PREFATORY ADDRESS. friend, the character which you sustain ? or do you view it as one too highly elevated for your desires and aims? If you do, will you in the last hours of life maintain the same opinion? When this momentary scene of care and vanity is closing upon you for ever; when it no longer matters what you suffered or what you enjoyed; when the overwhelming scenes of the eternal world are ready to burst upon your soul, will you then think that piety could be too elevated, or the Christian upon earth too nearly like the Christian in heaven? If you do seriously believe that, in your dying moments, you will think it possible to be too pious; if you do indeed believe that, when going to meet your God, you will think it possible to love, or serve, or honour him too much; then slight the advice this little book contains. If you can suppose that when you have plunged into the unseen world, and are fixed in happiness or woe for more myriads of millions of years than there are drops in the ocean; that then you will think you could be too earnest, too prayerful, too diligent, in preparing for an everlasting state; if you can indeed think so, then read no further. But if, instead of this, you feel convinced, that when you die and come to meet your God, you will think all faith weak, all love cold, all diligence carelessness, all labour idleness, and all piety scarcely worth the name, compared with that faith, and love, and zeal, and piety, which the eternal God, the eternal Saviour, an immortal soul, and an endless heaven demand; if you will think so;—and will you not as surely as you are born to die?-O then aim at nobler piety than that which satisfies so many! Stay not in the vale beneath, but, as at death you will wish to have done, soar to the heights above. O learn to live as having soon to die, that you may die assured of living with God for ever! The principal object of this little book, is to assist you in your Christian pilgrimage, though at times it may contain a few lines more suitable to those who are strangers to religion, vi PREFATORY ADDRESS than to those who have embraced the gospel; for perhaps some that know not God, may glance over the following pages. Let the writer be permitted to add, that in drawing up this small volume with the design of assisting youthful piety, he has endeavoured to draw instruction from the Sacred Volume, that only fountain of real wisdom. That holy book declares, that neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase. To his all-important blessing the writer therefore now commends this little volume. Derby, July 16th, 1823. CHAPTER I. A BRIEF SCRIPTURAL DELINEATION OF THE ATTRIBUTES AND PERFECTIONS OF GOD, AND ON CHRISTIAN DEVOTEDNESS TO HIM. § 1. WERE you, my young friend, going to spend one hour in England, and then never to see it more, but afterwards to pass threescore years in India, of which country would you desire the most extensive knowledge? Would you not reason, The knowledge that will benefit me but for one hour in a country, which after that I shall never visit again, is unworthy of a thought, compared with that knowledge, which will be useful to me for sixty years? Were you to spend that one hour in company with persons, whose favour or displeasure would render it either a happy or a wretched hour; and were you to pass the following sixty years with those, whose smile or frown would make them all years of happiness or years of pain, whose favour would you be most anxious to enjoy? Would you not argue, The smiles or the frowns of those who can cheer or embitter but one hour, and whom then I shall leave for ever, are of little moment; but their friendship, who must render me happy or wretched for sixty years, is ten thousand times more important? Apply these thoughts to your state in this world, and the next. Here you have a little while to spend, but compared with the endless life which awaits you there, it is infinitely less than an hour, when compared with sixty years. Of which world is the knowledge most important to you? Of that where your life is the twinkling of an eye? or of that where eternal ages lie stretched before the view of the astonished soul? The friendship or displeasure of your fellowcreatures may cheer or embitter life's short hour: the friendship of your God will brighten and bless your whole eternity; or his displeasure make eternal years one scene of darkness, bitterness, and woe. How worthless, to a creature born for eternity, is all knowledge, compared with a holy acquaintance 8 MAJESTY AND POWER OF GOD. with God! how despicable all friendship, compared with his friendship and love! § 2. The book of nature may teach much respecting God, may at least declare his eternal power and godhead, but it is the book of grace alone that unfolds the brighter glories of Jehovah. Would you be intimate with God, the God of heaven, not with the idol, philosophers frame in their imagination, then search the Scriptures. That holy volume represents the adorable God as possessed of those excellencies which should excite the deepest reverence, and the most fervent love, in the human heart. h k God is a Spirit. He created the heavens and the earth. He said, Let there be light, and there was light. The sun obeys his voice; and the stars of heaven appear at his command. He is the one Jehovah, and the only true God. Heaven is his throne, and the earth his footstool.s He reigneth King for ever. He is clothed with majesty. Clouds and darkness are round about him, righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne. He is the King eternal, immortal, invisible; the only wise God.m To his enemies he is a consuming fire." He is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. He In Providence, and in the works of nature, the power and majesty of God are displayed: He killeth and maketh alive; he bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up. maketh poor and maketh rich. He raiseth the stormy wind, or maketh the storm a calm. He turneth rivers into a wilderness, or water-springs into dry ground; a fruitful land into barrenness;a or a dry desert to a watered field. He saith to the snow, be thou on the earth. He giveth rain, and sendeth waters upon the fields.s He feedeth the fowls of the air, and clotheth the lilies of the field with more than kingly glory ;t and so extensive is his providential care, that without him not a sparrow falleth to the ground." The sublime description of the majesty and glory of God, in the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, is as much superior to the loftiest descriptions, which unassisted poets or philosophers have given of the Deity, as the God it represents is superior to (a) John iv. 24. (e) Mark xii. 29. (i) Ps. xxix. 10. (n) Heb. xii. 29. (0) (r) Job xxxvii. 6. (b) Gen. i. 1, 3. (c) Job ix. 7. (q) (d) Isa. xl. 26. (h) Ps. xciii. 1. (m) 1 Tim. i. 17. Ps. cvii. 25, &c. (u) Matt. x. 29. WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 9 the idols they extolled. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing and vanity." Survey this universe. Behold its oceans, in themselves a watery world. No line has ever measured their unfathomable depths. The swiftest ship would spend months or years in crossing them; yet to God, those vast and fathomless 'oceans are so insignificant, that he measureth the waters of the world in the hollow of his hand. Behold the heavens; the sun, the moon, the stars of light; how brilliant is their glory! how immense their distances! but God meteth out heaven with a span; measures with a span, almost the least of measures, that vast and boundless field of grandeur and of glory. Behold the earth, its vast islands, its cloud-capt mountains, its unmeasured deserts; the fertile lands of its immense continents, where numerous nations find ample room for their residence, and which require a line thousands of miles in extent to measure either their length or their breadth; but what are these vast regions, and this vast earth, before Jehovah! He comprehendeth the dust of the earth in a measure, and taketh up the islands as an atom. Survey the nations; perhaps a thousand millions of human beings. How immense the number! yet to God so insignificant, that they are as a drop of a bucket, and as the small dust which lies unheeded on the balance; as nothing, less than nothing and vanity. § 3. Now glance at the unsearchable wisdom and infinite knowledge of God. He is the Lord of hosts, wonderful in counsel. God the only wise. He seeth in secret. He seeth not as man seeth, for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." He searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts. He is not an inattentive spectator of what passes in his wide empire. By him are actions weighed. The Lord looketh (v) Isa. xl. 12, 15, 17. (w) Isa. xxviii. 29. (x) Rom. xvi. 17. (y) Matt. vi. 4. (*) 1 Sam. xvi. 7. (a) 1 Chron. xxviii. 9. (b) 1 Sam. ii, 3. |