and temporal-because this world, all it contains, is unlike his soul, material and perishing, and there is not among its wide range of objects, its possibilities of good, what can impart genuine and permanent happiness. "The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing," and the earth-born passions of our nature-the passions of sensuality, avarice and ambitionare never satisfied by indulgence. Rest, then, is not here, and we should not suppose that it is here. The finding of it here should be laid entirely out of our account. We should no more presume to find a suitable portion for our immortal spirits amidst these shadows of time, this earth, smitten with barrenness, because of sin, this world of disappointments, losses and distresses, of sick beds and of graves--we should no more seek for rest in such a place as this, for that spirit which the inspiration of the Almighty gave, than we should seek for snow in the bosom of the sun! The world was not intended to be our rest-is not fit to be our rest-cannot be our rest-and the sooner we abandon all hope of making it our rest, the better. "Arise and depart, for this is not your rest." 2. Again. If this world is not our rest, then we should guard against whatever has a tendency to induce us to rest in it. We have said that there was a strong propensity in our lapsed natures, not to admit, or, if we admit, not to remember, that earth furnishes no adequate good for the soul. We have said, too, that there were not a few objects here, which made many fair promises to this effect, held out enticing baits for us to seize, and which would draw us to trust in them and rest in them as the foundation of our happiness. But if they are false-as they are, for history says they are, and observation says they are, and experience says they are, and God says they are-if their pretensions are empty-if they "lead to bewilder, and dazzle to blind"-then we should shun them, and set a watch against them; since to believe them, to trust them, to take them to our hearts, is to embrace a phantom, and practice upon ourselves a delusion. Hence when business entices us, and pleasure entices us, and riches entice us, and offices and honors entice us, and gay associates entice us-to rest in them, claiming that they have what we want, and can give what we want, what our desires demand, what the strength of our mounting aspirations call for-we should say, no, vain comforters are ye all; my immortal part craves something different, something more substantial; I am an incarnate spirit--not corporeal alone, but spiritual alsoand my illimitable mind, my ardent affections, my excursive imaginations, my thoughts that wander through eternity, embracing ages in their sweep-need a good, more immense than any creature, or all finite creatures can bestow. To that degree in which we are unwatchful, and allow ourselves to be entangled in the objects of sense and time-allow them to invite and fix upon themselves our affections-to that degree are we imposed upon, and forget our true resting place. 3. Again. If the foregoing considerations have weight, they teach us to interpret aright, afflictive dispensations of Providence. Their voice is but an echo of the words, "Arise ye and depart, for this is not your rest." God knows how prone we are to lay up treasure here, and has, mercifully to us, made the things of earth insufficient and empty, that we may not take up with them, and seek nothing nobler and more satisfactory. Upon all objects and acquisitions here he has impressed vanity, that their very incapacity to satisfy, their failure to fill the heart, may cause them to be relinquished, and something more excellent have the soul's choice. There is poetry and truth in those lines of that quaint poet Herbert. "When God," says he "When God at first made man, Having a fount of blessings standing by, "So strength first made a way; Then beauty flowed; then wisdom, honor, pleasure; Perceiving, that alone, of all his treasure, Rest, in the bottom lay. "For if I should, said he, Bestow this jewel also on my creature, "Yet let him keep the others, But keep them with repining restlessness; That just expresses it. "If goodness lead him not, yet weari ness may toss him to my breast." God has stamped an incapacity on the things of earth, to satisfy the panting heart of manhas infused into them all an element of disquietude, that man, in his dissatisfaction with these things, his thirst for something more substantial, may come to the bosom of that God from which he has wandered. "When created comforts are embittered, or their sources dry up; when friends prove treacherous or cease to be; when pecuniary resources fly away or melt away; when earthly hopes are nipped in the bud, or blighted in the flower; God says to us, seek not repose under these decaying gourds of the world, but come under the tree of life-let me cover you with my feathers, and trust under my wings." And this is the secret of all afflictive dispensations of Providence. They came not because Jehovah delights to send them-not because "he willingly afflicts and grieves the children of men," but they come, that men may disrelish the world, be tired of it, sit loose to it, and arise and depart from it. His voice to every mourner, to every disappointed smitten one, is, "Arise ye and depart, for this is not your rest." Afflicted hearer, this is God's language to you. Have you been called to close the eyes of a deceased parent, a beloved father or mother? has a wife or husband dear to you as your own self, been taken away from your side? has a smiling babe been torn from your arms, and consigned to the narrow house? has the strong son or fond daughter whom had relied you and comfort of your age, upon as the prop been suddenly stricken down? have you any such tale of grief to tell, or any kindred tale of hopes blasted, plans frustrated, and purposes broken off;-God's voice to you in these afflictions was, "Arise and depart, for this is not your rest, because it is polluted." He smote these comforts, to show you their vanity; he crushed these reeds on which you leaned, that you might substitute for them a rock; he broke these cisterns, that you might draw from the everlasting spring; he dashed down these fabrics of your hopes to teach, that "he builds too low, who builds beneath the skies." Yes, and a mercy it is for man that it is so, to recal his