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the world, and to take up your cross. What obligations are you under, then, to him! You especially, who are early devoting yourselves to him, how many evils will you escape, how many blessings you enjoy! To begin the morning of life with God, is the way to have a most prosperous day and a serene evening. You may, therefore, look forward with pleasure; and when arrived at the end of your journey, look back without dismay. In life, through life, at the close of life, and when time shall be no more, all shall be well with you. Be grateful for discriminating favor: how many of the young are ruining their constitutions, wasting their estates, prostituting their powers, and bringing inevitable destruction upon their souls, while you have been led by a gracious Friend to take a different course! Ah! you are called to peace, to holiness, to honor, to glory, while others are sinking into perdition. Will you not, then, be grateful?

Learn also to be docile and humble. Others, who have been long in the way, confess that they know but little; yea, the wise are complaining of their ignorance. And what then can you know? Freely acknowledge your ignorance, and be not above asking instruction from your superiors. Sit down at the feet of others, and you shall be saved from many unhappy circumstances which those have been involv ed in, who chose rather to follow the dictates of their own rashness and inexperience than the wise directions of the intelligent and experienced Christian.

Follow too the footsteps of the flock; beware of novelty and curiosity in divine things. There are meteors in the religious world as well as the natural; but he who follows them is likely to be led astray. The light of the sun, which is more steady, permanent, and useful, ought to be preferred to those lights which are only conspicuous because they are surrounded with darkness. Revelation must be your guide, and not the novel opinions and strange sentiments of those who love to be singular, and who show more pride than grace by differing from all others. Above all, implore the Spirit of grace, that you may still go forward, increasing in knowledge and grace even unto the end.

You are not without encourgement; yea, it is somewhat remarkable that a great number of promises are made to the weak and young of Christ's fold. He gave a special commission that his lambs should be fed. It was prophesied of him, that he would not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax, but that he should take the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom. Ministers are commanded to speak comfortably to them, and to treat them with the utmost tenderness. Is. xlii. 3, Is. xl. 11, Is. xxxv. 3, 4, Jo. xxi. 15.

Perhaps you may complain; you may be ready to say, “Ah! I have but little if any light. My mind is very contracted, my corruptions I find to be very powerful. The enemy I fear will be too much for me. I am ready to sink under a sense of my un

worthiness. And what if I should prove an apostate at last? What if I should sin against light and knowledge, and, like Judas, betray him whom I profess to love, and thus plunge myself into misery!" Should this be your language, consider that the great Shepherd of his sheep has engaged to keep and guide safe through. "None," he hath said, "shall pluck them out of his hand." 1 Pet. i. 4. Your feeling thus is evidence of life, and life shall not be destroyed by a kind parent, though it may be scarcely discernable. Go forward, therefore; you shall have the prayers of the saints, the attendance of angels, and the compassion of God.

Let us all learn to bear with the infirmities, sympathize with the state, and direct the steps of the weak and feeble. They have too many discouragements of their own to have others thrown upon them by those who are engaged in the same cause and have the same object in view. The voice of nature says, treat the young with tenderness and care. The voice of reason joins, and says, the strong ought to help the weak: and the voice of Scripture loudly proclaims, "Him that is weak in the faith receive ye; he shall be holden up, for God is able to make him stand." Rom. xiv. 1, 4.

CHAPTER IV.

THE EXPERIENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN IN MIDDLE AGE.

The

It was observed by the great apostle Paul, that when he was a child, he spake as a child, he understood as a child, he thought as a child; but when he became a man, he put away childish things. 1 Cor. xiii. 11. This is not less true in a spiritual than in a literal sense. There are childish things belonging to the young Christian, which, though they claim. our indulgence, yet are not pleasing, and which a Christian of riper years is taught to renounce. frivolities of children are not practised by the middle ⚫aged, nor are their imaginations deceived, nor their judgment so easily imposed on, as those who have seen and known but little of human life and of Christian experience. As the Christian advances, the dignity of his character appears; and when he has passed the first stage of life, we may consider him as possessing wisdom and experience. He has now felt the consequence of listening to the dictates of ignorance or of vanity, and of following the many rash guides who have pretended to be his friends. He is now enabled to unite prudence with his zeal,

and deliberation with his knowledge. Humility, steadfastness, order, wisdom, and vigilance distinguish and adorn his character. He is no more a child, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine: his heart is established with grace. What Hosea predicted of Israel may be verified in his experience: "He grows as the lily, and casts forth his roots as Lebanon." Hos. xiv. 5, 6. There is not merely a beauty as in the lily, but strength as in the cedar. Storms can not easily shake him, being rooted and built up in Christ. Things called new, alluring, and wonderful strike not his senses with the same force as formerly. He does not run backward and forward agitated at every strange event, nor is he carried away by the stream of popular opinion. In fact, we now see the Christian in this state no longer as the babe, the novice, the curious, or the volatile. It is the man of nerve, of judgment, of discretion and dependence; one who has renounced his own will to follow the will of God, who makes the word of God his rule, and the glory of God his end; who has seen enough of the world to wean him from it, and so much of the divine favor, as to convince him there can be no happiness with

out it.

There are some particulars, however, which more especially belong to the Christian at this period of life, which we shall now consider.

And, first, we may observe, that it is a time of serious reflection as to what is past, and of solemn

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