PERSUASIVES

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EARLY PIETY.

CHAPTER 1.

SECT. 1. Introductory Address to the Young Reader....s. 2. Prayer for a divine blessing on the work....s. 3. Prayer for. the Young Reader....s. 4. An account of the plan pursued in the following Chapters.

SECT. 1. My dear young friend, if a person could rise from the dead to speak to you, could come from the other world to tell you what he had seen there, how attentively would you listen to his discourse, and how much would you be affected by it. Yet a messenger from the dead could not tell you more important things, than those to which I now beseech you to attend. I come to ask you to give your heart to GOD, I come to invite you to follow the divine PEDEEMER now; I come to entreat you to walk in the pleasant path of early piety. O that I could, with all the fervour of a dying man, beseech you to attend to your only great concerns! for of how little consequence is this poor transient world to you, who have an eternal world to mind!--It is not to a trifle that I call your attention but to your life,* your all, your eternal all, your God, your Saviour, your heaven, your every thing, that is worth a thought or wish. Do not let a stranger be more anxious than yourself for your eternal welfare. If you have been thoughtless hitherto, be serious now. It is time you were so. You have wasted years enough. Think of Sir Francis Walsingham's words, "While we laugh all things are serious around us. God is serious who preserves us and has

*Deut. xxxii. 47.

patience towards us; Christ is serious who shed his blood for us; the Holy Spirit is serious when he strives with us: the whole creation is serious in serving God and us; all are serious in another world; how suitable then is it for man to be serious! and how can we be gay and trifling?" Do you smile at this grave address, and say this is the cant of enthusiasm? O think that those who laughed at these solemn truths, when the last hundred years began, now laugh no more! The friendly warning may be neglected, and the truths of the Bible disbelieved, but death and eternity will soon force on the most careless heart, a deep conviction, that religion is the one thing needful.

Yes, my young friend, one thing is needful; so said the Lord of life, needful to you, to me, to all. The living neglect it, but the dead know its value. Every

saint in heaven feels the worth of religion, though partaking of the blessings to which it leads; and every soul in hell knows its value by its want. It is only on earth that triflers are to be found: and will you be one of them? God forbid!

Read I beseech you this little book with serious prayer. Remember that it is your welfare which is sought. I wish you to be happy here, and when time is past, happy for ever. Fain would I persuade you to seek a refuge in the skies, and friends that never fail. I plead with you the cause of my God and my Redeemer; and your own cause also, and let me not plead in vain. It has been said that a celebrated counsellor, on discerning in the countenance of a juryman, something which he thought unfavorable to the cause of his client, was so much affected that he fainted. My young friend I plead with you a more important cause, than was ever conducted before an earthly judge. Not one which concerns time only, but which concerns a long eternity. Not one on which a little wealth or reputation depends; but one on which your eternal poverty or eternal riches, eternal glory or eternal shame, a smiling or a frowning GOD, an eternal heaven, or an eternal hell, are all depending. And it is your cause I plead and not my own, and shall I plead your cause to your self in vain! my God forbid that I should!

11

I know, my young friend, how apt we are to read the most serious calls as if they were mere formal things, of little more consequence to us than the trifles recorded in a newspaper; but do not thus read this little book. Believe me, I am in earnest with you, and read, I entreat you, what follows, as a serious message which I have from God for you; and let such considerations as the following persuade you to attend.

Consider what will be your thoughts of the advice here given you a hundred years hence. Doubtless long before that time, you will have done with this world for ever. Then your now vigorous and youthful body will be turned to dust, and your name probably forgotten upon earth; yet your immortal soul will be living in another world; and far more sensible of joy or grief than it can possibly be now. Then, my young friend, what will you think of this friendly warning? How happy will you be if you have followed the advice it contains. Fancy not that it will be then forgotten. Calls and mercies forgotten here must be remembered there, when every sin is brought to the sinner's memory. If now you think me over-earnest, you will not then entertain the same opinion. If you now slight this humble effort for promoting your salvation, and carelessly, or contemptuously throw this book aside, or read it and forget it, then, if ten thousand worlds were yours they would appear a little trifle, for another season of salvation, like that you now enjoy; and which perhaps you now waste: but now is your day of grace, then another generation will have theirs.

