TO EMBRACE RELIGION. 343 blessing; you have no hope of glory; no interest in God; no place in heaven. You insult the Most High, who bids you to seek him today. You are ungrateful to his beloved Son, who did not delay to come and die for wretched men, when the appointed time arrived. § 3. Consider also that many. are eternally shut out of heaven, and eternally shut up in hell, through delaying to turn to God. Some years back, I repeatedly visited an aged man, who was ill. He had spent nearly fourscore years without God in the world; but then professed penitence. He unexpectedly grew better, and a little space was added to his life; but apparently added in vain. When his health was restored, he seemed to serve the same hard master again, as he had always served. But illness soon returned; and it was understood that he died miserably. I knew another person, that seemed much in earnest in inquiring for spiritual blessings; but, ah, delay! after a time he grew careless. God now visited him with a painful affliction. I saw him at that time; he seemed sensible of his sin and folly, and penitent for it. At length divine mercy favoured him once more with health; but when health returned, the serious impressions of illness, fled away. Again he grew careless of his God. Again he delayed; but, ah! not for a long period: illness soon returned. His soul was filled with distress and misery, and death summoned the unhappy criminal to the bar of his God. Shall I relate an. other anecdote? A young person called upon an aged man, ill, and hastening to the grave; the youth spoke of the blessed Saviour and the precious gospel: for a few minutes he listened 344 WICKEDNESS AND INGRATITUDE with serious attention, then burst into a flood of tears, and exclaimed, Ah! my young friend, had I thought on these things thirty or forty years ago, what a happy man might I now have been, but now (wringing his hands) it is too late; hell must be my portion for ever." "And shall I say, "Tis yet too soon To seek for heaven, or think of death?" Despise the gracious calls of Heaven, And never have repentance given.” § 4. The word of the Most High says, "Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts;" and that is a most important question, "Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My Father, thou art the guide of my youth?" Can you, will you, hesitate to say, "Great God, thou shalt be the guide of mine ?" What! hesitate whether to seek God as your Father, or to have no interest in him! What! hesitate whether Christ shall be your Saviour, or Satan your tormentor! whether heaven or hell shall be your inheritance! whether angels or devils shall be your companions! If you will delay, consider well what you are about. Try if you can make a memorandum to this effect: "That, having weighed the importance of true religion, you yet resolve to pay it no attention at present; -that you resolve, for some years more, to plunge deeper and deeper in the service of the devil; that though your present path conducts to hell, yet that you will not so soon leave the way to hell for that to heaven; that, though living every day on the goodness of God, you resolve to spend at least some years more in insulting him, in forgetting his love, in abusing his mercies, and in tempting him to cut you down as a cumberer of the ground, to send you to perdition; - that though the blood of the Saviour was shed to redeem you, yet that you will spend some years more in all manner of ingratitude to him, and in doing what you can to defeat the end for which he died; and that having done all this till, if God spare you, all the best and prime of life is past, that you will then profess to forsake these evil ways; will declare that you are very sorry for what you have so wilfully done; and that you then will offer to God the wretched dregs of a life spent in serving the devil." Could you commit to writing such horrid resolutions as these? If you could not, O! do not, by your actions what you would not profess by your words; for, remember that "actions speak louder than words.” § 5. Rather be persuaded this day to cast yourself at the Saviour's feet. Happy then would this day be to you. Happy would be this year. Happy is the day to the condemned criminal, in which he finds forgiveness; but happier far would be the day to you, that brought you to the blessed Jesus for mercy and life; that led you to him for deliverance from all your soul destroying sins. Inexpressibly happy would be the day to you, in which God received you as his child, in which Christ and heaven became your own. 0! if this day you would, in sincerity, cry to God, My Father, thou art the guide of my youth;" if you would this day look to the Lamb of God, and commit your soul to his care; long would 346 of HAPPY CONSEQUENCES OF it be a memorable day to you; you might re. member it with pleasure on a sick-bed, in your dying hour, and in the eternal world. Then, at some future period of life, you might say, "Alas! I gave my youth to the world, to sin, and folly, for too many sinful years! But, O! I remember the day when God turned my feet into the paths peace. Blessed day! it has been the source of a thousand comforts to me. I was a poor, thoughtless creature, but God met with me, and pitied my dying soul." If this, or any other little volume like this, were made the means of awakening your mind, you might have to add, "With a careless heart I began to read even of those things which belonged to my everlasting peace; blessed be the name of the Lord that I laid the book down with feelings so different from those with which I took it up." the O, be persuaded now to yield yourself to God; and then next new-year's-day shall find you walking in the way to heaven, or landed there. In either case, how blessed a change would the grace of God have made in your condition! Should you be spared for future years, how happy an alteration would it be, though you began year in sin, long ere it ended, to have found forgiveness for all your sins;-though you began it a child of wrath, before it ended to be a child of God;-though you began it without any part in one spiritual blessing, ere it ended, to be able to say, "God and all his love, Christ and all the riches of his grace, and all the sweet promises of Scripture, and all the glories of heaven, are mine!" But, perhaps, before even this year shall conclude, your mortal course may finish. If it should do so, and none can tell that it will not, IMMEDIATELY RECEIVING CHRIST. 347 how infinitely important is it for you, without an hour's delay, to flee to Christ; for then, how happy a year would even this, though your last year, be to you! How changed next new-year's-day would your state then appear! O, happy change! to have begun the year on earth, and ended it in heaven; -to have begun it with man, and ended it with God;-to have begun it unacquainted with the ways of peace, and ere the year concluded, to have found the way, have fought the battle, and received the prize; to have begun it a thoughtless, prayerless creature; and, before it ended, to have learned to commune with God below, and to have begun communion with him above; to have begun it far from peace, and Christ, and heaven; and, ere it ended, to have found salvation, and to be a companion of angels and saints in the regions of glory. May the God of all grace make you, from this hour, a child of his own, in and through Christ the Lord! Amen -- CHAPTER XXIII. BRIEF ADDRESSES TO SEVERAL CLASSES OF PERSONS; AND A FEW DIRECTIONS TO THE YOUNG CHRISTIAN. TO THE IRRELIGIOUS CHILDREN OF PIOUS PARENTS. § 1. My young friends, much of what has been here said to all, applies with peculiar force to you. You have peculiar privileges; and your youthful sins are proportionably greater and heavier than those of others. God has laid you under especial obligations to live to him; and, if you perish, your ruin will be far more dread |