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  WRITINGS OF HENRY A BOARDMAN
  by Henry A. Boardman
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A collection of theological writings, sermons, and essays by Henry A. Boardman,
compiled for study and devotional reading.

  Chapters: 10

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. 01.1. The Claims of Religionn Upon Medical Men
    2. 01.2.     Introductory Information
    3. 01.3.     The Claims of Religion Upon Medical Men
    4. 02.1. The Great Question
    5. 02.2.     Preface
    6. 02.3.     Will You Consider the Subject of Personal Religion?
    7. 02.4.     Illusive Pleas Examined
    8. 02.5.     The Pretexts for Neglecting Religion Irrational and Sordid
    9. 02.6.     Religion Must and Will Be Considered
   10. 02.7.     What Can I Do?

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  CHAPTER 1: 01.1. THE CLAIMS OF RELIGIONN UPON MEDICAL MEN
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THE CLAIMS OF RELIGION

UPON

MEDICAL MEN. A DISCOURSE DELIVERED IN THE TENTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH,
PHILIDELPHIA, ON SUNDAY EVENING, NOV. 21, 1844. BY H. A. BOARDMAN, PASTOR OF THE
CHURCH.

THIRD EDITION.

PHILADELPHIA:

PUBLISHED FOR DR. JAMES B. ELLIS.

BOOK AND JOB PRINTING OFFICE, LEDGER BUILDING.

1844.


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  CHAPTER 2: 01.2.     INTRODUCTORY INFORMATION
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TO THE REV. H. A. BOARDMAN, D. D.

University of Pennsylvania, Nov. 28, 1844.

Reverend and Dear Sir: At a meeting of the Medical Class of the University of
Pennsylvania, held yesterday afternoon, the undersigned were appointed a
Committee to present their grateful acknowledgements for your impressive and
eloquent discourse upon “The Claims of Religion upon Medical Men,” and to
request a copy of it for publication.

We have the honor to be, Very respectfully and gratefully, Your ob’t servants,

N. CHAPMAN.

THOS. KING LEONARD, Fla.

E. DUFFIELD, Md.

JAS. MORROW, South Carolina.

MATTHEW P. WALLER, Va.

P. P. CLUFF, Mo.

J. S. WELLFORD, Va.

J. W. DULLES, Pa.

TIMOTHY THORP, Ala.

WM. J. LEARY, N.C.

JOHN P. LITTLE, Va.

JOHN M. LANGHORNE, Va.

J. WARREN ROYER, Pa.

JAMES E. ROBERTSON, Va.

ROBERT M. PORTER, Tenn.

DOUGLASS CASE, Ohio.

J. E. TYLER, Mass.

_______ Philadelphia, 26th November, 1844. To the Rev. Mr. Boardman.

Reverend and Dear Sir:— The undersigned, a Committee from the Medical Class of
Jefferson Medical College, appointed for the purpose, beg leave respectfully to
tender to you the thanks of the students whom we represent, for the able and
useful discourse on the religious duties of medical men, delivered on Sunday
evening last. We are also directed to ask you to furnish us with a copy of that
discourse, that by committing it to the press we may make it more extensively
useful.

With sentiments of respect, We are yours, &c., J. K. MITCHELL, M.D.

N. E. CARGJLL, Va.

WM. K. BROWN, Ala.

BENJ. F. BLACKMON, Ala.

S. P. ZIEGLER, Pa.

H. R. BRANHAM, Ga.

J. P. ANDREWS, Pa.

E. B. JONES, Va.

J. E. HILL, Miss.

S. G. WHITE, Ga.

JNO. DRAUCHAN, La.

C. C. CAMPBELL, Ga.

D. R. ROACH, Ala.

H. Y. WEBB, Ala.

J. H. LEFEVERE, Pa.

B. C. SNOWDEN, Pa.

A. H. HOFF, New York.

_______ Philadelphia, November 26th, 1844. To the Committees of the University
and Jefferson Medical Classes:

Gentlemen—Nothing could have been more gratifying to my feelings, than the favor
with which the large and intelligent body of Medical Students at present in this
city, have received my humble effort to serve them, on Sunday evening. The
discourse which you have done me the honor to request for publication, was
written amidst the varied and arduous duties incident to the pastoral care of a
large congregation; but, as you have been pleased to express the opinion that
its circulation, in a printed form, may conduce to the object for which it was
prepared, I do not feel at liberty to withhold it. A copy of the discourse is
herewith placed at your disposal.

I remain, gentlemen, With great respect, Your friend and servant,

H. A. BOARDMAN


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  CHAPTER 3: 01.3.     THE CLAIMS OF RELIGION UPON MEDICAL MEN
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THE CLAIMS OF RELIGION UPON MEDICAL MEN.

Colossians 4:15.

"Luke, the beloved physician." The individual here named in so honorable a
manner, is commonly believed to have been the Evangelist Luke, the author of one
of the Gospels, and of the Book of Acts. He was the intimate friend and
travelling companion of the Apostle Paul, and was evidently held in high
estimation among the Christians of that age. It would be foreign from my present
purpose to dwell upon the imperfect record we have of his life and labors. The
mention of him by the Apostle as a “Physician,” affords me an opportunity of
saying (what, indeed, it may be superfluous to state here) that we must be
careful, in reading the Bible, not to suffer the force of our modem associations
to mislead us as to the precise import of its medical terms. Medicine had no
existence under the Hebrew Theocracy, and among the cotemporaneons nations, as a
science; and even as an art, it prevailed only in a very rude form. It was the
general feeling that diseases were inflicted by a supernatural power, and that
the same power must be looked to for the removal of them—an opinion, it may be
added, which is still very common in the East. Diseased persons were in the
habit of resorting to the priests and prophets, not merely to avail themselves
of their medical skill, but to ascertain through them from Jehovah, or the false
gods, as the case might be, whether they were to recover or not. This gave rise
to “a class of pretenders, who professed, by means of certain secret charms,
incantations and powerful rites or applications, to draw down and fix the
healing power of the god.” By this means, medicine came to be associated with
soothsaying, astrology and witchcraft, and, was regarded by many of the devout
Jews as an abominable thing. The Rabbis entertained so bad an opinion of
“physicians,” that they said “the very best of them deserved hell;" and they
advised “faithful Jews not to live in a city where the chief man was a
physician.” The art remained in this elementary state for ages. The people, in
the time of the Saviour, seem to have had but little confidence in their medical
guides, and brought their sick to him in great numbers to be healed. Lightfoot,
in commenting on the case of the poor woman (Mark 5:25-34) who, after spending
all that she had upon physicians, to no purpose, stole a blessing from Christ by
touching the hem of his garment, states, that the practice of that day was
restricted to a series of simple or compound medicines for each disease, which
were to be tried successively, as one after another failed. This series, in the
disorder with which this woman was afflicted, extended to fourteen changes. All
the medicines were to be taken in wine. Each was in turn abandoned, after a
short trial. “If the case was found to be stubborn, superstitious practices were
resorted to, in order to aid the medicine, and were gradually increased, till at
last medicine was altogether relinquished, and the cure sought by other means.”
This identical system is still in vogue among some of the Oriental nations. In
Christian countries, however, medicine has thrown off the superstitions and
puerilities with which it was so long deformed and paralyzed, and taken its
appropriate place among the sciences. This is neither the time nor the place to
detail the steps by which it has vindicated its claim to the elevated position
it now occupies. It is more to my purpose to observe that there is no science,
theology excepted, which opens a nobler field of inquiry to the human
intellect—none which is more intimately associated with our earthly
happiness—none which is more entitled to the respect and veneration of society.
The benevolent design of medicine is, indeed, its leading characteristic. While
a large portion of mankind, even in civilized countries, are employed in
avocations which are either destructive to human life, or which aim only at
“multiplying the pleasures of the opulent, giving a higher zest to the fruitions
of luxury, and gratifying the caprices of vanity and pride,” the physician
“interposes in the moment of exigence, and obeys the call of distress; he
administers the cordial to the fainting spirit, rekindles the expiring lamp of
hope, and often decks the countenance with smiles, which death, under the
ravages of disease, had marked for his victim, and covered with his shade. He
leaves it to others to accompany the human race in their revelry and their
triumphs; while they bask on the bosom of the ocean, or spread their sails to
the wind, he presents himself on the shore, and rescues the shipwrecked mariner
from the waves. With a silent and invisible energy he contends with the powers
of destruction, and often rescues from the grave him that seemed "appointed to
death." A profession charged with so lofty and benign a ministration, and whose
responsibilities are of so delicate and weighty a character, demands eminent
qualifications, both of the head and heart, on the part of those who would
assume its duties. Most of these qualifications, perhaps all, in a greater or
less degree, are set forth with admirable ability and skill in the daily
instructions of our medical schools. There is one, however, which is psually
inculcated in the class-room only in an incidental way, and which, on every
account, deserves your most candid and serious attention—I mean, PERSONAL
RELIGION. The topic, then, I propose to bring before you, in the present
discourse, is, THE IMPORTANCE OF PERSONAL RELIGION TO MEDICAL MEN. The theme
would better suit a volume than a sermon. I shall confine myself to a few hints
on the more obvious aspects of the subject.

You will not understand me as meaning by the phrase “personal religion,” either
a bare intellectual assent to the truths of Christianity, or a rigid conformity
to all the peculiarities of any particular denomination of Christians. I use the
expression as synonymous with true piety. This consists, in general, in the
renewing and sanctifying of the heart by the Holy Spirit, a cordial reliance
upon the merits of Jesus Christ as the only ground of acceptance with God, and
an habitual desire and aim to lead a holy life, and walk according to the pure
morality of the Scriptures.

It is very obvious to remark, as a reason why medical men should give their
attention to religion, that they are involved in the common degeneracy and ruin
of the race, and are, equally with other men, dependent upon christianity for
spiritual life and salvation. The fundamental truths of the Gospel apply to all
alike. We are all depraved—helpless--condemned—lost; and doomed to be lost
eternally, except we repent of our sins, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We have a common interest in such solemn announcements as these:—"Except ye
repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” “He that believeth and is baptized shall
be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned.” No eminence of gifts, no
splendor of reputation, can shelter from the wrath of an offended God, the soul
that goes unpardoned into eternity. He has provided salvation for our race at an
infinite cost, and offered it to us without money and without price.” Our
happiness, not less than our duty, requires us to accept of it. For we can have
no solid peace of mind while in a state of alienation from God. He is the only
adequate portion of the soul. It is not possible for avarice or ambition to
satisfy its cravings. The entire resources of the globe, if placed at its
disposal, would no more meet its demands than an April shower would convert the
desert of Sahara into a verdant and fruitful province. A monarch, as illustrious
for his wisdom as for the prosperity of his kingdom and the glory of his reign,
once tried the experiment which men in humbler spheres have been trying since
the apostacy of Adam, of seeing how far the world would go in satisfying the
instincts of a rational being; and after levying a tribute upon universal
nature, and putting art to its loftiest achievements, to furnish whatever could
charm the senses or gratir the taste, he surveyed the whole, and, with a
frankness worthy of his rank and station, exclaimed— "Vanity of vanities, all is
vanity!" So it must always be. It is no less the law of our intellectual
constitution than the law of revelation, that man shall find true and
substantial happiness in God only. He that “sinneth against God wrongeth his own
soul.” And they who forsake the fountain of living waters, for broken cisterns,
must suffer the pangs of an eternal and quenchless thirst. Religion claims the
attentjon of medical men, then, in common with the rest of mankind, because it
is indispensable to the forgiveness of sin, and the salvation of the soul.

It has been often said that medicine, as a profession, was favorable to
infidelity. And the very phrase Religio Medici, was once synonymous with
irreligion. This imputation has been repelled with great energy by many medical
writers. “Medicine,” says Dr. Gregory, “of all professions, should be the least
suspected of leading to impiety. An intimate acquaintance with the works of
nature elevates the mind to the most sublime conceptions of the Supreme Being;
and at the same time dilates the heart with the most pleasing prospects of
Providence. The difficulties that must necessarily attend all deep inquiries
into a subject so disproportionate to the human faculties, should not be
expected to surprise a physician, who in his daily practice is involved in
perplexity and darkness, even in subjects exposed to the examination of his
senses.” Thus we should all reason a priori on the subject. If “An undevout
astronomer is mad,” so, one would think, must be an undevout physician. Galen,
it is said, was converted from atheism by the sight of a human skeleton. The
dead man’s frame weighed more with him than the arguments of the living. He must
be a stubborn skeptic who can hold out against a skeleton. Still more stubborn
must be he who can explore the mysteries of the entire animal economy, under the
guidance of modern science, without seeing every where the impress of a God.
This a priori presumption is, to a gratifying extent, confirmed by fact.
Infidelity is far less prevalent among physicians than it was formerly: and no
inconsiderable proportion of the names which grace the recent records of the
profession, are adorned with the lustre which genuine piety alone can impart

It has, however, been admitted, that there are facts in the earlier annals of
the science, which seem to countenance the charge under consideration, that
medical studies involve a lurking tendency to infidelity. I use the expression
“seem,” because in so far as the science itself is concerned, the imputation
must be groundless. The principles of every science were established by the
Divine Author of Christianity, and cannot, therefore, conflict with any of its
doctrines or requirements. The legitimate tendency of all scientific
investigations, is to lead the mind up to the Great First Cause, and to
predispose it to bow to His mandates, whenever and howsoever they may be
communicated. But that these studies are often perverted from their appropriate
end, no one can deny. And this has perhaps happened as frequently in medicine as
in any other science. Various reasons have been assigned for this fact.

1. There is the absorbing nature of the demands the profession makes upon the
time and attention of its votaries, who are thereby deprived as they suppose of
the opportunity for examining the subject of religion, and indeed rendered
averse to it.

2. Successful scientific researches are apt, unless regulated by religious
considerations, to inspire men with inflated views of the sufficiency of human
reason on all subjects; and thus, from questioning the necessity, they may
easily come to deny the fact, of a Divine revelation.

3. The habit of reasoning from induction and analogy which belongs to every
scientific physician, may unfit them, in a measure, for examining with
impartiality the argument from miracles which constitutes so material a portion
of the external evidences of Christianity.* * See Gisborne on Men, vol. ii, 194.

4. I say it with regret, but nothing has impressed my own mind more
unpleasantly, in the little attention I have given to medical works, than the
want of a distinct recognition of the Creator’s power and agency, on occasions
when it would not only be natural for the writer to refer to the Deity, but even
when the idea was evidently in his own mind, and could not be suppressed without
an effort. “The student of medicine,” says an ingenious writer, “is often called
on to bring his gift and deposit it, like the Athenian, on the altar of an
‘unknown god.’ A cloudy image, entitled ‘nature,’ is raised in the mind, to
which high attributes of power, wisdom and goodness are often ascribed.”* He
might have added that the tendency of this habit, if persisted in, must be, in
minds peculiarly constituted, to create a vague impression which may ultimately
grow into a conviction, that this obscure divinity, “nature,” is really the only
Deity.

*“Is Medical Science Favorable to Skepticism?” An Essay, by James W. Dale,

5. Physicians are conversant with those scenes of suffering which, above any
others, appeal to our sympathies. These scenes do not necessarily blunt their
humane feelings, but they can hardly fail of producing a decisive effect, for
good or evil, upon their moral sensibilities. It may be worthy of consideration,
whether familiarity with such spectacles has not sometimes assisted in
fortifying them against the requisitions of Christianity, and even hastening
them into infidelity.

6. The exposure of young men, while in training for the profession, to the
temptations of large cities, and the consequent formation of dissolute habits,
has, no doubt, been a hot-bed of skepticism.

7. The neglect of divine worship on the Sabbath, and of the other means of
grace, has, it is to be feared, contributed in no small degree to foster
infidelity among physicians. I shall enter into no argument on this point. It
will probably be conceded, on all hands, that physicians frequently absent
themselves from the sanctuary when no call of necessity or mercy pleads for it;
that the occasional neglect of the house of God easily glides into a habit; and
that this habit tends, by a natural process, to impair all suitable sense of
religion, and to generate infidelity.

Such are some of the grounds on which the prevalence of skepticism among medical
men has been explained. They show that however guiltless the science itself may
be of the infidel tendency ascribed to it, there is real danger in the path of
the physician. They certainly furnish a strong argument in favor of an early and
persevering attention to the claims of religion, on the part of the profession.
This would not only secure them from the ruinous illusions of infidelity, but
furnish a triumphant vindication of their art from the stigma which has been
unjustly affixed to it. In estimating the value of true religion to medical men,
we must take into account its salutary influence upon the temper. I design no
reflection upon the profession by this remark; it is poets, not physicians, who,
according to the proverb, constitute the “genus irritabile.” The profession, as
such, is probably not more infested with evil tempers than the other learned
professions; and, if the. fact were otherwise, it could excite no surprise; for
physicians are certainly subjected to very great trials of temper. These proceed
mainly from two sources—their patients and their professional brethren. The
whims and caprices of the sick, and their officious relatives and neighbors, are
brought to bear upon the physician in full force. He is blamed for his tardiness
in responding to their call, when, perhaps, he stopped to prescribe for a
patient whose life was in imminent peril. He comes too early or too late—too
often, or not often enough; he gives the wrong medicines, or in wrong doses; he
orders phlebotomy where calomel would answer, and administers a bolus where he
should apply a cataplasm; his treatment differs from that of his predecessor—or,
perhaps, accords with it—and in either case it is erroneous; his patient
recovers, but he owes his recovery less to his skill than to a good
constitution—or he dies, and then, by common consent, he has put him in his
grave. I am not denying that physicians may, and often do err in all these ways,
nor that complaints like these may, in many cases, be too well founded; but it
is no less true that people are apt, in dealing with them, to be unreasonable,
capricious, unfeeling and reckless of their professional reputation. It is
trials of this sort to which I am alluding in this connection. And yet even
these are not always their worst trials. David, in speaking of the treachery of
his confidential counsellor, Ahithophel, says— "For it was not an enemy that
reproached me; then could I have borne it; neither was it he that hated me that
did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him: but it
was thou, a man, mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance.” (Psalms 55:12-13)
So it is with physicians often. Their “worst foes are those of their own
household.” They have to encounter not merely an open and generous rivalry; not
merely the assaults of avowed and, perhaps, malignant hostility; the former of
which no liberal mind would deprecate, while the latter usually neutralizes
itself, but the arts of a secret envy, which no sagacity can foil and no merit
withstand. What these arts are it is not my place to specify. The fact is all
that is essential to my argument. And I adduce the fact that physicians are
exposed to peculiar trials of temper, as well from the unprofessional conduct of
their brethren, as from the inconsiderateness, caprice and resentment of their
patients, as a proof of the great importance of personal religion to them.
Religion, it is true, cannot secure them an exemption from these vexatious;
although, by its various influences upon the character and reputation, it may
contribute to lessen their number. But it can greatly enlarge their capacity of
endurance, and fit them to bear what, without its aid, would be intolerable. The
temper fostered by religion —the meek, patient, forgiving, benevolent, ingenuous
temper everywhere inculcated in the Bible, not simply as a graceful appendage of
Christianity, but as one of its essential elements— is the best safeguard a
physician can have against the wrongs we have been contemplating, and his best
antidote to them when they are inflicted. A man with this temper will be
uniformly just to his brethren and his patients. He will be slow to give, and
equally slow to take, offence. He will be free from envy and suspicion, and will
put the best construction upon all doubtful passages. He will be as jealous of
his professional as of his popular reputation; and scorn to extend his practice
by conniving at quackery, or catering to the empirical vagaries of his patients.
Instead of attempting to supplant his competitors by artifice or fraud, by
malign insinuations, or sneers at their mistakes, he will treat them, on all
occasions, with the respect that is due to them, and rely for success not so
much upon subverting their reputation, as upon his own assiduity and skill.
Where he has perpetrated a wrong, he will not be ashamed, on discovering it, to
acknowledge the offence, and make every reparation in his power.* He will be
careful to observe the established etiquette of the order; and avoid infringing
that code of ethics which, though unwritten, is well understood, and the
inflexible maintenance of which, even in its am parentLy trivial provisions, is
of vital importance to the dignity and success of the profession. All this, and
much more than this, a physician under the predominant influence of true piety
will do, not because his interest will be promoted by it, nor simply because it
is his duty to do it, but also because it is the very course to which his
feelings prompt him, and which he finds his happiness in pursuing. That a
physician of this character will ordinarily escape many of the annoyances and
grievances which others encounter, and that when they do occur he will be better
prepared to endure them, is too evident to stand in need of argument. I do not
hesitate, therefore, to adduce the salutary influence of religion upon the
temper, as a reason why medical men should give their early attention to it.

