up with something short of the sun of righteousness; and I believe there are times, when the poor believer thinks his sun will quite go down, and rise no more: he loses his relish, his taste and evidence of divine things; not only are the rays intercepted for a while, but doubts and fears, a dreadful cloud of them, come on. Though I hold with a full assurance of faith, yet I am of opinion that 'tis not always in a like exercise; and therefore pray that doubting people will not take hold of that, and say, Blessed be God, I am in a doubting state, and I am content. The Lord deliver you from a mind to stay in prison, and prevent the devil from locking the door upon you, and keeping you there as long as he can. The Lord help you to come; come, come, and break out of prison, that you may know how pleasant it is to behold the Sun, and praise his name.

Sometimes instead of the sun there is only moonlight, which shews the difference a believer feels in his soul, both in relation to grace and comfort. Both sun and moon give light, but O how far superior is the one to the other: the moon gives a very faint, uncertain light, waxes and wanes, and at best is almost nothing when compared with the light, and the blessed reviving heat of the sun. Hence, my brethren, this world sometimes is a world of mourners: it is said, that the days of our mourning shall be ended; for if the text refers to the future state, as no doubt it does, it means that the days of believers here below are very often mournful, trying, and afflicting, though they end in joy, as our Lord intimates in his opening his gospel-sermon almost with these very words, Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Some, perhaps, may think it is an

odd kind of blessing; and though worldly people are fond of the fifth of Matthew, and wonder that Methodists and gospel-ministers do not preach oftener on that chapter, I am apt to believe, when you come to preach and open that word, they will not like that chapter any more than any other, because they are for a joyful Christ, and not for any mourning at all. Do you know God in Christ? let me tell you, the more you are acquainted with him the more your souls will be kept in a mourning state. O, say you, people will mourn before they are converted.-Ah, that they will.-I don't love to hear of conversions without any secret mourning: I seldom see such souls established. I have heard of a person who was in company once with fourteen ministers of the gospel, some of whom were eminent servants of Christ, and yet not one of them could tell the time God first manifested himself to their soul. Zaccheus's was a very quick conversion, perhaps not a quarter of an hour's conviction: this I mention, that we may not condemn one another, We do not love the pope, because we love to be popes ourselves, and set up our own experience as a standard to others. Those that had such a conversion as the jaylor, or the Jews: O, say you, we do not like to hear you talk of shaking over hell, we love to hear of conversion by the love of God; while o thers that were so shaken, as Mr. Boiton and other eminent men were, may say, you are not christians because you had not the like terrible experience. You may as well say to your neigh. bour, you have not had a child, for you were not in labour all night. The question is, whether a real child is born, not how long was the preceding pain, but whether it was productive of a new birth,

and whether Christ has been formed in your hearts; it is the birth proves the reality of the thing.

Some allow that there is mourning before, but no mourning after conversion; pray who says so? none but an Antinomian, a rank Antinomian ; and when you hear a person say, that after conversion you will have no mourning, you may be assured that person is at best walking by moonlight; he does not walk by the sun, he has got some doctrine in his head, but very little grace, I am afraid, in his heart. How! how! my brethren, not mourn after we are converted; why, till then there is no true mourning at all. The damned in hell are mourning now, they put on their mourning as soon as they get there. How am I tormented in this flame, says Dives; and Cain, my punishment is greater than I can bear. How many worldly people break their hearts for the loss of the world: they cannot keep their usual equipage, nor do as they would; and come not to worship on Sunday, because they cannot appear so fine as formerly they did: this is a sorrow of the world that worketh death; but there is a blessed, a more evangelical mourning, which is the habitual, blessed state and frame of a converted soul. How strong the expression, They shall look on him whom they have pierced, and shall mourn how shall they mourn? as one mourneth for a first-born, an only child. Have you ever been called to bury a child? is there any tender mother here? were you merry directly after the child was dead? no, perhaps till this very day, you continually call to remembrance your little one and shed a tear; every thing relating to it, causes the repetition of your sorrow. When a poor believer is acquainted with Jesus Christ, he

mourns for having crucified the Son of God, and you will mourn for the same sin after conversion as before. Surely, says some, I mourn for my sins I committed before my conversion. I do not know whether you do or know, but I know you should. O, says David, Remember not against me the sins of my youth, in a Psalm which was wrote when he was an old man; and Paul says, I was a blasphemer and injurious, and therefore not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God; and this after he had been wrapped up to the third heaven. See Mary rushing into the house, washing her Lord's feet with her tears, and wiping them with her hair: F don't suppose she was dressed as our ladies are now; they did not make such apes of themselves; but her hair was very fine in an honest way; though she breaks the allibaster box of ointment given her, perhaps by some poor silly creature that would die by her frowns, and live upon her smiles, see her at the feet of her Saviour, and Jesus Christ answers for her, some having thought she was profuse, that having had much forgiven, she loved much. The more the love of God is manifested, the more it will melt the soul down: I appeal to you christians, whether the sweetest times you ever enjoyed, were not those when you were much melted at the sight of a crucified Saviour; when you could say, Lord, thou forgavest me, I felt it, I know it, but I cannot forgive myself? this will always be the effect of an engenuous mind; and a person that is really converted will thus mourn, and if you do not know this, you may be assured you know nothing savingly of Jesus Christ. You may go and hear this and that warning, and you are right to gather honey frow every flower,

but you have not got within the inner court, but are yet without. God give you to see your folly herein.

A true believer will mourn over his corruptions: I wonder what they can think, who suppose they have no corruptions. I remember a poor creature of Rhode Island, who looked the most like the old Puritans I ever saw, when I was talking with him, and said, some people say there are some men that have no sin; he said if you send such a man to me I will pay his charges even from England and back again. I have often learned something from the difference of glasses, you look into the common glasses, and see yourselves there so fine, and admire your person, dress, &c. but when you view yourselves through a microscope, how many worms are discovered in that fine skin of yours, enough to make you ashamed of the vermin and -filth that is seated there: so it is in faith, that glass would show you so much corruption cleaving to every action of your lives, that would make you sin-sick, and mourn that you have known God so long, and are like him so little. What says Paul? Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Notwithstanding he knew that there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, yet cries out. O wretched man that I am! Í should have thought, O happy man that thou art! formerly a persecutor, and now a preacher; a man that has been honored so much above every man in planting churches, which is the highest honor a man can have under heaven; here is a man that hath been wrapt up to the third heaven,-what of him? O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of sin and death? Do think you that it was only a little qualm of conscience? no,