The First Rebuke of a Dying Father

Just before the death of Jacob, and during his last illness, as the custom of the Hebrews was, he called his sons together to give them his parting blessing. In doing this, the aged patriarch appears to have been inspired with a prophetic tongue, and while he described with great accuracy and faithfulness the peculiar characteristics of his sons, he predicted what should befall them for a great while to come.

Reuben, his first-born, was the son of Jacob and Leah. We know nothing of his character except what is given us in the Mosaic history. The detail of a part of his life as found in the apocryphal book called “The testament of the twelve patriarchs,” is too fanciful and spurious to be accredited. To say nothing here of the shameful crime which led his father to animadvert on his conduct with so much severity, we are informed that he was a man of no stability of character. He was precipitate, undulating, incoherent and unsolid as water. On this account he was prenionished that he should not excel; and on this account, he did in fact lose his birth-right and all the privileges of primogeniture. The birth-right was given to Joseph, the kingdom to Judah, and the priesthood to Levi. The tribe of Reuben was never very numerous, and never rose to any eminence in Israel. They had their inheritance beyond Jordan, between the brooks Arnon south, and Jazer north, environed by the mountains of Gilead on the east, and bounded by Jordan on the west. When Moses took the census of the tribes in the wilderness, this tribe was not so numerous by one third, as either Judah, Joseph, or Dan, and it was among the first that was earned into captivity. When and where Reuben died, we have no account, and where his descendants are dispersed at the present day, no man can tell.

It was an affecting scene, when the venerable patriarch, in that land of strangers, called his twelve sons around his bed to listen to the last words which he would ever utter, and that he might “tell them that which should befall them in the last days.” There is an extent of prediction here uttered which covers the future history of the twelve tribes of Israel, and which, so far as that history is not lost, and the lines of demarcation between them blotted out by their dispersion, has been in a most remarkable manner fulfilled.

In uttering these predictions, it is not Jacob himself who speaks, so much as the God of Jacob; it is not so much the father, as the Spirit of prophecy from the dying father’s lips. Keuben was not the favorite son; nor was he unbeloved; in some respects, he was his father’s pride, because he was the first-born. If he was rebuked, it was in the spirit of parental impartiality, and truthful prediction. He was entitled to the precedency among his brethren; and this his father acknowledged. “Reuben, thou art my first-born, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power.” But notwithstanding this, for the sins of former years, and for his existing imperfections, he and his tribe were to become an insignificant, if not a degraded people. They were painful words which fell upon the ear of this disappointed and mortified son, at the hour when he probably hoped that his former wickedness had been forgotten, and that he might receive his dying father’s blessing. They were few, but emphatic words: “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel” There is no reason to question his piety; but he was an unstable man, and could never attain any pre-eminence.

The religion of the gospel, while it effects a radical transformation in men, does not root out what is peculiar to their natural and individual character. The natural character is affected and modified, and indeed directed by religion; and go is religion affected and modified by the peculiarities of natural character. When the principles and spirit of Christianity are engrafted upon superior powers of mind, other things being equal, it turns out to be piety of a superior order. When we see it engrafted upon habits of caution and diligence, we expect to see it pursuing the same wise and diligent course in the church of God, which it pursued in the world. When we see it engrafted upon great firmness and fortitude, we expect to see the same vigor and invincible firmness consecrated to the noblest ends. We find such piety as this in the church in every age, and we read of it in the history of such men as Abraham and Moses, and Caleb and Joshua, and Paul and John in the sacred Scriptures.

There is an instability of Christian feeling in good men that does not always deserve the opprobrium of instability of character. The best of men are not altogether strangers to the alternations of hope and fear, joy and sorrow, religious excitement and religious apathy; nor will they be divested of them so long as they inhabit the earthly house of this tabernacle, nor until their religious emotions run in that more equable course which, like the water of life, flows “clear as crystal from the throne of God and the Lamb.”

