II. PASSAGES OF EXPOSITION
[Gen. iii. 10.] ‘I WAS afraid and hid myself’. Never were there words of greater horror in the world, nor shall be until the day of judgement.
[Exod. xx. 8.] ‘REMEMBER the Sabbath day, to keep it holy’. We have had a week unto our own occasions, or we have a prospect of a week in the patience of God for them. Let us remember that God puts in for some time with us. All is not our own. We are not our own lords. Some time God will have to himself, from all that own him in the world; and this is that time, season, or day. He esteems not himself acknowledged, nor his sovereignty owned in the world, without it. And therefore this day of rest he required, the first day as it were that the world stood upon its legs, hath done so all along, and will do so to the last day of its duration. When he had made all things, and saw that they were good, and was refreshed in them, he required that we should own and acknowledge his goodness and power therein. This duty we owe to God as God. . .
Let men in whose hearts are the ways of God seriously consider the use that hath been made, under the blessing of God, of the conscientious observation of the Lord’s day, in the past and present ages, unto the promotion of holiness, righteousness, and religion universally, in the power of it; and if they are not under invincible prejudices, it will be very difficult for them to judge that it is a plant which our heavenly Father hath not planted. For my part, I must not only say, but plead whilst I live in this world, and leave this testimony to the present and future ages, if these papers see the light and do survive, that if I ever seen any thing in the ways and worship of God wherein the power of religion or godliness hath been expressed, any thing that hath represented the holiness of the gospel and the Author of it, any thing that hath looked like a preludium unot the everlasting Sabbath and rest with God, which we aim through grace to come unto, it hath been there and with them where and amongst whom the Lord’s day hath been had in highest esteem, and a strict observation of it attended unto, as an ordinance of our Lord Jesus Christ.1
WHEN Achan saw the ‘goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold.’ first he ‘coveted them,’ then he ‘took them’ [Josh. vii. 21]. Temptation subtly spreads the Babylonish garment of favour, praise, peace, the silver of pleasure or profit, with the golden contentments of the flesh, before the eyes of men. If now there be that in them alive, unmortified, that will presently fall a-coveting; let what fear of punishment will ensue, the heart or hand will be put forth unto iniquity.
THE free love of every mercy is faith’s proper object. It makes all Joshua’s great victories present to every one of us. The promise that had the love and grace in it, which ran through them all, is given him, ‘I will be with thee, I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee’ [Josh. i. 5]. Now the apostle tells us that the truth and love of this promise is ours [Heb. iv. 8]. Faith may, doth assure itself, that what good-will soever was in all the great mercies which Joshua received upon that promise, is all ours. All the good-will and choice love of ‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee,’ is mine and thine, if we are believers. He that hath this present, hat all Joshua’s victories present. The very glory of the saints in heaven is ours in the love of it. We enjoy that love which gave them glory, and will crown us also in due time.–[From the Sermon preached after the Siege of Colchester.]
AMONG the Jews there was a peculiar kind of stubbornness and obstinancy, above any other nation under heaven, which God complaineth of in their successive generations from first to last, and which continueth to be their characteristic evil unto this day [2 Chron. xxxiv. 27]. Hence Josiah was eminently commended because his heart was tender. He was not under the power of the common sin of that people, which indeed includes all other evils whatever. It was a rare thing to find one of a tender2 heart among them.
[Ps. xix. 12-13.] ‘SECRET’ sins, such as are not known to be sins (it may be) to ourselves, make way for those that are ‘presumptuous.’ Thus pride may seem to be nothing but a frame of mind belonging unto our wealth and dignity, or our parts and abilities; sensuality may seem to be but a lawful participation of the good things of this life; passion and peevishness, but a due sense of the want of that respect which we suppose due unto us; covetousness, a necessary care of ourselves and our families.3 If the seeds of sin are covered with such pretences, they will in time spring up and bear bitter fruit in the minds and lives of men. And the beginnings of all apostasy, both in religion and morality, lie in such pretences. Men plead they can do so and so lawfully, until they can do things openly unlawful.
THERE are two things required unto those thoughts which we have of God: (a) That we take delight in them. The remembrance of God delighteth and refresheth the hearts of his saints, and stirs them up to thankfulness [Ps. xxx. 4.] . . . That God is what he is, is the matter of their chiefest joy. . . (b) That they be accompanied with godly fear and reverence. It is unimaginable how the subtile disquisitions and disputes of men about the nature, properties, and counsels of God, have been corrupted, rendered sapless and useless, by vain curiosity and striving for an artificial accuracy in the expansion of men’s apprehensions. When the wits and minds of men are engaged in such thoughts, ‘God is not in all their thoughts,’ even when all their thoughts are concerning him.–[From Spiritual Mindedness, pt. I. ch. viii.]
[Ps. xlii. 6, 9.] BEING now in great distress and disconsolation of spirit, among other things under a sense that God had forgotten him, he calls to mind the blessed experience he had of communion with God, in the land of Hermonites, wherein he now found support and refreshment. So at other times he called to remembrance ‘the days of old,’ and in them his ’songs in the night,’ or the sweet refreshment he had in spiritual converse with God in former times. I have known one in the depth of distress an darkness of mind, who, going through temptation to destroy himself, was relieved and delivered in the instant of ruin by a sudden remembrance that at such a time, and in such a place, he had prayed fervently with the engagement of all his affections unto God.4
[Ps. cxvi. 1.] THE saints to not love God for nothing, but for that excellency, loveliness, and desirableness that is in him. As the psalmist says in one particular, ‘I love the Lord, BECAUSE!–so may we in general; we love the Lord, BECAUSE! If any man inquire about our love to God, we may say, ‘What have we now done? is there not a cause?
