As a thoughtful observer looks abroad over society, he sees a very interesting cla.s.s who are not far from the kingdom of G.o.d; who, nevertheless, are not _within_ that kingdom, and who, therefore, if they remain where they are, are as certainly lost as if they were at an infinite distance from the kingdom. The homely proverb applies to them: "A miss is as good as a mile." They are those who suppose that elevated moral sentiments, an aesthetic pleasure in n.o.ble acts or n.o.ble truths, a glow and enthusiasm of the soul at the sight or the recital of examples of Christian virtue and Christian grace, a disgust at the gross and repulsive forms and aspects of sin,--that such merely intellectual and aesthetic experiences as these are piety itself. All these may be in the soul, without any G.o.dly sorrow over sin, any cordial trust in Christ"s blood, any self-abas.e.m.e.nt before G.o.d, any daily conflict with indwelling corruption, any daily cross-bearing and toil for Christ"s dear sake.
These latter, const.i.tute the essence of the Christian experience, and without them that whole range of elevated sentiments and amiable qualities, to which we have alluded, only ministers to the condemnation instead of the salvation of the soul. For, the question of the text comes home with solemn force, to all such persons. "Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking of the law, dishonorest thou G.o.d?" If the beauty of virtue, and the grandeur of truth, and the sublimity of invisible things, have been able to make such an impression upon your intellects, and your tastes,--upon that part of your const.i.tution which is fixed and stationary, which responds organically to such objects, and which is not the seat of moral character,--then why is there not a corresponding influence and impression made by them upon your heart? If you can admire and praise them, in this style, why do you not _love_ them? Why is it, that when the character of Christ bows your intellect, it does not bend your will, and sway your affections? Must there not be an inveterate opposition and resistance in the _heart_? in the heart which can refuse submission to such high claims, when so distinctly seen?
in the heart which can refuse to take the yoke, and learn of a Teacher who has already made such an impression upon the conscience and the understanding?
The human heart is, as the prophet affirms, _desperately_ wicked, _desperately_ selfish. And perhaps its self-love is never more plainly seen, than in such instances as those of that moral and cultivated young man mentioned in the Gospel, and that cla.s.s in modern society who correspond to him. Nowhere is the difference between the approbation of goodness, and the love of it, more apparent. In these instances the approbation is of a high order. It is refined and sublimated by culture and taste. It is not stained by the temptations of low life, and gross sin. If there ever could be a case, in which the intellectual approbation of goodness would develop and pa.s.s over into the affectionate and hearty love of it, we should expect to find it here. But it is not found. The young man goes away,--sorrowful indeed,--but he goes away from the Redeemer of the world, _never to return_. The amiable, the educated, the refined, pa.s.s on from year to year, and, so far as the evangelic sorrow, and the evangelic faith are concerned, like the dying Beaufort depart to judgment making no sign. We hear their praises of Christian men, and Christian graces, and Christian actions; we enjoy the grand and swelling sentiments with which, perhaps, they enrich the common literature of the world; but we never hear them cry: "G.o.d be merciful to me a sinner; O Lamb of G.o.d, that takest away the sin of the world, grant me thy peace; Thou, O G.o.d, art the strength of my heart, and my portion forever."
3. In the third place, it follows from this subject, that in order to holiness in man there must be a change in his _heart and will_. If our a.n.a.lysis is correct, no possible modification of either his conscience, or his intellect, would produce holiness. Holiness is an affection of the heart, and an inclination of the will. It is the love and practice of goodness, and not the mere approbation and admiration of it. Now, suppose that the conscience should be stimulated to the utmost, and remorse should be produced until it filled the soul to overflowing, would there be in this any of that gentle and blessed affection for G.o.d and goodness, that heartfelt love of them, which is the essence of religion? Or, suppose that the intellect merely were impressed by the truth, and very clear perceptions of the Christian system and of the character and claims of its Author were imparted, would the result be any different? If the _heart_ and _will_ were unaffected; if the influences and impressions were limited merely to the conscience and the understanding; would not the seat of the difficulty still be untouched? The command is not: "Give me thy conscience," but, "Give me thy _heart_."
Hence, that regeneration of which our Lord speaks in his discourse with Nicodemus is not a radical change of the conscience, but of the _will_ and _affections_. We have already seen that the conscience cannot undergo a radical change. It can never be made to approve what it once condemned, and to condemn what it once approved. It is the stationary legislative faculty, and is, of necessity, always upon the side of law and of G.o.d.