* There is a striking illustration of this recorded in the life of the celeinted
Dr. Cheyne. He describes his “Fluxionum Methodus hyena,” which had procured his
election to the Royal Society, in 1705, as having been brought forth in ambition
and bred up in vanity. “My defence of that work,” he adds, “against the learned
and acute Mr. Abraham De Moivre, being written in a spirit of levity and
resentment, I most sincerely retract, and wish undone, so far as it is personal
or peevish, and ask him and the world pardon for it; as I do for the defence of
Dr. Pitcairn’s Dissertations and the New Theory of Fevers, against the late
learned and ingenious Dr. Oliphant. I heartily condemn and detest all personal
reflections, all malicious and unmannerly terms, and all false and unjust
representations, as unbecoming gentlemen, scholars, and Christians; and disprove
and undo both performances, as far as in me lies, in every thing that does not
subtly and barely relate to the argument” A still weightier motive may be found
in the fact, that religion imparts the spirit and fosters the habit of prayer;
and no class of men stand in more need of Divine illumination than physicians.
The Supreme Being challenges the power of healing as one of his prerogatives: “I
kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal." (Deuteronomy 32:39) "Bless the Lord,
O my soul, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases.” It
were well for physicians to bear this in mind—to remember that without God’s
blessing they may be baffled by the simplest diseases; with it, they may cope
with the most intricate and malignant. It derogates nothing from the dignity and
utility of the science, to assert its dependence upon Him in whom all creatures
“live, and move, and have their being.” Who should invoke the Divine guidance,
if not they to whose guardianship the lives and health of communities are
entrusted? How delicate, how arduous, how responsible, their duties! Consider
the endless idiosyncrasies of the human constitution—the variety and subtlety of
diseases—the haste with which, in many instances, it is necessary to determine
upon the treatment—and the consequent liability even of the most accomplished
practitioners, from these and other causes, to fall into fatal mistakes. The
life of a fellow-being, and the earthly happiness of a family, may be suspended
upon their decision of a question so nicely balanced that they shrink from
deciding it either way. The load of anxiety they sometimes feel in these
circumstances must well nigh crush them to the earth. The image of their patient
follows them like their shadow; it puts them upon a reexamination of the
authorities in their libraries; it throws a gloom over their fire-side
enjoyments; it sits beside their couch .at night; it makes them feel, for the
time, that all the emoluments and honors of the profession are no equivalent for
its cirials. Now what saith the Scripture? “If any man lack wisdom, LET HIM ASK
OF GOD, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be
given him.” A physician, in the exigency supposed, will hail the least glimmer
of light from any earthly source; shall he shut his mind to the light that comes
from Heaven? Is not the wisdom from above as good as the wisdom of this world?
Or does he who drinks with such eagerness from the turbid streams, compromise
his dignity by going to the fountain? — It is gratifying to know that there are
so many in the profession in the present day who fully appreciate this duty. I
shall cite only a single example, that of a man whose celebrity as a physician,
a scholar, and a Christian, entitles his opinions to the highest respect—I mean,
the late Dr. John Mason Good. His biographer, Dr. Olinthus Gregory,—a man of
kindred spirit, and equally distinguished in the literary world,—makes this
statement respecting him: “The sympathy he manifested for his patients was of
the highest order. When he prescribed, he was in the habit of praying for Divine
direction; on administering a medicine himself, he was àften known to utter a
short, ejaculatory prayer; and in cases where a fatal issue was inevitable, he
most scrupulously avoided the cruel delusion too common on such occasions, but
with the utmost delicacy and feeling announced his apprehensions.” Among his
papers there was found, under date of July 27th, 1823, a Form of Prayer,
‘which,’ he says, ‘I purpose to use, among others, every morning, so long as it
may please God that I shall continue in the exercise of my profession, and which
is here copied out, not so much to assist my own memory, as to give a hint to
many who may perhaps feel thankful for it when I am removed to a state where
personal vanity can have no access, and the opinion of the world can be no
longer of any importance. I should wish it to close the subsequent editions of
my Study of Medicine.’ This prayer is as follows:

“O thou great bestower of health, strength, and comfort! grant thy blessing upon
the professional duties in which this day I may engage. Give me judgment to
discern disease, and skill to treat it; and crown with thy favor the means that
may be devised for recovery: for, with thine assistance, the humblest instrument
may succeed, as, without it, the ablest must prove unavailing.

“Save me from all sordid motives; and endow me with a spirit of pity and
liberality towards the poor, and of tenderness and sympathy towards all; that I
may enter into the various feelings by which they are respectively tried; may
weep with those that weep, and rejoice with those that rejoice.

“And sanctify thou their souls, as well as heal their bodies. Let faith and
patience, and every Christian virtue they are called upon to exercise, han their
perfect work: So that, in the gracious dealings of thy Spirit and of thy
Providence, they may find in the end, whatever that end may be, that it has been
good for them to have been afflicted.

“Grant this, O Heavenly Father, for the love of that adorable Redeemer, who
while on earth went about doing good, and now ever liveth to make intercession
for us in heaven. Amen.”* *Good’s Life, pp. 273, 4.

Happy would it be for themselves and for society, if all physicians were in the
habit of maintaining this daily and intimate communion with Heaven.

I have repeatedly hinted at the value of religion to a physician, as greatly
enhancing his means of usefulness; but this point is too important to be passed
over in an incidental way. My remarks upon it, however, must necessarily be
brief. The social position of the medical profession presents us with one aspect
of this subject. In this view the elements of power are largely accumulated in
the hands of physicians. They have, as a class, numbers, education, popular
respect and confidence, and maintain that kind of intercourse with society which
affords the best opportunities for acquiring and exerting a potent influence for
good or evil. While this observation holds true as to large cities, it is still
more applicable to those who reside in small towns and villages; and it is among
these that the great body of the profession are scattered. The influence of a
physician in a situation of this sort, is not simply that of one respectable and
intelligent citizen. It is the influence, frequently, of the leading man in the
place as to literature and science, and of one who enjoys the confidence and
affection of the community beyond any other individual in it, unless it may be
the clergyman, and he is by no means an exception in all cases. It is highly
honorable to the profession, that they are usually disposed to employ their
great influence on the side of virtue and the general good. No class of citizens
are more prompt, generous, or efficient in abating social evils, establishing
public charities, fostering schools, and promoting judicious schemes for the
substantial improvement of society. Instances of an opposite kind sometimes
occur, it is true. There are not wanting examples of physicians who have
combined with the genius of Paracelsus, his drunkenness and debauchery, and
whose capabilities of mischief have furnished an apt illustration of the
sentiment, publicly uttered some sixteen years ago, in the hearing of the
preacher, by a distinguished professor of chemistry and geology, at the
eastward, that, while “no man, except a clergyman, can do so much good as a
physician, no man whatever can do as much harm.” Instances of this kind,
however, are excrescences upon the profession,—its wens and carbuncles,—which
are not to be taken into the account in forming a general estimate of its worth.
But while the high character of the profession for humanity, public spirit,
liberality, and other noble attributes, is cordially conceded, it will not be
denied that true piety would establish all these virtues upon a firmer basis,
and impart others of a still more benign and elevated character. This is its
peculiar and godlike prerogative—to enhance whatever is honorable and
praiseworthy, and to supply endowments which neither nature nor education can
confer. One of the biographers of the late Dr. Ramsay says of him:— “The great
concerns to which he constantly directed his reflections were, the improvement
of the moral, social, intellectual, and physical state of his country. To
disseminate the doctrines of the Bible, to promote public schools and colleges,
and to carry commerce to every man’s door by means of artificial roads and
canals, and the chainelswhich nature formed, were objects that lay near his
heart... For forty years the press teemed with the productions of his pen,
designed exclusively to elevate the spirit, taste, and virtues of his
fellow-citizens, and to improve, beautify, and felicitate their common
country.”* I shall not attempt to show how far the character of this
accomplished historian and physician was moulded by religion, and how far by
other agencies. It may be safely left to your candor to decide whether religion
did not impart an additional lustre to his character, and furnish a powerful
incentive to his patriotic and self-sacrificing exertions for the good of his
country. So it will usually be. The man who loves to “disseminate the doctrines
of the Bible,” will not be backward in “promoting public schools and colleges,
carrying commerce to every man’s door,” and assisting in every suit, able plan
designed to “elevate the spirit, taste, and virtues of his fellow-citizens.” And
it is on this ground precisely, to wit,. that religion is adapted to enlarge to
such a degree thir means of usefulness as citizens, that I am now urging its
claims upon the medical profession.

* Rees’ Cyclopedia. But we may contemplate the physician’s opportunities ot
doing good, in another and much more important aspect. There is a field of
usefulness peculiarly his own—a field always “white to the harvest,” and
inviting him to thrust in his sickle and reap; I refer, of course, to the
chamber of sickness. When I speak of this as his field, I have no wish to
transfer to the physician the duties and responsibilities of the pastor: but
religion binds us to do good to all men, as we have opportunity and, as Baxter
has remarked, what belongs to the pastor ex officio, belongs to the physician ex
charitate. He has access to individuals whom no clergyman can reach; he can
sometimes prepare the way for the introduction of a clergyman where he would
otherwise be excluded; he can choose his opportunities for bringing forward the
subject of religion, and select the most suitable mode and form for presenting
it; the sarrie counsels uttered by him, would be more likely to produce a good
impression than if they came from the lips of a clergyman, because, in the
latter case, they might be heard as the promptings of professional duty, while
in the other, not only would they be ascribed to a generous and disinterested
kindness, but they would derive additional weight from the presumption, on the
part of the patient, that they proceeded from one who understood his physical
condition. It is also to be considered that the relation in which a physician
stands to his patient invites his confidence and awakens his gratitude. He
“enters into the privacy of families, and penetrates even to the most retired
chamber; he beholds the human character, disrobed, by the rude hands of mental
and corporeal suffering, of all the coloring and drapery thrown around it by the
forms of society, and thus becomes the depositary of facts which involve the
happiness of individuals, and of society.”* The feeling of dependence, which
reveals itself in the lighting up of the invalid’s countenance when he enters
the room, and the sense of comparative security he enjoys while he is sitting by
his bedside, shows that his physician has an ascendancy over him which no other
person can have—that his imagination (to borrow the expressive language of a
learned and venerable professor in one of our medical schools) has “conferred on
him the attributes of a tutelary divinity.”** Would it be any perversion of the
power thus placed in his hands, by a wise Providence, to employ it for the
spiritual good of his patient? Would it compromise his professional character,
while ministering to the body, to minister to the soul, too? — I am aware of the
prejudice which is entertained by some respectable physicians, on the subject of
pressing the claims of religion upon the sick. An indiscreet zeal may
unquestionably do great harm in this way. A physician who should obtrude the
subject of religion on all occasions, and upon all sorts of patients, would be
likely to do more evil than good. But it is yet to be proved that the sick would
receive any injury from having this subject presented to them by their medical
attendants, in a judicious way. The form and manner in which it should be done,
it is not my province to point out; different cases would require different
treatment. In general, a hint or suggestion, kindly and incidentally thrown out,
would probably be more useful than a formal argument or appeal. Such suggestions
would not only, in most cases, be well received, but are secretly desired. There
can be no doubt that the sick sometimes suffer intensely from suppressed anxiety
in relatiqn to their spiritual state. Their physicians forbid the mention of
religion to them lest it may exacerbate their disease, when this is the very
thing that is needed to allay an excitement which is fast precipitating their
malady to a fatal issue. A few words of spiritual counsel, kindly offered, have,
in some instances of this sort, done much to tranquilize the system, where the
best pharruaceutical agents have failed. Besides, the responsibility of
physicians is not restricted to their merely technical duties. No man is at
liberty to slight a favorable opportunity of doing good to the soul of a fellow
creature; and the sin of this neglect becomes more aggravated where, in the
ordering of events by Divine Providence, he is the only one who has the
opportunity of offering him a word of religious counsel. Am I going too far when
I hazard the conjecture that this responsibility is sometimes felt by
physicians, who are not pious men, in an intense degree? Are there not
occasions, in the experience of such physicians, when all the sensibilities of
their nature are stirred into action by the spectacle of a fellow-mortal just
going, as they believe, unprepared into eternity—and when the consciousness that
they have not even attempted to direct his eyes to “the Lamb of God who taketh
away the sin of the world,” is painful beyond expression? if this be the case,
physicians would consult as well their own peace of mind as the happiness of
their patients, by cordially embracing the doctrines of Christianity, and making
its precepts their rule of life.—On the whole, it must be too apparent to
require further argument, that personal religion is adapted greatly to enlarge a
physician’s capabilities of usefulness. Its spirit blends with all his
scientific attainments, and fosters those principles and habits which are most
conducive to professional success; while it qualifies and disposes him to soothe
the dying, and comfort the bereaved with the consolations of the Gospel. No man
need desire a better eulogy than was once pronounced on a physician of this
character—the celebrated Dr. Hey, of Leeds.

“Those means which med’cine and the Gospel give, To soul and body, Hey could
well apply;

Useful that skill which made the dying live, More useful that which taught him
how to die.”

Such physicians cannot go unrewarded. The blessing of “many who were ready to
perish” will be upon them, and they will hereafter share in the honor and
felicity of those who, having “turned many to righteousness, shall shine as the
stars forever and ever.”

* Dr. Hodge’s Introductory Lecture, 1835.

** Dr. Chapman’s Introductory Lectue, 1838.

I feel that I have done little more than glance at my subject, but I will not
trespass upon your patience by pursuing it further. I should be unfaithful,
however, to the trust I have ventured to assume this evening, were I to close
this discourse without again adverting to that view of the subject which, after
all, is of paramount importance. Nothing,” says the great Pascal,* “is so
important to any man as his own condition; nothing so formidable as eternity.
They, therefore, who are indifferent to the loss of their being, and to the risk
of endless misery, are in an unnatural state. They act quite differently from
this in all other matters: they fear the smallest inconveniences; they
anticipate them; they feel them when they arrive; and he who passes days and
nights in indignation and despair, at the loss of an employment, or for some
fancied blemish on his honor, is the very same man who knows that he must lose
all by death, and yet continues satisfied, fearless, and unmoved. Such an
insensibility to things of the most tremendons consequences, in a heart so
keenly alive to the merest trifles, is an astonishing prodigy, an
incomprehensible enchantment, a supernatural infatuation.”

* Thoughts on Religion, Ch. vi.

I am not about to arraign the medical profession as peculiarly fruitful of the
moral “prodigies” so graphically delineated in this sketch; but medical men are
equally liable with others to become absorbed in merely temporal objects and
interests, to the utter and fatal neglect of the eternal consequences involved
in our present probation. Standing as many of you do upon, the threshold of your
noble profession, and panting for the acquisition of its now distant honors, you
will need frequently to be reminded that “It is not all of life, to live, Nor
all of death, to die.”

It is recorded of Philip, King of Macedon, that when he was at the acme of his
regal pomp and power, he required a servant to appear before him every morning;
and utter the admonition, “Remember, Philip, thou art mortal!" Such a monitor we
all need. Immersed in the cares or frivolities of life, we suffer as well its
useful and necessary, as its trifling employments, to drive from our minds the
sublime and awful realities of eternity. The sentiment that rules us is,—
"Whatever pertains to this world must have our attention; what pertains to the
next, may be safely postponed to an uncertain future.” The purpose of
reformation and repentance, cleaves to men through life. It is not that they do
not intend to repent, but that they do not repent. Their pathway, from the
cradle to the tomb, is strewn with broken vows and promises.

“At thirty, man suspects himself a fool;

Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan: At fifty chides his infamous delay—

Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; In all the magnanimity of thought,
Resolves, and reresolves; then, dies the same!"

Such is the history of thousands in every walk of life. And there are no
examples of it more touching than those furnished by your profession. To a mind
imbued with spiritual sensibilities, there, is, perhaps, no character in society
who is regarded with a deeper apd more tender sympathy, than the physician who
is so engrossed with the benevolent offices of his profession, that he allows
year after year to glide awaywithout reserving time to himself to look after the
concerns of his own soul. It is the instinct of every generous nature to look up
to such a man with gratitude and reverence: and in proportion to the love and
veneration we feel for him, are we pained by the apprehension that he may
possibly defer the great work of life until it is forever too late. A similar
contingency is involved in every man’s case, who enters upon his professional
life without piety. It is the dictate as well of sound reason as of revelation,
that we “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” This is the only
wise or safe course—the only course which befits our circumstances, or accords
with our relations to the Author of our being.

Let the question, then, propounded by our Saviour, be written not merely upon
your text-books but upon your hearts “What shall it profit a man if he gain the
whole world, and lose his own soul ?" The laurels which reward an honorable
professional career, are among the most laudable objects of human ambition. But
they are a poor equivalent for the loss of the soul. The soul need not—ought not
to be lost. “Life and immortality have been brought to light in the Gospel.” It
is true, there are ten thousand avenues which lead down to hell, and only one
strait and narrow path that conducts to heaven. But this is all we require.
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Ohrist, and thou shalt be saved.” Men have their
schemes of salvation. Faith in Christ is God’s way. This, and this alone, meets
our case. Others may, in a certain sense do to live by; this will do to live and
die by. Every physician present might be called upon to testify to the
sustaining and triumphant power of the Christiai’s faith in a dying hour. Let me
give you, in concluding this discourse, the testimony of one whose name and fame
must be familiar to you all, and whose early death science had so much reason to
deplore— I refer to the late Dr. Godman. You will hear him as an impartial
witness, and his words will carry a weight with them which no testimony of mine
could have.

Dr. Godman was, for many years, a confirmed infidel. After his conversion, he
had occasion to write to a professional brother of high reputation, who “had no
confidence but that of the skeptic—no hope but that of ceasing to be.” He was
sinking into the grave, the victim of a lingering and incurable disorder, and
had long been “arming himself to meet the king of terrors with composure, that
he might die like a philosopher, with manly firmness.” He was in this state when
Dr. Godman’s letter reached him, and, through the blessing of God, it put him
upon a serious inquiry into the truth of Christianity, which resuited in his
dying, not like a philosopher, but like a Christian. The letter, which is dated
“Germantown, December 25, 1828,” is too long to be copied entire. I shall quote
some portions of it.

“In relation to dying, my dear friend, you talk like a sick man, and just as I
used to do when very despondent.... Nature certainly has a strong abhorrence to
this cessation of corporeal action, and all animals have a dread of death who
are conscious of its approach. A part of our dread of death is purely physical,
and is avoidable only by a philosophical conviction of its necessity; but the
greater part of our dread, and the terrors with which the avenues to the grave
are surrounded, are from another and a more potent source. “Tis conscience that
makes cowards of us all," and forces us by our terrors to confess that we dread
something beyond physical dissolution—and that we are terrified, riot at merely
ceasing to breathe, but that we have not lived as we ought to have done— have
not effected the good that was within the compass of our abilities, and
neglected to exercise the talents we possessed to the greatest advantage. The
only remedy for this fear of death is to be sought by approaching the Author of
all things in the way prescribed by himself, and not according to our own
foolish imaginations.

