horrid blasphemous temptation, to blaspheme the Most High, so foiled me, that I dared not look up. I could only confess my sin; but could not say, God be merciful to me, a sinner. I went to work with my head swimming, and legs staggering, like a drunken man; and, when I got on Hampton-Wick Green, I stood and viewed the horses, bullocks, and asses, and envied their happy state. Ah!' said I, you have no sin to answer for, no judgment seat to appear before, no wrath from God to feel, no hell to fear! When you die there is an end of you; but eternity is our lot! Oh that I could die like you, and be no more! Oh that I was but in the place of the worst of you! But I am a man, and a sinner, and hell aims at sinners!'

O wretched state! look which way I would, my sin was ever before me, Psal. li. 3; and my secret sins were set in the light of God's countenance, Psal. xc. 8. Within me there was the sting of death; a guilty conscience, the worm that never dies, Isa. lxvi. 24, Mark ix. 44, still gnawing and feeding on my withered spirits. This made the leaf of my profession to wither, and my untimely fruit to fall like that of the olive. The thoughts of God's damning me filled me with hard thoughts of him, and even hatred to him. I felt the arrows of his wrath already within me; Job vi. 4, Psal. xxxviii. 2; and I knew God had thrust me down; Job xxxii. 13.

I fain would have fled out of his hand; Job If I offered to pray,

xxvii. 22; but could not. I was tempted to blaspheme; and that stopt the mouth of prayer. If I attempted to look up to God, my conscience smote me, and the heavens appeared to be iron, and the earth brass; Lev. xxvi. 19; so that my thoughts could not fly with hope to God, nor could the earth hide me from his presence. Eternity I knew had no end; and hell I found, by my sinking in despair, had no bottom. The unfathomable abyss of eternity affords no anchorage, and the impassable gulph of God's fixed decree allows no vessel of wrath, fitted for destruction, ever to pass to the haven of rest; or make any other land or port whatsoOh what a profound deep! what a peril

ever.

ous navigation!

Alas!' said I, when I appear before him "mine own mouth shall condemn me," Job ix. 20. If I would get above him, I cannot; he is the Most High, and cannot be matched. "If I speak of strength, lo, he is strong; and if of judgment, who shall set me a time to plead?" Job ix. 19. "He is in one mind, and who can turn him?" Job xxiii. 13. He is holy; and the guilty cannot approach him. He is light, and that discovers my sin; therefore I hate it, for he has set them in the light of his countenance, Psal. xc. 8. He has often warned me, and I persisted; my conscience has checked me, and I

opposed it with violence. He has brought me to death's door by sickness, and I vowed to him what I would do if he raised me up. He did so; but I broke all my vows. His patience is tired out. The verdict of my own thoughts casts me; Rom. ii. 15. My own heart condemns me; 1 John iii. 20. The curse of God is in my tabernacle; Prov. iii. 33; the wrath of God abideth on me, John iii. 36; the door of mercy is shut against me; and "wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat." Oh that I had never been born! Job iii. 10. Oh that no eye had ever seen me! Wherefore came I out of my mother's womb to see trouble? Oh that there was no hell, no judgment to come, no God, no hereafter! Indeed I experienced these words effectually, "Thine heart shall meditate terror," Isa. xxxiii. 18.

This is stumbling upon the dark mountains, Jer. xiii. 16; this is sitting in the regions and shadow of death, Matt. iv. 16; this is the horrible pit, and this is the miry clay; Psal. xl. 2; these are the deep waters where there is no standing, Psal. Ixix. 1, 2; this is deep calling unto deep, at the noise of his water spouts, while they are bursting and discharging their vengeance on the vessels of wrath, till both waves and billows go over, Psal. xlii. 7. This is God's shutting up a man, and there can be no

opening, Job xii. 14. This is the employ of the damned; Isa. viii. 21, 22; the chambers of death, Prov. vii. 27; the experience of devils; Matt. xii. 43; the gloomy land of darkness, without form or order, and the pains of hell; Psal. cxvi. 3; while the soul is harassed with the infernal intercourse and familiarity of devils, and your constant visitors and chief guests are in the depths of hell, Prov. ix. 18.

No sinless perfection can live here; no Atheism can live here; no Deism, nor Arianism, can ever flourish here. No; those principles can only flourish upon the hard soil of a benumbed conscience, seared with a hot iron, and kept hard by the perpetual industry of the devil, and the assistance of wicked company. But, whenever God awakens such a conscience, by letting his burning wrath into it, all those principles wither and die, both root and branch!

Oh how wretched the thought, that such principles should grow and flourish in the minds of men, that never yet struck one root in the minds of devils! and that men should labour to propagate such a nursery for Satan in the land of hope, and under the sunshine of mercy, that never could be found in the regions even of the damned! But why do I wonder at this? The reason is plain; the devil sends them all here, because he cannot make them grow in hell.

Here I was violently tempted to put an end

to my existence, and to throw myself into the Thames. Long was I tempted to commit this rash act, and at times gathered comfort from the thoughts of it; but the consideration of guilt and wrath pursuing me beyond the grave often prevailed with me under that temptation. Oh the subtilty of this old serpent! He even tempted the dear Redeemer to self-murder, by wanting him to throw himself down from one of the pinnacles of the temple.

As for that wretched temptation, to curse all that was good, that constantly followed me; nor do I believe I was one hour free from it, unless when I was asleep, during fourteen months together. I believe pious Job laboured under this for many years, as appears by his suspicion of his children having been tempted to do it; as it is written "And he rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt-offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually," Job. i. 5. This was the main point that the devil laboured to gain with Job, when he accused him to God: "But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face," Job i. 11. And again the second time: "But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face," Job ii. 5. And I am sure he would have done