gain, afcending up on high, to "receive gifts for men, even for the rebellious, that God the Lord might dwell among them!" to behold thee, "exalted to be a Prince and Saviour, to give repentance and remiffion of fins! fent to blefs us, in turning every one of us from our iniquities !" given of God, "for a covenant to the people, a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the falvation of God to all the ends of the earth!" How fweet to behold thee, made of God to ME "wifdom, righteoufnefs, fanc tification, and redemption !"-How my heart melts to hear thy powerful voice!" My fon, give me thine heart. Open to me, my love, my dove, my undefiled; for my head is filled with the dew, and my locks with the drops of the night. I will betrothe thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betrothe thee unto me in righteoufnefs, and in judgment, and in loving kindness, and in tender mercies. I will even betrothe thee unto me in faithfulness, and thou shalt know the Lord."-Amen, Lord; amen, fo be it.-Was ever rebellious finner fo courted, in fighs, in groans, in blood, of an expiring God? Did ever pity thus ftoop, to gain the heart of fuch a devil?-How my foul is melted how it yields to thine almighty love! how much fweeter thy promifes, than honey to my tafte! Oh! how they fink to the very centre of my heart! CONTENT, a thousand times content, to be an everlasting miraele of thy redeeming grace; content, that God, in faving me, "fhew forth, to the ages to come, what is the exceeding riches of his grace," and virtue of his righteoufnefs. Bleffed, O Jefus, be thy name, that thou never faidft, Give me a fincere, a pure, a holy, humble heart; but requireft me to give it as it is! I am afhamed, confounded, and affrighted at the view of my heart; but at thy call, fuch as it is, I give it thee; "a myftery, Babylon the great, the

mother

mother of harlots, and abominations in the earth; a habitation of devils, and cage of every unclean and hateful lust." Lord, accept the monstrous prefent; wash in thy blood, and transform into thine image, a heart "deceitful above all things, and defperately wicked. But will God indeed dwell" in it, and make it a fit habitation for himself, through the Spirit? -Aftonishing condefcenfion! ftupendous love! but, let his "will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." My very heart and flesh cry out, "Come in, thou bleffed of the Lord, why ftandeft thou without !"How fweetly a fiery law, dreadful juftice, a guilty confcience, an accufing devil, at once, are all filenced by one draught of bleeding love! Love-touched, captivated, all-awed, all-ecftafied, all loft in trembling wonder! I meet my dread, my dear Bridegroom; my life, my lover, my fweetnefs, and my ALL. wonder! wonder! an efpoufing God, and I the worthlefs bride! Be wholly his that heart, that foul, that life, his blood, his pity faved.

"How quickly doth gazing on this natural fun "dazzle mine eyes! how it renders fublunary things "to me without form or comclinefs !" Sweet Jefus, how base, worthlefs, and deformed, this paffing blink of thy glory, renders all things befides thee!You world, what lofs and dung do thy honours, profits, and pleasures, now seem to my foul! all on earth is fhadow; all beyond, all my Christ, is fubftance. Too long I clafped created phantoms, and I found them air.Oh, had I weighed them, ere my fond embrace! what darts of agony had miffed my heart! O fin, felf, felf-righteoufnefs, once darlings of my foul, how lothfome, vile, and abominable you now appear!" Whom have I in heaven but Chrift? there is none upon earth that I defire befides bim." -What am I, that "he loved me, and gave him

felf

felf for me!-Stop here: admire JEHOVAH'S kindness! Let me folemnly embrace the promises; the whole of the new covenant, as all my falvation, and all my defire." Let me pour out my heart into my Redeemer's bofom, and furrender all my powers, all my paffions, all my enjoyments, all my gifts and endowments to him: "My beloved is mine, and I am his." Bear witnefs, ye furrounding fields, ye warbling birds, ye liftening angels, ye saCRED THREE, that my Chrift "is mine, and I am bis," henceforth and for ever: my "Maker is my husband, the Lord of hofts is his name; the God of the whole earth fhall he be called. The Lord JEHOVAH is my strength and fong, and he alfo is become my falvation."

