lation from Heaven. And, in the holy fcriptures, we have many exhortations to felf-examination. I fhall only mention that of the apoftle Paul, 2 Cor. xiii. 5. Examine yourfelves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own felves: know ye not your * own felves, how that Jefus Chrift is in you, except * ye be reprobates?' Nay, after all our pains to exanine ourselves, there ought to remain such a fufpicion of our own treachery, as fhould make us intreat, humbly and earneftly, the more impartial trial of a heart fearching God, Pfal. xix. 12. Who can un ⚫derstand his errors? Cleanfe thou

me from fecret

⚫ faults. Pfal. cxxxix. 23, 24. Search me, O God! and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: ⚫ and fee if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlafting.'

3. From what hath been faid, let me beseech all, but especially young perfons, to beware of the begin nings of fin. It may be faid of fin, in general, as So Jomon fays of ftrife, the beginning of it is like the

letting out of water.' Beware of all that difcourfe which tends to give you flight thoughts of any fin. Sometimes men confider fins as fall fins, and therefore tolerable. Many parents have thought it wrong to check their children for the follies and levities of youth, and have found, to their melancholy experi ence, that when follies had been fuffered to ripen in to crimes, they had taken too deep hold to be rooted up. Many make light of fin by comparifon. How common is the pretence of the drunkards: We are harming nobody; we are not speaking ill of our neighbours; we are not oppreffing the poor. In the mean

-time, they are foon led to cursing and blafphemy; and, perhaps, by their riotous living, they are unable to pay their just debts, rob the industrious poor of their right, and, for the indulgence of a beastly ap petite, bring their own offspring to beggary and ruin. Such is the behaviour of many of your harmless people; men of focial friendly difpofitions, that, if you believe them, would not wrong their neighbour of a farthing to their knowledge; and yet it would be happy for any man to fall into the hands of highway robbers rather than into their fociety. How fhort-fighted men are! they not only forget to look forward to the other world, but look not even to any distance in this. From time to time we are made fools by fin, which never afks more of us than the prefent compliance; yet, if this is granted, never leaves us till our state is irrecoverable. What reafon have all to be afraid of that deplorable hardness of heart which is the confequence of the continued indulgence of fin. Let us never confider any fin by itfelf, but together with that ugly, train which it draws behind it; and, then, though our false hearts might plead for the indulgence of a single luft, they may not be fo willing to fubmit to that deluge of vice which follows faft at its heels.

4. In the last place, I fhall clofe the fubject, by ad dreffing an exhortation to thofe of my hearers, who have been long and hardened finners; who have many habits of vice cleaving to them; who have hitherto defpifed the gofpel, and even fat in the feat of the fcornful. No doubt, you have heard, in vain, and, perhaps, with contempt, many exhortations of this

kind before; and, therefore, there is, humanly fpeaking, but little hope, that any thing I can fay will have the effect. However, as our bleffed and gracious Mafter has commanded his gospel to be preached to every creature, this Prince of the kings of the earth is able, by his Spirit accompanying the word, to lay the proudeft and the boldest of his enemies proftrate at his feet; let me befeech you, in his name, to hear, that your fouls may live. Why will you longer continue at enmity with him, while he is offering you mercy? nay, he is treating you with mercy in every inftance of his kind providence, in the renewed meffages of his bleffed word, and in his dying agonies on the accurfed tree? Have you been long wedded to fin? he is able to fet you free; he came to deftroy the works of the devil, and is able to knock off the strongest fetters, and reftore liberty to the most forrowful captive. We, then, as workers together with him, befeech you alfo, that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.' Remember, on the other hand, I beseech you, the dreadful vengeance that awaits the defpifers of the gospel. If you ftill refufe the gracious offer if you will not fuffer his mercy to be glorified in your recovery, his holinefs, power, and juftice, fhall be illuftrated in your perdition. Time is hastening away; judgment is hastening on; no refufing to appear at that bar; no deceiving or biaffing that judge; no room to escape; no source of confolation under that sentence. How infupportable the reflection on opportunity irrecoverably loft! And how terrible the fanction which follows upon the offer of mercy! You may

read it, Prov. i. 24,―31. 'Because I have called, and ye refused, I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have fet at nought all 'my counfel, and would none of my reproof: I alo 'will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when 'your fear cometh. When your fear cometh as de• folation, and your deftruction cometh as a whirlwind; when diftrefs and anguish cometh upon you, Then fhall they call upon me, but I will not an 'fwer; they fhall feek me early, but they shall not find me: for that they hated knowledge, and did not chufe the fear of the Lord. They would none of my counfel; they defpifed all my reproof: there'fore fhall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.'

I only add, if any impreffion is made on your minds, of the importance of eternity, fuffer it to abide there. Let it have an immediate effect. Of all the deceits of fin or Satan, none more fatal than that of putting off convictions to a more convenient feafon. I conclude, therefore, with the words of Salomon, Ecclef. ix. 10. Whatfoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wifdom, in the grave, whither thou goeft. Amen.

Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy.

It is

is of great moment to attend to the proper mixture of reverence and love which ought to poffefs our hearts in the worship of the living God. If they arise from proper principles, they will not deftroy or weaken, but ftrengthen one another. A believer can never lye too low in the duft before the moft holy God; he can never be too fenfible either of his distance as a creature, or his guilt and unworthiness as a finner: but, at the fame time, he can never be too deeply penetrated with a fenfe of divine love, or have too strong and ardent defires after communion and fellowship with God. The truth is, the lower we are in our own fight, it doth but the more illustrate and magnify all the grace that is fhewn to us in the gospel: and the more joyfully we contem