Sentiments on resignation

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SENTIMENTS

RESIGNATION.

Chapter I. General Observations On The Impor- Tance Of Resignation

alluring attributes, happiness presents herself within the discernment of every mortal eye. Her influence, though in different degrees, is universally felt. By some, nothing more than a transient moment seems to prevent her embraces"; while others view her at a dark and bewildering distance. She excites a trembling hope in the bosom of the wretched, a more glowing 'expectation in the sons and daughters of prosperity, a consoling assurance in great and generous souls, and is not entirely excluded from the dreams of the desperate. From the sen-

LOTHED with an assemblage of

B timents fO SENTlMEWrS on RESIGNATION'.

timents of misery, the vanity of the past, anS the incompetency of the present, we incessantly call upon futurity to -lead us into that scene of bliss, which an unyielding and tireless fancy continues to portray. Curiosity has often been baffled in searching for the motives, by which mankind, in such variety of -courses, are. continually actuated. The mystery, however, dissolves, when it is -considered* that they are all striving- to evade the empire of misery and to enjoy the smiles of happiness. The man, who tills the ground, is constantly aiming at this object. The very strokes, under which the oak and the thorn are subdued, delusively measure his advances to happiness. The very sweat of his brow and the pangs of fatigue are made to mark the gradual diminution of those hours, which are to elapse previous to the crowning of his wishes. The mariner, through an adventurous and toilsome series of enterprize, is in search of that repose, which is the special property of happiness. His heart is daily replenished with the fervours of hope, and a hope that looks forward to the most enamouring felicity. Hence it is no longer marvellous, that he -tears himself from the scenes of domestic •life, the bosom of his fair companion, and the endearments of his blooming offspring ; and perhaps more from the solicitude of natural affection, than from the influence of faith, comcnits them to the tender protection of the Divinity. To day, he sets a restless foot on the

verdenl

SENTIMENTS o» RESIGNATION. U verdant shores of the east ; to-morrow, he explores the trackless regions of the west ; but enjoyment both here and there eludes his embraces. The philosopher espouses a different style of energy and employment, but is actuated by the influence that arises from the prospect of happiness and renown. With- indefatigable steps, he ascends^ the acclivities of science, and hopes for the time, when the tremulous glimmerings of the nightly lamp will die away ia the blissful effulgence of literary glory.

Alas, to what effect are all the toils of man, without a spirit of reconciliation to the divine will ! Restlessness and dissatisfaction are inseparable from our existence, till resignation obtain a residence in our hearts. The labours of the field y the hazardous travels of the mariner, and the powerful researches of the philosopher, are justly eulogized by genius and wisdom ; but are consecrated to worth and excellence by a submissive reliance on God* and the smiles of his reconciled countenance. Destitute of a pious resignation, they would amount to no greater advantage, than to dissipate the vapours of indolence, beguile the hours of life, or extend the, boundaries of knowledge, and thus ; multiply the sources of infelicity. Anxiety and discontent, with a thousand corroding perplexities, find an early access to our bosoms j nor is it in the province of the most officious imagination and industrious ingenuity to allay, at ail times, their poignancy, or to consign them to forget-

fultless* fulness. An acquiescence in the Divine Sovereignty, an enlightened view of the character of G®d, raise the soul above the horrours of calamity. An innocent pliability is fruitful of advantage in the concerns of society. In this way, without the least sacrifice of integrity, many precious moments are rescued from tumult and violence,, and the rigour and asperity of many natural and civil evils are evaded. An open and violent resistance against the power of fashion, and the current manners of the day, expose us to a far greater hazard, than a retreat from their influence. The bold and daring cedar of the mountain is demolished by the same tempest, that is out-lived by the pliant willow of the garden.

Such are the effects of pliancy in the common concerns of life. Submission to the divine will relates to matters of infinite moment and reality, and is capable of affording the most signal advantages to those, who experience its sacred influence. In every condition, it affords a relief from our burdens and support to our souls. It constitutes a refuge, to which the soul repairs with composure, and views, with a reverential smile, that irresistible hand, which controuls the thunder and directs the storm. Here, under the healing effusions of the spirit, the throbbing artery of woe is quieted, and the heart is alive with delightful sensations. Here, the love of existence mingles with the love of God, and gloriously triumphs over the cares and calamities of time. nni

SENTIMENTS on RESIGNATION.

