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A Serious Call To A Devout And Holy Life

Clinging to a Counterfeit Cross

by William Law

*Edited Version

Chapter 7

How the imprudent use of an estate corrupts all the dispositions of the mind, and fills the heart with poor and ridiculous passions, through the whole course of life; represented in the character of Flavia.

IT HAS ALREADY been observed, that a prudent and religious care is to be used in the manner of spending our money or worldly prosperity, because the manner of spending our money makes so great a part of our common life, and is so much the business of every day, that the extent to which we are wise, or imprudent, is the extent to which, the whole course of our lives will be rendered either very wise or very full of folly.

Persons that are well affected to religion, that receive instructions of piety with pleasure and satisfaction, often wonder how it is that they make no greater progress in that religion which they so much admire.

Now the reason of it is this: it is because religion lives only in their head, but something else has possession of their heart; and therefore they continue from year to year mere admirers and praisers of piety, without ever coming up to the reality and perfection of its precepts.

If it be asked why religion does not get possession of their hearts, the reason is this; it is not because they live in gross sins, or depravity, for their regard to religion preserves them from such disorders; but it is because their hearts are constantly employed, perverted, and kept in a wrong state by the indiscreet use of such things as are lawful to be used.

The use and enjoyment of their worldly prosperity is lawful, and therefore it never comes into their heads to imagine any great danger from that quarter. They never reflect, that there is a vain and imprudent use of their worldly prosperity, which, though it does not destroy like gross sins, yet so disorders the heart, and supports it in such sensuality and dullness, such pride and vanity, as makes it incapable of receiving the life and spirit of piety.

For our souls may receive an infinite hurt, and be rendered incapable of all virtue, merely by the use of innocent and lawful things.

What is more innocent than rest and retirement? And yet what more dangerous than sloth and idleness? What is more lawful than eating and drinking? And yet what more destructive of all virtue, what more fruitful of all vice, than sensuality and indulgence?

How lawful and praiseworthy is the care of a family! And yet how certainly are many people rendered incapable of all virtue, by a worldly and solicitous spirit!

Now it is for lack of religious exactness in the use of these innocent and lawful things, that religion cannot get possession of our hearts. And it is in the right and prudent management of ourselves, as to these things, that all the art of holy living chiefly consists.

Gross sins are plainly seen and easily avoided by persons that profess religion. But the indiscreet and dangerous use of innocent and lawful things, as it does not shock and offend our consciences, so it is difficult to make people at all sensible of the danger of it.

A gentleman that spends all his money on sports, and a woman that lays out all her fortune upon herself, can hardly be persuaded that the spirit of religion cannot subsist in such a way of life.

These persons, as has been observed, may live free from depravity, they may be friends of religion, so far as to praise and speak well of it, and admire it in their imaginations; but it cannot govern their hearts, and be the spirit of their actions, till they change their way of life, and let religion give laws to the use and spending of their money.

For a woman that loves dress, that thinks no expense too great to bestow upon the adorning of her person, cannot stop there. For that disposition draws a thousand other follies along with it, and will render the whole course of her life, her business, her conversation, her hopes, her fears, her tastes, her pleasures, and entertainments, all suitable to it.

Flavia and Miranda16 are two maiden sisters, that have each of them an inheritance. They buried their parents twenty years ago, and have since that time spent their money as they pleased.

Flavia has been the wonder of all her friends, for her excellent management, in making so surprising a figure on so moderate a fortune. Several ladies that have twice her fortune are not able to be always so refined and so constant at all places of pleasure and expense. She has everything that is in fashion, and is in every place where there is any entertainment. Flavia is very orthodox, she talks warmly against heretics and schismatics, is generally at Church, and often at the Sacrament. She once commended a sermon that was against the pride and vanity of dress, and thought it was very just against Lucinda, whom she takes to be a great deal finer than she needs to be. If anyone asks Flavia to do something in charity, if she likes the person who makes the proposal, or happens to be in a right frame of mind, she will toss him a quarter, or a half-dollar, and tell him if he knew what a long milliner's bill she had just received, he would think it a great deal for her to give. A quarter of a year after this, she hears a sermon upon the necessity of charity; she thinks the man preaches well, that it is a very proper subject, that people lack much to be put in mind of it; but she applies nothing to herself, because she remembers that she gave a half-dollar some time ago, when she could so ill spare it.

