Gospel Freedom

“The truth shall make you free.”

“What are we by nature? Slaves and bondsmen; slaves to sin, to Satan, to the world, to pride, to prejudice, to presumption, to every thing hateful and horrible; and only so far as the Lord brings us out of our wretched serfdom, do we come in any measure into real spiritual freedom. But what freedom is this? ‘Oh!’ says one very trippingly upon the tongue-’Oh!’ answers another in a moment from some corner of the chapel-’Of course it is gospel liberty that the Lord is speaking of.’ I do not doubt it; but just as “the truth” may perhaps include a little more than is contained in your church articles, and embraces a wider range than what is wrapped up in most Established or Dissenting nutshells, so the freedom of which the Lord speaks, may possibly (I throw it out as a suggestion,) have a more extensive scope than some of you may dream of. There is a freedom from things, distinct from gospel liberty, though gospel freedom will produce it. Gospel freedom consists, we know, in a freedom from the curse and hard bondage of the law; in a freedom from the wrath of God; in a freedom from agonising doubts and fears. And God’s people, when they “know the truth,” and are blessed with a feeling reception of it, are favoured with this freedom. But is there not such a thing, think you, as being made free from the world? I am afraid, if we were to follow into their shops and counting-houses some who talk much of gospel liberty, we might find that the world’s fetter had not been struck off their heart. We might possibly find that some who could boast very largely, and talk very fluently of “standing fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free,” had a golden chain, though invisible to their own eyes, very closely wrapped round their heart-strings.

There is no use then talking about Christian freedom and gospel liberty, unless a man has liberty from something else; if he is not made free, for instance, from the power of covetousness, for the Scripture declares, that “a covetous man, who is an idolater, shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” To be made free, then, implies a liberty, not only from the curse of the law and so on, but also from the world, and the spirit of covetousness in the heart. There is a being made free also from the tyrannical empire of respectability; from the desire to rise in life; from the miserable system of outliving one’s income, in order to cut a respectable appearance in the eyes of neighbours. Many who talk about gospel liberty, and would scorn any thing like imputation of bondage, are under the dominion of this tyrant, Respectability. And there is a being made free from the power of sin. I greatly fear, if we could follow into their holes and corners, and secret chambers many who prattle about gospel liberty, we should find that sin had not yet lost its hold upon them, that there was some secret or open sin that entangled them, that there was some lust, some passion, some evil temper, some wretched pride or other, that wound its fetters very close round their heart. And there is a being made free from self also: from proud self, presumptuous self, self-exalting self, flesh-pleasing self, hypocritical self, self in all its various shapes and turns, self in all its crooked hypocrisy and windings. We should then very much understate what this freedom is if we said-’Oh! it is a freedom from the curse of the law, a freedom from eternal wrath and damnation,’ and left it there. No; we must extend the circle somewhat wider; and if we extend the circle, we may find that some, who boast much of gospel freedom, have not yet reached the bound of gospel liberty.” – Philpot

God’s Teaching and High Minded Professors!

Philpot!!

“God’s teaching does not leave a man where it found him, dead, stupified, worldly, unfeeling, and carnal. If he is in distress, it does not leave him in distress; if he feels guilty, it does not leave him guilty; if he is in darkness, it does not leave him in darkness; but it lifts him out of these evils. Thus God’s people are continually led to come unto him for his instruction, because they feel that without his special teaching they can know nothing as they ought to know. Nay, the more they have, the more they want to have; for no sooner is the light withdrawn, than the darkness is more sensibly felt. If any text of scripture has been opened up to them, it makes them want to have others made known in a similar way; if they have had any consolation, and it is taken away, it makes them want it again. So that the more wise and spiritual God’s people become, the more foolish and carnal they appear in their own eyes; the stronger they are in the Lord and in the power of his might, the more sensibly do they feel the weakness of their flesh: and the more they are enabled to walk closely with the Lord, the more they discover the wretched wanderings of their base and sinful hearts.

