152 A CALL TO heart to lay it out. Prov. xvii. 16. Can it fail to torment you to think of this your present folly? 0 that your eyes were opened to see what you have done in the wilful wronging of your own souls! ancl _that you better understood these words of God. Prov. viii. 33-36. " Hear instruction and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors: for whoso findeth me findeth life, ancl shall obtain favour of the Lord. But he that sinneth against me, WTOngeth his own soul. All they that hate me love death." And now I am corn~ to the conclusion of this work, my heart is troubled to think how I shall leave you, lest after this the flesh should still deceive you, and the world ahd the devil should keep you asleep, a:nd I should leave you as I found you, till you awake in hell. Though in.care of your poor souls, I am afraid of this, as knowing the obstinacy of a carnal heart; yet I can say with the prophet Jeremiah, xvii. 16. "I have not desired the woful day, thou Lord knowest." I have not with James and John desired that "fire might come from heaven" to consume them that refused J esus Christ. Luke ix. 54. But it is the preventing of the eternal fire that I have been all this while endeavouring: and · 0 that it had been a needless work! That God and conscience might have been as willing to spare me this labour as some of you could have been. Dear friends, I am so loth tha~ you should lie in everlasting fire, and be shut out of heaven, if it be possible to prevent it, that I shall once more ask you, what do you now resolve? Will you turn or die? I look . upon you as a physician on his patient, in a dangerous disease, that saith to him, 'Though you are far gone, take but this meJicine, and forbear but those few things that are hurtful to you, and I dare warrant your life; but if you will not do this, you are but a dead man.' What would you think of such a man, if the physician, and all the friends he
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