Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

66

ONE USE OF A WISE CHARITY.

FEBRUARY 27.

God will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

So it is the wish of true christian charity, to have all men obey the truth and be saved.-There are various offices and duties in christian charity. The one which I would press upon your conduct, regards religious principle. Whatever the christian's opinion about truth or error may be, one principle, one most important principle, he never can or will forget; wherever else he may err, he knows that the eternal welfare of his brother is a consideration more important than all beside. When, therefore, he wishes to correct an error of a speculative kind, it will be his business, above all things, so to do it as most carefully to guard the grand principles of religion; so as not, if possible, to weaken the feelings of genuine piety in a single bosom. It must be owned that in an abrupt transition from a grossly erroneous to a purer system of faith, sacrifices of this sort always have been, and it is feared always must be made. Infidelity must have a few victims where superstition has long bound her ten thousands in chains; but "woe be to him by whom the offence," through wilful inattention or sinful carelessness for the best interests of his fellow creatures, "cometh." Anxiety about the spread of truth, is not unfrequently accompanied by remissness in pressing that truth home to the conscience. Let us guard this point well. Of what moment is the poor and paltry triumph of gaining a convert to our opinions, in comparison with having awakened devout feelings, pressed home the admonitions of scripture to the conscience, and turned the sinner from the errour of his ways? Yet it is not that instruction in DOCTRINES is either needless or exceptionable, for it may be carried a great way if combined with charity; but it is, that charity itself does not urge us on far enough in those private endeavours to recommend our principles which will alone make our examples and teaching available. Unwearied solicitude to conciliate by every lawful means those, high or low, who oppose themselves, sympathy with the feelings of different orders and ranks, extensive acquaintance with human nature,-all these things are necessary in him who would do good as far as it is possible.

True christian benevolence will check the spirit of criticism in our own circles. We elect ministers, and our reputation is much involved in theirs; yet we allow ourselves to criticise their foibles openly, forgetting that we thereby reflect upon ourselves. If this were done in the spirit of earnest and severe rebuke, it would be far more tolerable than when we lightly make their infirmities the matter of our discourse. Children and servants are of course led to make the inference, that a man may be a popular and approved minister among us, whose claims to respect and esteem are not sufficient to shield him from disrespectful remark. We ought to remember that the character of our ministry does, in a great measure, depend upon ourselves.

In every varied relation and circumstance of life let us remember, that the obligations of christian love bear down with a well balanced pressure upon us. By every means within our reach let us strive to recommend the truth as it is in Jesus, and especially let us feel, that without a life corresponding to our faith, a life of sincere picty and safe examples, we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.

GRATITUDE TO GOD AS OUR CREATOR.

FEBRUARY 23.

What shall we render unto the Lord for all his benefits?

67

UNFEIGNED gratitude is due to God for his many plans to promote our present and future happiness.-He presents himself as our father, who first breathed into our nostrils the breath of life, and ever since hath nourished and brought us up as children who prepared the earth for our habitation; and for our sakes made it to teem with food, with beauty and with life.-For our sakes no less he garnished the heavens and created the whole host of them with the breath of his mouth, bringing the sun forth from his chamber every morning, with the joy of a bridegroom and a giant's strength, to shed his cheerful light over the face of creation, and draw blooming life from the cold bosom of the ground.-From him also was derived the wonderful workmanship of our frames-the eye, in whose small orb of beauty is pencilled the whole of heaven and of earth, for the mind to peruse and know and possess and rejoice over, even as if the whole universe were her own-the ear, in whose vocal chambers are entertained harmonious numbers, the melody of rejoicing nature, the welcomes and salutations of friends, the whisperings of love, the voices of parents and of children, with all the sweetness that resideth in the tongue of man.-His also is the gift of the beating heart, flooding all the hidden recesses of the human frame with the tide of life-his the cunning of the hand whose workmanship turns rude and raw materials to pleasant forms and wholesome uses, -his the whole vital frame of man, a world of wonders within itself, a world of bounty, and, if rightly used, a world of finest enjoyments. His also the mysteries of the soul within-the judgment, which weighs in a balance all contending thoughts, extracting wisdom out of folly, and extricating order out of confusion; the memory, recorder of the soul, in whose books are chronicled the accidents of the changing world, and the fluctuating moods of the mind itself; fancy, the eye of the soul, which scales the heavens and circles round the verge and circuits of all possible existence; hope, the purveyer of happiness, which peoples the hidden future with brighter forms and happier accidents than ever possessed the present, offering to the soul the foretaste of every joy; affection, the nurse of joy, whose full bosom can cherish a thousand objects without being impoverished, but rather replenished, a storehouse inexhaustible towards the brotherhood and sisterhood of this earth, as the storehouse of God is inexhaustible to the universal world; finally, conscience, the arbitrator of the soul, and the touchstone of the evil and the good, whose voice within our breast is the echo of the voice of God.-These, all these, whose varied action and movement constitutes the maze of thought, the mystery of life, the continuous chain of being-God hath given us to know that we hold of his hand, and during his pleasure, and out of the fulness of his care. To God our Creator be praise evermore.