[Ps. cxxx.] IT is a good saying of Austin on this place, ‘Valde sunt in profundo qui non clamant de profundo’;–’None so in the deep as they who do not cry and call out of the deep.’ They are in a deep of security who are never sensible of a deep of sin.
[Prov. i. 17.] SAYS the wise man, ‘Surely in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird’; or ‘before the eyes of every thing that hath a wing,’ as in the original. If it hath eyes open to discern the snare, and a wing to carry it away, it will not be caught. And in vain should the deceit of sin spread its snares and nets for the entanglement of the soul, whilst the eyes of the mind are intent upon what it doth, and so stir up the wings of its will and affections to carry it away and avoid it.5 But if the eyes be put out or diverted, the wings are of very little use for escape.
[Prov. xviii. 10.] DID you never run to a tree for shelter in a storm, and find fruit which you expected not? Did you never go to God for safeguard, driven by outward storms, and there find unexpected fruit?
[Prov. xxiii. 31,33.] ONE sin liked and loved will make way for every other . . . It will be like a thief that is hidden in a house and only waits an opportunity to open the doors unto his other companions.
[Prov. xxvi. 14.] IN the turning of a door upon its hinges there is some motion but no progress. So it is with the spiritually slothful man in his bed, or in his security. He makes some motions or faint endeavours towards a discharge of his duty, but goes not on. There where he was one day, there he is the next.
[Isa. viii. 17.] ‘I WILL wait upon the Lord that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.’ The face of God in his love in Christ, and the shining of his countenance in the promises of the covenant; for the way whereby God communicates his love unto our hearts, is by his promises. Now, when the soul is sensible of no communication of love, nor promise of it, then God is said to hide his face. What will faith do in such a case? Betake itself unto any thing else for relief? No; saith he, ‘ I will wait upon God that hideth his face.’ As a traveller, when the sky is filled with clouds and darkness, tempests and storms, that are ready to break upon him everywhere, yet remembers that these are but interpositions, and the sun is where it was; and if he can but shelter himself till the storm be over, the sun will shine out again, and its beams refresh him: so it is with the soul in this case; it remembers God is still where he was.
[Isa. viii. 17.] THE church is nowhere called ‘Jacob’ but with reference to its low estate . . . . The church in a low, tempted, oppressed, scornful and mean condition, is ‘the house of Jacob.’ It is in a wrestling condition.
Brethren, you see who it is that is here intended–the true church of God, in a low, weak, distressed condition; and there are some at least among them eminently wrestling with God and eminently wrestling with men for the great blessing of Jesus Christ and the gospel. Pray take notice that God can, and sometimes doth, hide himself from the church in this state or condition. Now, a man would think, now if ever is the time for God to shine upon the house of Jacob. But there may be such things found in the church, when it is in a low, wrestling condition, that God is compelled to hide his face from them. . . .
What is ‘waiting’? Waiting is a permanent continuance in the performance of duties against all difficulties and discouragements. It is a permanent abiding, a continuance in duty, whereby we seek for the return of God unto us, against all discouragements, difficulties, temptations whatsoever.6
[Isa. liii. 2.] JESUS CHRIST is a plant and root out of a dry ground, a blossom from the stem of Jesse, a bud from the loins of sinful man; born of a sinner, after there had been no innocent flesh in the world for four thousand years, every one upon the roll of his genealogy being infected therewithal. To have a flower of wonderful rarity to grow in paradise, a garden of God’s own planting, not sullied in the least, is not so strange. But, as the psalmist speaks (in another kind), to hear of it in a wood, to find it in a forest, to have a spotless bud brought forth in the wilderness of corrupted nature, is a thing which angels may desire to look into.
DELIGHT is the flowing of love and joy–the7 rest and complacence of the mind in a suitable, desirable good enjoyed. Now, Christ delights exceedingly in his saints: ‘As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee’ [Isa. lxii. 5]. It is known that usually this is the most unmixed delight that the sons of men are in their pilgrimage made partakers of. The delight of the bridegroom in the day of his espousals is the height of what an expression of delight can be carried unto. This is in Christ answerable to the relation he takes us into. His heart is glad in us, without sorrow. And every day whilst we live is his wedding-day. It is said of him, ‘The Lord thy God in the midst of thee’ [Zeph. iii. 17] (that is, dwelling amongst us, taking our nature [John i. 14]) ‘is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing’; which is a full description of delight, in all the parts of it–joy and exultation, rest and complacence. The thoughts of communion with the saints were the joy of his heart from eternity.
[Jer. li. 5.] BRETHREN, no man, I think, hath less of faith than I. No man doth more despond. But if I could see these two things in concurrence, ‘his God’ and ‘the Lord of hosts’ (that is, sovereign grace according to his covenant; and sovereign grace according to his providence), there is ground for any man’s faith to build upon: ‘his God, the Lord of hosts.’
[Ezek. ix. 4.] IT will not be enough for us, that we are free from these abominations, unless we are found to mourn for them.8
[Ezek. xxi. 26-27.] ‘THUS saith the Lord GOD; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is’. One dissolution shall come upon the neck of another, until it all issue in Jesus Christ. ‘I will overturn it,’ saith God. ‘But men will set it up again.’ ‘I will overturn it again,’ saith God, ‘perfectly overturn it. All men’s endeavours shall but turn things from one destructive issue to another, till all issue in one whose right it is.’ . . . Truly, God hath strangely wrapped up all this mystery in one word: ‘This word,’ saith he, ‘yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain’ [Heb. xii. 27]. It is wrapped up in this one word. Carry this about with you as a note of remembrance, that God in dealing about these things has put a ‘once more’ upon them; which is a sign they must come to a dissolution. It signifies that they are shaking, movable things, and must be gone. Remember God hath said concerning every thing, except only the unshaken things of the kingdom of Christ, God hath said of them, ‘”Once more,” and they shall have an end.’ That mark is set upon every thing but the things of Christ.
