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AVOID IDLENESS-PRACTISE DILIGENCE.

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will bestow on you eternal ages of salvation? Can you regret to be always religious, always diligent, always bent on improving time, on honouring Jesus, and growing ripe for heaven? Ah, why what is that long always, compared with your eternity? Let it be as long as it may, yet compared with those worlds of ages, it is but as a thought, or a dream, or a sigh. Soon all the time you have to improve for God will be past. "Few and evil," said Jacob, "have the days of the years of my life been." Few and evil have been mine, may every Christian say on a dying bed: but their labours are past, their work is done, they are come to an end, and I enter an eternity, where days, and nights, and months, and years, are words that have no place. The work of my time is done; but the praises of my eternity will never cease. Happy spirit, that in a few transient days, through grace, secures that eternal blessedness!

Avoid Idleness-Practise Diligence.

$9. A sin to which human nature is peculiarly addicted, is idleness. Its evils are innumerable. Both reason and Scripture lift a warning voice against this common and delusive vice. It is truly said, that the idle are found wandering on Satan's ground, and that he finds employment "for idle hands to do." In the word of God, abundance of idleness is represented as one of the principal sins which brought ruin upon Sodom. It is also described as the sin of those who have damnation, because they have cast off their faith; and as one step in their progress to perdition. "And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also, and busy-bodies, speaking things which they ought not."r

The indulgence of this sin is one of the most decisive marks of irreligion. An idle Christian is as much a contradiction in terms as a drunken Christian. This sin also appears to form one of the strongest barriers against conversion, and the enjoyment of salvation. Few of the unhappy subjects of idleness are ever brought to enjoy the grace of God. Less abhorred, and less alarming, than drunkenness, or blasphemy, or dishonesty, idleness is often more destructive. Many a drunkard has been reclaimed, many a blasphemer has been con

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verted, many a dishonest person has learned to do justly and love mercy; but few habitual idlers have been brought into the way to heaven.

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The Scriptures expressly require from the disciples of the Lord Jesus diligence and industry. Be "not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord."s Study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you."t

Recreations.

§ 10. Perhaps you urge that relaxation is needful.

Happy are they who find their relaxation from severer engagements in visiting the abodes of affliction, and communicating instruction or comfort to the sons and daughters of distress! who pursue even in their least busy moments the great end of life; give even their hours of relaxation to God, and connecting piety and pleasure, can exclaim,

"Lord, in my view let both united be,
"I live in pleasure when I live to thee."

Let your recreations accord with your situation, your character, and your prospects.

Let them accord with your situation. You are a pilgrim passing to eternity. By to-morrow you may be fixed there. Your life is but a span: on that span depends eternity. In a situation so solemn, it is madness to pursue any recreation that can in the slightest measure be injurious to your eternal interests. Yet this must be the effect of many recreations, in which the lover of pleasure says, There is no harm. Besides other evil, they dissipate the mind, they render it indisposed for the exercises of devotion, or the services of religion. Thus they not merely squander that most precious treasure-time, but they counteract the design for which time is given-the preparing of the deathless soul for that eternal state, which is just at hand. Who can go from a dancing room to serious devotion? Who that is charmed with a worthless though interesting novel, will lay it aside, and go and search the Scriptures with pleasure and with prayer? If this world were your all, you might pursue its amusements, and squander time away on its novels, its romances, and all its vain delights; but eternity is yours, and these things will all oppose your prepara

(s) Rom. xii. 11.

(t) 1 Thess. iv. 11, 12.

THE CHRISTIAN'S RECREATIONS.

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tion for eternity, and all tend to render your mind vain and trifling, earthly and sensual.

"No matter which my thoughts employ,
"A moment's misery or joy;

"But, O, when both shall end,

"Where shall I find my destined place?
"Shall I my everlasting days

"With fiends or angels spend ?"

