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sink into the most abject superstition and unmanly complaints. It is not that enterprising spirit which carries a man so successfully through this world, that will avail him in his entrance on the next. Nothing can then support him amidst the terrors of dissolution, and the pangs of parting with all that is dear and near to him, but the reflection on a well-spent life; and as we shall stand in need of every possible increase of comfort, we ought to sweeten this reflection all we can, by beginning early to remember God. For we must not imagine, what some are willing to persuade themselves, that a death-bed repentance will have the same effect upon our minds in our last moments, as a life of early piety or early repentance. They who think so, show themselves to be utter strangers to the real situation of a dying man. They know not the terror and amazement, the fears and apprehensions, of a soul that stands trembling on the brink of eternity, and whose salvation depends on a death-bed repentance. He fears, he knows not what, about the sincerity of that repentance; he fears his contrition may not have been deep enough,

his

his amendment not complete; that some crimes may not have appeared to him in their full guilt and baseness, and some may have entirely escaped his search. He enhances every real danger, and creates to himself a thousand more; and whatever may be the efficacy of that repentance, with regard to his future condition, it cannot in his present yield him that comfortable hope, that humble confidence in the merits of his Redeemer, which is absolutely necessary to the quiet of the mind, in so interesting a point. This can only be the result of a life, in which, upon the most impartial review, there appears nothing to lament but those frailties and infirmities which man cannot but sometimes fall into, and which God, through the mediation and death of Christ, has most graciously promised to forgive. And in this review, the further we can cast our eyes backwards on our sincere, though imperfect endeavours after holiness, and the nearer we can trace up the beginning of our religious obedience to the beginning of life, the more pleasing will be the retrospect, the more unallayed our satisfaction. Every impulse of passion we have subdued, every temptation O

VOL. II.

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we have resisted or escaped, every evil thought we have restrained, and every good one we have encouraged, will then each rise up to befriend us, and speak peace to our affrighted souls. And though the religious young man may now, perhaps, complain of the difficulties he hath to struggle with, yet let him remember, that the bitterer his present sensations are, the more joyful will be his reflections at that momentous period. It is then, in short, and only then, we see the true difference between him that serveth God in his youth, and him that serveth him not; and whoever compares their different circumstances and behaviour on that trying occasion, will most sincerely wish" that he may die the death "of the righteous, and that his latter end 66 may be like his." But let us remember, that it is not a mere inactive wish alone that can procure us this inestimable blessing; let us remember, that if we would die the death of the righteous, we must seriously resolve and endeavour, from our youth up, to live his life, and that the best preparation for a latter end like his, will be to take care that our early years be like his also.

SERMON IX.

1 KINGS Xviii. 21.

AND ELIJAH CAME UNTO ALL THE PEOPLE, AND SAID, HOW LONG HALT YE BETWEEN TWO OPINIONS? IF THE LORD BE GOD, FOLLOW HIM; BUT IF BAAL, THEN FOLLOW HIM.

NOTWIT

OTWITHSTANDING the many express commands given to the Jews to worship the one only true God, and the many admirable provisions made in their law to preserve them from the adoration of any other; yet it is notorious, that from the time of their leaving Egypt, down to the Babylonish captivity, they were frequently falling into idolatry. It must be observed, however, that this idolatry of theirs, wicked and inexcusable as it undoubtedly was, did not consist in absolutely renouncing the worship

joining with it the This they did in

of the true God, but in worship of false gods. imitation of the heathen nations around them, who, like all other pagans, though they had each their peculiar tutelary deities, yet made no scruple of associating those of any other people along with them. In conformity to which accommodating temper, the Jews themselves probably considering the God of Israel as their national God, imagined that their allegiance to him was not violated by admitting other local deities to a share in his worship. It was this absurd and impious custom of joining the adoration of idols to that of the true God, against which we find so many precepts and exhortations in the Old Testament directed, and such severe punishments denounced. And in opposition to this strange practice it was, that Elijah proposes to the idolatrous Ahab and his people, an effectual method of deciding which was the true God, Jehovah or Baal; and he introduces his proposal with that spirited expostulation, contained in the words of the text. "How long halt ye between two

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opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him ;

" but

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