A SERIOUS PERSUASIVE TO SUCH A METHOD OF SPENDING OUR DAYS AS IS REPRESENTED IN THE FORMER CHAPTER.
1, 2. Christians fix their views too low, and indulge too indolent a disposition, which makes it more necessary to urge such a life as that under consideration.--3. It is therefore enforced, from its being apparently reasonable, considering ourselves as the creatures of God, and as redeemed by the blond of Christ.--4. From its evident tendency to conduce to our comfort in life.--5. From the influence it will have to promote our usefulness to others.--6. From its efficacy to make afflictions lighter.--7. From its happy aspect on death.--8. And on eternity.--9. Whereas not to desire improvement would argue a soul destitute of religion. A prayer suited to the state of a soul who longs to attain the life recommended above.
1. I have been assigning, in the preceding chapter, what, I fear, will seem
to some of my readers so hard a task, that they will want courage to attempt
it; and indeed it is a life in many respects so far above that of the
generality of Christians, that I am not without apprehensions that many, who
deserve the name, may think the directions, after all the precautions with
which I have proposed them, are carried to an unnecessary degree of nicety and
strictness. But I am persuaded, much of the credit and comfort of Christianity
is lost, in consequence of its professors fixing their aims too low, and not
conceiving of their high and holy calling in so elevated and sublime a view as
the nature of religion would require, and the word of God would direct. I am
fully convinced, that the expressions of' "walking with God," of "being in the
fear of the Lord all the day long." (Prov. 23:17) and, above all that of
"loving the Lord our God with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength,"
(Mark. 12:30) must require, if not all these circumstances, yet the substance
of all that I have been recommending, so far as we have capacity, leisure, and
opportunity; and I can not but think that many might command more of the
latter, and perhaps improve their capacities too, if they would take a due care
in the government of themselves; if they would give up vain and unnecessary
diversions, and certain indulgences, which only suit to delight the lower part
of our nature, and, to say the best of them, deprive us of pleasures much
better than themselves, if they do not plunge us into guilt. Many of these
rules would appear easily practicable, if men would learn to know the value of
time, and particularly to redeem it from unnecessary sleep, which wastes many
golden hours of the day: hours in which many of God's servants are delighting
themselves in him, and drinking in full draughts of the water of life; while
these their brethren are slumbering upon their beds, and lost in vain dreams,
as far below the common entertainments of a rational creature as the pleasures
of the sublimest devotion are above them.
2. I know likewise, that the mind is very
fickle and inconstant and that it is a hard thing to preserve such a government
and authority over our thoughts as would be very desirable, and as the plan I
have laid down will require. But so much of the honor of God, and so much of
our true happiness depends upon it, that I beg you will give me a patient and
attentive hearing while I am pleading with you, and that you will seriously
examine the arguments, and then judge, whether a care and conduct like that
which I have advised be not in itself reasonable, and whether it will not be
highly conducive to your comfort and usefulness in life, your peace in death,
and the advancement and increase of your eternal glory.
3. Let conscience say, whether such a life as I
have described above be not in itself highly reasonable. Look over the
substance of it again, anti bring it under a close examination; for I am very
apprehensive that some weak objections may rise against the whole, which may in
their consequence affect particulars, against which no reasonable man would
presume to make any objection at all. Recollect, O Christian! carry it with you
in your memory and your heart, while you are pursuing this review, that you are
the creature of God; that you are purchased with the blood of Jesus; and then
say whether these relations in which you stand do not demand all that
application and resolution which I would engage you to. Suppose all the
counsels I have given you reduced into practice; suppose every day begun and
concluded with such devout breathings after God, and such holy retirements for
morning and evening converse with him and with your own heart; suppose a daily
care, in contriving how your time may be managed, and in reflecting how it has
been employed; suppose this regard to God, this sense of his presence, and zeal
for his glory, to run through your acts of worship, your hours of business and
recreation; suppose this attention to Providence, this guard against
temptation, this dependence upon divine influence, this government of the
thoughts in solitude, and of the discourse in company; nay, I will add farther,
suppose every particular direction given to be pursued, excepting when
particular cases occur, with respect to which you shall be able in conscience
to say, "I wave it not from indolence and carelessness, but because I think it
will be just now more pleasing to God to be doing something else," which may
often happen in human life, where general rules are best concerted: suppose, I
say, all this to be done, not for a day or a week, but through the remainder of
life, whether longer or shorter; and suppose this to be reviewed at the close
of life, in the full exercise of your rational faculties; will there be reason
to say in the reflection, "I have taken too much pains in religion; the Author
of my being did not deserve all this from me; less diligence, less fidelity,
less zeal than this, might have been an equivalent for the blood which was shed
for my redemption. A part of my heart, a part of my time, a part of my labors,
might have sufficed for him, who hath given me all my powers; for him who hath
delivered me from that destruction which would have made them my everlasting
torment; for him who is raising me to the regions of a blissful immortality."
Can you with any face say this? If you cannot, then surely your conscience
bears witness, that all I have recommended, under the limitations above, is
reasonable; that duty and gratitude require it; and consequently, that, by
every allowed failure in it, you bring guilt upon your own soul, you offend
God, and act unworthy of your Christian profession.
4. I entreat you farther to consider whether such
a conduct as I have now been recommending, would not conduce much to your
comfort and usefulness in life. Reflect seriously what is true happiness! Does
it consist in distance from God, or in nearness to him? Surely you cannot be a
Christian, surely you cannot be a rational man, if you doubt whether communion
with the great Father of our spirits be a pleasure and felicity; and if it be,
then surely they enjoy most of it who keep him most constantly in view. You
cannot but know, in your own conscience, that it is this which makes the
happiness of heaven; and therefore the more of it any man enjoys upon earth,
the more of heaven comes down into his soul. If you have made any trial of
religion, though it be but a few months or weeks since you first became
acquainted with it, you must be some judge, from your own experience, which
have been the most pleasant days of your life. Have they not been those in
which you have acted most upon these principles? those in which you have most
steadily and resolutely carried them through every hour of time, and every
circumstance of life? The check which you must, in many instances, give to your
own inclinations, might seem disagreeable; but it would surely be overbalanced,
in a most happy manner, by the satisfaction you would find in a consciousness
of self-government; in having such a command of your thoughts, affections, and
actions, as is much more glorious than any authority over others can be.
5. I would also entreat you to consider the
influence which such a conduct as this might have upon the happiness of others.
And it is easy to be seen that it must be very great; as you would find your
heart always disposed to watch every opportunity of doing good, and to seize it
with eagerness and delight. It would engage you to make it the study and
business of your life, to order things in such a manner that the end of one
kind and useful action might be the beginning of another; in which you would go
on as naturally as the inferior animals do in those productions and actions by
which mankind are relieved or enriched; or as the earth bears her successive
crops of different vegetable supplies. And though mankind be, in this corrupt
state, so unhappily inclined to imitate evil examples rather than good, yet it
may be expected, that while "your light shines before men," some, "seeing your
good works," will endeavor to transcribe them in their own lives, and so to
"glorify your Father which is in heaven." (Matt. 5:16) The charm of such
beautiful models would surely impress some, and incline them at least to
attempt an imitation; and every attempt would dispose to another. And thus,
through the divine goodness, you might be entitled to a share in the praise,
and the reward, not only of the good you had immediately done yourself; but
likewise of that which you had engaged others to do. And no eye, but that of
the all-searching God, can see into what distant times or places the blessed
consequences may reach. In every instance in which these consequences appear,
it will put a generous and sublime joy into your heart which no worldly
prosperity could afford, and which would be the liveliest emblem of that high
delight which the blessed God feels in seeing and making his creatures
happy.
6. It is true indeed, that amidst all these pious
and benevolent cares, afflictions may come, and in some measure interrupt you
in the midst of your projected schemes. But surely these afflictions will be
much lighter, when your heart is gladdened with the peaceful and joyful
reflections of your own mind, and with so honorable a testimony of conscience
before God and man. Delightful will it be to go back to past scenes in your
pleasing review, and to think that you have not only been sincerely humbling
yourself for those past offences which afflictions may bring to your
remembrance; but that you have given substantial proofs of the sincerity of
that humiliation, by a real reformation of what has been amiss, and by adding
with strenuous and vigorous resolution on the contrary principle. And while
converse with God, and doing good to men, are made the great business and
pleasure of life, you will find a thousand opportunities of enjoyment, even in
the midst of these afflictions, which would render you so incapable of
relishing the pleasures of sense, that the very mention of them might, in those
circumstances, seem an insult and a reproach.
