130 THE HIDDEN LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. I. And my first inference would teach younot to rest satis- fied with any externals : for they who put forth no other acts of life, but what theworld 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 imperti- nencies, without any formed, or settled 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 affairs 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 whole day together ? Surely thiscan never be the life of achris- tian ? Remember, O man, there is nothing of all the labours or services,-the acts of senior devotion, that thou canst practise in public, but a subtle hypocrite may so nearly imitate thesame, that it will behard to discover the difference. There is nothing of all these outward forms, therefore, that can safely and infallibly dis- tinguish thee from ahypocrite and false professor for the same actions may proceed from inward motions and principleswidely different. If you would obtain any evidence that you are achris- tian indeed, you must make it appear to your own conscience by the exercises of the hidden life, and the secret transactions be- tween God and your soul. Hewas 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 lath the religion in his heart, and in spirit, whose praise is not of men, but of God? Rom. ii. 28, 29. H. Inference. The life of a saint is a matter of wonder to the sinful world; for they know not what he lives upon. The sons of ambition follow after grandeur and power ; the animals of pleasure pursue all the luxuries of sense ; the miser hunts after money, and is ever digging for gold. It is visible enough what these wise men live upon. But the christian, who lives in the power and gloryof the divine life, seeks after none of these, any farther than as duty leads him, and the supports and conve- niencies of life are needful, in the present state of his habitation in the flesh. The sinner wonders what it is the saint aims at, while he neglects thetempting idols that himself adores, anddes- pises the gildedvanities of a court, and abhors the guilty scenes of a voluptuous life. Christ and his children are, and will be,
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