In Matt. xix. 16, a similar question was put to our Lord—"Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?" To possess eternal life is to be saved, and the answer given by the Lord to this question, was, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." Reader! pause here a few moments! Can any questions be more serious and momentous than these two? "What must I do to be saved?" and "What good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?" Do not these, though put in different words, blend together, and so form but one question? Is not the fact of being saved, the very same as possessing eternal life? and are not the two answers, the one given by Paul and Silas, and the other by the Lord Jesus, one and the same in effect? Do we not see that, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ," and "Keep the commandments," are one and the same? and that to be saved is the same as to "enter into life?" There can be no doubts here! a true faith is grounded in purity and holiness of life. Celestial blessings, like angels' visits, not "few and far between," but many close together, will attend that man who, in reality, believes in the Lord; for such belief necessarily involves a love of the Lord, and this encloses a certain inward delight which is felt in keeping the commandments. Such will be often heard to exclaim with David, "O how I love thy law: it is my meditation all the day." (Psalm cxix. 97.) Look again, at the manner in which these questions are put: one asks, "What must I do?" the other, "What good thing shall I do?" not what must I believe. No man will be rewarded or gain eternal life for a mere belief. A bad man may hold a correct faith.
