these pages. I ask you this question, " Do you think you feel the
separate nation, a peculiar people, and you must be so too, if you would be saved.
You may say, " at this rate very few will be saved." I answer, I know it. Jesus said so 1800 years ago. Few will be saved, because heaven. God has said it, and He will not go back, - " Without holiness no man shall see the Lord." " The Pope's calendar," says Jenkyn, " only makes saints of the dead, but Scripture requires sanctity in the living." " Let not men deceive themselves," says Owen, " sanctification is a qualification indispensably necessary unto those who will be under the conduct of the Lord Christ unto salvation: He leads none to heaven, but whom He sanctifies on the earth. This living Head will not admit of dead members."
Surely you will not wonder that Scripture says, " Ye must be born again." (John iii. 7.) Surely it is clear as noon-day that many a man needs a complete change, - a new heart, - a new nature, - if ever he is to be saved. Old things must pass away, - he must become a new creature. Without holiness no man, be he who he may, no man shall see the Lord.
2. Let me, for another thing, speak a little to every believer who reads these pages. I ask you this question, " Do you think you feel the importance of holiness as much as you should?"
I own I fear the temper of the times about this subject. I doubt exceedingly whether it holds that place which it deserves in the thoughts and attention of some of the Lord's people. I would humbly suggest that we are apt to overlook the doctrine of growth in grace, and that we do not sufficiently consider how very far a person may go in a profession of religion, and yet have no grace, and be dead in God's sight after all. I believe that Judas Iscariot seemed very like the other apostles. When the Lord warned them one would betray Him, no one said, "Is it Judas ?" We had better think more about Sardis and Laodicea than we do.
I have no desire to make an idol of holiness. I do not wish to dethrone Christ, and put holiness in His place. But I must candidly say, I wish sanctification was more thought of in this day than it seems to be, and I therefore take occasion to press the subject on all believers into whose hands this paper may fall.
I fear it is sometimes forgotten, that God has married together justification and sanctification. They are distinct and different things beyond question, but one is never found without the other. All justified people are sanctified, and all sanctified are justified. What God has joined together let no man dare put asunder. Tell me not of your justification, unless you have also some marks of sanctification. Boast not of Christ's work for you, unless you can show us the Spirit's work in you. Think not that Christ and the Spirit can ever be divided.
Reader, if you are a believer, I doubt not you know these things, but I think it good to put you in remembrance of them. Prove that you know them by your life. Try to keep in view this text more continually, " Follow holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord."
I must frankly say, I wish there was not such an excessive sensitiveness on the subject of holiness as I sometimes perceive in the minds of believers. A man might really think it was a dangerous subject to handle, so cautiously is it touched. Yet surely when we have exalted Christ as the way, the truth, and the life, we cannot err in speaking strongly about what should be the character of His people. Well says Rutherford, "The way that crieth down duties and, sanctification, is not the way of grace. Believing and doing are blood friends."
There is a thing I would say with reverence, - but say it I must, - I sometimes fear if Christ were on earth now, there are not a few who would think His preaching legal; and if Paul were writing his Epistles, there are those who would think he had better not write the
latter part of most of them as he did. But let us remember that the Lord Jesus did speak the Sermon on the Mount, and that the Epistle to the Ephesians contains six chapters, and not four. I grieve to feel obliged to speak in this way, but I am sure there is a cause.
The great divine, Owen, said some two hundred years ago, that there were people whose whole religion seemed to consist in going about complaining of their own corruptions, and telling every one they could do nothing of themselves.
Reader, I put it to yourself, - might not the same thing be said with truth of some of Christ's professing people in this day ?
I know there are texts in Scripture that warrant such complaints. I do not object to them when they come from men who walk in the steps of the apostle Paul, and fight a good fight, as he did, against sin, the devil, and the world. But I never like such complaints when I see grounds for suspecting, as I often do, that they are only a cloak to cover spiritual laziness, and an excuse for spiritual sloth. If we say with Paul, " O wretched man that I am," let us also be able to say with him, " I press toward the mark." Let us not quote his example in one thing, while we do not follow him in another. (Rom. vii. 24. Phil. iii. 14.)
I do not set up myself to be better than other people, and if any one asks, " What are you, that you talk in this way ?" I answer, "lama very poor creature indeed." But I tell you I cannot read the Bible without desiring to see many believers more spiritual, more holy, more single-eyed, more heavenly-minded, more whole-hearted than they are. I want to see among us more of a pilgrim spirit, a more decided separation from the world, a conversation more evidently in heaven, a closer walk with God, - and therefore I have spoken as I have.
f Is it not true that we need a higher standard of personal holiness in this day? Where is our patience ? Where is our zeal ? Where is our love ? Where are our works ? Where is the power of religion to be