Here, then, we see how God’s people are distinguished from all heady, high-minded professors. They grow upward but God’s people grow downward. Special and divine teachings do not lead the soul into pride, arrogance, and presumption: but they lead to humility, simplicity, sincerity, contrition, brokenness of heart, low views of self, and admiring views of the Lord.

Natural wisdom only hardens a man’s heart, sears his conscience, and makes him more worldly-minded: spiritual teachings make the heart tender, the glory of God its great object, and spiritual communion with the Lord ardently desired.” (source)

Scholars in the School of Tribulation

Philpot writes, “If your child were as stupid, as dull, as intractable, in learning his A B C, as we are learning the A B C of religion, I know not how many times a day he would be put into the corner; I know not how many cuffs our natural impetuosity might not be provoked to give him. But we are such stupid wretches, that God has actually to put us into places where he would not otherwise put us, in order that we may learn the up-stroke of the great A of true religion; in order just to teach us, as the prophet says, “line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, and there a little.” But when we have got a little way into our alphabet, such dull scholars are we that we almost immediately forget it all, and have to go back, and begin with great A again. So we go on learning and forgetting, learning and forgetting; and, with all the pains taken with us, when we most wish to put our lesson into practice, feeling as if we had not yet learnt a single truth aright. In order, then, to teach us what a God he is, what a merciful and compassionate High Priest -in order to open up the heights, and depths, and lengths, and breadths of his love, he is compelled to treat, at times, his people very roughly, and handle them very sharply; he is obliged to make very great use of his rod, because he sees that “foolishness is so bound up in the hearts” of his children that nothing but the repeated “rod of correction will ever drive it far from them.”

Now to learn religion in this way, is not like getting hold of a few doctrines in the judgment, and then setting up to be a very bright professor; like a tradesman who borrows all his capital, and then, by puffing and advertising drives for a time a flourishing trade, till the bubble bursts. God’s people cannot thus borrow from books and ministers a number of doctrines and texts, and then set up with these as a stock in trade. No; they have to be emptied and stripped of all such borrowed stock and brought into darkness and confusion, that they may learn all they really know from the lips of the Lord himself. They have to pass through many painful exercises and troubles, and all for one purpose -that they may be scholars in the school of tribulation, and thus walk in the footsteps of a suffering Jesus.

And this leads us to the Channel,  through which God supplies all the varied wants of his people. “My God,” says Paul, “shall supply all your need, according to his riches in glory, by Christ Jesus.”

Oh! If there was no Christ Jesus, there could be no “supply.” Howling in hell would our miserable souls be, unless there was a Mediator at the right hand of the Father -a blessed Jesus, full of love, pity, and power, co-equal and co-eternal in his Divine nature with the Father and the Holy Ghost, and yet the God-Man in whom “it hath pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell.” If there was not such a blessed Mediator at the right hand of God, then not one drop of spiritual comfort, not one particle of hope, not one grace or fruit of the Spirit to distinguish us from the damned in hell, would ever be our lot or portion. Oh! we should never forget the channel through which these mercies come; we should never, for one moment, think that they could come through any other person or in any other way, than through God’s only begotten Son, now in our nature, at his right hand, as our Advocate, Mediator, and Intercessor with the Father.

And this supply is “according to the riches of his glory;” which, I believe, is a Hebrew idiom, signifying his glorious riches- riches so great, so unlimited, so unfathomable, raising up the soul to such a height of glory, that they may well be called “glorious.” And these “in Christ Jesus:” stored up in him, locked up in him, and supplied freely out of him, just according to the wants and exercises of God’s people.” (source)

 

Laboring Under the Burden of Sin

“I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself.” – Jeremiah 31:18

The spiritual feeling of sin is indispensable to the feeling of salvation. A sense of the malady must ever precede, and prepare the soul for, a believing reception and due apprehension of the remedy. Wherever God intends to reveal his Son with power, wherever he intends to make the gospel “a joyful sound” indeed, he first makes the conscience feel and groan under the burden of sin. And sure am I that when a man is laboring under the burden of sin, he will be full of groans.