When we speak of Christian instability we speak of a more definable and tangible thing, and of something which is more easily detected, and capable of being more successfully controlled. We speak rather of the instability of Christian practice, than the instability of Christian affection. Some Christians are uniform and consistent in all their deportment. They are everywhere known as firm and stable men; they are not carried about either by every wind of doctrine, or every varying breeze of novelty. By what we know of their character, it is no difficult matter to tell where we shall find them, and what part they will act under their varied, and it may be unexpected responsibilities. No matter what the circumstances are in which the providence of God places them, everywhere they discover the same integrity and firmness. You need only ask, whether they have had opportunity to form their own opinions, and to concert their own plans of conduct, in order to be satisfied as to the course they will pursue. In matters of indifference, they can become all things to all men; while in matters of principle, they possess invincible firmness. Everywhere they are the same men; in the world and in the church; in their families and in the more extended circles of their friends; during the week and on the Lord’s-day. In their religious duties and religious relations, you find them where they ought to be, — in their own places of worship, and sustaining by their example the ministrations and services to which they have pledged their influence. On all occasions and in all circumstances, they are the same consistent, steadfast men.

All are not like these. Some there are who have no settled opinions of their own, and who are easily drawn away by error and delusion. If they have the faith, they do not always keep the faith; and if they hear the truth, they sometimes indulge their love of novelty, and are found listening to error. There is a class of professed Christians who are a sort of religious adventurers. They are disentangled from all the shackles of religious habit; and while they “prove all things,” fail of “holding fast that which is good.” They are not the most scrupulous men in the world; and easily persuade themselves that the most pliable religion is the most amiable and attractive, because it least thwarts their inclinations. They mean to be good Christians; but to accommodate their principles and conduct to the spirit of the times. They take no pains to control and influence this spirit, but, in their amiable weakness, submit themselves to its control. On the Lord’s-day, they are at the church; on a week-day, they may be found at the theatre. Sometimes you see them instructing a Sabbath-school, and sometimes leading down the dance; sometimes at the communion-table, and sometimes at a party of whist. Sometimes they accuse themselves for these inconsistencies, but have no firmness to resist the next temptation to repeat them. They are perpetually varying in their deportment. They are very conscientious in some things, and very loose and inconsiderate in others. They are sometimes right and sometimes wrong. They are firm as the hills at one moment, and unstable as water at the next. They are the creatures of circumstance. They are perpetually changing their associates, shifting their place of worship, now belonging to one party and now to another. They are just what their condition and their own unstable heart makes them. They are “double-minded men” — men who seem to have two souls. They are perpetually changing the objects of their affection, their opinions, their plans; so that they seem to be under the control of two minds — one leading them this way and another that. They are sad and guilty alternations between God and Mammon. They are neither safe guides nor constant disciples. This want of stability is a great and common imperfection in men professing godliness.

It may not be an unprofitable inquiry, to propose for a few moments’ consideration, what are some of the causes and incentives to this instability f When we speak of these, of instability in religion, we do not mean those unavoidable hindrances to a uniform and steady practice of the duties of piety, to which all men are exposed, and which from their nature are beyond control; but those causes which never exist without our own consent, and which it is always in our power to remove. That which operates most generally and most effectually, is the scanty attainments in personal religion. It is because Christians have so little constancy and perseverance in the graces of the Spirit, that they are so unstable in Christian duties. If they were always in the actual exercise of holy affections, they could not fail to be more firm and undeviating in practice. The best of men have but little religion, and give but very imperfect illustrations of its power; while the still more painful truth may not be suppressed, that the unstable often furnish, both to themselves and to others, too much reason for the apprehension that they have a name to live while they are dead. It requires more than a profession of godliness, and more than a few evanescent religious hopes, to “stand fast and quit ourselves like men.” Tried piety is the most stable piety. The man who is not moved by the changeful maxims of a world that lieth in wickedness, must enjoy large measures of the favor of God; while to enjoy large measures of his favor, lie must possess more than ordinary piety. He must be a man of heroic faith and fervent prayer, if his course is steadfast. He will never be stable in the varied and self-denying duties of the Christian life, unless he loves them; and I need not say that it is no* ordinary piety whose “meat is to do the will of God.” There are many seasons in the religious experience even of good men, when they are at such a distance from God, that they take little pleasure in doing his will. Instead of girding up their loins for the great battle of human life, and pressing onward and upward, they hesitate and falter in the conflict. They put off their armor, relax their exertions, and let their light go out like other men.

