The imitation of Christ

Front matter

IMITATION OF CHRIST.

B Y

THOMAS A KEMPIS.

Preface

The Christian's Pattern, by Thomas a Kempis, has for more than three hundred years been esteemed one of the best practical religious books in existence ; and has gone through repeated editions, not only in the original Latin, but in every European language. Because, however, the author, a popish monk, intermingled his thoughts of purgatory, good works, penance, saints, celibacy, a recluse life, etc., in almost every chapter, the work has been justly denied a general circulation among Protestants. A pastor could scarcely lend or recommend it to his parishioners, or must express such reservations as destroyed the confidence and comfort of the reader.

To remedy this disadvantage, Dean Stanhope published a new version, avowing, not only that he translated from the Latin of Castalio, which is greatly altered from the original ; but that he had frequently departed from Castalio, abridging, altering and even changing, both language and thoughts at pleasure. Indeed, he declares that his desire was " not so much to acquaint Englishmen with what Kempis thought, as to convey those thoughts, with some degree of that sprightliness and affectionate warmth which the original composer at first felt from them." With Stanhope's edition, as might

VI PREFACE.

have been expected, the public were never satisfied, and it has been seldom printed.

With the same desire to divest this invaluable treatise of its improprieties, Wesley translated and greatly abridged it. But he not only omitted much matter as unexceptionable and valuable as that which he retained, but by dividing the whole into separate sentences or paragraphs, like proverbs, utterly destroyed the connection and beauty of the work, and of course greatly impaired the interest of the reader. Notwithstanding these serious objections, the book has been useful, and in some degree popular, particularly among Mr. Wesley's followers.

The best translation within the editor's knowledge is that of Payne, of which many editions have been printed in England and several in this country. Though not servilely literal, he is generally as exact as is consistent with good English ; and in reading his version, we enjoy the pleasure of knowing that we have not only the genuine sentiments, but the very diction of the author. Mr. Payne translated from the celebrated edition in Latin of M. Valart, at Paris ; which was formed on a laborious collation of manuscripts and old printed copies, and thus purified from more than six hundred errors. Mr. P., however, in adhering to his author has retained, of course, all his sectarian peculiarities, and in this respect lies under insurmountable disadvantages as to the utility of his book in this country.

The present edition is a reprint from Payne, collated with an ancient Latin copy ;* and is no further abridged than by omitting the exclu-

* Contained in an edition of his whol# works, published at Antwerp by Henry Sommalius, a. r>. 1600.

PREFACE. Vll

sive sentiments of a Catholic recluse, and some occasional redundances of style. The language, wherever it seemed susceptible of improvement, either as to elegance or brevity, has been modernized; and where he seemed to have missed the precise meaning, or not to have expressed the force of the original, the passages have been entirely re-written. To prevent the too frequent occurrence of breaks in the text, chapters on similar points have in some instances been conjoined. The whole revision has been performed with the most scrupulous care and diligence. The editor has retained no sentiment which it was thought could offend the most scrupulous Protestant ear ; and, on the other hand, has conscientiously avoided making the author speak sentiments not contained in the text. He felt himself at full liberty to expunge, but not authorized to add or alter.

That this book does not treat on many subjects of great importance can not be denied. On this point, we refer the reader to the just and forcible observations of Dr. Chalmers in the Introductory Essay. If it were a professed body of divinity, the omission of certain topics would be fatal. But the design is to exhibit before the Christian a " Pattern" of that holiness of life in which consists " the Imitation of Christ" Doctrinal discussions would but have extended its size, and impaired its symmetry and usefulness. The duties which the author constantly places before his reader, and we think with the happiest elucidation and persuasiveness, are, self-denial, humility, weanedness from the world, prayer, love, watchfulness, resignation, and whatever else is involved in complete conformity to Christ. The great principles on which he openly founds and urges these duties are, man's original innocence, and present depravity ; the impotence, hatefulness, and misery of the soul in its fallen state ; the necessity of regeneration by the Holy Ghost ; and the supreme obligation of

Vlll PREFACE.

believers to him who hath bought thein with his blood. So long as pure religion retains a place on earth, must such a book be admired and studied.

