you may be, will make you tremble before that bar, which is the object of your contempt and ridicule now. Or if you are all that is moral and amiable in the sight of men, yet if destitute of saving grace, God will see in you ten thousand unforgiven sins, for which he will condemn you then. Know, O young woman? that God will then bring you also into judgment. Your sabbaths wasted in indolence or trifling merriment, your time squandered on poisonous novels, your heart wrapped up in dress and gayety, while God and religion are shut out of it-your glass consulted, while the Redeemer is neglected, your fondness for worldly delights,—your forgetfulness of your poor immortal soul,-all these sins, and many more, are crying to heaven against you, and not one, in that awful day, will be forgotten. Perhaps, my youthful readers, all who wish you well for ever, strive in vain to gain your attention, or impress your hearts, but God will make you listen; God will bring you into judgment. Vain will be the pleas and excuses that now deceive yourself and others. The Judge will pronounce the dreadful sentence; he will say, "Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels," and depart you must. O, dreadful sentence! to depart from Christ, the only source of happiness,-to depart from him accursed, laden with the heavy curse and wrath of God, never to be removed,—To depart from him, accursed, into everlasting fire; and that the fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels!

Sect. 6. O, my young reader! stop while this sentence sounds in your ears; stop, and consider your ways. Can you bear to have it, with all its horrors, pronounced upon you? If not, O turn to God. Consider, that if you turn a deaf ear to this warning, and harden your heart against this friendly call, that time is coming when you must remember it again. In the latter days, says God, Ye shall consider it perfectly. God will then remember the ingratitude and unkindness of your youth. At that last day, you may call for mercy, and God refuse to listen, as he now calls on you to turn to Christ, and you refuse to hearken. His word says, Because I have called, and ye refused; I

6Jer. xxiii. 20.

have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh. When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind'; when distress and anguish come upon you, then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me; For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord: They would none of my counsel; they despised all my reproof; Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. Then, when all his terrors are set in array against you, how will you answer him? You cannot say you were not called to serve him, for the lines you are reading, would witness against you. You cannot say you were too young, and expected longer time, for he has taught you that the youngest are not too young to die, and that those who seek him early shall find him. Alas, what will you then think of this warning! how tremble before your Maker for the sins of your youth. The Lord Jesus Christ will remember your ingratitude and wickedness; and when they who sought and found him betimes, have entered his eternal rest, while he crowns them with his everlasting love, you, a poor trembling, unforgiven creature, may knock at the door of mercy, then forever shut. You may join your voice with that of foolish millions, in the dismal cry, Lord Lord, open unto us! Leave us not to perish in endless woe, and infinite despair. Leave us not the prey of devils, and the scorn of hell. Leave us not without one glimmering beam of hope through a long and dreadful eterni-. ty." Alas, vain cry, the Judge will say, I never knew you, depart from me 0, be wise! be wise, and guard, by early piety, against the terrors of that day. Judge, the eternal Judge, will not be thus inexorable, unless, by your choice of sin, you make him so. Give him now your heart, and he will then give you a crown of life which fadeth not away.

The

Sect. 7. But if you will not regard this advice, though you should not before, yet you will then know your

cruelty to your own soul.

Then you may sadly exclaim, God was kind to me; he sought my happiness, and had I listened to his voice, I should have been for ever happy. The Son of God was gracious to me. O, how numberless were his compassions; had I regarded them, how blessed should I now have been: the Spirit of God was kind to me. Though grieved and resisted, how long he strove with me. O, had I yielded to his gentle influence, no creature surely, had been more blessed than I. The servants of God were kind to me. Pious friends warned me, and prayed for me, and wept for me. Faithful ministers taught me, and laboured for my good, and wished for no reward, but my salvation. But I, alas! was unkind to all these, and cruel to myself. I denied them all they sought--my happiness; --all they prayed for-to see me snatched from hell. O! had I had but half that compassion for myself, which others had for me how blessed had I been now. What treasures, joys, and glories would have been mine. O, had I let my God, my Redeemer, my christian friends, or ministers, had their desire, I should now have been rising to eternal glory; but ungrateful to God, and cruel to myself, I have undone my own soul, with an everlasting destruction. Wretch that I was, to have no pity on myself, while so many pitied me. Wretch that

was. To rush so madly to eternal flames, while so many strove to keep me out; and alas, so obstinately to refuse such blessings, while so many sought to make me a partaker of them.

CHAPTER XIX.

The eternal ruin of the ungodly, a motive for the early choice of Religion.

SECT. 1. Some persons are awakened by terrors....s. 2. Hell. ....s. 3. The state of the most wretched prisoner on earth a happy one compared with that of lost souls....s. 4. They lose all the blessings of this world and all those of the next....s. 5. Hell most miserable as it is the abode of all that is hateful.... s. 6. As it is the lake of fire....s. 7. As to outward torment is added inward agony....s. 8. And as all its wretchedness is eternal.

Sect. 1. THERE exists, in many minds, a strong dislike to a faithful representation of those horrors, to which the ungodly are exposed, in the eternal world; yet the divine Saviour and his apostles, by denunciations of the terrors of a wretched eternity, warn the sinful to flee from the wrath to come. Far, my youthful reader, am I from loving to dwell on so painful, so dreadful a subject. I know that it is not the terrors of the Almighty's vengeance, that must melt the heart; but I also know that, in many instances, those terrors have awakened the impenitent, when all other considerations have failed. Fain would I have you drawn with the bonds of love; sweetly constrained by the love of Christ to follow him; but, perhaps, I address some hardened, or some thoughtless son or daughter of folly, on whom that love has made no impression. O! then let me make one effort more for your salvation; and though it is a dreadful reason, let me urge one reason more for your accepting the grace of God. And O eternal God! do thou now assist me, and by thy terrors alarm that thoughtless soul, which thy love has not affected, nor thy promises allured.

Sect. 2. Dreadful are the representations which the Scriptures give of the punishment of the ungodly. Hell is described as a lake of fire; of fire prepared to punish the devil and his angels. At the end of the world, the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; and there shall be wailing and gnashing of

teeth. The Judge shall say, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal. He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.3 The fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderer, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death. And the smoke of their torment ascended up for ever and ever; and they have no rest day nor night. It is better for thee to enter into life animed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. The Lord trieth the righteous; but the wicked, and him that loveth violence, his soul hateth. Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest; this shall be the portion of their cup. The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. The Lord Jesus himself tells of one who lived in wealth and pleasure but he died, and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom; And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and thou art tormented. And besides all

this, between us and you there is a great gulph fixed; so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us that would come from thence."

Sect. 3. What bitter misery must they endure, who feel the wretchedness here described! What outward torment! what inward anguish! How dire will be the horrors of the hellish prison! The place, the company, the state, will all unite to make hell a hell indeed. Fig

Matt. xiii. 49, 50.
Rev. xxi. 8.

8Psalm ix. 17.

9Matt. xxv. 41-46. 3 Matt. iii. 12. Rev. xiv. 3. Mark ix. 43, 44. 7Ps. xi. 5. 9Luke xvi. 23---26.