your I beg leave of my promifcuous auditory to employ a few minutes in addressing myself to my important family, whom my paternal affection would always fingle out from the reft, even when I am speaking in general terms to a mixed crowd. Therefore, my dear charge, my pupils, my children, and every tender and endearing name! ye young immortals, ye embryo-angels or infant-fiends, ye blooming, lovely, fading flowers of human nature, the hope of parents and friends, of church and ftate, the hope, joy, and glory of your teachers! hear one that loves you; one that has nothing to do in the world but to promote your best interest; one that would account this the greatest bleffing he could enjoy in his pilgrimage, and whofe nights and days are fometimes made almoft equally reftlefs by his affectionate anxie ties for you; hear him upon a fubject in which you are most intimately interested; a fubject the most important that even an apoftle or an angel could address you upon; and that is, the right improvement of time, the present time, and preparation for eternity. It is neceffary that you in particular, you above all others, fhould know the time, that it is now high time for you to awake out of fleep. I make no doubt but you all look upon religion as an object worthy of your notice. You all as certainly believe there is a God, as that there is a creature, or that yourselves exist you all believe heaven and hell are not majeftic chimeras, or fairy lands, but the most important realities; and that you must in a little time be the refidents of the one or the other. : It cannot there fore be a queftion with any of you, whether you fhall mind religion at all! On that you are all determined. But the queftion is, what is the most proper time for it? whether the prefent, or fome uncertain hereafter? And in what order you should attend to it, whether in the first place, and above all, even in your early days? or whether you fhould not rather indulge yourfelves in the pleasures of youth for fome old age. time, and then make religion the dull business of If any of you hesitate upon this point, it may be easily folved. This is the moft convenient, promifing season for this purpose that you are likely to fee: never will you live more free from care, or more remote from temptation. When you launch out into the noife, and buftle, and hurry, and company, and business, and vice of the world, you will foon find the scene changed for the worse. He must be a tempter to himself, who can find a temptation, while immured under this roof, and immerfed in books. Never will you fee the time, in your natural ftate, when your fins will be fo conquerable, and your hearts fo tender, and fufceptive of good impreffions; though even now, if you know yourselves, you find your fins are invincibly ftrong to you, and your hearts impenetrably hard. Therefore now, my dear youth, now in this inviting feafon, awake out of fleep; awake to righteousness, and fin not. I beg you would not now commit fin with a design to repent of it afterwards; for can you be fo foolish, as knowingly and deliberately to do that which you explicitly intend to repent of? that is, to do that which you intend to with undone, and to lament with broken hearts that ever you did it. Can Bedlam itself parallel the folly of this? O take warning from the fate of your wretched predeceffors in this courfe. Could you afk the crowds of loft ghofts, who are now fuffering the punishment of their fin, whether they intended to perfift impenitent in it, and perifh? they would all answer, that they either vainly flattered themselves they had repented already, or intended to repent before they died; but death feized them unawares, and put an end to all their fanguine hopes. Young finners among them imagined they should not die till old age; and old age itself thought it might hold out a few days longer, and that it was time enough to repent. But, O! they have now difcovered their error, when it is too late to correct it. Therefore do not harbour one thought thought of putting off repentance to a fick bed, or to old age; that is the moft inconvenient and defperate feafon in your whole life; and if you fix upon this, one would think you had viewed your whole life on purpose to find out the most unfit and discouraging period of it for the moft neceffary, difficult and important work in the world. Come then, now devote yourselves to God, and away with all excufes and delays. Remember, that upon the principles I have laid down, principles that muft gain your affent by the force of their own evidence, I fay, remember, that upon these principles it is extremely likely you will always perfift impenitent in fin, and perifh for ever, if you if you wafte away the prefent feafon of youth, deftitute of vital religion. You may every day have lefs and lefs hope of yourselves: and can you bear the thought of perifhing for ever? Are your hearts fo foon arrived to fuch a pitch of hardiness, as to be proof against the terrors of the prospect? It cannot be? for who among us can dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings? Ifa. xxxiii. 14. As for fuch of you as have not the great work to begin, I have only this to fay, Be ftedfaft, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forafmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. I Cor. xv. 58. SERMON SERMON LX. ON THE DEATH OF HIS LATE MAJESTY, KING GEORGE II. * 2 SAM. i. 19.-How are the Mighty fallen! EORGE is no more! George, the mighty, the juft, the gentle, and the wife; George, the father of Britain and her Colonies, the guardian of laws and liberty, the protector of the oppreffed, the arbiter of Europe, the terror of tyrants and France; George, the friend of man, the benefactor of millions, is no more-millions tremble at the alarm. Britain expreffes her forrow in national groans. Europe reechoes to the melancholy found. The melancholy found circulates far and wide. This remote American continent fhares in the loyal fympathy. The wide intermediate Atlantic rolls the tide of grief to thefe diftant fhores; and even the reclufe fons of Naffau-Hall feel the immenfe bereavement, with all the fenfibility of a filial heart; and muft mourn with their country, with Britain, with Europe, with the world-George was our Father too. In his reign, a reign fo aufpicious to literature, and all the improvements of human nature, was this foundation laid; and the College of New-Jerfey received its exiftence. And though, like the fun, he fhone in a distant fphere, we felt, most sensibly felt, his benign influences cherishing Science and her votaries in this her new-built temple. In doing this humble honour to the memory of our late fovereign, we cannot incur the fufpicion of mer * Delivered in Naffau-Hall, Jan. 14, 1761. cenary cenary mourners paying homage to the rifing fun. But we indulge and give vent to the fpontaneous, difinterested forrows of fincere loyalty and gratitude, and drop our honeft tears over his facred duft, who can be our benefactor no more; too diftant, too obfcure and undeferving, to hope for the favourable notice of his illuftrious fucceffor. Let ambition put on the face of mourning, and all the parade of affected grief, within the reach of the royal eye; and make her court to a living prince, with all the ceremonial forms of lamentation for the deceased; but let our tears flow down unnoticed into our own bofoms. Let our grief, which is always fond of retirement, cherish and vent itself without oftentation, and free from the reftraint of the public eye. It will at least afford us the generous pleasure of reflecting, that we voluntarily difcharge our duty, unbribed and difinterefted; and it will give relief to our bursting hearts, impatient of the fuppreffion of our forrows. How is the mighty fallen!-fallen under the superior power of death!-Death the king of terrors, the conqueror of conquerors; whom riches cannot bribe, nor power refift; whom goodness cannot foften, nor dignity and loyalty deter, or awe to a reverential distance. Death intrudes into palaces as well as cottages; and arrefts the monarch as well as the flave. The robes of majesty and the rags of beggary are equal preludes to the fhroud and a throne is only a precipice, from whence to fall with greater noife and more extenfive ruin into the grave. Since death has climbed the British throne, and thence precipitated George the Mighty, who can hope to escape? If temperance, that beft prefervative of health and life; if extenfive utility to half the world; if the united prayers of nations; if the collected virtues of the Man and the King, could fecure an earthly immortality-never, O lamented George! never fhould thy fall have added fresh honours to the trophies of death. But fince this king of Britain is no more, let the inhabitants of VOL. III. YY courts |