fome fashionable pleasure, is devifed for every
day, and for every hour. Thou art whirled
in the vortex of diffipation.
All is hurry
and confufion. But thou art not fenfible of
thy danger. While thou art countenanced
by thy companion, while thou preferveft the
distinction of fashion, thou remaineft in com-
plete fecurity. Thou art allowed to be a man
of fpirit, and to make a figure equal to thy
rank in life. Thou therefore concludest that
all is well. With respect to religion, it is too
dull for thy attention, and thou hearest it
frequently ridiculed by the wits into whofe
company thou art admitted. Thou alfo
difcerneft, that the most fashionable writers
have espoused the cause of infidelity. It is
enough. Thou must also be in the fashion,
even though it should endanger thy immortal
existence. Thou must also be a wit, fince
the character is so easily gained by blafphemy.
Alas! poor mortal! thou art an object of the
fincereft commiferation! Lively and gay as
is thy appearance, vigorous as thy health,
active as thy exertions, thou art already in
the arms of death; funk in a fpiritual flum-
ber, from which it is too probable that,
without an effort of thine own, thou wilt
only rise to hear the fentence of perdition!
F

Thou

1

Thou art forfaken by grace, and given over to thy own will; a dereliction equivalent to the actual curse of that Almighty God who made thee, and gave thee all the delights in which thy foul rejoices to revel. Paufe a moment, and liften to the voice of reafon and religion. If thou now refuseft, it is devoutly to be wished that God in his mercy may fend thee fome calamity. The terrors of the Lord will be inftances of his love. O that the preacher could roufe thee with the trump of the archangel, repeating that awful call, "Awake, thou that fleepeft, arife from the dead, and Chrift fhall give thee light."

And ye alfo, who are engaged in the bufiness of the world, who toil for gold with anxious folicitude, who deem yourselves happy when you have at laft accumulated fuperfluous opulence, which you can never enjoy, and for which even your heir shall not thank you, little do ye know the most valuable purposes of life, and how completely poor you are without the riches of grace. You devote your time to lucre, and hesitate not to travel to both the Indias, to enlarge the boundaries of your traffic; but what, in the mean time, becomes of your fpiritual life? Do you feek the proper methods of preferving yourselves

in

if

in a state of grace; and of being reftored to it you have loft it? You are ready to answer, You have not time for fuperftition; you leave fuch things to the idle, to monks and priefts, whose leisure they may amuse. You have no leisure. You are occupied in manly and important employments. We must not disturb you with notions which tend to interrupt the business of your husbandry, or of your merchandise.

But let us implore your attention for a moment. We will not interrupt you in your bufinefs. You fay, with eager looks, it is of the utmost importance. Be it fo. But we afk a few of those moments, in which you fteal from your daily employment, and break the chains of your engagements. Vouchfafe, in these intervals, to think of your real ftate. You will find that it is become truly deplorable through want of attention, like your field or your garden when neglected. A fpiritual death has feized upon you, and great exertions will be neceffary to the restoration of your life. You fay, you have no taste for devout duties. You have loft the habit of them. The very confeffion proves that you are infenfible to the influences of the Holy Ghoft. The natural man receiveth not the

things of the fpirit; for they are foolishness unto him*. Awake, awake, arise from thy deep fleep, now in this thy time, left the flumber of death fhould feal thine eyelids for ever. Awake to righteoufnefs and fin not, for thou haft not the knowledge of God; and remember that if our gofpel be bid, it is hid to them that are lost †.

Ye also who devote yourselves, without one wish for the favour of God, to the pursuits of ambition, happy to obtain a title, a ribband, an office of honour and confidence, by the unwearied attention of a life, beware, left, if you proceed in your irreligious course, you lose all chance of honours in the kingdom of Heaven. Though you enjoy the fmiles of a prince, and the acclamations of a people, yet if you feek not the favour of the King of kings, but grieve his Holy Spirit by neglect, you are already abafed to the loweft degree, in the midst of your grandeur; in the midst of life and all its pomps and vanity, you are in death. Shake off the palfy, which has almoft deprived you of your feeling, and feek for fuccour of the Lord.

Ye men of the world of whatever denomination, whether under the dominion of pleasure, avarice, or ambition, to you I call, in

1 Cor. ii. 14.

† 2 Cor. iv. 3.

the

the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghoft. Liften while you have the power to hear. You have not perhaps heard whether there be any Holy Ghost; or if you have heard, peradventure you have ridiculed the idea. You have every symptom of spiritual death. You have finned till you are paft feeling, and till your confciences are feared, as it were, with a hot iron. You are alive only to this tranfitory world. Dreadful is your fituation, whatever may be your worldly prosperity. You may have raised a fortune, ennobled a family, revelled in fenfual pleasure; you may even have acquired a skill in liberal profeffions, and you may have acquitted yourselves with credit in that world to which you have been devoted; but, after all, without grace, you are mistaken, and miserable! You have been pursuing shadows, phantoms, vifions, and have known nothing of the purposes for which you were fent into this tranfient ftate of probationary existence. What avails it, even if you have gained that world, which you have fought fo ardently, but which you can enjoy but for a moment, if you have loft, in the purfuit, your foul's immortality? Men of the world, though

COLL

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OXON

ANIM