[Hos. vi. 3.] THOUGH you cannot yet attain unto any evidence that you have received him, have closed with him, nothing can ruin you but giving over the way wherein you are: for then shall you know, if you follow on to know the Lord. Many can give you their experiences, that if they had been discouraged by present overwhelming difficulties, arising from their disappointments, breaking of vows, relapses into folly, they had been utterly ruined; whereas now they are at rest and peace in the bosom of Christ.
[Hab. i. 1.] IT is the burden which Habakkuk did see. Habakkuk, I do judge, is a proper name, though there is some question, because of the composition; and it signifies the ‘wrestler’ or ’striver.’ It is a apparent he was a very great wrestler with God, a great pleader with God; as any man may discern, if he will but read the first and third chapters, where there is as great a spiritual conflict and wrestling in them both as in the whole book of God. He may be so called because he was an eminent wrestler with God in those days, as Jacob was. And it is such to whom God gives visions. God gives visions of judgement and of peace (for they are both here in a principal manner) to those that are great wrestlers with him.
[Hab. ii. 3.] ‘THOUGH it tarry, wait for it’. Wait for it believing, wait for it praying–wait for it contending. Waiting is not a lazy hope, a sluggish expectation. When Daniel knew the time was come [Dan. ix. 2-3], he prayed the more earnestly. You will say, perhaps, what need he pray for it, when he knew the time was accomplished? I answer, The more need. Prayer helps the promise to bring forth.
[Zeph. iii. 17.] BOTH these things are9 here assigned unto God in his love–rest and delight. ‘He shall be silent because of his love.’ To rest with contentment is expressed by being silent; that is, without repining, without complaint. This God doth upon the account of his own love, so full, so every way complete and absolute, that it will not allow him to complain of any thing in them whom he loves, but he is silent on the account thereof. Or, ‘rest in his love’; that is, he will not remove it. And ‘he rejoiceth with singing’; as one that is fully satisfied in that object he hath fixed his love on.
[Matt. xv. 25] CONSIDER that it is not failing in this or that attempt of coming to Christ, but a giving over of your endeavours, that will be your ruin.
[Matt. xiv. 30.] PETER venturing upon the waves at the command of Christ, seeing ‘the wind grow boisterous,’ he also hath a storm within, and cries out, ‘Lord, save me!’ What was now the cause of Peter’s fear and crying out? Why, the wind and sea grew boisterous, and he was ready to sink; no such thing, but merely unbelief, want of faith. ‘O thou of little faith,’ saith our Saviour [Matt. xiv. 31.], ‘wherefore didst thou doubt?’ It was not the great wind, but thy little faith that made thee stagger.
[Matt. xvi. 22-23.] AND thereon this suppose rock, being a little left unto his own stability, showed himself but to be a ‘reed shaken with the wind.’ For he is so far from putting himself under the weight of the building, that he attempts an obstruction of its foundation. He began to rebuke Christ himself for mentioning his sufferings, wherein alone the foundation of the Gospel Church was to be laid.
THE human nature of Christ was capable of having new objects proposed to its mind and understanding, whereof before it had a simple nescience. And this is an inseparable adjunct of human nature as such (as it is to be weary or hungry), and no vice or blamable defect. Some have made a great outcry about the ascribing of ignorance by some Protestant divines unto the human soul of Christ: Bellarm. de Anim. Christi. Take ‘ignorance’ for that which is a moral defect in any kind, or an unacquaintedness with that which any one ought to know, or is necessary unto him as to the perfection of his condition or his duty, and it is false that ever any of them ascribed it unto him. Take it merely for a nescience of some things, and there is no more in it but a denial of infinite omniscience–nothing inconsistent with the highest holiness and purity of human nature. So the Lord Christ says of himself that he knew not the day and hour of the end of all things [Mark xiii. 32].–[From A Discourse on the Holy Spirit, Bk. II. ch. iv.]
[Luke xxi. 28.] OUR Saviour having told his disciples of wars, tumults, seditions, famines, earthquakes, etc., which were to come upon the earth, bids them, when they see these things, to ‘lift up their heads for joy.’ But how should this be? Rejoice in the midst of so many evils and troubles, in the most whereof they were to have a Benjamin’s mess–a double portion! Yea, saith our Saviour, Rejoice; for I have told you before, that then it is that your deliverance and redemption draweth nigh. It is for them to shake and tremble who are in the dark, who know not what the Lord is doing. They may be at their wits’ end who know no other end of these things; but for you who know the mind of the Lord, what he intendeth and will effect by these things, cast off all sinful fears, and rejoice in him who cometh.
[Luke xxiii. 46.] THESE words, ‘Father, into thy hand I commend my spirit,’ were the first breathing forth of the faith of Christ towards a conquest. He looked through all the clouds of darkness round about him towards the rising sun, through all storms to the harbour, when he cried those words with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost. And by the way it is the highest act of faith upon a stable bottom and foundation, such as will not fail, to give up a departing soul into the hands of God, which Jesus Christ here did for our example.–[From Sacramental Sermons.]
[John xv. 5.] ‘WITHOUT me ye can do nothing’; that is, which appertains to fruitbearing unto God. In things natural and civil we can do somewhat, and in things sinful too much; we need no aid or assistance for any such purpose. But in fruitbearing unto God we can do nothing.
