Chapter
Five
We
cannot attain to the practice of true holiness by any of our endeavours while
we continue in our natural state and are not partakers of a new state by union
and fellowship with Christ through faith.
It is evident all do
not have that precious faith by which Christ dwells in our hearts; yea, the
number of those that have it is small comparatively to the whole world that
lies in wickedness (1 John 5:19, 20); and many of those that at length attain
to it do continue without it for some considerable time (Eph. 2:12). And
though some may have the spirit of faith given to them from their mother's
womb (as John the Baptist, Luke 1:15, 44), yet even in them there is a natural
being by generation before there can be a spiritual being by regeneration (1
Cor. 15:46). Thus arises the consideration of two states or conditions of the
children of men in matters that appertain to God and godliness, the one of
which is vastly different from the other. Those that have the happiness of a
new birth and creation in Christ by faith are thereby placed in a very
excellent state, consisting in the enjoyment of the righteousness of Christ
for their justification, and the Spirit of Christ to live by in holiness here
and glory for ever, as has already appeared. Those that are not in Christ by
faith cannot be in a better state than that which they received together with
their nature from the first Adam by being once born and created in him, or
than they can attain to by the power of that nature, with any such help as God
is pleased to afford to it. This latter I call a natural state, because it
consists in such things as we have either received by natural generation or
can attain to by natural power through divine assistance, as the Scripture
calls man in this state the natural man (1 Cor. 2:14). The former I call a new
state, because we enter into it by a new birth in Christ. I may call it a
spiritual state, according to the Scripture, because it is received from
Christ the quickening Spirit, and the natural and spiritual man are opposed (1
Cor. 2:14, 15); though some call both these states spiritual, because the
everlasting weal or woe of the soul, or spirit, of man is chiefly concerned in
them.
It is a common error
of those that are in a corrupt natural state that they seek to reform their
lives according to the law, without any thoughts that their state must be
changed before their lives can be changed from sin to righteousness. The
heathens, that knew nothing of a new state in Christ, were urged by their own
consciences to practice several duties of the law, according to the knowledge
they had by the light of nature (Rom.
2:14
, 15).
Israel
according to the flesh had a zeal of God and godliness and endeavoured to
practice the written law, at least in external performances, while they were
enemies to the faith of Christ. And Paul attained so far that he was blameless
in these external performances of the righteousness of the law, while he
persecuted the
church
of
Christ
(Phil. 3:6).
Some are so near the
kingdom of God, while they continue in a natural state, that they are
convinced of the spirituality of the law, that it binds us principally to love
God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbour as
ourselves, and to perform universal obedience to God, in all our inward
thoughts and affections, as well as in all our outward actions, and to do all
the duties that we owe to our neighbour, out of this hearty love (Mark 12:33,
34). And they struggle and labour with great earnestness to subdue their
inward thoughts and affections to the law of God, and to abstain, not only
from some sins, but from all known sins, and to perform every known duty of
the law with their whole heart and soul, as they think; and are active and
intent in their devout practice, that they overwork their natural strength,
and so fervent is their zeal, that they are ready even to kill their bodies
with fastings and other macerations, that they may kill their sinful lusts.
They are strongly convinced that holiness is absolutely necessary to
salvation, and are deeply affected with the terrors of damnation; and yet they
were never so much enlightened in the mystery of the gospel as to know that a
new state in Christ is necessary to a new life; therefore they labour in vain
to reform their natural state, instead of getting above it in Christ. And some
of these, when they have misspent many years in striving against the stream of
their lusts, without any success, do at last fall miserably into despair of
ever attaining to holiness, and turn to wallowing in the mire of their lusts,
or are fearfully swallowed up with horror of conscience.
There are several
false opinions by which such ignorant zealots encourage themselves in their
fruitless endeavours. Some of them judge that they are able to practice
holiness, because they are not compelled to sin, and may abstain from it if
they will. To this they add that Christ, by the merit of His death, has
restored that freedom of will to good which was lost by the Fall, and has set
nature on its legs again, and that, if they endeavour to do what lies in them,
Christ will do the rest, by assisting them with the supplies of His saving
grace; so they trust on the grace of Christ to help them in their endeavours.
They plead further that it would not consist with the justice of God to punish
them for sin, if they could not avoid it; and that it would be in vain for the
ministers of the gospel to preach to them and exhort them to any saving duty,
if they cannot perform it. They produce examples of heathens, and of such as
had the name of Christians, without any acquaintance with the faith that I
have described, who have attained to a great excellency in religious words and
works.
