God's Way of Holiness (eBook)

by Horatius Bonar

in ePub..mobi & .pdf formats

The way of peace and the way of holiness lie side by side, or rather, they are one. That which bestows the one imparts the other; and he who takes the one takes the other also. The Spirit of peace is the Spirit of holiness. The God of peace is the God of holiness. 

If at any time these paths seem to go asunder, there must be something wrong—wrong in the teaching that makes them seem to part company, or wrong in the state of the man in whose life they have done so. 

They start together, or at least so nearly together that no eye, save the divine, can mark a difference. Yet, properly speaking, the peace goes before the holiness, and is its parent. This is what divines call "priority in nature, though not in time," which means substantially this, that the difference in such almost identical beginnings is too small in point of time to be perceived by us, yet it is not on that account the less distinct and real. 

The two are not independent. There is fellowship between them, vital fellowship, each being the helpmeet of the other. The fellowship is not of mere coincidence, as in the case of strangers who happen to meet on the same path, nor of arbitrary appointment, as in the case of two parallel roads, but of mutual help and sympathy—like the fellowship of head and heart, or of two members of one body, the peace being indispensable to the production or causation of the holiness, and the holiness indispensable to the maintaining and deepening of the peace. 

He who affirms that he has peace, while living in sin, is "a liar, and the truth is not in him." He who thinks that he has holiness, though he has no peace, ought to question whether he understands aright what the Bible means by either the one or the other; for, as the essence of holiness is the soul's right state toward God, it does not seem possible that a man can be holy so long as there is no conscious reconciliation between God and him. A spurious holiness there may be, founded upon a spurious peace, or upon no peace at all; but true holiness must start from a true and authentic peace. 

HORATIUS BONAR 

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Table of Contents 

Preface 

CHAPTER 1 : The New Life 

CHAPTER 2: Christ for Us, the Spirit in Us 

CHAPTER 3: The Root and Soil of Holiness 

CHAPTER 4: A Strength Against Sin 

CHAPTER 5: The Cross and Its Power 

CHAPTER 6: The Saint and the Law 

CHAPTER 7: The Saint and the Seventh Chapter of Romans 

CHAPTER 8: The True Creed & the True Life 

CHAPTER 9: Counsels and Warnings 

By Topic

Joy

By Scripture

Old Testament

Genesis

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Leviticus

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Deuteronomy

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Ruth

1 Samuel

2 Samuel

1 Kings

2 Kings

1 Chronicles

2 Chronicles

Ezra

Nehemiah

Esther

Job

Psalms

Proverbs

Ecclesiastes

Song of Solomon

Isaiah

Jeremiah

Lamentations

Ezekiel

Daniel

Hosea

Joel

Amos

Obadiah

Jonah

Micah

Nahum

Habakkuk

Zephaniah

Haggai

Zechariah

Malachi

New Testament

Matthew

Mark

Luke

John

Acts

Romans

1 Corinthians

2 Corinthians

Galatians

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Colossians

1 Thessalonians

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1 Timothy

2 Timothy

Titus

Philemon

Hebrews

James

1 Peter

2 Peter

1 John

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3 John

Jude

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