it pass through the mind, fhall they be expelled as foreign to its proper business? Shall youth, manhood, and the meridian of life pafs away without any decided choice of it? If a prefent affliction, or apprehended danger, has awakened the confcience, fhall its voice be ftifled? Is religion unneceffary, useless and prejudicial for the present? Will another day be more convenient? Is it fafe to defer this one thing? A conviction of its importance will not permit us to defer it a fingle day. We know not whether we fhall be among the living to-morrow. Or, if alive, in what circumftances whether in any capacity to make choice of religion. No reafon can be affigned for making this choice at any future time, which does not more forcibly apply to the prefent day. Suspense, inconftancy, displays levity and giddinefs, difhonorable to intelligent, dependent, accountable creatures, bound for eternity, and whofe eternity depends on the choice they make in this probationary, tranfitory worldPoffibly eternity may depend on this day's choice.

Ye who have deferred to this day a cordial choice of religion, to you the counfel of God in the text comes addreffed. Choofe you this day whom ye will ferve. The God of patience hath borne with your contempt of him thus long. Let the time paft fuffice you to have walked in the vanity of your mind-to have left undone the business for which you were fent into the world; and which, if finally neglected, good were it had you not been born. Your earliest care fhould have been to remember your Creator, Preferver and Father-to remember your Redeemer; to know who and what he is, what he hath done and fuffered to fave your fouls, and what you owe him in return. Were you fenfible of the vast importance of being reconciled to God in Chrift-were you mindful of the uncertainty of life, you could not put off to another day the choice which you may and fhould make this day. You do not conduct thus in your

worldly concerns. Yet you have no more evidence that to-morrow will be as convenient as this day in your eternal concerns, than you have that it will be fo in your temporal. If your foul fhould be required this night-or if you may be immediately caft on a bed of fickness-or if God fhould withdraw his influence, muft not the neglect of the prefent day be pronounced folly? There is no work in the grave. The dead are not called upon to make the choice which you now decline. After death is the judgment. A fick bed is not the best season to acquaint yourself with religion. When pain and disease arreft you, would you lay a foundation for the greater burden of an evil confcience? Would you give your ftrength and vigor to the world, the flesh and the devil; and appropriate to God and your fouls no other than decayed powers, wafted strength? Affliction from without calls for the fupports and comforts of religion-a review of a timely choice of the good part, of advantages well improved. Would you have to lay the foundation for eternity at a feafon when your work fhould be finished? If not, then hear the Saviour's command, Go, work today in my vineyard. Make the wifer choice to-day: It cannot be made too foon: It fhould be made as early as the capacity for moral action commences: From that time there is no excufe for delaying it. The guilt and danger increase with neglect and delay. Can thofe, who have long procraftinated, make the progrefs they might have done, had they made choice of religion early in life? Will her path be fo eafy and pleasant, as if embraced much fooner? Whenever they apply their hearts unto wisdom, they will reflect with grief and thame that they made objections and excufes fo long. There can therefore be no reason why any fhould excufe themselves to-day.

Ye whofe faces are towards heaven, look not back. Hold faft the profeffion of faith, whofe end is the falvation of the foul. It claims the united, utmost

exertions of your faculties. Be stedfaft, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Give all diligence to make fure your calling and election.

im

It is not the will of our heavenly Father, that any mortal fouls fhould perish. Whofoever will may come, and take the waters of life freely. He who giveth these living waters, and who gave his own life to purchase them, hath faid, Afk, and ye shall receive. Religion admits not of compulfion; it muft be voluntary; not by constraint, but of choice. All Chrift's people are willing. The Spirit of life in him muft open and incline the heart to accept his offers: But the operation of the Spirit on human minds accords with moral agency. The attempts of heaven and earth can be of no avail without our confent. Ye will not come to me that ye might have life. No means or encouragement are wanting. But finners reject the counfel of God against themfelves. Chrift would gather them, but they will not. They harden against the voice of the Holy Ghoft, calling on them to accept the gospel invitation to-day. They grieve, refift and quench the holy Spirit.

