conqueft over his paffions. To see him, in fhort, facrificing the flower of his days, his gaieties, his pleasures, and diverfions, at the altar of his Creator; and, in fpite of the impotent wit and raillery of his gay companions, in spite of all the obstructions that the wickedness of man, or the deceitfulness of his own heart, can throw in his way, steadily and refolutely perfevering in a uniform course of piety

and virtue to the laft.

He

It cannot fail, but fuch an one must, in the ordinary courfe of things, draw down upon himself the choiceft bleffings of Heaven. fets out in life with fairer profpects and greater advantages than all his rival contemporaries, with the bleffing of God upon all his undertakings, and a moral affurance, that whatsoever he doeth, it shall profper. And it must surely be a most comfortable reflection to him, that "he thus grows under the defence of the "Moft High, and flourishes under the shadow "of the Almighty." It must give life to all his defigns, infpire him with a manly fortitude in all his refolutions, and diffuse an even chearfulness and composure through his whole deportment, whilft, like his bleffed Mafter in

the

the fame period of life, "he grows in ftature "and in wisdom, and in favour with God and man *.”

2. By remembering God in our youth, we fave the pains of recollecting him in old age, "when the evil days come, (as come they

affuredly will) in which we shall say, we have no pleasure in them." If Religion is a leffon we muft fome time or other learn, we cannot begin too foon. It is not a thing to be taken up at our leifure, a work to be done when we have nothing else to do; but will find full employment for all the time and pains we can bestow upon it. Youth is the time when the feeds of every Christian grace and

virtue are to be fworn in our hearts. If we neglect this favourable feason, and fuffer the, tares to fpring up in their room, we shall not only have the painful task of implanting new affections and new defires in a worn-out foil, but of eradicating the old ones; and that, too, when they have grown up with us fo long, and are fo interwoven with our very conftitutions, that to rend them away from the foul, will be like plucking out an eye, or tearing * Luke ii. 52.

off

off a limb from the body. The Scriptures have laboured to exprefs, in the ftrongest terms, the extreme difficulty of fuch an undertaking, and made use of the boldest figures to impress a deep fenfe of it upon our minds. They call fuch a reformation in an advanced age, "becoming a new creature, putting off the "old man and putting on the new," and compare it to "the leopard changing its spots, and "the Ethiopian his fkin *." Indeed, the great hardship of the task may well justify such expreffions; and if any one confiders what pains it cofts him, to wean himself even from the most whimsical and trifling cuftoms which he has accidentally acquired and long indulged, he will eafily conceive what inward pangs and agonies he must undergo, before he can entirely eradicate habits that are grafted on the strongest natural defires; and effect such a total change in the whole frame and temper, in the colour and complexion of his mind, as is absolutely neceffary to render his reformation effectual.

We are told, indeed, in Scripture, that "the ways of Religion are ways of pleafant"nefs, and that all her paths are peace;" and

Cor. v. 17. Ephef. iv. 22. 24. Jer. xiii. 23.

But

fo they moft certainly are; but it is to thofe only who have been accustomed to walk in them from their youth up. The gate that leadeth to this way is narrow and strait, and the road, at first, so rugged and uneven, that if we do not enter upon it till " the day is far spent, and the night draweth on," we shall neither have time nor ftrength to furmount the many obftacles we shall meet with. if the young man fets out in the morning of life, the freshness of his ftrength and fpirits, aided by the influences of divine grace, will carry him through every difficulty. As he advances forwards, his toil grows lefs; the afperities of the way gradually disappear; the path grows wider, and the profpect opens, till he fees at laft, with the eye of faith, that land of promise to which he haftens; a fight that chears and revives him; when, after the labours of his journey, his foul begins to faint within him. And this fuggests to us a third advantage resulting from an early sense of Religion, namely, the fatisfaction and comfort it will afford us on the bed of death.

3. However the young libertine may now boast himself, and triumph in his impiety, and laugh

laugh at the fcrupulous timidity of those who deny themselves a thousand pleasures, which be boldly snatches without hesitation or remorse, yet there will come a time, and God knows how foon it may come, when his heart will quake for fear, when he will believe and tremble. Nor muft he vainly flatter himself that the evil day is far off, or that when it does come, he fhall face it with the fame steadiness and intrepidity with which he now affronts his Maker. For whilft he fees "thou"fands even of his own age, fall beside him, " and ten thousand at his right hand," how can he be sure that the danger will not come nigh him, especially as he takes the surest method to bring it near him, and to quicken the pace of death by his intemperance. It must, however, at laft overtake him; and when it does, all his vaunted courage will at once defert him. The ftouteft hearts will fail, and the fiercest spirits will be broken, when that dreadful day arrives. Our own hiftory, and that of other nations, will furnish us with abundant instances, where the boldest chiefs in iniquity, who have gloried in the most open and avowed contempt of Religion, have yet

been