falvation." You must enter upon falvation now, or it is probable you never will. Weigh the arguments placed before you; if these cannot influence you at prefent, it is certain their impreffions will become weaker every day. Then think for a moment what is likely to be the confequence. That you must make your bed in everlasting forrows. God only can turn the heart from youthful pleasures and finful amusements and form it by his grace for his love and fervice, therefore be intreated to remember your creator in the days of your youth. The effectual grace of God in your repentance and converfion, fhould be improved by you as an irresistible

you to remember him.

argument to cause

This fubject will clofe with a few obfervations on the mo tives in our text employed to excite young people to this great duty, the remembrance of God and their Saviour. Remem ber," while the evil days come not nor the years draw nigh, "when they shall fay, I have no pleasure in them." By evil days is generally and rightly understood times of fickness, calamity, pains and death. Perform this duty, make your peace with your Maker, embrace the Redeemer, relinquish fin, and engage in the ways of piety in the prime of life. These things are to be done while you are young. They ought not to be postponed for a day. Evil days are fast hasting on, in which we will find no pleasure. God is long suffering and grants space for repentance. And it concerns all to attend to it immediately and prepare for their latter end. Old age will advance and thefe will be years of unpleafantnefs. relish any of the delights of fenfe.

Barzillai could not then There you will be loaded

with infirmities, palfies, pains and weaknesses of a thousand forms; your ftrength will become labour and forrow. We shall have then parted with the most of our dear friends and relations, and the refidue may have become wearied of us. This is a tormenting feeling. It is worse than the pangs of death, Wish not to be old, but wish to be good. Become

truly religions, then if you live you will live to the Lord, ❝and if you die you will die to the Lord, so that whether you live or die you will be the Lord's." Bleffed are the youth who are the favorites of heaven and united to Jefus. Confider how grofs the abfurdity, and how bafe the ingratitude, to give our strength and the flower ofour days to Satan, and to hope that God will accept the dregs and refufe of life. This will be offering the torn, the lame, and the fick for facrifice, which will farely be rejected. How can we expect God will support and comfort us in age, when we ferved him not while we were young. Precious was the experience of the Pfalmift when he could fay, "O God "thou hast taught me from my youth; now alfo when I am "old and grey-headed, forsake me not.”

An argument to enforce religion upon tender minds, is taken in frong figurative expreffions from the luminaries of heaven "While the fun, or the light, or and the clouds of the air. the moon, or the stars be not darkened, nor the clouds reAll these bright luminaries beturn after the rain." come dim to the aged, through failure of fight and all the powers of nature. Their understandings, memories and all their faculties fail. The beauty and pleasure of all these Then the clouds return after the things are paffed away. rain. No fooner is one cloud blown over than another fuc ceeds; thus the aged are no fooner relieved from one disease Their ailments and pain than they are feized with another.

are like a continual dropping in a rainy day. Let all thefe things be placed together to engage youth in an early atten tion to religion. The commandment of your bleeding Saviour is, "Seek first the kingdom of God and the righteousnek "thereof." And thofe that feek me early fhall find me. "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while "the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh when thou fhalt fay, 1 have no pleafure in them; while the fun, c. the light, or the moon, or the ftars be not darkened, nor the "clouds return after the rain."

Is it not a melancholy thought that any of you should perifh y

Is not the thought tranfporting that you should all enjoy the felicity and glories of heaven forever?

O that it might be a portion of my bliss to behold you in the celeftial world! That you might see me there as you now do in this facred defk, and that I might behold you in thefe happy regions, as I now behold you before me. Then blessed minifter-happy children--and eternally glorious youth.

SERMON IX.

How Youth may become Holy and Happy.

Pfa. cxix. 9. Wherewith fhall a young man cleanfe his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word.

THE holy fcriptures are the fource of all divine wisdom and faving knowledge to the children of men. They are profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for inftruction in righteoufnefs. They are of the most extenfive fpiritual ufe, containing all things neceffary for to know and believe concerning God, ourselves, the way of falvation for finners, and the graces, virtues and duties for acquiring the fame. They are perfectly calculated to difplay the character of God, the holinefs of the divine law, the evil and turpitude of fin, the recovery of finners through the atonement and interceffion of Chrift, the way of faith and obedience, and to rectify and reform what is amiss in the soul. So that the man of God or the true Christian may be thoroughly furnished for the per formance of every good work.

This excellent Pfalm fhining with peculiar luftre among

all

the Pfalms of David, principally confifts in praifes and ence miums on divine revelation. The Pfalmift here in the most perfuafive language recommends the great usefulness of the fcriptures, from his own example and the distinguished bleffings he had experienced in them. How often does he exprefs his most ardent defires, for a more intimate acquaintance with these precious oracles, and to be more conformed to their inftructions? "Deal with thy fervant according to thy mer"cies, and teach me thy ftatutes. I am thy fervant, give me "understanding that I may know thy teftimonies. O how I love thy law; it is my meditation all the day."

There is no less than ten words employed in this long Pfalm expreffive of the glories and advantages of divine revelation. And what is very remarkable, there is not a verfe in which one of these terms is not used, a very few excepted, yet they are fo placed and tranfpofed, that the most accurate reader feels no tedious repitition, but every phrase appears with beau ty and affords him the highest pleasure and delight.

It is filed God's law, becaufe the fcriptures are given by the fupreme and fovereign legiflator-his way, because they contain the order of his difpenfations, and the course of man's obedience-his commandments, because iffued by the most ab folute authority-his teftimonies, because attefted or witnessed to the world by the most irrefragable evidence-his precepts, because they are the prescriptions of heaven to man-his word, because they are the declarations of his will-his judgments, becaufe by them we fhall be judged-his righteoufness, because holy, juft and good, and the ftandard of perfect juftice-his ftatutes, becaufe fixed, immutable and of perpetual obligationhis truth, becaufe they are faithful fayings and founded on principles of eternal verity.

Now thefe oracles which are defcribed in fuch a variety of