wicked and vile Nation as the Chaldeans were to prevail and prosper against his own inheritance though they were sinful and unworthy and he cannot rest neither can he give God any rest until he hear something further of his mind The Lord is pleased to condescend to him in the beginning of the second chapter and to make answer to the anxiousness and earnestness of his Spirit in this great affair at the second verse And the Lord answered me and said Write the Vision and make it plain upon Tables that he that runs may read it Verse 3. For the Vision is for an appointed time at the end it shall speak and shall not lie though it tarry wait for it because it will surely come and not tarry In short the Lord makes this Answer to him that though he did make use of the Caldeans as a Rod in his hand to scourge his own People with yet when he had done his work upon his Israel he would take his Rod and throw it into the fire that he would deal with all the Enemies of his People according to their desert Desolation might come for a while upon the Lord's People but they should be raised out of their ruins but utter desolation and destruction should come upon the Enemies of his People they should at length be brought down and suffered to rise no more In this third Chapter according to his name which signifies Wrestler he wrestles with God and is another Jacob that will not let the Lord alone until he bless him Habakkuk encompasseth God and in his prayer wrestling with him closed in upon him And he gathers up in this third Chapter the great Experiences that Israel had of God when he walked with them and led them by a strong hand n the wilderness and he urged those old Experiences that this People had of God upon God at this time how he had dried up the mighty waters and rode in Chariots of Salvation through the Sea for them and how he caused the Sun and the Moon to stand still until the Enemies of the Lord were cut off consumed And he gathers in upon God upon those Experiences waiting for the same power and the same wonderful appearances and actings for their deliverances out of the present and succeeding troubles that were or should come upon them as God had appeared for them and delivered them out of all their troubles of old And though he tells us that at the first sounding of the words of God's displeasure he was filled with shakings and with trembling and with quivering yet within a little time he recovered his Spirit and in the exercise of Faith upon God he glories rejoyces and triumphs in God alone in the midst of most sinking most discouraging Providences When indeed I heard saies he verse 16. my belly trembled my lips quivered at the voice rottenness entred into my bones But see what he saies in the 17th and 18th verses Although the Fig-tree shall not blossom c. yet I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my Salvation He saw shakings coming upon the whole Earth that did even put the Foundations as it were out of course he saw God's Besom in his hand ready to sweep away all their comforts an East-wind was rising that would blow upon their Spring and make all their Spring-buds to blow off Well saies he let it be so or as ill as can be supposed to be or as ill as the creature can be as to its state in this world yet I have God on my side and all is well I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my Salvation This verse is a most noble strain of a heavenly Spirit in the high and constraining exercise of Faith upon God in a most dismal day of darkness The Prophet gets upon the Ruins of the Creature and rejoyceth in his whole Christ He gets upon the Ashes of his house that was burnt here and sings of his Building that cannot be burnt in Heaven He gets into his withered Vineyard and into his barren Fields and there sings The Lines are fallen unto me in a pleasant place I have a goodly Heritage It seems a very strange speech that he should in the former part of his Prophecy be speaking of the sad dispensations of the Lord towards them and cap. 3.17 speak of great failures that were like to come upon them in reference to all their terrene comforts and enjoyments and yet speak of rejoycing and joying in the Lord It is a strange speech to talk of joy and rejoycing here where he had almost nothing in this world left him or supposed to be left him yet I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my Salvation We say of some men It is strange how they live their Trades fail and their Estates are gone and yet they bear up Why 't is a mystery how they live how they have wherewithal to defray their charges surely they have some secret friends that feed them and maintain them that their neighbours know not of Why after the same manner we may speak concerning the Lord's People They have enemies on every side and they are broken again and again and yet behold they live and their Joy none can take from them although they are numbered to sorrows and distresses every day Why my Text tells you the mystery of their living and of their living in joy and peace and comfort in the midst of all their losses troubles and discomfortures I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my Salvation Saies the Apostle 2 Cor. 6.10 As sorrowful yet alwaies rejoycing c. This verse doth open something of the mystery of the verse that we have chosen to be our present Text As sorrowful yet alwaies rejoycing and while they seem to be poor they make many rich they seem to have nothing but yet indeed they possess all things yet I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy inthe God of my Salvation I will rejoyce in the Lord. The word in the Hebrew is a very full word I will rejoyce exceedingly in the Lord Or My heart rises like the Sea with surges when 't is enforced with the wind Or My heart is like a boiling Pot when it seetheth Or how shall I express it I will rejoyce in the Lord I will magnifie my self in God or make my boast of God in all disasters and under all discouragements I will joy in the God of my Salvation I will joy That word also is very full and it signifies in its grammatical sense my heart shall leap or skip for joy My heart shall sally forth in my God and take heart in the Lord who never fails I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my Salvation One of the Antients speaking upon this Text saith Although saith he all the Elements should threaten us and conspire and swear
A TREATISE OF Rejoycing in the Lord Jesus in all Cases and Conditions Wherein is manifested 1. What the Lord Jesus Christ is to and doth for Believing Souls which may be a constant ground of their Joy and Rejoycing 2. What are the grounds of that Darkness which is upon Believers about their Interest in Christ hindering this Rejoycing 3. What Believers should do in the interim until they can have the evidence of their Interest clear 4. How Souls may know their Interest in Jesus Christ Together with A Christians Hope in Heaven in one Sermon and Freedom from Condemnation in Christ in two Sermons being the last Preached By Robert Asty late Minister of Jesus Christ in Norwich Phil. 4.4 Rejoyce in the Lord always and again I say rejoyce LONDON Printed by Tho. Snowden for Edward Giles Bookseller in Norwich near the Market-place 1683. TO THE Congregational Church of Christ In the City of Norwich Dearly Beloved IT is much to be lamented in any day if many of the righteous are taken away by death Isa 57.1 as being signal of evil to come more when many Eminent Ministers of the Gospel are so removed whereby Vision faileth and most of all when the Sin of a People and impending Judgment threaten their being benighted and no prospect is given of others to fill up the places of those who are transplanted to Eternity I know you cannot but have many searchings of heart for your deep share in this matter of Lamentation the Lord having in so short a measure of time called home to himself from among you so many faithful Teachers as that Spiritual man Mr. Armitage Judicious Mr. Allen and now this Laborious Mr. Asty who served you in the Gospel But it is some matter of refreshment that they being dead yet by their Printed Labours they still speak to you It was the earnest desire of some amongst you that the ensuing Sermons of Mr. Robert Asty might be Published they were taken from his mouth by the Pen of a Ready Writer and not polished by his own hand yet may be exceedingly useful to all for the promoting of Faith Obedience and Comfort Indeed the chief purport of this Treatise is to raise the Joy of those who are interested in Christ and that in every state and condition It directeth unto the right Object of Joy the Lord and so to an everlasting ground of Rejoycing I shall add a few words of Counsel to you for whom I have a great respect 1. Improve the remembrance of those Gospel Truths which you heard from the mouths of your Ministers now at rest Their Labours were not intended by the Lord only for a present relief to your Souls during their speaking but for afterward Rev. 3.3 Remember how thou hast Received and Heard and hold fast Beware of losing or growing indifferent as to the practical owning those Gospel Principles which you have been grounded in be tenacious there hold them fast for Christ addeth If thou shalt not watch I will come on thee as a Thief and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee 2. Keep up lively Affections towards God when your Gospel-Ministers are withdrawn from you When David was exiled from the Ordinances of God yet then had he the most earnest pantings of Soul after Enjoyments of God Psal 42.1 2. 63.1 2. O God thou art my God early will I seek thee Beware of coolings in Affection to the Institutions of Jesus Christ when you want them and let nothing short of God satisfie when you enjoy them Beware of leaving your first love Rev. 2.4 5. 3. Maintain frequent Spiritual Communion each with other when some Gospel Administrations are wanted This is prescribed as a means for the prevention of Declinings or Departures from God Heb. 3.13 Exhort one another daily while it is called to day Daily Converses each with other duly managed may not only preserve from Spiritual Decaies but quicken Affections and blow up the spark of your graces into a mighty flame 4. Wait uncessantly in Prayer for the Return of God's Ark to you The less you have of Preaching the more should you be in Praying and others for you that Gospel-Light may shine among you as in former daies and the Answer will rejoyce many and should grieve none for what hurt can it be to any real Christian that Christ is Preached to others I shall only add 2 Cor. 13.11 Finally Brethren farewel be perfect be of good comfort be of one mind live in Peace and the God of Love and Peace shall be with you So prayeth he who is Yours in the Lord Jesus Sam. Petto Octob. 23. 1681. SERMON I. Habakkuk 3.18 Yet I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my Salvation OF the Stock and Parentage of this Prophet we have no clear account in Scripture It may be implicitly to hint unto us that we should alwaies look more to the Message than to the Messenger and that nobleness of birth and greatness among men do not greaten the Word of God Indeed Epiphanius tells us with some confidence that this Prophet was of the Tribe of Simeon and that he lived in the time of the Babylonish Captivity but there is but little grounds for this conjecture The time also of this Prophet's Prophesying is very uncertain Some Hebrew Writers do expresly tell us that he lived in the time of the Reign of King Manasseh and there is some probability for this assertion but however this is clear that he comes from the Lord of Hosts he was his Prophet and he speaks in his name in much power and plainness to this people not fearing the face of man and spares not to deal closely with that incorrigible Spirit that was among them who had slighted the Lord's Message that was delivered by his Predecessors before him and was now near unto destruction Whether it was in the time of the Reign of Manasseh or any other King modern Expositors are very modest in their conjectures and apprehensions not seeing the thing clearly and absolutely determined in Scripture but this is certain it was at that time when God was about to raise up that bitter sharp cruel fiery fierce enemy the Chaldeans to come out against this people as you may see chap. 1. v. 6. It was at that time when God had born so long with their provocations that the time of his patience was even almost expired It was at that time when their sins were so multiplied and encreased as that they were near unto ruin destruction and desolation was at the door Now this Prophet understanding the mind of God and seeing upon good grounds that the Decree was past against this people as one who was faithful unto their interest among whom and unto whom he was the Lords Prophet as one that would approve himself faithful unto the Lord he takes upon him the boldness to expostulate the case with God why he should suffer such a
as it were a Confederacy against us to turn us out of all yet Ego exultabo in Deo I will rejoyce in my God even in the God of my Salvation And Calvin saith My joy is not founded upon the Creature nor upon external enjoyments therefore let all things be brought into confusion here below nay let God himself seem to stand frowning over us yet saies he will I rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my Salvation Joy is the sweet motion of the Soul in a full contentment of heart and complacency of Spirit upon some good set before it Now here the Prophet sees all discouraging below he turns his Eyes up to Heaven and he sees a certainty there he sees stability there and therefore he rejoyces in the Lord and Joys in the God of his Salvation I will rejoice in the Lord. Who is meant by Lord here I will rejoyce in Jehovah the God of my Salvation Jehovah is a Title given unto God the Father setting forth his self-being and self-sufficiency and giving existence unto all Creatures but the Title Jehovah is attributed also unto the Son and so I understand it here in this Text I will rejoice in Jehovah that is in Christ Jesus who may be called Jehovah not only as he hath a sufficiency in himself but as he gives existence and being unto all the promises of the Covenant of Grace in whom they are yea and Amen and on this account I take it that the Title Jehovah is often given unto Jesus Christ the second Person I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my Salvation that is in my Lord my Saviour my dear Jesus and my Redeemer and so from the words you may observe this proposition Doct. That there is enough in Christ Jesus alone for the Souls full rejoycing and triumph in all cases and conditions Yet I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my Salvation Let things go how they will in the world as to my outward Concerns yet the ground of my joy that is never taken from me Although the Fig-tree do not blossom although there shall be no fruit in the Vine although the labour of the Olive shall fail and the Fields shall yield no meat the Flocks shall be cut off from the Fold and there shall be no Herd in the Stall yet my Joy that abides the ground of my Joy that cannot be taken from me 't is not in the Creature 't is not upon Earth but 't is in Heaven 't is not in Man 't is in the Lord 't is not in the confluence of these things that are coming and going and in an uncertain enjoyment but it is in the Lord who never fails saies David in the 2 Sam. 23.5 Though my House be not so with God my Family is not as I would have it to be I cannot rectify all the disorders of my House and settle things as I would my house is not with God as I would have it according to my hearts desire yet God hath made with me an everlasting Covenant of Grace and this is all my Salvation and all my desire The word that is translated desire here in the Hebrew signifies also delight this is all my Salvation and all my delight as we may read it here is the Joy of my heart my delight is here Gods Covenant of Grace stands sure with me and therein will I rejoyce as if David had said things go ill with me here below the Sword is threatned never to depart from my House while I live that I must be a man of trouble and of war to the end of my daies what breaches may be made upon my Kingdom and what breeches may be made in my Family the Lord only knows yet the Covenant that stands sure and that is all my delight my heart centers here and I will comfort my self in the Lord my God And if we search into the Psalms there we shall find that David does frequently under great disasters make his boast of God Providences were frowning and he seemed to be driven out of all yet saies he The Lord God is my refuge he is the Horn of my Salvation my Sanctuary and high Tower and I will rejoyce and let all the righteous rejoice and be glad in him In the handling of this proposition there are these things that we shall propose to consider and unfold to you First What Jesus Christ is Secondly What he hath and Thirdly What he will do for the believing Soul that the believer may take comfort and rejoyce in him at all times whatsoever his condition is First What Jesus Christ is that the Prophet doth here so comfort himself in and rejoice and make his boast of First He is glorious in his Person a very glorious person he is not one like him in Heaven nor in Earth what is said concerning Saul in the 1 Sam. 9.2 we may in allusion apply unto Christ that he was a choice young man a goodly there was not among the Children of Israel a goodlier Person then he from the shoulders upward he was higher than any of the People I only allude to it Jesus Christ is a most choice excellent one a very goodly and a very lovely Person he is higher both by head and shoulders than any of his Brethren a Person all glorious a Person all over lovely and beautiful in Can. 5.16 His mouth is most sweet yea he is altogether lovely this is my beloved c. But I shall descend into particulars and shew you wherein Jesus Christ is such a sufficient ground of rejoycing and of comfort to the believing Soul that hath an interest in him in all conditions and I shall here shew you wherein it appeareth that the glory of Christs Person is such a ground of rejoycing to us at all times And that will appear in his Mediatory Constitution as God-man in one Person Jesus is a Mediator a days Man an umpire between God and Man one that hath come between God and Man to make peace for us and the glory of his Person lies in his mediatory constitution as he is God-man so he is a most glorious Person Now this Title of Mediator is often given him in Scripture in Heb. 8.6 he is called the Mediator of a better Covenant Heb. 9.15 the Mediator of the New Testament and Heb. 12.24 To Jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant and to the blood of sprinkling So 1 Tim. 2.5 This was such a one as Job wished for in Job 9.33 Neither is there any days-man between us that might lay his hand upon us both Now there are two things that are requisite for the compleating and accomplishing of a Mediator First He must be equally related to the Persons between whom he comes Secondly He must be impartial and faithfully indifferent now both these are found in Jesus Christ First A Mediator I say must be equally stated between and
of rejoycing for us in Christ Jesus upon this his personal constitution as God-man to be a Mediator for us and here First We have dignity Secondly Tranquillity Thirdly Sanctity Fourthly Stability And Fifthly Familiarity given to us or brought in upon us 1. Hereby is the nature of man raised unto unspeakable honour and glory in that Jesus Christ the Second Person hath assumed our nature and taken it into union with his own divine nature in his Person therein does he now reign upon the Throne in Heaven at the right hand of God herein is the nature of man most unspeakably advanced and dignifyed The nature of man was very low before Man was made of the earth of a little red earth man was before but a contemptible Creature but now what honour is put upon it that Jesus Christ hath taken our nature and united it unto the Divine nature that nature that was despised before is now honoured honourable and worthy It hath glory and dignity from the Lord Jesus put upon it saies the Apostle 1 Cor. 15.43 44. The body of man or the nature of man it is both born and it dies in dishonour ay but it is raised in glory The body of Man is a corruptible body 't is a dying body It hath a sentence of death that hangs over it as soon as ever it hath a being but now though it be sown in dishonour yet it shall be raised in glory there is glory that waits upon the body of man or upon mans whole nature Phil. 3.21 Who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like to his own glorious body c. So as there is unspeakable honour that is given unto our nature in that Christ Jesus hath taken it so near unto himself and advanced it upon the Fathers Throne in Heaven we are here under the contempt and disgrace of men but it matters not Christians they cannot take away your glory The glory of your nature is not laid in the breath of men but it is founded here in Christ Jesus's assumption of our nature and uniting it to the divine nature and if indeed the enemies of the Lords people could take our nature from Christ Jesus then they might take away our glory and our honour but he hath inseparably and everlastingly united our nature unto his divine nature therefore our honour is such as can never be taken away it is counted a great honour for an Ambassadour to be sent forth in the name of some great Prince to personate him in another Country but my friends what is it for Jesus Christ to assume our nature and to personate man before his Father in Heaven this is a greater honour that is put upon us than if God had made man the Lord of all the Angels in Heaven therefore let this satisfy you under all the reproaches and contempts that you meet withall here in the world by one and another though despised and though contemned here and there by a few yet your honour in the Lord that abides 2. In and upon the appearance of Jesus Christ as Mediator for us there is a full firm and lasting peace made between God and us Jesus Christ he came as a Mediator between two to reconcile both and make them one and this he hath done by the blood of his Cross Col. 1.20 and 21. Jesus hath reconciled God and Man together he hath taken away the wrath that the law of God had to denounce against man he hath slain the enmity of our natures he hath brought these two enemies together and made them one in his own mediatory hand so as now you may look unto God and be at peace with him you may see Heaven and all the powers of Heaven reconciled to you Rom. 5.1 Therefore being justified by saith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ and not only so v. 11. But we also Joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have received the attonement here is the blessing mentioned in the Text I will rejoice in the Lord I will Joy in the God of my Salvation but how must I consider him why consider this Lord as Mediator making peace through the blood of his Cross and then Christians you may Joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ because it is by him that you have received the attonement Jesus Christ hath satisfied and reconciled God to you he hath appeased God he hath brought over the heart of God to the sinner that now he may take comfort and encouragement in him and go to him as to a Father in Christ Jesus Eph. 2.13 14. But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ for he is our peace who hath made both one c. Is not this a matter of rejoycing for you that now you may go unto God as your God you may look up to God and see him reconciled to you and see all the properties of his nature looking towards you in a friendly way that you may see God over-ruling all providences dispensations for your interest and advantage you may go and comfort your selves in your God you may encourage your selves in him you may go and rejoice in the Lord as your God through the blood of the Cross of Jesus your Mediator 3. Hereby are our corrupt natures sanctified and made holy unto God Jesus Christ becoming man he has consecrated unto the Lord that part of humane nature that he came of and did belong to he hath taken off our nature and he hath offered it up unto the Lord and so consecrated the whole lump that it was taken out of this was typed out of old by the first fruits that did consecrate the rest Levit. 2.1 Or of the Meat-offering here you see was a part taken and offered up unto the Lord and the whole was hereby consecrated Now Jesus Christ he comes of that part of the world that was the Elect and the chosen of God he did not come in General of all mankind though in a general way God hath said that all Nations are of one blood yet Jesus Christ did not come so promiscuously and in the general but he came of that particular part of man that the Lord had chosen and set apart for himself and that is the Elect of the world and as for Reprobates he came not of them he was not of that rank and number as you may see John 17.16 They are not of the world even as I am not of the world and v. 19. For their sakes sanctify I my self that they also might be sanctified through the truth For their sakes that is for those that were the Chosen of God and given to Jesus Christ by the Father as v. 6. I have manifested thy name unto the men that thou gavest me out of the world for their sakes I sanctify my self he takes our nature and offers it to God and consecrates