The Bible records hundreds of the groans of God’s people under the burden of sin. “My wounds stench and are corrupt,” cries one, “because of my foolishness. I am troubled–I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long” (Psalm 38:5, 6). “My soul,” cries another, is full of troubles, and my life draws near unto the grave” (Psalm 88:3). “He has led me,” groans out a third, “and brought me into darkness, but not into light” (Lam. 3:2). A living man must cry under such circumstances. He cannot carry the burden without complaining of its weight. He cannot feel the arrow sticking in his conscience without groaning under the pain. He cannot have the worm gnawing his vitals without groaning of its venomous tooth. He cannot feel that God is incensed against him without bitterly groaning that the Lord is his enemy.

Spiritual groaning then, is a mark of spiritual life, and is one which God recognizes as such. “I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself.” It shows that he has something to mourn over; something to make him groan, being burdened; that sin has been opened up to him in its hateful malignancy; that it is a trouble and distress to his soul; that he cannot roll it like a sweet morsel under his tongue, but that it is found out by the penetrating eye, and punished by the chastening hand of God.  Daily Portions

Does not the eye guide the hands and feet?

Philpot writes,

The Lord knows what we are, as so deeply, so awfully sunk in the Adam fall.

Adam was wise as well as upright; but with the fall both were gone as in a moment; for the same awful crash which broke to pieces his innocency wrecked and ruined his wisdom, and thus he became a fool as well as a sinner. This folly we inherit from him; for “foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child.” (Prov. 22:15) God, then, as perfectly acquainted with the folly of our mind, with our wretched ignorance and inability to find out the way of salvation, or to walk in it when found, has mercifully and graciously given to us One in the courts of bliss who shall be to us and for us far beyond all that we have lost, and has therefore made him our “wisdom.” “It hath pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;” (Col. 1:19) and therefore a fullness of heavenly wisdom he communicates out of his fullness to his believing people. I do not like exactly to say that his wisdom is theirs by imputation, and yet there is a sense in which it may be called such.

Take for instance the figure of head and members. Is not our head, in a sense, wisdom for every member of the body?

Does it not bear the responsibility of every movement, so that all the wisdom or skill which any member possesses may be considered as being in the head?

Does not the eye guide the hands and feet?

Does not the ear hear for the whole body?

Does not the brain think and the tongue speak for every member?

Thus we see naturally that all our wisdom lies in our head, and the wisdom of our head is put to the account of all the members. So, spiritually, all our heavenly wisdom is in our covenant Head. The people of God see and feel their ignorance and folly; their inability to guide their own feet into the way of truth and peace. Their daily experience convinces them how easily they are entangled in the snares of sin and Satan; how dark their mind, how hard their heart, how carnal their frame, when the Lord does not communicate light, life, and power to their souls. To remedy then and overcome these miserable evils under which they groan and sigh, being burdened, Jesus Christ is of God made unto them wisdom; so that when the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ looks upon his dear Son in the courts of bliss, he views him as their representative head, and sees all the wisdom that they need stored up in his eternal fullness. Thus, as he does not impute to them their sins because of Christ’s righteousness, so he does not impute unto them their follies because of Christ’s wisdom. “Ye are wise in Christ,” says the apostle to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 4:10)–wise by your union with him. Now out of this wisdom which dwells in Christ without measure, he communicates to his people. They have none of their own. What they have is freely given to them liberally and bountifully, without stint and without upbraiding.

