| Back | Contents | Next |
{Sermons on Ephesians 5:15
Evidence for the Absolute Necessity of Precise Godliness
From Scripture
Implications121}
Multitudes of similar Scriptures might be added, but these will suffice. Now, for what reason were all these things written? For what reason are all these strict commands given? Why are the holy lives of saints recorded? Why are these promises made and these prayers kept on record? Are they not written for our learning, to let every man and woman understand what kind of people they must be and what manner of lives they must live if they will be saved? If a lesser or lower religion will serve, to what purpose is this waste? Even if such a religion would serve, people should forbear accusing Precisians with doing more than required and accuse the Scriptures for requiring more than what is needed. But do you really think the Scriptures have spoken these things in vain? If:
It is not in vain;
All this is included under the one thing needed (Luke 10:42);122
All this shows us the one and only way of life;
We must be thus renewed and changed in our minds;
We must thus order our lives holily and blamelessly, or else we cannot be saved, as many of the mentioned Scriptures expressly affirm;
then what will become of that poor confident multitude with which we are now dealing? Does all this amount to no more than going to church, saying your prayers, learning and repeating the Apostle’s Creed and the Ten Commandments, living in peace with your neighbors, paying your debts, begging God for mercy when you have committed a sin,123 and the like? Can you call this cold, lifeless way your striving to enter in at the narrow gate? Is this your working out your salvation with fear and trembling? Is this all that is meant by fighting the good fight of faith, by wrestling against flesh and blood and against principalities and powers, by being urgent in prayer, by being fervent in spirit, by watching and running and pressing toward the goal? Brethren, there is one way of life. All this that has been presented to you out of the Scriptures shows you, from the Lord, what a narrow way this way of life is. If you will compare your way that you depend upon with it, I think you should need no more to convince you of your dangerous mistake and to make you ready to embrace the exhortation that I am pressing upon you: to come in among the number of circumspect Christians and take up their holy course.
121This heading is not part of Alleine’s outline, but was added for clarity and consistency by the editor.
122“But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42 NKJV). Mary was with Christ taking in His teaching. See also Psalm 27:4.
123God will most certainly grant mercy and forgiveness to any of His elect children who, with a sincere, repentant, contrite, and lowly spirit ask it. Such people endeavor to fight hard against every sin and detest their every failure, even for besetting sins. But there is also an attitude that takes God’s forgiveness as a license to take the sin lightly or even to keep on sinning. It is this wicked attitude against which Alleine speaks here; such an attitude treats our Lord’s precious and painfully shed blood as an unclean and cheap thing. The phrase “committed a sin” is often used (though by no means exclusively) by people who think that only gross or external sins are real sins.
| Back | Contents | Next |