Hence, the apostle Paul sought to commend the truth which he preached, to every man"s conscience, knowing that every man"s conscience was with him.
The conscience, therefore, does not need to be converted, that is to say, made opposite to what it is. It is indeed greatly stimulated, and rendered vastly more energetic, by the regeneration of the heart; but this is not radically to alter it. This is to develop and educate the conscience; and when holiness is implanted in the will and affections, by the grace of the Spirit, we find that both the conscience and understanding are wonderfully unfolded and strengthened. But they undergo no revolution or conversion. The judgments of the conscience are the same after regeneration, that they were before; only more positive and emphatic. The convictions of the understanding continue, as before, to be upon the side of truth; only they are more clear and powerful.
The radical change, therefore, must be wrought in the heart and will.
These are capable of revolutions and radical changes. They can apostatise in Adam, and be regenerated in Christ. They are not immovably fixed and settled, by their const.i.tutional structure, in only one way. They have once turned from holiness to sin; and now they must be turned back again from sin to holiness. They must become exactly contrary to what they now are. The heart must love what it now hates, and must hate what it now loves. The will must incline to what it now disinclines, and disincline to what it now inclines. But this is a radical change, a total change, an entire revolution. If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature, in his will and affections, in his inclination and disposition. While, therefore, the conscience must continue to give the same old everlasting testimony as before, and never reverse its judgments in the least, the affections and will, the pliant, elastic, plastic part of man, the seat of vitality, of emotion, the seat of character, the fountain out of which proceed the evil thoughts or the good thoughts,--this executive, emotive, responsible part of man, must be reversed, converted, radically changed into its own contrary.
So long, therefore, as this change remains to be effected in an individual, there is and can be no _holiness_ within him,--none of that holiness without which no man can see the Lord. There may be within him a very active and reproaching conscience; there may be intellectual orthodoxy and correctness in religious convictions; he may cherish elevated moral sentiments, and many attractive qualities springing out of a cultivated taste and a jealous self-respect may appear in his character; but unless he _loves_ G.o.d and man out of a pure heart fervently, and unless his will is entirely and sweetly submissive to the Divine will, so that he can say: "Father not my will, but thine be done,"
he is still a natural man. He is still dest.i.tute of the spiritual mind, and to him it must be said, as it was to Nicodemus: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of G.o.d." The most important side of his being is still alienated from G.o.d. The heart with its affections; the will with its immense energies,--the entire active and emotive portions of his nature,--are still earthly, unsubmissive, selfish, and sinful.
4. In the fourth, and last place, we see from this subject _the necessity of the operation of the Holy Spirit, in order to holiness in man_.
There is no part of man"s complex being which is less under his own control, than his own will, and his own affections. This he discovers, as soon as he attempts to _convert_ them; as soon as he tries to produce a radical change in them. Let a man whose will, from centre to circ.u.mference, is set upon self and the world, attempt to reverse it, and set it with the same strength and energy upon G.o.d and heaven, and he will know that his will is too strong for him, and that he cannot overcome himself. Let a man whose affections cleave like those of Dives to earthly good, and find their sole enjoyment in earthly pleasures, attempt to change them into their own contraries, so that they shall cleave to G.o.d, and take a real delight in heavenly things,--let a carnal man try to revolutionize himself into a spiritual man,--and he will discover that the affections and feelings of his heart are beyond his control. And the reason of this is plain. The affections and will of a man show what he _loves_, and what he is _inclined_ to. A sinful man cannot, therefore, overcome his sinful love and inclination, because he cannot _make a beginning_. The instant he attempts to love G.o.d, he finds his love of himself in the way. This new love for a new object, which he proposes to originate within himself, is prevented by an old love, which already has possession. This new inclination to heaven and Divine things is precluded by an old inclination, very strong and very set, to earth and earthly things. There is therefore no _starting-point,_ in this affair of self-conversion. He proposes, and he tries, to think a holy thought, but there is a sinful thought already in the mind. He attempts to start out a Christian grace,--say the grace of humility,--but the feeling of pride already stands in the way, and, what is more, remains in the way. He tries to generate that supreme love of G.o.d, of which he has heard so much, but the supreme love of himself is ahead of him, and occupies the whole ground. In short, he is baffled at every point in this attempt radically to change his own heart and will, because at every point this heart and will are already committed and determined. Go down as low as he pleases, he finds sin,--_love_ of sin, and _inclination_ to sin. He never reaches a point where these cease; and therefore never reaches a point where he can begin a new love, and a new inclination. The late Mr.
