ready every moment to be ingulphed in everlasting deftruction, does it become you to be fo eafy and careless, fo gay and merry! If your bodies were fick, you would be penfive and fad, and ufe means for their recovery: if your eftates were in danger, you would be anxious till they were fecured: if you were condemned to die for a crime against civil government, you would be folicitous for a pardon. In fhort, it is natural for man to be penfive, anxious, and fad in circumstances of danger; and it is fhocking to the common fenfe of mankind, to fee oné thoughtless and gay in fuch circumftances. Can you be eafy under fuch a load of guilt? careless under a fentence of condemnation? and negligent, when the poffibility of deliverance is fet before you? I would not willingly fee you forrowful and dejected; but when your cafe calls for it, when your temporal forrow may be medicinal, and fave you from everlasting pain, when it is as, neceffary in your circumftance as fickness at the ftomach in the operation of phyfic, then I cannot form a kinder with for you, than that your hearts may be pierced and broken with penitential forrows. You have, in your manner, commemorated the birth of a Saviour this Christmas ;* that is, you have danced and caroused, and finned to his honour. But now I come after, and demand in his name another kind of reception for him : I call you to the forrowful work of repentance for your ill-treatment of him. Inftead of fuch mirth and extravagance, would it not have been more proper for you to have liftened to St. James's advice, Be afflicted, and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into heaviness. James iv. 9. Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God; that mighty hand which can crush ten thousand worlds, and which is lifted up against you to revenge the quarrel of his beloved Son. Can you return home this evening as thoughtlefs and merry as ufual? Well, your career will foon VOL. II. Iii * This Sermon is dated Jan. 16, 1758. be 426 Rejection of Chrift unreasonable Iniquity. Serm. 39. be at an end: your vanity and trifling will foon be over. Perhaps, as Jeremiah denounced to the falfe prophet, this year thou shalt die; Jer. xxviii. 16. and O! that will ingulph you in everlasting forrows. Therefore what would you now think of making one honeft trial, before it be too late, to obtain an intereft in that Saviour whom you have hitherto neglected? O! will you not make trial, whether the difaffection of your hearts towards him, inveterate as it is, may yet be fubdued by divine grace? whether he, who prayed with his dying breath, even for his murderers, will not have mercy upon you? whether the virtue of his blood is not ftill fufficient to cleanse you from all fin? O! will you give up the matter as defperate, before you make a thorough trial? Your cafe is indeed very difcouraging, but it is not yet hopeless; if I thought it was, I would not fay one word to you about it, to torment you before the time. But I can affure you upon the best authority, of Jefus Chrift himself, that if you now give him that reception which his character requires, he will receive you into favour as though you had never offended him, and make you for ever happy. Therefore, come ye poor, guilty, perifhing finners, fly to the arms of his mercy, which are opened wide to embrace you. Cry for the attractive influences of his grace, which alone can enable you to come to him, and let there be joy in heaven this day over repenting finners upon earth! SERMON SERMON XL. THE DOOM OF THE INCORRIGIBLE SINNER. PROVERBS XXIX. 1. He that being often reproved, har deneth his neck, fhall fuddenly be deftroyed, and that without remedy. A Proverb is a fyftem of wisdom in miniature: it is a pertinent, ftriking obfervation, expreffed in a few words, that it may be the more eafily remembered; and often in metaphorical language, that it may be the more entertaining. A collection of proverbs has no connection, but confifts of fhort, independent fentences, each of which makes full fenfe in itself; and therefore, in explaining them, there is no need of explaining the context; but we may felect any particular fentence, and confider it separately by itself. Such a collection of wife fayings is that book of the facred fcriptures, which we call the Proverbs of Solomon. Wife men in all Wife men in all ages, and in all languages, have often caft their obfervations into the concife fignificant forms of proverbs; but the fages of antiquity, efpecially, were fond of this method of inftruction, and left legacies of wisdom to pofterity, wrapt up in a proverbial drefs; many of which, particularly of the Greek philofophers, are extant to this day. Solomon chofe this method of recording and communicating his wife obfervations as moft agreeable to the taste of the age in which he lived. The facred memoirs of his life inform us, that he spake three thousand proverbs. 1 Kings iv. 32. Of these the most important and useful were felected probably by himself, and afterwards by the men of Hezekiah; that is, by perfons appointed by Hezekiah to copy them off; and they they are conveyed down to all ages in this cabinet of precious jewels, the Book of Proverbs. Among the many fignificant and weighty fayings of this wifeft of men, the folemn monitory proverb in my text deferves peculiar regard: He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, fhall fuddenly be deftroyed, and that without remedy.* The requeft of a friend, and my fears that this proverb may have a dreadful accomplishment upon fome of my hearers, have induced me to make it the fubject of your meditations for the present hour. And O! that the event may fhew I was divinely directed in the choice! This proverb may be accommodated to all the affairs of life. In whatever course a man blunders on, headstrong, and regardless of advice and admonition, whether in domeftic affairs, in trade, in politics, in war, or whatever it be he purfues by wrong measures with incorrigible obftinacy, it will ruin him at laft, as far as the matter is capable of working his ruin. To follow the conduct of our own folly, and refufe the advantage we might receive from the wisdom of others, difcovers an uncreaturely pride and self-sufficiency; and the career of such a pursuit, whatever be the object, will always end in disappointment and confufion. In this extent perhaps, this adage was intended by Solomon, who was a good œconomist and politician, and well skilled in the affairs of common life, as well as thofe of religion. But he undoubtedly intended it should be principally referred to matters of religion. It is especially in these matters it holds true in the highest sense; 66 that * He that being often reproved-This in the original, is a man of reproofs; and it may either fignify as our tranflators understand it, a man often reproved;" or it may mean, a man often reproving;" that is, a man that often reproves others, if he harden his own neck, while he pretends a great zeal to reduce others under the yoke of obedience, he shall fuddenly be deftroyed, &c. But the first sense appears more pertinent and natural, and therefore in that view I only confider it. that he that being often reproved, hardeneth himself, fhall fuddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. He that being often reproved-This is undoubtedly our character. We in this congregation have been often reproved, and that in various forms, and by various monitors. We have been reproved from heaven and earth, by God, men, and our own confciences; and, I might add, by the irrational creation, and even by infernal spirits. Men of various claffes have reproved us. It is the happiness of feveral of us to live in families where we are often reproved and admonished with the tender, affecting addrefs of a father and a mafter, who are deeply concerned that their children and domeftics fhould be their companions in the heavenly road, and be effectually warned from the alluring paths of fin and ruin. And have not our affectionate mothers often become our monitors, and gently, yet powerfully reproved us, with that forcible eloquence which could only proceed from the heart of a woman and a mother?or if our parents have been cruelly deficient in this nobleft office of love, has not God raised up unexpected reprovers for us, in a brother, a fifter, or perhaps a poor defpifed flave? And who can refift the force of an admonition from fuch an unexpected quarter?-And have not fome of us found an affectionate, faithful monitor in the conjugal ftate; a husband or a wife, that has reproved the vices or the negligence and careleffnefs of the other party; and, by a striking example at the leaft, if not in more explicit language, given the alarm to greater diligence and concern in the affairs of religion and eternity? Such are powerful, though modeft and private affiftants to the minifters of the gofpel, and O! that they had but more affistance from this quarter! To encourage the few among you that improve the intimacy of this near relation for fo important and benevolent a purpose, let me remind you of St. Paul's tender excitement to this duty, given one thoufand |