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OF THE DANGER OF BAD HABITS.

HOSEA iv. 17.

EPHRAIM IS JOINED TO IDOLS. LET HIM ALONE.

EPHRAIM is here put for the whole kingdom of Ifrael, of which it was a part; and this awful fentence pronounced upon it was delivered during its.. declenfion, and not long before its final diffolution by the kings of Affyria.

Many prophets had God fent to this unhappy nation, and by repeated meffages had he expoftulated with them, from time to time, for their crying wickedness and provocations. They had had line upon line, and precept upon precept; but all had been to no purpose. They showed no fign of repentance, but beld faft their iniquity, and would not let it go till the divine patience and forbearance were wearied out. Mercy could plead for them no longer, their fate was determined; and the execution of the juft judgments of God upon them was only delayed, but was fure to take place in the end.

This is the cafe of a whole nation abandoned of God in this fearful manner. But whatever has been the cafe of one nation may not only be the cafe of

another

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another nation, but also that of any individual; and it is the poffibility of this being the cafe of our own nation, or of ourselves, that makes it to demand our attention. To the Almighty, with respect to moral government, a nation is as one man, and one man as a whole nation. He punishes vice, and he rewards virtue, in both; and whatever is agreeable to wisdom and equity in the cafe of a nation is likewise agreeable to wisdom and equity with refpect to individuals. Suppofing, therefore, that the cafes are exactly fimilar, I fhall, in difcourfing from these words, Firft, State the cafe with as much exactnefs as

I can ;

Secondly, Show the probability and danger of

it with refpect to human nature; and' Thirdly, Confider the equity and propriety of it with refpect to God; applying the whole doctrine to the cafes of individuals.

In the first place, I am to ftate this cafe with as much exactnefs as I can.

In general, when any perfon is in the condition of Ephraim in my text, fo that God fhall, as it were, fay of him, he is joined to idols (he is joined to his lufts and vices), let him alone, his day of trial and probation may be faid to be, to all important purposes, expired. He is no longer a fubject of moral government, because he is utterly incapable of amendment, which is the end of all moral difcipline; and though, through the goodness of God, which is over all his works, he

may

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may live many years longer, yet his final doom is in reality fixed; his fentence is irrevocable, and the execution of it only deferred.

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Not that the reformation of any turally impoffible, or that, if he truly repent, he shall not find favour at the hand of God." For nothing is impoffible with God, and a truly humble, penitent, and contrite heart be will never defpife, whenever and wherefoever he finds it. But the change may be morally impoffible, or not to be expected according to the usual course of things; and this is fufficient to authorize us to make ufe of the language.

Suppofing a man to have lived fo long in the habits of vice, as to have loft all relish for every thing that is good, that he has no pleasure in the company of the sober, the virtuous, and the pious, but only in that of those who are as abandoned as himfelf, and that the greatest fatisfaction he has is in corrupting others (and further than this depravity cannot go); fuppofing that, in the course of his life, this man, befides every advantage for instruction, had experienced a great variety of profperity and adverfity; and yet that profperity, inftead of making him more thankful and obedient to God, made him forget him the more; and that afflictions, inftead of foftening and bettering his heart, only ferved to harden it, and make it worse: Do I fay that this abandoned wretch cannot be reformed, that God cannot, by any methods whatever, work upon his heart, and bring him to ferious thought

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and reflection? By no means. That would be to limit the power of God, to whom all things are poffible. He can work miracles, if he fhould think proper fo to do. But then I say this would be a proper miracle, fuch as, at this day, we are not authorized to expect. And judging by what we fee actually to take place, and what we muft conclude to be juft and right, God may, and probably will, leave fuch a one to himself. He may determine to try him no longer by any of thofe methods of his providence which are ufually employed for the purpose of reclaiming finners.

For instance, afflictions, and efpecially bodily ficknefs, are a great means of foftening and bettering the minds of men: but God may refolve that he fhall be vifited with no remarkable ficknefs, till he be overtaken with his laft; or he may cut him off by a fudden and unexpected death, in the midft of his crimes. The death of our friends, or any calamities befalling them, have often been the means, in the hands of divine providence, of bringing to serious thought and reflection those who have furvived thofe firokes; but God may refolve never to touch him in fo tender a part, but rather make use of his death as a warning and example to others.

Now, when a man is thus left of God, and no providential methods are ufed to reclaim him, we may conclude that he is irrecoverably loft. It is in fact, and according to the course of nature (and we know of no deviations from it fince the age of the apoftles),

abfolutely

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abfolutely impoffible that he should repent, or be reformed. And though he should continue to live ever fo long after God has thus forfaken him, he is only, in the awful language of fcripture, treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath; and there remains nothing for him but a fearful looking for of judgment, and of that fiery indignation which shall confume the adverfaries of God.

Having thus ftated the nature of this awful cafe, and fhown in what fenfe, and on what account, it may be faid that it is quite defperate and hopeless, viz. because it may be morally impoffible that he should ever truly repent and be reformed, by reason of God's withdrawing those providential methods by which he uses to work upon men's hearts, and to bring them to serious thought and reflection, I come

2dly, To confider the probability and danger of the cafe with refpect to human nature; how far men are liable to fall into this fearful condition, and by what means they fall into it.

A man's cafe may be pronounced to be thus defperate, when his mind is brought into fuch a state as that the neceffary means of reformation fhall have loft their effect upon him; and this is the natural confequence of confirmed habits of vice, and a longcontinued neglect of the means of religion and virtue; which is fo far from being an impoffible or improbable cafe, that it is a very general one.

In order to be the more fenfible of this, you are to

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