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النشر الإلكتروني

ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION.

his riches, his titles, his grandeur, and the whole universe united for his aid, can afford him no consolation: a man so situated knows the vanity of the world better than the greatest philosophers, and the severest anchorets: hence he may detach his heart. We would even wish that the Deity should accept of such a conversion, should be satisfied with one who does not devote himself to virtue, till the occasions of vice are removed, and should receive the like sinner at the extremities of life; it is certain, however, that all these suppositions are so far from favouring the delay of conversion, as to demonstrate its absurdity.-How can we presume on what may happen in the hour of death? Of how many difficulties is this illusory scheme susceptible! Shall I die in a bed calm and composed? Shall I have presence and recollection of mind? Shall I avail myself of these circumstances to eradicate vice from the heart, and to establish there the kingdom of righteousness?

For, first, who is to guarantee that you shall
die in this situation? To how many disastrous
accidents, to how many tragic events are you
not exposed? Does not every creature, every
substance which surrounds you, menace both
your health and your life? If your hopes of
conversion are founded on a supposition of this
kind, you must fear the whole universe. Are
you in the house? you must fear its giving
way, and dissipating by the fall all your expec-
tations. Are you in the open field? you must
fear lest, the earth, opening its caverns, should
swallow you up, and thus elude your hope.
Are you on the waters? you must fear to see
in every wave a messenger of death, a mi-
nister of justice, and an avenger of your luke-
warmness and delay. Amidst so many well-
founded fears, what repose can you enjoy? If
any one of these accidents should overtake
you, say now, what would become of your
foolish prudence? Who is it that would then
study for you the religion you have neglected?
Who is it that would then shed for you tears
of repentance? Who is it that would then quench
for you the devouring fire, kindled against
your crimes, and ready to consume you? Is a
tragic death a thing unknown? What year
elapses undistinguished by visitations of this
kind? What campaign is closed without pro-
ducing myriads?

In the second place, we will suppose that
you shall die a natural death. Have you ever
seen the dying? Do you presume that one can
be in a proper state for thought and reflection,
when seized with those presages of death,
which announce his approach? When one is
seized with those insupportable and piercing
pains which take every reflection from the
soul? When exposed to those stupors which
benumb the brightest wit, and the most pierc-
ing genius? To those profound lethargies which
render unavailing, motives the most powerful,
and exhortations the most pathetic? To those
frequent reverses which present phantoms and
chimeras, and fill the soul with a thousand
alarms? My brethren, would we always wish
to deceive ourselves? Look, foolish man; look
on this pale extended corpse, look again on
this now dying carcass: where is the mind
which has fortitude to recollect itself in this

deplorable situation, and to execute the chi-
In the third place, we will suppose that you
merical projects of conversion?
shall, by the peculiar favour of heaven, be vi-
sited with one of those mild complaints, which
conduct imperceptibly to the grave, and unat-
tended with pain; would you then be more hap-
pily disposed for conversion? Are we not daily
witnesses of what passes on those occasions?
Our friends, our family, our self-esteem, all
unite to make us augur a favourable issue,
whenever the affliction is not desperate: and
not thinking this the time of death, we think
also it ought not to be the time of conversion.
After having disputed with God the fine days
of health, we regret to give him the lucid in-
tervals of our affliction. We would wish him
to receive the soul at the precise moment when
it hovers on our lips. We hope to live, and
hope inflames desire; the wish to live more and
and "the friendship of this world is enmity
more enroots the love we had for the world;
with God." Meanwhile the affliction extends
itself, the disease takes its course, the body
weakens, the spirits droop, and death arrives
even before we had scarcely thought that we
were mortal.

