This is the first direction : — Let us make the matter of holiness and godliness suited to the coming of Christ a business of design, counsel, and common engagement; whereunto every one may contribute of the store which from God he hath received. Blessed will be those servants whom their Master, when he cometh, shall find so doing !
1 68 PKOVIDENTIAL CHANGES,
SERMON XIII.
I shall now add some cautions as to the pursuit of the first direc- tion :—
[1.] Take heed of a degeneration into self-righteousness» Intend- ments of holiness have more than once been ruined by Satan through this deceit ; they have set out upon conviction, and ended in Phari- saism. Now, this hath been done many ways : —
1st. Some, really convinced of the vanity of an empty profession, and of boasting of saintship upon the account of faith and light with- out holiness and godliness, — which was the way of many when James and John wrote their epistles, — fall to dispute and contend (as well they may) for the absolute necessity of holiness and strict obedience, of fruitfulness and good works. But Satan here gets advantage upon men's natural spirits, their heats, and contentions, and insinuates an inherent righteousness, upon the account whereof we should, under one pretence or other, expect acceptation with God as to the justifica- tion of our persons. So he prevailed upon the Galatians. The way is narrow and strait that lies between the indispensable necessity of holiness, and its influence into our righteousness. Because no faith will justify us before God, but that also which will justify itself by fruitfulness before men, a great mistake arises, as though what it doth for its own justification were to be reckoned unto ours. Many in our days have gone off from the mystery of the gospel on this account.
2dly. It prevails from a secret self-pleasing, that is apt to grow on the minds of men from a singularity in the performance of duties. This is that which the Heart-searcher aims to prevent in his command, that " when we have done all, we should say we are unprofitable servants;" that is, in the secrets of our hearts to sit down in a sense of our own worthlessness. And here lies another great practical diffi- culty,— namely, to have the rejoicing of a good conscience in our in- tegrity and constancy in duties, without a reflection upon something of self, that the soul may please itself and rest in. Nehemiah fixes on the medium, chap. xiii. 22. He had in the sight of God the tes- timony of his conscience concerning the service he had done for the house of God ; but as to the rest, he winds up all in mercy, pardon, and grace. " God, I thank thee I am not as other men," is apt to creep into the heart in a strict course of duties. And this self-pleasing is the very root of self-righteousness ; which, as it may defile the saints themselves, so it will destroy those who only in the strength of their convictions go forth after a holiness and righteousness : for it quickly produceththe deadly, poisonous effect of spiritual pride; which is the
AN ARGUMENT FOR UNIVERSAL HOLINESS. 169
greatest assimilation to the nature of the devil that the nature of man is capable of.
2>dly. Our own holiness hath an advantage upon spiritual sense against the righteousness of Christ. The righteousness of Christ is utterly a strange thing to the best of unbelievers ; and this puts them by all means upon the setting up of their own, Rom. x. 3. And be- lievers themselves know it only by faith, Rom. i. 17; which is " of things not seen." But what we are ourselves, what we do, what we aim at, and in what manner, this we have a near sense of. And holiness is apt to insinuate itself into the conscience with a beauty that is none of its own, — to proffer itself to the soul's embraces instead of Jesus Christ. Its native beauty consists in its answering the will of God, conforming the soul to the likeness of Christ, and being use- ful in the world, in a covenant of mere mercy. From its presence, and the sense we have of it, the heart is apt to put a varnish and false beauty upon it, as to the relief of conscience upon the account of justification. As it was of old with the children of Israel, when Moses was in the mount, and not seen, nor had they any visible pledge of the presence of God, instantly they turned their gold into a calf that would be always present with them; — being in the dark as to the righteousness of Christ, which is, as it were, absent from them, men set up their own holiness in the stead of it ; which, though of itself it be of God, yet turned into self-righteousness is but a calf, — an idol, that cannot save them.
This is my first caution. But that we may make the better im- provement of it, as unto present practice, I shall add some evidences of the prevalency, or at least contending, of self-righteousness for an interest in the soul, under a pretence of duty and holiness ; as, —