Use For Exhortation Of The Saints 3/4

3. Be humble when thou art most holy.  Which way soever pride works—as thou shalt find it like the wind—sometimes at one door, sometimes at another —resist it.  Nothing more baneful to thy holiness; it turns righteousness into hemlock, holiness into sin. Never art thou less holy than when puffed up with the conceit of it.  When we see a man blown up and swelled with the dropsy, we can tell his blood is naught and waterish, without opening a vein for the trial.  The more pride puffs thee, the less pure blood of holiness thou hast running in the veins of thy soul. ‘Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright,’ Hab. 2:4.  See an ecce! [behold!] like a sign, is set up at the proud man's door, that all passengers may know a naughty man dwells there.  As thou wouldst not, therefore, not only enfeeble the power of holiness, but also call in question the truth of thy holiness, take heed of pride.  Sometimes, possibly, thou wilt be ready to despise others, and bid them, in thy thoughts, stand off, as not so holy as thyself; this smells of the Pharisee, beware of it.  It is the nature of holiness to depress ourselves, and to give our breth­ren the advantage in measuring their gifts or graces with our own.  ‘In lowli­ness of mind let each esteem other better than them­selves,’ Php. 2:3.  At another time, possibly, thou mayest find a spice of the justi­ciary’s disease hanging about thee—thy heart lean­ing on thy righteousness, and lifting up thyself into confidence of it, so as to expect thy acceptation with, and salvation from, God for that.  O take heed of this, as thou lovest thy life!  I may say to thee as Constantine did to Acetius the Novatian, ‘Set then up thy ladder, and go to heaven by thyself, for never any went this way thither;’ and dost thou think to be the only man that shall appear in heaven purchaser of his own happiness?  Go, first, poor creature, and meas­ure the length of thy ladder by the extent of the holy law, and if thou findest it but one round short of that, thou mayest certainly conclude it will leave thee short of heaven.  If, therefore, thou hast beheld—to allude to that in Job 31:27—thy righteousness, when it hath shined, and thy holiness walking in its brightness, and thy heart thereby hath been enticed secretly, or thy mouth hath kissed thy hand; know this is a great wickedness, and in this thou hast denied the God above.  Thou hast given the highest part of divine worship unto a creature, the created sun of thy inher­ent holiness, which God hath appointed should be given alone to the uncreated Sun of righteousness, the Lord Jesus, ‘the Lord our righteousness.’ Renounce thy plea, as now thou hast laid it, for life and salvation, or else give up thy cause as lost.  Now the more effectually to keep down any insurrection of pride from the conceit of thy holiness, be pleased to take often these soul-humbling considerations into thy serious thoughts.

           (1.) Often meditate on the infinite holiness of God.  When men stand high their heads do not grow dizzy till they look down.  When men look down up­on those that are worse than themselves, or less holy than themselves, then their heads turn round. Looking up would cure this disease.  The most holy men, when once they have fixed their eyes a while upon God’s holiness, and then looked upon them­selves, they have been quite out of love with them­selves, and could see nothing but unholiness in them­selves.  After the vision the prophet had of God sitting on his throne, and his heavenly ministers of state, the seraphim, about him, covering their faces and crying, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts:’ how was this gracious man presently smitten with the sense of his own vileness?  They did not more cry up God as holy, than he did cry out upon himself as ‘unclean,’ Isa. 6:3, 5.  So Job, ‘Now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself,’ Job 42:5, 6.  Never did the good man more loathe himself for the putrid sores of his ulcerous body, when on the dunghill he sat and scraped himself, than now he did for the impurities of his soul.  We see ourselves in a dark room, and we think we are fine and clean; but would we compass ourselves with the beams of God’s glori­ous majesty and holiness, then the sun rays would not discover more atoms in the air, than the holiness of God would convince of sin to be in us.  But it is the trick of pride not to come where it may be outshined; it had rather go where it shall be adored, than where it is sure to be put to shame.

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?