III. The third analogy to be considered has reference to procrastination, namely, that as growth in childhood, and progress towards man's estate, must be begun immediately from the hour of birth, so also our preparatory discipline for immortality admits no delay.

in any rational pursuit. Your language | thers of our own flesh, which corrected (suppose you capable of speech) would us, and we gave them reverence; shall be offensive from your want of habit in we not much rather be in subjection to the adapting it to the taste and sentiments of Father of spirits, and live? for they, veriothers; your manners, for the same rea- ly, for a few days chastened us, after son, would be rude and forward, impetuous their pleasure; but he, for our profit, that and insupportable. Your ignorance, too, we might be partakers of his holiness." of every useful art, joined to your inaptitude for acquiring knowledge, would render you incapable of earning your subsistence. In every valuable respect, you would come forth into society a helpless creature, unformed, unfinished, utterly deficient, and unqualified for that mature condition into which you rashly thrust yourself, without the requisite information and experience."* The incapacity we have just described of a supposed human agent attempting to engage in human affairs, without the natural preparation of childhood and of youth, may illustrate what we have reason to believe would be man's unfitness, without the discipline of a previous life, for the society and occupations of heaven. Such an intruder into the heavenly mansions would find himself as awkward and unprepared, and as incapable of comfort or enjoyment, as if he had been born full grown into the pre-formed. These, and many other processes, sent world.

The infant is no sooner born than he begins to breathe, to take food, and to perform whatever vital functions are essential to his nourishment and preservation. No long time elapses before his nature prompts him to that activity and restlessness so remarkable in children, and so importantly contributing to their growth and advancement. As soon as his tongue is able to articulate, his boundless curiosity, amidst a universe of entirely new objects, invites him to ask continual questions, by which not only his faculty of speech is perfected, but his understanding ripened and in

mental and corporeal, the new formed human creature begins in infancy without procrastination, and carries on without intermission through the several stages of childhood and youth; taking daily food and exercise, and, by new inquiries, adding daily to his stock of knowledge, till he reaches manhood, and then, at length, in the full maturity of all his faculties, is admitted to the intercourse, employments, and pleasures of rational society. But this progress, physical as well as intellectual, unless commenced at the proper period, would be attended with constantly increasing difficulty, and would at last

However painful then, my brethren, however mysterious the discipline to which we are subjected in this life, let us place implicit confidence in the wisdom and goodness of our heavenly Father. The tendency of all the sorrows and privations that we can suffer, is to foster in our hearts the very dispositions, the very fitness, which we must cultivate for the kingdom of God. Adversity, as St. Paul informs us, not only tries, but produces virtue; not only ascertains our capacity for eternal happiness, but increases it. "Tribulation worketh patience; our light affliction, which is for a moment, worketh for us a become impossible. Thus, if the child far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Indeed, our whole argument for resignation under the painful and mysterious discipline which prepares, or (as I would rather phrase it) educates us for heaven, may be summed up in the words of the same apostle to the Hebrews,-"Furthermore, we have had fa

* See Bishop Butler's Analogy.

should not begin at once, and regularly continue taking food and exercise, his body would either perish, or be stinted in its growth. If he neglected practising in early life his faculty of speech, the organ would soon lose its pliability, and become unfitted for articulation. Or if, farther, he should omit to use this faculty for purposes of inquiry, if he should delay all

study and observation during infancy and youth, while his memory is retentive and his habits susceptible of improvement, the powers of his understanding, thus continually dormant, and never called into waking exercise, would every day become more sluggish, and be at last incapable of development.

paratory discipline is, in both cases, often ineffectual.

turely destroyed, and those which happen to attain full growth, were at first created, equally and indiscriminately, capable of the perfection at which so few arrive.