[Acts x. 33.] ‘NOW are we all here present, . . . to hear all things that are commanded thee of God’; that is, so to hear as to give up our souls in obedience unto the word, because of the authority of God, whose word it is. And when we are not in this frame we shall be unprofitable hearers; for the immediate end of our hearing is practice. Herein, then, lies the great wisdom of faith in hearing, namely, in delivering up the soul and conscience unto the commanding authority of God in the word [Rom. vi. 17.]. And hereunto, among other things, it is required– (1) That the heart hath no approved reserve for any lust or corruption, whose life it would save from the sword of the word. (2) That it be afraid of no duty on the account of the difficulties and dangers with which it may be attended: for where these things are, the heart will close itself against the influences of God’s authority in his word. (3) A diligent watchfulness against distractions and diversions, especially such as are growing to be habitual from temptations and sloth.
[Acts. xvii. 16f.] PAUL comes to Athens, and in all probability he intended not to preach immediately upon his journey. He intended to take some time for his refreshment. But observing the wickedness of the place, ‘that they were wholly given to idolatry,’ and observing an altar to the unknown God, he laid hold of that intimation given him by God’s providence from these things, and immediately fell upon his work; which God blessed with great success. There are a thousand ways, if I may so say, wherein an observing Christian may find God hinting and intimating duties to him. The sins of other men, their graces, mercies, dangers, may be all unto us intimations of a season for duty.–[From Sacramental Sermons.]
IT is true our persistency in Christ doth not, as to the issue and event, depend absolutely on our own diligence. The unalterableness of our union with Christ, on the account of the faithfulness of the covenant of grace, is that which doth and shall eventually secure it. But yet our own diligent endeavour is such an indispensible means for that end, as that without it it will not be brought about . . . Diligence and endeavours in this matter are like Paul’s mariners, when he was ship-wrecked at Melita. God had beforehand given him the lives of all that sailed with him in the ship, and he believed that it should be even as God had told him [Acts xxvii. 24, 25.]. So now the preservation of their lives depended absolutely on the faithfulness and power of God. But yet when the mariners began to flee out of the ship, Paul tells the centurion and the soldiers that unless those men stayed they could not be saved [Acts xxvii. 31.] But what need he think of shipmen, when God has promised and taken upon himself the preservation of them all? He knew full well that he would preserve them, but yet that he would do so in and by the use of means. If we are in Christ, God hath given us the lives of our souls, and hath taken upon himself in his covenant the preservation of them; but yet we may say with reference unto the means that he hath appointed, when storms and trials arise, unless we use our own diligent endeavours, ‘we cannot be saved.’
[Rom. iv. 20.] THE essence of faith consists in a due ascription of glory to God.
[Rom. v. 1.] ALL is quiet and serene: not only that storm is over, but they are in the haven where they would be.
[Rom. vii. 17,20.] IT always abides in the soul, it is never absent. The apostle twice useth that expression, ‘It dwelleth in me.’ There is its constant residence and habitation. If it came upon the soul only at certain seasons, much obedience might be perfectly accomplished in its absence; yea, and as they deal with usurping tyrants, whom they intend to thrust out of a city, they gates might be sometimes shut against it, that it might not return–the soul might fortify itself against it. But the soul is its home; there it dwells, and is no wanderer. Wherever you are, whatever you are about, this law of sin is always in you; in the best that you do, and in the worst. Men little consider what a dangerous companion is always at home with them. When they are in company, when alone, by night or by day, all is one, sin is with them.10 There is a living coal continually in their houses; which, if it be not looked unto, will fire them, and it may be consume them.
[Rom. vii. 21.] ‘I FIND a law.’ He found it. It had been told him there was such a law; it has been preached unto him. But is is one thing for a man to know in general that there is a law of sin; another thing for a man to have an experience of the power of this law in himself. . . . They that find not its power are under its dominion. Whosoever contend against it shall know and find that it is present with them, that it is powerful in them. He shall find the stream to be strong who swims against it, though he who rolls along with it will be insensible of it.
IT will ruin our souls if, when we read in the Scriptures how the saints of God express their experience in faith, love, delight in God, and constant meditation on him, we grant that it was so with them, but it is not necessary that is should be so with us. [1 Cor. x. 11.] These things are not written in the Scripture to show us what they were, but what we ought to be.11
[1 Cor. xi. 23.] ‘IN that same night in which he was betrayed.’ One would think that our Lord Jesus Christ, who knew all the troubles, the distresses, the anguish, the sufferings, the derelictions of God, which were coming upon him, and into which he was just now entering, would have had something else to think of besides this provision for his church. But his heart was filled with love to his people; and that love which carried him to all that darkness and difficulty that he was to go through, that love at the same time did move him to institute this ordinance for the benefit and advantage of his church.
NO man will appoint a remembrance of that which he doth not delight in. When God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, whereby he exalted his glory, he appointed a passover, and said, ‘It was a day greatly to be remembered’; because the people had a great deliverance, and God received great glory and satisfaction, therefore it was greatly to be remembered. [1 Cor. xi. 25.] We are to celebrate this ordinance in remembrance of Christ, and therefore there is a representation of that satisfaction which Jesus Christ did receive in the travail of his soul, so that he never repented him of one groan, of one sigh, of one tear, of one prayer, of one wrestling with the wrath of God. It is matter of rejoicing, and to be remembered. And do you rejoice in the rememberance of it?–[From Sacramental Sermons.]
