UNCONVERTED READER. 528 look into the world where you must be for ever ? Not one heart - piercing thought of everlasting glory ? Not one heart - piercing thought of your Saviour's love? Not one tear for all your sinful lives ? O ! God for- bid : let not our labours be so despised : let not your God, your Saviour, And your souls, be so light set by : O let there be no more profane persons among you like Esau, who jbr one morsel sold his birth- right. Poor sinners ! we talk not to you as on a stage, in customary words, and as if talking was our trade: we are in as good earnest with you as if we saw you mur- dering yourselves, and were persuading you to save yourselves. Can any man be in jest with you, who believeth God, who by faith forseeth whither you are going, and what you lose, and where the game of sin will end? "fis little better to jest with you now in a pulpit, or in private, than to stand jesting over your departing souls, when at death you are breathing out your last. Alas! with shame and grief we confess, we never speak to you of these things, as their truth and weight: deserve, nor with the skill and wisdom, the affection and fervency, that beseemeth men en- gaging in the saving of souls; but yet you may per- ceive that we are in earnest with you, (for God is so.) What else do we study for, labour for, suffer for, live for? What else do we so much trouble ourselves, and trouble you, with this ado, and anger them that would have made us silent ? For my own part, 1 will make my free confession to you to my shame, that I never grew cold, and dull, and pitiless to the souls of others, till I first grew too cold and careless of my own, (unless when weakness or speculative studies cool me, which I must confess they often do.) We never cease pitying you, till we are growing too like you, and oft have need of pity ourselves. When, through the mercy of my Lord, the prospect of the world of souls, which I am going to, hath any powerful operation on myself, 0! then ''I could spend and be spent for others. No words are too earnest, no labour too great, no cost too dear; the frowns and t,
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