165 / 514
VELUM.
IX.]
THE
HIDDEN LIFE
OF
A
CHRISTIAN:
157
I
proceed now to draw
some
inferences
from
the hid-
den nature of
the
spiritual
life.
I. And
my
first
inference
would teach you
not
to
rest
satisfied with any
externals
:
for they
who
put
forth no
other
acts
of
life,
but
what
the
world
sees,
are
no
true
christians.
We eat,
we
drink, and
sleep
;
that
is
the
life
of nature;
we
buy
and
sell,
we
labour
and converse
;
that
is
the
civil life
;
we trifle,
visit,
tattle,
flutter, and rove among
a hundred
irnpertinencies, without any formed, or
set-
tled design
what
we
live
for; that
is
the
idle
life
;
and
it
is
the kindest name
that
I can
bestow
upon
it.
We
learn
our creed,
we go
to church,
we
say our
prayers, and
read chapters or sermons
;
these
are
the
outward
forms
of
the religious
life.
And
is
this all?
Have
we
no
daily
secret
exercises
of
the
soul in
retirement
and converse
with
God
?
No
time
spent
with
our
own
hearts
?
Are
we
never
busied,
in
some
hidden corner,
about
the
af-
fairs
of
eternity? Are there
no seasons
allotted
for
prayer, for meditation, for
reading
in
secret, and
self
-
enquiries
?
Nothing
to do with
God
alone
in
a
whose
day
together
?
Surely this
can never
be
the
life
of a
christian?
Remember,
O
man,
there
is
nothing of
all
the labours
or
services,
the acts
of
zeal
or devotion,
that
thou
canst
practise
in public,
but
a
subtle hypocrite
may
so
nearly
imitate
the
same,
that it
will be
hard
to
discover the
dif-
ference.
There
is
nothing of
all these
outward
forms,
therefore,
that
can
safely
and infallibly distinguish
thee
from a hypocrite
and
false
professor
;
for the same
ac-
tions
may
proceed
from
inward motions and principles
widely different.
If
you would
obtain any
evidence
that
you
are a christian
indeed, you must make
it appear
to
your
own
conscience
by
the exercises
of
the
hidden
life,
and
the
secret transactions between
God and your
soul.
He
was
not a Jew of
old, who was
one outwardly
in
the
letter
only
nor
is
he a
christian,
who has
mere
outward
forms;
but
a
Jew or
a
christian,
in
the sight
of God,
is
such
a
one
as
bath the
religion
in
his
heart,
and
in
spirit,
whose
praise
is
not of
men,
but
of
God,
Rom.
ii.
28, 29.
II.
Inference.
The
life
of a
saint
is
a
matter of
won-
der
to the
sinful
world;
for
they
know
not
what
he lives
1