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it less of danger and difficulty. Soon he discovers one apparently more easy and pleasing to flesh and blood. For awhile he stands in doubt; his love of felf-indulgence overcomes him. "He will not endure hardness as a good foldier of Jesus Christ." He enters the forbidden path. Now all feems pleasant and delightful. The pleasures of the road lull to fleep his spiritual senses. Sin, now, like a ferpent, assails him; he has now no strength to resist; he falls a victim to his folly; guilt and remorse now fting him to the quick. "Fool that I was," he exclaims. "Oh! that I had continued in the path of duty." It is too late. Wretched man, self-indulgence has proved his ruin.

The disobedient prophet fell a victim to selfindulgence, when he turned aside to "eat bread and drink water," and a lion met him by the way and flew him. The five foolish virgins also, who "fslumbered and flept" when they ought to have been watching, fell by the same infidious foe. They awoke in outer darkness, and found the door of the kingdom of heaven fast closed against them for ever.

"If any man will be my disciple," said the Saviour, "let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." To them who by patient continuance in well-doing feek for glory, and honour, and immortality: eternal life. "He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved."

"Deny thyself and take thy cross,
Is the Redeemer's great command !

Nature must count her gold but dross,
If she would gain this heavenly land.

"The fearful foul that tires and faints,
And walks the ways of God no more,
Is but esteem'd almost a faint,

And makes his own destruction fure."

DR. WATTS. CARNAL SECURITY.

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"Surely thou didst set them in flippery places: thou castedst them down into destruction." Ps. 1xxiii. 16.

See here portrayed, a gently rifing ground,
With tulips gay, and blooming roses crowned;
Where flowers of various hues, or gay or fair,
Mingle their sweetness with the balmy air;
While woodland minstrels stoop upon the wing,
Attune their notes, and softeft carols sing;
A youth lies fleeping on the roseate bed,
Heedless of dangers, thus to ruin led;
A horrid gulf of thickest night is there,
Where hope ne'er comes, but darkness and despair;
A turn-a move and in the gulf he'll roll,
Where fiery billows prey upon the foul.

It is by afcending "a gently rifing ground," and not by overleaping abrupt precipices, that the youth attains his dangerous pofition-his bad eminence. "Sin is first pleasing, then easy, then delightful, then confirmed, then the man is impenitent, then he is obftinate, then he refolves never to repent, and then he is damned."

Sin possesses a peculiar faculty to deceive; this is true of fin in all its modifications. It allures, that it may betray and destroy. It meets the youth with smiles only, that it may plunge a dagger more furely in the heart. It promises to the gambler, the robber, and murderer, wealth, pleasure, kingdoms. But having filled the cup of hope to the brim, with cruel mocking it is exchanged for the chalice of despair.

Sin adapts itself to the various depraved appetites or propenfities of man. To all its votaries it promises the pleasures of this life. But "the wages of fin is death." To all likewise it offers perfect fecurity; crying peace, safety, when fudden destruction is at hand.

As fin is thus deceptive in its promises and fatal in its results, so also is it in its influence on the human mind. It blinds the eyes, it hardens the heart, it fears the confcience, it fafcinates the imagination, it perverts the judgment, it gives a wrong bias to the will, it effaces from the memory recollections of the beautiful and the good. In a word, it throws the pall of the grave over the whole man, and hides from his view, his guilt, his danger, and his immortality.

The man is now wrapped in the mantle of "carnal fecurity;" he is insensible to all around him. The path of finful pleasure is strewed with Plutonian flowers. They breathe the odour of the pit, stupifying to the senses. The bewitching music of the great enchanter cafts the foul into a deep fleep. It is like the fleep of the grave.

Perhaps he is dreaming of happiness that he will never enjoy; perhaps of home, that he shall never behold; or of friends, whom he shall embrace no more for ever. In the midst of his dreams of delight, the bow of the Almighty is strung; the arrow is made ready; the dart of death is uplifted, ready to fall upon the unconscious victim; the pit has opened its mouth to receive the prey. Nothing but the voice of God can arouse him from his lethargy.

"What meanest thou, O fleeper! arife and call upon God, if so be that thou perish not. Awake, thou that fleepest; and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light."

"Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth; walk thou in the ways of thy heart, and in the fight of thy eyes. But know, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment."

"Ye fons of Adam, vain and young,
Indulge your eyes, indulge your tongue;
Taste the delights your fouls defire,
And give a loose to all your fire.

"Pursue the pleasures you defign,
And cheer your hearts with songs and wine;
Enjoy the day of mirth; but know,
There is a day of judgment too.

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