02.3. Will You Consider the Subject of Personal Religion?

Will You Consider the Subject of Personal Religion?

I called once upon a very intelligent professional gentleman, for the purpose of conversing with him on the subject of religion. I knew that he had received an excellent Christian education; and that his whole life had been one of exemplary morality. But he was not yet a communicant in the church; and I was anxious to learn the precise ground he occupied.

After stating my errand in general terms, I took occasion to assure him of the interest I felt in his spiritual welfare, and of the satisfaction it would afford me, to see him giving his personal attention to the requirements of the gospel, and identifying himself with its professed disciples. He heard me with something more than respectful courtesy, and when I paused, replied substantially as follows

“I feel grateful to you for your kindness in coming to me on this errand. I cordially assent to all you have said on the great importance of personal religion. I wish from my heart I felt the interest in it which you have described. I know this ought to be the case, and trust the time is coming when it will be. But as a matter of fact, I must candidly say to you, that I feel no such interest in the subject at present.”

“I highly appreciate,” I responded, “the frankness of your answer; it is what I should have expected from your training, and your known principles. I am aware, too, of the serious nature of the impediment in your way. It is a difficult matter to take up a subject and examine it about which one feels no particular concern, and to which there may even be a conscious antipathy. But religion is of such paramount moment, and the consequences of neglecting it are so irreparable, that neither this nor any other obstacle should binder us from attending to it. Are you willing to read on the subject, and to do other things which may be adapted to inspire you with that interest in it, the want of which you are deploring?" To this he readily assented. I suggested some books for his perusal, and, with a few counsels, left him. It is not for man always to trace out the subtle mechanism of causes and effects. Nor do I know what agency, or whether any, this interview may have had in the subsequent result. But it is my happiness to know, that this able and estimable man, not very long afterward, made a profession of religion, and has now been for several years a most active and efficient Christian minister, consistent in his life, abundant in his labors, and eminently useful. This is by no means a solitary example of the kind. Many an individual occupying the same ground with my friend, has, by a similar process, been put in possession of a sure and comfortable hope of eternal life. Very many others there are, who are neglecting their salvation, purely on the ground that they “feel too little interest” in the matter, to take it up; too little even to be willing to examine the gracious offers of the Gospel. It is this class of persons to whom I beg to propose the question: “WILL YOU CONSIDER THE SUBJECT OF PERSONAL RELIGION?” That we perfectly understand each other, let me define what I suppose to be your state of mind. You receive Christianity as a divine system. You assent to its teachings. You admit the great alternative it presents, of faith and repentance, or perdition. You go with more or less regularity to the sanctuary. You honor those who show themselves to be real Christians. You hope one day to be among them, but you are not ready for this now. You “feel no particular interest in the subject;” and when it is pressed upon you, you fall back upon this state of indifference, as supplying a reason why you should pass all such appeals over to your neighbors, instead of appropriating them to yourselves. You expect some day to feel the interest in religion which you at present lack, and then you will bestow upon it that careful consideration which it demands. Till that time comes, you must be excused.

Now if this be a just conception of the matter, you cannot fail to see that it brings you within the full sweep of the penalties denounced in the Scriptures against inconsideration. It is no answer to this charge to plead the “want of a disposition” to consider the subject. If you should submit a certain scheme of business or domestic policy to your children, and require their instant attention to it, you would be quite indignant should they treat it with neglect, and then tell you, by way of apology, that they “felt no interest” in examining it. In your view, there would be two sufficient reasons why they should have examined it without delay. First, because of its intrinsic importance; and secondly, because you wished and commanded it.

You would regard these considerations as paramount and controlling; as absolutely barring all objections on their part, to a compliance with your instructions. Their predisposition to neglect the matter might even, if foreseen, have been a motive with you for urging it upon them; and what they offered as a palliation of their remissness, might, in your judgment, add to its criminality.

