16*

ANXIETY FOR SALVATION.

REV. J. A. JAMES.

SURREY CHAPEL, MAY 18, 1834.

"What must I do to be saved?"-Acrs, xvi. 30.

SUCH was the inquiry of the pagan, who will rise in judgment at the last day, against millions who have been born in Christian lands. Awakened at midnight from his slumbers by the convulsions of an earthquake, fancying that he was feeling the very throes of expiring nature, seeing the abyss of eternity opening before him, and feeling upon his conscience a weight of unrepented, unforgiven sin, he exclaimed, with horrible apprehension of what was about to happen, "What shall I do to be saved?" What could he say otherwise? What can or what will any man say otherwise, when he feels that his foot is upon the very threshold of the unseen world? Ah, then, how the scenes that now interest, amuse, delight, will vanish, and one only anxiety will appear upon the spirit. "What shall I do to be saved?" Never did the lips of man utter, never did the heart of man conceive, never did the mind of man imagine, a more momentous question than this. Were the very sun that is now setting in mild majesty and glory upon our earth in danger of being lost from the solar system, and we were this night agitating the question, how, by petitioning Jehovah, that luminary might be spared to us, it were a trifle, not worth a thought, compared with the question that forms the subject of discourse. The rise and fall of empires, the fate of nations, are nothing. God grant that in all seriousness we may ask it now, while a satisfactory answer can be given to it, lest we should put off the subject to futurity, and ask the question when no answer can be given !

In the first place, there is a deep solicitude which every man owes to God and to himself, in reference to his own personal salvation: and in the second place, there are just reasons why such solicitude should be felt.

In the first place, THERE 18 A DEEP SOLICITUDE THAT A MAN OWES TO GOD AND TO HIMSELF, IN REFERENCE TO HIS OWN PERSONAL SALVATION. You are each one, and only one, of a vast world of souls; but you are each one. You have the completeness, as well as the identity and separateness, of the immortal existence in yourselves. You are each pursuing his own path to eternity; you will soon go alone through the dark valley of the shadow of death; appear alone at the bar of God, amidst the solemnities of judgment. All that is grand and terrific will cause your own reflections to return with an

overwhelming tide upon your own spirits; and, as it has been observed, amidst surrounding millions you will stand apart; and if without religion here, you will mourn alone; through the countless ages of eternity, your own separate, vast, immortal interests, will be settled by the power and justice of God.

Think, then, of yourselves; take care of yourselves; be anxious about yourselves; and lose not yourselves in the crowd. Self-love, distinct from selfishness, if it be no virtue, is unquestionably no sin: it is your impetus to happiness, and, well-directed, even to virtue itself. You must care for yourselves-not, of course, to the opposition or neglect of the welfare of others; but the concern of the universe will do no good for you, if it do not stir you up to save yourselves; and the benevolence of more worlds than one will be lavished upon you in vain, if there be no anxiety for your own spirits. And upon what is it that a man should be chiefly anxious? Himself-for a man's soul is himself: the soul, the never dying soul, is that about which this solicitude should be felt. We are to be indifferent to nothing that belongs to us; our health, our property, our reputation, are all of some importance to us, and should be the objects of our solicitude. If a man lose but a piece of money, like the woman in the parable, if he cannot find it by other means, he must light a candle, and sweep the house, that he may re-possess himself of it. Nothing that belongs to a man that is valuable in itself, however diminutive is its value, should be regarded with total indifference. Oh, then, think what solicitude should be poured over the immortal interests of the immortal spirit. You should seek your own salvation.

1 do not mean, of course, to throw myself between you and the exercise of that benevolence which you have been recently called upon to cherish with reference to the heathen world. But let me tell you, (and I tell you with perfect conviction and assurance of what I say,) that the damnation of the whole six hundred millions of immortal souls that are yet destitute of the Gospel, is nothing to you compared with your own salvation; that the salvation of the whole six hundred millions of immortal spirits that are yet without the knowledge of the Gospel, is nothing to you compared with the salvation of your own spirit. As I said before, I am not checking the ardour of your benevolence; sure as I am that proper Christian benevolence can only arise out of true Christianity in the heart and soul. To-night, brethren, I am pleading with you on behalf of your own souls. As I have already hinted, you have each an immortal spirit, as precious as any that can be found in the heathen world, that is the object of your kind regard. You are lost sinners; you are destined for eternity; Christ died for you as well as for others; you are invited to salvation: mercy to pardon, and grace to sanctify, are exhibited to you in the Gospel; and you ought to be anxious to obtain it: I say anxious, and I advisedly use the term.