But while this is the most obvious cause of instability, and so obvious, that it is almost identical with the effect, there are causes that are less obvious and more subtle. There is a strong tendency in the minds of good men to form an undue and disproportioned estimate of high religious frames and feelings. This exposure is perhaps natural to them as sensitive beings, while it is often strengthened and superinduced by false views and erroneous teaching. Yet is this a topic on which we would speak with caution. The Scriptures, as well as Christian biography, furnish some of the most exemplary and delightful examples of true piety, by exhibiting the strength and ardor of these internal emotions, which are the fruit of the Spirit. Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, and John were not less distinguished by those spiritual frames of mind which they so habitually enjoyed, than by that stability of character by which their light still shines on this ungodly world. It forms, indeed, one of the most important doctrines of the Bible, that true religion consists mainly in the gracious affections of the soul; nor is any one of its duties more frequently inculcated, than the duty of a glowing love, a melting penitence, and a rapturous joy in God. Yet no divine teachings have been more abused and perverted than these by a certain class of minds. There are those who, to the comparative neglect of every outward duty, think little of religion that does not enjoy, and does not express itself in, the ecstacy of religious feeling. The consequence is, they make this state of mind the highest point of attainment. This is the great object of their reading and inquiry, of their prayers and their labor. The books that excite them, the preaching that excites them, and the scenes, and religious scenery by which they are most excited, form, in their judgment, the only fitting instruction, because they furnish the only incentives by which this high state of religious feeling can be produced and sustained. Yet is it a very possible thing for this state of mind, even with Christians who are not uninformed, to be overrated. I have not always found the most excitable to be the most uniform and stable. I have seen so many instances in which one hour’s high religious enjoyment seemed to be regarded as a sort of offset to trifling offences and serious omissions of duty, that I look upon this mere excitability with something like apprehension. Of one thing I am well satisfied, that a disproportioned estimate of religious frames and experiences is very apt to be associated, if not with a proportioned depreciation, with something like negligence of moral duties. Christians who think mainly of their frames and feelings are not always the most watchful and conscientious in regard to what they do, and leave undone. To devote their solicitude, their labor, their prayer, and their life to an uninterrupted and persevering series of benevolent and self-denying effort, is not unfrequently with them a secondary thing, and an inferior expression of the Christian piety. They will not reprobate it as a parade of religion; but it holds a subordinate place in their thoughts. And this error very naturally gives rise to a discernible inconstancy of practice and instability of character. Christians are not always on the Mount; and if their character is no more stable than their frames and feelings, it may be unstable as water. With such misconceptions as these, though they may not degenerate into immorality, and neglect the external services of religion, they will not be uniform and constant. They will now and then break out in some quick vibrations, some unexpected coruscations of piety, but will hold forth no strong and steady light. They will read and pray only when they feel like

it. They go to church only when they feel like it. They govern and catechize their children only when they feel like it. They give to the cause of God, and visit the widow and fatherless in their affliction, and keep themselves unspotted from the world, only when they feel like it. They will labor and be indefatigable for a little while; but when the fever is over, they relapse into deathlike stupor.

Another cause of this instability will be found in the abuse of several Christian doctrines. One of these is the doctrine of justification by faith. Men sometimes say, since we are not justified by anything we have done or can perform, it is of little consequence whether we are constant and uniform in our practice or not. So long as we do not fall into presumptuous sins, and preserve the purity and evidence of our Christian standing, it is not necessary that we should be unduly scrupulous and undeviating in works of righteousness. It is not necessary in order to be saved, never to fail in Christian duty. If they only build on the sure foundation it is enough. It is a secondary consideration with them to be burning and shining lights in the earth, or to be firm and unwavering in their progress toward heaven.

