of life slip out of your hands, hearken to the voice of your Redeemer; if, even in these your latter days, you would know the things that are for your peace; if, even now, you will hear his voice, and turn to him, he will yet receive you. His power is acknowledged, his mercies are offered to you, he weeps over you; and shall his tears, his cries, his invitations, be disregarded? Long has he wished to cure your blindness, while you have obstinately shut your eyes against his admirable light. Your pride, your attachment to the things of this world, your neglect of all the means he has provided for your present peace, and future everlasting happiness, will force him to forsake you, to deliver you up to a reprobate sense, and number you among his declared enemies. Full of pity for his frail creatures, he has again and again urged you to prefer the consolations of religion to the false satisfactions of the world: you have hesitated, perhaps, and half resolved to seek the things that were for your peace, to give up the satisfactions of the moment for joys that shall never end, when dissipation of thought, your habits of giddy levity have banished the inspirations of the Holy Ghost, when they were beginning to be felt, the love of God has been superseded by the love of some earthly object or pursuit, the fear of eter

nal misery has been kept under, if not banished, by calling in the joys of the present hour; and thus you have gone on to this moment, and are now perhaps either hesitating between the resolution of serving God without reserve, and the desire of continuing your former line of conduct; or else, for so it may be, you are palliating, by all the plausible pretexts which self-love can devise, some favourite practices or gratifications, which it would be painful to relinquish. Know, however, and be persuaded, that the Lord, who now knocks at the gate of your souls, and even supplicates admission, will at length be wearied out by your unrelenting obstinacy. Then shall his much injured mercy give place to long provoked justice; then shall the days of calamity and wo come upon you, your enemies will cast a trench about you, and compass you round, and straiten you on every side; your iniquities shall stand in array against you, the agonies of despair shall torture your soul, the sorrows of death shall weigh you down, and the terrors of hell oppress your guilty soul; because you have not known the time of your visitation.

The impious now laugh in unconcern, and treat the mercy of God as the defect of knowledge to observe, or defect of power to chas

tise their contumacy. But, O my dearest friends, whom I now address in the name of God, my children in Jesus Christ, let me intreat you, if you have hitherto forgotten the things that are for your peace, and neglected your salvation, to weigh well the importance of eternity and the vanity of this short life: to consider the folly and absurdity of indulging in the pleasures, or anxiously pursuing the interests of this fallacious world. Intreat the Lord that he pour his light upon you, that you may clearly see both the present and the future, that he will teach you to know the things that are for your true and everlasting peace, and give you his powerful grace to enjoy that peace, which the world cannot give, but which he has prepared from the beginning for those who love him and keep his commandments.

SERMON XLII.

TENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST.

ON THE PUNISHMENT AWAITING OBSTINACY IN SIN.

O God, be merciful to me a sinner! (Luke, xviii. 13.)

HAVING, in my discourse of last Sunday, endeavoured to convince you that, if there be no calamity on earth comparable to an impenitent and hardened heart, so the danger of experiencing this calamity is greatly to be apprehended, where the voice of God, inviting to repentance, is disregarded; that pride, an attachment to the things of this world, a love of vanity and sensual enjoyments, often lead imperceptibly to it. Having endeavoured to justify the ways of God towards men, in inflicting this severe chastisement upon the rebellious, I shall this day guard you against so great a misfortune, by representing to you some of the alarming consequences which follow this reprobation of the hardened

sinner. God is infinitely merciful, even in his justice; he never forsakes those who do not first forsake him; nor does he suffer the wretch whom he at last abandons, to be deserted by him, till he has tried, as it were, every expedient which love and compassion could suggest; till he has experienced, in return for his goodness, the utmost contempt and ingratitude. But heavy are the judgements, terrible is the vengeance of an omnipotent and offended Deity! and may we, my brethren, by a due consideration of the punishments attending hardened guilt, be deterred from pursuing the paths which lead to it, crowded as they are with deluded and blinded christians, who are running to their own destruction with fatal indifference, or obstinate madness!

Among the evils which wait upon obstinacy in sin, the first to be remarked is that deluge of earthly misfortunes, which the Almighty sometimes sends upon whole nations, and which our divine Lord foretold to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, as the punishment awaiting their unhappy city and nation, for their blindness and ingratitude. Long had he favoured them with his special protection, making them his chosen people, dictating to them a law, and providing them with a religious ceremonial, by which their worship was to be conducted and regulated. To