Concerning many passages and doctrines of revelation, doubts may be entertained, and difficulties presented. You may question, in what sense those who rise at the last day, shall have the same bodies in which they died. You may doubt, to what degree human beings are depraved, and in what manner they became so. You may ask how it is possible to reconcile the doctrine of human liberty with the prescience of God, or the dependance of man. You may inquire, whether God operates directly on the hearts of men, or only through the medium of the understanding. You may feel uncertain whether the renovation of wicked men is a change, instantaneously, or gradually produced. On all these subjects many great men, and, it is presumed some good men, have been undetermined. But in regard to the accountability of man there is no uncertainty. It is inscribed, in striking characters, on all the pages of Scripture. This is represented in our text, not as a matter of conjecture, but of knowledge: Know thou, that for all these things, etc.

2. The other particular to which I would urge your attention, is that no youthful sins will escape investigation. For all these things, (he is speaking to the young, you will observe,) for all these things, God will bring thee into judgment.

That which constitutes accountability, is a moral nature; i. e. a capacity for discerning the difference between moral actions. All beings possessing this capacity, whatever be their nature in other respects, whatever part of the universe they occupy, and however various may be the forms which they assume, are subjects of moral government,-are bound by certain laws, and will be rewarded or punished, according to their observance, or neglect of them. As it respects accountability, whether you are young or old, whether you have existed fifteen years or fifty, is a question of no moment. This is agreeable to the common sense of mankind, as is evinced in human laws. The highwayman, the incendiary, or the murderer, receives the same punishment, whether these crimes are committed in the earlier, or more advanced periods of life. Society will not suffer its order to be interrupted, and its tranquillity to be disturb

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ed by the rashness of youth, more willingly, than by the perverseness of age. Neither will God suffer the one, any more than the other, to introduce anarchy and misrule into his moral kingdom.

Observe further, if there is a moral government, it extends to all times, and to every place. If God in general requires conformity to certain rules, he requires it in every instance. It is perfectly absurd to imagine, that while in possession of rational powers, we can be free from the obligations of duty. For if we are exempt from law at one time, why not at another? If for one hour, why not for a day, a month, or a year? A licentious or a profane speech was uttered, you say, in a thoughtless moment; a scene of dissipation was entered upon under the influence of youthful passions. Be it so. But God allows no person to be thoughtless, or to be impelled by his passions. If this would excuse one crime, it would excuse another. Many of those offences which bring their authors to capital punishment, were committed either in an unguarded moment, or when their passions were roused.

It appears then, that when the inspired preacher says to the young man For all these things God will bring thee into judgment, his doctrine as well corresponds with reason, as with the other parts of Scripture.

Consider that every violation of wholesome restraints, whether human or divine;-all the hours which are lost, or which are spent in forming habits of licentious living ;-all conversation which tends to deaden the moral feelings, and to enfeeble the sanctions of religion;-all habits of conversing or thinking, which tend to render virtue less venerable and vice less detestable and more alluring;-every word which is uttered in praise of wrong conduct and in disapprobation of that which is right; -the indulgence of every impure, envious, malignant, or revengeful passion ;-all these will be investigated and made public at the last day. Not only every work shall be brought into judgment; but every secret thing, whether it be good or bad: Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to ex

ecute judgment upon all; and to convince all that are ungodly of all their ungodly deeds, which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

Among the many things, which will be examined at the last day, will be your attention to religious counsel, your improvement or neglect of divine admonitions. The importance, which the Scriptures attach to a clear exhibition of duty and to circumstances calculated to enforce it, deserves much notice. As the Jews had been distinguished from other nations by their superior knowledge, God speaks of them as meriting a heavier punishment: You only have I known of all the families of the earth therefore will I punish you for all your iniquities. That the disobedience of the people might appear more heinous, God reminds them of the means, which had been used in vain for their reformation: I have hewed them by the prophets: I have slain them by the words of my mouth. In another place, the various judgments, with which the people had been visited, are distinctly mentioned; to which it is added: Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord. The days shall come, saith Christ, in regard to Jerusalem, when thine enemies shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

There can be no reason for adopting this mode of proceeding with communities more than with individuals. When God's judgments are abroad in the earth his intentions are that men should learn righteousness. But if they set at nought his counsel, and despise his reproof, their guilt accumulates, and corresponding punishment awaits them.

