have to support you, under the burden of age, if the flour of your days, and the prime of your years, are spent in folly and sin? you look back upon your past life, your crimes will reproach you; if you turn your eyes within, your hearts will condemn you; and if you look forward to your approaching dissolution, all is blackness of darkness! No wonder, then, that the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men bow themselves, and all the daughters of music are brought low. But, if we remember our Creator now, in the days of our youth, we shall lay up in store for ourselves a good foundation against the time to come. A life that has been spent in the cause of God and virtue, will yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness in old age. If, when we become old, we can say, I was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame: I was a father to the poor, and the cause which I knew not I searched out: I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him : the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy: I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my judgment was a robe and a diadem-if we, I say, can adopt this language, will it not be a source of happy reflection to us, in old age? Such will be blessed of God in the decline of life his rod and his staff shall comfort them. The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness. He shall come to his grave in full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in his season. Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace.

3. Have any, in this assembly, neglected to remember their Creator in the days of their youth? Every argument, used with the young, presses with additional weight on you, and says, with greatly augmented force: Remember now thy Creator. You have already neglected the first and best opportunity of dedicating yourselves to God; repent, therefore, quickly, lest all opportunity of doing it be lost forever. Resolve to redeem, if it be possible, the time which you ought to have improved. You have squandered away too much already-waste no more. You have deferred a necessary work too long-delay it no longer. Do not delude yourselves with the vain hope, that, if you can fashion your last breath into Lord, have mercy upon me, this will prevail with God, and make atonement for the sins of a long and wicked life. What strange thoughts have such persons of God and of heaven! What extravagant conceits of the little evil of sin, and the great easiness of repentance, have they who can impose upon themselves at this rate! O, aged sinner, suffer not these infatuations to delude you any longer! Reflect upon your ways; consider, and show yourselves men. What will you do in the day of distress, who have neglected God in your most flourishing condition? What will you say to him in a dying hour? Can you have the face, at that time, to address him in the language of your conduct through life?-"Lord, now the world and my lust have left me, and I feel myself ready

to sink into eternal perdition, I lay hold upon thy mercy, to deliver my soul. I have heard strange things of thy goodness, and that thou art merciful, to a miracle. This is what I always trusted to, that, after a long life of sin and vanity, thou wouldst, at last, be pacified with a few penitent words and sighs, at death." But, is this a proper address to be made to a wise man? much less to the all-wise Judge of the world? And yet, this seems to be the plain interpretation of a great and habitual sinner's application to Almighty God, when he is just going to appear before his dreadful tribunal. I say again, let not these delusions deceive you any longer; for, as sure as God is true, they shall never see his kingdom, who, instead of seeking it in the first place, make it their last refuge and retreat.

DISCOURSE XVI.

The Way of Transgressors hard.

"The way of transgressors is hard."-Proverbs xii. 15.

It is frequently urged as an objection against Christianity, that its service is hard-that it requires sacrifices incompatible with human happiness-that all its enjoyments are future-and that, in order to acquire the blessings of eternity, religious persons are rendered miserable in time. If this doctrine were true, even then, good men have an infinite advantage over wicked men; for, if religion makes a man miserable now, in order to make him happy hereafter, religious people are partakers of happiness at last, while her adversaries finally render themselves miserable. But pray, who has drawn this picture of religion? her friends, her acquaintances, her associates? No; they, with united voice, testify, That her ways are ways of pleasantness, and that her paths are paths of peace; they uniformly declare, that Godliness is profitable for all things, having the promise of the life which now is, and that which

is to come.

But let us examine the ways of those who bring such serious charges against our holy religion, who are altogether strangers to its nature and to its joys. They account themselves happy in having cast off the yoke of God, and freed themselves from the restraints which his law would impose upon them. But the truth is, they are under a most fatal delusion, and miserably deceive their own souls. A good understanding, regulating the conduct agreeably to God's commands, will insure to a man favor and comfort, both in this world and the next-But the way of transgressors is

hard; they are miserable in time, and will be damned in eternity; they are even disappointed now; and if they vainly dream of heaven, they will be awfully disappointed at last. Whatever these persons may say of religion, however they may deride its votaries, they are by no means competent judges. The testimony of universal experience is against them. But while we charge misery upon them, as the legitimate offspring of depravity, we stand on high ground; before conversion, many of us were in the secret. We know that sin has no lasting, no solid joys, while it has a thousand real pains; and it is a truth as clear as a sunbeam, that the way of transgressors is hard, a way full of briers and thorns. In the further illustration of these words, let us enquire