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The enjoyment of the present state depends, for its purity and permanence, upon resignation. All the pleasures in the wide field of irreconciliation are sordid and worthless. The sources, whence they arise, are corrupt. Thus the streams are intermingled with many subtle and noxious ingredients, through their various and enchanting windings. They are tasted with unbounded avidity, but never fail to leave a poisonous and deadly sediment in the heart. The ever busy wheel of vicissitude brings objects into view, that excite attachment, then sweeps them away, and leaves the world to languish at the altar of bereavement. Acquisition and- loss alternately reign from the lowest paths of poverty and wretchedness to the highest walks of earthly magnificence and greatness, The joys that arise from these precarious scenes are subject to the same derelktwt with the objects that afford them. The moment, in whidU riches and affluence have made their flight from the arms of their boasted possessor, has been frequently darkened by some direful catastrophe. My joy is fled ! wretchedness overwhelms me ! cries the graceless coward, while he directs the poniard to his heart. Others, from a loss of lesser toys and the removal of those objects, which have held an enchantment upon them, have wandered hopeless exiles into the realms of woe.

To what dreadful miseries, are we continual* ly exposed, without resignation ? A thousand B z joys joys expire in their birth ; others just begin to be felt and are swept away by the hand of calamity ; and if a few are destined to a longer continuance, they are stripped of their charms by their sameness, poisoned by disappointment, and languish into oblivion. Ah ! how often do we outlive ourselves, breathe and act, while every delightful sensation of existence is banished from the bosom. Resignation procures us joys, that mock the ruins of change, that retain their excellence under all the bereavments and trials of the present state. The unresigned are not only liable to be deserted by their joys, but their hearts are incessantly exposed to a shower of arrows from every grievous visitation of Providence. These arrows are barbed by the stings of conscience and imbrued in the poison of remorse y they enter the heart, whence each endeavour to extract them gives additional poignancy, till every nerve of paifl vibrates under their corroding influence. The wounds, that are inflicted upon the children of submission, are painful for the instant, but are neither dangerous nor destructive. They are often converted into drains, through which, are conveyed from the heart, the seeds of moral distemper and carnal pollution. In the bosoms of the resigned there is a temple, the residence of the Holy Spirit, and of happiness. Repairing to this, they are free from the annoyance of spiritual enemies, and injuries from the wiles of satan ; anu they are unmolested by the powers of disaster and death, t?™™

SENTIMENTS ok RESIGNATION, IS

From the day, that man was exiled from the garden of God, public as well as private calamities have constituted much of the complexion of every age. War, that insatiable ravager, has travelled through the wide realms of mortal existence. The most sequestered retirement and peaceful seclusions have been darkened by its horrours and stained by its bloody footsteps. Revolutions, like the waves of a shoreless ocean have rolled on the world, constantly bringing into view an infinite variety of evils. Changes, effected under the empire of human passions, and events, produced by the influence of pride, luxury, and vice, stand in dismal aspect before the trembling eye of meditation. Innocence; itself often mourns for an asylum. By no evasions suggested from wisdom and art, can we hope to be rescued entirely from the experience of these general calamities. While man can feel the grief of man, while the tear of sensibility starts at the inspection of distress, wherever it is found in human form, while the filaments ot attachment are woven from heart to heart, by the reciprocity of benevolent sentiments, and the dissolving of them, either by banishment or death, is distressful ; while we are susceptible of melancholy from grievous dispensations ; while all these are realities, the tidings of calamity will frequently knock at our doors, alarm our richest repose, leave us to distraction of thought, and open our bosoms to the invasion of terrour.

Resignation

Resignation is a defence against the disheartening and overwhelming influence of public calamities. It renders supportable a view of the ruins of human glory, by awakening the sentiments of immortality. It inspires a pleasing serenity,, while we pass the early tomb of genius and piety, and wraps us in reverential silence, when we discover the impious villain in the tenure of a long life. It discerns a controuling agency, which it dares neither to deny nor to mock. Without submission,- we groan under the rigour of present trials, which are always enhanced from the intrusion of tormenting apprehensions. How much does it abate from the joys of an affectionate mother, when she looks on the attracting face of her child, with* a. heart alive to the fine fervours of natural affection, then turns to view that world of trouble and danger,, through which it is doomed to pass ! Love becomes anxious, and losing sight of heaven, repines at the. destinies of Providence.