Apostle Neither life nor death c. shall separate us from the love of Christ Rom. 8.38 The life of a Believer after grace is full of provocation and it may be he continues to provoke God as long as he lives There are provocations and unkindnesses in his way to the Lord all his life long till he come to the end of his daies and yet says the Apostle Life shall not separate Now this is a great ground of rejoycing that thou mayest look unto thy Jesus and see him alwaies loving of thee Thy waies are very uneven and unconstant and thou canst not keep in so good a frame as thou wouldest do yet still Jesus loves thee thou art full of wandrings still Jesus loves thee why here 's a love that marches through all opposings Secondly It is a Love that heightens under all our sorrows I mean as to the communications and dispenses of it or the actual and saving discoveries of it unto the Believer it heightens under all our sorrows that the greater our troubles are the more he loves and the more pitiful our state is the more compassionate he is he sees a Believer it may be lying under great distresses of body or in great Agonies of spirit why this draws out his love he loves thee more he is the more pitiful and the more compassionate to thee as he sees that thy state is a sorrowful state and thy condition a troubled condition and indeed the Believer never hath such discoveries and evidences of the love and kindness of God to him as when he is in a low condition Jesus Christ he did come you know into a wilderness to walk with Israel And let their troubles be never so many Jesus Christ would not leave them but the greater their troubles were the more was his love discovered and the more did his faithfulness to them appear and they never had such an eminent and signal appearances of God with them as when they were in their Wilderness Travels Jacob a holy man never had so much of God nor never had such a sight of God as when he was in a low condition Gen. 28.15 Behold I am with thee and I will keep thee in all places whither thou goest and will bring thee again to this Land and will not leave thee till I have done what I have spoken to thee of And Gen. 31.42 Here the good man was in a great strait he was afraid that he should be cut off Ay but says he The Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac he it was that rebuked thee yesternight He did charge thee that thou shouldest speak no hurt no evil unto me And when Israel Exod. 3. came into a groaning captivity and bondage when their bondage grew very great and unsufferable then did the Lord wonderfully discover himself v. 7. And the Lord said I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt and have heard their cry by reason of their Task-masters and am come down to deliver them c. And Psa 34.16 The Eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his Ears are open to their cry Here is a supposition of a condition that the Soul is in or may be brought into that makes it groan and cry Well for your comfort know that then in a special manner is the Eye of the Lord upon you and his Ear open to you And Psal 56.18 Thou tellest my wanderings c. Thou tellest my flights so some read it I have never an enemy to pursue me but the Lord takes notice of it and seeth whither the enemy hunts me and drives me he takes notice of the fury of the oppressor that comes out against me Thou tellest my wanderings and puttest my tears in thy bottle Every tear in a sorrowful condition Jesus Christ bottles up he keeps it in remembrance God's Peoples highest visits of favour and grace their choicest experiences and the most comfortable manifestations that they have of God have been when they have been in a low condition In prosperity there God many times lets the Soul walk more at liberty ay and he hath less of God in prosperity then in adversity there he is left to walk by his own light as I may so say and he bears up himself more upon his own comforts he stands then as it were more upon his own legs but in a weak condition and in an afflicted state in a time of trouble then is the Lord present discovering himself more fully to him and hence it is that the Saints have had their highest Joys in the prison and have been made to sing in the flames They have commended the sharpest distress that ever they were brought into in this world to be such as could never separate Christ and their Souls the love of your Jesus is so great that it will leap into a furnace to keep you company It is such as it will come into any strait and hazard to support and bear up your spirits Lo this is your friend your comforter that you have O believer to rejoyce in Jesus his heart is alwaies towards you and the love of his heart it heightens under all your sorrows let darkness grow upon your state the light of his love will shine through it and give you a light that you shall see your way let your disconsolations be never so many in the creature the love of Jesus Christ will countervail all for if the creature be taken away Jesus Christ will be the more and in the want of all things he will discover himself so as shall answer all to your Souls 3. As his love is such as heightens under all our sorrows so it abides unmixed in all seasons as it is a love that cannot be diverted so it is a love that cannot be adulterated but it is alwaies a sweet alwaies a pure love a heart easing a soul pacifying a soul rejoycing love none can throw any bitterness into the love of Jesus but it is alwaies a pure clear Chrystal love that hath no mixture in it it is not thus with the love of friends the sweetest the best the firmest friends that ever man had upon earth there is some mixture in their love They will sometimes rejoyce your hearts and sometimes they will make your hearts sad loving friends may sometimes frown and be churlish and unkind and you may go to them with your hopes and expectations and be disappointed you may soon weary out their love and they may discover such a mixture that their hearts seem sometimes to be alienated But it is not thus with the Lord Jesus but his love is alwaies a pure clear soul satisfying love there is light in him and no darkness at all there is sweetness in him and there is no bitterness at all There are as I said before things that may encourage you but there is nothing that will discourage you in Jesus no not unto eternity now believer this is
thy friend is not this a brother born for adversity look amongst all thy friends upon earth hast thou such a one look into Heaven are any of the Angels able to do for thee as Jesus can Who is there in Heaven or Earth that thy Soul can desire in comparison with Jesus he is glorious in his person and he is gracious in his nature 3. Jesus is the exhibiter revealer and unfolder of all the fulness of the blessed and glorious Attributes of God in a salvation way God is thy God in and through Jesus Christ and not otherwise God absolutely in himself dwells in light unaccessable and is a consuming fire we cannot make an approach to God as he is absolutely considered and live but now in and through Jesus Christ God he is a God that may be spoken withal and all his attributes and the properties of his nature are savingly enjoyable There is a great deal of the glory of God that was discovered in the works of Creation there was the glory of his wisdom and the glory of his power of his goodness and of his soveraignty these were discovered in the works of Creation but as so exhibited they afre not saving neither do they afford soul-saving relief to us absolutely considered in that primary exhibition that was made of them in the works of Creation but now in and through Jesus Christ there all the attributes of God they are saving all the attributes of God they are comfortable and refreshing Adam when he was out of Christ could not think of God but it was a terrour to him therefore as soon as ever he had sinned fear entered into his Spirit and he hid himself why saies the Lord to Adam what is the matter O! saies he I was afraid and I hid my self Why so O to consider the greatness of God and the wisdom of God that was discovered in the Creation and the power of God that was discovered in the Creation and the soveraignty and dominion of God that was discovered in the Creation and to think that he had no interest in this God that he had provoked and grieved him this was a terrour to him and saies Adam Lord I was afraid and I hid my self ay and all the attributes of God are enough to strike terrour into the Soul that hath no interest in Jesus considered out of Jesus and they are not relieving But now in and through Jesus all Gods attributes they are reconciled to and engaged for the believer and he may see that which may comfort him and that which may satisfy him 1 Cor. 1.24 But unto them which are called both Jews and Greeks Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God as if he had said all the power of God that is saving it is in and through Christ Jesus and all the wisdom of God that is saving is in and through Christ Jesus therefore in him it is said are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge Col. 2.3 Now do but consider the attributes of God apart and you will find that they are no way relieving out of Christ but in Christ they are full of Grace and they are all exhibited and revealed through him as saving 1. As to the Justice of God Why the justice of God out of Christ it is terrible to consider that God is a most exact severe righteous God that will give every one their due and will mete out a portion to every one according to his desert This is most terrible to consider God out of Christ what may we expect but as Ps 11.6 Vpon the wicked he shall rain snares fire and brimstone and an horrible tempest this shall be the portion of their cup This will be the portion of all those that God hath to do withal out of Christ But now in Christ Jesus this attribute is attoned and all that wrath and that justice and that vengeance had to execute is poured out upon Christ Jesus justice dealt with the Lord Jesus in its utmost severity and received satisfaction in him and from him so as now saies the Apostle in 1 John 1.9 If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins c. and so Rom. 3.26 To declare I say at this time his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus Why justice hath nothing to say against thee but it speaks all for thee because God is a righteous God therefore he will love thee and therefore he will bless thee with all blessings because he hath received full satisfaction from Jesus Christ thy surety 2. Consider secondly the power of God out of Christ and it is enough to fill thy heart with terrour Ezek. 26.14 Can thy heart endure or can thy hands be strong in the day that I shall deal with thee saith the Lord c. Hast thou a strength to grapple with me or canst thou set thy foot against me no verily what are all the nations of the earth they are less then a crawling worm before the foot of the great God thou canst not stand before it But now in Christ Jesus this Attribute is attoned too and the mighty power of God is engaged to carry on and to mannage a salvation design in thee Therefore saies the Apostle Eph. 1.19 That ye may know what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe according to the working of his mighty power So as let the power of God be never so great it is a power engaged for thee to manage and carry on salvation work in thee whatever be the opposings that it meet with either from thy own heart or from others Thirdly If you consider the Attribute of God's Wisdom It is not relieving out of Christ That God is so infinitely wise and so deep the Soul may think all this is against me and what is he now doing but contriving new torments and new Hells that are more fierce and exquisite for me and surely there will be no end of these torments But now in Christ Jesus the Wisdom of God is imployed in such a design of Salvation that the Angels are said to pry into it they are astonished at the design that is brought to light by the Wisdom of God Fourthly If you consider the Patience of God out of Christ it is no way relieving For what will it advantage a Soul that God does bear with it a while when under all there is wrath treasuring up for him against the day of wrath Rom. 9.22 What if God willing to shew his wrath and to make his power known endured with much long-suffering the Vessels of wrath fitted for destruction So as the Patience of God is exercised in bearing with a sinner a little while till he greaten his sins But God will come in upon him notwithstanding all though he bear a little while But now in Christ Jesus the Patience of God is reconciled 2 Pet. 3.9
much to us that howsoever spotted and howsoever defiled and howsoever tainted our duties are as they come from us Jesus Christ makes them sweet and savoury and pleasant unto his Father and presents them as a sweet memorial unto him Isa 56.7 Even them will I bring to my holy Mountain and I will make them joyful in my house of prayer their burnt Offerings and Sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine Altar c. Why the Believer comes and brings his poor Petitions but they are not fit for the great God to read over to consider nor to look upon but Jesus Christ he examines them and he mends the Petitions and draws them up fit to be presented to his Father and delivers them with his own hand and then they come to be accepted You are says God unto his Church of old a Kingdom of Priests unto me and an holy Nation Exod. 19.6 Now this is applied unto the Church in New-Testament daies 1 Pet. 2.5 And in v. 9. Ye are a chosen Generation a Royal Priesthood an holy Nation a peculiar People Ye are made a holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual Sacrifices Ay but will they be accepted yes through Jesus Christ acceptable to God by Christ Jesus And Rev. 1.6 He hath made us Kings and Priests unto God the Father that is to offer up spiritual Sacrifices but this will not do alone Jesus Christ he stands to receive every Offering and it passes through his refining and cleansing hand and his perfuming Incense and so it comes unto God and then 't is a valuable Sacrifice then 't is a pleasant and delightful Sacrifice he puts it into his golden Censure and offers it up to his Father as Rev. 8.3 Here is the great Mystery of the Intercession of Jesus Christ held forth to you in reference to your spiritual Oblations he had a golden Censer and there was given him much Incense he hath enough for all your prayers there was given him much Incense that he should offer it with the prayers of all Saints so we read it but it might also be read That he should add it unto the prayers of all Saints so as our prayers are not weighty as they come from us nor acceptable but they have the Incense of Christ Jesus added to them and then they are weighty and then they are acceptable and from hence God the Father comes to be delighted in the supplications of his servants Now by the way Christians I beseech you take in this notion into your faith it is generally received and believed that we must rest upon the satisfaction of Christ Jesus for the acceptance of our persons let me tell you that you must also act Faith upon Jesus Christ as an Intercessor and rest upon the Merit of his Incense and of his Mediation for all your speedings in your approaches unto God As you must act Faith upon the Merits of Christ Jesus for the acceptance of your persons so you must act Faith upon the Merits of Christ's Death and of Christ's Life now in Heaven for the acceptance of all your spiritual performances with God And here my Brethren you have another ground of Joy and Comfort in your low estate here Suppose that you be tossed to and fro by many tempests suppose that you were sorely broken in upon by breaches of providence suppose that you have lost many dear friends that you did use to consult withal and to go to for assistance why yet you have Jesus Christ keeping your way clear unto the Father and he it is that gives you a constant boldness with him Bring all your Petitions ask what you will in the Name of Christ Jesus and it shall be granted to you Christ stands ready to receive your Petitions and to mend whatsoever is amiss in them and to present them in his own dress unto his Father that they may be accepted and in and through Christ you have a liberty and boldness with God Let us come boldly saies the Apostle unto the Throne of Grace Heb. 4. ult And in Heb. 10.19 Having therefore Brethren boldness to enter into the Holiest by the Blood of Jesus Jesus Christ will not throw out a Petition because it was no better worded Jesus Christ will not throw back a Prayer because the Spirit was no more composed ond ordered in it Jesus Christ will not throw back a duty because he sees a little unbelief in it or something of self in it or something that is displeasing to his Father in it but he takes out whatsoever is displeasing and he adds his own incense to it and carries it unto his Father and delivers it an acceptable offering unto him And on this ground you may joy and rejoyce in the Lord Jesus whatsoever your condition in this world is 4. Jesus Christ doth in wisdom direct and with love and grace influence all the losses crosses and afflictions of your Christian state whereby they are all made to further your spiritual interest and be subservient unto your great soul advantage It is the lot and portion of Gods People to be often afflicted to be sore broken as in the place of Dragons and they are many times emptied from Vessel to Vessel but there is infinite wisdom Christian infinite reconciled wisdom that doth order all the motions of providence in all the changes of thy condition Jesus Christ he hath hold of every providence and he directs it in wisdom and influences it with love and grace that so it must do thee good it cannot be unto thy harm or prejudice in Eph. 1.22 And hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things unto the Church Christs providential Kingdom is subordinate unto his spiritual Kingdom unto which thou doest belong and by his grace and wisdom he directs all and in mercy doth manage all for thy advantage Psal 34.15 The Eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open unto their cry The Lord Jesus is ever viewing of a Christians state in his goings out and in his comings in in his lyings down and in his risings up he is ever viewing a Christians condition and wisdom doth direct all for the best it is said therefore Ezekiel 1.18 and it is an observable Scripture as for their rings they were so high that they were dreadful and their rings were full of Eyes round about them four The Prophet is here speaking of the great mystery of providence sometimes saies he Gods providences are very deep they are very tremendous and dreadful but be it so the rings of the wheels of providence they are alwaies full of Eyes saies he round about them four they are full of Eyes Eyes note wisdom directing guiding influencing and managing Now saies he the rings of the wheels that move in every state condition are alwaies full of Eyes there is not only an Eye one way but there is an Eye that looks every way The wheels of
