4f)2 WHAT LIGHT M3 T Lord would bring this close to all our hearts ! Christians, if you abhor dumb teachers, because they starve and betraÿ souls, take heed lest you condemn yourselves: you owe men the convincing helps of a holy, fruitful life, as well as the preacher owes them his ministry. Preach by well doing, shine out in good works, or else you are no'lights of,Christ, but betrayers of men's souls : you rob all about you of a great ordinance of God, a 'great means appointed by him for men's salvation. The world will judge of the Scriptures by your lives, and of religion by your lives, and of Christ himself by your lives. If your lives are such as tend to persuade men that Christians are but like other' men, yea, that they are but self-conceited sinners, as carnal', sensual, uncharitable, proud, self-seeking; worldly, envious, as others, and so that,Chris- tianity is, but such, this is a horrid blaspheming of Christ, how highly soever yodr tongues may speak of him, and how low soever your knees may bow to hirn. O that you knew how much of God's great work of salvation in the world is to be done by Chris= tians' lives. Your lives must teach men to believe that there is a heaven to be won, and a hell to be escaped: your lives must help men to believe that Christ and his' word are true your lives must . tell men what -holiness is, and convince themof the need of regen- eration ; and that the Spirit of sanctification is no fancy, but the witness of Jesus Christ in the world your lives must tell men, by repentance and obedience, that sin is the greatest evil ; and must show them the difference between the righteous and the wicked: yea, the holiness of God must be glorified by your lives. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the Scripture, the church, and heaven itself, must be known much by our lives: And may not I say, then, with the apostle, (2 Peter iii.. l l.) " What manner of per- sons, then, ought we to be, in all holy conversation and godliness, when the grace of God, which bringeth salvation, bath appeared to all men, teaching us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world? 'lit. ii. 11; 12. Use 5. But alas! what suitable .and plentiful matter doth this offer us for our humiliation and lamentation on such'a day as this! A flood of tears is not too much to lament the scandals of the Christian world. With what wounded hearts should we think of the state of the churches in Armenia, Syria, Egypt, Abascia, and all the oppressed Greeks; and all, the poor deceived and oppressed Papists, and all the ignorant, carnal Protestants! O,'how unlike are your lives to your Christian faith, and to the pattern left them by their Lord! Doth a worldly, proud, and fleshly, and' conten- tious clergy glorify God ?. Doth an ignorant ministry glorify him, who understand not the- message .which they should. deliver? Will the world turn Christians by seeing Christians seek the bloód
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