any thing that is important? Irresolution here, is to be undetermined whether you will be the friend or the enemy of God; whether you will live in this world under the favour or the curse of Jehovah, and in the world to come, in the torments of the bottomless pit, or the felicities of the heavenly city; whether you will choose condemnation or salvation. There is no language which can describe, there is no allusion which can illustrate, the folly of indecision in religion. The irresolution of a slave, whether he should continue to groan in fetters, or be free; of the leper, whether he should still be covered with the most loathsome disease, or enjoy the glow of health; of the condemned criminal, whether he should choose an honourable life, or the most torturing and ignominious death; is not marked with such desperate folly as an undecided state of mind about personal religion. The Scripture demands decision, and it demands it in these striking words, “See, I have set before thee this day life and good, death and evil; therefore choose." Yet some are undecided whether they will serve God, their Creator, Preserver, and Benefactor, and inherit eternal life; or yield themselves to Satan, their destroyer, and suffer the bitter pains of eternal death. If the matter were involved in obscurity, as to what was your duty or your interest, there would be some apology; but when both are as clear as the day, the folly of indecision is so palpably manifest, as to entail a most fearful degree of guilt upon the conscience of the irresolute.

Indecision is contemptible. "Unstable as water thou shalt not excel," is a character which no

one ever pretended to admire. In the ordinary affairs of life, indecision renders a man an object of pity or contempt. It is a poor disgraceful thing not to be able to answer with some degree of firmness to the questions, What will you be? What will you do? It is a pitiable thing to see a creature, with all the faculties of a rational being about him, so irresolute and undecided, as almost to wish that he could exchange reason for instinct, in order that he might be spared the trouble of thinking, and the pain of choosing: a poor, dependent, powerless creature, that floats like a feather or a chip along the stream of time, belonging to whatever can seize him; and without one effort of resistance, whirled in every little eddy, and intercepted by every little twig. But how much more disgraceful is this irresoluteness of mind in the affairs of religion, where there are so many means, and so many motives for coming to a just conclusion. To be blown about like thistle-down by every wind of doctrine, and carried just wherever the gust or the current impels, is as dishonourable to our understanding as it is detrimental to our salvation.

Indecision is uncomfortable. Suspense is always painful. Hesitation as to the steps we shall take, and the conduct we shall pursue, is a most undesirable state of mind: and this uneasiness will be in exact proportion to the importance of the business to be decided, and to the degree of compunction we feel for not deciding upon a course, which we cannot help thinking, upon the whole, is the right one. My children, the undecided cannot be altogether easy in their present fluctuating state of mind. No: directed

one way by conviction, and dragged another by inclination determining at one time to serve God fully, and at another smarting under the guilt of broken vows: resolved on the Sabbath, and irresolute on the Monday: sometimes advancing with courage, and then again retreating with fear and shame: no, this is not the way to be happy. You may as well expect peace on the field of battle, as in the bosom where such a conflict is carried on. Look up to God, and ask for grace to terminate by decided piety the dreadful strife, if indeed it be carried on in your breast.

Indecision is dangerous. Consider the uncertainty of life. How soon and how suddenly the King of Terrors may arrest you, and bear you to his dark domain. Some acute, imflammatory disease, in a few days may extinguish life; or a fatal accident, which leaves you no leisure even to bid adieu to those you love on earth, may hurry you into eternity. And then what becomes of you? In a state of indecision you are unprepared for death, for judgement, for heaven. You are within the flood-mark of divine vengeance. God accounts all those to be decidedly against him, who are not decidedly for him. There is, properly speaking, no middle ground between regeneracy and unregeneracy, between conversion and unconversion, and therefore he that does not occupy the one, is found within the limits of the other. You are a child or an enemy of God. Whatever may be your occasional relentings, your transient emotions, your ineffectual desires, if you do not become decidedly pious, God will take no account of these things, but treat you, if you die in this state, as

I

one that had decided against him. Can you then linger when death and hell do not linger? Can you halt, hesitate, and fluctuate, when death may the very next hour decide the business for you? And, oh! if you should die without decision, what will be your reflections, and what will be ours! How bitterly will you exclaim, "Fool that I was, to let any thing interfere with my eternal salvation; to let any thing interpose between my soul and her everlasting welfare. Why, why did I hesitate? I saw the excellence, I coveted the possession of religion. Often Í felt my heart rising to go and surrender unreservedly to God; 1 wept, I prayed, I resolved; but that accursed lust, in which I took pleasure, held me fast, and rather than tear myself from it, I let go the hope of eternal life. I was afraid of a little ridicule, which I ought to have disregarded or despised, and when I seemed near the kingdom was ruined by indecision. While I hesitated death seized me, and now I shall be exhibited by the light of this flame in which I burn for ever, an awful proof of the folly and the danger of indecision. Wo, eternal wo upon my wretched spirit !"

Spare yourselves, my dear children, these dreadful reflections, this inconceivable torment. Without an hour's delay, resign yourselves to God and the influence of true religion. the doubtful point. Believe and obey.

Decide

CHAPTER X.

On the pleasures of a religious life.

A DESIRE after happiness, my dear children, is inseparable from the human mind. It is the natural and healthy craving of our spirit; an appetite which we have neither will nor power to destroy, and for which all mankind are busily employed in making provision. This is as natural, as for birds to fly, or fishes to swim. For this the scholar and the philosopher, who think it consists in knowledge, pore over their books and their apparatus, light the midnight lamp, and keep frequent vigils, when the world around them is asleep. For this the warrior, who thinks that happiness is inseparably united with fame, pursues that bubble through the gory field of conflict, and is as lavish of his life, as if it were not worth a soldier's pay. The worldling, with whom happiness and wealth are kindred terms, worships daily at the shrine of Mammon, and offers earnest prayers for the golden shower. The voluptuary gratifies every craving sense, rejoices in the midnight revel, renders himself vile, and yet tells you he is in the chase of happiness. The ambitious man, conceiving that the great desideratum blossoms on the sceptre, and hangs in rich clusters from the throne, consumes one half of his life, and embitters the other half, in climbing the giddy elevation of royalty. All these, however, have confessed their disappointment; and have retired from the stage exclaiming, in reference to happiness, what Brutus, just before he stabbed him