dence on ſelf. Truſt no longer in a refuge of lies: Left all your admired attainments, at the day of final retribution, be like ſtraw, and hay, and ſtubble in Nebuchadnezzar's burning fiery furnace. —Imitate the bleſſed penman of my text. Are you blameleſs in your external carriage? So was he. Are you exemplary in many points? So was he. Yet all this righteouſneſs he accounted but dung, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jeſus his Lord, Phil. iii. 8. ———Be this your pattern. Write emptineſs upon your own duties: emptiness upon your own works; and you ſhall be filled with all the fulneſs of God your Saviour. Every other cauſe of glorying will be like the morning cloud, or the early dew which paſſeth away, Hoſ. vi. 5. But this cauſe of glorying, will ſtand fast for evermore as the moon, and as the faithful witneſs in heaven, Pſalm. lxxxix. 36.
Can I conclude, without adding a word of admonition to the wicked? Thoſe I mean, who are enemies to the croſs of Chriſt; who mind earthly things: but neither hunger nor thirſt after righteouſneſs. ———My ſoul remembers the wormwood and the gall of ſuch a ſtate and cannot but tenderly pity theſe unhappy people. ——— Alas! my friends, what have you to glory in? The devil and his angels expect, ere long, to glory in your deſtruction. Thoſe malignant fiends are eying you, as their prey, and are impatient to begin your torment. Great inexpreſſibly great, is your danger. The Lord Almighty open your eyes to diſcern it? —Nevertheleſs your caſe is not deſperate. You may yet be delivered, as a bird out of the ſnare of the fowler. Look unto the crucified Jeſus. Why does he hang on that bloody tree? Why are his hands pierced with iron? Why is his body racked with pain? Why his heart torn with anguiſh; It is for you, ſinners for you.