But it may be as well to glance at some of the effects of this wisdom as divinely communicated to the saints of God. To look unto Jesus by the eye of faith; to see him as the Son of God, “able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him;” and to view the treasures of love and grace which are stored up in his blood and righteousness, is also a part of this wisdom. To depart from all evil and seek all that is good; to obey the precepts as well as believe the promises; to walk tenderly, cautiously, and circumspectly in the fear of God; to read and pray and meditate; to commune with their own heart, and be ever seeking divine teaching, is a part also of this wisdom. In fact, this wisdom is indispensable for every right movement in heart, lip, and life; for every good word and work; for our conduct in the church and in the world; and for everybody becoming our holy profession. This the people of God deeply feel. Well do they know that not a single truth can they see aright except by seeing light in his light. Not a snare can they shun, or danger avoid, but by his warning voice or guiding hand; not a doctrine can they understand, not a promise believe, not a precept obey, except he who of God is made unto them wisdom, is pleased to communicate it to their heart. But, by looking to him, and receiving out of his fullness supplies of divine instruction, which he communicates to them through the word of his grace, as made life and spirit to their hearts, they are made wise unto salvation; and thus from their living and spiritual union with him, wisdom flows into their bosom out of his fullness, as in the figure of the vine, sap flows out of the stem into the branch. Thus, as he is their wisdom representatively in the courts of bliss, being their Counselor and Advocate who pleads their cause, so he is their wisdom efficiently, by the communication of this wisdom they have comes out of his fullness. And he is their wisdom also, as being the end and object of all the wisdom they possess or require, for the highest, greatest, and best of all wisdom is to know him and the power of his resurrection; to know experimentally the beauty and glory of his divine Person; the efficacy of his atoning blood and of his justifying righteousness; and, above all things, to know our happy and eternal interest in all that he is, in all that he has to the Church of God. [source]

No Mere Doctrine

From Meditations on Sacred Humanity by J.C. Philpot;

This is no mere doctrine, an article only of a sound creed, but a fountain of life to every believer’s soul in proportion to the measure of the Spirit whereby he is baptized into the death of Jesus. But for the most part it is only through a long series of afflictions, bereavements, disappointments, vexations, illnesses, pains of body and mind, hot furnaces, and deep waters, as sanctified to his soul’s profit by the Holy Spirit, that the child of God comes into this part of Christian experience.

These things are indeed death to the flesh, and are meant to be so, that it may be crucified and mortified; and are killing blows to all schemes of earthly joy, worldly happiness, and temporal prosperity and pleasure, as well as to all legal hopes and pharisaic righteousness; but they are, in the Spirit’s hand, the very life of the believing soul. For “by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of their spirit.” Isa 38:16 Crucifixion is a long, painful, lingering death. Nature dies hard, and struggles, but struggles in vain, against the firm but blessed hand that nails it to the cross of Christ; but grace, cleaving all the more closely to him who suffered and bled there, draws life and power from his blood and love. This experience made the apostle say of himself, “Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.” 2Co 4:10,11 Here was the secret of all his strength, of all his holiness, and all his happiness. This inward experience of the power and blessedness of the cross inspired him with a firm and holy determination to know nothing among men save Jesus Christ and him crucified; and this made him say, as the grand distinguishing test of the lost and of the saved, “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” 1Co 1:18

For this was not Paul’s experience only, a hidden secret of which he alone was made by grace the happy partaker. All who are taught by the same Spirit, and have the same union and communion with a crucified Lord, whether Jew or Greek, know him to be the power of God and the wisdom of God. 1Co 1:24 We read of believers being “trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified,” Isa 61:3 and this planting is a being planted into Christ so as to have that union and communion with him which the living branch has with the vine. The apostle therefore speaks of our being “planted together in the likeness of his death.” Ro 6:5 What the vine is, the branches are. Where the vine is, there will the branches be. The vine was once prostrate on the ground; the branches were prostrate with it. The vine rose from earth to heaven; the branches rise with it. As then a tree planted into good soil drinks of its juices, or rather as a grafted scion becomes so incorporated with the stock as to be one with it, not merely in outward strength and firmness of union, but so one with it as to draw virtue, sap, and fruitfullness out of it, so the true believer, being planted into the likeness of Christ’s death, draws supplies of grace and strength out of his fullness.

Carnalising the Millennium

More from Philpot,

The universal power, the spiritual nature, and the eternal duration of this kingdom are no less clearly than beautifully unfolded in Ps 72: “He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass; as showers that water the earth. In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust. For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. His name shall endure for ever; his name shall be continued as long as the sun; and men shall be blessed in him; all nations shall call him blessed.” And that this exaltation to the right hand of God is for the good of his people, and that he might be the spiritual, ever-living Head of his church, is blessedly unfolded by the apostle where, speaking of Christ’s resurrection, he says that God “raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come; and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.” Eph 1:20-23.

