know this Stone is laid but see whether you are built on it by faith The multitude of imaginary believers ly round about it but they are never the better nor the surer for that no more than stones that ly loose in heaps near unto a foundation but are not joyned to 't there is no benefit to us by Christ without union with him No comfort in his riches without interest in them and title to them by that union then is the soul right when it can say He is altogether lovely and as the spouse there He is mine my welbeloved And this union is the spring of all Spiritual consolations and faith by which we are thus united is a divine work he that laid this foundation in Sion with his own hand works likewise with the same hand faith in the heart by which it is knit to this corner stone ' its not so easy a thing as we imagine to believe Eph. 1.19 Many that think they believe are amongst the others quite contrary that the Prophet there speaks of hardened in sin and carnally secure which he calls to be in covenant with hell and death walking in sin and yet promising themselves impunity 4. There is the firmness of this building Namely He that believeth on him shall not be Confounded This firmness is answerable to the nature of the foundation Not only the whole frame but every stone of it abideth sure 'T is a simple mistake to judge the perswasion of perseverance to be self-presumption they that have it are far from building it on themselves but their foundation is that which makes them sure because it doth not only remain firm it self but indissolubly supports all that are once built on it In the Prophet whence this is cited 't is shall not make hast but the sense is one they that are disappointed and ashamed in their hopes run to and fro and seek after some new recourse This they shall not need to do that come to Christ. The believing soul makes hast to Christ but it never finds cause to hasten from him and though the comfort it expects and longs for be for a time deferr'd yet it gives not over knowing that in due time it shall rejoyce and shall not have cause to blush and think shame of its confidence in him David expresseth this distrust by making haste Psal. 31.22 and 116.11 I was too hasty when I said so Hopes frustrated especially where they have been rais'd high and continued long do reproach Men with folly and so shame them And thus do all earthly hopes serve us when we lean much upon them We find these things usually that have promis'd us most content pay us with vexation not only prove broken reeds deceiving our trust but hurtful running their broken spinters into our hand that lean'd on them This sure Foundation is laid for us that our souls may be establish'd on it and be as Mount Sion that cannot be removed Such times may come as will shake all other supports but this holds out against all Psal. 46.2 Though the earth be removed yet will not we fear Though the frame of the World were cracking about a Mans ears he may hear it unaffrighted that is built on this Foundation Why then do we chuse to build upon the sand Believe it wheresoever we lay our confidence and affection besides Christ it shall once repent us and ashame us either hapily in time while we may change them for him and have recourse to him or miserably when 't is too late Remember that we must die and must appear before the Judgment Sent of God and that the things we dote on here have neither Power to stay us here nor have we power to take them along with us nor if we could would they at all profit us there and therefore when we look back upon them all at parting we shall wonder what fools we were to make so poor a Choyce and then in that great day wherein all faces shall gather blackness and be fill'd with confusion that have neglected to make Christ their stay when he was offer'd them then it shall appear how happy they are that have trusted in him they shall not be confounded but shall lift up their faces and be acquitted in him In their present estate they may be founded and exercis'd but they shall not be confounded nor ashamed a double negation in the Original by no means they shall in all be more than Conquerours through him that hath loved them Behold The last thing Obs. is in that first word importing this work to be great and remarkable and caullng the eyes to behold it The Lord is marvellous in the least of his works but in this he hath manifested more of his wisdom and power and let out more of his love to Mankind than in all the rest but we are foolish and childishly gaze about us upon trifles and let this great work pass unregarded scarce afford it half an Eye Turn your wandring Eyes this way Look upon this precious Stone and behold him not in mere speculation but so behold him as to lay hold on him For we see he is therefore here set forth that we may believe on him and so not be confounded that we may attain this blessed union that cannot be dissolv'd all other unions are dissoluble A Man may be pluckt from his dwelling House and Lands or they from him though he have never so good title to them may be removed from his dearest friends the Husband from the Wife if not by other accidents in their lifetime yet sure by death the great dissolver of all those unions and of that straitest of the Soul with the Body but it can do nothing against this union but perfects it for I am perswaded sayes St. Paul that neither death nor life nor Angels nor Principallities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to sâ—perate us from the Love of God which is in Christ Iesus our Lord. There is a twofold mistake concerning faith 1st They that are altogether void of it abusing and flattering themselves in a vain opinion that they have it and on the other side they that have it mis-judging their own Condition and so prejudging themselves of much comfort and sweetness that they might find in their believing The former is the worse and yet the far commoner evil and as one sayes of Wisdom 't is true of Faith Many would seek after it and attain it if they did not falsly imagine that they have attained it already There is nothing more contrary to the lively nature of Faith than for the soul not to be at all busied with the thoughts of its own Spiritual condition and yet this very character of unbelief passes with a great many for believing they doubt not that is indeed they consider not what they are their minds are not all in these things are not
they mock and despise is that Spirit that seals men to the day of Redemption Eph. 4.30 If any pretend they have the Spirit and so turn away from the straight rule of the Holy Scriptures they have the Spirit indeed but 't is a fanatical Spirit the Spirit of Delusion and Giddiness but the Spiâ—it of God that leads his Children in the way of truth and is for that purpose sent them from Heaven to guide them thither squares their thoughtts and wayes to that Rule And that Word whereof it is Author which was inspired by it sanctifies them to Obedience He that saith I know him and keepeth not his Commandments is a Lyar and the truth is not in him 1 Ioh. 2.4 Now this Spirit that sanctifieth and sanctifieth to Obedience is within us the Evidence of our Election and Earnest of our salvation and whoso are not sanctified and led by this Spirit the Apostle tells us what is their Condition Rom. 8.9 if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Let us not delude our selves this is a truth if there be any in Religion they that are not made Saints in the estate of Grace shall never be Saints in Glory The Stones that are appointed for that Glorious Temple above are hewen and polished and prepar'd for it here as the stones were wrought and prepared in the Mountains for building the Temple at Ierusalem This is the Order Psal. 84.12 He gives Grace and Glory as Moralists can tell us that the way to the Temple of Honour is through the Temple of Vertue They that think they are bound for Heaven in the wayes of sin have either found a new way untroden by all that are gone thither or will find themselves deceived in the end We need not then that poor shift for the pressing of Holiness and Obedience upon Men. to represent it to them as the meriting cause of Salvation this is not at all to the purpose seeing without it the Necessity of Holiness to Salvation is pressing enough for holiness is no less necessary to Salvation then if it were the meriting Cause of it it is as insepararably tyed to it as the purpose of God and in the Order of performance Godliness is as certainly before Salvation as if Salvation did wholly and all together depend upon it and were in point of Justice deserved by it Seeing then there is no other way to Happiness but by Holiness no Assurance of the Love of God without it Take the Apostles advice study it seek it follow earnestly after holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Grace unto you and peace be multâ—plyed It hath always been a civil custom amongst Men to season their intercourse with good wishes one for another this the Apostles use in their Epistles in a spiritual divine way suitable to their holy Writings It well becomes the Messengers of Grace and Peace to wish both and to make their salutation conform to the main scope and subject of their discourse The Hebrew word of salutation we have here Peace and that which is the spring both of this and these good things are all in the other word of Salutation used by the Greeks Grace All right Rejoycing and Prosperity and Happiness flowes from this source and from this alone and is sought elsewhere in vain In general this is the Character of a Christian spirit to have a heart fill'd with Blessing with this sweet good will and good wishing to all especially to those that are their Brethren in the same Profession of Religion And this Charity is a precious Balm diffusing it self in the wise and seasonable expressions of it upon fit occasions and those expressions must be cordial and sincere not like that you call Court Holy-water in which there is nothing else but falshood or vanity at the best This manifests Men to be the Sons of Blessing and of the ever blessed God the Father of all Blessing when in his name they bless one another yea our Saviours Rule goes higher to bless those that curse them and urges it by that Relation to God as their Father that in this they may resemble him That ye may be the Children of your Father which is in Heaven But in a more eminent way it s the duty of Pastors to bless their People not only by their publick and Solemn Benediction but by daily and instant Prayers for them in secret And the great Father who seeth in Secret will reward them openly They are to be ever both endeavouring and wishing their increase of knowledge and all Spiritual grace in which they have St. Paul a frequent Pattern They that are Messengers of this Grace if they have Experience of it 't is the Oyl of gladness that will dilate their heart and make it large in Love and spiritual desires for others Especially their own Flocks Let us 1 Consider the matter of the Apostles desire for them Grace and peace 2. The measure of it that it may be multiplyed 1 Grace We need not make a noise with the many School-distinctions of Grace and describe in what sense 't is here to be taken for no doubt 't is all saving Grace to those dispersed Brethren so that in the largest Notion that it can have that way we may safely here take it What is preventing Grace assisting Grace Working and Co-working Grace as we may admit these differences in a sound sense but divers Names of the same effectual saving Grace in relation to our different Estate as the same Sea receives different names from the different parts of the shoar it beats upon First It Prevents and Workes then it Assists and Prosecutes what it hath wrought he worketh in us to will and to do but the whole sense of saving Grace I conceive is comprehended in these two 1 Grace in the Fountain that is the peculiar Love and Favour of God 2. In the Streams the Fruits of this Love for 't is not an empty but a most rich and liberal Love viz. All the Graces and spiritual Blessings of God bestowed upon them whom he hath freely chosen The Love of God in it selfe can neither Diminish nor Increase but it is Multiplied or abounds in the Manifestation and Effects of it so then to desire Grace to be multiplied to them is to Wish to them the living Spring of it that Love that cannot be exhausted but is ever flowing forth and in stead of abateing makes each day richer then another And this is that which should be the top and summe of Christian Desires To have or want any other thing indifferently but to be resolved and resolute in this to seek a share in this Grace the free Love of God and the sure Evidences of it within you the fruit of holiness and the Graces of his Spirit but the most of us are otherwise taken up We will not be convinc'd how basely and foolishly we are busied though in the best and most respected employments
