travel in the path of saints, as to travel in their own path. Hobab was as able to go with Moses to the land of promise, as to go back to the land of Midian. Sinners are as able to walk in the strait and narrow path to heaven, as to walk in the crooked paths to ruin. They cannot plead their want of power, strength, or ability, as an excuse for refusing to go with saints to heaven. Nor can they plead, that conscience forbids them to go with saints in the path to heaven. For it is the way which God himself has marked out for all men to walk in. It is what the prophet Samuel calls "the good and the right way." It is the best way in which they can go, and their consciences will condemn them so long as they walk in any other path. Nor can they plead, that it will hurt their temporal interests, to go with saints in their way to heaven. For "the blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.” "Godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." If sinners walk with the ungodly, they have no ground to expect prosperity in this world, nor in the next. But if they walk with saints in the path of piety, this will give them courage and resolution to pursue their secular concerns for the noblest purposes and highest rewards. God has spoken good concerning saints. He has promised to walk with them, while they walk with him. He has engaged to manifest himself to them as he does not to the world. He has promised to give them grace and glory, and to withhold no good thing from them. Thus sinners can go with saints better than they can go alone in their own way. It is altogether reasonable, that they should gratify the desires of saints, by going with them to heaven, since they have no good excuse for refusing to go.

4. This is reasonable, because they have as much need to go to heaven as saints have. The Israelites felt their need of going to Canaan. They expected it was a good land, which would afford them a great many good things. This Moses suggested to Hobab. "We are journeying to the place of which the Lord said, I will give it you: come thou with us, and we will do thee good for the Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel." Canaan was a good place, and on that account, a proper type of heaven, the seat of the highest holiness and happiness in the universe, which contains the best inhabitants, the best employments, and the best enjoyments. It is full of light, and joy, and peace. It completely satisfies the desires of all who are admitted there. This saints believe, and desire to be fixed in the mansions of the blessed. They cannot stay here long; they must go somewhere. This world is not their home.

They are wretched, and miserable, and guilty. But heaven is just such a place as they need. It will remove all the evils which have fallen to their lot, and supply all their wants. Their souls are precious, and heaven will make them happy. But the souls of sinners are as precious as the souls of saints. They are under the same sentence of condemnation that saints were under before they embraced the gospel, and set their faces Zionward. They must leave this world as soon as saints. They must go somewhere, and they have to make their choice in this life, and either choose to go with saints to heaven, or to go in their own chosen path to destruction. When saints, therefore, desire and invite them to go with them to heaven, it is highly reasonable that they should gratify their desire, and bear them company to that happy place, which the Lord has promised to all who are willing to go and take possession of it. Their guilty, perishing condition imperiously requires them to quit their own present path, and walk with saints in the way to heaven.

5. Saints are not only capable, but disposed to do sinners a great deal of good, if they will come and walk with them in the way of life. This Moses suggested to Hobab to induce him to go with the people of God to the land of promise. "Come thou with us, and we will do thee good." Sinners might derive great benefit by associating with those who are heavenly-minded, and journeying to a heavenly country. "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise." If sinners would forsake the foolish, and walk with the wise, they could not fail of becoming wiser and better. Good men mutually promote each other's spiritual edification and growth in grace. They not only attend divine ordinances together, but they converse together on religious subjects, and remember one another at the throne of grace. Paul tells the Romans, the Philippians, and the Thessalonians, that he remembered them before God. David said to God, "I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts;" they are "the saints that are in the earth, the excellent, in whom is all my delight.' Though David was king, and conversant with the great men of his court and his kingdom, yet he chose to be a companion of the good, rather than of the great. It is proverbial, that whatever company a man keeps, it will have a happy or unhappy influence to form his character and govern his conduct. This influence every one who comes out from the world and walks with the godly will most sensibly and happily realize. How happy were the first converts to Christianity with their new connections! Saints never fail to do sinners good, when they

renounce the men of the world, and walk with them in the paths of wisdom. Their invitations and promises are sincere, and sinners may safely confide in them. Though they may lose the friendship of the world, which is enmity to God, they will gain the favor of God, and the friendship of his friends, who will never forsake them through time and eternity; being heirs of the same promise, they will possess the same eternal inheritance.

