Page images
PDF
EPUB

and may effectually divert their mind from salvation.

2. It is of importance too, that such efforts should be undertaken only so far as they are compatible with imperative duty. We must not forget that there is an order in duties. Some have superior claims to others. In regard to some, we are under a necessary and unalterable obligation. In regard to others, the obligation may be said to be imperfect: it arises only as time and opportunity may be given for their discharge. Now this may be forgotten, and individuals may be induced, perhaps under the influence of an excitement which they ought to have controlled-perhaps at the solicitation of others, to exert themselves in doing good to an extent at variance with a proper attention to their private devotions, or with the duty which they owe to others. This is plainly wrong, and can never take place without injury.

3. Again. Those efforts are most healthful and beneficial which are freest from excitement. For example, a quiet course of visitation amongst the careless -dealing with them singly or by families, and seeking, by unobtrusive kindness, repeatedly expressed, to bring them to Christ-the communication of instruction to the young in sabbath-schools, or some work of a like nature, is usually far better for the individual himself, as well as most advantageous to the general interests of religion. I speak of what is generally true. There may be exceptions, but they are only exceptions.

Throughout the whole of these observations I must be understood as referring to what it is right for us to attempt. I do not mean that the Spirit's gracious operation always comes in connexion with means arranged in the order which I have stated. I fully recognize, scripturally understood, the sovereignty of His grace. His working can never be determined by rule, nor can it be restricted to the channel of our own arrangements. It is not for me to limit the Holy One. The means which He selects are various, and variously employed. But I am confining myself to what is our duty; and in this aspect of the matter, we have to deal not with what the Spirit of God may do, but what we ought to do in order to realize his grace. Oh, that we could obtain the blessing as richly as the necessities of our times require! How earnestly and anxiously should we seek it-persevering till God refresh us with His grace from on high!

A WORD OF WARNING.

IT is no time to dally and trifle, and speak softly, when precious souls are at stake, and their eternal condition is so nearly concerned. We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. Knowing the terrors of the Lord, we persuade men. The blood of your soul

would lie at our door, if we should not give you warning. But what shall I say? Shall I tell you, that

1. The God with whom we have to do is a holy, righteous, all-seeing God. That which makes sinners secure is their mistake concerning this. They think of the Almighty as if he were easily imposed upon, altogether such a one as themselves. Thus they cheat themselves. But be not deceived. Know that God's eye is always upon you. He is acquainted with your secret sins. He hates every sin; and to all who are impenitent, he "is a consuming fire." He is too wise to be deceived. He is true to his threatenings.

It is

2. Your precious, immortal soul must shortly appear before God in judgment, to be determined by a righteous doom to an unchangeable condition. You have a jewel in your hands of inestimable value. It is thy soul, thy precious soul. not a trifle, or a thing of naught, but thy own soul; and once lost, it is irrecoverably lost. The gain of all the world cannot compensate it. This soul, at the best, is in a very hazardous state. It lies at stake. It is in great danger. Thou art on a trial for thy life.

3. If you live and die in a graceless, unsanctified state, as sure as God is in heaven, you will be to eternity in hell. Though you make a great profession; though you attain a high reputation among men; though you prophesy in Christ's name; though you excel in gifts; though you abound in usefulness; yet all this, without a living principle of grace in your heart, will never bring you to heaven. And believe it, grace and holiness are quite other things than what the world take them to be. Religion consists in humility and self-denial, and the reigning love of God, and contempt of the world. He is the Christian who is one inwardly.

4. There are thousands in hell who, when alive in the world, thought themselves safe. Multitudes have been deceived with dross for gold-have thought they were rich when they were not so. There is a generation of such. We have reason, then, to be jealous of a cheat in

that in which so many have been cheated before us. This should startle us. Take heed, lest while you sleep as others did, you perish as they did. How secure was the rich man in the midst of his prosperity! But God called him a fool.

5. The unsanctified heart may have a false peace, while yet it is the devil's palace, and while he, as a strong man armed, keepeth it. It would startle you to think of belonging to the devil, of being under his power, of being led captive by him, of being set on by him, of having him to work in you. You would be startled if the devil were to appear to you; but he is as really working in the children of disobedience, as if he appeared to them. When you are going on in a sinful way, and yet say you have peace, it is the devil that tells you so you are in the midst of enemies.