As for poor people themselves, she will admit of no complaints from them; she is very positive they are all cheats and liars, and will say anything to get relief; and therefore it must be a sin to encourage them in their evil ways.

You would think Flavia had the tenderest conscience in the world, if you were to see how scrupulous and apprehensive she is of the guilt and danger of giving amiss.

She buys all books of wit and humor, and has made an expensive collection of all our English poets. For she says, one cannot have a true taste of any of them without being very conversant with them all.

She will sometimes read a book of piety, if it is a short one, if it is much commended for style and language, and she can tell you where to borrow it.

Flavia is very idle, and yet very fond of fine work; this makes her often sit working in bed until noon, and be told many a long story before she is up; so that I need not tell you, that her morning devotions are not always rightly performed.

Flavia would be a miracle of piety, if she was but half so careful of her soul as she is of her body. The rising of a pimple in her face, the sting of a gnat, will make her keep to her room for two or three days, and she thinks they are very rash people that do not take care of things in time. This makes her so over-careful of her health, that she never thinks she is well enough; and so over-indulgent, that she never can be really well. So that it costs her a great deal in sleeping medication and waking medication, in spirits for the head, in drops for the nerves, in cordials for the stomach, and in saffron for her tea.

If you visit Flavia on a Sunday, you will always meet good company, you will know what is going on in the world, you will hear the last good-humored satire, be told who wrote it, and who is meant by every name that is in it. You will hear what plays were acted that week, which is the finest song in the opera, who was intolerable at the last assembly, and what games are most in fashion. Flavia thinks they are atheists that play at cards on Sunday, but she will tell you the nicety of all the games, what cards she held, how she played them, and the history of all that happened at play, as soon as she comes from Church. If you would know who is rude and ill-natured, who is vain and refined, who lives too high, and who is in debt; if you would want know what is the quarrel at a certain house, or who are in love; if you would want to know how late Belinda comes home at night, what clothes she has bought, how she loves compliments, and what a long story she told at such a place; if you would want to know how cross Lucius is to his wife, what ill-natured things he says to her when nobody hears him; if you would want to know how they hate one another in their hearts, though they appear so kind in public; you must visit Flavia on a Sunday. But still she has so great a regard for the holiness of the Sunday, that she has turned a poor old widow out of her house, as a profane wretch, for having been found once mending her clothes on a Sunday night.

Thus lives Flavia; and if she lives ten years longer, she will have spent about fifteen hundred and sixty Sundays after this manner. She will have worn about two hundred different suits of clothes. Out of these thirty years of her life, fifteen will have been disposed of in bed; and, of the remaining fifteen, about fourteen will have been consumed in eating, drinking, dressing, visiting, conversation, reading and hearing plays and romances, at operas, social gatherings, parties and entertainments. For you may reckon all her waking hours spent in this way, except about an hour and a half, that is disposed of at Church most Sundays of the year. With great management, and under mighty rules of economy, she will have spent thousands of dollars upon herself, bating only some nickels, half-dollars, or quarters, that have gone from her in accidental charities.

I shall not take upon me to say, that it is impossible for Flavia to be saved; but thus much must be said, that she has no grounds from Scripture to think she is in the way of salvation. For her whole life is in direct opposition to all those characteristics and practices which the Gospel has made necessary to salvation.

If you were to hear her say, that she had lived all her life like Anna the prophetess, who "did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day." (Luke 2:36,37) you would look upon her as very extravagant; and yet this would be no greater an extravagance, than for her to say that she had been "striving to enter in at the strait gate," (Luke 13:24) or making any one doctrine of the Gospel a rule of her life.

