our integrity in purposing repentance; and that we may be found waiting upon God in the way of his appointment. And though the means will not effect the end, without efficacious grace: yet they are quite as much calculated to produce the effect, as medicines are to remove sickness, or agriculture to produce the crop, both of which are rendered effectual only by the divine blessing.

I. Then, Consider your ways as David did, "I "thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto "thy testimonies.'" Are you now desirous truly to repent? Retire frequently into your chamber, shun the hurry and dissipation of a crowd, and court solitude, that you may recollect yourselves, and seriously commune with your own heart. There minutely review your whole past life with exactness survey your thoughts, words, and actions, ever since the dawn of reason, or from the beginning of recollection. Ask yourselves seriously such questions as these: What have you been scheming, intending, pursuing all your days? What hath been the standard of your judgment, and rule of your conduct? The opinion of men, or the word of God; the fashions of the world, or the example of Christ? What have your affections been fixed on? Have you given God or the world, your heart: I mean your warmest desires, and most devoted attachment? Have you intentionally been

'Psalm cxix. 59.

pleasing God, or yourselves? Have you been seek-
ing his glory in every thing; or your own ease, inter-
est, gratification, and honour? In what have your
time and money been most cheerfully expended?
In works of piety and charity; or in gratifying
your sensuality, pride, and ambition? Have you
been laying up, or aiming to lay up, treasures in
heaven, or on earth? Have you improved health,
prosperity, abilities, and influence, in promoting.
the glory of God, the interests of piety, and the
good of men? Or have you done, no good, but
mischief with them? Hath God been the delight-
ful subject of your meditations and conversation?
or have you willingly and habitually forgotten
him, and regarded religious thoughts and converse
as insipid and irksome? Hath the sweet work of
prayer and praise, the worship of God, and hear-
ing and reading his word, been your pleasure, or
your task? Have you been out of
your element
when thus employed, and found more charms, aud
experienced more satisfaction, in licentious com-
pany or dissipated mirth? Have you habitually
reverenced the sacred name of God, hallowed his
sabbaths, and frequented his sanctuary with rever-
ence and devotion? Or have you taken his name
in vain,' despised his ordinances, polluted his

'By taking the name of God in vain, I do not mean, nor does the Bible mean, merely blasphemy, perjury, and prophane swearing; but every jest or expression, which implies want of reverence to the name of God, his word, and sacred things. Almost in all companies, the conversation even though trifling and polluting,

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sabbaths, or mocked him with an hypocritical worship?

What have your imaginations been? pure and heavenly, or lewd, ambitious, envious, covetous, revengeful, and abominable? What has your discourse been? edifying, serious and candid; or profane, polluted, trifling, slanderous, and dissembling? What have your tempers been? meek, peaceable, and kind; or turbulent, contentious, and overbearing? Have you behaved, as the word of God directs, in relative life, as parents, children, husbands, wives, masters, or servants? Has equity, disinterestedness, and kindness; or selfishness, covetousness, and fraud, directed your is incessantly interlarded with the words GOD, LORD, CHRIST, and such like; which are formed into hackneyed phrases, and used as mere expletives to adorn a period: or as notes of admiration, approbation, or indignation. Nothing can more fully discover the degree, in which sinful man despises the glorious God, than this general and almost universal practice. Without pleasure, profit, or apparent temptation, in violation of an express command, and in defiance of an awful threatening; that tremendous name, which impresses angels with holy awe, and at which devils tremble, is made man's mere by-word. But when the affronted JEHOVAH shall at last address the sinner," Wherefore hast thou des"pised the commandment of the LORD?" and he find that God will "not hold him guiltless;" his profane trifling will be at an end; and he will be constrained to tremble at that name he would not reverence. The inefficacy of much apparent religion, and the worthlessness of much evangelical profession, are demonstrated, by their failing to depress this awful profaneness. All true christians, who worship God in spirit and truth, are, by that profound veneration they bear to the Lord, cured effectually of this practice; and ought to unite in bearing testimony against it, boldly, in all companies.

worldly business? Have you in sobriety, chastity, and temperance, governed your appetites and passions?

But I have already exceeded due bounds in this specimen of queries, which you ought with all impartiality to propose to yourselves; allowing conscience, after mature recollection, to return a faithful answer. In short, set the law of God, and the example of Christ, before your eyes, make diligent search into your secret practices, intentions, and inclinations: steadily view your likeness, and estimate your character in this manner, until you know what manner of persons you are. Shrink not back from that view of self-deformity, which will thus be presented to you: but look, and look again, till you "abhor yourselves, and repent in dust and ashes."

The man, whose circumstances are embarrassed, may possibly retrieve all, if he be content in time to look well into his affairs, and be made sensible how bad they are: but to shrink from this inspection, and to banish reflection, on a disagreeable subject, completes many a man's ruin. Thus multitudes are afraid, or averse, fully to examine their own character, conduct, and state; they flee from reflection, because uneasy and mortifying; and huddle up all in an unexamined obscurity, till they rush blindfold into remediless ruin. But by carefully examining how matters stand betwixt God and our souls, the danger is discovered, the

remedy is at hand, and our destruction happily prevented. Shift not then this business; slur it not over, but go through with it, though disagreeable and mortifying: and you will find yourselves ámply recompensed, not only by its subserviency to repentance, but to future solid and abiding peace of conscience.

II. Examine your heart and life daily.

Nor only say, What have I done?' but What am I ' now doing? The heart is deceitful above all "things, and desperately wicked, who can know "it?" And the Lord pronounces him “a fool, who "trusteth in his own heart." Men retain their

good opinion and confidence concerning themselves; because they remain strangers to their own hearts, for want of daily examination: for the only way to discover a concealed villain, is carefully to watch him. Watch then your own hearts; examine well your own lives: keep before your eyes the requirements of the divine law, as far as known; search the scriptures daily for further information: review your daily conduct, judging of it by that infallible standard: descend to particu lars; to omissions and commissions, words and actions, intentions and imaginations, deficiencies and defilements in duty, and backwardness to it, This will prove of vast importance to self-knowledge, and consequently to self-abasement. Though difficult at first, it will soon become natural and