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{Sermons on Ephesians 5:15
Use of the Doctrine
Inviting People to Join the Precisians}
But, I have a greater request to you than to have a good opinion of Precisians and to reproach them no longer. My further request to you is that you will come in and be of their number. It may be that some of you will be ready to reply that he will have hard work who would persuade me to be a Precisian. And I also am truly afraid that it will be so. In light of all that the devil can do to hinder it, all that your carnal reason and fleshly lusts can do, and all that your sinful companions can do, I will certainly not be enough to prevail with you. Yet know that the request that I make to you is from the Lord, and if you deny me, you thus deny Him.113 And if you deny Him you must face the consequences: there is another day coming when He will deny you (Matthew 10:33). You say you will not be persuaded, but what is it to which you will not be persuaded? Why, this is it: You will not take the yoke of Christ upon you. You do not want to be advised or governed by Him. The purpose of Christ’s government is that you would live as He wants you to live. But you want to have your liberty to walk still according to your own mind and heart. That is, you do not want to be Christians. Is this what you want? Are you in good earnest? Are you content that the Lord should take you at your word and forever give you up to your heart’s lusts and let you alone to walk in your own counsels? Are you content from now on to give up your hope in Christ? Are you content to be damned? Brethren, this is the choice you are put to: either a holy life or everlasting death.114 You must submit to the yoke of Christ, or you can have no benefit from the cross of Christ. You must kiss His golden scepter, or be broken in pieces by His rod of iron. If you refuse to follow Him in His kingdom of grace, you thus shut yourself out of the kingdom of glory. Therefore, that I may more effectually convince you, I will yet further prove to you, by both Scripture and reason, that this strict and precise way of life is so undoubtedly and absolutely necessary to salvation, that whoever does not thus walk cannot escape the damnation of Hell.
I know carnal people are confident that they will be saved without so much fuss. I know that this is what hardens them in their sins: their strong conceit that their way is not so difficult and narrow as many would make them believe; they do not doubt that they have found out a shorter and easier way than this. And what is this supposedly easier way? Why, it is to do no more than: Call upon God for mercy.115 Go to church. Do nobody any wrong. Do not be a drunkard, foul-mouthed, or an adulterer. Or if you are sometimes overtaken, ask God for forgiveness and cry to God for mercy. Then hope all is well, never despair of God’s mercy, and fear not. You will be safe enough.
Now I will make it plain to you that this loose and easy way of religion will certainly leave every soul who goes no further to perish everlastingly and that the strict holy life that has been described is indispensably necessary to salvation. Beloved, this matter that I am speaking about is weighty; a mistake in your religion is mortal. If that which you have taken up for your way of life is wrong, you are undone forever. Your easy way is wrong, as I will now make plain.
113Superficially, Alleine may seem arrogant here. But Alleine is simply speaking as a messenger of God’s Word, which anyone may read, firsthand, for himself or herself, from the Holy Bible.
114Alleine is not preaching salvation by works or any kind of perfectionism here, as shown in the section “Two Things Added.” Faith and repentance go together; faith without sincere endeavor to full obedience is not real saving faith (James 2:18). Scripture continually places the believer in a tension between what is required of him and what he is (1 John 2:3–6), without in any way diminishing the free and gracious forgiveness that is found in Jesus Christ (1 John 1:5–10; 2:1–2). This is the perspective of Alleine. Then and now, all too many people view the “Sinner’s Prayer” or something else as a “ticket to Heaven” without taking seriously our Lord Jesus Christ’s command to take up our cross daily, to be holy as God is holy, to do all in faith, to do all for God’s glory, and so on. Works do not save, but the same regeneration and saving faith that justify one from sins also set the believer on a lifelong course of increasing obedience.
115Why should God grant mercy to those who have rejected His only ordained means of mercy, Jesus Christ? Christ is no savior to those who will not have Him as Master.
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