But a believer, who has, like Paul, an assured hope, is free from these harassing distractions. He does not vex his soul with doubts about his own pardon and acceptance. He looks at the everlasting covenant sealed with blood, at the finished work, and never-broken word of his Lord and Saviour, and therefore counts his salvation a settled thing. And thus he is able to give an undivided attention to the work of the Lord, and so in the long run to do more.
Take, for an illustration of this, two English emigrants, and suppose them set down side by side in New Zealand or Australia. Give each of them a piece of land to clear and cultivate. Let the portions allotted to them be the same both in quantity and quality. Secure that land to them by every needful legal instrument; let it be conveyed as freehold to them and theirs for ever; let the conveyance be publicly registered, and the property made sure to them by every deed and security that man's ingenuity can devise.
Suppose then that one of them shall set to work to clear his land and bring it into cultivation, and labour at it day after day without intermission or cessation.
Suppose in the meanwhile that the other shall be continually leaving his work, and going repeatedly to the public registry to ask whether the land really is his own-whether there is not some mistake whether after all there is not some flaw in the legal instru ments which conveyed it to him.
The one shall never doubt his title, but just work diligently The other shall hardly ever feel sure of his title, and spend half on. his time in going to Sydney or Melbourne or Auckland, with need less inquiries about it.
Which now of these two men will have made most progress in a year's time? Who will have done the most for his land, got the greatest breadth of soil under tillage, have the best show, be altogether the most prosperous?
Any one of common sense can answer that question. I need not supply an answer. There can only be one reply.
Undivided attention will always attain the greatest success.
J. C Ryle
Holiness
Page 114