in this world if thou beest a believer there is some promise of Grace that doth sute thy condition whatsoever is thy temptation or thy tryal there is some promise that doth offer relief whatever is thy necessity there is some promise that stands ready with mercy and grace Now Jesus Christ he stands at the head of every promise and keeps the way clear and the passage free for every believer and therefore Christ is called the yea and the Amen of every promise that is they have their certainty and their stability in him and from him confirmed by him and are communicated from him Jesus Christ is the Lord of every promise and he will see Christian that thou shalt not be wronged of thy right he will not suffer any to come and take away thy blessedness that lies there now whatsoever thou wantest in thy outward condition the promises are alwaies full whither thou mayest go for relief we read that the Philistines did fill up the wells that Abrahams Servants had digged Gen. 26.18 these wells of water they were stopped enemies could fill them up but my friends all the Devils in Hell cannot fill up one well of Salvation they cannot rob a Christian of one Gospel promise neither can they obstruct his way to the promise but Jesus that sits above and is at the head of the promise he alwaies keeps the way clear and open now my friends here is another ground of rejoycing for you in Christ Jesus you look into your estates and you see that you are on the losing hand daily you look upon your outward condition and you see that you are going down the wind there you look upon your outward comforts and you see them fading and dying and uncertain and perishing before your Eyes ay but your choycest blessings that lye in the promises these are in no uncertainty and though you have not a friend upon earth to go unto and though you have not a fulness upon earth to go to yet you have a fulness in the promise Christian that you may go to there is a fulness of mercy and a fulness of grace in the promise whither you may go Those that have taken away your outward comforts they cannot take away your comfort in the promise neither can they stop up your Wells of Salvation says David Psal 119.50 This is my comfort in my affliction for thy Word hath quickened me The word of Promise that came to my Soul with life and that was as life from the dead unto me when I was in a low and in an afflicted state when I was sorely tryed and broken in upon why consider Christians then that you have a ground of rejoycing in Christ Jesus that he is the Yea and the Amen of every Promise that can never fail and he secures the Grace of every Promise for you and the Comfort and the Light and the Strength of every Promise for you You may therefore though you are brought low in your outward condition look up unto Christ Jesus and rejoyce Sixthly Jesus Christ he is alwaies a Light unto the Believer in all his darkness and a Guide unto him in the intricacies of his way unto his Fathers house We know not which way to go nor how to direct our own steps Jesus Christ he is promised as a Light as a Light unto the world and that is not all but he is a Light unto his own People in a special manner and a Guide unto them in all their waies Luke 1.79 To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet in the way of peace Why the Believer he wants counsel and he wants direction and he wants advice from the Lord how to steer his course Jesus Christ he stands by him and he administers it he opens the way he reveals the Mysteries of the Kingdom he instructs the ignorant and teaches those that are fools the great and deep things of God and therefore the promise is that the way-faring man though a fool shall not erre in the way of peace Isa 35.8 He will guide them and direct them and instruct them by his counsel at all times And because Believers go in a wildered way that is very hard to find and dangerous and hazardous Jesus Christ therefore is such a Guide that takes the charge of them as a Commander and Leader So the Promise runs Isa 55.4 Behold I have given him for a Witness to the People a Leader and Commander to the people so as he takes the charge of the Believer in his wildered way he guides him and he directs him in his course and he will see that he shall be safe aided to his Fathers house Now Christian here is a further ground of rejoycing for thee You meet with many troubles and discomfortures and discouragements and disappointments in your outward condition but Jesus Christ he will see that you shall not be disappointed of Heaven but he is an abiding Light to you and a constant Guide to you and he will so lead you that you shall not stumble nor fall nor perish in your way unto the Kingdom Seventhly Jesus Christ maintains the Union of the Believer with himself from whence arise unchangeable relations of Grace both with the Believer and him and with the Believer and the Father which are alwaies pleadable and improveable My Brethren Jesus Christ takes Believers into a near and intimate union with himself and makes them branches of him who is as the stock he makes them as bone of his bone and as flesh of his flesh He takes them into an union that he will never suffer to be broken It is an indissolvible union it is an insuperable it is an inseparable union therefore says Christ Jesus Joh. 17. Those that thou hast given me have I kept and not one of them have I lost Jesus Christ never lost a member Jesus Christ never lost a limb Jesus Christ never lost a true subject Jesus Christ never lost a sheep out of his fold so as this near intimate union it is an indissolvible union now from this union do arise everlasting unchangeable relations of Grace that are alwaies pleadable and improveable from this near and intimate union with the Lord Jesus doth Christ ever abide your head filled with strength to animate you and to influence you filled with wisdom and knowledge to instruct you and inform you filled with understanding to guide you in your way In this intimate union you are members of his body he will never suffer you to be cast off so as you may alwaies Believer stand in him and plead the advantages of a standing in him and of an implantation and ingraftment into him Jesus Christ in this union is alwaies your Husband and you are alwaies his Spouse and the advantages of this relation are alwaies enjoyable and they are alwaies pleadable I have betrothed thee unto me in righteousness and in judgment for ever
Satan will indefatigably endeavour to darken your evidence and to obscure the sense of interest Satans design is to keep Souls as long as he can from a closure with Christ he will meet the Soul in all waies if possible to turn him out of his way and if he cannot do that his next design is to obscure your evidence and to darken your sense of interest that so he may make you to walk heavily and in the dark he will follow you with false reports and false suggestions he will hint to you this falsity and the other if possible to make you to believe a lye and to deny what Jesus Christ hath done and to deny your interest and standing in him that it may be is clear upon undenyable grounds and demonstrations the Devil you know came to Christ with this very temptation to make him to question the truth of his relation to God though the Devil knew it well enough that Jesus Christ was the Messiah and the true Son of God yet he comes and sets upon him with this temptation if possible to make him question If thou beest the Son of God then do so and so And he levels at the Believer in the same manner and his design is to keep you in the dark to rob you of all the peace and comfort and joy that you might have upon the sense and evidence of your Interest Tenthly There are many that presume upon a groundless confidence that they have an interest in Christ and yet are wholly ignorant of the nature of a Gospel-Interest There are many that do promise themselves great things in and from Christ Jesus and yet they are wholly ignorant of him they have hopes of large blessings that shall come in by Christ and yet are ignorant of Christ and the nature of a close with Christ that gives right to him Doubtless the foolish Virgins had hopes that as to the bulk of them were as large and as promising as the hopes of the wise Virgins were they never at all questioned their admittance when the Bridegroom should come In Deut. 29.19 And it shall come to pass when he heareth the words of this curse that he bless himself in his heart saying I shall have peace though I walk in the imaginations of my heart c. So when we are discoursing of the terrours of the Law that do belong to persons uninterested in Christ there are many that bless themselves in their hearts and say These things do not belong to us And when we are opening the comforts that Believers have in Christ those that are strangers to Christ will presume and say All these are mine Micah 3.11 The Heads thereof judge for reward and the Priests thereof teach for hire and the Prophets thereof divine for money yet will they lean upon the Lord and say Is not the Lord among us no evil can come upon us In the midst of all their wickedness they would still presume upon an Interest in the Lord and think all should go well with them My friends what think you of the Church of Laodicca they were a people of a very great and high profession they stood in a Gospel body and lived under the enjoyment of the great Priviledges of a Gospel-state and they promised themselves that all was well with them and yet see what the Lord says Rev. 3.17 Because thou sayest I am rich and encreased with goods and have need of nothing and knowest not that thou art poor and miserable and wretched and blind and naked They had a profession upon them and they thought there was a great deal in that They were in a Church-state and they thought that would serve their turn They did enjoy Church-Priviledges and they thought upon it that their condition was good and that they might well say Now we are rich we are Professors in a Church-state we are under the common and sacred blessings of the Gospel and who better than we We are rich but says the Lord you say so but I say otherwise you say you are rich but I say you are poor you say you are full but I say you are empty you say you are encreased with goods and have need of nothing but I say you have nothing and have need of all things Verily my friends this is a deceivable Age an Age wherein many do not only deceive others but their own Souls and therefore it concerns you to enquire whether the Lord be your God or no and not to satisfie your selves with general notions of the Lord 's being your God In the Eleventh and last place An evidence of Interest obtained maintained and Gospelly managed will be of singular advantage to a Christian in his whole Christian course You do not know Believers you that are careless in and about the clearing of your state you do not know what a change a Gospel sight of your Interest in Christ will make in your hearts an evidence of your Interest will expel all your fears and will resolve all your doubts and will cause a calm in your hearts whatsoever the present storm is Why if that we could look into the hearts of many or most of us I believe they would be found very tempestuous storms they threaten sore fears are ready to overwhelm and doubts are even ready to swallow up a Christian why an evidence of your Interest will remove all these Christian an evidence of your Interest will make all in Christ Jesus precious to you and will strangely raise and inhaunse the price of Christ and the blessings of Christ in your esteem The evidence of Interest O how precious will it make the Blood of Jesus to you O how precious will it make the Death of Jesus to you O how precious will it make the Life of Jesus to you O how precious will it make the Offices of Jesus to you when you can see that you are concerned in his Blood that Jesus he is your Surety your Mediator that he hath suffered for you and satisfied for you that he is your forerunner in Heaven this will make all of Christ exceeding precious An evidence of Interest is that that will carry your Souls chearfully through all sufferings that do or may befal you in the way of Christ There are reproaches that Believers meet withal in the way of Christ and the sense of Interest will help you to bear them all There are great losses that we are exposed to in bearing our Testimony to the Truths of Jesus sense of Interest will bear you up under all Why we have a building of God that is above It is said of those in the Hebrews that they did not regard their outward comforts knowing that they had in Heaven a better and an induring substance Sense of Interest will bear you up under all changes of providences when the Lord is taking as well as when he is giving Why will the Soul say there is still enough in Christ Christ is still
Spirit is satisfied in the government of Christ he is reconciled unto all the commands of Christ and he delights in the dominion of Christ and he freely and chearfully resigns up himself unto the Scepter of Jesus Christ Lord saies the Soul here I am rule over me Christ never interests a Soul in himself that he doth not bear the sway in its heart and command the powers of its Soul Psal 110.3 Thy people shall be a willing people in the day of thy power When Jesus Christ makes a willing people that is displays the power of his Grace and brings home a Soul and gives it an interest in himself he subjects the heart unto his Government he makes the Soul freely willing to be ruled by the laws and by the Authority of Christ Jesus no laws seem so desirable unto him as the laws of Jesus no rule no Scepter so pleasant as the Scepter of Christ and all the commands of Christ are chosen by him as being equal righteous holy pleasant and good the Spirit is reconciled to Christ Jesus in the whole of his Gospel Government over the heart of the Christian My Lord and my God saies Thomas these alwaies go together My God and also my Lord. And this particular I ground upon and gather out of my Text he is become the God of my Salvation how shall I know that He is my Lord saies the Prophet I will rejoice in the Lord the title Lord notes Dominion and Soveraignty Now the Soul that is interested in Christ rejoyceth in the Dominion and Soveraignty of Christ Jesus I will rejoice in the Lord I will joy in the God of my Salvation The inference that is drawn from this Scripture for our present purpose is this that the Soul that is interested in Christ will rejoyce in the dominion of Christ or doth receive Christ Jesus as a Lord and as a Lord doth rejoyce in and under him Indeed there may be much weakness in his obedience I don't say that he doth exactly and to a tittle walk up to the rule to fulfill every command of God No I know there is a great deal of weakness in the strongest believer upon earth and through the strength of corruption and the violence of temptation he may sometimes be fovled and born down ay but when he is so still his heart is right and he loves the commands of Christ that he cannot come up to and he honours the rule of Christ and to his utmost makes way for the sway of the Scepter of Christ in his Soul though he may be born down by temptation yet his love remains still unto every command of Jesus Rom. 7.25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord so then with my mind I my self serve the law of God but with the flesh the law of sin Saies Paul I am born down I am overcome but I don't justify my self herein but I bless God saies he that my heart is secured my love doth not abate I have not waved a command through my dissatisfaction in it I have not been disobedient to a command because I judged it unreasonable or were dissatisfied in it No but my heart that stands right for those commands that I cannot reach in my life with my mind I my self serve the law of God So Romans 1.9 saies the Apostle For God is my witness whom I serve with my Spirit in the Gospel of his Son so as you see the Spirit that stands clear and is under a constant and full engagement though it may be the life doth not discover that evenness that it should with my Spirit saies he I serve the Lord. It may be said in the case of the temptation of a believer as was said concerning the Spouse I sleep but my heart awâ—kâ—th thus it is with many a poor Soul he may be brought into a sleepy condition and he staggers and stumbles in his way he finds it so difficult but saies he while I sleep my heart awaketh his declensions do not arise from dissatisfaction but his love is reconciled to the command still and he honours those precepts that he is not able to come up to Now Christian bring your condition to this touchstone if thou hast a heart that doth slight the government of Christ and if thou canst not bear the strict rule and dominion of Christ Jesus over thy Soul if that thou hast thy exceptions against the Scepter of Christ Jesus being lifted up in thy heart it is a sign that thou art not yet interested in Christ thou never didst bear rule over them they were not called by thy name I pray remember that that rule that thou despisest is the only saving rule and that power that thou refusest to stoop to is the only saving power the only blessed and blessing power But on the other side if thou canst find that thy heart is open unto the Lord Jesus Christ as he is the Lord as he is invested with all power as the Father hath given all Authority unto him if thy heart be open to him and thou dost love his Laws in their holiness and strictness and his Government and Rule for its closeness and if way be made in thy Soul for the Throne of Christ to be set up it argues thou art interested in Christ for those that are Christ's doth the Lord bear Rule over Fourthly The Soul's Interest in Christ may be known by the distance that the heart standeth in from the power and interest of his former state that Christ Jesus hath overturned The Soul before his coming over to Christ was under the Rule of another Lord and was in subjection to another Interest to the power and interest of sin and that bore sway in his heart and commanded his life he yielded up himself a servant to sin and devoted himself unto the service of sin This the Apostle speaks out Rom. 6.16 17. Know ye not that to whom ye yield your selves servants to obey his servants ye are to whom ye obey whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness but God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin but ye have obeyed from the heart the form of Doctrine which was delivered to you And in 19 and 20 verses you have it again And says he When you were the servants of sin ye were free from righteousness He doth plainly shew that they were formerly servants to another Interest they were engaged in the service of sin they acted sin as in a service as a servant observes and respects and obeys his Master so doth the natural heart observe respect and obey sin and it is his Lord it hath the commanding power of his Soul and it is a most pleasant service to the sinner though he will find it a sad service in the latter end yet it is a most pleasant and a most delightful service therefore a sinner's walking in sin and gratifying the lusts of the flesh is called his pleasure the pleasures of
sin he takes pleasure therein O! it is his meat and drink to satisfie the lusts of his heart in gratifying this Lord that is over his Soul Now my Friends your Interest in Christ may be discovered by the distance that your hearts stand in from the power and interest of this Lord that Jesus Christ hath overthrown that is a constant enemy to your in-being and standing in Christ And that I may help you to make a right judgment of your state in reference to this particular I shall open to you in several particulars what this distance is that the Soul stands in unto the interest of sin that Jesus Christ hath overthrown in the heart upon his making over himself to the Soul First There is upon the Soul's Interest in Christ this distance unto sin his former Lord that he proclaims war against it and becomes its professed enemy It may be the life of a Christian is not at present a Conquering life ay but it is a Conflicting life Rom. 7.23 But I see another Law in my members warring against the Law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the Law of sin which is in my members Well there is opposition for opposition as sin riseth up against him so he riseth up against sin And as sin upon his Interest in Christ declares against him so he declares against sin and he watcheth it as one enemy watcheth the motions of another and he taketh all waies and useth all endeavours to foil and bring under this enemy Secondly The opposition that is carryed on and managed in the heart against sin it is general It is not an opposition in one part only but it is an opposition that the whole Soul doth engage in and all the powers of the Soul are concerned in it It is not only an opposition in the Conscience but there is an opposition in the Affections as well as in the Conscience and there is an opposition in the Will as well as in the Conscience and Affections and also an opposition in the Judgment both the Conscience and the Affections the Will and the Understanding and Judgment do all discharge against sin and all the renewed powers of the Soul enter into a strict combination against the interest of sin The Conscience that lays loads upon it whenever it appears and the Affections they declare against it and the Will that resolves against it and the Understanding and Judgment do discover it and witness against it The opposition that is made it is general Thirdly In this distance that the heart stands in unto sin upon its Interest in Christ the heart in its most deliberate actings stands in an irreconcileableness unto it The opposition that is made is not upon a sudden motion it is not upon a passion of the Soul that in cool thoughts will be called in again but the Soul in its most deliberate actings stands in an irreconcileableness unto it That the Affections will never be enticed over to sin again the Love will never be invited over to sin again indeed he may be overpowered to sin but he will never be reconciled to sin more his Love and Affections can never be gained to sin again but the Affections are so broken that the distance will ever remain and the Soul will alwaies stand in and act upon an irreconcileableness to it Fourthly The distance of the heart unto the interest of sin upon the Soul's Interest in Christ is universal unto all sin It is not only alienated and drawn from notorious and gross sins that make a great noise in the world or against some particular sins that his walking in will turn to his disadvantage but it stands at a distance from all sin from heart-sins as well as from life sins from small sins as well as from great sins and from such sins as are connatural to us from inclination complexion and condition and employment and the like the heart stands at an universal distance from all sin Fifthly The distance of the heart from sin upon its Interest in Christ is unto sin as it hath a contrary nature in it to the Interest of Christ in him He doth oppose sin not upon a particular but upon a general account he opposeth sin as sin as it hath a contrariety in its nature unto the Lord and the Interest and Dominion of the Lord in his Soul and so he will oppose sin while sin is sin and whilst there is any sin remaining in him The distance that his heart stands in unto sin is unto it as it hath a contrary nature in it unto Christ's Interest in him and his Interest in Christ Sixthly The distance of the heart unto the Interest of sin that Christ hath overturned upon his having an interest in himself it is such as hates sin in the temptation It doth not only hate sin when it is committed and when Conscience lays hold upon him for the commitment of it but it sets the Soul at a distance from sin in the temptation whilst it is a great way off and hence we are commanded to abstain from the appearance of evil and the Saints they hate the appearance of evil that which looks like a disputable evil the gracious heart stands at a distance from it or that which hath a probability in it of being an occasion of sin to him that will the gracious heart stand off from he will oppose sin at a distance and he hates and watcheth against sin in the temptation the heart stands at such a distance from it Seventhly The distance of the heart from sin is such that it chuseth rather to suffer than to sin Nay it will chuse a great suffering before a little sin It will say Lord any thing rather than sin and no burthen will be like the burthen of sin to him no weight like the weight of sin upon his Conscience and therefore he says Lord any condition rather than to be driven upon a temptation whereby I shall sin any thing Lord but sin Eighthly The distance that the heart stands in unto sin upon its Interest in Christ is such as doth discover a great reluctancy of spirit and deep searchings of heart upon the invasions of sin and the Soul 's passive captivities by it Probably he may be foiled and overcome by sin and many times against his will he is overcome ay but when he is so he mourns and he weeps and that bitterly he doth not justifie the fault he doth not extenuate the offence he doth not hide his transgression but his Soul breaks out into mourning by reason of it and that upon the passive captivities of the Soul by it when the Soul against his will is overcome he watches and he strives to keep it under and yet sin is too hard for him and whether he will or no sometimes leads him captive and carries him out of the way he goes mourning into these captivities and he groans when he falls into the hands of sin