nothing but holiness and urges it most pressingly upon all that receive it This is the very life of divine Faith touching the Mysteries of Salvation firmly to believe their Revelation by the Spirit of God this the Word it selfe testifies as we see and it is really manifest in it it carries the lively stamp of divine Inspiration but there must be a spirituall Eye to discern it he that is blind knows not that the Sun shines at noon but by the report of others but they that see are assur'd they see it and assur'd by no other thing but by its own Light To ask one that is a true Believer how know you the Scriptures to be divine is the same as to ask him how know you Light to be Light The Soul is nothing but Darkness and blindness within till that same spirit that shines without in the Word shine likewise within it and Effectually make it Light but that once done then is the word Read with some measure of the same spirit by which it was written and the Soul is ascertain'd that it is divine as in bodily fight there must be a meeting of inward Light Viz. the visuall spirits with the outward Object The spirit of God within brings Evidence with it and makes it self discernable in the word this all arguments all Books and study cannot attain unto it is given to believe No Man knows the things of a Man but the spirit of Man 1. Cor. 2.11 But how holds that here for if a Man speak out the things that are in his spirit then others may know them But the Apostle's aime is there to conclude that the things of God even such as were Revealed in his Word could not be known but by his own spirit ' it s so though Revealed yet they remain still unreveal'd till the spirit teach within as well as without Because intelligeable by none but by those that are the private Scholers and Hearers of the holy Ghost the author of them and because there are so few of these therefore there is so little reall Believeing amongst all the noise and profession that we make of it who is there if you will believe them that Believes not and yet truely there is too much Cause to continue the Prophets regret who hath believed our Report Learn then to suspect your selves and to finde out your own Unbelief that you may desire this Spirit to teach you inwardly those great Mysteries that he outwardly Reveals and Teaches by his Word Make use of that promise and press the Lord with it They shall be all taught of God But 2. There is here the Matter of this Doctrine which we have in three severall Expressions 1. That which is Repeated from the foregoing Verse 't is the Doctrine of Salvation that 's the end of it and 2. The Doctrine of sufferings and glory of Christ as the means 3. The Doctrine of Grace the spring of both And 1. Salvation the onely true Doctrine of true happiness which the wisest of naturall Men have grop't and sought after with much earnestness but with no success they had no other then the dark Moon light of Nature and that is not sufficient to find it out onely the Sun of Righteousness shining in the Sphere of the Gospel brings Life and Immortality to Light 2. Tim. 1.10 No wonder that naturall Wisdom the deepest of it is far from finding out the true method and way of cure seeing it cannot discover the disease of miserable Mankind Viz. the sinfull and wretched Condition of nature by the first Disobedience Salvation expresses not only that which is Negative but Implies likewise positive and perfect Happiness thus forgiveness of sins is put for the whole nature of Iustification frequently in scripture 't is more easy to say of this unspeakable Happiness what it is not then what it is there is in it a full and final freedom from all Annoyance all tears are wip'd away and their fountain dryed up all feeling and fear or danger of any the least evil either of sin or punishment banish'd for ever no Invasions of Enemies no robbing nor destroying in all this holy Mountain no voice of complaining in the streets of the new Jerusalem here 't is at the best but interchanges of Mornings of joy with weeping of sad evenings but there there shall be no Light no need of Sun nor Moon For the glory of the Lord shall lighten it and the Lamb shall be the Light thereof Well may the Apostle as he doth here throughout this Chap. lay this Salvation to Counter ballance all sorrows and Persecutions and whatsoever hardships can be in the way to it The soul that is perswaded of this in the midst of Storms and Tempests enjoys a Calme Triumphs in Disgraces grows Richer by all its Losses and by Death it self attaines this Immortall life Happy are they that have their eye fixed upon this Salvation and are longing and waiting for it that see so much of that brightness and Glory as darknâ— all the lusture of Earthly things to them and makes them trample upon those things which formerly they admir'd and doted on with the rest of the foolish world Those things we account so much of are but as rotten wood or Glow-wormes that shine onely in the night of our Ignorance and Vanity so soon as the Light beam of this Salvation enters into the soul it cannot much esteem or affect any thing below it and if those glances of it that shine in the Word and in the Soul of a Christian be so bright and powerfull what then shall the full sight and real possession of it be The worker of this Salvation whom the Prophets and Apostles make the summe of all their doctrine is Jesus Christ and the summe of that work of Redemption as we have it here is his Humiliation and Exaltation His Sufferings and the Glory that followed thereupon now though this serve as an Encouragement to Christians in their Sufferings that this is the way by which their Lord went into his Glory and is true also of Christ mysticall the Head with the Members as the scriptures often teach us Yet I conceive 't is here mainâ—ly intended as a summary of the work of our Redemption by Jesus Christ relateing to the salvation mention'd Verse 10. And as the Cause for the Effect so 't is put for it here The Prophets enquired and prophecied of that Salvation How By searching out and foretelling the Sufferings and Glory of Christ His sufferings then and his after Glories are our Salvation His sufferings is the purchace of our Salvation and His Glory is our assurance of it He as our head having Triumph'd and being Crown'd makes us likewise sure of Victory and Triumph Having entered possession to glory makes our Hope certain this is his prayer that where he is there we may be also and this his own assertion the glory which thou gavest Me I have given them Ioh. 17.22 24. this is
obedience fall short so that he can never come to be upon even disengaged terms much less to oblige a new and deserve somewhat further besides that same Grace by which any serves and obeys God is likewise his own gift as 't is said All things come of thee and of thine own have I given thee both the ability and the will of giving to him is from him so that in these respects not Angels nor Man in Innocency could properly merit at the hands of God much less Man lost redeemed again and so coming under the new obligation of Infinite Mercy And this is so evident a truth that the learnedst and most ingenuous Jesuits and Schoolmen have in divers passages of their writings acknowledg'd it that there cannot be any Compensation and much less merit from the creature to God but onely in relation to his own free purpose and the tenour of his word and Covenant which is inviolable because he is unchangeable and truth it selfe His first grace he gives freely and no less freely the increases of it and with the same gracious hand sets on the Crown of glory upon all the Grace that he hath given before 'T is but the following forth of his own work and fulfilling his own thoughts of free Love which love hath no cause but in himself and finds none worthy But gives them all the worthiness they have and accepts of their Love not as worthy in it self to be accepted but because he himself hath wrought it in them not onely the first tastes but the full draught of the waters of life is freely given Reve. 22.17 nothing brought with them but thirst That is to be brought not that is brought or that shall be brought but if we will render it strictly it is that is a bringing to you That blessedness that Consummation of grace the Saints are hastening forward to walking on in their way wheresoever it lyes indifferently through honour and dishonour through evill report and good report And as they are hastening to it it is hastn'ng to them in the course of time every day brings it nearer to them than before and notwith standing all difficulties and dangers in the way they that have their eye and hopes upon it shall arrive at it and it shall be brought safe to their hand all the malice of men and Devils shall not be able to cut them short of this grace that is a bringing to them against the day of the Revelation of Iesus Christ. At the Revelation of Iesus Christ. This is repeated from the 7 th Verse and it is a day of Revelation a Revelation of the just judgement of God Rom. 2 5. And thus it would be to all were it not that it is withall the Revelation of Iesus Christ therefore is it a day of Grace all Light and blessedness to them that are in him because they shall appear in him and if he be glorious they shall not be inglorious and ashamed indeed were our secret sins then to be set before our own eyes in their affrightfullest visage and to be set open to the view of Angels and Men and to the eye of divine Justice and we lest alone so revealed who is there that could gather any comfort and would not rather have their thoughts fill'd with horrour at the remembrance and expectation of that day and thus indeed all unbelieving and ungodly Men may look upon it and find it terrible but to those that are shadowed under the Robe of Righteous Jesus yea that are made one with him and shall partake of his glory in his appearing 't is the sweetest the most comfortable thought that their souls can be entertain'd and possess'd withall to remember this glorious Revelation of their Redeemâ—r 'T is their great grief here not that themselves are hated and vilified but that their Lord Jesus is so little known and therefore so much despised in the world he is vail'd and hid from the world many Nations acknowledge him not at all and many of those that do in word confess yet in deed deny him that have a form of Godliness and do not onely want but mock and scoffe the power of it and to such Christ is not known his Excellencies are hid from their eyes now this glory of their Lord being tender to them that Love him they rejoyce much in the consideration of this that there is a day at hand wherein he shall appear in his bright and full glory to all nations and all shall be forc'd to acknowledge him it shall be with out doubt and unquestion'd to all that here is the Messiah the Redeemer the Judge of the world And as it is his day of Revelation ' it s also the Revelation of all the adopted sons of God in him Rom. 8.9 they are now accounted the refuse of the world exposed to all kind of comtempts but then the beams of Christ's glory shall beautifie them and they shall be known for his 1 Ioh. 3â— 2. Col. 3 4. Next there is The Exhortation Hope to the end The difference of these two graces faith and hope is so small that the one is often taken for the other in Scripture 't is but a divers aspect of the same confidence faith apprehending the infallible truth of those divine Promises of which Hope doth assuredly expect the accomplishment and that is their truth so that this immediately results from the other· This is the Anchor pitch'd within the vail that keeps the soul firm against all the tossings on these swelling Seas and the winds and tempests that arise upon them The firmest thing in this Inferiour world is a believing soul. Faith establishes the heart on Jesus Christ and Hopelifts it up being on that Rock over the head of all intervenient Dangers Crosses and Tentations and sees the glory and happiness that followes after them To the end Or perfectly and therefore the Christian seeks most earnestly and yet waits most patiently Psal. 130.6 Indeed this hope is perfect in continuance 't is a hope unto the end because 't is perfect in its nature although imperfect in degree sometimes doubtings intermixed with it in the Christian soul yet this is their infirmity as the Psalmist speaks not the infirmity and insufficiency of the object of their hope Worldly hopes are in their own nature imperfect they do imply in their very being doubtfulness and wavering because the things whereon they are built are inconstant and uncertain and full of deceit and disappointments how can that Hope be immoveable that is built upon moving sands or quagmire 'T is that which is it self unfixed cannot give stability to any other thing resting on it but because the truth and goodness of the immutable God is the foundation of spiritual hope therefore it is assur'd and like Mount Sion that cannot be removed and this is its perfection Now the Apostle exhorts his Brethren to endeavour to have their hearts possess'd with as high a measure and degree of
lodging it in our hearts and from thence diffusing it into all our actions A child is then truly like his father when not only his visage resembles him but more his mind and inward disposition Thus are the true children of God like their heavenly father in their words and in their actions but most of all in heart 'T is no matter though the profane world that so hate God that it cannot indure his Image do mock and revile 't is thy honour as David said to be thus more vile in growing still more like unto him in holiness and though the civil Man count thy fashion a little odd and too precise 't is because he knows nothing above that model of goodness he hath set himself and therefore approves of nothing beyond it he knowes not God and therefore doth not discern and esteem what is likest him When Courtiers come down into the Country the common homebred People possibly think their habit strange but they care not for that 't is the fashion at Court What need then the Godly be so tender foreheaded as to be out of countenance because the world lookes on holiness as a singularity 't is the only fashion in the highest Court yea of the King of Kings himself For I am holy As it will raise our endeavour high to look on the highest pattern so it will lay our thoughts low concerning our selves Men compare themselves with Men and readily with the worst and flatter themselves with that comparative betterness this is not the way to see our spots to look into the muddy streams of profane Mens lives but look into the clear fountain of the Word and there we may both discern and wash them and consider the infinite holiness of God and this will humble us to the dust when Isaiah saw the glory of the Lord and heard the Seraphims cry holy holy holy he cried out of his own and the Peoples unholiness Woe is me for I am undone for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a People of unclean lips for mine eyes have seen the King the Lord of Hosts Verse 17. And if ye call on the Father who without respect of persons judgeth according to every mans work pass the time of your sojurning here in Fear THe tentations that meet a Christian in the world to turn him aside from the straight way of obedience and holiness are either such as present the hope of some apparent good to draw him from that way or the fear of some evil to drive and affright him from it And therefore the word of God is much in strengthning the Christian mind against these two and it doth it mainly by possessing it both with hopes and fears of a higher nature that do by far weigh down the other The frequentest assaults of tentation are upon these two passions of the mind therefore they are mainly to be fortified and defended by a hope and fear opposit to those that do assault us and sufficiently strong to resist and repel them These two therefore our Apostle here exhorts 1. The hope of that glory that the Gospel propounds and so outbids all the proffers of the World both in the greatness and the certainty of its promises 2. The fear of God the greatest and justest judge only worthy to be fear'd and reverenc'd the highest anger and enmity of all the world being less then nothing in comparison of his smallest displeasure There is here 1. This fear 2. The reason enforcing it 3. The