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 Sixth.  Holiness and righteousness—they are the pillars of kingdoms and nations.  Who are they that keep the house from falling on a people’s head, but the righteous in a nation?  ‘Ten righteous men,’ could they have been found in Sodom, had blown over the storm of fire and brimstone that, in a few hours, en­tombed them in their own ashes; yea, the destroying angel’s hands were tied up, as it were, while but one righteous Lot was among them.  ‘Haste thee, escape hither; for I cannot do anything till thou be come hither,’ Gen. 19:22.  Rehoboam and his kingdom were strengthened for three years, and might have been for three and twenty, if he head not, by his unrighteous­ness, pulled it down upon himself and people; for his unhappiness is dated from the very time of his depar­ture from God, II Chr. 11:16-12:2. Josiah, when he came to the crown, found the kingdom of Judah tumbling apace to ruin; yet, because his heart was set for God, and prepared to walk before him, God took his bail (as I may so say) for that wretched people, even when they were under arrest from him, and almost at the prison door, so that their safety was, in a manner, bound up in his life; for soon after his decease all went to wreck among them.  It was a heroic speech of Luther, who foresaw a black cloud of God’s judg­ments coming over the head of Germany, but told some of his friends, ‘That he would do his best to keep it from falling in his days’—yea, he believed it should not come—‘and,’ said he, ‘when I am gone, let them that come after me look to it.’

           This poor nation of England hath, for many gen­erations in a succession, had a number of precious, righteous ones, who have, through God’s grace, walked close with God, and been kept in a great de­gree unspotted from the defilements of the ungodly times they lived in.  These were the Atlases of their several ages; these have oft found favour of God, to beg the life of this nation, when its neck hath been on the very block.  But they are gone, or wearing away apace, and a new generation coming in their room; unhappy would the day be called when you were born, if you should be the men and women that, by degenerating from the power of holiness, should cut the banks which was their chief care to keep up, and so let in a desolating judgment to overflow the land. That heir we count unworthy of his birth and patri­mony, who, by his debauched courses, prodigally makes away that estate, which, by the care and provi­dence of his ancestors, was through many descents at last transmitted to him; but which now, together with the honour of the family, unhappily ends in him.  If ever any age was like to do thus by the place of their nativity, this present is it, wherein our sad lot to live is cast.  How low is the power of holiness sunk among us, to what it was but in the last generation!  Religion, alas! runs low and dreggy  among professors.  God, we know, will not long suffer it.  If Egypt knows a dearth is coming by the low ebbing of Nilus, surely we may see a judgment to be coming by the low fall of the power of godliness.

           There are great complaints of what men have lost in these hurling times.  Some bemoan their lost places and estates, others the lost lives of their friends in the wars; but professors may claim justly the first place of all the mourners of the times, to lament their lost loves to the truths of Christ, worship of Christ, servants of Christ—yea, that universal decay which appears in their holy walking before God and man.  This is sad indeed, but that which adds a fearful ag­gravation to it is, that we degenerate and grow loose at a time when we are under the highest engagements for holiness that ever any people were.  We are a people redeemed from many deaths and dangers.  And when better might God expect us to be a righ­teous nation?  It is an ill time for a person to fall a stealing and pilfering again as soon as the rope is off his neck, and he let safely come down that ladder from which he was even now like to be turned off.  Surely it added to righteous Noah’s sin, to be drunk as soon almost as he was set on shore, when a little before he had seen a whole world sinking before his eyes, and he, privileged person, left by God to plant the world again with a godly seed.  O sirs, the earth hath hardly yet drunk in the rivers of blood that have been shed in our land.  The cities and towns have hardly got out of their ruins, which the miseries of war laid them in. 

 The moans of the fatherless and husbandless, whom the sword bereaved of their dear­est relations, are not yet silenced by their own death. Yea, can our own frights and scares, which we were amazed with, when we saw the nation—like a candle lighted at both ends—on flame, and every day the fire coming nearer and nearer to ourselves—can these be so soon forgotten?  Now, that at such a time as this, a nation, and that the professing part of it, should grow looser, more proud, covetous, contentious, wan­ton in their principles, and careless in their lives; this must be for a lamentation.  We have little cause to boast of our peace and plenty, when the result of our deliverance is to deliver us up to commit such abomi­nations.  This is as if one whose quartan ague is gone, but leaving him in a deep dropsy, should brag his ague hath left him, little thinking that when it went, it left him a worse guest in its place.  An unhap­py change, God knows it is; to have war, pestilence, and famine removed, and to be left swollen up with pride, error, and libertinism.

           Again, we are a people who have made more pre­tensions to righteousness and holiness than our fore­fathers ever did.  What else meant the many prayers to God, and petitions to man, for reformation?  What interpretations could a charitable heart make, of our putting ourselves under the bond of a covenant, to endeavour for personal reformation, and then na­tional, but that we meant in earnest to be a more righteous nation that ever before?  This made such a loud report in foreign parts, that our neighbour-churches were set a wondering to think what these glorious beginnings might ripen to; so that now—hav­ing put forth these leaves, and told both God and man, by them, what fruit was to be looked for from us—our present state must needs be nigh unto curs­ing, for disappointing the just expectations of both. Nothing can save the life of this our nation, or lengthen out its tranquility in mercy to it, but the re­covery of the much decayed power of holiness.  This, as  a spring of new blood to a weak body, would, though almost a dying, revive it, and procure more happy days—yea, more happy days to come over its head, than it hath yet seen; but alas! as we are degenerating from bad to worse, we do but die lingeringly—every day we fetch our breath shorter and shorter; if the sword should but be drawn again among us, we have hardly strength to hold out another fit.