“I was once an infidel, as I told you in the West Indies; I became a Christian
from conviction, produced by the candid inquiry recommended to you. I know of no
other way in which death can be stripped of its terrors; certainly none better
can be wished. Philosophy is a fool, and pride a madman. Many persons die with
what is called manly firmness—that is, having acted a part all their lives
according to theirprideful creed, they must die game. They put on as smooth a
face as they can, to impose on the spectators, and die firmly. But this is all
deception; the true state of their minds at the very time, nine times out of
ten, is worse than the most horrible imaginings even of hell itself. Some who
have led lives adapted to sear their consciences and petrify all the moral
sensibilities, die with a kind of indifference similar to that with which a
hardened convict submits to a new infliction of disgraceful punishment; but the
man who dies as a man ought to die, is the humble minded, believing Christian;
one who has tasted all the blessings of creation-- who has had an enlightened
view of the wisdom and glory of his Creator -- who has felt the vanity of mere
worldly pursuits and motives, and been permitted to know the mercies of a
blessed Redeemer as he approaches the narrow house appointed for all the living.
Physical death may cause his senses to shrink and fail at the trial, but his
mind, sustained by the Rock of Ages, is serene and unwavering; he relies not on
his own righteousness, for that would be vain; but the arms of mercy are beneath
him; he does not die manfully, but he rests in Jesus; he blesses his friends--
he casts his hope on One all-powerful to sustain and mighty to save, then sleeps
in peace. He is dead-- but liveth; for He, who is the resurrection and the life,
has declared. "Whoso believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;
and whoso liveth and believeth in me shall never die.’"

Eighteen months after penning this eloquent letter, the author of it followed
his friend into eternity. One who was with him in the closing scene says, "’Lord
Jesus, receive my spirt!’ were the last words he uttered; and his countenance
appeared as if he had a foretaste of Heaven, even beofre his spirit left this
world."

Such, my friends, is the Christianity I have urged upon your attention in this
discourse. May you experience its power, share in its consolations, and live by
its precepts; and at length, in God’s appointed time, may you "die the death of
the righteous, and you last end be like his!"


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  CHAPTER 4: 02.1. THE GREAT QUESTION
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The Great Question: WILL YOU CONSIDER THE SUBJECT OF PERSONAL RELIGION? BY HENRY
A. BOARDMAN. D.D.

Philadelphia:

AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, No. 816 CHESTNUT STREET.

NEW YORK: No. 147 NASSAU ST..... BOSTON: No.9 CORNHILL.

LOUISVILLE: No. 103 FOURTH ST.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by the AMERICAN
SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the Eastern
District of

Pennsylvania.

?No books are published by the AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION without the sanction
of the Committee of Publication, consisting of fourteen members, from the
following denominations of Christians, viz. Baptist, Methodist, Congregational,
Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Reformed Dutch. Not more than three of
the members can be of the same denomination, and no book can be published to
which any member of the Committee shall object.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 5: 02.2.     PREFACE
========================================================================

Preface

It is an every-day occurrence, to meet with persons who “feel no interest” in
the subject of religion, and who, on this ground, excuse themselves from giving
their attention to it. I have in very many instances wanted some suitable book
to place in the hands of persons of this description.

Within a certain broad and comprehensive sphere, Baxter’s Call, Alliene’s Alarm,
Doddridge’s Rise and Progress, or Halyburton’s Great Concern of Salvation, might
answer the purpose. But, with a great number of individuals, not one of these
admirable works could be used with any hope of its being read. Had I known where
to find a book to meet the case, the present volume would not have been written.
It has grown out of a conscious and urgent want. That it will fully supply this
acknowledged and serious deficiency in our practical religious literature, I do
not allow myself to believe. But I hope it may prove an acceptable offering to
some who are either neglecting their own duty, or who have friends to whom they
would like to propose the question— "WILL YOU CONSIDER THE SUBJECT OF PERSONAL
RELIGION?" With these views, the work is sent to the press, and humbly commended
to HIS blessing, who alone can make it an instrument of good.

H.A.B.


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  CHAPTER 6: 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?


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  CHAPTER 7: 02.4.     ILLUSIVE PLEAS EXAMINED
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Section II.

Illusive Pleas Examined

Here, then, there is a palpable want of congruity between religion and your
feelings. Is the fault with you or with religion? Is religion that harsh,
cheerless, morose system which you have imagined it to be, or are your faculties
so disordered that you have entirely mistaken its nature? For the sake of
argument, let us assume that you are right in your estimate of religion. Let us
suppose that it ic a scheme of faith and morals adverse to present enjoyment;
that it forbids even what we are accustomed to regard as innocent pleasures;
that the life to which it calls us is a gloomy life; that its paths are full of
thorns, with only here and there a flower, and that whatever it may promise for
the future, it has little or nothing to recommend it in so far as this world is
concerned.

Conceding all this, of what avail would it be in justifying or even extenuating
your neglect of religion? The vital question is, whether Christianity is of God.
If it is, all arguments drawn from its nature, with a view of discrediting its
claims to our obedience, must be inconclusive and impertinent. For if
Christianity is true, it proposes to us the only method of reconciliation to
God, and the only means by which we can escape everlasting torments. What could
be more idle, then, than to talk of the “inconveniences and, trials” to which
the reception of its doctrines might subject us? If a profession of Christianity
even involved imminent personal peril; like as in the early days of the church,
we were liable to be hurried off from the Lord’s Supper to the dungeon, or the
stake, — what then? Is the rage of them who, at most, can only kill the body, to
be more dreaded than His wrath who can destroy both soul and body in hell? Make
the way to heaven as rough and thorny as you choose; multiply its obstacles;
magnify its dangers; add any practicable amount of actual suffering, as the
indispensable portion of every traveler, — so it really conducts to heaven, all
these hinderances combined are not of the weight of a grain of sand,
contemplated in their bearing upon the question, “What ought I to do?" The
instant you concede the truth of the Bible, you are shut up to a foregone
conclusion. It is at once the height of arrogance, and the extreme of folly, to
admit that God has spoken to us, and then to palter about “considering and
obeying” his commands, because the tone of them does not suit us, or obedience
to them may expose us to trouble. But we can stand upon firmer ground than this.
The concession just made is a sheer gratuity. Religion is no such gloomy and
prison like system. Its mission in our world is one of God-like beneficence. Its
hands are full of blessings. Its paths are peace. It confers substantial
happiness here, as well as a title to perfect and eternal happiness hereafter.
The evidences of this are within your reach. They are to be found in the Bible
itself, and in the united testimony of all who have had experience of its
benefits. Not indeed that a religious life involves no difficulties. It is
justly represented as a warfare—an exterminating warfare. It must needs be a
road somewhat rough and dangerous which leads from a revolted world to heaven.
But the very fact that you can conceive of this system as one hostile to your
present enjoyment, and adapted to throw the somber hues of the grave over all
that is bright and cheerful in life, illustrates the evil tendency of your
inconsideration. You are repelled from the consideration of it because it wears
to your eye so lowering an aspect. If you must barter away your cheerfulness,
you will at least postpone the sacrifice as long as possible. Do you not believe
that God is a Being of infinite goodness and mercy, and that he delights, not in
the misery, but in the happiness of his creatures? Does not this very scheme of
religion, about which we are arguing, attest his concern for our welfare, in a
manner adapted to silence all doubts and extinguish all skepticism? Is the
sentiment to be tolerated for one moment, that he who so loved the world, as to
give his only-begotten Son to die for it, could frame a system of religion, in
any the least particular unfavorable to our wellbeing? Can you persuade
yourself; that he who spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all,
will not with him also freely give us all things?

Whence, then, these most unwarrantable suspicions about the proper effects of
religion? Whence these injurious prejudices against it, as being adverse to
rational and elevated happiness? If; as you admit, it bears GOD’S image and
superscription, how can you think of it as a sour arid ascetic scheme, or
suppose it would require of you any sacrifice which is not demanded by your own
good? If you will but reason a little on the subject, you will find ample cause
to distrust your impressions as to its nature, as you will certainly see both
the injustice and the impolicy of being deterred by such a prejudice, from a
careful consideration of its claims. Nay, if you are disposed to deal honestly
with yourself, you will find material for sober reflection, in the very fact
that religion should wear this forbidding guise; that adapted and intended, as
your reason no less than revelation assures you it must be, to comfort and bless
you, it should suggest to your minds only images of sadness or terror. How
unavoidable the presumption, that you must be laboring under some gross
hallucination; that some violent disease has impaired and confounded your
faculties; that the defects you attribute to religion are in your own character;
and that your repugnance to it is a startling proof; how much you stand in need
of its healing power. This neglect of it, however, is to be but temporary. You
find a shelter from the reproaches of the Bible, and of your own conscience, in
the reflection that by-and-by the subject shall be considered; that you will
take it up, and make amends, by a thorough examination, for your present
indifference to it. But why should you do this? Why not dismiss the subject
altogether? If it is so unwelcome to you, why let it project its dark shadows
athwart your future path, and obscure the serenity of your declining years? You
are ready with your answer: — “It would be madness to banish finally a subject
which involves my well-being for eternity. I must attend to it sooner or later,
or be lost forever.” Will you do yourself the justice to weigh the import of
this answer? You “must consider the subject of religion hereafter, because it
involves your well-being for eternity.” Give me leave to put this in another
form, without altering the sense. “On my reception or rejection, of the gospel
offer, is suspended my everlasting destiny. If, through the mercy and grace of
God, I embrace it, I shall at my death ascend to heaven, and be perfectly holy
and happy forever. If I refuse or neglect to embrace it, I must, at death, be
cast into outer darkness, Hell will be my home; the devils and, lost spirits my
companions; I must lie down in the unquenchable fire, and endure the gnawings of
the worm that dies. This doom may overtake any moment, since nothing is more
fragil than life. Therefore, in order so horrible a destiny, I must hereafter,
at some undefined period, when my antipathy to religion shall have vanished,
give attention to the sujbect, and make preparation for a change of worlds!"
Such is the import of your language, without the slightest coloring. And in what
light does it present your inconsideration? Did you ever hear of so impotent a
conclusion, from such majestic premises? Were logic and reason ever before so
put to shame? Were eternal things ever treated with such grave trifling? You
will consider of religion hereafter, because if you die, (which you may do
to-day,) without having attended to it, you are lost beyond redemption! And in
this purpose you rest, simply from “the want of a disposition” to apply your
mind to the subject now. You “feel no interest” in the matter at present, and
you must wait until you do; when that auspicious day arrives, that you are
disposed to hear what God has to say to you, you will listen to his
communications!

Reference has already been made to the indignity which this conduct casts upon
the Supreme Being. Not to revert to that topic here, do you not perceive, in the
state of feeling in question, a most cogent argument why you should bring your
mind into instant and earnest contact with the gospel? The greater your aversion
to this, the more palpable your need of it. This aversion is the vital principle
of the malady you are seized with, and for which the gospel is the only
antidote. It stands forth, a convincing and solemn memento of that violent
disjunction between your soul and God, which can be removed only through your
sincere repentance and faith in the Redeemer. And when you talk of waiting until
you feel sufficient “interest” in the matter to give heed to it, can you suppose
that the course you are pursuing is adapted to bring about this desired change
in your feelings? Will your love of the world be diminished, by a continued
devotion to the world? Will the power of sin over you be abated by indulgence in
sin? Will your wayward passions and attachments be weakened by gratification?
Are you so thoughtless or unknowing, as to fancy that a long course of
estrangement from your higher interest, of aversion to it, of resistance against
its claims, of suppression of the remonstrances of conscience in its behalf; is
to leave you in a kind of mental state, impartial to admit at length the
conviction, that now it is high time, and easily convertible into a Christian
spirit? Consider that all this time you are forming the habits, which, when
inveterately established, will either be invincibly upon you through life, or
require a mighty wrench to emancipate you. This refusal to think; this revolting
from any attempt at self-examination; this averting of your attention from
serious books; this declining to seek the Divine favor and assistance by prayer;
this projecting of schemes bearing no regard to that favour, and which are not
to need that assistance; this eagerness to seize each transitory pleasure; this
preference of companions, who, perhaps, would like you the worse, if they
thought you feared God, or cared for your eternal welfare; — these dispositions,
prolonged in a succession of your willing acquiescences in them, will grow into
a settled constitution of your soul, which will thus become its own inexorable
tyrant. The habit so forming will draw in to it all the affections, the workings
of imagination, and the trains of thought; will so possess itself of them, that
in It alone they will live, and move, and have their being. It will have a
strong, unremitting propensity to grow entire, so as to leave nothing
unpreoccupied in the mind, for any opposing agent to take hold on, in order to
counteract it, as if it were instinctively apprehensive of the effect of
protests from conscience, or visiting’s from the powers of heaven, or
intimations from the realm of death; and, therefore, intent on forming the
sentiments of the soul to such a consistence and coalition, as shall leave none
of them free to desert at the voice of these summoners.”

It is, indeed, a monstrous deception you practice upon yourself; when you fancy
that a course of implicit submission to these earth-born propensities will
ultimately generate a disposition to break away from the bondage they impose. As
well might the inebriate pretend that prolonged indulgence in his cups would
by-and-by evolve a disgust for the poison which is consuming him; or the
husbandman, that a thorough seeding his plantation with thistles, would
guarantee a generous harvest of grain. It is a strange way of insuring the
renovation of your character, to foster principles and habits which are in
flagrant antagonism to all holiness. These very habits and principles constitute
the grand hinderance to your salvation now; they operate with such potency as
even to inspire an antipathy to all reflection on your spiritual state. By what
alchemy are they to be transmuted into monitors to repentance and stimulants to
a holy life? How is an ever-increasing alienation from God to facilitate your
return to him? If you have no inclination to return now, why should you have
when the distance which separates you from him has been indefinitely increased?
The conclusions to which, so many lines of abstract argument conduct us, may be
tested by observation and experience. You will be able, without going beyond the
sphere of your daily walks, to find individuals who have long occupied the
ground you stand upon. Twenty, thirty, forty years ago, when pressed with the
obligation of immediate repentance, they resisted and deferred it on the ground
that they then “felt no disposition” to consider it. They had the full purpose
of complying with it, but deemed it advisable to wait until their indifference
had passed away. Has it passed away, or are they waiting still? To your eyes,
however it may be to their own, the case is too plain and too affecting to need
an interpreter. You see how, during all this period, they have been heaping up
obstacles between themselves and heaven. By a silent and gradual process, they
have invigorated their secular principles, and become more completely saturated
with the spirit of the world. The net-work of earthly passions and projects
which encloses them, once so fragile, is intricate and compact. Avenues to their
consciences, which were once open, are shut up. They are less sensitive to the
appeals of Scripture. It is more difficult to arouse them to wholesome
meditation upon their prospects for eternity. They have the same latent
intention, of repentance; but when you look at the superincumbent mass of
earthliness and sin which has accumulated upon it, you feel that nothing short
of a miracle can ever vitalize it, so as to convert the purpose to repent into
actual repentance.

All this is as clear as the meridian sun to your eyes, in respect, to many
persons whom you have seen growing old or approximating to old age in the
neglect of religion. And is there not something still nearer home to corroborate
it? Can you not refer to a period in your own experience, when the ascendency of
the world over you was less complete than it is now? Has the result justified
your calculation, that the lapse of time would abate your disinclination to
serious thought? Is your repugnance to prayer and to the study of the Scriptures
diminished? Do you find it more difficult to ward off the shafts of divine
truth, as they reach you in the sanctuary? Have you a keener sense of the vanity
of earth, and a growing disposition to engage in the service of God? Or is the
reverse of all this true? Is the tide of worldliness rising higher and higher,
and gradually filling up every interstice of your heart? Has the broad current
of your thoughts and affections become thoroughly impregnated with a mere
earthly spirit? Are you living for this world alone? Are your avocations, your
plans, your pleasures, your hopes, your associations, absorbed with the things
which are seen and temporal, to the exclusion of the things which are unseen and
eternal? And when, in some better moment, a stroke of Providence, a sermon, or
some other agency happens to disturb your spiritual torpor, and awaken a feeling
of remorse and uneasiness, do you find it a lighter task than it once was to
smother these self-reproaches and resume your wonted levity? Surely, then, you
can interpret these omens also. You require no prophet from heaven to assure you
that they bear the same evil significancy with the kindred portents you so
readily decipher in the case of your friends and neighbors. They are the
handwriting on the wall over against you; and they admonish you, in no ambiguous
symbols, of impending destruction, if you go on trusting to a life of
worldliness to extinguish your repugnance to the gospel.

There is also implied, in this inconsideration, a very inadequate conception of
the work we have to do, and of the time demanded to do it properly. We find in
the Bible expressions like these:

“Strive to enter in at the strait gate.” “Giving all diligence, make your
calling and election sure.” “He that endureth to the end shall be saved.” “If
the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?"
Salvation; then, is a difficult work. It is a great thing to be a Christian.
Colossal obstructions bar the way to heaven. Every step has its dangers.

“Tis but a few that find the gate, While crowds mistake and die.” Could we see
things as they are, — the deliverance of a soul from spiritual death, its
liberation from the bondage of Satan, its enfranchisement with the rights and
privileges of Christ’s kingdom, its gradual transformation into the divine
image, its triumph over all its enemies, and its final entrance into the realms
of glory, we should be no less awe-struck with the difficulty and grandeur of
this achievement, than filled with admiration at the boundless wisdom, power,
and grace displayed in accomplishing it. Marathon and Thermopylie, Trafalgar and
Waterloo, the proudest of earth’s battle-fields, wheresoever they may be found,
dwindle into insignificance when compared with the mighty conflict involved in
the salvation of a single individual. Yet this sublime and most arduous
undertaking, you would thrust into a mere corner of human life. Instead of
making every thing give way to it, you allow every thing to take precedence of
it. You make it wait on business, on study, on pleasure, on social engagements,
on indolence, on indifference. There is absolutely nothing in life, however
insignificant and contemptible, that this vast interest, which comprehends
eternity in its issue, is not, with one person or another, compelled to wait on
it. Life were short enough to do it justice, had you taken it up with the dawn
of your moral agency and prosecuted it until you fell asleep in death. But it
has been pushed along, year after year, — the difficulty of the work increasing
as the space for performing it has been diminished, — until to-day you have more
work to do and less time to do it in, than you ever had before. Nay, you are
possibly even now parleying with yourself whether you shall not postpone its
claims still longer. Does it at all occur to you what these questions are, which
you adjourn with so fatal a facility to all the trivialities of the passing
moment, which you even dismiss because you happen not to be in a mood to
consider them? Alas! it is this very inconsideration which betrays you into the
infatuated course we are deploring. It is not that you do not know, but because
you do not consider that it is your own SALVATION which is at stake. It is the
question, “How may I escape from hell and fly to heaven?" that you are forcing
into some little parenthesis of your little future,—handing it over,
peradventure, to the puerilities of a miserable dotage, or to the weakness, the
sufferings, and the dismay of an unexpected death-bed. And wherefore? Is there
any invincible necessity laid upon you to submit to this strari ge
mal-adjustment of your concerns, this transfer of the very greatest and most
momentous of your affairs, to the very worst season in your whole life for
attending to them? No, you might just as well— yea, ten thousand times
better—provide for these interests sooner. But you must needs use the vigor of
your faculties and the flower of your time for other ends. This world is to be
looked after. First the body, then the soul. Time first, eternity afterward,
Thus the soul is robbed and ruined. What ought to be the prime business of life
is delayed till the spark of life is about going out. What ought to engross all
the powers of mind and body throughout the entire limit of our mortal probation,
is assigned to the hapless decrepitude of old age. With the ocean of eternity
before you, instead of employing the time God has given you in making
preparation for your endless voyage, you waste it upon comparative trifles, and
leave your whole preparation to the moment when you may be summoned to embark!
This is not the design, but this is, in every instance of delay, the possible,
as it is in innumerable instances the actual, result. To neglect to prepare
to-day, abridges by so much your time and opportunity for preparing, and may
preclude it altogether. You will not admit this. You have no thought of going
into eternity unprepared. You almost resent the suggestion that you may be so
infatuated as to reserve for it only the closing days or hours of life. But if
this is not your purpose, what is? If you are resolved not to remit the serious
consideration of religion to a death-bed, when is it to be taken up? Is the day
marked in your diary? Is the purpose drawn up and put on file with the plans you
have framed respecting your worldly affairs? If you were pressed to answer these
questions, would not the humiliating confession be extorted from you, that this
is a matter about which you have no plan; that while every possible arrangement
is made concerning your earthly interests, you have fixed upon no period for
looking after your immortal interests; that you have, in fact, simply a general
purpose of making your Peace with God; but whether it is to be undertaken on
this day twelve- month, or this day ten years, or at any other specific date, is
a point you have not settled.

