danger? What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lofe his own foul? or to enjoy the gospel, while you receive no advantage from it, but abuse it to your more aggravated ruin? What avails it that God is merciful, when you have no share in his mercy, and never will, if you continue in your vain carnal joy? that Chrift died for finners, while you wilfully exclude yourselves from the bleffed effects of his death?

In fhort, what upon earth, or even in heaven, can afford you any pleasure or rational joy, while your names are not written in heaven, and you are not ufing earneft endeavours to be admitted citizens there? alas! your cafe calls for fighs, and tears, and forrow, rather than joy. What have you to do with politics, news, and the fate of armies and kingdoms, while you know not whether you will be out of hell one day longer?

And as the joy of the righteous in having their names written in heaven may fwallow every other joy, fo your forrow, on account of your names not being written there, may fwallow up all other forrows. Be forrowful on this account, above all other things.

Have you loft your friends, your relatives, your eftate? This is fad; but O! it is nothing to the lofs of God, of heaven, and your fouls. All will be loft ere long, if you continue in your prefent condition. Are you poor in this world? That is but a trifling affliction, compared with that everlasting poverty you muft ere long suffer. Are you mean and despised by men? Alas! what is that to your being despised and abhorred by the God that made you? Are you the flaves of men? This would be trifling, and you need not care for it, were it not that you are flaves to fin and Satan, and under the condemnation of the divine law. Are you difordered in body? That is nothing to the disorders of your fouls. Are you afraid of natural death? alas! what is that to fpiritual death, which has feized your fouls, and the eternal death

which is but juft before you? In fhort, nothing in all the world ought fo to distress and grieve you as this, That your names are not written in heaven.

Therefore, inftead of vain rejoicing, and mirth, and gaiety, I muft read to you the denunciation of Jefus Chrift againft you; But wo unto you that are rich; for ye have received your confolation. Wo unto you that are full, for ye shall hunger. Wo unto you that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep. Luke vi. 24, 25.— and call upon you as the apostle James does, Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miferies that fhall come upon you. James v. 9. And again, Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep; let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. James iv. 9.

I can honeftly affure you, I am no enemy to the pleasures of mankind. But it is because I love you that I wish you may return home fad and forrowful from this place; for I well know, you are for ever undone, unless you turn to the Lord; and that you never will turn to him, without rending of your hearts, weeping, and mourning. Joel ii. 12.

If your joy and mirth were rational, I fhould fay nothing against it; but is it not frenzy and madness to be merry in the chains of fin, under the wrath of God, and upon the brink of eternal ruin?

Is it not alfo difhonourable to God? It is as if you should tell him to his face, that you can be merry and happy without his favour, and that you care nothing for his difpleasure.

I fhould not reprove your mirth, if it were harmlefs; but, alas! it will ruin you if you indulge it. For, let me tell you, fuch finners as you cannot become converts, without alarming fears and deep forrows. Without this you never will be in earneft in your religious endeavours.

You will tell me perhaps, "you fee christians cheerful, and sometimes merry; and why may not you be fo?" I answer (1.) There is a great difference in your cafe and theirs; they have a lively hope of

everlasting

everlasting happinefs; but you can have no hope in your prefent condition. And may not they rejoice, while you have caufe to mourn and weep? What would you think of a criminal under condemnation, if he allowed himself in that mirth and amufement, which may be lawful and becoming in others? (2.) The Chriftians you know now are cheerful with good reafon; but did you know any of them under their first convictions? were they cheerful then? then, when they received a fight of their fin and danger, and were in an awful fufpenfe what would be their everlasting doom? Were they merry and gay while they faw themselves without a Saviour, and under the difpleasure of God? No; then all was fadness, fear, and forrow. And this is what And this is what your cafe now requires. Can you expect the fame cheerfulness in one under the power of a deadly disorder as in one recovering? or would it be becoming?

Finally, I fhould not endeavour to damp your joys and turn them into forrow, if they would laft. But Oh! they will foon end, and nothing but weeping and wailing, and gnafhing of teeth will fucceed. Look down into that hideous gulph, the prison of divine juftice, where Dives and Judas, and thousands of finners lie; and can you fee no cheerful look, or hear one laugh among them? No, no: they have done with all joy; and must spend a miserable eternity in grief and tears. And will you not rather mourn in time, than mourn for ever? will you choose now to receive your confolation? or will you not rather delay it till you have reafon to rejoice?

To conclude: Suffer a friend to your best interefts to prevail upon you to return home this evening fadly penfive and forrowful, and to refolve you will never indulge yourselves in one hour's mirth and gaiety, till you have some reason to believe that your names are written in heaven. This is what your own intereft requires; and if you refufe, you will unavoidably be forry for it for ever, when your forrow

can

can be of no fervice to you. Betake yourselves in ferious fadnefs to the earneft ufe of all the means of falvation, and you have reason to hope God will have Then mercy upon you, and turn you to himself. you will have reafon to rejoice, to rejoice in your temporal bleffings, and efpecially because your names are written in heaven. And then God, and Chrift, and angels will rejoice over you, and join in your joy.

SERMON XXXVI.

THE SUCCESS OF THE GOSPEL BY THE DIVINE POWER UPON THE SOULS OF MEN.*

2 COR. X. 4, 5. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty, through God, to the pulling down of Strong-holds; cafting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God; and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Chrift.

HIS reftlefs world is now in an unusual fer

Tment; kingdom rifing up against kingdom,

and nation againft nation: magazines filling, arms brightening, cannons roaring, and human blood ftreaming, both by fea and land. These things engrofs the thoughts and conversation of mankind, and alarm their fears and anxieties. But there is another kind of war carrying on in the world; a war, the iffue of which is of infinitely greater importance; a war of near fix thoufand years ftanding; that is, ever fince the first grand rebellion of mankind against God; a war in which we are all engaged as parties, and in the refult of which our immortal intereft is concerned; though, alas! it engages but little of the attention

* A Sermon preached at Hanover, in Virginia, October 17, 1756.

Serm. 36. attention and folicitude of the generality among us; I mean, the war which Jefus Chrift has been carrying on from age to age by the ministry of the gospel, to reduce the rebellious fons of men to their duty, and redeem them into the glorious liberty of the fons of God, from their wretched captivity to fin and Satan. This is the defign in which the apoftles were embarked, and which St. Paul defcribes in the military style in my text. As fome members of the Corinthian church had taken up a very low opinion of St. Paul, his defign in the context is to raise the dignity of his apoftolic office. And for that purpofe, he defcribes in the military language the efficacy and fuccefs of thofe apoftolic powers with which he was furnished for the propagation of chriftianity, and the reduction of the world into obedience to the gofpel. Thofe powers were fuch as thefe; the power of working miracles to atteft his divine commiffion; the preaching of the doctrine of the cross, and the rod of dif cipline for the reformation of offenders; which in the hands of the apoftles, feems to have been attended with the power of inflicting temporal judgments, and particularly bodily fickneffes; and which St. Paul here threatens to exercise upon fuch of the Corinthians as continued obftinate in their oppofition to his ministry.

Thefe powers he here calls weapons of war. This tent-maker and a few fishermen were fent out upon a grand expedition, in oppofition to the united powers of Jews and Gentiles, of earth and hell. All the world, with their gloomy god, were ready to join against them. They were ready to oppose them with all the force of philofophy, learning, authority, threatenings, and all the cruel forms of perfecution. For the chriftian cause, in which thefe foldiers of Jefus Chrift were engaged was contrary to their lufts and prejudices, their honour, and fecular interefts. This oppofition of the world to the gospel, the apoftle alfo defcribes in the military ftyle. Their lufts, prejudices,

and