important passages from the meditation "of the Importance of Salvation"

Of the Importance of Salvation

Shall we be able to comfort ourselves with the thoughts that we have been successful in all our other business of no consequence, and have only neglected this, which is the only business of eternity? It is no matter though we live obscurely and forgotten, without friends or support, and die poor, provided we secure our salvation. But what will all our riches and power, all our knowledge and wisdom avail us if we lose our souls? Though all the world should conspire together, they will never be able to deprive a man of heaven, and make him miserable to all eternity: Neither will they be able to make one damned soul happy, or so much as mitigate his torments. What will it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his soul? Or what can he give in exchange for his soul?
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Salvation is our great and chief business; now a man's chief business takes up all his thoughts, and hardly gives him time to think of any other; and if this succeeds he comforts himself for the miscarriage of the rest.
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If everlasting misery be so slight a business, why do we tremble at the thoughts of eternity? and if we believe it so terrible, how can we be at rest while we are so careless about it, and in so much danger?

My God! How many days of grace have I abused? How many precious hours have I let pass unprofitably? Wretch that I am, to spend so much time in doing nothing: But how much more wretched shall I be if I do not now at length begin seriously to work out my salvation?

How long shall I fancy those things necessary which are of no use for the next life, while I neglect only the business of eternity?

O my God, since thou hast not yet punished me, though I deserved punishment, I trust thou wilt not refuse me the assistance of Thy grace, though I am unworthy of it. Since this is the day designed for my conversion, the present resolution shall not be like the rest. I believe, I am fully persuaded, I am sensible, that there is but One Thing Necessary, that Eternal Salvation is the only business that concerns me, and I am determined to begin this day to apply myself seriously to it.

Consider that our eternal salvation is not only the greatest, but the only business we have, to which we ought to apply ourselves entirely lest we should do it ill. Whatever else we call great business is not properly business, at least not ours; they concern others more than us, and we labor more for our posterity than for ourselves.

Is all this true? Is there such an eternity? Is life given us only to prepare for it? If I lose my soul can I ever recover it? And shall I certainly lose it if I live as the greatest part of the world do, and as I have done hitherto? Shall I wish at my last hour that I had lived otherwise? That I had done what I could, and what I ought to have done? And will all those things that take me up now, seem vain and trifling then?

Is it possible that other men's business should take me up, that worldly things, recreations and compliments, should have all our time, while the business of our salvation is the least minded, as if it did not concern us?

What are we the better for being endued with reason, if we make no use of it in the business of our salvation, for which alone God bestowed it on us? Alas! we in a manner wear it out in prosecuting trivial designs, we are proud of it in matters of no moment, we value ourselves upon our prudential conduct, and wise counsels in business; but we neglect the real use of it and we act the matters of eternity as if we wanted common-sense.

We can lose our souls with all the tranquility in the world, and we are reasonable creatures in everything that does not concern us; we do not deny that the saints were truly wise, yet all their wisdom consists in preferring their salvation to everything else, in esteeming it their only business.

Are we wiser than they, that our actions are so contrary to theirs? They spent their whole lives in preparing for eternity; to what end did they take so much pains, and spend so much time, for what we pretend to do with so much ease? Miserable, unthinking, wretches that we are, to allow so little time for what requires it all.

What are now the sentiments of those famous statesmen whom we esteem the greatest politicians? Of those extraordinary men who were always busy in pacifying or troubling the world, which their heads were always full of. Those men of riches, as the scripture calls them, who lived without thinking on eternity, and who after an uninterrupted success in all their other business, have miscarried only in this great business of salvation? They are not damned for laziness and sloth; on the contrary, they owe their ruin to too much useless business; they were so busy that their very sleeps were broken by their cares, and they have lost themselves by labouring in what did not concern them, by taking too much pains about nothing, while they neglected their only real business; and 'tis by this that the greatest part of mankind are lost.

And shall not I increase the number of the lost if I continued to live as I have done? What have I done for Heaven? What have I not done to deprive myself of it? I have been careful of everything but my soul, and I act as if its ruin were nothing to me. But I trust in thy mercy, o my God, that the change of my life shall manifest that my heart is changed; I will save my soul; the care of my salvation requires all my diligence, and it shall have it all; I humbly beseech thee to give me thy grace to recover what I have lost, as thou hast given me time for it; I am sensible that this is my only business; I am resolved to do it, let thy grace make me successful.