A thriving soul! This is a matter of serious import, my brethren. A plant is said to thrive and prosper when it brings forth fruit—a field when it abounds with grain—a human body when it is healthy, vigorous, and active. It is to the last of these that the apostle makes an allusion. When he speaks of Gaius’s soul as prospering, he opposes it to his body. You, my friend, as if he had said, you have a weak and sickly body, but you have a prosperous soul, and I pray that your bodily health and your circumstances may be as thriving and as prosperous as your soul is. This was not the language of compliment; neither need I say that it was not the practice of the apostle to deal in unmeaning compliments. The tree was known by its fruits, and Gaius was known by his conduct to have a prosperous soul.

I. What then are those marks of a prosperous soul which it behoves us to aspire after? I would mention four or five, each of which will be found to be exemplified in the beloved Gaius.

1. A prosperous soul is one in whom the truth dwells, and dwells richly. You must have remarked, in reading the first eight verses, how much the apostle Paul makes of truth. He describes Gaius as having the truth dwelling in him, as walking in the truth, as beloved for the truth’s sake, and as being a fellow helper of the truth. All these expressions are found in those verses. It seems then to enter into the very essence of a prosperous soul, that the truth dwelt in him, and that it dwelt richly in him. Truly, my brethren, gospel truth is that to the soul which wholesome food is to the body, and wholesome words and sound doctrine have on effect on the soul similar to that which wholesome food has on the body; they render it strong, vigorous, and active. Thus the great principles of evangelical truth being imbibed by Gaius, afforded a constant spring of activity. He was a lively, active, generous man. It is of great importance what principles we acquire. Principles will be active—will be influential. Indeed this is the very reason why Divine truths are called principles. We read of the first principles of the doctrines of Christ, and principles you know signify the first moving causes which lie at the foundation and source of action. Merely speculative notions or speculative ideas, that have no influence on a man’s heart, are not principles; they may be called more properly opinions; but if the truths of God are imbibed as a thirsty man would drink in water from a fountain, they become in him a well of living water springing up in the disposition to do good, and terminating in everlasting glory. Principles, whether good or evil, will be influential if they are thoroughly imbibed. Hence we read of false doctrines having a fatal influence. The Scripture speaks of God giving men up to strong delusion, or to the energy or efficacy of deception or error.

All principles, if they deserve the name of principles, lie at the bottom and source of affections and actions. If they be genuine, evangelical, and true, they are the spring of a holy life, and lie at the bottom of evangelical obedience; but if they be false principles, they lie at the bottom of a course of alienation and apostacy from God. Indeed, as right principles stimulate to right actions, so where a person imbibes wrong principles, or is indifferent to right, it enervates right actions: even good men, who have swerved in a greater or less degree from the truth, have sunk into a spirit of indifference with regard to evangelical principles—it has had the effect of stagnating their souls in Divine actions.

2. The prosperous soul is a soul where the doctrinal and the practical parts of religion bear lovely proportion and are united. We may often observe with regard to the healthiness or unhealthiness of the body two opposite extremes. We see some who are epicures, and they are of no use in society. They live to themselves, and glut themselves in sordid and sensual enjoyments. We see others pining away who are mere slaves. There is a great resemblance in these two characters to different species of professors. There is a kind of religious epicures—men, I mean, who are all clamorous for doctrinal truth, but have no regard to the practical part of godliness; whose whole object is to enjoy the comforts of religion, to be soothed with its promises, to be flattered with its privileges, to be comforted in the prospect of something great and glorious hereafter. Their whole attention, their whole object, is to grasp as much of this as possible, and they are regardless of every thing of a practical nature. On the other hand, there are some who, at the expense of truth, are constantly crying up morality and practical religion. My brethren, these things ought not to be divided; doctrinal and practical religion should be united. To attempt to cultivate the former at the expense of the latter is to constitute an epicurism—to reverse it is to have a body of slaves whipped to duty, without a motive. It is the great concern of the Scriptures to furnish men with the most constraining and evangelical principles, that should render practical godliness pleasurable. The true Christian is like the husbandman, who labours that he may enjoy his food with an appetite, that he may be strengthened to future labour, and thus, with a happy mixture of enjoyments and labour, becomes a happy man in himself and a blessing to those about him.

