08. Sanctification springs from justification

Sanctification springs from justification

Third, So likewise in the matter of holy life, in the whole course of a holy life, ’where the Spirit of Christ is, there is liberty,’ and freedom from the slavery of sin. For there the understanding is freed from the bondage of ignorance, and there the will is freed from the bondage of rebellion; there the affections likewise, and the whole inward and outward man is freed. But this liberty of holiness, inherent liberty, it doth spring from the liberty that we have by justification, by the righteousness of Christ, whereby we are perfectly righteous, and freed from all the title that Satan hath in us. We are freed from the curse of God, from the law, and enabled in a course of sanctification to go on from grace to grace. The Spirit of Christ comes after justification. For whom God gives forgiveness unto, he gives his Spirit to sanctify them. The same Spirit that assures me of the pardon of my sin, sanctifies my nature. Where the Spirit is of sanctification, it breaks the ruling power of sin. Before then the whole life is nothing but a continual sinning and offending of God; but now there is a gracious liberty of disposition, a largeness of heart which follows the liberty of condition. When a man is free in state and law from wrath, and from the sentence of damnation, then he hath a free and voluntary disposition wrought to serve God freely, without fear or constraint. When a man is under the bondage of the law, when he is under the fear, of death, being armed with a sting, whatsoever he doth he doth it with a slavish mind. Where the Spirit of God is, there is the spirit of adoption, the spirit of sons, which is a free spirit. The son doth not duties to his father out of constraint and fear, but out of nature. The Spirit alters our nature and disposition. It makes us sons, and then we do all freely. God doth enlarge the hearts of his children. They can deny themselves in a good work. They are ’zealous of good works.’ It is the end of their redemption; as it is Titus 2:14, ’We are redeemed to be a peculiar people, zealous of good works.’ For then we have a base esteem of all things that hinder us from freeness in God’s service, as worldliness, &c. What doth a Christian when he seeth his gracious liberty in Christ? The love of the world and worldly things, he is ready to part with all for the service of God. He is so free-hearted that he can part with life itself. Paul saith of himself, ’My life is not dear to me, so I may finish my course with joy,’ Acts 20:24. As we see in the martyrs and others how free they were, even of their very blood.

What shall we think of those therefore, that if we get anything of them, it must be as a sparkle out of the flint. Duties come from Christians as water out of a spring. They are natural, and not forced to issue, so far forth as they are spiritual.

I confess that there is remainders of bondage where the Spirit sets at liberty; for there is a double principle in us, while we live in this world, of nature and grace. Therefore there will be a conflict in every holy duty. The flesh will draw back when the Spirit would be liberal. The flesh will say, Oh but I may want! When the Spirit would be most courageous, the flesh will say, But there is danger in it. So that there is nothing that we can do but it must be gotten out of the fire. We must resist. Yet notwithstanding here is liberty to do good, because here is a principle that resists the backwardness of the flesh. In a wicked man there is nothing but flesh, and therefore there is no resistance. And we must understand the nature of this spiritual liberty in sanctification. It is not a liberty freeing us altogether from conflict, and deadness, and dulness, and the like; but it is a liberty enabling us to combat, not freeing us from combat. It is a liberty to fight the battles of the Lord against our own corruptions, not freeing us from it. That is the liberty of glory in heaven, when there shall be no enemy within or without.

Therefore let not Christians be discouraged with the backwardness and untowardness of the flesh, to good duties. If we have a principle in us to fight against it, to enable us to fight against our corruptions, and to get good duties out of it in spite of it, it is an argument of a new nature. God will perfect his own beginnings, and subdue the flesh more and more, by the power of his Spirit. We see our blessed Saviour, what a sweet excuse he makes for his disciples when they were dead-hearted and drowsy, when they should have comforted him in the garden: Oh, saith he, ’the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,’ Matthew 26:41.

Indeed, there is a double hindrance in God’s people when they are about holy duties, sometimes from their very mould and nature, considered not as corrupted; the very mould without the consideration. And then consider it as it is made more heavy and dull by the flesh, and corruptions in them, as there be invincible infirmities and weaknesses in nature. Sometimes deadness, after labour and expense of spirits, creeps in invincibly, that a man cannot overcome those necessities of nature. So that ’the spirit may be willing, and the flesh weak;’ the flesh without any great corruption. God looks upon our necessities; as the father saith, Free me from my necessities (a). As we see, Christ made an excuse for them. It was not so much corruption, though that were an ingredient in it, as nature in itself. Christ saw a great deal of gold in the ere, therefore we see how he excuseth them. Therefore when we are dull, let us strive. Christ is ready to make excuse for us, if our hearts be right: ’The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.’ I speak this for the comfort of the best sort of Christians, that think they are not set at liberty by the Spirit, because they find some heaviness and dulness in good duties. As I said, there is sin in us while we live here, but it reigns not. After a man hath the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Christ maintains a perpetual combat and conflict against sin. It could subdue sin all at once if God saw it good; but God will humble us while we live here, and exercise us with spiritual conflicts. Therefore God sees it sufficient to bring us to heaven, to set up a combat in us, that we are able by the help of the Spirit to fight God’s battles against the flesh. So that the dominion of sin may be broken in us, and excellently, saith Paul, Romans 8:2, ’The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath freed me from the law of sin and of death.’ The law of the Spirit of life, that is, the commanding power of the Spirit of Christ, that commands as a law in the hearts of God’s people, it frees us from the law, that is, from the commanding power of sin and death. So that the dominion and tyranny of sin is broken by the Spirit of Christ, and so we are set at a gracious liberty. In some respects we are under grace, therefore sin shall not have dominion over us, as the apostle speaks.