of which is the continent. For if the heart continue primed with its ancient charge, what alteration under heaven can there be of life?

Whence, then, is the heart to be charged with new and better contents? Not from the world. Whence then? from the word of God? This is the new world out of which the soul is to suck a new nature, and be conformed unto a new image. Here she will see things in new lights. Hence derive new apprehensions of God, new estimates of human things; heavenly ambitions and earthly contempts, sincere affections, true interests, solid comforts, stable principles, unflitting hopes, and abiding joys. These new tenants of the heart, as they enter through the knowledge and belief of the word of God, will expel the old ones, and a change of life will grow apace; for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies, and whatever else defiles the life of man; and, till the heart be discharged and cleansed of its foul and adulterous load of nature's and the world's engendering, and possessed with another load engendered by the Word and Spirit of God, it is vain, very vain, to think that any refor mation or alteration of life will ensue.

How then, if these principles stand true, and that they do, all reason, revelation, and common experience of man do testify, how can any son of man commit the work of repentance to the desolate and soul-dissolving hour of death? What time then is there for the implantation of new principles-what strength for the ejecting of old ones-what room for experimenting upon the change-what solacement of assured hope to any clear-eyed spirit-what scope for the office of a pastor-what occupation for any soul? The communings between such a soul and a faithful pastor are the very shadow of weakness; the frailest, idlest, most unprofitable meeting which can take place on earth, a mere mockery of religion, and pregnant with most delusive effects. The pastor hath plenty of good things to bestow, but the dying man hath not a faculty of soul disengaged to take them up, nor hath he room wherein to stow them. He is dying, loaded, as he lived, with earthly cares. The pastor is a mere tool of ceremony by his bed-side; the most useless, the most helpless of all who minister to his wants, because, to speak the very truth, he hath no wants to which it is his province to minister.

But when it otherwise happeneth that the fear of God had made an early lodgment in the breast, and kept its place.

against the temptations of this world and the impressions of nature within; that the hand of God hath been seen and gratefully acknowledged through the whole of life; that the weight of sins hath led the soul to the Cross of Christ, and unburthened it there; and that the worship of God hath been publicly pursued, and his favour privately besought, and his works, to the extent of our understanding and the ability of our mind, followed after; then, then the pastor's office to minister at his death-bed is an office full of meaning, and full of heart-felt gladness, to the spiritual patient most enlivening, and to all around most affecting. Such a death-bed hath no terror; and it is well nigh cheated of its grief, at least it hath a chastened grief. It is like the refining furnace to the gold, where the dross alone is left; the refreshing of spring when the creature casts its viler slough; or the apotheosis of an ancient hero, when his spirit riseth before his kindred from its earthly nook into the neighbourhood of God.

Ah, then, why do men dream! and why doat they upon this final repentance which is so impracticable! Why put they off the present thought of death, under the delusion of taking it up at a more convenient season! Do be intreated, for the sake of all that is dear to man in time and in eternity, to take the matter up at present. Send those thoughts, which roam sportive over gay fields of delusion; send those active, manly purposes, which now combat the hard and perilous conditions of human life; send those fond hopes, which dwell over the troublous future of the present life-hopes of a good which shineth faintly, and in the end defeat, like the ignis-fatuus, the pursuits of most; send those fears, which dwell over the troublous future of the present life-fears of loss, of poverty, of disgrace, of worldly defamation, or worldly despite; send them all, I do pray you, by heaven's glorious scenes, and hell's awful bereavements, send all those joyful thoughts and manly purposes, and fond hopes and gloomy fears, send them into the word of God, that they may partake there a proper, real, and everlasting nutriment, which may build up the edification of the soul, and secure for ever her well-being beyond the power of death and the grave, and sin, and the father of sin, to do her harm.

This 'procrastination, it is the thief of time;' this postponement of repentance, is the kidnapper of souls, and the recruiting-officer of hell. And I well do know what a troop of generous men he hath deluded; men who know the truth, and revere the truth, but postpone it under the incantation and magic

of this great enemy of heaven. Mine is an impotent position from which to assault an enemy that is possessed of your bosoms; but if I could arouse your better faculties, which his potations have laid asleep, and draw them to take a refreshing draught from the wine and milk of the gospel of Christ, then I glory to think how they would clear the inward temple of his sacrilegious intruder, and send him and his herd to the kennel, whence they issued to dupe the soul of man and bereave him of his noble enjoyment. Would you compose yourselves to thought; would you still the tumultuous host of passions and affections within, escape to a secret place from the din without, sit you down to think of life and death, and judgment and eternity, there would come up such still, small voices from the depths within, such stifled thoughts of God would awaken and present themselves at the court of conscience once more, strangled affections to Christ would breathe again through the living Spirit of our God, tender promises of Scripture would quicken long-departed hope; and the gospel of our Saviour would banish dissuading fears, and the heart would open its stony doors to God, as the flowers do their folded bosom to the beams of the sun. And oh! what new purposes would grow from the divine communion, and what new courses would be followed by the grace of our God! And what freshness, what health, what joyfulness, would enliven our diseased and sickened soul! The bridegroom hath blessed her with his love, and united himself to her for ever. Life, for the first time beginneth; and, like Christ, the father of it, it ariseth from a tombthe tomb of the old man crucified. Then the seed of the Word that liveth and abideth for ever is implanted; the fruits of the Spirit come forth from the bed of carnal nature, and the spiritual man standeth ready to be glorified by death. Such, be assured, my beloved brethren, will come to every one of you, if you will but shake off, in the strength of God, this nightmare of procrastination, which weigheth down your bosom, and will speedily consume your life.

