Part 17 HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
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Part 18 HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
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I come now to lay down some means and helps to holiness. Supposing that the language of some of your souls may be this: "Oh, what shall we do to be holy! Oh, what course, what way, what means must we use that we may obtain this holiness, without which we now clearly see that we shall never come to a fruition of happiness!" Methinks I hear some of you crying out, "Oh, nothing but holiness, nothing but holiness!" as that martyr once cried out, "Oh, none but Christ, none but Christ!" Methinks I hear you crying out, "Oh, give me holiness--or I die!" as Samson once cried out, "Give me water—or I die;" or as Rachel once cried out, "Give me children—or I die." Just so, you cry out, "Oh, give us holiness—or we die! Give us holiness, or we eternally die! Oh, what shall we do to be holy! We see we are undone without holiness, we shall be damned without holiness. Oh, that we were but made holy—that hereafter we may be assuredly happy!"
Well, then, if you are in good earnest resolved to be holy, I would thus advise and counsel you in these sixteen particulars:
First, take heed of some things. There are six things you must avoid and shun.
Secondly, Labor to put in practice these ten things.
I. The six things that you are to avoid and shun, even as you would shun poison in your food, or a serpent in your way, yes, as you would shun the devil himself, or hell itself, are these:
1. First, Take heed of mistaking some particular scriptures, as that of Ezek. 14:6; 18:30-32, and 33:11, 14, 16, 19. From these and such like scriptures, many unholy hearts are apt to conclude that they can repent when they please, and that though they do defer their repentance—yet it is no such difficult thing to confess their sins at the last moment of life, and to be sorry for their sins at the last moment, and to forsake their sins at the last moment, and to beg the pardon of their sins at at the last moment. And that if they do so, they imagine that God has given his word for it, he has given it under his own hand—that he will pardon their sins, and save their souls. Now to prevent these soul-undoing mistakes, you must know, O sinner,
[1.] First, That you can as well wash a black man white at pleasure—as you can repent at pleasure! You can as well raise the dead at pleasure—as you can repent at pleasure! You can as well make a world at pleasure—as you can repent at pleasure! You can as well stop the course of the sun at pleasure—as you can repent at pleasure! You can as well put the sea in a cockle-shell at pleasure—and measure the earth with a ruler at pleasure—as you can repent at pleasure. Witness the proofs in the margin. [Jer. 13:23, and 31:18; Lam. 5:21; Acts 5:31; Eph. 1:17-19; 2 Tim. 2:25; Acts 11:18.]
I confess that if to repent were to hang down the head like a bulrush for a day, or to whine with Saul for an hour, or to put on sackcloth and walk softly with Ahab for a short space, or to confess with Judas, "I have sinned," or to say with Simon Magus, "Pray to the Lord for me," or to tremble with Felix for a moment—I say, if this were to repent, doubtless you might repent at pleasure; but alas! friends, to repent is another thing, to repent is the hardest and most difficult work in the world; and that will appear in the next particular. And therefore,
[2.] Secondly, To repent is to turn a heart of flint into a heart of flesh; it is to turn darkness into light; it is to turn hell into heaven—and is this easy? To repent is to make all clean: inside clean, and outside clean. To repent is to make a clean head and a clean heart; a clean lip and a clean life—and is this easy? [Ezek. 36:25, 26; Acts 26:18; Ezek. 16:61-63, and 29:43; 2 Cor. 7:10-11.] True repentance includes a true sense of sin, a deep sorrow for sin, a hearty loathing of sin, and a holy shame and blushing for sin—and is this easy? To repent is for a man to loathe himself as well as his sin—and is this easy for man, who is so great a self-lover, and so great a self-exalter, and so great a self-admirer, to become a self-loather? To repent is to cross sinful self, it is to walk contrary to sinful self, yes, it is to revenge a man's self upon himself—and is this easy? To repent is to pluck out right eyes, and to cut off right hands, and offer up only Isaacs—and is this easy? True repentance is a daily turning of the soul further and further from sin, and a daily turning of the soul nearer and nearer to God. It is a repentance not to be repented of; it is a repentance from sin, as well as a repentance for sin. Sin has cast the soul at such a distance from God, that though the soul be every day a-turning nearer and nearer to God—yet it can never, in this life, get so near him as once it was, and as in heaven it shall be. And now tell me, O soul, is this such an easy thing, to be every day a-turning your back upon sin, and a-turning your face nearer and nearer to God? Surely not! True repentance lies in a daily dying to sin, and in a daily living to him who lives forever. The very life of repentance is the repentance of the life: and is this easy? But,
[3.] Thirdly, True repentance is a turning, not from some sin—but from every sin. Ezek. 18:30, "Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall." Every sin strikes at the law of God, the honor of God, the being of God, and the glory of God; and therefore the penitent must strike at all. Every sin fetches blood from the heart of Christ, and every sin is a grief and vexation to the Holy Spirit; and therefore the penitent must set upon crucifying of all. [Ezek. 18:21, 31, and 20:43. He who had the spot of leprosy in any one part of his body was accounted a leper, although all the rest of his body were sound and whole, Lev. 13. Just so, he who has but one spot, one sin which he does not endeavor to wash out in the blood of Christ, and in the tears of true repentance, he is a leper in the account of God.]