Several ancient Latin lives of Kempis have been perused in order to enrich the Memoir. They are extremely unsatisfactory, but have furnished a few additional facts of interest, which have been incorporated.

This edition is now presented to the Christian public in the hope that a work so universally esteemed may, in its amended form, obtain such a circulation as shall give it great and lasting utility.

KM.

Confession of Personal Infirmities, 203

CONTENTS. X1U

XLIX. Page

The Soul Seeking Repose in God, 205

L.

The Diversity of Gifts, 208

LI.

Four Steps that Lead to Peace, 211

LII.

Inspection into the Conduct of others, . . . .214

LIII.

In what True Peace and Perfection Consist, . . . 215

LIV.

Self-love the Chief Obstacle to the Attainment of the Supreme Good, 218

LV.

The Cruel Censures of Men not to be Eegarded, . . 220

LVI.

Submission to God in the Hour of Tribulation, . . . 221

LVII.

The Creator to be Found in Abstraction from Creatures, 225

LVIII.

The Renunciation of Animal Desire, 228

LIX.

The Instability of the Heart, . . . . .229

LX.

The Soul that Loves God Enjoys Him in All Things, . 231

LXI.

Against the Fear of Man, 234

LXII.

God our Refuge in Difficulties, 236

LXIII.

Man has Nothing Wherein to Glory, 236

XIV C O N T E N T 8 .

LXIV.

PAGE

Temporal Honor and Comfort, 240

LXV.

A Caution against Vain Philosophy, 243

LXVI.

Of the Professions and Censures of Men, .... 244

LXVII.

Confidence in the Righteous Judgment of God, . . . 247

LXVIII.

The Hope of Eternal Life, 250

LXIX.

The Desire and Promise of Eternal Life, . . . .254

LXX.

A Desolate Spirit Committing itself to God, . . .257

LXXI.

We must Account Ourselves rather Worthy of Affliction than Comfort, 261

LXXII. i

The Grace of God Comports not with Love of the World, 264

LXXIII.

The Different Operations of Nature and Grace, . . 265

LXXIV.

The Importance of Self-denial, 27:;

LXXV.

Against Extravagant Dejection, 275

LXXVI.

Against the Presumptuous Inquiries of Reason, . . . 277

LXXVII.

Hope and Confidence to be Placed in God alone, . . 28 i

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

"We have sometimes heard the strenuous argumentation of the author of the following Treatise in behalf of holiness excepted against, on the ground that it did not recognize sufficiently the doctrine of justification by faith. There is, in many instances, an over-sensitive alarm on this topic, which makes the writer fearful of recommending virtue, and the private disciple as fearful of embarking on the career of it — a sort of jealousy lest the honors and importance of Christ's righteousness should be invaded, by any importance being given to the personal righteousness of the believer: as if the one could not be maintained as the alone valid plea on which the sinner could lay claim to an inheritance in heaven, and at the same time the other be urged as his indispensable preparation for its exercises and its joys.

It is the partiality with which the mind fastens upon one article of truth, and will scarcely admit the others to so much as a hearing — it is the intentness of its almost exclusive regards on some separate portion of the divine testimony, and its shrinking avoidance of all the distinct and additional portions — it is, in particular, its fondness for the orthodoxy of what relates to a sinner's acceptance, carried to such a degree of favoritism, as to withdraw its attention altogether from what relates to a sinner's sanctification — it is this which, on the pretense of magnifying a most essential doctrine, has, in fact, diffused a mist over the whole field of revelation ; and which, like a mist in nature, not only shrouds the general landscape from all observation, but also bedims, while it adds to the apparent size of the few objects that continue visible. It is the same light which reveals the whole, that will render these last more brightly discernible than before ; and whether they be the prominences of spiritual truth, or of visible materialism, they are sure to be seen most distinctly in that element of purity and clearness, through the medium of which the spectator is able to recognize even the smaller features and the fainter lineaments that lie on the ground of contemplation.

