Showing That An Unchristian Life Leads To False Doctrine, Hardness Of Heart, And Blindness; Also, Treating Of The Eternal Election Of Grace. _Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth_.—JOHN 12:35. Since Christ, and faith in him are denied, and almost wholly extirpated by an ungodly life, what shall his doctrine profit us? For his doctrine, with the Word and Sacraments, is delivered to us for no other end, than that it be inwardly digested, and converted, as it were, into our very life and spirit. As from a good seed springs up good fruit, so from the Word and Sacraments should spring up within us the noble life of regeneration, or the new birth; the new, holy, and spiritual man; or, to speak all in one word, a true and real Christian. For he that is a Christian, must needs be born again of the Spirit, the Word, and the Sacraments, and believe and live in Christ, as in the primary principle of the life of grace. As certainly as a child is begotten by his father, so truly must the Christian be begotten of God and of Christ, through faith. James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23; John 3:3, 5; Titus 3:5. 2. When, therefore, we do not resolve to strive against the depraved bent of our flesh, and to digest the doctrine of Christ into our life and nature; nay, when we contradict the _Christian_ doctrine by an _anti-Christian_ life, by irreligion and profaneness; is it not plain that we are not begotten of God, nor born of Christ? What will Christ’s _doctrine_ profit us, when we are sure that our _life_ does not correspond with it at all? Will our vain boasts of the light of the Gospel do any good, when we evidently walk in darkness? It is on this account that the light deservedly retires from us, and the world begins to be overspread with darkness and false doctrines, with errors and with seducing spirits. And that we might beware of these, our blessed Saviour hath left us this warning: “While ye have the light, walk in the light, lest darkness come upon you” (John 12:35); that is, lest ye be led away into all kinds of errors and delusions, into blindness and hardness of heart, into darkness and prejudices, which indispose the mind for the very reception of the light of the Gospel. This was the case with Pharaoh, the Jews, and also of Julian the Apostate; who, being in the end convicted by the reproaches of his own conscience, exclaimed openly, and to his own confusion, that Christ both lived and reigned, and was both Lord and God; saying, “Thou hast overcome, O Galilean; thou hast overcome.” It would have been better for him to have said, “Lord, have mercy upon me!” But, alas! this was entirely out of his reach, in consequence of the hardness of his heart, contracted by an uninterrupted course of sinning, and by having rejected and despised the mercy of Christ.