The doctrine of the saints’ certain and final perseverance in holiness is also a doctrine which is liable to the same perversion. That doctrine is, that where God of his infinite mercy has begun a work of grace in the heart, he will carry it on to the day of redemption; so that none of those who are once renewed, shall finally fall away so as to perish. There may be those who are so unwise to believe that if God has covenanted to keep them there is no necessity of keeping themselves; forgetting that one of the appointed means by which God has promised to keep them is their own diligence and care. Sometimes they act under very gross misconceptions of this truth, and then they are remiss and indifferent to their duty; and then again ashamed of their abuse of divine goodness and weary of their wanderings, they return to their duty with new zeal and high promise. They have no stability. Their goodness is like the early cloud and morning dew which quickly passeth away.

The same abuse is made by multitudes of the doctrine of human dependence. They can do nothing. They are altogether dependent on the grace of God. It is not for them to maintain unchanging constancy. We do not say that a man who is thus influenced, is not a Christian; but we

VOL. II. — 13 do say that he is in danger of great inconstancy. He will vacillate between a view of his obligations on the one hand, and his dependence on the other; and overlooking the combined and steady influence of both, he will possess everything but stability and decision.

These doctrines are true; but like every other truth, they are often abused. One would think, that they are in their own nature fitted to produce the very opposite effect from that to which we refer. The encroachments of sin must be very artful, and the heart very accessible to the influence of error, where truths like these, which furnish the grand encouragement to holy living, are made the occasion of carelessness and instability. If these doctrines are true, who would think of gaining the prize, without reaching the goal? of wearing the crown, without achieving the victory? They do indeed teach us, that the most aspiring and confident must “work out his salvation with fear and trembling;” but they also teach us, that “when we are weak, then are we strong.” They do indeed teach us, that on the slippery ascent to heaven it behooves us to “take heed lest we fall;” but they also teach us the value and power of the truth, “Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe.”

Another cause of this instability is, that good men so often underrate their own exertions. No man is too humble, nor can he ever be too thoroughly divested of self-sufficiency. Pride and self-dependence are the bane of those graces, and that patient and undiscouraged effort which form the most symmetrical and stable Christianity. But we have yet to learn that it savors of this presumptuous spirit, to aim at the prize of our high calling, or to make our arrangements for laborious effort, and rich results. Who should aim at this, if not a redeemed sinner? Who has the warrant so to do, and the means and motives of doing it, and the promised grace to stimulate him, if not the Christian? There are elements in Christianity that are fitted to originate the highest purposes, and to form the noblest character. We may not allow ourselves to say that others, more favored and more worthy, may do something in the world; and that, if we may but be enabled to take care of our own single selves, it is as much as we hope to accomplish. How many are there who say, Even should we attempt to be laborious and useful, it will be of very little account. With such self-distrust, it is no wonder they are unstable. Now and then they try to accomplish, but their exertions soon die away in the exclusive care of their own souls.

The most fruitful cause of instability, and the last I shall mention is, impatience of fatigue and weariness of labor. This, after all, is the source of almost all the inconstancy in Christian practice.

Christians are willing to watch and labor a little while; but are not willing to do it from day to day, from month to month, and from year to year. It costs too much time, too much care, and self-denial, and too many sacrifices. They are willing to take their part in Christian labor; but to be always employed, and ever bearing the heat and burden of the day, is more than the church or the world has the right to look for. They are weary in well-doing. They attend to their duty under the incitement of favored impulses; but instead of being the same uniform, steadfast men, are engaged in the good work only by fits and starts. They are unstable as water.

But we may not dismiss the general topic which has called forth the preceding observations without devoting a few thoughts to the consideration of the evils of this instability. The patriarch expressed them in few words: “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.”

It is the privilege of those who maintain a consistency and uniformity of Christian character, to be numbered among the excellent of the earth; while those who are inconstant and unsteadfast, though they may have good qualities, excel in nothing. They have no pre-eminence. They are neither eminently good, happy, nor useful.

