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A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life
A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life
A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life
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A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life

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Updated and adapted for today's society.

The style of the Serious Call is admirably adapted to its subject. It is serious, clear, and strong, but not graceful. There is never the slightest doubt about William Law's meaning. He conveys to the reader the exact idea that is in his own mind. The book is addressed to Christians, and it is, as its title implies, a Serious Call to be what they profess. The point is inevitable; it is driven home with extraordinary force, and Law's whole life gives weight to every word.

It is not necessary to agree with Law in all the details. But the questions that he urges upon the reader are vital, "Are you living the Christian life as it ought to be lived? Do you believe the Bible? Are you a true follower of Jesus or not?"

LanguageEnglish
PublisherAneko Press
Release dateDec 1, 2018
ISBN9781622455096
Author

William Law

William Law was born in 1686, at King's Cliffe, England. He graduated from Emmanuel College in Cambridge with a Master of Arts degree in 1712 and was ordained in the Church of England. When Queen Anne died and the German George I became the new ruler of England, William refused to take the oath of allegiance, and so was deprived of his Fellowship and of all hope of a career in the Church. He became a private tutor for ten years, and soon began writing.After his time of being a private tutor, Law returned to his hometown of King’s Cliffe, where he died in 1761. He lived a somewhat secluded life – writing, spending much time with God, and giving away any extra income to help others, setting a good example of practicing what he preached. William Law was a sincere and godly man who read the Scriptures and lived them as he understood them; and he expected all Christians to do the same.His most famous book, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, was published in 1729. This book was influential in the lives of many Christians, including John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Edward Gibbon, Andrew Murray, and William Wilberforce.

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
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    William Law's message can be summarized in a single question, If Christians could hold fast to the tenets of the Faith when professing it was dangerous, why are they lax now, when being a Christian is safe and easy? The rest, as the saying goes, is commentary.Any Christian who does not read this book is shrinking from a severe challenge to his comfort and complacency.
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    Es un gran desafío para todo cristiano leer este libro, y no sentirse conmovido a salir de su comodidad y complacencia.

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A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life - William Law

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A Serious Call To a Devout and Holy Life

Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil. – Isaiah 1:16

William Law

Edited by Paul Miller

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Rules for Living A Holy Life

William Law – A Brief Biography

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Foreword

by Paul Miller

This book is for those who want to deny themselves, carry their cross, and follow Jesus. It is for those who want to imitate the lives of Jesus and the apostles and the many other godly men and women who have gone before us and who have stood apart from the general population of Christians due to loving God more than the world.

A summary of the life of William Law can be found in the introduction to this book. Law was sincere, yet not always right. However, we can all learn from his advice, and if we did, this world would be a better place. Many have found things about the beliefs of William Law with which they do not fully agree, yet many more have been challenged by his writings to live a holy life that is pleasing to God, and certainly one that is more pleasing than the life of the general Western Christian.

Law did not write for a specific group of Christians, and followers of Jesus across the Christian spectrum have read the Serious Call and have been challenged to fully follow Jesus in a practical manner. We need to be called unto holiness once again, as we are often found too much like the world.

This book has been updated and adapted to the present day, while retaining Law’s original format. In a few instances, some of Law’s thoughts that might have been questionable, outdated, or may even have deviated somewhat from traditional biblical understanding (such as mysticism) have been edited or omitted.

We hope, therefore, that this book is relevant and useful to the modern biblical Christian, and that it will, as Law intended, challenge us all to live a pious life devoted to God.

For though we are given grace through faith in Jesus Christ, yet we must live holy lives for His sake. Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? (Romans 6:1-2).

A few terms that William Law often uses ought to be defined here.

Piety

Piety as used in this book refers to a general sense of holiness and devotion to God. A holy life is a pious life. A pious Christian is a devout and godly person.

Providence

Providence refers to the overarching hand of God upon our lives, and even refers to God Himself. It refers to God’s will and wisdom and protection and care for us. While the unsaved might refer to fate or luck or chance, Christians might refer to the providence of God – that things do not occur by chance, but by the will of God according to the love and wisdom of God.

For example, in his Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of October 3, 1789, President George Washington declared that it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.

In an August 20, 1778, letter to Brigadier General Thomas Nelson, George Washington referred to certain events that happened during the Revolutionary War to assist the Americans as events that could only have happened due to the hand of God. Washington wrote: The Hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations.

