that spends it faster than the poor wretch got it? He goes on and says, If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial. I say, that an untimely birth is better than he, for he cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness. Moreover, he hath not seen the sun, nor known any thing; this hath more rest than the other. And then though this creature should be supposed to live a thousand years twice told, why, saith he, yet hath he seen no good, he has never been possessed of real good to make him happy here or hereafter, for, adds he, do not all go, both the abortive and the aged, young and old, high and low, rich and poor, whether blessed with children, or have no children, whether like Lazarus, that beg their bread, or Dives, cloathed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day, Do not all go to one place?

An important question! shall I propose it to you to-night? Do you know what the wise man means when he offers this question to your consideration, Do not all go to one place? What can be the design of this? the thing, no doubt here spoken of is death, the place here spoken of, no doubt, is the grave. An amazing consideration! part of the first sentence that the great and holy God ever denounced against fallen man, to one and all, Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return. On account of our first parents' transgression, it is ap pointed unto all men, all sorts of men, all the inhabitants under heaven, once to die; and therefore the apostle saith, Death hath passed upon all men, even upon those who have not sinned after the

similitude of the transgression of Adam, that is, who have not been guilty of actual sin. Can there be a stronger proof of the imputation of Adam's guilt, of original sin, or a more cutting trial that a tender father and nursing mother can undergo, than to see a dear little child just born, or but lent to the loving parents for a few months, taken away often in the greatest agonies that we can conceive and if God, my dear hearers, has ever suffered your dear children suddenly to be seized with convulsions, and continue in anguish and agonizing pains for many days together, you have had sufficient proof of it. A friend of mine in London, about thirty-two years ago, that was doatingly fond of every child he had, to whom I wrote a letter from Georgia, beginning with these words, Is your Idol dead yet? for I thought it was such an idol that would soon go. The account he gave me the first time I saw him was, that the day before my letter was received, the child died in such agony and torture, that its excrements came out of its mouth, which made the fond and too indufgent parent wish to have rather died a thousand deaths himself, than that his child should die in such a way; and added, I was obliged to go to God, and desire him to take my darling away. What an awful proof are their sufferings, that children come into the world with a corruption that renders them liable to God's wrath and damnation, but the blood, the precious blood of Jesus Christ, it is to be hoped cleanses them from the guilt and filth of sin. So any of you that have got children dead in infancy, O may you improve what I shall say by and by from the text, and pray endeavour to go to that place, where I hope you will see your children making a blessed constella

tion in the firmament of heaven: in this respect all go to the same place, some at the beginning of life, some at the middle, and some at the decline; and happy, happy they who go to bed soonest, if their souls are saved!

But, my dear hearers, in another case we may venture to contradict even Solomon; for if we consider the words of our text in another view, all do not go to one place; it is true, all are buried in the grave either of earth or water, but then after death comes judgment; death gives the decisive, the separating blow. Suppose then in our enlarging on the text we should confine the word to all the unregenerate, and to those who are not born of God, these indeed, die when they will, all go to one place. If you should ask me, for I love dearly to have an inquisitive auditory, who I mean by unregenerate? who I mean by those that are not born of God? I answer, I do not mean all that only bear the name of Jesus Christ; I mention this, because a great many people think that all that are baptized, either when they are adult or when they are young, whether sprinkled or put under water, I believe a great many people think that all these go to. heaven. I remember when I began to speak against baptismal regeneration in my first sermon, printed when I was about twenty-two years old, or a little more ; the first quarrel many had with me was, because I did not say that all people who were baptized, were born again; I would as soon believe the doctrine of transubstantiation. Can I believe that a person who gives no evidence of being a saint, from the time of his baptism to the time perhaps of his death, that never fights against the world, the flesh, and the devil, and never minds

one word of what his god-fathers and god-mothers promised for him, can I believe that person is a real christian! no, I can as soon believe, that a little wafer in the priests hand, about a quarter of an inch long, is the very blood and bones of Jesus Christ, who was hung upon the cross without the gates of Jerusalem. I do believe baptism to be an ordinance of Christ, but at the same time, no candid person can be angry for my asserting, that there are numbers that have been baptized when grown up, or when very young, that are not regenerated by God's Spirit, who will all go to one place, and that place is where there will be no water to quench that dreadful fire that will parch them with thirst. I am speaking out of a book which contains the lively oracles of God, and in the name of one who is truth itself, who knowing very well what he spoke, is pleased in the most solemn and awful manner to say, and that to a master in Israel, that if a man be not born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God; he can have no idea, no proper no adequate notion of it, much less is he to expect to be happy eternally with God hereafter; and therefore as our Lord spoke to this man, give me leave to observe to you. I don't mean the Deists only by unregenerate sinners; I don't mean the profane mocker who is advanced to the scorner's chair, nor your open profligate, adulterers, fornicators, abusers of themselves with mankind, these have damnation as it were written upon their foreheads with a sun beam; and they may know that God is not mocked, for if they die without repenting of these things they show they are in an unregenerate state and will go to one place: if any of you are going thither, may God stop you

this night. But, my brethren I will come closer; there are more unbelievers within the pale than without the pale of the church; let me repeat it again, you may think of it when I am tossing upon the mighty waters, there are more unbelievers within the pale of the church than without; all are not possessors that are professors, all have not got the thing promised, all are not partakers of the promise, that talk and bless God they have got the promised Saviour; I may have him in my mouth and upon my tougue, without having the thing promised, or the blessed promise in my heart. A moral man that can walk touching the law blameless, a person that thinks he is righteous, because he does not know why a person who has got no other religion than to go to a particular place of worship values himself upon being a churchman or a Dissenter; he is such a bigot that he thinks no man will go to heaven but himself ; these, however they may think themselves safe, will e'er long go to one place, whether they think so or no; they will be soon summoned to one bar, and the voice of the archangel sounding Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment, will be the great alarm; the dead shall arise and appear before the Son of God as Judge of all mankind; these, as well as the infidels would gladly be excused; and as they once said, I pray to have me excused from coming to Christ, so they will fain be excused from appearing before and being condemned by him, but they must all go to one place: and as they know not God, and are unacquainted with the divine life, they must hear and suffer the dreadful sentence, Depart ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. This is a thought, that if our hearts my dear hear

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