would judge both whoremongers and adulterers" with the utmost severity^. Many indeed would plead for such in- dulgences ; as we see in the Ephesian Church : but St. Paul, warning the Ephesian converts, says, " Let no man deceive you with vain words : for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience ™."
Thus at this time also there are not wanting persons who teach, that the law is not a rule of life to believers ; and that Christ's righteousness being perfect, they have a sanctification in him, and need not seek to have any sanctification in their own souls. From a professed zeal for the honour of Christ, they would set aside all need of personal holiness, and bring men to their heavenly inheritance without putting them to the trouble of seeking a meetness for it.
But this is an awful delusion. It is very specious indeed, because it pretends to exalt the honour of Christ : but, in reality, it greatly dishonours him, inasmuch as it makes him, not a friend of sinners, but of sin ; which, if unmortified and unsubdued, would incapacitate the sinner for the enjoyment of heaven, even if he were admitted there ".
But be on your guard against this doctrine also, a doctrine foreign to the whole tenour of Scripture, from the beginning to the end ; a doctrine most injurious to God's honour, directly repugnant to the great end for which Christ came into the world; (which was "to save his people from their sins°;") and utterly subversive of the whole work of the Spirit in the souls of men P. Whatever stress we may lay on the work of Christ, (and we cannot possibly rely too much or too simply upon it for our justification before God,) it is an unalterable truth, that " without holiness, (real, personal, universal holi- ness,) no man shall see the Lord i."]
3. By erroneous doctrines of whatever kind —
[It were endless to attempt to enumerate all the heresies which have arisen, and are yet found, in the Christian Church. Some are entirely subversive of Christianity itself, being nothing less than " a denial of the Lord who bought us '^." Others are founded upon some truth which is carried to excess, and held to the exclusion of other truths which are equally important in their place. Of this kind are the tenets of those who fiercely contend for human systems, whether Calvinistic or Arminian, taking only partial views of divine truth, and wresting every passage of Scripture which seems to
1 ver. 4. "" Eph. v. 5, 6. Rev. ii. 14, 20.
n Rev. xxi. 27. ° Matt. i. 21.
P Ezek.xxxvi.25— 27. lPet.i.2. ^ Heb. xii. 14. r Jude, ver. 3.