Thoughts upon Dissipation 1. PERHAPs nothing can be more seasonable at the present time than to bestow a few thoughts on this. It is a fashion able subject, very frequently spoken of, especially in good company. An ingenious writer has lately given us an essay upon the subject. When it fell into my hands a few days since, I was filled with a pleasing expectation of seeing it thoroughly explained. But my expectation was not answered; for although many just and lively things are said there, yet in above twenty pages I could find no definition of dissipa tion, either bad or good. 252. But "the love of dissipation," says the author, "is the reigning evil of the present day." Allowing it is; I ask, What do you mean by dissipation? Sometimes you use the word pleasure as an equivalent term. But what pleasure do you mean; the pleasures of sense, or of the imagination in general; or any particular pleasure of one or the other? At other times you seem to make dissipation the same with luxury; at least with a high degree of it. Sometimes, again, you use the love of amusement as the same with the love of dissipation. But the question recurs, What amusement do you mean; for there are numberless sorts. So that still, after talking about them so long, we have only a vague, indeterminate notion of a dissipated age, a dissipated nation, or a dissipated man; without having any clear or distinct idea what the word dissipation means. 3. Those who are content with slight and superficial views of things, may rest in the general account, that a dissipated age is one wherein the bulk of mankind, especially those of any rank or fashion, spend the main of their time in eating and drinking, and diversions, and the other pleasures of sense and imagination. And that we live in a dissipated age, in this meaning of the word, is as plain as that the sun shines at noon-day. Most of those that are commonly termed innocent amusements fall under this head, the pleasures of imagination. Whenever, therefore, a general fondness of these prevails, that is a dissipated age. A dissipated nation is one where the people in general are vehemently attached to the pleasures of sense and imagination.

A dissipated nation is one where the people in general are vehemently attached to the pleasures of sense and imagination. The smaller vulgar in England are at present passionately fond of the lowest pleasures both of sense and fancy; while the great vulgar are equally engrossed by those they account a higher kind. Meantime they are all equally dissipated, although in different ways; and so indeed is every man and woman that is passionately attached to external pleasure. 4. But without dwelling any longer on the surface of things, let us search the matter to the bottom, and inquire, wherein lies the original ground of human dissipation. Let this be once pointed out, and it will place the whole question in the clearest light. 5. Man is an immortal spirit, created in the image and for the enjoyment of God. This is the one, the only end of his being; he exists for no other purpose. God is the centre of all spirits; and while they cleave to Him, they are wise, holy, and happy; but in the same proportion as they are separated from Him, they are foolish, unholy, and unhappy. This disunion from God is the very essence of human dissipation; which is no other than the scattering the thoughts and affections of the creature from the Creator. Wherefore fondness for sensual enjoyments of any kind; love of silly, irrational pleasures; love of trifling amusements; luxury, vanity, and a thousand foolish desires and tempers, are not so properly dissipation itself, as they are the fruits of it, the natural effects of being unhinged from the Creator, the Father, the centre of all intelligent spirits. 6. It is this against which the Apostle guards in his advice to the Christians at Corinth: "This I speak, that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction." It might as well be rendered, without dissipation, without having your thoughts any way scattered from God. The having our thoughts and affections centred in God, this is Christian simplicity; the having them in any degree ancentred from God, this is dissipation.

The having our thoughts and affections centred in God, this is Christian simplicity; the having them in any degree ancentred from God, this is dissipation. And it little differs in the real nature of things and in the eye of God, the Judge of all, whether a man be kept in a state of dissipation from God, by crowns and empires, and thousands of gold and silver, or by cards, and dancing, and drinking, and dressing, and mistressing, and masquerades, and picking straws. 7. Dissipation is then, in the very root of it, separation from God; in other words, Atheism, or the being without God in the world. It is the negative branch of ungodliness. And, in this true sense of the word, certainly, England is the most dissipated nation that is to be found under heaven. And whether our thoughts and affections are dissipated, scattered from God, by women, or food, or dress, or one or ten thousand pretty trifles, that dissipation (innocent as it may seem) is equally subversive of all real virtue and all real happiness. It carries its own punishment: Though we are loaded with blessings, it often makes our very existence a burden; and, by an unaccountable anxiety, gives a foretaste of what it is to be "punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord!" March 26, 1783.