Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

accidents thinks and talks deliberately of repenting hereafter-in fome diftant periodwhen he knows not, and is not yet at leisure to determine-at fome unaffignable time, when he has more leifure and inclination-and in the mean while fits down with much comfort and compofure in the indulgence of his favourite fins.-Unhappy man!-how can you put this palpable cheat upon yourself?

were under his controul,

-Nothing is more uncertain than human life. It is a bubble liable to be broken by the flightest breath. Death lurks in our very frame: the very air we breathe, the food we take in for our fupport, carry along with them the feeds of our diffolution. A thousand dangers furround us: the leaft of them is fufficient to destroy us: the Providence of him, whom you are affronting by your delays, is the cause of your fafety and prefervation. Let him withdraw his influ

influence; and inftantly every vital motion stops, and your life and purposes. are gone together: the fmalleft infect, the flightest stroke of things about you, is fufficient to bring about this fatal event. In the midst of life we are in death; health itself in excess is often our destruction. Look around you, and tell me, what it is you place your confidence upon? Youth is no fecurity; for the young and old die alike: power is no protection; for death arrefts the monarch amidft his guards: greatness is no defence; for it vifits alike the cottage and palace. You eat to fupport life, -that often terminates in a furfeit. You labour in your daily bufinefs- This often overheats you, and a firey fever enfues. Sleep tends to recruit nature but how many close their eyes in this world and open them in another!

We are failing on a tempeftuous fea, in a frail bottom; we see thousands foun

foundering unexpectedly around us, of all states, conditions and ages. If we cannot fee, that we are equally in danger, we are blind beyond expreffion.

[ocr errors]

II. BUT, though we could afcertain the term of our lives, yet it is difficult, fometimes impoffible, to know the extent of the mischief occafioned by our fins.

Now it is an acknowledged truth, that no repentance is complete without reftitution. To repent fuppofes that we wish the act undone, and we can never wish this fincerely, without endeavouring to repair all its fatal confequences. Such offences indeed as relate only to GOD, are fufficiently rectified by fincere contrition and amendment. But these are few in comparison of the number, which

affect the peace and innocence of the world about us. It is not the mere tranfient act, that conftitutes an injury : they are the fatal confequences, which the action has upon your neighbour,

that

that constitute its malignity; and, as long as the confequences continue unrepaired, the injury continues, and your repentance, whatever forrow or pain you feel upon the recollection of the act, is ftill defective.

THIS again being an acknowledged truth, let us examine a few vicious characters, and fee whether the act of reparation be so easy a thing as the finner thinks; if he can be faid indeed to think upon a subject, which he never seriously weighed in his whole life.

SUPPOSE a man, who is not guilty of any vice of immediate ill influence on the world; let him be honest and fair in his dealings, a peaceable neighbour, a kind friend, an affectionate relation ; fuppofe at the fame time, (if it be poffible) that such a man should openly neglect or ridicule the inftitutions of reli-* gion, or even encourage his weaker brethren by his example to think lightly of them. Even this is an offence, which

which cannot be repaired without much recollection and difficulty. Does this man know the number of those, whom he has perverted, whofe principles he has corrupted, whofe zeal he has deftroyed, whofe paffions he has inflamed, and fet loose from the reftraints of religion?

TAKE again a man, who, in the foolish language of the world, is no body's enemy but his own, the drunkard, I mean; whofe vice is fuppofed to terminate in himself; and let us see what confequences, he has to rectify, in order to complete his repentance. Has he no friends or neighbours, who have a right to his unimpaired faculties? Has he no children or wife, that must be turned out to beg the bread of vagrant idlenefs, or to encrease the burden, which the legal provifion brings upon the induftrious? Has he no companions in his riots, whom his perfuafion or example encourages? Have

[ocr errors]
« PoprzedniaDalej »