disfigure a human face, by practising all the wild and wanton grimaces
of folly and madness! To see man, who is made after the image of the Son
of God, distort his body in the most antic postures, and give up all the
honours of his nature to base and senseless merriment! Surely the duties
of christianity lead us to nothing below the dignity of man. Here I
would not be mistaken, nor do I pretend that the gospel requires such a
constant solemnity of countenance and language, as though we were all
preachers, or always preaching. There is no need to put on serious airs
at all times: We are not bound to banish mirth when we become
christians. Laughter is a natural action, and the faculty was not given
to mankind in vain, nor is the exercise of it forbidden for ever.
The chief ends of it seem to be these two; either to recreate animal
nature by expressions of mirth, or to put folly out of countenance.
There may be times to recreate nature, to unbend the spirits from
business, and to indulge mirth among our friends. The wise man assures
us, there is a time to laugh, as well as to mourn. There are times
proper for weeping, and some persons may have times for dancing too; Ec.
iii. 4. And in the 19th verse of the xth chapter the same divine writer
says, _a feast is made for laughter_. At the mutual entertainment of
friends we may be merry, and not sin. Our holy religion only demands
this of us, that we confine our mirth within the limits of virtue, and
take heed lest when we give a loose to the sprightly powers of animal
nature we should transgress the rules of piety, or trespass upon things
sacred.
Another purpose for which laughter was made, is to reprove and punish
folly, and put vice out of countenance. There are seasons wherein a wise
man or a christian may treat some criminal or silly characters with
ridicule and mockery. Elijah the prophet condescended thus to correct
the priests and worshippers of Baal; but this sort of conversation must
by no means be the business of our lives, and the daily work and labour
of our thoughts and our tongues. It is _the heart of a fool that is in
the house of mirth_, for he would dwell there continually; Ec. vii. 4.
If we are always affecting to throw out some turns of wit upon every
occurrence of life, and tack on a jest to every thing that is spoken, if
we interline all our discourse and conversation with merriment, banter
and joking, it is very unworthy of that gravity and honour that belongs
to the christian life.
The second head of discourse which I proposed, is to prove that the
light of nature, or the law of reason, requires something of this
gravity of speech and behaviour; and this is manifest, if we consider
the nature of man in opposition to the brute that perishes, or the
growth and age of man in distinction from children and babes.
1. If we consider man in opposition to the brutal world: Man, who has a
rational soul, should act conformable to that sublime principle within
him, and not devote himself to a life of fantastic humour, or content
himself with the character of an everlasting trifler. What a poor and
contemptible account is it of any person to say, he is a walking jest, a
mere living trifle? His thoughts are made up of vanity and emptiness,
his voice is laughter, and his whole life is composed of impertinences.
There is a sort of persons in the world who never think well of
themselves but when they are dressed in gay attire, and hope to command
the respect of mankind by spreading abroad their own fine feathers.
Their raiment is the brightest and best thing that belongs to them, and
therefore they affect to shew it. There is another sort of men who value
themselves upon their merry humour, and that they can make their company
laugh when they please. But the more refined and rational part of the
world value all these creatures as they do peacocks, or other animals
that imitate the voice and actions of man. They use them as an
entertainment for their eyes or ears, to give a fit of diversion, or to
pass away a merry hour. We generally look upon this kind of people as
very worthless things, as something beneath ourselves and as sinking
below their own species. We seldom converse with them upon the level, or
to attain any of the nobler purposes of life. We only borrow their wit,
or their folly, their humour, or their finery, for a season of
amusement, and justly despise them when the laughing hour is at an end.
Reason itself tells us, that human nature was made for something greater
and better, for contemplation and action much superior to what these
trifling creatures are acquainted with. Again,
2. If we consider man as he stands in distinction from childhood, surely
a more grave and solemn carriage becomes him.—Children are pleased with
painted toys; gaudy garments and sounding trifles are their chief
delight. They are entertained with little impertinences, agreeable to
their ignorance and the weakness of their age: But it is a shame to a
person of well-grown years to practise the child for ever. He that
devotes himself to a life of useless idleness, and treads round the
circle of perpetual mirth and amusement, without profit to himself or
the world, is but a child in longer garments, or an infant of larger
size.
