i PART. The INTRODUCTION CHAP. I. 1. A short account of the author, and his feduction bis foul II. Of the author's converfion. His letter from the IV. Objections made to religion by a young gentleman. V. Mr T-s's account of an occafional conference VI. The author, at his friend's defire, comes to lodge VII. A Speech made by Mr Ts to his companions VIII. Mr Ts's fatisfaction after reflecting on his I 2 23 42 49 64 77 85 123 bim by a virtuous lady. An account of his mistress 133 X. Containing four letters written by Mr Ts on his deathbed, with some clauses in his last will XI. Another letter written by Mr Ts. A prayer. faid by him on his deathbed, with his address to XII. Mr Tsis feized with a violent cough. He is visited once and again by all his companions. XIII. The behaviour of Mr T-s's companions on bis death, and his funeral. The author's letter to his father. He retires to the country. His recep- I. The author visits the most noted towns, and col lects striking anecdotes. The history of Fanny, wha pursued learned studies in a male habit; and of Mally, a handsome maid-Servant 2279 II. Extracts from Henry and Fanny's epistolary comm respondence. Henry's account of the adventures of . a young country girl, that had been debauched and... III. Fanny's account of the dying behaviour and bap- IV. Fanny's affecting narrative of the horrible ftate, 37 V. Henry's account of the converfion and happy death of a country-gentleman, the great fortune be left to bis kept mistress, with ber after virtuous life, and comfortable marriage with a gentleman in London 333 VII. Mally's account of the life, disasters conversion, I ME- OF Two Young Gentlemen. INTRODUCTION. A Modern writer hath very justly observed, that there has rarely passed a life, of which a judicious and faithful narrative would not be useful. For, adds he, every man has great numbers in the same condition with himself, to whom his mistakes and miscarriages, escapes and expedients, would be of immediate and apparent use. We are all prompted by the fame motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by defire, and feduced by pleasure. If then a narrative of an ordinary life, even when considered apart from adventitious and separable decorations and disguises, may be of great utility to mankind; how much more extensively useful, may I prefume, will be that of my own, and of my dear deceased friend, whose days were for some years spent in a scene of the groffeft impurity and lewdness, till we were stopt in our awful career, and reclaimed from the error of our ways, by that God who faith, I will work, and who shall let it ? To exhibit the most striking instances of the fhares and feduction to which youth are liable; of the horrors of confcience consequent upon a life of vice and diffipation; of the amazing effi A cacy cacy of sovereign grace in the converfion and falvation of the most profligate sinners, who were dead in fins and trespasses, enemies to God by wicked works, children of wrath, and liable to condemnation; of the pleasures of a religious life, far fuperior to all sensual gratifications; and of the joy and blessedness of dying in the Lord, is the design of the following narrative: which the reader will find interspersed with awful warnings to companions in iniquity, serious exhortations to improve the time of divine forbearance and benignity afforded to men, and entertaining and remarkable anecdotes of the glorious effects of the redeeming love and grace of God in the falvation of fome persons of the most abandoned characters. The whole calculated to humble and reclaim the fons of vice and profaneness, to animate every pious foul that aspires to heaven and immortality, to repress self-righteousness so natural to men in their lapsed state, to exalt the righteoufness of God, as the one thing needful, and to promote the facred interests of religion and godliness, CHAP. I. 2 A fhort account of the author, and his seduction to vice by Mr T-s; of their debauched lives, and the horrors confequent thereupon. I J-s N-u was born in a northern county in England, and was the only child and heir of a gentleman who lived constantly at his country-feat. As he had a genteel fortune, and was of a fociable and benevolent disposition, he spent his time in rural diversions, in friendly society with the gentlemen in his neighbourhood, and in a series of charitable actions to the poor, of whatever party or denomination; but without much much regarding religion, or the concerns of the world to come; unless an occafional attendance on divine ordinances dispensed in a dissenting meeting-house not far from his feat, can be confidered as fufficiently characteristic of a good Christian; for though it does not appear he was religious, he always espoused the dissenting intereft, being an enemy to ceremonies and pomp in divine worship, which he looked upon as relics of Popery, and human traditions. As my mother, who was an accomplished, learned, and religious lady, whom my father married when they were both pretty well advanced in years, and whom he entirely loved, died in my infancy; I became the fole object of his most endeared regard. I was taught Latin at the parish-school, by a ma, ster of some note; and was not without the afliftance of tutorial and parental instruction. My life indeed in that early period was spent in the follies and idle diversions that youth are naturally addicted to: but though I had no great genius, I was celebrated for a diligent application to my books, and an ardent thirst after classical know ledge; and my father, blind to the defests of my genius, or perhaps through an overweening con ceit of my being poffefsed of endowments which I could never attain to, flattered himself with the vain hopes that I should one day make a figure in the world. He therefore directed my youthful studies with uncommon care, and furnished. me with all the books he thought neceffary for my improvement. But how vain are the expectations of weak-fighted mortals, and how foolith the hopes of doting parental affection, that is merely concerned about the outside of things, will appear in the sequel. My father, alas! unmindful that religion and virtue are the highest ornaments of human nature, the true and fole A 2 |