THE CONSEQUENCES OF SELF-DECEPTION.
By Helfenstein
SELF-DECEPTION in religion is a terrific evil. Its disastrous influence both in this world and the next exceeds all description. Nothing can befall us this side eternity which should be more deprecated, and against which we should more carefully guard. A false hope is worse than no hope. Whatever distress may attend the latter, the former is by far the more ruinous. 1. Self-deception renders all our religious performances vain. With whatever complacency they may be viewed by ourselves or by our fellow-men, infinite purity cannot behold them but with abhorrence. If the heart be wrong, all is wrong. Where there is no holy principle, there can be no holy practice. The same works that the christian performs we may perform, and they may be performed, too, with the same apparent zeal; but if our motives be impure they destroy the moral virtue of our deeds, however splendid and imposing to the eye of man, and render them in the view of God nothing but "vain oblations." Do we "spread forth our hands" in prayer. "He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination." Prov. xxviii, 9. Do we appear in the sanctuary? "Who," says God, "hath required this at your hand to tread my courts?" Isa. i, 12. Do we pay an external respect to the Sabbath? "The new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with: it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting." Verse 13. Do we afflict ourselves by fasting? "Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast and an acceptable day to the Lord?" Isa. lviii, 5, 6. Do we surround the Lord's table and receive the sacred memorials of the Saviour's death? Instead of commemorating his sufferings we become "guilty of the body and blood of the Lord." Do we give of our substance to feed the poor or to support and extend the gospel? Verily we have our reward, the praise of man, but not the approbation of God. 2. Self-deception also deprives us of the present comforts of religion. It may indeed impart a certain kind of peace. The mind, before agitated with fear, may become calmed, but to the "joy of salvation" we shall notwithstanding remain strangers. Religion, so far from proving a pleasure, will prove a task. Its duties will be observed, not because they are deemed desirable in themselves, but only as a means for the attainment of some selfish end. 3. Self-deception will prevent us from deriving any benefit from the means of grace. Regarding our condition as already safe, we shall of course see no ground for alarm. Whatever denunciations the Bible may utter against the impenitent, these denunciations will be lost upon us. Ministers may preach with the utmost fidelity, "warning every man with tears," "reproving, rebuking, exhorting with all long-suffering and doctrine," but the gospel, instead of becoming to us "the savor of life unto life," will become "the savor of death unto death." Do they urge their hearers to "flee from the wrath to come?" According to our apprehension, we have already been saved from that wrath. Do they point to the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world? We have already looked to him as our Saviour. Do they portray the glories of heaven, and call upon us to lay hold on eternal life? Heaven is already made sure. Do they caution us against self-deception? Others may be deceived, but as it respects ourselves, we cannot be mistaken. It is comparatively easy to shake the hopes of some real christians, while the same truths which disturb them leave the hypocrite unmoved. While some weak, trembling believer may lay these remarks aside, writing bitter things against himself, the very class of persons for whose benefit it is more immediately intended, may read its pages without one feeling of distrust or apprehension. 4. The dreadfulness of self-deception will further appear when we reflect that in eternity it will be too late to rectify the mistake. Then indeed it will be manifest. A view of the holy character of God, and of the spirituality of his law, will at once dissipate every delusion. The heart will appear without a covering, and every form of self-delusion will vanish forever; but there will be no remedy—probation has closed—the character is formed, and the record of our lives sealed up for eternity. 5. Self-deception will also aggravate our future misery. The more confident our hopes of future happiness are here, the more bitter will be the pain of disappointment hereafter. How awful to go to the gate of heaven, expecting admission, and then meet the sentence, "Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity?" Imagination can form but little conception of the anguish which must follow this exclusion. "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth," says Jesus, "when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out." Luke xiii, 27, 28. O the darkness that must gather around the spirit when the light of hope is thus suddenly and forever extinguished! The hope of the hypocrite, it is said, shall be "as the giving up of the ghost." "His hope shall be cut off, and his trust shall be a spider's web. He shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand; he shall hold it fast, but it shall not endure." Job viii, 14, 15. The fabric which he had all his life been rearing will fall, and great indeed will be the fall! Matt. vii, 27.