CAN two walk together except they be agreed? As darkness cannot have fellowship with light till it be changed into some conformity to the light, even so there can neither be any fellowship in walking, nor conformity in nature, between God and us, who are enemies to Him by nature, unless there be some agreement and reconciliation of the difference. Now, here is that which maketh the atonement: “The blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” This is it that takes away the difference between God and men and makes reconciliation for us: this blood hath quenched the flame of indignation and wrath kindled in Heaven against us. And this alone can quench and extinguish the flames and furies of a tormented soul that is burned up with the apprehension of His anger. All other things thou canst apply or cast upon them will be as oil to increase them, whether it be to cool thyself in the shadows of the world’s delights, such a poor shift as the rich glutton would have taken in Hell. Those drops of cold water that thou canst distil out of the creature will never give any solid ease to thy conscience; thou mayest abate the fury of it or put it off for a season. Thou who art afraid of Hell and wrath mayest procure some short vacancy from those terrors by turning to the world, but certainly they will recur again and break out in a greater fire, like fever that is not diminished but increased by much drinking cold water.
Or if thou go about to refresh thyself, and satisfy thy challenges by thy own attainments in religion, and by reflection upon thy own heart and ways, finding something in thy esteem that may counter-balance thy evils, and so give thee some confidence of God’s favour, these, I say, are but deceitful things and will never either quench the displeasure of God for thy sins, but rather add fuel to it because thou justifyest thyself, which is an abomination before Him. Nor yet will it totally extinguish and put to silence the clamours of thy conscience, but that some day thou shalt be spoiled of all that self-confidence and self-defence, and find thyself so much the more displeasing to God that thou didst please thyself and undertake to pacify Him. Therefore, my beloved, let me, above all things, recommend this unto you, as the prime foundation of all religion upon which all our peace with God, pardon of sin, and fellowship with God must be built—that the blood of Jesus Christ be applied unto your consciences by believing; and that, first of all, upon the discovery of your enmity with God and infinite distance from Him, you apply your hearts unto this blood which is the atonement—to the reconciling sacrifice, which alone hath virtue and power with God. Do not imagine that any peace can be without this. Would ye walk with God, which is a badge of agreement? Would ye have fellowship with God, which is a fruit of reconciliation?
Would ye have pardon of sins, and the particular knowledge of it, which is the greatest effect of favour? And all this without and before application of Christ “who is our peace, in whom only the Father is well pleased?” Will ye seek these and yet dispute this point of believing as if it were possible to attain these without the sprinkling of that blood on the heart which indeed cleanseth it from an evil-accusing conscience? If you desire to walk in the light, as He is in the light, why weary ye yourselves in bye-ways? Why take ye such a compass of endless and fruitless agitation and perplexity of mind, and will not rather come straightway at it by the door of Jesus Christ, for He is the new and living way into which you must enter if ye would walk in the light? And the wounds of His side, out of which His blood gushed, these open you a way of access to Him because He was pierced for us. That stream of blood, if ye come to it and follow it all along, it will certainly carry you to the sea of light and love where you have fellowship with God. And, oh! how much comfort is in it that there is such a stream running all the way of our walking with God—all the way of our fellowship! That fountain of Christ’s blood runs not dry but runs along with the believer, for the cleansing of his after pollutions of his defilements, even in the very light itself.
This, then, as it is the foundation of peace and communion with God, so it is the perpetual assurance and confirmation of it, that which first gives boldness, and that alone which still continues boldness in it. It is the first ground and the constant warrant and security of it without which it would be as soon dissolved as made. If that blood did not run along all this way, to wash all his steps; if the way of light and fellowship with God were not watered and refreshed with the continual current of this blood, certainly none could walk in it without being consumed. Therefore it is that the mercy of God, and riches of grace in Christ, hath provided this blood for us, both to cleanse the sins of ignorance before believing and the sins of light after believing, that a poor sinner may constantly go on his way and not be broken off from God by his infirmities and escapes in the way. You see, then, the Gospel runs in these two golden streams—pardon of sin and purity of walking.