and when he is at any time taken a prisoner Thus it was with Paul Paul had an honest heart he did labour against sin what he could and yet says he I find that when I would do good evil is present with me and there is a cursed Law in my members that leads me captive to the Law of sin whether I will or no he strove and conflicted and watcht and did his utmost yet says he I find a Law that when I would do good evil is present and I am taken captive but he groans under it O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death Rom. 7.24 It was one of the deepest and most sorrowful complaints that ever the Apostle Paul made and thus we find Scripture Saints upon Record when at any time they have been overcome and led captive it hath been a time of great sorrow darkness mourning and bitter complaint to them Now this is another part of the distance that the Soul stands in from sin Ninthly The heart stands upon his Interest in Christ at such a distance from sin that nothing will satisfie the Soul but the returns of death upon it Sin that seeks the ruine of grace and the destruction of the Soul and the Soul that is interested in Christ stands at such a distance from sin that he seeks and designs and labours to the utmost to hate sin and to pursue it unto death It is not the pardon of sin that will satisfie a true Believer Let me say thus much that if you be at no greater distance from sin than this that if the Lord will pardon you all is well and you will lay down the Cudgels it is a sign your heart is not right with Christ If you have an Interest in Christ you will be at a greater distance from sin than so the pardon of sin will not satisfie you if sin should be driven into the secret retirement of your Soul and should there remain among the stuff yet this will not satisfie you The Soul that is interested in Christ is set upon the death of sin as its enemy and that is the meaning of those Scriptures wherein we are called upon to mortifie sin and to crucifie sin that is to destroy sin to be the death of it Ephes 5.14 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts They are doing of it sin is dying and mortifying and crucifying and it shall be crucified and mortified and slain and appear to be wholly dead ere long This is that that the Soul is set upon the death of this body of death the utter ruine and destruction of it it will not be satisfied that sin is a mortifying and dying in it but the distance of the heart from it is such that it will not bear the being of it Though it cannot drive out all these cursed Canaanites to have the Land at rest and peace when it will yet it will maintain the war and abide the field and never give over till sin be wholly dead Now I beseech you Christians you who are desirous to clear your own state bring your condition to a tryal upon this head and examine what that distance is that your heart stands in unto the Interest and Power of your former state which Jesus Christ hath overthrown examine the distance that your hearts stand in unto sin in these nine particulars Is the distance such as that you have proclaimed engaged in an holy war against it Or do you only speak slightly of sin before men and hide it in your hearts Again consider Is the Conflict that you profest to be engaged in against sin general Or is your opposition against sin only in your Conscience Verily a natural man will oppose sin thus A Hypocrite's Conscience may check him for sin a carnal man's Conscience may sometimes wound him for sin and speak high against it but is the opposition from the Affections from the Will and from the Judgment as well as the Conscience Do all the powers of the Soul engage against it And do they all combine against sin to bring it under If so Christians though sin yet live in you and sometimes prevail over you to your grief and disadvantage yet you are of the better side and have a promising evidence of your Interest in Christ And again doth your heart in its most deliberate actings stand in an irreconcileableness unto sin It may be the opposition thou makest against sin is only in a passion or only some sudden motion upon a disadvantage that thou meetest with in thy sinful waies but consider whether your Souls do deliberately stand in an irreconcileableness unto sin and whether your Affections be so engaged that they refuse to receive this object because your Souls loath it Again Is this distance universal to all fin It may be Soul there are some sins that thou wouldest pick at and be willing to part with them but there are some others that you are ready to say of them O! they are but little ones Good Lord spare them Is the distance thy heart stands in to sin to all sin to heart-sins as well as to life-sins to little sins as well as to great sins to those sins that are most connatural and that thy heart and thy disposition doth most close with And then again Is thy distance to sin as sin as it hath a contrary nature in it to the Lord Jesus Christ and to his blessed Interest in thy heart then the Conflict will be abiding as long as there is sin remaining in thy Soul Again How stands thy heart unto sin in the temptation This verily is a discriminating Character of a Saint Those whose hearts are not rightly engaged they may oppose sin and speak highly against it when it is committed and when they have seen the ill consequents and effects of it but do you oppose sin in the temptation when it is a great way off And do you shun and avoid and flee from the occasions of sin that which may probably be an introducement unto sin do you avoid that and arm your selves against that This will be an evidence to you that you are interested in Christ And again Do you chuse rather to suffer than to sin Verily this is also a discriminating Character of the reality of your Interest in Christ Another man may chuse to avoid sin when he receives a prejudice by it or when he cannot apprehend an advantage to the lusts and desires of his own heart Ay but the gracious Soul that is interested in Christ it stands afar off from sin so as it says Lord any condition rather than sin any burthen rather than the burthen of sin any affliction any grief rather than sin And then Do you consider what reluctancies are in your spirits against the irruptions of sin and the passive captivities of the Soul by it Where the heart is not right it will have no
great reflection upon a passive captivity upon an active surrender he may when he hath sold himself to work wickedness he may be made ashamed of his folly Ay but a Hypocrite a false heart will never deeply mourn for a passive captivity but there he will say Well I could not help it it was not my fault and so will be excusing of it as the Woman did The Serpent beguiled me I intended no such thing I was seduced and overcome a passive Captivity bears no great sway in a false heart but an upright Soul he mourns over sin how passive soever he is in the prevailings of it when he cannot prevent sin he will mourn over the prevailings of it It will be his constant grief that he was led Captive and that when he would do good evil was present with him and that he is overcome when he strives to overcome And again consider Soul whether there be any thing less then the returns of death will satisfy thee in thy pursuits of sin for the gracious Soul that is interested in Christ will pursue sin unto death restraining grace will not serve him pardoning grace won't do but he will be for the crucifying of the lusts of the flesh for the mortifying of sin in his Soul for the utter ruine and extirpation of it Now Sirs if you can find those things in you it doth speak for you and will help to clear your interest in Christ Jesus Fifthly The Soul that is interested in Christ will prize the least of Christ above the greatest enjoyments out of Christ A little of Christ will be more to him then a great deal of the Creature nay a little of Christ will be more to him then all the Creature a little of Christs grace a little of Christs love a little of Christs Spirit a small income from Christ the least love token from Christ the least saving Gospel manifestation and discovery of Christ O 't is the sweetest discovery and the most blessed enjoyment that ever his Soul had Thus it was with David if he be the Author of Psal 73. and Asaph only the Pen-man David at once overlookt his Crown and his Kingdom and all his Treasures that he had in the world and the whole world that was before him and saies he Lord whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon Earth that I desire besides thee Psal 73.25 And so the Apostle Paul saies he I count all things but dross and dung in comparison of Christ Jesus my Lord Phil. 3.8 Christ was more to him than all other things and verily Christians so will it be with you if your hearts be right a little of Christ will be more to you then all the treasures pleasures and the glories and enjoyments of this whole world and you will esteem your selves more honourable with a little grace in your hearts then with your Houses full of wealth Now to close do but bring thy heart to this touchstone and do but consider what it is that thy heart is most set upon and what it is that will satisfy thee if this world and the comforts of it can satisfy thee without Christ thou hast no part in Christ nay if thou preferrest other enjoyments before a participation in Christ thou hast none of Christ if thou hast a saving interest in Christ the manifestations of Christ to thy Soul will be the most blessed manifestations O the least incomes of Christ will be as life from the dead The least love token the least intimation of his love the least saving effect and operation of his grace upon thy heart and the encrease of communion with him These things will be the life and the joy of thy Spirit If thou canst find it thus with thee really and in truth that a little of Christ is prized in thy heart above the greatest enjoyments out of Christ it is a sign and evidence that thou art interested in Christ It may be Soul thou hast but a little of Christ in thy heart very little of Christ but a little of the grace of Christ and but a little of the Spirit of Christ and canst do but little for Christ ay but the least incomes of Christ they are the sweetest incomes to thee and thy enjoyments of Christ are the most satisfying enjoyments and thy Soul will prefer an opportunity of communion with the Lord Jesus before great advantages otherwise If it be thus with thee it is an evident sign that thou art interested in Christ and thou mayest take comfort in thy present standing in him SERMON VII Habakkuk 3.18 Yet I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my Salvation THe Proposition is this Doct. That there is enough in Christ Jesus alone for the Souls full rejoycing and triumph whatsoever his condition and exigency is in this world This we have cleared to you and are now upon clearing up of the Souls state that he may know whether he hath interest in this full Jesus We have already given you five particulars that may be as so many evidences of a Christians interest in Christ and shall now proceed Sixthly In the sixth place The Soul that is interested in Christ is under an over-ruling influence from Christ that secures the habitual inclinations of his Soul for Christ against all contrary invitations and drawings Particular acts are not a sufficient conclusive ground of our state one way or another A Soul that hath no interest in Christ may seem choice and singular in some actions and there may be a seeming lovely desirable sanctity upon him and a Soul that is really interested in Christ may by the power of a temptation be drawn into some unbecoming acts so as particular acts are no sufficient ground of an interest and if you judge by them you may easily be deceived but he that is really united to Christ is under a divine influence from Christ that secures the habitual inclinations of his heart for him that so the blass of his heart is towards Christ and the full purpose of the Soul in its secret breathings and inclinings are after the Lord Jesus alone It may be when the temptation comes he may be almost staggered but yet his heart stands right for Christ in the main in whom he is interested and though temptations may have a great power upon him yet the biass of his heart will winde through all temptations unto Christ alone thus it was with Paul there were contrary drawings in the heart of Paul and the temptations that he met withal from the remains of indwelling sin were very great yet his heart under all stood right and the habitual inclinations of his heart were for and towards Christ Jesus and this was the Characteristical note of his in-being in Christ Romans 7.15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22. You may see it at large For that which I do saies he I allow not for what I would do I do not but what I
stay upon any righteousness but upon Christ's righteousness in whom he is interested as you may see Phil. 3.8 9. Yea doubtless I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung that I may win Christ and be found in him not having my own righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the Faith of Christ c. Now Christians examine your own hearts by this also What is it that you live upon Is it upon Christ or Is it upon your selves If you can satisfie your selves with a righteousness short of Christ's that is a righteousness of your own it is a sign you are not yet interested in him if you do not go wholly out of your selves to make loss of all for Christ it is a fign you are not yet interested in him if you act by your own strength and do not look up to Christ for strength it is a sign you are your own men that you are not yet in Christ and if your greatest care be not to please Christ it is a sign you are not yet in Christ but those that are in Christ they live upon Christ they do not live upon duties they do not feed upon bare Ordinances but they feed upon Christ Jesus and they trust only to his righteousness and they eye his merits and consider his faithfulness and act Faith upon his Offices they trust in him and they have reference to Christ at all times Eleventhly Again The Souls that are interested in Christ will with boundless desires be alwaies pressing after Christ and never think they have enough of him Not only will they be restless in their pursuits after Christ till they can compass something of him but there are boundless desires in them after Christ and after more of Christ a little of Christ will not satisfie a soul that is interested in him but though he have a little of Christ he will still bepressing after more think all that he hath received is but little he must have more of him more communion with him and he must be brought into a higher conformity to him he cannot rest with a little of Christ his desires will be boundless that he will alwaies in his participation of Christ be still looking forward pressing after perfection and reaching and designing to apprehend as he is apprehended A Soul that is interested in Christ hath alwaies a rising reaching desire in him after Christ This you may see Phil. 3.12 13 14. Not as though says he I had already attained either were already perfect but I follow after c. I press towards the mark for the prize of the high Calling of God in Christ Jesus What an enlarged heart had this man Paul he was come to a very high pitch in Christ Jesus to make loss of all for him and to glory in him and in his righteousness and yet Brethren says he I I count not my self to have apprehended O! says he What have I yet of Christ What have I received yet of the Spirit of Christ O how unlike am I yet unto Christ how unsuitable is my heart yet unto Christ how little of Christ is yet in my heart Brethren I count not my self to have apprehended but this one thing I do I am reaching forward says he The Soul that is interested in Christ will have noble genuine workings of heart suitable to his inbeing in Christ he will alwaies be desirous of him and pressing after more of him never satisfied with any thing that he hath though he will bless God for the least he hath yet he will not be satisfied with any thing that he hath but will be pressing after more and his language is alwaies Give Give Now Christians do you examine your own hearts by this if you have really an interest in Christ it will have such an influence upon your Souls as alwaies to prompt you on to a pressing after more of Christ to get further into him and to know more of him and to be filled with the Spirit of Christ A little grace grace enough to carry you to Heaven will not satisfie you but your desire will be to be made to abound in all grace your desire will be to be holy as he is holy and to be pure as he is pure in all manner of conversation and you will never leave craving and desiring whilst there is a corner in your hearts to fill and whilst there is room for a hungring and thirsting desire to rise in your hearts after the Lord Jesus Now if that you can satisfie your selves with any thing of Christ and sit down with a bare profession of Christ without any thing of Christ in your hearts if you have not these holy hungrings and thirstings in your Souls after high measures and full enjoyments and manifestations of Christ it doth speak very sadly but if there be such boundless desires as we have told you after Christ it is some sign of Interest Twelfthly Again The Soul that is interested in Christ values himself persons and things as they are in or have of Christ in them He measures all persons and things by their reference to Christ and he judges that it is Christ Jesus only that makes them to differ and whatsoever is excellent in any person or in any thing it is from Christ Jesus and it hath no more excellency in it than what it hath in and from the Lord Jesus he doth not value himself by his outward enjoyments he doth not value himself by his gifts and by his natural accomplishments though they be very great and large he doth not value himself by his priviledges in his Gospel-state but he counts that he is what he is in Christ Jesus I am says he what I am by the grace of God and if he cannot espy the grace of Christ in him he yet counts that he hath nothing and if he cannot find some hopes of an Interest in Christ he counts that he is nothing he owns and makes reckoning of himself as he stands in and hath reference to Christ If Paul would have made a judgment of himself by his gifts who had greater If Paul would have judged himself by his priviledges who had higher but he judgeth these nothing By the grace of God says he I am what I am And so he reckons of all others he esteems of persons as they are in Christ and those that have most of Christ in them are most excellent he loves a poor mean Soul in Christ more than the greatest and richest man in the world out of Christ if any persons have more of his love more of his heart than others it is those that have most of Christ in them The most sincere Christians and the most growing Christians and the most upright Christians these are the persons that he most loves and values and
delights in and as to all Ordinances he values them not but as he meets with Jesus Christ in them if he finds not Christ in an Ordinance he counts the Ordinance as no Ordinance And if a Lord's Day doth pass without some communion with Christ he counts 't is no day to his Soul And the Gospel of Christ Jesus that he prizes so much it is because it is Christ's Gospel and the Truths of the Gospel that are so dear to to him that he can venture all for it is because they are Christ's Truths Now Christians examine your state and condition by this also what is it that you value your selves by Do you value your selves by your bare professions Do you value your selves by your enlargement Do you value your selves by your gifts Do you value your selves by the name that you have amongst men Those that are in Christ do not value themselves thus but by what they apprehend themselves to be in and to have received from Christ Jesus Thirteenthly Again The Soul that is interested in Christ rises and falls in its spirit according unto the sensible manifestations or withdrawings of Christ in his heart he rejoyces as Christ doth appear and he is saddened as Christ doth withdraw and his joy is coming and going as Christ is coming and going in his heart an appearance of Christ makes day in his heart and the withdrawings of Christ makes night in his Soul When there is a Curtain drawn between Christ and him then he is in the dark and then his Soul sits in sorrow then he is covered over with mourning but upon the return of Christ his Soul leaps within him and he is filled and satisfied as with marrow and fatness Isa 61.10 I will rejoyce in the Lord my Soul shall be joyful in my God Why so because Christ doth appear and puts on something of his own clothing and giveth out something of himself to me he comes as a Bridegroom decketh himself with Ornaments and makes me as his Bride and decks me with his Jewels Now this doth cause me to rejoyce in the Lord and makes me joyful in my God Days of communion and seasons of manifestation they are the festival days that his Soul enjoys and nothing causes so great a damp upon his heart as when Christ draws off This was seen in David he rises and falls in his spirit as were the manifestations or the withdrawings of Christ there Lord says he thy loving kindness is better than life Ay there was his joy and gladness And Lord says he at another time thou didst but hide thy face and I was troubled there was his sorrow for Christ's absence And says the Spouse Cant. 1.2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth By kiss here is meant some visible manifestation of Christ unto his Soul some discernable token of his love Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for thy love saies he is better than Wine Wine you know was to be given to those that were of a heavy heart by Solomons direction Proverbs 31.6 and Psal 104.15 Wine that maketh glad the heart of man and Oil to make his face to shine So as Wine it is to be given to those that are of a heavy heart it is that which is to make joyful and to exhilarate the Spirits Now saies David Lord thy love is better then Wine there is more in a little communication of Christ Jesus then in the greatest refreshment and heart chearing in the world for this love that is better then Wine is not love simply considered but the effects of love in gracicious manifestations as John 14.21 22. He that hath my Commandments and keepeth them he it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and will manifest my self unto him and saies Judas not Iscariot Lord how is it that thou wilt manifest thy self unto us and not unto the world This love was a love of manifestation now saies he Let him kiss me mith the kisses of his mouth Let love be manifested and this manifesting love is better than Wine O it will make all other things dainties to him and sweets to be bitter in his Spirit this is sweet indeed and an abiding ground of joy and comfort to his Soul upon the evidence of his love and upon the sight of his face and communion with him Now Christians examine your hearts by this if that your joy be determined upon something else then upon Christ and if that the withdrawments of Christ don't cause the greatest sadness unto your Spirits it is a shround sign that you have no interest in Christ But now where Christ Jesus is lookt upon as the very joy of your Souls and you most of all joy in his presence and you are most of all troubled at his departure and at the hidings of his face it is a sign of interest O it is a sign that that Woman doth intirely love her Husband that cannot bear that he should be long absent from her and is most of all pleased in his company so it is a sign that that Soul is married unto Christ Jesus that cannot bear the withdrawments of Christ and that is never so much troubled and tossed and discomforted and afflicted in his Spirit as when Jesus Christ stands behind the Curtain and refuseth to make answer to his Soul when he is crying after him SERMON VIII Habakkuk 3.18 Yet I will rejoice in the Lord I will Joy in the God of my Salvation VVE proposed to give you some notes of evidence whereby you may come to know that this Jesus is your Jesus and that you are interesced in him We have already gone through 13 particulars and shall now proceed Fourteenthly The Soul that is interested in Christ hath constraining abiding endearments in his heart unto Jesus Christ so as no discouragement shall turn him off from Christ but he will cut the way through all opposition to come to the enjoyment of him My Friends if you are really interested in Christ and have upon an interest tasted how gracious the Lord is difficulties in your way to Christ will be no difficulties so you may enjoy him the Soul in Christ will be contented to be reproached for Christ so he may enjoy him and the reproaches that he meets withal in the way of Christ will be no great matter to him so Christ and he may keep together You may see what was the Spirit of an old Testament Saint in Heb. 11.24 25. By Faith Moses when he was come to years refused to be called the Son of Pharaohs Daughter chusing rather to suffer affliction with the People of God then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season v. 26. Esteeming the reproaches of Christ greater riches then the Treasures of Egypt Persecutions won't part Christ and the real sincere Christian but though he shall be persecuted for Christ yet if Christ and he
