Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

I might now engage you not to give Sleep to your Eyes, nor Slumber to your Eye-lids this day, till the prefent Calls and Admonitions have met with fuitable Entertainment.

3. BE careful to Remember, and often think upon fuch Inftances of Piety, as that which you have been hearing of Think over the Paffages of his Life and Death, and let these excite you to, and quicken you in, your Duty. Such Per fons are worthy to be had in Everlasting Remembrance; worthy to be talked of, and kept in view after they are Buried out of fight. These are much more pro fitable Subjects of Difcourfe, than what Converfation is generally filled up with ; and inftead of Railing, Reflecting upon, Backbiting, and cenfuring your Neigh bours for want of fomething it may be to talk of, let me recommend the Seriousness and Godliness of this Deceased young Man as a proper, and useful Topic to enlarge your Converfation upon. Let his Zeal fire your Breaft, and may the fame Spirit that dwelt in Him, defcend upon, and abide with us.

LASTLY,

[ocr errors]

LASTLY, Let us endeavour carefully to imitate, yea, as far as we can to exceed all that was Praife worthy in our Departed Friends. Here we have an account of one that fought God early; that Remembred his Creator in the days of his Youth, yea, in the Days of his Childhood; as he grew up into the World, growing up also into a fitness for Heaven. Let this engage you to become Religious betimes; and to devote your tender Years to the Service of God. Seek first the Kingdom of God, and his Righteousness, and all other things fhall be added unto you*. God records, and kindly speaks of those that thus feek him. Go cry in the Ears of Jerufalem, Saith the Lord, 1remember the kindness of thy Touth, when thou wenteft after me in the Wildernesst. O that the Lofs of one ferious young Man might be a means to make many fuch! And then we shall have no reason to mourn for his being taken from amongst us. But to fee the Promifing and Hopeful call'd away in the beginning of their Days; none laying it to heart, or ftri

* Matth. vi. 33. † Jer. ii. 2.

E

ving

ving to rise up in their ftead, to own, and ferve the Lord, is a melancholy fight indeed.

I WOULD with the greateft Impor tunity beg for my felf, and all of you that are now coming into the World; That we may know the God of our Fathers *; and may ftand up to plead hisCause against all the Workers of Iniquity. The fooner we begin to be Religious,the greater Proficiency we are like to make; and the more abounding Comfort and Joy fhall we have in the whole of our After-lives: The more eminently useful we may expect to be in this World; and the more Happy, and Glorious in the World to come.

BUT le not fuch, as may think they have already arriv'd to all that is spoken of the Perfon here defcrib'd, reft fatisfy'd in their present Attainments; let us ftill go on (as he, if he had liv'd, no doubt would have done) to greater, and higher degrees of Holinefs, and Piety. What we read, or hear of fome of the best of

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

Men, is poffible to be out-done; and fure I am, it is our Duty to aim at something further than ever any reach'd to. This only can prove us Perfect, and Upright; and this will be follow'd with Everlasting Peace. Mark the Perfect Man, and behold the Upright; for the End of that Man is Peace. God grant that this may be the Character; and this the End of every one of us. Amen.

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »