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brass and tinkling cymbals; and at the SERM, last great day we shall find, to our cost, that we have neglected an essential part of the one thing needful.

Having thus shown that this one thing needful is the care of our eternal salvation, and that this care consists in being hearty, regular, and constant, both in our public and private devotions, and also in observing towards our neighbour, in all our concerns with him, that conduct which we would wish him to observe towards us, I now proceed, in the second place, to show what are the inducements to attend to it;they are seen at the first view. By attending to the one thing needful, we shall be for ever happy;-by neglecting it, we shall be for ever miserable. Words to this effect we hear so often repeated, from our very infancy, that, from being so very common to us, they do not make that impression which their strict truth and great

awful

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SERM. awfulness demand: all profess to believe them, yet how little weight do they obtain on the lives of many! The truth is, that we do not allow them due consideration; we do not bring them home to us, either deeply or frequently enough; we coldly admit them as speculative truths, but forget how essentially we ourselves are interested in them-would it else be possible that any pleasures, riches, or honours, which can only endure three or four-score years, the length of the longest life, should ever tempt us to forfeit an eternity of happiness, and hazard an eternity of misery! The wisest man, and he who had apparently the greatest means of happiness, and who had experienced all sorts of the pleasures of this life, confessed that-all was vanity and vexation of spirit! But if it were not so, if a man could be really blest in this world, yet what proportion does a few paltry years hold with an eternity? If the

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riches or honours, which are purchased by SERM. fraud or guilt, were to be enjoyed for ever,

we should not so very much wonder that men scruple neither fraud nor guilt to obtain them; but when, for aught we know, they may be taken away the next moment, and, at the longest, will certainly not remain many years,-and when, instantly on leaving them, the sinner will be called to a strict account for the manner in which they were obtained, and everlastingly punished, if it were by unrighteous means,-what name, but madness, can we give to such conduct! But, alas! the plea of madness will not be allowed: men know, or at least might know, what they ought to do and what avoid, and they have the power of choosing between them ;-life and death are before them-and if they will, with their eyes open, voluntarily prefer the latter, the consequences of their absurd choice will justly fall on their own heads.

VOL. I.

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I cannot, I think, conclude this discourse

better, than by calling to your minds, and setting before you, that great day, arrayed as it is in scripture with awfulness and terror, which those, who have taken care of the one thing needful, will meet with as much tranquility and confidence as those, who have neglected it, will with shame and consternation." The day of the Lord "will come, in the which the heavens "shall pass away with a great noise, and

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the elements shall melt with fervent

heat; the earth also, and all the works "that are, therein, shall be burnt up; the "sun shall be darkened, and the moon "turned into blood, and all the powers of "heaven shaken :-then shall the Son of "Man come in his glory, and all the holy

angels with him; and he shall sit upon "the throne of his glory; before him shall "be gathered all the nations of the earth; "and he shall separate them one from

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"from his goats, and he shall set the SERM. "sheep on his right hand and the goats

"on his left; and he shall say to them on

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his right hand-Come, ye blessed of my "Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for

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you from the foundation of the world. "And he shall say unto them on his left hand-Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil " and his angels; and these shall go into everlasting punishment, but the righteous "into life eternal."

With this description I rest my cause, as I am well convinced, that whoever gives himself time to consider it, however he may be prompted by passion to deny, will be forced by reason to confess, that the care of his salvation is the one thing, which is solely and exclusively needful.

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