AN IMPERFECT SCHEME OF BUSINESS FOR THE NEXT HALF YEAR, THAT IS, TILL THE VACATION.

I AM now to consider myself in the treble view, of a Pastor, a Tutor, and a Student; and my scheme must be laid with a regard to the duties of each.

I am sensible it will be difficult to unite them all. I apprehend my course in general must be this: I will usually rise at about five o'clock, and study till the time of morning prayer, which will be half-past eight. The forenoon will generally be employed in lectures. If I dine very moderately, I may secure a little time before I go out in the afternoon; but the business from two till six will be to attend upon my people. I shall generally read a lecture in the evening, and will retire as early as I can; but will take care to give the family prayer so soon, as to have a little retirement between that and bedtime. On this scheme I proceed as follows:

1. As a Tutor, I propose generally to read about ten lectures in a week; allowing one morning and one afternoon vacant. And accordingly, for geometry, I propose to proceed with the first geometrical class to the end of the 12th Book of Wetstein's Euclid; and perhaps to enter them a little on Archimedes. With the other class to carry them through the first four Books of Euclid and algebra.

2. For Hebrew, I hope to go through some little part of Genesis, select prophecies, and a sentence at the end of Robertson; besides the paradigms of the verses, and the index of those roots, which occur more than twenty times in the grammar.

3. I hope to end our oratory, and to have some exercises of reading and speaking. And to go over a short scheme of logick, as preparatory to Mr. Jennings's, which will be the work of the next half year.

4. I propose to end geography, and to proceed about six

VOL. V.

T

lectures in civil history, reserving the rest to the next half year, perhaps we may attend to ancient geography, consulting Wells on that subject.

5. I propose to spend some time every day in reading the classics, the Latin one day, and the Greek the next. We shall probably be employed in reviewing some satires of Horace and Juvenal, with select passages from Virgil, Pliny, and perhaps of Plautus, Sallust of the Jugurthian war, and if possible, the rest of Persius. For the Greek, the select passages in Dilectus Tabularum, and perhaps a little of Homer, and, at least, one oration of Isocrates.

6. For academical exercises, translations of some scenes in Terence, of Tully's Book of Friendship, some select orations in Sallust, and epistles from Pliny, with some passages in the Spectator and Guardian, to be turned into Latin.

7. Devotional lectures every month.

II. As a Pastor, I will visit my people, both in town and country, throughout the whole congregation, allowing, as I before said, the afternoon for that purpose, and generally going into the country on Thursdays. I will have a peculiar regard to the young people, for whom I propose to draw up a catechism; I will expound on Friday nights at the vestry; perhaps I may also expound before the morning service, and catechise before that of the afternoon. I cannot ascertain all the subjects I shall touch upon: but I propose to go over some of those concerning the knowledge of Christ, which I laid a scheme for at Nottingham. It may be reckoned as a part of this work, that I am to draw up my Thesis and Confession of Faith.

III. As a private Student, I must be making some preparations for the lectures of the next half year; particularly by reading over Watts's Logic, and Locke, besides attending to Mr. Jennings's Logic. I must also complete the Hebrew vocabulary, and read some of the classics by myself,

particularly, if it be possible, Lucan's and Plato's Dialogues. For divinity, I hope to end Cradock on the Old Testament, and make some pretty good progress on Beza on the New, and to be every day reading some little portion of a practical writer, though I am sensible it can be but little. Besides others, I hope to dispatch Mr. Philip Henry's Life; Dr. Owen on the Mortification of Sin in Believers; Tillotson to page 620; Howe's Carnality of Religious Contention, and Discourses of Union among Protestants, and the other tracts in his works to the end of his Reformation Sermon; Baxter of making light of Christ; of Faith and Judgment; of Repentance, and Right Rejoicing; besides the review of his Gildas Salvianus; Burnet's Pastoral Care; Chrysostom on the Priesthood; and Bark's Pastor Evangelicus. To these I may perhaps add Lucas's Sermons, and some other little tracts that I do not just now recollect; besides Dr. Bates's Miscellaneous Sermons, and that on the Death of Queen Mary, and Dr. Manton's. Add to these Clarke's Sermons.

