SERlOUS REFLECTIONS ON TIME
AND ETERNITY.
BY JOHN SHOWER.
AND
ON THE CONSIDERATION OF OUR LATTER END,
By
Sir. MATTHEW HALE, KNT.
There are certain truths, which lie remote from all direct
and immediate observation - and which require more than one step on the part of
the human mind ere they are arrived at - which can only, in fact, he reached by
a reasoning process, that consists of many steps; and for the describing of
which, the habit of sustained attention, and the talent of sound and legitimate
inference and the power of combining principles which are known, and thence
eliciting a truth or a doctrine that was unknown, must all he summoned to the
work, and be put into strenuous and continued exercise for many days, or often
for months together, ere the toils of the devoted inquirer be rewarded by the
discovry of that he is in quest of. There is much, for example both of
mathematical and political science, which is incontrovertibly true, but which
instead of being taken up at one act by the understanding, as if it lay on the
very surface of contemplation, can only be grasped into the possession of the
mind, by being travelled to through a long intermediure of many transitions and
many arguments-and they are oniy a gifted few who can bear the fatigues of such
a journey, and to whom the labours of the midnight oil afford a congenial and
much-loved employment, and who have had their intellectual powers disciplined
to the march of a logical or lengthened investigation. of the Smith of the one
science, and the Newton of the other, afford very striking illustrations of
this kind of mental superiority over the rest of the species - and in virtue of
which they were enabled to discover what before to the whole of mankind was
utterly unknown; and in virtue of which their followers are enabled to see what
the majority of mankind do not see.
It is only seen in fact from a
summit of demonstration - and this is only attained by a series of ascending
movements- and the few who have made their way to the temple which stands upon
such an eminence as this, find inscribed upon it the temple of
philosophy. Now, what we maintain is, that this is altogether distinct
from the temple of wisdom. its successful worshippers are men of
reach and men of acquirement, and men who, from the elevation they have won,
and on which they have posted themselves, can command a farther prospect over
some walk, or some domain of the great intellectual territory, than their
fellows around them. And yet they are not on this account men of wisdom, nor
have we arrived at the true meaning and application of this epithet, if we
either think that to be wise we must be philosophers, or that, if philosophers,
we are therefore wise.
There are certain other truths, difficult of
access, which are distinct, and distinguishable we think from those that we
have just now adverted to - not such as are gained by a continuous effort along
a line of investigation - not such as come in view upon the eye of the
beholder, after he has scaled one of the altitudes of science - not such as lie
remote, by being placed at a distance, but such rather as lie hidden from
common minds, because deeply enveloped under the surface of common observation.
To come at these, is not to plod and to persevere from one acquisition to
another, as in the former instances. It is done by a process perhaps, too, in
which all the elements of ratiocination are concerned, but a process so rapid,
as to be felt even by the owner of the mind through which it passes, like an
act of momentary intuition. Such is the quickness of his penetrating eye, that
what to others is a thick and impalpable veil, hides not from him the truth or
the principle which lurks beneath it - and with one glance of perception, can
he discern many of the secret things which lie under the broad and ostensible
face of human affairs - and this faculty of his though certainly sharpened by
cultivation, and cradled up to its present maturity among the varieties of
experience and of life, is not of slow operation like the former, but is sudden
in all its exercises, and quite immediate in all the information which it
fetches to its owner.
One of its main offices is to detect what is
latent, and to ordinary minds, inaccessible in the character of man. This it
does not by any tardy movement of the understanding, but by something like the
tact of an instantaneous discernment, by the look of an instinctive sagacity,
directed towards any exhibition either in the countenance or in the conduct of
another. It is this faculty which gives the eye of a lynx to the satirist; and
which endues, with all his readiness and address, the wily ambassador, who,
himself unseen, can cast a piercing intelligence through all the windings and
intrigues of a cabinet; and which dexterously guides its possessors way among
the politics of a city corporation; and which even achieves, as wondrous
triumphs as any of subtlety and skill among the severest collisions, or the low
jockeyship of a market. Jt is far more diffused than science and scholarship
are through the various ranks of society. You will meet with it in the
homeliest walks of life - nay, sometimes, in all its perfection, under the
guise, and in the attitude, of a country simpleton. It is not confined to the
chicanery of courts. For the play of as deep and as dexterous artifice may be
set agoing in the negotiations of private interest, as has ever been recorded
in the annals of diplomacy. And whether it be swindling without the law, or
swindling within the law, may there be the same over-reach of one shrewder
understanding over the blind and unsuspecting confidence of another, in the
contests of ordinary trade, as in the contests of politics.