Devotion

Devotion refers to loyalty or commitment to God. If we are devoted to God, we will seek His will and pleasure above all else. We should be devoted to Him above all else. The term can also refer to our having private or public devotions – a time usually consisting of prayer and Bible reading in which we devote ourselves to being with God and growing nearer to Him.

Vanity

Vanity refers to the emptiness or uselessness of something. It can also refer to excessive pride, conceit, and self-love. We can be vain when we think we look good or are smart and want everyone else to notice, too. We can take God’s name in vain, or use it in emptiness, simply saying God’s name as a curse word or as an expression. We can vainly, or pointlessly in a futile attempt, try to stop the rain by holding our hands up in the air.

John Bunyan, in Pilgrim’s Progress, gives a good idea of vanity in his section on Vanity Fair. There, people live for themselves and their own pleasures and desires, not realizing that they live in vain, or for no real purpose. Soon their lives will be over, and all that they thought was good will be gone.

Introduction

This Introduction was compiled mainly from the introduction to earlier editions, such as the 1899 edition printed by Methuen & Co. in London.

The Life of William Law (1686-1761)

William Law was born in 1686, at King’s Cliffe, a large village near Stamford, in Northamptonshire, England. His father, Thomas Law, was a grocer and chandler, or one who ran the village shop. It is a position, as all country people know, of some importance in the rustic hierarchy, and in those days was more important than it is now. Both the father and the mother – her name was Margaret – were good, religious people. Some have thought that they were the models for Jeremiah and Hannah in the Serious Call.

Their son, William – he was the fourth of eight sons, and there were three daughters as well – entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, as sizar, or poor scholar, in 1705. He earned his BA degree in 1708, was elected Fellow and was ordained in 1711, and graduated as Master of Arts in 1712. While at Cambridge he drew up a set of rules for my future conduct. The first rule was to fix it deep in my mind that I have but one business upon my hands – to seek for eternal happiness by doing the will of God. Doing the will of God sums up the earlier part of Law’s history, just as freedom and peace in the Holy Spirit sums up the later. Through the one he rose to the other, like Origen and many other saints.

On the accession of George I in 1716, William refused to take the oaths of allegiance and abjuration, and he was accordingly deprived of his Fellowship and of all prospect of employment in the Church. The loss to Law was very great, as he lost both influence and employment. However, affliction tries the righteous man, and very pure reverence is due to those who, like Law, retained their saintliness in a world that had cast them out, and which they could not understand.

Almost immediately after the resignation of his Fellowship, Law began to make his mark in the world of literature. The Three Letters to the Bishop of Bangor appeared in 1717; the Remarks upon the Fable of the Bees in 1723; The Absolute Unlawfulness of Stage Entertainments in 1726; and the Case of Reason in 1731.

In 1726 appeared the first of Law’s devotional works, the Practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection. It is significant that Law uses perfection here, not as the old fathers wrote about perfection of love, but Law intended it to be about obedience.

About this time Mr. Edward Gibbon, the grandfather of the historian, was seeking a tutor for his only son. Law was selected for this position, accompanied the younger Gibbon to Cambridge, and in 1730, when his pupil went abroad to make the grand tour, found a home in that spacious house with gardens and land at Putney, where his patron resided, in decent hospitality. Here he lived as the much honored friend and spiritual director of the whole family until the establishment was broken up soon after Mr. Gibbon’s death in 1736.

In 1729 the publication of the Serious Call had set the seal on Law’s reputation, and he was visited and consulted at Putney by a little circle of disciples. Chief among them were Dr. Cheyne, the two Wesleys, and the poet John Byrom. The Wesleys drifted away from him, but John Byrom remained his faithful friend for life. Law was one of those men who have many admirers and few friends, and whose friends are markedly inferior to themselves. They are men who cannot bear contradiction.

William Law settled at King’s Cliffe, his birthplace, in a good house known as King John’s Palace, or the Hall Yard. Here, in 1744, he was joined by Miss Hester Gibbon, the daughter of his old patron, and Mrs. Elizabeth Hutcheson, the widow of a wealthy country gentleman; and here he died in 1761.

