miserable and tormenting, how will it rack their consciences, and fill their souls with horror and amazement, to behold the eternal God, the glorious Jehovah, in the fierceness of His wrath, continually threatening to pour out His vengeance upon them! How much more when He positively consigns them over to the power of the Devil, to execute His judgments in full measure; when they are gnawed upon by the worm of their own consciences, feel the wrath of the Almighty flaming in their hearts, and fire and brimstone their continual torture; and all this without the least allay or mixture of refreshment, or the least hopes of ending or cessation in a word, when they have nothing else to expect but misery for their portion, weeping and wailing for their constant employment, and the Devil and damned fiends their only companions to all eternity. And this is that world of misery which all that will not be persuaded to believe in Christ here must be doomed for ever to live in hereafter.

I know the subjects of this Article were never the objects of my sight, though they are of my faith. I never yet saw Heaven or Hell, the places I am now speaking of; but why should my faith be staggered or diminished because of that? I never saw Rome or Constantinople; I never saw the flaming Sicilian hill Etna; yet I can believe there is such a burning mountain, and such glorious cities, because others who have been there have told me so; and faithful writers have related and described them to me. And shall I believe my fellow-worms, and not my great Creator, Who is Truth itself? What though I never did see the New Jerusalem that is above, nor the flaming Tophet that is below, yet since God Himself hath both related and described them to me, why should I doubt of them? Why should not I a thousand times sooner believe them to be, than if I had seen them with mine own eyes? I cannot so much believe that I have now a pen in my hand, have a book before me, and am writing in it, as I do and ought to believe, that I shall one day, and that ere long, be either in Heaven or in Hell; in the height of happiness, or the depth of misery.

I know my senses are fallible, and therefore may deceive me; but my God, I am sure, cannot. And therefore let

others raise doubts and scruples as they please, I am as fully satisfied and convinced of the truth of this Article as any of the rest.

Do Thou, O my God, keep me stedfast in this faith, and give me grace so to fit and prepare myself to appear before Thee in the white robes of purity and holiness in another world, that whenever my dissolution comes, I may cheerfully resign my spirit into the hands of my Creator and Redeemer; and from this crazy house of clay take my flight into the mansions of glory, where Christ sits at the right hand of God; and with the joyful choir of Saints and Angels, and the blessed spirits of just men made perfect, chant forth Thy praises to all eternity!

RESOLUTIONS

FORMED FROM

THE FOREGOING ARTICLES.

I. GENERAL RESOLUTIONS.

As obedience without faith is impossible, so faith without James 2.26. obedience is vain and unprofitable: "For as the body," says

St. James," without the spirit is dead, so faith without good works is dead also." Having therefore, I hope, laid a sure foundation, by resolving what, and how, to believe, I shall now, by the grace of God, resolve so to order my conversation, in all circumstances and conditions of life, as to raise a good superstructure upon it, and to finish the work God has given me to do, that is, so to love and please God in this world as to enjoy and be happy with Him for ever in the next. And it is absolutely necessary that I should be speedy and serious in these resolutions; especially when I reflect with myself how much of my time I have already spent upon the vanities and follies of youth, and how much enhanced and increased this work by acquired guilt, by settled and repeated habits of sin, which are not, without great difficulty, to be atoned for and removed. My heart, alas! is now more hardened in iniquity, more puffed with pride, and more averse from God, than when I first entered into covenant with Him: and I have added many actual sins and provocations to my original guilt and pollution. Instead of glorifying God, I have dishonoured Him; and instead of working out my own Salvation, I have taken a pleasure and delight in such things as would, in the end, be my ruin and destruction. So that before I can be able to make any pro

gress in the duties of religion, or walk in the paths that lead to life, I must first be freed and disentangled from those weights and encumbrances that clog and retard me in my spiritual course; I must have my heart cleansed and softened, humbled and converted to God, and all my transgressions purged and pardoned by the merits of my Redeemer. And then, being fully persuaded, that there is no way for me to come to the joys of Heaven but by walking according to the strictest rules of holiness upon earth, I must endeavour, for the future, by a thorough change and reformation of my life, to act in conformity to the Divine will and pleasure in all things, and "perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord:" for [2Cor.7.1.] the Most High has told me, in His Word, that "without [Heb. 12. holiness no man shall see the Lord."

In order, therefore, to qualify myself for this happiness, it will be necessary for me to settle firm and steady resolutions, to fulfil my duty in all the several branches of it-to God, my neighbour, and myself; and to take care these resolutions be put in practice according to the following method.

14.]

RESOLUTION I.

I am resolved, by the grace of God, to walk by rule, and therefore think it necessary to resolve upon rules to walk by.

AND this the rather, because I perceive the want of such rules has been the occasion of all or most of my miscarriages. For what other reason can I assign to myself for having trifled and sinned away so much time, as I have done in my younger years, but because I did not thoroughly resolve to spend it better? What is the reason I have hitherto lived so unserviceably to God, so unprofitably to others, and so sinfully against my own soul, but because I did not apply myself with that sincerity of resolution, diligence, and circumspection, as a wise man ought to have done, to discharge my duty in these particulars? I have, indeed, often resolved to bid adieu to my sins and follies, and enter upon a new course of life: but these resolutions

being not rightly formed upon steady principles, the first temptation made way for a relapse, and the same bait that first allured me has no sooner been thrown in my way, but I have been as ready to catch at it again, and as greedy to swallow it as ever. At other times again I have acted without any thought or resolution at all; and then, though some of my actions might be good in themselves, yet being done by chance, without any true design or intention, they could not be imputed to me as good, but rather the quite contrary so that, in this respect, the want of resolution has not only been the occasion of my sinful actions, but the corruption of my good ones too. And shall I still go on in this same loose and careless manner as I have formerly done? No; I now resolve with myself, in the presence of the Most High and Eternal God, not only, in general, to walk by rule, but to fix the rule I design to walk by; so that in all my thoughts, and words, and actions, in all places, companies, relations, and conditions, I may still have a sure guide at hand to direct me, such a one as I can safely depend upon, without any danger of being deceived or misled, that is, the Holy Scriptures. And therefore,

RESOLUTION II.

I am resolved, by the grace of God, to make the Divine Word the rule of all the rules I propose to myself.

As the will of God is the rule and measure of all that is good, so there is nothing deserves that name but what is agreeable and conformable thereto; and this will being fully revealed and contained in the Holy Scripture, it will be necessary for me, in directing my course over the ocean of this world, that I should fix my eye continually upon this star, steer by this compass, and make it the only land-mark by which I am to be guided to my wished-for haven. I must not, therefore, have recourse to the inward workings of my own roving fancy, or the corrupt dictates of my own carnal reason; these are but blind guides, and will certainly lead me into the ditch of error, heresy, and irreligion, which, in these our self-admiring days, so many poor souls