rich with a beggar, the heir of heaven with the heir of hell, the beauty of heaven and earth with a deformed negro ! But if the bridegroom be content, why fhould you stick? Can you give any reason for your refufal or delay? Now the God of heaven is fetting tryft with you to conclude this bleffed bargain with you at his t2ble, and calling you there to fign and feal a marriage contract with his Son, and that before all the perfons of the glorious Trinity, before the elect angels, before Chrift's ambaffadors, and before all the congregation, witneffes thereto. There have been many meetings heretofore, about this grand affair, to no effect: The world, Satan, and the flesh have formerly broke off the treaty; forbid it, Lord, that they do it this day. that the long fpoke of match, betwixt a crucified Jefus and loft fouls, may hold at laft. This may be the last tryst, the last offer Christ will make; it may be now or never with you. Lay your hand to your heart then, and confider well before you refufe.

O,

Come, take another view of this beautiful bridegroom, that is in your offer. Behold how delicate his complexion is, He is white and ruddy; white in regard of his innocence, ruddy in his bloody paffion. O how peerless is his perfon! how ravishing his beauty! how charming his voice! how ftately his goings! how fragrant his garments! They fmell of aloes, myrrh, and caffia! Search all the world, you cannot find his equal. One glimpfe of him is enough to ravish men and angels: His locks are black and buy as the raven, his lips are like lillies, dropping fweet smelling myrrh; his legs as pillars of marble, fet upon fockets of fine gold; his countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars; yea he is attogether lovely! Now, can you refufe fuch a lovely per fon, especially when you think he loved you, fo as to fuffer a cruel and bloody death for you, and to fend his portraiture with the marks of his wounds to be put in your hands at his holy table, and all to win your heart! Come view, and remember the many wounds he received from you, by the thorns which pierced his

head, by the pincers that plucked his hair, by the fcourges that tore his back, by the nails that pierced his hands and feet, and by the fpear that opened his fide! Surely these wounds do not mar his beauty to the eye of faith; nay, though he be all over wounded, mangled, and bleeding, yet to a believer he is still white and ruddy, the chiefeft among ten thoufand, fairer than all the fons of men, nay than all the fons of God too.

Certainly the bridegroom must be in earneft, when he comes in his marriage robes to win backward hearts; when he puts on his dyed garments, and is red in his apparel; when he difplays his glory, brings the mar riage contract in his hand, spreads it on the communion table, and calls all who love him to fign it. O that many were made willing in a day of his power, to go into all the articles of his marriage covenant, faying, My heart is now content to go with the man Christ, that wonderful man; I confent to all his terms, he is ny Lord and my God; my glorious Emmanuel; my beloved is mine; and I am his. Queft. I would know particularly what he requires on my part of the contract, that I may diftinctly clofe with him? Anf. He would have you, 1. Convinced of your finking and perishing ftate, while you stand upon the old bottom of a cove nant of works, and willing to leave it, and leap from it, and cleave to a covenant of grace, and a borrowed righteousness, for all the ground of your hope. 2. He would have you humbled and grieved for your long flighting his kind offers by your unbelief, and for your preferring Satan's drudgery to his fervice. 3. Give up with all other lovers, and thofe that would rival it with Chrift, fuch as fin, the world, and the law; felf-righteousness must be renounced and parted with; you must break league with all Chrift's enemies. 4. Accept of Jefus Chrift as your husband, receive him in all his offices, reft and depend on him alone for righteoufnefs, ftrength, and falvation. 5. Give away yourfelves, foul and body to Chrift, refign your will to his will, and furrender all vou have to his difpofal. 6. Refolve and vow, in

Christ's strength to crucify fin, and walk with him in all the ways of new obedience. 7. Engage to be true and faithful to your husband, and never to retract. 8. Keep up the remembrance of your husband's coming at the last day, to folemnize the marriage and take you home to himself; and be always in readiness to go forth to meet him. The bridegroom is ready long fince, and will foon rend these clouds to meet you in the air, and fend his angels to bring you up to him: Therefore, be ye alfo ready.

