yea, rejoice, if so it may be, " with a joy that is unspeakable and glorified." These joys will never make the future judgment formidable ; on the contrary, they will help to prepare thee for it, inasmuch as they are themselves an earnest of thine ever- lasting inheritance.]
Eccl. xii. 1. Rememher now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, lohile the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, ivhen thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.
INSTRUCTION may profitably be given in a variety of ways : indeed, in order to be efFectual, it must be accommodated in some measure to the dis- positions and habits of the persons addressed. To one M^ho is v\^ayvvard and self-w^illed, the pungency of irony may be well applied ; whilst with the tractable and docile, the more simple and direct way of affec- tionate exhortation may be of more avail. Both these methods are adopted by Solomon in the pas- sage before us. In the verses immediately preceding our text, he addresses a young man whom he sup- poses to be bent on the prosecution of his evil ways : *' Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes : but know thou, that for all these things God will call thee into judgment." Then, after a serious admonition to avoid the evils which ungovernable passions will bring upon him, he affectionately exhorts him to devote his early life to the exercises of true piety.
It is observed by some, that the word which in our text is rendered " thy Creator," is, in the original, in the plural number, " thy Creators :" and the passage in that view is supposed to mark the concurrence of the three Persons in the ever-blessed Trinity, in the formation of man ; according to what is written in the book of Genesis, *' Let us make man in our image \" But without drawing your attention to any
a Gen. i. 2G.