A sinner pardoned and sanctified must, in the very nature of things, be
considered as a sinner
VII. If humble love makes us frankly confess our faults, much more does it
incline us to own ourselves sinners, miserable sinners before that God whom we
have so frequently offended. I need not remind you that your "bodies are dead
because of sin." You see, you feel it, and therefore, so long as you dwell in a
prison of flesh and blood, which death, the avenger of sin, is to pull down; so
long as your final justification, as pardoned and sanctified sinners, has not taken
place: yea, so long as you break the law of paradisiacal perfection, under which
you were originally placed, it is meet, right, and your bounden duty to consider
yourselves as sinners, who, as transgressors of the law of innocence and the law
of liberty, are guilty of death,—of eternal death. St. Paul did so after he was
"come to Mount Sion, and to the spirits of just men made perfect." He still
looked upon himself as the chief of sinners, because he had been a daring
blasphemer of Christ, and a fierce. persecutor of his people. "Christ," says he,
"came to save sinners, of whom I am chief." The reason is plain. Matter of fact
is, and will be matter of fact to all eternity. According to the doctrines of grace
and justice, and before the throne of God's mercy and holiness, a sinner
pardoned and sanctified must, in the very nature of things, be considered as a
sinner; for if you consider him as a saint absolutely abstracted from the character
of a sinner, how can he be a pardoned and sanctified sinner? To all eternity,
therefore, but much more while death (the wages of sin) is at your heels, and
while ye are going to "appear before the judgment seat of Christ, to receive"
your final sentence of absolution or condemnation, it will become you to say
with St. Paul, "We have all sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being
justified freely [as sinners] by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus
Christ;" although we are justified JUDICIALLY as believers, through faith; as
obedient believers, through the obedience of faith; and as perfect Christians,
through Christian perfection.
Bear the burdens of the weak.
VIII. Humble love "becomes all things [but sin] to all men," although it delights
most in those who are most holy. Ye may, and ought to set your love of peculiar
complacence upon God's dearest children; upon "those who excel in virtue;"
because they more strongly reflect the image of "the God of love, the Holy One
of Israel." But, if ye despise the weak, and are above lending them a helping
hand, ye are fallen from Christian perfection, which teaches us to "bear one another's burdens," especially the burdens of the weak. Imitate then the
tenderness and wisdom of the good Shepherd, who "carries the lambs in his
bosom, gently leads the sheep which are big with young," feeds with milk those
who cannot bear strong meat, and says to his imperfect disciples, "I have many
things to say to you, but ye cannot bear them now."
Keep at the utmost distance from the shackles of a narrow, prejudiced,
bigoted spirit.
IX. "Where the loving Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Keep therefore at
the utmost distance from the shackles of a narrow, prejudiced, bigoted spirit.
The moment ye confine your love to the people who think just as you do, and
your regard to the preachers who exactly suit your taste, you fall from perfection
and turn bigots. "I entreat you," says Mr. Wesley, in his Plain Account, "beware
of bigotry. Let not your love, or beneficence, be confined to Methodists (so
called) only; much less to that very small part of them who seem to be renewed
in love; or to those who believe yours and their report. O make not this your
Shibboleth." On the contrary, as ye have time and ability, "do good to all men."
Let your benevolence shine upon all: let your charity send its cherishing beams
toward all, in proper degrees. So shall ye be perfect as your heavenly Father,
"who makes his sun to shine upon all;" although he sends the brightest and
warmest beams of his favour upon "the household of faith," and reserves his
richest bounties for those who lay out their five talents to the best advantage.
Beware of desiring any thing but God.
X. Love, pure love, is satisfied with the Supreme Good—with GOD. "Beware
then of desiring any thing but him. Now you desire nothing else. Every other
desire is driven out: see that none enter in again. 'Keep thyself pure: let your eye
remain single, and your whole body shall remain full of light.' Admit no desire
of pleasing food, or any other pleasure of sense; no desire of pleasing the eye or
imagination; no desire of money, of praise, or esteem; of happiness in any
creature. You may bring these desires back; but ye need not; you may feel them
no more. 'O stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free!' Be
patterns to all, of denying yourselves, and taking up your cross daily. Let them
see that you make no account of any pleasure which does not bring you nearer to
God, nor regard any pain which does; that you simply aim at pleasing him,
whether by doing or suffering; that the constant language of your heart with
regard to pleasure or pain, honour or dishonour, is,
All's alike to me, so I
In my Lord may live and die!"
