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ment's hazard. On the contrary, if it is so difficult, it ought to be entered upon without delay.

Others say, I cannot change my own heart, and God does not see fit to change it; what can I do but wait his time? This you say to justify yourselves and to cast the blame on God. It is the plea of the slothful servant, "I knew thee that thou art a hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown and gathering where thou hast not strowed." But out of your own mouth shall you be judged. If God requires more than you can do, is that a reason why you should do nothing? why you should sin against him with all your might? Is this the way to conciliate a hard master who has you altogether in his power? But you do not believe this plea yourselves. If you did you would not be so easy. Were you locked up in a burning house, and the key in the hands of a cruel master, we should not see you laughing and singing about the apartments, but agonized with terror. You need help from God, but is this a reason why you should neglect to ask help of him? Can you hope that he will save you while you are buried in the world and refuse to pray? And when is your case to be better? Every day you are growing more hardened; every hour the chances against you are increasing; and here you are waiting for future conviction, as thousands did who are now in hell.

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What is still more affecting in the case of all the careless, you are losing this inestimable season of grace. The Holy Ghost, in infinite kindness, has

come down from heaven to invite you, and yet you trample the mercy under foot. You see others. around you pressing into the kingdom of God, and you will not move a finger, but wait, like a stock, for God to move upon you. You see them taken from you and you are left as men abandoned of God. And yet you will not move. You are about to let a Saviour go, though in all probability it is the last time that he will pass this way in season to open your eyes. There is very little chance for you in stupid times; and after you have rejected the Holy Ghost through this revival, there is solemn reason to fear that you may not live to see another, or if you should, that you will be left like the heath in the desert. As this season leaves you so it is likely you will remain to eternity. O if you have any reason left, awake without delay and take the kingdom of heaven by violence. Have you resolved to perish let God and his people do what they will? If you throw this season away, I ask again, when do you expect to prepare for death? When? Must we take an eternal leave of you and see you forever lifting up your eyes in torments? This we have distressing reason to fear. You have resisted the tears of parents and the solemn expostulations of ministers. You have resisted all that heaven could do in a way of means. What hope then remains? O go not from this house till you have awoke to sleep no more, like those who are awoke by the last trump.

I have done my errand. And now, when the

last trump shall sound, if we shall see you emerging from the grave stamped with the horrid emblems of the damned, and convulsed with horror at the prodigies of the opening judgment, blame not me, -blame not God. I call heaven and earth to witnes that your blood will be upon your own head.

SERMON IX.

THE BAND WHICH TOOK CHRIST.

JOHN XVIII. 6.*

As soon then as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward and fell to the ground.

There is a use in selecting some specimens of the human heart and holding them up as a mirror in which all may see themselves. "As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man." For though there are small constitutional diversities, and different degrees of restraint, and different degrees of ignorance and hardness, of prejudice and infatuation, the essential character of all is the same. All lions are lions and not lambs, though there are small diversities among them. Men are alike by nature in all the great characteristics. They do not love God; therefore they love themselves supremely; therefore they hate the

Preached in a revival of religion.

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