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terms; it encourages vice, makes majesty cheap, and finners infolent and outrageous.

True repentance is a deteftation of our fins, as offences towards God, and a firm resolution to fin no more. By this we undo (as much as in us lies) what we have done; we heartily condemn our paft conduct, and refolve, with the hazard of our lives, to walk within the compafs of God's commandments, to balk appetite, and to force all our diforderly paffions to their duty.

No natural motive is fufficient to procure a pardon. To deteft your fins, because they have preyed upon your eftate, and lodged you in a goal, is not to deplore the fault, but poverty and confinement: it reaches the injury you have done your self, not the outrage you have done your Creator. Such peninents are common in Newgate and the King'sBench; but their regret will not retrieve their temporal misfortunes, much less their eternal. It must foar higher, to plead for mercy at God's tribunal. His greatness they have offended, and he must be the motive of their repentance and for want of this, how many live penitents, yet die in the end reprobates?

I once met with a gentleman, who laid open all his paft debaucheries with fuch a transport of forrow and difguft, that I thought myself in the company of the penitent pfalmift: he run out into fuch lengths of forrow and distaste, that I fuppofed his fighs had stormed heaven, and obtained pardon. The very thought of his past life threw him into convulfions, and he made a thousand refolutions rather to die than to ftrike upon those rocks that had sunk his innocence. But after all, his misfortunes were the object of his forrow, not his fins: a mifs had run away with his eftate, and left him nothing for his kindness, but poverty, diseases, and a dungeon : he faw himself without money, without friends, picied

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by few, and lampoon'd by a hundred; coop'd up in prifon without hope of enlargement; and thefe unhappy circumstances wrung from him tears of forrow, but not of true repentance. He felt indeed all the pain of it, but not the confolation; for, in a word, it was merely natural, a rage rather than a grief, to see himself stripp'd of an opulent fortune by a deceitful Dalilah, fhut up in a prifon, and abandoned by his friends and relations. True repentance must spring from a hatred of fin, as oppofite to the fanctity of God, to whofe power we owe our being.

Nor will a fupernatural deteftation fuffice, unless it includes a refolution not to fin mortally for the future; whence it follows, that the penitent must fly all thofe occafions that are called Immediate occafions; without this, your repentance is vain, infignificant; in fine, grimace and pure impofture. For who can loath the effect and love the caufe? feek the occafions, that in all probability will plunge him into fin, and at the fame time refolve not to fall? You may as seriously resolve to burn in a frozen lake, or to freeze in a glowing furnace. He that loves the caufe must also love the effect.

You live in a criminal commerce; your conscience flies at length in your face; a thousand vipers prey upon your heart; as many furies rife from hell to torment you, as you have thoughts in the day or dreams in the night. Oh! you will never again purchase a petty pleasure at fuch an exorbitant price: in the mean time, like filly flies, you hover about the flame that confumes you; you affect the company that rifles your innocence. One fin treads upon the heels of another; refolutions are made, and as often broken. You haunt the creature that is the cause and companion of your fin, and confequently can no more resolve seriously not to fall, than a man, that leaps down a precipice, can propofe not to break

his neck; Who handleth pitch, fays the wifeman, will be defiled.

You must separate from the perfon; nothing but abfence can remove the danger, and cure the frenzy: but this is hard! it may be fo: however, an eternal feparation from God will fit more uneafy upon you, than a removal from a wretched creature, that fafcinates you here, to damn you hereafter. Our Saviour commands us to pluck out our eyes, and cut off our hands and feet, if they endanger our falva – tion; and affures us, it is much more advantageous for us to fly up to heaven blind and lame, than to fall into hell with all our limbs. Altho' this be not to be understood in a literal fenfe, yet the energy of the expreffion informs us, that we muft withdraw from all thofe converfations; wean our affections from thofe objects that confpire our ruin; and even difband from ourselves, nay, and expofe the body to torture and death, to fave our foul for the advantage overtops the difficulty, and the reward rifes higher than the labour; for by it God receives us into his favour, and changes our condemnation to hell into a claim to heaven. What man in his wits will buy a proftitute's love, at the expence of thefe glorious prerogatives? yet alas! all our men of parts, of merit, our virtuofo's, and topping mortals, are guilty of this stupidity, because they fleep in fin, and will not cut off the occafion.

When we are truly forry, we must compleat our repentance, by bringing forth fruits worthy of repentance. Thofe, who have pampered their bodies, and bought a brutish pleasure of fenfe at the price of God's difpleafure, muft punifh its rebellion with abstinence, and diet it into fubjection and obedience; they muft guard their fenfes, and bar them not only criminal fatisfactions, but even lawful; and when this is done, we fhall not only fee our Redeemer, but feel the benefit of his favours; he will lodge

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in our foul, together with a train of heavenly gifts. He will come and make his abode with us, John xiv. 23. and leave a pleasure, that they alone can exprefs, who feel it; a pleasure without pain, without remorfe; that never cloys, and never is followed by regret.

O God! give me such a supply of fupply of grace that I may never fall, or at leaft that I may quickly rife by a fincere repentance. I renounce perpetually all thofe converfations, that have decoyed me into fin, and may diffuade me from repentance: I defpife their friendship, and pity their malice, and facrifice all temporal concerns to my duty. If I can purchase thy friendship, O God! I contemn all the careffes or hatred of men; neither the one can make me hapPy, nor the other miferable.

EPISTLE to Titus, Chap. ii. Verfe

11. For the grace of God, that bringeth falvation, hath appeared to all men;

12. Teaching us, that denying ungodliness and worldly lufts, we should live foberly, righteously, and godlily in this prefent world:

13. Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jefus Christ.

14. Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

15. These things fpeak and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man defpife thee.

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The MORAL REFLECTION.

AINT Paul in this Epiftle inftructs his disciple Titus in the most important points of his office. He prescribes the fubjects of his inftructions, and commands him to press them home with force and emphasis: nay, and if exhortation alone is unable to perfuade his flock to practise the doctrine, he bids him enforce his words with the power of his epifcopal authority. These things fpeak and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Apply fweetness first; and if that proves ineffectual, have recourse to severity and reproof.

But what are those points he recommends with fuch earnestness? The grace of God, that bringeth falvation, bath appeared to all men, teaching us, &c. Our Redeemer is come; he has laid down his life as a ransom for the fins, not only of the Jews, but of the Gentiles alfo. All thofe, who are involved in Adam's guilt, have a part in Chrift's redemption. The grace of the Saviour reaches as far as the fin of the offender. This mystery is the bafis of the new law; it is the motive of our hope, as well as the object of our belief; and both are neceffary to falvation. With reafon therefore the apostle orders his disciple to dwell upon this fundamental, and to imprint it in the minds of his converts, as the first step to happiness. But this belief alone will not feat us in heaven; we must join an exact obfervance of his law, and animate our faith with a constant practice of virtue. For the apoftle affures us, Chrift appeared to men invefted with the quality of inftructor, as well as that of Redeemer, teaching us: i. e. he opened to men heaven-gate by his paffion, and mark'd the way by his precepts, of which fome are negative: 1. That denying ungodliness and worldly lufts. These obftruct our paffage. 2. Others pofi

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