The man who
is thus gifted, sees deeper than his fellows. He can read the vanity, or the
weakness, or the delicacy which are in anothers heart, and he can practise
accordingly. It is true, that he may be thus wise as a serpent, and yet
harmless as a dove. But the mere wisdom of the serpent is not true wisdom, in
the soundest acceptation of the term. The epithet wise, according to its
largest and its soundest acceptation, is neither exemplified by him, who, by
dint of meditation, sees farthest into the secrets of philosophy, or who, by
dint of shrewd and oft-repeated observation, sees deepest into the mysteries of
our nature - nor have we yet reached the conception of a truly wise man, if we
think, that to be wise we must be political, or, that if political, we are
therefore wise.
The consideration of our latter end, which forms the
principal topic of the following Volume, is that which the Scripture affirms to
be true wisdom. Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that
they considered their latter end. But the truth of our mortality, by the
considering of which aright we are wise, belongs neither to the former, nor to
the latter classification. We do not need to travel far in quest of its
discovery. Neither do we need to dive among the recesses of a profound
observation, that we may be able to fetch it up, and to appropriate it. It is a
truth which, on the very highway of ordinary life, forces itself on the
recognition of every man. That world, through which we are all journeying,
abounds in the sign-posts of mortality; and many is the passing funeral which
obtrudes this lesson upon our eyes; and many are the notes of that funeral bell
which tolls it upon our hearing; and well may the old, when they think of a
former generation, levelled and taken off by the hand of death, learn how sure
it is, that the living and busy society around them will at length be swept
away; - and even to the young, and those the likeliest of us all, does death
hang out its memorials, and gives them to know that it wields an
indiscriminating arm;- and even from those whom it spares the longest, and
comes to the last, may we learn how short a process of arithmetic it is which
conducts every one of us to our latter end, - and thus, through all the
possible avenues of sense, and experience, and feeling, do such intimations
multiply upon us, and these so plain and so powerful, and ever and anon
recurring with such pathos and in such frequency, that, but to those who are
sunk in idiotism, is it a lesson read and recognised of all men.
Nor is
there a living man who does not know, that the march of our actual generation
is but one vast progressive movement to the grave. It is not the acquirement of
new truths, but the right use and consideration of old ones, which constitutes
wisdom. It is not the discovery of what was before unknown, which signalizes
the wise man above his fellows. It is the right and the rational application of
what they know as well as he, but which they do not reflect upon, and do not
proceed upon as he. It is not the man who out-peers his acquaintances in
intellectual wealth, neither is it the man who outdoes them in homebred
sagacity it is neither the one nor the other, who, in the best, and most
significant sense of the term, is the man of wisdom. It is he, who acts upon
the sureness of that which is sure. It is he, who proceeds upon the reality of
that which is real. It is he, who feels greatness of desire after that which is
great, and smallness of desire after that which is small, and shapes his doings
to the actual dimensions of every object which is presented to his
understanding. And neither is it necessary that, in respect of understanding,
he should have a capacity for more than truths which are familiar to all, and
are acknowledged of all. He has not to go in quest of strange or distant
novelties, but only to trace to its right purpose that which is near to him,
and within reach of every man. In a word, he has not to learn that which is
known only to a few, he has only to consider that which is known to all.
0 that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would
consider their latter end!"He has not to be taught the number of his days, but
taught so to number them, as to apply his heart unto wisdom.
