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O! LET the Chriftian bless that glorious day,
When outward forms fhall all be done away;
When we in spirit, and in truth alone,
Shall bend, O God! before thy awful throne,
And thou our purer worship shalt approve,
By sweet returns of everlasting love.

TO be humble in all our actions, to avoid every appearance of pride and vanity, to be meek and lowly in our words, actions, dress, behaviour, and designs, in imitation of our bleffed Saviour, is worshipping God in a higher manner, than they who have only fet times to fall low on their knees in devotions. He that contents himself with neceffaries, that he may give the remainder to thofe that want it; that dares not to spend any money foolishly, because he confiders it as a talent from God, which must be used according to his will, praises God with something that is more glorious than fongs of praise.

PRACTISE humility, and reject every thing in dress, or carriage, or converfation, that has any appearance of pride.

HUMILITY is fo amiable a quality, that it forces our esteem wherever we meet with it. There is hardly a poffibility of defpifing the meaneft perfon that has it, or of efteeming the greatest man that wants it.

LET every day be a day of humility; condefcend to the weakneffes and infirmities of your fellow-creatures, love their excellencies, encourage their virtues, relieve their wants, rejoice in their profperities, compaffionate their dif trefs, receive their friendship, overlook their wickedness, forgive their malice, be a fervant of fervants, and condefcend to do the loweft offices.

AS God has created all things for the common good of all men, fo let that part of them which is fallen to your fhare, be employed as he would have all employed, for the common good of all.

THE

THE greatest finners receive daily instances of God's goodness towards them; he nourishes and preferves them, that they may repent, and return to him. Do you therefore imitate God, and think no one too bad to receive your relief and kindness, when you fee that he wants it.

AT thirty, man fufpects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty, chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to refolve:
In all the magnanimity of thought
Refolves; and re-resolves : then dies the fame.

ON SYMPATHY.

LET ftoics boaft the cold relentless heart,
This bofom knows in grief to fympathife;
Nor would I with the foft fenfation part,
For pleafing paffions with the painful rise.

Benevolence, foft gentle pity, knows
The wish to comfort tho' the with be vain,
Her tender heart flill melts at others woes,
Nor centers in itself its bliss or pain.

Her I would ever cherish in my breast,
For her's are moral virtues, are divine,

Her laws are Nature's, God's, and therefore beft;
His precepts make my neighbours int’rest mine.
When friendship adds her foft engaging ties,
What duty bids, is choice, is pleasure here;
By fympathy our joys increafing rife
And grief is foftened by the mingling tear.
Not ftoic fortitude fhould e'er controul
Its force, in grief or joy when friendship flows;
Religion only fhould command the foul,
And bound alike our pleasures and our woes,

LET us all endeavour fo to live now, as we shall with we had done when we come to lie upon our death-beds; or as we fhall then refolve to live, in cafe God fhould continue our lives to us. Let us perufe thofe things now,

which we fhall be able to think of and reflect upon with pleasure when we come to die, and forfake all thofe things, the remembrance of which at that time will be bitter to us. Let us now, whilst we are well and in health, cherish the fame thoughts and apprehenfions of things, that we shall have when we are fick and dying: let us now despise this world as much, and think as ill of fin, as feriously of God and eternity, as we fhall then do. For this is the great commendation of the righteous man, that every one defires to die his death, that at last, all men are of his mind and perfuafion, and would choose his condition, "Let me "die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be "like his."

SINCERITY fignifies a fimplicity of mind and manners in our converfation and carriage one towards another, fingleness of heart, discovering itself in a conftant plainness, and honeft openness of behaviour, free from all infidious devices, and little tricks, and fetches of craft and cunning, from all falfe appearances, and deceitful disguises of ourfelves in word or action; or yet more plainly, it is to speak as we think, and do what we pretend and profefs, to perform and make good what we promise, and, in a word, really to be, what we would seem and appear to be.

