holy God. "The prayer of the wicked is sin; his sacrifice is an abomination." Sin, in the one case, has a little varnish, that somewhat hides its deformity from the eyes of men; in the other, it is seen in its native hue and colours. In the one case, it runs under ground; in the other, it openly follows its course. "Some men's sins are open before-hand, going before them into judgment, and others follow after." Whether the one or the other, the odds is not great: "The tree is known by its fruit." "A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit." Sometimes it may bring forth good-like fruit.

But yet, after all, I must confess that such was the strength of corruption, that it drove me to several of the more plain and gross sins incident to this age: which, though some account pardonable follies in children, yet the Lord makes another reckoning of them; and some of them have been made bitter to me; such as, lying to avoid punishment, Sabbathbreaking, revenge, hatred of my reprovers, and others of a like nature. Some particular sins committed in childhood, which I had quite forgotten, as being attended with no notable circumstances that could make them be remembered, rather than any thing else I can remember, were brought fresh to my memory, when the Lord began closely to convince me, and being presented in their native colours, in the light of the Lord, and in all the circumstances of time, place, partners in sin, &c. and were made the matter of my deep humiliation, loathing and self-abhorrence, as not only full of wickedness in themselves, but pregnant evidences of the deepest natu

ral depravity. This made me see to whom it was owing, that I went not to all the heights in wickedness, and the grossest abominations to which ever any were carried; and to which a haughty heart, if not restrained seasonably, partly by secret power, and partly by outward means, would inevitably have carried me: "Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, deeply rooted, and fastened there." And no thanks to the best, that they are kept from the worst things: "And David said to Abigail, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me: and blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with my own hand. For in very deed, as the Lord God of Israel liveth, which hath kept me back from hurting thee, except thou hadst hasted and come to meet me, surely there had not been left unto Nabal, by the morning light, any that pisseth against the wall." What a monster had I been, if left to myself, and not seasonably restrained by outward means, and inward power. Blessed be the invisible hand, and the outward instruments of this restraint, that kept me back from sinning.

These are but a very few of the innumerable evils that cleaved to me in this sinful period of my life : "For who can understand his errors?" This period was altogether sinful and vain, nay, sin and vanity in the abstract. "Childhood is vanity." And all this is deeply aggravated by my stupid unconcern about them all the while. Notwithstanding of them all, I was clean in mine own eyes, though not washed from my pollutions," in the mire whereof

I had long wallowed. I was whole as to my own sense, though the plague sore run upon me. "While I thought I stood in need of nothing, I was poor, miserable, wretched, blind, and naked." " How canst thou say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim? See thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done, &c. I have not found it by secret search, but upon all these. Yet thou sayest, Because I am innocent, surely his anger shall turn Behold, I will plead with thee, because

from me.

thou sayest, I have not sinned."

Reflections on this First Period.

WHEN I consider, how many sins long since done and forgotten, many of them of an older date than any thing else I remember, and in their commission attended with no such remarkable circumstances as can. rationally be supposed to have made any deep impression on the memory, and so have any influence in recalling them, after so long oblivion, were now by the Lord brought to mind with unusual distinctness, I cannot but herein observe, 1. What exact notice the holy God takes, and how deeply he resents those things which men generally will scarce allow to be faults, or at most but small ones, pardonable follies rather than sins. God early observed, that man's imaginations are evil from his youth, and will have us remember, and be humbled for the sins that have cleaved to us from our youth: "This hath been thy manner from thy youth, that thou obeyedst not my voice," is an aggravation of other

sins he charges on his people, and in itself one heavy article. 2. How much reason is there for reckoning it as one great part of the wicked's misery, that "they lie down in their graves, with bones full of the sins of youth?" How much reason is there for David's prayer, that God may not "remember against him the sins of his youth?" How just reason have we oft, with Job, to suspect, that in the strokes that fall on us in riper years, God is visiting us for the iniquities of our youth? How much reason have we, with holy Augustin, to confess and mourn over the sins of childhood, and trace original corruption, in its first outbreakings, even up to infancy? 3. I here observe what an exact register conscience, God's deputy, keeps; how early it begins to mark; how accurate it is, even when it seems to take no notice: and to what a length it will go in justifying God's severity against sinners at the last day; how distinctly and clearly it will read it out, and how far up it will fetch its accounts of those evils which we mind nothing of, when God shall open its eyes to read what is written, and discern those prints upon

which, as Job says, "God sets the heels of our

feet," and gives it a commission to tell us of them, when the "books shall be opened, and the dead, small and great, shall be judged out of them."

When I review this first period of my life, what reason do I see to be ashamed, and even confounded, to think that I have spent ten years of a short life, without almost a rational thought, and undoubtedly any that was not sinful: "After that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh; I was

ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth."

The whole of what I have set down before, being matter of undoubted experience, of which I can no more doubt than of what I now see and feel, I have herein a strong confirmation of my faith, as to the guilt of Adam's sin, its imputation to his posterity, and of my concern therein in particular. For, 1. The bent of my soul, from a child, was set against the Lord: nor was this the effect of custom and education; for there was a sweet conspiracy of precept, discipline, and example, in those with whom I conversed, during this part of my life, to carry me another way. Nor can I charge the fault of this on my constitution of body, or any such thing, as might be alleged to proceed from my parents in a natural For those lusts which are "of the mind," and are not influenced by any constitution of body, were as strong, sensible, active, and prevalent, as any other, nay, more than those which may be pretended to depend on the frame of the body. And as my soul, in its accursed inclinations, was thus opposite to the Lord, so as the opposition was of that strength and force, as was not to be suppressed, much less to be overcome and subdued, by the utmost care of parents, and the best outward means. This is undoubted fact. 2. I cannot at all conceive it consistent with the wisdom, goodness, or equity of God, to send me thus into the world, without any fault on my part. To say I was thus originally framed without respect to any sin chargeable on

way.