In what company have Ifpent this day past?
What fin have I committed?
What good have I omitted?

When and in what manner have I performed my morning devotion?

What mercies have I received? How thankful have I been, and am I, for them? What temptations have I refifted?

What ground have I got of my habitual fins! How have I governed my paffions! Have I not been eafily provoked by little accidents, which daily happen?

What opportunities have I had of doing good, and how have I improved them?

What opportunities have I had of discouraging evil, and how have I opposed it?

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"To these questions you may add fuch others as you find neceffary. "If you recollect the whole time of the day from your rifing, (for "which a few minutes before your evening devotions will fuffice) you will very easily be enabled to anfer the preceding queftions; "and, when you have done this, you must heartily beg God's pardan "for any fin you have been guilty of, and fhew yourfelves thankful for those bieffings, refpecting either this or another life, which be hath beftowed on you."

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"Some have written down the fins they have been guilty of, that "they might again humble themselves at the time of their more fo« lemn bumiliation; which may be farther useful; for, by com"paring one time with another, you will better difcern the amend"ment of your life, and growth in chriftian virtue but this is only advice for every person is left to judge for himself of the ufefulness and expediency of this method."

46

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The

The Sinner's Complaint. IN deep distress and troubled thoughts, To thee, my God, I rais'd my cries: If thou feverely mark our faults,

No flesh can stand before thine eyes. But thou haft built thy throne of grace, Free to difpenfe thy pardon there; That finners may approach thy face,

And hope and love, as well as fear.
As the benighted pilgrims wait,

And long and wish for breaking day;
So waits my foul before thy gate:
When will our GOD his face difplay?

My truft is fix'd upon thy word,

Nor fhall I trust thy word in vain: Let mourning fouls addrefs the Lord,

And find relief from all their pain.
Great is his love, and large his grace,

Thro' the redemption of his fon : +
He turns our feet from finful ways,
And pardons what our hands have done.

Pfalm cxxx. 3.

A prayer for forgiveness of fins.
God, who hat-

and

eft nothing that thou haft made, and doft forgive the fins of all them that are penitent, create and make in me a new and con

trite

trite heart, that I worthily lamenting my fins, and acknowledging my wretchednefs, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remiffion and forgiveness, thro' Jefus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Meditation for Monday Evening. No excufe fufficient to keep us from receiving the holy facrament of the Lord's fupper.

Except ye eat the flesh of the fon of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. John vi. 53.

C

Onfider now, O my foul! what advantages we might have reaped from that holy communion: yet all thefe will be left and gone, if we don't purfue our courfe to arrive where Chrift Jefus in calling us has determined, Philip. iii. 12. Remember how many arguments the enemy of mankind ftarted to prevent our approach to that holy table; how he fuggefted that the number and greatness of our fins would, inftead of obtaining any benefit, only make us eat and drink our own damnation.* 2. This

I.

1 Cor. xi. 29. Or fome temporal punishment or judgment, as it is read in the margin of your bible, fuch as fickness or death. The unworthy receiving, which is here condemned in the Corinthians by St. Paul, was their diforderly and irreverent participation of the Lord's Supper; their eating and drinking without a due regard to the manner and end of that holy institu

2. This fuggeftion, though it proceeded from an enemy, yet, O my foul! it contains much truth; for, if a man lies under the guilt of any fin, and does not repent of it, and heartily refolve to forfake and amend it; this is indeed prefumption and a fin, for such a person, whilst he continues in that ftate, to come to the holy communion: it is a deliberate affront, and even a mocking of the divine majefty, for a man to make a fhew of worship and honour to him, whilft, at the fame time, he goes on in wilful difobedience to his known commands. And

;

tion; without a due refpect had to the facramental use of the bread and wine that reprefented the Lord's body. It being the custom of the chriftians in the apoftolical times, to receive the boly Eucharift after their feaft of charity, wherein the rich and the poor were wont to eat together with great fobriety and temperance: but in the church of Corinth this method was not obferved, the poor were not admitted to this common feast for in eating every one took before each other his own fupper; so that when fome wanted, others were guilty of fcandalous excefs, and grofs intemperance: and the effect of it was, they did not difcern the Lord's body 'I hey made no difference between the facrament and a common meal, between what was to fuftain their bodies, and what was to nourish their fouls. So that to eat the bread, and drink of the cup, in the holy facrament, without a due and direct reverence paid to the Lord's body, by feparating the bread and wine from the common ufe of eating and drinking for hunger and thirit, was to eat unworthily. The punishments annexed to thefe mifcarriages, were infirmi ties, fickness, and temporal death, with which God corrected them, that they might not be condemned with the unbelieving world. By which it appears that temporal ju 'gmerts mult be understood by the word our tranflators render damnation.

And fo provokes God to plague him with diverfe difeafes and fundry kinds of death, with which the city of Corinth was afflicted for their great abuse and profanation of this holy institution, as the apoftle there obferves. But,

3. Hear what our Saviour Chrift faith: * Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink bis blood, you fall not have life in you. Whence it is easy to collect, that it is not the number or quality of our fins, but a wilful or fupine continuance in them, that should deter us from that holy communion; for whatever fins a man has been guilty of in times past, if he truly repents of them, and heartily forfakes them for the time to come, GOD has fo often and so plainly promised † in this cafe to grant a full and free pardon of them, that they cannot justly be pretended as any obftacle, which should hinder us from approaching to him in any of his ordinances.

4. Thus, my foul, thou mayeft learn that it is in the power of every man (at least of every one who by a long course of wickedness has not wholly provoked GOD to withdraw his grace from him) by that grace and affiftance, which GOD continually offers unto us,

to

John vi. 53. Ifaiah i. 18, &c.