76

ETERNAL JOYS OF HOLINESS.

MARCH 9.

Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

"

THE honours of the present life, however they may dazzle an ambitious eye, are precarious and fleeting. Princes who shine in pomp and power, are in a few years obliged to descend from their thrones, lay aside their robes, and resign their sceptres to their successors. But the crown which the Lord the righteous Judge puts upon the head of the conquering christian, fades not away; the kingdom he gives his little flock, is never moved. While daily experience teaches, that sensual pleasures are as transitory as they are unsatisfying, yea, that the most refined enjoyments of the present life have their continual alloys and interruptions, we are assured that the joys of heaven are not only unutterable, but eternal. They who possess them, know that they are perpetual; nor does the most distant suspicion that they will be interdicted or diminished, ever glance upon their happy minds. The sun that lightens that world never goes down, nor is one ray of its glory ever eclipsed by an interposing cloud. The capacities of the saints suffer no decay, nor does the relish for the pure and substantial pleasures of paradise in the least abate. So that when millions of years have rolled away, it may still be truly said of them, that they are but beginning their bliss. The end, the period of the christian's existence here, is to him the commencement of everblessed life.

It ought to give unspeakable consolation to the christian, when he reflects, that the seed which is planted by divine grace shall be preserved by divine power. A gracious God will neither suffer it to be smothered by contending weeds, nor destroyed by the inclemency of this tempestuous climate, till it be transplanted into the milder regions of peace and serenity above.

Philosopers recommend the cultivation and diffusion of the sciences, because they tend to sharpen the faculties of man, and to meliorate his condition in society. With how much geater reason and earnestness shall we recommend the dissemination of "pure and undefiled religion," considering its direct tendency to enlarge the understanding and to fill it with the contemplation of the Deity, to purify and harmonize the passions, to refine the moral sense, to qualify and strengthen for every function in life, to sustain under the pressure of affliction, to afford consolation in sickness, and enable us to triumph in death? What other science can make even a pretension to dethrone oppression, to abolish slavery, to exclude war, to extirpate fraud, to banish violence, to revive the withered blossoms of Paradise? Such are the pretensions and blessings of genuine christianity; and these are real, though itself should even be a fiction; it has accomplished its promises on earth, it therefore will accomplish them in heaven. Here, indeed, its advocate must be reduced to silence; for how shall he display the meaning of those promises how describe dignity so vast, or picture glory so brilliant! how shall language delineate what mind cannot imagine! and where is that mind, among shortsighted and ephemeral creatures, that can penetrate the thick obscure, that can descry the light of Perfect Knowledge, that can feel the glow of Perfect Love, that can inhale the air of Perfect Happinesss!

Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, sa stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved.

We often see infirmity of christian purpose, inconstancy in religious resolutions. The first cause, is, a want of a proper impression of the importance of the christian character. If we deeply felt what the gospel requires us to be, we should need no exhortations to steadfastness in our christian calling. To be pious and holy, in the christian sense, is not simply useful or simply ornamental. It is to us essential. Heaven and God's eternal favour are suspended on it. Yet there are those who feel but imperfectly the controuling and sanctifying influences of religion. Their heart's best affections are given to other objects. Instead of seeking first and chiefly the kingdom of God and his righteousness, they desire to be first rich, then holy; first learned, and then good; first great, then pious they would first exhaust the world, and then they will be ready to turn their affections supremely to heaven. This apostacy

is owing to a want of a profound conviction of the importance of religion.

Another cause of transient resolutions is, an imperfect knowledge of the nature of the christian character. The requirements of the gospel are not studied in their full extent; nor the labour and discouragements patiently estimated. The fabrick of righteousness must be founded on a rock. We must have full, solemn, well-meditated convictions. When a man, by peculiar circumstances, is suddenly awakened to the beauty, value and force of christianity, he resolves to change his course of life; and determines that the shoots of piety shall ever remain green and vigorous. But alas! his too hasty good intentions betray his ignorance of the genuine christian character. All valuable acquisitions are by patient degrees; when therefore we have only indistinct views of religion, our christian resolutions must rest on an insecure basis,

We may

not

Another cause is, want of proper self-knowledge. have sufficiently considered our preparation for our christian profession. We overestimate our strength. We pride ourselves of being able to resist any temptation and perform any labour. Yet from want of humility and true faith, men become victims to those very sins they resolved to escape. If they shun youthful lusts, they are overpowered by the masterless passions of riper years. Thus the cares and vanities of life choke the word; resolution melts, diligence relaxes, religion weeps over its loss, while sin,. with smiles of triumph, spreads out her hundred arms to embrace again the returning slaves of her tyranny.

