Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

our senses, yet they are not without perception, however wild and fanciful it be. During the hours of slumber, indeed, the imagination is not unfrequently in full activity-unchastened and unrestricted by the reasoning powers-but roaming ever through scenes the most visionary and extravagant, and engaging in enterprises the most aimless and absurd. Yet, whilst our senses are thus enveloped in the veil of sleep, the strange and fantastic shapes which hover around our pillow, do not appear either revolting or improbable. We are perfectly satisfied, at the time, of the reality of the phantoms we seem to behold, and give ourselves up, as it were, entirely to the influence they do for the moment exercise over us, whether it be for joy or sorrow. Nor is it until the hour of waking comes, that we perceive the emptiness and vanity of those spectral visitations, which so lately beset us with their phantasies.

And does not the state of the unrepentant sinner, but too closely resemble the picture here delineated. Is there not a sleep upon his soul, which palsies every faculty, and shuts out the light of God's grace from his heart. The sun of the gospel sheds its beams of gladness around him, but they bring him no joy, no comfort; the river of life which flows by God's throne, is opened to his view, but it holds out no charm no hope to him. Dreams more vain and deceitful

than ever haunted the slumbers of the night, influence his conduct and direct his course: dreams of some fancied good which will ever elude his grasp; of some happiness which he can never attain. Look at the votary of pleasure or the worshipper of mammon; what is the object of their search, the end of their labours? Are they not pursuing a phantom which is continually fleeing before them? Are they not seeking for happiness, in a path which can lead them only to misery? And remember my brethren, that pleasure and profit are the great snares which beguile men to destruction; and that their fatal influence operates alike on all ranks and classes of mankind. We are all buried in the lethargy of sin, when our hearts are filled with other thoughts than those of piety; when our minds are set on other pursuits than those of godliness. They sleep a fearful sleep, who are guilty of the hideous crimes which the apostle enumerates, and not they only, but those also who entertain no mistrust of themselves, no sense of their own utter unworthiness and depravity, no desire to please God, no hope nor wish for assistance from him. Every man, whose whole soul is not under the influence of grace from above-every man who trusts in the merits of his own righteousness, and hopes to be accepted by the perfection of his own obedience, is in a dream so perilous, that if

he be not roused in time, he will awaken only to the knowledge of his error, when the day of judgment and of vengeance comes.

But lest the name of sleep present no sensation of terror to the sinner's heart, he is exhorted to arise as it were from the dead. Surely, my brethren, this will alarm you. If, in your state of impenitence, you are likened to the dead, that state can be no safe resting-place either for ignorance or indifference. There is something awful in the very thought of dissolution; something that harrows the soul in contemplating the fearful change, which the blighting stroke of the destroyer works upon his victims. How soon does the worm of corruption prey upon the frame, from which the spark of life has vanished. How soon does that body, which was of late so vigorous in its strength, so proud in its health and manhood, become a dark and festering mass of decay and ruin. And this, my brethren, is an exact, though most appalling illustration of the state of the sinner in his impenitence. The mouldering and loathsome tenant of the charnel-house, is not so foul and offensive to our sight, as the sinner is in the sight of God, before his heart is softened, and his soul moved to remorse and contrition. This reflection may well make the most hardened pause for a moment, and consider what must be the consequences to himself, if he continue

thus to be an object of divine displeasure. If he has any doubts of the light in which God regards his unrepentant and careless servants, let him unfold the blessed revelations of his will, and he will find that such as turn not unto the Lord, with all their heart and with all their soul, are regarded as his enemies, and become, in consequence, the objects of his abhorrence and fiery indignation. He will see that, whilst any unacknowledged sin lurks in his heart, any evil habit is indulged in; whilst he does not feel the weakness and infirmity of his own nature, and anxiously desire to forsake his errors and withstand the temptations which beset him, he lives as it were in death, and becomes a prey to corruption whilst the pulse is warm and the grave untenanted.

This, then, is the condition of every wanderer from the path of holiness. The profligate and the dissolute of every class and kind, and not they alone, but the careless, the negligent, the self-righteous also, are in this miserable state of blindness and despair. From this fearful sleep, then, from this worse than death, the apostle calls upon you all to awaken. He bids you arise, he exhorts you to forsake the sins which bow your souls to the dust, and to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. Will you obey his call? Will you shake off the unholy slumber, which the charms of the tempter

have thrown around your senses? Will you burst the iron barriers of that living sepulchre of sin, in which your souls are now bound? Have you the wish, the desire to do so? Does the dread of God's displeasure sit heavy upon your spirit? Does the blessing of his favour seem pleasant in your eyes? But how can you flee from the one, or how will you obtain the other? Where God reigns, all is holiness, and happiness, and joy; and how, think you, may suppliants so polluted, so desperately wicked, hope for an entrance there? Who will give when you ask? Who will open when you knock? Who will give pardon when you seek for mercy? Jesus the Redeemer: the Lamb that was slain, will unfold the everlasting gates, and unbar the eternal doors. He died once for you; he rose again from the dead; and if you come to him, if you believe in his name, if you ask for forgiveness only in his merits, he will awaken you from sleep, he will raise you from the chambers of the dead. But you must trust in him. He sits in heaven, on the right hand of the Father's glory, to mediate for those who feel their need of a mediator; to cleanse from their sins those whose hearts are humbled and penitent; to shed the blessing of his Spirit, on all who sincerely desire to be so sanctified and so directed. This is the light which Jesus gives; and thus are they illumined who believe and

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »