Gospel Conversation

Only let your conversation be as becometh the gospel of Christ (Phil 1:27).

In this same chapter, at Philippians 1:23, we find the apostle hard pressed about what to do, whether to be willing to live or to die. His own inclination and desire was rather to die, because then he would be with Christ, which was best of all. This is a notable Scripture to prove the immortality of the soul. For if the soul died with the body, it could not have been better for Paul to be dead than to live. It would have been better for Paul to live even to the day of judgment than to die, and so become nothing and be turned into dust. But he says that when he died he would “be with Christ,” which was better for him. What swayed him on the other side, and made him willing to live, was this: that he might be useful to the churches. “Nevertheless, it is better for you that I should abide in the flesh” (Phil 1:24).

Service to the churches is the great cause that makes one who has made his peace with God willing to live. What makes him willing to live is not that he may live at ease and enjoy pleasures for the flesh, but that he may live and do service for God. Then he tells them he is confident that he will continue with them a while for the furtherance of their faith, and that by his coming to them their rejoicing will be more abundant (Phil 1:25-26). But in the meantime, whether he comes to them or not, “Only let your conversation be as becometh the gospel of Christ.” It is as if he said, “I will live the more willingly, and my life will be the more comforting to me. It will somewhat make up for my absence from heaven, for my being kept from its joys, if your conduct is as becomes the gospel of Jesus Christ: if, while I am absent, I may hear of you, or when I come to you I may see, that your conduct is as becomes the gospel of Jesus Christ.” This is how the words depend on what goes before.

Now to open the words.

“Only.” “Only let your conversation.” It is as if he said, “Do not be anxious about me and my sufferings, about what will become of me, and whether I will come to you or not. Do not be so concerned about that. Only let your care be taken up with this great business, that your conduct be as becomes the gospel of Christ. For this would be the main thing I would aim at if I came to you. This is what I would press you to and give you directions about, that your conduct be as becomes the gospel of Jesus Christ. And if I am absent, there is nothing I desire more to hear of than this: that you who have received the gospel of Christ from my hands, as it were, through my ministry, live in a way that becomes the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Brothers and sisters, if we had Paul here present with us, or preaching among us, or if he were alive and could write a letter to this congregation or any other congregation, the main drift of his preaching or writing to those who had already received the gospel would be this: that they make it their great care that their conduct be as becomes the gospel of Christ.

“Let your conversation.” The word used here is taken from the ordering of a city or a commonwealth, in which everyone acts in their own sphere and is serviceable to one another for the public good. So, he says, the church of God is like a city, like a commonwealth, in which every Christian is to act in his own sphere, and each is to labor for the good of the others in a fitting order. In this way there may be not only peace in the churches but the edification of all, and the gospel may thrive and prosper. That is the meaning of the word translated here “let your conversation.” It is as if he said, “Do not think it enough that you have some enlightening, that you have some stirrings, that some of your affections are moved by the ministry of the gospel. Do not rest there, but look to your conduct.”

It is not enough for Christians to have knowledge, to be able to speak of the gospel, and to have some stirrings of affection. They must look to their conduct. “Let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ.” To open these words, two things are to be considered.

First, what is this “gospel of Christ” that is spoken of here?

Second, what is it to live in a way that becomes the gospel of Christ? “Let your conversation be as becometh the gospel of Christ.”

The gospel of Christ, in general, is this: the good tidings that God has revealed concerning Christ. This has come to your ears: the good tidings concerning Christ. For the word gospel (the Greek word) signifies nothing else but good tidings: the good tidings that come from heaven to you concerning Jesus Christ. That is the gospel of Christ.

More fully, it is this. All mankind was lost in Adam and became children of wrath, put under the sentence of death. Though God left the fallen angels and has reserved them in chains of eternal darkness, yet he has thought upon the children of men and has provided a way of atonement to reconcile them to himself again. That is, the second Person of the Trinity takes man’s nature upon himself and becomes the Head of a second covenant. He stands charged with man’s sin, to answer for it by suffering what the law and divine justice required, making satisfaction and keeping the law perfectly. This satisfaction and righteousness he presents to the Father as a sweet aroma of rest for the souls of those who are given to him.

And now, by the appointment of the Father, this mediation of Christ is preached to the children of men, of whatever nation or rank. It is freely offered to sinners as an atonement for them. It requires them to believe in him, and upon their believing it promises not only a discharge of all their former sins, but that they will never come into condemnation; that none of their sins or unworthiness will ever hinder God’s peace with them; that through him they will be received into the number of sons; that they will have the image of God renewed in them again; that they will be “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation” (1 Pet 1:5); that these souls and bodies will be raised to the height of glory that such creatures are capable of; and that they will live forever, enjoying the presence of God and of Christ in the fullness of all good. This is the gospel of Christ. This is the sum of the gospel that is preached to sinners.

When you hear the gospel spoken of, let your thoughts turn to this: these glad tidings that have come into the world for the salvation of sinful creatures through Jesus Christ, and all the good things that Jesus Christ has purchased for sinners by his blood. When ministers are called ministers of the gospel, the meaning is that God has appointed them as ministers to declare and preach these glad tidings to the world. Oh, it is glad tidings indeed to the world! If such glad tidings could be preached at the gates of hell, that there was any such way for those there to be reconciled to God, we cannot but think there would be joy there. They would count it welcome news indeed.

Now then, those who believe this gospel, or who profess that they have received this gospel, these glad tidings, must be careful to walk in their conduct as becomes this gospel, as becomes such glorious glad tidings as are sent to them from heaven.

“As becomes.” The word means “worthy of the gospel.” What your Bibles translate “becometh” means “worthy of the gospel.” But this cannot mean that our conduct should be such as to deserve all the good there is in the gospel. No; “worthy” here means the same as befitting the gospel, fit for the gospel, or, as your Bibles translate it, “becoming” the gospel. It is as when he that “eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks his own damnation” (1 Cor 11:29). Can anyone eat and drink in such a way as to be worthy of the body and blood of Christ? No. But the one who eats and drinks unworthily carries himself in that ordinance of the sacrament in a way that does not befit the body and blood of Christ that he comes to receive. On the other side, those who eat and drink so as to sanctify God’s name in that ordinance (as you have heard) do it worthily. For it is the same word here, “worthy of the gospel of Christ.”

So John says to those who came to him, “Bring forth fruit worthy of repentance” (Luke 3:8); that is, fruit fit for repentance, such fruit as may show your repentance, fruit suitable for men or women who profess repentance for their sins. Further, I find that the word translated here “becoming” is translated in another place in the sense of “convenient” and “meet,” that is, fitting and proper, and can be understood in no other sense. So in 1 Corinthians 16:4: “If it be meet that I shall go also.” The word translated “meet” there is in the Greek “worthy,” the same word that we have translated here “becoming.” If it is a fitting thing, a proper or suitable thing, then I will go. So it is clear that the word we have here means fitting, proper, suitable, or becoming the gospel: let your conduct be such as is fit for, or becoming, the gospel.

But you will ask, “What conduct is it that is fit for, or becoming, the gospel?”

To that I answer:

1. It is conduct raised to a higher degree than the light of nature or the law can raise anyone to. It must certainly be that. It is not conduct becoming the gospel unless it is raised higher than the light of nature or the law can raise anyone; otherwise it does not become the gospel.

2. It is conduct suitable and answerable to the many blessed and glorious truths revealed in the gospel. Much of the mind of God is revealed in the gospel; glorious truths are presented to us there. Conduct that is suitable and answerable to these blessed and glorious truths revealed in the gospel is conduct becoming the gospel.

3. It is conduct that shows the power of the gospel.

4. It is conduct suitable to all the ordinances of the gospel, agreeable to whatever there is in any ordinance of the gospel.

5. And then, it is conduct that holds forth the beauty, excellence, and glory of the gospel before those among whom we live. Here is conduct becoming the gospel. Christians profess that the Lord has revealed the gospel to them and that in some measure they have been brought to believe the gospel. Now when such a person’s conduct goes beyond anything a man can attain by the light of nature, beyond anything the law can raise a man to; when it is answerable to the many blessed and glorious truths revealed in the gospel; when it shows the power of the gospel in him; when it is answerable to the blessed ordinances he enjoys in the gospel; and when his life and conduct hold forth the beauty, excellence, and glory of the gospel before the world: here is conduct becoming the gospel. And this is what the apostle exhorts to here: “Only let your conversation be such, as becomes the gospel of Christ.” So you have had the words opened.

Now for the points of doctrine in the words. There are only these two, and the first only makes way for the second.

Doctrine 1. The first is this: those who profess the gospel must take great care of their conduct.

Doctrine 2. Their conduct must be such as becomes, as befits, the gospel.

These are the two main points in the text. This morning I will only make way for the second point, which is the great point in the text.

First, then: Christians who profess the gospel must take great care of their conduct and look to it. They must not satisfy themselves with what is inward, in their minds or in their affections, but must look to their conduct. You think, or at least hope, that conversion has been worked in you through the gospel. After the Lord has worked conversion, he expects you to be careful of your conduct before men. You have knowledge; you can speak well; you have felt some stirrings of heart in hearing the Word and the preaching of the gospel. But now look to your conduct, and know that a bond is laid on you, more than ever before, to look to your conduct.

See the apostle’s exhortation in James 3:13: “Who is a wise man, and endued with knowledge among you?” Mark this: “let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.” It is a very sweet and excellent Scripture. “Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you?” What should he do? “Let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.” Here is wise, and knowledge, and wisdom again. If you want to show that God has worked any true saving knowledge in you, any wisdom to save your souls, then know that God requires you to show your good conduct, and to do it with meekness and wisdom. You must take care of your conduct, both with respect to men and with respect to God.

With respect to men: “Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles” (1 Pet 2:12). (We will speak to the latter part of that verse shortly.) So Christians must look to their conduct with respect to men.

And then with respect to God: “But as he who hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation” (1 Pet 1:15). There you have “honest conversation,” and in this Scripture, “holy in all manner of conversation.” So you are to have regard to your conduct both with respect to men and with respect to God, and on these grounds.

1. To begin in general, and first with regard to God more generally: take care of your conduct, that God may be honored by it. Oh, you who have ever heard from God the glorious glad tidings of salvation in the gospel, is it not in your hearts to do what you can to honor him? Then let your conduct be such. Take care of your conduct, that God may be honored. The name of God will be blasphemed unless you take care of your conduct. In Matthew 5:16: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” It is as if Christ said, “What, has God brought the light of the gospel to you? Has it shone into your hearts? Has he revealed to you those glorious mysteries of salvation in himself? Oh, then let this light break out and shine in your conduct before men, so that others, seeing your good works, may glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

Some men and women are ready to say, “What do we care what others observe in us, so long as God knows our hearts?” Ah, but that is not enough, even if it could be that you had good hearts toward God without good conduct. But we will see that there cannot be any such thing. And it is required of you that your works shine out before men, “that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

It is one thing to do a good work that may be seen, and another thing to do a good work so that it may be seen. To do a good work that may be seen is lawful, though we should not do our works chiefly aiming that they may be seen. Our works should be such that by their own nature they may be seen, but we must not make it our main end that they be seen. We should aim not so much that they may be seen, but that, being seen, men may glorify our Father who is in heaven, and so God may be honored. Now God is honored by the conduct of his saints in many ways, and therefore they should be very careful of their conduct.

(1) The people of God, the saints, believers, are the great witnesses God has in the world, to witness for him against the corruptions of the world. If you are not careful of your conduct, God will lose witnesses to his truth. Now a witness is not something kept within. A man cannot be a witness by keeping things within his own thoughts and heart; he must show something in order to witness. The Lord uses the lives of his saints to be his witnesses in the world, to stand and witness for his truth. Others, when the gospel is preached, will think it is only a mere notion or imagination, and that there is no reality in what is preached. “No,” says God, “look here at the conduct of these who have believed the gospel. Do you not see that they witness that there is a reality in the things of the gospel? Look what a change my gospel has made in their lives and conduct. Those who were proud before, how humble they are! Those who were contrary before, how meek they are!” and the like. “These are my witnesses.” Many Scriptures might be given, especially Revelation 11:3, where the saints in general are called witnesses. That is the first thing: you are to look to your conduct, so that you may be God’s witnesses.

(2) That you may hold forth the image of God in the world. The image in which God made man at first was lost by man’s sin, but now through the gospel it comes to be renewed. God delights to have his image held forth in the world, so that men may see something of the glory of his image. But how can the world see the image of God? They cannot see it in your hearts, yet God would have it conspicuous. Therefore take care of your conduct, so that in your conduct you may hold forth the image of God in the world. It is much to the glory of God to have his image held forth in the world. Think of men who would honor their parents and other dear friends. If they have a finely made portrait of them, when their likeness is drawn, they will not let it be abused and soiled, but will keep it fair. A man who has a portrait of his father or of a dear friend will not hang it in a smoky hole behind a chimney or a door, but in some prominent place. So we should hold forth the image of God conspicuously; it should appear in our lives and conduct.

(3) By your conduct God may be honored, for you will further the great designs God has in the world. The holy and gracious lives of the saints serve to further the great designs that God has to accomplish in the world.

(4) Your lives may serve to make up for the great dishonor God receives from others. The Lord receives abundant dishonor from most people in the world. But there are some whom God calls out of the world, and he gives them his grace to this end, that some of the great dishonor he receives in the world from others might be made up. Those who are careful of their conduct, who walk exactly and closely with God, are (I say) used by God to make up in some part for the great dishonor God has in the world. What honor would God have in the world if it were not for the holy and gracious conduct of some of his saints? Therefore you who profess the gospel, look to your conduct, that God may be honored by you.

2. Take care of your conduct, and look to it, with respect to the wicked among whom you live.

(1) That you may convince the evil and ungodly men among whom you live in the world. “Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles, that whereas they speak against you as evil doers, they may by your good works which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation” (1 Pet 2:12). This also confirms what was said before, about the glory of God and the conviction of wicked men: “that they beholding” may glorify God in the day of visitation.

There are many interpretations of this place, “in the day of visitation.” Some take it as the day when God will visit them. Though they rail against you now, yet when God visits them, perhaps by his stroke on them in sickness, then they will acknowledge you to be righteous and holy men and wish their condition were like yours. Or the day of visitation may be when God visits their spirits to turn them. Or (as some think) it is the day of Jesus Christ. But I find others, looking narrowly into the words, render it “in the day of overseeing.” The word is the one from which our word bishop comes, which means an overseer, and this word visitation signifies nothing else but an overseeing. It is as if God said, “Walk honestly and holily before the world. Perhaps they will cloud your glory; one will say this and another that. But go on in a constant way and course. There will be a time when all things will be overseen, when all things will be examined and narrowly searched into. And when that day comes, wicked men will be convinced and forced to give glory to God, and they will say that whatever slanders were cast on you, you were certainly the servants of the living God,” in the day of inspection, of overseeing. Therefore be careful of your conduct with respect to wicked men, to convince them.

(2) With respect to wicked men, to stop their mouths, their malice, violence, and rage. “For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men” (1 Pet 2:15). The word translated “put to silence” means to put a bridle, as it were, into their mouths, or to stop their mouths. You may even stop their mouths by your holy conduct. Oh, Christians, look to your conduct, so that by it you may stop the mouths of wicked and ungodly men, and they may not be able to say anything against your holy conduct. So in 1 Peter 3:16: “Having a good conscience, that whereas they speak evil of you as of evil doers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.”

(3) Yes, by your good conduct you may be a means to convert other men, to bring wicked men to love the ways of God. In 1 Peter 3:1-2 the exhortation is directed to wives who had wicked husbands: “Likewise ye wives be in subjection to your own husbands, that if they obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives, while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.” Mark how the apostle urges wives to look to their conduct, so that they may be a means to win their husbands. I am fully persuaded that there are many gracious women who would give a thousand worlds (if they had them) to win their husbands to those ways of godliness in which they have found so much sweetness. But perhaps they cannot get them to come and hear the Word; and if they do, their hearts rise against it, or perhaps they pay it little regard. But by your conduct you may do what the Word will not do: you may be the ones who convert them. And in this sense, indeed, there may be women preachers: that is, preaching in their lives and conduct. That is all the preaching the Holy Spirit allows women. Let them preach that way, in their lives and conduct in their families, and preach a sermon every day, and neither God nor man will find fault with any such thing. This is the way for them to do great service for God; and so likewise husbands should do the same to convert their wives. You complain of one another, but do you labor to convince and convert one another by your holy lives? I am confident that there are many who can say this from experience: “The Lord struck my heart and conscience as I saw the holy life of my wife since she began going to hear the Word. Seeing the wisdom, humility, obedience, and behavior of my wife struck my heart.” Many have given glory to God and acknowledged this, both wives won by their husbands and husbands won by their wives. And sometimes, when the parent sees it in the child, or the child in the parent, or brother in brother, or one servant in another, it has been a means to turn them to God.

In the last place, if they are not turned to God, then your conduct will serve to condemn them, to aggravate their sin and their condemnation in the day of Jesus Christ. As it is said of Noah in Hebrews 11:7, Noah “prepared an ark, by the which he condemned the world.” He condemned the world by that course of his, in believing in God and in making the ark. Every nail he drove into the ark was, as it were, a condemnation of the world. And so the saints, by walking in their holy lives, will be the judges and condemners of the world. Therefore you are to be careful of your conduct with respect to wicked people.

3. Also, with respect to the saints, we must be very careful of our conduct.

(1) For by your conduct you will rejoice the hearts of the saints. Oh, when those who are godly see others who profess godliness walking in a strict and holy way, how it rejoices their hearts! It is the comfort of their lives.

(2) Besides, they bless God for it. They not only rejoice in it, but bless God for it. When they get alone in secret, they are blessing God for the gracious, holy, and convincing lives of such and such people whom they keep company with.

(3) And by this means the saints have boldness before others. They can lift up their heads wherever they go when they know that all who profess religion in the places where they live walk blamelessly. Because of that, godly people can hold up their heads with boldness. Otherwise it makes those who profess religion ashamed, when they see and hear of such and such who profess religion walking scandalously and loosely. But we will speak of them presently.

(4) Further, your holy life will establish the hearts of the saints. It will settle young beginners. There are many who are giving up their names to Christ, and when they see the holy and gracious lives of those who have professed religion for many years, oh, how they are established in the ways of godliness!

(5) And it will edify the saints. They will be built up and grow in holiness. They will imitate you, and will find the graces of God in them not only strengthened but increased by your conduct. Oh, the abundance of good that you may do! And therefore, Christians, take care of your conduct.

4. Then, with respect to yourselves.

(1) By this means you will have evidence to your souls of the truth of grace in your hearts, which you cannot have if your conduct is not right. Mark what the apostle says in 1 John 1:6: “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.” And again, you have a notable Scripture in 1 John 3:7: “Little children, let no man deceive you; he that doth righteousness, is righteous, even as he is righteous.”

It is as if he were saying: There is a company of deceivers in the world, and they think it is enough to talk of righteousness. They say they believe in Jesus Christ, and that faith is the only thing required of them. “As for the rest,” they say, “that is merely a legal thing. For people to make conscience of duties and of their lives is merely legalism. Let them trust in Jesus Christ; Christ has done all. What, can we be saved by our lives? Has not Christ done all? Is there not righteousness in him?” “Let no man deceive you,” says the apostle. If there is no doing of righteousness, there is no righteousness in you: “He that doth righteousness is righteous.” You have nothing to do with the righteousness of Christ as your own, applied to you, unless you do righteousness. Therefore take care of your conduct, so that you may have evidence to your souls of the truth that is in your hearts.

(2) Take care of your conduct so that you may continue and increase what is within you. Certainly those who profess religion and do not take care of their conduct will never continue in their profession; mark that. They may be comets for a while, blazing stars, but they will vanish, and within a little while you will find that their profession wears away. Where there is not a godly life together with profession, profession will vanish and come to nothing. Even their common graces will be taken away from them if they do not take care of their lives. But if they take care of their lives, they will continue in the ways of godliness and grow up and increase more and more.

(3) Take care of your conduct so that you may gain honor in the very consciences of others.

Question. Some will say, “Should we take care of our conduct in order to gain honor?”

Answer. Yes, truly. A person may desire to have the testimony of the consciences of those they live with. It does not matter what they say about this or that; but God gives you liberty to seek to win a place in their consciences.

(4) By this means you will be instruments of a great deal of public good, if you live according to your profession. Otherwise nobody will regard you. You are refuse; no one will employ you; you will be despised and slighted. But when people see that someone’s conduct agrees with their profession, everybody loves to make use of them. They know they will find such people faithful in whatever they are employed in, and so they come to be instruments of much public good.

(5) You will be preparing a joyful account for the great day. For you must be called to account not only for your thoughts and the inward workings of your hearts, but for whatever you have done in the flesh. We must appear before the judgment seat of Christ to answer for whatever is done in the flesh. Oh, be careful of your conduct, so that you may be able to give a comfortable account.

(6) Last, be careful of your conduct with respect to your profession. This should be the care of those who profess religion: that we may keep up the succession of the honor of religion from one generation to another. In former times there were godly people who lived and kept up, in their generation, the honor of the profession of religion. Well, now we are on the stage of the world, and God looks to us to keep up, in our generation, the succession of the honor of the profession of religion. And so afterward, in another generation, as people come onto the stage of the world and live here, God expects succeeding ages to keep up the honor of the profession of religion in their times.

And this one consideration might go to the very heart of ungodly people, if they would mind it: it may be that you are the man or woman, among others, who keeps up a continual succession of enmity against God in the world. Just consider the difference between these two: one person’s life is wicked, and another’s is holy and gracious. You who live wickedly, this evil is charged upon you: you are the one who joins in this work of keeping up a continued succession of enmity against God in the world. Ever since Cain’s time there has been enmity against God, and Cain’s posterity kept up the succession of it. And so from one generation to another there have been wicked people keeping up the succession of enmity against God, and now in your generation you have come to it, and this, it seems, is your work.

But now on the other side, ever since the time of Adam and Abel there have been godly people in the world, and in every generation some have kept up the honor of profession. And now, has God been pleased to reveal his glorious gospel to your soul? Why, then, as you are careful of your life and conduct, God employs you in this work of keeping up the succession of the honor of profession in the world. And this is a comfortable life indeed.

And so we have finished the explanation of the point.

Now I will only give you some passages for the application of it.

Application

“Only,” says the apostle, “let your conversation be as becomes the gospel of Christ” (Phil 1:27). Take care of this above all things. Oh, you would gladly get more knowledge, and be thought somebody in the place where you live, and be an eminent professing Christian there. Well, whatever you would gladly be thought, let it be your only care that your conduct is as becomes the gospel of Christ. Oh, this point speaks bitter things, and sharply rebukes the carelessness of those who profess the gospel in the matter of their conduct.

O Lord, what cause we have to bewail the looseness of those who profess the gospel at this day! And I fear that some may be present whose consciences may tell them that they are very loose in their conduct. You profess that you know Jesus Christ, that the Lord has made known the glorious mysteries of the gospel to you. What is your life? Can you say, as in the presence of God, that your conduct answers to it? I beg you, as in the presence of God, just examine this. See whether you are able to say:

“Lord, you know that, according to the light you have given me in the gospel, it has been my care to look to my conduct. Oh, that I might live to your honor and be a witness to your truth; that I might hold forth your image, and further your designs, and make up the dishonor you receive from others in the world; that I might convince wicked people and stop the mouths of those who are opposed; and that I might be a means to convert those I live with, or otherwise to judge them. Oh, that I might rejoice the hearts of the saints, that they might lift up their heads with boldness because of me, and that they, and so I too, might be established and edified!”

Go along through the rest of the heads. Can your conscience tell you that you have done so? No, but it is quite the contrary in some.

The Lord now speaks to the consciences of those whom this point concerns, who have been negligent in their conduct. You are the man or woman from whom God receives as great dishonor as from most in the world. Yes, certainly, there are no people on the face of the earth who darken the glory of the blessed God so much as those who profess religion and live loosely. All the profane, all your drunkards who reel up and down the streets, and your blasphemers, yes, name whatever sinners you will: there are none who darken the glory of God as much as you do, who are loose in your conduct and yet profess the gospel. You throw dirt upon the blessed image of God. You hinder the design God has in the world as much as anyone whatsoever. You stand against the great works God has to do in the world. Oh, wretch that you are! Is this a time to be loose and wicked in?

There was never a time when the conduct of those who profess religion was so pried into as now, and never a time since the Christian religion was professed on the earth when the loose conduct of professing Christians has done more harm. And I truly believe there was never a time when there were more loose professing Christians. If our forefathers who were godly and holy, and kept strict with God, were alive again now, they would spit in the faces of many who think themselves eminent professors of religion, because of the looseness of their conduct. And this is the worst of it: they can lay it all upon Christ and the doctrine of Christ. But we will speak more of that when we come to show how our conduct must be as becomes the gospel of Christ. Certainly such looseness is quite opposite to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Lord rebuke you this day, and let this point be as a dart in your liver! You are the one who lives in this generation as if you were born to do mischief. No people live so much as if they were born to do mischief as those who profess the gospel and live loosely. If I were to give the mark of a person born on purpose to do mischief, it is the one who lives in these times and walks loosely. What, do you convince wicked people and stop their mouths? Oh no, you harden them and open their mouths. Indeed, all the scorn cast on religion is charged to you, and you will be brought to account for it.

I say that those who live loosely will one day be charged with all the scorn that is cast upon the profession of religion, and with all the opposition to it, and all the persecution of it, and all the dishonor of it. It is because of you. You harden the hearts of wicked people, so that they think they do God good service in pursuing and persecuting such and such people who are so forward in religion, for they think they are all like you. What do they care for people’s talk and profession when they see your conduct loose and wicked? Therefore they are hardened by you.

And the saints fare the worse for you. They are ashamed of it when they go into the streets and meet some of their acquaintances, who say to them, “Oh, don’t you know so-and-so, what he did in his house such a week, how false he was, and how he played the knave? What! One who would go out in the morning to hear the Word, and rise early in the wintertime, and take so much trouble, and yet do such and such things!” It casts a mighty scorn upon all who profess religion, and upon the ministers of the gospel and the ways of the gospel. All of it, I say, is scorned and despised, and people are hardened against it, merely because of your conduct.

And it may be that some who were coming on had begun to think that the profession of religion was the way to heaven, and that they should be stricter than they were, and inquire after the ways of God more than before, and attend upon the ministry of the Word. But since they heard of such a miscarriage, such looseness in such a person’s conduct, their hearts rise against it, and they pray to be kept from such a way. “God keep me from such ways!” they say. “If this is the fruit of their profession and of their talk of religion, to do this and that!” So you prove to be a stumbling block that others stumble at and perish by. And do you think that, while they stumble and perish at your sins, you will go scot-free? Can you think that you, who are a means of sending so many to hell, will not go there yourself? Certainly there are no people in the world who are the cause of sending so many to hell as those who live loosely in their conduct while they profess religion.

