RELIGION, IN ITS RELATION TO COMMERCE, AND THE ORDINARY AVOCATIONS OF LIFE. A COURSE OF LECTURES, DELIVERED IN Jewin-Street Chapel, in the City of London. LONDON: PRINTED BY AND FOR R. NEEDHAM, 9, AVE MARIA-LANE. AND ALL BOOKSELLERS. 1852. 100. 3. 269. PREFACE.. WE all concur in the persuasion that our worldly business cannot be conducted well unless it be in view of the tribunal before which all must stand, there to render an account of the deeds done in the body. We believe that man cannot deal aright with man any longer than he feels himself to be acting under the searching eye of God. It is the constant care of every true Christian so to live, and so to act; and the delivery of the following Lectures originated in a desire to enforce this duty on as many as might hear them. They have been heard by congregations chiefly consisting of men of business in the City of London: and in consenting to their publication, the Lecturers all hope that they may have contributed, in some degree, to revive general attention to this fundamental principle of Christian conduct and character.. It is no mean service to point out, once more, the relation that exists between the Holy Scriptures and the affairs of daily life, and to show that from that exhaustless treasury lessons may be gathered for the better prosecution even of the ordinary traffic of the world. And the variety of illustration that is sure to be contributed by twelve persons in treating the same subject under distinct aspects, however imperfectly each of them may perceive that he has performed his part, cannot but bring some evidence of the affluence of Divine truth in relation to the secular interests of mankind. But this is only an incidental and secondary benefit. There is yet a higher end always to be kept in view. The members of our congregations are, with very few and partial exceptions, engaged in secular pursuits. By the manner in which they acquit themselves, from day to day, the world will judge whether they are sincere or not; and, if sincere, whether the religion they profess really answers to our description of it, and to their professions. If the vocation of a merchant, a tradesman, a labourer, or a domestic servant, be so entirely secular that it can take no religious character: if his doctrine be copied, indeed, from the Bible, his prayers borrowed from the lips of the devout, and his professions made according to an elevated standard: but if, all this time, his business in the world is transacted in the spirit of the world; it follows that his business is unsanctified, his profession vain, his faith a dream, his prayers an abomination. On his basket and on his store, on his going out and coming in, on his rising up and lying down, no Divine blessing rests; but instead of a blessing, the terrible blight of God's displeasure. Or, if the case be not one of sheer hypocrisy, but only of indifference to the practical application of spiritual truth, it is even then bad enough. The Protestant has no "religious house" wherein to hide himself from the world; and if he cannot carry his religion with him into the world, he has no place for it anywhere. The man who, spurning the notion of getting to Heaven by a cowl, plunges himself into the mire of worldliness, under the name of piety,-his condition is wretched. Beside the direct way of Christian holiness, there is but a path of superstition on the right hand, or of antinomianism on the left; and he that wanders, must go into one of these by-ways to perdition, or into the other, and, in either case, he makes a sorry man of business. In all churches there are, or may be, two classes of unpractical and most discreditable professors,-the ignorant, and the insincere. The former are not likely to be attracted by the titles of these Lectures, nor the latter to be profited by their contents; but we rejoice in the belief that the majority of those who heard them are neither of the one class nor the other. They are very generally persons on whose temporal affairs the Divine blessing has rested; and even the humblest of them enjoy a measure of temporal prosperity that has come upon them in answer to daily prayer, vouchsafed in gracious acknowledgment of the faith and watchfulness wherein they have striven to walk, as becometh the Gospel of Christ; and discourses on "Religion in its relation to Commerce and the Ordinary Avocations of Life" never can be unacceptable to these. The blessed relation of prayer and labour, has found illustration in all their history, and has distinguished many of their families through successive generations, from the Godless multitudes that flourish and decay around them. Here is the science of their life,—a science taught them already from above, a science too unfrequently treated of in books,—a science far more comprehensive than has been yet perceived, and, therefore, the few rudimentary |
