On the contrary, deep consciousness of your soul's worth will qualify you for every act of devotion. Godly sorrow for sin will attend confession of it, when lamented as an enemy to your immortal interest. With ardour and importunity you will implore grace and pardon, when their value are felt as inseparably connected with eternal life. Most hearty and lively will be your thanksgiving for spiritual mercies, when they are known to be absolutely necessary to prepare the soul for everlasting felicity, and save it from endless torments. It follows, therefore, that in the same degree as we ought to value a preservative from iniquity, and the only possible incitement to use aright the solemn acts of devotion to which we are called, the worth of the soul must be acknowledged, since, from this acknowledgment alone, both must spring. SUNDAY IIL CHAP. III. On Carefulness to save the Soul THE supreme wisdom of labouring in the first place to save the soul will best appear from comparing this object with those of chief value amongst men. These are beauty, honour, knowledge, and wealth. The lovely form, which so easily captivates the heart of man, and fills the mind which owns it with self-exalting thoughts, little deserves the idolatrous regard it receives. No power on earth can insure it from the waste of time, from the blast of disease, or the untimely stroke of death. The place of honour, or the enchantments of popular applause, are of little worth, because subject to all the caprice of fickle-minded men. How many, once the favourites of their king, the idols of a nation, have lived to see their envied honours wither round them, and their name sink into oblivion, if not contempt! Ambition for literary fame, and acquisition of knowledge, is no less liable to utter disappointment. In one fatal hour a fever or paralytic stroke may disorder your brain, or wipe away from your memory the very traces of all the treasure so carefully committed to its keeping. Thus may you be left a sad survivor of yourself; a mor. tifying spectacle to human pride; a melancholy ir. resistible proof how easily men may rate the attainment even of knowledge in arts and sciences higher than it deserves. If your great aim in life be to command all external advantages, which can minister to vanity or plea D sure, your pursuit is not only low and despicable, but your enjoyment precarious to the last degree. Life itself, the foundation of your joys, is but a vapour that soon vanishes away. Every day we see some opulent sons of industry rooted out of their dwellings, and commanded away into another world, where not a mite of all their gain can follow them. But suppose your affections more laudably engrossed by love of your offspring, whom to neglect would be worse than brutish-yet here you may much exceed all reasonable bounds, and only prepare for yourself insufferable anguish. You are utterly impotent to preserve from fierce disease, or violent death, the beloved image of your own person. When out of your sight, or at a distance, you may, like Sisera's fond mother, chide its delay, and be asking, (prompted by impatient love), why is my son, or daughter, so long in coming? when the all-wise God has been pleased to take away the desire of your eyes with a stroke. Thus it appears from a just survey of every object to which men can give themselves up, how vain it is, when weighed in the balance with a supreme concern for the salvation of the soul. Whatever you can pursue, this excepted, a very degrading circumstance necessarily attends it; it can be no better than an annuity for life, the value of which each succeeding year greatly diminishes, and at the hour of death, the whole must end for ever. On the contrary, if you are only solicitous to save your soul, the unexpected disasters, inevitable disappointments, and sudden death, which scourge and harass the children of this world, will be affecting proofs of the wisdom and unrivalled excellency of your choice. The shame, grief, and rage, so frequent amongst disappointed men, will proclaim you blessed, who, feeling the worth of your soul, seek its eternal welfare, by a constant intercourse with its Creator, Redeemer, and sanctifier. Then you may set at defiance the army of evils, so terrible to all who have their portion here. That army may call forth and try your faith and patience, but hurt your soul it cannot. In every possible circumstance, the wise choice you have made, will at once cover you as armour, and fill you with a hope full of immortality. Are you poor, and despised for being so?. You have examples and prospects before you, more than sufficient to bear up your spirits. You see your own case in the infal. lible history of the saints of God, who were destitute and afflicted, and in that wonderful contrast of mean. ness and grandeur, extreme poverty and immense wealth of soul, the dying Lazarus. With gladness of heart you will confess the deepest distress, and the surest title to glory may for a small moment unite in the same person. In every case were supreme at. tention to the soul's good has taken place, and been manifest in faith and love, poverty, however extreme, afflictions, however long continued, must add both to the weight and brightness of your eternal crown. In sickness, also, the supreme wisdom of caring above all things for the soul shines out with great brightness. For though health be essential to sensitive happiness, and pining disease leaves no enjoy ments to the proud and unbelieving, yet, in this case, all who have sought after the salvation of their soul in God's own appointed way, find sources of consolation sufficient to preserve them from wild impatience, or miserable dejection of mind. Inspired with lively edifying meekness of spirit, they receive the chastisement of their heavenly Father, effectually to purge away still more of the dross which cleaves to their souls. Their spiritual welfare (more prized than health, strength, or natural life) reconciles them to correction, so supremely useful to it. The whole man miserably suffers in time of sickness and pain, when the soul has been despised; when valued, and instructed in divine truth, the inferior part alone feels the pressure. To advance a step farther: Death, the detector of all cheats, and touchstone of true worth, will confirm the excellency of your conduct, in caring above all things for your soul. On the bed of death, the gay, the prosperous, and the noble, who have lived in pleasure upon earth, hang down their heads. Distressing indeed is their situation; so unprepared for their change; the loss all their delights is come upon them; their dissolution can promise them nothing, if it forebode not evil insupportable. To Christians who have felt the worth of their souls, every thing about them wears another aspect. Must they leave this world? It has been already long ago renounced. Must they part with all temporal benefits for ever? How placid the surrender, when the riches of eternity are theirs! No repining, no striving to get a reprieve from the sentence of death, which has been habitually expected to translate their souls to everlasting rest. In fact, abundant proofs have been given in their last hours (when mortal disease left reason unimpaired) by all who have been duly careful to save their souls, of their excellent choice. Those strong lines of Dr. Young's justly describe the happy few, whose souls have been more precious to them than every earthly object. The chamber where the christian meets his fate, Is privileg'd beyond the common walk Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heav'n : God waits not the last moment; no, he owns his friends A lecture silent, but of sovereign power. |