It is true, that the same darkening process which buries what is remote in utter concealment, will, at least, sully and somewhat distort the nearer perspective, that is before us. But how much more certain is it, that if such be the grossness of the atmosphere as to make impalpable the trees, and the houses, and the hillocks, of our immediate vicinity — then will the distant spires, and mountains, and villages, lie buried in still deeper and more hopeless obscurity. And so it is, with revealed truth, the light of which is spread over a wide and capacious arena, reaching afar from the character of man upon earth to the counsels of God in heaven. When Christ told ISacodemus what change must take place upon the earthly subject, ere it could be prepared for the glories and felicities of the upper sanctuary, he was resisted in this announcement by the incredulity of his auditor. Upon this he came forth with the remonstrance : " If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?" And then he proceeds to tell of heavenly things — of the transactions that had taken place in the celestial judicatory above, and which behooved to take place ere the sinner could obtain a rightful entrance into the territory of the blessed and the unfallen ; of the love that God bare to the world; of the mission thereto on which He delegated His only and well-beloved Son; of the design of this embassy, and the way in which it subserved the great object of recovering sinners from their state of condemnation. These are proceedings which may properly be referred to the seat of the divine government, and to the principles which operate and have ascendency there. The doctrine of regeneration is fulfilled or verified upon the human spirit that is intimately and consciously present with us. The doctrine of the atonement, or the manner in which the reconciliation of the guilty is brought into adjustment with the holiness of God, and with what He requires for maintaining the character and the dignity of his jurisprudence, is fulfilled or verified upon the divine Spirit, whose thoughts and whose ways are inscrutable to man — He not having ascended up into heaven. And the expostulation amounts to this: If a man believe not in the doctrine of regeneration, how can he believe in the doctrine of the atonement? If he consent not to the one, he gives no real credit to the other. He may fancy it, or feign it out to his imagination, but he has no faith in it.

The Bible makes known to us both man's depravity and God's displeasure against him ; and if with the eye of our mind we see not the one truth, which lies immediately ^at hand, neither with the eye of our mind can we see the other truth, which lies in fathomless obscurity, away from us, among the recesses of that mysterious Spirit, who is eternal and unsearchable. But the Bible also makes known to us, both the renewing process by which man's depravity is done away, and the reconciling process by which God's displeasure against him is averted. If we believe not the former, neither do we believe the latter. If to our intellectual view, there be a darkness over the terrestrial operation, then is there an equal, or a more aggravated darkness, over that movement which took place in heaven, when the incense of a sweet-smelling savor ascended to the throne, and the wrath of the Lawgiver, who sitteth thereon, was turned away. And what is true of each of these doctrines, regarded abstractly, or in the general, is also true of their personal application. If we find not that a renewing process is taking effect upon us, neither ought we to figure that we have any part in the reconciling process. It is possible to conceive the latter, even while the old nature still domineers over the whole man, and its desires are indulged without remorse, or, at least, without any effective resistance. But this conception is not the faith of the mind. It is rather what the older writers would call a figment of the mind. The Apostle adverts to unfeigned faith. But surely, if a man shall overlook the near, and dwell in thought, on the unseen distance that is beyond it ; if, unmindful of any transition in his own breast from sin to sacredness, he nevertheless shall persist in the confidence of a transition from anger to complacency in the mind of the Divinity toward him ; if, without looking for a present holiness on earth, he pictures for himself a future beatitude in heaven — he resembles the man who, across the haze of nature's atmosphere, which wraps all things in obscurity, thinks to descry the realities of the ulterior space, when he has only peopled it with gratuitous imagery of his own. The faith of such a one is feigned. He believes not the earthly things which are enunciated in Scripture; and, therefore, though he should take up with the heavenly things that are enunciated there, they are taken up by the wrong faculty. To him they are not the substantial objects of perception, but the illusions of fancy.

