portion to the treasures with which God has entrusted you? What have you done more than others, whom the great God hath made stewards of a larger heap of his earthly blessings?

II. You who have received great and remarkable deliverances from death or misery, or mischief of any kind, by the favourable providence of God, you that have escaped imminent dangers by fire, by water, in travelling by land or sea, have you offered all due acknowledgments to the kind and almighty Guardan of your life and peace? Do you remember how frequently David devotes himself to God after every fresh deliverance, how be engages himself in love, and blesses the name of the Lord for ever, and what a multitude of psalms he has written with this very design? And can your consciences declare what are the thankful returns that you have made to the God of your lives and your mercies? What have you done beyond others who have never tasted the pleasure of such salvations? What sacred and lasting influence have any of these providences left upon your hearts?

You who have been on the very borders of the grave, and ready to enter into the invisible world, under the terrors of a guilty conscience, and utterly unprepared to die, and yet God has commanded the grave to shut its mouth again, and respited your life from going down to the pit for a longer season, have you taken any new care to prepare for death, that when the next sickness comes you may not be surrounded with the same horrors? Or are you as careless of your eternal interests, as thoughtless of God and religion and the concerns of your soul as you were before, or as others are who never enjoyed such a warning? What is become of all those keen terrors that seized you on the brink of the grave? What is become of your tears and mournings, your vows and resolutions, and your holy promises if God would spare you a few years longer? What! Are they all vanished together with your sickness? Was the wound of your heart healed so slightly as to leave no remembrance upon your thoughts, and no happy effects in your life? Are you no better than your former evil companions? Are you returned again to your old iniquities, to your neglect of duties and your forgetfulness of God? Surely the next message you may expect from heaven is the sudden stroke of death, without any opportunity for prayer or season for repentance.

III. You who are fixed in any special station of superior influence upon others, as parents, 'as governors of families, as ministers, as instructors of youth, as men of honour and reputation, of rank and character among your neighbours, it is expect ed that you should do more than others.

Are you a parent, and have you brought children into the world tainted with the common corruption of human nature, have

if he should pronounce in his wrath as he did against a degenerate people by the prophet Hosea, chap. iv. 17. Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone? let him run on in the course of his iniquity, till he has made himself ripe for utter destruction. There is no painful stroke of providence but carries with it an awakening voice and if we have been often smitten with the rod, we have received so many fresh warnings from heaven; what are become of all these warnings? Are they lost, forgotten and cast behind our back? Have we endured so many things in vain, if it be indeed in vain? Gal. iii. 4.

SECT. VII. Of the Special Obligations to Piety which lie upon some Persons of all Parties above Others.

Having finished the general head of advantages which some christians of all parties enjoy above others, I proceed in the next place to consider what special obligations lie on some christians beyond others to practise religion toward God, and goodness toward men, and to enquire whether such persons as lie under these obligations have made answerable improvements :

1. You who enjoy easy and comfortable circumstances in the world, who are blest with riches, or have at least a very happy sufficiency to answer all the cravings of nature without the everlasting and anxious cares of what shall I eat, or what shall I drink, and wherewith shall I be cloathed? What have you done for God more than others? I will not, I dare not say, that the great things of this world are a certain advantage to piety, for riches are sometimes kept for the owners to their hurt; they frequently become temptations to pride and vanity of mind, to the mirthful extravagances and follies of life, and lead away the soul too often to forget God; yet this I may venture to say, that the comfortable circumstances of this life are not in their own nature snares to the soul, but they are always an obligation which God lays upon his creatures to raise a revenue of glory for him, and in a way of gratitude to do more for his name in the world than others. Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase; Prov. iii. 9. Though riches may become a snare if they are unblest, yet they also may be improved to blessed purposes in religion, and enable us to do much for God. Are you among the number of those who are rich in this world, and are you also rich in good works, which is the charge of St. Paul to the christians of his day who enjoyed a larger share of the blessings of this life? 1 Tim. vi. 17, 18. Do the lips, and the hearts, and the bowels of the poor bless your name, and give thanks to God on your behalf? Do the churches of Christ acknowledge your bounty for the support of the common interest of Christ and his gospel? Does your liberality and benevolence in all proper instances of piety and charity bear a pro

you derived to them vicious inclinations from Adam the first transgressor, and are you not under the strongest obligations to seek the renewal of their nature by divine grace? Are they come into this world by your means, under the unhappy circumstances of mankind, as criminals and strangers to God, and do you not feel yourselves under powerful engagements to bring them acquainted with the God that made them, and lead them into the methods of his love? Do you think yourselves bound to provide food and raiment for them, because you are the instruments of bringing them into this mortal state, and under these necessities of nature; and are you not as much obliged to take care of their immortal interests, since you are also the occasion of bringing their souls into being? For when a son of Adam is born according to the common law of nature, there is an immortal creature brought into existence, and a life of eternal duration is begun. You who have taken some care daily, that your children should be early acquainted with the common affairs of this perishing life, but have you been as deeply solicitous to acquaint them with the concerns of their immortality? Have you sought out any tender moments of address to impress their consciences with an awful sense of God and religion? to let them know their sin and danger in a state of nature, and to lead them to Jesus the only Saviour of souls? Have you watched the moments when they have begun to manifest the first young efforts of reason, and have you then endeavoured to make them sensible of the important things of religion, and proceeded by degrees as their age would bear, to lead them into a larger knowledge of truth and duty? Have you taken notice of those seasons when their consciences have been first uneasy under a sense of sin, and endeavoured to improve that conviction, and to carry on the work of God? You have taught them, and they have learned to know their own natural wants of food and raiment, and relief under pain, and to address their parents on earth for supplies; and have you never let them know what their spiritual wants are, nor instructed them in plain and easy language to ask a supply of their Father who is in heaven?

You have greater advantages for this purpose than ministers or teachers of any kind; the fondness of a mother's love, and the authority of a father's voice, mixed with becoming tenderness, are suited to make deep and lasting impressions upon their offspring in early years; have your parental love and authority been duly employed to this divine purpose? Have you endeavoured to diffuse the knowledge of God among your younger household, and have you made perpetual and fervent addresses to the God of all grace upon their account? Have your secret chambers been witnesses of your wrestlings with God in prayer for their salvation? And besides all this, have you set before them