Deal honestly, and apply this reasoning to the case we have in hand. You will not impugn the plenary right of the Deity to submit to us any subject, or prescribe to us any course of conduct he may see fit; and enjoin our immediate attention to it. Should a personage, claiming to have a message for you from God, and exhibiting competent credentials, present himself to you, your feeling would be, that every thing else must give way to this interview; that to subject the ambassador to a moment’s unnecessary delay, would be an insult to his master; that whenever and howsoever it was God’s pleasure to speak to you, it was your indispensable duty to hear and to obey. But God has spoken to YOU: He is speaking to you daily. He is speaking not only by prophets and apostles duly accredited, but by his beloved Son. His communication is in your hands. It is in a tongue you can understand. You have access to it every hour of your life. It is, at stated intervals, set forth in your hearing.

You cannot but know what the substance of it is. Will it, therefore, avail you any thing to plead that you have neglected it because you had “no disposition” to consider it? If your obligation to attend to it had been suspended on your state of feeling, this might avail. But there is no such contingency in the case. It was not in ignorance of your state of mind that the message was sent. He who sees the end from the beginning foreknew precisely how you would be situated, and how you would feel; but be did not suppress nor modify the message. He has caused it to be laid before you in its integrity, and demands your candid, thorough, and prayerful consideration of it as your prime duty—a duty which must take precedence of all your secular plans arid purposes, whatsoever.

It is a mere evasion of this claim, to urge that you will give your attention to it ,when you feel “more inclined” to think of it; an evasion which if attempted toward you by your children, would bring down upon them your swift displeasure. In one aspect, it is even a worse affront to God than a positive rejection of the message; for it is a refusal to obey, coupled with a full acknowledgment of his authority to command. You admit that it is God who speaks to you, and yet you will not consider what he says. With what pungent significancy might he say to you, “If I be a father, where is mine honor? and if I be a master, where is my fear?"

Take another view of the ground you occupy. The absolute right of the Supreme Being to propound any theme whatsoever, for your examination, has been conceded. It may aid you in estimating the guilt of your inconsideration, to reflect on the import of the communication he has actually submitted to you. Not to launch forth here upon a boundless sea, let it suffice to say, that the BIBLE contains the only adequate revelation of the character and will of God, and discloses the only path which leads from earth to heaven, If our reason and consciences were in a healthful condition, it would startle us, should we ever be conscious of an indisposition to think of Him who made us, and in whom we live and move, and have our being. For what can be more rational, what more unavoidable, one might almost say, than that an intelligent creature should love to think of its Creator? And yet this is one part of the very sin here laid at the door of those with whom we are arguing—an aversion to think of God.

