y^K1>^s 




Glass By45£l 



Book. 






PEACTICAL PIETY; 



THE INFLUENCE 



THE RELIGION OF THE HEART 



CONDUCT OF THE LIFE. 



BY HANNAH MORE. 



Ttie fear of God begins witli the lieart, and purifies and rectifies it; ano 
from tlie teart, thus rectified, grows a conformity in tiie life, th.e words 
and ttie action. 

Sir Matthbw Hale's CoNXEMPLATioua. 



RKVISED AND SLIOHTLT ABRIDGED 



PUBLISHED BY THE 

AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 

150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK. 



11- 



\'t>^^X-J 






\ 



^b^ 



The present edition is printed from a London edition, collated 
with a late edition of the author's works. A few passages that 
ieemed less adapted for usefulness in this country, which has no 
national religious establishment, are omitted. 






CONTENTS. 

Cliap Vaga. 

1. Christianity an Internal Principle, , • .11 

, 2. Christianity a Practical Principle, . . .30 

3. Mistakes in Religion, 48 

4. Periodical Religion, 69 

5. Prayer, 83 

6. Cultivation of a Devotional Spirit, . . . 103 

7. The Love of God, 117 

8. The Hand of God to be acknowledged in the 

Daily Circumstances of Life, . . . .132 

9. Christianity Universal in its Requisitions, . . 146 

10. Christian Holiness, 162 

11. On the comparatively small Faults and Virtues, . 175 

12. Self-Examination, . . . . . . 195 

13. Self-Love, 218 

14. On the Conduct of Christians in their Intercourse 

with the Irreligious, 238 

15. On the Propriety of Introducing Religion into 

General Conversation, 261 

16. Christian Watchfulness, 272 

17. True and False Zeal, 293 

18. Insensibility to Eternal Things, .... 312 

19. Happy Deaths, 33? 

20. On the Suflferings of Good Men, , . . . 364 

21. The Temper and Conduct of the Christian in 

Sickness and in Death, • . . . .391 



PEEFACE. 

An eminent professor of our own time modestly de- 
dared, that he taught chemistry in order that he might 
learn it. The writer of the following pages might, 
with far more justice, offer a similar declaration, as an 
apology for so repeatedly treating on the important 
topics of religion and morals. 

Abashed by the equitable precept, 

"Let those teach others who themselves excel," 

she is aware how fairly she is putting ijt in the power 
of the reader to ask, in the searching words of an emi- 
nent old prelate, '^ They that speak thus, and advise thus, 
do they do thus ?" She can defend herself in no other 
way than by adopting for a reply the words of the same 
venerable divine, which immediately follow, — " that 
it were not too true. Yet although it be but little that 
is attained, the very aim is right, and something there 
is that is done by it. It is better to have such thoughts 
dnd desires than altogether to give them up ; and the 
very desire, if it be serious and sincere, may so much 
change the habitude of the soul and life, that it is not 
\o be despised." 

The world does not require so much to be informed 
as reminded. A remembrancer may be almost as useful 
as an instructor ; if his office be more humble, it is 
scarcely less necessary. The man whose employment it 
was statedly to proclaim in the ear of Philip, Reiviem- 
BER THAT THOU ART MORTAL, had his plain admonition 



6 PREFACE. 

been allowed to make its due impression, might have 
produced a more salutary effect on the royal usurper than 
ibe impassioned orations of his immortal assailant,— 

"Whose resistless eloquence 
*' Shook th* arsenal, and fulmined over Greece, 
" To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne." 

While the orator boldly strove to check the ambition 
and arrest the injustice of the king, the simple herald 
barely reminded him how short would be the reign of 
injustice, how inevitable and how near was the final 
period of ambition. Let it be remembered, to the credit 
of the monarch, that while the thunders of the politi- 
cian were intolerable, the monitor was of his own ap« 
pointment. 

This slight sketch, for it pretends to no higher name, 
aims only at being plain and practical. Contending sole- 
ly for these indispensable points, which, by involving 
present duty, involve future happiness, the writer has 
avoided, as far as christian sincerity permits, all contro- 
verted topics — has shunned whatever might lead to dis- 
putation rather than to profit. 

We live in an age when, as Mr. Pope observed of 
that in which he wrote, it is criminal to be moderate. 
Would it could not be said that religion has her parties 
as well as politics ! Those who endeavor to steer cleai 
of ail extremes in either are in danger of being repro- 
bated by both. It is rather a hardship for persons who 
having considered it as a christian duty to cultivate g 
spirit of moderation in thinking, and of candor in judg- 
ing, that when these dispositions are brought into ac- 
tion they frequently incur a harsher censure than the 
errors which it was their chief aim to avoid 

Perhaps^ therefore, to that human Avisdom whosn 



PREFACE. / 

leading object is human applause, it might answer best 
to be exclusively attached to some one party. On the 
protection of that party at least it might in that case 
reckon; and it would then have the dislike of the op- 
posite class alone to contend against; while those who 
cannot go all lengths with either, can hardly escape the 
disapprobation of both. 

To apply the remark to the present case, — the author 
is apprehensive that she may be at once censured by 
opposite classes of readers, as being too strict and too 
relaxed — too niuch attached to opinions, and too indiffer- 
ent about them ; — as having narrowed the broad field of 
Christianity by laboring to establish its peculiar doc- 
trines; — as having brokeji down its enclosure, by not 
confining herself to doctrines exclusively; — as having 
considered morality of too little importance, as having 
raised it to an undue elevation ; as having made prac- 
tice every thing, as having made it nothing. 

While a Catholic spirit is accused of being latitudi- 
narian in one party, it really is so in another. In one it 
exhibits the character of Christianity on her own grand 
but correct scale ; in the other, it is the offspring of that 
indifference, which considermg all opinions as of nearly 
the same value, indemnifies itself for tolerating all by 
not attaching itself to any ; which, establishing a self- 
complacent notion of general benevolence, with a view 
to discredit the narrow spirit of Christianity, and adopt- 
mg a display of that cheap material, liberal sentiment, 
as opposed to religious strictness, sacrifices true piety to 
false candor. 

Christianity may be said to suffer between two crimi* 
Dais, but it is difficult to determine by which she suffers 
most ; whether by that uncharitable bigotry which dis* 



8 PREFACE. 

guiseis her Divino character, and speculatively adopts 
the faggot and the flames of inquisitorial intolerance, or 
by that indiscriminate candor, that conceding slaclmess, 
wiiich, by stripping her of her appropriate attributes, 
reduces her to something scarcely worth contending 
for — to something which, instead of making her the re- 
ligion of Christ, generalises her into any religion wh'ch 
may choose to adopt her. The one distorts her lovely 
lineaments into caricature, and throws her graceful 
figure into gloomy sliadow ; the other, by daubing her 
over with colors not her own, rendv^rs her form indistinct, 
and obliterates her features. In the first instance she 
excites little affection; in the latter, she is not recognised. 
The writer has endeavored to address herself as a 
christian who must die soon, to christians who must die 
certainly. She trusts that she shall not be accused of 
erecting herself into a censor, but be considered as one 
who writes with real consciousness that she is far from 
having reached the attainments she suggests; with a 
heartfelt conviction of the danger of holding out a stand- 
ard too likely to discredit her own practice. She writes 
not with the assumption of superiority, but with a deep 
practical sense of the infirmities against which she has 
presumed to caution others. She wishes to be under- 
stood as speaking the language of sympathy rather than 
of dictation, of feeling rather than of document. So far 
from fancying herself exempt from the evils on which 
she has animadverted, her very feeling of those evils 
has assisted her in their delineation. Thus this interior 
sentiment of her own deficiencies, which might be urged 
as a disqualification, has, she trusts, enabled her to point 
out dangers to others. If the patient cannot lay down 
rules for the cure of reigning disease, much less effect 



PREFACE. » 

the cure ; yet, from the symptoms common to the same 
malady, he who labors under it may suggest the ne- 
cessity of attending to it. He may treat the case feel- 
ingly, if not scientifically. He may substitute experi- 
ence in default of skill; he may insist on the value of 
the remedy he has neglected, as well as recommend that 
from which he has found benefit. 

The subjects considered in this volume have been 
animadverted on, have been in a manner exhausted, by 
persons before whose names the author bows down with 
the deepest humility; by able professional instructors, 
by piety adorned with all the graces of style, and invi- 
gorated with all the powers of argument. 

Why, then, it may be asked, multiply books which 
may rather encumber the reader than strengthen the 
cause ? — " That the old is better " cannot be disputed. 
But is not the being " old " sometimes a reason why the 
being ^^ better " is not regarded ? Novelty itself is an 
attraction which but too often supersedes merit. A 
meaner drapery, if it be a new one, may excite a degree 
of attention to an object, not paid to it when clad in a 
richer garb, to which the eye has been accustomed. 

The author may begin to ask withoDe of her earliest 
and most enlightened friends^ — ^' Where is the world 
into which we were born ?" Death has broken most of 
those connections which made the honor and the happi- 
ness of her youthful days. Fresh links, however, have 
'continued to attach her to society. She is singularly 
happy in the affectionate regard of a great number of / 
amiable young persons, who may peruse with additional 
attention sentiments which come recommended to them 
by the warmth of their own attachment, more than by 

* Dr. Johnson. 



10 PREFACE. 

any claim of merit in the writer. Is there not some- 
thing in personal knowledge, something in the feelings 
of endeared acquaintance, which, by that hidden asso- 
ciation whence so much of our undefined pleasure is 
derived, if it does not impart new force to old truths, 
may excite a new interest in considering truths which 
are knoAvn? Her concern for these engaging persons 
extends beyond the transient period of present inter- 
course. It would shed a ray of brightness on her part- 
mg hour, if she could hope that any caution here held 
out, any prmciple here suggested, any habit here re- 
commended, might be of use to any one of them, when 
the..-hand which noAV guides the pen can be no longer ex- 
erted in their service. This would be remembering 
their friend in a way which would evince the highest 
affection in them, which would confer the truest honor 
on herself. 

Barley Wood, March 1,1811. 



PRACTICAL PIETY. 



CHAPTER I. 



CHRISTIANITY AN INTERNAL PRINCIPLE 

Christianity bears all the marks of a divine 
original. It came down from heaven, and its gra- 
cious purpose is to carry us up thither. Its author 
is God. It was foretold from the beginning by 
prophecies, which grew clearer and brighter as 
they approached the period of their accomplish- 
ment. It was confirmed by miracles, which con- 
tinued till the religion they illustrated was estab- 
lished. It was ratified by the blood of its Author. 
Its doctrines are pure, sublime, consistent. Its 
precepts just and holy. Its worship is spiritual. 
Its service reasonable, and rendered practicable 
by the offers of Divine aid to human weakness. 
It is sanctioned by the promise of eternal happi- 
ness to the faithful, and the threat of everlasting 
misery to the disobedient. It had no collusion 
with power, for power sought to crush it. It 



12 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

could not be in any league with the world, for it 
set out by declaring- itself the enemy of the world; 
— it reprobated its maxims, it showed the vanity 
jof its glories, the danger of its riches, the empti. 
ness of its pleasures. 

Christianity, though the most perfect rule of 
life that ever was devised, is far from being barely 
a rule of life. A religion consisting of a mere 
code of laws might have sufficed for man in a 
state of innocence. But man who has broken 
these laws cannot be saved by a rule which he 
has violated. What consolation could he find in 
the perusal of statutes, every one of which, bring- 
ing a fresh conviction of his guilt, brings a fresh 
assurance of his condemnation! The chief ob- 
ject of the Gospel is not to furnish rules for the 
preservation of innocence, but to hold out the 
means of salvation to the guilty. It does not pro- 
ceed upon a supposition, but a fact , not upon 
what might have suited man in a state of purity, 
but upon what is suitable to him in the exigencies 
of his fallen state. 

This religion does not consist in an external 
conformity to practices which, though right in 
themselves, may be adopted from human motives, 
and to answer secular purposes. It is not a reli- 
gion of forms, and modes, and decencies. It is 
being transformed into the image of God. It is 
being like-minded with Christ. It is considering 



CHRISTIANITY AN INTERNAL PRINCIPLE. 13 

him as our sanctification, as well as our redemp- 
tion. It is endeavoring to live to him here, that 
we may live with him hereafter. It is desiring 
earnestly to surrender our will to his, our heart 
\o the conduct of his Spirit, our life to the guid- 
ance of his Word. 

The change in the human heart, which the 
Scriptures declare to be necessary, they repre- 
sent to be not so much an old principle improved, 
as a new one created; not educed out of the for- 
mer character, but implanted in the new one. 
This change is there expressed in great varieties 
of language, and under different figures of speech. 
Its being so frequently described, or figuratively 
intimated, in almost every part of the volume of 
inspiration, entitles the doctrine itself to our re- 
verence, and ought to shield from obloquy the ob- 
noxious terms in which it is sometimes conveyed. 

The sacred writings frequently point out the 
analogy between natural and spiritual things. The 
same Spirit, which in the creation of the world 
moved upon the face of the waters, operates on 
the human character to produce a new heart and a 
new life. By this operation the affections and facul- 
ties of the man receive a new impulse — his dark 
understanding is illuminated, his rebellious will 
is subdued, his irregular desires are rectified j his 
judgment is informed, his imagination is chastis- 
ed, his inclinations are sanctified ; his hopes and 



14 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

fears are directed to their true and adequate end. 
Heaven becomes the object of his hopes, an eter- 
nal separation from God the object of his fears. 
His love of the world is transmuted into the love 
of God. The lower faculties are pressed into the 
new service. The senses have a higher direction. 
The whole internal frame and constitution receive 
a nobler bent 5 the intents and purposes of the 
mind, a sublimer aim ; his aspirations, a loftier 
flight ; his vacillating desires find a fixed object 5 
his vagrant purposes a settled home ; his disap 
pointed heart a certain refuge. That heart, no 
longer the worshipper of the world, is struggling 
to become its conqueror. Our blessed Redeemer, 
in overcoming the w^orld, bequeathed us his com- 
mand to overcome it also ; but as he did not give 
the command without the example, so he did not 
give the example without the offer of a power to 
obey the command. 

Genuine religion demands not merely an ex- 
ternal profession of our allegiance to God, but an 
inward devotedness of ourselves to his service. 
It is not a recognition, but a dedication. It puts 
the christian into a new state of things, a new 
condition of being. It raises him above the 
world, while he lives in it. It disperses the illu- 
sions of sense, by opening his eyes to realities in 
the place of those shadows which he has been 
pursuing. It presents this world as a scene whose 



CHRISTIANITY AN INTERNAL PRINCIPLE. l5 

original beauty sin has darkened and disordered ; 
man as a helpless and dependent creature ; Jesus 
Christ as the repairer of all the evils which sin 
has caused, and as our restorer to holiness and 
happiness. — ^Any religion short of this, any at 
least which has not this for its end and object, is 
not that religion which the Gospel has presented 
to us, which our Eedeemer came down on earth 
to teach us by his precepts, to illustrate by his 
example, to confirm by his death, and to consum- 
mate by his resurrection. 

If Christianity do not always produce these 
happy effects to the extent here represented, it 
has always a tendency to produce them. If we do 
not see the progress to be such as the Gospel an- 
nexes to the transforming power of true religion, 
it is not owing to any defect in the principle, but 
to the remains of sin in the heart : to the imper- 
fectly subdued corruptions of the christian. Those 
who are very sincere are still very imperfect. 
They evidence their sincerity by acknowledging 
the lowness of their attainments, by lamenting the 
remainder of their corruptions. Many an humble 
christian whom the world reproaches with being 
extravagant in his zeal, whom it ridicules for be- 
ing enthusiastic in his aims, and rigid in his prac- 
tice, is inwardly mourning on the very contrary 
ground. He would bear their censure more cheer- 
fully, but that he feels his danger lies in the op- 



16 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

posite direction. He is secretly abasing himself 
before his Maker for not carrying far enough that 
principle which he is accused of carrying too far. 
The fault which others find in him is excess. The 
fault he finds in himself is deficiency. He is, alas ! 
too commonly right. His enemies speak of him 
as they hear. He judges of himself as he feels. 
But, though humbled to the dust by the deep 
sense of his own unworthiness, he is ^^ strong in 
the Lord and in the power of his might." ^^ He 
has," says the venerable Hooker, *^ a Shepherd 
full of kindness, full of care,, and full of power." 
His prayer is not for reward, but pardon. His 
plea is not merit, but mercy , but then it is mercy 
made sure to him by the promise of the Almighty 
to penitent believers. 

The mistake of many in religion appears to be, 
that they do not begin with the beginning. They 
do not lay their foundation in the persuasion that 
man is by nature in a state of alienation from" God. 
They consider him rather as an imperfect than as 
a fallen creature. They allow that he requires to 
be improved, but deny that he requires a thorough 
renovation of heart. 

But genuine Christianity can never be grafted 
on any other stock than the apostacy of man 
The design to reinstate beings who have not 
fallen, to propose a restoration without a previous 
loss, a cure where there was no radical disease. 



CHRISTIAJXITY AN INTERNAL TRINCIPLE. 17 

IS altogether an incongruity which would seem 
too palpable to require confutation, did w^e not 
so frequently see the doctrine of redemption 
maintained by those who deny that man was in a 
state to require such redemption. But would 
Christ have been sent ^^ to preach deliverance to 
the captive," if there had been no captivity 1 and 
" the opening of the prison to them that were 
bound," had men been in no prison, had men 
been in no bondage. 

We are aware that many consider the doctrine 
in question as a bold charge against our Creator ; 
but may w^e not venture to ask. Is it not a bolder 
charge against God's goodness to presume that 
he had made beings originally wicked, and against 
God's veracity to believe, that having made such 
beings, he pronounced them ^* good V Is not that 
doctrine more reasonable which is expressed or 
implied in every part of Scripture, that the moral 
corruption of our first parent has been entailed 
on his whole posterity 1 that from this corrup- 
tion they are no more exempt than from natural 
death 1 

We must not, however, think falsely of our na- 
ture : we must humble, ,but not degrade it. Our 
origina. brightness is obscured, but not extin- 
gaished If we consider ourselves in our natural 
Slate, our estimation cannot be too low; when 
we reflect at what a price we have been bought, 

Pract. Piety. q 



18 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

we can hardly over-rate ourselves in the view of 
immortality. 

If, indeed, the Almighty had left us to the con- 
sequences of our natural state, we might, with 
more color of reason, have mutinied against his 
justice. But when we see how graciously he has 
turned our very lapse into an occasion of im- 
proving our condition 5 how from this evil he was 
pleased ta advance us to a greater good than we 
hud lost ; how that life which w^as forfeited may 
be restored 5 how, by grafting the redemption of 
man on the very circumstance of his fall, he has 
raised him to the capacity of a higher condition 
than that which he has forfeited, and to a happi- 
ness superior to that from which he fell : what 
an impression does this give us of the immea- 
surable wisdom and goodness of God, of the un- 
searchable riches of Christ ! 

The religion which it is the object of these 
pages to recommend, has been sometimes mis- 
understood, and not seldom misrepresented. It 
has been described as an unproductive theory, 
and ridiculed as a fanciful extravagance. For the 
sake of distinction it is here called the religion 
of the heart* There it subsists as the fountain 
of spiritual life ; thence it sends forth, as from 
the central seat of its existence, supplies of life 
and warmth through the whole frame j there is 
the soul of virtue, there is the x^ital principle 



CHRISTIANITY AN INTERNAL PRINCIPLE^ 19 

which animates the whole being of a christian. , 

This religion has been the support and conso- 
lation of the pious believer in all ages of the 
church. That it has been perverted both by the 
cloistered and the uncloistered mystic, not mere- 
ly to promote abstraction of mind, but inactivity 
of life, makes nothing against the principle itself. 
What doctrine of the New Testament has not 
been made to speak the language of its injudi- 
cious advocate, and turned into arms against 
some other doctrine which it was never meant 
to oppose 1 

But if it has been carried to a blameable excess 
by the pious error of holy men, it has also been 
adopted by the less innocent fanatic, and abused 
to the most pernicious purposes. His extrava- 
gance has furnished to the enemies of internal 
religion, arguments, or rather invectives, against 
the sound and sober exercises of genuine pietjr. 
They seize every occasion to represent it as if it 
were criminal, as the foe of morality ; ridiculous, 
as the infallible test of an unsound mind; mis- 
chievous, as hostile to active virtue ; and destruc- 
tive, as the bane of public utility. 

But if these charges be really well founded, 
then were the brightest luminaries of the chris- 
tian church — then were Home, and Porteus, and 
Beveridge ; then were Hooker, and Taylor, and 
Herbert ; Hopkins, Leighton, and Usher j Howe, 



20 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

Doddridge, and Baxter ; Ridley, Jewell, and 
Hooper ; then were Chrysostom and Augustine, 
the reformers and the fathers; then were the 
goodly fellowship of the prophets, then were the 
noble army of martyrs, then were the glorious 
company of the apostles, then was the disciple 
whom Jesus loved, then was Jesus himself — I 
shudder at the implication — dry speculatists, fran- 
tic enthusiasts, enemies to virtue, and subverters 
of the public weal. 

Those who disbelieve, or deride, or reject this 
inward religion, are much to be compassionated. 
Their belief that no such principle exists will, it 
is to be feared, effectually prevent its existing in 
themselves, at least while they make their own 
state the measure of their general judgment. Not 
being sensible of the required dispositions in their 
own hearts, they establish this as a proof of its 
impossibility in all cases. This persuasion, as 
long as they maintain it, will assuredly exclude 
the reception of divine truth. What they assert / 
can be true in no case, cannot be true in their 
own. Their hearts will be tarred against any in- 
fluence in the power of which they do not be- 
lieve. They will not desiie it, they will not pray 
for it, except in the Liturgy, where it is the de- 
cided language. They will not addict themselves 
to those pious exercises to which it invites them, 
exercises which it ever loves and cherishes. 



CHRISTIANITY AN INTERNAL PRINCIPLE. 21 

Thus they expect the end, but avoid the way 
which leads to it : they indulge the hope of glory, 
while they neglect or pervert the means of grace 
But let not the formal religionist, who has, pro 
bably, never sought, and, therefore, never ob- 
tained any sense of the spiritual mercies of God, 
conclude that there is, therefore, no such state. 
His having no conception of it is no more proof 
that no such state exists, than it is a proof that 
the cheering beams of a genial climate have no 
existence, because the inhabitants of the frozen 
zone have never felt them. 

Where our own heart and experience do not 
illustrate these truths practically, so as to afford 
us some evidence of their reality, let us examine 
our minds, and faithfully follow up our convic- 
tions ; let us inquire whether God has really been 
wanting in the accomplishment of his promises, 
or whether we have not been sadly deficient 
in yielding to those suggestions of conscience 
which are the motions of his Spirit 1 Whether 
we have not neglected to implore the aids of 
that Spirit 1 whether we have not, in various in* 
stances, resisted them 1 Let us ask ourselves — . 
Have we looked up to our heavenly Father with 
humble dependence for the supplies of his grace 1 
or have we prayed for these blessings only as a 
form 5 and, having acquitted ourselves of the form, 
do we continue to live as if we had not so prayed 1 



22 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

Having repeatedly implored his direction, do we 
endeavor to submit ourselves to his guidance! 
Having prayed that his will may be done, do we 
never stoutly set up our own will in contradic 
tion to his ? 

If, then, we receive not the promised support 
and comfort, the failure must rest somewhere. 
It lies between him who has promised and him 
to whom the promise is made. There is no al- 
ternative : would it not be blasphemy to transfer 
the failure to God "? Let us not then rest till we 
have cleared up the difficulty. The spirits sink, 
and the faith fails, if, after a continued round of 
reading and prayer, after having for years con- 
formed to the letter of the command, after hav- 
ing scrupulously brought in our tale of outward 
duties, we find ourselves just where we were at 
setting out. 

We complain justly of our own weakness and 
inability to serve God as we ought. This weak- 
ness, its nature, and its measure, God knows far 
more exactly than we know it : yet he lays on us 
the obligation both to love and obey him, and 
will call us to account for the performance of 
these duties. He never would have said, ^^ Give 
me thy heart" — "seek ye my face" — "add to 
your faith virtue " — ^" ye will not come to me that 
ye might have life" — had not all these precepts a 
definite meaning, had not all these been, with 



CHRISTIANITY AN INTERNAL PRINCIPLE. 23 

the help which he offers us, practicable duties. 

Can we suppose that the omniscient God would 
have given these unqualified commands to power- 
less, incapable, unimpressible beings 1 Can we 
suppose that he would command paralyzed crea- 
tures to walk, and then condemn them for not 
being able to move 1 He knows, it is true, our 
natural impotence, but he knows, because he con- 
fers, our superinduced strength. There is scarce- 
ly a command in the whole Scripture which has 
not, either immediately, or in some other part, a 
corresponding prayer, and a corresponding pro- 
mise. If it says in one place, ^^ Get thee a new 
heart," — it says in another, ^' a new heart will I 
give thee 5 and in a third, ^^ make me a clean heart." 
For it is worth observing that a diligent inquiry 
may trace every where this threefold union. If 
God commands by Saint Paul, ^^ Let not sin reign 
in your mortal body," he promises by the same 
apostle, '^Sin shall not have dominion over you ;" 
while, to complete the tripartite agreement, he 
makes David pray that his ^^ sins may not have 
dominion over him." 

The saints of old, so far from setting up on the 
stock of their own independent virtue, seemed to 
have had no idea of any light but what was im- 
parted, of any strength but what was communi- 
cated to them from above. Hear their importu- 
nate petitions ! — " send forth thy light and thy 



24 



PRACTICAL PIETY. 



truth.' — Mark their grateful declarations ! — ^*The 
Lord is my strength and my salvation!^' — Ob- 
serve their cordial acknowledgments! — ^^ Bless 
the Lord, my sou], and all that is within me, 
bless his holy name." 

Though we must be careful not to mistake for 
the Divine agency those impulses which pretend 
to operate independently of external revelation ; 
which have little reference to it ; which set them- 
selves above it ; it is, however, that powerful 
agency which sanctifies all means, renders all 
external revelation effectual. Notwithstanding 
that all the truths of religion, all the doctrines of 
salvation, are contained in the Holy Scriptures, 
these very Scriptures require the influence of 
that Spirit which dictated them to produce an 
influential faith. Thi^ Spirit, by enlightening the 
mind, converts the rational persuasion, brings the 
intellectual conviction of divine truth, conveyed 
in the New Testament, into an operative princi- 
ple. A man, from reading, examining, and in- 
quiring, may attain to such a reasonable assur- 
ance of the truth of revelation as w^ill remove all 
doubts from his own mind, and even enable him 
to refute the objections of others ; but this bare 
intellectual faith alone will not operate against 
his corrupt affections, will not cure his besetting 
sin, will not conquer his rebellious will, and may 
not, therefoiCf be an efficacious principle. A mere 



CHRISTIANITY AN INTERNAL PRINCIPLE. 25 

historical faith, the mere evidence of facts, with 
the soundest reasonings and deductions from 
them, may not be that faith which will fill him 
with all joy and peace in believing. 

An habitual reference to that spirit which ani- 
mates the real christian, is so far from excluding, 
that it strengthens the truth of revelation, but 
never contradicts it. The Word of God is al- 
ways in unison with his Spirit. His Spirit is ne-= 
ver in opposition to his Word. Indeed, that this 
influence is not an imaginary thing is confirmed 
by the whole tenor of Scripture. We are aware 
that we are treading on dangerous, because dis* 
puted ground ; for among the fashicnable cur- 
tailments of Scripture doctrines, there is not one 
truth which has been lopped from the modern 
creed with a more unsparing hand ; not one, the 
defence of which excites more suspicion against 
its advocates. But if it had been a mere phan- 
tom, should we with such jealous iteration have 
been cautioned against neglecting or opposing 
it'? If the Holy Spirit could not be ^^ grieved," 
might not be ^^ quenched,'' were not likely to be 
" resisted 5" that very Spirit which proclaimed 
(he prohibitions would never have said ^^ Grieve 
not," ''quench not," '' resist not." The Bible ne- 
ver warns us against imaginary evil, nor courts us 
to imaginary good. If, then, we refuse to yield 
to its guidance, if we reject its directions, if we 



26 PRACTICAL PIETY. ' 

submit not to its gentle persuasions, for such they 
are, and not arbitrary compulsions, we shall never 
attain to that peace a»d liberty which are the privi- 
lege, the promised reward of sincere christians. 

In speaking of that peace which passeth under- 
standing, we allude not to those illuminations and 
raptures, which, if God has in some instances 
bestowed them, he has nowhere pledged himself 
to bestow ; but of that rational yet elevated hope 
which flows from an assured persuasion of the 
paternal love of our Heavenly Father, of that 
" secret of the Lord," which he himself has as- 
sured us ^^ is with them that fear him 5" of that 
life and power of religion which are the privilege 
of those ^^who abide under the shadow of the 
Almighty 5" of those who *^know in whom they 
have believed 5" of those " v/ho walk not after 
the flesh, but after the Spirit 5" of those ^^ who 
endure as seeing him who is invisible." 

Many faults m.ay be committed where there iii 
nevertheless a sincere desire to please God. 
Many infirmities are consistent with a cordial 
love of our Redeemer. Faith may be sincere 
where it is not strong. But he who can con 
scientiously say that he seeks the favor of God 
above every earthly good 5 that he delights in 
his service incomparably more than in any other 
gratification ; that to obey him here and to enjoy 
his presence hereafter is the prevailing desire of 



CHRISTIANITY AN INTERNAL PRINCIPLE. 27 

his heart J that his chief sorrow is that he loves 
him no more and serves him no better ; such a 
man requires no evidence that his heart is 
changed and his sins forgiven. 

For the happiness of a christian does not con- 
sist in mere feelings which may deceive, nor in 
frames which can only be occasional; but in a 
settled, calm conviction that God and eternal 
things have the predominance in his heart ; in a 
clear perception that they have, though with 
much alloy of infirmity, the supreme, if not un- 
disturbed, possession of his mind 5 in an experi- 
mental persuasion that his chief remaining sor- 
row is, that he does not surrender himself, with so 
complete an acquiescence as he ought, to his con- 
victions. These abatements, though sufficient to 
keep us humble, are not powerful enough to 
make us unhappy. 

The true measure, then, to be taken of our 
state, is from a perceptible change in our desires, 
tastes, and pleasures ; from a sense of progress, 
however small, in holiness of heart and life. 
This seems to be the safest rule of judging ; for 
if mere feelings^ were allowed to be the criterion, 
the presumptuous would be inflated with spirit- 
ual pride, from the persuasion of enjoying them j 
while the humble, from their very humility, 
might be as unreasonably depressed at wanting 
such evidences 



28 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

The recognition of this Divine aid, then, in- 
volves no presumption, raises no illusion, causes 
no inflation ; it is sober in its principle, and ra- 
tional in its exercise. In establishing the law of 
God, it does not reverse the law of nature ; for 
it leaves us in full possession of those natural fa- 
culties which it improves and sanctifies; and so 
far from inflaming the imagination, its proper 
tendency is to subdue and regulate it. 

A security which outruns our attainments is a 
most dangerous state, yet it is a state most un- 
wisely coveted. The probable way to be safe 
hereafter is not to be presumptuous now. If God 
graciously vouchsafe us inward, consolation, it 
is only to animate us to further progress. It is 
given us for support in our way, and not for a 
settled maintenance in our present condition. If 
the promises are our aliment, the commandments 
are our work ; and a temperate christian ought 
to desire nourishment only in order to carry him 
through his business. If he so supinely rests on 
the one as to grow sensual and indolent, he might 
become not only unwilling, but incapacitated for 
the performance of the other. We must not ex- 
pect to live upon cordials, which only serve to 
inflame without strengthening. Even without 
these supports, which we are more ready to desire 
than to put ourselves in the way to obtain, there is 
an inward neace in a humble trust in God, and in 



CHRISTIANITY AN INTERNAL PRINCIPLE. 29 

a simple reliance on his word ; there is a repose of 
spirit, a freedom from solicitude, in a lowly con- 
fidence in him, for which the world has nothing 
to give in exchange. 

On the whole, then, the state which we have 
been describing is not the dream of the enthu- 
siast ; it is not the reverie of the visionary, who 
renounces prescribed duties for fanciful specula- 
tions, and embraces shadows for realities; but it 
is that sober earnest of heaven, that reasonable 
anticipation of eternal felicity, which God is 
graciously pleased to grant, not partially, nor 
arbitrarily, but to all who diligently seek his face, 
to all to whom his service is freedom, his will a 
law, his word a delight, his Spirit a guide , to all 
who love him unfeignedly, to all who devote them- 
selves to him unreservedly, and to all who, with 
deep self-abasement, yet with filial confidence, 
prostrate themselves at the foot of his throne, 
saying, " Lord, lift thou up the light of tliy coun- 
temince upon us, and we shall be safe." 



30 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

CHAPTER II 

CHRISTIANITY A PRACTICAL PRINCIPLE. 

If God be the author of our spiritual life, the 
root from which we derive the vital principle, 
with daily supplies to maintain this vitality, then 
the best evidence we can give that we have re* 
ceived something of this principle, is an unre- 
served dedication of ourselves to the actual pro- 
motion of his glory. No man ought to flatter 
himself that he is in the favor of God whose life 
is not consecrated to the service of God. Will it 
not be the only unequivocal proof of such a con- 
secration, that he be more zealous of good works 
than those who, disallowing the principle on 
which he performs them, do not even pretend to 
be actuated by any such motive 1 

The finest theory never yet carried any man to 
heaven. A religion of notions which occupies 
the mind without filling the heart, may obstruct, 
but cannot advance the salvation of men. If these 
notions are false they are most pernicious 5 if true 
and not operative, they aggravate guilty if un 
important, though not unjust, they occupy the 
place which belongs to nobler objects, and sink 
the mind below its prpper level 5 substituting tJie 



CHRISTIANIXy A PRACTICAL PRINCIPLE. 31 

things which only ought not to be left undone in 
the place of those which ought to be done ; and 
causing the grand essentials not to be done at all. 
Such a religion is not that which Christ came to 
teach mankind. 

All the doctrines of the Gospel are practica 
principles. The word of God was not written, the 
Son of God was not incarnate, the Spirit of God 
was not given, only that christians might obtain 
right views and possess just notions. Eeligion is 
something more than mere correctness of intel- 
lect, justness of conception, and exactness of 
judgment. It is a life-giving principle. It must be 
infused into the habit as well as govern in the un- 
derstanding 5 it must regulate the will as well as 
direct the creed. It must not only cast the opin- 
ions into a right frame, but the heart into a new 
mould. It is a transforming as well as a penetra- 
ting principle. It changes the tastes, gives activity 
to the inclinations, and, together with a new heart, 
produces a new life. 

Christianity enjoins the same temper, the same 
spirit, the same dispositions, on all its real pro 
fessors. The act, the performance, must depenJ 
on circumstances which do not depend on us. 
The power of doing good is withheld from many, 
from whom, however, the reward will not be with* 
held. If the external act constituted the \yhole 
value of christian virtue, then must the Author 



32 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

of all good be himself the Author of injustice, 
by putting it out of the power of multitudes to 
fulfil his own commands. In principles, in tenrj* 
pers, in fervent desires, in holy endeavors, con- 
sists the very essence of christian duty. 

Nor must we fondly attach ourselves to the 
practice of some particular virtue, or value our- 
selves exclusively on some favorite quality ; nor 
must we wrap ourselves up in the performance of 
some individual actions, as if they formed the 
sum of christian duty. But we must embrace the 
whole law of God in all its aspects, bearings, and 
relations. We must bring no fancies, no partiali- 
ties, no prejudices, no exclusive choice or rejec- 
tion into our religion, but take it as we find it, 
and obey it as we receive it, as it is exhibited 
in the Bible, without addition, curtailment, or 
adulteration. 

Nor must we pronounce on a character by a 
single action really bad, or apparently good : if 
so, Peter's denial would render him the object of 
our execration, while we should have judged fa- 
vorably of the prudent economy of Judas. The 
catastrophe of the latter who does not knowl 
while the other became a glorious martyr to 
that Master whom, in a moment of infirmitj^, he 
had denied. 

A piety altogether spiritual, disconnected with 
all outward circumstances — a religion of pure 



CIIRISTIANIXy A PRACTICAL PRINCIPLE. 33 

meditation and abstracted devotion, was not made 
for so compound, so imperfect a creature as man. 
There have, indeed, been a few sublime spirits, 
not " touch'd, but rapt," who, totally cut off from 
the world, seem almost to have literally soared 
above this terrene region ; who almost appear to 
have stolen the fire of the seraphim, and to have 
had no business on earth but to keep alive the 
celestial flame. They would, however, have ap- 
proximated more neav]y to the example of their 
Divine Master, the great standard and only per- 
fect model, had they combined a more diligent 
discharge of the active duties and beneficences of 
life with their high devotional attainments. 

But while we are in little danger of imitating, 
let us not too harshly censure the pious error of 
these sublimated spirits. Their number is small. 
Their example is not catching. Their ethereal fire 
is not likely, by spreading, to inflame the world. 
The world will take due care not to come in con- 
tact wdth it, while its distant light and w^armth 
may cast, accidentally, a not unuseful ray on the 
cold-hearted and the Avorldly. 

But from this small number of refined but in- 
operative beings we do not intend to draw our 
notions of practical piety. God did not make a 
religion for these few exceptions to the general 
state of the world, but for the world at large, 
for beings active, busy, restless ; whose activity 

Pract Piety 3 



34 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

he, by his Word, diverts into its proper channels 5 
whose busy spirit is there directed to the com- 
mon good 5 whose restlessness, indicating the 
unsatisfactoriness of all they find on earth, he 
points to a higher destination. Were total seclu- 
sion and abstraction designed to have been the 
general state of the world, God would have given 
men other laws, other rules, other faculties, ana 
other employments. 

There is a class of visionary but pious writers 
who seem to shoot as far beyond the mark as mere 
moralists fall short of it. Men of low views and 
gross minds may be said to be wise helow what is 
written, while those of too subtile refinement are 
wise above it. The one grovel in the dust from the 
inertness of their intellectual faculties , while 
the others are lost in the clouds by stretching 
them beyond their appointed limits. The one 
build spiritual castles in the air instead of erect- 
ing them on the ^^ holy ground " of Scripture ; the 
other lay their foundation in the sand instead of 
resting it on the Rock of ages. Thus the super- 
structure of both is equally unsound. 

God is the fountain from which all the streams 
of goodness flow 5 the centre from which all the 
rays of blessedness diverge. All our actions are 
only good as they have a reference to him 5 the 
streams must revert back to their fountain, the 
rays must converge again to their centre. 



CHRISTIANITY A PRACTICAL PRINCIPLE. 35 

If love of God be the governing principle, this 
powerful spring vi^ill actuate all the movements 
of the rational machine. The essence of religion 
does not so much consist in actions as affections 
Though right actions, therefore, as from an ex- 
cess of courtesy they are commonly termed, may 
be performed where there are no right affections 5 
yet are they a mere carcass, utterly destitute of 
the soul, and therefore, of the substance of virtue. 
But neither can right affections substantially and 
truly subsist without producing right actions ; for 
never let it be forgotten that a pious inclination 
which has not life and vigor sufficient to ripen 
into act when the occasion presents itself, and a 
right action \vhich does not grow out of a sound 
principle, will neither of them have any place in 
the account of real goodness. A good inclination 
will be contrary to sin, but a mere inclination 
will not subdue sin. 

The love of God, as it is the source of every 
right action and feeling, so is it the only princi 
pie which necessarily involves the love of our 
fellow-creatures. As man, we do not love man. 
There is a love of partiality, but not of benevo- 
lence ; of sensibility, but not of philanthropy ,* of 
friends and favorites, of parties and societies, but 
not of man collectively. It is true we may, and do, 
without this principle, relieve his distresses, but 
we do not bear with his faults We may promote 



36 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

his fortune, but we do not forgive his offences ; 
above all, we are not anxious for his immortal in- 
terests. We could not see him w^ant without 
pain, but we can see him sin without emotion. 
We cannot hear of a beggar perishing at our door 
without horror 5 but we can without concern wit- 
ness an acquaintance tiying without repentance. 
Is_ it not strange that we must participate some- 
thing of the Divine nature before we can really 
love the human 1 It seems, indeed, to be an in- 
sensibility to sin, rather than want of benevolence 
to mankind, that makes us naturally pity their 
temporal, and be careless of their spiritual wants 5 
but does not this very insensibility proceed from 
the want of love to God ] 

As it is the habitual frame and predominating 
disposition which are the true measure of virtue, 
incidental good actions are no certain criterion 
of the state of the heart ; for who is there who 
does not occasionally do them I Having made 
some progress in attaining this disposition, we 
must not sit down satisfied with propensities and 
inclinations to virtuous actions while we rest 
short of their actual exercise. If the principle be 
that of sound Christianity, it will never be inert. 
While we shall never do good with any great ef- 
fect till we labor to be conformed in some mea- 
sure to the image of God, we shall best evince our 
having obtained something of that conformity by 



CHRISTIANITY A PRACTICAL PRINCIPLE. 37 

a course of steady and active obedience to God, 

Every individual should bear in mind that he 
is sent into this w^orld to act a part in it. And 
though one may have a more splendid, and an- 
other a more obscure part assigned him, yet the 
actor of each is equally, is awfully accountable. 
Though God is not a hard, he is an exact Master 
His service, though not a severe, is a reasonable 
service. He accurately proportions his requisi- 
tions to his gifts. If he does not expect that 
one talent should be as productive as five, yet to 
even a single talent a proportional responsibility 
is annexed. 

He who has said, ^^ Give me thy heart," will 
not be satisfied with less , he will not accept the 
praying lips, nor the mere hand of charity as 
substitutes. 

A real christian will be more just, sober, and 
charitable than other men, though he will not rest 
for salvation on justice, sobriety, or charity. He 
will perform the duties they enjoin in the spirit 
of Christianity, as instances of devout obedience, 
as evidences of a heart devoted to God 

AH virtues, it cannot be too often repeated, 
are sanctified or unhallowed according to the 
principle which dictates them, and will be ac- 
cepted or rejected accordingly. This principle 
kept in due exercise becomes a habit, and every 
act strengthens the inclination, adding vigor to 



38 PRACTICAL PIETY 

the principle and pleasure to the performance- 
We cannot be said to be real christians till re- 
ligion become our animating motive, our predomi- 
nating principle and pursuit, as much as worldly 
things are the predominating motive, principle, 
Aifid pursuit of worldly men. 

New converts, it is said, are most zealous, but 
they are not always the most persevering. If their 
tempers are warm, and they have only been touch- 
ed on the side of their passions, they start eager- 
ly, march rapidly, and are full of confidence in 
their own strength. They too often judge others 
vi^ith little charity, and themselves with little hu- 
mility. While they accuse those who move steadi- 
ly of standing still, they fancy their own course 
will never be slackened. If their conversion be 
not solid, religion in losing its novelty, loses its 
power. Their speed declines. Nay, it will be 
happy if their motion become not retrograde. 
Those who are truly sincere will commonly be 
persevering. If their speed is less eager, it is 
more steady. As they- knov/ their own heart 
more, the^T- discover its deceitfulness, and learn 
to distrust themselves. As they become more 
humble in spirit, they become more charitable in 
judging. As they grow more firm in principle, 
they grow more exact in conduct. 

The rooted habits of a religious life may indeed 
lose their prominence, because they are become 



CHRISTIANITY A PRACTICAL PRINCIPLE. 39 

more indented. If they are not tmbossed, it is 
because tliey are burnt in. Where there is uni- 
formity and consistency in the whole character, 
there will be little relief in an individual action. 
A good deed will be less striking in an establish- 
ed christian than a deed less good in one who had 
been previously careless , good actions being his 
2xpected duty and his ordinary practice. Such a 
christian, indeed, when his right habits cease to 
be new and striking, may fear that he is declin- 
ing 5 but his quiet and confirmed course is a surer 
evidence than the more early starts of charity, or 
?its of piety, which may have drawn more atten- 
tion, and obtained more applause. 

Again : w^e should cultivate most assiduously, 
because the work is most difficult, those graces 
which are most opposite to our natural temper; 
the value of our good qualities depending much 
on their being produced by the victory over some 
natural wrong propensity. The implantation of a 
virtue is the eradication of a vice. It will cost 
one man more to keep down a rising passion 
than to do a brilliant deed. It will try another 
more to keep back a sparkling but corrupt 
thought which his wit had suggested, but which 
hxS religion checks, than it would to give a large 
sum in charity. A real christian, being deeply sen- 
sible of the worthlessness of any actions which do 
not spring from the genuine fountain, will aim at 



40 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

such an habitual conformity to the Divine image, 
that to perform all acts of justice, charity, kind- 
ness, temperance, and every kindred virtue, may 
become the temper, the habitual, the abiding state 
of his heart, that, like natural streams, they may 
flow spontaneously from the living source. 

Practical Christianity, then, is the actual opera- 
tion of christian principles. It is lying on the 
watch for occasions to exemplify them. It is 
'^ exercising ourselves unto godliness." A chris- 
tian cannot tell in the morning what opportunities 
he may have of doing good during the day, but 
if he be a real christian he can tell that he will 
try to keep his heart open, his mind prepared, 
his affections alive, to do whatever may occur in 
the w^ay of duty. He will, as it were, stand in 
the way to receive the orders of Providence- 
Doing good is his vocation. Nor does the young 
artisan bind himself by firmer articles to the rigid 
performance of his master's work, than the in- 
dentured christian to the active service of that 
Divine Master who himself " went about doing 
good." He rejects no duty which comes within 
the sphere of his calling, nor does he think the 
work he is employed in a good one if he might 
be doing a better. His having well acquitted him- 
self of a good action is so far from furnishing 
him with an excuse for avoiding the next, that it 
is anew reason for his embarking in it He looks 



CHRISTIANITY A PRACTICAL PRINCIPLE. 41 

not at the work which he has accomplished, but 
on that which he has to do. His views are al- 
ways prospective. His charities are scarcely li 
mited by his power. His will knows no limits 
His fortune may have bounds ; his benevolence 
has none. He is, in mind and desire, the bene 
factor of every miserable man. His heart is open 
to all the distressed 5 to the household of faith 
it overflows. Where the heart is large, however 
small the ability, a thousand ways of doing good 
will be invented. Christian charity is a great en- 
larger of means. Christian self-denial negatively 
accomplishes the purpose of the favorite of For- 
tune in the fables of the nursery : — if it cannot fill 
the purse by a wish, it will not empty it by a 
vanity. It provides for others by abridging from 
itself. Having carefully defined what is necessary 
and becoming, it allows of no encroachment on 
its definition. Superfluities it will lop, vanities it 
will cut off". The deviser of liberal things will 
find means of effecting them, which to the indo- 
lent appear incredible, to the covetous impossible. 
Christian beneficence takes a large sweep. 
That circumference cannot be small of which 
God is the centre. Nor does religious charity in 
a christian stand still because not kept in motion 
by the main-spring of the world. Money may fail, 
but benevolence will be going on. If he cannot 
relieve want, he may mitigate sorrow. He may 



42 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

warn the inexperienced, he may instruct the ig- 
norant, he may confirm the doubting. The chris- 
tian will find out the cheapest way of being good, 
as well as of doing good. If he cannot give 
money, he may exercise a more difficult virtue , 
he may forgive injuries. Forgiveness is the 
economy of the heart. A christian will find it 
cheaper to pardon than to resent. Forgiveness 
saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, 
the waste of spirits. It also puts the soul into a 
frame which makes the practice of other virtues 
easy. The achievement of a hard duty is a great 
abolisher of difficulties. If great occasions do 
not arise he will thankfully seize on small ones. 
If he cannot glorify God by serving others, he 
knows that he has always something to do at 
home ; some evil temper to correct, some wrong 
propensity to reform, some crooked practice to 
straighten. He will never be at a loss for employ- 
ment while there is a sin or a misery in the 
world ; he will never be idle while there is a dis- 
tress to be relieved in another, or a corruption to 
be cured in his own heart. We have employments 
assigned to us for every circumstance in life. 
When we are alone, we have our thoughts to 
watch ; in the family, our tempers ; in company, 
our tongues. 

It will be a test of our sincerity to our own 
hearts, and for such tests we should anxiously 



CHRISTIANITY A PRACTICAL PRmCIPLE. 43 

watch, if we are as assiduous in following up our 
duty when only the favor of God is to be obtained 
by it, as in cases where subordinate considerations 
are taken into the account and bring their portion 
of influence. We must, therefore, conscientiously 
examine in what spirit we fulfil those parts of our 
duty which lie more exclusively between our 
Creator and our conscience. Whether we are as 
solicitous about our inward disposition as about 
the act of which that disposition should be the 
principle. If our piety be internal and sincere, we 
shall lament an evil temper no less than an evil 
action, conscious that though in its indulgence 
we may escape human censure, yet to the eye of 
Omniscience, as both lie equally open, both are 
equally offensive. 

Without making any fallible human being our 
infallible guide and established standard, let us 
make use of the examples of eminently pious men 
as incentives to our own growth in every christian 
grace. A generous emulation of the excellences 
of another is not envy. It is a sanctifijcation of 
that noble excitement which stirred the soul of 
Themistocles when he declared that the trophies 
of Miltiades prevented him from sleeping. The 
christian must not stop here. He must imitate 
the pagan hero in the use to which he converted 
his restless admiration, which gave him no repose 
till he himself became equally illustrious by ser- 



44 FRACTICA-L PIETY. 

vices equally distinguished with those of his rival* 
But to the christian is held out in the sacred 
volume, not only models of human excellence but 
of Divine perfection. What an example of disin- 
terested goodness and unbounded kindness have 
we in our heavenly Father, who is merciful over 
all his works, who distributes common blessings 
without distinction, who bestows the necessary 
refreshments of life, the shining sun and the re- 
freshing shower, without waiting, as we are apt 
to do, for personal merit, or attachment, or grati- 
tude : who does not look out for desert, but want, 
as a qualification for his favors ; who does not 
afflict willingly ; who delights in the happiness, 
and desires the salvation of all his children , who 
dispenses his daily munificence, and bears with 
our daily offences 5 who, in return for our viola- 
tion of his laws, supplies our necessities ; who 
waits patiently for our repentance, and even so- 
licits us to have mercy on our own souls ! 

What a model for our humble imitation is that 
Divine person who was clothed with our humani- 
ty ; who dwelt among us, that the pattern, being 
brought near, might be rendered more engaging, 
the conformity be made more practicable ; whose 
whole life was one unbroken series of universaj 
charity; who, in his complicated bounties, never 
forgot that man is compounded both of soul and 
body ; who, after teaching the multitude, fed 



CHRISTIANITY A PRACTICAL PRINCIPLE. 45 

them J- who repulsed none for being ignorant. ; 
was impatient with none for being dull^ despised 
none for being contemned by the world ; reject- 
ed none for being sinners 5 who encouraged those 
whose importunity others censured 5 whp, in heal- 
ing sickness, converted souls j \vho gave bread, 
and forgave injuries. 

It will be the endeavor of the sincere christian 
to illustrate his devotions in the morning by his 
actions during the day. He will try to make his 
conduct a practical exposition of the Divine 
prayer which made a part of them. He w^ill desire 
*^ to hallow the name of God," to promote the 
enlargement and '' the coming " of the ^^ king- 
dom " of Christ. He will endeavor to do and to 
suffer his whole will , " to forgive," as he him- 
self trusts that he is forgiven. He will resolve to 
avoid that '* temptation " into which he had been 
praying "not to be led;" and he will labor to 
shun the " evil " from which he had been begging 
to be " delivered." He thus makes his prayers as 
practical as the other parts of his religion, and 
labors to render his conduct as spiritual as his 
prayers. The commentary and the text are of 
reciprocal application. 

If this gracious Saviour has left us a perfect 
model for our devotion in his prayer, he has left 
a model no less perfect for our practice in his 
sermon. This divine exposition has been some« 



46 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

times misunderstood. It was not so much a sup- 
plement to a defective law, as the restoration of 
the purity of a perfect law from the corrupt inter- 
pretations of its blind expounders. These persons 
had ceased to consider it as forbidding the prin- 
ciple of sin, and as only forbidding the act. Christ 
restores it to its original meaning, spreads it out 
in its due extent, shows the largeness of its dimen- 
sions and the spirit of its institution. He unfolds 
all its motions, tendencies and relations. Not 
concerning himself, as human legislators are obli- 
ged to do, to prohibit a man the act merely which 
is injurious to others, hut the inward temper 
which is prejudical to himself. 

There cannot be a more striking instance, how 
emphatically every doctrine of the Gospel has a 
reference to practical goodness, than is exhibited 
by St. Paul in that magnificent picture of the re- 
surrection, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, which 
has been so happily selected for the consolation 
of survivers at the last closing scene of mortality. 
After an inference as triumphant as it is logical, 
that because " Christ is risen, we shall rise also ;" 
after the most philosophical illustration of the 
raising of the body from the dust, by the process 
of grain sown in the earth, and springing up into 
a new mode of existence ; after describing the 
subjugation of all things to the Redeemer, and 
his laying down the mediatorial kingdom ; after 



CHRISTIANITY A PRACTICAL PRINCIPLE. 41 

sketching with a seraph's pencil the relative glo 
ries of the celestial and terrestrial bodies ; after 
exhausting the grandest images of created nature, 
and the dissolution of nature itself; after such a 
display of the solemnities of the great day as 
makes this world and all its concerns shrink into 
nothing ; in such a moment, when, if ever, the 
rapt spirit might be supposed too highly wrought 
for precept and admonition , the apostle, wound 
up as he was, by the energies of inspiration, to the 
immediate view of the glorified state, the last 
trumpet sounding, the change from mortal to im- 
mortality effected in the twinkling of an eye, the 
sting of death drawn out, victory snatched from 
the grave , then, by a turn as surprising as it is 
beautiful, he draws a conclusion as unexpectedly 
practical as .his premises were grand and awful : 
*^ Therefore^ my beloved brethren, be ye stead- 
fast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work 
of the Lord." Then at once, by another quick 
transition, resorting from the duty to the reward, 
and winding up the whole with an argument as 
powerful as his rhetoric had been sublime, he 
adds, " Forasmuch as ye know that your labor is 
not in vain in the Lord." 



4.8 PRACTICAL PIETY. 



CHAPTER III. 



MISTAKES IN RELIGION. 

To point out with precision all the mistakes 
which exist in the present day on the awful sub- 
ject of religion, would far exceed the limits of 
this small work. No mention, therefore, is in 
tended to be made of the opinions or the practice 
of any particular body of people; nor will any 
notice be taken of any of the peculiarities of the 
numerous sects and parties which have risen up 
among us. It will be sufficient for the present pur- 
pose to hazard some slight remarks on a few of 
those common classes of characters which belong, 
more or less, to most general bodies. 

There are, among many others, three different 
sorts of religious professors. The religion of 
one consists in a sturdy defence of what they 
themselves call orthodoxy, an attendance on pub- 
lic worship, and a general decency of behavior. 
In their views of religion they are not a little ap- 
prehensive of excess, not perceiving that theif 
danger lies on the other side. They are far from 
rejecting faith or morals, but are somewhat afraid 
of believing too much, and a little scrupulous 
about doing too much, lest the former be suspect- 



MISTAKES IN RELIGION. 49 

ed of fanaticism, and the latter of singularity. 
These christians consider religion as a point 
which they by their regular observances having 
attained, there is nothing further required«but to 
nnaintain the point they have reached, by a repe- 
tition of the same observances. They are there- 
fore satisfied to remain stationary, considering- 
that whoever has obtained his end is of course 
saved the labor of pursuit ; he is to keep his 
ground without troubling himself in searching 
after an imaginary perfection. 

These frugal christians are afraid of nothing so 
much as superfluity in their love, and superero- 
gation in their obedience. This kind of fear, how- 
ever, is always superfluous, but most especially 
in those who are troubled with the apprehension. 
They are apt to weigh, in the nicely-poised scales 
of scrupulous exactness, the duties which must 
of hard necessity be done, and those which with- 
out much risk may be left undone , compounding 
for a larger indulgence by the relinquishment of 
a smaller ; giving up, through fear, a trivial grati- 
fication to which they are less inclined, and 
snatching doubtingly, as an equivalent, at one 
they like better. The gratification in both cases 
being perhaps such as a manly mind would hard- 
ly think worth contending for, even were religion 
out of the question. Nothing but love to God can 
conquer love of the world. One grain of that 

Pract. Piety ^ 



50 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

Divine principle would make the scale of self 
indulgence kick the beam. 

These persons dread nothing so much as en* 
tliusia^m. Yet, if to look for effects without their 
predisposing causes, to depend for heaven on that 
to which heaven was never promised, be fea- 
tures of enthusiasm, then are they themselves 
enthusiasts. 

The religion of a second class we have already 
described in the two preceding chapters. It con- 
sists in a heart devoted to its Maker ; inwardly 
changed in its temper and disposition, yet deeply 
sensible of its remaining infirmities : continually 
aspiring, however, to higher improvements in 
faith, hope and charity, and thinking that '^ the 
greatest of these is charity ^ These, by the former 
class, are reckoned enthusiasts; but they are in 
fact, if Christianity be true, acting on the only 
rational principles. If the doctrines of the Gospel 
have any solidity, if its promises have any mean- 
ing, these christians are building on no false 
ground. They hope that submission to the power 
of God, obedience to his laws, compliance with 
his will, trust in his word, are, through the effi- 
cacy of the Eternal Spirit, real evidences, be- 
cause they are vital acts of genuine faith in Jesus 
Christ. If they profess not to place their reliance 
on works, they are, however, more zealous in 
performing them than the others ; who, profess 



MISTAKES IN RELIGION. 51 

ing to depend on their good deeds for salvation, 
are not always diligent in securing it by the 
very means which they themselves establish to 
be alone effectual. 

There is a third class — the high-flown pro- 
fessor, who looks down from the giddy heights 
of antinomian delusion on the other two, abhors 
the one and despises the other ; concludes that 
the one is lost, and the other in a fair way to be 
so. Though perhaps not living himself in any 
course of immorality which requires the sanc- 
tion of such doctrines, he does not hesitate to 
imply in his discourse that virtue is heathenish, 
and good works superfluous, if not dangerous. 
He does not consider that though the Gospel is 
an act of oblivion to penitent sinners, yet it no 
where promises pardon to those w^ho continue to 
live in a state of rebellion against God and of dis- 
obedience to his laws. He forgets to insist to 
others that it is of little importance even to be- 
lieve that sin is an evil, (which however they do 
not always believe,) while they persist to live in 
it, that to know every thing of duty except the 
doing it, is to offend God with an aggravation 
from which ignorance itself is exempt. It is not 
giving ourselves up to Christ, in a nameless inex- 
plicable way, which will avail us. God loves a 
humble, not an audacious faith. To suppose that 
the blood of Christ redeems us from sin, while sin 



52 PilACTICAL PIETY. 

continues to reign in the soul, is to suppose an 
impossibility ; to maintain that it is effectual for 
the salvation, and not for the sanctification of the 
sinner, is to suppose that it acts like an amulet, an 
incantation, a talisman, which is to produce its 
effect by operating on the imagination, and not 
on the disease. 

The religion which mixes" with human pas- 
sions, and is set on fire by them, will make a 
stronger blaze than that light which is from 
above, which sheds a steady and lasting bright- 
ness on the path, and communicates a sober but 
durable warmth to the heart. It is equable and 
constant ; while the other, like culinary fire fed 
by gross materials, is extinguished the sooner 
from the fierceness of the flame. 

That religion which is merely seated in the 
passions, is not only liable to wear itself out by 
its own impetuosity, but to be driven out by some 
other passion. The dominion of violent passions 
is short. They dispossess each other. When re- 
ligion has had its day, it gives way to the next 
usurper. Its empire is no more solid than it is 
lasting, when principle and reason do not ^x it on 
the throne. 

The first of the above classes consider pru- 
dence as the paramount virtue in religion. Their 
antipodes, the flaming professors, believe a burn- 
ing zeal to be the exclusive grace. Tkey reverse 



MISTAKES IIS RELIGION. 53 

Saint PauPs collocation of the three christian 
graces, and think that the greatest of these is 
faith. Though even in respect of this grace, their 
conduct and conversation too often give us rea- 
son to lament that they do not bear in mind its 
genuine and distinctive properties. Their faith, 
instead of working by love, seems to be adopted 
from a notion that it leaves the christian nothing 
to do, rather than because it is its nature to lead 
him to do more and better than other men. 

In this case, as in many others, that which is 
directly contrary to what is wrong is wrong also. 
If each opponent would only barter half his fa- 
vorite quality with the favorite quality of the 
other, both parties would approach nearer to the 
truth. They might even furnish a complete chris- 
tian between them : that is, provided the zeal of 
the one was sincere, and the prudence of the other 
honest. But the misfortune is, each is as proud 
of not possessing the quality he wants, because 
his adversary has it, as he is proud of possessing 
that of which the other is destitute, and because. 
he is destitute of it. 

