xxii. 37, 39. Gal. iii. 24. Tit. ii. 14. 2 Tim, ii, 12. 1 John ii. 25.

After the Sacrament.

When you have received, you may meditate on the following, or the like texts.

See Matt. xi. 29. xxvi. 41. Luke xi. 13. John v. 14. xiv. 27. xvi. 23. Rom. viii. 32. 2 Cor、 v. 15. vi, 16. Heb. xii. 2.

For further assistance on this important duty of meditation, see Mr. Orton's Sacramental Meditations, or devout Reflections on various Passages of Scripture; designed to assist Christians in their attendance on the Lord's Supper, and their improvement of it. Not only those who do attend, but those who have not yet attended the Sacrament, may find some advantage from the perusal of these meditations; and be induced to pay a more serious regard to their duty in this respect; and moreover those pious Christians, who are necessarily confined from it, may be assisted and refreshed by them.

SECTION VIII.

HELPS FOR CONVERSATIONS WITH A DYING PRO FLIGATE, OR A CONDEMNED MALEFACTOR.

Remarks on the humanity and necessity of a minister's attendance on profligate sinners, and on the condemned.

COMMISERATION for malefactors under sentence of death will naturally engage a serious minister, whether he attends by appointment, or by his own choice, to exhort and pray with them and for them and any one so employed, who has a just sense of the worth of immortal souls, and is sincerely desirous of serving their important in

terests in so dangerous and critical a season, would be glad to receive any hints of what had been suggested on the like occasions, which might enforce his own exhortations. This therefore induced me to abridge the following narrative given of Mr. James Maclaine. I moreover apprehended, that the conversations of the worthy minister who attended him (if what is peculiar to the condemned were excepted) might be useful to dying_profigates, or others, whose vicious hardness of heart, or penitent concern for salvation, render such alarming or comforting admonitions necessary. These conversations likewise might be useful to those (whether in sickness or health) who have not sufficiently, if at all, considered their latter end, and the repentance preparatory to it.

But perhaps some may be ready to object, "that "the talking of the mercies of God and the hope "of salvation to such wretches as these, is the way "to encourage others of the like depraved disposi❝tions to follow them in the same vicious courses.' For they will argue, "if God be so gracious as to "forgive such enormous guilt in the last extremity, why may we not tread in their steps, and "take our fill of sin? If we escape the justice of "the law, it is well if we suffer its utmost, we can repent, even at the very gallows, and be happy "in another world."

66

66

:

I answer. To infer that we may sin because grace abounds, is such an unnatural shocking perversion of all just reasoning, and so gross an abuse of the Divine goodness, that it can scarcely be supposed to take place in any heart but where all the power of diabolical darkness and corruption are entirely predominant. And such transgressors ought to be told, that they have no just ideas of repentance for they will find it much more difficult than they imagined it to be; and that by so horrid a perversion of the design of God in the

proclamation of his mercy, they actually exclude themselves from all rational hope of that grace; and ought to expect nothing less than to be given up to the hardness of their hearts, as a just judgment of God upon them.

Besides, what is the natural language of this objection? Let these wretched guilty immortals " alone to perish in their sins, and be miserable for ever let them go down quickly to the hell they "have so justly deserved."

And can any one find in his heart to utter such language as this to a fellow-creature? Forbid it humanity! Forbid it Christianity!

Some of these unhappy people perhaps fell at first through weakness and inadvertency; from the want of better knowledge; or from the power of some strong temptation; and may perhaps be now lamenting their fall in the bitterness of their souls, and secretly exclaiming, "What shall I do to be "saved?" And shall we withhold the glad tidings of salvation from them? God forbid.

On the other hand, shall we neglect to enforce the awful declarations of divine justice on the more hardened and impenitent? Certainly not. For even the worst of them have some remains of natural conscience, which it may please God so to awaken by such a representation of his mercies and terrors, as to lead them to a true repentance. These considerations, I trust, will justify any one in attempting to bring condemned malefactors and dying profligates to a sense of their guilt; [see page 94.] and to point out some hope of salvation through Jesus Christ.

N

Conversations with Mr. James Maclaine, who was executed at Tyburn on October 3, 1750, for divers robberies on the highway

I found him, says Dr. Allen, under inexpressible agonies of mind and conscience. I told him, I came at his request as a Christian minister, to tés tify to him repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ, and that he must allow me to deal plainly with him, and I hoped he would be open and ingenuous in all he said to me; which he solemnly, and as a dying man, assured me he would be.

I observed to him, that as by common report he had associated with licentious young people of figure and fortune, and it was too well known that such affected to disbelieve and despise all the principles of natural and revealed religion, I desired to know of him whether he had not fallen into the fashionable way of thinking and talking on these subjects; especially as he was conscious that his life was spent in such a manner, as to have the greatest occasion for these kind of stupifiers. He answered, that the truths of religion were deeply rooted in his mind, even when he was pursuing the most flagitious courses; that since he had robbed on the highway he never had enjoyed a calm and easy minute: he acknowledged the crime for which he was condemned.

As he acknowledged the crime for which he suffered, the justice of his sentence, and the great wickedness of his life, I thought my first endeavour was to bring him to a true penitential sense and confession of his sins. In order to do this, I observed to him, that it was very common for persons under condemnation to shew a great degree

The account here given of him is extracted from the third edition of Dr. Allen's narrative of his behaviour after condemna tion, and well worth a serious perusal.

of sorrow, but that not much stress was to be laid on this, as it had been often found when such persons escaped, that they returned to their former courses; that it was necessary for him to examine his heart, and take care that he did not deceive himself; that true repentance did not arise from a sense of legal punishment, but from a living sense of the malignity of his sins, as offensive to a pure and holy God; as breaches of his sacred law; as violations of his own conscience; as injuries to his soul; and as contrary to justice and benevolence; in which ties society was held together, and without which there would be no living with safety and comfort in the world.

He replied, I feel the weight of my crimes lying on my conscience in the views in which you have represented them. It is not death I fear; but, oh! I dread to appear in the awful presence of God! How can such a wretch as. I have been hope for mercy!

I told him his fears and apprehensions were just; that it was no wonder that reflections on a life spent as his had been should be very tormenting and uneasy, and that in the views of eternity" his "flesh should tremble for fear of God, and that he "should be afraid of his judgments;" that in these humiliations, the religion of all sinners, especially of such as himself, must begin; and I entreated him to think of this well. If you can be sincerely penitent, you may, through the merits and intercession of our Lord Jesus Christ, be forgiven; but, for God's sake, don't deceive yourself. It is impossible for me to know your heart; and the circumstances in which you now are make it difficult for you yourself to know it: search it therefore to the bottom, and seriously enquire what sorrow you have for your sins, abstracted from the shameful untimely end to which they have brought you: consider that only is "godly sorrow, and worketh