Having thus exposed to you the natural progression of those sins which most surely lay the sinner, under the gospel, open to the execution of the awful sentence, implied in the text, of being given up of God to hardness of heart, and blindness of mind, the necessary source of spiritual barrenness, and the sure prelude to eternal destruction, let me conclude this discourse with a few reflections which seem naturally to arise from the preceding illustrations.

In the first place, let me repeat here a caution, which I have already enjoined, against misinterpreting the language of the text, and other similar expressions in the sacred scriptures into a foolish and impious charge against God, as if he infused into the heart of the sinner any positive principle of evil, independent of the natural and necessary tendency of his own corruptions, while he obstinately shuts his eyes against the light of divine truth, and resists the means which God has appointed for his instruction and conversion. That blindness which at length becomes invincible, that hardness which time and sinful habit render impenetrable, is the fatal work of his own folly and obstinacy. God has undoubtedly so constituted the nature of man, and the order of things in the natural and moral world, that the bold commission and habitual indulgence of sin, shall lead the sinner to greater and greater insensibility both of his guilt and danger, and to a more determined resistance against the necessary means of his correction and reformation. And these native consequences resulting from the moral order of divine providence, may be regarded also as the holy and righteous judgments of God, who by these means, often prepares for a more exemplary perdition, those vessels of wrath, who have taken such fatal pains

to destroy themselves.

The train of providence is so

laid, in the unsearchable wisdom of God, as often to illustrate the riches of divine grace in the recovery even of the most guilty offenders from the error and madness of their sinful courses; and often to display the sovereignty of his dispensations, and the awfulness of his judgments, by so preparing their desperate and headlong way before them, that they shall by the abuse of his mercies only hasten their own irremediable ruin. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

2d. Does not this order of divine providence, in the next place, and this tendency of human nature, afford the justest ground of fear to those who have been long barren and unfruitful under the means of grace ? Believe it, it is not in vain that the gospel is preached, that the sacraments are administered, that the light shines around you, that the offers and the calls of divine mercy are so often addressed to you. If they do not penetrate your hearts, if they do not convince and persuade you, if they are not effectual to arrest you in your sinful course, and to bring you to an humble acquiescence in the terms of the gospel, they must have the contrary effect of hardening the conscience, and rendering it insensible and secure amidst the awful hazards of its situation. And have not you reason to apprehend the fearful judgments of God, on account of the long continued abuse of his manifold mercies? May he not withdraw the mercies which you have abused? May he not withhold the gracious influences of his Holy Spirit, which, often rejected or stifled, he may no more impart ? and for the abuse of which, he may, in righteous judgment, resolve to deliver

you up to the unrestrained dominion of dangerous temptations, and of your own uncorrected lusts and passions? Reflect, then, how long you have been unfruitful in the garden of God; how many merciful calls you have rejected; how many movements of the Holy Spirit in your hearts you have resisted; how many blessings both of his grace, and of his common providence, intended for 'your salvation, you have perverted to your own injury, and to the dishonor of his holy name, and let a salutary fear awaken you to serious consideration. Tremble at the curse of being forsaken of God, of being given up. by him to pursue your own destruction, without any further restraints or monitions from his Holy Spirit, as the most fearful state in which a sinner ean be left on this side of the blackness of darkness forever.

Nay,

3d. This subject, in the next place, addresses itself forcibly to the young, not without encouragement and hope, to persuade them to an early and diligent endeavour to return to God by repentance. Your hearts cannot as yet be hardened and confirmed in an evil course. do you not feel them, at some times, moved by the goodness of God, by the sentiments of your duty, by the thoughts of your eternal interests? Conscience has not yet been stifled by the boldness of gross iniquity, nor rendered callous by long continuance in its practice. The young mind is comparatively docile. It has fewer difficulties to overcome from the violence of passions and appetites long indulged, from pride and obstinacy of character, from the strength of confirmed habits in sin, than it will have after years have added all their dangerous force to the power of evil. But if you now thoughtlessly resist, or misimprove the precious season of instruction, if you study to efface the impressions

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which the truths of religion often make upon your minds, remember that, at every step in your progress, you are losing more and more the dispositions most favourable to duty, and rendering the heart less susceptible of the influences of the Spirit of God. Every day is bringing you nearer to that deplorable state of hardness and blindness, when instructions and corrections, means and opportunities, shall have lost all their power; and God, justly offended at the obstinacy of the sinner, pronounces upon him the fearful sentence of his perpetual dereliction, and his final perdition. Awake, then, earnestly to improve the inestimable opportunities which you now enjoy; opportunities that, misimproved, will never return. Prevent the danger of being forsaken of Almighty God, by a speedy and diligent application to the great work of life, the salvation of your souls. If you seize the present opportunity to resist the beginnings of sin, if you study to devote your early life to your Creator, and Redeemer, you have every thing to hope from the aids of his grace; but if you now resist the earnest and repeated calls of divine mercy, you have every thing to fear from the hardening influence of time, as well as from the growing infirmities of nature, in advancing life, which disables men from contending against the strength, and deep-rooted power of their sinful habits. Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not and the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. When your strength shall be turned into weakness, and even the grasshopper shall be a burden.

5th. In the last place, this subject addresses itself in an awful tone to those who have long rejected the offers of mercy in the gospel, and, by the protracted custom of

sinning, have hardened themselves against its instructions and reproofs, against its compassionate invitations, and its most affecting warnings. Could we, indeed, distinguish those who have seared their consciences, and who are delivered over of God to work all uncleanness with greediness, sealed up by his sentence to eternal death, it would be in vain to address them: they have chosen their delusions: their hearts are as adamant ; the dry bones in the valley of Ezekiel's vision could as soon be awakened into life by the voice of man. But are there not some old and habitual offenders, who, though buried in deep insensibility and security, may not yet be beyond the reach of divine grace? But are you not every day approaching nearer to that fatal boundary which may forever separate you from the hope of salvation? Alas! how many means may yet be suffered in the forbearance of God to remain to you? How long may the light be yet permitted to shine around you? How near may the sun of righteousness be to his setting forever? To some of those who hear me, this may be the last ray of light which, by his grace, may ever be darted into your soul; this may be the last call which, in his righteous and holy providence, you shall ever enjoy. Oh! that that omnipotent voice which, in the beginning, said let there be light, and there was light, would graciously shed, along with our words, the powerful and creative light of divine truth into your hearts, to form them anew in Christ Jesus! Oh! that that voice which shall swell the trump of the arch-angel, that shall call the dead to judgment, would awake your consciences from the mortal sleep of sin, and bring them, before it be too late, to consideration and reflection! If I could hope, with regard to any such sinners who hear me, that VOL. I.

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