The term or continuance of it In fear But how suites this with the high discourse that went before of perfect assured hope of faith and Love and Joy yea Joy unspeakable and glorious arising out of these How are all those excellencies fallen as it were into a dungeon when fear is mention'd after them doth not the Apostle St. Iohn say that true love casteth out fear and is it not more clearly opposiâ—e to perfect or assured hope and to faith and joy If ye understand it aright this is such a fear as doth not prejudge but preserve those other graces and the comfort and joy that arises from them And they all agree so well with it that they are naturally helps each to other It were superfluous to insist on the defining this passion of fear and the manifold distinctions of it either with Philosophers or Divines The fear here recommended is out of question a holy self suspicion and fear of offending God which may not only consist with assured hope of salvation and with faith and love and spiritual joy but is their inseparable companion as all Divine Graces are linkt together as they said of their three graces and as they dwell together they grow or decrease together The more a Christian believes and loves and rejoyces in the love of God the more unwilling sure to displease him and if in danger the more afraid of it and on the other side this fear being the true principle of a wary and holy Conversation flying sin and the occasions and tentations of sin and resisting them when they set on is as a watch or guard that keeps out the Enemies and disturbers of the soul and so preserves its inward peace keeps the assurance of faith and hope unmolested and that joy which they cause and the intercourse and societies of love betwixt the soul and her beloved uninterrupted all which are then most in danger when this fear abates and falls to slumbring for then readily some notable sin or other breaks in puts all into disorder and for a time makes those graces and the comfort of them to present feeling as much to seek as if they were not there at all No wonder then if the Apostle having stirr'd up his Christian Brethren whatsoever be their estate in the World to seek to be rich in those Jewels of faith and hope and love and spiritual joy and then considering that they travel amongst a world of Thieves and Robbers no wonder I say that he addes this advises them to give those their jewels in custody under God to this trusty and watchful grace of godly fear and having earnestly exhorted them to holiness he is very fitly particular in this fear which makes up so great a part of that holiness that it s often in Scripture nam'd for it all Solomon calls it the beginning or the top of wisdom the word signifies both and it is both The beginning of it is the beginning of wisdom and the progress and increase of it is the increase of wisdom That hardy rashness that many account valour is the companion of ignorance and of all rashness boldness to sin is the most witless and foolish There is in 〈◊〉 as in all fear an apprehension of an evil whereof we are in danger The evil is sin and the displeasure of God and punishing following upon sin The Godly Man judgeth wisely as the truth is that sin is the greatest of
this Fear is twofold 1. Their Relation to God 2. Their Relation to the world First To God as their Father as their Judge because you do call him father and profess your selves his Children begotten again by him for this looks back to that it becomes you as obedient Children to stand in awe and fear to offend him your father and a father so full of Goodness and tender love but as he is the best father so consider that he is withall the greatest and justest judge Iudges according to every mans work God allwayes sees and discerns Men and all their work and judgeth that is accounteth of them as they are and sometimes in this life declares this his judgement of them to their own Consciences and in some to the view of others in visible punshments and rewards but the most solemn judgement of all is reserv'd to that Great day which he hath appointed Wherein he will judge the world in righteousness by his son Iesus Act. 17 32. There is here The Soveraignty of this judge the universality of his Judgement and the Equity of it all must answer at his great Court he is supreme Judge of the world he made it and hath therefore unquestionable right to Judge it he judgeth everyman and 't is a most righteous Judgement which hath these two in it First an exact and perfect knowledge of all Mens works 2. impartiall judgement of them so known This Second is express'd negatively by removing the crooked Rule which mans judgement often follows ' its without Consideration of those personall differences that men eye so much And the first is according to the work it self Iob. 34.19 He accepteh not the person of princes nor regardeth the rich more than the poor and the reason is added therefore they are all the work of his hands He made all the persons and he makes all those differences himself as it pleaseth him therefore he doth not admire them as we do no nor at all regard them we find very great odds betwixt stately palaces and poor Cottages betwixt a Princes Robes and a Beggars Cloak but to God they are all one all these petty differences vanish in Comparison of his own greatness Men are great and small compar'd one with another but they all together amount to just nothing in respect of him We find high mountains and low valleys on this Earth but compar'd with the vast compass of the heavens 't is all but as a point and hath no sensible greatness at all Nor regards he any other differences to byasse his Judgement from the works of men to their persons You profess the true Religion and call him Father but if you live devoid of his fear and be disobedient Children he will not spare you because of that Relation but rather punish you the more severely because you pretended to be his Children and yet obeyed him not therefore you shall find him your Judge and an impartiall Judge of your works Remember therefore that your father is this Judge and fear to offend him But then indeed a Believer may look back to the other for comfort that abuses it not to a sinfull security He resolves thus willingly I will not sin because my father is this just Judge but for my frailties I will hope for mercy because the Judge is my father Their works comprehends all actions and words yea thoughts and each work intirely taken outside and inside together for he sees all alike and judgeth according to all together he looks on the wheels and paces within as well as on the handle without and therefore ought we to fear the least crookedness of our intentions in the best works for if we entertain any such and study not singleness of heart this will cast all though we pray and hear the word and preach it and live outwardly unblameably And in that great Judgement all secret things shall be manifest as they are alwayes open to the eye of this Judge so he shall then open them before Men and Angels therefore let the Remembrance and frequent Consideration of this all-seeing Judge and of that great Judgement wean our hearts and beget in us this fear 2 Cor. 5.10.11 If you would have confidence in that day and not fear it when it comes fear it now so as to avoid sin for they that now tremble at it shall then when it comes lift up their faces with joy and they that will not fear it now shall then be overwhelm'd with fears and terrour they shall have such a burden of fear then as that they shall account the hills and mountains lighter than it Pass the time of your Sojourning here in Fear In this I conceive is Implied another persuasive of this fear You are Sojurners and Strangers as here the word signifies and a warry circumspect carriage becomes strangers because they are most expos'd to wrongs and hard accidents You are encompassed with enemies and snares how can you be secure in the midst of them this is not your rest watchfull fear becomes this your sojurning Perfect peace and security is reserved for you at home and that 's the last term of this fear it continues all the time of this sojurning life dyes not before us we and it shall expire together Blessed is he that feareth alwayes says Salomon in secret and in society in his own house and in Gods we must hear the word with fear and preach it with fear affraid to miscarry in our Intentions and Manners Serve the Lord with fear yea in times of inward comfort and joy yet rejoyce with trembling Psa. 2.11 Not onely when he feels most his own weakness but when he finds himself strongest None so high advanc'd in Grace here below as to be out of need of this Grace but when their sojourning shall be done and they are come home to their fathers house above then no more fearing No entry for dangers there and therefore no fear A holy Reverence of the Majesty of God they shall indeed have then most of all as the Angels still have because they shall see him most clearly and the more he is known the more Revernc'd but this Fear that relates to danger shall then vanish For there there is neither sin nor sorrow for sin nor tentation to sin no more Conflicts but after a full and finall victory an Eternall peace an Everlasting Triumph Not onely fear but faith and hope do imply some Imperfection not consistent with that blessed Estate and therefore all of them having obtained their End shall end Faith in sight and Hope in possession and fear in perfect safety and Everlasting Love and delight shall fill the whole soul in the vision of God Verse 18. For as much as ye know that ye were not Redeemed with corruptible things as Silver and Gold from your vain Conversation received by tradition from your fathers IT is Impossible for a Christian to give himself to conforme with the world's ungodliness unless first
know that this divine adoption is not a mere outward Relative Name as that of men The sonship of the Saints is here and often elsewhere in scripture express'd by new Generation and new birth They are begotten of God Io. 1.13 1. Io. 2.29 There is a new being a spirituall life communicated to them they have in them of their Fathers spirit and this is derived to them through Christ and therefore called his spirit Gal. 4.6 They are not onely accounted of the family of God by Adoption but by this new birth they are indeed his Children partakers of the divine nature as our Apostle expresseth it Now though it be easie to speak and hear the words of this Doctrine yet the truth it self that is in it is so high and mysterious that it is altogether impossible without a portion of this new nature to conceive of it Corrupt nature cannot understand it what wonder that there is nothing of it in the subtilest Schooles of Philosophers when a very doctor in Israel mistook it grossely Io. 3. It is indeed a great mystery and he that was the sublimest of all the Evangelist and therefore call'd the Divine the soaring Eagle as they compare him he is more abundant in this subject than the rest And the most profitable way of considering this Regeneration and Sonship is certainly to follow the light of those holy writings and not to jangle in disputes about the order and manner of it of which though somewhat may be profitably said and safely Namely so much as the scripture speaks yet much that is spoke of it and debated by many is but an useless expence of time and paines What those previous dispositions are and how far they go and where is the march or point of difference betwixt them and the infusion of spirituall life I conceive not so easily determinable If Naturalists and Physicians cannot agree upon the order of â—ormation of the body's parts in the womb how much less can we be peremptory in the other If there be so many wonders as indeed there be in the naturall structure and frame of Man how much richer in wonders must this divine and supernaturall Generation be see how David speaks of the former Psal. 14.15 Things spirituall being more refin'd than Materiall things their workmanship must be far more wonderfull and curious But then it must be with a spirituall eye There is an unspeakable lustre and beauty of the new Creature by the mixture of all divine Graces each setting off another as so many rich severall colours in embroidery but who can trace that invisible hand that works it so as to determine of the order and to say which was first which second and so on whether Faith or Repentance and all Graces c. This is certain that these and all graces doe inseparably make up the same work and are all in the new formation of every soul that is born again If the wayes of Gods universall providence be untraceable then most of all the workings of his Grace in a secret unperceivable way in this new birth He gives this spirituall being as the dew which is silently and insensibly formed and this Generation of the sons of God compar'd to it by the Psalmist they have this originall from heaven as the dew Io. 3.3 Except a man be born from above he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God And 't is the peculiar work of the spirit of God as he himself speaks of the dew to Iob. Iob. 38.28 hath the Rain a Father or who hath begotten the drops of the dew The sharpest witts are to seek in the knowledge and discovery of it as Iob speaketh of a way that no fowl knoweth and which the vultures eye hath not seen Iob. 28.7 To contest it much how in this Regeneration he works upon the will and renews it is to little purpose providing this be granted that it is in his power to Regenerate and Renew a Man at his pleasure And how is it possible not to grant this unless we will run into that Error to think that God hath made a Creature too hard for himself to Rule or hath willingly exempted it and shall the works of the Almighty and of all others especially this work wherein he glories most fail in his hand and remain Imperfect shall there be any abortive births whereof God is the father shall I bring to the birth sayes he and not cause to bring forth No no sinner so dead but there is vertue in his hand to revive out of the very stones Tho the most impenitent hearts are as stones within them yet he can make of them children to Abraham He can digg out the heart of stone and put a heart of flesh in its place otherwayes he would not have made such a promise Io. 1.13 Not of flesh nor of the will of Man but of God If his soveraigne will is not a sufficient principle of this Regeneration why then sayes the Apostle St. Iames Of his own will begat he us and he addes the subordinate Cause by the word of truth which is here called the Immortall seed of this new birth Therefore 't is that the Lord hath appointed the continuance of the Ministry of this word to the end that his Church may be still fruitfull bringing forth sons unto him That the Assemblies of his people may be like flocks of sheep coming up from the washing none harren amongst them Though the Ministers of this word by reason of their employment in dispensing it have by the Scriptures the Relation of Parents imparted to them which is an exceeding great dignity for them as they are called co-workers with God And the same Apostle that writes so calls the Galatians his little Children of whom he travell'd in birth again till Christ were formed in them and the Ministers of God have often very much pain in this travel yet the priviledge of the Father of spirits remains untouched which is effectually to beget again these same Spirits which he creates and to make that seed of the word fruitful that way where and when he will The Preacher of the Word be he never so powerful can cast this seed only into the Ear his hand reaches no further and the hearer by his attention may convey it into his head but 't is the Supream Father and Teacher above that carries it in to the heart the only soyl wherein it proves lively and fruitful One Man cannot reach the heart of another how should he then renew its fruitfulness If natural births hath been alwayes acknowledged to belong to Gods prerogative Psal. 127.3 Lo Children are an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward And so Iacob answered wisely to his Wife 's foolish passion am I in Gods stead how much more is this new birth wholly dependant on his hand But though this word cannot beget without him yet 't is by this Word that he begets and ordinarily not
