By the Rev. JOHN BROWN, HADDINGTON.
MY dear young friends, for whom my heart’s desire and prayer to God is, that ye may be saved; let me beseech you, while you read this, and especially while you read your Bible, or hear the precious truths contained in it preached to you, to hearken and hear for the time, for the eternity, to come. Now, in the most proper season for it, get wisdom as the principal thing; and with all your getting, get understanding of the important, the infinitely important concerns of your salvation.
What! know ye not your own selves? For the Lord’s sake, seriously think, that ye have immortal souls, souls, one of which is inconceivably more worth than ten thousand worlds; souls which are capable of enjoying an infinite God as their everlasting all in all; souls, which must, ere long, enter into an eternal state of inconceivable misery or happiness. Alas, my young friends, must souls, formed by God Himself, and formed for the immediate service and everlasting enjoyment of God : must souls, which, by the mercy of God, have been solemnly devoted to Him in baptism, upon which parents, masters, or ministers, have bestowed so many prayers and exhortations ; souls, upon which God hath bestowed such instruction, warning, alarms, allurements, be lost, for ever lost !
O think, as before God, what state you are in, while ye remain careless and unconverted. ” Being children of the devil, your heart is filled with all unrighteousness, pride, debate, deceit, malignity, hatred of God, ignorance, unbelief, subtilty, and mischief. It is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Your carnal mind is enmity against God, and is not subject to His law, neither indeed can be.” It is infected with every defiling, every ruinous and destructive plague : replenished with every sinful lust, in the reigning power of it, and inhabited by legions of devils, ready to tempt you to every thing wicked. And ah ! what innumerable, what dreadful curses of Almighty God, are inseparably annexed to all your sinful dispositions, thoughts, words, and actions ! Alas ! how those render all things, Christ and His Gospel not excepted, the savour of death unto death ! Dreadful thought ! Eternal destruction awaits you, and your final doom will be more intolerable than that of Sodom and Gomorrah, because ye believe not in the name of the only begotten Son of God. God is angry with you every day ; His wrath abideth on you ; a sound of your approaching destruction roars aloud, had you ears to hear it, in every threatening of His word. Why then are you not afraid to shut your eyes, even in necessary sleep, lest you should open them in hell ?
My dear young friends, O think with deep concern, think, how criminal and heinous before the Lord are the sins of your youth, which ye look upon as mere trifles, as mere gaiety and sport. They are the accursed fruit of your inward enmity against God. They are also a most treacherous rebellion against His law, which is holy, just, and good. They strongly entice others around you to sin, or harden them in it. They cast reproach upon God, as if His laws, promises, threatenings, warnings, counsels, mercies, and judgments, were unworthy of your early regard. They draw down reproach on yourselves, which ye must bear, either in deep convictions, or in everlasting punishments. They deprive you of the most pleasant and profitable fellowship with God. They forfeit for you the precious promises of long life and prosperity. They expose you to fearful judgments in this life, and to the damnation of hell in the next. Are these light matters? Will you reckon them such in the agonies of death, at the tribunal of Christ, amidst the flames of hell?
Alas! why do ye, by your unconcern, take such early pains to fit yourselves to be fuel for that everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels! If God grant you repentance, how will it sting you to recollect, what earnest offers, what eminent opportunities of receiving His grace, ye have contemned, neglected, and abused; what infinite kindness, condescension, and love, ye have trampled under your feet; what delightful feasting of His goodness, and what enriching reception of His fulness, you have rejected for the sake of the meanest or filthiest pleasure or profit on earth.
My dear young friends, know ye the God of your fathers; the God who preserved, who guided, who blessed, who saved many of your fathers; the God to whom your fathers dedicated you, and whom they have recommended to you; the God who, in your fathers, took you into covenant with Himself; the God “whom to know is life eternal, and this life is in His Son.” We tell you, our posterity, that “this God is our God for ever, and He will be our guide even unto death.” We never found Him a barren wilderness, nor a land of drought. We have found infinitely more satisfaction in this God as our God, given by Himself to us in His word, than could balance all the pleasure, all the wealth, all the honour of ten thousand worlds. These words, thy God, and my God, have been found by us, and we have eaten them, and they have been to us the joy and rejoicing of our heart. There is none like the God of Jeshurun, who pardoneth iniquity, transgression, and sin, and who delighteth in mercy. O how our hearts are ravished, when we think, how this God, this fountain of living waters, shall be our eternal all in all, the strength of our heart and portion for ever. If, even on this sinful earth, wisdom’s ways be such ways of pleasantness, what must it be for ever to enter into the joy of our Lord. “We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. O come, taste and see that our God is good, and that they who trust in Him are blessed.” O! consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus. Consider Him, in His unparalleled person, as the only begotten Son of God in our nature; in His saving offices, His endearing relations, His incomparable excellencies, services, sufferings, and glories; His unbounded fulness of grace and truth, and every good thing proper to be bestowed on us in time and eternity; and then tell us, what ye think of our Christ.
Alas! my dear friends, do you believe that there is a God, who gave you a law for your heart and life, and who will quickly call you to account of every thought, word, and deed, and never think of, never tremble at the view of your appearance before His tribunal, or of your lying for ever under His infinite wrath? Have ye not heard, what He hath done for the eternal salvation of sinful men? And will ye render Him contempt and hatred for all His bounty and love! Will you readily believe every thing, but the gracious words of a God who cannot lie? “His faithful saying, worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, even the chief?” His record, that in His Son, there is eternal life prepared for, and given to you? Will you earnestly desire every thing but Jesus, the pearl of great price, the unspeakable gift of God, and His great and everlasting salvation? Will you comply with every thing, but the offers of the glorious gospel, and covenant of grace, well ordered in all things and sure? Will you thankfully receive every thing but God Himself, the true bread of life, which the Lord your God giveth you from heaven? Why fond of every form of comeliness, but that of gracious conformity to God? Why fond of every pleasure, every joy, but that rejoicing in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, which is joy unspeakable and full of glory?
(To be continued.)