7. A seventh argument to prove that without real holiness there is no happiness ; that without holiness on earth no man shall ever come to a blessed vision or fruition of God in heaven, is this. Unholy persons are to he excluded and shut out from sacred, from special com- munion and felloivship with the saints in this loorld ; and therefore, without all peradventure, they shall never be admitted to everlasting communion and fellowship with God, Christ, angels, and saints in that other world. That they are to be shut out from having any special communion with the saints here, is most plain and evident from several scriptures. Take these for a taste : Lev. x. 10, ' And that ye may put difi'erence between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean ;' Ezek. xliv. 23, ' And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean.' And because the priests did not improve their power and interest to preserve the things of God from profaning and polluting, the Lord was very much offended and provoked : Ezek. xxii. 26, ' Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things : they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shewed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.' And in chap. xliv. 7, 8, God sadly complains that they ' brought into his sanctuary strangers uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh;' and prohibits such from entering into his sanctuary, ver. 9, ' Thus saith the Lord God, No stranger, uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into my sanctuary, of any stranger that is among the children of Israel.' God expects that faithful teachers should put a difference between person and person, between the holy and profane, between the clean and the unclean, in all holy administrations : Jer. xv. 19, ' Therefore thus saith the Lord, If thou take forth the precious from the vile, then thou shalt be as my mouth : let them return unto thee ; but return not thou unto them.' Now certainly if under the ceremonial law natural uncleanness did exclude and shut out the Israelites from a participation in holy things, then certainly moral imcleanness may justly exclude and shut out Chris- ^ Dionys. Areop. de divin. novi. cap. 1.
HeB. XII. 14.] AND BEAUTY OF HOLINESS. 63
tians from a participation in holy things under the gospel : Mat. vii. 6, ' Give not that which is holy unto dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.' Holy things are too precious to be spent and spilt upon swinish sinners. Gospel administrations are precious pearls, that must not be given to s"wane. 2 Cor. vi. 17, ' Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saitli the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing ; and I will receive you.' ^ Profane, scandalous, blind, and ignorant persons are very unclean things, and from them we must come out. As we would be in with God, we must be out with them : we must reject them as we would have God to receive us : 2 Tim. iii. 5, ' Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof : from such turn away.' Our Saviour Christ hied him to the wilderness amongst the beasts, and carried his disciples with him, holding their fellowship to be less hurtful and dangerous. It is better to live among beasts, than to live among men of beastly principles and beastly prac- tices. Now there are ten sorts of persons that Christians must turn from, that they must have no intimate, no special communion with in this world.
(1.) First, Unbelievers, 2 Cor. vi. 14-16. We should not close with them that have not closed with Christ ; nor give ourselves up to them who have not given up themselves to Christ. Every unbeliever is a condemned person : the law hath cast him, the gospel hath cast him, and his own conscience hath cast him ; and what sacred com- munion, what delightful fellowship can believers have with condemned persons ? John iii. 18, 36. Every unbeliever is under the wrath of the great God ; he is under that wrath that he can neither avoid nor abide ; and what communion can such have who ai*e under love, with those that are under wrath ? Every unbeliever makes God a liar, 1 John V. 10 ; and what children will have communion with such who every day give their father the lie to his very face ? Every unbeliever doth practically say. Tush ! there is no such loveliness or comeliness, there is no such beauty or glory, there is no such fulness or sweetness, there is no such goodness or graciousness in Jesus as men would make us believe ; and what is this, but to give God the lie ? Tush ! there is no such favour, there is no such peace, there is no such pardon, there is no such righteousness, there is no such grace, there is no such glory to be reaped by Christ as God and men would persuade us ; and what is this, but to tell God he lies to his very teeth ? And what ingenu- ous child can take pleasure in such who are still a-spitting in his father's face ? Every unbeliever is a disobedient person, and there- fore unbelievers and disobedient are in the Greek expressed by one word ; and what communion can obedient children have with those that are disobedient and rebellious ? 2 Every unbeliever is a pagan, a heathen, in the Scripture dialect ; and what communion can those who
^ Lev. xiii. 46; Num. v. 1-4; Exod. xii. 48; Lev. xxii. 3-7. As oft, said one, as I have been among wicked men, I return home less a man than I was before. The Doc- tonean [?] well will quench a burning torch ; so will bad company the most burning and most shining Christians, as you see in Joseph and Peter, Ps. cvi. 35 ; when they were mingled among the heathen, they quickly learned their works, Ps. cxix. 115.
» Num. xiv. 11 ; Heb. xi. 31, i.Trei.e-fi<T<x<n; 1 Tim. v. 8; 2 Cor. yi. 14, 15; 1 Cor. xlv. 23, seq.; 2 Tim. iii. 1, 6.
64 THE NECESSITY, EXCELLENCY, RABITY, [Heb. XII. 14.