Can you have any evidence to your soul that there is any work of grace in you, and yet live loosely? Oh, Christ and his gospel will scorn such as you are, such wicked, loose ones. You are a dishonor to Jesus Christ and a dishonor to the gospel. I may say of you who do this what was said of Judas, that it would have been happy for you if you had never been born (Matt 26:24), and especially to be born in these times. But we will meet with these things again when we come to the particulars of how we should walk as becomes the gospel. This is only in general, for those who are loose in their conduct.

For this must certainly be granted as an everlasting rule: the man or woman who does not make conscience of everything in their conduct makes conscience of nothing. Suppose there are any who, upon deliberation, knowing this or that to be sin beforehand, will still sin for self-serving and base ends, to get money or the like, and so think to gain something or free themselves from some trouble by going against their light, and that upon deliberation. Let that man or woman know that they can have no evidence that they ever made conscience of any one thing. Whoever breaks one commandment breaks all (Jas 2:10). There is such a bond in the commandments, and conscience knits the bond so uniformly, that where one bond is broken in this way, the truth is that all is broken. Saint James says, O vain man, do you not know? Why do you talk of faith if there are no works? You are a vain man, and you deceive yourself (Jas 2:20).

Certainly, unless God humbles them and brings down their hearts, those who are loose in their conduct will in time grow not only to lose their profession, as I said, but to be enemies of those who are stricter than themselves. That is, when people have corrupt hearts and cannot rise to that height of strictness that others reach, they fall to persecuting the way that is above them.

First, they begin to envy others who live better than themselves. After envying them, their hearts begin to rise against them, and they hate them; after hating them, they speak against them; and after speaking against them, they persecute them. And so by degrees, people who have been forward professors of religion now grow into persecutors as bitter as any. Oh, therefore look to your conduct.

And that should have been the exhortation: Christians, be careful of your conduct in your families; be careful there. In Psalm 101:2 you have an excellent Scripture in which David professes his care of his conduct in his family, how he would walk: “I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way: when wilt thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.” Oh, I beg you, look to this Scripture. “I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way”: mark, he is saying, I will see that my way is perfect, right and square to the world in every way; and when it is, I will labor to behave myself wisely; I will not carry myself foolishly in the ways that are good. And then, “Oh when wilt thou come unto me?” Mark, it was a time when God was absent from him, and yet even then he professes that he will behave himself wisely in a perfect way, and “I will walk in my house with a perfect heart.”

There are some who indeed profess religion, and if you come upon them before other company, their conduct seems very fair and square. But just follow them to their families and see what they do there. Oh, those who live with them in their families will see in what guise they come home after they have been out in company. Will those at home see their conduct to be holy, as becomes the gospel of Jesus Christ? But it was this way with David. David says, Let those who live with me in my house watch me as closely as they can: “I will walk in my house with a perfect heart.” What I am in the congregation, or among those who are godly, or in any company, I will be in my family, so that those in my family will see my conduct to be such as it should be.

Oh, that those who profess religion would look to this: not only to live well before others in the parish or town where they live, but to walk in their families with a perfect heart, so that all in their family may even bless them and say, “Oh, how my master (or my mistress) walks! How graciously, in their whole course from morning to night! Observe them in all their ways, and you will hardly be able to see any miscarriage in them.” Oh, that is excellent, when a man has a better testimony even from those in his family than from strangers. It may be that strangers think that, though you profess religion, everything does not answer to it; but those who see it every day can testify that everything does answer to it. This is how it should be with every Christian who professes the gospel: to walk with a perfect heart in the midst of his family, and so to live in the world.

I will give you several arguments to stir you up to look to your conduct.

1. It is the mercy of God that you live your life among men to this day, and do not live it among devils and reprobates. It might have been your portion to live among devils and reprobates; God might have sent you down to your own place to keep company with them. Let this be an argument for you to look to your conduct.

2. Consider this: the wicked and carnal people among whom you live have no skill in the principles you walk by, but they do have skill in your lives and conduct. They are able to pass judgment on your lives and conduct, but not on your principles. Godly people are moved by such and such principles that are mysteries to carnal people; but when it comes to their lives, carnal people can understand them. They cannot search into their principles: whether such a doctrine is true or not, or whether such a thing agrees with such a Scripture, or whether there is a right interpretation of such a Scripture that carries them on in such a way. They take no pains to look into this. But they look at your lives, and there they have skill to discern how you walk, and whether or not you walk by the rule in your lives and conduct. And therefore let it be your great care to look to your conduct.

3. A third motive is this: there are some things you cannot help doing that will displease wicked people, if you act according to your principles. Well, this should make you all the more careful of your conduct in all other things, so that wicked people may be convinced and say, “Even if such people do some things I do not understand, surely it is for something God has made known to them more than to me. For I find this: in all the things I do understand, they walk exactly. Therefore, though there are some things they do that I cannot understand, why should I be enraged against them?”

Take, for example, the matter of the institution of worship, which does not depend on the light of nature at all, but merely on Scripture and on such and such interpretations of Scripture. Wicked people have no skill in such principles. Now those who profess religion are bound by institution, and by the words of Scripture interpreted in this way, which in their consciences they think is the truth. Having compared everything together, they think this rather than the other is the mind of Christ, and as long as they think so, they must follow it. Now there are many of these things that carnal people do not understand (for they take no pains to search into them), and therefore they will be angry with you for them. And indeed they will have cause to be angry with you over the things they do not understand, if they see that you make no conscience of the things they do understand.

But if you walk circumspectly in the other things that they do understand, and it appears to them that in those things you walk conscientiously, then they will believe that it was purely conscience that made you differ from them in the things they did not understand, or had no skill in. This will make them ready to stand up for you, yes, to speak and plead for you. (There is no better way to get true liberty of conscience than this.) If you are careful to walk blamelessly in all the things understood by those you live among, they will be convinced in their consciences: “If these people differ from us, it is conscience that makes them differ; for we find that in all the things we understand, these people walk conscientiously.”

Certainly a holy life will make many people, even carnal people themselves, plead for liberty of conscience for such people (so far as things are not destructive to godliness or to the kingdom). “If they were all such people as these,” they will say, “they might very well be borne with, for they differ in nothing but what conscience puts them on to. For we find them square and just in all their ways; they walk conscientiously.” Therefore be careful of your conduct, because in some things you cannot help doing what will displease wicked people.

4. Consider that your lives are only short. Within a while you must spend your life either among devils or among angels, one of the two; and how soon that may be, only God knows. Now then, I appeal to your consciences and put this to them: is your conduct now such as can give you comfort? Can you say, “Oh, I hope that within a while I will be living among angels. I desire now that the will of God may be done on earth as it is in heaven, and that my family and life were, as it were, a heaven. I would gladly have my life in heaven even now, and this gives me some good hope that within a while my life will be spent with angels”?

But on the other side, will not people’s consciences misgive them, if you were to judge what your life will be within a while by what it is now? Is not the conduct of many of you in your families, and when you come into some company, more like that of those who are appointed to spend their existence among devils?

Why, what is done among devils? There is hatred of religion, and of God, and of his saints; there is railing and blaspheming. The devils accuse the brethren and blaspheme the name of God. And how is your conduct any different from theirs? Know that your conduct is such that it is a plain forerunner: if you continue as you are now, within a while your life will be spent among devils, for that is what suits you best.

And, my brothers and sisters, consider further: the eyes of the world, yes, the eyes of God, and of Christ, and of the angels are upon you, to see how grace acts in your conduct. The eyes of the world are upon you, watching for your stumbling, and rejoicing at it. Just remember this: your conduct is not only before men, but the eyes of God, and of Christ, and of his holy angels look upon you wherever you are. When you are in your family, God, Christ, and his holy angels stand there looking upon you to see what your conduct is with your wife, husband, children, and servants. When you come into company, there the Lord God, and Jesus Christ, and the angels stand looking upon you. And therefore look to your conduct.

And besides, the eyes of wicked people are upon you. They watch for your stumbling, and they would rejoice to see anything they might hold against you. Take the place we had before, 1 Peter 2:12, where the Holy Spirit says, “That whereas they speak against you as evil doers, they may by your good works which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.” The word translated “behold” there means beholding with close and careful scrutiny. It is not only seeing, but looking with narrow scrutiny. Oh, it is an excellent thing when wicked people bend their eyes and look narrowly at the saints, and would be glad and rejoice if they could find them stumbling, and yet they are able to find nothing. As it was said of Christ, the Pharisees sent people to watch him, but they could find nothing amiss in him. And so, even if others should be sent on purpose to watch your lives, your lives should be so exact that they could find nothing amiss in you.

And I conclude all with that excellent promise we have for those who are careful of their conduct, in Psalm 50:23. You all cry out about these times as dangerous times. Mark, that one Scripture will help you who are careful of your conduct against the danger of the times in which we live: “Whoso offereth praise, glorifieth me; and to him that ordereth his conversation aright, will I show the salvation of God.” These are times in which you are called upon for praises and thanksgiving for mercies; we are bound to do that. But mark: do not put God off with verbal praise. It is true, God says, he who offers praise honors me; but together with it there must be an ordering of our conduct: “and to him that ordereth his conversation aright, will I show the salvation of God.”

This is what is required of Christians: to order their conduct rightly. Oh, it is an excellent thing to see the lives of Christians in due order, all guided with spiritual wisdom and holiness! Oh, for the man or woman who is careful to order their conduct rightly, here is a promise: that the Lord will show them his salvation. Whatever times you live in, however dangerous, however dreadful God appears in the times in which you live, yet if you can have only this testimony of your conscience, “Lord, you know it is the care of my soul not only to profess religion but to order my conduct rightly; therefore, Lord, save me in evil times; Lord, show me your salvation,” then you may take this promise and lay it to your heart, and comfort your heart with it. You may plead it with God in prayer. Oh, make it a matter of your prayer to God in these evil times, that the Lord would show his salvation to you, because he has put it into your heart through his grace to order your conduct rightly.

Only let your conversation be as becometh the gospel of Christ (Phil 1:27).

Last time we concluded with an exhortation to Christians: Do you hope that God has worked the work of conversion in you? Then be careful of your conduct. And there were many motives to stir Christians up to be careful of their conduct. I will not look back, but go on. I will only give you a few rules that I want to add to the motives, and then we will come to the second point.

Look to your conduct, and especially observe these rules.

1. If you are convinced that it ought to be your care to look to your conduct, then have special regard to the duties of your relationships. The work of grace in people’s conduct shows itself very much in the duties of their relationships: children toward their parents, parents toward their children; servants toward their masters, masters toward their servants; husbands toward wives, wives toward husbands; the younger toward the elder, the elder toward the younger. Whether you stand in a private or a public place, as magistrates or as subjects, if you profess godliness, show it in your conduct by performing the duties of your relationships. Whatever people may talk of godliness, unless it appears in their relationships, it comes to nothing. Unless a servant is a diligent, obedient, and faithful servant, all that servant’s talk of religion is to no purpose. Unless a child is an obedient and loving child, and a wife an obedient and loving wife, all their profession of religion is to no purpose. And so on the other side: unless masters and husbands and parents are careful in their places to perform the duties of their relationship, all their religion will come to nothing. Look to your conduct in the duties of your relationships.

2. Look to yourselves in those things in which you are most in danger of offending. Beware of that special sin you are most inclined to, so that it does not break out in your conduct. It may be that in your conduct you take care not to offend in this or that thing that you see other people offend in. But there is some special haunt of evil, some other sin that your nature is most inclined to, and perhaps you give yourself liberty in that. This spoils your conduct; this darkens your conduct; whatever good you do otherwise, this spoils it all. If you give yourself liberty in that corruption your nature is most prone to (indeed, if you are not more watchful against that corruption than against any other), your conduct will have no beauty in it at all. God will have no glory from it, and you will only dishonor your profession.

Therefore, if you would make it a matter of conscience to have your conduct rightly ordered, be very watchful over yourselves in that special sin your nature is most inclined to. Are you someone who finds yourself very hasty by nature? It may be that you are not so guilty of other sins. Yes, but that will spoil the beauty of your conduct. A man or woman who professes religion and is contrary, peevish, and hot-tempered has no beauty in their conduct. And so if you find your disposition given to stinginess and covetousness, that will darken everything and carry you into foolish lusts, as the Scripture speaks (1 Tim 6:9). Oh, how men who have made a profession of religion have been carried by one fit of base covetousness into such foolish lusts that every boy in the streets could point at them as foolish and silly people! They have cracked their credit and their good names and wounded their own souls, yes, and endangered their lives. They have made themselves a byword to all and dishonored their profession, and gained nothing by it in the end! Covetousness carries people into foolish lusts, into foolish, base, sordid extremes unbecoming the gospel of Christ, as we will hear more when we come to speak of what conduct we should have as becomes the gospel of Christ. Beware of your special sins, if you would be careful of your conduct.

3. Beware of the temptations you are liable to from without, by reason of your calling, by reason of the places you are in, or through any providence of God whatever. Beware of those temptations that most attend your condition. Everyone should consider this: What temptation am I most liable to? Some people’s callings are liable to some temptations, other people’s to others. Some, by reason of their business and dealings in the world, are liable to temptations that others are not. And sometimes a man is liable to temptations that he is not liable to at another time. When you are at sea, you have your temptations there in foreign parts, and when you come home you have other temptations. Yes, many times when a man is at home among his neighbors, he dares not take the liberty that he takes when he has gotten away on a journey; then he thinks he is free, since nobody knows of it. There is his temptation. And so you who come from sea: while you were there, you were kept short of many comforts and of much company. Now when you come home, company comes about you, and now a temptation comes that was not there before. Now if you would make conscience of your conduct, you should look to your temptations and consider: What temptations am I liable to now that I was not liable to before? Let me be careful of them.

You pray to God that you may not be led into temptations, but delivered from evil (Matt 6:13). If you would not trifle with God in your prayers, then be careful of yourselves when a temptation comes to this or that evil. It is a vain plea for men and women to say, “Oh, the temptation was a strong temptation.” For that very reason God expected you (if you have the Spirit of Christ and wisdom) to foresee temptations, and especially to be careful when temptations come. You should watch against all temptations. What a vain plea it would be for a soldier who keeps a town to say, “Oh, but they came against such a weak part of the town with great strength!” That is no argument to excuse him. For if you knew that it was the weakest part, you could not help knowing that if the enemy knew of it, he would come against it with his greatest strength. Therefore you should have manned that part rather than any other part of the town. So let us not say, “Oh, the temptation came strongly upon me in such a thing.” We should watch all the more in the very thing where the temptation comes strongest upon us, for the devil knows where we are weakest. And that is the third rule to help us in our conduct.

4. Observe this: Beware of defiling yourselves with the sins of the times in which you live. The Lord expects every Christian to look to himself with regard to the present times he lives in, and to consider what the special sin of the time, the age, or the place is. Commonly, just as some truths are more eminently revealed in one age than in another, so some sins prevail more in one age than in another, and in one place than in another. Almost every country has its own predominant sins. You should consider, I say, what the sins are of the times and of the places where you live. Many think to excuse themselves because what they do is only what others do; it is the common sin of the time and place where they live. You should be all the more careful to avoid it, so that you may keep yourself undefiled in your way. And that is a fourth rule to help us in our conduct.

5. Another rule to help our conduct is this: Live so that your lives will be convincing lives. So beware of any secret sin. Beware of keeping any sin at all within your heart, for it will break out. Beware of entertaining sin even in your thoughts or affections. Why is it that some who have professed religion a long while, and seemed very glorious in their profession, still break out at length into some vile, scandalous sin? Surely the reason is that they have kept some corruption hidden within. They have thought it would be a very horrible thing for this corruption in their heart and thoughts to break out. “Oh, God forbid,” one says. “I hope I will never live to see the time when I am so left by God as to commit this sin!” Well, you truly think that you will not commit it. Yes, but if you take liberty to dally and play with this sin secretly in your thoughts and affections, it is just for God to leave you to yourself, to shame yourself. It is just for him to leave you to commit that sin you have kept dandling within, in your thoughts and affections, for a long time, even though you did it with a resolution not to commit it. Whoever pleases himself in any kind of secret sin, I say, it would be just for God to lead him forth with the workers of iniquity (Ps 125:5), and so lay his shame open and naked before all he lives with. Therefore, you who profess religion, be careful of secret sins, if you would never dishonor your profession in your conduct.

6. If you would be careful of your conduct, do not look so much at those who are beneath you, in the lower class, as it were. Instead, let your eye be on those who are most eminent in their conduct. Look to them as your mark and aim. Many Christians live in such a way that their conduct is very dark, with no beauty in it at all. Why? Because they think they live as others do. They look at those who are beneath them, and they think their lives are rather better than those of some others who have made a profession, and this makes them go on in a dull and sluggish way. But if you would have your conduct truly as it ought to be, so as to be convincing, set before you the examples of the most eminent, of those whose conduct shines the most. I do not mean those who make a mere glittering show, but those with the shining that comes from diamonds and gold and pearls, who have the excellence of grace shining in their very faces and conduct. Set them before you and labor to imitate them, and this will help you in your conduct.

We have a Scripture for this in Hebrews 13:7: “Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God, whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversations.” It is supposed that those who have the rule over them, who are their guides, should be most eminent. But notice: he speaks of those who had spoken the word of God to them. He is not speaking of rulers in civil states, but of the ministers who were their guides, for that is what the word means.

Now, although we find in Scripture a work of ruling besides teaching, yet we find no rule of any minister except over those to whom he speaks the word of God. Whatever ruling any minister has, I say, it is over the people he speaks the word of God to. If any minister comes to rule over a people, that people may well ask him, “Have you spoken the word of God to us? Do you teach us the word of God? Do you claim rule over us when you have not spoken the word of God to us?” “Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God, whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversations.” It seems they were eminent in holiness of life, and eminent in such a way that they continued in that eminence, and the apostle would have all Christians look at them. It is a notable scripture to show that the ministers of the word should be eminent in their conduct in every way, and that all those they speak the word of God to should see in their conduct the beauty and the excellence of the word of God that they speak. For people look at the lives of ministers as well as at their words. It is not enough for a minister to be a good man only in the pulpit, unless he is so in the constant course of his life.

7. The last rule you have here in this scripture: “Whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation” (Heb 13:7). That is, do not be careful of your conduct only at first, when you begin to profess religion, being exact then; be constant to the very end. Notice: “Considering the end of their conversations.” By the end he does not mean only the reward that comes upon their conduct, that they will have a glorious reward. He means considering the end, as if he should say: Look at those who have spoken the word of God to you. They do not merely come to you at the very first and speak great things, and seem as if they were saints or angels come among you; they go on in a constant way. Whatever discouragements they meet, they go on in a constant way to their very dying day. Observe not only what they were when they first came among you, but what they are at the end of their course, and follow them.

This is a notable scripture to show how careful Christians ought to be, not only to be holy in their conduct when their hearts are first stirred by the ministry of the Word, as it is with many. There are many who, when the word of God first comes to them, when they are first enlightened and first converted, oh, how strict they are! Oh, how careful they are! Then they walk exactly; they are afraid of the least sin, and they examine everything by the word. Oh, how particular they are in everything then! Their consciences are very tender, and they are afraid that this is sin and that the other thing is sin. There is a mighty change in the family: their masters or parents see them so afraid of everything, careful of their very words, careful on the Lord’s Day in seeking God and attending on the ordinances, and very strict at first in their particular callings. But within a little while you will find that many of these grow looser by degrees.

This is especially so in these times, because in these times the devil has a way of getting people to be loose in their conduct that has not been known in England. It was known in Germany, indeed, and was common there in the beginning of Luther’s Reformation: the notion that it is weakness in people to make conscience of duty, to be troubled for their sin, and to be humbled, and that it was weakness in Paul and Peter and David when they were troubled so much for their sin. Oh, this is a most horrid and abominable wickedness that dishonors the gospel of Christ and will make it ridiculous to the world! I mean, I say, such behavior in people who think that they may take liberty to walk in a loose way because of the gospel. But we will come to that more fully when we speak of how our conduct should be becoming the gospel of Christ. I speak of it at this point as a preparation for that, and especially to young believers who have been worked on by the word within these last few years, since there has been more freedom to preach the gospel.

I truly believe that several of you in this congregation know many young people and others who have been worked on by the ministry of the word, who for the first year were very exact, very careful of their lives, and very punctual in everything; but now you see them begin to grow loose, unruly, and vain in their conduct. Oh, this is a sad and an evil thing! If you would be careful of your conduct, observe this seventh rule: be careful not only at the first work of God upon you, when you begin to be enlightened, but in the constant course of your lives.

Oh, give me someone who professes religion, who was worked on as a young man or a young woman, and still continues until old age, an old disciple, in a constant way of holiness and strictness! Oh, they are the most beautiful sights in the world to behold! The sun in the sky is not so glorious as an aged believer who has continued constant in the ways of godliness from youth, who can say as good Obadiah once said, “I have feared the Lord from my youth” (1 Kgs 18:12), and who can also say: “Though my conscience tells me of many failings and weaknesses, yet it excuses me in this: that I have endeavored with a good conscience to walk with God and without offense to man, and I have not given way to myself in any loose way since God made himself known to me.” Oh, such people may have an abundant entrance into the kingdom of heaven, and die with abundant comfort. But this is enough for the first point: that Christians ought to be careful of their conduct.

We come now to the second point, and that is the main point in the text:

Let your conversation be as becometh the gospel of Christ.

Doctrine 2. Not every kind of conduct in those who profess religion is enough. It must rise to such a height as is suitable to the gospel of Christ, fit for the gospel they profess. That is our point.

Now we will come to the particulars: what conduct it is that is fit for the gospel of Christ. I gave you the heads when I opened the text, but now I will speak to them.

First, the conduct that is fit for and becomes the gospel of Christ must be raised to a higher degree than the light of nature will raise it. Conduct that is no higher than may possibly be raised by the light of nature is certainly not conduct becoming the gospel of Christ; it is beneath it, not fit for the gospel of Christ. For example:

Suppose a man in his boat here on the Thames rows very precisely. Yes, but this is not a work fit to show the skill of a navigator, of one who professes the art of navigation; it is beneath that. Just so, to live exactly according to the light of nature is beneath the conduct that becomes the gospel of Christ. Suppose a man should boast that he had great skill in the art of navigation. And how will he show this skill? He will get into a boat and row across the Thames, and by that you may see what a mighty navigator he is! This would seem ridiculous to anyone. And so, if someone who professes the gospel of Christ wants to show that he is a good Christian, what does he do? He lives a life that is no more than a man may be enabled to live by the light of nature. This is just as ridiculous as the other.

1. For instance, the light of nature will teach this: that we are to worship God. The heathen have worshiped God in their way.

2. Yes, the light of nature will teach that we must live justly among men, yes, and that we must do as we would be done to. This the light of nature will teach. Many of the heathen have held that principle, to be just with men and to do as we would be done by. The light of nature condemns gross sins: drunkenness, adultery, swearing, and the like. I could give you many instances in the laws of the heathen that punished those sins very severely, and some of them with death.

3. Yes, the light of nature will rise as high as this: that a man should be conscientious, and should make conscience of secret sins, sins that no one in the world could know of, or is ever likely to know of. I remember I have sometimes told you of one of the heathen who owed a shoemaker for a pair of shoes, and nobody knew it but the shoemaker himself. The shoemaker died, and nobody could call the debtor to account for the debt. Yet the debtor’s conscience would never let him rest until he ran and threw the money into the shop, saying, “Though he is dead to others, yet he is not dead to me.” He had a temptation to keep it, because nobody could claim it from him; but he knew it was not his, he knew it belonged either to the children or to the executors, and so he restored it.

Many particulars might be named to show how far we might go by the light of nature. But I bring it in now only for this end: to show that if we would have our conduct such as becomes the gospel of Christ, we must go beyond whatever anyone has done by the light of nature. And yet, O Lord, how far short of this many who profess religion come! How many will profess that they hope to be saved by Christ! I suppose there is not one person in this congregation who would not say it; and if I went to every house that belongs to this parish, they would all say they hope to be saved by Jesus Christ. And yet what worship of God is there? And what justice is there among men, to do as they would be done by? Indeed, this is a rule that will examine many who profess religion, and their consciences would tell them that in such and such things they would be very unwilling to be dealt with as they deal with others.

And as for gross sins, many who profess religion break out into them too. For all are professors of the gospel in a broad sense, drunkards and adulterers and blasphemers among them; and yet they will come and make a profession of religion, and take it very hard if they should be denied the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. “Why,” they say, “are we not Christians? And are our children not Christians? And yet are they not to be baptized?” And yet they are beneath the heathen. The heathen will rise in judgment against them.

And as for conscientiousness in secret, I appeal to every one of your consciences: are there no sins you live in that your consciences condemn you for? A heathen would not do it. A heathen would not willfully live in a sin that his conscience told him was a sin; many of the heathen came that far. And what progress have you made in your profession? Perhaps you have seemed to be in the school of Christ for many years, and others take you for a zealous professor of religion. And yet your conscience tells you that you live in some sins that you know to be sins. But because they are secret, and no one knows them but yourself, you have continued in them and ventured on them, hoping for God’s pardon, since perhaps it is only one sin, and no great one. In this, I say, you are beneath the light of nature, and so you are far from having your conduct such as becomes the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This conduct of yours is not even such as becomes the light of nature. Various heathen would abhor such conduct in Christians, yes, even if it were found among themselves, and they would hardly keep company with you. There are many who make profession of religion whom, I say, the heathen would not keep company with if they lived among them; that is true of a great part of this kingdom, yes, and of most congregations. Therefore such people should not take it hard if they are not admitted into so near a communion as the Lord’s Supper.

Question. You will say, then, “But what is that conduct becoming the gospel that goes beyond the light of nature?”

First, the light of nature teaches us to worship a God. Many of you do that: you worship God. But what becomes the gospel of Christ is this: to worship and honor God as a Father, and as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This goes beyond the light of nature on that point. It is not enough that I am convinced there is a God, that he is the Creator of heaven and earth, and my Creator, and that therefore I will worship him. I do not do what becomes the gospel of Christ until I bring myself to this: that through the grace of the gospel I am able to worship God as a Father reconciled to me in Christ, and as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so come and present all my services to God. Few of our merely civil, respectable people do this. Yet your civil people will make a profession of the gospel too, and your civil people worship God, but it is in a merely natural way. The God of heaven and earth, who made them, is to be worshiped; they can say their old catechism: “Who made you?” “God.” “Why did he make you?” “He made me to serve him…”

Yes, but when you come to serve and worship the Lord, do you look upon God as a Father reconciled in Christ, and as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? And do you offer up all your services to God in that way? You are not raised to what becomes the gospel of Christ unless you worship God in this way. That is what becomes the gospel of Christ. And know this: all other worship that you offer to God merely as God is Creator (God made me, and therefore I must serve him), all that worship, I say, God rejects, if you go no further. Indeed, we are to worship God as Creator; God would have that. Yes, but if he does not have both that and the other too, he will not accept the one. For the first is included in the second, but the second is not included in the first. A man who worships God as a Father, and as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, worships God as Creator too; but a man may worship God as Creator and not be acquainted with him at all as a Father, and as the Father of our Lord Jesus.

