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I shall not take upon me to say, that it is impossible for Flavia to be saved; but thus much must be said, that she has no grounds from Scripture to think she is in the way of salvation. For her whole life is in direct opposition to all those tempers and practices, which the Gospel has made necessary to salvation.
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If you were to hear her say, that she had lived all her life likeAnna the Prophetess, who departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers, night and day, you would look upon her as very extravagant; and yet this would be no greater an extravagance, than for her to say, that she has been striving to enter in at the strait gate, or making any one doctrine of theGospel, a rule of her life.
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To live as she does, is as truly suitable to the Gospel of Christ, as to be baptized, or receive the Sacrament.
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A soldier, or a tradesman, is not called to minister at the altar, or preach the Gospel; but every soldier or tradesman is as much obliged to be devout, humble, holy, and heavenly-minded in all the parts of his common life, as a clergyman is obliged to be zealous, faithful, and laborious in all parts of his profession.
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All men therefore, as men, have one and the same important business, to act up to the excellency of their rational nature, and to make reason and order the law of all their designs and actions. All Christians, as Christians, have one and the same calling, to live according to the excellency of the Christian spirit, and to make the sublime precepts of the Gospel, the rule and measure of all their tempers in common life. The one thing needful to one, is the one thing needful to all.
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Young Gentlemen must consider, what our blessed Saviour said to the young Gentleman in the Gospel; he bid ‘him sell all that he had and give to the poor.’ Now though this text should not oblige all people to sell all; yet it certainly obliges all kinds of people to employ all their estates, in such wise and reasonable and charitable ways, as may sufficiently show, that all that they have is devoted to God, and that no part of it is kept from the poor, to be spent in needless, vain, and foolish expenses.
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Let them be assured, that it is the one only business of a Christian Gentleman, to distinguish himself by good works, to be eminent in the most sublime virtues of the Gospel, to bear with the ignorance and weakness of the vulgar, to be a friend and patron to all that dwell about him, to live in the utmost heights of wisdom and holiness, and show through the whole course of his life a true religious greatness of mind. They must aspire after such a gentility, as they might have learnt from seeing the blessed Jesus, and show no other spirit of a gentleman, but such as they might have got by living with the holy Apostles. They must learn to love God with all their heart, with all their soul, and with all their strength, and their neighbour as themselves; and then they have all the greatness and distinction that they can have here, and are fit for an eternal happiness in heaven hereafter.
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I desire every reader to dwell a while upon this reflection, and perhaps he will find more conviction from it, than he imagines. Everyone can tell how good and pious he would have some people to be; everyone knows, how wise and reasonable a thing it is in a Bishop, to be entirely above the world, and be an eminent example of Christian perfection: As soon as you think of a wise and ancient Bishop, you fancy some exalted degree of piety, a living example of all those holy tempers, which you find described in the Gospel.
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Whilst you are thinking in this manner, turn your thoughts towards some of your acquaintance, your brother, or sister, or any young person. Now if you see the common course of their lives to be not according to the doctrines of the Gospel, if you see that their way of life, cannot be said to be a sincere endeavour to enter in at the strait gate, you see something that you are to condemn, in the same degree, and for the same reasons. They do not commit a small mistake, but are wrong in that which is their all, and mistake their true happiness, as much as that Bishop does, who neglects the high duties of his calling. Apply this reasoning to yourself; if you find yourself living an idle, indulgent, vain life, choosing rather to gratify your passions, than to live up to the doctrines of Christianity, and practise the plain precepts of our blessed Lord, you have all that blindness and unreasonableness to charge upon yourself, that you can charge upon any irregular Bishop.
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But if a woman of high birth, and great fortune, having read the Gospel, should rather wish to be an under servant in some pious family, where wisdom, piety, and great devotion, directed all the actions of every day; if she should rather wish this than to live at the top of Feliciana’s happiness; I should think her neither mad, nor melancholy; but that she judged as rightly of the spirit of the Gospel, as if she had rather wished to be poor Lazarus at the gate, than to be the rich man ‘clothed in purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day.’
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But if a woman of high birth, and great fortune, having read the Gospel, should rather wish to be an under servant in some pious family, where wisdom, piety, and great devotion, directed all the actions of every day; if she should rather wish this than to live at the top of Feliciana’s happiness; I should think her neither mad, nor melancholy; but that she judged as rightly of the spirit of the Gospel, as if she had rather wished to be poor Lazarus at the gate, than to be the rich man ‘clothed in purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day.’
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But now if Cognatus, when he first entered into holy orders, had perceived how absurd a thing it is to grow rich by theGospel; if he had proposed to himself the example of someprimitive father; if he had had the piety of the great St. Austin a Devout and Holy Life. in his eye, who durst not enrich any of his relations out of the revenue of the Church, if, instead of twenty years’ care to lay up treasures upon earth, he had distributed the income of every year, in the most Christian acts of charity and compassion.
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If he had thought it better to recommend some honest labour to his Niece, than to support her in idleness by the labours of acurate; better that she should want fine clothes and a rich husband, than that cures of souls should be farmed about, and brother clergymen not suffered to live by those altars at which they serve. If this had been the spirit of Cognatus, could it with any reason be said, that these rules of religion, this strictness of piety, had robbed Cognatus of any real happiness? Could it be said, that a life thus governed by the spirit of the Gospel, must be dull andmelancholy, if compared to that of raising a fortune for a Niece?
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But further: Let it now be supposed, that Negotius, when he first entered into business, happening to read the Gospel withattention, and eyes open, found that he had a much greater business upon his hands, than that to which he had served an apprenticeship; that there were things which belong to man, of much more importance than all that our eyes can see; so glorious, as to deserve all our thoughts; so dangerous, as to need all our care; and so certain, as never to deceive the faithful labourer.
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Now had this been the Christian spirit of Negotius, can anyone say, that he had lost the true joy and happiness of life, by thus con forming to the spirit, and living up to the hopes of the Gospel?