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A32722
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A sermon preached by the late eminent Mr. Steph. Charnock on 2 Cor. V. XIX.
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Charnock, Stephen, 1628-1680.
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1680
(1680)
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Wing C3710; ESTC R13260
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12,455
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38
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and appeased by them But begin with Faith whereby we cast our selves on God in Christ and receive Vigour for all Spiritual Actions Faith is the Principle whereby we Obey not the Effect of our Obedience God is a God of Peace then a God of Grace We must look on God as a God of Peace and then implore him as a God of Grace and for all our habitual growth in Grace As he is a God of Peace he works in us that which is well pleasing in his Sight VI. EXHORTATION WHen there are any Risings of Enmity in thy Soul go to God in Christ As God was in Christ Reconciling the World so he is in Christ Reconciling the Soul Not that I think that the whole Mass of Guilt returns on a Believer on his Fall but the Particular Guilt of that Sin for which we must fetch fresh Applications of Reconciling Grace We must go to God in Christ for it As the First Application was from God in Christ so must the Second and Third Christ is an Officer in Heaven for this Purpose The Apostle writes to the Corinthians some whereof were reconciled yet he beseeches them to be reconciled That is to renew their Reconciliation on every New Breach to regain the Favour they had forfeited by their Sins for which he had reproved them in the former Epistle This should be sued out every Day What was the Foundation of our first Peace must be the Foundation of our Renewal of the same The Course we took for the First will be successful for the Second God was not out of Christ in the first he will not be out of Christ when we need it again If God was willing and desirous to make Reconciliation by the Blood of Christ for all our Sins when they lay before him in their Crimson Aggravations much more will he renew it on a particular Fall But he may hide his Face with-draw the Comfort of this Peace for a long while even for as long as we live Let none therefore presume on this for the making up of our Enmity on a particular Breach belongs not to those that live in a Course of known Sin This is Inconsistent with a Reconciled State which is to make up the great Breach the Breach of Nature VII EXHORTATION HOw contented should those be in every Condition that are Reconciled This Peace of God should bear Rule in their Hearts and compose them under all Emergencies Phil. 4.6 7. We may despise the Promises of the World that allure us and the Threatnings of the World that scare us If this Peace guard our Souls it will render us Happy when the World thinks us Miserable If you have not the Honour of the World it will content us without it Bear the Scorns and Reproaches of the World with it The whole World can't secure you if you have War with God Nothing can defend you from the Arrows of his Wrath. But if you have this Peace of God you are mounted above the Enmity of the World Let your Spirits be guarded by it against tumultuous Passions You may well endure the Strokes of a Father since you are not like to feel his Sword as a Judge VIII EXHORTATION LEt us be reconcileable to others not only where we offer but to those from whom we receive an Injury God's Reconciliation should be our Rule of dealing with others Hard Hearts and uncharitable Dispositions are unlike to God that had a Heart full of Tenderness Such will not part with a Grain of their Right though God parted with his Son to work our Peace And had he not been more forward in it than we we had perisht for ever Luk. 6.36 God sets his own Actions as a Pattern for ours If we are Irreconcileable to our Brother we do not imitate God but reject this Blessed Pattern and discover no sense of the Kindness of God to us Since God hath made Christ a Propitiation for our Sins if God so loved us ought not we also to love one another 1 Joh. 4.10 11. The Son of his Bosom vailed his Glory that he might be at Peace with us Entertain us and Accept us into Favour And shall we on every occasion be at Swords-point with our Brother Such a Disposition such a Woolfish and Bruitish Nature is against the Tenour of the Gospel Christ came to slay the Enmity between God and Us 'T is a crossing his Designe to preserve it between Christian and Christian This is a keeping up the Partition-Wall a frustrating of Christ's Death which was to demolish it IX Last EXHORTATION GLorifie God for this Since God hath sent his own Son out of his Bosom let us send our lowd Praises up to him When Heaven smiles upon the Earth the Earth blesses Heaven 'T is to the Glory of God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ that though all we have comes immediately from Christ yet Christ and All comes from the Father He is the Propitiation for our Sins but he was appointed by the Father He came to Redeem us but he was sent by God He paid our Debts as our Surety but he was Accepted by God He was our Mediatour to bring us to God but he was Commissioned by Him to this purpose What Love had he for the Creature though he abominated the Sin In the mid'st of his Indignation against his Iniquities he had Bowels of Mercy for his Person God had fore-cast the Prisoner into the Pit where was no Water and the Captive was under a mighty Sea of Trouble The Law of God was against him The Truth of God took part with his Law His Bowels and VVisdom took a Way to satisfie the Curse of the Law that we might enjoy the Blessings of the Gospel We could plead nothing of our own Deserts unless Perversity Peevishness Disloyalty Weakness and Wilfulness could pass for Desert Then indeed we had been unconceivable Meritors But seeing we could not merit it nor contract Peace of our selves How great therefore is the Depth of that VVisdom And How is that Goodness to be adored that found out a Refuge when Heaven and Earth were at War There is no Sinner but is born the Object of the Curses of the Law and the Scorn of the Malicious Devil Jesus Christ was sent to pacifie the Law and slay Satan our Enemy The Angels glorifie God for this Peace and Shall we be out-stript by those Beings that are less concerned God was Appeased through Christ and through Him we should offer up our Sacrifices of Thanksgiving to God If all the Sparks that have leapt out of the Fire since the Creation and all the Drops of Rain that have been distilled on the World were turned into the Tongues of Angels they would come short of the Praises due to God for this Excess of Love O that our Praises of God for this might be the Business not of a Day or an Hour but of our whole Lives since Eternity it self is too little to set forth God's Magnificent Love FINIS
