For what, I pray, is more proper to excite alarm and terror in the soul, negligent of conversion, than the single point to which we called your attention, the study of man? What is more proper to confound such a man, than to tell him, as we then did : your brain will weaken with age; your mind will be filled with notions foreign to religion; it will lose, with years, the power of conversing with any but sensible objects: and of commencing the investigation of religious truths? What is more proper to save such a man from his prejudices, than to remind him, that the way, and the only way of acquiring a habit is practice; that virtue cannot be formed in the heart by a single wish, by a rash and hasty resolution, but by repeated and persevering efforts; that the habit of a vice strengthens itself in proportion as we indulge the crime? What, in short, is more proper to induce us to improve the time of health for salvation, than to lay before him the portrait we have drawn of a dying man, stretched on a bed of affliction, labouring with sickness, troubled with phantoms, and reveries, flattered by his friends, terrified with death, and consequently incapable of executing the work he has deferred to this tragic period? I again repeat, my brethren, if you were attentive to the discourse we delivered, if the desire of salvation drew you to these assemblies, there is not one among you, but reflections of this kind would make him look within, and constrain him without delay to attempt a reform in his mode of life.

But it may appear to some, that we narrow the way to heaven; that the doctrines of faith being above the doctrines of philosophy, we must sup press the light of reason, and take solely for our guide in the paths of piety, the lamp of revelation. We will endeavour to afford them satisfaction: we will shew that religion, very far from weakening, strengthens the reflections which reason has sug, gested. We will prove, that we have said nothing

but what ought to alarm those who delay conversion, and who found the notion they have formed of the divine mercy, not on the nature of God, but on the depraved propensity of their heart, and on the impure system of their lusts. These are the heads of this discourse.

You will tell us, brethren, entering on this discourse, that we are little afraid of the difficulties of which perhaps it is susceptible; we hope that the truth, notwithstanding our weakness, will appear in all its lustre. But other thoughts strike our mind, and they must for a moment arrest our course. We fear the difficulty of your hearts: we fear more: we fear that this discourse, which shall disclose, the treasures of grace, will aggravate the condemnation of those who turn it into wantonness: we fear that this discourse, by the abuse to which many may expose it, will serve merely as a proof of the truths already established. O God! avert this dreadful prediction, and may the cords of love, which thou so evidently employest, draw and captivate our hearts. Amen.

I. The Holy Scriptures to-day are the source from which we draw our arguments to attack the delay of conversion. Had we no design but to cite what is positively said on this subject, our meditation would require no great efforts. We should have but to transcribe a mass of infallible decisions, of repeated warnings, of terrific examples, of appaling menaces, with which they abound, and which they address to all those who daringly delay conversion. We should have to repeat this caution of the prophet, To-day if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts. Psa. xcv. 7. A caution he has sanctified by his own example, I made haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandments. Psa. cxix. 60. We should have only to address to you this reflection, made by the author of the second book of Chronicles; The Lord God of their fathers sent to them by

his messengers, because he had compassion on his people; but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people till there was no remedy. Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees who slew the young men with the sword. And had no compassion upon young men or maidens, old men or him that stooped for age. They burned the house of God and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all the palaces thereof with fire. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 15, &c. We should only have to propose the declaration of Eternal Wisdom, Because I called and ye refused, I will laugh at your calamity and mock when your fear cometh. Prov. i. 26. We should have to represent the affecting scene of Jesus Christ weeping over Jerusalem, and saying, O that thou hadst known, at least in this thy day the things that belong to thy peace; but now they are hid from thine eyes. Luke xix. 41. We should

have but to say to each of you, as St. Paul to the Romans: Despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance and long suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasur→ est up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgments of God; Rom. ii. 4, &c. And elsewhere that God sends strong delusion on those who believe not the truth, to believe a lie. 2 Thess. ii. 8. We should have but to resound in this assembly, those awful words in the Epistle to the Hebrews: If we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a cerLain fearful looking for of judgment, and the fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. Heb. 3. 26. For if the mercy of God is without bounds, if it is ready to receive the sinner the moment he is induced by the fear of punishment to prostrate him. self before him, why is the present day marked as

the precise period to hear his voice? Why this haste! Why are resources and remedies exhausted? Why this strong delusion? Why this refusal to hear the tardy penitent? Why this end of the days of Jerusalem's visitation? Why these treasures of wrath? Why this defect of sacrifice for sin? All these passages, my brethren, are as so many senten. ces against our delays, against the contradictory no. tions we fondly form of the divine mercy and of which we foolishly avail ourselves in order to sleep in our sins.

All these things being hereby evident and clear; they require no farther explication. Let us proceed with our discourse. When we employed our philosophical arguments against the delay of conver sion; when we proved from the force of habits, that it is difficult, not to say impossible, for a man aged in crimes, to be converted at the hour of death; it appeared to you, that we shook two doctrines which are fundamental pillars of faith.

The first is the supernatural aids of the Holy Spi rit, promised in the New Covenant; aids which bend the most rebellious wills, aids which can surmount in a moment all the difficulties which the force of habit can oppose to conversion.

The second doctrine, is that of mercy, access to which being opened by the blood of Christ, there is no period it seems but we may be admitted when. ever we come, though at the close of life. Here is, in substance, if I mistake not, all that religion and the scriptures seem to oppose to what has been advanced in our first discourse. If we make it there. fore evident, that these two doctrines do not oppose our principles; if we prove, that they contain no thing directly repugnant to the conclusions we have drawn, shall we not thereby demonstrate, that the Scriptures contain nothing but what should alarm those who trust to a tardy repentance. This we undertake to develope. The subject is not without difficulty; we have to steer between two rocks

equally dangerous: for if, on the one hand, we should supersede those doctrines, we abjure the faith of our fathers, and draw upon ourselves the charge of heterodoxy. On the other hand, if we should stretch those doctrines beyond a certain point, we furnish a plea for licentiousness; we sap what we have built, and refute ourselves. Both these rocks we must cautiously avoid.

The first proofs of which people avail themselves, to excuse their negligence and delay, and the first arguments of defence, which they draw from the Scriptures, in order to oppose us, are taken from the aids of the Spirit, promised in the new covenant. Why those alarming sermons? say they. "Why those awful addresses to the man, who merely defers his conversion? Why confound, in this way, religious with natural habits?" The latter are formed, I grant, by labour and study; by persevering and uninterrupted assiduity. The former proceed from extraneous aids; they are the productions of grace, formed in the soul by the Holy Spirit. I will not therefore, invalidate a doctrine so consolatory; I will profit by the prerogatives of Christianity; I will devote my life to the world; and when I perceive myself ready to expire, I will assume the character of a Christian. I will surrender myself to the guidance of the Holy Spirit; and then he shall, according to his promise, communicate his powerful influence to my heart; he shall subdue my wicked propensities, eradicate my most inveterate habits, and effectuate, in a moment, what would have cost me so much labour and pain. Here is an objection, which most sinners have not the effrontery to mention, but which a false theology infuses into too many minds; and on which we found nearly the whole of our imaginary hopes of a death-bed con

version.

To this objection we must reply. We shall manifest its absurdity, 1. By the ministry God has established in the church. 2. By the efforts he re