Therefore, until the Lord, in the ministry of the gospel, has been pleased to shine in upon your soul as a Father, and as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; until you come to worship God this way, or at least it is the endeavor of your soul that you may worship God this way; until you are not satisfied with worshiping God in the other way, merely because he made you, and your heart works after this, saying, “Indeed, I have not yet gotten this full assurance that he is my Father, but my heart is unsatisfied until I have it, and I cannot be at rest in any other kind of worshiping God until I find some ability to offer up everything to him as a Father, and as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”; until, I say, you come to this, you do not, on that point, worship God as becomes the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And so in the point of justice: you give everyone what is his own. Yes, but this is beneath what is required in your dealings with men according to the gospel of Christ. If you read the fifth chapter of Matthew, you will find that when Christ comes to preach what he requires, he raises the point of justice beyond doing as we would be dealt with. Christ says there, “You have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matt 5:43-44). This is higher than merely being just, and one man not wronging another.

You will hear many men say, “Who can say black is my eye? I live so that nobody can say I wrong them.” You think this is excellent conduct. It is true, it is good in its kind; and it would be good if all who profess religion could say they live so that nobody can charge them with unjust dealing. Yes, but this does not rise to the height of conduct such as becomes the gospel of Christ. You must come to this height: to love your enemies, to bless those who curse you, to do good to those who hate you, and to pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you. Can you find this in yourself? This is something like the gospel of Christ; this is something more than doing no wrong to others.

And as for doing as we would be done to, we must go higher. We must not only set this before us as our pattern, “I will do as I would be done by.” No, but “I will labor to do to another as God has done to me.” This is higher. It works like this: Has God shown himself gracious to me? Then I will labor to do good to others, as much as I am able, even as God has done to me. For this you have these two scriptures. The first is Ephesians 4:31-32: “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice, and be ye kind one towards another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another.” The light of nature will justify all this. But mark the conclusion: “Even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” Set the example of God before you, what God has done for you for Christ’s sake, and let that be the great motive.

Do not only argue like this: “Well, I would want to be forgiven if I had offended, and I would not want another to bear anger and malice against me; therefore I will not be angry with them or bear them malice.” This is a low principle. But suppose I find this revealed in the gospel, that the Lord for Christ’s sake has forgiven me, and it is this that quiets my passion. When I feel my corruption rising and stirring against anyone who has offended me, I only have to think of God’s mercy in forgiving me for Christ’s sake, and this quiets me. Yes, this is something like what becomes the gospel of Christ, when we walk on such principles as these.

And so you have it in Colossians 3:13: “Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another: if any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.” It is very unbecoming for those who profess the gospel of Christ to be quarrelsome with their neighbors. Now you will find some who are naturally of very meek and quiet dispositions. “I love to live quietly,” some men say. You may come this far by the light of nature, not to love quarreling. But now, when anyone causes a quarrel, do you labor to quiet the quarrel on this ground: “Even as Christ forgave me”? “Oh, I have found that the Lord Jesus Christ, notwithstanding my wretchedness against him and all the wrong I have done him, has forgiven me; and therefore, seeing Christ will not take advantage against me as he might, I will not take advantage against another.” Is it on this ground?

And do you raise your conduct toward your neighbor, in keeping from quarrelsomeness and contentiousness, to this height, on this ground: to forgive as Christ has forgiven you? “I will not forgive only in this particular case, or this lesser offense, but as Christ has forgiven me.” We shall still have further occasion to mention these things when we open the suitableness of our conduct to the gospel. That is, as for the point of justice, it must rise higher than doing as we would be done by.

And then as for gross sins: you keep from them; you thank God you are no swearer, no drunkard, no whoremonger; you are not guilty of such notorious sins. But what are you with respect to inward sins? What are you with respect to secret sins? Mark that scripture where Christ says, “I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:20). We shall likewise speak further of this when we open the point about the law: that our conduct must rise higher than the conduct of those who lived under the law, or else it does not become the gospel of Christ.

You will find further in the chapter how Christ would raise them higher than merely not committing adultery, or not being openly profane: “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman, to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell” (Matt 5:27-29). And then, “If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off” (Matt 5:30). And so on the point of anger: “Ye have heard, that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill: and whosoever shall kill, shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say unto his brother, Racha, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire” (Matt 5:21-22). That is, liable to the same judgment that you think murder is liable to.

Now is your conduct as becomes the gospel? Here Christ is a great preacher of the gospel, and he shows that there is more strictness in the gospel than there is by the light of nature, or by the law, or by what they understood by the law. The light of nature dictates this, that men should not kill or commit adultery. But now, if your conduct is such as becomes the gospel, then you must make conscience of anger, and tremble at it as a natural man would tremble at murder, for that becomes the gospel. I say, one who professes the gospel should tremble at sinful anger as a natural man would tremble at murder. For observe it here: whatever they said murder made a man liable to, Christ says anger would make a man liable to the same. Therefore one who would walk as becomes the gospel must tremble at the inward sin of anger as a natural man would tremble at the outward sin of murder.

And so for adultery: you are no whoremonger. But one who professes the gospel must look at the lusting of the eye and of the heart as a natural man who has only the light of nature would look at the committing of adultery. For Christ lays on the lust of the heart what they laid on the committing of adultery. This is as becomes the gospel.

Further, by the light of nature a man may be conscientious, that is, make conscience of various sins.

Question. But now you will say, “Wherein should a man go beyond this, as becomes the gospel? Can anyone who professes the gospel go beyond this, making conscience of a secret sin, even though he knows that nobody in the world knows of his sin? Indeed, suppose he knew for certain that it would never be known, and yet he dares not do it. How can a man go beyond that?”

Answer. Yes: you must labor for the mortification of the body of sin that is within you. You must not only make conscience of keeping from the act of secret sins; your work must be to labor for the mortification of the body of sin and death that is in you. That is what the gospel reveals, which no man ever knew by the light of nature. You will never read, among all the philosophers, of the point of original sin, or of the mortification of the body of sin and death; the light of nature never tells this.

So now, when a man comes to his height, it is this. First, my conscience is so enlightened by the word that I dare not commit any secret sin for the world, though there is no one present but God and my conscience together. But besides that: “Oh, I carry about with me a body of sin and death, a root of bitterness,” that original corruption; and this makes me cry out, “O wretched man, O wretched woman! who shall deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24). “Oh, that I could find this mortified in me!” This is the strength and endeavor of my soul, to get this body of sin mortified. Yes, this is as becomes the gospel: so to live in your conduct that it may appear you are not content merely to keep from actual sins, even in secret, but that it is your great care and endeavor to mortify this very body of death that is within you. And by this a great many of your civil and merely moral people will, or at least may, be convinced that their conduct comes short of what becomes the gospel of Jesus Christ, for they are not acquainted with this.

Lastly, if you would have your conduct such as becomes the gospel of Christ, you must not think only of making conscience of secret sins. In what you do, you must show that it proceeds from love: not only that you obey, but that you love the commandment you obey. Now neither any hypocrite nor any merely moral man does this, if you take it universally, one commandment as well as another.

Objection. You will say, “Love is a secret thing.”

Answer. But just as you can tell in your family the difference between your children’s obedience to you and your servants’, so a difference may appear between the obedience of one who is merely moral, or obeys out of conscience, and that of another who obeys out of love. Therefore you must know that you do not rise beyond the light of nature unless you love the command as well as obey the command. So carry things in your conduct that you may make it appear that all those ways of God you make conscience of, you also love, and that you do them from a principle of love. Thus you come beyond the light of nature, and in some measure your conduct is such as becomes the gospel of Christ.

And that is the first thing in how we should walk in our conduct as becomes the gospel of Christ. But this is the lowest of all.

The second is that our conduct must go beyond that of those who live under the law. For the law of God goes higher than the light of nature, since more is revealed there than in the light of nature. It is true that what you call the moral law agrees with the light of nature, if that light is clear, at least for the most part. Only some part of it is a matter of express appointment; but most of it simply agrees with the principles of nature, if they were clear and pure. But since the fall of man the light of nature is darkened, and the principles of nature are much corrupted. Therefore God has given his law, which is, as it were, a mirror of his will, that is, the clear mirror of what was written in the heart of man in innocence. That is the law.

Only the fixing of the seventh day in particular, counted from the creation, has something of express appointment in it. But take all the rest, and I say it is nothing but a mirror of what was written in the heart of man in the time of innocence. It was written in man’s heart to keep some solemn time for the worship of God; only the specifying of it came by revelation. But the substance of all those Ten Commandments, I say, is the mirror of what was written in the heart of man in innocence.

And because God saw that this writing was so much blotted out, almost wholly obliterated, God wrote it on tablets of stone, whereas at first it was written on the tablet of man’s heart. But now, when he comes to bring men to the gospel, there he writes that law over again on the tablets of their hearts. At first it was written in the heart of Adam; but Adam, by falling, blotted it out in great measure. Then God wrote it over fair again. But how? He wrote it out in a fair copy, but it was on tablets of stone. But when God receives any soul in the gospel, he writes it over again on the tablets of their hearts.

Now this gives you a little hint of the difference between the law and the gospel, between the conduct of men who were merely legal and the conduct that is evangelical. But to open it fully, showing the difference between the law and the gospel in reference to this, and showing how low the conduct was that was merely legal, and how high the conduct of a Christian ought to be raised if he would make it evangelical, such as becomes the gospel of Christ, would take more time. Therefore we must defer that to the next day.

Only let your conversation be as becometh the gospel of Christ (Phil 1:27).

Conduct that becomes the gospel of Christ must go beyond what the Law can enable a person to attain, or else it does not become the gospel.

I have already shown you what the gospel of Christ is. But now we are on the point of conduct: that it must be higher than can be reached by the Law. Those who live under the gospel must live in a higher way of holiness than those who lived under the Law. Now for this, we are to consider the Law in two respects.

First, as a covenant of works for life, as it was first made with Adam. It was a covenant of works for eternal life to Adam, and so to mankind in him. Second, we are to consider the Law as it was administered by Moses.

Take it either of these two ways: those who live under the gospel and profess the gospel must live a holier life, or at least aim and strive after a holier life, than the life could be that was lived under the Law.

To take the first, then, I say this: consider the Law as the covenant of life to Adam. But what was his conduct?

1. It was obedience to God merely as Creator, and no further. Adam in innocence looked on God as the Creator of all things, as the First Being of all, and so Adam offered his service to God merely as the Creator and First Being. That was his obedience.

2. The Law given to Adam had promises only of natural things, of a natural life to be continued. We do not read that God promised Adam he would live in heaven if he had obeyed. Rather, “Do this and live” was the tenor of the covenant with him. That is, he would have continued in Paradise and so have lived a natural life, and yet continued eternally; God would have upheld that natural life of his. That is all we read that God ever promised Adam, if he had stood, by virtue of that covenant of the Law. That is the second thing to consider in him. So his obedience was offered to God to this end, that he might obtain the continuance of a natural life here in this world, and only to that end, for we find nothing more revealed.

The first man Adam was natural, the second spiritual; the first was “of the earth, earthly,” the second “the Lord from heaven.” The apostle in 1 Corinthians 15 speaks of Adam in innocence as the common head of all mankind: he was “of the earth, earthly,” and, by way of distinction, the second Adam was “the Lord from heaven.” He brings all heavenly glory. Even if Adam had stood, we never read of any heavenly glory that he or his posterity would ever have had; but the second Adam is the Lord from heaven, who brings heavenly glory with him. That is the second thing to consider in the Law as a covenant with Adam.

3. The third thing in the Law as a covenant with Adam was this: that under the Law Adam must have worked by his own strength, the strength he had received. At first God gave man strength for obedience, and he put man’s stock into man’s own hand. So he must have worked and continued by the power of the strength that God first gave him. He did not have that fountain to go to for a continual supply of strength, as we have, which you will see presently.

4. Adam was in such a condition that he was in danger of ruin for his eternal state. He was indeed in a way of obedience to the Law that God gave him, but still in such a way that he was in danger of eternal ruin. This was Adam’s condition under the Law.

Objection. You will say, “But he was holy, and had no sin.”

Answer. But consider his condition under the Law. It was obedience to God as Creator; he worked for a natural good; he worked by the strength he had received; and he was in danger of eternal ruin. Now compare his condition with the condition of the saints in the time of the gospel, and you will find that the saints, who have the fruit of the gospel, are in a far better condition even now. They not only shall be in heaven, but are in a better condition now than Adam was in Paradise.

1. Adam obeyed God and offered his service to God as Creator. But now the people of God under the gospel, those who are brought home to God by the gospel, look on God in another relation, not merely as Creator. All the services they offer to God are offered to him as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and their Father in him. “I go to my Father, and I go to your Father,” says Christ (John 20:17). It is true that we still look on God as the First Being of all things, as Creator; but we look on him in a higher relation than merely our Creator. We look on him as the Father of Jesus Christ, and so, in Jesus Christ, as our Father, and we offer him obedience in that way. And surely obedience offered to God under such a relation should be a higher kind of obedience, a higher kind of holiness, than was in Adam.

It is true that, in respect of our condition here, we are not as free from corruption as Adam was in innocence. Yet the obedience we offer to God, though it is not so free (I say) from mixture, is of a higher nature than Adam’s was: it is offered to God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2. We have better promises than Adam ever had; we have promises of heavenly glory that he did not have. God does not say to us only, “Do and live,” meaning, “Live here in the world a natural life, and I will free you from outward troubles and from the death of the body.” But we know that the gospel brings immortality and glory to light. It tells us of the glory of heaven, of the mansions that Jesus Christ has gone before to prepare, and of the glorious communion the saints will have with God in the highest heavens. That is a motive to obedience of quite another kind than Adam ever had, and therefore our obedience to God should be raised in a higher way than his ever was.

3. The strength we have is not put into our own hands to keep and so to improve, and that is all. Rather, Jesus Christ, the second Person in the Trinity, is filled with all fullness, so that we might continually receive grace for grace from the fullness of Jesus Christ, who has all the treasures of wisdom in him. In him it pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell. Now the saints by faith have, as it were, a pipe laid into that cistern that has all fullness. From there, by the work of faith, they continually draw strength and nourishment, a new supply from him. They are not given something and then set to trade for themselves and improve what was given them; they suck in new power from Jesus Christ as from a head.

Adam himself was the head of the first covenant, but now it is Jesus Christ who is the Head of the second. All believers draw their vital spirits from Jesus Christ, and strength from him, as from the Head. They have a Head to draw strength from that Adam did not have, and therefore they are to show the strength of Jesus Christ in all their ways. The fullness that is in Jesus Christ they are to make appear to the world in their lives and conduct. And therefore that text in Colossians 1:10-11 is very remarkable: “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.” Mark verse 11: “strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power.” This is worthy of the Lord, because now we come to receive of his fullness, the fullness of Jesus Christ, and to have a continual supply from him. It is true that God has so ordered it that as long as we live here we will have some mixture of corruption. Yet he has provided a help for us, a fullness in his Son, so that from him we may draw of his fullness and so come to be strengthened with all might.

4. We now serve the Lord and obey him in our lives as those who are delivered from the danger of eternal ruin. Adam obeyed, but even while he was obeying he might know: “I obey now, but I am in danger of eternal ruin; every hour I may undo myself and my posterity forever.” Now certainly this very thought, and the understanding of it, could not stand with that full freedom of spirit which the saints may have now under the gospel. The saints under the gospel come in a way of obedience to God on this footing: they have their feet, as it were, on sure ground.

“Well,” the believer can say, “as for my eternal state, the danger of ruin there is over. I bless God, that is over. For now my obedience is not so that I might work out and earn salvation. My obedience to God now (having been set safe upon the shore) is so that I might live to the praise of the grace of God, who has delivered me from all danger of ruin and has set me with Jesus Christ in heavenly places. I am already set in heavenly places with Jesus Christ, and as sure of heaven (for a believer may come to be so) as if I were there already. And so I am now to begin the life of heaven, blessing and magnifying God, not in word only but in my life. Therefore I am to hold forth the glory of God in my life and conduct, so that I may bless and magnify the name of God, who has delivered me from darkness and has translated me into the kingdom of his dear Son.

“And on these terms I serve God now. I do not serve God as one who is in danger of being ruined forever, and I do not strive to work out my salvation out of a base and slavish fear that I might be ruined. I serve him as one who is redeemed and delivered from eternal misery. Yes, I now begin to join with the saints and angels in heaven, who are there magnifying God and will be praising him to all eternity for his free grace toward them.”

Surely this conduct should be of a higher degree of holiness than Adam’s conduct could be, even in Paradise. Yet remember this still: we cannot in this life attain such conduct as to be without a mixture of evil. But we should be more spiritual and heavenly in our ways; we have more cause to be so than Adam had in his innocence. And we do not walk in a way that answers to the gospel unless our hearts rise in a more spiritual and heavenly way than his heart could rise when it came new out of the hand of his Creator. That is the first consideration of the Law, as it was a covenant of life to him and to all mankind in him.

Oh, that as we go along we would consider what cause we have for humiliation, then! Oh, how far our conduct falls short of what becomes the gospel, if it must rise to as high a pitch as this I have described!

Second, let us consider the Law as it was administered to Moses, and so to the people of the Jews. Its administration to them was under another notion. It was to bring them to Christ: so that they might come to see their inability to keep that covenant, and come to understand Christ all the more, and be driven to Christ by having the Law set before them. God never intended, in giving the Law to the people of the Jews, that it should be a covenant of eternal life to them. Indeed, there was this in its administration that was somewhat different from us: some special covenant about their living in Canaan, and about mercies in that promised land, beyond what we have in the Law as we find it in the New Testament. They (I say) had this annexed to it.

The Law that was first given to Adam and written in his heart was afterward even obliterated. Then it was transcribed by the same hand on tablets of stone and given to them, chiefly to show them their misery and their need of Christ, and to be a preparation for Christ’s coming into the world. And it came with this one addition beyond what we have in the New Testament: a temporal covenant was annexed to it, which concerned their living prosperously in the land of Canaan, their happy and comfortable condition in the land of Canaan upon their keeping of their Law. (And to that extent we are delivered even from the Law as it was given by Moses, that is, from the covenant that was connected and added to the giving of the Law.) But now, however that was, certainly the conduct that becomes the gospel should go beyond what could be found even in godly men in the time of the Law.

1. The Law was given to them under low promises. The promises they had under the Law were very low. It is true that they had something of the gospel that we have, but extremely darkly, and they knew very little of it. God’s chief dealing with them at that time was in a legal way, and that had only low promises, such as their living in Canaan. You will find that generally all the promises annexed to the Law, even by Moses, are only that they shall prolong their days in the land the Lord their God shall give them, and that they shall be blessed in their basket and store. Their promises were promises beneath heaven, promises of this life only, and therefore this could raise them to only a very low degree of holiness.

2. Their ordinances were poor and mean and beggarly in comparison with ours, for so the gospel calls them (Col 2). They were only beggarly rudiments, “which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances imposed on them until the time of reformation” (Heb 9:10). They had an earthly tabernacle, “a worldly sanctuary” (Heb 9:1).

3. The burden on them under the Law was very great. They were under a heavy yoke and burden that bowed them down. A heavy burden makes a man stoop and bend his back; he cannot stand as upright or as firm as others who have no such weight on them.

4. The Law was administered with thunder and lightning, very terribly. It made even Moses quake and tremble, as the author of the letter to the Hebrews says.

5. Their spirits were very servile under the Law; they were subject to bondage all their days. God so ordered things as to carry his people along in a very servile way. They were only lowly servants then, hewers of wood and drawers of water.

But now under the gospel:

1. Our promises are far better, and our covenant better. In Hebrews 8 the apostle compares their condition and ours: “Who serve,” he says, “unto the example and shadow of heavenly things” (Heb 8:5). There was only “the shadow of heavenly things”; the gospel has the heavenly things themselves, and theirs are only the shadow. For so you have it in Hebrews 10:1: “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things.” They had only a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image itself: “as Moses was admonished of God, when he was about to make the tabernacle: For see (saith he) that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount” (Heb 8:5). And then in Hebrews 8:6: “But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry” (that is, Christ), “by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.” A better covenant, and established upon better promises, or a better testament. Their promises, I say, were low and mean, and our promises are high and precious. We have a better covenant, a covenant not of living in the land of Canaan, but of heaven, of which that Canaan was only a type. Therefore our conduct should rise higher in holiness, as our covenant and promises are better than theirs.

2. Our worship is more spiritual than their worship was. So it is in that well-known place, John 4:23, where Christ says to the woman of Samaria, You serve God in this place: But the time shall come that they shall serve him every where, for God is a Spirit, and will be worshiped in spirit and in truth. There is more spiritual worship in the time of the gospel than there was in the time of the Law. The Lord carried them along in a carnal way, a way of the senses. And indeed this has been a great design of Antichrist: to bring men to a carnal way of worship, to “carnal ordinances,” for so they are called in Scripture. The commandments of God by Moses are called carnal (Heb 9:10), for their worship, compared with the worship in the gospel, was only carnal.

It has been the design of Antichrist (I say) to darken the glory of Jesus Christ in the gospel by bringing the church to a carnal way of worship and taking away the spiritual, and therefore they are wholly taken up with carnal institutions. Jesus Christ, on the other hand, has instituted only two sacraments in which there are outward, bodily things, in which we worship God through the creature; otherwise his worship is altogether spiritual. But now Antichrist would bring in altogether carnal things. He would add a hundred inventions of his own, such as building sumptuous temples, railing in the communion tables and then turning them into altars, with such apish gestures, foolish garments and heathenish music. All of this was carnal worship, the devices of men to please children and fools with, exceedingly against the very life and soul of godliness, and against the only rule of worship in the Word of God. Besides, this ridiculous and carnal way of worship made the worshipers twofold more the children of Satan than they were before. But now, the more spiritual any worship of God is, the more spiritual it makes the heart. The less we cling to the creature while we are worshiping God, the more communion we come to have with Christ, and so it raises holiness to a higher pitch.

3. Under the gospel our yoke is easier. You know what Christ says (in a Scripture that I have opened to you at large): “Come, take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt 11:28-30). You are delivered from that heavy burden they were under, and therefore you should run the ways of God’s commandments and follow after holiness more readily and freely than they could.

4. We have access with boldness to the throne of grace, as the Scripture speaks. God does not reveal himself to his saints now in that terrible way he did in the time of the law, but would have them come with boldness and have liberty of speech. For that is the word used, as in the second chapter of Ephesians, of the boldness we have to come into the presence of God: “Through him we have access by one spirit unto the Father” (Eph 2:18). The word access signifies a coming with freedom, as it were, being led by the hand of God. In Ephesians 3:12: “In whom we have boldness and access,” says the text there, “with confidence by the faith of him.” Here three words stand together: we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. The word here translated boldness means liberty of speech. We may come and speak our minds and pour out our hearts freely to God without any such terror.

And we may come to God ourselves, without desiring someone else to go for us. Moses had to go into God’s presence for them, as he did. Oh, they dared not go themselves; Moses must go and speak with God. But we may come into the presence of God and speak our hearts freely, with a holy boldness, in the name of Christ.

5. We have the spirit of adoption more than they did: “We have not received the spirit of bondage to fear again, but the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15). Even the people of God in former times were under a spirit of bondage. But now the spirit of adoption is more spread abroad and communicated to the churches in the world than it was before, and therefore the Lord expects a way of life suited to the spirit of adoption.

Take a child who has a servile spirit and is afraid to come into his father’s presence. It may be he will do some work in obedience to his father, but in a heavy and dull way. But afterward, when his father is fully reconciled to him and comes and speaks kindly to him, and a spirit of adoption comes upon the child, oh, then he goes on lively in his duty to his father! Then he rejoices in his father’s presence, and in doing anything that may please his father. When he is moved by a spirit of adoption, there is more service done according to the mind and will of Christ than there was before.

So, my brothers and sisters, we should exceed all who were under the law with a more filial obedience than there ever was in that time, or else our conduct is not such as becomes the gospel. Therefore when you open the Old Testament and read of those excellent, gracious spirits who were there (especially in the Psalms, what holy breathings and pantings after God there are, and in the Prophets, what exemplary holiness then lived and shone in the world), be ashamed of yourselves if you do not rise to as high a degree as they did, and higher too.

Objection. But, you will say, “They were eminent men. They were the prophets of God, and so they were extraordinary. Can ordinary Christians rise as high as they did, and be such burning and shining lamps as they were?”

Answer. I will give you one Scripture about that, in Zechariah 12:8. It is a clear prophecy of the times of the gospel: “In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the Angel of the Lord before them.” Mark it: “he that is feeble among them shall be as David,” who was a man after God’s own heart. Oh, read David’s Psalms, particularly Psalm 119, and see the holy breathings of David. And observe that there is a prophecy that those who are feeble shall be as David, and that those who are as David (that is, the eminent Christians, the Lord’s champions, “the house of David”) “shall be as God, as the angels of the Lord.” Christians in the time of the gospel who are eminent should live as angels, angelic lives, and the weakest of all should be as David.

Indeed, considering what we have revealed in the gospel, we should be ashamed that our hearts and lives should come short in spirituality and heavenliness of anyone who lived in the times of the law. See in Psalm 119 how you find David’s heart taken and ravished with the word of God: oh, how sweet the law of God was to him, sweeter than honey and the honeycomb! He does not mean the law there in opposition to the gospel, but the whole word of God. Now consider this: what part of God’s word did David have then? He did not have many of the prophecies. He had only the books of Moses and some other books. The book of Job existed then, and some of the Chronicles, some part of the Kings, and the book of Judges; but most of the Kings he could not have, for he was the second king. So how little of the word of God was written at that time! And yet how sweet the word was to him, as sweet as honey and the honeycomb, and how he delighted in it above gold and silver!

And then, as for the ordinances of God, oh, how taken he was with them, though in comparison with ours they were only carnal! In Psalm 84 he envied the very birds that were in the temple of God: “How amiable are thy courts, O Lord,” he says. Now just compare the Scriptures he had with those we have. The five books of Moses, and Joshua, and Judges, and Job were the chief Scriptures then extant. Compare them with the history of the gospel, in particular the sermons of Christ from the fifth chapter of Matthew to the eighth, and those remarkable passages from the fourteenth to the eighteenth chapter of John, and so on. Oh, what heavenly things are let down among us there! What heavenly truths we have!