Men have unhappily thrown discredit upon this most blessed doctrine of the kingship of Christ, which, as revealed in the scriptures, is full of sweet consolation to the exercised family of God, by carnalising it into an earthly millennium. No doubt there are glories in this sovereign rule of Jesus to be one day more fully manifested, but it is proposed to our faith all through the New Testament as an object of our present spiritual experience; for as Zion’s enthroned King he is the Head of his body the church, and as such supplies her out of his own inexhaustible fullness. He died that we might never die. To him, as raised from the dead, we are married that we might “bring forth fruit unto God.” Ro 7:4 . “Because he lives we shall live also.” Joh 14:19. To him, as our enthroned King, we give the allegiance of our hearts; before his feet, as our rightful Sovereign, we humbly lie; and we beg of him, as possessed of all power, to subdue our iniquities, subdue our rebellious lusts, and sway his peaceful sceptre over every faculty of our soul.

That he should thus reign and rule, and that over all flesh, Mt 28:18 Joh 17:2 1Co 15:25,26 Heb 2:8, was the promise made unto him in Ps 2, the subject of which is the exaltation of the Son of God as the anointed King of Zion. This exaltation of the Son of God in our nature made “the heathen rage, and the people [i.e., the Jewish people] imagine a vain thing,” which was, that by their rebellion and disobedience they could “break the bands asunder, and cast away the cords” in which they were bound by God’s firm decree, when he said, “I have set my King upon my holy hill of Zion.” This exaltation of the Son of God in our nature, as of the seed of David, Peter preached in that Pentecostal sermon which the Holy Ghost so inspired and so honoured: “This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses; therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear; for David is not ascended into the heavens; but he saith himself. The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Ac 2:32-36. Jesus is here declared to be made by the Father “both Lord and Christ,” that is. King and Priest “Lord,” as invested with sovereign and supreme dominion, “Christ,” as the anointed High Priest over the house of God.

This exaltation of the Lord Jesus was given him as a reward for his incarnation, humiliation, and suffering obedience, as the apostle so beautifully speaks, “And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God hath also highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” Php 2:8-11.

Religion in a Day

Philpot writes,

I can speak well from experience here.

I was not stripped, nor brought down for several years after, as I trust, the Lord quickened my soul, though from the first I was led to strive more or less after lawful objects, and could not do without an internal religion. But thorough soul poverty had not laid hold of me, shame and confusion of face had not covered me.

I had not then felt what a vile monster of iniquity I was, nor loathed and abhorred myself in dust and ashes. Man’s utter helplessness was to me more a doctrine than a truth; I was not acquainted with the mighty overwhelming power of sin, nor had the ploughshare of temptation turned up the deep corruptions of my heart. I therefore strove unlawfully. When I fell as I fell continually, I had some secret reserve in self, some prayers, or repentance, or hopes, or resolutions to help me out of the ditch. Have we not all been more or loss here?

We had a legal spirit influencing us, and there was a kind of dead hope that if we lived holy lives, believed the promises, looked, as we thought looking then was, to Christ, and kept perseveringly on, we should get the object of our desires. And though we never got a step forward in the matter, there was a dim struggling after progressive sanctification, and seeking the blessings of the gospel by the works of the law. Now what was the result of all this unlawful striving? Did God ever crown it with his gracious smiles and heavenly approbation? We know that he never did. When is the crown put on? “In the day of the espousals, and in the day of the gladness of the heart.” So 3:11 And there can be no espousals, no manifested betrothing of the soul unto Christ in loving kindness, in mercies, in faithfullness, until we are dead to the law, our first husband. Then the crown is put upon the heart. God is a jealous God, and will not give his glory to another.