Meditations upon his attributes, especially his moral attributes, are unwelcome to you. You have a tacit compact with yourself, that this subject is to be shunned whenever it can be; and so, instead of sitting down to dwell upon the holiness, the justice, the love, and the mercy of the Deity, it is a grateful relief to you on the Sabbath, when the benediction dismisses you from the sanctuary, and you can go where you will not be compelled to hear about GOD. Surely there must have been borne fearful dislocation of your moral faculties, when the essential instincts of your nature are thus overborne, and you can breathe freely only in an atmosphere surcharged with atheism. To recur to our illustration, what would you think of a group of children, who did their best to forget a wise and affectionate father; who drew their daily support from his bounty, without ever thanking him; who availed themselves of his protection when in danger, and experienced his sympathy in sickness and sorrow, without acknowledging his goodness; who rarely mentioned his name in their domestic intercourse, unless it was to point a jest or energize an oath; who, if they could avoid it, would not even, permit their minds to dwell upon him, and when they heard others celebrate his virtues, found it a wearisome and stupid theme, to be entertained only so long as good breeding might require? Could an example of this sort be found among the households around you, you well know how notorious it would soon become as an illustration of the blackest filial impiety; how those unnatural children would be pointed at as a set of monsters; and how their names would awaken emotions of horror in every generous bosom. But what are you doing? Have you not a FATHER, wise, bountiful, affectionate; who supplies your daily bread, clothes you, guards you, heals you, comforts you, never wearies in doing you good, never ceases opening to you fresh sources of enjoyment? If so, you at least, who are so indignant at the display of ingratitude and hardihood we have just been contemplating, are earnest and constant in rendering to your Father the love amid the homage which are his due. His name is often on your lips. His ear often drinks in the accents of praise which you pour forth on your bended knees. The book which reveals him is your most delightful study. Those who love and honor him most are your favorite companions. The Sabbath is the choicest day of the seven, because it brings the most leisure for communion with him. And you would rather be a door-keeper in his house than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. Is it thus with you? Alas! how humiliating the reflection that it may be in all things the very reverse; that even with such a Father you make no suitable return of gratitude; own him not in your business, nor in your family; rarely open his word; seldom, if ever, utter his name; have no love for his ordinances; find his Sabbaths a burden, and repel the very thought of him from your breast, when it seeks to return after you have accomplished the perfunctory routine of public worship! What estimate, in all honesty, ought you to put upon this conduct? And what dimensions will you assign to the flagrancy of that inconsideration which makes you shun all serious thoughts of GOD?

Marvelous as this phenomena must appear, there is another no way inferior to it. The inconsideration which the Bible lays at your door has respect no less to your own character than to God. It might be supposed, that if an intelligent creature could, under the pressure of some strange mental or moral obliquity, live in the practical forgetfulness of the Being who made him, it would at least be impossible for him to avoid thinking much about himself and his own paramount relations and prospects. It would be taken for granted that every thing pertaining to himself would awaken his deepest interest, and be made the subject of earnest study, just in proportion as it might bear with more or less urgency upon his happiness.

Now, it must certainly be conceded, that you do think much about yourself. The very neglect of God, of which we have just spoken, is combined with an enthronement of self in the heart, and around this center all the plans of life are made to revolve. Instead of living for God, you live for yourself. His claims are adjourned that your own may be honored. And yet it may be true that you are guilty of an extreme and highly criminal inconsideration as regards yourself. It may be that the things concerning yourself, which engross your attention, are stamped with utter insignificance when compared with other things which you neglect. It may be that saying (as we all have) two distinct classes of attributes and two sets of relations, the inferior and transitory of these series so monopolizes your care, that you have neither leisure nor inclination to look after the other. At once mortal and immortal, dying and yet deathless, is it not the case, that the personal objects which occupy you are objects all of which are bounded by the narrow horizon of the present life?

Claim for these objects whatever magnitude you may; set forth in whatsoever terms their intrinsic value, and the reasonableness, and even necessity, of pursuing them; expatiate on the importance and obligation of a man’s providing for his family, and giving diligent heed to his business, and on the fitness of those social relaxations in which you are accustomed to indulge. Every thing you can equitably demand on these points will be conceded, and you will still be compelled to acknowledge that all these interests are “of the earth, earthy,” and that they are no more to be ranked with other interests you have, than the body with the soul, and time with eternity. Is there no room here for the charge of culpable neglect? Is it a calumny to intimate, that among those into whose hands this book may fall, there may be some individual who rarely devotes an hour’s serious consideration to the wants, the perils, and the duties of his spiritual nature? You understand well your relations to the world, but when have you investigated your relations with God? You are at home on every question pertaining to your secular engagements, but what do you know in respect to the state of your soul? You keep pace with the progress of public affairs, arid scan the journals of every day with eager curiosity to learn what is happening in Washington and in London, at St. Petersburg and Canton; but what progress are you making in self-knowledge, and how much time do you bestow upon the current of events within your own bosom—those events which will affect you for good or for evil, millions of ages after this globe, with its cities and empires, shall have been burned up? Is it not a most surprising exhibition of inconsideration, that an individual should rarely, if ever, commune with his own heart? That he should know more of what is passing on the opposite side of the globe than of his own real condition? That he should actually spend more time in studying the character and career of some foreign scholar, soldier, or usurper, than he does in examining his own principles and ascertaining his duties and prospects? This were strange enough, if it could be set down to the account of constitutional levity, or assigned to the category of mere fortuitous results, such as in other departments diversify the tapestry of human life, without having any very tangible causes. But it assumes a more serious aspect, when it is found that the parties in question practice this self- neglect of set purpose; that theirs is a considerate inconsideration; that they refrain from looking into their own hearts on system and from absolute aversion. This appears such a crime against the rational nature the Creator has endowed us with, that the statement would be deemed incredible, if the proofs of it were not too incontrovertible to be resisted.

