As Paul said, the hour has come for us to wake up from our slumber. Our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. Henry Vaughn the poet had some specific ways to put "feet" on that suggestion, living each day with eternity in mind.
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Henry Vaughn comments that "this short time was not given us in vain...but that in time eternal life should be our care, and endless rest our industry."
Paul (with a little help from the King James) puts it this way in Ephesians 5, "Redeem the time, because the days are evil."
And then Vaughn sets forth the task of righteous living in specific, even measurable ways, with an intentionality that would make the Apostle James smile. The rebellious, he claims, feel uncomfortable whenever righteousness becomes specific, who, he says, "god's mild laws for chains esteem." (they don't like any restrictions, just unbridled freedom).
Undeterred, Vaughn exhorts his wife Therasia to join him.....
To love our God with all our strength and will;
To covet nothing, to devise no ill
Against our neighbors; to procure or do
Nothing to others, which we would not do to
Our very selves; not to revenge our wrong;
To be content with little; not to long
For wealth and greatness; to despise or jear
No man, and if we be despised, to bear;
To feed the hungry; to hold fast our Crown;
To take from others naught; to give our own;
These are his precepts: and (alas!) in these
What is so hard, but faith can do with ease?
He that the holy Prophets doth believe,
And on Gods words relies, words that still live
And cannot die; that in his heart hath writ
His Savior's death and triumph, and doth yet
With constant care, admitting no neglect,
His second, dreadful coming still expect:
To such a liver earthly things are dead,
With Heav'n alone, and hopes of heav'n he's fed;
He is no Vassal unto worldly trash,
Not that black knowledge, which pretends to wash,
But doth defile: A knowledge, by which Men
With studied care loose Paradise again.
Commands and titles, the vain world's devise,
With gold, the forward seed of sin and vice,
He never minds; his aim is far more high,
And stoops to nothing lower than the sky;
Nor griefs nor pleasures breed him any pain,
He nothing fears to lose, would nothing gain;
Whatever hath not God, he doth detest:
He lives to Christ, is dead to all the rest.
