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and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Having received fresh supplies of strength from above, our care should be to maintain what we have gotten at the sacrament; and not lose the exceeding great benefits thereof, by returning to sin and folly.

Let us persevere in all good works, and perform our vows, while our hearts are touched with a sense of God's love, and our souls warned with the remembrance of our Saviour's benefits. Let us sadly reflect upon our former back-slidings, and seriously consider that we have the same frail natures; and that the foes of our salvation have the same cunning, and hatred, and malice against us.

When we feel our zeal to cool, our devotion to decay; when we find ourselves less sensible of former sins, and when we begin to abate of our watchfulness and care, we must renew our addresses to the throne of grace, and beg of God to keep us from the snares of Satan, and not suffer us to be led away with the error of the wicked, nor fall from our own steadfastness. Our wills are irresolute and wavering, and do not cleave steadfastly unto God; our goodness. is but as the morning cloud, and as the early dew it passeth away; therefore let us beg of God to strengthen and confirm us, and pray that whatever good work he has wrought in us he would be pleased to accomplish and perform it until the day of Christ. He sees our weakness, and knows the number and strength of those temptations we have to struggle with; and he will not leave us to ourselves, if we implore his grace, but will cover our heads in the day of battle, and in all spiritual combats make us more than conquerors through him that loved us. How earnestly should we pray that no terrors or flatteries, either of the world, or our own flesh, may ever draw us from.our obedience to God; but that continuing steadfast, unmoveable, and always abounding in the work of the Lord, we may

as last obtained glory, and honour, and immortality, and eternal life.

How sad is the case of that man, who after he has tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come, yet falls away again, returning like the dog to his vomit, and shamefully yielding to those very sins which he so lately confessed, (it may be with tears) and renounced in so solemn a manner. I speak not here of the common frailties and infirmities of our nature, as the first motions of passion, &c. but I mean gross sins, as injustice, uncleanness, profane swearing, drunkenness, sabbath-breaking, neglect of God's word and of our daily devotion. Not that any one of these great sins is unpardonable, and what will not be forgiven upon true repentance; but it is a great aggravation of sin to relapse into wickedness after vows of better obedience made at the altar, and after we have been washed in our Saviour's blood. In order to keep yourself pure and undefiled, avoid ill company as you would the plague. Bad men may call you precise, and despise your holy life; but remember that God, your conscience, and all good people will praise and esteem you. Therefore as you are now made a new creature, chuse new company, take new courses, and become a new man. If you despise the blood of Christ, or slight the mercy of the gospel by a profane life, your portion will be with Judas who betrayed Christ, with the Scribes and Pharisees who crucified him. Therefore, if you have any regard for the salvation of your soul, and love for your God, any affection for your blessed Redeemer, walk as becometh his gospel, love him with your heart, praise him with your tongue, and glorify him in your life.

If the great deceiver shall offer you pleasure or profit to the hurt of your soul, say, get thee behind me Satan, I have been lately at the sacrament, and there have promised and vowed to live soberly, righteously and godly. Forget not your daily prayers morning and evening, often think

upon death, judgment, heaven, and hell, fear God and keep his commandments, and patiently wait for the coming of Christ; remembering always for your comfort, that the higher you rise in piety here, the higher degrees of glory shall you have in heaven hereafter.

Now let us forsake the foolish, and live and go in the way of understanding; now that we have feasted at the Lord's table, let us live no longer according to the corrupt maxims of the world, but according to the will of God. Let us henceforth chuse new company, and new courses; now become new men, and walk in new ways: This is the very thing that God looks for at our hands, after we have been at the sacrament: When we have had fellowship with God in the holy sacrament, we should go on from strength to strength, from one degree of virtue to another, till we appear before God in Sion.

After thou hast been at the sacrament, if Satan, or any of his instruments set upon thee, to entice thee by any evil or sin, arm thyself with thy sacramental vows; say to Satan I was lately at the sacrament, there thou knowest what a vow I made to God, therefore I may not do this evil: wouldst thou have me be forsworn before my God? Should I, that have been at God's table, and have eaten and drank with him, should I lift up mine heel against him, and thus ungratefully requite my best benefactor? God forbid.

