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of eternity, and, especially, concerning the everlasting state of wicked men. Hear then the righteous and fearful decrce that fhall be paffed upon the guilty at the laft judgment

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depart ye curfed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.' thefe fhall go away into everlafting punishment. And the fmoke of their torment afcendeth forever and ever. The mot dreadful idea in the torments of hell is, that they fhall be forever and ever. The furnace of the wrath of God burns with unquenchable fire. When the guilty foul furveys the horrors of her defliny, then cafts her view forward into futurity as far as her thoughts can reach, but can find no period, no mitigation of her painswhat despair muft overwhelm her!--Dreadful is the prefent! but oh!-the future is hopeless!

Such is the unhappy termination of a life of pleasure and felf indulgence, which the history of this rich man prefents to us. It paints, in the most affecting colours, the infatuation of those who facrifice the immortal interefts of the foul for the falfe and fugitive enjoyments of fenfe. This flory conveys a lellon the more inructive, becaufe it

is that of a man who, as far as appears to us, was not profligate, cruel, or unjuft. His fupreme object seems to have been to enjoy himfelf. Vain, perhaps, and oftentatious, he lived in fplendor and in pleafure. But, in the indulgence of pleafure he feems to have been forgetful of his duties to heaven, rather than impious--inattentive to the offices of charity, which the neceflitics of Lazarus demanded, rather than inhuman-incapable of the felf-government and felf-denials that religion requires, rather than indecent in his morals. Yet, at laft, you fee him make his bed in hell. From the flattering arms of unfufpected joys, he defcends to the cruc embrace of everlafting flames. Confider and lay to heart, ye who are lovers of pleafure more than lovers of God, this awful example of the holinefs and juftice of the Supreme Judge-ye who flatter yourselves that you are innocent as long as you are not profligate who imagine that, if you preferve your manners within certain boundaries permitted by fafhion, and do not openly offend against the fentiments of mankind, you will not be queflioned for the graces of the gofpel. Ah! look on this miferable fon of perdition and correct errors fo fatal.

It is poffible to preserve a fair and decent exterior, to be approved and even admired by the world, and yet be found wanting in the balances of divine juftice.

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Above all, let those who refufe to liften to admonition er advice in their career of pleafure-who feldom are calm and impartial enough to reafon fairly on the nicious tendency, and fatal termination of their courfe-who have not fentiment enough to be moved by any representation of the charms of virtue, nor grace fufficient to underftand the beauties of holiness, attend to the object presented to them in this parable. It addreffes our fenfes and our fears the only remaining principles by which we can reach the heart when reason is overborne and the fentiments of piety are extinguished in the riot of the paffions. For this purpose I have endeavoured to raife up to your view an unhappy fpirit from those difmal abodes, that the image of another's mifery may bring you, if poffible, to timely reflection. You behold in him a preacher who speaks to you from the place of fufferings. You who afk with affected indifference, or with impious levi

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what paffes in that invifible world, learn it from one who fhews you what he is, and tells you what he fuffers.-He befought Abraham that Lazarus might be fent to admonish his incredulous brethren of their danger-Miferable foul! that office he performs himself to you. And he raises his voice amongst us to day to warn you left you alfo come to that place of torment. Eternal author of truth! add to this awful admonition, the effectual perfuafion of thy Holy Spirit!

AMEN!

DISCOURSE V.

THE PENITENT WOMAN AT THE FEET

OF JESUS.

LUKE VII. 37, 38.

And behold a woman in the city, who was a finner, when he knew that Jefus fat at meat in the Pharifee's houfe, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and flood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with her tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kiffed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.

COURTEZAN of Jerufalem appears in this history as an humble penitent at the feet of Jefus. In the purfuits of pleasure her paffions had overborne that exquifite delicacy of fentiment, and that timid and retiring modely which, as it is

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