"favour thou beareft to thy people: O vifit me with

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thy falvation; that I may fee the good of thy chofen, "that I may rejoice in the goodnefs of thy nation, "that I may glory with thine inheritance." When your minds rove through the universe, finding no fubstitute for Him, do you come back and ask, “where is "God my maker, who giveth fongs in the night ?" After comparing communion with Him to every other conceivable good, can you fay, "whom have I in heaven "but Thee, and there is none upon earth that I defire "befides Thee?" When the ambaffadors of a certain. nation came to the Romans, offering to be their allies, and were refused, they faid, Well, if we cannot be your allies, we will be your fubjects; we will not be your enemies. Can you fay, Lord, I will be thine; I will not be mine own; if I am not received as a friend, I will be a fervant; I never can be thy foc? And you are wishing to be able to "SAY He is my God." Why you have SAID it; having thus chofen Him, be affured he has chofen you; having thus given yourselves to Him, be affured He has given Himself to you; if you are thus his, be affured He is yours.

Thirdly, Are there none in the divine prefence, who are enabled to fay, as the language both of devotion and of confidence," my Lord, and my God?" Follow the example of the church, publish the fame of His goodness, and animate others to join you in praising Him. "Behold God is my falvation, I will trust and "not be afraid; for the Lord Jehovah is my ftrength "and my fong, he alfo is become my falvation." Plead your intereft in Him in all your dangers, troubles, and neceffities. Envy none their worldly dif

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tinctions; remember your pre-eminence; "the fons and daughters of the Lord almighty." Do not complain because they may poffefs things, of which you are deprived; you have a God, they have none; you can fuftain a lofs uninjured, they would be undone; it would be taking away their all. If your taper be extinguished, you have a fun; but when "the "candle of the wicked is put out," they are involved in darkness," darkness that may be felt." Honour your God by living upon his fulness, and endeavouring by faith to realize in Him, every thing you seek for, in vain, in yourselves, or in creatures. Obferve the address of MOSES to the Ifraelites, "What nation "is there so GREAT, who hath God fo nigh unto "them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we "call upon him for?" They were an inconfiderable body, confined in a wilderness, the arts and sciences, and commerce, were all with their enemies; they had the fame raiment they wore out of Egypt forty years before; and had no provision for a fingle day. But their peculiar GREATNESS arofe from their nearness to God. In having Him they had all; He poffeffed, and could immediately produce the fupplies their neceffities required; they had only to ask and have. When David was plundered, and stripped of all he had in Ziglag; it is faid, he "encouraged himfelf in the "Lord his God"-HE was left. Thus a christian who has nothing, poffeffes all things. Creatures may abandon him, but his God will never leave nor forfake him. Friends may die, but the Lord liveth. His "heart and "his flesh may fail, but God is the strength of his "heart, and his portion for ever." "The heavens may

pafs away with a great noife, and the elements melt "with fervent heat, the earth and the works that "are therein may be burned up"-he ftands upon the ashes of a universe, and exclaims, I have loft nothing!

SERMON V.

THE YOUNG ADMONISHED.

1 KINGS, Xviii. 12.

I fear the Lord from my youth.

THESE are the words of Obadiah.

From his fituation and office, he appears to have been a person of fome distinction, for " he was the governor "of Ahab's house." But what we admire in him, and with which only we have to do, is the piety that marked his character. "He feared the Lord GREATLY;" and gave evidence of it in a feafon of extreme danger: "for he took an hundred prophets, and hid them by "fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.” And as his religion was fuperior in its degree, fo it was early in its commencement. For, fays he, in his address to Elijah, "I fear the Lord FROM MY YOUTH." And herein, my young friends, we propofe him this evening as your example. In your imitation of him, many are concerned, though none are fo deeply interested as yourselves.

-The preacher who addreffes you is concerned. He longs "after you all in the bowels of Jefus Chrift." Indeed if minifters defire to be useful, they cannot be

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indifferent to you.

You would prove their best helpers; you would rouse the careless; you would reproach those of riper years; you would decide the wavering young. It is in your power to build up our churches, and to change the moral face of our neighbourhood. The wilderness, and the folitary place, "fhall be made glad for" you, "and the defert fhall rejoice, and bloffom as the rofe."

-Behold ftanding near your preacher, your friends, your relations, your parents, hearing for you with trembling, and prayers, and tears. Thy father is faying," my fon, if thou be wife, my heart fhall rejoice, "even mine." The woman who bare thee is faying, "What, my fon, and what the fon of my womb, and "what the son of my vows !"

-Behold too your fellow-citizens, your countrymen. I imagine all thofe affembled here this evening, with whom you are to have any future connections by friendship, by alliance, by bufinefs; whofe kindred you are to espouse, whofe offices you are to fill; these I ask, is it a matter of indifference, whether the rifing generation be infidel and immoral, or influenced by confcience, and governed by Scripture? Where is the perfon, who has any regard for the welfare of the nation, for focial order, for relative life, for perfonal happiness, who would not immediately exclaim, "Rid me and deliver me from the hand of strange "children; whofe mouth speaketh vanity, and their "right hand is a right hand of falsehood: that our fons

may be as plants grown up in their youth; and that "our daughters may be as corner ftones, polished "after the fimilitude of a palace."