Our own strivings shall never procure us the looks of his love. Now this denial of the crown to all their ardent desires and earnest strivings sadly puzzles and bewilders the seeking soul. Nay he is almost ready to quarrel with God, and accuse him of unfaithfullness, because he will not smile, and speak peace and pardon. Jeremiah was here, when with intemperate complaint, he cried aloud, “Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? Wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?” Jer 15:18 But we cannot learn religion, as we learn arithmetic; we cannot take the slate, and copy out the rule, and work the sum. God’s teachings are of a very different nature, intended to baffle and confound all the pride and wisdom of the creature. Nor can we hasten God’s work. His teachings are not hasty teachings for the most part, but line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little. I cannot stand in your experience; you cannot stand in mine. Neither of us know one jot more nor one jot less than the Holy Ghost has written upon our heart.

We do not learn religion in a day.

The way from Egypt to Canaan was but a few days journey, but the Lord choose to lead his people about in the wilderness, amid fiery flying serpents, drought, and famine, for forty years. And why, but “to humble them, and prove them, and know what was in their heart?” This was one part of the lesson; and the other was that “he might make them know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord.” De 8:2,3 And thus we have to learn by painful experience the inutility of all creature strivings, and to be brought down into that state where all exertions fail.

Unlawful Striving by J.C. Philpot

I shall attempt to describe first what it is to strive unlawfully after unlawful objects.

1. To strive then after the pre-eminence, to be a Diotrephes in a church, 3Jo 9 is an unlawful striving after an unlawful object. There is to be no superiority, or pre-eminence among the followers of Christ. “All ye are brethren,” said Jesus to his disciples; Mt 23:8 “the greatest in the kingdom of heaven is he who is most like a child.” Mt 18:4 “The princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you; but whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.” Mt 20:25-27 Pre-eminence among brethren is an unlawful object, and must therefore be always unlawfully striven after.

2. All strife about vain and idle questions is unlawful strife. “Of these things,” says Paul, “put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers.” 2Ti 2:14 So he speaks of those who “dote about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds.” 1Ti 6:4,5 When men of this cavilling, contentious spirit arise in churches, woe to their peace.

3. To seek after a form of godliness, while secretly denying the power thereof, or to have a name to live when dead in sin, is an unlawful striving after an unlawful object. To strive to be a whited sepulchre, a painted hypocrite, a deceiver of the churches, is awful striving indeed.

4. To strive after fleshly holiness and creature perfection is an unlawful strife. God never designed that the flesh should be holy. In his discourse with Nicodemus, Jesus laid it down at the very entrance in the divine life, that “that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit,” thus establishing an eternal and unalterable distinction between them. “I know that in me,” says Paul, “that is, in my flesh, there dwelleth no good thing.” “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other.” Ga 5:17 All attempts therefore to improve or sanctify the flesh, are bidding “the leopard change his spots, and washing the Ethiopian white.”

5. Again, all attempts to please God by anything that we ourselves can do, is an unlawful striving after an unlawful object. He cannot be so pleased. The corrupt fountain of our heart is continually pouring forth its polluted streams, and therefore all that comes out of it is polluted. Nothing short of perfect purity can please a perfectly pure God; and as no thought, word, or deed has passed from us by nature which is not defiled, it cannot please God. But how many think that their prayers or their tears or their good actions are acceptable to Him.

6. All attempt to keep the law in its strict requirements is an unlawful striving. That is, it is not done as God would have it done. Jesus, and He alone of all the sons of men, kept the law; and he who would go about to establish his own righteousness, to the neglect or contempt of Christ’s righteousness, strives unlawfully.

7. To strive to convert the world, and to turn goats into sheep, to seek to overthrow the eternal lines of distinction between the elect and the reprobate, and frustrate Jehovah’s sovereign decrees of judgment and mercy, is an unlawful strife after an unlawful object. To break down the barriers of the church and the world, and reduce to mere nullities the distinguishing doctrines of grace, is indeed to strive contrary to every rule in the word of God.

