I. Inour particular calling and station in the world (1Th_4:11).
2. In our general calling (Php_2:12).
(1) Repentance (Luk_13:3).
(2) Faith (Act_16:30-31).
(3) To get our sins pardoned.
(4) And so God reconciled.
(5) And our souls in a capacity for heaven (Heb_12:14).
II. How are we not to be slothful in business?
1. Not to live as if we had nothing to do.
2. Not to be slothful in doing what we do (Ecc_9:10).
3. Especially, not to be indifferent as to the grand affairs of our souls (Rev_3:16).
Conclusion: Consider--
1. You have a great deal of work to do.
2. But a little time to do it in (Jam_4:13).
3. Eternity depends on your doing your work here. (Bp. Beveridge.)
The influence of great truths on little things
These words constitute an incomplete quotation, and I use them only as representing the entire passage of which they form an organic part. The whole extends from the third verse onwards to the close of the chapter, and contains in all twenty-six clauses, expressive negatively or positively of twenty-three graces of the Christian character. I invite attention, in the first place, to the relation in which they all stand to the life and hope of the Christian. The connecting word with which the chapter opens--“therefore”--“I beseech you, therefore”--looks both backwards to the chapters preceding and forwards to the verses that follow. In the look backwards we find the grand Christian motive. The life of holiness is to be lived, not that we may be saved, but because we are saved. Having laid down this obligation, “I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,” the apostle next expresses, in the second verse, the grand principle of all holiness. It can only have its spring in a total change of heart and life, wrought in us by the mighty Spirit of God--in the gift of a new nature with its own spiritual senses and experiences. And then, in the remainder of the chapter, he traces this great change into its details. It is as if we watched the beginning of some great river rising, like the springs of the Jordan, where the strong clear waters rush upwards in their strength, and then followed them as they flowed into a hundred divergent streams, carrying beauty and abundance through the smiling land, till they meet again to flow into the ocean. With what rich abundance the apostle heaps grace upon grace: “Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer.”
I. We may learn from these words the influence of great truths on the details of Christian practice. The truths, explained in the previous part of the Epistle, are almost the grandest that can possibly occupy human thought. Not only does the apostle explain in detail the method of salvation, but in doing so he takes in the full breadth of the Divine action. But I think we must be conscious of a danger arising from the very greatness of these truths. The distance between them and the apparently trivial details of daily life and conduct is so immense that we fail to bring the greatness of the one into contact with the littleness of the other. We get as far as the second verse of the chapter; but there we stop. We admit that a Christian, the object of such a love, tainted with a fatal crime, but redeemed by such a price as the precious blood of Christ, made inheritor of such a glory, should act worthy of his calling, and that, as he is different from other men in his hopes, so he ought to differ from them also in his life and in his modes of thinking, speaking, and acting; but when the time and occasion come for applying this to practice we fail. We have not faith enough to link the grand hope to the little actions. It seems to me that the whole of this chapter, and the energy with which the apostle presses the great motive into the details of the life, is one long witness against it. How minute are the graces enumerated! They do not belong to the few grand opportunities which occur now and then, but to the practical familiarities which enter into the daily life of all. The constancy of little occasions is an incalculably greater trial of faith than a few occasional opportunities, which, as it were, rally effort, and stimulate by their greatness the courage and zeal which become weary and evaporate amid the details of daily obedience. Nor is it only that the occasions are small in themselves, but it is also that so many secondary motives and influences become mixed up with them, and intervene between our clear sight of duty and the occasion of practising it as to throw us off our guard. Just as in a piece of machinery the moving force must be strong in proportion to the distance at which it needs to act, so the smallest occasions that lie, as it were, on the edge and outer confines of our life need the mightiest of motives to reach them and keep them in motion.
II. We may extend the same truth a step further, and learn that every grace has its corresponding temptation--the shadow, as it were, thrown by it on the sunshine of the other world. For instance, in giving, is there not danger of the affectation of an air of superiority and a disposition to magnify our gift? Therefore we are warned, “He that giveth, let him do it with simplicity.” When we are placed in a position of authority are we not often tempted to relax effort and yield to self-indulgence? Therefore, he “that ruleth” let him do it “with diligence.” In showing mercy is there not a danger in forgiving unwillingly, as if we reluctantly yielded to the duty of mercifulness? Therefore, “he that showeth mercy” let him do it “with cheerfulness.” In cultivating love to all men is there not danger of insincerity? Therefore, “Let love be without dissimulation.” So, onthe other side, “be not slothful in business”; for such I still believe to be the true meaning of the words, in spite of criticism. Is there not danger of becoming absorbed in it? Therefore, “be fervent in spirit.” Yet, may not an enthusiastic energetic temper take a wrong direction? Therefore let it be “serving the Lord.” So in another way, “rejoicing in hope,” and therefore, because a bright hope should give us strength to bear and constancy to endure, whereas we often see persons of a bright and buoyant temperament easily depressed in sorrow, “be patient in tribulation.” Then, as this twofold grace of cheerfulness and patience is not easy to human nature--though, thank God, we often see them combined in the saints of Christ--therefore let us seek strength where alone it can be had, “continuing instant in prayer.” Thus there is a strict connection everywhere, and we need to learn from it. A little self-knowledge will convince us that, even when we do the right thing, we are apt to do it in the wrong way. The shadow and taint of our corrupt nature cling to us everywhere, and nothing but the most generous love of God sweeping away little temptations, as the strong river carries the fallen leaves upon its surface, will enable us to get rid of it. (Canon Garbett.)
Diligence in business
Every Christian--
I. Should have some business to do. If not in the world--
1. In social life.
2. In the Church.
II. Should discharge it with diligence.
1. As a Christian duty.
2. As a part of his moral education.
3. As responsible to the great Master for the use of his ability.
III. Is prompted to this course by the most impressive considerations.
1. Life is the time for work.
2. Is soon ended.
3. Is followed by a just reward. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Business and godliness
Christianity addresses itself to man as he is--as a citizen of the world, having work in the world to do. But as he belongs to another, and owes duties to it--the perfection in obedience consists in maintaining a just equipoise between the two. Religion is a discipline for the whole man. The workshop may be made as good a sanctuary as the cloister.
