or Scripture encourages such a method. Especially would it be improper, if the action itself had been of so heinous a nature, that even to have fallen into it on the most sudden surprise of temptation, must have greatly ashamed, and terrified, and distressed the soul. Such an affair is dreadfully solemn, and should be treated accordingly. If this has been the sad case with you, my then unhappy reader, I would pity you, and mourn over you; and would beseech you, as you value your peace, your recovery, the health and the very life of your soul, that you would not loiter away an hour. Retire immediately for serious reflection. Break through other engagements and employments, unless they be such as you cannot in conscience delay for a few hours, which can seldom happen in the circumstance I now suppose. Set yourself to it, therefore, as in the presence of GOD, and hear at large, patiently and humbly, what conscience has to say, though it chide and reproach severely. Yea, earnestly pray that God would speak to you by conscience, and make you more thoroughly to know and feel," what an evil and bitter thing it is, that you have thus forsaken him." Jer. ii. 19. Think of all the aggravating circumstances attending your offence; and especially think of those which arise from abused mercy and goodness; which arise, not only from your solemn vows and engagements to God, but from the views you have had of a Redeemer's love, sealed even in blood. And are these the returns? Was it not enough that Christ should have been thus injured by his enemies? Must he be "wounded in the house of his friends" too? Zech. xiii. 6. Were "you delivered to work such abominations as these?" Jer. vii. 10. Did the blessed Jesus groan and die for you, that you might sin with boldness and freedom, that you might extract, as it were, the very spirit and essence of sin, and offend God to a height of ingratitude and baseness, which would otherwise have been, in the nature of things, impossible? O think, how justly God might "cast you out from his presence!" How justly he might number you among the most signal instances of his vengeance! And think how "your heart would endure, or your hands

be strong," if he should "deal thus with you!" Ezek. xxii. 14. Alas! all your former experiences would enhance your sense of the ruin and misery that must be felt in an eternal banishment from the divine presence and fa

vour.

5. Indulge such reflections as these. Stand the humbling sight of your sins in such a view as this. The more odious and the more painful it appears, the greater prospect there will be of your benefit by attending to it. But the matter is not to rest here. All these reflections are intended, not to grieve, but to cure; and to grieve no more than may promote the cure. You are indeed to look upon sin; but you are also, in such circumstances, if ever, to look upon Christ, to look upon him whom you have now pierced deeper than before, and to mourn for him with sincerity and tenderness. Zech. xii. 10. The God whom you have injured and affronted, whose laws you have broken, and whose justice you have, as it were, challenged by this foolish, wretched apostacy, is nevertheless "a most merciful God." Deut. iv. 31. You cannot be so ready to return to him, as he is to receive you. Even now does he, as it were, solicit a reconciliation, by those tender impressions. which he is making upon your heart. But remember how he will be reconciled. It is in the very same way in which you made your first approach to him, in the name and for the sake of his dear Son. Come therefore in an humble dependence upon him. Renew your application to Jesus, that his blood may, as it were, be sprinkled upon your soul, that your soul may thereby be purified, and your guilt removed. This very sin of yours, which the blessed God foresaw, increased the weight of your Redeemer's sufferings it was concerned in shedding his blood. bly go, and place your wounds, as it were, under the droppings of that precious balm, by which alone they can be healed. That compassionate Saviour will delight to restore you, when you lie as an humble suppliant at his feet, and will graciously take part with you in that peace and pleasure which he gives. Through him renew your covenant with God, that broken covenant, the breach of which

Hum

divine justice might teach you to know "by terrible things in righteousness:" (Psal. lxv. 5.) but mercy allows of an accommodation. Let the consciousness and remembrance of that breach engage you to enter into covenant anew, under a deeper sense than ever of your own weakness, and a more cordial dependence on divine grace for your security, than you have ever yet entertained. I know you will be ashamed to present yourself among the children of God in his sanctuary, and especially at his table, under a consciousness of so much guilt; but break through that shame, if Providence open you the way. You would be humbled before your offended Father; but surely there is no place where you are more likely to be humbled, than when you see yourself in his house, and no ordinance administered there can lay you lower than that in which "Christ is evidently set forth as crucified before your eyes." Gal. iii. 1. Sinners are the only persons who have business there. The best of men come to that sacred table as sinners. As such make your approach to it; yea, as the greatest of sinners, as one who needs the blood of Jesus as much as any creature upon earth.

