You renounce the God of your fathers, the God of Israel: You are still uncircumcised in heart. Your own conscience bears witness, you in this no more hear Moses and the Prophets, than you do Jesus of Nazareth. 14. From Moses and the Prophets it has been shewn, that your forefathers were "a faithless and stubborn generation; a generation which set not their hearts aright, and whose spirit cleaved not steadfastly unto God." And this you acknowledge yourselves. If you are asked, how is it that the promise is not fulfilled? Seeing the sceptre is long since departed from Judah, why is not Shiloh come? Your usual answer is, "Because of the sins of our fathers, God hath delayed his coming." Have you then reformed from the sins of your fathers? Are you turned unto the Lord your God? Nay, do ye not tread in the same steps? Except that single point of outward idolatry, what abomination did they ever commit, which you have not committed also? Which the generality of you do not commit still, according to your power? If, therefore, the coming of the Messiah was hindered by the sins of your forefathers, then, by the same rule, your continuance therein will hinder his coming to the end of the world. "Brethren, my heart's desire, and prayer to God is," that he would "gather the outcasts of Israel." And I doubt not, but when the fulness of the Gentiles is come in, then all Israel shall be saved. But mean time is there not great cause that ye should say with Daniel, "O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of face, as at this day, to the men of Judah, and unto all Israel. O Lord, we have sinned, we have rebelled against thée, neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God. Yet, O our God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes and behold our desolations: for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies. O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hearken and do! Defer not, for thine own sake; for thy city and thy people that are called by thy name." : 15, I cannot conclude without addressing myself to you also, who do not admit either the Jewish or Christian Revelation. But still you desire to be happy: you own the essential difference between Vice and Virtue and acknowledge, (as did all the wiser Greeks and Romans) that Vice cannot consist with Happiness. You allow, likewise, that gratitude and benevolence, self-knowledge and modesty, mildness, temperance, patience, and generosity, are justly numbered among Virtues; and that ingratitude and malice, enyy and ill-nature, pride, insolence, and vanity, gluttony and luxury, covetousness and discontent, are Vices of the highest kind. Now let us calmly inquire, how far your life is consistent with your principles. You seek happiness. But you find it not. You come no nearer it with all your labours. You are not happier than you were a year ago. Nay, I doubt you are more unhappy. Why is this, but because you look for happiness there, where you own it cannot be found? Indeed, what is there on earth which can long satisfy a man of understanding? His soul is too large for the world he lives in. He wants more room. Estuat infelix angusto limite Mundi, Ut brevibus clausus Gyaris, parvaque Seripho. He has already travelled through all which is called pleasure; diversions and entertainments of every kind. But among these he can find no enjoyment of any depth; they are empty, shallow, superficial things: they pleased for awhile, but the gloss is gone; and now they are dull and tasteless. And what has he next, Only the same things again? For this world affords nothing more. It can supply him with no change. Go, feed again: but it is upon one dish still. Thus, Occidit miseros crambe repetita. Yet what Remedy under the Sun! 16. The sounder judgment, the stronger understanding you have, the sooner you are sated with the world. And the more deeply convinced, all that cometh is vanity; foolish, insipid, nauseous. You see the foibles of men in so much clearer a light, and have the keener sense of the emptiness of life. Here you are, a poor, unsatisfied inhabitant of an unquiet world; turning your weary eyes on this side, and on that side; seeking rest, but finding none. You seem to be out of your place: neither the persons nor things that surround you are such as you want. You have a confused idea of something better than all this; but you know not where to find it. You are always grasping for something which you cannot attain, no, not if you range to the uttermost parts of the earth. But this is not all. You are not only negatively unhappy, as finding nothing whereon to stay the weight of your soul: but positively so, because you are unholy: you are miserable, because you are vicious. Are you not vicious? Are you then full of gratitude to him, who giveth you life, and breath, and all