1 Timothy 4:11-16 These things command and teach.… 1. Among the good qualities of the young which first discover themselves, and which we regard as the sure indications of everything excellent in morals, is a nice sense of what is good and what is evil, what is truly praiseworthy and what is not, with an early and earnest attention to the forming of their principles. When embarked on the ocean of life innumerable dangers will surround them, and various temptations, under the specious forms of pleasure, will assail their hearts. To rush blindly on in a course so perilous, without either the benefits of experience or the guidance of wisdom, must quickly lead to inextricable difficulties perhaps, if not to misery and ruin. But, to descend from general reflections to the discussion of a few particular subjects, permit me to observe that too great confidence in our own strength is always dangerous, and sometimes fatal. But modesty in youth should be a natural virtue; it should be derived from other, more abundant sources than mere reflection, a feeling of comparative ignorance, or a sense of common propriety; it should spring spontaneously from sensibility — from a heart alive to every sentiment of shame, before it has been hackneyed in the ways of men or rendered callous by a long intercourse with the world. Among the more innocent excesses of youthful passions and the less dangerous delusions of the mind may be ranked the extravagancies of hope and expectation. But the loss of some distant good, however heightened by the powers of imagination or overrated by the blind partiality of our hearts, is by no means the only, or most important evil, that springs from this vain exaltation of the mind. From being so long conversant with imaginary happiness we lose our relish for that which is real. The mind also, soured with disappointments and irritated by frequent vexations, becomes, at a more advanced period, incapable of sharing in the social intercourses of life. At the same time that they should take particular care to avoid the many false and artificial notions of life, which we are but too eager to embrace with blind credulity (and which, for that reason, indeed, the fanciful writers of romance are but too apt to communicate), they ought to acquire those enlarged ideas of men and things which have their foundation in truth, and, in some measure, supply the want of experience by habits of thought and reflection. Above all, they should have recourse to the blessed gospel of our Lord and Saviour Christ, and deeply impress their hearts with those Divine truths which illumine the natural mind of man, as the rays of the sun enlighten the globe. What I would next warn young persons against is an inordinate love of pleasure. Suffer me to conclude by observing that every age and condition brings with it, beside the ordinary obligations of virtue and religion, certain peculiar and appropriate duties — duties to which young persons must diligently attend if they wish that "no man should despise their youth," and which the aged must duly cultivate and regularly practise if they would have "the hoary head found in the way of righteousness" and reverenced as "a crown of glory." There are also a thousand secondary graces of character, which must be studied, and a thousand indirect modes of temptation to be guarded against, if we wish to make any considerable advances towards perfection and to lead "a godly, righteous, and sober life." (J. Hewlett, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: These things command and teach. |
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