can but keep close together he will think all is well Rom. 8.35 and so on Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall Tribulation or Distress or Persecution or Famine or Nakedness or Peril or Sword c. Why saies he we can bear all this for Christ we can bear tribulation we can bear distress we can bear persecution famine nakedness peril sword Lord any thing rather than to lose Christ saies the sincere interested Christian he Will suffer losses for Christ rather than to lose Christ Lord say the Disciples We have left all for thy sake and it is said of the primitive Christians that they took joyfully the spoyling of their goods let men frown and let Devils frown still the heart of the sincere interested Christian will be working Christ-ward he will have constraining abiding endearments in his heart that will cut through the difficulties of his way he will be willing to lose any thing rather than to lose Christ this is the frame of a Soul interested in Christ when he is under deliberate actings for Christ I am sensible that an honest heart by the strength of a temptation may be suddenly surprized as Peter was ay but it will be but for a moment and he will rise again he won't quit his interest in Christ he won't sell his part in Christ when he comes to reflect and consider Christ and he cannot live asunder and his interest in Christ will have such an influence upon his Soul as will cause him to abide in Christ that whatsoever he meets withal yet he desires above all to enjoy Christ and will go through fire and through water if that be the way and the only way that in the circumstances of providence in divine over-rules Christ is to be enjoyed Phil. 1.29 I pray mark the connexion there It is given to you to believe and also to suffer upon the Souls believing is his interest struck up with Christ and he is oned with Christ Now saies he those that believe that is those that are interested in Christ they will also suffer for the sake of Christ and the same power that helps them to believe doth also bear them up against the frowns and against the discouragements that they meet withal in the way of Christ Well Christians examine your own state by this particular how stand your hearts affected and endeared to Christ in a day of suffering when difficulties look you in the face reproaches they are like to befal you losses and breakings in your outward condition are like to come upon you Can your hearts say whatsoever comes O let us have Christ Christ is more than all and what we shall enjoy in Christ is more then we can lose for him there is a constraining abiding endearment in the heart that is really united to Christ that will cut the way through all opposition It is not thus with one that is not interested in Christ The young man in the Gospel made a very fair profession of Christ and comes and pretends to be his most forward Disciple but saies Christ to him can you live upon me alone and can you suffer any thing for the enjoyment of me And will you value and prefer a naked interest in me before all your possessions No Lord saies he I have great possessions What must I forgo all these in hand to live upon I know not what and I know not who and so he takes his leave of Christ And saies the Apostle Demas hath forsaken me having imbraced this present world Their comforts and their enjoyments and their outward possessions and their outward peace will be more to them then all that they ever thought of Christ that are not really interested in him but now that Soul that hath made its close with Christ his heart is so engaged and he hath tasted so much sweetness in Christ Jesus as whatever it cost him Christ and he shall never part though he be stript naked for Christ yet he will have Christ and though he die for Christ yet he won't give up his interest in him Now examine your Souls by the strong endearments of your hearts unto Christ when there is an oppressing interest that seems to come between you and Christ do your affections then divide and do you then deliver up Christ and quit your part in Christ By a close examination of your hearts under this head you may come to some knowledge of your present state as to your interest Fifteenthly Again in the last place The Soul that is interested in Christ prefers the glory of Christs interest before his own private advantage if you be indeed joyned unto the Lord then the interest of Christs glory is a swaying interest in your hearts it is a ruling captivating interest that doth bind and engage you to the glory of it that the Soul will prefer Christs glory before any thing of his own his life will be under a peculiar dedication to advance and promote the glory of Christ Jesus and he will be alwaies upon an advancing design to exalt Christ in his heart and to exalt Christ in his house and to exalt Christ where he hath to do and with whom he hath to do he will exalt Christ though it be upon his own name and upon his own interest he will deny his own name for Christ and will believe for the advancing of the glory of the interest of the Lord Jesus Phil. 1.20 21. To me to live is Christ and to die is gain The Apostle he sums up all in this Christ is my all if I live I desire not to live to my self but to Christ and if I die I desire to die to Christ that Christs interest and the glory of his interest may be exalted by me both while I live and when I die Now Christians examine your selves by this what sway doth the glory of Christ bear in your hearts If that you cannot deny your selves for Christ if that your own names be more to you then Christs name and if that your own honour be more to you then Christs honour and your own interest be more to you then Christs interest it is a very ill sign that things are not right in your hearts but if the interest of Christ be the ruling swaying interest that you are all upon the advance of the glory of Christ whatever become of your selves and whatever become of your interest and whatever you suffer in the way yet O that Christ might be magnified and O that Christ might be glorified Christs glory is uppermost in your hearts and is the only interest that you would prefer it is a sign that you are indeed interested in Christ otherwise your hearts would never be so much concerned about Christs interest and about the glory of his interest And a little further to help and direct you do but consider these few things First In searching your own hearts for an evidence of interest If you can find
pledge of it and he is reserved for eternal life and he is going on to perfection to enjoy eternal life The Lord is in grace and by grace fitting of him for a glorious enjoyment of himself for ever now these things are for thy comfort in thy present condition whilest the light of evidence is but glimmering in thy heart Secondly Some few things briefly I shall give you by way of direction First Have you the least intimation of the Lords love to you and of your standing in his love be thankful for these small appearances of light in your Souls I say be thankful Christians there is a great deal in a little and small word of evidence or in a small word of hope Therefore take every hint that the Lord gives and wear it with thankfulness bless his name for it that is the way to have it encreased Secondly Joy and triumph in the Lord upon the present evidence that you have living up to it I say live up to the light that you have in a holy joy and rejoycing in Christ Jesus get into the Prophets Spirit and into his frame here in the text To joy in the Lord and to rejojce in the God of your Salvation and learn Christian to live up unto a small measure of assurance and that is the way to have a greater Thirdly Acknowledge all sense of interest to be given forth in a way of grace I say acknowledge that not only the grace of your union but also the light and comfort of your union is dispensed in a way of free grace The Lord is pleased to give out all manifestations of interest in Christ in a way of grace John 14.22 Judas saith unto him not Iscariot Lord how is it that thou manifestest thy self unto us and not unto the world He must speak this upon a reflect act or else he could not speak with that confidence Lord that thou hast manifested thy self to us and not to others this is to be acknowledged unto free grace Fourthly Have you a little light of your Interest do you gather in upon Christ from that little that you have for more Christians though you have but a little light for the present and are weak in assurance for the present yet there is a full measure of assurance to be given out There is not only the Soul's comfort from a reflect act by the light of the Lord upon his own grace that is wrought but there is the immediate Testimony of the Spirit that is ready to be given out which is a Witness not argumentative or in a way of argumentation but it is a Witness and Evidence that is given in by and in the immediateness of his own presence in the heart of the Believer Rom. 8.16 The Spirit it self beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God He bears witness in some immediate act in the Soul It is a clear undeniable soul-satisfying Divine Testimony that the Spirit gives in the Soul that resolves all its doubts and clears his whole Interest and settles him in the full enjoyment of the Lord Jesus and enables him to act upon it And then Fifthly and lastly Have you a little evidence of your Interest for the present Christian do you improve this little unto the comforting of your Souls in Christ in all straits and unto a living upon him in all the necessities of your present condition Jesus is yours and you are interested in him the Lord hath given you some little hope of this this hope through grace Christians should be improved by you upon all occasions you should run out unto the Lord Jesus and have recourse to him and venture upon him you should glory in him and live upon his fulness and rely upon his power and faithfulness Jesus that is so full is your Jesus and Jesus that is so free is your Jesus and Jesus that is so faithful is your Jesus you have some sight of this and some hope of this through grace the Lord now expects that you should come and live upon him in all conditions and comfort your Souls in him in all disconsolations when you are weak and when you are tempted and when you are tryed and when you meet with discouragements from without then to retire to the Lord Jesus and act Faith upon him SERMON IX Habakkuk 3.18 Yet I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my Salvation I Shall now proceed to help and direct those Souls that are able to reflect upon their own Interest and standing in Christ that they may live upon Christ and glory in him in all conditions and under all changes of Providence that though they have none else though they have nothing else in this world but the Lord Jesus Christ to live upon their hearts may be full of joy and comfort And before I come particularly to speak unto this I shall premise and propose several considerations that may help to clear the way to what we design to speak to and to encourage your hearts unto a living upon and glorying in Christ when you have nothing else to rejoyce in First Consider that all the comforts of an outward condition are held at great uncertainties and continued at the soveraign pleasure of the great disposer of Heaven The Lord hath not fixt us unchangeably in the enjoyments and comforts of an outward state but he reserves a soveraign power in his own hand to remand from us what at a time he was pleased to command down upon us And all the comforts of an outward condition they are mutable and we are exposed unto a variety of changes of condition in this world All our outward comforts they are exposable unto the spoil and the very foundation of our Joy in this world is avertable He that hath to his own apprehension a mountain that stands strong that he thinks can never be moved is exposed to the soveraign alterations of the great Ruler of Heaven that he may have his mountain overturned in a moment and he that is lifted up on high and seems to himself to be so upon the advance that he shall never fall The Lord can suddenly like unto Job lay him in the dust We are full one day and the Lord may empty us before the next we are rich to day and we may be poor before to morrow we are comforted to day on every side and we may be left naked destitute and broken before to morrow As to our Stocks they are losable and spendable and as to all Lands and Inheritances they are saleable and morgageable uncertain riches they make to themselves wings and flee away they have the wings of fire or the wings of Thieves or the wings of this providence and the other to flee away with The Lord he suffers one man to run away with so much of such a man's estate and suffers another to run away with another part of his estate that those that were
rich are soon made poor and as to your relations that you at present take comfort in now they are and anon they are not Parents Children Friends Comforters Counsellors they die away from us and we see them and we know them no more for ever and which of you that are here in the Lord's presence that may not sit down weep over your broken pitchers and say This once I had and that once I had but now I have it not once I was full but now I am empty once I was lifted up on high but now I am brought down very low once I was a lender but now I am a borrower once I had most comfortable relations none happier than I in a tender Father in a loving Yoke-fellow in a desirable Child in a faithful Friend but now it is quite otherwise they are all like Jonah's Gourd that grew up and withered on a sudden This you may see in the verse before the Text the Figg tree that blossoms not the fruit of the Vine and the labour of the Olive they fail and the Fields yield no meat the Flocks are cut off from the fold and there is no herd in the stall The Lord you see hath given us but a weak tenure to all these outward enjoyments and he maintains a Soveraignty over every comfort that he is pleased to bestow upon us that so we shall hold all that we have in this world at great uncertainties and must day by day stand to the allowance of the great disposer of Heaven who will sometimes give and will sometimes take what he hath given Secondly The Lord Jesus Christ is and hath whatsoever the Scripture hath said and much more than we are able to conceive of him in our largest and utmost apprehensions He is and he hath according unto all Old Testament Prophecies and Predictions in the utmost Exposition that can be made of them in the largest extent and he is and he hath according to the utmost word of the revelation that is made of him in the New Testament and you are not able to conceive and apprehend what he is and what he hath in the considering of the Scripture expressions that are made use of to set him forth unto you You cannot measure Christ by your thoughts and imaginations but when you have conceived all that you can Christ is more and Christ hath more than you are able to apprehend of him The Scripture tells us that the Lord Jesus Christ hath a fulness of grace in him now you are not able to apprehend what this fulness of grace is it is an infinite fulness and you are not able to comprehend it in your finite thoughts how comprehensive soever they are The Gospel tells you of the outgoings of Christ's heart unto sinners but you are not able to apprehend nor to measure what is the love of the heart of Christ to poor sinners but when you have conceived never so much of his love there is more still than you are able to grapple The Scripture tells you of a great power that is in Christ conceive never so much of his power what it is that he is able to do for you in a strait and how wonderfully he is able to work there is yet a greater extent in the power of Christ than your apprehensions can reach The Gospel tells you of an All-fulness or an Allness that is in the Lord Jesus Christ Sum up all that you can think of and all that the Scripture can help you to conceive of to add unto this Allness of Christ and yet behold you are not able to tell what his All is you may soon tell what your All is or you may tell what anothers All is what a great man 's All is or what a Prince's All is or what a Kingdom 's All is but you cannot tell what Christ's All is but when you have thought and conceived when you have dived and reached until you are weary still the grace the power the love the fulness of the Lord Jesus is above your reach and there is more than ever entered into your hearts to conceive of him This you have Isa 55.8.9 For my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your waies my waies saith the Lord for as the Heavens are higher than the Earth so are my waies higher than your waies and my thoughts than your thoughts See how the Lord tells us that he is advanced above all our imaginations of him Now the thoughts of Christ's heart are alwaies towards us and alwaies proportioned unto the fulness that he hath received Now says he My thoughts are not like to your thoughts you thought that I could relieve only in such a case or I could help only in such a strait you thought I could do thus and that I could do thus and do no more but alas says Christ you are mistaken there is as great a distance between my thoughts and your thoughts as there is between Heaven and Earth so as the fulness of Christ Jesus is a most glorious and blessed fulness enough for all your Soul's relief and to spare Thirdly Christ's fulness of grace is alwaies subjectively and objectively the same First It is alwaies subjectively the same Christ's Spring is not a rising and a falling Spring but the waters of it are alwaies of the same depth the waters of this Fountain do not admit of an ebb and of a flow but they are alwaies at one and the same height Christ hath not a more and a less his fulness will not admit of an augmentation and a diminution but notwithstanding all the overflowings of the fountain still it is a fountain-fulness notwithstanding all the streams that have run from it still it is as full as ever notwithstanding all the thousands of Souls that Jesus hath relieved and empty hearts that Jesus hath filled still he is as full of grace as ever as full of mercy as ever There is no less in this fountain as it is subjectively considered upon all that he hath given and dispensed but he is as rich in grace and there is as great a plenty in him as there was when he first opened his fountain unto sinners Col. 1.19 For it hath pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell There it doth alwaies abide and the same fulness without change the same fulness without diminution That fulness that God placed in his Son there it doth abide in the glory of its utmost height Heb. 13.8 Jesus is the same yesterday to day and for ever This is that that is said of your Jesus his fulness was a great fulness at first why he is the same to day spend Christians what you will and draw out of the fountain what you can it will be as full to morrow as it is to day Yesterday to day and the same for ever Secondly Christs fulness is alwaies objectively the same unto all those that do possess it the Soul that
