044 TIrZ ETÉRNAL DURATION OF tDI$C.7CI1'I language of every place, and of every hour, will then be, awakened, What shall I do to be saved? Whither shall I fly for refuge? O blessed Jesus, receive me into thy protection, and be thou my deliverer. Give me leave to repeat this sort of expostulationwith lingering and delaying sinners, òr with drowsy and formal Christians. Ifyou would set yourselves often in the blaze of these everlasting burnings, you would never satisfy yourselves with such cold faint wishes, such lazy endea- vours, such languid efforts of faith and repentance to es- cape this fiery indignation that shall never be quenched : nor would you content yourselves with dark and doubtful evidences of your interest in the love of God, and the grace of our Lord Jesus; but you would be day and night busy with your own hearts in the most intimate and careful search after converting grace and living chris- tianity : you would never be at -rest till you felt the new- nature working with power and bright evidence within you, that you might be able to say, " We know there is no condemnation belongs to us, but that we are -passed from death unto life," Let us proceed upon this subject, turning the discourse from ourselves to our friends, and say, with what fervour of love, with what holy zeal and compassion should we 'labour to save our friends and all that are dear to us from this eternal destruction? What words of fiery 'terror shall we choose to awaken those who slumber on the edge of endless burnings? What language of kind and tender 'passion shall we choose to reach their hearts? What, phrases of melting pity to hasten their escape from -this precipice of burning ruin, or to pluck them as brands out of the fire before it becomes unquenchable? Know- ing these terrors of the Lord, with what vehemence of zeal should we try to persuade me-n, our fellow - mortals, that they would not venture into the midst of these miseries, and beseech them in the name of Christ, to be reconciled to God ? This was the practice, and these the motives of the great apostle, as he describes them at the latter end of the fifth chapter in his second epistle to the Corinthians; verses 11 2 1. O, with what force of ardent and active compassion -should ministers preach both the curses of the law, and the grace of the blessed gospel, to perishing sinners, and 4
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