First, RELIGIOUS PRUDENCE.--What this is, will be best explained by
its effects and operations. PRUDENCE in the service of RELIGION
consists in the prevention or abatement of hindrances and
distractions; and consequently in avoiding, or removing, all such
circumstances as, by diverting the attention of the workman, retard
the progress and hazard the safety of the work. It is likewise (I deny
not) a part of this unworldly prudence, to place ourselves as much and
as often as it is in our power so to do, in circumstances directly
favourable to our great design; and to avail ourselves of all the
_positive_ helps and furtherances which these circumstances afford.
But neither dare we, as Christians, forget whose and under what
dominion the things are, _quæ nos circumstant_, that is, which _stand
around_ us. We are to remember, that it is the _world_ that
constitutes our outward circumstances; that in the form of the world,
which is evermore at variance with the Divine form (or idea) they are
cast and moulded; and that of the means and measures which the same
prudence requires in the forming anew of the Divine Image in the soul,
the far greater number suppose the world at enmity with our design. We
are to avoid its snares, to repel its attacks, to suspect its aids and
succours, and even when compelled to receive them as allies within our
trenches, we are to commit the outworks alone to their charge, and to
keep them at a jealous distance from the citadel. The powers of the
world are often _christened_, but seldom christianized. They are but
_proselytes of the outer gate_; or like the Saxons of old, enter the
land as auxiliaries, and remain in it as conquerors and lords.