I. A life of active usefulness is obligatory upon all of us.
1. Neither rank nor wealth can confer a prerogative to be idle. All God’s gifts to us are for some beneficial use, and we dishonour them by allowing them to lie idle. Circumstances may determine for each what his work shall be. But the command to work is universal, and came in with the Fall.
2. And, for a fallen being, there is no reason but to believe such a command is merciful and wise. Continual employment keeps the soul from much evil. Active engagements, so long as they are not so engrossing as to draw our hearts away from better things, give a healthy tone to the mind and strengthen moral energy. Next to devotion (and a man cannot be engaged in that always), there is no relief against wearing anxieties so effectual as the necessity of engrossing work. With nothing to do but to sit still and hear the enemy of souls make the most and worst of our troubles, we should soon get to think ourselves the most ill-used people in the world, and murmur in secret both against God and man.
II. There is nothing in the busiest life, as such, which is incompatible with the claims of personal religion.
1. Scripture teems with examples of those who, while laborious in the duties of their station, were most exact in the duties which they owed to God. Leaving the greatest of all, look atJoseph, Moses, David and Daniel. And like examples the Church has had in all ages. Xavier among churchmen, Sir Matthew Hale among judges, Wilberforce and Buxton among statesmen, Gardiner and Havelock among soldiers, have all left records that prayer never spoiled work, and that work must never interfere with prayer.
2. But this compatibility of business with godliness does not rest upon specific acts or examples, though Heb_11:1-40 is full of them. Religion consists not so much in the super-addition of certain acts of worship to the duties of common life, as in leavening the latter with the spirit of the former, and life’s common work will be accepted as worship if we set about it in a religious spirit. The husbandman when he tills the ground with a thankful heart, the merchant when for all success he gives God the glory, the servant who in all fidelity discharges the duties of his trust, each offering to God a continual sacrifice.
III. So far from the active duties of life presenting any barrier to our proficiency in personal religion, they are the very field in which its higher graces are to be exercised, and its noblest triumphs are to be achieved. We sometimes repine at the spiritual hindrances connected with our outward lot: but the hindrance is in ourselves. We have not practised ourselves in the worship of God in the world; the religion of the toiling hand or brain. Yet this is what is required of us, and that which has always distinguished the hard-working saints of God from the common run of men. Every lot in life will serve us with occasions of serving God. We may be diligent in business--even more diligent than other men--and yet the world will soon be able to take note of us that we have been with Jesus. Conclusion: Wherefore be it ours to find out the golden mean. “Be not righteous over much,” asif saying prayers were everything. Be not careful over much, as if bread for the body were everything. We cannot neglect either, and may not disparage either; and therefore that which God hath joined together let no man put asunder. (D. Moore, M.A.)
Business and religion
I.It is a false opinion which would make labour the consequence of sin.
1. Labour was God’s ordinance whilst man was in paradise. The curse provoked by disobedience was not work, but painful work.
2. Employment is appointed to every living thing. The highest of heaven’s angels has his duties to fulfil; and the meanest of earth’s insects must be busy or perish. It is the running water which keeps fresh; it is the air fanned by winds which is wholesome; it is the metal that is in use that does not rust.
3. There is wisdom and goodness in the difference placed between man and animals. From man, the lord of this lower creation, there is demanded labour, and ingenuity, before he can be provided with the common necessaries of life. Whatsoever is beautiful in art, sublime in science, or refined in happiness, is virtually due to the operation of that law of labour, against which so many are tempted to murmur. The unemployed man is always dissatisfied and restless.
II. Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well. You frequently meet with persons who occasionally will exert much diligence to produce something excellent, but who, at other times, care nothing, so long as a duty be performed, how slovenly may be the performance. And it is against this temper that our text directs its emphasis. What a man is in one thing, that in the main will he be in another. If industrious only by fits and starts in business, he will be industrious only by fits and starts in religion--a habit injurious to both. If I fritter away my time through being “slothful in business,” fewer hours are employed than I might have had for providing for eternity.
III. There cannot be a greater mistake than to divide employments into secular and spiritual. The businesses of life are so many Divine institutions, and, if prosecuted in a right spirit, are the businesses of eternity, through which the soul grows in grace, and lasting glory is secured. If men are but “fervent in spirit,” then are they “serving the Lord” through their very diligence in business. And if this be so, then is diligence in business to be urged by precisely the same motives as diligence in prayer, in the study of the Bible, or in works of piety and of faith. For our earthly callings are the appointments of God; and are therefore means through which you are to work out your salvation; and consequently the servant, the mechanic, the merchant, and the scholar must “do with their might whatsoever their hand findeth to do.”
IV. But there are duties which are more openly connected than others with the saving of the soul. It is not the representation of Scripture that religion is an easy thing; so that immortality may be secured with no great effort. Admitting that we are justified simply through faith, nevertheless the Christian life is likened to a battle, a race, a stewardship; so that only as we are “not slothful” in religion, have we right to suppose that we have entered on its path. Be not then slothful in the great prime business of all. Is temptation to be resisted--be “not slothful” in resistance: a half-resistance courts defeat. Is prayer to be offered--be “not slothful” in offering it: a languid prayer asks to be unanswered. Is a sacrifice to be made--be “not slothful” in making it: a tardy surrender is next akin to refusal. Be industrious in religion. We can tolerate indolence anywhere rather than here, where an eternity is at stake. Work, then, “with your might,” give all diligence to make “your calling and election sure.” If, by industry hereafter, you might repair the effects of indolence here, we could almost forgive you for being “slothful in business”; but now that probation is altogether limited to the present brief existence, and that the boundless future is given wholly to retribution, what are ye, if ye work not “with all your might”? (H. Melvill, B.D.)
