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{Sermons on Ephesians 5:15
The Doctrine Explained
Precisians Are Proved to Be Not Fools
They Have the Treasures of Wisdom
They Have Gotten the White Stone}
The second great treasure that Precisians have gotten is the White Stone, the stone of forgiveness and reconciliation. “I will give him the white stone” (Revelation 2:17), a token of forgiveness and reconciliation. It was a custom among the heathen to pardon people by giving them a white stone and to condemn them by giving a black stone.101 We have received the atonement (Romans 5:10). God is reconciled, our sins are forgiven, and our souls are pardoned from those black writs of indictment that were laid against us (Colossians 2:14). We have received the sign of this atonement, the holy Dove, the Spirit of the Lord, in our hearts. Because of the sense of this atonement, the peace of God possesses our hearts, and we taste and see what it is to be at peace with God in those smiles from His face, in those dawns of the light of His countenance, and in the shedding abroad of His love in our hearts. Sinners, each one of you carries your black stone with you; you carry your sentence of condemnation and the earnest of eternal vengeance. Meanwhile, Precisians have their white stones, their marks of forgiveness, and the earnest of eternal blessedness. When you look on their naked backs, their hungry bellies, and cold lodgings, things that are the lot of many of them, you will say that they surely are a poor and foolish people. But see that precious stone that they carry with them wherever they are and you may behold their riches and wisdom. When you consider your own fullness, pretensions, dainties, delicacies, ornaments, jewels, possessions, and honors, you are transported with pride and jolliness and have almost forgotten that you are merely human.102 But that black stone in your heart, that guilt that you carry in your conscience, what does it signify? Consider, sinners, what it is to have God your enemy, wrath your portion, the curse clinging to your possessions, and your sentence of death written in your hearts and on your consciences. Then you will think that Precisians have gotten something; they have gotten their redemption from all this.
101This historical reference is correct, but there were other occasions in history of the use of white stones, such as to victors in the arena. This uncertainty should not detract from the teachings on God’s gracious forgiveness through Christ.
102Alleine is not teaching that poverty, in itself, is a virtue, or that wealth, in itself, is evil. Rather, this passage reflects the reality of Alleine’s time and place when God’s people often suffered persecution and hardship while the ungodly were frequently rewarded.
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