deprecate, how will you lament, and even curse, your folly in neglecting prayer ! When you call to mind, that heaven with all its glory was open to you, and you had nothing to do but to ask for it at the hands of God, you would not give yourselves the trouble to call upon him ! what can you expect, but that the threatening, already recorded for your instruc- tion, shall be executed upon you ; " Because I called, and ye refused, I stretched out my hand, and ye regarded me not ; but ye set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh : when your fear cometh as a desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall ye call upon me, but I will not answer ; ye shall seek me early, but ye shall not find me ; for that ye hated know- ledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord : therefore shall ye eat of the fruit of your own way, and be filled with your own devices0." O let not this awful period arrive ! " Arise, ye sleepers, and call upon your Godp." Is not heaven worth asking for ? Is it not worth your while to escape the miseries of hell ? What if diligence and self-denial be necessary ; will not the prize repay the labours of the contest 1 Perhaps you are saying in your hearts, that you will begin to pray at some future, and more convenient, season q : but dream not of a more convenient season, lest that season never arrive. Procrastination is the ruin of thousands, and of millions. It is Satan's grand device for keeping you from God. Should he tempt you to say, " I will never pray at all," he knows you would revolt at the idea ; and therefore he prompts you only to defer it in hopes of finding your mind better disposed to the employment on some future day. But let him not deceive you. Delay not a single hour. Yea, at this very moment lift up that ejaculatory petition, " Lord, teach us to prayr :" and embrace the first moment to begin that
0 Prov. i. 24—31. p Jonah i. 6.
°. Acts xxiv. 25. r Luke xi. 1.