They are not eminently good. One reason why there are comparatively so few examples recorded in history of genuine instability of character is, that men of vacillating purpose never rise to sufficient eminence to find a place on the pages of history. Those there are who figure on its pages, that are distinguished for wickedness; but they are men of strong and steady purpose. Those there are also whose names are recorded by historians on account of the eminence of their stations; men of hereditary rather than real greatness; men who are born to the throne, and whose names are handed down to us as princes rather than men. John, of England, called John Lackland, has a place in English history, because he was England’s king, and not because he was distinguished for his kingly virtues. He was weak in mind, changeable in purpose, and distinguished for his fickleness and levity. He could quarrel with the pope, and then kneel at his feet and resign his crown into his hands. He could quarrel with the barons, and then give them the Magna Charta. He could enter into a secret league with the king of France against his father Henry II., and then quarrel with the French king. Christiana of Sweden became tired of the throne, and then resigned it; after she had resigned it, nothing was more earnestly sought by her than the resumption of her crown. She publicly abjured Protestantism, and became a Papist. And at last she quarrelled with the pope, and then on her death-bed received absolution from his pen. Characters like these can never rise to eminence. We may say of them as the historian says of Christiana, “Philosophy is in their mouth, folly in their head, and pride in their heart.”

Nor is it otherwise in the religious world. Good men there are who are never eminent, because they are unstable. Their attainments in true religion and moral virtue are all of the lower order. It is but too obvious that they aspire after quite diminished measures of holiness. They are not like Paul, “forgetting the things that are behind, and pressing onward to those that are before;” but rather like the fickle Israelites, or the changeful Samaritans, who “feared the Lord and served their own gods.” The history of the church records the names of those who would have been eminent for goodness but for their unhappy instability of character. Archbishop Cranmer would have been one of the noblest men of his age had he possessed the uniformity and firmness which belongs to true Christianity. He advocated Henry’s divorce from his lawful queen, with the view of his marriage with Anne Boleyn, and then formally pronounced that marriage null and void. From being a Catholic, he became a Protestant; from Protestantism, he went back to the faith of Rome; and at his martyrdom finally renounced the faith of Rome, and died a professed Protestant.

Every part of man’s moral character is affected by this equivocal and unstable spirit. The perfection of goodness consists in the constant and uniform exercise of it; and the farther Christians are from a stability in the practice of the Christian virtues, the greater remove are they from true excellence. If a good man would grow in grace, and become eminent for piety, he must be above the reach of those passing winds which change the course of less decided and stable men. He may not be a man of changeful emotions, fickle purposes, or inconstant and doubtful life. I say inconstant and doubtful life, because no means are better adapted to their end, than an unwearied, steadfast attention to laborious and self-denying duties, is adapted to the advancement of personal holiness. Let a man be fickle here, and he will be subject to great mutability and vicissitude of character. He will be like Ephraim, — “a cake not turned;” parts of his character will be deficient; he will be sound in some respects and unsound in others. He will possess little of the vigor, and exhibit little of the finished beauty and excellence of true religion. He will very easily be led away by the error of the wicked, and fall from his own steadfastness. He will scarcely go from strength to strength. Even should his path toward Zion be on the whole like the rising light which shineth more and more unto the perfect day, it will be so broken with clouds, and so eclipsed by shadows, as to be sometimes dark at noon-day. He will live and die with little piety; and when he has finished his course, instead of having fought a good fight, he will but just have escaped the snare, and delivered his own soul.

Persons of this unstable character never become eminently happy. They are happy, only as they are good, occasionally and by accident. They have no solid, permanent source of enjoyment. They are tossed about in their hopes and comfort, just as they are in their feelings and practice. Few Christians have greater darkness, more doubts, or deeper depression and perplexity, than those whose spiritual comforts are enfeebled by the instability of their purposes and conduct. You do not find men who partake of the characteristic firmness and perseverance of the Apostle Paul, involved in darkness and gloom. There is a pleasure, a devout satisfaction in the constancy of Christian benevolence, and patience of Christian labor, which are unknown to men of the opposite spirit. There is something in the steadiness of such a pursuit, which raises the heart to familiar intercourse with things unseen, elevates the mind above the clouds that hang over the multitudes beneath, and leads the soul out from its dark caverns into the full light of the divine countenance. It is this mutability of Christian deportment, this alternate labor and sloth, this excitement and weariness, this sinning and repenting, that lays the heart open to such painful self-reproach; that invites temptation from without and within; that provokes God to hide his face, and dooms so many to fear and bondage. Their comforts are fluctuating — now in God and now in the world, ever ebbing and flowing like the tide. Such a man is not a happy Christian while he lives, nor can he die as it is the privilege of a Christian to die. He has no settled peace, because he has never accustomed himself to rest upon anything. He vibrates between hope and fear. He passes away in darkness; and cannot say, “Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.” If it is true that men generally die as they have lived, who would be an unstable Christian?