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           Fifth. Holiness has a mighty influence upon others.  When this appears with power in the lives of Christians, it works mightily upon the spirits of men; it stops the mouths of the ungodly, who are ready to reproach religion, and to throw the dirt of professors’ sins on the face of profession itself.  They say that frogs will cease croaking when a light is brought near unto them.  The light of a holy conversation hangs as it were a padlock on profane lips; yea, it forceth them to acknowledge God in them.  ‘Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven,’ Matt. 5:16.  Yea more, this would not only stop their mouths, but be a means to open their very hearts to the embracing of Christ and his grace.

           One reason why such shoals of souls came into the net of the gospel in primitive times was, because then the divinity of the gospel doctrine appeared in the divinity and holiness of Christians’ lives.  Justin Martyr, when converted, professed, ‘That the holiness that shined in Christians’ lives and patience, that triumphed over their enemies’ cruelty at their deaths, made him conclude the doctrine of the gospel was truth.’  Yea, Julian himself, vile wretch as he was, could say, that the Christian religion came to be propagated so much, ‘propter Christianorum erga omnes beneficia—because Christians were a people that did good to all, and hurt to none.’  I am sure we find, by woeful experience, that in these debauched times, wherein religion is so bespattered with frequent scandals, yea, a common looseness of professors, it is hard to get any that are out to come under the net of the gospel.  Some beasts there are, that if they have once blown upon a pasture, others will hardly eat of the grass for some while after.  Truly I have had some such sad thoughts as these concerning our unhappy times; that, till the ill favour, which the pride, conten­tions, errors, and looseness of professors now-a-days, have left upon the truths and ordinances of Christ be worn off, there is little hope of any great comings in of new converts.  The minister cannot be always preaching.  Two or three hours, may be, in a week, he spends among his people in the pulpit, holding the glass of the gospel before their faces; but the lives of professors, these preach all week long.  If they were but holy and exemplary, they would be as a repetition of the preacher's sermon to the families and neigh­bours among whom they converse, and would keep the sound of his doctrine continually ringing in their ears.  

This would give Christians an admirable advan­tage in doing good to their carnal neighbours, by counsel and reproof, which is now seldom done, and when done, it proves to little purpose, because not backed with their own exemplary walking.  ‘It behoves him,’ saith Tertullian, ‘that would counsel or reprove another, to guard his speech—autoritate propriæ conversationis, ne dicta factis deficientibus erubes­cant—with the authority of his own conversation, lest, wanting that, what he says may put himself to the blush.’  We do not love that one that hath the stink­ing breath should come very near us; and truly we count one comes very near us that reproves us.  Such therefore had need have a sweet-scented life.  Re­proofs are good physic, but they have an unpleasing farewell.  It is hard for men not to vomit them up on the face of him that gives them.  Now nothing is more powerful to keep a reproof from thus coming up, than the holiness of the person that reproves.  ‘Let the righteous smite me,’ saith David, ‘it shall be a kind­ness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head,’ Ps. 141:5.  See how well it is taken from such a hand, because of the authority that holiness carries with it.  None but a vile wretch will smite a righteous man with reproach, for smiting him with a reproof, especially if it be softly laid on, and like oil fomented, and wrought into him, as it should, with compassion and love to his soul. Thus we see how influential the power of holiness would be unto the wicked.  Neither would it be less upon our brethren and fellow-Christians.

           When one Christian sees holiness sparkle in the life of another he converses with, he shall find his own grace spring within him, as the babe in Elizabeth at the salutation of Mary.  Truly one eminently holy is enough to put life into a whole society; on the con­trary, the error or looseness of one professor, en­dangers the whole company that are acquainted with him.  Therefore we have so strict a charge—‘Follow peace with all men, and holiness;...looking dili­gently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled,’ Heb. 12:14.  It is spoken to professors.  The heathen’s drunkenness, uncleanness, unrighteous walk­ing did not so much endanger them.  But, when ‘a root of bitterness springs up’ among professors themselves, this hazards the defiling of many.  A scab on the wolf’s back is not so dangerous to the sheep —because they will not be easily drawn among such company; but, when it gets into the flock, among professors that feed together, pray, hear, and walk in fellowship together, then is there fear it will spread.  A loose erroneous professor doth the devil more serv­ice in his kind, than a whole troop of such as pretend to no religion.  

The devil gets no credit by them.  There are many errors and sinful practices which have long lain upon his hands, and he could not put them off, till he found his way—viz. to employ some professors as his brokers to commend them to others, and to disperse them for him.  And if such do not en­snare and defile others by their unholy walking, to be sure they grieve their hearts, and put them to shame in the world.  O how Christians hang down their heads upon the scandal of any of their company!—as all the patriarchs were troubled, when the cup was found in one of their sacks.  And it is no small matter to make sad the hearts of God’s people.  In a word, he that keeps not up, in some measure, the power of a holy life, renders himself useless and unprofitable.  Wouldst thou pray for others?  A heathen could bid a wicked man hold his peace, and not let the gods know he was in a ship when a storm was on them.  Wouldst thou speak a word of comfort to any mourn­ful soul?  O how unsavoury are comforts dropping from such a mouth!  Wouldst thou counsel another? Thy friend will think thou dost but jest.  Whatever thou sayest in commendation of holiness, he will not believe that thou thyself dost think it good; for then thou wouldst take that thyself, which thou com­mendest to another.

