The Fountain of Life Opened Up

Moreover, all, except those who then survive on the earth, will have passed their particular judgment long before that day. And being therein acquitted by God, the judge of all, justified and admitted into heaven, Christ cannot now condemn them with the world. Nay, he that judges them is their head, husband, friend, and brother, who loved them and gave himself for them. O then, with what confidence may they go, even unto his throne, and say with Job, Though he try us as fire, we shall come forth as gold. We know that we shall be justified. And more than this, they themselves shall be the assessors with Christ in that day. No, it is not the business of that day to condemn them, but to absolve and pronounce them pardoned and justified, in that time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. Acts 3.19. A time of refreshing indeed to his people. You that now believe shall not come into condemnation. John 5.24. You that now judge yourselves shall not be condemned with the world. 1 Corinthians 11 verses 31 and 32. Number 2. If Christ be ordained of God to be the judge of the quick and dead, how miserable will Christless souls be at that day! They that are Christless now will be speechless, helpless and hopeless then. How will their hands hang down and their knees smite together! O what pale faces, quivering lips, fainting hearts, and biting consciences will be among them in that day! O dreadful day! O astonishing sight to see the world in a dreadful conflagration, the elements melting, the stars falling, the earth trembling, the judgments set, the prisoners brought forth! O who shall endure this day but those that by union with Christ are secured against its danger and dread? Let me demand of poor Christless souls whom this day is likely to take unawares, do you think it possible to avoid appearing when terrible citation is given by the trump of God? Alas, how can you imagine it? Is not the same power that revived your dust able to bring you before his bar? There is a necessity that you must come forth. We must all appear. 2 Corinthians 5.10. It is not in the sinner's choice to obey the summons or not. And if you must appear, are there no accusers nor witnesses that will appear against you and confront you in the court? What think you? Was Satan so often a tempter to you here, and will he not be an accuser there? Yes, nothing more sure, for that was the main design of all his temptations. What think you of your own conscience? Is it not privy to your secret wickedness? Does it not now sometimes whisper in your ear what you do not like to hear? If it whisper now, it will thunder then. Romans 2.15.16 Will not the Spirit accuse you for resisting his motions and stifling thousands of his convictions? Will not your companions in sin accuse you who drew or were drawn by you to sin? Will not your spiritual teachers be your accusers? How many times have you made them complain, Lord they are iron and brass, they have made their faces harder than a rock, they refuse to turn. Will not your very relations be your accusers to whom you have failed in all your relative duties? Yea, and everyone whom you have tempted to sin, abused, defrauded, overreached, all these will be your accusers. Then being accused before Jesus Christ, what will you plead? Will you confess or will you deny the charge? If you confess, what need more? Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, saith Christ. Luke 19.22 If you deny and plead not guilty, thy judge is the searcher of hearts, and knoweth all things, so that it will not at all help thee to make alive thy last refuge. This will add to the guilt, but not cover it. If no defense or plea be left thee, then what canst thou imagine should be toward the sentence? Why should not Christ go on to that dreadful work? Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Genesis 18.25 Shall he not render to every man according to his deeds? 2 Corinthians 5.10 Yes, no question, but he will proceed to that sentence, how terrible soever it be to you to think of it now, or hear it then. If sentence be once given by Christ against thy soul, what canst thou imagine will hinder the execution? Will he alter the thing that is gone out of his mouth? Psalm 89.34 Dost thou hope he is more merciful and pitiful than this? Thou mistakest, if thou expect mercy in any other way than that in which he hath revealed it. Thousands and ten thousands will rejoice in and magnify his mercy then, but they are such as obeyed his call, repented, believed, and obtained union with his person here. To unbelievers it is against the subtle law of Christ and the constitution of the gospel to show mercy. But it may be you think your tears, your cries, your pleadings with him may move him. These indeed might have availed in time, but they come out of season now, alas, too late. What the success of such pleas and cries will be, it hath told you in two passages of Scripture. What is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained, when God taketh away his soul? Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him? Job 27.8-9 Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devil, and in thy name have done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Matthew 7 verses 22 and 23. And lest it come to this dismal issue with you indeed, God forbid it should. Oh then, number three, if Christ be appointed the judge of all, how are all concerned to secure their interest in him, and therein an eternity of happiness to their own souls, by a living faith in his all-cleansing blood? Of all the business that men have in this world, there is none so solemn, so necessary, and important as this. Oh, this is a work, the very thought of the consequences of which might drink up your spirits. Summon then thy powers of reflection and consideration. Go alone, reader, and forgetting all other things, ponder with thyself this thine own deep, dear, eternal concern. Examine the state of thine own soul. Look into the scriptures, then into thine own heart, and then to heaven, saying, Lord, let me not be deceived in so great a concern as this. Oh, let not the trifles of time drive the impressions of death, judgment, and eternity from my heart. Oh, that that solemn word, eternity, might be night and day with thee, that the awe of it might bestow upon thy spirit. A lady, having spent the whole afternoon and a great part of the evening at Caird, in mirth and jollity, came home late at night, and finding her waiting-maid reading, she looked over her shoulder upon the book, and said, Poor melancholy soul, why dost thou sit here pouring so long upon thy book? That night she could not sleep, but lay sighing and weeping. Her servant asked her once and again what ailed her. At last she burst into tears, and said, Oh, it was one word that I cast my eye upon in thy book that troubles me. There I saw that word, eternity. How happy were I if I were prepared for eternity! Sure, it concerns us, seeing we look for such things to be diligent, that we may be found of him in peace. Oh, let not that day come by surprise upon you. Remember that as death leaves, so judgment will find you. 4. Is Jesus Christ appointed judge of quick and dead? Then look to it, all you that hope to be found of him in peace, that you avoid sin, and daily practice those duties to which the consideration of that day powerfully persuades you. Do you indeed expect such a day? Oh, then see that you be meek and patient under all injuries and abuses for Christ's sake. Avenge not yourselves, but leave it to the Lord who will do it. Do not anticipate the work of God. Be patient, my brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. James 5, verses 7 and 8. Be communicative, public-hearted Christians, studying and devising liberal things for Christ's distressed members, and you shall have both an honorable remembrance of it and a full reward of it in that day. Matthew 25, verses 34 through 36. Be watchful and sober, keep the golden bridle of moderation upon all your affections, and see that you be not overcharged with the cares and love of this present life. Luke 21, verses 34 and 35. Will you that your Lord come and find you in such a posture? Oh, let your moderation be known unto all men, the Lord is at hand. Philippians 4, verse 5. Improve all your master's talents diligently and carefully, then must you make up your account for them all. But above all, be sincere in your profession. Let your hearts be found in God's statutes, that you may never be ashamed, for this day will be the day of manifestation of all hidden things. Nothing is so secret, but that day will reveal it. Beware of hypocrisy, for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known. Luke 12, verses 1 and 2. Thus I have finished, through divine aid, the whole doctrine of the work of redemption by Jesus Christ. I close with a general concluding appeal. And now let me persuade all those for whom the dear Son of God came from the blessed bosom of the Father, assumed flesh, and laid down His own life a ransom for their souls, for whom He lived, died, rose, ascended, and lives forever in heaven to intercede, to live holy to Christ, as Christ lived and died for us. O brethren, never were the heathen world acquainted with such arguments to deter them from sin, such motives to urge them to holiness, as I now spread before you. My request is that you give up both your hearts and lives to glorify the Father, Son, and Spirit, whose you are. Greater things are expected from you than from other men. See that you turn not all this grace into licentiousness. Think not that because Christ hath done so much for you, you may sit still, much less indulge yourselves in sin, because Christ offered up such an excellent sacrifice for its expiation. No, though Christ came to be a curse, He did not come to be a cloak for sin. If one died for all, then were all dead, that they that live should not henceforth live to themselves, but unto him that died for them. 2 Corinthians 5, verses 14 and 15 O keep your lives pure and clean. If you live in the Spirit, see that you walk in the Spirit. Galatians 5.25 That is, says one, shape and order your lives and actions according to the dictates, instincts, and impulses of the Spirit, and of that grace of the Spirit planted in your heart, which tendeth to practical holiness. O let the grace which is in your hearts flow out in all your actions. Let the faith that is in your hearts appear in your prayers, the obedience of your hearts in hearing, the meekness of your hearts in suffering, the mercifulness of your hearts in distributing, the truth and righteousness of your hearts in trading, the sobriety and temperance of your hearts in