CONCLUSION
I trust, the reader has not found much on the foregoing pages that is objectionable, or that
has not commended itself to his judgment, as truth, duty, or Christian privilege. This subject has
been greatly misunderstood. When correctly presented, Christian purity is seen to possess none of
the forbidding features, so often attributed to it by its mistaken opponents.
How clearly taught! how beautifully illustrated, and how amply sustained by the word of
God, is purity of heart! The Bible is full of it.
As a Church, this has been our mission, our strength, and our glory! Our standards of
doctrine are full of it! And how full our Hymn Book and Discipline! How persistently, patiently,
and faithfully John Wesley preached it! How beautifully Charles Wesley incorporated it into his
poetry, and how gloriously millions have sung it! How completely John Fletcher refuted those who
wrote against it; and how fragrant his life with its sweetness and devotion to God!
O, that our hearts were filled with it! Having it nicely fixed in our creed, Hymn Book,
Discipline, and Biographies; may God help us to have it wrought in our hearts; if it is not, these
will rise in the judgment to condemn us, who are living so far beneath our acknowledged privilege
and duty.
The Bible system of divine mercy and human salvation, makes no allowance for any sin,
but ample provision for its destruction. Gospel salvation is salvation FROM SIN, never salvation
IN SIN.
Nothing can answer as a substitute for personal purity; no able ministry, no imposing
church architecture, no splendid music, no exterior appendages, or forms, or ceremonies can take
its place. No measure of benevolence, no fasting or mortification can be its substitute. These have
no intrinsic power in themselves to purify our hearts. They are valuable only as means of grace, to
lead us to Christ, the fountain of cleansing.
It is not members, nor fine churches, nor ecclesiastical polity, nor theological schools, nor
ritual, that constitutes the saving power of the Church. These may be well enough in their place; but
after all, in her purity is her true power. Every Christian Church is powerful, (other circumstances
being equal) proportioned to her internal purity. Simple goodness -- purity of life and conversation
will yield a power for God, with which genius, education and wealth without purity can never
compete. All experience teaches that holiness and religious prosperity are joined together, and
there can be no substitute for it.
We must be pure, and made "partakers of the divine nature." We have been made partakers
of the "earthly, sensual, and devilish;" and the design of the Gospel is to destroy this, and deliver
us from all the impurities and sinfulness of our degenerate state. There are no wounds, defilement,
or disease, made by sin in the soul of man, which grace cannot heal. Though ten thousand times ten
thousand have washed away their pollutions in the blood of Christ, the fountain of cleansing has
lost none of its purifying efficacy.
Dr. Guthrie most beautifully says -- "Today the great sea, where go the ships, after
receiving for long ages into its capacious bosom the mud and ruin, the decay and death of a
thousand rivers, is as pure as when its billows first broke their snowy heads on the shores of our
new born-world."
The cleansing efficacy of the atoning blood remains forever the same, and it is at our
option, whether we avail ourselves of it. If purified, it is because we choose to have it done, and
trust Christ to do it; if not, it is because we choose not to embrace the provided remedy. This
purification is to be secured in this life. It is the Christian's business to be ready at any moment to
enter heaven. We must be actually and positively holy. Before we can enter heaven, in nature, in
purity we must be a complete, finished Christian, free from sin or depravity. This constitutes the
only preparation for Paradise. The work is to be accomplished here, in this world, now, not in
death, not in the grave, not in Heaven. Purity is to be wrought in the Church militant some time
between regeneration and death. Regeneration not being of itself a complete deliverance from
inbred sin, this purification must take place before we go hence.
We are all under the most imperative obligation to be holy. Our Christian name, our
baptismal vows, our profession of faith in Christ, and belief in his word, all call us to be holy. In
true repentance we forsake all sin, and in our Church relations a profession of real sanctity is
proclaimed. If we are not pure in heart, it is our own fault and reproach. To make us holy is the
great design of Christianity. For this the Son of God bled and died. For this he ever lives to make
intercession for us. For this the Holy Spirit is given; and to cleanse and save us from sin, is the
sum and substance of His most gracious work.
We have no louder, no more imperative call, than to holiness. By far the greater portion of
the admonitions, warnings, and exhortations of the Bible are addressed to the professed children of
God, enforcing this duty and privilege.
