Chapter 2: False Professors. as you have made so much money? Did God tell you, when you professed to enter his service, to work hard so many years, and then you might have a perpetual holiday? Did he promise to excuse you after that from making the most of your time and talents, and let you live at ease the rest of your days? If your thoughts are set upon this notion, I tell you, you are not serving God but your own selfishness and sloth.
10. Those persons are serving their own gods who would sooner gratify their appetites than deny themselves things that are unnecessary, or even hurtful, for the sake of doing good.
You find persons that greatly love things that do them no good, and others even form an artificial appetite for the thing positively loathsome, and after it they will go, and no arguments will prevail upon them to abandon it for the sake of doing good. Are such persons absorbed in the service of God? Certainly not. Will they sacrifice their lives for the kingdom of God? Why you cannot make them even give up a quid of tobacco! a weed that is injurious to health and loathsome to society; they cannot give it up, were it to save a soul from death!
Who does not see that selfishness predominates in such persons? It shows the astonishing strength of selfishness. You often see the strength of selfishness showing itself in some such little thing more than in things that are greater. The real state of a man's mind stands out, that self-gratification is the law of his life, so strongly, that it will not give place, even in a trifle, to those great interests, for which he ought to be willing to lay down his life.
11. Those persons who are most readily moved to action by appeals to their own selfish interests, show that they are serving their own gods.
You see what motive influences such a man. Suppose I wish to get him to subscribe for building a church, what must I urge? Why, I must show how it will improve the value of his property, or advance his party, or gratify his selfishness in some other way. If he is more excited by these motives, than he is by a desire to save perishing souls and advance the kingdom of Christ, you see that he has never given himself up to serve the Lord. He is still serving himself. He is more influenced by his selfish interests than by all those benevolent principles on which all religion turns. The character of a true servant of God is right opposite to this.
Take the case of two servants, one devoted to his master's interests, and the other having no conscience or concern but to secure his wages. Go to one, and he throws into the shade all personal considerations, and enlists with heart and soul in achieving the object. The other will not act unless you present some selfish motive; unless you say, "Do so, and I will raise your wages or set you up in business," or the like. Is there not a radical difference between these two servants? Is not this an illustration of what actually takes place in our churches? Propose a plan of doing good that will cost nothing, and they will all go for it.
But propose a plan which is going to affect their personal interest to cost money, or take up