Secondly, Take it for truth of heart; and so truth and holiness must go together. In vain do men pretend to sincerity, if they be imholy in their lives. God owns no unholy sincerity : the terms do clash one with another. Sincerity teacheth the soul to point at the right end of all its actions — the glory of God. Now it is not enough to set the right end before us, but to walk in the right way to it ; we shall never come at God's glory out of God's way ; holiness and righteousness is the sincere man's path set by God, as a causeway on which he is to walk, both to the glorifying of God, and the being glorified by God. Now, he that thinks to find a shorter cut and a nearer way to obtain this end, than this wa}', he takes but pains to undo himself. As he finds a new way of glo- rifying God, which God hath not chalked, so he must find a new heaven, which God hath not prepared, or else he must go without one to reward him for his pains. O friends ! look to find this stamp of righteousness and holiness on your sincerity. The proverb saith, ' Hell is full of good wishes,' of such who now (when it is too late) wish they had acted their part otherwise when on earth than they did. And do you not think there are there more than a good store of good meanings also ? Such who pretended, when on earth, they meant well, and their hearts were honest; however it happened that their lives were otherwise : what a strange delusion is this ! If one should say, though all the water the bucket brings up be naught and putrid, yet that which is in the well is all sweet, who would believe him ? Thy heart upright, and thy meanings good, when all that proceeds from thy heart in thy life is wicked, how can it be ? Who will believe thee ? svu'ely thou dost not thyself.
CHAPTER III.
WHEREIN THE GRAND POINT FROM THE WORDS IS LAID DOWN, THAT THE christian's ESPECIAL CARE SHOULD BE TO KEEP ON HIS BREASTPLATE, I. E. MAINTAIN THE POWER OF HOLINESS IN HIS CONVERSATION ; WITH THE FIRST REASON OF THE POINT TAKEN FROM GOD, HIS DESIGN AS TO THIS.
It is now time, having measured the ground, to lay the bottom stone, on which the structure from these words is to be reared. I thought to have drawn out several points as distinct foundations to build our discourse upon, but shall now rather choose to unite all in a single point, as one main building, though I make a few more rooms therein, to entertain what else shoidd have been handled severally. The point is this :
Doct. That he who means to be a Christian indeed, must endeavour to maintain the power of holiness and righteousness in his life and conversation. This is to have the breastplate of righteousness, and to have it on also ; he is a holy, righteous man that hath a work of grace and holiness in his heart, as he a living man that hath a principle of life in him ; but he nuiintains the power of holiness that exerts this vigorously in his daily walking, as be the ])ower of natural life, in whom the principle of life, seated in the heart, empowers every member to do its particular office in the body strenuously. Thus walked the primitive Christians, ' in whose veins,' said Jerome, ' the blood of Christ was yet warm ;' their great care was to keep on this breastplate of righteousness close and entire, that it neither might loosen by negligence, nor be broken by presumptuous sinning ; the character then a saint was known by from other
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men, was his holy walking, Luke i. 16 : there it is said of Zacharias and Elizabeth, ' They were both righteous before God, walking in all the com- mandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.' This was also holy Paul's every day's exercise, ' to have always a conscience void of offence towards God and man,' Acts xxiv. Never did any more curiously watch the health of their body than he attended to the health of his soul, that no imholiness or un- righteousness, which is the only bane of it, might distemper and defile it. And truly, we, who come after such holy ones in the same profession, do bind oin-selves to oiir good behaviour, that we will walk holily and righteously as they did. The point cames its evidence on its forehead, and needs rather pressing than proving : and therefore I may be pardoned, if the demonstra- tions of the point be handled, as well motives to, as reasons for, the duty, which will spare work in the application. Reasons of the point shall be taken from several heads.