494 WHAT LIGHT MUST SHINE IN OUR WORKS. knowledge, gifts, and grace, and affecting too great a distance from their brethren, and censuring others as unworthy of their com- munion without reproof, are not the men that honor God, and can lay claim to no great honor frommen. But God bath among us a prudent, holy, humble, laborious, patient ministry, that glorify him by their works and patience, and he bath among us a meek and humble, a blameless, and aloving and 'fruitful sort of.Chris- tians, who imitate the purity,, charity, and simplicity, yea, and concordof the primitive church. These tell the world, to their sight and experience, that religion is better than ignorance and carnality. These tell the world, that Christ and his holy word are true, while he doth that, in renewing and sanctifying souls, which none else in.the world can do. These show the world, that faith, and holiness, and self-denial, and the hopes of immortality, are no deceits. These glorify God, and are the great benefactors of the world. I must solemnly profess, that did I not know such a people in the world, who, notwithstanding their infirmities, do manifest a holy and heavenly disposition in their lives, I should want myself so great a help to my faith in Christ, and the promise of life eternal, that I fear, without it, my faith would fail. And had I never known a`holier ministry and people than those that live but a common life, and excel heathens in nothing but their belief or opinions, and church orders and formalities, I should find my faith assaulted with "so great temptations as I doubt I should not well withstand. No talk will persuade men that 'he is the best physician that healeth no more nor worse diseases than others do. Nor would Christ be taken for the'Savior of the world if he did not save men. And he saveth them not if he make them not holier and better than other men. 0, then, how much do we pile to Christ for sending his Spirit into his saints, and for exemplifying his holy word on holy souls, and for giving us as many visible proofs of his holiness, power, and truth, as there are holy Christians in the world! We must not flatter them, 'nor excuse their faults, nor puff them up. But because the righteous is more excellent than his neighbor, we must accordingly love and honor them, and Christ in them. For Christ telleth us, that he is glorified in them here, (John xvii. 10.) and that what is done to them, Isis brethren, even the least, is taken as' done to him, (Matt. xxv.) and he will be glorified and admired in them when he corned' in his glory at the last, (2 Thess. i. 8, 10.) and he will glorify their very works before all the world; with a " Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
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