Are there any souls here of this unpleasing character and carriage! Did you ever read these words in your bibles? Do ye think these are the commands of Christ, or no? You profess to love him above all, but what care have you taken to obey these precepts of his? or do you think the sublime practices of faith and adoration will make those lower duties needless? Have ye found the sweetness of being at peace with God, and tasted of the pleasures of his love; and can ye disregard all the practices and pleasures of love and peace among men? We are not required indeed to sell truth for peace, nor strict godliness for the forms of civility. There is no need that we should conform ourselves to any of the sinful practices of this world, in order to fulfil the law of love. But wheresoever the customs of the place where we dwell are consistent with the strict and holy rules of Christ, we should practise them so far, as to render ourselves agreeable to those with whom we converse, that we may shine in the world as the honours of Christ, and that unbelievers may be won by our conversation, to come and hear our gospel, to learn the same faith, and embrace the same hope: Not only the things that are true, and honest, and just, and pure, but the things that are lovely in the sight of men, and things that are of good report, must be the subjects of our meditation, our learning, and practice; Phil. iv. 8. St. Paul, that great apostle, did not think these things unworthy of his care; he enjoins them upon the primitive christians from his own example, and promises them the presence of the God of peace. These are the things which I have taught you, saith he, these ye have heard and seen in me; conform your manners to these rules, and the God of peace shall be with you; ver. 9. Believe me, friends, the natural habit of christianity is all decency and loveliness: We put the religion of our Saviour into a disguise, and make it look unlike itself, if our temper be sour and fretful, if our carriage be coarse and rude, and our speech savour of roughness and wrath. A Jew might make a better apology, for a harsh and severe deportment, than a christian could do; he might put on a morose air with better countenance, and plead the dispensation he was under, the bondage of the law, and the terrors of mount Sinai. But we under the gospel, are free-born; Gal. iv. 26-31. and our carriage should be ingenuous in all respects. John the baptist, in his garment of hair, may be indulged in a roughness of speech; he was but a forerunner of the gospel, and can hardly be called a christian: but the followers of the Lamb should have a mild aspect, a pleasing manner, that every one who beholds us may love us too; that the Son of God, if he were here upon earth, might look upon us and love us in both his natures, with a divine and human love.