to rid them out of this world ; he thought them not worthy to live, though they were such worthies of whom this world was not worthy, Acts viii. 3 ; he was a ravening and an untired wolf that was never weary in worrying Christ's little flock, and in sucking out the blood of his lambs. Yea, and he was an injurious person too : he made no conscience of wronging others, or of squaring his carriage by that golden rule, * Do to others as you would have others do to you,' Mat. vii. 12. This royal law, this standard of equity, he regarded not ; he made nothing of haling men and women to prison, and of compel- ling them to blaspheme by his cruelty and wicked example ; he spared no sex, but practised the highest cruelty upon all that had anything of sanctity in them ; he would adventure the torments of hell rather than not be a tormentor of the saints here ; and the more active any were in holiness, the more injurious was he to them. And yet behold this blasphemer, this persecutor, this injurious person, became a sanctified Christian, an eminent saint, a pattern of holiness to all Christians in all ages.
Once more, witness that sad bed-rool l of unsanctified persons that are mentioned in 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10, ' Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God ? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.' These monstrous sinners and prodigious sins were enough to have brought another flood upon the world, or to have provoked the Lord to rain hell out of heaven upon them, as once he did upon Sodom and Gomorrah, or to have caused the ground to open and swallow them up, as once it did Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and yet behold some of these are changed and sanctified ! ver. 11, ' And such were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, in the name of our Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.' Oh, the infinite goodness ! oh, the infinite grace ! oh, the infinite wisdom and power of God, that hath pardoned, washed, sanctified, and cleansed such guilty, filthy, and polluted souls ! The worst of sinners should never despair of being made saints, considering what unholy ones have been made holy. 2 It is possible that you may be made holy ; witness,
[6.] All those sanctified ones among whom you live, who once were as unholy, or more unholy, it mn/y be, than ever you were. The sanctified husband is a clear witness to the unsanctified wife that she may be sanctified, 1 Cor. vii. 14, 16 ; 1 Pet. iii. 1,6: the sanctified father is a witness to the unsanctified child that he may be sanctified ; the sanctified master is a witness to the unsanctified servant that he may be sanctified ; the sanctified prince is a witness to his unsanctified people that they may be sanctified ; and the sanctified minister is a witness to his unsanctified hearers that they may be sanctified ; the same Spirit, the same grace, the same power, the same presence that hath sanctified any of these, may sanctify all of these ; there is no heart so unholy but a holy God can make it holy ; there is no spirit
^ ' Bead-rule or bed-rule,' = catalogue or roll. — G.
* Matthew, Zaccheus, Mary Magdalene, the jailer, and the murderers of Christ, Acts ii are clear instances of this truth.
158 THE NECESSITY, EXCELLENCY, RAKITY, [HeB. XII. 14.
SO unclean but a Holy Spirit can make it clean. Well, sinners ! there are many living and standing witnesses of divine grace among you, and about you, that do sufficiently declare that it is possible that you may be sanctified and saved. Again, it is possible that you may be sanctified and made holy ; witness,
[7.] The oath of a holy God : Ezek. xviii. 31, 32, and xxxiii. 11, * Say unto them. As I live, saith the Lord Grod, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked ; but that the wicked turn from his way and live : turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways ; for why will ye die, O house of Israel ? ' ' As I live ' is the form of an oath, and is much used in the Scripture by God himself. Wicked men are very hardly persuaded to believe that God is willing that they should be sanctified and saved ; and therefore God takes his oath on it, that he is infinitely more willing that wicked men should turn from their evil ways and be sanctified and saved, than that they should perish in their sins and be damned for ever. ' As I live ' is a weighty oath, and imports the certainty of that which follows: it is absolute, without evasion or revocation ; as sure as I live and am God, I have no pleasure in destroying and damning of souls, but desire that they would turn from their evil ways, and that they would be sanctified and saved ; let me not live, let me be no longer a God, if I would not have the wicked to live and be happy for ever. The possibility of your being holy, God hath confirmed by an oath, and therefore you may no longer question it. The Egyptians, though heathens, so hated perjury, that if any man did but swear by the life of the king, and did not perform his oath, that man was to die, and no gold was to redeem his life.i And do you think that a holy God doth not stand more upon liis oath than heathens, yea, than the worst of heathens ? Certainly he doth. Lastly, it is possible that you may be holy ; witness,
[8.] The great designs and undertakings of Jesus Christ to make lost man holy. His great design in leaving his Father's bosom and coming into this world, was the destroying, the dissolving of the works of the devil : 1 John iii. 8, ' For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.' 2 Sin is Satan's work, and Christ comes to destroy it, and break it all in pieces. Men's sins are Satan's chains, by which he links them fast to himself ; but Christ was therefore manifested that he might loose and knock off these chains. Satan had knit many sinful knots in our souls, but Christ comes to untie those knots ; he had laid many snares, but Christ comes to discover and to break those snares. It was the great design of Christ in the divesting of himself, as it were, of his divine honour, glory, and dignity, and in his taking on him the nature of man, to destroy Satan, and to sanctify the souls of men, Phil. ii. 6-8, 15 ; Heb. ii. 11, 14, 15. It was the great design of Jesus Christ in giving of himself for us — in giving his soul, his body, his life, to justice, to death, to wrath for us, ' that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works,' Titus ii. 14. The crown of holiness was fallen from our heads, and Christ freely and willingly uncrowns himself, that once more
^ As Paulus Fagius observeth in his comment on Genesis. ^ Mfft), dissolve, unravel the works of the devil.
HeB. XII. 14.] AND BEAUTY OF HOLINESS. 159