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fits, as it were, in triumph, with all the paffions in fubjection around her;' with all the luftre that wisdom, and prudence, and piety, and learning, and good fenfe, and good breeding, can bestow to make you amiable; Heroes, in fhort, whose daily endeavour is to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry, to vifit the fick, to inftruct the ignorant, to be a father to the fatherlefs, a husband to the widow, and a friend to the friendlefs of all parties and denominations of men. If fuch is your Heroifm, the ear will bless when it hears you; the eye will give witnefs when it fees you; the bleffing of him that is ready to perifh will come upon you; and the widow's heart will dance in your prefence for joy. Simple as this account may feem, it is an Heroifm which few, comparatively, ever attain to, or have fure the Divine protection. Them that honour me, I will honour; but they that defpife me, shall be lightly esteemed. 1 Sam. ii. 30. If the French have been fuccessful in many of their efforts, let it be confidered that GOD cannot fucceed their attempts upon the nations out of any regard to them, as a virtuous people, but only to answer his own purposes, and to fulfil his own predictions, concerning the fubverfion of the feat of the Beaft, and to bring in the MESSIAH's kingdom in all its glory. The French are only the tools and inftruments in the hands of God's indignation. They have yet a deal of direful work to do. When that is accomplished, they fhall be laid afide; and, I hope, chaftifed and turned unto the GoD of their fathers.

Dr. CROME, a German writer, calculates, that the prefent horrible war, from 1792, to the end of 1796, has coft the feveral united powers, 232,166,666 pounds, with 700,000 men, and France, 326,958,332 pounds, with 1,000,000 of men! At the fame period he confiders England alone as having loft 150,000 men, and fpent 93.333,332 pounds. Is it not evident from hence that the time is come when GoD is pouring out his vials of wrath upon the nations which compofe the feat of the Beaft?

See the Monthly Mag, for Nov. 1797. Some people are extremely alarmed at the confideration of our national debt, which, being about four hundred millions of pounds fterling, they fuppofe must crush us to atoms. Let fuch perfons, however, reflect for their comfort, that a fingle ten per cent. upon all the national property would wipe off the whole. The permanent and immoveable property of the country, it is fuppofed, would produce on fair fale, the enormous fum of 2,500,000,000 pounds. The moveable or chattel property of the country is probably of equal value at leaft. Here then is a national ftock of 5,000,000,000 pounds fterling. If from this we deduct the 400,000,000 we owe, there will remain a furplus of four thousand fix hundred millions of pounds fterling;

Confult CHAMOCK's Letter on Finance, and on National Defence.

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any idea of. It will require all your fortitude, and the utmoft stretch of your beft powers. In purfuing fuch a line of conduct, in conjunction with your temporal occupation, wou will be employed usefully and comfortably while you live, and you will be training up for the general affembly, and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, when you die. Be ftrong in the LORD, then, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of GOD, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Fight the good fight of faith, and lay hold on eternal life. Let the well known advice of the justly celebrated Locke, which is both wife and seasonable, be acceptable in your eyes. It will affuredly do you no harm, and, if you pay due attention to it, it will do you eternal good. He himfelf was an example of his own precepts. For fourteen or fifteen years he applied himself clofely to the ftudy of Holy Scripture, and employed the laft period of his life hardly in any thing befide. He was never weary of admiring the grand views of that facred bork, and the just relation of all its parts. He every day made difcoveries in it, that gave him fresh caufe of admiration. And fo

earneft was he for the comfort of his friends, and the diffufion of facred knowledge among them, that even the day before he died, "he very particularly exhorted all

about him to read the Holy Scriptures, exalting the love "which GOD fhewed to man, in justifying him by faith "in JESUS CHRIST, and returning him fpecial thanks for

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having called him to the knowledge of that DIVINE "SAVIOUR." It has been often repeated too, that, to a perfon who asked him, which was the fhorteft and fureft way for a young gentleman to attain to the true knowledge of the Chriftion religion, in the full and juft extent of it, he replied "Let him ftudy the Holy Scripture, efpecially "the New Teftament. Therein are contained the words "of eternal life. It hath GOD for its author-SALVATION "for its end-and TRUTH, without any mixture of error, "for its matter,

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* The ingenious and pious LAVATER, after predicting, like Sir ISAAC NEWTON and Dr. HARTLEY, the general fpread of Infidelity, thus ex

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This is a noble teftimony, both in life and in death, from this renowned Chriftian philofopher. Many hundreds of a fimilar nature might be laid before the reader, befides those we have already felected And I confefs, there is no kind of reading, that is fo edifying to me, as the final fcenes of thofe perfons, who have been eminent in their day, either for their virtues or their vices. A death bed is ufually a detector of the heart. And to fee a fellow mortal in the ruins of nature, glorying over the King of Terrors, in all his most horrible forms, is to me by far the grandeft fpectacle that can be exhibited upon earth. It is, as SENECA obferves of CATO, a fight worthy of God to look down upon*. What are all the triumphs of kings and conquerors, when compared with the triumphs of abundance of the children of the MOST HIGH in all ages? The Bible contains a rich compendium of these religious Worthiest. The Book of Martyrs too records a noble

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preffes himself concerning the truth of the Gospel: « If God has not spoken and acted through CHRIST, then there never has been a GOD "who hath acted and spoken. If CHRIST is the work of chance, then man and the whole world is the work of chance alfo. If CHRIST did "not want the affittance of a GOD to the performance of his wonderful “deeds, nature also can perform her works without the interference of a God."

