufinefs, have my dreams been vain, or vile: But I wish this of the day of judgment ;-of my receiving a fentence of damnation; and being dragged by devils to the bottomless pit,---be not a prefage of future reality.Woes me; how like this dream, is the confufed exercife of my foul! Convictions of fin, fuch as they were, I have had; but receiving and refting on Jefus Chrift alone for falvation, as offered to me in the gospel, I know not.

Oh to have him, and be found in him ?---to want all rather than him!--Lord, give me Chrift, or elfe I die!

"THE cock crows." Beftir thyfelf my lazy foul: is this animal, who is in no danger of eternal ruin, already awakened? and fhall I fleep in more awful hazard, than if on the top of a maft, and in a raging ocean !--- Was I made for no higher end, than to fleep? Yes, yes; I was made for eternity: let the eternal Spirit thoroughly awaken and convince me of fin.