freeness of remission. Be fully reconciled to me, through the all-sufficient merits of thy Son, my Saviour; and seal in my afflicted heart the full assurance of thy gracious favour. Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens, and let me praise thee with a single heart; cleanse thou my inward parts, O God, and purify the closet of my polluted soul. Fix thou my heart, O thou Searcher of all secrets, and keep my affections wholly to thee. Remove from me all bye and base respects, that I may serve thee with an upright spirit. Take not the word of truth out of my mouth, nor give me over to deceitful lips. Give me an inward reverence of thy Majesty, that I may openly confess thee in the truth of my sincerity. Be thou the only object and end of all my actions, and let thy honour be my great reward. Let not the hopes of filthy lucre, or the praise of men, incline me to thee; neither let

the pleasures of the world, nor the fears of any loss, entice me from thee. Keep from me those judgments my hypocrisy hath deserved, and strengthen my resolution to abhor my former life. Give me strength, O God, to serve thee with a perfect heart, in the newness of life, that I may be delivered from the old man, and the snares of death. Then shall I praise thee with my entire affections, and glorify thy name for ever and ever.

THE IGNORANT MAN.

His Faultering.

You tell me, and you tell me, that I must be a good man, and serve God, and do his will: and so I do, for aught I know. I am sure I am as good as God has made me, and I can make my

self no better; that I cannot. And as for serving God, I am sure I go to church as well as the best in the parish, though I be not so fine. And I make no question, if I had better clothes, but I should do God as much credit as another man, though I say it. And as for doing God's will, ay, beshrew me, I leave that to them that are book-learned, and can do it more wisely. I believe the vicar of our parish can do it, and has done it too, as well as any within, five miles of his head; and what need I trouble myself to do what is so well done already? I hope, he being so good a churchman, and so great a scholar, and speaking Latin too, would not leave that to so simple a man as I. It is enough for me to know that God is a good man, and that the ten commandments are the best prayers in all the book, unless it be the creed; and that I must love my neighbour as well as he loves me; and for all other

qualifications, they shall never trouble my brains,' an grace a God! Let me go a Sundays and serve God, obey the King, (God bless him!) do no man no wrong, say the Lord's Prayer every morning and evening, follow my work, give a noble to the poor at my death, and then say, 'Lord have mercy upon me!' and go away like a lamb-I make no question but I shall deserve heaven, as well as he that

wears a gayer coat. so ignorant neither,

But yet I am not nor have not gone

so often to church, but I know Christ died for me too, as well as for any other man ; I'd be sorry else; and that, next to our vicar, I shall go to heaven when I am dead as soon as another: nay more, I know there be two sacraments, bread and wine, and but two (though the Papists say there be six or seven), and that I ́verily believe I shall be saved by those sacraments, and that I love God above all, or else 't were pity of my life; and

that when I am dead and rotten (as our vicar told me), I shall rise again, and be the same man I was. But for that, he must excuse me till I have better satisfaction; for all his learning, he cannot make me such a fool, unless he shew me a better reason for it than yet he has done.

BUT one thing he told me, now I think on't, troubles me woundly; namely, that God is my Master; all which I confess: and that I must do his will (whether I know how to do it or not), or else it will go ill with me. I'll read it (he said) out of God's Bible -and I shall remember the words so long as I have a day to live, which are these,

If a soul sin, and commit any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the Lord, though he wist it not, yet is