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INTRODUCTION.

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READER, whoever you are whose eye shall read thes pages, you have, indeed, just cause for anxiety, whether you feel it or not. Did you ever, in serious moments, and in a serious manner, ask such questions as these: 66 What am I? Whence came I? Who sent me here? What my business in this world? What is to become of me when I go hence?" If not, why not? To say nothing of religion, does not reason press such inquiries on your attention? You find yourself in existence, possessing a rational soul. You know you cannot remain here long, and must soon lie down in the grave with your forefathers; but does your history end there? Is there no world beyond the tomb? There is: reason suggests it; revelation proves it. Yes; you are not only mortal, but immortal. IMMORTALITY! What a word! What a thing! Did you ever revolve it? A deathless creature, an everlasting existence! Such is your soul. You are ever walking on the precipice of eternity, and any moment the next, for aught you can tell-you may fall over it. Eternal duration alone, apart from the consideration whether it is to be spent in torment or in bliss, is an awful idea. You are to live somewhere FOREVER. Should this matter be allowed to lie forgotten among the thousand unconsidered subjects? Should it be treated with indifference, excite no reflection, produce no anxiety? How can you help being anxious? Ought you not to be anxious? Going on, step by step, to eternity, should you not pause, ponder, and say, "Whither am I tending?" The rational course is, either to disprove your immortality, or seriously to reflect upon it: either to persuade yourself that, though you live as a man, you shall die as a brute, or else to act as an immortal being: either to pro

fess the gloomy negation of atheism, or else prepare for everlasting existence. The careless infidel is more consistent than the unanxious nominal believer in revelation. For a man to express his belief that he is immortal, and yet to care nothing about immortality, is the most monstrous inconsistency. Ought you not to be anxious?

But this is not all. Consider your history; look back upon your past life; pry into your heart; examine your self. Would not reason, even if there were no Bible discover to you much in your conduct that you mus condemn. Admitting there is a God-and you believ there is does not conscience tell you of many duties omitted, and many sins committed? This is discerned by the dim taper of your own reason; but let in the broad daylight, the bright sunshine of divine revelation, and then what alarming defects, what appalling transgressions are seen! Think of a God so holy that the heavens are unclean before him, and his angels charged with folly; a law so perfect that a sinful feeling violates its precept and incurs its penalty: what, then, must be your sinfulness in the sight of God! Try yourself, not by your own self-love, nor by man's erring judgment, nor by the opinions of flattering companions, but by the infallible standard of God's holy word; and from such an ordeal you must return with the awful declaration sounding in your ears, "Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting." It is not hyperbole, but sober truth, to say that your sins are more in number than the hairs of your head. If there had been but one sin in all your life, there would have been just cause for solicitude. That one sin should break you. peace, disturb your sleep, and imbitter your enjoyments, by the solicitude it awakened, till there was reason to hope it was forgiven. That one sin would bring upon you the condemnation of God's righteous law, and would be a cause of more just anxiety than the discovery of the most fearful diseases in your body, or the greatest losses of your property. What, then, should be the solicitude awakened by sins innumerable, committed in childhood, youth, and manhood, against God and man, in opposition to reason and conscience, in despite of the Holy Scrip

tures, and the remonstrances of ministers and friends? What! going on to eternity with all this load of sin upon the conscience, and yet without solicitude?

Consider your mortality! Your breath is in your nostrils. You are not certain of another moment. The concerns of your immortal soul, the means of grace, the opportunities of salvation, the interests of eternity, ever hang on the passing instant, are all suspended upon the brittle thread of human life, and are dependent upon the frail tenure of a beating pulse. You know not that your term of existence is long enough to enable you to read through this book. Now, if death, which is ever follow ing after you, were the end of your existence, there would be no room for anxiety: at any rate none for the anxiety which prompts to preparation; whatever reason there would be for dread and dismay. But death is not the end, it is but the gate into eternity. "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." Annihilation would be fearful enough to plunge into the gulf of oblivion, to cease to be forever, how horrible! But how much more horrible eternal consciousness, attended with eternal torment! Did you ever weigh the import of that most awful of all words, HELL? Death is a terrific monosyllable: from the cold touch of this last enemy all sentient beings recoil with horror. But death is only as the dark, heavy, iron-covered door of the prison, which opens to, while it conceals, the sights and sounds of the dungeon. O, that first moment after death! What disclosures, what scenes, what feelings come with that moment! And that moment must come, -may come soon. Should you not be anxious?

Your want of anxiety, if you are really without it, is a proof of your want of religion, and of all meetness for eternity. A religion without anxiety is no religion at all. It is impossible to be saved without being anxious to be saved: solicitude to be saved is the first step towards salvation. It might as soon be conceived that a man could be saved in his sins, as in his carelessness and indifference. The first and most natural inquiry of every one who is really in earnest about his soul, is, "WHAT SHALL I DO TO BE SAVED?" What intense

solicitude is breathed in that most solemn inquiry! Can any man know how holy God is, how strict the law is, how evil a thing sin is, how great a blessing salvation is, how glorious heaven is, how dreadful hell is, and how awful eternity is, and not, if his mind is really and seriously directed to these subjects, be anxious? It were more rational to imagine a man could have his property, his liberty, his life hanging in suspense, and yet feel no solicitude, than to be truly religious, and yet have no anxiety about his soul. The concern of some, who have been awakened to serious reflection, has been so great, that it has for a while disordered their intellect. This is excessive, and has arisen from want of clear knowledge of what can relieve their solicitude. But there never yet was one who was truly saved, who did not bear with him along the road to glory the burden, though not an unrelieved one, of a deep solicitude about his eternal welfare.

The anxiety of others on your behalf ought to make you anxious for yourself. It would be improper, except in the same figurative sense as pity and other emotions are ascribed to God in the Scripture, to ascribe anxiety to him; but in this sense we may. God is solicitous about you; he has looked upon your soul, and its fallen state, with deep and infinite concern; his divine compassion has yearned over you; he has felt such anxiety for you, as to send his Son to die upon the cross for you, his Spirit to renew and sanctify you, his Bible to instruct you, and his ministers to warn you. Jesus Christ has been so anxious for you, that he has actually died for you upon the cross, and commissioned his servants to make known to you his love. The Spirit is anxious for you, and is ever striving with you in the Bible, and your conscience. Angels are anxious for you, and are waiting to become ministering spirits to your salvation. Devils are anxious to prevent your eternal happiness; which shows the greatness of your danger, and the just ground you have for alarm. Ministers are anxious for you, and labour and pray and preach for your conversion. Your parents, if pious, are anxious for you, and are supplicating, amidst tears and waiting and watching, for your

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