Business and religion
I.Business men require sympathy. We often hear that “business is business,” as if it were some lonely island at which no ship of religion ever called, or if it did call it would find but scant welcome. This morning, however, the ship calls at the port, and the captain asks what he can do for you. You are now face to face with one who understands you, in your difficulties, disappointments, and temptations. By so much I would claim your confidence. When you therefore come up out of the market-place into the church, what do you want? If you had been spending the week in gathering violets and in cultivating orchids, I should address you in a very different tone; but the most of you have just laid down your tools, you have not shaken the world from you yet, and therefore you cannot enter into high speculation and transcendental imaginings, or even into fine points of criticism. You want a broad, sympathetic gospel, standards by which you can at once adjust yourselves toGod’s claim upon you. Therein is the preacher’s great difficulty. He is not an academic lecturer surrounded by persons who have been spending six days in preparation for the seventh. Probably there are not six men in this house who have been able to say to the world at the door of the church, “Stand thou here, whilst I go up and worship yonder,” and the world permitted to come over the threshold remains to throw a veil between the preacher and his hearer, to excite prejudice and throw the music of revelation into discord. What a weary life is that of the man of business! Always beginning, never ending. He writes a letter that is to form a conclusion, and behold it only starts a more voluminous correspondence. What with orders half completed, money half paid or not paid, responsibilities ignored, discoveries of untrustworthiness on the part of the most trusted, the wonder is that business men can live at all. The Christian preacher, therefore, must recognise their difficulties, and not regard them as if they and he had been living all the week in a great cloud full of angels.
II. Business has its boundaries. You are limited by health, time, the incapacity of others, by a thousand necessities.
1. Thank God, therefore, if Parliament takes hold of you and says, “You shall rest to-day.” It is your commercial, intellectual, and moral salvation. You recover yourselves within those four-and-twenty hours: the very act of closing the book and saying, “I cannot open that until Monday morning” is itself the beginning of a religious blessing. What then have you to do? You have to meet that from the other side by sympathy, by joyful acquiescence, so as to get the most and the best out of the arrangement.
2. You brought nothing into the world, and it is certain you can carry nothing out. What; is the end, therefore, of all this anxiety and toil and sleeplessness? Christ says, “Which of you by multiplying worry and fret can accomplish anything beyond the limits that God has imposed upon you?” If you could show that to-day’s anxiety would bring to-morrow’s success, then it would be justified.
III. Business is a great science. No business man can be an uneducated man. He may never have been at school, but we do not get our education at school: there we get the tools, hints, and suggestions which we may turn to profit subsequently; but our education we get in the world, in social collisions, in having to work out the great practical problems of life and time. Why, the medical man tells me, after I have read all my books, that I must go to the bedside to learn to be a doctor. And the navigator tells me that after I have studied all the mathematics of navigation I must go to sea in order to be a high nautical authority. And so we must go into the practical, real engagements of life in order to be truly educated.
IV. Business success depends on diligence. It is possible for a man of the very finest capacity to be put in circumstances which overpower him; to pass in at the wrong door, and not get back again. Such men have my sympathy. But there are others who often come to me in distress, whose criticism upon life would be comical if it were not too sad in its unreality and untruth. Let me suppose that I am a business man in your sense of the term. I plan, scheme, go to my work, upbraiding the light for being so long in coming, and leave it--upbraiding the light for going away so soon. I succeed, retire, and am a rich man. What does the individual referred to say? “You have been very fortunate.” Is that true? What did he do? Went to business at nine with his hands in his pockets, looked over the door, came back and gossiped with the first person that was fool enough to waste his time with him--was very anxious to know from the papers what was going to be done fifteen thousand miles away from his place of business, went home at four o’clock, and he calls me a fortunate man! Fortunate? No--“be not deceived; God is not mocked; whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.” The men who like their work, do it joyfully, and when it is done are proud of it, and those who engage them are proud of them and their work too--those men deserve success.
V. I claim business men for Christ. Let me tell you why.
1. Without faith you could not conduct your business; you deal with men whom you have never seen, you base your connection upon written authority; you venture and incur risk. By such experiments and engagements you enter into the very spirit of faith. In the Christian kingdom we walk by faith, and not by sight; we venture upon Christ--we risk it.
2. You know what preparation is. You have apprenticeships, you say that a certain seed sown will produce a certain result--but not to-morrow: you have to wait and trust in the outworking of great eternal laws. In the Christian kingdom we have to do just the same.
3. I claim you business men for Christ, men with clear understandings, resolute wills, and ask you to accept the great mystery of this Christian kingdom. It will go with you through all your engagements, it will turn your water into wine, it will relieve your perplexities, and be the solace of your solitude. Let Christ be head of your firm, The Lord thy God giveth thee power to get wealth--praise God from whom all blessings flow. Conclusion: Diligent in business--not absorbed in, anxious about, overmastered by it. Let your object be not to gain the mere wealth, but to gain something that is better--the discipline, patience, solidity of character, which such engagements of yours tend to work out. He who comes out of business rich in gold only will soon die. (J. Parker, D.D.)
Religion and business
Diligence in business should not hinder fervency in spirit. Like the pure mettled sword, that can bend this way and that way, and turns to its straightness again, and stands notbent, that heart is of the right make that can stoop and bend to the lowest action of its worldly calling, but then return to its fitness for communion with God. (W.Gurnall.)
Religion and business
TheChristian must not only mind heaven but attend to his daily calling. Like the pilot who, while his eye is fixed upon the star, keeps his hand upon the helm. (T. Watson.)