eating and drinking. These are the fruits of Christ's suffering indeed. They are sweet fruits. Let grace refine, ennoble, and elevate all your actions, that you may say, Truly our conversation is in heaven. Let grace have the ordering of your tongues and of your hands, the molding of your whole conversation. Let not humility appear in some actions, and pride in others, holy seriousness in some companies, and vanity in others. Suffer not the fountain of corruption to mingle with or pollute the streams of grace. Be you in the fear of the Lord all the day long. Let there be a due proportion between all the parts of your conversation. Approve yourselves the servants of Christ in all things, by pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by the Holy Ghost, by love unsanged, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left. 2 Corinthians 6 verses 6 and 7. See then how circumspectly you walk. Cut off occasion from them that desire occasion, and in well-doing commit yourselves to God, and commend religion to the world. These great duties I shall commend to your consciences by the considerations that the redeemed of the Lord are under the highest obligations to be holy, that they are assisted to a life of holiness, and that God intends to make great use of their lives for the conviction and conversion of others. Roman numeral 1. God hath laid his redeemed under infinite obligations to pure and holy lives. I know the command lies upon all men, even those that cast away the cords of the command, and break Christ's bonds asunder, are yet bound by them, and cannot plead a dispensation to live as they do. Yea, it is not unusual for them to feel the obligations of the command upon their consciences, even when their impetuous lusts free them unto its violation. But there are special ties that bind you to holiness more than others. Many special and peculiar engagements you are under from God, from yourselves, from your brethren, and from your enemies. Roman numeral 1. God hath laid you under infinite obligations to purity and strictness of life. Yea, every person in the blessed Trinity hath cast his cord over your souls, to bind your hearts and lives to the most strict and full obedience of his commands. 1. God the Father hath obliged you to holiness of life, not only by the common tie of creation, and is it reasonable that God, with such infinite skill, should create a being to be employed against him, that he should plant the tree, and another eat the fruit of it? But he also constrained you by his wise and merciful designs and counsels for your recovery and salvation. It was he that laid the cornerstone of your salvation with his own hands. The first motion sprang out of his breast. If God had not designed the Redeemer for you, the world had never seen him. It was the act of the Father to give you to the Son to be redeemed, and then to give the Son to be your Redeemer. Both stupendous and astonishing acts of grace. And in both God acted as a most free agent. O how much owest thou to the Lord for this! And what obligations doth it leave upon thy soul to obey, please, and glorify him? God the Father also binds you by his bountiful remunerations of your obedience. What service didst thou ever perform for him, for which he hath not paid thee a thousand times more than it is worth? Didst thou ever seek him diligently, and not find him a bountiful rewarder? Didst thou ever give a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, and not receive a disciple's reward? Matthew 10.42 Hast thou not found inward peace and comfort flowing into thy soul, on every act of sincere obedience? O what a good master do the saints serve! You that are remiss and inconsistent in your obedience, you that are heartless and cold in duties, hear how your God is postulates with you. Have I been a wilderness to Israel, a land of darkness? Jeremiah 2.31 Have I been a hard master to you? Have you any reason to complain of me? Are fruits of sin like fruits of obedience? Do you know where to find a better master? Why then are you so inconsistent, so sluggish and remiss in my works? Surely God is not flat to fulfill His promise. May you not say with David, This I had, because I kept thy precepts? Psalm 119.56 There are fruits in holiness, even present fruit. It is a high favor to be employed for God, reward enough that He will accept anything thou doest. But to return every duty with such comforts, such quickenings, such inward and outward blessings into thy bosom, so that thou mayest open the treasury of thine own experience, view the variety of encouragement and the tokens of His love received, and say, This I had, and that I had, by waiting on God and serving Him. Oh, what obligations are these upon thee to be ever abounding in the work of the Lord! Though thou must not work for wages, yet God will not let thy work go unrewarded. For He is not unrighteous to forget thy work and labor of love. Your Father hath further obliged you by signifying to you His great delight and pleasure in your holiness and purity of life. He hath told you that such as are upright in their way are His delight. Proverbs 11.20 That He would have you forget not to do good, and to communicate, for with such sacrifices He is well pleased. Hebrews 11.16 You know you cannot walk worthy of the Lord to all pleasing, except ye be fruitful in every good word and work. Colossians 1.10 And what a bond is this upon you to a holy life! Can you please yourself in displeasing your Father? If you have the heart of a child, surely you cannot. Oh, you cannot grieve his spirit by loose and careless walking, but you must grieve your own spirit too. How often hath God pleased and gratified you, and will you not please Him? In many things the Lord hath wonderfully condescended to please you, and now there is but one thing that He desires of you, and that most reasonable, yea, beneficial to you, as well as pleasing to Him. Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1.27 This is the one thing, the great and main thing He expects from you in this world, and will you not do it? Can you expect that He should gratify your desires, when you are so thoughtless of grieving and displeasing Him? Well, if you know what will please God, and yet resolve not to do it, but will rather please your flesh and gratify the devil than Him, pray change your profession, fall into your own rank among hypocrites, and appear as indeed you are. The Father hath further obliged you to strictness and purity of conversation, by His gracious promises to such as so walk. He hath promised to do great things for you, if you order your conversation aright. Psalm 50.23 He will be your sun and shield, if you walk softly before Him. Genesis 15.1 He will give grace and glory, and no good thing will He withhold from him that walketh uprightly. Psalm 84.11 And He promises no more to you than He hath made good to others that have thus walked. If you look to enjoy the good of the promise, you are obliged by all your expectations and hopes to order your life purely and uprightly. This hope will compel you to purge your life as well as your heart from all pollution. Having these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. 2 Corinthians 7.1 Yea, He hath yet more obliged you to strict and holy lives, by His confidence in you, that you thus walk and please Him. He expresses Himself in Scripture as one that dares trust you with His glory, knowing that you will be tender of it. But if a man repose confidence in you and trust you with his concerns, it lays great obligation on you to be faithful. What obligations were laid upon Abraham to walk uprightly when God said of him, I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord. Genesis 18.19 As for this wicked generation, whom I will freely consume in my wrath, they regard not my laws, they trample my commands under their feet, they tear not how they provoke me, but I expect other things from Abraham. I know him, he is a man of another spirit, and what I promise myself from him, he will make good. End of like import is Isaiah 63 verses 7 and 8. I will mention the loving kindness of the Lord, and the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness towards the house of Israel, which He hath bestowed on them, according to His mercies, and according to the multitude of His lovingkindnesses. For he said, Surely they are my people, children that will not lie. So he was their Saviour. Here you have the endearing mercies of God to that people, verse 7, and the Lord's confident expectations of suitable returns from them, verse 8. As if he had said, I made a full account that after all these endearments and favours bestowed upon them, they would not offer to be disloyal and false to me. I have made them sure to myself by so many bonds of love. Surely thou wilt fear me, thou wilt receive instruction. Zephaniah 3 verse 7. O how great are the expectations of God from such as you! You are further bound to a holy life by what the Son hath done for you. Is not this pure and holy life the very aim and end of His death? Did He not shed His blood to redeem you from your vain conversation? 1 Peter 1.18. Was it not the design of all His sufferings that being delivered out of the hands of your enemies, you might serve Him in holiness and righteousness all the days of your life? Luke 1 verses 74 and 75. And is not the Apostle's inference that the world is highly reasonable? If one died for all, then were all dead, and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him that died for them. 2 Corinthians 5 verses 14 and 15. Did Christ only buy your persons, and not your services also? No, whoever hath thy time, thy strength, or any part of either, I can assure thee, Christian, that Christ hath paid for it, and thou givest away what is not thine own. Every moment of thy time is His, every talent, whether of grace or nature, is His. Dost thou defraud Him of His own? O how liberal are you of your precious words and ours, as if Christ had never made a purchase of them! O think of this when the fountain of corruption flows out at thy tongue in idle discourse, or at thy hand in sinful, unwarrantable actions. Doth this become the redeemed of the Lord? Did Christ come from the bosom of His Father for this? Did He endure the cross and lay down His life for this? Was He so well pleased with all His sorrows and sufferings, His pains and agonies, for the joy He should have in seeing the travail of His soul? And doth not this constrain you to guard your own life and keep it pure? O what will constrain you, if this will not? But this is not all. As the weigher casts in weight after weight till the scales are counterpoised, so does God cast in obligation after