EXPLANATION

We are naturally so prone to ground our salvation upon our own works, that if we cannot make them Procuring conditions and causes of our salvation by Christ, yet we shall endeavor at least to make them necessary preparatives, to fit us for receiving Christ and his salvation by faith. And men are easily persuaded that this is not at all contrary to salvation by free grace, because all that is hereby ascribed to our works, or good qualifications, is only, “That they put us in a fit posture to receive a free gift. If we were to go to a prince for a free gift, good manners, and due reverence, would teach us to trim ourselves first, and to change our slovenly clothes, as Joseph did when he came out of the dungeon into the presence of Pharoah.

It seems to be an impudent slighting and condemning the justice and holiness of God and Christ, and an insufferable affront and indignity offered to the divine Majesty, when any dare presume to approach his presence with the guilt of his sins, covered all over with putrifying sores, not at all closed, bound up, or clean; much more when they endeavor to receive the Most Holy One into such as abominable stinking kennel, as a sinner’s heart is before it is at all reformed. The parable concerning the man that was to be bound hand and foot and cast into outer darkness for coming to the royal wedding without a wedding garment, seems to be intended as a warning against all such presumption” (Matthew 22:11, 13). Many that behold with terror the abominable filth of their own hearts are kept off from coming immediately to Christ by such imaginations, which Satan strongly maintains and increases in them by his suggestions: so that they can by no means be persuaded out of them, until God teaches them inwardly by the powerful illumination of his Spirit. They delay the saving act of faith because they think they are not yet duly prepared and qualified for it. On the same account, many weak believers delay coming to the Lord’s Supper for many years together, even as long as they live in this world; and would be as likely to delay their baptism, if they had not been baptized in infancy. Against all such imaginations I shall propose the following considerations.

First: The error is pernicious to the practice of holiness, and to our whole salvation, in the same manner with that treated of in the foregoing direction, and may be confuted by the same arguments which are there produced. Whether holiness be made a procuring condition of our salvation through Christ, or only a condition necessary to qualify us for the reception of Christ, we are equally brought under those legal terms, of doing first the duties required in the law, that so we may live. Therefore, we are equally bereaved of the assistance of those means of holiness mentioned in the foregoing directions, as union and fellowship with Christ and the enjoyment of all his sanctifying endowments by faith, which should go before the practice of holiness, that they may enable us for it; and we are equally left to labor in vain for holiness, while we are in our accursed natural state, whereby our sinful corruption will rather be exasperated than mortified, so that we shall never be duly prepared for the reception of Christ as long as we live in the world. Thus, while we endeavor to prepare our way to Christ by holy qualifications, we do rather fill it with stumbling-blocks, and deep pits, whereby our souls are hindered from ever attaining to the salvation by Christ.

Secondly: Any least change of our hearts and lives from sin to holiness before our receiving of Christ and his salvation by faith, is not at all necessary according to the terms of the gospel, nor required in the word of God. Christ would have the vilest sinners come to him for salvation immediately, without delaying the time to prepare themselves for him. When the wicked jailer inquired, What he must do to be saved? Paul directed him forthwith to believe on Christ, with a promise that in so doing he should be saved; and straightway he and all his were baptized (Acts 16:30, 33). Paul did not tell him that he must reform his heart and life first, though he was in a deplorable condition at that time, having but a little before fastened Paul and Silas in the stocks, and newly attempted a horrid willful self-murder. Those three thousand Jews that were converted by Peter’s preaching, and added the same day to the church by baptism (Acts 2:41), seemed to have as much need of considerable time to prepare themselves for receiving Christ as others, because they had but lately polluted themselves with the murder of Christ himself. Christ commands his servants to go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city and to bring in to his feast the poor, the maimed, the halt, and the blind; yea, to go out into the highway and to compel them to come in, without allowing them to tarry until they had cleansed their sores and shaken off their filthy rags and swarms of lice. Christ would have us to believe on him that justifies the ungodly; and therefore he does not require us to be godly before we believe (Romans 4:5). He came as a Physician for the sick and does not expect that they should recover their health, in the least degree, before they come to him (Matthew 9:12). The vilest sinners are fitly prepared and qualified for this design; which is, to show forth the exceeding riches of grace, pardoning our sins, and saving us freely. For this end the law of Moses entered that the offense might abound; that so, where sin abounded, grace might much more abound (Romans 5:20). He loved us in our most loathsome sinful pollution, so as to die for us; and much more will he love us in it, so as to receive us when we come to him for the purchased salvation. He has given full satisfaction to the justice of God for sinners, that they might have all righteousness and holiness, and all salvation only by fellowship with him through faith. Therefore, it is no affront to Christ, or slighting and condemning the justice and holiness of God, to come to Christ, while we are polluted sinners; but rather it is an affronting and contemning the saving-grace, merit, and fullness of Christ if we endeavor to make ourselves righteous and holy before we receive Christ himself, and all righteousness and holiness in him by faith. Christ loathed not to touch a leper, and condescended to wash the feet of his disciples, and did not expect that they should be washed and perfumed beforehand, as some great ones of the world are said to do, when they wash the feet of poor men, in imitation of Christ.

Thirdly: Those that receive Christ with an unfeigned faith shall never want a wedding garment to adorn them in the sight of God. Faith itself is very precious in the sight of God, and most holy. God loves it, because it gives the glory of our salvation only to the free grace of God in Christ; and renounces all dependence upon any conditions that we can perform, to procure a right to Christ, or to make ourselves acceptable to him. It contains in it a hearty love to Christ as a Saviour, and a hungering and thirsting appetite for his salvation; and it is the mouth whereby the soul feeds hungrily upon him. What wedding garment can sinners bring with them more delightful than this to their bountiful God, whose great design is to manifest the abundant riches of his glorious grace and bounty in this wedding-feast? The Father himself loves them, because they love Christ, and believe that he came out from God (John 16:27). But yet we see that the excellency of faith lies in this, that it accounts not itself, nor any other work of ours, a sufficient ornament to make us acceptable in the sight of God. It will not be our wedding-garment itself, but it buys of Christ white raiment, that we may be clothed, and that the shame of our nakedness may not appear (Rev. 3:18). Though it loves and desires the free gift of holiness, yet it abandons all thoughts of practicing holiness immediately, before we come to Christ for an holy nature. It puts on Christ himself, and in him all things that pertain to life and godliness. Thus every true believer is clothed with the sun (Rev. 12:1), even with the Sun of righteousness, the Lord Jesus; who is pleased to be himself both our wedding-garment and feast, and all our spiritual and eternal happiness.

REQUEST FOR FINANCING

“The Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Lethbridge requires approximately $50,000.00 to complete the financing for the construction of a new church buiding in Lethbridge. “Total cost of the church is to be $75,000.00. If possible, the church consistory would like to raise the required funds from a private source. “If you are in a position to assist, either by way of contribution or investment, please contact:

Gilbert J. Grisnich,

Secretary of Consistory,

Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Lethbridge,

Box 1063,

LETHBRIDGE, Alberta, Canada.”

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