Fancy yourselves, in short, to die in the
most favourable situation, tranquil and com-
posed, without delirium, without stupor, with-
out lethargy. Fancy also, that stripped of
prejudice, and the chimerical hope of reco-
very, you should know that your end is near.
I ask whether the single thought, the sole idea,
that you shall soon die, be not capable of de-
priving you of the composure essential to the
work of your salvation? Can a man habitu-
ated to dissipation, accustomed to care, de-
voted to its maxims, see without confusion and
regret, his designs averted, his hopes frustrated,
his schemes subverted, the fashion of the world
vanishing before his eyes, the thrones erected,
the books opened, and his soul cited before the
tribunal of the Sovereign Judge? We have
frequent occasions to observe, when attending
the sick, that those who suffer the greatest an-
guish, are not always the most distressed about
their sins, however deplorable their state may
be, their pains so far engross the capacity of
the soul, as to obstruct their paying attention
ing death. But a man who sees himself ap-
to what is most awful, the image of approach-
proaching the grave, and looks on his exit un-
disturbed with pains; a man who considers
death as it really is, suffers sometimes greater
anguish than those which can arise from the
acutest disease.

But what shall I say of the multitude of
anxieties attendant on this fatal hour? Physi-
cians must be called in, advice must be taken,
and endeavours used to support this tottering
tabernacle. He must appoint a successor,
make a will, bid adieu to the world, weep over
his family, embrace his friends, and detach his
affections. Is there time then, is there time
amid so many afflictive objects, amid the tu-
mult of so many alarms; is there time to ex-
amine religion, to review the circumstances of
a vanishing life, to restore the wealth illegally
acquired, to repair the tarnished reputation of
his neighbour, to repent of his sin, to examine
his heart, and weigh those distinguished mo-

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tives which prompt us to holiness? My breth-ready, that the subject is too grave and serious ren, whenever we devote ourselves entirely to to admit of pleasantry. the great work; whenever we employ all our My brethren, "if any one preach to you bodily powers, all our mental faculties; when- another gospel than that which has been preachever we employ the whole of life it is scarcelyed, let him be accursed." If any one will presufficient, how then can it be done by a busy, sume to attack those doctrines which the sawandering, troubled, and departing spirit? cred authors have left in their writings, which Hence the third difficulty vanishes of its own your fathers have transmitted, which some of accord; hence we may maintain as permanent, you have sealed with your blood, and nearly the principles we have discussed, and the con- all of you with your riches and fortune; if sequences we have deduced. any one presume to attack them, let the doctors refute, let the ecclesiastical sword cut, pierce, exscind, and excommunicate at a stroke the presumptuous man. But consider also that the end of all these truths is, to induce mankind to love their Maker. This is so essential, that we make no scruple to say, if there were one among the different Christian sects better calculated to make you holy than our communion, you ought to leave this in order to attach yourselves hereafter to the other. One of the first reasons which should induce us to respect the doctrine of the incarnate God, the inward, immediate, and supernatural aids of the Spirit is, that there is nothing in the world more happily calculated to enforce the obligation of loving God.

Now, we are fully convinced that those of you who know how to reason, will not dispute these principles; I say those who know how to reason; because it is impossible, but among two or three thousand persons, there must be found some eccentric minds, who deny the clearest and most evident truths. If there are among our hearers, persons who believe that a man can effectuate conversion by his own strength, it would not be proper for them to reject our principles, and they can have no right to complain. If you are orthodox, as we suppose, you cannot regard as false what we have now proved. Our maxims have been founded on the most rigid orthodoxy, on the inability of man, on the necessity of grace, on original corruption, and on the various objections which Return therefore, from your prejudices, irraour most venerable divines have opposed to diate your minds, and acquire more correct the system of degenerate casuists. Hence, as ideas of a holy life, and a happy death. On I have said, not one of you can claim the right this subject, we flatter and confuse ourselves, of disputing the doctrine we have taught. and willingly exclude instruction. We imaHeretics, orthodox, and all the world are oblig-gine, that provided we have paid during the ed to receive them, and you yourselves have nothing to object. But we, my brethren, we have many sad and terrific consequences to draw; but at the same time, consequences equally worthy of your regard.

APPLICATION.

First, you should reduce to practice the observations we have made on conversion, and particularly the reflections we have endeavoured to establish, that in order to be truly regenerate, it is not sufficient to do some partial services for God, love must be the reigning disposition of the heart. This idea ought to correct the erroneous notions you entertain of a good life, and a happy death, that you can neither know those things in this world, nor should you wish to know them. They are, indeed, visionaries who affect to be offended when we press those grand truths of religion, who would disseminate their ridiculous errors in the church, and incessantly cry in our ears, "Christians, take heed to yourselves; they shake the foundation of faith; the doctrine of assurance is a doctrine of fanaticism."

