his spiritual interests. And what is this but the common excuse of tradesmen, labourers, and women who have families? I have no time to spare for religion! Let me ask you, What is your time for? Is not the care of the soul the one thing needful? Should you not seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness? Besides, "What will it profit, if you gain the whole world, and lose your own soul?" And let me tell you there is time enough to mind the affairs of both worlds; and both are best minded together: the one need not shut out the other. Religion will not make men idle; it will make an idle man industrious; it tends even to worldly prosperity. "Godliness is profitable for all things, having the promise of this life, and of that which is to come."

How can any man say he has no time for religion, when the Sabbath-day is appointed for that very purpose? Yet that holy day is profaned by many, by business, idleness, or taking pleasure. There are fifty-two days in every year which ought to be wholly employed in public or private duties of religion. What account will they give to God of their time who have squandered away their precious hours in sin and folly, and who have turned their backs on the means of grace, which might have made them wise to salvation?

Permit me also to observe, that some who cannot find time to serve God, can find time to sin: they can find time to curse and swear; to talk and sing obscenely; to be drunken, and to be wanton.. Yea, some of these people complain of too much time, and therefore they invent amusements to kill time. Oh, if the hours that some consume at the alehouse, the fairs, the merry-meetings, were spent in hearing and reading the word of God, in prayer, and singing his praises, to how much better account would they turn out!

3. The excuse of a third person was, I have mar

Here is an

ried a wife, and therefore I cannot come. excuse of another kind, which takes in too great a regard to creatures, too much fondness for domestic enjoyments, and the pleasures of this life. It was a very weak excuse; for, though he had married a wife, he might surely have left her for a few hours, without a breach of proper affection; or he might have taken her with him to such a great feast as this, where so many were bidden, and none forbidden; or he might have gone alone, if he could not persuade her to go with him. How many perish by the unlawful use of lawful things, and undue regard to carnal relations! Husbands and wives, who ought to help each other in the great concerns of salvation, are often deadly hindrances; and will reproach each other to all eternity for being such. Thus, Adam ruined himself and all his posterity by carnal fondness, and loving the creature more than the Creator. Let married persons be on their guard; and remember, that not only houses and lands, but wives too, must sometimes be forsaken, rather than for their sakes we should forsake Christ.

All these excuses were, as you see, frivolous and foolish; they were all of a worldly kind: and indeed it is the world, in some form or other, that proves the great hindrance of man's salvation. But there are many other excuses which people are apt to make, equally absurd. I shall proceed to notice some of them.

4. Religion, says one, is a hard and difficult thing; hard to understand, and difficult to practice. I answer, It is necessary. Christ says, it is the one thing needful. It is just as necessary as salvation is. And do you object to every thing necessary, because it is difficult? Do not you find hardships in your trade or business? and yet you pursue it. Consider also, it will be much harder to bear the torments of hell, than to practise the duties of religion. A person

who wanted one of the martyrs to recant, said "Life is sweet, and death is bitter."-" True," said he, "but eternal life is sweeter, and eternal death is more bitter." Will not heaven make amends for all our pains and labours? Do you think there is a saint in heaven that repents of what he did or suffered for Christ? But, in fact, true religion is not so difficult as you may imagine: the path is so plain, that "the way-faring man, though a fool, shall not err therein" and Jesus says, "Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light;" his commands are not grievous, and grace makes them pleasant. Religion is far from being a gloomy business. "Wisdom's ways are pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. Can it make a man unhappy to love God, and be loved by him? Is it a gloomy thing to be at peace with God, to know that our sins are pardoned, and to have the earnest of glory? There are joys in religion far beyond any that the world can pretend to, and such as wicked men would be glad to possess when they come to lie on a dying bed: then is the value of true religion known, when the world can afford no further help.

5. Some object, and say, Your religious people are hypocrites: after all their pretences, they are like other folks. I answer by a question - Are they all hypocrites? If so, then there is no such thing as religion in the world; if so, the Bible is all a lie, and Christ must have shed his blood in vain: for he died to redeem us from the world, and our vain conversation in it, and to make us a holy people, zealous of good works. It is admitted that there are some hypocrites; and woe be to them! There was a hypocrite, a Judas, even among the apostles; but religion did not cease because of him! If there were not a reality and an excellency in religion, there would be

no hypocrites: if guineas and bank-notes were not valuable, there would be no counterfeits; and, I presume, you do not refuse to take any money, because there is base coin: nor would you excuse yourself from paying your rent to your landlord, because you are afraid of paying bad money. If there are hypocrites, as you say, and we allow, then there is the greater need to look to yourself, that you are sincere; but I greatly doubt the sincerity of those who make this excuse: and their hearts tell them it will not be admitted at the bar of God. Besides, it is censorious and wicked to judge another man, and to call him a hypocrite, unless his life is bad; but, because you can find no blemish in the life of a truly religious person, you presume to search his heart, and call him a hypocrite. The truth is, you would be glad to prove him such, as an excuse for your own want of religion.

6. Methinks I hear another person say-I see no occasion to make so much ado about religion. You say truly; you do not see: but your not seeing is a proof of nothing but your own blindness; a blind man sees nothing. If you examine the word of God, you will find the Christian life compared to a warfare; now a soldier's life, in the time of actual service, is not idle. It is also compared to a race, in which great exertion and activity are necessary, if a man would so run as to obtain the prize. A Christian is represented in Scripture as crucifying the old man of sin,” and "mortifying the deeds of the flesh:" and can these things be done by the slothful man, who is a stranger to zeal himself, and hates to see it in another? Has not God required you to love him with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind, and all your strength; and do you know any body that does more than this? Let me also ask you, Why it is that you commend industry in worldly

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business, and despise it in religion? If there be a hell to avoid, and a heaven to obtain, and sin to destroy, and a God to serve, and a soul to save-why should we not be as earnest in religion as you are in the world? Why should not a Christian love God as much as you love money, or sin? I know the answer your heart makes.

7. Another cries-I shall do as well as my neighbour; and, if I perish, God help thousands! I reply, If you do not better than the thousands that perish, God help you! Jesus Christ has said, "Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat;" while the narrow way to life is found and trodden by few. Think not well of your state, because you are like others : you have greater cause to suspect it. Christ's flock is small; but the devil's herd is large. "The whole world," says St. John, "lieth in wickedness." Follow not, then, the multitude to do evil; but consider their end, and be wise. It is a very affecting and useful story that Mr. Baxter relates, in his Call to the Unconverted," "I remember," says he, "a circumstance that a gentleman told me he saw upon Atchan bridge, over the Severn, near Shrewsbury. A man was driving a flock of fat lambs ; and, something meeting them, and hindering their passage, one of the lambs leaped on the wall of the bridge, and his legs slipping from under him, he fell into the stream; the rest, seeing him, did, one after one, leap over the bridge into the stream, and were all, or almost all, drowned. Those that were behind did little know what was become of them that were gone before, but thought they might venture to follow their companions; but, as soon as ever they were over the wall, and, falling headlong, the case was altered. Even so it is with unconverted carnal men. One dieth by them, and drops into hell, and another

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