Among the many mistakes in religion, it is com 
monly thought that there is something so unintel 
ligible, absurd, and fanatical in the term convtr- 
sio7i^ that those who employ it run no small ha- 
zard of being involved in the ridicule it excites 
It is seldom used but ludicrously, or in contempt 



54 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

This arises partly from the levity and ignorance 
of the censurer, but perhaps as much from the 
imprudence and enthusiasm of those who have 
absurdly confined it to real or supposed instances 
of sudden or miraculous changes from profligacy 
to piety. But surely, with reasonable people, we 
run no risk in asserting that he, who being awak- 
ened by any of those various methods which the 
Almighty uses to bring his creatures to the know- 
ledge of himself, who, seeing the corruptions that 
are in the world, and feeling those with which his 
own heart abounds, is brought, whether gradual 
ly or more rapidly, from an evil heart of unbelief 
to a lively faith in the Redeemer, from a life not 
only of gross vice, but of worldliness and vanity, 
to a life of progressive piety ; whose humility 
keeps pace with his progress ; who, though his 
attainments are advancing, is so far from count- 
ing himself to have attained, that he presses on- 
ward with unabated zeal, and evidences, by the 
change in his conduct, the change that has taken 
place in his heart : such a one is surely as sin- 
cerely converted, and the effect is as much pro- 
duced by the same divine energy, as if some in- 
stantaneous revolution in his character had given 
it a miraculous appearance. The doctrines of 
Scripture are the same now as when David 
called them ^^ a law converHng the soul, and giv- 
ing light to the eyes." This is perhaps the most 



MISTAKES IN RELIGION. 55 

accurate and comprehensive definition of the 
change for which we are contending, for it in- 
cludes both the illumination of the understanding 
and the alteration in the disposition. 

If, then, this obnoxious expression signify no- 
thing more nor less than that change of charac- 
ter which consists in turning from the world to 
God, however the term may offend, there is no- 
thing ridiculous in the thing. Now, as it is not 
for the term which we contend, but for the prin- 
ciple conveyed by it , so it is the principle, and 
not the term, which is the real ground of objec- 
tion ; though it is a little inconsistent that many 
who would sneer at the idea of conversion would 
yet take it extremely ill if it were suspected that 
their hearts were not turned to God. 

Reformation^ a term against which no objection 
is ever made, w^ould, if words continued to re- 
tain their primitive signification, convey the same 
idea. For it is plain that to re-form means to 
make anew. In the present use, however, it does 
not convey the same meaning in the same extent, 
nor indeed does it imply the operation of the 
same principle. Many are reformed on human 
motives, many are partially reformed ; but only 
those who, as our great poet says, are ^^ reformed 
altogether," are converted. There is no com- 
plete reformation in the conduct effected with- 
out a revolution in the heart. Ceasing from some 



56 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

sins ; retaining others in a less degree j or adopt* 
ing such as are merely creditable ; or flying from 
one sin to another , or ceasing from the external 
act without any internal change of disposition, 
is not christian reformation. The new principle 
must abolish the old habit; the rooted inclina- 
tion must be subdued by the substitution of an 
opposite one. The natural bias must be changed. 
The actual offence will no more be pardoned 
than cured, if the inward corruption be not era- 
dicated. To be ^^ alive unto God through Jesus 
Christ," must follow ^^the death unto sin." There 
cannot be new aims and ends where there is not 
a new principle to produce them. We shall not 
choose a new path until a light from heaven di- 
rect our choice and ^^ guide our feet." We shall 
not "run the way of God's commandments" till 
God himself enlarge our heart. 

We do not, however, insist that the change 
required is such as precludes the possibility of 
falling into sin ; but it is a change which fixes in 
the soul such a disposition as shall make sin a 
burden ; as shall make the desire of pleasing 
God the governing desire of a man's heart ; as 
shall make him hate the evil which he does ; as 
shall make the lowness of his attainments the 
subject of his deepest sorrow. A christian has 
hopes and fears, cares and' temptations, inclina- 
tions and desires, as well as other men. God, in 



MISTAKES IN RELIGION. 51 

changing the heart, does not extinguish the pas 
sions. Were that the case the christian life 
would cease to be a warfare. 

We are often deceived by that partial improve- 
nnent which appears in the victory over some one 
bad quality. But we niust not mistake the re 
moval of a symptom for a radical cure of the dis 
ease. An occasional remedy might remove an 
accidental sickness, but it requires a general re- 
gimen to renovate the diseased constitution. 

It is the natural but melancholy history of the 
unchanged heart, that, from youth to advanced 
years, there is no other revolution in the cha- 
racter but such as increases both the number and 
quality of its defects : that the levity, vanity, and 
self-sufficiency of the young man are carried in- 
to advanced life, and only meet and mix with the 
defects of a mature period , that instead of cry- 
ing out with the royal prophet, '^ remember 
not my old sins," he is inflaming his reckoning 
by new ones : that age, protracting all the faults 
of youth, furnishes its own contingent of vices- 
that sloth, suspicion, and covetousness swell tlif 
account which religion has not been called in t< 
cancel : that the world, though it has lost the 
power to delight, has yet lost nothing of it? 
power to enslave. Instead of improving in can 
dor by the inward sense of his own defects, that 
very consciousness makes him less tolerant ot 



t 

58 PRACTICAL PIETY 

the defects of others, and more suspicious of 
their apparent virtues. His charity in a warmer 
season having failed to bring him in that return 
of gratitude for which it was partly performed, 
and having never flowed from the genuine spring, 
is dried up. His friendships, having been formed 
on worldly principles, or interest, or ambition, or 
convivial hilarity, fail him. " One must make 
some sacrifices to the world," is the prevailing 
language of the nominal christian. " What will 
the world pay you for your sacrifices!" replies 
the real christian. Though he finds that the 
world is insolvent, that it pays nothing of what 
it promised, for it cannot bestow what it does 
not possess — happiness — yet he continues to 
cling to it almost as confidently as if it had ne- 
ver disappointed him. Were we called upon to 
name the object under the sun which excites the 
deepest commiseration in the heart of christian 
sensibility, which includes in itself the most af- 
fecting incongruities, which contains the sum 
and substance of real human misery, we should 
not hesitate to say, an irreligious old age. The 
mere debility of declining years, even the hope- 
essness of decrepitude in the pious, though they 
excite sympathy, yet it is the sympathy of ten- 
derness unmixed with distress. We take and 
give comfort, from the cheering persuasion that 
the exhausted body will soon cease to clog its 



MISTAKES IN RELIGION. 59 

immortal companion ; that the dim and failing 
eyes will soon open on a world of glory. Dare 
we paint the reverse of the picture 1 Dare we 
suffer the imagination to dwell on the opening 
prospects of hoary impiety 1 Dare we figure to 
ourselves that the weakness, the miseries, the 
terrors we are now commiserating, are ease, are 
peace, are happiness, compared with the unutter- 
able perspective 1 

There is a fatal way of lulling the conscience 
by entertaining diminishing thoughts of sins long 
since committed. We persuade ourselves to forget 
them, and we therefore persuade ourselves that 
they are not remembered by God. But though 
distance diminishes objects to the eye of the be- 
holder, it does not actually lessen them. Their 
real magnitude remains the same. Deliver us, 
merciful God, from the delusion of believing that 
secret sins, of which the world has no cogni- 
sance ; early sins, which the world has forgotten, 
but which are known to ^^ Him with whom we 
have to do," become by secresy and distance as 
if they had never been! ^^Are not these things 
noted in thy book V If we remember them, God 
may forget them ; especially if our remembrance 
be such as to induce a sound repentance. If 
we remember them not, he assuredly will. The 
holy contrition which should accompany this re- 
membrance, while it will not abate our humble 



60 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

trust in our compassionate Redeemer, will keep 
our conscience tender, and our heart watchful. 

We do not deny that there is frequently much 
kindness and urbanity, much benevolence and 
generosity, in men who do not even pretend to 
be religious. These qualities often flow from 
constitutional feeling, natural softness of temper, 
and warm affections ; often from an elegant edu- 
cation, that best human sweetener and polisher 
of social life. We feel a tender regret as we ex* 
claim, ^^ What a fine soil would such dispositions 
afford to plant religion in !" Well-bred persons 
are accustomed to respect all the decorums of 
society, to connect inseparably the ideas of per- 
sonal comfort with public esteem, of generosity 
with credit, of order with respectability. They 
have a keen sense of dishonor, and are careful 
to avoid every thing that may bring the shadow 
of discredit on their name. Public opinion is the 
breath by which they live, the standard by which 
they act 5 of course they would not lower, by 
gross misconduct, that standard on which their 
happiness depends. They have been taught to 
respect themselves ; this they can do with more 
security while they can retain, on this half-way 
principle, the respect of others. 

In some who make further advances towards 
religion, we continue to see it in that same low 
degree which we have always observed. It is 



MISTAKES IN RELIGION. 61 

dwarfish and stunted ; it makes no shoots 
Though it gives some signs of life, it does not 
grow. By a tame and spiritless round, or rather 
by this fixed and immoveable position, we rob 
ourselves of that fair reward of peace and joy 
which attends on a humble consciousness of pro- 
gress, on the feeling of difficulties conquered, on 
a sense of Divine favor. That religion which is 
profitable is commonly perceptible. Nothing 
supports a traveller in his christian course like 
the conviction that he is getting on, like looking 
back on the country he has passed, and, above 
all, like the sense of that protection which has 
hitherto carried him on, and of that grace which 
has promised to support him to the end. 

The proper motion of the renewed heart is still 
directed upward. True religion is of an aspiring 
nature, continually tending towards that Heaven 
from whence it was transplanted. Its top is high, 
because its root is deep. It is watered by a peren- 
nial fountain , in its most flourishing state it is 
always capable of further growth. Real goodness 
proves itself to be such by a continual desire to 
be better. No virtue on earth is ever in a com- 
plete state. Whatever stage of religion any man 
has attained, if he be satisfied to rest in that stage, 
we would not call that man religious. The Gos- 
pel seems to consider the highest degree of good- 
ness as the lowest with which a christian ought 



62 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

to Sit down satisfied. We cannot be said to be 
finished in any christian grace because there is 
not one which may not be carried further than we 
have carried it. This promotes the double pur- 
pose of keeping us humble as to our present stage, 
and of stimulating us to something higher, which 
we may hope to attain. 

That superficial thing which by mere people of 
the world is dignified by the appellation of reli- 
gion, though it brings just that degree of credit 
which makes part of the system of worldly chris- 
tians, neither brings comfort for this world, nor 
security for the next. Outward observances, in- 
dispensable as they are, are not religion. They 
are the accessary, but not the principal ; they are 
important aids and adjuncts, but not the thing 
itself, they are its aliment, but not its life; the 
fuel, but not the flame; the scaffolding, but not 
the edifice. Keligion can no more subsist merely 
by them, than it can subsist without them. Thej^ 
are divinely appointed, and must be conscien- 
tiously observed ; but observed as a means to 
promote an end, and not as an end in themselves. 

The heartless homage of formal worship, where 
the vital power does not give life to the form, the 
cold compliment of ceremonial attendance, with 
out the animating principle, as it will not bring 
peace to our own mind, so neither will it satisfy a 
jealous God. That God whose eye is on the heart. 



MISTAKES IN RELIGION, 63 

who trieth the reins and searcheth the spirits 
will not be satisfied that we make him little more 
than a nominal deity, while the world is the real 
object of our worship. Such persons seem to 
have almost the whole body of performance ; all 
they want is the soul. They are constant in their 
devotions 5 but the heart, which even the heathen 
esteem the best part of the sacrifice, they keep 
away. They read the Scriptures, but rest in the 
letter, instead of trying themselves by its spirit. 
They consider it as an enjoined task, but not as 
the " quick and powerful" instrument put into 
their hands of the critical dissection of ^^ piercing 
and dividing asunder the soul and spirit ;" not as 
the penetrating ^Miscerner of the thoughts and 
intents of the heart." These well-intentioned 
persons seem to spend no inconsiderable portion 
of time in religious exercise, and yet complain 
that they make little progress. They almost 
seem to insinuate that the Almighty does not 
keep his word with them, and manifest that reli- 
gion to them is not ^^ pleasantness," nor her 
** paths peace." 

Of such may we not ask, would you not do 
better to examine than to complain *? to inquire 
whether you do indeed possess a heart which, 
notwithstanding its imperfections, is sincerely 
devoted to God'? He who does not desire to be 
perfect is not sincere. Would you not do well to 



64? PRACTICAL PIETY. 

convince yourselves that God is not unfaithful , 
that his promises do not fail, that his goodness 
is not slackened 1 May you not be entertaining 
some secret infidelity, practising some latent 
disobedience, withholding some part of youi 
heart, neglecting to exercise that faith, subtract- 
ing something from that devotedness to which a 
christian should engage himself, and to which 
the promises of God are annexed 1 Do you in- 
dulge no propensities contrary to his wilH Do 
you never resist the dictates of his Spirit, never 
shut your eyes to its illumination, nor your heart 
to its influences'? Do you not indulge some che- 
rished sin which obscures the light of grace, 
some practice which obstructs the growth of 
virtue, some distrust which chills the warmth of 
love 1 The discovery will repay the search, and 
if you succeed in this scrutiny, let not the detec- 
tion discourage, but stimulate. 

If then you resolve to take up religion in ear- 
nest, especially if you have actually adopted its 
customary forms, rest not in such low attain- 
ments as will afford neither present peace nor 
future happiness. To know Christianity only in 
Its external forms, and its internal dissatisfac- 
tions, its superficial appearances without, and its 
disquieting apprehensions within ; to be desirous 
of standing well with the world as a christian, 
yet to be unsupported by a well-founded chris- 



MISTAKES IN RELIGION. 65 

tian hope ,* to depend for happiness on the opi- 
nion of men, instead of the favor of God 5 to go 
on dragging through the mere exercises of piety, 
without deriving from them real strength or solid 
peace ; to live in the dread of being called an 
enthusiast, by outwardly exceeding in religion 
and in secret consciousness of falling short of it j 
to be conformed to the world's view of Chris- 
tianity, rather than to aspire to be transformed by 
the renewing of your mind, — is a state not of 
pleasure but of penalty, not of conquest but of 
hopeless conflict, not of ingenuous love, but of 
tormenting fear. It is knowing religion only as 
the captive in a foreign land knows the country 
in which he is a prisoner. He hears from the 
cheerful natives of its beauties, but is himself ig- 
norant of every thing beyond his own gloomy 
limits. He hears of others as free and happy, 
but feels nothing himself but the rigors of incar- 
ceration. 

The christian character is not understood by 
the votaries of the world ; if it were, they would 
be struck with its grandeur. It is the very re- 
verse of that meanness and pusillanimity, that 
abject spirit, and those narrow views, which they 
who know it not ascribe to it, 

A christian lives at the height of his bemg 5 
not only at the top of his spiritual but of his in- 
tellectual life. He alone lives in the full exer- 

Pract. Piety 5 



66 PRACTICAL PIETY 

cise of his rational powers. Religion ennobles 
his reason while it enlarges it. 

Let then your soul act up to its high destina- 
tion ; let not that which was made to soar to 
heaven grovel in the dust. Let it not live so 
much below itself. You wonder it is not more 
fixed, when it is perpetually resting on things 
which are not fixed themselves. In the rest of a 
christian there is stability. Nothing can shake 
his confidence but sin. Outward attacks and 
troubles rather fix than unsettle him, as tempests 
from without only serve to root the oak faster, 
while an inward canker will gradually rot and 
decay it. 

That religion which sinks Christianity into a 
mere conformity to religious usages, must always 
fail of substantial effects. If sin be seated in the 
heart, if that be its home, that is the place in 
which it must be combated. It is in vain to at- 
tack it in the suburbs when it is lodged in the 
centre. Mere forms can never expel that enemy 
which they can never reach. By a religion of 
decencies, our corruptions may perhaps be driven 
out of sight, but they will never be driven out of 
possession. If they are expelled from their out- 
works, they will retreat to their citadel. If they 
do not appear in the grosser forms prohibited by 
the decalogue, still they will exist ; the shape 
may be altered, but the principle will remain ; — 



MISTAKES IN RELIGION. 67 

they will exist in the spiritual modification of 
the same sins, equally forbidden by the Divine 
expositor. He who dares not be revengeful will 
be unforgiving. He who ventures not to break 
the letter of the seventh commandment in act, 
will violate it in the spirit. He who has not cou- 
rage to renounce heaven by profligacy, will scale 
it by pride, or forfeit it by unprofitableness. 

It is not any vain hope built on some external 
privilege or performance, on the one hand, nor a 
presumptuous confidence that our names are 
written in the book of life, on the other, which 
can aflford a reasonable ground of safety ; but it 
is endeavoring to keep all the commandments 
of God, it is living to him who died for us, it is 
being conformed to his image as well as redeem- 
ed by his blood. This is christian virtue, this is 
the holiness of a believer. A lower motive will 
produce a lower morality, but such an unsancti- 
fied morality God will not accept. 

For it will little avail us that Christ has died for 
us, that he has conquered sin, triumphed over the 
powers of darkness, and overcome the world, 
while any sin retains its unresisted dominion in 
our hearts, while the world is our idol, while our 
fostered corruptions cause us to prefer darkness 
to light. We must not persuade ourselves that 
we are reconciled to God, while our rebellious 
hearts are not reconciled to goodness 



68 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

It is not casting a set of opinions into a mould, 
and a set of duties into a system, which consti- 
tutes the christian religion. The circumference 
must have a centre, the body must have a soul, 
the performances must have a principle. Out- 
ward observances were wisely constituted to 
rouse our forgetfulness, to awake our secular 
spirits, to call back our negligent hearts : but it 
was never intended that we should stop short in 
the use of them. They were designed to excite 
holy thoughts, to quicken us to holy deeds, but 
not to be used as equivalents for either. But we 
find it cheaper to serve God in a multitude of ex- 
terior acts, than to starve one interior corruption 

Nothing short of that uniform stable principle, 
that fixedness in religion which directs a man in 
all his actions, aims, and pursuits, to God as his 
ultimate end, can give consistency to his con- 
duct, or tranquillity to his soul. This state once 
attained, he will not waste all his thoughts and 
designs upon the world , he will not lavish all his 
affections on so poor a thing as his own advance- 
ment. He will desire to devote all to the only 
object worthy of them, — to God. Our Saviour 
has taken care to provide that our ideas of glori- 
fying him may not run out into fanciful chimeras 
or subtle inventions, by simply stating-—'^ Herein 
IS MY Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.'* 
This he goes on to inform us is the true evidence 



PERIODICAL RELIGION. 69 

of our being of the number of his people^ by add- 
ing — *^ So shall ye be my disciples." 



CHAPTER IV. 



PERIODICAL RELIGION. 



We deceive ourselve? not a little when we fan- 
cy that what is emphatically called the World is 
only to be found in this or that situation. The 
world is every where. It is a nature as well as a 
place 5 a principle as well as " a local habitation 
and a name." Though the principle and the na- 
ture flourish most in those haunts which are theii 
congenial soil, yet we are too ready, when we 
withdraw from the world abroad, to bring it 
home, to lodge it in our own bosom. The natural 
heart is both its temple and its worshipper. 

But the most devoted idolater of the world, 
with all the capacity and industry which he may 
hafe applied to the subject, has never yet been 
able to accomplish the grand design of uniting 
the interests of heaven and earth. This experi- 
ment, which has been more assiduously and more 



70 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

frequently tried than that of the philosopher for 
the grand hermetic secret, has been tried with 
about the same degree of success. The most la- 
borious process of the spiritual chemist to recon- 
cile religion with the world has never yet been 
competent to make the contending principles 
coalesce. 

But to drop metaphor. Eeligion was never yet 
thoroughly relished by a heart full of the world. 
The world in return cannot be completely enjoy- 
ed where there is just religion enough to disturb 
its false peace. In such minds heaven and earth 
ruin each other's enjoyments. 

Yet life passes in the hopeless project of com- 
bining both. It is the object of the w^orldly sys- 
tem to flatter our passions, of the religious prin- 
ciple to subdue them ; we adopt the one practi- 
cally, while we maintain the other speculative- 
ly ; we grasp at the gratijfications of the one, we 
will not relinquish the promises of the other. 
What makes life so little productive of real hap- 
piness is, that we are thus driving at opposite in- 
terests at the same time, though not with the 
same zeal. 

It is no wonder that the more abstract doctrines 
k>f religion can make little impression on minds 
supremely engrossed by the objects of sense, 
*vhen its most obvious and practical truths can but 
superficially impress them ; when all the present 



PERIODICAL RELIGION. 71 

objects which absorb their thoughts and aiFections 
are of a cast and character which furnish a per- 
petual hinderance and a powerful counteraction. 
There is a religion which is too sincere for hy- 
pocrisy, but too transient to be profitable ; too 
superficial to reach the heart, too unproductive to 
proceed from it. It is rather slight than false. It 
has discernment enough to distinguish sin, but 
not firmness enough to oppose it ^ compunction 
suficient to soften the heart, but not vigor suffi- 
cient to reform it. It laments when it does 
wrong, and performs all the functions of repent- 
ance of sin except forsaking it. It has every 
thing of devotion except the stability, and gives 
everything to religion except the heart. This is 
a religion of times, events, and circumstances; it 
is brought into play by accidents, and dwindles 
away with the occasion which called it out. Fes- 
tivals and fasts, which occur but seldom, are 
mijch observed, and it is to be feared because they 
occur but seldom ; while the great festival which 
comes every week comes too often to be so re- 
spectfully treated. The piety of these people 
comes out much in sickness, but is apt to retreat 
again as recovery approaches. If they die they 
are placed by their admirers in the Saint's Calen- 
dar; if they recover, they go back into the world 
they had renounced, and again suspend their 
amendment as often as death suspends his blow 



73 PKACTICAL PIETY. 

/ 

There is another class whose views are stiL 
lower, who yet cannot so far shake off religion as 
to be easy without retaining its brief and stated 
forms, and who contrive to mix up these forms 
with a faith of a piece with their practice. Th5y 
blend their inconsistent works with a vague snd 
unwarranted reliance on what the Saviour jias 
done for them, and thus patch up a merit aiid a 
propitiation of their own, running the hazari of 
incurring the danger of punishment by their lires, 
and inventing a scheme to avert it by their cieed. 
Religion never interferes with their pleasures ex- 
cept by the complim.ent of a short and occasional 
suspension. Having got through these periodical 
acts of devotion, they return to the same scenes 
of vanity and idleness which they had quitted for 
the temporary duty ; forgetting that it was the 
very end of those acts of devotion to cure the rani- 
ty and to correct the idleness. Had the periodi- 
cal observance answered its true design, it woald 
have disinclined them to the pleasure instea(i of 
giving them a dispensation for its indulgence. 
Had they used the devout exercise in a right 
spirit, and improved it to its true end, it would 
have set the heart and life at work on all those 
pursuits which it was calculated to promote. But 
their project has more ingenuity. By the stated 
minutes they give to religion, they think cheaply 
to purchase a protection for the misemployment 



PERIODICAL RELIGION. 73 

of the rest of their time. They make these pe- 
riodical devotions a kind of spiritual Insurance 
Office, which is to make up to the adventurers 
in pleasure any loss or damage which they may 
sustain in its voyage. 

It is of these shallow devotions, these presum^ 
ed equivalents for a new heart and a new life, that 
God declares by the prophet that he is " weary." 
Though, of his own express appointment, they 
become ^^ an abomination" to him, as soon as the 
sign comes to be rested in for the thing signified. 
We christians have " our new moons and our 
sacrifices" under other names and other shapes; 
of which sacrifices, that is, of the spirit in which 
they are offered, the Almighty has said, ^^I can- 
not away wdth them : they are iniquity." 

Now is this superficial devotion that ^^ giving 
up ourselves not with our lips only, but with 
our lives," to our Maker, to which so many so- 
lemnly pledge themselves, at least once a week % 
Is consecrating an hour or two to public wor- 
ship on the Sunday morning, making the Sab- 
bath " a delight V Is desecrating the rest of the 
day by ** doing our own ways, finding our own 
pleasure, speaking our own words," making it 
" honorable 1" 

Sometimes in an awakening sermon, these pe- 
riodical religionists hear, with awe and terror, 
of the hour of death and the day of judgment 



74 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

Their hearts are penetrated with the solemn 
sounds. They confess the awful realities by the 
impression they make on their own feelings. The 
sermon ends, and with it the serious reflections it 
excited. While they listen to these things, espe- 
cially if the preacher be alarming, they are all in 
all to them. They return to the w^orld — and these 
things are as if they were not, as if they had ne- 
ver been ; as if their reality lasted only while 
they were preached 5 as if their existence depend- 
ed only on their being heard , as if truth were no 
longer truth than while it solicited their notice ; 
as if there were as little stability in religion itself 
as in their attention to it. As soon as their minds 
are disengaged from the question, one would 
think that death and judgment were an inven- 
tion, that heaven and hell were blotted from ex- 
istence, that eternity ceased to be eternity, in the 
long intervals in which they ceased to be the ob- 
ject oi their consideration. 

This is the natural effect of w^hat we venture 
to denominate periodical religion. It is a tran- 
sient homage, kept totally distinct and separate 
from the rest of our lives, instead of its being 
made the prelude and the principle of a course 
of pious practice ; instead of our weaving our de- 
votions and our actions into one uniform tissue, 
by doing all in one spirit, and to one end. When 
worshippers of this description pray for " a clean 



PERIODICAL RELIGION. 75 

heart and,a right spirit," when they beg of God 
to '^ turn away their eyes from beholding vanity," 
is it not to be feared that they pray to be made 
what they resolve never to become, that they 
would be very unwilling to become as good as 
they pray to be made, and would be sorry to be 
as penitent as they profess to desire 1 But, alas! 
they are in little danger of being taken at their 
'word ; there is too much reason to fear their pe- 
titions will not be heard or answered , for prayer 
for the pardon of sin will obtain no pardon, while 
we retain the sin, in hope that the prayer will be 
accepted without the renunciation. 

The most solemn office of our religion, the sa- 
cred memorial of the death of its Author, the 
blessed injunction and tender testimony of his 
dying love, the consolation of the humble believer, 
the gracious appointment for strengthening his 
faith, quickening his repentance, awakening his 
gratitude, and kindling his charity, is too often 
resorted to on the same erroneous principle. He 
who ventures to live without the use of this holy 
institution, lives in a state of disobedience to the 
last appointment of his Redeemer. He who rests 
in it as a means for supplying the place of ha- 
bitual piety, totally mistakes its design, and is 
fatally deceiving his own soul. 

This awful solemnity is, it is to be hoped, rare- 
ly approached even by this class of christians 



76 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

without a desire of approaching it with the pious 
feelings above described. But, if they carry them 
to the altar, are they equally anxious to carry 
them away from it ? are they anxious to main- 
tain them after it 1 Does the rite, so seriously 
approached, commonly leave any vestige of se- 
riousness behind it 1 Are they careful to per- 
petuate the feelings they were so desirous to 
excite 1 Do they strive to make them produce 
solid and substantial effects. Would that this 
inconstancy of mind w^ere to be found only in 
the class of characters under consideration I 
Let the reader, how^ever sincere in his desires, 
let the writer, however ready to lament the 
levity of others, seriously ask their own hearts if 
they can entirely acquit themselves of the incon- 
sistency they are* so forward to blame 1 — if they 
do not find the charge brought against others 
but too applicable to themselves 1 

Irreverence antecedent to, or during this sacred 
solemnity, is far less rare than durable improve- 
ment after it. If there are, as we are willing to 
believe, none so profane as to violate the act, ex- 
cept those who impiously use it only as ^^ a pick- 
lock to a place," there are too few who make it 
lastingly beneficial ; few so thoughtless as not to 
approach it with resolutions of amendment^ few 
comparatively who carry these resolutions into 
effect Fear operates in the previous instance. 



PERIODICAL RELIGION. 77 

Why should not love operate in that which is 
subsequent ] 

A periodical religion is accompanied with a 
periodical repentance. This species of repentance 
is adopted with no small mental reservation. It 
is partial and disconnected. These fragments of 
contrition, these broken parcels of penitence, 
while a succession of worldly pursuits is not only- 
resorted to, but is intended to be resorted to 
during the whole of the intervening spaces, are 
not that sorrow which the Almighty has promised 
to accept. To render them pleasing to God and 
efficacious to ourselves, there must be an agree- 
ment in the parts, an entireness in the whole web 
of life. There must be an integral repentance. A 
periodical contrition preceding the sacred sea- 
sons will not wipe out the daily offences, the 
hourly negligences of a sinful life. Sins half for- 
saken through fear, and half retained through 
partially-resisted temptation, and partially adopt- 
ed resolutions, make up but an unprofitable piety. 

In the bosom of these professors there is a per- 
petual conflict between fear and inclination. In 
conversation you will generally find them very 
warm in the cause of religion ; but it is religion 
as opposed to infidelity, not as opposed to world- 
ly-mindedness. They defend the worship of God, 
but desire to be excused from his service. Their 
heart is the slave of the world, but their blindness 



78 PRi\CTICAL PIETY. 

hides from them the turpitude of that world 
They commend piety, but dread its requisitions 
Tliey allow that repentance is necessary, but then 
how easy is it to find reasons for deferring a ne- 
cessary evil 1 Who will hastily adopt a painful 
measure which he can find a creditable pretence 
for evading 1 They censure whatever is ostensi- 
bly wrong, but avoiding only part of it, the part 
they retain robs them of the benefit of their par- 
tial renunciation. 

Our inherent character, and our necessary com- 
merce with the world, naturally fill our hearts 
and minds with thoughts and ideas, over which 
we have unhappily too little control. We find 
this to be the case when, in our better hours, we 
attempt to give ourselves up to serious reflection. 
How many intrusions of worldly thoughts, how 
many impertinent imaginations, not only irrele- 
vant, but uncalled and unwelcome, crowd in upon 
the mind so forcibly as scarcely to be repelled by 
our sincerest efforts ! How impotent, then, to re- 
pel such images, must that mind be which is de- 
voted to worldly pursuits, which yields itself up 
to them ; whose opinions, habits, and conduct 
are under their allowed influence ! 

We should fairly adjust the claims of both 
worlds, and having equitably determined their 
value, act upon that determination. We shah 
then fix the proportions and the limits of that at 



PERIODICAL RELIGION. 79 

tention which each deserves. A just estimate of 
their respective worth would cool our ardor and 
.tame our immoderate desires after things so real- 
ly little in themselves, and so short in their dura- 
tion. Providence has set narrow bounds to life 5 
piety should proportionally narrow our anxieties 
respecting' it ; for to be inordinately enamored 
of any object, the worth of which will not justify 
the attachment, argues an ill-regulated mind and 
a defective judgment. 

All the strong remarks of devout writers on 
the littleness of those things which the world 
calls great, might be looked upon as mere rhetori- 
cal flourishes, or as the envious ebullitions of re- 
tired men, who could not attain to the things they 
contemn, did not their brief duration justify the 
description. Let the censurer only image to 
himself the world passing away, and the earth 
vanishing, ere long, to all, and to every man at his 
death, which to him is the end of the world, and 
he whom he now despises as a passionate de- 
claimer will then appear a sober reasoner. 

Let us not, then, consider a spirit of worldli- 
ness as a little infirmity, as a natural, and there 
fore a pardonable weakness ; as a trifling error 
which will be overlooked for the sake of oui 
many good qualities. It is, in fact, the essence 
of our other faults, the temper that stands be- 
tween us and our salvation, the spirit which is in 



80 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

direct opposition to the Spirit of God. Individual 
sins may more easily be cured, but this is the 
principle of all spiritual disease. A worldly spirit, 
where it is rooted and cherished, runs through 
the whole character, insinuates itself in all we 
say, and think, and do. It is this which makes us 
so dead in religion, so averse to spiritual things, 
so forgetful of God, so unmindful of eternity, so 
satisfied with ourselves, so impatient of serious 
discourse, and so alive to that vain and frivolous 
intercourse which excludes intellect almost as 
much as it excludes piety from our general con- 
versation. 

It is not, therefore, our more considerable ac- 
tions alone which require watching, for they sel- 
dom occur. They do not form the habit of life 
in ourselves, nor the chief importance of our ex- 
ample to others. It is our ordinary behaviour, it 
is our deportment in common life, it is our pre- 
vailing turn of mind in general intercourse, by 
which we shall profit or corrupt those with whom 
we associate. It is our conduct in social life 
which will help to diffuse a spirit of piety or a 
distaste to it. If we have much influence, this 
is the place in which particularly to exert it. If 
we have little, we have still enough to infect the 
temper and lower the tone of our narrow society. 

If we really believe that it is the design of 
Christianity to raise us to a participation of the 



PERIODICAL RELIGION. 81 

Divine nature, the slightest reflection on this ele- 
vation of our character would lead us to main- 
tain its dignity in the ordinary intercourse of 
life. We should not so nnuch inquire whether 
we are transgressing any actual prohibition, 
whether any standing law is pointed against us, 
as whether we are supporting the dignity of the 
christian character ; whether we are acting suita- 
bly to our profession ; whether more exactness 
ia the common occurrences of the day, more cor- 
rectness in our conversation, would not be such 
evidences of our religion as, by being obvious 
and intelligible, might almost insensibly produce 
important effects. > 

The most insignificant people must not, through 
indolence and selfishness, undervalue their own 
influence. Most persons have a little circle, of 
which they are a sort of centre. Its smallness 
may lessen their quantity of good, but does not 
diminish the duty of using that little influence 
wisely. Where is the human being so incon- 
siderable but that he may in some shape benefit 
others, either by calling their virtues into exer- 
cise, or by setting them an example of virtue 
himself! But we are humble just in the wrong 
place. When the exhibition of our talents or 
splendid qualities is in question, we are not back- 
ward in the display. When a little self-denial is 
to be exercised ; when a little good might be 

Pract. Piety 6 



82 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

effected by our example, by our discreet manage 
ment in company, by giving a better turn to con 
versation, then at once we grow wickedly modest 
^^ Such an insignificant creature as I am can dc 
no good. Had I a higher rank or brighter talents, 
then, indeed, my influence might be exerted to 
some purpose." Thus, under the mask of diffi- 
dence we justify our indolence, and let slip those 
lesser occasions of promoting religion, which, if 
we all improved, how much might the condition 
of society be raised ! 

The hackneyed interrogation, " What ! must we 
always be talking about religion 1" must have the 
hackneyed answer — Far from it. Talking about 
religion is not being religious. But we may bring 
the spirit of religion into company, and keep it 
in perpetual operation, when w^e do not profess- 
edly make it our subject. We may be constant- 
ly advancing its interests ; we may, without effort 
or affectation, be giving an example of candor, 
of moderation, of humility, of forbearance. We 
may employ our influence by correcting false 
hood, by checking levity, by discouraging calum 
ny, by vindicating misrepresented merit, by coun 
tenancing every thing which has a good tenden* 
cy : — in short, by throwing our whole weight, be 
U great or small, into a right scale. 



PRAYER. 83 

CHAPTER V. 



PRAYER. 



Prayer islhe application of want to Him who 
only can relieve it, the voice of sin to Him who 
alone can pardon it. It is the urgency of poverty, 
the prostration of humility, the fervency of peni- 
tence, the confidence of trust. It is not eloquence, 
but earnestness 5 not tKe definition of helpless- 
ness, but the feeling of it ; not figures of speech, 
but compunction of soul. It is the ^^ Lord, save us, 
we perish," of drowning Peter 5 the cry of faith to 
the ear of mercy. 

Adoration is the noblest employment of createcV 
beings , confession, the natural language of guiltj 
creatures j gratitude, the spontaneous expressioi 
of pardoned sinners. Prayer is desire ; it is not i 
mere conception of the mind, nor a mere effort of 
the intellect, nor an act of the memory i but 
an elevation of the soul towards its Maker, a 
pressing sense of our own ignorance and infirmi- 
ty; a consciousness of the perfection of God, of 
his readiness to hear, of his power to help, of his 
willingness to save. It is not an emotion pro- 
duced in the senses, nor an effect wrought by the 
imagination; but a determination of the will, an 
effusion of the heart 



84 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

Prayer is the guide to self-knowledge, by prompt- 
ing us to look after our sins in order to pray 
against them 5 a motive to vigilance, by teaching 
us to guard against those sins which, through self- 
examination, we have been enabled to detect. 

Prayer is an act both of the understanding and 
of the heart. The understanding must apply itself 
to the knowledge of the Divine perfections, or 
the heart will not be led to the adoration of them. 
It would not be a reasonable service, if the mind 
was excluded. It must be rational worship, or 
the human worshipper would not bring to the 
service the distinguishing faculty of his nature, 
which is reason. It must be spiritual worship, or 
it would want the distinctive quality to make it 
acceptable to him who is a Spirit, and who has 
declared that he will be worshipped ^^ in spirit 
and in truth." 

Prayer is right in itself as the most powerful 
means of resisting sin and advancing in holiness. 
It is above all right, as every thing is w^hich has 
the authority of Scripture, the command of God, 
ar.d the example of Christ. 

Tneie is a perfect consistency in all the ordi 
nations of God ; a perfect congruity in the whole 
scheme of his dispensations. If man were not a 
corrupt creature, such prayer as the Gospel en- 
joins would not have been necessary. Had not 
prayer been an important means for curing those 



PRAYER. 85 

corruptions, a God of perfect wisdom would not 
have ordered it. He would not have prohibited 
every thing which tends to inflame and promote 
tliem, had they not existed , nor would he have 
commanded every thing that has a tendency "to 
diminish and remove them, had not their existence 
been fatal. Prayer, therefore, is an indispensable 
part of his economy, and of our obedience. 

It is a hackneyed objection to the use of prayer, 
that it is offending the omniscience of God to sup- 
pose he requires information of our wants. But 
no objection can be more futile. We do not pray 
to inform God of our wants, but to express our 
sense of the wants which he already knows. As 
he has not so much made his promises to our ne- 
cessities as to our requests, it is reasonable that 
our requests should be made before we can hope 
that our necessities will be relieved. God does 
not promise to those who want, that they shall 
*' have," but to those who ^^ask;" nor to those 
who need, that they shall ^^ find," but to those 
who " seek." So far, therefore, from his previous 
knowledge of our wants being a ground of ob- 
jection to prayer, it is in fact the true ground 
for our application. Were he not knowledge 
itself, our information would be of as little use 
as our application would be were he not good- 
ness itself. 

We cannot attain to a just notion of prayer 



86 .PRACTICAL PIETY. 

while we remain iofnorant of our own nature, of 
the nature of God as revealed in Scripture, of 
our relation to him, and dependence on him. If, 
therefore, we do not live ifi the daily study of the 
Holj' Scriptures, we shall want the highest mo- 
tives to this duty and the best helps for perform- 
ing it ; if we do, the cogency of these motives, 
and the inestimable value of these helps, will 
render argument unnecessary, and exhortations 
superfluous. 

One cause, therefore, of the dulness of many 
christians in prayer, is their slight acquaintance 
with the sacred volume. They hear it periodi- 
cally, they read it occasionally, they are content- 
ed to know it historically, to consider it super- 
ficially ; but they do not endeavor to get their 
minds imbued with its spirit. If they store their 
memory with its facts, they do not impress their 
hearts with its truths. They do not regard it as 
the nutriment on which their spiritual life and 
growth depend. They do not pray over it ; rhey 
do not consider all its doctrines as of practical 
application ; they do not cultivate that spiritual 
discernment which alone can enable them judi- 
ciously to appropriate its promises and its de- 
nunciations to their own actual case. They do not 
apply it as an unerring line to ascertain their own 
rectitude or obliquity. 

In our retirements we too often fritter away 



PRAYER. 87 

our precious moments — moments rescued from 
the world — in trivial, sometimes, it is to be feared, 
in corrupt thoughts. But if we must give the 
reins to our imagination, let us send this excur- 
sive faculty to range among great and noble 
objects. Let it stretch forward, under the sanc- 
tion of faith and the anticipation of prophecy, to 
the accomplishment of those glorious promises 
and tremendous threatenings which will soon be 
realized in the eternal world. These are topics 
which, under the safe and sober guidance of 
Scripture, will 6.x its largest speculations and 
sustain its loftiest flights. The same Scripture, 
while it expands and elevates the mind, will keep 
it subject to the dominion of truth ; while^ at the 
same time, it will teach it that its boldest excur- 
sions must fall infinitely short of the astonishing 
realities of a future state. 

Though we cannot pray with a too deep sense 
of sin, we may make our sins too exclusively the 
object of our prayers. While we keep, with a 
self-abasing eye, our own corruptions in view, let 
us look with equal intentness on that mercy which 
cleanseth from all sin. Let our prayers be all hu- 
miliation, but let them not be all complaint. When 
men indulge no other thought but that they are 
rebels, the hopelessness of pardon hardens them 
into disloyalty. Let them look to the mercy of 
the King, as well as to the rebellion of the sut 



S8 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

jeet. If we contemplate his grace as display e4 
in the Gospel, then, though our humility will in^ 
crease, our despair will v'^anish. Gratitude in this^ 
as in human instances, will create affection. ' W3 
love him, because he first loved us." 

Let us, therefore, always keep our unworlhi 
ness in view as a reason why we stand in need 
of the mercy of God in Christ ; but never plead 
it as a reason why we should not draw nigh to 
him to implore that mercy. The best men are i 
unworthy for their own sakes , th^ worst, on 
repentance, will be accepted for his sake and 
through his merits. 

In prayer, then, the perfections of God, and 
especially his mercies in our redemption, should 
occupy our thoughts as much as our sins 5 our 
obligations to him as much as our departures from 
him. We should keep up in our hearts a con- 
stant sense of our own weakness, not with a de- 
sign to discourage the mind and depress the 
spirits, but with a view to drive, us out of our- 
selves in search of the Divine assistance. We 
should contemplate our infirmity in order to draw 
us to look for his strength, and to seek that power 
from God which we vainly look for in ourselves : 
we do not tell a sick friend of his danger in order 
to grieve or terrify him, but to induce him to ap- 
ply to his physician, and to have recourse to his 
remedy. 



PRAYER. 



89 



Among the charges which have been brought 
against serious piety, one is, that it teaches men 
to despair. The charge is just in one sense as 
to the fact, but false in the sense intended. It 
teaches us to despair, indeed, of ourselves, while 
it inculcates that faith in a Redeemer which is 
the true antidote to despair. Faith quickens the 
doubting spirit, while it humbles the presump- 
tuous. The lowly christian takes comfort in the 
blessed promise that God will never forsake them 
that are his. The presumptuous man is equally 
right in the doctrine, but wrong in applying it. 
He takes that comfort to himself which was 
meant for another class of characters. The mal- 
appropriation of Scripture promises and threat- 
enings is the cause of much error and delusion. 

Some have fallen into error Jby advocating an 
unnatural and impracticable disinterestedness, 
asserting that God is to be loved exclusively for 
himself, with an absolute renunciation of any 
view of advantage to ourselves ; but that prayer 
cannot be mercenary, which involves God's glory 
with our own happiness, and makes his wnll the 
law of our requests. Though we are to desire 
the glory of God supremely 5 though this ought 
to be our grand actuating principle, yet he has 
graciously permitted, commanded, invited us to 
attach our own happiness to this primary object. 
The Bible exhibits not only a beautiful, but an 



90 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

inseparable combination of both, which delivers 
us from the danger of unnaturally renouncmg 
our own happiness for the promotion of God's 
glory on the one hand ; and, on the other, from 
seeking any happiness independent of him, and 
underived from him. In enjoining us to love 
him supremely, he has connected an unspeakable 
blessing with a paramount duty, the highest pri 
vilege with the most positive command. 

What a triumph for the humble christian, to 
be assured that " the high and lofty One who 
inhabiteth eternity," condescends at the same 
time to dwell in the heart of the contrite, in his 
heart! to know that God is the God of his life ; 
to know that he is even invited to take the Lord 
for his God. To close with God's offers, to ac- 
cept his invitations, to receive God as our por- 
tion, must surely be more pleasing to our hea- 
venly Father than separating our happiness from 
his glory. To disconnect our interests from his 
goodness, is at once to detract from his perfec- 
tions, and to obscure the brightness of our own 
hopes. The declarations of the inspired writers 
are confirmed by the authority of the neavenly 
hosts. They proclaim that the glory of God and 
the happiness of his creatures, so far from inter- 
fering-, are connected with each other. We know 
but of one anthem composed and sung by angels, 
End this most harmoniously combines ^^ the glory 



PRAYER. 91 

of God in the highest with peace on earth and 
good will to men." 

" The beauty of Scripture," says the great 
Saxon reformer, ^^ consists in pronouns." This 
God is our God — God, even our own God shall 
bless us. How delightful the appropriation ! to 
glorify him as being in himself consummate ex- 
ellence, and to love him from the feeling that 
this excellence is directed to our felicity ! Here 
modesty would be ingratitude, — disinterested- 
ness, rebellion. It would be severing ourselves 
from Him in whom we live, and move, and are ; 
it would be dissolving the connection which he 
has condescended to establish between himself 
and his creatures. 

It has been justly observed, that the Scripture- 
saints make this union the chief ground of their 
grateful exultation : ^""My strength," ^^ my rock," 
'^TTzi/ fortress," ^* 7?^2/ deliverer !" Again, ^Met the 
God of my salvation be exalted !" Now, take 
away the pronoun, and substitute the article Me, 
how comparatively cold is the impression ! The 
consummation of the joy arises from the pe- 
culiarity, the intimacy, the endearment of the 
'relation. 

Nor to the liberal christian is the grateful joy 
diminished, when he blesses his God as ^^ the 
God of all them that trust in him." All general 
blessings, will he say, all providential mercies, 



92 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

Bje mine individually, are mine as completely as 
if no other shared in the enjoyment ; life, light, 
the earth and heavens, the sun and stars, what- 
ever sustains the body and recreates the spirits! 
My obligation is as great as if the mercy had 
been made purely for me ! as great ! nay, it is 
greater — it is augmented by a sense of the mil- 
lions vi^ho participate in the blessing. The same 
enlargement of personal obligation holds good, 
nay, rises higher in the mercies of redemption. 
The Lord is my Saviour as completely as if he 
had redeemed only me. That he has redeemed 
" a great multitude, which no man can number, 
of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and 
tongues," is diffusion without abatement ; it is 
general participation without individual diminu- 
tion. Each has all. 

In adoring the providence of God, we are apt 
to be struck with what is new and out of course, 
while w^e too much overlook long, habitual, and 
uninterrupted mercies. But common mercies, if 
less striking, are more valuable, both because we 
have them always, and for the reason above as- 
signed, because others share them. The ordi- 
nary blessings of life are overlooked for the very 
reason for which they ought to be most prized 
because they are most uniformly bestowed They 
are most essential to our support ; and when 
once they are withdrawn, we begin to find that 



PRAYER. ' 93 

they are also most essential to our comfort No- 
thing raises the price of a blessing like its re- 
moval, whereas it was its continuance which 
should have taught us its value. We require no- 
velties to awaken our gratitude, not considering 
that it is the duration of mercies which enhances 
their value. We want fresh excitements. We con- 
sider mercies long enjoj^ed as things of course, 
as things to which we have a sort of presumptive 
claim J as if God had no right to withdraw what 
he has once bestowed, as if he were obliged to 
continue what he has once been pleased to confer. 
But that the sun has shone unremittingly from 
the day that God created him, is not a less stu- 
pendous exertion of power than that the hand 
which fixed in the heavens, and marked out his 
progress through them, once said by his servant, 
" Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon." That he 
has gone on in his strength, driving his uninter- 
rupted career, and '^ rejoicing as a giant to run 
his course," for six thousand years, is a more 
astonishing exhibition of omnipotence than that 
he should have been once suspended by the hand 
which set him in motion. That the ordinances 
of heaven, that the established laws of nature 
should have been for one day interrupted to serve 
a particular occasion, is a less real wonder, and 
certainly a less substantial blessing, than that in 
such a multitude of ages they should have pur- 



94 ^ TRACTICAL PIETY. 

sued their appointed course, for the comfort of 
the whole system , 

For ever singing-, as ihey sliine, 
The hand that made us is divine 

As the affections of the christian ought to be 
set on things above, so it is for them that his 
prayers' will be chiefly addressed. God, in pro- 
mising to ^^ give to those who delight in him the 
desire of their heart," could never mean tempo- 
ral things ; for these they might desire improper- 
ly as to the object, and inordmately as to the de- 
gree. The promise relates principally to spiritual 
blessings. He not only gives us these mercies, 
but the very desire to obtain them is also his gift. 
Here our prayer requires no qualifying, no con- 
ditioning, no limitation. We cannot err in our 
choice, for God himself is the object of it , we 
cannot exceed in the degree, unless it were pos- 
sible to love him too weH, or to please him too 
much. 

We should pray for worldly comforts, and for 
a blessing on our earthly plans, though lawful in 
themselves, conditionally, and with a reservation ; 
because, after having been earnest in our requests 
for them, it may happen that when we come to 
the petition, ^^ thy will be done," we may iii these 
very words be praying that our previous petitions 
may not be granted. In this brief request con- 



PRAYER. 95 

sists the vital principle, the essential spirit of 
prayer. God shovv^s his munificence in encour- 
aging us to ask nnost earnestly for the greatest 
things, by promising that the smaller *^ shall be 
added unto us." We therefore acknowledge his 
liberality most when we request the highest fa- 
vors. He manifests his infinite superiority to 
earthly fathers by chiefly delighting to confer 
those spiritual gifts which they less solicitously 
desire for their children than those worldly ad- 
vantages on w^hich God sets so little value. 

1^J"othing short of a sincere devotedness to God 
can enable us to maintain an equality of mind 
under unequal circumstances. We murmur that 
we have not the things we ask amiss, not know- 
ing that they are withheld by the same mercy by 
which the things that are good for us are grant- 
ed. Things good in themselves may not be good 
for us. A resigned spirit is the proper disposition 
to prepare us for receiving mercies, or for havino- 
them denied. Eesignation of soul, like the alle- 
giance of a good subject, is always in readiness, 
though not in action ] whereas an impa'tient mind 
is a spirit of disaffection, always prepared to re 
volt when the will of the sovereign is in opposi 
tion to that of the subject. This seditious prin 
ciple is the infallible characteristic of an unre 
new^ed mind. 

A sincere love of God will make us thankful 



96 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

when our supplications are grariied, and ])atieiit 
and cheerful when they are denied. He who feels 
his heart rise against any Divine dispensation, 
ought not to rest till by serious meditation and 
earnest prayer it be moulded into submission. A 
habit of acquiescence in the will of God will so 
operate on the faculties of his mind, that even his 
judgment will embrace the conviction that what 
he once so ardently desired would not have been 
that good thing which his blindness had conspir- 
ed with his wishes to make him believe it to be. 
He will recollect the many instances in which, if 
his importunity had prevailed, the thing which 
ignorance requested, and wisdom denied, would 
have insured his misery. Every fresh disappoint- 
ment will teach him to distrust himself and to 
confide in God. Experience will instruct him 
that there may be a better w^ay of hearing our re- 
quests than that of granting them. Happy for us, 
that He to whom they are addressed knows which 
is best, and acts upon that knowledge : 

" Still lift for good the supplicating v^oice, 
^^ But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice , 
" Implore his aid, in his decisions rest ; 
" Secure whate'er he gives, he gives the best." 

We should endeavor to render our private de- 
votions effectual remedies for our own particular 
sins- Prayer against sin in general is too indefi- 
nite to reach the individual case. We must bring 
it home to our own heart, else we may be con- 

/ 



PRAYER. 97 

fessing another man's sins and overlooking our 
own. If we have any predominant fault, we 
should pray more especially against that fault. 
If we pray for any virtiie of whicji we particu- 
larly stand in need, we should dwell on our 
own deficiences in that virtue, till our souls be- 
come deeply affected with our want of it. Our 
prayers should be circumstantial, not, as was be- 
fore observed, for the information of Infinite Wis- 
dom, but for the stirring up of our own dull af- 
fections. And as the recapitulation of our wants 
tends to keep up a sense of our dependence, the 
enlarging on our special mercies will tend to keep 
alive a sense of gratitude ; while indiscriminate 
petitions, confessions, and thanksgivings leave 
the mind to wander in indefinite devotion and un- 
affecting generalities, without personality and 
without appropriation. It must be obvious that 
we except those grand universal points in which 
all have an equal interest, and which must always 
form the essence of public prayer. 

On the blessing attending importunity in pray- 
er the Gospel is abundantly explicit. God per- 
haps delays to give, that we may persevere in 
asking. He may require importunity for our own 
sakes, that the frequency and urgency of the pe- 
tition mav bring our hearts into that frame to 
which he will be favorable. 

As we ought to live in a spirit of obedience to 
his commands, so we should live in a frame of 

Pract. Piety * 



98 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

waiting for his blessing on our prayers, and in a 
spirit of gratitude when we have obtained it. 
This is that ^^preparation of the heart" which 
would always keep us in a posture for duty. If 
we desert the duty because an immediate blessing 
does not visibly attend it, it shows that we do not 
serve God out of conscience, but selfishness 5 that 
we grudge expending on him that service which 
brings us in no immediate interest. Though ht 
grant not our petition, let us never be tempted to 
withdraw our application. 

Our reluctant devotions may remind us of the 
remark of a certain great political wit, who apolo- 
gised for his late attendance in parliament by his 
being detained while a party of soldiers were 
dragging a volunteer to his duty. How many ex- 
cuses do we find for not being in time ! How 
many apologies for brevity ! How many evasions 
for neglect ! How unwilling, too often, are we to 
come into the Divine presence ; how reluctant to 
remain in it ! Those hours which are least valu- 
able for business, which are least seasonable for 
pleasure, we commonly give to religion. Our en- 
ergies, which were exerted in the society we have 
just quitted, are sunk as we approach the Divine 
presence. Our hearts, which were all alacrity in 
some frivolous conversation, become cold and in- 
animate, as if it were the natural property of de- 
votion to freeze the affections. Our animal spirits. 



PKAYER. 99 

which so readily performed their functions before^ 
now slacken their vigor and Jose their vivacity. 
The sluggish body sympathises with the unwilling 
mind, and each promotes the deadness of the 
other : both are stow in listening to the call of 
duty ; both are soon weary in performing it. How 
do our fancies rove back to the pleasures we have 
been enjoying ! How apt are the diversified images 
of those pleasures to mix themselves with our bet- 
ter thoughts, to pull down our higher aspirations ! 
As prayer requires all the energies of the com- 
pound being of man, so we too often feel as if 
there were a conspiracy of body, soul, and spirit 
to disincline and disqualify us for it. 

When the heart is once sincerely turned to re- 
ligion, we need not, every time we pray, examine 
into every truth, and seek for conviction over and 
over again , but may assume that those doctrines 
are true, the truth of which we have already prov- 
ed. From a general and fixed impression of these 
principles will result a taste, a disposedness, a 
love, so intimate, that the convictions of the un- 
derstanding will become the affections of the 
heart. 

To be deeply impressed with a few fundamen. 
tal truths, to digest them thoroughly, to meditate 
on them seriously, to pray over them fervently, 
to get them deeply rooted in the heart, will be 
more productive of faith and holiness, than to la* 



100 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

bor after variety, ingenuity, or elegance. The in- 
dulgence of imagination will rather distract than 
edify. Searching after ingenious thoughts will 
rather divert the attention from God to ourselves, 
than promote fixedness of thought, singleness o^f 
intention, and devotedness of spirit. Whatever 
is subtile and refined is in danger of being un- 
scriptural. If we do not guard the mind, it will 
learn to wander in quest of novelties. It will learn 
to set more value on original thoughts than de- 
vout afl^ections. It is the business of prayer to 
cast down imaginations which gratify the natural 
activity of the mind, while they leave the heart 
unhumbled. 

We should confine ourselves to the present 
business of the present moment 5 we should keep 
the mind in a state of perpetual dependence. 
" JVow is the accepted time." ^^ To-day we must 
hear his voice" *^ Give us this day our daily 
bread." The manna will not keep till to-morrow: 
to-morrow will have its own wants, and must 
have its own petitions. To-morrow we must seek 
afresh the bread of heaven. 

We should, however, avoid coming to our de- 
votions with unfurnished minds. We should be 
always laying in materials for prayer, by a dili- 
gent course of serious reading, by treasuring up 
in our minds the most intportant truths. If we 
rush into the Divine presence with a vacant, or 



PRAYER. 101 

ignorant and unprepared nnind, with a heart full 
of the world 5 as we shall feel no disposition or 
qualification for the work we are about to engage 
in, so we cannot expect that our petitions will be 
heard or granted. There must be some congrui- 
ty between the heart and the object, some affini- 
ty between the state of our minds and the busi- 
ness in which they are employed, if we would 
expect success in the work. 

We are often deceived both as to the principle 
and the effect of our prayers. When from some 
external cause the heart is glad, the spirits light, 
the thoughts ready, the tongue voluble, a kind of 
spontaneous eloquence is the result ; with this we 
are pleased, and this ready flow we are willing to 
impose on ourselves for piety. 

On the other hand, when the mind is dejected, 
the animal spirits low, the thoughts confused, 
when apposite words do not readily present them- 
selves, we are apt to accuse our hearts of want 
of fervor, to lament our weakness, and to mourn 
that because we have had no pleasure in praying, 
our prayers have, therefore, not ascended to the 
throne of mercy. In both cases we perhaps 
judge ourselves unfairly. These unready accents, 
these faltering praises, these ill-expressed peti* 
4ions, may find more acceptance than the florid 
talk with which we were so well satis-Sed : the 
latter consisted, it may be, of shining thoughtb^ 



102 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

floating on the fancy, eloquent words dwelling 
only on the lips ; the former was the sighing of 
a contrite heart, abased by the feeling of its own 
unworthiness and awed by the perfections of a 
holy and heart-searching God. The heart is dis- 
satisfied with its own dull and tasteless repeti- 
tions, which, with all their imperfections. Infi- 
nite Goodness may perhaps hear with favor. We 
may not only be elated w4th the fluency, but even 
with the fervency of our prayers. Vanity may 
grow out of the very act of renouncing it ; and 
we may begin to feel proud at having humbled 
ourselves so eloquently. 

There is, however, a strain and spirit of prayer 
equally distinct from that facility and copious- 
ness for which we certainly are never the better 
in the sight of God, and from that constraint and 
dryness for which we may be never the worse. 
There is a simple, solid, pious strain of prayer 
in which the supplicant is so filled and occupied 
with a seyse of his own dependence, and of the 
importance of the things for which he asks, and 
so persuaded of the power and grace of God, 
through Christ, to give him those things^ that 
while he is engaged in it he does not merely 
imagine, but feels assured that God is nigh to 
him as a reconciled father, so that every burden 
and doubt are taken off" from his mind. " He 
knows," as St. John expresses it, " that he has 



A DEVOTIONAL SPIRIT. 103 

the petitions he desired of God," and feels the 
truth of that promise, *' While they are yet 
speaking I will hear." This is the perfection 
of prayer 



CHAPTER VI. 



CULTIVATION OF A DEVOTIONAL SPIRIT 

To maintain a devotional spirit two things are 
especially necessary ; habitually to cultivate the 
disposition, and habitually to avoid whatever is 
unfavorable to it. Frequent retirement and re- 
collection are indispensable, together with sucn 
a general course of reading, as, if it does not ac- 
tually promote the spirit we are endeavoring to 
maintain, shall never be hostile to it. We should 
avoid as much as in us lies all such society, all 
such amusements as excite tempers which it is 
tlie daily business of a christian to subdue, and 
all those feelings which it is his constant duty 
to suppress. 

And here may we venture to observe, that if 
some things which are apparently innocent, and 



104 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

do not assume an alarming aspect, or bear a 
dangerous character ; things which the generali- 
ty of decorous people affirm (how truly we know 
not) to be safe for them 5 yet if we find that these 
things stir up in us improper propensities ; if 
they awaken thoughts which ought not to be ex- 
cited J if they abate our love for religious exer- 
cises, or infringe on our time for performing 
them; if they make spiritual concerns appear in- 
sipid 5 if they wind our hearts a little more about 
the world ; in short, if we have formerly found 
them injurious to our own souls, then let no ex- 
ample or persuasion, no belief of their alleged 
innocence, no plea of their perfect safety, tempt 
us to indulge in them. It matters little to our 
security what they are to others. Our business is 
with ourselves. Our responsibility is on our own 
heads. Others cannot know the side on which we 
are assailable. Let our own unbiassed judgment 
determine our opinion ; let our own experience 
decide for our own conduct. 

In speaking of books, we cannot forbear noti- 
cing that very prevalent sort of reading which is 
little less productive of evil, little less prejudicial 
to moral and mental improvement, than that 
which carries a more formidable appearance. 
We cannot confine our censure to those more 
corrupt writings which deprave the heart, de- 
bauch the imagination, and poison the principles. 