The relative importance of religion and business
Thecommon practice is to reverse these words. Business is the chief concern, and religion only secondary; whereas the text teaches us that business is to be attended to as well as the duty of our calling, but religion is to be the object of our holy enthusiasm. There is a vast distinction between the expressions “not slothful” and “fervent.” The one simply denotes that there is to be no loitering, or trifling, but a steady perseverance; the other denotes that there is to be an intensity of ardour. And if we give either a greater degree of attention to business than “not to be slothful” in it, or a less degree of attention to religion than to be “fervent” in it, neither our works of business nor our works of religion are a “serving the Lord.”
I. The grace inculcated, “fervour in spirit.” The great propriety of this is apparent, if we call to mind--
1. The infinitely important matters with which it has to do. “It is not a light thing, but it is your life.” “One thing is needful.”
2. The regard which is due by you to your own interest. Religion has to do with the soul, and business with the body, and therefore religion is just as much more important than business as the soul is than the body.
3. That this is the great end for which you were sent into this world. The primary object of God’s giving you being, was not that you might be men of business. You have a soul to save, and God created you that you might show forth His praise.
II. The secular duty with which the exercise of religion is connected. Even when man was innocent, God allowed him not to be idle. It is not good, therefore, for man to be unemployed, and it is more advantageous to the exercise of piety that our entire time is not to be given to religious employments. Be this, however, as it may, the command is explicit that we be not slothful in business. “Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work.” The Book of Proverbs contains many striking exhortations on the will of God in this matter. “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings,” etc. The apostle also gives his command that we “study to be quiet, and to do our own business.”
III. The necessity of the connection between being fervent in spirit and not slothful in business.
1. For the purpose of bringing down God’s blessing upon our secular employments. “Godliness is profitable unto all things,” etc.
2. Because activity in the concerns of business tends to deaden the mind to the claims of religion. Worldly objects are good, but they are good only as they are “sanctified by the Word of God, and by prayer”; and he who spends a portion of his time in prayer shall sooner arrive at the attainment of his object than he who has been the most diligent, but has neglected prayer.
3. Because the principles of the gospel are intended for illustration in the common every-day occurrences of life. (J. Garwood, M.A.)
Religion and business: the necessity of combining them
Apoor barefooted brother once presented himself at the gate of a convent, and finding all the monks at work, gravely shook his head and remarked to the abbot, “Labour not for the meat which perisheth.” “Mary hath chosen that good part.” “Very well,” said the abbot, with undisturbed composure, and ordered the devout stranger to a cell, and gave him a book of prayers to occupy his time. The monk retired, and sat hour after hour, until day had passed, wondering that no one offered him the slightest refreshment. Hungry and wearied out, he left his cell and repaired to the abbot. “Father,” said he, “do not the brethren eat to-day?” “Oh, yes,” returned the other, with a quiet smile playing over his aged face, “they have eaten plentifully.” “Then, bow is it, Father, that you did not call me to partake with them?” “For the simple reason,” said the abbot, “that you are a spiritual man, and have no need of carnal food. For our part, we are obliged to eat, and on that account we work; but you, brother, who have chosen ‘the good part,’ you sit and read all the day long, and are above the want of ‘the meat that perisheth.’” “Pardon me, Father.” said the mortified and confounded stranger, “I perceive my mistake.” (J. N. Norton, D.D.)
The busy man
One would have supposed that with such a large and rapidly increasing business, George Moore would have had little time to attend to the organising of charitable institutions. But it was with him as with many other hardworking men. If you wish to have any good work well done, go to the busy not to the idle man. The former can find time for everything, the latter for nothing. Will, power, perseverance, and industry enable a man not only to promote his own interests, but at the same time to help others less prosperous than himself. (S. Smiles, LL.D.)
A cheerful word to tired people
There is no war between Bibles and ledgers, churches and counting-houses. On the contrary, religion accelerates business. To the judgment it gives more skilful balancing; to the will more strength; to industry more muscle; to enthusiasm a more consecrated fire. We are apt to speak of the moil and tug of business life as though it were an inquisition or a prison into which a man is thrown, or an unequal strife where, half-armed, he goes to contend. Hear me while I try to show you that God intended business life to be--
I. A school of Christian energy. After our young people have left school they need a higher education, which the collision of every-day life alone can give. And when a man has been in business for twenty or thirty years, his energy can no longer be measured by weights, plummets, or ladders. Now do you suppose that God has spent all this education on you for the purpose of making you merely a yard-stick or a steelyard? He has put you in this school to develop your energy for His cause. There is enough unemployed talent in the churches to reform all empires in three weeks.
II. A school of patience. How many little things there are in one day’s engagements to annoy. Men will break their engagements; collecting agents will come back emptyhanded; goods will fail to come, or come damaged; bad debts will be made; and under all this friction some men break down, but others find in this a school for patience, and toughen under the exposure. There was a time when they had to choke down their wrath, and bite their lip. But now they have conquered their impatience. This grace of patience is not to be got through hearing ministers preach about it; but in the world.
III. A school for the attaining of knowledge. Merchants do not read many books, nor study many lexicons, yet through the force of circumstances they get intelligent on many questions. Business is a hard schoolmistress. If her pupils will not learn, she smites them with loss. You went into some business enterprise, and lost five thousand dollars. Expensive schooling, but it was worth it. Traders in grain must know about foreign harvests; in fruits must know about the prospects of tropical production; in imported goods must know about the tariff. And so every bale of cotton, and raisin cask, and tea box, becomes a literature to our business men. Now do you suppose that God gives you these opportunities of increasing your knowledge merely to get a grander business? Can it be that you have been learning about foreign lands, and yet have no missionary spirit? about the follies and trickeries of the business world, and yet not try to bring to bear upon them this gospel which is to correct all abuses, arrest all crime, and lift up all wretchedness? Can it be that, notwithstanding your acquaintance with business, you are ignorant of those things which will last the soul long after invoices and rent rolls have been consumed in the fires of a judgment-day?
