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been often proposed to him, and he has had time to view and consider it, so as to have hit upon any method of evading the force of it, he is afterwards quite callous to it, and can very seldom be prevailed upon to give it any proper attenThis consideration accounts, in some measure, both for the great influence of Christianity on its first publication, when the doctrines were new and striking, and also for the absolute indifference with which the same great truths are now heard in all Christian countries.

tion.

It accounts also for the more striking effect of the preaching of the Methodists, than ours. They find people utterly ignorant, to whom the truths, the promises, and the threatenings of the gospel are really new; whereas we have to do with persons who have heard them from their infancy, and have, alas! acquired a habit of disregarding them. But then our people having, in general, been brought up in habits of virtue, such great changes of character and conduct ́ are less necessary in their case. It is to be regretted, however, that they too seldom exceed that mediocrity of character which they acquire in early life. I speak of the generality among us; for others are remarkable exceptions, persons of disinterested and heroic virtue, in full proportion to the superior advantages which they enjoy.

The resistance which the mind makes to the admission of truth, when it has been strongly prejudiced against it, is evident both with respect to the belief of Christianity in general, and of particular opinions relating to it. There are many persons by no means defective with respect to judgment in other things, of whose conversion to Christianity we can have no more reasonable expectation, than of the sun rising in the west, even though they should consent to hear or read every thing that we could propose to them for that purpose. There are also many conscientious and intelligent Roman Catholics, absurd as we justly think their principles to be, who would deliberately read the best defences of Protestantism without any other effect than that of being

more confirmed in their prejudices against it. The same may be said of persons professing other modes of faith, so that their persuasions are not to be changed, except by such a method as that which was applied for the conversion of the apostle Paul. The same observation may also be applied to many opinions, and especially to a general bias or turn of thinking in matters of a political nature, and even in subjects of philosophy or criticism.

Facts of this kind, of which we are all witnesses, and which come within the observation of every day in our lives, show, in a very striking light, what care we ought to take in forming our first judgments of things, and in contracting our first habits, and therefore deserve the more especial attention of young persons; for we see that when these principles and habits are once properly formed, they are generally fixed for life. Whatever is fact with respect to mankind in general, we ought to conclude to be the case with respect to ourselves; that the cause is in the constitution of our common nature, and dependent upon the fundamental laws of it, and, no doubt, a wise and useful part of it; and we must not expect that miracles will be wrought in our favor.

To show that there is the greatest advantage, as well as some inconvenience, resulting from this disposition to fixity, as we call it, in our own nature, let it be observed, that if there was nothing fixed or permanent in the human character, we should find the same inconvenience as if any other law of nature was unsettled. We should be perpetually at a loss how to conduct ourselves, how to behave to mankind in general, and even to our own particular friends and acquaintance, especially after having been for any space of time absent from them. We do not expect to find persons the very same in all changes of condition or circumstances, as in sickness and health, prosperity and adversity, &c.; but then we generally know what kind of change to expect in them in those circumstances, and we regulate our con

duct towards them by our experience of the usual effect of similar changes.

These observations, when applied to opinions, may serve to amuse us, but when they are applied to practice, they ought seriously to alarm us. Let all those, therefore, who being at all advanced in life, see reason to be dissatisfied with themselves, with their disposition of mind, and their general conduct, be alarmed; for there is certainly the greatest reason for it, probably much more than they are themselves aware of. Persons in this state of mind always flatter themselves with a time when they shall have more leisure for repentance and reformation; but, judging from observation on others, which is the surest guide that they can follow (infinitely better than their own imaginations,) they may conclude that it is almost a certainty that such a time will never come.

If they should have the leisure for repentance and reformation which they promised themselves, it is not probable that sufficient strength of resolution will come along with it. Indeed, all resolutions to repent at a future time are necessarily insincere, and must be a mere deception, because they imply a preference of a man's present habits and conduct, that he is really unwilling to change them, and that nothing but necessity would lead him to make any attempt of the kind. In fact, he can only mean that he will discontinue particular actions, his habits or temper of mind remaining the same.

Besides, a real, effectual repentance or reformation is such a total change in a man as cannot, in the nature of things, take place in a short space of time. A man's habits are formed by the scenes he has gone through, and the impressions which they have made upon him; and when death approaches, a man has not another life, like this, to live over again. He may, even on a death-bed, most sincerely wish that he had a pious and benevolent disposition, with the love of virtue in all its branches: but that wish,

though it be ever so sincere and earnest, can no more produce a proper change in his mind, than it can restore him to health, or make him taller or stronger than he is.

The precise time when this confirmed state of mind takes place, or, in the language of Scripture, the time when any person is thus left of God, or left to himself, cannot be determined. It is necessarily various and uncertain. But in general we may say, that when any person has been long abandoned to vicious courses, when vice is grown into a habit with him, and especially when his vices are more properly of a mental nature, such as a disposition to envy, malice, or selfishness (which are the most inveterate, the most difficult to be eradicated of all vices,) when neither health nor sickness, prosperity nor adversity; when neither a man's own reflections, the remonstrances of his friends, nor admonitions from the pulpit, have any visible effect upon him; when, after this, we see no great change in his worldly affairs or connexions, but he goes on from day to day, from month to month, and from year to year, without any sensible alteration; there is reason to fear that he is fallen into this fatal security, that he is, as it were, fallen asleep, and that this sleep will be the sleep of death.

However, a shadow of hope is not to be despised. One chance in a thousand is still a chance; and there are persons whose vigor of mind is such, that, when sufficiently roused, they are equal to almost any thing. Let those, therefore, who see their danger at any time of life, be up and doing, working out their salvation with fear and trembling, that, if possible, they may flee from the wrath to come.

HABITUAL DEVOTION.

GOD, my Christian brethren, is a being with whom we all of us have to do, and the relation we stand in to him is the most important of all our relations. Our connexions with other beings and other things are slight and transient, in comparison with this. God is our maker, our constant preserver and benefactor, our moral governor, and our final judge. He is present with us wherever we are; the secrets of all hearts are constantly known to him, and he is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. Here, then, is a situation, in which we find ourselves, that demands our closest attention. The consideration is, in the highest degree, interesting and alarming; knowing how absolutely dependent we are upon God, that "in him we live, and move, and have our being," and knowing also, that by vice and folly we have rendered ourselves justly obnoxious to his displeasure.

Now, to think, and to act, in a manner corresponding to this our necessary intercourse with God, certainly requires that we keep up an habitual regard to it; and a total, or very great degree of inattention to it, must be highly criminal and dangerous. Accordingly, we find in the Scriptures, that it is characteristic of a good man, that "he sets the Lord always before him," and that "he acknowledges God in all his ways." Whereas, it is said of the wicked, that "God is not in all their thoughts;" and elsewhere, that "there is no fear of God before their eyes;" that "they put the thoughts of God far from them, and will not the knowledge of the Most High."

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