Oh ! the delusions and the Christ-dethroning, conscience-wasting, and soul-undoing opinions and principles that many young ones, who once were hopeful ones, are given up to ! That dreadful scripture seems to be made good in power upon them : ' All you that forsake the Lord shall come to be ashamed, and they that depart from him shall be written upon the dust/ Jer. xvii. 13. To begin well and not to proceed, is but to aspire to a higher pitch, that the fall may be the more despe- rate. Backsliding is a wounding sin, Hos. iv. 14. You read of no arms for the back, though you do for the breast, Eph. vi. 11-18. He that is but seemingly good will prove at last exceeding bad : 2 Tim. iii. 13, ' They wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.'
The wolf, though he often dissembles and closely hides his nature, yet he will one time or other shew himself to be a wolf.
In the days of Hadrian the emperor, there was one Ben-cosbi, who, gathering a multitude of Jews together, called himself Ben-cocuba, the son of a star, applying that prophecy to himself, Num. xxiii. 17; but his mask was taken off, his hypocrisy discovered, and he found to be Bar- chosaba, the son of a lie.1 2 This age hath afforded many such monsters, but their folly is discovered, and their practices abhorred. This was the young man's commendation in the text, ' That there was found in him some real good towards the Lord.'
Use 2. This truth looks sourly and sadly upon such young men who are so far from having good things in them towards the Lord, that they give themselves up to those youthful lusts and vanities that are dis- honouring, provoking, and displeasing to the Lord, who roar and revel, and gad* and game, and dice, and drink, and drab* and u'hat not. These make work with a witness for repentance, or hell, or the physician of souls.
I shall but touch upon the evils of youth, and then come to that which is mostly intended.
The first evil that most properly attends youth is pride.
Evil 1. Pride of heart, pride of apparel, pride of parts, 1 Tim. iii. 6. Young men are apt to be proud of health, strength, friends, relations, wit, wealth, wisdom. Two things are very rare : the one is, to see a young man humble and watchful ; and the other is, to see an old man contented and cheerful.
Bernard saith, that pride is the rich man's cozen, and experience every day speaks out pride to be the }roung man's cozen.5 God, said
1 For vivid account of the different ' False Christs,' see Hepworth Dixon's ' Holy Land.' 2 vols. 8vo. 1865. — G. 2 Comets make a greater blaze than fixed stars.
3 ' To go about giddily.'— G. * Are ' licentious.'— G. 5 ' Cheat.' — G.
200 APPLES OF GOLD. [1 KlNGS XIV. 13.
one, had three sons, Lucifer, Adam, and Christ ; the first aspired to be like God in power, and was therefore thrown down from heaven ; the second to be like him in knowledge, and was therefore deservedly driven out of Eden when young ; the third did altogether imitate and follow Him in his goodness, mercy, and humility, and by so doing obtained everlasting inheritance.1
Remember this, young men, and as you would get a paradise, and keep a paradise, get humble, and keep humble. Pride is an evil that puts men upon all manner of evil. Accius the poet, though he were a dwarf, yet would be pictured tall of stature.2
Psaphon, a proud Lybian, would needs be a god, and having caught some birds, he taught them to speak and prattle : the great god Psaphon.8
Menecrates, a proud physician, wrote thus to king Philip: Menecrates a god, to Philip a king.'
Proud Simon in Lucian, having got a little wealth, changed his name from Simon to Simonides, for that there were so many beggars of his kin ; and set the house on hre wherein he was born, because no- body should point at it.5
What sad evils Pharaoh's pride, and Haman's pride, and Herod's pride, and Belshazzar's pride, put them upon, I shall not now mention.6
Ah ! young men, young men, had others a window to look into your breasts, or did your hearts stand where your faces do, you would even be afraid of yourselves, you would loathe and abhor yourselves.
Ah ! young men, young men, as you would have God to keep house with you, as you would have his mind and secrets made known to }*ou, as you would have Christ to delight in you, and the Spirit to dwell in you, as you would be honoured among saints, and attended and guarded by angels, get humble, and keep humble.
Tertullian's counsel to the young gallants of those times was excel- lent : ' Clothe yourselves/ said he, 'with the silk of piety, with the satin of sanctity, and with the purple of modesty ; so shall you have God himself to be your suitor.'7
Evil 2. The second evil that youth is subject to is, sensual 'pleasures and delights.8 'Rejoice, 0 young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thy heart, and in the sight of thine eyes,' Eccles. xi. 9. The wise man, by an ironical concession, bids him rejoice, &c, sin, &c. Thou art wilful, and resolved upon taking thy pleasure ; go on, take thy course. This la- speaks by way of mockage and bitter scoff, &c. ; but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. So Samson ' made a feast ; for so used the young men to do,' Judges xiv. 10. The hearts of young men usually are much given up to pleasure. I have read of a young man, who was very much given up to pleasures ; he
1 Pride cannot climb so high, but justice will sit above.
2 Mentioned by Cicero. Brutus, 28— G. 8 Qu. ' Psaon'?— G.
4 'Die letter to Philip beginning, Miiu^m,- Ztus "f/X/Vtrw, xa'il,v> received tins answer , •ki'AtrToi UiviK^aru iiyiaimv. Of. AthenSBUB, Yii. p. 289; Aelian, Piar. Hist., xii. 61, and Buidas, s v. Mivtxgccrns. — G. 6 Cf. Suidas, sub nomine. — G.
0 Acco, an old woman, seeing ber deformity in a glass, went mad. fltc. [Qn. ' Acca Lanrentia'? — G.] " Tertnllian de Cnlt. feem, cap. 18.
* 2 Sam- xiii. 23-29. Oloth Vi\ia.a KaxZ\>. Pleasure is tbe bait of sin, saitb Plato.
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standing by St Ambrose, and seeing his excellent death, turned to other young men by him, and said, ' Oh, that I might live with you, and die with him.'
Sensual pleasures are like to those locusts, Rev. ix. 7, the crowns upon whose heads are said to be only as it were such, or such in ap- pearance, and like gold ; but verse 10, it is said there were — not as it were, but — stings in their tails.
Sensual pleasures are but seeming and appearing pleasures,1 but the pains that attend them are true and real. He that delights in sensual pleasures, shall find his greatest pleasures become his bitterest pains.
The heathens looked upon the back parts of pleasure, and saw it going away from them, and leaving a sting behind.