infinite desire to a further and still further taste of his love and of a nearer communion with him And so whether we regard the nature of love which is never satisfied or whether wee consider Christs infinite riches manifest in his truth there must be an in satiable mind of desire in a Christian to bee further filled with and more fully assured of the love of Christ. Where grace is there is a further desire of growing in grace and it is an higher degree of love to desire an enjoying of the presence of Christ then to desire to enjoy heaven it selfe which cannot be yet Therefore here let us try our love by our labouring for that sight of Christ w ch we may have of him in this life below and here lot us desire often and much to see him in his ordinances where hee manifests himselfe in a speciall manner Therefore I say art thou sicke and in prison or so lame of thy limbes that thon canst not come to the assembly and is it therefore thy greatest trouble and the great greefe of thy soule that thou art thus shut out from the presence of Christ and the Angells in his ordinances and from the congregation of the Saints where he by familiar kisses useth to manifest his love to thee and to them and if so it is well But here I cannot but wonder how some persons dare to take upon them the name of Christianitie and yet thinke the men too holy and the course too strict that lookes that way Surely such want the true Character of a right Christian which is to have a further and further desire of the manifestation of Christs love Many of these neglect the ordinances of God or if they come where they may bee had never desire by them a further increase as it were the inward kisses of Christs mouth but content themselves with the outward even the barke of those ordinances When the Spirit should witnesse and seale up this love the love of Christ to their soules by an inward kisse they content themselves with the outward the bare hearing of the word But mark what I say where this further desire of familiaritie with Christ is not there is but a barren soile and soule of a Christian there is no true taste of Christs love for if there were there would be a further desire of growth in that affection There are some that make a faire profession like unto many that marry to cloake their adultery for so such professe Christ to cover their strong covetousnesse and other strong faults that they may have more libertie to commit sin But Christians truly religious must not content themselves with outwardnesse in these kisses but give as the outward man so the sacrifice of the inwaid the soule unto God Let those that finde after such tryall these desires springing up in them comfort themselves in this that they are Christs and that Christ will manifest his love more and more unto them For he hath promised to grant the desires of the righteous Hast thou then a longing desire to have a further taste of the love of Christ Vse the meanes conscionably and then be sure that Christ this Ioseph will open himselfe further and further unto thee and thy soule shall know it This for one use Another is for exhortation and spirituall direction as how wee shall come to a further assurance signe and fruit of this love of Christ. My beloved if we desire it wee must labour to have first chast judgements and secondly chast affections A chast judgement from errour heresie and schisme and affections chast from the world from pleasures and the like for Christ is wonderfull jealous both of our judgements and of our love Therefore Paul desires to present the Corinths a pure Virgin unto Christ. And further as we must affect goodnesse so wee must professe truth wee must have chast judgements as well as chast affections the Spouse of Christ as shee is pure in affections so shee is is pure in judgement shee heares his voyce and followes him Whatsoever comes not from the Word she receives not but rejects it And as her judgement is right set so her affections are pure and holy Now therefore labour for these that is for chast affections Christ will not have us to divide our affections some for him and some for the world or partly for pleasures and partly for him no hee will not have it so for a fire divided hath lesse heat Hee will have the whole heart and the whole of our affections or he will have neither heart nor affection If wee give our hearts to the world or to the pleasures of the world the love of which is enmity with God then have wee an adulterous heart which to doe is a double sinne as it is for a wife to commit whoredome for in her whoredome there is a breach of chastitie and breach of the marriage band And indeed to embrace the world after we are contracted unto Christ what is it lesse then whoredome and a breach of covenant in our spirituall contract with Christ therefore beware of worldly-mindednesse which as glew will tie all thy affections so fast to the earth that thou shalt not be able to lift any to Christ. Take heede of the pleasures of the world least they drowne thy soule in perdition and destruction as the Apostle saith 1 Tim. 6. 9. for many soules hath this Sea covered even of those that have professed with the best and have gone for good Christians But thirdly if wee will grow in the assurance of the love of Christ and have more familiar kisses of his mouth then labour we to get an humble heart by searching out our owne great unworthinesse in respect of what wee are or were by nature Indeed we may disparage our credits by abasing our selves in respect of men but never can wee be too much humbled to our Saviour in acknowledging our selves unworthy of all that wee have There is no danger in debasing our selves to our Saviour nay 't is for our greater honour with God for those that thus honour him hee will honour and grace with his blessings who giveth grace to the humble In such a Spirit he delights to dwell as a man at home Esay 66. 3. Let us with all humilitie then acknowledge all to bee from his free grace and with Iacob that we our selves are lesse then the least of his mercies Againe fourthly if wee will grow in the assurance of the love of Christ let us give Christ no peace nor take any nay of him till hee hath given us the sweet kisses of his love Many times he delayes the manifesting of his love but what though yet waite thou his pleasure he hath waited long upon thee We see Mary Magdalen what a doe shee made when shee could not finde Christ at last he manifested himselfe unto her and called her by her name demanding for
