birth, and with the great concernments of eternity, and you will judge them to be mere heathens, to be men void of all principles of grace and holiness, and to be mere strangers to union and communion with Christ, and to the more secret and inward operations and workings of the Spirit of Christ, and to the most spiritual duties and services that are commanded by Christ. Civility is very often the nurse of impiety, the mother of flattery, and an enemy to real sanctity. A high conceit of civility keeps many a man from looking after inward and outward purity. Moral honesty proves to many men a bond of iniquity, i There are those who are so blinded with the fair shows of civility, that they can neither see the necessity nor beauty of sanctity ; there are those that now bless themselves in their common honesty, whom at last God will scorn and cast off for want of real holiness and purity, Mat. XXV. 3, 11, 12. Many of the heathens were so famous for justice and righteousness, for equity, fidelity, and sobriety, for civility and moral honesty, that it would put many professors to the blush to read what is written of them; and yet there was such a tincture of popular applause, of pride and vainglory, of hypocrisy and self-flattery, upon their civility and moral honesty, that, for anything we can find in Scripture to the contrary, there is cause to fear that they shall be miserable to all eternity : for all their civility and moral honesty, they were left in a damnable, I will not say in a damned, condition : he that rises to no higher pitch than civility and moral honesty shall never have communion with God in glory. 2 Naaman was a great man, but a leper, 2 Kings V. 1 ; Naaman was an honourable man, but a leper ; Naaman was a mighty man, but a leper ; Naaman was a victorious man, but a leper ; Naaman was in high favour and esteem with his prince, but a leper. This hut he was a leper stained all his honour, and was a blot upon aU his greatness and glory, both at court and in the field, both in the city and in the country. So it is a stain, a blot upon the most moral honest man in the world, to say, he is a very civil honest man, but Christless ; he is a very just man, but graceless ; he is a man of much moral righteousness, but he hath not a drachm of real holiness, &c. This hut is a fly in the box of ointment, that spoils all. Well, sirs, remember this, though the moral honest man be good for many things, yet he is not good enough to go to heaven, he is not good enough to be made glorious. Mat. v. 20. Certainly there is nothing in all the world, below real sanctity, that will ever bring a man to the possession of glory. And though it may grieve us — to speak after the manner of men — to see sweet natures, to see many moral honest men, take many a weary step towards heaven, and to come near to heaven, and to bid fair for heaven, and yet after all to fall short of heaven ; yet it will be no way grievous to a holy God to turn such sweet natures into hell, Ps. ix. 17. Moral honesty is not sufficient to keep a man out of eternal misery ; all it can do is to help a man to one of the best rooms and easiest beds that hell afibrds. For, look, as the moral man's sins are not so great as others', so his punishments shall not be so great as others'. This is all the comfort that can be afforded to a moral
^ Mat. V. 19, 20; Acts vii. 54, xiii. 50, and xvii. 17, 18; Eom. viii. 7. ' As Aristides, so Socrates, Plato, Titus Vespasian, Tully, with multitudes of others, amongst the Lacedemonians, Grecians, Eomans, &c.
Heb. XII. 14.] AND BEAUTY OF HOLINESS. 89
man, that he shall have a cooler hell than others have : but this is but cold comfort. Moral honesty without piety is as a body with- out a soul ; and will ever God accept of such a stinking sacrifice ? Surely no.
5. Fifthly, If real holiness be the only way to happiness ; if men must be holy on earth, or else they shall never come to a fruition of God in heaven ; then this truth, by way of conviction, looks sourly and sadly upon all neuters, who divide their hearts hetiveen God and mammon, Mat. vi, 19 ; who halt between God and Baal, 1 Kings xviii. 21 ; who divide their souls between heaven and earth, between religion and their lusts, Zeph. i. 5, like the Samaritans, who both worshipped the Lord, and the Assyrians' idols too, 2 Kings xvii. 32, 33, and xviii. 11. A neuter is a monster ; he hath two tongues, two minds, and two souls : he hath a tongue for God, and a tongue for the world too ; he looks up to God, and saith. Certainly thou art mine ; he looks down upon the world, and saith. Surely I am thine ; he hath a mind to be religious, and a mind to save his own stake in the world too.i He hath a soul reaching after the happiness of another world : ' Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his,' saith Balaam, Num. xxiii. 10 ; and he hath a soul strongly reaching after this evil world too, as if heaven and happiness were wrapt up in it. As you may see in the same person, ' he loved the wages of unrighteousness : ' he loved it as his portion, he loved it as his life, he loved it as his happiness, he loved it as his all ; he loved it as his soul, yea, he loved it above his own soul, for he damned his soul to gain it. 2 It is true, when he was under a divine restraint, he professed that he would not curse the people of God for a house full of gold ; but when he was from under that restraint, his heart was so set upon the un- righteous reward, that he would have cursed them for a handful of gold. The neuter, as the Komans paint Erasmus, hangs between heaven and earth ; he is neither fit to go to heaven, nor yet worthy to live on earth. If Meroz was to be certainly cursed, to be bitterly cursed, to be uni- versally cursed — as the Hebrew phrase, ' cursing curse ye Meroz,' imports, in Judges v. 23 — for standing neuter when they should have come forth to the help of the Lord ; do you think that neuters in religion shall be blessed ? Do you think that ever such shall go to heaven, who are indifferent whether they go to heaven or no ? or that ever such shall be happy, who are indifferent whether they be holy or no ? or that ever such shall see the face of Christ with joy, who are indifferent whether they have an interest in Christ or no? or that ever such shall be admitted into the kingdom of glory, who are in- different wherever 3 they have any entrance into the kingdom of grace or no? Certainly heaven is too holy to hold any such indifferent, irresolute, neutral souls. In the university, not long since, there were three doctors, heads of houses ; one of them was accounted an inno- vator ; the second a Puritan ; the third a neuter. A witty scholar presented them thus to the world : the first in a coach driving to Eome ;
^ James i. 8. A double-souled man, Mat. xix. 16, 26.