The third general head leads us to consider, what forcible arguments
christianity furnishes us with to practise this sobriety, gravity and
decency of behaviour: And I shall throw them all into a few
expostulations.
1. Do we not bear the name of Christ, a sacred and venerable name? And
shall we cast disgrace upon it by any thing that is mean and
dishonourable? Do we not profess to be the followers of a crucified
Jesus, to be disciples of the cross? But wherein do we follow him, if we
spend our days in mirth and trifling? His conduct was all holy and
heavenly, and we can never look like his disciples, if our conversation
savour of earth and vanity. What a noble simplicity runs through all his
speeches, through all the actions and the behaviour of our blessed Lord!
And how little do we imitate him, if we fondly pursue the gay follies of
life in our dress, in our speech, and in every thing we do! No glarings
of affected wit, nor insipid pertness, can add any thing to our
character as christians.
2. Let us remember that we are the sons and daughters of the Most High
God. We profess to separate ourselves from the triflings and
impertinences of this world, as well as from the impiety and guilt of
it. “Come out from among them, saith the Lord, and I will be your
Father, and ye shall be my sons and my daughters, saith God almighty.”
Surely the children of a prince should behave with solemnity and honour,
when they are in the midst of the lower orders of mankind; and the
children of the King of heaven should remember the dignity of their
birth, and their high relation, when they are conversant among the sons
of earth. Their carriage indeed should not be proud and haughty to the
men of this world; Jesus, the only begotten Son, was meek and lowly: And
there is a sacred art of maintaining a divine humility, among the
meanest of our fellow-creatures, without indulging the practice of any
thing mean and ridiculous. Our blessed Lord was a companion of
fishermen, but not of mimics and public jesters.
3. Let us think again, that we are bought with a high and valuable
price; _we are redeemed, not with corruptible things, as silver and
gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without
blemish and without spot_; 1 Pet. i. 17, 18. And what is it that we are
redeemed from? It is from this evil world, and from a vain conversation.
The Son of God hath _loved us, and washed us in his own blood_, and
shall we defile these souls of ours with the meannesses of this life
which Christ hath cleansed in so rich a laver? He hath _made us kings
and priests unto God and his Father_. Let us now and then ask ourselves
and enquire, is our language and behaviour becoming such illustrious
names, such titles, such honours, as are put upon us by the Father and
the Son?
4. Again, let us review our profession; What is our calling? What is our
design? What is our hope? Are we not born from above? Are we not
pilgrims and strangers here? Do not we profess to seek a better country,
that is, a heavenly? Do we not live for heaven and immortality? How
unbecoming is it then for christians to be perpetually light, and vain,
and frothy? How unbecoming our holy and heavenly calling, and our
everlasting hopes? If we are children of the light and of the day, let
us not live as though we belonged to the night and darkness: Let us not
sleep, nor trifle as others do, but watch and be sober. And especially
if our natural temper be sanguine and sprightly, and incline to assume
vain airs, there is more need of constant watchfulness over the heart
and life, and a bridle upon the tongue, lest we should speak
indecencies, and be guilty of folly and madness.
[Here this sermon may be divided.]
The last thing I designed, was to propose some directions in order to
cure the levity of the mind, and to maintain such a decent gravity in
the course of our life as becomes the gospel.
Direction I. Let us meditate often on the most sublime and the most
awful parts of christianity; and through the assistance of the Spirit of
God, these will be effectual guards against this vanity of temper.
