Each of us may say therefore, if only the wise, or the great, or the rich, believed it, it must have been such a gospel as I could never have believed; for it wanted one character which is necessarily adjoined to it, that is, that the poor receive the gospel: _Father, I thank thee_, says our Lord, _that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, but thou hast revealed them unto babes_; Mat xi. 25. “It pleased God, when the world by wisdom knew not God,” to darken all their wisdom, and turn it into folly, and to call those that were esteemed fools, and make them wise in believing the gospel, of Christ. It has pleased God to chuse the mean, and _weak, and contemptible things of this world to confound the wise and mighty_. It has pleased him to chuse the _things that are not, to bring to nought the things that are, that no flesh might glory in his presence_; 1 Cor. i. 27, &c. II. It is another occasion of stumbling or shame in the gospel of Christ, that some of the professors of it are vicious in their lives. “Will you believe such a gospel, says an infidel, that does not restrain the professors of it from the worst of sins?” This, I confess, gives it great dishonour among the men of the world, and is sometimes ready to shake the faith of younger christians; they know not how to go on farther in christianity, for such and such that made great profession, you see how they are fallen. This is a common temptation of the devil; it is a frequent snare, and there hath been many a pious soul that hath been in danger of being caught thereby. The vices of some professors were great even in St. Paul’s days: There were some among the Philippians; Phil. iii. 18. “Of whom I have told you often, and now even weeping, that they walk as enemies to the cross of Christ, and cast scandal and shame upon it. It makes my eyes flow with tears, and my soul bleed within me to hear of it: The gospel of Christ is so much dishonoured by these means.”