[2 Cor. iii. 5, ix. 8.] WHEN men have strong convictions that such and such things are their own duty, they are apt to act as if they were to be done in their own strength. They must do them, they will do them–that is, as unto the outward work–and therefore they think they can do them; that is, in a due manner. The Holy Ghost hath for ever rejected this confidence–none shall prosper in it.12 But hereby many deceive themselves; they have been negligent and careless, whereby things are come to an ill posture with them, and that peace which they had is impaired; but now they will pray, and read, and fast, and be liberal to the poor, and now strive after an abstinence from sin. All these things they suppose they can do of themselves, because they can and ought to perform the outward works, wherein the duties intended do consist. Hereby Christ is left out of the whole design, who, when all is done, is the Lord that healeth us. [Exod. xv. 26.] And there is another evil herein; for whatever men do in their own natural abilities, there is a secret reserve of some kind of merit in it. Those who plead for these things, do aver there can be no merit in any thing but what proceeds from our own free-will; and what is so done hath some kind of merit inseparably accompanying of it; and this is enough to render all endeavours of this kind not only useless and fruitless, but utterly rejected. Faith must engage the assistance of Christ and his grace in and unto these duties; or, however they may be multiplied, they will not be effectual unto our healing and recovery.
GIVE me leave to say that hell itself comes short of representing the guilt of sin, in comparison of the cross of Christ. And the Holy Ghost would have us attend to it, where he saith, ‘He was made sin for us.’ [2 Cor. v. 21.] See what comes of sin, saith he, what demerit, what provocation there is in it; to see the Son of God praying, crying, trembling, bleeding, dying; God hiding his face from him; the earth trembling under him; darkness round about him. How can the soul but cry out, ‘O Lord, is this the effect of sin? Is all this in sin?’ Here, then, take a view of sin. Others look at it in its pleasures and in the advantages of it, and cry, Is it not a little one? as Lot of Zoar. But look at it in the cross of Christ, and there it appears in another hue. All this is from my sin, saith the contrite soul.–[From Sacramental Sermons.]
THERE is not the least line of truth, how far soever it may be extended, and how small soever it may at length appear, but the springs of it lie in the person of Christ. [Eph. iv. 21.] And then we learn it aright, when we learn it in the spring, or as it is in him; which when we have done, we may safely trace it down, and follow it unto its utmost extent. But he that looks on gospel truths as sporades, as scattered up and down independently one of another–who sees not the root, centre, and knot of them in Jesus Christ–it is most probable that when he goes about to gather them for his use, he will also take up things quite of another nature. They say that all moral virtues are knit up in one–that is, righteousness; so that he who hath that hath all the rest, at least radically and virtually. This I know, that all spiritual truths are knit up and centred in him who is ‘the truth’; [Eph. iv. 20.] and they who have ‘learned him,’ as the apostle speaks, have with him received the seeds of all truth: which being watered and attended as they ought, will in due time flourish into all their proper branches and fruits; for all things are gathered into one head in him. [Eph. i. 10.]
[Eph. iv. 30.] IT is an evidence that his work proceedeth from and is wholly managed in love, in that we are cautioned not to grieve him. And a double evidence of the greatness of his love is herein tendered unto us in that caution:–(1) In that those alone are subject to be grieved by us who act in love towards us. . . . A severe schoolmaster may be more provoked with the fault of his scholar than the father is, but the father is grieved with it when the other is not. . . . (2) And as the work of the Holy Ghost is to comfort us, so a lustre is put upon it by this, that he comforts those who are very prone to grieve himself. Even herein the Holy Ghost commendeth his love unto us, that even whilst we grieve him, by his consolations he recovers us from those ways wherewith he is grieved.13
Grief in the sense here intended is a trouble of mind arising from an apprehension of unkindness not deserved, of disappointments not expected.
[Eph. vi. 13.] A LITTLE armour might serve to defend a man if he might choose where his enemy should strike him.14
[Eph. vi. 24.] THE first great act of hypocrisy, with respect to Christ, was treachery, veiled with a double pretence of love. He cried, ‘Hail, Master!’15 and kisssed him, who betrayed him. His words and actions proclaimed love, but deceit and treachery were in his heart. Hence the apostle prays for grace on them who love the Lord Jesus ?? ????????–without dissimulation or doubling, without pretences or aims at other ends, without a mixture of corrupt affections; that is, in sincerity.
[Phil. iv. 7.] THE apostle tells us that ‘the peace of God’ ????????? ??? ???????, ’shall keep our hearts.’ ?????? is a military word–a garrison.16 And so ????????? is ’shall keep us in a garrison.’ Now a garrison has two things attending it. First, that it is exposed to the assaults of its enemies; secondly, that safety lies in it from their attempts. It is so with our souls. They are exposed to temptations, assaulted continually; but if there be a garrison in them, or if they be kept as in a garrison, temptation shall not enter, and consequently we shall not enter into temptation. Now, how is this done? Saith he, ‘The peace of God shall do it.’ What is this ‘peace of God’? A sense of his love and favour in Jesus Christ. Let this abide in you, and it shall garrison you against all assaults whatever. Lay in store of gospel provisions, that may make the soul a defenced place against all assaults.