without it 't is true that the substantial Eternal word is to us as we said the spring of this New birth and life the head from whom the spirits of this supernatural life flow but that by the Word here is meant the Gospel the Apostle puts ouâ— of doubt Verse last and this is the Word which by the Gospel is preached unto you Therefore it is indeed that this Word is thus the seed of this New birth because it contains and declares that other word the Son of God as our life The word is spoken in common and so is the same to all hearers but then all being naturally shut against it God doth by his own hand open some hearts to receive it and mixes it with faith and those it renews and restoreth in them the Image of God drawes the traits of it anew and makes them the Sons of God My Doctrine shall drop as the dew sayes Moses the word as a heavenly dew not falling beside but dropt in to the heart by the hand of Gods own spirit makes it all become spiriâ—ual and heavenly and turns it into one of those drops of dew that the Children of God are compared to Psal. 110. Thou hast the dew of thy youth The natural estate of the soul is darkness and the word as a divine light shining into it transforms the soul into its own nature that as the word is called Light so is the soul renew'd by it ye were darkness but now are ye not only enlightn'd but light in the Lord. All the evils of the natural mind are often compriz'd under the name of darkness and Errour and therefore the whole work of conversion likewise signified by light and truth he begat us by the word of truth So 2 Cor. 4 6. alluding to the first fiat Lux or Let there â—e Light in the Creation The word brought within the soul by the spirit lets it see its own necessity and Christs sufficiency convinceth it throughly and causeth it to cast over it self upon him for life and this is the very begetting of it again to Eternal life So that this Efficacy of the word to prove successful seed doth not hang upon the different abilities of Preachers their more or less Rhetorick or Learning 'T is true Eloquence hath a great advantage in civil and moral things to perswade and and to draw the hearers by the Ears almost which way it will but in this spiritual work to revive a soul to beget it anew the Influence of heaven is the main there is no way so common and plain being warranted by God in the delivery of saving truth but the spirit of God can revive the soul by it and all the skilful and most autoritative way yea being withal very spiritual yet may effect nothing because left alone to it self One word of holy Scripture or of truth conform to it may be the principle of Regeneration to him that hath heard multitudes of excellent Sermons and hath often read the whole Bible and still unchang'd if the spirit of God preach that one or any such word to the Soul God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever should believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life It will be cast down with the fear of perishing and driven out of it self by that and rais'd up and drawn to Jesus Christ by the hope of everlasting life it will believe on him that it may have life and be inflamed with the Love of God and give it self to him that so loved the World as to give his only begotten Son to purchase us that everlasting life Thus may that word prove this Immortal Seed which tho very often read and heard before was but a dead letter A drop of those liquors that are called Spirits operates more than large draughts of other waters one word spoke by the Lord to the heart is all Spirit and doth that which whole streams of Mans eloquence could never effect In hearing of the Word Men look usually too much upon Men and forget from what spring the Word hath its power they observe too narrowly the different hand of the Sowers and too little depend on his hand that is great Lord both of Seed-time and Harvest Be it sowen by a weak hand or a stronger the Immortal seed is still the same yea suppose the worst that it be a foul hand that sowes it that the Preacher himself be not so sanctified and of so edifying a life as you would wish yet the seed it self being good contracts no defilement and may be effectual to Regeneration in some and strengthening of others Although he that is not renew'd by it himself cannot have much hope of such success nor reap much comfort by it and usually doth not seek nor regard it much but all Instruments are alike in an Almighty hand Hence learn 1. That true conversion is not so slight a work as we commonly account it 'T is not an outward change of some bad customes which gains the name of a reform'd Man in the ordinary dialect 't is a New birth and Being and elsewhere called a new Creation though it be but a change in qualities as 't is such a one and the qualities so far distant that it bears the name of the most substantial productions from Children of disobedience and that which is link't with it heirs of wrath to be sons of God and heirs of glory They have a new spirit given a free princely noble spirit as the word is Psal. 51. and this spirit acts in their life and action 2. Consider this dignity and be kindled with the ambition of it how doth a Christian pity that poor vanity that men make so much noise about of of their kindred and extraction this is worth glorying in indeed to be of the highest blood royal and in the nearest Relation Sons of the King of Kings by this new birth and addes Matchless honour to that birth which is honourable But we all pretend to be of this number Would we not study to cozen our selves the discovery would not be so hard to know whither we are or not In many their false confidence is too evident No appearance of the spirit of God not a foot-step like his leading and that character Rom. 8.14 not a lineament of God's visage as their father if ye know that he is righteous sayes St. Iohn 2.29 ye know then that every one that doth righteousness is born of him And so on the contrary how contrary to the most holy God the lover and fountain of holiness are they that Swinishly love to wallow in the mire of unholiness Is Swearing and Cursing the accent of the Regenerate the Children of God No 't is the language of Hell Do children delight to indignifie and dishonour their Fathers Name No Earthly mindedness is a countersign Shall the King's Children they that were brought up in scarlet as Ieremy laments embrace the dunghil
affections may be drawn off from it to this spirituall life that is not subject unto death Verse 25. But the word of the Lord endureth for ever And this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you THE word of God is so like himself and carries so the Image and impression of his power and wisdom that where they are spoke of together it is sometimes doubtfull whether the words are to be referr'd to himself or to his word so Heb. 14.12 And so here But there is no hazard seeing there is truth in both and pertinency too for they that referr them to God affirm that they are intended for the extolling of his word being the subject in hand and that we may know it to be like him But I rather think here that these words are meant of the word it is called living as here Heb. 4. And abiding for ever is expressely repeated of it here in the Prophet's words And with respect to those Learned Men that apply them to God I remember not that this abiding for ever is us'd to express Gods Eternity in himself Howsoever this incorruptible seed is the living and everlasting word of the living and Everlasting God and is therefore such because he whose it is is such Now this is not to be taken in a abstract sense of the word onely in its own nature but as the principle of Regeneration the seed of this new life because the word is enlivening and living therefore they with whom it is effectuall and into whose hearts it is receiv'd are begotten again and made alive by it and because the word is incorruptible and endureth for ever therefore that Life begot by it is such too cannot perish nor be cut down as the naturall Life No this Spirituall Life of grace is the certain beginning of that eternall Life of glory and shall end in it and therefore hath no end As the word of God in it selfe cannot be abolish'd but surpasses the endurance of the Heaven and Earth as our Saviour teaches and all the attempts of men against the Divine truth of that word to undo it are as vain as if they should consult to pluck the Sun out of the Firmament so likewise in the heart of a Christian it is Immortall and incorruptible Where it is once received by faith it cannot be obliterated again all the powers of darkness cannot destroy it although they be never so diligent in their attempts that way and this is the comfort of the Saints that the life which God by his word hath breath'd into their Souls though it have many and strong enemies such as they themselves could never hold out against yet for his own glory and his promise sake he will maintain that life and bring it to its perfection God will perfect that which concerneth me saith the Psalmest 'T is grossely contrary to the truth of the Scriptures to imagine that they that are thus renewed can be unborn again This new birth is but once of one kind though they are subject to frailties and weaknesses here in this spirituall life yet not to death any more not to such way of finning as would extinguish this life This is that which the Apostle Iohn sayes he that is born of God sinneth not and the reason he addes is the same that is here given the permanence and incorrupâ—ibleness of this word the seed of God abideth in him This is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you 'T is not sufficient to have these thoughts of the word of God in a generall way and not to know what that word is but we must be perswaded that that word which is preached to us is this very word of so excellent vertue and of which these high things are spoken that it is incorruptible and abideth for ever and therefore surpasses all the world and all the excellencies and glory of it Although delivered by weak Men the Apostles and by far weaker than they in the constant ministry of it yet it loseth none of its own vertue for that depends upon the first owner and author of it the â—verliving God who by it begets his chosen unto life eternall This therefore is that which we should learn thus to hear and thus to receive and esteem and love this holy this living word to despise all the glistring vanities of this perishing life all outward pomp yea all inward worth all wisdom and naturall endowments of mind in comparison of the heavenly light of the Gospell preach'd unto us Rather to hazard all than lose that and banish all other things from that Place that is due to it to lodge it alone in our hearts as our onely treasure here and the certain pledge of that treasure of glory laid up for us in heaven To which blessed state God of his Infinit mercy bring us Amen Chap. Second 1 Pet. Chap. 2. Verse 1.2 Wherefore laying aside all Malice and all guile and Hypocrisies and Envies and all evil speakings Verse 2. As new born babes desire the sincere milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby THe same power and goodness of God that manifests it self in giving being to his creatures appears likewise in their sustaining and preservation to give being is the first and to support it is the continued effect of that power and goodness Thus it is both in the first Creation and in the second In the first the creatures to which he gave Life he provided with convenient nourishment to uphold that life Gen· 1. So here in the close of the former Chapter we find the Doctrine of the New birth and life of a Christian and in the beginning of this the proper food of that life and it is the same word by which we there find it to be begotten that is here the nourishment of it and therefore Christians are here exhorted by the Apostle so to esteem and so to use it and that is the main scope of the words Obs. in general The word the principle and the support of our spiritual being is both the incorruptible seed and the incorruptible food of that new life of grace which must therefore be an incorruptible life And this may convince us that the ordinary thoughts even of us that hear this word are far below the true excellency and worth of it the stream of custom and our profession brings us hither and we sitt out our hour under the sound of this Word but how few consider and prize it as the great Ordinance of God for the salvation of Souls The beginner and the sustainer of the Divine life of Grace within us and certainly untill we have these thoughts of it and seek to feel it thus our selves although we hear it most frequently and slip no occasion yea hear it with attention and some present delight yet still we misse the right use of it and turn it from its true end while we take it not as that ingrafted word