The traveler who publishes of distant countries, that Ave have never seen, may also have included our own familiar neighborhood in his tour, and given a place in his description to its customs, and its people, and its scenery. But if his narrative of the vicinity that is known were full of misrepresentations and errors, we could have no belief in his account of the foreign domains over which he had expatiated. When we believe not what he tells us of our native shire, how can we believe when he tells us of shires or provinces abroad? And by this we may try the soundness of our faith in the divine testimony. It is a testimony which embraces the things of earth and the things of heaven; which teaches us the nature of man as originally corrupt, and requiring a power from above, that may transform it, as well as on the nature of God, as essentially averse to sin, and requiring an atonement that may reconcile and pacify it. If we believe not what is said of the nature of man, and of the doctrine of regeneration that is connected therewith, then we believe not what is said of the nature of God, and of the doctrine of redemption that is connected therewith. We may choose to overlook the former revelation, and stretch our attention onward to the latter, as that with which our fancy is most regaled, or our fears are most effectually quieted into pleasing oblivion. In this way, we may seize on the topic of imputed righteousness, by an effort of desire, or an effort of imagination ; but if the man who does so have an unseeing eye toward the topic of his own personal sanctification, he has just as little of faith toward the former article as toward the latter, whatever preference of liking or fancy he may entertain regarding it. It may play around his mind as one of its most agreeable day-dreams, but it has not laid hold of his conviction. The light that maketh the doctrine which affirms the change of God's mind toward the sinner believingly visible, would also make the doctrine which affirms the. change of the sinner's mind toward God believingly visible. . If the one be vailed from the eye of faith, the other is at least equally so. It may be imaged by the mind, but it is not perceived. It may be conceived, but it is not credited.

There is a well-known publication, called "The Traveler's Guide," which you may take as your companion to some distant land, but the accuracy of which you try upon the earlier stages of your journey. If wholly incorrect in the description which it gives of the first scenes through which you pass, you withdraw all your confidence from its representation of the future scenes; and it may even be so wide of the truth, in respect of the things that are present and visible, as should lead you to infer that you are altogether oif the road that conducts to the place after which you are aiming. The Bible is a traveler's guide — and it portrays the characters of humility, and self-denial, and virtuous discipline, and aspiring godliness, which mark the outset of the pilgrimage — and it also portrays the characters of brightness, and bliss, and glory, which mark its termination. If you do not believe that it delineates truly the path of transition in time, neither do you believe, however much you may desiderate and dwell upon the prospect, that it sketches truly the place of joyful habitation in eternity. Or, at least, you may well conclude, if you are not now on the path of holiness, that you are not on the path to heaven. And if you believe not the Scripture, when it announces a new spirit as your indispensable preparation here, there may be a dazzling and deceitful imagination, but there is no real belief of what it announces, or of what it promises, about paradise hereafter. It is thus that we would try the faith of Antinomians.

