Chapter
Eight
Be
sure to seek for holiness of heart and life only in its due order, where God
has placed it, after union with Christ, justification and the gift of the Holy
Ghost and, in that order, seek it earnestly by faith as a very necessary part
of your salvation.
I hope the reader
will observe warily in all these directions, that the holiness aimed at as the
great end in the whole discourse does not confide in the grace or act of faith
required peculiarly by the gospel, which, though it be a saving gift of
Christ, yet is here considered rather as a means precedent to the reception of
Christ and all His salvation, than a part of His salvation received. But the
holiness aimed at consists in conformity to the whole moral law, to which we
are naturally obliged, if there had never been any gospel, or any such duty as
believing in Christ for salvation.
Now, in this
direction, three things are contained that are very necessary to guide us to
the attainment of this great end, and therefore worthy of our serious
consideration.
Firstly, it is a
matter of high concern, to be acquainted with the due place and order in which
God has settled this holy practice in the mystery of our salvation, and a
great point of Christian wisdom to seek it only in that order. We know that
God is the God of order, and that His infinite wisdom has appeared in
appointing the order of His creatures, which we are forced to observe for
attainment of our ends in worldly things; so also in spiritual things God has
made an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure (2 Sam. 23:5).
The benefits of it have an orderly dependence each upon the other, as links of
the same golden chain, though several of them, and a title to them all, are
given to us at one and the same time. And I think enough has been said already
to show in what order God brings us to the practice of the moral law. He makes
us first to be in Christ by faith, as branches in the vine, that we may bring
forth much fruit (John 15:4, 5). He first purges our consciences from dead
works by justification, that we may serve the living God (Heb. 9:14). He makes us first to live in the Spirit, and then to walk in the Spirit
(Gal. 5:25). This is the order prescribed in the gospel, which is the power of God to
salvation, though the law prescribes a quite contrary method, that we should
first perform its commands, that so we may be justified and live, and in this
way it proves a killing letter to us. Now, mark well the great advantages you
have for the attainment of holiness by seeking it in a right gospel order. You
will have the advantage of the love God manifested towards you, in forgiving
your sins, receiving you into favour, and giving you the spirit of adoption,
and the hope of His glory freely through Christ, to persuade and constrain you
by sweet allurements to love God again, who has so dearly loved you, and to
love others for His sake, and to give up yourselves to the obedience of all
His commands out of hearty love to Him. You will also enjoy the held of the
Spirit of God to incline you powerfully to obedience, and to strengthen you
for the performance of it against all your corruptions and the temptations of
Satan, so that you will have both wind and tide to forward your voyage in the
practice of holiness. Contrariwise, if you rush upon the immediate performance
of the law, without taking Christ's righteousness and His Spirit in the way to
it, you will find both wind and tide against you: your guilty consciences and
corrupt dead natures will certainly defeat and frustrate all your enterprises
and attempts to love God and serve Him in love, and you will but stir up
sinful lusts instead of stirring up yourselves to true obedience, or, at best,
you will but attain to some slavish and hypocritical performances. Oh, that
people would be persuaded to consider the due place of holiness in the mystery
of salvation, and to seek it only there where they have all the advantages of
gospel grace to find it! Many miscarry in their zealous enterprises for
godliness and, after they have spent much labour in vain, God makes a breach
on them, even to their everlasting destruction, as He did on Uzza, to a
temporal destruction, because they did not seek Him after the due order (1
Chron. 13:10).
Secondly, we are to
look upon holiness as a very necessary part of that salvation that is received
by faith in Christ. Some are so drenched in a covenant of works that they
accuse us for making good works needless to salvation, if we will not
acknowledge them to be necessary, either as conditions to procure an interest
in Christ, or as preparatives to fit us for the receiving Him by faith. And
others, when they are taught by the Scriptures, that we are saved by faith,
through faith, without works, do begin to disregard all obedience to the law,
as not at all necessary to salvation, and account themselves obliged to it
only in point of gratitude; if it be wholly neglected, they do not doubt but
free grace will save them harmless. Yea, some are given up to strong
Antinomian delusions, that they account it a part of the liberty from the
bondage of the law, purchased by the blood of Christ, to make no conscience of
breaking the law in their conversation.
One cause of these
errors, that are so contrary one to the other, is that many are prone to
imagine nothing else to be meant by salvation, but to be delivered from hell,
and to enjoy heavenly happiness and glory; thus they conclude that, if good
works are a means of glorification, and precedent to it, they must also be a
precedent means of our whole salvation; and that, if they be not a necessary
means of our whole salvation, they are not at all necessary to glorification.
But, though salvation is often taken in Scripture, by way of eminency, for its
perfection in the state of heavenly glory, yet, according to its full and
proper signification, we are to understand by it all that freedom from the
evil of our natural corrupt state, and all those holy and happy enjoyments
that we receive from Christ our Saviour, either in this world by faith, or in
the world to come by glorification. Thus justification, the gift of the Spirit
to dwell in us, the privileges of adoption, are parts of our salvation which
we partake of in this life. Thus also, the conformity of our hearts to the law
of God, and the fruits of righteousness with which we are filled by Jesus
Christ in this life, are a necessary part of our salvation.
