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A44498
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A gracious reproof to pharisaical saints causlessly murmuring at Gods mercies toward penitent sinners in explication of Luc. 15. 30, 31 / written by John Horne, sometimes minister of Lin Allhallows.
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Horn, John, 1614-1676.
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1668
(1668)
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Wing H2803; ESTC R43264
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137,083
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347
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may be sorry also warning all to take heed of so doing yet in regard of God's goodnesse in general to repentant sinners and in particular to this or that to whom he gives repentance and restores and comforts we may make merry and be glad Especially seeing our heavenly and gracious God and Father calls upon us so to do joyning in himself with us saying Let us eat and be merry We may by good authority do so yea it 's unmannerlinesse and peevish frowardnesse like this elder Brothers in this Parable to be fullen and sad when God says Let us eat and be merry and its meet we should make merry and be glad Shall not the Children and Servants be merry and chearful to see their Father merry and chearful and in such a rejoycing temper Surely its meet then we should make merry and be glad Again CHAP. XII The third state and the Text further improved in some further usefulness 3. IT may teach us that God is a good God not a Spirit of sadness or that delights in our melancholly dumpish tempers but is a chearful though a most holy Spirit One of the fruits of the Spirit is joy but sadnesse is not reckoned amongst them Not but that the Spirit of God leads men to be sad sometimes or rather through sadnesse to gladnesse as of old his people through a wilderness to the land of promise and in most cases sorrow is better than laughter than a vain foolish worldly frothy laughter or affliction than prosperity for us because by the sadnesse of the countenance the heart is made better Yet sadness and sorrow are occasioned by and spring from another cause viz. sin and its fruits were it not for them in our selves or others the Spirit of God would scarce ever lead us to be sad His ways are ways of pleasantnesse and all his paths are peace Prov. 3.17 He is a chearful spirit and leads to chearfulnesse and loves not sullen sowre frames and dispositions Yet we poor foolish creatures as I prove sometimes my self are apt to be either carnally lightly wantonly and vainly merry or else on the other extream to espouse to our selves a sad glumpish spirit a melancholly rugged harsh disposition or Pharasaical face For they put on sowre sad countenances as too many yet do as a piece of religion Mat. 6.16 as if God delighted in such Cynick or Stoick frames formal bodily humilities a whining voice a head hanging down like a bul-rush and such like self-tormenting carriages No no God is a chearful Spirit as having infinite joy and delight in himself and in his Son and in his works and doings and He and his Spirit call for and lead to chearfulness in his service Whence he saith Make a joyful not a doleful sad lamentable noise to the Lord all ye lands serve the Lord with gladness he saith not with sadness and come before his presence with a song Not with a complaint as thinking hardly of him or being afraid of his harshnesse and aptnesse to be displeased with us Psal 100.1.2 He loves not to have his Altar covered with tears he accepts not such offerings at our hands except in case of sorrowing after God and for our sins Mal. 2.13 He loves a chearful server of him as well as a chearful giver 2 Cor 9.7 In his presence is fulnesse of joy and pleasures at his right hand for evermore And they are to reward his followers and worshippers Psal 16.11 Thence those many exhortations to the righteous his worshippers to rejoyce Finally my Brethren rejoyce in the Lord Philip. 3.1 and rejoyce in the Lord evermore and again I say rejoyce Phil. 4 4. and in 1 Thes 5.16 Rejoyce evermore See also Psal 32.11 33.1 as checking that aptness to be sad that is in his worshippers and signifying that it displeases him and well it may for its dishonorable to him occasioning people to be offended at his service and ways as affording nothing but sadnesse and melancholly to them that walk therein And as signifying the great goodnesse of God and the good and abundant cause that God's people have of rejoycing in him For as he is the only good God and infinitely better than any other god or object of trust and worship so there is infinitely more cause of gladness in and from him than any where else Nor have any people such cause of rejoycing and confidence and boldnesse as those that are God's and belong to him considering what they have in and with him and what a portion and happinesse he is to them All other things are muddy cisterns in point of causing or affording joy and chearfulness He is the free and full and perpetually running fountain of joy delight and consolation He gives everlasting consolation and good hope through grace 2 Thes 2.16 We have not found God then so as to know him indeed till we meet with and have in him yea under and notwithstanding all occasions of heaviness that befal us joy unspeakable and full of glorying 1 Pet 1.6 7 8. None may rejoyce so as the righteous they that are in Christ Jesus and walk with him such may boldly say The Lord is our helper Come what will come We will not fear what can man do unto us Oh! seek we him and the knowledge of him till we finde it so as to have rejoycing evermore in him Though we may have manifold occasions of sadnesse both from within us and from without us yet we have cause being in him and walking with him of a perpetual and evermore rejoycing Away away then with all hypocritical Pharasaical thoughts to please God in our demure looks and sowre countenances as if therein stood our being humble before him and let us take the advise and counsel of our Lord and Father and accept his exhortation Let us eat and be merry Make merry and be glad Quest But what must we do to make merry and be glad Answ Alas what can we do to make merry and be glad it must all come from God as the ground and Author of it He must go before and it s our parts to comply with him and follow after him If he frown upon us we have no cause to make merry but to mourn before him till he call us to mirth and further then he calls us to mirth and to make merry we shall do well to be sober and attend to him But when he calls us to joy and gladnesse as here and to make merry we may in the supplies of his grace do something as to say we may and let us 1. Hearken to the voice of God and his servants calling us thereto and opening the cause thereof and the grounds for it to us Such as be his mercy towards sinners and to us and our Brethren in what he hath done for and to both us and them As the Servants say here to the elder Son inquiring the cause of their mirth Thy Brother is come and thy Father