IV. A school of Christian integrity. No age ever offered so many inducements for scoundrelism as are offered now. It requires more grace to be honest now than it did in the days of our fathers. How rare it is that you find a man who can from his heart say, “I never cheated in trade”; but there are those who can say it, who are as pure and Christian to-day as on the day when they sold their first tierce of rice or their first firkin of butter, and who can pray without being haunted with the chink of dishonest gold, and look into the laughing faces of their children without thinking of orphans left by them penniless. (T. DeWitt Talmage, D.D.)
The Christian at his work
Every Christian ought to be a worker. If he were not one before he became a Christian, Christianity should have made him one. There is a grievous heresy wrapped up in the phrase, “the working classes.” It is just as possible to be sycophantic to the poor as to the rich. The term properly understood includes many besides those destined to the drudgery of material labour.
I. The Christian at his work may feel that work is a good and noble thing. Christianity greatly honours honest industry. Of our race there have been two heads--the one was a gardener in Paradise, the other a carpenter in Nazareth.
1. There is a natural voice of self-respect whose tones Christianity deepens and empowers. It is honourable to be independent. There is no disgrace in deriving riches and renown from ancestors, but there is virtue and glory in obtaining them from ourselves, and that religion which makes everything of the will and nothing of accidents, which aims ever at deepening personal interest and impressing personal responsibility, smiles ineffably at the Christian at his work.
2. Christianity attaches great importance to the exercise of the faculties. The value of daily toil is that it prevents the evils of stagnation, the wretched results of indolence. And here comes in theblessedness of the law that to eat men must work. Themerely meditative often go wrong. Many have fallen into wretched theories and more wretched moods, because their thinking powers have not been yoked to their active energies. And, therefore, Christianity, which seeks the maturity and wholesome state of our nature, looks benignly on the Christian at his work.
3. Christianity, in elevating man, elevates his engagements. It cares comparatively little for the sphere and form of our outward life, but attaches every importance to its spirit and its power. It is the “good man” that makes the good, the great man that makes the great, deed. The worker is more than the work; and it is as he is. A slave, according to Paul, may do his work “unto the Lord,” and make a divine service of his hard drudgery. And therefore the gospel, which makes everything of what a man is, and raises and refines him, constituting him a servant and a child of God, has only words of impressive approbation for the Christian at his work.
II. the Christian at his work may feel that he is filling the sphere intended for him.
1. He is not only doing what, in general, is worth doing, but he is, or should be, able to realise the appointment of God. The Bible teaches a present providence as well as an original ordinance in reference to work. But providence is not fatalism. God’s appointment does not interfere with our free agency, or release us from responsibility. “Whatever is, is right,” so far as it is done by God; but it may be wrong, so far as it is done by us. It is true that, in a sense, we cannot frustrate God’s purpose; but there is a limit to our right of inferring our duty from its ordinations and permissions. Our worldly lot may be a matter of volition. We need not stay in a state which necessitates transgression. If we cannot live without sinning, it is a sin to live.
2. It is, then, our duty to ascertain the will of God in reference to our worldly pursuits. That which is presented to us; that which we are fitted for; that to which we are directed by circumstances; these are the evidences, interpreted by a just and godly spirit.
3. Of course, the calling must be a lawful one. A man must be satisfied of this before he can take comfort from the thought that he is “in his place.” As a general rule, it is not difficult for any Christian to distinguish between lawful and unlawful callings. He who wishes to be right may be so. If a man cannot pursue his calling without violating the law of God, his course is plain. If others do wrong, that is no excuse for us. Nor is it any excuse for us if quite as much wrong will be done, whether we do it or not. We are accountable for our actions in themselves, and for our moral example. Nor may we ask Cain’s question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
4. And is it not a soul-inspiring thought for any toiler in this hard world, that he is doing the work of his heavenly Father? It is not the nature of the service, but the Being that is served, that gives importance to it.
III. Christianity will exert a direct and powerful influence on the Christian at his work.
1. It will regulate it--especially it will make work subservient to godliness. The Christian will not permit himself to be so engrossed with it as to hinder the higher work of eternal redemption. Work is a blessing; but it may become a curse. It is quite necessary that even lawful business should have its limits and intermissions. Speaking spiritually, it is good only with something else. It has to the direct means of spiritual growth the relations of exercise to food. Exercise is healthy; but it is no substitute for nourishment
(1) In this light, what a blessing is the Sabbath! It is, to take the lowest view, the drag-chain on the wheels of the soul on its secular incline. It is, to take the highest view, the replenishing it with power from on high.
(2) Christianity should make us endeavour to abridge the labouring hours, when excessive, of our brethren as well as our own. The excessive toil of multitudes is, if not fatal to religion, a terrific obstacle to it. One thing at least can be done--there is no earthly need why the thousands who serve in our shops should not be earlier released from their daily drudgery.
2. The Christian at his work may be with God. “Let every man wherein he is called therein abide with God.” There is no necessity for the exclusion of religious things from the mind during secular engagements. It is a strange occupation which has no moments of intermission; and to fill these with Christian meditations and prayers is the great privilege of the saint. A mind thus kept spiritual will be able to make some use of work for the purposes of the soul. How much of the carnality of worldly things, which we lament, is owing to our own want of a fresh and lively grace? How many water-pots are there in our earthly life which, if filled by us with water, would be filled by Christ with wine? We have to do with--
(1) Men. What a field of profitable thought is human nature!
(2) Things. And these are suggestive. Objects, places, times, all may be yoked to the soul’s chariot. He who has put his lessons of Divinest wisdom into parables taken from agriculture and commerce has taught us how we may make our secular labour the mirror and voice of most spiritual truth.
3. God may be with him. “Acknowledge Him in all thy ways, and He shall direct thy steps.” And if the guidance of God may be had, His prospering blessing may be had also. “The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow with it.” And may there not be the presiding sense of the Divine love, “the love of God shed abroad in the heart,” whatever the course of providential events, giving strength in adversity, and infusing a nobler joy in prosperity?(A. J. Morris.)
