XI. SERM. gone along with all that hath been faid. I appeal again to your own Judgment: Is it not the most reasonable thing in the World, that you fhould fear GOD? That you fhould live under an habitual Reverence of Him who made you? Who hath an unlimited Authority over you; who is always prefent with you; who hath the higheft Interest in you; and the tendereft Concern for you! who made you to make you happy! But who is able (if you do not fear him) to make you unfpeakably and for ever miferable!--Is it not moft reafonable, that you endeavour by all the means you can to please him? By ftudying to know and do his Will; by attending to the Directions of his Word, the Light of Reason, and the Voice of Confcience, which is no other than the Voice of GOD within you. Is it not gracious and kind in Him to afford you fo many Advantages above others to know his Will? and is it not then moft reasonable that when you do know it, you should readily and impartially comply with it? have respect to all his Commands; and always lay the greatest Strefs XI. Strefs upon the greatest things? Efpecially SERM. as he himself expreflly tells you, that this is all your Duty, Perfection and Happiness now, and is, and must, in the nature of things, be fo, as long as you have a Being! These things are fo plain that they carry their own Conviction along with them: And therefore I will not prefume upon your time and patience to urge them any further upon you. I have only two things to beg of you and I have done. 1. Let these plain, important Principles of Religion enter deep into your Mind, take poffeffion of your Heart, and always influence your Temper. Think of them, and of their Importance, every Day you live. I cannot be fatisfied with your bare Affent to them. O! that they were deeply inwrought into the very Frame and Temper of your Spirits! And if you frequently and seriously think of them, by the Grace and Bleffing of GOD they will be so. These are the religious Principles in which you are educated; and it is your vast Happiness that you are, when so ma ny SERM. ny thousands of young Perfons perish for XI. lack of Knowledge, and thofe means of right And these are pious Parents and Friends would fain have instilled into, and fixed in your Mind betimes; because they would provide for your Happiness in another World as well as in this. For their fake then, for your own fake, and for God's fake, let me befeech you to receive them into your Heart, and let them never depart from you. 2. Be sure to retain them, and refolve to live by them, in whatever fituation or circumftances of Life, Providence may hereafter difpofe of you. It is not long that you will enjoy the Benefit of thofe wife Inftructions and good Examples, under the Influence of which you are now so happily fituated. You will, ere long, launch out into a World full of Temptation, Vice and Vanity; where you will, very probably, meet with many bad Examples and Allurements to Folly; where you will fee (and, perhaps, be fhocked at firft, to fee) a Multitude of reasonable Men, XI. Men, who, instead of living under an ha- SERM. bitual sense of their Maker's Authority and Prefence, appear to have no fear of GOD before their Eyes; who, inftead of making it their great Business to please him, seem intent on nothing but to please themselves in contempt of him. O! do not follow that Multitude to do evil, but refolve, in oppofition to all the Importunities of Folly, fteadily to adhere to the Dictates of fober Reason, in conjunction with the Precepts of the divine Word, as your only Guide. This will (and, believe it, this only will) be your fafe Guide through all your future Snares and Dangers. It will guard you from Delufion and Superftition on the one hand, and from Profaneness and Impiety on the other; will be your Clew to lead you through all the Labyrinths of Life, and your Pole-star to direct your courfe to Immortality and Blifs. I will add but one thing more, and that is the Confideration with which Solomon enforces the Advice he hath now been giving us, contained in the Words immediately |