The daughter of resignation is inspired with' more noble sentiments ; she looks with tenderness on her offspring, and cheerfully conveys them to Christ, and to the guidance of that being who protects the slumber of the cradle, and the strength of age, and equally notices the death of the sparrow and the ruin of a kingdom. Submissive souls, always confiding in the rectitude of heaven, and being presented with enlarged views of the divine government, rise

above

SENTIMENTS on RESIGNATION, It above the world, and feel the triumphs of grace, while philosophy and all its munitions are turn* bling to nothing. The slavery, into which we are decoyed or forced by our passions, is dissolved under the influence of resignation. When we submissively feel our alliance with God, we are afraid to wander from his presence,, into the bewildering mazes of carnal extravagance. While pride has an allowed abode m> our hearts, the whole train of evil passion- combine their officious agency, in procuring atir ruin. Every generous sentiment is extinguished^ and every manly energy of the soul is suppressed. The fumes of passion incessantly brood on the mind with mingled^ heat and darkness, and conceal the excellence of every object^ that is worthy our aspiration,

A variety of remedies is prescribed to recover us from the controul of unhallowed desire. We are instructed to follow the dictates of reason and moral virtue. We are sometimes exhorted to tear ourselves from the glare of those objects, which feed our passions, to move into the shades of retirement, and to bury our propensities in the ashes of mortification. We are sometimes directed to the rigid law of self-denial, and are urged to an ascendency over our passions, by all the rewards of future fame. Again we are told to tread forever in the paths of harmless amusement. But the dormant state of our evil inclinations, their bare suppression, their concealment under the specious forms of

virtue

SENTIMENTS ott RESIGNATION;

virtue, leave it to uncertainty, whether they are eradicated, and whether the soul has actually triumphed over their influence. Resignation restores us to a, consciousness of what we are, and excites a prevailing inclination to become what we ought to be. It calms, into quietude and silence, the most violent agitations of the soul, and gives a crystal clearness to those troub*- led waters,, which, under the influence of pas*- sion, are in awful commotion, It demolishesthe pride of our hearts and as the removal of a tyrant and his auxiliaries restores a world to liberty and enjoyment, so the banishment of pride, under the power of submission, opens the heart- to the most delicious sensations and salu^ fcary exercises. Here the tinsel rhapsodies of imagination are dissolved. . Lust and desire, with all their extravagances, are thrown into a dissolution, which their own excesses could not procure. That haughty spirit, which poured its satire against God and heaven, subsides, and leaves an entrance to that thoughtful reverence, which observes a Deity in the sparkling visage of the diamond, and an unerring rectitude in all the footsteps of Providence. Those exalted sentiments of the Divinity, which resignation never fails to excite, wing the soul alike from the slavery of passion, the violence of lust, the allurements of pleasure, and the false glare of secular greatness.

Ye men of the world, whose bosoms have harbored passions, that philosophy has toiled

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SENTIMENTS on RESIGNATION. W

in vain to subdue ; passions and lusts, that have scarcely been suspended by the loudest thundering of adversity ; cast your eyes for once upon some fair daughter of resigned sorrow ; behold her tears, they speak of her heart, of heaven, of God ; their eloquence is free from sophistry, free from pride; and suppress, if you can, a desire to partake of the heavenly fruits of submission. Resignation is indispensably necessary to the acquisition of useful truth. The possession of divine truth, and a hearty attachment to its unalterable excellence, reinstamp us with the image of glory, and give us a participation in pleasures, that are sublime and lasting. This is an object, which is worthy the researches of an immortal mind. It rewards exertion, not with meretricious ornaments, but with incorruptible honours. Here might the kings of the earth deposit their crowns, and the emblems of idea! grandeur and fashionable distinction ; and become as great in goodness, and as good in greatness, as the humble cottager, who knows and loves his God. This is a species of truth that is a counterpoise to the most depressing infirmities of our nature, and pours its cheering illuminations through the darkest storms of adversity. It renders hallowed, every solitary hour of life. It interdicts the intoxicating cup of sensual pleasure, before we bear it to our lips. It elevates us above the distraction, violence and tumult of the world. It plants its

guardian

Sft SENTIMENTS on RESIGNATION.

