those places to express their grief by So in the self-same place in Joshua they fell down to the ground upon their faces when they prayed And so did Jesus Christ himself as you may see Mat. 26.39 Not that this gesture was peculiar to this piece of service but it was taken from the civil usage of the Country because this was their way of shewing reverence to superiors as you may see Ruth 2.10 And therefore we do well and suitably to the directions and examples of the Scripture that we take up such gestures only in our prayers as are usual in our Country to express our sorrow and dejection or else our civil reverence and respect by Those reverend gestures which we use in prayer should be most observed in publike There may more liberty be taken in private and in secret then there may in publike and open prayer both in the use of outward gesture and in the forbearance of them Some gestures may be used in private prayer which would become us ill in publike in which we should not go remarkably beyond the rest of the Assembly for fear and danger of hypocrisie And gestures on the other side may be forborn in some case in private prayer which yet in publike ought not to be so For evermore in publike as far as it is possible our gesture must be such as may express some reverence and devotion that we may honour God before the People and that our outward posture may not carry in it an appearance of a sleight esteem of God and of his service whereas in private there is greater freedom because indeed there is no need of such Caution But thirdly this must be continually heeded both in publike and in private that the gestures which we use be such as that we do not hinder but rather further the spiritual service It were far better to abate of the reverence of our gesture then the affection of our heart It were far better for a man to stand in prayer then that by the disease and trouble of the other posture he should be distracted and consequently his devotion and his heart should fall That may be allowed the weak in this regard which would not be convenient in the strong The bodily exercise be it of what kind it will is but a means to the spiritual service The end is better then the means and must be more regarded then the means I must not use the means but for the end so far as they are serviceable to the end And much less must I use the means aganist the end We must be very wary that the outward gesture especially in publike prayer do not exceed the inward affection and that we make not shew of more without then there is indeed within for if we do there is hypochrisie Such duties are not done in truth when there is more in shew and in appearance then there is in substance If either of the two be lower then the other it were far better that the outward expression were lower then the inward affection then that the inward c. It were far better that the gesture came short of the heart then that the heart c. It is not good to compass God about with lies meer shews do never please in his service This for the gesture of your bodies when you pray A word or two for your direction touching the use or the omission of the voice in prayer c. And here the first thing that I offer is Those prayers that are publike whether in the family or the assembly wherein one is the mouth of many to the Lord must of necessity be vocall so was our Saviours in my text you see he prayed with his Apostles and Disciples and therefore did no only form a prayer in his heart but expressed it with his mouth he did not only think but speak that they might hear He lifted up his eyes to heaven and said The voice is not of absolute necessity in private prayer For however men who having bodies are endued with ears and senses know not our meaning otherwise then by our words yet God who is himself a spirit knows the meaning of our spirits Sighs may find audience and acceptance with him inward and mental supplications may be in some case more fit then vocal But yet if other circumstances will permit in which your Christian prudence must direct you use your voices We shall observe it to have been the usual practise of the Saints to speak in prayer yea in private prayer as our Saviour did Mark 10.39 God made the tongue aswel as other members of the body and therefore will be served with this as well as them And so the Prophet David praised God with the best member that he had which some expound to be his tongue And therewith bless we God saith the Apostle James 3.9 It is sometimes a quickning to the heart and stirreth up the dead affections to greater fervency and zeal which by continuing in a mental supplication would be apt to languish and decay It keepeth in the heart from wandring by binding it to give exact attendance on the tongue to furnish it with matter and expression whereas in mental prayer it is more apt to slide away and run a roving unobserved Howbeit here I shall not peremptorily prescribe in certain cases to omit the voice is more expedient and therefore I shall shut up all and leave it to your Christian prudence to direct you to pitch upon that way and method of presenting your requests to God which ye will find most to conduce to the affectionate spiritual and heavenly performance of the duty And thus of the transition to our Saviours supplication together with the manner of presenting it to God the Father both his gesture and expression Proceed we now to enter on the Prayer which he makes and here I shall take notice only of these two things the Object of it and the parts of it The Object of it or the Person whom he presents it to you see is God the Father or to come a little nearer God his Father so he stiles him in the entrance of his Prayer Father the hour is come c. and the same phrase he uses all along as you shall see if you survey it from the beginning of it to the end Indeed he gives him once the attribute of Holy and once the attribute of Righteous Father but this is still the appellation that he uses and from whence he never varies If he calls him any thing he calls him Father And in this notion he considers him while he is putting up his prayer to him and therefore this you see my brethren is the first word that he uses when he sets himself to pray Father the hour is come c. I make these addresses to thee as a Father I look upon thee as a Father still while I am pouring out my prayer to thee and therefore he reviews the