obligation, and argument upon argument till thy heart, Christian, be won to this heavenly life. And therefore, as Elihu said to Job, Suffer me a little, and I will show thee what I have yet to speak on God's behalf. Job 36.22 I now plead on behalf of the Holy Spirit, who hath so many times helped you to plead for yourselves with God. He that hath so often refreshed, quickened, and comforted you, he will be quenched, grieved, and displeased by an impure, loose, and careless conversation. And what will you do then? Who shall comfort you when the Comforter is departed from you, when He that should relieve your soul is afar off? O grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed to the day of redemption. Ephesians 4.30 There is nothing grieves Him more than an ungodly life, for He is the Holy Spirit. As water damps and quenches the fire, so doth sin quench the Spirit. 1 Thessalonians 5.19 Will you quench the warm affections and burning desires which ye have kindled in your bosoms? If you do, it is a question whether you ever will recover them again to your dying day. The Spirit is grieved when thy corruptions within are stirred by temptations, and break out to the defiling of thy life. Then is the Holy Spirit of God, as it were, made sad and heavy within thee, as that expression, Grieve not, Ephesians 4.30 may be rendered. For thus thou resisteth His motions, whereby as a loving constraint He would lead and guide thee in the way of thy duty. Yea, thou not only resist His motions, but cross His grand design, which is to purge and sanctify thee wholly, and build thee up more and more to the perfection of holiness. And when thou dost forsake Him and cross His design in thy soul, then doth He usually withdraw, as a man that is grieved by the unkindness of his friend. This is the fruit of a careless life. To this sad issue it will bring thee at last. And when it come to this, thou shalt go to ordinances and duties, and find no good in them, no life quickening comfort. When thy heart, which was wont to be enlarged and flowing, shall be withered and dry, when like Samson thou shalt go forth and shake thyself as at other times, but thy strength is gone. Then tell me, what are the awful results of resisting, quenching, and grieving the Holy Spirit of God by an impure and ungodly life? 2. You are under great obligations to your own souls, as well as to God, to keep your lives pure. As God hath bound you to purity of conversation, so you have bound yourselves. There are several things in you, and done by you, which wonderfully increase and strengthen your obligations to practical holiness. Your clearer illumination is a strong bond upon your souls. Ye were sometime darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. Ephesians 5 verse 8. You cannot plead ignorance. You stand convinced in your own consciences before God, that this is your unquestionable duty. Christians, will you not all yield to this? I know you readily yield. We live indeed in a contentious disputing age. In other things our opinions are different. One Christian is of this judgment, another of that. But in this we all meet, in one mind and judgment, that it is our indisputable duty to live pure, strict, and holy lives. The grace of God which hath appeared to you, hath taught you this truth clearly and convincingly. Titus 2 verses 11 and 12. You have received how you ought to walk and to please God. 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 1. The influence then is plain and undeniable, that you cannot walk as others in the vanity of their mind, without offering violence to your own like. You cannot suffer the corruptions of your heart to break forth into practice, without wounding your conscience. He that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. James 4 verse 17. Yea, aggravated sin, sin beyond that of the heathen, sin that sadly wastes and violates conscience. Certainly you have no cloak for your sin. Besides, what pleasure in sin can you have? Indeed those who, for want of light, know not what they do, or whose consciences are steered in past feeling, may seek a little pleasure, such as it is in sin. But what pleasure can you have, so long as light is ever breaking in upon you, and smiting you for what you do? Again, you are a professor of holiness. You have given in your name to Christ to be his disciple, and by this your engagements to a holy life are yet further strengthened. Let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. 2 Timothy 2.19 The name of Christ is called upon you, and it is a worthy name. James 2 verse 7. You bear his name as his spouse, his child, and will you not live suitably to it? O how will that worthy name of Christ be blasphemed through you, if you adorn it not with a becoming deportment? Better you had never professed his name than to pour contempt on Jesus Christ by your scandalous conversation before the eyes of the world. O that is a heavy charge. Through you is the name of God blasphemed among the heathen. Romans 2.24 Unhappy man, that ever thou should be a reproach to Christ. The mass of wicked men may sin and sin again, and the world take little notice of it. But the faults of professors are like a blazing comet, or an eclipsed sun, on which all men gaze and make their observations. O then, what manner of persons ought you to be who bear the worthy name of Christ? But