lation from Heaven. And, in the holy scriptures, we have many exhortations to self-examination. I shall only mention that of the apostle Paul, 2 Cor. xiii. 5. 'Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the * faith; prove your own felves: know ye not your * own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?' Nay, after all our pains to exainine ourselves, there ought to remain such a fufpicion of our own treachery, as should make us intreat, humbly and earnestly, 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 6 me in the way everlasting.' 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 said 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 difcourse 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 into crimes, they had taken too deep hold to be rooted up. Many make light of fin by comparison. How common is the pretence of the drunkards: We are harming nobody; we are not speaking ill of our neigh bours; we are not oppreffing the poor. In the mean time, they are foon led to curfing 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 appetite, bring their own offspring to beggary and ruin. Such is the behaviour of many of your harmless people; men of social friendly dispositions, 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 society. How short-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 present 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 consequence of the continued indulgence of fin. Let us never confider any fin by itself, 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 so willing to submit to that deluge of vice which follows fast at its heels. 4. In the last place, I shall clofe the subject, by addressing an exhortation to those of my hearers, who have been long and hardened sinners; who have many habits of vice cleaving to them; who have hitherto despised the gospel, and even fat in the feat of the scornful. No doubt, you have heard, in vain, and, perhaps, with contempt, many exhortations of this kind before; and, therefore, there is, humanly speaking, but little hope, that any thing I can fay will have the effect. However, as our blessed and gracious Master 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 proudest and the boldest of his enemies prostrate at his feet; let me beseech 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 instance of his kind providence, in the renewed messages of his blessed word, and in his dying agonies on the accursed tree? Have you been long wedded to fin? he is able to set you free; he came to destroy the works of the devil, and is able to knock off the strongest fetters, and restore liberty to the most forrowful captive. 'We, then, as work⚫ers together with him, beseech you also, that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.' Remember, on the other hand, I beseech you, the dreadful vengeance that awaits the despisers of the gospel. If you still refuse the gracious offer, if you will not fuffer his mercy to be glorified in your recovery, his holiness, power, and justice, shall be illustrated in your perdition. Time is hastening away; judgment is hastening on; no refusing to appear at that bar; no deceiving or biaffing that judge; no room to escape; no fource of confolation under that sentence. How insupportable the reflection on opportunity irrecoverably loft! And how terrible the sanction 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 counsel, and would none of my reproof: I alfo ' 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 whirl' wind; when distress and anguith cometh upon you, • Then shall they call upon me, but I will not ar 'swer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not ' find me: for that they hated knowledge, and did not chuse the fear of the Lord. They would none ' of my counsel; they despised all my reproof: there'fore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, ' and be filled with their own devices.' I only add, if any impression is made on your minds, of the importance of eternity, suffer 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. 'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no • work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in • the grave, whither thou goeft.' Amen. : Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy. IT T is of great moment to attend to the proper mixture of reverence and love which ought to possess our hearts in the worship of the living God. If they arise from proper principles, they will not deftroy or weaken, but strengthen one another. A believer can never lye too low in the dust before the most holy God; he can never be too sensible either of his distance as a creature, or his guilt and unworthiness as a finner: but, at the same time, he can never be too deeply penetrated with a sense 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 shewn to us in the gospel: and the more joyfully we contem |