life is and wherein the nature of it consists we may easily know what is the growth of it when holiness increases the sanctifying graces of the Spirit grow stronger in the soul and consequently act more strongly in the life of a Christian then he growes Spiritually And as the word is the means of begetting this Spiritual life so likewise of its increase 1. If we consider the nature of the Word in general that it is Spiritual and Divine treats of the highest things and therefore hath in it a fitness to elevate Mens minds from the Earth being often conversant with it to assimilate them to it self as all kind of Doctrine readily doth to these that are much in it and apply their minds to study it Doubtless such kind of things as are frequent with Men have an influence into the disposition of their souls The Gospel is called Light and the Children of God are likewise called Light as being transform'd into its nature and thus they are still the more by more hearing of it and so they grow If we look more particularly unto the strain and tenour of the Word it is most fit for increasing the graces of the Spirit in a Christian for there be in it particular truths relative to them that are apt to excite them and set them on work and so to make them grow as all habits do by acting it doth as the Apostles word may be translated stir up the sparks and blow them into a greater flame makes them burn clearer and hotter That it doth both by particular Exhortation to the study and Exercise of those graces sometimes pressing one and sometimes another and by right representing to them their objects The Word feeds faith by setting before it the free grace of God his Rich Promises and his Power and truth to perform them all shews it the strength of the New Covenants not depending upon it but holding in Christ in whom all the Promises of God are Yea and Amen and drawing faith still to rest more intirely upon his Righteousness It feeds Repentance by making the vileness and deformity of sin daily more clear and visible still as more of the Word hath admission into the Soul the more it hates sin being the more discovered and the better known in its own native colour As the more light is in a House the more any thing in it that is uncleanly or deformed is seen and dislik'd Likewise it increaseth love to God by opening up still more and more of his infinite Excellency and lovelyness and as it borrowes the resemblance of the vilest things in nature to express the foulness and hatefulness of sin so all the beauties and dignities that are in all the creatures are call'd together in the Word to give us some small scantling of that uncreated beauty that alone deserves to be loved Thus might it be instanc'd in all other graces But above all other Considerations this is in the Word observable as the increaser of grace in that it holds forth Jesus Christ to our vieu to look upon not only as the perfect pattern but as the full fountain of all grace from whose fulness we all receive the contemplating of him as the perfect Image of God and then drawing from him as having in himself a treasure for us these give the soul more of that Image which is truly Spiritual growth This the Apostle expresseth excellently 2 Cor. 3. ult speaking of the Ministry of the Gospel revealing Christ that beholding in him as 't is Chap. 4. Vers. 6. In his face the glory of the Lord we are changed into the same image from glory to glory as by the spirit of the Lord. Not only that we may take the Copy of his Graces but have a share of them There be many things might be said of this spirituall growth but I will add only a few 1. In the judging of this growth some conluding too rigidly against themselves that they grow not by the word because it is not sensible to them as they desire But 1. this is known in all things that grow that 't is not discerned in motu sed in termino not in the growing but when they are grown 2. Besides other things are to be considered in this although other graces seem not to advance yet if thou growest more self-denying and humble in the sense of thy slowness all is not lost although the branches shut not up so fast as thou wishest yet if the root grow deeper and fasten more it s an usefull growth he that is still learning to be more in Jesus Christ and less in himself to have all his dependance and comfort in him is doubtless a growing believer On the other side a far greater number conclude wrong in their own favour imagining that they do grow if they gain in some of those things we mention'd above namely if more knowledge and more faculty of discoursing if they find often some present stirrings of joy or sorrow in hearing of the word if they reform their life grow more civil and blameless c. Yet all these and many such things may be in a naturall Man who notwithstanding grows not for that 's impossible he is not in that estate a subject capable of this growth for he is dead he hath none of this new life to which this growth relates Herod heard gladly and obey'd many things Consider then what true delight we might have in this You find a pleasure when you see your Children grow when they begin to stand and walk c. You love well to perceive your estate or your honour grow but the soul to be growing liker God and nearer heaven if we know it is a pleasure far beyond them all to find pride and Earthliness and vanity abating and faith and love and spirituall mindedness increasing especially if we think whither this growth be not as our naturall life that is often cutt off before it attain full age as we call it and if it attain that falls again to move downwards and decays as the Sun being at its Meridian begins to decline again But this life shall grow on-in whomsoever it is and come certainly to its fullness after which there is no more need of this word either for growth or nourishment no death no decay no old age but perpetuall youth and a perpetuall spring ver aeternum fulness of joy in the presence of God and everlasting pleasures at his right hand Verse 3. If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is Gracious OUR Naturall desire of food arises principally from its necessity for that end which nature seeks the growth or at least the nourishment of our bodies but besides there is a present sweetness and pleasingness in the use of it that serves to sharpen our desire and is plac'd in nature for that purpose thus the Children of God in their spiritual life are naturally carried to desire the means of their nourishment and of their growth
being alwayes here in a growing estate but withall there is a spiritual delight and sweetness in that word in that which it reveals concerning God and that addes to their desire stirres their appetite towards it the former is in the foregoing verse the latter in this Nature addresses the infant to the breast but when it hath once tasted of it that is a new superadded attractive and makes it desire after that the more earnestly So here The word is fully recommended to us by these two usefulness and pleasantness so like milk as 't is compar'd here which is a nourishing food and withall sweet and delightfull to the taste by it we grow and in it we taste the graciousness of God David in that Psalm that he dedicates wholly to this subject gives both these as the reason of his appetite his love to it he expresses patheticaly Psa. 119. Ver. 97. O how love I thy law and then he addes that by it he was made wiser than his enemies than his teachers And than the ancients taught to refraine from every evil way taught by the Author of that word the Lord himself thou hast taught me to grow wiser and wâ—â—ier and holier in thy wayes and then Ver. 103. He addes this other reason How sweet are thy words unto my taste yea sweeter than the hony and the hony Comb. We shall speak 1. Of the goodness or graciousness of the Lord. 2. Of this taste And 3. Of the Inference from both 1. Gracious Or of a bountifull kind disposition the word Psa. 34. Whence this is taken is Tob. And which signifieth good The Sept there render it by the word used here by our Apostle both the words signifie a benignity and kindness of nature it is one of loves attributes 1 Cor. 13. It is kind ever compassionate and as it can be helpfull in straits and distresses still ready to forget and pass by evil and to do good and in the largest most comprehensive sense must we take it here and yet still speak and think infinitely below what his goodness is He is naturally good yea goodness in his nature he is goodness and love it self he that loveth not knoweth not God for God is love 1 Io. 4.8 Primitively good all goodness is deriv'd from him and all that is in the Creature comes forth from no other but that Ocean and this graciousness is still larger then them all There is a common bounty of God wherein he doth good to all and so the whole earth is full of of his goodness But the goodness that the Gospel is full of the particular stream that runs in that channel is his peculiar graciousness and love to his own Children that by which they are first enliven'd and then refresh'd and sustain'd in their spiritual being This that is here spoken of gracious to them in freely forgiving their sins and giving no less than himself unto them frees them from all evils and fills them with all good Psa. 103.3.4.5 satisfies thy mouth and so it followes with good reason Ver. 8. that he is mercifull and gracious and his graciousness there further express'd in his gentleness and slowness to anger bearing with the frailties of his own and pitying them as a father pityeth his Children No friend so kind and friendly as this word signifies and none so powerfull a present help in trouble ready to be found whereas others may be far off he is alwayes at hand and his presence is alwayes comfortable They that know God still find him a real usefull good Some things and persons are usefull at one time and others at another but God at all times A well furnish'd table may please a Man while he hath health and appetite but offer it to him in the hight of a fever how unpleasant would it be then Though never so richly deck'd 't is not only then useless but hateful to him But the kindness and love of God is then as seasonable and refreshing to him as in health and possibly more he can find sweetness in that even on his sick bed The bitter Choler abounding in the mouth in a fever doth not disrelish his sweetness it transcends and goes above it Thus all Earthly enjoyments have but some time as meats when they are in season but the graciousness of God is always sweet the tast of that is never out of season See how old age spoyles the relish of outward delights in the example of Barzillai 2. Sam. 19.35 But it makes not this distastful therefore the Psalmist prayes that when other comforts forsake him and wear out ebb from him and leave him on the sand this may not That still he may feed on the goodness of God Psa. 71.9 Cast me not off in old age forsake me not when my strength faileth 'T is the continual influence of his graciousness makes them still grow like Cedars in Lebanon Psa. 92. To bring forth fruit in old age to be still fat and flourishing to shew that the Lord is upright as is there added that he is even as the word is still like himself and his goodness ever the same Full chests or large possessions may seem sweet to a Man till death present it self but then as the Prophet speaks of throwing away their idols of silver and gold to the Battes and Moles in the day of calamity then he is forc'd to throw all he possesses away with disdain of it and his former folly in doting on it then the kindness of friends and Wife and Children can do nothing but increase his grief and their own But then is the love of God the good indeed and abiding sweetness And it best relisheth when all other things are most unsavoury and uncomfortable God is gracious but ' its God in Christ otherwise we cannot find him so therefore here this is spoken particular of Jesus Christ as it appears by that which followeth through whom all the peculiar kindness and love of God is convey'd to the soul and can come no other way and the word here mention'd is the Gospel Chap. 1. Ver. ult whereof Christ is the subject Though God is Mercy and Goodness in himself yet we cannot find nor apprehend him so to us but only looking through that medium the Mediator That main point of the goodness of God in the Gospel that is so sweet to a humbled sinner the forgiveness of sins we know we cannot taste of but in Christ Ehp. 1.7 In whom we have Redemption And all the favour that shines on us all the grace we receive is of his fullness all our acceptance with God taking into grace and kindness again is in him Ver. 6. He made us accepted in the beloved His grace appears in both as t is there express'd but it is all in Christ. Let us therefore never leave him out in our desires of tasting the graciousness and love of God For otherwise we shall but dishonour him and disappoint our selves The free grace of