He is not
in the soundest physical condition, who lives on the high-wrought delicacies of
an artificial and expensive preparation; but he, the organs of whose bodily
constitution are best suited to the bread and the water, and the universal
aliments which nature has provided for the healthful sustenance of her
children. And he is neither in the best spiritual, nor even in the best
intellectual condition, the faculties of whose soul are ever on the stretch
after lofty and recondite doctrine, or its appetitefor knowledge pre-occupied
with various and exquisite speculation - but he, who thrives on the daily
nourishment of such truth as is familiar to all - he, whose clear and vigorous
eye admits most copiously of that light, which is poured around the orbit, he,
the food of whose understanding is that common food which is most abundant, and
would also be most salutary, but for the common disease that overspreads the
families of our species - he who, with no taste, and no capacity for what is
remote or ingenious, rightly comprehends the truth that is at hand, and goes
not beyond the simple elements of being in any of his mental exercises, but
who, if right in these, has reached a wisdom which philosophy cannot reach, and
who, if sound in his practical estimate of what is due to Time, and what is due
to Eternity, is a man of nobler aims, and far more solid and exalted wisdom,
than science can induce upon any of its votaries. He lives not upon the
niceties, but upon the staple of spiritual fare, and his spiritual frame is
thereby upheld in strength and in prosperity; and in the plain certainties of
the coming death, and the coming judgment, does he walk in a way more truly
elevated, than that which is trodden by any son of literary ambition: arid
hence the impress of dignity and wisdoni which we have seen to sit on the
aspect of him, who, the father of a cottage family, has no respite from toil
but Sabbath, and no reading but his much-read Bible, and that authorship, of
old and humble piety, which lies in little room upon his shelves.
To
learn discriminatively and justly what wisdom is, you have just to place the
most brilliant and accomplished philosopher by the side of this venerable sage
of Christianity. The one knows much, but his is a knowledge which terminates in
itself. The other knows little, but his is a knowledge which is turned to the
purpose of his guidance here, and of his provision for eternity hereafter.
Wisdom is not bare knowledge. It is knowledge directed to its best and fittest,
and most productive application. Thus it is, that there may be much knowledge
without wisdom, and there may be much wisdom with little knowledge. It is not
he who knows most, who is most wise, but he, who uses aright that which is
known and familiar to all men. For, let it be observed, that it is with
spiritual as with natural food. The most useful ingredients of it are the most
abundant. Men may refuse to partake of them, and starve and die, and thus
become, what the majority of our species actually are - dead in trespasses and
sins. To bring a man alive again from the apparent death of nature, we never
think of wooing back the departed senses by the offer of luxuries. But we admit
a supply of air, and try if he can breathe in this universal element; and make
use of cold water, which is to be had in every dwellingplace; and ply his taste
with some simple preparation; and could we restore him to the common enjoyment
of these very commonest articles, we would he satisfied.
And so it is in
the case of spiritual torpor. To call it back to sensibility, we would never
think of elaborate demonstration. But we would ring into our patients ear the
message of death, which every body knows, but few know with application. We
would try to awaken his inner man, by the tidings of its immortality, which all
profess to have faith in, while scarcely any human being lives under the power
of it. We would sound the trump of alarm, and loudly speak of an angry God and
a coming vengeance, notes as familiar to his hearing as is that of the wind of
heaven which blows over him, while, in their terror and in their urgency, they
are as unfelt by the soul, as if its ears of communication with a human voice
were altogether closed. We would deat forth upon him the simplicities of the
gospel and tell of sin and of the Sacrifice - intimations which may be as
readily taken up by the peasant as by the philosopher - but which, until roused
from their carnal lethargy, are alike unheeded by them both. To recall them
from such a paralysis as this, we would not ply them with that which is severe
and elaborate, but would, if possible, quicken and revive them by that which is
elementary. And not he who is led on by argument to that which is, remote, but
he who receives the touch of a quickening influence from that, the certainty of
which is obvious to all, while the sense of it is nearly unfelt by all - he it
is who hath attained the only true understanding - he it is who is wise unto
salvation.