more than this, you have obliged yourself to this life of holiness by your own prayers. How many times have you lifted up your hands to heaven and cried with David, O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes, order my steps in thy word, and let not any iniquity have dominion over me. Psalm 119 verses 5 and 133. Were you in earnest with God when you thus prayed? Did you mean as you said? If your heart and tongue agreed in this request, doubtless it is as much your duty to endeavor to practice as to desire to possess those graces of the Spirit. And more, all these prayers stand on record before the Lord and will be produced against you as witnesses to condemn you for your hypocrisy and vanity. How often also have you in your prayers lamented and bewailed the sins of your life. You have said with Ezra, O my God, I am ashamed and even blushed to look up unto thee. Ezra 9 verse 6. And do not your confessions oblige you to greater circumspection and care for time to come? Will you confess and sin and sin and confess? Go to God and bewail your faults, and then return again to the commission of them. God forbid you should thus dissemble with God, trifle with sin, and add iniquity to iniquity. You have also often reproved or censured others for their faults, which adds to your own obligations to walk circumspectly. Have you not often reproved your erring brethren, or at least privately censured them? For these left-handed blows of secret censure are more common than the fair and open strokes of just and due reproof. And will you practice the same things for which you criminate and censure others? Thou that teach others, teachest thou not thyself? Romans 2 21. Will your rebukes ever do good to others, while you allow in yourself what you condemn in them? By these very reproofs you are self-condemned, and out of your own mouth God will judge you. Your censures and reproofs of others will leave you without plea or apology, if you guard not carefully your own life. And will you be careless still? Fear you are not the displeasure of God, nor the wounding and disquieting of your own conscience. Surely these things are of no light value with you, if you be a Christian indeed. Number three. You are further bound to a life of practical holiness on account of your brethren. If, through the neglect of your heart, your lives be defiled and polluted, many innocent and upright ones will be reproached and grieved by it. This mischievous effect Holy David earnestly deprecated. O God, thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from thee. Let not them that wait on thee, O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake. Let not those that seek thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel. Psalm 69 verses 5 and 6. As if he had said, Lord thou knowest what a weak and foolish creature I am, and how liable to fall, if left to myself. And should I, through my foolishness, act unbecoming a saint, how would this reproach unsadden the hearts of thy people? They will be as men confounded at the report of my fall. The fall of one Christian is a reproach to all the rest. Thy loose and careless life will cause them to estrange themselves from thee, and be ashamed to own thee. And canst thou bear that? Will it not grieve and pierce your very heart to see a cloud of strangeness and trouble over the countenances of your brethren, to see yourself disowned and lightly esteemed by them? This very consideration struck Eustanias, a great favorite in the Persian court. Through fear, he had denied the Christian faith, and complied with the idolatrous worship of the king. One day, sitting at the court gate, he saw Simon, the aged archbishop of Seleucia, drawn along to prison for his constancy in the Christian faith, and felt such veneration for his character that he instantly rose and expressed his reverence to this holy man. But the godly man frowned upon him and turned away his face, as thinking such an apostate unworthy of the least respect from him. This struck Eustanias to the heart, and drew from him many tears and groans. And thus he reasoned with himself, Simon will not own me, and will God, when I appear before his tribunal? Simon will not speak to me, will not so much as look upon me. And can I expect a good word or look from Jesus Christ, whom I have so shamefully betrayed and denied? Hereupon he threw off his courtly robes, and put on mourning apparel, professed himself a Christian, and died a martyr. Oh, it is a piercing thing to an honest heart to be cast out of the favor of God's people. If you dishonor your profession, neither God nor his people will look upon you. Number four. Your very enemies should engage you to this pure and holy life, both as they are your bold censures and your watchful observers. They censure you as hypocrites, and will you give them ground for such a charge? They say your tongues only are more holy than other men's, and shall they prove it from your practice? They also observe you diligently and are highly gratified by your falls. If your lives be loose and defiled, you will not only be ashamed to your friends, but the song of your enemies. You will gratify all the enemies of God, for this they are watching. And they triumph in your falls, not only from the deep-rooted enmity between the friends and enemies of Christ, but because all your errors are as so