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then they will not be saved; and more than this, for "the wrath of God abideth on them," and they "shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power." Sinner, Christ rejected by you is not "Christ in you the hope of glory." He, whom you will not love and serve, to whom you will not commit your soul, for whom you will not forsake all things else, does not permit you to hope in Him. If you hope, while thus treating Him, you hope without His authorityagainst His warning voice; you hope without that state of heart, which is the appointed antecedent of such an exercise. Look then for a change of your moral posture, while you may; despair of all relief except in Christ. "If sinners entice thee, consent thou not ;" if the world allure thee, remember, it is to thy ruin. You can now gain what, when lost, you can never regain. Heaven, through Christ, is fairly within your reach. You have no reasons for losing the prize, which do not argue the deepest guilt. Since Christ has died, you need not die, and yet you may. Will you have "Christ you the hope of glory?" Weighty question! Treat it, as you will wish to have done, when on trial at the bar of God.

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MOTIVES TO EARLY PIETY.

Those that seek me early shall find me.-PROV. VIII. 17.

THE Church of Christ is deeply interested in the character of the rising generation. Its present members are gradually vanishing from the stage, and entering on the recompenses of reward.

Their places must be supplied by others, or the church will soon become extinct. To whom must she look for this supply? To those who are now advanced to manhood and old age? She has so long looked in vain, that she can indulge only a faint expectation of any considerable accession from their number. If, however, she was sure of such an accession-yet their heads also will soon be laid in the dust. But there is a generation coming after us, that will live when we are dead. Thirty years hence they will occupy our places on the stage of life, and regulate all the important concerns of man. If the church then exists, it will be composed of those who are now young. If the pure Gospel of Jesus is then preached in Christian or in heathen lands, they must furnish the heralds of salvation. If religion then flourishes, or in the generations which follow them, it will be because great numbers of them are now converted to God. How earnest then, ought to be the pray ers and the efforts of the church for the early conversion of the young! It is because I feel in some measure, the deep importance of this subject, as well as a peculiar interest in the salvation of the young in this congregation,that I have chosen this passage of Scripture as my text. It is, my young friends, a message from God addressed immediately to you. It encourages you to seek Him now, in the morning of life, and promises you that if you will, you shall certainly find Him.

I well know that all of you intend to seek Him before you die. Notone of you can endure the thought of going into eternity before you have secured your salvation.

Let me then ask your solemn attention while I urge upon you some of those motives which God has set before you in the Scriptures, to remember your Creator now in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw nigh in which you will say you have no pleasure in them.

1. God has given you peculiar encouragements to seek Him while you are young.

The offers of salvation are indeed made to all men of all ages; yet God from a regard to His own honor, encourages men to embrace religion in the morning of life. To suppose otherwise, is to suppose that God is willing that men should spend life in dishonoring Him; in injuring His cause, and provoking His anger, and should refuse to love Him and serve Him, until their faculties are decayed, and they can do nothing in his service. Every page in

the sacred volume justifies this conclusion. Why has God required your parents to bring you up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, to instruct and exort you to warn and reprove you to give you line upon line, and precept upon precept, and to teach you the truths and duties of religion when you lie down and when you rise up-when you go out and when you come in-in the city and in the field, if He did not intend that you should love Him and obey him in childhood and youth? Why did he require parents publicly to dedicate their children to Him in the ordinances of circumcision and baptism, except to secure the faithful discharge of this important duty. The Scriptures are full of instruction and warnings to the young. The Proverbs of Solomon were written to give subtlety to the simple-to the young man knowledge and discretion.

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Ministers are required to exhort young men to be sober-minded, and to fear the Lord in their youth. The encouragements which God has given you to embrace religion early, are presented in many forms. You will find them in various typical representations in the Old Testament. The manna was a type of the bread of life. It could be gathered only in the morning. The Jews were required to offer the first fruits of the ground in their oblations and the firstlings of the flocks in sacrifice. early in the morning that Lot and his family escaped from Sodom. It was in the morning that the Israelites went forth from Egypt-that they passed through the Red Sea, and that under Joshua they entered Canaan. All these are typical of the deliverance of the sinner. God speaks the same language in these comparisons by which he illustrates the nature of a religious life. The sinner's first attention to religion is called putting the hand to the plough. But if the husbandman does not plough in season, he will plough in vain. He calls Christians the planting of the Lord. But if seeds are not planted in the spring, there will be no harvest. He compares the church to a vineyard, but if the vines are not set in the vineyard when young, they will bear no fruit. He represents their annexation to the church by the process of ingrafting; but if this process is to succeed, a young and tender shoot must be inserted.

The sinner's restoration is compared to healing the sick. But the only hope of success is to send for the physician in the early stages of the disease, before it is seated in the constitution. A religious life is represented by a race. But if the winner was not on the spot in season, and prepared to enter the lists at the commencement of the race, he could have no opportunity of winning the prize. He gives you the same encouragement in numerous examples of early piety.