things? Not so; you rather spurn his gifts, and murmur at him that gave them. How often has your heart said, God did not use you well! How often have you questioned either his wisdom or goodness? Was this well done? What kind of gratitude is this? It is the best you are master of. Then take knowledge of yourself. Black ingratitude is rooted in your inmost frame. You can no more love God than you can see him; or than you can be happy without that love. Neither (how much soever you may pique yourself upon it) are you a lover of mankind. Can love and malice consist? Benevolence and envy? O do not put out your own eyes. And are not these horrid tempers in you? Do not you envy one man, and bear malice or ill-will to another I know you call these dispositions by softer names; but names change not the nature of things. You are pained that one should enjoy what you cannot enjoy yourself. Call this what you please, it is rank envy. You are grieved, that a second enjoys even what you have yourself; you rejoice in seeing a third unhappy. Do not flatter yourself: this is malice, venomous malice, and nothing else. And how could you ever think of being happy, with malice and envy in your heart? Just as well might you expect to be at ease, while you held burning coals in your bosom. 17. I intreat you to reflect, whether there are not other inhabitants in your breast, which leave no room for happi ness there. May you not discover, through a thousand disguises, pride? Too high an opinion of yourself? Vanity, thirst of praise, even (who would believe it?) of the applause of knaves and fools? Unevenness or soreness of temper? Proneness to anger or revenge? Peevishness, fretfulness, or pining discontent? Nay, perhaps even covetousness-And did you ever think happiness could dwell with these? Awake out of that senseless dream. Think not of reconciling things incompatible. All these tempers are essential misery. So long as any of these are harboured in your breast, you must be a stranger to inward peace. What avails it you, if there be no other hell? Whenever these fiends are let loose upon you, you will be constrained to own, "Hell is where'er I am myself am hell!" And can the Supreme Being love those tempers, which you yourself abhor in all but yourself? If not, they imply guilt as well as misery. Doubtless they do. Only inquire of your own heart. How often, in the mid career of your vice, have you felt a secret reproof, which you knew not how to bear, and therefore stifled it as soon as possible? 18. And did not even this point at an hereafter! a future state of existence? The more reasonable among you have no doubt of this; you hardly suppose the soul once disengaged, will dwell again in a house of clay. But how will your soul subsist without it? How are you qualified for a separate state? Suppose this earthly covering, this vehicle of organized matter, whereby you hold commerce with the material world, were now to drop off! Now, what would you do in the regions of immortality? You cannot eat or drink there. You cannot indulge either the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, or the pride of life. You love only worldly things; and they are gone, fled as smoke, + driven away for ever. Here is no possibility of sensual enjoyments; and you have a relish for nothing else. O what a separation is this, from all that you hold dear! What a breach is made, never to be healed! But beside this, you are unholy: full of evil tempers: for you did not put off these with the body. You did not leave pride, revenge, malice, envy, discontent, behind you, when you left the world. And now you are no longer cheered by the light of the sun, nor diverted by the various objects: but those dogs of hell are let loose to prey upon your soul, with their whole, unrebated strength. Nor is there any hope, that your spirit will now ever be restored to its original purity: not even that poor hope of a purging fire, so elegantly described by the heathen Poet some ages before the notion was revived among the doctrines of the Romish Church. -Alice tenduntur inanes Suspensæ ad ventos; aliis sub gurgite vasto 19. What a great gulf then is fixed between you and happiness, both in this world and that which is to come! Well may you shudder at the thought! More especially when you are about to enter on that untried state of existence. For what a prospect is this, when you stand on the verge of life, ready to launch out into eternity! What can you then think? You see nothing before you. All is dark and dreary. On the very best supposition, how well may you address your parting soul in the words of dying Adrian: "Poor, little, pretty, fluttering thing, Must we no longer live together? And dost thou prune thy trembling wing, To take thy flight thou know'st not whither? Thy pleasing vein, thy hum'rous folly |