May 31

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.—1 Peter 2:12.

He says not they shall praise or commend you, but shall glorify God. In what way soever this time, this day of visitation be taken, the effect itself is this, They shall glorify God. It is this the apostle still holds before their eye, as that upon which a Christian doth willingly set his eye, and keep it fixed in all his ways. He doth not teach them to be sensible of their own esteem as it concerns themselves, but only as the glory of their God is interested in it. Were it not for this, a generous-minded Christian could set a very light rate upon all the thoughts and speeches of men concerning him, whether good or bad; and could easily drown all their mistakes in the conscience of the favor and approbation of his God. It is a very small thing for me to be judged of you, or of man's judgment: he that judgeth me is the Lord. Man hath a day of judging, but it, and his judgment with it, soon passes away; but God hath his day, and it, together with his sentence, abideth for ever, as the apostle there adds. As if he should say, I appeal to God; but considering that the religion he professes, and the God whom he worships in that religion, are wronged by those reproaches, and that the calumny cast upon Christians reflects upon their Lord—this is the thing that makes him sensible; he feels on that side only. The reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me, says the psalmist: and this makes a Christian desirous to vindicate, even to men, his religion and his God, without regard to himself; because he may say, the reproaches of them that reproach only me, have fallen upon thee.

This is his intent, in the holiness and integrity of his life, that

God may be glorified; this is the axis about which all this good conversation moves and turns continually.

And he that forgets this, let his conversation be ever so plausible and spotless, knows not what it is to be a Christian. As they say of the eagles who try their young ones whether they be of the right kind or not, by holding them before the sun, and if they can look steadfastly upon it, they own them, if not, they throw them away; this is the true evidence of an upright and real Christian, to have a steadfast eye on the glory of God, the Father of lights. In all, let God be glorified, says the Christian, and that suffices: that is the sum of his desires. He is far from glorying in himself, or seeking to raise himself, for he knows that of himself he is nothing, but by the free grace of God he is what he is. "Whence any glorying to thee, rottenness and dust?" says St. Bernard. "Whence is it to thee if thou art holy? Is it not the Holy Spirit that hath sanctified thee? If thou couldst work miracles, though they were done by thy hand, yet it were not by thy power, but by the power of God."

To the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, says David. Whether his tongue, or his soul, or both, be meant, what he calls his glory, he shows us, and what use he hath for it, namely, to give the Lord glory, to sing his praises, and that then it was truly David's glory when it was so employed, in giving glory to him whose peculiar due glory is. What have we to do in the world, as his creatures, once and again his creatures, his new creatures, created unto good works, but to exercise ourselves in those, and by those to advance his glory, that all may return to him from whom all is, as the rivers run back to the sea whence they came? Of him, and through him, and therefore, for him are all things, says the apostle. They that serve base gods, seek how to advance and aggrandize them. The covetous man studies to make his Mammon as great as he can, all his thoughts and pains run upon that service, and so do the voluptuous and ambitious for theirs; and shall not they who profess themselves to be the servants of the only great and the only true God, have their hearts much more, at least as much possessed with desires of honoring and exalting him? Should not this be their predominant design and thought—What way shall I most advance the glory of my God? How shall I, who am under stronger obligations than they all, set in with the heavens and the earth.

and the other creatures, to declare his excellency, his greatness, and his goodness?

In the day of visitation—the beholding of your good works may work this in them, that they may be gained to acknowledge and embrace that religion, and that God, which for the present they reject; but that it may be thus, they must be visited with that same light and grace from above, which hath sanctified you. The day-spring from on high must visit them.