They run undividedly, all along in one channel; yet without confusion one with another, as it is reported of some great rivers that run together between the same banks and yet retain distinct colours and natures all the way till they part. But these streams that glad the city of God never part one from another. The cleansing blood and the purifying light, these are the entire and perfect sum of the Gospel. Purification from sin, the guilt of sin, and the purity of walking in the light flowing from that make up the full complexion of Christianity which are so nearly conjoined together that if they be divided they cease to be and cannot any of them subsist, save in men’s deluded imagination. The end of washing in the blood of Christ is that we may come to this light and have fellowship with it, for the darkness of Hell, the utter darkness of the curse of God, which overspreads the unbelieving soul and eclipses all the light of God’s countenance from him—that dark and thick cloud of guiltiness, that heap of unrenewed conversation; this, I say, must be removed by the cleansing of the blood of Christ, and then the soul is admitted to enjoy that light and walk in it. And it is removed chiefly for this end that there may be no impediment in the way of this fellowship. This blood cleanseth that you, being cleansed, may henceforth walk in purity; and there is no purity like that of the light of God’s countenance and commands. And so you are washed in the blood of Christ that you may walk in the light of God, and take heed that you defile not your garments again. But if so be, and certainly it will be, considering our weakness, that you defile yourselves again, like foolish children, who, after they have washed, run to the puddle again, forgetting that they were cleansed.
If either your daily infirmities, trouble, or some grosser pollution defile and waste your conscience, know that this blood runs all along in the same channel of your obligation to holy walking, and is as sufficient now as ever to cleanse you from all sin, from sins of daily incursion, and sins of a grosser nature. There is no exception in that blood: let there be none in your application to it and apprehension of it. Now this is not to give boldness to any men to sin or continue in sin, because of the lengthened use and continued virtue and efficacy of the blood of Christ; for if any man draw such a result from it, and improve it to the advantage of his flesh, he declares himself to have no portion in it, never to have been washed by it. For what soul can in sobriety look upon that blood shed by the Son of God to take away the sins of the world, and find an emboldening to sin from that view? Who can wash and cleanse here, and presently think of defilement, but with indignation?
I speak these things the rather because there is a twofold misapprehension of the Gospel among Christians, and on both hands much darkness and stumbling is occasioned. We have poor, narrow spirits, and do not take entire truth in its full comprehension, and so we are as unfit and unequal discerners of the Gospel and receivers of it, as he that would judge of a sentence by one word, of a book by one page, of a harmony by one note, and of the world by one parcel of it. The beauty and harmony of things consist in their entire union, and though there should appear many discrepancies and unpleasant discords in several parts, yet all united together makes up a pleasant comfort. Now, this is our childish foolishness that we look upon the Gospel only by halves, and this being alone seen, begets misapprehensions and mistakes in our minds; for ordinarily we supply that which we see not with some fancy of our own. When the blood of Jesus Christ is holden out in its full virtue, in the large extent of its efficacy, to cleanse all sin, and to make peace with God and wipe away all transgressions, as if they had never been, the generality of you never apprehending much your own desperate condition, nor conceiving an absolute necessity of a change, you think this is all that is in the Gospel and begin to flatter yourselves and bliss yourselves, though you live in the imaginations of your own hearts and never apprehend the absolute need and inevitable sequel of walking in purity after pardon.
And, alas! there is something of this sometimes overtakes the hearts of true believers in the slight and overly consideration of the mercy of God and blood of Christ. You do not lay the constraint upon your hearts to a holy conversation. I say it is not because you apprehend that blood that you take more liberty to the flesh, but rather because you too slightly and superficially consider it, and that but the one half of it without piercing into the proper end of that cleansing which is that we may walk in purity.
But, on the other hand, some believing souls, having their desires enlarged after more holiness and conformity to God, and apprehending not only the necessity of it but the beauty and comeliness of it, yet finding withal how infinitely short they come, and how oft their purposes are broken and disappointed, and themselves plunged in the mire of their own filthiness, this doth discourage them and drives them to such a despondency and dejection of spirit that they are like to give over the way of holiness as desperate. Now, my beloved, for you to look upon the Gospel by a parcel, and such a parcel as enjoins much upon you, I would earnestly beseech to open and enlarge your hearts to receive the full body of the truth; to look upon that cleansing blood as well as that pure light; to consider the perpetual use of the one until you have fully attained the other. Know that the Fountain is kept open, and not shut; not only to admit you to come at first but to give ready access in all after-defilement; and there is no word more comprehensive than this here, “It cleanseth from all sin.” All thy exceptions, doubts, and difficulties are about some particular sins and circumstances; thy debates run upon some exception, but here is an universal comprehensive word that excludes all exception—no kind of sin, either for quality or degree or circumstance is too great for this blood; and, therefore, as you have reason to be humbled under your failings, so there is no reason to be discouraged but rather to revive your spirits and vigour again in the study of this walking in the light as He is in it. Nay, take this along with you as your strength and encouragement to your duty, as the greatest provocation to more purity—that there is so constant readiness of pardon in that blood.
* Minister of Govan (1627-1653), he died at the early age of 26. A sentence from his dying words has been often quoted: “To a dying man one line of the Bible is worth more than all human learning.”—Editor.