The New Hampshire Gazette

For the Gazette—
Extract from the Faithful Remembrancer—an Oration, &c. No. 7—Concluded from our last.

UNDER the sacred tuition of the Divine Spirit, who takes pleasure in the improvements of yielding and attentive minds, we shall attain the highest degrees of knowledge and experience. We shall learn how the evils we encounter in the present state, the variety of alarming and afflicting events of life, its pains, fears and distresses, serve to awaken our energies, strengthen our minds, correct and enlarge our conceptions; opening things great and wonderful to our view; while the evidences and experiences of the Divine goodness, in innumerable and important instances, will strengthen our attachment to our Heavenly Benefactor and Friend; by all which we are instructed, animated, invigorated, and brought nearer to our GOD. The Scenes and events of life are replete with sublime instruction, and eventually productive of the most essential knowledge and the most perfect good; which being attained, will constrain us to acknowledge, with adoring wonder and a ravishing delight—the infinitely wise and righteous Sovereign of the Universe hath done all things well, and great and marvellous are his works: perfect in sublimity and grandeur, beauty and loveliness! We shall then clearly discern the great design of Deity was, by every dispensation, to draw us to himself: to render us forever happy in himself, and in each other.

We shall, likewise, attain to a full conviction of the necessity and excellency of virtue. We shall survey the creation, and contemplate our own Divine formation, with increasing admiration and delight, which will elevate, to the highest, our conceptions of the grandeur of the Almighty Architect, and extend each heart with the most pleasurable sensations of gratitude, joy and love. How wonderful, to have presented to our view, on the approaching day of our complete enlargement, the glorious scenes of the invisible world, from the first commencement of the creation, and of the reign of death: the divine dispensations towards those who died in friendship with their God while in the separate state: as well as towards such as yielded up their lives in mental darkness, under the defilement of their lusts, and hideously deformed by spite and enmity against both God and Man: For such doubtless has been the case with thousands in every age. If the sacred volumes and the sentiments of the nations are to be regarded—The wicked die, or driven away in his wickedness: For he that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. Such passages of sacred writ. are sufficient to make men tremble at the thoughts of living without God in the world, and of being driven out of it by their vices and impiety! Courage, to brave death in the cause of virtue and human happiness, is highly commendable, and gloriously rewarded. But to be unappalled at the thoughts of dying in wickedness, betrays the most shocking stupidity and fool-hardiness. To be ushered into the eternal world, in all the foulness and pollution of vice, with a spiteful malignant temper towards any of our fellow creatures, and disaffection towards God, is truly a most awful consideration.—In what degrees of wickedness and obduracy have men arrived I In the present, as well as past ages, have witnessed the most horrid exploits of vice, and of ingratitude towards the beneficient bestower of life and its numberless blessings. Stolidly thoughtless of the final result, men seemed to be ambitious to achieve the most infamous and the most cruel deeds of unrighteousness. But the wicked have been suddenly taken in snares, and enormous crimes have not escaped a just punishment.—Ye thoughtless children of vice and impiety! Be alarmed at your hazardous situation! Ye surely stand in slippery places. Awake to solemn, serious reflection: boast not of tomorrow. Are not deaths frequent around you, sudden and awful? Dare not to make the dread experiment of a future more convenient season for reform. The present moment is yours: The next may land you in the eternal world, in horrors and unutterable woes! Vice and impiety, pride, lust and ill nature, can meet with no milder fate. There must be a seasonable reform, to escape the most dreadful ruin. Your vile passions base and cruel tempers must be subdued, and all the foul pollutions of your minds removed, ere there can be peace in life, or hope in death, or future prospects. Was the expected glorious day of God to meet you in your present depravity, it would be no day of joy to you. Estranged from the Divine life, ye are incapable of true joy. Ye are unfit for happiness; and what ye pursue as such, is the poison that destroys you. Hasten to be wise for yourselves. No longer neglect the Author of life and happiness—the infinitely gracious Being, on whose bounty ye exist; whose liberal hand has provided for the innumerable myriads of beings inhabiting the world from age to age; whose treasures and whose goodness are inexhaustless; and who is able to cleanse you from your deepest pollutions, to soften and melt down the most obdurate of your hearts, to inspire you with gentle and benevolent tempers, and render you forever amiable and lovely in his eyes. Ye will then rejoice in a glorious freedom from the vile slavery of your lusts and lawless passions. Your existence will be no longer a curse to yourselves and mankind; but ye will experience the refined pleasures of social happiness, and relish the sweets of virtuous friendship: Ye will become associates with the illustrious assemblies which shall possess the New Heavens and New Earth; and with them enjoy an eternal day of glory and bliss. And what a happy exchange will ye have made!—From impurity, disgrace and wretchedness, restlessness and discontent; the tormenting slavery of vicious passions and appetites, a state of enmity both to the Creator and his creatures, an awful uncertainty with regard to futurity, and dire forebodings of woes to come—to have exchanged all those vexing, excruciating evils, and the most eminent hazard of far greater, or a state of peace and safety, the pleasures of virtue and social harmony, the friendship of God, and all the beneficent beings who inhabit the various apartments throughout the boundless extent of creation!—Such is the glory and blessedness to which ye are now called—yea, to which with a sacred
importunity ye are invited, and urged by arguments and motives the most weighty, the most convincing, the most alluring. It is your CREATOR who invites, who warns, who pleads with you; the kindest, the most tender, and the most powerful of friends. Prove ye, then, his friendship.—O! ye candidates for a world whose duration is eternal!..—Ye highly privileged subjects of innumerable mercies and favours, hitherto unmerited! Humble yourselves as in the presence of your God, whom ye have so greatly dishonoured, while at the same time ye cruelly wronged yourselves. Eagerly inquire of Him his will, and earnestly request his aid. Ye will meet with the kindest returns, and the most wonderful proofs of his love. Ye will then know real peace, felicity and joy; and being alive to God, ye will truly live; for ye will live the life which consists in his favour and experience, his loving kindness which is better than life,—than this sensual transitory life of fading, unsatisfying enjoyment. To live in favour and fellowship with God, is the proper life of man; and to aspire after the perfection of this heavenly life, is his duty and his privilege. Let us then learn, henceforth, to glory, and rejoice only in THIS, that we are the beloved CHILDREN OF GOD, and that OUR NAMES ARE WRITTEN IN HEAVEN.

Subscriptions for the Faithful Remembrancer, in 7 Numbers, are received at this Office. The 1st. No. having been out of the Editor's possession, is the reason of its not appearing in its proper place. It will be inserted in a future paper.