Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe With His Vision of the Angelick World

SERIOUS REFLECTIONS DURING THE LIFE...

Stud. I mean in a few words what the lines you have read mean, viz., that perhaps there may be a God, a heaven, and hell.

Ath. I don’t know but there may. [He observes tears stand in his eyes.]

Stud. Well, I see it begins to touch you; if you are uncertain, that is a step to conviction; and the rest of the words you have read are a most natural inference in your case.

“You’d best consider well, for fear

‘T should be too late when your mistakes appear.”

Ath. What would you have me consider?

Stud. I am not able to enter into that part now; the first thing is to persuade you to look in; listen to the voice of conscience; I am satisfied you stand convicted at that bar; you cannot plead not guilty there.

Ath. Convicted of what?

Stud. Of having acted contrary to the light of nature, of reason, and indeed of common-sense; most impiously denied the God whose air you breathe in, whose earth you tread on, whose food you eat, whose clothes you wear, who is your life, and will be your Judge.

Ath. I do not absolutely deny; I tell you I don’t know but there may be a God.

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Stud. Don’t you know but there may! O sir, I beseech you, repent; for certainly there is a God, depend upon it, I say so.

Ath. You fright me. [He starts and looks surprised.] Stud. Indeed I think it may well fright you.

Ath. But you fright me upon a quite different account from what you imagine; I am indeed very much surprised, and so would you too, if you knew the circumstance.

Stud. What circumstance?

Ath. Pray did you hear those words spoken anywhere today before you spoke them?

Stud. No, not I.

Ath. Was you at Mr ——-’s chamber about half-an-hour ago?

Stud. I have not been there this month past; I have given over visiting him, and all such as he is, long ago.

Ath. Have you seen him to-day, or when did you last see him? — did he speak those words to you, or you to him?

Stud. I have not seen him since I saw him with you about fourteen days ago, when your discourse (even both of you) was so blasphemous and so atheistical as made my very heart tremble, and I resolved never to come into company with ei-

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ther of you again, and it was that very discourse that made me think of you when I found those lines in this book. I should think it an evident discovery of God, and what I might hope should best forward your conviction, if His providence should have sent you to this door at that minute to receive the hint on this occasion.

Ath. There is something more than common in everything that has happened to me to-day.

Stud. If you would explain yourself a little I might say more; but you know very well I cannot make the least guess at what you mean.

Ath. Ask me no more questions; there must be a God or a devil in being. [He looks wildly and amazed.]

Stud. Dear friend, there are both, depend upon it; but I beseech you, compose your mind, and do not receive the conviction with horror, but with comfort and hope.

Ath. One Of other of them has been concerned in what has happened to me to-day; it has been a strange day with me.

Stud. If it relates only to these things, perhaps it may be of use to you to communicate the particulars, at least it may give some vent to the oppression of thought which you seem to be under; you cannot open your mind to one that has more

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earnest desires to do you good, though perhaps not sufficiently furnished to advise you.

Ath. I must tell it or burst. [Here he gave him the whole story of his going to his friend’s chamber in order to take him with him to the wicked club they had kept, and how he had met him at the door, and said the same words to him that the Student had repeated, and when he had done, says he to his friend] — And who now do you think must dictate the same words to him, and afterwards to you, to say to me on the same occasion?

Stud. Who do I think? Nay, who do you think?

Ath. Who? the devil, if there is a devil.

Stud. Why, do you think the devil preaches repentance? [He stands stock still, and says not a word, which the other perceiving, goes on] — Pray think seriously, for I see it does a little touch your reason. Is it likely the devil should bid either of us, or both of us, entreat you to repent? Is it the devil, think you, that would pronounce the certainty of the great truth I speak. of? Is it his business to convince you that there is a God?

Ath. That’s very true.

Stud. One thing, however, I’ll say in Satan’s behalf, and that is, that he never came up to your height of sinning. The devil has frequently set up himself, and persuaded poor deluded people to worship him as a God; but, to do him justice, he never had the impudence to deny the being of a God; that’s

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a sin purely human, and even among men very modern too, the invention of witty men, as they call themselves — a way they have lately found out to cherish superlative wickedness, and flatter themselves that they shall have no audit of their accounts in a future state; of whom it may indeed be said in that particular, they have out-sinned the devil

Ath. Indeed I think we have.

Stud. I wish you would consider a little farther of it.

Ath. What can men consider that have gone that length?

Stud. Yes, yes; remember what St Peter said to Simon the Sorcerer.

Ath. What was that?

Stud. Read Acts viii. 22; “Repent, therefore, of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.”

Ath. No, no; the last of your verses is against me there most directly.

“It’s all TOO LATE, now my mistakes appear.”