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           Fourth. Holiness in the power of it is necessary to the true peace and repose of the soul.  I do not say that our peace is bottomed on the righteousness of our nature or holiness of our lives, yet it is ever at­tended with these.  ‘There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.’  We may as soon make the sea always still, as an unholy heart truly quiet.  From whence come the intestine wars in men’s bosoms, that set them at variance with themselves, but from their own lusts? these break the peace, and keep the man in a continual tempest.  As the spirit of holiness comes into his heart, and the sceptre of Christ—which is ‘a sceptre of righteousness’—bears sway in the life; so the storm abates more and more, till it be quite down, which will not be while we are short of heaven.  There only is perfect rest, because perfect holiness.  Whence those frights and fears, which make them a magor missabib—a terror round about?—they wake and sleep with the scent of hell-fire about them continually.  O, it is their unholy course and unrigh­teous ways that walk in their thoughts, as John’s ghost in Herod’s.  This makes men discontented in every condition.  They neither can relish the sweetness of their enjoyments, nor bear the bitter taste of their afflictions.  I know there are ways to stupefy the con­science, and bind up for a time the senses of an un­holy heart, that it shall not feel its own misery; but the virtue of this opium is soon spent, and then the wretch is upon the rack again, and his horror returns upon him with a greater paroxysm.  

An example whereof I have heard.  A notorious drunkard, who used, when told of his ungodly life, to shake off, as easily as Paul did the viper from his hand, all the threatenings of the word that his friends would have fastened on his conscience—bearing himself upon a presumptuous hope of the mercy of God in Christ: it pleased God to lay him, some while after, on his back by sickness; which, for a time, scared his old com­panions—brethren with him in iniquity—from vis­iting him; but hearing he was cheery and pleasant in his sickness, they ventured again to see him; doing so, they found him very confident of the mercy of God (whereby their hands were much strengthened in their old ways); but before he died, this tune was changed to purpose; his vain hopes vanished, his guilty con­science awakened, and the poor wretch, roasted in the scorching flames of his former ungodly practices, and now ready to die, cries out despairingly, ‘O sirs!  I had prepared a plaster, and thought all was well, but now it will stick no longer.’  His guilty conscience rubbed it off as fast as he clapped it on.  And truly, friends, you will find that the blood of Christ himself will not cleave to a soul that is in league with any way of sin and unrighteousness. 

 God will pluck such from the horns of his altar, that flee to it, but not from their unrighteousness, and will slay them in the sight of the sanctuary they so boldly trust to.  You know the message Solomon sent to Adonijah, ‘If thou showest thyself a worthy man, not a hair of thy head shall fall; but if wickedness shall be found in thee, thou shalt surely die.’  In vain do men think to shroud them­selves under Christ’s wing from the hue and cry of their accusing conscience, while wickedness finds a sanctuary in them. Christ never was intended by God to secure men in their unrighteousness, but to save them from it.

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    Third Reason. There is a reason in regard of holiness itself—the incomparable excellency whereof commands us to pursue it, and endeavour after it, with our utmost care and strength.

           First.  It is an excellency peculiar to the rational creature.  Inferior creatures have a goodness prosper to them; but intellectual beings only are capable of an inward holiness.  God saw every creature he made to be ‘good;’ only angels and man to be ‘holy.’  And if we part with holiness that is our crown, we become worse than the beasts themselves; yea, it is holiness and righteousness that makes one man differ from another in God’s account.  We go by a false rate, when we value men by their external advantages.  All stand on a level as to God, till holiness be super ­added.  Princes, in whom is seated the sovereign power, claim as their prerogative to set the just value on all coin—what every piece shall go for; this a penny, and that a pound.  Much more surely then doth it belong to God to rate his creatures.  And he tells us, ‘The righteous is more excellent than his neighbour,’ Prov. 12:26 ‘The tongue of the just is as choice silver: the heart of the wicked is little worth,’ Prov. 10:20.  The Spirit of God compares the righteous to silver and gold, the most precious of metals, which above all other metals are of such account, that only money made of silver and gold is current in all coun­tries; holiness will go in both worlds; but external excellencies, such as worldly riches, honours, &c., like leather and brass money, are of no esteem, save in this beggarly lower world.

         

  Second.  It is holiness that is, though not our plea, yet our evidence for heaven.  ‘Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.’  Heaven is a city where righteousness dwells.  Though God suffer the earth to bear for a while unholy men—which it doth not with­out sweating under their weight, and groaning to be rid of the load—yet sure he will never pester heaven with such a crew.  Before Enoch was translated to heaven, he walked holily with God on earth; which made God desire his company so soon.  O friends! do we like an empty profession? such a religion as will leave us short of heaven? or can we reasonably expect a dispensation above others, that we should com­mence glorified creatures in heaven, without keeping our acts, and performing the exercises of godliness which God hath laid upon those that will stand candidates for that place?  Certainly, what God hath written in his word, as to this, shall stand.  He will not make a blot in his decrees for any; which he should, did he alter the method of salvation in the least.  Either, therefore, we must renounce our hopes of going thither, or resolve to walk in the path of holiness, that will lead us thither.  That is vain breath which sets not the sails of our affections a‑going, and our feet a‑travelling thither, where we would be at last.

          

 Third.  It is holiness, and that maintained in its power, that capacitates us for communion with God in this life.  Communion with God is so desirable, that many pretend to it, who know not what it means; like some that brag of their acquaintance with such a great man, who, may be, never saw his face, nor have been admitted into his company.  The Spirit of God gives the lie to that man who saith he hath any ac­quaintance with God, while he keeps his acquaintance with any unrighteousness: ‘If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie,’ I John 1:6.  The apostle is willing to pass for a loud liar himself, if he walks in darkness, and pretends to have fellowship with God.  How can they ‘walk together’ that are not ‘agreed?’  Communion is founded on union, and union upon likeness.  And how like are God and the devil, holiness and unrighteousness, one to the other?  There is a vast difference between conversing with ordinances, and having communion with God.  

