Tag: Piety

A Godly Man Among the Godless

Pious young men, you form a happy and an important class, if not a numerous one. Rich and sovereign mercy has called you out of darkness, and made you the children of light. Bless God, that while so many are walking according to the course of this world, and fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind—you are walking in the ways of godliness and peace. And while you are thankful, be humble, be circumspect, and prayerful. You are, and will be exposed to great and painful trials of your steadfastness. Perhaps you are placed in a situation, where you find not one like-minded with yourself. You alone are “faithful found among the faithless,” and will need great grace to stand your ground against the annoyance, ridicule, and opposition, with which your religion will be assailed, by a set of mirthful, wicked and profane youths.… Read More A Godly Man Among the Godless

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The Successive Steps of Going Astray

It rarely, if ever, happens, that the heart throws off at once all the restraints of virtue, and plunges suddenly into the depths of vice. It is not by one stride, that the moral youth passes from sober habits at home to those of an opposite nature abroad—but generally by slow and successive steps. The judgment and conscience would recoil from a temptation which proposed to him to become profligate at once; and if he ever becomes proficient in vice, he must be led on by insensible degrees, and little by little make advances in the way of wickedness, and in the counsels of the ungodly. This is what is meant by the deceitfulness of sin.… Read More The Successive Steps of Going Astray

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How To Avoid The Cage Stage

Having made up your minds, upon evidence, as to what is truth, then have as little to do with religious controversy as you can. Seek a practical religion, rather than a polemical religion. Treat it as a something rather to be done than to be talked about. Be not fond of disputation. Be no religious knight-errant, fighting against every one who differs from you. A pugnacious disposition, whether it be from natural combativeness, or prevailing vanity—is a dangerous thing to piety, which, like the dew, falls only in a still atmosphere, and lies longest in the shade. Be too much taken up with adding “to your faith virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity” (2 Pet. 1:5-7), to have much time for strife and contention.… Read More How To Avoid The Cage Stage

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The Crucial Value of Experimental Religion

Robert Burns (1789–1869)The Works of the Rev. Thomas HalyburtonIntroductory Essay, pp. 9-21. There are two extremes into which professing Christians of the present day are very apt to fall. While one class adopts a system of doctrinal sentiments without any practical regard to their influence on the heart and on the life; others satisfy themselves… Read More The Crucial Value of Experimental Religion

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