Love, upon them? GOD is A BEING All-Powerful, as is evidenced by His Sustaining as well as having Created the Universe: He is Eternal, which is alone consistent with the right notion of A Self-Created All-Controuling POWER: He is All-Wise, as is obvious from the Perfection of His Works, from the Greatest even unto the Least amidst Their Vast Variety: He is of Great Goodness, Which is Conspicuous in the Beauty, Order, and Fitness, That Pervade Nature in all her kingdoms of Animate and inanimate Matter: He is Every Where, and at all Times Present with the Works of His Formation and Support; and Nothing can be hid or withheld from His Deep and most Intimate Knowledge: He is Pre-eminently Gracious and Merciful to Man, having Formed him an intellectual Being, and an Immortal Spirit, the very Image of Himself and of His Own Eternity; Endowing him, above all other sublunary Beings, with wisdom and understanding, and having Put all Things in this World of his present habitation in subjection under him, to contribute to his nurture and comfort and rational gratification. And moreover, though Man by sin has mutilated and defaced in himself That Image of his MAKER, yet hath GOD Elevated it to a more than pristine Beauty and Perfection by His Blessed and Only SON's Adoption of it, sin only excepted; Redeeming it from the Punishment of sin, and the influence of Satan, and Obtaining for it the Purifying and Sanctifying Graces of The HOLY SPIRIT. How then can we hesitate forming the resolution, and instantly putting it into practice, to turn away from every wickedness of thought, word or deed, as hateful to us, because Displeasing to so Holy A GOD, and to do That, Which is according to His Will, and agreeable to His Revealed Law; being That which is lawful, because consistent with That Law, Which GOD hath Written in every heart, and Which hath been more clearly Revealed to us in His Holy Scriptures, and Which is moreover Quickened in our conceptions and memory by His HOLY SPIRIT, Acting, though Silently and Invisibly, yet Perseveringly and Efficaciously within us, and being That also, Which is right, because according to The DIVINE Rules of Righteousness, as respect

industry in shaking off the trammels of sin, and removing from our eyes the illusions, with which the god of this World hath blinded us from the Glories of the Next; and may amend our ways, whilst there is Time Mercifully Reserved for us so to do: lest we forego the only opportunity of doing what our hand findeth to do; and be hurried to the grave, where there is neither work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom; and that too with all our sins unweighed in our own minds, and unsorrowed for in the Sight of GOD. Considering therefore, What GOD is! and What He hath Done for us in the Great and Marvellous Works of our Creation, Redemption and Sanctification; the Happiness He has Given us the Means of possessing even in this present Life, and the Promises He has Made us, through the Intercession of The SON of His Love, of Joy Unending and Full of Glory in the Life to Come, and reflecting, that from the Essential Qualities of Perfection in The DIVINE NATURE the only Acceptable return we can possibly make, for Goodness so Unfailing and Forbearance so Unmerited on our part, is to offer to Him a heart-prompted gratitude and reverential love, with the manifestation of a desire to please and obey Him in all things. Sorrowing with a Godly sorrow for all wherein we have offended Him, in not setting Him always before us, nor directing our ways or our thoughts always to His Honour, we should take shame to ourselves for such omissions of the duties we so palpably owe Him. And not only so, but the fruit of so faithful an inquiry into the state of our past Lives will lead to a mournful acknowledgment, that we have yielded to gross sensuality, to inordinate concupiscence, to criminal excess in the indulgence of our passions, to irregular desires, to oppressiveness and hard-heartedness towards Others; to sloth, or the neglect or perversion of our talents; to slighting or discontinuance of prayer, both public and private; to arrogance and self-sufficiency; to pride and obstinacy; to impatience and reproachfulness; to anger and bitter animosity; to a devotedness to Worldly objects or pursuits in an inordinate degree, if not exclusively; to lasciviousness, intemperance and prodigality; to the stifling in the Soul

I acknowledge my transgressions; and my sin is ever before me !-Psl. li. 3.