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See Secret Journal of a Self-Obferver, v. 2. p. 338. Compare with the above the death bed fcene of GARZO, the great grand-father of PETRARCH, who was fo celebrated for his probity and good fenfe that he was frequently confulted by philofophers, and the learned of thofe times. After living to the age of 104, in innocence "and goed werks, he died, as PLATO did, on the day of his birth, " and in the bed in which he was born. His death refembles a quiet leep. He expired, furrounded by his family, without pain or uneafinefs, while he was converfing about GoD and virtue.” Vide Memoirs of PETRARCH.

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* Ecce fpectaculum dignum, ad quod refpiciat, intentus operi fuo, DEUS! Ecce par DEO dignum, vir fortis cum mala fortuna compofitus! Non video, inquam, quid habeat in terris Jupiter pulchrius, fi Convertere animum velit, quam ut fpectet CATONEM, jam partibus non® femel tractis, nihilominus inter ruinas publicas erectum.

SEN. de Divin. Prov.

For the dying advice and laft fcene of the SAVIOUR of mankind, fee JOHN xiv. xix. chapters-for good old JACOB's, fee Gen. xiviii. xlix. chapters for JOSEPH's, Gen.l.-forMoses's, Deut. xxxii. xxxiii chapters for JOSHUA's, Jos. xxiii. xxiv.-for DAVID's, 1 Chron. xxviii. 8, 9.

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army of valiant fouls, who went through fire and water, through racks and tortures, to their blood-bought reward. The late horrible tranfactions on the Continent have added an illuftrious page to the records of religious renown. And if the fame diabolical fpirit fhould pervade this happy country, I doubt not but there is a goodly company among us, who, through the power of grace divine, will fet at nought, and bid defiance to, all the threats, guillotines, and engines of the moft virulent Pfudo-Philofophers t in the kingdom. So far as I myself am concerned, whether it fhall please the gracious RULER of the world to call me hence by a storm of perfecution, by the sword of the enemy, by the enmity of fecret adverfaries, or in the natural courfe of Providence, I, above all things upon earth, defire to quit this mortal scene in a fiery chariot of divine love, and heavenly rapture. It is faid that the celebrated SCALIGER was fo delighted with that famous ftanza of STERNHOLD and HOPKINS in the 18th falm:

"On Cherubs and on Cherubims
"Full royally he rode;

"And on the wings of mighty winds
Came flying all abroad:

that he used to profefs, he had rather have been the author of it, than to have enjoyed the kingdom of Arragon.

Be this as it may, I have feen fo many lukewarm Chriftians quit the world in fuch a doubting, timorous, uncomfortable, miferable manner, that I folemnly declare

and 2 Sam. xxiii. 1-9-STEPHEN'S, Acts vii.-and PAUL'S, Acts xx. and 2 Tim. iv. 6-8.

* Vide BARRUEL's Hiftory of the French Clergy.

+ The character of Philofophers has been much the fame in all ages. CICERO has defcribed it as accurately as if he had lived in the prefent day. Quotus enim quifque Philofophorum invenitur, qui fit ita moratus, ita animo ac vita conftitutus, ut ratio poftulat? Qui difciplanum fuam non oftentationem fcientiæ, fed legem vitæ putet? Qui obtemperet ipfe fibi, et decretis fuis pareat? Videre licet, alios tanta levitate et jactatione, uti hiş fuerit non didiffe melius; alios pecuniæ cupidos gloriæ nonnullos, multos libidinum fervos, ut cum eorum vita mirabiliper pugnet oratio; quod quidem mihi videtur effe turpiffimum.

Tufc. Difp. lib. 2.

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I had rather, if it please GoD, take my leave of this earthly tabernacle, with my faith, hope, love, peace, and joy in full exercife, and go with all my fails unfurled into the haven of eternal reft, than be made emperor of the whole universe. I well know profeffions like these will fubject me to the charge of intemperate zeal and enthusiafm, as is observed on a former page. Such charges, however, I moft cordially defpife, and hold the philofophic authors of them in as much pity and contempt, as they can entertain for the warm and zealous Chriftian. I want not to quit the stage of life in the spirit of BOLINGBROKE, HUME, GIBBON, CHESTERFIELD, GODWIN, and other fuch like characters. The feeling, fenfible, confident, joyful approbation of HEAVEN, is above all eftimation; and the praife of men of loose morals, or pharifaical profeffions, is of little confideration in my efteem. I wish them wifer and better, and that they may fee their error before it is too late. Several of thofe worthy perfons, whose names we have here recorded, died bearing a noble teftimony to evangelical truth. Their condition was enviable. To many fuch I myself have been a joyful witness, in the course of my poor miniftrations. But the deathbed scene, which above all others I have either read or feen, that seems to have had in it the largest share of divine communications*, is that of the Rev. JOHN JANEWAY, fellow of King's College in Cambridge, who died at the age of twenty-four, in June, 1657.

If it should appear too rapturous, confider, MY COUNTRYMEN, what your feelings would be, fhould news be brought that you had obtained a prize in the State Lottery of twenty or thirty thousand pounds; or that you were left heir to an estate of immenfe value, which you had but little reafon to expect. If, when the Ifraelites had paffed the Red Sea in fafety, they faw it right to fing a fong

* The ferious reader will find the doctrine of the HOLY SPIRIT'S influence upon the mind ably defended against our modern luke-warm profeffors of religion from the charge of enthusiasm, in Bishop PEARSON on the Creed, Art. 8. a work with which every Chriftian fhould be inti mately acquainted, in thefe times of abounding licentiousness both of principle and practice.

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