Webster was once engaged in a law case, in which he had to meet, upon the opposing side, the subtle and strong understanding of Jeremiah Mason. In one of his conferences with his a.s.sociate counsel, a difficult point to be managed came to view. After some discussion, without satisfactory results, respecting the best method of handling the difficulty, one of his a.s.sociates suggested that the point might after all, escape the notice of the opposing counsel. To this, Mr. Webster replied: "Not so; go down as deep as you will, you will find Jeremiah Mason below you."
Precisely so in the case of which we are speaking. Go down as low as you please into your heart and will, you will find your _self_ below you; you will find sin not only lying at the door, but lying in the way. If you move in the line of your feelings and affections, you will find earthly feelings and affections ever below you. If you move in the line of your choice and inclination, you will find a sinful choice and inclination ever below you. In chasing your sin through the avenues of your fallen and corrupt soul, you are chasing your horizon; in trying to get clear of it by your own isolated and independent strength, you are attempting (to use the ill.u.s.tration of Goethe, who however employed it for a false purpose) to jump off your own shadow.
This, then, is the reason why the heart and will of a sinful man are so entirely beyond his own control. They are _preoccupied_ and _predetermined_, and therefore he cannot make a beginning in the direction of holiness. If he attempts to put forth a holy determination, he finds a sinful one already made and making,--and this determination is _his_ determination, unforced, responsible and guilty. If he tries to start out a holy emotion, he finds a sinful emotion already beating and rankling,--and this emotion is _his_ emotion, unforced, responsible, and guilty. There is no physical necessity resting upon him. Nothing but this love of sin and inclination to self stands in the way of a supreme love of G.o.d and holiness; but _it stands in the way._ Nothing but the sinful affection of the heart prevents a man from exercising a holy affection; but _it prevents him effectually_. An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit; a sinful love and inclination cannot convert itself into a holy love and inclination; Satan cannot cast out Satan.
There is need therefore of a Divine operation to renew, to radically change, the heart and will. If they cannot renew themselves, they must _be_ renewed; and there is no power that can reach them but that mysterious energy of the Holy Spirit which like the wind bloweth where it listeth, and we hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. The condition of the human heart is utterly hopeless, were it not for the promised influences of the Holy Ghost to regenerate it.
There are many reflections suggested by this subject; for it has a wide reach, and would carry us over vast theological s.p.a.ces, should we attempt to exhaust it. We close with the single remark, that it should be man"s first and great aim _to obtain the new heart_. Let him seek this first of all, and all things else will be added unto him. It matters not how active your conscience may be, how clear and accurate your intellectual convictions of truth may be, how elevated may be your moral sentiments and your admiration of virtue, if you are dest.i.tute of an _evangelical experience_. Of what value will all these be in the day of judgment, if you have never sorrowed for sin, never appropriated the atonement for sin, and never been inwardly sanctified? Our Lord says to every man: "Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and its fruit corrupt." The _tree itself_ must be made good.
The heart and will themselves must be renewed. These are the root and stock into which everything else is grafted; and so long as they remain in their apostate natural condition, the man is sinful and lost, do what else he may. It is indeed true, that such a change as this is beyond your power to accomplish. With man it is impossible; but with G.o.d it is a possibility, and a reality. It has actually been wrought in thousands of wills, as stubborn as yours; in millions of hearts, as worldly and selfish as yours. We commend you, therefore, to the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit. We remind you, that He is able to renovate and sweetly incline the obstinate will, to soften and spiritualize the flinty heart. He saith: "I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you an heart of flesh; that ye may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your G.o.d." Do not listen to these declarations and promises of G.o.d supinely; but arise and earnestly _plead_ them. Take words upon your lips, and go before G.o.d. Say unto Him: "I am the clay, be _thou_ the potter. Behold thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden parts _thou_ shalt make me to know wisdom. I will run in the way of thy commandments, when _thou_ shalt enlarge my heart. Create within me a clean heart, O G.o.d, and renew within me a right spirit." _Seek_ for the new heart. _Ask_ for the new heart. _Knock_ for the new heart. "For, if ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him." And in giving the Holy Spirit, He gives the new heart, with all that is included in it, and all that issues from it.