Now, on this admission, it is no in justice to you to allege that you are
virtually remitting this great interest to your death-bed. A merciful God may
interpose and prevent this procrastination; but, in so far as you are concerned,
there is every probability that it will be delayed until the prospect of a
speedy dissolution forces it upon your attention. There are thousands of
individuals every year who are brought to this result by the identical process
through. which you are passing. Relying through life on a vague and delusive
purpose of embracing the gospel offer “at some period,” they are astonished, at
length, (they need not have been, for it was precisely what they might have
expected) to find themselves grappling with death without out any equipment for
the encounter. Often are individuals of this kind heard bemoaning their folly
and criminality, waking up to the consciousness that it is a sad time to prepare
for eternity, when the blood is chilling in the arteries, and the affrighted
soul is waiting, trembling and agonized, for the walls of its clay tenement to
fall and leave it houseless, portionless, hopeless, under the piercing gaze of
an injured and avenging God! And why may it not be so with you? You are treading
the same path they trod. You are trusting to the same visionary hopes. You are
vindicating or excusing your inconsideration by the same gossamer-like
apologies. Like you, they “felt no interest” in religion, and had too little
energy to bring themselves to the examination of it. Like you, they were
resolved to attend to it long before death should summon them away. Like you,
they permitted one earthly object and pursuit after another to beguile their
time and steal away their affections. Like you, they grew insensibly hardened by
this course of worldliness and this habitual resistance to divine truth. And
will it be surprising, if; having thus cast in your lot with them through so
large a part of tile way, you should go on with them to the close, and have your
dying moments harassed with the gloom and the consternation which marked their
passage into eternity? But why argue this point? Everything is conceded, when
you admit, what no one has the presumption to deny, that death may come for you
at any moment; that your winding-sheet may even now be in the fuller’s hands;
and the shaft on its unerring flight, which is to transfix your heart. This fact
alone might suffice to show you, that, in neglecting to consider the claims of
religion, you are putting your everlasting all in jeopardy; that a single day’s
delay may involve an eternity of unavailing remorse and sorrow.

Here then let me pause long enough to inquire whether it is possible for you,
even to extenuate the guilt and folly of this inconsideration, by any of those
pleas or pretexts which have hitherto satisfied you. Remember that when God
charges this neglect upon you as a sin, it is your own happiness, no less than
his sovereignty, which is implicated in the allegation. The crime you are guilty
of is a crime against your own rational and immortal nature. You ought to be
happy. You might be happy. God requires you to be happy; and has placed the
means within your reach, at an infinite cost to himself, though as free as the
air of heaven to you. Yet you decline his bounty. You even refuse to “consider”
the sublime and glorious scheme through which he proposes it to you. And the
barrier behind which you shelter yourself when this conduct is brought home to
you as a sin, is that “your feelings are not interested in the matter,” and
therefore you cannot attend to it. Why should they be interested unless you have
tried to have them so? Suppose you deal with this subject as you would deal with
a question of commerce or a question of history, with a branch of science or a
personal accomplishment. Bring your mind to the patient study of the Bible.
Commune with your own heart. Call upon God in prayer. Rouse yourself from your
lethargy. Feel that religion is a reality; and that your soul is to be saved
through the blood of the cross, or to perish eternally. Do this and see whether
you cannot surmount this fearful torpor which threatens to destroy you forever.


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  CHAPTER 8: 02.5.     THE PRETEXTS FOR NEGLECTING RELIGION IRRATIONAL AND SORDID
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Section III. The Pretexts for Neglecting Religion Irrational and Sordid

I have shown, that where there is an habitual indisposition to consider the
claims of religion, that duty is likely to be remitted to a death-bed. It is
proper, in this connection, to call your attention to the specific feeling which
usually prompts to this delay. That feeling is, that there is no actual
necessity, on the score of personal safety, for ‘becoming religious’ just now,
and therefore it may be postponed for the present without hazard. If this course
involted manifest and palpable danger, you would overcome your reluctance, and
sit down to the careful examination of the subject. But as you see no danger, a
little delay cannot be an evil of much moment.

Here, then, the whole question, whether religion shall receive your instant
attention, is made to hinge on the point, whether it will put you in jeopardy to
refuse. The demand which religion makes of you is, that you cease to do evil,
and learn to do well; that you repent of your sins, and render to your Creator
and Preserver that homage and obedience which are his due; that you trust in the
Lord Jesus Christ for pardon, and walk henceforward in the way of his commands,
It exacts of you no sacrifice; lays upon you. no service; appoints you to no
trial, which is not for :your own good. It proffers you the protection and
friendship of God, all needful succors ajid consolations in this world, arid
everlasting felicity and glory hereafter. These are the proposals religion makes
to you; and it is in pondering such proposals, and to guide you in your
disposition of them, that you raise the question, “Can I reject them for a time,
without putting myself in peril? or, does my safety require me to accept them
now?" You cannot fail, on a moment’s reflection, to be struck with the utter
want here indicated, of any due appreciation of the blessings tendered you, or
any perception of the relations subsisting between the parties to this
transaction. It might be supposed, with our instinctive and irrepressible desire
of happiness, that blessings like these would be eagerly seized the moment they
were placed within our reach; that the mere possibility of securing them would
make any individual of our race willing to put forth the most unwearied
exertions, and to submit to the greatest hardships. But, instead of this, we
have the extraordinary spectacle presented to us, (nay, we all in turn present
this spectacle,) of rebels consulting whether they can, with prudence, defer
acceding to an offer of clemency from their Sovereign; of lost sinners,
calculating how long it will be safe for them to go on in sin, before consenting
to a free tender of salvation!. In all this procrastination and paltering, the
authority and rights of Jehovah are ignored; duty is set at defiance; the claims
of reverence and gratitude are trampled in the dust; nothing is thought of, but
the personal immunity of the transgressor. As long as he can do without God, he
will; when dangers thicken, and death impends, he will seek his aid. To say that
the principle of action. here assumed would excite universal abhorrence if
carried into any department of secular or social life, is only to give utterance
to a sentiment in which every generous mind must acquiesce. What reason is
there, what fitness, in suspending our loyalty to God on his toleration of our
sins; in resolving to disobey him, just so long as we fancy he will restrain his
vengeance, and not cut us down in our impiety? No honorable man would deal thus
with his neighbor, or with the government under which he lives. Does it sanctify
a sordid principle that we have adopted it, not in our intercourse with our
fellow creatures, but in our conduct toward God? Are the same actions mercenary,
when they have respect to a creature; and innocent, not to say commendable, when
they terminate on the Creator? The more this is pondered, the more clearly will
it be seen, that in the scheme of life we are considering, the one element of
personal safety is made to subserve the most unwarrantable and unworthy
purposes.

It might be opportune to remark, that it is no less blind than perverse; that in
seeking its own ends by its own means, it too commonly plucks down upon itself
the ruin it would elude; and that true safety is to be found in doing God’s
will, not in resisting it. But waiving that topic, why surrender one’s self to
the control of this grovelling sentiment, as though, in our relations to the
Deity, there were no room for any other? “Not knowing,” says the apostle, “that
the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance."

Look around you at the tokens of His goodness. See how he has blessed you in
your basket and in your store, in your health, in your business, in your family,
in your country, in your manifold religious privileges. Review your life, and
see how he has watched over you from childhood to this hour, with paternal
affection; how often he has interposed to rescue you from difficulty or danger;
and in how many forms he has carried forward his beneficent ministrations
forward you. Is there no susceptibility in your breast, to which kindness like
this appeals; no chord there which vibrates when these mercies pass in review
before you? And when to these blessings you superadd, the infinitely higher
blessings of redemption, purchased with “blood divine,” are you still unmoved?
Can nothing stir that leaden torpor, that Dead Sea stagnation, within, but the
sense of impending wrath? Has gratitude no place there? Shall your bosom thrill
with thankfulness whenever you receive the most trivial kindness from a
fellow-creature, and be unimpressed by all the affluence of that bounty which
Jehovah is lavishing upon you? You will not say that this is right.

You will admit that it is all wrong. If you have the least spark of magnanimity,
the slightest leaven of honorable and manly feeling, you will be abashed when
you reflect on the principle which governs you in your intercourse with a
Benefactor to whom you owe such infinite obligations. In recording, some time
since, the decease of a very distinguished statesman, the newspapers stated that
he was much occupied during his illness with the subject of religion; that he
conversed often with the ministers of the gospel; avowed his cordial reception
of the Christian faith, and in this state of mind passed into eternity. The
narrative was in terms which implied that his preparation for death had been
postponed until he was taken sick; and, indeed, it was well known, that however
correct he might have been in his general deportment, he had never up to that
time manifested any personal interest in religion. In all this, he was the
representative of a very numerous body of persons; for similar examples are
constantly occurring in every walk of life.

Now, in looking at a scene like this, every one must commend this solicitude
about the soul, even though it has been so long delayed. Far better to repent
with the dying malefactor than not to repent at all. Better to strive to enter
in at the strait gate at the eleventh hour, — yes, better even to strive and
fail, than to die in utter unconcern and stupidity. But contemplate this
spectacle in another aspect. Here is a man (the case occurs daily) forty, fifty,
possibly sixty years of age. He has spent his life in the bosom of a Christian
community. Every day has come to him freighted with blessings. He has always had
the Bible within his reach. He has weekly heard, or might have heard, the
preaching of the gospel. God has called him to repentance in innumerable ways.
His duty has been set before him in the clearest manner. He has been reasoned
with, warned, exhorted, entreated to make his peace with God, and to give his
influence to religion. But he has steadily refused. He has, possibly, been
unwilling even to consider the claims of God upon him. Absorbed with other
things, carried away by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the
pride of life, he has sought his own ends, lived only for the world, and left
Christianity to fight its own battles, careless whether they terminated in
victory or defeat. Disease lays its iron grasp upon this proud votary of the
world, and conducts him into that chamber from which he is never to come forth
until his remains are carried to their last resting-place. Assured by his
physicians (and not till then) of the serious nature of his malady, be begins to
consider his ways. He calls for the Bible; so long neglected that he knows not
where to read. He procures other religious books, which may aid him in getting
clearer views of the way of life. He sends for a Christian friend or pastor to
counsel him, and tell him what he must do to be saved. He is frequent and
earnest in his supplications for the Divine mercy. And thus he is hastening his
preparation for a change of worlds. In all this, he is acting wisely. But what a
miserable return is he making to God! His health, time, talents, property,
influence, all have been expended upon selfish and earthly objects; and now that
he dare not and cannot cleave to these any longer, he will turn to God! No love
to God prompts him, no gratitude, no ingenuous sentiment of contrition, no
dissatisfaction with the world: if he could with safety, he would cling to his
idol still. Death is at the door: this is the sole secret of his anxiety. He
comes to dedicate to his Maker his shattered powers, and the few hours that may
remain to him, simply because, if he neglects this, a terrible retribution will
presently overtake him.

You see, as distinctly as I can, the true tenor of this transaction. But “it is
not to be thus with you.” You have too much elevation of character to think of
putting the Deity off with so paltry an offering. You are not ready to consider
the subject of religions now, but you fully purpose to do it before you are
prostrated with a mortal disease.

Without impugning the sincerity of this intention, it may be allowed me to ask,
whether the principle it proceeds upon is essentially better than the one
exemplified in the case just considered. It is the prayer of Augustine over
again; “Lord, convert me; but not yet!" It recognizes the obligation to serve
him, but practically denies his claim to your whole time, and your entire
influence. It assumes that your first duty is to the world; and that it will be
enough if you devote yourself to God after you shall, for an indefinite period,
have lived for the world. You cannot be ignorant, that where this ground is
taken, the common result is substantially the same as in the example already
noted: the lion’s share goes to the world, — the meager remnant, if any, to God.
It is, in any event, a deliberate determination to abridge your means and
opportunities of doing his will and promoting his glory. Can this be justified?
Can it be extenuated? Is life, fleeting, evanescent life, too long a period to
be employed in serving the Being who bestowed life upon you? Would your
undivided homage be too opulent a return for the favors you have received from
him? Is it the acknowledgment which your own reason and conscience assure you is
befitting the relations you sustain to him, to exhaust the vigor of your
faculties in the prosecution of mere earthly objects, and appropriate to him
only your days of decline and inactivity, if not of decrepitude? Conceding that
you may live to old age, and that death will then await your plenary preparation
for his summons; how much more honorable would it be to come now, and lay your
thrift and enterprise, your genial affections and noble aspirations upon his
altar, than to put him off with the impoverished refuse of a life of sin and
folly!

Besides, how erroneous and unworthy a conception of religion is that involved in
this and its affiliated schemes of life! In a company of military officers, (one
of whom was a personal friend of the writer’s) the question one day came up,
whether it was expedient to permit clergymen to visit the sick. Not to recite
the other opinions, “My notion,” said the surgeon of the corps, “is, that such
visits are proper in certain circumstances. When the physician has done all he
can for a man, and gives him up, then, I think, it is proper to send for the
clergyman.” You will smile at the ignorance and irrationality displayed in this
remark; but it is not very much aside from the popular idea of religion. If you
will analyze the schemes which you are cherishing, you will probably find that
religion is contemplated rather as a provision for death than a chart of life;
much more as a bridge, over which we are to pass into heaven, than as a highway,
along which we are to travel through this world. The feeling is, “I cannot die
without religion, but I can live without it.” And so you think it very well for
the infirm, and the aged, and invalids of every sort to become religious; but
there is no reason why the hearty and vigorous, who are engaged in active
duties, should be in haste about it. In other words, there is no reason why you
should not sacrifice all the sound and the fat of your flock to mammon, and put
God off with the lame, and the blind, and the sick. There is no reason why you
should not expend the energies of your being upon yourselves, and dedicate your
withered faculties to your Creator. This IS NOT CHRISTIANITY. Religion, it is
true, is rich in its consolations, and supplies our only adequate support in
sickness and trouble. But it is no less a scheme of duty than a means of
comfort. It was merely nor mainly to provide comfort for his people that Christ
died, but to make them holy; not simply that they might get to heaven
themselves, but that they might help others in getting there also. He challenges
our undivided allegiance. He insists upon the subjugation of all our powers and
passions to his will; upon the thorough extirpation of our sinful principles and
habits, and the gradual moulding of our whole characters into his image. He
demands that we serve him in our several stations and relations; that we be
governed by the Scripture code of morals; that we subordinate every earthly
pursuit to his glory, and the welfare of his kingdom; and that, in our
respective spheres, we do our best to maintain the character implied in those
expressive emblems, “Ye are the light of the world;" “Ye are the salt of the
earth.” Our own good requires this. The present life is the vestibule to
eternity. We are here to be trained for a higher stage of being. It is a great
achievement to prepare a race so depraved for so lofty a destiny. It must needs
be (unless God should choose to work a miracle) a tedious and painful process to
lit such creatures as we are for citezenship in the New Jerusalem. It is a
process which may well fill up the brief span of human life, and which it were
gross infatuation to postpone to any other interest whatever.

Religion comprehends this wise and needful tutelage. It exerts its prerogative
over the entire range of human life, from the cradle to the grave; from the most
subtle purpose that lurks in the innermost chambers of the heart, to the
sublimest transactions of cabinets and empires. It is impossible to escape from
its authority, even for a moment. It never intermits its claims upon us. It
stoops to no compromises with the world. It ceases not to cry in our ears, “Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with ALL thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself.”
Could it do less? Would it be a religion worthy of God, or suited to man, if it
did not thus enjoin upon every child of Adam supreme and constant loyalty to
Jehovah? On what ground, then, would you delay a compliance with its
requisitions? If it is reasonable that God should require your whole time, if
your own good also demands it, why voluntarily shorten the period you can devote
to him, and lose the advantages to be derived from the culture of the Christian
graces? It is surely an ungenerous temper which would put you upon grasping
after the rewards of Christ’s kingdom, without rendering him the stipulated
service; which would make you eager for the crown, but unwilling to bear the
cross. Had he dealt with us on this principle, the cross had never been set up,
and we bad all gone down to irretrievable and eternal ruin. And why, (to glance
at another phase of the selfishness on which we are commenting,) why should you
not do your part in carrying forward the great and glorious work of human
amelioration? Look over the world, and see how full it is of sin, and suffering,
and sorrow. Open your eyes upon the very neighborhood in which you dwell, and
see whether there be not at your very door a broad field for the exercise of
Christian philanthropy. Survey our beloved country, and watch the torrents of
infidelity and vice that are deluging the land. Whose office is it to
counterwork these pestiferous agencies? Who is to explore these habitations of
penury and ignorance; to gather the young into Sabbath-schools and day-schools;
to visit the prisoners; to reclaim the intemperate, to circulate the Scriptures;
to promote the due observance of the Sabbath; to send missionaries to every
destitute spot, and to aid the Church in sustaining her benevolent institutions?
Is there any obligation resting upon others to do this, which does not rest on
you? It will not do for any of us to ask, “Am I my brother’s keeper?" Linked
together by the ties of a common humanity, we are responsible for the influence
we exert upon each other’s characters and destiny. No man may lawfully attempt
to isolate himself from his race, and seek only his own interest. God will hold
us accountable for the good we might have done, and have refused or neglected to
do. Christianity needs your help in carrying forward her schemes of relief There
are forces enough arrayed against her without your opposition or indifference.
Christ demands your co-operation with his people, in making his atonement known
to all your fellow-creatures, and placing the means of grace within their reach.
The service to which he calls you is a most reasonable service. His right to
demand it is perfect. It is more worthy of your powers than any thing else in
which you can engage. Is there any, even plausible ground on which you can
refuse your aid in promoting the temporal happiness and the eternal salvation of
our ruined race? Would it be generous even if you could do it without sin and
without imperiling your own soul, to devolve all this work upon others; to shut
your ears against the voice of Christ himself, through whom you hope yet to be
saved, when he says to you, “Go work for me in doing good to your
fellow-sinners; and whatsoever you do to the least of them for my sake, I will
regard it as if done to me!"

