love also, and you have burst all these bands asunder, and cast all these cords from you ? Do you not know that heaven and hell are before you? and are you acting the part of rational beings, whilst you take no care to flee from the wrath to come, and to lay hold on eternal life ? And have you never heard of what Christ has done and suffered for you, and felt too the influences of his Holy Spirit calling you to repentance ? Yet have you not ungratefully slighted all the love of Christ, and wickedly resisted the Holy Ghost ? Tell me, then, whether such conduct do not call for the deepest humiliation before God? Verily, you may vindicate yourselves, as you will, now ; but you shall stand self-condemned at the judgment-seat of Christ.]
2. What reason believers have to bless and adore their God —
[Though the unbeliever must ascribe to himself alone the misery to which he is hastening, you owe to God and to his sovereign grace all the blessedness which you enjoy. Had not God of his infinite mercy drawn you, you had no more turned to him, than Satan himself has done0. In the view of all the good that you either possess or hope for, you must say, " He that hath wrought us to the self-same thing is Godp." Give
him then the glory due unto his name and look to
him for a continuance of his grace, that his work may be car- ried on and perfected in your souls. Beg of him to fasten his bands yet more firmly about you, that nothing either within or without may break them. And endeavour at all times to yield to his attractive influences, and to comply with the first intimations of his will. And, if you be treated with contempt for this by an ungodly world, comfort yourselves with the reflection, that you are acting the part of rational beings ; and that the more closely you are drawn to God in this world, the more intimately you will enjoy him to all eternity in the world to come.]
0 John vi. 44. p 2 Cor. v. 5.