8. To seek to find an easier and smoother path than the strait gate and the narrow way; to come into the fold, but not through the door of regeneration, as the Porter opens it; to be aiming at any other salvation than an experimental acquaintance with Christ and the power of his resurrection; to set up human talents, and creature religion as sufficient with, or without the Holy Ghost’s heavenly teachings; to strive after natural faith, hope, repentance, and love -all are so many branches of unlawful striving after unlawful objects. By unlawful is meant as I said before, not that which is contrary to the letter of the law, not that which is not in strict accordance with the moral law, or the ten commandments, or any branch of the Mosaic law. The words “lawful” and “unlawful” in the text have no reference whatever to the law properly so called. The words “lawfully” and “unlawfully” mean a complying, or a not complying with certain rules and conditions, laid down in God’s word. The laws and rules are not legal, old covenant rules, but gospel, law covenant conditions. Mistake me not. I do not here mean conditions to be performed by the creature, but certain rules, according to which the Holy Ghost works. “We are the clay, and He the Potter;” but the heavenly Potter works according to certain rules; and could it be possible for a vessel to be made contrary to these rules, it would not be a vessel of honour meet for the master’s use. I wish to explain myself clearly, for directly a man begins to talk about rules and conditions, there are plenty of persons so ignorant or so prejudiced, that they will be sure to make him an offender for a word. Remember this then, that by the word rules, laws, or conditions, I mean certain modes laid down in God’s word, according to which the Holy Spirit acts, when he works in us to will and to do of his good pleasure.

All the striving then of carnal unregenerate professors is an unlawful striving after one or more unlawful objects.

 

[source]

When I feel no malady, I want no remedy…

“Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.” Jer 17:14

Philpot observes,

When I feel no malady, I want no remedy; when I feel no condemnation, I want no salvation; when I am not exercised with a sense of inward guilt and distress, I want no precious blood sprinkled upon my conscience; I want no love shed abroad in my heart; I want no blessed visit from the Lord of life and glory; I want no sweet promise to bring its dew into my soul; I want nothing that the Lord has to bestow; I can occupy my mind in the things of time and sense, and be carnal, sensual, and earthly. But when various exercises recommence in the soul, and the Lord sets to His hand, and begins to revive the work of grace in the heart, then I want something divine, something experimental, something applied, something done in my soul that He alone can do for me. Without, then, these exercises, without a knowledge of the dreadful malady, without strong temptations, without daily conflicts, what is internal religion to me? If unexercised, I can do without internal, experimental religion; without the felt power of God; without Christ, without the blessed Spirit, without the Bible. But place me in circumstances of guilt, of exercise, of distress, of sorrow, of trouble, and the various perplexities that encompass the child of God, and let the Lord work by these things to kindle in my breast the spirit of supplication, then my soul will be wanting every blessing that God has to bestow; it will be separate from the world, and living a life of faith and prayer; it will be dealing with God; it will be coming out of the creature in all its shapes and forms, looking simply and solely to the Lord Jesus Christ. So that as we have the knowledge of the malady in its various branches, and an acquaintance with temptation, guilt, sin, shame, and sorrow -as these things are opening a way for the precious truths of God, and giving a place in our hearts for their heavenly influence, we are arriving at the knowledge of the remedy.

I can appeal to your consciences, you that have any for there are very few that have consciences, there are very few really exercised about divine things, there are very few that the Lord is really teaching by His blessed Spirit, and leading down into the solemn depths of divine things I say, you that have consciences, whose souls are kept alive by daily exercises, who know the evils of your hearts by their continually bubbling and springing forth; you that are not deceived by a name to live, or an empty profession of religion: I say, you whose souls are thus exercised, know that “in all these things you live and in all these things is the life of your spirit.” Take away your exercises, your afflictions, your sorrows, your perplexities, and the working of God by these things, and where is your religion? It has made to itself wings, and flown away. But let your minds be well exercised in the things of God; let affliction befall; let the bonds and ties of this world be severed: let temptations come with overwhelming weight; let the corruptions of our fallen nature boil up; let your soul sink down into trouble; let eternity open before your eyes; let death come into sight; and let your souls be solemnly exercised on divine realities; then I will answer for it, you will want what God alone can bestow upon you; and in the silent watches of the night, you will be crying, to God to look down upon you, to visit and bless you, to speak words of mercy to you, to shed abroad His love in your hearts, and to comfort and cheer your troubled soul. [source]