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* So hätten sich die Apostell und die ersten Märtyrer nicht auf die Noth berufen können, wenn sie aus Furcht vor der Verfolgung unterlassen hätten, das Evangelium zu predigen.

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It is very observable, that there is not one command in all theGospel for Public Worship; and perhaps it is a duty that is least insisted upon in Scripture of any other. The frequent attendance at it is never so much as mentioned in all the New Testament. Whereas that Religion or Devotion which is to govern the ordinary actions of our life, is to be found in almost every verse of Scripture. Our blessed Saviour and his Apostles are wholly taken up in Doctrines that relate to common life. They call us to renounce the world, and differ in every temper and way of life, from the spirit and way of the world: to renounce all its goods, to fear none of its evils, to reject its joys, and have no value for its happiness: to be as new born babes, that are born a Devout and Holy Life. into a new state of things; to live as Pilgrims in spiritual watching, in holy fear, and heavenly aspiring after another life: to take up our daily cross, to deny ourselves, to profess the blessedness of mourning, to seek the blessedness of poverty of spirit: to forsake the pride and vanity of Riches, to take no thought for the morrow, to live in the profoundest State of Humility, to rejoice in worldly sufferings: to reject the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life; to bear injuries, to forgive and bless our enemies, and to love mankind as God loveth them: to give up our whole hearts and affections to God, and strive to enter through the strait gate into a life of eternal Glory.

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This is the common Devotion which our Blessed Saviour taught, in order to make it the common life of all Christians. Is it not therefore exceeding strange, that People should place so much piety in the attendance upon public worship, concerning which there is not one precept of our Lord’s to be found, and yet neglect these common duties of our ordinary life, which are commanded in every Page of the Gospel? I call these duties the devotion of our common life, because if they are to be practised, they must be made parts of our common life, they can have no place anywhere else.

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He will have nothing to do with costly apparel, because the rich man in the Gospel was ‘clothed with purple and fine linen.’ He denies himself the pleasures and indulgences which his estate could procure, because our blessed Saviour saith, ‘Woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation.’ He will have but one rule for charity, and that will be, to spend all that he can that way, because the judge of quick and dead hath said, that all that is so given, is given to him.

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You, it may be, are as far from Christian Perfection, as the common swearer is from keeping the third Commandment; are you not therefore as much condemned by the doctrines of theGospel, as the swearer is by the third Commandment?

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You perhaps will say, that all People fall short of the Perfection of the Gospel, and therefore you are content with your failings. But this is saying nothing to the purpose. For the question is not whether GospelPerfection can be fully attained, but whether you come as near it, as a sincere intention, and careful intelligence can carry you. Whether you are not in a much lower state than you might be, if you sincerely intended, and carefully laboured to advance yourself in all Christianvirtues.

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You perhaps will say, that all People fall short of the Perfection of the Gospel, and therefore you are content with your failings. But this is saying nothing to the purpose. For the question is not whether GospelPerfection can be fully attained, but whether you come as near it, as a sincere intention, and careful intelligence can carry you. Whether you are not in a much lower state than you might be, if you sincerely intended, and carefully laboured to advance yourself in all Christianvirtues.

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But the thing that now surprises me above all wonders, is a Devout and Holy Life. this, that I never had so much as a general intention of living up to the piety of the Gospel. This never so much as entered into my head, or my heart. I never once in my life considered, whether I were living as the laws of Religion direct, or whether my way of life was such, as would procure me the mercy of God at this hour.

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And can it be thought, that I have kept the Gospel terms of salvation, without ever so much as intending in any serious and deliberate manner, either to know them, or keep them? Can it be thought, that I have pleased God with such a life as he requires, though I have lived without ever considering, what he requires, or how much I have performed? How easy a thing would salvation be, if it could fall into my careless hands, who have never had so much serious thought about it, as about any one common bargain that I have made?

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Now they do not live thus, because they cannot support themselves with less care and application to business; but they live thus because they want to grow rich in their trades, and to maintain their families in some such figure and degree of finery, as a reasonable Christian life has no occasion for. Take away but this temper, and then people of all trades, will find themselves at leisure to live every day like Christians, to be careful of every duty of the Gospel, to live in a visible course of Religion, and be every day strict observers both of private and public Prayer.

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If we had a Religion that consisted in absurd superstitions, that had no regard to the perfection of our nature, People might well be glad to have some part of their life excused from it. But as the Religion of the Gospel is only the refinement, and exaltation of our best faculties, as it only requires a life of the highest Reason, as it only requires us to use this world, as in reason it ought to be used, to live in such tempers as are the glory of intelligent beings, to walk in such wisdom as exalts our nature, and to practise such piety, as will raise us to God; who can think it grievous, to live always in the spirit of such a Religion, to have every part of his life full of it, but he that would think it much more grievous, to be as the Angels of God in heaven?

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When therefore you would represent to your mind, howChristians ought to live unto God, and in what degrees of wisdom and holiness, they ought to use the things of this life, A Serious Call to you must not look at the world, but you must look up to God, and the society of Angels, and think what wisdom and holiness is fit to prepare you for such a state of glory. You must look to all the highest precepts of the Gospel, you must examine yourself by the spirit of Christ, you must think how the wisest men in the world have lived, you must think how departed souls would live, if they were again to act the short part of human life; you must think what degrees of wisdom, and holiness, you will wish for, when you are leaving the World.

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Now all this is not over-straining the matter, or proposing to ourselves, any needless perfection. It is but barely complying with the Apostle’s advice, where he says, ‘Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.’* For no one can come near the doctrine of this passage, but he that proposes to himself to do everything in this life as the servant of God, to live by reason, in everything that he does, and to make the wisdom and holiness of the Gospel, the rule and measure of his desiring, and using, every gift of God.

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So that money thus spent, is not merely wasted, or lost, but it is spent to bad purposes, and miserable effects, to the corruption and disorder of our hearts, and to the making us less able to live up to the sublime doctrines of the Gospel. It is but like keeping money from the poor, to buy poison for ourselves.