My brethren, were this a subject less serious and grave, nothing would hinder us from ridiculing all scruples of this nature. "Take heed to yourselves, for there is fanaticism in the doctrine:" we would press you to love God with all your heart; we would press you to consecrate to him your whole life; we would induce you not to defer conversion, but prepare for a happy death by the continual exercise of repentance and piety. Is it not obvious that we ought to be cautious of admitting such a doctrine, and that the church would be in a deplorable condition were all her members adorned with those dispositions? But we have said al

ordinary course of life, a modified regard to devotion, we have but to submit to the will of God, whenever he may call us to leave the world; we imagine that we have worthily fulfilled the duties of life, fought the good fight, and have nothing to do but to put forth the hand to the crown of righteousness. "There is no fear," say they, "of the death of such a Christian; he was an Israelite indeed, he was an honest man, he led a good life." But what is the import of the words, he led a moral life? a phrase as barbarous in the expression as erroneous in the sense; for if the phrase mean any thing, it is that he has fulfilled the duties of morality. But can you bear this testimony of the man we have just described; of a man who contents himself with avoiding the crimes accounted infamous in the world; but exclusively of that, he has neither fervour, nor zeal nor patience, nor charity? Is this the man, who, you say, has led a moral life? What then is the morality which prescribes so broad a path? Is it not the morality of Jesus Christ? The morality of Jesus Christ recommends silence, retirement, detachment from the world. The morality of Jesus Christ requires, that you "be merciful, as God is merciful; that you be perfect, as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." The morality of Jesus Christ requires, that you "love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind:" and that if you cannot fully attain to this degree of perfection on earth, you should make continual efforts to approach it. Here you have the prescribed morality of Jesus Christ. But the morality of which you speak, is the morality of the world, the morality of the devil, the morality of hell. Will such a morality enable you to sustain the judgment

of God Will it appease his justice? Will it close the gates of hell? Will it open the gates of immortality? Ah! let us form better ideas of religion. There is an infinite distance between him, accounted by the world an honest man, and a real Christian; and if the love of God have not been the predominant disposition of our heart, let us tremble, let us weep, or rather let us endeavour to reform. This is the first conclusion we deduce from our dis

course.

The second turns on what we have said with regard to the force of habits; on the means of correcting the bad, and of acquiring the good. Recollect, that all these things cannot be done in a moment; recollect, that to succeed, we must be fixed and firm, returning a thousand and a thousand times to the charge. We should be the more struck with the propriety of this, if, as we said in the body of this discourse, we employed more time to reflect on ourselves. But most people live destitute of thought and recollection. We are dissipated by exterior things, our eyes glance on every object, we ascend to the heavens to make new discoveries among the stars, we descend into the deep, we dig into the bowels of the earth, we run even from the one to the other world, seeking fortune in the most remote regions, and we are ignorant of what occurs in our own breast. We have a body and a soul, noblest works of God, and we never reflect on what passes within, how knowledge is acquired, how prejudices originate, how habits are formed and fortified. If this knowledge served merely for intellectual pleasure, we ought at least to tax our indolence with negligence: but being intimately connected with our salvation, we cannot but deplore our indifference. Let us therefore study ourselves, and become rational, if we would become regenerate. Let us learn the important truth already proved, that virtue is acquired only by diligence and application.

to become genuine Christians, as we endeavour to become profound philosophers, acute mathematicians, able preachers, enlightened merchants, intrepid commanders, by assiduity and labour, by close and constant application.

This is perhaps a galling reflection. I am not astonished that it is calculated to excite in most of you discouragement and fear: here is the most difficult part of our discourse. The doctrines or truths we discuss being unwelcome, and such as you would gladly evade, we must here suspend the thread of this discourse, that you may feel the importance of our ministry. For, after having established these truths, we must form the one or the other of these opinions concerning your conduct, either that you do "seek the Lord while he may be found," and endeavour, by a holy obstinacy, to establish truth in the mind, and grace in the heart; or that you exclude yourselves from salvation, and engage yourselves so afore in the way of destruction, as to occasion fear lest the Spirit of God, a thousand and a thousand times insulted, should for ever withdraw.