If religion depends on our choice if the divine counsel has interpofed no obftacle to our choice of it, but placed before us the higheft motives to choose it, the confequence is obvious, that finners are their own deftroyers. There is no pretence for any man's faying, I am tempted of God. The truth is, he is drawn away of his own luft, and enticed. Heaven will reveal his iniquity; and angels and men will justify the forer punishment, to which the unbelieving and impenitent under the gospel shall be adjudged.

See then the ingratitude and folly of neglecting the great falvation fet before us-of choofing our own ways and delufions. God proclaimeth peace, and commandeth all men every where to repent. All are intreated to be reconciled to God by the death and paffion of his own Son. The riches of divine mercy and forbearance lead to repentance. But hear, O heavens;

and give ear, O earth; men will not be perfuaded, by the mercies of God, to prefent themselves a living facrifice, holy, acceptable to him, which is their reafonable fervice. They will not account the long-fuffering of God their opportunity to fly for refuge. They will hazard the deftruction of foul and body in hell, rather than confent to facrifice their lufts. Felix repels the apostle, preaching righteoufnefs temperance, and a judgment to come. Though he could but tremble, he answered, Go thy way for this time. The fame apoftle's preaching almost perfuaded Agrippa to be a Chriftian, but not altogether. The young man, who appears seriously to have enquired, What shall I do that I may enter into life? went away grieved, when he heard the terms. The hypocrite, content with hearing and profeffing the gospel, has a name that he liveth; but he will not choofe life. Not having the fpirit of Christ, an enemy in heart to him, his hope fhall perish. "Ye who compass yourselves about with sparks; walk "in the light of your fire, and in the fparks that ye "have kindled. This fhall ye have of the Lord's hand, 66 ye fhall lie down in forrow."

Contemplate the dignity of the foul. It claims an union with angels and with God; nor can it find reft in any thing fhort of this union. When fenfible of its own neceffities and the divine fulness, it thirsts for the living God. Convinced of deviations from the way of truth, it faints for inftruction in the paths of falvation. Man's happiness and dignity confift not in debafing his rational nature to a fubferviency to his animal appetites and paffions; but in keeping under the body, and bringing it into fubjection-Not in cherishing the fpeculations of a vain mind, prefuming, with Lucifer, to be like the MOST HIGH; but in humility and meeknefs. The eternal God dwelleth with the humble and contrite. Supreme reverence, worship, love and obedience are his due; and man's wifdom confifts in cultivating this temper toward the greatest

and beft of Beings-in unreserved fubmiffion and entire refignation.

When Ifrael faid, "All that the Lord our God fhall speak, we will hear it, and do it:" The answer of God was, "They have well faid all that they have spoken. Othat there were fuch an heart in them, that "they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with "their children for ever." The holiness and happiness of his intelligent offspring is the earnest wish of the Father of fpirits. No means and encouragement, on his part, are wanting to accomplish this great end. With them it lies to choose his service or refuse it, to choose life or death. There is much danger of their departing from ferious refolutions, taken up at a season when the mind has been tenderly impreffed by the providence and Spirit of God. Men often make good promises, and break them. There is more of the form of godlinefs than of the power.

Amidst the defections of his people, Joshua determined to be ftedfast in the caufe of truth. He had made his choice of religion, and would not renounce it. Superiors honor themfelves and their ftation, when they stand up in fupport of true religion. Their example has great and good influence. When the upper ranks in fociety are foremost to honor God, he will honor them. But it cannot excufe lower orders in neglecting and reviling religion, that it is neglected and reviled by higher orders. Religion alike concerns all orders and ages. Every one must give account of himself to God. Religion hath an immutable, eternal excellency. It is the only foundation of temporal and eternal happiness, of public and private virtue. There is but one rule of faith. The book of books, the BIBLE, is this rule. Call no man father or master upon earth: For one is your Father, even God; and one is your Mafter, even Chrift. Search the scriptures. Let every man be fully perfuaded in his own mind. The law of the Lord is