The objects of faith revealed are not merely speculative, to be conceived and believed only as true, or to be gazed on in an ecstasy of wonder, but "are mysteries of godliness," that have a powerful influence upon practice. The design of God

in the publication of them, is not only to enlighten the mind, but to warm the heart and purify the affections. God discovers his nature that we may imitate him, and his works that we may glorify him. All the precepts of the gospel are to embrace Christ by a lively faith; to seek for righteousness and holiness in him; to live godly, righteously, and soberly in this present world. When our Saviour was on the earth, the end of his sermons, as appears in the gospel, was to regulate the lives of men, to correct their vicious passions, rather than to explicate the greatest mysteries. Other religions oblige their disciples either to some external actions that have no moral worth in them, so that it is impossible for any one that is guided by reason to be taken with such vanities; or they require things incommodious and burdenThe priests of Baal cut themselves. And among

some.

the Chinese, though in great reputation for wisdom, their penitents expose themselves half naked to the injuries of the sharpest weather, with a double cruelty and pleasure of the devil, who makes them freeze here, and expects they should burn for ever hereafter. It is not the most strict observance of serious trifles, nor submitting to rigorous austerities, that ennobles human nature, and commends us to God. The most zealous performers of things indifferent, and that chastise themselves with a bloody discipline, labour for nothing, and may pass to hell through purgatory. But the religion of Christ reforms the understanding and will, and all the actions depending on them. It chases away error, and vice, and hatred, and sheds abroad light and love, purity and peace; and forms on earth a lively representation of that pure society that is in heaven. The end of it is to render men like the angels in holiness, that they may be so in blessedness. This will render it amiable to all that consider it without passion. And it is worthy of observation, that although many heathens and heretics have contradicted other parts of the Christian religion, yet none have dared openly to condemn the moral part of it.

2. The effect of the gospel hath been answerable to the design. One main difference between the old and the new law is, that the old gave the knowledge of rules without

power to observe them; the new that is attended with the grace of Christ, enables us by a holy love to perform that which the other made men only to understand. Of this we have the most sensible evidence in the primitive church, that was produced by the first beams of the Sun of righteousness, and had received the first fruits of the Spirit. What is more wonderful and worthy of God, than that perfect love which made all the first believers to have one heart and one soul? What greater contempt of the world can be imagined, than the voluntary parting with all their goods, in consecrating them to God for the relief of the poor? And the churches of the Gentiles, while the blood of Christ was warm, and his actions fresh in the memories of men, were exemplary in holiness. They were "as stars shining in a perverse generation." There was such a brightness in their conversations, that it pierced through the darkness of paganism, and made a visible difference between them and all others. Their words and actions were so full of zeal for the glory of God, of chastity, temperance, justice, charity, that the heathens from the holiness of their lives concluded the holiness of their law, and that the doctrine that produced such fruits could not be evil. The first light that discovered the truth of the Christian faith to many, was from the graces and virtues that appeared in the faithful. The purity of their lives, their courage in death, were as powerful to convert the world, as their sermons, disputations, and miracles. And those who were under such strong prejudices that they would not examine the doctrine of the gospel, yet they could not but admire the integrity and innocency that was visible in the conversation of Christians. They esteemed their persons from the good qualities that were visible in them, when they hated the Christian name for the concealed evil they unreasonably suspected to be under it. This Tertullian excellently represents in his apology: "The most part are so prejudiced against the name, and are possessed of such a blind hatred to it, that they make it a matter of reproach even to those whom they otherwise esteemed. 'Caius,' they say, 'is a good man; he hath no fault, but that he is a Christian."" Thus the excellent holiness of the professors of the gospel forced a veneration from their enemies. we are fallen from heaven, and mixed with the dust. conversation hath nothing singular in holiness to distinguish us from the world. The same corrupt passions reign in

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Our

professors of Christianity, as in those who are strangers from the sacred covenant. If we compare ourselves with the primitive church, we must confess our unworthiness to be called their successors. Sixteen hundred years are run out since the Son of God came down to sanctify and save the world, which are so many degrees, whereby we are descended from the first perfection. We are more distant from them in holiness than in time. So universal and great is the corruption, that it is almost as difficult to revive the dying faith of Christians, and to reform their lives according to the purity of their profession, as the conversion of the world was from heathenism to Christianity.

It is true, in every age there are some examples of the virtue of the gospel, that reflect an honour upon it. And this last age, which we may call the winter of the world, in which the holy spirit hath foretold, "that the love of many shall grow cold," by a marvellous antiperistasis, hath inflamed the hearts of some excellent saints towards God and religion. But the great number of the wicked and the progress of sin in their lives, there is no measure of tears sufficient to lament.

