A Goodly Heritage

Man must give his exertion , no doubt, but he must never lean upon it ; for that would be leaning on the the staff of a bruised reed . Now , prayer is or should be , the expression of human dependence upon God , the throwing ourselves upon His protecting wisdom and power and love . And therefore when our Saviour counsels us to unite prayer with watching , He counsels us to throw ourselves upon God , under a sense of our own weakness and insufficiency . And there is enough known respecting the difficulty of keeping the heart , to engender such a sense of weakness. The throng of thoughts which is continually passing in and out , how shall we dream of examining , trying , judgeing them all , except by a special divine interference in our behalf  ? Divine power can qualify a man for anything ; but nothing short of divine power can qualify him for a task so onerous as this . To God , then let us commit the keeping of our souls , in the most absolute self - distrust . And if this self - ...

Let our rules be such as may be easily and cheerfully observed , remembering that we are to serve God in the newness of the spirit , not in the oldness of the letter .  Let the object be to make them a help , not to convert them into a penance . And let their inferiority and subserviency to the principle on which they are founded be always kept in mind . Let them not be easily dispensed with when once made ; and yet , let there be no foolish superstitious  scruple about dispensing with them when real necessity arises . Oh, who shall teach the one-sided mind of man the true middle path between the bondage of observances  ( which is the bondage of Judaism ) and that spurious  (so-called) freedom , which affects to disdain self - discipline , and refuses to acknowledge itself under the Law to Christ !God will show us the path , if we will not lean to our own understanding , but follow , with the simplicity and docility of children , the guidance of His hand .