Shelter It will touch none that are under Christ's Wing but will be like a Consuming Fire to every thing else One Spark of his Wrath is enough to consume Stubble Hasten therefore to Accept of what God Proposes lest Death put a Period to any further Treaty Fifthly All other wayes of Reconciliation are Insufficient To pretend to any other way is an Injury to the Divine Wisdom as though his Contrivance were not sufficient for his Creatures Restauration Divine Mercy will not wrong any of his Attributes nor dishonour Christ But if we do not receive this we deny Christ the Efficacy of his Priesthood Men are naturally studious of making God a Compensation for their VVrongs and a Satisfaction of their own coining They are unwilling to acquiesce in the Will and Wisdom of God Those Two great Things that God advances by his Grace Men oppose his Wisdom by their Pride and Reason his Authority by the Perversness of their Wills But Do we need Reconciliation or do we not If we need it not How came we to be Friends to God who were born Enemies If we need is it not safest to enter into those Terms that God hath proposed where-with he is satisfied rather than stand to failing and at the best but uncertain Methods but are indeed absolutely false and insufficient The safest way only is the Choice of wise Men. If other wayes would do 't is the greatest VVisdom to take that Course that God hath provided whose Wisdom sees further into its Strength and Sufficiency than any Creatures can Let us not then be such Fools to refuse the Gospel-Method except we can meet with any thing that can be a sufficient Plea Had all the Angels in Heaven and all the Men on Earth contrived another Way it would have been ineffectual God never was in them reconciling the VVorld to himself This one Mediatour that he hath appointed hath done that which neither Men on Earth nor Saints and Angels in Heaven could do by their joint Intercessions We can have no Confidence in our Humiliations Moral Righteousness Services and Duties God never was in them as Reconciling All that we can do by those will be but Enmity to God what-ever false Colours they are dawb'd withal we cannot please God without Faith VVhere Righteousness is at the highest Elevation 't is but a Creature therefore 't is not a fit Object of Trust Though Adam might have ventured his Natural Righteousness as a Plea yet because it might have failed it was not a fit Object of Trust But since the Fall of Adam all Pleas of Corrupt Righteousness are insufficient in the Court of Heaven Absolute Mercy without Faith in Christ offered by a God as a Reconciler cannot save us As God could not after the Sanction of his Law in regard of his Truth pardon the Violation of it without Satisfaction So since he hath setled this way of Reconciliation by Faith in the Blood of Christ he cannot on the same score of his Truth save any in a way of Absolute Mercy especially those that refuse the Method that his Mercy hath appointed And as it is against his Truth and Justice so it is against the Honour of his Son For if he be at Peace with one by Absolute Mercy Why could he not as well with others in the same manner And then VVhat need is there of the Sufferings of his only Son to make up the Breach If any thing else be chosen by any besides this God may say to such at the Day of Judgment Go to your Reconcilers that you have chosen and see whether they will make Peace for you or no as he did to the Israelites Judg. 10.14 Go and cry to the Gods that ye have chosen let them deliver you in the Time of your Tribulation A Dreadful but a Just Speech of the Eternal God! Sixthly God seeks it at our Hands and is willing to receive us God was not only in Christ reconciling the World but he is in his Ambassadors intreating us as though God did beseech you by Us. This is all the Tenor of his Proclamation Be ye Reconciled If he had not desired it he would not have spent his Thoughts about it nor been at any Expence to effect it He was not bound to it He might have left us to sink into the Depth of Misery that we had merited without exposing his Son to Death which we had not deserved We had Contracted a Necessity of Death our Surety was no more bound to seek us out nor God to make to Adam a Promise of Redemption than he was to make any of his Creatures He might have raised a new VVorld and filled it with new Inhabitants It must needs be a thing of vast Concernment for which God seeks to us and speaks to us in his Gospel who is infinitely more Glorious than we are Vile God did us not the least VVrong though he hath born many of our Affronts It is as easie for him to breath us into Hell as to breath out one kind Invitation He hath no more need of our Friendship than he fears our Enmity He is no more benefited by us than the Sun by darting its Beams on a Grain of Sand. That Soul surely is not sensible of the Misery that the VVar with God hath sunk him into that refuses to receive Peace that he so tenderly and importunately offers Nor can he without unconceivable Shame look God in the Face after so notorious a Rejecting of it He seeks it to Day but perhaps he will not to Morrow For there is a Day when he will pour out his VVrath on the unbelieving VVorld Now that he is a great way off his Thunder is at a distance he sends us as Ambassadors of Peace He shuts out none that shut not out themselves Besides he is willing to receive us into favour more willing to embrace us than we to receive him The Eternal Motions in his Heart gave Birth to this gracious Designe and they have the same force still He will never forget them They are the Bublings of his own Heart and will be alike forcible for the Reception of us as they were to give a Commission to Christ for us Oh that every one of us were as willing to be at Peace with God as God is to be at Peace with us He seeks to us 't is an Imitation of God to seek to him That 's the First Branch of the EXHORTATION II. EXHORTATION BE at Enmity with Sin God was in Christ reconciling Sinners not Sin He sent his Son to reconcile Enemies not their Enmity Fire and Water can sooner agree than God and Sin Peace with God and Peace with Iniquity A Traitour may be reconciled to his Prince but the Treason is still as hateful as before Indeed this Enmity with Sin is the best Signe of our Actual Reconciliation when we hate that which made the first Separation between God and the Soul Christ Expiated Sin but did not Encourage