Study and read over Paul’s epistles (which are so many holy letters sent from Christ to his saints here on earth). Oh, what spiritual, transcendent truths! What great mysteries and depths of God are opened and revealed there, beyond what there is in Genesis or Exodus or Leviticus or Numbers and the rest! And yet the word of God was dearer to David than all the world, and he professed that he meditated in it day and night. Now we have that word in two Testaments, which reveals abundantly more of God in Christ than he ever had. Therefore our lives should rise higher in holiness than the lives of those who were under the law; we should endeavor to be more exemplary in holy walking than they were. So much for the second head.

Now for the third head, which is the chief of all. If you would have your conduct be such as becomes the gospel, it must be suited to what the gospel holds forth to you. This is a great point, and it will serve two ends: first, to hold forth to you the principal things in the gospel; and second, to show you how you should suit your conduct to those things that are in the gospel. And we shall stay upon this head somewhat long.

The first and principal thing in the gospel is that it holds forth to us the infinite love of God to mankind. This is the very end of the gospel: that God might declare what an infinite love he has for the children of men, yes, for men rather than for angels. You know that Scripture in John 3:16: “So God loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” And indeed that one verse has more of God in it than all the creatures in heaven and earth. The whole frame of heaven and earth does not have so much of God in it as that one verse has. “So God loved the world” that he sent forth his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. It is as if God should say, when he comes to reveal the gospel, “I will have a way in which it shall appear to men and angels forever what the greatness of my love is to these poor creatures, the children of men. And to that end I send my Son, the second Person of the Trinity, to take their nature upon him and to come to be their Mediator. There I will manifest what my love is; that shall be the great fruit of love.”

It is the similitude of a learned divine. The love of God in all other things, he says, compared with the love of God in Christ revealed in the gospel, is like a little spark of fire compared with the heat in a furnace. When a furnace is heated red-hot, a few sparks of fire may fly out; but what is one of those sparks that fly out compared with all the heat there is in the furnace? So, he says, all the fruits of the love of God to mankind in all the works God ever did are only like that one spark, excepting this of Christ; and the love of God to mankind in Christ is, as it were, the heat of the furnace. There is burning love indeed: the love of God in Christ. This is the great scope of the gospel, the great aim of God, the great design God had in the gospel: to make known the infiniteness of his love to the children of men.

Now then, God in the gospel reveals what was in his heart toward mankind from all eternity (for so it is; that is the scope of the gospel). There was infinite love in the heart of God, burning toward mankind. From eternity God saw mankind before him, and there was such a strong inclination of his heart toward them in love that it even burned in his heart. Now in time God reveals this in the gospel; in its doctrine he opens his heart to the children of men. Whenever the gospel comes to be preached in any place, God looks upon that place and has workings like these in himself: “Well, that love of mine that I have had burning in my bosom from all eternity toward these poor creatures, now it shall be opened, now it shall be revealed.”

It is just as it was with Joseph. His heart was so warm in love toward his brothers that, though he kept it in a while, he could not keep it in long; at length it broke out like fire. His heart yearned toward his brothers, and he wept tears of love on their necks. So in the gospel of Christ, look upon God toward poor creatures as Joseph was toward his brothers: God, as it were, keeping in his heart toward them for a long time. But now, when the gospel comes among them, God opens his very heart to them. Therefore there must be a way of life that becomes the gospel, that becomes this great thing in the gospel. This is indeed the chief thing that the gospel holds forth in every line of it, and it reveals his eternal love toward them in particular, in the Son of his love, Christ Jesus, in whom he is well pleased.

Question. You will say, “What is it that becomes this thing in the gospel?”

Answer. Surely love: answering love, so that we return love for love. He who dwells in God dwells in love; God himself is love. Just read the first epistle of that beloved disciple John: what abundance of the love of God is made known there! Every letter of it is a character of love. And what commendations of love there are, in heavenly expressions! But you read no such thing in the Scripture before the gospel was revealed in the clearness it had then. Now there is nothing but love, love, and how it calls for love! Then there must be this conduct: love to God, as God has love to us. And that love must be real, as God’s love in Christ was.

Question. How did God manifest his love?

Answer. Conduct becoming the gospel must be a manifestation of our love in some proportionate way. “So God loved the world, as he gave his only Son”: that is, as if he had said, God so loved the world, so dearly, that he gave the thing that was dearest to God as a testimony of his love to mankind. The dearest thing, what is that? His Son. Suppose God had said, “That I might testify my love to mankind, as I have made one world for them, I will make ten thousand more; yes, I will make so many worlds that every one of the children of men shall have a world to possess.” You would think this very much. Oh, but this would be nothing compared with that expression, “So God loved the world, as he gave his Son.” The Son of God is infinitely dearer to God than ten thousand thousand millions of worlds.

Now, conduct that becomes the revelation of such love must be this: whatever is dearest to our souls, let it be given up to God. It was a testimony of Abraham’s love to God: “By this I know that you love me.” Why? Because he gave up his Isaac to God; he would not spare his only son, whom he loved. So God has shown his love to us. We may say, “Lord, by this we know that you love us, that you have given your Isaac, your only Son, for us. And by this, Lord, shall men and angels know that we love you: whatever is dear to our souls, you shall have it; we will offer it up to you by way of sacrifice.” This is conduct that becomes the gospel.

So when God calls for anything, never think it too much: “Oh, this is hard, and costly, and dear to me; how shall I part with this?” Is it becoming the gospel to stand bargaining with God over anything? Your love must be somewhat suited to God’s. His love was such that he gave the dearest thing to you, and therefore your love, if it runs parallel with his, must give the dearest thing to him.

And then, we should be moved by love, for that is the conduct that becomes the gospel: to be moved by love to God in all that we do, to be in a flame of love continually. As the salamander, they say, always lives in the fire, so should we live in the fire of love, not in the fire of contention. Now, love needs no argument to do anything but only this: “This thing will be pleasing to him to whom I offer it; it will please my Father.” That is argument enough for love: if I do such a thing, it will please my beloved. Therefore never stand arguing like this: “Such a thing is a duty, but is it necessary? Must I do it? Can’t a man be saved unless he does it? Are all damned who do not do this?” These are arguments of base, sordid spirits. But here is enough for love: here is a thing that would please God; if we did this, we would please God better than by not doing it. Therefore, as in that place you had before, “Walk worthy of the Lord to all pleasing” (Col 1:10), let the heart immediately spring upon this: “Such a thing was set before us out of the word at such a time, and I heard it would be well pleasing to God if I did this.”

Let me put just this to you who do not set up the worship of God in your families: do you not think it would please God better to set up his worship in your families than not? Is there no way of life that your consciences tell you would please God better than the way you live now? Would it not be more pleasing to God? Just ask your conscience now. If your hearts were moved by love, you would immediately take up what your consciences tell you would be more pleasing to God.

And then, love: this is a maxim of love, that love never knows when it has done enough; it knows no such thing as too much. For men to say, “What need is there to be so strict as to walk circumspectly? What need is there to do so much? Why must we be so holy?” is a base kind of reasoning. Is this as becomes the gospel? If you were moved by love, you would never think you had done enough for God. Oh, you would rather think, “Had I ten thousand thousand times more strength than I have, Lord, you are worthy of it all. Whatever I have, whatever I am, whatever I can do, you are worthy of it all.” Never stand arguing, “What need is there of so much?” Is the thing a good thing? Love never knows any such thing as too much.

We know that love cannot bear dishonor done to those we love. If anyone wrongs someone we love, and our hearts are inflamed with love, we do not know how to bear it; such people strike us in the apple of our eye. Oh, that is conduct that becomes the gospel: when we see the name of God dishonored, our hearts rise more against anything done against God than against anything done against ourselves, and we are inflamed for God when we see anything done that dishonors his name.

And we know that love will make us mourn and melt for any offense to those who are beloved by us. So that is conduct that becomes the gospel, when we show melting hearts and mourning spirits.

Love makes us delight in the presence of those we love. So that is conduct that becomes the gospel, when we show that there is nothing in the world we delight in more than being in the presence of our Beloved. Oh, to be always with God in the arms of Christ is our heaven on earth!

And then, conduct that becomes this gospel is to be of a loving disposition toward those who have any relation to God. Read over the epistles, where so much of the gospel is revealed; for indeed the chief of the gospel is there. Though we call the four evangelists the Gospel, because they are the story of Christ’s coming into the world and of his actions, yet there is more of the doctrine of the gospel in the epistles. For the time of the law was not fully expired until the destruction of the temple, which was after Christ’s death; and therefore, though the gospel began to shine forth, there was not so much of the gospel until after the destruction of the temple. Read the epistles, I say, and you will find that there is no one particular duty (besides faith in Jesus Christ) that the gospel so calls for from men as love in Christians toward one another, yes, love to all.

If you read the epistles of Paul, various places in Romans and in Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, they are continually beating upon love. And especially in the epistles of John (who was the beloved disciple and lay in the bosom of Christ) there is nothing so much as love. This is because love is indeed the conduct that becomes the gospel; for the main thing in the gospel is the declaring of the love of God. Therefore Christians who would live as becomes the gospel must live as those moved by love.

So in the story of the Acts, as soon as you read of any with whom the gospel prevailed, they immediately had one heart and one mind. Oh, how they cleaved to one another! Their hearts were one. And so we find in the histories of the primitive times. I remember Tertullian says that this was the way the heathen and the persecutors used to find out who were Christians. The Christians met at night for fear of danger, and did as wisely as they could to keep themselves from their persecutors. But the persecutors found by experience that when people were converted to the Christian religion, another kind of spirit moved them, and especially a spirit of love to one another. There was another kind of love among Christians toward one another then than in any other society of mankind. The heathen saw this and wondered at it, and it was by this that they found out who were Christians. If they saw any people beginning to have a spirit of love more than before, they would think, “Surely these have heard of this Christian religion, and they are beginning to be Christians.” This was the glory of the Christian religion in those times, that there was such entire love and union of hearts among them.

The apostle John would have such love that Christians should be willing to die for one another, and they did so in the primitive times. Oh, this would be becoming the gospel indeed! But oh, how far, how far we are from such conduct in such times as we live in now, as if the gospel had gone from us! We speak of the gospel as if it were revealed more now than ever, and we speak much about free grace in the gospel; but look at the lives of men: they were never more unsuited to the gospel, and that in this particular respect, the sincere love in the hearts of Christians.

My brothers and sisters, malicious dispositions are extremely unbecoming the gospel, hateful and malicious dispositions. What is a beastly, brutish savageness, the fierceness of beasts, doing in the breast of a Christian? Oh, it is infinitely unbecoming a Christian to have an unloving disposition, a hateful disposition, to be hating one another, and to have a spirit of opposition and contradiction and peevishness against one another. There is nothing more unbecoming the gospel of Jesus Christ than this.

I remember I have read of one of the heathen emperors who, being somewhat convinced about Christ and hearing much of him, saw two who professed the name of Christians fall out bitterly with one another. As soon as he perceived it, he called them to him and gave a strict command that they should never afterward presume to call themselves by the name of Christians. “No,” he said, “you do not act according to the Master you profess; your life is unsuited to your Master.” Even one who was only a heathen himself spoke this way. Oh, if we profess ourselves Christians, let our conduct be as becomes the gospel in the matter of love, and let the love of God revealed in the gospel be our argument for love.

There are a great many arguments for love from human society and from reason: that men who live together should love one another as men; that a great deal of harm comes from peevishness and bitterness; that it is against the rules of society; and that men cannot live quietly unless there is some way of soldering them together by love. These arguments carry some weight, and yet heathens would have these too. Oh, but those who profess the gospel of Christ have one argument that is infinitely beyond all arguments that can be imagined, and that is in John 3:16, named before: “So God loved the world,” loved the world, “that he gave his only begotten.” We hear how the love of God that was in his heart from all eternity is brought forth and revealed in the gospel. Oh, let this inflame our hearts with love! Oh, that there might not be one Christian who professes the name of Christ in whom it does not appear that his heart is sweetened with love, that he lives, as it were, in the very element of love, and that he is moved by love in all that he does! Oh, this would beautify your Christian profession more than all your talk of this and that! Oh, that it would come again, that this becoming conduct of Christians would come again into the world!

I remember I have heard of a saying of Dr. Whitaker, rebuking the conduct of the scholars in Cambridge. “Surely,” he said, “this that we preach is not the gospel, or otherwise we are no Gospelers, because our way of life is so different from the gospel.” And so we may say about this one particular of love: either it is only a fancy that we hear so much in the gospel of the love of God in Jesus Christ, or else we are no Gospelers, no true professors of the gospel. Whatever profession of the gospel we make, unless divine love appears moving us in all that we do, God will not own us as Gospelers. For certainly it is a main aim God has in revealing the gospel to sweeten the hearts of men with love. Either give up your profession, or walk more lovingly than you have done toward those who make the same profession. Yes, you should walk lovingly toward your enemies, for the gospel reveals much of God’s goodness even toward the whole world in general, so that the knowledge of the gospel should produce love even toward all.

Oh, that it might be said of men and women who were of rugged, harsh, and malicious dispositions before: “Yet since it pleased God that they came under the ministry of the gospel, and heard the truths of the gospel opened to them, oh, since that time their hearts have been altered and changed! Oh, what sweet dispositions they have now, the husband toward the wife, and the wife toward the husband! In that family there was nothing but harshness and brawling, but now there is nothing but sweetness and love.” And this comes from the knowledge of the love of God in Jesus Christ. That love which is raised in the hearts of men, and set in motion by this principle, the knowledge of the love of God in Jesus Christ, will be a divine grace indeed. This is the first thing, and the great thing, held forth in the gospel: namely, the love of God to mankind.

I will only name one or two things more now, and the next is this:

The infinite willingness of God to be at peace and to be reconciled to those who have offended him, yes, to his enemies. What is the scope of the gospel? The eternal love of God to mankind in Christ: that is the first thing. Then the second thing is the infinite willingness there is in God to be at peace, to be reconciled to those who have offended him. This is held forth in the gospel; the gospel is the ministry of reconciliation. Now, what conduct should there be in us that becomes this which the gospel holds forth?

And then there is the infinite mercy of God in the gospel in delivering poor creatures out of a depth of misery; that is a main thing in the gospel. And there are many other particulars, such as the infinite hatred God has against sin, and the great price paid for souls, which is held forth in the gospel too, with various other things that might be spoken of. But I beg you, consider the point we are about: namely, to show you what the gospel holds forth to us, and then what conduct becomes all these things and is suited to them. If God would only be pleased to go along with this one point we are now upon, we hope it may give light to the way Christians live, and may also commend this word of grace to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. And it may (if God will say Amen to it) in some measure recover the dishonor that has been cast upon the gospel of Christ in these latter times by the loose and uneven walking among those who profess it themselves.

This has very much darkened the glory of this marvelous great light, “Which should be a lamp unto their feet, and a light unto their paths” (Ps 119:105). Oh, that Jesus Christ, from whose hand and heart this gospel came, would now preach it home to every one of our hearts, that its truths may be turned into grace, spirit, and life in the midst of us, so that our lives and conduct may be a daily practical sermon of holiness, and in particular, that we love one another as becomes the gospel.

Only let your conversation be as becometh the gospel of Christ (Phil 1:27).

We closed last time with this: that we should love one another. This sets before us not only the love of God the Father but the infinite love of Jesus Christ, the second Person in the Trinity, and this calls for love to one another. Let me point you to one or two more Scriptures about this. Here is the union of Christian hearts in one bent of love. No duty is pressed more in the New Testament than love, love to one another (next to faith, that great engine of the covenant of grace), and it is pressed on the ground of the infinite love of God and of Jesus Christ to us.

Compare Ephesians 3 with Ephesians 4. In Ephesians 3:19 we read, “And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge; that ye might be filled with all fullness of God.” Then at the beginning of the fourth chapter: “I therefore” (here is an inference, with its application) “the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you, That you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called” (Eph 4:1). You are called to Christ, to the gospel, and there you have the love of Christ made known. How shall they walk worthy of this calling? “With all lowliness, and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph 4:2-3).

Earlier he prayed that they might know the love of Christ, and then on that basis he exhorts them. He builds his exhortation, or rather his entreaty, on it: that with all lowliness, meekness, and longsuffering they would forbear one another in love. For you are called to profess the gospel, and there the love of the Father and of Christ is set before you. Would you walk worthy of this calling, then? Then let there be much meekness, and forbearing of one another in love.

So in Ephesians 5:2: “And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor.” Walk in love as Christ has loved us, that is, in a way that suits it. It is as if the apostle said, “Would you walk suitably to the gospel of Christ that you profess? Then walk in love, as Christ hath loved us.” This is a principal thing. In the gospel you come to know the love of Christ as other people do not know it; therefore walk in love. “Walk in love as Christ hath loved us”: make the love of Christ the pattern for your love.

As I told you, there is nothing more unbecoming the gospel of Christ than a hateful, malicious, rugged, dog-star disposition, nothing more unbecoming than for Christians to be tearing one another and falling out with one another, like those beasts at Ephesus that Paul complains of. Oh, this is infinitely unbecoming the gospel of Christ! Do you know what the love of God in Jesus Christ means? Do you feel the love of Christ? Oh, this love should so sweeten your hearts that there would be no more bitterness in you, but you would live in love as in your element.

One of the ancients says, “What are beastly fierceness and cruelty and savagery doing in the breast of a Christian?” It is unbecoming the name of a Christian. Therefore let your conduct be as becomes the gospel of Christ, which holds out love. Oh, let there be much love in you; be moved by love in all your ways, so that those who run may read this new commandment that Christ left to his followers, that they love one another in deed and in truth.

Second, the gospel of Christ holds out this: the infinite willingness of God to be at peace with mankind, to be reconciled to man, to those who have offended him, yes, to those who are his enemies. This is the aim of the gospel (a principal aim). I say that in the gospel God would make known to all the world his infinite willingness to be reconciled to those who have offended him.

Indeed, without the gospel we might grasp this much: that the Lord is a God full of goodness, that he is good and does good, that all good is in him. But that God is such a God of peace, so infinitely set on it (if I may put it so), set on being reconciled to those who are his enemies, could never have been known except by this gospel of Christ. Here we find that though there was an infinite rift between God and man, between heaven and earth, through our sin, yet the Lord was willing to be reconciled. Yes, though man’s offense was exceedingly great, so great that it cried out for vengeance, yet he was pleased to stoop wonderfully low to make peace with him. Yes, though the Lord had man in his power and could do with him whatever he pleased (he had his enemy under his feet, and might have broken him all to pieces with his iron rod like a potter’s vessel, which once broken can never be made whole again), yet he was willing to be reconciled.

Further, God was willing to be reconciled though he had no need of us at all, for he was infinitely blessed in himself, he who is perfection and blessedness itself. Sometimes we are willing to be reconciled to our enemies either because we do not have them in our power or because we have some need of them. But God, who had us under his hand and might easily have destroyed us, and who had no need of us at all, still desired to spare us, as a father spares his only son whom he loves.

Again, the gospel holds this out to us: that the Lord begins the work of reconciliation, he loving us first. The infinite God seeks us, his creatures, to come in and be reconciled. Therefore he sends his ambassadors of peace to beseech us in Christ’s stead to come in and be reconciled to him, and to accept his terms of peace, which do so much for our everlasting salvation.

Moreover, God is willing to be reconciled though reconciliation must cost him very dearly. God must go to great cost and expense to reconcile his creatures to himself. It cost no less than the blood of his only begotten Son, and yet he is willing to be reconciled. God says, “My heart is set on this work. Let it cost what it will, even if it were ten thousand worlds, yet my heart is so set on it that I will bring them in, that they may be reconciled to me and made one with me.”

Lastly, the gospel reveals this: that God is so set on reconciliation, and is so reconciled to those who embrace the gospel, that he will never be at enmity with them again. Once reconciled, he will never allow such a breach to be made between mankind and himself anymore. He will be their Father in Christ, and you will be his sons and daughters through him to all eternity in Christ Jesus our Lord. Who shall separate us from the love of God? Thus the gospel holds out not only reconciliation but such a reconciliation as this, which men and angels can never sufficiently marvel at and bless God for. This is a second beam (if I may put it so) of the gospel.

What manner of persons, then, ought we to be? Our conduct must be as becomes this gospel of Christ in this great thing that the gospel holds out to us. Surely, then, this calls aloud to all of us to love peace. Oh, love peace! Is God so set on peace as this? Is he willing to go to such great cost for peace? Oh, let us love peace, let us follow peace, let us pursue peace, let us seek peace, let us do all we possibly can for peace: “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men” (Rom 12:18). Let us count peace never too dearly bought at any price but sin.

The Lord Christ would not sin to purchase peace. Even if it could possibly have been conceived that peace might be had by committing some sin, Christ would never have purchased peace that way. But if it was by any way of suffering, he was willing to endure it: to leave the heavens for a while and take on himself the form of a servant, yes, to have the felt influences of his Father’s love eclipsed for a time, yes, to be made a curse. Whatever he suffered in his good name, he was willing to endure anything to make peace between God and man, to reconcile the world to heaven. Oh, let us love peace! It is becoming the gospel of Christ for our hearts to be set on peace.

And the exhortation you have in Ephesians (mentioned before) is likewise built on the consideration of Christ’s working in this way for our peace: “For He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in His flesh the enmity” (Eph 2:14-15). And then in Ephesians 2:16: “That He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the Cross, having slain the enmity thereby.”

So this Scripture shows not only that Christ is our peace with respect to God, and that he died for this end, to make peace between God and us, but also that Jesus Christ died to make peace between man and man. It was one fruit of his death to break down the middle wall of partition between us and to slay the enmity. He does not say to kill our enemies, but to kill the enmity itself. The meaning is this: Christ died to take down the partition wall between Jew and Gentile. There was an enmity between Jew and Gentile, so that they might not associate with one another. Now it was a fruit of Christ’s death to take down the partition wall and slay the enmity between them, so that there might be but one sheepfold, that he might reconcile both to God in one body.

Now, was this the end of Christ’s death, not only to reconcile us to God but to reconcile us to one another in one body, Jew and Gentile? Surely there cannot be such a distance between one Christian and another as there was between Jew and Gentile. And Christ so loved unity and peace in the world, especially among those who made any profession of his name, that he would die to that end. He would lose his life to procure peace between Jews and Gentiles and bring them into one body.

And truly, so it should be with us. We should be willing. Those whose hearts are right (I say) cannot help being so deeply affected by the breaches among us and the unpeaceableness of people’s spirits that, if they could procure peace by laying down their lives, they would be willing to do it. Every Christian should make it evident that he is so set on peace that if laying down his life could procure peace, he would be willing to do it. If we may make up breaches by standing in the gap and offering ourselves up as a sacrifice of atonement and pacification, let us prove ourselves in this way to be true followers of Christ our Lord and Master, who has left us his own example in this for us to imitate. This would be an excellent thing, befitting the gospel of Christ that we profess.

Yes, we should not only be willing to accept peace but should seek it, seek it even from our inferiors. Do not say, “Such a man has wronged me, so let him come to me.” Oh no! It becomes you who profess the gospel of Christ not to wait until the one who has wronged you comes to you, but for you who are wronged by another to go to those who have wronged you and seek that they would be at peace with you. Perhaps (consulting with flesh and blood) you might think it unreasonable that you, the one who was wronged, should seek peace. Yes, but it becomes the gospel of Christ that you should do so. God sought you; you never sought him. If God had not begun the work of peace with you, God and your souls would have been enemies forever.

Therefore remember that you are not to live according to reason. You think there is all the reason in the world that those who have wronged you should come crouching at your feet rather than that you should go to them. Well, grant that there is all the reason in the world for it. Yes, but what is there in the gospel to the contrary? You are not to live only as becomes reason; your conduct is to be as becomes the gospel of Christ. If you stand on these terms, “Let him come to me before I will go to him,” is this as becomes the gospel? What do you show of the great work of the gospel if you do not show this: your willingness to be at peace, and to seek peace even from your inferiors?

And do not say that the offense is great: “Oh, it is a great offense that such a one has committed! He has dealt very proudly with me, and shall I go to him?” His offense against you is not as great as your offense was against God, and yet God seeks to be at peace with you through Christ.

“But he is my inferior,” you say. “Perhaps it is some poor, mean fellow who has wronged me like this.” Do not think there is such a distance between you and other people. It may be that you have a little more power in your hand and a few more pennies in your purse than your neighbor has. But what an infinite distance was there between God and you! Oh, remember that your conduct must be as becomes the gospel of Christ.

“Yes, but it will put me to a great deal of trouble. I can have him punished more easily than I can bring things to a peace between us.” More easily? Could not God more easily have sent you down to the lowest hell? How quickly could God have brought you down and ruined you forever! But God was content to make peace on hard terms (if I may speak so). Indeed, they were hard terms by which God came to reconcile the world to himself, the hardest terms that could possibly be conceived. For Jesus Christ, his eternal Son, took our nature on himself and was made a curse for us, he who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Therefore do not stand on any hard terms. If peace may be purchased any way but by sin, do not stand on terms, for this is as becomes the gospel of Christ.

Yes, and when you are reconciled to your brother, be reconciled in such a way as to be firm in your reconciliation. Do not be like some: peace is made between them, but how? In such a way that they stand ready to take advantage of one another at any slip afterward. God does not deal so with you. The gospel does not hold out such a peace as this, that God will be at peace with you for the present, but afterward you had better look out for yourselves, for God will take every advantage against you that he can. If such a peace had been made between God and you, you would have been in hell long before now. Therefore let your peace be a firm, a settled, and a constant peace.

Oh, if only this were considered in these contentious days, when there are such breaches between brother and brother in every town and in every family, and hardly anyone who is not broken off from others with an irreconcilable spirit! Oh, how unbecoming the gospel of Jesus Christ is an irreconcilable spirit! Certainly God has not made you know what the mystery of the gospel of peace is, you who have war in your heart and on your tongue against your brother. And that is the second thing that the gospel holds out to us.

Only take this one note on this second thing. Though there are many arguments to move us to the kind of conduct I am now urging on you, let Christians above all make the gospel the argument of arguments to move them to it. For example, in the matter of peace there are many arguments to move us to be at peace with our brother, drawn from the troubles that will follow our breaches and the like. Now show yourselves Christians in this: above all arguments, make the consideration of what you understand in the gospel the great motive of motives to prevail with you for peace. This argument will do it when nothing else will. Perhaps a friend comes and persuades you to be at peace: “You will find a great deal of trouble in going to law and suing, and in enmity one against another; a great deal of anxiety will come of it; and therefore be reconciled and live like neighbors with one another.” Well and good. But when you find that your hearts will not stoop to any other argument, then get alone into your private rooms, search the Scriptures, and there lay to your hearts all the arguments you can from the gospel of Jesus Christ. There see how God reconciled the world to himself, and how God was set upon the work of peace. Lay these to your hearts, and when no other arguments will move you, the consideration of this, through the blessing of God, will do it. And that is all for the second point.