whom they injoy their happiness and livelihood and about whom and whose good the Master appoints them their choise imployment It was meet we should make merry and be glad for it is my Son and thy Brother what though he hath been a bad husband he is not so now What though a spend thrift an evil liver then indeed we had cause of sadness but now he that was so is reclaimed and he is still my Son thy Brother That a Second 3. It is meet c. Because of the sad estate he hath been in and from which he is raised again and brought to this condition He was a Son a Brother of whom there was great fears and for whom we had great grief and exercise he hath been long away and far from us there was little hope that we should ever see him again he hath been in great poverty necessity and straits he hath been pinched with hunger dryed up with thirst naked and destitute of clothing and harbour ready to famish and perish with want and this in a strange Country where all were set to ruin him none to help him It s a thousand to one but he had perisht and been lost for ever and yet from this strange and sad case he is at length returned safe again and should we not make merry for the good of such a relation that hath been in such perils of death and drowning or of perishing by the most cruel and lingring death that of Famine It 's true he is not come into a better condition in it self than those that abide and walk with God but he is come to it out of a worse than ever they were in and therefore hath reason hereafter to be more wary to keep home and may walk more thankfully and dutifully because under the sense and mindfulness of the greater mercy to him And as we had more abundant cause of grief and fear for him so we have now answerably more abundant cause to make merry and be glad for him as we are most glad of the safety of ours after the greatest danger of utter loosing them That 's a Third 4. It was meet that we should make merry c. If we consider whence this hath happened to him that he is come safe home again It 's the Lords own work and a work of more abundant grace marvellous and miraculous power and mercy to convert a sinner after he hath been with God and departs from him again And as God rejoyces in his works generally Psal 104.31 so especially in those that are works of his mercy because mercy pleaseth and delights him Mich. 7.18 and yet more in those in which his mercy is most glorified by him And surely as all the works of God are wonderful and glorious and its meet we should have pleasure in them so especially those in which he is most brightly discovered and his glory that is all matter of gladness is most of all displayed And such is his mercy in converting and calling back from death and giving pardon and life to a rebellious offender and therefore it 's meet that all flesh should bless his holy name in this and such works as these especially and that all his people who have thereby more abundant occasion of beholding and cause of admiring his goodness and whose hearts may thence receive most incouragement to obey and serve him have cause to rejoyce in him and in his doings herein It was meet that we should make merry and be glad 5. It was meet in respect of its tendency and fruit which is the glorifying of God and drawing in other sinners to repentance that they also may be saved the most acceptable thing to God 1 Tim. 2.3 David being pardoned for and healed of his great sins of Adultery and Murther delivered from blood-guiltiness Would teach trangressors the way so as sinners should be converted to him his tongue should sing aloud of and greatly commend Gods righteousness though he could thenceforth less speak of his own His lips being again opened should shew forth Gods praises Psal 51.13 14 15. As the turning away of good men from God by sin doth mightily dishonour God and stumble and hurt others so the returning of backsliders to God tends much to the glorifying him and doing good to others by their examples before them and confessions and praises of God to them strengthening those that are in God's way and recalling others that stray from it yea and incouraging them to Repentance That 's a fifth Reason Use And this consideration also in its several Branches may be of divers usefulness to us as 1. It magnifies and tends to provoke us to magnifie the greatness of the grace and mercy of God to Mankind that hath prepared and made a way in and by his Son Jesus Christ that rebellious sinners and back-sliders from him might be brought back again to him and be received of him There is with the Lord plenteousness of redemption so as he can and will redeem Israel from all his iniquities He can forgive and revive such as none else can or will Such as being put away for Whoredome have joyned themselves to others that might not be received again by the Law yet he can receive and forgive such and declares himself ready to it also through Jesus Christ Jer. 3.1 2.8.12 13. All things that could not be atoned or from which men might not be justified by the Law of Moses all that believe in Jesus Christ are justified from by him Act. 13.38 39. And he can call and revive and quicken the most dead souls through the seven Spirits of God that are in him Revel 3.1 And so it leads us 2. To magnifie and commend the exceeding preciousness of the blood of Christ and the fountain opened therein For the house of David and inhabitants of Jerusalem to wash in for sin and for uncleanness Zech. 13.1 The house of David we know was guilty of blood and the City Jerusalem a bloody idolatrous City compared to a woman to be judged for breaking Wedlock and for shedding Innocent Blood Adultery and Murther Ezek. 16.38 and yet this fountain in Christ's most pretious blood will extend to and is vertuous for the washing them God hates the bloody and deceitful man David was guilty of both and yet in the multitude of God's mercies he durst go into God's house and appear before him Psal 5.6 7. And praying to God to wash him from those sins saith That if he would purge him with Isop and wash him he should be whiter than the snow Psal 51.7 8. And the like is promised upon their repentance to the Princes and People of Jerusalem and Judah though compared to the Princes of Sodome and people of Gomorrah for badness Isa 1.10 16 17. Such is the vertue of the blood of Christ that in coming to it and bathing in it in turning to God and believing in his Son it can make a City that is an harlot and full