Law’s life at King’s Cliffe was wholly uneventful. The only dates that emerge are those of the writings that he sent to be published from time to time, down to the very year of his death. It cannot have been a wholesome existence for so able a man to have been thus confined as domestic chaplain with two women of limited understanding and peculiar character. He seems to have had scarcely any contact with the outside world. Certainly he suffered through the absence of greater duties and conversation with his equals. The little household was strictly ordered. The Bible and books of theology were the only literature admitted, and Law did not seem to participate in any form of recreation beyond conversation, a little music, and an occasional drive or ride. The historian Gibbon, who is oddly divided between dislike of Law’s ways and pride in having been, in a sense, the proprietor of such a famous man, speaks of the house at King’s Cliffe as a hermitage, or the dwelling of a hermit, and the term is not inappropriate.

The Christian duty most insisted upon by Law was charity. He himself was the soul of generosity. He built and endowed a girls’ school at King’s Cliffe, possibly with the thousand pounds that had been sent to him anonymously by someone who was grateful for spiritual profit received from the Christian Perfection. In 1745 the foundation was increased by Mrs. Hutcheson, until it included also a school for boys, almshouses, and a library.

Such wise generosity could bear nothing but good fruits, but the rule of the house was that all surplus income should be given away in alms. As Mrs. Hutcheson enjoyed two thousand pounds a year, Miss Gibbon had inherited half her father’s large property, and Law himself possessed some means, the sums thus disposed of must have been very considerable.

Law would never allow his portrait to be taken, but Mr. Tighe, who visited King’s Cliffe some time before 1813, tells us that Law was in stature rather over than under the middle size; not corpulent, but stout made, with broad shoulders; his visage was round, his eyes grey, his features well-proportioned and not large; his complexion ruddy, and his countenance open and agreeable. He was naturally more inclined to be merry than sad. . . . He chose to eat his food from a wooden platter, not from an idea of the unnecessary luxury of a plate, but because it appeared to him that a plate spoiled the knives.

He was a thorough Englishman in person and mind, and he is a noble figure. In all his numerous controversies, he never used a discourteous word or a deceitful argument. He never fought for trifles or for any cause that did not lie very near to the heart of religion. He found himself condemned to a life of isolation, yet he never lost heart or temper or showed the least trace of bitterness, though he was naturally of a masterful and positive disposition; indeed, he grew in sweetness and goodness to the very end. Certainly no one could be more consistent or thorough. He left, says Gibbon the historian, the reputation of a worthy and a pious man, who believed all that he professed and practiced all that he enjoined, and these words are just.

Of the Serious Call

The Serious Call was published in 1729, when its author was about forty-three years of age. The world has always regarded it as Law’s masterpiece, and with good reason. In it, Law describes his own life and principles, with all the force of earnest sincerity. The book is, we may say, a part of himself. Law had other writings, but this is the one that best relates practically to the people.

The style of the Serious Call is admirably adapted to its subject. It is serious, clear, and strong, but not graceful. There is never the slightest doubt about Law’s meaning. He conveys to the reader the exact idea that is in his own mind. He selects the plainest words and the simplest figures, and he is not in the least afraid of repetition. A typical instance is to be found in the parable of the pond, in the eleventh chapter. The picture is as distinct as possible and easy to understand. Almost the only artistic feature in the book is to be found in the characters. Some of them are created with great skill; many of them show how keen a power of sarcasm Law possessed, and how carefully he bridled it.

Attempts have been made to find real people behind the characters. Jeremiah and Hannah have been identified with Law’s own father and mother, and the English historian Edward Gibbon was convinced that Beth and Miranda represented his two aunts. Of Jeremiah we are specifically told that he lived about two hundred years ago, and the characters are all types suggested, no doubt, by people whom Law had met, yet had not drawn from life. Character painting had been for a century a favorite method of conveying moral instruction, and many famous writers, from Earle to Addison, have left us specimens of their skill in this kind of composition.

The Serious Call has not escaped criticism, and indeed, it is easy enough to point out features in which it bears the mark of the eighteenth century; but it is a splendid protest against the spiritual apathy of the times, and no more strenuous plea for consistency and thoroughness was ever delivered.

The book is addressed to Christians, and it is, as its title implies, a Serious Call to be what they profess. The point is inevitable; it is driven home with extraordinary force, and Law’s whole life gives weight to every word.

It is not in the least necessary to agree with Law in all the details. The questions that he urges upon the reader are: Are you living the Christian life as you believe it should be lived? Are you acting up to your convictions? Are you a true follower of Jesus or not? Few can face these questions without many qualms of conscience.

