How Selfishness Corrupts Even the Gifts of God

It is difficult to express and even to conceive of the subtleties and insinuations of selfishness.  It enters every path. It lurks in every secret place. And wherever it finds its way, it pollutes, poisons, and destroys. It sometimes attaches itself, by a process almost imperceptible, to God's most valuable gifts and graces; those which are spiritual, as well as those which are natural. An individual, for instance, is possessed of great natural ability. This ability is a gift of God. But how often it is, that the possessor, thinking but little of the great Author of the gift, regards it as something peculiarly his own, and instead of seeing God in it, sees only himself. Almost unconsciously to himself, and greatly to his spiritual injury, he is experiencing a secret elevation of spirit, and is taking a hidden complacency in an intellectual possession, which, when properly considered, should have increasingly detached him from self, and led him nearer to his Maker.

Sabbath as the Day of Rest and Hope

The Sabbath or Lord's day is the day for man to rest in, and that, in the cessation from his ordinary labors, he may receive and be nourished by the truth, it is the day also for God to work in, in order that the truth may be communicated. God has a great message for his rebellious people; the message of life through his Son. But on the other days of the week, when their hands and their hearts are occupied with other things, it is difficult to obtain a hearing.  It is on the Sabbath day, especially and emphatically, that this great message is communicated; — a message which involves in its results, not only the salvation of the soul, but equal rights among men, the emancipation of the enslaved, the, cessation of war, the progress of humanity and civilization, and universal brotherhood. All other forms of legitimate emancipation are necessarily involved in the emancipation of the soul from guilt and sin. Destroy the Lord's day, and you necessarily close the communications of God, which have relation to these great objects. You close the communications, because you take away the necessary opportunities for hearing them. He, therefore, who does anything on the Sabbath, which tends to interrupt the communication between God and men, by perplexing the operations of him who speaks or by diverting the attention of those who listen, does that which is inappropriate to the day.

Why the Sabbath Should Be Kept

Those designs of mercy, which God entertains towards our fallen race, will be carried on, in part at least, in connection with the Christian Sabbath. And those, who cooperate and are united with God, will cheerfully recognize the day, and harmonize in its great purposes.

It is something worthy of notice, amongst the remarkable things of the present time, that the Christian Sabbath, contrary to what would be the natural expectation in the case, is attempted to be set aside by persons who have a respect for religion, and appear to be persons of true benevolence and piety. Some of them make high claims to holiness of heart. The holiness of their hearts, as they understand it, has made all things holy. Their work is holy; their rest is holy; their recreations are holy, — everything they do, while the heart is holy, partakes of the character of the source or motive from which it proceeds. No one day, therefore, can be more holy to them than another. The Sabbath is on a footing with other days. All days are alike. 

Regulating Our Love

It is as necessary, in the progress and support of a holy life, to regulate our friendships and our love, (we mean here our love of creatures,) as it is to regulate our displeasure and anger. We may as really love too much and sin, as we may be displeased too much and sin. The holy mind may be said, with a degree of propriety, to stand in a state of indifference, relatively to  itself.  That is to say, it seeks nothing, desires nothing, loves nothing, is averse from nothing, and is angry with nothing, except in God's time and way, IN God and FOR God.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CXXXIX.

The Goods of This World

The goods of this world, those things which are suited to our convenience and comfort, are not necessarily unholy. Unholiness attaches to the manner; that is to say, to the spirit or temper, considered in relation to God, in which we receive and hold and employ them. If we receive and hold them as God's gifts, and in subordination to his will, they are good. But if we hold and employ them as our own possessions, and irrespective of God's will, they are evil.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CXXXVIII.

Adversity and Prosperity

Adversity, in the state of things in the present life, has far less danger for us than prosperity. Both, when received in the proper spirit, may tend to our spiritual advancement. But the tendency of adversity, in itself considered, is to show us our weakness, and to lead us to God; while the natural tendency of prosperity, separate from the correctives and the directions of divine grace, is to inspire us with self-confidence, and to turn us away from God.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CXXXVII.

Seperating From the Temporal

The more we are disunited from the unnecessary and tangling alliances of this life, the more fully and freely will our minds be directed to the life which is to come. The more we are separated from that which is temporal, the more closely shall we be allied to that which is eternal; the more we are disunited from the creatures, the more we shall be united to the Creator.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CXXXVI.