August 2

11. Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which was against the soul:

12. Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evil doers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.

13. Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme;

14. Or unto governors, as unto them: that are sent by him: for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well.

15. For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men:

16. As free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.

17. Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.

18. Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward.

19. For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.

20. For what glory is it, if when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.

21. For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:

22. Who did no sin, neither was gaily found in his mouth:

23. Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:

24. Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

25. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.

"If men have been termed pilgrims, and life a journey, then we may add that the Christian pilgrimage far surpasses all others in the following important particulars: in the goodness of the road—in the beauty of the prospects—in the excellence of the company—and in the vast superiority of the accommodation provided for the Christian traveller when he has finished his course."—Colton.

If we are going to heaven there are

1. Things with which we can have nothing to do. "Fleshly lusts, which war against the soul" (ver. 11). Though we do meet with traveller's fare sometimes, yet it should not be grievous to us. Consider what your condition is—you are pilgrims and strangers; do not think to satisfy yourselves here.

"A man when he comes into an inn, if there be a fair cupboard of plate, is not troubled that it is not his own. Why? Because he is going away. So let us not be troubled when we see other men have great estates, but we have not. Why? We are going away into another country."—Burroughs.

2. Things with which we have to do. "By our good works glorify God" (ver. 12). "The gospel of Jesus is not to be a voice crying in the desert, like that of John the Baptist; but, if I understand religion, it is to open shop, it is to freight ships, it is to keep accounts, it is to write up your ledgers, it is to wear an apron till it be as holy as a bishop's sleeve, and to wield a spade as responsibly and devoutly as a monarch sways a sceptre. The true characteristic of religion is to go down into everything, rise up to the highest, till, like the atmosphere, it embraces all in its beneficent and its beautiful folds."—Cumming.

Closet Promise.—For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.—2 Cor. v. 1.

Let us pursue our child's play while we are children, but do not let us be engrossed by it, and if our baby-houses and castles fall to pieces, do not let it grieve us over-much. When the evening comes, and we must needs seek shelter, we shall not be able to find it in any such make-believe dwellings, but only in our Father's house.—Saint Francis de Sales.