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to himself, he fees the folly of his ways, he repents, he refolves, he amends. Such a change of life we can easily conceive. In his former fituation, he knew not what he did, he was tranfported by paffion, he went headlong down the torrent. But when once he began to reflect, he found that that was the critical moment of life, which, if he had neglected, his return would have been more difficult. In his former fituation, he went forward in the path which feemed right in his own eyes, without looking back. He did not act against the admonitions of confcience, he did not think at all. But if, after his eyes were opened to difcern the state of wretchedness and guilt into which he had fallen; if, after this, he had returned to folly again, it would have been much more difficult to restore him by repentance. Let this then be your conduct; whenever you come to the knowledge of your fins, whenever you perceive any thing amifs in your lives, feize the favourable moment, as the proper time to reform.

What is it, I befeech you, that you do by delaying? You allow corruption time to strengthen and fortify itself; you give temptation double force, by yielding to it, not from surprise, but with deliberate confent; you weaken the power of confcience, that check which God appointed to you in your evil courses; and, with your own hand, you throw obstacles in the way of your converfion. You now fee You now fee you are finful and undone; you now refolve to repent and amend; you are now fetting out in the path which leadeth to life; you are not far from the kingdom of God. But if you refolve and perform not; if, when you are once engaged, you draw back; you

then fly off from the path of life to the way of deftruction; you throw yourself farther from the kingdom of God than if you had never fet out. At once, then, at once make your escape from the allurements of fin; break the chains by which you are held; cut off all the avenues and approaches to the fin that befets you; give no time to the enemies of your foul to collect their ftrength; by faith and repentance now enter on the way that opens into the heavens ; when you fay, with fincere purpose of heart," I will "arife and go to my Father," in that moment arise and go to thy Father; now is the accepted time, now / is the day of falvation.

In the second place, By delaying, your converfion will become extremely difficult.

Thou fayeft, O man! that thou wilt repent in fome future period of time; but thou knoweft not the danger of fuch a refolution. It is amazing to think with what ease we can impofe upon ourselves. In fpite of all his boasted wisdom, man is more fimple than the beast of the field. Do you confider, my friends, that delaying from day to day, and from year to year, that poftponing the work of your falvation to some future period of time, is little better than a fixed determination that you will never begin it at all? Do you reflect, that the time to come, if it ever comes, will be the fame to you then, that the present time is to you now? There will occur the fame difficulties to deter you, the same pleasures to allure you, the fame dangers to terrify you. Objects will then be as prefent, and ftrike the fenfes as ftrongly, as ever; and the time of reformation will still be tomorrow. Nay, it will then be more diffi

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cult to be faved than it is now. fins to repent of; more bad habits to fubdue; a more corrupted nature to put off. It is a remarkable fact, and deferves your most serious attention, that, among all the converfions recorded in Scripture, there is not one of a finner who delayed his repentance. Among all the returning penitents there mentioned, there is not one in the fituation of a Christian, who daily hears the Gospel without its having any effect upon his life. Zaccheus, upon hearing Jefus Chrift proclaim the glad tidings of falvation, yielded to the influences of that grace to which he had hitherto been a stranger, and furrendered himself to a call which had never been made before. The apostles, in the course of their ministry, converted Jews and Gentiles. They converted the Jews, by propofing to them an idea, which was new to them, the Lord of glory, whom they with wicked hands had crucified and flain. They converted the Gentiles, by working miracles in proof of their divine commiffion, and by preaching the doctrines of Salvation to them, which they had never heard before.

But what new methods can we attempt with you? Is there any motive to repentance which hath not already been urged upon you? Is there one avenue to the heart which has not already been tried, and which has not already been tried in vain? Shall we address ourselves to your confcience, to give you the alarm? But alas! you have often heard its voice, you have often difregarded its voice, and by efforts too fuccefsful, have lulled it into a profound fleep. Shall we address ourselves to your hopes, by defcribing to you the joys of heaven, the rivers of pleasures

which are at God's right hand, the happiness of the bleffed, the triumphs of eternity? All these have been already presented to your eyes, and to all these you have preferred the enjoyments of an hour. You have fold your birth-right to immortality for a fordid gratification, and you now only mind earthly things. Shall we endeavour to alarm your fears, by fetting before you the horrors of hell, the worm that never dies, the fire that is never quenched, everlafting destruction from the prefence of the Lord and the glory of his power? These have been traced out to you an hundred times, and you have learned the fatal art of freeing yourselves from the fears of them. Shall we implore you by the grace of the Gospel, and by the tender mercies of the God of Peace? But alas! you have undervalued his mercy, you have turned his grace into wantonnefs. Shall we fet before you the image of a Saviour dying on the cross for the redemption of the world? But alas! a crucified Redeemer hath been often preached to you, the memorial of his facrifice hath been renewed in your fight, and after all you have counted his blood as a common thing, you have looked upon the Son of God fuffering on the cross with as much unconcern as the Jews of old, when they cried out, "Away "with him, away with him!"

In the third place, By long delaying, your converfion may become altogether impoffible.

Habit, fays the proverb, is a fecond nature; and indeed it is ftronger than the first. At first, we eafily take the bend, and are moulded by the hands of the mafter; but this nature of our own making is proof against alteration. The Ethiopian may as foon

change his skin, and the leopard his fpots; the tor mented in hell may as foon revifit the earth; as those who have been long accustomed to do evil, may learn to do well. Such is the wife appointment of Heaven to deter finners from delaying their repentance. When the evil principle hath corrupted the whole capacity of the mind; when fin, by its frequency and its duration, is woven into the very ef fence of the foul, and is become part of ourselves; when the sense of moral good and evil is almoft totally extinct; when confcience is feared as with a hot iron; when the heart is fo hard that the arrows of the Almighty cannot pierce it; and when, by a long courfe of crimes, we have become what the Scripture most emphatically calls, " veffels of wrath fitted for "deftruction;"-then we have filled up the measure of our fins; then Almighty God fwears in his wrath that we shall not enter into his reft; then there remaineth no more facrifice for fin, but a fearful looking for wrath, and indignation which fhall devour the adversary. Almighty God, weary of bearing with the fins of men, delivers them over to a reprobate mind, when, like Pharaoh, they survive only as monuments of wrath; when, like Efau, they cannot find a place for repentance, although they seek it carefully with tears; when, like the foolish virgins, they come knocking, but the door of mercy is for ever fhut.

Further, Let me remind you, my brethren, that if you repent not now, perhaps you will not have another opportunity. You fay you will repent in fome future period of time; but are you fure of arriving at that period of time? Have you one hour

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