part” respecting the primitive and constitutional
necessities of his being. He is feeding them
with a false and unhealthy food, and in this way manages
to stifle for a season their true and deep cravings.
But this cannot last forever. When a man dies
and goes into eternity, he takes nothing with him
but his character and his moral affinities. “We
brought nothing into this world, and it is certain
that we can carry nothing out.” The original
requirements and necessities of his soul are not destroyed
by death, but the earthly objects by which he sought
to meet them, and by which he did meet them after
a sort, are totally destroyed. He still has a
capacity for loving; but in eternity where is the
fame, the wealth, the pleasure upon which he has hitherto
expended it? He still has a capacity for thinking;
but where are the farm, the merchandise, the libraries,
the works of art, the human literatures, and the human
philosophies, upon which he has heretofore employed
it? The instant you cut off a creature who seeks
his good in the world, and not in God, from intercourse
with the world, you cause him to know even as he is
known respecting the true and proper portion of his
soul. Deprived of his accustomed and his false
object of love and support, he immediately begins
to reach out in all directions for something to love,
something to think of, something to trust in, and
finds nothing. Like that insect in our gardens
which spins a slender thread by which to guide itself
in its meanderings, and which when the clew is cut
thrusts out its head in every direction, but does
not venture to advance, the human creature who has
suddenly been cut off by death from his accustomed
objects of support and pleasure stretches out in every
direction for something to take their place.
And the misery of his case is, that when in his reachings
out he sees God, or comes into contact with God, he
starts back like the little insect when you present
a coal of fire to it. He needs as much as ever,
to love some being or some thing. But he has no
heart to love God and there is no other being and
no other thing in eternity to love. He needs,
as much as ever, to think of some object or some subject.
But to think of God is a distress to him; to reflect
upon divine and holy things is weariness and woe.
He is a carnal, earthly-minded man, and therefore
cannot find enjoyment in such meditations. Before
he can take relish in such objects and such thinking,
he must be born again; he must become a new creature.
But there is no new-birth of the soul in eternity.
The disposition and character which a man takes along
with him when he dies remains eternally unchanged.
The constitutional wants still continue. The
man must love, and must think. But the only object
in eternity upon which such capability can be expended
is God; and the carnal mind, saith the Scripture,
is enmity against God, and is not subject to
the law of God, neither indeed can be.