The sublime truths of christianity demand our frequent review. Let us
often rise high in our thoughts, and let our faith look far backwards to
the eternal ages before this world was. Let us contemplate the love of
God the Father, in contriving our salvation, before he stretched abroad
these heavens, or laid the foundations of this earth. Let us think of
the condescension of his mercy, when he chose fallen perishing sinners
to be the objects of his everlasting love. Let us dwell upon his
compassion to man, when he appointed his own Son to take flesh upon him,
and to become our Mediator and sacrifice. Let us survey with holy wonder
the various glories of the Son of God, by whom and for whom all things
were made, who upholds all things by the word of his power, and who is
the express image of his Father. Let us behold him consenting to hide
all these honours behind a veil of flesh and blood, walking the streets
of Jerusalem, and travelling on foot through the villages of Israel,
attended with a few poor despicable men, or surrounded with the
reproaches of the blaspheming Jews. Let us look upon this illustrious
person, who was adored by angels, yet unknown and unglorified among the
sons of men, and humbled even to death and the grave; then gaze on him
rising again from the dead, and declared to be the Son of God with
power, exalted at the right-hand of the Majesty on high, and ruling all
the millions of inhabitants of the visible and invisible worlds. Surely
if our souls were inured to the meditation of such sublime wonders as
these, we should not easily immerse ourselves in trifles and fooleries.
Again, let us meditate on the more awful doctrines, the more solemn and
dreadful truths of our religion, and these will be an effectual
restraint to a vain temper of mind. Let us think on the justice of God
manifested in the destruction of sinners in all ages, when it appeared
in a prodigious flood of water, and with a deluge of rain testified
against the wickedness of the old world; and when it came down in
flaming fire upon Sodom, and upon the cities of the plain. Let us
meditate on the wrath of God, that has been revealed in numerous
instances against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Let us
contemplate that divine and severe justice, that appeared in the
sufferings and death of God’s own Son, when it pleased the Father to
bruise him, and to make his soul an offering for sin. Let us think of
his agonies in the garden, and on the cross, when he bore the weight of
our iniquities, and stood in the place of sinners. Let us send our
thoughts down to the regions of death and hell, and behold the fallen
angels bound in chains of darkness, and groaning under present torments,
yet waiting for the day of greater vengeance. Let us think with
ourselves what millions of our fellow-sinners, the sons and daughters of
Adam, lie there banished from the presence of the Lord, and tormented
with fire in their consciences without remedy, and without hope, and
say, why are not we there too?
Let us often look forward to the awful moment of our death, and the time
of our departure from all the flattering scenes of this present world.
This will put a damp upon the vainest mind, and hang with a painful
weight upon the sons of mirth and levity. This will be a means to
restrain us from that foolish and trifling behaviour, which otherwise
our tempers might incline us to. And let us remember the solemn hour
when we must stand before the tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ,
divested of all these gaudy shews of life, in which we are now ready to
pride ourselves, and there we must receive a sentence without repeal,
which shall send us to heaven or to hell at once, and fix our
everlasting state. These are terrors or glories too solemn to be trifled
with; these are thoughts that will hold our souls awake and serious,
this will preserve that gravity of mind which becomes a christian, and
keep us in a prepared temper to fulfil present duty, and to wait the
final event of all things.
II. If we would maintain that venerable decency in our frame of spirit,
and in our deportment, which becomes the gospel, let us set ourselves
about some useful employment for the service of God, or our
fellow-creatures, or for our own best improvement. If Satan find the
mind empty of thought, and the hands void of all business, he will be
ready to fill them with temptations to iniquity and mischief: And the
triflers of this world will be ready to seize upon such a person as a
fit partner for their impertinences, and allure him into follies beneath
the dignity of human nature, and the character of a christian.