I cannot go

Where universal love smiles not around,
Sustaining all yon orbs and all their suns.

68

up

MEDITATION ON THE SEASON,

MARCH 1.

My days are swifter than a post.

We have arrived at the first day of spring. Surely our days are swifter than the post who is sent on messages of express. With the word spring we connect all that is fertile and delightful, fragrant and exhilarating. But Nature has ordained that the transition from the bleakness of winter to the gentleness of spring shall be so gradual as to be unperceived. The seasons melt into one another. We now feel the harsh winds of boisterous winter, and see the shattered forest and the ravaged vale. At the enlivening touch of softer winds, these snows will dissolve, and soon the hills will lift their green tops to the sky. But all is gradual. In the vast economy of nature the winter with its frost is as necessary as spring with its blossoms, or summer with its heat.-At this moment all things are still drooping; the aspect is wild and unpromising; the sky is obscured with clouds and the atmosphere loaded with vapours. A dense fog conceals the morning sun-his warmth is feeble at his meridian, and not an herb has felt his life-giving energy. The state we now experience is most salutary. If the air was soon to become mild, swarms of insects would appear to devour the seed sown and the plants ready to bud-the blossoms would be nipped by untimely frosts and the harvest destroyed. The rough and disagreeable weather of March puts the whole vegetable creation into the only fit condition for receiving the warmth of spring. What night is to the weary man, winter is to the exhausted year. It is the time of nature's repose. Through the many preceding months, nature had been labouring for the good of man. Like an anxious foster parent, it had supplied his revolving wants, and wearied by its efforts, asked a space for repose. But it reposes only to gain new strength for another effort; and asks man to rest with the same view.-Winter throws over the fields its white mantle, to make them a safe-keeping repository for the embryo seed and the tender roots. It has its storms which are most beneficial. They drive the needed vapours, the sulphureous particles, the nutritive salts and other substances, from one region to another. The seeds which are indigenous in one territory, are happily transported, perhaps on the wings of the destructive whirlwind, to another far distant.

These and many like provisions, ought to create in us an unfaltering trust in God. The care which he exercises over the several departments of life, is a prospective care; it has a constant reference to future action and effort. Should it not, then, lead us cordially to acquiesce where we cannot so easily discover the distant purposes of his dealings?

The various provisions in nature for future effort should convince us of our own future existence. In nature nothing perishes totally and forever and will man perish? Have the inanimate clods of the valley a principle of continued life, which is denied to the human soul? Will God keep the earth entire, and yet suffer a waste in the kingdom of mind? Will he carefully provide for coming generations, and yet dismiss to nonentity or forgetfulness the generations which have lived? Surely not.-Let us piously trust God, believing, that death is a provision connected with our eternal destination.

SIN THE DESTRUCTION OF MAN'S ORIGINAL INNOCENCE.

MARCH 2.

69

Lo this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.

WHILE Adam continued in the garden of innocence, he was perfectly acceptable to God. He knew most intimately the divine law; what he admired he chose, and evinced his choice by the most spotless and ardent obedience. No wrong bias, no corrupt principle disturbed for a moment the harmony of his mind. His affections and passions, all pure and spiritual, were ceaseless ministers to the Lord. Love stood before his altar, and offering her grateful incense, kept up the hallowed flame. Fear with angel-reverence, bowed down before the sanctuary, where, as yet, no interposing veil had hid the presence of divinity. Hope lifted up her hands and eyes to heaven, and showed, by the intenseness of her countenance, where and what she expected to be. Joy told her raptures in glad hosannahs of praise, and sought on earth to join in those songs which seraphs sing in the celestial mansions; whilst memory unfolded the records of eternal love, and with ecstacy reviewed the glorious past: And conscience, yet unsullied, stood by, witnessed the sacred service, and gave her approbation as the voice of God.-Such was man in the day when God created him. Knowledge and holiness-the image of God,-all that is great and all that is excellent, conspired to adorn and sublimate his soul.

