ance impracticable. But should the finner escape all thefe accidents, and go off gently without being forfaken by his sense or reafon; yet still it may happen, and often it does, that his promised repentance produces nothing but horror and defpair. In his life-time he flattered himself with unreasonable hopes of mercy, and now he begins to fee how unreasonable they were now he can think of nothing, but that he is going to appear before his Judge, to receive the just rewards of wickedness: he sees him already clothed with wrath and majesty; and forms within his own tormented breaft the whole process of the laft day. If he fleeps, he dreams of judgment and mifery; and when he wakes, believes his dreams forebode his fate. Thus reftlefs and uneafy, thus void of comfort and hope, without confidence to ask pardon, without faith to receive it, does the wretched finner expire, and has the misfortune to fee his hopes die before him. In a word then, put all the favourable circumftances together that you can imagine; bring the finner by the gentleft decays of nature to his latter end; give him the fairest and the longest warning; yet ftill you give him no fecurity if he is not fenfible of his fin and impenitence, he will die, like the wicked thief upon the cross, reproaching Chrift, hardened and obdurate against the thoughts of judgment: or, if he comes to a sense, and fees his own unworthiness, how shall he be preserved from despair, and fuch a dread of his righteous Judge, as will make him neither fit to live, nor fit to die? Nothing but an extraordinary degree of grace can preferve him in a temper fit for repentance, free on one fide from

confidence and prefumption, on the other from flavish fear which cafts out love, which may produce forrow, but not repentance. And whether those who have lived under the continual calls of grace to virtue and holiness, who have rejected the counsel of God whilft they had health and strength to ferve, shall be thought worthy of fuch extraordinary mercy at laft, let any reasonable man judge. It cannot be fuppofed that God intends to fave Christians in this way; which would be at once to evacuate all the rules and duties of the Gofpel. Christ came to deftroy fin and the works of the devil; but were men promised forgiveness upon the account of a few fighs and tears at laft, this would effectually establish and confirm the kingdom of Satan. Though God has promised pardon to penitent finners, yet his promise must be expounded fo as to be confiftent with his defign in fending Chrift into the world; and then it can never be extended to thofe, who use the Gospel as a protection to wickedness, and fin because God has promised to be merciful. In a word, you have the promises of the Gospel set before you, you have the mercies of God in Chrift offered to you; if you will accept them, and do your part, happy are you: but if you are for finding out new ways to falvation, if you seek to reconcile the pleasures and profits of fin with the hopes of the Gofpel, you do but deceive yourselves; for God is not mocked, nor will he regard those who make fuch perverse use of his mercy.

What then remains, but that all who love their own fouls feek the Lord whilft happily he may be

found; and work for their falvation whilst they have the light; for the night cometh, when no man can work. The night cometh on apace, and brings with it a change which every mortal must undergo. Then shall we be forfaken of all our pleasures and enjoyments, and deferted by thofe gay thoughts which now support our foolish hearts against the fears of religion. The time cometh, and who, O Lord, may abide its coming! when we muft ftand before the judgment-feat of Chrift; when the highest and the loweft fhall be placed on the fame level, expecting a new diftribution of honours and rewards. In that day the ftouteft heart will tremble, and the countenance of the proudest man will fall in the presence of his injured Lord. I fpeak not to you the fuggeftion of fuperftition or fear, but the words of foberness and of truth. May they fink into your hearts, and yield you the fruits of spiritual joy and comfort here, and of glory and immortality hereafter !

DISCOURSE XXV.

PART I.

PSALM lxxvii. 9, 10.

Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies ?

And I faid, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Moft High.

WHOEVER was the author of this pfalm, he was manifeftly under a great dejection of mind when he penned it: he speaks of himself as detefted of God, and given up to be a prey to the forrows of his own disturbed, tormented heart. His foul refused comfort, as he complains in the fecond verfe: When he remembered God, he was troubled; when he complained, his fpirit was overwhelmed, as he laments in

the third verse.

What the particular grief was, which gave rife to this mournful complaint, does not appear; but whatever it was, the fting of it lay in this, that the Pfalmift apprehended himself to be forfaken of God: and without doubt this is of all afflictions the moft afflicting, the most insupportable; a grief it is,