As in Thomas à Kempis’s Imitation of Christ we have a pure man describing purity, so here we have a real man insisting on reality. Every syllable is transparently genuine. This is the secret of the Serious Call. It is remarkable that, of those whom we know to have been deeply affected by the book, not one was in complete sympathy with Law. Nor does Law expect this. He would say to the reader, If you are wiser than I, thank God for it, but beware that you are not less sincere.

Let us take a few conspicuous instances of some who were affected by this book. One of the first and most illustrious of Law’s disciples was John Wesley. Meeting now, says Wesley (the time was shortly after his election to the Lincoln Fellowship), "with Mr. Law’s Christian Perfection and Serious Call, although I was much offended at many parts of both, yet they convinced me more than ever of the exceeding height and breadth and depth of the law of God. The light flowed in so mightily upon my soul that everything appeared in a new light. . . . I was convinced more than ever of the impossibility of being half a Christian."

There were many parts of the book that Wesley did not approve of. In 1732 he visited William Law at Putney, consulted him upon religious questions, and took him for a kind of oracle. But in 1738 the little rift widened into a division. On his return from Georgia, Wesley threw in his lot with the Moravians, but Law could not agree with Peter Bohler, whose views of the atonement, faith, instantaneous conversion, and sinlessness were highly repugnant to him. A sharp correspondence ensued between Wesley and Law, and these two excellent men drifted apart. Later, Wesley became much more serious in many of his views, but by this time Law had become interested with the mystical thoughts of Behmenism, and this was a new barrier. Yet within eighteen months of William Law’s death, Wesley spoke of the Serious Call as a treatise which will hardly be excelled, if it be equaled, in the English tongue, either for beauty of expression or for justness and depth of thought.

No good man could well be more unlike Law than Dr. Samuel Johnson. Johnson was often too harsh and sweeping in his assertions, but he could not sympathize with Law’s politics, philosophy, or his abrupt exclusion of the world from Christianity. Further, Johnson did not much like Law’s peculiar type of Behmen-based mysticism, yet he thought that the Serious Call was the finest piece of hortatory [exhorting] theology in any language. When at Oxford, he says in another place, I took it up expecting to find it a dull book, and perhaps to laugh at it. But I found Law quite an over-match for me; and this was the first occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion after I became capable of religious inquiry.

Thus, Law gave a great impulse to Methodism and breathed new life into the old-fashioned High Church. But he also strongly affected the rising Evangelical school, though focusing more on our part in living a holy life than in Jesus’s role in saving us from the old nature. Law preached self-denial rather than self-sacrifice, but he expected Christians to live differently from the lost.

Many good people of widely divergent ways of thinking have read the Serious Call with great profit to their souls, but what we are to learn above all things from the Serious Call is that there can be no truth and no wholesome life without perfect sincerity. The double minded man is unstable in all his ways (James 1:8 JUB).

Chapter 1

Concerning the nature and extent of Christian devotion.

Devotion to God is not just prayer and church attendance. Many people do these things who are not devoted to God. Rather, prayer, whether private or public, is one particular part of devotion. Devotion signifies an entire life given, or devoted, to God. Are you devoted to God?

He, therefore, is devout, who no longer lives according to his own will or according to the way and spirit of the world, but only according to the will of God. He is devout who considers God in everything, who serves God in everything, and who devotes every part of his life to piety by doing everything in the name of God and under such ways as are done for His glory.

We readily acknowledge that God alone is to be the reason for and recipient of our prayers. In our prayers, we are to look wholly unto Him and act entirely for Him, and we are only to pray in such a way and for such things and purposes that are suitable to His will and glory.

Prayer is more than repeating words. It is more than saying the same prayer all the time or just reading prayer requests to God. If we understand the reason why we are to be strictly pious in our prayers, we will find it to be the same strong reason why we should be strictly pious in all the other parts of our lives. We know for certain that we should honor and trust God in our prayers and that we should look wholly to Him and pray according to His will, and we should do the same in all the other actions of our life.

Any manner of life and any use of our talents, whether of ourselves or of our possessions, time, or money that is not strictly according to the will of God and that is not for purposes that are appropriate for His glory is as absurd and flawed as prayers that are not according to the will of God.

