and that you felt much fatisfaction in them, it is still useful and neceffary to review them. If they are not reviewed, they will ceafe to produce their effects: you are without your guard: you are open to the attacks of temptation, and of the irreligious. Demonftration itself, and felf-evident truths, if not attended to, produce no effect. It is by lofing fight of argument, not for want of argument, I suspect, that the irreligious are kept in irreligion; and that many are carried away with the errors of the wicked.

ON every fuggeftion, therefore, Chriftians, from within or from without, unfavourable to the faith or practice of the Gospel, let the question be put, Are there not good reasons. for receiving Christianity as a revelation from GOD; for reverencing the Son of GOD; for profeffing our faith in GOD, and in CHRIST; our rejoicing in the hope of the glory of GOD?

Ir is not my purpose to reckon up, and to illustrate, the reasons of the hope of Chriftians they are many and moft fatisfactory: we have often occafion of laying them before

you,

you, and fome of them have been incidentally brought in view in this difcourfe. At prefent it must fuffice just to name some of the most leading and ftriking, as well as most obvious, of thefe reafons. Think then,

ON the objects of revelation; to fave men from ignorance, guilt and wretchedness; to reftore men to reafon, to peace, to hope, to happiness; to unfold the glories of GOD and of his Son.

THINK ON,

on, the unity of defign through the whole of the revelations of GOD; all preceding ones bearing on, preparing for, and accomplished and terminating in, the Gospel of JESUS.

THINK on, the means employed in propofing the truths of revelation to the world.

THINK on, the oppofition they had to encounter who went forth publifhing the Gofpel to the world.

THINK on, the reception they met with, and the virtues which their zeal and fuccefs, and fufferings, difplayed.

THINK on, the effects of the Gospel wherever it is cordially received, and confcientiously obeyed.

THINK efpecially, how this precious book has demonftrated itfelf to be divine in your own experience, and in the bleffed experience of thousands; while you and they " are filled "with the knowledge of his will, in all wif"dom and spiritual understanding, and walk worthy of the LORD unto all pleasing,

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being fruitful in every good work, and increafing in the knowledge of GOD; ftrengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longfuffering with joyfulnefs; the eyes of the "understanding being enlightened to know. "what is the hope of his calling; and the "riches of the glory of his inheritance in the "faints; and the exceeding riches of his

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power toward us who believe;" who can fay, "Truly our fellowship is with the Fa"ther and his Son JESUS CHRIST: we know "whom we have believed and to whom we "have committed our fouls, and we are fure "he will keep that which we have commit"ted to him.

BY

By confidering fuch reafons, fingly, by uniting them together, you will become rooted and grounded in the faith; you will not be carried away with the error of the wicked, you will fave yourfelves from the untoward generation.

2. FOR these purposes I fuggest a second direction. Recollect frequently and seriously the profeflions you have made of being Chriftians. "You have opened your mouth "to the LORD," and can you fuffer yourfelves to be enfnared and perverted by the irreligious?

THIS direction and advice I would not offer, were it not preceded by the former. I urge you to be confiftent, only, because you had good reafons for what you have declared, and what you have become. To do any thing, and to continue in doing it, because you have faid or folemnly promised you will do it, is vindicable, only, when it was right

in

you fo to promife, fo to bind yourselves. It is aftonishing to think what men have done, what abfurd and blameable things they have perfevered in, merely because they will

keep

keep their word, they will be confiftent; though that word was rafhly uttered, though that confiftency is ridiculous and useless, and even injurious and criminal: for their oaths fake, murders, and many murders, have been ordered, and the defolations of war continued and perpetrated, by tyrants in all ages: that they may escape the imputation of rafhnefs of refolve, or of feebleness and inconfiftency in failing to execute their threatenings; they facrifice the repose, the enjoyments, the lives, of thousands. And, fhall men do for pride, and that they may not seem capable of rashness, or of change of mind, in matters indifferent and fometimes criminal; shall they persevere in their promises and profesfions; while the words we Chriftians utter, the oaths we take, the course we enter upon with folemn profeffions of perfeverance, are difregarded and abandoned? Remember, my friends, how often, how folemnly, you have faid, and fworn, you are Chriftians, you will be Chriftians, and you will be determined to fave yourselves from the untoward generation of the infidels and irreligious.

I ADDRESS you as Christians: would it of

I i

fend