Chapter 1: The Nature and Extent of Christian Devotion
Devotion is neither private nor public prayer. Rather, prayers, whether private or public, are particular parts or expressions of devotion. Devotion signifies a life given, or devoted, to God.
The devout person, therefore, no longer lives according to his own will, or the ways and spirit of the world, but according to the will of God alone. He considers God in everything and serves God in everything. He makes every part of his ordinary life a part of godliness by doing everything in the name of God and under rules consistent with God’s glory.
We readily acknowledge that God alone must be the rule and measure of our prayers. In them we must look wholly to him and act wholly for him. We must pray only in ways, for things, and for purposes that accord with his glory.
Now let anyone discover why he must be so strictly devout in his prayers, and he will find an equally strong reason to be just as strictly devout in every other part of his life. There is not the slightest reason why we should make God the rule and measure of our prayers, look wholly to him in them, and pray according to his will, that does not equally prove something else necessary. We must look wholly to God and make him the rule and measure of every other action in our lives.
Any way of living, any use of our gifts, whether our abilities, our time, or our money, that is not strictly according to God’s will and directed toward purposes consistent with his glory is as great an absurdity and failure as prayer that is not according to his will. There is only one reason why our prayers should accord with God’s will and contain nothing but what is wise, holy, and heavenly. It is so that our lives may have the same character, full of the same wisdom, holiness, and heavenly dispositions, and so that we may live for God in the same spirit in which we pray to him.
If it were not our strict duty to live according to reason and devote all the actions of our lives to God, those prayers would have no excellence or wisdom. If it were not absolutely necessary to live before him in wisdom, holiness, and wholly heavenly conduct, doing everything in his name and for his glory, even the most heavenly prayers would be absurd. They would be like prayers for wings when it was no part of our duty to fly.
As surely as there is wisdom in praying for the Spirit of God, we must make that Spirit the rule of all our actions. As surely as it is our duty to look wholly to God in our prayers, it is our duty to live wholly for God in our lives. But we cannot be said to live for God unless we live for him in all the ordinary actions of life and make him the rule and measure of all our ways. Nor can we be said to pray to God unless our prayers look wholly to him. Unreasonable and absurd ways of living, whether in work or recreation, whether they consume our time or our money, are therefore like unreasonable and absurd prayers. They are just as truly an offense to God.
It is because people do not know this, or at least do not consider it, that we see such a mixture of ridiculous inconsistencies in so many lives. You see people strictly observing certain times and places of devotion. But when the church service is over, they are just like those who seldom or never attend. In their way of living, their manner of spending their time and money, their cares and fears, their pleasures and indulgences, their work and recreation, they are like the rest of the world.
This generally leads the morally careless part of the world to make a joke of those who are devout. They see that these people’s devotion goes no further than their prayers. Once those prayers are over, they no longer live for God until the time for prayer comes again. Instead, they live by the same moods and whims as other people and enjoy all the follies of life just as fully. This is why careless and worldly people mock and scorn them. It is not because they are truly devoted to God, but because they seem to have no devotion beyond occasional prayers.
Julius is very afraid of missing prayers. The whole parish assumes that he is sick if he is not at church. But suppose you asked him why he spends the rest of his time according to whim and chance. Why does he join the silliest people in their most foolish pleasures? Why is he ready for every pointless entertainment and amusement? Why is no amusement too trivial to please him? Why is he busy attending every ball and social gathering? Why does he give himself over to idle gossip?
Why does he maintain foolish friendships and attachments to particular people who neither need nor deserve any special kindness? Why does he indulge foolish hatred and resentment against particular people, without considering that he must love everyone as himself? Why does he never bring his conduct, his time, and his wealth under the rules of religion? Ask Julius these questions, and he has no more to say for himself than the most disorderly person. The whole tenor of Scripture stands as directly against such a life as against debauchery and excess. Someone who follows this course of idleness and folly lives no more according to the religion of Jesus Christ than someone who lives in gluttony and excess.
Suppose someone told Julius that there was no need to attend prayers so regularly, and that he could neglect the church service without harming himself, as most people do. Julius would think that person was no Christian and that he ought to avoid his company. But suppose someone merely tells him that he may live as most of the world does. He may enjoy himself as others do, spend his time and money as fashionable people do, conform to the follies and weaknesses of the majority, and gratify his inclinations and passions as most people do. Julius never suspects that this person lacks a Christian spirit or is doing the devil’s work.
Yet if Julius read the whole New Testament from beginning to end, he would find his way of life condemned on every page.
Indeed, nothing more absurd can be imagined than wise, exalted, and heavenly prayers added to a life of vanity and folly. In such a life, neither work nor recreation, neither time nor money, is directed by the wisdom and heavenly dispositions expressed in our prayers.
Suppose we saw someone claiming to act wholly with regard to God in everything he did. He would neither spend time or money nor undertake any work or recreation except insofar as he could act according to strict principles of reason and godliness. Yet at the same time he neglected all prayer, whether public or private. Would we not be astonished at such a person and wonder how he could combine so much folly with so much religion?