I have often pitied some of the dependents of honourable and wealthy
families of both sexes, the unhappiness of whose education has given
them nothing to do, nor taught them to employ their hands or their
minds: Therefore they spend their hours in sauntering, not knowing
whither to go, and are at a loss what to do with themselves to wear
their life away. Upon this account they give themselves up sometimes to
the mean and scandalous pleasures of the lowest of the people, and spend
their hours in chattering and vulgar merriment. They make the business
of their dress the study and labour of half the day, and spend another
part of it in trifling discourse and laughter, and in scattering jests
and scandal upon their neighbours or acquaintance. All these pieces of
folly and immorality would be rectified, if they would but find out for
themselves some daily and proper business to be employed in. King
Solomon at his leisure hours studied natural and moral philosophy, he
discoursed of the nature of vegetables, from the cedar to the hyssop,
and of beasts, birds, and fishes besides his proverbs and rules of
prudence for the government of human life; 1 Kings iv. 32, 33. St. Paul,
when he was not employed in his sacred work, yet he would not be idle;
and having no need to study for his sermons which he had by inspiration,
therefore he wrought with his hands at tent-making, and maintained
himself by it: “_Not_, says he, _because we have not power to eat your
bread while we teach you the gospel: but to make ourselves an example to
you_.” See Acts xviii. 3. and 2 Thess. iii. 8, 9. And good Dorcas, when
she had no business of her own, _made coats and garments for the poor_;
Acts ix. 36, 39. Such honourable examples as these deserve our
imitation.
III. Let us keep a strict watch over ourselves when we indulge mirth,
and set a double guard upon the seasons of recreation and divertisement.
The rules of religion do not so restrain us from the common
entertainments of life, as to render us melancholy creatures, and unfit
for company. There is no need to become mere mopes or hermits, in order
to be christians. The gospel does not deprive us of such joys as belong
to our natures, but it refines and heightens our delights. It draws our
souls farther away from mean and brutal pleasures, and raises them to
manly satisfactions, to entertainments worthy of a rational nature,
worthy of a creature that is made in the image of God. The innocent
entertainments of life are not utterly forbidden to christians, but are
regulated by the gospel.
When we have considered and found them to be lawful, then they are to be
regulated these two ways.—1. All our recreations and divertisements must
have some valuable end proposed. 2. We must distinguish the proper time
and season of them, and confine our diversions to that season.
1. They must always have some valuable end proposed. The chief and most
useful design of them is to make us more chearful and fitter for some
hours or days of service afterwards. Recreation must not be our trade or
business, but merely used as a means to prepare us for the valuable
businesses of life.
The scripture indeed tells us, that “_of every idle word that men shall
speak, there shall be an account given in the day of judgment_;” Mat.
xii. 36. And much more of idle hours and actions. But this doth not
utterly exclude all manner of recreations, or all words of pleasantry,
which may be innocently and properly used upon some occasions; but
whatsoever words, whatsoever conversation, whatsoever sort of
pleasurable entertainments, we indulge ourselves in, which have no
valuable end, no useful design in them: These will bear but an ill
aspect before the judgment-seat of Christ. We shall not be able to give
a tolerable account of such idle words or hours at that day; and it is
the judge himself who tells us so, and adds his _Amen_ to it.
It is proper more especially for persons that are of a melancholy
temper, or that have perhaps been overwhelmed with bodily diseases, or
overloaded with some sorrows, or cares, or businesses of life, to give
themselves a little loose or diversion now and then in delightful
conversation, or other recreations and exercises. These may be as useful
as a glass of wine to refresh nature, to make the heart glad, and the
spirits lightsome; for they tend to fit this animal body of ours for
better service to the soul in future duties that God calls us to: And so
long as we confine our recreations to this design, and keep this end in
view, our words of pleasantry in private conversation, and even our
recreations, and diversions that are more public, may be agreeable to
the mind and will of God; for it is his will, that our whole nature,
flesh and spirit, should be kept in the fittest frame for duty. And some
natures are so constituted, that they will hardly be kept in a temper
fit for duty, without some divertisements and recreations. Where this
therefore is the end, these practices cannot be called idle, that is,
impertinent, and to no purpose. But where no reasonable design is
proposed, sports and merriments are hardly to be defended, for all
rational creatures ought to act with a view to some valuable end.
2. Another regulation which ought to be given to all our diversions, is
this; we should narrowly watch, lest the time of our recreations intrude
upon the hours and seasons of business or of religion. There is a time
to laugh, the wise man tells us, as well as a time to labour or to pray;
but laughter must be confined to its proper place and proper time, and
not intrench upon the season where affairs of bigger importance, and
matters of grave and serious consequence should be transacted.