Of the children born into the world, a very small proportion ever reach maturity. The far greater number are, by various causes, brought to an untimely end; perhaps by inadvertency and folly of their own; perhaps by the violence and opThese simple and acknowledged facts, pression of others; perhaps by accident, with regard to the present life, should lead by sickness, or by premature decay. The us naturally to anticipate corresponding same observation may be extended to the facts in connexion with our discipline, lower animals, and still more forcibly to preparatory to future immortality. That plants, the seeds of which are in so many discipline, to be successful, must be early; ways exposed to destruction, that we can to be effectual, must not be delayed. The scarcely find one seed escaping among difficulty is augmented rapidly by each the millions which fall away and perish. successive act of procrastination. Our These millions appear absolutely lost and evil habits and propensities are daily more wasted, so intent does nature seem on confirmed the longer they continue in bringing one plant to maturity, as to think operation. Our vicious practices strike the loss of any number for that purpose deeper root into our nature, our resist-comparatively insignificant. And yet ance to the impressions of religious truth those seeds or germs which are premabecomes continually more inveterate. Familiarity produces indifference, until at length, as years advance, and old age draws on, a change of character is almost hopeless, and then follows death, which extinguishes all capacity of farther growth or progress, and renders change of character impossible. The best practical deduction from the foregoing statement is powerfully made by Solomon, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might; for there is no work, nor de-ed in the natural? Is there in the case vice, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest." This life is the only time allowed us to prepare for the next. No second opportunity can be hoped for. As, my brethren, there is no state granted to man of second youth, in which the errors of the first might be redeemed; so after death, there is no second life on earth, in which we might commence again the race of immortality. "As the tree falls, so must it lie." Delay not, then, preparations which are indis- In making answer to this question, the pensable preparations which every day conclusion to which we must arrive, are more difficult to be made-prepara- whether we look around us in society, or tions which cannot at last be made at all. consult the oracles of God, is most appalIV. There remains one more analogy ling. We see few appearances warranting between infancy as an introduction to a belief, that the discipline to which men manhood, and the present life as intro- are subjected in this world produces the ductory to life eternal, viz., that this pre-effects intended; on the contrary, we die

Facts like these, my brethren, within the knowledge and observation of every human being, suggest a question the most awful that can enter the human heart. Does the spiritual world present similar phenomena to what we have here remark

of man, considered as an immortal being, any thing analogous to the profusion and apparent waste exhibited in the works of nature around us? As the seeds of plants are designed for vegetable life, so is man designed for future happiness. Is that design often frustrated? Are there many who never reach the perfection for which they were created, and who are finally rejected as unfit for the kingdom of God? In short, are there few that be saved?

cover fearful indications that the present | tremendously significant. They more state, so far from eventually proving a than warrant our assertion, that as a child, school of virtue, proves to the greater though certainly designed to attain the number, through their perverseness, an natural perfection and maturity of manactual school of vice. Circumstances hood, often fails of reaching it, and comes calculated for their moral improvement; to an untimely end; so, in like manner, circumstances calculated to produce in man, considered as an immortal being, them dispositions fit for heaven, seem under discipline to prepare him for the rather to have an opposite effect, and to perfection and felicity of heaven, falls strengthen them in sin. Prosperity, in- short of heavenly blessedness in numerous stead of exciting gratitude to God, in- and terrific instances, and is ruined, flames self-confidence. Adversity, instead finally, totally, irretrievably. of working acquiescence in the divine will, confirms impatience and irritability. The contemplation of other men's distress makes more impenetrable the heart which ought to have been softened. Increased acquaintance with religious motives, continually withstood, turns half compliance into habitual opposition.

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There is, however, one most important distinction to be carefully kept in view, namely, that the failure of the child in reaching manhood is often caused by circumstances which he neither can prevent nor control; whereas the failure of the man to attain eternal life is always caused by himself by his own folly, his own negligence, his own perverseness. Ever

