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that you are generally thoughtless and careless about the great concerns of your eternal state? Your hearts have never been thoroughly changed by divine grace; nor do you know by experience what it is to believe, to repent, and to love God with all your hearts. You do not make conscience of every duty; I mean, you neglect the worship of God in your families, though under the strongest obligations to perform it, perhaps from your own solemn vows and promises. You indulge yourselves in some known sin, or other; and if you feel some pangs of repentance, your repentance does not issue in reformation. Alas! my brethren, is this the character of one soul within the hearing of my voice? Then I must tell you, that if you continue such, you will be fuel for the last universal fire; and must perish in the ruins of the world you have loved so well.

But who knows, but that if you begin immediately, you may yet have time enough to work out your salvation? Therefore, now begin the work. There is no safety, but in Jesus Christ. Away to him, therefore; let me lay the hand of friendly violence upon you, and hurry you out of your present condition, as the angel did Lot out of Sodom. "Up, get ye out of this condition; for the Lord will destroy all that continue in it-escape for thy life, look not behind thee-escape to Jesus Christ, lest thou be consumed." ""*

I must tell you frankly, I studied this part of my discourse with an anxious heart; and I was almost discouraged from adding this exhortation to it. "For, thought I, I have given such exhortations over and over: but they seem generally in vain. There is indeed a happy number among my hearers, who, I doubt not, have regarded the gospel preached by my lips. But, alas! as to the rest, I have been so often disappointed that I now hardly hope to succeed." These, my dear brethren, are my discouragements in my retirements, when no eye sees me but God. And oh! sinners, will your future conduct prove, that there was good reason for my fears? Alas! is the ministry of the gospel an useless institution with regard to you? Have such exhortations as these no weight with you? Will you resist my benevolent hand, when I would stretch it forth to pluck you out of the burning? Well, my friends, I cannot help it. If you will perish, if you are obstinately set upon it, I have only this to say, that your

* Gen. xix. 14-17.

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poor minister will weep in secret for you, and drop his tears upon you, as you are falling into ruin from between his hands. Yes, sinners, God forbid that I should cease to pray for you and pity you. While my tongue is capable of pronouncing a word, and you think it worth your while to hear me, I will send the calls of the gospel after you; and if you perish after all, you shall drop into hell with the offers of heaven in your ears. Fain would I clear myself and say, "Your blood be upon your own heads I am clean." But, alas! my heart recoils and fails. I have no doubt at all, but the gospel I have preached to you, is indeed the gospel of Christ, and I cheerfully venture my own soul upon it. But in dispensing it among you, I am conscious of so much weakness, coldness, and unskilfulness, that I am at times shocked at myself, lest I should be accessary to your ruin. However, this is certain, great guilt will fall somewhere. I desire to take my own share of shame and guilt upon myself, and to humble myself for it before God. And I pray you do the same. O, humble yourselves before God, for your past conduct and prepare, prepare to meet him, in the midst of a burning world.

Or, if you continue obstinately impenitent still, prepare to make your defence against your poor minister there, when he will be obliged to appear as a swift witness against you, and say, "Lord, I can appeal to thyself, that I warned them to prepare for this day, though with so many guilty infirmities, as nothing but thy mercy can forgive. But they would not regard my warnings, though given in thine awful Name, and sometimes enforced with my own compassionate tears." There, sirs, at the supreme tribunal, prepare to meet me; and thither I dare appeal for the truth and importance of the things I have inculcated upon you.

*Acts xviii. 6.

AN HYMN,

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE PRECEDING DISCOURSE.

How great, how terrible that God,
Who shakes creation with his nod!
He frowns, and earth's foundations quake,
And all the wheels of nature break.

Crush'd under guilt's oppressive weight,
This globe now totters to its fate :
Trembles beneath her guilty sons,
And for deliv'rance heaves and groans !

And see! the glorious, dreadful day,
That takes th' enormous load away!
See skies, and stars, and earth, and seas,
Sink in one universal blaze !

Where now-ah! where shall sinners seek
For shelter in the general wreck ?

Can falling rocks conceal them now,
When rocks dissolve like melting snow?

In vain for pity now they cry:
In lakes of liquid fire they lie:
There on the burning billows toss'd,
Forever, ever, ever, lost!

But saints, undaunted and serene,
Your eyes shall view the dreadful scene!
Your Saviour lives, tho' worlds expire,
And earth and skies dissolve in fire!

JESUS! the helpless creature's friend!
To thee my all I dare commend:
Thou canst preserve my feeble soul,
When lightnings blaze from pole to pole !

N

SERMON 68.

SERIOUS REFLECTIONS ON WAR.

