I have sometimes thought, how is it possible that a believer in Christ can ever wilfully and deliberately sin? It is hardly to be conceived that such can live and walk under the power of sin: all sin is as contrary to the nature of the sanctified soul as heaven to hell; yet nothing is more plain from the word of God anti the experience of his saints, than that sin dwells in them; but they are solemnly forbid to let it "reign in them, that they should obey it in the lusts thereof." Romans 6:12. And if our souls are not striving against sin and pressing after holiness, I know not where to find one text in the word of God to encourage us to believe and hope that we are the children of God. I dread not the frown of licentious antinomians; do they pronounce this LEGAL? It only proclaims their unregenerate enmity against God's truth, his grace and his glory.
Ye believers in and lovers of the Lord Jesus, here is a short but most blessed and comprehensive rule for your walk and conduct. Does Satan tempt, the world allure, and the flesh entice? Gratify them if ye can –only see that you do it according to this apostolic rule: yea, go to plays, take your fill of earthly pleasures and sensual delights, and mix with the wicked and profane, only see that you do all this, as here commanded, "in the name of the Lord Jesus!" Does your heart recoil? It must, if the name of the Lord Jesus is music to your ears and the joy of your soul: you can no more take delight in these things than in the music of hell.
O the matchless charms of that precious name! Lord, never, never suffer them to fade in our hearts; thy name charms away the power of sin, the love of the world, and the pleasures of sense: it charms our souls into the presence of God, fellowship with him, and into the joys of heaven: right welcome are we to God, fully reconciled to him, and perfectly accepted with him, in the precious name of the Lord Jesus. O my dear, dear Savior, it is thy precious name my heart would now indite. O for the pen of a ready writer to display the glories of thy precious name, my King and my Lord; may the readers of these meditations find the odor of thy name in them, "as ointment poured forth, that they may love thee." Song 1:3. To us sinners, "the name of Jesus is above every name." Phil. 2:9.