guardian vigils around us, on the bed of sickness, and brightens the perspectives of an eternal world, at the hour of death. But the children of irreconciliation are excluded from all its salutary and heart-sustaining benefits. A murmuring spirit discolours the very features of truth, and constantly labours to evade the force of those realities, which are not congenial with the views of a carnal mind, and the feeling of a distempered heart. Whereas a devout inspection of the works of nature, is delightful and satisfactory to tire eye of submission. Truth and light, under the active powers of investigation, beam on the soul from every object, and exhibit God, even in the apparent minuteness of his works. The moment we relinquish the cradle, we are presented with a view of nature's inimitable scenery.

Here the powers of thought are called into being ; and curiosity, wonder and imagination, are awakened and become subsidiary to the pursuits of knowledge. The votary to submission advances in this instructive path, charmed by his progress and the delights of the way. He discovers an immense chain of correspondencies and reciprocal dependence, suspended from the finger of God, reaching to the dust, that cleaves to the foot of the traveller. Divine sentiments kindle in his bosom. Conscious insufficiency mysteriously serves to aid his ascension to the source of intelligence. Irreconciliation draws a veil between nature and the Divinity.

The

The fair fabric of creation becomes a background scenery, inexplicably darkened before him, to whom, wisdom, goodness and divine love are invisible. Thus she groans, sighs, and pours out her rancorous complaints. The ruins of the canker in the garden, the ravages of the worm in the field, excite the venom of her breast. She imperiously asperses the guardian of men and things, and with daring effrontery denies the rectitude of heaven. Where is the warrior, who is ever alive to the charms of nature, while enveloped in the din and smoke of battle ? Where is the man, that has ever been enamoured with the features of divine truth, while devoted to the darkened work of rebellion ? A serious notice of Divine Providence is useful and instructive. Hereby we are often impressed, with the indispensability of duties already known, and led to the discovery of new and edifying truths. But should we gaze forever, at the footsteps of Providence, a murmuring spirit would render totally impracticable our own edification. By endeavouring to measure the intentions of God by our own conceptions, we are deluded into darkness, where the beams of Divine complacency are never commissioned to enter. Thence we are heard to exclaim ; why are we doomed to be tossed forever on the tempestuous flood of calamity ? Why are our brightest hopes rendered as empty as the vision of a dream and transient as the spark, that falls from the flint ? Why are we exposed to such C disheartening

SENTIMENTS on RESIGNATION.

disheartening vicissitudes, and such ardent conflicts ? Why are we tortured with pains, torn from our enjoyments by sickness, and arrested in our course by the iron hand of disappointment ? Alas ! how often is this blasphemous language practically adopted ; and the hideous complexion of this cynical temper discovered through the tinsel disguise it wears.

Delirium and madness are frequently the off? spring of ^reconciliation. They give a strange discolouring to the inscrutable design of events, darken councils, close the avenues of knowledge and poison the springs of life. Do we experience the influence of resignation ? We look with different eyes and different sensations upon Divine Providence. We do not leap with an? ger into the trackless realms of presumption ; the horrors of insufficiency melt away into the precious sentiments of Divine rectitude. It gives us a pleasure, unknown to the multitude, that kingdoms, nations and our lives, are under the constant inspection ot Omniscience,and the controul of a hand, that rules with immaculate righteousness. We look, with reverence, upon the long and glorious annals of Divine government. Our faith brightens, and our alliance with heaven strengthens by the prospect. A consciousness of mortality, gives birth to the swelling feelings of immortality. Our ills, our pains and sorrows are lost in the view of eternal good. Have we rejoiced and mourned, hoped and despaired, fallen and arisen ? As

we

SENTIMENTS on RESIGNATION.

we have journeyed thus far in life ; a righteous God has always been before us, either in a cloud or in a pillar of fire. A pang more, or a pang less, another ray of prosperity, another hour of adversity, or another span to the length of our way, might have made us something different from what we now are. There our souls recoil as at the thoughts of oblivion ; for the consciousness of what we are, is dear as life ; it is the essence of being. The resigned mind gains knowledge from nature, and instruction from Divine Providence, it advances to glory, through every event, and triumphs beyond the reach of carnal commotion.