A consecrated merchant
When a certain New England merchant waited on his pastor to tell him of his earnest desire to engage in work more distinctively religious, the pastor heard him kindly. The merchant said, “My heart is so full of love to God and to man that I want to spend all my time in talking with men about these things.” “No,” said the pastor; “go back to your store, and be a Christian over your counter. Sell goods for Christ, and let it be seen that a man can be a Christian in trade.” Years afterwards the merchant rejoiced that he had followed the advice, and the pastor rejoiced also in a broad-hearted and open-handed brother in his church, who was awake not only to home interests, but to those great enterprises of philanthropy and learning which are an honour to our age. (Clerical Library.)
Diligence and fervour in serving the Lord
1.The word rendered “business” is rightly rendered “diligence” (verse 8), “haste” (Mar_6:25), “care” (2Co_7:12), “carefulness” (2Co_7:11), “earnest care” (2Co_8:16), “forwardness” (2Co_8:8). It properly denotes promptness in action, earnestness in effort, and zeal in execution. Its special reference in this place is not to secular, but to Christian work.
2. It is quite true that the two first clauses express the manner in which the third is to be obeyed; but this third does not denote a distinct service, but rather requires that all service shall be rendered as unto the Lord.
I. In respect to every kind of service, to which as Christians you are called, let there be no slothfulness, but, on the contrary, promptness and zeal. This exhortation will apply to
1. The conduct of secular business, inasmuch as that implicates Christian character and duty (1Th_4:11-12; 2Th_3:7-12). The religion of Christ gives no countenance to an idle and thriftless spirit (Pro_6:6-8; Pro_10:4; Pro_24:30-34). Only it will have a man to attend to his secular business in another than a secular spirit.
2. To the work of our own religious life. This will no more survive continued neglect and starvation than will the bodily life. There is for us the work of searching the Scriptures for spiritual food; of prayer and meditation for the assimilation of that food; of securing fresh air and healthful exercise by the “work of faith and labour of love.”
3. To the manifestation of the graces of the Christian life. The apostle has just written of love and brotherly kindness, and he presently gives examples of the conditions under which these graces must be exercised with special care. But both involve active service (Jam_2:15-16; Pro_3:27-28).
4. To all church work. In whatever department of spiritual ministry you may find your appropriate sphere of activity--whether in teaching, administration, etc.
be punctual, resolute, diligent.
II. It is required that the inner disposition shall correspond with the outward activity. As to the spirit in which the active service shall be rendered, let it be fervent. Christ was “clad with zeal as with a cloak” (Isa_59:17; Joh_2:17; Psa_69:9). Apollos “being fervent in spirit, he taught diligently the things of the Lord” (Act_18:25). And wherever there is true fervour of spirit, there will certainly be diligence in service. But there may be diligence without fervour: diligence from servility, pride, ambition, selfishness (Rev_3:15-16). It is important that our “zeal of God” should be “according to knowledge” certainly, but still more important that zeal there should really be (Gal_4:18).
III. Be thus diligent and fervent as those who are serving the lord. It is our boast and glory that we are the servants of the Lord Christ. We are His by right, by consent, and by open avowal. Even in our secular work, if we live up to the spirit of our profession, we are still serving Him (Eph_6:5-8). This it is which imparts to all labour its true dignity. (W. Tyson.)
On industry
Industry denotes the steady application and vigorous exercise of our active powers in the pursuit of some useful object. Our minds, indeed, by their own nature, are active and restless; while we are awake they are never wholly unemployed--they are continually thinking, contriving, and imagining even in those seasons in which we are scarcely conscious of their operation. But there is a negligent state of mind in which some waste a great proportion of their time. To this negligence industry stands directly opposed.
I. That if you would cultivate the industry which Christianity recommends you must select proper objects of pursuit.
1. It is the nature of the objects which we pursue that characterises our industry as useful or frivolous, as virtuous or vicious. The wicked sometimes discover the most unwearied activity in executing their schemes of guilt. They who are most negligent of their own affairs are often officially attentive to theaffairs of their neighbours. There is a frivolous industry which others display in the pursuit of vanity and folly. They fly from scene to scene, seeking in every amusement a relief from that languor of mind with which indolence is always accompanied. Such persons forget that amusement ceases to be innocent when it is followed as the business of life.
2. The things which are innocent and useful are the only proper objects of that industry which the text recommends. What are these? Religion and morality.
3. But as our minds cannot be continually fixed on those great and interesting concerns; there are a variety of inferior objects in the pursuit of which our industry may be usefully exercised. Our worldly affairs, for example, demands a portion of our attention and care. It is surely pitiful in any person who is capable of exertion to be altogether ignorant of his own concerns, and to acknowledge himself unworthy of the station which he fills by committing to others the whole arrangement of his interests. He who attends not to his own affairs is not prepared either to reward the services of the faithful or to check the encroachments of the dishonest; he becomes a prey to the indolence of one, to the profusion of another, and the rapacity of a third: his wealth is dissipated he knows not how. Those who are placed in stations of trust will find in the discharge of the duties which more particularly belong to them an extensive sphere of employment, and for the faithful performance of these every person to whom they are committed is accountable to himself, to the world, and to his Maker. There are also works of general utility which, though not immediately connected with the duties of any particular station, may exercise the industry of the higher classes of men, and which their extensive influence may enable them to forward. To them it belongs to reform public abuses, to encourage useful arts, and to establish such wise regulations as may contribute to maintain the order and advance the happiness of society.
4. Even in his hours of relaxation from the more serious concerns of life the industrious man finds a variety of engagements in which he may exert the activity of his mind.
II. That in the pursuit even of such objects as are innocent and useful in themselves you cannot hope to be successful unless you pursue them according to a regular plan.