house of God with the voice of Ioy. This is that happy circle wherein the soul moves the more they love it the more they shall tast of this goodness and the more they taste the more they shall still love and desire it But observe if ye have tasted that the Lord is gratious then desire the milk of the Word This is the sweetness of the word that it hath in it the Lords graciousness gives us the knowledge of his love this they find in it that have Spiritual life and senses and those senses exercis'd to discern good and evil and this engages a Christian to further desire of the Word These are fantastical deluding tastes that draw Men from the writen Word and make them expect other Revelations This graciousness is first conveyed to us by the Word there we tast it and therefore there still we are to seek it to hang upon those breasts that cannot be drawn dry there the love of God in Christ streames forth in the several promises the heart that cleaves to the word of God and delights in it cannot but find in it daily new tastes of his goodness there it reads his love and by that stirs up his own to him and so growes loves every day more than the former and thus is tending from tastes to fulness 'T is but little we can receive some drops of joy that enter into us but there we shall enter into joy as vessels put into a Sea of happiness Verse 4 5. 4. To whom coming unto a living Stone disallowed indeed of men but chosen of God and pretious 5. Ye also as lively Stones are built up a Spitual House an holy Priesthood to offer up Spiritual Sacrifices acceptable to God by Iesus Christ. THe spring of all the dignities of a Christian and therefore the great motives of all his duties is his near relation to Jesus Christ. Thence it is that the Apostle makes that the great subject of his Doctrine both to represent to his distress'd Brethren their Dignity in that and to press by it the necessary duties he exhorts unto Having spoke of their Spiritual life and growth in him under the resemblance of natural life he prosecutes it here by another comparison very frequent in the Scriptures and therefore makes use in it of some passages of those Scriptures that were Prophetical of Christ and his Church Though there be here two different similitudes yet they have so near Relation one to another and meet so well in the same subject that he joynes them together and then illustrates them severaly in the following Verses a Temple and a Priesthood comparing the Saints to both The former in these words of this Verse We have in it 1. The nature of the building 2. The materials of it 3. The structure or way of building it 1. The nature is a spiritual building Time and place we know receiv'd their being from God and he was Eternaly before both therefore stiled by the Prophet the high and lofty one that inhabiteth Eternity but having made the World he fills it though not as contain'd in it and so the whole frame of it is his Palace or Temple but after a more special manner the higher and statelier part of it the highest Heaven Therefore call'd his holy place and the habitation of his holiness and glory and on earth the houses of his Publick Worship are called his houses especially the Jewish Temple in its time having in it such a relative typical holiness which others have not but besides all these and beyond them all in excellency he hath a house wherein he dwells more peculiarly than in any of the rest even more than in Heaven taken for the place only and that is this spiritual building And this is most suitable to the nature of God as our Saviour sayes of the necessary conformity of his Worship to himself God is a spirit and therefore will be worshipped in spirit and in truth So it holds of his house he must have a Spiritual one because he is a spirit So Gods Temple is his People And for this purpose chiefly did he make the world the heaven and the earth That in it he might raise this spiritual building for himself to dwell in for ever to have a number of his reasonable creatures to enjoy him and glorifie him in eternity and from eternity he knew what the demensions and frame and materials of it should be The continuance of this present world as now it is is but for the service of this work like the scaffolding about it and therefore when this Spiritual building shall be fully compleated all the present frame of things in the world and in the Church it self shall be taken away and appear no more This building is as the particular designing of its materials will teach us the whole invisible Church of God and each good man is a stone of this building but as the nature of it is spiritual it hath this priviledge as they speak of the soul that ' it s tota in toto tota in quâlibet parte as the whole Church is the spouse of Christ and each believing soul hath the same title and dignity to be called so thus each of these stones is called a whole Temple Temples of the holy Ghost though taking the temple or building in a compleater sense they are but each one a part or a stone of it as here it is express'd The whole excellency of this building is compris'd in this that 't is called spiritual differencing it from all other buildings and preserving it to them and because he speaks immediately after of a Priesthood and sacrifices it seems to be call'd a spiritual building particularly in opposition to that material Temple wherein the Iews gloried which was now Null in regard of its former use and was wholly after destroyed But when it stood and the legal use of it stood in fullest vigour yet in this still it was inferiour that it was not a spiritual house made up of living stones as this but of a like matter with other earthly buildings The spiritual house is the palace of the great King of his temple The Hebrew word for palace and temple is one Gods temple is a palace and therefore must be full of the richest beauty and magnificence But such as agrees with the nature of it a spiritual beauty In that Psalm that wishes so many prosperities one is that their daughters may be as corner stones polished after the similitude of a palace thus is the Church that is called the Kings daughter Psa. 45. but her comliness is invisible to the World She is all glorious within through sorrowes and Persecutions she may be smoaky and black to the World's eye as the tents of Kedar but in regard of Spiritual beauty she is comely as the Curtains of Salomon and in this the Jewes Temple resemble it right which had most of its riches and beauty in the inside Holiness
to receive that life from him Now these stones come unto their foundation which imports the moving of the soul to Christ being moved by his spirit and that the will acts and willingly for it cannot act otherwise But as being acted and drawn by the father Ioh. 6. No man can come to me Except the father draw him And the outward means of drawing is by the word 't is the sound of that harp that brings the stones of this spiritual building together and then being united to Christ they are built up That is as S. Paul expresses it Eph. 2.21 They grow up unto a holy temple in the Lord. In times of peace the Church may dilate more and build as it were into bredth But in trouble it arises more in hight is built upwards as in cities where men are straitned they build usually higher than in the country Notwithstanding of the Churches afflictions yet still the building is going forward 't is built as Daniel speaks of Ierusalem in troubleous times And 't is this which the Apostle intends as suiting with his forgoing Exhortation this may be read exhortatively too but taking it rather as asserting their condition 't is for this end that they may remember to be like it and grow up For this end he expresly calls them living stones an adjunct not usual for stones but here inseperable And therefore though the Apostle changes the similitude from Infants to stones yet he will not let go this quality of living as making chiefly for his purpose To teach us the necessity of growth in Believers they are therefore much compar'd to things that grow to Trees planted in fruitful growing places as by the River of waters to Cedars in Lebanon where they are tallest To the morning light to Infants on the brest and here where the word seems to refuse it to stones yet it must and well doth admit this unwonted Epithete they are called living and growing stones If then you would have the comfortable perswasion of that union with Christ see whether you find your souls establish'd upon Jesus Christ finding him as your strong foundation not resting on your selves nor on any other thing either within you or without you but supported by him alone drawing life from him by vertue of that union as from a living foundation so as to say with the Apostle I live by faith in the son of God who both loved me and given himself for me As these stones are built on Christ by faith so they are cemented one to another by love and therefore where that is not 't is but a delusion to think themselves parts of this building As it is knit to him 't is knit together in it self through him and if dead stones in a building support and strengthen mutually one another how much more ought living stones in an acttive lively way to do so the stones of this building keep their place the lower rise not up to be in the place of the higher as the Apostle speaks of the parts of the body so the stones of this building in humility and love keep their station and grow up in it edifying in love Eph. 4.16 The Apostle importing that the want of this much prejudges edification These stones because living therefore they grow in the life of grace and spiritualness being a Spirittual building so that if we find not this but our hearts are still carnal and glued to the earth minding earthly things wiser in those than in Spirituals this evidences strongly against us that we are not of this building How few of us have that spiritualness that becomes the Temples of the holy Ghost or the stones of it base lusts and those still lodging and ruling within us and so hearts as Cages of unclean Birds and filthy spirits Consider this as our happiness and the unsolidness of other comforts and priviledges if some have called those stones happy that were taken for the building of Temples or altars beyond those in common houses how true is it here happy indeed the stones that God chuses to be living stones in this Spiritual Temple though they be hammer'd and hewed to be polish'd for it by afflictions and the inward work of mortification and repentance 't is worth the enduring all to be fitted for this building happy they beyond all the rest of men though they be set in never so great honours as prime parts of politick buildings states and Kingdomes in the Courts of Kings yea or Kings themselves For all other buildings and all the parts of them shall be demolish'd and come to nothing from the foundation to the cope stone all your houses both cottages and palaces the elements shall melt away and the earth with all the works in it shall be consum'd as our Apostle hath it but this Spiritual building shall grow up to Heaven and being come to perfection shall abide for ever in perfection of beauty and glory in it shall be found no unclean thing nor unclean person But only they that are written in the Lambs book of Life An holy priesthood As the worship and Ceremonies of the Jewish Church were all shadowes of Jesus Christ and have their accomplishment in him not only after a singular manner in his owne Person but in a deriv'd way in his mystical body his Church The Priesthood of the Law represented him as the great high priest that offered up himself for our sins and that is altogether incommunicable neither is there any peculiar Office of Priesthood for offering Sacrifice in the Christian Church but his alone who is head of it but this Dignity that is here mention'd of a Spiritual Priesthood offering Spiritual Sacrifice is common to all those that are in Christ as they are living stones built on him into a Spiritual Temple so they are Priests of that same Temple made by him Reve. 1.6 As he was after a transcendent manner Temple and Priest and Sacrifice so in their kind are Christians all these three through him and by his Spirit that is in them their Offerings through him are made acceptable We have here 1. The Office 2. The service of that Office 3. The success of that Service The death of Jesus Christ as being every way powerful for reconcilement and union did not only break the partition wall of guiltiness that stood betwixt God and Man but the wall of ceremonies that stood betwixt the Jews and Gentiles made all that believe one with God and made of both one as the Apostle speaks united them one to another the way of salvation made known not to one Nation only but to all people that whereas the knowledge of God was confin'd to one little corner ' it s now diffus'd through the Nations and whereas the dignity of their Priesthood stayed in a few Persons all they that believe are now thus dignified to be Priests unto God the father and this was signified by the rending the vail of the Temple at his
took that bitter cup of the father's wrath and drunk it out that he might be free from it Think not that you believe if your hearts be not taken up with Christ if his love do not possesse your soul so that nothing is precious to you in respect of him if you cannot despise and trample upon all advantages that either you have or would have for Christ and count them with the great Apostle loss and dung in comparison of him And if you do esteem him labour for increase of Faith that you may esteem him more for as Faith growes so will he still be more precious to you And if you would have it grow turn that Spiritual Eye frequently to him that 's the proper object of it for even they that are Believers may possibly abate of their love and esteem of Christ by suffering Faith to ly dead within them and not using it in beholding and applying of Christ And the World or some particular vanities may insensibly creep in and get into the heart and cost them much paines ere they can be thrust out again but when they are daily reviewing those excellencies that are in Christ which first perswaded their hearts to love him and discovering still more and more of them his Love will certainly grow and will chase away those follies that the World dotes upon as unworthy to be taken notice of Verse 9. But ye are a chosen Generation a Royal Priesthood an holy Nation a peculiar People that ye should shew forth the Praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light IT is matter of very much both consolation and instruction to Christians to know their own Estate what they are as they are Christians This Epistle is much and often upon this point for both those ends both that the reflecting on their dignities in Christ may uphold them with comfort under suffering for him and may lead them in doing and walking as becomes such a condition Here it hath been represented to us by a building a Spiritual Temple and by a Priesthood conform to it The former is confirm'd and illustrated by testimonies of Scripture in the preceeding Verses In this the latter in these words tho 't is not expressly cited yet 't is clear that the Apostle here hath reference to Exod. 19.5 6. where this dignity of Priesthood together with the other titles here express'd is ascrib'd to all the chosen People of God 'T is there a promise made to the Nation of the Jewes but under the condition of obedience and therefore is most fitly here apply'd by the Apostle to the believing Jews to whom particularly he writes 'T is true that the external Priesthood of the Law is abolish'd by the coming of this great high Priest Jesus Christ being the body of all those shaddowes But this promis'd Dignity of Spiritual Priesthood is so far from being nulled by Christ that it is altogether dependant on him and therefore fails in those that reject Christ although they be of that Nation to which this Promise was made But it holds good in all of all Nations that believe and particularly sayes the Apostle 't is verified in you You that are believing Jewes by receiving Christ you receive withal this dignity As the Legal Priesthood was remov'd by Christs fulfilling all that it prefigur'd so he was rejected by them that were at his coming in possession of that Office as the standing of that their Priesthood was inconsistent with the revealing of Jesus