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in your hand? Have you one minute at your dif pofal? Boast not thyself of tomorrow. Thou knoweft not what a day may bring forth. Before tomorrow, multitudes fhall be in another world. Art thou fure that thou art not of the number? Man knoweth not his time. As the fishes that are taken in an evil net, as the birds that are caught in the fnare, fo are the fons of men fnared in an evil hour. Can you recall to mind none of your companions, none of the partners of your follies and your fins, cut off in an unconverted state, cut off perhaps in the midst of an unfinished debauch, and hurried, with all their tranfgreffions on their head, to give in their account to God the Judge of all? Could I fhow you the state which they are now in; could an angel from heaven unbar the gates of the everlasting prifon; could you difcern the late companions of your wanton hours overwhelmed with torment and defpair; could you hear the cry of their torment which afcendeth up for ever and ever; could you hear them upbraiding you as the partners of their crimes, and accufing you as in fome measure the cause of their damnation !Great God! how would your hair ftand on end! how would your heart die within you! how would confcience fix all its ftings, and remorfe, awaking a new hell within you, torment you before the time! Had a like untimely fate fnatched you away then, where had you been now? And is this the improvement which you make of that longer day of grace with which Heaven has been pleased to favour you? Is this the return you make to the Divine goodness for prolonging your lives, and indulging you with a longer day of repentance? Have you in good earnest

determined within yourself that you will weary out the long-fuffering of God, and force deftruction from his reluctant hand?

I beseech, I implore you, my brethren, in the bonds of friendship, and in the bowels of the Lord; by the tender mercies of the God of Peace; by the dying love of a crucified Redeemer; by the precious promises and awful threatenings of the Gofpel; by all your hopes of heaven and fears of hell; by the worth of your immortal fouls, and by all that is dear to men; I conjure you to accept of the offers of mercy, and fly from the wrath to come. "Behold "now is the accepted time, behold now is the day "of falvation." All the treasures of heaven are now opening to you; the blood of Chrift is now speaking for the remiflion of your fins; the church on earth ftretches out its arms to receive you; the fpirits of juft men made perfect are eager to enroll you amongst the number of the bleffed; the angels and archangels are waiting to break out into new alleluiahs of joy on your return; the whole Trinity is now employed in your behalf; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, at this inftant call upon you, weary and heavy laden, to come unto them that ye may have reft unto your fouls!

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SERMON XIX.

LUKE XV. 18.

I will arife and go to my Father.

THE parable of the prodigal fon is one of the most beautiful and affecting pieces of compofition which is any where to be found. The occafion on which it was spoken, and the perfons to whom it was addreffed, are well known to you. Dropping therefore what was peculiar at the first narration, I fhall confider it as reprefenting in general the return of finners to God by true repentance.

Such a return is not a fingle act in the Chriftian life; it is the habitual duty of every man who is fubject to infirmities and defects. For fuch is the weaknefs of human nature in this imperfect ftate, fuch is the strength of temptation in this evil world, that frail man is often led aftray before he is aware. A. las! in our best eftate we are but returning penitents; and to the laft hour of this mortal life we ftand in need of amendment.

We may obferve the following fteps in the return of the prodigal to his father's houfe; first,His restoration to a better mind, by means of confideration. "When "he came to himself, he faid, How many hired fer"vants of my father's have bread enough, and to fpare!" Second, Ingenuous forrow for fin, accompanied with faith in the Divine mercy. "Father,

I have finned against Heaven and before thee."

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Third, A refolution to return to a fenfe of duty. "I will arife and go to my father." And, fourth, His immediate performance of that refolution. "And he arose and came to his father."

First, His restoration to a better mind by means of confideration. "He came to himself."

expreffion ufed; for Madness, faith Solo. As madness is a

With great propriety is this a wicked man is befide himfelf. non, is in the heart of the finner.

disease of the rational powers, fo is vice of the moral. Sin, in like manner, unhinges the whole frame of the moral being, tinges with its baleful colours every fentiment of the heart,and presents to view a spectacle more melancholy ftill, a being, made after the image of God, finking that image into the refemblance of a brute, or the character of a fiend. Mad, however, as fuch perfons are, they are not always fo. Sin cannot always keep its ground. The evil principle

There is no

has its hour of weakness and decline. man uniformly wicked. The exertion is too strong to laft for ever. Nature does not afford ftrength and fpirits fufficient to keep a man always in energy. The most abandoned have fits and starts of foberness and recollection. There are lucid intervals in the life of every perfon. At fuch a time is the crifis of a man's character. At fuch a time the prodigal fon came to his right mind. At once the fpell was broken and the enchantment diffolved. He is amazed, he is confounded to find himself degraded from the rational character; caft down to the herd of inferior animals; making one at the feaft where the vileft of brutes were his affociates and compan

ions.

Then the falfe colours with which fancy had

gilded his life, vanish away.

The flattering ideas

which imagination and paffion prefented to his mind, disappear in a moment. Difenchanted from the delufions of the great deceiver, what he esteemed to be the garden of Eden, he finds to be a defolate wilderness. "Then he came to himself."

You know that when a man recovers from a fit of lunacy, and is reftored to his reafon, the mind annihilates the lurid interval, forgets the events of fuch a ftate like a dream, and resumes the train of ideas it had pursued in its found ftate. Thus, the penitent in the parable, awaking as from a dream, recovering as from a delirium, tranfports himself into the time paft, his former life recurs to his mind, his father's house rises to view, he recalls the firfl of his days before he went aftray. Happy days of early innocence and early piety, before remorfe had embittered his hours, or vice corrupted his heart! Happy days! when the morning arofe in peace, and the evening went down in innocence; when no action of the past day disturbed his flumbers by night; when no reflection on the riots of the night threw a cloud . over the fucceeding day; when he was at peace with his own heart; when confcience was on his fide; when reflection was a friend; when memory prefented only welcome images to the mind; when, under the wings of paternal care, he was bleffed in his going out and coming in; when his father's eye. met his with approbation and delight.

Having viewed the picture, he compares it with his prefent fituation. Sad contraft! By his own folly, a vagabond in a foreign land; banished from all that he valued and held dear; cut off from the joys of

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