to those evil men, who promoted them? Their works are in the dust, or at best upon paper; so that, excepting perhaps for punishment, they have neither remained here, nor followed their authors. All their hopes, and cares, and commotions; their own restlessness, and their inquietudes to others; are buried all in everlasting gloom. The pleasant remembrance of their gayest hours is either extinguished, or swallowed up in sorrow for their sins; and the prospect before them what can this be, but a complication of all that is dreadful, unavoidable, and eternal!

This cool and serious review of all worldly things and affairs passes so often upon my mind, and seems so necessary in reminding me, how much I am but a stranger and sojourner here, that, if I have dwelt a little the more upon the vain wickedness of this world, the reader will know the reason in me, if he feel no occasion to apply it to himself.

One cannot take up an annual calendar of names, published only twenty or thirty years ago, without almost considering oneself among the tombs. The gay courtier and the plotting statesman, who once figured away within the senate or about the throne, now lay in undistinguishable ruin with the beggar and the clown; not less vile than these, and perhaps not less regarded and forgotten than the lowest of the low.

And what shall preserve, from the like disaster, all the present system of cares and pleasures? If, indeed, that can be called a system, which begins in evil, is carried on with disorder, and ends in folly or nothing.

O but (says one)" I have much goods laid up for many years; and I will say to my soul, soul, take thine ease, eat drink, and be merry." One of this sort, not worthy to be named, is put down in God's record for an everlasting fool. In the same night his soul was required of him, and had something else to think of than to attend the absurd business, which only the body

could do, of eating, drinking, and being merry, in the abuse of temporal good.

In the midst of all this perishing and disordered state, there is one rich blessing, which never can fail. The mercy of Jehovah in Christ Jesus endureth, yea endureth for ever. This is often repeated by the Lord himself, that it might be constantly and cheerfully believed.

O my soul, thy time faileth, thy body is decaying, the world is daily changing, and nothing about thee continueth in one stay. Blessed be God, to thee likewise a change shall soon come, and come for the better in the midst of it all! Whatever alterations appear, thou hast an unalterable God, and an unalterable home before thee. If the earth fall into destruction, as soon it will, thy estate cannot be lost; for thou art only a pilgrim and traveller here, and thy inheritance is above, out of the reach of ruin. Thy interest being safe. in Christ, all is safe, that is worth saving, with respect to thee. Thou canst only pass from death into life, from sin to holiness, from pain to peace, from earth to heaven, from mortals to God.

O how then should I rejoice in thee, my Savior and my Lord! In thee, who makest all things mine; all, either as good, or to lead me to good. I adore thee, that thou thus disposeth the world, life, death, things present, or things to come, in my behalf; calling them mine, making them really mine, because they contribute to my welfare. Above all, I bless thee for the end. I am lost in love and admiration, when thou tellest me, that I am thine, O my Redeemer; as thou art God's!

What manner of love is this; that I a mutable worm, should become an immutable spirit; that I who live in a tottering house of clay amidst a people of unclean lips, should be raised to a mansion of glory among the innumerable company of saints and angels; that I, a dull inhabitant of a miserable world, ruined and ravaged by sin and time, should be translated to a joyful rest,

unchanging as eternity; that I who was once a slave to satan and deserve only to live with him, should be made and kept a child of God, yea, an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ Jesus, of a kingdom which cannot be shaken!

O what manner of love is this indeed!

CHAPTER XVIII.

ON THE PATIENT ENDURING OF WRONGS.

LIKE the blessed Psalmist, I have sometimes been rewarded evil for good, to the great discomfort of my soul. It seems trying to flesh and blood; that is, to my animal and corrupt passions, to bear all and to say nothing: But yet this is generally my wisdom and my duty.

It is my wisdom, because then I do not stir up farther evil or strife in my own bosom, or in others; and I moreover engage my gracious Master to undertake for me, by committing all in silent patience to him, who hath engaged to make every thing, and such things as these most certainly among the rest, work together for my good. Thus that, which appears to be only a natural evil, will, by his superior management and control, be turned into a spiritual blessing.

It is also my duty to endure, considering him who bare the most severe contradiction of sinners against himself; because thereby I prove that I belong to him; for which purpose, perhaps, trials of this kind may have been permitted to fall upon me. If I have right and truth on my side, it is not only faithless but also unreasonable to be impatient. I ought rather to be thankful in that behalf, and to ask mercy and grace for those, who slander me against all equity and without a cause.

It is indeed unpleasant to have the treatment, which he experienced who said, "I became a reproach among all my neighbors; and they of mine acquaintance were afraid of me, and they that did see me without conveyed themselves from me." But this may be God's physic to my soul, which is not given me for my pleasure, but as the painful means of future good. My worldly attachments, or my christian attachments in a worldly way, may be growing stronger than are for the true health of my soul; and, therefore, this is a call to live more inwardly upon grace, and to wait in faith and prayer for more communion with God. When I gain his company by losing the company or the friendship of men, and even of good men with great corruptions like my own; I have no reason to lament any loss, but to be thankful, with all humility, for the kindness of every providence, which leads me nearer and keeps me closer to my blessed Lord. He is a tried and sure friend indeed, a friend for eternity.

If I took another sort of conduct, and exposed those as I might, and perhaps as they justly may deserve, who have done me evil for good; I should indulge only that base revenge of my fallen nature, which would plunge me as deep another way in the corruption, of which I may have right to complain. While I am only wronged, I am safe; but I am open to all manner of evil, when guilty of wrong.

Above all the harm that can be done me by creatures, let me tremble at my own passions, which, like tinder, are ready to kindle by the smallest spark of mental fire. May I tremble too at the officious readiness of others to increase my inflammation by their own. And alas! how much more ready is corrupt nature to feel and to foment discord, than to subdue and abhor it! Let me pray then to be delivered from the strife of other men's tongues; and to have a strong restraint, for such I greatly need, upon mine. Sin "is

the great kill-friend," as one calls it; may I therefore beg to be guarded against sin, both in myself and in them!

O Lord, what a nature, and what a world, do I live in! I groan under a nature, which is ready to meet all the evils and confusions that are in the world, and to make every one of them my own. How doth the unquiet spirit of man plunge himself and all about him, into confusions, miseries, and distresses; engendering unhappy discords among individuals, and bloody cruel wars among the nations! And how often, my blessed Master, instead of retiring to thy bosom, have I myself allowed this spirit of violence within me, and met it in other men! How much have I wronged my enemies by not praying for them, as I ought, when they have vented their wrongs against me! With how little patience and submission to thy will have I endured these wrongs; not considering that they could not have come, unless they had been permitted by thee, and were allowed to come altogether for my good! O Lord, wipe off my guilt by thy most precious blood, and enable me in future, as well not to take offence, as to be earnest to give none. So shall I appear indeed to be the disciple of thee, my Savior, who like a patient speechless lamb, didst endure all manner of insults and injuries, and so, in following thee, I shall find peace at least by thy grace both in thy bosom and in my own, though I find none beside throughout this distracted world!