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SO mucli holiness as will bring you to happiness, or with so much holiness as will keep wrath and your souls asunder, or hell and your souls asunder, or eternal ruin and your souls asunder. The exhorta- tion in the text, ' Follow peace with all men, and holiness,' Heb. xii. 14, is an exhortation that was given out to saints that were holy before, and the life and force of it lies in this, that those that were holy should labour to be more and more holy, they should still be adding of grace to grace, holiness to holiness, they should still be a-going on from faith to faith, and from strength to strength.! As holiness hath its conception, birth, and infancy, so it hath its full growth, and after that all Christians must strive. Holiness is not like to Jonah's gourd, that shot up in a night, but it is like plants and trees that grows up by degrees,'^ (Ps. xcii. 14,) and after the highest degrees we must endeavour. After the prophet Elias had travelled a day's journey in the wilderness, he sat down and slept under a juniper-tree, and there God calls upon him, ' Up and eat,' 1 Kings xix. 4, 5 ; and when he found him the second time he calls again upon him, ' Up and eat, because thou hast a gi-eat journey to go,' ver. 7. 0 Christians, you have a howling wilderness to travel through, you have a great journey to go, you have many a mountain to walk over, and many an enemy to vanquish, even the world, the flesh, and the devil, and many a cross to bear, and many a mercy to improve, &c., and therefore you have very great cause to up and eat, I say, to up and eat, that is, to grow stronger and stronger in holiness, and to walk from grace to grace, and from virtue to virtue, and to come off from your milk, and to feed upon strong meat, Heb. v. 12-14, that you may hold out to the end of your journey, and not faint nor fall short of that great salvation which attends perfection of holiness. And this progress in holiness is that main thing that the apostle presses upon the believing Corinthians in that 2 Cor. vii. 1 , ' Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.' The apostle having in the former chapter armed the believing Corinthians with many strong arguments against all communion and fellowship with idolaters, he comes at last to touch upon those great and glorious promises which, upon the account of their high and holy calling, they were interested in, ver. 16-18 ; and he presents them as singular motives, and as choice and precious encouragements, to move them to perfect holiness in the fear of God. There is no work on earth that so well becomes the heirs of such precious promises as that of cleansing themselves from all filthiness on the one hand, and that of perfecting holiness in the fear of God on the other hand. Now this being a point of the highest con- cernment, and of the greatest importance imaginable to the saints, I shall therefore endeavour these three things :
I. First, To lay down some motives to provoke you to perfect holiness in the fear of God, &c.
II. Secondly, I shall propound some means, some directions, that may help you to make a progress in holiness, &c.
III. Thirdly, I shall shew you how you may know whether you
1 2 Pet. i. 6-13 ; Rom. i. 17 ; Ps. Ixxxiv. 7.
* Muabrooms grow up to perfection in one night.
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have attained to such a perfection of holiness as we are all to strive after, &c.
I shall first begin with the motives that may whet and stir up your spirits to labour after greater degrees and higher measures of holiness than yet you have attained to ; and to that purpose, I beseech you seriously to consider of these following particulars :
(1.) First, Consider that notwithstanding all the means, and all the advantages, and all the opportunities that you have enjoyed to work you to perfect holiness in the fear of God, yet you have obtained but to very small measures of holiness. You are rather babes than men in holiness, you are rather shrubs than cedars in grace, you are rather dwarfs than giants in godliness to this very day ; and this sad charge I shall briefly make good against you by an induction of eight par- ticulars, thus :
[1.] First, The strength, the power, the activity, and the prevalency of sin in you to this day does witness to your faces that you have yet obtained but small measures of holiness, Rom. vii. 22-24; Isa. lix. 12. 0 my brethren, are not many of your corruptions as powerful and as strong as they were five, ten, yea, twenty years ago ; notwithstanding all the prayers that you have made, and all the sermons that you have heard, and all the tears that you have shed, and all the resolutions that you have taken, and all the promises that you have made, and all the conflicts that you have had ? And what does this speak out but that holiness is at a low ebb in your souls ? 0 sirs, were but holiness risen to a greater height in your souls, how readily would you trample upon your lusts ! Rom. viii. 10 ; and how easily would you lead captivity captive ! As the house of David grew stronger and stronger, so the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker, 2 Sam. iii. 1 . As holiness rises in the soul by degrees, so sin dies in the soul by degrees ; and the more any man abounds in holiness, the more he abounds in his spiritual conquests over the world, the flesh, and the devil. Gal. viii. 14. 0 sirs, your pride testifies to your faces, and your self-love testifies to your faces, and your worldHness testifies to your faces, and your passion testifies to your faces, and your diffidence testifies to your faces, and your hypocrisy testifies to your faces, and your carnality testifies to your faces, &c. , that yet you are not got up many rounds in Jacob's ladder, that your degrees in holiness may be easily cast up, Hosea v. 5, and vii. 10. But,
[2.] Secondly, You have not attained to much holiness; witness that high price that you set upon the toys, the trifles, and the vanities of this world, as Jonah did upon his gourd, Gen. xxiv. 30, 31. Ah, at what a rate do men value the empty honours, the fading riches, and the declining greatness of this world ! Democritus, the philosopher, esteemed his room covered over with green branches above the royal palace. And did not Peter prefer a tabernacle on earth before a royal palace, not made with hands, but eternal in the heavens ? But what do I talk of Peter, when this disease had again and again and again overspread the hearts of all the disciples, as you may evidently see by comparing the scriptures in the margin together.i
1 Mat. xvii. 4 ; 2 Cor. v. 1, 2 ; Mat xviii. 1, 2 ; Mark ix. 33-36; Luke ix, 46, 47, and xxii. to xxriii.
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