1. Among the objects in the prosecution of which our industry may be lawfully exercised there are some which claim our first attention, and there are others to which only a secondary regard is due. Religion first. To cultivate useful knowledge is also a proper exercise of our powers. But we value knowledge too highly if we suffer the love of it so completely to fascinate our minds as to leave to us neither leisure nor inclination for performing the duties of active benevolence; and our benevolence itself becomes excessive when we indulge it beyond the limits of our fortune, so as to involve ourselves in distress or bring misery and ruin on those who are more immediately committed to our care.
2. If you wish, then, that your industry may be successful, let it be conducted with order and regularity. Assign to every duty a suitable portion of your time. Let not one employment encroach on the season allotted for another. Thus shall you be delivered from that embarrassment which would retard your progress. Your minds, when fatigued with one employment, will find relief in applying themselves to another. The seasons which you consecrate to devotion will hallow your worldly cares; and your worldly business, in its turn, will prevent your piety from degenerating into moroseness, austerity, or enthusiasm.
III. Having selected proper objects of pursuit and arranged the plan according to which you resolve to pursue them, it will be necessary that you act on this plan with ardour and perseverance. There may, indeed, be an excess of ardour in the pursuit even of the most valuable objects. Too close an application of mind wastes its strength, and not only unfits us for enjoying the fruits of our industry, but also obstructs our success. When our faculties are fatigued and blunted, we are no longer in a condition to make advancement in any pursuit.
IV. I proceed now to suggest some arguments, with a view to recommend the duty which I have thus endeavoured to explain.
1. Consider that industry is the law of our condition. Nothing is given us by God but as the prize of labour and toil. The precious treasures of the earth lie hid from human view, and we must dig in order to find them. Our food, our raiment, our habitations, all the conveniences that minister to the defence and the comfort of our lives, are the fruits of those numberless arts which exercise the ingenuity of mankind. The circumstances in which we are placed declare the purpose of Heaven with regard to the human race, and admonish us that to abandon ourselves to sloth is to forget the end of our being.
2. Nor is industry to be chosen by man only for the sake of the many advantages which cannot otherwise be attained. It is itself a source of happiness. The mind delights in exercise. The comforts which industry procures have a relish peculiar to themselves. Business sweetens pleasure as labour sweetens rest. Recreation supposes employment; and the indolent are incapable of tasting the happiness which it is fitted to yield.
3. Industry contributes to the virtue no less than to the happiness of life. The man whose attention is fixed on any useful object is in little danger of being seduced by the solicitations of sinful pleasure; his mind is pro-engaged, and temptation courts him in vain. Among the lower orders of men idleness leads directly to injustice. It first reduces them to poverty and then tempts them to supply their wants by all the arts of dishonesty and baseness. In the higher ranks of life it leads to dissipation and extravagance. (W. Moodie, D.D.)
The happy combination
1. Business made an act of religion.
2. Religion made a business.
3. Both sanctified to the service of God. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Industry
I.This precept is violated--
1. By those who have no business at all. You may have seen attached to an inundated reef in the sea, a creature rooted to the rock as a plant might be, and twirling its long tentacula as an animal would do. This plant-animal’s life is somewhat monotonous, for it has nothing to do but grow and twirl its feelers, float in the tide, or fold itself up on its foot-stalk when that tide has receded, for months and years together. But what greater variety marks your existence? Does not one day float over you like another, just as the tide floats over it, and find you vegetating still? Are you more useful? What real service to others did you render yesterday? And what higher end in living have you than that polypus? You go through certain mechanical routines of rising, dressing, visiting, dining, and going to sleep again; and are a little roused by the arrival of a friend, or the effort needed to write some note of ceremony. But as it curtseys in the waves, and vibrates its exploring arms, and gorges some dainty medusa, the sea-anemone goes through nearly the same round. Is this a life for a rational and responsible creature to lead?
2. By those who are diligent in trifles--whose activity is a busy idleness. Fancy this time that instead of a polypus you were changed into a swallow. There you have a creature abundantly busy. Notice how he pays his morning visits, alighting elegantly on some house-top, and twittering politely to the swallow by his side, and then away to call for his friend at the castle. And now he is gone upon his travels, gone to spend the winter at Rome or Naples, or perform some more recherche pilgrimage. And when he comes home next April, sure enough he has been abroad--charming climate--highly delighted with the cicadas in Italy, and the bees on Hymettus--locusts in Africa rather scarce this season; but upon the whole much pleased with his trip, and returned in high health and spirits. Now this is a very proper life for a swallow; but is it a life for you? Though the trifler does not chronicle his own vain words and wasted hours, they are noted in the memory of God. And when he looks back to the long pilgrimage, what anguish will it move to think that he has gamboled through such a world without salvation to himself, without any real benefit to his brethren.
3. By those who have proper business, but--
(1) Are slothful in it. There are some persons of a dull and languid turn. They trail sluggishly through life, as if some adhesive slime were clogging every movement, and making their snail-path a waste of their very substance. They do nothing with healthy alacrity. Having no wholesome love to work, they do everything grudgingly, superficially, and at the latest moment.
(2) Others there are who are a sort of perpetual somnambulists: not able to find their work, or when they have found it, not able to find their hands; too late for everything, taking their passage when the ship has sailed, locking the door when the goods are stolen.
(3) Besides these there is the day-dreamer. With a foot on either side of the fire, with his chin on his bosom and the wrong end of the book turned towards him, he can pursue his self-complacent musings till he imagines himself a traveller in unknown lands--the solver of all the unsolved problems in science--the author of something so stupendous that he even begins to quail at his own glory. The misery is, that whilst nothing is done towards attaining the greatness, his luxurious imagination takes its possession for granted; and a still greater misery is, that the time wasted in unprofitable musings, if spent in honest application, would go very far to carry him where his sublime imagination fain would be. Some of the finest intellects have exhaled away in this sluggish evaporation, and left no vestige except the dried froth, the obscure film which survives the drivel of vanished dreams; and others have done just enough to show how important they would have been had they awaked sooner, or kept longer awake at once.
