William Tilly Abridged and Revised by John Wesley
Written in the Year 1733
“Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.” Eph. 4:30.
There can be no point of greater importance to him who knows that it is the Holy Spirit which leads us into all truth and into all holiness, than to consider with what temper of soul we are to entertain his divine presence; so as not either to drive him from us, or to disappoint him of the gracious ends for which his abode with us is designed; which is not the amusement of our understanding, but the conversion and entire sanctification of our hearts and lives.
These words of the Apostle contain a most serious and affectionate exhortation to this purpose. “Grieve. not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”
The title “holy,” applied to the Spirit of God, does not only denote that he is holy in his own nature, but that he makes us so; that he is the great fountain of holiness to his church; the Spirit from whence flows all the grace and virtue, by which the stains of guilt are cleansed, and we are renewed in all holy dispositions, and again bear the image of our Creator. Great reason, therefore, there was for the Apostle to give this solemn charge concerning it, and the highest obligation lies upon us all to consider it with the deepest attention; which that we may the more effectually do, I shall inquire,
I. In what sense the Spirit of God is said to be grieved at the sins of men:
II. By what kind of sin he is more especially grieved.
III. I shall endeavour to show the force of the Apostle’s argument against grieving the Holy Spirit, — “By whom we are sealed to the day of redemption.”
I. I am, First, to inquire, in what sense the Spirit of God may be said to be grieved with the sins of men. There is not anything of what we properly call passion in God. But there is something of an infinitely higher kind: Some motions of his will, which are more strong and vigorous than can be conceived by men; and although they have not the nature of human passions, yet will answer the ends of them. By grief, therefore, we are to understand, a disposition in God’s will, flowing at once from his boundless love to the persons of men, and his infinite abhorrence of their sins. And in this restrained sense it is here applied to the Spirit of God in the words of the Apostle.
And the reasons for which it is peculiarly applied to him are, First, because he is more immediately present with us; Second, because our sins are so many contempts of this highest expression of his love, and disappoint the Holy Spirit in his last remedy; and, Third, because, by this ungrateful dealing, we provoke him to withdraw from us.
1. We are said to grieve the Holy Spirit by our sins, because of his immediate presence with us. They are more directly committed under his eye, and are, therefore, more highly offensive to him. He is pleased to look upon professing Christians as more peculiarly separated to his honour; nay, we are so closely united to him, that we are said to be “one spirit with him;” and, therefore, every sin which we now commit, besides its own proper guilt, carries in it a fresh and infinitely high provocation. “Know ye not your own selves,” saith St. Paul, “that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost” And how are they so, but by his inhabitation and intimate presence with our souls When, therefore, we set up the idols of earthly inclinations in our hearts, (which are properly his altar,) and bow down ourselves to serve those vicious passions which we ought to sacrifice to his will, — this must needs be, in the highest degree, offensive and grievous to him. “For what concord is there between” the Holy Spirit “and Belial or what agreement hath the temple of God with idols”
2. We grieve the Holy Spirit by our sins, because they are so many contempts of the highest expression of his love, and disappoint him in his last remedy whereby he is pleased to endeavour our recovery. And thus every sin we now commit is done in despite of all his powerful assistances, in defiance of his reproofs, — an ungrateful return for infinite lovingkindness!
As the Holy Spirit is the immediate minister of God’s will upon earth, and transacts all the great affairs of the Church of Christ, — if while he pours out the riches of his grace upon us, be finds them all unsuccessful, no wonder if he appeals to all the world, in the words of the Prophet, against our ingratitude: “And now, O ye men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes” These, and many more such, which we meet with in the Holy Scriptures, are the highest expressions of the deepest concern; such as imply the utmost unwillingness to deal severely even with those whom yet, by all the wise methods of his grace, he could not reform. The Holy Spirit here represents himself as one who would be glad to spare sinners if he could; and therefore we may be sure it is grievous to him that by their sins they will not suffer him.