I will suppose it possible, that among those, whom I address, there are three descriptions.

First, those who are decidedly immoral;-those who by profaneness and dissipation, put beyond question their profligacy and want of principle.

Men who sail between the tropics, are exposed to a disorder denominated the calenture. Under the delirium which it

produces, they fancy the ocean to be a verdant, delightful field. Allured by these hallucinations to regale themselves in their imaginary field, they step from the deck and are lost forever.Where now are those young men, to whom Solomon directed the words in our text?-who rejoiced in their youth, and walked in the way of their heart, and in the sight of their eyes? Where now are those bold spirits, who in every period of the world, and in every country, have cast off the fear of God and of death? Were the pleasures of a dissolute life sufficient to compensate for all the remorse and anguish of soul, which they have already experienced, and which eternal ages have yet in reserve? Miserable pittance of sensual pleasure ;-criminal years, that have passed away as a tale which is told! Momentary joys, that are followed by an everlasting abode among the chains of darkness!

Were you assured that the present is the last day of your lives, and that this night would seal your destiny, would not your agitation and anguish be intolerable, both to yourselves, and to those whose compassion might not suffer them to desert you? You have no principles which would support you in such an hour. You are not the less immoral, because you disbelieve a God and a future state, however such infidelity might destroy remaining fears. You imagine that death is far distant, and will not arrive without sufficient warning. Your courage is precisely that of the poltroon, who boasts when he imagines that no danger is nigh.

2. There are others, and I hope a large proportion, of fair, unblemished morals; who, from the force of education and a general respect for religion, perceive something in open vice, at the same time infernal and brutish. The interest and delight with which your characters are viewed, must not however, induce you to believe, that any course of conduct, not grounded on real piety, affords a title to the divine favor. The Scriptures recognize no real goodness, but that which consists in the love of God, and results from renewing grace. Would you be content with any religion, but such as will abide with you at

death, and secure your salvation? Scrutinize your motives, and see whether you have ever performed a single action from real affection to the Supreme Being; and whether from a conviction of being justly condemned by the law, you have cordially assented to the terms of the new covenant. A good life, I acknowledge, proves the piety, and by consequence, the security of him who maintains it. But in a good life are comprehended repentance, faith, and submission. Without these, you may enjoy human applause, but can never attain to honor, glory and immortality.

3. Possibly there are a few individuals who are persuaded that religion is an internal principle, and that they do not possess it. Convinced that one thing is wanting, you cannot rest entirely satisfied either with a fair reputation, or with those acquisitions of knowledge, which are secured to you by application and perseverance. Between these, and the divine favor, you know there is no necessary connexion. As you expect forever to exist under the government of God, you feel some anxiety as to that part which never dies. When you witness persons of good information, and richly endowed with the gifts of nature, convinced that they have hitherto lived without God in the world, and afterwards maintain lives of active and conspicuous virtue, professedly under the influence of a new principle, you cannot bring your reason to ascribe this to fanaticism or su perstition.

But remember, that to bestow praise on pious people, will not prove your own piety. God does not allow you to defer repentance, because you confess that repentance is your duty. By every hour's delay, you enlarge the mass of guilt previously contracted.

My Young Friends, I quit this address with reluctance, and with an overwhelming depression of spirits;-a depression arising from the fear, that no permanent effects will be produced by it; but that you will still neglect religion, refuse the Saviour, and walk in the way of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes.

I will add one entreaty in the words of a well known poet.

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