When we come from the Sacrament, and do not shew the efficacy and power of it in our hearts and lives, and walk the more cautiously and religiously after it, these two evils assuredly follow:

First, God accounts such receiving as no honour done to him. A life of holiness and obedience must follow, or we shall derive no blessing from this sacred ordinance. If after eating and drinking at the Lord's

table, there follows no conscience of keeping your covenant, in yielding obedience to to the divine commands, all your prayers will be nothing worth, neither will your preparations be regarded by that God who bas declared, that without holiness no man shall see his face.

Secondly, We promise and vow at the Lord's table, to forsake our sins, and [to walk in all holy obedience and newness of life: If after all this we still live in our sins, and in the neglect of those duties we then solemnly engaged to perform, we horribly. prophane, and take God's name in vain, and make ourselves guilty of spiritual perjury before God.

Are we not forsworn, if we take an oath to do such a thing and do it not? And do we account it a light thing to be forsworn? Do we nothing regard the breach of an oath and covenant made solemnly with God? Woe to that man that breaks covenant with the great God of heaven and earth, who will not be mocked, who will not be baffled, who will be a swift witness, and a severe judge against all such as grossly take his glorious name in vain, and so foully pollute his holy ordinances.

Now this care of making good thy vow, must not abide with thee some days only, and then be cast aside; but it must continue with thee all thy days: For if thou breakest thy vow, it matters not whether sooner or latter. Nay, perhaps the guilt may in some respects be more if it be late; for if thou hast for a good while gone on in the observance of it, that shews the thing is possible to thee; and so the after-breaches are not of infirmity, because thou canst not avoid them; but of perverseness, because thou wilt not. Besides the use of christian walking must needs make it more easy to thee. For indeed all the difficulty of religion is but from the custom of the contrary; and therefore if after some acquaintance with it, when thou hast overcome some

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O Blessed Lord, who art infinitely holy

and happy in thyself, and desirest the happiness of all thy creatures, I prostrate myself before thy divine Majesty in au bumble sense of thy abundant goodness, and with sorrow and shame on account of my own detestable ingratitude. Long-suffering God! I most humbly thank thee, that it hath pleased thy goodness to take care of me thy unprofitable servant, this night past; that thou hast safely kept me from all mine enemies, and hast given me sweet sleep, to the refreshing of my poor, weak, and wearied body: And I earnestly beseech thee, most merciful Father, to shew the like goodness towards me this day,. in preserving my body and soul, that my ghostly enemies may have no power over me, nor the wicked approach to hurt me. O teach me so to walk in all godliness and honesty, that I may never discredit the honour of my religion, nor stain the holy robe with which thou hast now decked No. 28.

my soul, nor break those holy vows which I have made at this sacrament; nor lose thy favour, which is better than life itself,

Gracious God! give me a deep contrition for my sins past, and a hearty detestation and loathing of thèm, hating them worse than death with torments. Give me grace intirely, presently, and for ever to forsake them; to walk with care and prudence, with fear and watchfulness this day, and all the days of my life. To do my duty with diligence and charity, with zeal and neverfainting spirit; to redeem the time; to trust in thy mercies: to make use of all the opportunities of grace; to work out my salvation with fear and trembling; that thou mayest have the glory of pardoning all my sins, and that I may reap the fruit of all thy mercies, and all thy graces; of thy patience and long-suffering, even to live a holy life here, and to reign with thee for ever in that kingdom which Jesus Christ hath purchased with his blood, for all his faithful followers. Grant this, O gracious God, for the honour of thy name, and for thy mercy's sake, in my most merciful Saviour and Redeemer Jesus. Amen.

An Evening Prayer for the Week Days.

Eternal God, fountain of truth and

holiness, in whom to believe is life eternal; I make my humble address to thy divine Majesty, begging of thee mercy and protection this night and ever. O Lord, pardon all my sins, my light and rash words, unjust and uncharitable actions, and whatsothe vanity and impiety of my thoughts, my ever I have transgressed against thee this day, or at any time before. O cleanse me from my secret faults, and keep thy servant from presumptuous sins, lest they get the dominion over me; remove mine iniquities far away from thee, and be not angry with

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thy servant for ever: give me a tender conscience, a conversation discreet and affable, modest and patient, liberal and obliging; a body chaste and healthful; competency of living according to my condition; contentedness in all estates: a resigned will and mortified affections. Grant that I may be such as thou wouldst have me to be, and let my portion be in the lot of the righteous, in the brightness of thy countenance, and the glories of eternity. Keep me, O Lord, from the destroying angel this night; let thy anger never rise against me, but thy rod gently correct my follies; and guide me. in thy ways, and let thy staff support me in

all sufferings and changes; preserve me from sharp sickness and sudden surprizes, keep all my senses. entire till the day of my death, and let my death be neither sudden, untimely, nor unprovided; and Lord make me ever mindful of the time when I shall lie down in the dust, and because I know neither the day nor the hour of my master's coming, grant me grace that I may be always ready, that I may never live in such a state, as I shall fear to die in; but that whether I live, I may live unto the Lord, or whether I die, I may die unto the Lord, so that living and dying I may be thine through Jesus Christ. Amen.

