in sin. Christ came to " save us from our sins," but not in them. We are expressly told that " the grace of God which bringeth salvation, teaches us, that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live righteously, soberly, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious ap- pearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ11." There is a kind of hope that will consist with the indulgence of secret lust, and with a total want of holy dispositions : but that is " the hope of the hypocrite which perisheth, and shall be swept away with the besom of destruction1. But the hope of the upright is far different from this : it will admit of no allowed sin, whether of omission or of com- mission : on the contrary, we are told, that " he who hath this hope in him, purifieth himself even as God is purek :" he will retain no bosom lusts ; he will not so much as wish for any exceptions and reserves in his obedience to God: he will desire, and endeavour, to be "holy as God is holy, and perfect even as his Father that is in heaven is perfect."
This then may serve to distinguish the Christian's hope from that which is self-righteous, presumptuous, or hypocritical ; and consequently to determine with considerable accuracy, what that hope is, that is con- nected with salvation. And though the text itself does not so much as mention hope, and much less discriminate between its different kinds, yet the very omission of these things points out the evident pro- priety of marking clearly what the import of sal- vation is, and what that is which alone deserves the name.
We may now, with much greater advantage, pro- ceed to shew,
II. The use and importance of salvation in the Christian warfare —
The importance of this helmet is not obscurely intimated in that prophecy respecting Christ, wherein
11 Tit. ii. 11—13. * Job viii. 13, 14. k 1 John iii. 3.