God will give you contradiction, opposition and crosses of various kinds.
XI. The best soldiers are sent upon the most difficult and dangerous expeditions:
and as you are the best soldiers of Jesus Christ, ye will probably be called to drink deepest of his cup, and to carry the heaviest burdens. "Expect
contradiction and opposition," says the judicious divine, whom I have just
quoted, "together with crosses of various kinds. Consider the words of St. Paul,
'To you it is given in behalf of Christ,' for his sake, as a fruit of his death and
intercession for you,' not only to believe, but also to suffer for his sake,' Phil. i,
23. It is given!God gives you this opposition or reproach: it is a fresh token
of his love. And will you disown the giver? Or spurn his gift, and count it a
misfortune? Will you not rather say, 'Father, the hour is come, that thou shouldst
be glorified. Now thou givest thy child to suffer something for thee. Do with me
according to thy will.' Know that these things, far from being hinderances to the
work of God, or to your souls, unless by your own fault, are not only
unavoidable in the course of Providence, but profitable, yea, necessary for you.
Therefore receive them from God (not from chance) with willingness and
thankfulness. Receive them from men with humility, meekness, yieldingness,
gentleness, sweetness."
Love can never do, nor suffer too much for its Divine object.
Love can never do, nor suffer too much for its Divine object. Be then ambitious,
like St. Paul, to be made perfect in sufferings. I have already observed that the
apostle, not satisfied to be a perfect Christian, would also be a perfect martyr;
earnestly desiring to "know the fellowship of Christ's sufferings." Follow him,
as he followed his suffering, crucified Lord. Your feet "are shod with the
preparation of the Gospel of peace;" run after them both, in the race of
obedience, for the crown of martyrdom, if that crown is reserved for you. And if
ye miss the crown of those who are martyrs in deed, ye shall, however, receive
the reward of those who are martyrs in intention—the crown of righteousness and
angelical perfection.
Never neglect doing the duty that God's providence is now giving you.
XII. But do not so desire to follow Christ to the garden of Gethsemane, as to
refuse following him now to the carpenter's shop, if Providence now call you
to it. Do not lose the present day by idly looking back at yesterday, or foolishly
antedating the cares of to-morrow: but wisely use every hour; spending it as one
who stands on the verge of time, on the border of eternity, and one who has his
work cut out by a wise Providence from moment to moment. Never, therefore,
neglect using the two talents you have now, and doing the duty which is now
incumbent upon you. Should ye be tempted to it, under the plausible pretence of
waiting for a great number of talents: remember that God doubles our talents in
the way of duty, and that it is a maxim, advanced by Elisha Coles himself, "Use
grace and have [more] grace." Therefore, "to continual watchfulness and prayer,
add continual employment," says Mr. Wesley, "for grace flies a vacuum as well
as nature; the devil fills whatever God does not fill." "As by works faith is made
perfect, so the completing or destroying of the work of faith, and enjoying the
favour, or suffering the displeasure of God, greatly depend on every single
act of obedience." If you forget this, you will hardly do now whatsoever your
hand findeth to do. Much less will you do it with all your might, for God, for
eternity.
Humbly and discretly share what God has done for you.
XIII. Love is modest: it rather inclines to bashfulness and silence, than to
talkative forwardness. "In a multitude of words there wanteth not sin;" be
therefore "slow to speak;" nor cast your pearls before those who cannot
distinguish them from pebbles. Nevertheless, when you are solemnly called
upon to bear testimony to the truth, and to say "what great things God has done
for you;" it would be cowardice, or false prudence, not to do it with humility. Be
then "always ready to give an answer to every man who [properly] asketh you a
reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness [without fluttering anxiety] and
with fear" [with a reverential awe of God upon your minds,] 1 Pet. iii, 15.
Perfect Christians are "burning and shining lights," and our Lord intimates that,
as "a candle is not lighted to be put under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that
it may give light to all the house;" so God does not light the candle of perfect
love to hide it in a corner, but to give light to all those who are within the reach
of its brightness. If diamonds glitter, if stars shine, if flowers display their
colours, and perfumes diffuse their fragrance, to the honour of the Father of
lights, and Author of every good gift; if without self seeking they disclose his
glory to the utmost of their power, why should "ye not go and do likewise?"