ම්

ON THE

NECESSITY

OF

Reading the Holy Scriptures.

HOU shalt not be as a wanderer and

THO

gadder abroad, rambling about the streets without just cause, to spy out such as live wickedly. But by minding thy own trade and employment, endeavour to do what is acceptable to God. And keeping in mind the Oracles of Christ, meditate in the same continually. For so the Scripture says to thee: "Thou shalt meditate in his law day and night: when thou walkest in the fields, and when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up; that thou mayest have understanding in all things." Nay,

although thou heest rich, and so dost not want a trade for thy maintenance, be not one that gads about, and walks abroad at random; but either go to some that are believers, and of the same religion, and confer and discourse with them about the lively Oracles of God.

Or, if thou stayest at home, read, the books of the Law of the kings, with the Prophets; sing the Hymns of David, and peruse diligently the Gospel, which is the completion of the other.

Abstain from all the Heathen books. | ployed our minds and tongues. The mirth

For what hast thou to do with such foreign discourses, or laws, or false prophets, which subvert the faith of the unstable? For what defect dost thou find in the law of God, that thou shouldest have recourse to those Heathenish fables? For if thou hast a mind to read history, thou hast the books of the Kings; if books of wisdom or poetry, thou hast those of the Prophets, of Job, and the Proverbs; in which thou wilt find greater depths of sagacity, than in all the heathen poets, and sophisters; because these are the words of the Lord, the onlywise God. If thou desirest something to sing, thou hast the Psalms; if the origin of things, thou hast Genesis; if laws and statutes, thou hast the glorious Law of the Lord God. Do thou therefore utterly abstain from all strange and diabolical books. St. Clement.

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You are already listed a soldier of Christ; your care therefore must only be, to keep within the rules of that profession which you are engaged in, and to practice the virtues which it requires from you. Be diligent in prayer, and reading the Word of God. At some times you must speak with God; at other times he must speak with you. Let him instruct you with his precepts, and form your mind by the guidThe man who is ance of his counsel. thence enriched no one can impoverish : he who is filled with the fulness of God, cannot be empty. All the gaudiness and pomp of life will become insipid and jejune to you, when once you are convinced that your care should rather be employed upon yourself, and your soul be adorned with the graces of the Gospel.-Since this is a time of leisure and recreations, let us spend the remainder of the day in gladness and singleness of heart; nor let the hour of our repast go over us without some portion of that grace which hath hitherto em.

of a sober meal should be expressed in psalmody; and as you are blessed with an happy memory, and tunable voice, do you undertake this office, and enter upon it according to received custom. Your friends will have the better entertainment by their intermixing it with spiritual discourse, and with religious harmony.

St. Cyprian.

Instead of jems and silk, let your young daughter be enamoured with the holy Scriptures; wherein not gold, or skins, or Babylonian embroideries, but a correct and beautiful variety, producing faith, will recommend itself. Let her first learn the Psalter, and be entertained with those songs; then be instructed unto life by the Proverbs of Solomon. Let her learn from Ecclesiastes to despise worldly things; transcribe from Job the practice of patience and virtue. Let her pass then to the Gospels, and never let them be out of her hands: and then imbibe with all the faculties of her mind the Acts of the Apostles, and Epistles. When she has enriched the storehouse of her breast with these treasures, let her learn the Prophets, the Pentateuch, (or the books of Moses,) Joshua and Judges, the books ef Kings and Chronicles, the volumes of Ezra and Esther, and lastly the Canticles.

The book of Revelation has as many mysteries as words. I said too little; in every word there is a variety of senses; and the excellency of the book is above all praise.

St. Jerome.

We often acquaint you many days beforehand with the subject of our discourse, that, taking the Bible into your hands in the mean time, and running over the whole

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