Stud. No, no; remember what you said, that it must be a God or a devil.

Ath. What is that to the purpose?

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Stud. Why, you seemed satisfied that it could not be from the devil

Ath. But what the better am I for that, if the other is my enemy?

Stud. Much the better if it was from God, if the words you heard were from God, and that two unconcerned persons so eminently concurred in speaking to you; you cannot believe God would bid you REPENT if it was too late, or if He were your irreconcilable enemy; on the contrary, if you believe it to be the voice of His providence, you ought to listen to and obey it.

Ath. You have a strange power of persuasion, there is no resisting your argument.

Stud. It is not in me to persuade, but Heaven may make use of me to convince.

Ath. To convince is to persuade; I am convinced that I have been a dreadful wretch.

Stud. I am persuaded you were convinced of that before.

Ath. I cannot deny but my heart always struck me — a kind of chill horror ran through my veins, when I have uttered the blasphemous opinions that I have been drawn into; my very

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blood stagnated at the thought of it, and I look back on it with astonishment.

Stud. I tell you, I felt a tremor even in your flesh when you read the words, a God, a heaven, a hell.

Ath. I confess to you my very heart sunk within me at the words who can tell; my soul answered that I could tell myself that it both is and must be so.

Stud. Conscience is a faithful and never-failing evidence in his Maker’s behalf.

Ath. It is a very terrible evidence against me, and where will it end?

Stud. I hope it will end where it began, I mean in a heavenly call to you to repentance.

Ath. That is not always the consequence of conviction.

Stud. You must therefore distinguish again of what proceeds from heaven, what from hell, the voice of God, and the voice of the devil; the first calls upon you to repent, the last prompts you to despair.

Ath. Despair seems to be the natural consequence of denying God, for it shuts out the power that can alone restore the mind.

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Stud. The greater is that love which refuses, to be shut out, that sends such a heavenly summons to you to repent, and in so eminent a manner; it is not your having been an enemy, a blasphemer, a denier of God; Peter denied Christ three times, nay, the third time he even abjured Him, and yet, mark the words — the Lord looked on him, and immediately he repented.

Ath. My case is worse than Peter’s.

Stud. And yet you see you are called on to repent

Ath. I think you are called to make me repent; there’s no answering you.

Stud. Amen; may I have the blessing of being an instrument to so good a work; there seems to be something extraordinary in it all.

Ath. It’s all a surprise to me how came I hither.

Stud. Nay, how came I hither? — How came this book here? — Who writ the lines in the frontispiece? — How came I to read them? — ‘Tis all a dream to me!

Ath. How came you to think of me upon the reading them? And how came I here just at the moment, and out of my way too?

[He lifts up his hands and cries out, There is a God,certainly there is; I am convinced of it; it must be so.”]

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Stud. Nothing more certain; nor is there any doubt but all these things are of Him.

Ath. But there are yet greater things behind; I wish you would go with me to my friend Mr ———’s chamber; I am persuaded something yet more extraordinary must have befallen him.

Stud. With all my heart.

[They both go to the fi rst gentleman’s chamber, and fi nd him at home, very much out of order, but willing enough to discourse with them.]

Ath. Weil, friend of mine, I hope you are better disposed to your friends than when I saw you last.

Gent. Truly, when I saw you last, I was disposed of by the devil, and so, I doubt, were you; I hope I shall never come into that horrid place again.

Ath. What horrid place?

Gent. You know where I mean; I tremble at the very thoughts of the place, and much more of the company; I wish I could prevail upon you to come no more among them too; I assure you, if I know myself, and if God would assist me to do it, I would much rather go to a spike to be burnt.

Stud. I rejoice in such an alteration, sir, upon you, and I hope our friend here is of the same mind; long may it continue in you both.

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Ath. Well, pray tell us something of the occasion of this happy alteration, for it will seem still more strange how you came to be instrumental to my change, if I know nothing of the means that brought about your own.

Gent. Mine! I assure you it was all from heaven; not the light that shone about St Paul was more immediately from heaven than the stroke that touched my soul; it is true I had no voice without, but a voice was spoken (I hope) effectually to my understanding; I had voice enough to tell me how I was in the hands of that Power, that Majesty, that GOD, whom I had wickedly, and with a hardness not to be expressed, disowned and denied.

Stud. Pray, sir, if you care to have it known, give us some account of the particulars of this wonderful thing.

Gent. Sir, I shall do it freely; I think I ought not to conceal it.

[Here he gives an account of the surprise he was in by the lightning, how he was stopped in his way to his wicked company, and went back to his chamber.]

Ath. Well, now I will no more wonder at the salutation you gave me when I came to call you, but thank you for it

Gent. What salutation?

Ath. Why, when I was at your chamber about two hours ago.

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