DEVOUT BREATHINGS

OF A

PIOUS SOUL.

LORD, what am I, in myself? Dust and ashes formed

from nothing.

I am nothing, and less than nothing and vanity. But, what am I as a sinner? An infinitely criminal enemy of God, my Maker, my Preserver, and Redeemer, whose heart is full of hatred and malice, and my life filled up with rebellion against him. My heart is the very reverse of all the excellency that is in God; my life a presumptuous trampling on all the authority, and an ungrateful contempt and abuse of all the kindness of God? Ah, my heart! thou art the quintessence of all evil, harder than a flinty rock, more loathsome than a noisome carcase, more rotten than a long dead corse, more noxious than a pestilential pit or unripe grave, more mischievous than a tyger or scorpion, more ugly than a monster, more proud, deceitful, and desperately wicked than a devil. Oh, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?

But

By the grace,

I am.

By his

2. Where sin abounded, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, might have justly for ever abounded. Had I been in hell these many years, I had but received the due reward of my deeds. where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. I have done all that I can to dishonour and destroy God; and God doth all he can to save and exalt me. Grace, how undeserved! how unasked! how refused and trampled on by me! but how dear to God! how strong! how unbounded in God! the free favour of God, I am what forbearing grace, I am out of hell. grace, I am on my way to heaven. chosen in Christ. By grace I am redeemed to God by the blood of Christ. By grace I am one spirit with Christ. By grace I am pardoned, reconciled, and accepted in Christ. By grace I am a child and heir of God in Christ. By grace I am quickened and sanctified in Christ. By grace I am preserved and comforted in Christ. And by grace I shall be quickly glorified with and in Christ.-What is this! Saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation!Grace, grace unto it.

By his saving By grace I was

3. "Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ." Who is this Christ? Immanuel, God with us; the eternal Son of God, become man, and continued to be both God and man, in two distinct natures, and one person for ever. What is Christ? He is ALL and IN ALL, and ALL IN ALL to me. I am a lost sinner; Christ is my Saviour. I am destitute, enslaved, and miserable; Christ is my Redeemer. I am an enemy to, and rebel against God; Christ is the Mediator be