An End of Doctrinal Controversies, Chapter 17
CHAP. XVII. Of the Necessity of Holiness, and of Moral Uirtue.
§. 1. HOLINESS is our Dedication, Separation, or Devotedness to God, and alienation from all that stands in competitionZech. 14. 20, 21. 2 Tim. 1. 9. Heb. 3. 1. 1 Pet. 1. 15, 16. & 2. 5, 9. 2 Pet. 3. 11. Exod. 19. 6. Deut. 7. 6. & 26. 19. & 28. 9. Isa. 62. 12. Rom. 11. 16. or contrariety to God.
§. 2. It is our Separation to God as the Creator of our Nature, and our Redeemer, and the Author of Grace, and our Felicity, and the Cause of Glory: As the first Efficient, supreme Dirigent, and ultimately final Cause.
§. 3. It is our separation to God as our Owner by Resignation, as our Ruler by Obedience, and as our Benefactor and ultimate End by Thankfulness and Love, in the acknowledgment of his infinite power, wisdom and goodness, as essential to himself, and related to his works.
§. 4. Holiness is our dispositive, actual, and relative separation to God; 1. When our Souls are habitually inclined to God and to his Will. 2. When we actually give up our selves to God and to his will; by Consent first, and Obedience and Love after. 3. It signifieth the relation of the Person as thus habitually and actually separated. (A holy Priesthood, 1 Pet. 2. 5, 9, 11.)
§. 5. Holiness is the Habit and Act of all the three Faculties of the rational Soul; viz. 1. Of the vitael Active Power by1 Thes. 5. 23. Eph. 1. 18, 19. Act. 26. 18. 1 Cor. 3. 17. & 7. 14, 34. Quickening and Strength. 2. Of the Intellect by Illumination. 3. Of the Will by Conversion, Love or Complacency.
§. 6. The Soul as sensitive, and the body it self, are said to be sanctified, so far as they are dispositively and actually subject and subservient to a holy Soul in Holiness, and related accordingly as separate to God.
§. 7. Our Holiness is no alienation from the Creature as a Creature, in its due place and subordination to the Creator, but contrarily containeth our Honour of, and Love to, all God's Creatures for his sake and impress, and a devoting of all that is ours to his use: But it containeth a renunciation of that which is againstLuk. 14, 26, 27, 31, 33. his Honour and Government and Love, as such.
§. 8. As God communicateth Holiness really and relatively to Man, so holy persons communicate such Holiness to Creatures below them, as consisteth in the use and relation of things separated to God, by a due separation of them by their dedication and holy use: and that in various degrees.
§. 9. True Holiness is the Health, the Rectitude, the Honesty, the Justice of man'sHeb. 12. 14. Col. 1. 22. Eph. 1. 4. & 5. 27. 1 Pe…. 1. 16. Soul; and therefore necessary, as his Duty by God's Law, even of Nature, and to his Happiness both in the very nature of the thing, and by the determination of God's Law. It is a contradiction to be happy and unholy, Rev. 20. 6.
§. 10. Holiness is the end or perfection of our Nature, and God's chief Interest in man, and is begun by Grace and perfected in Glory.Eph. 5. 27. & 4. 16, &c.
§. 11. The Fear of God and his Iudgments, and a Care of our own Souls, and a Sorrow for Sin, and a desire of Happiness, may be not only Preparatives, but lower parts of Holiness; but the true formal specifying nature of it consisteth in a love of God's infinite goodness, and a Will addicted to obey his Will, or a Pleasedness in pleasing Him *Col. 1. 10. 1 Thess. 2. 4. 1 Iohn 3. 22. Heb. 13. 21. Col. 3. 20. Heb. 11. 5.: This is Holiness.
§. 12. Because a man is denominated according to the predominant bent of his Will (or Soul) he is not to be called Holy who hath some slight inclination to please God, and more to please his own carnal Appetite and Will; or greater love to the Creature than to God.
§. 13. Christ himself came into the World to recover sinful Man by Holiness †Luk. 1. 75. Eph. 4. 24. 1 Thess. 4. 7. Heb. 12. 10. Rom. 8. 1, 9.to God, and disdained not to be a means of Man's Sanctification, and to make this the notable operation of his Holy Spirit on us.
