325 fore another year has run its hafty round, the world and all that it contains, all its purfuits and enjoyments, all its cares and forrows, may be as infignificant to you as the grandeur of Cæfar, or the riches of the world before the flood. Earthly riches or poverty, liberty or flavery, honour or difgrace, joy or forrow, fickness or health, may in this year become as little your concern, and be as much nothing to you as to your coffin, or the duft that fhall cover it, or to Judas that has been gone to his own place above feventeen hundred years.

Does it not rather become you to turn your thoughts to another inquiry, Is it poffible for me to escape this impending danger? Where, how, whence may I obtain deliverance? If you are not defirous ferioufly to attend to this inquiry, it will be to no purpofe for me to folve it: to you it will appear as a folemn trifle, or an impertinent episode. But if you will lay it to heart, if you will, as it were, give me your word that you will pay a proper regard to it, I fhall enter upon the folution with the utmost alacrity.

I affure you then, in the first place, your cafe is not yet desperate, unless you choose to make it fo; that is, unless you choose to perfift in carelessness and impenitence, as you have hitherto done. If you now begin to think ferioufly upon your condition, to break off from your fins, and attend in good earnest upon the means appointed for your falvation, there is hope concerning you; yes, miferable finners! there is hope that this year, which now finds you in fo deplorable a ftate, will introduce you into another, under the blefling of Heaven, fafe from all danger, and entitled to everlafting happiness.

I prefume you all know fo well the external means you should ufe for your falvation, that I need not particularly direct you to them. You all know that prayer, reading, and hearing the word of God, meditation upon divine things, free conference with fuch

as

as have been taught by experience to direct you in this difficult work; you all know, I fay, that these are the means inftituted for your conversion: and if you had right views of things, and a juft temper towards them, you would hardly need inftruction or the leaft perfuafion to make use of them. But to give you fuch views, and infpire you with fuch a temper, this is the difficulty. O! that I knew how to undertake it with fuccefs! I can only give you fuch directions as appear to me proper and falutary; but it is the almighty power of God alone that can give them force and efficacy.

You must learn to think, to think seriously and folemnly upon your danger, and the neceffity of a fpeedy efcape. You must retire from the crowd, from talk, diffipation, business, and amusement, and converfe with yourselves alone in penfive folitude.

You must learn to think patiently upon fubjects the moft melancholy and alarming, your prefent guilt and depravity, and your dreadful doom fo near at hand, if you continue in your prefent condition. The mind, fond of eafe, and impatient of fuch mortifying and painful thoughts, will recoil, and fly off, and feek for refuge in every trifle: but you must arreft and confine it to these disagreeable fubjects; you must force upon it this medicinal pain, as you often force your ftomach, when your health requires it. There is not any morofenefs in this advice; no illnatured defign upon your pleasure and happiness. On the other hand, it is intended to procure you more pleasure and happiness than you can poffibly obtain any other way: it is intended to prevent many forrowful days and years, nay a complete eternity of mifery. The alternative propofed to you is not, Whether you fhall feel the bitter anguifh of repentance, or not; whether you fhall be penfive and ferious, or not; whether you fhall think upon gloomy and alarming fubjects, or not: This is not at all the ftate of the cafe; for you must feel the forrows of repentance;

