1 ZEAL. Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many will strive to enter in, and shall not be able. 2 Neglect not the gifts that are in you; but exercise yourselves unto godliness, and give diligence to make your calling and election sure. 3 Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord. Stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.. For it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing. 4 * Be ye very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of law; and be ye valiant for the truth upon the earth. 5 Take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day; and having done all to stand. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood; but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. • Do all things without murmurings or disputings. Be ready to every good work; and be diligent, that ye may be found of God without spot and blameless. 'Be not slothful, but be ye followers of them who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises. * Stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving 1 Luke xiii. 24. 21 Tim. iv. 14. 7. 2 Pet. i. 10. xii. 35, 36. 1 Cor. xvi. 13. Gal. iv. 18. 3 Luke 4 Joshua xxiii. 6. Phil. ii. 14. Titus iii. 1, s Phil. i. 27. together for the faith of the Gospel; and in nothing terrified by your adversaries. 1 Contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. 2 Be zealous towards God, but let your zeal be according to knowledge. 3 Herein do I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men. * Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. 5 Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 6 GROWTH AND EXCEllence. • Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, (saith St. Paul) and exhort you by the Lord Jesus that as ye have received of us how you ought to walk and to please God, so you would abound more and more. Ye that are nourished up in the words of faith, and of good doctrine, take care that ye grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. • And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh Rom. x. 2. 7 1 Tim. iv. 6. 2 Pet. iii. 18. 3 Acts xxiv. 16. 61 Thess. iv. 1. 8 2 Pet. i. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. 1 Walk as children of light, proving what is acceptable unto the Lord; and always abounding in the work of the Lord: forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. 2 We exhort and charge every one of you, that ye would walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called; worthy of God, who hath called you to his kingdom and glory; worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing; being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. 3 Let your love abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment, that ye may be filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God. 4 Herein (saith Christ) is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. 5 Let us therefore go on unto perfection; and forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, let us press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. * Seek that ye may excel. Approve things that are excellent: covet earnestly the best gifts. 7 Let your conversation be as it becometh the Gospel of Christ; and so that ye may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. 8 * He who saith he abideth in Christ, ought himself also to walk, even as he walked. 1 Eph. v. 8. 10. 1 Cor. xv. 58. 1 Thess. ii. 12. Col. i. 10. xv. 8. Phil. i. 10. 2 1 Thess. ii. 11. Eph. iv. 1. 3 Phil. i. 9, 10, 11. 4 John 61 Cor. xiv. 12. 7 Phil. i. 27. Titus ii. 10. 5 Heb. vi. 1. Phil. iii, 13, 14. 81 John ii. 6. 'Be ye followers of God, as dear children. And let every man that hath this hope in him, purify himself, even as he is pure; and be righteous, even as he is righteous. 2 As he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, be ye holy, for I am holy. 3 Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect: that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world. 4 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. 5 Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. PERSEVERANCE. * Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering. 'Continue ye in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel which ye have heard. 8 Beware, lest being led away by the error of the wicked, ye fall from your own stedfastness. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end. If ye continue in my word, then (saith Christ) are ye my disciples indeed. 1 Eph. v. 1. 1 John iii. 3. v. 48. Phil. ii. 15. 6 Heb. x. 23. 7 Col. i. 23. 82 Pet. iii. 17. Heb. iii. 14. 1 They which have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. Keep yourselves therefore in the love of God; wait on God continually; and be constant to do his commandments. 2 Look to yourselves, that ye lose not those things which ye have wrought: but that ye receive a full reward. 3 Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall. * Let us not be weary in well-doing: For in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. 5 Till I die I will not remove my integrity from me: my righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go; my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live. • Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold; but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. "When the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doth, all his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned; in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die. • If they that had escaped the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, are again entangled therein and overcome; the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after |