A DEVOTIONAL SPIRIT. 105 

Of these the turpitude is so obvious that no 
caution on this head, it is presumed, can ibe ne- 
cessary. But if justice forbids us to confound 
the insipid w-ith the mischievous, the idle with 
the vicious, and the frivolous with the profligate 
still we can only admit of shades — deep shades, 
we allow — of difference. These works, if com- 
paratively harmless, yet debase the taste, slacken 
the intellectual nerve, let down the understand- 
ing, set the fancy loose, and send it gadding 
among low and mean objects. They not only run 
away with the time which should be given to 
better things, but gradually destroy all taste for 
better things. They sink the mind to their own 
standard, and give it a sluggish reluctance, we 
had almost said a moral incapacity, for every 
thing above their level. The mind, by long habit 
of stooping, loses its erectness, and yields to its ' 
degradation. It becomes so low and narrow by 
the littleness of the things which engage it, that 
it requires a painful effort to lift itself high 
enough, or to open itself wide enough, to em- 
brace great and noble objects. The appetite is 
vitiated. Excess, instead of producing a surfeit 
by weakening the digestion, only induces a loath- 
ing for stronger nourishment. The faculties which 
might have been expanding in works of science, 
or soaring in the contemplation of genius, be- 
come satisfied with the impertinences of the 



406 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

most ordinary fiction, lose their relish for the se- 
veritjj^of truth, the elegance of taste, and the 
soberness of religion. Lulled in the torpor of ^ 
repose, the intellect dozes, and enjoys, in its 
waking dream, 

" All the wild trash of sleep without its rest." 

In avoiding books which excite the passions, it 
would seem strange to include even some devo 
tional works. Yet such as merely kindle warm 
feelings are not always the safest. Let us rather 
prefer those which, while they tend to raise a de- 
votional spirit, awaken the affections without dis- 
ordering them ; which, while they elevate the 
desires, purify them ; which show us our own 
nature, and /ay open its corruptions. Such as 
show us the malignity of sin, the deceitfulness 
of our hearts, the feebleness of our best resolu- 
tions ; such as teach us to pull off the mask from 
the fairest appearances, and discover every hid- 
ing-place vi^here some lurking evil would con« 
ceal itself 5 such as show us not what we appear 
to others, but what we really are : such as, co- 
operating with our interior feelings, and showing 
as our natural state, point out our absolute need 
of a Eedeemer, lead us to seek to him for par- 
don, from a conviction that there is no otlier 
refuge, no other salvation. Let us be conversant 
with such writings as teach us that, while we 



A DEVOTIONAL SPIRIT. 107 

^ong to obtain the remission of our transgres- 
sions, we must not desire the remission of our 
duties. Let us seek for such a Saviour as will 
not only deliver us from the punishment of sin, 
but from its dominion also. 

And let us ever bear in mind that the end of 
prayer is not answered when the prayer is finished. 
We should regard prayer as a means to a farther 
end. The ad of prayer is not sufficient, we must 
cultivate a spirit of prayer. And though, when 
the actual devotion is over, we cannot amid the 
distractions of company and business always be 
thinking of heavenly things, yet the desire, the 
frame, the propensity, the willingness to return 
lo them, we must, however difficult, endeavor to 
maintain. 

The proper temper for prayer should precede 
the act. The disposition should be wrought in 
the mind before the exercise is begun. To bring 
a proud temper to an humble prayer, a luxu- 
rious habit to a self-denying prayer, or a worldly 
disposition to a spiritually-minded prayer, is a 
positive anomaly. A habit is more powerful than 
an act, and a previously indulged temper durmg 
the day will not, it is to be feared, be fully coun- 
teracted by the exercise of a few minutes' devo- 
tion at night. 

Prayer is designed for a perpetual renovation 
of the motives to virtue ; if, therefore, the cause 



108 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

is not followed by its consequence,— a conse- 
quence inevitable but for the impediments we 
bring to it, we rob our nature of its highest privi 
lege, and are in danger of incurring a penalty 
where we are looking for a blessing. 

That the habitual tendency of the life should be 
the preparation for the stated prayer, is naturally 
suggested to us by our blessed Redeemer in his 
sermon on the Mount. He announced the pre- 
cepts of holiness and their corresponding beati- 
tudes, he gave the spiritual exposition of the law, 
the directions for alms-giving, the exhortation to 
love our enemies, nay, the essence and spirit of 
the whole decalogue, previous to his delivering 
his own Divine prayer as a pattern for ours. 
Let us learn from this that the preparation of 
prayer is, therefore, to live in all those pursuits 
which we may safely beg of God to bless, and in 
a conflict with all those temptations into which we 
pray not to be led. 

V If God be the centre to which our hearts are 
tending, every line in our lives must meet in him. 
With this point in view, there will be a harmony 
between our prayers and our practice, a consist- 
ency between devotion and conduct which will 
make every part turn to this one end, bear upon 
this one point. For the beauty of the christian 
scheme consists not in parts (however good in 
themselves) which tend to separate views and 



A DEVOTIONAL SPIRIT. 109 

lead to different ends; but it arises from its be- 
ing one entire, uniform, connected plan, ** com- 
pacted of that which every joint supplieth," and 
of which all the parts terminate in this one grand 
ultimate point. The design of prayer, therefore, 
as we before observed, is not merely to make us 
devout while we are engaged in it, but that its 
odor may be diff'used through all the interme- 
diate spaces of the day, enter into all its occupa- 
tions, duties, and tempers. Nor must its results 
be partial or limited to easy and pleasant duties, 
but extend to such as are less alluring. When 
we pray, for instance, for our enemies, the pray- 
er must be rendered practical, must be made a 
means of softening our spirit and cooling our 
resentment toward them. If we deserve their 
enmity, the true spirit of prayer will put us upon 
endeavoring to cure the fault which has excited 
it. If we do not deserve it, it will put us on striv- 
ing for a placable temper, and we shall endeavor 
not to let slip so favorable an occasion of cultivat- 
ing it. There is no such softener of animosity, 
no such soother of resentment, no such allayer 
of hatred, as sincere, cordial prayer. 

. It is obvious that the precept to pray without 
ceasing can never mean to enjoin a continual 
course of actual prayer. But while it more di- 
rectly enjoins us to embrace all proper occasions 
of performing this sacred duty, or rather of claim 



110 PRACnCAL PIETY. 

ing this valuable privilege, so it plainly implies 
that we should try to keep up constantly that 
sense of the Divine presence which shall nnain- 
tain the disposition. In order to this, we should 
inure our minds to reflection ; we should en- 
courage serious thoughts. A good thought bare- 
ly passing through the mind will make little im- 
pression on it. We must arrest it, constrain it 
to remain with us, expand, amplify, and, as it 
were, take it to pieces. It must be distinctly un- 
folded and carefull}'- examined, or it will leave 
no precise idea; it must be fixed and incorpo- 
rated, or it will produce no practical effect. We 
must not dismiss it till it has left some trace on 
the mind, till it has made some impression on 
the heart. 

On the other hand, if we give the reins to a 
loose ungoverned fancy, at other times if we 
abandon our minds to frivolous thoughts, if we 
fill them with corrupt images ; if we cherish sen- 
sual ideas during the rest of the day, can we ex? 
pect that none of these images will intrude, that 
none of these impressions will be revived, but 
that the " temple into which foul things " have 
been invited will be cleansed at a given moment^ 
that worldly thoughts will recede and. give place 
at once to pure and holy thoughts 1 Will that 
Spirit, grieved by impurity, or resisted by levity 
return with his warm beams and cheering in 



A DEVOTIONAL SPIRIT. Ill 

fluences to the contaminated mansion from which 
he has been driven out 1 Is it wonderful if, find- 
ing no entrance into a heart filled with vanity, he 
should withdraw himself? We cannot in retiring 
mto pur closets change our natures as we do oui 
clothes. The disposition we carry thither will be 
likely to remain with us. We have no right to 
expect that a new temper will meet us at the 
door. We can only hope that the spirit we bring 
thither will be cherished and improved. It is not 
easy, rather it is not possible to graft genuine de- 
votion on a life of an opposite tendency 5 nor can 
we delight ourselves regularly for a few stated 
moments in that God whom we have not been 
serving during the day. We may, indeed, to quiet 
our conscience, take up the employment of prayer, 
but cannot take up the state of mind which will 
make the employment beneficial to ourselves, or 
the prayer acceptable to God, if all the previous 
day we have been careless of ourselves and un- 
mindful of our Maker. They will not pray differ- 
ently from the rest of the world who do not live 
differently. 

What a contradiction is it to lament the weak- 
ness, the misery, and the corruption of our na- 
ture in our devotions, and then to rush into a life, 
though not perhaps of vice, yet of indulgences 
calculated to increase that weakness, to inflame 
those corruptions, and to lead to that misery! 



il2 PRACTICAL PIETY, 

There is cither no meaning in our prayers, or no 
sense in our conduct. In the one we mock God, 
in the other we deceive ourselves. 

Will not he who keeps up an habitual inter- 
course with his Maker, who is vigilant in thought, 
self-denymg in action, who strives to keej: his 
heart from wrong desires, his mind from vain 
imaginations, and his lips from idle words, bring 
a more prepared spirit, a more collected mind, be 
more engaged, more penetrated, more present to 
the occasion , will he not feel more delight in this ,* 
devout exercise, reap more benefit from it, than 
he who lives at random, prays from custom, and 
who, though he dares not intermit the form, is a 
stranger to its spirit 1 

We speak not here to the self-sufficient for- 
malist, or the careless profligate. Among those 
whom we now take the liberty to address, are to 
be found, especially in the higher class of females, 
the amiable and the interesting, and, in many re- 
spects, the virtuous and correct , characters so 
engaging, so evidently made for better things, so 
capable of reaching high degrees of excellence, 
so formed to give the tone to christian practice 
as well as to fashion ; so calculated to give a beau- 
tiful impression of that religion which they pro- 
fess without sufficiently adorning, which they be- 
lieve without fairly exemplifying; that we can- 
not forbear taking a tender interest in their wel- 



A DEVOTIONAL SPIRIT. 113 

fare, we cannot forbear breathing a fervent prayer 
that they nnay yet reach the elevation for which 
they were intended 5 that they may hold out a 
uniform and consistent pattern t)f " whatsoever 
things are pure, honest, just, lovely, and of good 
report !" This the apostle goes on to intimate 
can only be done by thinking on these things. 
Things can only influence our practice as they 
engage our attention. Would not then a con- 
firmed habit of serious thought tend to correct 
that inconsideration which, we are willing to 
hope, more than want of principle, lies at the bot- 
tom of the inconsistency we are lamenting 1 

If, as it is generally allowed, the great difR 
culty of our spiritual life is to make the future 
predominate over the present, do we not, by the 
conduct we are regretting, aggravate what it is 
in our power to diminish 1 Miscalculation of 
the relative value of things is one of the greatest 
errors of our moral life. We estimate them in an 
inverse proportion to their value, as well as to 
their duration : we lavish earnest and durable 
thoughts on things so trifling that they deserve 
little regard, so brief that they '' perish with the 
using," while we bestow only slight attention on 
things of infinite worth ; only transient thoughts 
on things of eternal duration. 

Those who are so far conscientious as not to 
intermit a regular course of devotion, and who yet 

Pract Piety 8 



J 14 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

allow themselves, at the same time, to go on in a 
course of amusements which excite a directly op- 
posite spirit, are inconceivably augmenting their 
own difficulties. They are eagerly heaping up fuel 
in the day on the fire which they intend to extin- 
guish in the evening ; they are voluntarily adding 
to the temptations against which they mean to 
request grace to struggle. To acknowledge, at 
the same time, that we find it hard to serve God 
as we ought, and yet to be systematically indulg- 
ing habits which must naturally increase the dif 
ficulty, makes our character almost ridiculous, 
while it renders our duty almost impracticable. 
While we make our way more difficult by 
those very indulgences with which we think to 
cheer and refresh it, the determined christian be- 
- comes his own pioneer ; he makes his path easy 
by voluntarily clearing it of the obstacles which 
impede his progress. 

These habitual indulgences seem a contradic- 
tion to that obvious law, that one virtue always in- 
volves another ; for we cannot labor after any 
grace, — that of prayer, for instance, — without 
resisting whatever is opposite to it. If, then, we 
lament that it is so hard to serve God, let us not 
by our conduct furnish arguments against our- 
selves 5 for, as if the difficulty were not great 
enough in itself, we are continually heaping up 
mountains in our wny, by indulging in such pur- 



A DEVOTIONAL SPIRIT 115 

suits and passions as make a small labor an 
insurmountable one. 

We may often judge better of our state by the. 
result than by the act of prayer; our very de« 
fects, our coldness, deadness, wanderings, may 
leave more contrition on the soul than the hap- 
piest turn of thought. The feeling of our wants, 
the confession of our sins, the acknowledgment 
of our dependence, the renunciation of ourselves, 
the supplication for mercy, the application to 
the ^^ fountain opened for sin," the cordial en- 
treaty for the aid of the Spirit, the relinquish- 
ment of our own will, resolutions of better obe- 
dience, petitions that these resolutions may be 
directed and sanctified ; — these are the subjects 
in which the supplicant should be engaged, by 
which his thoughts should be absorbed. Can 
they be so absorbed, if many of the intervening 
hourrs are passed in pursuits of a totally different 
complexion — pursuits which raise the passions 
which we are seeking to allay '? Will the che- 
rished vanities go at our bidding 1 Will the re- 
quired dispositions come at our calling 1 Do we 
find our tempers so obedient, our passions so ob- 
sequious, in the other concerns of life 1 If not, 
what reason have we to expect their obsequious- 
ness in this grand concern 1 We should, there- 
fore, endeavor to believe as we pray, to think as 
we pray, to feel as we pray, and to act as we 



il6 PRACTICAL PIETY 

pray. Prayer must not be a solitary, independent 
exercise 5 but an exercise interwoven with many 
and inseparably connected with that golden chaih 
of christian duties, of which, when so connected* 
it forms one of the most important links. 

Let us be careful that our cares, occupations, 
and amusements may be always such that we may 
not be afraid to implore the Divine blessing on 
them ; this is the criterion of their safety, and of 
our duty. Let us endeavor that in each, in all, 
one continually growing sentiment and feeling of 
loving, serving, and pleasing God, maintain its 
predominant station in the heart. 

An additional reason why we should live in the 
perpetual use of prayer, seems to be, that our 
blessed Redeemer, after having given both the 
example and the command while on earth,. con- 
descends still to be our unceasing intercessor in 
heaven. Can we ever cease petitioning for our- 
selves, when we believe that he never ceases 
interceding for usi 

If we are so unhappy as now to find little plea- 
sure in this holy exercise, that however is so far 
from being a reason for discontinuing it, that it 
affords the strongest argument for perseverance. 
That which was at first a form will become a plea- 
sure ; that which was a burden will become a 
privilege ; that which we impose upon ourselves 
as a medicine will become necessary as an all- ' 



THE LOVE OF GOD 117 

ment, and desirable as a gratification. That which 
is now short and superficial will become copious 
and solid. The chariot-wheel is warmed by its 
own motion. Use will make that easy which was 
at first painful. That which is once become easy 
will soon be rendered pleasant Instead of re- 
pining at the performance, we shall be unhappy at 
the omission. When a man recovering from sick- 
ness attempts to walk, he does not discontinue 
the exercise because he feels himself weak, nor 
even because the eflTort is painful. He rather re- 
doubles his exertion. It is from his perseverance 
that he looks for strength. An additional turn 
every day diminishes his repugnance, augments 
his vigor, improves his spirits. That effort which 
was submitted to because it was salutary, is con- 
tinued because the feeling of renovated strength 
renders it delightful. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE LOVE OF GOD. 



Our love to God arises out of want ; God's love 
to us out of fulness. Our indigence drawls us to 



118 PRACTICAL PIETY 

that power which can relieve, and to that good- 
ness which can bless us. His overflowing love 
delights to make us partakers of the bounties he 
graciously imparts, not only in the gifts of his 
providence, but in the richer communications of 
his grace. We can only be said to love God when 
we endeavor to glorify him, when we desire a par- 
ticipation of his nature, when we study to imitate 
his perfections. 

We are sometimes inclined to suspect the love 
of God to us. We are too little suspicious of our 
want of love to him. Yet if we examine the case 
by evidence, as we should examine any common 
question, what real instances can we produce of 
our love to himl What imaginable instance can 
we not produce of his love to us l If neglect, for- 
getfulness, ingratitude, disobedience, coldness in 
our affections, deadness in our duty, be evidences 
of our love to him, such evidences, but such only, 
we can abundantly allege. If life, and all the 
countless catalogue of mercies that makes life 
pleasant, be proofs of his love to us, these he has 
given us in hand ; — if life eternal, if blessedness 
that knows no measure and no end, be proofs of 
love, these he has given us in promise — to the 
christian, we had almost said, he has given them 
in possession. 

When the adoring soul is gratefully expatiating 
on the inexhaustible instances of the love of God 



THE LOVE OF GOD. 119 

to US, let it never forget to rise to its most exalt- 
ed pitch, to rest on its loftiest object, His inesti- 
mable love in the redemption of the world by our 
Lord Jesus Christ. This is the crowning point ; 
this is the gift whic'h imparts their highest value 
to all his other gifts. It combines whatever can 
render Divine munificence complete, — pardon of 
sin, acceptance with God, perfection and perpe- 
tuity of blessedness. Well may the christian in 
the devout contemplation of this sublime mystery 
which the highest of all created intelligences 
'^ desire to look into," exclaim in grateful rap- 
ture, *^ Thou art the God that doest wonders!" 
A redeemed world is the triumph of infinity. Pow- 
er and goodness, truth and mercy, righteousness 
and peace incorporated and lost in each other ! 

Love is a grace of such pre-eminent distinction, 
that the Redeemer is emphatically designated by 
it : To Him that loved us. This is such a cha- 
racteristic style and title that no name is ap- 
pended to it. 

It must be an irksome thing to serve a master 
whom we do not love, a master whom we are 
con pelled to obey, though we think his requi- 
Eitions hard, and his commands unreasonable ; 
under w^hose eye we know that we continually 
live, though his presence is not only undelightful 
but formidable. 

Now every creature must obey God, whether 



120 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

he love him or not ; he must act always m his 
sight, whether he delight in him or not ; and to a 
heart of any feeling, to a spirit of any liberality 
nothing is so grating as constrained obedience. 
To love God, to serve him because we love him, 
is therefore no less our highest happiness than 
our most bounden duty. Love makes all labor 
light. We serve with alacrity, where we love 
with cordiality. 

Where the heart is devoted to an object, we 
require not to be perpetually reminded of our 
obligations to obey him ; they present themselves 
spontaneously, we fulfil them readily, I had al- 
most said, involuntarily : we think not so much 
of the service as of the object. The principle 
which suggests the work inspires the pleasure : 
to neglect it would be an injury to our feelings. 
The performance is the gratification. The omis- 
sion is not more a pain to the conscience than a 
wound to the affections* The implantation of this 
vital root perpetuates virtuous practice, and se- 
cures internal peace. 

Though we cannot be always thinking of God, 
we may be always employed in his service. There 
must be intervals of our communion w^ith him, * 
but there must be no intermission of our attach- 
ment to him. The tender father who labors for 
his children does not always employ his thoughts 
about them : he cannot be always conversing with 



THE LOVE OF GOD. 121 

them or concerning them, yet he is always en- 
gaged in promoting their interests. His affec- 
tion for them is an inwoven principle, of which 
he gives the most unequivocal evidence, by the 
assiduousness of his application in their service, 

" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart," is the primary law of our religion. 
But we are continually framing excuses, flying to 
false refuges, clinging to false holds, resting on 
false supports : as they are uncertain, they disap- 
point us ; as they are weak, they fail us 5 but as 
they are numerous, when one fails another pre- 
sents itself. Till they slip from under us, we 
never suspect how much we rested upon them. 
Life glides away in a perpetual succession of 
these false dependences and successive privations 

There is, as we have elsewhere observed, a 
striking analogy between the natural and spiritual 
life ; the weakness and helplessness of the chris- 
tian resemble those of the infant ; neither of them 
becomes strong, vigorous, and full grown at once, 
but through a long and often painful course. This 
keeps up a sense of dependence, and accustoms 
us to lean on the hand which fosters us. There is 
in both conditions an imperceptible chain of de* 
pending circumstances, by which we are carried 
on insensibly to the vigor of maturity. The ope- 
ration which is not always obvious is always pro- 
gressive. By attempting to walk alone we dis- 



122 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

cover our weakness, the experience of that weak- 
ness humbles us, and every fall drives us back to 
the sustaining hand whose assistance we vainly 
flattered ourselves we no longer needed. 

In some halcyon moments we are willing to 
persuade ourselves that religion has made an en- 
tiie conquest over our heart; that we have re- 
nounced the dominion of the world, have con- 
quered our attachment to earthly things. We 
flatter ourselves that nothing can now again ob- 
struct our entire submission. But we know not 
what spirit we -are of. We say this in the calm 
of repose and in the stillness of the passions , 
when our path is smooth, our prospect smiling, 
danger distant, temptation absent, when we have 
many comforts and no trials. Suddenly some loss, 
some disappointment, some privation, tears off 
the mask, reveals us to ourselves. We at once 
discover that though the smaller fibres and lesser 
roots which fasten us down to earth may have 
been loosened by preceding storms, yet our sub- 
stantial hold on earth is not shaken, the sap root 
is not cut, we are yet fast rooted to the soil, and 
stiil stronger tempests must be sent to make us 
let go our hold. 

It might be useful to adopt the habit of stating 
our own case as strongly to ourselves as if it 
were the case of another 5 to express in so many 
words, thoughts which are not apt to assume any 



THE LOVE OF GOD. 123 

specific or palpable form 5 thoughts which we 
avoid shaping into language, but slur over, gene- 
ralize, soften, and do away. How indignant, for 
instance, should we feel (though we ourselves 
make the complaint) to be told by others that we 
do not love our Maker and Preserver ! But let 
us put the question fairly to ourselves. Do we 
really love him 1 Do we love him with a supreme, 
nay, even with an equal affection 1 Is there no 
friend, no child, no reputation, no pleasure, no 
society, no possession, which we do not prefer to 
him 1 It is easy to affirm in a general way that 
there is none. But let us particularize, individu- 
alize the question — bring it home to our own 
hearts in some actual instance, in some tangible 
shape. Let us commune with our own con- 
sciences ; with our own feelings, with our own 
experience ; let us question pointedly, and an- 
swer honestly. Let usuot be more ashamed to 
detect the fault than to have been guilty of it. 

This, then, will commonly be the result. Let 
the friend, child, reputation, possession, pleasure, 
be endangered, but especially let it be taken away 
by some stroke of Providence. The scales fall 
from our eyes ; we see, we feel, we acknowledge, 
with brokenness of heart, not only for our loss, 
but for our sin, that though we did love God, yet 
we loved him not superlatively ; that we loved 
the blessing, threatened or resumed, still more. 



124? PRACTICAL PIETY. 

But this is one of the cases in which ^^ the good- 
ness of God bringeth us to repentance." By the 
operation of his grace the resumption of the gift 
brings back the heart to the Giver. The Almighty 
by his Spirit takes possession of the temple from 
which the idol is driven out : God is reinstated 
in his rights, and becomes the supreme and un- 
disputed Lord of our reverential affections. 

There are three requisites to our proper enjoy- 
ment of every earthly blessing which God bestows 
on us — a thankful reflection on the goodness of 
the giver, a deep sense of the unworthiness of the 
receiver, and a sober recollection of the preca- 
rious tenure by which we hold it. The first would 
make us grateful, the second humble, the last 
moderate. 

But how seldom do we receive his favors in 
this spirit ! As if religious gratitude were to be 
confined to the appointed days of public thanks- 
giving, how rarely in common society do we hear 
any recognition of Omnipotence even on those 
striking and heart-rejoicing occasions; when 
" with his own right hand, and with his holy arm, 
he has gotten himself the victory !" Let us never 
detract from the merit of our valiant leaders, but 
rather honor them the more for this manifestation 
of Divine power in their favor ; but let us never 
lose sight of Him ^' who teacheth their hands to 
war and their fingers to fight." Let us never for- 



THE LOVE OF GOD. 125 

get that "He is the rock, that his work is per- 
fect, and all his ways are judgment.'^ 

How many seem to show not only their want 
of trust in God, but that *^ he is not in all their 
thoughts," by their appearing to leave them en- 
tirely out of their concerns, by projecting their 
affairs without any reference to him, by setting 
out on the stock of their own unassisted wisdom, 
contriving and acting independently of God ; ex- 
pecting prosperity in the event, without seeking 
his direction in the outset, and taking to them- 
selves the whole honor of the success, without 
any recognition of his hand ! Do they not thus 
virtually imitate what Sophocles makes his blus- 
tering atheist boast: "Let other men expect to 
conquer with the assistance of the gods, I intend 
to gain honor without them V 

The christian will rather rejoice to ascribe the 
glory of his prosperity to the same hand to which 
our own manly queen gladly ascribed her signal 
victory. When, after the defeat of the Armada, 
impiously termed invincible, her enemies, in or- 
der to lower the value of her agency, alleged that 
the victory was not owing to her, but to God 
who raised the storm, she heroically declared 
that the visible interference of God in her favor 
was that part of the si^ccess from which she 
derived the truest honor. 

Incidents and occasions every day arise which 



1% PRACTICAL PIETY. 

not only call on us to trust in God, but which fur- 
nish us with suitable occasions of vindicating, if 1 
may presume to use the expression, the character 
.and conduct of the Almighty in the government 
of human affairs; yet there is no duty which we 
perform with less alacrity. Strange, that we 
should treat the Lord of heaven and earth with 
less confidence than we exercise towards each 
other! that we should vindicate the honor of a 
common acquaintance with more zeal than that 
of our insulted Maker and Preserver ! 

If we hear a friend accused of any act of injus- 
tice, though we cannot bring any positive proof 
why he should be acquitted of this specific charge, 
yet we resent the injury offered to his character ; 
we clear him of the individual allegation on the 
ground of his general conduct, inferring that from 
the numerous instances we can produce of his 
rectitude on other occasions, he cannot be guilty 
of the alleged injustice. We reason from analo- 
gy, and in general we reason fairly. But when 
we presume to judge of the Most High, instead 
of vindicating his rectitude on the same grounds, 
u!ider a Providence seemingly severe ; instead of 
reverting, as in the case of our friend, to the 
thousand instances we have formerly tasted of his 
kindness; instead of giving God the same credit 
we give to his erring creature, and inferring, 
from his past goodness, that the present inexpli 



THE LOVE OF GOD. 127 

cable dispensation must be consistent, though we 
cannot explain how, with his general character, 
we mutinously accuse him of inconsistency, nay, 
of injustice. We admit, virtually, the most mon- 
strous anomaly in the character of the perfect 
God. 

But what a clue has revelation furnished to the 
intricate labyrinth which seems to involve the 
conduct which we impiously question ! It unrols 
the volume of Divine Providence, lays open the 
mysterious map of Infinite Wisdom, throws a 
bright light on the darkest dispensations, vindi- 
cates the inequality of appearances, and points 
to that blessed region, where, to all who have 
truly loved and served God, every apparent wrong 
shall be proved to have been unimpeachably right, 
every affliction a mercy, and the severest trials 
the choicest blessings. 

So blind has sin made us, that the glory of God 
is concealed from us by the very means which, 
could we discern aright, would display it. That 
train of second causes, which he has so marvel- 
lously disposed, obstructs our view of himself. 
We are so filled with wonder at the immediate 
effect, that our short sight penetrates not to the 
first cause , to see Him as he is, is reserved to be 
the happiness of a better world. We shall theu 
indeed " admire him in his saints, and in all them 
that believe ;" we shall see how necessary it was 



1*^8 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

for those, whose bliss is now so perfect, to have 
been poor, and despised, and oppressed. We shall 
see why the *^ ungodly were in such prosperity." 
Let us give God credit here for what we shall 
then fully know 5 let us adore now what we shall 
understand hereafter. 

They who take up religion on a false ground 
will never adhere to it. If they adopt it merely 
for the peace and pleasantness it brings, they 
will desert it as soon as they find their adherence 
to it will bring them into difficulty, distress, or 
discredit. It seldom answers, therefore, to at- 
tempt making proselytes by hanging out false 
colors. The christian " endures as seeing him 
who is invisible." He who adopts religion for the 
sake of immediate enjoyment will not do a virtu- 
ous action that is disagreeable to himself, nor re- 
sist a temptation that is alluring, present pleasure 
being his motive. There is no sure basis for vir- 
tue but the love of God in Christ Jesus, and the 
bright reversion for which that love is pledged. 
Without this, as soon as the paths of piety be- 
come rough and thorny, we shall stray into 
pleasanter pastures. 

Religion, however, has her own peculiar advan- 
tages. In the transaction of all worldly affairs 
there are many and great difficulties. There may 
be several ways out of w^hich to choose. Men 
of th« first understanding are not always certain 



THE LOVE OF GOD. 129 

which of these ways is the best. Persons of the 
deepest penetration are full of doubt and perplexi- 
ty; their nninds are undecided how to act, lest, 
while they pursue one road, they may be neglect- 
ing another which might better have conducted 
them to their proposed end. 

' In religion the case is different, and in this 
respect easy. As a christian can have but one ob- 
ject in view, he is also certain there is but one 
way of attaining it. Where there is but one end, 
it prevents all possibility of choosing wrong ; 
where there is but one road, it takes away all 
perplexity as to the course of pursuit. That we 
so often wander wide of the mark, is not from 
any want of plainness in the path, but from the 
perverseness of our will in not choosing it, from 
the indolence of our minds in not following it up. 
In our attachment to earthly things, even the 
most innocent, there is always a danger of ex- 
cess I but from this danger we are here perfectly 
exempt, for there is no possibility of excess in 
our love to that Being who has demanded the 
whole heart. This peremptory requisition cuts off 
all debate. Had God required only a portion, 
even were it a large portion, we might be puzzled 
in settling the quantum. We might he plotting 
how large a part we might venture to keep back, 
without absolutely forfeiting our safety! we 
might be haggling for deductions, bargaining for 

Fract. Piety. y 



130 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

abatements, and be perpetually compromising 
with our Maker. But the injunction is entire, the 
command is definite, the portion is unequivocal. 
Though It is so compressed in the expression, 
yet it is so expansive and ample in the measure ; 
it is so distinct a claim, so imperative a requisi- 
tion of all the faculties of the mind and strength, 
all the affections of the heart and soul, that there 
is not the least opening left for litigation, no 
place for any thing but absolute, unreserved 
compliance. 

Every thing which relates to God is infinite. 
We must, therefore, while we keep our hearts 
humble, keep our aims high. Our highest ser- 
vices, indeed, are but finite, imperfect. But as God 
is unlimited in goodness, he should have our un- 
limited love. The best we can offer is poor, but 
let us not withhold that best. He deserves incom- 
parably more than we have to give ; let us not 
give him less than all. If he has ennobled our 
corrupt nature with spiritual affections, let us not 
refuse their noblest aspirations to their noblest 
object. Let him not behold us so prodigally la- 
vishing our affections on the meanest of his boun 
ties, as to have nothing left for himself. As the 
standard of every thing in religion is high, let us 
endeavor to act. in it with the highest intention 
of mind, with the largest use of our faculties. 
Let us obey him with the most intense love, 



THE LOVE OF GOD. 13i 

adore him with the most fervent gratitude. Let 
us "praise him according to his excellent great- 
ness." Let us serve him with all the strength of 
our capacity, with all the devotion of our will. 

Grace being a new principle added to our 
natural powers, as it determines the desires to a 
higher object, so it adds vigor to their activity. 
We shall best prove its dominion over us by de- 
siring to exert ourselves in the cause of heaven 
with the same energy with which we once exerted 
ourselves in the cause of the world. The world 
was too little to fill our whole capacity. Scaliger 
lamented how much was lost because so fine a 
poet as Claudian, in his choice of a subject, want* 
ed matter worthy of his talents ; but it is the fe- 
licity of the christian to have chosen a theme to 
which all the powers of his heart and of his un- 
derstanding will be found inadequate. It is the 
glory of religion to supply an object worthy the 
entire consecration of every power, faculty, and 
affection of an immaterial immortal being. 



132 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

CHAPTER VIII. 



THE HAND OF GOD TO BE ACKNOWLEDGED IN THH 
DAILY CIRCUMSTANCES OF LIFE. 

If we would indeed love God, let us " acquaint 
ourselves with him.''' The word of inspiration 
has assured us that there is no other way to ^^ be 
at peace." As we cannot love an unknown God, 
so neither can we know him, or even approach to- 
ward that knowledge, but on the terms which he 
himself holds but to us; neither will he save us 
but in the method which he has himself prescri- 
bed. His very perfections, the just objects of our 
adoration, all stand in the way of creatures so 
guilty. His justice is a flaming sword which ex 
eludes us from the paradise we have forfeited. 
His purity is so opposed to our corruptions, his 
omnipotence to our infirmity, his wisdom to our 
folly, that had we not to plead the great propitia- 
tion, those very attributes which are now our 
trust would be our terror. The most opposite ima- 
ges of human conception, the widest extremes 
of human language, are used for the purpose of 
showing what God is to us in our natural state, 
and what he is under the christian dispensation. 
The '^ consuming fire " is transformed into es- 
sential *^ love." 



HAND OF GOD ACKNOWLEDGED. 133 

But as we cannot find out the Almighty to per- 
fection, so we cannot love him with that pure 
flame which animates glorified spirits. But there 
is a preliminary acquaintance with him^ an initial 
love of him, for which he has furnished us with 
means by his works, by his word, and by his 
Spirit. Even in this bleak and barren soil some 
germs will shoot, some blossoms will open, of 
that celestial plant, which, watered by the dews 
of heaven, and ripened by the Sim of Righteous- 
ness, will, in a more genial clime, expand into the 
fullness of perfection, and bear immortal fruits in 
the paradise of God. 

A person of a cold, phlegmatic temper, who 
laments that he wants that fervor in his love of 
the Supreme Being, which is apparent in more 
ardent characters, may take comfort if he find the 
same indifference respecting his worldly attach- 
ments. But if his affections are intense towards 
the perishable things of earth, while they are dead 
to such as are spiritual, it does not prove that he 
is destitute of passions, but only that they are 
not directed to the proper object. If, however, 
he love God with that measure of feeling with 
which God has endowed him, he will not be pun- 
ished or rewarded, because the stock is greater 
or smaller than that of some other of his fellow- 
creatures. 

lu those intervals when our sense of divine 



IS* PRACTICAL PIETY. ' 

things is weak and low, we must not give way 
to distrust, but warm our hearts with the recol 
lection of our best moments. Our motives to 
love and gratitude are not now diminished, but 
our spiritual frame is lower, our natural spirits 
are weaker. Where there is languor, there will 
be discouragements. But we must not desist 
^* Faint, yet pursuing," must be the christian's 
motto. 

There is more merit (if we ever dare apply 
so arrogant a word to our worthless efforts) in 
persevering under depression and discomfort, 
than in the happiest flow of devotion, when the 
tide of health and spirits runs high. Where there 
is less gratification, there is more disinterested- 
ness. We ought to consider it as a cheering 
evidence that our love may be equally pure, 
though it is not equally fervent, when we persist 
in serving our heavenly Father with the same 
constancy, though it may please him to with- 
draw from us the same consolations. Perseve- 
rance may bring us to the very dispositions the 
absence of which we are lamenting. " Wait on 
the Lord ; be of good courage, and he shall 
strengthen thy heart." 

We are too ready to imagine that we are reli- 
gious because we know something of religion. 
We appropriate to ourselves the pious senti- 
ments we read, and we talk as if the thoughts of 



HAND OF GOD ACKNOWLEDGED. 135 

Other men's heads were really the feeling of our 
own hearts. But piety has not its seat in the 
memory, but in the affections ; for which, how- 
ever, the memory is an excellent purveyor, 
though a bad substitute. Instead of an undue ela- 
tion of heart when we peruse some of the Psalm- 
ist's beautiful effusions, we should feel a deep 
self-abasement at the reflection that however our 
case may sometimes resemble his, yet how in- 
applicable to our hearts are the ardent expressions 
of his repentance, the overflowing of his gratitude, 
the depth of his submission, the entireness of his 
self-dedication, the fervor of his love ! But he 
who indeed can once say with him, '^ Thou art 
my portion," will, like him, surrender himself 
unreservedly to his service. 

It is important that we never suffer our faith, 
any more than our love, to be depressed or ele- 
vated by mistaking for its own operations the 
ramblings of a busy imagination. The steady 
principle of faith must not look for its character 
to the vagaries of a mutable and fantastic fancy. 
Faith, which has once fixed her foot on the im- 
mutable Rock of Ages, fastened her firm eye on 
the cross, and stretched out her triumphant hand 
to seize the promised crown, will not suffer her 
stability to depend on this ever-shifting faculty : 
she will not be driven to despair by the blackest 
shades of its pencil, nor be betrayed into a care- 



136 practicajl fiety. 

less secarity by its most flattering and vivid 
colors. 

One cause of the fluctuations of our faith is, 
that we are too ready to judge the Almighty by 
our own low standard. We judge him not by his 
own declarations of what he is, and w^hat he will 
do, but by our own feelings and practices. We 
ourselves are too little disposed to forgive those 
who have offended us ; we therefore conclude 
that God cannot pardon our offences. We sus- 
pect him to be implacable because we are apt to 
be so 5 and we are unwilling to believe that he 
can pass by injuries, because we find it so hard 
to do it. When we do forgive, it is grudgingly 
and superficially ; we therefore infer that God 
cannot forgive freely and fully. We make a 
hypercritical distinction between forgiving and 
forgetting injuries. God clears away the score 
when he grants the pardon. He does not only 
say, ^^ Thy sins and thy iniquities will I forgive," 
but ^^ I will remember no more." 

We are disposed to urge the smailness of our 
offences as a plea for their forgiveness ; whereas 
God, to exhibit the boundlessness of his mercy, 
has taught us to allege a plea directly contrary : 
*^ Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is greatP To 
natural reason, this argument of David is most 
extraordinary. But while he felt that the great- 
ness of his own iniquity left him no resource but 



HAND OF GOD ACKNOWLEDGED. 137 

in the mercy of God, he felt that God's mercy 
was greater even than his own sin. What a large, 
what a magnificent idea does it give us of the 
Divine power and goodness, that the believer, 
instead of pleading the smallness of his own 
offences as a motive for pardon, pleads only the 
abundance of the Divine compassion ! 

We are told that it is the duty of the christian 
to *^ seek God." We assent to the truth of the 
proposition. Yet it would be less irksome to 
corrupt nature, in pursuit of this knowledge, to 
go a pilgrimage to distant lands, than to seek him 
within our own hearts. Our heart is the true 
terra incognita : a land more foreign and un- 
known to us than the regions of the polar circle: 
yet that heart is the place in which an acquaint- 
ance with God must be sought. It is there we 
must worship him, if we would worship him in 
spirit and in truth. 

But, alas ! the heart is not the home of a 
worldly man, it is scarcely the home of a chris- 
tian. If business and pleasure are the natural 
element of the generality, a dreary vacuity, sloth, 
and insensibility, too often worse than both, dis- 
incline and disqualify too many christians for 
the pursuit. 

I have observed, and I think I have heard 
others observe, that a common beggar had rather 
screen himself under the wall of a church-yard, 



138 PRACTICAL PIETY 

if overtaken by a shower of rain, though the 
church-doors stand invitingly open, than take 
shelter within it while Divine service is perform- 
ing. It is a less annoyance to him to be drenched 
with the storm, than to enjoy the convenience 
of a shelter and a seat, if he must enjoy them at 
the heavy price of listening to the sermon. 

While we condemn the beggar, let us look into 
our own hearts, happy if we cannot there detect 
somewhat of the same indolence, indisposedness, 
and distaste to serious things ! Happy if we do 
not find that we prefer not only our pleasures 
and enjoyments, but, I had almost said, our very 
pains, and vexations, and inconveniences, to com- 
muning with our Maker ! Happy if we had not 
rather be absorbed in our petty cares and little 
disturbances, provided we can contrive to make 
them the means of occupying our thoughts, fill- 
ing up our minds, and drawing them away from 
that devout intercourse which demands the live- 
liest exercise of our rational powers, the highest 
elevation of our spiritual affections ! Is it not to 
be apprehended that the dread of being driven to 
this sacred intercourse is one grand cause of 
that activity and restlessness which sets the world 
in such perpetual motion 1 

Though we are ready to express a general 
sense of our confidence in Almighty goodness, 
yet, what definite meaning do we annex to the 



HAND OF GOD ACKNOWLEDGED 139 

expression 1 What practical evidences have we 
to produce that we really do trust him'? Does 
this trust deliver us from worldly anxiety 1 Does 
it exonerate ns from the same perturbation of 
spirit which those endure who make no such pro- 
fession 1 Does it relieve the mind from doubt and 
distrust 1 Does it tranquilize the troubled heart, 
does it regulate its disorders, and compose its 
fluctuations! Does it sooth us under irritation'? 
Does it support us under trials 1 Does it fortify 
us against temptations '? Does it lead us to re- 
pose a full confidence in that Being whom we 
profess to trust '? Does it produce in us " that 
work of righteousness which is peace," that ef- 
fect of righteousness which is ^^ quietness and as- 
surance for ever'?" Do we commit ourselves and 
our concerns to God in word, or in reality '? Does 
this implicit reliance simplify our desires '? Does 
it induce us to credit the testimony of his word 
and the promises of his Gospel ! Do we not even 
entertain some secret suspicions of his faithful- 
ness and truth in our own hearts, when we per- 
suade others, and try to persuade ourselves, that 
we unreservedly trust him '? 

In the preceding chapter we endeavored to 
illustrate our want of love to God by our not be- 
ing as forward to vindicaie the Divine conduct as. 
to justify that of an acquaintance. The same il- 
lustration may express our reluctance to trust in 



140 PRACTICAL PIETY 

God. If a tried friend engage to do us a kindness, 
though he may not think it necessary to explain 
the particular manner in which he intends to do 
it, we repose on his word. Assured of the result, 
we are neither very inquisitive about the mode 
nor the detail. But do w^e treat our Almighty 
friend with the same liberal confidence 1 Are we 
not murmuring because we cannot see all the 
process of his administration, and follow his 
movements step by step 1 Do we wait the develop- 
ment of his plan in full assurance that the issue 
will be ultimately good 1 Do we trust that he is 
as abundantly willing as able to do more for us 
than we can ask or think, if by our suspicions we 
do not offend him, if by our infidelity we do not 
provoke him 1 In short, do we not think our 
selves utterly undone when we have only Provi- 
dence to trust to ] 

We are perhaps ready enough to acknowledge 
God in our mercies, nay, we confess him in the 
ordinary enjoyments of life. In some of these 
common mercies, as in a bright day, a refreshing 
shower, or delightful scenery, a kind of sensitive 
pleasure, an hilarity of spirit, a sort of animal en- 
joyment, though of a refined nature, mixes itself 
with our devotional feelings ; and though we con- 
fess and adore the bountiful Giver, we do it with 
a little mixture of self-complacency, and of hu- 
man gratification— which he pardons and accepts. 



HAND OF GOD ACKN0\VLP:DGED. 141 

But we must look for him in scenes less ani- 
mating, we must acknowledge him on occasions 
less exhilarating, less sensibly gratifj^ing. It is 
not only in his promises that God manifests his 
mercy : his threatenings are proofs of the same 
compassionate love. He threatens, not to punish, 
but, by the warning, to snatch us from the pun- 
ishment. 

We may also trace marks of his hand, not only 
in the awful visitations of life, not only in the 
severer dispensations of his Providence, but in 
vexations so trivial that we should hesitate to 
suspect that they are providential appointments, 
did we not know that our daily life is made up of 
unimportant circumstances rather than of great 
events. As they are, however, of sufficient im- 
portance to exercise the christian tempers and 
affections, we may trace the hand of our heaven- 
ly Father in those daily little disappointments 
and hourly vexations which occur even in the 
most prosperous state, and which are inseparable 
from the condition of humanity. We must trace 
that same' beneficent hand secretly at work for 
our purification, our correction, our weaning 
from life, in the imperfections and disagreeable- 
ness of those who may be about us, in the per- 
verseness of those with whom we transact busi- 
ness, and even in those interruptions which break 
in on our favorite engagements. 



142 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

We are, perhaps, too much addicted to our in- 
nocent delights, or we are too fond of our leisure, 
of our learned, even of our religious leisure. But 
while we say, ^^ It is good for us to be here," the 
Divine vision is withdrawn, and we are compel- 
led to come down from the mount. Or, perhaps, 
we do not improve our retirement for the pur- 
poses for which it was granted, and to which we 
had resolved to devote it, and our time is broken 
in upon to make us more sensible of its value 
Or we feel a complacency in our leisure, a pride 
in our books ; perhaps we feel proud of the good 
things we are intending to say, or meditating to 
write, or preparing to do. A check is necessary, 
yet it is given in a way almost imperceptible. 
The hand that gives it is unseen, is unsuspected, 
yet it is the same gracious hand which directs 
the more important events of life. An importu- 
nate application, a disqualifying though not se- 
vere indisposition, a family avocation, a letter 
important to the writer, but unseasonable to us, 
breaks in on our projected privacy 5 calls us to a 
sacrifice of our inclination, to a renunciation of 
our own will. These incessant trials of temper, 
if well improved, may be more salutary to the 
mind than the finest passage we had intended te 
read, or the sublimest sentiment we had fancied 
we should write. 

Instead, then, of going in search of great mor- 



HAND OF GOD ACKIsOWLEDGED. 143 

tifications, as a certain class of pious writers re- 
commend, let us cheerfully bear and diligently 
improve those inferior trials which God prepares 
for us. Submission to a cross which he inflicts, 
to a disappointment w^hich he sends, to a contra 
diction of our self-love which he appoints, is a far 
better exercise than great penances of our own 
choosing. Perpetual conquests over impatience, 
ill-temper, and self-will, indicate a better spirit 
than any self-imposed mortifications. We may 
traverse oceans and scale mountains on uncom- 
manded pilgrimages, without pleasing God , we 
may please him without any other exertion than 
by crossing our ow^n will. 

Perhaps you had been busying your imagina- 
tion with some projected scheme, not only law- 
ful but laudable. The design was radically good, 
but the supposed value of your own agency might 
too much interfere, might a little taint the purity 
of your best intentions. The motives were so 
mixed that it was difficult to separate them. Sud- 
den sickness obstructed the design. You naturally 
lament the failure, not perceiving that, however 
good the work might be for others, the sickness 
was better for yourself. An act of charity was irv 
your intention, but God saw that your soul re- 
quired the exercise of a more difficult virtue ; 
that humility and resignation, that the patience, 
acquiescence, and contrition of a sick bed, were 



144 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

more necessary for you. He accepts the medi- 
tated work as far as it was designed for his glory, 
but he calls his servant to other duties which 
were more salutary for him, and of which the 
Master was the better judge. He sets aside his 
work, and orders him to wait — the more difficult 
part of his task. As far as your motive was pure, 
you will receive the reward of your unperformed 
charity, though not the gratification of the per- 
formance. If it was not pure, you are rescued 
from the danger attending a right action per- 
formed on a worldly principle. You may be the 
better christian, though one good deed is sub- 
tracted from your catalogue. 

By a life of activity and usefulness you had, 
perhaps, attracted the public esteem. An animal 
activity had partly stimulated your exertions 
The love of reputation begins to mix itself with 
your better motives. You do not, it is presumed, 
act entirely or chiefly for human applause ; but 
you are too sensible to it. It is a delicious poison 
which begins to infuse itself into your purest cup. 
You acknowledge, indeed, the sublimity of higher 
motives, but do you never feel that, separated 
from this accompaniment of self, they woul 1 be 
too abstracted, too speculative, and might become 
too little productive both of activity and of sen- 
sible gratification 1 

You beffin to feel the human incentive neces 



HAND OF GOD ACKNOWLEDGED. 14*5 

sary, and your spirits would probably flag if it 
were withdrawn. 

This sensibih'ty to praise would gradually tar- 
nish the purity of your best actions. He who 
sees your heart as well as your works, mercifully 
snatches you from the perils of prosperity. Ma- 
lice is awakened. Your most meritorious actions 
are ascribed to the most corrupt motives. You 
are attacked just where your character is most 
vulnerable. The enemies whom your success 
raised up are raised up by God, less to punish 
than to save you. We are far from meaning that 
he can ever be the author of evil , he does not 
excite or approve the calumny, but he uses your 
calumniators as instruments of your purification. 
Your fame was too dear to you. It is a costly 
sacrifice, but God requires it. It must be offered 
up. You would gladly compound for any, for 
every other offering, but this is the offering he 
chooses 5 and while he graciously continues to 
employ you for his glory, he thus teaches you to 
renounce your own. He sends this trial as a test 
by which you are to try yourself. He thus in- 
structs you not to abandon your christian exer- 
tions, but to elevate the principle which inspired 
them to defecate it from all impure admixtures. 

By thus stripping the most engaging employ- 
ments of this dangerous delight, by infusing some 
drops of salutary bitterness into your sweetest 

l^ract. Ptsty 1^ 



146 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

draught, by some of these ill-tasted but whole- 
some mercies, he graciously compels us to re- 
turn to himself. By taking away the stays by 
which we are perpetually propping up our fraii 
delights, they fall to the ground. We are, as it 
were, driven back to him who condescends to 
receive us after we have tried every thing else, 
and after every thing else has failed us, and 
thousfh he knows we should not have returned to 
him if every thing else had noi failed us. He 
makes us feel our weakness, that we may have 
recourse to his strength ; he makes us sensible of 
our hitherto unperceived sins, that we may take 
refuge in his everlasting compassion. 



CHAPTER IX. 



CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL IN ITS REQUISITIONS. 

It is not unusual to see people get rid of some 
of the most awful injunctions, and emancipate 
themselves from some of the most solemn requi- 
sitions of Scripture, by affecting to believe that 
they do not apply to them. Thesy consider them 



CHRISTIANITY UiNlVERSAL. 147 

ai> belonging exclusively to the first age of he 
Gospel, and to the individuals to whom they were 
immediately addressed ,* consequently, the neces- 
sity to observe them does not extend to persons 
enjoying the privileges of a christian country. 

These exceptions are particularly applied to 
some of the leading doctrines, so forcibly and 
repeatedly pressed in the Epistles. The reasoners 
endeavor to persuade themselves that it was only 
the Ephesians " who were dead in trespasses and 
sins;" that it was only the Galatians who were 
enjoined ^* not to fulfil the lusts of the flesh ;" 
that it was only the Philippians who were *^ ene- 
mies to the cross of Christ." They shelter them- 
selves under the comfortable assurance of a geo- 
graphical security. As they know that they are 
neither Ephesians, Galatians, nor Philippians, 
they have, of course, little or nothing to do with 
the reproofs, expostulations, or threatenings 
which were originally directed to the converts 
among those people. They console themselves 
with the belief that it was only these pagans 
w4io '^ w^alked according to the course of this 
world ;" who were " strangers from the cove- 
nants of promise," and ^Svho w^ere without God 
in the world." 

But these self-satisfied critics would do well 
to learn that not only *^ circumcision nor uncir- 
cumcision," but baptism or no baptism, ^^ availeth 



148 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

nothing," (I mean as a mere form,) ^'but a new 
creature." An irreligious professor of Christiani- 
ty is as much *^ a stranger and foreigner " as a 
heathen ; he is no more ^* a fellow-citizen of the 
saints, and of the household of God," than a 
Colossian or Galatian was before the christian 
dispensation had reached them. 

But if the persons to whom the apostles 
preached had, before their conversion, vices to 
which we are not liable, they had certainly diffi- 
culties afterwards from which we are happily 
exempt. There were, indeed, differences between 
them and us in external situations, in local cir- 
cumstances 5 references to which we ought cer- 
tainly to take into the account in perusing the 
Epistles. We allow that they were immediately, 
but we do not allow that they were exclusively 
applicable to them. It would have been too 
limited an object for inspiration to have confined 
its instructions to any one period, when its pur- 
pose was the conversion and instruction of the 
whole unborn world. That these converts were 
miraculously ^^ called out of darkness into the. 
marvellous light of the Gospel ," that they were 
changed from gross blindness to a rapid illumina- 
tion I that the embracing the new faith exposed 
them to persecution, reproach, and ignominy; 
that the few had to struggle against the world i 
that laws, principalities, and powers, which pro- 



CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL. 149 

tect US, opposed them : these are distinctions of 
which we ought not to lose sight ; nor should we 
forget that not only all the disadvantages lay on 
their side in their antecedent condition, but that 
also all the superiority lies on ours in that which 
is subsequent. 

But however the condition of the external state 
of the church might differ, there can be no neces- 
sity for any difference in the interior state of the 
individual christian. On whatever high princi- 
ples of devotedness to God and love to man they 
were required to act, we are required to act on 
precisely the same : if their faith was called to 
more painful exertions, if their self-denial to 
harder sacrifices, if their renunciation of earthly 
things to severer trials, let us thankfully remem- 
ber this would naturally be the case at the first 
introduction of a religion which had to combat 
with the pride, the prejudices, and enmity of cor- 
rupt nature invested with temporal power 5 that 
the hostile party would not fail to perceive how 
much the new religion opposed itself to their 
corruptions, and that it was introducing a spirit 
which was in direct and avowed hostility to the 
spirit of the world. 

But while we are deeply thankful for the dimin- 
ished difficulties of our age and country, let us 
never forget that Christianity allows of no diminu- 
tion in the temper, of no abatement in the spirit 



150 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

which constituted a christian in the first ages of 
the church. 

Christianity is precisely the same religion now 
as it was when our Saviour was upon earth. The 
spirit of the world is exactly the same now as it 
was then. And if the most eminent of the apos- 
tles, under the immediate guidance of inspiration, 
were driven to lament their conflicts with their 
own corrupt nature, the power of temptation 
combining with their natural propensities to evil, 
how can we expect that a lower faith, a slackened 
zeal, an abated diligence, and an inferior holiness 
will be accepted in us 1 Believers then were not 
called to higher degrees of purity, to a more ele- 
vated devotion, to a deeper humility, to greater 
rectitude, patience, and sincerity, than they arc 
called to in the age in which we live. The pro- 
mises are not limited to the period in which they 
were made, the aid of the Spirit is not confined to 
those on whom it was first poured out. It was ex- 
pressly declared by Saint Peter, on its first effu- 
sion, to be promised not only *^to them and to 
their children, but to all who were afar ofT, even 
to as many as the Lord their God should call." 

If, then, the same salvation be now offered as 
was offered at first, is it not oovious that it must 
be worked out in the same way 1 and as the * 
same Gospel retains the same authority in ail 
ages, so does it maintain the same universality 



CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL. 151 

among all ranks. Christianity has no by-laws, 
no particular exemptions, no individual immuni- 
ties. That there is no appropriate way of attain- 
ing salvation for a prince or a philosopher, is 
probably one reason why greatness and wisdom 
have so often rejected it. But if rank cannot 
plead its privileges, genius cannot claim its dis- 
tinctions. That Christianity does not owe its suc- 
cess to the arts of rhetoric, or the sophistry of the 
schools, but that God intended by it ^* to make 
foolish the wisdom of this world," actually ex 
plains why ^* the disputers of this world " have 
always been its enemies. 

It would have been unworthy of the infinite 
God to have imparted a partial religion. There 
is but one *^ gate," and that a ^^ strait " one ; but 
one " way," and that a ^^ narrow " one , there is 
but one salvation, and that a " common " one. 
The Gospel enjoins the same principles of love 
and obedience on all of every condition 5 offers 
the same aids under the same exigencies ; the 
same supports under all trials 5 the same pardon 
to all penitents ; the same Saviour to all believ- 
ers. ; the same rewards to all who " endure to the 
end." The temptations of one condition and the 
trials of another may call for the exercise of dif- 
ferent qualities for the performance of different^ 
duties, but the same personal holiness is enjoined 
on all. External acts of virtue may be promoted 



152 FRAOTICAL PIETY. 

by some circumstances, and impeded by others; 
but the graces of inward piety are of universa 
force, are of eternal obligation. 

The universality of its requisitions is one of its 
most distinguishing characteristics. In the pagan 
world it seemed sufficient that a few exalted spi- 
rits, a few^ fine geniuses, should soar to a vast su* 
periority above the mass ; but it was never ex- 
pected that the mob of Rome or Athen^ should 
aspire to any religious sentiments or feelings in 
common with Socrates or Epictetus. I say i^eli- 
gious sentiments, because in matters of taste the 
distinctions were less striking 5 for the mob of 
Athens were competent critics in the dramatic 
art, while they were sunk in the most stupid and 
degraded idolatry. As to those of a higher class, 
while no subject in science, arts or learning was 
too lofty or too abstruse for their acquisition, no 
object in nature w^as too low, no conception of a 
depraved imagination was too impure for their 
worship. While the civil and political wisdom 
of the Romans was carried to such perfection 
that their code of laws has still a place in the 
most enlightened countries, their deplorably gross 
superstitions rank them in point of religion with 
the savages of Africa. It shows how little waj 
that reason, which manifested itself with such 
unrivalled vigor in their poets, orators, and 



I 



CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL. 153 

ours, could go in what related to religion, when 
these polished people, in the objects of their 
worship, are only on a par with the inhabitants 
at Otaheite. 

It furnishes the most incontrovertible proof 
that '^ the world by wisdom knew not God,'' that 
it was at the very time and in the very country in 
which knowledge and taste had attained their ut- 
most perfection, when the Porch and the Acade- 
my had given laws to human intellect, that athe- 
ism first assumed a shape, and established itself 
into a school of philosophy. It was at the mo- 
ment when the mental powers were carried to 
the highest pitch in Greece, that it was settled 
as an infallible truth in this philosophy, that the 
senses were the highest natural light of mankind. 
It was in the most enlightened age of Rome 
that this atheistical philosophy was transplanted 
thither, and that one of her most elegant poets 
adopted it, and rendered it popular by the be- 
witching graces of his verse. 

It has been intimated with a view to depreciate 
Christianity by those who are offended at her 
humbling doctrines, that the heathen philoso- 
phers had given sufficient exaltation to the hu- 
man character; that they exhibited an elevation 
of sentiment and a dignity of virtue which left 
nothing to desire on the side of moral excellence. 
This is meant to convey an oblique insinuation 



154 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

that the christian revelation might have been 
dispensed with. 

But those who give this tacit preference to a 
pagan philosophy, do not seem to feel where the 
grand characteristic difference lies. The turning 
point which separates Christianity from all the 
other religions in the world, escapes their obser- 
vation. The dignity of the letter of pagan virtue, 
and of the spirit of christian virtue, is of a totally 
opposite character. The foundation is different, 
the views are different, the end is different. The 
one fills man with a perfect complacency in his 
own perfections ; it is the object of the other to 
strip him of every boast. The one swells him 
with satisfaction at the consciousness of his own 
attainments ; the other teaches him never to 
" count himself to have attained ;" a feeling of 
imperfection accompanies him in his best ac- 
tions, and never forsakes him in his highest 
advancements. The one makes the proficient in 
virtue rich in his own independent worth ; the 
other ^^ brings every thought into captivity to 
the obedience of Christ." The one glories in the 
victory his self-denial has obtained ; the other, 
after his higher conquests, exclaims, ^^ God for- 
bid that I should glory, save in the cross of our 
Lord Jesus Christ." Philosophy not seldom car- 
ried its professor to such an elevation that he 
rose above riches, above honors, above the world ; 



CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL. 155 

but it never enabled him to rise above himself. 
It never raised its votary to owe his satisfaction, 
his happiness, his independence, to any thing 
without him, or above him. He borrows nothing, 
he derives nothing; all is his own. Outward 
temptations are combated, even inward propen- 
sities are resisted, the world is degraded, but 
self is enthroned. He labors to be virtuous, and 
to a certain degree he obtains his object, but the 
virtue, that is himself, is every thing to him. 

The christian's career is more difficult and less 
dazzling. He is not only commanded **not to 
love the world nor the things of the world," he 
is called to a harder renunciation : he must re- 
nounce all dependence on the virtues of which 
he dares not neglect the performance. If the 
philosopher despised the world, this contempt 
was founded in pride, and was a homage to his 
own virtue. As to the christian, ^^ the world is 
crucified to him, and he to the world," on a prin- 
ciple so abasing, that natural wisdom revolts 
at it — the humbling principle of ^^ the cross of 
Christ." The sage who feasted on the plenitude 
of his own pdtfections, would think it a mortify- 
ing exchange to be *^ filled with the fullness" of 
any other being, though that being was ^^ God." 
How would the man whose heart was overflow- 
ing with a sense of his own value, endure that 
injunction to social kindness, '^ Look not every 



156 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

man on his own things, but every man also on 
the things of others V ^^ Let every man esteem 
others better than himself," would have been 
accounted the dictate of folly w^iere self-estima-" 
tion was the actuating principle. 

Humility, which forms the very basis of the 
christian character, is so far from making a part 
of the code of philosophy, that it w^as ^^ against 
the canon law of their foundation." Not only no 
such quality has a place in their ethics, but it 
was philologically as well as morally degraded ; 
the very term expressing not virtue, but baseness. 

As coming from the founder of a school, in- 
deed, they might have adopted the maxim, *^ Let 
this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus;" 
but the clause, ^^ who made himself of no reputa- 
tion," strips It of its value. " This is a hard say- 
ing 5" w^hich of them could hear it ? 

