Believe me, sirs, it is not an easy thing to be saved: laziness, and mere enquiries, will never effect your happiness, nor secure your souls from perdition; and all the pains you have already taken will be lost, if you give over the pursuit. Let me call some of you this day to remember your former labours, the prayers and tears that you have poured out in secret before God; remember your days of darkness, and your nights of terror, the groans of conscience, and the inward agonies you felt, when you were first awakened to behold your guilt and danger; remember these hours, and these sorrows; and love and pity your own souls so far, as to pursue the work, and let not your pains be lost: _Have ye suffered so many things in vain, if it be yet in vain_; Gal. iii. 4. Ye have wrestled with some sins, and have in part got the mastery over them; and shall a darling lust overcome you at last, and slay your souls with eternal death? Ye have resisted the tempter in some of his assaults and put the powers of hell to flight; will you give up yourselves at last to be led in triumph by Satan, and become his everlasting slave? Methinks you look so amiable in those victories ye have already obtained, that I would fain have you press onward through the field of battle, fulfil the warfare, and receive the crown. The ministers of the gospel look upon you with concern and pity: We love you because you have proceeded thus far in religion; but ye shall not be the beloved of God, if ye stop here, or go back again to sin and folly. We had a hopeful prospect of you once, and said to our Lord in prayer, “Surely these shall be one day the inhabitants, and the supports of thine house; these young plants shall one day be fruitful trees in thy vineyard; they shall be pillars in thy holy temple.” But alas! there is a death upon our hopes, there is a darkness and a lethargy upon your souls: We look upon you in all these your endowments, we mourn over you with compassion, and with zeal we express our grief and our love: “Awake, ye young sinners, who have deserved our love; awake, that ye sleep not to everlasting death.”