The Lenten Season; Discourses on Retirement and Self-Denial (Paperback)

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: jects, which might divert or discompose us: we are at liberty to employ that part of our time in the performance of this service, when we find ourselves best disposed for it; to make choice of our own thoughts and our own words; such as are best suited to our present necessities and desires; and what is thus passing within ourselves, we cannot but perceive and attend to: we may break off from the duty, whenever we find our attention flags, and return to it at a more seasonable opportunity. Nor are we capable, at such times, of being more fixed only, but likewise more fervent and inflamed. True religion is ever modest and reserved in its demeanour, when it appears in public; jealous of doing any thing that may savour of vanity and ostentation; unwilling to allow itself in any such earnestness of speech, or singularity of behaviour, as may call off the eyes and ears of others to observe them: it contents itself, for the most part, with a composed and serious look, with a simple and unaffected carriage. But, when public regards and restraints are taken off, the pious soul may then let itself loose into the highest fervours of zeal, into the freest raptures of thought, and into a suitable vehemence and warmth of expression: there is no sort of holy address, which it is not then allowed to make use of; no outward signs of devotion and reverence, which it may .not decently abound in. There is yet another great advantage that attends our private devotions; they give us leave to be as express and particular as we please in our representations. In the church, the sinner and the saint, men of all ranks, distinction, and attainments invirtue, must join in the same common forms: and though each of them may, by a sudden glance- of mind, adapt the general words to his own circumstances, ...