is not realized in fact, I grant that the generality of religious professors do not experience them to the extent that we have spoken of them. But why do they not experience them to this extent ? Is it that they do not necessarily attach to vital godliness ? No: but that godliness is but at a low ebb amongst those who profess to live under its influence. Were the pro- fessors of religion more like to the Apostles in vital godliness, they would, in the same proportion, be elevated above all the rest of the world, both in their character and enjoyments. They would indeed have their afflictions, as the Apostles had : but their " consolations should abound far above their afflic- tions," yea and even by means of their afflictions. And, as it is said that " godliness has the promise of all this," I will leave it all to rest upon that one saying, " If a man love me, he will keep my words ; and my Father will love him ; and we will come unto him, and make our abode with hima." Let the love of God the Father, and the in-dwelling of the Father and of Christ Jesus in the soul, be duly estimated, and we will leave any man in the universe to judge, whether godliness be not profitable as it respects this present life.]
2. In reference to the life to come —
[Of this there is so little doubt, that we need scarcely stop to confirm it, more especially as our further views of this subject demand a very peculiar attention. Let it only be recollected, that " to those who by patient continuance in well- doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, God has promised eternal lifeb;" and that " they who overcome in this warfare shall sit down with Christ upon his throne, as he sitteth on his Father's throne0:" and nothing more need be added to establish this obvious and acknowledged truth.]
Such being the profitableness of true godliness, we
proceed to state,
II. The importance of it in that particular view —
Those who have not duly considered this subject would not have expected to find such a peculiar con- firmation of it as the Apostle has added in our text. When, in a preceding chapter, he was about to de- clare the stupendous mystery, that " Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners," he prefaced it with this declaration, that the truth he was about to utter was " a faithful saying, and worthy of all accept- ation d." There the importance and mysteriousness
3 John xiv. 23. b Rom. ii. 7. 1 John ii. 25.
c Rev. hi. 21. d 1 Tim. i. 15.