My work at present
is to deliver those ignorant zealots from their fruitless tormenting labours,
by bringing them to despair of the attainment of holiness in a natural state,
that they may seek it only in a new state by faith in Christ, where they may
certainly find it, without such tormenting labour and anxiety of spirit. For
this end, I shall confirm the truth asserted in the direction, and fortify it
against the forementioned false opinions by the ensuing considerations.
1. The foundation of
this assertion is firmly laid in the direction already explained, and
confirmed by many places of Scripture. For, if all endowments necessary to
enable us for a holy practice can be had only in a state of union and
fellowship with Christ by faith, and faith itself, not by the natural power of
free will, but by the power of Christ, coming into the soul by His Spirit, to
unite us with Himself, who does not see that the attainment of true holiness
by any of our most vigorous endeavours, while we continue in our natural
condition, is altogether hopeless? I need add no more, were it not to show
more fully what abundance of light the Scripture affords to guide us right in
this part of our way, that those who wander out of it by following any false
light of their own, or other corrupted judgements, may find themselves the
more inexcusable.
2. It is evident
that we cannot practice true holiness while we continue in a natural state,
because we must be born of water and of the Spirit, or else we cannot enter
into the kingdom of God (John 3:3, 5); and we are created in Christ Jesus to
good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them (Eph.
2:10). If we could love God and our neighbour as the law requires, without a
new birth and creation, we might live without them, for Christ has said, 'This
do, and you shall live' (Luke
10:28
). Now, a new birth and creation is more than a mere reforming and repairing
our natural state. If we were put into a certain state and condition by the
first birth and creation, much more by the second. For the first produces the
substance of a man as well as a state; the second had nothing to produce, but
a new state of the same person. And note that we were first created and born
in Adam the natural man, but our new birth and creation are in Christ the
spiritual Man. And, if any man is in Christ, he is in a new state, far
different from the state of Adam before the Fall. He is wholly a new creature;
as it is written, old things are passed away; behold, all things are become
new (2 Cor.
5:17
).
3. It is positively
asserted by the apostle Paul that those that are in the flesh cannot please
God (
Rom.
8:8). Many are too overly and negligent in considering the sense of this
gospel phrase, what it is to be in the flesh. They understand no more by it
than to be sinful, or to be addicted inordinately to please the sensitive
appetite. They should consider that the apostle speaks here of being in the
flesh, as the cause of sinfulness; as the next verse speaks of being in the
Spirit, as the cause of holiness; and, whatever cause it is, it must needs be
different from its effect. Sin is a poverty of the flesh, or something that
dwells in the flesh (Rom.
7:18
), and therefore it is not the flesh itself. The flesh is that which lusts
against the Spirit (Gal. 5:17), and therefore it is not merely sinful lusting. The true interpretation is
that by flesh is meant the nature of man, as it is corrupted by the fall of
Adam and propagated from him to us in that corrupt state by natural
generation; and to be in the flesh is to be in a natural state, as to be in
the Spirit is to be in a new state, by the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us
(Rom. 8:9). The corrupt nature is called 'flesh', because it is received by
carnal generation; and the new nature is called spirit, because it is received
by spiritual regeneration. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that
which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:6). So the apostle, if he is
rightly understood, has said enough to make us despair utterly of attaining to
true holiness while we continue in a natural state.
3. The apostle
testifies that those that have been taught as the truth is in Jesus have
learned to avoid their normal sinful conversation by putting off the old man,
which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and by putting on the new
man, which after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness (Eph.
4:21, 22, 24). Putting off the old man and putting on the new man is the same
with not being in the flesh, but in the Spirit, in the foregoing testimony;
that is, putting off our natural state and putting on a new state by union and
fellowship with Christ. The apostle himself shows that by the new man is meant
that excellent state where Christ is all, and in all (Col. 3:11). Therefore,
by the old man, must needs be meant the natural state of man, in which he is
without the saving enjoyment of Christ, which is called 'old', because of the
new state to which believers are brought by their regeneration in Christ. This
is a manner of expression peculiar to the gospel, as well as the former, and
as slightly considered by hose that think that the apostle's meaning is only
that they should put off sinfulness and put on holiness in their conversation,
and so they think to become new men, by turning over a new leaf in their
practice and leading a new life.
