From whence will naturally result these consequences.
_First_, That the Doctor was grosly (LORD grant he was not maliciously)
mistaken in his explanatory sermon on this text, as well as in the
♦application of it.
♦ “applicaion” replaced with “application”
_Secondly_, That he is a teacher and approver of worldly maxims.
_Thirdly_, That he is of course an enemy to perfect righteousness in
men, through CHRIST JESUS, and, therefore, no friend to CHRIST: And,
therefore, that no one ought to be deluded by the false doctrine he
advances, to beguile the innocent, and deceive, if possible, even the
elect.
I. To come at the true sense of the text in question, it will be
necessary to look back, to the preceding verse, where the wise man,
reflecting on the vanities of his youth, puts on for a moment his
former character. “All things, have I seen in the days of my vanity:
(and among the rest) there is a just man that perisheth in his
righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongeth his life in his
wickedness.” Now it is very plain, that he is not here talking of a man,
who is righteous over-much, in the Doctor’s manner of understanding
the words, that is, “faulty, and criminal by excess.” For on one side
he commends him for being a just man, and full of righteousness, and
yet on the other tells us, that his righteousness is the shortening of
his life. Whereas, had he looked upon his perishing in righteousness
to be an over-righteousness, he would never have called him a just
man. Neither by a wicked man, can he mean a man given up to the utmost
excess of wickedness, since he tells us, that he prolongeth his life
in (or by) his wickedness. Who does not know, that the excess of almost
every kind of vice, is of itself a shortener of life. So that the
whole opposition and contrast lies between a good man, and a bad man.
A good man whose goodness shortens his life, a bad man whose iniquity
lengthens his life, or at least is not excessive enough to shorten the
thread of it. _Solomon_, absorbed in these reflections, speaks here by
way of _prosopopeia_, not the sense of _Solomon_, the experienced, the
learned, the wise; but of the former _Solomon_, a vain young fellow,
full of self-love, and the strong desires of life. In the quality of
such a one then, he looks with the same eye upon the righteous man,
who perishes in his righteousness, as he would on a wicked one, who
should perish in his wickedness. For it is neither the righteousness
of the one, nor the wickedness of the other, that offends him, but the
superlative degrees of both; which tending equally to shorten life, he
looks upon them as equally opposite to the self-love he fondles within
him. And, therefore, he deems an excess of debauchery as great an enemy
to the lasting enjoyment of the pleasures of life, as an extraordinary
righteousness would be. Well then might he say to the latter, in
this character, “Be not over-much wicked, neither be thou foolish;
why shouldst thou die before thy time?” And to the former: “Be not
righteous over-much, neither make thyself over-wise: Why shouldst thou
destroy thyself?”
What wonder then, that a youth of sprightliness and sense, but led away
by self-love to be fond of the pleasures and enjoyments of life, when
attained without hurry, and possessed without risk; what wonder, I say,
that such a youth should conceive an equal dislike to the superlative
degrees of virtue and vice, and, therefore, advise such of his
companions as give into the excess of debauchery, to refrain from it:
as it must infallibly tend to clog their understandings, stupify their
senses, and entail upon their constitutions a train of infirmities,
which cannot but debilitate their natural vigour, and shorten their
days? “Be not over-much wicked, neither be thou foolish: Why shouldst
thou die before thy time?” What wonder, that the same self-love should
prompt him to dissuade such of his friends or acquaintance, as he
wishes to have for companions, and countenancers of his worldly-minded
pursuits, from pursuing righteousness and wisdom to a degree that must
destroy in them all taste of earthly pleasures, and may possibly impair
their constitutions, and forward their end? “Be not righteous over-much,
neither make thyself over-wise: Why shouldst thou destroy thyself?”
This is the sense in which _Solomon_ (placing himself in the state of
vanity of his youth) speaks to the one, and the other: to the righteous,
and to the ungodly. This is the true, genuine sense of the letter; and
every other sense put upon it, is false and groundless, and wrested
rather to pervert than explain the truth of the text. O christian
simplicity, whither art thou fled? Why will not the clergy speak truth?
And why must this false prophet suffer thy people, O LORD, to believe
a lye? they have held the truth in unrighteousness. Raise up, I beseech
thee, O LORD, some true pastors, who may acquaint them with the nature
and necessity of perfect righteousness, and lead them to that love of
christian perfection which the angry-minded, pleasure-taking Doctor
_Trapp_, labours to divert them from, by teaching, that “all christians
must have to do with some vanities.”