6. While you are asleep in carnal security, your damnation slumbereth not. The Judge standeth before the door. Death is at hand; perhaps within a few days, a few hours of you. You would be startled, though you put far off the evil day, if I could assure you that you should live but one year; and will it not awaken you, that I cannot assure you, nor can you assure yourself, that you shall live a day? The veil of flesh is easily and quickly rent, and then appears the awful scene of eternity-eternity! Have you not seen many, who were as likely to live as yourself, snatched away? How startling was the declaration, "This night thy soul shall be required of thee!" A criminal who is condemned to die to-morrow, cannot forget it; it fills him eating, drinking, sleeping and can we forget the amazing doom, the amazing sight, the amazing gulf that we are just upon the brink of--just ready to step into?

7. As the tree falls, so it lies, and so it will lie to eternity. As death leaves us, judgment finds us. The doom is irreversible, the sentence irrevocable, the condition on the other side death unchangeable. A gulf will be fixed. It is too late to repent in the grave. Up and bestir yourself, for you have only a little inch of time in which to be doing.

But let me DIRECT you. When a man asleep is roused a little, he is, in some measure, capable of advice. Know then, generally, what you must do. Sleep no longer; be secure no longer.

1. Suspect yourself as to your spiritual state self-suspicion is the first step towards awakening. What if, after all, my faith should be but fancy, my hope pre

sumption? What reason have I to be so very confident? May I not be deceived? Many who eat bread with Christ, yet lift up the heel against him. The disciples, when our Lord intimated that one of them should betray him, began to say unto him, one by one, "Is it I?" Do not, in a matter of such great importance, always take things upon trust.

2. See and be convinced of the miserable state you are in while out of Christ. You are not the more safe for feeling secure. Look about you; consider, as men do who are newly awakened, where you are. See yourself wretched and miserable, a child of wrath. Be sensible of the guilt of sin that lies upon you, of the power of sin that rules in you. You are under the power of Satan. You are exposed to the curse of God. There is but one step between thee and hell. And is this a condition for a man to sleep in?

3. Stir up yourself to a due concern about your soul, and your eternal welfare. "If ye will inquire, inquire ye." Inquire as they did when awake, who are mentioned by the prophet Micah, "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord?" Inquire as those new converts in the Acts of the Apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Inquire as the jailer did, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" There begins to be some hope of people when they look about them as men concerned. Here I am now, but where must I be to eternity? If I should die to-night, and go to judgment, what would become of my precious soul? That is the holy fear which is the beginning of wisdom. Seek unto Jesus Christ for life and light, and Christ shall give thee light. We must go to him by an active faith; consent to the Gospel proposal of salvation by him. Say, Whither shall I go but to Christ? Sense of danger should drive us to him with all speed. We are never truly awake and up, till by faith we have "put on the Lord Jesus Christ."

4. Set yourself with all diligence to do the work for which you were sent into the world. Awake to righteousness. Up, and be doing. Your work is great; your journey long; your enemies many; opposition powerful; strength small; time short and uncertain. Son, go work today in the vineyard. Dost thou not see how it is grown over with thorns?

5. Take heed of delays. They have ruined thousands. "Yet a little sleep," said the ancient slumberers. Men are roused and disturbed a little, but they

only turn and go to sleep again, and so become conviction-proof- can sleep in the midst of a thousand calls. Take heed of putting by conviction; it is bad freezing again, after a thaw. Let not this call be lost after all the rest. What effect it will have I know not, but I have delivered my soul.

HOW TO BEGIN THE NEW YEAR.

LET us begin the year with solemn reflection-and say, with Job, "When a few years are come, I shall go the way whence I shall not return." Let us not only believe this, but think of it, and feel the importance of the sentiment. Yes, in a little time I shall be no more seen. How-where-shall I be disposed of? The seasons will return as before; but the places that now know me will know me no more for ever. Will this be a curse or a blessing? If I die in my sins, I shall return no more to my possessions and enjoyments, to the call of mercy, to the throne of grace, to the house of prayer! If I die in the Lord, I shall, O blessed impossibility! return no more to these thorns and briers, to this vain and wicked world, to this aching head, to this throbbing heart, to these temptations and troubles, and sorrows and sins.

Let us begin the year with self-inspection and say, with the chief butler, "I do remember my faults this day." We are prone to think of the failings of our fellow-creatures, and often imagine, because we are free from their faults, that we are faultless. But we may have other faults; we may have worse; and while a mote is in our brother's eye, a beam may be in our own. Let us be open to conviction; let us deal faithfully with our own hearts; let us not compare ourselves with others, and especially the more vile of our fellow-creatures, but with our advantages, with our knowledge, with our professions, with the law of God.

