The Conflict Within
“For the good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do.” (Rom. 7: 19). This is humbling, but a just, account of the Christian’s attainments in the present life, and is equally applicable to the strongest and to the weakest. The weakest need not say less, the strongest will hardly venture to say more. The Lord has given His people a desire and will, aiming at great things; without this they would be unworthy the name of Christians; but they cannot do as they would; their least desires are weak and ineffectual; not absolutely so, for He who works in them to will, enables them in a measure to do likewise, but in comparison with the mark at which they aim. So that, while they have great cause to be thankful for the desire He has given them, and for the degree in which it is answered, they have equal reason to be ashamed and abased under a sense of their continual defects, and the evil mixtures which taint and abase their best endeavours. — Newton.
Growth in Knowledge
“Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord.” (Hosea 6: 3). The mysteries of Christ are not learned in a day. Some are in a good mood, maybe, and they will look into the Bible and read a chapter or two, and away they go for a week, and never practise it more; like some boys, if at school one day, truant all the week after. Is it any wonder such thrive not in knowledge? It is a good speech of one:- “The study of the Word and the reading of it differs as much as the friendship of such who every day converse lovingly together doth from the acquaintance one hath with a stranger at an inn, or whom he salutes as he passeth by in the street.” If you will get knowledge indeed, you must not only salute the Word now and then, but walk with it, and enter into daily converse with it. — Gurnall.
Difference between Justification and Sanctification by Rev. Robert Trail
I shall add but two words of advice on this head, of the difference between justification and sanctification. Do not divide them. Do not confound them.
Firstly, Do not divide and separate them: no man can do so, but in dream and notion. Justification and sanctification God hath joined together, and no man can put them asunder. They are everlastingly united together, and every one that is a partaker of either is a partaker of both.
Secondly, Do not confound them. I am persuaded that one of the main causes of the disorder that is in the spirits and the conversation of the most part of Christians, lies in their confounding these two great blessings. They do not give them their proper place; they are not rightly exercised about them in their due sphere; therefore I shall offer a word or two of advice for preventing this confounding of them. When you are seeking justification, let there be no mind of sanctification, I mean as to any merit; but when you are seeking sanctification, have a good mind to justification.
To make this matter plain to you; when you are seeking justification, you should have no thought of sanctification; the reason is, because justification is an act of pure grace, that we must betake ourselves to God for, as poor condemned sinners. If men will perplex us with qualifications, pray let it run this way, What is it that qualifies a sinner for justification? it is this only, that he must be a condemned sinner; God’s law must condemn him, and the man must come into God’s court with this sentence in his hand, “Lord, justify a poor sinner for Christ’s sake; the law hath condemned me, and sentenced me to hell, and thither I must go except gospel grace relieves me in Christ Jesus.” When I say that in seeking justification you should have no mind of sanctification, my meaning is only this, that when you come to plead at God’s bar for justification, do not dream of bringing your sanctification with you: for it is altogether improper and impertinent at this court. Let men varnish their doctrines which way they will, and cover them what pretences they please, they do but murder souls, who pretend to advise them to bring something with them to God for the grace of justification. Bring thy sins with thee, and bring the curse of the law upon thy conscience, and lay these before the Lord, saying, “Lord, here is an undone sinner, have mercy upon me, for Christ’s sake:” there should be nothing else heard there but that.
But when you come for sanctification, you have good reason to mind justification, for it flows from it. When you would try your justification, in God’s name try it by your sanctification, that is allowed you; the reason is, it is but a trying the tree by its fruit. If the question be, Am I a pardoned, forgiven, accepted sinner in the sight of God, through the righteousness of Christ? if that be the question, try it by your sanctification; for all who are justified by the grace of God in Christ Jesus, are also sanctified by the Spirit of God. Now sanctification being the work of God in us, is far more easily discernible than justification, which is an act of God about us. Justification is the sentence of a judge, but sanctification as you have heard, is a gracious work of God on the heart and soul of a poor sinner, and that may be more easily known: therefore try your justification by your sanctification. In short, they who bring sanctification as a title to their justification, they err the breadth of God’s whole heavens: and they who pretend to the blessing of justification, and cannot justify it by the practice of sanctification, do but deceive themselves. If any man, saith the apostle, abideth in him, he ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked, 1 John 2: 6. I would only add, it is the Spirit of God alone that can make the word of God, and the truths of it, powerful upon us; it is he alone that can let us into them, and make us know spiritually and savingly the great blessings of justification and sanctification; our acceptance with God through the righteousness of another, and our being adorned by the Spirit of God with a holiness of his own implanting in us. We must not make our holiness our righteousness, nor our righteousness our holiness; our righteousness belongs to another, and only the benefit of it accrues to us; our holiness is the work of the Spirit in us, and Christ is the root of both. He is the person we are justified by or through, and his Spirit is the root of all holiness in us; and both give us the possession of eternal life: justification, by the sentence of a judge, is the ground, and sanctification is that which makes us meet for it in his time and way.