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be attended with some success. I have had reason to acknowledge the neglect of self-examination, and of corresponding with my friends abroad in such a manner as politeness would have required, and indeed justice and prudence in some respects might dictate. I have been humbling myself before God upon these accounts, and I have been renewing my purposes of new and better obedience, in an humble dependance upon divine strength, longing earnestly to improve in grace, and advance more eminently in religion than ever. Oh, that I may indeed be steadfast and immovable, and always abound in the work of the Lord, since I have such undoubted assurance that my labour in the Lord shall not be in vain.

P.S. I must not forget, in reviewing the mercies of the last year, that sweet and joyful experience which I had on Sunday, December 2, when I was meditating alone in the morning before I set to any other business. Breathing out my soul in love to God;-I then waited a while as it were to hear from him, and remained in a kind of silent, but lively ecstatic expectation, when these words came down, as it were from heaven to my soul, in such a manner as almost to overwhelm me with delight. has set his love upon me, I will deliver him. on high, because he has known my name. upon me, and I will answer him. I will be

"Because he

I will set him

He shall call with him in

With long

trouble. I will deliver him, and honour him.
life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation."

REFLECTIONS ON A SACRAMENT ALMOST TWO YEARS AFTER THE FORMER.

AFTER a long interval, in which nevertheless some of the most important events I have ever known have passed; after the rise of the Rebellion; the death of my invaluable friend, Colonel Gardiner; the deliverance gained by the ever memorable victory at Culloden; the first of which

happened on the 21st of September, 1745, the other on the 16th of April following, and also just after the death of my other most amiable friend, Mr. Scott, of Norwich; and after a variety of other varying, and some of them very memorable scenes, both in public and private; in personal and relative; in civil and religious life; after various journeys, deliverances, afflictions, reproaches, applauses, straitnesses, and enlargements; which, though deeply felt and attentively revolved in my mind, have, though I know not any cause for the neglect, been omitted here; at length I sit down to make some little memoirs of what passed this day at the Lord's table.

I had preached in the morning a farewell to the soldiery, from John's discourse to them, and in the afternoon of profaning the altar. My subject of meditation at the table of the Lord was Psalm xxvi. 11. " I will walk in my integrity: redeem me, and be merciful unto me." I observed the psalmist's resolution and his plea, as suitable to every Christian in such circumstances. His resolution: I will walk in my integrity. And indeed, where can the resolution be more suitable than at the table of the Lord, in whatever view we consider it? I will keep a conscience void of offence, since here I commemorate the sacrifice offered for my offences, and here also renew my obligations to God. And what are these obligations? How can I make good my dedication of myself to God, but by walking in my uprightness? And, O Lord, redeem me, and be merciful to me. I look to thee as my Redeemer. I wait for thy mercy, O Lord! Living and dying I cast myself upon mercy; and I expect nothing but from that. Oh impart thy mercy, and I will celebrate it for ever.

In breaking the bread, I exclaimed, "O happy Christian, who hast such a Saviour! Happy, though thou dost carry all thou hast about thee; though thou hadst nothing but the clothes on thy back, and after this morsel of bread

didst not know when thou shouldst obtain the next. 0 gracious Redeemer! who makest such provision. Ye are come to the general assembly of the first born of the kingdom of Heaven. Strange! What are ye? What! and can such then as we are, come to such an assembly, come to angels;-come to God;-to the Judge of the whole earth, with any comfort? Behold what unveils the mystery. Ye are come also to Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant, to the blood of sprinkling. Do you now come to it? Perhaps a soul may say, 'O that I were assured that he gave himself for me.' The resolution of that depends on another question. Dost thou give thyself to him.'-I bless God, this has on the whole been a very delightful day.

December 7, 1746.

REFLECTIONS ON THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR 1747.

VARIOUS, indeed, and very important have been the mercies of God to me this year. The public deliverances which God gave us from the power of our rebellious enemies will, I hope, never be forgotten. To these many private mercies have been added, which I desire to remember as long as I live. Nothing more sensibly affects me in this review than the favourable interposition of Providence for the preservation of my dear and valuable wife, when she was in such great extremity, falling into labour of two children, one of them a cross birth, ten weeks before her time, and with a fever upon her. God also was pleased to deliver me from a dangerous fever in June. Various journeys, some of them through the extremities of bad weather, have been safe to me. God graciously restored my wife's health, by his blessing upon the waters of Bath; and my good friend Mr. B.'s place is filled up by Mr. Robinson, who is a most excellent person; and Providence has graciously given me some accession to my worldly circumstances, by the death of my good aunt Pool, for whom, nevertheless, had it been

the will of God, I should have most sincerely desired a much longer life.

God has also made my ministry very acceptable; and has given me the satisfaction of receiving from Holland a translation of my Sermons upon Regeneration into the Dutch language, with a preface speaking of the high respect borne to me by some very worthy persons. God has also supplied most of the breaches made upon my Academy the last year in a comfortable manner, and gives me very encouraging hopes, that several pupils now under my care will prove eminent lights in his Church. He has also given me not only to publish a sermon on the suppression of the rebellion, calculated, I hope, for some service, though not so much taken notice of as I thought there was some reason to expect, but he has also given me to finish the third volume of the Family Expositor, now just ready to be published; and also to finish the first copy of good Colonel Gardiner's Life, and to transcribe about a third part of it, that is fifty pages; and I hope that many as yet unborn will have reason to bless God for it. God has also been pleased to give me some tokens of uncommon respect from persons of rank and distinction, particularly the good Bishops of Gloucester and Bristol, some other clergymen of the establishment, Lord Halifax, and some of our gentlemen in these parts; besides several letters which I have received, giving me an account of the blessing which he has been pleased in several instances to bestow upon my writings, and especially upon the Rise and Progress of Religion. Nor must I reckon among the smallest of my mercies the opportunities I have had of seeing how eminently he has blessed the labours of good Mr. Fawcett, and with what abundant anointing of the Holy Spirit, God has been pleased to honour him; in consequence of which I can truly say, I should think all my labours, as a tutor, well repayed to have been instrumental in raising up but one

such person to the service of the sanctuary; for all these things I praise and adore a gracious God, and desire to erect a monument of humble thankfulness.

On the other hand, there are instances in which God has in this year deeply afflicted me, though I confess in all these things much less than my iniquities have deserved; in my temporal affairs, in my reputation, and what I particularly lament, in the success of some of my labours, which is far from having been such as I could have wished.

As to my temporal affairs, not to mention one fit of illness of my own, my wife's languishing and expensive illness all the first five months of the year, is not by any means to be forgotten, which was the occasion of her jour ney to Bath; nor the loss of those two children which God gave me, but took away in the very first dawning of life. Nor am I to forget my having at present fewer pupils and boarders than I remember to have had since I came into this house, insomuch that one table serves us for dinner, when we have sometimes had two full. Some small losses have likewise been sustained by bad debts, though providence has generally been remarkably good to me in that particular.

God has suffered a greater number of enemies to arise, and to persecute me this year than I have commonly known, at least I have traced more of the effects of this evil. My brethren have dealt most deceitfully and unjustly with me, and have been far more solicitous to blast my name, and to ruin my capacity of usefulness than to do any kind of good: they have so far succeeded, that some other Academies have flourished, not so much for their merit as from their opposition to mine; and some hopeful youths have been by the credulity of parents, and slanderous tongues, deprived of the benefit they might have found by instructions here, as well as that I have been deprived of the pleasure and credit of training them up.

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