repentance; you must be thoughtful and penfive; you must confine your minds to fubjects of terror: you muft, whether you will or not; it is utterly unavoidable. But the only alternative propofed to your choice is, Whether you will voluntarily fubmit to the kindly, hopeful, medicinal, preventive forrows of repentance in this ftate of trial, which will iffue in everlasting joy; or be forced to fubmit to the defpairing pangs, and ufelefs deftructive horrors of too late a repentance in the eternal world; which will only torment you, but not fave you; which will be your punishment, and not a mean of your reformation, or a preparative for happinefs. Whether you will confine your thoughts for a time to the contemplation of your prefent misferable circumstances, while hope irradiates even the darkest gloom of difcouragement, and the gospel opens fuch bright and inviting profpects beyond thofe melancholy views that now firft prefent themselves to your thoughts; or whether you will choose to pine away a doleful eternity in fullen, intenfe, hopeless porings upon your remedilefs mifery, in pale reviews of paft folly, and fhocking furveys of endless ages of woe before you. This is the true ftate of the cafe; and can you be at a lofs what choice to make! Does not the voice of reason, the voice of confcience, of felf-interest and felf-love, as well as the voice of God, direct you to choose a few ferious, fad, folemn, forrowful, penitent hours now, rather than to invert the choice, and. to purchase a few hours of prefumptuous eafe at the expence of a wretched, despairing eternity? O choose life, that you may live. While you indulge a trifling levity of mind, and a roving diffipation of thought, there is no hope you will ever ferioufly attend to your most important intereft, or use the means of grace in earneft. Hence it is that I have made it fo much my endeavour to-day to make you ferious and thoughtful. To enforce this, let me repeat what I think cannot but have fome effect; efpecially as it

comes

comes not from the priesthood, but the court; and from a courtier as eminent as England ever boafted.

"Ah! my friends! while we laugh, all things are 'ferious round about us. God is ferious, who exer'cifeth patience towards us: Chrift is ferious, who 'fhed his blood for us: the Holy Ghoft is ferious 'w'ao ftriveth against the obftinacy of our hearts: the holy Scriptures bring to our ears the most serious things in the world: the holy Sacraments reprefent the most serious and awful matters: the 'whole creation is ferious in ferving God and us: all that are in heaven or hell are ferious :-How then can we be

gay ?'

I pray you, my dear brethren, yield an immediate compliance. Do not delay this great affair for another year, till you are fure you fhall live another year. You may perhaps have time enough before you to work out your falvation, if you immediately begin to improve it; but, if you loiter, you may perish for want of time; the riches of the world will not be able then to redeem one of those precious hours you now fquander away.

Let me now make you one of the moft reasonable, falutary, and advantageous propofals that heaven it. felf can make to you; and that is, That you endeavour to enter upon this new year as new creatures. Let the old man with his affections and lufts die with the old year. Let the time past of your life more than Suffice you to have wrought the will of the flesh. What profit had you then in thofe things of which you should now be afhamed? How fhocking the thought that your old guilt fhould follow you into the new year, and haunt you in future times! O begin this year as you would wish to end your life! Begin it fo as to give hopes that your future time will be fo fpent as to render death harmless, and even welcome to you.

Let the poffibility fuggefted in my text have due weight with you; This year you may die.

But

But perhaps fome of you may be inverting this confideration, and whispering to yourfelves, This "year I may not die :' and therefore there is no immediate neceffity of preparation for death. But what if you should not die this year, if you ftill delay the great work for which your time is given you? Alas! if you perfift in this, one would think it can give you but little pleasure whether you die this year or not? What end will your life answer, but to add to your guilt, and increase your punishment? What fafety can another year afford you, when you must die at laft? What valuable end do you intend to answer in future life? Do you purpose to spend this year as you have done your paft years? What! in offending your God! abufing his mercies! neglecting the precious feafons of grace! hardening yourfelves more and more in impenitence! adding fin to fin, and treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath! Is it worth your while to live for fuch horrid, prepofterous purposes as these? Can you wifh for another year with these views? Could you venture to pray for it? Will the prayer bear to be put into words? Come, put on the hardinefs of an infernal ghoft, that you may be able to fupport yourselves under the horror of the found. Thou fupreme Excellence! Thou Author of my being, and all my powers! Thou Father of all my mercies! Thou righteous Judge of the world! I have spent ten, twenty, or thirty ' years in displeasing thee and ruining myself; but I am not yet fatisfied with the pleasures of fuch a ' conduct. Grant me, I pray thee, another year to fpend in the fame manner. Grant me more mercies to abuse; more time to mifpend; more means • of grace to neglect and profane.' Could you now fall on your knees, and prefent fuch petitions to Heaven? Surely you could not. Surely your frame would fhudder; nay, would not the heavens gather blacknefs, and the earth tremble at the found! But have your temper and practice no language. Language VOL. II. U u expreffes