Part 122 HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
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Part 123 HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
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Seventhly, As God is independently holy—just so, God is CONSTANTLY holy, he is UNCHANGEABLY holy. He was holy yesterday, and he is holy today, and he will be holy forever. What is natural is constant and lasting. Now God's holiness is natural to him; it is as natural for God to be holy, as it is for us to breathe, yes, as it is for us to be unholy. God can as well and as soon cease to be, as he can cease to be holy. Holiness is his nature as well as his name; and therefore his holiness cannot decay, though ours may. Whatever we may lose of our holiness—yet it is certain that God can never lose one grain of that holiness that is in him.
Here our holiness ebbs and flows—but the holiness of God never ebbs—but is always a-flowing and overflowing, there is still a full tide of holiness in God. Though the saints cannot fall from that seed of holiness, which is sown in their hearts, 1 John 3:9—yet they may fall from some degrees of holiness that they have formerly attained to. Those who have been old men in holiness, may fall from being old men—to be but young men in holiness; and those who have been young men in holiness may fall from being young men to be but children in holiness; and those who have been children in holiness may fall from being children to be but babes in holiness, 1 John 2:12-14; 2 Pet. 2:1-3. But that holiness which is in God is never subject to any decayings, abatings, or languishing. That spring, that sea of holiness that is in God, is incapable of diminution or of augmentation.
Plato could say that God is one and the same, and always like himself. And it was a custom among the Turks to cry out every morning from a high tower, God always was, and always will be; and so salute their Mahomet. O sirs, God has been always holy, and God will be always holy. Whatever men may lose—yet God is resolved that he will never lose his honor nor his holiness. But,
Eighthly and lastly, As God is continually holy—just so, God is exemplarily holy. [Lev. 20:26. Remember this—you and I must answer for examples as well as precepts.] He is the rule, pattern, and example of holiness: 1 Pet. 1:15, "Be holy, as I am holy." God's holiness is the great example and pattern of all that holiness which is in the creatures. God's holiness is the copy that we must always have in our eye, and endeavor most exactly to write after.
Carnal friends, and this blind world, and Antichrist, and such as love to lord it over the consciences of others, will be still a-presenting to you other examples and patterns—but it is your wisdom and your work to cast them all behind your backs, and to trample them under your feet, and to follow that form and pattern that the Lord has set before you; and that is, to be holy as he is holy. All our holiness is to be brought to the touchstone of the holiness of God, as the standard and measure of it; and therefore, oh what cause have we to be still a-perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord!
And thus I have done with the second thing, namely—means to increase holiness, and to raise you up to the highest pitches and degrees of holiness.
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Part 123 HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
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