A man may have great acquaintance with ordinances, and be a great stranger to God at the same time.  Every one that goes to court, and hangs about the palace, doth not speak with the prince. And what sorry things are ordinances without this com­munion with God?  Ordinances are as it were the ex­change, where holy souls trade with God by his Spirit for heavenly treasures, from which they come filled and enriched with grace and comfort.  Now, what does the unholy wretch? truly like some idle persons that come and walk among merchants on the ex­change, but have no business there, or commerce whereby they get any advantage.  An unholy heart hath no dealings with God; he takes no notice of God.  May be, to be sure, God takes no such notice of him, as to communicate himself graciously to him. Nay, suppose a person habitually holy, but under the power of some temptation for the present, whereby he defiles himself; he is in this case unfit to have any friendly communion with God.  ‘A righteous man falling down before the wicked is,’ saith Solomon, ‘as a troubled fountain, and a corrupt spring,’ Prov. 25:26; much more is he so when he falls down before the wicked one, and yields to his temptation—now his spirit is roil [i.e. turbid] and muddied.  And if we will not use the water of a spring, though in itself pure and wholesome, when it is troubled, or drink of that vessel that runs thick, but stay while [i.e. until] it be settled and comes clear; can we wonder if God refuseth to taste of those duties which a godly person performs, before the stream be cleared by the renewing of his repentance for his sin?

The Power of Holiness to be Maintained Because of SATAN’S DESIGN AGAINST IT

 Second Reason.  There is a reason in regard of Satan, whose design is as much against the saints’ holiness, as God is for it.  He hath ever a nay to God’s yea.  If God be for holiness, he must needs be against it.  And what should be our chief care to de­fend, but that which Satan's thoughts and plots are most laid to assault and storm?  There is no creature the devil delights to lodge and dwell in as man. When he enters into other creatures it is but on a design against man.  When he entered the ‘serpent,’ it was to deceive Eve.  The ‘swine,’ Matt. 8:32, he possessed on a design to dispossess the Gergesenes of the gospel. But, might he choose his own lodging, none pleaseth him but man.  And why?  Because man only is capable, by his rational soul, of sin and unrighteous­ness.  And as he prefers man to quarter in above all inferior creatures, so he had rather possess the souls of men than their bodies.  None but the best room in the house will serve this unclean spirit in which to vomit his blasphemies, and spit out his malice against God—and why? but because the soul is the proper seat of holiness and sin.  This, one gives as the reason why, amongst all the ways that Satan plagued Job, he did not choose to make a forcible entry into his body, and possess him corporally; for certainly he might —that being short of taking away his life—the only thing reserved by God out of his commission, and being in his power, sure it was not to spare Job that trouble.  No pity dwells in a devil’s heart.  But the very reason seems to be what an ancient hath noted.  The devil waited for a higher preferment; he hoped for to possess his soul, which he longed for a thou­sand times more.  He had rather hear Job himself blaspheme God, while he was compos mentis—his own man, than himself in Job to belch out blasphe­mies against God, which would have been the devil’s own sin, and not Job’s.

           Thus, you see, it is holiness and righteousness his spite is at.  No gain comes to the devil’s purse, no victory he counts got, except he can make the Chris­tian lose his holiness.  He can allow a man to have anything, or be anything, rather than be truly, power­fully, holy.  It is not your riches and worldly enjoy­ments he grudges, so much as your holiness.  Job, for aught we know, might have enjoyed his flocks and herds, his children, and servants, without any distur­bance from hell, if the devil had not seen him to be a godly man—‘one fearing God and eschewing evil.’ This angered the wicked spirit.  Now he tries a fall with Job, that, if possible, he may unsaint him, and despoil him of his breastplate of righteousness.  His plundering of his estate, butchering his children, carbonading, as I may say, his body with sores and boils—which were as so many deep slashes in his flesh—was but like some thieves’ cruel usage of men whom they would rob, on a design to make them con­fess and deliver up their treasure.  Would but Job have thrown the devil his purse—his integrity, I mean —and let Satan carry away his good conscience, Satan would have  soon unbound him, and not have cared if he had his estate and children again.  The wolf tears the fleece, that he may come to raven on the flesh, and suck the blood of the sheep.  The life-blood of holiness is that which this hellish murderer longs to suck out of the Christian’s heart.  It is not a form of godliness, or goodly shows of righteousness, the devil maligns, but the power.  Not the name, but the new nature itself, brings this lion fell out of his den.  Satan can live very peaceably as a quiet neighbour by the door of such as will content themselves with an empty name of profession, this alters not his property, nor toucheth his copy-hold^[7].  The profession made by Judas, Satan knew, did not put him a step out of his way to hell.  The devil can show a man a way to dam­nation, through duties and ordinances of God’s wor­ship.  That covetous traitorous heart which Judas carried with him to hear Christ’s sermon, and [to] preach his own, held him fast enough to the devil, and therefore he gives him line enough, liberty enough, to keep his credit awhile with his fellow-apostles.  He cares not though others think him a disciple of Christ, so he knows him to be his own slave.

