a pure

of those who afpire to the fociety of the bleffed in Heaven among whom reigns only and eternal love?-Are the present rapid moments of our probation, ftamping their impreffion upon our everlasting deftiny? Is every inftant preparing for us new flames below, or new scenes of felicity and honor above? What diligence and fervency fhould these confiderations add to every act of duty! Will fincere piety raise a worm of duft to immortal glory? How holy ought we to be in all manner of life and converiation!

Finally, religion proposes to us ftrong additional motives to duty, drawn from the mercy of God in the redemption of the world. They merit an ample illuftration, but I can only glance at them in the most hafty manner.

On this fubject, reason and philosophy afford us no aid. The gofpel alone is able to point out the way in which finners can have access to their Maker and their judge offended by their crimes, and conftrained, if I may speak fo, by the perfection of his nature, to punish their guilt. It reveals to us

the love of God in the richest and most aftonishing act of mercy that was ever displayed to the universe.-Could I draw afide the veil from the dreadful picture of human guilt, or present to your view the catalogue of our innumerable crimes, I might convey fome idea of the infinite grace that was pleased to forego the rights of his juftice on man, and to divert its awful thunders to the head of his beloved Son. Could I pluck off the covering from Hell, and difclofe its tremen dous prisons, the deftined abodes of the guilty-could I unfold the gates of Heaven and pour upon your fight the effulgence of that glory that eye hath not feen, neither hath ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, but which is reserved for those who are redeemed by the precious blood of Chrift, I might enable you to conceive the boundless obligations impofed upon us by

his love.

But the most illuftrious proof of his love is feen in himself-in his birth-in his life-s and, above all, in his death, when he bore our fins in his own body on the tree.-Young man!-O young man, immerfed in plea

fure! devoted to thy own enjoyments! forgetful of thy Creator, and thy duty! Look on the Saviour of the world! Can there be a more powerful and perfuafive argument to repentance than the love of him who hath loved thee to the death? Look on the cruel altar of the cross on which he was made a victim for those fins by which thou art profaning his love! In the view of thofe bitter fufferings he endured for thce, can't thou repeat the crimes for which he died! -Hear the voice of divine mercy calling to thee from the Heavens! Liften to the interefting voice that it utters from the cross! Hear the cry of that precious blood that ftreams from his fide, and, calling from the earth, fpeaketh better things than the blood of Abel! Ah! what motives can touch thee if thou art infenfible to thefe? What perfuafions can reach the hardness of age if thefe are ineffectual on the tenderness and fufceptibility of youth! The whole compafs of nature cannot furnish arguments to duty, or admonitions against fin equally interefting and ftrong.-Wherewith fhall a young man cleanfe his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word.

Having trefpaffed already on your time, I fhall circumfcribe within a narrow compafs the fingle reflection with which I defign to conclude this discourse.

The fubject, to the illuftration of which you have attended, recommends to your most diligent study, and your most affectionate esteem this facred volume from which we derive truths of the highest importance to the tranquility of our own breafts, to the peace and order of fociety, to the dignity and perfection of human nature, and to our eternal happiness. I fpeak of it now as containing something more than the most perfect rule of virtue that was ever delivered to the world-I fpeak of it as embracing the richest treafures of our knowledge, and the nobleft fources of our confolation. If we confider the dubious and difcordant fentiments of human reafon with regard to the existence and perfections of the deity— the means by which the guilty may obtain the forgiveness of fins-the law of our duty -the nature and the certainty of another and a better life, how precious to us fhould be this fyftem of holy inspiration that refolves these afflicting doubts, and fheds a divine Ff

and fatisfactory evidence on fubjects the most interesting that can be offered to the reflections, or the hopes of mankind! A fanatical spirit of impiety under the abufed name of philofophy has rifen up perverfely and presumptuously to call in queftion truths fo facred and confolatory to miferable mortals. Pert and falfe wit, ignorant youth, and, in an age in which no extravagance is ftrange, even coarse and illiterate debauchery, venture to hold in derifion the belief, the hope, and confolation of the beft and wifeft men who have ever lived. Chriftians! in proportion to the madness and folly that are defperate enough to fet at naught the power and the wifdom of God, fhould be your adherence to that divine word in which they are fo gloriously displayed. How blind and erring would be our footsteps through life if they were not directed by divine truth! What a profound and fearful darkness would reft upon the grave if we were not enabled, by this heavenly light, to penetrate beyond it to a bleffed immortality! Let the facred fcriptures, therefore, be the fubject of our daily and pious meditation. Let not the cavils of ignorant men, nor the infults of fools