It is foolish to try to pray in a holy manner if it is not our intent to live in a holy manner. There is no other reason why our prayers should be according to the will of God and why they should contain nothing except what is wise, holy, and heavenly other than so our lives may be of the same nature and be full of the same wisdom, holiness, and heavenly character as our prayers. We ought to live unto God in the same spirit and with the same sincerity that we pray to Him. Our most heavenly prayers – those that we think bring us nearest to the throne of God – would be foolish and a waste of time if they are only words, if it were not for our obligation and desire to devote all the actions of our lives to God. If it were not absolutely necessary to walk before Him in wisdom and holiness and all heavenly manner of life, doing everything in His name and for His glory, there would be no excellency or wisdom in the most heavenly prayers. Such prayers would be absurdities. It would be like praying for wings when it was not part of our duty to fly.

As certain, therefore, as there is any wisdom in praying for the Spirit of God, so it is certain that we are to make that Spirit the guide of all our actions. As certain as it is our duty to look wholly unto God in our prayers, so certain it is that it is our duty to live wholly unto God in our lives. However, it cannot rightly be said that we live unto God unless we live unto Him in all the ordinary actions of our life. We are not living fully for God if we do not do so at all times and in all things. Unless He is the standard and measure of all our ways, we are living for ourselves.

It cannot rightly be said that we pray unto God unless our prayers look wholly to Him. Unreasonable and absurd ways of life, whether in work or hobbies or entertainment, whether they consume our time or our money, are like unreasonable and absurd prayers, and are as truly an offense unto God. Many, though, say fine prayers, but do not have the intent or desire to live fully for God. They pray to God on Sunday morning and then live for themselves on Sunday afternoon. They say a quick prayer on Monday morning and then barely give God another thought until the next morning’s quick prayer.

It is because we do not know or consider that we must devote every aspect of our lives wholly unto God that we see so many people ridicule many who profess to be Christian. You see them regularly attend church, but when the church service is over, they are just like those who seldom or never attend church. In their way of life, their manner of spending their time and money, in their cares and fears, in their pleasures and indulgences, and in their work and recreation, they are just like the rest of the world.

This causes the depraved part of the world to generally make a joke of Christians because they see that their devotion goes no farther than their prayers, and that when the prayers and religious service are over, they live no more unto God until the next church service. Instead, they live by the same thoughts and inclinations, and in as full an enjoyment of all the indiscretion of life as other people. They sing to God on Sunday morning, and then listen to the music of the world the rest of the week. Their hearts do not belong wholly unto God. This is the reason why they are the jest and scorn of indifferent and worldly people – not because they are really devoted to God, but because they appear to have no other devotion but that of routine prayers and typical church attendance.

Dave is very fearful of missing church. The entire church community thinks that Dave must be sick if he is not at church, but Dave spends the rest of his time living for fun. He is a companion of the most foolish people in their most misguided pleasures. He is ready for every ill-mannered entertainment and diversion, and there is no amusement too trivial to please him. Much of his time is devoted to sports and parties. He gives himself up to idle words and gossip. He is a good friend of foolish people who live for this world and for themselves. He allows himself to foolishly hate and resent certain people without considering that he is to love everybody as himself. If you ask him why he never puts his conversation, his time, and his fortune under Christian principles, Dave has no more to say for himself than the most disorderly person. The whole tenor of Scripture lies as directly against such a life as against depravity and drunkenness. He who lives such a life of idleness and foolishness lives no more according to the religion of Jesus Christ than he who lives in gluttony and drunkenness.

If someone were to tell Dave that he could neglect church without any harm to his soul, Dave would think that person was not a Christian and would avoid his company. But if someone tells him that he may live as most of the world does, that he may enjoy himself as others do, that he may spend his time and money as people of the world do, that he may conform to the foolishness and faults of the general public and gratify his emotions and passions as most people do, Dave never suspects that person of lacking a Christian spirit or thinks that he is doing the devil’s work. However, if Dave were to read the entire New Testament from beginning to end, he would find his course of life condemned on every page of it.

Indeed, there cannot be anything more absurd imagined than wise and majestic and heavenly prayers added to a life of emptiness and indiscretion, where neither labor, pleasure, time, nor money are under the direction of the wisdom and heavenly character of our prayers. It would be absurd to think of someone praying in fine, eloquent words, yet who lives his life for himself and without regard for the glory of God and holiness.