Is not the meaning of this text plain to the weakest capacity? I have
here given it to you, as I have it from the mouth of the royal preacher
himself. I have made use of no “philosophy and vain deceit after the
tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after
CHRIST,” to impose a fleshly sense upon you, for the sense of the
word of GOD. No, I have given you a natural exposition, obvious from
the very words themselves. Hence you may see, my fellow-strugglers
in righteousness, how grosly our angry adversary is mistaken in his
explanation of this text. LORD! open his eyes, and touch his heart;
and convert him, and all those erring ministers, who have seen vain and
foolish things for thy people, and have not discovered their iniquity,
to turn away thy captivity. For they have erred through wine, and
through strong drink are out of the way: The priest and the prophet
have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they
are out of the way through strong drink, they err in vision, they
stumble in judgment.
It is plain from the words of the text, that the royal Preacher was
speaking in the person of a vain worldling, when he said, “Be not
righteous over-much;” whereby he meant to exhort the truly righteous
not to be dismayed, terrified, or disturbed from their constant pursuit
of greater and greater perfection of righteousness, until they rest in
CHRIST; notwithstanding the derision, fleshly persuasion, ill-treatment
and persecution of worldly men: Who, one day, repenting and groaning
for anguish of spirit, shall say within themselves, “These were they
whom we had sometime in derision, and a proverb of reproach. We fools,
accounted their lives madness; and their end to be without honour. How
are they numbered among the children of GOD, and their lot is among the
saints!”
How blind then is the application (not to say perverse) which this
self-wise clergyman makes from the text, to such as, following the
advice of the apostle, (_Colossians_ iii. 2.) “set their affection
on things above, not on things on the earth.” Must hastiness in anger
get the better of sense and truth? Must the people be misled because
the pastor cannot, or will not see? Or must the injunction of CHRIST,
“Be perfect, even as your Father, who is in heaven, is perfect,” give
place to the maxim of the heathen _Tully_: The greatest reproach to a
philosopher, is to confute his doctrine by his practice; if this be the
case, alas, what a deplorable, unspeakably deplorable condition is that
of some christians! Wherefore, “thus saith the LORD” concerning the
prophets who make his people to err, that bite with their teeth and cry
peace; and he that putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war
against him: therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have
a vision, and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine, and
the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over
them.
But I will leave these lovers of darkness, and turn to you, O beloved,
elect of GOD! I beseech you, by the bowels of CHRIST, suffer not
yourselves to be deceived by their flattering, sin-soothing speeches.
“Be not of that rebellious people, lying children, children who will
not hear the law of the LORD: who say to the seers, see not; and to
the prophets, prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth
things, prophesy deceits.” Follow not those, who flatter you in the
vanities they practise themselves. O may you never be of the number
of those, in the person of whom _Solomon_ here says, “Be not righteous
over-much;” for their character is the character of the beast.
II. The character of the persons, who are to be supposed speaking here
in the text, is in a word the same with the character of those whom
_Solomon_ here personates: who, as is already shewn, are a vain set of
men, neither righteous enough to have an habitual desire of improving
virtue to its perfection, nor quite so flagitious as to give into
self-destroying vices: in a word, they are self-lovers, the sole end
of whose pursuits, whether indifferent, bad, or laudable in themselves,
is self-enjoyment. Insomuch that they look upon virtue and vice,
righteousness and wickedness, with the same eye, and their fondness or
aversion for both is alike, as their different degrees appear to be the
means to enhance and prolong the enjoyment of pleasure, or to lessen
and shorten those pleasures. Thus any virtue, while it is kept within
such bounds as may render it subservient to the pleasurable degrees
of vice, will meet with no opposition from them; on the contrary, they
will even commend it. But the moment it becomes a restraint to _vice in
moderation_ (if I may be allowed to make use of terms adequate to their
system) from that moment it gives offence, and they put in their caveat,
“Be not righteous over-much.” In like manner, vice, while confined to
certain limits, which rather improve than obstruct pleasures, is with
them a desirable good; but no sooner does it launch out into any depth,
sufficient to drown and diminish the relish of those pleasures, than
they declare open war against it; “Be not over-much wicked.” And the
reason they assign for their opposition in both cases, is the same:
“why shouldst thou destroy thyself? Why shouldst thou die before thy
time?” Such is the prudence of the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Such the maxims of these refined libertines, so much the more dangerous
as they are less obvious; so much the more insinuating, as they are
removed from certain extravagancies capable of shocking every man who
has the least sense and delicacy. O LORD, how true is it, that the sons
of darkness are wiser in their generation than the sons of light!
