DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3689#0181
a Devout and Holy Life. 179
Who could be content with seeing how contrary his life is to
the Gospel, but because he sees, that he lives as the Christian
world doth ?
Who that reads the Gospel, would want to be persuaded of the
necessity of great self-denial, humility, and poverty of spirit, but
that the authority of the world has banished this doctrine of the
cross ?
There is nothing therefore, that a good Christian ought to be
more suspicious of, or more constantly guard against, than the
authority of the Christian world.
And all the passages of Scripture, which represent the world
as contrary to Christianity, which require our separation from it,
as from a Mammon of unrighteousness, a monster of iniquity, are
all to be taken in the same strict sense, in relation to the present
world.
For the change that the world has undergone, has only altered
its methods, but not lessened its power of destroying Religion.
Christians had nothing to fear from the heathen world, but the
loss of their lives ; but the world become a friend, makes it diffi-
cult for them to save their Religion.
Whilst pride, sensuality, covetousness, and ambition, had only
the authority of the heathen world, Christians were thereby made
more intent upon the contrary virtues. But when pride, sen-
suality, covetousness, and ambition, have the authority of the
Christian world, then private Christians are in the utmost danger,
not only of being shamed out of the practice, but of losing the
very notion of the piety of the Gospel.
There is therefore hardly any possibility of saving yourself
from the present world, but by considering it as the same wicked
enemy, to all true holiness, as it is represented in the Scriptures;
and by assuring yourself, that it is as dangerous to conform to
its tempers and passions, now it is Christian, as when it was
heathen.
For only ask yourself, Is the piety, the humility, the sobriety of
the Christian world, the piety, the humility, and sobriety of the
Christian spirit ? If not, how can you be more undone by any
world, than by conforming to that which is Christian ?
Need a man do more to make his soul unfit for the mercy of
God, than by being greedy and ambitious of honour ? Yet how
can a man renounce this temper, without renouncing the spirit
and temper of the world, in which you now live.
How can a man be made more incapable of the spirit of
Christ, than by a wrong value for money ; and yet how can he be
more wrong in his value of it, than by following the authority of
the Christian world ?
12—2
Who could be content with seeing how contrary his life is to
the Gospel, but because he sees, that he lives as the Christian
world doth ?
Who that reads the Gospel, would want to be persuaded of the
necessity of great self-denial, humility, and poverty of spirit, but
that the authority of the world has banished this doctrine of the
cross ?
There is nothing therefore, that a good Christian ought to be
more suspicious of, or more constantly guard against, than the
authority of the Christian world.
And all the passages of Scripture, which represent the world
as contrary to Christianity, which require our separation from it,
as from a Mammon of unrighteousness, a monster of iniquity, are
all to be taken in the same strict sense, in relation to the present
world.
For the change that the world has undergone, has only altered
its methods, but not lessened its power of destroying Religion.
Christians had nothing to fear from the heathen world, but the
loss of their lives ; but the world become a friend, makes it diffi-
cult for them to save their Religion.
Whilst pride, sensuality, covetousness, and ambition, had only
the authority of the heathen world, Christians were thereby made
more intent upon the contrary virtues. But when pride, sen-
suality, covetousness, and ambition, have the authority of the
Christian world, then private Christians are in the utmost danger,
not only of being shamed out of the practice, but of losing the
very notion of the piety of the Gospel.
There is therefore hardly any possibility of saving yourself
from the present world, but by considering it as the same wicked
enemy, to all true holiness, as it is represented in the Scriptures;
and by assuring yourself, that it is as dangerous to conform to
its tempers and passions, now it is Christian, as when it was
heathen.
For only ask yourself, Is the piety, the humility, the sobriety of
the Christian world, the piety, the humility, and sobriety of the
Christian spirit ? If not, how can you be more undone by any
world, than by conforming to that which is Christian ?
Need a man do more to make his soul unfit for the mercy of
God, than by being greedy and ambitious of honour ? Yet how
can a man renounce this temper, without renouncing the spirit
and temper of the world, in which you now live.
How can a man be made more incapable of the spirit of
Christ, than by a wrong value for money ; and yet how can he be
more wrong in his value of it, than by following the authority of
the Christian world ?
12—2