of punishment, may yet be sincere; and if sincere, it will be effectual. The shock which the mind receives may loosen and unfix that hardness of the soil into which the seeds of religion would never before penetrate. All chastisement is not lost; grief is not always wasted. There is a "godly sorrow, a sorrow unto repentance." Many may cry out not for form, but in perfect sincerity of heart, "we are grieved for our of fences, and laden with the burden of our sins;" and true religion may spring from the sense and weight of this burthen.

Again: It is in misery and distress, though not the misery and distress brought on by our sins, but unconnected with them, that religion sometimes has its origin. Ease, and prosperity, and wealth, and pleasure, and gaiety, and diversion, are sadly unfavourable to the impressions of religion; they are not inconsistent with these impressions; to say that, would be to say more than the truth; but they are adverse to them. "How hardly shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of heaven;" that is, one either intent upon acquiring riches, or addicted to the pleasures which riches procure, and lost in them altogether: and it may, perhaps, be difficult to find a person who is not in fault by one or other of these means. However, what ease and wealth efface, the troubles of adversity write and engrave deeply on the heart. Seriousness is, above all things, necessary to the reception of the word; therefore, whatever makes men serious, prepares them for becoming disciples of Christianity. Sickness, poverty, disappointment, the house of mourning, the loss of our family, the death of our friends, do tend powerfully to produce seriousness, to show us the folly, and unreasonableness, and end of that levity and giddiness which

have taken up our time, from which we have drawn our delights. It seems impossible to be serious, and not to think of God and of religion. It is possible in the height and flow of spirits, pleasures and enjoyments; it is possible also in the eagerness and hurry of business, not to think of those things at all. But when pleasures fail, when pain and misery come in their place, when employment fails, when we can no longer follow it, or when distress is come upon us; then we naturally draw and turn towards that which was, and is, and always will be a grand concernment, whether we have been accustomed to reflect upon it or not. Yet even in this case, and even in any case, we may, if we please, avoid the subject; we may shut our eyes against, or turn them aside from any object, how great soever, or however near: but it is an unnatural effort so to do.

Thirdly: A great and loud call upon the conscience of the most thoughtless and hardened sinner, is any thing which puts him in mind of the uncertainty of his life, or gives him reason to expect that it will be short. The common course of human mortality, though it ought to be the most affecting consideration in the world, does not much affect us: it has lost its force by its familiarity: but particular admonitions have, with most men, their influence. It is something to see our companions go down into the grave. It is more when they are of our own age, our own apparent strength, habit and constitution of body; more still when they appear to have hastened their end by the same practices to which we have been addicted. But many, who will not take warning from others, begin for the first time to be startled and alarmed by what they feel in themselves-symptoms of danger and decline in their own

bodies. There may be fatal symptoms, and known to be so; there may be dangerous symptoms, and known to be so; there may be symptoms and inward sensations of which we know little: but all these are strong and loud calls. There are two opposite courses which men take upon this occasion: the one is to put from them, obstinately and strenuously, the thoughts of approaching death; the other is, to prepare and make themselves ready for it. And it is in this last way (not, we may hope, unfrequently) that religion begins in the heart, and begins too with an operation which is finally successful. Above all things we must avoid the following thought, that it is to no purpose to begin to be religious now. From religion having hitherto made no impression upon us, it does not follow that it can make none. We are altered-our case is altered: we have not, as in times past by, a long life before us; schemes of futurity in prospect; and death and judgement, sure indeed, but lying at the end of a long train of worldly hopes. Let our souls experience the benefit of this change! Why should we suffer depressions of mind, body or estate, waste of years, lapse of life, without drawing from them religious advantages, which they are capable of yielding; some amendment, some improvement at least in the condition of our souls? Repentance, be it how or when it may, will, if sincere, be accepted in Jesus Christ. If it would produce reformation, supposing life and opportunity to be allowed, it may be, in the sight of God, the same as if it did. This is true, and therefore it is not impossible that even the repentance of a death-bed may be effectual. But it is only not impossible; to say that it is an uncertain dependence, is to say too little for it. It is only not impossible, because it is only not impossible to give

to it that sincerity which is required in repentance; and it is absolutely impossible for the person himself to be assured of that sincerity, or to distinguish it from those fits of remorse and penitence which he and every sinner has a thousand times felt, and felt in vain, because they passed away with the alarm and danger which produced them. And this is still more true, when it is the beginning of religion in the heart, when there has been no religion in that place before. We must not therefore speak of the extremity of a death-bed; but of some serious case short of that, which is, when men are reminded by their bodily constitution that their time is drawing towards its conclusion, yet have enough both of strength and life left to carry, if they will, their good resolves into execution; not only to repent, but to reform, to put their repentance, by their future conduct, to the proof, whether it be sincere or not. If it be sincere, it will be accepted; if it be not, which in this case the effect upon our lives will show, let not the grace or mercies of God be accused, because no acceptance is promised to such repentance. This, therefore, is a case, in all respects, capable of generating religion in the soul, and of giving proofs of it; and therefore it is thought to be highly probable, that saving religion frequently begins in the soul from this cause, and under those circumstances.

Fourthly: Pain itself, abstractedly considered, has a close connexion with religious sentiment, inasmuch as it induces us to reflect what creatures we are, and what we are liable to; particularly, what inexhaustible stores of punishment and misery are in the hands of our Creator, when he pleases to use them, that is, when insulted or despised mercy is turned into correction and exemplary justice, which is the case when the de

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