Let us begin the year with a determination to abandon whatever appears sinful-and say, with Elihu," If I have done iniquity, I will do no more. "Should the evil course, or the evil passion, solicit, let it plead in vain, while the Saviour-Judge says, "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."

Begin the year with pious and per

sonal dedication-and say, with David, "Lord, I am thine, save me." Through him, who is the way, yield yourselves unto God. It is your reasonable service. He has infinite claims to you. You will never be truly your own till you are his.

[ocr errors]

Begin the year with relative religion; and if the worship of God has never been established in your family, now commence it-and say, with Joshua, for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." A family without prayer is like a house without a roof. It is uncovered and exposed: and we know who has threatened to pour out his fury upon the families that call not upon his name.

Begin the year with a fresh concern to be useful and ask, with Saul of Tarsus, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Let me look at my condition, my resources, my opportunities. How can I glorify God, and promote the welfare of my fellow-creatures? Is there not a Bible to spread? Are there not missionaries to support? Are there none perishing for lack of knowledge that I can myself instruct? Have I no irreligious neighbours to reclaim? Are there no poor to relieve? No widows and fatherless to visit?

Begin the year with more arrangement in the conduct of your affairs-and resemble Ezra and his brethren, who "did according to the eustom, as the duty of every day required." God has said, "Let everything be done decently and in order." Much of your comfort will arise from regularity in your meals, in your devotions, in your callings; and your piety will be aided by it.

Have a

place to receive everything, an end to simplify it, a rule to arrange it. Leave nothing for the morrow that ought to be discharged to-day. Sufficient for each period will be its own claims; and your mind ought to be always at liberty to attend to fresh engagements.

Finally. Time-this short, this uncertain, this all-important time-upon every instant of which eternity depends, will not allow of our trifling away any of its moments. Resolve, therefore, to redeem it. Gather up its fragments, that nothing be lost. Especially rescue it from needless sleep; and if you have hitherto accustomed yourself to the shameful indulgence of lying late in bed, begin the new year with the habit of early rising; by which you will promote your health and improvement of every kind, and live much longer than others in the same number of days-and say, with David,

[blocks in formation]

STORMS ON LIFE'S DARK WATERS.

FANCY generally sketches her pictures in light, or at least so disposes the sunshine and shadow, as to form one harmonious blending, which we love to contemplate. The pencillings of truths are more deeply and darkly drawn, too frequently, alas! without any cheering ray, save that which the lone star of hope throws out, as a beacon, amid the surrounding gloom. Thus, again and again, when imagination has been revelling in some scene of repose, on the wide sea of human life, the finishing stroke of stern reality would reveal in the distance a cloud like to a man's hand, or a billow bounding onward, bearing the wreck of joys which just before seemed destined to cloudless skies and placid waters. Such were the musings suggested by that poetically beautiful, but mournfully true sentiment, "There are storms on life's dark waters."

I see Childhood, innocent Childhood, beside a font which bears on its bosom a toy ship gently guided in its movements by the influence of a magnet. As he gazes on that, which he would fain believe to be the effects of his own skill, he dreams not of the wintry day that will congeal those tiny waves, nor of the cloud that, sooner or later, will mantle in darkness the sunny sky reflected there; but truth says, even to laughing Childhood, "There are storms on life's dark waters."

On a lake, where

"The silver light, with quivering glance,

Played o'er the waters' still expanse," a skiff is gliding. Thoughtless Youth is there, lulled into forgetfulness by the soft ripplings of the tide, that is bearing his fragile bark onward. Yonder vista is the opening to a deeper channel and more dangerous waves; but he, all absorbed with the present, thinks not of an adverse wind or reflux tide. Shuddering, I turned away, for it needeth not a prophetic eye to discern that, ere long, he will prove that "There are storms on life's dark waters."

Manhood, as thou standest by that gallant prow, why is thy countenance

stern, and thy brow knit with the indications of rebellious thought? Is there no music in the pensive wailings of the wind through the set sails and tightened cordage? Why dost thou tremble at the lightning's flash, and why art thou silent when the thunders roar? Of what are they the harbingers, that thou shouldest long for a hiding place? Oh! he knows that it is the dark spirits of the tempest that are marshalling the elements against him, and soon he is to experience that "There are storms on life's dark waters."

Yonder vessel has cast anchor; Age is reclining there, regardless of the helm that has safely guided his once stately, but now weather-beaten bark, so near its final resting-place. Its "silver cords" are loosening; the sails flap idly to the winds; and but one more mandate will echo through them, that will consign all to oblivion. What do the rent sails and splintered masts tell of? What voice have those creaking beams and sundering planks? What do the dirge-like sounds of the waves closing over them proclaim? All, all, give back one answer, "There are storms on life's dark waters.'