JAMES IV. 1.—From whence come wars and fightings among you ? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members ?*

THE years that now roll over our heads are not likely to be passed over slightly in the annals of our country; they are big with very important events, in which our own welfare and that of our posterity is nearly interested. This happy country has been for a long time the region of peace; and our years have run on in one uniform tenor of undisturbed tranquillity: but for some time past the scene has been changed. We have seen years of terror and alarm, of desolation and slaughter; and the prospect through future years is at least equally gloomy. We are as yet, blessed be God, a free and happy people! We enjoy peace in the midst of a ravaged, bleeding country: but how long we shall enjoy this distinguished happiness is a dreadful uncertainty! The fate of our country, and all that it contains, hangs in an anxious suspense. Whether the present year will leave us as it found us, is only known to Omniscience.

The religious improvement of such interesting events, whether prosperous or afflictive, is the best use we can make of them. And now, while we stand upon the threshold of a new year, it is proper we should pause, and look back to the events which the past year has brought forth, and forward to those with which the coming year is pregnant. The review of the one furnishes us with occasion both for praise and humiliation, and with materials to sing of mercy and of judgment; and the prospect of the other calls for prayer and repentance, to avert those judgments with which we are threatened, and to obtain a favourable issue to the expeditions in which we may engage. That must be a thoughtless mind indeed, that can learn no useful lessons from the present posture of our affairs, even without a teacher.

*Preached at Henrico, January 1, 1757; being a day appointed by the Presbytery of Hanover to be observed as a religious fast, on account of the present state of public affairs.

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And that must be an atheistical mind indeed, that is not led, by the present appearances of things, to those exercises of devotion, which such a season so loudly calls for.

The presbytery, therefore, has thought proper to appoint this day to be observed as a religious fast, through all the congregations under their care, on account of the present state of our public affairs that we may leave the old year and our old guilt, at once, behind us-that we may enter upon the new year as new creatures-that, as we bid adieu to the old year, we may drop a tear, and vent a groan, over the sins we committed in it-that we may not carry with us into this year the heavy load of last year's guilt, but may enter it with earnest prayers, that God would be with us through it, and afford the same safe conduct to our country and nation.

The better to answer the design of this day, I shall briefly recapitulate the affairs of the year past; and offer some conjectures, from the present appearances of things, concerning the events that may be before us, in the year upon which we are now entering.

The last seasonable and plentiful summer, after a year of drought and scarcity, ought always to be remembered as a surprising instance of divine bounty. How kind is our heavenly Father, even to the disobedient and unthankful!-how rich in mercy, even to the ungrateful abusers of that mercy! With how much long-suffering does he endure even the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction! And oh the stupid ingratitude of the sons of men! They sin on still, unmoved by the riches of his grace, as well as incorrigible under his rod. What return has God received for rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, and a whole country full of blessings? Alas! not the gratitude of the dull ox to his owner, or the stupid ass to his master: for "the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib ;"* but how few among us know or consider? How few acknowledge their obligations to God for these blessings?

Last year, as well as that before it, our frontiers have streamed with British blood. There you might see flourishing plantations deserted; families scattered or butchered; some mangled and scalped; some escaped in horror and consternation, with the loss of their earthly all; some captivated by the savages, dragged through woods, and swamps, and mountains, to

* Isaiah i. 3.

their towns, and there prostituted to barbarous lust, or condemned to lingering tortures, which I believe, have hardly ever been equalled on this side hell. This has been the fate of some hundreds of families on the frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania;—a fate so melancholy, that words cannot describe it, nor are our tenderest compassions equal to it.

Last year also saw the surprising loss of the important harbours and fortresses of Minorca and Oswego; a loss not likely to be soon repaired; a loss, occasioned, not by the superior force of the enemy, but, it is to be feared, by the cowardice or mismanagement of our own men; which renders it the more mortifying.

The last year was also sadly memorable for disappointed schemes and blasted expeditions. Our expedition against the Shawaneese most unaccountably miscarried. The northern expedition against Crown Point, and the other French forts in those parts, which has been so expensive, and from which we entertained such sanguine expectations, has proved abortive last summer, as it did the preceding and whether ever it can be carried into execution, is dreadfully uncertain. The scheme for increasing our little regiment, by drafting the young men in the militia, did not answer the end; and instead of fifteen hundred men, we had hardly half that number. In short, there is no scheme that I can think of, that has been successful, but the expedition of Colonel Armstrong against an Indian town. I know that in this world, which is now under an indiscriminate Providence, success is not peculiar to the pious; but victory and defeats happen promiscuously to the good and bad. And yet, I cannot but look upon it as very remarkable, that amidst so many disappointments and defeats, one of the most hazardous expeditions, conducted by one that fears God, and depended upon his strength, should be successful. Such is Colonel Armstrong ; a christian, as well as a soldier. I have known him seeking after Jesus, as a broken-hearted penitent, with cries and tears, for some years. Had we many officers thus prepared to serve their country, we might expect more service from them. Faith made heroes in ancient times; and I am persuaded religion is the best source of courage still. But, alas! how few christian heroes have we to boast!

Last year we had a treaty with the Catawba Indians, and with the more powerful nation of the Cherokees. We have complied

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