Consider, further, that in assigning to the service of religion only some vague
and, precarious. portion of your future life, (which may prove to be no portion
of it at all,) the intermediate period, whether longer or shorter, is not to be
a mere blank, without influence upon your character and upon your ultimate
prospects of salvation. You are disinclined to take up the subject of religion
now, because you “feel no interest” in it. I have already shown you the fallacy
of supposing, that the continued neglect of religion can generate a disposition
to “consider” it. But note further, that during this undefined period which is
still to precede your anticipated repentance, you are to be drinking in the
spirit of worldliness, and travelling to a still greater distance from God. It
seems strangely incongruous to talk of “repentance” in this connection.
“Repentance” for what? Suppose death should not step in and extinguish your
hopes in the blackness of an eternal night; suppose you reach the point, the
distant, shadowy, receding point, where you are to be sated with the world and
ready to abandon it, what do you propose to repent of? If you refer to the sins
of your past lives, it seems quite reasonable. There are enough of them to call
for bitter tears and the deepest humiliation. It is a fearful sight to look back
over a whole life, and see nothing there but sin. There is a call for
repentance. But your plan comprises more than this. You mean to repent of other
sins; not yet committed. You mean to repent of the course you are just now
entering upon. You form a purpose to-day not to consider the subject of religion
now, with the avowed intention of mourning over that purpose hereafter! You
decline a gracious call of the gospel, with the distinct avowal that you mean to
lament that you declined it, and to ask God’s forgiveness! You set out upon a
path which you declare your intention to retrace, every step of it, with tears!
This is mysterious. Were you to banish the subject altogether, and brave the
consequences of going into eternity without repentance or faith in Christ, you
might at least claim the merit of consist ency. But this idea of sinning only
that you may repent; of laughing today, that you may weep over your mirth
tomorrow; of heaping up obstacles between your soul and heaven, that you may
by-and-by remove them with a sorrowful heart; of pressing on toward the very
verge of the bottomless pit, that you may at length, when the earth begins to
cave from under your feet, fly back affrighted at your temerity, and seek the
refuge you now scorn, — what name can be given to a career like this! And if the
actors in it were other parties, and you the spectators, what alternative would
you feel forced upon you in seeking a solution of the strange phenomenon, but
that they were either bereft of reason, or under the sway of a hostility to God
and his service, so inveterate as to be proof against all human agencies?

If these, plain allegations have not offended you, you may possibly assent to
their substantial verity. You may be ready to go as far as the Bible itself in
condemning the unreasonableness and the criminality of your inconsideration; yet
you may say, the fact of your indifference remains. You “do not feel sufficient
interest in the mater” to take it up, and you have no resource hut to defer it
till you do; and as this is (so you imagine) “a thing beyond your own control,”
you are the more disposed to let it rest for the present.

I have throughout this whole discussion recognised the reality of this
difficulty. Foolish as it is, criminal as it is, dangerous as it is, this “lack
of interest” in religion constitutes a real and formidable hinderance in the way
of a proper examination of the subject. But as no one will presume to plead it
at the last day as an excuse for his impenitence, so we must beware how we treat
it with a mistaken leniency now. The very consciousness of this aversion to
serious things ought to alarm you. It is the white spot upon the surface which
indicates the leprosy within, and to neglect the symptom is to trifle with the
disease. The feeling, too, that this indifference is absolutely beyond your
control, is but another effect of your insidious malady. It is true you cannot
change your own heart, nor can you by a mere volition replace your spiritual
apathy, with that solicitude about the concerns of eternity which you persuade
yourself you would like to experience. But there are certain other things which
are within the compass of your own volitions. If you are not practising
self-dissimulation, if you sincerely desire to “become interested in religion,”
you will leave no practicable means untried to bring about so important an end.
What, then, can you do? You can determine, in dependence on the help of God, to
enter upon the careful and thorough examination of the subject. You can deal
with it as you would with any literary, political, or professional question
which might require your attention. As a physician, you might have to grapple
with some disease you had never heard of: As a lawyer, you might find it
necessary to investigate a case which was extremely distasteful to you. As a
merchant, the course of trade might force you into laborious researches in some
department of commerce which you had always shrunk from with aversion. But in
these exigencies, your policy would be decisive and onward. You could not
respect yourself, if you sat down quietly and succumbed to your feeling of
indifference. Gathering up your mental energies, you would assail the obnoxious
topic with a vigorous determination to master it. You would make it the theme of
your studies and reflections, and avail yourself of all the light that could be
brought to bear upon it. And according to the established course of things, your
antipathy would give way and your interest would increase as you prosecuted your
inquest.

What has CHRISTIANITY done, that it is not entitled to the same treatment at
your hands? Why should you not extend to it the fair and manly dealing you mete
out to any and every secular matter in which you are implicated? It is just as
competent to you to employ your powers in examining a question of theology as a
question of jurisprudence or a question of merchandise. You can as well set
about the systematic reading of the BIBLE, as the systematic study of history,
metaphysics, or any other branch of literature. You can take up some sterling
religious book, like Hodge’s Way of Life, Wilberforce’s Practical View,
Gregory’s Letters, Scott’s Force of Truth, or Alexander’s Religious Experience,
and appropriate a specific part of every twenty-four hours to the private and
thoughtful perusal of it. You can read with a constant reference to your own
character. You can accompany the exercise with fervent prayer for divine
assistance. You can be earnest in invoking the Holy Spirit to deliver you from
error and unbelief, to subdue your evil passions, to remove your indifference,
to convince you of sin, and to lead you to Christ. You can avoid, in a measure,
those scenes and associations, and put away those habits, which are unfavorable
to serious reflection. You can converse with your pastor, and frequent the
sanctuary, and attend the weekly religious services of the congregation to which
you belong, and seek the society of Christian people, and court such influences
as are adapted to foster your good purposes and enliven your apprehension of
“the powers and terrors” of the world to come. When you have finished one book,
you can read another and another. You can do all this with the feeling that
religion is no longer to be tampered with; that your soul is too precious to be
enticed to hell by the visionary purpose of future repentance; that, however it
may be with others, the time has come for you to make your peace with God; and
that, God helping you nothing shall divert you from this work, until you are
washed from your sins in the blood of the cross, and made a new creature in
Christ Jesus.

These things you can do. These things you ought to do. And should you do
them—with humility, with perseverance, with importunate prayer— can you doubt as
to the result? Do you not believe that your indifference would soon vanish? that
what you had undertaken from a sheer conviction of duty, would presently awaken
the dormant sensibilities of your soul; that what was at first a matter of pure
intellect, would become no less a matter of feeling; that religion would begin
to unfold itself to your mind in the solemn grandeur of its proportions, as at
once the most august and the most urgent of all interests; and that, from being
a mere denizen of earth, living only for the world, without a thought, perhaps,
of God and eternity, you would find yourself engrossed with the one question,
“WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?" and pressing into the kingdom of heaven with an
energy that would brook no delay? Can you doubt that something like this would
follow? And if you believe it would, can you refuse to make the trial?

SECTION IV.

ENCOURAGEMENTS.

Up to this point it has been my aim to exhibit the true nature, and counteract
the influence of that “lack of interest” in the subject of religion, which has
made you unwilling to sit down to the serious consideration of it. If I have at
all succeeded in dispelling the sophistries and self-illusions which usually
pertain to this state of mind, and in showing that this indifference to religion
is a matter very much within your own control, there is one specious suggestion
which may still ensnare you. You may hesitate about entering upon the course of
reading and reflection proposed to you, from a feeling of distrust as to the
ultimate result. There are “difficulties” in the way, and you are “not certain”
that you could surmount them. You “might set out and fail.” Such is your
conviction of the reasonableness and importance of the duty enjoined upon you,
that nothing could deter you from giving your attention to the subject, if you
believed it would “avail;” but having no assurance on this point, you shrink
from undertaking it.

Here, again, the reality of the hinderance must be admitted. In all enterprises,
hopefulness is one of the main elements of success. It is a sad drudgery to toil
and fag at an occupation which promises to reward us only with disappointment.
Where have no encouragement, we have no resolution.

Without the prospect of attaining an end, we can have no heart to pursue it. And
as this principle applies equally to spiritual and to temporal objects, it is
not surprising that persons should hesitate about addressing themselves to the
matter of their personal salvation, if they see no likelihood of securing it.

But, on the other hand, religion has cause to complain that it is not placed, as
regards this point, on a footing with secular affairs. No politician insists
upon certainty of success, before aspiring to a post of honor in the state. No
physician. refuses to cope with a disease until he is certain he can master it.
The multifarious operations of commerce are all based upon contingent
calculations. Individuals frequently expend a fortune in experimental mining or
manufacturing, where, in the judgment of impartial observers, the probabilities
of success are scarcely more than five in a hundred. And enlightened governments
will lay out millions of money, and jeopard whole fleets, in exploring regions
which are utterly inaccessible to commerce, and which, the more they are
traversed, stamp with greater hopelessness the idea of turning them to any
valuable practical use. Why not proceed in. the same way in spiritual things?
With what propriety can we demand a measure of certainty, in seeking our
salvation, which we should pronounce very unreasonable in seeking fame or
fortune? Why be disheartened, where the soul is concerned, with obstacles which
would only sharpen the appetite and stimulate ambition, if it were a question of
property, or a question of science? One might suppose that the whole bias of
men’s minds would be the other way; that the bare possibility of salvation would
be sufficient to arouse them to the highest degree of effort; and that, instead
of being retarded or repelled by difficulties, every new hinderance would be but
a fresh incentive to exertion. Where life is concerned, this is the ease. No man
gives over caring for his health because his symptoms are unfavorable, or the
remedial agents he wishes to employ difficult of access. “All that a man hath
will he give for his life.” The universal principle with invalids is, while
there is life there is hope, and while there is hope, no means of cure must be
neglected. How extraordinary, then, is it, that men should be so easily turned
aside, where, instead of life, it is the SOUL which is at stake! But without
stopping to speculate on the causes of a phenomenon which is, unhappily, so
familiar that it has ceased to excite wonder, it is more to our present purpose
to observe, that there is actually less reason for discouragement in this, the
most urgent and momentous of all pursuits, than there is in our common secular
avocations. Whatever grounds we may have for anticipating success in any
financial or professional undertaking, we have more for expecting it in proper
exertions to escape from the thraldom of sin. I say "proper exertions," because,
in many cases, the effort is really not made in good faith; it is a mere
languid, temporary striving, with which the heart has very little to do; and
which must fail as a matter of course. But there is seldom any failure, where
this object is pursued with the earnestness which men usually bring to the
prosecution of their worldly schemes.

There is, however, a peculiarity about the search after religion, which ought to
be noticed in this connection. Most persons have but vague ideas of what it is
to “become religious.” The entrance upon a Christian life is, to their minds,
shrouded in mystery. They know that except they are “born again,” they cannot
see the kingdom of God, and that this change must be wrought by the Holy Spirit.
The acknowledged greatness of the transformation, combined, perhaps, with the
inspired account of the effusion of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, has
impressed them with the feeling, that if they are ever renewed, the Divine
influence which is to effect it will come, “like a rushing, mighty wind,” or in
some other palpable manner, and impel them into the kingdom of heaven. They
suppose that the operations of the Spirit upon the heart can ordinarily be
distinguished from our own mental exercises; and that until we are conscious of
his presence, it must be useless to set about the work of repentance. That a
regenerated person may have a perfect assurance that the mighty transformation
he has experienced was as much beyond the compass of his own powers as it would
be to create a world, is an undoubted fact. But it is from the Bible we learn to
ascribe every thing good in our exercises to the influence of the Spirit, lie
exerts his power upon us in a manner strictly adapted to the laws of our
rational nature. “It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his
good pleasure.” Not only “to do,” but even “to will.” He touches and controls
the secret springs of volition; so that when we “will,” or determine to cease
from sinning, to study the Scriptures, or to do any thing else which he has
commanded, the impulse and the strength really come

We are conscious of the determination or choice, (with the motives which induce
it,) and in this, of course, we are perfectly voluntary. But there is a
mysterious power at work back of our volitions, and secretly prompting them. And
it is on this very ground the apostle bids us “work out our own salvation. See
Php 2:12-13. The Spirit is waking us from our slumber; therefore, we should
yield to the bias he is giving to our inclinations, and put forth our earnest
efforts in the same direction. To expect that he will disclose his agency to our
minds, is to mistake the whole character of his functions. Our Savior compares
his influence to the wind, which is invisible, silent, and penetrating. You are
waiting, you say, for the Spirit to come and change your heart. Has not the
Spirit visited you already? Are you not thoughtful about your soul’s concerns?
Do you not read the Bible with. greater satisfaction? Does not the truth fall
upon your ear in the sanctuary with a different sound? Is not your love of the
world checked? Are you not more disposed to seek the society of Christian
people? Does not the subject of religion follow you to your place of business,
and often come up unbidden to your mind? And yet you are “waiting for the Spirit
!“ What does all this mean, if it is not the Spirit moving upon your heart?
While you are looking here and there for the Spirit, he is already within you.
While, like Naaman and the prophet, you are expecting him to come and do some
great thing for you, you hear not the still, small voice with which he is
admonishing you to look to Christ and live. In occasional examples, he still
approaches individuals, as he did Saul of Tarsus, and urges them into his
kingdom with an impetuosity which leaves them no room to doubt, either as to the
reality of the change in their condition, or the agency which has produced it.
But these are exceptions to the established law of his administration. In
ordinary cases, his first demonstration upon the heart is of a more tranquil
character; and the entire process is apt to differ essentially from any thing
which the individuals concerned may have anticipated. Enough to know that you
are not to wait in passive idleness for the Spirit’s aid. If you are willing to
give up your sins, it is he who has made you willing. If you desire to come to
Christ, that desire is from his silent influence upon your heart. Submit to his
strivings; implore his further aid; and you will find the promise true, “To him
that hath shall be given.”

Here, in fact, is one of the great encouragements you have to enter at once upon
a religious life. The seriousness of which you may even now be conscious, how
that God is mindful of you, and waits to bless you. For this state of feeling is
not the fruit of chance. It is one of those good gifts which come down from
above; a token of kindness; a harbinger of mercy. You ,may say of it, as
Manoah’s wife said to him, when he was expecting the Divine displeasure to break
forth against them: “If the Lord were pleased to kill us, he would not have
received a burnt-offering and a meat-offering at our hands, neither would he
have showed us all these things, nor would, as at this time, have told us such
things as these.” If the Lord had not thoughts of peace toward you, would he
have disturbed your spiritual slumber, and enkindled in your breast this
solicitude about your soul? Or, if this language be too strong, would he have
inclined you to reflect on your prospects for eternity, and to listen to the
Utterances of his word with an unwonted thoughtfulness? Here is the very Being
knocking at your door, on whom your salvation depends. Can you need any further
assurance of his readiness to save you?

Or, take a broader view of this question. You ask, What encouragement have I to
seek an interest in Christ? The obvious and conclusive answer is to point you to
the BIBLE. What is the Bible but a revelation of the Divine mercy to our world?
“God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” “This is a
faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners.” “Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.”
What would you have more? What could you have? Here is a sacrifice of infinite
cost, which God, of his own sovereign will, provided for the redemption of our
race. Here is the distinct, announcement that the grand object for which his
beloved Son became incarnate, was to save sinners. And here is the gracious
promise of the Savior, that he will receive every sinner who comes to him. Are
you prepared to say that God should have done more than this? It cannot be. The
more you reflect upon it, the greater must be your astonishment that he should
have done so much. Nor can you fail to see here the truth of the observation
already made, that you have far more reason to hope for success in a diligent
and prayerful search for salvation, than you have in prosecuting any mere
secular plan whatever: But although you could not demand more at God’s hand, be
has actually given you more.

I refer now especially to the character of the Savior. I mean by this, not his
abstract ability to accomplish the work he has undertaken; that being the
co-equal of the Father, “God over all blessed forever.” But I allude to his
personal characteristics as exemplified in his teachings and actions. Take up
the gospels, and study his life. Listen to his discourses. Place yourself by him
while he performs his miracles. Go with him into the abodes of poverty and
suffering. See with what compassion he deals with the sick and the sorrowful,
the tempted and the erring. Behold what power a cry of distress has to arrest
him on his journeys; how he accommodates himself to the weaknesses and
prejudices to his supplicants; how gently he reproves and instructs his ignorant
and impetuous disciples; how tenderly he sympathizes with every stricken one who
repairs to him for succor. All this is so much superadded to his boundless
capacity to save sinners. It is omnipotence blended with meekness, and
benevolence, and pity, and long-suffering, and tenderness beyond the yearnings
of a mother’s heart. It not only meets and countervails the sentiment of dread,
which makes a sinful creature shrink from approaching the Creator, but it
clothes the incarnate Deity with all those human attributes which usually win
our affections and inspire our confidence. It diminishes unspeakably the
difficulty of this work, that the Savior is one who bears our nature, and has
been tempted in all points as we are, and can, therefore, be touched with a
feeling of our infirmities. You cannot but feel that there is every thing in his
character to encourage your hopes; and the more so when you reflect, that during
his earthly ministry, he never sent a sincere and humble suppliant away without
a blessing. But we may go a step further still in this direction. If the
SAVIOR’s character holds out encouragement to you, so also does the mission of
the SPIRIT. We have just been speaking of his agency in another aspect. Consider
it now as an incentive to resolute and persevering effort. So rigorous is the
bondage sin has imposed upon us, that the crucifixion itself would have been
ineffectual to our salvation, but for the ministration of the Spirit. His
presence, however, obviates every difficulty. We are by nature blind to
spiritual things, ignorant of ourselves, averse to holiness, inflated with ideas
of our own goodness, devoted to the world, ashamed of Christ. If aroused to some
degree of solicitude about our souls, we become painfully conscious of the
strength of our depraved passions; the way of salvation appears obscure; we have
no distinct apprehension of what we ought to do, and too often lack the moral
courage to obey the dictates of our consciences. What with the turmoil of
feeling within, and the subtle temptations which are sure to assail us from
without, we are apt to conclude that the task to which we are summoned is too
great for us, and must be given up or postponed to a more auspicious season.
This insidious suggestion has its proper antidote in the doctrine of the
Spirit’s influence. The task laid upon you is beyond your strength. But what
then? Does it exceed the resources of the omnipotent Spirit? Can not He who
said, “Let there be light,” dispel the darkness of your understanding? Can not
He who reduced the primeval chaos to symmetry and beauty, restore harmony and
peace to your agitated breast? This is his prerogative, and this his errand in
our world. “When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all
truth.” It is his beneficent office to enlighten the mind; to banish its
ignorance and prejudice; to show the sinner the worthlessness of his own
righteousness as a foundation for his hopes; to make him sensible of his
spiritual penury; to reveal to him the excellency and glory of the Redeemer, and
to lead him a willing bondman to the Savior’s feet, with the feeling—

“Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to thy cross I cling;

Naked come to thee for dress, Helpless look to thee for grace;

Vile, I to the fountain fly, Wash me, Savior, or I die.” This is what you need.
It is all you need. And that Divine Spirit, who can accomplish this for you—who
can teach you, strengthen you, renew you, guide you to Christ and fit you for
heaven—is a God at hand, as well as a God afar off. His ministry is the great
promise of the new dispensation. There is no blessing we have so much
encouragement to pray for. We are even told that God is more willing to give the
Spirit to those who ask him, than parents are to give good gifts to their
children. The whole ground of your hinderances and misgivings, therefore, is
covered. Here is an almighty Spirit to conduct you, and an almighty Savior to
receive you. You have no difficulties from which they cannot extricate you; no
obstacles which they cannot enable you to surmount; no want which they cannot
supply. If such proffers of aid were tendered you in any secular pursuit, how
eagerly you would grasp at them! Are they of less value where your salvation is
at stake? But you may be unreasonable enough to hesitate still, because these
are “abstract” promises; you would like to see them “tested,” and then you could
feel more confidence in venturing upon them. Well, this scruple is provided for.
You have but to look around, and you can be gratified. There are witnesses on
every side to testify, that they have proved these promises and found them true
to the letter. They stood once where you stand, (for I am supposing that you
have begun to “consider your ways.”) They had the same doubts and fears, the
same obscure views and fluctuating purposes. The world tempted them as it is
tempting you. They formed resolutions and broke them. They were almost persuaded
to be Christians, and then the shame of the cross overcame their fortitude. They
determined to enter upon a new course of life, and the fear that they “might not
persevere made them draw back. But the Spirit continued to strive with them,
until, at length, yielding to his benign solicitations, and relying upon his
assistance, they gave themselves up to the Savior with penitent and grateful
hearts, and now they are “rejoicing in hope of the glory of God.” Their faith
rebukes your unbelief. The way of salvation is laid open to you as it was to
them. You have the same warrant, to accept of Christ’s gracious invitation. You
have the additional motives supplied by their experience. You have the
sympathies and prayers of all Christian people. Your judgment is convinced. Your
conscience is on the side of religion. The Spirit and the Bride bid you “Come.”
Why do you linger?