Thus is one strength demolished, into which indolent nature retreateth, and where she liveth upon time, as the sloth does upon the tree, till every particle of the food is consumed, then droppeth, she knoweth not whither. There is another strength into which she casts herself when beaten out of this, upon which I meditate no parley, no tedious operation, of argument, but a main attack, a storm, where it shall be fought hand to hand, without any reserve or any mercy upon either side. For they are desperados with

whom I am now to deal, if so be that our former mild and reasoning method of discourse have failed to move them.

There be those who confound the foresight of death with a fearfulness of death, and talk of meeting death like brave men; and there be institutions in human society which seem made on purpose to hinder the thoughts of death from coming timeously before the deliberation of the mind. And they who die in war, be they ever so dissipated, abandoned, and wretched, have oft a halo of everlasting glory arrayed by poetry and music, around their heads; and the forlorn hope of any enterprise goeth to their terrible post amidst the applauding shouts of all their comrades. And 'to die game,' is a brutal form of speech which they are now proud to apply to men. And our prize-fights, where they go plunging upon the edge of eternity, and often plunge through, are applauded by tens of thousands, just in proportion as the bull-dog quality of the human creature carries it over every other. And to run hair-breadth escapes, to graze the grass that skirts the grave, and escape the yawning pit, the impious, daring wretches call cheating the devil; and the watch-word of your dissolute, debauched people is, "A short life and a merry one." All which tribes of wreckless, godless people lift loud the laugh against the saints, as a sickly, timorous crew, who have no upright gait in life, but are always cringing under apprehensions of death and the devil. And these bravos think they play the man in spurning God and his concerns away from their pla ces; that there would be no chivalry, nor gallantry, nor battle-brunt in the temper of man, were he to stand in awe of the sequel which followeth death. And thus the devil hath built up a strong embattled tower, from which he lordeth it over the spirits of many men, winning them over to himself, playing them off for his sport, in utter darkness all their life long, till in the end they take a leap in the dark, and plunge into his yawning pit; never, never to rise again.

And here, first, I would try these flush and flashy spirits with their own weapons, and play a little with them at their own game. They do but prate about their exploits at fighting, drinking, and death-despising. I can tell them of those who fought with savage beasts; yea, of maidens, who durst enter as cooly as a modern bully into the ring, to take their chance with infuriated beasts of prey; and I can tell them of those who drank the molten lead as cheerfully as they do the juice of the grape, and handled the red fire, and played with the bickering flames as gaily as they do with love's dimples or woman's amorous tresses. And what do they

talk of war? Have they forgot Cromwell's iron-band, who made their chivalry to skip? or the Scots Cameronions, who seven times, with their Christian chief, received the thanks of Marlborough, that first of English captains? or Gustavus of the North, whose camp sung Psalms in every tent? It is not so long, that they should forget Nelson's Methodists, who were the most trusted of that hero's crew. Poor men, they know nothing who do not know out of their country's history, who it was that set at nought the wilfulness of Henry VIII. and the sharp rage of the virgin Queen against liberty, and bore the black cruelty of her popish sister; and presented the petition of rights, and the bill of rights, and the claim of rights. Was it chivalry? was it blind bravery? No; these second-rate qualities may do for a pitched field, or a fenced ring; but when it comes to death or liberty, death or virtue, death or religion, they wax dubious, generally bow their necks under hardship, or turn their backs for a bait of honour, or a mess of solid and substantial meat. This chivalry and brutal bravery can fight if you feed them well and bribe them well, or set them well on edge; but in the midst of hunger and nakedness, and want and persecution, in the day of a country's direst need, they are cowardly, treacherous, and of no avail.

Oh these topers, these gamesters, these idle revellers, these hardened death-despisers! they are a nation's disgrace, a nation's downfall. They devour the seed of virtue in the land; they feed on virginity, and modesty, and truth. They grow great in crime, and hold a hot war with the men of peace. They sink themselves in debt; they cover their families with disgrace; they are their country's shame. And will they talk about being their country's crown, and her rock of defence? They have in them a courage of a kind such as Cataline and his conspirators had. They will plunge in blood for crowns and gaudy honours; or, like the bolder animals, they will set on with brutal courage, and, like all animals, they will lift up an arm of defence against those who do them harm. But their soul is consumed with wantonness, and their steadfast principles are dethroned by error; their very frames, their bones and sinews, are effeminated and degraded by vice and dissolute indulgences.

If there is no bravery in meeting an enemy whose power and virulence we know not, and if there is no cowardice in examining an enemy's strength, that we may take precautions to meet him with success, then have these bravos no credit for valour in overlooking death, and we have no discredit for calmly preparing to receive him: for they know