ftood this: that I had confidered my latter • end!'

My brethren, if you feel the force and juftice of this reafoning; let me remind you how greatly you yourselves are concerned in it. The truth which I have been proving, concerns you all. You have every one of you an immortal foul. You have within that preyou cious, invaluable treasure, which is of more worth than ten thousand worlds. It is committed to your keeping; and your own eternal happiness or mifery depends on the care you take of it. If you lofe it, far bet ter would it have been for you never to have been born. Beware then left you make the foolish bargain described in the text. Beware left you are guilty of the folly there fet forth, and fell your foul for this world's gain.

Perhaps you judge the caution to be needlefs. You think that there is no danger of your acting fo unwife a part. You feel afured, that if the fame propofal, which was made to our Bleffed Lord, fhould be made to you, you, like him, would inftantly reject it; that you would not deliberately fell your foul for "all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them*." And, I believe, that you would not. I be *Matthew, iv. 8.

lieve would start with horror from fuch you an offer. But at the fame time you may be ignorantly doing the very thing, which you profefs to abhor. You may be bartering away your foul for fome earthly good, and ftill be unconscious that you are committing this folly. Remember that the falvation of the foul is a work in which great pains, and care, and diligence are wanted. You cannot fave your foul, without refifting the devil; for the devil is the great enemy of the foul. You cannot fave your foul, without renouncing this wicked world, with all its pomps and vanities; for the world, if loved and followed, will enfnare and ruin the foul. You cannot fave your foul without abftaining from fleshly lufts: for "flefhly lufts war against the foul*." Now, if for the fake of fome earthly good, you are neglecting to do any of these things: if from the love of pre fent gain, or eafe, or pleafure, you are giving place to the devil, or are walking after the courfe of this world, or are indulging fleshly lufts, you are virtually felling your foul. You are preferring prefent gain, or ease, or pleafure, to eternal happiness. You are, in fact, willingly confenting, for the fake of thefe things here, to be miferable hereafter. It matters not what it is that you are taking in 1 Peter, ii. II

exchange for your foul. foul. much or little, makes no

Whether it be alteration in the cafe. You may be felling your foul as cer-. tainly for a fmall, as for a large portion of the world. And be affured, that you moft. certainly are felling it, if, in your endeavours to gain even this fmall portion, you are neglecting "the one thing needful.". Your foul must be your first, your great. concern. It claims, it deferves to be fo. If it be not; that thing, be it what it may, which you prefer before the foul, is the price for which you are felling it. The more worthlefs the thing may be (if indeed the worthless things of time and fenfe can admit of a comparison with each other) the greater is your folly, and the worse your bargain.

Be affured alfo, if this be the cafe, that you will one day, bitterly repent what you are doing. At prefent you may not be fenfible of your folly. The God of this world may have blinded your eyes, that you fee not. The things of the world appear of fo much value, that you can look at nothing elfe. But it will not be always thus. day is coming, when the dream will end: when the vail will be torn from your eyes, and the world will be feen in its true light. when all its profits, and all its pleasures will

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be feen to be lighter than vanity, and more worthlefs than chaff: while the importance of the foul and of eternity will rufh upon the mind with a clearnefs and a force, of which you now have not the flightest notion. And what at that time will be your feelings? When you are lying on the bed of death; when you are about to close your eyes for ever on this world; when the whole world, if you have gained it all, cannot for a moment stay the parting breath-what will be your feelings? How deeply will your heart be torn with grief, remorie, and terror! How bitterly will you lament and condemn your folly! What will you not be ready to give, that you might but live over again, and provide for eternity! Many inoft aweful and diftreffing fcenes of this kind are the ministers of the gofpel forced to witnefs. Many inftances do they fee of perfons, who never discover the value of their foul, till, as there is every reason to fear, the discovery. is too late of perfons, who like Efau, having profanely fold their birth-right for fome. worldly trifle, when, like him, they "would afterward inherit the bleffing," find, as he found, "no place of repentance*." And fill what greater numbers are there, we may tremble to think, who even go out of the Hebrews, xii. 17.

world without making this discovery! who funk into a deadly fleep, think not of eternity, till they awake in the flames of hell, and find their fouls loft for ever!

God forbid! my brethren, that this should be your miferable cafe! O that you would fee these things in this your day, as you must see them in the day of vifitation! Remember, that whatever the world, and your foul, and eternity will appear to you then, fuch they really are now. If to have gained the whole world, but to have loft your foul will then appear to be a most miserable bargain, be affured that it is a moft miferable bargain now. Make not this, bargain for yourselves. Be wife in time. Prepare for death and judgement. Attend to the things which belong unto your peace, your everlafting peace, before they are hidden from your eyes.