[Heb. iii. 8.] NO place, no retiredness, no solitary wilderness, will secure men from sin or suffering, provocation or punishment. These persons were in a wilderness, where they had many motives and encouragements unto obedience, and no means of seduction and outward temptation from others, yet there they sinned and there they suffered. They sinned in the wilderness, and their carcasses fell in the wilderness; they filled that desert with sins and graves. And the reason hereof is, because no place as such can of itself exclude the principles and causes either of sin or punishment. Men have the principle of their sins in themselves, in their own hearts, which they cannot leave behind them, or yet get off by shifting of places, or changing their stations. And the justice of God, which is the principle cause of punishment, is no less in the wilderness that in the most populous cities; the wilderness is no wilderness to him–he can find his paths in all its intricacies. The Israelites came hither on necessity, and so they found it with them; and in after ages some have done so by choice–they have retired into wildernesses for the furtherance of their obedience and devotion. In this very wilderness, on the top of Sinai, there is at this day a monastery of persons professing themselves to be religious, and they live there to increase religion in them. I once for some days conversed with their chief (they call him Archimandrite) here in England. For aught I could perceive, he might have learned as much elsewhere. And, indeed, what hath been the issue of that undertaking in general? For the most part, unto their old lusts men added new superstitions, until they made themselves an abomination unto the Lord, and utterly useless in the world, yea, burdensome unto human society. Look for all relief and for help against sin merely from grace. A wilderness will not help you,17 nor a paradise. In the one Adam sinned, in whom we all sinned; in the other all Israel sinned, who were an example unto us all. Men may to good purpose go into a wilderness to exercise grace and principles of truth, when the acting of them is denied elsewhere: but it is to no purpose to go into a wilderness to seek for these things; their dwelling is in the love and favour of God, and nowhere else can they be found. [See Job xxviii. 12-28.] Do not expect that mercies of themselves will do you good, or that afflictions will do you good, that the city or the wilderness will do you good; it is grace alone that can do you good.
[Heb. iv. 16.] A TIME wherein we are called unto the performance of any great and signal duty is such a season. So was it with Abraham when he was called first to leave his country, and afterwards to sacrifice his son. Such was the call of Joshua to enter into Canaan, proposed to our example; and of apostles to preach the gospel, when they were sent out ‘as sheep in the midst of wolves.’ Now, although we may not perhaps be called in particular to such duties as these, yet we may be so to them which have an equal greatness in them with respect unto us and our condition. Something that is new, that we are yet unexperienced in, something that there is great opposition against, somewhat that may cost us dear, somewhat that as to the state of the inward and outward man we may seem to be every way unfit for, somewhat that the glory of God is in an especial manner concerned in, we may be called unto. And there is nothing of this nature which doth not render the time of it a season wherein we stand in need of especial aid and assistance.
Times of changes, and the difficulties wherewith they are attended, introduce such a season. [Job. x. 17.] ‘Changes and war,’ saith Job, ‘are against me.’ There is in all changes a war against us, wherein we may be foiled if we are not the more watchful, and have not the better assistance. And freedom from changes is in most the ground of carnal security: [Ps. lv. 19.] ‘Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.’ Changes will beget fear; they are trials to all that are subject unto them. And these we are in all instances of life continually obnoxious unto. No man can enumerate the vicissitudes of our course; yet no one of them can we pass through in a due manner without renewed especial assistances of grace.
The time of death is such a season. To let go all hold of present things and present hopes, to give up a departing soul entering into the invisible world, and an unchangeable eternity therein, into the hands of a sovereign Lord, is a thing which requires a strength above our own for the right and comfortable performance of.
[Heb. x. 31.] NONE can be said to fall into the hands of God, as though they were not before in his power.18 But to fall into the hands of God absolutely, as it is here intended, is to be obnoxious19 to the power and judgement of God, when and where there is nothing in God himself, nothing in his word, promises, laws, institutions, that should oblige him to mercy or a mitigation of punishment. So when a man falls into the hands of his enemies, between whom and him there is no law, no love, he can expect nothing but death. Such is this falling into the hands of the living God; there is nothing in the law, nothing in the gospel, that can be pleaded for the lease abatement of punishment.
[Heb. xi. 4-5.] THIS is peculiar to these first two instances of the power of faith; that in the one it led him to death, a bloody death: in the other it delivered him from death, that he did not die at all. . . . God can and doth put a great difference, in outward things, between such as are equally accepted before him.
[Heb. xi. 7.] THIS fear, which arose from faith, was used by the same faith to excite and stir him up to his duty.20 And therefore this reverential fear of God is frequently in the Scripture used for the whole worship of God and all the obedience required of us. . . . Then is fear a fruit of faith, when it engageth us to diligence in our duty.
[Heb. xi. 32 f.] BUT whereas the things which they performed were, for the most part, heroic actions of valour, courage, and strength, in war and battle,21 such as Christians, as Christians, are not called unto, what can we gather, from what they were and did, as unto those things and duties which our faith is called unto, that are quite of another nature? But there are sundry things in their example that tend unto our encouragement; as–
(1) Whatever their faith was exercised in, yet they were men subject to like passions and infirmities with ourselves. This consideration the apostle James makes use of to stir us up unto prayer, by the example of Elias, whose prayers had a miraculous effect. . . . [Jas v. 16-18.] And so it is with respect unto the faith of these worthies. Its success depended on God’s ordinance and grace; for they were men subject to the like passions as we are.
(2) The faith whereby they wrought these great things, was the same, of the same nature and kind, with that which is in every true believer. Wherefore, as it was effectual in them as unto those things and duties whereunto they were called, it will be so in us also, as unto all that we are or may be called unto.
(3) Whereas their faith was exercised in conflicting with and conquering the enemies of the church, we also are engaged in a warfare wherein we have no less powerful adversaries to contend withal than they had, though of another kind. To destroy the kingdom of Satan in us, to demolish all his strongholds, to overcome the world in all its attempts on our eternal safety, will appear one day not to be inferior unto the conquest of kingdoms, and the overthrow of armies [See Eph. vi. 10-12.].
