such a life are to be overthrown by one last exertion of a mind, impaired with disease, by the convulsive exercise of an affrighted spirit, and by the inarticulate and feeble sounds of an expiring breath? Repentance consists not in one or more acts of contrition; it is a permanent change of the disposition. Those dispositions and habits of mind, which you bring to your dying bed, you will carry with you to another world. These habits are the dying dress of the soul. They are the grave-cloaths, in which it must come forth, at the last, to meet the sentence of an impartial judge. If they were filthy, they will be filthy still. The washing of baptismal water will not, at that hour, cleanse the spots of the soul. The confession of sins, which have never been removed, will not furnish the conscience with an answer towards God. The reception of the elements will not then infuse a principle of spiritual life, any more than unconsecrated bread and wine will infuse health into the limbs, on which the cold damps of death have already collected. Say not, that you have discarded such superstitious expectations. You have not discarded them, while you defer any thing to that hour, while you venture to rely on any thing but the mercy of God toward a heart, holy, sincere and sanctified, a heart, which loves Heaven for its purity, and God for his goodness. If, in this solemn hour, the soul of an habitual and inveterate offender be prepared for the residence of pure and spotless spirits, it can be only by a sovereign and miraculous interposition of

omnipotence. His power we pretend not to limit. He can wash the sooty Ethiop white, and cause the spots on the leopard's skin to disappear. We presume not to fathom the counsels of his will; but this we will venture to assert, that if, at the last hour of the sinner's life, the power of God ever interposes to snatch him from his ruin, such interposition will never be disclosed to the curiosity of man. For, if it should once be believed, that the rewards of heaven can be obtained by such an instantaneous and miraculous change at the last hour of life, all our ideas of moral probation, and of the connexion between character here and condition hereafter, are loose, unstable, and groundless, the nature and the laws of God's moral government are made, at once, inexplicable, our exhortations are useless, our experience false, and the whole apparatus of gospel means and motives becomes a cumbrous and unnecessary provision.

What, then, is the great conclusion, which we should deduce from all that we have said of the nature of habit, and the difficulty of repentance? It is this. Behold, now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. If you are young, you cannot begin too soon; if you are old, you may begin too late. Age, says the proverb, strips us of every thing, even of resolution. Tomorrow we shall be older; tomorrow, indeed, death may fix his seal forever on our characters. It is a seal, which can never be broken, till the voice of the Son of man shall burst the tombs,

which enclose us. If, then, we leave this place, sensible of a propensity, which ought to be restrained, of a lust, which ought to be exterminated, of a habit, which ought to be broken, and rashly defer the hour of amendment, consider, I beseech you, it may, perhaps, be merciful in God to refuse us another opportunity. It may be a gracious method of preventing, an abuse, which will only aggravate the retribution, which awaits the impenitent. Make haste, then, and delay not to keep the commandments of God; of that God, who has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live.

27

SERMON XIII.

MATTHEW x. 32.

WHOSOEVER SHALL CONFESS ME BEFORE MEN, HIM WILL I ALSO CONFESS BEFORE MY FATHER, WHICH IS IN HEAVEN.

NO man can read the discourses of our Saviour with his disciples, without observing, how frequently he insists upon the necessity of courage and fortitude in his followers. Never was a leader less studious to conceal the difficulties and dangers of the service, in which his adherents were to engage; and never was the fidelity of disciples more severely proved, than was the fidelity of the first converts at the commencement of our religion. With only twelve constant companions Jesus began his preaching. Their dispositions, as various as their employments and capacities, were all to be trained up for a perilous service. There was Matthew, called unexpectedly from the profits of a lucrative trade; Peter, ardent, confident, ambitious, but inconstant; John, affectionate,

gentle, amiable, but unenterprizing; Thomas, slow to believe, quick to doubt, and curious to examine; Judas, dark, designing, covetous and treacherous; with several others, who joined themselves to Jesus, full of indefinite hopes, and solicitous to share in the emoluments and dignities, which they daily expected their master would dispense. Such were the minds, which our Saviour was to prepare for disappointment, and discipline to courage and endurance. To the worldly among them he talked, sometimes of the uncertainty, and sometimes of the worthlessness of present possessions; here placing before them pictures of poverty, and there recommending to them treasures in heaven. To the ambitious he discoursed of humility, of contentment, and laborious servitude, studiously undervaluing the easy dignities and powerful stations, to which they aspired. To the wavering and doubtful he proposed frequent experiments of their confidence, and insisted on the excellence of faith. To the gentle and feeble-minded he talked of impediments, hardships, disgrace, persecutions, and death. To the treacherous he entrusted the purse, which contained the stock of the little company, that the traitor might see, how little the success of the gospel and the support of its followers depended on money, which thieves like him could pilfer, and on fidelity like his, which lasted as long only, as it was serviceable to the purposes of his avarice. Such was the tenour of the conversations, by which our Saviour was continually preparing the minds of his disciples for the