3. The prosperous soul is a soul in which is united a happy mixture of the retired and the active—a happy attention to the duties of retirement mingled with an equal attention to the duties of active life. Great have been the extremes of men in these cases; some have pleaded for a religion that should make men hermits, and shut them up in a cell secluded from the society of man. As to others again, their religion is always in public; they scarcely ever retire to converse with their own souls. No man can enjoy pleasure in his soul without uniting these. It is not to be always plunged in an active course of life, nor to be shut up always in the closet. Christians must be the salt of the earth, and in order to this they must be spread in every circle of society. They must mingle amongst mankind. It is not improper to mingle in every kind of society where duty calls. But they must retire alone frequently, or they will not carry a savour of God and religion with them. They must be spread like salt, but it will be salt without the savour if they do not retire. It is by retiring to our closets, reading the word of God in private, thinking and praying over it; by conversing with our own souls in secret, by dwelling on divine things, by giving such a tone to the soul that it falls naturally and easily into divine things; it is. in these holy exercises that we may expect to meet a Divine blessing, and to acquire such a savour of spirit, that when we go out into the world we shall carry the savour of Christ with us. This is a prosperous and thriving state of soul.

4. The prosperous soul may be known by this, that it is accompanied by a good degree of public spirit, and largeness of heart. A man that is concerned principally about himself can never have a prosperous soul. Such was not Gaius—he was a fellow labourer and helper of the truth. He was habitually concerned in promoting the cause of God and religion in the world by every means in his power. A man that takes up six days out of seven, and thinks himself warranted to pursue nothing else but the acquiring of a fortune, and thinks it quite sufficient if he serves God one day out of the week, cannot be a Christian at all. He has not the first principles of religion in him. I grant that one day in seven ought to be devoted especially to the service of God, but the true Christian’s aim is to serve God in the whole course of his life; whatever he may do, whether he eat or drink, buy or sell,—to do all to the glory of God. What a contrast to him is the man whose soul or main object is to get a fortune, to accumulate a few thousand pounds, and who says to himself, After a few more prosperous years in trade, I hope to take a country seat and enjoy myself; to attain this object I must save all I can, now and then giving a guinea to some pious object! Such a man may pass through life as a respectable member of society, but a Christian he cannot be. He whose main object is to amass a fortune—he whose main object is to live to himself—lives not to Christ. Christianity cultivates a public spirit, a largeness of heart—not that narrowness of mind by which we consecrate all that we have and are to ourselves.

I may mention, besides this, a sort of religious narrowness of mind in that person whose chief concern it is to get comfort to his own mind—whose chief and almost sole concern it is that he may obtain a good ground to hope for everlasting life in the world to come—who cares little or nothing about the interest of Christ on the earth the cause of God. the cause of righteousness, truth, and humanity—who does not grasp within the circle of his prayers his fellow men, his fellow Christians—he whose religion centres principally in himself. Alas! it is doubtful whether that man can be a Christian: at any rate he cannot have a prosperous soul; and I have generally remarked that those religious people who are continually poring over their own case, who are only anxious to discover evidences of their Christianity, who are perpetually poring over past experience to spell out whether they were truly converted or not, who hear sermons and read the Scriptures only to find out whether they can come in for any thing to comfort them—I say I have found that those who spend their whole time in this are, generally, disappointed. You, selfish soul, that care little for the souls of others, take a course directly opposed to your own interest. Seek to bring peace to the souls of others; that will be the way to find comfort for yourself. Seek the good of the poor and the afflicted, and in seeking that you will find your own. By seeking the public good we should find a private good. I never knew a man of a large heart—whose soul grasped the well-being of others, who laid out his time and property for the good of others—greatly troubled about his own interest in Christ. It is in seeking the good of God’s cause in the world, and promoting the good of our fellow creatures, that God will give us the earnest of eternal life. A public spirit is the spirit of the gospel, and largeness of heart is the mark of a prosperous soul.

5. One remark more, and I have done on this part of the subject: The prosperous soul is dispossessed of an ambitious spirit—it is meek and lowly. If a man were ever so public-spirited and active, but withal ambitious, vainglorious, and noisy, I should say of that man, whether he be a Christian at all is at least doubtful, but he cannot be a thriving one, he cannot be possessed of a healthful soul. A haughty, self-sufficient, self-important, clamorous, ostentatious professor is a very doubtful character. High minds, like high hills, are blasted and barren. It is the lowly mind which, like a well-watered valley, is productive: God’s promises are made to such. It is asserted that the Lord is nigh to them that are of a lowly spirit and a contrite heart; and we are told elsewhere that God “giveth grace to the humble, but the proud he knoweth afar off.” In proportion, therefore, as we entertain such a spirit, we shall be far from God, and God from us, and we shall be possessed of a soul far from prosperous.

Fuller, A. G. (1988). “Soul Prosperity,” Sermon XXXVI. The Complete Works of Andrew Fuller: Memoirs, Sermons, Etc. (J. Belcher, Ed.; Vol. 1, pp. 404–407). Sprinkle Publications.