Fancy is not faith. A willful and determined adherence of the mind to some beatific vision, in which it loves to indulge, is not a believing assent of the mind to what a professed Teacher from heaven has revealed to us of the coming immortality. How can we believe, upon his authority, that we are to enter this region of purity and peace, if we believe not, on the same authority, that the road which leads to it, is a road of mortification, and of new obedience, and of strenuous conflict with the desires and urgencies of nature ? If the eye of faith, or of the understanding, be opened on some field of truth that is laid before it, it will not overlook the propinquities of this contemplation, while it only admits the objects which lie on the remoter part of the territory. It is evidence which opens this eye ; and that evidence which has failed to open it to what is near, will equally fail to open it to what is distant. But though the eye of the understanding be shut, the eye of the imagination may be open. This requires no evidence, and the man who is without faith in the realities which lie on the other side of death, may nevertheless be all awake in his fancy to those images of bliss with which he has embellished it, and may even possess his own heart with the pleasing anticipation of it as his destined inheritance. It is not upon his fancy, however, but upon his faith, that the fulfillment of this anticipation will turn — a faith which, had it been real, would have had respect unto the prescribed road, as well as unto the revealed inheritance — a faith which would have found him in holiness here, as well as in heaven hereafter. That semblance of it which the Antinomian has is a mere vagary, that may amuse or may harden him in the midst of his present worldliness, but which will be dissipated into naught at the judgmentseat, when, for the treacherous phantom which deceived him in time, a tremendous reality will be awarded to him for eternity.

We like not that writer to be violently alleged against, who expounds, and expounds truly, the amount of Christian holiness, because he says not enough, it is thought, of the warrants and securities that are provided in the Gospel for Christian hope. We think, that to shed a luminousness over one portion of the divine testimony, is to reflect, at least, if not immediately to shed, a light on all the other portions of it. The doctrine of our acceptance, by faith in the merits and propitiation of Christ, is worthy of many a treatise, and many are the precious treatises upon it which have been offered to the world. But the doctrine of regeneration, by the Spirit of Christ, equally demands the homage of a separate lucubration — which may proceed on the truth of the former, and, by the incidental recognition of it, when it comes naturally in the way of the author's attention, marks the soundness and the settlement of his mind thereupon, more decisively than by the dogmatic, and ostentatious, and often misplaced asseverations of an ultra orthodoxy. And the clearer revelation to the eye of faith of one article, will never darken or diminish, but will, in fact, throw back the light of an augmented evidence on every other article. Like any object that is made up of parts, which we have frequently looked to in their connection, and as making up a whole — the more distinctly one part of it is made manifest, the more forcibly will all the other parts of it be suggested to the mind. And thus it is, that when pressing home the necessity of one's own holiness, as his indispensable preparation for heaven, we do not dissever his mind from the atonement of Christ, but in reality do we fasten it more closely than ever on the necessity of another's righteousness, as his indispensable plea for heaven.

Such we apprehend to be the genuine influence of a Treatise that is now submitted anew to the Christian public. It certainly does not abound in formal and direct avowals of the righteousness which is by faith, and on this account we have heard it excepted against. But we know of no reading that is more powerfully calculated to shut up unto the faith — none more fitted to deepen and to strengthen the basis of a sinner's humility, and so reconcile him to the doctrine of salvation in all its parts, by grace alone — none that, by exhibiting the might and perfection of Christian attainments, can better serve the end of prostrating the inquirer into the veriest depths of self abasement, when, on the humbling comparison of what he is, with what he ought to be, he is touched and penetrated by a sense of his manifold deficiencies. It is on this account that the author of such a work may, instrumentally speaking, do the office of a 2 schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ: nor do we know at what other time it is, than when eyeing from afar the lofty track of spiritual and seraphic piety which is here delineated, that we more feel our need of the great High Priest, or that His peace-making blood and His perfect righteousness are more prized by us.

But it is not enough that we idly gaze on the heavenly course. We * must personally enter it ; and it is most utterly and experimentally untrue, that, in the prosecution of this w r alk, we meet with any thing to darken the principles on which are made to hinge a sinner's justification in the sight of God. He who looks most frequently to Christ for the purpose of imitation, will also gather most from him on which to prop his confidence, and that too on the right and evangelical basis. There is a sure link of concatenation in the processes of divine grace, by which a growing spiritual discernment is made to emerge out of a growing conformity to the will and the image of the Saviour. These two elements act and react the one upon the other. " He that keepeth my commandments, to him will I manifest myself." " He whose eye is single shall have his whole body full of light." 1 " The Holy Ghost," who acts as a revealer, " is given to those who obey him." " To him

i By singleness of eye here, is meant not a single intentuess of the mind upon one truth, but, as is evident from the context, that singleness of aim after an interest in heaven, which is not perverted or seduced from its object by the love of a present evil world.