The mind of the child has enstamped on it the innocence of our first parents. It is capable of being preserved in that innocence, and of going to another world unincumbered by the obstructions and unsullied by the contaminations of depravity. No one is sinful without his consent. Sin is what blots out the image of God which is enshrined at first in the human soul. If one was to ask me, what is the worthiest object of our most ardent pursuit, and what we should give the greatest possible diligence to obtain, I should answer holiness, because it comprehends all that is great and goodits end is everlasting life. Were any one again to ask me, what should be our utmost dread, and what we should give the utmost diligence to avoid, I should answer, sin, because it comprehends all that is base and wretched, and necessarily excludes us from everlasting peace. To the same degree that holiness is beneficial and lovely, sin is pernicious and detestable. It is of essential malignity and ill desert, and will, sooner or later, be seen by all to be the greatest evil with which our nature can be afflicted. Other evils, such as disease and poverty, losses and calumny, affect only what is external and foreign to us, but they need not disturb our minds, nor can they do the least injury to what is truly ourselves; but sin pierces, and wounds, and ravages ourselves. It hurts not so much the body, the reputation, or fortune, as the man; it plants anguish, desolation, and ruin, in the soul itself. Other evils may, in the end, prove useful to us, but this is eternally and unchangeably evil; the bane of every heart into which it enters, and the destruction of all those who are not rescued from its power, and delivered from its punishment.

Count all the advantage prosperous vice attains,
'Tis but what virtue flies from and disdains.

[blocks in formation]

There is none good, save one, that is God.-O taste and see that the Lord is good.

CONSIDER the comforting, the delightful attribute of goodness, which belongs to the Deity in the most eminent degree, and is the source of all the good that exists in the world. It is this which recommends him to our love, produces confidence in his government, and acquiescence in his dispensations; enables us to expect his protection, and completely absorbs us in the contemplation of all his other perfections. This constitutes him the Father, as well as the absolute Sovereign of all his creatures. Self-existence and Eternity amaze and confound the mind; Omnipotence is awful and tremendous; Justice is venerable, and, to sinners terrific; Purity and Sanctity are amiable and sublime. But they seem to shed too bright a lustre for the feeble eyes of imperfect and degenerate creatures. Goodness tempers these rays, softens the awe of Majesty, attracts to the contemplation of Divinity; and raises, by affection and hope, the hearts which reverence, mixed with terror, had sunk in deep and trembling prostration! This attribute, inseparably united with every other, imparts to their assemblage those colours and that aspect, which cheer and delight the soul. Goodness, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, unlimited in its exertions; Goodness, directing the whole frame and order of the universe, and graciously modifying the severity of Justice, constitutes the description of an all-perfect Being, completes the idea of the divine nature-is the just representation of God.

The Father has a heart of large bounty to the poor sinful race of Adam; the Son has a hand fit to be the almoner to the King of glory; and the Spirit is the rich alms. The blessed donative has enriched ten thousand souls already, and there remains enough to enrich ten thousand worlds.

The Father, what a glorious giver! The Son, what a glorious medium of communication! And the Spirit, what a glorious gift! We blush and adore while we partake of such immense favours, and gratitude is even overwhelmed with wonder.

O let our spirits rejoice in this blessed article of our religion: and may all the temptation we meet with from men of reason, never baffle so sublime a faith!

If the goodness of God is so admirably seen in the works of nature, and the favours of providence, with what a noble superiority does it even triumph in the offers of redemption! Redemption is the brightest mirror in which to contemplate this most lofty attribute of the Deity. Other gifts are only as mites from the divine treasury; but redemption opens, I had almost said, exhausts all the stores of his glorious grace. Herein God commendeth his love; not only manifests, but renders it perfectly marvellous; manifests it in so stupendous a manner, that it is beyond parallel, beyond thought, and above all blessing and praise.

God of my life! my thanks to thee
Shall, like my debts, continual be;
In constant streams thy bounty flows,
Nor end nor intermission knows.

« AnteriorContinuar »