168 ADVANTAGES OF EARLY RELIGION. rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. May I esteem the reproach of Christ my greatest honour; and may I endure, as seeing thee who art invisible. Like Joshua, may I serve the Lord; and, with Samuel, say, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. O, may I imitate the faith and piety of all that goodly company, who sought thee in their youth; who loved thee in their prime; and who are honoured by thee in the realms of endless day. If but few love thee in sincerity, let me be one of that happy few who make God their all. Should I find early religion the source of many difficulties; should it even expose me to the contempt and aversion of friends, whose esteem and love I now enjoy; yet, O my God, let not this move me; but may I gladly bear my cross for him, who bore a heavier cross for me. May I cheerfully go to him without the camp, bearing his reproach, and esteeming nothing dear compared with thy love; nothing valuable compared with an interest in JeGrant this, O blessed Lord, for my Redeemer's sake. Amen. sus. CHAPTER X. THE ADVANTAGES OF EARLY RELIGION. § 1. AMONG those things which have most influence on the minds of men, are profit and pleasure. While recommending early religion to you, think not that I wish to render you poor or unhappy. Far from it: I rather wish you to be truly rich, and truly happy, not merely for EARLY PIETY COMPARATIVELY EASY. 169 the little span in which earthly pleasures or riches are enjoyed; not merely for a period so short as ten thousand thousand ages, but for ever and ever. Where is that treasure to be found that will enrich you for eternity? Not amidst the wealth of this world. "Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living. The depth saith, It is not in me; and the sea saith, It is not with me. It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof." Where are they, that, but a few years back, possessed pleasures and honours, parks and palaces, crowns and kingdoms? All vanished from the world; "And now, ye lying vanities of life, Ye ever tempting, ever cheating train, What are ye now, and what is your amount!" While entreating you to pursue more solid good, I would recount to you some of the advantages of religion in youth. § 2. Early piety is comparatively easy. The total corruption of man's heart is such, that at every period of life, there are difficulties in turning to God in reality. At any time it is needful to strive to enter the strait gate; but it is much easier to turn to God in youth, than it is in later life; the heart is then not so hardened, as it is by a longer life of impenitence and sin. The mind is not so averse to instruction, as it is when prejudices have so darkened all its faculties as almost to exclude the heavenly light. When sin has long reigned triumphantly; when Satan has long led the sinner captive; it is hard to escape from his tyranny, and many have experienced this. The scriptures confirm the doctrine of the difficulty of conversion late in life, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." In this sense we may apply, with dreadful propriety, the words of Nicodemus: Can a man be born when he is old? When is it that disease is most easily checked? Not when it has laid fast hold on the vitals; brt when its first symptoms appear. When is it that the mistaken traveller may most easily forsake the wrong, and return to the right path? Not when he has travelled for miles in a wrong direction, but when he enters that way. Were you rushing down a steep hill, when might you most easily stop? Not when you had nearly reached the bottom, but when you began to descend. So "Tis easy work if you begin To fear the Lord betimes; In another view early religion is comparatively easy. There is reason to believe that God will sooner hear your prayers for mercy, and grant you peace and pardon, if you turn to him immediately, than if you refuse for awhile to listen to his calls. If you delay to turn, God may afterwards delay to manifest his forgiving love; and may lead you through tedious scenes of doubt and pain, anxiety and fear, which, but for these refusals, you would have never known. An eminent Christian, who was converted by no means at a late period in life, after feeling disappointment that his mind was not relieved from its oppressive burden so soon as he had hoped, observed, "I have now learned how unreasonable was such an early expectation. I AND HONOURABLE. 171 have been taught to wait patiently upon God who waited so long for me.' Before your sins are more multiplied, before your heart is hardened, before Satan gains a firmer hold upon you, O, turn to God! Make not work for future repentance. Harden not your heart now, lest God, in righteous judgment, should harden it for ever. Employ not your best years in shutting the gate of life against yourself; or in filling with difficulties the only pathway to heaven. If a person, with but one way from a precipice, were to employ himself for weeks and months in stopping up that way, or in making his escape by it tenfold more difficult, how great would be his distraction! If another, with one door opened, to let him escape from a dismal dungeon, were to spend the time in which he should flee from prison and the gallows, in fastening up that one door with bolts and bars, how great, how dismal, would be his folly! But, O my young friend, if you do not now turn to Jesus and to God, far greater will be yours! By continuing careless of the Lord, you will fill with difficulties that one way of escaping from hell, which is now comparatively easy; you will shut against yourself the door of mercy by which you should flee from destruction; and will make it tenfold more difficult for your own soul to escape the flaming sword of divine Justice; the eternal prison which is never opened; and the fire that never shall be quenched. § 3. Another advantage attending early piety is, that it is that which is most honourable to God and to yourself; and it is that which has the fairest prospect of becoming eminent piety. Religion is honoured, when the young but faithful 172 EARLY PIETY HONOURABLE, votaries of the Lord, are seen renouncing the world in the prime of their lives. The world seems to imagine that religion is only suited for gloom and age; but they show that it has charms that win the hearts of the sprightly and the young. The world seems to suppose that what Satan leaves, is all that should be devoted to God; but the young followers of the Lamb show, that such are the excellencies of his service, that it calls for their youth, their health, their prime, their all. How have the glories of religion been displayed by those young converts, who, after a short course of humble piety, have bid an early and yet joyful farewell to all beneath the sun; who have seen no charms in this deluding world sufficient to tempt their wish to stay; but who have calmly departed to eternal rest, before they had passed even sixteen, eighteen, or twenty years below! Will not you, my young friend, make that offering to the Lord, which such have made? Will not you tell a deluded world that religion is better than life? Early piety is honourable, as it is that which is most likely to become eminent piety. Faint at the best is the likeness of God on his children in this world. The greatest saint is only a penitent and pardoned sinner; but when faith, and hope, and love, and holiness appear in their fairest earthly form, then is religion honoured most; then even its enemies at times are constrained to bear testimony to its excellence. Such are the testimonies that the ancient heathens bore to the virtues of the primitive Christians. "These," said one, 66 are the men who speak as they think, and do as they speak." "Behold," said another, "how the Christians love one another!" Even |