We sometimes hear it taken for granted that there are men who live and die without any serious thoughts. It may be so. But of the far larger class it may assuredly be said that they have, from time to time, their painful misgivings, their agitating fears, their keen convictions; and that the fault is rather that these emotions are intermittent, transitory, evanescent ever and anon choked and smothered, or else scorched and withered, so that they bring no fruit to perfection.
I. There is first, the "goodness" of early childhood; found not quite unfrequently in the sanctuary of a Christian home, where God is known and loved and honoured, and everything that is attractive and glorious is connected with His name. There, in those earliest days, where open and defiling sin has not yet entered, the thought of God as Father, of Christ as a Saviour, of the Holy Spirit as a Comforter; the thought of heaven as the place where all is pure and loving and happy; the thought of sin as something deadly and hateful thoughts such as these may be pressed upon the young heart with a freshness, and a fulness, and a beauty which the most advanced Christian warrior would give a thousand worlds to purchase. Happy are they who from such a life are early called to rest. How different their lot from that of those whom the present subject rather sets before us; those who fall from this earliest goodness; those on whom when the sun is up, he shines with a scorching and withering glare, so that their goodness is like the morning cloud or the early dew which are scattered by his rising.
II. There is a second growth of goodness, when he who has already lost much of the innocence of childhood begins to seek earnestly God's grace in boyhood. This kind of goodness is of a higher order than the former, in proportion as victory over sin is more glorious than freedom from temptation. Yet how often is it but as a morning cloud, dispersed by the first rising of the sun. Let us therefore fear. Fear but not be cast down. There is One who giveth power to the weak, and to those who have no strength increaseth might.
C. J. Vaughan, Harrow Sermons,2nd series, p. 1.
The theme thus brought before us is the frequently transitory character of religious impressions. We may classify the causes which tend to make religious impressions evanescent under three heads.
I. There are, first, those which are speculative in their nature. It has often occurred that when the conscience is awakened the soul takes refuge in the perplexing difficulties which revelation leaves unsolved, connected with such subjects as these namely, the harmony of prayer with the foreknowledge of God; the consistency of special grace with the free offer of salvation to every hearer of the Gospel; the origin of evil, the doctrine of the atonement, the doctrine of election, and the like: and because no satisfactory solution of these is found, the individual is content to be as he was before, and his half-formed resolutions vanish. Observe (1) that the existence of difficulties is inseparable from any revelation which is short of infinite. (2) These difficulties in revelation are of the very same sort, so far at least as they touch our conduct, as those which we meet in God's daily providence. (3) Difficulties in regard to things of which we are in doubt ought not to prevent us from performing duties that are perfectly plain.
II. A second class of causes which operate in the way of removing spiritual impressions may be styled the practical. There is (1) fear of opposition, (2) the influence of evil associates, (3) the fettering influence of some pernicious habit.
III. A third cause is connected with the conduct of professing Christians. The seriousness produced by some searching discourse is often wiped out by the thoughtless, flippant remarks of a so-called Christian on the way home from church. (1) To those who have felt their religious convictions shaken by this cause, I say: Religion is a personal thing; every man must give account of himself to God, and these inconsistent professors of religion shall be answerable for their hypocrisy at the bar of His judgment. But their inconsistency will not excuse you. (2) My second remark is to those who profess and call themselves Christians. See what stumbling-blocks your inconsistencies put in the way of sinners who may be seriously thinking of returning to God, and be warned to be watchful over your lives.
W. M. Taylor, Limitations of Life,p. 280.
References: Hosea 6:4. H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xx., p. 138; Homiletic Quarterly,vol iv., p. 140.