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Do we stand shivering

upon the bank of a river, when death purfues us behind, and one bold plunge fpeeds us over, out of the reach of danger, to perfect fafety? If you expect the ftream to run by, you are mistaken the current of temptation ever flows before you, to obftruct your paffage. Away with those cowardly fears: one brave effort will break off your habits, and begin your falvation; call in religious offices to your aid; keep out of the way of fuch temptations, as have ufed to foil your refolution; and you will find the work of falvation every day more and more perfected in you.

THE

ECCE, fugæ medio fummis Amafenus abundans
Spumabat ripis ; tantus fe nubibus imber
Ruperat ille, innare parans, infantis amore

Tardatur, caroq; oneri timet

At Metabus, magnâ propius jam urgente catervâ,
Dat fefe fluvio.Virg. Æn. 11. 547, &c.

+ RUSTICUS expectat, dum defluat amnis; at ille Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis avum.

HOR. Epif. 1, 2, 44.

THE truth is, the real difficulties of religion are so very small, that I must confider deliberate finners as proceeding in general upon unbelief.

FOR what, in the name of God, is there of difficulty in true religion? Does it deny the craving appetites of hunger and thirst? No, the faint eats and drinks like other men; religion forbids only intemperance. Does it deny the focial appetites? No, it forbids only vagrant luft, it confecrates chafte pleasures with its bleffiing. Does it deny a provision for ourfelves and families? No, it allows, it commends, it enjoins honeft industry as a virtue. Does it deny us the use of fpeech? It condemns only the shamelefs abuses of it. Does it deny the pleasures of recreation and amusement ? No, in no cafe, but where they encroach upon the offices of useful life or endanger our virtue. Does it bring shame and dishonour upon its votaries?

No, unaffected piety cannot want its due honour and veneration.

YES, religion allows every thing, that nature rationally can require. The libertine may freely drink waters of his own cistern, and find a truer happiness than he ever knew before; the epicure may exchange his riot for 'the most exquifite luxury, the natural luxury of defires regulated and heightened by useful labour and fobriety; the oppreffor may grow fafely and comfortably great by that virtuous industry, which maketh rich and bringeth no forrow with it. And the cafe is the fame in most other inftances.

NAY, the change, one should think, is eafy: nature points it out: the terrors of the Lord enforce it. If ye live, says the scripture, after the flesh, ye shall die. Rom, viii. 13. Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall in

berit the kingdom of God. i. Cor. vi, 9, 10. The fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and forcerers, and idolators, and all liars, fhall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone. Rev. xxi. 8. These words are daily read in our ears: finners hear them as well as others; they hear them without concern, and go on in their fins.

THE power of habit, great as it is, is not sufficient to account for this, especially in the firft ftages. Surely there must be something more at the bottom; finners must certainly think with themfelves, that GOD never intends to deal with mankind as he has threatened; that a little cold phlegm, and caution, and reserve with regard to the good things of the world, and tasting them fomewhat more freely and generously, cannot make fo great a difference in human fate.

LET me seriously afk you-were you

going to commit fome great wickedness in the highest eagerness of kindled defire, were you, for inftance, upon the point of grasping some vast heap of wealth to which you had no right, and fome accident should suddenly wrap the house in flames about your ears; would you not inftantly fly for your life, leave your crime unperpetrated, and, in the fenfeless torpor of fear, forget at once your paffion and the object of it? -Alas! every deliberate finner is in this ftate: the judgments of GOD are ready to arrest him; the judgments of him, who knows the nature of fin better than we, and has mercifully warned us of a mifery, which his goodness probably

cannot avert.

Ir is now in your power to escape this danger by an immediate repentance. Awake from your lethargy, and escape for your life. Say not with the stupid fluggard, a little more fleep, a little more Лlumber,

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