xviii will consent to none of your postponements. He will pay respect to none of your more convenient seasons. He tells you, that the matter wit~1 which he is charged, has all the urgency of a matter m hand. He speaks to Jrou with as much earnestness as if he knew that you were going to step into eternity in half an hour. He delivers his message with as much :, s9lemnity as if he knew that this was your last meeting on earth, and that you were-never to see each other till you stood together at the judgment-seat. _ He knew that some mighty change must take place in you, ere you be fit fiw entering into the presence of God; and that the time in which, on every plea of duty and of interest, you should bestir yourselves to secure tllis, is the present time. This is the distinct point he assigns to himself; and the whole drift of his argument, is to urge an instantaneous choice of the better part, by telling you how you multiply every day the obstacles to your future repentance, if you begin not the work of repentance now. Before bringing our Essay to a close, we shall make some observations on the mistakes concenling repentance which we have endeavoured to expose, and adduce some arguments for urging on the consciences of our readers the necessity and importance of immediate repentance. - 1. The work of repentance is a work which must 1)e done ere we die; for, ua less we repent, we shall all likewise perish. Now, the easier this work is in our conception, we will think it the less necessary to enter upon it immediately. We will look upon It as a work that may be done at any time, and let us, therefore, put it otr a little longer, and a little longer. We will perhaps look forward to that retirement fiom the world and its temptations which we figure old age to bring along with it, and f:1.lling in with the too common idea, that the evening of life is the appropriate season of preparation for another world, we will think that the author is bearing
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