they fail to give him a meeting, or to come in that holy manner as they ought.

Moreover, it is said, in Exod. xxix. 43, that hereupon the tabernacle should be sanctified by the glory of the Lord, when they should come before him daily with this continual burnt offering, and he should meet them, and speak with them. In like manner, a family, a Christian, is sanctified by the glory of the Lord through this daily intercourse with him. If you daily meet the Lord in humiliation, in renewing the application of Christ to your souls, in calling upon him for the accomplishment of his promises; and he, on the other side, meets with you, and speaks to you, then shall you be sanctified by the glory of the Lord, you shall see the light of his loving countenance graciously and gloriously shining upon your souls. This has a sanctifying virtue and power in it. As the sun shining brightly and gloriously from time to time on trees and fruits, gives growing sweetness and ripeness to these fruits: so Christ, by meeting us, and shining on our souls with the light of his countenance, when we present ourselves before him aright in the due and daily performance of his service, and offering of this sacrifice, sanctifies us by his glory; he alters the temper of our souls, he changes and fashions us unto his likeness, in righteousness and true holiness, from glory to glory, by his Spirit.

SECTION XXXVIII.

OF A MAN'S TAKING A REVIEW IN THE EVENING OF THE ACTIONS AND MERCIES OF THE PAST DAY.

It is good before you lie down to sleep, to take a review of all the actions and mercies of the past day.

If you would know the sins you have committed the past day, or the past week, or your whole past life, you may briefly run over all the ten commandments, and you may easily see what commandments you have transgressed, and so may be humbled for your sins, and renew your repentance and resolutions for better obedience. Look diligently into the whole state of your life, consider what progress you have made in godliness, or how you have declined; what words you have spoken, what works you have done, and to what end, and in what manner, they were performed.

Consider your apparel, your service, your attendance, your table, your conversation, your entertainment, and all your dealings and demeanour, whether they have not savoured of pride and vanity; and let this be matter of humiliation.

:

Take a strict examination of thy conscience every evening for if conscience condemn, God doth much more condemn; and if conscience acquit and justify, by the evidence of the word and Spirit, God doth acquit and justify, and we shall have confidence toward God. What can more nearly concern us, than daily to make a thorough and careful search of our own consciences! Shall men be so careful to examine the evidences by which they hold lands and

annuities, the leases whereby they hold farms, and shall we be so careless as to let our hearts and consciences lie unexamined and unsearched?

I have read of an English king, who after a long time of desolating wars, which caused a great confusion in men's outward estates, in a public assembly, called upon his subjects to show their evidences by which they held their lands; whereupon a noble, being loth to have his writings examined, drew his sword, and said, that by this he held his lands: so there are many that cannot endure to search their hearts and consciences, because they have no sound hope to find their evidence good and clear to the kingdom of heaven.

Unless you are justified by faith in Christ, your consciences, when they are indeed awakened and enlightened, will condemn you as guilty in the sight of God, and will condemn the best of your actions as not wrought in God, nor done in the name of Christ, as not proceeding from the love of God, nor intended for his glory. Now, before you can find yourselves justified by faith in Christ through the gospel, you must find your consciences condemning you for sin, and therefore daily yield them to be searched and convinced by the word of God.

Take a review every evening, likewise, of all the gifts, graces,blessings, and benents, God has bestowed upon you, and consider after what sort you have employed them the day past; and examine whether all these things, wherewith thou shouldst have done the more service unto Him who gave them, thou hast not made weapons and instruments wherewith to offend him the more. Examine how you have used your strength, your health, your riches, your substance, your 1fe, your understanding, your

memory, your will, your affections, your sight, your tongue, your ears, your hands, and all the rest of your members and faculties. And then let the con

sideration of God's benefits cause you to acknowledge him, and his goodness to love him. Though we are not to slight common mercies, yet extraordinary mercies must be more specially and particularly observed by us.

SECTION XXXIX.

OF PROVIDING IN THE EVENING FOR THE DAY TO COME.

It is good advice that one gives, that a Christian should begin from the evening the purpose of good works which he is to perform the next day; what points he ought to meditate upon; what vice he should resist; what virtue he should exercise; what affairs he is to take in hand, to make all appear in its proper time, with a well-matured providence. We should guide our actions in the great labyrinth of time, otherwise all runs to confusion.

Some commend the evening as a fit time for meditation, namely, from the sun setting to the twilight. It is said of Isaac, that he went forth into the field in the evening, to meditate and to pray, Gen. xxiv. 63. The original word signifies both duties. It is thought by some interpreters, that David penned the eighth Psalm in the night, occasioned by his meditation on the works of God.

In the evening, consider that every morning has

its evening, and the longest day has its night: so every man's day of life, will have its night of death.* The longest day of life will have its night of death. Think upon that saying of our Saviour, "I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh when no man can work," John ix. 4. There is no working out your salvation, when the night of death is come.

If thou, O man, hast spent the day in vain delights and pleasures, ask thyself in the evening, what satisfaction thou hast found in those vanities which thou hast so eagerly pursued all the day before; and what comfort they now afford unto thee. Ah! they are now gone and passed, and they have left but a sad relish behind. But if yet thou resolvest to tread the same paths of sin and destruction again, be thou well assured, that a night will come which shall never have a morning. When, being covered with the shadow of death, thou shalt lie down in everlasting sorrow. Then wilt thou cry out in the anguish of thy soul,-" Oh, what an unfortunate wretch am I, that had time and opportunity to gain that blessed state which angels and saints enjoy in the kingdom of heaven, and would not use the benefit thereof! Oh, how idly and wickedly has the time of my life passed away, which shall never return again! And now for a few momentary pleasures on earth, I must suffer intolerable and everlasting torments in hell. Oh unhappy pleasures! oh cursed change! Oh unfortunate hour and moment wherein I thus blinded myself! What a miserable wretch am I! A thousand, yea, ten thousand times unhappy, that have so fondly deceived myself! Oh, it had been well if I had never been born!"