need I tell you, Christians, that the consequences of your youthful conduct, extend through a series of ages, which the imagination even, cannot reach? If death were really to close your expectations forever, you might take the gay delights of the Epicurean. You might eat and drink, for tomorrow you would die. You might float pleasantly down the stream of time, lying on your oars, and laughing at those who were laboring against the tide. But, my friends, when I look forward only a few years, I see you in the immediate presence of that Power who has given us a being, which he has told us we can never abdicate. You may die; but you die to live again, and to tell how you have lived. It will not be enough to say that thousands have run the short career of ruin before you. They will rise up from their sleep of the tomb to accuse you of having followed them. We have a great trust deposited in our hands. than the gift of eternal life, and we are to account for it; even if nature were to perish, we must account for it.

It is no less

Consider also the honor of a faithful resistance to the temptations of the world. Your struggles are secret, they are unknown to the world, and therefore the world cannot reward you. Or if it should reward you, you will find its loudest applauses dying away at last upon your ear, and the still small voice of God's approbation shall be sweeter than the music of the spheres.

Again; look steadily at the character of a man of established virtue and christian excellence. How noble a creature is he in God's creation! lord of himself, though destitute of everything. Sin has no dominion over him. The world reverences, but cannot reward him. Observe him with attention. If his foot sometimes slip, he falls to rise again. Passion may sometimes surprise an unguarded fortress, but the citadel is safe; the soul is strong in faith, and in devout reliance on the succor of Heaven. The food which nourishes him descends from above, and the supply cannot be shut out by the world.

My young friends, I would direct your attention to the character of your Saviour, and beg of you to study it till you love it and dare to imitate it. We soon search after great examples to encourage us in this folly and that vice, fond of resembling the great, if it be only in their defects, and sinning with less compunction, if we can only sin in company. Look at the Son of God, who was just entering, like yourselves, a hostile world, inexperienced and without a friend. Scarcely had he commenced the great business of his life, the duties of his ministry, before, as a preparation for it, he underwent the severest discipline. In whatever way we interpret the history of our Saviour's temptation, it cannot be understood otherwise, than as presenting a severe and distressing trial of his mind. He had early to struggle, then, with

the temptations of interest and vanity and ambition, but the tempter was in each of his plans defeated.

At another period of his life, you will find him invited to assume an unlawful power, and fully able to avail himself of the enthusiasm of the multitude, and to be crowned king of the Jews. But rejecting every allurement which might divert him for any season from the proper business of his ministry, he retires alone to a desert place, casting aside those honors, which have in every age tempted the ambition of his less humble followers.

Do not be contented, my young friends, to read and admire what you may imitate. The example, even of the Son of God, from his cradle to his grave, is transmitted to us that we may imitate it.

The last resource against temptation is prayer. Escaping, then, from your tempter, fly to God. Cultivate the habit of devotion. It shall be a wall of fire around you, and your glory in the midst of of you. To this practice the uncorrupted sentiments of the heart impel you, and invitations are as numerous as they are merciful, to encourage you. When danger has threatened your life, you have called upon God. When disease has wasted your health and you have felt the tomb opening under your feet, you have called upon God. When you have apprehended heavy misfortunes or engaged in hazardous enterprises, you have perhaps resorted to God, to ask his blessing. But what are all these dangers to the danger which your

virtue may be called to encounter on your first entrance into life? In habitual prayer, you will find a safeguard. You will find every good resolution fortified by it, and every seduction losing its power, when seen in the new light which a short communion with Heaven affords. In prayer you will find that a state of mind is generated which will shed a holy influence over the whole character; and those temptations, to which you were just yielding, will vanish with all their allurements, when the daystar of devotion rises in your hearts.

With this view, our Saviour has inserted the petition in the text, 'lead us not into temptation.' Let us dwell upon it in every prayer. If, in the words of a pious man, sinning has not made us leave off praying, praying will make us leave off sinning.' Watch, then, my young friends, and pray, that enter not into temptation.

you

SERMON XV.

SINCERITY.

1 CORINTHIANS, V. 8.

BUT WITH THE UNLEAVENED BREAD OF SINCERITY AND TRUTH

THE apostle appears here to be giving directions as to the mode of observing the communion. In imitation of the feast of passover, before which the Jews were required to remove all leaven out of their houses, and eat the festival with unleavened bread, the apostle exhorts the Corinthians to observe the distinguishing rite of their religion, which commemorates their deliverance from sin and death by the sacrifice of Christ, with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. This injunction, which is here particularly applied to the celebration of the supper, it is my intention to consider in its importance to the whole character of a Christian; for he who has come forward to this characteristic ceremony hypocritically or in the spirit of imposition, cannot be supposed to be more sincere in the rest of his conduct.