The heathen world may be ashamed of their doctrines and their religion; the heathen worshippers may be ashamed of their sacrifices, their superstitions, and their forms of devotion; for they have no power to save their souls: And many of them were indeed brutish and shameful. Mahomet, the founder of the Turkish religion, may be ashamed of his alcoran, and volume of fables and incredible lies; all his followers may be ashamed of their prophet, and of the sensual paradise that he promises them. The Jews, under the eye of Christ, and the sun-beams of the gospel, may be ashamed of the vain traditions of their rabbins which were never divine: and even of their old rites and ceremonies which Moses gave them; for all these are now but _weak and beggarly elements_; the Spirit of God calls them so; Gal. iv. 9. They have now no power to save souls, since God hath abolished them; nor indeed had they ever any power but what they borrowed from this gospel of Christ, which lay concealed in them: But let none of us that believe and profess the gospel of Christ, be ever ashamed of any of the doctrines, or precepts, or promises of it; for they are all holy, they are all heavenly; all of them have divine power accompanying them to lead souls to salvation. II. Learn hence the true method of obtaining christian courage; courage to profess the gospel of Christ against all opposition: It is by getting it wrought into your hearts and lives by christian experience, and not by learning a mere form of words in a road of education and catechism. You must feel it as _the power of God to your salvation_, or you will never suffer much for it: Let it be an _ingrafted word able to save your souls_; James i. 21. and then it will harden your faces against all blaspheming adversaries, and the terrors of a persecuting world: then you will be able to render a most powerful reason why you are bold to profess this gospel, and to _answer every one that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you_; you will be able to oppose those that set themselves against the gospel of Christ, when you feel this divine spring of courage within you. I have encouraged you before, to acquaint yourselves with reasons and arguments that may defend your religion, and support your faith: But hours of temptation may come, when all the knowledge and learned furniture of your head, all the arguments that are treasured up in your memory, and all the reasonings that your invention can supply you with, will hardly be able to keep your faith and hope firm and stedfast; for Satan goes before you in skill and rational argument; and though your arguments are strong and solid, yet he may baffle you by his hellish sophistry, and thus cheat you of your faith, and your hope, and your heaven, if you have not got this gospel wrought into your hearts with power, if you have not felt it to be _the power of God unto salvation_.