Page:Last and great sermon, of the Rev Dr William Dodd.pdf/5

( 5 ) many fellow prisoners, ought to consdier with particular diligence and intenseness of meditation. Had it not been forgotten, or neglected by us we had never appeared in this place. A little time for recollection and amendment is yet allowed us by the mercy of the law. Of this little time particle be lost. Let us fill our remaining life with all the duties which our present conidition allows us to practise. Let its next earnest effort for salvation!And oh! heavenly rather, who desirest not the death of a sinner, grant that this effort may not be in vain!

To teach others what they must do to be saved, has long been my employment and profession. You with what confusion and dishonour I now stand before no more in the pulpit of instruction; but on this humble seat with yourselves. You are not consider me now as a man authorised to  manners or direct the conscience and speaking with the authority of a pastor to his flockI am here, like yourselves, of a capital offence; and sentenced like yourselves, to public and shameful death. My profession, which has given me stronger convictions of my duty than most of you can be supppose'd to have attained, and has extended my views to the consequences of wickedness farther than your observation is likely to have reached, has loaded my sin with peculiar aggravations; and I entreat you to join your prayers with mine, that my sorrow may be proportionate to my guilt!

I am now, like you, enquiring what must I do to be saved? and stand here to communicate to you enquiry suggests. Hear me with attention, my fellow prisoners; and in your melancholy hours of retirement, consider well what I offer to you from the sincerity of my good will, and from the deepest conviction of a penitent heart.

Salvation is promised to us Christians on the terms of faith, obedience, and repentence. I shall therefore endeavour to shew how, in the short interval between