§ 11. Let your amusements accord with your character. Are you a Christian in truth? Then you are a disciple of a compassionate Saviour, and compassion should distinguish you. Any amusement that occasions pain, even to the meanest creature, is inconsistent with your character, and disgraceful to your profession. As a Christian, you are a child of God, a member of his family, a temple of his Spirit, a member of Christ, and a citizen of heaven. And do the vain pastimes of a sinful and blinded world comport with such a character? Is the giddy ball-room, or the wanton playhouse, the midnight assembly, or the card or gaming table, suited to your situation, and becoming your profession? Did the Saviour of mankind ever frequent such scenes, or were he on earth would he frequent them now? Yet he left you his example, that you should follow his steps. Would any one of his apostles (unless it were Judas) have partaken of such amusements? Yet if there were no harm in them, there would have been no harm in apostles sharing them. And if they were improper for them, they are for you. For the blood that redeemed them was shed for you, and the eternity that awaited them awaits you. Should a Christian, a child of God, be seen standing to gaze at a puppet-show? or mingle with the clamouring, shouting, swearing, drinking, gambling crowd, that frequent races and fairs, and other worldly amusements? If the amusement itself were not sinful, to associate with such men is to disgrace the sacred profession of religion. I once knew a man that professed regard to the gospel, that disgraced his profession by an apparent eagerness to witness scenes of worldly sin and folly. If even two blackguards were fighting in the street, he would be one of the first to run and stare at them. Probably he would have excused such conduct by the plea, that he took no part in what he thus beheld; but the plea would not avail. His conduct betrayed a vain, carnal, worldly disposition, and disgraced the character he bore; and in the end he forsook religion.

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DUTY TO CIVIL RULERS.

Let your recreations accord with your prospects. You look forward to death, you have eternity before you. You hope to join the throng of the redeemed; to sing the anthems of heaven; to become every thing but an angel, among the angels of light; to worship before the eternal throne; to dwell with God; to live and praise among all the myriads of the blest. Should a dying man trifle away the fair day of life? Should one who expects to be judged for every hour, waste the hours which go so fast, and never must return? Could an angel or a glorified saint sojourn a few weeks in this world, where would you expect to find him? Not in the theatre, not in the ball-room, not at the card-table, not employing the few days of his stay on novels or romances, be they ever so ingenious; but cheering by his presence the abodes of sickness and sorrow, or recreating his mind with admiring the works, and ways, and word of God. And do not you expect to be a glorified spirit soon? Are you not already a member of the family to which glorified spirits belong? O, let even your amusements, then, comport with such hopes and such a character! One simple rule, well observed, will lead you right. Let your amusements be such as an apostle might have partaken of, such as you will not regret in your dying moments, nor be ashamed of before the bar of the eternal Judge.

The Christian's Duty to Civil Rulers.

§ 12. The religion of the Bible interferes not with the great points of political controversy; but directs its professors to pass through this world cherishing honour and respect for kings and rulers. "Honour the king." "Curse not the king, no not in thy thoughts." "Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's."

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It should be remembered, that the Christian belongs to a kingdom that is not of this world; that his chief business here is to glorify God, to reach heaven, and take as many as he can with him to that kingdom of eternal peace. Like a traveller passing through a foreign land, he may feel an interest in observing its concerns; but is not to delay his journey for (v) Eccles. x. 20. (w) Matt. xxii. 21. also Rom. xiii. 1, 7. 1 Pet. ii. 13, 14, 17. 1 Tim. ii. 1-3.

(u) 1 Pet. ii. 17.

DUTY TO CIVIL RULERS.

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the sake of plunging into the perplexities and cares, the contentions and tumults, of its inhabitants.

Remember too that governors are, like yourselves, erring creatures, and that it is impiety, not patriotism, to behold all their actions with a jealous eye; to slander their conduct by attributing bad motives to plans that may prove mistaken however well designed; and to indulge a spirit of antipathy to them whom God commands you to respect and honour. To be presumptuous and self-willed, and to speak evil of dignities, are traits in the character of those who shall utterly perish in their own corruption.

§ 13. To take a warm interest in the political discussions of the day, is in many respects unsuitable to a follower of the Lamb. It is inconsistent with the character of a pilgrim, journeying to a better world. It is highly injurious to the best interests of the soul. Religion languishes or dies in the heart that is continually agitated by political subjects. No share appears more dangerous, none more destructive to vital piety, than this. Nor has the Christian reason to expect much from a world at enmity with his Father and his Saviour. The late Mr. Scott observed, "I trust I speak as a Christian minister, when I say, that toleration and protection are all that God's servants can reasonably expect in the devil's world. A world of which the devil is styled the god and prince.— And in fact this is all they should desire.”

§14. The sound of liberty is often enchanting to a young mind. If you have been bewitched by this enchantment, seriously sit down and think, what liberty you wish your governors to grant you, that you do not possess. Surely not the liberty of doing ill, and as for the liberty of doing well, do you not enjoy it as completely as you desire? May you not go where you please, and when you please; and, so that you injure not others, do what you please? Are you not protected in the enjoyment of your religious rights? Would the infidel ranters after liberty afford you such protection? Would they not rather, as they did in France, persecute the disciples of the Saviour? Be thankful to God for your privileges and blessings, and respect the sovereign whose family has protected our religious rights for one hundred and twenty years; and view politics but as you would view a country, through which you pass rapidly, never to see it again. You have

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