Remains and Occasional Publications

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: A SERMON PREACHED AT ST. NICHOLAS, DEPTFORD, ON TRINITY MONDAY, JUNE a, i8i7. Romans xii. 11. Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord. J.N the following discourse I propose, first, to consider these words of the Apostle, as they encourage to active usefulness in life; next, to speak of the value and advantage of Societies instituted for the furtherance of objects of public utility; and lastly, to advert to some' of the peculiar objects which come under the care of your ancient Incorporated Society. The three brief sentences of instruction which I have recited, Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord, though apparently disunited and independent, we ought to consider as having a connexion in the Apostle's mind, and making out together the following combined doctrine: Be not slothful in business, but add to the discharge of it, fervency and earnestness of spirit, and this do, with an eye to the service of God. The passage thus understood is in agreement with many others in the Gospel. For our Religion is not a recluse and inactive thing, meant to be buried in a closet. The several duties of life which attach tomen as members of society, whether in a narrower or wider connexion, are explicitly owned and stated by it, and the right performance of them all is promoted by something either in its direct precepts, or its general spirit: so that a vacant, barren, and unprofitable life, without any design of usefulness in it, is as much at variance with the demands of the Gospel, as habits of sin are with its prohibitions. For taking a large view of our present state, but also a strong and distinct one, the Gospel spreads its light diffusively upon the whole, and meets us there, in the mixed relations of public, ...