In the third place, the gospel holds forth the infinite mercy of God to miserable creatures. When man was plunged into such a depth of misery, nothing but the deep compassion of God moved him to help men out of the depth of misery into which they were plunged. And though man was unworthy of mercy, God’s mercy was free; yes, and it was a transcendent mercy of God: “The mercy of God is over all his works” (Ps 145:9). The heathen could understand that God was a merciful God; the light of nature will tell us something of the mercy of God. But nothing sets out the depths of God’s compassion as the gospel of Jesus Christ does. There you have the very heart of God’s mercy (indeed) made legible to all the world, in Luke 1:78: “Through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us.” The tender mercies of our God, or, as the words literally are, “the bowels of mercy”: here is the depth of God’s inmost mercy held forth in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is impossible that we could have understood the depth of that inmost mercy except by the gospel.

Adam in innocence knew little of the mercy of God, for since he was not in misery, he had no need of mercy to help him out of misery. By his understanding he must have known that mercy was a good thing, and therefore was in God, the first Being of all; and yet he did not understand the mercy that the gospel holds forth. Yes, the angels in heaven do not know it except by the gospel, and so they desire to look into these deep mercies of God to mankind. Oh, here in the gospel are held forth the mercies of God that will be the subject of the praises of angels and saints to all eternity!

You think it is a great mercy when your child is sick and God restores it. You think it is a great mercy when you are at sea and God turns the wind, when, if it had stood only half an hour longer the way it was blowing, you would have lost vessel, lives, and all. You think it a mercy, when you have been in any danger abroad in foreign parts, that the Lord was a present help in time of trouble; and when there has been any affliction on your family, that God has sent you deliverance. These are mercies for which God is to be praised. Oh, but what are all these to the mercies of God in Jesus Christ, his right-hand mercies?

And indeed this would be a good sign of a gracious heart: when any particular mercy is granted, whether family mercies or personal mercies, to meditate like this: “Lord, I am less, I am less than the least of all your mercies; yet here are timely and comforting mercies to me and mine. But, O Lord, what is all this to that infinite fountain of mercy in Christ, your mercies in the gospel, your mercies in your Son? There are depths, infinite depths of mercy indeed. This is but a drop, and indeed a sweet one; but the infinite ocean of mercy is in Jesus Christ.” Christ is the mercy of God to mankind, in whose womb all other mercies are conceived and brought forth into the world. All my fresh springs, both upper and nether springs, are in him, who is All in All.

Oh, it would be a good sign that the gospel has been revealed to you if you marvel at Jesus Christ as the great mercy of all mercies. Be thankful for every mercy; yet when you come to consider the mercy of Christ, look on it as a mercy of wonder, and stand amazed at the thought of it. Well, it is the gospel that holds forth the glory of the riches of God’s mercy. God is said in the Word to be “rich in mercy” (Eph 2:4); he is not said so much to be rich in power as rich in mercy. Now what conduct is suitable to this?

What else but what Christ himself says: “Be ye merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36)? Oh, do you have merciful hearts toward one another? Look with a merciful eye on those who are in great misery; this is what becomes the gospel of Jesus Christ. Oh, a harsh, rugged, and cruel disposition is infinitely unbecoming the gospel of Christ! To see a Christian, one who professes the gospel, who makes more profession of the knowledge of God and of the free grace of God in Christ than others, and yet, when it comes to dealing with those in misery, to find him with a hard heart! Oh, a hardhearted Christian is a monster. I say, a hardhearted Christian is a monster in the world. Not to be ready to forgive others, or to do anything for others who are in misery, is devilish. But to rejoice that you have someone to whom you may show pity and compassion, oh, this is what becomes the gospel of Christ. Though those in misery are strangers to you, yet be merciful to them, for you were strangers to God.

Yes, be merciful to your enemies; not only be willing to be at peace with them, but be merciful. Do you see someone who has wronged you in misery? Do not let him perish, but let your compassion work even toward him. Oh, that our hearts yearned toward all! When Christ came near Jerusalem, he wept over it. Oh, that the same spirit were in us as was in Jesus Christ! There is no argument for mercy to others like the consideration of the mercies of God in Jesus Christ. Oh, a heart full of mercy befits the gospel of Christ, and it should be shown in reality. Do not let people in misery have only verbal mercies from you, that is, seeming to pity them in words. Oh, let there be real mercies to them! Open your hearts and let something drop from you for the relief of those who are in misery.

It is a notable Scripture in Ephesians 4:31-32, and suitable to that in Colossians 3:13. In Ephesians 4 the apostle (speaking of the mercies of Christ) says, “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice; and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” Be tenderhearted. Oh, God shows the tenderness of his heart in the gospel, and it is becoming the gospel to set this forth as a pattern: the tenderness of God’s heart to poor sinners in the depth of misery. Do you see anyone in misery, and do you not find your heart begin to break toward them? If you do not find your heart breaking, oh, set before you the infinite tenderness of God’s mercies in Jesus Christ; that will break your heart if anything in the world will.

And so in Colossians 3:13-14, a place somewhat parallel to this: “Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another; if any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye: and above all these things, put on charity.” You see the apostle counts this the great argument of all. And therefore know that the Lord takes it very much to heart when the tender hearts of professing Christians are turned into gravel.

Search into that remarkable parable in Matthew 18:28-35, where Jesus Christ preaches down all cruel and unchristian dispositions in those who are fellow servants, belonging to one and the same Master and living under one roof. Yes, the zeal of Christ broke out like thunder and lightning against such a servant as takes his fellow by the throat. Therefore, says the text, “His lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due to him” (Matt 18:34). The Lord Christ delivered that cruel servant, that hardhearted wretch, to the tormentors, because he did a thing so unbecoming the mercy he himself had received from Christ. “Oh,” says Christ, “are you cruel and unmerciful when you have received so much favor from me, even a full discharge of your many great debts? Away with you to the tormentors! Let the most cruel executioners of my fierce wrath torment you without any mercy and compassion.” Oh, those who have hard hearts walk unsuitably to the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is full of the riches of God’s grace to all.

Oh, you who have received any pardoning mercies from Jesus Christ, beware of cruelty to your servants and to your children. It is very sad to see how some professing Christians cast the gospel of Christ behind their backs if their passions are only stirred. What, will you bite and devour one another when you receive the least affront, by tongue or hand? Oh, where is your bearing and forbearing with one another? For shame, do not fly in the face of anyone (like a bear robbed of her cubs) when you are buffeted by men. Oh, remember Jesus Christ! Oh, remember, you who stand in so much need of mercy from God every day: for you to be cruel toward others, oh, here is conduct infinitely unbecoming the gospel of Christ!

And it is unbecoming the grace that is offered to have a sullen, despairing, and unbelieving disposition. Yet we see some who are disciples, and every little thing causes them to despair and be sullen, and their hearts to sink within them. Oh, friends, is this a gospel frame of spirit? Let me speak plainly to you. When you come to hear the glorious riches of the grace of the gospel set before you in the Word, you seem somewhat taken with it; but when you go home to your family, are you not ready under the least cross to bury a thousand mercies? Oh, what a dishonor this is to the gospel of Jesus Christ! It reveals so much of the mercy of God that it calls for the Christians who profess it to go through troubles and discouragements with cheerful hearts. And although there are many things that might daunt the spirits of others who do not understand what the mercies of God in Christ are, yet those who profess the gospel should show undaunted spirits. And why? Because it is infinite, free, rich, glorious grace that is made known to them by the word of Christ’s lips.

Objection. You will say, “Yes, if I knew that this mercy were mine.”

Answer. Yes, but do you not hear in the gospel that it is free? No soul has any right to this mercy except by casting itself on this mercy, and therefore it is as free for you to cast yourself on it as for anyone else. Indeed, the mercy of God revealed by the light of nature is a more conditional mercy: that is, if I do such and such things, then God will be merciful to me. The light of nature goes no further than this: if I obey and leave my sin, then I may hope that God will be merciful to me. It is true, the Scripture tells us that if I do not leave my sin, God will not have mercy. Yes, but the gospel holds forth mercy in this way: there is mercy in God first to pardon your sin, and then to take away your sin. Now the gospel reveals God’s mercy in justifying the ungodly.

Though I am poor and blind and miserable and naked, and have no power to leave my sin, yet I have free leave to cast my soul on God’s mercy, both for pardon and for power against my sin together; for so it must be. Indeed, I have no power, and I must not wait until I have power against my sin and only then venture all I have on Jesus Christ. This is the mercy of the gospel. I speak of this despair and sullenness of heart as it shows itself in the conduct of men and women, by which they dishonor the gospel of Christ: when they live in their families with their hearts sinking in such a sullen way, as if there were nothing in the gospel of Christ to encourage poor troubled souls, no more than men might understand by the light of nature. By that light, indeed, if I lived better and honored God, I might have encouragement that God would show me mercy. But the mercy of the gospel is such that there is mercy both to pardon and to heal my soul. And therefore, though I am sinful, I must not hold back from believing in God’s mercy until I am healed, but I must believe in God’s mercy so that I may be healed. That is the third particular that the gospel holds forth to us.

Now the fourth thing the gospel reveals is this: that though God is infinitely merciful, yet he is merciful in such a way that justice will not be wronged. And this too is proper to the gospel. It is impossible for men or angels to come to understand this mystery except by this gospel light: how God should be infinitely merciful, and yet infinitely just too. This is held forth in Romans 3:25-26: “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness, for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God: To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” Now this is a great mystery of the gospel, a Scripture that Luther fasted and prayed that he might understand, and it was a long while before he could know the mind of God in it.

Now the gospel says this: “I will show the infinite riches of my mercy, but in such a way that my infinite justice will be no loser. And therefore, though I will save mankind, I will save them in such a way that I will have as much glory for my justice as if all the men in the world had been damned to all eternity.” This is the mystery of the gospel. And it is clear that though God shows infinite mercy, yet God has a way of showing his mercy in the gospel by which the justice of God is as much honored and satisfied as if all the men in the world had been cast into everlasting burnings: that is, through his Son’s dying for man’s sin, being made a curse for us. This is the great point of the gospel; unless we understand it, we know nothing of Christ and his gospel as we ought to know it.

Most men and women in the world seek God for mercy, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner,” but they do not think of a way for God to show mercy so that he may still have the glory of infinite justice. God seals the forgiveness of sin in the court of justice as well as in the court of mercy. Few think of this, and that is the reason people are often ready to despair. For a long while they have only slight thoughts of God, and they hope Christ will be merciful to them. Yet in a time of temptation, when the devil comes and sets before them the dreadfulness of God’s justice, that God is a most just God as well as merciful, this makes their hearts sink like a stone within their breasts.

But the soul that sees the way of God in the gospel sees that God is infinitely set upon mercy, and also sees a way in which God’s infinite justice may be satisfied; and seeing both of these is a mighty help to faith. Now let ever so many temptations come. When the soul is catching hold of God’s mercy, temptation says, “Yes, but God is a just God as well as merciful; are you not presuming?” “No,” says the soul, “in the way of mercy my soul rests on, I see there is a way of satisfaction to infinite justice as well as a way for showing mercy. And therefore, though God is a righteous God and a just God, yet here I see a way for my soul to be saved, and yet for divine justice to suffer no wrong either; and therefore I can believe and venture my soul on this.” It is impossible for a sinner to venture his soul on any way of mercy, if he has come to understand what a God he has to deal with, unless he comes to know God in Jesus Christ, in that way in which infinite justice is satisfied to the last farthing, which is declared in the gospel. Now what conduct is suitable to this?

Hence let there be such conduct in you as may show that you do not turn the grace of God into wantonness. Oh, wanton conduct is infinitely unbecoming the gospel! Oh, there is infinite mercy and free grace treasured up here, and will you therefore be wanton and vain and loose? There is infinite grace; but what way does God take to show infinite grace? Is it not in a way in which the most dreadful justice of God appears too? Is not the grace of God let out to you through the blood of his Son, in which the most dreadful fruit of God’s justice is shown that ever was since the beginning of the world, or ever will be shown to the end of the world? If you were to see all the damned in hell, the chambers of death unlocked, and the wrath of God flaming out there in fire and brimstone, it would not be such a dreadful sight as to see Jesus Christ made an offering for sin, lying under the vials of his Father’s wrath, falling down on the ground, groveling and sweating out great drops of water and blood, and crying out on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46). This is the way your mercy was purchased; therefore there is infinite justice together with infinite mercy.

Oh, then, do not be wanton; do not turn the grace of God into wantonness. Rejoice in God’s mercy, yet rejoice with trembling, with fear and reverence of the name of God. When you speak of the free grace of God, and when you come to believe in the free grace of God in the gospel, you may come cheerfully and boldly; yes, but come with reverence and holy, humble fear. I do not mean despairing fear, nor servile, slavish fear, but an awed reverence of the glory of God that appears in the Lord Jesus Christ. I need not send you to the law to cause fear in your hearts; there is enough in the gospel to cause your souls to tremble before God, as well as to believe in God. “Even our God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29). Oh, what was he to Jesus Christ? I need go no further to lift up God and make him an object of my fear than to look on him in his dealings with his Son. And therefore, those Christians who walk loosely, altogether on slight thoughts of mercy, without any fear to ballast their hearts, oh, certainly their conduct is not gospel conduct. For if you understood the way of God’s mercy in the gospel, you would see that it should fill your heart with fear and reverence all the days of your life.

And as you must beware of wantonness, so you must reverence God’s justice, even its dreadfulness, as the gospel holds it forth. To think that God would have you keep your thoughts only on his mercy, and not have your hearts give glory to his justice, is certainly a vain conceit. And I fear it will cause the gospel to dwindle to little in the hearts of men, when men understand the gospel in such a way as not to apprehend the dreadfulness of his justice, as if God would not have the glory of his justice.

“Christ has satisfied that,” you say. Has Christ satisfied that? Consider what you are saying when you say so. Only consider how much of the glory of God’s justice appears in what Christ has done and suffered. I desire to hold forth the glory of justice no further than by holding forth Jesus Christ to you. Do you not think that God would have you sanctify in your heart and life all the attributes of God that appear in Jesus Christ? Now the glory of justice appears as much in Christ as the glory of mercy does. Then you who profess the gospel must sanctify this attribute of God as well as the other; you sanctify them both by honoring God’s justice. I do not say that you should have a despairing heart (no, it will keep you from despairing), or that you should have a servile spirit, but that you should sanctify it with reverence.

And another thing is very worth considering: is God so set upon the glory of his justice in the gospel? Oh, then labor to be just in all your conduct. You see how God prizes justice: he would rather have his Son die and be made a curse than that justice should not have its honor. Oh, beware of injustice; the sin of injustice is a sin unbecoming the gospel. And here is an argument against injustice, stronger than any I know in the whole Book of God, or than can be imagined by men and angels. It is this: in the gospel I find that God has his heart so set upon justice that, rather than justice should not be satisfied, he will not spare his Son one farthing. As the Scripture says, “He spared not his own Son” (Rom 8:32). His Son must pay to the uttermost; his Son must bear his very wrath and all, so that God may show his infinite love for justice. Oh, then, let Christians love justice in all their dealings, in their dealings with God and in their dealings between one person and another.

To see someone who professes the gospel, and at times counts the feet of those beautiful who bring glad tidings of salvation, and yet is unjust in his dealings! Only follow him in his course of dealing with others: there justice is no matter of conscience to him; there he would rather break the rule of justice than (it may be) lose sixpence or a shilling. What if it were the loss of thirty or forty pounds? Is that such a thing that the rule of justice must be broken rather than lose a little money? Is this as becomes the gospel, when you hear the gospel say that rather than the glory of justice should be darkened, the blood of his Son must go for it? And God expects Christians to be so in love with justice that they would rather be content to be ruined in their estates, and to beg their bread from door to door, than be unjust in any of their actions. Oh, it greatly eclipses the glory of the Word when those who profess it are false in their dealings!

Oh, remember, you Christian who hold up the gospel with your right hand: when you hear of the death of Christ, there the love that God bears to justice is held forth. God is set upon the honor of justice, and he will have it. What justice requires in your trading must be made up one way or another: either you must pay eternally for it, and so justice be made up, or else it must cost the blood of Jesus Christ. God is set upon justice in another manner than you think. Oh, let your conduct be as becomes this truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Fifth, the Lord in the gospel shows how he is set upon satisfying the law, and what a high price he puts on the law. The excellency of the law appears more clearly in the gospel than in the doctrine of the law itself. Take this: Christ came to fulfill all righteousness. Surely God set a high price on his law, that he would not save any soul living who had broken it except by his Son, who must come to fulfill it. First, he must have all righteousness kept. And it was in order to show his love for his law (I say) that Christ must come and subject himself to the law; he must be under the law. It was on this account that Christ says, “It becomes us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt 3:15). God was so set upon his law that, when Christ undertook for mankind, if Christ had not satisfied every part of the law that was required, if one jot of the law had been left unfulfilled, all mankind must have perished in everlasting burnings.

God sets a high value on his royal law; therefore learn to prize the law of God. It is true, you cannot keep it for justification; that was Christ’s task, so to keep the law that he might justify sinners. But by this God teaches us to esteem it highly, and not to slight it and despise it. The law of God is a precious crystal glass; it is the very looking glass of the holiness and righteousness of God. And you must prize it as you prize the great looking glasses your mariners bring from other parts. You bring home your great crystals worth twenty or forty or sixty pounds, according to their size. Now would you not take it extremely ill, when you have spent so much on one, for a child or servant to come and break it all to pieces?

Now, my brothers and sisters, consider: the law of God here resembles the crystal glass. As in your glasses you may see your faces, so in that crystal glass of the law the holiness of God shines through. It is such a glass that God values it above all the world. This is plain, for the Lord stands much upon the keeping of the law and upon obedience to it. And therefore beware of breaking it merely to satisfy your lusts, to accommodate and serve your own base ends; this is unbecoming the gospel of Christ.

There are many who make a great noise about gospel truths, so that they cry up “The gospel of Christ, the gospel of Christ,” as people once cried, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord” (Jer 7:4). And they think that this wholly takes away their obedience to the law of God, so that it must not even be a rule of life. Certainly nothing holds forth the excellency of the law more than the knowledge of Jesus Christ (the only Lawgiver) being subjected to the law. And his subjection was to take away our guilt, to cancel the bond of the law that bound us to eternal death. But we never read that this subjection to the law was to make void our obedience to it, so that it should not be any rule of life to us. For indeed, what is the law of God but the pure will of God? And do you think that Christ came to take us away from obeying the will of God, which it was Christ’s meat and drink to do?

I do not insist so much on the term, that is, on the law as given by Moses, but on the things contained in it, revealed in it as part of the will of God. God stands much upon this, that we should make the revealing of these things in the Word the rule of our life; and this is shown by Christ’s ready and full subjection to it. And that is the first particular, what it is that we come to know by the gospel, according to which we should suit our conduct.

Only let your conversation be as becometh the gospel of Christ (Phil 1:27).

In the sixth place, would you know what conduct becomes the gospel? Consider what the gospel holds out to you. It holds forth God’s infinite hatred of sin more than any other thing whatsoever.

1. A man may come to know the evil of sin partly by reason. He may understand that sin is against a right rule. Yes, by the light of reason he may conceive that it is only reasonable for a rational creature to live by rule, and that to transgress against the rule of justice and equity is evil.

2. A man may come to know the evil of sin by God’s command. The law of God forbids sin, and therefore it is evil. Certainly to transgress the law of God, to go against the will of God, must necessarily be a great transgression.

3. A man may come to know the evil of sin by the dreadful threatenings that are added to the law: “Cursed is he that abideth not in every thing that is written in the book of the law to do it” (Gal 3:10). This reveals a dreadful evil in sin. When a soul comes to have a real sight of the dreadful threats in the law, it terrifies the conscience exceedingly and rouses that sleeping lion out of his den.

4. A man may come to know the evil of sin by some dreadful judgments that God has executed on sinners here in this world, and by the terrors of conscience that come upon the wicked, as on Cain, Saul, and Judas, and on other men many times here for their sins; and by the wrath of God that is revealed from heaven against sin as it is executed.

But take all these together. Yes, suppose we saw the woeful execution of the wrath of God in hell itself. Suppose the Lord opened a door for us into the chambers of death to show us the torments there, and we heard all the shrieks and cries of the damned in everlasting burnings. Yet all this (the threats of the law, its terrors, the agonies of conscience, the torments of the damned in hell), put all together, I say, would not show God’s infinite hatred of sin so much, or so clearly, as what we find in the gospel. The red glass of the blood of Jesus Christ, which was shed for sin, shows more of God’s hatred against sin than all the torments of hell can, or all the threats of the law can.

In inflicting his wrath on his Son for man’s sin, God preaches this to the world: “Well, I see that you cannot be brought to understand how I hate sin with a perfect hatred. But I will have one way of argument to convince you, one that you cannot possibly stand against. I will therefore send my Son to take your nature on him and to stand charged with your debt, and you shall see how I will deal with him who is your surety. I will not spare him. I will pour out the vials of my wrath on him to the last drop. I will make him a curse for sin. Though he is infinitely blessed and equal with myself, yet I will make him cry out in the anguish and trouble of his soul, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ He shall tread the winepress of my wrath. I will make the burden of sin so heavy to him that it shall make him fall groveling on his face and sweat great clots of blood in a winter season, which shall run down from his body onto the cold ground. I will do this to the end that all the world (to whom the preaching of the gospel shall come) may see how infinitely I hate sin.”

This is one of God’s ends. It is true that the principal end of the death of Christ was to satisfy divine justice. But there is another end that God aims at in the death of his Son: to declare to all the world, to men and angels, how infinitely the Lord abominates all sin. Now this is held forth in the gospel more than in all the execution of the law. If the law were executed to the full on all the world, it would not hold forth God’s hatred of sin as much as this does.

Do you believe this gospel? Has God let you live under this gospel, so that you hear it with your ears? And do you profess that the Lord has enlightened you by his Holy Spirit to understand its certainty and reality? Oh, then, let your conduct be as becomes this gospel truth.

Question. What conduct becomes this?

Answer. Your own reason cannot help drawing a consequence from what the gospel holds forth. Hence, then, cast away all sin from you as an abominable thing: “What have I to do any more with idols?” (Hos 14:8). Hence, then, call no sin little, since sin so greatly provokes the Lord. Indeed, if you were moved only by the light of reason, reason perhaps would tell you that such things are only little and small, and that you need not make any great matter of them. But now, are you not a Christian? A follower of Christ? A friend to the gospel? For shame, call no sin little; for in the gospel you see the infinite hatred of God against all sin.

Yes, there is more evil in the least sin than in the greatest affliction whatsoever. (That point was opened to you at large long ago, and this will show it clearly: by the way God the Father dealt with his Son, there is more evil in any sin than in the greatest affliction.) And therefore, if you are willing to live as becomes the gospel of Christ, be willing rather to bear any affliction in the world than willfully to commit the least sin.

Are these two in the balance? Here is a great and sore cross, you think: “How shall I endure that?” On the other side, here is a sin to be committed: “If I venture on this sin, perhaps I shall be delivered from this affliction.” Now would this become the gospel of Christ, in one who professes to believe that God the Father dealt this way with his Son, who had sin on him only by imputation, that he let out the vials of his wrath on him and made him a curse for sin? And if Christ had undertaken to satisfy for only one sin, even the least sin, he must have died for it, “For the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23). It speaks of sin without any qualification: it is death.

And do I believe this, and yet shall I choose to commit a sin rather than bear any affliction? Oh, this is infinitely unbecoming the gospel of Jesus Christ. Do I believe this, and is it real to my soul? Oh, then let me show in my whole course and life that I tremble at the very thought of a sin, at the appearance of evil, and that I am as much afraid of the least spark of lust as of the fire of hell. Let me discover the temptation to sin, so that I may endeavor to avoid all temptations to sin, because God has given such a testimony from heaven against sin. Oh, it is a loud testimony indeed that God has given from heaven against sin in the death of his Son! Oh, then let my conduct be such that I may make it appear that I am afraid of the beginnings of sin, of the first whisperings and motions to sin. Oh, let me not stand dandling sin in my thoughts and rolling it as a sweet morsel under my tongue. Let me not entertain it in my affections in the least degree, so as to love it, approve it, or delight in it.

But as soon as ever it enters your heart, cast it out immediately. Do not let it lodge within your doors one moment. Raise up all the power of your soul against it. Pursue it with hue and cry till you have overtaken it, and then execute justice and judgment on it. What if it is a Delilah? Cut it off all the same.

Oh, let me take heed of remaining in any sin. Have I been overtaken in sin? Oh, let me be willing rather to shame and condemn myself, to deny anything in the world, than to continue in that sin. The Lord forbid that, if I have once been drawn into any sin, I should think to cover it by another sin, adding one sin to another, thinking to shift for my credit or reputation by adding more sin to what I have already committed. Oh no! The Lord in his mercy has made known to me in the gospel of Christ what sin means, the evil of sin, and therefore I have learned to endure anything rather than multiply iniquity.

Indeed, before I came to understand Jesus Christ, I thought sin was an evil thing, and I abstained from gross sins by that dim light of nature within me. But since I came to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ, the great mystery of godliness in his Son, and the dealings of the Father with his Son, the Lord knows that I now abhor a sin in secret (though I were sure nobody in the world would ever know of it) more than I abhor hell itself. Yes, conduct that showed such a work of God on the heart as this would indeed become the gospel of Christ.

Otherwise, brothers and sisters, if any of you who profess the gospel of Christ make sin only a slight thing, and are ready to entertain sin in your bosom, know that by this means you do nothing other than trample underfoot the blood of Jesus Christ as a common thing, as a thing that had no worth at all in it. This pours contempt on the gospel of Christ. You dishonor Jesus Christ, and you put him to open shame whose name you have taken on yourselves by your profession.

I will give you a Scripture for this now, in Hebrews 6:4-6. He speaks of some “that were once enlightened, and had tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and tasted of the good word of God” (that is the gospel) “and the powers of the world to come: if they should fall away, it were impossible to renew them to repentance.” Mark the reason: “Seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.” Those who fall away into sinful ways after professing the gospel are said here to crucify the Son of God afresh and to put him to open shame. This is far from walking as becomes the gospel.

And so you have another text in Hebrews 10:29, where he speaks of those who had fallen away from their profession into sinful ways: “Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy of, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?” See how the Holy Spirit speaks of those who fall from their profession into sinful ways again.

And there is great reason for it. For it is not so great a matter for those who never professed the gospel to fall into sin; it is not such a horrid thing for them. But those who have professed the gospel hold forth this much, and this is the language of their actions, though they dare not say it: “Lord, I acknowledge that I have seen the fruit of your hatred of sin in the death of your Son, that you so hated sin that you made your Son a curse for sin. But for all this, such is the strength of my lusts that I must have my lusts. Though it is so vile in your eyes that the blood of your Son went for it, yet I must have it rather than deny my lusts.” Oh, what a dreadful thing this is! How provoking it must be to the holy God! Oh, it would have been happy for such men and women if they had never heard of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

But we shall speak later of the evil of walking in a way unbecoming the gospel of Jesus Christ, when we come to the application. That, then, is the sixth particular of what the gospel holds forth: the infinite hatred of God against sin.

