Part 46
The sublime truths of christianity demand our frequent review. Let us often rise high in our thoughts, and let our faith look far backwards to the eternal ages before this world was. Let us contemplate the love of God the Father, in contriving our salvation, before he stretched abroad these heavens, or laid the foundations of this earth. Let us think of the condescension of his mercy, when he chose fallen perishing sinners to be the objects of his everlasting love. Let us dwell upon his compassion to man, when he appointed his own Son to take flesh upon him, and to become our Mediator and sacrifice. Let us survey with holy wonder the various glories of the Son of God, by whom and for whom all things were made, who upholds all things by the word of his power, and who is the express image of his Father. Let us behold him consenting to hide all these honours behind a veil of flesh and blood, walking the streets of Jerusalem, and travelling on foot through the villages of Israel, attended with a few poor despicable men, or surrounded with the reproaches of the blaspheming Jews. Let us look upon this illustrious person, who was adored by angels, yet unknown and unglorified among the sons of men, and humbled even to death and the grave; then gaze on him rising again from the dead, and declared to be the Son of God with power, exalted at the right-hand of the Majesty on high, and ruling all the millions of inhabitants of the visible and invisible worlds. Surely if our souls were inured to the meditation of such sublime wonders as these, we should not easily immerse ourselves in trifles and fooleries.
Again, let us meditate on the more awful doctrines, the more solemn and dreadful truths of our religion, and these will be an effectual restraint to a vain temper of mind. Let us think on the justice of God manifested in the destruction of sinners in all ages, when it appeared in a prodigious flood of water, and with a deluge of rain testified against the wickedness of the old world; and when it came down in flaming fire upon Sodom, and upon the cities of the plain. Let us meditate on the wrath of God, that has been revealed in numerous instances against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Let us contemplate that divine and severe justice, that appeared in the sufferings and death of God’s own Son, when it pleased the Father to bruise him, and to make his soul an offering for sin. Let us think of his agonies in the garden, and on the cross, when he bore the weight of our iniquities, and stood in the place of sinners. Let us send our thoughts down to the regions of death and hell, and behold the fallen angels bound in chains of darkness, and groaning under present torments, yet waiting for the day of greater vengeance. Let us think with ourselves what millions of our fellow-sinners, the sons and daughters of Adam, lie there banished from the presence of the Lord, and tormented with fire in their consciences without remedy, and without hope, and say, why are not we there too?
Let us often look forward to the awful moment of our death, and the time of our departure from all the flattering scenes of this present world. This will put a damp upon the vainest mind, and hang with a painful weight upon the sons of mirth and levity. This will be a means to restrain us from that foolish and trifling behaviour, which otherwise our tempers might incline us to. And let us remember the solemn hour when we must stand before the tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ, divested of all these gaudy shews of life, in which we are now ready to pride ourselves, and there we must receive a sentence without repeal, which shall send us to heaven or to hell at once, and fix our everlasting state. These are terrors or glories too solemn to be trifled with; these are thoughts that will hold our souls awake and serious, this will preserve that gravity of mind which becomes a christian, and keep us in a prepared temper to fulfil present duty, and to wait the final event of all things.
II. If we would maintain that venerable decency in our frame of spirit, and in our deportment, which becomes the gospel, let us set ourselves about some useful employment for the service of God, or our fellow-creatures, or for our own best improvement. If Satan find the mind empty of thought, and the hands void of all business, he will be ready to fill them with temptations to iniquity and mischief: And the triflers of this world will be ready to seize upon such a person as a fit partner for their impertinences, and allure him into follies beneath the dignity of human nature, and the character of a christian.