I. What are we to understand by the way of transgressors— The way of transgressors is hard. The word transgressor, is but another name for sinner. Characters of this description have always occupied a way peculiar to themselves: Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden? which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with flood: which said unto God, Depart from us. The very name supposes those to whom it belongs to be under the obligation of law, and to be violators of it; for where there is no law to bind men, there is no law to be transgressed by them. Hence, the apostle says, Sin is the transgression of the law but where no law is, there is no transgression. Transgressions, therefore, necessarily supposes either something done that was forbidden, or something omitted that was commenced. Every man either has been, or is now in the way of transgression: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. The pious and the good were in the way of transgression before their conversion to God; for the way of the upright is to depart from evil; and he that keepeth his way, preserveth his soul. Hence it is, that we are told that the law was not made for a righteous man; that is, for his justification-But for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers, and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves among mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for purged persons, and if there be anything contrary to sound doctrine. The way of transgressors might be thought the most honorable, and the happiest way in the world, considering the confidence of those who are in it, and their unwillingness to leave it; but, alas, it will be found a fruitless and shameful path; nay, a path leading directly to damnation. What fruit had ye in those things whereof ye are now ashamed, but the end of these things is death. But this point will become more apparent

II. By illustrating the doctrine of the text, respecting this way: The way of transgressors is hard. This is the uniform declaration of the sacred oracles. The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace,

saith my God, to the wicked. What an emblem of sinful disquiet is the ocean, restless when most at rest? and such is the metaphor employed to represent the unhappy condition of transgressors. They find the voyage of life rough and tempestuous; they, indeed, travel a rugged and thorny road.

1. The way of transgressors is hard, because it often leads to penury and want. and want. It is indeed true, that many of God's people are poor; but theirs is a sanctified poverty-they have a sovereign antidote against all their disadvantages. Do they want the benefit of human learning? to supply its place, they have the teachings of the Holy Spirit. Do they want many comforts? but they have the promises of the living God. Do their afflictions abound? but their consolations also abound in Christ. Under whatever disadvantages they may be supposed to labor, they have everything that they need treasured up for them in Christ Jesus; and out of his fulness they receive, in the time and measure which he knows to be best for them. Poor they may be in this world's goods; but they are enriched with the unsearchable riches of Christ. Thus, the poverty of the virtuous poor is a sanctified poverty, placing them in a condition to possess and enjoy the highest consolations of religion, and to attain the highest state of perfection. But the poverty of the wicked is abject and miserable; it is a poverty often brought upon themselves by their indolence, their love of pleasure, and their wickedness. Religion promotes industry, industry gains respect, respect gains recommendation, recommendation gains business, business gains wealth; and thus religion of itself naturally leads to prosperity. But, on the contrary, vice promotes idleness, idleness brings reproach, reproach cuts off recommendation, and want of recommendation stagnates business; and thus a wretched poverty often falls to the lot of the ungodly. Could we enter the wretched abodes of thousands, and ask what has clothed your children in rags ? What has stripped your houses of furniture? What has painted misery in your countenances, and robbed you of all the comforts of life? What, if the truth were spoken, would be the answer? Was it religion? Was it honesty? Was it temperance? Was it industry, that has rendered your abode the habitation of wretchedness, and turned all the joys of life into the bitterness of affliction and sorrow? No; it was the want of these. It was imprudence-it was intemperance-it was indolence-it was licentiousness-it was vice that led to these scenes of wretchedness and misery. Surely, the way of transgressors is hard.

2. The way of transgressors is hard, because it destroys a man's reputation, and reduces him into deep disgrace. A good name can never be too highly prized. It should be eagerly sought, and tenaciously retained.

Now, vice robs a man of this good name, and stamps him with infamy and disgrace. Hence, it is said, a wicked man is loathsome, and cometh to shame. Sin may promise much, but her steps are marked with infamy. She leads in a flowery path, but it is the path of disgrace. She points, indeed, to the temple of honor; but her votaries return covered with shame.

The Divine Being so supremely hates sin, that he is determined no honor shall be attached to that which so dishonors him. He has, therefore, stamped the higher degrees of vice with the character of the ridiculous and contemptible, and it is not in the power of man to efface it. All men, whose characters are stained with crime, become odious and execrable; and they deeply feel the disgrace attached to them. Who is he that blushes? Who is he that is ashamed? Who is he that skulks in obscurity, and is doomed to dwell in the shades of infamy and contempt? Who is he that every one distrusts? Who is avoided as a walking pestilenceas a living hell? Is it the man of virtue, of probity, of religion? No; it is the sinner-it is he who has offended God, and violated the laws of conscience, and truth, and justice, and holiness. Surely, the way of transgressors is hard.

3. The way of trangressors is hard, because it entails disease upon the human system, and brings on racking and excruciating pain. The human system is obnoxious to diseases, many of which are increased or avoided, by attention or inattention to our health. What a host of diseases do gluttony, drunkenness, indolence, disorder, and inordinate pleasure, entail upon a man! Religion, on the other hand, saves from all these; for it leads a man to be temperate in all things. Hence it is said: The fear of the Lord prolongeth days; but the years of the wicked shall be shortened. The hope of the righteous shall be gladness; but the expectation of the wicked shall perish. The way of the Lord is strength to the upright; but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity. The righteous shall never be removed; but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth. Vice not only shortens the days of the wicked, but fills them with bitterness and wo. Those trembling hands, that shaking head, those disjointed knees, that extinguished resolution, that feeble memory, that worn-out brain, that body all infection and putrefaction-these are the dreadful rewards which the devil bestows on those for whom he is preparing himself, shortly, to exercise all