May I then examine myself whether I have ever found these smooth stones in the brook of divine ordinances; and if I have ever used them with the fling of divine grace against my spiritual foes, and what success I have had in the attempt. Thus examining myself, through grace, I may come to know how I have profited by gofpel ordinances; whether I have wreftled against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places, Eph. vi. 12. and whether, like Paul, I have fought the good fight, 2 Tim. iv. 7.

1

CONTEMPLATION X.

ON

FISHING.

Y

ONDER rustic, just come to angle in the brook, is preparing his rod, and running out his line. Now he views attentively the atmosphere, and anon confiders the appearance of the liquid element; pauses a little, and selects from his hooks the fly which he judges best, and having put all in order, artfully throws the line, and raising his hand, gently leads the impostor, where the stream curls round the stone, by the cavity of the brow, or the prominent ofier root: the unwary trout observes the deceitful fly, and is tempted from its covert. As if cautious of the danger, at first it springs at a little distance, but the temptation being renewed it can withstand the force of appetite no longer, but greedily leaps close, and defperate takes the death; plunging down to the bottom it sharply feels the dreadful mistake; distracted with the crooked impostor in its mouth, it rushes impetuously down the current, bending the pliant rod, croffing and recrossing the stream, struggling hard to get rid of its unhappy morfel; but all in vain. At length exhaufted, it is flowly dragged, plashing feebly to the flowery bank.

Just so the adversary of mankind fisheth in the stream of human life, fuiting his temptations to the various inclinations of men and women, by which many unwary fouls are finally destroyed.

This skilful angler, I perceive, dresses his hook to answer both the day and the water; and just now has on a lucid fly, at which the trouts are taking very faft. In like manner, Satan manageth his temptations to answer the time, constitution and circumstances of every one: Sometimes he fisheth with a golden hook, and with this he caught Gehazi, Judas, Demas, with thousands in every age.

When Satan draweth this hook along the furface of that shallow stream of human life called poverty, the danger of it is most confpicuous; for many, by too greedily fnatching at it, like the fishes that are taken in an evil net, Eccl. ix. 12. come to be fuspended by a rope, or gibbet, as a warning to others; but alas! without grace all will not do; no man will be a warning to another. The devil so artfully manageth this hook in such circumstances, alluring men to catch at it, by holding out to them the grandeur, usefulness and convenience of riches, and what a noble thing it is to have money to swagger away with, and procure those pleasures which their hearts defire; perfuading them, in order to obtain this great good, they may steal, forge, plunder and rob fafely, without any eye seeing them; and in order to quiet their confciences, tells them, if fuch a practice be any fin, they may leave it off when they have got fufficient, and repent thereof time enough before they die.

Thus he draweth them into his snare: The love of money is the root of all evil, faith the apoftle, I Tim. vi. 10. and what evil is there that the lovers of it have not committed for fake thereof? Hath it not made its deluded votaries commit the greatest of excesses; caft off all religion, betray their friends, the church of God, and even the Saviour of mankind, the' eternal Son of God himself, who came to lay down his life a ransom for a guilty elect world?

Let fuch a thought as this ever make me set light by all the gold in the earth; nay, despise, and even hate it farther than it serves to glorify God, and procure a comfortable subsistence through life.

Although the evil of this hook be most perceptible when drawn along the shallow stream of life, viz. indigent circumstances, it is no less dangerous when drawn along the face of the fmooth pool of profperity: