SERMON III'. DILIGENCE IN SECULAR MATTERS. ROм. xii. 11. "Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." AMONG the mistakes which persons are apt to fall into about the nature of true religion, a very common and a very fatal one is the supposing that there is something in a religious life which makes it inconsistent with activity and business. Most men have a kind of vague idea that it is impossible to be at once very diligent in worldly affairs and also fervent in spirit, that is, very zealous in the service of God. Without being at the pains to think distinctly on the subject, they are in the habit of taking for granted that "being very religious" means being very much engaged in reading and talking about religion, and withdrawing in a great measure from the merely temporal affairs in which the generality of mankind are engaged. The people, too, who in a general way get the character of being "the "the very religious" are not those who are much taken up 1 1 [Written apparently in 1831.] with their business or professions, not those who make themselves most useful in a neighbourhood, or even who are most in the habit of doing kindnesses and making those about them happy. These people are respected and loved; they are looked on as upright and excellent men; but if we go by common opinion, they have not the character of being the most religious men. Those to whom this name is most commonly given are persons who withdraw from active pursuits of every kind, who spend their time in reading and talking about religion to others, and who appear to have no relish whatever for the amusements with which their neighbours please themselves. Nor is this way of thinking and talking confined to those who themselves follow this kind of religion, and propose to themselves persons of this sort for their examples. It is the notion which most careless and indifferent people adopt, as well as those who themselves profess to be religious. They fall into it, as it were, from not taking the pains to get clearer and more correct notions, and give the name of religion to a particular way of life, and of being religious to a particular kind of person, without at all thinking that it is incumbent upon themselves to follow this way of life or imitate this kind of person. Indeed, it sometimes seems as if men were glad to encourage in themselves the notion that religion and goodness were two distinct things; that the very good people and the very religious people were different, and that the way to deserve respect and esteem was not the same as to serve and honour God. It seems as if many irreligious men were rather glad to catch at this distinction as a sort of excuse for their own way of life; as if it were possible for them to aim at being one of these two characters without attempting at the same time to be the other; as if it might yet be in their power to merit respect and esteem without giving up the practices and the pleasures which they know to be inconsistent with God's commands. These people know that certain vices which they cannot make up their minds to abandon are clearly denounced by the Bible as irreligious; and therefore they are glad enough to persuade themselves that many other things also are equally irreligious which they see to be practised by good and upright men. They cannot hide from themselves the irreligion of their own conduct; but they wish to make irreligion seem less odious, by persuading themselves that others, however free from their vices, are in fact as irreligious as themselves, and that there is no way of being really religious without at the same time ceasing to be useful. Thus it is that the supposed distinction between a religious and an actively useful character comes to be taken up and adopted by bad careless people. It is also easy to see how the notion came to be started, in the first instance, by persons of a very different character; how persons of sincere inten tions, and anxious to serve God according to His ordinances, might themselves get into the very same mistake which others from different notions are ready to indulge in. For considering the careless habits and worldly views with which most children are brought up, and the bad examples with which they are so likely to be surrounded, it is too probable that even those of the best dispositions will be led in the beginning of life, at least, to look on religion as a matter that does not much concern them, and that before any thing has happened to give their thoughts a more serious turn, they will have got into habits, both as to their pleasures and their business, which it will be absolutely necessary for them to break through. Something wrong will have intruded itself into almost every part of their daily conduct. They have been too exclusively taken up with all they have been engaged in, too intent upon success, too anxious to distinguish themselves; they have set about all their undertakings, even the most praiseworthy, too much for the sake of the things themselves, and too little for God's sake; so that it is no wonder when they come to see things in a different light, and to acknowledge the obligation they are under to serve God in all things, that they should endeavour to escape as far as possible from all the ways by which they have been accustomed to serve the world. All their old occupations will seem to them but so many snares which only tend to withdraw their thoughts from God; they will think it necessary to avoid all pleasures, however innocent, all business, however useful, unless they have a direct reference to the concerns of another world. Now, perhaps, there are cases where, in the first instance, such a course might be a wise one; for some persons it may be necessary to make a violent break in the chain of their thoughts and habits, and to force themselves into a way of life as opposite as possible to that which has led them wrong. There may possibly be such cases as this, but it should be remembered that where persons are thus obliged to withdraw themselves from the active business of life, the obligation arises not from the nature of religion, but from their own past misconduct. The new manner of life which they take up is not a mark of exalted piety, but of humiliation for long negligence; it is no excellence in them, but their misfortune. The error they fall into is this, that because in their own particular case religion and business are incompatible, therefore they are necessarily incompatible to every one; so that instead of trying by degrees to get into a way of following both together, of returning to their old occupations but pursuing them for God's sake, they think they cannot go too far in avoiding every thing of the sort, and in regarding all business as sin, unless it has a direct tendency to keep God in their thoughts. Thus it is easily seen how, as well among the bad as the well-meaning, religion and active business |