§. 14. Whatsoever Law Men are under, before Christ or since, Jew or Gentile, Works or Grace, no man can be saved and happy without Holiness; that is, unless they be devoted in Obedience and Love to GOD and Goodness.
§. 15. No man can be damned that is holy, while such; nor can God hate and make miserable those that truly love him and his governing Will.
§. 16. Yet a person that is holy may deserve Damnation, by deserving to be denied that help of the Holy Spirit by which his Holiness must be continued: And as to be saved is to be perfectly sanctified, so to deserve Hell, is to deserve to be forsaken, to the …o…al loss of Holiness. And so though it be hard for us to know whether Adam's first loss of Innocency was a total loss of Holiness, yet if it were not, it was a forfeiture of divine help, and so a mediate loss of it. And so a man that loveth God sincerely, may by great Sin deserve to be deprived of the Spirit, and therefore we must pray for the pardon of such desert for the sake of Christ, though we cannot be damned or miserable while holy.
§. 17. Obj. But how doth God love a holy Soul if he forsake him, and with-hold his Spirit? And if he be not loved of God, he is miserable? If he be loved, he will not be forsaken.
Ans. Answer this your self as to the Case of the Angels and Adam. God loved them, and yet not so as to secure them from the loss of Grace: But he so far loved them efficiently, as to give them that grace by which they could persevere; but not that by which they necessarily should persevere; and he loved them complacentially, according to the goodness which was in them, and yet they lost it.
§. 18. Obj. That is because they were left to their Free will, and had but sufficient Grace, and not efficacious determining Grace: But it is now otherwise with all true Believers.
Ans. True Believers have not determining efficacious Grace, to prevent all sin, nor all such sin as Noah, Lot, David, Peter did commit: And that sin deserveth an answerable desertion of God, it being a deserting him first so far: And though God pardon it, yet the desert is presupposed to the pardon; for it is desert of punishment that is pardoned.
§. 19. Quest. If a man were holy, (that is, an obedient Lover of God and Goodness) without Faith in Christ, would that save him?
Answ. 1. The Covenants of Grace requireth various degrees of Faith, according to its several editions and promulgations: It is not the same degree of Faith, as to the Objects extensively, which was required of Jewish Believers before Christ's Incarnation, as is now of us, nor the same degree that was required of all the rest of the World as of the Jews. 2. But such a Faith in God our Redeemer as that Law which men are under maketh necessary to Salvation, is necessary to Holiness: And to ask what God will do with a man that is holy without Faith, is to talk of a nonexistent Subject: There is no such man; for without Faith it is impossible to please God: for he that cometh to God must believe that God is, and that he is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek him, notwithstanding original and actual Sin, and the Law of Innocency condemning us; and therefore that he is under a pardoning and rewarding Law of Grace, Heb. 11. 6. No man can be sanctified without the Merit, Doctrine and Spirit of Christ, nor without that degree of Faith which the Covenant which he is under requireth.
§. 20. Quest. What if a man that was sanctified by believing, should retain his Holiness, or Love and Obedience, and lose his Faith in Christ?
Answ. It is a thing that never was nor will be; and not to be disputed of.
§. 21. Moral Virtue in the proper sence of the word, is the same thing as Holiness taken comprehensively, as containing our Love and Duty to God, and to man for God's sake: But as Holiness is taken narrowly for our Love and Duty to God, as distinct from our Love and Duty to Man, so Moral Virtue is the genus, and Holiness the chief species of it. And thus we take Moral Virtue and Moral Action, and so all Morality, as contradistinct from Physicks or things meerly natural, not falling under the genus moris: And so Virtue and Vice (or Sin) are all that is Moral, that is, Moral Good and Moral Evil: And this is the first and most notable sence of the word.
But some of late have used Moral as contradistinct from Holiness or Grace, or from infused Habits, or from Faith and Christianity; and some tell us confidently but falsly, That this is the most fit and famous sence, and the word so to be taken when not otherwise explained. It's the sad case of Mankind, that we have no words but what are liable to ambiguity: And it's the unhappiness of the Church that hath so many Teachers that will dispute, write, and wrangle about words unexplained, and in the end shew, that under divers terms they mean the same matter in which they are agreed and know not their Agreement.
