FRASER (JAMES, OF BREA).

BORN 1639-DIED 1698.

1. The soul, in conversion, closeth chiefly with the Person of Christ.

2. Legal terrors in themselves tend to evil, though God accidentally drives good in them.

3. A backslider ordinarily goeth a great length ere he

recover.

4. A fiery temptation may be suspended and calmed; but until it be cured by the word, it will return again.

5. A carnal generation of professors is greatly abominable to the Lord, and are great plagues in the earth, especially to young beginners.

6. A man's whole life is but a conversion; and the Lord, after every kind of backsliding, draws often in the same way as at the first conversion; yea, and deals with them as they may seem never to have been converted before.

7. 'Tis easy to let a man see that he is not converted, that he cannot save himself; but 'tis hard persuading him that he can do nothing, not so much as to be thankful for the least mercy.

8. 'Tis the frequency and constancy of God's waterings that doth good, rather than any measure of a particular fit or visitation; and from this more love may be gathered.

9. There may be wearying, and loading, and real humiliation, though there be no terrors on the soul. Sense

of a dead, hard heart, is an effectual means to draw to Christ; yea, more effectual than any other, because it is the dead, miserable, and naked that God speaks to.

10. If faith fetches all from Christ, then it brings nothing to Christ but deadness, blindness, and sinfulness. Come to Him for grace to prize Him.

II. The whole life of man is a continued conversion to God, in which he is perpetually burdened under a sense of sin, and draws nearer and nearer to God with more fervent faith and love.

12. There may be a real closing with Christ, and yet felt deadness and hardness. A sick faith is a living faith.

13. I was put out of conceit with legal terrors; for I thought they were good, and only esteemed them happy that were under them. They came, but I found they did me ill; and unless the Lord had guided me thus, I think I should have died doating after them.

14. Seldom do mercies good when there is too much peremptoriness in asking them.

15. Prosperity, ease, and the desires of the soul, send leanness to the soul; the evils of the world are much better than the good thereof.

16. Assurance of faith, though it do not firstly flow from holiness, yet is ever proportionable to holy walking.

17. Unbelief is more heinous than the sin of Sodom. 18. When God afflicts, it is in earnest, and not in jest. 19. There is no greater curse than for a man to get his will and desires in the world.

20. God's love is more seen in comforting and strengthening under trouble, than in delivering from it.

BURGESS (ANTHONY).

ABOUT 1640.

I. Let not the troubled heart say, Where is my perfect repenting where is my perfect obedience? but rather ask, Where is God's forgiving? where is God's not imputing? How hardly is the soul drawn off from resting in itself! It is not thy doing, but God's doing. Thou must consider not what do I, but what God doth. Do not, then, look Do not pore

risen.

for Christ in the grave, when He is into thyself for this treasure, when it is to be looked for from heaven. Duties, graces will say, This is not in me.

2. What quietness can a man have till he know what judgment the Lord hath of him?

3. Who would not think that, while God's goodness in the Scripture is thus unfolded, there should not be a dejected, unbelieving Christian in the world? Shall our sin abound to condemnation, more than His grace to justification? Because sin is too strong for us, is it therefore too much for the grace of God also?

4. God putteth no bounds to His mercy, whereas He doth set some to His anger.

5. As it is hypocrisy to make our sins less than they are, so it is unbelief to diminish His grace. The sins of all the world, if they were thy sins, were but a drop of water to His mercy.

6. Was not David, in his fall, like a tree in winter?

The moisture of grace was within, yet nothing did outwardly appear.

7. I will have no such free grace as shall take away godly sorrow.

8. Do not think that justification giveth thee such a quietus est, that new sins daily committed by thee should be no matter of humiliation or confession. Our Saviour's command is, that we should desire this forgiveness as often as we do our daily bread.

9. At the last day, all these fears, diffidence, and darkness, will be quite removed out of our hearts. There shall be no more disturbance in our souls, than there can be corruption in the highest heavens. We shall then have such a gourd as no worm can devour. Our souls shall not then know the meaning of sitting in darkness, and wanting God's favour. There will then be no complaints, Why hath the Lord forsaken me? Well may God's children be called upon to lift up their heads, when such a 'redemption draweth nigh;' and well may that day be called the times of refreshment,' seeing the people of God are so often scorched with the fiery darts of Satan.

10. Then this petition shall wholly cease; then there will be no serpent to sting us; nor will the eye of justifying faith, to look upon the brazen serpent exalted, be The Lord will not only wipe away necessary any more. the tear of worldly grief, but also of godly sorrow, at that time. Then will the Church be without wrinkles, or any spot within her. In this respect it is the Church of God prayeth so earnestly for the Bridegroom's coming. For this it is they look for, and hasten in their prayers that day.

WATSON.

1649.

1. Heaven is the highest link of the saint's happiness. The lamp of glory will be ever burning, never wasting. As there is no intermission in the joys of heaven, so there shall be no expiration. When God has once planted His saints in paradise, He will never transplant them, 'they shall be for ever with the Lord.'

2. Prayer delights God's ear; it melts His heart; it opens His hand. Plead with Him earnestly, and either He will remove the affliction, or remove the impatience.

3. God being an infinite fulness, there is no fear of want for any of the heirs of heaven.

4. That grace is tried gold which can stand in the fiery trial and withstand fiery darts.

5. He that loseth his heart in the morning, in the world, will hardly find it again all the day after.

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6. The Lord's Supper is the most spiritual ordinance ever instituted here we have to do more immediately with Christ. In prayer we draw near through Christ: in this ordinance we become one with Him. In the Word preached we hear of Christ; in the Supper we feed on Him. 7. Though our sins go up to heaven as the smoke of a furnace, yet Christ's prayers go up as incense.

8. Men can never pray fervently that do not pray feelingly, like Samson, when he said, 'Shall I die for thirst?'