manifest himselfe more and more by his word by his graces and by his Spirit As therefore then the desire of the Church was for the comming of Christ so now that which Christians should desire and long after is not that Christ might come to them but that they might goe to him and that they might bee with him in glory They love his appearance but because this cannot be yet though the Church be still in expectation therefore he desireth to heare his words or that hee would kisse her with his mouth in his Word And yet that is not all neither but that shee might finde his Spirit now walking with her here and further that he would kisse her with his mouth by encreasing his good graces in her and by manifesting his love unto her this is the desire of her soule This is the whole suit of the Christian Church and of every Christian soule namely that Christ would thus kisse her and that he would reveale himselfe every day more and more unto her in his Word in his Sacraments by his Spirit and by increase of graces with a plentifull addition This I say is the desire of the Church and it is the desire also of every Christian faithfull soule even that Christ would thus breath upon her with the holy kisses of his lippes And now wee come to the ground of this desire taken from the excellency of the love of Christ which is here sayd by an experience of the whole of Christianitie and by the particular of every Christian soule to bee sweeter then wine From hence wee note two things First that every Christian soule and the Spouse in generall hath a sweete taste of the love of Christ even in this life 2. That after this contract and taste of this love shee hath ever springing up in her a further desire of the encrease and manifestation thereof For the first As after the contract there is a more and more evident manifestation of love then was before yet not so full as after the marriage so Christ though hee doe give his Spouse a taste of his love here and sends certaine love tokens unto her from heaven some graces whereby his love is made more manifest then before it was as Isaack sent to Rebecka some Iewels and Bracelets to manifest his love to her yet his love is not fully manifested in this life but is kept close untill the day of the great solemnitie But because Christ cannot delight in his Spouse unlesse she be decked with some of his graces here therefore here hee gives hee some hand sells of them which are not onely a taste of his favours but the fruite of his love The reasons are divers The first reason is because hee would minister to her some solace after the long time of her absence from him and that shee might not faint but having some sweet taste of his love here might stay her stomacke upon that somewhat in hand till the day wherein the Lord Christ will fully manifest his love unto her The Lord seeth that his children are apt to bee opprest with heavinesse here and therefore he gives them a taste as the earnest of the bargaine till the whole come that is somewhat to comfort them till that come that will wipe away all teares and shut out sorrow when there shall be no woe Secondly the Lord gives his children a sweet taste of his love here that by weaknesse and frailty they might not fall away and so lose their first love but if they should slip that then they might recover their first grounds and say with the Church wee will goe and returne to our first husband for it was better with us then then now Hos. 2. 7. so strong was that love and so sweet that wee had from him Thirdly and this is because the manifestation of this his love doth wonderfully strengthen a Christian causing him to goe lightly through the heaviest affliction for when Christ assures a Christian of his love then no affliction will seeme grievous but hee 'l through all hee 'l suffer whatsoever shall be fall him for Christs sake with joy Lastly Christ gives his Church and so every Christian a taste of his love in this life because he knowes we have many temptations in this world which are ready to steale away our affections and to rob God of his part in us as carnall pleasures riches honours and the like Now that these might not draw away our affections he gives us a taste of his love which is better then all these and all things else sweeter then the sweetest wine or best thing that can bee desired I say God gives us the first fruits of his love here and it is that our affections might be preserved chast to him and wee kept from wandering in the love of a stranger And so hee gives us a sweet taste of his love in this life that neither afflictions on our left hand might too much presse us downe or discomfort us nor the pleasures and delights of this life on our right steale us from God The use is to teach us to admire at the goodnesse of God in this that he is pleased so to provide for us that is so sufficiently as to keepe us from being too much overcome with heavinesse through the multitude of temptations and afflictions which in this life wee are subject unto and to expell the bitternesse there of with the sweetnesse of his love as with Sugar in the cup and all to have us fast unto himselfe and our affections proper unto him And so wee come to the second Doctrine which is this That the Church and so every Christian after this contract and first taste of Christs love and evermore springing up in him an insa tiable desire after a further taste and deeper pledge of that love The reasons why are two The first may bee taken from the nature of true love which is never satisfied And hence it is that though Christ give his Spouse a taste of his love in his word by sending his Embassadours his Ministers with his love-letters unto her in the Gospell giving her therein a large volume of his love as also in the seale of his Spirit and Sacramēnts those love-tokens and in many other worthy influences yet all this cannot satisfie her thirsty and more desiring soule but Christ having thus manifested his love unto her in the first fruits shee must have more of the same and still longs to have a further assurance The second reason may bee drawne from Christs infinite riches who therefore is so infinite in his gifts and glory in his power in his bountie in his pleasures joyes and the like that we know no end thereof He hath all things All power is given him in heaven and in earth every way infinite in himselfe and in his bounties infinitely magnificent and how then can the Spouse but have an