Persons of this character never become eminently useful. They may do good, but it is on a very moderate scale. Their plans of usefulness are seldom enlarged; and when they are, they have not fixedness of purpose enough to carry them into execution. Men who to any great extent have denied themselves, and have been actuated by a compassionate love for mankind; who have adorned the doctrine of God their Saviour; who have shone as lights in the world, and led others to glorify their Father who is in heaven; have been men of great uniformity and firmness. How can that man to any considerable extent consult the great, permanent, eternal interests of his fellow-men, who thinks of a life of self-renunciation to-day, and loses sight of it to-morrow? — who is all zeal and engagedness at this moment, and all apathy and sluggishness the next? No matter in what department of Christian duty a man wishes to be useful, an inconstant mind will spoil all his plans. Such a man very soon learns that he cannot trust himself, and is therefore afraid to enter with resolution into any purposes of enlarged and patient effort, lest he should not hold out to the end. And if he does not learn to distrust himself, his fellow-Christians soon learn to withdraw their confidence from him, and he is consigned to fill up here and there the interstices of some benevolent enterprise, rather than be prominent in achievements that bless mankind.

History furnishes us with many noble examples of the stability of Christian character, which time would fail me to enumerate. There are few finer examples in our own days, than are presented by the patient and indefatigable firmness of not a few devoted missionaries of the cross, who, while so many have retired from the field because they did not count the cost of entering it, have persevered in their work of faith and labor of love, who have grown gray in the self-denying service, and whose “hoary head is a crown of glory,” because still found in the way of righteousness. We need such men at home and abroad. They need not be men of the most commanding talent; but they should be men of patient toil and invincible firmness. They should be men who live not for themselves, but for Christ and his church. They should be men, not of” one idea,” but of one supreme object; men whose enterprise may supply the place of superior genius, and whose strong common sense and devoted piety render them eminently useful. Their very goodness and stability will give them talent and attainments, and teach them to employ them to the best advantage. We need ministers, and ruling elders, and members in the church of God, who will be to her what Gustavus Adolphus was to Sweden, and what Washington was to his country. We need men whose stability is moved by no scenes of trial, whose views may be counted on amid all the vacillations of public opinion, whose deeds of love and mercy, and whose achievements of Christian valor and disinterested zeal shall show, that whoever may be against them, God is for them; men whose firmness is more impenetrable than the shield of Ajax, and whom a greater than Hercules wrapped in the skin of the Nemean lion.

We have seen enough of unstable Christians and unstable ministers. If they have a momentary influence, it is only to keep the church in tumult and the world in gazing agitation. Their course is like the comet’s path, vivid and brilliant for the moment, but leaving no bright track behind them. Such men are the mere appendages to every thing that warms the hearts, enlivens the hopes, and saves the souls of men. They exert very little influence on their own generation, or any that comes after them.

What then is the remedy for this unhappy trait of character? On this part of the subject we will suggest the following considerations.

If you would guard against instability in religion, see that you are Christians. Men will have very little constancy and firmness in practice, unless they are “rooted and grounded in love.” If they are habitually embarrassed and doubtful of the genuineness of their own religion, they will be versatile and unsettled in their plans of usefulness and duty. They will have very little heart for steadfastness in labor, unless their purposes originate from holy love, and their measures are suggested and fortified by motives that are pure and disinterested. If a man’s heart is right with God, the objects of his pursuit will be such as deserve and demand unwearied thought, and such as will be apt to inspire fixedness of purpose. If he himself has good evidence that it is right, he will spend and be spent with a satisfaction that gives energy and stability to all that he performs. Nothing tends more to unman our courage, to take away our resolution and strength, than perpetual doubts about our personal religion. It is this which makes so many feel their unfitness for every duty, and renders so many mere cyphers in the church of God.