[Footnote 1: See, upon this whole subject of conscience as distinguished from will, and of amiable instincts as distinguished from holiness, the profound and discriminating views of EDWARDS: The Nature of Virtue, Chapters v. vi. vii.]
[Footnote 2: Compare, on this distinction, the AUTHOR"S" Discourses and Essays, p. 284 sq.]
[Footnote 3: The reader will recall the celebrated panegyric upon Christ by Rousseau.]
THE USE OF FEAR IN RELIGION.
PROVERBS ix. 10.--"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Luke xii. 4, 5.--"And I say unto you, my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into h.e.l.l; yea, I say unto you, Fear him."
The place which the feeling of fear ought to hold in the religious experience of mankind is variously a.s.signed. Theories of religion are continually pa.s.sing from one extreme to another, according as they magnify or disparage this emotion. Some theological schools are distinguished for their severity, and others for their sentimentalism.
Some doctrinal systems fail to grasp the mercy of G.o.d with as much vigor and energy as they do the Divine justice, while others melt down everything that is scriptural and self-consistent, and flow along vaguely in an inundation of unprincipled emotions and sensibilities.
The same fact meets us in the experience of the individual. We either fear too much, or too little. Having obtained glimpses of the Divine compa.s.sion, how p.r.o.ne is the human heart to become indolent and self-indulgent, and to relax something of that earnest effort with which it had begun to pluck out the offending right eye. Or, having felt the power of the Divine anger; having obtained clear conceptions of the intense aversion of G.o.d towards moral evil; even the child of G.o.d sometimes lives under a cloud, because he does not dare to make a right use of this needed and salutary impression, and pa.s.s back to that confiding trust in the Divine pity which is his privilege and his birth-right, as one who has been sprinkled with atoning blood.
It is plain, from the texts of Scripture placed at the head of this discourse, that the feeling and principle of fear is a legitimate one.[1]
In these words of G.o.d himself, we are taught that it is the font and origin of true wisdom, and are commanded to be inspired by it. The Old Testament enjoins it, and the New Testament repeats and emphasizes the injunction; so that the total and united testimony of Revelation forbids a religion that is dest.i.tute of fear.
The New Dispensation is sometimes set in opposition to the Old, and Christ is represented as teaching a less rigid morality than that of Moses and the prophets. But the mildness of Christ is not seen, certainly, in the ethical and preceptive part of His religion. The Sermon on the Mount is a more searching code of morals than the ten commandments. It cuts into human depravity with a more keen and terrible edge, than does the law proclaimed amidst thunderings and lightnings.
Let us see if it does not. The Mosaic statute simply says to man: "Thou shalt not kill." But the re-enactment of this statute, by incarnate Deity, is accompanied with an explanation and an emphasis that precludes all misapprehension and narrow construction of the original law, and renders it a two-edged sword that pierces to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit. When the Hebrew legislator says to me: "Thou shalt not kill,"
it is possible for me, with my propensity to look upon the outward appearance, and to regard the external act alone, to deem myself innocent if I have never actually murdered a fellow-being. But when the Lord of glory tells me that "whosoever is angry with his brother" is in danger of the judgment, my mouth is stopped, and it is impossible for me to cherish a conviction of personal innocency, in respect to the sixth commandment. And the same is true of the seventh commandment, and the eighth commandment, and of all the statutes in the decalogue. He who reads, and ponders, the whole Sermon on the Mount, is painfully conscious that Christ has put a meaning into the Mosaic law that renders it a far more effective instrument of mental torture, for the guilty, than it is as it stands in the Old Testament. The lightnings are concentrated. The bolts are hurled with a yet more sure and deadly aim. The new meaning is a perfectly legitimate and logical deduction, and in this sense there is no difference between the Decalogue and the Sermon,--between the ethics of the Old and the ethics of the New Testament. But, so much more spiritual is the application, and so much more searching is the reach of the statute, in the last of the two forms of its statement, that it looks almost like a new proclamation of law.