           In a word, it is not a superstitious holiness which offends him.  How can it, when he is the instituter of it himself, and that on a subtle design to undermine the true genuine holiness in the hearts of men?  And by this time the church of Christ hath found how deep a contrivance it is.  This in all ages hath been to the power of holiness what the ivy is to the oak.  The wanton embraces of this mock holiness round about religion, hath killed the heart of scriptural holiness wherever it hath prevailed.  It is to the true holiness as the concubine is to the true wife, who is sure to draw the husband’s love from her.  This brat the devil hath long put out to nurse to the Romish church, which hath taken a great deal of pains to bring it up for him, and no wonder, when she is so well paid for its maintenance—it having brought her in so much worldly treasure and riches.  No, it is holiness in its naked simplicity, as it is founded on scripture-bottom, and guided by scripture-rule, that he is a sworn enemy against.  Indeed, this is the flag which the soul hangs out, and by which it gives defiance to the devil; no wonder if he strives to shoot it down. Now, and not till now, the creature really declares himself a friend to God, and an enemy to the king­dom of darkness; and here is the ground of that quar­rel, which will never cease so long as he continues an unclean spirit, and they to be the holy ones of God. ‘All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution,’ II Tim. 3:12.

           Mark, what it is that makes the devil and his in­struments take arms and breathe slaughter against Chris­tians—it is their godliness.  Many specious pretenses persecutors have to disguise their malice; but the Spirit of God, that looks through all their hypocritical mufflers, is privy to the cabinet-counsels of their hearts, and those instructions they have from the devil, which worketh so mightily in them.  He tells us, he that will live godly shall be persecuted.  Downright godliness is the butt they level their arrows at.

           Again, observe the kind of godliness at which their blood rises, ‘all that will live godly in Christ Jesus.’  There are more sorts of holiness and godli­ness than one.  But all may have fair quarter at the devil’s hands, except this godliness in Christ Jesus. The devil hath an implacable malice against Christ. He hates, as I may so say, every letter of his name. That godliness which is learned of him, and derived from him, he opposeth unto death.  Christian blood is sweeter to his tooth, but the blood of the Chris­tian’s godliness is far sweeter.  He had rather, if he could, kill that, than them—rather draw the Christian from his godliness, than butcher him for it; yet, that he may not stand out, he will play at small game, and express his cruelty upon their bodies, but it is only when he cannot come at their souls.  ‘They were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain,’ Heb. 11:37.  That which these bloody men principally desired, was to draw them into sin, and make apostates of them; and therefore they tempted them before they slew them.  The devil accounts that the complete victory—when he can despoil them of their armour, and bribe them from their steadfastness in their holy profession.  ‘Let her be defiled, and let her eye look upon Zion,’ Micah 4:11.  He had rather see saints defiled with unrigh­teousness and sin than defiled with their blood and gore.  Persecution, he hath learned, doth but mow the church, which afterward comes up thicker for it; it is unholiness that ruins it.  Persecutors do but plough God’s field for him, while he is sowing it with the blood that they let out; but profaneness—that roots it up, and lays it all waste, consciences and churches also.

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God’s great design—his people’s holiness.

Fourth. It is the great design God drives at in his word and ordinances, to make his people holy and righteous.  The word of God—it is both seed to beget, and food to nourish, holiness begotten in the heart. Every part of it contributes to this design abundantly.  The preceptive part affords a perfect rule of holiness for the saint to walk by, not accommodated to the humours of any, as man’s laws are.  These make their laws to fit the crooked minds of men, as tailors their garments to fit the crooked bodies they are [designed] for.  The commands of God gratify the lusts of none. They are suited to the holy nature of God, not the unholy hearts of men. 

 The promises present us with admirable encouragements to toll and allure us on in the way of holiness.  All of them [are] so warily laid, that an unholy heart cannot, without violence to his conscience, lay claim to any of them—God having set that flaming sword, conscience, in the sinner’s bosom, to keep him off from touching or tasting the fruit of this tree of life—and if any profane heart be so bold, while he is walking in the ways of unrighteousness, as to finger any of the treasure that is locked up in the promises, it doth not long stay in their hands, but God, sooner or later, makes them throw it away as Judas his ‘thirty pieces’—their consciences telling them they are not the right owners.  False comforts from the promises, like riches, which Solomon speaks of, ‘make themselves wings and fly away’ from the un­holy wretch, when he thinks he is most sure of them. Again the threatenings—the minatory part of the word—this runs like a devouring gulf on either side of the narrow path of holiness and righteousness, ready to swallow up every soul that walks not therein.  ‘For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men,’ Rom. 1:18. To the promissory and minatory is annexed the ex­emplary part of the word, as Bible instances to con­firm our faith concerning truth and certainty of both. The promises—they are backed with the example of holy men and women, who have beaten the path of holiness for us, and ‘through faith and patience’ in their holy course, have at last ‘obtained’ the comfort of ‘the promises’ in heaven’s bliss, to the unspeakable encouragement of all that are ascending the hill after them.  To the threatenings are annexed many sad ex­amples of unholy souls who have undone themselves, and damned their own souls in unholy ways—whose carcasses are, as it were, thrown upon the shore of the word, and exposed to our view in reading and hearing of it, that we may be kept from being engulfed in those sins that were their perdition.  ‘These things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted,’ I Cor. 10:6.

Thus we see how the whole composition of the Scripture befriends holiness, and speaks what the de­sign of God therein is, to carry on which the more strongly, God hath appointed many holy ordinances to quicken the word upon our hearts.  Indeed all of them are but the word in several forms; hearing, prayer, sacraments, meditation, and holy conference. The word is the subject-matter of them all; only, as a wise physician, doth prepare the same drug several ways—sometimes to be taken one way, sometimes another—to make it more effectual, and [to] refresh his patient with variety; so the Lord, consulting our weakness, doth by his word, administering it to us now in this, and anon in that ordinance, for our great­er delight and profit, aiming still at the same end in all, even the promoting of holiness in the hearts and lives of his people.  And what are they all, but as veins and arteries by which Christ conveys the life-blood and spirits of holiness into every member of his mys­tical body?  The church is the garden, Christ is the fountain, [and] every ordinance, as a pipe from him, to water all the beds in his garden.  And why? but to make them more abun­dant in the fruits of righteousness.