Be established also in your religious principles. As religious knowledge is the great auxiliary to advancement in holiness, so established principles are the great means of firmness in Christian duty. Let a man be unsettled in his religious opinions, and unless there is some powerfully counteracting cause, he will be proportionably unstable in his plans of duty and usefulness. The strength of his determination, and the vigor of his conduct, are in a great measure proportioned to the extent and certainty of his religious knowledge. Ignorance of the great doctrines of religion, and uncertainty as to the truth and importance of them, is but poorly calculated to present or to enforce the more powerful obligations, as well as the more resistless inducements to uniformity and perseverance.

Aim also at great achievements. “Expect great things; attempt great things.” It is in the attainments of the Christian character, as it is in everything else; men seldom advance beyond their expectations. They may not indeed arrive at the point at which they aim, but they will always rise higher than they would have done if they had projected a feel)ler or lower purpose. It depends very much upon a man’s own expectations and efforts whether he accomplishes little or much for the kingdom of Christ. Expectation animates effort; apprehension paralyzes it. A man’s exertions and prayers almost always correspond with his expectations; so that if his expectations are high, they will buoy up his mind and keep it steady at its purpose; but if his expectations are low, they will only depress his mind, but shake, if not annihilate, his best purposes.

If you would guard against instability in religion, forget not to count the cost. Nothing of great moment can be accomplished without unshaken resolution. No Christian ever consecrated the prime of youth, the vigor of manhood, and the experience of age, to the noble purpose of glorifying his Redeemer without an inviolable purpose. There must be a fixed and steady attention to this great object. A slight and cursory view of our duty, a purpose that alters with every change of feeling or circumstances, is the very evil to be corrected. Nor can much be done toward remedying this instability without patient labor; because the great objects of Christian benevolence must be prosecuted with unabated exertion. Nor can much be done without some degree of ardor and zeal. Christian stability arises from a strong, steady, uniform, benevolent principle, uniting and harmonizing everything in the pursuit of its object. If a man, therefore, would not be unstable, let him make up his mind to a life of steadfastness and toil. Let him lay his account with self-denial and difficulty. Let him come to his work desirous to spend and be spent in the service of his Lord and Master. Let his duty take entire possession of his soul, to the renunciation of everything that is inconsistent with his purpose, or unworthy of his high pursuit. Let his duty be the paramount, the absorbing consideration; and let it have weight and influence enough to awaken and invigorate all his powers and stimulate him to patient and persevering exertion.

And more than all, have strong confidence in God. This is the all-inspiring, all-conquering sentiment. A man can hardly be surprised into any great and sudden changes; he will with difficulty turn his attention to trifles, and reluctantly suffer his thoughts to be led away by vain and imaginary schemes to the neglect of any great design he has begun to prosecute, who is strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Our duty to God becomes the main business of life, and our devotion to his glory the continual source of enjoyment, so long as confidence in him remains the great incentive to exertion. No person will persevere in active usefulness without a proper feeling of his dependence. With an exclusive reliance on himself, his expectations must be narrow and his exertions enfeebled. But with humble confidence on the God of all grace and wisdom, as the source of all his strength and the author of all his success, he can attempt; he can execute. If he has no well-grounded confidence in God, he will first waver, then relax his endeavors, then abandon them. Nothing tends so powerfully to strengthen and refresh the heart as the thought, “I can do all things through Christ strengthening me.” Nowhere is to be found so ready, or so effectual a preservative against discouragement and dejection. Nowhere is there a sentiment which can influence a good man to move forward with a firmer step, to encounter opposition, neglect or reproach with a bolder and more collected aspect, or to meet sue* cess with an humbler or more grateful mind.

I will only add to these suggestions, if you would guard against instability in religion, ‘preserve a deep sense of your obligations. Every man is bound to steadfastness in the practice of holiness; much more, every Christian man. The same considerations which urge to duty at one time, urge to it at another, and without cessation and without end.

