little affronted. And having the means in their own hands, how few are there that resist the temptation! They are continually tempted to sloth, indolence, love of ease, softness, delicacy; to hatred of self-denial, and taking up the cross, even that of fasting and rising early, without which it is impossible to grow in grace. If you are increased in goods, do not you know that these things are so? Do you contract no intimacy with worldly men? Do not you converse with them more than duty requires? Are you in no danger of pride? Of thinking yourself better than your poor, dirty neighbours? Do you never resent, yea, and revenge an affront? Do you never render evil for evil? Do not you give way to indolence or love of ease? Do you deny yourself, and take up your cross daily? Do you constantly rise as early as you did once? Why not? Is not your soul as precious now as it was then? How often do you fast? Is not this your duty as much as that of a day labourer? But if you are wanting in this, or any other respect, who will tell you of it? Who dares tell you the plain truth, but those who neither hope nor fear any thing from you? And if any venture to deal plainly with you, how hard is it for you to bear it! Are not you far less susceptible of reproof, far less advisable than when you were poor? It is well if you can bear reproof even from me. And in a few days you will see me no more.

Once more, therefore, I say, having gained and saved all you can, do you give all you can: else your money will eat your flesh as fire, and will sink you to the nethermost hell!

O beware of "laying up treasures upon earth!" Is it not treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath ?

Lord! I have warned them: but if they will not be warned, what can I do more? I can only "give them up unto their own hearts' lusts, and let them follow their own imaginations!"

19. By not taking this warning, it is certain many of the Methodists are already fallen. Many are falling at this

very time. And there is great reason to apprehend, that many more will fall, most of whom will rise no more!

But what method may it be hoped the All-wise God will take, to repair the decay of his work? If he do not remove the candlestick from this people, and raise up another people, who will be more faithful to his grace, it is probable he will proceed in the same manner as he has done in time past. And this has hitherto been his method. When any of the old preachers left their first love, lost their simplicity and zeal, and departed from the work, he raised up young men, who are what they were, and sent them into the harvest in their place. The same he has done, when he was pleased to remove any of his faithful labourers into Abraham's bosom. So when Henry Millard, Edward Dunstone, John Manners, Thomas Walsh, or others, rested from their labours, he raised up other young men from time to time willing and able to perform the same service. It is highly probable, he will take the same method for the time The place of those Preachers who either die in the Lord, or lose the spiritual life which God had given them, he will supply by others that are alive to God, and desire only to spend and be spent for him.

to come.

20. Hear ye this, all ye Preachers, who have not the same life, the same communion with God, the same zeal for his cause, the same burning love to souls, that you had once! "Take heed unto yourselves, that ye lose not the things ye have wrought, but that ye receive a full reward." Beware lest God swear in his wrath, that ye shall bear his standard no more! Lest he be provoked to take the word of his grace utterly out of your mouth! Be assured, the Lord hath no need of you; his work doth not depend upon your help. As he is able "out of stones, to raise up children to Abraham;" so he is able out of the same to raise up Preachers after his own heart! O make haste! Remember from whence you are fallen; and repent and do the first works!

21. Would it not provoke the Lord of the harvest, to

lay you altogether aside, if you despised the labourers he had raised up, merely because of their youth? This was commonly done to us, when we were first sent out, between forty and fifty years ago. Old, wise men asked, “What will these young heads do?" So the then Bishop of London in particular. But shall we adopt their language? God forbid! Shall we teach him, whom he shall send? whom he shall employ in his own work? Are we then the men, and shall wisdom die with us? Does the work of God hang upon us? O humble yourselves before God, lest he pluck you away, and there be none to deliver!

22. Let us next consider what method has the wisdom of God taken for these five and forty years, when thousands of the people, that once ran well, one after another, “drew back to perdition ?" Why, as fast as any of the poor were overwhelmed with worldly care, so that the seed they had received became unfruitful: and as fast as any of the rich drew back unto perdition by giving way to the love of the world, to foolish and hurtful desires, or to any other of those innumerable temptations, which are inseparable from riches: God has constantly, from time to time, raised up men, endued with the spirit which they had lost. Yea, and generally this change has been made, with considerable advantage. For the last were, not only (for the most part) more numerous than the first, but more watchful, profiting by their example: more spiritual, more heavenly-minded: more zealous, more alive to God, and more dead to all things here below.

产生

23. And, blessed be God, we see he is now doing the same thing in various parts of the kingdom. In the room of those that have fallen from their steadfastness, or are falling at this day, he is continually raising up out of the stones other children to Abraham. This he does at one or another place, according to his own will: pouring out his quickening Spirit on this or another people, just as it pleaseth him. He is raising up those of every age and degree, young men and maidens, old men and children, VOL. IX. X

1

to be "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, to shew forth his praise, who has called them out of darkness into his marvellous light." And we have no reason to doubt, but he will continue so to do, till the great promise is fulfilled, till "the earth is filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea: till all Israel is saved, and the fulness of the Gentiles is come in.”

24. But have all that have sunk under manifold temptations, so fallen that they can rise no more? Hath the Lord "cast them all off for ever, and will he be no more entreated? Is his promise come utterly to an end for evermore?" God forbid that we should affirm this! Surely he is able to heal all their backslidings: for with God no word is impossible. And is he not willing too? He is "God and not man; therefore, his compassions fail not." Let no backslider despair: “return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon you: unto our God, and he will abundantly pardon.'

Mean time, thus saith the Lord to you that now supply their places," Be not high-minded, but fear!" If " the Lord spared not" thy elder brethren, "take heed lest he spare not thee!" Fear, though not with a servile, tormenting fear, lest thou fall by any of the same temptations, by either the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, or the desire of other things. Tempted you will be in ten thousand different ways, perhaps as long as you remain in the body but as long as you continue to watch and pray, you will not "enter into temptations." His grace has been hitherto sufficient for you; and so it will be unto

the end.

25. You see here, brethren, a short and general sketch of the manner wherein God works upon earth, in repairing this work of grace, wherever it is decayed through the subtilty of Satan, and the unfaithfulness of men, giv. ing way to the fraud and malice of the devil. Thus he is now carrying on his own work, and thus he will do

to the end of time. And how wonderfully plain and simple is his way of working, in the spiritual, as well as the natural world! That is, his general plan of working, of repairing whatsoever is decayed. But as to innumerable particulars, we must still cry out, "O the depth! How unfathomable are his counsels! And his paths past tracing out!"