Fifth. It is his design in all his providences.  ‘All things’—that is all providences especially—‘work to­gether for good to them that love God,’ Rom. 8:28. And how do they work for their good, but by making them more good and more holy?  Providences are good and evil to us, as they find, or make us, better or worse. Nothing is good to him that is evil.  As makes use of all the seasons of the year for the harvest—the frost and cold of the winter, as well as the heat of the summer—so doth he, of fair and foul, pleasing and unpleasing providences, for promoting holiness.  win­ter providences kill the weeds of lust, and summer providences ripen and mellow the fruits of righteous­ness.  When he afflicts it is for our profit, to make us partakers of his holiness, Heb. 12.10.  Afflictions Bernard compares to the tease, which, though it be sharp and scratching, is to make the cloth more pure and fine.  God would not rub so hard if it were not to fetch out the dirt that is ingrained in our natures. God loves purity so well that he had rather see a hole than a spot in his child’s garments.  When he deals more gently in his providences, and lets his people under the sunny bank of comforts and enjoyments, fencing them from the cold blasts of affliction, it is to draw forth the sap of grace, and hasten their growth in holiness.  

Paul understood this, when he besought the saints at Rome, ‘by the mercies of God, to present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God,’ Rom. 12:1, implying that mercies came from God to us on this very errand, and that God might reason­ably expect a such a return.  The husbandman, when he lays his compost on the ground, looks to receive it at harvest again in a fuller crop; and so doth God, by his mercies.  Therefore doth he so vehemently com­plain of Israel’s ingratitude, ‘She did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal,’ Hosea 2:8.  God took it ill, and well might he, that they should entertain Baal at his cost.  If God sends in any cheer to us, he would have us know that it is for his own entertainment, he means to come and sup upon his own charge.  And what dish is it that pleaseth God’s palate?  Surely he would not have his people eat of any unclean thing, will not himself.  They are the pleasant fruits of holiness and righteousness which Christ comes into his garden to feed on: ‘I am come into my garden, my sister, [my] spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk,’ Song 5:1.

REASONS WHY the Christian Should Have Care to Keep on his Breastplate 2/3

God’s great design—his people’s holiness.

Were it possible —which is the height of all blasphemy to think—that the holiness of God could be separated from any of his attributes or works, God himself would cease to be glorious; his sovereignty would degenerate into tyran­ny, his wisdom into craft, his justice into cruelty, &c.  Now the glory of all God's attributes and works re­sulting from his holiness in them all; it follows, that then we glorify God, when we give him the glory of his holiness, and who but a holy creature will or can do that?  While man stands under the power of sin, how can he give God the glory of that which his own sinful nature makes him defy and hate God for?  Had Christ’s therefore been to procure man a pardon, and not to restore his lost holiness, he had been but a minister of sin’s, and instead of bringing glory to God, had set sin in the throne, and only obtained a liberty for the creature to dishonour God without control. Again, man's happiness could not have been obtained without a recovery of his lost holiness.  Man’s hap­piness stands in his likeness to God, and his fruition of God.  He must have the first before he can enjoy the latter; he must be like God before God can take any liking in him.  And God must take full content in man, before he admits him to the enjoyment of him­self, which that he may do, Christ undertakes to make his people ‘holy as God is holy.’ 

 You see now what was the great design that the heart of Christ was so full with, to ‘make us a holy people.’  Well therefore may the apostle bring in that heavy charge against all unholy professors, which he doth with tears, ‘that they are enemies of the cross of Christ,’ Php. 3:18.  Christ came to destroy the works of the devil.  The loose unholy walker—he goes about to destroy the work of Christ.  The Lord Jesus lays down his heart’s blood to redeem souls out of the hand of sin and Satan, that they may be free to serve God, without fear, in holi­ness; and the loose Christian, if I may call him so, ‘denies the Lord that bought him,’ and delivers up himself basely unto his old bondage, from which Christ had ransomed him with so great a sum.  Whose heart doth not tremble at such horrid ingratitude?

Third. It is God’s great design, in the regen­erating work of the Spirit on the hearts of his people, to make them righteous, and to fit them to walk holily before him, Eze. 36:26,27, where God promiseth ‘a new heart,’ and to ‘put his Spirit into them.’  And why will he do this? that he may cause them to ‘walk in his statutes, keep his judgments, and do them.’  An old heart would have served well enough to have done the devil’s drudgery withal.  But God intending them for more high and noble employment, to lift up their head out of sin’s prison, and prefer them to his own service, therefore he throws away their jail-clothes, and beautifies them with the graces of his Spirit, that their hearts suit their work.  When God ordered the temple to be built with such curious care and costly materials, he declared that he intended it for holy use.  That however was not so glorious as the spiritual temple of a regenerate heart is, which is the ‘work­manship’ of God himself, Eph. 2:10.  And for what in­tent reared by him?  If we read on we may see, ‘cre­ated in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.’  This accents the unrighteousness and unholiness of a saint with a circumflex; it lays a deeper aggravation I mean upon his sin, than others’, because committed against such a work of the Spirit as none have in the world besides.  A sin acted in the temple was greater than if the same had been committed by a Jew in his private dwelling, because the temple was a consecrated place. The saint is a consecrated person, and, by acts of unrighteousness, he profanes God’s temple.  