It seems as if the most accomplished nations 
stood in the most pressing need of the light 6f 
revelation ; for it w^as not to the dark and stupid 
corners of the earth that the apostles had their 
earliest missions. One of St. Paul's first and 
noblest expositions of christian truth was made 
before the most august deliberative assembly in 
the world ; though, by the way, it does not ap» 
pear that more than one member of the Areopa- 
gus was converted. In Rome some of the apos- 
tle's earliest converts belonged to the imperial 



CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL. 151 

palace. It was to the metropolis of cultivated 
Italy, It was to the polished ^^ regions of Achaia," 
to the opulent and luxurious city of Corinth, in 
preference to the barbarous countries of the un- 
civilized world, that some of his earliest epistles 
were addressed. 

\ Natural religion must have shown man that he 
was a sinner, or we should not have heard of 
such frequent horrors of conscience, such inex- 
tinguishable remorse, as is discoverable in the 
expressions of many heathens. It even flattered 
him with an intimation that the wrath of the 
Deity might be averted j this accounts for their 
numerous altars, sacrifices, and lustrations. But 
these were only vague hopes, indefinite notions 
floating on a sea of doubt and uncertainty. They 
had no foundation in the Divine promise , the 
penitent sinner had no assurance of the Divine 
forgiveness. The doctrine of salvation by the 
cross of Christ is so contrary to all human con- 
ception, that it never could have come from 
man ; being so incredible to natural reason, *^ that 
man," says a fine writer, ^^ stands in need of all 
his submission to make it an object of his faith, 
though an infallible God has^ revealed it." 

But even natural religion was little understood 
by those who professed it 5 it was full of obscu- 
rity till viewed by the clear light of the Gospel. 
Not only natural religion remained to be clearly 



158 - PRACTICAL PIETY. 

comprehended, bat reason itself remained to be 
carried to its highest pitch in the countries where 
revelation is professed. Natural religion could 
not see itself by its own light ; reason could not 
extricate itself from the labyrinth of error and 
ignorance in w^hich false religion had involved 
the world. Grace has raised nature. Revelation 
has given a lift to reason, and taught her to 
despise the follies and corruptions which ob- 
scured her brightness. If nature is now delivered 
from darkness, it was the helping hand of revela- 
tion which raised her from the rubbish in which 
she lay buried. 

Christianity has not only given us right con 
ceptions of God, of his holiness, of the way in 
which he will be worshipped , it has not only 
given us principles to promote our happiness 
here, and to ensure it hereafter , but it has really 
taught us, what a proud philosophy arrogates to 
itself, the right use of reason. It has given us 
those principles of examining and judging, by 
which we are enabled to determine on the absur- 
dity of false religions. *^ For to what else can it 
be ascribed," says the sagacious Bishop Sherlock, 
"that in every nation that ;names the name of 
Christ, even reason and nature see and condemn 
the follies to which others are still, for want of 
the same help, held in subjection 1" 

Allowing, however, that Plato and Antoninus 



CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL. 159 

seemed to have been taught of heaven, yet the 
object for which we contend is, that no provision 
was made for the vulgar. While a faint ray shone 
on the page of philosophy, the people were in- 
volved in darkness which might be felt. The mil* 
lion were left to live without knowledge, and to 
die without hope. For what knowledge or what 
hope would be acquired from the preposterous, 
though amusing and, in many respects, elegant 
mythology, which they might pick up in their 
poets, the belief of which seemed to be confined 
to the populace 1 

But there was no common principle of hope or 
fear, of faith or practice, no motive of consola- 
tion, no bond of charity, no communion of ever- 
lasting interests, no reversionary equality be- 
tween the wise and the ignorant, the' master and 
the slave, the Greek and the barbarian. 

A religion was wanted which should be of gene- 
ral application. Christianity happily accommo- 
dated itself to the common exigence. It furnished 
an adequate supply to the universal want. Instead 
of perpetual but unexpiating sacrifices to appease 
imaginary deities, 

" Gods such as guilt makes welcome," 

it presents ^^ one oblation, once offered, a full, per* 
feet, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfac- 
tion, for the sins of the whole world." It presents 



160 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

one consistent scheme of morals growing out of 
one uniform system of doctrines ; one perfect rule 
of practice depending on one principle of faith : it 
offers grace to direct the one and to assist the 
other. It encircles the whole sphere of duty with 
the broad and golden zone of coalescing charity, 
stamped with the beautiful inscription, ^^ A new 
commandment give I unto you, that you love one 
another." Christianity, instead of destroying the 
distinctions of rank, or breaking in on the regu- 
lations of society, by this universal precept fur- 
nishes new fences to its order, additional security 
to its repose, and fresh strength to its subordi 
nations. 

Were this command so inevitably productive 
of that peculiarly christian injunction of ^^ doing 
to others as we would they should do unto us," 
uniformly observed, the whole frame of society 
would be cemented and consolidated into one in- 
dissoluble bond of universal brotherhood. This 
divinely enacted law is the seminal principle of 
justice, charity, patience, forbearance, in short, 
of all social virtue. That it does not produce 
these excellent effects is not owing to any defect 
in the principle, but in our corrupt nature, which 
so reluctantly, so imperfectly, obeys it. If it 
were conscientiously adopted, and substantially 
acted upon, received in its very spirit, and obey- 
ed from the ground of the heart, human laws 



CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL. 161 

might be abrogated, courts of justice abolished, 
and treatises of morality burnt ; war would be 
no longer an art, nor military tactics a science. 
We should suffer long and be kind, and so far 
from '' seeking that which is another's," we 
should " not even seek our own." 

But let not the soldier or the lawyer be alarm- 
ed. Their craft is in no danger. The world 
does not intend to act upon the divine principle 
which would injure their professions ; and till 
this only revolution which good men desire ac- 
tually takes place, our fortunes will not be secure 
without the exertions of the one, nor our lives 
without the protection of the other. 

All the virtues have their appropriate place 
and rank in Scripture. They are introduced as 
individually beautiful, and as reciprocally con- 
nected, like the graces in the mythologic dance. 
But perhaps no christian grace ever sat to the 
hand of a more consummate master than charitj?-. 
Her incomparable painter. Saint Paul, has drawn 
her at full length in all her fair proportions. 
Every attitude is full of grace ; every lineament 
of beauty. The whole delineation is " perfect 
ind entire, wanting nothing." 

Who can look at this finished piece without 
brushing at his own want of likeness to it 1 Yet 
if this conscious dissimilitude induce a cordial 
desire of resemblance, the humiliation will be 

Prac. Piety. J J 



162 * PKACTICAL PIETY. 

salutary. Perhaps a more frequent contemplation 
of this exquisite figure, accompanied with earnest 
endeavors for a growing resemblance, would gra- 
dually lead us, not barely to admire the portrait, 
but would at length assimilate us to the Divine 
Original. 



CHAPTEE X. 



CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

Christianity, then, as we have attempted to 
show in the preceding chapter, exhibits no dif- 
ferent standards of goodness applicable to differ- 
ent stations or characters. No one can be allow- 
ed to rest in a low degree, and plead his exemp- 
tion for aiming no higher. No one can be secure 
in any state of piety below that state which would 
not have been enjoined on all, had not all been 
entitled to the means of attaining it. 

Those who keep their pattern in their eye, 
though they may fail of the liighest attainments, 
will not be satisfied with such as are low. The 
striking inferiority will excite compunction ; com- 



CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 163 

punction will stimulate them to press on, which 
those never do who, losing sight of their standard 
are satisfied with the height they have reached. 
He is not likely to be the object of God's favor 
who takes his determined stand on the very low- 
est step in the scale of perfection : who does not 
even aspire above it ; whose aim seems to be not 
so much to please God as to escape punishment. 
Many, however, will doubtless be accepted, 
though their progress has been small 5 their dif- 
ficulties may have been great, their natural capa- 
city weak, their temptation strong, and their in- 
struction defective. 

Revelation has not only furnished injunctions, 
but motives to holiness , not only motives, but 
examples and authorities. " Be ye therefore per- 
fect" (according to your measure and degree,) 
*^as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." 
And what says the Old Testament '? It accord?? 
with the New — ^^ Be ye holy, for I, the Lord your 
God, am holy." 

This was the injunction of God himself, not 
given exclusively to Moses, to the leader and 
legislator, or to a few distinguished officers, or 
to a selection of eminent teachers, but to an im 
mense body of people, even to the whole assem- 
bled host of Israel ; to men of all ranks, profes- 
sions, capacities, and characters ; to the ministers 
of religion, and to the uninstructed 5 to enlight- 



I64f PRACTICAL PIETY. 

ened rulers, and to feeble women. *^ God," says 
an excellent writer, (Saurin,) " had antecedently 
given to his people particular laws, suited to their 
several exigencies and various conditions, but 
the command to be holy was a general (might he 
not have said a universal) law." 

^^ Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the 
gods ] Who is like unto thee, glorious in holi- 
ness, fearful in praises, doing wonders V This is, 
perhaps, the sublimest apostrophe of praise, ren- 
dered more striking by its interrogatory form, 
which the Scriptures have recorded. It makes a 
part of the first song of gratulation which is to 
be found in the treasury of sacred poetry. This 
epithet of holy is more frequently affixed to the 
name of God than any other. His mighty name 
is less often invoked than his holy name. To of- 
fend against this attribute is represented as more 
heinous than to oppose any other. It has been 
remarked that the impiety of the Assyrian mo- 
narch is not described by his hostility against the 
Great, the Almighty God, but it is made an ag- 
gravation of his crime that he had committed it 
against the Holy One of Israel, 

When God condescended to give a pledge for 
th^ performance of his promise, he swears by his 
holiness^ as if it were the distinguishing quality 
which was more especially binding. It seems con- 
nected and interwoven with all the divine perfec- 



CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 165 

tions. Which of his excellencies can we contem- 
plate as separated from this 1 Is not his justice 
stamped with sanctity % It is free from any tinc- 
ture of vindictiveness, and is therefore a holy jus- 
tice. His mercy has none of the partiality, or fa- 
voritism, or capricious fondness of human kind- 
ness, but is a holy mercy. His holiness is not 
more the source of his mercies than of his punish- 
ments. If his holiness in his severities to us want- 
ed a justification, there cannot be at once a more 
substantial and more splendid illustration of it 
than the noble passage already quoted, for he is 
called ^^ glorious in holiness" immediately after 
he had vindicated the honor of his name by the 
miraculous destruction of the army of Pharaoh. 

Is it not then a necessary consequence grow- 
ing out of his own perfections, that ^^ a righteous 
God loveth righteousness;" that he will of course 
require in his creatures a desire to imitate as well 
as to adore that attribute by which he himself 
loves to be distinguished 1 We cannot, indeed, 
like God, be essentially holy. In an infinite being 
it is a substance, in a created being it is only an 
accident. God is the essence of holiness, but we 
can have no holiness, nor any other good thing, 
but what we derive from him. It is his preroga- 
tive, but our privilege. 

If God loves holiness because it is his image, 
he must consequently hate sin, because it defaces 



166 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

his image. If he glorifies his own mercy and 
goodness in rewarding virtue, he no less vindi- 
cates the honor of his holiness in the punish 
ment of vice. A perfect God can no more ap 
prove of sin in his creatures than he can commi 
it himself. He may forgive sin on his own condi- 
tions, but there are no conditions on which he 
can be reconciled to it. The infinite goodness of 
God may delight in the beneficial purposes to 
which his infinite wisdom has made the sins of his 
creatures subservient, but sin itself will always 
be abhorrent to his nature. His wisdom may turn 
it to a merciful end, but his indignation at the 
offence cannot be diminished. Even in the im- 
perfect administration of human laws, impunity 
of crimes would be construed into approbation 
of them. 

The law of holiness, then, is a law binding on 
all persons without distinction, not limited to the 
period, nor to the people to whom it was given. 
It reaches through the whole Jewish dispensa- 
tion, and extends, with wider demands and higher 
sanctions, to every christian, of every denomina- 
tion, of every age and every country. 

A more sublime motive cannot be assigned 
why we should be holy than because " the Lord 
our God is holy." Men of the world have no ob- 
jection to the terms virtue, morality, integrity, 
rectitude ; but they associate something over- 



CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 167 

acted, not to say hypocritical, with the term ho- 
liness, and neither use it in a good sense when 
applied to others, nor would wish to have it ap- 
plied to themselves, hut make it over, with a 
little suspicion and not a little derision, to puri- 
tans and enthusiasts. 

This suspected epithet, however, is surely res- 
cued from every injurious association, if we con- 
sider it as the chosen attribute of the Most High 
We do not presume to apply the terms virtue, 
probity, morality, to God ; but we ascribe holi- 
ness to him, because he first ascribed it to him- 
self, as the aggregate and consummation of all 
his perfections. 

Shall so imperfect a being as man, then, ridi 
cule the application of this term to others, or be 
ashamed of it himself? There is a cause, indeed, 
which should make him ashamed of the appro- 
priation, that of not deserving it. This compre- 
hensive appellation includes all the christian 
graces, all the virtues in their just proportion, 
order, and harmony 5 in all their bearings, rela- 
tions, and dependencies. And as in God glory 
9,nd holiness are united, so the Apostle combines 
^^ sanctification and honor " as the glory of man. 

Tii3es more or less of the holiness of God 
may be found in his works, to those who view 
them with the eye of faith : they are more plainly 
visible in his providences ^ but it is in his word 



168 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

that we must chiefly look for the manifestations 
of his holiness. He is every where described as 
perfectly holy in himself, as a model to be imita- 
ted by his creatures, and though with an interval 
immeasurable, as imitable by them. 

The great doctrine of redemption is insepara 
bly connected with the doctrine of sanctification. 
As an admirable writer has observed, *' if the 
blood of Christ reconcile us to the justice of 
God, the spirit of Christ is to reconcile us to the 
holiness of God." When we are told, therefore, 
that Christ is made unto us ^^ righteousness," we 
are in the same place taught that he is made unto 
us ^^sanctification;" that is, he is both justifier 
and sanctifier. In vain shall we deceive ourselves 
by resting on his sacrifice, while we neglect to 
imitate his example. 

The glorious spirits which surround the throne 
of God are not represented as singing hallelujahs 
to his omnipotence, nor even to his mercy, but to 
that attribute which, as with a glory, encircles all 
the rest. They perpetually cry, Holy, holy, holy, 
Lord God of Hosts; and it is observable, that 
the angels which adore him for his holiness are 
the ministers of his justice. Those pure intelli- 
gences perceive, no doubt, that this union of 
attributes constitutes the Divine perfection. 

This infinitely blessed Being, then, to whom 
angels and all the hosts of heaven are continually 



CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 16? 

ascribing holiness, has commanded us to be holy 
To be holy because God is holy, is both an argu- 
ment and a command. An argument founded or. 
the perfections of God, and a command to imi- 
tate him. This command is given to creatures 
fallen indeed, but to whom God graciously pro- 
mises strength for the imitation. If we do not en- 
deavor to imitate Him whom we worship, we do 
not worship him in sincerity. It is obvious that 
we see little of the infinite excellencies of that 
Being to some faint resemblance of which we do 
not endeavor to aspire. If in God holiness implies 
an aggregate of perfections, in man, even in his 
low degree, it is an incorporation of the christian 
graces. 

The holiness of God, indeed, is confined by no 
limitation , our& is bounded, finite, imperfect. 
Yet let us be sedulous to extend our little sphere. 
Let our desires be large, though our capacities 
are contracted. Let our aims be lofty, though 
our attainments are low. Let us be solicitous 
that no day pass without some augmentation of 
our holiness, some added height in our aspira 
tions, some wider expansions in the compass of 
our virtues. Let us strive every day for some 
superiority to the preceding day, something that 
shall distinctly mark the passing scene with pro- 
gress ; something that shall inspire an humble 
hope that we are rather less unfit for heaven to- 



170 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

day than we were yesterday. The celebrated 
artist who has recorded that he passed no day 
without drawing a line, drew it not for repetition 
but for progress ; not to produce a given number 
of strokes, but to forward his work, to complete 
his design. The christian, like the painter, does 
not draw his line at random, he has a model to 
imitate as well as an outline to fill. Every touch 
conforms him more and more to the great ori- 
ginal. He who has most of the life of God in his 
soul has copied it most successfully. 

'^ To seek happiness,'^ says one of the Fathers, 
" is to desire God, and to find him is that happi- 
ness." Our very happiness, therefore, is not oui 
independent property ; it flows from that eternal 
mind which is the source and sum of happiness. 
In vain we look for felicity in all around us. It 
can only be found in that original fountain, 
whence we, and all we are and have, are derived. 
Where, then, is the imaginary wise man of the 
school of Zeno % What is the perfection of virtue 
supposed by Aristotle % They have no existence 
but in the romance of philosophy. Happiness 
must be imperfect in an imperfect state. Eeli- 
gion, it is true, is initial happiness, and points to 
its perfection : but as the best men possess it 
but imperfectly, they cannot be perfectly happy. 
Nothing can confer completeness which is itself 
incomplete. " With thee, O Lord, is the foun- 



CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 171 

tain of life and in thy light only we shall see 
light."* 

Whatever shall still remain wanting in our 
attainments, and much still remains, let this last, 
greatest, highest consideration stimulate our lan- 
guid exertions, that God has negatively pro- 
mised the beatific vision, the enjoyment of his 
presence, to this attainment, by specifically pro- 
claiming that without holiness no man shall see 
his face. To know God is the rudiments of that 
eternal life which will hereafter be perfected by 
seeing him , as there is no stronger reason why 
we must not look for perfect happiness in this 
life, than because there is no perfect holiness, so 
the nearer advances we make to the one, the 
greater progress we shall make towards the 
other J we must cultivate here those tendencies 
and tempers which must be carried to perfection 
in a happier clime. But as holiness is the con- 
comitant of happiness, so must it be its precur- 
sor. As sin has destroyed our happiness, so sin 
must be destroyed before our happiness can be 
restored. Our nature must be renovated before 
our felicity can be established. This is accord- 
ing to the nature of things, as well as agreeable 
to the law and will of God. Let us, then, care- 
fully look to the subduing in our inmost hearts 

* See Leighton on Happiness. 



172 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

of all those dispositions that are unlike God, all 
those actions, thoughts, and tendencies that are 
contrary to God. 

Independently, therefore, of all the other mo 
tives to holiness which religion suggests : inde 
pendently of the fear of punishment, indepen 
dently even of the hope of glory, let us be holy 
from this ennobling, elevating motive, because 
the Lord our God is holy. And when our virtue 
flags, let it be renovated by this imperative in- 
junction, backed by this irresistible argument. 
The motive for imitation, and the Being to be 
imitated, seem almost to identify us with infinity. 
It is a connection which endears, an assimilation 
which dignifies, a resemblance which elevates 
The apostle has added to the prophet an assur- 
ance which makes the crown and consummation 
of the promise, " that though we know not yet 
what we shall be, yet we know that when he 
shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall 
see him as he is." 

In what a beautiful variety of glowing ex 
pressions and admiring strains do the Scripture 
worthies delight to represent God ; not only in 
relation to what he is to them, but to the* su- 
preme excellence of his own transcendant per- 
fections ! They expatiate, they amplify, they 
dwell with unwearied iteration on the adorable 
theme ; they ransack language, they exhaust all 



CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 173 

the expressions of praise, and wonder, and ad- 
miration ; all the images of astonishment 5 they 
delight to laud and magnify his glorious name. 
They praise him, they bless him, they worship 
him, they glorify him, they give thanks to him 
for his great glory, saying, " Holy, holy, holy, 
Lord God of Hosts 5 heaven and earth are full 
of the majesty of thy glory." 

They glorify him relatively to themselves. '' I 
will magnify thee, Lord, my strength — My 
help cometh of God. The Lord himself is the 
portion of my inheritance." At another time, 
soaring with a noble disinterestedness, and quite 
losing sight of self and all created glories, they 
adore him for his own incommunicable excel- 
lences. ^* Be thou exalted, God, in thine own 
strength." ^^ Oh, the depth of the riches both of 
the wisdom and knowledge of God !" Then burst- 
ing into a rapture of adoration, and burning with 
a more intense flame, they cluster his attributes 
— ^^ To the King eternal, immortal, invisible, be 
honor and glory for ever and ever." One is lost 
in the admiration of his wisdom — his inscription 
is " to the only wise God." Another in triumph- 
aift strains overflows with transport at the consi- 
deration of the attribute on which we have been 
descanting — ** O Lord, who is like unto thee % 
there is none holy as the Lord." — ^^ Sing praises 
unto the Lord, Oh ye saints of his, and give 



174 ' PRACTICAL PIETY. 

thanks unto him for a remembrance of his ho- 
imess." 

The prophets and apostles were not deterred 
from pouring out the overflowings of their fer- 
vent spirits, they were not restrained from cele- 
brating the perfections of their Creator, through 
the cold-hearted fear of being reckoned enthusi- 
asts. The saints of old were not prevented from 
breathing out their rapturous hosannas to the 
King of saints, through the coward dread of be- 
ing branded as fanatical. The conceptions of 
their minds, dilating with the view of the glori- 
ous constellation of the Divine attributes, and 
the affections of their hearts Avarming with the 
thought that those attributes were all concentra- 
ted in mercy, they display a sublime oblivion of 
themselves — they forget every thing but God 
Their own concerns, nay, the universe itself, 
shrink into nothing. They seem absorbed in the 
effulgence of deity, lost in the radiant beams of 
infinite glory. 



SMALL FAULTS AND VIKTUES. 175 



CHAPTER XL 



ON THE COMPAEATIVELY SMALL FAULTS AND 
VIRTUES. 

The "fishers of men," as if exclusively bent 
on catching' the greater sinners, often make the 
interstices of the moral net so wide that it can- 
not retain those of more ordinary size, which 
every where abound. Their draught might be 
more abundant were not the meshes so large that 
the smaller sort, aided by their own lubricity, 
escape the toils and slip through. Happy to find 
themselves not bulky enough to be entangled, 
they plunge back again into their native element, 
enjoy their escape, and hope they may safely 
wait to grow bigger before they are in danger 
of being caught. 

It is of more importance than we are aware 
or are willing to allow that we take care dili- 
gently to practise the smaller virtues, avoid 
scrupulously the lesser sins, and bear patiently 
inferior trials ; for the sin of habitually yielding, 
or the grace of habitually resisting, in r^ompara- 
tively small points, tends in no inconsiderable 
degree to produce that vigor or that debility of 
mind on which hangs victory or defeat. 



176 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

Conscience is moral sensation. It is the quick 
perception of good and evil, the peremptory de- 
cision of the mind to adopt the one or avoid the 
other. Providence has furnished the body with 
senses, and the soul with conscience, as r tad by 
which to shrink from the approach of danger 3 
as a prompt feeling to supply the deductions of 
reasoning ; as a spontaneous impulse to precede 
a train of reflections for which the suddenness 
and surprise of the attack allow no time. An en- 
lightened conscience, if kept tenderly alive by a 
continual attention to its admonitions, would es- 
pecially preserve us from those smaller sins, and 
stimulate us to those lesser duties, which we are 
falsely apt to think are too insignificant to be 
brought to the bar of religion, too trivial to be 
weighed by the standard of Scripture. 

By cherishing this quick feeling of rectitude, 
light and sudden as the flash from heaven, and 
which is in fact the motion of the Spirit, we in- 
tuitively reject what is wrong before we have 
time to examine why it is wrong, and seize on 
what is right before we have time to examine 
why it is right. Should we not, then, be careful 
how we extinguish this sacred spark % Will any 
thing be more likely to extinguish it than to ne- 
glect its hourly mementos to perform its smaller 
duties, and to avoid the lesser faults, which, as 
they in good measure make up the sum of human 



SMALL FAULTS AND VIRTUES. 177 

life, will naturally fix and determine our charac 
ter, that creature of habits'? Will not our ne- 
glect or observance of it incline or indispose us 
for tjjose more important duties of which these 
smaller ones are connecting links 1 

The vices derive their existence from wildness, 
confusion, disorganization. The discord of the 
passions is owing to their having different views, 
conflicting aims, and opposite ends. The rebel- 
lious vices have no common head ; each is all to 
itself. They promote their own operations by 
disturbing those of others, but in disturbing they 
do not destroy them. Though they are all of 
one family, they live on no friendly terms. Pro- 
fligacy hates covetousness as much as if h were 
a virtue. The life of every sin is a life of conflict, 
which occasions the torment but not the death 
of its opposite. Like the fabled brood of the 
serpent, the passions spring up armed against 
each other, but they fail to complete the resem- 
blance, for they do not effect their mutual de- 
struction. 

But without union the christian graces could 
not be perfected, and the smaller virtues are the 
threads and filaments which gently but firmly tie 
them together. There is an attractive power in 
goodness which draws each part to the other. 
This concord of the virtues is derived from their 
havmg one common centre in which all meet. 

*»ract. Piety 12 



178 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

In vice there is a strong repulsion. Though bad 
men seek each other, they do not love each other. 
Each seeks the other in order to promote his 
own purposes, while he hates him by whom his 
purposes are promoted. 

If we may be allowed ^^ to glance from earth to 
heaven," perhaps the beauty of the lesser virtues 
may be illustrated by that long and luminous 
track made up of minute and almost impercepti- 
ble stars, which, though separately, too inconsi- 
derable to engage attention, yet, from their num- 
ber and confluence, form that soft and shining 
stream of light every where discernible, and which 
always corresponds to the same fixed stars, as 
the smaller virtues do to their concomitant great 
ones. Without pursuing the metaphor to the 
classic fiction that the galaxy was the road 
through which the ancient heroes went to hea- 
ven, may we not venture to say that christians 
will make their way thither more pleasant by the 
consistent practice of the minuter virtues % 

Every christian should consider religion as a 
fort which he is called to defend. The meanest 
soldier in the army, if he adds patriotism to valor, 
will fight as earnestly as if the glory of the con- 
test depended on his single arm. But he brings 
his watchfulness as well as his courage into ac- 
tion. He strenuously defends every pass he is 
appointed to guard, without inquiring whether it 



SMALL FAULTS AND VIRTUES. 179 

be great or small. There is not any defect in re 
ligion or morals so little as to be of no conse 
quence. Worldly things may be little because 
their aim and end may be little. Things are great 
or small, not according to their ostensible im 
portance, but according to the magnitude of theii 
object and the importance of their consequences. 

The acquisition of even the smallest virtue be- 
ing, as has been before observed, an actual con- 
quest over the opposite vice, doubles our moral 
strength. The spiritual enemy has one subject 
less, and the conqueror one virtue more. 

By allowed negligence in small things we are 
not aware how much we injure religion in the 
eye of the world. How can we expect people to 
believe that we are in earnest in great points, 
when they see that we cannot withstand a trivial 
temptation, against which resistance would have 
been comparatively easyl At a distance they 
hear with respect of our general characters. 
They become domesticated with us, and discover 
the same failings, littlenesses, and bad tempers, 
which they have been accustomed to meet with 
in the most ordinary persons. 

If Milton, in one of his letters to a learned 
foreigner who had visited him, could congratu- 
late himself on the consciousness that in that 
visit he had been found equal to his reputation, 
and had supported in private conversation his 



180 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

high character as an author, shall not the chris- 
tian be equally anxious to support the credit of 
his holy profession, by not betraying in familiar 
life any temper inconsistent with religion \ 

It is not difficult to attract respect on great 
occasions, where we are kept in order by know- 
ing that the public eye is fixed upon us. It is easy 
to maintain a regard to our dignity in a *^ sym- 
posiac, or an academical dinner ," but to labor to 
maintain it in the recesses of domestic privacy 
requires more watchfulness, and is no less the 
duty than it will be the habitual practice of the 
consistent christian. 

Our neglect of inferior duties is particularly 
injurious to the minds of our dependants and ser- 
vants. If they see us *^ weak and infirm of pur- 
pose," peevish, irresolute, capricious, passionate, 
or inconsistent, in our daily conduct which comes 
under their immediate observation, and which 
comes also within their power of judging, they 
will not give us credit for those higher qualities 
which we may possess, and those superior duties 
which we may be more careful to fulfil. Neither 
their capacities nor their opportunities may en- 
able them to judge of the orthodoxy of the head ; 
tut there will be obvious and decisive proofs to 
the meanest capacity of the state and temper of 
the heart. Our greater qualities will do them lit- 
tle good, while our smaller but incessant faults 



SMALL FAULTS AND VIRTUES. 181 

do them much injury. Seeing us so defective in 
the daily course of domestic conduct, though 
they will obey us because they are obliged to it, 
they will neither love nor esteem us enough to be 
influenced by our advice, nor to be governed by 
our instructions, on those great points which 
every conscientious head of a family will be care- 
ful to inculcate on all about him. It demands no 
less circumspection to be a christian^ than to be 
*^ a hero to one's valet de chamhre!''^ 

In all that relates to God, and to himself, the 
christian knows of no small faults. He considers 
all allowed and wilful sins, whatever be their 
magnitude, as an offence against his Maker. No- 
thing that offends him can be insignificant. No 
thing that contributes to fasten on ourselves a 
wrong habit can be trifling. Faults which we are 
accustomed to consider as small, are repeated 
without compunction. The habit of committing 
them is confirmed by the repetition. Frequency 
renders us at first indifferent, then insensible. 
The hopelessness attending a long-indulged cus- 
tom generates carelessness, till, for want of exer- 
cise, the power of resistance is first weakened, 
then destroyed. 

But there is a still more serious point of view 
in which the subject may be considered. Do 
small faults, continually repeated, always retain 
their original diminutiveness \ Is any axiom more 



182 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

established than that all evil is of a progressive 
nature '? Is a bad temper, which is never re- 
pressed, no worse after years of indulgence than 
when we first gave the reins to it ] Does that 
which we first allowed ourselves under the name 
of harmless levity on serious subjects, never pro- 
ceed to profaneness 1 Does what was once ad- 
mired as proper spirit never grow into pride, 
never swell into insolence '? Does the habit of 
incorrect narrative, or loose talking, or allowed 
hyperbole, never lead to falsehood, never settle 
in deceit 1 Before we positively determine that 
small faults are innocent, we must undertake to 
prove that they shall never outgrow their pri- 
mitive dimensions ; we must ascertain that the 
infant shall never become a giant. 

ProcrasiinaHon is reckoned among the most 
venial of our faults, and sits so lightly on our 
minds that we scarcely apologise for it. But who 
can assure us that had not the assistance we had 
resolved to give to one friend under distress, or 
the advice to another under temptation, to-day, 
been delayed, and from mere sloth and indolence 
been put off till to-morrow, it might not have pre- 
served the fortunes of the one, or saved the sou. 
of the other 1 

It is not enough that we perform duties, we 
must perform them at the right time. 

We must do the duty of every day in its own 



SMALL FAULTS AND VIRTUES, 183 

season. Every day has its own imperious duties 5 
we must not depend upon to-day for fulfilling 
those which we neglected yesterday, for to-day 
might not have been granted us. To-morrow will 
be equally peremptory in its demands ; and the 
succeeding day, if we live to see it, will be ready 
with its proper claims. 

Indecision^ though it is not so often caused by 
reflection as by the want of it, yet may be as mis- 
chievous 5 for if we spend too much time in ba- 
lancing probabilities, the period for action is lost. 
While we are ruminating on difficulties which 
may never occur, reconciling differences which, 
perhaps, do not exist, and poising in opposite 
scales things of nearly the same weight, the op- 
portunity is lost of producing that good which a 
firm and manly decision would have effected. 

Idleness^ though itself the most unperforming 
of all the vices, is, however, the pass through 
which they all enter, the stage on which they all 
act. Though supremely passive itself, it lends a 
willing hand to all evil, practical as well as specu- 
lative. It is the abettor of every sin, whoever com- 
mits it ] the receiver of all booty, whoever is the 
thief. If it does nothing itself, it connives at all 
the mischief that is done by others. 

Vanity is exceedingly misplaced when ranked, 
as she commonly is, in the catalogue of small 
faults It is under her character of harmlessness 



184 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

that she does all her mischief. She is, indeed, 
often found in the society of great virtues. She 
does not follow in the train, but mixes herself 
with the company, and by mixing mars it. The 
use our spiritual enemy makes of her is a master- 
stroke. When he cannot prevent us* from doing 
right actions, he can accomplish his purpose 
almost as well " by making us vain of them.' 
When he cannot deprive the public of our bene- 
volence, he can defeat the effect to ourselves by 
poisoning the principle. When he cannot rob 
others of the good effect of the deed, he can gain 
his point by robbing the doer of his reward. 

Peevishness is another of the minor miseries. 
Human life, though sufficiently unhappy, cannot 
contrive to furnish misfortunes so often as the 
passionate and the peevish can supply impatience. 
To commit our reason and temper to the mercy 
of every acquaintance, and of every servant, is 
not making the wisest use of them. If we recol- 
lect that violence and peevishness are the com- 
mon resource of those w^hose knowledge is small, 
and whose arguments are weak, our very pride 
might lead us to subdue our passion, if we had 
not a better principle to which to resort. 

Anger is the common refuge of insignificance. 
People who feel their character to be slight, hope 
to give it weight by inflation. But the blown blad- 
der at its fullest distension is still empty. Slug, 



SMALL FAULTS AND VIRTUES. 185 

gish characters, above all, have no right to be 
passionate. They should be contented with their 
own congenial faults. Dullness, however, has its 
impetuosities and its fluctuations, as well as ge- 
nius. It is on the coast of heavy Boeotia that the 
Euripus exhibits its unparalleled restlessness 
and agitation. 

Trifling is ranked among the venial faults. But 
if time be one grand talent given us in order to 
our securing eternal life 5 if we trifle away that 
time so as to lose that eternal life on which by 
not trifling we might have laid hold, then will it 
answer the end of sin. A life devoted to trifles 
not only takes away the inclination but the capa- 
city for higher pursuits. The truths of Christiani- 
ty have scarcely more influence on a frivolous 
than on a profligate character. If the mind be so 
absorbed, not merely with what is vicious, but 
virith what is useless, as to be thoroughly disin- 
clined to the activities of a life of piety, it mat- 
ters little what the cause is which so disinclines 
it. If these habits cannot be accused of great mo- 
ral evil, yet it argues a low state of mind, that a 
being who has an eternity at stake can abando» 
(i self to trivial pursuits. If the great concern of 
ftfe cannot be secured without habitual watchful- 
ness, how is it to be secured by habitual careless- 
ness 1 It will afford little comfort to the trifier 
when, at the last reckoning, he gives in his long 



186 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

negative catalogue, that the more ostensible of- 
fender was worse employed. The trifler will not 
be weighed in the scale with the profligate, but 
in the balance of the sanctuary. 

Some men make for themselves a sort of code 
of the lesser morals, of which they settle loth 
the laws and the chronology. They fix ^^ the 
climacterics of the mind :"* determine at what 
period such a vice may be adopted without dis- 
credit, at what age one bad habit may give way 
to another more in character. Having settled it 
as a matter of course, that to a certain age cer- 
tain faults are natural, they proceed to act as if 
they thought them necessary. 

But let us not practise on ourselves the gross 
imposition to believe that any failing, much less 
any vice, is necessarily appended to any state or 
any age, or that it is irresistible at any. We may 
accustom ourselves to talk of vanity and extra- 
vagance as belonging to the young, and of ava- 
rice and peevishness to the old, till the next step 
will be that we shall think ourselves justified in 
adopting them. Whoever is eager to find excuses 
for vice and folly, will feel his own backward- 
ness to practise them much diminished. It is 
only to make out an imaginary necessity, and 
then we easily falb into the necessity we have 
imagined. Providence has established no such 

* Dr. Johnson. 



SMALL FAULTS AND VIRTUES. 187 

association. There is, it is true, more danger of 
certain faults under certain circumstances ; and 
some temptations are stronger at some periods, 
but it is a proof that they are not irresistible, 
because all do not fall into them. The evil is in 
ourselves, who mitigate the discredit By the sup- 
posed necessity. The prediction, like the dream 
of the astrologer, creates the event instead of 
foretelling it. But no supposition can be made 
of a bad case which will justify the making it our 
own ; nor will general positions ever serve for 
individual apologies. Who has not known per- 
sons who, though they retain the sound health 
and vigor of active life, sink prematurely into 
sloth and inactivity, solely on the ground that 
these dispositions are fancied to be unavoidably 
incident to advancing years % They demand the 
indulgence before they feel the infirmity. Indo- 
lence thus forges a dismission from duty before 
the discharge is issued out by Providence. No. 
Let us endeavor to meet the evils of the several 
conditions and periods of life with submission, 
but it is an offence to their Divine Dispenser to 
forestall them. 

But we have still a saving clause for ourselves, 
whether the evil be of a greater or lesser magni- 
tude. If the fault be great, we lament the in 
ability to resist it ; if small, we deny the im- 
portance of so doing ; we plead that we cannot 



188 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

withstand a great temptation, and that a small 
one is not worth withstanding. But if the temp- 
tation or the fault be great, we should resist 
it on account of that very magnitude , if small, 
the giving it up can cost but little ; and the 
conscientious habit of conquering the less will 
confer considerable strength towards subduing 
the greater. 

There is, again, a sort of splendid character, 
which, winding itself up occasionally to certain 
shining actions, thinks itself fully justified in 
breaking loose from the shackles of restraint in 
smaller things 5 it makes no scruple to indemni- 
fy itself for these popular deeds by indulgences 
which, though allowed, are far from innocent. It 
thus secures to itself praise and popularity by 
what is sure to gain it, and immunity from cen- 
sure in indulging the favorite fault, practically 
exclaiming, ^^ Is it not a little one 1" 

Vanity is at the bottom of almost all, may we 
not say of all, our sins 1 We think more of sig- 
nalizing than of saving ourselves. We overlook 
the hourly occasions which occur of serving, of 
obliging, of comforting those around us, while we 
sometimes not unwillingly perform an act of no» 
torious generosity. The habit, however, in the 
former case, better indicates the disposition and 
bent of the mind than the solitary act of splen- 
dor. The apostle does not say whatsoever ^reoi? 



SMALL FAULTS AND VIRTUES 189 

things ye do, but ^Svhatsoever things ye do, do 
all to the glory of God." Actions are less estima- 
ted by their bulk than their motive. Virtues are 
less measured by their splendor than their prin- 
ciple. The racer proceeds in his course more ef- 
fectually by a steady unslackened pace, than by 
starts of violent but unequal exertion. 

'f hat great abstract of moral law, of which we 
have elsewhere spoken, (chap. 9,) that rule of the 
highest court of appeal, set up in his own bo- 
som, to which every man can always resort; 
" All things that ye would that men should do 
unto you, do ye also unto them ;" this law, if faith- 
fully obeyed, operating as an infallible remedy for 
all the disorders of self-love, would, by throwing 
its partialities into the right scale, establish the 
exercise of all the smaller virtues. Its strict ob" 
servance would not only put a stop to all injustice, 
but to all unkindness , not only to oppressive acts, 
but to unfeeling language. Even haughty looks 
and supercilious gestures would be banished from 
the face of society, did we ask ourselves how we 
should like to receive, what we are not ashamed to 
give. Till we thus morally transmute place, per- 
son, and circumstance with those of our brother, 
we shall never treat him with the tenderness this 
gracious law enjoins. 

Small virtues and small offences are only so by 
eomparison. To treat a fellow-creature with harsh 



190 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

language is not, indeed, a crime like robbing him 
of his estate, or destroying his reputation ; they 
are, however, all the offspring of the same family 
They are the same in quality though not in de 
gree. All flow, though in streams of difTi^rent 
magnitude, from the same fountain ; all are indi- 
cations of a departure from that principle v^hich 
is included in the law of love. The consequen- 
ces they involve are not less certain, though they 
are less important. 

The reason why what are called religious peo- 
ple often differ so little from others in small trials 
is, that, instead of bringing religion to their aid 
in their inferior vexations, they either leave the 
disturbance to prey upon their minds, or apply to 
false reliefs for its removal. Those who are ren- 
dered unhappy by frivolous troubles, seek com- 
fort in frivolous enjoyments. But we should 
apply the same remedy to ordinary trials as to 
great ones, for as small disquietudes spring from 
the same cause as great trials, namely, the un- 
certain and imperfect condition of human life, so 
they require the same remedy. Meeting common 
cares with a right spirit would impart a smooth 
ness to the temper, a spirit of cheerfulness to the 
heart, which would mightily break the force oi 
heavier trials. 

You apply to the power of religion in great 
evils. Why does it not occur to you to apply to 



SMALL FAULTS AND VIRTUES. 191 

it in the less] Is it that you think the instru- 
ment greater than the occasion demands 1 It is 
not too great if the lesser one will not produce 
the effect, or if it produce it in the wrong way j 
for there is such a thing as putting an evil out 
of sight without curing it. You would apply to 
religion on the loss of your child, apply to it on 
the loss of your temper. Throw in this whole- 
some tree to sweeten the bitter waters. As no 
calamity is too great for the power of Christiani- 
ty to mitigate, so none is too small to experi- 
ence its beneficial results. Our behavior under 
the ordinary accidents of life forms a charac- 
teristic distinction between different classes of 
christians. The least advanced resort to religion 
on great occasions, the deeper proficient resorts 
to it on a]l. What makes it appear of so little 
comparative value is, that the medicine prepared 
by the great Physician is thrown by instead of 
being taken. The patient thinks not of it but in 
extreme cases. A remedy, however potent, not 
applied, can produce no effect. But he who has 
adopted one fixed principle for the government 
of his life, will try to keep it in perpetual exer- 
cise. An acquaintance with the nature of humap 
evils, and of their remedy, would check that spirit 
of complaint which so much abounds, and which 
often makes so little difference between people 
professing religion, and those who profess it not. 



192 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

If the duties in question are not great, they 
become important by the constant demand that 
is made for them. They have been called " the 
small coin of human life," and on their perpetual 
and unobstructed circulation depends much of 
the comfort as well as convenience of its transac- 
tions. They make up in frequency what they want 
in magnitude. How few of us are called to carry 
the doctrines of Christianity into distant lands ! but 
which of us is not called every day to adorn those 
doctrines by gentleness in our own carriage, by 
kindness and forbearance to all about us 1 

In performing the unostensible duties, there is 
no incentive from vanity. No love of fame in- 
spires that virtue of which fame will never hear 
There can be but one motive, and that the purest^ 
for the exercise of virtues the reportr of which 
will never reach beyond the little circle whose 
happiness they promote. They do not fill the 
world with our renown, but they fill our own 
family with comfort , and if they have the love 
of God for their principle, they will have his 
favor for their reward. 

In this enumeration of faults we include not 
sins of infirmity, inadvertency, and surprise, to 
which even the most sincere christians are but 
too liable. What are here adverted to are al- 
lowed, habitual, and unresisted faults ; habitual, 
because unresisted, and allowed, from the notion 



SMALL FAULTo AKD VIRTUES. 19^ 

that they are too inconsiderable to call for re- 
sistance. Faults into which we are betrayed 
through surprise and inadvertency, though that 
is no reason for committing them, may not be 
without their uses ; they renew the salutary con- 
viction of our sinful nature, make us little in our 
own eyes, increase our sense of dependence, pro- 
mote watchfulness, deepen humility, and quick- 
en repentance. 

We must, however, be careful not to entangle 
the conscience, or embarrass the spirits by 
groundless apprehensions. We have a merciful 
Father, not a hard master, to deal wuth. We 
must not harass our minds with a suspicious 
dread, as if by a needless rigor the Almighty w^ere 
laying snares to entrap us, nor be terrified with 
imaginary fears, as if he v/ere on the watch to 
punish every casual error. To be immutable and 
impeccable belongs not to humanitjr. He who 
made us best knows of w^hat we are made. Our 
compassionate High Priest will bear wdth much 
infirmity, will pardon much involuntary weakness. 

But knowing, as every man must know who 
looks into his own heart, the difficulties he 
has, from the intervention of his evil tempers, in 
serving God faithfully, and still, however earnest- 
ly desirous to serve him, is it not to be lamented 
that he is not more solicitous to remove his bin- 
derances, by trying to avoid those inferior sins, 

Pract Piety. 1^ 



194 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

and resisting those lesser temptations, and prac- 
tising those smaller virtues, the neglect of which 
obstructs his way, and keeps him back in the 
performance of higher duties'? Instead of little 
renunciations being grievous, and petty self-de- 
nials a hardship, they in reality soften grievances^ 
diminish hardships. They are the private drill 
which trains for public service. 

If, as we have repeatedly remarked, the prin- 
ciple is the test of the action, we are hourly fur- 
nished with occasions of showing our piety by 
the spirit in which the quiet unnoticed actions 
of life are performed. The sacrifices may be 
too little to be observed, except by him to whom 
they are offered. But small solicitudes, and de- 
monstrations of attachment scarcely perceptible 
to any eye but his for whom they are made, bear 
the true character of love to God, as they are 
the infallible marks of affection to our fellow- 
creatures. 

By enjoining small duties, the spirit of which 
is every where implied in the Gospel, God, as it 
were, seems contriving to render the great ones 
easy to us. He makes the light yoke of Christ 
still lighter, not by abridging duty, but by in- 
creasing its facility through its familiarity. These 
little habits at once indicate the sentiment of the 
soul and improve it. 

It is an awful consideration, and one which 



SELF-EXAMINATION. 195 

every christian should bring home to his own 
bosom, whether small faults, wilfully persisted 
in, may not in time not only dim the light of 
conscience, but extinguish the spirit of grace ; 
whether the power of resistance against great 
sins may not be finally withdrawn as a just pun- 
ishment for having neglected to ej^ert it against 
small ones. 

Let us endeavor to maintain in our minds the 
awful impression, that perhaps among the first 
objects which may meet our eyes when we open 
them on the eternal world, may be that tremen- 
dous book, in which, together with our great and 
actual sins, may be recorded, in no less promi- 
nent characters, the ample page of omissions, of 
neglected opportunities, and even of fruitless 
good intentions, of which indolence, indecision, 
thoughtlessness, vanity, trifling, and procrastina- 
tion, concurred to frustrate the execution. 



CHAPTER XII. 



SELF-EXAMINATION. 



In this age of general inquiry, every kind of 
ignorance is esteemed dishonorable. In almost 



196 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

every sort of knowledge there is a competition 
for superiority. Inteliectual attainments are ne- 
ver to be undervalued. Learning is the best hu- 
man thing. All knowledge is excellent as far as 
it goes, and as long as it lasts. But how short is 
the period before *^ tongues shall cease and know- 
ledge shall vanish away !" 

Shall we, then, esteem it dishonorable to be 
ignorant in any thing which relates to life and li- 
terature, to taste and science, and not feel ashamed 
to live in ignorance of our own hearts 1 

To have a flourishing estate, and a mind in dis 
order , to keep exact accounts with a steward, 
and no reckoning with our Maker ; to have an 
accurate knowledge of lo^ or gain in our busi- 
ness, and to remain utterly ignorant whether our 
spiritual concerns are improving or declining, to 
be cautious in ascertaining at the end of every 
year how much we have increased or diminished 
our fortune, and to be careless whether we have 
incurred profit or loss in faith and holiness, is ma- 
king a wretched estimate of the comparative value 
of things. To bestow our attention on objects in 
an inverse proportion to their importance, is sure- 
ly no proof that our learning has improved our 
judgment. 

That deep thinker and acute reasoner. Dr. Bar- 
row, has remarked, that ^^ it is a peculiar excellen 
cy of human nature, and which distinguishes man 



SELF-EXAMINATION. 197 

from the inferior creatures more than bare reason 
itself, that he can reflect upon all that is done 
within him, can discern the tendencies of his soul, 
and is acquainted with his own purposes." 

This distinguishing faculty of self-inspection 
would not have been conferred on man, if it had 
not been intended that it should be in habitual 
operation. It is surely, as we before observed, as 
much a common law of prudence to look well to 
our spiritual as to our worldly possessions. We 
have appetites to control, imaginations to re 
strain, tempers to regulate, passions to subdue; 
and how can this internal work be effected, how 
can our thoughts be kept within due bounds, how 
can a proper bias be given to the affections, how 
can ^^ the YiVAe state of man" be preserved from 
continual insurrection, how can this restraining 
power be maintained, if this capacity of discern- 
ing, if this faculty of inspecting, be not kept in 
regular exercise 1 Without constant discipline, 
imagination will become an outlaw, conscience 
an attainted rebel. 

This inward eye, this power of introversion, is 
given us for a continual watch upon the soul. On 
an unremitted vigilance over its interior motions, 
those fruitful seeds of action, those prolific prin- 
ciples of vice and virtue, will depend both the 
formation and the growth of our moral and re- 
ligious character A superficial glance is not 



198 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

enough for a thing so deep, an unsteady view wil. 
not suffice for a thing so wavering, nor a casual 
look for a thing so deceitful as the human heart. 
A partial inspection on any one side will not be 
enough for an object which must be observed 
under a variety of aspects, because it is al- 
ways shifting its position, always changing its 
appearances. 

We should examine not only our conduct but 
our opinions, not only our faults but our prejudi- 
ces, not only our propensities but our judgments. 
Our actions themselves will be obvious enough , 
it is our intentions which require the scrutiny. 
These we should follow up to their remotest 
spring, scrutinize to their deepest recesses, trace 
through their most perplexing windings. And 
lest we should in our pursuit wander in uncer- 
tainty and blindness, let* us m.ake use of that 
guiding clue which the Almighty has furnished 
by his word, and by his Spirit, for conduct- 
ing us through the intricacies of this labyrinth. 
^^ What I know not, teach thou me," should be 
our constant petition in all our researches. 

Did we turn our thoughts inward, it would 
abate much of the self-complacency with which 
we receive the flattery of others. Flattery hurts 
not him who flatters not himself. If we examined 
our motives keenly, we should frequently blush 
at the praises our actions receive. Let us, then, 



SELF-EXAMINATION. 199 

conscientiously inquire not only what we do, but 
whence and why we do it, from what motive and 
to what end. 

Self-inspection is the only means to preserve 
us from self-conceit. We could not surely so 
very extravagantly value a being whom we our- 
selves should not only see, but feel to be so full 
of faults. Self-acquaintance will give us a far 
more deep and intimate knowledge of our own 
errors than w^e can possibly have, with all the 
inquisitiveness of an idle curiosity, of the errors 
of others. We are eager enough to blame them 
without knowing their motives. We are no less 
eager to vindicate ourselves, though we cannot 
be entirely ignorant of our own. Thus two vir- 
tues will be acquired by the same act, humility 
and candor ,* an impartial review of our own in- 
firmities being the likeliest way to make us ten- 
der and compassionate to those of others. 

Nor shall we be so liable to over-rate our own 
judgment when we perceive that it often forms 
such false estimates, is so captivated with trifles, 
so elated with petty success, so dejected with 
little disappointments. When we hear others 
commend our charity, which we know is so cold ; 
when others extol our piety, which we feel to 
be so dead ; when they applaud the energies of 
our faith, which we must know to be so faint and 
feeble ; we cannot possibly be so intoxicated with 



200 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

the applauses which never would have been given, 
had the applauder known us as we know or ought 
to know ourselves. If we contradict him, it may 
be only to draw on ourselves the imputation of a 
fresh virtue, humility, which perhaps we as little 
deserve to have ascribed to us, as that which we 
have been renouncing. If we kept a sharp look- 
out, we should not be proud of praises which can- 
not apply to us, but should rather grieve at the 
involuntary fraud of imposing on others, by ta- 
citly accepting a character to which we have so 
little real pretension. To be delighted at finding 
that people think so much better of us than we 
are conscious of deserving, is in effect to rejoice 
in the success of our own deceit. 

We shall also become more patient, more for- 
bearing and forgiving, shall better endure the 
harsh judgment of others respecting us, when 
we perceive that their opinion of us nearly coin- 
cides with our own real though unacknowledged 
sentiments. There is much less injury incurred 
by others thinking too ill of us, than in our think- 
ing too well of ourselves. 

It is evident, then, that to live at random is 
not the life of a rational, much less of an im- 
mortal, least of all of an accountable, being. To 
pray occasionally without a deliberate course of 
prayer ; to be generous without proportioning 
our means to our expenditure ; to be liberal with- 



SELF-EXAMINATION. 201 

out a plan, and charitable without a principle ; to 
let the mind float on the current of public opin- 
ion, lie at the mercy of events, for the probable 
occurrence of which we have made no provi- 
sion ; to be every hour liable to death without 
any habitual preparation for it 5 to carry within ua 
a principle which we believe will exist through 
all the countless ages of eternity, and yet to 
make little inquiry whether that eternity is like- 
ly to be happy or miserable ; — all this is an in- 
considerateness which, if adopted in the ordi- 
nary concerns of life, would bid fair to ruin a 
man's reputation for conTimon sense 5 yet of this 
infatuation he who lives without self-examination 
is absolutely guilty. 

Nothing more plainly shows us what weak, va- 
cillating creatures we are, than the difficulty we 
find in fixing ourselves down to the very self-scru- 
tiny we had deliberately resolved on. Like the 
worthless Roman emperor, we retire to our closet 
under the appearance of serious occupation, but 
might now and then be surprised, if not in catch- 
ing flies, yet in pursuits nearly as contemptible. 
Some trifle, which w^e should be ashamed to 
dwell upon at any time, intrudes itself on the 
moments dedicated to serious thought ; recollec- 
tion is interrupted 5 the whole chain of reflection 
is broken, so that the scattered links cannot 
again be united. And so inconsistent are we, 



202 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

that we are sometimes not sorry to have a plaus* 
ible pretence for interrupting the very employ- 
ment in which we had just before made it a duty 
to engage. For want of this home-acquaintance, 
we remain in utter ignorance of our inability to 
meet even the ordinary trials of life with cheer- 
fulness ; indeed by this neglect we confirm that 
inability. 

Nursed in the lap of luxury, we have perhaps 
an indefinite notion that we have but a loose hold 
on the things of this world, and of the world it- 
self. But let some accident take away, not the 
world, but some trifle on which we thought we 
set no value while we possessed it, and we find 
to our astonishment that we hold, not the world 
only, but even this trivial possession, with a 
pretty tight grasp. Such detections of our *self- 
ignorance, if they do not serve to wean, ought 
at least to humble us. 

There is a spurious sort of self-examination 
which does not serve to enlighten but to blind. 
A person who has left off some notorious vice, 
who has softened some shades of a glaring sin, or 
substituted some outward forms in the place of 
open irreligion, looks on his change of character 
with pleasure. He compares himself with what 
he was, and views the alteration with self-com- 
placency. He deceives himself by taking his 
standard from his former conduct, or from tb« 



SELF-EXAMINATION. 203 

character of still worse men, instead of taking it 
from the unerring* rule of Scripture. He looks 
rather at the discredit than the sinfulness of his 
former life ; and being more ashamed of what is 
disreputable than grieved at what is vicious, he 
IS, in this state of shallow reformation, more 

a ' . . . . . 

in danger in proportion as he is more in credit. 
He is not aware that it is not having a fault or 
two less will carry him to heaven, while his 
heart is still glued to the world, and estranged 
from God. 

If we ever look into our hearts at all, we are 
naturally most inclined to it when we think we 
have been acting right. Here inspection grati- 
fies self-love. We have no great difficulty in di- 
recting our attention to an object, when that ob- 
ject presents us with pleasing images. But it is a 
painful effort to compel the mind to turn in on it- 
self, when the view only presents subjects for re- 
gret and remorse. This painful duty, however, 
must be performed, and will be more salutary in 
proportion as it is less pleasant. Let us establish 
it into a habit to ruminate on our faults. With 
the recollection of our virtues we need not feed 
our vanity. They will, if that vanity does not 
obliterate them, be recorded elsewhere. 
\ We are also most disposed to look at those 
parts of our character which will best bear it, 
and which, consequently, least need it ; at those 



204- PK/iCTICAL PIETY. 

parts which afford most self-gratulation. If a 
covetous man, for instance, examines himself, in- 
stead of turning his attention to the peccant part, 
he applies the probe where he knows it will not 
go very deep : he turns from his avarice to that 
sobriety of which his very avarice is perhaps the 
source. Another, who is the slave of passion 
fondly rests upon some act of generosity, which 
he considers as a fair commutation for some 
favorite vice, that would cost him more to re- 
nounce than he is willing to part with. We are 
all too much disposed to dwell on that smiling 
side of the prospect which pleases and deceives 
us, and to shut our eyes upon that part which 
we do not choose to see, because we are resolved 
not to quit. Self-love always holds a screen be- 
tween the superficial self-examiner and his faults. 
The nominal christian wraps himself up in forms 
which he makes himself believe are religion. He 
.exults in what he does, overlooks what he ought 
to do, nor ever suspects that what is done at all 
can be done amiss. 

As we are so indolent that we seldom examine 
a truth on more than one side, so we generally 
take care that it shall be that side which shall 
confirm some old prejudices. While we will not 
take pains to correct those prejudices, and to 
rectify our judgment, lest it should oblige us to 
discard a favorite opinion, we are yet as eager 



SELF-EXAMINATION. 205 

to judge, and as forward to decide, as if we 
were fully possessed of the grounds on which 
a sound judgment may be made and a just de- 
cision formed. 

We should watch ourselves whether w^e ob 
serve a simple rule of truth and justice, as well 
in our conversation as in our ordinary transac- 
tions 5 whether we are exact in our measures of 
commendation and censure , v/hether we do not 
bestow extravagant praise where simple approba- 
tion alone is due 5 whether we do not withhold 
commendation where, if given, it would support 
modesty and encourage merit ; whether what de- 
serves only a slight censure as imprudent, w^e do 
not reprobate as immoral, whether we do not 
sometimes affect to over-rate ordinary merit, in 
the hope of securing to ourselves the reputation 
of candor, that we may, on other occasions, 
with less suspicion, depreciate established excel- 
lence. We extol the first, because we fancy that 
it can come into no competition with us, and 
we derogate from the last, because it obviously 
eclipses us. 

Let us ask ourselves if we are conscientiously 
upright in our estimation of benefits ; whether, 
when we have a favor to ask, we do not depre- 
ciate its value ; whether, when we have one to 
grant, we do not magnify it 1 

It is only by scrutinizing the heart that we can 



206 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

know it. It is only by knowing the heart that we 
can reform the life. Any careless observer, in- 
deed, when his watch goes wrong, may see that 
it does so by casting an eye on the dial-plate ; but 
it is only the artist who takes it to pieces and ex- 
amines every spring and every wheel separately, 
who, by ascertaining the precise causes of the 
irregularity, can set the machine right, and re- 
store the obstructed movements. 

The illusions of intellectual vision would be 
materially corrected by a close habit of culti- 
vating an acquaintance with our hearts. We fill 
much too large a space in our own imaginations ; 
we fancy we take up more room in the world than 
Providence assigns to an individual who has to 
divide his allotment with so many millions, who 
are all of equal importance in their own eyes ; 
and who, like us, are elbowing others to make 
room for themselves. Just as in the natural world, 
where every particle of matter would stretch it- 
self and move out of its place if it were not kept 
in order by surrounding particles : the pressure 
of other parts reduces this to remain in a confine- 
ment from which it would escape if it were not 
thus pressed and acted upon on all sides. The 
conscientious practice we have been recommend- 
ing would greatly assist in reducing us to our pro- 
per dimensions, and in limiting us to our proper 
place. We should be astonished if we could see 



SELF-EXAMINATION. '^0*^ 

our real diminutiveness, and the speck we actual- 
ly occupy. When shall we learn from our own 
feelings of how much consequence every maa :'fi 
to himself! 

Nor must the examination be occasional but 
regular. Let us not run into long arrears, but set- 
tle our accounts frequently. Little articles will 
run up to a large amount, if they are not cleared 
off. Even our innocent days, as we may choose 
to call them, will not have passed without fur- 
nishing their contingent. Our deadness in devo- 
tion — our eagerness for human applause — our 
care to conceal our faults rather than to correct 
them — our negligent performance of some rela- 
tive duty — our imprudence in conversation, espe- 
cially at table — our inconsideration — our driving 
to the very edge of permitted indulgences ; let us 
keep these, let us keep all our numerous items in 
•small sums. Let us examine them while the par- 
ticulars are fresh in our memory, otherwise, how- 
ever we may flatter ourselves that lesser evil^ 
will be swallowed up by the greater, we may 
find, when we come to settle the grand account, 
that they will not be the less remembered for not 
having been recorded. 

And let it be one subject of our frequent inqui 
ry, whether, since we last scrutinized our hearts, 
our secular affairs or our eternal concerns have 
had the predominance there \ We do not meai? 



208 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

which of them has occupied most of our time, the 
larger portion of which must necessarily, to the 
generality, be absorbed in the cares of the pre- 
sent life 5 but on which our affections have been 
most bent ; and especially how we have conduct- 
ed ourselves when there has arisen a competition 
between the interests of both. 

That general burst of sins which so frequently 
rushes in on the consciences of the dying would 
be much moderated by previous habitual self-ex- 
amination. It will not do to repent in the lump. 
The sorrow must be as circumstantial as the sin. 
Indefinite repentance is no repentance. And it is 
one grand use of self-inquiry, to remind us that all 
unforsaken sins are unrepented sins. 

To a christian there is this substantial comfort 
attending a minute self-examination, that when he 
finds fewer sins to be noted, and more victories 
over temptation to have been obtained, he has a» 
solid evidence of his advancement which well re* 
pays his trouble. 

