will become stale and wearisome as an oft-told tale; till they listen with indifference, or listen not at all, to the entreaties of the blessed Lord, who waits even now without, while they delay to open. Then if it should be, as it may not be, that they live out the common term of life, it will be only to fill up the measure of their sin, and the vial of wrath to be poured out upon them. "Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." "All things are ready, come ye to the supper." There never can be a time when all is so ready, so suitable, so inviting. The church has taught you, prayed for you, blessed you, expects you. Your understanding has been enlightened, and your heart affected, and your conscience moved, to acknowledge the claims of God upon you, and all the workings of his mercy towards you. And He -if there can be supposed a time when the gift of a heart is more acceptable to him than at any other, it is, it must be before that heart is seventimes dyed with habits of corruption; is used and worn, and indurated in a baser service. Yes, if there is a time above every time when Jesus is ready, it is now. Go up to his feastGo while your heart is warm, and your impressions fresh, and your desires strong. Do not wait to be sure you shall not change your mind, shall not break your vows, and so incur the threatened condemnation. If you give not yourself to Christ, and keep not your mind to follow him, you are perjured already, and condemned already; for you have taken upon you the most solemn obligation so to do. Go as you are go with what you have-take your untried affections, your vacillating desires, your scarcely formed resolutions-lay them upon his altar, and tell him it is all you have. Remember the two mites that only made a farthingbut she had no more, and so they were enough. You know not yet how little that blessed master will accept from those who do what they can:-how small the grain of mustard-seed is which he acknowledges, and blesses the future germ of faith; and sets himself, loving and tender and most faithful husbandman, to nurture, and cherish, and protect the feeble thing; nay, does become himself its life, indissoluble, indestructible, eternal. Go up, and say to him that you do not know if it be so with you or not, but that you wish it were: you are not sure if you will give yourself to him, but you wish that he would take you. Entreat him to it by his body and blood that will be exhibited before you in a figure; by his cross and passion that you will celebrate; by the anguish of his soul on that last evening; by the sympathies of his manhood at that last supper; by the power of his godhead now upon the throne, beseech him, and beseech the Father through him, and for these things' sake; and beseech him to beseech the Father too, that you go not empty away, that you return not as ignorant, as undecided, as uncertain of your own disposition as you came: that you may know indeed, and feel indeed, and manifest before all men, the growing, acting, fructifying vitality of that faith, into which you were baptized, and by your own choice professed. If he hear you, and when did he not hear, though it was but a believing sigh, I cannot tell you what you will have gained. It was easy to tell you what you risked, by delaying to devote yourself to God; but I cannot -for I have not learned it all, and what I know, I have not language to communicate-I cannot tell you all that you will gain by this early devotion of yourself to God, and immediate entrance on the path of life. Some sacrifices, it is true, there are to make, but they are far less now, than they will be by and by. It is not so hard to leave a stranger, whom we have but just now made acquaintance with, as a long familiar, fascinating friend. You know it is not so hard to leave a place, however charming, where you have passed but a single night, as one in which you have made yourself a home, and become attached to every thing around you. If any body tells you that by becoming religious, and separating from the world when young, you make a greater sacrifice, and relinquish a greater enjoyment than if you partake of its pleasures till you are tired, and give yourself to God when the delights of youth and novelty are over, they tell you falsely. The world has pleasures-for the worldly: sin has pleasures-for the sinful: but neither sin nor the world has any pleasures for the godly. Youth and a religious education may have prevented you hitherto from being, in respect of habit, either worldly or sinful; and if you renounce them now, those fictitious pleasures will have no charm or attraction in your future life. Intoxication has its pleasures, as is sufficiently proved by the difficulty which is found in relinquishing it after frequent indulgence, and the ruin which men knowingly incur for the enjoyment of it. But do you think the youth who turns with disgust from the taste of spirits, loses an opportunity of enjoyment through his ignorance? O no-you do not think soand if you should see a young brother preparing to take the first spirituous draught, you would dash it from his lips, lest he should learn to love it. You may go into the world-we would not deceive you, and if you take your unregenerate nature with you, for every guilty pleasure that you find without, you will find a guilty taste within, and for every vanity a vain desire, and for every forbidden object a forbidden wish, and for every hurtful thing a hurtful lust: and they will all grow stronger on the food that suits them, and more importunate to renew the feast; till what is at first the zest of novelty, will presently become the necessity of habit. Then, if by the grace of God, in recollection of your first impressions, you return again to the point at which you now hesitate, and resolve to take up the profession of godliness you now refuse, mundane affections will so have wound their tortuous folds about you, there will be some tie to break, some sympathy to forego, some interest to sacrifice at every step-perhaps to pour a bitter into the sweetest offices of love, and bring even duty and conscience into perpetual collision; all which might have been avoided, had you formed your early associations where they will grow on to eternity, under the blessing of the Most High. Yea-fly them as you will, and make what sacrifices you can, there are those among your first associations that will come after you, pursue you to the sanctuary, kneel by you at the altar, shame you by their base companionship in presence of your Lord, and mingle pollution with your purest joys. Be sure the images of by-gone sins will come; unholy thoughts, inveterate habits, incautious language; not a day will pass, but the pure Spirit within you will be grieved, and your own peace disturbed, by the forcible entry of these sometime-encouraged inmates of your bosom, till you cry out as St. Paul did, under a similar conflict, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death!" Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, it can be done, and by his most gracious undertaking is done-but how much more pleasing is the task to him, how much less |