How extraordinary is it, that arguments and appeals like these should be
necessary. Who is the party to be benefited? Whose salvation waits on these
trembling balances? What measuring-line has sounded the depths of that abyss,
what pen has depicted the glories of that paradise, between which your wavering
spirit vibrates? And yet you demand encouragements and inducements to begin a
religious life, as though you were the party to confer the favor, and God to be
the recipient of it! How amazing his forbearance, that even this ungrateful and
(if the word must be used) arrogant state of mind, should not repel his
clemency. He actually stoops to your caprices and gratifies your unreasonable
exactions. He holds out “encouragements” to you far beyond any thing you could
ask or expect. There is not an impediment in your way, not a difficulty you have
to meet, for which he has not provided. And to crown the whole costly and
elaborate system of relief which his munificence has prepared, his Spirit
continues to strive with you. You may have tried to banish the subject of
religion from your thoughts, and found yourself unequal to the task. Irksome as
it may be, it cleaves to you with a tenacity you cannot overcome. Neither
reading nor company, neither business nor pleasure, brings you relief. Thoughts
of eternity rush upon you in the midst of your daily activities. They disturb
you in the night-watches. The spiritual apathy of those around you cannot
tranquillize your conscience. The sense of guilt haunts you, and the terrors of
a coming judgment may oppress you, even while you are forcing yourself to appear
cheerful. What is all this but the striving of the Spirit? the long-suffering of
God, who is not willing you should perish, but rather that you should come to
repentance?

Consider now what he has done for your salvation. Review the way in which he has
led you. Ponder well the position you occupy. And see whether you can expect
ever to be placed again in circumstances so favorable to your conversion. You
cannot suppose either that God is indifferent to the manner in which you requite
his gracious dispensations, or that his mercy is inexhaustible. While he offers
us a free salvation, he cannot but view with abhorrence the deliberate and
persevering rejection of his offer. The goodness displayed in redemption is
infinite. And for such creatures as we are, to decline its benefits when he
himself presses them upon our acceptance, betrays an ingratitude and a hardihood
which cannot go unpunished. There is a limit, beyond which the Spirit will cease
to strive. There is a point where mercy turns to vengeance. Your present
thoughtfulness may warrant the hope, that you have not yet passed this fatal
barrier. But you may be rapidly approaching it. Every thing may hang upon the
issue of this conflict. While you are hesitating whether to cast yourself at the
Savior’s feet, or to cleave a little longer to a world which is deceiving and
ensnaring you, the hours may be hasting away, which are to fix your everlasting
destiny. It should be enough to end this strife, that your salvation depends
upon Gon, and that this appears to be His time. If Levi had not instantly left
all when Christ called him, it is not probable he would ever have been made a
disciple. If the three thousand on the day of Pentecost had not obeyed Peter’s
instructions, they might never have been converted. To trifle with serious
impressions, is to insult God. To refuse to hear his voice when he is speaking
directly to our heart, is to run the hazard of incurring that awful doom
depicted in Proverbs 1:1-33, “Because I have called, and ye refused; I have
stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my
counsel, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity; I
will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your
destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.
Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early,
but they shall not find me; for that they hated knowledge, and did not choose
the fear of the Lord; they would none of my counsel; they despised all my
reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled
with their own devices.”

I have assumed, in the former part of this section, that the reader has been
startled from his impenitency, and led to sober reflection. But, as has just
been intimated, it would be too much to suppose, that this will be the case with
all into whose hands this book may fall. Some among them will doubtless be as
unwilling as ever, to take up the subject of religion, and consider it with the
seriousness which it demands. To persons of this description, I feel at some
loss what to say. Professing to know something of the ground you occupy, I have
endeavored with all the kindness which was compatible with fidelity to your
souls, to exhibit the criminality of this inconsideration, to expose the
sophistries by which it is usually palliated, to set forth your duty, and to
show what ample encouragement God has given you to set about the performance of
it. That we should have gone over all these topics without mitigating your
aversion to the subject, is a fact of very painful significance. It is one of
those facts which make men feel their impotence, in dealing with the depravity
of the human heart. What a deep-seated enmity to God must possess the carnal
mind, when it can stand out, not simply against the majesty and severity of the
law, but against the boundless love and tenderness of the gospel! when it can
even refuse to consider the claims of the Redeemer, to our confidence and
veneration! And what must this import as to the moral condition of these
persons? The apostle speaks of “tokens of perdition.” It is a pregnant phrase. I
will not say that it appertains to any reader of this volume. But you must judge
for yourselves whether this confirmed inconsideration is not likely to prove, in
your own case, a “token of perdition. Does it not look as though the spiritual
insensibility, which has seized upon you, were to be invincible arid permanent?
Does it not seem like an omen of final and remediless ruin? I see not how any
human agency is to prevent this result. Our only hope is in God. He can prevent
it. But when the question is asked, Will he do this? every tongue must he mute.
Secret things belong unto the Lord. We may not presume to pry into his counsels.
One resource we have left—prayer. If your Christian friends have any proper love
for your soul, they will be importunate in their intercessions for you. If you
are not resolved upon self-destruction, I entreat you to pray for yourself.
Peradventure, there may yet be mercy for you. The Father may even now wait to
receive you. The Savior may be stretching out his hand toward you, and crying,
“Look unto me, and live.” The Holy Spirit may be secretly saying to you, “Awake,
thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.”

If you heed these gracious monitions, and, putting away all evasions and
subterfuges, say with the prodigal, “I will arise and go to my Father,” it will
be well. Eternity will ratify the decision, and you will rejoice over it with a
joy unspeakable and full of glory. But if you still refuse, and continue to
reject the proffered mercy, I must again remind you that you tread on dangerous
ground; for it is written, “My Spirit shall not always strive with man.”

“There is a time, we know not when, A point we know not where, That marks the
destiny of men To glory or despair.

There is a line, by us unseen, That crosses every path; The hidden boundary
between God’s patience and his wrath. To pass that limit is to die, To die as if
by stealth;

It does not quench the beaming eye, Or pale the glow of health. The conscience
may be still at ease, The spirits light and gay; That which is pleasing still
may please, And care be thrust away. But on that forehead God has set Indelibly
a mark, Unseen by man, for man as yet Is blind and in the dark. And yet the
doomed man’s path below May bloom as Eden bloomed: lie did not, does not, will
not know, Or feel that he is doomed.

He knows, he feels that all is well, And every fear is calmed;

He lives, he dies, he wakes in hell, Not only doomed, but damned.

O where is this mysterious bourn By which our path is crossed;

Beyond which, God himself hath sworn, That he who goes is lost!

How far may we go on in sin?

Row long will God forbear? Where does hope end, and where begin The confines of
despair? An ansiver from the skies is sent:

“Ye that from God depart, While it is called TO-DAY repent, And harden not your
heart.”


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  CHAPTER 9: 02.6.     RELIGION MUST AND WILL BE CONSIDERED
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Section V.

Religion Must and Will Be Considered

Up to this point, we have proceeded on the assumption that it was optional with
you, whether to consider the subject of personal religion or not. In this manner
the Bible treats the question. It addresses us throughout as intelligent and
responsible agents, and leaves us to decide on our own course after listening to
its appeals and arguments. Your own conscience assures you that you can either
choose or refuse to take up the plan of salvation and examine it with a
paramount reference to your own duty. God does not compel you to examine it. He
commands, expostulates, invites, and points out the consequences involved in
your disobedience. But lie uses no coercion. You can still refuse. You often
have refused. Instead of bringing your mind into contact with religion, when its
claims were urged upon you, you have purposely directed it to something else. I
on have chosen rather to think of business or pleasure, or of any one of an
endless variety of objects. It has not been at all to your taste to think about
repentance and being born again, and renouncing the world and taking up. the
cross to follow Christ. And so you have shut these topics out of your breast
arid turned to more engaging themes.. And thus far you have seen no very serious
evil resulting from this habit, for a habit it has become. Your inconsideration,
you are apt to imagine, has not materially injured either your character or your
prospects, and you are slow to believe there is so much danger attending it as
has been represented. You are still disinclined, therefore, (for this is the
case we are now to deal with,) to combat the repugnance you feel to spiritual
religion, and to commence a new life.

Now, if this could last, there would be less room to remonstrate. You might be
allowed to neglect religion just as long as your antipathy to it continued. I do
not say that this would be wise, much less that it would involve no criminality.
I speak only of safety. But it is of the highest moment for you to know that it
cannot last. However your inconsideration may be a matter of option now, it will
not be so always. There is a period coming, and it may be just at hand, when all
discretionary control of this subject will be t an end, and you will be
compelled to consider it. It belongs to the genius of the probationary
dispensation under which we live, that no one should be forced into earnest and
prolonged reflection upon the themes of the Bible. But “in the later days ye
shall consider it perfectly.” On a death-bed it may be; certainly, after death,
these august and solemn topics will engross your thoughts. They will gather
around you then, not because they are more grateful than you find them now, nor
because they are pressed upon you by more faithful and eloquent preachers. No
preacher’s voice will then be needed to awaken you to deep and. anxious
meditation. Nor will transitory impressions any more be obliterated, as so often
happens with you here, by the returning waves of frivolity and worldliness.
Alien as conviction of sin is from all your present tendencies and associations,
it will then be your established condition. From never tolerating, much less
fostering it, you will never be free from it. It will be your one dismal and
terrible occupation, the very sum of your being, to dwell with sorrow and
remorse upon those subjects which all the arguments of reason and Scripture,
fortified by the warnings of Providence and the reproaches of conscience, cannot
prevail upon you to admit into your bosom now.

It is due to you to place this fact distinctly before you. You should
understand, that when the Scriptures exhort you to give attention to these
subjects, and when the ministers of Christ enforce the exhortation with whatever
skill or tenderness they can command, it is simply a question of time and place.
It is as certain that you will be brought to consider them, as that you exist;
and that, whatever your creed or character may be now. The whole solicitude of
your Christian friends in urging the matter upon you is, that you may begin this
work of consideration at once. They know you will do it sooner or later. And
they know, with equal certainty, that every thing depends upon your doing it
now:

If you ask what are the grounds of this representation, the answer is at hand.
One of the chief reasons why you cannot be prevailed upon to apply your mind to
the subject of religion is, that you are engrossed and captivated with worldly
objects. At the period referred to, this temptation will be effectually removed.
For “the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt
with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be
burned up.” This change virtually takes place with every individual at his
death; for his relations with this world are then terminated, as really as
though the globe should at that moment be destroyed. How fearful the transition
must be to an unconverted sinner, no human pen may attempt to describe. But
consider what is involved in being violently torn away from all the scenes and
pursuits with which you are now occupied. When the claims of Christianity are
pressed upon you, you turn to your business and, your amusements, to your
household cares, to your books, to your newspapers, to public events, to
politics, aid upon these interests you lavish the attention which is properly
due to religion. Imagine yourself to be transported to some spot on the globe
where none of these things would he within your reach—no business, no
recreation, no reading, no cognizance of passing events, no opportunity for the
exercise of ambition, of avarice, of enterprise, no means of personal culture,
no congenial society; but, on the contrary, an unavoidable and intimate
fellowship with companions scarcely removed from demons in character and
behavior. Can you picture to yourself any thing more horrible than this? And yet
it could approximate only in the faintest degree to the actual condition upon
which every unrenewed person enters at death. For the instant the soul quits the
body, its severance from all things terrestrial is complete and final. There is
not even left the spectacle of the earth itself to look upon; its sands and its
seas, its herbage and its flowers, its forests and its mountains, all will have
disappeared forever. How impossible will it be then for any man to drive away
religion from his thoughts by inviting the world to come in and preoccupy them!
The world, in so far as he is concerned, will have ceased to be. And, unless he
has some other resource, for aught that the world can do for him, the unwelcome
themes of religion will have undisputed possession of his breast.

This, however, is but a small part of the truth. Not only will he be cut off
from all access to this world, but there will be every thing in his situation to
force these repulsive topics upon his attention. Even here a rich man feels
lost, if he is stripped of his wealth; and a scholar when deprived of his books;
and a merchant when obliged to leave his business for a season; and a mother
when separated from her children; and a child when removed from its parents, its
school, or its play. But there, superadded to these privations, then become
absolute and immitigable, there will be objects and associations too closely
linked with eternal realities for the soul to elude or resist their influence.
The rich man in the parable was taken up with his luxury, and feasting, and
self- indulgence, until death snatched him away. Every one is ready to ask, what
ensued after death. In this single instance, our Savior has lifted the curtain
and given us a glimpse of a .lost soul after its discharge from the body. For
although it is a parable, we cannot suppose that he would so construct it as to
produce an impression upon our minds contrary to the truth. We follow this
unconverted sinner, then, as the immortal spirit hastens away, and we find him
presently “in hell, being in torments,” and pleading with Abraham to send
Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool his tongue—for
he was tormented in the flame. (Luke 16:1-31) We have no reason to doubt, that a
similar doom, of which this may be but a faint and imperfect symbol, is
experienced by every sinner dying in impenitency. And if this be so, you may
judge whether it will be possible for one in these circumstances to avoid
“considering” the serious topics which were so constantly repelled during this
life. Will he be able to shut out the thought of eternity from his mind, now
that he finds himself in eternity? Can he refuse to think of his soul, when his
soul is disengaged from its clay tabernacle, and still preserves a conscious
existence? Can he say in his heart “There is no God,” when the vengeance of God
is eating up his spirits? Can he treat hell as a chimera, when his ears have no
respite from its weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth? Can he flatter
himself; that Christ is too compassionate to allow a sinner like him to perish,
when the “wrath of the Lamb” descending all around him, as “hailstones and coals
of fire?" Oh, no, no! There will be no alternative left to you then. You will be
compelled to think of religion. You will be no more able to thrust its solemn
verities from you, than to compass your own annihilation. So far from being
allowed only an occasional and transient hearing, as they are here, they will
cleave to you with an invincible tenacity, and fill up all your waking and your
sleeping moments. Your sleeping moments, did I say? Alas, there will be no sleep
for the lost soul. That is. a night which brings no repose; a sorrow which knows
no respite. Could the unhappy sinner cease from thinking, could he have even his
intervals of mental torpor and forgetfulness, half the bitterness of his cup
were gone. But this cannot be. He must think oh, and think on, and think on; and
forever think of the subjects which are most painful to him.

These subjects, I have said, are the great themes of religion, which are so
often pressed upon your attention, and to so little purpose now. Of course you
are not to infer from this that they will come up before the mind of a lost
sinner in the same aspect as they do here. The invisible barrier which separates
time from eternity, makes an infinite difference in the relations which we
sustain to the Christian revelation and its Divine Author. So long as we are in
this world, the Bible addresses us in accents of mercy. The very word gospel,
like the Greek term of which it is the translation, means glad tidings. It is
God’s proclamation of pardon. It is a display of his benevolence and pity, which
hath filled all heaven with adoring wonder. It is a free tender of forgiveness
and salvation to the very chief of sinners. And this proffer he continues to
urge upon us, down to the very moment of death, by motives drawn from his own
perfections, from the love of Christ, from the necessities of our own souls,
from the ruined condition of the world, and from many other sources. But here he
stops. The change which death produces in the outward condition of the
imperntent sinner, is not greater than the revolution it effects in his
relations to the system of redemption. To him, it ceases to be a system of
redemption. There is no offer of pardon; no call to repentance; no striving of
the Spirit. The Bible and the Sabbath, the ministry of reconciliation, and even
the throne of grace, disappear. Instead of mercy there is judgment. For pity,
there is vengeance. For “COME UNTO ME,” there is “DEPART YE!" For the fountain
opened for sin and uncleanness, there is the lake which burneth with fire and
brimstone. All the objects which crowd upon the disembodied spirit breathe of
retribution, and anguish, aid despair. And every thing around and within
conspires to fasten the thoughts, as by an inexorable necessity, upon that cross
which has now ceased to be a symbol of mercy; and those abused privileges and
warnings which come back with their scorpion stings to agonize the soul.

If it be disagreeable to you to think of religion here; if you have a conscious
antipathy toward it when it is robed in light aid loveliness, and seeks you out,
only to extricate you from the toils of sin, and conduct you in triumph up to
the realms of bliss, how will you bear the contemplation of it when it stands
before you, arrayed in the terrors of vindicatory justice? If you cannot endure
its offers of pardon and of heaven, how will you endure it when it forces itself
upon you, as an ever-present, harrowing memorial, that those offers are
withdrawn forever? If it is irksome to you to hear of Christ as a SAVIOR, what
would you lot give to have the rocks and the mountains to fall on you and cover
you, when the archangel’s trump summons you to appear before him, as a JUDGE!

It would, perhaps, be some slight alleviation of the anguish of that day, were
the whole race to encounter a common doom. So it will certainly aggravate the
misery of the lost, to reflect, that to a portion of the race, this is a day of
joy and triumph.

"* * * * On the right hand of bliss, Sublime in glory, talking with their peers
Of the incarnate Savior’s love” they will see a multitude which no man can
number, who once dwelt with them in this vale of tears. Among them may be some
whom they had known as neighbors, friends, fellow-worshippers, who sat side by
side with them in the sanctuary, listened to the same sermons, sang the same
hymns of praise, and united, outwardly at least, in the same prayers. Nay, there
may be those who were bound to them by much more endearing ties,—a wife, a
parent, a child, a sister, a household group, who used to sit around the same
table, and with whose lives, theirs were interlaced like the reticulations of
the vine, which spread its drapery over their family mansion. These are saved,
and they are lost! They journeyed through life together, and at its close, they
parted, never to meet, except as they meet now, one on the right hand of Christ,
the other on his left; one never jo weep, the other never to smile again. How
inevitable and how poignant the conviction, that but for their own obduracy in
refusing to come to Christ, they too might have been among that radiant company!

It will, indeed, be an overwhelming reflection, that they were fully instructed
in their duty, and admonished of the consequences of neglecting it. Life and
death were set before them. They knew, that unless they were born of the Spirit,
they could not enter into the kingdom of God; that except they repented, they
must perish; that if they refused to believe in Christ, they must be damned.
(John 3:5, Luke 13:3, Mark 16:16) All this was distinctly presented to them.
With many of them, it was instilled, into their infant minds, and reiterated by
pious parents, and proclaimed in their hearing by the ministers of the gospel,
through the whole course of their lives. And if the consciousness that he once
had “Moses and the prophets” augmented the suffering of the rich man in hell,
what pangs of sorrow must they experience who had not only Moses and the
prophets, but Christ and the apostles.

“Ye knew your duty, but ye did it not!

These are the words to which the harps of grief Are strung; and to the chorus of
the damned, The rocks of hell repeat them, evermore;

Loud echoed through the caverns of despair, And poured in thunder on the ear of
Woe.”