But,

6. If sinners reject the invitation of saints to go with them to heaven, they will do them a great deal of hurt. Saints will have something to do with sinners, whether they desire it, or not; and all they say and do for their good will turn against them. Their desires, their invitations, their exertions, will turn against them, and serve to harden their hearts and fit them for ruin. If they refuse to go with them, they will pray that their desires, designs, and hopes may be blasted. The children of Israel invited all the nations as they went along to Canaan, to unite with them and serve the God of Israel, that the good which God had promised Israel might be their portion. But they refused, aud upon their refusal, the prayers of Israel turned against them, and proved the means of their temporal and eternal ruin. The prayers of Moses proved the ruin of Amalek, of Korah and his company, and of the seven nations of Canaan. While saints now, like Moses, invite and pray that sinners would go with them in the way to heaven; they at the same time, like Elijah, make intercession against them, if they refuse to comply with their invitation. The effectual, fervent prayers of the righteous avail as much now as ever they did to bring good, or evil to sinners. The young, the vain, and the stupid, have reason to tremble at the dreadful consequences of refusing to remember God, and to walk with his friends. Saints everywhere are daily praying, that the kingdom of God may come, and the kingdom of Satan may be destroyed, which is virtually making intercession against all incorrigible sinners. They have but one alternative before them; they must either accept, or reject the invitation of saints to walk with them. And can they hesitate what choice to make? It is life to walk with the godly, but death to walk with the ungodly. For,

7. Those who walk in the narrow path, and those who walk in the broad path in this world, will never meet in another world, but be finally and eternally separated. Our Saviour said a great deal about the future separation of the wicked from the righteous. He said, "Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to de

struction, and many there be which go in thereat; because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." He said in the parable of the tares, "As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire ; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." He said, "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory. And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." He said, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: which, when it was full, they drew to the shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." In the parable of Dives and Lazarus he said, "that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died, and was buried: and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments," and plead for relief, but could obtain none. So that he was forever separated from Lazarus. In the view of these plain and repeated declarations and representations of Christ, who can doubt, whether those who refuse to walk with the righteous in this life, will not be separated from them in the life to come? But it will be a dreadful thing indeed to the wicked to be separated from the righteous in a future and eternal state, for they will be separated in the most serious, interesting, and important respects.

They will be separated in their affections. Saints will be filled with pure, holy, benevolent affections, but sinners will be filled with the most impure, unholy, and malevolent affections. Saints will perfectly hate and abhor the character of sinners, and they will perfectly hate and abhor the character of saints.

They will always remember one another, and never cease to exercise diametrically opposite affections towards one another. And while this alienation of affections, will not disturb the blessedness of the righteous, it will fix daggers in the hearts of the wicked.

They will be separated in their condition. While the righteous shine forth in the kingdom of their Father, which is full of peace, joy, holiness, and happiness; the wicked will be confined in chains of darkness, sin, and guilt. And while the righteous enjoy the love and approbation of all the heavenly world, the wicked will sink down under the frowns of God, and the detestation of the whole intelligent creation. The righteous will enjoy the happiest place in the universe, while the wicked will be banished from it, and consigned to regions the most loathsome and tormenting to rational beings.

The separation between the righteous and the wicked will be great and dreadful in another respect. It will be final and eternal. This gives an awful emphasis to their separation. If there were a prospect of their ever becoming united in affection and situation, it would vastly alleviate the pains of separation to the wicked. But there is a great gulf fixed between hell and heaven, so that there is no passing from the one to the other. Those who shall be banished from the light of heaven will be confined in regions of darkness, where light and hope can never come. Cain will never meet Abel; Pharaoh will never meet Moses; Absalom will never meet David; nor Judas ever meet Paul in heaven. While the wicked at the last day go away into everlasting punishment, the righteous will go away into life eternal. The wicked may now escape an everlasting separation from the righteous, if they will only comply with their kind and cordial invitation to walk with them in the way to heaven. Does not their duty and eternal interest concur to persuade them to renounce the paths of the destroyer, and cordially unite with saints in their journey to the heavenly Canaan!

IMPROVEMENT.

1. Since saints are going to heaven, and invite sinners to go with them; by refusing to go, they manifest great stupidity. They are as able to walk in the path of saints, as saints are to walk in their own path. They have no reason to fear meeting any difficulties in the path of saints, which have not been surmounted by thousands, and may be surmounted again. They have no reason to fear any fatal dangers, which have not been,