I have often pitied some of the dependents of honourable and wealthy families of both sexes, the unhappiness of whose education has given them nothing to do, nor taught them to employ their hands or their minds: Therefore they spend their hours in sauntering, not knowing whither to go, and are at a loss what to do with themselves to wear their life away. Upon this account they give themselves up sometimes to the mean and scandalous pleasures of the lowest of the people, and spend their hours in chattering and vulgar merriment. They make the business of their dress the study and labour of half the day, and spend another part of it in trifling discourse and laughter, and in scattering jests and scandal upon their neighbours or acquaintance. All these pieces of folly and immorality would be rectified, if they would but find out for themselves some daily and proper business to be employed in. King Solomon at his leisure hours studied natural and moral philosophy, he discoursed of the nature of vegetables, from the cedar to the hyssop, and of beasts, birds, and fishes besides his proverbs and rules of prudence for the government of human life; 1 Kings iv. 32, 33. St. Paul, when he was not employed in his sacred work, yet he would not be idle; and having no need to study for his sermons which he had by inspiration, therefore he wrought with his hands at tent-making, and maintained himself by it: “_Not_, says he, _because we have not power to eat your bread while we teach you the gospel: but to make ourselves an example to you_.” See Acts xviii. 3. and 2 Thess. iii. 8, 9. And good Dorcas, when she had no business of her own, _made coats and garments for the poor_; Acts ix. 36, 39. Such honourable examples as these deserve our imitation.
III. Let us keep a strict watch over ourselves when we indulge mirth, and set a double guard upon the seasons of recreation and divertisement.
The rules of religion do not so restrain us from the common entertainments of life, as to render us melancholy creatures, and unfit for company. There is no need to become mere mopes or hermits, in order to be christians. The gospel does not deprive us of such joys as belong to our natures, but it refines and heightens our delights. It draws our souls farther away from mean and brutal pleasures, and raises them to manly satisfactions, to entertainments worthy of a rational nature, worthy of a creature that is made in the image of God. The innocent entertainments of life are not utterly forbidden to christians, but are regulated by the gospel.
When we have considered and found them to be lawful, then they are to be regulated these two ways.—1. All our recreations and divertisements must have some valuable end proposed. 2. We must distinguish the proper time and season of them, and confine our diversions to that season.
1. They must always have some valuable end proposed. The chief and most useful design of them is to make us more chearful and fitter for some hours or days of service afterwards. Recreation must not be our trade or business, but merely used as a means to prepare us for the valuable businesses of life.
The scripture indeed tells us, that “_of every idle word that men shall speak, there shall be an account given in the day of judgment_;” Mat. xii. 36. And much more of idle hours and actions. But this doth not utterly exclude all manner of recreations, or all words of pleasantry, which may be innocently and properly used upon some occasions; but whatsoever words, whatsoever conversation, whatsoever sort of pleasurable entertainments, we indulge ourselves in, which have no valuable end, no useful design in them: These will bear but an ill aspect before the judgment-seat of Christ. We shall not be able to give a tolerable account of such idle words or hours at that day; and it is the judge himself who tells us so, and adds his _Amen_ to it.
It is proper more especially for persons that are of a melancholy temper, or that have perhaps been overwhelmed with bodily diseases, or overloaded with some sorrows, or cares, or businesses of life, to give themselves a little loose or diversion now and then in delightful conversation, or other recreations and exercises. These may be as useful as a glass of wine to refresh nature, to make the heart glad, and the spirits lightsome; for they tend to fit this animal body of ours for better service to the soul in future duties that God calls us to: And so long as we confine our recreations to this design, and keep this end in view, our words of pleasantry in private conversation, and even our recreations, and diversions that are more public, may be agreeable to the mind and will of God; for it is his will, that our whole nature, flesh and spirit, should be kept in the fittest frame for duty. And some natures are so constituted, that they will hardly be kept in a temper fit for duty, without some divertisements and recreations. Where this therefore is the end, these practices cannot be called idle, that is, impertinent, and to no purpose. But where no reasonable design is proposed, sports and merriments are hardly to be defended, for all rational creatures ought to act with a view to some valuable end.
2. Another regulation which ought to be given to all our diversions, is this; we should narrowly watch, lest the time of our recreations intrude upon the hours and seasons of business or of religion. There is a time to laugh, the wise man tells us, as well as a time to labour or to pray; but laughter must be confined to its proper place and proper time, and not intrench upon the season where affairs of bigger importance, and matters of grave and serious consequence should be transacted.
Conscience has something to do in matters of recreation as well as in our religious or civil affairs: And as it can never be lawful to rob God or our families of any of the time that should be devoted to their service, on purpose to lay it out in diversion, so neither is it by any means proper to let the seasons of diversion come too near the seasons of worship. When a loose is given to all the natural powers in mirth and pleasure, they are not so easily recollected all at once for the sacred service of religion. Nor should we run hastily away from the duties of worship, and plunge ourselves into the midst even of innocent merriment; for this would look as though we were weary of devotion, and longed to be at play. A wise christian will divide his times aright, and make all the parts of his conduct to succeed one another in a decent order.