This leads me to the second head of discourse, to advance REASONS WHICH JUSTIFY THIS ANXIETY FOR OUR OWN PERSONAL SALVATION. This will go to prove, that the man who dies in the neglect of it, with the faculties of a rational being, acts with an irrationality less than that of the brute; for brutes, by the power of instinct, provide themselves with the highest good of which their nature is susceptible: but man, rational man, who neglects the salvation

of his immortal soul, I say, with all the faculties of a thinking being, acts below the instinct of the brute.

Now, my brethren, I am preaching to you to-night upon the reasons why you should each be personally anxious for his own salvation: the first reason that justifies this anxiety is, the value of that object on which it is bestowed. The soul; that mysterious principle in a man's nature which is composed of intelligence, volition, reflection, sensation. I pass by the faculties of the mind to fix upon one of its attributes, which more especially comes under its consideration; and that is, its immortality. Immortality! it is a subject which the mind of a Newton could no more comprehend than the mind of a peasant. It is a fathomless abyss; we labour, and labour, and labour to comprehend it; but it is all beyond us. Between two finite periods, however great the disparity may be that exists, we can institute a comparison: we can compare a moment with a million of ages; but millions of ages cannot be compared with immortality. We may conceive of a total formed of a million of figures in breadth, if the mind were equal to it (which of course it is not), but this would be nothing to immortality-an existence that begins, but never, never ends, and never approaches to a termination. And that attribute which seems too vast for any but the Great God himself, is the attribute of the mind of each individual among you this moment. You are all immortal. You may be poor and illiterate, but you are immortal: you are in existence; and, as was lately said in this pulpit, you never can get out of it: you may dislike existence, and you may attempt to terminate it; but exist you must. Passing from world to world is only changing the scene and the mode of existence; but existence still continues, existence still goes on.

Oh, the never dying soul of man! What, possess this immortal soul, and not ask and urge, and never cease to ask and urge, until the question is satisfactorily answered, "What shall I do to be saved?" We look around upon the solicitude which men feel in reference to earthly objects-their houses, lands, health, friends; and we justify that solicitude up to a certain point: it is all proper in its place. What then should be the solicitude if a man really believes he is an immortal being, what should be the solicitude which the mind should cherish with reference to the immortal soul? Oh that I had ability (but who can have it?) to describe the folly-I go higher, the madness— I go higher still, the madness a thousand times multiplied, of that man who professes to believe that he is immortal, and who can find any thing on earth more important to him as a subject of attention and desire than the salvation of his immortal soul! If immortality could break in upon the human mind in all its grandeur and importance, the whole current of universal affairs would be immediately arrested; the din of business, the clamour of politics, the career of sensuality, the thunders of war, every inquiry that has engaged the mind of man, would all die away in silence, and we should hear nothing from every quarter, but the cry, "What shall I do to be saved?" In fact, if it were not for the partial ignorance in which we live, and must live, of the full comprehension of immortality, if it were not that it were hidden, and must be hidden, from us in some manner, the human mind, in all its energies and all its pursuits, would be prostrate, would be crushed, under the weight of that term: or, rather, the idea that it is intended to convey. Oh, my dear hearers, is this

true? Is it a fact? If so, what then should we say of those who are caring nothing about immortality, who are utterly regardless of the salvation of their immortal souls?

man.

