Sermon XIII.
I shall now add some cautions as to the pursuit of the first direction:—
[1.] Take heed of a degeneration into self-righteousness. Intendments of holiness have more than once been ruined by Satan through this deceit; they have set out upon conviction, and ended in Pharisaism. Now, this hath been done many ways:—
1st. Some, really convinced of the vanity of an empty profession, and of boasting of saintship upon the account of faith and light without holiness and godliness, — which was the way of many when James and John wrote their epistles, — fall to dispute and contend (as well they may) for the absolute necessity of holiness and strict obedience, of fruitfulness and good works. But Satan here gets advantage upon men’s natural spirits, their heats, and contentions, and insinuates an inherent righteousness, upon the account whereof we should, under one pretence or other, expect acceptation with God as to the justification of our persons. So he prevailed upon the Galatians. The way is narrow and strait that lies between the indispensable necessity of holiness, and its influence into our righteousness. Because no faith will justify us before God, but that also which will justify itself by fruitfulness before men, a great mistake arises, as though what it doth for its own justification were to be reckoned unto ours. Many in our days have gone off from the mystery of the gospel on this account.
2dly. It prevails from a secret self-pleasing, that is apt to grow on the minds of men from a singularity in the performance of duties. This is that which the Heart-searcher aims to prevent in his command, that “when we have done all, we should say we are unprofitable servants;” that is, in the secrets of our hearts to sit down in a sense of our own worthlessness. And here lies another great practical difficulty, — namely, to have the rejoicing of a good conscience in our integrity and constancy in duties, without a reflection upon something of self, that the soul may please itself and rest in. Nehemiah fixes on the medium, Neh. xiii. 22. He had in the sight of God the testimony of his conscience concerning the service he had done for the house of God; but as to the rest, he winds up all in mercy, pardon, and grace. “God, I thank thee I am not as other men,” is apt to creep into the heart in a strict course of duties. And this self-pleasing is the very root of self-righteousness; which, as it may defile the saints themselves, so it will destroy those who only in the strength of their convictions go forth after a holiness and righteousness: for it quickly produceth the deadly, poisonous effect of spiritual pride; which is the greatest assimilation to the nature of the devil that the nature of man is capable of.
3dly. Our own holiness hath an advantage upon spiritual sense against the righteousness of Christ. The righteousness of Christ is utterly a strange thing to the best of unbelievers; and this puts them by all means upon the setting up of their own, Rom. x. 3. And believers themselves know it only by faith, Rom. i. 17; which is “of things not seen.” But what we are ourselves, what we do, what we aim at, and in what manner, this we have a near sense of. And holiness is apt to insinuate itself into the conscience with a beauty that is none of its own, — to proffer itself to the soul’s embraces instead of Jesus Christ. Its native beauty consists in its answering the will of God, conforming the soul to the likeness of Christ, and being useful in the world, in a covenant of mere mercy. From its presence, and the sense we have of it, the heart is apt to put a varnish and false beauty upon it, as to the relief of conscience upon the account of justification. As it was of old with the children of Israel, when Moses was in the mount, and not seen, nor had they any visible pledge of the presence of God, instantly they turned their gold into a calf that would be always present with them; — being in the dark as to the righteousness of Christ, which is, as it were, absent from them, men set up their own holiness in the stead of it; which, though of itself it be of God, yet turned into self-righteousness is but a calf, — an idol, that cannot save them.
This is my first caution. But that we may make the better improvement of it, as unto present practice, I shall add some evidences of the prevalency, or at least contending, of self-righteousness for an interest in the soul, under a pretence of duty and holiness; as, —
(1st.) When, under a design of holiness, there is an increase of a bondage-frame of spirit; — when the mind begins to be enslaved to the duties which it doth itself perform; — when that amplitude, freedom, and largeness of mind which is in a gracious frame of heart decays, and a servile bondage-frame grows in the room of it, so that the soul doth what it doth under this notion, that it dare not do otherwise. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” 2 Cor. iii. 17. Those that come to Christ, he makes free, John viii. 36; — there is freedom and spiritual largeness of heart unto obedience and duty. A will unto duty, enlarged, dilated, and sweetened by love, delight, joy, complacency in the matter of obedience, is the freedom we speak of. This frame, I confess, is not always alike prevalent in gracious souls. They may have things ready to die; sin within, temptations without, desertion from God, — all of them together, each of them, may disturb this harmony, and bring them for a time, it may be a long time, under an indisposition unto such a frame; — but this is for the most part predominant. When such a frame decays, or is not, all endeavours, pains, attempts, severities in duties, do all relate to the law, — to bondage; and consequently lead to self-righteousness, fear, subjection of conscience to duties, — not [to] God in Christ in the duty; fluctuating of peace according to performances. The soul, in its strictest course, had need fear a snare.