nor the boldest notions of impiety, will hold them up then; of all which I now present so lively an instance, as perhaps history can scarcely parallel.

Here were parts so exalted by nature, and improved by study, and yet so corrupted and debased by irreligion and vice, that he who was made to be one of the glories of his age was become a proverb; and if his repentance had not interposed, would have been one of the greatest reproaches of it. He knew well the small strength of that weak cause, and at first despised, but afterwards abhorred it. He felt the mischiefs, and saw the madness of it; and therefore, though he lived to the scandal of many, he died as much to the edification of all those who saw him; and because they were but a small number, he desired that he might, even when dead, yet speak. He was willing nothing should be concealed that might cast reproach on himself, and on sin, and offer up glory to God and religion. So that though he lived a heinous sinner, he died a most exemplary penitent.

It would be a vain and ridiculous inference, for any from hence to draw arguments about the abstruse secrets of predestination; and to conclude, that if they are of the number of the elect, they may live as they will, and that divine grace will at some time or other violently constrain them, and irresistibly work upon them. But as St. Paul was called to that eminent service for which he was appointed in so stupendous a manner, as is no warrant for others to expect a similar vocation; so, if upon some signal occasions such conver ́sions fall out (which how far they are short of miracles, I shall not determine) it is not only a vain but a pernicious imagination for any to go on in their ill ways, upon a fond conceit and expectation that the like will befal them. For whatsoever God's extraordinary dealings with some may be, we are sure his common way of working is by offering those things to our rational faculties, which, by the assistance of his grace, if we improve them all we can, shall be certainly effectual for our reformation; and if we neglect or abuse these, we put our

selves beyond the common methods of God's mercy, and have no reason to expect that wonders should be wrought for our conviction; which, though they sometimes happen, that they may give an effec tual alarm for the awakening of others, yet it would destroy the whole design of religion, if men should depend upon, or look for, such an extraordinary and forcible operation of God's grace.

And I hope that those, who have had some sharp reflections on their past life, so as to be resolved to forsake their ill courses, will not take the least encouragement to themselves in that desperate and unreasonable resolution of putting off their repentance till they can sin no longer, from the hopes I have expressed of this lord's obtaining mercy at the last; and from thence presume that they also shall be received, when they turn to God on their death-beds. For what mercy soever God may show to such as really were never inwardly touched before that time; yet there is no reason to think that those, who have dealt so disingenuously with God and their own souls,

as designedly to put off their turning to him upon such considerations, should be then accepted with him.

They may die suddenly, or by a disease that may so disorder their understandings, that they shall not be in any capacity of reflecting on their past lives. The inward conversion of our minds is not so in our power, that it can be effected without divine grace assisting. And there is no reason for those, who have neglected these assistances all their lives, to expect them in so extraordinary a manner at their death. Nor can one, especially in a sickness that is quick and critical, be able to do those things that are often indispensably necessary to make his repentance complete; and even in a longer disease, in which there are larger opportunities for these things. Yet there is great reason to doubt of a repentance begun and kept up merely by terror, and not from any ingenuous principle. In which, though I will not take it on me to limit the mercies of God, which are boundless, yet this must be confessed, that to delay repentance with such

a design, is to put the greatest concernment that we have, upon the most dangerous and desperate issue that is possible.

But if they will still go on in their sins, and be so partial to them as to use all endeavours to strengthen themselves in their evil course, even by those very things which the providence of God, sets before them for the casting down of these strong holds of sin; what is to be said to such ? It is to be feared, that if they obstinately persist, they will by degrees come within that curse, " "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still." But if our gospel is hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

FINIS.