Christ so they that were then in it being ungodly Men their carnal minds had a kind of antipathy against him though they pretended themselves builders of the Church and by their calling ought to have been so yet they threw away the foundation stone that God had chosen and design'd and in rejecting it manifest that they themselves are rejected of God but on the contrary You that have laid your soules on Christ by believing have this your chusing him as a certain evidence that God hath chosen you to be his peculiar People yea to be so dignified as to be a Kingly Priesthood through Christ. We have here 1. To Consider the estate of Christians in the words that here describe it 2. The opposition of it to the state of Unbelievers 3. The end of it A chosen Generation Psal. 24. The Psalmist there speaks first of Gods universal Soveraignty then of his peculiar choyce The earth is the Lords But there is a select company appointed for this holy Mountain describ'd and then clos'd thus This is the generation of them that seek him Thus Deut. 10.14 15. So Exod. 19.5 Whence this is taken for all the Earth is mine and that Nation which is a figure of the Elect of all Nations Gods peculiar beyond all others in the World As Men that have great variety of Possessions yet have usually their special delight in some one beyond all the rest and chuse to recide most in it and bestow most expence on it to make it pleasant Thus doth the Lord of the whole earth chuse out to himself from the rest of the World a number that are a chosen generation Chusing here is the work of effectual calling or severing of Believers from the rest for it signifies a difference in their present estate as the other words joyned with it But this election is altogether conform to that of Gods Eternal Decree and is no other but the execution or performance of it Gods framing of this his building just according to the Idea of it which was in his mind and purpose before all time The drawing forth and investing of such into this Christian this Kingly Priesthood whose names were expresly written up for it in the Book of life Generation This imports them to be of one race or stock as the Israelites who were by outward calling the chosen of God were all the seed of Abraham according to the flesh So they that believe in the Lord Jesus are Children of the Promise and all of them by their new birth one People or Generation they are of one Nation belonging to the same blessed Land of Promise all Citizens of the new Ierusalem yea all Children of the same family whereof Jesus Christ the root of Iesse is the stock who is the great King and the great high Priest and thus they are a Royal Priesthood there is no devolving of his Royalty or Priesthood on any other as it is in himself for his proper dignity is Supreme and incommunicable and there is no succession in his Order he lives for ever and is Priest for ever Psal. 110.4 and King for ever too Psal. 45.6 but they that are descended from him do derive from him by that new original this double dignity in that way that they are capable of it to be likewise Kings and Priests as he is both They are of the Seed-Royal and of the holy seed of the Priesthood in as much as they partake of a new
not but His call that shakes and removes the mountains doth in a way known to himself turn and wind the heart which way he pleaseth The voyce of the Lord is powerfull and full of Majesty Psa. 29. If he speak once to the heart it cannot chuse but follow Him and yet most willingly chuses that The workings of grace as oyl to which it is often compar'd do insensibly and silently penetrate and sink into the soul and dilate themselves through it that word of his own calling disentangles the heart from all its nets as it did the Disciples to follow Christ that call that brought St. Matthew presently from his receit of custom puts off the heart from all its customes and receits too makes it reject gains and pleasures and all that hinders it to go after Christ And it is a call that touches the Soul so as the touch of Elijah's Mantle that made Elisha follow him Go back said he for what have I done unto thee yet he had done so much as made him forsake all to go with him And this every Believer is most really to acknowledge that knows what the rebellion of his heart was and what his miserable love of darkness was that the gracious yet mighty call of God was that which drew him him out of it and therefore he willingly assents to that Which is the third thing that it becomes him to shew forth his praise who hath so mercifully and so powerfully called him from so miserable to so happy an estate For 1. This is Gods end in calling us to communicate his goodness to us that so the glory of it may return to himself The highest agent cannot work but for the highest end so that as the Apostle speaks when God would confirm his Covenant by an oath he sware by himself because he could swear by no greater so in all he must be the end of his own actions because there is no greater nor better end yea none by infinite odds so great or good particularly in the calling and exalting a number of lost Mankind to so great honour and happiness both in designing that great work and in performing it he aimes at the opening up and declaring of his rich grace for the glory of it As the Apostle S. Paul tells us once and again Eph. 1. 2. As this is Gods end it ought to be ours and therefore ours because it is His. And for this very purpose are we elsewhere and here put in mind of it that we may be true to his end and intend it with Him This is His purpose in calling us and therefore our great duty being so called to declare his praises All things and persons shall pay this tribute even they that are most unwilling But the happiness of His chosen is that they are active in it others passive only Whereas the rest have it wrested from them they do declare it cheerfully as the glorious Angels do As the Gospel brings them glad tydings of peace from God declares to them that love and mercy that is in Him they smother it not but answer it they declare it and set forth the glory of it with their utmost power and skill There be in this Two things 1. Not only to speak upon all occasions to the advantage of his grace but that the frame of their actions be such as doth tend to the exalting of God And 2. That in those actions they do intend this end set up this for their aim 1. Their words and actions being conform to their high and holy estate to which they are called do commend and praise their Lord that hath called them to it the vertues that are in them tell us of his vertues as Brooks lead us to their Springs When a Christian can quietly repose and trust on God in a matter of very great difficulty wherein there is no other thing to stay him but God alone this declares that there is strength enough in God that bears him up that there must be in Him that real abundance of goodness and truth that the word speaks of Him Abraham believed and gave glory to God this is that which a Believer can do to declare the truth of God he relies on it he that believes sets to his seal that God is true So also their holiness is for his praise Men hear that there is a God who is infinitely holy but they can neither see him nor his holiness but when they perceive some lineaments of it in the faces of His Children which are in no others this may convince them that its perfection which must be somewhere can be no where else but in their heavenly Father When these that are His peculiar plants bring forth the fruits of holiness which naturally they yielded not it testifies a supernatural work of his hand that planted them and the more they are fruitful the greater is his praise Herein sayes our Saviour is your heavenly Father glorified that ye bring forth much fruit Were it not the conscience of this duty to God and possibly the necessity of their station and calling it may well be some Christian had rather altogether look up and keep within any grace he hath than let it appear at all considering some hazards he and it runs in the discovery and it may be could take some pleasure in the worlds mistakes and disesteem of him But seeing both Piety and Charity requires the acting of graces in converse with Men That which Hypocrisie doth for it self a real Christian may and should do for God The other thing mention'd as making up this rule will give the difference that not only what we speak and do should be such as agrees with this end but that in so speaking and doing our eye be upon this end that all our Christian conversation be directly intended by us not to cry up our own vertues but to glorifie God and His vertues to declare his praises who hath called us Let your light sayes our Saviour shine and shine before Men too that 's not forbidden yea 't is commanded but 't is thus commanded Let your light so shine before Men that Men seeing your good works your selves as little as may be your works more than your selves as the Sun gives us its light and will scarce suffer us to look upon it self may glorifie whom You. No but your father which is in heaven Let your light shine 't is given for that purpose but let it shine alwayes to the glory of the Father of Lights Men that seek themselves may share in the same publick kind of actions with you but let your secret intention which God eyes most sever you This is the impress that a sincere humble Chiristian sets upon all his actions to the glory of God He useth all he hath especially all his graces to His praise that gives it and is sorry he hath no more for this use and is daily seeking after more not to bring more esteem to himself
reward of sin this I say is not incongruous with the estate of the Sons of God yea 't is their duty and their property even thus to fear 1. This is the very end for which God hath publish'd these intimations of his justice and hath threatned to punish Men if they transgress to the end they may fear and not transgress So that not to look upon them thus and to be affected with them answerably to their intendment were a very grievous sin a slight and disregard put upon the words of the great God 2. Of all others the Children of God have the rightest and clearest knowledge of God and the deepest belief of his word and therefore they cannot chuse but be affraid and more afraid then all others to fall under the stroak of his hand They know more of the greatness and truth and justice of God then others and therefore they fear when he threatens My flesh trembleth for fear of thee sayes David and I am affraid of thy judgements yea they tremble when they hear the Sentence against others or sees the execution on them it minds them when they see publick executions and knowing the terrour of the Lord we persuade Men sayes S. Paul they cry out with Moses Psa. 90. Who knowes the power of thine anger even according to thy fear so is thy wrath 'T is not an imagination nor invention that makes Men fear more then they need his wrath is as terrible as any that fears it most can apprehend and beyond So that this doth not only consist with the estate of the Saints but is their very character to tremble at the word of their Lord the rest neglect what he sayes till death and judgement sieze on them But the Godly know and believe that it is a fearfull thing to fall into the hands of the living God And though they have firme promises and a Kingdome that cannot be shaken yet they have still this grace by which they serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear even in this consideration that our God even he that is ours by peculiar covenant is a confirming fire Heb. 12.28 29. But indeed together with this yea more then with these they are perswaded to fear the Lord by the sense of his great love to them and the power of that love that works in them towards him and is wrought in them by his They shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter dayes Hos. 3.5 In those dayes his goodness shall manifest it self more then before the beams of his love shall break forth more abundantly in the dayes of the Gospel and shall bear more direct and hotter on the hearts of Men and then they shall fear him more because they shall love him more This fear agrees well both with faith and love yea they work it compare Psa. 31.23 with Psa. 34.9 and that same Psa. 34. Ver. 8. with 9. and Psa. 112. Ver. 1. with 7. The heart touch'd with the load-stone of divine love trembles still with this godly fear and yet looks fixedly by faith to that star of Iacob Jesus Christ who guids it to the Haven of happiness The looking upon God in the face of Jesus Christ takes off that terrour of his countenance that drives Men from him and in the smiles of his love that appear through Christ there is such a power as unites their hearts to him but unites them so as to fear his name as the Psalmist's prayer is He puts such a fear in their hearts as will not cause them depart from yea causes that they shall not depart from him And this is the purest and highest kind of godly fear that springs from love and though it excludes not the consideration of wrath as terrible in it self and some fear of it yet it may surmount it and doubtless where much of that love possesses the heart it will sometimes drown the other consideration that it shall scarcely be sensible at all and will constantly set it aside and persuade a Man purely for the goodness and loveliness of God to fear to offend him though there were no interest at all in it of a Man 's own personal misery or happiness But do we thus fear the Lord our God What mean then our oaths and excesses and uncleanness our covetousness and generally our unholy and unchristian conversation This fear would make Men tremble so as to shake them out of their profane customes and to shake their beloved sins out of their bosomes the knowledge of the holy one causes fear of him Prov. 9.18 But alas We know him not and therefore we fear him not knew we but a little of the great Majesty of God how holy he is and how powerful a punisher of unholiness we would not dare to provoke him thus he that can kill both body and soul and cast them into hell as our Saviour tells us and he will do so with both if we will not fear him because he can do so and 't is told us that we may fear and so not feel this heavy wrath A little lively spiritual knowledge would go far and work much that a great deal such as ours is doth not Some such word as that of Ioseph would do much being engraven on the heart shall I do this evil and sin against God it would make a man be at no more liberty to sin in secret then in publick no not to dispense with the sin of his thoughts more then of openest words or actions If some grave wiseman did see our secret behaviour and our thoughts would we not look more narrowly to them And not suffer such rovings and follies in our selves sure therefore we forget Gods eye which we could not if we thought right on 't but respect more then if all men did see within us Nor is this only the main point to be press'd upon the ungodly but the Children of God themselves have much need to be put in mind of it and to increase in it how often do they abuse the indulgence of so loving a father and have not their thoughts so constantly full of him are not in his fear as Solomon advises all the day long but many times slip out of his directing hand and wander from him and do not so deeply fear his displeasure and so watch over all their wayes as becomes them and keep close by him and wait on his voyce and obey it constantly and are not so humbled and afflicted in their repentings for sin as this fear requires but slight and superficial They offer much lip labour which is but dead service to the living God These are things My beloved that concernes us much and that we ought seriously to lay to heart for even they that are freed from condemnation yet if they will walk fearlesly and carelesly at any time he hath ways enough to make them smart for 't and if there were no more should it not wound them deeply to think