§. 22. As Holiness is sometimes taken so largely, as to comprehend all that God commandeth, and sometimes for the natural part of our Duty (Love and Obedience) as distinct from Faith in Christ, which is the mediate Grace, and of supernatural revelation; so is Morality or moral Virtue distinguished.
§. 23. They that take moral Virtue Phil. 4. 8. 2 Pet. 1. 3, 5. Pro. 12. 4. 31. & 31. 29.so narrowly and improperly, as to mean no other moral Virtue than Heathens had, or than is taught in Aristotle's Ethicks, should first tell us, That this is their sence; and then they may boldly declaim against those Preachers that take this for sufficient; or that preach no other: For Scripture and Christianity were to little purpose if they taught us no more than the Writings of Philosophers do.
§. 24. And no doubt but it is a pitiful sign and an odious Crime in a Minister of Christ, to say little to the People of the Mysteries of Man's Redemption, the Person, and Offices, and Works of Christ, the Covenant of Grace, and the special Blessings given by it, our Union with Christ, Justification, Adoption, and the special Works of the Spirit on Mens Souls, and all the Duties and Pleasures of a Heavenly Conversation, in the love of the Father, the Grace of the Son, and the Communion of the Holy Spirit, and all this under pretence of magnitying and preaching up the Love of our Brethren, and Charity to the Poor, and Iustice, and Temperance; as if Man were our God, and to wrong man were the only Sin, and to wrong God were none, or God could be no otherwaies wronged.
§. 25. But Covetousness and Pride contradicteth their own Doctrine: For among their good works those of Piety are first extolled; and those are the enriching of the Church, and that is themselves; and why them more than the poorer People about us? Because they are sacred persons, and belong to God, and serve at his Altars? Very good. And is Piety to a sacred person (and such as they) so great a Duty, and yet our Piety as immediately to God himself, an indifferent thing, in comparison of our Duty to Man? Yea, some usually make that part of their Piety which consisteth in the observance of their own Traditions and unnecessary Injunctions, to seem of great weight, while the holy observance of God's own Laws is perhaps accused as too much preciseness or hypocris…s; when indeed the Hypocrite is he, that instead of the life and serious practice of true Christian-Holiness, sets up and resteth in the Image of Holiness, and certain formalities, that are lifeless, to deceive himself and others.
§. 26. Where there is no Faith and Love to God, nor Duty done in obedience to God, there is no true moral Virtue, but somewhat equivocally so called, whatever good such may do to the Common-wealth or to their Neighbors; for it wanteth the principle, end and object that should inform it.
§. 27. An Hypocrite may be said to have moral Virtue, as he may be said to have Holiness, that is, only secundum quid, yea, but analogically; yea, but equivocally, in that he hath no other sort of Faith and Love and Obedience.
§. 28. An Infidel's moral Virtue, and all unsanctified Heathens or other persons, is of the same sort only with this described of the Hypocrite: And they err not that say, They have no true moral Virtue, but analogical.
§. 29. Yet Nature and common Grace do give men that which is truly good (and not only minus malum) and may do much good to others, and some to themselves, and is truly laudable and amiable, considered without the mixture simply in it self: But because the contrary evil is still the predominant part in all the unsanctified, it will not properly denominate them good men, nor the whole action a good action, save equivocally, analogically or secundum quid; because the form denominateth, which is here wanting.
§. 30. But if any one think otherwise, that the name of moral Virtue, yea, or Holiness, is due to the best actions or habits of Heathens, Hypocrites, or any unsanctified men, it is but a Controversie de nomine, and no otherwise to be regarded, while we agree of the things signified by that name.
§. 31. It is certain, that now there is no moral good, in any man on Earth, that is not the effect of some Grace of God, common or special; for even Nature now as reprieved, and maintained is an effect of common Grace; much more further gifts: But it is perverseness in some School-men, who make common Grace and special (at least as to Faith) to be differenced only in the Causation, one being not infused and the other infused, but the same in act, and so that no man can know whether he have infused or acquired Faith (which some call but a Moral Virtue.)