804 A CAVEAT AGAINST INFIDELITY. Come, bless the Lordwith me, all yehappy souls; and highly favoured of God! who have been led into the knowledge of the gospel, from your younger years, and educated in the christian faith. Happy youths ! who are not only born in such a land of light as Great Britain, but have enjoyed the blessing of religious parents, who have taken care to instruct you, in the great things of your salvation. You have had your tender minds impressed with christianity betimes, and stamped with the divine religion of Jesus. Like young Timothy, from your very childhood, you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to snake you wise to salvation; 2 Tim. iii. 15. Favourite creatures ! who have been nursed up in the knowledge of your Greater, from your very cradles, and who have imbibed the words of truth, and the doctrine according togodliness. Happy souls, indeed, who have been preserved, by divine providence and grace, from sucking in those prejudices against the gospel of Christ, which have been the poison and the destruction of multitudes in our age ! O bless the Lord with a joyful heart, and awake all the powers of nature within you to bless this God of grace, who has cast your lot in a pleasant situation, in a land of knowledge, in a family of divine light and mercy. lle has taught you betimes his law and his gospel, his justice and his grace ; lie has let you see your guilt andmisery, and your effectual relief. As for many other families and other nations, they have not known them, praise ye the Lord ; Ps. cxlvii. 20. II. " Since you have been divinely favoured, with the knowledge of the right way to heaven, walk in it with all holy diligence and care." Since the rules of this sacred contest, for the prize of glory, have been revealed toyou, and set before you, awaken all your powers into activity, and strive that yemay ob- tain the crown. It is not enough, that you know the right path which leads to heaven, if you are not engaged heartily in the christian race. A mere knowledge of the laws'of it, will never bring you to the goal, nor entitle you to the heavenly prize. He that would be crowned must fight, must run, must strive, and exert all the powers of nature, according to the methods pre- scribed by divine grace, that he may be found an overcomer. List yourselves, therefore, under the banner of Jesus, 'the Captain of your Salvation, by a most solemn profession of his name, and devotion of yourselves to him. Mortify all your irregular appetites ; subdue your dear and darling sins ; resist every temptation to iniquity ; keep under your bodies, and every bodily inclinatiab, that apposes the purity and perfection of the spirit, Let no pride or envy, no malice or revenge,.no sensuality or intemperance, no cruel, or covetous, or selfish principles reign in you. Abstain from fleshly lusts, that war against the soul ; 1 Pet, ii. 11. _Every man that strives for the mastery, must be
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