PROFITLESS ATTENDANCE ON THE MEANS OF GRACE. A SUBJECT FOR CONSIDERATION AT THE COM- To be surrounded with privileges is a great mercy, but it may also prove a curse; it may prove a mercy or a curse for ever. Religious privileges, if rightly used and improved, constitute an invaluable source of enjoyment and blessing; but if they are neglected, or attended to with mere formality, the consequences of such conduct can neither be described nor conceived. God reminds us "that we are but stewards" that the termination of our stewardships will be followed by "the day of reckoning," and that the righteous decisions of judgment will perfectly accord with the number and value of the means and opportunities of moral improvement with which we are favoured.. The Jews were distin-> guished above every other people with religious privileges; they possessed the lively oracles of God, and the visible symbols of the Divine presence; prophets were raised up among themselves; to be their instructors, and of them, as concerning the flesh, “Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever." Though these great and invaluable blessings were continued among them for. a long succession of years, yet, in the days of Christ, they were in an awful state of moral ignorance and depravation; and because they continued to resist the light, and to rebel against the authority and goodness of God, they were abandoned to their own hearts' lusts. While Christ tabernacled and laboured among men, the spirit H and character of many of his hearers very much resembled that of their guilty ancestors; and profitless attention to the means of grace is still an evil much to be deplored. How important, then, at the commencement of another year, we should all most earnestly desire and pray, that more extensively than in the past year, the means of grace may be rendered effectual to salvation. The first object contemplated in this paper is, to glance at some of the probable reasons why the means of grace are so frequently attended without any real profit. That many individuals who are constantly favoured with abundance of the means of grace still remain in a state of spiritual darkness and death, is a humiliating and affecting fact that cannot be questioned-a fact which all true Christians constantly and deeply deplore-a fact which calls for the most vigorous and united prayers and efforts of the church, that its baneful tendency may be counteracted, and that its awful consequences may be avoided. What is the occasion of this state of mind? How is it that so many individuals, for a long series of years, regularly attend the means of grace, and yet remain uninstructed, unprofited, and unblessed? It is not because God, irrespective of their sinfulness, has decreed that they shall not be saved, nor is it because he is unwilling to save them, for he has declared that he "willeth not the death of the sinner," that "he delighteth in mercy;" and that "he is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance," 2 Pet. iii. 9. It is not because there is any inadequacy in the means of salvation: for "God so loved the world, as to give his only and well-beloved Son to die for the guilty;" and with him also he has given the assurance that "whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but shall have everlasting life." Seeing, then, that this awful fact exists, and that the occasion of the evil does not exist in God, or in any inadequacy in the provision of mercy made for the guilty; where are we to look for the cause?-where, but in the perverseness of the creature; the dread development of the deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of the human heart. Profitless attendance on the means of grace is the result of corrupting and debasing prejudice. Because Christ did not appear as a temporal deliverer, and because he did not exalt the people to worldly pomp and dignity, the Jews were so strongly prejudiced against him that they contemptuously rejected his authority, disobeyed his laws, and ultimately subjected him to the awful and ignominious death of the cross. The baneful influence of this unhallowed prejudice was handed down from one generation to another, and by this means many were fatally deceived and ruined. The spirit of the same evil that existed among the Jews still prevails to an awful extent among all classes of individuals. We find persons cherishing certain sentiments concerning religion because they were accredited by their parents, or because they accord with the customs of the country in which they reside, without ever examining whether or not they agree with the word of God. By this means many individuals are frequently deluded to their utter ruin; but, should their religious sentiments be found to be right, the manner by which they come to this conclusion is evidently wrong, for their faith is not founded on conviction, or on evidence derived from revealed truth, but on mere prejudiced regard for custom. When individuals act thus, we feel no surprise that they do not know the truth, and that they remain unblessed under the means of grace. But further, This state of mind is also the result of moral indifference. Without diligence we cannot expect improvement either in temporal or spiritual knowledge; but such is our natural and unhappy aversion to the things of God, that almost any subject is preferred to religion; and while individuals live under the influence of this prevailing and unholy bias, and discover such marked indifference to the things which belong to their peace, we cannot be at a loss to know why they are altogether unprofited under the means of grace. Such individuals may regularly occupy their places in the house of God, whilst their minds are engaged with the transactions of time; they are often found in God's house, but it is to sit in judgment on the preacher and on others, rather than on themselves; and instead of giving diligent, prayerful, and personal attention to the word of truth, to the claims of religion, and to the interests of the soul, they are glad when the service of the sanctuary is ended. When individuals continue to manifest such marked indifference to all the sacred obligations of religion, we cannot feel surprised that they neither perceive nor understand the spiritual import of the truth. Moreover, it cannot be concealed that this state of mind is the result of inordinate love of the world. Immoderate worldly attachments are inimical to the acquisition of holy knowledge, and are expressly forbidden as dishonourable to God, injurious to the soul, and evidential of the lack of true religion. "Love not the world," &c., 1 John ii. 15-17. The mind is often so engrossed with the cares, and business, and pleasures of the world, that the things which are revealed in God's word are neglected, and that the interests of the soul are treated with indifference; but all such individuals will be left without excuse at the last, when they find that the world to which they have given their hearts cannot save them, that the means of deliverance through the blood of Jesus Christ are utterly lost, and that they are actually beginning to sink under the full weight of God's awful and everlasting displeasure. Once more it may be remarked, that this state of mind is the result of a haughty and unbelieving spirit. Pride and unbelief are the two great sins which people the regions of the lost with multitudes of inhabitants. The reception of the kingdom of heaven, or of the blessings of the gospel, is the effect of the humbling grace of God, and is inseparable from a docile and believing state of mind, Matt. xviii. 3; Mark x. 15. If individuals, in the haughtiness and self-sufficiency of their spirits, exalt human reason above Divine revelation, or in opposition to the gracious records of the gospel, they grievously err, and may err fatally, with the means of salvation in their hands. All that is revealed in the Bible demands our credence, and if we are constrained to acknowledge that there are some things in the Scriptures which we cannot comprehend, we only acknowledge that God is wiser |