Let them learn here
that the old and new man are two contrary states, containing in them, not only
sin and holiness, but all other things that dispose and incline us to the
practice of them; and that the old man must be put off, as crucified with
Christ, before we can be freed from the practice of sin (Rom. 6:6, 7). And
therefore we cannot lead a new life until we have first got a new state by
faith in Christ. Let me add here that the meaning of the apostle is the same
where he directs us to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, as the means by which we
may cast off the deeds of darkness and walk honestly, as in the daytime, not
fulfilling the lusts of the flesh (Rom. 13:12-14).
5. Our natural state
has several properties that wholly disable us for the practice of holiness and
enslave us to the practice of sin while we continue in it. Here I shall show
that the old man, the flesh, or natural state, is not only sin, as some would
have it, but it contains in it several things, which I shall name, that make
it to be sinful, besides several other things that make it miserable. I have
shown that in Christ we have all endowments necessary to frame us for
godliness; so, in our fleshly state, we have all things contrary to that holy
frame. One thing belonging to our natural state is the guilt of sin, even of
Adam's first sin, and of the sinful depravation of our nature, and of all our
own actual transgressions, and therefore we are by nature the children of
wrath (Eph. 2:3) and under the curse of God. The benefit of remission of our
sin and freedom from condemnation is not given to us in the flesh, or in a
natural state, but only in Christ (
Rom.
8:1; Eph. 1:7). And can we imagine that a man should be able to prevail
against sin, while God is against him, and curses him?
Another property,
inseparable from the former, is an evil conscience, which denounces the wrath
of God against us for sin, and inclines us to abhor Him as our enemy, rather
than to love Him, as has been shown; or, if it is a blind conscience, it
hardens us the more in our sins.
A third property is
an evil inclination, tending only to sin, which therefore is called 'sin that
dwells in us', and 'the law of sin in our members', that powerfully subdues
and captivates us to the service of sin (Rom.
7:20
, 23). It is a fixed propensity to lust against the law without any
deliberation; and therefore its lustings are not to be prevented by any
diligence or watchfulness. The mind of the flesh is enmity against God, for it
is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be (
Rom.
8:7). How vain then is it to plead that they can do good, if they will, when
their minds and will itself are enslaved to sin?
A fourth property is
subjection to the power of the devil who is the god of this world, that has
blinded the minds of all that do not believe (2 Cor. 4:4), and will certainly
conquer all whom he fights with on his own dunghill, that is, in a natural
state.
And, from all these
properties, we may well conclude that our natural state has the property never
to be good, to be stark dead in sin (Eph. 2:1), according to the sentence
denounced against the first sin of mankind in Adam: 'In the day that you eat
of it you shall surely die' (Gen. 2:17). For you can no more bring it to
holiness, by any of the most vehement motives and endeavours, than you can
bring a dead carcass to life, by chafing and rubbing it. You can stir up no
strength, or fortifying grace, in the natural man by such motives and
endeavours, because there is no strength in him to be stirred up (Rom.
5:6). Though you do all that lies in you to the utmost, while you are in this
flesh, you can do nothing but sin, for there is no good thing in you, as the
apostle Paul shows by his own experience: 'I know, that in me (that is, in my
flesh), no good thing dwells' (Rom. 7:18).
6. We have no good
ground to trust on Christ to help us to will or to do that which is acceptable
to Him while we continue in our natural state, or to imagine that freedom of
will to holiness is restored to us by the merit of His death. For, as it has
been already shown, Christ aimed at a higher end in His incarnation, death and
resurrection, than the restoring the decay and ruins of our natural state. He
aimed to advance us to a new state, more excellent than the state of nature
ever was, by union and fellowship with Himself, that we might live to God, not
by the power of a natural free will, but by the power of His Spirit living and
acting in us. So we may conclude that our natural state is irrecoverable and
desperate because Christ, the only Saviour, did not aim at the recovery of it.
It is neither holy nor happy, but subject to sin and to all miseries, as long
as it remains. Even those that are in a new state in Christ, and do serve the
law of God with their mind, do yet with their flesh serve the law of sin (Rom.
7:25
). As far as it remains in them, it lusts against the Spirit (Gal.
5:17
); and it remains dead, because of the sin, even when the Spirit is life to
them, because of righteousness (Rom.
