again, and ever liveth to make interceffion for you. Being now juftified by his grace, you have peace with God, and fell, ere long, be with JESUS in glory, reaping everlasting and unspeakable fruits both in body and foul. For there is no condemnation to those that are really in CHRIST JESUS. "Whether Paul or Apollos, or life or death, all is yours if you are CHRIST's, for CHRIST is God's. My brethren, my heart is enlarged towards you! Q think of the love of CHRIST in dying for you! If the LORD be your righteoufnefs, let the righteousness of your LORD be continually in your mouth. Talk of, O talk of, and recommend the righteousness of CHRIST, when you lye down, and when you rife up, at your going out and coming in! Think of the greatness of the gift, as well as of the giver! Shew to all the world, in whom you have believed! Let all by your fruits know, that the LORD is your righteousness, and that you are waiting for your LORD from heaven! O ftudy to be holy, even as he who has called you, and washed you in his own blood, is holy! Let not the righteoufnefs of the LORD be evil fpoken of through you. Let not JESUS be wounded in the house of his friends; but grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our LORD and Saviour JESUS CHRIST, day by day. O think of his dying love! Let that love conftrain you to obedience! having much forgiven, love much. Be always afking, What shall I do, to exprefs my gratitude to the LORD, for giving me his righteous nefs? Let that felf-abafing, God-exalting question be always in your mouths; "Why me, LORD? why me?" why am I taken, and others left? why is the LORD my righteousness? why is he become my falvation, who have fo often deferved damnation at his hands?

My friends, I truft I feel fomewhat of a fenfe of God's diftinguishing love upon my heart; therefore I must divert a little from congratulating you, to invite poor chriftless finners to come to him, and accept of his righteoufnefs, that they may have life.

Alas, my heart almost bleeds! What a multitude of precious fouls are now before me! how fhortly must all be ufhered into eternity! and yet, O cutting thought! was GOD now to require all your fouls, how few, comparatively speaking, could really fay, the LORD our righteousness!

And

And think you, O finners, that you will be able to stand in the day of judgment, if CHRIST be not your righteoufnefs!) No, that alone is the wedding-garment in which you must appear. O chriftless finners, I am diftreffed for you! the defires of my foul are enlarged. O that this may be an accepted time! that the LORD may be your righteoufnefs! For whither would you flee, if death should find you naked? Indeed there is no hiding yourselves from his prefence. The pitiful figleaves of your own righteoufnefs will not cover your nakedness, when GOD fhall call you to ftand before him. Adam found them ineffectual, and fo will you. O think of death! O think of judgment! Yet a little while, and time shall be no more; and then what will become of you, if the LORD be not your righteoufnefs? Think you that CHRIST will fpare you? No, he that formed you, will have no mercy on you. If you are not of CHRIST, if CHRIST be not your righteoufnefs, CHRIST himself shall pronounce you damned. And can you bear to think of being damned by CHRIST? Can you bear to hear the LORD JESUS fay to you, "Depart from me, ye curfed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Can you live, think you, in everlafting burnings? Is your flesh brafs, and your bones iron? what if they are? hell-fire, that fire prepared for the devil and bis angels, will heat them through and through. And can you bear to depart from CHRIST? O that heart-piercing thought! Afk thofe holy fouls, who are at any time bewailing an abfent GOD, who walk in darkness, and fee no light, though but a few days or hours; afk them, what it is to lofe a fight and prefence of CHRIST? See how they feek him forrowing, and go mourning after him all the day long! And, if it is fo dreadful to lose the fenfible prefence of CHRIST only for a day, what must it be to be banished from him to all eternity?

But thus it must be, if CHRIST be not your righteousness: For Gop's juftice must be fatisfied; and, unlefs CHRIST'S righteousness is imputed and applied to you here, you must hereafter be fatisfying the divine juftice in hell-torments eternally; nay, CHRIST himself fhall condemn you to that place of torment. And how cutting is that thought! Methinks I fee poor, trembling, chriftless wretches, ftanding before the bar of GOD, crying out, LORD, if we must be damned, let