O why doth he delay his coming? What stops the wheels of his chariot Surely it is not because he is unready, but because you are not ready. All the elect are not yet brought in to him, and he is determined not to want one of them. O then be providing for the marriage day all proper furniture, robes, jewels, rings, and ornaments, against the time that Chrift and you take up houfe together in heaven. Be fure to go to Chrift for every bit of your plenishing, for righteoufnefs, and all the graces of the Spirit. In the mean time, take home with you the marriage contract, the precious promites which Chrift hath fubfcribed with his blood, Be often looking into it, and viewing your bridegroom's hand-writ and engagement. His writing is fair and beautiful; let not Satan or unbelief caft blots upon it to deface it; keep it fair and legible, and draw all your comforts from it; your husband is faithful, and will keep his word.

ADVICE VII.

From LAM. i. 12. of bis fierce anger. »

Bebold and see,

the Lord bath afflicted me in the day

WITH far better ground may Chrift make use of these words of his church, and call us to behold his fufferings for us under the fierce anger of God, in the day when it pleafed the Lord to bruife him, and put him to

grief in our ftead, Ifa. liii. 10. Many things did he fuffer from men and devils; but his afflictions and bruifes from the immediate hand of God, taking vengeance for the elect's fins, were far more heavy. His foul fufferings were the most afflicting of all others. Let every communicant behold, fee, and confider thefe with fuitable affections.

Behold not only the buffetings, fcourgings, woundings, and cruel mockings your lovely Jefus endured from men, the inftruments of God's juftice, but efpecially what he suffered in his foul by the desertion or dereliction of God the Father, whereby the gracious influences and comforts from the divine to the human nature of Christ were fufpended for a time, and a black cloud of wrath overwhelmed him, fo that no light appeared to him; which made him cry out, My God, my God, why haft thou forfaken me? Nay, at this time he had a torrent of wrath flowing in upon his foul, and the moft dreadful impreffions of his Father's anger, and the law's curfe, which fell upon him for man's fin, when he was made a curfe for us, that it caft him into a fit of fore amazement, confternation, and terrible agony, and into a sweat of blood. The fire of wrath raging in his foul affected his body fo, that it dried up his ftrength and moisture as a potfherd, and made his tongue cleave to his jaws. He held his peace under all his fufferings from men, and opened not his mouth; but when God's immediate wrath fell heavily on him, then he cried out. It is faid, He put up prayers and fupplications, with strong crying and tears, Heb. v. 7. Yet God would not spare him, nor abate him one ftripe or farthing of the debt; let him cry never fo loud, justice was inexorable; he muft fatisfy to the full.

O! can you fee the great Emmanuel fubftitute in your room or ftead; God acting against him as an inexorable judge; Jehovah running upon him as a giant, not only withdrawing his countenance, and all feeling of his loving kindness from him, but making him the butt of his envenomed arrows, and not be filled with

admiration at Chrift's love, and forrow for your fins, which brought fuch a storm of wrath upon him! O how fad were the bruises! How deep were the wounds! How wide the gafhes! and how heavy the blows he got from the fword of justice for our fins? The fword was not dull or fleepy, but furbished and awakened by juftice to the execution. O how heavy were the blows our furety got from this awakened fword in the garden of Gethsemane, which made his foul exceeding forrowful, and put him in a dreadful agony and bloody fweat! Behold and fee how patiently he drank the bitter cup of God's wrath for you, the poison whereof drank up his fpirits, and made his blood to boil in his veins, and burst though his body, clothes and all! He fweat without any outward fire or heat, and bled without any external wound! Behold his garments dyed red, and the ground and grafs where he lay all bedewed with his precious blood! Behold him broken with breach upon breach, till all the fea billows of divine vengeance went over him, fo that he fell to the ground, was covered with blood, and overwhelmed with wrath! Behold and fee, if there be any forrow like his forrows! It is faid, Mark xiv. 33. He began to be fore amazed and very heavy! Which fhews what a load and preffure of wrath his foul lay under, that put him in an agony that ftill increased more and more, like the waters in Ezekiel's vifion, ftill deeper and deeper, from the ancles to the knees, till they became waters to fwim in; yea, fwelled into an ocean that would have overwhelmed the whole elect world. Into this ocean our bleffed Jonah was willing to be thrown for our fake, and in it he continued to fwim until he brought every elect foul fafe afhore. It is recorded of Abraham, when offering his facrifice, Gen. xv. 12. That in the evening, lo! an horror of great darkness fell upon him. This was verified much more of Chrift in the evening before his paffion in the garden: There a terrible horror of great darknefs fell upon Chrift's foul, which made him exceeding heavy and fore amazed, at the profpect of the fea of