purity of heart, the humility of soul, the poverty of spirit, the
hungering and thirsting for righteousness, the forgiveness, the
charity, the meekness of the true child of God. Hence our blessed Lord
says right at the close: "Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and
doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house
upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the
winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was
founded upon a rock." I want to tell you right here that Jesus
fulfilled every jot and tittle of its truth in all its varied and
minute applications, in the pure and holy life he lived on earth. He
thus became the way.

I have sometimes been accosted by others on this wise: "You teach a
doctrine of works! You teach that people must do so and so to be
saved. I understand the Word to teach that Christians are saved by
faith without works." I have occasionally answered such accusations, I
fear, perhaps, in not the true spirit of meekness, by retorting that
if some professing Christians are ever saved at all it will surely be
without any works on their part. But usually, when I am rightly at
myself, or better, when my heart is with the Lord, both in answering
and preaching, I say, We as Brethren believe and teach that "faith
without works is dead." All good works are done in faith. And no man
can believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with his heart, without loving
him; because faith is a loving acceptance of all the truth revealed by
the Lord to man. Our heartfelt reception of that truth leads to
obedience, and obedience is good works. For "by works faith is made
perfect." When he says: "This DO, and thou shalt live," he does not
lose sight of the loving faith in which it is to be done. When he
says: "So let your light shine before men, that they may see your GOOD
WORKS, and glorify"--YOU? No!--"your Father, which is in heaven." It
is by good works, then, that we are to glorify our Father which is in
heaven.

Again to the Sermon on the Mount. I told you a while ago that this
sermon sets forth the living way, or the living Christ. All the
parables and miracles aim at nothing higher than to prepare the minds
and hearts of the people to do, in an enlightened way, the things
commanded and taught in that wonderful sermon. Obedience to all the
ordinances of God's house is but a showing to the life and in the life
that meekness, that state of heart purity, that forgive