6. And let me remind you of one thing more. If your fall has been of such a nature as to bring any scandal to others, be not at all concerned to save appearances, and to moderate those mortifications which deep humiliation before them would occasion. The depth and pain of that mortification is indeed an excellent medicine, which God has in his wise goodness appointed for you in such circumstances as these. In such a case, confess your fault with the greatest frankness; aggravate it to the utmost; entreat pardon and prayer from those whom you have offended. Then, and never till then, will you be in the way to peace; not by palliating a fault, not by making vain excuses, not by objecting to the manner in which others may have treated you; as if the least excess of rigour in a faithful admonition were a crime equal to some great immorality that occasioned it. This can only proceed from the madness of pride and self-love; it is the sensibility of a wound, which is hardened, swelled, and inflamed; and it must be re

duced, and cooled, and suppled, before it can possibly be cured. To be censured and condemned by men, will be but a little grievance to a soul thoroughly humbled and broken under a sense of having incurred the condemning sentence of God. Such a one will rather desire to glorify God, by submitting to deserved blame; and will fear deceiving others into a more favourable opinion of himself, than he inwardly knows that he deserves. These are the sentiments which God gives to the sincere penitent in such a case; and by this means he restores him to that credit and regard among others, which he does not know how to seek; but which, nevertheless, for the sake both of his comfort and usefulness, God wills that he should have, and which it is, humanly speaking, impossible for him to recover any other way. But there is something so honourable in the frank acknowledgement of a fault, and in deep humiliation for it, that all who see it must needs approve it. They pity an offender who is brought to such a disposition, and endeavour to comfort him with returning expressions, not only of their love, but of their esteem too.

7. Excuse this digression, which may suit some cases; and which would suit many more, if a regular discipline were to be exercised in churches: for, on such a supposition, the Lord's Supper could not be approached after visible and scandalous falls, without solemn confession of the offence, and declarations of repentance. On the other hand, there may be instances of sad apostacy, where the crime, though highly aggravated before God, may not fall under human notice. In this case, remember that your business is with him, to whose piercing eye every thing appears in its just light before him, therefore, prostrate your soul, and seek a solemn reconciliation with him, confirmed by the memorials of his dying Son. And when this is done, imagine not, that, because you have received the tokens of pardon, the guilt of your apostacy is to be forgot at once. Bear it still in your memory for future caution: lament it before God, especially in the frequent returns of secret devotion; and view with humiliation the scars of those wounds which your own folly occasioned, even when by divine

grace they are thoroughly healed. For God establishes his covenant, not to remove the sense of every past abomination, but "that thou mayest remember thy ways, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, even when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord." Ezek. xvi. 63.

8. And now, upon the whole, if you desire to attain such a temper, and to return by such steps as these, then immediately fall down before God, and pour out your heart in his presence, in language like this:

A Prayer for one who has fallen into gross Sin, after religious Resolutions and Engagements.

I

"O most Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God! when I seriously reflect on thy spotless purity, and on the strict and impartial methods of thy steady administration, together with that almighty power of thine, which is able to carry every thought of thine heart into immediate and full execution, may justly appear before thee this day with shame and terror, in confusion and consternation of spirit. This day, O my God! this dark, mournful day, would I take occasion to look back to that sad source of our guilt and our misery, the apostacy of our common parents, and say with thine offending servant David, 'Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.' Psalm li. 5. This day would I lament all the fatal consequences of such a descent, with regard to myself. And, oh how many have they been! The remembrance of the sins of my unconverted state, and the failings and infirmities of my after life, may justly confound me! How much more such a scene as now lies before my conscience, and before thine all-seeing eye! For thou, O Lord! knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from thee.' Psalm lxix. 5. Thou tellest all my wanderings from thy statutes, (Psalm lvi. 8.) thou seest, and thou recordest, every instance of my disobedience to thee, and of my rebellion against thee. Thou seest them in every aggravated circumstance which I can discern, and in many more which I have never observed or reflected upon. How then shall I appear in thy pre