[You have given up yourselves to God in a way of holy obedience ; and have encountered much, in order to approve your fidelity to him. To you, then, God will say, " You have been faithful over a few things: be ye rulers over many things." You acknowledged me as your Master : I acknow- ledge you as my servants. You regarded me as your Father : I will regard you as my children. To please me was your one aim ; and you dared to honour me above all : I will now bless you, and honour you in the sight of the whole assembled universe. You regarded nothing but my favour : you shall have it, and all the tokens of it you can possibly desire. " By patient continuance in well-doing, you sought for glory and honour and immortality ; and you shall possess them all, even everlasting life."]
Address —
[Now choose ye. Brethren, what portion ye will have. I venture to assure you, that it shall be unto you according to your desire, provided only that desire operate practically on your heart and life. I know, indeed, that salvation is alto- gether of grace : but I know, also, that you can never perish, but by your own consent, and purpose, and will. I mean not to say that any one would choose misery for itself, or in pre- ference to happiness: but if you choose the service of Satan, with all its consequences, in preference to the service of God and its attendant benefits, then are you the authors of your own destruction, as much as you are of the conduct leading to it. God has said, respecting the wicked, " Destruction and misery are in their ways:" and to whom can you ascribe your arrival at their end, when you are willingly and deliberately walking in their ways? If you will persuade yourselves that " the broad road, which leadeth to destruction, will bring you to happiness as much as the narrow way that leadeth unto life," you can blame none but yourselves for the disappointment which you will experience. Prepare then for yourselves such an issue to this present state of things, as ye will ere long wdsh that ye had secured. Hear God's own direction to you : " Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him : for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. But woe to the wicked! it shall be ill with him : for the reward of his hands shall be given to him^." To the same effect our blessed Lord speaks in his sermon on the mount, declaring that the merciful, the pure, the upright, shall have a portion accorded to them suited to their respective characters'^. And remember, that if you obtain not eternal life, the fault was only in yourselves, who, when urged and entreated by your God, refused to walk in the way that would have led you to it.]
g Isai. iii. 10, 11. ^ Luke vi. 37, 38.
h2