Now the seventh thing held forth in the gospel that calls for a becoming conduct is this: the great price of souls. Nothing in the world that God ever did reveals the worth of man’s immortal soul as the gospel of Jesus Christ does. There God shows all the world what a price he puts on man’s soul. The Lord saw that men had undone themselves by sin, and that the souls he had made were likely to perish to all eternity. Yes, they were under the sentence of eternal death, and must certainly perish eternally unless some way were found out by an infinite wisdom to ransom them.

Now the Lord says, “It is true, the love I have for my justice is such that I will let many souls go, and they shall perish. But rather than have all souls perish, and so that I may show that I have a high esteem for the souls of the children of men, I will send my Son for the ransoming of that number whom I have appointed from all eternity to save, and he shall die for the saving of souls, so that souls may not perish.”

If the Lord had said concerning any one soul, “I prize this soul so highly, and account its worth to be such, that rather than let it perish I will dissolve heaven and earth; heaven and earth shall perish rather than this soul shall perish,” you would say this would have been a great testimony of God’s esteem for a soul. But know that the gospel holds forth a higher esteem of a soul than this amounts to, when God says, “Rather than this soul and that soul shall perish, I will send my Son to be made a curse.” This the gospel holds forth; this is an infinitely higher price that God puts on a soul.

You know, therefore, what the apostle says in 1 Peter 1:18-19: “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed” (he says) “with corruptible things, as silver and gold.” Then in verse 19: “But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish, or without spot.” It is not silver and gold or any corruptible thing that can redeem you, but the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Oh, that blood! It is more precious than the world. Even all the world must let the redemption of a soul alone forever. If all the angels in heaven had joined together to redeem a soul, and had ventured themselves to be destroyed forever so that they might redeem a soul, it could not have been done; they must all let the redemption of a soul alone forever. The redemption of a soul, then, is a greater matter than we are aware of, and we could never have come to know this except by the gospel of Jesus Christ. The full price of a soul is written down by the finger of God’s Spirit in the gospel of Christ, and it is only this: the blood of the Son of God, the blood of the Son of God.

Well then, let our conduct be such as becomes what is held forth in this gospel, and that is this: show in your conduct that you set a high price on your souls. Do not venture your souls for nothing. Oh, how unbecoming this is! God has set such a price on a soul as to give for its redemption more than ten thousand thousand worlds are worth. And yet a man or woman who professes to be a Christian will risk the loss of their soul to get sixpence or twelvepence, and hazard those immortal jewels for one or two minutes of sensual pleasure, to satisfy the lusts of the flesh. What else is it when such people will lie or cheat, for a little while, for thick clay? For the Lord’s sake, do not stake your everlasting soul for a little gain, or, as some do, for a little credit. Are you a Christian? Did you ever read the gospel? Man or woman, did you ever hear of Christ? Do you know what the death of Christ meant, and why Christ came into the world? Must heaven and earth be moved to provide a way to ransom souls, and do you set them at so low a rate? Oh, how unbecoming this is to the gospel!

And others pawn away their souls. When God shows what a price he sets on them, they will still pawn their souls to the devil himself.

Question. You will say, “Is any man so wicked as to pawn away his soul to the devil?”

Answer. Yes, whenever anyone ventures on sin on this condition: “I will repent before I die.” That is as if he said, “Here, I give my soul in pawn. If I repent, then I will have it back; if I do not repent before I die, then it is gone forever.” When you give something in pawn, you give it on these terms: “Well, I give you this. If I bring you so much money by such a time, then I will have it back; and if not, then it is gone.” So men and women say this: “Here, devil, you shall have possession of my soul all this while, as long as I am in a way of sin. If I repent, then I must have it back; but if I do not repent before I die, then you shall have it forever.” Now, do you know the price of a soul? Oh, is this how you show the high price of a soul, by pawning your souls like this?

And mark to whom you pawn it: you pawn it to the devil. He has it all this time; it is in his custody. All the while anyone sins in hope of repentance, I say, until they repent, the devil has their souls in his possession, in his hands. It is as when you pawn a piece of household goods: until you bring the money, the man you pawned it to has possession of it. And this is what people do. You put your souls into the devil’s hands, and on a condition you are not able to perform: if you repent, you will have your soul back; if not, he must have it forever.

Oh friends, you little know what repentance means! What is it to repent? It requires a mighty work of God. The same power of God that made the world is required to break the heart of a sinner. So you put your soul in pawn on a condition that is impossible for you yourselves to perform by all the power you have. Now if a man pawns a thing for a sum that is impossible for him to redeem it with, it may be that if he has a great many friends who will do some great thing for him, he may redeem it; but it is beyond his own power. You will say, then, that there is a great deal of danger that the pawn will never be redeemed.

So know this: when you pawn your souls, you put them into the hands of Satan and lock them up in the powers of darkness, and you pawn them for a sum you have no power to bring. Do you prize the gospel? Do you know what a price God has set on souls? Oh, then take heed, and set a higher price on your souls than to pawn them away for every trifle, a thing of nothing.

And then, if this is held forth in the gospel, oh, then do not pollute and defile your souls with sin as you do from time to time. God has a high esteem of them; you too should have a high esteem of them. Do not make your souls drudges and scullions to your bodies, using your souls only to provide for satisfying the lusts of the flesh. Many men and women have no other use for their precious, immortal souls all their lives: their souls are employed only as slaves for the lusts of their flesh. Oh, are these the souls that must cost the blood of Christ, the souls on which God has put such a price? Surely you do not know the gospel or Jesus Christ.

If I told you what philosophers say of the soul, of men’s immortal, eternal souls (though this is now doubted, yet it was plentifully known among the heathen), these things would be dry to you in comparison with this: that Jesus Christ has died to redeem souls. There is more in this than in all the arguments that can possibly be brought to show the excellency of the soul of man.

Oh, then, let your conduct also be such as becomes this truth of the gospel in your care for the souls of those committed to your care and charge. Do you profess the gospel? Then you profess along with it that God so esteemed a soul that he gave the life and blood of his Son to ransom a soul. Oh, then, really demonstrate that you highly esteem the souls of your children and servants. Walk convincingly before them, so that you may do them all the good you can: by instructing them, and by praying for them and with them. And do the same before all your friends and acquaintances. Let meditations like these work in you: “O Lord, since I came to know the gospel, I have learned what a high price you have put on souls. Lord, this shall make me value souls forever after at a higher rate than I have done before.”

Oh, it would be an excellent point to urge on ministers, who are charged with many souls. Oh, let them so watch over them, pray for them, and preach to them all the counsels of God, both in season and out of season, that on the great day of Christ they may be clear of the blood of all men, as Paul was. And that is the seventh thing the gospel holds forth to us: the preciousness of souls. Let your conduct be as becomes this great point of the gospel.

But then, eighthly, there is a point almost as principal as any, and one that closely concerns us: the gospel reveals to us the great honor God has put on human nature above the angels. This could never have been known except by the gospel; it is as proper to the gospel as anything I have spoken of. One special design God had in the gospel was to reveal the thoughts and counsels he had from all eternity to put mighty and great excellencies on our human nature, in these two particulars.

First, in the personal union of man’s nature to the second Person of the Trinity. That is the first and great honor with which God has crowned human nature. Hence the apostle says in 1 Timothy 3:16, “Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness.” What is it? “God was manifested in the flesh.” God manifested in the flesh! That is a great mystery of godliness. Now it could not be such a mystery if God had only taken a human shape on himself, for that happened in the time of the law. Jesus Christ often took a human shape, as when he wrestled with Jacob; it was Jesus Christ, as could easily be shown.

But great is the mystery of godliness; without controversy it is great: “God manifested in the flesh,” that is, God taking the flesh of man into a personal union. This is expressed more fully in John 1:14: “The Word was made flesh.” This was a strange saying, but proper to the gospel. A heathen would have thought it a strange saying, especially if he knew that by the Word was meant him who was true and eternal God. And then in Hebrews 2:16 it is said that Christ did not take the nature of angels upon him, but the seed of Abraham. So it appears that by the personal union of our nature to the Son of God, God has advanced human nature above angels, above all creatures.

Truly, my brothers and sisters, in Christ’s taking our nature on himself, which the gospel holds forth to us, I think we may see God (as it were) resolving to do a work outside himself to the uttermost, to show the uttermost of his glory in a work outside himself. The work of God within himself is his eternal generation and the procession of the Holy Spirit. But now God would work outside himself, and work outside himself to the uttermost extent. “I will make a world,” says God, “heavens and earth, by my word. But this is not as glorious a work as I am able to do. I could make ten thousand worlds, and when I had made them I could make as many more, and more glorious. But I would do some work in which I might show the very uttermost of my glory.”

What work is that? It is the work God settled on. He would do one work outside himself to show the uttermost of his glory, and the Lord chose this above all: to take the nature of man into a personal union with his Son. That is the uttermost. It is impossible that men or angels, if they were left to imagine for all eternity, could think of a work in which God could possibly express more of his power, wisdom, and glory. We know only a little of it now, but we shall know more in heaven.

Now, oh, how God has honored human nature in this! When he would do a work to the utmost of his excellency, he chose man’s nature, to take it into personal union with himself. Here is the mystery of the gospel. This is indeed the marrow of the mystery of the gospel: the Word made flesh, the second Person of the Trinity taking man’s nature upon him. This is the mystery of the gospel that angels and saints marvel at, and in admiring, praising, and magnifying God for it they shall be taken up for all eternity. That is the first way God honors man’s nature.

And then there is a second thing the gospel reveals: God puts honor not only on the nature of man as having soul and body, but puts a mighty honor on the very body of man, the meanest and very lowest part of man, the very shell, outside, rind, and case of man. You have that in 1 Corinthians 6:19: “What, know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you?” Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. You have no such thing revealed in the Old Testament. This comes by the light of the gospel: that the Lord has made the bodies of the saints temples of the Holy Spirit, and that the Holy Spirit dwells in their very bodies as in a temple; as the king in his palace, so the Holy Spirit in his temple. Now these two are great things revealed in the gospel. If we only had a clear understanding of these two things, oh, it would mightily lift up our spirits! And a life suited to these two particulars must surely be a highly raised life. For instance:

As for the first, the personal union of our nature with the second Person of the Trinity: Oh, how this should raise up our hearts! We should show the elevation of our spirits in our conduct, as becomes those who may expect great things from God. Surely the God who has so honored our nature as to unite it personally to his Son intends great things for some of the children of men. Suppose, for example, that you who are the poorest and lowest here in this congregation had a sister married to the greatest emperor in the world, yes, to one who was emperor of the whole earth. You would now think to live a different kind of life than you did before. Would it be fitting for such a man to go on living by scraping gutters or wiping horses’ heels (or any mean employment), when his sister is married to the only monarch of the whole earth? Surely he may think, “Now I must live at a higher rate, for I may expect something by this.”

So every one of the children of men should think this way: “Indeed, I have lived in a mean, base way. This human nature of mine has been basely subject to filthy lusts all my days; I have been a bondslave to sin and Satan. But when I come to hear the gospel, I hear that the second Person of the Trinity, God blessed forever, equal with the Father, the heir of all things, has not married my human nature but has taken it into a personal union with himself. He has become my kinsman, my near kinsman, and has taken this nature into the nearest union with God that a creature can possibly be taken into.” Oh, let us be raised in our thoughts, then, to think, “Surely God intends higher things for some of the children of men than to eat and drink, satisfy the flesh, and be brutish here in the world. There are higher things God will do for mankind, and why not for me? Am I excluded any more than others?”

I remember a saying of Seneca (though a heathen): “I am greater,” he says, “and I am born to greater things than to be a slave to my body.” A heathen could say so. Oh, but when we hear of human nature so advanced and enthroned in Christ, we should think to ourselves that anyone who has humanity in them is born to higher things than to make provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.

What, will you be a slave to the devil now? You hear how God has dignified the nature of man by taking it into so near a union with himself. Oh, does not this mystery of the gospel call to all the children of men? Oh, all you children of men, behold what God has done for mankind! Surely God’s thoughts for mankind are great and glorious. There are higher things you may attain to. And will you still perish, and choose your portion here in this world, and grovel on the ground, as if God had no higher thoughts for your good than that you should merely live like brute beasts, to eat and drink and then rise up to play?

Oh, if God has advanced man’s nature like this, do not despise it in the meanest of the children of men, the lowest servant, or the poorest boy who lies begging at your door for a piece of bread. (For the nature united in personal union with the second Person of the Trinity is the very same nature as this poor boy’s, who lies begging at your door for broken bread and meat.) Therefore honor human nature in everyone, and do not degrade it in yourself. Those who live under the gospel and degrade human nature put dishonor on Jesus Christ.

And reverence yourself even in private, when you are alone. I say, reverence yourself; do not abuse your body, for it is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Oh, remember this, all you who profess religion: these bodies of yours, this flesh of yours (if you are godly and walk in keeping with your profession), I say this flesh of yours is the very temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not abuse it. It is the apostle’s argument: Therefore fly fornication, and be not joined to whores; for your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost (1 Cor 6:15-19).

Oh, this makes the sin of uncleanness a cursed sin in one who professes the gospel of Christ. The sin of uncleanness in one who professes the gospel is a thousand thousand times more abominable than the sin of uncleanness in another. Why? Because such people know how God has advanced human nature into a personal union with himself, and how their bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit. “What, shall I make the temple of God a sty for the unclean spirit, a cage of unclean birds?” God forbid!

There has been a great deal of fuss about stone churches and temples. You would find a great many base whoremongers pleading for the whore of Rome (the mistress of all fornications) by bowing and cringing, cap in hand and on bended knee, as soon as they set foot in some of our meeting places. And in the meantime they abuse the saints, who are the temples of the Holy Spirit, and abuse their own bodies, and yet they profess themselves Christians. Oh, now, either deny your Christianity, or do not abuse your body with any filthy lust, for it is the temple of the Holy Spirit. This the gospel holds forth. So let your conduct now be as becomes the gospel of Jesus Christ, not abusing your body like this. For we see that the gospel calls for bodily cleanness as well as spiritual cleanness.

And truly I know no stronger arguments for godliness than these we have mentioned here from the gospel. We have gone through three: God’s infinite hatred of sin; the price of souls; and the honor the gospel shows God has put on human nature. Conduct that became even these three would be a very different kind of conduct from yours. I shall speak of only a fourth, and it is this.

A fourth thing: the gospel holds forth the greatest example of self-denial that ever was in the world. Of all the ways by which God has ever made known his mind, he has never revealed his will in an example of self-denial as he has done in the gospel, and that is in the example of the Lord Jesus Christ. There God shows such a work of self-denial as never was, and it is impossible to conceive a greater example of self-denial than that of Christ, though he thought it no robbery to be equal with God.

Just read Philippians 2:7-8, and there you may see what Christ was, and yet how he emptied himself. See how he denied himself in his honor, how vile he was made in the world: though he was the brightness of his Father’s glory, yet he was made of no reputation. See how he denied himself in riches: Christ, who was the heir of all things, though he was rich, yet was made poor for us. See how he denied himself in his pleasures: he was the delight of the Father from all eternity, and yet he was made a man of sorrows. He denied himself in his life: he was the Lord of life, and yet he subjected himself to death, to a cursed death, for us. Oh, the example of Christ in self-denial is the greatest that ever was!

And this seems to be one great end of the humiliation of Jesus Christ: to hold forth to the world a pattern of self-denial that preaches. There is a great deal more power in the pattern and example of self-denial than in the commands of self-denial. I present this only to show you that it is most unbecoming the gospel for anyone who professes the gospel to be selfish, always scraping for themselves, having no mind for any service they are put to unless self may have an oar in it. Oh, it becomes the gospel of Jesus Christ for men and women to be emptied of themselves: no matter what becomes of ourselves, to be willing to give ourselves up for the public good, to venture our estates and lives and all our comforts, yes, to be swallowed up in the glory of God, to be nothing so that Christ may be all.

In the gospel of Christ we find that Christ was swallowed up in the glory of his Father. He came not to do his own will, but the will of his Father who sent him. Though he had infinitely more excellency than all men and angels in heaven and earth, yet for the honor of his Father he was content to be made as a worm and no man, to be trampled underfoot, and to endure the greatest extremities of every sort. This holds out an example to us, that while we live in this world we should be taken off from ourselves. Oh, this self-love sticks fast in the hearts of men and women!

Now, on the example of Christ’s self-denial, we are required to deny ourselves, and it is the distinctive lesson of the gospel: “He that will follow me, let him deny himself” (Matt 16:24). You never read such a precept in all the Old Testament. No doubt the people of God did deny themselves then, but you do not have such a thing there in express terms so fully. And there are no such rules among the heathen, that a man should deny himself. “Let him deny himself”: those who know the original language know that the word is not only deny; something is joined to it that strengthens the meaning: let them deny themselves thoroughly. A preposition is added to the word to show that those who will come to Christ must deny themselves, and do it thoroughly. It is a distinctive lesson of the gospel, and the first lesson. Oh, when our Lord and Master has so denied himself and emptied himself for our good, what becomes this gospel but that all who profess it should deny themselves?

It is very unbecoming to the glorious gospel for a Christian to be selfish, to have his selfish ends, his selfish ways, and his own interests in everything. Almost all men in the world are generally driven by self: some selfish end, or their own excellency, carries them on in their actions, or else they have no heart to do anything. This is unbecoming to the gospel. But now, I say, one who would live as becomes the gospel must be wholly emptied of himself. Whatever abilities, estate, credit, or honor he has in the world must be melted into the glory of God. Jesus Christ, for the glory of his Father, was content to deny himself infinitely more than we can; for what do we have to deny ourselves of? Do you or I live as becomes the gospel? We do, I say, when all in which we think we have any excellency is swallowed up in the glory of God; when we can dedicate and consecrate our lives, honors, liberties, estates, comforts, and all to the glory of God, and be as nothing to ourselves, and let God be all in all to us.

Ministers may bring many reasons why we should deny ourselves, but all these reasons come to nothing until the soul comes to see the clear light of the gospel, and there beholds by faith the Son of God, how he emptied himself. “Why then,” says a believing soul, “if the Son of God denied himself and was emptied like this for me, oh, then let me be wholly taken off from myself and venture wholly on God. I must not live in myself, or live for myself, or live to myself, but live wholly in God, and for God, and to God, and upon God.” Oh, this is what becomes the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Only let your conversation be as becometh the gospel of Christ (Phil 1:27).

The ninth thing that the gospel holds forth is this: that our conduct should be suited to spiritual worship, the spiritual worshiping of God. The worship there was in the time of the Law was carnal in comparison with what there is in the time of the gospel. And therefore a great part of the worship of God is called a carnal commandment, and rudiments of the world, and beggarly things. If you read Colossians 2, you will find strange expressions there about what was nevertheless the worship of God; and so too in Hebrews, several times. But now you know what Christ says to the woman of Samaria in John 4:21, 23: “The hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father: but the hour cometh, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for such the Father seeks to worship him.” We must not think to worship God in such carnal ways as before.

I beg you to consider this one thing. Certainly God will have as much worship in the time of the gospel as ever he had. But where we now have one external thing to worship God in, in the time of the Law there were a hundred; it was a hundred to one in external things. Yet this worship of God must now be made up some way. We are not called to those outward worshipings, offerings, sacrifices and costly things, as they were in the time of the Law. Now how should this be made up, but in spiritual sacrifices, in presenting our bodies and souls to God as a living sacrifice?

Therefore, as for those men and women who are altogether for the outside of things in the worship of God: God has appointed but a few things in his worship. We make use of no other creature in worshiping God but merely the bread and wine, and water (only these elements), and a man to speak to us, to be either God’s mouth to us or our mouth to God. That is all we have appointed in the gospel for the worship of God. Therefore, if we would have our conduct be as becomes the gospel, it is expected that we be very spiritual in our worship, and so take heed of thinking to make up God’s worship with external things of our own. That is exceedingly unbecoming the gospel.

Many in former times thought they honored God greatly by adding ceremonies and external things to his worship; and people’s hearts are set most upon them because they are from man, because they are human. I will give you but one Scripture to show how we should forever take heed of the traditions of men, and of mixtures in the worship of God, because the gospel points to spiritual worship. It is that place in 1 Peter 1:18-19: “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold,” from what? “from your vain conversations received by traditions from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish, and without spot.” See what an argument the apostle uses here with those he wrote to. There was a time, he says, when you worshiped God in an external way and in a superstitious manner, according to the traditions and fancies of your fathers; this was before you knew Jesus Christ. But now, he says, you have come to know Jesus Christ; know, then, that it was the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed to redeem you from this vain way of life that you received by tradition from your forefathers.

I do not know any one scripture that has more power in it to take men’s hearts off from all false and superstitious worship, and from all the old customs they had from their forefathers; for people are mightily set upon old customs, and upon worshiping God according to them. What a stir and ado we had to get people off their late Service Book (the great Diana of England), which was made up of the ends and shreds of the Roman Mass Book, only printed in English, and off the reading and babbling over burials, and such kinds of trumpery! Oh, how settled those old Samaritan customs were in the hearts of men, such as coming up to the Communion table and kneeling down there at the rails like so many beadsmen of the Pope and devotees of Rome! Men’s hearts are mightily set upon such foolish things as these.

But this text tells you that if you know what it is to be redeemed by the blood of Christ, you must know that the blood of Christ was shed for this: to take you off from your vain way of life received by tradition from your forefathers. Christ shed his blood that he might deliver you from all such traditional things, so that you might worship God in spirit and in truth. This becomes the gospel.

And at your leisure, just read over that second chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians. It speaks of men who “in a voluntary humility, worshiped angels, intruding into those things which they have not seen, and vainly puffed up by their fleshly mind” (Col 2:18). And then in Colossians 2:16: “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink” (that is, by telling you that you may not eat meat at such and such times of the year), “or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days” (the Jewish Sabbath day). Let no man judge you, says the apostle, in regard to these things, “which are a shadow of things to come” (Col 2:17). Then in Colossians 2:19: “And not holding the head.” Those who stood upon such things as these are charged here with not holding the Head; that is, they did not hold Christ. It is as if the apostle should say: If you held Christ and professed Christ, you would not stand upon these things, upon these kinds of superstitious ways in the worship of God.

And you will find in the Epistle to the Galatians the apostle telling the Galatians about such ways of continuing and holding on to the worship of the Law. He says in Galatians 4:10-11, “Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.” What then? “I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.” It is as if the apostle should say: I profess, I see you stand upon such old things, and upon worshiping God in an external way; I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed all my labor in vain. This is so opposite to the gospel that it makes me think, and fear, that all my preaching of the gospel to you is in vain.

And yet mark, my brothers and sisters: what were these days and months and times and years? They were such as God had formerly appointed; but now, after Christ came, they had ceased and were out of date. And yet because they stuck to them after the death of Christ, the apostle says, I profess I am afraid of you, that all my preaching to you is in vain. Now, my brothers and sisters, what shall we say to those who stick to things that God never appointed, but that were of popish appointment, such as keeping one time more holy than another, and thinking thereby to offer up service to God? “Why should we not keep the memory of such and such times?” they say. Now, to keep them in such a way as to think that they can sanctify any time is a dangerous thing, and a sign that they understand the gospel but little. To think that any men, for any reason whatsoever, should be able to sanctify a time, to make that time holy, is (I say) unbecoming the gospel. No man can make a holy day under the gospel.

Objection. But you will say, “We keep days of fasting and thanksgiving.”

Answer. But there is a great deal of difference between those and these times that the apostle speaks of here.

Now the keeping of holy days is this: we account the time holy, and the very duty is more acceptable because it is performed at that time. Take the Sabbath day, for example. There may be a sermon on a weekday; but certainly it is a holier worship of God to hear on the Sabbath than on a weekday, and we sanctify God’s name more on the Sabbath than on a weekday. Why? Because the time sanctifies the duty, being set apart by God. So in the Temple the duty was more acceptable than in any other place. Why? Because it was set apart by God. But we cannot make any place holy, and so we cannot make any time holy.

So our days of fasting and thanksgiving are only this: we will spend that time in holy duties, to humble ourselves or to bless God, but not to make the time holy, so that the duty should be holy because it is on this day rather than on another. That is the superstition of it, when a duty is thought to be holier on this day than on another. For example, some think it is a holier thing to receive the Lord’s Supper on Easter Day than on another day. This is superstition: to think the duty is made holier by any holiness that men put upon a thing. That is unbecoming the gospel, and we are redeemed from such vain ways of life by the blood of Christ. And while people stick to these things and say, “Let others do what they will, I think these things are good and right,” it is very evil.

So it was with the Galatians. They had more apparent reason than you to think that the things they stuck to were according to God; yet the apostle says, I am afraid of you, lest I have spent all my labor in vain, lest I have been a burning and shining lamp to no purpose. And truly, there are no people of whom there is less hope that the ministry of the Word will work savingly upon them than those who are set upon old customs in the worship of God, like wine settled on its lees. Until the Lord is pleased to take your hearts off from old customs in the service and worship of God, it is a plain demonstration that the preaching of the gospel has not prevailed with your hearts, for you do not live as becomes the gospel.

What becomes the gospel is worshiping God only in a spiritual way: consecrating your souls and bodies, and all you have, to the worship of God, making them a holy sacrifice to God, and that according to the rules of the gospel, “which is your reasonable service” (Rom 12:1). And that is another particular that the gospel teaches. Therefore, to live as becomes the gospel is to worship God in spirit and in truth.

The tenth thing I will add about what the gospel holds forth to us is of such consequence that I will dwell on it a little: the near relation we stand in to God and Christ, and our spiritual union with him. This is opened in the gospel more fully than it ever was before.

First, there is the relation to God: God as a Father, and believers as children, yes, and as children of age. For though under the Law, it is true, we find that God was a Father, and Ephraim was his dear son, yet you will find in Galatians 3 that now we are as children of age, whereas believers in the time of the Law were under age. Now you know that when any of your children come of age and live on their own, out of their apprenticeships, their lives are of another kind than when they were little children, under age. Now they come to have stock in their hands, to trade for themselves, and are no longer like servants. A child before he comes of age is under tutors and governors in the family; but when he comes to years of discretion, then he lives like a man, and rather gives commands in the family, and is at the service of none but his father and mother. So we should live as becomes children of age: that is, showing in our conduct a settled steadiness, wisdom and gravity, and now living more above the things of this world than we did before, as children of age.