wandering affections to a forgotten God. He disturbs our rest here, that we may seek rest elsewhere; "makes earth appear to us like a desert, that our eyes may be raised with delight to the glories of heaven; as, on the barren plains of Arabia, the way-worn pilgrim looks above the desolate earth, and gazes, with solemn, silent rapture, on the lights of the firmament." Hence, 4. Again. If this world is not our rest, then we should "set our affections on things above," and find our rest in God. Though rest is not in the creature, it is in the Creator. Though we travel over the globe and inquire after rest in vain, weary ourselves for very vanity; to the interrogatory, Who will show us any good? a voice from the throne of Jehovah replies, "Acquaint thyself with me, and be at peace." If what the spirit needs is something spiritual, that something is in God, who is a pure spirit. If what the spirit needs is something vast and immense, commensurate with its own expanded and expanding powers, that something is in God, of whom alone infinity is predicable. If what the spirit needs is something enduring, something permanent, something that stretches beyond the grave and beyond time, that something is in the everlasting one, in whose perfections are opened fields of joy where the soul can expatiate to all eternity. He has been "the dwelling-place of his people in all generations," and will be through ceaseless ages, affording them a su preme good in the perpetual effluxes of his holiness and love. Our affections then, should be "set on things above, not on things on the earth." Failure here should lead us there; and vexed with the sins, burdened with the labors, harrassed by the temptations, and pained with the distresses of earth, we should go to God-the God of all consolation--and say, "whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none on earth whom I desire besides thee." "My flesh, and my heart, and the world faileth, but thou art the strength of my heart, and my portion forever." Such should be our convictions, such our feelings, such our conduct. Such is the work of righteousness; and "the work of righteousness," says Isaiah, "shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever." Finally. If the present is not our rest, was not designed, is not fitted to be our rest-then we see the infatuation and guilt of those who are taking up with it as their portion. They are infatuated, for they are in the eager pursuit of what they will never obtain-searching for a substance among shadows; and they are guilty, for all the time they are engaged in this pursuit, God tells them that "the friendship of the world is enmity with him;" that the world is polluted, and destructive to those who fix upon it their hearts. My dear hearers, ye thoughtless, giddy throng, who, wrapped in the delusions of sense and of time, are seeking a portion and rest for your souls here below, believe me when I say, that you will never find on this earth what you are sighing for and striv ing for. It is not here, and it is folly to look for it here. Travellers on the wide and desert wastes of Africa inform us of a curious spectral illusion there, the mirage, which spreads before them tempting views of fertility and beauty, which delude the eye and cheat the heart. Such a mirage is rest to the pilgrim in this world. Though he has it not now, it is seemingly before him, and he is pursuing after it. But it recedes as he approaches-is never reached-is never a reality. It is a naked assumption that it is here. It is not here. "Arise and depart, for this is not your rest." But if the consideration that your pursuit is vain, will not deter you from it, then believe me further when I say, that the world, unless renounced, will destroy your soul. "It will destroy you, even with a sore destruction." The world--all it containsis destined to be destroyed; for the earth and all things therein are to be burned up. But his destruction, who in defiance of reason, truth, and his Maker's commands, cleaves to it, is a sorer destruction than that with which materialism is visited, for his is the torture of everlasting fire, and the corroding of the neverdying worm. SERMON DCXXXIV. BY REV. OWEN STREET, ANSONIA, CT. YOUTH THE MOST HOPEFUL SEASON WITH COMMUNITIES.* "When thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldst, but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldst not."-JOHN xxi. 18. THIS was said to Peter; and if we may judge from his manhood, well does it tell the tale of his early life. Of few, can it be said, with more emphasis than of him, that a capricious and headstrong will controlled the activities of that period with which his written history begins. He was ardent, rash, self-reliant, and impulsive; the master of his own powers, the contriver of his own doings, the architect of his own destiny. But time brought on a period when all this was different. His motion was slow; his efforts were inefficient and weak; he was dependent on others, and more at their disposal than his own. The buoyant and elastic step was no more; he walked not whither he would; at the command of others, he stretched forth his hands; he was attired as they pleased; he was dragged to the tribunal of the persecutor, and the death of the cross. This passage, which gives us, as it were, at one bold dash, so much of the character and history of the great apostle of the circumcision, presents at the same time an affecting view of the contrast between youth and age as seen in the ordinary experience of man. The one is endowed with an activity, a versatile energy, a self-confident and animating hope, that belongs not to the other. It looks upon the future as its own. It counts upon the opportunity and the power of molding its own destiny — of working out a character and filling up a history that shall accord with its own preferences. The other looks upon character and habits as already stereotyped, and upon destiny as determined—— as almost completed. I. Something like the youth, the manhood, and the decay, which make up the sum of human life, is seen in the history of nations and communities of men. They have, too, their period of birth; a time when they begin to be; a time that denies them a past, and makes the future everything to them; a time when instead of memories, they have hopes; instead of history, pro Preached in a youthful village at the West. |