II. To avoid this guilt and wretchedness--
1. Have a business in which diligence is lawful and desirable. The favourite pursuit of AEropus, king of Macedonia, was to make lanterns. And if your work be a high calling, you must not dissipate your energies on trifles which, lawful in themselves, are as irrelevant to you as lamp-making is to a king. Those of you who do not need to toil for your daily bread, your very leisure is a hint what the Lord would have you to do. As you have no business of your own, He would have you devote yourself to His business.
2. Having made a wise and deliberate selection of a business, go on with it, go through with it. In the heathery turf you will find a plant chiefly remarkable for its peculiar roots; from the main stem down to the minutest fibre, you will find them all abruptly terminate, as if shorn or bitten off, and superstition alleges that once it was a plant for healing all sorts of maladies, and therefore the devil bit off the roots in which its virtues resided. This plant is a good emblem of many well-meaning but little-effecting people. All their good works terminate abruptly. The devil frustrates their efficacy by cutting off their ends. But others there are who before beginning to build count the cost, and having collected their materials and laid their foundations, go on to rear their structure, indifferent to more tempting schemes. The persevering teacher who guides one child into the saving knowledge of Christ is a more useful man than his friend who gathers in a roomful of ragged children, and after a few weeks turns them all adrift on the streets again. So short is life that we can afford to lose none of it in abortive undertakings; and once we have begun it is true economy to finish. (J. Hamilton, D.D.)
Industry, power of
There is no art nor science that is too difficult for industry to attain to: it is the power of the tongue, and makes a man understood all over the world. It is the philosopher’s stone, that turns all metals and even stones into gold, and suffers no want to break into its dwelling. It is the north-west passage, that brings the merchant’s ships to him by a nearer and shorter path. In a word, it conquers all enemies, and gives wings to blessings. (A. Farindon.)
Labour and religion
“Business” means everything which occupies our attention, but more particularly our temporal pursuits.
I. Sloth is infamous. It draws after it a multitude of vices and a load of sorrows. Man’s nature proves that he is made for action. Without being employed, his faculties are spoilt like metals eaten by rust, but polished by use. No condition is exempt from labour. The mind is a fertile soil, and if not cultivated will bring forth weeds. God brings men into judgment for neglecting to cultivate mind, body, talents, and conveniences of life which He has bestowed.
II. Labour is profitable. It restrains from sin, keeps from temptation, and satisfies cravings which could only otherwise be gratified by dissipation.
III. Piety is compatible with industry.
1. The fervent spirit is one that desires to please God. It is the same disposition directed to higher objects as actuate those who are in love with any earthly object.
2. Serving the Lord means doing good. Earthly affairs must not employ all our time.
IV. Arguments to urge this.
1. The character of Him we serve.
2. The nature of the service.
3. The reward which ensues. (J. J. S. Bird, B.A.)
Religion in common life
1.To combine business with religion is one of the most difficult parts of the Christian’s trial. It is easy to be religious in church, but not so easy in the market-place; and passing from one to the other seems often like transition from a tropical to a polar climate.
2. So great is this difficulty that but few set themselves honestly to overcome it. In ancient times the common expedient was to fly the world altogether; the modern expedient, much less safe, is to compromise the matter. “Everything in its place.” Prayers, etc., for Sundays, practical affairs for weekdays. Like an idler in a crowded thoroughfare, religion is jostled aside in the daily throng of life as if it had no business there. But the text affirms that the two things are compatible; that religion is not so much a duty as something that has to do with all duties, not for one day, but for all days; and that, like breathing and the circulation of the blood and growth, it may be going on simultaneously with all our actions.
3. True, if we could only prepare for the next world by retirement from this, no one should hesitate. But no such sacrifice is demanded. As in the material world, so in the moral, there are no conflicting laws. In the latter there is a law of labour, and as God has so constituted us that without work we cannot eat, so we may conclude that religion is not inconsistent with hard work. The weight of a clock seems a heavy drag on the delicate movements of its machinery, but it is indispensable for their accuracy; and there is an analogous action of the weight of worldly work on the finer movements of man’s spiritual being. The planets have a twofold motion, in their orbits and on their axes--the one motion being in the most perfect harmony with the other. So must it be that man’s twofold activities round the heavenly and earthly centres jar not with each other. And that it is so will be seen from the following considerations--
I. Religion is a science and an art, a system of doctrines to be believed and a system of duties to be done.
1. If religious truth were like many kinds of secular truth, hard and intricate, demanding the highest order of intellect and learned leisure, then to most men the blending of religion with the necessary avocations of life would be impossible. But the gospel is no such system. The salvation it offers is not the prize of the lofty intellect, but of the lowly heart. Christianity affords scope indeed for the former, but its essential principles are patent to the simplest mind.
2. Religion as an art differs from secular acts in that it may be practised simultaneously with all other work. A medical man cannot practise surgery and engineering at the same time, but Christianity is an all-embracing profession--the art of being and doing good, an art, therefore, that all can practise. It matters not of what words a copy set a child learning to write is composed; the thing desired is that he should learn to write well. So when a man is learning to be a Christian, it matters not what his particular work in life may be, the main thing is that he learn to live well. True, prayer, meditation, etc., are necessary to religion, but they are but steps in the ladder to heaven, good only as they help us to climb. They are the irrigation and enriching of the spiritual soil--worse than useless if the crop become not more abundant. No man can become a good sailor who has never been to sea, nor a good soldier by studying a book on military tactics; so a man by study may become a theologian, but he can never become a religious man until he has acquired those habits of self-denial, gentleness, etc., which are to be acquired only in daily contact with mankind.
II. Religion consists not so much in doing sacred acts as in doing secular acts from a sacred motive. There is a tendency to classify actions according to their outward form rather than according to their spirit. We arbitrarily divide literature and history into