You are not then, beloved in the LORD, to imagine that your greatest
opposition, in struggling for perfect righteousness, is to come from
profligates, from men whose enormous vices create horror even to
themselves: no, your most dangerous, most formidable enemies, are the
kind of men I have painted to you, who render vice relishable with a
mixture of apparent virtue, and cloath wickedness in the apparel of
righteousness; “Beware of them, for they come to you in the cloathing
of sheep, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”
This perverse generation will ensnare you into ungodliness, by seeming
oppositions to vice, and allow you to swallow the seemings of virtue
and righteousness like an emetic, only to puke forth the reality of
them. They paint black, white, and the white they convert into black.
Not content with seeming what they are not, they labour to make you,
what they are. Righteousness and wickedness they interweave in an
artful tissue, capable of deceiving the very elect, and difficult for
the most discerning among them to unravel; as alms-giving and avarice,
pride and humility, temperance and luxury, are dextrously blended
together; while as mutual curbs to each other, they combine to stem
the tide of impediments to worldly enjoyment, which might flow from
extraordinary degrees on either side. Thus “Alms-giving (you are told)
is very excellent,” and you believe the proposition, without knowing
the particular sense it is spoken in, which is, that alms-giving is
an excellent curb upon avarice, by preserving a rich man from such
a superlative love of money as deprives him of the self-enjoyment
of it. And upon the strength of this belief, the worldly-minded man,
who labours to deceive you, gains credit enough with you to establish
this maxim, that all superlative degrees of alms-giving, are _great
sins_, and that a man must never sell all he has and give it to the
poor, because some may have families of their own, and ought to make
sufficient provision for them, according to that proverb, “Charity
begins at home;” when no one, at least scarce any one, is wise enough
to know, when he has a sufficiency. O LORD, which are we to believe,
these worldlings, or thee? If thou dost deceive us, why dost thou
threaten us with punishments, if we do not heed thee? And if the world
is deceitful, shall we not flee from it to cleave to thee?
“Pride is a great sin” even with these worldlings, inasmuch as the
external excesses of it, may obstruct the way to many ambitious
terminations of view, and its internal agitations are the destruction
of that peace, to which even self-love aspires; besides, the frequent
extravagancy of its motions may not only be prejudicial to health,
but a shortner of life. And, therefore, no wonder they should object
against it, “Be not over-much wicked: why shouldst thou die before thy
time?” For this reason, they look upon a little mixture of humility
to be not only commendable, but even necessary to curb the extravagant
sallies of an over-bearing pride. But then a superlative degree of
humility, that is, humility free from the least tincture of pride or
vanity, which is the same with them, as “_an over-strained humility_,
is a fault as well as folly;” because, forsooth, it is an expediment to
the self-enjoyment of the world and its pleasures; “All christians must
have to do with some vanities, or else they must needs go out of the
world indeed; for the world itself is all over vanity.” ’Tis nothing,
therefore, surprising, my brethren, to see a man of this cast of mind
making a vain ostentation of his little superficial acquaintance, with
the antient _Greeks_ and _Romans_. What is this but acting conformably
to his own principle, that “all christians must have to do with some
vanities?” And shall we wonder to hear such a one prefer their writings,
to those of an apostle; or be astonished to see him wound the apostle
with raillery, through your sides, for wishing to know nothing but
JESUS CHRIST, and him crucified? No, with him it is consistency to
laugh and reprove you out of the perfection of righteousness, which,
however he may play with terms, is with him the same as being righteous
over-much; but with you it would be inconsistency, who ought to know no
difference between being righteous, and living in a perpetual, habitual
desire of being superlatively so. It is no more then, than you ought
to expect to hear such advocates for the world cry out to you, “Be not
righteous over-much: why should you destroy yourselves?” But, O LORD,
surely this is not the same voice which tells us, that unless we humble
ourselves like unto children, we shall not enter into the kingdom of
heaven, and that he is greatest there, who humbles himself the most
like a child! But what will not men advance who are drunk with passion,
and intoxicated with self-love?
