the pleasure and pride of such an intellectual operation, and yet, never think of any such thing as an estimate between the things respectively, of a momentary and an eternal existence;-while this the most vitally concerns them, which all the other ascertainments of proportion do not! Another thing may be added to this account of causes tending to frustrate the injunction to be in earnest about our highest concerns; namely, that the mind willingly takes a perverse advantage of the obscurity of the objects of our faith, and for the incompetence of our faculties for apprehending them. What is it that we shall pass through death to see ? What can be the manner of a separate spirit's active existence? What is the economy of the other world? How can our mode of existence be formed and adapted to a widely different state? Only glimmering intimations are given through the darkness; if general ideas are given, they are very indefinite ones; if special, they are only similitudes and metaphorical shadows. How thick a veil! And what then? A devout spirit would not indeed ask for that veil to be prematurely undrawn, would not, with an urgency approaching to profaneness, seek to pierce or rend it. But such a spirit would look intently, feel a pious inquisitiveness,-make efforts to realize,-" enter into that within the veil," and would constantly endeavour to magnify, (as earnestly wishing to feel,) the power of the unseen world. But, as the contrary of all this, how much is there of the disposition to take— from the obscurity, the indefiniteness, the impossibility of distinctly realizing,—a plea for not thinking on the subject. and for not being deeply interested by it. There is a wiliingness even to make the veil still more thick, and reduce the glimmering to utter darkness, as strengthening the "We do not know how to carry our thoughts excuse. from this scene into that. It is like entering a mysterious and visionary wilderness. It is evidently implied to us, by the fact as it stands, that the opening of that scene upon us now would confound us in all our business here. Were it not best to be content to mind chiefly our duty here; and when it shall be God's will and time, he will show us what there is yonder!" Partial truth thus perversely applied, tends to cherish and excuse an indisposition to look forward in contemplations of hereafter; and this indisposition, excused or protected by this allegation, defeats the force of the call, the summons, to be in earnest about our highest interests. 66 There is another pernicious practical deception, through which the force of this call to earnestness is defeated, and the strong necessity which it urges, is evaded; that is, the not recognizing in the parts of life, the grand duty and interest which yet is acknowledged to belong to it as a whole. It belongs to this life," a man shall say, “to make an earnest and effectual business of the supreme concern." How belongs to it? to what part? to the last year or hours of it? or to a time of sickness? or to any season or stage of it in particular? 'No; the concern is combined with it as a whole; it all belongs to it all." Well, but then this grand interest is to be felt clinging as it were to each part, and all the parts. Do you let it be so? Do you feel it so ? No; you spend one part, and use another part, as an exempt thing; you do not acknowledge the great interest as enforced upon that. Still, "life," you say, "as a whole, is for the grand concern." But what is the whole, if part, and part, passes free of the practical claim? If every spot you are successively upon is as a little unclaimed island, where at last is the continent for the kingdom of God to be esta blished over? and yet, through a fatal fallacy, life is still regarded as the something altogether, in which is to be accomplished the purpose in question! "This day is not much," a man thinks, "nor this week,-a particle only in so ample a thing as all life;" and he is not distinctly sensible that he is doing all he can, in each separate part, to throw the whole of the grand affair on a narrowing breadth,-on the last part, or quite off the whole. And he may not perceive, neither, that while this delusion, like a mighty evil spirit, is still clearing and driving off, space after space, the momentous concern,-it is thickening and darkening, if we may so speak, and becoming charged with awful thunders, to fall upon him in his last hour or in eternity! We add for the present, only one more description of delusive feeling, tending to frustrate the admonitions to an earnest intentness on the great object,—namely, a soothing self-assurance, founded the man can hardly explain on what, that some way or other, a thing which is so essentially important, will be effected, must, surely must be effected, because it is so indispensable. Very few, we may presume, except those who are dying in despair, really give up themselves for lost. A man says, "I am not mad. I surely— surely-shall not lose my soul." As if there must be something in the very order of nature, to prevent anything going so far wrong as that. So that the full sense of danger presses home on very few ;-on very few, even of those who are forced to suspect themselves to be, if taken as just now, in a situation obnoxious to danger. They trust that the deciding moment is not to find them thus, however, it is to be that this confidence is to be verified. It is, indeed, partly in themselves, that they trust for this. They have reason and conscience, and a settled conviction of the most important truth in the world. "These cannot fail to answer, at length, their proper end. Adequate causes must and will have their effects." But these have failed hitherto, and are even now inefficacious. How is that? They cannot tell how or why, but they will not always fail. There will be more thought, perhaps more resolution—and less to cause these powers and forces to fail. Sometimes particular circumstances in a man's history are suffered to excite in him a kind of superstitious hope. Perhaps, for instance, in his childhood or since, he was saved from peril or death in some very remarkable manner. His friends thought that this must surely be a propitious omen; and he, too, is willing to persuade himself so. Perhaps very pious persons have taken a particular interest about him; he knows he has been the subject of many prayers. I recollect the instance of a man, and not at all a weak man, in point of general sense, who was surrendered to the vanities of life; but retaining constantly and fully the right conviction as to the absolute necessity of religion, and the final consequence of the neglect of it. A kind friend said to him, "How long is this to continue? you know perfectly to what end this is going." He answered, that he had great hope that a better state of things would come some time; for he had great confidence, that the prayers of his pious departed mother could not have been in vain! A man may encourage this soothing confidence, that he shall not fatally neglect, that he shall yet become in earnest, from recollection of moments and occasions when he thinks he was so. There may have been times of affecting, though transient interest. He is willing to persuade himself they were genuine emotions, excited by a principle imparted from above; which principle he believes, if really imparted, will not be wholly and finally withdrawn, though its operation may be long intermitted. And on this he rests some kind of confidence; instead of soberly judging, that emotions so transient, and subsequently useless, could be no more than superficial effects on his passions. So many deceptive notions may contribute to a vague sort of assurance that a man will not alway neglect religion, though he is doing so now, and is in no serious disposition to do otherwise. And, in addition to all, there is that unthinking and unscriptural manner of considering, and carelessly throwing ourselves upon, the infinite goodness of God. Thus we have attempted to discriminate and describe. some of the causes that it is so difficult to impart any interest, or even draw any steady attention, to a topic so plain, and trite, and general, as the necessity of being quite in earnest, though about concerns confessedly the most momentous. This representation might pertinently be followed, by some admonitory observations and enforcements, which may afford a useful employment, we hope, for a future hour. September 23, 1822. |