There are, on every side of us, persons whom neither argument nor entreaty can prevail upon to enter into a close and searching scrutiny of their own breasts. They are perfectly aware that they have a long and very grave account with God; but they have no wish to know how it stands. They are conscious that they must die, and that they may die at any moment; but they have no wish to meet the question, “Am I prepared for death?” They are anticipating an endless existence beyond the grave; but they are unwilling to turn their eyes inward long enough to learn whether it is everlasting glory or eternal shame for which they are ripening. There is a something there which repels them. They cannot bear to hold fellowship with themselves. They would sooner look anywhere than into their own hearts. Questions of trade interest them; questions of politics, of science, of literature; the trivial incidents of every-day life; the interchanges of friendship; for all these they have an eye and an ear. But when it comes to inquiries like these: “What am I? Where am I? Whither am I tending? What portion has my soul? How can I meet my God?" all their interest vanishes. They drive out these topics from their breasts as they would a set of intrusive visitors from their houses, and replace them with the evanescent, but more grateful themes which are clothed with the tinsel livery of earth. An impartial judge would be apt to say, on this naked showing of facts, that there must be something radically wrong here. And, to deal frankly, does it not strike you so also you, I mean, who are implicated in this representation? Admitting, as you do, the existence of all those relations of which we have been speaking, you cannot but regard it as an evil omen that you should be conscious of an indisposition to reflect on your own course of life, to weigh your motives, to explore the recesses of your heart, and learn what manner of spirit you are of. There must be, underneath this superficial complacency of demeaiour, a latent feeling that things are not with you as they should be. You are probably no stranger to the misgivings of the merchant who fears to make out a balance sheet, lest it may show him a bankrupt; or the misgivings of an invalid, who shrinks from consulting a physician, because he believes himself smitten with a fatal malady. But however that may be, these secret apprehensions are held in check, arid you live on in a voluntary ignorance of yourself, which would excite universal wonder, if the depravity which produces it were not also universal. My object in presenting these considerations is, to lead you to reflect with calmness and impartiality on the position you occupy. The charge the Scriptures bring against you is, that you will not consider; that while the beasts of the field, even the least sagacious of them, th ox and the ass, act in accordance with the laws of their constitution, you live in the violation of those laws; that the subjects to which your inconsideration applies are of no mere speculative character, but pre-eminertly practical and important; that you are even unwilling to think seriously of your Creator, and what is yet more surprising, to think seriously of yourself. The impression which such an exposition is adapted to make upon your mind will be still further confirmed, when you remember that this inconsideration, this unwillingness to reflect and investigate, extends to the whole subject of RELIGION. It is not improbable that your associations with this very word may be disagreeable, or at least unwelcome. Against religion in the abstract you have nothing to say. You assent to its teachings. You respect its institutions. You desire its prosperity. You attend, not without some interest, upon its public ministrations. But when it comes to be a personal matter, to the reading of a religious book, to a religious ponversation with a Christian friend, to pray, to anything which looks directly to your becoming religious, then your aversion to it begins to work.