Gold answers its most valuable end when it is brought to light, and made to
circulate for charitable and pious uses; and not when it lies concealed in a
miser's strong box, or in the dark bosom of a mine. But when you lay out your
spiritual gold for proper uses, beware of imitating the vanity of those coxcombs
who, as often as they are about to pay for a trifle, pull out a handful of gold,
merely to make a show of their wealth.
XIV. Love or "charity rejoiceth in the [display of an edifying] truth." Fact is
fact, all the world over. If you can say to the glory of God, that you are alive,
and feel very well, when it is so; why should you not also testify to his honour,
that you "live not, but that Christ liveth in you," if you really find that this is
your experience? Did not St. John say, "Our love is made perfect, because as he
is, so are we in this world?" Did not St. Paul write, "The righteousness of the
law is fulfilled in us, who walk after the Spirit?" Did he not, with the same
simplicity, aver, that although" he had nothing, and was sorrowful, yet he
possessed all things, and was always rejoicing?"
With respect to the declaring or concealing what God has done for your
soul, the line of your duty runs exactly between the proud forwardness of
some stiff Pharisees, and the voluntary humility of some stiff mystics.
Hence it appears, that, with respect to the declaring or concealing what God has
done for your soul, the line of your duty runs exactly between the proud
forwardness of some stiff Pharisees, and the voluntary humility of some stiff
mystics. The former vainly boast of more than they experience, and thus set
up the cursed idol, SELF: the latter ungratefully hide "the wonderful works of
God," which the primitive Christians spoke of publicly in a variety of
languages; and so refuse to exalt their gracious benefactor, CHRIST. The first
error is undoubtedly more odious than the second; but what need is there of
leaning to either? Would ye avoid them both? Let your tempers and lives
always declare that perfect love is attainable in this life. And when you have
a proper call to declare it with your lips and pens, do it without forwardness, to
the glory of God; do it with simplicity, for the edification of your neighbour; do
it with godly jealousy, lest ye should show the treasures of Divine grace in your
hearts, with the same self complacence with which King Hezekiah showed his
treasures, and the golden vessels of the temple to the ambassadors of the king of
Babylon, remembering what a dreadful curse this piece of vanity pulled down
upon him: "And Isaiah said unto Hezekiah, Hear the word of the Lord, Behold
the days come, that all that is in thine house shall be carried into Babylon:
nothing shall be left, saith the Lord." If God so severely punished Hezekiah's
pride, how properly does St. Peter charge believers to "give with fear an account
of the grace which is in them!" and how careful should ye be to observe this
important charge!
Keep at the utmost distance from vanity, honor God for all He does in and
through you.
XV. If you will keep at the utmost distance from the vanity which proved so
fatal to good King Hezekiah, follow an excellent direction of Mr. Wesley. When
you have done any thing for God, or received any favour from him, retire, if not
into your closet, into your heart, and say, "I come, Lord, to restore to thee what
thou hast given, and I freely relinquish it, to enter again into my own
nothingness. For what is the most perfect creature in heaven or earth in thy
presence, but a void, capable of being filled with thee and by thee, as the air
which is void and dark, is capable of being filled with the light of the sun? Grant
therefore, O Lord, that I may never appropriate thy grace to myself, any more
than the air appropriates to itself the light of the sun which withdraws it every
day to restore it the next; there being nothing in the air that either appropriates
his light or resists it. O give me the same facility of receiving and restoring thy
grace and good works! I say thine, for I acknowledge that the root from which
they spring is in thee, and not in me." "The true means to be filled anew with
the riches of grace, is thus to strip ourselves of it; without this it is
extremely difficult not to faint in the practice of good works." "And,
therefore, that your good works may receive their last perfection, let them lose
themselves in God. This is a kind of death to them, resembling that of our
bodies, which will not attain their highest life, their immortality, till they lose
themselves in the glory of our souls, or rather of God, wherewith they shall be
filled. And it is only what they had of earthly and mortal, which good works lose
by this spiritual death."
XVI. Would ye see this deep precept put in practice? Consider St. Paul. Already
possessed of Christian perfection, he does good works from morning till night.
