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It was the breadth then, the philosophic comprehension of this great philosophic design, which made it possible for the Poet to introduce into it, and exhibit in it, so glaringly, those evils of his time that were crying out to Heaven then, for redress, and could not wait for philosophic revolutions and reformations.
And it was not till I got impressed by the utter alienation of the heart in all its desires and affections from God; it was not till reconciliation to Him became the distinct and the prominent object of my ministerial exertions; it was not till I took the Scriptural way of laying the method of reconciliation before them; it was not till the free offer of forgiveness through the blood of Christ was urged upon their acceptance, and the Holy Spirit, given through the channel of Christ's mediatorship to all who ask Him, was set before them as the unceasing object of their dependence and their prayers; in one word, it was not till the contemplations of my people were turned to these great and essential elements in the business of a soul providing for its interest with God and the concerns of its eternity, that I ever heard of any of those subordinate reformations which I aforetime made the earnest and the zealous, but, I am afraid, at the same time the ultimate object of my earlier ministrations.
The time is so short that these three messengers can not possibly refer to three distinct reformations in the world; hence they must signify three important phases in the one last reformation that carries the gospel to all nations in the short period of an "hour," which time also includes the final judgment. A careful study of these three messages will show that they are inseparably connected.
For take this for a truth undeniable, that he that thinks himself better before God, because of his reformations, never yet had the true knowledge of his sin: But the poor Publican he had it, he had it in truth, as is manifest, because it drives him to the only sovereign remedy.
He has been reformed and changed several times before this, and has always become worse afterwards." "That is just the very thing Haslam says," said my friend "that some reformations are all flesh, and not the work of God; and, as such, can never stand. I believe the man to be converted by God this time." "We will see we will see," said our host, quietly helping himself to a glass of wine.
"And it is not," continued she, "a sudden reformation; I have no belief in sudden reformations. I think I see that this change in Cecilia's mind has been some time working out by her own experience of the misery, the folly, the degradation of deceit."
For take this for a truth undeniable, that he that thinks himself better before God, because of his reformations, never yet had the true knowledge of his sin: But the poor Publican he had it, he had it in truth, as is manifest, because it drives him to the only sovereign remedy.
No sin, no depth of corruption in your heart, no assault on your heart from your conscience, can justify you in ceasing to hope. Even when trouble "comes tumbling over the neck of all your reformations" as it came tumbling on Hopeful, let that only drive you the more deeply down into the true grounds of hope; even against hope rejoice in hope.
This is the fundamental thought at the root of most revolutions and reformations and revivals, and the thought is therefore a necessary and a just one. Unfortunately it seems to be an inevitable condition of human affairs that nothing new, however necessary or good can come into being out of the old, without much sorrow and many a birth-pang.
Our law code would, were its injunctions only carried out in private life, effect most extraordinary reformations in our customs and habits. The most singular innovations in our tastes and opinions would spring out of the statutes.
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