AN heart that rightly computes the difference between temporals and eternals, may refolve with the Prophet,

Although the fig-tree fhall not bloffom, neither shall fruit "be in the vine, the labour of the olives fhall fail, and "the fields fhall yield no meat; the flocks fhall be cut off " from the fold, and there fhall be no herds in the stall, yet "I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my "falvation."

FRUGALITY is good, if liberality is joined with it. The firft is leaving off fuperfluous expences; the laft beftowing them to the benefit of others that need. The first without the laft begins covetoufnefs; the laft without the first begins prodigality: both together make an excellent temper.

VOL. II.

The

The HAPPY MAN.

HOW bleft the man who free from care and ftrife,
Leads not with lux'ry, but content, his life;

Who walks with health, where temp'rance points the way,
And joins with gratitude to praife or pray;
From pleafure's cup with juft difdain who turns,
Nor yet for honour's glitt'ring pageant burns;
Who looks with pity where pale av'rice pines
O'er gems, and gold yet rip'ning in the mines.
To fretful paffion leaves each childish toy,
And aims, with glorious zeal, at reason's joy:
Who marks the wonders of creating pow'r,
From heav'n's bright orb, to earth's uncultur'd flow'r;
Sees nature, taught of God, dispense her laws,
And traces all things upward to their cause ;
To moral science, higher ftill would rife,
And asks of facred wisdom, to be wife;
Yet flops where awful mystery draws the veil,
And trufts, where angels muft of knowledge fail:
Whofe eyes turn'd inward, his own heart explore,
Try all its depths, and trace it o'er and o'er,
Who bounds the wand'ring wifh, the tow'ring thought,
And toils to practise all that Jefus taught.

He, cloth'd in heav'nly arms, fhall still prevail
When fin and fatan, and the world affail.
No fabled Egis, faith's immortal shield
He lifts, and knows the Spirit's sword to wield;
Salvation's helmet fhall his brows defend,
And the fierce fight in more than conqueft end.
In heav'n's high tow'rs his triumph is decreed,
And peace eternal is the hero's meed.

How bleft the mortal, who but falls to rife,
Who fights on earth, to triumph in the skies!

AN exalted ftation always brings with it a weight of cares, and he is happier who, in the humble vale of life, purfues his way in the paths of reafon and of virtue, than he who fhares the favours of a Prince, or the applaufes of a giddy multitude.

ΤΟ

TO afpire after things beyond your reach, is to expect more than you are entitled to, or than reafon can defire. Remember the declaration of the apoftolic writer: "They "who will be rich, fall into temptation and a fnare, and

pierce themselves through with many forrows." Obfervation and reflection will eafily point out the impropriety and folly of those who, on their first fetting out in life, launch into dangerous and unwarrantable schemes.

HASTEN to reform yourself, that you may labour with fuccefs in the reformation of others.

VERY few tempers have wifdom and firmness enough to be proof against flattery; it requires great confideration, and a refolute modesty and humility, to refift the infinuations of this ferpent.

IN your ordinary calling, fee that you undertake nothing but what is lawful in its end; and endeavour to accomplish nothing by any but by lawful means, that you may have always the comfort of a confcience void of offence. Nay, you should even do more; you fhould endeavour to act fo fingle and fincere a part, as to be beyond the imputation of a fraud, that all who know you may put the most unbounded confidence in your integrity.

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There are many other calumnies which we may naturally expect from the malicious, and it ought to trouble us very little to hear them; but it must be extremely diftreffing to a good man to be but fufpected of difhonefty. What "would it profit a man, if by the fecret and dark myiterics "of trade he gain the whole world, and lofe his own foul? "Would the heaps of his difhoneft wealth adminifter con"folation in a dying hour? Would these alleviate his "horrors in the views of a certain and fwiftly approaching "diffolution?—No!

"Now plung'd in forrow, and befieg'd with pain,
"He finds too late all earthly riches vain.
"Disease makes fruitless every fordid fee,

"And Death still answers-What is gold to me?"

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