We cannot but perceive, how, while the doctrines of our
faith are plain, in opposition to what is recondite, not requiring, like the
difficulties of science, a prolonged and strenuous investigation- yet still,
plain as they are, they need the influence of the Spirit for the true
understanding of them, just as a dead body needs the touch of some miraculous
personage, ere it can breathe the all encompassing atmosphere, or use the
universal elements, or be sustained by the common bounties of nature. And so of
the soul. It is not by conducting it through any lengthened, or logical
demonstration of the schools, that we restore it to that intelligence, the
possession ofwhich assures the possessor of life everlasting. It is by visiting
it with the manifestation of certain great and impending, but withal simple
realities. The wisdom which is thus gotten, is altogether distinct from the
wisdom of philosophy hidden in fact from many such wise, and many such prudent,
and revealed unto babes. Let us just look to the practical habit of nature, and
see that, in the face of the clearest and plainest arithmetic, it gives a
superiority to the present over the future world, and then may we acknowledge,
that if it be needful to heal the diseased eyes of the blind, ere they can see
of the common light, or to heal the diseased lungs of the consumptive,ere they
can breathe aright of the common air, or to heal the diseased constitution of
the sickly, ere they can turn into ailment the common food of all men, - so is
it equally needful that a physicians hand be laid upon our diseased spirits,
ere they be nourished by truths so palpable, as that eternity is greater than
time, and the enjoyment of God in heaven, greater than that of all those
earthly blessings which he causes to descend on our fleeting pilgrimage. We
know not on whom it is, that the burden of this sore disease still lies, in all
its native aggravation, or from whom it has been taken away. We can only
address our admonitions to the reader at a venture. It is like the shooting of
an arrow among a multitude, when who knows what individual will be struck by
it? It is under the declaration of the truth, that a child of darkness becomes
a child and a disciple of light.
But even the same truth which awakens
the former, is the very truth which needs to be repeated, again and again, in
the hearing of the latter, to keep him awake. The pure mind must be stirred up
in the way of remembrance. And it is not enough that truth be received at the
first; in the language of the Bible, it must also be considered. The food which
is taken in is of no use, unless, by a digestive process, it be turned into
aliment. Truth is the food of the soul. We receive it by faith. But if we keep
it not in memory, we, in the words of the apostle, have believed in vain. The
shortness of life, and the certainty of its approaching extinction, may come
upon the spirit in a powerful, but momentary visitation. This gleam of light
must be brightened, and sustained, and perpetuated. It must he kept alive amid
the shock of many rude and adverse elements. It must shine as a lamp upon all
our paths. The converse of this world's companies should not darken it in the
heat and the hurry of our daily business should not stifle it. That sorrow
which worketh death, should not swallow it up into the oblivion of our
immortality, nor should the still more dangerous gale of prosperity blow this
pure and sacred flame into utter annihilation. It is not enough that we
acknowledge the truth at stated times; we must give earnest heed to it, lest at
any time we should let it slip. It is not enough that we should know our latter
end - nor has our understanding of this been advanced into true wisdom, till it
be our care and our habit to consider our latter end.
The practical
habit of our souls ought to be a habit of anticipation, and of anticipation
reaching even unto death, and to the immortality which lies beyond it. A
realizing sense of what that is, which a coming futurity is to bring with
speed, and perhaps with suddenness, to our doors, would change the habit and
posture of the soul altogether. Could we only figure to our imaginations the
ebbing, and the quivering, and the agony of death, and then charge ourselves
with the certainty that death is coming, could we be ever looking onwards to
the day when the last trumpet shall call us from our graves to the
judgment-seat, and give a settled home in our bosoms to the truth of this awful
revelation, that judgment is coming, could we carry our frequent and daily
thoughts to the margin of eternity, and, after contrasting the delight and the
dreariness of its two immeasurable regions, with the interests of that
short-lived day which separates the morning from the evening of our existence
in the world, consider how surely, on the rapid wing of succession, eternity is
coming, - and simile as these ponderings are, let them just enter with the
power which they ought, and in the new complexion which they cast on all that
is intermediate between us and eternity, and they will both give us other
minds, and make other men of us. These truths are plain enough for the peasant
- but there is in them a challenging authority, which reaches even unto the
prince. They are fit for the homeliest understandings.
