make you such; not in name only, but in deed and in truth. Wait not for the invitation from Him, to surrender to Him your heart; but present it to Him; beseech Him not to reject it: pray that it may be made His, by the effectual operation of His Holy Spirit. It is naturally a corrupt and sinful heart: you derived it from a polluted source. You were born in sin a child of wrath-the

offspring of those who lay under the same condemnation with yourself; and who, though they might themselves be delivered from condemnation, could not transmit to their children any thing but the corrupt nature which they derived from the fallen parents of the human family.

But, though your heart is naturally corrupt and sinful in things relating to God, He who created our first parents upright, in His own image, can, and will, in answer to your prayer, restore in you that image which has been defaced by sin. He can, and will, make your heart, which He claims as His own, an offering meet for His service. Only beseech Him, by His Spirit, to make your heart His own-to deliver it from carnal affections and desires

-to incline it to choose and to cleave to the good part-to bind it, by the cords of love, to the horns of His altar-to enable you to love and serve Him, with all your heart and mind, and soul and strength. Have you already given your heart to other claimants, and to unworthy objects; and do you feel yourself entangled? Renounce them: return unto the Lord thy God. "Take with you words, and

turn to the Lord.

Say unto Him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously * !” What words can you take more suitable than those in the Parable, addressed to his Father by one who had left his home, and in vain sought satisfaction in the pleasures of sin? "Father! I have sinned against Heaven, and before Thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son+!" Though you are not worthy— (and who is worthy to be called a son, a child of God?)-yet the Father of Mercies, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is willing to receive you, even in that relation, though you may have renounced it, through His only begotten Son, whom He appointed to be a propitiation for sins, through faith in His blood. He will-and, without prejudice to His holiness and justice, He can

Hosea xiv. 2.

+ Luke xv. 18, 19.

8

receive you, as His ADOPTED son; and, unworthy as you are of them, confer upon you all the privileges of that high relation-of a son or daughter of the Lord Almighty. Especially, He will give you, in addition to a free remission of all your sins, the spirit of adoption and love, the heart of a Child of God; and then you will scarcely need to be invited to surrender it to God. You will shew that it is His, by making His will the motive, His Law the rule, His glory the end of your actions, words, and thoughts. You will inquire, "What shall I render to the Lord, for all the benefits which He has done unto me? How can I best glorify Him with my body and my spirit, which are His? young friends! wait not till ye have learned, from bitter experience, the unsatisfactoriness of every other service than that to which you are now invited to devote yourselves! Do you imagine, that, after living some time in a state of alienation from God, or without any manifestation of decision and zeal for His glory, you will be the better qualified to serve God, and may make up by zeal what you have lost of time and opportunity?—It is a great mistake. Besides the desperate risk-of such an

0, my

'adventure,' shall I call it ?-(for who knows whether you will live to repent, and to enter upon a course on which you now refuse to enter ?—whether God will declare, in His wrath, that you shall no more hear the invitations which you have slighted?)— I say, besides the dreadful uncertainty of the issue of such a postponement of a present duty, every hour that you continue in a state of alienation from God-of what you may call neutrality or indecisionis really adding to the difficulty of surrendering your heart to God, and of proving the sincerity of the surrender by active service. You cannot remain NEUTRAL: it is impossible, in the nature o the thing. "He that is not with me,” said Christ, "is against me." "He that gathereth not with me, scattereth." Oh, my friends! listen not to the suggestions of your worst enemy; who, seeing that he cannot make you resolve for ever to abandon the thoughts of devoting yourselves to God, is trying to do all that He can do to prevail with you to deliberate and resolve, instead of acting.

Before your irresolution acquires the force of habit, renounce it. Acquire the opposite habit-of

decision for God. Take all your powers and faculties fresh into His service-your perception, your memory, your power of acquiring and retaining and employing useful knowledge and talent of every kind: take these, I say, into His service, fresh and vigorous, ready for improvement and action in the noblest of all services-the service of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords;—I cannot say, before they have been at all impaired by sin, for that is not the privileged state of any child of man; but, before they are still more impaired and enfeebled than they have been, by continuance in sin and evil habits. Consecrate them to God, who gave them. Pray, that they may be sanctified, and never turned from their proper object-which is, the glory of God—to the low purposes of sensuality, or any merely selfish gratification, even though it be not of a disreputable, but of the highest earthly, character. Resolve, and act now, as you will wish to have done when you shall be numbered with those who are gone before you. That time will soon be here. To us, who are of the generation above you, it seems but as yesterday when we were occasionally addressed, as you now are, as