Our Lord did not intend, or pretend, to teach a milder ethics, or an easier virtue, on the Mount of Beat.i.tudes, than that which He had taught fifteen centuries before on Mt. Sinai. He indeed p.r.o.nounces a blessing; and so did Moses, His servant, before Him. But in each instance, it is a blessing upon condition of obedience; which, in both instances, involves a curse upon disobedience. He who is meek shall be blest; but he who is not shall be condemned. He who is pure in heart, he who is poor in spirit, he who mourns over personal unworthiness, he who hungers and thirsts after a righteousness of which he is dest.i.tute, he who is merciful, he who is the peace-maker, he who endures persecution patiently, and he who loves his enemies,--he who is and does all this in a perfect manner, without a single slip or failure, is indeed blessed with the beat.i.tude of G.o.d. But where is the man? What single individual in all the ages, and in all the generations since Adam, is ent.i.tled to the great blessing of these beat.i.tudes, and not deserving of the dreadful curse which they involve? In applying such a high, ethereal test to human character, the Founder of Christianity is the severest and sternest preacher of law that has ever trod upon the planet. And he who stops with the merely ethical and preceptive part of Christianity, and rejects its forgiveness through atoning blood, and its regeneration by an indwelling Spirit,--he who does not unite the fifth chapter of Matthew, with the fifth chapter of Romans,--converts the Lamb of G.o.d into the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He makes use of everything in the Christian system that condemns man to everlasting destruction, but throws away the very and the only part of it that takes off the burden and the curse.
It is not, then, a correct idea of Christ that we have, when we look upon Him as unmixed complacency and unbalanced compa.s.sion. In all aspects, He was a complex personage. He was G.o.d, and He was man. As G.o.d, He could p.r.o.nounce a blessing; and He could p.r.o.nounce a curse, as none but G.o.d can, or dare. As man, He was perfect; and into His perfection of feeling and of character there entered those elements that fill a good being with peace, and an evil one with woe. The Son of G.o.d exhibits goodness and severity mingled and blended in perfect and majestic harmony; and that man lacks sympathy with Jesus Christ who cannot, while feeling the purest and most unselfish indignation towards the sinner"s sin, at the same time give up his own individual life, if need be, for the sinner"s soul. The two feelings are not only compatible in the same person, but necessarily belong to a perfect being. Our Lord breathed out a prayer for His murderers so fervent, and so full of pathos, that it will continue to soften and melt the flinty human heart, to the end of time; and He also poured out a denunciation of woes upon the Pharisees (Matt, xxiii.), every syllable of which is dense enough with the wrath of G.o.d, to sink the deserving objects of it "plumb down, ten thousand fathoms deep, to bottomless perdition in adamantine chains and penal fire." The utterances, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do: Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers! how can ye escape the d.a.m.nation of h.e.l.l?" both fell from the same pure and gracious lips.
It is not surprising, therefore, that our Lord often appeals to the principle of fear. He makes use of it in all its various forms,--from that servile terror which is produced by the truth when the soul is just waked up from its drowze in sin, to that filial fear which Solomon affirms to be the beginning of wisdom.
The subject thus brought before our minds, by the inspired Word, has a wide application to all ages and conditions of human life, and all varieties of human character. We desire to direct attention to _the use and value of religious fear, in the opening periods of human life_. There are some special reasons why youth and early manhood should come under the influence of this powerful feeling. "I write unto you young men,"--says St. John,--"because ye are _strong_." We propose to urge upon the young, the duty of cultivating the fear of G.o.d"s displeasure, because they are able to endure the emotion; because youth is the springtide and prime of human life, and capable of carrying burdens, and standing up under influences and impressions, that might crush a feebler period, or a more exhausted stage of the human soul.
I. In the first place, the emotion of fear ought to enter into the consciousness of the young, because _youth is naturally light-hearted_.