“The vice of intemperance in eating, and drinking, is plain to every
body,” they own. And, therefore, they give it up as an excess which
cannot but tend to the impairing of health, and shortening of life: nay,
it drowns the very relish of pleasure in actual eating and drinking.
Hence will every refined debauchee exclaim against it with Dr. _Trapp_:
“Be not over-much wicked: why shouldst thou destroy thyself?” Little
sobriety, say they, is requisite to give a zest to luxury and worldly
pleasures. But too much of it is too much, “to eat nothing but bread
and herbs, and drink nothing but water, unless there be a particular
reason for it (such perhaps as Doctor _Cheyne_ may assign) is folly at
best, (that is, even though it be done for CHRIST’s sake) therefore no
virtue:” “Be not then righteous over-much, why shouldst thou destroy
thyself?” And if you should answer these carnally-minded men with the
words of the apostle, _Romans_ viii. “We are debtors, not to the flesh,
to live after the flesh: For if we live after the flesh, we shall die:
but if we, through the spirit, do mortify the deeds of the flesh, we
shall live.” If you answer them thus, they will tell you, “this is
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” And it will be to
as little purpose to answer them, with what St. _Paul_ says elsewhere
(_Romans_ xiv. 17.) “The kingdom of GOD is not meat and drink, but
righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost:” They will not
blush to tell you, that “our blessed Saviour came eating and drinking,
nay worked a miracle to make wine (at an entertainment) when it is
plain there had been more drank than was necessary.” To such lengths
does the love of the world hurry these self-fond, merry-making
worldlings! Tell them of self-denial, they will not hear you, it
is an encroachment upon the pleasures of life, and may shorten it
of a few days, which you are never sure of possessing; it is being
“righteous over-much: why shouldst thou destroy thyself?” JESUS, you
will say, tells us (_John_ xii. 25.) “He that loveth his life shall
lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world, shall keep it
unto life eternal.” But this and the like, they will inform you, “are
hyperbolical phrases.” Now what signifies minding JESUS, when he speaks
hyperbolically, that is, speaks more than is strictly true. Yet, O LORD
JESUS, grant us to mind thee, whatever these worldlings may say; remind
us, that if any man will come after thee, he must deny himself, and
take up his cross, and follow thee! O how enlarging is it to the soul,
to take up the cross of CHRIST and follow him!
But you are charged, ye beloved lovers of perfect righteousness,
with extravagances. You allow of “no sort of recreation or diversion;
nothing but an universal mortification and self-denial; no pleasure but
from religion only:” you teach “that the bodily appetites must not be
in the least degree gratified, any farther than is absolutely necessary
to keep body and soul together, and mankind in being: No allowances
are to be made for melancholy misfortunes, or human infirmity; grief
must be cured only by prayer;” (a horrid grievance this, to such as
think prayer burdensome at best) “To divert it by worldly amusements
is carnal.” A heavy charge this: but lest it should seem so only to
those carnal persons, who are resolved to give way to their carnal
appetites; what you look upon as advisable only, these perverters of
truth insinuate to be looked upon by you as indispensable duties. And
lest prevarication should fail, downright falshoods must be placed
to your account, “so that to taste an agreeable fruit, or smell to
a rose, must be unlawful with you,” however you disown it. But O, my
beloved christians, be not discouraged from the pursuit of perfect
righteousness by these or such vile misrepresentations. For “blessed
are ye when men shall revile you, and shall say all manner of evil
against you falsely for the sake of CHRIST JESUS. Rejoice, and be
exceeding glad: For great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted
they the prophets who were before you.”
Thus far, then, may suffice to shew clearly with what dangerous views
the worldly-minded men, whom _Solomon_ personates in the text before us,
lay siege to your souls in fair speeches. What I have said, is enough
to convince you, that their character is that of the beast, whom St.
_John_, in the Revelations, “saw coming up from the sea (that is,
the flagitious world) with seven heads.” And what shall we say of a
man, a clergyman, who teaches, and is an advocate for their perverse
doctrines? May we not, nay, must we not, for the glory of GOD, and your
good, inform you, that he is a “Teacher and approver of worldly maxims.”
May I not, nay, must I not, give you this caution with the royal
preacher: “When he speaketh fair, believe him not, for there are seven
abominations in his heart?” But how different is the character I have
given you, from the character of the persons to whom the text under
consideration is spoken: that is, the character of all such, as, like
you, are resolved never to rest, ’till they rest in CHRIST JESUS. To
shew this, I shall now pass to my third point.
