A Call to Holy Living, Spurgeon

The Foundation of Spurgeon’s quotes is clear.  Read his sermon, A Call to Holy Living, if you wish to understand.

A Sermon
[No. 1029]
Lord’s Day Morning, January 14th, 1872

Text: Matthew 5

A Call to Holy Living

…We are justified by faith, and not by the works of the law. The merit by which a soul enters heaven is not its own; it is the merit of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ….At the same time, it is a dangerous state of things if doctrine is made to drive out precept,** and faith is held up as making holiness a superfluity. Sanctification must not be forgotten or overlaid by justification. We must teach plainly that the faith which saves the soul is not a dead faith, but a faith which operates with purifying effect upon our entire nature, and produces in us fruits of righteousness to the praise and glory of God….

However severely pure that law may seem to be which we have read just now from this fifth chapter of Matthew, our hearts agree with it, and we ask that we may be so renewed that our lives may be conformed to it. The regenerate never rebel against any precept, saying, “This, is too pure;” on the contrary, our new-born nature is enamoured of its holiness, and we cry, “Thy word is very pure, therefore thy servant loveth it. O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes.”

**This is the great error of many evangelicals of our day and in the past. [Spurgeon utters this same warning in Morning and Evening for Sept. 5th: 

“. . . The doctrines of grace should have the same weight with us as the precepts of the word, no more and no less; but it is to be feared that with many one scale or the other is unfairly weighted. It is a grand matter to give just measure in truth. Christian, be careful here.”]