144 / 514
136
A
HOPEFUL YOUTH
[SERM.
Vitt.
the
eye sees you,
it
gives
witness to
you. But
is
this
enough
to
depend upon
for
eternal
life
?
Perhaps
you
have borrowed
part of
the valuable qualities
of that
good
man
Job,
you have delivered the
poor
that
cry,
and
the
fatherless
that
had none
to
help
him;
you
have
caused
the
widow's
heart
to sing
for joy, and
the blessing
of
him
that
was
ready
to
perish, has come often upon
you,
Job
xxix.
11, 12, 13.
There
is
so
much
natural
good-
ness in
your
constitution,
that
leads you
on,
by
a sweet
instinct,
to
the
practice
of
many charities
:
but
this
is
not
saving grace.
If
Jesus
Christ himself
were
upon
earth
in this
humbled state,
he would look upon
you,
as man,
and
love you
:
but
the
holy
God
looks
down
from heaven, and beholds
you as the
object
of
his
just
and
divine hatred,
while you live
in
a state
of
vanity and
sin,
drunken
with
sensual pleasures,
and
at
enmity
with
God.
This
sweetness
of
temper,
that
springs from
your
blood, and the
happy mixture
of
humours
;
or,
at
best,
from the mere
natural
frame
of
your
spirits,
will
never
pass,
upon
the
great
tribunal,
for holiness and inward
religion.
With
all
this
charming
appearance of
virtues,
these colours
that
look
like heaven, you
will
be
doomed
to
hell,
and
perpetual
misery, unless
there
be
found
in
you some
nobler
qualities, such
as,
love to
God, morti-
fication
to
this world, the knowledge and
faith of Jesus
Christ.
If
these
be
not
the springs
of your
charity
and
love to
men, you
will
not
be
secured
from
the condemn-
ing sentence of
the
judge, nor
from the
company
of
de-
vils in
the
future
world.
But
oh
!
how
will
your
soft
and gentle natures bear
the insult and rage
of
those malicious spirits
?
How
will
your
temper,
that
had something
so
lovely in
it,
sustain
to
be
banished for ever
from
the world
of
love? to
be
for ever
excluded
from all
the regions
of
peace and con-
cord
?
How
will
your
souls
endure
the madness and
contention, the
envy and spite
of
wicked angels
?
You
that
delighted on
earth
in
the
works
of
peace,
what
will
ye do when
your tender
dispositions shall
be hourly
ruffled by the
uproar
and confusion
of
those dark re-
gions
?
and instead
of
the society
of God
and
blessed
spirits, ye shall
be
eternally vexed
with the perverse
tempers
of your
fellow
-
sinners, the
sons
of
darkness
?