Another cause is, self-security. It is too common for some, who have prosecuted a successful course of religion, to imagine they have attained perfection and that their failing is an impossibility. They forget that the warfare of a christian lasts for life. Becoming gradually cold, they are at length alienated from God.

Let these dangers teach us seriousness, caution, watchfulness and humility. There is no safety but in righteousness; and every thing must be risked by delay. Be exhorted, sinners, to enter the religious life, and ye, soldiers of the cross, stand fast in the Lord.

They seeing, see not; and hearing, they hear not; neither do they understand.

LEVITY is not censured with sufficient seriousness. It is deemed the harmless or indifferent companion, rather than the insinuating foe. Levity is that cast of mind, which leads men to judge of objects, achievements and emotions by their surface. The inconsiderate man concludes from a hasty glance. It suffices him to see the engaging or disgusting outside of a subject, and he had rather encounter the risk of embracing errour than bestow the pains of investigating truth. His feelings are easily moved, but his sympathies as easily vanish. Nothing touches more than the surface of his heart, whether good or bad impressions. He judges and acts as if important matters were unimportant. Not thoroughly understanding them, the distinctions of inherent turpitude and intrinsic virtue are disregarded. He plays with vice as children sport with firebrands; is facetious with guilt, and treats wisdom as a trifle. So he accounts actions trivial, which are not so. He will giddily entangle himself in any unexplored labyrinth, and run along the most slippery trackless wilds of errour, as if it was the only safe path. Thus he often sacrifices a substantial good to a transient gratification, and lasting advantages to a fleeting gain. He disregards the judgment formed of him by others; and is deaf when you tell him that his conduct is fatal to observing youth. So he deems it a too serious business to weigh maturely the character of others; he therefore hazards an opinion from any passing circumstance, and perhaps disdains today what was revered yesterday.

How fatal is levity to that sedate reflection which all the great affairs of life require; and to those solid principles which reduce conduct to order and consistency. The man of levity is easily seduced to sin. Actuated by the first agreeable sight, he yields, forgetting that the fiend puts on an angel's dress. When affliction comes, upon what has the frivolous man to rest? He has been no friend to himself, he can be no friend to others. He cannot create durable esteem. Considerate men will not adopt him.-Levity is thus attended with the most baneful effects to the individual and to society.

Do you feel a strong propensity to it, collect all your forces against it without delay. Voluntarily impose on yourself laborious works, and pursue them with energy to their accomplishment.-Pass a portion of each day in stillness and meditation. Authorize and intreat your nearest friends to remind and warn you on all occasions and subjects.-Converse with reflecting and serious people, and lastly, sum up a generous ambition, awaken every sentiment of your proper dignity; and remember you are a christian, a man called to discreet action and judicious conversation.

Can laughter feed the immortal mind?

Were spirits of celestial kind

Made for a jest, for sport, for play

1 To wear our time and waste our day?

UNION OF VIRTUES IN JESUS CHRIST.

MARCH 12.

79

Certainly this was a righteous man.—Truly this was the Son of God. JESUS CHRIST is a Saviour to whom we approach without pride, and before whom we are humbled without despair. Both Testaments refer to Jesus Christ; the former as its hope, the latter as its example, and both as their centre. The prophets had the gift of foretelling; but were never foretold themselves: the saints which followed were foretold; but had not the power of foretelling. Jesus Christ both prophesied, and was prophesied of. Jesus Christ, for all mankind; Moses, for a single nation. The Jews were blessed in Abraham: I will bless them that bless thee: But all nations are blessed in Abraham's seed: "A light to lighten the Gentiles." "He has not done so to any nation," says David, speaking of the law. "He has done so to all nations," may we say, speaking of Jesus Christ.

