Here they have

tion? They are the fcorn of the present age, and their names muft rot in the next. before them an inftance of one, who was deeply corrupted with the contagion which he firft derived from others, but unhappily heightened it much himself. He was a master indeed and not a bare trifler with wit, as fome of those are who repeat, and that but fcurvily, what they may have heard from him or fome others, and with impudence and laughter will face the world down, as if they were to teach it wifdom; who, God knows, cannot follow one thought a ftep farther than as they have conned it; and, take from them their borrowed wit and mimical humour, and they will presently appear, what they indeed are, the least and lowest of men.

If they will, or if they can, think a little, I wish they would confider, that, by their own principles, they cannot be fure that religion is only a contrivance; all they pretend to is only to weaken fome arguments that are brought for it; but they have not brow enough to fay, they can prove that their own principles are true, fo that at moft they bring their caufe no higher than that it is poffible religion may not be true. But ftill it is poffible it may be true, and they have no fhame left that will deny that it is also probable it may be true; and, if fo, then what mad men are they who run fo great a hazard for nothing? By their own confeffion, it may be there is a God

E 3

a God, a judgment, and a life to come, and, if so, then he that believes these things, and lives according to them, as he enjoys a long courfe of health and quiet of mind, an innocent relish of many true pleasures, and the ferenities which virtue raises in him, with the good-will and friendship which it procures him from others; fo when he dies, if these things prove mistakes, he does not outlive his error, nor fhall it afterwards raife trouble or difquiet in him, if he then ceases to be; but, if these things be true, he shall be infinitely happy in that state, where his prefent fmall fervices fhall be fo exceffively rewarded. The libertines, on the other fide, as they know they muft die, so the thoughts of death must be always melancholy to them; they can have no pleasant view of that which yet they know cannot be very far from them the leaft painful idea they can have of it is, that it is an extinction and ceafing to be, but they are not fure even of that; fome fecret whispers within make them, whether they will or not, tremble at the apprehenfions of another ftate; neither their tinfel wit, nor fuperficial learning, nor their impotent affaults upon the weak fide, as they think, of religion, nor the boldeft notions of impiety, will hold them up then. Of all which I now prefent fo lively an inftance, as perhaps hiftory can fcarce parallel.

:

Here were parts fo exalted by nature, and im

proved

proved by ftudy, and yet fo corrupted and debased by irreligion and vice, that he, who was made to be one of the glories of his age, was become a proverb, and, if his repentance had not interpofed, would have been one of the greatest reproaches of it. He knew well the small ftrength of that weak cause, and at firft defpifed, but afterwards abhorred it. He felt the mischiefs, and saw the madness, of it; and therefore, though he lived to the fcandal of many, he died as much to the edification of all those who faw him; and, because they were but a small number, he defired that he might even when dead yet speak. He was willing nothing fhould be concealed that might caft reproach on himself and on fin, and offer up glory to God and religion. So that, though he Jived a heinous finner, yet he died a moft exemplary penitent.

It would be a vain and ridiculous inference for any, from hence to draw arguments about the abftrufe fecrets of predeftination, and to conclude, that, if they are of the number of the elect, they may live as they will, and that Divine Grace will at fome time or other violently constrain them, and irrefiftibly work upon them. But as St. Paul was called to that eminent fervice, for which he was appointed, in fo ftupendous a manner as is no warrant for others to expect fuch a vocation, fo, if upon fome fignal occafions fuch converfions fall out, E 4

which,

which, how far they are short of miracles, I fhall not determine, it is not only a vain, but a pernicious imagination, for any to go on in their ill ways upon a fond conceit and expectation that the like will befal them: for, whatfoever God's extraordinary dealings with fome may be, we are fure his common way of working is, by offering these things to our rational faculties, which, by the affiftances of his grace, if we improve them all we can, fhall be certainly effectual for our reformation; and, if we neglect or abuse these, we put ourselves beyond the common methods of God's mercy, and have no reafon to expect that wonders fhould be wrought for cur conviction; which, though they fometimes happen, that they may give an effectual alarm for the awaking of others, yet it would deftroy the whole defign of religion, if men should depend upon, or look for, fuch an extraordinary and forcible operation of God's grace....

And I hope, that thofe, who have had some sharp reflections on their paft life, fo as to be refolved to forfake their ill courfes, will not take the leaft encouragement to themselves in that defperate and unreafonable refolution of putting off their repentance till they can fin no longer, from the hopes I have expreffed of this lord's obtaining mercy at the last, and from thence prefume, that they alfo fhall be received when they turn to God on their death-beds:

for,

for, what mercy foever God may fhew to fuch as real-ly were never inwardly touched before that time, yet there is no reafon to think, that those who have. dealt fo difingenuously with God and their own souls,, as defignedly to put off their turning to him upon fuch confiderations, fhould then be accepted with him. They may die fuddenly, or by a disease that may fo diforder their understandings that they shall not be in any capacity of reflecting on their past÷ lives. The inward converfion of our minds is not fo in our power that it can be effected without divine: grace affifling; and there is no reafon for thofe, who have neglected these affiftances all their lives, to ex-pect them in fo extraordinary a manner at their deaths. Nor can one, especially in a fickness that is quick and critical, be able to do those things that are often indifpenfably neceffary to make his repentance com-plete; and even in a longer difeafe, in which there are larger opportunities for these things. Yet there: is great reafon to doubt of a repentance, begun and} kept up merely by terror, and not from any ingenu-ous principle. In which, though I will not take ona me to limit the mercies of God, which are boundless, yet this mult be confeffed, that to delay repentance: with such a design, is to put the greatest concern-ment we have upon the most dangerous and defpe rate iffue that is poffible.