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DECIDE NOW.

DECIDE NOW.

"Dead, already dead within,

Spiritually dead in sin

Dead to God, while here you breathe,

Pant you after second death?

Will ye still in sin remain,
Greedy of eternal pain ?—
O ye dying sinners! why,
Why will ye for ever die?"

MY DEAR READER,- -Your character and condition are accurately described in the Word of God; and, taking that infallible standard as my guide in this address, I shall proceed to lay before you a few observations, in which you are deeply interested. It is my desire to speak to you in plainness and faithfulness, and I earnestly beseech you to weigh, with seriousness, the solemn truths to which I am about to direct your attention.

"Your foundation is in the dust, and you dwell in a house of clay," Job iv.; and a body, thus made of clay and founded in the dust, oh how frail! Young, blooming, and healthy as you, perhaps, may now be, this sentence is written on your forehead, "Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return." You are "the child of a day,”—the longest life is but a short span; and compared with eternity is nothing. It is a swift day-"swifter than a post," (Job xi.) running his appointed distance; "swifter than a weaver's shuttle," (Job vii.) that you see plying with the utmost rapidity, and hastening the more the nearer it approaches the end: the past is now like the tale that you heard last night; and the future that you build so much upon, is every instant

becoming the present-and the present, ere you can speak of it, is become the past. But it is also an uncertain day; you cannot trust to one moment-you may be crushed before the moth, (Job iv.) light and soft as the touch of the moth is; nay, some die in a moment, so that we can find no cause of their death, save that God has in sovereignty said, "Return," (Psa. xc.) And it may be to some reader of these lines, whilst yet reading them, that this voice may have gone forth, "Thou fool, THIS NIGHT thy soul shall be required of thee!" (Luke xii.) Tell me-nay, rather tell that conscience which is even now restless within you at the thought, why may not that one be You?

Is

Now what is it that makes this frailty, this swiftness, this uncertainty of life so awful? Just this-you are a sinner. Ah, you are tired of hearing that, are you not? The more I pity you for I fear that they who are most tired of hearing that they are sinners, are the most likely to drink deepest of everlasting misery. You are made in order to glorify God in every thing, (I Cor. x. 31.) by loving and obeying him. Now look back to your earliest remembrance, and point to one thing you have done purely from love to God, that is, for His glory. What a man loves best, that he thinks most about; now what have you been thinking most of? Have you not had many thoughts about being clever, and rich, and great in this world-but none seriously about being holy, and good, and eternally happy in the world to come? that like a creature made to glorify God? You have been angry and in a passion-you have been cruel to God's creatures-you have told falsehoods-you have done mischief and sought to conceal it, as if there were no God-or sought to excuse it, as if that God could not read your heart. Is all that like the conduct of one created to glorify God? You have mocked this God a thousand times by praying only with your lips by reading his holy Word only as a form or a task -by trifling, speaking, laughing, staring, or sleeping, in that holy house where He was present; and even in your sabbath days, by saying that then you ought to love and obey God, and afterwards showing by your conduct on his holy day, that you hated Himself and hated his law. Can you, dare you, deny these things? Let that whisper of conscience within you speak out and answer. What saith it? "Verily I am guilty." How runs the law? "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind." Dare you say that you have done so? Your conscience again says, "No"-and the God of

that law and of your conscience saith, "No!" Say not,
"I have done my best."-No, you have not done your best
-and even if you had, the law will receive no excuse,
nothing short of perfect obedience in every thought, word,
and deed. Hear what it saith to you, even to you-" CURSED
is every one that continueth not in all things written in the
book of the law to do them." (Gal. iii. 10.) Oh! I would
to God I could make you see what an awful thing it is to be
thus under the curse of the Almighty God who made you,
for his curse is no vain words: Cursed in life, cursed in
death, cursed through ETERNITY-cursed in every thought,
in every word, in every action-cursed in every morsel you
eat, in every drop you drink, in
every breath you breathe-
the earth a curse to you, for it tempts you to sin-heaven
a curse to you, because you shall be shut out from it-and
hell the sum of the curse, because you shall be for ever
tormented by yourself, by devils, by the damned, and by
the exceeding fierceness of Divine wrath, in that awful lake
of fire and of brimstone, of weepings, of wailings, and of
gnashings of teeth! Over that pit you are every moment
hung by the much provoked forbearance of God, as by a
hair-the weight of another sin may break that hair, and
where are you? far beyond the reach of mercy's voice! Oh!
think seriously of these words of God himself" Because
there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away at a stroke;
then a great ransom cannot deliver thee!" (Job xxxvi.)
These are awful sayings-but they are true-and true you
will find them to be, perhaps on a death-bed, but certainly
on the judgment-day, if you take not warning now.

"My God, I feel the mournful scene ;
My bowels yearn o'er dying men ;

And fain my pity would reclaim,

And snatch the firebrands from the flame!"

My dear friend, it is to you in this very condition, weak, mortal, sinful, condemned, and every moment in danger of everlasting destruction, that the offer of salvation is made. It is therefore to you as such that I address this important query, in the words of Jesus himself.

I. "What think you of Christ?" What is the answer of your heart to this?" Do you wish to pass by this question unanswered; then, indeed, I do pity your poor unfortunate heart, when the very mention of Christ's name, when the bare recollection of all those sorrows and agonies which he endured on our behalf, cannot for one moment stop the

current of your vain thoughts. Oh! do not think it trouble for one little moment to pause and consider this matter! I do not wish to torment you, but to save you from torment. If, however, you harden yourself, and pass by this question with indifference, then you have with a firm foot advanced one step nearer to destruction-you sin against love unsearchable. Well, what say you? Is your answer, "I don't know what to think of him?" This will not do. What! did the well-beloved and eternal Son of God endure all those awful sufferings for sin, that a vile worm, whom he could in a moment crush into misery, should dare in his very presence to say, "I know not what to think of thee !" Oh, cruelty!-had you with that hard heart been with the Jews, you too would have cried out, "Crucify him, crucify

him!"

Once more, what say you? "I know that He is lovely, but I dare not say that I love him." Then I would next ask, do you wish to love him; from the heart, do you wish it? Does your conscience say, No? Does your conduct say, No? Then I can do no more, but leave you in the hands of your God: let him do with you as seemeth him good. To know Jesus to be worthy of love, and yet not wish to love him! Oh! my dear reader, conjure you by all that is awful in Eternity, to strive to awake from so awful a condition.

Is your reply, "I would indeed wish to love him, if I knew but how; I am grieved from the heart that I do not and cannot love him?" If in this answer you be sincere, as in the sight of God, then indeed there may be hope; and if I were by you, I would stretch out the hand of affection to you. "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." (Matt. v.) Behold the gift of the Holy Spirit freely promised to perform all that you desire.

1. It is the office of the Spirit to give 66 a new heart and a right spirit." Your natural mind is enmity against God and Christ-but the renewed mind loves him. Oh! plead then earnestly for the fulfilment to you of that precious promise in Ezekiel xxxvi. 25-27, "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you;" for to you it is addressed if you but believe and trust in it.

2. It is the office of the Spirit to reveal Christ, in all his loveliness and excellency, to the heart and spirit thus renewed. Christ says to his sorrowing disciples, "The Spirit shall testify of me"- "He shall glorify me"- "He shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you." (John xv. 26, and xvi. 14.) Plead, then, this promise also, that the Spirit may

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