be alarmed by it. I wish them, however, to consider it, and lay it to heart. At present, I am speak. ing to persons of another description-to those who have a view of their danger, and feel a desire of being delivered from it, and brought into a different state. If you feel such a desire, and are conscious of your insufficiency to effect its object, then take with you words, repair to God, and say, "Turn thou us, and we shall be turned." Go to him now. There is no need of delay. You may as well do this, today as tomorrow, and this hour as the next.

You ask, "How can we do this?" I ask, how can you help it? What? See your guilt, impotence and danger; and believe that God is gracious and merciful; and not go to him?-Surely you must go. If you forbear, I much suspect you are not in that state of mind, which is pretended. If you were sick and in danger of death, you would call upon God. And what? not call upon him in your present case?

You will say, "We can do nothing of ourselves acceptable to God." What then? If you are in the case now supposed, you are not left to yourselves.. If God has awakened in you such desires, convictions and fears, as you speak of, then you can go to him. If you have such sentiments, you can express them to a friend, or a minister; and can you not express them to God too? Can you not tell him what you feel, and what you desire?

"But will God accept us?" Go, and see. I cannot tell you, how you will pray, and therefore cannot tell you, how you will succeed. This I can tell you, God has not said to you, Seek ye me in vain. Ye shall know; if ye follow on to know the Lord.

"But will God hear our prayers, before we are converted" This is a question nothing to your

purpose. Surely you will not think yourselves con verted, before you have a disposition to pray: And if you have such a disposition, by no means suppress it, but act agreeably to it. If God has awakened serious sentiments in you, he has gracious designs in your favor; and beware, that you do not oppose them. I cannot tell you, how soon you will find the comforts of religion. You have no right to expect these, until you feel your hearts consenting to God's covenant, and perceive yourselves walking in it. Conversion, you know, is one thing, and the evidence of conversion another. Conversion is the turning of the heart to God; the evidence of this is a patient continuance in well doing; and from this evidence result the comforts of Christian hope.But look not for the evidence, before you have obtained the thing; nor for the hope, before you have obtained the evidence; nor for the comfort, before you have obtained the hope. Things must take place in their order. What is now before you is to turn to God, and to pray, that he would turn you effectually. And on this point, you must make no delay. Go to him, plead your necessity and his mercy-your impotence and his grace-your unworthiness and Christ's righteousness. Trust not in the value of your prayers, but use them as means of God's appointment. Plead his command, and take encouragement from it, but make not a merit of the work, which he has begun in you. If your desires and prayers are excited by his spirit striving with you, there is reason to hope he will regard them. Whether you are at present really converted or not, of this you may be sure, God does not abhor the work of his own spirit; and prayers proceeding from the convictions and desires, which his spirit has awakened, are not to be ranked with those prayers which are made in pretence, to devour widows'

houses, and in mere sensuality for the gratification of lust.

God sets hope before you; go, lay hold on it. I leave you with this advice. Humble yourselves be fore God, and say, Thou hast chastised us, and we were chastised as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. Turn thou us, and we shall be turned; for thou art the Lord our God.

SERMON XVII.

The good Man lying down in Peace, and sleeping in Safety.

PSALM iv. 8.

I will both lay me down in peace and sleep for thou Lord only makest me dwell in safety.

THE Psalm, of which our text is the conclusion, is one of David's devout meditations in a time of great affliction. His piety was not an occasional exercise, but an habitual temper. He set the Lord always before him, and waited on him all the day. But there were some seasons which he sequestered more especially for serious contemplation, selfexamination and communion with God. Of these seasons the evening was one. When he retired from the

busy scenes of life, and was composing his spirit and his flesh to rest, he reviewed the day, repented of its errors, sought God's pardon, and contemplated his presence, grace and power, and thus laid him. self down in peace, and slept in safety.

David considers the season, when he lay down to sleep, as attended with some peculiar dangers; but yet he says, that confiding in God's watchful care, he will lie down in peace.

I. We will shew in what respects the time of our sleep is a time of danger.

This is a gloomy season: If we were not accustomed to its frequent return, it would fill us with horror. The sun withdraws his cheering presence; the night spreads her sable curtain over half the globe -the business of the day is suspended the beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven retire to restsilence every where reigns. The distinction of objects, is, in a measure lost-We see not what is before us, and what is near us. Imagination is at liberty to create what evils it can, and to magnify beyond bounds the evils which it creates. In such a state, the mind is peculiarly susceptive of fearful apprehensions.

The night is a season, not only of imaginary, but of real dangers; such, particularly, as the incursion of thieves and the eruption of fires: Occurrences of this kind are most frequent and most terrible in the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men. The thief cometh to kill, as well as to steal. Fire ravages without distinction, nor regards the inhabitant more than the dwelling.

In the time of sleep we are peculiarly impotent and defenceless. The evils, which, in our wakeful hours, might have been foreseen, and prevented or avoided, now come by surprise, take us unprepared, and allow us neither means to resist, nor time to escape.

Sleep locks up our senses, suspends our reason, and divests us of all power to guard our substance, or keep ourselves. If the irruption of evil suddenly rouse us, we wake in confusion, and perhaps as destitute of discretion, as we were while we slept,