"Childhood and youth," saith the Preacher, "are vanity." The opening period in human life is the happiest part of it, if we have respect merely to the condition and circ.u.mstances in which the human being is placed. He is free from all public cares, and responsibilities. He is encircled within the strong arms of parents, and protectors. Even if he tries, he cannot feel the pressure of those toils and anxieties which will come of themselves, when he has pa.s.sed the line that separates youth from manhood. When he hears his elders discourse of the weight, and the weariness, of this working-day world, it is with incredulity and surprise. The world is bright before his eye, and he wonders that it should ever wear any other aspect. He cannot understand how the freshness, and vividness, and pomp of human life, should shift into its soberer and sterner forms; and he will not, until the
"Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing Boy."[2]
Now there is something, in this happy att.i.tude of things, to fill the heart of youth with gayety and abandonment. His pulses beat strong and high. The currents of his soul flow like the mountain river. His mood is buoyant and jubilant, and he flings himself with zest, and a sense of vitality, into the joy and exhilaration all around him. But such a mood as this, unbalanced and untempered by a loftier one, is hazardous to the eternal interests of the soul. Perpetuate this gay festal abandonment of the mind; let the human being, through the whole of his earthly course, be filled with the sole single consciousness that _this_ is the beautiful world; and will he, can he, live as a stranger and a pilgrim in it? Perpetuate that vigorous pulse, and that youthful blood which "runs tickling up and down the veins;" drive off, and preclude, all that care and responsibility which renders human life so earnest; and will the young immortal go through it, with that sacred fear and trembling with which he is commanded to work out his salvation?
Yet, this buoyancy and light-heartedness are legitimate feelings. They spring up, like wild-flowers, from the very nature of man. G.o.d intends that prismatic hues and auroral lights shall flood our morning sky. He must be filled with a sour and rancid misanthropy, who cannot bless the Creator that there is one part of man"s sinful and cursed life which reminds of the time, and the state, when there was no sin and no curse.
There is, then, to be no extermination of this legitimate experience.
But there is to be its moderation and its regulation.
And this we get, by the introduction of the feeling and the principle of religious fear. The youth ought to seek an impression from things unseen and eternal. G.o.d, and His august attributes; Christ, and His awful Pa.s.sion; heaven, with its sacred scenes and joys; h.e.l.l, with its just woe and wail,--all these should come in, to modify, and temper, the jubilance that without them becomes the riot of the soul. For this, we apprehend, is the meaning of our Lord, when He says, "I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into h.e.l.l; yea, I say unto you, Fear him." It is not so much any particular species of fear that we are shut up to, by these words, as it is the general habit and feeling. The fear of _h.e.l.l_ is indeed specified,--and this proves that such a fear is rational and proper in its own place,--but our Lord would not have us stop with this single and isolated form of the feeling. He recommends a solemn temper. He commands a being who stands continually upon the brink of eternity and immensity, to be aware of his position. He would have the great shadow of eternity thrown in upon time. He desires that every man should realize, in those very moments when the sun shines the brightest and the earth looks the fairest, that there is another world than this, for which man is not naturally prepared, and for which he must make a preparation. And what He enjoins upon mankind at large, He specially enjoins upon youth. They need to be sobered more than others. The ordinary cares of this life, which do so much towards moderating our desires and aspirations, have not yet pressed upon the ardent and expectant soul, and therefore it needs, more than others, to fear and to "stand in awe."
II. Secondly, youth is _elastic, and readily recovers from undue depression_. The skeptical Lucretius tells us that the divinities are the creatures of man"s fears, and would make us believe that all religion has its ground in fright.[3] And do we not hear this theory repeated by the modern unbeliever? What means this appeal to a universal, and an unprincipled good-nature in the Supreme Being, and this rejection of everything in Christianity that awakens misgivings and forebodings within the sinful human soul? Why this opposition to the doctrine of an absolute, and therefore endless punishment, unless it be that it awakens a deep and permanent dread in the heart of guilty man?
Now, we are not of that number who believe that thoughtless and lethargic man has been greatly damaged by his moral fears. It is the lack of a bold and distinct impression from the solemn objects of another world, and the utter absence of fear, that is ruining man from generation to generation. If we were at liberty, and had the power, to induce into the thousands and millions of our race who are running the rounds of sin and vice, some one particular emotion that should be medicinal and salutary to the soul, we would select that very one which our Lord had in view when He said: "I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into h.e.l.l; yea, I say unto you, Fear him." If we were at liberty, and had the power, we would instantaneously stop these human souls that are crowding our avenues, intent only upon pleasure and earth, and would fill them with the emotions of the day of doom; we would deluge them with the fear of G.o.d, that they might flee from their sins and the wrath to come.
