The Religious Sentiments : Part 10

Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness
by John Mather Austin

(Page 14 of 17)

The same feeling of delight attends the Christian to the exercises of godliness: and this is his language, 'It is a good thing to give thanks, and to draw near to God. O how I love thy law! it is sweeter to my taste than honey. How amiable are thy tabernacles.' Religion, where it is real, is the natural element of a Christian; and every creature rejoices in its own appropriate sphere. If you consider true piety with disgust, as a hard, unnatural, involuntary thing, you are totally ignorant of its nature, entirely destitute of its influence, and no wonder you cannot attach to it the idea of pleasure: but viewing it as it ought to be viewed, in the light of a new nature, you will perceive that it admits of most exalted delight.

"3. Consider the miseries which it prevents.

"It does not, it is true, prevent sickness, poverty, or misfortune: it does not fence off from the wilderness of this world, a mystic enclosure, within which the ills of life never intrude. No; these things happen to all alike; but how small a portion of human wretchedness flows from these sources, compared with that which arises from the dispositions of the heart. 'The mind is its own place, can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.' Men carry the springs of their happiness or misery in their own bosom. Hence it is said of the wicked, 'that they are like the troubled sea which cannot rest, which is never at peace, but continually casting up mire and dirt.' In contrast with which, it is affirmed that 'the work of righteousness is peace; and that the good man shall be satisfied from himself.' Would you behold the misery entailed by pride, look at Haman; by covetousness, look at Ahab; by malice, look at Cain; by profaneness and sensuality, united with the forebodings of a guilty conscience, look at Belshazzar; by envy, and a consciousness of being rejected of God, look at Saul; by revenge, look at Herodias writhing beneath the accusations of John, and thirsting for his blood; by apostasy, look at Judas. Religion would have prevented all this, and it will prevent similar misery in you. Hearken to the confessions of the outcast in the land of his banishment; of the felon in his irons, and in his dungeon; of the prostitute expiring upon her bed of straw; of the malefactor at the gallows - 'Wretched creature that I am, abhorred of men, accursed of God! To what have my crimes brought me!' Religion prevents all this: all that wretchedness which is the result of crime, is cut off by the influence of genuine piety. Misery prevented is happiness gained.

"4. Consider the consolations it imparts.

"Our world has been called, in the language of poetry, a vale of tears, and human life a bubble, raised from those tears, and inflated by sighs, which, after floating a little while, decked with a few gaudy colors, is touched by the hand of death, and dissolves. Poverty, disease, misfortune, unkindness, inconstancy, death, all assail the travellers as they journey onward to eternity through this gloomy valley; and what is to comfort them but religion?

"The consolations of religion are neither few nor small; they arise in part from those things which we have already mentioned in this chapter; i.e. from the exercise of the understanding on the revealed truths of God's word, from the impulses of the spiritual life within us, and from a reflection upon our spiritual privileges; but there are some others, which, though partially implied in these things, deserve a special enumeration and distinct consideration.

"A good conscience, which the wise man says is a perpetual feast, sustains a high place amongst the comforts of genuine piety. It is unquestionably true, that a man's happiness is in the keeping of his conscience; all the sources of his felicity are under the command of this faculty. 'A wounded spirit who can bear?' A troubled conscience converts a paradise into a hell, for it is the flame of hell kindled on earth; but a quiet conscience would illuminate the horrors of the deepest dungeon with the beams of heavenly day; the former has often rendered men like tormented fiends amidst an elysium of delights, while the latter has taught the songs of cherubim to martyrs in the prison or the flames.

"In addition to this, religion comforts the mind, with the assurance of an all-wise, all-pervading Providence, so minute in its superintendence and control, that not a sparrow falls to the ground without the knowledge of our heavenly Father: a superintendence which is excluded from no point of space, no moment of time, and overlooks not the meanest creature in existence. Nor is this all; for the Word of God assures the believer that 'all things work together for good to them that love God, who are the called according to his purpose.' Nothing that imagination could conceive, is more truly consolatory than this, to be assured that all things, however painful at the time, not excepting the failure of our favorite schemes, the disappointment of our fondest hopes, the loss of our dearest comforts, shall be overruled by infinite wisdom for the promotion of our ultimate good. This is a spring of comfort whose waters never fail.

"Religion consoles also by making manifest some of the benefits of affliction, even at the time it is endured. It crucifies the world, mortifies sin, quickens prayer, extracts the balmy sweets of the promises, endears the Saviour; and, to crown all, it directs the mind to that glorious state, where the days of our mourning shall be ended: that happy country where God shall wipe every tear from our eyes, and there shall be no more sorrow or crying. Nothing so composes the mind, and helps it to bear the load of trouble which God may lay upon it, as the near prospect of its termination. Religion shows the weather-beaten mariner the haven of eternal repose, where no storms arise, and the sea is ever calm; it exhibits to the weary traveller the city of habitation, within whose walls he will find a pleasant home, rest from his labors, and friends to welcome his arrival; it discloses to the wounded warrior his native country, where the alarms of war, and the dangers of conflict, will be no more encountered, but undisturbed peace forever reign. In that one word, HEAVEN, religion provides a balm for every wound, a cordial for every care.

"Here, then, is the pleasure of that wisdom which is from above; it is not only enjoyed in prosperity but continues to refresh us, and most powerfully to refresh us, in adversity; a remark which will not apply to any other kind of pleasure."

Derby, Miller, and Company, 1851