2. For the inflaming of your gratitude to the Lord Jesus Christ —
[If you have been brought home to the fold of Christ, need I ask, whence this change arose ? You will know full well that it did not originate with you, nor was carried into effect by any power of your own. The silly sheep would as soon return by its own wisdom to the fold it has deserted, as you would accomplish such a change in yourselves. It was the Lord Jesus Christ who sought you out, and apprehended you, and brought you home on his shoulders rejoicing : and if he had not effected it all for you and in you, you would have been roving from him to your latest hour, and would have perished in your sins. Be thankful to him then : adore him for the grace that has so distinguished you. And, whilst you give him glory for having so made you to differ from others and from your former selves, let his mercy constrain you to surrender up yourselves to him wholly, and without reserve.]
3. To excite your compassion towards a perishing
world —
[Were you to see a straying sheep beset with dogs who were tearing it to pieces, who amongst you would not com- passionate its wretched condition ? Yet is this but a very faint image of the world around you ; and not of the heathen world only, but of Christians also. We see not indeed the fate prepared for them : we see not how they are already, as it were, in the jaws of the roaring lion, whose prey they will be to all eternity. But this is not the less true, because we do not see it. It is their real state ; and soon shall we see it with our bodily eyes. Our blessed Lord, " when he saw the multitudes around him," (of persons nominally the Lord's people,) " he had compassion on them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd." Do ye then consider the deplorable condition of all around you, and use all possible
means to bring them to the fold of Christ And know
for your comfort, that " he who shall convert a sinner from the error of his way, will save a soul from death, and hide a multitude of sins."]
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