But while we say this, we also concede that it is possible for the human soul to be injured, by the undue exercise of this emotion. The bruised reed may be broken, and the smoking flax may be quenched; and hence it is the very function and office-work of the Blessed Comforter, to prevent this. G.o.d"s own children sometimes pa.s.s through a horror of great darkness, like that which enveloped Abraham; and the unregenerate mind is sometimes so overborne by its fears of death, judgment, and eternity, that the entire experience becomes for a time morbid and confused. Yet, even in this instance, the excess is better than the lack. We had better travel this road to heaven, than none at all. It is better to enter into the kingdom of G.o.d with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into h.e.l.l-fire. When the saints from the heavenly heights look back upon their severe religious experience here on earth,--upon their footprints stained with their own blood,--they count it a small matter that they entered into eternal joy through much tribulation. And if we could but for one instant take their position, we should form their estimate; we should not shrink, if G.o.d so pleased, from pa.s.sing through that martyrdom and crucifixion which has been undergone by so many of those gentle spirits, broken spirits, holy spirits, upon whom the burden of mystery once lay like night, and the far heavier burden of guilt lay like h.e.l.l.
There is less danger, however, that the feeling and principle of fear should exert an excessive influence upon youth. There is an elasticity, in the earlier periods of human life, that prevents long-continued depression. How rare it is to see a young person smitten with insanity.
It is not until the pressure of anxiety has been long continued, and the impulsive spring of the soul has been destroyed, that reason is dethroned. The morning of our life may, therefore, be subjected to a subduing and repressing influence, with very great safety. It is well to bear the yoke in youth. The awe produced by a vivid impression from the eternal world may enter into the exuberant and gladsome experience of the young, with very little danger of actually extinguishing it, and rendering life permanently gloomy and unhappy.
III. Thirdly, youth is _exposed to sudden temptations, and surprisals into sin_. The general traits that have been mentioned as belonging to the early period in human life render it peculiarly liable to solicitations. The whole being of a healthful hilarious youth, who feels life in every limb, thrills to temptation, like the lyre to the plectrum.
Body and soul are alive to all the enticements of the world of sense; and in certain critical moments, the entire sensorium, upon the approach of bold and powerful excitements, flutters and trembles like an electrometer in a thunder-storm. All pa.s.sionate poetry breathes of youth and spring.
Most of the catastrophes of the novel and the drama turn upon the violent action of some temptation, upon the highly excitable nature of youth. All literature testifies to the hazards that attend the morning of our existence; and daily experience and observation, certainly, corroborate the testimony. It becomes necessary, therefore, to guard the human soul against these liabilities which attend it in its forming period. And, next to a deep and all-absorbing _love_ of G.o.d, there is nothing so well adapted to protect against sudden surprisals, as a profound and definite fear of G.o.d.
It is a great mistake, to suppose that apostate and corrupt beings like ourselves can pa.s.s through all the temptations of this life unscathed, while looking _solely_ at the pleasant aspects of the Divine Being, and the winning forms of religious truth. We are not yet seraphs; and we cannot always trust to our affectionateness, to carry us through a violent attack of temptation. There are moments in the experience of the Christian himself, when he is compelled to call in the _fear_ of G.o.d to his aid, and to steady his infirm and wavering virtue by the recollection that "the wages of sin is death." "By the fear of the Lord, men,"--and Christian men too,--"depart from evil." It will not always be so. When that which is perfect is come, perfect love shall cast out fear; but, until the disciple of Christ reaches heaven, his religious experience must be a somewhat complex one. A reasonable and well-defined apprehensiveness must mix with his affectionateness, and deter him from transgression, in those severe pa.s.sages in his history when love is languid and fails to draw him. Says an old English divine: "The fear of G.o.d"s judgments, or of the threatenings of G.o.d, is of much efficiency, when some present temptation presseth upon us. When conscience and the affections are divided; when conscience doth withdraw a man from sin, and when his carnal affections draw him forth to it; then should the fear of G.o.d come in. It is a holy design for a Christian, to counterbalance the pleasures of sin with the terrors of it, and thus to cure the poison of the viper by the flesh of the viper. Thus that admirable saint and martyr, Bishop Hooper, when he came to die, one endeavored to dehort him from death by this: O sir, consider that life is sweet and death is bitter; presently he replied, Life to come is more sweet, and death to come is more bitter, and so went to the stake and patiently endured the fire. Thus, as a Christian may sometimes outweigh the pleasures of sin by the consideration of the reward of G.o.d, so, sometimes, he may quench the pleasures of sin by the consideration of the terrors of G.o.d."[4]
But much more is all this true, in the instance of the hot-blooded youth.