And what are these considerations? They are the commandment of the everlasting God, enforcing his reasonable claims upon his creature with a mighty persuasion and a resistless energy.

They are the love of Jesus Christ, superadding to the influence of moral obligation all the constraints of redeeming mercy.

They are the undeserved interposition of the Holy Spirit, quickening the soul from its death of trespasses and sins — redeeming it from the thraldom of Satan and the world — giving it the adoption of sons — conducting it in a course in which it is destined soon to bid a final adieu to guilt and wretchedness, and enter upon its everlasting progress in felicity and glory.

They are the most memorable and solemn engagements by which every professed disciple recognized his allegiance to the King of kings; by which he pledged his fidelity and obedience; by which he called heaven and earth to record that he would devote all that he is, or possesses, to the honor of God; and by which he made a free-will offering of his time, his talents, his influence, his learning, his skill, his labor, his property, his prayers, his life, to that cause for which his Redeemer suffered and died.

They are the interests of that Redeemer’s kingdom on earth — the good he may accomplish and the evil he may prevent — the dearest interests which are identified with the existence of immortal men — the prosperity of the church and the salvation of the soul.

These are the obligations which bind the people of God to unvarying constancy in the practice of godliness and the promotion of the highest good. And how can they be remembered, how can they have any weight and influence without discouraging the spirit of irresoluteness and versatility, and without inspiriting and invigorating the first and strongest emotions of the soul, and producing habits of action and usefulness as permanent as the power of exertion, as elevated as the object by which they are excited?

If we mistake not, instability in religion is one of the characteristics of many a good man. Perhaps it is an error, that ought to be thought of by some of my readers. I would by no means exclude myself from the weight of this reproach, and I hope it may be felt by others. Does not God address us as he did Ephraim of old, — “O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee; for thy goodness is as the early cloud, and the morning dew, which quickly passeth away!” It is not an uncommon thing for Christians to possess strong and ardent affections; but too often their religion almost evaporates in mere ardor and sensibility. It wants a steady and fixed attention to the great object of Christian benevolence; and a constancy and energy which shall give it effect in the promotion of the cause of godliness. If any are thus unstable, all they have to do is to repent and reform. Your own religion, your own peace and comfort, your usefulness in the world, the honor of God your Saviour, call upon you, in heart and in life, to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

I hope I shall be pardoned if I say, I am particularly anxious that the leading thoughts of this lecture should be remembered, especially by the young. You, my young friends, who have been recently brought into the school of Christ, and are now forming your habits as Christians, are entering upon a course in which you will probably travel on as long as you live. You have been eminently the objects of the divine favor; and the kind of religion you possess, the sort of character you form, the stability or instability of your practice, little as you may think of it, is yet to have a powerful influence on the church and the world. I would not have you aim to be great; but I would have you aim to be good. I would not have you aim at personal distinction, unless it be the eminence of humble, devoted, consistent piety. It is no impeachment of Christian modesty and humility to aspire after no common degree of usefulness. Eagerly as the men of the world, each in his different department, pants after wealth, influence, and fame, urged forward by raised expectations, and the prospect of ever-growing greatness, may you pant after greater constancy and uniformity of grace, and a life of invincible self-denial, and elevated virtue and usefulness. It is no difficult matter for you to hide your talent in the earth, to be indolent, fearful, and effeminate; to forget the high obligations of your profession, lose sight of the importance and greatness of the cause to which you are allied; and it is also easy to think, and feel, and act as those who must give an account of their stewardship, and by your exemplary piety, your importunate prayers, your strenuous exertions, your resolute perseverance in doing good, exhibit to the world the reality and beauty of religion, as well as evince that in you it has found no timid, wavering advocate. Venture, my young friends, to think of being useful in the world. Set your mark high. Count the cost of your purpose; estimate the value of a devoted life; appreciate the blessings and honor of being co-workers with your God and Saviour, and the happiness, the glory of that hour, when, unworthy as you are, it shall be said to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”