possess heaven seek it now; you cannot, through Christ obtain a title to it too quickly.

Sect. 5. By the infinite worth of religion, I beseech you make your choice. More than a thousand lives depend upon it, even a whole eternity. All that is deemed most great, and most important, all about which the wise debate, and the noble contend, all for which nations war, and armies die, is as worthless as a feather, compared with the blessings of the gospel.

By all the joys and glories of heaven, I beseech you, embrace early religion. If you wish ever to enter those blessed abodes; if you would ever obtain a crown of life eternal; make this your choice. You may obtain

everlasting glories; you may enter heavenly rest, and when this poor vain life shall have passed, dwell in the presence of God and the Lamb; you may do this; and will you not? Are you bent on shutting your own soul out of happiness? The crown of glory, peace and blessedness, joy and triumph, the sweet society of angels, and the love of God, all may be yours; and will you refuse them all? By these, and ten thousand heavenly blessings, I entreat you, seek God as your God. Then welcome death; welcome eternity; welcome all the scenes beyond the grave; welcome the great judgment; welcome heaven.

By all the care and kindness of others for you, I beseech you to turn to religion. Shall God entreat you in vain to be reconciled to him? Shall Jesus sue in vain? Shall the Spirit strive in vain? Shall all who labour for your good, labour in vain? O forbid it, and be wise for eternity.

By all the solemnities of death, I beseech you choose the way of life. Think of your dying hour, of your physician saying, Their is no hope, of your friends bidding you a last farewell, of your pulse stopping, your voice failing, your eyes closing, and your soul taking its everlasting flight. And will you for the pleasure of a moment undo that immortal soul? Think of yourself stretched lifeless in a coffin; of your grave opened; of your funeral over, of your body the prey of worms and corruption; and in a little while of nothing remaining of you in this world but a heap of dust; O think of these things, and by these be persuaded, to make that choice now, which will yield you satisfaction when you die.

By the vanity of this world, I beseech you to choose that Saviour, who would guide you to a better. When you see the remains of skeletons, and of moulded coffins, thrown up in a grave yard to make room for another who is going to the same long home, think what is the value of this world to them, that lay in those coffins once? Its worth to them, is its worth to you. must die, though they are dead.

You

You must need a cof

How

fin soon, though they have done needing one. small is the difference? They have met their God; and you will shortly meet him! They are in heaven or hell; and you upon the edge of one or the other. In this situation, for so vain a world, slight not I entreat you, your immortal soul.

By all the eternal Father's kindness, I beseech you, yield your heart to him. By his goodness in giving you life; by his kindness in crowning your days with comforts; by his patience in bearing with you, when he might justly have spurned you to hell; by his pity in offering you salvation; by his love in giving his beloved Son to death, for your transgressions; and frowning on him, that he might for ever smile on you; by all this, and by all that goodness of the Lord's, which, if you had ten thousand hearts, would claim them all; I be seech you give him that one poor heart you have. As

you would not be basely ungrateful, and internally wicked to your best friend, I entreat you no longer yield, to vanity, sin, and Satan, that health and youth which God demands.

By all the compassion and love of the Son of God, I beseech you make his service your sincere and lasting choice. By his deep humiliation and poverty, by his poor manger, and life of sorrows; by his tears and sighs for wretched men; by his bloody agony and his thorny crown: by his bitter cross, and all his sufferings there; I entreat you give him yourself. Love like his demands your all for ever. By his enduring all this, to save you from the dreadful pains of eternal death, I entreat you defeat not his gracious designs. As you would ever have an interest in his love, as you would have him receive you to his eternal abode, O receive him now as your Saviour, your Lord, your all.

By every feeling of pity for yourself, and compassion for your own soul? I beseech you embrace early relig

ion. Will you not have pity on your own soul? that deathless soul, which, at another day, you will want of God and Christ to pity? You love your body, would you hate your soul? You love to adorn and preserve the feeble building of clay; would you damn the immortal spirit that dwells within it? You love ease, O pity yourself, and rush not forward to eternal pain. You love happiness, O be wise! and choose eternal happiness. As you would not have all your hopes and in despair; as you would not have all your pleasures end in sorrow; as ever you would find pity at the bar of God, and mercy at his hands, pity yourself, and make his love your portion.