The second reason which justifies this solicitude, is, the concern which others have manifested about our souls. Why the whole moral universe has been drawn into a fellowship, and sympathy, and concern, for the immortal soul of man: voices come to us from every part of the universe, which seem to unite in the inquiry, "What shall be done for the salvation of man?" This was the object that occupied the mind of Deity from eternity; for, from eternity, God foresaw the fall of man, and from eternity, determined upon his redemption. Redemption was no afterthought of God, no hasty expedient to gather up the shattered fragments of the first broken system, and bind them into something like harmony just upon the emergency: no; it was all foreseen, and all provided for. What was it brought the Son of God from the throne of heaven to the cross? And what was it that induced Him, who had the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God, to make himself of no reputation, and to take upon himself the form of a servant, and being found in fashion as a man, to humble himself, and to become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross? The salvation of For what are all the miraculous agencies of the Holy Spirit granted? To attest that Volume which is the basis of men's hope, and the object of man's faith. For what purpose did the finger of inspiration write the Bible, and the arm of Providence defend it? The salvation of man. Why did patriarchs live, and priests minister, and prophets predict, and Apostles preach? For the salvation of man. What are angels gathered for over this assembly to-night, invisible messengers of mercy, for what purpose are they here? To carry back the intelligence to the celestial world, if your salvation to-night should furnish an instance of another sinner repenting of his transgressions, born of the Spirit of God, and starting in the course of eternal life and eternal happiness. Yes, and if there should be a penitent to-night, (God grant that there may be many) though that penitent be a pauper, or a child, those angelic spirits will carry back the news; and in heaven, after every saint and every seraph has listened to the intelligence, they will break forth into new raptures of delight, and new acclamations of praise. Oh, then, must there not be something vast in salvation, that should draw together these holy beings, into fellowship, and sympathy, and concern, for man's salvation? And will you alone remain in a state of torpor and insensibility, though the very centre of this universal concern for you? What, when others are asking, "What shall be done for their salvation?" will you not take up the language of the text, and say, “What shall I do to be saved?"

In the third place, see another reason to justify this anxiety, and to condemn those who do not indulge it: consider what the salvation or the damnation of the soul includes. I am not asking you to concern yourself about trifles; I am raising you out of the region of trifling; I am presenting objects to your attention worthy the faculties of your minds. I am not calling you to be anxious about that which will not repay your solicitude. I dwell for a moment on that rast word-salvation. Authors have been writing, and preachers have descanted upon it for thousands of years, and they have left it just as they found it-one word, but millions of ideas! Just for a moment or two think what it

includes. The pardon of all your sins, however numerous, aggravated, or long continued; the justification of your person, so as to stand completely acquitted at the bar of God, a just and holy God; your adoption into the family of Jehovah, and a spirit of sonship connected with it: the renovation of your fallen nature, the sanctification of your heart and life, the renewal of your conscience; consolation in affliction; assurance that all things work together for good; hope in death; the resurrection of the just; life everlasting; a blissful heaven made up of the presence of God in Christ; communion with the invisible; communion with angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect; the light of perfect knowledge, the glow of perfect love, the rapture of perfect felicity: and all this for ever and for ever. This is heaven, so far as the Word of God has revealed it to our view. The question to-night is, “What shall I do to gain heaven?"

Turn to the opposite of this. What is hell? The loss of all happiness; a dreadful hell itself, if the loss were simply attended with immediate and eternal annihilation. But there is no such word as annihilation in the Bible; and it is a problem yet to be solved, whether there is any such act in reference to the particles of matter in the government of God: so let not the sinner cheer himself with the thought, that if he reach not heaven, he shall lie down in the slumbers of eternal night. Hell is the loss of heaven, but it is a state of conscious existence; it is a state of prolonged death-a living death. Hell means banishment from the presence of God, consignment to that dark world where hope never enters, and mercy is never seen; the everlasting endurance of the wrath of the Eternal; the bitterness of remorse; wretchedness and despair: and all this, too, for ever and ever. It is said of a tyrant, whose name is distinguished upon the page of history for inveterate cruelty, that he found out a new mode of punishment for criminals, by ordering a dead corpse to be chained to the living body of a felon, leaving him unrelieved by pity, unsustained by food, to wander with this body of death upon him, until by starvation, and suffocation, and infection, he should miserably perish. All this seems to me but a kind of emblem of the punishment of the wicked in another world. There will be the living principle of the soul, but there will be the body of moral death, chained to that living principle: and the soul will thus wander through eternity, a living body, united to the death of every thing that constitutes its happiness. Now what shall we do to be saved from this? Oh, my dear hearers, this is the question, What shall we do to be saved, so as to gain heaven and to escape hell?

Fourthly, another reason which justifies this solicitude is, the soul of every man until he repents, and believes in Christ, is actually in a lost state, although not irrecoverably lost. You have no need to ask, what will bring the soul into a state of death and condemnation: it is done already. "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God:" "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them:""What things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." So that you are already in a lost state. This is fearful. You have sinned; you have broken the commands of God; you were born in sin, you have grown up under the power of original sin; and, you have willingly suffered it to develope itself in innumerable actual transactions. This is your state as sinners; you are under the terrors of the law, and exposed to the wrath of God. Sin is not that