Having in the preceding Sentence been encouraged to depart from evil, and to lead a righteous and holy Life, that we may have the Promise of Salvation through CHRIST Fulfilled in us; we are here more particularly and properly led by the example and admonition of the sweet Psalmist of Israel (who though a Man after GOD's Own Heart, yet through the infirmity of the Flesh was not without sin, and great and grievous sin too,) to a more minute and close examination of what our transgressions have been, in order that we may acknowledge them, and have them in all their hatefulness and deformity before our eyes continually, as the most effectual means, by the Grace of GOD Helping us, to avoid relapsing into them, or yielding to other temptations; that so our Souls may be cleansed from those pollutions, which check the Gracious Operations of The HOLY SPIRIT within us, and put in jeopardy the Efficacy of CHRIST's Great Sacrifice to Wash away our sins, and the Record of them in His Own Immaculate Blood.——In the pursuit of an inquiry so essential to the acquirement of the true Christian character, it is not enough that we admit generally that we are Sinners; for the impression left by such an avowal of the lips, especially if it flow not from the heart, is transitory and unprofitable: indeed to be satisfied with that argues a mind averse to the looking inward upon itself, through the influence of a timidity the most disastrous if persevered in, and is little short of a mockery of GOD, Who Looketh upon the heart; and may not unjustly be charged as an hypocritical clinging to habits of evil indulgence. Let us therefore try and examine ourselves diligently and faithfully and fearlessly by the Word of GOD: and as the fear of Him is the beginning of true Wisdom, let us come to such an examination of our past Lives with a deep sense of the Power, Purity, Truth and Holiness of That GOD, Whose Laws we have broken, though Made equally for our truest happiness here, as for our Eternal Interest Hereafter; and may we be awakened to a just alarm at having endangered our Heavenly Calling! that so we may be stimulated to zeal and

industry in shaking off the trammels of sin, and removing from our eyes the illusions, with which the god of this World hath blinded us from the Glories of the Next; and may amend our ways, whilst there is Time Mercifully Reserved for us so to do: lest we forego the only opportunity of doing what our hand findeth to do; and be hurried to the grave, where there is neither work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom; and that too with all our sins unweighed in our own minds, and unsorrowed for in the Sight of GOD. Considering therefore, What GOD is! and What He hath Done for us in the Great and Marvellous Works of our Creation, Redemption and Sanctification; the Happiness He has Given us the Means of possessing even in this present Life, and the Promises He has Made us, through the Intercession of The SON of His Love, of Joy Unending and Full of Glory in the Life to Come, and reflecting, that from the Essential Qualities of Perfection in The DIVINE NATURE the only Acceptable return we can possibly make, for Goodness so Unfailing and Forbearance so Unmerited on our part, is to offer to Him a heart-prompted gratitude and reverential love, with the manifestation of a desire to please and obey Him in all things. Sorrowing with a Godly sorrow for all wherein we have offended Him, in not setting Him always before us, nor directing our ways or our thoughts always to His Honour, we should take shame to ourselves for such omissions of the duties we so palpably owe Him. And not only so, but the fruit of so faithful an inquiry into the state of our past Lives will lead to a mournful acknowledgment, that we have yielded to gross sensuality, to inordinate concupiscence, to criminal excess in the indulgence of our passions, to irregular desires, to oppressiveness and hard-heartedness towards Others; to sloth, or the neglect or perversion of our talents; to slighting or discontinuance of prayer, both public and private; to arrogance and self-sufficiency; to pride and obstinacy; to impatience and reproachfulness; to anger and bitter animosity; to a devotedness to Worldly objects or pursuits in an inordinate degree, if not exclusively; to lasciviousness, intemperance and prodigality; to the stifling in the Soul

every Christian Grace; and to the setting and spreading around us the baneful influence of evil example. We shall have then placed in our view every vice and weakness, that in a greater or less degree have marred in Man the Glorious Image of his MAKER, from Adam's first disobedience to the very hour of the scrutiny. And looking to the cause, the character and effect of evil, and the awfulness of our State, if we continue in sin, and having acquainted ourselves with the real condition of our own hearts, let us bow before The MOST HIGH in self-abasedness and crimination, acknowledging our sins, and repenting us of our iniquities; admitting, that as they must have been Offensive to GOD, and have Grieved His HOLY SPIRIT, and have Crucified The SON of GOD afresh, they should be deeply hateful in our own eyes, and heavily burthensome to our own consciences; and prompt us to put forth from the inmost recesses of our hearts unceasingly the prayer, that for CHRIST's Sake and the Sake of our Immortal Souls' Salvation, we may not be cut off before a new Nature is formed within us, that we may cease to do evil, and learn to do well, and may find Holiness a delight. Nor when the knowledge of our sins is thus profitably obtained, should we altogether banish them from our recollection, lest we undervalue the Forbearance and Mercy of GOD in CHRIST JESUS and His Atonement for them; but let them be ever before us to prevent our relapsing into them, or forgetting the alternative that is set before us, of Life and Good-or Death and Evil -for he, that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but Whoso confesseth and forsaketh them, shall have Mercy-Prov.

xxviii. 13.

Hide Thy Face, O GOD, from my sins; and Blot out all mine iniquities!-Ps. li. 9.

This honest examination of ourselves, the fruit of the preceding Exhortation, shewing and continually exhibiting to our view our deformity from the original Impression of Holiness, Stampt on Man by his MAKER, will influence the heart, deeply affected by its consequent danger, and in the hopelessness of all other Remedy for its relief, through Self-condemnation and