The faithful searcher into his own heart, that 
" chamber of imagery," feels himself in the situa- 
tion of the prophet, (Ezekiel,.) who being conduct- 
ed in vision from one idol to another, the Spirit, 
at sight of each, repeatedly exclaims, " Here is 
another abomination !" The prophet being com- 
manded to dig deeper, the further he penetrated 
the more evils he found, while the Spirit con- 



I 



SELF-EXAMINATION. 209 

tinued to cry out, ** I will show thee yet more 
abominations." 

Self-examination by detecting self-love, self* 
denial by weakening its powers, self-government 
by reducing its despotism, turns the temper of 
the soul from its natural bias, controls the disor- 
derly appetite, and, under the influence of Divine 
grace, in a good measure restores to the man that' 
dominion over himself which God at first gave 
him over the inferior creatures. Desires, pas- 
sions, and appetites are brought to move some- 
what more in their appointed oirder, subjects not 
tyrants. What the stoics vainly pretended to, 
Christianity effects. It restores man to a domin- 
ion over his own will, and in a good measure en- 
thrones him in that empire which he had forfeit- 
ed by sin. 

He now begins to survey his interior, the aw- 
ful world within : not indeed with self-compla- 
cency, but with the control of a sovereign; he 
still finds too much rebellion to indulge security, 
he therefore continues his inspection with vigi- 
lance, but without perturbation. He continues to 
experience a remainder of insubordination and 
disorder, but this rather solicits to a stricter go- 
vernment than drives him to relax his discipline. 

This self-inspection somewhat resembles the 
correction of a literary performance. After ma- 
ny and careful revisals, though some grosser 

Pract. Piety. 14 



210 PRACTICAL PIETY 

faults may be done away, though the errors are 
neither quite so numerous nor so glaring as at 
first, yet the critic perpetually perceives fauJts 
which he had not perceived before , negligences 
appear which he had overlooked, and even de- 
fects start up which had passed on him for beau 
ties. He finds much to amend, and even to ex 
punge, in what he had before admired. When 
by rigorous castigation the most acknowledged 
faults are corrected, his critical acumen, im- 
proved by exercise and a more habitual acquaint- 
ance with his subject, still detects and will for- 
ever detect new imperfections. But he neither 
throws aside his w^ork nor remits his criticism, 
which, if it do not make the work perfect, will at 
least make the author humble ; conscious that if 
it is not quite so bad as it was, it is still at an im 
measurable distance from the required excellence 
Is it not astonishing that we should go-on re 
peating periodically, '* Try me, God !" while 
we are yet neglecting to try ourselves 1 Is therf 
not something more like defiance than devotion 
to invite the inspection of Omniscience to that 
heirt which we ourselves neglect to inspect I 
How can a christian solemnly cry out to the Al- 
mighty, ^^ Seek the ground of my heart, prove 
me, and examine my thoughts, and see if there 
be any way of wickedness in me," while he him- 
self neglects to ^^ examine his heart," is afraid 



SELF-EXAMINATION. 2 1 1 

of " proving his thoughts," and dreads to inquire 
if "there be anyway of wickedness" in himself, 
knowing that the inquiry ought to lead to the 
expulsion 1 

In our self-inquisition let us fortify our virtue 
by a rigorous exactness in calling things by theii 
proper names. Self-love is particularly ingenious 
in inventing disguises of this kind. Let us lay 
them open, strip them bare, face them, and give 
them as little quarter as if they were the faults 
of another. Let us not call wounded pride deli- 
cacy. Self-love is made up of soft and sickly 
sensibilities. Not that sensibility which melts at 
the sorrows of others, but that which cannot en- 
dure the least suffering itself. It is alive in every 
pore where self is concerned. A touch is a 
wound. It is careless in inflicting pain, but ex- 
quisitely awake in feeling it. It defends itself 
before it is attacked, revenges affronts before 
they are offered, and resents as an insult the very 
suspicion of an imperfection. 

In order, then, to unmask our hearts, let us not 
be contented to examine our vices, let us ex- 
amine our virtues also, " those smaller faults." 
Let us scrutinize to the bottom those qualities i 
and actions which have more particularly ob-i 
tained public estimation. Let us inquire if they 
were genuine, in the principle, simple in the in- 
tention, honest in the prosecution. Let us ask 



212 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

ourselves whether in some admired instances ou? 
generosity had no tincture of vanity, our charity 
no taint of ostentation 1 Whether, when we did 
such a right action which brought us credit, we 
should have persisted in doing it had we foreseen 
that it would incur censure 1 Do we never de- 
ceive ourselves by mistaking a constitutional in- 
difference of temper for christian moderation 1 
Do we never construe our love of ease into dead- 
ness to the world 1 our animal activity into chris- 
tian zeal 1 Do we never mistake our obstinacy for 
firmness, our pride for fortitude, our selfishness 
for feeling, our love of controversy for the love 
of God, our indolence of temper for superiority 
to hiiman applause 1 When we have stripped our 
good qualities bare ; when we have made all due 
deductions for natural temper, easiness of dispo- 
sition, self-interest, desire of admiration, when 
we have pared away every extrinsic appendage, 
every illegitimate motive, let us fairly cast up the 
account, and we shall be mortified to see how 
little there will remain. Pride may impose itself 
upon us even in the shape of repentance. The 
humble christian is grieved at his faults, the 
proud man is angry at them. He is indignant 
whei he discovers he has done wrong, not so 
much because his sin offends God, as because it 
has let him see that he is not quite so good as he 
had tried to make himself believe. 



SELF-EXAMINATION. 213 

It is therefore more necessary that we should 
bf* excited to the humbling of our pride than to 
the performance of certain good actions ; the 
former is more difficult as it is less pleasant 
That very pride will of itself stimr.iate to the 
performance of many things that are laudable. 
These performances will reproduce pride as they 
were produced by it ; whereas humility has no 
outward stimulus. Divine grace alone produces 
it. It is so far from being actuated by the love 
of fame, that it is not humility till it has laid the 
desire of fame in the dusi. 

If an actual virtue consists, as we have fre- 
quently had occasion to observe, in the dominion 
over the contrary vice, humility is the conquest 
over pride, charity over selfishness ; not only a 
victory over the natural temper, but a substitu- 
tion of the opposite quality. This proves that all 
virtue is founded in self-denial, self-denial in self- 
knowledge, and self-knowledge in self-examina- 
tion. Pride so insinuates itself in all we do, and 
say, and think, that our apparent humility has not 
seldom its origin in pride. That very impatience 
which we feel at the perception of our faults is 
produced by the astonishment at finding that we 
are not perfect. This sense of our sins should 
make us humble, but not desperate. It should 
teach us to distrust every thing in ourselves, and 
to hope for every thing from God. The more we 



5U4j practical piety. 

lay open the wounds which sin has made, the 
more earnestly shall we seek the remedy which 
Christianity has provided. 

But instead of seeking for self-knowledge, we 
are glancing about us for grounds of self-exalta- 
tion. We almost resemble the Pharisee, who with 
so much self-complacency rehearsed the cata- 
logue of his own virtues and other men's sins, 
and, like the Tartars, who think they possess the 
qualities of those they murder, fancied that the 
sins of which he accused the publican would 
swell the amount of his own good deeds. Like 
him, we take a few items from memory, and a 
few more from imagination. Instead of pulling 
down the edifice which pride has raised, we are 
looking round on our good works for buttresses 
to prop it up. We excuse ourselves from the im- 
putation of many faults, by alleging that they are 
common, and by no means peculiar to ourselves. 
This is one of the weakest of our deceits. Faults 
are not less personally ours because others com- 
mit them. Is it any diminution of our error that 
others are guilty of the same "l 

Self-love, being a very industrious principle, 
has generally two concerns in hand at the same 
time. It is as busy in concealing our own defects 
as in detecting those of others, especially those 
of the wise and good. We might, indeed, direci 
its activity in the latter instance to our own ad 



SELF-EXAMINATION. 215 

vantage 5 for if the faults of good men are injuri- 
ous to themselves, they might be rendered profit- 
able to us, if we were careful to convert them to 
their true use. But instead of turning them into 
a means of promoting our own watchfulness, we 
employ them mischievously in two ways. We 
lessen our respect for pious characters when we 
see the infirmities which are blended with their 
fine qualities, and we turn their failings into a 
justification of our own, which are not like theirs, 
overshadowed with virtues. To admire the ex- 
cellence of others without imitating them is fruit- 
less admiration, to condemn their errors without 
avoiding them is unprofitable censoriousness. 

When we are compelled by our conscience to 
acknowledge and regret any fault we have re- 
cently committed, this fault so presses upon our 
recollection, that we seem to forget that we have 
any other. This single error fills our mind, and 
we look at it as through a telescope, which, while 
it clearly shows the object, confines the sight to 
that one object exclusively. Others, indeed, are 
more effectually shut out, than if we were not exa- 
mining this. Thus, while the object in question is 
magnified, the others are as if they did not exist 

It seems to be established into a kind of sys- 
.em, not to profit by any thing without us, and 
lot to cultivate an acquaintance with any thing 
Arithin us. Though we are perpetually remarking 



216 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

on the defects of others, yet when does the re* 
mark lead us to study and to root out the same 
defects in our own hearts 1 We are almost every 
day hearing of the death of others, but does it 
induce us to reflect on death as a thing in which 
we have an individual concern % We consider the 
death of a friend as a loss, but seldom apply it 
as a warning. The death of others we lament, 
the faults of others we censure, but how seldom 
do we make use of the one for our own amend- 
ment, or of the other for our own preparation !* 

It is the fashion of the times to try experiments 
in the arts, in agriculture, in philosophy. In 
every science the diligent professor is always 
afraid there may be some secret which he has 
not yet attained, some occult principle which 
would reward the labor of discovery, something 
even which the assiduous and intelligent have ac- 
tually found out, but which has hitherto eluded his 
pursuit. And shall the christian stop short in his 
scrutiny, shall he not examine and inquire till he 
lays hold on the very heart and core of religion 1 

Why should experimental philosophy be the 
prevailing study, and experimental religion be 
branded as the badge of enthusiasm, the cant of 
a hollow profession 1 Shall we never labor to es- 

* For this hint, ai^d a few others on the same subject, the 
author is indebted to that excellent christian moralist, M. 
Nicole. 



SELF-EXAMINATIOW. 217 

tablish the distinction between appearance and 
reality, between studying religion critically and 
embracing it practically 5 between having our 
conduct creditable and our heart sanctified ] 
Shall we not aspire to do the best things from 
the highest motives, and elevate our aims with 
our attainments 1 Why should we remain in the 
vestibule when the sanctuary is openl Why 
should we be contented to dwell in the outer 
courts when we are invited to enter into the 
holiest by the blood of Jesus 1 

Natural reason is not likely to furnish argu- 
ments sufficiently cogent, nor motives sufficiently 
powerful, to drive us to a close self-inspection. 
Our corruptions foster this ignorance. To this 
they owe their undisputed possession of our 
hearts. No principle short of Christianity is strong 
enough to impel us to a study so disagreeable as 
that of our faults. Of Christianity, humility is the 
prime grace, and this grace can never take root 
and flourish in a heart that lives in ignorance of 
itself. If we do not know the greatness and ex- 
tent of our sins, if we do not know the imperfec- 
tion of our virtues, the fallibility of our best re- 
solutions, the infirmity of our purest purposes^ 
we cannot be humble ; if we are not humble, we 
cannot be christians. 

But it may be asked, Is there to be no end to 
this vigilance 1 Is there no assigned oeriod when 



218 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

this self-denial may become unnecessary 1 No gi- 
ven point when we may be emancipated from this 
vexatious self-inspection 1 Is the matured christian 
to be a slave to the same drudgery as the novice 1 
The true answer is : we may cease to watch 
when our spiritual enemy cease's to assail. We 
may be off our guard when there is no longer any 
temptation without. We may cease our self-de- 
nial when there is no more corruption within. 
We may give the reins to our imagination when 
we are sure its tendencies will be towards heaven. 
We may dismiss repentance when sin is abolish- 
ed. We may indulge selfishness when we can do 
it without danger to our souls. We may neglect 
prayer when we no longer need the favor of God. 
We may cease to praise him when he ceases to 
be gracious to us. To discontinue our vigilance 
at any period short of this, will be to defeat all 
the virtues we have practised on earth, to put to 
hazard all our hopes of happiness in heaven. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



SELF-LOVE. 



'The idol Self," says an excellent old divine, 
(Howe,) ^' has made more desolation among men 



SELF-LOVE. 219 

than ever was made in those places where idols 
were served by human sacrifices. It has preyed 
more fiercely on human lives than Moloch or 
the Minotaur." 

To worship images is a more obvious, but it is 
scarcely a more degrading idolatry, than to set 
up self in opposition to God. To devote our- 
selves to this service is as perfect slavery as the 
service of God is perfect freedom. If we cannot 
imitate the sacrifice of Christ in his death, we are 
called upon to imitate the sacrifice of himself in 
his will. Even the Son of God declared, ^^ I came 
not to do my own will, but the will of Him w^ho 
sent me." This was his grand lesson, this was 
his distinguishing character. 

Self-will is the ever-flowing fountain of all the 
evil tempers which deform our hearts, of all the 
boiling passions which inflame and disorder so- 
ciety, the root of bitterness on which all its cor- 
rupt fruits grow. We set up our own understand- 
ing against the wisdom of God, and our own 
passions against the will of God. If we could 
ascertain the precise period when sensuality 
ceased to govern in the animal part of our nature, 
and pride in the intellectual, that period would 
form the most memorable era of the christian's 
life : from that moment he begins a new date of 
liberty and happiness ; from that stage he sets 
out on Si new career of peace, liberty, and virtue. 



220 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

Self-love is a Proteus of all shapes, shades, and 
complexions. It has the power of dilation and 
contraction, as best serves the occasion. There 
is no crevice so small through which its subtle 
essence cannot work its way, no space so ample 
that it cannot stretch itself to fill. It is of all 
degrees of refinement, so coarse and hungry as 
to gorge itself with the grossest adulation , so 
fastidious as to require a homage as refined as 
itself J so artful as to elude the detection of ordi- 
nary observers ; so specious as to escape the 
observation of the very heart in which it reigns 
paramount , yet though so extravagant in its 
appetites, it can adopt a moderation which im- 
poses, a delicacy which veils its deformity, an 
artificial character which keeps its real one out 
of sight. 

We are apt to speak of self-love as if it were 
only a symptom, whereas it is the distemper it- 
self, a malignant distemper which has possession 
of the moral constitution, of which malady every 
part of the system participates. In direct oppo- 
sition to the effect produced by the touch of the 
fabled king, which converted the basest materials 
into gold, this corrupting principle pollutes, by 
coming in contact with it, whatever is in itself 
great and noble. 

Self-love is the centre of the unrenewed heart 



SELF-LOVE. 21tl 

This stirring principle, as has been observed, 
serves indeed 

" The virtuous mind to wake ;" 

but it disturbs it from its slumber to ends and 
purposes directly opposite to those assigned to 
it by our incomparable bard.* Self-love is by no 
means '^ the small pebble, which stirs the peace- 
ful lake." It is rather the pent-up wind within, 
which causes the earthquake i it is the tempest, 
which agitates the sleeping ocean. Had the 
image been as just as its clothing is beautiful; 
or rather had Mr. Pope been us sound a theolo- 
gian as he was an exquisite poet, the allusion in 
his hands might have conveyed a sounder mean- 
ing without losing a particle of its elegance. 
This might have been effected by only substitu- 
ting the effect for the cause 5 that is, by making 
benevolence the principle instead of the conse- 
quence, and by discarding self-love from its cen- 
tral situation in the construction of the metaphor. 

But, by arraying a beggarly idea in princely 
robes, he knew that his own splendid powers 
could at any time transform meanness into ma- 
jesty, and deformity into beauty. 

After all, however, le vrai est le seul beau, (the 
true is the only beautiful.) Had he not blindly 
adopted the misleading system of the noble seep- 

♦ Essay on Man, 1. 362. 



222 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

tic, " his guide, philosopher and friend," he might 
have transferred the shininor attributes of the base- 
born thing, which he has dressed out with so ma- 
ny graces, to the legitimate claimant. Benevo- 
lence ; of which self-love is so far from being, as 
he represents, the moving spring, that they are 
both working in a course of incessant counterac 
tion, the Spirit striving against the flesh, and the 
flesh against the Spirit. 

To christian benevolence all the happy effects 
attributed to self-love might have been fairly 
traced. It was only to dislodge the idol and make 
the love of God the centre, and the poet's de- 
lightful numbers might have conveyed truths 
worthy of so perfect a vehicle. '' This centre 
moved" does indeed extend its pervading influ- 
ence in the very manner ascribed to the opposite 
principle ; does indeed spread from its throne in 
the individual breast to all these successive cir- 
cles, '^ wide and more wide," of which the poet 
makes self-love the first mover.* 

* '^ Self-love thus pushed to social, to divine, 
" Gives thee to make thy neighbor's blessing thine 
" Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, 
" As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake ; 
" The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds, 
" Another still, and still another spreads; 
" Friend, parent, neighbor, first it will embrace, 
" His country next, and next all human race." 



SELF-LOVE. 223 

The apostle James appears to have been of a 
different opinion from the ethic bard 5 he speaks 
as if he suspected that the pebble stirred the lake 
a little too roughly. He traces this mischievous! 
principle from its birth to the largest extent of itt 
malign influence. The question, *^ Whence come 
wars and fightings among you V he answers b]f 
another question, ^^ Come they not hence, even 
of your lusts that war in your members 1" 

The sanre pervading spirit which creates hos- 
tility between nations, creates animosity among 
neighbors, and discord in families. It is the same 
principle which, having in the beginning made 
'' Cain, the first male child," a murderer in his 
father's house, has been ever since in perpetual 
^operation 5 has been transmitted in one unbroken 
line of succession through that long chain of 
crimes of which history is composed, to the late 
triumphant spoiler of Europe. In cultivated so- 
cieties, laws repress, by punishing the overt act 
in private individuals, but no one thing but the 
christian religion has ever been devised to cleanse 
the spring. 

^^ The heart is deceitful above all things, and 

The author hopes to be forgiven for these remarks ; she 
has hazarded them for the sake of her more youthful read- 
ers. She has not forgotten the time when, in the admiration 
of youthful enthusiasm, she never suspected that the princi- 
ple of these finished verses was less excellent than the poetry. 



224 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

desperately wicked ; who can know it 1" This 
proposition, this interrogation, we read with com- 
placency, and both the aphorism and the question 
being a portion of Scripture, we think it would 
not be decent to controvert it. We read it, how- 
ever, with a secret reservation, that it is only the 
, heart of all the rest of the world that is meant, 
and we rarely make the application which the 
Scripture intended. Each hopes that there is one 
heart which may escape the charge, and he makes 
the single exception in favor of his own. But if 
the exception which every one makes were true, 
there would not be a deceitful or wicked heart in 
the world. 

As a theory we are ready enough to admire 
self-knowledge, yet when the practice comes in 
question we are as blindfold as if our happiness 
depended on our ignorance. To lay hold on a 
religious truth, and to maintain our hold, is no 
easy matter. Our understandings are not more 
ready to receive than our affections to lose it. 
We like to have an intellectual knowledge of di- 
vine things, but to cultivate a spiritual acquaint- 
ance with them cannot be effected at so cheap a 
rate. We can even more readily force ourselves 
to believe that which has no affinity with our 
understanding, than we can bring ourselves to 
choose that which has no interest in our will, no 
correspondence with our passions. 



SELF-LOVE. 225 

One of the first duties of a christian is to ea- 
deavor to conquer this antipathy to the self-deny- 
ing doctrines against which the human heart so 
sturdily holds out. The learned take incredible 
pains for the acquisition of knowledge. The phi- 
losopher cheerfully consumes the midnight oil 
in his laborious pursuits ; he willingly sacrifices 
food and rest to conquer a difficulty in science. 
Here the labor is pleasant, the fatigue is grateful, 
the very difficulty is not without its charms. Why 
do we feel so difi^erently in our religious pur- 
suits '? Because in the most operose human stu- 
dies there is no contradiction to self, there is no 
opposition to the will, there is no combat of the 
affections. If the passions are at all implicated, 
if self-love is at all concerned, it is rather in the 
way of gratification than of opposition. 

There is such a thing as a mechanical chrts- 
-.ianity. There are good imitations of religion, so 
well executed and so resembling as not only to 
leceive the spectator but the artist. Self-love, in 
ts various artifices to deceive us to our ruin, 
sometimes makes use of a means which, if pro- 
perly used, is one of the most beneficial that can 
be de^vised to preserve us from its influence — the 
perusal of pious books. 

But these very books in the hands of the igno 
rant, the indolent, and the self-satisfied, produce 
an effect directly contrary to that which thev 

Pract. Piety 15 



226 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

were intended to produce, and which they actual 
]y do produce on minds prepared for the perusal. 
They inflate where they were intended to hum- 
ble. As some hypochondriacs, who amuse their 
melancholy hours with consulting indiscriminate- 
ly every medical book which falls in their way, 
fancy they find their own case in every page 
their own ailment in the ailment of every patient, 
till they believe they actually feel every pain of 
which they read, though the work treats of cases 
diametrically opposite to their own. So the reli- 
gious valetudinarian, as unreasonably elated as 
the others are depressed, reads books descriptive 
of a highly religious state with the same unhappy 
self-application. He feels his spiritual pulse by a 
watch that has no movements in common with it, 
yet he fancies that they go exactly alike. He 
dwells with delight on symptoms, not one of 
which belongs to him, yet flatters himself with 
their supposed agreement. He observes in these 
books what are the signs of grace, and he ob- 
serves them w4th complete self-application ^ he 
traces what are the evidences of being in God's 
favor, and these evidences he finds in hhnself. 

Self-ignorance appropriates truths faithfully 
stated, but wholly inapplicable. The presumption 
of the novice arrogates to itself the experience 
of the advanced christian. He is persuaded that 
it is his own case, and seizes on the consola- 



SELF-LOVE. 221 

tions which belong only to the most elevated 
piety. Self-knowledge would correct this false 
judgment. It would teach us to use the pattern 
held out as an original to copy, instead of lead- 
ing us to fancy that we are already wrought into 
the assimilation. It would teach us when we 
read the history of an established christian, to 
labor after a conformity to it, instead of mistak- 
ing it for the delineation of our actual charac- 
ter. Human prudence, daily experience, self- 
love, all teach us to distrust others, but all mo- 
tives combined do not teach us to distrust our- 
selves 5 we confide unreservedly in our own 
heart, though as a guide it misleads, as a coun- 
sellor it betrays. It is both party and judge. As 
the one, it blinds through ignorance ; as the other, 
it acquits through partiality. 

Though we value ourselves upon our discre- 
tion in not confiding too implicitly in others, 
yet it would be difBcult to find any friend, any 
neighbor, or even any enemy, who has deceived 
us so often as we have deceived ourselves. If 
an acquaintance betray us, we take warnings 
are on the watch, and are careful not to trust 
him again. But however frequently the bosom- 
traitor deceive and mislead, no such determined 
stand is made against his treachery : we lie as 
open to his next assault as if he had never be- 
trayed us. We do not profit by the remembrance 



228 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

of the past delusion to guard against the future 
Yet if another deceive us, it is only in mat- 
ters respecting this world, but we deceive our- 
selves in things of eternal moment. The treache- 
ry of others can only affect our fortune or our 
fame, or at worst our peace , but the internal 
traitor may mislead us to our everlasting de- 
struction. We are too much disposed to suspect 
others who probably have neither the inclination 
nor the power to injure us, but we seldom sus- 
pect our own heart, though it possesses and em- 
ploys both. 

We ought, however, fairly to distinguish be- 
tween the simple vanity and the hypocrisy of 
self-love. Those who content themselves with 
talking as if the praise of virtue implied the 
practice, and who expect to be thought good be- 
cause they commend goodness, only propagate 
the deceit which has misled themselves, where- 
as hj^pocrisy does not even believe herself. She 
has deeper motives, she has designs to answer, 
competitions to promote, projects to effect. But 
mere vanity can subsist on the thin air of the ad- 
miration she solicits, without intending to get 
any thing by it. She is gratuitous in her loqua 
city ; for she is ready to display her own merit 
to those who have nothing to give in return, 
whose applause brings no profit, and whose cen 
sure no disgrace. 



SELF-LOVE. 229 

It is not strange that we should judge of 
things not according to truth, but according to 
the opinion of others, in cases foreign to our- 
selves, cases on which we have no correct means 
of determining ; but we do it in things which re- 
late immediately to ourselves, thus making not 
truth but the opinion of others our standard in 
points which others cannot know, and of whiph 
we ought not to be ignorant. 

We are as fond of the applauses even of the upper 
gallery as the dramatic poet. Like him, we affect 
to despise the mob considered as individual judges, 
yet, as a mass, we covet their applause. Like him, 
we feel strengthened by the number of voices in 
our favor, and are less anxious about the good- 
ness of the work than the loudness of the accla- 
mation. Success is merit in the eye of both. 

But even though w^e may put more refinement 
into our self-love, it is self-love still. No subtilty 
of reasoning, no elegance of taste, though it may 
disguise the radical principle, can destroy it. 
We are still too much in love with flattery, even 
though we may profess to despise that praise 
which depends on the acclamations of the vulgar. 
But if we are anxious only for the admiration of 
the better born and the better bred, this by no 
means proves that we are not vain, it only proves 
that our vanity has a better taste. Our appetite 
is not coarse enough, perhaps, to relish that popu- 



230 PRACTICAL PIETY 

larity which ordinary ambition covets ; but do we 
never feed in secret on the applauses of more dis- 
tinguishing judges 1 Is not their having extolled 
our merit a confirmation of their discernment, 
and the chief ground of our high opinion o^ theirs 1 

But if any circumstance arise to induce them to 
change the too favorable opinion which they had 
formed of us, though their general character re- 
main unimpeachable, and their general conduct 
as meritorious as when we most admired them, 
do we not begin to judge them unfavorably 1 Do 
we not begin to question their claim to that dis- 
cernment which we had ascribed to them ; to 
suspect the soundness of their judgment which 
we had so loudly commended 1 It is well if we 
do not entertain some doubt of the rectitude of 
their principles, as we probably do of the reality 
of their friendship. We do not candidly allow for 
the effect which prejudice, which misrepresen- 
tation, which party may produce, even on an up- 
right mind. Still less does it enter into our cal- 
culation that we may actually have deserved their 
disapprobation, that something in our conduct 
may have incurred the change in theirs. 

It is no low attainment to detect this lurking 
injustice in our hearts, to strive against it, to pray 
against it, and, especially, to conquer it. We may 
reckon that we have acquired a sound principle 
of integrity when prejudice no longer blinds our 



SELF-LOVE. 231 

judgment, nor resentment biasses our justice ; 
when we do not make our opinion of another de- 
pend on the opinion which we conceive he enter- 
tains- of us. We must keep a just measure, and 
hold an even balance in judging of ourselves as 
well as of others. We must have no false esti- 
mate which shall incline to condemnation with- 
out, or to partiality within. The examining prin- 
ciple must be kept sound, or our determination 
will not be exact. It must be at once a testimo- 
ny of our rectitude, and an incentive to it. 

In order to improve this principle, we should 
make it a test of our sincerity to search out and 
to commend the good qualities of those who do 
not like us. But this must be done without 
affectation and without insincerity. We must 
practise no false candor. If we are not on our 
guard, we may be laying out for the praise of 
generosity, while we are only exercising a simple 
act of justice. These refinements of self-love 
are the dangers only of spirits of the higher 
order, but to such they are dangers. 

The ingenuity of self-deceit is inexhaustible, 
if people extol us, we feel our good opinion of 
ourselves confirmed. If they dislike us, we do 
not think the worse of ourselves but of them ; h 
is not we who want merit, but they who want 
penetration. If we cannot refuse them discern- 
ment, we persuade ourselves that they are not so 



232 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

much insensible to our worth as envious of it. 
There is no shift, stratagem, or device which 
we do not employ to make us stand well with 
ourselves. 

We are too apt to calculate our own character 
unfairly in two ways, by referring to some one 
signal act of generosity, as if such acts were 
the common habit of our lives, and by treating 
our habitual faults not as common habits but oc- 
casional failures. There is scarcely any fault 
in another which offends us more than vanity, 
though perhaps there is none that really injures 
us so little. We have no patience that another 
should be as full of self-love as we allow our- 
selves to be ; so full of himself as to have little 
leisure to attend to us. We are particularly 
quick-sighted to the smallest of his imperfections 
which interferes with our self-esteem, while we 
are lenient to his more grave offences, which, by 
not coming in contact with our vanity, do not 
shock our self-love. 

Is it not strange that though we love ourselves 
so much better than we love any other person, 
yet there is hardly one, however little we value 
him, that we had not rather be alone with, that 
we had not rather converse with, that we had not 
rather come to close quarters with, than our- 
selves 5 scarcely anyv one whose private history, 
whose thoughts, feelings, actions, and motives 



SELF-LOVE. 233 

we had not rather pry into than our ownl Do 
we not use every art and contrivance to avoid 
getting at the truth of our own character 1 Do 
we not endeavor to keep ourselves ignorant of 
what every one else knows respecting our faults 5 
and do we not account that man our enemy who 
takes on himself the best office of a friend, that 
of opening to us our real state and condition 1 

The little satisfaction people find when they 
faithfully look within, makes them fly more 
eagerly to things without. Early practice and 
long habit might conquer the repugnance to look 
at home, and the fondness for looking abroad. 
Familiarity often makes us pleased with the so- 
ciety which, while strangers, we dreaded. In- 
timacy with ourselves might produce a similar 
effect. 

We might perhaps collect a tolerably just 
knowledge of our own character, could we aS' 
certain the real opinion of others respecting us; 
but that opinion being, except in a moment of 
resentment, carefully kept from us by our own 
precautions, profits us nothing. We do not 
choose to know their secret sentiments, because 
we do not choose to be cured of our error ; be- 
cause we ^* love darkness rather than light 3" be- 
cause we conceive that in parting with our vanity 
we should part with the only comfort we have, 
that of beino- ig^norant of our own faults. 



234 PRACTICAL PIETY 

Self-knowledge would materially contribute to 
our happiness, by curing us of that self-sufficien^ 
cy which is continually exposing us to mortifica- 
tions. The hourly rubs and vexations which pride 
undergoes are far more than an equivalent for th« 
short intoxications of pleasure which it snatches. 

The enemy within is always in a confederacy 
with the enemy without, whether that enemy be 
the world or the devil. The domestic foe accom- 
modates itself to their allurements, flatters our 
weaknesses, throws a veil over our vices, tar- 
nishes our good deeds, gilds our bad ones, hood- 
winks our judgment, and works hard to conceal 
our internal springs of action. 

Self-love has the talent of imitating whatever 
the world admires, even though it should happen 
to be the christian virtues. It leads us, from our 
regard to reputation, to avoid all vices, not only 
which would bring punishment, but discredit by 
the commission. It can even assume the zeal and 
copy the activity of christian charity. It com- 
municates to our outward conduct the same pro- 
prieties and graces manifested in the conduct of 
those who are actuated by a sounder motive. The 
difference lies in the ends proposed. The object 
of the one is to please God, of the other to obtain 
the praise of man. 

Self-love, judging of the feelings of others by 
its own, is aware that nothing excites so much 



SELF-LOVE. 235 

odium as its own character would do, if nakedly 
exhibited. 

We feel, by our own disgust at its exhibition in 
others, how much disgust we ourselves should ex- 
cite, did we not invest it with the soft garb of gen- 
tle manners and a polished address. When, there- 
fore, we would not condescend " to take the low 
est place, to think others better than ourselves, to 
be courteous and pitiful," on the true scripture 
ground, politeness steps in as the accredited sub- 
stitute of humility, and the counterfeit brilliant is 
willingly worn by those who will not be at the 
expense of the jewel. 

There is a certain elegance of mind w^hich will 
i)ften restrain a well-bred man from sordid plea- 
«5ures and gross voluptuousness. He will be led 
by his good taste, perhaps, not only to abhor the 
excesses of vice, but to admire the theory of vir- 
tue. But it is only the surfeit of vice which he 
will abhor. Exquisite gratification, sober luxury, 
incessant but not unmeasured enjoyment, form 
the principle of his plan of life , and if he observe 
a temperance in his pleasures, it is only because 
excess would take off the edge, destroy the zest, 
and abridge the gratification. By resisting gross 
vice he flatters himself that he is a temperate 
man, and that he has made all the sacrifices which 
self-denial imposes. Inwardly satisfied, he com- 
pares himself with those who have sunk into 



236 PRACTICAL PIETY, 

coarser indulgences, enjoys his own superio- 
rity in health, credit, and unimpaired faculties, 
and triumphs in the dignity of his own character. 

There is, if the expression may be allowed, a 
sort of religious self-deceit, an affectation of hu* 
mility which is in reality full of self, which is en- 
tirely occupied with self, which resolves all im 
portance into what concerns self, which only looks 
at things as they refer to self. This religious vani- 
ty operates in two ways. We not only fly out at 
the imputation of the smallest individual fault, 
while at the same time we affect to charo^e our- 
selves in general with more corruption than is at- 
tributed to us ; but, on the other hand, while We 
are lamenting our general want of all goodness, 
we fight for every particle that is disputed. The 
one quality that is in question always happens to 
be the very one to which we musilay claim, how- 
ever deficient in others. Thus, while renouncing 
the pretension to every virtue, *^ we depreciate 
ourselves into all." We had rather talk even of 
our faults than not occupy the fore-ground of 
the canvas. 

Humility does not consist in telling our faults, 
but in bearing to be told of them, in hearing 
them patiently and even thankfully 5 in correct- 
ing ourselves when told, in not hating those who 
tell us of them. If we were little in our own 
eyes, and felt our real insignificance, we should 



SELF- LOVE. 237 

avoid false humility as much as more obvious 
vanity ; but we seldom dwell on our faults ex- 
cept in an indefinite way, and rarely on those of 
which we are really guilty. We do it then in 
the hope of being contradicted, and thus of be- 
ing confirmed in the secret good opinion we en- 
tertain of ourselves. It is not enough that we 
inveigh against ourselves, we must in a manner 
forget ourselves. This oblivion of self from a 
pure principle would go farther towards our ad- 
vancement in christian virtue than the most splen- 
did actions performed on the opposite ground. 

That self-knowledge which teaches us humili- 
ty, teaches us compassion also. The sick pity 
the sick. They sympathise with the disorder of 
which they feel the symptoms in themselves. 
Self-knowledge also checks injustice, by estab- 
lishing the equitable principle of showing the 
kindness w^e expect to receive ; it represses am- 
bition, by convincing us how little we are entitled 
to superiority ; it renders adversity profitable, by 
letting us see how much w^e deserve it , it makes 
prosperity safe, by directing our hearts to Him 
who confers it, instead of receiving it as the 
consequence of our own desert. 

We even carry our self-importance to the foot 
of the throne of God. When prostrate there, we 
are not required, it is true, to forget ourselves, 
but we are required to remember Him. We 



238 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

have indeed much sin to lament, but we have 
also much mercy to adore. We have much to 
ask, but we have likewise much to acknowledge ; 
yet our infinite obligations to God do not fill our 
hearts half as much as a petty uneasiness of our 
own f nor iiis infinite perfections as much as our 
smallest want. 

The great, the only efl^ectual antidote to self- 
love, is to get the love of God and of our neigh* 
bor firmly rooted in the heart. Yet let ns ever 
bear in mind that dependence on our fellow-crea- 
tures is as carefully to be avoided as love of them 
is to be cultivated. There is none but God on 
whom the principles of love and dependence 
form but one duty. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

ON THE CONDUCT OF CHRISTIANS IN THEIR INTER- 
COURSE WITH THE IRRELIGIOUS. 

The combination of integrity with discretion 
is the precise point at which a serious christian 
must aim in his intercourse, and especially in his 



INTERCOURSE WITH THE IRRELIGIOUS. 239 

debates on religion, with men of the opposite 
description. He must consider himself as not 
only having his own reputation, but the honor of 
religion in his keeping. While he must, on the 
one hand, " set his face as a flint " against any 
thing that may be construed into compromise or 
evasion, into denying or concealing any christian 
truth, or shrinking from any commanded duty in 
order to conciliate favor, he must, on the other 
hand, be scrupulously careful never to maintain 
a christian doctrine with an unchristian temper. 
In endeavoring to convince, he must be cautious 
not needlessly to irritate. He must distinguish 
between the honor of God and the pride of his 
own character, and never be pertinaciously sup- 
porting the one, under the pretence that he is 
only maintaining the otlier. The dislike thus ex- 
cited against the disputant is at once transferred 
to the principle, and the adversary's unfavorable 
opinion of religion is augmented by the faults of 
its champion. At the same time, the intemperate 
champion puts it out of his power to be of any 
future service to the man whom his offensive 
manners have disgusted. 

A serious christian, it is true, feels an honest 
indignation at hearing those truths on which his 
everlasting hopes depend lightly treated. He 
cannot but feel his heart rise at the affront of 
fered to his Maker. But instead of calling down 



240 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

fire from heaven on the reviler's head, he will 
raise a secret supplication to the God of heaven 
in his favor, vt^hich, if it change not the heart of 
his opponent, will not only tranquillize his own. 
but soften it towards his adversary ; for we can- 
not easily hate the man for whom we pray. 

He who advocates the sacred cause of Chris- 
tianity should be particularly aware of fancying 
that his being religious will atone for his being 
disagreeable , that his orthodoxy will justify his 
uncharitableness, or his zeal make up for his in- 
discretion. He must not persuade himself that 
he has been serving God when he has only been 
gratifying his own resentment — when he has 
actually, by a fiery defence, prejudiced the cause 
which he might, perhaps, have advanced by tem- 
perate argument and persuasive mildness. Even 
a judicious silence under great provocation isj 
in a warm temper, real forbearance. And though 
" to keep silence from good words " may be pain 
and grief, yet the pain and grief must be borne, 
and the silence must be observed. 

We sometimes see imprudent religionists glory 
in the attacks which their own indiscretion has 
invited. With more vanity than truth they apply 
the strong and ill-chosen term of persecution to 
the sneers and ridicule which some impropriety 
of manner, or some inadvertency of their own 
has occasioned. Now and then, it is to be feared, 



INTERCOURSE WITH THE IRRELIGIOUS. 241 

;he censure may be deserved, and the high pro- 
fessor niay possibly be but an indifferent moralist. 
Even a good man, a point we are not sufficiently 
ready to concede, may have been blamable in 
some instance, on which his censurers will na- 
turally have kept a keen eye. On these occa- 
sions how forcibly does the pointed caution re- 
cur, which was implied by the Divine Moralist 
on the mount, and enforced by the apostle Peter, 
to distinguish for whose sake we are calumniated ! 

By the way, this sharp look out of worldly 
men on the professors of religion is not without 
very important uses. While it serves to promote 
circumspection in the real christian, the detec- 
tion to which it leads, in the case of the hollow 
professor, forms a broad and useful lii.e of dis- 
tinction between two classes of characters so 
essentially distinct, and yet so frequently, so un- 
justly, and so malevolently confounded. 

The world believes, or at least affects to be- 
lieve, that the correct and elegant-minded reli- 
gious man is blind to those errors and infirmi- 
ties, that eccentricity and bad taste, that propen- 
sity to diverge from the straight line of prudence, 
which are discernible in some pious but ill-judg*- 
ing men, and which delight and gratify the ene- 
mies of true piety,. as furnishing them with so 
plausible a ground for censure. But if the more 
iudicious and better informed christian bears 

Pract. Piety. 1 6 



242 PRACTICAL PIETiT. 

with these infirmities, it is not that he does not 
clearly perceive and entirely condemn them ; but 
he bears with what he disapproves, for the sake 
of the zeal, the sincerity, the general usefulness 
of these defective characters. These good qua 
lities are totally overlooked by the censurer, who 
is ever on the watch to aggravate the failings 
which christian charity laments without extenu- 
ating. It bears with them from the belief that 
impropriety is less mischievous than careless- 
ness^ a bad judgment than a bad heart, and 
some little excesses of zeal than gross immorali- 
ty, or total indifference. 

We are not ignorant how much truth itself 
offends, though unassociated with any thing that 
is displeasing. This furnishes an important rule 
not to add to the unavoidable offence, by mixing 
the faults of our own character with the cause 
we support ; because we may be certain that the 
enemy will take care never to separate them. 
He will always voluntarily maintain the perni- 
cious association in his own mind. He will never 
think or speak of religion without connecting 
with it the real or imputed bad qualities of all 
the religious men he knows or has heard of. 

Let not the friends of christian truth unneces- 
sarily increase the number of her enemies. Let 
her not have at once to sustain the assaults to 
which her divine character inevitably subjects 



INTERCOURSE WITH THE IRRELIGIOUS. 243 

her. and the obloquy to which the infirmities and 
foibles of her injudicious, and, if there are any 
such, her unworthy champions expose her. 

But we sometimes justify our rash violence 
under color that our correct piety cannot en- 
dure the faults of others. The Pharisees, over- 
flowing with wickedness themselves, made the 
exactness of their own virtue a pretence for 
looking with horror on the publicans, whom 
our Saviour regarded with compassionate ten- 
derness, while he reprobated with keen severity 
the sins, and especially the censoriousness, of 
their accusers. 

But we put it out of our power to become the 
instruments of God in promoting the spiritual 
good of any one, if we stop up the avenue to his 
heart by violence or imprudence. We not only 
put it out of our power to do good to all whom 
we disgust, but are we not liable to some respon- 
sibility for the failure of all the good we might 
have done them, had we not forfeited our influ- 
ence by our indiscretion 1 What we do not do 
to others in relieving their spiritual as well as 
bodily wants, Christ will punish as not having 
been done to himself. This is one of the cases 
in which our own reputation is so inseparably 
connected with that of religion, that we should 
be tender of one for the sake of the other. 

The modes of doing good in society are va- 



244 PRACTICAL. PIETY. 

rious. We should sharpen our discernment to dis- 
cover them, and our zeal to put them in practice. 
If we cannot open a man's eyes to the truth of 
religion by our arguments, we may perhaps open 
them to its beauty by our moderation. Though 
he may dislike Christianity in itself, he may 
from admiring the forbearance of the christian, 
be at least led to admire the principle from 
which it flowed. If he have hitherto refused to 
listen to the written evidences of religion, the 
temper of her advocate may be a new evidence 
of so engaging a kind, that his heart may be 
opened by the sweetness of the one to the veri- 
ties of the other. He will at least be brought to 
allow that that religion cannot be very bad, the 
fruits of which are so amiable. The conduct of 
the disciple may in time bring him to the feet of 
the master. A new combination may be formed 
in his mind. He may begin to see what he had 
supposed antipathies reconciled ; he may learn 
to unite two things which he thought as impossi- 
ble to be brought together as the two poles ; he 
may begin to couple candor with chnstianity. 

But if the mild advocate fail to convince, he 
may persuade ; even if he fail to persuade, he 
will at least leave on the mind of the adversary 
such favorable impressions as may induce him 
to inquire further. He may be able to employ 
on some future occasions, to more effectual pur 



INTERCOURSE WITH THE IRRELIGIOUS. 24-9 

pose, the credit which his forbearance will have 
obtained for hina, whereas uncharitable vehe- 
mence will probably have for ever shut the ears 
and closed the heart of his opponent against any- 
future intercourse. 

But even if the tennperate pleader should not 
be so happy as to produce any considerable ef- 
fect on the mind of his antagonist, he is in any 
case promoting the interests of his own soul 5 he 
is, at least, imitating the faith and patience of 
the saints : he is cultivating that ^' meek and 
quiet spirit," of which his blessed Master gave 
at once the rule, the injunction, and the praise. 

If '* aU bitterness, and clamor, and malice, 
and evil speaking " are expressly forbidden in 
ordinary cases, surely the prohibition must more 
peculiarly apply to the case of religious contro- 
versialists. Suppose Voltaire and Hume had been 
left, to take their measure of our religion (as 
one would really suppose they had) from the de- 
fences of Christianity by their very able contem- 
porary. Bishop Warburton. When they saw this 
Goliath in talents and learning wielding his mas- 
sive club, dealing about his ponderous blows, 
attacking, with the same powerful weapons, not 
the enemies only, but the friends of Christianity, 
^vho happened to see some points in a different 
light from himself; not meeting them as his op- 
ponents, bat pouncing on them as his prey ; not 



246 TRACTICAL PIETY. 

seeking to defend himself, but tearing them to 
pieces ; waging offensive war, delighting in un- 
provoked hostility ; — when they saw him thus 
advocate the christian cause with a spirit dia- 
metrically opposite to Christianity, would they 
not exultingly exclaim, in direct opposition to 
the exclamation of the apostolic age, *' See how 
these christians hate one another 1" Whereas, 
had his vast powers of mind and astonishing 
compass of knowledge been sanctified by the 
angelic meekness of Archbishop Leighton, they 
would have been compelled to acknowledge, if 
Christianity be false, it is after all so amiable 
that it deserves to be true. Might they. not have 
applied to these two prelates what was said of 
Bossuet and Fenelon, ^^ Vun prouve la religion^ 
Vautre la fait aimer V^ (The one proves religion, 
the other commends it to our love.) 

If we studiously contrived how to furnish the 
most complete triumph to infidels, contentious 
theology would be our best contrivance. They 
enjoy the wounds the combatants inflict on each 
other, not so much from the personal injury 
which either might sustain, as from the convic- 
tion that every attack, however it may termi- 
nate, weakens the common cause. In all engage- 
ments with a foreign foe, they know that Chris- 
tianity must come off triumphantly. All their 
hopes are founded on a civil war. 



INTERCOURSE WITH THE IRRELIGIOtlS. 247 

If a forbearing temper should be maintained 
towards the irreligious, how much more by the 
professors of religion towards each other ! As it 
is a lamentable instance of human infirmity that 
there is often much hostility carried on by good 
men who profess the same faith , so it js a strik- 
ing proof of the litigious nature of man that this 
spirit is less excited by broad distinctions (such 
as conscience ought not to reconcile) than by 
shades of opinion, shades so few and slight, that 
the world would not know they existed at all, if, 
by their animosities, the disputants were not so 
impatient to inform it. 

While we should never withhold a clear and 
honest avowal of the great principles of our reli- 
gion, let us then discreetly avoid dwelling on 
inconsiderable distinctions, on which, as they do 
not affect the essentials either of faith or prac- 
tice, we may allow another to maintain his opin- 
ion, while we steadily hold fast our own. But in 
religious as in military warfare, it almost seems 
as if the hostility were great in proportion to the 
littleness of the point contested. We all remem- 
ber when two great nations were on the point of 
being involved in war for a spot of ground,*' \n 
another hemisphere, so little known that the very 
name had scarcely reached us ; so inconsidera- 
ble that its possession would have added nothing 
* Nootka Sound. 



*Z4f8 ^ PRACTICAL PIETY 

to the strength of either. In civil, too, as well 
as in national and theological disputes, there is 
often most stress laid on the most indifferent 
things. Why should the Spanish government 
some years ago so little consult the prejudices 
of the people as nearly to produce an insurrec- 
tion by issuing an edict for them to relinquish 
the ancient national dress 1 Why were the se- 
curity of the state and the lives of the subjects 
put to hazard for a cloak and a jerkin 1 Why, 
again, would the obstinate people make as firm 
a stand against this trifling requisition as they 
could have made for the preservation of their 
civil or religious liberty, if they had ever been so 
happy as to possess either 1 — a stand as firm as 
they are now nobly making in defence of tl]^ir 
country and their independence! 

Without invidiously enumereiting any of the 
narrowing names which split Christianity in 
pieces, and which so unhappily drive the subjects 
of the Prince of Peace into interminable war, 
and range them into so many hostile bands, not 
against the common enemy, but against each 
ojfier J we cannot forbear regretting that less 
temper is preserved amongst these near neigh- 
bors, in local situation and in christian truth, than 
if the attack of either were levelled at Jews, 
Turks, or Infidels. 

Is this that catholic spirit which embraces with 



INTERCOURSE WITH THE IRRELIGIOUS. 249 

the love of charity, though not of approbation, 
the whole offspring of our conamon Father ; 
which in the extended arms of its large affection, 
without vindicating their faults or adopting their 
opinions, *^ takes every creature of every kind," 
and which, like its gracious Author, ^^ would not 
that they should perish." 

The preference of renaote to approxiniating 
opinions is, however, by no means confined to the 
religious world. The author of the ^^ Decline and 
Fall of the Eoman Empire," though so passionate 
an admirer of the prophet of Arabia as to raise a 
suspicion of his own Islamism 5 though sc) raptu- 
rous a eulogist of the apostate Julian as to raise 
a suspicion of his own polytheism , yet, with an 
inconsistency not uncommon to unbelief, treats 
the stout orthodoxy of the vehement Athanasius 
with more respect than he shows to the ^^ scanty 
creed" of a contemporary philosopher and theo- 
logian, whose cold and comfortless doctrines 
were much less removed from his own. 

Might not the twelve monsters, which even the 
incredible strength and labor of Hercules found so 
hard to subdue, be interpreted as an ingenious al- 
legory, by which were meant twelve popular pre- 
judices! But though the hero went forth armed 
preternaturally, the goddess of wisdom herself 
furnishing him with his helmet, and the god of elo- 
quence with his arrows, yet it is not certain that 



250 PRACTICAL PIETY 

he conquered the religious prejudices, not of the 
world, but even of Argos and Mycengg ; at least 
they were not among-his earlier conquests; they 
were not serpents which an infant hand could 
strangle. They were more probably the fruitful 
hydra, which lost nothing by losing a head, a 
new head always starting up to supply the inces- 
sant decapitation. But though he slew the ani- 
mal at last, might not its envenomed gore, in 
which his arrows were dipped, be the perennial 
fountain in which persecuting bigotry, harsh 
intolerance, and polemical acrimony have con- 
tinued to dip their pens'? 

It is a delicate point to hit upon, neither to vin- 
dicate the truth in so coarse a manner as to ex- 
cite a prejudice against it, nor to make any con- 
cessions in the hope of obtaining popularity. ^^ If 
it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peace- 
ably with all men," can no more mean that we 
should exercise that false candor which concili- 
ates at the expense of sincerity, than that we 
should defend truth with so intolerant a spirit as 
to injure the cause by discrediting the advocate 

As the apostle beautifully obtests his brethren, 
not by the power and dignity, ^^ but by the meek- 
ness and gentleness of Christ," so every christian 
should adorn his doctrine by the same endearing 
qualities, evincing by the brightness of the polish 
the solidity of the substance. But he will care- 



INTERCOURSE WITH THE IRRELIGIOUS. 251 

fully avoid adopting the external appearance of 
these amiable tenapers as substitutes for piety, 
when they are only its ornaments. Condescend- 
ing manners may be one of the numberless mo- 
difications of selfishness, and reputation is thus 
often obtained where it is not fairly earned 
Carefully to examine whether he please others 
for their good to edification, or in order to gain 
praise and popularity, is the bounden duty of a 
christian. 

We should not be angry with the blind for not 
seeing, nor with the proud for not acknowledg- 
ing their blindness. We ourselves, perhaps, were 
once as blind , happy if we are not still as proud. 
If not in this instance, in others, perhaps, they 
might have made more of our advantages than 
we have done ; we, under their circumstances, 
might have been more perversely wrong than 
they are, had we not been treated by the enlight- 
ened with more patient tenderness than we are 
disposed to exercise towards them. Tyre and 
Sidon, we are assured by truth itself, would have 
repented had they enjoyed the privileges which 
Chorazin and Bethsaida threw away. Surely we 
may do that for the love of God, and for the love 
of our opponent's soul, which well-bred men do 
through a regard to politeness. Why should a 
christian be more ready to offend against the rule 
of charity than a gentleman against tbe law oi 



252 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

decorum 1 Candor in judging is like disinterested 
ness in acting ; both are statutes of the royal law. 

There is also a kind of right which men feel 
they possess to their own opinion. With this 
right it is often more difficult to part than even 
with the opinion itself. If our object be the real 
good of our opponent ; if it be to promote the 
cause of truth, and not to contest for victory, we 
shall remember this. We shall consider what a 
value we put upon our own opinion : why should 
his, though a false one, be less dear to him, if he 
believes it true 1 This consideration will teach 
us not to expect too much at first. It will teach 
us the prudence of seeking some general ground 
on which we cannot fail to agree. This will let 
him see that we do not differ from him for the 
sake of differing ; which conciliating spirit of 
ours may bring him to a temper to listen to ar- 
guments on topics where our disagreement is 
wider. 

In disputing, for instance, with those who 
wholly reject the divine authority of the Scrip- 
tures, we can gain nothing by quotmg them, and 
insisting vehemently on the proof which is to be 
drawn from them in support of the point in de- 
bate, their unquestionable truth availing nothing 
with those who do not allow it. But if we t&ke 
some common ground on which both the parties 
can stand, and reason from the analogies of nati»- 



INTERCOURSE WITH THE IRRELIGIOUS. 253 

ral religion, and the Wcty in which God proceeds 
in the known and acknowledged course ol' his 
providence, to the way in which he deals with 
us, and has declared he will deal with us, as the 
God revealed in the Bible, our opponent may be 
struck with the similarity, and be put upon a 
track of consideration, and be brought to a tem- 
per in considering, which may terminate in the 
happiest manner. He may be brought at length 
to be less averse from listening to us on those 
grounds and principles, of which, probably, he 
might otherwise never have seen the value. 

Where a disputant of another description can- 
not endure what he sneeringly calls the strictness 
of evangelical religion, he will have no objection 
to acknowledge the momentous truths of man's 
responsibility to his Maker, of the omniscience, 
omnipresence, majesty, and purity of God. Strive, 
then, to meet him on these grounds, and respect- 
fully inquire if he can sincerely affirm that he is 
acting up even to the truths he acknowledges 1 
If he is living in all respects as an accountable 
being ought to live 1 If he is really conscious of 
acting as a being ought to act w^ho knows that 
he is continually acting under the eye of a just 
and holy God 1 You will find he cannot stand on 
these grounds. Either he must be contented to 
receive the truth as revealed in the Gospel, or be 
convicted of inconsistency, or self-deceit, or hy- 



2b4f PRACTICAL PIETY. 

pocrisy. Tou will at least drive him off his own 
ground, which he will find untenable, if you can- 
not bring him over to yours. But while the ene- 
my is effecting his retreat, do not you cut off the 
means of his return. 

Some christians approve Christianity as it is 
knowledge, rather than as it is principle. They 
like it, as it yields a grand object of pursuit, 
as it enlarges their view of things, as it opens 
to them a wider field of inquiry, a fresh source 
of discovery, an additional topic of critical in- 
vestigation. They consider it rather as extend- 
ing the limits of their research, than as a means 
of ennobling their affections. It furnishes their 
understanding with a fund of riches on which 
they are eager to draw, not so much for the im- 
provement of the heart as of the intellect. They 
consider it as a thesis, on which to raise inter- 
esting discussion, rather than as premises from 
which to draw practical conclusions; as an incon- 
trovertible truth, rather than as a rule of life. 

There is something in the exhibition of sacred 
subjects given us by these persons, which, ac- 
cording to our conception, is not only mistaken, 
but pernicious. We refer to their treatment of ^ 
religion as a mere science, divested of its practi' 
cal application, and taken rather as a code of phi- 
losophical speculations than of active principles. 
To explain our meaning, we might perhaps ven- 



INTERCOURSE WITH THE IRRELIGIOUS. 255 

ture to except against the choice of topics almost 
exclusively made by these writers. 

After^ they have spent half a life upon the Evi- 
dences, the mere vestibule, so necessary, we il- 
low, to be passed into the temple of Christianity, 
we accompany them into their edifice, and find it 
composed of materials but too coincident with 
their former taste. Questions of criticism, of 
grammar, of history, of metaphysics, of mathe- 
matics, and of all the sciences, meet us, in the 
very place of that which Saint Paul tells us '^ is 
the end of all," — that is, " charity out of a pure 
heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith un- 
feigned 5 from which," he adds, " some having 
swerved, have turned aside to vain jangling." 

We are very far from applying the latter term 
to all scientific discussions in religion, of which 
we should be the very last to deny the use, or 
question the necessity. Our main objectioiv lies 
to the preponderance given to such topics by our 
controversialists in their divinity, and to the spirit 
too often manifested in their discussions. A pre- 
ponderance it is which makes us sometimes fear 
tjiey consider these things rather as religion it- 
self, than as helps to understand it, as the substi- 
tutes, not the allies of devotion. At the same 
time, a cold and philosophical spirit, often studi- 
ously maintained, seems to confirm the suspicion, 
that religion with them is not accidentally, but 



25rt PRACTICAL PIETY. 

essentially and solely an exercise of the wits, and 
a field for the display of intellectual prowess — ^as 
if the salvation of souls was a thing by-the-by. 

These prize-fighters in theology remind us of 
the philosophers of other schools ; we feel as if 
we were reading Newton against Des Cartes, or 
the theory of caloric in opposition to phlogiston. 
" Nous le regardons," says the eloquent Saurin 
upon some religious subject, ^^ pour la plupart, de 
la meme maniere dont on envisage les idees d'un 
ancien philosophe sur le gouvernement."^ The 
particular part of religion, in short, is forgotten, 
is lost in its theories ,* and what is worst of all, a 
temper hostile to the spirit of Christianity is em- 
ployed to defend or illustrate its position. 

This latter effect might be traced beyond the 
foregoing causes, to another nearly allied to them 
— ^the habit of treating religion as a science capa- 
ble of demonstration. On a subject evidently ad- 
mitting but of moral evidence, we lament to see 
questions dogmatically proved instead of being 
temperately argued. Nay, we could almost smile 
at the sight of some intricate and barren novelty 
in religion demonstrated to the satisfaction of 
some one ingenious theorist, who draws upon 
himself instantly a hundred confutations of every 
position he maintains. The ulterior stages of the 

♦ A doctrine of religion is regarded in much the same 
light as the theories of ancient philosophy on government. 



INTERCOURSE WITH THE IRRELIGIOUS. 257 

debate are often such as might *' make angels 
weep." And when we remember that even in the 
most important questions, involving eternal inte- 
rest, *' probability is the very guide of life,"* we 
could most devoutly wish, that on subjects, to 
say the least, not *' generally necessary to salva- 
tion," infallibility were not the claim of the dis- 
putant, or personal animosity the condition of his 
failure. 

Such speculatists, who are more anxious to 
make proselytes to an opinion than converts to a 
principle, will not be so likely to convince an op- 
ponent as the christian who is known to act up 
to his convictions, and whose genuine piety will 
put life and heart into his reasonings. The op- 
ponent probably knows already all the ingenious 
arguments which books supply. Ingenuity, there 
fore, if he be a candid man, will not be so likely 
to touch him as that " godly sincerity " which he 
cannot but perceive the heart of his antagonist is 
dictating to his lips. There is a simple energy in 
pure christian truth which a factitious principle 
imitates in vain. The " knowledge which puffeth 
up " will make few practical converts, unaccom- 
panied with the "charity which edifieth." 

To remove prejudices, then, is the bounden 

i duty of a christian ; but he must take care not to 

remove them by conceding what integrity for* 

♦ Butler's Introduction to *' The Analogy," 

Pract. Pi©t7 IJ 



258 PRACTICAL PIETT. 

bids him to concede. He must not wound his 
conscience to save his credit. If an ill-bred 
roughness disgusts another, a dishonest com- 
plaisance undoes himself. He must remove all 
obstructions to the reception of truth, but the 
truth itself he must not adulterate. In clear- 
ing away the impediment he must secure the 
principle. 

If his own reputation be attacked, he must de- 
fend it by every lawful means , nor will he sacri- 
fice the valuable possession to any demand but 
that of conscience, to any call but the imperative 
call of duty. If his good name be put in compe- 
tition with any other earthly good, he will pre- 
serve it, however dear may be the good he re- 
linquishes ; but if the competition lie between 
his reputation and his conscience, he has no hesi- 
tation in making the sacrifice, costly as it is. A 
feeling man struggles for his fame as for his 
life ; but if he be a christian, -he parts with it, 
for he knows that it is not the life of his soul. 

For the same reason that we must not be over- 
anxious to vindicate our fame, we must be care- 
ful to preserve it from any unjust imputation. 
The great apostle of the Gentiles has set us 
an admirable example in both respects, and we 
should never consider him in one point of view 
without recollecting his conduct in the other. 
So profound is his humility, that he declares 



INTERCOURbi:. WITH THE IRRELIGIOUS. 259 

himself " less than the least of all saints." Not 
content with this comparative depreciation, he 
proclaims his actual corruptions. ^^ In me, that 
is, in my flesh, there is no good thing." Yet 
this deep self-abasement did not prevent him 
from asserting his own calumniated worth, from 
declaring that he was not behind the ** very chief- 
est of the apostles:" — again — " As the truth of 
Christ is in me, no man shall stop me of this 
boasting," &c. He then enumerates with a manly 
dignity, tempered with a noble modesty, a mul- 
titude of instances of his unparalleled sufferings 
and his unrivalled zeal. 

Where only his own personal feelings were in 
question, how self-abasing ! how self-annihila- 
ting ! But where the unjust imputation involved 
the honor of Christ and the credit of religion, 
'* what carefulness it wrought in him, yea, what 
clearing of himself; yea, what indignation ; yea, 
what vehement desire ; yea, what zeal !" 

