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The contrary fact is, that they only really begin when we ourselves begin the Christian course with earnestness and sincerity. If you would possess the safety of preparation, you must look out for and expect constant temptations and perpetual conflicts. By such means alone can your character be gradually forming into "a meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light."
But all the Calvinistic churches by their creeds, and also a large portion of the membership of Arminian denominations, without regard to their creeds, if asked when are we to obtain entire sanctification as an essential meetness for heaven, would answer, at death.
Our food and our rest, our trades and our labors, are to be attended to; and all the offices of humanity performed in obedience to the will of God, for the glory of Christ, and in a view to the improving of the mind in a growing meetness for astate of complete perfection.
Must they continue to die? and must the history of our race in all time coming be just what it has been in all time past, a series of rapidly alternating epochs of partial civilization and destructive barbarism? No. He who is the former of society is the author of the Bible; and we may be sure that there is a beautiful meetness and harmony between the laws of the one and the doctrine of the other.
Seeing, then, it is evident from scripture, how deeply and dreadfully man is fallen from God, what a folly it is to suppose, in such a depraved creature, conditions previous to his justification! They who talk at this rate, know not what they say, nor whereof they affirm. In a natural man there is no meetness, but a meetness to sin, and a meetness to be damned. They who know themselves, know this.
And indeed this is the safest way to judge of the meetness of persons by: for take away the confession of faith and holiness; and what can distinguish a Christian from a Turk?
Surely we should desire a meetness for our inheritance as well as a title to it. After speaking of the "trial of their faith being much more precious than of gold which perisheth," the apostle utters forth an imperious call to entire sanctification. "But as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy."
And thus, after all your other opportunities and ordinances of humility are embraced and exhausted, then the plunges, the depths, the abysses of humility that God will open up in your own heart will all work in you a meetness for heaven and a ripeness for its glory, that shall for ever reward you for all that degradation and shame and self-despair which have been to you the sure way and the only way to everlasting life.
The choice of the scenes you frequent now, of the company you keep now, is of an importance involved in the very nature of things, and not dependent alone on the expressed will of God. It is only the pure in heart who can see God. It is only those who have here acquired a meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light who can enjoy its possession.
Dorward would not mutter quite so inaudibly. Gradually, however, the meetness of the gestures prescribed for him by the ancient ritual cured his self-consciousness and included him in its pattern, so that now for the first time he was aware of the significance of the preface to the Sanctus: It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto thee, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty Everlasting God.
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