On the other hand, if we were to see someone pretending to act wholly with regard to God in everything that he did, who would neither spend time nor money, nor take part in any work or recreation unless he could act according to strict principles of conscience and piety, but at the same time he would neglect all prayer and Bible reading, would we not be amazed at such a person and wonder how he could have so much foolishness along with so much religion? Don’t many do this, though? They go to church and think of themselves as fine Christians. They tell others how much they like church. When in public, they pray before eating to show others how religious they are and how much they love God. They do or do not do certain things because they say that they want to please God. They help teach at church and are often doing things to help others, yet they rarely read the Bible or sincerely and fervently pray.

Yet this is as reasonable as for anyone to be faithful in church attendance and in saying prayers while letting the rest of his life – his time and labor, his talents and money – be disposed of without any regard to taking piety and devotion to God seriously. It is as great an absurdity to think that someone can have holy prayers and divine petitions without a holy life as to think that someone can have a holy and divine life without prayers and the Holy Scripture and a life devoted to God.

Let anyone therefore think how easily he could discredit someone who pretended to be a sincere Christian but never prayed, and the same arguments will as plainly discredit another who pretends to pray much but does not live a holy life. To be weak and foolish in spending our time and money is no greater a mistake than to be weak and foolish in our prayers. To participate in anything in life that we would not offer to God is the same kind of irreligion as to neglect to pray or to pray irreverently or merely ritualistically and not from the heart, making our prayers unworthy of God.

The conclusion of the matter is that either wisdom and Christianity prescribe rules and motives for all that we say and do in life, or they do not. If they do, then it is as necessary to govern all our actions by those rules as it is necessary to worship God. If the Bible teaches us anything about eating and drinking, how to use our time and money, how to live in and yet be separate from the world, what approach we are to have in everyday life, how we are to act toward all people, how we are to treat the sick, the poor, the elderly, and the destitute, who to love and respect, how to treat our enemies, and how to be self-disciplined and deny ourselves, then he must be very weak who thinks that these parts of Christianity are not to be observed with as much exactness and care as any doctrine that relates to prayer.

It is very noticeable that there is not one command in all the Gospels for public worship, and perhaps it is a duty that is least insisted upon in the rest of Scripture. The Scriptures place much emphasis on how we should live in our private and personal lives, and how we should live as families and even as Christian brothers and sisters, but the Bible does not measure Christian maturity on how often we attend church. While it is good for us to meet together, it is foolish to think that we are fulfilling the object of following Jesus simply because we go to church.

Our blessed Savior and His apostles are entirely concerned with doctrines relating to ordinary life. They call us to renounce the world and to be different in every aspect and way of life from the spirit and the way of the world. We are to renounce all its goods, to fear none of its evils, and to reject its pleasures. Our happiness should be different from what makes those of the world happy. We are to be as newborn babies who are born into a new state of things, to live as pilgrims just passing through, in holy fear, and with our hearts set on things above. We are to take up our cross every day, deny ourselves, profess the blessedness of mourning, expect persecution, and seek the blessedness of poverty of spirit. We must forsake the pride and vanity of riches, not worry about tomorrow, live in the deepest state of humility, rejoice in worldly sufferings, reject the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, accept wrongs, forgive and bless our enemies, and love mankind as God loves them. We are to give up our whole hearts and affections to God, and to strive to enter through the narrow gate into a life of eternal glory.

This is the type of devotion that our blessed Savior taught, and it should be common in all Christians. Is it not therefore incredibly strange that people should place so much piety in attending church, which Jesus never mentioned, and yet neglect these common duties of our ordinary life, which are commanded on every page of the Gospels? I call these duties the devotion of our common life because if they are to be practiced, they must be made part of our common life; they can have no place anywhere else.

If contempt of the world and heavenly affection are necessary characteristics of Christians, it is necessary that this attitude of mind appears in the whole course of their lives and in the way that they live in the world, because it can have no place anywhere else. If self-denial is a condition of following Jesus, all who would truly follow Him must make it a part of their normal lives. If humility is a Christian duty, then the normal life of a Christian must demonstrate humility in every part of life. If poverty of spirit is necessary, it must be the spirit and demeanor of every day of our lives. If we are to relieve the naked, the sick, and the prisoner, it must be the common kindness of our lives, as far as we are able to do it. If we are to love our enemies, we must make our everyday life a visible exercise and demonstration of that love. If contentment and thankfulness and patiently bearing evil are duties to God, then they are the duties of every day and should be in every circumstance of our lives. If we are to be wise and holy as the newborn children of God, we cannot be so except by renouncing everything that is foolish and vain in every part of our lives. If we are to be new creatures in Christ, we must show that we are so by having new ways of living in the world. If we are to follow Christ, it must be our usual way of spending every day. If we blend in with our unsaved coworkers, friends, and neighbors, then we are not following Jesus.

