Chapter 111.

Containing ferious advice to youth,

PART I

1. CHUSE

SE God for your portion: remember that he is the only happiness of a rational and immortal foul. The foul that was made for God can find no happiness but in God: it came from God, and can never be happy but by returning to him again, and refting in him, Mic. ii. 10. Arife for this is not your reft. Col. iii. 1, 2, 3, If ye then be rifen with Chrift feek thofe things which are above, where Chrift fitteth on the right hand of God: fet your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Chrift in God.

God is all fufficient; get him for your portion and you have all: then you have infinite wifdom to direct you, infinite knowledge to teach you, infinite mercy to pity and fave you, infinite love to care for and comfort you, and infinite power to protect and keep you. If God be yours, all his attributes are yours; all his creatures, all his works of providence, fhall do you good, as you have need of them. He is an eternal, full, fatisfactory portion. He is an ever-living, everloving, ever-prefent friend; and without him you are a curfed creature in every condition, and all things will work against you.

2. Confider, that by nature you are dead in trefpaffes and fins; a child of wrath, a ftranger and an enemy to God; and while fuch, the tho'ts of God are terrible to you; you can ex

pect nothing from him but wrath and everlating burnings. God is ever angry with the wicked his holinefs hates all fin; his all feeing eye beholds it, and his juftice will punish it.

While you are in a ftate of nature you can do nothing but fin, Gen. vi. 5. Matth. vii. 18, Every thing is a snare, and a wicked heart is apt to be taken. Labour to be fenfible of this, and let the finfulness of your nature be your greatest burden. Strive and labor against this principally. Get purity of heart and a holy life will fol low upon it but if you ftrive only against outward acts of fin, while your heart is let alone, your labor will be in vain, your heart will tire you out; or if it doth not, yet remember, that God's eye is in the heart, and he hath provided a hell for hypocrites. Nothing more damnable than a wicked unrenewed heart.

Sanctifica

3. Confider, that Chrift alone is your way to God. Juftification, pardon, and acceptance with God, is by faith in him alone. tion, and a new nature, is by the power of his spirit alone. Let Chrift therefore be precious to your foul. Labour for true faith in him. Take him for your Lord and Saviour; fubmit to his commands in all things; and reft your foul upon him alone for reconciliation and peace with God. Open your heart to the motions of his fpirit; welcome that principle of a holy and divine life, and be fure to improve his motions, follow his drawings, and by no means grieve him.

4. Be fpeedy in your repentance, and diligent in your endeavors after holinefs. Know the

E

time of God's gracious vifitation. While God is calling, Chrift inviting, the gate of heaven fet open, the minifters of the word exhorting, and the fpirit drawing, make hafte and delay not.

Confider your life is but 'fhort, and altogether uncertain. To defer one day may be to your everlafling undoing. When your life is once gone it will be in vain to think of repent ing. You fhall then have no more fermons, nợ more offers of Chrift and grace, Heb. ix. 27, God will be patient no more. And if God

Thould take away your life to morrow, you would perifh inexcufably for refufing his grace to day. One offer of grace refufed renders a finner inexcufable, though God fhould never offer his mercy more. O, trifle not with your foul! Be not carelefs of eternal happiness. You have heaven and hell, life and death before you and it depends upon your own hearty choice which fhall be your portion; and they are chofen by the choice of the way which leads to them. Chufe life, and chufe it fpeedily, and remember once again, that you have but one life to chufe in. Trifle not away this moment, upon which depends eternity. Mifpend not your fhort time to your eternal lofs.

Stand not upon a fhort labor, difficulty, felfdenial, or fuffering, for your eternal happiness. 'God would have you faved; Chrift hath died for you to reconcile you to God; he is afcended into heaven to open a door for your foul to enter in at, and he is interceding with the Father for all grace and mercy for you,- if you refufe

him not.

He came into the world to feek and

to fave that which is loft, Luke xix. 10. Be fenfible of your finful, loft, damnable condition, without him. O! make hafte to your faviour, yield to all his demands, and take him as offered in the gospel, in all his offices.

5. Endeavor to be truly and thoroughly reli gious, and be not discouraged at the difficulties of it. God's grace fhall be fufficient for your help; his promifes, fhall be your sweet encou ragement; peace of confcience, and communi, on with God, fhall be your ever prefent cordials. The trouble and Pains of Religion fhall be but fhort, and your reward fhall be glorious and éternal Remember that of the apoftle, when religion calls you to felf-denial and fufferings, our light afflictions that are but for a moment fhall work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 2 Cor. iv. 17. If we fuffer with Christ we shall alfo reign with him, 2. Tim. ii. 12. And the fufferings of this prefent life are not worthy to be compared with the glory which fhall be revealed, Rom. viii. 18, See alfo, Ifa. xliii. 2, 3, When thou paffeft through the waters I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they fhall not overflow thee; when thou walkeft through the fire thou shalt not be burnt, neither fall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the holy one of Ifrael, thy faviour. Never are we more joyful than when we deny our joy for Chrift's fake! And ifthese arguments will not prevail, then confider, that all the pains and difficulties of religion will be found in the end far more tolerable than hell.

6. Devote your young years to a good God and your loving faviour. The firft fruits are to

be offered to him. youth are to be carried to his fan&tuary. Think it not pity that the vain delights and finful pleafures of youth fhould be loft: you shall but exchange them for fpiritual delights, which are far more excellent, inward and lafting. The joy of the Holy Ghoft, the rejoicing of a good confcience, communion with God, the fenfe of his love, and the hope of heaven, are far better than the pleasures of fin, and will more than recompenfe your lofs of youthful and carnal delights. And confider this seriously, that none have ufually more comfort in their fouls than thofe, who are willing to lofe their finful comforts for God and their foul's fake.

The green ears of your

Remember that you must give an account to God how you spend your youth, as well as for old age. Confider, as young as you are, how many years are already spent ; and what account you are able to give to God of them. One day fpent in fin is too much; and the fins of one hour deferve a hell. Younger than you are dead and gone. Let the thoughts of them mind you feriously of your account. Your call to God's bar may be next. Are you ready? Think of. ten what expence of time may be beft accounted for to God; and to spend your younger days, as you will with you had spent them when you come to die and be judged.

Suppofe God fhould call you away fuddenly, what fentence could you expect from him? Are you ready, ifthe bridegroom fhould now come? Matth. xxv. 6. It will be no excufe at judgment be found in your fins, to say, Lord, I was but young. He that is old enough to fin is

if

you