I answer, 1. Whether they will finally be lost or saved, you are expresly commanded to feed the hungry and cloath the naked. If you can, and do not, whatever becomes of them, you shall go away into everlasting fire. 2. Though it is God only changes hearts, yet he generally doth it by man. It is our part to do all that in us lies, as diligently as if we could change them ourselves, and then to leave the event to him. 3. God in answer to their prayers, builds up his children by each other in every good gift; nourishing and strengthning the whole _body, by that which every joint supplieth_. So that _the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee_; no, nor even _the head to the feet, I have no need of you_. Lastly, how are you assured, that the persons before you are dogs or swine? Judge them not, until you have tried. _How knowest thou, O man, but thou mayest gain thy brother?_ But thou mayest, under God, save his soul from death? When he spurns thy love and blasphemes the good word, then it is time to give him up to God. 8. “We have tried. We have laboured to reform sinners. And what did it avail? On many we could make no impression at all: and if some were changed for a while, yet their goodness was but as the morning dew; and they were soon as bad, nay worse than ever. So that we only hurt them――and ourselves too; for our minds were hurried and discomposed: perhaps filled with anger instead of love. Therefore we had better have kept our religion to ourselves.” It is very possible this fact also may be true: That you have tried to do good and have not succeeded; yea, that those who seemed reformed, relapsed into sin, and their last state was worse than the first. And what marvel? Is the servant above his Master? But how often did he strive to save sinners; and they would not hear: or when they had followed him a while, they turned back as a dog to his vomit. But he did not therefore desist from striving to do good: no more should you, whatever your success be. It is your part, to do as you are commanded: the event is in the hand of God. You are not accountable for this: leave it to him, who orders all things well. _In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening with-hold not thy hand; for thou knowest not whether shall prosper_, Eccles. ♦xi. 6.