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free from sin, and become more and more the servants of God. If we have thus our fruit unto holiness, the end, the glorious end, will be eternal life, the gift of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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DISCOURSE II.

PSALM CXIX. 99, 100.

I UN

I HAVE MORE UNDERSTANDING THAN ALL MY TEACHERS; FOR THY TESTIMONIES ARE MY MEDITATION. DERSTAND MORE THAN THE ANCIENTS; BECAUSE I

KEEP THY PRECEPTS.

THERE is a wisdom which is gained by the study of books, the works of nature, and experience of mankind. But this alone is not true wisdom: for, he whose age and observation lead him only to be wise to the world, and not to God, is still a fool; and will die "a child (a child in true knowledge, though not in innocence,) a hundred years old." Thus judged the Psalmist: who had learned, betimes, to weigh things in the balance of the sanctuary; and to distinguish carefully between sterling gold, and counterfeit. He had had teachers, who, perhaps, were well read in history and sciences; but, because, with all their knowledge, they knew little of the law of God,

which was his meditation and delight, he justly preferred his own wisdom to theirs: "I have more understanding than all my teachers; for thy testimonies are my meditation." Again; he had conversed with men advanced in years, who had acquired much political prudence, and great dexterity in the management of human affairs; but, because their grey hairs wanted the crown of a religious life, he accounted them defective in the first principle of true wisdom, which is the fear of God: "I understand more than the ancients; because I keep thy precepts."

From these words, I shall take occasion to show the wisdom of being religious in the days of youth; and for the following reasons:

1. Because it is the best season for attaining the practice and habit of religion :

2. Because it may, possibly, be the only season allowed the young; and if long life should be granted them, early piety will lay the best foundation of a comfortable and happy old age, to which it is naturally conducive :

3. Because early piety is highly acceptable and pleasing to God.

Which considerations, I hope, may serve, as well to call the aged to redeem the time which they have mis-spent, as the young to improve that which is before them; and to encourage

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others in perseverance and humble gratitude to God, through whose grace their advancement in life and progress in religion have gone hand in hand.

And, first, Youth is the best season for attaining the practice and habit of religion.

Our state on earth is a state of training and education for heaven. And thus much we may gather from Scripture, concerning the happiness for which we are here educated, that it will consist in seeing God, in praising and adoring him; in conversing with just men and blessed spirits, among whom there will be a perpetual intercourse of charity and good-will, and, at the same time, order and degrees of rank, under Christ, the head of the holy community some sitting on a higher, some on a lower, seat of glory, according to their attainments and qualifications. For, although the happiness of heaven is the free gift of God, through his grace and mercy in Christ Jesus, yet, each one on whom he bestows this inestimable gift must have a capacity of receiving what is given him, by proper tempers and dispositions of mind; without which, heaven itself could not be heaven. We must have purity of soul, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord; charity, that we may meet and return the

good will of the saints; humbleness of mind, that we may rest satisfied with our portion of bliss, esteeming the lowest degree of it infinitely above our deserts, and not repining that others, once, perhaps, our inferiors, are advanced above us. Now, if these and the like qualifications are necessary for the enjoyment of heaven, what is the fittest time of being trained up to them? Vice is a stain in the purity of the soul. Say, then, is it as easy to restore the whiteness of a paper that is scrawled over and blotted with ink, as it was to preserve it clean and unsullied? The passions of envy, malice, revenge, hatred, which are the opposites of charity, make the soul grow crooked and deformed; is it, then, as little trouble to bring a plant straight again, that is grown out of its regular shape, and bent towards the earth, as it is to use the proper means of supporting and strengthening it, that it may rise upright from the first? The paths of pride, vanity, and ambition, are clean contrary to the course of humbleness of mind. When, therefore, we have indulged ourselves, in walking long, and going down far in them, is it no more toil to return up-hill into the right way, than it was, at the beginning, not to have left it?

I said above, that the worship of God will be one great and perpetual employment of the

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