8:10
), and must be wholly abolished by death, before we can be perfected in that
holiness and happiness that is by faith in Christ. After God had promised
salvation by Christ, the seed of the woman, He placed cherubims and a flaming
sword to keep man out of
Paradise
, in this way teaching him that his first state was lost without hope, and
that the happiness intended for him was wholly new. Our old natural man was
not revived and reformed by the death of Christ, but crucified together with
Him, and therefore to be abolished and destroyed out of us by virtue of His
death (Rom. 6:6). It is like the part of a garment infected with the plague of
leprosy, which was to be rent off as incurable, that the garment might be
clean (Lev. 13:56). If Christ is not in us, we are reprobates (2 Cor. 13:5),
that is, we are in a state which God has rejected from partaking of His
salvation; so that we are not to expect any assistance from God to make us
holy in it, but rather to deliver us from it.
7. This does not at
all discharge those that are in a natural state from obligation to holiness of
life, nor render them excusable for their sins at the tribunal of God's
justice. For God has made man upright, but they sought out many inventions
(Eccles. 7:29). Observe well the words of this text, and you will find that all they who
have sought out many inventions, rather than upright walking, are comprehended
in man that was at first made upright. And 'man' in the text signifies all
mankind. The first Adam was all mankind, as Jacob and Esau were two nations in
the womb of Rebecca (Gen. 25:23). God made us all in our first parent,
according to His own image, able and inclined to do His law and, in that pure
nature, our obligation to obedience was first laid on us, and the first wilful
transgression, by which our first parent bereaved himself of the image of God,
and brought on himself the sentence of death, was our sin as well as his, for,
'In one man, Adam, all have sinned, and so death is passed on all' (Rom.
5:12); because all mankind were in Adam's loins, when the first sin was
committed, even as Levi may be said to have paid tithes in Abraham before he
was born, because, when his father Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek, he was
yet in his loins (Heb. 7:9, 10). The promise of God, that He will not charge
the iniquities of parents on their children, is a promise belonging to the new
covenant confirmed in the blood of Christ; and it is yea and amen to us only
in Christ, in whom we have another nature than that which our parents conveyed
to us, so that we cannot justly claim the benefit of it in our old natural
state (Jer. 31:29-31; 2 Cor. 1:20). Those that account their impotency a
sufficient plea to excuse them or others show that they were never truly
humbled for that great wilful transgression of all mankind in the loins of
Adam. Inability to pay debt excuses not a debtor that has lavished away his
estate; neither does drunkenness excuse the mad actings of a drunkard, but
rather aggravates his sin. And our impotency consists not in a mere want of
executive power, but in the want of a willing mind to practice true holiness
and righteousness. Naturally we do not love it, we do not like it, but lust
against it (Gal.
5:17
), and hate the light (John
3:20
). If men in a natural state had a hearty love and liking to true holiness,
and a desire and serious endeavour to practice it out of hearty love, and yet
failed in the event, then they might, under some pretence, plead for their
excuse (as some do for them) that they were compelled to sin by an inevitable
fate. But none have just cause to plead any such thing for their excuse,
because none endeavour to practice true holiness out of hearty love to it,
until the good work be begun in their souls and, when God hath begun, He will
perfect it (Phil. 1:6), and will, in the meantime, accept their ready mind,
though they fall short in performance (2 Cor. 8:12). 'How abominable,' then,
'and filthy is man, that drinketh iniquity as water?' (Job.
15:16), that cannot practice holiness, because he will not? This is their just
condemnation, that they love darkness rather than light. They deserve to be
partakers with the devils in torments, as they partake with them in evil
lusts; and their inability to do good will no more excuse them than it excuses
devils.
4. Neither will this
assertion make it a vain thing to preach the gospel to natural people, and to
exhort them to true repentance and faith in Christ for their conversion and
salvation. For the design of our preaching is not to bring them to holiness in
their natural state, but to raise them above it, and to present them perfect
in Christ in the performance of those duties (Col. 1:28). And though they
cannot perform those duties by their natural strength, yet the gospel is made
effectual for their conversion and salvation by the power of the Holy Ghost,
which accompanieth the preaching of it; to quicken those that are dead in sin,
and to create them anew in Christ, by giving to them repentance to life and
lively faith in Christ. The gospel cometh to the elect of God, not only in
word, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in such assurance that
they receive it with joy of the Holy Ghost (1 Thess. 1:5, 6). The gospel is
the ministration of the Spirit, that giveth life (2 Cor. 3:6-8); it is 'mighty
through God' (2 Cor. 10:4). It dependeth not at all upon the power of our free
will to make it successful for our conversion, but it conveyeth into the soul
that life and power whereby we receive and obey it. Christ can make those that
are dead in sin to hear His voice and live (John
5:25
). Therefore He can speak to them by His gospel and command them to repent and
believe with good success, as well as He could say to dead carcasses, 'Talitha
cumi' (Mark 5:4); 'Lazarus come forth,' (John
11:43
, 44); and to the sick of the palsy, 'Arise, take up thy bed, and go into
thine house' (Matt. 9:6).