While we rejoice in the promises annexed to 
the beatitudes, we should be cautious of apply- 
ing to ourselves promises which do not belong to 
us, particularly that which is attached to the last 
beatitude. When our fame is attacked, let us 
carefully inquire whether we are ^' suffering for 
righteousness' sake," or for our own faults ; let 
us examine whether we may not deserve the 
censures we have incurred 1 Even if we are suf- 



2t)0 PRACTICAL PIETY. # 

fering in the cause of God, may we not have 
brought discredit on that holy cause by our im- 
prudence, our obstinacy, our vanity 5 by our zeal 
without knowledge, and our earnestness without 
temper 1 Let us inquire whether our revilers have 
not some foundation for the charge 1 Whether 
we have not sought our own glory more than 
that of God 1 Whether we a/e not more disap- 
pointed at missing that revenue of praise which 
we thought our good works were entitled to 
bring us in, than at the wound religion may 
have sustained 1 Whether, though our views 
were right on the whole, their purity was not 
much alloyed by human mixtures 1 Whether, 
neglecting to count the cost, we did not expect 
unmixed approbation, uninterrupted success, and 
a full tide of prosperity and applause, totally for- 
getting the reproaches received, and the obloquy 
sustained by ^^ the Man of sorrows!" 

If we can, on an impartial review, acquit our 
selves as to the general purity of our motives, 
the general integrity of our conduct, the unfeign 
ed sincerity of our endeavors, then we may, in- 
deed, though with deep humility, take to our- 
selves the comfort of this divine beatitude. 
When we really find that men only speak evil of 
us for His sake in whose cause we have labored, 
however that labor may have been mingled with 
imperfection, we may indeed ^^ rejoice and be 



^INTRODUCING RELIGION, &c. 251 

exceeding glad." Submission may be elevated 
into gratitude, and forgiveness into love. 



CHAPTER XV. 



ON THE PROPRIETY OF INTRODUCING RELIGION IN 
GENERAL CONVERSATION. 

May we be allowed to introduce bere an opin- 
ion warmly maintained in the world, and which, 
indeed, strikes at the root of all rules for the 
management of religious debate recommended in 
the preceding chapter 1 It is, that the subject of 
religion ought on no occasion to be introduced in 
mixed company, that the diversity of sentiment 
upon it is so great, and so nearly connected with 
the tenderest feelings of our minds, as to be liable 
to lead to heat and contention ; finally, that it is too 
grave and solemn a topic to be mixed in the mis- 
cellaneous circle of social discourse, much less 
in the festive effusions of convivial cheerfulness. 

Now, in answer to these allegations, we must 
at least insist, that should religion, on other 
grounds, be found entitled to social discussion, 



262 PHACTICAL PIETY. 

the last observation, if true, would prove conviv- 
ial cheerfulness to be incompatible with the spi- 
rit and practice of religion, rather than religion 
inadmissible into cbeerful parties. And it is cer- 
tainly a retort difficult of evasion, that where to 
introduce religion herself is to endanger her 
honor, there she rather suffers in reputation by 
the presence of her friend. The man endeared by 
conviction to his religion will never bear to be 
long, much less to be statedly, separated from 
the object of his affections ; and he whose zeal 
once determined him ^^ to know nothing'^'' amongst 
his associates ^^ but Jesus Christ, and him cruci- 
fied," never could have dreamt of a latitude of 
interpretation which would admit a christian into 
scenes where every thing but Jesus Christ and 
him crucified might be recognised with credit. 

These principles appear so plain and incon- 
trovertible, that the question seems rather to 
call for a different statement ] viz. why religion 
should not be deemed admissible into every so- 
cial meeting and friendly circle in which a chris- 
tian himself would choose to be found 1 That it 
IS too weighty and important a subject for dis- 
cussion, is an argument which, standing alone, 
assumes the gross absurdity that either men ne- 
ver talk of that which most nearly interests them, 
or that when they do, they talk improperly 
Thpy will not, it is true, introduce a private con 



INTRODUCING RELIGION, &c. 263 

cern, however important, in which no one is in- 
tejested but themselves. But in the subject of 
religion who is not interested! Or where will 
topics be found more universal in their applica- 
tion to all times, persons, places, and circumstan- 
ces, as well as more important, than those which 
relate to the eternal welfare of mankind 1 

Nor will it be avowed with great color of rea- 
•son, that topics so important suffer in point of 
gravity, or in the respect of mankind, by frequent 
discussion. We never observed men grow indif- 
ferent to their health, their affairs, their friends, 
their country, in proportion as these were made 
the subjects of their familiar discourse. ^ On the 
contrary, oblivion has been noticed as the off- 
spring of silence. The man who never mentions 
his friend is, we think, in general most likely to 
forget him. And far from deeming the name of 
One, greater than any earthly friend, ^' taken in 
vain," when mentioned discreetly in conversation, 
we generally find him most remembered and re- 
spected in secret by those whose memories are 
occasionally refreshed by a reference to his word 
and authority in public. '^Familiarity," indeed, 
we have been told, '^ produces contempt;" a tru- 
ism on which, we are convinced, many persons 
honestly, though blindly, rest their habitual and 
even systematic reserve on religious subjects. 
But ** familiarity " in our mind, has reference 



264» PRACTICAL PIETY. 

rather to the manner than to the act of intro- 
ducing religion. To us it is synonymous with a 
certain trite and trivia* repetition of serious re- 
marks, evidently ** to no profit," which we some- 
times hear from persons familiarized, rather by 
education than feeling, to the language of piety. 

More particularly we refer it to a still more 
criminal habit, which, to their disgrace, some 
professors of religion share with the profane, of 
raising a laugh by the introduction of a religious 
observation or even a scriptural quotation. " To 
court a grin when we should woo a soul " is sure- 
ly an abuse of religion, as well in the parlor as 
the pulpit. Nor has the senate itself been always 
exempt from this impropriety. Dr. Johnson has 
long since pronounced a jest drawn from the Bi- 
ble the vulgarest, because the easiest of all jests. 
— And far from perverting religious topics to 
such a purpose himself, a feeling christian would 
not often be found where such would be the pro- 
bable consequence of offering a pious sentiment 
in company. 

That allusions involving religious questions are 
often productive of dispute and altercation, is a 
fact which, though greatly exaggerated, must yet 
in a degree be admitted. This circumstance may, 
m some measure, account for the singular recep- 
tion which a religious remark is often observed 
to meet with in the world. It is curious to notice 



INTRODUCING RELIGION, dkc. 265 

the surprise and alarm which, on such occasions, 
will frequently pervade the party present. The 
remark is received as a stranger-guest, of which 
no one knows the quality or intentions ; and, like 
a species of intellectual foundling, it is cast upon 
the company without a friend to foster its infan- 
cy, or to own any acquaintance with the parent. 
A fear of consequences prevails. It is obvious 
that the feeling is — ^^ We know not into what it 
may grow ; it is, therefore, safer to stifle it in the 
birth." This, if not the avowed, is the implied 
sentiment. 

But is not this delicacy, this mauvaise honte^ 
(false shame,) so peculiar perhaps to our country- 
men on religious subjects, the very cause which 
operates so unfavorably upon that effect which it 
labors to obviate % Is not the very infrequency of 
moral or religious observations a sufficient ac- 
count to be given both of the perplexity and the 
irritation said to be consequent upon their intro- 
duction 1 And w^ere not religion (we mean such 
religious topics as may legitimately arise in mixed 
society) banished as much as it is from conversa- 
tion, might not its occasional recurrence become 
by degrees as natural, perhaps as interesting, cer- 
tainly as instructive, and, after all, as safe, as ^^ a 
close committee on the weather," or any other of 
the authorized topics which are about as produc- 
tive of amusement as of instruction 1 People act as 



266 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

if religion were to be regarded at a distance, as if 
even a respectful ignorance were to be preferred 
to a more familiar approach. This reserve, how- 
ever, does not give an air of respect so much as 
of mystery to religion. An able writer* has ob- 
served, ^' that was esteemed the most sacred part 
of Pagan devotion which was the most impure, 
and the only thing that was commendable in it 
is, that it was kept a great mystery." He ap- 
proves of nothing in this religion but the modes- 
ty of withdrawing itself from the eyes of the 
world. But Christianity requires not to be shroud- 
ed in any such mysterious recesses. She does not, 
like the eastern monarchs, owe her dignity to 
her concealment ; she is, on the contrary, most 
honored where most known, and most revered 
where most clearly visible. 

It will be obvious that hints rather than argu- 
ments belong to our present undertaking. In this 
view we may perhaps be excused if we offer a 
few general observations upon the different occa- 
sions on which a well-regulated mind would be 
solicitous to introduce religion into social dis- 
course. The person possessed of such a mind 
would be mainly anxious, in a society of chris- 
tians, that something should appear indicative of 
their profession. He would accordingly feel a 

* Bishop Sherlock. 



INTRODUCING RELIGION, &c. 267 

strong desire to effect it, when he plainly per- 
ceived his company engaged on no other topic, 
either innocently entertaining or rationally in- 
structive. This desire, however, would by no 
means clotid his brow, give an air of impatience 
to his countenance, or render him inattentive to 
the general tone and temper of the circle. On 
the contrary, he would endeavor to feel addition- 
al interest in his neighbor's suggestions, in pro- 
portion as he hoped in turn to attract notice to 
his own. He would show long forbearance to the 
utmost extent of conscientious toleration. In the 
prosecution of his favorite design he would ne- 
ver attempt a forced or unseasonable allusion to 
serious subjects ; a caution requiring the nicest 
judgment and discrimination, most particularly 
where he felt the sentiments or the zeal of his 
company to be not congenial with his own. His 
would be the spirit of the prudent mariner, who 
does not approach even his native shore without 
carefully watching the winds, and sounding the 
channels, knowing well that a temporary delay, 
even on an unfriendly element, is preferable to a 
hasty landing his company, on shore indeed, but 
upon the point of a rock. 

Happily for our present purpose, the days we 
live in afford circumstances both of foreign and 
domestic occurrence, of every possible variety 
of color and connection, so as to leave scarcely 



268 PRACTICAL PIETY- 

any mmd unfurnished with a store of progres- 
sive remarks by which the most instructive truths 
may be approached through the most obvious 
topics. And a prudejnt mind will study to make 
its approaches to such an ultimate object pro- 
gressive 5 it will know also where to stop, rather 
indeed out of regard to others than to itself. And 
in the manly avowal of its sentiments, avoiding ' 
as well what is canting in utterance as technical 
in language, it will make them at once appear, 
not the ebullition of an ill-educated imagination, 
but the result of a long-exercised understanding. 
Nothing will be more likely to attract atten- 
tion, or secure respect to your remarks, than the 
good taste in which they are delivered. On 
common topics we reckon him the most elegant 
speaker whose pronunciation and accent are so 
free from all peculiarities that it cannot be deter- 
mined to what place he owes his birth. A po- 
lished critic of Rome accuses one of the finest 
of her historians of provinciality. This is a fault 
obvious to less enlightened critics, since the At- 
tic herb-woman could detect the provincial dialect 
of a great philosopher. Why must religion have 
her paiavinity 1 Why must a christian adopt the 
quaintness of a party, or a scholar the idiom of 
the illiterate % Why should a valuable truth be 
combined with a vulgar or fanatical expression \ 
If either would offend when separate, how ine- 



INTRODUCIIVG RELIGION, &c. 269 

vitably must they disgust when the one is mis- 
takenly intended to set off the other ! Surely 
this is not enchasing our ^^ apples of gold in 
pictures of silver." 

We must not close this part of our subject 
without alluding to another and still more de- 
licate introduction of religion in the way of 
reproof. Here is, indeed, a point in religious 
conduct to which we feel it a boldness to make 
any reference at all. Bold indeed is that casuist 
w^ho would lay down general rules on a subject 
where the consciences of men seem to differ so 
widely from each other \ and feeble too often 
will be its justest rules, where the feelings of 
timidity or delicacy rush in with a force which 
sw^eeps down many a landmark erected for its 
own guidance even by conscience itself. 

Certainly much allowance, perhaps respect, is 
due in cases of very doubtful decision, to those 
feelings which, after the utmost self-regulation 
of mind, are found to be irresistible. And cer- 
tainly the habits and modes of address attached 
to refined society are such as to place personal 
observations on a very different footing from 
that on which they stand by nature. A frown, 
even a cold and disapproving look, may be a re- 
ception which the profane expression or loose 
action of a neighbor of rank and opulence may 
have never before encountered from his flatterers 



270 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

or convivial companions. A vehement censure 
in his case might inflame his resentment with- 
out amending his fault. Whether the attempt 
be to correct a vice or rectify an error, one ob- 
ject should ever be steadily kept in view, to con- 
ciliate rather than to contend, to inform but not 
to insult, to evince that we assume not the cha- 
racter of a dictator, but the office of a christian 
friend ; that we have the best interests of the 
offender and the honor of religion at heart; and 
that to reprove is so far from a gratification, 
that it is a trial to ourselves ; the effort of con- 
science, not the efTect of choice. 

The feelings, therefore, of the person to be ad- 
monished should be most scrupulously consulted. 
The admonition, if necessarily strong, explicit, 
and personal, should yet be friendly, temperate, 
and well-bred. An offence, even though publicly 
committed, is generally best reproved in private, 
perhaps in writing. Age, superiority of station, 
previous acquaintance, above all, that sacred pro 
fession to which the honor of religion is hap- 
pily made a personal concern, are circumstances 
which especially call for and sanction the^tempt 
recommended. And he must surely be unworthy 
his christian vocation, who would not conscien 
tiously use any influence or authority which he 
might chance to possess, in discountenancing ox 
rectifying the delinquency he condemns. 



INTRODUCING RELIGION, &c. 271 

We are indeed, as elsewhere, after the closest 
reilection and longest discussion, often forced 
into the general conclusion, that ^^ a good heart 
is the best casuist." And doubtless, where true 
christian benevolence towards men meets in the 
same mind with an honest zeal for the glory of 
God, a way will be found, let us rather say will 
be opened, for the right exercise of this, as of 
every virtuous disposition. 

Let us ever remember what we have so often 
insisted on, that self-denial is the ground-work, 
the indispensable requisite for every christian 
virtue ; that without the habitual exercise of this 
principle w^e shall never be followers of Him 
" who pleased not himself." And when we are 
called by conscience to the largest use of it in 
practice, we must arm ourselves with the highest 
considerations for the trial : we must consider 
him, who (through his faithful reproofs) ^^ en- 
dured the contradiction of sinners against him- 
self." And when even from Moses we hear the 
truly evangelical precept, ^^ Thou shalt in any 
wise rebuke thy brother, and not suffer sin upon 
him," we must duly weigh how strongly its per 
formance is enforced upon ourselves by the con 
duct of one greater than Moses, who expressly 
** suffered for us, leaving us an example that we 
should follow his steps." 



272 PRACTICAL PIETY 



CHAPTER XVI. 

CHRISTIAN WATCHFULNESS 

or all the motives to vigilance and self-disci- 
pline which Christianity presents, there is not one 
more powerful than the danger from which even 
religious persons are not exempt, of slackening 
in zeal and declining in piety. Would we could 
affirm that coldness in religion is confined to the 
irreligious ! If it be melancholy to observe an 
absence of Christianity where no great profession 
of it was ever made, it is far more grievous to 
mark its declension where it once appeared not 
only to exist, but to flourish. We feel, on the 
comparison, the same distinct sort of compassion 
with which we contemplate the pecuniary dis- 
tresses of those who have been always indigent, 
and of those who have fallen into want from a 
state of opulence. Our concern differs not only 
in degree but in kind. 

This declension is one of the most awakening 
calls to watchfulness, to humility, and self-in- 
spection, which religion can make to him ** who 
ihinketh he standeth 5" which it can make to him 
who, sensible of his own weakness, ought to feel 
the necessity ^* of strengthening the things which 
remain that are ready to die." 



CHRISTIAN WATCHFULNESS. 273 

ff there is not any one circumstance which 
ought more to alarm and quicken the christian 
than that of finding himself grow languid and in- 
different, after having made not only a profession 
but a progress, so there is not a more reasonable 
motive of triumph to the profane, not one cause 
which excites in him a more plausible ground of 
suspicion, either that there never was any truth 
in the profession of the person in question, or, 
which is a more fatal, and to such a mind a more 
natural conclusion, that there is no truth in reli- 
gion itself. At best, he will be persuaded that 
this can only be a faint and feeble principle, the 
impulse of which is so soon exhausted, and which 
is by no means found sufficiently powerful to 
carry on its votary throughout his course. He is 
assured that piety is only an outward garment, 
put on for show or convenience, and that when it 
ceases to be wanted for either, it is laid aside. In 
these unhappy instances the evil seldom ceases 
with him who causes it. The inference becomes 
general, that all religious men are equally unsound 
or equally deluded, only that some are more pru- 
dv^nt, or more fortunate, or greater hypocrites 
than others. After the falling away of one pro- 
mising character, the old suspicion recurs and is 
confirmed, and the defection of others pronounc- 
ed to be infallible. 

There seems to be this marked distinction in 

Pract. Piety JQ 



274 ^ PRACTICAL PIETT! 

the different opinions which religious and worldly 
men entertain respecting human corruption. The 
candid christian is contented to believe it as an 
indisputable general truth, while he is backward 
to suspect the wickedness of the individual, nor 
does he allow himself to give full credit to par- 
ticular instances without proof. The man of the 
world, on the contrary, who denies the general 
principle, is extremely prone to suspect the indi- 
vidual. Thus his knowledge of mankind not only 
furnishes a proof, but outstrips the truth, of the 
doctrine 5 though he denies it as a proposition of 
Scripture, he is eager to establish it as a fact of 
experiment. 

But the probability is, that the man who, by his 
departure from the principles with which he ap- 
peared to set out, so much gratifies the thought- 
less and grieves the serious mind, never was a 
sound and genuine christian. His religion was 
perhaps taken up on some accidental circum- 
stance, built on some false ground, produced by 
some evanescent cause ; and though it cannot be 
fairly pronounced that he intended by his forward 
profession and prominent zeal to deceive others, 
it is probable that he himself was deceived. Per- 
haps he had made too sure of himself. His early 
profession was probably rather bold and ostenta- 
tious 5 he had imprudently fixed his stand on 
ground so high as to be not easily tenable, and 



CHRISTIAN WATCHFULNESS 275 

from which a descent would be but too observa- 
ble. While he thought he never could be too se- 
cure of his own strength, he allowed himself to 
be too censorious on the infirmities of others, 
especially of those whom he had apparently out- 
stripped, and whom, though they had started to- 
gether, he had left behind him in the race. 

Might it not be a safer course, if, in the outset 
of the christian life, a modest and self-distrusting 
humility were to impose a temporary restraint on 
the forwardness of outward profession 1 A little 
knowledge of the human heart, a little suspicion 
of the deceitfulness of his own, would not only 
moderate the intemperance of an ill understood 
zeal, should the warm convert become an estab- 
lished christian, but would save the credit of re- 
ligion, which will receive a fresh wound in the 
possible event of his desertion from her standard. 

Some of the most distinguished christians in 
this country began their religious career with this 
graceful humilit\r. They would not suffer their 
change of character and their adoption of new 
principles, and a new course, to be blazoned 
abroad, as the affectionate zeal of their confiden- 
tial friends would have advised, till the principles 
they had adopted were established, and worked 
into habits of piety ; till time and experience had 
evinced that the grace of God had not been be- 
stowed on them in vain. Their progress proved 



276 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

to be such as might have been inferred from the 
modesty of their outset. They have gone on with 
a perseverance which difficulties have only con- 
tributed to strengthen, and experience to confirm ; 
and will, through divine aid, doubtless go on, 
shining more and more unto the perfect day. 

But to return to the less steady convert. Per- 
haps religion was only, as we have hinted else- 
where, one pursuit, among many which he had 
taken up when other pursuits failed, and which 
he now lays down, because his faith, not being 
rooted and grounded, fails also ; — or the tempta- 
tions arising: from without misfht concur with the 
failure within. If vanity be his infirmity, he will 
shrink from the pointed disapprobation of his su- 
periors. If the love of novelty be his besetting 
weakness, the very peculiarity and strictness of 
religion, the very marked departure from the 
" gay and primrose path" in which he has before 
been accustomed to walk, which first attracted, 
now repel him. The attention which his early 
deviation from the manners of the world drew 
upon him, and which once flattered, now disgusts 
him. The very opposition which once animated, 
now cools him. He is discouraged at the near 
view, subdued by the required practice of that 
christian self-denial which, as a speculation, had 
appeared so delightful. Perhaps his fancy had 
been fired by some acts of christian heroism, 



CHRISTIAN WATCHFULNESS. 277 

which he felt an ambition to imitate ; a feeling 
which tales of martial prowess, or deeds of chi- 
valry, something that, promising celebrity and 
exciting emulation, had often kindled before. 
The truth is, religion had only taken hold of his 
imagination, his heart had been left out of the 
.question. 

Or he had, in the twilight of his first awaken- 
ing, seen religion only as something to be believ- 
ed — he now R^nds that much is to be done in the 
new life, and much which was habitual to the old 
one left undone. Above all, he did not reckon on 
the CONSISTENCY which the christian life demands. 

Warm affections rendered the practice of some 
right actions easy to him ; but he did not include 
in his faulty and imperfect scheme the self-deni- 
al, the perseverance, the renouncing of his own 
will and his own way, the evil report as well as 
the good report, to which every man pledges 
himself when he enlists under the banner of 
Christ. The cross which it was easy to venerate, 
he finds it hard to bear. 

Or religion might be adopted when he was in 
affliction, and he is now happy ; — when he was in 
bad circumstances, and he has now grown afflu- 
ent. Or it might be assumed as something want- 
ing to his recommendation to that party or pro- 
ject by which he wished to make his way ; as 
something that would better enable him to carry 



278 PRACTICAL PIETY 

certain points which he had in view; something 
that, with the new acquaintance h^ wished to cul- 
tivate, might obliterate certain defects in his for- 
mer conduct, and whitewash a somewhat sullied 
reputation. 

Or in his now more independent situation, it 
may be, he is surrounded by temptations, soften-, 
ed by blandishments, allured by pleasures, which 
he never expected would arise to weaken his re- 
solutions. These new enchantments make it not 
so easy to be pious, as when he had little to lose 
and every thing to desire, as when the world 
wore a frowning, and religion an inviting aspect. 
Or he is, perhaps, by the vicissitudes of life, 
transferred from a sober and humble society, 
where to be religious was honorable, to a more 
fashionable set of associates, where, as the dis- 
closure of his piety would add nothing to his 
credit, he set out with taking pains to conceal it, 
till it has fallen into that gradual oblivion which 
is the natural consequence of its being kept out 
of sight. 

But we proceed to a far more interesting and 
important character. The one, indeed, whom we 
have been slightly sketching may by his incon* 
stancy do much harm ; the one on which we are 
about to animadvert, might, by his consistency 
and perseverance, effect essential good. Even 
the sincere, and, to all appearance, the establish- 



CHRISTIAN WATCHFULNESS. 279 

ed christian, especially if his situation in life he 
easy, and his course snnooth and prosperous, had 
need keep a vigilant eye upon his own heart. 
For such a one it will not be sufficient that he 
keep his ground, if he do not advance in it. In- 
deed it will be a sure proof that he has gone 
back, if he has not advanced. 

In a world so beset with snares, various are 
the causes which may possibly occasion in even 
good men a slow but certain decline in piety ; — a 
decline scarcely perceptible at firstj but which 
becomes more visible in its subsequent stages. 
When, therefore, we suspect our hearts of any 
declension in piety, we should not compare our- 
selves with what we were in the preceding week 
or month, but with what we were at the supposed 
height of our character. Though the alteration 
was not perceptible in its gradual progress, one 
shade melting into the next, and each losing its 
distinctness, yet when the two remote states are 
brought into contrast, the change will be striking- 
ly obvious. 

Among other causes may be assigned the in- 
discreet forming of some worldly connection; 
especially that of marriage. In this connection, 
for union it cannot be called, it is to be lamented 
that the irreligious more frequently draw away 
the religious to their side, than that the contrary 
takes place : a circumstance easily accounted 



280 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

m 

for by those who are at all acquainted with the 
human heart. 

Or the sincere but incautious christian may 
be led by a strong affection, which assumes the 
shape of virtue, into a fond desire of establishirg 
his children advantageously in the world, into 
methods which, if not absolutely incorrect, are 
yet ambiguous at the best. In order to raise 
those whom he loves to a station above their 
level, he may be tempted, while self-deceit will 
teach him to sanctify the deed by the motive, to 
make some little sacrifices of principle, some little 
abatements of that strict rectitude, for which, in 
the abstract, no man would more strenuously 
contend. And as it may be in general observ- 
ed, that the most amiable minds are most sus- 
ceptible of the strongest natural affections; 
of course the very tenderness of the heart lays 
such characters peculiarly open to a danger 
to which the unfeeling and the obdurate are 
less exposed. 

If the person in question be of the sacred order, 
no small danger may arise from his living under 
the eye of an irreligious, but rich and bountiful 
patron, zt is his duty to make religion appear 
amiable in his eyes. He ought to conciliate his 
good will by every means which rectitude can 
sanction. But though his very piety will sti- 
mulate his discretion in the adoption of those 



CHRISTIAN WATCIIFUl NESS. 281 

means, he will take care never to let his discre- 
tion intrench on his integrity. 

If he be under obligations to him, he may be 
in danger of testifying his gratitude, and further- 
ing his hopes, by some electioneering manoeuvres, 
and by too much electioneering society. He may, 
unawares, be tempted to too much conformity 
to his friend's habits, to too much conviviality 
in his company. And when he witnesses so 
much kindness and urbanity in his manners, pos* . 
sibly so much usefulness and benevolence in his 
life, he may be even tempted to suspect that he 
himself may be wrong ; to accuse himself of being 
somewhat churlish in his own temper, a little too 
austere in his habits, and rather hard in his judg- 
ment of a man so amiable. He will be still more 
likely to fall into this error if he expects a favor 
than if he has obtained it ; for though it is not 
greatly to the honor of human nature, we daily 
see how much keener are the feelings which are 
excited by hope, than those which are raised by 
gratitude. The favor which has been already 
conferred excites a temperate, that which w^e are 
looking for, a fervid feeling. 

These relaxing feelings, and these softened 
dispositions, aided by the seducing luxury of the 
table and the bewitching splendor of the apart- 
ments, by the soft accommodations which opu- 
lence exhibits, and the desires which they are 



282 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

too apt to awaken in the dependant, may, not im- 
possibly, lead by degrees to a criminal timidity 
in maintaining the purity of his own principles, 
in supporting the strictness of his own practice. 
He may gradually lose somewhat of the dignity 
of his professional, and of the sobriety of his 
christian character. He may be brought to for- 
feit the independence of his mind ; and in order 
to magnify his fortune, may neglect to magnify 
his office. 

Even here, from an increasing remissness in 
self-examination, he may deceive himself by per- 
sisting to believe — for the films are now grown 
thicker over his spiritual sight — that his motives 
are defensible. Were not his discernment la- 
boring under a temporary blindness, he would 
reprobate the character which interested views 
have insensibly drawn him in to act. He would 
be as much astonished to be told that this cha- 
racter was become his own, as was the royal 
offender, when the righteous boldness of the 
prophet pronounced the heart-appalling words, 
'' Thou art the man." 

Still he continues to flatter himself that the 
reason of his diminished opposition to the faults 
of his friend is not because he has a more lucra- 
tive situation in view, but because he may, by a 
slight temporary concession, and a short suspen- 
sion of a severity which he begins to fancy he 



CHRISTIAN WATCHFULNESS. 283 

has carried too far, secure for his future life a 
more extensive field of usefulness, in the bene- 
fice which is hanging over his head. 

In the meantime, hope and expectation so fill 
his mind, that he insensibly grows cold in the 
prosecution of his positive duties. He begins to 
lament that in his present situation he can make 
but few converts, that he sees but small effects 
of his labors ; not perceiving that God may have 
withdrawn his blessing from a ministry which is 
exercised on such questionable grounds. With 
his new expectations he continues to blend his 
old ideas. He feasts his imagination with the 
prospect of a more fruitful harvest on an un- 
known and perhaps an unbroken soil — as if hu- 
man nature were not pretty much the same every 
where ; as if the laborer were accountable for the 
abundance of his crop, and not solely for his own 
assiduity — as if actual duty faithfully perform- 
ed, even in that circumscribed sphere in which 
God has cast our lot, is not more acceptable to 
him than theories of the most extensive good, 
than distant speculations and improbable pro- 
jects for the benefit even of a whole district j 
while, in the indulgence of those airy schemes, 
our own specific and appointed work lies ne- 
glected, or is performed without energy and 
without attention. 

Self-love so naturally infatuates the judgment, 



2S4f PRACTICAL PIETY. 

that it is no paradox to assert that we look too 
far, and yet do not look far enough. We look 
too far, when, passing over the actual duties of 
the immediate scene, we form long connected 
trains of future projects, and indulge our thoughts 
in such as are most remote, and perhaps least 
probable. And we do not look far enough when 
the prospective mind does not shoot beyond 
all these little earthly distances, to that state, 
falsely called remote, whither all our steps are 
not the less tending, because our eyes are con- 
fined to the home scenes. But while the pre- 
cariousness of our duration ought to set limits 
to, our designs, it should furnish incitements to 
our application. Distant projects are too apt to 
slacken present industry, while the magnitude of 
schemes, probably impracticable, may render our 
actual exertions cold and sluggish. 

Let it be observed, that we would be the last 
to censure any of those fair and honorable 
means of improving his condition, which every 
man, be he worldly or religious, owes to himself 
and to his family. Saints as well as sinners have, 
in common, what a great genius calls " certain 
inconvenient appetites of eating and drinking,* 
which while we are in the body must be com- 
plied with. It would be a great hardship on good 
men to be denied any innocent means of fair 
g^ratification. It would be a peculiar injustice 



CHRISTIAN WATCHFULNESS. 285 

/hat the most diligent laborer should be esteem- 
ed the least worthy of his hire, the least fit to 
rise in his profession. 

The more serious clergyman has also the same 
warm affection for his children with his less 
scrupulous brother, and consequently the same 
laudable desire for their comfortable establish- 
ment 5 only, in his plans for their advancement, 
he should neither entertain ambitious views, nor 
prosecute any views, even the best, by methods 
not consonant to the strictness of his avowed 
principles. Professing to " seek first the king- 
dom of God and his righteousness," he ought to 
be more exempt from an over-anxious solicitude, 
than those who profess it less zealously. Avow 
ing a more determined confidence that all other 
things will, as far as they are absolutely neces- 
sary, ** be added unto him," he should, as it is 
obvious he commonly does, manifest practically 
a more implicit trust, confiding in that gracious 
and cheering promise, that promise expressed 
both negatively and positively, as if to comfort 
by a double confirmation, that God, who is ^^ both 
his light and defence, who will give grace and 
glory, will also withhold no good thing from 
them that live a godly life." 

It is one of the trials of faith appended to the 
sacred ofiice, that its ministers, like the father of 
the faithful, are liable to go out, " not knowing 



2S8 PRACTIC^\L PIETY, 

whither they go ;" and this not only at their first 
entrance into their profession, but throughout 
life ; an inconvenience to which no other profes- 
sion is necessarily liable ', a trial which is notg 
perhaps, fairly estimated. 

This remark will naturally raise a laugh amongst 
those who at once hold the function in contempt, 
deride its ministers, and think their well-earned 
remuneration lavishly and even unnecessarily 
bestowed. They will probably exclaim, with as 
much complacency in their ridicule as if ridicule 
were really the test of truth — " A great cause of 
commiseration trulj?", to be transferred from a 
starving curacy to a plentiful benefice ; or from 
the vulgar society of a country parish, to be a 
stalled theologian in an opulent town !" 

We are far from estimating at a low rate the 
exchange from a state of uncertainty to a state 
of independence ; from a life of penury to com- 
fort, or from a barely decent to an affluent pro- 
vision. But does the ironical remarker rate the 
feelings and affections of the heart at nothing] 
If he insists that money is that chief good of 
which ancient philosophy says so much, we beg 
leave to insist that it is not the only good 
We are above the affectation of pretending to 
condole with any man on his exaltation ; but 
there are feelings which a man of acute sensi- 
bility, rendered more acute by an elegant educa- 



CHRISTIAN WATCHFULr^ESS. 281 

tion, values more intimately than silver or gold. 

Is it absolutely nothing to resign his local com- 
forts, to break up his local attachments, to have 
new connections to form, and that frequently at 
an advanced period of life — connections, perhaps, 
less valuable than those he is quitting 1 Is it no- 
thing for a faithful minister to be separated from 
an affectionate people, a people not only whose 
friendship but whose progress has constituted his 
happiness here, as it will make his joy and crown 
of rejoicing hereafter 1 

Men of delicate minds estimate things by their 
affections as well as by their circumstances 5 to a 
man of a certain cast of character, a change, how- 
ever advantageous, may be rather an exile than 
a promotion. AVhile he gratefully accepts the 
good, he receives it with an edifying acknow- 
ledgment of the imperfection of the best human 
things. These considerations, we confess, should 
add the feelings of kindness to their persons, and 
of sympathy with their vicissitudes, to our respect 
and veneration for their holy office. 

To themselves, however, the precarious tenure 
of their situation presents an instructive emblem 
of the uncertain condition of human life, of the 
transitory nature of the world itself. Their lia 
bleness to a sudden removal gives them the ad 
vantage of being more especially reminded of thd 
necessity and duty of keeping in a continual pos 



288 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

ture of preparation, having ^* their loins girded, 
their shoes on their feet, and their staff in their 
hand." They have also the same promises which 
supported the Israelites in the desert. The same 
assurance which cheered Abraham may still cheer 
the true servants of God under all difficulties : 
^^ Fear not ; I am thy shield and thy exceeding 
great reward." 

But there are perils on the right hand and on 
the left. It is not among the least, that though a 
pious clergyman may at first have tasted with 
trembling caution of the delicious cup of applause, 
he may gradually grow, as thirst is increased by 
indulgence, to drink too deeply of the enchanted 
chalice. The dangers arising from any thing that 
is good are formidable because unsuspected. And 
such are the perils of clerical popularity, that we 
will venture to say, that the victorious general 
who has conquered a kingdom, or the sagacious 
statesman who has preserved it, is almost in less 
danger of being spoilt by acclamation than the 
popular preacher ; because their danger is likely 
to happen but once, his is perpetual. Theirs is 
only on the day of triumph, his day of triumph 
occurs every week ; we mean the admiration he 
excites. Every fresh success ought to be a fresh 
motive to humiliation 5 he who feels his danger 
will vigilantly guard against receiving too greedi- 
ly the indiscriminate and often undistinguishing 



CHRISTIAN WATCHFULNESS. 289 

plaudits, which his doctrines or his manner, his 
talents or his voice, may equally procure for him. 

If he he not prudent as well as pious, he may 
be brought to humor his audience, and his audi- 
ence to flatter him with a dangerous emulation, 
till they will scarcely endure truth itself from any 
other lips. Nay, he may imperceptibly be led not 
to be always satisfied with the attention and im- 
provement of his hearers, unless the attention be 
sweetened by flattery, and the improvement fol- 
lowed by exclusive attachment. 

This spirit of exclusive fondness generates a 
spirit of controversy. Some of the followers will 
rather improve in casuistry than in Christianity. 
They will be more busied in opposing Paul to 
Apollos, than in looking unto " Jesus, the Author 
and Finisher of their faith ;" than in bringing 
forth fruits meet for repentance. Religious gos- 
sip may assume the place of religion itself. A 
party spirit is thus generated, and Christianity 
may begin to be considered as a thing to be dis- 
cussed and disputed, to be heard and talked about, 
rather than as the productive principle of all vir- 
tuous conduct.* 

We owe, indeed, lively gratitude and afl^ection- 

* This polemic tattle is of a totally different character 
from that species of religious conversation recommended in 
the preceding chapter. 

Pract. Piety. ^^ 



290 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

ate attachment to the minister who has faithfully 
labored for our edification ; but the author has 
sometimes noticed a manner adopted by some in- 
judicious adherents, especially of her own sex, 
which seems rather to erect their favorite mto 
the head of a sect, than to reverence him as the 
pastor of a flock. This mode of evincing an at- 
tachment, amiable in itself, is doubtless as dis- 
tressing to the delicacy of the minister as it is 
unfavorable to religion, to which it is apt to give 
an air of party. 

May we be allowed to animadvert more im- 
mediately on the cause of declension in piety 
in some persons who formerly exhibited evident 
marks of that seriousness in their lives which they 
continue to inculcate from the pulpit 1 If such 
has been sometimes (we hope it has been very 
rarely) the case, may it not be partly ascribed to 
an unhappy notion that the same exactness in his 
private devotions, the same watchfulness in his 
daily conduct, is not equally necessary in the ad 
vanced progress as in the first stages of a reli- 
gious course 1 He does not desist from warning 
his hearers of the continual necessity of these 
things, but is he not in some danger of not ap 
plying the necessity to himself? May he not be 
gin to rest satisfied with the inculcation without 
the practice 1 It is not probable, indeed, that he 
goes so far as to establish himself as an exempt 



CHRISTIAN WATCHFULNESS. 291 

case, but he slides from indolence into the ex- 
emptioH, as if its avoidance were not so necessa- 
ry for him as for others. 

Even the very sacredness of his profession is 
not without a snare. He may repeat the holy 
offices so often that he may be in danger, on the 
one hand, of sinking into the notion that it is a 
mere profession, or, on the other, of so resting in 
it as to make it supersede the necessity of that 
strict personal religion with which he set out ; he 
may at least be satisfied with the occasional, 
without the uniform practice. There is a danger 
— we advert only to its possibility — that his very 
exactness in the public exercise of his function 
may lead to a little justification of his remissness 
in secret duties. His zealous exposition of the 
Scriptures to others may satisfy him, though it 
does not always lead to a practical application of 
them to himself. 

But God, by requiring exemplary diligence in 
the devotion of his appointed servants, would 
keep up in their minds a daily sense of their de- 
pendence on him. If he does not continually 
teach by his Spirit those who teach others, they 
have little reason to expect success, and that 
Spirit will not be given where it is not sought, 
or, which is an awful consideration, may be with- 
drawn, where it had been given and not improved 
as it might have been. 



292 PRACTICiiL PIETY. 

wShould this unhappily ever be the case, it would 
almost reduce the minister of Christ to a mere 
engine, a vehicle through which knowledge was 
barely to pass, like the ancient oracles, who had 
nothing to do with the information but to con- 
vey it. Perhaps the public success of the best 
men has been, under God, principally owing to 
this, that their faithful ministration in the temple 
has been uniformly preceded and followed by 
petitions in the closet; that the truths implanted 
in the one have chiefly flourished from having 
been watered by the tears and nourished by the 
prayers of the other. 

We will hazard but one more observation on 
this dangerous and delicate subject ; in this super- 
ficial treatment of which it is the thing in the 
world the most remote from the writer's wish to 
give the slightest ofl"ence to any pious member 
of an order which possesses her highest venera- 
tion. If the indefatigable laborer in his great 
Master's vineyard has, as must often be the case, 
the mortification of finding that his labors have 
failed of producing their desired eflect, in some 
instance where his warmest hopes had been ex- 
cited ; if he feels that he has not benefited 
others as he had earnestly desired, this is pre- 
cisely the moment to benefit himself, and is per- 
haps permitted for that very end. Where his 
usefulness has been obviously great, the true 



TRUE AND FALSE ZEAL. 



293 



christian will be humbled by the recollection that 
he is only an instrument. Where it has been less, 
the defeat of his hopes offers the best occasion, 
which he will not fail to use, for improving his 
humility. Thus he may always be assured that 
good has been done somew^here, so that in any 
case his labor will not have been in vain in the 
Lord, 



CHAPTER XVII. 



TRUE AND FALSE ZEAL. 

It is one of the most important ends of culti- 
vating that self-knowledge which we have else- 
where recommended, to discover what is the real 
bent of our mind, and which are the strongest 
tendencies of our character 5 to discover where 
our disposition requires restraint, and where we 
may be safely trusted with some liberty of indul 
gence. If the temper be fervid, and that fervo* 
be happily directed to religion, the most consum 
mate prudence will be requisite to restrain its 
excesses without freezing its energies. 

If, on the contrary, timidity and diffidence bf- 



294. 



PEAGTICAL PIETY. 



the natural propensity, we shall be in danger of 
falling into coldness and inactivity with regard 
to ourselves, and into too unresisting a compli- 
ance with the requisitions, or too easy a con- 
formity with the habits of others. It will there* 
fore be an evident proof of christian self-govern 
ment, when the man of too ardent zeal restrains 
its outward expression where it would be un- 
seasonable or unsafe : while it will evince the 
same christian self-denial in the fearful and diffi- 
dent character, to burst the fetters of timidity, 
where duty requires a holy boldness, and when 
he is called upon to lose all minor fears in the 
fear of God. 

It will then be one of the first objects of a chris- 
tian to get his understanding and his conscience 
thoroughly enlightened ; to take an exact survey 
not only of the whole comprehensive scheme of 
Christianity, but of his own character 5 to dis- 
cover, in order to correct, the defects in his judg- 
ment, and to ascertain the deficiencies even of 
his best qualities. Through ignorance in these 
respects, though he may really be following up 
some good tendency, though he is even per- 
suaded that he is not wrong either in his motive 
or his object, he may yet be wrong in the mea- 
sure, and wrong in the mode ; wrong in the ap- 
plication, though right in the principle. He must, 
therefore, watch with a suspicious eye over his 



TRUE AND FALSE ZEAL. 295 

better qualities, and guard his very virtues from 
deviation and excess. 

His zeal, that indispensable ingredient in the 
composition of a great character; that quality 
without which no great eminence, either secular 
or religious, has ever been attained; which is 
essential to the acquisition of excellence in arts 
and aims, in learning and in piety ; that princi- 
ple, without which no man will be able to reach 
the perfection of his nature, or to animate others 
to aim at that perfection, will yet hardly fail to 
mislead the animated christian, if his knowledge 
of what is right and just, if his judgment in the 
application of that knowledge, do not keep pace 
with the principle itself. 

Zeal, indeed, is not so much an individual vir- 
tue, as the principle which gives life and color- 
ing, the spirit which gives grace and benignity, 
the temper which gives warmth and energy to 
every other. It is that feeling which exalts the 
relish of every duty, and sheds a lustre on the 
practice of every virtue ; which, embellishing 
every image of the mind with its glowing tints, 
animates every affection of the heart with its in- 
vigorating motion. It may be said of zeal among 
the virtues, as of memory among the faculties, 
that though it singly never made a great man, 
yet no man has ever made himself conspicuously 
great where it has been wanting. 



296 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

Many things, however, must concur before we 
can be allowed to determine whether zeal be 
really a virtue or a vice. Those who are con 
tending for the one or the other will be in the 
situation of the two knights, who, meeting on a 
cross road, were on the point of fighting about 
the color of a cross w^hich w^as suspended be 
tween them. One insisted it was gold ; the 
other maintained it was silver. The duel was 
prevented by the interference of a passenger, 
who desired them to change their positions. Both 
crossed over to the opposite side, and found the 
cross was gold on one side and silver on the other. 
Each acknowledged his opponent to be right. 

It may be disputed whether fire be a good or 
an evil. The man who feels himself cheered by 
its kindly warmth is assured that it is a benefit, 
but he whose house it has just burned down wdll 
give another verdict. Not only the cause, there- 
fore, in which zeal is exerted must be good, but 
the principle itself must be under due regulation , 
or, like the rapidity of the traveller who gets into 
a wrong road, it will only carry him so much the 
further out of his way ; or if he be in the right 
road, it will, through inattention, carry him in- 
voluntarily beyond his destined point. That de- 
gree of motion is equally misleading, which de- 
tains us short of our end, or which pushes us be- 
yond it. 



TRUE AND FALSE ZEAL. 297 

The apostle suggests a useful precaution, by 
expressly asserting that it is ** in a good cause" 
that we ^^ must be zealously affected," which Im- 
plies this further truth, that where the cause is 
not good, the mischief is proportioned to the 
zeal. But lest we should carry our limitations 
of the quality to any restriction of the seasons 
for exercising it, he takes care to animate us to 
its perpetual exercise, by adding that we must be 
always so affected. 

If the injustice, the intolerance, and persecu- 
tion with which a misguided zeal has so often 
afflicted the church of Christ, in its more early 
periods, be lamented as a deplorable evil, yet let 
us admire the over-ruling wisdom of Providence, 
which, educing good from evil, made the very 
calamities which false zeal occasioned, the instru- 
ments of producing that true and lively zeal to 
which we owe the glorious band of martyrs and 
confessors, those brightest ornaments of the best 
periods of the church. This effect, though a 
clear vindication of that Divine goodness which 
suffers evil, is no apology for him who perpe- 
trates it. 

It is curious to observe the contrary operations 
of true and false zeal, which, though apparently 
only different modifications of the same quality, 
are, when brought into contact, repugnant, and 
even destructive to each other. There is no at 



298 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

tribute of the human mind where the different 
effects of the same principle have such a total 
opposition , for is it not obvious that the same 
principle, under another direction, which actuates 
the tyrant in dragging the martyr to the stake 
enables the martyr to embrace it 1 

As a striking proof that the necessity for cau- 
tion is not imaginary, it has been observed that 
the Holy Scriptures record more instances of a 
bad zeal than of a good one. This furnishes the 
most authoritative argument for regulating this 
impetuous principle, and for governing it by all 
those restrictions which a feeling so calculated 
for good, and so capable of evil, demands. 

It was zeal, but of a blind and furious charac- 
ter, which produced the massacre on the day of 
St. Bartholomew, a day to which the mournful 
strains of Job have been so well applied — ^^ Let 
that day perish. Let it not be joined to the days 
of the year. Let darkness and the shadow of 
death stain it." It was a zeal the most bloody, 
combined with a perfidy the most detestable, 
which inflamed the execrable Florentine,* when, 
having on this occasion invited so many illustri- 
ous Protestants to Paris, under the alluring mask 
of a public festivity, she contrived to involve her 
guest, the pious Queen of Navarre, and the vene- 

* Catherine de Medici. 



TRUE AND FALSE ZEAL. 299 

rable Coligni, in the general mass of undistin- 
guished destruction. The royal and pontifical 
assassins, not satisfied with the sin, converted it 
into a triumph. Medals were struck in honor of 
d deed which has no parallel even in the annals 
of pagan persecution. 

Even glory did not content the pernicious plot- 
ters of this direful tragedy: devotion was called 
in to be 

" The crown and consummation of their crime." 

The blackest hypocrisy was made use of to sanc- 
tify the foulest murder. The iniquity could not 
be complete without solemnly thanking God for 
its success. The pope and cardinals proceeded to 
St. Mark's church, where they praised the Al- 
mighty for so great a blessing conferred on the 
see of Rome and the christian world! A solemn 
jubilee completed the preposterous mummery. 
This zeal of devotion was as much worse than 
even the zeal of murder, as thanking God for 
enabling us to commit a sin is worse than the 
commission itself. A wicked piety is still more 
disgusting than a wicked act. God is less offend- 
ed by the sin itself than by the thank-offering of 
its perpetrators. It looks like a black attempt to 
involve the Creator in the crime.* 

* See Thuanus for a most affecting and exact account oi 
ihis direful massacre. 



300 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

It was this exterminating zeal which made 
the fourteenth Louis, bad in the profligacy of his 
youth, worse in the superstition of his age, re- 
voke the tolerating edict which might have drawn 
down a blessing on his kingdom, and the rescind- 
ing of which may have drawn on France her sub- 
sequent calamities. One species of crime w^as 
called on, in his days of blind devotion, to expi- 
ate another, committed in his days of mad ambi 
tion. But the expiation was even more intolerable 
than the offence. The havoc made by the sword 
of civil persecution was a miserable atonement 
for the blood which unjust aggression had shed 
in foreign wars. 

It was this impious and cruel zeal v/hich in- 
spired the monk Dominick in erecting the most 
infernal tribunal which ever inventive bigotry 
projected to dishonor the christian name, and 
with which pertinacious barbarity has continued 
for above six centuries to afflict the human race. 

For a complete contrast to this pernicious zeal, 
we need not, blessed be God! travel back into 
remote history, nor abroad into distant realms. 
This happy land of civil and religious liberty can 
furnish a countless catalogue of instances of a 
pure, a wise, and a well-directed zeal. Not to 
swell the list, we will only mention that it has, in 
our own age, produced the Society for promoting 
Christian Knowledge, the British and Foreign 



TKUE AND FALSE ZEAL. 301 

Bible Society, and the Society for the AbolitioD 
of the African Slave Trade ; three as noble, and 
which will, we trust, be as lasting monuments as 
ever national virtue erected to true piety. These 
are institutions which bear the genuine stamp of 
-Christianity, not originating in party, founded in 
disinterestedness, and comprehending the best 
nterests of almost the whole habitable globe, 
' without partiality and without hypocrisy." 

Why we hear so much in praise of zeal from a 
lertain class of religious characters, is partly 
owung to their having taken up a notion that its 
required exertions relate to the care of other 
people's salvation rather than to their own; and, 
indeed, the casual prying into a neighbor's house, 
while it is much more entertaining, is not near so 
troublesome as the constant inspection of one's 
own. It is observable that the outcry against 
zeal among the irreligious is raised on nearly the 
same ground as the clamor in its favor by these 
professors of religion , the former suspect that 
the zeal of the religionist evaporates in censuring 
their impiety, and in eagerness for their conver- 
sion^ instead of being directed to themselves 
This supposed anxiety they resent, and give a 
practical proof of their resentment by resolving 
not to profit by it. 

Two very erroneous opinions exist respecting 
zeal. It is commonly supposed to indicate a 



302 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

want of charity, and the two principles are ac- 
cused of maintaining separate interests. This is 
so far from being the case, that charity is the firm 
associate of that zeal of which it is suspected to 
be the enemy. Indeed, this is so infallible a 
criterion by w^hich to try its sincerity, that we 
should be apt to suspect the legitimacy of the 
zeal which is unaccompanied by this fair ally. 

Another opinion, equally erroneous, is not a 
little prevalent- — that where there is much zeal 
there is little or no prudence. Now, a sound and 
sober zeal is not such an idiot as to neglect to 
provide for its own success ; and would that suc- 
cess be provided for, without employing for its 
accomplishment every precaution which pru- 
dence can suggest 1 True zeal, therefore, will be 
as discreet as it is fervent, well knowing that its 
warmest efforts will be neither effectual nor last- 
ing without those provisions w^hich discretion 
alone can make. No quality is ever possessed 
in perfection where its opposite is wanting ; zeal 
is not christian fervor, but animal heat, if not 
associated with charity and prudence. 

Zeal, indeed, like other good things, is fre 
quently calumniated because it is not understood ; 
and it may sometimes deserve censure as being 
the effervescence of that weak but well-meaning 
niind, which will defeat the effort not only of 
this but of every other good propensity. 



TRUE AND FALSE ZEAL. SOS 

That most valuable faculty, therefore, of intel- 
lectual man, the judgment, the enlightened, im- 
partial, unbiassed judgment, must be kept in per- 
petual activity, not only in order to ascertain 
that the cause be good, but to determine also the 
degree of its importance in any given case, that 
we may not blindly assign an undue value to an 
inferior good ; for want of this discrimination we 
may be fighting a windmill when we fancy we 
are attacking a fort. We must prove not only 
whether the thing contended for be right, but 
whether it be essential 5 whether, in our eager- 
ness to attain this subordinate good, we may not 
be sacrificing, or neglecting things of more real 
consequence 5 whether the value we assign to it 
may not be even imaginary. 

Above all, we should examine whether we do 
not contend for it chiefly because it happens to 
fall in with our own humor or our own party, 
more than on account of its intrinsic worth ; 
whether we do not wish to distinguish ourselves 
by our pertinacity, and to append ourselves to the 
party rather than to the principle 5 and thus, as 
popularity is often gained by the worst part of a 
man's character, whether we do not principally 
persist from the hope of becoming popular The 
favorite adage that le jeu ne vaui pas la chanxlelle, 
(the game is not worth the candle,) might serve 
as an appropriate motto to one-half of the coa 



304 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

tentions which divide and distract the world 
This zeal, hotly exercised for mere circum 
stantials, for ceremonies indifferent in themselves, 
for distinctions rather than differences, has un- 
happily assisted in causing irreparable separa- 
tions and dissensions in the christian world, even 
where the champions on both sides were great 
and good men. Many of the points which have 
been the sources of altercation were not worth 
insisting upon, where the opponents agreed in 
the grand fundamentals of faith and practice. 

But to consider zeal as a general question, as 
a thing of every-day experience. He whose piety 
is most sincere will be likely to be the most zeal- 
ous. But though zeal is an indication and even 
a concomitant of sincerity, a burning zeal is 
sometimes seen where the sincerity is somewhat 
questionable. 

Where zeal is generated by ignorance, it is 
commonly fostered by self-will. That which we 
have embraced through false judgment we main- 
tain through false honor. Pride is generally call- 
ed in to nurse the offspring of error. It is from 
this confederacy that we frequently see those 
who are perversely zealous for points which can 
add nothing to the cause of christian truth, whe* 
ther they are rejected or retained, cold and in- 
different about the great things which involve the 
salvation of man. 



TntJE AND FALSE ZEAL. 305 

Though all momentous truths, all indispensa- 
ble duties, are, in the luminous volume of inspi- 
ration, made so obvious that those may read who 
run, the contested matters are not only so compa- 
ratively little as to be by no means worthy of the 
heat they excite, but are rendered so doubtful, 
not in themselves, but in the opposite systems 
built on them, that he who fights for them is not 
always sure whether he be right or not ; and if he 
carry his point he can make no moral use of his 
victory. This indeed is not his concern. It is 
enough that he has conquered. The importance 
of the object having never depended on its worth, 
but on the opinion of his right to maintain that 
worth. 

The Gospel assigns very different degrees of 
importance to allowed practices and commanded 
duties ; it by no means censures those who^were 
rigorous in their payment of the most inconsider- 
able tithes 5 but seeing this duty was not only put 
in competition with, but preferred before the 
most important duties, even judgment, mercy, 
and faith, the flagrant hypocrisy was pointedly 
censured by meekness itself. 

This opposition of a scrupulous exactness m 
paying the petty demand on three paltry herbs, 
to the neglect of three cardinal christian virtues, 
exhibits as complete and instructive a specimen 
of that frivolous and false zeal, which, evapora- 

Pract. Piety 20 



306 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

ting in trifles, wholly overlooks those grand 
points on Avhich hangs eternal life, as can be 
conceived. 

This passage serves to corroborate a striking 
fact, that there is scarcely in Scripture any pre- 
cept enforced which has not some actual exem- 
plification attached to it. The historical parts of 
the Bible, therefore, are of inestimable value, 
were it only on this single gFOund, that the ap- 
pended truths and principles so abundantly scat- 
tered through them are in general so happily 
illustrated by them. They are not dry aphorisms 
and cold propositions, which stand singly and 
disconnected, but truths suggested by the event, 
precepts growing out of the occasion. The re- 
collection of the principles recalls to the mind the 
instructive story which they enrich, while the re- 
membrance of the circumstance impresses the 
sentiment upon the heart. Thus the doctrine, 
like a precious gem, is at once preserved and 
embellished by the narrative being made a frame 
in which to enshrine it. 

True zeal will first exercise itself in earnest 
desires, in increasing ardor to obtain higher de- 
grees of illumination in our own minds ; in fer- 
vent prayer that this growing light may operate 
to the improvement of our practice, that the in- 
fluences of Divine grace may become more out- 
wardly perceptible by the increasing correctness 



TRUE AND FALSE ZEAL. 307 

of our habits ; that every holy affection may be fol- 
lowed by its correspondent act, whether of obe- 
dience or of resignation, of doing or of sufferings 

But the effects of a genuine and enlightened 
zeal will not stop here. It will be visible in out ^ 
discourse with those to whom we may have a 
probability of being useful. But though we should 
not confine the exercise of our zeal to our con^ 
v^ersation, nor limit our attention to the opinions 
and practices of others, yet this, when not done 
with a bustling kind of interference and offensive 
forwardness, is proper and useful. It is, indeed, 
a natural effect of zeal, to appear where it exists, 
as a fire which really burns will not be prevented 
from emitting both light and heat , yet we should 
labor principally to keep up in our own mindsi 
the pious feelings which religion has excited 
there ; the brightest flame will decay if no means 
are used to keep it alive. Pure zeal will cherish 
every holy affection, and by increasing every 
pious disposition, will animate us to every duty. 
It \vi\\ add new force to our hatred of sin, fresh 
contrition to our repentance, additional vigor to 
our resolutions, and will impart augmented ener- 
gy to every virtue. It will give life to our devo* 
tions, and spirit to all our actions. 

When a true zeal has fixed these right affec- 
tions in our own hearts, the same principle will, 
as we have already observed, make us earnest to 



308 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

excite them in others. No good man wishes to 
go to heaven alone, and none ever wished others 
to go thither without earnestly endeavoring to 
awaken right affections in them. That will be a 
false zeal which does not begin with the regula 
tion of our own hearts. That will be an illiberal 
zeal which stops where it begins. A true zeal 
will extend itself through the whole sphere of its 
possessor's influence. Christian zeal, like chris- 
tian charity, will begin at home, but neither the 
one nor the other must end there. 

But that we must not confine our zeal to mere 
conversation is not only implied, but expressed 
in Scripture. The apostle does not exhort us to 
be zealous of good words^ but of good works. 
True zeal ever produces true benevolence. It 
would extend the blessings which we ourselves 
enjoy to the whole human race. It will conse- 
quently stir us up to exert all our influence to the 
extension of religion, to the advancement of 
every well-concerted and well-conducted plan, 
calculated to enlarge the limits of human happi- 
ness, and more especially to promote the eternal 
interests of human kind. 

But if we do not first strenuously labor for our 
own illumination, how shall we presume to en- 
lighten others 1 It is a dangerous presumption to 
busy ourselves in improving others, before we 
have diligently sought our own improvement 



TRUE AND FALSE ZEAL. 309 

Yet it is a vanity not uncommon, that the first 
feelings, be they true or false, which resemble 
devotion ; the first faint ray of knowledge which 
has imperfectly dawned, excites in certain raw 
minds an eager impatience to communicate to 
others what they themselves have not yet at- 
tained. Hence the novel swarms of uninstructed 
instructors, — of teachers who have had no time 
to learn. The act previous to the imparting know* 
ledge should seem to be that of acquiring it. 
Nothing would so effectually check an irregular, 
and improve a temperate zeal, as the personal 
discipline, the self-acquaintance which we have 
so repeatedly recommended. 

True christian zeal will always be known by 
its distinguishing and inseparable properties. It 
will be warm, indeed, not from temperament, but 
principle. It will be humble, or it will not be 
christian zeal. It will restrain its impetuosity, 
that it may the more effectually promote its ob- 
ject. It will be temperate, softening what is 
strong in the act by gentleness in the manner. 
It will be tolerating, willing to grant what it 
would itself desire It will be forbearing, in the 
hope that the offence it censures may be an oc- 
casional failing, and not a habit of the mind. It 
wi 1 be candid, making a tender allowance for 
those imperfections which beings, fallible them- 
selves, ought to expect from human infirmity 



310 ^ PRACTICAL PIETY. 

It will be reasonable, employing fair argument 
and affectionate remonstrance, instead of irrita- 
ting by the adoption of violence, or mortifying 
by the assumption of superiority. 

He who in private society indulges himself in 
violent anger, or unhallowed bitterness, or acri- 
monious railing in reprehending the faults of an- 
other, might, did his power keep pace with his 
inclination, have recourse to other weapons. He 
would probably banish and burn, confiscate and 
imprison; and think then, as he thinks now, that 
he is doing God service. 

If there be any quality which demands a clearer 
sight, a tighter rein, a stricter watchfulness than 
another, zeal is that quality. The heart, where it 
is wanting, has no elevation , where it is not 
guarded, has no security. The prudence with 
which it is exercised is the surest evidence of its 
integrity ; for if intemperate, it not only raises 
enemies to ourselves, but to God. It augments 
the natural enmity to religion, instead of increas- 
ing her friends. 

But, if tempered by charity, if blended with 
benevolence, if sweetened by kindness, if evinc- 
ed to be honest by its influence on your own con- 
duct, and gentle by its effect on your manners, it 
may lead your irreligious acquaintance to inquire 
more closely in what consists the distinction be- 
tween them and you. You will already, by this 



TRUE AND FALSE ZEAL. 311 

mildness, have won their affections. Your next 
step may be to gain over their judgment. They 
ma} be led to examine what solid grounds of dif- 
ference subsist between you and them ; what 
substantial reason you have for not going their 
lengths ; what sound argument they can offer for 
not going yours. 

