dreadful refutation of your errors-the croud of victims to your delufions that you will meet there, while they demontirate your guilt with a fearful evidence, will add augmented horrors to your condemnation!

To our abused mercies let us add the more common but ineftimable bleling of the ordinances and inftructions of the goipel -The lights and the motives which they add to duty greatly aggravate the guilt of those finners who violate or who despise them. Hard muft be the he art which refits the counfels of divine wifdom, and the invitations of divine mercy propofed in the gofpel. And the truth is, that thofe who have broken through the retraints, and eradicated the principles of a pious education ufually become diftinguished in vice.— They are quoted by finners to the reproach of religion, as they often become the reproach of human nature.——A finner enjoying the light of the gofpel, fins against the ftrong conviction of his own mindagainst the authority of the divine law moft clearly interpreted in the church-against the high and interefting profpects of eternity continually prefented to his mind in the in

ftitutions of religion-and against the majefty and juftice of God armed to enforce his law, and to punish its violation. But, that which chiefly enhances his guilt, is the abufe of the divine mercy fo illuftriously difplayed to the world in the cross of Chrift, and the profanation of his most precious blood. Defpifed mercy is often more fearful in its effects than infulted juftice. When the prefumption of impiety rejects the bleffd victim of the crofs, is it not boldly to invoke upon its own head thofe dreadful flames that have confumed in our room the Lamb of God?

III. Infenfibility under fignal judgments of divine providence, or a spirit of revolt under its ftrokes, and corrections, adds to finning a character of high presumption.

Judgment, as well as mercy is intended for the reformation, and the cultivation of mankind. Frequently, when the goodness of God has ceafed to make its proper impreffion upon a hard and impenitent heart, the ftrokes of his juftice have at length brought it to reflection. It is flated by the holy-fpirit, as a character of incorrigible and

hopeless impenitence in the nation of Ifrael, that the divine chastisements were no longer able to reclaim them.

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Why, faith he, fhould you be ftricken any more? Ye will revolt more and more. The whole head is fick, the whole heart is faint." What fhall we fay, then, of those who can deliberately return from following their fellow finners to the duft, whither they fhall themfelves be foon conveyed, to all their cuftomary follies, and habitual vices? What shall we fay of those who have their hearts torn by the most painful bereavments, and their hopes blasted, or their fortunes broken by a frowning providence, who never feriously confider the hand that fmites them, that they may break off their fins by repentance, nor lay to heart the vanity of the world that they may return to God as their exceeding joy? What fhall we fay of those who, finking under diseases induced by their own intemperance and profligacy, inftead of being led to repentance by their fufferings, are ftill, with their remaining ftrength, purfuing the fame crimes? What of thofe who, raging under their impotence to enjoy their licentious pleafures, or writhing under the pains which thofe pleasures have planted in

345 a ruined conftitution, murmur at the will of Heaven, rebel against the ftroke, or even blafpheme their Creator as the author of their miseries? Is not that a hard heart on which the judgments of God make no pious impreffion? Is not that a bold and criminal fpirit that revolts against the corrections of a righteous and holy providence, and that will even go from fuffering under the stroke to a repetition of the crime? When the finner arrives to despise the fear of God, he feems to be forfaken of the last principle by which he might poffibly be led back to his duty.

IV. Another step in the progrefs of vice is feen in the want of shame, and contempt of public opinion.

The common interefts, and therefore the common fentiments of mankind will ever be connected with the great principles of virtue and good morals. Thefe fentiments furnish the most powerful motives to order, decency, and propriety of conduct, and form, perhaps, the ftrongeft, as well as the moft delicate ties that connect fociety together. Laws may be called its chainsW w

principles and opinions are its filken cords. Each fingly may poffefs fmall force-but, infinitely multiplied and interwoven, they become stronger than chains. Nature hath fubjected us to the fentiments of one another; and every modeft and ingenuous mind will profoundly respect the opinion of the public. Sinners, who are not yet abandoned, study to conceal their crimes. from public view, and to find for them the protection of obfcurity and retirement. Therefore are they called the works of darknefs, not only because they lead down to the blackness of darknefs forever, but because they feek for themselves the deepest shades to cover them from the eye of the world. In the clouds of night riot and debauchery endeavour to hide their enormities—then theft and robbery come forth from their lurking places-malice and envy fhoot their arrows in the dark-there luft fpreads a veil over its fhameful and impure mysteries. "In the twilight, faith Solomon, in the evening, in the black of dark night," the bait is laid by loofe pleasure for the unwary youth-" He goeth after her straight way, as the ox goeth to the flaughter, or, as a fool to the correction of the ftocks,