Besides, the hours of recreation should not be multiplied by those persons who have least need of them; such are persons of a chearful and healthy constitution: And they will be used more sparingly by christians of maturer age, and longer standing in religion. As a child grows up toward man, he leaves off the impertinences of infancy, and the sports and trifles of childhood; and as a man grows up more and more toward a perfect christian, his methods of pleasure will be changed from light and gay, to that which is grave and solid.
To conclude this subject, I would mention only one powerful motive to preserve christian gravity, and that is, that hereby the temper of your spirit will be better prepared for every religious duty, whether it be prayer or praise, and better fitted to meet every providence, whether it be prosperous or afflictive: Whereas those who perpetually indulge a merry temper of mind, when a prosperous providence attends them, they are tempted to excessive vanity and carnal joy; their hearts are not filled with thankfulness to that God from whom their mercies come, being too thoughtless and regardless of the original donor. On the other hand, when affliction smites them, they are in danger of despising the stroke of the rod, nor does the correction of their heavenly Father make so deep and useful an impression upon their spirit as it ought to do.
When in the course of our lives we maintain such a grave and composed frame as becomes a christian, we find our hearts more ready for all the duties of worship. We are prepared to receive evil tidings as well as good, and to attend on the will of God in all his outgoings of providence. We are ready to receive messages of sorrow, or the summons of death, for we are still conversing with God: We keep the invisible world in the eye of our faith: And our spirits are ready prepared to depart from the flesh, and to meet our God and our Saviour in the unknown regions of light and immortality.
HYMN FOR SERMON XXIII. _Christian Morality_, _viz._ _Gravity, Decency, &c._
Are we not sons and heirs of God? Are we not bought with Jesus’ blood? Do we not hope for heavenly joys, And shall we stoop to trifling toys?
Can laughter feed th’ immortal mind? Were spirits of celestial kind Made for a jest, for sport and play, To wear our time, and waste the day?
Doth vain discourse or empty mirth Well suit the honours of our birth? Shall we be fond of gay attire, Which children love, and fools admire?
What if we wear the richest vest, Peacocks and flies are better drest: This flesh, with all its gaudy forms, Must drop to dust and feed the worms.
Lord, raise our hearts and passions higher, Touch our vain souls with sacred fire; Then with an elevated eye We’ll pass these glittering trifles by.
We’ll look on all the toys below With such disdain as angels do, And wait the call that bids us rise To promis’d mansions in the skies.
Footnote 28:
Dr. Whitby.
SERMON XXIV. _Christian Morality_, _viz._ _Justice, &c._ PHILIP. iv. 8.—Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, _or grave_, whatsoever things are just——think on these things. Οσα εστιν δικαια——
In many parts of the sacred writings, there appears a very close connexion of the subjects which are handled; a natural order is observed, and a beautiful transition made from one to the other: But this is not to be expected in every text, nor is it at all necessary that it should be so. When St. Paul enumerates several virtues or vices, he sometimes heaps them together, and doth not design any regularity or natural order in placing them. Our commentators therefore in such cases, when they are once resolved to find these beauties and connections where the holy writer did not intend them, they oftentimes torture and strain both their own invention, and the words of scripture. Thus, I fear, I should do, if I would attempt to give a reason why the apostle in this collection of virtues, named gravity or decency before justice, which is of so much greater importance in the christian life.
I take them therefore in the order in which they lie; and having treated of truth and gravity, I proceed now to consider the third piece of morality which he mentions, that is, justice, _Whatsoever things are just_,—think on these things; let these be the objects of your meditation and of your practice.