(4) Most of the persons mentioned did themselves fall into such sins and miscarriages, as to manifest that they stood in need of pardoning grace and mercy as well as we; and that therefore our faith may be effectual, on the account thereof, as well as theirs. Gideon’s making of the ephod out of the spoils of the Midianites cannot be excused, and is condemned by the Holy Ghost. [Judges viii. 27.] Jephthah’s rash vow, and, as is supposed, more rash accomplishment of it, enrols him among sinners. [Judges xi.] Samson’s taking a wife of the Philistines, then keeping company with a harlot, were sins of a high provocation; not to mention the killing of himself at the close of all, for which he seems to have had a divine warranty. And it is known what great sins David himself fell into. And we may learn hence–
That it is not the dignity of the person that gives efficacy unto faith, but it is faith that makes the person accepted.
That neither the guilt of sin nor the sense of it should hinder us from acting on God in Christ, when we are called thereunto.
That true faith will save great sinners. For that they were all saved who are on this catalogue of believers, the apostle expressly affirms [Heb. xi. 30.]
That which we are taught in the whole is, that there is nothing so great or difficult, or seemingly insuperable, no discouragement so great from a sense of our own unworthiness by sin, nor opposition arising against us from both of them in conjunction, that should hinder us from believing, and the exercise of faith in all things, when we are called thereunto.– The truth is, the first call of men to believe, is when they are under the greatest sense of sin; and some of them, it may be, of sins great and heinous–as it was with them who were accessory to the murder of Christ himself: [Acts ii.] and our call is, to believe things more great and excellent than the conquest of earthly kingdoms.
[Heb. xii. 2.] ‘HE endured the cross, and despised the shame.’22 Pain and shame are the two constituent parts of all outward sufferings. And they were both eminent in the death of the cross. No death more lingering, painful, and cruel; none so shameful in common reputation, nor in the thing itself, wherein he that suffered was in his dying hours exposed publicly unto the scorn and contempt with insultation of the worst of men. It were easy to manifest how extreme they were both in the death of Christ. And the Scripture doth insist more on the latter than on the former.
[Heb. xii. 5.] THERE are two great evils, one of which does generally seize on men under their afflictions and keep them from a due management of them. Either men despise the Lord’s correction or sink under it. (1) Men despise it. They account that which befalls them to be a light or common thing; they take no notice of God in it; they can shift with it well enough. (2) Men faint and sink under their trials and afflictions. The first despises the assistance of the Holy Ghost through pride of heart; the latter refuse it through dejectedness of spirit, and sink under the weight of their troubles.23
[1 John i. 3.] IF the saints say, ‘Come and have fellowship with us,’ are not men ready to say, ‘Why, what are you? a sorry company of seditious, factious persons. Be it known unto you, that we despise your fellowship. When we intend to leave fellowship with all honest men, and men of worth, then will we come to you.’ But alas! how are men mistaken! Truly their fellowship is with the Father. Consider the company they keep.
[Rev. iii. 1.] WHEN the church of Sardis was really dead, the principal means of keeping it in that condition was the name it had to be alive.
[Rev. xv. 3.] THUS the saints are called to sing ‘the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb.’ The deliverance by Moses was a temporal deliverance from outward yokes and bondage;–the deliverance of the Lamb was a spiritual deliverance from spiritual bondage: the deliverance that God will give his saints from this oppression shall be mixed; as their bondage partakes of both, so shall their deliverance be; and therefore they shall sing the song of Moses and the Lamb. If ever any persons in the world had cause to sing the song of Moses and the Lamb, we have this day.
Footnotes
1 Matthew Henry, in the Memoir of his father, gives a vivid and charming account of that devout minister’s method of keeping the Lord’s day. ‘His common salutation of his family or friends, on the Lord’s day in the morning, was that of the primitive Christians: The Lord is risen, he is risen indeed; making it his chief business on that day to celebrate the memory of Christ’s resurrection.’ See Canon Henson’s Eng. Relig. in Seventeenth Century, pp. 35-75.
2 Readers of Fox’s Journal will recollect how frequently he employs this term to denote sensitiveness and delicacy of religious feeling. Dr. Hodgkin, in his short Life of Fox (p. 22), defines this tenderness as ‘unwillingness to be satisfied with the polemical theology of the ordinary Puritans–a desire to get into communion with the spirit of the Eternal One, and to learn his will.’
3 James Hinton used to say, when it was urged that the thought of our families must come first, ‘Yes! the devil always comes to an Englishman in the shape of his wife and family.’ See also the remark of Moore (quoted in Sir W. Scott’s Journal, pp. 8-9) that ‘more mean things have been done in the world under the shelter of “wife and children” than under any pretext worldly-mindedness can resort to.’ Dr. Shrapnel’s opinion of ‘the family view,’ in Beauchamp’s Career (ch. xii.), expresses Meredith’s mind on the same ethical peril. See, too, Heine’s lyric, Die Grenadiere.
4 Compare the well-known passage towards the close of Bunyan’s preface to Grace Abounding: ‘Have you never an Hill Mizar to remember? Have you forgot the Close, the Milk-house, the Stable, the Barn, and the like, where God did visit your souls?’ etc.
5 ‘O Lord, keep thou mine eyes from beholding vanity; and, though mine eyes see it, let not my heart stoop to it, but loathe it afar off. And, if I stoop at any time and be taken, set thou my soul at liberty, that I may say, my soul is escaped even as a bird out of the fowler’s snare’ (Bishop Hall).
6 Perhaps the best comment on this text is Mr. G. F. Watt’s well-known picture of ‘Hope.’ It is one of Owen’s favourite verses. Compare Cromwell’s severe use of it in his letter (No. cxlvii. in Carlyle’s edition) to the Governor of Edinburgh Castle.
