The world and believers.

CHAP. XV.

THE MANNERS OF THE WORLD ARE HURTFUL AND HINDERING TO BELIEVERS.

THE apostle declared it to be his privilege, that the world was crucified to him, and he to the world. Another apostle says, that whosoever will be a friend of the world, is the enemy of God. And Christ assures us, that we cannot serve God and mammon, insomuch that if we would approve ourselves to be his disciples, we must take up our cross daily and follow him.

This is very evident; they who are the most given to the modes of this world, and mix most with its customs and pursuits, are the least alive to God, and the least lively in the things of God. Gaiety and foppery of dress, mimicry of worldly pride and parade, the hollow language of fashionable companies and friendships, do ill become a Christian, and never promote his true welfare. It is not indeed the custom at this day to say such things to professors: but they are not, however, the less true, or the less needful.

Poor and wretched are all these fooleries, when weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, and especially when they thrust out the enjoyment of things divine. To have gay bodily apparel with cold and naked souls; to possess fulness of bread with emptiness of grace; to enjoy much worldly company, and lose the society of God and his saints; to be esteemed polite and genteel in manners with men, and to be awkward and dumb in addresses to God-is all such a complication of

The Christian singular.

folly, meanness, misery, and sin, as a Christian, in his right mind, should be amazed at and abhor.

Are we loved by the world! It is for this reason, the world will love its own. But how then are we chosen out of the world? How then can we belong to Christ, whom the world hateth?-This trimming between God and the world is neither for the comfort of our souls, nor for the credit of our profession.

Do we fear to be censured for singularity and precision? A Christian must be singular; for he is one of those, who is not to be numbered with the nations, a stranger, and a pilgrim, or passenger, here; and he must be precise, neither loving the world nor living for the world; for, otherwise, the love of the Father is not in him.

On the other hand, an open and generous civility, a gentle and benevolent deportment, bespeak ing sincerity of heart, and holiness of life, are truly ornamental to the Christian. In avoiding the ape, a believer need not stumble upon the bear; nor, in shunning grimace and affectation, to plunge into sourness and brutality. If meekness, patience, gentleness, good-will, good manners, and good works, will please all men, it is his duty by these means to study to please them. But if they expect his conformity to the world for their pleasure, and are disgusted at the transformation and renewal of his mind, as it is more than probable they will be; it is then his honour and his privilege not in this way to please them, if he would approve himself to be the servant of Christ.

Though the Christian, in one sense, must be in the world and put his best hand to its business and affairs, according to his lot from God's pro

Conversation.

vidence; yet, in another sense, he must come out from the world and be separate, lest his soul be hindered and defiled. He cannot enter into the spirit of the world without injury and loss: And it is the spirit, not the lawful business, of the world, which contains all the evil. In his calling and concerns, a believer is to glorify God: And he is enabled to do this, first by the prayer of faith over them, and then by the life of faith in them. That business and those intentions, which will not admit of these, are to be avoided as the very plague.

Lord, how poor and vile are all the gay modes of this world, compared with the simplicity and enjoyment of thy truth! how beggarly and unsatisfying are its vanities, how low and crawling its ambition, how foolish and cheating its hopes, how vain and unprofitable its cares, how various and continual its troubles, how wretched and horrible its end! O give me thy wisdom and love, thy grace and thy truth: for this is that better part, which shall never be taken from me!

CHAP. XVI.

ON CONVERSATION AMONG PROFESSORS.

THERE are many professors of religion, who are always craving for company. They think, that to be alone is to be dull, and that, without conversing with creatures, they must be silent and stupid, whimsical or melancholy. Such persons are to be pitied, who have not learned the divine

Use of company.

secret of talking with God in private by fervent faith and prayer, who know not how to listen to the still small voice of his Spirit in his holy Word, who cannot find an endless delight in discovering and tasting the sweets of redemption, and who lothe to commune with their own hearts, in their closet or their chamber, and be still.

When such persons get into company, and especially into a great company, they soon discover how unfit, as Christian professors, they are to be in it. The discourse, if of God and his truths, will be light and unsavory, without unction or solid experience; or if their conversation turn, as it generally will, upon men and earthly things, it will only differ from the language and spirit of this world, by being spoken by persons who wish to be thought of as living for another.

It is a melancholy truth, that the levity, dissipation, envy, calumny, and detraction, too often found among companies and parties professedly religious, as well as among the people of the world, make retirement very necessary to the Christian who would walk much with God, and far more cheerful than the generality of talkative professors can conceive it to be. But the soul, which is led to the true enjoyment of divine communion, finds it a relief, rather than a burden, to cease from

man.

The Christian should not, if possible, get into company but either to impart some spiritual good, or to receive it. If he hath grace and talents for the former, he will, before the discourse, secretly look up to God for his aid and blessing, and afterwards will desire rather to be humbled for what. he could not say, or for the manner of saying it, than to be pleased on his own account, for any thing he did say, or for the satisfaction afforded

Beware of company.

to others. If, on the other hand, he hath received edification from godly conversation, he will then pray that it may abide with him, that the sweet savour may not be lost, that it may be carried into lively effect and experience, and that, like good seed upon good ground, it may increase. with the increase of God, and bring forth fruit> abundantly to perfection.

All this implies, that large and mingled assenblies must be more noisy than profitable. There hath been of this at all times very sufficient evidence. Great entertainments, and many persons called together to enjoy them, may serve to keep out the calm serenity and sweet possession of divine reflection, but perhaps too rarely promote it. In many words there will probably be errors and folly; nor do numbers in a company always multiply wisdom. The flesh may be gratified and feasted, while the spirit may be starved, and wearied, and dry, and at last be sent empty away. It must be grievous, to a real Christian, thus to come out of company a worse or less happy man for entering into it.

It is the way of God to feed his people with the rod [of his gracious and selecting power] even his flock, his heritage, which dwell solitarily in the wood, in the midst of Carmel [the field of the world] And they do feed [like Abraham and the patriarchs, who were strangers and pilgrims upon earth] in Bashan and Gilead [the lands appointed for them], as in the days of old. Micah, vii. 14. They were ever a people dwelling alone [in abstraction from the spirit of this world], and not reckoned among the nations. Numb. xxiii.9.

If I have thee, O my God, I have plenitude of society, though (like the blessed John at Patmos) no creature should be nigh, or though I should