xxvi. 20. _Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers,
and shut thy doors about thee._
An exhortation to religious retirement. Man was intended for society,
but also for contemplation. When devoted to pious purposes,
retirement is highly useful to man and most acceptable to God
(H. E. I., 3466-3525). It is commended to us both by precept and
example (Gen. xxiv. 63; Matt. xiv. 23, &c.) But the retreat which the
Scriptures commend is temporary, not total; not that of a monk to his
cell, in which he passes his days in barren and unprofitable
speculation, but that of men living in the world, who go out of it
for a time in order that they may return to it better fitted for the
duties which God has assigned them there. That you may be stimulated
to this duty, consider its advantages.
+I. Religious retirement takes off the impression that the
neighbourhood of evil has a tendency to make upon the mind.+ We need
often to escape from it in order that we may see its true character,
and renew our strength to resist it.
+II. Religious retirement is favourable for fixing pious purposes in
the mind, and strengthening our habits of virtue.+ Dazzled no longer
by the false glitter of the world, we open our eyes to the beauties
of the better country; stunned no more with the noise of folly, we
can listen in silence to the still small voice. At leisure we can
reflect by what temptations we were formerly foiled, that we may
guard against them in time to come; for seeing the evil day, we can
prepare ourselves for its conflicts.
+III. In religious retirement we attain to self-knowledge.+ Here
wisdom begins. We can never ascend to the knowledge of Him whom to
know is life eternal, without knowing ourselves; and we can never
know ourselves without stripping off whatever is artificial about us,
without throwing off the veil which we wear before men, and devoting
our sacred hours to serious consideration.
+IV. Retirement and meditation will open up a source of new and
better entertainment than you meet with in the world+ (Ps.
civ. 34).--_John Logan: Sermons,_ vol. ii. pp. 156-164.