Oh brother man, who once wert young, in the period of ambition, or beyond it, if such a time there be, can you trust the selfishness, the caprice, the passions, and the sin of men, before your own conscience, renounce the law of God for the customs of men? When your volcanic mountain has been capped with snow, Interest, subtler than all the passions of the flesh, comes up to give her insidious counsel. "On our side," says she, "is the applause of men; feasting is with us; the wise and prudent are here also, yea, the ancient and honorable, men much older than thy father; and with gray hairs mottling thy once auburn head, wilt thou forsake official business, its solid praise, and certain gain, for the phantom of natural duty, renounce allegiance to warm human lies for the cold truth of God remote and far!" Say, "Get thee behind me," to such counsellors; "I will not stain my age by listening to your subterranean talk."
Oh, brother man, or old or young, how will you dare come up before your God and say: "Oh Lord, I heard, I heard thy voice in my soul, at times still and small, at times a trumpet talking with me of the Right, the Eternal Right, but I preferred the low counsels of the flesh; the commands of Interest I kept; I feared the rich man's decorous rage; I trembled at the public roar, and I scorned alike my native duty and thy natural law. Lo, here is the talent Thou gavest me, my sense of right. I have used each other sense, this only have I hid; it is eaten up with rust, but thus I bring it back to Thee. Take what is thine!" Who would dare thus to sin against infinite Justice? Who would wish to sin against it when it is also infinite Love, and the law of right is but the highway on which the Almightiness of the Father comes out to meet his prodigal, a great way off, penitent and returning home, or unrepentant still, refusing to be comforted, and famishing on draff and husks, while there is bread of heavenly life enough and yet to spare, comes out to meet us, to take us home, and to bless us forever and forever?
FOOTNOTES:
[11] The terms laws of the human spirit, spiritual laws, &c., are sometimes used to denote exclusively those laws which man must keep, not merely what he ought to keep, laws in relation to which man has no more freedom than a mass of marble. The words are used above in a different sense.
Why dost thou, Tyrant, boast abroad thy wicked works to praise?
Dost thou not know there is a God, whose mercies last alwaies?
* * * *
On mischiefe why sett'st thou thy minde, and wilt not walke upright?
Thou hast more lust false tales to find, than bring the truth to light.
Thou dost delight in fraud and guile, in mischiefe, bloud and wrong.
Thy lips have learned the flattering stile, oh false deceitful tongue.
Therefore shall God for aye confound, and pluck thee from thy place;
Thy seed root out from off the ground, and so shall thee deface.
The just, when they behold thy fall, with feare shall praise the Lord;
And in reproach of thee withall, crie out with one accord:—
"Behold the man that woulde not take the Lord for his defence;
But of his goods his God did make, and trust his corrupt sense.
But I, as olive, fresh and green, shall spring and spread abroad;
For why? my trust all times hath been, upon the living God!