Use For Exhortation Of The Saints 2/4

 Again, the gospel-shoe will not come on thy foot so long as swelled with any sinful humour—I mean any unrighteousness or unholy practice—till assuaged and purged out by repentance.  Consider the gospel in its preparation.  Art thou in a fit case to suffer cheerfully for God, or patiently for God, as thou art? No more than a soldier in a disease, sick abed, is to make a hard march.  Unholiness weakens the soul as much as sickness doth the body, and indisposeth it to endure any hardship.  ‘O spare me’ a little, ‘that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more,’ Ps. 39:13.  David was not yet recovered out of that sin, which had brought him exceeding low, as you may perceive, vv. 10, 11.  And the good man cannot think of dying with any willingness till his heart be in a holier frame.  And for the peace of the gospel —serenity of conscience and inward joy—alas! all unholiness is to it as poison is to the spirit which drinks them up.  Throw a stone into a brook, and though clear before, it presently is royled and muddy. ‘He will speak peace unto his people,....but let them not turn again to folly,’ Ps. 85:8.  Mark, here, what an item he gives, ‘But let them not turn,’ and as if he had said, ‘Upon their peril be it, if they turn from holy walking to folly; I will turn from speaking peace, to speak terror.’

           Again by thy negligence in thy holy walking thou endangerest thy faith, which is kept in a good con­science, as the jewel in the cabinet.  Faith is an eye. All sin and unholiness casts a mist before this eye.  A holy life, to faith, is as a clear air and medium to the eye.  We can see farther in a clear day.  Thus faith sees farthest into the promise, when it looks through a holy, well-ordered conversation.  Faith is a shield; and when does the soldier drop that out of his hand but when dangerously wounded?  And if faith fail, what will become of hope, which hangs upon faith, and draws all her nourishment from her, as the sucking child doth from the nurse?  If faith cannot see a pardon in the promise, then hope cannot look for salvation.  If faith cannot lay claim to sonship, then hope will not wait for the inheritance.  Faith tells the soul it hath ‘peace with God,’ then the soul ‘rejoiceth in the hope of glory,’ Rom. 5:1, 2.  And now, Christian, what hast thou yet left for thy help?  Wilt thou betake thyself to the sword of the Spirit?  Alas! how canst thou wield it when, by thy unholy walking, thou hast lamed thy hand of faith that should hold it? This sword hath two edges.  With one it heals, with the other it wounds—with one it saves, with the other it damns.  O it is a dreadful weapon when it strikes with its wounding, damning side; and for the other side thou hast nothing to do with it while in any way of unholiness.  Not a kind word in the whole Bible spoken to one sinning.  Now, poor creature, think, and think again; is there any sin worth hazarding all this confusion and mischief, which, if thou beest resolved to have it, will inevitably befall thy soul?