The appearance of Jesus Christ being foretold, his character corresponded to that of a Son of God. His religion may be learned from his life. Not only were the virtues of Christ unaccompanied with their kindred failings, but the most opposite excellencies were found in him in equal perfection. He possessed an elevation of mind, and sublimity in his conception of divine things, such as man never approached to; yet with what facility, what grace, what propriety, what simple beauty, did he adapt his discourses to the ignorant multitude around him! His heart was raised far above this world, and evidently maintained an intimate communion with the Father of spirits; yet he conversed freely with mankind, was often engaged in the tumult of crowds and contention ; and on all occasions maintained a wakeful regard to the wants and wishes, the joys and sorrows, of those around him. Who ever beheld, who ever could have conceived humility so deep, so perfect! His dignity was equal. With what unconquerable energy of soul did he act and endure ! His whole life was passed in labours and privations. He was harrassed, weary, hungry, without a home, despised, defained, forsaken, persecuted; still his constancy was unshaken; and pressing towards the mark of his high calling, he triumphed over the infirmities of nature, defeated the malice and opposition of his enemies, and trampled under his feet the powers of darkness. Surely such lofty and masculine qualities could not be allied to a gentle and tender disposition: the softer virtues could hardly have lived amidst the severity of such continual suffering and conflict ! Yet he wept over Lazarus, he wept over Jerusalem; he pitied the unhappy; he instructed the ignorant ; he healed the sick; he fed the hungry; he bore with all the dulness and contradiction of sinners in the hour of darkness; when himself most needed comfort, he consoled and strengthened those who were about to forsake him in his extremity; from the cross he commanded John to sustain his desolate parent; in death he prayed for his murderers. Truly we may exclaim with the apostle, "Thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel."

Christ came t' assert eternal providence,

And justify the ways of God to man.

80

REQUIREMENTS OF A PROBATIONARY STATE.

MARCH 13.

Do with thy might what thy hands find to do.

IT were in vain to seek to escape from the condition of our place in the dominions of God. A mind of wandering and melancholy thought, impatient of the grievous realities of our state, may at some moments almost breathe the wish that we had been a different order of beings, in another dwelling place than this, and appointed on a different service to the Almighty. In vain! Here still we are, to pass the first part of our existence in a world where it is impossible to be at peace, because there has come into it a mortal enemy to all that live in it. Amidst the darkness that veils from us the state of the universe, we would willingly be persuaded that this our world may be the only region, (except that of penal justice), where the cause of evil is permitted to maintain a contest. Here, perhaps, may be almost its last encampment, where its prolonged power of hostility may be suffered, in order to give a protracted display of the manner of its appointed destruction. Here our lot is cast, on a ground so awfully pre-occupied; a calamitous distinction! but yet a sublime one, if thus we may render to the Eternal King a service of a more arduous kind than it is possible to the inhabitants of any other world than this to render him; and if thus we may be trained, through devotion and conformity to the Celestial Chief in this warfare, to the final attainment of what he has promised, in so many illustrious forms, to him that overcometh. We shall soon leave the region where so much is in rebellion against our God. But we shall go where all that pass from our world must present themselves as from battle, or be denied to mingle in the eternal joys and triumphs of the conquerors.

The great requirement of this probationary state is holiness, in its widest meaning. Assemble therefore together in your ideas the whole of the important transactions you have ever seen; join to them all in which you have ever been engaged; add further, those of all the princes who have ever reigned, or who shall reign in a course of ages. Combine with these the tranquillity or the revolutions of all the states and all the empires in the world; can all these affairs together be of such moment to you as that of reaching your mark, of attaining the prize of your high calling? Will your glory, your riches, your pleasures, descend with you into the tomb? Nothing but your holiness will accompany you after death, nothing but your good works will follow you. Though you may have lived in the most smiling prosperity, no misfortune can be greater than yours, to have lost the celestial crown. But what happiness can equal yours, though you may have failed, in all your temporal prospects, if in the hour of your death, you are found faithful in the work of your salvation.

Let us practically remember, then, that holiness in this life is absolutely necessary to salvation, not only as a means to the end, but, by a nobler kind of necessity, as a part of the end itself. Yea, holiness in this life is such a part of our salvation as a necessary means to make us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in heavenly light and glory. Without holiness we can never see God.