There can be little hazard in saying to the reader of this treatise, that he
knows his duty. It is not a thing of yesterday with you, that you have had
access to the Bible, or that you have heard the preaching of the gospel. It has
probably been your high privilege to grow up in the midst of religious
influences, eminently adapted to direct your thoughts and efforts heavenward. So
far from not being instructed in the essential doctrines and duties of
Christianity, these may have been so vividly impressed upon your mind, that it
has more than once cost you a struggle to stifle your convictions, and persist
in your devotion to the world. Should you finally perish, (which may a merciful
God prevent!) this fact cannot fail to impart new energy to every other element
of your misery. It were in that case an unspeakable mitigation, could you be
allowed to take your place at Christ’s bar, with the people of Sodom and
Gomorrah, with the besotted Hindus, or with the ferocious cannibals of the South
Seas. These must suffer; for they abused the light of nature. But nature is to
the written revelation like a twinkling star to the sun; and all who pervert or
neglect the Scriptures, must look for a corresponding retribution. There will be
no wretchedness there, comparable to that of those who persevered through life,
in counting the blood of the covenant an unholy thing, and doing despite to the
Spirit of grace. In the parable already mentioned, Abraham begins his reply to
the lost sinner with a word of most pregnant signification. “Son, remember!”
What unfathomable depths of sorrow are embosomed in this word! In this life you
find it convenient, and therefore easy, to forget much that pertains to your
spiritual well-being. You forget the pious lessons of the nursery. You forget
the beneficent invitations of the Savior. You forget the urgent expostulations
of the sanctuary. You forget the serious meditations of the house of mourning.
You forget the self-reproaches, and anxious prayers, and sacred promises of the
bed of sickness. You forget the purposes of amendment so often formed, and the
strivings of the Spirit so often resisted. But memory will be more faithful to
its trust in that world. There are numerous facts which favor the belief that
nothing once confided to this mysterious faculty is ever lost. Instances have
occurred of persons who have been able to recite long passages of the ancient
classics, many years after they had lost. all knowledge of the language, and of
others who could commit to memory poems of great length in a language they never
learned. There is a well-known case of a female servant who, in a fit of
delirium during sickness, was heard uttering Hebrew words and sentences: a
marvel which was explained when an inquiry into her history brought out the
fact, that she had once lived in the family of a learned German divine, whom she
had heard reading and talking in Hebrew, as she was at work in his library. And
several persons rescued from drowning have testified, that while struggling
under the water, their past lives have come up before them with a vividness and
minuteness of detail, which they could only describe by saying, “It seemed as
though I thought of every thing I had ever said and done, or that had ever
happened to me.” These are fearful intimations as to the constitution of our
being. They give plausibility to the conjecture, that the memory is like a book
written over with sympathetic ink, which appears a blank until exposed to the
fire, and then every page is seen covered with penmanship. Whatever vacuity may
possess the mind of the unrenewed sinner when summoned before the bar of
judgment, it is only necessary for the Judge to touch the secret spring of his
memory, and his buried thoughts will start into being, “like the insects that
come from an ant hill when it is stirred.” And can we doubt that God will do
this? Is it not implied in the statement, that he “shall bring every work into
judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil?"
And are we not warranted in believing, that this transcript of the sinner’s
life, so comprehensive and so graphic as to reveal even his most secret
thoughts, will not merely be spread before him at the 1st day, but kept before
him by a too faithful memory throughout eternity? For myself, I cannot and do
not doubt it. And if it shall prove to be so, with how much reason may we
contend, that those who refused to consider the subject of religion here, will
be compelled to fasten their thoughts upon these unwelcome topics hereafter;
and, most of all, upon the gracious dealings of God with them, and their base
requital of his kindness. The life you have lived here, must be lived over and
over again there. This religious education, these parental counsels. and
prayers, these providential warnings, these tranquil Sabbaths, these convictions
of sin, these anxious forebodings about eternity, these resolutions of
repentance, these secret cries for mercy, this shame of the cross, this fear of
the world, these relapses into sin— all, all will recur hereafter, and continue
to pass and repass before the mind, so long as the mind itself endures. You will
think of God; but it will be as the Psalmist thought of him, “I remembered God,
and was troubled.” You will think of the Bible; but it will be as of a book
which is now sealed against you. You will think of the Savior; but it will be
only to look on him whom you pierced, and whose blood now imprecates vengeance
upon you. You will think of heaven; but it will be with the sad conviction that
it was once within your reach, and is now separated from you by an impassable
gulf. You will think of your Sabbaths; but it will be to reflect that they are
gone forever. You will think of your seasons of religious anxiety; but it will
be to remember, that when you were “almost persuaded to be a Christian,” you
dismissed the subject from your breast, and threw yourself again into the arms
of an ungodly world.

“Wretch that I am!" you may well exclaim, “what shall I do, or whither shall I
flee? I am weighed in the balance, and am found wanting. Oh, that I had never
been instructed in the will of God at all, rather than that, being thus
instructed, I should have disregarded and transgressed it. Would to God I had
been allied to the meanest of the human race, to them that come nearest to the
state of brutes, rather than that I should have had my lot in cultivated life,
amid so many of the improvements of reason, and amid so many of the advantages
of religion too! and thus to have perverted all to my destruction. Who can dwell
in the devouring flames? Who can lie down in the everlasting burnings? But whom
have I to blame in all this but myself? What have I to accuse but my own stupid
and incorrigible folly? On what is all this terrible ruin to be charged, but on
this one fatal cause, that, having broken God’s law, I rejected his gospel too?
And now my doom is sealed, and sealed forever.” (Vide Doddridge’s Rise and
Progress.) Would that I could spare you such a recital as this. It is not of
choice, but of necessity that I present it. I shrink from this topic, the misery
of a lost soul, with a repugnance which is well nigh invincible. There is no
theme so repulsive, so appalling to me; none that I so much dread to speak of.
We are all liable to contract a subtle unbelief on this subject, which derives
shelter and nourishment from our benevolent sympathies. There is something so
horrible, so heart-rending in the thought, that one whom we have known and loved
may pass out of this world into the abodes of the damned, and become the
companion of the devil and his angels for all eternity, that we believe it as
though we believed it not. We drive it away from us. We treat it as a phantom
which must not be allowed to disturb our peace. But is this right? Is it wise?
Is it becoming? Shall we aspire to be more merciful than the God of mercy? Are
we to challenge to ourselves more tenderness than the Savior? And did he avoid
this subject? Did lie refrain from speaking of “the worm that never dies and the
fire that shall never be quenched? It is the awful sanctity and the ineffable
gentleness of his character which impart to his utterance on this topic so
sublime a pathos, so unearthly a solemnity. No mistaken lenity kept him from
proclaiming that there was a hell. Nor did he ever suppress the declaration,
that it is the broad road, in which the mass of the race are walking, that leads
to it. These truths concern us as deeply as they could the generation among whom
he lived. And woe be to us if we deny or dissemble them. Yes, there is a hell.
And every one who is neglecting the great salvation, is in imminent peril of it.
And now, the momentous alternative submitted to the reader is, Will you consider
the subject of religion here, or will you consider it in eternity? One or the
other you must do. You can no more elude it than you can cease to be. If you
decline the examination of the subject here, “in the latter days you shall
consider it perfectly.” Judge for yourself; whether it will not be better,
infinitely better, to give your attention to it now. In this world, religion
contemplates you as a sinner ruined and condemned, but reprieved. It proposes
itself to you as a system of mercy. It comes with the blood of atonement and the
ministry of the Spirit, with pardon, and renewal, and holiness, and peace. It
breathes of penitence and love, of hope and triumph, of a reconciled God and a
glorious heaven. It finds you in circumstances in which you can comply with its
demands, not only without compromising any of your interests, spiritual or
secular, but with decided advantage to them all. It supplies you with every
needful help—with a very profusion of the means of grace. It holds out to you
encouragements and inducements to the performance of your duty, of the most
engaging character. And it crowns all its appeals with a distinct and monitory
exhibition of the fearful consequences which must attend your refusal.

Now, contrast with this, the situation in which you will be compelled to
consider the subject, if it is neglected here. No longer in a world of
probation, but in a world of retribution—the light of the Sun of righteousness,
which is streaming down upon your pathway now, exchanged for the blackness of
darkness—all your domestic ties and social affinities dissolved—all the plans
and occupations which now engross you annihilated—religion presented to you only
in its terrors—the Savior known only in the dreadful anathema denounced against
those who do not love him—the Spirit known only with thç anguish of the sinner
who has sinned away his day of grace—with no Bible to repair to for counsel—no
friend to fly to for sympathy—no God to whom you can cry for mercy—no
employments which can mitigate your desolation—no companions but such as will
increase your wretchedness,—al possible forms and appliances of misery around
you; and, within, the gnawings of the undying worm,—no respite, no peace, no
hope— the remorse which knows no cessation— the despair which knows no ebb! And
all this, forever—forever—FOREVER and EVER! Oh, my fellow-sinner, can you do
this? Can you postpone all serious reflection to such a world? Can you pluck
down upon yourself a ruin so awful, so irretrievable? Say not that this is an
exaggerated picture, adapted only to harrow up the feelings. What pencil can
depict the agonies of a lost soul? If you cannot bear to look upon the canvas,
how could you endure the reality? And why will you run the hazard of it, by
postponing your repentance? “He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck,
shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.” Through the mercy of God,
this doom, which so many others have encountered, has not yet overtaken you. You
are still within sight of the cross. And the Savior still bids you look to him
and live.

“Believe, and take the promised rest;

Obey,—and be forever blest !“


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  CHAPTER 10: 02.7.     WHAT CAN I DO?
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Section VI.

What Can I Do?

I am willing to believe, that among the readers of this book, there may be, here
and there, one upon whom the arguments and appeals presented in the preceding
pages will not have been thrown away. You are at length satisfied, that it is
your duty to attend to the claims of personal religion. But the subject is so
new and strange to you that you know not how to go about it. “I would like to
become a Christian. But what can I do? Tell me just what to do, and I am ready
to follow your directions.” This is your language. If it is uttered in good
faith, (as I, of course, presume it to be,) it is cause for thankfulness. It is
a great point gained, when an individual has been brought by the Spirit of God
to that state of mind, that he is disposed to ask, “What must I do to be saved?”
The answer to this momentous question has been interwoven with the whole texture
of this volume, and, in several places, stated in a formal way. But your desire
for a more particular explanation pf the subject is reasonable, and shall be
complied with, so far as God may enable me to meet your wishes.

Let us first review the plan of salvation. This very phrase, as you will
perceive, directs the mind to our lost condition; for he only who is lost,
requires to be saved. The ruin in which we were overwhelmed by the apostasy of
our first parents, comprises two distinct but inseparable parts or elements:
depravity of heart, and subjection to the penalty of the Divine law. The former
is set forth in such passages as these: “That which is born of the flesh is
flesh.” “By nature, the children of wrath.” “Every imagination of the thought of
man’s heart is only evil continually.” “All have sinned and come short of the
glory of God.” “The carnal mind is enmity against God.” “The heart is deceitful
above all things, and desperately wicked.” (John 3:6, Ephesians 2:3, Genesis
6:5, Romans 3:23, Romans 8:7, Jeremiah 17:9) The other characteristic of our
ruined state is affirmed with equal explicitness. “The wages of sin is death.”
“The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men.” “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things
which are written in the book of the law to do them.” “The soul that sinneth, it
shall die.” (Romans 6:23, Romans 1:18, Galatians 3:10, Ezekiel 18:4) A reference
Bible will direct you to numerous other passages, bearing on each of these
points. The doctrine they teach is, that man is by nature and by practice a
guilty and helpless sinner. His depravity extends to all his powers; his
understanding is darkened; his affections are earthly and grovelling; his will
is rebellious; his con science is enfeebled or perverted, and the whole current
of his being, instead of tending toward his Creator, is alien from God, and
hostile to his character and government. Of course, he is under condemnation.
The sentence of the law has gone out against him, and retributive justice waits
to visit him with its penal curse.

It is evident, (as formerly intimated,) that the only salvation which can meet
the exigencies of a race in this condition, must be of the twofold character of
the misery from which they are to be extricated. To employ a familiar
illustration, the sinner is in the condition of a criminal, who, while under
sentence of death, is attacked with a mortal disease. There are two things which
a man in these circumstances needs, neither of which will avail him any thing
without the other. He may receive a pardon, but he will still die of his malady.
He may be healed of his malady, but he will have to suffer for his crime. He
must be both healed and pardoned, or his life is gone. So with the sinner. Tie
requires to be forgiven, and to be cured of the fatal leprosy of sin.
Forgiveness alone would not fit him for heaven. Neither would spiritual healing.
The two must be combined. And in the economy of redemption they are combined.
One of them is secured in the renewing of the heart by the Holy Spirit; the
other, by the soul’s casting itself upon the Lord Jesus Christ, to be pardoned
and accepted, solely through the merit of his atoning blood and perfect
righteousness.

These themes are the burden of the New Testament. “Except a man be born again,
he cannot se the kingdom of God.” “Of his own will begat he us with the word of
truth.” “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed
away; behold, all things are become new.” “Except ye repent, ye shall all
likewise perish.” “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son,
that whosoever beieveth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
“Christ is the end of the law for righteousness, to every one than believeth.”
“Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.” “For he hath made him to
be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in
him.” “Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto
all, and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference.” “He that
believeth on him is not condemned; but be that believeth not is condemned
already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of
God.” “Holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.” In these and other
passages, it is sometimes regeneration, sometimes justification, and again,
faith, or repentance, or holiness, which is declared to be indispensable to
salvation. All are alike necessary; and are equally included or implied in the
work of the Spirit withjn us, and the work of the Savior without us. In the
statement just made, I have substituted the word “justification” for “pardon” or
“forgiveness,” previously used. The reason is, that man needs more than pardon;
he must be “justified.” When a convict is pardoned, he is simply set free from
the penalty of the law. If his sovereign should also invite him to his palace,
adopt him as a son, exalt him to the highest honors of the realm, and make over
to him a title in perpetuity to his kingdom, it would supply an illustration of
what God is pleased in his infinite mercy to do for every penitent and believing
sinner; and of what, it may be added, must be done in order to his salvation.
(John 3:3. James 1:18. 2 Corinthians 5:17. Luke 13:3. John 3:16. Romans 10:4.
John 6:37. 2 Corinthians 5:21. Romans 3:22. John 3:18. Hebrews 12:14.) But you
will ask, with anxiety, How is this effected? I answer, Through the mediation of
our Lord Jesus Christ. As is clearly set forth in the Scripture testimonies that
have been quoted, our condition by nature was quite hopeless. In so far as any
resources of our own, or of other races of creatures, were concerned, we must
have remained forever under the power of that penal death which is the righteous
penalty of the Divine law. But “where sin abounded, grace hath much more
abounded.” God was pleased, of his mere good pleasure, to send his only-begotten
Son into the world, that we might live through him. Uniting our nature with his
own, Jesus stooped to become our SUBSTITUTE, and to expiate our sins with his
blood. Assuming our law-place, he rendered to the law that obedience which we
had failed to render, and bore that penalty which we had incurred. It was a
fundamental principle of the Divine administration, that “without shedding of
blood, there could be no remission. The shedding of CHRIST’S blood not only
sustained, but “magnified” the law; while it illustrated, beyond any other
measure of which it is possible for the human mind to conceive, the dreadful
evil of sin, and the boundless love, the inflexible justice, and the immaculate
holiness of the Deity. It was as our SURETY he suffered and died. “He bore our
sins in his own body on the tree.” “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for
us.” “Ye are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ.” “Christ hath redeemed
us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” On the efficacy of
this sacrifice there can be no question. It was appointed and accepted by the
Father; and the least consideration of the subject must suffice to show, that
the blood of such a victim has a value sufficient to atone for the sins of
unnumbered worlds, if it were the purpose of God so to apply it.

Here, then, is what every sinner needs, — what you need, — a sacrifice which
takes away sin, and a righteousness which fulfils all the requirements of the
Divine jurisprudence. How can they so become yours as to avail to your
justification? The answer which the Scriptures give to this important question,
is—by FAITH. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; he that
believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.”
“God is just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.” “This is his
commandment, that we should believe on his Son Jesus Christ.” This act is in
other places styled, a looking to Christ, receiving Christ, building on Christ,
and, more commonly, coming to Christ. For all practical purposes, these
expressions may be regarded as equivalent and interchangeable. The sinner,
enlightened by the Spirit and word of God, is made sensible of his depraved and
miserable condition, of his exposure to the Divine displeasure, and of the
worthlessness of his former hopes; and, discovering at the same time the
excellency and sufficiency of CHRIST, he receives and rests upon him alone for
salvation. In other words, he believes the testimony of God concerning his own
sin and ruin. He believes His testimony concerning Jesus Christ, as the
propitiation for our sins, our Ransom, and our suffering and atoning High
Priest. He believes the gracious assurance, that God will save to the uttermost
all who come unto him by Jesus Christ; that none who come shall in any wise be
cast out; that “every one who thirsteth,” yea, that “whosoever will,” even
though he be the chief of sinners, may come to Christ, and shall be made
welcome. This he believes;—not, indeed, without much distrust and many a
conflict; and not, ordinarily, without having tried various fruitless expedients
for obtaining peace of mind. But, in the end, he believes it; and thereupon,
with contrition for his sins, and gratitude for the boundless mercy of God, he
accepts the revealed method of salvation, and trusts ill the merits of Christ as
the foundation of his hope. Relying upon the righteousness of Christ for
acceptance, that righteousness is made over to him or set down to his
account—precisely as our sins were laid upon the Savior. As our Substitute, he
consented to be “made sin for us,” that is, to have our sins visited upon him,
and to be regarded and treated as a sinner in our stead. And his compassionate
design in this was, that “we might be made the righteousness of God in him; to
wit: that his righteousness (his “obedience unto death,” whereby he fully
satisfied the claims of the law) might be so reckoned to our account, that we
should be regarded and treated as righteous; or, in other words, be “justified.”
It is this closing in with the gospel method of salvation, this cordial assent
of the soul to Christ’s invitations, this entire surrender of the heart to him,
not only as a SAVIOR to be trusted in, but as a KING and SOVEREIGN, to be obeyed
and honored, which constitutes true faith. And if you thus believe in Christ,
you will be saved.

“But what,” you may be ready to ask, “becomes of regeneration and repentance.
Are not these also essential to salvation?" They are. But will you recur to the
views presented in a former part of this Treatise, on the nature of the Spirit’s
work upon the heart? This Divine agent, we have reason to believe riot only
presents the truth to the mind, but, in some mysterious maimer, ope rates
directly upon the mind, so as to enable it to apprehend the truth in its just
import. Tie imparts, with the light, the capacity of spiritual vision. (See 1
Corinthians 2:14.) But all this is done without treading upon our free agency.
The sinner acts with as perfect freedom in every stage of his conversion—and in
the entire development and growth of the spiritual man—as he ever did in
rejecting the Saviour, or in prosecuting a secular project. But the Almighty
Spirit is there, gently withdrawing the scales from his eyes, unveiling to him
his real condition, disclosing the majesty of the violated law, the awful
holiness of the Godhead, and the efficacy of the great sacrifice, swaying his
reluctant will, loosening his hold upon the world, and, by degrees, leading him
on, in penitence, and doubt, and anxiety, toward the cross—and, at length, to
the Savior himself. It is while you are “striving to enter in at the strait
gate, and occupied with looking to Christ, and as the cause of your doing this,
that the Spirit is “working in you to will and to do of his good pleasure.” And
it is through the efficacy of his renewing grace that you do, as the first act
of the new life he has imparted to you, open your heart to Jesus of Nazareth,
and cry, “My LORD and my GOD!” The exercises which precede this receiving of
Christ are endlessly diversified. “By the law is the knowledge of sin. “The law
is our school-master to bring us to Christ.” And the “lawwork” (as the old
divines expressed it) is longer or shorter, milder or more pungent, in different
cases. In most of the examples of conversion recorded in the New Testament, it
was of brief duration. Witness the dying thief; the three thousand; the jailer
of Philippi; the Roman converts. (Acts 28:1-31) In some cases, there was intense
anxiety and terror, as with the jailer and the publican. While in others, there
seems. to have been no convulsion of feeling whatever, but an humble and
grateful reception of a crucified Savior as soon as he was made known: to this
class may be referred the instances of the centurion, (Luke 7:1-50) the
Ethiopian eunuch, (Acts 8:1-40) and Lydia, (Acts 16:1-40) The same diversity has
obtained in later times. Luther was a long while groping his way to the cross—no
strange thing certainly, when we consider the circumstances in which he was
placed. This also was the experience of Bunyan, and of that great man, Dr. Owen;
both of whom passed through protracted and painful conflicts. But in numerous
other cases of undoubted conversion, there has been a close resemblance to those
Scriptural examples, in which the soul was drawn to the Savior with cords of
love.