What do you say, my brethren? Which of these opinions is best founded? To what end do you live? Does this unremitting vigilance, this holy obstinacy, this continual recurrence of watchfulness and care, form the object of your life? Ah! make no more problems of a truth, which will shortly be but too well established.

Ministers of Jesus Christ, sent by the God of vengeance, not to plant only, but also to root out; to build, but also to throw down; Jer. i. 10, to "proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord," Isa. lxi. 2, but also to blow the alarming trumpet of Zion in the ears of the people; awaken the conscience; brandish the awful sword of Divine justice; put in full effect the most terrific truths of religion. In prosperous seasons the gospel supplies us with sweet and consoling passages; but we should now urge the most efficacious, and not stay to adorn the house of God, when called to extinguish a fire which threatens its destruction. Yes, Christians, did we use concerning many of you, any other language, we should betray the sentiments of our hearts. You suffer the only period, proper for your salvation, to escape. You walk in a dreadful path," the end thereof is death," and your way of life tends absolutely to incapacitate you from tasting the sweetness of a happy death.

Nor let it be here objected, that we ought not to talk of Christian virtues as of the other habits of the soul; and that the Holy Spirit can suddenly and fully correct our prejudices, and eradicate our corrupt propensities. With out a doubt we need his aid—Yes, O Holy Spirit, source of eternal wisdom, however great may be my efforts and vigilance, whatever endeavours I may use for my salvation, I will never trust to myself, never will I "offer incense to my drag, or sacrifice to my net," It is true, if you call in some ministers at the never will I lean upon this "bruised reed," close of life, they will perhaps have the weaknever will I view my utter insufficiency with-ness to promise, to the appearance of converout asking thy support.

But after all, let us not imagine that the operations of the Holy Spirit are like the fabulous enchantments celebrated in our romances and poets. We have told you a thousand times, and we cannot too often repeat it, that grace never destroys, but perfects nature. The Spirit of God will abundantly irradiate your mind, if you vigorously apply to religious contemplation; but he will not infuse the light if you disdain the study. The Spirit of God will abundantly establish the reign of grace in your heart, if you assiduously apply to the work; but he will never do it in the midst of dissipation and sin. We ought to endeavour VOL. II.-32

sion, that grace which is offered only to a genuine change of heart. But we solemnly declare, that if, after a life of inaction and negligence, they shall speak peace to you on a death-bed, you ought not to depend on this kind of promises. You ought to class them with those things which ought not to be credited, though "an angel from heaven should come and preach them." Ministers are but men, and weak as others. You call us to attend the dying, who have lived as most of the human kind. There we find a sorrowful family, a father bathed in tears, a mother in despair: what would you have us to do? Would you have us speak honestly to the sick man? Would you have us

tell him, that all this exterior of repentance is | You are now precisely at the age for salvation, a vain phantom without substance, without you have all the necessary dispositions for the reality? That among a thousand sick persons, study of religious truths, and the subjugation who seem converted on a death-bed, we scarce-of your heart to its laws. What penetration, ly find one who is really changed? That for one what perception, what vivacity, and consedegree of probability of the reality of his con- quently what preparation for receiving the version, we have a thousand which prove it to yoke of Christ. Cherish those dispositions, be extorted? And to speak without evasion, and improve each moment of a period so prewe presume, that in one hour he will be taken cious. "Remember your Creator in the days from his dying bed, and cast into the torments of your youth," Eccles. xii. 1. Alas, with all of hell We should do this-we should apply your acuteness you will have enough to do in this last remedy, and no longer trifle with a surmounting the wicked propensities of your soul whose destruction is almost certain. But heart. And what would it be, if to the deprayou forbid us, you prevent us; you say that vity of nature, and the force of habit, you such severe language would injure the health should add, the grovelling all your life in vice? of the sick. You do more; you weep, you lament. At a scene so affecting, we soften as other men: we have not resolution to add one affliction to another; and whether from compassion to the dying, or pity to the living, we talk of heaven, and afford the man hopes of salvation. But we say again, we still declare that all these promises ought to be suspected; they can change neither the spirit of religion, nor the nature of man. "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord," Heb. xii. 14. And those tears which you shed on the approach of death, that extorted submission to the will of God, those hasty resolutions of obedience, are not that holiness. In vain should we address you in other language. You yourselves would hear on your dying bed an irreproachable witness always ready to contradict us.- -That witness is conscience. In vain does the degenerate minister endeavour to afford the dying illusive hope; conscience speaks without disguise. The preacher says, "Peace, peace," Jer. vi. 14; conscience replies, "There is no peace to the wicked, saith my God," Isa. lv. 21. The preacher says, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors," Ps. xxiv. 7. Conscience cries, "Mountains, mountains, fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb," Rev. vi. 16.

