5. To be more faithful in the duties of your relations. The fruits of the mystical union run to every part of the spiritual life. None commend their religion so much as those that make conscience of the duties of their relations, that they may carry themselves as becomes christians, husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants. So poor servants make the doctrine of the Lord Jesus Christ comely : Titus ii. 10, ' That ye may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.' And the apostle saith, men that do not obey the word, may without the word be won by the conversation of their wives, 1 Peter iii. 1. Worldly men have been much gained by the lives of religious persons. Thus you propagate the truth by carrying yourselves usefully in your relations. This hath been ever the glory of rehgion, as it was in the primitive times. Austin makes this
52 SERMONS UPON JOHN XVII. [SeR. XXXVII.
challenge, Uhi tales imperatQres ? &c. Let all the religions in the world show such emperors, such captains, such armies, such managers of public treasury, as the christian religion. The world was convinced there was something divine in them. Oh ! it is pity the glory of religion should fall to the ground in our days, and that the quite con- trary should be said : None such careless parents as those that seem to be touched with a sense of religion ! None so disobedient to magistrates, none such disobedient children to parents, as those that seem to be called to liberty with Christ ! Therefore, if you would honour Christ, and propagate the truth, keep up this testimony and convince the world.
6. A constancy in the profession of faith. You should live as if Christ and you had one common interest. Sure they believe Christ was sent from God, and able to reward them, else why should they sacrifice all their interests for his sake ? It is said, Eev. xii. 11, ' The saints overcome by the blood of the Lamb, and the word of their testi- mony, and they loved not their lives unto the death.' Keligion had never thrived, and spread its branches far and near, had it not been watered by the blood of the martyrs. Christ began and watered the plant by his own blood ; and then the martyrs kept watering it till it began to be rooted and had got some esteem in the world ; and now it spreads its boughs, and yields a shadow and refreshing to the far greatest part of the world. When men take up principles that will not warrant suffering, or are changeable and pliable to all interests, and wriggle and distinguish themselves out of their duty upon all occasions, it doth mightily dishonour Christ, and make religion vile, and harden the woi-ld, and feed their prejudices against the truth. What is the reason the ways of God have so little honour in the eyes of the world, so little power upon the hearts of men? Professors are so fickle and changeable, this maketh them suspect all, and so return to their old superstitions and vanities.
Now, that you may do so, I shall bind it upon you by some further considerations.
1. Consider you are God's witnesses to keep up truth in the world, to bring them on to conversion, or at least to some temporary faith : Isa. xliii. 10, ' Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am he.' God appealeth to those that have most communion with him, for the truth and reality of his grace. If a man would be satisfied in a thing that he knoweth not, to whom should he go for satisfaction but to those that have most experience ? Well, if the world would be satis- fied is union with Christ a notion or a real thing, ye are my witnesses : 2 Cor. iii. 3, ' Ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ.' In an epistle a man writes his mind. The scriptures they are Christ's epistle, and so are christians. The world, that will not study the scriptures, are to be convinced and preparatively induced by your lives. Every christian is to be a walking Bible, It is a dangerous tempta- tion to atheism when christians, that pretend themselves near and dear to God, are scandalous, and let loose the reins to every corrupt affec- tion. He that took a christian in an act of filthiness cried out, Gliristiane ! uhi Deus tuus ? In the scripture there is Christ's mind in words ; in a christian there is Christ's mind written in deeds in his
VeR. 21.] SERMONS UPON JOHN XVII. 53
conversation. You are to be a living reproof ; as ' Noali condemned the world by preparing an ark,' Heb. xi. 7. There was something in it, when he was so busy in preparing an ark, with so great cost and charge ; it was a real upbraiding of their security and carelessness ; so when men are so diligent and busy in working out their salvation with fear and trembling, it is a real reproof to the carnal and lazy world.
2. Consider, if you do not convince the world, you justify the world ; as Israel justified Sodom, Ezek. xvi. 52. The wicked hold up their ways with greater pretence, and are hardened in their prejudices. You put an excuse into wicked men's mouths. What a sad thing will it be when they shall say. Lord, we never thought they had been thy servants, they were so wrathful, proud, sensual, self-seeking, factious, turbulent, hunting after honours, and great places in the world : Eom. ii. 23, 24, * Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking of the law dishonourest thou God ? for the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you.' Carnal professors will blush at the last day, when they shall consider how many they have hardened by their examples, unsettled by their loose walking ; how you have disgraced Christ, and taken up his name for a dishonour to him. It is this that makes the Hams of the world to laugh ; you cannot gratify them more.