Yet this would be just as reasonable as someone’s claiming to be strict in devotion and carefully observing the times and places of prayer, while letting the rest of his life be directed without regard to strict rules of godliness and devotion. His time and work, his abilities and money, would all be left outside those rules. It is as absurd to suppose that holy prayers and petitions to God can exist without a correspondingly holy life as to suppose that a holy and godly life can exist without prayers.
Let anyone consider, then, how easily he could refute a person who claimed to live with great strictness without prayer. The same arguments will just as plainly refute someone who claims to be strict in prayer without carrying that same strictness into every other part of life. Being weak and foolish in spending our time and wealth is no less a mistake than being weak and foolish about our prayers. To permit ourselves any way of living that neither is nor can be offered to God is the same irreligion as neglecting our prayers, or praying in a manner that makes them an offering unworthy of God.
The matter comes down to this: either reason and religion prescribe rules and purposes for all the ordinary actions of our lives, or they do not. If they do, then governing all our actions by those rules is as necessary as worshiping God.
Does religion teach us anything about eating and drinking, or spending our time and money? Does it teach us how to use the world and disdain it? Does it tell us what dispositions we should have in ordinary life, how we should feel toward all people, and how we should behave toward the sick, the poor, the old, and the destitute? Does it tell us whom to treat with special love and whom to regard with special esteem? Does it tell us how to treat our enemies and how to subdue and deny ourselves? If it does, someone must be very weak in judgment to think that these parts of religion need not be observed with as much exactness as any teaching concerning prayers.
It is very striking that there is not one command in the whole Gospel for public worship. Perhaps no other duty receives so little emphasis in Scripture. Frequent attendance at public worship is never even mentioned in the whole New Testament. By contrast, the religion or devotion that must govern the ordinary actions of our lives appears in almost every verse of Scripture.
Our blessed Savior and his apostles are wholly occupied with teachings concerning ordinary life. They call us to renounce the world and to differ in every disposition and way of living from the spirit and ways of the world. They call us to renounce all its goods, fear none of its evils, reject its joys, and place no value on its happiness. We are to be like newborn babies, born into a new state of things. We are to live as pilgrims, keeping spiritual watch, living in holy fear, and longing for another life in heaven.
We are to take up our daily cross, deny ourselves, profess the blessedness of mourning, and seek the blessedness of poverty of spirit. We are to abandon the pride and vanity of riches, take no anxious thought for tomorrow, live in the deepest humility, and rejoice in sufferings in this world. We are to reject the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life. We are to endure injuries, forgive and bless our enemies, and love humanity as God loves it. We are to give our whole hearts and affections to God and strive to enter through the narrow gate into a life of eternal glory.
This is the ordinary devotion our blessed Savior taught so that it might become the ordinary life of all Christians. Is it not exceedingly strange, then, that people should attach so much godliness to attending public worship, for which not one command of our Lord can be found? Yet they neglect these common duties of our ordinary lives, which are commanded on every page of the Gospel. I call these duties the devotion of our ordinary life because, if they are to be practiced, they must become parts of our ordinary life. They can have no place anywhere else.
If disdain for the world and heavenly affection are necessary dispositions for Christians, these dispositions must appear throughout their lives, in the way they use the world. They can have no place anywhere else.
If self-denial is a condition of salvation, everyone who would be saved must make it part of ordinary life. If humility is a Christian duty, a Christian’s ordinary life must be a constant practice of humility in all its forms. If poverty of spirit is necessary, it must be the spirit and disposition of every day of our lives. If we must help the naked, the sick, and the prisoner, that help must be the ordinary charity of our lives, as far as we can make ourselves able to provide it.
If we must love our enemies, we must make our ordinary lives a visible exercise and demonstration of that love. If contentment and thankfulness, and the patient endurance of evil, are duties to God, they are duties for every day and every circumstance of our lives. If we must be wise and holy as God’s newborn children, we can be so only by renouncing everything foolish and vain in every part of our ordinary lives. If we must be new creatures in Christ, we must show that we are by having new ways of living in the world. If we must follow Christ, we must do so in our ordinary way of spending every day.
The same is true of all the virtues and holy dispositions of Christianity. They are not ours unless they are the virtues and dispositions of our ordinary lives. Christianity does not leave us free to follow the usual ways of living, conform to foolish customs, and gratify the passions and inclinations that delight the spirit of the world. Far from allowing us to indulge in any of these things, all the virtues it makes necessary for salvation are ways of living above and contrary to the world in every ordinary action of our lives. If our ordinary lives are not a constant practice of humility, self-denial, renunciation of the world, poverty of spirit, and heavenly affection, we are not living Christian lives.
Yet although it is so plain that this, and this alone, is Christianity, a consistent, open, and visible practice of all these virtues, it is equally plain that little or none of it can be found even among the more respectable people. You see them often at church and pleased with fine preachers. But look into their lives, and you see that they are just the same sort of people as those who make no claim to devotion. The only difference you find between them is the difference in their natural dispositions.
