Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

MEDITATION CXXXI.

ON VISITS.

Sept. 5, 1776.

To make and return visits is both friendly and

fashionable; but it is sad, that too often, when we commence the visitant, we drop the Christian. How melancholy that it cannot be known whether we be Turks or Christians, but by our posture at table ! Where the entertainment is remarkable for nothing but noise and nonsense, loud peals of laughter, puns, and buffoonery, it is a poor welcome we give to our guests, and a shameful return we make to our host. If at one table we find profanity, at another folly, he that visits least will suffer least. A whole day spent in mirth, and not one word in any discourse about religion, and not one thought of God in any heart, is an awful blank, and a sad waste of time.

Though at a friendly feast, or social entertainment, we do not meet to preach, yet we should always meet to improve one another in useful knowledge; and a serious "word fitly spoken" might shine "like apples of gold in pictures of silver." Such a conduct might, at some times, though not often, produce the laugh against us; but the approbation of heaven, and the testimony of a good conscience, will easily balance this. If our company be such, that we can get nothing serious introduced, let us rejoice that they cannot prevent our ejaculations to God, and, in our meditation, let us now and then retire to converse above.

In how many houses, at how many tables, may Ichabod be written, Religion is not here; the glory is departed! Whatever table our Saviour, when on earth, sat at, he was sure to enrich it with some heavenly dishes, and fed his audience with sacred truth; so it should be our constant endeavour never to come away the worse of any company, but the better; never to leave any company the worse of us, but the better, Why should not our grace, as well as the impiety of others, like the rich perfume, bewray itself, whether we will or will not? Every where, and every time, at home or abroad, whether we eat or drink, receive or return visits, and in every company, we should do all to the glory of God; who gives us all that we enjoy below, and will at last make us sit down at the marriage-supper of the Lamb, where the converse shall enlarge, delight, and ravish evermore!

MEDITATION CXXXII.

THE ANGUISH OF DAMNATION.

Oct. 15, 1776.

How must their breasts beat, and hearts throb, who are cast into a den of lions, while the savage monsters tear off their flesh, and break their bones in pieces! How bitter must the cry of Egypt have been in that memorable night, when, in every house, the first-born of man and beast lay breathless, and the doleful lamentation was echoed from border to border, and from one end of the land to the other! What must the consternation of Sodom's inhabitants have been, when fire and brimstone was rained from those

heavens that used to send down refreshful showers, and where fields of blue ether delighted the eye! How great must the astonishment have been of the surviving Assyrians and their king, when in the morning they found their mighty army only a multitude of dead corpses! What must the sorrow of that man be, who, falling under his sovereign's displeasure, is banished from his nearest connections, and dearest friends, into perpetual solitude, or the society of monsters and savages! What must the pangs of those parents' hearts be, while their tender offspring are shrieking, groaning, dying, by cruel deaths, under the bloody ruffians! What must the sister, the mother, the wife, feel on the shore, while the ship that carries the brother, the son, the husband, dashes on the rocks below, and they perish, as it were, in their presence! What must the horror of the devoted wretch be, who stands and sees the fire kindling which is to consume him to ashes! What must the terror of a city taken by storm be, when, in every street, young and old, man and woman, perish by the sword, and the air is filled with screaming, lamentation, and groans! What must the amazement of that devoted village be, while from the burning mountain the dreadful lava rolls irresistibly down, and covers and consumes whatever stands in its way! What paleness of countenance, what trembling of limbs, what faintness of heart, must attend the carnage of a field of battle, by an inexorable, but victorious foe! What must the inhabitants of a city feel, when awaked at midnight with the sound of fire in every quarter, when all they have blazes before them, and some of their dearest friends roar for help, but perish in the flames, while the conflagration is succeeded by a ter

rible earthquake that shakes the world to its foundation, so that the ground cleaves asunder, swallows up inhabitants and city, and closes her mouth, that they are seen no more! Such, and ten thousand times. worse, is the anguish of damnation, when all the Christless multitude shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power!

MEDITATION CXXXIII.

SOVEREIGNTY.

March 23, 1777.

To God, who rules in heaven and earth, belongs a supreme power, and undisputed sovereignty over men and angels. He who is the Creator and Preserver of all, may certainly dispose of all as he pleases. And because we have a near and dear interest in some things, it can never supersede God's better right both to them and us. He bestows blessings on us, at that we do not quarrel; but he removes them, and at this we murmur; yet his right to take is the same as to give. We may smart, but we can never suffer injustice under his hand. Much of our pain, and most of our disappointments in the world, rise from our circumscribed views of heavenly sovereignty. We think that heaven should follow that plan of government that pleases us best. And yet he gives not account of any of his matters, and still he does all things well.

Moses begins to deliver his brethren, and smites an Egyptian; yet sovereignty sends him forty years

to a strange country, and adds forty years heavy bondage to the Israelites. The kindness of God sends Joseph into Egypt, to preserve his father's family alive; yet sovereignty sends him in such a way, that old Jacob seems to go mourning to the grave, and he that had been favoured with the most heavenly dreams, dreams not a word all this time of his beloved son. Jephthah conquers his foes, but providence meets him with a sharp trial in his only daughter, who, at best, must never be married. The favour of heaven enriches Job, but sovereignty permits satan to spoil him of all. David is anointed king, but ere he comes to the throne, he is sometimes driven almost to despair of his life. The Jews have liberty to rebuild their temple, and yet, through the malice of their foes, it is retarded a long time. John, our Saviour's forerunner, after baptizing thousands, loses his head through the malice of a woman. Josiah, one of the best kings, is slain in battle in the prime of his life. Zechariah is stoned to death for reproving, in God's name, the transgression of his law. And the apostles, who were the salt of the world, were hungry, thirsty, naked, buffetted, without habitation, made as the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things! And all these things were ordered by divine sovereignty.

We allow that death must separate friends some time, but sovereignty will take from one parent the child of a span long, from another the weaned child, from a third a pretty boy, from another the promising youth, and from another the comfort of his hoary hairs. Into one family death never enters, but it flourishes up to manhood, and wholly survives the aged parents; into another, death thrusts. his iron hand,

« ForrigeFortsæt »