place in the Christian's salvation, but all is to be traced
to undeserved, gracious love. But that principle, true and all-important
as it is, like every other great truth, may be exaggerated, and may be
so isolated as to become untrue and a source of much evil. And so I
desire to turn to the other side of the shield, and to emphasise the
place that worthiness has in the Christian life, and its personal
results both here and hereafter. To say that character has nothing to do
with blessedness is untrue, both to conscience and to the Christian
revelation; and however we trace all things to grace, we must also
remember that we get what we have fitted ourselves for.

Now, my two texts bring out two aspects which have to be taken in
conjunction. The one of them speaks about the present life, and lays it
as an imperative obligation on all Christian people to be worthy of
their Christianity, and the other carries us into the future and shows
us that there it is they who are 'worthy' who attain to the Kingdom. So
I think I shall best bring out what I desire to emphasise if I just take
these two points--the Christian calling and the life that is worthy of
it, and the Christian heaven and the life that is worthy of it.

I. The Christian calling and the life that is worthy of it.

'I beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are
called.' Now, that thought recurs in other places in the Apostle's
writings, somewhat modified in expression. For instance, in one passage
he speaks of 'walking worthily of the God who has called us to His
kingdom and glory,' and in another of the Christian man's duty to 'walk
worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing.' There is a certain vocation to
which a Christian man is bound to make his life correspond, and his
conduct should be in some measure worthy of the ideal that is set before
it. Now, we shall best understand what is involved in such worthiness if
we make clear to ourselves what the Apostle means by this 'calling' to
which he appeals as containing in itself a standard to which our lives
are to be conformed.

Suppose we try to put away the technical word 'calling' and instead of
'calling' say 'summons,' which is nearer the idea, because it conveys
the notions more fully of the urgency of the voice, and of the
authority of the voice, which speaks to us. And what is that summons?
How do we hear it? One of the other Apostles speaks of God as calling us
'by His own glory and vir