IT WAS ENTERED UPON IN OPPOSITION TO HIS BETTER FEELINGS AND CONVICTIONS.
II. IT WAS MARKED BY WORLDLY PRUDENCE.
1. The prudence which calculates.
2. The prudence which takes advantage of superior knowledge. (T. H.Leale.)
Lawful diligence blessed
A Divine benediction is always invisibly breathed on painful and lawful diligence. Thus the servant employed in making and blowing of the fire, though sent away thence as soon as it burneth clear, ofttimes getteth by his pains a more kindly and continuing heat than the master himself who sitteth down by the same; and thus persons industriously occupying themselves thrive better on a little of their own honest getting than lazy heirs on the large revenues left unto them. (Fuller.)
Advised diligence
What though you have found no treasure, nor has any friend left you a rich legacy! Diligence is the mother of good luck, and God gives all things to industry. Then plough deep while sluggards sleep, and you shall have corn to sell or to keep. Work while it is called to-day, for you know not how much you may be hindered to-morrow. One to-day is worth two to-morrows, as poor Richard says; and further, never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day. (Franklin.)
Holiness
God has given us precepts of such a holiness and such a purity, such a meekness and such humility, as hath no pattern but Christ, no precedent but the purities of God; and, therefore, it is intended we should live with a life whose actions are not chequered with white and black, half sin and half virtue. God’s sheep are not like Jacob’s flock, “streaked and spotted,” it is an entire holiness that God requires, and will not endure to have a holy course interrupted by the dishonour of a base and ignoble action. I do not mean that a man’s life can be as pure as the sun, or the rays of celestial Jerusalem; but like the moon, in which there are spots, but they are no deformity; a lessening only and an abatement of light, no cloud to hinder and draw a veil before its face, but sometimes it is not so severe and bright as at other times. Every man hath his indiscretions and infirmities, but no good man ever commits one act of adultery; no godly man will at any time be drunk; or if he be he ceases to be a godly man, and is run into the confines of death, and is sick at heart, and may die of the sickness--die eternally. (Jeremy Taylor.)