7. At length death will come, that solemn and
important hour, which has been passed through by so many thousands who have in
the main lived such a life, and by so many millions who have neglected it. And
let conscience say, if there was ever one of all these millions who had any
reason to rejoice in that neglect; or any one, among the most strict and
exemplary Christians, who then lamented that his heart and life had been too
zealously devoted to God. Let conscience say, whether they have wished to have
a part of that time, which they have thus employed, given back to them again,
that they might be more conformed to this world; that they might plunge
themselves deeper into its amusements, or pursue its honors, its possessions,
or its pleasures, with greater eagerness than they had done. If you were
yourself dying, and a dear friend or child stood near you, and this book and
the preceding chapter should chance to come into your thoughts, would you
caution that friend or child against conducting himself by such rules as I have
advanced? The question may perhaps seem unnecessary, where the answer is so
plain and certain. Well, then, let me beseech you to learn how you should live,
by reflecting how you would die, and what course you would wish to look back
upon, when you are just quitting this world and entering upon another. Think
seriously; what if death should surprise you on a sudden, and you should be
called into eternity at an hour's or a minute's warning, would you not wish
that your last day should have been thus begun; and the course of it, if it
were a day of health and activity, should have been thus managed? Wou1d you not
wish that your Lord should find you engaged in such thoughts and such pursuits?
Would not the passage, the flight from earth to heaven, be most easy, most
pleasant, in this view and connection? And, on the other hand, if death should
make more gradual approaches. would not the remembrance of such a pious, holy,
humble, diligent, and useful life, make a dying bed much softer and easier than
it would otherwise be? You would not die, depending upon these things. God
forbid that you should! Sensible of your many imperfections, you would, no
doubt, desire to throw yourself at the feet of Christ, that you might appear
before God, "adorned with his righteousness, and washed from your sins in his
blood." You would also, with your dying breath, ascribe to the riches of his
grace every good disposition you had found in your heart, and every worthy
action you had been enabled to perform. But would it not give you a delight,
worthy of being purchased with ten thousand worlds, to reflect that his "grace,
bestowed on you, had not been in vain," (1 Cor. 15:10) but that you had, from a
humble principle of grateful love, glorified your heavenly Father on earth,
and, in some degree. though not with the perfection you could desire, "finished
the work which he had given you to do:" (John 17:4) that you had been living
for many past years as on the borders of heaven, and endeavoring to form your
heart and life to the temper and manners of its inhabitants?
8. And once more, let me entreat you to reflect
on the view you will have of this matter when you come into a world of glory,
if (which I hope will be the happy case) divine mercy conduct you thither. Will
not your reception there be affected by your care, or negligence, in this holy
course? Will it appear an indifferent thing in the eye or the blessed Jesus,
who distributes the crowns, and allots the thrones there, whether you have been
among the most zealous, or the most indolent of his servants? Surely you must
wish to have "an entrance administered unto you abundantly into the kingdom of
your Lord and Savior," (2 Pet. 1:11) and what can more certainly conduce to it,
than to he "always abounding in this work?" (1 Cor. 15:58) You cannot think so
meanly of that glorious state, as to imagine that you shall there look round
about with a secret disappointment, and say in your heart that you over-valued
the inheritance you hare received, and pursued it with too much earnestness.
You will not surely complain that it had too many of your thoughts and cares;
but, on the contrary, you have the highest reason to believe, that, if any
thing were capable of exciting your indignation and your grief there, it would
be, that, amidst so many motives and so many advantages, you exerted yourself
no more in the prosecution of such a prize.
9. But I will not enlarge on so clear a case, and
therefore conclude the chapter with reminding you, that to allow yourself
deliberately to sit down satisfied with any imperfect attainments in religion,
and to look upon a more confirmed and improved state of it as what you do not
desire, nay, as what you sincerely resolve that you will not pursue, is one of
the most fatal signs we can well imagine that you are an entire stranger to the
first principles of it.
A Prayer suited to the State of a Soul who desires to attain the Life above recommended.
