Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

your will and affections. Your language, if really avowed, is then, "God, who forms the glory and the bliss of heaven-God, only wise, only perfect, the giver of all good gifts, the rewarder of all that diligently seek him, the Father of mercies, the God of consolations, the perfection of beauty—God, in all his majesty and goodness, in his faithful promises, his royal power, and gracious condescension, is not enough for me! My heart is too large for even his fulness to satisfy; my mind, he is not worthy to occupy; it has other objects to contemplate, another inheritance to delight in. I am young, and the WORLD is before me, its enchanting pleasures, its gay varieties, its honours which can stimulate, its praise which can repay, its friendships, bright, and wild, and warm; its intellect exercised without the gloomy restraints of religion, spreading at my feet the treasures of romance and poetry. O world, thou shalt be my choice, for thou canst fill and satisfy my immortal, my infinite soul!" Thus alternately do you reason, and thus alternately resolve. Oh! that a ray of

heavenly wisdom might dart into your mind, and convince you of your folly and your guilt! that you might know, even now, in these your early days, the things that belong to your everlasting peace, before disappointment, and afflictions, and weariness, and remorse, teach you what that world is, when sought as the supreme good, desired as the satisfying portion. Is the assurance of him who is the Truth, nothing? "Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks; walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand, ve shall lie aown in sorrow. Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou mayest prevail. Behold they shall be as stubble, the fire shall burn them, they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame. Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured: they shall wander every one in his quarter, none shall save thee: they are vanity and

the work of errors, in the time of their visitation they shall perish. The portion of Jacob is not like them, for he is the former of all things; the Lord of Hosts is his name. He is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king; at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation."

Will you have this Being, fearful in praises, glorious in holiness, whose hand none can stay, whose counsels none avert, for your friend or your enemy? Will you know him as a consuming fire, or as love unspeakable? as your reconciled Father, or NOT " Deyour inexorable Judge? Will you say part from me, for I desire not the knowledge of thy ways;" or, "Draw me, and I will run after thee?" Shelter yourself no longer in vague and general intentions; delay not your decision another hour. "If Baal be God"-if one, if any of the objects you now desire and seek after, be all-sufficient for life and death, for time and for eternity, "follow him"-follow them. Alas! you know in your convinced judgment, that none would

avail; that vanity is, by God's immutable decree, stamped upon every thing that exists out of his presence, and is unconnected with his favour. Delight, as one says, may be found in the creature, but peace and rest never. "So far and no further," is said to us whatsoever we pursue on earth; it is said to our minds when we seek knowledge; to our hearts when we pursue happiness; to our souls, even when they desire the spiritual blessings which God has commanded them to desire, but which, in this life, they shall never wholly possess. Are you determined, I would ask, to learn by no one's experience but your own? In addition to the testimony of God, is the testimony of the myriads who have gone down to the dust "seeking rest and finding none," of no avail? Are you alone to eat forbidden fruit and not die? Are you, of all earth's generations, to pursue supremely, idolatrously, and determinately, those things against which Jehovah has denounced a woe, and yet be absolved from the consequences? Why are you privileged to expect to find happiness bound up with

forgetfulness of duty, enmity and distaste towards heavenly contemplations, holy habits, and spiritual desires? Why is God, who declares that his glory he will not give to another, and that seeking the honour that cometh from man is essential idolatry, to allow you, wilfully and avowedly, to seek your own aggrandizement, and withal add his favour and bless you in your sin? At least, if you are determined to take up with a heaven of earthly delights, do not presume to look towards that rest which remaineth for the Christian pilgrim.

"To be in both worlds full

Is more than God was !"

Your choice you must make, and by it you must abide. Alas! this wavering of heart, this rebellion of will, this tossing to and fro, proves that choice to be at present fixed. Fear and occasional good impressions may draw you towards him who would be your rest; but your bent of mind, your wishes, point another way-even to the gaudy bowers of earthly enjoyment, and the giddy multitudes that throng "the broad

« FöregåendeFortsätt »