Christian Experience; Or, a Guide to the Perplexed. Or, a Guide to the Perplexed - Tapa blanda

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Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1828. Excerpt: ... CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. No. VII. THE HOPE OF SALVATION THE BEST SAFEGUARD OF THE UNDERSTANDING AGAINST ERROR, AND OF THE HEART AGAINST SIN. Alexander the Great having, on one occasion, distributed the whole of his private fortune amongst his friends and generals, was asked, why he left nothing for himself: "Hope is still left for me," said the ardent monarch. And, in the affairs of this life, hope is still the last thing which we relinquish. It seats itself upon the throne of the heart in the morning of life, and leaves it only when the heart is breaking under the cold hand of death. It hovers around the cradle of our infancy, when "it doth not appear what tve shall be;" and over the coffin of our old age, when it doth not appear what we are. Hope, is the sun that rules the "day/- and the moon that rules the "night" of life. It is the rain-, how which gilds the clouds of our calamity,, and the morning < star which leads on our brighter prospects. Jn a word, hope is to. the soul, what the soul is ,to the body--the mainspring of life and action. Take it away, and soon the energies of the body and the mind wither and perish. Hopeless labour is all fatigue; hopeless enterprise is unsteady; hopeless suffering is overwhelming. , ,; , Whatever, therefore, may be said in theory,., against hoping too much, and whatever may; be proved from experience, against the indul-. gence of sanguine hopes, the sober fact iSj that hope is essential to success in all the business of life; because, without it, diligence is weak and resolution wavering. The business of life could not go on, nor the trials of. life be sustained, if mankind did not wear the helmet of hope. It is their strength and safeguard amidst the duties and sufferings of the present state of being. All this is equally true of the hope o...