many absolutions to their consciences, and justifications, as they think, of their ways and practices. For as your strictness and holiness condemn them, as Noah by his godly life condemned the world, Hebrew 11 verse 7, so when you fall, you, as it were, absolve their consciences, and loose the bonds of conviction you have made fast upon them. Oh, say they, whatever these men talk, we see they are no better than we. They can do as we do. They deceive and cheat for advantage. They can comply with anything for their own ends. It is not conscience, as we once thought, but mere humor that made them so precise. Oh, what a sad thing is this! Hereby you shed soul blood. You fasten the bonds of death upon their souls. You kill those convictions which, for anything you know, might have ended in their conversion. When you fall, you may rise again, but they may fall at your example and never rise anymore, never have a good opinion of the ways of God or his people anymore. Upon this consideration, David begs of God, lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness, because of mine enemies, or observers, make thy way straight before my face. Psalm 5, verse 8. Thus you see how your very enemies should influence you to a holy life. Now, what think you of all this? Are you not obliged to this purity of life? Are all these bonds such that you can free yourself from them at pleasure? If all these things are of no force with you, may it not be questioned, notwithstanding your profession, whether any spiritual principle, any fear of God, or love to Christ be in your soul. Roman numeral 2. Consider, as you are more obliged than others to keep the issues of life pure, so God has given you greater assistances and advantages for it than others have. God has not been wanting in helps and means. Even the heathen, who are without the gospel, will be speechless and inexcusable before God. How much more will you be if your life be still unholy, who besides the light of nature and the general light of the gospel, have such a principle put within you, such patterns set before you, such an assistant ready to help you, so many rods to quicken you and prevent your wandering. Number 1. Shall men of such principles walk as others do? Shall we lament for you as David once did for Saul, saying, There the shield of the mighty was vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil. There the honor of a Christian was vilely cast away, as though he had not been anointed with the Spirit. You have received an unction from the Holy One, which teaches you all things. 1 John 2.20. An illumination far above that which is in other men. 1 Corinthians 2.12. Ye are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Ephesians 2.10. This Holy Spirit or principle enkindled in the soul has such a tendency to this holy life, that if you live not purely and strictly, you must offer violence to your own principles and nature. This principle affords you a twofold help to a life of holiness. It is impossible for others to live spiritually and heavenly, because they have no new nature to incline them thereto. You think it should be hard for you to live earnestly and sensually, and therein cross the very bent and tendency of the new creation which is formed in you. This Reformation audio track is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. SWRB makes thousands of classic Reformation resources available, free and for sale, in audio, video, and printed formats. Our many free resources, as well as our complete mail-order catalog, containing thousands of classic and contemporary Puritan and Reform books, tapes, and videos at great discounts, is on the web at www.swrb.com. We can also be reached by email at swrb at swrb.com, by phone at 780-450-3730, by fax at 780-468-1096, or by mail at 4710-37A, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6L 3T5. You may also request a free printed catalog. And remember that John Calvin, in defending the Reformation's regulative principle of worship, or what is sometimes called the scriptural law of worship, commenting on the words of God, which I commanded them not, neither came into my heart. From his commentary on Jeremiah 731, writes, God here cuts off from men every occasion for making evasions, since he condemns by this one phrase, I have not commanded them, whatever the Jews devised. There is then no other argument needed to condemn superstitions than that they are not commanded by God. For when men allow themselves to worship God according to their own fancies, and attend not to his commands, they pervert true religion. And if this principle was adopted by the Papists, all those fictitious modes of worship in which they absurdly exercise themselves would fall to the ground. It is indeed a horrible thing for the Papists to seek to discharge their duties towards God by performing their own superstitions. There is an immense number of them, as it is well known, and as it manifestly appears. Were they to admit this principle, that we cannot rightly worship God except by obeying his word, they would be delivered from their deep abyss of error. The prophet's words then are very important. When he says that God had commanded no such thing, and that it never came to his mind, as though he had said that men assume too much wisdom when they devise what he never required, nay, what he never knew.