They have the same taste for the world, the same worldly cares, fears, and joys. They have the same cast of mind and are equally vain in their desires. You see the same fondness for grandeur and fine carriages, the same pride and vanity in dress, the same self-love and self-indulgence. You see the same foolish friendships and groundless hatreds, the same frivolity of mind and trivial spirit, the same fondness for amusements. They have the same idle dispositions and vain ways of spending their time in visiting and conversation as the rest of the world, which makes no claim to devotion.
I do not mean a comparison between apparently good people and openly dissolute people, but between people who live soberly. Consider two modest women. Suppose one carefully observes the times for devotion out of a sense of duty. The other has no heartfelt concern about it, but attends church seldom or often, as circumstances happen to lead her. This difference between them is very easy to see.
But once you have seen it, can you find any further difference? Can you find that their ordinary lives are of a different kind? Are not the dispositions, habits, and manners of one of the same kind as those of the other? Do they live as if they belonged to different worlds, held different aims in their minds, and followed different rules and standards for all their actions? Do they not regard the same things as good and evil? Are they not pleased and displeased in the same way and by the same things? Do they not follow the same course of life?
Does one seem to belong to this world, looking at things that are temporary, while the other belongs to another world, looking wholly at things that are eternal? Does one live in pleasure, delighting in display or dress, while the other lives in self-denial and mortification? Does the latter renounce everything that looks like vanity in her appearance, dress, or bearing?
Does one pursue public amusements and waste her time in idle visits and corrupt conversation? Does the other study every way of making good use of her time, living in prayer and watchfulness and doing good works? Does she seek to make all her time benefit her and be credited to her account on the last day? Is one careless about expenses and glad that she can adorn herself with every costly ornament of dress? Does the other consider her wealth a gift entrusted to her by God, to be put to godly use, and no more to be spent on vain and needless ornaments than to be buried in the earth?
Where must you look to find a religious person differing in this way from someone who has no religion? Yet if they do not differ in the things described here, can it make any sense to say that one is a good Christian and the other is not?
Consider another example among men. Leo has a great deal of good nature and has kept what people call good company. He hates everything false and base and is very generous and brave toward his friends. But he has concerned himself so little with religion that he hardly knows the difference between a Jew and a Christian.
Eusebius, on the other hand, received religious impressions early in life and buys books of devotion. He can talk about all the church’s feasts and fasts, and knows the names of most men who have been distinguished for godliness. You never hear him swear or make an indecent joke. When he talks about religion, he speaks of it as a matter of the highest importance.
Here you see that, by the world’s standards, one person has enough religion to be considered a devout Christian. The other is so far from any appearance of religion that he may fairly be considered a heathen. Yet look into their ordinary lives. Examine their chief and ruling dispositions in the most important matters of life or in relation to Christianity’s greatest teachings, and you will find the smallest imaginable difference.
Consider how they use the world, since that is something everyone can see.
Having right ideas and dispositions toward this world is as essential to religion as having right ideas about God. A person can no more set his affections on this world and still be a good Christian than he can worship a crocodile and still be a devout man.
But consider Leo and Eusebius in this respect, and you will find them exactly alike. They are seeking, using, and enjoying everything they can obtain in this world in the same way and for the same purposes. You will find that riches, prosperity, pleasures, indulgences, grandeur, fine carriages, and honor constitute the happiness of Eusebius just as much as they do that of Leo. Yet if Christianity has not changed a person’s mind and disposition toward these things, what can we say it has done for him?
If Christianity’s teachings were practiced, they would make a person as different from other people in every worldly disposition, sensual pleasure, and form of pride as a wise person differs from a fool. It would be as easy to recognize a Christian by his outward way of living as it is now difficult to find anyone who lives that way.
It is well known that Christians today resemble other people not merely in their weaknesses and failings, which might be excusable to some degree. The complaint is that they resemble heathens in all the main and most important matters of their lives. They enjoy the world and live every day with the same dispositions, the same purposes, and the same indulgences as those who did not know God or know of any happiness in another life.
Everyone capable of any reflection must have observed that this is generally the condition even of devout people, whether men or women. You may see them differ from other people in the times and places of prayer. But generally they resemble the rest of the world in every other part of their lives. That is, they add Christian devotion to a heathen life.
I have the authority of our blessed Savior for this observation, where he says, “take no thought, saying what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed? for after all these things do the Gentiles seek.”
But if this concern even for the necessities of life shows that we do not yet have a Christian spirit, but resemble the heathens, surely something else is a much greater sign of a heathen disposition. It is to enjoy the world’s vanity and folly as they did, and to resemble them in the principal dispositions of our lives: in self-love and indulgence, in sensual pleasures and amusements, in vanity of dress, in love of display and grandeur, or in any other showy distinctions of wealth and rank.
Consequently, those who add devotion to such a life must be said to pray as Christians, but live as heathens.
