the time is short : there are yet but a few more months or years, perhaps but a few more days or liours, before the day of salvation will be closed. We would earnestly wish, that, at the moment of your departure hence, you should be able to look back on all the dangers you have escaped, and with triumphant exultation adopt the language of the psalm before us. Certainly, as many of us as shall be saved at last, will instantly, on thei. entrance into the eternal world, begin the song of the Redeemed, and sing, '' Sal- vation to God and to the Lamb for ever and ever." Now then seek to have the Lord on your side: beg him to strengthen you against all the evils of your own hearts; to rescue you from the impending storms of a tumultuous world; and to deliver you from all the deceit and violence of your great Adversary. So shall you have peace with God in your own conscience; and in due season enter into that rest, where neither sin nor sorrow shall ever assault you more.]
««»The author was not aware that he had written on this subject before. But as the former Skeleton consists of only a single page, and this goes over such different ground, particularly in shewing how to improve national mercies, he has thought it not improper to print this also.
DELIVEBANCE FROM SPIRITUAL BONDAGE ACKNOWLEDGED.
Ps. exxvi. 1 — 4. When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth Jilled with laughter, and our tongue with singing. Then said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done great things for them. The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad. Turn again our captivity j 0 Lordj as the streams in the south.
The great body of the Psalms was composed by David : but some were written many hundred years before his time, as the 90th was by Moses ; and others many hundred years after him, as that before us, which was evidently written after the Baby- lonish Captivity. It relates in the first instance to the delivery of Israel from their sore bondage, and their restoration to their long desolated country : but it is well applicable to that redemption which is vouchsafed to the souls of men, and which was shadowed forth by that great event.
Let