which you would not hazard the smallest of your tempo ral interests; and with habits, which to this period have saved none, and in which you only strengthen and comfort yourselves by the example of those who perish with you; you are tranquil in this path; you admit and acknowledge the wisdom of those who have chosen a more certain one; you say that they are praise-worthy; that they are happy who can assume such a command over themselves; that it is much safer to live as they do; you say this, and you think it needless to imitate or follow their example? Madman! cries the apostle, what delusion is it which blinds thee? and wherefore dost thou not obey that truth which thou knowest? Ah! my brethren, in a choice which interests our glory, our advancement, our temporal interests, are we capable of such imprudence? Of all the various ways which present themselves to ambition, do we leave those where every appearance seems favourable to our success, and make choice of such as lead to nothing; where fortune is tardy and doubtful; and which have hitherto been only productive of misfortune? Of salvation alone, therefore, we make a kind of speculation, if I may venture so to speak; that is to say, an undertaking without arrangement, without precaution, which we abandon to the uncertainty of events, and of which the success can be expected from chance alone, and not from our exertions. In a word, as my last reflection, allow me to ask, Why you search for, and alledge so many specious reasons, as a justification to yourselves, of the manners in which you live? Either you wish to be saved, or you are determined to be lost. Do wish to be saved? Choose, then, the most proyou per means of attaining what you aspire to. Quit those

doubtful paths, by which none have hitherto been conducted to it; confine yourselves to that which Jesus Christ has pointed out to us, and which alone can safely lead us to it; do not endeavour to lessen in your own sight the dangers of your situation, and to view them in the most favourable light, in order to dread them less; rather magnify the danger to your mind; we cannot dread too much, what we cannot shun too much; and salvatior is the only affair in which precaution can never be excessive, because a mistake in it is without remedy. See if those who once followed the same deceitful paths in which you tread, and who employed the same reasons that you make use of, for their justification, have confined themselves to that course from the moment that grace had operated in their hearts a serious and sincere desire of salvation: They regarded the dangers in which you live, as incompatible with their design; they sought more solid and certain paths; they made the holy safety of retirement, succeed to the inutility and the dangers of society and business; the habit of prayer, to the dissipation of gaming and amusements; the restraint of the senses, to the indecency of dress, and the danger of public spectacles; christian mortification, to the softness of an effeminate and sensual life; the gospel, to the world; they comprehended that it would be absurd to wish their salvation through the same means by which others are lost. But, if you are determined to perish, alas! why will you still keep measures with religion? Why will you always seek to place some specious reasons on your side; to reconcile your manners with the gospel; and to preserve, as I may say, appearances still with Jesus Christ? Why are you only half sinners, and still leave

to your grossest passions the useless check of the law? Cast off the remains of that yoke which is irksome to you; and which, in lessening your pleasures, lessons not your punishment. Why do you accomplish your perdition with so much constraint? In place of those scruples, which permit you only doubtful gains, and deny you certain low, and manifestly wicked profits, but which place you in the number of those reprobates who shall never possess the kingdom of God; overleap these bounds, and no longer set any limits to your guilt, but those of your cupidity; in place of those loose and worldly manners, which will equally prove your ruin, refuse nothing to your passions, and, like the beasts of the earth, yield to the gratification of every desire. Yes, sinners, perish with all the fruits of iniquity, seeing you will equally reap tears and eternal punishment.

But, no, my dear hearer-we only give you these counsels of despair, in order to inspire you with a just horror of them; it is a tender artifice of zeal, which only assumes the appearance of exhorting you to destruction, that you may not consent yourselves: alas! follow rather those remains of light, which still point out the truth to you at a distance; it is not without reason that the Lord has hitherto preserved within you these seeds of salvation, and has not permitted all, even to the rudiments, to be blotted out; it is a claim which He still preserves to your heart; take care only, that you found not upon this, the vain hope of a future conversion; we are not permitted to hope, till we have begun to labour. Begin, then, the grand work of your eternal salvation, for which, alone, the Almighty has placed you upon earth ; and on which you have never as yet bestowed even a

thought. Regard with esteem so important a care; prefer it to all others; find your only pleasures in applying to it; examine the surest and most proper means to succeed, and fix upon them, whatever they cost, from the moment you have found them out.

Such is the prudence of the gospel, so often recommended by Jesus Christ; beyond that, all is vanity, and error. You may possess a superior mind, capable of every exertion, and rare and shining talents; if you err with regard to your eternal salvation, you are a child. Solomon, so esteemed in the east for his wisdom, is a madman, whose folly we can now with difficulty comprehend. All worldly reason is but a mockery, a dazzling of the senses, if it mistakes the decisive point of eternity. There is nothing important in life but this single object; all the rest is a dream, in which any mistake is of little consequence. Trust not yourselves, therefore, to the multitude, that is the party of those who err; take not as guides, men who can never be your sureties; leave nothing to chance, or to the uncertainty of events; it is the height of folly where eternity is concerned; remember that there is an infinity of paths, which appear right to men, yet, nevertheless, conduct to death; that almost all who perish, do it in the belief that they are in the way of salvation; and that all reprobates, at the last day, when they shall hear their sentence pronounced, will be surprised, says the gospel, at their condemnation ; because they all expected the inheritance of the just. It is thus, that after having waited in this life, according to the rules of faith, you will for ever enjoy it in heaven. Now, to God, &c.

SERMON II.

ON THE SMALL NUMBER OF THE

SAVED.

LUKE iv. 27.

And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them were cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.

EVERY day, my brethren, you ask if the road to hea ven is really so difficult, and the number of the saved is indeed so small as we say? To a question so often proposed, and still oftener resolved, our Saviour now answers you; that there were many widows in Israel afflicted with famine, but the widow of Sarepta was alone found worthy the succour of the prophet Elias; that the number of lepers was great in Israel in the time of the prophet Eliseus; and that nevertheless, Naaman was the only one cured by the man of God.