ments of reprchenfible gratifications. It is the unhappiness of many perfons, especially of the female fex, to experience fuch an education, to be accustomed at home no lefs than abroad to fuch discourse and fuch examples, as to be led to regard amufements as an unruffled fea of pleasures, where, roving from one happy island to another, they are to be repaid for the thraldom of fchools and inftruction. O wretched ignorance of human duties! O miferable estimate of the objects of human existence! If at any time you feel a fenfation of painful disappointment, when prevented from partaking in fome expected amusement; be affured that your heart rates amusement at too high a value. A child may be excufable if difconcerted when the butterfly, which it was on the point of feizing, eludes its grafp. Let the well-inftructed Christian be fober : let him estimate trifles as trifles, and confider things indifferent with indifference.

There remains yet one subject, with refpect to which felf-government must be exemplified; purity.

Purity commands you to flee youthful lufts (u), under whatever form, and in whatever degree, they may prefent them(u) 2 Tim. ii. 22.

felves;

felves; and to renounce all incitements to fin, all fociety, all scenes, all books, all difcourse, which tend to inflame the paffions or to pollute the imagination. No unclean perfon ponder well the fcriptural comprehensiveness of the term-No unclean perfon fhall inherit the kingdom of God (x).

Purity claims also the regulation of the demeanour and conduct of young perfons towards those of the other fex.

It was even on Timothy, the eminently virtuous Timothy, that St. Paul preffed the admonition, to treat the younger women as fifters, with all purity. The phrase implies not only a confcientious abhorrence of every action, of every word, which is an offence against the feelings of modefty; but a fcrupulous abftinence from indifcreet familiarity, a guarded forbearance from unbecoming levity, a cautious avoidance of every proceeding likely to impair the habit of delicate propriety. If fuch are the obligations incumbent on young men; what circumfpect referve, what fanctity of manners, does God require from women! Let each sex be aware that, by ftudied affiduities and particular attentions, to entrap through motives of vanity or felfishness the affections of another, is among the most cruel fpecies (*) Gal. v. 7. 1 Cor. vi. 9, &c.

of

of robbery and fraud. Let them fo regulate their deportment as tacitly to prevent or to remove mifconceptions on the part of thofe, who may groundlessly deem themselves objects of especial regard. With equal care, with an equally firm conviction of duty, let them watch over their bofoms, that their own affections be not haftily feized. If in the commoneft tranfactions of life the glory of God is to be the ruling principle of a Christian; is that principle to be dismissed, is it to be postponed, in the most important engagement, marriage? Shall the bleffing of the Lord of all accompany a contract, in which his honour is flighted, his approbation held of secondary importance? Do you feek the glory of God? Do you hope for his bleffing; Cherish not a thought of being united to another in marriage, until you have folid grounds for deliberate belief that the individual in question is a true fervant of Christ: a fervant of Chrift not in the loose acceptation of the terms prevalent in a careless world, but in that comprehensive and fcriptural import which at the last day they shall be found to have involved. If perfonal atractions, or amiable manners, or lucrative or fplendid connections, preponderate in your heart; you are the flave of

engaging

engaging features, or of alluring demeanour, or of interest, or of ambition; not the fervant of Jehovah. Hear the voice of God prohibiting his chofen people from marriages with idolators. Hear St. Paul commanding Christians to marry only in the Lord (y). Hear him, in the very passage which is the foundation of the present discourse, commanding them not to be yoked unequally with unbelievers. What fellowship, he exclaims, bath righteousness with unrighteousness? What communion hath light with darkness? What concord hath Chrift with Belial? What part bath he that believeth with an infidel? Let it not be fupposed that the energy of thefe words refpects merely the cafe of a Christian about to marry a heathen or a sceptic. It respects the cafe of a Christian meditating marriage with any person whom God regards as not a Christian: a person who, like the covetous man, or the glutton, being enflaved to fome habit of unrighteoufnefs, is ftamped by the Scriptures an idolator; a perfon who lives not unto Christ, and therefore has no efficient faith in Chrift; a perfon whose heart, idolifing the world, is cold and formal as to genuine religion. Reflect on the danger which would necef(y) 1 Cor. vii. 39.

farily enfue to your own principles no less than to your happiness, from an union with a partner not truly religious: and you will confess that on this as on every occafion intereft moves hand in hand with duty. Guard then your affections against sudden and premature impreffions. Look promarily to the religious character of the individual, towards whom you feel a dawning of regard. Weigh circumftances with precision: weigh them under a lively fenfe of your predisposition to fee all things with a favourable eye. If attachment infinuating itself into the bofom has been permitted to make progrefs, ere you difcover that its object is in the primary qualification defective: how diftreffing is the alternative of relinquishing your prospects at the expence of a bitter facrifice, or of persisting at the risk of your present and eternal welfare! But if you shrink from the facrifice, you do not love God above all. In making it, whatever you fuffer, you fuffer as a Chriflian; you fuffer for righteousness' fake. In fuch fufferings blessed are you. Act thus in all things, and you fhall be bleffed through your Redeemer for ever.