It remains for me to press Christians to walk "as becometh the gospel of Christ, answerably to the holiness and purity of that divine institution, and to those great and strict obligations it lays upon us. The gospel requires an entire holiness in all our faculties, an equal respect to all our duties: we are commanded to cleanse ourselves from all pollutions of flesh and spirit, to be "holy in all manner of conversation." We are enjoined to be "perfecting holiness in the fear of God;" to be holy, "as he that hath called us is holy." A certain measure of faith, and love, and obedience, a mediocrity in virtue, we must not content ourselves with. It is not a counsel of perfection given to some Christians only of a peculiar order and elevation; but the command of a law that without exception binds all. Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,” Matt. v. 48. The gospel gives no dispensation to any person, nor in any duty. The doctrine that asserts there are some excellent works to which the lower sort of Christians is not obliged, is equally pernicious, both to those who do them by presumption, as if they were not due, and were therefore meritorious; and to those who neglect them, by a blind security, as if they might be saved without striving to reach the high

est degree of obedience. It is a weak pretence, that because the consummate measure of sanctification can be attained only in the next life, therefore we should not endeavour after it here; for by sincere and constant endeavours we make nearer approaches to it; and according to the degrees of our progress such are those of our joy. As nature hath prescribed to all heavy bodies their going to the centre, and although none come to it, and many are at a great distance from it, yet the ordination of nature is not in vain; because by virtue of it every heavy body is always tending thither in motion or inclination: so although we cannot reach to complete holiness in this imperfect state, yet it is not in vain that the gospel prescribes it, and infuses into Christians those dispositions whereby they are gradually carried to the full accomplishment of it. Not to arrive to perfection is the weakness of the flesh, not to aspire after it is the fault of the spirit.

To excite us, it will be of moment to consider the great obligations that the gospel lays upon Christians to be holy, 1 John iii. 1. By that covenant the holy God is pleased to take them into the relation of his children. And as the nature of sanctification, so the motives of it are contained in that title; for so near an alliance obliges them to a faithful observation of his commands, and to imitate him with the greatest care, that the vein of his Spirit, and the marks of his blood may appear in all their actions. "Whosoever is born of God, doth not commit sin," 1 John iii. 9. The allowed practice of it is inconsistent with the quality of a son of God; it is contrary to the grace of his divine birth. Nay, the omission of good, as well as the commission of evil, is inconsistent with that relation. It is for this reason, that holiness is so much the character of a true Christian, that to be a Christian and a saint are the same thing in the writings of the apostles. The venerable title obliges him to a higher practice of virtue, than ever the pagans imagined. He is far behind them, if he do not surpass them; and if he is surpassed by them, he will be clothed with shame. Besides, our Redeemer who hath a right to us by so many titles, by his divine and human nature, by his life and death, by his glory and sufferings, as he strictly commands us to be holy, so he hath joined example to his authority, that we may walk as he walked, and be as he was in the world. St. Paul makes use of this consideration, to restrain the disciples of Christ

from all sin, and to persuade them to universal holiness. After he had mentioned the disorders of the Gentiles, to deter the Ephesians from the like, he tells them, “But ye have not so learned Christ ;" that is, his rule and practice instructed them otherwise. And when he commands the Romans to "walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying;" he opposes to all these vices the pattern that Christ set before us: "But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ," Rom. xiii. 13, 14. The expression intimates the duty, that as the garment is commensurate to the body, so we are to imitate all the parts of his holy conversation.

It is no wonder that the heathens gratified the inclinations of lust or rage, when their gods were represented acting in such a manner as to authorise their vices. "Semina penè omnium scelerum, a diis suis peccantium turba collegit,” as Julius Firmicus justly reproaches them. There was no villany how notorious soever, but had some deity for its protector. They found in heaven a justification of all their crimes, and became vicious by imitation. For it is very congruous for men to follow those whom they esteem to be perfect, and to whom they think themselves accountable. If they attribute to their supreme God, the Judge of the world, vices as virtues, what virtues will there be to reward, or vices to punish, in men? But for those that name the name of Christ to continue in iniquity, is the most unbecoming thing in the world; for they live in the perfect contradiction of their profession. An unholy Christian is a real apostate from Christ, that retracts by his wickedness the dedication that was made of him in his baptism. Although he doth not abjure our Saviour in words, he denies him in his works. A proud person renounces his humility, the revengeful his mercy, the lukewarm his zeal, the unclean his purity, the covetous his bounty and compassion, the hypocrite his sincerity. And can there be any thing more indecent and absurd, than to pretend the relation and respect of disciples to such a holy Master, and yet by disobedience to deny him? 'When the bloody spectacles of the gladiators were first brought to Athens, a wise man cried out to the masters of the prizes, that they should remove the statue and altar of mercy out of the city, there being such an incongruity between the goddess they pretended to worship, and that cruel sacrifice of men for the sport of the people. It were more