hath an interest in Jesus once hath an interest in him for ever and the Soul that is once admitted unto the fountain of Christ Jesus shall never be debarr'd more you have not a coming and a going interest an interest that is to day and may be taken away to morrow indeed your outward comforts they are losable comforts and your outward blessings are spendable God may give you much to day and you may have nothing of all that much to morrow but it is not so here you are not interested in Christ to day and dis-interested in him to morrow but once interested and for ever interested not gracious now and graceless by and by but your interest in the grace of Christ is an everlasting interest and you have the immutable fulness of the Lord Jesus ever to go unto whatever your strait is having once an interest given you in him the Lord doth not give you a part in himself and then take away that part but Christ once yours is for ever yours and your fountain fulness none shall ever be able to take from you nor to deprive you of so as if thou hast once Christ to go unto thou hast alwaies Christ to go unto and if thou doest once discern thy interest in Christ upon good and Gospel substantial grounds thou mayest alwaies glory in the Lord that thou art once interested in Fourthly All Saints have the same Jesus to live upon and the same fulness of Jesus in all its dimensions to go unto The Lord hath not given one believer a greater propriety in himself then he hath given another neither hath one a fuller way prepared for him of going unto Christ than another hath the same Jesus that Abraham had to do with and did live upon is in common for every Son and Daughter of Abraham and the same fulness of Jesus that Abraham had you have in all its dimensions the Lord did not open a Fountain unto Abraham and open only a stream unto you but if you be a Son or Daughter of Abraham you have the same great Ocean to go unto in all its fulness that Abraham had you have the same merits to implead that Abraham had you have the same blood to be washed in and to wash in that any other believer hath and you have the same great and precious promises to apply that another believer hath one believer cannot lay a challenge upon this promise and say it is mine and not yours but 't is yours as well as his the same Fountain in all its dimensions you have to go unto in all your streights that another believer hath and therefore if you have not that strength if you have nor that grace if you have not that riches if you have not that fulness that another believer hath you must blame your felves and not Christ for he offers himself alike unto all and discovers and holds forth his Fountain alike unto all Fifthly There is a vast disproportion between your creature losses and your gains and enjoyments in Christ your losses in the creature they are but shadows and not substance there is an emptiness in the fullest outward condition take it as an outward condition and there is a bitterness in the sweetest outward enjoyment and the losses that you can meet withal in this world they are only such as reach and concern an animal life but now there is more in a little of Christ Jesus then there is in a great deal of the Creature nay in all creature enjoyments so as whatsoever the loss is that you meet withal in the creature a little of Christ Jesus will make it up the least gift of Christs right hand doth far exceed all the gifts of his left hand and one draught of the water of the upper springs is more then all the waters in the nether springs so as though thou meetest with sore losses and great blows and breakings in the outward man yet know that a little of Christ will fill up thy Soul that there will be no want whatsoever thou hast lost it may be Christian that the Creature that thou hast lost would have been enjoyed to thy disadvantage if it had still been kept in thy hand it may be it had been to the loss to the hurt of the possessour but now Jesus Christ is alwaies enjoyed to the advantage and Christ Jesus is such an advantage as will answer all losing disadvantages so as Christian be not overmuch dejected at the passing away of the Creature when there is still enough in Christ to make up the loss that thou hast sustained Sixthly The joy that is drawn from Christ depend not upon sensible things but lives in the Soul when all outward comforts are gone you may as to the world be an undone man broken in your outward estate and yet your joy none can take from you but now whatsoever you have in the Creature if you have not Christ with the creature you have no ground of joy so as Christ he is alwaies a ground of joy whether the Creature be absent or present but the Creature is never so without Christ do but consider the Apostle Paul he had an interest in Christ and he glories in his interest when he had nothing else Rom. 5.3 We have peace with God saies he through our Lord Jesus Christ and we rejoyce in hope of the glory of God and now saies he we glory in tribulation we are spoyled in our goods and we are sore broken and left sorrowful and desolate and forsaken as to outward supports and supporters and yet saies he in the midst of all we glory in tribulation or if you will according unto another Scripture we are saies he but as sorrowful and but as poor 2 Cor. 6.10 For indeed we make many rich we have grace and abundance of grace in Christ Jesus and we are in no want Paul and Silas Acts 16.26 they were in Prison and in the Stocks and yet behold at midnight they break out in singing praises unto God their hearts were full of joy when they had nothing of the Creature in their hands and thus did the Prophet in the text there comes a famine upon all his outward comforts that behold he had nothing to live upon and yet will I rejoice in the Lord we have all in him saies he when we have nothing out of him Joy that is drawn from Christ shall abide in the Soul when all visible creature supports shall fail though his entertainment in the world be very mean and his outward burthens be very great and his poverty very pressing upon his outward man yet the Soul that hath an interest in Christ will joy notwithstanding all this Seventhly Again The Lord Jesus Christ in his Gospel-fulness of grace is under an indispensible obligation to dispense that grace that as the great officer of Heaven he hath received the charge of The fulness of Christ Jesus it is a common fulness it is a fulness for
all believers and Jesus Christ doth not live and spend upon the fulness of grace that he hath received but he discovers it to the Saints that they may have it to live upon and he lieth under indispensible obligations to dispense it to those that come unto him and Jesus Christ will not debar any Soul that comes unto him for spiritual relief he is engaged in faithfulness unto his Father to relieve those that come and he must deny his office which he can never do should he not do it for the Father hath entrusted him with grace that he might dispense it and he hath given him his fulness that he might communicate of his fulness to those that are in want Psal 68.18 Thou hast ascended on high thou hast led Captivity Captive thou hast received gifts for men Jesus Christ he hath received great gifts from his Father he hath received grace gifts office gifts and he hath received personal gifts and all these gifts that he hath received they are for men and 1 Cor. 3.21 All is yours whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or things present or things to come all is yours all that Christ hath received from his Father or is ordained to dispense he must dispense and he will dispense Isaiah 61 1. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted to proclaim liberty to the Captives and the opening of the prison doors to them that are bound c. saies Christ there is a poor Soul that I must deliver and there is a wounded heart that I must heal and there is a bruised reed that I must bind up and there is one weak in grace that I must strengthen and why must I do it Why saies he I am anointed to do this the Father hath commissionated him to do this he hath ordained him hereunto and he must deny his ordination and refuse the office that he is to act in should he refuse a poor Soul and not give liberally to those that come to him John 6.27 Labour not for the meat that perisheth but for that meat that endureth to everlasting life which the Son of man shall give unto you for him hath God the Father Sealed in these expressions are discovered the great blessings of the Gospel that are dispensible by the hands of Christ now go unto Christ Jesus if you be hungry if you be thirsty go unto Christ Jesus if you be naked go unto Christ Jesus if you be empty why will he bless such an one as I am will he look upon such an one as I am yes saies the Father go and you shall speed my Son shall give these things to you for I have sealed him or you may consider these words as spoken by Christ and as the indispensible obligation that lies upon the Son from the charge that he hath received an Office-charge of all that grace that the Father hath designed should be dispensed do not question therefore the Lord Jesus Christ but let your applications be frequent to him he will be faithful unto his Office Eightly There is an exceeding tenderness in the heart of Christ unto distressed Sinners according to all the concernments of his Office There is a very great willingness and forwardness in the Lord Jesus Christ to be dealing out his grace unto those for whom grace was designed or to whom grace is to be dispensed there is an unexpressible desire in the Soul of Christ Jesus to be dealing out the grace that he hath received the charge of all Office-work is most desirable work to Christ though never so hard therefore when he speaks concerning his death saies he I have a Baptism to be Baptized with and how am I streightned till it be accomplished But now we may conceive that there is much more a desire in the heart of Christ to dispense the grace of his death Psal 16.3 Thou art my Lord my goodness extendeth not unto thee but to the Saints that are in the earth and to the excellent in whom is all my delight My delight saies Christ it is with the Saints to be relieving the Saints and to be comforting of the Saints and to be blessing and strengthening of the Saints The heart of Christ takes great delight in this my delight is with them saies he as to all my goodness as to all my kindness as to all the gifts of grace that I have received and as to all my fountain fulness it doth not extend to the Lord but it is to the Saints and my delight is with the Saints on the consideration of the grace that I have to dispense to them and Heb. 4.25 Jesus Christ he is touched with us he hath a feeling of our infirmities not a feeling in a way of passion and suffering but a feeling in a way of compassion and tenderness that is his feeling as the Mother hath a feeling of the pain and sickness and weakness of the Child through the sympathy of her spirit and the yernings of her bowels over it so the Lord Jesus Christ stands with yerning bowels over his Children and he is touched with our infirmities You have not a weight upon your spirit but in compassion and tenderness Jesus Christ feels it and you have not a burthen on this respect or the other but Jesus Christ feels it such are the compassions of his spirit towards you in all the concernments of his Office It may be you are ready to say in a great strait or under a sore Trial O that such a friend knew how it is with me O that my Father were here or such a Relation were here that they did but know how it is with me Why Soul Jesus Christ he knows and he feels the weight of thy troubles sympathiseth with thee under all thy sorrows We have not an High Priest that cannot be touched with a feeling of our infirmities Now this tenderness of spirit this sympathy of Christ does influence his hand unto a liberal and free discharge of his Office So that whatever are your losses in the creature and however your outward condition is broken you may go to the Lord Jesus you see he is such a one as you may take comfort in Ninthly Faith is the great instrumental means that receives from Christ and that establishes the Soul in Christ All our blessings they are lodged in the Lord Jesus Christ and there they meet as in a fountain Now faith that is the drawing grace that draws out of this fountain for the Soul's supply The Father hath placed all in Christ and faith is the receiving grace that takes all out of the hand of Jesus Christ that he offers to the Soul by faith we are united to Christ and by faith we receive from Christ upon the union As the Pipe that is laid unto the mouth of the fountain doth receive and
convey water into your houses so doth faith receive from the Lord Jesus Christ and convey into your Souls Faith is the great Conduit that Jesus Christ doth send down his grace in into our hearts Faith that deals with Christ in all his royalties of grace and takes life from him and takes comfort from him and peace from him and joy from him and whatsoever the Soul standeth in need of Faith is the life-grace that feeds your Souls and that keeps you living and thriving and that makes you strong in the Lord we are said therefore to stand by faith Rom. 11.20 Well because of unbelief they were broken off and thou standest by faith Faith is a confirming grace it doth build the Soul upon it doth root the Soul in the Lord Jesus Christ and doth receive strengthening confirming assisting grace from Christ according to to the Soul's necessity So as Christians if you would be strong in the Lord you must get your faith strengthened more and more Tenthly The Lord Christ in the dispence of mercy hath great respect unto the glory of his office-fulness and office-faithfulness The Lord Christ in the communications of grace hath not only a respect unto your necessity but also to his own glory and he will dispense in such a way and at such a season and under such circumstances as shall make most for the glory of his office-fulness and office-faithfulness The Lord Jesus Christ therefore he comes in such a way and at such a time as shall most of all publish his glory unto those to whom he comes and before whom he comes When the creature is run into emptiness and hath spent all then doth Jesus Christ open his fountain-fulness In the weakness of the creature does Jesus Christ discover his all-power and in the uncertainty of the creature doth Jesus Christ glorifie his constancy in the darkness of an outward condition doth the Lord Jesus Christ cause his morning Star to arise and shine from on high that gives light to our feet when we know not how to direct our own paths when we have lost all here below and all our comforts have failed us and forsaken us then doth Jesus Christ appear as a friend that stands up in a time of adversity that neither troubles nor crosses nor trials nor temptations shall separate And he chuses this most dismal state to come in that he might glorifie his office-fulness and his office-faithfulness that he might glorifie his office-fulness to let us know it is a never failing fulness it is a fulness that is alwaies running over that is not dry when streams are dry but can fill streams at any time when they are never so dry and empty and then he comes that he may glorifie his office-faithfulness to appear as one that never doth forget his people that can bear all the concerns of his people upon his heart 2 Cor. 1.9 But we had the sentence of death in our selves So the Lord Jesus Christ he comes and discovers himself when the sentence of death is upon our outward mercies and upon all our outward supporters that they are fading dying and falling down under us then doth the Lord Jesus Christ appear as our God Ye had the sentence of death in your selves that ye might trust in the living God The Lord will so appear as his appearance shall be unto the glory of his own Name in the Office that he is placed in by the Father And therefore do but consider what titles Jesus Christ hath put upon himself that are denominative thereof Psal 9.9 The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed a refuge in times of trouble A poor distressed Soul that hath no whither to go that is driven off from all his former holds and that hath all his other Wells of consolation dryed up Jesus will be a refuge to such an one and that at such a time And Psal 10.14 The poor committeth himself to thee and thou art the helper of the fatherless And Psal 68.5 A Father of the fatherless and a Judge of the widdow is God in his holy habitation Why says the Soul Now all is gone my Father is gone and my Husband is gone and my Friends that use to comfort me have left me and I am now a miserable creature No says Christ this is my time to appear to shew my self to be a Father to the Fatherless and a Judge of the widdow And Isa 25.4 Thou hast been a refuge from the storm a shadow from the heat when the blast of the terrible one is like a storm against the wall Why Christian do not fear an outward distress then do not fear a low condition do not fear a breaking providence why because Jesus Christ doth then take his time to discover his All to you he will then take his time to discover a Fountain to you that can never be exhausted he is a refuge to the poor and needy And these considerations might be prevailing upon your spirits to gather off your eyes from beholding other objects and place them upon the Lord Jesus Christ where there is a sufficient ground of Joy to us whatever our condition is SERMON X. Habakkuk 3.18 Yet I will rejoice in the Lord I will Joy in the God of my Salvation I Proposed several weighty Considerations to encourage your spirits to be getting up into this Life of Faith I have already gone through Ten and shall now proceed 11. Consider That to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ without the least encouragement of sense is the most noble exercise of Faith and that which doth most please the Lord. To believe in the Lord Jesus Christ when he is breaking of you and when he is frowning upon you and when you have nothing else to live upon this is the most noble exercise of Faith in this life To believe on the Lord Jesus when your heads are lifted up in the world and when your Table is spread and when your Borders are enlarged is no great difficulty but now to live by Faith upon Christ when there is no encouragement in the creature this is the most noble exercise of Faith What! says Sense live by Faith upon Christ when he hath impoverisht me and emptied me of all creature-enjoyments Ay now is the time to exercise Faith and this is the most noble exercise of Faith and that which doth most of all please the Lord Such an exercise of Faith as this was found in Job When the Lord had taken away his estate and taken away his Children says Job Job 1.21 Blessed be the Name of the Lord. There was a great exercise of Faith in that word and such an exercise of Faith was found in David in the case of Ziklag he had a little place given him in the enemies Country where he might live alone but he had it not long before enemies came and smote the place of his habitation and take away his relation and his goods and leave him
nothing but ruines that when he returned he found nothing but emptiness a heap of Ashes What does David do then he exercises Faith upon Jesus Christ and encouraged himself in the Lord his God And this is the exercise of Faith that the Prophet speaks of in our Text and that which he is driving Believers up to When the Figg-tree shall not blossom c. What is here left here is nothing for sense to live upon yet says he I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my Salvation Such a noble exercise of Faith was found in the Woman of Canaan in the midst of all discouragements she had discouragements from the Disciples of Christ they were not so kind to her as they might have been but that was not all but she met with discouragements from the Lord Jesus Christ himself unto whom she made her applications he seems to give her a repulse and checks her forwardness and yet she goes over to the Lord Jesus and in a bold act ventures upon him alone Why Christians whatever are your discouragements from Sense yet in the face of all rebukes to cast your self upon the Lord Jesus and comfort your Souls in his All fulness is the most noble act of Faith that you can put forth 12. The great improbabilities of relief and succour after grace whatever your case is are not answerable to the improbabilities that your Souls were in before grace and Christ Jesus helped you then Christ came thorow them all and with ease removed them to do your Souls good Do but consider you that sit down with your hearts full of discouragement upon the loss of a creature or upon the emptyings of providence do but consider how unlikely and improbable your condition was of help and succour before you did believe on Christ you were then covered over with the shadow of death you were then in a hopeless condition Who had then any hope of you When you were seen marching in the fury of your spirits against the Lord Who would have thought that there were hope in the Lord for you You were at the very brink of Death and at the very brink of Hell there was as it were but a hairs breadth between you and Hell and who would have thought that you should have been recovered And then the Lord Jesus he broke thorough all the improbabilities of your state to save you and do you think that he cannot break thorough all the improbabilities of your present state to comfort you He came leaping over greater mountains of opposition and discouragement and impossibility I mean as to other help I say he came leaping over greater mountains of impossibility in his first dealings with you than there are for him to come thorough in his after-dealings with you Cant. 2.8 The voice of my Beloved behold he cometh leaping upon the mountains and skipping upon the hills These mountains and these hills did lye between Christ and you that were the improbabilities or I may call them the impossibilities of your state as to help and relief in a rational consideration and apprehension Now Jesus Christ he skipt over this mountain and the other mountain that lay in his way and he came unto your Souls to do you good and if Jesus Christ hath done this do you think that he will not do the lesser When you were without grace did he bring grace into your Souls and do you think that he cannot comfort you now when you want comfort Do you think that he cannot bless you with the annexed blessings of your state when he hath brought in the great fundamental blessings of your state Christians you should reason thus I was once ready to die and the Lord Jesus came and saved me I was in a Soul-undone state and Jesus Christ hath set me up and what hath he set up my Soul and cannot he set up my Body Hath he made up the great breach that was upon my spiritual condition and cannot he make up the breaches that are in my outward condition Jesus Christ came and pluckt me out of the fire when I was burning and the fire was so hot that none could take me out but Jesus Christ he came and snatcht me out of the paw of the Lion and the Bear and none could rescue me but he and he that came over all these impossibilities to save you do you think that he cannot make up a breach in the loss of a relation or make up a distress in your outward condition the Lord that hath done the greater can easily do the lesser 13. Again To rejoyce only in visibles and sensibles is to go no further than those may go that have no interest in Christ I pray consider it To have your spirits born up only by sensible supports is not to exceed those that are strangers to Jesus Christ that have not an interest in Jesus Christ as you have For your spirits to rise and fall only as the creature ebbs and flows this is to do no more than a carnal man doth Is this living upon Christ Is this to make Christ your Joy and Christ the Peace and the Comfort of your Life Says Christ in another case To love those that love you and to do good to those that do good to you if you do no more Publicans and Sinners do this The Christian is under peculiar and distinguishing blessings and it is expected that he should peculiarly and distinguishingly live under the distinguishing blessings of his state Matth. 6.31 32. Wherefore take no thought saying What shall we eat or what shall we drink or wherewith shall we be clothed for after all these things do the Gentiles seek Why says Christ to be so thoughtful about our outward condition as others are is to place our selves in common with them Says he After these things do the Gentiles seek It is the case of a Gentile to say when his outward comforts are gone O now must I die now there is no further help for me I must now perish this is the language of a Gentile that hath no interest in Jesus Christ O you that have interest in Jesus Christ what will you take up the language of a Gentile O no! having a God to go to you must live upon that God that you have given up your selves to God doth expect a distinguishing acting under the distinguishing blessings that he hath brought into your condition therefore know that to rejoyce only in visibles is to set your selves in common with those that have no interest in Christ and is not this to dishonour your interest and to reflect upon the Lord of your interest to live in joy when the Creatures are about you and to sit down discouraged when Creatures are taken from you 14. Faith exercised upon the Lord Jesus will have an universal influence upon all other graces in your hearts Christians do but once exercise faith upon the Lord Jesus Christ under a sinking