God saves us from
our sinful uncleanness here by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the
Holy Ghost, as well as from hell hereafter (Ezek. 36:29; Titus 3:5).
Christ was called
JESUS, that is, a Saviour, because He saved His people from their sins (Matt. 1:21). Therefore it is a part of our salvation to deliver us from our sins, which
is begun in this life by justification and sanctification, and perfected by
glorification in the life to come. Can we rationally doubt whether it be any
proper part of our salvation by Christ to be quickened, to live to God, when
we were by nature dead in trespasses and sins, and to have the image of God in
holiness and righteousness restored to us, which we lost by the Fall; and to
be freed from a vile dishonourable slavery to Satan and our own lusts, and
made the servants of God, and to be honoured so highly as to walk by the
Spirit, and bring forth the fruits of the Spirit? And what is all this but
holiness in heart and life?
We then conclude
that holiness in this life is absolutely necessary to salvation, not only as a
means to the end, but by a nobler kind of necessity, as part of the end
itself. Though we are not saved by good works, as procuring causes, yet we are
saved to good works, as fruits and effects of saving grace, which God has
prepared that we should walk in them (Eph. 2:10). It is, indeed, one part of
our salvation to be delivered from the bondage of the covenant of works; but
the end of this is, not that we may have liberty to sin (which is the worst of
slavery) but that we may fulfil the royal law of liberty, and that we may
serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter (Gal. 5:13;
Rom. 7: 6). Yea, holiness in this life is such a part of our salvation as is a
necessary means to make us suitable to be partakers of the inheritance of the
saints in heavenly light and glory; without holiness we can never see God
(Heb. 12:14), and are as unfit for the glorious presence as swine for the
presence chamber of an earthly prince. I confess, some may be converted when
they are so near the point of death that they may have little time to practice
holiness in this world, but the grace of the Spirit is active like fire (Matt.
3:11), and, as soon as it is given, it will immediately produce good inward
working of love to God and Christ and His people. This will be sufficient to
manifest the righteous judgement of God in saving them at the great day, when
He shall judge every man according to His work; though some possibly may not
have so much time to discover their inward grace in any outward works, as the
thief upon the cross (Luke 23: 40,43).
The third and last
thing to be noted in this direction is that holiness of heart and life is to
be sought for earnestly by faith, as a very necessary part of our salvation.
Great multitudes of ignorant people that live under the gospel harden their
hearts in sin, and ruin their souls for ever, by trusting on Christ for such
an imaginary salvation as does not consist at all in holiness, but only in
forgiveness of sin and deliverance from everlasting torments. They would be
free from the punishment due to sin, but they love their lusts so well that
they hate holiness, and would not be saved from the service of sin. The way to
oppose this pernicious delusion is not to deny, as some do, that trusting on
Christ for salvation is a saving act of faith, but rather to show that none do
or can trust on Christ for true salvation, except they trust on Him for
holiness; neither do they heartily desire true salvation, if they do not
desire to be made holy and righteous in their hearts and lives. If ever God
and Christ give you salvation, holiness will be one part of it; if Christ does
not wash you from the filth of your sins, you have no part with Him (John
13:8).
What a strange kind
of salvation do they desire, that do not care for holiness? They would be
saved, and yet be altogether dead in sin, aliens from the life of God, bereft
of the image of God, deformed by the image of Satan, his slaves and vassals to
their own filthy lusts, utterly unsuitable for the enjoyment of God in glory.
Such a salvation as that was never purchased by the blood of Christ, and those
that seek it abuse the grace of God in Christ and turn it into lasciviousness.
They would be saved by Christ, and yet out of Christ, in a fleshly state;
whereas God frees none from condemnation, but those that are in Christ, that
walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; or else they would divide
Christ, and take a part of His salvation, and leave out the rest, but Christ
is not divided (1 Cor. 1:13). They would have their sins forgiven, not that
they may walk with God in love in time to come, but that they may practice
their enmity against Him without any fear of punishment.
But,
let them not be deceived, God is not mocked. They do not understand what true
salvation is, neither were they ever yet thoroughly sensible of their lost
estate, and of the great evil of sin; and that which the trust on Christ for
is but an imagination of their own rains, and therefore their trusting is
gross presumption. True gospel faith makes us come to Christ with a thirsty
appetite, that we may drink of living water, even of His sanctifying Spirit
(John 7: 37, 38), and cry out earnestly to save us, not only from hell, but
from sin, saying, 'Teach me to do Your will; Your Spirit is good' (Ps.
143:10), 'Turn me, and I shall be turned' (Jer. 31:18); 'Create in me a clean
heart, O God; and renew a right Spirit within me' (Ps. 51:10). This is the way
by which the doctrine of salvation by grace necessitates us to holiness of
life, by constraining us to seek for it by faith in Christ as a substantial
part of that salvation which is freely given us through Christ.
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