The duty of the people to make known the gospel

           Use Second. To the people.  As it is the min­ister’s task to make known the mystery of the gospel in his pulpit, so your duty to do the same in your lives.  The Christian’s life should put his minister’s sermon in print; he should preach that mystery every day to the eyes of his neighbours, which the minister preacheth once or twice a week to their ears.  As a true-made dial agrees with the sun in its motion, and as a well‑drawn picture resembles the face from which it was taken, so should thy conversation resemble that gospel which thou professest.  Let none have cause to say, what once did of some loose Christians, aut hoc non est evangelium, aut hi non sunt evangelici —either this is not the gospel, or these are not its subjects.  What hast thou to do with any sordid and impure practices, who pretendest to be instructed in this high and holy mystery?  Thy Christian name ill agrees with a heathen life.  If thou sufferest any that is not of thy profession to outstrip thee, yea but to keep pace with thee, in any action  that is virtuous and truly honourable, thou shamest thyself and the gospel also.  What a shame were it to find one in some trivial country school that should be able to pose a graduate in the university!  Thou art trained up in such high and heavenly learning as no other re­ligion in the world can show, and therefore your lives are to bear proportion to your teaching.  It was a sharp reproof to the Corinthian saints, when the apostle said, 6"Jz –<2DT­B@< B,D4B"J,ÃJ,—‘ye walk as men,’ I Cor. 3:3; that is, men in a natural state. And he that walks thus like men, will not walk much unlike the very beasts; for man is become brutish in his understanding, and it is worse to live like a beast than to be a beast.

           Surely, Christians, if you have not your name for nought, you partake of a nature higher than human. Your feet should stand where other men’s heads are; you should live as far above the carnal world as grace is above nature, as heaven is above earth.  Christ would never have stooped beneath angels, but to raise your hearts and lives above men.  He would never have humbled himself to take the human nature, but on a design to make us partakers of the divine; nor would he have walked on earth, but to make a way to elevate our hearts to heaven.  Say not, therefore, flesh and blood cannot bear such an injury or for bear such a sensual pleasure.  Either thou art more than a man, or less than a Christian.  Flesh and blood never re­vealed the gospel to thee, flesh and blood never re­ceived Christ; in a word, flesh and blood shall never enter into the kingdom of God.  If thou beest a Chris­tian, thou art baptized into the spirit of the gospel; thou hast a heaven-born nature, and that will enable thee to do more than flesh and blood can do.  Hast thou no desire to see others converted by the gospel? Wouldst thou steal to heaven alone, and carry none of thy neighbours with thee? 

Now, how shalt thou win them into a good opinion of the gospel, but by such an amiable life as may commend it unto their consciences?  It was a charge long ago laid upon Christianity, that it was better known ‘in leaves of books than in the lives of Christians.’  From hence it is, that many are hardened in their wickedness and prejudice against the gospel.  He is an unwise fisher­man that scareth away the fish which he desires to get within his net.  O offend not those, by scandals in thy life, whom thou wouldst have converted by the preaching of the gospel.  There is now‑a‑days, saith one, much talk, as if the time for the Jews’ conversion were at hand; but, saith he, the loose lives of Chris­tians do so disparage this heavenly mystery, that the time seems further off.  Indeed, the purity of Chris­tians' lives is the best attractive to win others to the love of religion.  Had Christ’s doves more sweet spices of humility, charity, patience, and other heav­enly graces, in their wings, as they fly about the world, they would soon bring more company home with them to the church’s lockers.  This is the gold that should overlay the temple of Christ’s church, and would make others in love with its beauty.  This was one happy means for the incredible increase of con­verts in the primitive times.  Then the mystery of the gospel was made known, not only by the apostles’ powerful preaching, but by Christians’ holy living.  See how they walked, Acts 2:46; and what was the blessed fruit of it ‘They had favour with all the people, and the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved,’ ver. 47.  It would tempt any al­most but a devil—who loves to live in the fire of con­tention, and is desperately hardened against all good­ness—to have entered their names into such a heav­enly society; but when this gold grew dim, then the gospel began to lose its credit in the world, and con­sequently its takings.  Converts came in slower when those that professed the gospel began to cool in their zeal and slacken in the strictness of their lives.