And as for the union we have with God, it is this: that the saints are now made one with God, and with Christ his Son. In 1 Corinthians 6:17: “He that is joined to the Lord, is one Spirit.” It is a very strange expression: we are one Spirit with God and with Jesus Christ. Oh, what conduct befits this, that we should be governed and moved by the same Spirit? Surely such conduct as must show that we are crowned and graced with the same Spirit, that is, God’s Spirit, and the Spirit of Jesus Christ his Son. Now surely that must be very holy, spiritual conduct. Yes, “the Spirit of God dwelleth in you,” says the text (1 Cor 3:16); and “I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (2 Cor 6:16). See the near union with God that the gospel holds forth to us.

Yes, and there is another very remarkable phrase: that as the Spirit of God is in believers, so believers are in the Spirit. “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit,” says the text (Gal 5:25). The Spirit lives in us, and we live in the Spirit; what kind of conduct must follow here, then? Oh, let us walk, not in a fleshly way, to satisfy the lusts of the flesh, but in the Spirit, bearing the fruits that befit the Spirit of God. You will see them in this same chapter of Galatians (Gal 5:22-24): “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts of it.” If we walk in the Spirit, then here is the fruit of the Spirit. Would you have your conduct be such as becomes the gospel? Then just mark these three phrases.

1. The Spirit of God is in you, constantly taking up his habitation and residence in your bosoms.

2. You live in the very Spirit, as in the proper element of a Christian.

3. You are one Spirit with God.

Put these three together, and oh, how unbecoming it is to these three expressions (which we have in the gospel and nowhere else) for those who profess the gospel to satisfy the lusts of the flesh! Oh, how unsuitable fleshly lusts are to a spiritual man! Oh, take heed of this forever, you who make profession of the gospel. Do not wallow in the mire of uncleanness; do not give liberty to the lusts of the flesh. Instead, put to death the lusts of the flesh and its deeds, for you are joined so near to God himself; you live in God too: “Your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col 3:3). It is a very transcendent phrase, that the saints live in God. You do not only live in the air and breathe in the air; but while you live here in the world, you live in God. Oh, the wonderful mystery of the gospel, and the high things held forth in the gospel: that God’s Spirit is in us, and we are in the Spirit, and we are the same Spirit with God, yes, and we live in God! Oh, then, what conduct should suit these things! Seeing these things are so, what manner of persons ought we to be?

Yes, and there is another expression, fuller than any of these, in the prayer of Christ in John 17:21: “That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.” The gospel reveals this union: that the saints are one with the Father and the Son, as the Father and the Son are one. Now those who are joined so near to God need to have holy and blameless lives, bearing witness to the glory of the God they are so nearly related to. I remember that when I handled the point of drawing near to God in his worship, we showed there what holiness is required in those who are so near to God. But as for those who are one with God, and in God, oh, how much of God, of Jesus Christ, should shine out through their lives before the faces of others!

Read these scriptures, and by faith make them real to your souls, and then let your consciences tell you what conduct is required of you. If you are a believer, this is true of you. Charge your souls with this when any temptation to evil comes: “What! Is it fitting for such a one as I to live like this, I who have the Spirit of God dwelling in me, yes, and who dwell in the Spirit of God, and am joined so as to be one Spirit with God, yes, and who live in God, and am one with God as the Father and the Son are one? Is this conduct such as befits one who is raised to such a height of honor as this?” Christians, remember this. It will be a mighty help to your holy living, to spur you on to shine before men in holy conduct and to walk in the Spirit, to consider the near union we have with God. We would never have known these things had they not been revealed to us by the gospel. Oh, this glorious gospel, that has revealed such glorious things to us!

And then there is our relation and our union with Jesus Christ. You know the Scripture sometimes makes Christ the Root, and us the Branches. Therefore we are to bring forth fruit, seeing we are branches in him who is the Root. Bring forth fruit suited to the sap. You who bring forth sour grapes, grapes of Gomorrah, who have bitter, tart spirits and live in any wicked and sinful way: is this the sap that suits the Root? You are grafted into Jesus Christ, and not into a crab-apple stock. And is this the sap you receive from the Root? Oh, you are a dishonor to the Root you grow on. “I am the true vine,” says Christ, “and every branch in me beareth fruit, and my Father purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit” (John 15:1-2). Christians should so live in their conduct as to show the fullness of the sap and juice there is in the Root, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not enough to have a leaf here and there, and a grape or two; full, ripe clusters of grapes befit those who grow on such a fruitful Root.

And then, you know, Christ is the Head, and we are the members. Then do not dishonor your Head. When a temptation to any sin comes, say: “But will not this be a dishonor to my Head? Do I receive such a spirit from the Head, to act in such a sinful course?” Oh, do not be a crown of thorns to your Head, Jesus Christ. Yes, and the union is very great; for it is not only that we are members of Christ, and so are in Christ, but that Christ is in us. The root is not in the branch, though the branches are in the root; and the head is not in the members, though the head is joined with the members. But Christ is in us as we are in him, and so the union is very glorious and mysterious.

You complain of weakness. But is there not strength in Christ? Are you not joined to Christ in this way, a member of him and a branch in him? Whatever infirmities you have that bow you down, yet there is power enough in Jesus Christ to convey to anyone, to enable them to walk in holy conduct before the Lord and to renew their strength like the eagle. Show, then, the power of your Head, from which all the sinews of every member’s strength arise.

And then, you know the relation we have to Christ, as he is the Husband, and we the spouse. Oh, do not discredit your Husband. Any wise and virtuous wife would make it a mighty argument against any evil way: “It will disgrace my husband,” especially if her husband is a public man in office and authority. Oh, let this be an argument against every sin, even the appearance of evil: “It will be dishonorable to the Lord Jesus, who is my Husband. How can I do this wickedness against my Lord and my God, who has betrothed me to himself, so that I am bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh?” That is the second thing.

And then a third thing that the gospel holds forth to us, to which we should labor to suit our conduct, is this: the near union that the saints have with one another. It is not revealed anywhere as it is in the gospel. In Romans 12:5 we are said to be members one of another, as we are members of Christ. I beg you, observe it: so we are members one of another. That scripture in Ephesians 4:3-6 may stand in place of all for this, with its exhortation to unity. We must “endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.” Why? For “there is one body, and one spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” See, here are some seven ones to serve as an argument for unity: one body, and one spirit, and called in the hope of one calling, and one Lord, and one faith, and one baptism, and one God. Where do you have such a unity demonstrated but in the gospel of peace and love? And I do not know where in all the Book of God any one duty is pressed more than unity. We touched on this somewhat in speaking of the love of God, which it is a great design of the gospel to hold forth, and there we said something about love. But here we speak of the unity of the saints, who are so closely united into one thing that the saints should be one. Certainly it is the most unbecoming thing in the world for saints to be divided in their affections over some small differences in judgment. Let me reason with you. What? Was the coat of Christ without any seam, and shall the body of Christ be torn all to pieces? For shame! The gospel of Christ is in your hands, and it teaches another lesson. Next to our salvation, the gospel aims at the union of the saints, and nothing is pressed more strongly on every page of it. It is right here in my very text, and that is what makes me speak of this. For notice the very words that follow in this text of mine: “Only let your conversation be as becomes the gospel of Christ” (Phil 1:27).

Now if you should ask, “In what way should we walk so?” the apostle answers: “That ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel.” Notice, “striving together.” He would have the saints be strivers. Yes, but strivers for what? Not for their own wills and humors, their opinions and fancies, their customs and traditions that are out of date, but strivers for the faith, for the faith of the gospel, for the doctrine of faith. And they should labor to join all their strength together, both shoulders and hearts. There is a great deal of striving now: those who profess the gospel strive apart, but the Holy Spirit would have us strive together, and this is “as becomes the gospel,” says the text. Here the apostle singles out this particular above all others: to live as becomes the gospel is to “stand fast,” with one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel. Oh, how unbecoming to the gospel are the ways and lives of most Christians now!

Question. You will say, “Where do these sad divisions come from, these risings of heart against one another among the tribes, so that one thinks he has the truth, and another judges that he alone is in the right way?”

Answer. I beg you, then, since this is so fully singled out in the very words of the text (the apostle names this very particular), give me leave to speak of it in a few words. Certainly his meaning is not, when he says that you shall be of one spirit and of one mind, that people should hand over their judgments and consciences to the opinions of other people. That would let others, as far as their power reaches, lord it over us in turn, and so we would enslave ourselves to draw in their yokes, grind in their mills, and plow with their donkeys. No, that would be against other Scriptures. The meaning is this: we should labor to find out what is truth, search for it as for silver, and go according to the light we have. Yet we should do it in such a way that, even if we differ, we “keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph 4:3), join in all the things we can, and walk so lovingly that it may appear that, if there is any difference, it is merely what conscience makes, because we dare not deny what we are persuaded in conscience is a truth. We cannot put out the convincing light of the candle of the Lord that is set up within us; yet we can live in unity and peace and be useful to one another, sharing our gifts and graces, our comforts and experiences, with one another, as becomes Christians.

And indeed it is a greater honor to the gospel if people, though they differ in their judgments, can still keep “the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.” I say, that is a greater honor to the gospel than if they were all of the same mind. You know the Turks are all of one mind, but I cannot say so of the papists; yet they have a chain to keep them together. We read of the Egyptians that when it was dark among them, they sat still and kept close together, but when it grew light, every man went about his own business. So when light begins to break forth, and liberty is given to search into truths, we cannot imagine that at the very first people should be of the same judgment, unless they will give up their consciences and sacrifice their reason to one another. But though they are not of one judgment, a blessed unity of affection may still be kept; a golden belt may be clasped around their waists. Yes, and unity of practice too, as far as people can go with peace of conscience and joy in the Holy Spirit, so as not to sin against conscience and light. Unity of affection and practice should be pursued to the utmost, and it is a most Christian thing to do so. Certainly this should be studied and pursued by us, as much as lies in us.

It seems to me that when I read over the epistles of Paul, or any part of the New Testament, I see nothing pressed more than this, next to believing in Jesus Christ; and therefore it should be the care of Christians. And as it ought to be the care of Christians to study unity and peace, so I beg you that small differences may not be abused and inflated so far that, because some differ from others, all the blame and ill will is immediately cast on them (especially if they are the smaller party), even though they can appeal to God that they do endeavor to know the mind of God and to keep unity as far as they can without sin.

And we shall see that Scripture never lays the sin of division on anyone unless those who lay it on them are able to say that the persons charged make the division out of some corrupt aim of their own; and then Scripture charges them deeply. The most famous place is the one you have in Romans 16:17-18 (and I truly believe that many of you have heard this text greatly abused): “Now I beseech you brethren, mark those which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid them.” This is the great place against the sin we call schism, for schism is nothing but a tearing apart: “That cause division” (that is, schism) “contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them.”

Now you know that the popish bishops formerly cast the sin of schism on all who would not be of their mind in any of their ceremonies and will-worship. Because many would not come up to the rails and submit to receiving the Lord’s Supper kneeling, in the way it was then administered by our prelatical priests, they were called schismatics. And so at this day many cry out against others if they cannot swallow camels with them, if they differ in some things in which they cannot join with them because it would be sin and a snare to them. Immediately they say these people are guilty of schism and faction (there is a great deal of taking God’s name in vain in this matter). Yet they do not tell you what the true nature of schism is; but if any persons do not join with the greater part (which is usually the least conscientious), that is schism in a high degree. This is not what becomes the gospel, immediately to judge all who differ from us. But notice the next words, for there the apostle tells what schism is.

First, it must be contrary to sound doctrine. For, he says, “They that are such, serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by good words, and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple” (Rom 16:18). The apostle could take it on his conscience, from seeing how these men behaved, that the reason they differed from others was not tenderness of conscience and a desire to know the mind of God. By their behavior he saw enough to satisfy his conscience: their conduct gave the lie to their profession. And therefore, he says, avoid such people.

So I confess this much. Suppose people can take it on their consciences, as they will answer to Jesus Christ, and say, “I see such and such people differ in this way, but I can appeal to Christ in it that, on these and these grounds, I am persuaded it is not out of tenderness of conscience. I am truly persuaded that there is no willingness in them to know the mind of Christ, but that it is to serve their own carnal ends and purposes.” I confess that if we can take this on our consciences, as we will answer for it to Jesus Christ, that there are such and such grounds on which we believe Christ will judge that such people do not differ out of tenderness but from their own carnal ends, then these people may be counted schismatics. This is the sin of schism: when, through lack of love and to serve their own private ends, people tear themselves away from one another.

But now, is it possible to think that the Holy Spirit would lay so great a load (as to command the saints to avoid such persons) on people whose consciences are upright with God? Suppose a man is able to appeal to God and say: “Lord, you who know all things know that it is the desire of my soul to know your will. I search for it, and pray for it, and it is the affliction of my soul that I differ in anything from my brothers whom I see to be godly. If I knew your mind, you know I would quickly come to agreement with them, and count it the greatest happiness that could befall me in this life to shake hands with them in such and such particulars. But you have laid this charge on me, that I must do what I do out of faith, and I would sin against that rule of yours if I yielded to anything I see no footing for in your Word.” Now if a soul should make this moan to Jesus Christ, do you think Christ would count this man a schismatic, and that he must be avoided and persecuted as a schismatic? No, certainly. There is a great mistake in this, and it comes merely from lack of charity.

What the Holy Spirit is so bitter against is this: when people, for lack of love to their brothers and to serve their own base ends, make breaches and rents in the church. Judge such people now to be guilty of the sin of schism, and no others. For to judge others guilty of schism merely because they differ from you and cannot read through your spectacles is itself to break unity. These extremes I have spoken of are ways very unbecoming the gospel of Christ: for people, out of base ends, to break unity and tear themselves away from the saints; or, on the other side, because people do not join with you in everything you desire, immediately to put such a brand on them as to stigmatize them as schismatics. Certainly this un-Christian nicknaming of the children of God keeps up the breach and widens it more and more.

But the conduct that becomes the gospel is to study to find out the truth. Do I see learned and godly men of another judgment? Let me pray more to the Father of lights for the Spirit of revelation. It may be that I am mistaken. If I am mistaken, Lord, reveal it; do not let me go on in the ways of darkness, but take away the scales from my understanding, so that I may see into the deep things of God and of his gospel. And therefore, those from whom such persons differ should treat them tenderly as brothers, and look at them and ask: Are they not conscientious in all their other ways? Can I find any fault with them in their lives and conduct? It may be that it is their mistake. Then let me pray for them, labor to help them, and treat them as tenderly as I can; it may be that God will reveal his mind to them more fully afterward. Meanwhile, in what we have attained let us walk, and if any are otherwise minded, God will reveal his mind to them. This should be the behavior of Christians toward one another when they differ from one another, and this is conduct becoming the gospel.

But when one differs from another, to give reviling speeches and names of disgrace, and to throw dirt at one another, this is exceedingly unbecoming the gospel. Yes, if the heathen were among us, they would even loathe the gospel of Jesus Christ to see how Christians carry themselves among us at this day. But the conduct that becomes the gospel of Christ is that which shows unity, living in unity with one another; for the gospel preaches to us the greatest unity of Christians that can possibly be between one person and another.

Again, the gospel holds forth this: the glorious happiness of the saints in heaven. You cannot find much of that in the Law. In all the Old Testament you find but little of eternal life. I cannot find three texts from Genesis to the end of Malachi that clearly hold forth eternal life. It is true, our forefathers in the Old Testament (no question) knew that there was eternal life, and there are some Scriptures there that tend that way; but I believe none of you can give many texts from Genesis to Malachi that expressly hold forth the glory of the saints in heaven. Now the gospel holds it forth, as in 2 Timothy 1:10, where the apostle, speaking of the glory of the saints and of immortality, says (beginning at verse 9): “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which he hath given us in Christ Jesus before the world began: but is now made manifest by the appearance of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” How is it that life and immortality are brought to light through the gospel? Did not our forefathers know of life and immortality before? Yes, but very darkly; and even some of the eminent ones knew but little of those exceeding riches of glory and happiness with which the saints will be crowned in heaven. Life and immortality are brought to light through the gospel.

In former times, until Christ came in the flesh, was it known that the happiness of the saints would lie in the vision of God, in standing before the face of God and beholding him in glory in heaven?

Did they know the communion that the saints will have with God, and with Jesus Christ in his bodily presence in glory?

Did they understand the enjoyment of God, and God’s being all in all to the saints, as he will be in the communication of all fullness of good?

Did they understand the inheritance of the saints, which is in light?

Did they know that the saints were not only heirs, but joint heirs with Jesus Christ? These things, the glorious reward of the saints, are known only in the gospel.

Did they, in the time of the law, know that these bodies of ours will be made more glorious than the sun in the sky? The gospel tells us this: that these lumps of clay which we now carry about with us will one day be more glorious than the sun shining in its splendor.

Did they know that our bodies will be made like the glorious body of Jesus Christ? That the body is sown in weakness but raised in power; sown in dishonor but raised in glory; sown a natural body but rises a spiritual body; sown in corruption and raised in incorruption? Certainly these things were very little known to the forefathers, if they were known at all.

Now these things were the great counsels of God, which were kept hidden from all eternity; the Lord reserved their discovery for the coming of his Son. That was the time for the opening of heaven. Heaven was shut, and little of its glory was seen until Christ was incarnate in the flesh. The Lord, I say, reserved the opening of the gates of heaven, and the showing of its glory to the saints, until the coming of Jesus Christ. Now Christ tells us of mansions that he has gone before to prepare for us, and that when our earthly tabernacle is dissolved, we have a building not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Oh, now, my brothers and sisters, how ought we to live? It is the apostle’s argument when he speaks only of the great change in the church here. He speaks of new heavens and a new earth, and it is meant of the state the church will be in even here; and he says, “What manner of persons ought we to be in all holiness and godly conversation?” (2 Pet 3:11). But then, when we hear of the highest heavens, Abraham’s bosom, paradise, where the saints will be living with Christ, caught up into the third heaven (as the apostle was), oh, what manner of persons ought we to be in all godliness and holy conduct?

Now if you should ask me what conduct becomes the gospel, I would tell you: what we have in the third chapter of this epistle, “For our conversation is in heaven.” On what ground? “From whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like to his glorious body” (Phil 3:20-21). We look, he says, for the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven, who will put forth such a power as will change our vile bodies, so that they may be fashioned like his glorious body; therefore our way of life is in heaven.

Do you expect that this flesh of yours will be made like the sun in the heavens, like the glorious body of Jesus Christ? Oh, then, do not abuse your flesh to sin. Make no provision for the flesh to satisfy its lusts. Let no member of your body be a weapon of unrighteousness to sin against God with. When you are tempted to any bodily sin, stop yourself with this meditation: Shall I sin against God with this body of mine, which I believe will one day be more glorious than the sun in the sky, and which before long will be made like the glorious body of Jesus Christ? Do we have the hopes and promises of such an inheritance in heaven? Oh, then, let not only our thoughts be there, but our conduct, our trading, our only business be there also. Oh, let it appear that we have heavenly hearts and spiritual behavior, that we live as becomes those who hope within a few days or months to possess the glory of heaven that Christ has prepared for us. Such should our lives be: heavenly lives, shining with the light of the glory of heaven upon us. Heaven should appear in our conduct now, so that those who look at us and deal with us may truly judge, “These are the citizens of the new Jerusalem, free denizens of heaven. They already speak the very language of Canaan, and before long they will possess that promised land.”

I will conclude everything now with one Scripture, 2 Corinthians 3:3: “Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart.” Notice: the apostle here tells the Corinthians that they are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ. Observe the text: the people of God, believers, are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ.

Question. “The epistle of Christ,” you will say. “What does that mean? Or what use can you make of it for your point?”

Answer. The meaning is this: Christ, by them or in them, writes an epistle to the world, to declare to the world his mind and his will. It is as if the apostle said: You who are believers, know that Christ makes use of you to declare to the world what he is and what his glory is. You are his epistle. Christ sends the knowledge of himself into the world by you, so that when the world looks at you, those who run may read in your lives, your conduct, and your examples the very epistle of Christ, transcribed to the life, by which he declares his excellencies and his glory to the world in living characters.

Now, my brothers and sisters, this should be the conduct of all saints: they should be, in their lives, the epistle of Jesus Christ. The graces of Jesus Christ, the mysteries of the gospel, the deep things of God should be, as it were, fairly written in their lives. Would you know what Christ’s mind is, and what the excellencies of Christ and of the gospel are? Read it in the saints, in their lives. Look at their ways, and you may know much of the mind of Christ in them. You who cannot read a letter in a book may still read this epistle; you may read the epistle that Jesus Christ sends to the world to convince the world. Now the epistle that Christ sends to the world is not only in his Word. There, indeed, is a great epistle that Christ has sent, for the Scripture is nothing other than, as one of the ancients calls it, the epistle of God to the world: God sends his letter to the world. But the saints are Christ’s epistle too, in which Christ’s mind is to be read and known. Then let your lives be such that you may be a full epistle of Christ to the whole world, so that all the world may read in you what Christ is. Take heed of blotting and blurring this epistle.

If a letter is sent from a great man, if a prince or a king sends a letter, it usually comes fairly written; and if those who were to bring it smeared it all over and blotted it so that it could not be read, it would be taken exceedingly ill. So it is with you who profess yourselves to be Christians: you do not only bring the letter, you are the letter. Therefore do not blot and blur this epistle of Christ, but keep it fair, so that all with whom you deal, all in the household, may every day read something of the mind of Jesus Christ in your conduct. So you may be the glory of Christ, as in that scripture, 2 Corinthians 8:23, where it is said of Titus and the other fellow helpers that “they were the messengers of the churches, and the glory of Christ.” Oh, this is what all who profess religion should endeavor to be: the glory of Jesus Christ. Then wherever they live, all might see the glory of Jesus Christ held forth there; wherever you go, you may carry the glory of Jesus Christ about with you.

O Christians, I appeal to your consciences: do you live so that the glory of Christ shines in you in the course of your lives? As the light of the candle shines through the lantern, so the shine and glory of Jesus Christ should shine through Christians in their conduct, to dazzle the eyes of the world. Oh, do not darken the glory of Christ, but make it as bright as you possibly can, so that this purblind world may be able to see something of the glory of Christ in your conduct. This should be the great care of your lives.

Only let your conversation be as becometh the gospel of Christ (Phil 1:27).

We have preached, as you know, many sermons upon this necessary and timely duty: that as Christians are to sanctify the name of God in worship, so they are to do it in their conduct. Their lives and conduct must be such as becomes the gospel of Christ, worthy of the gospel of Christ (for so, I told you, the word signifies). Now we are upon this great point: what conduct is it that becomes the gospel of Christ?

I will add only one more Scripture to the last thing I named, and then proceed. The last thing was this: that the revealing of the glory of heaven in the gospel should work mightily upon our hearts to make us labor for conduct suitable to it. Look at Titus 2:11-13: “For the grace of God” (he says, and that is the gospel) “that bringeth salvation, hath appeared to all men.” What does it teach us? “That denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.” We have already made use of this Scripture thus far. But what I quote it for now is the way this connects with the next words: “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Savior Jesus Christ.”

Here is a Scripture that, if ever the Lord has enlightened us in the things of the gospel so that we have been brought to believe, would mightily work upon our hearts to live godly and holy lives. “The grace of God that bringeth salvation”: what does it teach us? Not to be loose and vain and careless and bold in our sinful courses, but “teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.” Note this: it is not enough to live soberly, that is, not to be a drunkard, or to live righteously, that is, not to wrong anybody. Many think that is enough. But note: the light of nature (as I told you) would indeed teach us that much. Now the grace of God that brings salvation teaches us more: to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly, and that in this present world. Though we live in the midst of a wicked, tempting world, yet we are to live godly.

And what is the great argument in the gospel to move us to live godly in this present world? “Looking for the blessed hope.” Oh, we look for a blessed hope that the gospel reveals! We did not understand this hope, this blessed hope, until the gospel was preached to us. But since we have come to grasp a blessed hope, the Holy Spirit has raised in our hearts a blessed hope of glorious things. What glorious things? “Looking for the blessed hope, and glorious appearing of the great God, and our Savior Jesus Christ.” We have some little glimpse of the great God when we set out to sea and launch into the deep. There we see the glory of the great God, who rides upon the wings of the wind, and whom both the winds and the seas obey. Oh, but we look for a glorious appearing of the great God of quite another kind than has ever yet appeared.

I beg you, consider this text. God never yet appeared great and glorious in comparison with how he will appear. And blessed are those whose conduct shall be such that they can look upon the face of this great God with joy when he appears in glory. We look for this blessed hope, and when this great God appears in his glory, then we shall have our blessed hope. And this, the knowledge of this, teaches us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts. Oh, do you look to be saved? Do you have a blessed hope? Do you expect the appearing of the great God in glory? Has the gospel revealed these things to you? Oh, let what the gospel reveals teach us to deny all ungodliness and all worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.

But there are yet some other things that the gospel holds forth which are very remarkable for furthering our godly conduct in this world. If we would live as becomes the gospel, we must have a right understanding of these things. Otherwise we shall never suit ourselves to the gospel, unless we come by it to grasp these great points that are published to us in and by the gospel.

For example, this is a great point: that the kingdom of Jesus Christ is not of this world. The gospel holds this forth to us: that Jesus Christ the Son of God, having taken our nature upon him, is a great King. He has a kingdom, but a kingdom that is not of this world. Neither is Christ of this world, nor is his kingdom of this world, nor are the saints, who are the subjects of his kingdom, of this world. A right understanding of this would greatly help us in our conduct, and a life befitting this would greatly honor the gospel.

First, we shall show how the gospel holds forth this, that the kingdom of Christ is not of this world. Note the Scripture in John 18:36: “Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now is my kingdom not from hence.” It is as if he should say: Therefore you must not wonder or take it hard that I am thus arrested and delivered up to men, for them to do with me what they please. Though I am the great King of my church, appointed by my Father, yet my kingdom is not of this world, and I did not come here for pomp and glory.

The glory of Christ in his kingdom here is spiritual. Indeed, when this world comes to an end, then Christ will appear gloriously. The Scripture does speak of a world hereafter in which Christ shall appear gloriously, but whether personally or otherwise we do not discuss here. But Christ shall appear a glorious King even in the world: not this world, but upon the earth; and yet the Scripture speaks of that as another world, a new heaven and a new earth. But for the present, for what the Scripture calls this world, we must not expect a pompous and glorious kingdom until there is a new world, until there are new heavens and a new earth. This the gospel holds forth.

The people of the Jews, by contrast, thought that as soon as the Messiah came, he would at once be an outward monarch, in outward pomp and glory. No, says Christ, this world must pass away first. I must come first and reign spiritually, in another way. As for my kingdom, there is a time for its glory to appear, when another world shall come; but while this world lasts, never expect any such outward pomp and glory in the way of my kingdom. I have a kingdom indeed here in this world, but it is not of this world. I have a kingdom in which I reign spiritually in the hearts of my people. There I have set up my throne, and there I have written my laws, by which I guide and order all things for their eternal salvation. But my kingdom is not of this world.

