Counsel and Advice for Souls

Before you go, I must give you some counsel and advice for your souls. There are these twenty directions for your souls to which I want you to take special notice.

1. I beseech you, keep your constant hours of prayer every day with God. The godly man is a man “set apart” (Psalm 4:3), not only because God has set him apart by election, but because he has set himself apart by devotion. Begin the day with God, visit Him in the morning before you make any other visit. Read the Scripture, for it is both a glass to show you your soiled spots and a laver to wash them away. Besiege heaven every day with prayer.

2. Get good books in your houses. Good books are cisterns that hold the waters of life in them to refresh you. When you find a chilliness upon your souls, get those good books that may acquaint you with such truths as may warm and affect your hearts.

3. Have a care of your company. Take heed of unnecessary familiarity with sinners. We cannot catch health from another, but we may soon catch a disease; the disease of sin is very catching. If we cannot make others better, let us be careful that they do not make us worse. It was said of Israel, they “were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works” (Psalm 106:35). Evil company is the devil's draw-net, by which he draws millions to hell. How many families and how many souls have been ruined and undone by evil company!

4. Have a care whom you hear. There are some who by the subtlety of their wit have learned the art of mixing error with truth and to give poison in a golden cup. Christ counseled, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Matthew 7:15). Be like those Bereans who searched the Scriptures whether the things that they heard preached were so or not (Acts 17:11). Your ears must not be like sponges that soak in puddle water as well as wine, but your ears must be like a fan that fans out the chaff but retains the pure wheat.

5. Follow after sincerity. Be what you seem to be. Do not be like rowers in a boat who look one way and row another. Do not look heavenward by your profession and row hell-ward by your practice. Do not pretend to love God and yet love sin. Counterfeit piety is double iniquity. Let your hearts be upright with God. The plainer the diamond is, the richer it is; and the more plain the heart is, the more God values His jewel. The psalmist says, “Behold, Thou desirest truth in the inward parts” (Psalm 51:6).

6. As you love your souls, be not strangers to yourselves. Be much and often in the work of self-examination. Look into the book of conscience, see what is written there. The psalmist said, “I commune with mine own heart” (Psalm 77:6). Set up a judgment seat in your own souls. Be as much afraid of a painted holiness as you would be afraid of going to a painted heaven. Do not think yourselves good because others think so. Let the Word be the touchstone by which you try your hearts. Let the Word be the looking-glass by which you judge the complexion of your souls. For want of this self-searching, many live known to others and die unknown to themselves.

7. Keep your spiritual watch. “And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch” (Mark 13:37). The heart is a subtle piece and will be stealing out to vanity, and if we are not careful, it will decoy us into sin. Your heart is a suspicious person. Oh, have an eye upon it, watch it continually, it is a bosom-traitor. We must every day keep sentinel; sleep not upon your guard. Our sleeping time is the devil's tempting time.

8. You that are the people of God, often associate together. “They that feared the LORD spake often one to another” (Malachi 3:16). Christ's doves should flock together. One Christian will help to heat another. Conference sometimes may do as much good as preaching. One Christian by good discourse drops holy oil upon another, that makes the lamp of his grace to shine brighter. The naturalists observe there is a sympathy in plants; they say some plants bear better when they grow near other plants. Similarly, it is true in religion. The saints are trees of righteousness; they thrive best in godliness when they grow together.

9. Get your hearts lifted up above the world. “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:2). We may see the face of the moon in water, but the moon is fixed above in the firmament. So, though a Christian walk here below, yet his heart should be fixed above in heaven. Those whose hearts are elevated above the lower region of this world are not stung with the vexations and disquietments that others experience, but are full of joy and contentments.

10. Trade much in the promises. The promises are great supports to faith; faith lives in a promise, as the fish lives in water. The promises of God are bladders to keep us from sinking when we come into the waters of affliction. The promises are sweet clusters of grapes that grow upon Christ the true Vine.

11. To all you that hear me, live in a calling. Sure I am that the same God who says, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy,” also says, “Six days shalt thou labour.” The great God never sealed any warrants for idleness. Paul said, “For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work” (2 Thessalonians 3:11-12).

12. Let me entreat you to join the first and second tables of the law together, piety to God and equity to your neighbor. The apostle Paul put these two words together in one verse, “That we should live righteously and godly” (Titus 2:12): righteously, that relates to morality; godly, that relates to piety and sanctity. Some pretend to faith but have no works; others have works, but they have no faith. Some pretend to zeal for God but are not just in their dealings; others are just in their dealings but have not one spark of zeal for God.

13. Join the serpent and the dove together, innocence and prudence: “Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16). We must have innocence with our wisdom, else our wisdom is but craftiness; and we must have wisdom with our innocence, else our innocence is but weakness. We must have the harmlessness of the dove, that we may not wrong others; and we must have the prudence of the serpent, that others may not abuse and circumvent us.

14. Be more afraid of sin than of suffering. In suffering, the conscience may be quiet. But when a man sins willfully and presumptuously, he loses all his peace. He that will commit sin to prevent suffering is like a man who lets his head be wounded to save his shield and helmet.

15. Take heed of idolatry. “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). Idolatry is an image of jealousy to provoke God. Keep yourselves from idols, and take heed of superstition.

16. Think not the worse of godliness because it is reproached and persecuted. Wicked men, being stirred up by the devil, maliciously reproach the ways of God. Holiness is a beautiful and glorious thing. There is a time coming when wicked men will be glad of some of that holiness that now they despise, but they shall be as far then from obtaining it as they are now from desiring it.

17. Think not the better of sin because it is in fashion. Think not the better of impiety and ungodliness because men walk in those crooked ways. Do we think the better of the plague because it is common? “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11).

18. In the business of religion serve God with all your might. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device…in the grave, whither thou goest” (Ecclesiastes 9:10). This is an argument why we should do all we can for God. We should serve Him with all our strength, because the grave is very near and there is no praying, no repenting in the grave. Our time is but small, and therefore our zeal for God should be great. “Fervent in spirit; serving the Lord” (Romans 12:11).

19. Do all the good you can to others as long as you live. Oh, labor to be helpful to the souls of others, and to supply the wants of others. Jesus Christ was a public blessing in the world; He went about doing good. Many live so unfruitfully that truly their life is scarce worth a prayer, nor their death scarce worth a tear.

20. Every day think upon eternity. All of us here are, ere long—it may be some of us within a few days or hours—to launch forth into the ocean of eternity. Eternity is a condition of everlasting misery or everlasting happiness. Oh, I beseech you, my brethren, every day spend some time thinking upon eternity. The serious thoughts of an eternal condition would be a great means to promote holiness. We should not overvalue the comforts of the world. Worldly comforts are very sweet, but they are very swift, they are soon gone. The thoughts of eternity would keep us from grieving overmuch at crosses and sufferings of the world. Affliction may be lasting, but it is not everlasting. Our sufferings here are not worthy to be compared to an eternal weight of glory.

And, thus, my beloved, I have given you these twenty directions for your precious souls. Consider what has been said, and the Lord give you understanding in all things.

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