How shall he resist temptation, unless he has some _fear_ of G.o.d before his eyes? There are moments in the experience of the young, when all power of resistance seems to be taken away, by the very witchery and blandishment of the object. He has no heart, and no nerve, to resist the beautiful siren. And it is precisely in these emergencies in his experience,--in these moments when this world comes up before him clothed in pomp and gold, and the other world is so entirely lost sight of, that it throws in upon him none of its solemn shadows and warnings,--it is precisely now, when he is just upon the point of yielding to the mighty yet fascinating pressure, that he needs to feel an impression, bold and startling, from the _wrath_ of G.o.d. Nothing but the most active remedies will have any effect, in this tumult and uproar of the soul. When the whole system is at fever-heat, and the voice of reason and conscience is drowned in the clamors of sense and earth, nothing can startle and stop but the trumpet of Sinai.[5]
It is in these severe experiences, which are more common to youth than they are to manhood, that we see the great value of the feeling and principle of fear. It is, comparatively, in vain for a youth under the influence of strong temptations,--and particularly when the surprise is sprung upon him,--to ply himself with arguments drawn from the beauty of virtue, and the excellence of piety. They are too ethereal for him, in his present mood. Such arguments are for a calmer moment, and a more dispa.s.sionate hour. His blood is now boiling, and those higher motives which would influence the saint, and would have some influence with him, if he were not in this critical condition, have little power to deter him from sin. Let him therefore pa.s.s by the love of G.o.d, and betake himself to the _anger_ of G.o.d, for safety. Let him say to himself, in this moment when the forces of Satan, in alliance with the propensities of his own nature, are making an onset,--when all other considerations are being swept away in the rush and whirlwind of his pa.s.sions,--let him coolly bethink himself and say: "If I do this abominable thing which the soul of G.o.d hates, then G.o.d, the Holy and Immaculate, will burn my spotted soul in His pure eternal flame." For, there is great power, in what the Scriptures term "the terror of the Lord," to destroy the edge of temptation. "A wise man feareth and departeth from evil." Fear kills out the delight in sin. Damocles cannot eat the banquet with any pleasure, so long as the naked sword hangs by a single hair over his head. No one can find much enjoyment in transgression, if his conscience is feeling the action of G.o.d"s holiness within it. And well would it be, if, in every instance in which a youth is tempted to fling himself into the current of sin that is flowing all around him, his moral sense might at that very moment be filled with some of that terror, and some of that horror, which breaks upon the d.a.m.ned in eternity. Well would it be, if the youth in the moment of violent temptation could lay upon the emotion or the l.u.s.t that entices him, a distinct and red coal of h.e.l.l-fire.[6] No injury would result from the most terrible fear of G.o.d, provided it could always fall upon the human soul in those moments of strong temptation, and of surprisals, when all other motives fail to influence, and the human will is carried headlong by the human pa.s.sions. There may be a fear and a terror that does harm, but man need be under no concern lest he experience too much of this feeling, in his hours of weakness and irresolution, in his youthful days of temptation and of dalliance. Let him rather bless G.o.d that there is such an intense light, and such a pure fire, in the Divine Essence, and seek to have his whole vitiated and poisoned nature penetrated and purified by it. Have you never looked with a steadfast gaze into a grate of burning anthracite, and noticed the quiet intense glow of the heat, and how silently the fire throbs and pulsates through the fuel, burning up everything that is inflammable, and, making the whole ma.s.s as pure, and clean, and clear, as the element of fire itself? Such is the effect of a contact of G.o.d"s wrath with man"s sin; of the penetration of man"s corruption by the wrath of the Lord.
IV. In the fourth place, the feeling and principle of fear ought to enter into the experience of both youth and manhood, _because it relieves from all other fear_. He who stands in awe of G.o.d can look down, from a very great height, upon all other perturbation. When we have seen Him from whose sight the heavens and the earth flee away, there is nothing, in either the heavens or the earth, that can produce a single ripple upon the surface of our souls. This is true, even of the unregenerate mind.