ces, he is tempted by indulgence; or, if under embarrassment, he is sometimes oppressed with care. Now, invited to idleness; now, urged to excessive study; now, to fascinating but irrelevant employments; vain, perhaps, of his overrated powers, or undervaluing those which he possesses; tempted by himself, at the most critical period of his existence, in a fallen world; allured by the established errors of a corrupt age; ensnared by the unseen craft of the Tempter-" Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?" Shall he rely on what moralists call the virtuous tendency of the youthful mind? Soon will he discover, if he has not already been taught, that he has a "heart deceitful above all things," and, if left to itself,

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desperately wicked." Shall he seek guidance in the cold and scanty morals of philosophy? He will find all such principles either centering in self, or in external proprieties and merely honourable

1 Jer. xvii. 9.

feelings. He will look in vain from these teachers, amid the storms of temptation, for motive and sanction sufficient to direct him in his course. There is a power, as he will perceive, that is wanting, beyond what this world can give; and he will be compelled to turn from them in despair, exclaiming, "Oh, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death 1?"

1

2. Consider the extent of the words "cleanse his way." It is a general expression for the re-establishment, and due regulation of the heart, exposed to the seduction of sin. It is a comprehensive term, for the subjection of all evil tempers; for the cure, under Christ's mercy and divine grace, of a diseased and polluted nature; for the recovery of a defiled soul; for the renovation of its powers; for the making straight that which is crooked; for the attainment of new and heavenly dispositions; or, in the language of the

1 Rom. vii. 24.

Apostle, being "renewed in the spirit of

our minds1."

What powers indeed has

man within himself, enabling him to extirpate sin, and to perfect holiness in the fear of God? How shall the current of his thoughts, flowing in a wrong direction, be arrested in its course, and turn itself into the new and pure channel of righteousness? Whence shall he acquire the power of satisfying the infinite obligations, which he is bound to discharge towards God and man? And if these things be new to the mind; if he have not yet, even yet, sought the one thing needful, what a fearful accumulation of guilt is there, first, to be cleansed away? of actual sins indulged, of indifference and neglect, and wilfulness? "Who can tell how oft he offendeth? O cleanse thou me from my secret faults',' will be the humble and contrite acknowledgment of all, who really know themselves. I have "followed the devices and

2

1 Eph. iv. 23.

2 Ps. xix. 12.

desires of my own heart, and there is no health in me."

3. Wherewithal then shall a young man cleanse his way? Hath not Revelation answered this truly important question? "by taking heed thereto according to thy word." If the covenant revealed to us, as established between God in Christ, and the fallen race of Adam, has been entered into; then, in the purifying waters of Baptism, that covenant has been efficiently sealed. By nature, man is a lost creature; dark in understanding; depraved in will; irregular in desires and affections; alienated from God, and attached to sensual objects and present things; a creature more of the flesh, than of the spirit. But in Baptism, the laver of Regeneration, he is translated by the Holy Spirit of God from a state of nature into a state of grace, and adopted into the family of heaven, and vitally united to Christ the Saviour. While thus brought under the pure guidance of the Divine Comforter, he is solemnly

pledged to take God for his Father, Jesus Christ for his Redeemer, and the Spirit for the Sanctifier of his soul. Thus, in the first instance, is his way cleansed, by attention to the authority of God's hallowed ordinance. Thus is he born into a new state; made a new creature; and instead of remaining a child of wrath, is made a child of grace. And now, by the privileges of this Sacrament, exalted unto heaven, he is under the most solemn requirement, to ratify this covenant to the benefit of his own immortal soul. Happy is he, that "remembering his Creator in the days of his youth'," is led on from grace to grace, with the Word of God for his guide, and the Spirit of God for the daily renovator of his inner man. Happy is he that strays not far from his God; but habitually adheres to him, by a lively trust in a crucified Saviour and even "from a child," implores assistance from God; and wherein he has offended, washes his faults, from 1 Eccles. xii. 1.