SECTION VII. I portion to the treasures' with which God has entrusted you ? What have you done more than others, whom the great God bath made stewards of a larger heap of his earthly blessing's ? Il. You who have received great and remarkable deliver -' ances from death or misery, or mischief of any kind, by the favourable providence of God, you that have escaped imminent dangers byfire, by water, in travelling by land or sea, have you offered all due acknowledgments to the kind and almighty Guar- dian.of your life and peace ? Do you remember how frequently David devotes himself to God after every fresh deliverance, how he engages himself in love, and blesses tii,d name of the Lord for ever, and what a multitude of psalms he has written with this very design ? And can your consciences declare what are the thankful returns that you have made tothe God of your lives and your mercies ? What have you done beyond others who have never tasted the pleasure of such salvations ? What sacred and lasting influence have any of these providences left upon your hearts ? You who have been on the very borders of the grave, and ready to enter into the invisible world, under the terrors of a guilty conscience, and utterly unprepared to die, and yet God has commanded the grave to shut its mouth again, and respited your lifefrorn i going dozen to the pit for a longer season, have you taken any new care to prepare for death, that when the next sick- ness comes you may not be surrounded with the same horrors ? Or are you as careless of your eternal interests, as thoughtless of God and religion and the concerns of jour soul as you were before, or as others are who never enjoyed such a warning ? What is become of all those keen terrors that seized you on the brink of the grave ? What is become of your tears and mourn ings, your vows and resolutions, and your holy promises if God would spare you a few years longer ? What ! Are they all va- nished togethdr with your sickness ? Was the wound of your heart healed so slightly as to leave no remembrance upon your thoughts, and no happy' effects in your life? Are you no better than your former evil companions ? Are you returned again to your old iniquities, to your neglect of duties and your forgetful- ness of God ? Surely the next message you may expect from heaven is the sudden stroke of death, without any Opportunity for prayer or season for repentance. III. You who are fixed in any special station of superior influence upon others, as parents, as governors of fimilies, as`' ministers, as instructors ofyouth, as men of honour and reputa- tion, of rank and characteramong your neighbours, it is expect- ed that you should do more than others. Are you a parent, and have you brought children into the world tainted with the common corruption ofhuman nature, have
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