Yet homely as
they are, may they be offered to men of all ranks, and all classes in society,
and they do look hard upon the pursuits of our existing generation. With so
mighty an instrument of demonstration, as the calculus of those months that
will soon pass away, and of those years that are so easily summed up, do we
bring the lesson of our mortality to bear upon them. And be they the children
of wealth, resting their security on that corruptible foundation, of which gold
and silver are the materials, - or be they children of poverty, who think that
they have lost their all, because, without a portion in time, they have cast
eternity, as a thing of worthlessness, away from then, - or, in a word, be
their condition what it may, let them be of that innumerable multitude who use
the world not as a road, but as a residence, - we tell them that they are
carnally-minded, and if not arrested on the way, they are fast posting to that
death which is the doom of all who are so. Awaken, awaken, from these manifold
delusions by which nature is encompassed ! - and seek to be spiritually-minded,
that you may have life and peace.
So closely allied is the
consideration of our latter end with the very essence of wisdom, that we know
not a likelier expedient for shutting us up, and that immediately, unto Christ
- unto Him, who is called the wisdom of God as well as the power of God - unto
Him, in comparison of the excellency of whose knowledge all was but loss, in
the estimation of the apostle ; insomuch, that he determined to know nothing
save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. What is it that makes us tarry in the
great work of seeking a secure righteousness before God? It is because we feel
secure enough in the meantime with the possession of health, and the enjoyment
of a warm and well-sheltered home, and the engrossments of business, and the
delights of a gay, and pleasing, and varied companionship. These, mixed up with
a tolerable sense of our own decencies, and our own duties, serve altogether to
make us easy in this evil world, and to keep off from our imaginations all that
can give dread or disturbance in the thought of another world.
The
truth is, that in these circumstances, and with these feelings, the question,
Wherewithal shall I appear before God?" is never seriously entertained.
It does not come upon the mind with the urgency of a matter in hand, - and, in
reference to the undoubted fact, that the most earthly men are also the most
inimical to that doctrine which affirms the ground of our evangelical
acceptance before God, we believe the secret but substantial explanation of the
whole matter to be, that the soul which keeps a firm hold upon time, is
careless and thoughtless about the goodness of its foundation for eternity. He
likes this world best, and if he make good a portion here, he will not trouble
himself with any nice or scrupulous examination of what that is, which makes
the best title-deed for an inheritance hereafter. And this will explain a fact
which we think must be familiar to many - the very summary process upon which a
man of the world comes to his easy and agreeable conclusion on the question of
his eternity - the very comfortable balance which he strikes between his good
points and his bad ones- so as to set aside all his sins from the final result
of this computation, and bring into view nothing but his humanities and his
virtues, on which to rear a confidence before God. It is not by fully tracing,
but, in the language of parliament, by blinking the question, that he comes to
a deliverance which is satisfying enough to his mind about the world at a
distance, amid so much to satisfy him, in the visible and surrounding world
with which he has presently to do. It makes all the difference, between the
earnestness of our preparation to meet the creditor, who threatens instant
diligence upon our person, and the creditor whose application for payment we
can, by an act of the fancy, put off, and postpone to an indefinite distance
away from us.
And next time you see a thriving, prosperous,
good-humoured man of the world evince his hatred of the doctrine of faith, and
of all that is said about acceptance in Christ, and a right basis of
justification before the eye of the Lawgiver - before you admit the soundness
of his notions about a safe and sufficient passport to eternity - consider well
whether eternity he at all a matter of concern with him - and whether it is not
the entertainment of sense which gives him all his delight, and the business of
sense which gives him all his occupation.
