Parents are angry with their children, and wifh them no other hurt but fome present pain to cure their folly.

If Anger rife to a high Degree, it is Wrath, Fury, and Rage; if it continue fo long as to be fixed in the heart, and refufe all Accommodation or Reconciliation, it is Rancour. If the object of our Anger be beneath us, it gains the name of Indignation. We are alfo fired with Indignation against flagrant impiety toward God, or vile oppreffion and cruelty toward Men."

Gratitude feems to ftand in direct oppofition to Anger; for it is made up of Complacence and Benevolence upon the occafion of good received from another. When a perfon has conferred any benefit upon us, and we have an inclination upon that account to confer some benefit upon him, we call this Gratitude. '

NOTHING is truly ours but what lives in our Spirits.

Salvation itself cannot fave us as long as it is only without us; no more than health can cure us, and make us found, when it is not within us, but somewhere at a distance from us; no more than Arts and Sciences, whilft they lie only in books and papers without us, can make us learned. The Gofpel, though it be a fovereign and medicinal thing in

itself,

itself, yet the mere knowing and believing of the hiftory of it will do us no good: we can receive no virtue from it, till it be inwardly digefted in our fouls; till it be made ours, and becomes a living thing in our hearts.

All that Chrift did for us in the flesh, when he was here upon earth, will not fave us from our fins unless Chrift by his fpirit dwell in us. It will not avail us that he was born of a Virgin unless the power of the Most High overshadow our hearts, and beget him there likewife. It will not profit us that he died upon the cross for us, unless we be baptized into his death, by the mortification of all our fins; unless the old man of fin be crucified in our hearts. Chrift indeed hath made an expiation for our fins, and the blood of Christ is the only fovereign balfam to free us from the guilt of them; but yet befides the fprinkling of the blood of Christ upon us, we must be made partakers alfo of his Spirit. Chrift came into the world, as well to redeem us from the power of our fins, as to free us from the guilt of them. You know (faith St. John) that he was manifefted to take away our fins: whosoever therefore abideth in him finneth not; whosoever finneth hath not feen or known him. Lo the end of Christ's coming into the world: Lo a design worthy of God manifefted in the flesh. Chrift did not take all thofe pains, to lay afide his robes of glory, and to undergo a reproachful life, and at last to be abandoned to a fhameful death; he did not do all this merely to bring in a notion into the world, without the mending and reforming of the world: fo that men should flill be under the power of the Prince of Darkness: only they should not be thought fo: they fhould fill remain as full of all the filthy fores of fin and corruption as before; only, they should be accounted whole? Surely Christ did not undergo all this to fo little purpose: he would not take all this pains for us, that he might be able at last to put into our hands nothing but a blank. He was with child, he was in pain and travail, and hath he brought forth nothing but wind? hath he been

delivered

delivered of the Eafi-wind? Is the great defign that was fo long carried on in the womb of eternity now proved abortive or else nothing but a mere windy birth? No furely; the end of the Gofpel is Life and Perfection, 'tis a Divine Nature, 'tis a Godlike frame and difpofition of Spirit, 'tis to make us partakers of the Image of God, in righteousness and true holiness, without which falvation itself were but a notion.

Holiness is the best thing that God himself can bestow upon us, either in this world or the world to come. True Evangelical holiness, that is, Chrift formed in the hearts of believers is the very quinteffence of the Gofpel. But many of us are like thofe children, whose ftomachs are fo vitiated that they think Ashes, Coal, Mud-wall, or any fuch trash, to be more pleasant than the most wholesome food: fuch fickly appetites have we about fpiritual things, that hanker after I know not what vain fhews of happinefs, whilft in the meantime we neglect that which is the only true food of our fouls, that is able to nourish them up to everlasting life.

I mean by holiness, nothing else but God ftamped and printed upon the foul. And we may please ourselves with what conceits we please; but fo long as we are void of this, we do but dream of heaven and I know not what fond paradife, we do but blow up and down an airy bubble of our own fancies, which rifeth out of the froth of our vain hearts; we do but court a painted heaven, and woo happiness in a picture, whilft, in the meantime a true and real hell will fuck in our fouls into it, and make us fenfible of a folid woe, and fubftantial mifery.

[To be continued.]

VOL. V.

Uuu

A true

A true Relation of the chief things which an evil Spirit did and faid at Mafcon, in Burgundy.

[Continued from page 485.]

O return to what was in our houfe, the Spirit befpoke aloud great preparations of provifion, as turkies, par tridges, hares, and the like, for the coming of his Master. Then he fung many profane fongs. He counterfeited the voice of jugglers and mountebanks, and efpecially that of huntfmen, crying aloud, Ho levrier! ho levrier! as hunters ufe to fhout when they start a hare.

He offered to tempt us to covetoufnefs, (one of the ordi nary temptations of the Devil) Divers times he would peremptorily affirm that there were fix thoufand crowns hid den in the house, and that if any of us would follow him, he would fhew us where the money was hid. But I can fay, with a good confcience, I never searched for it, nor employed others about it, nor ever had any will to make benefit by it.

He would try us alfo by curiofity, faying, that if we had a mind to fee him in the shape of a man, woman, lion, bear, dog, cat, &c. he would give us the fport; which motion we much abhorred, faying, that we were fo far from wishing to fee him in any of these shapes, or any other, that we were very defirous, if it might be God's pleasure, never to hear him more, but we hoped that God would fhortly deliver us from all his temptations.

In the end he began to be very angry, because I had told him, Go, thou curfed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his Angels. Whereupon he replied, Thcu lieft, I am not curfed, I hope yet for falvation by the death and paffion

of

of Jefus Chrift. He told me, in great wrath, that he would do this and that to me; among other things he threatened, that when I fhould be in bed, he would pull me out of it by the feet. I answered, I will lay me down and fleep, for the Lord maketh me to dwell in fafety. I told him alfo, Thou haft no power over me, but what is given thee from above. Whereupon he answered, It is well for thee, it is well for thee.

He was alfo very angry with one of the company who had called him a flinking he-goat, and faid to him, "Thou wouldeft appear a good man, but thou art but a hypocrite; thou goest often to Pont-devile, pretending to go to hear fermons; but when thou goeft, thou takeft thy box of bills and bonds along with thee, to exact thine arrears. Thou wouldeft make no confcience to hang a man for twenty fhillings." Then making a noise, as if he clapt his hands together, he faid again to the fame man, "Thou makeft here a fhew of a valiant man, having brought thy fword along with thee; but if thou be fo bold, as to come hither without a light, it shall be seen which of us two is most valiant.”

Speaking of those that profefs the Reformed Religion within the Kingdom of France, he made this exclamation, "O poor Hugenots! you fhall have much to fuffet within a few years! O what mischief is intended against you!"

He said of my Wife, who was with child, and near her time, that fhe fhould have a daughter. Her fituation made. me fear that he would get fome harm in child-bearing, by our infernal gueft; and therefore I defired her to go out of the house. But the excufed herself, courageously faying, that going away would be miftrufting the power and mercy of God: that fince it pleafed God to vifit us, he might find us as well in another house, and that to refift the Devil, we muft not flee from him.

The Demon faid one night, before us all, that I should certainly die within three years. But I anfwered him, None

Uuuz

of