and steep thy stupid senses in unctuous, in delightful sports. 'Tis all the portion that this transitory world can give thee. Let music, voices, masks, and midnight revels, and all that melancholy wisdom censures vain, be thy delights. And let thy care-abjuring soul cheer up, and sweeten the short days of thy consuming youth. Follow the ways of thy own heart, and take the freedom of thy sweet desires; leave not delight untried, and spare no cost to heighten úp thy lusts. Take pleasure in the choice of pleasures, and please thy curious eyes with all varieties, to satisfy thy soul in all things which thy heart desires. Ay, but, my soul, when those evil days shall come wherein thy wasting pleasures shall present their items to thy bedrid view-when all diseases and the evils of age shall muster up their forces in thy crazy bones, where be thy comforts then?

CONSIDER, O my soul, and know that day will come, and after that, another, wherein, for all these things,

God will bring thee to judgment. Eccles. xi. 9.

Prov. xiv. 13.

Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heavi

ness.

Eccles. ii. 2.

I said in my heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, and therefore enjoy pleasure, and behold this also is vanity: I said of laughter, It is mad; and of mirth, What doth it? St. James.

Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts as in the day of slaughter. Eccles, vii. 4.

The heart of the wise man is in the house of mourning: but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

His Soliloquy.

WHAT hast thou now to say, O my soul, why this judgment, seconded with divine proofs, backed with the harmony of holy men, should not proceed against thee? Dally no longer with thy own salvation, nor flatter thy own corruption: remember, the wages of flesh are sin, and the wages of sin, death. God hath threatened it, whose judgments are terrible: God hath witnessed it, whose words are truth. Consider then, my soul, and let not momentary pleasures flatter thee into eternity of torments. How many, that have trod thy steps, are now roaring in the flames of hell! and yet thou triflest away the time of thy repentance. O my poor deluded soul, presume no longer; repent today, lest to-morrow come too late. Or Couldest thou ravel out thy days beyond

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Methusalem, tell me, alas! what will eternity be the shorter for the deduction of a thousand years? Be wisely provident therefore, O my soul, and bid vanity, the common sorceress of the world, farewell: life and death are yet before thee: choose life, and the God of life will seal thy choice. Prostrate thyself before Him who delights not in the death of a sinner, and present thy petitions to Him who can deny thee nothing in the name of a Saviour.

His Prayer.

O God, in the beauty of whose holiness is the true joy of those that love thee, the full happiness of those that fear thee, and the only rest of those that prize thee; in respect of which the transitory pleasures of the world are less than nothing; in comparison of which the greatest wisdom of the world is folly, and the glory

of the earth but dross and dung: how dare my boldness thus presume to press into thy glorious presence? What can my prayers expect but thy just wrath and heavy indignation? Oh! what return can the tainted breath of my polluted lips deserve, but to be bound hand and foot, and cast into the flames of hell? But, Lord, the merits of my Saviour are greater than the offences of a sinner, and the sweetness of thy mercy exceeds the sharpness of my misery: the horror of thy judgments has seized upon me, and I languish through the sense of thy displeasure; I have forsaken thee, the rest of my distressed soul, and set my affections upon the vanity of the deceitful world. I have taken pleasure in my foolishness, and have vaunted myself in mine iniquity; I have flattered my soul with the honey of delights, whereby I am made sensible of the sting of my affliction; wherefore