But, O gracious God, what are we doing in this pulpit? Are we come to trouble Israel? Are we sent to curse? Do we preach to-day | only of hell, only of devils? Ah! my brethren, there is no attaining salvation but in the way which we have just prescribed: it is true, that to the present hour you have neglected: it is true, that the day of vengeance is about to succeed the day of wrath. But the day of vengeance is not yet come. You yet live, you yet breathe: grace is yet offered. I hear the voice of my Saviour, saying, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem," Isa. xl. 1. I hear the delightful accents crying upon this church, "Grace, grace unto it," Zech. iv. 7. "How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee, Israel? How shall I make thee as Admah? How shall I set thee as Zeboim? Mine heart is turned within me, my relentings are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger: I will not return to destroy Ephraim," Hos. xi. 8, 9. It speaks peculiarly to you, young people, whose minds are yet free from passion and prejudice, whose chaste hearts have not yet been corrupted by the world.

And you aged men, who have already run your course, but who have devoted the best of your days to the world: you who seek the Lord to-day, groping your way, and who are making faint efforts in age to withdraw from the world, a heart of which it has possession: what shall we say to you? Shall we say that your ruin is without remedy, that your sentence is already pronounced, that nothing now remains but to cast you headlong into the abyss you have willingly prepared for yourselves? God forbid that we should thus become the executioners of Divine vengeance. We address you in the voice of our prophet. "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found." Weep at the remembrance of your past lives, tremble at the thought, that God sends strong delusions on those that " obey not the truth." Oh! happy docility of my youth, whither art thou fled? Ah! soul more burdened with corruption than with the weight of years: Ah! stupidity, prejudice, fatal dominion of sin, you are the sad recompense I have derived from serving the enemy of my salvation.

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But, while you fear, hope; and hoping, act: at least, O! at least the span of life, which God may add, devote to your salvation. You have abundantly more to do than others; your task is greater, and your time is shorter. You have, according to the prophet, "to turn your feet unto the testimonies of the Lord," Ps. cxix. 59. But swim against the stream; ter in at the strait gate." Above all,-above all, offer up fervent prayers to God. Perhaps, moved by your tears, he will revoke the sentence; perhaps, excited to compassion by your misery, he will heal it by his grace; perhaps, surmounting by the supernatural operations of the Spirit, the depravity of nature, he will give you thoughts so divine, and sentiments so tender, that you shall suddenly be transformed into new men.

To the utmost of our power, let us reform. There is yet time, but that time is perhaps more limited than we think. After all, why delay? Ah! I well see what obstructs. You regard conversion as an irksome task, and the state of regeneration as difficult and burdensome, which must be entered into as late as possible. But if you knew-if you knew the gift of God!-If you knew the sweetness felt by a man who seeks God in his ordinances, who hears his oracles, who derives light and truth from their source:-If you knew the joy of a man transformed into the image of his Maker, and who daily engraves on his heart some new trait of the all-perfect Being:-If

you knew the consolation of a Christian, who seeks his God in prayer, who mingles his voice with the voice of angels, and begins on earth the sacred exercises which shall one day constitute his eternal felicity:-If you knew the joys which succeed the bitterness of repentance, when the sinner, returning from his folly, prostrates himself at the feet of a merciful God, and receives at the throne of grace, from the Saviour of the world, the discharge of all their sins, and mingling tears of joy with tears of grief, repairs by redoubled affection, his lukewarmness and indolence:-If you knew the raptures of a soul persuaded of its salvation, which places all its hope within the veil, as an anchor sure and steadfast, which bids defiance to hell and the devil, which anticipates the celestial delights; a soul" which is already justified, already risen, already glorified, already seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," Eph. ii. 6.