But it may possibly be asked, after all, where 
do we perceive any symptoms of this inflamma- 
tory distemper 1 Should not the prevalence, or 
at least the existence of a disease, be ascertained 
previous to the application of the remedy 1 That 
it exists is sufficiently obvious, though it must be 
confessed that among the higher ranks it has not 
hitherto spread very widely i nor is its progress 
likely to be very alarming, or its effects very ma- 
lignant. It is to be lamented, that in every rank, 
indeed, coldness and indifference, carelessness 
and neglect are the reigning epidemics. These 
are diseases far more difficult of cure , diseases 
not more dangerous to the patient than distress- 
ing to the physician, who. generally finds it more 
difficult to raise a sluggish habit than to lower an 
occasional heat. The imprudently zealous man, 
if he be sincere, may, by a discreet regimen, be 
brought to a state of complete sanity ; but to 
rouse from a state of morbid indifference, to 
brace from a total relaxation of the system, must 
be the immediate work of the great Physician of 



312 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

souls ; of Him who can effect even this by his 
Spirit accompanying this powerful word, ^^A<vake, 
thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and 
Christ shall give thee light.'' 



CHAPTER XVIII 



INSENSIBILITY TO ETERNAL THINGS. 

Insensibility to eternal things, in beings who 
are standing on the brink of eternity, is a mad- 
ness which would be reckoned among prodigies, 
if it were not so common. It would be altogether 
incredible, if the numberless instances we have 
of it were only related, and not witnessed ; were 
only heard of, and noFexperienced. 

If we had a certain prospect of a great estate 
and a splendid mansion, which we knew must be 
ours in a few days, and not only ours as a bequest, 
but an inheritance ; not only as a possession but 
a perpetuity ; if, in the meantime, we rented, on 
a precarious lease, a paltry cottage, in bad repair, 
ready to fall, and from which we knew we must, 
at all events, soon be turned out , depending on 
the proprietor's will whether the ejectment might 



INSENSIBILITY TO ETERNAL THINGS.* 313 

not be the next minute ; would it argue wisdonn, 
or even comnnon sense, totally to overlook our 
near and noble reversion, and to be so fondly at- 
tached to our falling tenement, as to spend great 
part of our time and thoughts in supporting its 
ruins by props, and concealing its decays by 
decorations 1 To be so absorbed in the little 
sordid pleasures of this frail abode, as not even 
to cultivate a taste for the delights of the man 
sion where such treasures are laid up for us, and 
on the possession of which we fully reckon, in 
spite of our neglect ; this is an excess of incon- 
sideration which must be seen to be credited. 

It is a striking fact, that the acknowledged un- 
certainty of life drives worldly men to make sure 
of every thing depending on it except their eter- 
nal concerns. It leads them to be regular in their 
accounts, and exact in their bargains. They are 
afraid of risking ever so little property on so 
precarious a tenure as life, without insuring a 
reversion. There are even some who speculate 
on the uncertainty of life as a trade. Strange, 
that this accurate calculation of the duration of 
life should not involve a serious attention to its 
end ! Strange, that the critical annuitant should 
totally overlook his perpetuity ! Strange, that in 
the prudent care not to risk a fraction of property, 
equal care should not be taken not to risk eternal 
salvation ! 



3M PRACTICAL PIETY. 

Plutarch informs us, that the Spartans so much 
valued the life of a citizen, that before they con- 
demned any one to capital punishment, nothing- 
could surpass the patience of their inquiries, the 
accuracy of their examinations, the liberty of 
defence ihey allowed the criminal, and the slow- 
ness with which they pronounced his sentence. 
Even after judgment was passed, a long space 
was permitted to elapse before its execution. The 
reason they assigned to one who inquired the 
cause of their extreme deliberation was, because 
it was a case in which an error was incorrigible. 
When shall we see christians as much afraid of 
a mistake in their own immortal concerns, as 
these wise pagans were in what related to the 
short human existence of a malefactor'? 

We are not supposing flagitious characters, 
remarkable for any thing which the world calls 
wicked 5 v/e are not supposing their wealth ob- 
tained by injustice, or increased by oppression 
We are only supposing a soul drawn aside from 
God by the alluring baits of a world, which, like 
the treacherous lover of Atalanta, causes him to 
lose the victory by throwing golden apples in his 
way. The shining baits are obtained, but the 
race is lost! 

To worldly men of a graver cast, business may 
be as formidable an enemy as pleasure is to those 
of a lighter turn : business has so sober an air, 



INSENSIBILITY TO ETERNAL THINGS. 315 

that it looks like virtue ; and virtuous it certainly 
is, vi^hen carried on in a proper spirit, with due 
moderation, and in the fear of God. To have a 
lawful employment, and to pursue it with dili- 
gence, is not only right and honorable in itself, 
but is one of the best preservatives from temp- 
tation.* 

When a man pleads in his favor the diligence 
business demands, the self-denying practices it 
imposes, the patience, the regularity, the industry 
indispensable to its success ! when he argues that 
these are habits of virtue , that they are a daily 
discipline to the moral man, and that the world 
could not subsist without business, he argues 
justly ; but when he forgets his interest in the 
eternal world, when he neglects to lay up a trea- 
sure in heaven, in order that he may augment a 
store which he does not want, and, perhaps, does 
not intend to use, or uses to purposes merely 
secular, he is a bad calculator of the relative 
value of things. 

Business has an honorable aspect as being op^ 
posed to idleness, the most hopeless offspring of 
the whole progeny of sin. The man of business, 

* That accurate judge of human life, Dr. Johnson, has 
often been heard by the writer of these pages to observe, that 
it was the greatest misfortune which could befall a man, to 
have been bred to no profession, and pathetically to regret 
that this misfortune was his own. 



216 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

comparing himself with the man of dissipation, 
feels a fair and natural consciousness of his own 
value, and of the superiority of his own pursuits. 
But it is, by comparison that we deceive ourselves 
to our ruin. Business, whether professional, com- 
mercial, or political, endangers minds of a better 
cast, minds which look down on pleasure as be- 
neath a thinking being. But if business absorb 
the affections 5 if it swallow up time, to the ne- 
glect of eternity 5 if it generate a worldly spirit 5 
if it cherish covetousness ; if it ei?^a0-e the mind 
in large adventures and ambitious pursuits 5 it may 
be as dangerous as its more inconsiderate and 
frivolous rival. The grand evil of both lies in the 
alienation of the heart from God. Nay, in one re- 
spect the danger is greater to him who is the 
best employed. The man of pleasure, however 
thoughtless, can never make himself believe that 
he is doing right. The man plunged in the se- 
rious bustle of business cannot easily persuade 
himself that he may be doing wrong. 

Commutation, compensation, and substitution 
are the grand engines which worldly religion 
incessantly keeps in play. Hers is a life of barter, 
a state of spiritual traffic ; so much indulgence for 
so many good works. The implication is, " We 
have a rigorous master, and it is but fair to in- 
demnify ourselves for the severity of his requisi- 
tions j" just as an overworked servant steals a 



INSENSIBILITY TO ETERNAL THINGS. 317 

holiday. " These persons," says an eminent wri- 
ter,* ^^ maintain a meum and tuum (a mine and 
thine) with heaven itself." They set bounds to 
God's prerogative, lest it should too much en- 
croach on man's privilege. 

We have elsewhere observed, that if we invite 
Ipeople to embrace religion on the mere merce- 
nary ground of present pleasure, they will desert 
it as soon as they find themselves disappointed. 
Men are too ready to clamor for the pleasures of 
piety, before they have, I dare not say entitled 
themselves to them, but put themselves into the 
way of receiving them. We should be angry at 
that servant w^ho made the receiving of his wa- 
ges a preliminary to the performance of his work 
This is not meant to establish the merit of works, 
but the necessity of our seeking that transform- 
ing and purifying change which characterizes the 
real christian, instead of complaining that we do 
not possess those consolations which can be con- 
sequent only on such a mutation of the mind. 

But if men consider this world on the true 
Scripture ground, as a state of probation 5 if they 
consider religion as a school for happiness indeed, 
but of which the consummation is only to be en- 
joyed in heaven, the christian hope will support 
them ; the christian faith will strengthen them 

* The learned and pious John Smith. 



318 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

They will serve diligently, wait patiently, love 
cordially, obey faithfully, and be steadfast under 
all trials, sustained by the cheering promise held 
out to him ^^ who endures to the end." 

There are certain characters who seem to have 
a graduated scale of vices. Of this scale they 
keep clear of the lowest degrees, and to rise to 
the highest they are not ambitious, forgetful that 
the same principle which operates in the greater 
operates also in the less. A life of incessant gra 
tification does not alarm the conscience, yet it is 
equally unfavorable to religion, equally destruc- 
tive of its principle, equally opposite to its spirit, 
with more obvious vices. 

These are the habits which, by relaxing the 
mind and dissolving the heart, particularly fos- 
ter indifference to our spiritual state, and in- 
sensibility to the things of eternity. A life of 
voluptuousness, if it be not a life of actual sin, is 
a disqualification for holiness, for happiness, for 
heaven. It not only alienates the heart from God, 
but lays it open to every temptation to which na- 
tural temper may invite, or incidental circum- 
stances allure. The worst passions lie dormant 
in hearts given up to selfish indulgences, always 
ready to start into action as occasion calls. 

Voluptuousness and irreligion play into each 
other's hands ; they are reciprocally cause and 
effect. The looseness of the principle confirms 



INSEISSIBILITY TO ETERNAL THIJNGS. 3 19 

the carelessness of the conduct, while the negli- 
gent conduct in its own vindication shelters it- 
self under the supposed security of unbelief. The 
instance of the rich man in the parable of Laza- 
rus strikingly illustrates this truth. 

Whoever doubts that a life of sensuality is con» 
sistent with the most unfeeling barbarity to the 
wants and sufferings of others ; whoever doubts 
that boundless expense and magnificence, the 
means of procuring which w^ere wrung from the 
robbery and murder of a lacerated w^orld, may be 
associated with that robbery and murder, let him 
turn to the gorgeous festivities and unparallel- 
ed pageantries of the Tuileries and Saint-Cloud. 
There the imperial harlequin, from acting the 
deepest and the longest tragedy that ever drew 
tears of blood from an audience composed of the 
whole civilized globe, by a sudden stroke of his 
magic wand shifts the scene to the most prepos- 
terous pantomime — 

" Where moody Madness, laughing wild, 
*' Amidst severest wo," 

gloomily contemplates the incongruous spectacle, 
beholds the records of the Tyburn Chronicle em- 
bellished with the wanton splendors of the Ara- 
bian Tales ; beholds 

" Perverse all monstrous, all prodigious things;'* 
beholds Tyranny with his painted vizor of pa- 



520 PKACTICAL PIETY. 

triotism, and Polygamy with her Janus face of 
political conscience and counterfeit affection, fill 
the foreground ; while sceptered parasites, and 
pinchbeck potentates tricked out with the shining 
spoils of plundered empires, and decked with the 
pilfered crowns of deposed and exiled monarchs, 
fill and empty the changing scene with "exits 
and with entrances," as fleeting and unsubstan- 
tial as the progeny of Banquo ; beholds inventive 
but fruitless art solicitous!}'- decorate the ample 
stage to conceal the stains of blood — stains as 
indelible as those which the ambitious wife of 
the irresolute Thane vainly strove to wash from 
her polluted hands, while in her sleeping delirium 
she continued to cry, 

« Still here's the smell of blood j 

" The perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten it." 

But to return to the general question. Let us 
not inquire whether these unfeeling tempers and 
selfish habits offend society and discredit us with 
the world, but whether they feed our corruptions, 
and put us in a posture unfavorable to all inte- 
rior improvement ; whether they offend God and 
endanger the soul ; whether the gratification of 
self is the life which the Redeemer taught or 
lived ; whether sensuality is a suitable prepara- 
tion for that state where God himself, who is 



INSENSIBILITY TO ETERNAL THINGS. 321 

a spirit, will constitute all the happiness of spi- 
ritual beings. 

But these are not the only, perhaps not the 
greatest dangers. The intellectual vices, the spi- 
ritual offences, may destroy the soul without 
much injuring the credit. These have not, like 
voluptuousness, their seasons of alternation and 
repose. Here the principle is in continual opera- 
tion. Envy has no interval. Ambition never cools. 
Pride never sleeps. The principle at least is al- 
warys awake. An intemperate man is sometimes 
sober, but a proud man is never humble. Where 
vanity reigns, she reigns always. These interior 
sins are more difficult of extirpation, they are 
less easy of detection, more hard to come at ; 
and as the citadel sometimes holds out after the 
outworks are taken, these sins of the heart are 
the latest conquered in the moral warfare. 

Here lies the distinction between the worldly 
and the religious man. It is alarm enough for 
the christian that he feels any propensities to vice. 
Against these propensities he watches, strives, 
and prays ; and though he is thankful for the victo- 
ry when he has resisted the temptation, he can feel 
no elation of heart while conscious of inward dis- 
positions which nothing but Divine grace enables 
him to keep from breaking out into a flame. He 
feels that there is no way to obtain the pardon of 
sin but to leave off sinning. He feels that though 

Pract. Piety. 21 



322 PRACTICAL PIETi^. 

repentance is not a saviour, yet that there can be 
no salvation where there is no repentance. Above 
all, he knows that the promise of remission of sin 
by the death of Christ is the only solid ground of 
comfort. However correct his present life may 
be, the weight of past offences would hang so 
heavy on his conscience, that, without the atoning 
blood of his Eedeemer, despair of pardon for the 
past would leave him hopeless. He would con- 
tinue to sin, as an extravagant bankrupt, who can 
get no acquittal, would continue to be extravagant 
because no present frugality could redeem his 
former debts. 

It is sometimes pleaded that the labor attached 
to persons in high public stations and important 
employments, by leaving them no time, furnishes 
a reasonable excuse for the omission of their re- 
ligious duties. These apologies are never offered 
for any such neglect in the poor man, though to 
him every day brings the inevitable return of his 
twelve hours' labor without intermission and with- 
out mitigation. 

But surely the more important the station, the 
higher and wider the sphere of action, the more 
imperious is the call for religion, not only in the 
way of example, but even in the way of success ; 
if it be indeed granted that there is such a thing 
as Divine influences, if it be allowed that God has 
a blessing to bestow. If the ordinary man who 



INSENSIBILITY TO ETERNAL THINGS. 323 

has only himself to govern requires that aid, how 
urgent is his necessity who has to govern millions! 
What an awful idea, could we ever suppose it re- 
alized, that the weight of a nation might rest or 
the head of him \vhose heart looks not up for a 
higher support ! 

Were we alluding to sovereigns, and not to 
statesmen, we need not look beyond the throne 
of Great Britain for the instance of a monarch 
(George III.) who never made the cares attend- 
ant on a king an excuse for neglecting his duty to 
the King of kings. 

The politician, the warrior, and the orator find 
it peculiarly hard to renounce in themselves that 
wisdom and strength to which they believe that 
the rest of the world are looking up. The man 
of station or of genius, when invited to the self- 
denying duties of Christianity, as well as he who 
has ^^ great possessions," goes away " sorrowing." 

But to know that they must end, stamps vanity 
on all the glories of life ; to know that they must 
end soon, stamps infatuation not only on him who 
sacrifices his conscience for their acquisition, but 
on him who, though upright, in the discharge of 
his public duties, discharges them without any 
reference to God. Would the conqueror or the 
orator reflect, w^hen the laurel crown is placed 
on his brow, how soon it will be followed by the 
cypress wreath, it would lowxr the delirium of 



324 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

ambition, it would cool the intoxication of pros- 
perity. 

There is a general kind of belief in Christiani- 
ty, prevalent among men of the world, which by 
soothing the conscience prevents self-inquiry. 
That the Holy Scriptures contain the will of God, 
they do not question ; that they contain the best 
system of morals, they frequently assert 5 but 
they do not feel the necessity of acquiring a cor- 
rect notion of the doctrines those Scriptures in- 
volve. The depravity of man, the atonement 
made by Christ, the assistance of the Holy Spirit 
—these they consider as the metaphysical part 
of religion, into which it is not of much import- 
ance to enter, and by a species of self-flattery 
they satisfy themselves with an idea of accept- 
ableness with their Maker, as a state to be attained 
without the humility, faith, and newness of life 
which these doctrines require, and which are, in- 
deed, their proper concomitants. 

A man absorbed in a multitude of secular con- 
cerns, decent but unawakened, listens with a kind 
of respectful insensibility to the overtures of re- 
ligion. He considersthe church as venerable from 
her antiquity, and important from her connection 
with the state. No one is more alive to her po- 
litical, no one more dead to her spiritual impor- 
tance. He is anxious for her existence, but in- 
different to her doctrines. These he considers as 



IWSE2SISIBILITY TO ETERNAL THINGS. 325 

a general matter, in which he has no individual 
concern. He considers religious observances as 
something decorous, but unreal , as a grave cus- 
tom made respectable by public usage and long 
prescription. He admits that the poor who have 
little to enjoy, and the idle who have little to do, 
cannot do better than make over to God that time 
which cannot be turned to a more profitable ac- 
count. Religion, he thinks, may properly enough 
employ leisure and occupy old age. But though 
both advance towards himself with no impercep- 
tible step, he is still at a loss to determine the 
precise period when the leisure is sufficient, or 
the age enough advanced. It recedes as the des- 
tined season approaches. He continues to intend 
moving, but he continues to stand still. 

Compare his drowsy Sabbaths with the anima- 
tion of the days of business, and you would not 
think it was the same man. The one are to be 
got over, the others are enjoyed. He goes from 
the dull decencies, the shadowy forms, for such " 
they are to him, of public worship, to the solid 
realities of his worldly concerns, to the cheerful 
activities of secular life. These he considers a? 
bounden, almost as exclusive duties. The others, 
indeed, may not be wrong, but these he is sure 
are right. The world is his element. Here he 
breathes freely his native air. Here he is substan- 
tially engaged. Here his whole mind is alive, his 



326 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

understanding broad awake ; all his enero-ies 
are in full play ; his mind is all alacrity ; his fa- 
culties are employed, his capacities are filled ; 
here they have an object worthy of their widest 
expansion. Here his desires and affections are 
absorbed. The faint impression of the Sunday's 
sermon fades away, to be as faintly revived on 
the Sunday following, again to fade in the suc- 
ceeding week. To the sermon he brings a formal 
ceremonious attendance: to the world he brings 
all his heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. 
To the one he resorts in conformity to law and 
custom 5 to induce him to resort to the other, he 
wants no law, no sanction, no invitation, no ar- 
gument. His will is of the party. His passions 
are volunteers. The invisible things of heaven 
are clouded in shadow, are lost in distance. The 
world is lord of the ascendant. Riches, honors, 
power, fill his mind with brilliant images. They 
are present, they are certain, they are tangible. 
They assume form and bulk. In thes^, therefore, 
he cannot be mistaken ; in the others he may. 
The eagerness of competition, the struggle for 
superiority, the perturbations of ambition, fill his 
mind with an emotion, his soul with an agitation, 
his affections with an interest, which, though very 
unlike happiness, he yet flatters himself are the 
road to it. This factitious pleasure, this tumuJ- 
tuoiis feeling produces at least that negative sa- 



INSENSIBILITY TO ETERNAL THINGS. 327 

tisfaction of which he is constantly in search — it 
keeps him from himself. 

Even in circumstances where there is no suc- 
cess to present a very tempting hait, the mere 
occupation, the crowd of objects, the succession 
«)f engagements, the mingling pursuits, the very 
♦umult and hurry, have their gratification. The 
/)ustle gives false peace, by leaving no leisure for 
reflection. He lays his conscience asleep with 
the ^^ flattering unction" of good intentions. He 
comforts himself with the credible pretence of 
want of time, and the vague resolution of giving 
up to God the dregs of that life, of the vigorous 
season of which he thinks the world more wor- 
thy. Thus commuting with his Maker, life wears 
away, its close draws near, and even the poor 
commutation which was promised is not made. 
The assigned hour of retreat either never arrives, 
or if it does arrive, sloth and sensuality are re- 
sorted to as the fair reward of a life of labor and 
anxiety ; and whether he dies in the protracted 
pursuit of wealth, or in the enjoyment of the 
luxuries it has procured, he dxes in the trammels 
of the world. * 

If we do not cordially desire to be delivered 
from the dominion of these worldly tempers, it 
is because we do not believe in the condemnation 
annexed to their indulgence. We may, indeed, 
Relieve it as we believe any othei general propo- 



328 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

sition, or any indifferent fact , but not as a truth 
in which we have a personal concern 5 nor as a 
danger which has any reference to us. We evince 
this practical unbelief in the most unequivocal 
way, by thinking so much more about the most 
frivolous concern in which we are assured we 
have an interest, than about this most important 
of all concerns. 

It is hard to say which is the most wonderful, 
that a daily experience of the disappointments of 
the world does not loosen our hold on it, or that 
the hourly experience of the goodness of God 
does not attract our love to him. There is a kind 
of middle state, a looking to the one and a cleav- 
ing to the other, in which w^e may be said to re- 
main rather than to rest. 

Indifference to eternal things, instead of tran- 
quilizing the mind, as it professes to do, yields, 
when a thoughtful moment occurs, a fresh sub- 
ject of uneasiness ; because it adds to our peril 
the horror of not knowinof it. If shuttino- our 
eyes to a danger would prevent it, to shut them 
would not only be a happiness but a duty 5 but to 
barter eternal safety for momentary ease, is a 
wretched compromise. To produce this delusion, 
mere inconsideration is as efficient a cause as the 
most prominent sin. The reason why we do not 
value eternal things is, because we do not think 
of them. The mind is so full of what is present, 



INSENSIBILITY TO ETERNAL THlf'GS. 329 

that it has no room to admit a thought of what 
is to come. Not only we do not give that atten- 
tion to a never-dying sonl, which prudent men 
give to a common transaction, but we do not even 
think it worth the care which inconsiderate men 
give to an inconsiderable one. We complain that 
life is short, and yet throw away the best part 
of it, only making over to religion that portion 
which is good for nothing else: life would be 
long enough if we assigned its best period to its 
best purpose. 

Say not that the requisitions of religion are 
severe 5 ask, rather, if they are necessary. If a 
thing must absolutely be done, if eternal misery 
w^ill be incurred by not doing it, it is fruitless to 
inquire whether it be hard or easy. Inquire only 
whether it be indispensable, whether it be com- 
manded, whether it be practicable. It is a well- 
known axiom in science, that difficulties are of 
no weight against demonstrations. The duty on 
which our eternal state depends is not a thing to 
be debated, but done. The duty w^iich is too 
imperative to be evaded, too important to be ne- 
glected, is not to be argued about, but perform- 
ed. To sin on quietly because you do not intend 
to sin always, is to live on a reversion which 
will probably never be yours. 

It is folly to say that religion drives men to 
despair, when it only teaches them by a salutary 



330 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

fear to avoid destruction. The fear of God dif- 
fers from all other fear , for it is accompanied 
with trust, and confidence, and love, ^^ Blessed 
is the man that feareth always," is no paradox to 
him who entertains this holy fear. It sets him 
above the fear of ordinary troubles. It fills his 
heart. He is not discomposed with those infe- 
rior apprehensions which unsettle the soul and 
unhinge the peace of worldly men. His mind is 
occupied with one grand concern, and is, there- 
fore, less liable to be shaken than little minds 
which are filled with little things. Can that prin- 
ciple lead to despair which proclaims the mercy 
of God in Christ Jesus to be greater than all the 
sins of all the men in the world] 

If despair then prevent your return, add not to 
your list of offences that of doubting of the for- 
giveness which is sincerely implored. You have 
already wronged God in his holiness, wrong him 
not in his mercy. You may offend him more by 
despairing of his pardon, than by all the sins 
which have made that pardon necessary. Re- 
pentance, if one may venture the bold remark, 
almost disarms God of the power to punish. 
Hear his style and title as proclaimed by him- 
self: ^^ The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and 
gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in good- 
ness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, for- 
giving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and that 



INSENSIBILIT7 TO ETERNAL THINGS. 331 

will by no means clear the guilty ;" that is, those 
who by unrepented guilt exclude themselves 
from the offered mercy. 

If infidelity, or indifference, which is practical 
infidelity, keep you back ; yet, as reasonable be* 
ings, ask yourselves a few short questions: ^^ For 
what end was I sent into the world 1 Is my soul 
immortal 1 Am I really placed here in a state of 
trial, or is this span my alH Is there an eternal 
state % If there be, will the use I make of this 
life decide on my condition in that 1 I know 
that there is death, but is there a judgment 1" 

Rest not till you have cleared up, I do not say 
your own evidences for heaven, — you have much 
to do before you arrive at that stage, — but whe- 
ther there be any heaven. Ask yourself whether 
Christianity is not important enough to deserve 
being inquired into '( Whether eternal life is not 
too valuable to be entirely overlooked 1 Whether 
eternal destruction, if a reality, is not worth 
avoiding 1 If you make these interrogations sin- 
cerely, you will make them practically. They 
will lead you to examine your own personal in- 
terest in these things. Evils which are ruining 
us for want of attention to them, lessen from 
th3 moment our attention to them begins. True 
or false, the question is worth settling. Think 
what it is to be within the possibility of accept- 
ance, within the latitude of pardon, within the 



332 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

sphere of the promises ! Vibrate, then, no Ion 
ger between doubt and certainty. If the evi- 
dence be inadmissible, reject it. But if you can 
once ascertain these cardinal points, then throw 
away your time if you can^ then trifle with eter- 
nity if you dare."^ 

It is one of the striking characters of the Om- 
nipotent, that ^^ he is strong and patient." It is a 
standing evidence of his patience, that *^ he is 
provoked every day." How beautifully do these 
characters reflect lustre on each other ! If he 
were not strong, his patience would want its dis- 
tinguishing perfection. If he were not patient, 
his strength would instantly crush those who pro- 
voke him, not sometimes, but often ; not every 
year, but ^^every day." 

There are persons who think that too much 

* An awakening call to public and individual feelings 
has been recently made by an observation of an eloquent 
speaker in the House of Commons. He remarked that 
himself and the honorable Member for Yorkshire, then sit- 
ting on a committee appointed on occasion of a great na- 
tional calamity, were the only surviving members of the 
committee on a similar occasion twenty-two years ago! 
The call is the more alarming, because the mortality did 
not arise from some extraordinary cause which might not 
again occur, but was in the common course of human 
things. Such a proportion of deaths is perpetually taking 
place, but the very frequency which ought to excite atten- 
tion prevents it, till it is thus forced on our notice. 



INSENSIBILITY TO ETERNAL THINGS. 333 

stress is sometimes laid upon repentance, as if it 
were derogatory to the great doctrine on which 
the Gospel hinges. But He who is the sum and 
substance of the Gospel, was so far from think- 
ing it trenched on his own sacrifice, that he not 
only preached repentance himself, pointedly and 
personally, but backed the doctrine with the 
most awful denunciation — '^ Except ye repent, 
ye shall all likewise perish." 

It is one of the most beautiful exhibitions 
given in Scripture of the mercy of God, that he 
waits to be gracious. Oh you who have a longer 
space given for your repentance, confess that 
the forbearance of God, when viewed as coupled 
wdth his strength, is his most astonishing attri- 
bute ! Think of the companions of your early 
life ; if not your associates in actual vice, if 
not your confederates in guilty pleasures, yet the 
sharers of your thoughtless meetings, of your 
convivial revelry, of your worldly schemes, of 
your ambitious projects^ think how many of 
them have been cut off, perhaps without w^arn- 
ing, probably without repentance. They have been 
presented to their Judge ; their ^'dioom^ Avhat- 
ever it be, is irreversibly fixed : yours is mer- 
cifully suspended. Adore the mercy 5 embrace 
the suspension. 

Only suppose that they could be permitted to 
come back to this world \ that they could be al 



^34 PRACTICAL PIETY, 

lowed another period of trial — how would they 
spend their restored life ! How cordial would 
be their penitence, how intense their devotion, 
how profound their humility, how holy their ac- 
tions ! Think, then, that you have still in your 
power that for which they would give millions 
of worlds. ^^ Hell," says a pious writer, ^^ is truth 
seen too late."" 

In almost every mind there sometimes float in* 
definite and general purposes of repentance. The 
operation of these purposes is often repelled by 
a real though disavowed scepticism. ^^ Because 
sentence is not executed speedily," they suspect 
it has never been pronounced. They, therefore, 
think they may safely continue to defer their in- 
tended but unshaken purpose. Though they some- 
times visit the sick beds of others, though they 
see how much disease disqualifies for all duties, 
yet to this period of incapacity, to this moment 
of disqualification, do they continue to defer this 
tremendously important concern. 

What an im_age of the Divine condescension 
does it convey, that ^^ the goodness of God lead- 
eth to repentance 1" It does not barely invite, 
but it conducts. Every warning is more or less an 
invitation ; everj^ visitation is a lighter stroke t(? 
avert a heavier blow. This was the way in which 
the heathen world understood portents and pro* 
digies, and on this interpretation of them they 



INSENSIBILITY TO ETERNAL THINGS. 335 

acted. Any alarming warning-, whether rational 
or superstitious, drove them to their temples, their 
sacrifices, their expiations. Does our clearer light 
always carry us farther 1 Does it, in these in- 
stances, always carry us as far as natural con- 
science carried them ? 

The final period of the worldly man at length 
arrives ; but he will not believe his danger. Even 
if he fearfully glance around for an intimation of 
it in every surrounding face, every face, it is too 
probable, is in a league to deceive him. What a 
noble opportunity is now offered to the christian 
physician to show a kindness as far superior to 
any he has ever shown, as the concerns of the 
soul are superior to those of the body ! Oh, let 
him not (ear prudently to reveal a truth for which 
the patient may bless him in eternity ! Is it not 
sometimes to be feared, that in the hope of pro- 
longing for a little while the existence of the 
perishing body, he robs the never-dying soul of 
its last opportunity to seek for pardon 1 Does not 
the concern for the immortal part, united with 
his care of the afflicted body, bring the medica. 
professor to a nearer imitation than any othei 
supposable situation can do, of that Divine Phy 
sician, who never healed the one without nrani* 
festing a tender concern for the other 1 

But the deceit is short, is fruitless. The 
amazed spirit is about to dislodge. Who shall 



336 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

speak its terror and dismay 1 Then he cries out 
in the bitterness of his soul, ^^ What capacity has 
a diseased man, what time has a dying man, what 
disposition has a sinful man, to acquire good 
principles, to unlearn false notions, to renounce 
bad practices, to establish right habits, to begin 
to love God, to begin to hate sin ] How is the 
stupendous concern of salvation to be worked 
out by a mind incompetent to the most ordinary 
concerns V 

The infinite importance of what he has to do — 
the goading conviction that it must be done — the 
utter inability of doing it — the dreadful combi- 
nation in his mind of both the necessity and in- 
capacity — the despair of crowding the concerns 
of an age into a moment — the impossibility of. 
beginning a repentance which should have been 
completed — of setting about a peace which should 
have been concluded — of suing for a pardon which 
should have been obtained — all these complica- 
ted concerns, without strength, without time, 
without hope, with a clouded memory, a disjoint- 
ed reason, a wounded spirit, undefined terrors, 
remembered sins, anticipated punishment, an 
angry God, an accusing conscience , all together 
intolerably augment the sufferings of a body 
which stands in little need of the insupportable 
burden of a distracted miad to aggravate its 
torments. 



iNSE^^SIBILITY TO ETERNAL THINGS. 337 

Though we pity the superstitious weakness of 
the German emperor in acting over the anticipa- 
ted solemnities of his own funeral, that eccentric 
act of penitence of a great but perverted mind^ 
it would be well if we were now and then to 
represent to our minds, while in sound health, 
the solemn certainties of a dying bed. If we 
were sometimes to imao;e to ourselves this awful 
scene, not only as inevitable, but as near ; if we 
accustomed ourselves to see things now, as we- 
shall then wish we had seen them , surely the 
most sluggish insensibility must be roused by 
portraying to itself the rapid approach of death, 
the nearness of our unalterable doom, our instant 
transition to that state of unutterable bliss or un- 
. imaginable wo to which death will in a moment 
consign us. Such a mental representation would 
assist us in dissipating the illusion of the senses ; 
would help to realize what is invisible, and to 
approximate what we think remote. It would 
disenchant us from the world, tear off her paint- 
ed mask, shrink her pleasures into their proper 
dimensions, her concerns into their real value, 
her enjoyments into their just compass, her 
promises into — nothing. 

Terrible as the evil is, if it must, and that at 
no distant day, be met, spare not to present it tc 
your imagination ; not to lacerate your feelings, 
out to arm your resolution ; not to excite unpro- 

Pract. Piety. » 22 



338 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

fitable distress, but to strengthen your faith* Tf 
it terrify you at first, draw a little nearer to it • 
every time. Familiarity will abate the terror. If 
you cannot face the image, how will you encoun 
ter the reality 1 

Let us then anticipate the moment (who can 
say that moment may not be the next 1) when all 
we cling to shall elude our grasp ; when every 
earthly good shall be to us as if it had never 
been, except in the remembrance of the use we 
^^ave made of it i when our eyes shall close upon 
a world of sense, and open on a world of spirits , 
when there shall be no relief for the fainting 
body, and no refuge for the parting soul, except 
that single Refuge to which, perhaps, we have 
never thought of resorting — that refuge which, 
if we have not despised, we have too probably 
neglected — the everlasting mercies of God in 
Christ Jesus. 

Reader ! whoever you are, who have neglected 
to remember that to die is the end for which you 
were born, know that you have a personal inte- 
rest in this scene. Turn not away from it in dis- 
dain, however feebly it may have been represent- 
ed. You may escape any other evil of life, but 
its end you cannot escape. Defer not, then, its 
weightiest concern to its weakest period. Begin 
not the preparation w^hen you should be comple- 
ting the work D<?ky not the business which de- 



HAPPY DEATHS, 339 

mands your best faculties to the period of their 
debility, probably of their extinction. Leave not 
the work which requires an age to do, to be done 
in a moment, a moment, too, which may not be 
granted. The alternative is tremendous. The 
difference i'S that of being saved or lost. It is no 
light thing to perish 



CHAPTER XIX. 



HAPPY DEATHS. 



Few circumstances contribute more fatally to 
confirm in worldly men that insensibility to eter- 
nal things which was considered in the preceding 
chapter, than the boastful accounts we sometimes 
hear of the firm and heroic death-beds of popular 
but irreligious characters. Many causes contri- 
bute to these happy deaths^ as they are called. 
The bhnd are bold : they do not see the preci- 
pice they despise. Or, perhaps, there is less un- 
willingness to quit a world which has so often 
disappomted them, or which they have sucked to 



340 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

the last dregs. They leave life with less reluc- 
tance, feeling that they have exhausted all its 
gratifications. Or it is a disbelief of the reality of 
the state on which they are about to enter. Or it 
is a desire to be released from excessive pain, a 
desire naturally felt by those who calculate their 
gain rather by what they are escaping from, than 
by what they are about to receive. Or it is equa- 
bility of temper, or firmness of nerve, or hardness 
of mind: Or it is the arrogant wish to make the 
last act of life confirm its preceding professions. 
Or it is the vanity of perpetuating their philoso- 
phic character. Or if some faint ray of light 
break in, it is the pride of not retracting the sen- 
timents which from pride they have maintained ; 
the desire of posthumous renown among their 
own party; the hope to make their disciples stand 
firm by their example ; the ambition to give their 
last possible blow to revelation — or, perhaps, it is 
the fear of expressing doubts which might beget 
a suspicion that their disbelief was not so sturdy 
as they would have it thought. Above all, may 
they not, as a punishment for their long neglect 
of the warning voice of truth, be given up to a 
strong delusion to believe the lie they have so 
often propagated, and really expect to find in 
death that eternal sleep with which they have 
afTected to quiet their own consciences, and have 
really weakened the faith of others. 



HAPPY DEATHS. 341 

Every new instance is an additional buttress on 
which the sceptical school lean for support, and 
which they produce as a fresh triumph. With 
equal satisfaction they collect stories of infirmi- 
ty, depression, and want of courage in the dying 
hour of relio-ious men, whom the nature of the 
disease, timorousness of spirit, profound humility, - 
the sad remembrance of sin, though long repent- 
ed of and forgiven, a deep sense of the awfulness 
of meeting God in judgment ; — whom some or all 
of these causes may occasion to depart in trem- 
bling fear 5 in whom, though heaviness may en- 
dure through the night of death, yet joy cometh 
in the morning of the resurrection. 

It is a maxim of the civil law that definitions 
are hazardous. And it cannot be denied that va- 
rious descriptions of persons have hazarded much 
in their definitions of a happy death, A very able 
and justly admired writer, who has distinguish- 
ed himself by the most valuable works on poli- 
tical economy, has recorded, as proofs of the 
happy death of a no less celebrated contempo- 
rary, that he cheerfully amused himself in his 
last hours with Lucian, a game of Whist, and 
some good-humored drollery upon Charon and 
his boat. 
' But may we not venture to say, with '^ one * of 

* The late 6X0611*^111 Bishop Home. See his Letter to Dr 
Adam Smith. 



342 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

the people called christians," himself a wit and 
a philosopher, though of the school of Christ, 
that the man who could meet death in such a 
frame of mind, ^' might smile over Babylon in 
ruios, esteem the earthquake which destroyed 
Lisbon an agreeable occurrence, and congratu- 
late the hardened Pharaoh on his overthrow in 
the Red Sea V 

This eminent historian and philosopher, whose 
great intellectual powers it is as impossible not 
to admire, as it is not to lament their unhappy 
misapplication, has been eulogised by his friend, 
as coming nearer than almost any other man to 
the perfection of human nature in his life ; and 
has been almost deified for the cool courage and 
heroic firmness with which he met death. His 
eloquent panegyrist, with as insidious an inuendo 
as has ever been thrown out against revealed re- 
ligion, goes on to observe, that ^^ perhaps it is 
one of the very worst circumstances against 
Christianity, that very few of its professors w^ere 
either so moral, so humane, or could so philoso- 
phically govern their passions, as the sceptical 
David Hume." 

Yet notwithstanding this rich embalming of so 
noble a compound of "matter and motion," we 
must be permitted to doubt one of the two things 
presented for our admiration : we must either 
doubt the so much boasted happiness of his death, 



HAPFY DEATHS. 3i3 

or the so much extolled humanity of his heart 
We musV be permitted to suspect the soundness 
of that benevolence which led him to devote his 
latest hours to prepare, under the label of an 
Essay on Suicide^ a potion for posterity of so de- 
leterious a quality, that if taken by the patient, 
under all the circumstances in which he under- 
takes to prove it innocent, might have gone near 
to effect the extinction of the w^hole human race. 
For if all rational beings, according to this post- 
humous prescription, are at liberty to procure 
their own release from life " under pain or sick- 
ness, shame or poverty," how large a portion of 
the world would be authorized to quit it uncalled ! 
For how many are subject to the two latter griev- 
ances ; ^rom the two former how few are alto- 
gether exempt!* 

The energy of that ambition which could con- 
centrate the last efforts of a powerful mind, the 
last exertions of a spirit greedy of fame, into a 
project not only for destroying the souls, but 

* Another part of the Essay on Suicide has this passage: 
*' Whenever pain or sorrow so far overcome my patience 
as to make me tired of life, I may conclude that I am le- 
cailed from my station in the plainest and most express 
terms." — And again: ".When I fall upon my own sword, 
I receive my death equally from the hand of the Deity, as 
if it had proceeded from a lion, a precipice, or a fever." — 
And again : " Where is the crime of turning a few ounces 
of b.ood from tbeir natural channeH'^ 



344" PRACnCAL PIETY. 

for abridging the lives of his fellow-creatures, 
leaves at a disgraceful distance the inverted 
thirst of glory of the man who, to immortalize 
his own name, set fire to the temple of Ephesus, 
Such a burning zeal to annihilate the eternal 
hope of his fellow-creatures might be philoso^ 
phyj but surely to authorize them to curtail 
their mortal existence, which to the infidel who 
looks for no other must be invaluable, was not 
philanthropy. 

But if this death w^as thought worthy of being 
blazoned to the public eye in all the warm and 
glowing colors with which affection decorates 
panegyric, the disciples of the same school have 
been in general anxiously solicitous to produce 
only the more creditable instances of invincible 
hardness of heart, while they have labored to 
cast an impenetrable veil over the closing scene 
of those among the less inflexible of the frater- 
nity, who have exhibited in their departing mo- 
ments any symptoms of doubt, any indications 
of distrust respecting the validity of their prin- 
ciples ; principles which they had long maintain* 
ed with so much zeal, and disseminated with so 
much industry. 

In spite of the sedulous anxiety of his satel- 
lites to conceal the clouded setting of the great 
luminary of modern infidelity, from which so 
many minor stars have filled their little urns, and 



HAPPY DEATHS. 345 

then set up for original lights themselves; in 
spite of the pains taken — for we must drop me- 
taphor — to shroud from all eyes, except those of [ 
the initiated, the terror and dismay with which 
the philosopher of Geneva met death, met his 
summons to appear before that God whose pro- 
vidence he had ridiculed, that Saviour whose 
character and offices he had vilified, — the secret 
was betrayed. In spite of the precautions taken 
by his associates to bury in congenial darkness 
the aofonies which in his last hours contradicted 
the audacious blasphemies of a laborious life 
spent in their propagation, at last, like his great 
instigator, he believed and trembled. 

Whatever the sage of Ferney might be in the 
eyes of journalists, of academicians, of encyclope- 
dists, of the royal author of Berlin, of revolution- 
ists in the egg of his own hatching, of full-grown 
infidels of his own spawning ; of a world into 
which he had been for more than half a century 
industriously infusing a venom, the effects of 
which will be long felt ; the expiring philosopher 
was no object of veneration to his nurse. She 
could have recorded *^ a tale to harrow up the 
soul," the horrors of which were sedulously at- 
tempted to be consigned to oblivion. But for 
this woman and a few other unbribed witnesses, 
his friends would probably have endeavored to 



346 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

edify the world with this addition to the brilliant 
catalogue of happy deaths.^ 

It has been a not uncommon opinion that the 
works of an able and truly pious christian, by 
their happy tendency to awaken the careless, and 
to convince the unbelieving, may, even for ages 
after the excellent author is entered into his eter- 
nal rest, by the accession of new converts which 
they bring to Christianity, continue to add in- 
creasing brightness to the crown of the already 
glorified saint. If this be true, how shall imagi- 
nation presume to conceive, much less how shall 
language express, what must be expected in the 
contrary easel How shall we dare turn our 

* It is a well attested fact that this woman, after his de- 
cease, being sent for to attend another person in dying cir- 
cumstances, anxiously inquired if the patient was a chris- 
tian, for that she had recently been so dreadfully terrified 
in witnessing the dying horrors of Mons. de Voltaire, which 
surpassed all description, that she had resolved never to at- 
tend any sick person unless she could be assured that he 
was not an infidel. — Voltaire, indeed, as he was deficient in 
the moral honesty and the other good qualities which ob- 
tained for Mr. Hume the affection of his friends wanted 
his sincerity. Of all his other vices, hypocrisy was the con- 
summation. While he daily dishonored the Redeemer by 
the invention of unheard-of blasphemies ; after he had 
bound himself by a solemn pledge never to rest till he had 
exterminated his very name from the face of the earth, he 
was not ashamed to assist regularly at the awful commemo- 
ration of his death at the altar 1 



HAPPY DEATHS. 347 

thoughts to the progressive torments which may 
be ever heaping on the heads of those unhappy- 
men of genius, who, having devoted their rare 
talents to promote vice and infidelity, continue, 
with fatal success, to make successive proselytes 
through successive ages, if their works last so 
long, and thus accumulate on themselves anguish 
ever growing, miseries ever muUiplying, without 
hope of any mitigation, withaut hope of any end ] 
A more recent instance of the temper and spirit 
which the college of infidelity exhibits on these 
occasions is, perhaps, less generally known. A 
person of our own time and country, of high rank 
and talents, and who ably filled a great public 
situation, had unhappily, in early life, imbibed 
principles and habits analogous to those of a no- 
toriously profligate society of which he was a 
member 5 a society of which the very appellation 
it delighted to distinguish itself by is 

" Offence and torture to the sober ear." 

In the near view of death, at an advanced age, 
deep remorse and terror took possession of his 
^oul ^ but he had no friend about him to whom 
he could communicate the state of his mind, or 
from whom he could derive either counsel or con- 
solation. One day, in the absence of his attend- 
ants, he raised his exhausted body on his dying 
bed, and threw himself on the floor, where he was 



34?8 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

found in great agony of spirit, with a prayer-book 
in his hand. This detection was at once a sub- 
ject for ridicule and regret to his colleagues, and 
he was contemptuously spoken of as a pusillani- 
mous deserter from the good cause. The phrase 
used by them to express their displeasure at his 
apostacy is too offensive to find a place here.* 
Were we called upon to decide between rival 
horrors, we should feel no hesitation in pronounc- 
ing this death a less unhappy one than those to 
which we have before alluded. 

Another well known sceptic, while in perfect 
health, took measures, by a special order, to guard 
against any intrusion in his last sickness, by 
which he might, even in the event of delirium, 
betray any doubtful apprehension that there 
might be an hereafter 5 or in any other way be 
surprised in uttering expressions of terror, and 
thus exposing the state of his mind, in case any 
such revolution should take place, which his 
heart whispered him might possibly happen. 

But not only in those happy deaths^ which 
close a life of avowed impiety, is there great 
room for suspicion, but even in cases where, 
without acknowledged infidelity, there has been 
a careless life 5 when in such cases we hear of a 

♦ The writer had this anecdote from an acquaintance ol 
the noble person at the time of his death. 



HAPPY DEATHS. 349 

sudden death-bed revolution, of much seeming 
contrition, succeeded by extraordinary profes- 
sions of joy and triumph, we should be very cau- 
tious in pronouncing on their real state. Let us 
rather leave the penitent of a day to that mercy 
against which he has been sinning through a 
whole life. These *' Clinical Converts" (to bor- 
row a favorite phrase of the eloquent Bishop Tay- 
lor) may, indeed, be true penitents ; but how shall 
we pronounce them to be so 1 How can we con- 
clude that *^ they are dead unto sin," unless they 
be spared to ^Mive unto righteousness 1" Hap- 
pily, we are not called upon to decide. He to 
whose broad eye the future and the past lie 
open, as he has been their constant witness, so 
will he be their unerring judge. "^ 

But the admirers of certain happy deaths do 

* The primitive church carried their incredulity of the 
appearance of repentance so far as to require not only 
years of sorrow for sin, but perseverance in piety, before 
they would admit offenders to their communion ; and as a 
test of their sincerity, required the uniform practice of those 
virtues most opposite to their former vices: — were this 
made the criterion now, we should not so often hear such 
flaming accounts of converts so exullingly reported, before 
time has been allowed to try their stability. More espe- 
cially, we should not hear of so many triumphant relations 
of death-bed converts, in whom the symptoms must frequent- 
ly be too equivocal to admit the positive decision of human 
wisdom I 



'350 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

not even pretend that any such change appeared 
in the friends of whom they make not so much 
the panegyric as the apotheosis. They would 
even think repentance a derogation from the 
dignity of their character. They pronounce them 
to have been good enough as they were , insist- 
ing that they have a demand for happiness upon 
God, if there be any such Being ; a claim upon 
heaven, if there be such a place. They are satis- 
fied that their friend, after a life spent ^^ w^ithout 
God in the world," without evidencing any mark 
of a changed heart, without eveil affecting any 
thing like repentance, without intimating' tha^ 
there wa? any call for it, died pronouncing him 

SELF happy. 

But nothing is more suspicious than a happy 
deaths where there has neither been religion in 
the life, nor humility in its close, — where its 
course has been without piety, and its termina- 
tion without repentance. 

Others, in a still bolder strain, disdaining the 
posthumous renown to be conferred by survivors, 
of their having died happily, prudently secure 
their own fame, and changing both the tense 
and the person usual in monumental inscriptions, 
with prophetic confidence record on their own 
sepulchral marble, that they shall die not only 
" HAPPY," but " GRATEFUL ;" the prcscicncc of phi- 
losophy thus assuming as certain what the hum- 



HAPPy- DEATHS. 351 

ble spirit of Christianity only presumes to hope. 
There is another reason to be assigned for the 
charitable error of indiscriminately consigning 
our departed acquamtance to certain happiness. 
Affliction, as it is a tender, so it is a misleading 
feeling, especially in minds naturally soft, and 
but slightly tinctured with religion. The death 
of a friend awakens the kindest feelings of the 
heart ; but by exciting true sorrow it often ex- 
cites false charity. Grief naturally softens every 
fault, love as naturally heightens every virtue. It 
is right and kind to consign error to oblivion, but 
not to immortality. Charity indeed we owe to the 
dead as well as to the living, but not that erro- 
neous charity by wlwch truth is violated, and un- 
deserved commendation lavished on those whom 
truth could no longer injure. To calumniate the 
dead is even worse than to violate the rights of 
sepulture 5 not to vindicate calumniated worth, 
when it can no longer vindicate itself, is a crime 
next to that of attacking it '* but on the dead, 
charity, though well-intended, is often mista- 
kingly exercised. 

If we were called upon to collect the greatest 

* What a generous instance of that disinterested attach^ 
ment which survives the grave of its object, and piously 
rescues his reputation from the assaults of malignity, was 
given by the late excellent Bishop Porteus, in his animated 
defence of Archbishop Seeker ! May his own fair fame 



352 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

quantity of hyperbole — falsehood might be too 
harsh a term — in the least given time and space, 
we should do well to search for it in those sacred 
edifices expressly consecrated to truth. There 
we should see the ample mass of canonizing 
kindness which fills their mural decorations, ex- 
pressed in all those flattering records inscribed 
by every variety of motive to every variety of 
claim. In addition to what is dedicated to real 
merit by real sorrow, we should hear of tears 
which were never shed, grief which was never 
felt, praise which was never earned , we should 
see the exaggerated tribute raised by the decent 
demands of connection, by tender but undiscern- 
ing friendship, by poetic j^cense, by eloquent 
gratitude for testamentary favors. 

never stand in need of any such warm vindication, which, 
however, it could not fail to find in the bosom of every good 
man ! The fine talents of this lamented prelate, uniformly 
devoted to the purposes for which God gave them — his life 
directed to those duties to which his high professional sta- 
tion called him — his christian graces— ^those engaging man- 
ners which shed a soft lustre on the firm fidelity of his 
friendships — that kindness which v/as ever flowing from 
his heart to his lips — the benignity and candor which dis- 
tinguished not his conversation only, but his conduct ; these, 
and all the other amiable qualities, that gentle temper and 
corr Jfcheerfulness with which he adorned society, will 
ever endear his memory to all v/ho knew him intimately; 
and let his friends remember, that to imitate his virtues 
will be the best proof of their remembering them. 



HAPPY DEATHS. ^ 853 

It' is an amiable, though not a correct feeling 
in human nature, that, fancying we have not done 
justice to certain characters during their lives^ 
we run into the error of supposed compensation, 
by over-estimating them after their decease. 

On account of neighborhood, affinity, long ac- 
quaintance, or some pleasing qualities, we may 
nave entertained a kindness for many persons, 
of whose state, however, while they lived, we 
could not, with the utmost stretch of charity, 
think favorably. If their sickness has been long 
and severe, our compassion having been kept by 
that circumstance in a state of continual excite- 
ment, though we lament their death, yet we feel 
thankful that their suffering is at an end. For- 
getting our former opinion, and the course of 
life on which it was framed, we fall into all the 
common-places of consolation — ^^ God is merci- 
ful — we trust that they are at rest — what a happy 
release they have had !" Nay, it is well if we do 
not go so far as to entertain a kind of vague be- 
lief that their better qualities, joined to their suf- 
ferings, have, on the whole, insured their felicity. 

Thus at once losing sight of that word of God 
which cannot lie, of our former regrets on that 
subject ; losing the remembrance of their defec- 
tive principles and thoughtless conduct 5 without 
any reasonable ground for altering our opmion, 
any pretence for entertaining a better hope- — ^we 

Pract Piety, oQ 



354 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

assume that tbej^ are happy. We reason as if we 
believed that the sufferings of the .body had pur- 
chased the salvation of the soul, as if it had ren- 
dered any doubt almost criminal. We seem to 
make ourselves easy on the falsest ground ima- 
ginable, not because we believe their hearts were 
changed, but because they are now beyond all 
possibility, of change. 

But surely the mere circumstance of death will 
not have rendered them iit for that heaven for 
which we before feared they were unfit. Far be 
it from us, indeed, blind and sinful as we are, to 
pass sentence upon them^ to pass sentence upon 
any. We dare not venture to pronounce what 
may have passed between God and their souls, 
even at the last hour. We know that infinite 
mercy is not restricted to times or seasons — to 
an early or late repentance ; we know not but in 
that little interval their peace was made, their 
pardon granted, through the atoning blood and 
powerful intercession of their Redeemer. Nor 
should we too scrupulously pry into the state of 
others; never, indeed, except to benefit them 
or ourselves ; we should rather imitate the exam 
pie of Christ, who at once gave an admirable les- 
son of meekness and charitable judgment, when, 
avoiding: an answer which mio^ht have led to fruit- 
less discussion, he gave a reproof under the shape 
of an exhortation. In reply, to the inquiry, ^* Are 



HAPPr DEATHS. 355 

there few that be saved V he thus checked vain 
curiosity : " Strive (you) to enter in at the strait 
gate." On another occasion, in the same spirit, 
he corrected inquisitiveness, not by an answer, 
but by an interrogation and a precept — '' What is 
that to thee 1 Follow thou me." 

But where there is strong ground to apprehend 
that the contrary may have been the case, it is 
very dangerous to pronounce peremptorily on the 
safety of the dead ; because, if we allow our- 
selves to be fully persuaded that they are entered 
upon a state of happiness, it will naturally and 
fatally tempt us to lower our own standard. If 
we are ready to conclude that they are now in a 
state of glory whose principles we believe to be 
incorrect, whose practice, to say the least of it, 
we knew to be negligent, who, without our in- 
dulging a censorious or a presumptuous spirit, we 
thought lived in a state of mind and a course of 
habits not only far from right, but even avowedly 
inferior to our own ; will not this lead to the 
conclusion, either that we ourselves, standing on 
so much higher ground, are in a very advanced 
state of grace, or that a much lower than ours 
may be a state of safety % And will not such a 
belief tend to slacken our endeavors and to lower 
our tone, both of faith and practice % 

While we are thus taking and giving false 
comfort, our friend, as to us, will have died in 



S56 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

vain. Instead of his death having operated as a 
warning voice to rouse us to a more animated 
piety, it will be rather likely to lull us into a dan^ 
gerous security. If our affection has so blinded 
our judgment, we shall, by the indulgence of a 
false candor to another, sink into a false peace 
ourselves. 

It will be a wounding circumstance to the feel 
ings of surviving friendship, to see a person of 
loose habits, whom, though we loved, yet we 
feared to admonish, and that because we loved 
him ; for whom, though we saw his danger, yet 
perhaps we neglected to pray ; to see him 
brought to that ultimate and fixed state in which 
admonition is impossible, in which prayer is not 
only fruitless but unlawful. 

Another distressing circumstance frequently 
occurs. We meet with affectionate but irreli- 
gious parents, who, though kind and perhaps ami- 
able, have neither lived themselves, nor educa- 
ted their families in christian principles, nor in 
habits of christian piety. A child at the age of 
maturity dies. Deep is the affliction of the doat- 
ing parent. The world is a blank. He looks 
round for comfort where he has been accustom- 
ed to look for it, among his friends. He finds it 
not He looks up for it where he has not beea 
accustomed to seek it. Neither his heart nor his 
treasure has been laid up in heaven : yet a pa- 



HAPPY DEATHS. 



357 



roxystn of what may be termed natural devotion, 
gives to his grief an air of piety 5 — the first cry 
of anguish is commonly religious. 

The lamented object, perhaps, through utter ig 
norance of the av^ful gulf which was opeping to re 
ceive him, added to a tranquil temper, might have 
expired without evidencing any great distress, 
and his happy death is industriously proclaimed 
through the neighborhood, and the mourning 
parents have only to wish that their latter end 
may be like his. They cheat at once their sor- 
row and their souls with the soothing notion 
that they shall soon meet their beloved child in 
heaven. Of this they persuade themselves as 
firmly and as fondly as if both they and the ob- 
ject of their grief had been living in the way 
which leads thither. Oh, for that unbought trea- 
sure, a sincere, a real friend, who might lay hold 
on the propitious moment ! When the heart is 
softened by sorrow, it might possibly, if ever, 
be led to its true remedy. This would, indeed, 
be a more unequivocal, because more painful act 
of friendship, than pouring in the lulling opiate 
of false consolation, which we are too ready to 
administer, because it saves our own feelings, 
while it sooths, without healing, those of the 
mourner. 

But, perhaps, the integrity of the friend con- 
quers his timidity. Alas! he is honestly explicit 



358 FRACTICAL PIETY. 

to unattending or to offended ears. They refuse 
to hear the voice of the charmer. But if the 
mourners will not endure the voice of exhortation 
now, while there is hope, how will they endure 
the sound of the last trumpet when hope is at an 
end'? If they will not bear the gentle whispers 
of friendship, how will they bear the voice of 
the accusing angel, the terrible sentence of the 
incensed Judge ] If private reproof be into- 
lerable, how will they stand the being made a 
spectacle to angels and to men, even to the 
whole assembled universe, to the whole creation 
of God % 

But instead of converting the friendly warning 
to their eternal benefit, they are probably wholly 
bent on their own vindication. Still their cha- 
racter is dearer to them than their soul. "We 
never," say they, " v/ere any man's enemy." — 
Yes, you have been the enemy of all to whom 
you have given a bad example. You have espe- 
cially been the enemy of your children, on whom 
you have inculcated no christian principles. Still 
they insist with the prophet, " that there is no 
iniquity in them that "can be called iniquity." 
" We have wronged no one," say they : " we 
have given to every one his due. We have done 
our duty." Your first duty was to God. You 
have robbed your Maker of the service due to 
him You have robbed your Redeemer of the 



HAPPY DEATHS 359 

souls he died to save. You have robbed your 
own soul, and too probably the souls of those 
whom you have so wretchedly educated, of eter- 
nal happiness. Thus, the flashes of religion, which 
darted in upon their conscience in the first burst 
of sorrow, too frequently die away : they expire 
before the grief which kindled them. The mourn- 
ers resort again to their old resource, the world, 
which, if it cannot soon heal their sorrow, at 
least soon diverts it. 

To shut our eyes upon death as an object of 
terror or of hope, and to consider it only as a 
release or an extinction, is viewing it under a 
character which is not its own. But to get rid 
of the idea at any rate, and then boast that we 
do not fear the thing we do not think of, is not 
difficult. Nor is it difficult to think of it without 
alarm if we do not include its consequences. 
But to him who frequently repeats, not mechani- 
cally but devoutly, ^* We know that Thou shalt 
come to be our Judge," death cannot be a matter 
of indifference. 

Another cause of these happy deaths is, that 
many think salvation a slight thing, that heaven 
is cheaply obtained, that a merciful God is easily 
pleased, that we are christians, and that mercy 
comes of course to those who have always pro- 
fessed to believe that Christ died to purchase it 
for them. This notion of God being more merci- 



360 PKACTICAL PIETY 

ful than he has any where declared himself to be, 
instead of inspiring them with more gratitude 
to him, inspires more confidence in themselves. 
This corrupt faith generates a corrupt morality. 
It leads to this strange consequence, not to make 
them love God better, but to venture on offend- 
ing him more. 

People talk as if the act of death made as com- 
plete a change in the nature as in the condition 
of man. Death is the vehicle to another state 
of being, but possesses no power to qualify us 
for that state. In conveying us to a new world, 
it does not give us a new heart. It puts the un- 
alterable stamp of decision on the character, but 
does not transform it into a character diametri- 
cally opposite. 

Our affections themselves will be rather raised 
than altered. Their tendencies will be the same, 
though their advancement will be incomparably 
higher. They will be exalted in their degree, 
but not changed in their nature. They will be 
purified from all earthly mixtures, cleansed from 
all human pollutions, the principle will be cleared 
from its imperfections, but it will not become 
another principle. He that is unholy will not be 
made holy by death. The heart will not have a 
new object to seek, but will be directed more in- 
tensely to the same object. 

They who loved God here, will love him far 



HAPPY DEATHS. 361 

more in heaven, because they will know him far 
better. There he will reign without a competitor. 
They who served him here in sincerity, will there 
serve him in perfection. If " the pure in heart 
shall see God," let us remember that this purity 
is not to be contracted after we have been ad- 
mitted to its remuneration. The beatitude Is 
pledged as a result of the purity, not as a qua- 
lification for it. Purity will be sublimated in 
heaven, but will not begin to be produced there. 
It is to be acquired by passing through the re- 
finer's fire here, not through the penal and ex- 
piatory fire which human ingenuity devised to 
purge offending man 

** From the foul deeds done in his days of nature." 

The extricated spirit will be separated from the 
feculence of all that belongs to sin, to sense, to 
self. We shall, indeed, find ourselves new, be- 
cause spiritualized, beings ; but if the cast of the 
mind were not in a great measure the same, how 
should we retain our identity 1 The soul will 
there become that which it here desired to be, 
that which it mourned because it was so far from 
being. It will have obtained that complete vic- 
tory over its corruptions which it here only de- 
sired, which it here only struggled to obtain. 

