SERMON VII.

CHRISTIANITY NOT INCOMPATIBLE WITH WORLDLY AVOCATIONS.

ROMANS XII. 11.

Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.

To use the world without abusing it, to perform with zealous fidelity our duty towards God and man without compromising the claims of either, constitutes, My Brethren, the perfection of the Christian character.

That those persons who hold the excellence of religion to consist in a total abstraction from society, in an utter contempt of all the necessary pursuits and avocations of busy life, and in a devotion of every energy of mind and body to the performance of some spiritual exercises, exceedingly mistake the scope and object of the Gospel covenant, is not more probable to common sense than consonant to all which the Apostles and our Lord himself have delivered on the subject. It is indeed of first rate importance to the good of the community, that the

individuals who compose it should acquire correct and competent notions concerning a principle which must directly or indirectly influence every private and every public duty. In the education and government of a people who hope for freedom, prosperity and happiness, religious instruction cannot be neglected without endangering these valuable attributes; and in proportion to their ignorance of the true nature and bearings of Christianity, will they be exposed to those sad and desolating evils which are ever the accompaniments of infidelity, of bigotry, and of fanaticism. Weak, wicked, and impotent is the endeavour to dissolve the connection between the religion and the business of human life. The strength and purity of the one will be distinctly evidenced by the conduct of the other, and whenever we cease to carry the spirit of our religion into the transaction of our ordinary affairs, we depart that moment from the service of our Lord, who has disclaimed all neutral alliances and has pronounced of such derelicts, "He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth."

Christianity, My Brethren, is then the religion of spiritual and embodied beings. It has accordingly a constant reference to their twofold condition, and while it assumes to purify, to soften, and to sanctify the hearts of them whom it sincerely influences, it never loses sight of the fact

of their humanity, but addresses them as the inhabitants of a temporal world, and as the members of temporal institutions. In the governments, the laws, the business of the world, our Saviour or his religion has attempted no innovation. Into these it is unquestionably the tendency of that religion to infuse a spirit of equity, of moderation and of kindness; but so far from abolishing them or of absolving men from their allegiance to them, he ever recognised their legitimate existence, and showed in what manner and by what conduct they could be reconciled with the strictest conversion to Christianity. It is upon this foundation, "Jesus Christ being the chief corner-stone," that St. Paul erects his structure of religious and moral duty, exhibited in his Epistle to the Romans. He first explains and enforces the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel, as they regard the regulation of the affections; and afterwards goes on to demonstrate their connection with the various duties and virtues which become, and embellish, and dignify humanity. It is speaking on this head, that he affirms not barely the possibility, but the obligation, of an union between faith and moral duty, when he requires his converts to be "kindly affectioned one to another, not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord."

The lesson of the text is, that activity in bu

siness is a duty compatible with fervour in religion; and I shall endeavour to illustrate this truth under the three following considerations. That he who is inactive in business, or in other words, the man of idleness is unjust, that he is irreligious, and that he is unhappy.

I. He is unjust. A state of idleness and inactivity is altogether unsuited to the constitution of the world. We are born into it in a feeble and powerless state, and must owe our nurture and even the preservation of our existence to the vigilance and activity of parents or of friends. Hence arises our first earthly obligation. To these the protectors of our infancy, to these, who cheered and supported us when we were quite unable to provide for ourselves, to these, we are surely pledged, on every principle of justice and reciprocity, to render some remuneration. And what remuneration can we make so grateful to the best feelings of our parents and benefactors, as that which will arise out of the right exertion of those faculties with which Nature has endowed us; an exertion on which we must entirely depend, always for character, and almost always for fortune and consideration in the world? As we advance into life, and are called to some one of those avocations into which men are necessarily distributed, we shall find it a moral and physical impossibility to comply with the righteous demands which so

ciety holds upon us, and to discharge the many obligations growing out of them, without a steady, systematic, and energetic application of our time and parts to whatever character we may have assumed on the busy stage of our mortal but eventful history. To enumerate the many vices abhorrent to justice, which are fostered on the rank hot-bed of sloth, would be to produce a catalogue comprising almost every grade and species of guilt that blackens and pollutes humanity. Idleness is the moor on which every vicious passion loves to batten, and which is particularly propitious to the sensual and worst appetites of our nature; no system of education, no institution of charity, no asylum for want and poverty, deserves the approbation of the real philanthropist, unless it contain a regular and organized plan of rational and profitable employment. But there is an injustice to which the idle man is liable, that may, perhaps, be brought home to him with more effect, as its operation lies among those to whom he is engaged by the bonds of affection and consanguinity. "If any man neglect to provide for his own, he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel.” The happiness of home," all the mild dignities of private life," as they have been beautifully designated, require a spirit of activity for their support. Are you then'a husband, a father, or a son? And can you look