III. To what sort of persons does _Solomon_ in the character of a
worldling address himself, when he says, “Be not righteous over-much,
neither make thyself over-wise: why shouldst thou destroy thyself?”
Not to the wicked, ’tis plain; for besides that it would have been
an unnecessary precaution, he turns to these in the next verse with
another kind of warning, which however has some analogy with this. “Be
not over-much wicked, neither be thou foolish, why shouldst thou die
before thy time?” Was it then to the righteous, in a common way; that
is, to such as content themselves with the observance of the absolute
essentials of GOD’s laws? Surely our adversaries will not allow this,
unless they be of opinion, that to be righteous at all, is to be
righteous over-much. And yet it cannot possibly be supposed that the
persons spoken to, are men perfectly righteous; since, as I proved
to you, in the introduction of this discourse, till we come up to the
perfection of our heavenly father, we can never be righteous _enough_,
much less _perfectly_ righteous: wherefore, as in this life, men cannot
attain to the perfection of their heavenly father, it follows in course
that the persons here spoken to, cannot be men perfectly righteous,
there being no such men existing; for as St. _John_ saith, “If we say
that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
Alas, O LORD, when shall we be delivered from the body of this death?
It remains, that the persons spoken to, in the text, are such only, as
persisting stedfastly in a firm adherence to all the essential laws of
GOD, content not themselves with the practice of common virtues in a
common degree, but live in a perpetual habitude of desires, struggles,
and yearnings towards an intimate union with CHRIST, the perfection
of righteousness. They are not of the number of those righteous with
indifference, who would fain blend the service of GOD and mammon, would
fain have CHRIST and the world for their masters, and halting between
two, like the children of _Israel_ of old, with their faces to heaven,
and their hearts to the earth, are neither hot nor cold. Alas, would
they were cold or hot! But “because they are luke-warm, and neither
cold nor hot, the LORD shall spew them out of his mouth.”
Not so the persons spoken to in my text; not so you, O beloved in GOD,
who having shaken off the world and worldly affections, to run the more
swiftly after righteousness, hate your own lives for the sake of CHRIST.
Happy, happy are all you, who put on our LORD JESUS, and with him the
new man! “You are the true circumcision which worship GOD in spirit,
and rejoice in CHRIST JESUS, and have no confidence in the flesh.”
What wonder then, christians? To you I speak, all ye lovers and
strugglers after the perfect righteousness of your divine Master CHRIST;
what wonder is it, that you should be charged with enthusiasm, with
folly, with fanaticism and madness? Were not the apostles so before
you, when they preached CHRIST JESUS? Nay were they not reputed drunk
with wine? Can you be amazed at it in an age, “when all manner of
vice abounds to a degree almost unheard of,” when the land is full of
adulterers, and because of swearing the land mourneth. O how is the
faithful city become an harlot! my heart within me is broken, because
of the clergy, all my bones shake? I am like a drunken man, and like
a man whom wine hath overcome; because of the LORD, and because of the
words of his holiness, perverted by this deluded clergyman.
When the clergy, whom CHRIST has appointed to teach his people “to walk
before him and be perfect,” become teachers of worldly maxims, what can
be expected from the laity? It is notorious, that for the moralizing
iniquity of the priest, the land mourns. They have preached and lived
many sincere persons out of the church of _England_. They endeavour
to make you vain: (as the prophets did in the days of _Jeremiah_) they
speak a vision out of their own mouth, and not out of the mouth of
the LORD. In a word, “both prophet and priest are prophane, and do
wickedness in the very house of the LORD.” Nay, they say still to them
who despise the LORD, The LORD hath said, ye shall have peace; and they
say to every one who walketh after the imagination of his own heart, No
evil shall come upon you.