The lustre of revealed truth is, also, either wrapped in clouds before those, who are destitute of submission, or is beheld under all the distortions, that a distempered mind and corrupted heart can invent. Objections are palpably made against the counsels of the Almighty. That his noblest works should be condemned to wander in the mazes of depravity ; that he should delay the mission of a Redeemer, and destine so many ages to roll away in darkness $ that he should commit the tidings of salvation to a humble Nazarene ; that he should make the portals of glory accessible to none, but meek and submissive spirits, are complaints, which fall from the lips of unreclaimed apostates. They announce the blackness of depravity, a wilful evasion of the truth, and evince the infusion of infernal wrath. On the contrary* ry, with what mingled delight and wonder do the children of submission listen to the oracles of God. They are vivified by the effulgence of truth ; they rejoice in the counsels of the Most High, and catch the joys of angels from admiring with them, the designs and methods of grace, in the redemption of the trembling sinner. Alive to hope and joy, they look on Jesus and love away the rising pangs of anguish and grief. The bosom of resignation alone is open to the sanctifying rays of the Divinity, which by a constant agency, buoy the soul in softened raptures to the cloudless realms of immortality.

The importance of resignation* as it regards our happiness, cannot be denied. Yet by a strange infatuation, it is deemed necessary, only under the perils and trials of life. During the calm and cloudless day, the mariner solicits no assistance from the light house, which is reared on a rugged shore, but gazes after its luminous visage, when tossed on the tempestuous sea through the darkness of night. Thus, mankind under the calm of prosperity, are conveyed along, without any desire of resignation or religion, till the storm of calamity bursts upon their heads. O feeble and presumptuous mortal ( are the obligations of an eternal law suspended, because thou art beguiled into a sultry composure by the charm of fiction ? Is thy God alive, only in the tempest and storm, and has he no claim to thine obedience, only

when

SENTIMENTS dn RESIGNATION. 25

when he passeth by on a pavilion of judgment ? Wilt thou make the best of thy pleasures and the best of thy religion ? Is thine alienation harmless, because thou art wrapped in the mantle of spiritual slumber ? Does the quietude of thine heart betoken thy permanent rest, because thou art now basking in a transient sunshine ? Why dost thou forget, that the ingredients of the earthquake are busily kindling for vengeance, beneath that sultry silence, that precedes the tremenduous shock ? Alas ! as long as periodical piety will satisfy thy soul, occasional resignation will answer thy wishes !

O ! resignation bring us near to our God, while our powers are vigorous to enjoy his presence, and while we are least molested by the pressure of natural ills and disasters. Give us thy precious dainties, while our health is sound, and our relish is alive to their celestial qualities. When our hearts are faint under the burden of the day, afford us thy medicinal assistance. A single odour, poured upon our souls from thy sacred phial, shall give them a holy composure, till they awake to eternal rapture in the bosom of Jesus.

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Chapter II. Resignation Considered As It Regards The Renunciation Of Objects

are more vain than those, which are made, in order to ingraft the principles of religion upon a strange and degenerate vine. The smile of security is excited, in thousands, from a belief, that they have so artfully incorporated the forms of godliness, with the properties of un regenerate nature, that they will constitute a meritorious assemblage of christian excellences. If the gospel be known, it is difficult to suppress a suspicion that they are moving in a delusion, that is of narrow limits and bounded, on every side, by disappointment and wretchedness. The scions of grace are not to be found on the thorn. The evil tree will always bear a fruit and foliage congenial with its own nature. Before we can put on the new man, we must put off the old, with his deeds, which are corrupt. The holy armory of God is opened, by Jesus, to none, but those, who have rejected the weapons of unrighteousness.