Be instructed, O wavering Christian ! by the counsel of your Redeemer. Strive

These alarming reflections are rendered more alarming by corroborative state-lasting happiness is offered to the acceptments in the word of God. We all are ance of all the trials and temptations well acquainted with the solemn admoni- incident to the present world are designed tion of our Lord, Many are called, but to mature in us that character which few are chosen." We all know what he shall qualify us for the next. The assistadded in confirmation of that often re- ance, above all, of the Holy Spirit, the peated warning, "Many widows were in author of all holy desires, is vouchsafed Israel in the days of Elias, when the us, that we may pass through those trials heaven was shut up three years and six and temptations with success. "The months, when great famine was through- Spirit is given to every man to profit out all the land, but unto none of them withal." If, therefore, we reject, or if we was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city fail to profit by the precious gift, the fault of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. is in ourselves. And many lepers were in Israel in the days of Eliseus the prophet, and none of them were cleansed, saving Naaman the exert every faculty you possess, to enter Syrian." To the same effect is elsewhere in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto the declaration of Christ, “Broad is the you, shall seek—that is, shall use some way that leadeth to destruction, and many feeble efforts, to enter in, but shall not be there be that go in thereat; narrow is the able. First, secure a title to future hapway that leadeth unto life, and few there piness, by believing on the name, and be that find it." Of the same fearful im- relying upon the merits of the Son of port is the language of the apostles, God, and then proceed with strenuous"Though the number of the children of ness, with courage and perseverance, Israel," says St. Paul, "be as the sand of under the guidance of God's Spirit, in the sea, a remnant shall be saved." And the discipline of holy preparation. Bɛ St. Peter, as a caution against sluggish- STRENUOus, for you see that weak endeaness and indifference, points to the ark vours are unavailing. BE COURAGEOUS, of Noah, wherein few, he observes, that is, for God will not suffer you to be tempted eight souls, were saved from the waters, above that you are able. BE PERSEVERwhen an entire world was overwhelmed. | ING, for "No man, having put his hand Understanding these texts in the mildest to the plough, and looking back, is fit for sense which they admit of, we find them the kingdom of God."

SERMON LII.

ADDRESSED TO THE YOUNG.

BY THE REV. JAMES BENNETT, D.D.

· Then Jesus, beholding him, loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest.”—Mark x. 21

You know, my young friends, that a certain proud and prosperous king, Belshazzar, when in the midst of a royal feast, and surrounded by festivity and apparent security, was suddenly disturbed by seeing a mysterious hand—the hand of God-writing upon the wall, in letters of light, these remarkable words,-" MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN;" and you are aware that a certain inspired prophet, an infallible interpreter, explained the mysterious words to mean-"Thou art weigh ed in the balances, and art found wanting." Our Lord Jesus has come this night, presenting himself to you, weighing a young man in the balance, and pronouncing him wanting. What if the flame which is sues from the lamps in this place were all to fly off, assuming upon the wall the form of letters, and, when you came to look at these letters of light, you saw the word TEKEL, and you recollected the meaning: for the prophet had told you it signified—“Thou art weighed in the balance, and art found wanting?"

If I present Christ to you to-night thus weighing a young man and pronouncing him wanting, do not think it unkind; happy had it been for Belshazzar had he taken the warning that had been given him; for that very night Belshazzar was slain:-and who knows but this night you may die? Well will it be for you if you take the warning, and, before you die, recover from that state in which you are wanting, and be found accepted before God.

have a very kind and gracious judge in this person who here weighs you; and I shall show you how kind, and considerate, and impartial he is; for I shall endeavour to point out to you the two scales of this balance, and show you, first, what is in the scale that is favourable to you; and, secondly, what is in the scale that is unfavourable; for you see that my text, on the one hand, declares that "Jesus beholding, loved the young man ;" while, on the other, he declared to him—“ one thing thou lackest."

I. WHAT IS THERE IN THE SCALE THAT IS FAVOURABLE TO YOU?

If I had nothing else to say but that God has been very gracious to our fallen race-that he has so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth upon him might not perish, but have everlasting life-that the Son of God has assumed our nature, has trodden upon the same earth on which you tread

that he breathed this air that you breathe-that he went about continually doing good, and, at length, poured out his precious blood upon the cross for our salvation-that he commissioned this to be proclaimed to every creature, and invited all men to come unto him that they might be saved-and that his own Spirit accompanies this proclamation, and breathes upon the minds of men for their conversion and salvation-you would say, this is, indeed, a weight in the scale in our favour. But our text speaks of some peculiar regard that Jesus had to the

I would, then, remind you that you young man here-for that he was young

another evangelist assures us. There are though they are but natural excellencies, several peculiar things that are in your they are objects of complacency and apfavour; they may be comprehended un-probation. When our Lord sees in youth der the three following:-The first is, a sort of open frankness, different from many of the qualities of youth are favourable to religion, and as such Christ regards them; the second is, that many of the words of the sacred Scriptures are favourable to the hope of your conversion, and as such you ought to regard them; and the third is, that many of the dealings of God confirm all these hopes, and should inspire you with the most earnest desire to enjoy the same blessings.