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great finners do and of this my text pronounces, that there is "greater joy in heaven over one fuch finner, that truly repenteth, than there is over "ninety and nine just persons that need not such "repentance." One reason of which we may conceive to be this; that such a penitent's former failings are ordinarily the occafion of a greater and more active piety afterwards; as our convert earneftly wished that God would be pleased to spare him but one year more, that in that he might honour his name proportionably to the dishonour done to God in his whole life paft. And we fee St. Paul laboured more abundantly than all the apoftles in the planting of the church, because he had raged furiously before in the deftruction of it; and our Saviour himself tells us, "that, to whom much is for"given, they will love much; but to whom little "is forgiven, they will love little."

It is certainly the more fafe, indeed the only safe way, to be conftantly virtuous; and he that is wife indeed, i. e. wife unto falvation, will endeavour to be one of those that need no repentance; I mean, that intire and whole work of beginning anew, but will draw out the fame thread through his whole life, and let not the fun go down upon any of his fins: but then the other repentance is more remarkable, and, where it is real, the more effectual, to produce a fervent and a fruitful piety; befides the greater

greater glory to God in the influence of the example. Which may probably be a farther reason of the exceffive joy of the angels at the converfion of fuch a finner; because they, who are better acquainted with human nature than we, knowing it apt, like the Pharisees, to demand a fign from heaven for the reformation of corrupted customs, difcern likewise, that fuch defperate fpiritual recoveries will seem so many openings of the heavens in the descent of the Holy Dove, vifible to the ftanders by, and accordingly will have the greater influence upon them. And it is this, in the last place, that I am to recommend to all that hear me this day.

And, having thus difcharged the office of an historian, in a faithful reprefentation of the repentance and converfion of this great finner, give me leave now to befpeak you as an ambassador of Chrift, and, in his name, earnestly perfuade you to be reconciled to him, and to follow this illuftrious perfon, not in his fins any more, but in his forrows for them, and his forfaking them. If there be any in this place, or elsewhere, who have been drawn into a complacency or practice of any kind of fin from his example, let those especially be perfuaded to break off their fins by repentance, by the fame example; that as he has been for the fall, fo he may now be for the rifing again, of many in Ifrael. God knows there are too many that are wife enough to difcern

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and follow the examples of evil, but to do good from thofe examples they have no power; like those abfurd flatterers we read of, who could imitate Plato in his crookedness, Ariftotle in his ftammering, and Alexander the Great in the bending of his neck and the fhrillness of his voice, but either could not, or would not, imitate them in any of their perfections. Such as these I would befeech, in their cooler feafons, to ask themselves that question, “What fruit

had you in those things whereof you now are "afhamed, for the end of thefe things is death ?" And if any encourage themfelves in their wickedness from this example, refolving however to enjoy the good things that are prefent, to fill themselves with coftly wines, and to let no part of pleasure pafs by them untafted, fuppofing, with the Gofpel rich man, that when one comes to them from the dead, when fickness or old age approaches, that then they will repent; let fuch as these confider the dreadful hazard they run by fuch pernicious counfels. It may be, (and it is but just with God it should be,) that, whilft they are making provifion for the flesh to fulfil the lufts thereof, and are faying to their fouls, foul, thou haft much goods laid up for many years, therefore take thine eafe, eat, drink, and be merry; perhaps juft then at the fame time the hand of God may be writing upon the walls of their habitations, that fatal fentence, "thou fool, 6. this

"this night shall thy foul be required of thee, and "then whose fhall all thofe things be which thou "haft promised ?" And what fad reflections must fuch a one need make upon his own folly, when he fees all that mirth and eafe, which he has promised himself for so many years, must be at an end in a very few hours! And not only fo, but that mirth turned into howlings, and that ease into a bed of flames; when the foul must be torn away on a fudden from the things it loved, and go where it will hate to live, and yet cannot die. And were it not better for us to embrace cordially the things which belong to our everlasting peace, before they are hid from our eyes? Were it not better for us all to be wife betimes, by preventing such a danger, than to open our eyes, as the unhappy rich man did, when we are in a place of torment?-Be. perfuaded then, with humble, penitent, and obedient hearts, to meet the bleffed Jefus, who is now on the way, and comes to us in the perfon and in the bowels of a Saviour, wooing us to accept thofe eafy conditions of pardon and peace offered in his holy Gospel, rather than to ftay till he become our adversary, and our judge too, when he will deliver us over to the tormentors, till we have paid the utmoft farthing, i. e.. to all eternity: when thofe, who have made a mock at fin all their lives, and laughed at the pretended: cheats of religion and its priests, shall find themselves

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at last the greatest fools, and the most fadly cheated in the world: for God will then laugh at their calamity, and' mock when their fear cometh, when it cometh as defolation, and their deftruction, as a whirlwind. And fince they would not suffer his mercy to rejoice over his justice, nor cause any joy in heaven as the text mentions, in their converfion, his justice will certainly rejoice over his mercy, and cause joy in heaven, as it did at the fall of Babylon, which would not be cured, (Rev. xix. 1.) in their confufion. And, oh! that there was such a heart in them, that thy would confider this betimes! that, in the midst of their carnal jollities, they would but vouchsafe one regard what may happen hereafter, and what will certainly be the end of these things! For however the fruits of fin may feem pleasant to the eye, and to be defired to make one feem wife and witty to the world, yet, alas! they are but empty and unfatisfactory at prefent, and leave a mortal fting behind them, and bitterness in the latter end; like the book St. John ate, (Rev. x. 10.) " which "in his mouth was sweet as honey, but as soon as " he had ate it, his belly was bitter." And that God fhould please at last to bring men back in their old age from their finful courfes, by a way of weeping, to pluck them as firebrands out of everlasting burnings; yet if men confider how rare and difficult a thing it is to be born again when one is old; haw many

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