The sin of another is theft, because he robs God of the glory due to him; but the sin of a saint is sacrilege, because he robs God of that which is devoted to him in an especial manner.  Better not to repent at all than to repent of our repentance.  ‘Better not to vow’ and dedicate ourselves to him, and after this to inquire how we may evade and repeal this act.  Such a one tells the world he finds some 'iniquity in God,’ that alters the opinion and practice formerly taken up by him.  In a word, the saint is not only by the Spirit consecrated to God, but is by him indued with a new life from God: ‘you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins,’ Eph. 2:1.  A noble princi­ple of high extraction hath been given you on a high design, that you should live up to that principle in righteousness and holiness.  When God breathed a rational soul into man, he intended not that he should live with the beasts, and as the beasts; nor that thou shouldst have thy conversation as a mere carnal man doth; but that ‘as thou hast received Christ, so thou shouldst walk in him,’ Col. 2:6.

The apostle blames the Corinthians for living below themselves, and like the poor-spirited men of the world, in their corrupt passions.  ‘Are ye not car­nal,...and walk as men?’ I Cor. 3:3.  When thou, Christian, actest unholily, thou sinnest at a high rate indeed.  Others sin against the light of God in their consciences.  That is the furthest they can go.  But thou sinnest against the life of God in thy very heart. The more unnatural any act is, the more horrid.  It is unnatural for a man to be cruel to his own flesh; for a woman to go about to kill the child in her womb.  O how your ears tingle at such a flagitious act!  What then art thou going to do, when, by thy unholy walk­ing, thou art killing the babe of grace in thy soul?  Is Herod marked for a bloody man that would have butchered Christ newly born in the world, and canst thou, without horror, attempt the murdering of Christ newly formed in thy heart?

REASONS WHY the Christian Should Have Care to Keep on his Breastplate 1/3

I shall adduce some reasons why the Christian should have especial care to keep on the breastplate of righteous­ness;—that is, exhibit the power of a holy and righteous life.

           

First.  In regard of God, whose great design is, to have his people ‘a holy people.’  Second. In re­gard of Satan, whose design is as much against the saints’ holiness as God is for it.  Third. In regard of holiness itself, the incomparable  excellency of which commands us to pursue it.

God’s great design—his people’s holiness.

          

 Reason First. In regard of God, whose great design is, to have his people ‘a holy people.’  This is enough to oblige, yea to provoke, every Christian to promote what God hath so strongly set upon his heart to effect.  He deserves to be cashiered that endeav­ours not to pursue what his general declares to be his design; and he to have his name blotted out of Christ’s muster-roll whose heart stands not on tiptoes ready to march, yea to run, on his design.  It is an honourable epitaph which Paul sets on the memory of David, long before deceased, that he, ‘in his own gen­eration served the will of God,’ Acts 13:36.  He made it the business of his life to carry on God's designs: and all gracious hearts touched with the same loadstone of God’s love stand to the same point.  All the private ends of a sincere soul are swallowed up in this, that he may ‘do the will of God in his generation.’  This he heartily prays for, ‘Thy will be done.’  This is his study—to find what is the ‘good and acceptable will of God,’ which is the very cause why he loves the Bible above all the books of the world beside, because in none but that can he find what is the mind and will of God concerning him.  Now I shall endeavour to show that this is the great design of God to have his people holy.  It runs like a silver thread through all God’s other designs.

          

 First. It appears in his very decrees, which—so far as they are printed and exposed to our view in the Scripture—we may safely look into.  What was God driving at in his electing some out of the lump of mankind? was it only their impunity he desired, that while others were left to swim in torment and misery, they should only be exempted from that infelicity?  No, sure.  The apostle will tell us more.  ‘He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy,’ Eph. 1:4.  Mark, not because he foresaw that they would be of themselves ‘holy,’ but ‘that they should be holy;’ this was what God resolved he would make them to be.  It was as if some curious workman, seeing a forest of trees growing upon his own ground—all alike, not one better than another—should mark some above all the rest, and set them apart in his thoughts, as resolving to make some rare pieces of workmanship out of them.  Thus God chose some out of the lump of mankind, whom he set apart for this purpose—to carve his own image upon them, which consists in ‘righteousness and true holiness’—a piece of such rare workmanship, that when God hath finished it, and shall show it to men and angels, it will appear to exceed the fabric of heaven and earth itself.

Second. It was his design in sending his Son into the world.  It could be no small occasion that brought him hither.  God wants not servants to go on his or­dinary errands.  The glorious angels, who behold his face continually, are ready to fly wherever he sends them.  But here God had a work to do of such im­portance, that he would put trust, not in his servants, but [in] his Son alone to accomplish.  Now, what God’s design was in this great work will appear by knowing what Christ’s was, for they—both Father and Son—were agreed what should be done before he came upon the stage of action.  See therefore the very bottom of Christ’s heart in this his great undertaking opened.  He ‘gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works,’ Titus 2:14. Had man kept his primitive righteousness, Christ’s pain and pains had been spared.  It was man’s lost holiness he came to recover.  It had not been an enterprise becoming the greatness and holiness of such a one as the Son of God to engage for less than this. Both God and man, between whom Christ comes to negotiate, call for holiness—God’s glory and man’s happiness; neither of which can be attained except holiness be restored to man.  Not God’s glory, who, as he is glorious in the holiness of his own nature and works, so is he glorified by the holiness of his people’s hearts and lives.  

THE CHRISTIAN’S SPECIAL CARE—TO KEEP ON HIS BREASTPLATE

  

  It is now time, having measured the ground, to lay the bottom stone on which the structure from these words is to be reared.  I thought to have drawn out several points as distinct foundations, to build our dis­course upon, but shall now choose to unite all in a single point—as one main building—though I make a few more rooms therein to entertain what else should have been handled severally.  The point is this—

           Doctrine. That he who means to be a Christian indeed, must endeavour to maintain the power of holi­ness and righteousness in his life and conversation.  This is to have ‘the breastplate of righteousness’ and to have it on also.  He is a holy righteous man that hath a work of grace and holiness in his heart, as he is a living man that hath a principle of life in him.  But he maintains the power of holiness that exerts this vigorously in his daily walking; as he the power of natural life, in whom the principle of life seated in the heart empowers every member to do its particular office in the body strenuously.  Thus walked the primitive Christians, ‘in whose veins,’ saith Jerome, ‘the blood of Christ was yet warm.’  Their great care was to keep on this breast­plate of righteousness close and entire, that it neither might loosen by negligence nor be broken by presump­tuous sinning. 

