prayer: seeing that He has been thus graciously pleased to "perfect praise even out of the mouths of babes and sucklings."

Besides, when we consider the unspeakably blessed consequences which ensue to the individual in after life, from an early consecration of himself to the service of his God and Saviour, this furnishes us with another powerful incentive to youthful piety. For oh, what a multiplicity of temptations and dangers, both temporal and spiritual, do they escape, who are early restrained by Divine Grace from yielding to the dominion of their headstrong passions! What unutterable misery, both of body and soul, do they avoid, who are withheld by the "Fear of the Lord," from plunging into that vortex of fashionable dissipation in which the youth of both sexes are, for the most part, immersed immediately on their entrance into life! What a beneficial effect has it upon the human mind, to be early habituated to that voluntary discipline and self-denial, which nothing but a deep sense of religion, proceeding from faith in the Gospel of the Son of God, is able to produce! And how much more likely are those young persons to make themselves respected even in this world, and to "increase in the favour of man as well as God," who are accustomed to reverence their Bible, to take it as their rule of life, and to submit

in all things to be guided by its holy precepts and maxims of Heavenly wisdom!

Such young persons may frequently say with the Psalmist, "I have more understanding than my teachers, for Thy testimonies are my meditation."

"I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Thy precepts." Truly does the Prophet Jeremiah affirm, "It is good for a man thus to bear the yoke in his youth!" While others are running their headlong career to everlasting destruction, laying up for themselves a certain store of remorse and wretchedness, and filling up a long black catalogue of crimes, which will at length sink their souls into the bottomless pit; they who are thus early in life led by grace to “fear God and keep His commandments," are, like the blessed Jesus Himself, "growing in wisdom as they grow in stature." Such "flowers offered in the bud, are no vain sacrifice," they are indeed plants of righteousness in the Lord's house, "rooted and grounded in Immanuel's love." They are true "children of grace," nourished from infancy in the bosom of the Saviour, with the "sincere milk of His Word; growing from grace to grace, and from strength to strength," and gratefully dedicating to their Creator the first fruits of their faculties and affections:

"Thus they're prepar❜d for longer days,
Or fit for early death.”

Of them it may be truly said, that "whether they live, they live unto the Lord, or whether they die, they die unto the Lord, so that, whether living or dying, they are the Lord's."

While other young persons learn to lie, to steal, to blaspheme, to be undutiful, to give place, without respect of consequences, to every impure and malignant passion, and thus grow up with the curse of Almighty God upon their souls, to be perhaps the pests of society, the shame and disgrace of their parents-The children of grace, on the contrary, learn betimes to "search the Scriptures," to hold communion with their God in prayer, and to take pleasure in those things which please Him and render them meet for an entrance into His heavenly kingdom. Habits of religion thus formed in youth, grow easier with advancing years. What at first seemed irksome, soon becomes delightful. "The ways of religion do indeed appear ways of pleasantness, and its paths the paths of peace" to those who are early habituated to walk in them. And the inward satisfaction and peace of mind which the young Christian experiences in the road of duty, abundantly compensate him for the loss of those vain pleasures and sensual gratifications which he has renounced in obedience to his Bible.

May the Lord of His infinite mercy incline your souls, my Dear Young Brethren, to profit by what has been said, and early in life to seek Him with

your whole heart.

"Now is the accepted time,

Behold," saith the

now is the day of salvation."

blessed Jesus, "I stand at the door and knock,

if any man will open unto Me I will come in and sup with him, and he with Me."

But if you will not hearken to these solemn warnings; if you obstinately persist in turning a deaf ear to these gracious and oft-repeated invitations of your God and Saviour-be assured that the time will come, either in this world or the next, when you will bitterly bewail your depraved infatuation, and exclaim with unavailing anguish, "How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof! I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ears to them that instructed me!"

Now to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, &c.

SERMON XIV.

THE EXCEEDING GREATNESS OF THE
CHRISTIAN'S PRIVILEGES.

1 CORINTHIANS III. part of 21st and following

verses.

-All things are yours. Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's.

IT is a lamentable proof, my Christian Brethren, of the weakness of our faith, that we, for the most part, live so far below our privileges. For that the privileges of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ must be unspeakably glorious, is manifest from various considerations.

First, the simple fact that the adorable Son of God took our fallen nature upon Him, and laid down His life, amidst such complicated sufferings,