Ah! why should we defer so glorious a task? We ought to defer things which are painful and injurious, and when we cannot extricate ourselves from a great calamity, we ought at least to retard it as much as possible. But this peace, this tranquillity, these transports, this resurrection, this foretaste of paradise, are they to be arranged in this class? Ah no! I will no longer delay, O my God, to keep thy commandments. I will "reach forth," I will press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling," Phil. iii. 14. Happy to have formed such noble resolutions! Happy to accomplish them! Amen. To God, the Father, Son, and Spirit, be honour and glory for ever. Amen.

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SERMON LXXXI.

ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION.
PART II.

ISAIAH IV. 6.

Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye

upon him while he is near.

It is now some time, my brethren, if you recollect, since we addressed you on this subject. We proposed to be less scrupulous in discussing the terms than desirous to attack the delay of conversion, and absurd notions of divine mercy. We then apprised you, that we should draw our reflections from three sources, from the nature of man,-from the authority of Scripture, and from actual experience. We began by the first of these points; to-day we intend to discuss the second; and if Providence call us again into this pulpit, we will explain the third, and give the finishing hand to the subject.

If you were attentive to what we proposed in our first discourse, if the love of salvation drew you to these assemblies, you would derive instruction. You would sensibly perceive the vain pretensions of those who would indeed labour to obtain salvation, but who always delay. For what, I pray, is more proper to excite alarm and terror in the soul, negligent of conversion, than the single point to which

we called your attention, the study of man? What is more proper to confound such a man, than to tell him, as we then did, your brain will weaken your age; your mind will be filled with notions foreign to religion; it will lose with years, the power of conversing with any but sensible objects; and of commencing the investigation of religious truths? What is more proper to save such a man from his prejudices, than to remind him, that the way, and the only way of acquiring a habit is practice; that virtue cannot be formed in the heart by a single wish, by a rash and hasty resolution, but by repeated and persevering efforts; that the habit of a vice strengthens itself in proportion as we indulge the crime? What, in short, is more proper to induce us to improve the time of health for salvation, than to exhibit to him the portrait we have drawn of a dying man, stretched on a bed of affliction, labouring with sickness, troubled with phantoms and reveries, flattered by his friends, terrified with death, and consequently incapable of executing the work he has deferred to this tragic period? I again repeat, my brethren, if you were attentive to the discourse we delivered, if the desire of salvation drew you to these assemblies, there is not one among you that those serious reflections would not constrain to enter into his heart, and to reform without delay the purposes of life.

But it may appear to some, that we narrow the way to heaven; that the doctrines of faith being above the doctrines of philosophy, we must suppress the light of reason, and take solely for our guide in the paths of piety, the lamp of revelation. We will endeavour to afford them satisfaction: we will show that religion, very far from weakening, strengthens the reflections which reason has suggested. We will prove, that we have said nothing but what ought to alarm those who delay conversion, and who found the notion they have formed of the Divine mercy, not on the nature of God, but on the depraved propensity of their own heart, and on the impure system of their lusts. These are the heads of this discourse.

You will tell us, brethren, entering on this discourse, that we are little afraid of the difficulties of which perhaps it is susceptible; we hope that the truth, notwithstanding our weakness, will appear in all its lustre. But other thoughts strike our mind, and they must for a moment arrest our course. We fear the difficulty of your hearts: we fear more: we fear that this discourse, which shall disclose the treasures of grace, will aggravate the condemnation of those who turn it into wantonness: we fear that this discourse, by the abuse to which many may expose it, will serve merely as a proof of the truths already established. O God! avert this dreadful prediction, and may the cords of love, which thou so evidently employest, draw and captivate our hearts. Amen.

I. The Holy Scriptures to-day are the source from which we draw our arguments to attack the delay of conversion. Had we no design but to cite what is positively said on this subject, our meditation would require no great efforts. We should have but to transcribe a mass of infallible decisions, of repeated warnings, of terrific examples, of appalling menaces,

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