INTKODUCTOKY ESSAY. 27

who hath, more shall be given." All proving that there is a procedure in the administration of divine grace, by which he who giveth himself up unto all righteousness is guided unto all truth.

And, it is to be hoped, that while the doctrine of justification is not argued, but rather enhanced and recommended by the perusal of such a work, its own distinct object will be still more directly subserved, of leading some to a more strict and separate devotedness of life, than is often to be met with in this professing age. The severities of Christian practice, which are here urged upon the reader, are in no way allied with the penances and the self-innictions of a monastic ritual, but are the essentials of spiritual discipline in all ages, and must be undergone by every man who is transformed by the Holy Ghost from one of the children of this world to one of the children of light. The utter renunciation of self — the surrender of all vanity — the patient endurance of evils and wrongs — the crucifixion of natural and worldly desires — the absorption of all our interests and passions in the enjoyment of God — and the subordination of all we do, and of all we feel, to his glory — these form the leading virtues of our pilgrimage, and in the very proportion of their rarity, and their painfulness, are they the more effectual tests of our regeneration. And one of the main uses of this book is, that while it enforces these spiritual graces in all their extent, it lays open the

I spiritual enjoyment that springs from the cultivation of them — revealing the hidden charm which lies in godliness, and demonstrating the sure though secret alliance which obtains between the peace of heaven in the soul, and patience under all the adversities of the path which leads to it. It exposes alike the sufferings and the delights which attach to a life of sacredness : and its wholesome tendency is to reconcile the aspirant after eternal life, to the whole burden of that cross on earth which he must learn to bear with submission and cheerfulness, until he exchanges it in heaven for a crown of glory. Such a work may be of service in these days of soft and silken professorship — to arouse those who are at ease in Zion ; to remind them of the terms of the Christian discipleship, as involving a life of conflict and watchfulness, and much labor; to make them jealous of themselves, and jealous of that evil nature, the power of which must be resisted; but from the besetting presence of which we shall not be conclusively delivered, until death shall rid us of a frame-work, the moral virus of which may be kept in check while we live, but can not be eradicated by any process short of dissolution.

Thomas Chalmers.

LIFE

THOMAS A KEMPIS.

Thomas Hamerken (Malleolus 1 ) was born in the year 1380, at Kempen or Kampen, a small but pleasant town situate in the great plain of the Khine, not far from Cologne ; and for that reason, according to the custom of the times ; he is generally called Thomas hKemjois. His parents were honest citizens, of limited fortune. Far from being ashamed of his humble origin, it rather disposed him from early youth to modesty. Like Luther, in lowliness of mind, he rejoiced in his humble rank,

1 Particulars respecting the life of Thomas are to be found in Daventria illustr. p. 60-62, but especially in the two biographies in Henry Sommalius' edition of his works, the first from the pen of Jodocus Badius Ascensius (f 1535 ; see Delprat s. 52, and the passages there cited), the second from that of a later successor of Thomas in the subpriorate of the convent upon Mount St. Agnes, by name Franciscus Tolensis. Compare besides Trithemius de Scriptorib. eccl. cap. TOT, p. 164. Andreas Bib], belg. p. 836. Foppens Bibl. belg. ii. 1135. Fabricii BibL med. iv. 215-219. Schroeckh Kirchengesch. xxxiv. 302. Erhard G-esch. cles Wiederaufbluhens i. 253. Schwarz Gesch. der Erziehung 2te Aufl. ii. 244. Delprat iiber die Stiftungen G-roots an verschiedenen Stellen, s. 13, 34, 84, 103, 126. Beil. vi. G-ieseler Kirchengesch. ii. 4, s. 34f.