He warns every one night and day with tears. He carries the Gospel from east to
west. Wherever he stops, he plants a Church at the hazard of his life. But instead
of resting in his present perfection, and in the good works which spring from it,
"he grows in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ;" unweariedly
"following after, if that he may apprehend that [perfection] for which also he is
apprehended of Christ Jesus,"—that celestial perfection, of which he got lively
ideas when he was "caught up to the third heaven, and heard unspeakable words,
which it is not possible for a man to utter." With what amazing ardour does he
run his race of Christian perfection for the prize of that higher perfection! How
does he forget the works of yesterday, when he lays himself out for God to-day!
"Though dead, he yet speaketh;" nor can an address to perfect Christians be
closed by a more proper speech than his. "Brethren," says he, "be followers of
me—I count not myself to have apprehended [my evangelical perfection;] but this
one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, [settling in none of
my former experiences, resting in none of my good works,] and reaching
forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the
[celestial] prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as
many as are perfect, be thus minded; and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded,
God shall reveal even this unto you."
- Hymns for Perfect Believers -
In the meantime you may sing the following hymn of the Rev. Mr. Charles
Wesley, which is descriptive of the destruction of corrupt self will, and
expressive of the absolute resignation which characterizes a perfect believer:—
To do, or not to do; to have,
Or not to have, I leave to thee:
To be or not to be, I leave:
Thy only will be done in me!
All my requests are lost in one,
"Father, thy only will be done!"
Suffice that for the season past,
Myself in things Divine I sought;
For comforts cried with eager haste,
And murmur'd that I found them not
I leave it now to thee alone,
Father, thy only will be done!
Thy gifts I clamour for no more,
Or selfishly thy grace require,
An evil heart to varnish o'er:
JESUS, the giver, I desire,
After the flesh no longer known:
Father, thy only will be done!
Welcome alike the crown or cross,
Trouble I cannot ask, nor peace,
Nor toil, nor rest, nor gain, nor loss,
Nor joy, nor grief, nor pain, nor ease,
Nor life, nor death; but ever groan,
"Father, thy only will be done!"
This hymn suits all the believers who are at the bottom of Mount Sion, and
begin to join "the spirits of just men made perfect." But when the triumphal
chariot of perfect love gloriously carries you to the top of perfection's hill; when
you are raised far above the common heights of the perfect; when you are almost
translated into glory, like Elijah, then you may sing another hymn of the same
Christian poet...
Who in Jesus confide,
They are bold to outride
All the storms of affliction beneath:
With the prophet they soar
To that heavenly shore,
And outfly all the arrows of death.
By faith we are come
To our permanent home;
And by hope we the rapture improve:
By love we still rise,
And look down on the skies—
For the heaven of heavens is love!
Who on earth can conceive,
How happy we live
In the city of God, the great King?
What a concert of praise,
When our Jesus's grace
The whole heavenly company sing!
What a rapturous song,
When the glorified throng
In the spirit of harmony join!
Join all the glad choirs,
Hearts, voices, and lyres,
And the burden is mercy Divine!
But when you cannot follow... to those rapturous heights of perfection, you need
not give up your shield. You may still rank among the perfect, if you can
heartily join in this version of Psalm 131:—
Lord, thou dost the grace impart!
Poor in spirit, meek in heart,
I shall as my Master be,
Rooted in humility.
Now, dear Lord, that thee I know,
Nothing will I seek below,
Aim at nothing great or high,
Lowly both in heart and eye.
Simple, teachable, and mild,
Awed into a little child,
Quiet now without my food,
Wean'd from every creature good.
Hangs my new-born soul on thee,
Kept from all idolatry;
Nothing wants beneath, above,
Resting in thy perfect love.
That your earthen vessels may be filled with this love till they break, and you
enjoy the Divine object of your faith without an interposing veil of gross flesh
and blood, is the wish of one who sincerely praises God on your account, and
ardently prays,—
"Make up thy Jewels, Lord, and show
The glorious, spotless Church below:
The fellowship of saints make known;
And O! my God, might I be one!
O might my lot be cast with these,
The least of Jesus' witnesses!
O that my Lord would count me meet,
To wash his dear disciples' feet!
To wait upon his saints below!
On Gospel errands for them go!
Enjoy the grace to angels given;
And serve the royal heirs of heaven!"
The Works of John Fletcher, Vol 2, Last Check to Antinomianism, Sec 20, "An
address to Perfect Christians"