She may as well say, that she lived with our Savior when He was upon earth, as that she has lived in imitation of Him, or made it any part of her care to live in such dispositions as He required of all those that would be His disciples. She may as truly say, that she has every day washed the saints' feet, as that she has lived in Christian humility and poverty of spirit; and as reasonably think, that she has taught a charity school, as that she has lived in works of charity. She has as much reason to think that she has been a sentinel in an army, as that she has lived in watching and self-denial. And it may as fairly be said, that she lived by the labor of her hands, as that she had given all diligence to make her calling and election sure.

And here it is to be well observed, that the poor, vain way of thinking, the irreligion, the folly, and vanity of this whole life of Flavia, is all owing to the manner of using her money. It is this that has formed her spirit, that has given life to every idle disposition that has supported every trifling passion, and kept her from all thoughts of a prudent, useful, and devout life.

When her parents died, she had no thought about her inheritance, but that she had so much money to do what she wanted with, to spend upon herself, and purchase the pleasures and gratifications of all her passions.

And it is this setting out, this false judgment and indiscreet use of her fortune that has filled her whole life with the same indiscretion, and kept her from thinking of what is right, and wise, and pious, in everything else.

If you have seen her delighted in plays and romances, in scandal and backbiting, easily flattered, and soon affronted; if you have seen her devoted to pleasures and amusements, a slave to every passion in its turn, nice in everything that concerned her body or dress, careless of everything that might benefit her soul, always lacking some new entertainment, and ready for every happy invention in show or dress, it was because she had purchased all these dispositions with the yearly revenue of her fortune.

She might have been humble, serious, devout, a lover of good books, an admirer of prayer and retirement, careful of her time, diligent in good works, full of charity and the love of God, but that the imprudent use of her estate forced all the contrary dispositions upon her.

And it was no wonder that she should turn her time, her mind, her health, and strength, to the same uses that she turned her fortune. It is owing to her being wrong in so great an article of life, that you can see nothing wise, or reasonable, or pious, in any other part of it.

Now, though the irregular trifling spirit of this character belongs, I hope, but too few people, yet many may here learn some instruction from it, and perhaps see something of their own spirit in it.

For as Flavia seems to be undone by the unreasonable use of her fortune, so the lowness of most people's virtue, the imperfections of their piety, and the disorders of their passions, are generally owing to their imprudent use and enjoyment of lawful and innocent things.

More people are kept from a true sense and taste of religion, by a regular kind of sensuality and indulgence, than by gross drunkenness. More men live regardless of the great duties of piety, through too great a concern for worldly goods, than through direct injustice.

This man would perhaps be devout, if he was not so great a virtuoso. Another is deaf to all the motives of piety, by indulging an idle, slothful disposition. Could you cure this man of his great curiosity and inquisitive disposition, or that of his false satisfaction and thirst after learning, you need do no more to make them both become men of great piety.

If this woman would make fewer visits, or that woman not always talking, they would neither of them find it half so hard to be affected with religion.

For all these things are only little, when they are compared to great sins; and though they are little in that respect, yet they are great, as they are impediments and hindrances to a pious spirit.

For as consideration is the only eye of the soul, as the truths of religion can be seen by nothing else, so whatever raises a levity of mind, a trifling spirit, renders the soul incapable of seeing, apprehending, and relishing the doctrines of piety.

If therefore, we are to make real progress in religion, we must not only abhor gross and notorious sins, but we must regulate the innocent and lawful parts of our behavior, and put the most common and allowed actions of life under the rules of discretion and piety.

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Footnotes

16. Flavia. The Gens Flavia was the noble family from which the Vespasian, Titus and Domitian came. It stands therefore for worldly pomp, half innocent, half vicious. Mirand = admirable, supposed to be a portrait of Miss Hester Gibbon. Lucinda =resplendent. Belinda and Lucius are names at random.

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