Rev. Albert Barnes says, -- "A man who has been redeemed by the blood of the Son of
God should be pure. He who is an heir of life should be holy. He who is attended by celestial
beings, and is soon -- he knows not how soon -- to be translated to heaven, should be holy. Are
angels my attendants? Then I should walk worthy of my companions. Am I soon to go and dwell
with angels? Then I should be pure. Are these feet soon to tread the courts of heaven? Is this tongue
soon to unite with holy beings in praising God? Are these eyes soon to look on the throne of eternal
glory, and on the ascended Redeemer? Then these feet, and eyes, and lips should be pure and holy,
and I should be dead to the world and live for heaven!"
"HOLINESS TO THE LORD" -- should be our MOTTO! It should be inscribed on our
understanding, reason, judgment, memory, conscience, affections, tempers, dispositions, desires,
will, actions -- every thing. Every thing should be done purely, religiously, as our duty to God, and
to man, and to ourselves. Eating, drinking, buying, selling, reading, writing, study, recreation,
society, conversation, employment, giving, receiving, voting, and legislating all must be done to
the glory of God. "And whatsoever ye do, in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God and the Father by him."
To be really holy, is to be relatively holy, as husbands and wives, as parents and children,
as masters and mistresses, as servants and subjects. Purity of heart, being a state pervasive of all
our activities, will develop itself to the extent of its opportunity in every direction. Hence, to be
really holy, is to be universally holy.
To simply retain the grace received at justification is not enough. We often hear persons
praising God that they still retain a sense of his favor after having been converted ten or twenty
years. This is right, but should this satisfy? Ten or twenty years of privileges, means, and spiritual
culture, and no result but bare existence!
The Church must have aggressive power. This is the very condition of her life; the fact
upon which hangs the perpetuity of her existence. She must live by aggression if she live at all. She
must encounter enemies, and live by conflict and victory, AND MUST CONTINUE TO
CONQUER OR DIE!
There must be regenerating and saving power exerted, and converts received, as she
perpetuates herself only in this way. Therefore, there is an intimate connection between the
purification of the Church and the conversion of the world.
This grace is the great antidote to Catholicism. When the blood of Christ is applied through
faith, and the soul is cleansed, then farewell to penances, pilgrimages, purgatory, indulgences,
ablutions, masses, and the like. In the absence of purity the Church has always run into forms and
ceremonies, into ignorance, superstition and death. It is no wonder Alphonsus Liquori, a Catholic
writer, says that this doctrine of purity is "the trunk whence almost all the errors of the modern
heretics spring."
Christian Purity, is what the Church needs to qualify her to carry forward her great work of
regenerating the world, in a manner commensurate with her numbers, her vast wealth, and her
multiplied and increasing facilities and opportunities. It is needed to clothe our learned ministry
with spiritual power, and fill our commodious and costly churches with sanctified believers and
converted sinners.
The Church numerically ought to duplicate herself every year; and she would, if she were
fully sanctified to God. Did each member of the Church secure the salvation of but one soul a year,
in one year the Church would be doubled, in two years she would stand four to one, in three years
eight to one, in four years sixteen to one, in five years thirty-two to one, and in six years sixty-four
to one; and in less than seven years the WORLD WOULD BE CONVERTED, and the millennial
glory cover the whole earth.
Bishop Janes asserts -- "A holy Church would soon make a holy world;" and Bishop Foster
-- "Let the Church attain to this, let Christians claim their privilege, and come up to the standard,
and the world would be a speedy and easy conquest."
Then, we say in all humanity! and in all mercy! for God's and for Christ's sake! let the
whole Church, ministry and laity, Bishops, Editors, Doctors of divinity and all, HASTEN TO THE
CLEANSING FOUNTAIN. Then for the world's sake! let us dismiss our fears of making holiness
a SPECIALTY --- "a favorite object of pursuit" (Webster), and let the whole Church of God claim
their privilege in Jesus, and DO THEIR DUTY AT ONCE!
For this cause, dear reader, "I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of
whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the
riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may
dwell in your heart by faith; that you being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to
comprehend, with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the
love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. Now
unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the
power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages
world without end." And "the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus that
great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in
every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through
Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen."
Glory and dominion be unto the Lord Jesus Christ,
For-ever and ever:
Who is, and Who was, and Who is to come:
The Almighty. Amen.
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