And here if I should entertain you in two discourses with this single subject of justice, I hope I shall not exceed the limits of your patience: For it is what the apostle frequently insists upon as a glory to christianity, that those that profess it be just or righteous. You who have fixed your hope on the grace of God, and have a design to honour the gospel, to you I would recommend this great duty of the law, and that in this method:
I. I shall endeavour to shew what is the general nature of this justice, and lay down the universal rule of it.—II. Discover in various special instances what those things are, which are just, or wherein our justice or righteousness must appear.—III. I shall give some proof of this great duty of justice or righteousness by the light of nature, and according to the law of reason.—IV. Shew what forcible influence the gospel of Christ has to recommend justice to your meditation and practice.—V. Propose a few directions how to guard yourselves against temptations to injustice, or rather point out some of the chief springs of injustice, that you may avoid them.
And while I proceed in this work, you will rejoice inwardly if you find your own consciences sincerely answering to the characters of this virtue in any good measure: And if there be any shall find himself a guilty sinner, and very deficient in this practice, let him be reproved, ashamed, and amend.
First then, Let us consider the nature of this justice, and what is the most universal rule of it.
In general, justice consists in giving to every one their due. According to the stations in which God has placed us, and according to the several relations in which providence has joined us to our fellow-creatures, every person we converse with hath something due to him; and this we are bound to pay as men, and much more as christians. But since cases and circumstances are infinite, and it is impossible for any book to contain, or any man to receive and remember so many special rules for justice, as there may be occurring circumstances in the world, which require the practice of it; our Lord Jesus Christ has therefore given us one short rule whereby to judge what is due to every man, and fitted it to every purpose: Mat. vii. 12. _All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them; For this is the law and the prophets._
I confess there may happen in human affairs some cases of such exceeding intricacy and difficulty, that very few persons have skill enough to determine precisely what is due, or what would be strictly just and righteous: Nor will this rule infallibly lead us into the perfect knowledge of it; but even in such cases, a sincere honest man consulting his own conscience, and asking, what he thought reasonable that his neighbour, in the like case, should do to him, would seldom wander far from strict justice; and by practising agreeably to this general law, would approve his conduct both in the sight of God and men.
Thus our blessed Saviour hath set up a court of equity in the breast of every man. This rule is easy to be understood, and ready to be applied upon every occasion. The meanest of them may learn and practise it, and the highest are bound to obey it. This is that divine and comprehensive rule of justice or righteousness, by which you must regulate all your
## actions, and give every one their due: “Do to others, as you would have
them do to you:” Not as an unreasonable self-love would wish to receive from others, but as your own conscience would think it reasonable others should do to you, as I have explained it at large in a sermon on that text.[29]
The second thing proposed, was to discover in various instances what those things are which are just, or wherein our righteousness must appear.
Here it is necessary to distinguish justice into that which belongs to magistrates, and that which belongs to private persons.
That which belongs to magistrates is called distributive justice, because it divides and distributes such rewards and punishments as are due to every one, according to the merit or demerit of the person; and this is done either by the law and light of nature, or by the laws of the land in which we dwell. Now in this sort of justice the general rule of our Saviour, of which we have been speaking, is of excellent and constant use. Let a prince or a magistrate place himself in the room of a subject or inferior, and ask what is equitable and just that his governor should practise toward him, and let that be the measure of his own conduct toward his subjects or inferiors: Let him exercise his authority according to this sacred rule of righteousness.
But in our separate assemblies we have very little need to speak of the duty of magistrates, or of distributive justice, since there are very few of that rank and order of men among our hearers. We have reason to give hearty thanks to our present governors, who distribute so much justice to us, as to give us the liberty of worshipping God in a manner that differs from theirs.
I apply myself therefore immediately to consider that justice which belongs chiefly to private persons, and which is their duty to practise. This is called commutative justice. This is that equity of dealing, that mutual exchange of benefits, and rendering to every one their due, which is necessary between man and man, in order to the common welfare of each other. This is that justice that is due from every person toward his neighbour, whether he be superior, inferior, or equal: And I think the following instances which I shall mention, will comprehend most of the cases wherein the practice of justice is required:
I. It is just that we honour, reverence and respect those who are our superiors in any kind; whether parents, masters, magistrates, ministers, or teachers, or whatsoever other character of superiority there be in the natural, the civil, or the religious life; otherwise we do not pay them their due.
Honour and obedience are due to parents. It is the first command of the second table. _Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land. Children obey your parents, for this is right in the Lord._ Manifest your affectionate duty toward them. Pay all due submission to their commands, and all honourable regard to their advice.