Conscience has something to do in matters of recreation as well as in
our religious or civil affairs: And as it can never be lawful to rob God
or our families of any of the time that should be devoted to their
service, on purpose to lay it out in diversion, so neither is it by any
means proper to let the seasons of diversion come too near the seasons
of worship. When a loose is given to all the natural powers in mirth and
pleasure, they are not so easily recollected all at once for the sacred
service of religion. Nor should we run hastily away from the duties of
worship, and plunge ourselves into the midst even of innocent merriment;
for this would look as though we were weary of devotion, and longed to
be at play. A wise christian will divide his times aright, and make all
the parts of his conduct to succeed one another in a decent order.
Besides, the hours of recreation should not be multiplied by those
persons who have least need of them; such are persons of a chearful and
healthy constitution: And they will be used more sparingly by christians
of maturer age, and longer standing in religion. As a child grows up
toward man, he leaves off the impertinences of infancy, and the sports
and trifles of childhood; and as a man grows up more and more toward a
perfect christian, his methods of pleasure will be changed from light
and gay, to that which is grave and solid.
To conclude this subject, I would mention only one powerful motive to
preserve christian gravity, and that is, that hereby the temper of your
spirit will be better prepared for every religious duty, whether it be
prayer or praise, and better fitted to meet every providence, whether it
be prosperous or afflictive: Whereas those who perpetually indulge a
merry temper of mind, when a prosperous providence attends them, they
are tempted to excessive vanity and carnal joy; their hearts are not
filled with thankfulness to that God from whom their mercies come, being
too thoughtless and regardless of the original donor. On the other hand,
when affliction smites them, they are in danger of despising the stroke
of the rod, nor does the correction of their heavenly Father make so
deep and useful an impression upon their spirit as it ought to do.
When in the course of our lives we maintain such a grave and composed
frame as becomes a christian, we find our hearts more ready for all the
duties of worship. We are prepared to receive evil tidings as well as
good, and to attend on the will of God in all his outgoings of
providence. We are ready to receive messages of sorrow, or the summons
of death, for we are still conversing with God: We keep the invisible
world in the eye of our faith: And our spirits are ready prepared to
depart from the flesh, and to meet our God and our Saviour in the
unknown regions of light and immortality.
HYMN FOR SERMON XXIII.
_Christian Morality_, _viz._ _Gravity, Decency, &c._
Are we not sons and heirs of God?
Are we not bought with Jesus’ blood?
Do we not hope for heavenly joys,
And shall we stoop to trifling toys?
Can laughter feed th’ immortal mind?
Were spirits of celestial kind
Made for a jest, for sport and play,
To wear our time, and waste the day?
Doth vain discourse or empty mirth
Well suit the honours of our birth?
Shall we be fond of gay attire,
Which children love, and fools admire?
What if we wear the richest vest,
Peacocks and flies are better drest:
This flesh, with all its gaudy forms,
Must drop to dust and feed the worms.
Lord, raise our hearts and passions higher,
Touch our vain souls with sacred fire;
Then with an elevated eye
We’ll pass these glittering trifles by.
We’ll look on all the toys below
With such disdain as angels do,
And wait the call that bids us rise
To promis’d mansions in the skies.
Footnote 28:
Dr. Whitby.
SERMON XXIV.
_Christian Morality_, _viz._ _Justice, &c._
PHILIP. iv. 8.—Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest,
_or grave_, whatsoever things are just——think on these things.
Οσα εστιν δικαια——
In many parts of the sacred writings, there appears a very close
connexion of the subjects which are handled; a natural order is
observed, and a beautiful transition made from one to the other: But
this is not to be expected in every text, nor is it at all necessary
that it should be so. When St. Paul enumerates several virtues or vices,
he sometimes heaps them together, and doth not design any regularity or
natural order in placing them. Our commentators therefore in such cases,
when they are once resolved to find these beauties and connections where
the holy writer did not intend them, they oftentimes torture and strain
both their own invention, and the words of scripture. Thus, I fear, I
should do, if I would attempt to give a reason why the apostle in this
collection of virtues, named gravity or decency before justice, which is
of so much greater importance in the christian life.