7 Owen quotes here two passages from the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, viz.: ‘????? ?????? ?? ?????? ?????, ? ?? ???????’ (vii. 14), and ‘??????? ?? ???????????? ? ?????’ (x. 4). ‘Rest admits of finer pleasures than motion,’ and ‘Pleasure makes the exercise of any faculty complete.’
8 There is an appositeness in this exposition, if we recollect that Ezekiel’s description of Jerusalem and its covert idolatry had been applied already, in 1642, to the state of England by Dr. Hill, the famous conservative divine. His sermon before Parliament urged the removal of several corrupt practices in the cathedrals and elsewhere.
9 This verse and Isa. viii. 17 may be described as Owen’s favourite texts (see above, on Isa. lxii. 5). He is constantly recurring to them. Baxter also quotes Zeph. iii. 17 towards the close of the first chapter of his Saints’ Rest, but it is to describe the heavenly welcome given by God to the believer. ‘And it is not thy joy only; it is a mutual joy, as well as a mutual love. Is there joy in heaven at thy conversion, and will there be none at thy glorification?’ John Howe explains and applies the text much as Owen did; ‘Desire and delight,’ he observes. ‘are but two acts of love, diversified only by the distance or presence of the same object,’ and ‘to rest’ is, in this connection, equivalent to being satisfied.
10 Cp. Religio Medici, part II. sect. vii.
11 Cp. Dora Greenwell’s A Present Heaven (ch. iii., beginning).
12 Matthew Arnold, quoting 2 Cor. iii. 5 in his St. Paul and Protestantism (ch. ii.), proceeds: ‘Most true and natural is this feeling; and the greater men are, the more natural is this feeling to them. . . . Through every great spirit there runs a train of feeling of this sort; and the power and depth which there undoubtedly is in Calvinism comes from Calvinism’s being overwhelmed by it. Paul is not, like Calvinism, overwhelmed by it; but it is always before his mind, and strongly agitates his thoughts.’
13 Not long before Owen wrote this, George Herbert had published his verses on the same subject in the Temple (No. 105):–
I sinne not to my griefe alone,
But to my God’s too.
14 Cf. Religio Medici, part I. sect. lv.
15 Cf. Jonathan Edwards’s Religious Affections (part I. vi.). ‘The more excellent anything is, the more will the counterfeits of it. Thus there are many more counterfeits of silver and gold than of iron and copper. There are many false diamonds and rubies, but who goes about to counterfeit common stones? . . . There are perhaps no graces which have more counterfeits than love and humility,’ etc. This very idea about the counterfeits occurs in another passage towards the opening of Owen’s treatise on the Holy Spirit, viz. :– ‘The great deceit and abuse that hath been, in all ages of the church, under the pretence of the name and work of the Spirit make the thorough consideration of what we are taught concerning them exceeding necessary. Had not these things been excellent in themselves, and so acknowledged by all Christians, they would never have been by so many falsely pretended unto. Men do not seek to adorn themselves with rags, or to boast of what, on its own account, is under just contempt. And according to the worth of things, so are they liable to abuse; and the more excellent anything is, the more vile and pernicious is an undue pretence unto it. Such have been the false pretences of some in all ages unto the Spirit of God and his work, whose real excellences in themselves have made those pretences abominable and unspeakably dangerous; for the better the things are which are counterfeited, the worse always are the ends they are employed unto.’ In another paragraph he argues that ‘God never more honoured his true prophets than when there were most false ones; neither shall ever any false pretence to the Spirit of Grace render him less dear to those that are partakers of him, or his gifts of less use to the church.’
16 As in Francis Thompson’s lines:–
‘The hold that falls not when the town is got,
The heart’s heart whose immured plot
Hath keys yourself keep not! . . .
Its keys are at the cincture hung of God;
Its gates are trepidant to His nod;
By Him its floors are trod.’
17 See Newman’s verses on The Desert.
18 In Mr. A. H. Craufurd’s Recollections of James Martineau (1903), p. 105, it is told how the saintly bishop Ewing of Argyll and the Isles, speaking of the extreme fear expressed by many people at the idea of falling into the hands of God, once remarked, ‘I wonder in whose hands they think that they now are.’
This was a text on Cromwell’s lips as he lay dying. He repeated it three times solemnly and earnestly.
19 i.e. Exposed.
20 See the remarkable and searching description of Noah’s faith in Mark Rutherford’s Deliverances (pp. 162-163).
21 In Mr. Gladstone’s reply to Ingersoll on Christianity (1888), he considers ‘the remarkable structure of this noble chapter, which is to Faith what the thirteenth of I Corinthians is to Love,’ and points out that the apostle ’seems with a tender instinct to avoid anything like stress on the exploits of warriors. Of the twelve persons having a share in the detailed expositions, David is the only warrior, and his character as a man of war is eclipsed by his greater attributes as a prophet.’ Joshua too is never named. ‘But the series of four names, which are given without any specification of their title to appear in the list, are all names of distinguished warriors. They had all done great acts of faith and patriotism against the enemies of Israel. . . . All of them, moreover, had committed errors.’
22 ‘Good people,’ said Laud on the scaffold to the mob, ‘this is an uncomfortable time to preach, yet I shall begin with a text of Scripture.’ Whereupon he quoted and applied Heb. xii. 2. But the piety of the man could not restrain even then the bitterness of the ecclesiastic. He must needs have a last fling at ‘the bleating of Jeroboam’s calves in Dan and Bethel’–a gratuitous and singularly maladroit reference to the Puritans, from one whose policy had been the erection of what Puritans honestly believed to be idolatrous symbols and ceremonies.
23 See the sentence of Amiel quoted above under ‘The Cult of Reason.’