Such is the language, my beloved lovers of christian perfection, which
the indolent, earthly-minded, pleasure-taking clergy of the church of
_England_, use to strengthen the hands of evil-doers, that none may
return from his wickedness. Such is the doctrine of the letter-learned
divine, who has dipped his pen in gall, to decry perfect righteousness,
and to delude you from it, with a false application of that text so
grosly misunderstood by him: “Be not righteous over-much, neither be
thou over-wise: why shouldst thou destroy thyself?” But suffer not
yourselves, my fellow-christians, to be deluded by him. For as I have
already shewn to you, he is grosly (LORD grant he was not maliciously)
mistaken in his manner of explaining this text; and so far from making
a right application of it according to the wise, the experienced
_Solomon_’s intention, he acts the character of a vain libertine,
full of self-love, and earthly desires, whom _Solomon_ but personated,
to ridicule. But the doctor by realizing that character in himself,
becomes the teacher and approver of worldly maxims, which he applies
to you, on purpose to destroy in you the yearnings after perfect
righteousness in CHRIST. May I not then, nay, must I not warn you, my
beloved, that this man is an enemy to perfect righteous in men through
CHRIST JESUS, and, therefore, no friend to CHRIST? O that my head was
an ocean, and my eyes fountains of tears, to weep night and day for
this poor creature, this hood-winked member of the clergy.
Pray you, O true christians, pray and sigh mightily to the LORD;
importune him in the behalf of this erring pastor; pray that he would
vouchsafe to open the eyes, and touch the stubborn heart of this scribe,
that he may become better instructed. Otherwise, as the LORD said by
the mouth of his true prophet _Jeremiah_, “Behold, I will feed him
with wormwood, and make him drink the water of gall; for from him is
prophaneness gone forth into all the land.”
This good, however, hath he done by attempting to shew the folly, sin,
and danger of that which he miscalls being righteous over-much, that
is, being superlatively righteous, in desire and habitual struggles; he
has thereby given me the occasion to shew you, brethren, in the course
of this sermon, the great and real folly, sin, and danger of not being
righteous enough; which, perhaps, I should never have thought of doing,
had not his false doctrine pointed out to me the necessity of doing it.
Thus does the all-wise providence of GOD, make use of the very vices of
men to draw good out of evil; and chuse their very errors to confound
falsehood and make way for truth. Though this should be more than our
angry adversary intended, yet, LORD, reward him according to his works;
and suffer him no longer to be hasty in his words, that we may have
room to entertain better hopes of him for the future.
Blessed be GOD for sending you better guides! I am convinced it was
his divine will: our dear fellow-creature, Doctor _Trapp_, falling
into such errors, has given so great a shock to the sound religion of
_christian perfection_, that unless I had opposed him, I verily believe
the whole flock who listened to his doctrine, would have been scattered
abroad like sheep having no shepherd. “But woe to ye scribes and
pharisees! Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep
of my pasture, saith the LORD.”
Full well I know that this sermon will not be pleasing to my poor
peevish adversary; but correction is not to pleasure but to profit: few
children can be brought willingly to kiss the rod which rebuketh them;
though, when they become of riper understanding, they will bless the
hand that guided it. Thus shall this angry man, I trust, thank me one
day for reproving him, when his reason shall be restored to him by the
light of the holy spirit. O LORD, grant thou this light unto him, and
suffer him to see with what bowels of pity and tenderness I love him in
thee, even while I chasten him.
Neither am I insensible, brethren, how offensive my words will be to
worldlings in general, who loving falsehood better than truth, and the
flesh before the spirit, will still prefer the doctor’s sin-soothing
doctrines to the plain gospel verities preached by me. O how my soul
pities them. But I have done my duty, I wash my hands, and am innocent
of the blood of all. I have not sought to please my hearers, but
have spoken plain truth though it should offend. For what things were
gain to me, those I counted loss for CHRIST; and hope I shall ever do
so. Not that I presume to think myself already perfect. But “I press
forward towards the mark, for the prize of the high-calling of GOD in
CHRIST JESUS.”
None of us, as I before told you, can boast of having attained the
summit of perfection; though, he is the nearest to it, who is widest
from the appetites of the flesh, and he stands the highest, who is
the lowliest in his own esteem: wherefore, as many of us as have made
any advances towards CHRIST and his kingdom, “whereto we have already
attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.”
Walk not then, brethren, according to the ways of the world: but be
followers of CHRIST together with me. And if any, even an angel of
light, should presume to teach you any other gospel than that which
I have here taught you, let him be accursed. “For you will find many
walking, like such of whom I have told you already, and now tell you
weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of CHRIST: whose end
is destruction, whose GOD is their belly: and whose glory is in their
shame, for they mind worldly things. But your conversation is in heaven,
from whence also you look for the Saviour, the LORD JESUS CHRIST: who
shall change your vile bodies, that they may be fashioned like unto his
glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able to subdue
even all things unto himself,” even the stubborn heart of our perverse
adversary.
Which GOD of his infinite mercy grant, &c.