What bright encomiums are passed on the conduct of Samuel and David of Obadiah and Isaiah-of Jeremiah and Timothy, because they began to fear the Lord in childhood and youth. Their history is recorded to convince you that God will bless you, if you early enibrace religion. He teaches you the same thing in

the form of direct instruction. His language to you is, "Remember now thy Creator, in the days of thy youth." You are to do it not only while young, but now, without delay or procrastination. He directs you, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." He teaches you that those who flourish in the courts of our God, are they who are planted in the house of the Lord, or who in the morning of life unite themselves to His Church. And in the text he gives you the gracious assurance that they who seek him early shall find him. These are only specimens of the customary language of the Scriptures. They show you how much God has done to persuade you now to commence a life of piety.

2. Youth is, for many reasons, incomparably the best time to seek your salvation. It is the season most free from the cares and anxieties of the world. Your parents now provide for your wants and take care of all your interests. An infinitely wise God has so ordered it in his providence that the season of childhood and youth should be comparatively a season of leisure, and it would seem for the very purpose of furnishing you, in the beginning of your days, the best and happiest opportunity of seeking his favor. He knew that this ought to be the first, as it is infinitely the most important business of life. He has left you therefore a vacant space, not filled up with other business, that it might be devoted to the great one of seeking eternal life. Now you have the best opportunity for reading and prayer, and for seeking God in religious retirement and meditation. If it passes away without improvement, a similar opportunity will never return. I know you fondly imagine that you shall enjoy a still more auspicious season, in manhood and old age. But go and ask those who are advanced in life, and they will tell you that they bitterly lament their having devoted their childhood and youth without securing their salvation. Your minds are now comparatively free from prejudice against the truth of God. The minds of the young are usually fair, and candid, and open to conviction. You have not yet been occupied in perverting the truth of God-in fortifying yourselves against its influence -in justifying your sins, and in persuading yourselves that it is safe to lead a life of impenitence. Your hearts are now less hardened in sin. They are, I well know, sinful by nature; yet the perpetration of sin has a singular and constant tendency to harden the heart. Especially is this true of sins against the clear knowledge of duty and the reproofs of conscience. Those who have grown old in impenitence, I need not say have continued much longer in the practice of sin. They have sinned much oftener, and against a fuller knowledge of their duty, and have more frequently violated the dictates of conscience. They have committed greater and more presumptuous sins. Their perverseness in sin has been far more obdurate. They have resisted more numerous and more solemn warnings-have turned a deaf ear to more invi

tations of mercy-have violated more solemn resolutions-have oftener perverted those means of grace, and far more dreadfully resisted the Holy Spirit. All these things have directly tended to stupify the conscience and harden the heart.

Though your hearts are by nature equally prone to sin with those of older sinners, you have not like them riveted the habit of sinning. Wicked men, as they advance in life, become so addicted to particular sins by indulgence, that there is no hope of reformation. Look at an old epicure, or miser-at an old libertine, or liar, or devotee of ambition, or at an old worldling of any other class, and you will see a man almost beyond the reach of mercy. It was the knowledge of this fact that led the prophet Jeremiah to ask the solemn and appalling question, "Can the Ethiopean change his skin or the leopard his spots? then may ye that are accustomed to do evil learn to do well." His sinful habits render the reformation of such a man exceedingly difficult, if not impossible.

If at any time he attempts to reform, he is so accustomed to yield to temptation that he violates all his resolutions and promises, and enters anew on the course of transgression. The man who would seek salvation with success, must thoroughly renounce all his sins and deny every lust. This is the stone over which such multitudes stumble and fall. There is not probably a man in this house who has not at some time or other sought reconciliation to God. Yet how few appear to be reconciled. The reason is, they cannot be brought to a thorough reformation. They are so wedded to their sinful indulgences, that they cannot consent entirely to renounce them.

The man who has thoroughly reformed his sinful practices, has advanced a most important step towards salvation. I need not tell you that it is very difficult to break off our sins, even in youth. But it is far more difficult in after life. How much easier to pluck up a tree by the roots when it is a tender sapling, than when it has stood for many years, and sent forth its roots deep and strong into the earth. Your minds also are now more tender and susceptible of deep and powerful impressions. As you advance in sin, your feelings will become more callous, and your unbelief more absolute and hopeless. Look at the aged sinner. The means of grace have been so long used that they have lost their efficacy. He has listened to the terrors of the law until they have ceased to alarm his fears to the invitations of the Gospel until they no longer rouse his hopes. His heart has become sermon-proof, and the love of a dying Savior no more melts him into tenderness. He has grown bolder in sin, and is less afraid of the wrath of God. Threatenings which once made him tremble, now pass by him like the idle wind. Truths which were once followed by conviction, now hardly excite a momentary attention. He has so often stifled convictions, that there is little prospect they will ever return. If they do, even, they will probably be faint and momentary.

But if persons are to seek salvation in earnest, their convictions

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