discouraging providence and you will immediately see and find a strange alteration in your hearts you will find those graces that are weak begin to gather strength and you will find those graces to arise and appear and shine forth that you could scarce discern faith exercised upon the Lord Jesus Christ will have a mighty influence upon your love to raise that when the Soul is got into Christ and can improve his interest in Christ O how will his Soul be enlarged and his heart burn in love to him who is the Lord of his interest and of his comforts faith exercised upon the Lord Jesus will have a mighty influence upon your hopes that were even just giving up the Ghost to your apprehensions faith exercised upon the Lord Jesus will have a mighty influence upon your patience to strengthen and quicken that when a frowning providence comes that would royl your Spirits and put you besides your selves and drive you out of a Christian frame faith will raise up your patience and learn you to be quiet under the hand of the Lord faith exercised upon Christ will have an influence upon your joy it will cause a mighty and wonderful rejoycing in your Souls that you have such a full Jesus to live upon faith exercised upon the Lord Jesus will have an influence upon your zeal and will wonderfully excite you and stir you up unto all duties of serving and following the Lord so as Christians do but lay these considerations together and you will see what great encouragement you have to glory in the Lord Jesus Christ whatsoever your outward condition is and you will see the way of living by faith upon Christ to be clear and to be the only way that the Christian should walk in Well having premised these things we shall now come to give you some particular directions how you may get up your faith and your Spirits in the exercise of faith unto a glorying and rejoycing in the Lord Jesus Christ whatsoever your saddening outward providences are And here 1. If you would come to live upon Christ Jesus alone in the saddest providences of your state then entertain and keep up low thoughts of the great things of this world Truly Christians you may think of it what you will but while you have hearts that are magnifying and adoring of the things of the world and the enjoyments of the world and counting these great things you will never come gospelly to live upon the Lord Jesus your thoughts must be altered in and about the comforts of this life and you must possess your hearts with this that they are the smallest comforts of your state and the blessings of this life they are the least blessings that the Lord hath given you you must have very low thoughts of the world and of the comforts of it if you would come to live by faith upon Christ Jesus alone whilest you have vast thoughts oâ— your creature enjoyments and creature comforts and creature conditions and suppose your comforts to lye here and your comforts to lye there short of Christ alas you will be driven out of all the exercise of faith in an emptying providence I will give you two instances for this in the eleventh Chapter of the Hebrews the first is that of Father Abraham in the 8 and 9 verses By Faith Abraham when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance obeyed and went out not knowing whither he went by faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange Countrey dwelling in Tabernacles with Isaac c. Here Abraham was called to leave the possessions of his natural place the possession that he was born to and to follow Christ whither he would lead him and to accept of that condition that Christ would place him in and to stand to the allowance of God let it be more or less this Abraham was called to Now it is said Abraham by Faith did obey this command and call of God and went out why how did faith help him here doubtless by shewing of him Christ Jesus for faith in every exercise hath to do with Christ and therefore his faith carried him up to Christ and when he was once got up to Christ then behold how low were these things to him my Countrey Lord saies he what is my Country to thee I will leave my Countrey to follow thee and my Friends are nothing to me and my possessions are nothing to me I will leave all to follow thee what a low esteem had he of these things And the other instance is that of Moses in vers 24 25 26 27. By faith Moses when he was come to years refused to be called the Son of Pharaohs Daughter choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season esteeming the reproaches of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt for he had respect to the recompence of reward Here are great things that Moses left for the sake of Christ he left the Court yea he probably left the Crown of Egypt and all the glories thereof now he did this by faith the Creature was of a low esteem with him O alass what is it to be called the Son of Pharaohs Daughter and what is it to be an heir of an earthly Crown and to be King of Egypt I had rather be afflicted and spoyled and destitute in my outward condition with Christ then to enjoy all these things without him Christians you must get mortified affections to all enjoyments on this side Christ if you would come to live upon and glory in Christ alone 2. Acquaint your selves more with the royalties of Christ and the greatness of his Gospel-glory as he is proposed the object of your saith if you would come to glory in him alone and live upon him in an empty condition One great reason why we can take no more comfort in Christ in an empty condition is because we are such strangers to the fulness of Christ Jesus we don't know what is in Christ we know not what Christ can do what is in his heart and hand to give forth to you Christians if you would live more by faith upon Christ then view Christ in his royalties of Grace Look into the length of Christ and into the breadth of Christ and see what he is the owner and possessour of what the Father hath betrusted him with view the extent of his Offices and consider the largeness of his power and what he is able to do for you study and acquaint your selves with the royalties of Christ as he is proposed an object for your faith to fix upon there is no condition but he can comfort you in it let the condition be never so comfortless in its self study the fulness of the Lord Jesus 3. Get by faith upon the all sufficiency of Christ and there take a prospect of your losses
and of your troubles and then you will see them to be but small You go Christians and stand below Christ and there you look upon your troubles and afflictions and then indeed they seem very great ay but get upon the all-sufficiency of Christ and then view them get but upon the mount and look down upon all your losses and crosses and they will seem little things then What is this loss that I have sustained to what I have in the Lord Jesus Christ what is my poor empty vessel to the great fulness that is in the Ocean of the Lord Jesus If you did stand upon the all-sufficiency of Christ and look upon the disasters of your outward condition they would seem to be but like a little Vessel brought to the great Sea that is presently filled and yet there is no lessening of the water in the Ocean but the Sea is as full as ever 4. Alwaies keep the invisibles of Christs Grace and of Christs glory in your Eye It is something a strange thing but t is the mystery of faith I say keep invisibles in your eye faith knows the meaning of it faith will espy an invisible thing that which sense can discern nothing of faith will espy and keep sight of now this was one way that Moses had to get up into a living upon the Lord Jesus by faith he kept invisibles in his Eye he saw him that was invisible Heb. 11.27 he endured as seeing him that was invisible and what is the description that the Apostle gives of faith in a Gospel exercise that we are speaking of but that which I have told you the discerning of invisibles Heb. 11.1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen Faith in its exercise will ransack among the promises the promises both of grace and glory and there will espy a great treasure and shew the Soul this as that which is his and belongs to him now Christian view the promises of grace and the promises of glory that are in the hands of Jesus Christ and see the invisible graces and the invisible comforts and the invisible blessings that are contained in them and never lose the sight of these invisibles but keep them alwaies in your eye and then you will see a glorious Jesus that your Souls will love to dwell upon and you won't dwell from him 5. Never ground your faith your hope upon your experiences but upon the promises which is alwaies attended with a wonderful working power If that you ground your faith and your hope upon your experiences if your second trial be greater then your first your faith will be posed and you will sit down under discouragement indeed there is a holy and Christian use that is to be made of your experiences but you must never ground your faith and hope upon them for God is alwaies an out-doing God he will out-do his own act he will go further in one act then he will do in another if you ground your faith upon your experiences when you come into a new streight that you never came into before your faith will fail do but consider this in the Israelites if they had gone no further then their experiences what a loss had they been in nay upon this account they were at a great loss they only considered what God had done for them and did not consider what he could do and what a boundless power was working through the promise for them and therefore though they were delivered through the Red Sea yet say they can God spread a Table in the Wilderness Moses what hast thou brought us into the Wilderness to destroy us there is no Bread here there is no Water here how can we subsist They never had experience of the wonders of Gods power in those particular cases and therefore their experiences could not carry them through but they were to exercise faith upon the promise that had a boundless power working with it and that would have told them that God can spread a Table in the Wilderness and can command a rock to give out water for the Israelites necessity and that can tell you that there is no streight too great for Jesus to deliver you out of Faith in the promise will tell you that you never experienced you never saw to the utmost end of Christs power yet you never saw into the midst of his treasures of grace you have seen but a little way Faith in the Promise will tell you this therefore never ground your Faith and Hope upon your Experiences though they have been large but upon the Promises that have alwaies a boundless power working with them Sixthly And then consider That it is your duty to come and claim the grace of Christ and put in upon your Interest according to your exigency I say if you would live by Faith upon the Lord Jesus then claim the grace of your Interest according to the exigency of your state Sirs are you interested in Jesus then Jesus is yours all Jesus is yours all that he is is yours for you and all that he hath is yours and for you Now if you would live by Faith upon him then come and put in bring your claim and say the power of Jesus Christ is mine and the grace of Jesus Christ is mine 't is for me 't is under special promise to me and 't is under peculiar engagement to me it is mine to live upon I will lean upon the Arm of the Lord's strength I will glory in his fulness in my own emptiness There must be in the exercise of Faith a peculiar claim that the Soul must lay unto Christ and a peculiar improving of the fulness of his Interest according to the emptiness of your state And thus Christians you may be supported whatever you meet withal in this world Suppose you sustain a loss why in a fresh application to Christ you will have it made up in him and if a great failure and disappointment come in upon you in a renewed act of Faith upon the Lord Jesus Christ applying something of his fulness and sweetness you will have your condition filled so as it is emptied in the creature it will be filled with grace and with Christ SERMON XI Habakkuk 3.18 Yet I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my Salvation WE are now upon the directing of the Believer that is able in some measure to make out his Interest in this Jesus to live upon him and to rejoyce in him in all trials Of the Directions five or six I have already given you and shall now proceed 7. In the seventh place If you would live by Faith upon Christ so as to fetch in joy and comfort from him in every condition then labour to bring your will to your condition and keep your spirit within the confines of the will of God under all the various disposes of providence The
recoilings and clashings of our will with our condition is a main hinderance unto our rejoycing in and acting Faith upon the Lord Jesus under a sad providence And the great reason why some persons are under such great dissatisfaction in their own spirits that they know not how to bear the troubles of their state is because their wills are not brought to their condition but they go about to bring their condition to their wills and when any thing considerable comes in upon them that doth not suit with their wills it causeth royls disquiets and disturbances of spirit and discomposure of heart and such a Soul will never rejoyce in Christ in an evil day Now Christians if you would get into the Life of Faith you must then bring your will to your condition be what it will own the disposing hand of God that makes the change whatever your change is and yield obedience to the Lord's will that hath the over-ruling power of your state and keep your spirits within the confines of the will of God otherwise a cross or a tryal in your outward condition will make a great alteration in the inward frame of your spirit I will give you a few Instances for the clearing of this Paul was a man that rejoyced and gloried in Christ Jesus when he had almost nothing else left him in this world many times his heart was made sad among the Churches of Christ that he came to make glad and as to losses who met with more says he I was in perils oft and in hunger and in distress and in nakedness and yet this man he glories in tribulations he counted it all joy when he fell into divers tribulations how came this about that this man was got thus into a rejoycing in Christ Jesus when the whole world frowned upon him He tells us Phil. 4.11 12. his will was brought unto his condition I speak not says he in a complaining way in respect of want for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content for I know how to want and how to abound Says he if God empties me my will is brought to my condition I am willing to be emptied if the Lord will make me poor and take away what I have I am willing to be made poor my spirit is brought to my condition He that can live in the confines of the will of God will live comfortably and rejoyce in the Lord at all times Another instance for this is Job Job you know was a man that was sorely tryed I think as much as ever man was upon earth now Job's will was brought to his condition and hence came he to rejoyce in the Lord Job 1.21 Now Job's wife's spirit was not brought to her condition she could not tell how to be contented for she said unto him Chap. 2.10 Dost thou still retain thy integrity Curse God and die but he said unto her Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh what shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord and not evil As if he had said It was the Lord that filled me and shall not the Lord empty me We were satisfied when the Lord was filling of us and shall we not be satisfied now the Lord is emptying of us Another instance is that of good old Eli 1 Sam. 3.18 Samuel told him every whit and held nothing from him and he said It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good Why if the Lord will strip me says he I am willing to be stript if the Lord will take away my Children and take away my comforts and break up my house It is the Lord I am contented if the Lord will do so let him my will is brought to my condition Let him do as seemeth him good So David 2 Sam. 15.26 But if he say thus I have no delight in thee behold here I am let him do to me as seemeth good to him And thus it was with our Lord Jesus the greatest instance of all Father says he not my will but thy will be done Let my Father chuse for me I will not bring my will into competition with his If he will have me to drink off this Cup I will drink it if he will have me to lay down my life I will if he will have all my glory obscured it shall be so if he will have me a man of sorrows his will be done and not my will You do not know Christians what an alteration of heart and what an alteration of life this living in the will of God will make 8. Captivate and throw out all the suggestions of sense and reason upon the rising difficulties of your state If that reason speak over your hearts in a strait and sense give the ruling word over your spirits in your condition it will certainly cause you to repine and murmure and to sin against God Sense and reason are great enemies unto our peace and comfort If sense and reason have liberty to speak and to be heard in your hearts they will certainly lay your spirits under a discouragement and drive you off from the Lord. Thus it was with Israel when they were in the wilderness as soon as they were come out of Egypt where they had their Rivers and their Pools and their Ponds of Water and where they had their Flesh-pots and were fed to the full They came into a howling wilderness into a dry and barren place where they had no Wells of Water where there was no plowing nor sowing then they fell a murmuring and chiding of Moses and said Wherefore hast thou brought us hither into this place to slay us for it is not supposed to be rational that we can live here in this wilderness but if we abide here we must die Numb 11.4 5 6. And the mixt multitude that were among them fell a lusting and all the children of Israel wept again saying Who shall give us flesh to eat We remember the flesh that we ate in Egypt freely the Cucumbers and the Millons c. And Psal 78 19. Yea they spake against God They said Can God furnish a Table in the wilderness And Numb 20.12 Bebold there is no water for the Congregation and they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and they chod with Moses saying would to God we had died when our Brethren died before the Lord and why have ye brought up the Congregation of the Lord into this wilderness that we and our Cattel should die there and wherefore have ye made us to come out of Egypt to bring us unto this evil place It is no place of sowing seed or of Fields or of Vineyards or of Pomegranats Here you see sense and reason spake over their condition and how did it lay their Souls under discouragement And if you do but review at your leisure the great murmurings of this people when they were in the wilderness it was something or other that sense and
