lose. Summon therefore all your vigour to escape for your lives, before it be too late. Take up the fervid petition of Lot to the deftroying angel," behold now this city is near "to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh! "let me efcape thither, (is it not a little રે one?) and foul fhall live." And may God infpire you with fuch a lively forrow and compunction of heart, that you may truly repent you of your past fins, and be accepted into the kingdom of your heavenly Master, even at the last hour, though ye have stood all the day idle!

my

Laftly, let me recommend to every one of you, of whatever age, the serious confideration of that folemn prophecy contained in the book of Revelation : "And the angel which "I faw ftand upon the fea, and upon the "earth, lifted up. his hand to heaven, and "fware by him that liveth for ever and ever, "That there fhould be time no longer. My brethren, when this prophecy shall be finally accomplished, can be known only unto him who liveth for ever and ever. But to us it is fully accomplished, whenever death fhall have closed our eyes, To us, time is Q 4 then

then no more. To us, the fun is for ever darkened, and the stars shall no more give their light. To us, the time of trial is ended, the time of grace is expired, the time of repentance is cut off, and an eternity of torments or happiness from that moment begins. How therefore does it become every one of us to guard against being furprized in an unlooked for hour by that awful period! How does it become every one of us to redeem the time by acts of virtue and benevolence! How does it become every one of us to beseech the giver of all good gifts, that he would fo teach us to number our days, that we may steadily and in earnest apply our hearts unto that wisdom, which can alone enfure to us a ftate of never-failing happiness, when time shall be no more!

SER

SERMON XXXIV.

GALAT. iv. 4.

When the fulness of time was come, God fent forth his Son.

INCE God, at the creation of the world,

SINCE

placed mankind in a fituation perfectly worthy of his infinite wisdom and goodness; fince he made them rational and free creatures, and confequently capable as well of exalting and improving, as of debafing and impairing their natural faculties; it cannot justly be faid, that he lay under any neceffity of fending his Son into the world at all. However, when men in general had so far deviated from the paths of righteousness, and were fo far degenerated into the groffeft ignorance and stupidity, as scarcely to have any impreffion of their Maker remaining upon

their minds, it was doubtless most earnestly to be wished, that the Almighty would provide fome means to conduct them back to the right way, and to restore them to a just sense of their obligations to the only true God. But this they could not have the smalleft pretence to demand as a matter of strict right, but must owe it entirely to his great and unlimited goodness towards the children of men.

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Would it not, therefore, strongly excite the wonder of a thinking man, to find any perfon fo impioufly daring, as to impeach even the divine justice, because God did not fend his Son in the flesh fooner! And yet, bold as it may seem, this is one of the grand points in difpute between the christian and the deift. If," fay thefe free-thinkers, as they affect to call themselves, "God always acts for the good of his creatures, would he not rather have difcovered fuch things as made for their good, by fending them a Saviour from the beginning of the world, than have deferred it for four thoufand $6 years together, even till the time of Tibe❝rius?" To a true believer it were a fufficient

ficient anfwer to quote the teftimony of my text, which affures us, "that God fent forth "his Son, when the fulness of time was come:" For as we have the divine authority, that Christ came in due time, though we were not able to affign one fingle reafon, why that precise time was pitched upon, yet would it furely become us fhort-fighted mortals to put an implicit confidence in the confummate wisdom of our all-feeing Creator, and thankfully to embrace fuch an ineftimable benefit. It happens, however, that, in the cafe before us, God hath not left himself without ample witneffes of his wifdom, but has furnished us with abundant means to check the prefumptuous petulancy of the enemies of revelation, and to confirm the faith of all fincere chriftians.

It is feldom, and never with pleasure, that I enter upon fubjects of controverfy in this place, which is much more properly adapted for the cultivation and advancement of practical faith and virtue in the world. It may, however, fometimes be not improper to do it; left infidelity fhould affume confidence from our filence, and fancy its arguments unanswerable,