12. Error 10: Sanctification no Evidence of Justification.
encourage and fix men in their impenitence, unbelief, and disobedience? But the Lord grant no poor sinner in the world may trust to this, or build his hopes of eternal life upon such a loose, sandy foundation, as this is. Reader, all that Christ hath done without thee, will not, cannot be effectual to thy salvation, unless repentance, faith, and obedience, be wrought by the Spirit in thy soul. It is "Christ in thee" that is "the hope of glory," Col. 1.27; beware, therefore, on what ground thou buildest for eternity.
Error 10: Sanctification no Evidence of Justification.
Error 10. 'They deny sanctification to be the evidence of justification, {590} and deridingly tell us, this is to light a candle to the sun; and the darker our sanctification is, the brighter our justification is.'
Refutation. I am not at all surprised at this strange and absonous [discordant] language; it is a false and dangerous conclusion, yet such as naturally results from, and, by a kind of necessity, follows out of their other errors: For if the elect be all justified from eternity, and that neither repentance, faith, nor obedience, be required of us in the covenant of grace; but were all required of, and performed by Christ, who repented, believed, and obeyed for us; then, indeed, I cannot understand what relation our sanctification hath to our justification, or how it should be an evidence, mark, or sign thereof, or what regard is due from Christians to any grace, or work of the Spirit wrought in them, to clear up their interest in Christ to them. For we being in Christ, and in a state of justification, before we were naturally born, we must necessarily be so before we be regenerated, or new-born: and, consequently, no work of grace wrought in us, or holy duties performed by us, can be evidential of that which from eternity was done before them, and without them.
1. I grant, indeed, That many vain professors do cheat, and deceive themselves, by false, unscriptural signs and evidences, as well as by true ones misapplied.
2. I grant also, That by reason of the deceitfulness of the heart, instability of the thoughts, similar works of common grace, in hypocrites; distractions of the world, wiles of Satan, weakness of grace, and prevalency of corruptions; the clearing up of our justification by our sanctification, is a work that meets with great and manifold difficulties, which are the things that most Christians complain of.
3. I also grant, That the evidence of our sanctification in this, or any other method, is not essential, and absolutely necessary to the being of a Christian. A man may live in Christ, and yet not know his interest in him, or relation to him, Isa. 50.10.[8] Some Christians, like children in the cradle, live, but understand not that they live; are born to a great inheritance, but have no knowledge of it, or present comfort in it.
4. I will further grant, That the eye of a Christian may be too intently fixed upon his own gracious qualifications; and being wholly taken up in the reflex acts of faith, may too much neglect the direct acts of faith upon Christ, to the great detriment of his soul.
But all this notwithstanding, The examination of our justification by our sanctification, is not only a lawful, and possible, but a very excellent and necessary work and duty. It is the course that Christians have taken in all ages, and that which God hath abundantly blessed to the joy and encouragement of their souls.
{591} He hath furnished our souls to this end with noble, self-reflecting powers and abilities. He hath answerably furnished his word with variety of marks and signs, for the same end and use. Some of these marks are exclusive, to detect and bar bold presumptuous
pretenders, 1 Cor. 6.9. Rev. 21.8,27. Some are inclusive marks, to measure the strength and growth of grace by, Rom. 4.20. And others are positive signs, flowing out of the very essence of grace, or the new creature, 1 John 4.13. "Hereby we know that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit."
He hath also expressly commanded us to examine and prove ourselves; upbraided the neglecters of that duty, and enforced their duty upon them by a thundering argument, 2 Cor. 13.5, "Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith, prove your own selves; know you not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates." In a word, for this end and purpose, amongst others, were the scriptures written, 1 John 5.13. "These things have I written to you, that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life." And therefore, to neglect this duty is exceeding dangerous; but to deny and deride it, intolerable. It may be justly feared, such men will be drowned in perdition who fall into the waters, by making a bridge over them with their own shadows.
For my own part, I verily believe, that the sweetest hours Christians enjoy in this world, are when they retire into their closets, and sit there concealed from all eyes, but him that made them; looking now into the bible, then into their own hearts, and then up to God; closely following the grand debate about their interest in Christ, till they have brought it to the happy desired issue.
And now, reader, for a close of all, I call the Searcher of hearts to witness, 'That I have not intermeddled with these controversies of Antipædo-baptism, and Antinomianism, out of any delight I take in polemical studies, or an unpeaceable contradicting humour, but out of pure zeal for the glory and truths of God; for the vindication and defence whereof I have been necessarily engaged therein. And having discharged my duty thus far, I now resolve to return (if God will permit me) to my much sweeter, and more agreeable studies; still maintaining my Christian charity for those whom I oppose; not
doubting but I shall meet those in heaven, from whom I am forced, in lesser things, to dissent and differ upon earth."
Footnotes:
1. August. de Hæres. Tom. 6. Hæres. 51.
2. Calv. adversus Libert. c. 8.
3. As was asserted doctrinally by Tobias Crisp in several passages of his sermons, such as, Sermon 10 on Romans 10.2,3,4; Sermon 19 on Isa. 53.6; Sermon 27 on Isa. 53.6; Sermon 32 on Isa. 41.10; and Sermon 34 on 1 John 2.1,2.—JTKer.
4. Whether the author meant to condemn the first branch of this statement, as well as the second, is not certain, although it seems to be implied. It should be observed however, that the act of Justification may indeed be described as an immanent and eternal act of God without inferring therefrom that its relation to temporal events and persons implies a "justification before faith" or personal
"justification before themselves or the world had a being." God is eternal, and his every internal act, as such, must also be eternal. But this in no way hinders the Eternal Being from acting upon man, as a creature within time, and that distinctly in the several successive moments of his existence. Thus we understand Mr. Rutherford and Mr. Twisse in an orthodox sense when they affirm that Justification is an eternal act of God; and yet we abhor the errors of those who from this conclude against plain scripture, that sinners are Justified
"before faith," or "from eternity."—JTKer.
5. Owen of Justification, p. 183.
6. Owen of Justification, p. 183.
7. Vide Saltmarsh of Free Grace, p. 126, 127.
8. A man may live in Christ, and yet not know his interest in him.— To many it may seem that the exact opposite of this is an entirely obvious truth. Indeed, to an Antinomian, it may be hard to see how a man may have faith in Christ, and yet not know that he has faith in Christ, given the wrong views and definitions of faith which are embraced even more commonly at the present day. Mr. Flavel however, suggests nothing novel or strange in this statement. His sentiment is assumed in the reasoning of Mr. Guthrie's Christian's
Great Interest, (see for example page 65 of the Puritan Paperback edition.) Likewise the reader will find the same thing asserted very plainly by John Brown of Wamphray in his Christ: The Way, the Truth, and the Life, (page 93 of the 1839 edition): "We would know, that many a man may believe, and yet not know that he doth believe." Now, it is not said that it is ordinarily good for a man to believe or have an interest in Christ, without knowing the fact to be so. But unless we will make justifying faith to terminate in that which is not held forth to it in Scripture, we must acknowledge that our believing unto salvation, and our knowing that we have believed unto salvation, are two distinct separable acts of the Christian's faith.—
JTKer.
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