y believe in the
doctrine of future rewards and punishments, as to be influenced by that
persuasion to adhere in the main to the path of duty, though tempted to
forsake it by present interest, and present gratification; but farther,
that the great truths revealed in Scripture concerning the unseen world,
are the ideas for the most part uppermost in their thoughts, and about
which habitually their hearts are most interested. This state of mind
contributes, if the expression may be allowed, to rectify the illusions
of vision, to bring forward into nearer view those eternal things which
from their remoteness are apt to be either wholly overlooked, or to
appear but faintly in the utmost bounds of the horizon; and to remove
backward, and reduce to their true comparative dimensions, the objects
of the present life, which are apt to fill the human eye, assuming a
false magnitude from their vicinity. The true Christian knows from
experience however, that the former are apt to fade from the sight, and
the latter again to swell on it. He makes it therefore his continual
care to preserve those just and enlightened views, which through Divine
mercy he has obtained. Not that he will retire from that station in the
world which Providence seems to have appointed him to fill: he will be
active in the business of life, and enjoy its comforts with moderation
and thankfulness; but he will not be "totus in illis," he will not give
up his whole soul to them, they will be habitually subordinate in his
estimation to objects of more importance. The awful truth has sunk deep
into his mind, "the things which are seen are temporal, but the things
which are not seen are eternal;" and in the tumult and bustle of life,
he is sobered by the still small voice which whispers to him "the
fashion of this world passes away." This circumstance alone must, it is
obvious, constitute a vast difference between the habitual temper of his
mind, and that of the generality of nominal Christians, who are almost
entirely taken up with the concerns of the present world. They _know_
indeed that they are mortal, but they do not _feel_ it. The truth rests
in their understandings, and cannot gain admission into their hearts.
This speculative persuasion is altogether different from that strong
_practical_ impression of the infinite importance of eternal things,
which attended with a proportionate sense of the shortness and
uncertainty of all below, while it prompts to activ