utter abhorrence
of them. And I most earnestly intreat you, if you cannot instruct them in
what is better, to have no communication at all with them. For if you make
them partakers of your sins, you must answer for it at the great day of
judgment; if they then rise up against you, for misleading them, it
will be much more tolerable for them than for you.
But consider, on the other hand, what may be the happy effects,
were the natives to see, hear, and observe in you, and in all the
Europeans here; in ministers and people, high and low, a conduct
answerable to the doctrine and precepts of the gospel. This might, by
the blessing of God, be one of the most effectual means, to bring them
to reflection, and to engage them to seek an interest in the
blessings of the gospel for themselves.
Shall I beg and intreat you, FOR MY SAKE, to attend to the things
pertaining to your true peace. My dear people, I will again declare (I
can appeal to the great God, who searcheth the hearts, that I speak the
truth) to see you converted from your evil ways, and seeking the
salvation of God, Yes, to see you pay a due regard to these most
important concerns, and to have reason to hope and believe, that you
were brought to a saving acquaintance with the truths which you hear
of, or might hear, as often as the Lord's day returns, would
indeed greatly rejoice my soul. But to see so many of you turn a
careless and deaf ear, this, my dear friends, is a cause of great,
constant and increasing grief to my soul. It wounds me to think, that
any (alas! what numbers) should thus refuse and reject their own
mercies; and risk the ruin of their immortal souls, for the prospect of
a small gain, or a short sinful gratification.
My brethren, what shall I, what can I say more. I neither know what to
add, nor how to leave off: once more, I beseech you, for God's sake,
for the sake of Jesus the Saviour, who shed his precious blood to
redeem sinners, and for the sake of your own souls: by the holy
incarnation of the Redeemer, by his agonies, temptations, death and
resurrection, by all the terrors of his frown, and by all the
blessings of his love, by the joys of heaven, by the torments of hell,
and by the solemnities of the approaching day of judgment; by
all these considerations, I most earnestly, affectionately, and
faithfully admonish and intreat you, carefully to weigh what I have now
set before you. And oh! that the holy angels may carry to heaven the
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