[ocr errors]

Childhood, Youth, Manhood, Age, venture not on the ocean of life without a heavenly pilot, a sacred compass, an anchor cast within the veil, and a passport to the haven of rest beyond; for "There are storms on life's dark waters."

TWICE DEAD.

"They are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you; feeding themselves without fear; clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots."JUDE.

WHEN is a church twice dead and plucked up by the roots?

They are once dead when there is no spiritual life in the members; when their services are merely formal; when one attends social or public meetings because another does, or because their pastor or their brethren will notice their absence; where no personal effort is made for the salvation of the impenitent, and no interest is felt in their own sanctification; where their zeal, so far as they have any, is for their own church as their own, rather than as Christ's church; when their interest in a sermon is that it may please men, not that it may please and glorify God. Such a church is dead, and its fruit, if ever it bore any, is withering.

When, in addition to this, its members are not only dead so far as spirituality is

considered, but when they dislike to hear their own condition portrayed, or urged on their attention; when they are restive under appeals to wakeful devotion and self-denying labour; when such truth as Jesus preached in relation to cherished sin-"If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, because it is better to enter into life maimed, than to be cast into hell fire;" when, in order to please them, the sins of life must not be noticed at all, or noticed in such a form that there is a graceful slide to a lower note, this kind of antipathy of heart to plain gospel truth, denotes that they are twice dead.

If a church in such a state does not repent and do its first works, there is danger that the candlestick will be removed out of its place, or that the Spirit will entirely withdraw, and leave the church with the mere selfish and worldly form, instead of the power and purity of the Gospel.

"Brethren, it is high time to wake out of sleep."

THE GULF OF ETERNITY.

We see that our youthful joys were but this morning; we see them withered ere 'tis night-withered, to be green no more. The grass can be turned in one hour to withered hay, but hay can never return to its former freshness. We look back on our early joys, and say, they are a dream when one awaketh." How short was the vision, and whither has it fled! We were just preparing to live, but now we have awoke, and found that we have

[ocr errors]

as

"In

nothing to do but to prepare to die; for what has happened to the joys of life will shortly happen to life itself. the morning it flourisheth and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth' in the grave. We have already passed the greater part of life's comforts; every hour is carrying us still farther from them. We cannot return; but an irresistible current is bearing us down into the gulf of eternity. There is no return-there is no stop. It will be but a moment, and we must go to our long home, and leave the mourners to go about the streets. We cannot be younger, but shall soon be dead; and on a dying bed we shall feel the truth of our text, and the propriety of its figure more than All our life will seem but a day;

ever.

and having passed the short day of dreams and shadows, we shall disappear. We shall take an eternal leave of earth, and wing our way to the bar of God. The places which now know us, will know us no more. Our lands and houses will go into other hands. Strangers will occupy our substance, and walk over our graves without knowing that we are buried there. Our names will be forgotten on earth. The world will go on as before. The sun will rise and set as usual. Mirth and diversion will be as bright as ever. None will take thought of our pleasures or pains, while we shall be either mounting the regions of life, and soaring high in salvation, or shrieking to the ear of hell, and sinking in the pit that has no bottom.

The Oracle; or, Glimpses at the Invisible World.

"It is a wisdom that is pleasing to God, and useful to the world, for a due notice to be taken of rare things, wherein we have incontestible proofs of an invisible world, and of the interest it hath in human affairs."

THOSE of our readers conversant with the history of New England, are familiar with the name of Dr. Cotton Mather, which has become a household word amongst that great and wonderful people. This excellent man was destined to occupy a place of great prominence and usefulness; in and amidst the many things he wrote and the things he achieved for the public good, notwithstanding a most efficient discharge of a heavy pastorship, the greatest was his "Church History of New England," a work of much labour, and on which he seems to have staked his reputation. Happily for accuracy of

information, he began in time, whilst everything of importance which had occurred could either be opposed by documentary evidence or by living witnesses. And hence we find the venerable John Higginson testifying, that while he himself had been sixty years in the ministry, and was consequently conversant with almost every thing which had taken place in the colony, having read much of the history of the empire, he could certify its entire accuracy, as to "substance, end, and scope." This remarkable history comprises a number of very interesting facts, many of them at which, perhaps, the wisdom of this world, and even the worldly wisdom of some portions of the living church, will be disposed to laugh. Be it so: the facts are

« PreviousContinue »