THE OBLIGATION TO INCREASE IN GODLINESS. 537
also to judge his people. We are wonderfully apt to have pleasant thoughts, that when the Lord comes forth in judgment on the world professors shall be hid, and shall escape. No; saith he, "Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense;" and again, " The Lord shall judge his people. "
What manner of persons, then, ought we to be? If Christ be com ing to judge us, to make a judgment upon our profession, he will come into a church, and discard one for a false professor, and another for a false professor. Have none of us seen such a day of judgment already, — how God, by his providence, hath discarded many already? And he will do so more and more. He will discover hypocritical professors, and bring forth their hidden works of darkness; he will reprove others for their worldliness and unprofitableness under the gospel. How? It may be by consuming them, all they have in this world, bringing them to great poverty and distress. He will judge them in these things. ' You have loved the world, and you shall have nothing left you in the world/ Don't expect the day of the Lord will be all light ; there is sharpness even to his own in the coming of Christ, when he shall come with a destructive dissolution. It is good, therefore, to be preparing beforehand for his entertainment, and considering what manner of persons we ought to be in all holy con versation and godliness, seeing Christ will thus come and call upon us.
SERMON VI.
THE OBLIGATION TO INCREASE IN GODLINESS.
PREACHED MAT 29, 1674.
" Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more." — 1 THESS. iv. 1.
OUR business that we design this day is, to consider how we may carry on our practice. This text of Scripture speaks out the whole of what I aim at; and I wish that I could speak it in the same spirit and with the same frame of heart wherewith it is done by the apostle.
It is a very unusual earnestness the apostle uses in this matter. " We beseech you, brethren, and exhort you," saith he. And it is evident from thence that this matter, whatever it be, is of very great importance in itself; that it sat with very great weight upon the heart and mind of the apostle; and that it is a matter that brethren, members of churches, will oftentimes stand in need of being very earnestly pressed unto. I conceive all these three things to be evi dently included in this earnestness of the apostle, and the reduplication of it. " Now we beseech you, brethren, and we exhort you/' saith he.
538 THE OBLIGATION TO INCEEASE IN GODLINESS.
The first word, in my apprehension, doth express his love and con descension, " We beseech you ;" and the latter doth express his minis terial authority, " We exhort you," speaking of the application of the word in the ministry of the gospel, called " exhortation," Rom. xii. 8. So here is a mixture of personal love and ministerial autho rity, which is the wisdom of a minister. The apostle lays his whole interest upon this matter.
And there is another word that signifies also what weight he lays on it. We have rendered it here, "Furthermore then." It is rb Xo«r&* o5v, — " for what remains." ' You have been instructed in the mystery of the gospel ; you have been made partakers of the privileges of the gospel: all that remains now, brethren, is that you so walk as to please God, and abound therein more and more/ Having prepared the way thus, he gives another encouragement and enforcement unto what he hath to press upon them; and that is, that he had taught them their duty already, there was nothing now behind but their practice. " As ye have," saith he, " received of us how ye ought to walk." He had already taught them this great matter; which would be a facilitating of the duty, and a great aggravation of their guilt if they lived in the neglect of it.
What is this thing the apostle makes this entrance into? It is, " How ye ought to walk and to please God," saith he.
And further to insinuate it upon their minds, and take off any objection, ' What makes this earnestness? why do you press this? why are you so importunate with us? what can you blame in us?' 'No/ saith the apostle, * as we have taught you " how to walk and to please God ;" so/ saith he, c I charge you with nothing, but desire you that ye would "abound more and more."' ' Rest not in what ye have attained; there is yet a progress for us all/ saith he, — ' for you and for me/ If we think we are risen as high as we need, we have attained as much as is necessary, ' it is quite otherwise/ saith the apostle, * your work is to " abound more and more." }
And, truly, the great thing that is upon my heart to exhort you unto, — and this text of Scripture doth but confirm it, — is, to abound more and more in such work wherein we may please God. I can not speak with that love the apostle did, nor with that authority the apostle did; no, truly. We cannot say we have taught you in all things, yet, how to walk and to please God; though we hope you have been taught: but I can truly say the same thing is upon my heart, according to my measure, to beseech you and exhort you, to declare unto you how to walk in this church relation wherein you stand, so as that you may please God, and so as that you may abound in so walking more and more; and the Lord convince us all, every one, that it is our duty to be abounding in this matter ! Some may think