and take up his cross daily, and follow me." And so unre- served must our surrender of ourselves to him be, that, if we be not ready even to lay down our lives for him, we shall be regarded by him in no other light than as aliens or traitors. A faith which does not operate in this manner, and to this extent, is no better than " the faith of devils :" it is " dead," and will leave the soul dead to all eternity0.
Such, then, is the faith of God's elect ; and such the faith of which our Lord speaks in the words before us ; a faith that " works by love," and " purifies the heart," and " overcomes the world."]
Having ascertained what is meant by faith, we proceed to shew,
II. Who they are who are declared incapable of ex- ercising it —
[The mere " receiving " of honour from man has no such effect: for the good man passes "through honour as well as dishonour, and through good report as well as evil report." It is the seeking of honour from man that is here spoken of; that is, the seeking of it, either independently of " the honour that cometh from God," or in preference to it. All desire of man's approbation is not wrong : a child may properly seek the approbation of his parent ; a servant, of his master ; a sub- ject, of his prince. But to make man's approbation the main object of our pursuit, is to put man in the place of God : and this can never be pleasing to the Supreme Being ; who is " a jealous God," and " will not give his glory to another4." Nor is it necessary that what we do should be substantially and in itself evil, in order to provoke God to jealousy : our actions may be good in themselves ; and yet, if they be done to please man, their character is altogether changed, and they become hateful in the sight of God. Almsgiving and prayer are good; but if either the one or the other be done in order to obtain applause from man, it is vitiated, and debased, and execrable : and fasting itself is odious, when proceeding from no better principle than thise. It was this base desire of man's applause which chiefly characterized the Pharisees of oldf: and, where- ever it prevails, it destroys all pretensions to uprightness before God, and all hope of ever being acknowledged by Christ, as his Disciples : as St. Paul says, " If I yet pleased men, I could not be the servant of Jesus Christ K."
In like manner we err, if we seek man's approbation, in pre- ference to the honour that cometh of God. The two often
c Jam. ii. 19, 20, 26. d Isai. xlii. 8. e Matt. vi. 1—5, 16—18. f Matt, xxiii. 5. s Gal. i. 10.
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