"HERE men go forth to their labour; and the "cattle are driven from the ftall to the plough." Now my foul hath been feafted as a calf "in the ftall;" let me go forth to my "labour until the evening" of death: let my light fo fhine "before men, that they seeing my good works, may glorify my Father which is in heaven." Truly, O Jefus, "I am thy fervant, I am thy fervant, thou haft loofed my bonds." May I henceforth know my owner, hear his voice, take up my crofs, and follow him.

"YONDER runs a madman! ah! how he hath "cut and mangled his flesh! perhaps he can neither "be tamed nor bound: perhaps he hath been of "ten chained and fettered, but has broken through "all.-Let me escape out of his way." What a mercy is the exereife of reafon! how mad, how wicked, vilely to prostitute it, to oppose its Maker, and serve our finful lufts! How often, ye children of men, do you thus abuse it! Till now, what a madman

madman was I! what a destroyer of my wretched felf! how, by every thing, Chrift crucified, and his falvation, not excepted, did I cut, wound, and mangle my immortal foul! how untameable and unreftrainable! how often bound by the laws and fear of men; by folemn vows; by awful commands ; by piercing convictions; by ravishing influence; by galling afflictions from God! But all were broken through, as threads of tow, till Jefus brought me to myself, bound and drew me with cords of love, and caufed me fit down at his feet, clothed, and in my right mind.

"HERE a horfe gallops off with his rider." How impetuoully have my mighty lufts, to the endangering of my life, carried me whitherfoever they pleafed! Into how much concupifcence, how many vile a bominations, have they violently hurried me! Deeply convinced, that their end would be death, I neither could, nor would, reftrain them. To vanquish felf, how divine'; how laborious an art! nor can we feel a more dangerous plague, than reigning paffions, and a fubject mind.

YONDER feed a flock of geefe; a covey of " ducks." Let me never refemble the firft, in being heady and high-minded; nor the laft, in fpeaking much and doing little; in walking flow. Chrift doth not ask what I fay, but what I do more than others? "Into what odd fhapes do thefe angry turkeys fil gure themfelves Into what ftrange fhapes do men of violent paffions often form themselves! What enraged furies do they appear! My foul, into what outrageous enmity againft God, have thy paffions often tranfported thee! how often haft thou madly juftified thy being angry with his word, his truth, his ordinances, his providences! how often,

like a fury, have I belched forth angry words! how often have I been concerned in angry contefts!

"IN yonder field what number of cattle is yoked! "how harmoniously they walk, and draw in yonder "ploughs!" So, let Jefus' law and gofpel concur, in breaking up, and foftening the fallow-ground of my heart: fo, let my inward powers concur with his influence: fo, let me, with all faints, diligently draw in the pleasant, eafy, and love-lined yoke of his law, which is holy, juft, and good. "How the plough opens this hard earth! "tears up the roots of the weeds! So, Lord Jefus, while I live, may the mighty convictions of thy word, the powerful operations of thy grace, open and break my hard and ftony heart. So, may they cut up the deep-rooted lufts and corruptions within me. "How hard to plough "this ridge on the way fide, which for many years "hath been troden upon as a common path!" Ah! how long have Satan, and my lufts, made my foul an high way, a troden path for "evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, falfe witnefs, blafphemies !-what a ftretch hath omnipotent grace made to fave me! "Here the plough starts it refufeth; it cannot enter the rock." But bless the Lord, O my foul, and all that is within me, Jefus can plough, can melt, the flinty rock, the adamantine heart; "his word is quick and powerful, fharper than a two edged fword, piercing to the dividing afunder of joints and marrow, and is a difcerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart: ber rocks and mountains melt before the Lord God of Ifrael." Even at the entrance of the God of Jacob, the flinty rock is turned into a water Spring of godly forrow. "Here the unfkilful ploughman, or "the unruly cattle, have made a multitude of balks, "the furrows are out and in; much ground not "broken."