1. “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord.” It is scarcely possible for the most cursory observer not to perceive, that the faith of the gospel cannot be truly embraced with indifference; that the christian name is not a mere honorary or professional title, independent of obligations and of consequences. As the Bible is rich in promises, so is it also clear and necessitating, in the conditions upon which those promises are made: as the Redeemer has freely offered unto us the benefits of His cross, so has He as plainly injoined upon us the indispensable duty of “taking up our own cross daily,” and “following the blessed steps of His most holy life;” as He has reconciled us unto the Father, and again adopted us into the blessed family above, so are we required, if we have any part or lot in this matter, to be-have as children, who have recovered the forfeited privileges of their glorious inheritance, and “have their conversation in heaven.” As we have been “bought at so great a price,” we must continue the subjects and the property of the “Lord that bought us.”
No man, whose nature, whose principles, whose affections, whose life, remain unchanged; no man, enthralled by the pleasures and devoted to the pursuits of a thoughtless and corrupt world, can justly consider himself as an actual partaker of the covenanted mercies of God. He may have been admitted by baptism into Christ’s visible church; he may hope to render, at some future day, his baptismal privilege available to salvation; but every page of God’s revealed word would forbid him to regard himself as an accepted “inheritor of the kingdom of heaven,” while his life is palpably at variance with the conditions upon which that inheritance is vouchsafed; while it is contradictory to the laws, and totally inconsistent with the blessings, which the Saviour has proclaimed to mankind. Every man must not only perceive from the gospel, but be assured by his own reason and conscience, that such divine mercies absolutely require and imply some degree of worthiness; some correspondence in his views, his temper, and his conduct.
Worthy indeed, in the fullest sense of the word, of such transcendent love and favour, of life and immortality, of everlasting honour in the presence of the pure and perfect Creator, the degenerate creature can never be; he has sinned; and “the wages of sin is death.” But there is a fitness, which the Christian, by divine help, must attain; a humility and contrition of heart; a sincere belief in God’s mercy through Christ; a grateful sense of God’s undeserved goodness; a desire of recovery from the ruin of his fallen nature; and withal, a true spirit of acquiescence in those means of grace, and that revealed law, ordained to bring the sinner to his Maker; and this conformity, in the character of man, is frequently represented in scripture by the name of _worthiness_: he becomes worthy in this respect, inasmuch as he fulfils the conditions of the gospel covenant, and is thereby rendered a fit object of God’s free mercy: without this character he would be unworthy, inasmuch as he would shew himself unmoved by the marvellous loving-kindness of his Saviour; would shew, that he had no real value for the blessings, which the gospel places within his reach; no regard for the revelation and ordinances of God. It is an observation as true as it is common, that the holy gospel designs not to save us _in_ our sins, but _from_ them; we must therefore be made willing and desirous and careful, to subdue the prevalence of sin, or we cannot attain unto salvation; and if the dominion of evil be subdued, there will grow up, in our hearts and lives, the manifold fruits of righteousness.