If you would not abuse the grace of God to your own destruction; if you would not be the wilful murderer of your own soul; I beseech you embrace the gospel. How hard you would think it, if God had decreed your everlasting misery, and irrevocably shut you out of heaven; and now, when he offers you life and salvation, would you shut out yourself? Would you be so cruel a selfmurderer, as to expose your own soul to the death that never, never dies? for that is the destruction which the soul incurs. You will, you must do this, if you do not turn to the Lord. Could some hardened creature ask you, to sign a declaration, that you hated religion; that you determined to have nothing to do with God or the Redeemer; that as for heaven they were welcome to it, who thought it worth their care; and as for hell you cared nought for it;-Could you be asked to sign such a declaration, would not you start back with horror at the proposal of doing so? Or had some one the power of offering you the whole world, and of saying, "I will give you all the happiness of this world, all its wealth and all its honours, if you will give up all hope of heaven; and now consent to be shut out for ever; if you will engage, when you die, willingly to sink down into everlasting wretchedness; and to dwell with the devil and his angels through all eternity:" would you not tremble at the very thought of accepting such an offer? and of being your own wilful destroyer. O then do not do in reality, what you would not do by such an agree ment. Most persons lose their souls as completely as if they bargained for the loss. He who lives careless of religion, says, by his conduct, I choose hell for my

portion and Satan for my master. It comes to the same at last, whether you profess that you hate religion, or live careless of the blessed Son of God. To despise serious religion would sink you to hell, and thus make you the murderer of your own soul; and to live .. ithout embracing humble piety, and obeying the gospel, will do the same: and where in the end, is the daterence?

By all the sorrows of the ungodly, be persuaded to make your instant choice.

By the fire

I entreat you yield your youth to Christ. that never shall be quenched; by the worm that never dieth; by the utter darkness, which shall never be cheered with one gleam of light; by the misery, that shall never know one moment's ease; by all the horrors of an eternity in hell, I beseech you flee from the wrath

to come.

By the eternal difference between those, who love the Lord, and those who love him not, I entreat you, I beseech you embrace the gospel. All other distinotions will shortly vanish for ever. Youth and age, strength and weakness, will be soon on a level in the grave. My young friend, when you see a person oppressed with poverty and gloom; covered with rags; and worn out with the burden of fourscore years, while you feel vigorous and gay, young and healthy, you perhaps, think with pleasure, how different is your lot from his. A little time, and that difference will be over. It will be all over when you meet your God; health and youth and vigour will have fled away; nothing but an interest in Jesus will avail you then. In the next world no distinction will remain, but that which springs from true religion; and that will last for ever. Here the difference between those who love Christ, and those who slight him, is not most perceptible; but it will be most fully seen in the eternal world. Here the religious and the irreligious meet together. They dwell in the same houses; they engage in the same business. In the house of God they sit in the same seats, and hear

the same truths; but hereafter they will be parted far asunder. The last great separating day is hastening on! and then shall they mingle together no more. No more shall they occupy the same seats; nor dwell in the same houses; nor pursue the same employments. All this will be for ever done with; and a distance wide indeed, will part them for eternity. O! as you would then have the distinction of belonging to Jesus, embrace his gospel now. As ever you would share the happiness of those who meet in glory, I beseech you, by coming to Christ, secure it now. How happily will they meet there, who have trodden the same path of humble religion here! How happily will the pious child meet his parents! the faithful pastor his flock! relations join relations again! and friends unite with friends.

And now, my young friend, permit me once more affectionately to remind you, that life and death are set before you. I call heaven and earth to record against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life. The only alternative presented to you is, Religion and heaven; or, Want of Religion and hell. Which,O which is your choice? Again I remind you that now is your choosing time. You must be a saint or a brute hère; and an angel or a devil hereafter. Perhaps you may never again be invited to make this important choice; and your decision this day, may be that by which your eternal state will be fixed. Choose then, I entreat you, the way of life, if you have not already chosen it. Peace attends it, and happiness is at its end; happiness inconceivable, unutterable, and eternal. And will you choose? or have you chosen humble religion? If you have let me take you by the hand and lead you into yonder fair and spacious world. May I imagine that I see you arrived there? or are you determined never to go thither. May I imagine, that I see you before the throne of the Eternal, adorned with the splendours, and blest in the raptures of heaven? Ah! is it but deception? do you still slight the way that leads a sinner to glory and to God? May I imagine, or is that too happy a supposition, that you ascribe your early choice of the way of life, to the blessing of the Most High on this little volume. O, if in

'Deut. xxx. 19.