pain. Who bath woe, contentions, and wounds, without caufe*? The drunkard. Lewdnefs and drunkenness, are high roads, if I may fo fpeak, leading to infamy, disease, penury, and death. Such perfons do not live out half the days which their conftitutions might have afforded, if they had not fold themselves to do wickedly. Again, look into their houses. Where the Lord does not dwell, peace will not inhabit. How frequently may we obferve, in their family connections, difcord and enmity between man and wife, unkind parents, disobedient children, tyrannical mafters, and treacherous fervants? Thus they live, hateful in themselves, and hating one another †. If they have what the world accounts profperity, their hard master, satan, fo works upon their evil difpofitions, that they can derive no real comfort from it. Every day, almost every hour, puts fome new bitterness into their cup. And in trouble they have no refource; having no accefs to God, no promife to fupport them, no relief from him against their anxieties and fears, they either fink down in fullen comfortless defpondency, or in a spirit of wild

*Prov. xxiii. 29.

+ Tit. iii. 3.

M 2

rebellion,

rebellion, blafpheme him because of their plagues *. In fociety, they are dreaded and avoided by the fober and ferious, and can only affociate with fuch as themselves. There, indeed, they will pretend to be happy; they caroufe, and make a noife, and affift each other to banish reflection; yet frequently the drink, or the devil, break their intimacies, and stir them up to quarrels, broils, and mifchief. Such is a life of fin. The Lord rules them with a rod of iron. They renounce his fear, and he refufes them his bleffing. Nothing more is neceffary to render them miferable, than to leave them to themselves.

2. He rules them with a rod of iron, by his power over confcience. They may boaft and laugh, but we know the gall and bitterness of their ftate, for we, likewife, were in it, until the Lord delivered us. Let them fay what they will, we are sure that there are feafons, when, like him whom they ferve, they believe and tremble. They cannot always be in company, they cannot always be intoxicated; though this is the very reafon why many intoxicate themselves fo often, because they cannot bear their own * Rev. xvi. 21. + James ii. 19.

8

thoughts

thoughts when fober. They are then a burden and a terror to themselves. They feel the iron rod. How awful are the thoughts which fometimes awaken them, or keep them awake, in the filent hours of the night! What terrors seize them in sickness, or when they are compelled to think of death! What a death warrant do they often receive in their fouls, under the preaching of that word of God, which fills his people with joy and peace! Many will not hear it. But why not? They will not, because they dare not. I am perfuaded there are more than a few of the brave fpirits of the prefent day, who would willingly change conditions with a dog; and be glad to part with their reafon, if they could at the fame time get rid of the horrors which haunt their confciences. Is there one fuch person here? Let me entreat you to ftop and confider, before it be too late. There is yet forgiveness with God. Your cafe, though dangerous, is not desperate, if you do not make it fo yourself. I would direct your thoughts to Jefus. Look to him, and implore his mercy. His blood can clean fe from all fin. He is able to fave to the uttermoft.

It is poffible fome may affect to contradi& the reprefentation I have made, and be ready to say, "I find nothing of all this. I take

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a pleasure in my way. I have a healthy "body, money at my command, and I can "fleep foundly. I feel none of the qualms "of conscience you speak of; and though "the faints and good folks care as little for

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me as I do for them, yet I am very well " and happy with fuch acquaintance as I "like best. As to an hereafteṛ, I do not "think of it; but I am determined to live "now." In answer to fentiments of this kind, which I am afraid are too common, I obferve,

3. That the amazing hardness and blindnefs of heart to which fome finners are given up, is another, and the most terrible effect of that iron rod, with which the Lord rules bis enemies. Pharaoh could fay as pofitively as you, Who is the Lord that I fhould obey him * ? But because being often rebuked, he perfifted in his obftinacy, the contest terminated in his deftruction. If you are obftinate like him now, I believe you were not always fo. You must have laboured hard, you must Exod. ix. 16.

have refifted the light of truth, and have ftifled many a conviction, before you could arrive to this pitch of obduracy. You have fought against the holy Spirit, and woe unto you, if he be gone, gone for ever, and will strive with you no more. To be thus given up of God to a reprobate mind, is the heaviest judgment that a finner can be vifited with on this fide of hell. I am at a lofs what to say to a perfon thus difpofed, and I hope there are none fuch prefent. But I would warn those, who, though they have finned with a high hand, are not yet altogether paft feeling, left you fall into fuch a state of confirmed difobedience and unbelief. Take heed left you be hardened through the deceitfulness of fin*. If under the light of the gospel you can go on in a courfe of wilful, wanton, deliberate wickedness, you are upon the very edge of the unpardonable fin, of that state from which it is impoffible to renew you to repentance. If the bible be, as you vainly wish it may prove, a cunningly devised fable, you may trample upon it with impunity, and laugh on fecurely to the end of life. But if it be true, remember you have been *Heb. iii. 13.