a visit where their mother has reason to suspect their safety. They have freedom given them in all the common affairs of life to choose for themselves, but they take pleasure, for the most part, in referring the choice back again to their elders. Phronissa has managed the restraint of their younger years with so much reason and love, that they have seemed all their lives to know nothing but liberty; an admonition of their parents meets with cheerful compli ance, and is never debated. A wish or desire has the same power over them now, as a command had in their infancy and childhood; for the command was ever dressed in the softest language of authority, and this made every act of obedience a delight, till it became an habitual pleasure. In short, they have been educated with such discretion, tenderness, and piety, as have laid a foundation to make them happy and useful in the rising age: their parents with pleasure view the growing prospect, and return daily thanks to almighty God, whose blessing has attended their watchful cares, and has thus far answered their most fervent devotions. ADVERTISEMENT. DR WATTS' opinion about publishing these Papers appears in the following Advertisement, prefixed to them by himself. These papers were written at several seasons and intervals of leisure, and on various occasions arising through the greatest part of my life. Many of them were designed to be published among the Reliquia Juveniles, but for some reason or other, not worth present notice, were laid by at that time. Whether I shall ever publish them, I know not, though far the greatest part of them have long stood corrected among my manuscripts; nor do I suppose many of them inferior to those Essays and Remarks of this kind which have before appeared in the world with some acceptance. If they are not published in my lifetime, my worthy friends, who have the care of my papers, may leave out what they please. I. W. July 3. 1740. REMNANTS OF TIME, EMPLOYED IN PROSE AND VERSE, &c. I. JUSTICE and GRACE. NEVER was there any hour since the creation of all things, nor ever will be till the last conflagration, wherein the holy God so remarkably displayed his justice and his grace, as that hour that saw our Lord Jesus Christ hanging upon the cross, forsaken of his Father, and expiring. What a dreadful glory was given to vindictive justice, when the great and terrible God made the soul of his own Son a painful sacrifice for sin! What an amazing instance of grace, that he should redeem such worthless sinners, as we are, from the vengeance, by exposing his beloved Son to it! When I view the severity or the compassion of that hour, my thoughts are lost in astonishment: it is not for me, it is not for Paul or Apollos, it is not for the tongue of men or angels to say which was greatest, the compassion or the severity. Humble adoration becomes us best, and a thankful acceptance of the pardon that was purchased at so dear a rate. Next to this I know not a more eminent display of terror and mercy, than the dying hour of a pious but desponding Christian, under the tumultuous and disquieting temptations of the devil. See within those curtains a person of faith and serious piety, but of a melancholy constitution, and expecting death. While his flesh is tortured with sharp agonies, and terribly convulsed, a ghastly horror sits on his countenance, and he groans under extreme anguish. Behold the man, a favourite of heaven, a child of light, assaulted with the darts of hell, ; hell, and his soul surrounded with thick darkness; all his sins stand in dreadful array before him, and threaten him with the execution of all the curses in the Bible. Though he loves God with all his heart, he is in the dark, he knows it not, nor can he believe that God has any love for him and though he cannot utterly let go his hold of his Saviour and the gospel, yet,' in his own apprehension, he is abandoned both of the Father and the Son. In every new pang that he feels, his own fears persuade him that the gates of hell are now opening upon him: he hangs hovering over the burning pit, and at the last gasp of life, when he seems to be sinking into eternal death, he quits the body, with all its sad circumstances, and feels himself safe in the arms of his Saviour, and in the presence of his God. What amazing transport! What agreeable surprise! not to be uttered by the words of our scanty mortal language, nor conceived but by the person who feels it. The body indeed, which was the habitation of so pious a spirit, is demolished at once: Behold the lifeless carcase; it makes haste to putrefaction. The released soul in extasy feels and surveys its own happiness, appears before the throne, is acknowledged there as one of the sons of God, and invested with the glories of the upper world. Sorrows and sins, guilt, fetters, and darkness vanish for ever. It exults in liberty and light, and dwells for ever under the smiles of God. What was it that could provoke the wise and gracious God to permit the wicked spirit to vex one of his own children at this rate, and to deal so severely with the man whom he loves? To expose that soul to exquisite anguish in the flesh, which he designed the same day to make a partner with blessed spirits? To express in one hour so much terror and so much mercy? St Paul will give a short and plain answer to this inquiry. Rom. viii. 10. "The body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness." Hence that anguish, those agonies and convulsions in the sinful flesh that |