A Name Worth Knowing, A Book Worth Reading

“You cannot make a better choice [than God] and are eternally undone if you make a worse.” These were the last words of Richard Steele, an earnest 17th-century pastor. At his funeral, his ministerial successor, George Hamond, remarked of Steele, “He desired to know his sheep by name. He often visited those who were his peculiar charge and endeavored to edify them with some serious discourse about their soul concerns—inquiring after their proficiency, resolving their doubts, encouraging and directing them as their case did require.” [1]

Steele is mostly remembered for striving to live an upright life before an upright God (Ps 18). Few of his works have survived the centuries, but The Character of an Upright Man—a short collection of sermons—has. In this collection, Steele winsomely admonishes his audience away from hypocrisy and affectionately woos us toward wholehearted worship of the Lord Jesus Christ. In commending this volume to you, here are 5 of Steele’s insights that can ignite—perhaps reignite—your pursuit of Christlikeness (subheadings and Scriptures added):

1. An upright life is impossible without an upright heart.

“This uprightness of life cannot be without that uprightness of heart. It loses in truth its name and nature for want of a principle. For that which is truly good must have all its causes, which this lacks. It is a common experiment that water will not ascend above its spring without a violence upon nature; and it is as true that no man’s actions can carry a higher level than the fountain of them. So to make the life upright, you must begin at the heart; first make the tree good, and then the fruit will be good also.” [2]

Luke 6:43-45: For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

2. An upright life rests on contentment with Christ.
“To be content with Christ because of some present need of Him is one thing, but it is nothing if that is all. But to choose Him as the fairest of ten thousand, and that with an entire heart; to have mind, will, conscience, and affection of all one mind, and this mind to be set on Christ’s yoke as well as His crown, His Spirit as well as His merits, His rule as well as His righteousness—there is an upright heart.”[3]

Philippians 3:7-14: But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

3. An upright man refuses to play games with sin.

“The upright man studies to conquer invisible sins…The upright man knows that as the filthiness of the flesh will make him a beast, so the filthiness of the spirit will make him a devil; and therefore he assaults his invisible sins…Every man has some sin of his own to which he is most inclined, least able to resist, and most loath to leave. Thus he drags each prayer before God and cries, “Lord, if Thou lovest me, strike here!’ This sin he prosecutes with prayers and tears, and all good means beside, ambushes it in cold blood, and with continual, preventing contrivances disappoints, crosses, intercepts, and by degrees starves it to death.” [4]

Galatians 5:16-25: But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

4. An upright man guards his words and actions.
“As his words are a true commentary upon his heart, so his actions are a true exposition upon his words…Though he studies to be wise, yet he does not delight in cunning. Craft is wisdom degenerated; it is wisdom divested of honesty.” [5]

Isaiah 33:15-16: He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, who despises the gain of oppressions, who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking on evil, he will dwell on the heights; his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks; his bread will be given him; his water will be sure.

5. An upright man does not lose heart in contending against hypocrisy.
“You must distinguish between dwelling hypocrisy and reigning hypocrisy. Where it only dwells, it is as gravel in the shoe, as the mote of the eye, as the soldier in his quarters. You are weary of it; it makes you halt; you give it no rest; you are very sick of it. But where it reigns, you cannot endure to be touched or searched; it orders your life and actions, and your main design is to cover yourself with God so as to cheat the world…A perfect settledness is not to be expected in this life. Our day will have a night; our sunshine will have eclipses…Though you are upright on the way, yet you are but on the way. You are a traveler, not a resident. Heaven is the only state of invariable holiness and happiness.”

1 Thessalonians 5:22-24: Abstain from every form of evil. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

1 Peter 1:13: Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Revelation 21:22-27: And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kinds of earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Keep pressing on!

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[1] Joel Beeke, Randall Pederson, and Fraser Jones, Meet the Puritans: A Guide to Their Lives and Books, 2^nd ed., (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2025), 726.

[2] Richard Steele, The Character of an Upright Man, ed. Don Kistler (Grand Rapids: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 2004), 30-31.

[3] Steele, The Character of an Upright Man, 10.

[4] Steele, The Character of an Upright Man, 20-21.

[5] Steele, The Character of an Upright Man, 39-40.