hearted sinner?-will you not pity one that must be shut out from the presence of the Lord, and lie under his remediless wrath, if thorough repentance speedily prevent it not? O what a heart is it that

will not pity such a one! What shall I call the heart of such a man? A heart of stone, a very rock or adamant the heart of a tiger-or rather the heart of an infidel! for surely if he believed the misery of the impenitent, it is not possible but he should take pity on him. Can you tell men in the pulpit, that they shall certainly be damned, except they repent, and yet have no pity on them, when you have proclaimed to them their danger? And if you pity them, will you not do this much for their salvation? How many around you are blindly hastening to perdition, while your voice is appointed to be the means of arousing and reclaiming them! The physician hath no excuse; he is doubly bound to relieve the sick, when even every neighbour is bound to help them. Brethren, what if you heard sinners cry after you in the streets, O sir, have pity on me, and afford me your advice! everlasting wrath of God!

I am afraid of the I know I must shortly

leave this world, and I am afraid lest I shall be miserable in the next!'-could you deny your help to such poor sinners? What if they came to your study-door, and cried for help, and would not go away, till you had told them how to escape the wrath of God? Could you find in your hearts to drive them away without advice? I am confident you

could not. Why, alas! such persons are less miserable than they who will not cry for help. It is the hardened sinner who cares not for your help, that

most needeth it: and he that hath not so much life as to feel that he is dead, nor so much light as to see his danger, nor so much sense left as to pity himself, this is the mau that is most to be pitied. Look upon your neighbours around you, and think how many of them need your help in no less a case than the apparent danger of damnation. Suppose that you heard every impenitent person whom you see and know about you, crying to you for help'As ever you pitied poor wretches, pity us, lest we should be tormented in the flames of hell: if you have the hearts of men, pity us.' Now, do that for them that you would do if they followed you with such expostulations. O how can you walk, and talk, and be merry with such people, when you know their case! Methinks, when you look them in the face, and think how they must endure everlasting misery, you should break forth into tears, (as the Prophet did when he looked upon Hazael,) and then fall on with the most importunate exhortations! When you visit them in their sickness, will it not wound your hearts to see them ready to depart into misery, before you have ever dealt seriously with them for their conversion? O, then, for the Lord's sake, and for the sake of poor souls, have pity on them, and bestir yourselves, and spare no pains that may conduce to their salvation.

III. This duty is necessary to your own welfare, as well as to your people's. This is your work, according to which, among others, you shall be judged. You can no more be saved without ministerial diligence and fidelity, than they or you can be saved without Christian diligence and fidelity. If, there

fore, you care not for others, care at least for yourselves. O what a dreadful thing is it to answer for the neglect of such a charge! and what sin more heinous than the betraying of souls! Doth not that threatening make us tremble-" If thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but HIS BLOOD WILL I REQUIRE AT THY HAND." I am afraid, nay, I have no doubt, that the day is near when unfaithful ministers will wish that they had never known their charge; but that they had rather been colliers, or sweeps, or tinkers, than pastors of Christ's flock !—when, besides all the rest of their sins, they shall have the blood of so many souls to answer for. O brethren, our death, as well as our people's, is at hand, and it is as terrible to an unfaithful pastor as to any! When we see that die we must, and that there is no remedy; that no wit, nor learning, nor popular applause, can avert the stroke, or delay the time; but, willing or unwilling, our souls must be gone, and that into a world which we never saw, where our persons and our worldly interest will not be respected, O then for a clear conscience, that can say, I lived not to myself but to Christ; I spared not my pains; I hid not my talent; I concealed not men's misery, nor the way of their recovery.' O sirs, let us therefore take time while we have it, and work while it is day, "for the night cometh when no man can work." This is our day too: and by doing good to others, we must do good to ourselves. If you would prepare for a comfortable death, and a great and glorious reward, the harvest is before you. Gird up the loins of your minds, and quit yourselves like men,

that you may end your days with these triumphant words: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give unto me in that day." If you would be blessed with those that die in the Lord, labour now, that you may rest from your labours then, and do such works as you would wish should follow you, and not such as will prove your terror in the review.

PART IV.-Application of these Motives.Having found so many and so powerful reasons to move us to this work, I shall now apply them further for our humiliation and excitation.

I. What cause have we to bleed before the Lord this day, that we have neglected so great and good a work so long;-that we have been ministers of the gospel so many years, and done so little by personal instruction and conference for the saving of men's souls! If we had but set about this business sooner, who knows how many souls might have been brought to Christ; and how much happier our congregations might now have been! And why might we not have done it sooner as well as now? I confess there were many impediments in our way, and so there are still, and will be while there is a devil to tempt, and a corrupt heart in man to resist the light but if the greatest impediment had not been in ourselves, even in our own darkness, and dulness, and indisposedness to duty, and our dividedness and unaptness to close for the work of God, I see not but much might have been done before this. We had the same God to

command us, and the same miserable objects of compassion, and the same liberty from governors as now we have. We have sinned, and have no just excuse for our sin; and the sin is so great, because the duty is so great, that we should be afraid of pleading any excuse. The God of mercy forgive us, and all the ministry of England, and lay not this or any of our ministerial negligences to our charge! O that he would cover all our unfaithfulness, and by the blood of the everlasting covenant, wash away our guilt of the blood of souls, that when the chief Shepherd shall appear, we may stand before him in peace, and may not be condemned for the scattering of his flock. And O that he would put up his controversy which he hath against the pastors of his church, and not deal the worse with them for our sakes, nor suffer underminers or persecutors to scatter them, as they have suffered his sheep to be scattered! and that he will not care as little for us, as we have done for the souls of men; nor think his salvation too good for us, as we have thought our labour and sufferings too much for men's salvation. As we have had many days of humiliation in England, for the sins of the land, and the judgments that have befallen us, I hope we shall hear that God will more thoroughly humble the ministry, and cause them to bewail their own neglects, and to set apart some days through the land to that end, that they may not think it enough to lament the sins of others while they overlook their own; and that God may not abhor our solemn national humiliations, because they are managed by unhumbled guides; and that we may first prevail with him for a pardon for ourselves, that we may be the fitter to beg for the pardon of others.