REASONS FOR RECORDING IT. 317 of his power, when he shall come to be GLORIFIED IN HIS SAINTS, and to be ADMIRED IN ALL THEM THAT BELIEVE. I cite this instance, this example, of the atheism of the fashionable world, the beau monde of the aspirations of the millions of mankind, not as a rare case, or an exception, or a monster extraordinary in that doomed sphere, but for a very opposite reason. It is an example of it, an exponent, a specimen, The forms, the degrees, the exterior ornaments, all differ illimitably; as the new juxtapositions, and phases, and beauties of pebbles in the kaleidescope, with its infinite variety of scenic display and the poor glory of its reflecting surfaces, seen in the light of heaven—that is, of the natural sun. But open the instrument, analyze its glories, and discourse with its colored stones and its angular surfaces of glass! So this world, when making for its dupes all the heaven of their being or their ambition! They are like children, dancing, and rampant, under the power of exhilarating gas. They have no reflection, no forecast, no deep conviction, no moral sincerity. They prefer to be deceived, as really as the devil to deceive them. And God, so long insulted and offended, needs only to give them up to their own vanity and impiety, and they become the maddened architects of their own destruction. He has described them fully in his word; warned them honestly and perfectly; and they, in their very folly and infatuation, vindicate the truthfulness of their moral biography as recorded by inspired pens, and precipitate the damnation of their destiny. Let God speak, and let mortals that are immortal hear his own unalterable words But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for THEY ARE FOOLISHNESS TO HIM; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But the things of the devil are his wisdom, his creed, his oracle! A man without revelation, and one with it, who utterly neglects it, are both in this condemned category; 318 PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE. only that the latter is the far guiltier person in the sight of God. Yet, remaining such, they both hate the light; folly is their wisdom, error their truth, and hell at last their common home. Let not the reader indulge a sneer. Hell is a revealed fact. And is it philosophical to care so much for the word and so little for the thing? or is it indeed folly what God says? Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. Men practically feel as if they were both stronger, and especially wiser, than he; and this caustic and terrible irony of the reigning Lord God omnipotent, the only wise God, touches not their sensibilities. If voluntarily stupid in time, however, they shall be involuntarily intelligent and well-informed in eternity. Devils believe and tremble; and they are not atheists at all. Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for WHATSOEVER a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. What a harvest is corruption, for some sowers! and here set in full contrariety and antithesis with salvation, or life everlasting. Do men sow cockle, and expect to reap barley? or darnel, in hope of a crop of wheat? And, continuing in sin and unbelief, do they anticipate heaven as their proper reward? If so, God is not mocked in the end; they are deceived to their own perdition. They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them; if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. When our blessed Redeemer uttered these words, not one letter of the New Testament was written. If, then, the scorners of the former, the neglecters of Moses and the prophets, were so guilty, so inexcusable, so forlorn in their peril, and without all resource in their madness, what shall the end RECAPITULATION OF THE HOPE. 319 be of them that OBEY NOT THE GOSPEL OF GOD? that despise, and atheistically forget, not Moses and the prophets only, but also, with them, as making one great revelation from God, CHRIST, AND THE APOSTLES, AND THE EVANGELISTS? Beside, now ONE is RISEN FROM THE DEAD, and become the first-fruits of them that slept. Hence the crime of such a hope as THAT FASHIONABLE LADY alone could cherish, of her selfish and sin-blinded self. It is the gnomon of all the hope of fashion's dupes and victims, the greatest fools in the universe! a hope compounded of self-deception, habits of alienation from God, sheer infidelity, vanity, presumption, massive ignorance, and the iron-bound folly of all grace-abandoned and incorrigible reprobates. There is no use, and no sense, in touching such "delicate subjects" only with fine. silk or elegant white kid gloves! Enough of all that homicidal kindness. For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE, IF WE NEGLECT SO GREAT SALVATION, which at the first began to be spoken— not by angels, but by their superior and commander, BY THE LORD; confirmed to us by them that heard him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with diverse miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will. In all this, I pray the reader honestly to learn what the hope is of the fashionable world: Disce omnes: * * * * * et crimine ab uno And from one specimen of polish'd crime, Learn all their characters, for hope sublime; Lost in undone eternity and cursed by Heaven in time. The hope of the fashionable and the worldly IF THERE IS ANY HEREAFTER, I SHALL BE SAFE ENOUGH; BECAUSE I NEVER DID ANY THING WRONG, AND I NEVER HAD 320 SOLEMNITY OF SUCH AN EXAMPLE. BUT ONE FAULT IN ALL MY LIFE; AND THAT FAULT CONSISTS SIMPLY IN THIS ALWAYS BEING TOO GOOD AND TOO KIND TO EVERY BODY, as all my friends know and say of me. What need now of the Bible, the Lord's day, the ordinances of public worship, or the practice of true religion? What need even of JESUS CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED? O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord. Quam difficile, quam rarum, ut homo, muliere natus, se ipsum cognoscat!-which we render, or rather paraphrase, in its spiritual, in its religious, in its eternal and divine relations, thus: How difficult the problem, hence how rare, To know one's moral self! t' escape the snare NOTES OMITTED IN THEIR PLACE. Page 38, 11th line from bottom, after word Bruen, "The late Rev. Matthias Bruen, A.M. first Pastor of the Bleecker Street Presbyterian Church, New York." Page 115, 8th line from bottom, after word award, "The Book of the Synod of New York and New Jersey, on the Division of the Pres byterian Church, so well and wisely written by Rev. Dr. Judd, Octo ber, 1852, is the only authority to which I need here refer the reader.' |