Jeremy Taylor week: 'a design of holiness'

On this Tuesday of Jeremy Taylor Week, words from a Taylor sermon emphasising that the Christian life is defined not by an experiential event but the slow work of growing in "a godly, righteous, and sober life", "in the ways of thy laws, and the works of thy commandments", "in love and charity with your neighbours".

And I pray consider; can there be any forgiveness of sins without repentance? But if an apostle should preach forgiveness to all that believe, and this belief did not also mean that they should repent and forsake their sin, the sermons of the apostle would make Christianity nothing else but the sanctuary of Romulus, a device to get together all the wicked people of the world, and to make them happy without any change of manners. Christ came to other purposes; He came 'to sanctify us and to cleanse us by His word', the word of faith was not for itself, but was a design of holiness, and 'the very grace of God did appear' for this end; that 'teaching us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live holily, justly, and soberly in this present world'; He came to gather a people together; not like David's army when Saul pursued him, but the armies of the Lord, 'a faithful people, a chosen generation;' and what is that? The Spirit of God adds, 'a people zealous of good works' ...

Severe are those words of our blessed Saviour, 'Every plant in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh away': faith ingrafts us into Christ; by faith we are inserted into the vine; but the plant that is ingrafted, must also be parturient and fruitful, or else it shall be quite cut off from the root, and thrown into the everlasting burning. And this is the full and plain meaning of those words so often used in scriptures for the magnification of faith, 'The just shall live by faith'. No man shall live by faith but the just man; he indeed is justified by faith, but no man else; the unjust and the unrighteous man hath no portion in this matter. That's the first great consideration in this affair; no man is justified in the least sense of justification, that is, when it means nothing but the pardon of sins, but when his sin is mortified and destroyed.

'Fides Formata; Or, faith working by love' in The Whole Works of Jeremy Taylor, Volume IV.

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laudable Practice

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