Here our love of spiritual things is superin- 
duced, there it will be our natural frame. The 



362 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

impression of God in our hearts will be stamped 
deeper, but it will not be a different impression. 
Our obedience will be more voluntary, because 
there will be no rival propensities to obstruct it. 
It will be more entire, because it will have to 
struggle with no counteracting force. Here we 
sincerely though imperfectly love the law of God, 
even though it controls our perverse v/ill, though 
it contradicts our corruptions. There our love 
will be complete, because our will will retain no 
perverseness, and our corruptions will be done 
away. Here our most successful efforts after ho- 
liness were little more than painful endeavors to 
disentangle ourselves from the snares and weight 
of sin ; there the effort will be over, because the 
object will be attained. Repentance, precious at 
all seasons, in the season of health is noble. It 
is a generous principle when it overtakes us sur- 
rounded with the prosperities of life, when it is 
not put off till distress drives us to it. Serious- 
ness of spirit is most acceptable to God when 
danger is out of sight, preparation for death when 
death appears to be at a distance. 

Virtue and piety are founded on the nature of 
things, on the laws of God, not on any vicissi- 
tudes in human circumstances. Irreligion, folly, 
and vice are just as unreasonable in the meri- 
dian of life as at the approach of death. They 
strike us differently, but they always retain their 



HAPPY DEATHS. 363 

own character. Every argument against an irre- 
ligious death is equally cogent against an irreli- 
gious life. Piety and penitence may be quickened 
by the near view of death, but the reasons for 
practising them are not founded on its nearness. 
Death may stimulate our fears for the conse- 
quences of vice, but furnishes no motive for 
avoiding it which Christianity had not taught be- 
fore. The necessity of religion is as urgent now 
as it will be when we are dying. It may not ap- 
pear so, but the reality of a thing does not de- 
pend on appearances. Besides, if the necessity 
of being religious depended on the approach of 
death, what moment of our lives is there in which 
we have any security against it 1 In every point 
of view, therefore, the same necessity for being 
religious subsists when we are in full health, as 
when we are about to die. 

We may then fairly arrive at this conclusion, 
that there is no happy death but that which con- 
ducts to a happy immortality ; — no joy in puttmg 
off the body, if we have not put on the Lord Je- 
SU5 Christ 5 — no consolation in escaping from the 
miseries of time till we have obtained a well- 
grounded hope of a blessed eternity. 



36-i PRACTICAL PIBTY. 



CHAPTER XX. 



ON THE SUFFERINGS OF GOOD MEN 

Affliction is the school in which great virtues 
are acquired, in which great characters are form 
ed. It is a kind of moral gymnasium, in which 
the disciples of Christ are trained to robust ex- 
ercise, hardy exertion, and severe conflict. 

We do not hear of martial heroes in " the calm 
and piping time of peace," nor of the most emi- 
nent saints in the quiet and unmolested periods 
of ecclesiastical history. We are far from deny- 
ing that the principle of courage in the warrior, 
or of piety in the saint, continues to subsist, 
ready to be brought into action when perils beset 
the country or trials assail the church ; but it 
must be allowed, that in long periods of inaction 
both are liable to decay. 

The christian, in our comparatively tranquil day, 
is happily exempt from the trials and the terrors 
which the annals of persecution record. Thanks 
to the prevalence of a pure Christianity, the influ- 
ence of the same on our laws, and the mild and 
tolerating spirit of both, a man is so far from 



THE SUFFEEINGS OF GOOD MEN. 365 

being liable to pains and penalties for his attach^ 
ment to his religion, that he is protected in its 
exercise. 

Yet, still the christian is not exempt from his 
individual, his appropriate, his undefined trials. 
We refer not merely to those " cruel mockings," 
which the acute sensibility of the apostle led him 
to rank in the same catalogue with bonds, im- 
prisonments, exile, and martyrdoni itself. We 
allude not altogether to those misrepresentations 
and calumnies to which the zealous christian is 
peculiarly liable ', nor exclusively to those diffi- 
culties to which his very adherence to the prin- 
ciples he professes must necessarily subject him 5 
nor entirely to those occasional sacrifices of 
credit, of advancement, of popular applause, to 
which his refusing to sail with the tide of popu- 
lar opinion may compel him : nor solely to the 
disadvantages which, under certain circumstan-' 
ces, his not preferring expediency to principle 
may expose him. But the truly good man is not 
only often called to struggle with trials of large 
dimensions, with exigencies of obvious difficult}^, 
but to encounter others which are better under- 
stood than defined 5 

" And duller would he be than the fat weed 
" That rots itself in ease on Lethe's wharf," 

were he left to batten undisturbed on the un- 



366 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

wholesome pastures of rank prosperity. The 
thick exhalations drawn up from this gross soil, 
render the atmosphere so heavy as to obstruct 
the ascent of piety : her flagging pinions are kept 
down by the influence of this moist vapor ; the 
pampered christian, thus continually gravitating 
to earth, would be prevented from soaring 

" To live insphered 
" In regions mild of calm and serene air, 
" Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot 
" Which men call earth." 

It is an unspeakable blessing that no events are 
left to the choice of beings who, from their blind- 
ness, would seldom fail to choose amiss. Were 
circumstances at our own disposal, we should 
allot ourselves nothing but ease and success, but 
riches and fame, but protracted youth, perpetual 
health, unvaried happiness. 

All this, as it would be very natural, so per- 
haps it would not be very wrong for beings who 
w^ere always to live on earth. But for beings who 
are placed here in a state of trial, and not esta- 
blished in their final home, whose condition in 
eternity depends on the use they make of time, 
nothing would be more dangerous than such a 
power, nothing more fatal than the consequences 
to which such a power would lead. 

li a surgeon were to put into the hand of a 



THE SUFFERINGS OF GOOD MEN. 367 

wounded patient the probe or the lancet, with 
how much false tenderness would he treat him- 
self ! How skin-deep would be the examination, 
how slight the incision ! The patient would 
escape the pain, but the wound might prove mor* 
tal. The practitioner, therefore, wisely uses his 
instrument himself. He goes deep, perhaps, but 
not deeper than the case demands. The pain 
may be acute, but the life is preserved. 

Thus He in whose hands we are, is too good 
and loves us too well to trust us with ourselves. 
He knows that we will not contradict our own 
inclinations ; that we will not impose on our- 
selves any thing unpleasant ; that we will not 
inflict on ourselves any voluntary pain, however 
necessary the infliction, however salutary the 
eflect. God graciously does this for us himself, 
or he knows it would never be done. 

A christian is liable to the same sorrows and 
sufl!erings with other men , he has nowhere any 
promise of immunity from the troubles of life, 
but he has a merciful promise of support under 
them. He considers them in another view, he 
bears them with another spirit, he improves them 
to other purposes than those whose views are 
bounded by this world. Whatever may be the 
instrument of his suflering, whether sickness, 
losses, calumnies, persecutions, he knows that it 
proceeds from God : all means .are his instru 



368 PRACTICAL PIETZ. 

ments 5 all inferior causes operate by his direct- 
ing hand. 

We said that a christian is liable to the same 
sufferings with other men. Might we not repeat 
I "what w^e have before said, that his very christian 
f profession is often the cause of his sufferings 1 
They are the badge of his discipleship, the evi* 
dences of his Father^s love ; they are at once the 
marks of God's favor and the materials of his 
own future happiness. 

What were the arguments of worldly advan- 
tages held out through the whole New Testa- 
ment to induce the world to embrace the religion 
it taught % What was the condition of St. Paul's 
introduction to Christianity 1 It w^as not — I will 
crown thee with honor and prosperity, with 
dignity and pleasure, but ^' I will show thee how 
great things thou must suffer for my name's 
sake." 

What were th^ virtues which Christ chiefly 
taught in his discourses % What were the graces 
he most recommended by his example 1 Self- 
denial, mortification, patience, long-suffering, the 
renouncing ease, and the contempt of pleasure. 
These are the marks which have ever, since its 
first appearance, distinguished Christianity from 
all the religions in the world, and on that account 
evidently prove its divine original. Ease, splen» 
dor, external prosperity, conquest made no part 



THE SUFFERINGS OF GOOD MEN. 369 

of Its establishment. Other empires have been 
founded in the blood of the vanquished ; the do- 
minion of Christ was founded in his own blood. 
Most of the beatitudes which infinite compassion 
pronounced, have the sorrows of earth for their 
subject, but the joys of heaven for their com- 
pletion. 

To establish this religion in the world, the 
Almighty, as his own word assures us, subverted 
kingdoms and altered the face of nations. *^ For 
thus saith the Lord of hosts," (by his prophet 
Haggai,) " Yet once, it is a little while, and I will 
shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, 
and the dry land ^ and I will shake all nations, and 
the Desire of all nations shall come." Could a re- 
ligion, the kingdom of which was to be founded 
by such awful means, be established, be perpe- 
tuated, without involving the sufferings of its 
subjects 1 

If the christian course had been meant for a 
path of roses, would the life of the Author of 
Christianity have been a path strewed with thorns'? 
" He made for us," says Bishop Jeremy Taylor, 
^^ a covenant of sufferings 5 his very promises were 
sufferings 5 his rewards were sufferings 5 and his 
arguments to invite men to follow him were only 
taken from sufferings in this life, and the reward 
of sufferings hereafter." 

But if no prince but the Prince of Peace ever 

Pract. Piety. 24 



870 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

set out with a proclamation of the reversionary 
nature of his empi're ; if no other king, to allay 
avarice and check ambition, ever invited subjects 
by the unalluring declaration that ^^ his kingdom 
was not of this world ;" if none other ever de- 
clared that it was not dignity or honors, valor or 
talents that made them " worthy of him," but 
'* taking up the cross ;" if no other ever made the 
sorrows which would attend his followers a mo- 
tive for their attachment, yet no other ever had 
the goodness to promise, or the power to make 
his promise good, that he would give ^^ rest to 
the heavy laden." Other sovereigns have ^^ over- 
come the world" for their own ambition, but none 
besides ever thought of making the " tribulation," 
which should be the effect of that conquest, a 
ground for animating the fidelity of his followers ; 
ever thought of bidding them " be of good cheer," 
because he had overcome the world in a sense 
which was to make his subjects lose all hope of 
rising in it. 

The apostle to the Philippians enumerated it 
among the honors and distinctions prepared for 
his most favored converts, not only that ^^ they 
should believe in Christ," but that they shculd 
also " suffer for him." Any other religion would 
have made use of such a promise as an argument 
to deter, not to attract. That a religion should 
flourish the more under such discouraging invita 



THE SUFFERINGS OF GOOD MEN. 371 

tions, with the threat of even degrading circum- 
stances and absolute losses, is unanswerable evi- 
dence that it was not of human origin. 

It is among the great mercies of Godj that he 
strengthens the virtues of his servants by harden- 
ing them under the cold and bracing climate of 
adverse fortune, instead of leaving them to Ian 
guish under the shining but withering sun of un- 
clouded prosperity. When they cannot be at- | 
tracted to him by gentler influences, he sends 
these salutary storms and tempests, which purify 
while they alarm. Our gracious Father knows 
that eternity is long enough for his children to be 
happy in. 

The character of Christianity may be seen by 
the very images of military conflict under which 
the Scriptures so frequently exhibit it. SufTerino- 
is the initiation into a christian's calling. It is his 
education for heaven. Shall the scholar rebel at 
the discipline which is to fit him for the profes- 
sion, or the soldier murmur at the exercises which 
are to qualify him for victory 1 

But the christian's trials do not all spring 
from without. He would think them compara- 
tively easy, had he only the opposition of men to 
struggle against, or even the severer dispensa- 
tions of God to sustain ; if he has a conflict with 
the world, he has a harder conflict with sin. His 
bosom foe is his most unyielding enemy: 



372 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

" His warfare is within ; there, unfatigued, 
** His fervent spirit labors." 

This it is which makes his other trials heavyj 
which makes his power of sustaining them weak, 
which renders his conquest over them slow and 
inconclusive j which too often solicits him to op- 
pose interest to duty, indolence to resistance, and 
self-indulgence to victory. ^ 

But instead of fighting with a foreign enemy, 
he turns his arms against himself. The foe he 
combats is his own heart. No earthly warrior, 
when his commission is made out, ever found in 
it so formidable a clause as that which makes a 
leading sentence in the christian's articles of war. 
To storm a fort, to mount a breach, is easy, com- 
pared with the statute, ^^ If any man come after 
me, let him deny himself." 

This w^orld is the stage on which worldly men 
more exclusively act , and the things of the world, 
and the applause of the world, are the rewards 
which they propose to themselves. These they 
often attain, with these they are satisfied. They 
aim at no higher end, and of their aim they are 
not disappointed. But let not the christian repine 
at the success of those whose motives he rejects, 
w^iose practices he dares not adopt, whose ends 
he deprecates. If he feel any disposition to mur- 
mur when he sees the irreligious in great pros- 
perity, let him ask himself if he would tread their 



THE SUFFERINGS OF GOOD MEN. 373 

path to attain their end, if he would do their work 
to obtain their wages. He knows he would not. 
Let him then cheerfully leave them to scramble 
for the prizes, and jostle for the places, which 
the world temptingly holds out, but which he 
will not purchase at the world's price. 

Consult the page of history, and observe, not 
only if the best men have been the most success- 
ful, but even if they have not often eminently 
failed in great enterprises, undertaken perhaps 
on the purest principles ; while unworthy instru- 
ments have been often employed, not only to pro- 
duce danP'erous revolutions, but to brinor about 
events ultimately tending to the public benefit ; 
enterprises in which good men feared to engage, 
which perhaps they were not competent to effect, 
or in effecting which, they might have wounded 
their conscience and endangered their souls. 

Good causes are not always conducted by good 
men. A good cause may be connected with some- 
thing that is not good — with party for instance. 
Party often does that for virtue which virtue is 
not able or willing to do for herself, and thus 
the right cause is promoted and effected by some 
subordinate, even by some wrong motive. A 
worldly man, connecting himself with a religious 
cause, gives it that importance in the eyes of the 
world which neither its own rectitude nor that 
of its religious supporters had been able to give 



374 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

it. Nay, the very piety of its advocates — for world* 
ly men always connect piety with imprudence — ■ 
had brought the wisdom, or at least the expe^ 
dieiicy of the cause into suspicion, and it is at 
ast carried by a means foreign to itself. The 
character of the cause must be lowered, w^e had 
ahuost said, it must, in a certain degree, be de- 
teriorated, to suit the general taste, even to ob- 
tain the approbation of that multitude for whose 
benefit it is intended. 

Overlooking the thousand pressing calamities 
within his own immediate sphere, and to the 
relief of which no celebrity would attach, the 
knight-errant of a party buckles on his armor 
and sallies forth in quest of a stray misery. He 
hunts for it with an assiduity, he exposes it with 
a zeal which might be mistaken for philanthropy, 
did we not know that this officious redresser of 
private wrongs has a public end to answer. He 
does not bind up the w^ounds and pour oil and 
wine into them, but converts them into a plausi- 
ble vehicle to discredit the opposite party, whom 
he makes responsible for sufferings of which they 
never heard, sometimes for sufferings which 
never existed. Good, however, is probably pro- 
moted ; the evil is investigated, the wrong is re- 
dressed, party has produced the consequence 
which principle had not effected. 

How long, as we have had occasion to observe 



THE SUFFERINGS OF GOOD MEN. 375 

m another connection, had the world groaned un- 
der the most tremendous engine which supersti- 
tion and despotism, in dreadful confederation, 
ever contrived to force the consciences and tor- 
ture the bodies of men 5 where racks were used 
for persuasion, and flames for arguments ! The 
best of men for ages have been mourning under 
this dread tribunal, without being competent to 
effect its overthrow: the worst of men has been 
able to accomplish it with a word. It is a humilia- 
ting lesson for good men when they thus see how 
entirely instrumentality may be separated from 
personal virtue. 

We still fall into the error of which the pro- 
phet so long ago complained 5 ^^ we call the proud 
happy," and the wicked fortunate, and our hearts 
are too apt to rise at their successes. We pretend, 
indeed, that they rise with indignation ; but is it 
not to be feared that with this indignation is 
mixed a little envy^ a little rebellion against 
God 1 We murmur, though we know that when 
the instrument has finished his work, the Divine 
employer throws him by, cuts him off, lets him 
perish. 

But you envy him in the midst of that work, 
to accomplish which he has sacrificed every prin- 
ciple of justice, truth, and mercy. Is this a man 
.0 be envied % Is this a prosperity to be grudged 1 
frYould you incur the penalties of that happi* 



376 PSACTIGAL PIETY. 

ness at which you are not ashamed to murmur 1 
But is it happiness to commit sin, to be abhor- 
red by good men, to offend God, to ruin his own 
soul 1 Do you really consider a temporary suc- 
cess a recompense for deeds which will ensure 
eternal wo to the perpetrator l Is the successful 
bad man happy 1 Of what materials, then, is hap- 
piness made up 1 Is it composed of a disturbed 
mind and an unquiet conscience 1 Are doubt and 
difficulty, are terror and apprehension, are dis- 
trust and suspicion, felicities for which a chris- 
tian would renounce his peace, would displease 
his Maker, would risk his soul 1 Think of the 
hidden vulture that feeds on the vitals of success- 
ful wickedness, and your repinings, your envy, if 
you are so unhappy as to feel envy, will cease. 
Your indignation will be converted into compas- 
sion, your execrations into prayer. 

But if he feel neither the scourge of conscience 
nor the sting of remorse, pity him the more. 
Pity him for the very want of that addition to his 
unhappiness ; for if he added to his miseries that 
of anticipating his punishment, he might be led 
by repentance to avoid it. Can you reckon the 
blinding his eyes and the hardening his heart 
any part of his happiness 1 This opinion, how- 
ever, you practically adopt, whenever you grudge 
the prosperity of the wicked. God, by delaying 
the punishment of bad men, for which we are so 



THE SUFFERIiN'GS OF GOOD MEN. 377 

impatient, may have designs of mercy of which 
we know nothing ; mercy, perhaps to them, or if 
not to them, yet mercy to those who are suffer- ' 
ing by them, and whom he intends by these bad 
instruments to punish, and, by punishing, even- 
tually to save. 

There is another sentiment which prosperous 
wickedness excites in certain minds, that is al- 
most more preposterous than envy itself, and that 
is, respect ; but this feeling is never raised, un- 
less both the wickedness and the prosperity be on 
a grand scale. 

This sentiment also is founded in secret impie- 
ty, in the belief either that God does not govern 
human affairs, or that the motives of actions are 
not regarded by him, or that prosperity is a cer- 
tain proof of his favor, or that where there is suc- 
cess there must be worth. These flatterers, how- 
ever, forsake the prosperous with their good for- 
tune 5 their applause is withdrawn with the suc- 
cess which attracted it. As they were governed 
by events in their admiration, so events lead them 
to withdraw it. 

But in this admiration there is a bad taste as 
well as a bad principle. If ever wickedness pre- 
tends to excite any idea of sublimity, it must be, 
not in its elevation, but its fall. If ever Caius 
Marius raises any such sentiment, it is not when 
he carries the world before him* it is not in hig 



378 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

seditious and bloody triumphs at Eome, but it ig 
when, in poverty and exile, his intrepid look 
caused the dagger to drop from the hand of the 
executioner ; it is when, sitting among the vene- 
rable ruins of Carthage, he enjoyed a desolation 
so congenial to his own. Dionysius, in the pleni- 
tude of arbitrary power, raises our unmixed ab- 
horrence. We detest the oppressor of the people 
while he continued to trample on them 5 we 
execrate the monster who was not ashamed to 
sell Plato as a slave. If ever we feel any thing 
like interest on this subject, it is not w4th the 
tyrant of Syracuse, but with the schoolmaster of 
Corinth. 

But though God may be patient with triumph- 
ant wickedness, he does not wdnk or connive at 
it. Between being permitted and supported, be- 
tw^een being employed and approved, the distance 
is wider than we are ready to acknowledge. Per- 
haps " the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet 
full." God has always the means of punishment, 
as well as of pardon, in his own hands. But to 
punish just at the moment w^hen we would hurl 
the bolt, might break in on a scheme of provi- 
dence of wide extent and indefinite consequences. 
'^ They have drunk their hemlock," says a fine 
writer, '^ but the poison does not yet work." 
Perhaps the convulsion may be the more terrible 
for the delay. Let us not be impatient to ac- 



THE SUFFERINGS OF GOOD MEN. 379 

complish a sentence which Infinite Justice sees 
it right to defer. It is always time enough to 
enter into hell. Let us think more of restraining 
our own vindictive tempers than of precipitating 
their destruction. They may yet repent of the 
crimes they are perpetrating. God may still, hy 
some scheme intricate and unintelligible to us, 
pardon the sin which we think exceeds the limits 
even of his mercy. 

But we contrive to make revenge itself look 
like religion. We call down thunder on many a 
head, under pretence that those on whom we in- 
voke it are God's enemies, when perhaps we in- 
voke it because they are oars. 

But though they should go on with a full tide 
of prosperity to the end, will it not cure our im- 
patience that that end must come 1 will it not 
satisfy us that they must die, that they must come 
to judgment % Which is to be envied, the afflicted 
christian who dies, and his brief sorrows have a 
period, or he who closes a prosperous life^ and 
enters on a miserable eternity 1 The one has no- 
thing to fear, if the promises of the Gospel be 
true, the other nothing to hope, if they be not 
false. The word of God must be a lie, heaven a 
fable, hell an invention, before the impenitent 
sinner can be safe. Is that man to be envied 
whose security depends on their falsehood 1 Is 
the other to be pitied whose hope is founded on 



SSO PRACTICAL PIETY. 

their reality 1 Can that state be happiness which 
results from believing that there is no God, no 
future reckoning ] Can that state be misery to 
the virtuous which consists in knowing that 
there is both 1 

In estimating the comparative happiness of 
good and bad men, we should ever bear in 
mind, that of all the calamities which can be 
inflicted or suffered, sin is the greatest , and of 
all punishments, insensibility to sin is the hea- 
viest which the wrath of God inflicts in this 
world for the commission of it. God, so far, 
then, from approving a wicked man, because 
he suffers him to go on triumphantly, seems 
rather, by allowing him to continue his smooth 
and prosperous course, to have some awful des- 
tiny in store for him, which will not, perhaps, be 
revealed till his repentance is too late ; then his 
knowledge of God's displeasure, and the dread- 
ful consequences of that displeasure, may be re- 
vealed together, may be revealed when there is 
no room for mercy. 

But without looking to futurity, consulting only 
the present condition of suffering virtue ; if we 
put the inward consolation derived from com- 
munion wdth God, the humble confidence of 
prayer, the devout trust in the Divine protection 
— supports commonly reserved for the afflicted 
christian, and eminently bestowed in^jis greatest 



THE SUFFERINGS OF GOOD MEN. 381 

exigence ; — if we place these feelings in the oppo- 
site scale with all that unjust power ever bestow- 
ed, or guilty wealth possessed ; we shall have no 
hesitation in deciding on which side even present 
happiness lies. 

With a mind thus fixed, with a faith thus firm, 
one great object so absorbs the christian, that his 
peace is not tossed about with the things which 
discompose ordinary men. He does not rest his 
foundation on the moving sands of this world. 
" My fortune," he may say, " it is true, is shat- 
tered 5 but as I made not ' fine gold my confi- 
dence,' while I possessed it, in losing it I have 
not lost myself. I leaned not on power, for I 
knew its instability. Had prosperity been my 
dependence, my support being removed, I must 
fall." 

In the case of the afflicted christian, you la- 
ment, perhaps, with the wife of the persecuted 
hero, that he suflTers, being innocent. But would 
it extract the sting from suffering were guilt 
added to it 1 Out of two worlds, to have all sor- 
row in this, and no hope in the next, would be 
indeed intolerable. Would you have him pur- 
chase a reprieve from suffering by sinful compli- 
ances 1 Think how ease would be destroyed by 
the price paid for it, for how short a time he 
would enjoy it, even if it v/ere not bought at the 
expense of his soul! 



382 PRACTICAL VIETY. 

It would be preposterous to say that suffering 
is the recompense of virtue, and yet it may with 
truth be asserted, that the capacity for enjoying 
the reward of virtue is enlarged by suffering ; 
and thus it becomes not only the instrument of 
promoting virtue, but the instrument of reward- 
ing it. Besides, God chooses, for the confirma- 
tion of our faith, as well as for the consummation 
of his gracious plans, to reserve in his own hand 
this most striking proof of a future retribution. 
To suppose that he cannot ultimately recompense 
his virtuous afflicted children, is to believe him 
less powerful than an earthly father ; to suppose 
that he will not, is to believe him less merciful. 
Great trials are oftener proofs of favor than 
of displeasure. An inferior officer will suffice for 
inferior expeditions, but the sovereign selects the 
ablest general for the most difficult service. And 
not only does the king evidence his opinion by 
the selection, but the soldier proves his attach- 
ment by rejoicing in the preference. His hav- 
ing gained one victory is no reason for his being 
set aside. Conquest, which qualifies him for new 
attacks, suggests a reason for his being again 
employed. 

The sufferings of good men by no means con 
tradict the assurance that ^^ godliness has the 
promise of the lifef' that now is," nor that promise 
that "the meek- shall inherit the earth.'* They 



THE SUFFERINGS OF GOOD MEN. 38^^ 

possess it by the spirit in which they enjoy its 
blessings, by the spirit in which they resign them. 

The belief, too, that trials will facilitate salva- 
tion is another source of consolation. SufTerings 
also abate the dread of death by cheapening the 
price of life. The affections even of the real 
christian are too much drawn downwards. His 
heart too fondly cleaves to the dust, though he 
knows that trouble springs out of it. How would 
it be if he invariably possessed present enjoy- 
ments, and if a long vista of delights lay always 
open before him] He has a further comfort in 
his own honest consciousness; a bright convic- 
tion that his christian feeling under trials is 
a cheering evidence that his piety is sincere. 
The gold has been melted down, and its purity 
ascertained. 

Among his other advantages, the afflicted 
christian has that of being able to apply to the 
mercy of God, not as a nev/, untried, and, there- 
fore, an uncertain resource. He does not come 
as an alien before a strange master, but as a child 
into the well-known presence of a tender Father. 
He did not put off prayer till this pressing exi- 
gence. He did not make his God a sort of dernier 
ressort^ to be had recourse to only in the great 
water-floods. He had long and diligently sought 
him in the calm ; he had adhered to him, if the 
phrase may be allowed, before he was driven tc 



3B4 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

it. He had sought God's favor while he enjoy* 
ed the favor of the world. He did not wait for 
the day of evil to seek the supreme good. He 
did not defer his meditations on heavenly things 
to the disconsolate hour when earth has nothing 
for him. He can cheerfully associate religion 
with those former days of felicity when, with 
every thing before him out of which to choose, 
he chose God. He not only feels the support de- 
rived from his present prayers, but the benefit 
of all those which he offered up in the day of joy 
and gladness. He will especially derive comfort 
from the supplications he had made for the an- 
ticipated, though unknown trial of the present 
hour, and which, in such a world of vicissitudes, 
it was reasonable to expect. 

Let us confess, then, that in all the trying 
circumstances of this changeful scene, there is 
something infinitely soothing to the feelings of a 
christian, something inexpressibly tranquillizing 
to his mind, to know that he has nothing to do 
with events but to submit to theni , that he has 
nothing to do with the revolutions of life but to 
acquiesce in them as the dispensations of Eternal 
Wisdom 5 that he has not to take the manage- 
ment out of the hands of Providence, but sub- 
missively to follow the Divine leading ; that he 
has not to contrive for to-morrow, but to ac- 
quiesce to-day; not to condition about events 



THE SUFFERINGS OF GOOD MEN. 385 

yet to come, but to meet those which are present 
with cheerful resignation. Let him be thankful, 
that as he could not by foreseeing prevent them, 
so he was not permitted to foresee them 5 thank- 
ful for ignorance where knowledge would only 
prolong without preventing suffering , thankful for 
that grace which has promised that our strength 
shall be proportioned to our day ; thankful that 
as he is not responsible for trials which he has 
not brought on himself, so by the goodness of 
God these trials may be improved to the noblest 
purposes. The quiet acquiescence of the heart, 
the annihilation of the will under actual circum- 
stances, be the trial great or small, is more ac- 
ceptable to God, more indicative of true piety, 
than the strongest general resolutions of firm 
acting and deep submission under the most try- 
ing, unborn events. In the remote case it is the 
imagination which submits 5 in the actual case it 
is the will. 

We are too ready to imagine that there is no 
other way of serving God but by active exer- 
tions ; exertions which are often made because 
they indulge our natural taste, and gratify our 
own inclinations. But it is an error to imagine that 
God, by putting us into any supposable situation, 
puts it out of our power to glorify him 5 that h 
can place us under any circumstances which may 
not be turned to some account, either for our- 

Pract. Piaty. 25 



386 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

selves or others. Joseph in his prison, under the 
strongest disqualifications, loss of liberty and a 
blasted reputation, made way both for his own 
high advancement and for the deliverance of Is- 
rael. Daniel in his dungeon, not only the des- 
tined prey, but in the very jaws of furious beasts, 
brought the king of Babylon to the knowledge 
of the true God. Could prosperity have effected 
the former 1 Would not prosperity have prevent- 
ed the latter 1 

But lo descend to more familiar instances. It 
is among the ordinary, though most mysterious 
dispensations of Providence, that many of his 
appointed servants, who are not only eminently 
fitted, but also most zealously disposed to glorify 
their Redeemer, by instructing and reforming 
their fellow-creatures, are yet disqualified by dis- 
ease, and set aside from that public duty of which 
the necessity is so obvious, and of" which the 
fruits were so remarkable ; 'whilst many others 
possess uninterrupted health and strength for the 
exercise of those functions, for which they are 
little gifted and less disposed. 

But God's ways are not as our ways. He is not 
accountable to his creatures. The caviller would 
know why it is right. The suffering christian 
believes and feels it to be right. He humbly 
acknowledges the necessity of the affliction which 
his friends are lamenting ; he feels the mercy of 



THE SUFFERINGS OF GOOD MEN. 387 

the measure which others are suspecting of in- 
justice. With deep humility he is persuaded that 
if the affliction is not yet withdrawn, it is because 
it has not yet accomplished the purpose for which 
it was sent. The privation is probably intended 
both for the individual interests of the sufferer, 
and for the reproof of those who have neglected 
to profit by his labors. Perhaps God more es- 
pecially thus draws still nearer to himself him 
who had drawn so many others. 

But to take a more particular view of the case, 
we are too ready to consider suffering as an 
indication of God's displeasure, not so much 
against sin in general, as against the individual 
sufferer. Were this the case, then would those 
saints and martyrs who have pined in exile, and 
groaned in dungeons, and expired on scaffolds, 
have been the objects of God's peculiar wrath, 
instead of his special favor. But the truth is, 
some little tincture of latent infidelity mixes it- 
self in almost all our reasonings on these topics. 
We do not constantly take into the account a 
future state. We want God, if I may hazard the 
expression, to clear himself as he goes. We can 
not give him such long credit as the period of 
human life. He must every moment be vindica- 
ting his character against every sceptical cavil; 
he must unravel his plans to every shallow critic 5 
he must anticipate the knowledge of his design 



388 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

before its operations are completed. If we may 
adopt a phrase in use among the vulgar, we will 
trust him no further than we can see him. Though 
he has said, ^^ Judge nothing before the time," we 
judge instantly, of course rashly, and in general 
falsely. Were the brevity of earthly prosperity 
and suffering, the certainty of retributive justice, 
and the eternity of future blessedness, perpetu 
ally kept in view, we should have more patience 
with God. 

Even in judging fictitious compositions, we 
are more just. During the perusal of a tragedy, 
or any work of invention, though we feel for the 
distresses of the personages, yet we do not form 
an ultimate judgment of the propriety or injus- 
tice of their sufferings. We wait for the catas- 
trophe. We give the poet credit either that he 
will extricate them from their distresses, or 
eventually explain the justice of them. We do 
not condemn him at the end of every scene for 
the trials of that scene which the sufferers do 
not appear to have deserved ; for the sufferings 
which do not always seem to have arisen from 
their own misconduct. We behold the trials of 
the virtuous with sympathy, and the successes of 
the wicked with indignation ; but we do not pass 
our final sentence till the poet has passed his. 
We reserve our decisive judgment till the last 
scene closes, till the curtain drops. Shall we not 



THE SUFFERINGS OF GOOD MtN. 389 

treat the schemes of Infinite Wisdom with as 
much respect as the plot of a drama 1 

But to borrow our illustration from realities. 
In a court of justice the bystanders do not give 
their sentence in the midst of a trial. We wait 
patiently till all the evidence is collected, and 
circumstantially detailed, and finally summed up. 
And — to pursue the illusion — imperfect as human 
decisions may possibly be, fallible as we must 
allow the most deliberate and honest verdict may 
possibly prove, we commonly applaud the justice 
of the jury and the equity of the judge. The 
felon they condemn we rarely acquit ; where 
they remit judgment, we rarely denounce it. It 
is only Infinite Wisdom on whose purposes we 
cannot rely ; it is only Infinite Mercy whose 
operations we cannot trust. It is only " the 
Judge of all the earth" who cannot do right. 
We reverse the order of God by summoning 
Him to our bar, at whose awful bar we shall 
soon be judged! 

But to return to our more immediate point — 
the apparently unfair distribution of prosperity 
between good and bad men. As their case is 
opposite in every thing — the one is constantly 
deriving his happiness from that which is the 
source of the other's misery, a sense of the Di- 
vine omniscience. The eye of God is ^^ a pillar 
of light " to the one, and ^^ a cloud and darkness " 



390 PRACTICAL PIETY 

to the other. It is no less a terror to him who 
dreads His justice, than a joy to him who de- 
rives all his support from the awful thought, 
Tnou, God, seest ! 

But, as we have already observed, can we 
want a broader line of discrimination between 
them than their actual condition here, indepen- 
dently of the different portions reserved for them 
hereafter 1 Is it not distinction enough that the 
one, though sad, is safe; that the other, though 
confident, i^ insecure '? Is not the one as far from 
rest as he is from virtue ; as far from the enjoy- 
ment of quiet as from the hope of heaven ; as far 
from peace as he is from God 1 Is it nothing that 
every day brings the christian nearer to his 
crown, and that the sinner is every day working 
his way nearer to his ruin 1 The hour of death, 
which the one dreads as something worse than 
extinction, is to the other the hour of his nati- 
vity, the birth-day of immortality. At the height 
of his sufferings, the good man knows that they 
will soon terminate. In the zenith of his success, 
the sinner has a similar assurance. But how dif- 
ferent is the result of the same conviction 1 An 
invincible faith sustains the one in the severest 
calamities, while an inextinguishable dread gives 
the lie to the proudest triumphs of the other. 

He, then, after all, is the only happy man, not 
whom worldly prosperity renders apparently hap* 



IN SICKNESS AND IN DEATH. 391 

py, but whom no change of worldly circumstan- 
ces can make essentially miserable ; whose peace 
depends not on external events, but on an inter- 
nal support 5 not on that success which is common 
to all, but on that hope which is the peculiar pri- 
vilege, on that promise which is the sole prero- 
gative of the christian. 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE TEMPER AND CONDUCT OF THE CHRISTIAN IN 
SICKNESS AND IN DEATH. 

The pagan philosophers have given many ad- 
mirable precepts both for resigning blessings and 
for sustaining misfortunes ; but wanting the mo- 
tives and sanctions of Christianity, though they 
excite much intellectual admiration, they pro- 
duce little practical effect. The stars which glit- 
tered in their moral night, though bright, impart- 
ed no warmth. Their most beautiful dissertations 
on death had no charm to extract its sting. We 
receive no support from their most elaborate 
\reatises on immortality, for want of Him who 



392 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

" brought life and immortality to light." Their 
consolatory discussions could not strip the grave 
of its terrors i for to them it was not ^* swallowed 
up in victory." To conceive of the soul as an im- 
mortal principle, without proposing a scheme for 
the pardon of its sins, was but cold consolation. 
Their future state was but a happy guess , their 
heaven but a fortunate conjecture. 

When we peruse their finest compositions, we 
admire the manner in which the medicine is ad- 
ministered, but we do not find it effectual for the 
cure, nor even for the mitigation of our disease. 
The beauty of the sentiment we applaud, but our 
heart continues to ache. There is no healing balm 
in their elegant prescription. These four little 
words, ^^THY WILL BE DONE," contaiu a charm of 
more powerful efficacy than all the discipline of 
the Stoic school. They cut up a long train of 
clear but cold reasoning, and superseder whole 
volumes of argument on fate and necessity. 

What sufierer ever derived any ease from the 
subtle distinction of the hair-splitting casuist, who 
allowed "that pain was very troublesome, but re- 
solved never to acknowledge it to be an evil V 
There is an equivocation in his manner of stating 
the proposition. He does not directly say tha* 
pain is not an evil, but by a sophistical turn pro 
fesses that philosophy will never confess it to be 
an evil. But what consolation does the sufferer 



IN SICKNESS AND IN DEATH 393 

draw from the quibbling nicety 1 "What differ- 
ence is there," as Archbishop Tillotson well in- 
quires, " between things being troublesome and 
being evils, when all the evil of an affliction lies 
in the trouble it creates to us." 

Christianity knows none of these fanciful dis 
tinctions. She never pretends to insist that pain 
is not an evil, but she does more, she converts it 
into a good. Christianity, therefore, teaches a 
fortitude as much more noble than philosophy, as 
meeting pain with resignation to the hand that 
inflicts it, is more heroic than denying it to be 
an evil. 

To submit on the mere human ground that 
there is no alternative, is not resignation, but 
hopelessness. To bear affliction solely because 
impatience will not remove it, is but an inferior 
though a just reason for bearing it. It savors ra- 
ther of despair than submission, when not sanc- 
tioned by a higher principle. " It is the Lord, let 
him do what seemeth him good," is at once a 
motive of more powerful obligation than all the 
documents which philosophy ever suggested, a 
firmer ground of support than all the energies 
that natural fortitude ever supplied. 

Under any visitation, sickness for instance, God 
permits us to think the affliction " not joyous, but 
grievous." But though he allows us to feel, we 
must not allow ourselves to repine. There is 



394 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

again a sort of heroism in bearing up against 
affliction, which some adopt on the ground 
that it raises their character and confers digni- 
ty on their sufferings. This philosophic firm- 
ness is far from being the temper which christi« 
anity inculcates. 

When we are compelled by the hand of God 
to endure sufferings, or are driven by a convic- 
tion of the- vanity of the world to renounce its 
enjoyments, we must not endure the one on the 
low principle of its being inevitable, nor, in fly- 
ing from the other, must we retire to the con- 
templation of our own virtues. We must not, with 
a sullen intrepidity, collect ourselves into a cen- 
tre of our own ^ into a cold apathy to all without, 
and a proud approbation of all within. We must 
not contract our scattered faults into a sort of 
dignified selfishness ; nor concentrate our feelings 
into a proud magnanimity, we must not adopt an 
independent rectitude. A gloomy stoicism is not 
christian heroism. A melancholy non-resistance 
is not christian resignation. 

Nor must we indemnify ourselves for our out- 
ward self-control by secret murmurings. We may 
be admired for our resolution in this instance, as 
for our generosity and disinterestedness n other 
instances, but we deserve little commendation 
for whatever we give up, if we do not give up 
our own inclination. It is inward repining that 



IN SICKNESS AND IN DEATH. 395 

we must endeavor to repress ; it is the discontent 
of the heart, the unexpressed but not unfelt mur- 
mur, against which we must pray for grace, and 
struggle for resistance. We must not smother 
our discontents before others, and feed on them 
in private. It is the hidden rebellion of the will 
we must subdue, if we would submit as christians. 
Nor must we justify our impatience by saying, 
that if our affliction did not disqualify us from 
being useful to our families, and active in the ser- 
vice of God, we could more cheerfully bear it. 
Let us rather be assured that it does not disquali- 
fy us for thatfcduty which we most need, and to 
which God calls us by the very disqualification. 
A constant posture of defence against the at- 
tacks of our great spiritual enemy, is a better se- 
curity than an incidental blow, or even an occa- 
sional victory. It is also abetter preparation for 
all the occurrences of life. It is not some signal 
act of mortifica,tion, but an habitual state of disci- 
pline, which will prepare us for great trials. A 
soul ever on the watch, fervent in prayer, diligent 
in self-inspection, frequent in meditation, fortified 
against the vanities of time by repeated views of 
eternity, — all the avenues to such a heart will 
be, in a good measure, shut against temptation, 
barred, in a great degree, against the tempter, 
'"^strong in the Lord, and in the power of his 
might," it will be enabled to resist the one, to ex- 



396 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

pel the other. To a mind so prepared, the thought 
of sickness will not be new, for he knows it is 
the " condition of the battle ;" the prospect of 
death will not be surprising, for he knows it is its 
termination. 

The period is now come when we must sum 
mon all the fortitude of the rational being, all the 
resignation of the christian. The principles we 
have been learning must now be made practical 
The speculations we have admired we must now 
realize. All that we have been studying was in 
order to furnish materials for this grand exigence. 
All the strength we have been collecting must 
now be brought into action. We must now draw 
to a point all the scattered arguments, all the 
several motives, all the individual supports, all 
the cheering promises of religion. We must ex- 
emplify all the rules we have given to others ; we 
must embody all the resolutions we have formed 
for ourselves ; we must reduce our precepts to 
experience ; we must pass from discourses on sub- 
mission, to its exercise ; from dissertations on 
suffering, to sustaining it. V/e must heroically 
call UD the determination of our better days. We 
must recollect what we have said of the supports 
of faith and hope when our strength was in full 
vigor, when our heart was at ease and our mind 
undisturbed. Let us collect all that remains to 
'is of mental strength. Let us implore the aid of 



IN SICKJsKSS AND IN DEATH. 397 

hoiy hope and fervent faith to show that religion 
is not a beautiful theory, but a soul-sustaining 
truth. 

Endeavor, without harassing scrutiny or dis- 
tressing doubt, to act on the principles which your 
sounder judgment formerly admitted. The strong- 
est faith is wanted in the hardest trials. Under 
those trials, to the confirmed christian the high- 
est degree of grace is commonly imparted. Im- 
pair not that faith on which you rested when your 
mind was strong, by suspecting its validity now 
it is weak. That which had your full assent in 
perfect health, which was then firmly rooted in 
your spirit and grounded in your understanding, 
must not be unfixed bjT^ the doubts of an enfeebled 
reason and the scruples of an impaired judgment'. 
You may not now be able to determine on the 
reasonableness of propositions, but you may de- 
rive strong consolation from conclusions which 
were once fully established in your mind. 

The reflecting christian will consider the natu- 
ral evil of sickness as the consequence and pun- 
isnment of moral evil. He will mourn, not only 
that he suffers pain, but because that pain is the 
effect of sin. If man had not sinned, he would 
not have suffered. The heaviest aggravation of 
his pain is to know that he has deserved it. But 
it IS a counterbalance to this trial to know that 
our merciful Father has no pleasure in the suffer- 



398 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

ings of his children, that he chastens thenn in 
love, that he never inflicts a stroke which he 
could safely spare 5 that he inflicts it to purify as 
well as to punish, to caution as well as to cure, 
to improve as well as to chastise. 

What a support in the dreary season of sick* 
ness is it to reflect, that the Captain of our salva 
tion was made perfect through sufferings ; that 
if we suffer with him w^e shall also reign with 
him 5 which implies also the reverse, that if we do 
not suffer with him, we shall not reign with him ; 
that is, if we suffer merely because we cannot 
help it, without reference to him, without suffer- 
ing for his sake and in his spirit. If it be not 
sanctified suffering, it wdll avail but little. We 
shall not be paid for having suffered, as is the 
creed of too many ; but our meetness for the 
kingdom of glory will be increased, if we suffer 
according to his will and after his example. 

He who is brought to serious reflection by the 
salutary sufferings of a sick bed, will look back 
with astonishment on his former false estimate 
of worldly things Riches ! Beauty ! Pleasure ! 
Genius ! Fam.e ! what are they in the eyes of the 
sick and dying 1 

Riches ! These are so far from affording him a 
moment's ease, that it will be w^ell if no former 
misapp ication of them aggravate his present 
pains. He feels as if he only wished to live that 



IN SICKNESS AND IN DEATH. 399 

he might henceforth dedicate them to the pur- 
poses for which they were given. 

Beauty ! What is beauty 1 he cries, as he con- 
siders his own sunk eyes, hollow cheeks, and 
pallid countenance. He acknowledges, with the 
Psalmist, that the consuming of beauty is the 
rebuke with which the Almighty corrects man 
for sin. 

Genius ! What is it 1 Without religion genius 
is only a lamp on the gate of a palace. It may 
serve to cast a gleam of light on those without, 
while the inhabitant sits in darkness. 

Pleasure ! That has not left a trace behind it ! 
" It died in the birth, and is not therefore worthy 
to come into this bill of mortality."* 

Fabie 1 Of this his very soul acknowledges the 
emptiness. He is astonished how he could ever 
be so infatuated as to run after a sound, to court 
a breath, to pursue a shadow, to ebnbrace a cloud. 
Augustus, asking his friends, as they surrounded 
his dying bed, if he had acted his part well, on 
their answering in the affirmative, cried Plaudi- 
te,^ But the acclamations of the whole universe 
would rather mock \,han soothe the dying chris 
tian, if unsanctioned by the hope of the divine 
approbation. He now rates at its just value that 
fame which was so often eclipsed by envy, apd 

♦ Bishop Hall. t Give your applause. 



400 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

which will be so soon forgotten in death, lie has 
no ambition left but for heaven, where there wiL 
be neither exivy^ death, nor forgetfulness. 

When capable of reflection, the sick christian 
will revolve all the sins and errors of his past 
life I he will humble himself for them as sincere- 
ly as if he had never repented of them before 5 
and implore the divine forgiveness as fervently 
as if he did not believe they were long since for- 
given. The remembrance of his former offences 
will grieve him, but the humble hope that they 
are pardoned will fill him ^Svith joy unspeakable, 
and full of glory." 

Even in this state of helplessness he may im- 
prove his self-acquaintance. He may detect new 
deficiencies in his character, fresh imperfections 
in his virtues. Omissions will now strike him with 
the force of actual sins. Resignation, which he 
fancied was so easy when only the sufferings of 
others required it, he now finds to be difficult 
when called on to practice it himself. He has 
sometimes wondered at their impatience, he is 
now humbled at his own. He will not only try 
to bear patiently the pains he actually suffers, 
but will recollect gratefully those from which he 
has been delivered, and which he may have for- 
merly found less supportable than his present 
sufferings. 

In the extremity of pain he feels there is no 



IN SICKNESS AND IN DEATH. 401 

consolation but in humble acquiescence in the 
Divine will. It may be that he can pray but lit- 
tle, but that little will be fervent. He can articu- ^ 
late, perhaps, not at all, but his prayer is address- 
ed to one who sees the heart, who can interpret 
its language, who requires not words, but affec- 
tions. A pang endured without a murmur, or only 
such an involuntary groan as nature extorts and 
faith regrets, is itself a prayer. 

If surrounded by all the accommodations of 
affluence, let him compare his own situation with 
that of thousands, who, probably, with greater 
merit, and under severer trials, have not one of 
his alleviations. When invited to the distasteful 
remedy, let him reflect how many perishing fel- 
low-creatures may be pining for that very remedy, 
to whom it might be restorative, or who, fancy- 
ing that it might be so, suffer additional distress 
from their inability to procure it. 

In the intervals of severer pain he will turn 
his few advantages to the best account. He will 
make the most of every short respite. He will 
patiently bear with little disappointments, little 
delays, with the awkwardness or accidental ne- 
glect of his attendants, and, thankful for general 
kindness, he will accepl^ood-will instead of per- 
fection. The suffering christian will be grateful 
for small reliefs, little alleviations, short snatch- 
es of rest. To him abated pain will be positive 

Pract. Piety. 28 



402 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

pleasure, the freer use of limbs, which had nearly 
lost their activity, will be enjoyment. 
Let not the reader, who is rioting 

" In all the madness of superfluous health," 

think lightly of these trivial comforts. Let him 
not despise them as not worthy of gratitude. He 
may one day, and that no distant day, be brought 
to the satne state of debility and pain. May he 
experience the mercies he now derides, and may 
he feel higher comforts on safe grounds ! 

The sufferer has, perhaps, often regretted that 
one of the worst effects of sickness is the selfish- 
ness it too naturally induces. The temptation to 
this he will resist, by not being exacting and un- 
reasonable in his requisitions. Through this ten- 
derness to the feeling of others, he will be care- 
ful not to add to their distress hj any appearance 
of discontent. 

What a lesson against selfishness have we in 
the conduct of our dying Redeemer ! It was 
while bearing his cross to the place of execution, 
that he said to the sorrowing multitude, '* Weep 
not for me, but for yourselves and for your chil- 
dren." It was while enduring the agonies of cru- 
cifixion that he endeavored to mitigate the sor- 
rows of his mother and of his friend, by tenderly 
committing them to each other's care. It was 
while sustaining the pangs of dissolution that be 



IN SICKNESS AND IN DEATH. 4C3 

gave the immediate promise of heaven to the ex 
piling criminal. 

The christian will review, if able, not only the 
Bins, but the mercies of his past life. If previous- 
ly accustomed to unbroken health, he will bless 
God for the long period in which he has enjoyed 
it. If continued infirmity has been his portion, 
he will feel grateful that he has had such a long 
and gradual weaning from the world. From 
either state he will extract consolation. If pain 
be new, what a mercy to have hitherto escaped 
it ! If habitual, we bear more easily what Ave 
have borne long. 

He will review his temporal blessings and de- 
liverances ; his domestic comforts, his christian 
friendships. Among his mercies his now " purged 
eyes" will reckon his difficulties, his sorrows, 
and trials. A new and heavenly light will be 
thrown on that passage, ^^ It is good for me that 
I have been afflicted." It seems to him as if 
hitherto he had only heard it with the hearing of 
his ear, but now his *^ eye seeth it." If he be a 
real christian, and has had enemies, he will al- 
ways have prayed for them, but now he will be 
thankful for them. He will the more earnestly 
implore mercy for them, as instruments which 
have helped, to fit him for his present state. He will 
look up with holy gratitude to the great Physi- 
cian, who, by a divine chemistry in mixing up 



404 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

events, has made that one unpalatable ingredient 
at the bitterness of which he once revolted, the 
very means by which all other things have work- 
ed together for good : had they worked separate- 
ly they would not have worked efficaciously. 

Under the most severe visitation, let us com- 
pare, if the capacity of comparing be allowed us, 
our own sufferings with the cup which our Ee- 
deemer drank for our sakes, drank to avert the 
divine displeasure from us. Let us pursue the 
comparative view of our condition with that of 
the Son of God. He was deserted in his most 
trying hour ; deserted, probably, by those whose 
limbs, sight, life he had restored, whose souls 
he had come to save. We are surrounded by un- 
wearied friends ; every pain is mitigated by sym- 
pathy, every want not only relieved, but pre- 
vented ; the " asking eye " explored , the inarti- 
culate sound interpreted ; the ill-expressed wish 
anticipated , the but-suspected want supplied. 
When our souls are " exceeding sorrowful," our 
friends participate in our sorrow ; when desired 
" to watch " with us, they watch not " one hour," 
but many, not falling asleep, but both flesh and 
spirit ready and willing ; not forsaking us in our 
'^ agony," but sympathizing where they cannot 
relieve. 

Besides this, we must acknowledge with the 
penitent malefactor, ** We indeed suffer justly, 



IN SICKNESS AND IN DEATH. 405 

but this Man hath done nothing amiss." We suf- 
fer for our offences the inevitable penalty of our 
fallen nature. He bore our sins, and those of the 
whole human race. Hence the heart-rending in- 
terrogation, ** Is it nothing to you, all ye that 
pass by 1 Behold and see if there be any sorrow 
like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, 
wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day 
of his fierce anger." 

How cheering in this forlorn state to reflect, 
that he not only suffered for us then, but is sym* 
pathising with us now 5 that " in all our afflictions 
he is afflicted." The tenderness of the sympathy 
seems to add a value to the sacrifice, while the 
vastness of the sacrifice endears the sympathy 
by ennobling it. 

If the intellectual powers be mercifully pre- 
served, how many virtues may now be brought 
into exercise, which had either lain dormant, or 
been considered as of inferior worth in the pros- 
perous day of activity ! The christian temper, 
indeed, seems to be that part of religion which 
is more peculiarly to be exercised on a sick bed. 
The passive virtues, the least brilliant but the 
most difficult, are then particularly called into 
action. To suffer the whole will of God on the 
tedious bed of languishing is more trying than to 
perform the most shining exploit on the theatre 
of the world. The hero in the field of battle has 



406 PRACTICAL PIETy. 

the love of fame as well as patriotism to support 
him. He knows that the witnesses of his valor 
will be the heralds of his renown. The martyr 
at the stake is divinely strengthened. Extraor 
dinary grace is imparted for extraordinary trials. 
His pangs are exquisite, but they are short. The 
crown is in sight, it is almost in possession. By 
faith ^^ he sees the heavens opened. He sees the 
glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right 
hand of God." But to be strong in faith, and 
patient in hope, in a long and lingering sickness, 
is an exam.ple of more general use and ordinary 
application than even the sublime heroism of the 
martyr. The sickness is brought home to our 
feelings, we see it with our eyes, we apply it to 
our hearts. Of the martyr we read, indeed, with 
astonishment : our faith is strengthened, and our 
admiration kindled ; but we read it without that 
special appropriation, without that peculiar re- 
ference to our own circumstances, which we feel 
in cases that are likely to apply to ourselves. 
With the dying friend we have not only a feel- 
ing of pious tenderness, but there is also a com- 
munity of interests. The certain conviction that 
tiis case must soon be our own, makes it our own 
now. Self mixes with the social feeling, and 
the christian death we are contemplating we do 
not so much admire as a prodigy, as propose for 
a model. To the martyr's stake we feel that we 



IN SICKNESS AND IN DEATH. 407 

are not likely to be brought. To the dying bed 
we must inevitably come. 

Accommodating his state of mind to the na- 
ture of his disease, the dying christian will derive 
consolation in any case, either from thinkmg 
how forcibly a sudden sickness breaks the chain 
which binds him to the world, or how gently a 
gradual decay unties it. He will feel and ac- 
knowledge the necessity of all he suffers to wean 
him from life. He will admire the Divine good- 
ness which commissions the infirmities of sick- 
ness to divest the world of its enchantments, 
and to strip death of some of its most formidable 
terrors. He feels with how much less reluctance 
we quit a body exhausted by suffering, than one 
in the vigor of health. Sickness, instead of nar- 
rowing the heart, its worst effect on an unre- 
newed mind, enlarges his. He earnestlj- exhorts 
those around him to defer no act of repentance, 
no labor of love, no deed of justice, no work 
of m.ercy, to that state of incapacity in which he 
now lies. 

How many motives has the christian to re- 
strain his murmurs! Murmuring offends God, 
both as it is injurious to his goodness, and as it 
derverts the occasion which God has now afford 
3d for giving an example of patience. Let us not 
complain that we have nothing to do in sickness, 
ivhen we are furnished with the opportunity as 



PRACTICAL PIETT. 

well as called to the duty of resignation ; the 
duty, indeed, is always ours, but the occasion is 
now more eminently given. Let us not say, even 
in this depressed state, that we have nothing to 
be thankful for. 

If sleep be afforded, let us acknowledge the 
blessing; if wearisome nights be our portion, let 
us remember they are ^* appointed to us." Let 
us mitigate the grievance of watchfulness by con- 
sidering it as a sort of prolongation of life ; as 
the gift of more minutes granted for meditation 
and prayer. If we are not able to employ it to 
either of these purposes, there is a fresh occa- 
sion for exercising that resignation which will 
be accepted for both. 

If reason be continued, yet with sufferings too 
intense for any religious duty, the sick christian 
may take comfort that the business of life was 
accomplished before the sickness began. He 
will not be terrified if duties are superseded,* if 
means are at an end, for he has nothing to do 
but to die. This is the act for which all othet 
acts, all other duties, all other means will have 
been preparing him. He who has long been ha- 
bituated to look death in the face, who has often 
anticipated the agonies of dissolving nature, who 
has accustomed himself to pray for support un- 
der them, will now feel the blessed effect of 
those petitions which have long been treasured 



IN SICKNESS AND IN DEATH. 409 

In heaven. To those anticipatory prayers he may, 
perhaps, now owe the humble confidence of 
hope in this inevitable hour. Habituated to the 
contemplation, he will not, at least, have the 
dreadful additions of surprise and novelty to ag- 
gravate the trying scene. It has long been fa- 
miliar to his mind, though hitherto it could only 
operate with the inferior force of a picture to 
a reality. He will not, however, have so much 
scared his imagination by the terrors of death, 
as invigorated his spirit by looking beyond them 
to the blessedness which follows. Faith will not 
so much dwell on the opening grave, as shoot 
forward to the glories to which it leads. The 
hope of heaven will soften the pangs which lie 
in the way to it. On heaven, then, he will ^x his 
eyes, rather than on the awful intervening cir- 
cumstances. He will not dwell on the struggle 
which is for a moment, but on the crown which 
is for ever. He will endeavor to think less of 
death than of its Conqueror ; less of the grave 
than of its Spoiler ; less of the body in ruins than 
of the spirit in glory ; less of the darkness of his 
closing day than of the opening dawn of immor- 
tality. In some brighter moments, when view 
ing his eternal redemption drawing nigh, as if 
the freed spirit had already burst its prison 
walls, as if the manumission had actually taken 
place, he is ready exultingly to exclaim, " My 



410 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

soul is escaped, the snare is broken, and I am 
delivered." 

If he ever inclines to wish for recovery, it is 
only that he may glorify God by his future life 
more than he has done by the past ; but as he 
knows the deceitfulness of his heart, he is not cer- 
tain that this would be the case, and he therefore 
does not wish to live. Yet should he be restored, 
he humbly resolves, in a. better strength than his 
own, to dedicate his life to the Restorer. 

But he suffers not his thoughts to dwell on life. 
His retrospections are at an end. His prospects 
as to this world are at an end also. He commits 
himself unreservedly to his heavenly Fathegr. But 
though secure of the port, he may still dread the 
passage. The christian will rejoice that his rest 
is at hand ; the man may shudder at the unknown 
transit. If faith is strong, nature is weak. Nay, 
in this awful exigence, strong faith is sometimes 
rendered faint through the weakness of nature. 

At the moment whenhis faith is looking round 
for every additional confirmation, he may rejoice 
in those blessed certainties, those glorious reali- 
sations which Scripture affords. He may take com- 
fort that the strongest attestations given by the 
apoptles to the reality of the heavenly state were 
not conjectural. They, to use the words of our 
Saviour, spake what they knew and testified what 
they had seen. " I reckon," says St. Paul, " that 



IN SICKNESS AND IN DEATH. 411 

the afflictions of this present life are not worthy 
to be compared with the glory that shall be re- 
vealed." He said this after he had been caught up 
into the third heaven ; after he had beheld the glo- 
ries to which he alludes. The author of the apo- 
calyptic vision, having described the ineffable 
glories of the new Jerusalem, thus puts new life 
and power into his description, — ^^ I, John, saw 
these things and heard them." 

The power of distinguishing objects increases 
with our approach to them. The christian feels 
that he is entering on a state v/here every care 
will cease, every fear vanish, every desire be ful- 
filled, every sin be done away, every grace per- 
fected. Where there will be no more temptations 
to resist, no more passions to subdue ; no more in- 
sensibility to mercies, no more deadness in ser- 
vice, no more wandering in prayer, no more sor- 
rows to be felt for himself, nor tears to be shed 
for others. He is going where his devotions will 
be without languor, his love without alloy, his 
doubts certainty, his expectation enjoyment, his 
hope fruition. All will be perfect, for God will 
be all in all. 

From God he knows that he shall derive imme- 
diately all his happiness. It will no longer pass 
through any of those channels which now sully 
its purity. It will be offered him through no se 
cond cause which may fail, no intermediate agent 



412 PRACTICAL PIETY. 

which may deceive, no uncertain medium which 
may disappoint. The felicity is not only certain 
but perfect, not only perfect but eternal. 

As he approaches the land of realities the sha- 
dows of this earth cease to interest or mislead 
him. The films are removed from his eyes. Ob- 
jects are stripped of their false lustre. Nothmg 
that is really little any longer looks great. The 
,mists of vanity are dispersed. Every thing which 
is to have an end appears small, appears nothing. 
Eternal things assume their proper magnitude, — 
for he beholds them in the true point of vision. 
He has ceased to lean on the world, for he has 
found it both a reed and a spear; it has failed, 
and it has pierced him. He leans not on himself, 
for be has long known his weakness. He leans 
not on his virtues, for they can do nothing for 
him. Had he no better refuge, he feels that his sun 
would set in darkness, his life close in despair. 

But he knows in whom he has trusted, and 
therefore knows not what he should fear. He 
looks upwards with holy but humble confidence 
to that great Shepherd, who, having long since 
conducted him into green pastures, having by his 
rod corrected, and by his staff supported him, 
will, he humbly trusts, guide him through the dark 
valley of the shadow of death, and safely conduct 
him to the peaceful realms of everlasting rest 

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