Now, conceive the two
elements of eternity and time to be so revealed to his soul, as to stand in
their just and naked proportion before him. Conceive, that the one is seen
advancing in nearness and magnitude towards him, and the other as fast flitting
into evanescence away. Conceive the scales so to fall from his eyes, that,
through all the delusions which the god of this world spreads over the surface
of what is present and visible, he beholds the impressive mockery which death
stamps upon every enjoyment that is on this side of it; and feels, that if he
fall short of the enjoyment which is on the other side of it, he is undone. Let
all this be only mixed up with a right sense of sin and of the Saviour - and
not one moment will intervene, ere, under the curse and consciousness of the
one, he seeks for deliverance from the other. Let him thus be made to hear the
footsteps of the last messenger- and he will feel all the urgency of a present
claim and of a present creditor at his door; and he will be driven to the
necessity of a present settlement, and he will not be so easily set at rest
about the footing upon which he stands. His search for securities, will be the
search of a man in earnest; and a real practical earnestness is all that we
require assured, as we are, that the man who is truly seeking for a foundation,
will not be satisfied till he finds a solid one; and that out of the frail
materials of human virtue no such foundation can be formed; and that an
obedience, rendered without heart, and mixed up with all the infirmities both
of forgetfulness and pollution, will never quiet the conscience of him who has
at all been visited by a realizing sense of these things.
Thus it is,
that to consider our latter end is to tread on one of the likeliest pathways to
the Saviour. Nor do we know a more effectual way of being prompted forward to
that place of refuge - where we shall find a blood to wash away our guilt, and
a righteousness that can never fail us. So that, could we only demonstrate with
power, how short-lived the period, and how tottering the basis of all earthly
enjoyments, we should not despair of soon finding the alarmed sinner within his
secure resting-place, on that foundation which God hath laid in Zion.
There is often, in the pencilled descriptions of the moralist, a kind
of poetical and high-wrought imagery thrown around the chamber of death; and
that, whether it be the terrors of guilt, or the triumphs of conscious virtue,
which are conceived to mark this closing scene of our history in the world. It
is well to know what the plain and experimental truth is, upon the subject. In
the case of a worldly and alienated life, the remorse is not nearly so pungent,
the apprehensions not nearly so vivid and terrifying, the impression of future
and eternal realities not nearly so overpowering, as we are apt to fancy upon
such an occasion. The truth is, that as it was throughout the whole of his
living, so it is generally in dying. He is still engrossed with present and
sensible things; and there is positively nothing in the mere approach of
dissolution that can raise up the ascendancy of faith, or render him less the
slave of sight, and of the body, than he was before. There is the present pain,
there is the present thirst, there is the present breathlessness; and if, amid
the tumults of his earthly fabric giving way, and the last irregular movements
of its deranged mechanism fast drawing to their cessation, he send for the
minister to soothe him by his prayers, even he forms but one of the present
varieties. There is no actual going forth of the patient's mind towards the
things which are above. The faith which he has so long shut out, does not now
force its entrance into a bosom, habituated to the reception of no other
influences, than what the world, and the things of the world, have so long
exercised over him. We may see torpor upon such an occasion, and call it
serenity. We may witness an uncomplaining silence, and call it resignation. We
may never hear one note of alarm to drop from the lips of the dying sufferer;
and therefore say that he met with Christian fortitude his end. But all these
may meet upon a death-bed; and yet, the positive confidence of looking forward
to heaven as a home, a positive rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God, a
believing, and a knowing, that when the earthly house of this tabernacle
is dissolved, they shall have a building of God, a house not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens, may never enter his bosom.
There may be the
peacefulness of insensibility, even while the life of him who has been a
stranger to the faith of the gospel is waning to its extinction - but a peace
mixed up with the elevation of such prospects as these, is never felt, apart
from the thought of Christ as the Lord our righteousness. It is
altogether a romance to talk of such anticipations of triumph, to him who looks
back upon his own obedience, and then looks forward to his rightful and his
challenged reward. If we want our dying hour to have the radiance of heavens
gate thrown over it - if we want, amid the failure of expiring nature, to have
some firm footing, on which we might strongly and securely rest; there is
positively none other, but that to which the consideration of our latter end
should now be urging us forward - and, therefore, should we call upon ourselves
now to take up with Christ as our foundation, and to associate all our
confidence in God, with the obedience which he has wrought, with the ransom
which he has rendered.