TWO SERMONS PREACHED By that Faithfull and Reverend Divine RICHARD SIBBES D. D. and sometimes Preacher to the Honorable Society of Grayes Inne And Master of Katherine Hall in CAMBRIDGE Printed at London by T. Cotes for Andr. Kembe are to be sold at his Shop at S. Margarets Hill in Southwarke 1639. Imprimatur Tho. Wykes Aprill 12. 1638. TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFVLL Sir John Howland Knight SIR THese two Sermons were brought unto me for the Sermons of that learned and religious Divine whose name they beare and so farre as I am able to judge the stile and spiritualtie of the matter argue no lesse Being earnestly requested to peruse them I thought fit to commend them to the world under your name because I know that you so well affected the Author Now my request unto you is that you would be pleased to accept the Dedication of them as a testimony of his sincere affection who labours and prayes for your good in the best things Your Worships to be commanded in all Christian service R. T. THE SPOVSE HER Earnest desire after Christ her Husband OR A Sermon preached on CANT 1. Vers. ◠By that Faithfull and Reverend Divine Richard Sibbes D. D. and sometimes Preacher to the Honorable Societie of Grayes-Inne And Master of Katherine Hall in Cambridge PSAL. 73. 25. Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee THE SPOVSE Her earnest desire after Christ. CANT 1. ◠Let him kisse mee with the kisses of his mouth for thy love is better then wine THE HOLY Ghost is pleased here to cōdescend to our infirmities and that wee might helpe our selves in our spirituall estate by our bodily hee speaketh here of heavenly things after an earthly manner and in a comfortable mystery As in other places the Holy Ghost sets out the joyes of Heaven by a sweet Ban quet so here hee sets out the union that wee have with Christ by the union of the Husband with the wife And that wee might the better understand what this union is hee condescends to our weake capacities that wee might see that in a glasse of resemblance which wee through our corruptions cannot discerne in the owne nature This booke therefore is nothing else but a shadowed demonstration and setting forth of the love of Christ to his Church and of the love of the Church to Christ under certaine earthly similitudes so familiarly and naturally that the Iewes tooke and doe take great scandall at it and therefore would not have any to reade it till they should come at least to the age of thirty yeares and this least they thereby should be tempted to wantonnesse and foule incontinency where in they should seeme wiser then God himselfe and teach the holy Ghost to speake But the Holy Ghost is pleased thus by corporall to set out spirituall things which are of a higher straine that by some deeper thoughts and more then a taste of the one they might bee made to transpose their affections which in your youthfull age are most strong from the heate of naturall love to a flame of spirituall desires and to the things of God All therefore who are spiritually minded for whom chiefly the Scriptures and this holy booke of Scripture were written must indeavour out of this shell to take out the sweete kernell of our blessed Communion with Christ howsoever others otherwise minded take offence hereat for here the union betweene Christ and his Spouse is so familiarly and to the life pensilled out by that union which is betweene the Husband and the Wife that though ungodly men may stumble here as at some stone of offence yet the godly may by a better hand receive instruction and much bettering from the same To come to the words themselves they are the words of the Spouse to Christ containing in them two particulars First an earnest desire in these words Let him kisse mee with the kisses of his mouth In which note 3. things further as First the person desiring the Church Secondly the person desired Christ. Thirdly the thing desired A familiar kisse of his mouth Secondly the ground of the desire fetelit from the excellency of the thing desired in these words For thy love is sweeter then wine From the whole in generall observe a spirituall contract betweene Christ and his Church There is a civill contract betweene man and wife answerable to w ch the spirituall betweene Christ and his Chuch holds fit resemblance 1. That this civill contract may hold both parties must consent So it is betweene Christ and his Spouse hee was so in love with mankind that he hath taken our nature upon him and this his incarnation is the ground of all this union of ours with him For first his incarnation is the cause or ground of our union with him in grace here and secondly our union in grace is the ground of our union with him in glory And now that we may be a Spouse to him he gives us his Spirit to testifie his love to us that we might give our consent in love to him againe and that wee might be made a fit Spouse for him 2. Likewise in marriage there is a communicating of all good things and so it is here Christ here in this spirituall contract gives himselfe and with himselfe all good things unto us The Spirit therefore is the Churches his happinesse the Churches his graces are the Churches his righteousnesse the Churches In a word all his priviledges and prerogatives are the Churches as saith the Apostle all things are Christs and Christ is yours and the reason is given for all are Christs and all that are Christs are yours by this spirituall symbolizing contract This excellency is spoken of by the Prophet Hosea where speaking of this spirituall contract betweene Christ and his Church he saith In that day when he shall marry her unto himselfe in faithfulnesse he will make a covenant for her with all creatures with the beasts of the field the foules of heaven and all that creepeth upon the earth so that upon this contract commeth in a traine of familiaritie or league of close union between the Church and all the creatures All that he hath done all that hee hath suffered by this contract is made ours and we have the benefit of all by being his members and of his body Object But what have wee to bestow upon him againe Sol. Nothing at all neither portion nor proportion neither beauty nor riches but a miserable and base condition that he took upon him For use This is a welspring of much comfort a ground of many duties For our comfort Christ condescended so farre unto us and into such a neare aquaintance tooke us as to make us his Spouse he who did so hath al things at his command and then what can wee want at the fountaine Wee can want no protection for that is the covering of this