ON THE FIRST SACRAMENT DAY AT NORTHAMPTON.

I AM now going to approach to Christ at his table, and I never appeared before him under a burthen of deeper and more aggravated guilt; and, consequently, I never came with a greater need of his assistance. He has been multiplying my engagements to a life of strict and exact holiness, and since my last approach to him, some of the most important circumstances of my life have happened. I have been removed from my dear friends at Harborough, and brought to settle here at Northampton; I have been solemnly devoted to God in the work of the ministry: and since that time, I have been visited with a great illness, which seemed to threaten the destruction of my life and yet by all these awful and melting engagements, my soul has been too little impressed. How many sins and follies

have I fallen into since I was last at the Lord's Supper at St. Albans; all the long train of distracted and extravagant passion to Clarinda; all the undue concern for quitting Harborough; all the forgetfulness of God in my new settlement at Northampton. The same sins have been committed here as elsewhere, in all their circumstances. What reason have I to wonder, that I am suffered to live; that I am alive to continue in the ministry; that I am enabled to officiate in public; and that I am called this day, not only to receive, but to distribute the Bread of Life! Methinks I am almost ashamed to present myself at that solemnity. Lord, I do verily believe, that there is none who less deserve thy favour; no one who has more exposed himself to thy wrath. Yet I hope thou wilt still pardon me. Grace that abounds to the chief of sinners, and freely flowing from the bleeding heart of a Redeemer, will, I hope, be my refuge. At his feet would I lay myself. On his merit and righteousness would I repose my hope. To Him would I devote my life, and refer the continuance of it, and the disposal of all my concerns. Lord, it is my earnest expectation and my hope, that thou mayest in all things be glorified in me, whether by my life, or by my death; that yet to me, to live may be Christ, and to die unspeakable gain. I renew my resolutions for thy service, under the character of a minister, and of a tutor, and beg thou wilt make me useful in both; and in both wilt enable me to discharge my duty to thee, and to those who are immediately committed to my care. I resolve, by thy grace, to mortify all inordinate desires, to abound in the performance of secret duties with greater constancy, in which of late I have been extremely deficient, to study the improvement of morning and evening time, as well as that in the advance of the day. And upon the whole, what I know not, I desire thou wilt teach me, and whatever I can discover to be displeasing to thee, I will on the one hand

endeavour to avoid, as on the other, whatever I apprehend thou requirest of me, that will I do and be obedient. This I resolve in thy strength, and humbly hope that thou wilt admit me once more to renew a covenant which, by the assistance of thy grace, I will never more wilfully and deliberately break. Amen. For Jesus Christ's sake.

Sunday, April 12, 1730.

I HAD a sweet flow of thoughts from those words, it is finished. Our Lord Jesus could then say so with regard to his sufferings. And for almost seventeen hundred years he has never known one moment's anxiety or pain. But the time will come, when we shall say so too. We may already say it with regard to covenant transactions with God, it is finished. The affair is concluded. We have opened our mouth to the Lord, and we cannot go back. And in a little time more, God will help us to say it in another sense, when we are brought to Heaven. Yet there, of our eternal glory, we shall never say it is finished; throughout all the rising and succeeding ages of eternity it will still be but as if it were beginning. These were all affecting thoughts. But how little does it signify to be as I was affected with them in a transient manner, when there is no abiding sense of them upon the soul. God only knows, whether I shall ever be spared to see another sacrament day. But I must record it for my humiliation and shame, that he is just, if he bring me to hell before the return of it.

SOME REFLECTIONS MADE AT THE BEGINNING OF
JUNE, 1730.

How lamentable a thing is it that I should have perpetual reason to complain of myself, and should, with all that capacity which some so highly admire and extol, be ever learning, yet never able to come to the knowledge of the most easy and obvious truths, never able practically to know and regard them. I have been extremely negligent