Practical Religion: Being Plain Papers on the Daily Duties, Experience, Dangers, and Privileges of Professing ChristiansRyle, J. C. (John Charles)
Religion
Practical Religion: Being Plain Papers on the Daily Duties, Experience, Dangers, and Privileges of Professing Christians
Ryle, J. C. (John Charles)
Christian life -- Anglican authors
If the conscience of any one who read this paper pleads guilty to any
participation in the short-comings I have spoken of, I call upon him, in
the name of the Lord, to awake, be zealous, and repent. Let not zeal be
confined to Lincoln's Inn, the Temple, and Westminster;--to banks, and
shops, and counting houses. Let us see the same zeal in the Church of
Christ. Let not zeal be abundant to lead forlorn hopes, or get gold from
Australia, or travel over thick ribbed ice in voyages of discovery, but
defective to send the Gospel to the heathen, or to pluck Roman Catholics
like brands from the fire, or to enlighten the dark places of the
colonies of this great land. Never were there such doors of usefulness
opened,--never were there so many opportunities for doing good. I loathe
that squeamishness which refuses to help religious works if there is a
blemish about the instrument by which the work is carried on. At this
rate we might never do anything at all. Let us resist the feeling, if we
are tempted by it. It is one of Satan's devices. It is better to work
with feeble instruments than not to work at all. At all events, try to
do something for God and Christ,--something against ignorance and sin.
Give, collect, teach, exhort, visit, pray, according as God enables you.
Only make up your mind that all can do something, and resolve that by
you, at any rate, something shall be done. If you have only one talent,
do not bury it in the ground. Try to live so as to be missed. There is
far more to be done in twelve hours than most of us have ever yet done
on any day in our lives.
Think of the _precious souls_ which are perishing while you are
sleeping. Be taken up with your inward conflicts if you will. Go on
anatomizing your own feelings, and poring over your own corruptions, if
you are so determined. But remember all this time souls are going to
hell, and you might do something to save them by working, by giving, by
writing, by begging, and by prayer. Oh, awake! be zealous, and repent!
Think of the _shortness of time_. You will soon be gone. You will have
no opportunity for works of mercy in another world. In heaven there will
be no ignorant people to instruct, and no unconverted to reclaim.
Whatever you do must be done now. Oh, when are you going to begin?
Awake! be zealous, and repent.
Think of _the devil_, and his zeal to do harm. It was a solemn saying of
old Bernard when he said that "Satan would rise up in judgment against
some people at the last day, because he had shown more zeal to ruin
souls than they had to save them." Awake! be zealous, and repent.
Think of _your Saviour_, and all His zeal for you. Think of Him in
Gethsemane and on Calvary, shedding His blood for sinners. Think of His
life and death,--His sufferings and His doings. This He has done for
you. What are you doing for Him? Oh, resolve that for the time to come
you will spend and be spent for Christ! Awake! be zealous and repent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Practical Religion: Being Plain Papers on the Daily Duties, Experience, Dangers, and Privileges of Professing Christians — John Shaqi
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