jealoufy makes me tremble, and shrink back from the profpect."

This may be the case of many an honest foul. But can this be pleaded as a reafon or excufe for fecurity? Alas! can you fleep in fuch a dreadful fufpenfe? fleep, while you are uncertain what fhall become of you through an endless duration? If you have not the fure profpect of falvation to awaken you, methinks the fear of damnation muft effectually do it ; for it is certain, one or the other is near you: therefore endeavour, by fevere felf-examination, to push the matter to fome certain iffue. Refolve that will not spend another day, much lefs another year, in a state of fuch dangerous, alarming uncertainty. If this point is not yet determined, it is certainly high time for you to awake out of fleep.

you

Confider farther how far your religious improvements have come fhort of your own refolutions and expectations, as well as your obligations. Ye happy fouls, who now enjoy a good hope through grace, recollect the time when you were in a very different and more melancholy condition; the time when your fpirits bled with a thousand wounds; when the terrors of the Lord fet themselves in array against you, and the thunders of Sinai rung the moft alarming peals in your aftonishing ears; when the arrows of God ftuck faft in you, and the poison of them drank up your spirits; when guilt lay heavy upon your confciences, and funk you down into the depth of defpondency; when you were haunted with alarming apprehenfions of divine vengeance night and day; when you went about crying for a Saviour" O! for a Saviour!"—but your cries feemed to be in vain; O! what were then your vows and refolutions, if it fhould pleafe God to deliver you! Did you then expect you would fall asleep fo foon after your deliverance? Recollect also the happy hour, when the face of a reconciled God firft fmiled upon you, when Jefus appeared to your minds in all the attractive glo

ries of a Saviour, an all-fufficient Saviour in a defperate cafe; when he delivered your foul from death, your feet from falling, and your eyes from tears; when he infpired your defponding hearts with hope, and revived you with the heavenly cordials of his love; O! what then were your thoughts and refolutions? How ftrongly were you bent to make him returns of gratitude! how firmly did you bind yourselves to be his fervants for ever! But how foon, alas! did you begin to flumber! How far fhort have you fallen of your vows and promifes! Recollect alfo what were your expectations at that memorable time. O! would you then have believed it, that in the space of 10 or 20 years you would have made fuch fmall progrefs in your heavenly courfe, as you have in fact done? Had you not better hopes! But, alas! how are you disappointed! what forry fervants have you been to fo good a mafter, in comparison of what you expected! And can you bear the thought of flumbering on still? O! fhall this year pass by like the former? Sure you cannot bear the thought. Therefore awake out of fleep; rife and work for your God.

Let me conclude my addrefs to you, with this advice Begin this new year by dedicating yourselves afresh to God, and folemnly renewing your covenant with him. Take fome hour of retirement, this evening, or as foon as you can redeem time. Call yourfelves to account for the year paft, and all your life. Recollect your various infirmities, mourn over them, and refolve, in the ftrength of divine grace, you will guard against them for the time to come. Examine yourselves both as to the reality of your religion, and as to your proficiency in it. Conclude the whole by cafting yourselves anew upon Jefus Chrift, and devoting yourselves for this new year entirely to him; refolved to live more to him than you have hitherto done, and depending upon him to conduct you fafe through whatever this year may bring forth, whether profperity or adverfity, whether life or death. This VOL. III. X x

is

is the true and only means whereby we can attain that happiness we ought all to be in pursuit of: that pleafure which will never end.

Let me now addrefs a few confiderations to impenitent finners, peculiarly adapted to them.

