The fourth (and last) volume of discourses, or sermons, on several scriptures

Practical CHRISTIANITY Recommended, Urged and Encouraged, In Working out our own SALVATION.

Practical CHRISTIANITY Recommended, Vrged and Encouraged, In Working out our own SALVATION.

Phil. ii. 12.13. Wherefore my Beloved, as ye have always Obeyed, not as in my Presence only, but now much more in my Absence; work out your own Salvation with Fear and Trembling. For it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do of his good Pleasure.

THE whole Sum of Christianity is Comprehended in two Points, in Knowledge,¹ and in Obedience: The one is Conversant about things Supernaturally Revealed; and the other about Duties ⟨p. 2⟩Supernaturally Performed. Now although there be so wide a difference between these two; yet where they are suffered to run on in a course, they will one fall into the other; and Gospel Revelations will make way for, and lead unto Gospel Obedience: Yea, indeed there is no Divine Truth, how Abstracted, how Sublime and Speculative soever it may seem to be, but by the help of one or two Consequences may be handed down along to clear and direct our Practice: And therefore the Apostle speaking of the Whole of Christian Religion,² calls it The Mystery of Godliness: And the Truth according to Godliness. He calls it not a Mystery and Godliness, or Truth and Godliness; but he knits and joins them both together, the Mystery and Truth of Godliness; a Truth, yea and a Truth wrapped up in a Mystery, because discovered only by a Divine Light; and yet a Mystery of Godliness, because it is a Truth that tends to incline the Will and raise the Affections, and so direct the Conversations of Men, unto Godliness and Obedience.