The character then that a saint was known by from other men, was his holy walking, Luke 1:6. There it is said of Zacharias and Elizabeth, ‘They were both righteous before God, walking in all the com­mandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.’  This was also holy Paul’s everyday exercise, ‘to have al­ways a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men,’ Acts 24:16.  Never did any more curiously watch the health of their body, than he attended to the health of his soul, that no unholiness or unrighteous­ness—which is the only bane of it—might distemper and defile it.  And truly we, who come after such holy ones in the same profession, do bind ourselves to our good behaviour, that we will walk holily and righteously as they did.  The point carries its evidence on its forehead, and needs rather pressing than proving; and there­fore I may be pardoned if the demonstrations of the point be handled as well in the character of motives to, as of reasons for, the duty.  This will spare work in the application.  

FIRST.  Then I shall adduce some reasons why the Christian should have especial care to keep on the breastplate of righteousness; that is, to exhibit the power of a holy and righteous life.

SECOND.  I shall mention several instances wherein specially every Christian is to express the power of a holy and righteous life.  

THIRD. I shall lay down some direc­tions, by way of counsel and help, to all those who desire to maintain the power of holiness and righteousness in their daily walking.  These several branches we now proceed to take up in their order, applying them at the close.

Connection of the Breastplate and Girdle

           The words being thus opened, the observations are easily drawn from them.  But the copulative ‘and,’ with which this piece of armour is so closely buckled to the former, bids us make a little stand, to take notice how lovingly truth and holiness are here conjoined, like the sister-curtains of the tabernacle, Ex. 26:13, so called in the Hebrew; and it is a pity any should unclasp them which God hath so fitted to each other.  Let this then be the note from hence: Note. That truth and holiness must go together.

           First. Take truth, for truth of doctrine.  An orthodox judgment, with an unholy heart and an ungodly life, is as uncomely as a man’s head would be on a beast’s shoulders.  That man hath little cause to brag that what he holds is truth, if he doth be wicked.  Poor wretch, if thou beest a slave to the devil, it matters not to what part thy chain be fastened, whether to the head or foot.  He holds thee as sure to him by thy foot in thy practice as he would by thy head, if heretical and blasphemous; yea, thou art worse on it in some respects than they who are like themselves all over.  Thy wickedness is greater, because committed in the face of truth.  Many—the mistakes of their erroneous judgments, betray them unto the unholiness of their practice.  Their wicked lives are the conclusion which follows necessarily upon the premises of their errors.  But thy judgment lights thee another way, except thou meanest further to accumulate thy sin by fathering thy unholiness on truth itself.  They only miss their way to heaven in the dark, or are mislead by a false light of erroneous judgment, which possibly, rectified, would bring them back into the path of holiness; but thou sinnest by the broad light of truth, and goest on boldly to hell at noon-day; like the devil himself, who knows truth from error well enough but hates to be ruled by it.  Should a minstrel sing to a sweet tune with her voice and play to another with her hand that is harsh and displeasing, such music would more grate the judicious ear than if she had sung to what she had played.  Thus, to sing to truth with our judgment, and play wickedness with our heart and hand in our life, is more abhorring to God and all good men, than where the judgment is erroneous as well as the life ungodly.  Nahash had not enraged David so much, if he had come with an army of twenty thousand men into the field against him, as he did by abusing his ambassadors so basely.  The open hostility which many express by their ungodly lives, does not so much provoke God as the base usage they give to his truth, which he sends to treat with them, yea, in them.  This kindles the fire of his wrath into a flame of purpose, when he sees men put scorn upon his truth, by walking contrary to the light of it, and imprisoning it from having any command over them in their lives, and yet own it to be the truth of God.

           Second. Take it for truth of heart; and so truth and holiness must go together.  In vain do men pretend to sincerity, if they be unholy in their lives.  God owns no unholy sincerity.  The terms do clash one with another.  Sincerity teacheth the soul to point at the right end of all its actions—the glory of God.  Now it is not enough to set the right end before us, but to walk in the right way to it.  We shall never come at God’s glory out of God’s way.  Holiness and righteousness is the sincere man's path, set by God as a causeway on which he is to walk, both to the glorifying of God and to being glorified by God.  Now he that thinks to find a shorter cut and a nearer way than this, to obtain this end, he takes but pains to undo himself.  As he finds a new way of glorifying God, which God hath not chalked, so he must find a new heaven which God hath not prepared, or else he must go without one to reward him for his pains.  O friends! look to find this stamp of righteousness and holiness on your sincerity.  The proverb saith, ‘Hell is full of good wishes,’—of such, who now, when it is too late, wish they had acted their part otherwise when on earth than they did.  And do you not think there are there more  than a good store of good meanings also? such who pretended, when on earth, they meant well, and their hearts were honest; however, it happened that their lives were otherwise.  What a strange delusion is this?  If one should say, ‘Though all the water the bucket brings up be naught and stinking, yet that which is in the well is all sweet,’ who would believe him?  Thy heart upright, and thy meanings good, when all that proceeds from thy heart in thy life is wicked!  How can it be?  Who will believe thee? surely thou dost not thyself