he excludes none from paradise, but hardened and impenitent men. How then, can you say that the mercy of God is circumscribed? What, is it impossible for God to be merciful unless he reward your crimes? Is nothing mercy with you, but that which permits an universal inundation of vice?

You still say, if the conditions of the new covenant are such as you have laid down, it is then an arduous task to become a Christian, and difficult to obtain salvation. But do you think, my brethren, that we are discouraged at the difficulty? Know you not, that straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life? Matt. vii. 14. Know you

not, that we must pluck out the eye, and cut off the hand? v. 29. Surmount the most dear and delicate propensities; dissolve the ties of flesh and blood, of nature and self-attachment? Know you not, that we must crucify the old man, and deny ourselves? xvi. 24. Know you not, that we must add to our faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge palience, to patience brotherly-kindness, to brotherly-kindness charity, and to charity godliness? 2 Pet. i. 5.

But you add, that few persons will then be saved; another objection we little fear, though perhaps, it would have been unanswerable, had not Jesus Christ taught us to reply. But is this a new gospel? Is it a new doctrine to say, that few shall be saved? Has not Jesus Christ himself declared it? I will address myself, on this subject, to those who understand the elucidation of types. I will adduce one type, a very distinguished type, a type not equivocal but terrific; it is the unhappy multitude of Is

rael, who murmured against God, after being saved from the land of Egypt. The object of their jouruey was Canaan. Deut. i. 35, 36. God performed innumerable miracles to give them the land; the sea opened and gave them passage; bread descended from heaven to nourish them; water issued from the rock to quench their thirst. There was but one defect; they never entered into the land: there were but two adults, among all these myriads, who found admission. What is the import of this type? The very thing to which you object. The Israelites represent these hearers, the miracles represent the efforts of Providence for your salvation: Canaan is the figure of paradise, for which you hope, and Caleb and Joshua alone were admitted into the land, which so many miracles had apparently promised to the whole nation. What do these shadows adumbrate to the Christian world? My brethren, I will not dare to make the application. I leave with you this object for contemplation; this terrific subject for serious reflection.

But you still ask why do you preach to us such awful doctrine? It subverts religion; it drives people to despair. Great risk, indeed, and imminent danger of driving to despair, the men whom I attack! Suppress the poison, remove the dagger, exclude the idea of death from the mind, until the recollection of their sins shall drive them to the last extremity. But why? The characters whom we have described, those nominal Christians, those indolent souls, those men whose hearts are sold to the world and pleasure; have they weak and delicate

consciences, which we ought to spare, and for whom we ought to fear, lest the displays of divine justice should produce effects too severe and strong? Aḥ! unhappy people, even to mention difficulties of this nature. If you were already stretched on a dying bed; already come to the close of a criminal course; if hell had opened beneath to swallow you up; if you had no resource but the last efforts of an expiring soul, then you would be worthy of pity. But you are yet alive; grace is offered; all the paths of penitency are open; the Lord may yet be found: there is not one among you, but may call upon him with success. Yet you devote the whole of life to the world; you confirm the habits of corruption; and when we warn you, when we unmask your tur pitude, when we discover the abyss into which you precipitate yourselves by choice, you complain that it is driving you to despair! Would to God that our voice might be exalted like thunder, and the brightness of our discourse be as that which struck St. Paul on the road to Damascus; prostrating you, like that apostle, at the feet of the Lord! Would to God that the horrors of despair, and the frightful images of hell, might fill you with salutary fear, inducing you to avoid it! Would to God that your body might, from this moment, be delivered to Satan, that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord. 1 Cor. v. 3.

It rests with you my brethren, to apply these truths; and to profit by the means which Providence, this day, affords for your conversion. If there yet remain any resources, any hopes for the man who

delays conversion, it is not with ministers of the gospel to point them out. We are not the plenipotentiaries of our religion: we are the ambassadors of Christ; we have explicit instructions, and our commission prescribed. God requires that we puplish his covenant, that we promise you every aid of grace, that we open the treasures of mercy, that we lead you to heavenly places by the track, sprinkled with the blood of the Saviour of the world. But each of these privileges has conditions annexed, the nature of which you have heard. Comply with them, repent, give your conversion solid, habitual, and effective marks; then the treasures of grace are yours. But if you should persist in sin (to tell you truths to-day, which, perhaps, would be useless to-morrow,) if you should persist during life, and till approaching death, and the horrors of hell shall extort from you protestations of reform, and excite in you the semblance of conversion, we cannot, without doing violence to our instructions, and exceeding our commission, speak peace to your souls, and make you offers of salvation.

These considerations ought to exculpate ministers of the gospel, who know how to maintain the majesty of their mission, and correspond with their character. And if they exculpate us not in your estimation, they will justify us, at least, in the great day, when the most secret things shall be adduced in evidence. You are not acquainted with our ministry. You call us to the dying, whom we know either to have been wicked, or far from conforming to the conditions of the new covenant. This wick

ed man, on the approach of death, composes himself; he talks solely of repentance, of mercy, and of tears. On seeing this exterior of conversion, you would have us presume, that such a man is more than converted; and, in that rash conclusion, you would have us offer him the highest place in the mansions of the blessed.

But woe, woe to those ministers, who, by a cruel lenity, precipitate souls into hell, under the delusion of opening to them the gates of paradise. Woe to that minister, who shall be so prodigal of the favours of God. Instead of speaking peace to such a man, I would cry aloud; I would lift up my voice like a trumpet; I would shout. Isa. lviii. 1. I would thunder; I would shoot against him the arrows of the Almighty, and make the poison drink up his spirits. Job vi. 4. Happy, if I might irradiate passions so prejudiced; if I might save by fear; if I might pluck from the burning, a soul so hardened in sin.

But if, as it commonly occurs, this dying man shall but devote to his conversion an exhausted body, and the last sighs of expiring life; woe, woe again, to that minister of the gospel, who, by a relaxed policy, shall, so to speak, canonize this man, as though he had died the death of the righteous! Let no one ask, What would you do? Would you trouble the ashes of the dead? Would you drive a family to despair? Would you affix a brand of infamy on an house?-What would I do? I would maintain the interests of my Master; I would act becoming a minister of Jesus Christ; I would prevent your taking an anti-christian death for a happy death; I would