fome angel, or fome archangel, pronounce the damnatory fen, tence: but all in vain. CHRIST himself shall pronounce the irrevocable fentence. Knowing therefore the terrors of the LORD, let me perfuade you to clofe with CHRIST, and never reft till you can fay, the LORD our righteousness." Wha knows but the LORD may have mercy on, nay, abundantly pardon you? Beg of GOD to give you faith; and, if the LORD gives you that, you will by it receive CHRIST, with his righteoufnefs, and his All. You need not fear the greatness of number of your fins. For are you finners? fo am I. Arę you the chief of finners? fo am I. Are you backfliding finners? fo am I. And yet the LORD (for ever adored be his rich, free and fovereign grace) the LORD is my righteoufnefs, Come then, O young men, who (as I acted once myself) are playing the prodigal, and wandering away afar off from your heavenly Father's house, come home, come home, and leave your fwines trough. Feed no longer on the hufks of fenfual delights for CHRIST's fake arife, and come home! your heavenly Father now calls you. See yonder the best robe, even the righteoufnefs of his dear Son, awaits you. See it, view it again and again. Confider at how dear a rate it was purchased, even by the blood of Gop. Confider what great need you have of it. You are loft, undone, damned for ever, without it. Come then, poor, guilty prodigals, come home: indeed, I will not, like the elder brother in the gospel, be angry; no, I will rejoice with the angels in heaven. And O that God would now bow the heavens, and come down! Defcend, O Son of GoD, defcend; and, as thou haft fhewn in me fuch mercy, O let thy bleffed Spirit apply thy righ teoufnefs to fome young prodigals now before thee, and clothe their naked fouls with thy best robe !

But I muft fpeak a word to you, young maidens, as well as young men. I fee many of you adorned, as to your bodies: but are not your fouls naked? Which of you can fay, the LORD is my righteoufnefs? which of you was ever folicitous to be drefled in this robe of invaluable price, and without which you are no better than whited fepulchres in the fight of Gop? Let not then fo many of you, young maidens, any longer forget your chief and only ornament. O feek for the LORD to be your righteousness, or otherwife burning will foon be upon you, instead of beauty!

And

And what fhall I fay to you of a middle age, you busy merchants, you cumbered Martha's, who, with all your gettings, have not yet gotten the LORD to be your righteousness? Alas! what profit will there be of all your labour under the fun, if you do not fecure this pearl of invaluable price? this ope thing, fo abfolutely needful, that it only can stand you in ftead, when all other things, fhall be taken from you. Labour therefore no longer fo anxiously for the meat which perishech, but henceforward feek for the LORD to be your righteousness, a righteousness that will entitle you to life everlasting. I fee also many hoary heads here, and perhaps the most of them can not say, the LORD is, my righteousness. O gray-headed 'finners, I could weep over you! your gray hairs, which ought to be your crown, and in which perhaps you glory, are now your fhame. You know not that the LORD is your righte ousness: O hafte then, hafte ye, aged finners, and seek an intereft in redeeming love! Alas, you have one foot already in the grave, your glass is juft run out, your fun is just going down, and it will fet and leave you in an eternal darknefs, unless the LORD be your righteoufnefs! Flee then, Q flee for your lives! be not afraid. All things are poffible with God. If you come, though it be at the eleventh hour, CHRIST JESUS will in no wise cast you out. Seek then for the LORD to be your righteousness, and befeech him to let you know, how it is that a man may be born again when he is old! But I must not forget the lambs of the flock. To feed them was one of my LORD's laft commands. I know he will be angry with me, if I do not tell them, that the LORD may be their righteousness; and that of fuch is the kingdom of heaven. Come then, ye little children, come to CHRIST; the LORD CHRIST fhall be your righteousness. Do not think, that you are too young to be converted. Perhaps many of you may be nine or ten years old, and yet cannot fay, the LORD is our righteousness; which many have faid, though younger than you. Come then, while you are young. Perhaps you may not live to be old. Do not ftay for other people. If your fathers and mothers will not come to CHRIST, do you come without them. Let children lead them, and fhew them how the LORD may be their righteousness. Our LORD JESUS loved little children. You are his lambs; he bids me feed you. I

pray

pray GOD make you willing betimes to take the LORD for your righteoufnefs.

Here then I could conclude; but I must not forget the poor negroes; no, I muft not. JESUS CHRIST has died for them, as well as for others. Nor do I mention you last, because I defpife your fouls, but because I would have what I fhall fay, make the deeper impreffion upon your hearts. O that you would feek the LORD to be your righteoufnefs! Who knows but he may be found of you? For in JESUS CHRIST there is neither male nor female, bond nor free; even you may be the children of GOD, if you believe in JESUS. Did you never read of the eunuch belonging to the queen of Candace? a negro like yourselves. He believed. The LORD was his righteousness. He was baptized. Do you alfo believe, and you fhall be faved. CHRIST JESUS is the fame now as he was yesterday, and will wash you in his own blood. Go home then, turn the words of the text into a prayer, and intreat the LORD to be your righteousness. Even fo, come LORD JESUS, come quickly, into all our fouls! Amen, LORD JESUS, Amen and Amen!