reason suggested to them under some providence or other that disquieted their spirits it was through the suggestion of sense and reason that Zachartas questioned the truth of the Word of God sent to him by the Angel about having a Son Luk 1.18 And Zacharias said to the Angel whereby shall I know this for I am an old man and my Wife well stricken in years It was from the instigation of sense and reason that that unbelieving Lord did question that great plenty that the Prophet told him should be the next day 2 King 7.1 2 Thus saith the Lord To morrow about this time shall a measure of fine flower be sold for a shekel c. Then a Lord on whose hand the King leaned answered the man of God and said If the Lord should make windows in Heaven might this thing be He only argued upon the Prophecy in his own reason and in his own sense and this made him so unbelieving as to reject the Prophecy of the Prophet This sense and reason made the Disciples themselves to question the intention of the Lord about feeding so great a multitude as there was with such small provision as they had Mark 8.1 2. In those daies the multitude being very great c. At the 14th verse his Disciples said unto him From whence shall we buy bread that these may eat So that if you would get into this life of Faith keep down sense and reason and cast out their suggestions which will not bring you near to but set you further off from the Lord. Do not say upon a new difficulty here is no way to escape or upon a loss this or that is gone and can never be made up to me again but throw out the reasonings of sense if the discouraging suggestions of sense be resisted and set by Faith will then get up and speak in the heart 9. Look through and beyond the discouragements of second Causes unto the encouragements of the first Cause that is alwaies absolute and independent and there fix your eye in a strait Second Causes they are failable but so is not the first Cause that is the efficient of all and the Lord who is the first Cause and efficient of all oftentimes dries up all creature streams and causes visible humane help to fail that we may see how great the first Cause is Though the Lord doth ordinarily make use of second Causes yet the Lord will so walk towards us to discover to us that he is not tyed to means that he is not tyed to second Causes and he oft-times causeth visible helps to fail that our eyes may be upon him as the first absolute independent Cause of all I will give you an instance for this and it is that of Israel Israel was in the way of the Lord marching towards the Land of Promise and as soon as ever they were come into the way of the Lord that they were entered into the wilderness they were brought to the mouth of the Red Sea Now all second Causes failed for help there was not a Ship nor a Boat to be got to carry the Hosts of Israel over the water but the first Cause was not at a strait and therefore says Moses from the Lord Israel stand still and see the Salvation of God Now let not your eyes be upon the second Cause but upon the first Cause and you shall see what a deliverance God can make for you and he carried all the Host of Israel men women and children through the drowning Sea and not a man woman nor child was lost in the passage and yet there was neither Ship nor Boat to aid them over And so afterwards when they came at Jordan the waters were before them there was no Boat to swift them over the waters but the Lord he commands Israel to go on and the waters made a lane for them they run on heaps on both sides and Israel hath a path made in the great deep for them And I will give you an instance now of a good man a man of great Faith and that was Moses Moses in a considerable strait fixes his eye upon the second Cause and pored upon the discouragements of that and was lost in his spirit by not looking beyond unto the first Cause and the encouragements that the first Cause did administer It is Numb 11.19 20.21 and so on The people in the preceding verses they murmured against Moses because they had no flesh they were come from their full Tables in Egypt and they had not now their dainties to live upon and they did not know now how to be content why says God you shall not eat one day nor two but even a whole month Now see what Moses said at the 21th verse The people among whom I am are six hundred thousand footmen and thou hast said I will give them flesh that they may eat a whole month Shall the Flocks and the Herds be slain for them to suffice them or shall all the Fishes of the Sea be gathered together for them to suffice them c. Here is the relation God tells this whole Congregation that they should have Flesh to eat for a month they should eat their bellies full they should eat till they could eat no more Moses had his eye fixed upon second Causes and not upon the first Cause and he questions this Lord says he how can this be So many hundred thousands of us and what shall we all have flesh to eat Now on the other hand we read of Asa when a mighty Host came out against him 2 Chron. 14.11 An Host of a thousand thousand that came out against him he lookt beyond the discouragements of second Causes unto the encouragements of the first Cause that is absolute and independent and see how his spirit held up And Asa cryed unto the Lord his God and said Lord it is nothing with thee to save whether with many or with those that have no might help us O Lord our God for we rest on thee and in thy Name we go against this multitude c. He looks unto God the first Cause of all and he saw there the Power of God was enough to charge this whole Army and to engage against this great multitude that came out against him And this was the Prophet's Spirit and the course that he took here in the Text all second Causes failed and frowned and administred only discouragement The Figg-tree that blossomed not there was no fruit in the Vine the labour of the Olive failed the Fields yielded no meat the Flocks were cut off from the fold and there was no herd in the stall Here was a failure of all second Causes now saith he I will look unto the first Cause I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my Salvation Christians let me tell you that if you lay the weight of your case upon second Causes you will never come to rejoyce in Christ Jesus
in a strait Remember therefore that when such a stream is dried up the fountain is full still and the fountain can send out more waies than one The fountain that issued out a stream in such a place can issue out a stream in another place as long as the fountain is full there is no fear of want and if you would come to live upon the Lord Jesus Christ in a strait you must keep your eye upon the fountain that is ever full and overflows SERMON XII Habakkuk 3.18 Yet I will rejoice in the Lord I will Joy in the God of my Salvation VVE are upon the Directions 10. In the tenth place if you would live by faith upon Jesus Christ so as to fetch joy and comfort from him under the saddest providences of your state then consider the unchangeable love of Jesus Christ that meteth out and manageth unto blessed ends all the losses crosses trials and tribulations of your state The hard thoughts that we have of our troubles and the hard thoughts that we have of the Lord when we are troubled do drive us off from him and lay our Spirits under great discouragements O saies the Soul live upon Jesus Christ and rejoice in him How can I do that when he comes out against me as mine enemy he writes bitter things against me he is undoing of me he is breaking and spoyling of me and what can I rejoice in him The hard thoughts that the Church had of the Lord was that that did so much overwhelm her Spirit when she came into a low condition his mercy is clean gone and he hath forgotten to be gracious he will be merciful to me no more his mercies are shut up and fail for evermore and such bitter expressions as these are and how can we now rejoice in this Lord and all this while you understand not the Lord nor the design of the Lord and by your ignorance you come to wrong your own Spirits in your present condition by overcharging them with a discouragement that the providence rightly considered as stated by the Lord administers not for do but consider that there is unchangeable love engaged in and mixed with every adverse providence the Lord he strikes and he wounds in a way of love he breaks in upon this comfort and the other and makes breaches in your condition in a way of love and grace the Lord he takes away a creature comfort from a Christian to make more room in his heart for Christ The Lord he puts him into the furnace that he may purify him from his dross the Lord he purgeth him to make him partaker of his holiness The Lord he shakes him and shakes his creature standing and his relative standing under a creature consideration and condition that he might take faster hold upon Christ Jesus he sends out every tribulation upon you with a charge to do you good and to use you kindly as David when he sent out his Army gave them a charge deal gently for my sake with the young man Absolom So saies Jesus Christ unto every Cross that befals you use my Servant kindly for my sake treat him well saies the Lord unto a loss work for the gain of such a Servant of mine saies the Lord unto such a Cross do you try and do you refine and do you purge and do you better my Servant he saith unto such a tribulation go and do such Servants of mine good there is unchangeable love and grace that meteth out and manageth unto blessed ends all the crosses of your condition Job 5.17 Behold happy is the man whom God correcteth therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty We say crost is the man and broken is the man and undone is the man that is so and so dealt withal ay but saies God happy is the man there is a blessing under the cross there is love and grace in the trial that thou dost not consider Christian and this will be more advantage to thee then all the disadvantages that the Cross can bring in upon thee in its self considered Proverbs 3.12 For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth even as a Father the Son in whom he delighteth So as there is love in all the Lords corrections and Isaiah 48.10 Behold I have refined thee but not with Silver I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction I have put thee into the furnace saies the Lord there is my love working towards thee there is my love speaking to thee there have I been refining and purging and purifying of thee to make thee more excellent gold for my use this is the design of the Lord Heb. 12.5 6. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto Children My Son despise not thou the Chastening of the Lord neither faint when thou art rebuked of him for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every Son whom he receiveth and Rev. 3.19 As many as I love I rebuke and chasten and Rom. 8.35 36 c. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword None of these things shall do it saies he So as if you would come to a rejoycing in the Lord in a trying hour then consider the unchangeable love of Jesus Christ that doth mete out and manage the Crosses that you are called to bear It was good for me saies David that I was afflicted and again saies he Psal 116.10 I believed therefore have I spoken I was greatly afflicted I said in my hast all men are lyars what shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits Surely the Prophet had not only the remove of the affliction in his Eye but also the design of God in the affliction that he saith what shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits I will take up the cup of Salvation and bless his name he hath greatly afflicted me and sorely distressed me I will take up the cup of Salvation and bless his name here doubtless was an eye upon the design well then if you would come to live rejoycingly in the Lord in all conditions consider his unchangeable love that doth order and dispose the trials that you are exercised with 11. In the eleventh place Consider the auxiliary relations that Christ stands in to your Souls and the grace that is dispensed upon them You look Christians in an evil day below the comforts of your state and that is the reason you are so hurried in your own Spirits you pore upon an emptying providence and don 't consider the filling relations that Christ is unchangeably enterered into with your Souls relations of grace that are alwaies comforting and alwaies relieving and that have new supplies of grace alwaies springing up in them for your assistance I will give you a touch of some of them The Lord Jesus Christ is called the Father of believers he was promised under that name
an hundred years old neither yet the deadness of Sarahs Womb. There were unlikelyhoods of this promise ever being fulfilled and if Abraham would have reasoned according to sense why sense would have suggested to him that this promise was a meer fallacy a meer romance that there was no truth no certainty in it what he a hundred years old now a dead man almost his nature quite decayed and Sarah e'en going into the grave almost a dead Woman nature quite decayed in her and what shall Sarah conceive and have a Son 't is not likely nor probable Nay saies reason 't is an impossible thing now here had been a discouragement to his Spirit if he had called in sense and reason and considered and debated the matter therewith but he takes up the promise and believes it upon the bare Word of God upon his bare faithfulness well saies Abraham I am indeed an old Man and Sarah my Wife is an old woman but God hath said I shall have a Child and I believe it here is no hope in nature but I will believe it against hope against all discouragement to my hope I will believe God that hath spoken it is able to perform it surely it shall be so thus Christians when difficulties and discouragements incompass the promise don't dispute with the difficulties that lye in the way but keep your eye upon the faithfulness of God and believe the promise upon Gods bare word alone 13. Again Sute the promise to your present state whatever it be and set it at the head of your trial and then wait for an accomplishment I say single out a promise sutable to your state and set it at the head of your trial at the mouth of your trouble or temptation and then wait upon the Lord for the accomplishment of the promise Thou canst Christian be brought into no condition but there is some promise in the new Covenant that doth sute thy tryal whatever it be there is no burthen laid upon thy back but some promise sutes the burthen now you must single out a promise sutable to your present state and set that at the head of your tryal keep your eye there waiting for the accomplishment of the promise and hereby your hearts will be raised up to glory rejoyce in the Lord alone Suppose that you were in some considerable danger single out some Gospel delivering promise and set that at the head of your danger Suppose Christian that thou hast some great burthen upon thy Spirit single out some Soul reviving promise and set it at the head of thy burthen Suppose that you have met with some extraordinary loss single out some comforting reviving promise some promise of supplies that Jesus Christ hath made and set that at the door where your comfort went out and keep your eye upon the promise of your state and the promise of your present condition and wait upon the Lord for its accomplishment and by this means your hearts will in a little time come to be raised and you will see a new supply ready to come in upon your empty condition 14. Again Propose the communicable Attributes of Christ to your view as under an unchangeable reconciliation and obligation unto you My friends if Christ be yours then all Christ is yours when Christ gave you an interest in himself he made over all himself to you all the Attributes of his eternal glorious nature they are engaged to you they are reconciled to you and they are under an express Gospel Covenant obligation for you Now propose these and keep them in your view Consider the Power of Jesus Christ is under engagement for you Consider the Wisdom of Christ Jesus is engaged to you I speak to every Believer in particular for Christ makes over himself as fully to one Believer as if he had but one Believer to make over himself unto The Faithfulness of Christ Jesus is engaged to you the Love and the Grace of Christ Jesus is engaged to you Now Christians if you would come to rejoyce in Christ then often consider of these propose these Attributes as under a special unchangeable Covenant-reconciliation and obligation to you and consider also how much there is in every property of his Nature do but consider how much there is in the Power of Christ how much there is in the Love of Christ how much there is in the Grace of Christ how much there is in the Wisdom of Christ Christians there is a fountain in every Attribute of Christ there is a fountain of Power in Christ's Attribute of Power and there is a fountain of Love in Christ's Attribute of Love and there is a fountain of Grace in Christ's Attribute of Grace and these fountains they are set open for you Christians do but see then how many fountains you have to go unto you complain of want and emptiness that you have nothing why here are full fountains to go unto all these set open at all times for your relief do but propose these Christians to your consideration and your hearts will soon sally out to rejoyce in the Lord. 15. In the last place If you would come to live by Faith upon the Lord Jesus in all conditions then reckon that your All is in Christ and is alwaies sure in Christ though some outward comforts of your condition are coming and going Jesus Christ is the possessor of your blessedness your blessedness is not in your own hand nor in the hands of a stranger but in the hands of Christ and the outward comforts of your condition are not your portion Christians they are not your All but your All it lies in Christ and when you have lost an Estate your All is still sure in the hands of Christ When you have lost a friend and lost a relation your All is still in the hands of Christ untouched there 't is and 't is alwaies sure in the hand where 't is lodged Now do but reckon that your comforts lye here and that the Lord is the keeper and possessor of all your hopes of all your blessings and blessednesses of all your comforts and consolations of your whole treasure and your Souls will come to be drawn out after Christ to a rejoycing in him Says the Apostle in Col. 3.11 But Christ is All and in All. He sums up all in a few words all is in Christ why then you that have an interest in Christ reckon that your All lies there and then will your Souls be enlarged to look towards him And I might add unto this for a close That you should look up unto the Lord the Father in the sense of your weakness in Faith or want of Faith to encrease your Faith or to give you Faith The Disciples they went unto Christ Luke 17.5 and said Lord encrease our Faith So Christians you should do 't is an evil day a trying day 't is by Faith only that you will come to stand and 't is Faith
he is not justified Gal. 3.22 The Scripture hath concluded all under sin that the promise by faith on Jesus Christ might be given to those that believe All concluded under sin all under the sentence of condemnation every Child that is born into the world is concluded under sin concluded under the sentence of condemnation by reason of sin But now the promise of Salvation is by faith on Jesus Christ the promise of salvation and forgiveness the promise of righteousness and peace this is given unto them that believe So as when the sinner is translated when he is brought over to Christ when he hath faith wrought in him on the Lord Jesus Christ then is he pardoned And upon the loss of your pardon I mean the sense of it upon the renewal of faith and the stirring up of fresh acts of faith is the sense of the pardon returned and consolation and joy upon the pardon returned Use 1. In the first place If that God do thus discharge sinners in Christ then this calls upon all of you to study this discharge of the Gospel more fully that so you may understand this wonderful proceed of Gospel grace Sirs this point is a fundamental point it is one of the foundational truths and principles of the Gospel and therefore whatever you neglect do not neglect the study of this mystery There are other truths that are of great concernment There is no truth no principle of the Gospel but is worth your enquiring into But this is one of the main and if you be out here you are out in all and the more you know of this the more savingly you understand this priviledge the more will you be led into others and the higher will your consolation be This is even a Benjamin as I may so call it When Joseph came to serve his Brethren Gen. 43.34 He sent Messes to them from his board and Benjamin 's Mess was five times as much as any of the other Truly the importance and concernment of this truth is such that you had need study this point five times more than some others so much hath a dependance upon it Says the Apostle 1 Joh. 4.9 In this was the love of God manifested to provide a propitiation and atonement to provide a blood through which forgiveness of sins should be dispensed in this is the love of God manifest and you should study this truth that you may understand something of the height and depth and length and breadth of the love of God manifested unto you herein Dive into this mystery Use 2. Labour to clear up your own discharge unto your own Souls Many are the doubts and the fears that Believers labour under and they do arise from their darkness in this point Could they but make faith of this That there is no condemnation for them their fears would vanish their doubts would be answered and their Souls would be filled with the joy of God their Salvation Now there are some waies whereby this may be cleared up As 1. There is the Witness of the Spirit of God and this is a satisfying testimony unto all that have it It puts all out of doubt and answers a thousand scruples at once when once the testimony of the Spirit comes within all fears they vanish all mists and clouds that were about the understanding they all flee away and are scattered 2. It is evidenced by a lively faith in the promise of forgiveness and from thence the Soul is enabled to take in the comfort of the discharge And 3. Sometimes our Justification is cleared up unto us from our Sanctification But truly that satisfaction that comes in to a Soul through his searches into the work of Sanctification in the Soul that satisfaction it is but small it is coming going because the work of grace upon our hearts is under so much weakness and oftentimes cloudy and dark that a Believer many times can hardly tell whether he hath any grace or no in his heart but now that that comes in by the help of the Spirit of God through the actings of faith upon the promise of forgiveness that which comes in through the immediate testimony of the Spirit of God in our hearts this is far more refreshing and more satisfying to the Soul Well labour after the assurance of this discharge that you may know that you have a part in the promise of forgiveness Use 3. You that are forgiven you whom the Lord hath thus discharged you ought to walk thankfully and to live in the admiration of that grace that is glorified in this act of God towards you Psal 116.12 What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits We should say so upon all our common mercies though never so small What shall I render to the Lord I will take up the Cup of Salvation and call upon the Name of the Lord. This is that we should say for ordinary mercies but what shall we say to the Lord for greater mercies Thou hast been brought up in a Land of Vision it may be under a religious education and hast sat under a powerful Gospel Ministry where thou hast been told of thy sins and invited and called to return to God and exhorted to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and yet it may be thou wentest on in a way of sinning against God ten twenty thirty years before God laid hold upon thee and after such a long course of rebellion and after that thou hadst run out in all manner of extravagancy or at least in thy heart didst commit all manner of iniquity and hadst it in thy heart to do a great deal more than the preventing grace of God would suffer thee and after all this disobedience and rebellion in a moment as it were God comes and pardons all The Prodigal a great rebel and yet received and embraced in his Father's arms and not one word objected against him but received as if he had never grieved his Father embraced as if he had never crost his Father as if he had never gone out of his Fathers house what wonderful grace is this Sirs it is stupendious grace for God to make his approach to a poor Soul and to press forgiveness upon it for God as a thick cloud to blot out thy transgressions as Isa 44. v. 22. I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions The Lord hath blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions and hath caused the Sun of his love to break through and to scatter all at once You should admire the greatness of God's grace that so many treasons should be forgiven at once that so many years transgression against God should be forgiven at once I remember when the sufferings of Jesus Christ were spoken of when he saw what a cup of wrath there was in his Fathers hand it is said he was amazed and astonished when he saw all the wrath that was to be poured out upon him And was