let us draw the picture of one who, though no thief or
murderer, and therefore not accounted one of the most abandoned of
mankind, yet is lying under a load of much more than ordinary guilt.
Those persons who feel themselves guilty of any part of the crimes we
shall enumerate, should take their share of the reproof, and if they
have not repented, so as to enter into the vineyard of Christ, they
should remember, that though they may be criminals of a smaller size,
yet they are still remaining under condemnation.

To a perverse and disobedient childhood has succeeded, as we will
suppose, a wild and vicious youth, and then a proud and ambitious
manhood, and after this a fretful or covetous old age. In the course of
his long life many temptations have broken in upon him, and by turns he
has yielded to them all. Many different situations have been filled by
him, and in each, as he now sees, he has either neglected or betrayed
his trust. He has been a negligent and bad father, an unreasonable,
nay, secretly an unfaithful husband, a careless inattentive brother,
a hollow, flattering, and designing friend; perhaps, also, a mean
time-serving politician, and even a mischievous common acquaintance.
Do you ask what has been the turn of his common conversation? Instead of
being pious, useful, benevolent, candid, and sincere, it has at one time
been proud and passionate, at another vain and flourishing, at another
slanderous and revengeful; now again, it has been selfish, crafty, and
dissembling, often also daringly impious and profane, and not seldom
exceedingly polluting and impure. Do you ask what have been the sinful
deeds he has done? O what a dreadful variety has there been in them! At
one time he has been trying to overreach his fellow-trader; at another,
he has been endeavoring to seduce some unhappy maiden: at one time he is
seen quarrelling with his neighbor; at another, he falls out with one of
his own family, after which he grows mad with every one around him, and,
at last, equally mad and out of humor with himself. He has been selfish,
griping, and avaricious on all occasions, and what he has saved or
gained by oppression and fraud, he has spent on his profligacy: he has
got drunk with the money which he has acquired by dishonesty, and he has
paid for his debauchery at night by the sum which he has contrived in
the morning to keep back from the poor. At the same time he has been
turbulent, factious, and complaining--alwa