5. There is no
reason that the examples of heathen philosophers, or any Jews or Christians by
outward profession, that have lived without the saving knowledge of God in
Christ, should move us, by their wise sayings and renowned attainments in the
practice of devotion and morality, to recede from this truth that has been so
fully confirmed out of the Holy Scriptures. Have we not cause to judge that
the apostle Paul, while he was a zealous Pharisee, and at least some few of
the great multitude of the Jews in his time that were zealous of the law and
had the instruction of the Holy Scriptures, attained as near to that true
holiness as the heathen philosophers, or any others in their natural state?
Yet Paul, after he was enlightened with the saving knowledge of Christ, judged
himself the chief of sinners in his highest former attainments, though, in the
judgement of others, he was blameless touching the righteousness which is in
the law; and he found it necessary to begin to live to God in a new way by
faith in Christ, and to suffer the loss of all his former attainments, and to
count them but dung that he might win Christ (1 Tim. 1:15; Phil. 3:6-8).
And none of the
great multitude of Jews that followed after the law of righteousness did ever
attain to it, while they sought it not by faith in Christ (Rom.
9:3, 32). What performances are greater in outward appearance, than for a man
to give all his goods to the poor, and to give his body to be burnt? And yet
the Scripture allows us to suppose that this may be done without true charity,
and therefore without any true holiness of the heart and life (1 Cor. 13:3).
Men in a natural state may have strong conviction of the infinite power,
wisdom, justice and goodness of God, and of the judgement to come, and the
everlasting happiness of the godly and torments of the wicked. These
convictions may stir them up, not only to make a high profession, and to utter
rare sayings concerning God and godliness, but also to labour with great
earnestness to avoid all known sin, to subdue their lusts, to perform
universal obedience to God in all known duties, and to serve Him with their
lives and estates to the utmost, and to extort out of their hearts some kind
of love to God and godliness, that, if possible, they may escape the terrible
torments of hell and procure everlasting happiness by their endeavours. Yet
all their love to God is but forced and feigned; they have no hearty liking to
God or His service; they account Him a hard Master, and His commandments
grievous, and they repine and fret inwardly at the burden of them, and, were
it not for fear of everlasting fire, they would little regard the enjoyment of
God in heaven, and they would be glad if they might have the liberty to enjoy
their lust without danger of damnation. The highest preferment of those that
are born only after the flesh, in Abraham's family, is but to be children of
the bondwoman (Gal. 4:23). And though they toil more in God's service than many of His dear
children, yet God does not accept their service, because their best
performances are slavish, without any childlike affections towards God, and
not better than glittering sins. And yet these natural men are not at all
beholden to the goodness of their natures for these counterfeit shows of
holiness, or for the least abstaining from the grossest sins. If God should
leave men fully to their own natural corruptions, and to the power of Satan
(as they deserve) all show of religion and morality would be quickly banished
out of the world, and we should grow past feeling in wickedness, and like the
cannibals, who are as good by nature as ourselves. But God, that can restrain
the burning of the fiery furnace without quenching it, and the flowing water
without changing its nature, also restrains the working of natural corruption
without mortifying it. Through the greatness of His wisdom and power, He makes
His enemies yield feigned obedience to Him (Ps. 66:3), and to do many things
good for the matter of them, though they can do nothing in a right holy
manner. He has appointed several means to restrain our corruptions - as the
law, terrors of conscience, terrible judgements, and rewards in this life,
magistrates, human laws, labour for necessaries, as food and raiment. And
those gospel means that are effectual for sanctification serve also for
restraint of sin. God has gracious ends in this restraint of sin, that His
church may be preserved and His gospel preached in the world; and that these
natural men may be in a better capacity to receive the instructions of the
gospel; and that such of them that are chosen may, in due time, be converted;
and that those of them that are not truly converted may enjoy more of the
goodness of God here, and suffer less torments hereafter. As vile and wicked
as the world is, we have cause to praise and to magnify the free goodness of
God that it is no worse.
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