Confider what a dreadful rifk you run by neglecting the prefent time. The longer you indulge yourfelves in fin, the harder it will be to break off from it; and do you not then run the risk of cementing an eternal union with that deadly evil? The longer you cherish a wicked temper, the ftronger the habits of fin will grow. And are you not in danger of becoming eternal flaves to it! The longer you continue impenitent, the harder your hearts will grow; the oftener you do violence to your confciences, the more infenfible they will become. And are you not taking direct ways to confirm yourselves in impenetrable hardness of heart, and contracting a reprobate mind? The more you fin against God, and grieve his Spirit, the more you provoke him to withhold the influences of his grace, and in righteous judgment to give you up. And dare you to run fo dreadful a rifk as this? The more time you wafte, the greater is your work, and the less your time to perform it. By how much the longer you wafte your time, by fo much the fhorter you make your day of grace. Alas! the day of your vifitation may be drawing faft towards evening, when the things that belong to your peace will be eternally hid from your eyes. Is it not then high time for you to awake out of fleep? Will you rather run fuch a dreadful risk than rouse your ftupid fecurity? O! what will be the

end of fuch a course!

Let me deal plainly and without reserve with you, on a point too dangerous to allow of flattery. If you do not now awake, and turn your attention to the concerns of your fouls, it is but too probable you will ftill go on in carnal fecurity, and at last perifh for ever. Bleffed be God, this is not certain, and there

fore

fore you have no reason to defpair; but it is really too probable, and therefore you have great reafon to fear. This alarming probability, methinks, muft force its evidence upon your own minds, upon principles you cannot reasonably difpute. You have lived twenty, thirty, or forty years, or more, in the world. In this time you have enjoyed the fame means of grace which you can expect in time to come. You had done lefs to provoke the great God to caft you off: your finful habits were not fo ftrong, nor your hearts fo much hardened through the deceitfulness of fin; you were not fo much inured to the gospel, nor were your confciences fo ftunned by repeated violences, as you may expect in time to come: and the longer you live in this condition, the more and more difcouraging it will grow. I will by no means limit a fovereign God in the exercife of his free grace. But this is evident, that in human view, and according to appearances, it was much more likely you would have been converted in time paft, than that you will be converted in time to come. The moft hopeful part of life is over with you: and yet even in that, you were not brought to repentance. How much lefs likely is it then, that you will be converted in time

to come?

Suffer me to tell you plainly (for it is benevolence that makes the declaration) that I cannot but tremble for fome of you. I am really afraid fome of you will perish for ever;-and the ground of my fear is this: The moft generous charity cannot but conclude, that fome of you are impenitent finners; your temper and conduct proclaim it aloud: and it is very unlikely, all things confidered, that you will be ever otherwise. Since you have not repented in the most promising season of life, it is much to be feared you will not repent in the less promifing part of it. And fince no impenitent unholy finner can enter into the kingdom of heaven, it is much to be feared you will perish for ever; not because the mercy of God,

or

or the merit of Chrift, is infufficient to fave you, if you should apply to him for it according to the terms of the gofpel; not because your cafe is in itfelf hopeless, if you would awake out of fleep, and feek the Lord in earneft: nor because you have not fufficient encouragement for laborious endeavours; but because it is too likely you will go on careless and fecure, as you have done, and perfift in it, till all your time is gone, and then your cafe will be def perate. I honestly warn you of your danger, which is too great to be concealed. And yet I give you fufficient encouragement to fly from it, while I affure you, that if you now lay your condition to heart. and earnestly ufe all proper means for your converfion, you have the utmost reafon to hope for fuccefs: as much reafon as the faints now in heaven once had, when in your condition; and in your condition they once were.

Therefore, now, finners, awake out of fleep. Inftead of entering upon this new year with caroufals and extravagancies, confecrate it to the great purpose for which it is given you, by engaging in earneft in the great work of your falvation. What meanest thou, O fleeper? Arife, call upon thy God, if fo be he will think upon thee, that thou perish not. Jonah i. 6. Awake, thou that sleepest, and arife from the dead, that Christ may give thee light. Eph. v. 14.

Confider, this year may lay you low in the duft of death. How many are now in the grave, who faw the laft new-year's day! And though I cannot point out the perfons, yet, without a fpirit of prophecy, I may venture to foretel, that fome of us will be in heaven or hell before this year performs its round; fome grey head, or fome fprightly youth; perhaps you, or perhaps I. And fince none of us know who it fhall be, none of us are exempted from the neceffity of immediate preparation. O! that we may all be fo wife, as to confider our latter end!