3. Carry yourselves as a peculiar people to him. Wherein ?
[1.] You must not be contented with common mercies. Every distinct society hath distinct privileges. Now the elect are a peculiar people, and therefore should look after peculiar privileges. A man may have outward things ; and here is nothing peculiar, no argument of God's special love. Castaways may have these things : Ps. cxix. 132, ' Look then upon me, and be merciful unto me, as thou usest to do unto them that love thy name.' Look not upon me as thou usest to do on the world in general, but as thou dost on thy own people. You must have renewing mercies, and sanctifying mercies, a holy heart, be kept from sin, and conformed to God. Other mercies a man may have and go to hell ; therefore be not satisfied with them. Luther protested to God he would not be put off with estate and the favour of the world, and with increase of honour and esteem. Alas ! the multitude may have these things, it is their happiness : Ps. iv. 6, ' There be many that say. Who will show us any good ? Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us.'
[2.] Be not contented w^ith common graces. Thus far a man may go, and not be saved. As, for instance, there are moral inclinations in heathens, and they make conscience of gross sins. It is not enough to keep from theft, drunkenness, adultery ; a heathen w^ould discover those sins by the light of nature, and by such arguments and reasons as nature suggests would avoid them. And then hypocrites may have flashes of comfort, glances, wishes, and good moods ; though they have no constant delight in communion with God, yet they have superficial hopes, and are much taken with evangelical strains and tenders of the gospel ; they have a desii-e to keep their consciences quiet and peace- able ; but you should labour for uprightness and special graces. Carnal men desire to be secure rather than sincere, that they may have some
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delectations and superficial tastes ; but you are to lool: after ' tilings that accompany salvation,' Heb. vi. 9. In the original it is ra exofieva (TcorijpLat;, things that have salvation in them ; you should be contented with no grace but that which is an undoubted pledge and evidence of heaven, not a loose hope of the gospel.
[3.] Be not satisfied with a common conversation. How is that ? Partly thus : You must not live according to ordinary privileges and ordinary hopes : you must discover self-denial, as one trained up in the school of Christ. It is an accusation the apostle brings against the Corinthians, 1 Cor. iii. 3, ' Are ye not carnal, and walk as men ? ' When men pretend to be God's peculiar people, and have nothing singular, but are given to worldly cares, vile passions, and corrupt aflfections, as other men are, this hardens carnal men. A christian should live like a wonder in his place, by discovering much self-denial and mortification in his conversation : Mat. v. 46, ' For if ye love them which love you, what reward have you? do not the publicans the same ? ' It is the greatest hypocrisy that can be in the world to profess to be a peculiar people, and to deny yourselves in nothing, but do as others do ; we should live at another rate, and be more holy, more charitable, more heavenly.
[4.] Do not live according to ordinary examples. We may not frame and fashion ourselves to the guise of the world, because we are the Lord's peculiar people: Deut. xiv. 1, 2, 'Ye are the children of the Lord your God : ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead ; for thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth.' Dead fishes swim with the stream ; a christian should live in a counter motion to the world. You cannot do as others do, for you profess yourselves to be distinct. Especially we should consider this in times of general defection, not to run away from God : Micah iv. 5, ' For all people will walk, every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.' When every man sets up a distinct religion (that is the meaning of it), then the peculiar people of God should hold together, and show forth special zeal, and special strict- ness in the ways of God, in times of coldness, indifferency, and neutrality in religion : Josh. xxiv. 15, ' And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served, that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell ; but as for me and my house, we wiU serve the Lord.'
VeK. 14,] SERMONS UPON TITUS II. 11-14. 275