Think again that while you are reading this, thousands are rejoicing in heaven, that they, in past years, attended to such earnest calls. Once they were as careless as you may have been, but divine grace disposed them to listen to the word of life. They regarded the warnings addressed to them; they found salvation; they are gone to rest; and now with what pleasure may they recollect the fervent sermon, or the little book, that, under God, first awakened their attention, and first impressed their hearts. About one hundred and fifty years ago a gentleman went into the shop of a Mr.

plays. Mr. Boulter told him he had none; but showed him Mr. Flavel's little treatise of "Keeping the Heart;" entreated him to read it, and assured him that it would do him more good than plays. The gentleman read the Title, and glancing at different pages said, among other expressions, "what a fanatic was he who made this book,' Mr. Boulter advised him to read it, and assur ed him he had no cause to censure it so bitterly. He bought it, but said he would not read it. "What will you do with it then," said the friendly bookseller? “I will tear and burn it." said he, " and send it to the devil." Mr. Boulter told him then he should not have it. Upon this the gentleman promised to read it. A, bout a month after, in a very modest habit, he went again to the shop, and spoke to Mr. Boulter to this effect, "I most beartily thank you for putting this book into my hands-I bless God that moved you to do it→→ blessed be God that ever I came into your shop," and then he bought a hundred more of the same books, to give to those who could not buy them. How much happier, my young friend, is he of whom you have been reading now, than he would have been if he had continued the same thoughtless creature as he was, when he entered the Bookseller's Shop. Now, though to us his name is unknown, we have reason to believe, he forms one of the company above; but had he continued to waste his fleeting years, he might, in hopeless misery, have been wishing in vain, for those precious hours he had wasted on plays and romances and novels, Had he slighted good Mr. Boulter's advice, he might now in hell have been, lamonting his folly. Yes, think that while you are reading this little book, millions of wretch. ed souls, in utter darkness and despair, are cursing that desperate madness, which led them to turn a deaf ear to such friendly warnings, once addressed to them. O my young friend, I beseech you by the joys of saints in heaven, and by the terrors of sinners in hell, trifle not with this affectionate call.

Consider further If you were going a journey you would make preparations for it. Would you not if going to travel only one or two hundred miles? and were you us far from home, would not your thoughts be often

there? and if obstructions lay in the way that threatened to prevent your ever returning, would you not exert all your skill and power to remove them? And are you indeed only a stranger and traveller upon earth? Are you only going forwards through a little span of time to an eternal world? And there to find an endless abode, amidst the deepest sorrow or the most perfect joy? And do many things unite to hinder you from reaching the Kingdom of Heaven? Is this the case? Indeed it is. And will you go forward thoughtless whither you are going? Thoughtless of what awaits you on your entrance on that unseen world, that unseen, unknown, endless world of joy unspeakable, or of grief beyond expres

sion.

Were your soul entrusted to another's care, would you not complain of his cruelty, if you saw one begging him to seek its happiness, and perceived him turning a deaf ear to the request, and careless whether you were saved or damned? Would you not cry out, "O unhappy creature that I am, to have my eternal all entrusted to a wretch so cruel, that he will see me sink into the pit of destruction, to spend a dreary eternity there, sooner than give himself any care or concern about my eternal happiness?" Would such be your complaint in this case? be not then by carelessness more cruel to yourself.

While therefore, in what follows, I would address you with affectionate earnestness, I once more entreat you seriously to regard, the plain but important truths I may present to you; and forgive me that I am not carnest enough when speaking to you on things of everlasting consequence. Did we but feel the thousandth part of the worth of an immortal soul, I might abhor myself for writing so coldly, and you blush and be confounded, at having ever needed warning and advice to lead you to seek its welfare. It is impossible to be earnest enough with you: If you ever know the worth of true piety you will be convinced that it is. Did we see thousands asleep on the brink of a precipice, and some every moment falling and dying, could we too passionately endeavor to awaken those not yet undoné?