It is the same with all the virtues and holy qualities of Christianity; they are not ours unless they are the virtues and qualities of our ordinary lives. Christianity does not allow us to live in the typical worldly ways of life, conforming to the folly and sin of what everyone else does and gratifying the passions and qualities in which the world delights. It is so far from accommodating us in any of these things that all the virtues of Christianity that give evidence of salvation are simply ways of living above and contrary to the world in all the normal actions of our life. If our everyday life is not a common course of humility, self-denial, renunciation of the world, poverty of spirit, and heavenly affection, we do not live the lives of Christians. Yet how many Christians delight in the same immodest fashion and music and movies and sports and other entertainment of the world and still profess to walk in the footsteps of Jesus?

Though these virtues should be plain and consistent among true Christians, it is just as plain that there is little or nothing of these to be found even among the better sort of people who are not true Christians. You see them often at church. They are pleased with nice sermons, but if you look into their lives you see them to be just the same kind of people as those who do not pretend to be devoted to God. They have the same desire and love for the world, the same worldly cares, fears, and joys. They have the same perspective, equally worldly in their desires. You see the same fondness for worldly success and prosperity, the same pride and vanity of clothing, the same self-love and indulgence, the same foolish friendships and groundless hatreds, the same levity of mind and shallow spirit, the same fondness for fun and sports, the same types of music and entertainment, the same idle natures, and the same empty ways of spending their time as the rest of the world that does not pretend to love God.

I do not mean this comparison to be between people who seem good and those who are living in blatant sin, but between people of sincere and thoughtful lives. Let us look at an example of two ordinary women. Let us suppose that one of them regularly attends church and prays out of a sense of duty, while the other woman is not very concerned about these things, but is at church when it is convenient for her or when she feels like it – just whatever her mood and schedule happen to be. Now it is easy to see this difference between these two women, but other than this, can you find any other differences between them? Can you find that their lives are much different? Are not the qualities, customs, and manners of the one the same as the other? Their lives are much the same in their purposes and desires. They both consider the same things as good and evil and right and wrong. They both enjoy the things of this life and do not seem to live for the next world.

One would think that one of these women would live much differently than the other if one desired to follow Jesus and the other was not so concerned about that, but there is not much difference between the lives of these two women. Both live in pleasure, delighting themselves in the common fashion of the day. Neither seems to ask what kind of clothing would most please God, but both are only interested in that which they think makes them look fashionable or might impress others. This can be seen among those of today who go to church and profess to be Christian, but dress no more modestly during the week than those who have no concern for God. Both wear tight pants and shorts, short skirts, and other immodest fashions of this world.

Neither woman lives in self-denial regarding God, but if they deny themselves anything such as food, it is only to support their vanity and desire to look good to others. Neither renounces everything that looks like pride, either of person, dress, or possessions. Both women find much enjoyment in public entertainment. Both waste their time in gossip and corrupt conversation. Neither cares much of making good use of time by way of Bible reading and prayer, family devotions, reading good books that might draw them nearer to God, or helping their neighbors. Both are more interested in storing up treasure in this life than the next. Both carelessly spend in order to clothe themselves with the latest fashions. Neither woman considers her finances as given to her by God to be carefully used, and no longer to be spent on vain and needless clothing and jewelry, than they are to be buried in the earth. Both women appear much the same outside of church, yet if they do not differ in these things that should separate a follower of Jesus from one who is not, can it with any sense be said that the one is a good Christian and the other is not? What begins in the heart should be clear in the outward person.

Here is another example. Mike is a good-natured person. He has kept good company, hates everything that is false and dishonorable, is very generous and brave to his friends, but has concerned himself so little with the Scriptures and Christ that he hardly knows the difference between a Jew and a Christian.

Ray, on the other hand, was taught about the Christian life at an early age. He buys religious books. He can talk about all the feasts and fasts of the church and knows the names of most people who have been eminent for piety throughout the history

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