the road for an unnatural world can never prove to be a pleasant world. His wealth is devoured by himself; or lost and squandered away upon hawks and harpies; who would tear the flesh off his bones, and never thank him, for any thing they get by him. By eating, or drinking to excess, his understanding is darkened; his body is distempered; and his life is cut short. The ill company he keeps at home by their faithlessness and ingratitude, disappoint him, distress him, and ruin him: and, in the end, he treats them, and they treat him, with mutual curses and accusations. As to his conversation, the best of it is seasoned with foolish jesting, and the worst of it is poisoned with blasphemy. His music is the noise of intoxication; it gives glory to vice and folly; and his mirth is the crackling of thorns under a pot, which consume themselves with their own blaze. When he has done what mischief he can to himself and others, he comes to his last hour; but there is no comfort to be found! a dreadful gulf is before him; God hath not been in all his thoughts; the world which he abused is going from him, and a worse is coming; toward which, every step of his life was leading him; but he saw not the end. The two men I have now been describing appear like the inhabitants of two different worlds. They certainly belong to two classes of beings; the first to the children of light; the other to the poor disappointed children of this world, who love darkness rather than light. Methinks I hear some of you cry out, "What would I give to be like the first of these men?" And hath not God called you for this very end, and taught you how to be like him; and promised to assist you, in the endeavour to make yourself like him? If you dread the other character, hath not God taught you how to avoid it? Has he not forewarned you of the deceitfulness of sin; what a cheat it is; and how it betrays into certain misery? Conquered you may be; but you never can be taken by surprise, when you have had so-many warnings. You may now see by example, that man is the maker of most evils; for the greater part are occasioned by the abuse of this world; and they are in most danger of abusing it, who have most of it in their possession. Men look up to them with admiration for what they have got, and praise the happiness of their situation; but, unless they have wisdom along with their riches, they are to be pitied rather than envied, for their temptations and dangers. The poor man has not so much to fear, yet he can find ways of abusing the world to his own ruin: so that all men, rich and poor, should learn in time, what it is to use it wisely: if they do not, they see the consequence; the whole subject has been reduced to matter of fact. And now, who can behold, without sorrow of heart, what man is, when it is considered what he might be! But how dreadful does the case become, when it is added, that man has but one life to live in this world; if he throws that away, there is no second trial: he never returns to correct his mistake; he is never permitted to try the world over again; and if he were to try it a thousand times, he would always miscarry, if he is not with God, and God is not with him. Thrice happy, then, is he, who looking up to God, and following his rules, and depending upon his protection, is in the way of deliverance: who, looking upon the world as a wide ocean, sees others tossed in the storm, while his own feet are upon firm land; who, having used this world according to the sense of the Apostle in the text, shall be admitted to the use of a better, where there shall be neither abuses nor offences, but righteousness and peace without end, and without interruption. SERMON XXIII. EXCEPT YE REPENT, YE SHALL ALL LIKEWISE A LL impenitent sinners will be punished; but not immediately. Some are distinguished, for an example to others and if those others do not take warning, they will then be doubly guilty, and deserve a double punish ment. Some people of Judea had been killed at Siloam by the falling of a tower upon their heads; and others of Galilee had been cruelly slaughtered by Pilate. In such cases, it was the manner of the Jews to argue, that if any suffered punishment, it was a sure sign they were sinners; and if their punishment was great, that their sin must have been great also. But with this they had another dangerous opinion; viz. that if a man were not punished, then it would follow, that he was not a sinner; at any rate, not so great a sinner as those that were punished. This was one way they had of justifying themselves, by comparing themselves with other men. When they told our Saviour how the Galileans had suffered; partly with design to affront him as a supposed Galilean, and partly out of curiosity to hear what he would say, they put this question to him: "Master, what great sin had those Galileans committed, that they suffered such things?" He does not answer to their curiosity (which signified nothing), but he answers to their mistake; letting them know, that those men had not been chosen for punishment because they were the greatest of sinners; but to give warning to other sinners, as great or greater than themselves, that without repentance they also would certainly perish at some time or other. A tower might not fall upon their heads, to kill them in the midst of their rioting, as was the case at Siloam; neither might the sword of a tyrant slay them; yet they might be assured, they should at length perisli under the vengeance of God; and this vengeance had already fallen upon some as an earnest and example to all the rest. If you consider with yourselves what it is to perish, that is, to be lost and miserable to eternity; and that you must either perish or repent; I think you will be ready to hear what I have to offer upon the subject; and if your minds should hitherto have been careless and dead upon it, you will awake, and hear what is to be said: for at some time or other you must awake; and how much better is it to be called out of your sleep by a friend, than to be awakened in the morning by the voice of an executioner, calling you to your death! I shall have but little difficulty in making you understand what it is to repent, if you recollect the vow you made at your baptism, to renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil. These are the three enemies, which draw men into sin, and by binding them down in it with a chain, hinder their repentance. The devil tempts you to pride, envy, malice, ignorance, cruelty, falsehood, and disobedience; by the last of which, I mean rebellious undutifulness. The world tempts you to covetousness, vanity, the pursuit of pleasure, the love of show and appearance: and covetousness draws you into injustice, fraud, oppression, and extortion. The flesh tempts you to excess, self-indulgence, sloth, intemperance, greediness, drunkenness, and all such sins as turn man into a beast; the worst of beasts, and the most odious, which is the swine. The law of God in the ten commandments, as you have been taught in your catechism, is pointed against all these sins, and, the law of God being known, conscience will be sure to tell you how and when you depart from it; and it will so often set your offences before you, that it requires very little art and skill to try and examine yourselves according to the plain rule of God's commandments. Your heart, if you listen to it, will soon tell you how you stand, in respect to the law of God on the one hand, and to your three enemies and their works on the other. To repent, is to forsake them and their works, and turn to God and his law; not in your words only, but in your hearts; for so the catechism teaches; that by repentance we do not only confess sin, but forsake it. I am convinced, that very little teaching is wanting to shew people what it is to forsake sin, and turn to God. Our Saviour says nothing about it in the text, but supposes his meaning to be sufficiently understood; and that nothing is wanting in his hearers, but a due consideration of the motive, which should lead all men to repentance: that except they repent, they shall perish. What a terrible world is this, if we could understand it now, as it will be understood by sinners hereafter: but, as it is said of the things which God hath prepared for them that love him, that they are such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it ever entered into the heart of man to conceive them; so may we say of those other things, which God hath prepared for them who do not love him, that they are such as our senses of seeing, and hearing, and conceiving, will not now enable us fully to understand. What it is to perish, can be known, so far only, as God has been pleased to reveal to us in his word. If it were possible for us to comprehend it in its full extent, the prospect might shock us to such a degree, as to strike us dead upon the spot with terror. with terror. But that would be of no use; it is not designed to fright us out of life, but to fright us out of sin. God grant that it may have its effect! The general sense of it is contained in those words of our Saviour concerning his sheep-"I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish:" so that to perish, is to lose eternal life; and, with that, all things desirable and delightful to man. It is hard for us to conceive what a spirit can be without life but you may have some understanding of |