they eat with him, and drink with him, and converse with him : 1 Cor. X. 21, ' Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils.' Ambrose brings in the devil boasting against Christ, and challenging Judas as his own, thus : He is not thine, Lord Jesus, he is mine ; his thoughts beat for me ; he eats with thee, but is fed by me ; he takes bread from thee, but money from me ; he drinks with thee, and sells thy blood to me. ^ By all which you may see what fellowship and familiarity there is between Satan and a sinner. Now what is this less than blasphemy, to assert that a holy Grod will have fellowship with them that have fellowship with the devil ? Grod hath not cast Satan out of heaven that he may make room for his familiars in heaven. If heaven was too holy to hold unholy devils, it will be found at last to be too ht)ly to hold unholy souls. Certainly they shaU not lie in the bosom of God who have the devil for their bedfellow.
4, Fourthly, Unholy persons are full of contrariety to God ; their natures, principles, practices, aims, minds, wills, affections, judgments, intentions, and resolutions, are contrary to God, his name, nature, being, truth, and glory. 2 You may as soon bring east and west, north and south, light and darkness, heaven and hell together, as you shall bring a holy God and unholy souls together. Antipathies will never incorporate ; as soon may midnight be married to the noonday, as a holy God embrace an unholy sinner. That unholy persons are made up of contrarieties to God, is most evident, as you may see in Isa. xxii. 12, 13, ' And in that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth: and behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine : let us eat and drink ; for to-morrow we shall die.' These sad souls practise quite contrary to what the Lord calls for at their hands. He calls them to weeping and mourning, and behold joy and gladness : he calls them to fasting, and behold here is nothing but feasting, carousing, and making merry and jovial, and that in contempt of God and his dreadful judgments, Kom. viii. 7; James iv. 4.3 Unholy persons are like the rainbow : now the rainbow is never on that side of the world that the sun is on ; but whensoever it appears, it is still in opposition against the sun. If the sun be in the east, the rainbow is in the west, &c. So unholy souls, in all their actings and walkings, will still be opposite to God ; they will still be cross and contrary to him : John viii. 38, ' I speak that which I have seen with my Father : and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.' Unholy hearts are full of the highest strains of contrariety and opposition against the Lord. I have read of a king that reigned in no very remote part of the world, who, having received a blow from' the hand of God, took a solemn oath to be revenged on him ; and ordained that for ten years' space no man should pray to him, speak of him, nor, so long as he was in authority, to believe in him. Oh
^ If Judas was at the sacrament, the greater was his woe. [See General Index under 'Judas.'— G.]
2 Lev. xxvi. 21-24, 27, 28, 40, 41; Isa. Iviii. 4-6; Jer. xliv. 16-18; ii. 25, and rviii. 11, 12.
3 Pope Julius the Third would have his pork, though it was forbidden him by bia physicians, in despite of God himself.
54 THE NECESSITY, EXCELLENCY, RARITY, [HeB. XII. 14.
the vanity, the contrariety, and blasphemy of this prince ! Now we will not admit such to be about us, who are made up of contrarieties to us : and will God, will God ? Heaven and earth, fire and water, the wolf and the laml), the winds and the sea will sooner accord, than a holy God and an unholy heart. There can be no amity where there is a spiritual antipathy.
5. Fifthly, Without holiness no man can have any sph'itvAil com- munion luith God in this world ; he may hear, but he can have no communion with God in hearing without holiness ; he may pray, but he can have no communion with God in prayer without holiness ; he may come to the sacrament, but he can have no communion with God in the sacrament without holiness ; he may come into the communion of saints, but he can have no communion with God in the communion of saints without holiness ; he may read and meditate, but he can have no communion with God in reading and meditation without holi- ness : Deut. xxiii. 14, * For the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee ; therefore shall thy camp be holy : that he see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee.' Keep up holiness among you, and you shall keep me among you, saith God ; but if you turn away from holi- ness, I wiU undoubtedly turn away from you : a holy God will keep company with none but those that are holy. Holiness is the bond that ties God and souls together. God will cleave close to them who in holiness cleave fast to him ; but if he see uncleanness and wicked- ness among you, he will certainly turn away from you. The Holy Spirit gives the lie to those that say they have fellowship with God, and yet maintain familiarity and fellowship with sin : 1 John i. 6, ' If we say we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie.' The apostle dares give the lie to any man, without fearing the stab, who pretends to communion with God, and yet walks in dark- ness. Men may be much in ordinances, and yet, for want of holiness, may have no communion at all with God in ordinances, Isa. i. 11-18 ; and though communion with God in ordinances is the very life and soul of ordinances, yet multitudes who enjoy ordinances can content and satisfy themselves without that which is the very life, soul, and quintessence of ordinances. There are many that cry out, ' The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord,' who have no communion with the Lord of the temple at all, Jer. vii. 4-12, Though unholy persons may trade much in ordinances, yet they will never make any earnings, any advantage by all their trading and stir, because they cannot reach to communion with God in them, which is the only means of being enriched by them, Isa. xxix. 13 ; Ezek. xxiv. 21, 22, and xxxiii. 30-32. As many men rise early and go to bed late, and make a great deal of stir and doi to be rich in the world, and yet, for want of a stock, nothing comes on it ; they are poor still, and beggarly still, and low and mean in the world still : so many rise early, and go late to ordinances, they exercise themselves much in religious duties, and yet nothing comes on it ; their souls are poor and beggarly and threadbare still. And no wonder, for they want a stock of holiness to trade with. Kemigius, a judge of Lorraine,
HeB. XII. 14.] AND BEAUTY OF HOLINESS. 55