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direful retribution, when ygur fathers and mo- thers are cut off, and your happy families covered with }^ackcIoth and ashes. Slow but sure infection etalka abroad ; the invisible air is its vehicle ; with the breath of our life wo inhale it; it is nursed in oar inward parts, and then woe to those tender Irtends that approach us, whose very tendcmcsa ij their ruin. Thus hath God planttd his thun- ders a^inst hardneA^^t of heart, and secured, by the terrors of death, sympathy for the dietresaed and dyin^. If we draw not near to do tender offices for the dying; if nature speak not for them, terror will speak : for out of their neglected couches, and their foul chambers, hnth oiifv come forth an eaemy to lay nations waste. And if we refuse the last obsequies to the dead, then in the lifolesa clay God bath planted an avenger ready to make a prey of whole hosts of tho living. In like mamicr, if we allow any portion of the people to come too near the edge of atarvatioti and misery ; to live io filti>, aiid breathe the taintfxl 962 cot>'« coKTRovci<«r with tiik lahd. [ZNiL ftir; to lire on food unwholesome, or to itiat , nature of bcr fair aHowances; then there eDgen^fl d(]^h in the neglected and Torsnken ttoveU, foul dieease, which, not cotitcnt with pimi«iiii)g tii« wretched who have allowed themselves to sink fto Eo^«' in tho scale of life, rides abroad inrisible upon the air. taking in circle after circle of the fated popuUtion, imtil the enccimpaA^ing ocean alone is ahle to confine hut ravages: and over tbt dividing ocean he has often come lodged aad secreted in the womb of trading (hip«, lurking In the conatitutioEis of the crcw^ and barstiog ferth when they mingle with tbeir kind ; bo that it length that care which the community would not takf: at first, they are coiiipelted at ten-fold risk and expense to take,— *each family in ita own do* fence^ or, if invaded, in getting rid of the enemy,^' and the public generally, in preventing the spread and wild ravages of the discaw:. If therefore there be any present, with whom the Christian argument and the argument of nature are unavailable, let them li&ten to this argument of terror. But truly this ib not a con- ^deration to be hun^ up in terror over tho bead* of those who will listen to nothing milder : it i« i grave consideration for the most mcrcifulp Co atrengthen the effect of all that hath been said. Here, att in other thingi^ God hath }oin.ed our in»H teresl and our duty in fastest union. For tbe^ sake of yourselves and famjite