Nothing is more common than for individuals newly aroused to serious reflection,
to insist upon a specific measure of “conviction, as an essential prerequisite
to their coming to Christ. That some degree of conviction is demanded, appears
from the fact, that no one will seek a Savior until he feels himself to be lost.
“They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” But the
precise extent to which this law-work shall be carried in any given case depends
on the sovereignty of God. If Jesus sees fit to send a word, in passing, to the
heart of Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom, which shall instantaneously
transmute him into a disciple; and to consign Saul of Tarsus to three days and
nights of blindness and contrition and remorse; neither may complain—Saul, that
he experienced too much distress, nor Matthew that he experienced too little.
The most intense mental anguish has no merit in it. And the ardent desire for
it, on the part of awakened sinners, frequently springs from a subtle spirit of
self-righteousness—from a feeling that it would in some way recommend them to
the Savior, or move his pity toward them. How fallacious this idea is, might be
seen from the fact that individuals sometimes experience the most torturing
convictions, without being converted. Of what avail were the convictions of
Cain—of Judas—of Felix? Nor is it less important to observe, that the feeling of
which I am now speaking, is derogatory to the Savior. It aims at the securing to
the sinner himself a share in the glory of his salvation. He would come to
Christ with a price in his hand— deeming himself not altogether unworthy of his
clemency, because of his tears and his self-reproaches and his mental anguish.
Distressed and humbled he may well be: if he could see his sins in all their
enormity, his remorse and terror would far exceed any thing he has yet
experienced. But there is no merit in this. It has no efficacy to expiate the
least of his transgressions. It cannot, in the slightest degree, mitigate his
ill-desert. And so long as he trusts in it to make himself less unworthy to be
accepted and saved, it will prove an invincible barrier to Ms coming to Christ
at all. If we are ever saved, it must be by coming to Christ as miserable,
depraved, ruined, and helpless sinners, without righteousness and without
strength, feeling that all the merit must be his, that his blood alone can
cleanse us, and that it is for God, in His wise and holy sovereignty, to decide,
whether we shall be sprinkled with that precious blood, or left to perish. It is
to those who are soothing themselves with a complacent righteousness, which as
often assumes the type just indicated, as any other, he says, “Because thou
knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and
naked, I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be
rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy
nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest
see.

It may be, that amid the variety of topics which offer themselves for
consideration in examining this vital question, you find your mind confused. Let
me say then, that the duty of one who desires, without longer delay, to make his
peace with God, is perfectly simple and plain. It is defined in that expression
so often cited, “COME UNTO ME, and I will give you rest.” You have but this one
thing to do. You need not (now) perplex yourself with inquiring, whether the
Spirit has changed your heart; nor whether your repentance is yet deep enough to
“authorize” you to believe in Christ; nor whether your motives in desiring to be
saved are altogether pure; nor with any thing else pertaining to your own
exercises. Your warrant, your sole warrant, for coming to Christ, is contained
in his word, not in your feelings. It is as much addressed to you as to any
other human being; as much as it was to any one among the myriads who have
appropriated it and found mercy. It is well to examine your heart by the light
of Scripture, to review your life, and to lay to heart the years that have been
spent in impenitence, and the mercies that have been abused; but the exclusive
contemplation of these things will divert your thoughts from the Savior. And it
is in looking to this that the sinner soonest learns to appreciate the evil of
sin, the baseness of his ingratitude, and his infinite obligations to redeeming
mercy. This, in fact, is genuine repentance; the repentance which flows from a
discovery of the divine mercy, in connection with the purity and spirituality of
the moral law. “They shall look upon ME whom they have pierced, and they shall
mourn.” It is when the sinner has been led by the Holy Spirit to the Savior;
when he looks upon him he has pierced, and beholds the Lamb of God which taketh
away the sin of the world, that he abhors himself’, and repents in dust and
ashes. Then it is he sorrows after a godly sort; sorrows, not because he dreads
the punishment of sin, but because he feels the intrinsic evil of sin, and sees
that it has been committed against a God of infinite goodness, who has been all
his life loading him with blessings. Here is the repentance which is unto life;
and it is so far from being restricted, as “inquirers” are apt to suppose, to
the dawn of religion in the soul, that it forms an essential part of the daily
experience of the Christian, until he exchanges his body of sin and death, for
the beatific life of heaven. It should be added, too, that in many cases, as
with President Edwards, Christians experience far more humbling and affecting
discoveries of their deep depravity in after years, than they did at their
conversion.

If these views are correct, the question which now concerns the reader, is, ARE
YOU WILLING TO COME TO CHRIST? Do you see and feel yourself to be, by nature and
by practice, a lost and helpless sinner? Is it your earnest desire and purpose,
God helping you, henceforth to hate aid forsake all sin? Are you ready to give
up the world, that is, the supreme love of the world, and devotion to its
interests, for the love and service of God? Have you seen the insufficiency of
your own morality, of your orthodox creed, your hereditary faith, your
reformation, your contrition, your prayers, your religious observances, to
entitle you to forgiveness, or recommend you to the divine compassion? Are you
prepared to renounce all dependence upon these things, and to cast yourself upon
the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, to be washed from your sins in his blood, to
be justified only through his righteousness, and henceforth to wear his yoke, to
own him as your Lord, and to spend the remainder of your life in his service? If
you can answer these questions in the affirmative, what hinders that you should
now come to Christ, and receive him as your all in all? “Unworthy,” you
doubtless are; but who ever came to Christ, being worthy? The Leeling of
“worthiness” would actually exclude you from his offer: for he “came not to call
the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” If you come to him at all, it must be
just a you are. Here is the way in which you must come; described so well, that
I see not how any uninspired pen could describe it better “Just as I am—without
one plea, But that thy blood was shed for me, And that thou bidd’st me come to
thee—

O Lamb of God, I come!

“Just as I am, and waiting not To rid my soul of one dark blot— To thee, whose
blood can cleanse each spot,—

O Lamb of God, I come!

“Just as I am, though tossed about With many a conflict, many a doubt, Fightings
within, and foes without—

O Lamb of God, I come I “Just as I am—poor, wretched, blind:

Sight, riches, healing of the mind, Yea, all I need in Thee to find,—

O Lamb of God, I come!

“Just as I am, thou wilt receive, Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve,
Because thy promise I believe—

O Lamb of God, I come!

“Just as I am—thy love unknown has broken every barrier down;

Now to be thine, yea, thine alone—

O Lamb of God, I come!”

(I learn through a private channel, that this beautiful Hymn was written by Miss
ELLIOT, of Torquay, England.)

I anticipate the feeling with which some of my readers may listen to this
representation. “I would like to feel thus, but I do not. I am willing to do any
thing which may inspire me with these feelings, and aid me in coming to Christ.
What am I to do ?“ I reply, that the commands of God and his gracious
invitations, call for an immediate compliance. All things are ready. The Savior
bids you look to him, and live. The present is his time: it should be yours.
Such are the uncertainties and perils of life, that a single day’s delay may
transfer this question from a world of hope to a region of despair. I urge you
then to go to Christ “just as you are,” without an hour’s procrastination. But
if you still ask, “What can I do to increase the interest I begin to feel in
this momentous subject, and to assist me in entering upon a Christian life ?“ I
answer, by suggesting again the following things, which you can and should do.

1. You can deliberately make up your mind as to the duty of attending to the
subject of religion at this time. Count the cost of doing it. (Luke 14:25-33.)
And determine, as the grace of God may enable you, whether you will from this
time make it your paramount concern, to seek an interest in the blood of Christ,
and to serve him.

2. You can faithfully exert yourself to put away all known sin. You may be free
from gross vices, but you can not be free from sin. You may be proud, or vain —
ambitious — passionate —petulant — resentful — avaricious — deceitful —
censorious — or addicted to levity and foolish jesting. (“Foolish jesting.” It
is not sufficiently considered, how hostile this habit is to serious reflection.
There are persons who make it their vocation to say witty things. They are
looked to in all companies to make the fun. Like the king’s fool at the ancient
courts, they are expected to turn every thing into ridicule; and, conscious of
their calling, they are perpetually essaying puns and pleasantries. Not to
comment on this practice as a matter of taste, about which opinions might
differ, there cam be no question that it is most unfriendly to religious
thoughtfulness. The individual who is so unfortunate as to be addicted to it,
will find it a great impediment to his salvation. His good purposes will
speedily succumb to his levity; and he may barter his soul for the paltry
reputation of a humorist.) You may have sudden into unworthy practices in your
business. You may be excessively fond of gay amusements, and the frivolities of
fashionable life. You may be chargeable with the habitual desecration of the
Sabbath; at least, in the way of neglecting its ordinances. It is impossible to
cover this ground by an enumeration of specific sins. But take the decalogue,
and, with the assistance of any good exposition, (such as the commentaries and
catechisms supply,) endeavor to discover to what sins you are prone. And,
looking upward for help, begin at once to forsake and watch against them. Many
persons appear to suppose that it will be time enough to put away their sins,
and discharge every known duty, after they shall have become Christians. This is
not the way to be saved. “Turn yourselves, and live ye.” (Ezekiel 18:2.) “Let
the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him
return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he
will abundantly pardon." (Isaiah 55:7) The first thing to be done, is to forsake
your evil way, and even your evil "thoughts." Any unwillingness to do this may
well lead you to distrust your own sincerity in professing a desire to enter
upon a religious life. There is no more decisive characteristic of one who is
really “striving to enter in at the strait gate,” than a careful and humble
watching against all sin, whether in thought, word, or deed.

3. As closely allied to the counsel just given, you can, to a considerable
extent at least, avoid scenes and associations which are hostile to serious
reflection. Religious thoughtfulness is too much an exotic in your breast to
thrive without being sheltered and nurtured. It may be impaired, and possibly
extinguished, by frivolous talking, by gay amusements, by light reading. Nay,
the very shame of the cross, and the stifling of convictions, (Mark 8:38, John
12:42-43,) may efface your impressions.

4. While shunning these adverse influences, you can court those of an opposite
character, which will fortify you in your good purposes, and aid you in your
efforts. Pre-eminent among these are the services of the sanctuary, both on the
Sabbath and during the week. I mention the last because of the repugnance you
may have felt to going to a weekly lecture or prayer-meeting. There is a feeling
on this point among many persons, as irrational as it is pernicious. You
certainly, if you are in earnest in seeking your salvation, will not disparage
these social religious meetings. You will gladly avail yourself of the valuable
assistance you can derive from them in the way of subduing the worldliness of
your spirit, emancipating you from the bondage of things visible and transitory,
and bringing you into a closer fellowship with Christian ordinances and
Christian people. It is well to breathe the atmosphere of a house of prayer. It
is in the sanctuary, too, that God’s truth is published and explained; and there
the omnipotent Spirit most frequently works his miracles of mercy in the
conversion and salvation of sinners.

5. You can devote a portion of every day to the devout reading of the
Scriptures, and other religious books. Of such vital importance is this, that it
would be impossible to insist upon it too strongly. It was by the study of the
Bible he found in the convent of Erfurt, that Luther was gradually led into the
truth, and so, in the end, equipped for the Reformation. The Rev. Thomas Scott,
the Commentator, whose praise is in all the churches, commenced his ministry in
the established Church of England, as a decided Socinian. And it was through the
blessing of God on his private study of the Scriptures, that he became, some
years after, an able expounder and defender of the faith he had once destroyed.
The “FORCE OF TRUTH,” the narrative in which he has portrayed the struggles of
his powerful intellect in escaping from the bondage of error, is one of the most
interesting and instructive books of our Christian literature; aud you would do
well to read it. The radiant career of Mr. Wilberforce as a Christian statesman,
is to be traced, under God, (remotely at least,) to his perusal of the Greek
Testament with his friend, the Rev. Isaac Mimer, as they travelled together from
England to Nice.

These cases, which might easily be multiplied, illustrate the importance of a
diligent study of the Scriptures. The entrance of God’s word giveth light. The
Holy Scriptures “are able to make thee wise unto salvation.” You will not study
them in vain. Let your reading, for the present, be chiefly in the New
Testament, with the book of Psalms. You will probably find it profitable to take
up one of the Gospels, say the Gospel of John, and read it continuously. In
connection with it, read some of the Epistles, say Philippians, Hebrews, 1 Peter
and 1 John; and then other portions, both of the New Testament and the Old. A
judicious Commentary, like Scott or Henry,, may be of essential service to you.
And whether you use a commentary or not, the examination of parallel passages,
as indicated in the reference Bibles, will throw a great deal of light on the
sacred text, and present familiar truth to your mind in new and engaging
aspects. With the reading of the Scriptures, you should have in hand some other
suitable books. I know of none more appropriate than those mentioned in a former
section. To these may be added, the Pilgrim’s Progress, Newton’s Letters, Jay’s
Morning and Evening Exercises, Baxter’s Call, and his Saints’ Rest, Dr. J. W.
Alexander’s Thoughts on Family Worship, James’s Anxious Inquirer, Henry’s
Anxious Inquirer, Memoir of Dr. Gordon, (or the “Christian Philosopher
triumphing over death,”) and the lives of Luther, Bunyan, Henry Martyn,
Wilberforce, Hannah More, Alexander, Payson, Neff, M’Cheyne, and others of
kindred character. Books of this sort will be almost certain to fix your
attention: your mind will be kept in. contact with religion; and the more you
read, the more will your feelings become enlisted in the subject.

6. You can confide your views to some kind and judicious Christian friend—and
with great advantage. This is a point where many stumble. A sinful pride puts
them upon concealing their thought fullness until they shall have become
established in the hope of the gospel: then they mean to lay aside all disguise.
The too common effect of this is, to smother and destroy their seriousness
altogether. You surely have some friend in whom you can trust,—your pastor, if
no one else; and you could not gratify him more than by going to him on such an
errand. Give him the opportunity, and he will explain many things which may
perplex you. He will point out your mistakes and dangers. He will sympathize
with you in your trials and temptations. And although he can do nothing
effectual for you, but simply say, with John the Baptist, “BEHOLD THE LAMB OF
GOD, WHO TAKETH AWAY THE SIN OF THE WORLD!" yet he may do this in such a way as
shall, by the divine blessing, greatly help you in finding the road to the
cross.

7. I waive various other points, to say, in conclusion, you can pray. And pray
you must, if you would be saved. Pray you will, if you are not practising self-
deception. I mention this last, because it must be combined with all the other
duties which have been specified, or they will be nugatory. Without prayer you
can neither put away your sins, nor shun evil associations. Without prayer, the
services of the sanctuary may but harden you; the private study of the Bible
will be dry and repulsive; and the counsels of Christian friendship will fall
upon reluctant ears. We have not the slightest reason to expect that we shall
ever understand the gospel, or ever be renewed, or pardoned, or saved, without
prayer. There is nothing more indispensable; nothing which promises more
affluent returns. it is one of the endearing titles of the Deity, the Hearer of
Prayer. (Psalms 15:2.) We are everywhere exhorted to pray. “Seek ye the Lord
while he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near;”—a command addressed
to those who are immediately told, “Let the wicked forsake his way,” etc.
(Isaiah 55:6-7.) “Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me,
and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall
search for me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:12-13.) “Men ought always to
pray, and not to faint.” “Ask, and it shall be given you.” (See the whole
passage, Matthew 7:7-11. See also Php 4:6. 1 Thessalonians 5:17. Hebrews 4:16.
James 1:5. 1 John 5:14-15.) Among the promises connected with prayer, that of
the Spirit’s influence is pre-eminent. (See Luke 11:13.) As there is no blessing
we so much need, so there is none which is so freely promised. Let this be your
encouragement. The Holy Spirit can do for you all that you require. He can
remove all your difficulties on points of doctrine. He can guide you into the
truth. Tie can resolve all your questions of duty. He can preserve you from
self-deception. He can awaken in your breast an ingenuous sorrow for sin. He can
take away your heart of stone, and give you a heart of flesh. He can unveil to
you the glorious character of the Redeemer, and lead you, a willing and joyful
captive, to his feet. He can transform you into a new creature in Christ Jesus,
make you as holy as you have been corrupt, prepare you for heaven, and bring you
there. Are not these blessings worth praying for?

It is of no avail to say, that you are not yet “good enough” to pray; that your
heart is too callous; that you could not pray with “pure motives;” and that God
would not hear your prayers. All these are the suggestions of pride and
unbelief. It is setting up your own caprices, or, at least, your own
misconceptions, against the clear authority of God. It is impossible for you to
examine the Scripture testimonies on this subject, with any degree of candor,
without perceiving that he has made it the imperative duty of everyone to pray;
and that you have no reason to look for his blessing, except in answer to
prayer. Besides, if the corrupt state of your heart, the selfishness of your
motives, and the ascendency of the world over you, disqualify you for praying,
when are these obstacles to be removed? and how? It is just the case of a sick
man waiting to cure himself, before he sends for a physician. Undoubtedly, it is
that “evil heart of unbelief” which constitutes the grand hinderance to your
salvation, and which makes it impossible for you, not oniy to pray aright, but
to read the Scriptures aright, to hear the preaching of thern gospel aright, or
to d.o any thing else in such a manner as to receive the approval of a holy God.
But what are you to do? Will you shut up your Bible, will you absent yourself
from the sanctuary, will you cease from all further efforts to secure your
salvation, because you are too sinful to do these things as they ought to be
done? You cannot but see the sophistry of this pretext. It is because you are
full of sin, you ought to pray. Pray as the publican did. Pray as the dying
thief did. Pray as the father of the demoniac child did: “Lord, I believe: help
thou mine unbelief.” Pray thus, and continue praying, and you will not pray in
vain. To imagine that you have no right to pray in your present condition, is a
sheer illusion. You have no right to abstain from praying. To suppose that it
could do you no good, is a kindred mistake. Try the experiment. Unfit as you
feel yourself to be for it; conscious that your heart is still selfish and
worldly; ashamed, it may be, to look up to God, and take his name upon your
lips; make the effort. These very impediments only show how much you need to
pray. And it will surprise aild encourage you to find how certainly they will
yield to earnest and habitual prayer.

Such, then, is the answer to your inquiry, “What can I do to become more deeply
interested in religion?”

YOU CAN DELIBERATELY MAKE UP YOUR MIND, AS TO THE DUTY OF ATTENDING TO THE
CLAIMS OF RELIGION.

YOU CAN FAITHFULY EXERT YOURSELF TO PUT AWAY ALL KNOWN SIN.

YOU CAN, TO A CERTAIN EXTENT AVOID SCENES AND ASSOCIATIONS WHICH ARE HOSTILE TO
SERIOUS REFLEC TION YOU CAN COURT SUCH INFLUENCES AS ARE OF AN OPPOSITE
CHARACTER.

YOU CAN DEVOTE A PORTION OF EVERY DAY TO THE DEVOUT READING OF THE SCRIPTURES
AND OTHER RELIGIOUS BOOKS.

YOU CAN CONFIDE YOUR VIEWS TO SOME, KIND AND JUDICIOUS CHRISTIAN FRIEND. AND YOU
CAN PRAY.

All these things you can do. You can persevere in doing them. And you have far
more encouragement to set about the work, than you have to prosecute any secular
scheme or business whatever. Are you willing to make the trial? An eternity of
joy or misery may hang upon your decision. What shall it be? Will you still
neglect the great salvation? Or will you, in humble dependence upon the Spirit
of God for all needful grace, begin at once TO CONSIDER THE SUBJECT OF PERSONAL
RELIGION? The End


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Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/writings-of-henry-a-boardman/
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