Yes, and he likewise says of himself, “I am not of this world” (John 8:23). And in John 15:19 (for John, that beloved disciple who lay in the bosom of Christ, knew much of the mind and heart of Christ and was much instructed in this mystery; indeed, none of those who kept company with Christ knew more of the bosom of Christ than John did): “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world …” So, as Christ is not of the world, so the saints are not of the world. In John 17:14: “I have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” Note it: as I am not of the world, so they are not of the world. Thus Scripture is clear that neither Christ nor his kingdom is of this world, and therefore believers are not of this world.

And from this, then, what conduct becomes this gospel of Christ? Even a life set apart from the things of this world. It is a life that shows the heart has been taken off and disengaged from earthly comforts and conveniences. It is a life which proves that the soul does not seek great things for itself here below, but is fully content with a morsel of bread and a cup of cold water, though others feast in luxury every day. So believers should show in their conduct that they do not much mind or care how things go in this world. For Christ is not of this world, and the kingdom of Christ, in which they reckon their happiness to be bound up, is not of the world. Yes, they are people redeemed from this present world.

In Galatians 1:4 it is said that by Christ we came to be redeemed from this present evil world (it is a very remarkable Scripture): “who gave himself for our sins” (to what end?) “That he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God, and our Father.” I beg you, observe this text. Christ gave himself to deliver us from our sins, so that we might not perish eternally. And was that all? No: he did it that he might deliver us from this present evil world. I do not know a more forcible text in all the Book of God to take the hearts of those who profess the gospel off from the world. In view of it, they should not whine and murmur at the loss of every little thing in the world, nor be anxiously careful about the things of this life. Nor should they be offended, even though the men of the world prevail in the world, and have the upper hand, and carry things in a worldly way. Let them go on in all their pageantry and greatness.

But if you are one who belongs to Christ, know that Christ has laid down his life to purchase this for you: to deliver you from this world. Now, was Christ’s blood laid down to purchase this, and yet will you have your heart glued to the ground, and place your contentment wholly in the earth, and seek your happiness here in the dust? Oh, then, lift your heart up from all these things, and make it appear by your conduct that you are one who, by virtue of the death of Jesus Christ, is delivered from this world. And therefore, though you do not have such a portion in worldly goods as other people have, never envy them, for Christ has ransomed you from the world. There is another kingdom in which you have your portion and interest. Christ has made us kings and priests to his Father, and has made us heirs and co-heirs of that kingdom which his Father has given him, yes, and which he himself has purchased. And so you must make it appear in your conduct that you see another kingdom beyond this kingdom of the world, a kingdom you are made partakers of, in which you shall reign with Christ forever. Now this kind of life befits the gospel.

And therefore you shall find in Matthew 10:37-39 that Christ shows what kind of conduct he would have in those who once come to believe in him. He says, “He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not up his cross and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake, shall find it.” Here he shows what it is that would make the soul worthy of Christ in a gospel sense. Suppose our hearts are taken off from father and mother, and from those comforts and relations that are dearest in the world, brother or sister or son or daughter. This is not to take away our natural affection, but to take our hearts off in such a way that these do not hinder us in spiritual things, so that our main affections flow out after spiritual things. Then we come to be worthy of Christ, and then the other kind of conduct is unworthy of Christ.

Did you ever know the Lord Jesus Christ and the way of his kingdom? Then why is your heart set upon the world like the hearts of other people who are strangers to Jesus Christ? In Ephesians 5:3 the apostle speaks of those things that most people in the world are greedy for: “But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints.” It is as if he should say: For saints, those who know Jesus Christ and the way of his kingdom, to have their hearts set either upon bodily lusts or upon covetousness, the things of this world, does not become them. It is not gospel conduct becoming saints. A heart greedy for the things of this world and wallowing in the lusts of this world: oh, how unbecoming it is in saints, in those who profess the gospel of Christ, which shows us that the kingdom of Christ is not of this world!

Again, another great point that the gospel holds forth to us is this: the great difference, or the change, that it makes in the state of a man or woman once it prevails with them. Then a great difference is made in such a person, both from what they were before and from other people. This is held forth in the gospel and nowhere else. I mean the wonderful change that the gospel makes in people once it comes to work upon their hearts in the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit. I mean the great difference between their state before and what it is now, and between them and other people. I put these two together.

First, the great change that the gospel makes in people’s hearts from what was there before the gospel came. You know that the Scripture, prophesying of the times of the gospel, says that the wolf shall eat with the lamb, and the lion with the kid, and the child shall play upon the very hole of the asp. The meaning is generally taken this way: that when the gospel comes, it shall change people’s hearts so mightily that, though they were wolfish and cruel before, it is as if you should see a wolf changed into a lamb, or a lion changed into a kid. You would say this was a mighty change. The gospel makes such a change as this.

Those who are in Christ are new creatures; it is a new creation. Suppose God should make a new world: what a mighty thing that would be! Or if a new sun should be created in the sky that never was there before, how we would stand and wonder! Those who are in Christ are new creatures; God puts forth a creating power upon them. As you know, the apostle says, “Old things are passed away, all things are become new” (2 Cor 5:17). And the change that is made is called a new birth: “Except you be born again, you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven” (John 3). If a new soul were put into someone, or if God should put a rational soul into a beast, here would be a mighty change. You were a beast before, but here is the soul of grace. There is a new birth when the gospel comes to prevail and to enter in upon a heart.

And it is called a new resurrection. If a voice should come from heaven that opened all the graves you have here in the churchyard, and all the dead bodies should stand up and live, what a mighty change there would be! Such a change the gospel makes when it conquers a people. Indeed, the gospel may be preached and little change be worked, because the power of the gospel does not prevail with people’s hearts. But when it does prevail in their hearts, there is such a strange change.

Oh, then, what conduct becomes this? It must be conduct that holds forth to the world that such a mighty change has been worked in you. Now I appeal to you who make profession of the gospel. You know what you have been in the past: worldly and base and carnal and sensual and perverse and peevish and profane, altogether unsavory before the gospel came to you. Now you profess that God has begun to work upon you by the gospel. What change has it worked in you? Can those who live with you see your conduct so changed that it makes them stand and marvel at the work of the gospel upon your hearts? Can the husband stand and marvel at the work of God upon his wife’s heart, as if she were another woman? And can the wife marvel at the grace of God upon her husband’s heart, as if he were another man? And are your children and servants not the same as they used to be? Oh, what honor this would be to the gospel, if in places where it comes to be preached in power there might appear a change that becomes the gospel of Christ!

Certainly, if your conduct is not such as holds forth a mighty change that God has worked in you, then it is not such as becomes the gospel of Christ. It may be you are somewhat better than you have been in the past, as in not being a common drunkard. You see that this is despised by people: who regards drunken fools, madmen, mere beasts? Therefore you come to have more understanding, so that you will not be as profane and lewd as you used to be, but live somewhat better. Oh, but this change is not the change that holds forth the work of the gospel. For when the gospel prevails, it makes the greatest change that ever was made in the world. We may boldly assert this: since God’s creation in the first six days, there was never such a change made in the world as the gospel makes. And therefore conduct becoming the gospel must be changed conduct; people must be mightily different from what they were before.

Sometimes, through the mercy of God, we see it so. When men and women come to hear the Word revealed in its clearness and power, they undergo such changes that all their friends stand wondering at them: “What has come over you now!” Oh, such people have cause to answer, “Blessed be God, it is so. It is the gospel that has made such a change in me.” Yes, this becomes the gospel, when it appears that your conduct is so changed, so much more holy and godly and gracious now than it was before. But as for you whose lives are no better than they were before (formerly you made some profession, and now your profession is only greater than it was, but your lives are no better), know that this is conduct that in no way becomes the gospel of Christ. The gospel of Christ receives no honor from this conduct of yours.

And then, second, the great difference that the gospel makes between one person and another. For example, as for those whom the gospel does not prevail upon, the Scripture tells us that they are children of wrath, they are dead in trespasses and sins, they are under the curse of the law, they are even enemies to God. This is the condition of all people before this scepter of Christ conquers their hearts: children of wrath, enemies to God, dead in sins, under the curse. But now, when the gospel comes to prevail over people’s hearts, then they come to be children of the living God, heirs of Christ, co-heirs with him. They come to be partakers of the life of God. They increase with the increase of God, and their lives are hidden with Christ in God. They come to be reconciled to God, to be friends with God, to be at peace with God, and to inherit blessings.

Oh, the change that the Lord puts upon the heart and state of the saints when the gospel prevails! How high they are raised above other people! Therefore you must not make other people your example in your way. You must not think to live as the world lives, and to say, “I do as other people do.” The gospel makes a mighty difference between your state and the state of other people. Therefore never look to what other people do, but consider this: as God has made a vast difference between you and other people, so let there be a great difference between your conduct and the conduct of other people.

Now this meditation should have a mighty deal of power to prevail upon the heart: “I believe that I have such and such privileges beyond other people, and I look for such and such mercies above others. Now, whatever things I look for beyond others, I must labor to be as far beyond them in holiness of conduct as God has made me beyond them in spiritual privileges and spiritual mercies. I sometimes think that I would not be in the condition of those who are in their natural state for a world. No, I would not be one hour in their state if I might have ten thousand worlds, for fear I should die that hour, and then I should be lost forever. Well, has God made such a difference? Then let my life not be like theirs for one hour, no, not for one moment.” Oh, this meditation (through God’s blessing) would mightily help us in our conduct.

Our conduct should be such as becomes the ordinances of the gospel. The Word and sacraments have a great deal more in them than the ordinances of the law. But because I spoke earlier of the gospel’s being higher than the law, and these things may come rather close to that, I will only say this: had I time, I would speak a little about these, and show how we are to hold forth conduct suitable to them.

Our conduct should be suitable to the power of the gospel. There is a great deal of power in the gospel. It is called “the power of God unto salvation” (Rom 1:16). The very light of the gospel is a transforming light; it has a mighty power in it. The gospel is called “the wisdom of God, and the power of God” (1 Cor 1:24). It brings a great deal of power with it to help people against strong corruptions, to overcome violent temptations, and to carry them through any difficulties. Powerful corruptions, powerful temptations, powerful difficulties are overcome by the power of the gospel. And therefore it is said that by faith (that is, by faith in the gospel) we overcome the world. Certainly the gospel does not merely stir up in some men and women some wishings and wouldings and faint desires; it brings a power to transform their hearts, to make a metamorphosis there. When the light of the gospel comes, the light of life comes together with it, as in that Scripture, Hebrews 10:32: “After ye were illuminated” (that is, by the gospel); and then he speaks of their great sufferings. They were willing to endure anything for Christ. Therefore conduct that becomes the gospel is conduct that shows forth, as an example to others, the very power of godliness. Men and women should not be “always learning and never come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim 3:7), always wishing and desiring, and never coming to any powerful resolutions and determinations. For certainly, where the gospel has the upper hand in a soul, it brings power. I do not say it brings power so as to overcome all our lusts, so that no sin should remain; for as long as we live we must be hungering after a further degree of righteousness and sanctification.

But certainly, when the gospel prevails, great strength comes with it. There the strength of Christ is put forth, the Spirit of power, as the apostle says: “We have not received the spirit of fear, but the Spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind: be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord” (2 Tim 1:7-8). It is as if Paul had said to Timothy: It is true, you meet with many difficulties; but has not the gospel given you a Spirit of power? There is a Spirit of power and resolution when the gospel comes in. Timothy was a poor, weak, sickly man in his body, and Paul himself had no bodily presence to speak of; he was a poor, contemptible man in regard to his bodily presence. But he had a Spirit of power given him by the gospel. So we should show a Spirit of power; that is what becomes the gospel of Christ.

Lastly, the gospel of Christ is a glorious gospel. In 1 Timothy 1:11 it is called by the title of a glorious gospel: “According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God.” Notice what a title this is! The gospel is the glorious gospel of the blessed God. That is, the glory of all the attributes of God appears more brightly in the gospel than in all the works God has made. Indeed, a great deal of the glory of God appears in the heavens, the earth, and the seas, and you have seen much of the glory of God there. But I appeal to you in this: Have you seen more of the glory of God in the gospel than you ever did in all the works God has made? It would be a good argument that you have had a true understanding of the gospel, and that the Spirit of God has shone into your hearts, if you can say: “Lord, I have seen much of your glory in your works. When I have been abroad on the mighty waters, where God’s paths and footsteps are, oh, the seas are your glorious creatures! But your gospel is glorious beyond them all. There I see your infinite wisdom, and infinite power, and infinite justice, and infinite mercy, and infinite faithfulness. And the Lord knows that all the glory of the creatures has been darkened in my eyes since the Lord showed me the glory of his gospel.” Can you say so? If you stand and marvel at the glory of God in the gospel, this is good evidence that the gospel is a saving gospel to your souls. Certainly there is no one, however weak in natural abilities, to whom God has revealed himself in the gospel, who does not see something that makes them stand and marvel at God, and that darkens all the world in their eyes. Have you seen the gospel in this way? Then it is to you the glorious gospel of the blessed God.

And in 2 Corinthians 4:4: “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine into them.” Oh, read this Scripture over again and again: “The god of this world hath blinded their minds.” Notice this, and compare this Scripture with what I said before of Christ, that his kingdom is not of this world; but the devil is called the god of this world. Note this: he has blinded the minds of those who do not believe. If any who live under the gospel do not believe, it is because the devil, as he prevails in the world and by worldly things, blindfolds the eyes of those who do not believe by the pomp and vanity of the world, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the express image of God, should shine into them.

Oh, the devil is loath that the glorious gospel should shine into the hearts of men! He is content that they should come and hear the gospel, but he labors to keep off the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, so that it does not shine into them. For he knows that once it has shone into men’s hearts, all the glory of the world will be darkened in their eyes, and then they will marvel at nothing but Christ: “Oh, none but Christ, none but Christ! Whom have I in heaven but Christ? And there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison with my dearest Savior, who is the fairest of ten thousand. I never knew God before I saw him in the face of Jesus Christ; and now that I see God in the face of his Son, I see him in another way than I ever did.” Oh, the gospel is a glorious gospel! There is more of the glory of God in one sentence of the gospel than in all heaven and earth besides; this we may boldly affirm. Now our conduct must be such as becomes the gospel, and so there must be a glory in our conduct. We must hold forth the gospel in our lives. Therefore those who profess the gospel should shine as lights in the world.

I beg you, notice this one point. I remember that at the very close of our last meeting I showed you that the saints and godly people are called the glory of Jesus Christ himself. Surely you who profess the gospel should live so as to be the glory of the glorious gospel. And what kind of people ought we to be, then? It is not enough that our lives are not defiled with the most filthy and abominable pollutions of the world; our lives should be such as are a glory to the glorious gospel. Look into the gospel: there the attributes of God shine in glory. So in our lives the glorious attributes of God should be shining, so that all who see our conduct may marvel at the attributes of God shining in our lives, and glorify our heavenly Father.

Certainly a child of God who keeps close to God and lives a holy life lets more of the glory of God shine out before the world than the sun in the heavens. A Christian who professes the gospel and walks in a way that answers to the gospel is, I say, a more glorious creature in this world than the sun in the heavens. Certainly, if we would only consider that we are appointed here in this world, while we live, to hold forth the glory of the gospel, and to make it a glorious gospel before all whom we live among, it would produce a different kind of life from any we have lived yet.

But to wind everything up in a few words of more particular application (though all along the way I have labored to apply it), all that I shall say may be referred to these two particulars.

Application. The first is for rebuking those whose conduct is not such as becomes the gospel.

I appeal to your consciences: Do not your consciences condemn you as you hear these things? If this is the conduct that becomes the gospel, O Lord, how far we are from honoring the gospel in our lives! For how many of your lives disgrace the gospel of Jesus Christ! You put Jesus Christ to open shame by your conduct. People like you are blots on the profession and stains on religion. And the truth is, it would have been better for you never to have been born, if God does not work upon your hearts in some measure before you die, to recover the honor you have taken away from this glorious gospel.

Compare Galatians 2:11, 14 together. In verse 11 you will find that when Paul merely saw Peter not walking as he ought to, he says, “I withstood Peter to his face.” What was the matter? You will see the cause in verse 14, for he says, “He did not walk uprightly according to the truth of the gospel.” In that one particular, it seems, Peter was to blame. Oh, how Paul’s spirit was stirred! He resisted him to his face, he says. Though Peter was a glorious apostle, yet because in that thing he did not walk according to the truth of the gospel, Paul resisted him to his face.

And are there any who make a profession, and do you see that they do not walk according to the truth of the gospel? Resist them to their faces. Though they are ever so eminent, in church or commonwealth, head and shoulders above others, yet they are to be resisted to their faces. Oh, the gospel was precious to the heart of Paul, and therefore he could not bear it that anyone, no, not even a Peter, should fail to walk according to the truth of the gospel. Oh, how many, how many are there among you who do not walk according to the truth of the gospel! Now may the Lord cause your consciences this day to resist you to your faces, to speak to you in secret, and to convince you of the dreadful evil you are guilty of. Is the way of life you walk in such as becomes the gospel?

I remember a story I have read; you will find it in the reign of Richard the First. When he was victorious in war and captured a bishop, the Bishop of Beauvais, the Pope was angry, and sent to remonstrate with him for presuming to meddle with one of his sons and imprison him. The king sent this answer back to the Pope: he took the coat of mail and the other instruments of war that the bishop had, and sent them to the Pope with these words: “See, is this your son’s coat? Is it fit for him to wear such things as these?” So I may say concerning many who profess religion: look at their conduct. What, is this the coat? Is this the conduct of a son of God? Richard the First thought it such an unbecoming thing for a bishop to have instruments of war about him, and to be taken clad in armor. Oh, it is an unbecoming thing for those who profess the gospel of Christ to have instruments of death about them, to have wicked lives, to live in wicked and ungodly ways! Oh, this is not Christ’s livery, not the coat of one who professes godliness. Certainly there must be a different kind of conduct than this.

Exhortation. And therefore, to close all with a word or two of exhortation: Oh, that God would now move our hearts by what we have heard, to labor to honor the glorious gospel that we profess! Oh, that that worthy name (Jas 2:7) may not be blasphemed by wicked men! Oh, do not let that worthy name of God and Christ, which you profess, be blasphemed because of you; but walk worthy of that worthy name of the Lord, and of his Christ, and of his gospel.

My brothers and sisters, know that when you undertake the profession of the gospel, you undertake a great matter. Do not come to the profession of the gospel and look upon it as if it were a slight matter; the profession of the gospel is a great matter. In 1 Timothy 2:10 there is a good Scripture for women. He speaks there of women, that they should walk as those who profess godliness. Such people should preach the contents of the gospel before others by a behavior that befits the gospel. They should therefore bring forth fruits worthy of repentance, or meet for repentance. Has the Lord worked upon your hearts, to change your minds and turn your hearts to him? Oh, then bring forth fruits worthy of repentance. That is, your conduct must be worthy of the gospel, and that is fruit worthy of repentance. And in Acts 26:20: “Works meet for repentance.” Oh, you say you have repented of your sins. The word that is translated repentance there means change of mind. Oh, has God changed your mind? Then let there be works worthy of this change of mind.

Several motives were to have been named to stir up your hearts to walk worthy of the gospel. Oh, consider what this gospel is that you profess. The Scripture calls it, as here, the gospel of Christ; so also “the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).

Second, it is a gospel by which you are begotten (1 Cor 4:15).

Third, it is the gospel of your salvation (Eph 1:13).

And fourth, it is an everlasting gospel (Rev 14:6).

And then, as you had it before, it is a glorious gospel.

Oh, walk worthy of this gospel by which you have gained so much good. I appeal to any of you who have had the gospel working upon your hearts: Have you not gained so much good by the gospel that you would not part with it for ten thousand worlds? Oh, then walk worthy of that gospel, seeing you have gained so much good by it. And I beg you, consider that motive in the text: “Only let your conversation be as it becomes the gospel of Christ” (Phil 1:27). Only: as if the apostle should say, The gospel has many things that darken it, and many adversaries that oppose it; oh, but “only let your conversation be as it becomes the gospel.” You need not care about anything that opposes it, so long as you walk worthy of the gospel; only let your way of life be as becomes the gospel.

Now how many enemies the gospel has at this day! And what errors and divisions there are to eclipse this Sun of the gospel! Why, now, “only let your conversation be as it becomes the gospel.” That is, in these times, when so much is done against the gospel, it is as if the apostle should say: Let all devils and wicked men do what they can, they shall never prevail against the gospel if your conduct is such as becomes the gospel; this is enough to stand out against all that is done against the gospel. Oh, I think this argument should be a prevailing argument. Oh, do not your hearts bleed when you hear what opposition is made against the glorious gospel of Christ, which should be ten thousand times dearer to you than your lives? Here is the way the gospel will stand against hell and the gates of hell. All the counsels of the enemy shall not prevail against the gospel if your conduct is such as becomes the gospel. This will do it.

And notice what Paul says. He looks upon it as a thing dearer than his life to walk in a way that might further the gospel: “We suffer all things,” he says, “lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ” (1 Cor 9:12). Notice, it is as if he should say: Oh, it is a thousand times dearer than our lives; we will do anything and suffer anything. Oh, the apostle’s spirit was filled with the sweetness of the gospel; he had found the good of it. And here in this Scripture he as good as says: Oh, what shall I do? What shall I suffer, so that I may not hinder the gospel? Let them do anything to me that can possibly be done, or take what they will from me; I ask for nothing. We suffer all things, so that the gospel may not be hindered.

But now you will neither do nor suffer anything for the gospel. You will not part with a base lust so that the gospel may not be hindered. One who professes the gospel and is overtaken with an open sin may do more harm to the gospel than he can do good all his life, though he live as long as Methuselah. That sin of yours that is so dear to you, will you not part with it? It will hinder the gospel. Oh, will you not part with your sin when any temptation to sin comes? Let every one of you who professes to love the gospel only think like this: “Oh, but shall I not hinder the gospel if I listen and yield to this temptation? Indeed, this will bring me a great deal of comfort and contentment, and I shall gain so much by it. Oh, but will it not obstruct the gospel?” The very thought that it may possibly hinder the gospel should make your hearts rise with indignation against that temptation and cast out that sin: “God forbid that I should meddle with that sin which will hinder the gospel!”

And therefore in Acts 20:24 the apostle professes that his life is not dear to him, so long as he might only further the gospel. And in 1 Corinthians 9:12-23 he professes that he would become all things to all men. He would be a servant to anyone, and yield to everything he could, provided he did not sin against God; he would be ever so vile in the eyes of men, and all so that he might further the gospel. Oh, that it were only so in our hearts!

We read an excellent commendation of one man in 2 Corinthians 8:18: “His praise is in the gospel in all the churches.” Oh, this is an excellent thing, when it can be said of one who professes religion that his praise is in the gospel. It may be that this man has no great commendation for his gifts; no, but his praise is in the gospel. The saints of God, and all the churches of God that knew him, highly commended him. Why? Because the gospel is furthered by him; his praise is in the gospel. This is what all of us should labor for, as much as we possibly can.

My brothers and sisters, what a mercy it is that God should account anything we do worthy of the gospel! Notice the text. Why, can we poor worms do anything worthy of the gospel? Yes; though you can do but little, God will account your endeavors worthy of the gospel. John says that he was unworthy to loosen the strap of Christ’s shoe, not worthy to carry Christ’s shoe. Then are we such as can walk worthy of the glorious gospel? Oh, it is God’s infinite goodness that he will account us worthy of the gospel. The apostles did not account themselves worthy to suffer for the gospel (Acts 5:41). And will God account us as doing what is worthy of his gospel? Oh, this should be a mighty encouragement to us to walk worthy of the gospel.

And there is a notable, encouraging text in Luke 21:36. Walk worthy of the gospel, and then you will see what God will account you worthy of: “Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.” Watch and pray: be watchful in all your dealings, and keep your communion with God close. What will be the fruit of this? That you may be accounted worthy to escape these things, that is, the many afflictions, dangers, and evils that shall come upon the world; you shall escape the evil of them at least. “And to stand before the Son of Man.”

Here is a notable Scripture to quicken our hearts to walk conscientiously and strictly in our conduct. Watch over your ways, stand upon your guard, and pray, so that you may be accounted worthy to stand before the Son of Man. Why, is there anyone who can stand before the Son of Man in glory, or who shall be accounted worthy to stand before him? Yes: a godly and gracious man or woman who walks conscientiously in their conduct. When the Son of Man comes in his glory, they shall be able to stand before him, and be accounted worthy. Oh, then “let your conversation be as becomes the gospel,” and you shall be accounted by God worthy to stand before the Son of Man. Jesus Christ walks toward you as becomes a Mediator; yes, Christ does all things that are suitable to his relations, as a Husband, as a Savior. Oh, do all things that are suitable to your relations.

And to close everything, I beg you, only lay to heart the great design that God has in the gospel. Think like this within yourself: “Surely the work of God in the gospel is a glorious work. Well then, surely God has some great design that he is driving on in the gospel. What is it? Let me labor to serve it, as far as lies in me.” Now if you read in the gospel, you will find that the design God has is “to purchase to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Titus 2:14); to promote holiness and godliness, “that we being redeemed from the hands of our enemies, might serve him in holiness and righteousness all the days of our lives” (Luke 1:74-75).

This is the design God has. It is as if he said: “I see that mankind has fallen from me, and the people in the world have generally fallen into wickedness. The whole world lies in wickedness, over head and ears in sin. But I would have holiness advanced; I would have my image renewed; I would have a people peculiarly my own, who might live forever to serve and worship me.” Here is the design of God. Oh, let me now serve this design of God, and labor to do all I can to serve and honor and bless and magnify that God who has done such glorious things for us as he has done in the gospel.

And as Christ says in Matthew 3:15, when he came to be baptized by John, “It becomes us to fulfill all righteousness.” Now if the Lord Jesus Christ himself says this, “It becomes us to fulfill all righteousness,” then surely it becomes you to fulfill all righteousness. Would you walk as becomes the gospel? Give up your hearts, your strength, and your endeavors, as much as you possibly can, to fulfill all righteousness. Do not say, “Why should I do this? And why do we need to be so zealous and strict?” Oh, remember the text.

If anyone talks of too much strictness and too much zeal, then answer like this: “I heard in such-and-such a place a text opened and applied to me, that my conduct must be such as becomes the gospel. And certainly, let me do what I can, I cannot do so much but that the gospel will require ten thousand times more than I can do; and therefore I do endeavor to walk as becomes the gospel. And I hear that Christ himself says it became him to fulfill all righteousness; and why should I not walk as Christ himself walked? Oh, my life has been too vain until now. My heart has been dead, and I have not been quickened so as to walk worthy of the gospel. But for the time to come, my care and endeavor above all things in the world shall be that I may honor this glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, from whom I expect to have such glorious things hereafter.”

Consider now what has been said, and may the Lord give you understanding in these things, that you may be kept blameless until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.