both it and your selves when you silence it in your Families Obs. 2. The Apostle having spoken of subjection to publick Authority addes this of subjection to private Domestick Authority 't is a thing much of concernment the right ordering of Families for all other Societies Civil and Religious are made up of these Villages and Cities and Churches and Commonwealths and Kingdomes are but a Collection of Families and therefore such as these are for the most part such must the whole Societies predominantly be one particular House is but a very small part of a Kingdom yet the wickedness and lewdness of that House be it but of the meanest in it of Servants one or more though it seem but a small thing yet goes in to make up that heap of sin that provokes the wrath of God and drawes on publick Calamity And this particularly when it declines into disorder proves a publick evil when Servants grow generally corrupt and disobedient and unfaithful though they be the lowest part yet the whole Body of a Commonwealth cannot but feel very much the evil of it as a Man does when his Legs and feet grow diseas'd and begin to fail him We have here 1. Their Duty 2. The due extent of it 3. The right Principle of it Be subject 1. Keep your Order and Station under your Masters and that with fear and inward reverence of mind and respect to them that is the very Life of all Obedience Then their Obedience hath in it diligent doing and patient suffering Both these are in that word be subject do faithfully to your utmost that which is concredited to you and obey all their just Commands for Action indeed goes no further but suffer patiently even their unjust Rigours and severities And this being the harder part of the two and yet a part that the Servants of those times bore many of them being more hardly and slavishly us'd than any with us especially those that were Christian Servants under unchristian Masters therefore the Apostle insists most on this and this is the extent of the Obedience here requir'd that it be to all kind of Masters not to the good only but the evil not only to obey but to suffer and suffer patiently and not only deserv'd but even wrongful and unjust punishment Now because this particular concerns Servants Let them reflect upon their own carriage and examine it by this Rule and truly the greatest part of them will be found very unconform to it being either closely fraudulent and deceitful or grosly stubborn and disobedient abusing the lenity and mildness of their Masters or murmuring at their just severity so far are they from the patient endurance of the least undue word of reproof much less of sharper punishment either truly or in their opinion undeserv'd And truly if any that profess Religion dispence themselves in this thy mistake the matter very much for it tyes them more whether Children or Servants to be most submissive and obedient even to the worst kind of Parents and Masters alwayes in the Lord not obeying any unjust Command though they may and ought to suffer patiently as it is here their unjust reproofes or punishments But on the other side this does not justify nor at all excuse the unmerciful Austerities and unbridled Passion of Masters 't is still a perversness and crookedness in them as the word is here and must have its own Name and shall have its proper reward from the Soveraign Master and Lord of all the World 2. There is here also the due extent of this Duty Namely to the Froward 'T is a more deformed thing to have a distorted crooked mind or a froward spirit than any crookedness of the Body How can he that hath Servants under him expect their Obedience when he cannot command his own Passion but is a slave to it And unless much Conscience of Duty possess Servants more than is readily to be found with them it cannot but work a Master into much disaffection and disesteem with them when he is of a turbulent Spirit a troubler of his own House embittering his affairs and Commands with rigidness and Passions and taking things readily by that side that may offend and trouble him thinking his Servant slights his call when he may as well think he heard him not and upon every light occasion real or imagin'd flying out into reproachful speeches or proud threats contrary to the Apostle St. Pauls rule which he sets over against the Duty of Servants Eph. 6. Forbearing threatning knowing that your Master also is in Heaven and that there is no respect of Persons with him think therefore when you shall appear before the Judgment Seat of God that your carriage shall be examin'd and judg'd as theirs and think that we regard those differences much of Masters and Servants but they are nothing with God they evanish Consider who made thee to differ might he not have made your Stations just contrary with a turn of his hand and made thee the Servant and thy Servant the Master But we willingly forget those things that should compose our minds to humility and meekness and blow them up with such fancies as please and feed our natural vanity and make us some body in our own account However that Christian Servant that falls into the hands of a froward Master will not be beaten out of his Station and Duty of Obedience by all the hard and wrongful usage he meets withal but will take that as an opportunity of exercising the more Obedience and Patience and will be the more cheerfully Patient because of his Innocency as the Apostle here exhorts Men do indeed look sometimes upon this as a just plea for impatience that they suffer unjustly which yet is very ill Logick for as he said would any Man that frets because he suffers unjusty wish to deserve it that he might be patient Now to hear them they seem to speak so when they exclaim that the thing which vexeth them most is that they have not deserv'd any such thing as is inflicted on them truly desert of punishment may make a Man more silent upon it but innocency right considered makes him more Patient guiltiness stops a Mans mouth indeed in suffering But sure it doth not quiet his mind on the contrary it is that which mainly disturbs and grieves him 't is the sting of suffering as sin is said to be of Death and therefore when that is not the pain of the sufferings cannot but be much abated by it Yea the Apostle here declares that to suffer undeservedly and withal patiently is glorious to a Man and acceptable to God It is commendable indeed to be truly patient even in deserved sufferings but the deserving them tarnishes the lustre of that Patience and makes it look more constrain'd-like which is the Apostles meaning preferring it much before spotless suffering and that is indeed the true glory of it that it pleaseth God so that it is render'd in
an unpleasant way indeed if you look no further but a Kingdom at the end of it and the Kingdom of God will transfuse pleasure into the painfullest step in it all so Psal. 34.19 It seems a sad condition that falls to the share of Godly men in the World to be eminent in sorrowes and troubles Many are the afflictions of the Righteous but that which followes weighs it abundantly down in consolation that the Lord himselfe is engaged in their afflictions both for their deliverance out of them in due time and in the mean time their support and preservation under them The Lord delivers them out of them all And till he does that he keepeth all their bones c. Which was literally verified in the Natural body of Christ as St. Iohn observes and holds Spiritually true in his mystical body The Lord supports the Spirits of Believers in their troubles with such solid consolations as are the Pillars and strength of their Souls as the bones are of their Body as the Hebrew word for them imports so he keepeth all his bones and the desperate condition of wicked men is oppos'd to illustrate this Verse 21. But evil shall slay the Wicked Thus Ioh. 16.33 In the closure they are forewarned what to expect at the Worlds hands as they were divers times before in that same Sermon but it is a sweet Testament take it alltogether Ye shall have tribulation in the World but Peace in me and seeing he hath joyntly bequeathed these two to his followers were it not great folly to cast such a bargain And to let go that Peace for fear of this trouble the trouble is but in the World but the Peace is in him who weighs down thousands of Worlds So then they do exceedingly mistake and misreckon themselves that would agree Christ and the World that would have the Church of Christ or at least themselves for their own shares enjoy both kinds of peace together would willingly have Peace in Christ but are very loath to part with the Worlds Peace they would be Christians but they are very ill satisfied when they hear of any other but ease and Prosperity in that estate and willingly forget the tenor of the Gospel in this and so when times of trouble and sufferings come their minds are as new and uncouth to it as if they had not been told on 't before hand They like better of St. Peters carnal advice to Christ to avoid suffering Mat. 16. than of of his Apostles Doctrine to Christians teaching them that as he suffered so they likewise are called to suffering Men readily think as he did there that Christ should favour himself more in his own body his Church than to expose it to so much suffering and most would be of Rome's mind in this at least in affection that the badge of the Church should be Pomp and Prosperity and not the Cross the true cross of Afflictions and sufferings is too heavy and painful But Gods thoughts are not ours those he calls to a Kingdome he calls to sufferings as the way to it He will have the heirs of Heaven know they are not at home on earth and that this is not their rest he will not have them with the abus'd World fancy a happiness here and seek life as St. Augustin sayes beatam vitam quaerere in regione mortis The reproaches and wrongs that encounter them shall elevate their minds often to that Land of Peace and rest where righteousness dwells The hard Task-masters shall make them weary of Egypt which otherwise possibly they would comply too well with and dispose them for deliverance and make it welcome which it may be they might but coldly desire if they were better us'd He knowes what he does that secretly serves his good ends of Mens evil and by the Plowers that make long furrowes on the back of his Church makes it a fruitful Field to himself Therefore 't is great folly and unadvisedness to take up prejudice against his way and think it might be better as we would model it and to complain of the order of things whereas we should complain of disordered minds but we had rather have all alter'd and chang'd for us the very course of Providence than seek the change of our own perverse hearts but the right temper of a Christian is to run alwayes cross to the corrupt stream of the World and humane iniquity and to be willingly carried along with the stream of divine Providence and not at all to stir a hand no nor a thought to row against that mighty current and not only is he carryed with it upon necessity because there is no steering against it but chearfully and voluntarily not because he must but because he would And this is the other thing to which they are joyntly called as to suffering so to calmness of mind and patience in suffering although their suffering be most unjust yea this is truly a part of that Duty they are called to to that integrity and innofensiveness of Life that may maâ—e their sufferings at Mens hands alwayes unjust to the entire Duty here is Innocency and Patience doing willingly no wrong and yet cheerfully suffering it done to them if either of the two be wanting their suffering doth not credit their Profession but dishonours it if they be patient under deserved suffering their guiltiness darkens their Patience and if their suffering be undeserv'd yea and the cause of them honourable yet impatience under them staines both their sufferings and their cause and seems in part to justify the very injustice that is us'd against them But where innocency and Patience meet together in suffering there sufferings are in their perfect lustre These are they that honour Religion and shame the enemies of it It was the concurrence of these two that was the very triumph of the Martyrs in times of Persecution that tormented their Tormentors and made them more then Conquerors even in sufferings Now that we are called both to suffering and to this manner of suffering the Apostle puts out of question by the Supream example of our Lord Jesus Christ for the Sum of our Calling is to follow him Now in both these in suffering and in suffering Innocently and Patiently the whole History of the Gospel testifies how compleat a Pattern he is And the Apostle gives us here a Summary yet a very clear account of it The Words have in them these two things 1. The perfection of this Example 2. Our obligation to follow it I. The example he sets off to the full 1. In regard of the greatness of his sufferings 2. Of his spotlesness and Patience in suffering The first we have in that word he suffered and after Verse 24. We have his crucifying and his stripes expresly specified Now this is reason enough and carries it beyond all other reason why Christians are call'd to a suffering Life seeing the Lord and Author of that Calling suffer'd himself so much The