Did an apostate condition imply nothing more than deprivation, or a banishment from the reconciled countenance of the Creator, the

MONG the efforts of man none labors labors of resignation would be greatly diminished, the sphere of its office comparatively small, and a knowledge of its real nature very considerably facilitated. But deprivation left the ground work of that character, to which a series of daring iniquities was to give a hideous complexion. While the love of obedience ex* pired in the breast of man, a rebellious spirit, by a fatal intrusion, obtained the possession of his heart. Lost to the unerring guidance of the Eternal Will, he immediately repaired to the suggestions of carnal volition, and wandered in a wilderness of extravagance and enormity. When the Divine glory was veiled from mortal view, he not only turned his restless eyes from the face of heaven, but bade them search the wide realms of dust, for gods, to whom the heart could pour out its incense, and pay its idolatrous homage. The calm serenity of his soul was dissolved and succeeded by the turbulence of a thousand restless passions. The holy altar of meekness and humiliation was demolished at the feet of Jehovah and pride, with astonishing effrontery, reared a visionary temple on high and from the immensity of self exaltation, waved, with impious hands, the ensign of dominion. His intellect was shrouded in darkness ; and losing a knowledge to do good, he became wise to do evil. When the affections of his heart ceased to arise from enlightened views of the Divinity, its emotions were excited by the visage of phantoms, by the

transient transient charm of temporal objects, and by the variegated scenery, which adorns, with a false brilliancy, the chambers of sensuality. When he no longer regarded the divine glory, as an object of his actions, by a mysterious perversion, his powers were alive to the contsouling urgency of selfish motives, and in defiance of heaven, wasted his breath in lighting up the flame of his own glory.

No feature of genuine resignation can be discovered in man, till he heartily renounce the works of disobedience. That froward spirit which leads him to trample on the oracles of God, must be rejected, with unqualified abhorence. How often does this spirit, disregarding the interdictions of conscience and heaven, hurry us into the paths of sinful dissipation and destructive licentiousness ! With what power and art, does it disguise the forms of iniquity and make them assume a harmless aspe ct! How does it wrap in forgetfulness the miseries, which are already accumulated around us, and consign to apathy our noblest sensibilities !

Rebellion always arrogates the character of a benefactor. Sometimes, it holds to our view, the pleasures of resentment ; again it proposes to deliver us from the pressure of injuries, the painful restraints of virtue, and the thraldom of human laws. It stands in a beckoning attitude at all aberrations from duty, there it promises to tear the frowns from the face of fortune, and give a perpetual smile to the condition of life. By a mysterious influence, we learn to love this monstrous deceiver ; and receive his empty promises, with as much avidity, as though we had experienced some real advantage from the scenes into which we had been blindly conducted. This spirit, therefore, which is so dear in carnal appreciation must not only be suppressed, but thoroughly eradicated. Resignation relinquishes all the works of disobedience, and deposits, in oblivion the weapons of rebellion. No man can be resigned to the laws and government of the Divine Being, till his aversion be entirely removed, and he cease to evade their unabating authority. In short, he can never become truly submissive, till the espousals of his soul to the works of darkness be effectually dissolved.

How frequently do the most fatal dangers lurk in ambush under some specious form ! Thousands are deceived into a belief, that they are possessed of the grace of resignation, because they avoid the palpable acts of disobedience ; and forbear to raise, with unblushing boldness the weapons of resistance. All this may be produced by the inferior motives of honour and temporal fame. The flesh is often tired into a compliance, when the spirit is at warfare with God. The rebellion of thought and of our secret affections must be slain, before we can be denominated the submissive subjects of the Divine government. The slave with silent ancj visible composure may perform

SO SENTIMENTS on RESIGNATION.

form the works of obedience, while his heart is burning with venom and hatred against his Lord and Master. Thus when disobedience is openly and vitally relinquished, then, nor till then, can it be hoped we have the least degree of genuine resignation.

An unreserved subjection of the will is an indispensable article in resignation. This is an achievement not to be effectuated by a few philosophic exertions. Natural wisdom may produce an ostensible conformity to the resistless controul of general laws. Common sense, itself, would smile at the spectacle, should some daring eagle, beaten by the winter storm, attempt to remove the mountain of her residence into realms of perennial spring. Nor less would it smile, should it discover a feeble mortal endeavouring to elude his misery, by struggling to effect a change in the operation of immutable laws.