We cannot better enforce these solemn
considerations on the minds of our readers, with the view of shutting them up
to the faith that is in Christ, than by referring them to SHOWERS "Serious
Reflections on Time and Eternity," and Sir MATTHEW HALE "On the consideration
of our Latter End." In SHOWERS excellent Treatise, they will find the serious
reflections of a mind, which, by the habit of solemn consideration, and the
exercise of a vigorous faith, habitually felt the power and the reality of
those important truths, respecting which mankind in general maintain an
obstinate, and almost incurable heedlessness., There is scarcely any form of
words, or any mode of computation, or any point of contrast, which, he has not
employed, to give the reader a vivid, and substantive impression of the
littleness of Time, and the greatness of Eternity. The truths on which he
insists, are truths of the plainest and most elementary kind; but thoroughly
aware that the practical consideration of them constitutes the essence of true
wisdom, he endeavours, by the most forcible arguments, and the most touching
appeals, and the most persuasive earnestness, to arrest mankind in their career
of thoughtlessness and unconcern, and to turn their resolute and sustained
attention to the consideration of their latter end, and so to number their
days, that they may apply their hearts to that highest of all wisdom a
preparation for the coming eternity; and with the real and tender solicitude of
men in earnest, lay to heart those things which pertain to their everlasting
peace, ere time be hid from their eyes.
The Consideration of our
Latter End, and the other kindred pieces of Sir MATTHEW HALE, are not
only marked by the same solemn earnestness, but possess all that graphic power
of thought, and depth of experimental feeling, which characterize the writings
of this extraordinary man. The character and writings of this great and good
man have already been adverted to in a former Essay in this series of
Select Christian Authors, which precludes the necessity of our entering
into any farther exposition of them. But we cannot help observing, that if Sir
MATTHEW HALE, whose genius and learning rendered him one of the most
distinguished ornaments of his age, and whose character and wisdom still
associate him in England's best remembrances, with the noblest of her worthies,
counted it a wisdom superior to all human learning, to consider his latter end-
and if, amidst the numerous and important avocations of that high official
station which he occupied, rendered still more arduous and difficult, by the
anarchy and confusion of that revolutionary period in which he lived, this good
man was not unmindful to address those monitory lessons to his countrymen,
which we now present anew, as salutary admonitions to the present generation, -
then have we a testimony to the worth and surpassing excellence of this wisdom,
above all the acquisitions of science and philosophy, which cannot be
disregarded, without incurring the imputation of folly.
Science and
human learning we hold in high estimation, and let them be diffused throughout
every corner of our land; but what we affirm is, that they do not meet the
necessities of man's moral constitution. The man of science may be rich in all
these acquisitions, and yet be destitute of that knowledge which forms a right
preparation for the duties of time, or a sound preparation for the glories of
eternity, while the humble peasant, whose mind has never been illumined with
science, may be illustrious in wisdom of a far higher order, and, by turning
the consideration of his latter end to its right and practical use, may have
attained to that knowledge in which the apostle determined alone to glory,
the knowledge of Jesus Christ and him crucified. It is the great
design of such a consideration, to lead us to that gospel which is freely
offered to all. But though the gospel be offered freely, it only becomes ours
by our receiving it freely; and seldom is it so received by him who, after
being laid on the bed of his last sickness, has still a Saviour to Seek,
instead of a Saviour to enjoy. The evil heart of unbelief, which he has
cherished through life, cleaves to him, and keeps its hold till the last hour
of it; and, therefore, never does the mind entertain a delusion more ruinous,
never is eternity placed on a more desperate stake, than by those who put away
from them now the offers of salvation, and think that then they shall have it
for the taking. It is the part, then, of all to look forthwith and earnestly to
the Saviour - to contemplate him in his revealed offices - to make a real and
intelligent work of closing with him - to receive him as their atonement - to
render allegiance to him as their Lord and their Proprietor - and submit
themselves unto Him, that he might rule in them by his Spirit, and over them by
his Law. Whether they be the unconverted, who have yet to lay hold of Christ,
or the already converted, whose business it is to keep that hold - we know not
how the consideration of their latter end can be turned more substantially to
the purposes of wisdom and of true understanding, than by leading them
supremely to prize, and immediately to acquire, that knowledge of Jesus Christ
our Lord, which is life everlasting.
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