ought most seriously to apply. You love many days, that you may fee good. But how many foever your days may be, they will all pafs away, and the laft of them will come. You cannot then fee good, unless you now take up, and carry along with you, into that period, fomething better than the world can give; for the world, however liberal it may seem for a while, will then take back all its former gifts.

The best thing, which you can then have to comfort and refresh you, is the remembrance of early piety, and a consciousness of a patient continuance in well doing. If you wish to have this confolation at that time, a pious life must be your choice now. This will, on many accounts, be your best support.

1. Early religion will prevent many evils, which would be a torment in old age.

If you now are determined to caft off the great concerns of religion, and to walk in your own ways, and in the fight of your own eyes, be affured, that bitter things are written against you, and that your old age will fadly poffefs the fins of your youth in pains of body, remorfe of confcience, and the terrors of wrath to come; or, which is worfe than all, in a ftupidity of mind, which, though it may render you paft feeling for a season, will make your deftruction more certain and more awful.

And befides the evils which await you, there are mischiefs incalculable and inconceivable, which you are bringing on others; and efpecially on those with whom you most frequently affociate. Many will be feduced into vice by your vain con verfation-many will be corrupted in their manners by your ungodly example-many will be hardened in guilt by your profane contempt of re

ligion. And these will be influential in feducing, corrupting and hardening many more. There is no poffibility of foreseeing how long the evil may continue, how far it may run on, and how widely it may spread around, after it has once been put in motion. "One finner destroys much good."

Now suppose you should live to old age, and in that folemn period fhould feel a ferious fense of the judgment before you; will it not be painful to reflect on fuch a life as has been defcribed? It will then be too late to recall the evils which you have done. They who commenced the journey of life in your company, will generally have finifhed their courfe, and paffed to the judgment. The few who are left, will be placed at a distance from you. They will be out of the reach of your counfel and admoniton: or if you can speak to fome of them, perhaps they will, by this time, have become too infenfible to feel, and too obstinate to follow your good advice.

In this ftage of life, you will probably fee families, which sprang from you, and which, in confequence of your example, live, as you have done, without religion, without the fear of God, without regard to his worship. In a few days you muft go to anfwer before God for your own perfonal conduct, and for the important truft committed to you. What anfwer will you be prepared to give? In the perplexity of conscious guilt, from what fource will you derive comfort? God demands from you the fervice of your youth; if you will not give him this; behold, you have finned against him; and be fure your fin will find you out.

2. Early piety will render you inftruments of much good in the world. Your zeal and forwardnefs in religion will provoke very many. And,

in the time of old age, will it not be a pleasing reflection, that you have not lived in vain; but, according to your ability, have brought honor to God's name, and done good to mankind? That by your youthful example you have encouraged fome of your fellow youths to forfake the foolish and live, and to go in the way of understanding; to feek unto God betimes, before their hearts were hardened through the deceitfulness of fin; to come forward with an open profeffion of religion, and to walk agreeably to the religion, which they profefs? Will it not be a pleasure to think that thefe pious youths, animated by your example, have extended and spread among others the good, which you began; and that there are, within your knowledge, many pious and virtuous people, who perhaps might have continued and perished in their guilty courfe, if you, like fome, had lived in the contempt of religion, and in the neglect of your falvation? And if you should have pofterity, who may live on earth after you are gone, will it not be a great confolation and joy to fee them walking in the truth, maintaining religion in their houfes, promoting peace and virtue in fociety, and spreading among their neighbors, and handing over to their fucceflors the pious fen timents, which they received from you? Or whatever may be their conduct, will it not be a folace to your minds to reflect, that you have faithfully difcharged your duty to them, have seasonably inftructed them in the truth, and have affectionately exhorted them to a holy life, and to appeal to God and them, as witneffes how holily and juftly and unblameably you have behaved yourfelves among them?

3d. Early religion will be a comfort to your old age, because it will be attended with a con

sciousness, that you have approved yourselves to God.

Religion, you know, is a fervice due to God. And if it be due to him at all, it is as really due in youth, as in old age. If you neglect it while you are young, you as impiously defraud and rob God, as if you should neglect it when you become old; for you are as much God's creatures, as dependent on him for happiness, and as accountable to him for your conduct now, as you will be then. If there be any fervice which you owe to God, the obligation commences with your intellectual capacity, and continues through all stages of life; and you can no more plead an exemption from it at one time, than at another.

Now if you should live in the neglect of religion until old age invades you, and fhould at that time retain any moral and intellectual fenfibility, you muft condemn yourselves for having wafted your best days in folly and vice, and referved for God the poorest and most useless part of life-that part in which you are leaft able to ferve him and do good to mankind. This will be like offering the blind, the lame and the torn for facrifice. And furely you may well be afraid, that fuch an offering will not be accepted at your hands. If after a life of impiety, you should be fo happy in the laft ftage of your mortal exiftence, as to exercife a fincere repentance, yet how painful must this be? The iniquities of a long life will stand in order before you. The matter of your repentance will be, not mere infirmities, or accidental offences, but an habitual course of wickednefs from your earlieft youth to that fad hour. How awfully will you have filled up the measure of your fins; what remorfe and anguifh will feize your minds; how will your hope tremble, when it attempts to lay hold on mercy

?

To those who seek God early there are many encouraging promifes. But what promife will you find for fuch as refuse to seek him until they are old? These have loft the benefit of all the encouragements given peculiarly to youth; for they have gone beyond this period. Their hopes muft now reft on more general declarations of God's mercy.

But how pleasant may be the laft stage of life to him who can look back and fay, "Thou, O God, art my hope, and my truft from my youth. Thou haft taught me from my youth, and hither. to have I declared thy wondrous works. I have feared thee from my youth, and have not wick. edly departed from thee." Such a man carries with him into old age, peace of mind, felf-approbation, hope of glory, and joy in God. He can adopt this pious language; "Thou art my portion, O God. I have faid, that I will keep thy ftatutes. Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none on earth, that I defire befides thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; but thou art the ftrength of my heart, and my portion forever."

4. Early piety gives comfort to old age, as it lays a foundation for eminent improvement in religion.

He who begins the religious life, when he is old, has but little time before him for progrefs in divine knowledge, for the correction of wrong biaffes, for the extirpation of evil habits and the forma tion of virtuous ones. The holy temper wrought in him will exist under great imperfections, and his fpiritual exercises will meet with many diffi. culties and obftructions. Confequently he cannot experience that comfort and pleafure in religion, which he wishes to enjoy; efpecially in fo near views of another world.