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conviction, or wearing it off and relapsing into a trifling state? Think! The issue should be healing by Christ the physician, and through the application of his blood. That can do for Pharisees and for Publicans what they want, and nothing else can. How long will it be ere many half-earnest professors come to a point in this business, and find healing through the blood of Jesus? Will you go to hell, then, at length with your eyes half open? And will not ye who once knew these things, but whose eyes are now grown dim through sloth and worldliness, return and be revived with grace before you die? And ye who say all is well with you, and who yet are unacquainted with these things--may one ask when began your soul concern? When had you acquaintance with Christ? When experienced his healing power? Go ye and learn what that meaneth, " I will have mercy and not sacrifice, for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

The spirit of the law is to be preferred before the letter. Self-righteous characters are always nice in trifles, and negligent in the life and soul of religion. Happy for us Christ is not so: He has mercy on poor humbled Publicans. Yes, and on Pharisees also, when they become humbled. Behold! in the text, a lovely picture of grace, condescension, pity, loving-kindness. Sink down in your own sight, ye sons and daughters of men, or you cannot see it. He came to save sinners. The righteous who think themselves so he abhors. Submit yourselves to him and be happy.

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SERMON XIII.

THE HAPPY EFFECTS OF FEARING ALWAY, AND THE DANGER OF PRESUMPTION.

Prov. xxviii. 14.

Happy is the man that feareth alway: but he that hardeneth his heart, shall fall into mischief.

THERE is not a moré common description in Scripture of godly men than this, that they fear the Lord. In the text the constancy of this fear is recommended: Happy is the man that feareth alway." It is never safe, while we live, to be without such fear as causes us to suspect ourselves, and to watch over our steps that we go not astray. The man will be always safe who does this. But he who rushes on without watchfulness and suspicion, will certainly bring himself into great evils, and if he cease not from his folly, into hell at last. "He that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief."

cases.

Such is the general instruction of the text. It is my design to apply it more particularly to several In doing this I see, methinks, four sorts of characters to be attended to.-1. The man of this world, who has no fear of God before his eyes, and who professes no principle of religion.-2. The man, whose religion only affects his head, but never reached his heart.-3. The man, whose heart has been touched with religion, but a religion either entirely, or at least partly false.-4. The blessed man, who fears the Lord indeed, and that alway, as the text directs.

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I beseech you, brethren, receive with charity, what with charity I hope shall be delivered for your benefit. Some of you may possibly find you can heartily agree with me in condemning one sort; but when I proceed to condemn another sort, there you may find yourselves disposed to make excuses, and to palliate, perhaps to be angry with me. the time to suspect yourselves to be the very persons who are wrong in that particular. It will be worth while to examine your own heart, and God's word, and compare both with the account that shall be given. Let what I shall say be submitted to the authority of God's word, and by that let it stand or fall. Only let no one condemn or reject, till assured that it is contrary to God's word. There is no other safe rule; all things else ought to give way to this.

It is the business of the Gospel Minister, brethren, not to flatter, nor to amuse, not to set up one sort of religious professors and to cry down another, but to act with strict impartiality, as one who pleaseth not men but God. It is his duty to expose the faults of all sorts and kinds of people; to point out the way, the only way, in which they ought to walk; and to distinguish it, continually, from all false ways; and to rebuke and exhort with all longsuffering, and doctrine. To this end, I beg the prayers, the hearty, and constant prayers of all that fear God, that I may be so qualified, and now, and at all other times, may my ministry be to your edification!

The man of this world, who has no religious principles at all, shall first be spoken to. He hardens his heart against all fear, by such considerations as these. "Sin is too slight a thing for God to punish it so severely. He is too merciful to damn us for our faults. God is good, and has done us much good, has given us success in our worldly business. He surely will not destroy us at last; he will not consign us to everlasting burnings." Had I the voice of thunder, and the keenness of lightning, I could not sufficiently lay open the tremendous horror of your situation. How dare you be easy in your souls, on such false reasoning as this! I may well call it false, because matter of fact speaks otherwise. Is not the world full of misery ? Where do you live that you cannot see it? If the scourge has not yet reached you, what reason have you to think that your time will not come ere long? Is God a respecter of persons? See you not numbers very miserable, who are not more wicked, it may be, than you? At this very time one part of the world is the seat of dismal confusion, and the horror of war. The hand of the Almighty is in all this, and it is certain that he is punishing sin. He is teaching thee, by thy neighbour's experience, what thou mayest expect by and by in thy turn because of sin. Surely a God of pity, of goodness, of Love itself, delights not in our misery. He says himself, " he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." There must be a cause then, a necessity, of which he alone, in his infinite wisdom, must

be the judge, for his punishing sin. The pride of reasoning against such evident matter of fact, when the character of the Lord is considered, is intolerable, and equalled only by its folly.

But where do you live, that you cannot see the hand of God punishing sin? Not a newspaper can be read, but marks of it appear. In private life, and among your neighbours, the same thing appears. Perhaps dress and diversions; gaming or business; grandeur or trifling; gaiety and laughter, so take you up, that you are drunk with folly's cup, and kept in such a state of intoxication, that you cannot see matter of fact every where and every day crying aloud, "O men, repent and flee from the wrath to come." God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth, the Lord revengeth and is furious." Every where may be seen objects oppressed with poverty, or the prey of loathsome disease; distracted with pain, or benumbed with lethargy. It is folly to draw a veil over these scenes, and talk of every thing going on in a smooth, agreeable way. You that talk so may be of those whose hearts are hardened against the cries of the wretched, or who are so otherwise engaged, as not even to know, or to take notice what misery many suffer in the world. But it is fit that things be stated as they are. The world is a miserable, sorrowful world; and the sin of it in every age has made it so.

Take you your share of affliction, ye insensible ones! It ill becomes you to laugh in jollity, while the world weeps in woe. Have you obtained the pardon of your sins, and a sure title to glory through believing in Jesus? You will not say this: for re

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