If on entering a room alone you should see a table covered with books, and on taking one of them up should find it a religious treatise, would you not lay it down with an emotion almost amounting to positive antipathy? Should you happen to sit down at the same table, with an open Bible before you, would not the first sound of an approaching, footstep make you shut up the volume and move from the place, lest perchance some one might suspect you of reading the Scriptures? Or, to proceed a step further, should your pastor call to converse with you on the subject of religion, would you not, if possible, elude either the interview or the subject? Would you not decline a walk with a Christian friend, if you thought he might avail himself of the opportunity to address you in a serious and pointed way on the question of your salvation? Would it not be distasteful to you to join a social circle, where you knew the great themes of evangelical Christianity would be the leading topics of the evening? I do not affirm these things; but if they are so, if your own conscience assents to the substantial accuracy of this representation, what an affecting view have we presented to us of your moral condition!

You aspire, we will suppose, to the character of a cultivated and refined person. You are eager in the pursuit of knowledge. You search for it in the depth of the ocean, and along the star-lit galleries of the firmament. You can spend hours in analyzing a flower or decomposing a drop of water. You are willing to take lessons from the birds, the fishes, the insects, from the very pebbles under you feet. You range through all history. You study foreign languages, that you may explore the libraries and decipher the monuments of other lands. Wherever knowledge is to be acquired, in the humblest repositories or in the most inaccessible, you are ready for the effort. But it is all with this single and most remarkable exception. Here is a volume which contains more truth, and truth of greater importance, than all other volumes combined. Where other books deal in guesses and hypotheses, and where nature is silent, this book speaks with distinctness, with fulness, and with authority. It is in fact the only source to which we can look for satisfactory information respecting our Creator, ourselves, and the way of salvation. And it is commended to us by having impressed upon it that sublime title, “THE WISDOM OF GOD.” Yet from this book you turn away! The volume which, it might be presumed, would draw every lover of truth to its pages with an irresistible attraction, is the very work which you find jejune and prosaic; so much so, that it even imparts the same taint to every work deduced from it.

If the cause of this phenomenon be inquired into, it will readily be discovered. The Bible is not simply a book of science or a book of literature, but a religious book. We must eliminate the religious element, if we wish to invest it with the charms which belong to so many uninspired productions. Man thirsts for knowledge; but even his desire of knowledge is not so strong as his enmity to God, and he will sooner forego the indulgence of one of his most powerful natural appetites, than gratify it at the cost of being brought into immediate intercourse with his Maker. He will pursue truth with an unfaltering step, and an unslumbering eye throughout the universe, until she enters that refulgent sphere where the throne of God and of the Lamb is; then, as if smitten by a paralysis or struck with insailty, he can no longer discern any form or comeliness in her, and she has no beauty that he should desire her. The moment she arrays herself in the vestments of holiness, she becomes as much au object of repulsion as she had before been of loveliness. Clad in the coarsest fabrics of earth, she is sure of his homage; transfigured in the splendors of the uncreated glory, and his veneration is changed to hatred. You will not say that this sketch is unreal or exaggerated. It is vindicated by the confessions of too many individuals to be set aside as savoring of extravagance. The fact it assumes is one to be seriously pondered, viz.: the prevalence among so many, even educated, persons, of a positive antipathy to religious truth; the utter distaste which you yourself may feel to the reading of the Bible and to serious reflection on its teachings. Nor is this the whole truth. Connect with the fact just stated, the feelings sometimes, perhaps habitually, awakened in your bosom when the claims of religion are pressed home upon. you for immediate action. Are you not conscious on these occasions of a great repugnance to the subject? Are you riot apt to feel that religion would interfere with your enjoyments? Do you not blend with it ideas of austerity and gloom, and treat it as you would some impending calamity which, since it could not be eluded altogether, you would avert as long as possible, and then submit to it with such resignation as you might command? And is it not under the influence of sentiments like these, that you so often put the subject away from you, and refuse even to consider it?