Every sin is an enemy to a man's peace, and to a man's comfort, and to a man's confidence, and to a man's assurance, and to a man's communion with God; and therefore he must set upon forsaking of all. If ever you are saved, O man, you must repent of your Achans—as well as your Absaloms. You must repent of your Rimmons—as well as your Mammons. You must repent of your Davids—as well as of your Goliaths. You must repent of your secret sins—as well as your open sins. You must repent of your loved sins—as well as well as of your loathed lusts. You must repent of your babe-transgressions—as well as of your giant-like provocations. If your repentance is not universal, it will never be effectual. If a ship springs three leaks, and only two are stopped—the third will certainly sink the ship. Or if a man has two mortal wounds in his body, and takes only the remedy for the cure of one—the other will undoubtedly kill him. Or if a man has two mortal diseases upon him, and will only deal with the physician for a remedy against the one—he will, without all question, perish by the prevalence of the other.
Herod turned from many sins—but not from his Delilah, his Herodias, which was his ruin. Judas, you know, was a devil in an angel's dress; he seemed to be turned from every sin—but he was a secret thief, he loved the bag; and that golden devil, covetousness, choked him, and hanged him at last. Saul for a time turned from several evils—but his sparing one, Agag, cost him his soul and his kingdom at once.
I have read a story of a devout man, who among other gifts had the gift of healing, and many people resorted to him for cure. Among the rest, one Chromatius, who being sick, sent for him, and told him of his sickness, and desired that he might have the benefit of cure, as others had before him. The devout man replied, "I cannot do it until you have beaten all the idols in your house to pieces." "Oh, that shall be done," said Chromatius. "Here, take my keys, and where you find any idols, break them in pieces;" which accordingly was done. Upon this the devout man went to prayer—but no cure was wrought; whereupon the sick man cried out, "Oh, I am as sick as ever! oh, I am very weak and sick still!" "It cannot be otherwise," replied the devout person, "neither can I help it, for there is doubtless one idol yet in your house undiscovered, and that must be defaced too." "True," says Chromatius, "it is so indeed, it is all of beaten gold, it cost a fortune. I would gladly have saved it—but here take my keys again, you shall find it fast locked up in my chest, break it also in pieces;" which being done, the devout man prayed, and Chromatius was healed.
The moral of it is good—the sin-sick soul must break, not some—but all its idols in pieces, before a cure will follow. It must deface its golden idols, its most costly idols, its most darling idols! The returning sinner must make headway against all his sins, and trample upon all his lusts—or else he will die and be undone forever; and though this be as difficult as it is noble—yet it is no more than what God has engaged to do, and to see done, as you may see by comparing Ezek. 36:25-27 with Isaiah 30:21-22. "Then you will defile your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them—Away with you!" Isaiah 30:22
Now is this an easy thing, to turn from every sin, to loathe every sin, and to abandon every sin, with an "Away with you—for what have I more to do with you!" Surely not! "Ephraim shall say—What have I to do any more with idols?" Hosea 14:8. As Nehemiah cast out Tobiah and all his household stuff, in Neh. 13:6-8—just so, true repentance, it casts out Satan and all his retinue. As Moses would not leave so much as a hoof behind him, Exod. 10:26—just so, true repentance will not leave so much as a lust behind. A dispensatory conscience is always an evil conscience; he who can dispense with one sin, will, when opportunity presents, commit any sin. And as the flood made clean work, it swept away all Noah's friends, and drowned all his servants—just so, the flood of penitent tears makes clean work, it sweeps away every lust, it drowns every corruption—in respect of love and dominion. And as conquerors will not give so much as one of their enemies quarter, so true repentance will not give one lust quarter; it falls heavily upon the bones of every sin, and nothing but the blood and death of sin will satisfy the penitent soul.
The true penitent is for the mortifying of every lust which has had a hand in crucifying of his dearest Savior. It was worthily and wittily said by one, that "true repentance strips us stark naked of all the garments of the old Adam, and leaves not so much as the shirt behind." Well, sirs, remember this, to repent of sin—and yet to live in sin—is a contradiction. "If you repent with a contradiction," says Tertullian, "God will pardon you with a contradiction. You repent and yet continue in your sin, God will pardon you—and yet send you to hell. There is a pardon with a contradiction." Again,
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Part 18 HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
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