God saith he my heart is fixed I will sing and give praise Psal 57.7 There hath been much talk of late concerning fixing arms but surely this of fixing hearts is the most necessary business 4. That our hearts may be prepared they must be awakened they are naturally dead and dull and sleepy especially at sometimes by means of some corporal or spiritual distemper They cannot watch to prayer one hour and though the spirit is ready yet the flesh is weak And therefore we must quicken them and rouse them up from drowsiness before we set about the duty and while we are in the performance of it we must call upon our hearts as Deborah Judg. 5.12 Awake awake Deborah awake awake utter a song And as David on his Harp Awake Harp so we awake heart I my self will awake early Psal 108.2 You see in brief the Rule of Christ in reference to preparation Now let us see what he prescribes both for the matter the manner and the end of prayer As for the matter of your prayers you must search the promises You are to pray for nothing but only what you have a promise for not what you have a mind to but what you have a promise for It is the business and the work of prayer to put the promises of God in suit not our desires but his promises And therefore we must study promises if we would know how to make prayers or how to judge of prayers after we have made them If they agree not with the promises they are but rash and inconsiderate desires they are the sacrifice of fools as they are called Eccles 5.1 And God will never look after them nor shew respect to them as Elibu teaches us Job 35.13 Surely God will not hear vanity neither will the Almighty regard it As for the manner of our prayers the rule of Christ is very large here and so accordingly directions might be copious both how to form our supplications which we are about to tender and having tendred them how to resolve whether they have been according to the will of Christ or no. I shall but touch upon the principal 1. It is in the will of Christ that we pray without wrath for so is the express direction 1 Tim. 2.8 I will therefore that men may pray every-where lifting up pure hands without wrath We must not come to God with hearts distracted and disturbed with passion but with composed meek and quiet spirits It was the fault of James and John who when a certain Town of the Samaritans repelled Christ and refused to receive him would in a fit of rage and anger have prayed for fire to come down from heaven to consume them Luk. 9.54 And so when the malitious enemies of Christ have done his cause or people any great mischief it may be we are ready in a heat to call for vengeance out of heaven upon them But if we pray in such a manner we may look for such a censure as James and John had in the fore-alleadged Text Ye know not what spirit ye are of You think it may be you are zealous but you are very much mistaken you are cholerick and angry you do know not the temper and disposition of your spirits Brethren we must not go to prayer in a fit of anger and a pang of discontent as it seems Eliah did 1 King 14.4 It is enough Lord take away my life for I am not better then my Fathers And as it seems Job did Job 6.8 Oh that I might have my request and that God would grant me the thing that I long for Even that it would please God to destroy me that he would let loose his hand and cut me off And as it is extreamly probable that Moses did when he conceived his burthen was too heavy for him Numb 11.10 15. For it is said he was displeased and in that angry mood he said to God Wherefore hast thou afflicted me You see he calls the Lord to coram to see how he can answer his proceedings Wherefore c. I am not able to bear all this alone And if thou deal thus with me kill me I pray thee out of the way and do not let me see my wretchedness And thus it is apparent Jonah did who being crost in a punctilio in a point of honour out of a pettish childish humor will go die God must take away his life We must not come to God in such a temper to empty and disgorge our choler and to vent our passions to him No Tempus mansuetudinis est tempus orationis The time of meekness is the time of prayer 2. It is the will of Christ that we pray without doubtings and this is also added in the Text before alledged 1 Tim. 2.8 Pray lifting up pure hands without wrath or doubting He would have us come to God with confidence and strong assurance as it beseemeth those to do who are indeed in Covenant with him You know a houshold servant that is in Covenant with his Master cals confidently for his break-fast and his dinner and his Supper whereas a beggar or a stranger doth not so So he that is in Covenant with the Lord should come with boldness to the Throne of Grace relying formerly on the promises of God as David did I cryed and I hoped in thy Word Psal 119.147 Lord I want faith give it me I want patience let me have it I find my heart is out of order joynt it mend it unite it to thy self It is for those that are without and that are strangers to the Lord that live on nothing else but common providence to come doubtfully to God when their distresses force them to his presence But if those that are his friends and that are in Covenant with him come in such a posture to him he may justly say to such Why what 's the matter that you are so strange and that you are not bold with me as you have wont to be you shall fare neer a whit the better for coming to me after such a manner And verily my Brethren unless we draw nigh to God in faith well grounded on the promises we can have no hopes to speed in our petitions He that would ask any thing of God saith the Apostle James chap. 1.6 7 let him come in faith nothing doubting Otherwise let him not think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. 3. It is the will of Christ that we pray with much zeal that our Petitions be not formal cold and drowsie prayers but that there be some heat and fervour in them You know the prayers of Gods people are compared to Incense Psal 141.2 And Incense sends up no sweet savour till the fire come to it It is the fervent prayer only that is effectual with the Lord as the Apostle teaches us Jam. 5.16 The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much And hence saith David Hear me O Lord and why so I cry with my
whole heart Psal 119.145 so runs the promise of the Lord to his people Jer. 29.13 Ye shall seek and find me when ye search for me with your whole heart And thus you see in brief what Christ prescribeth for the manner of your prayers Now in the last place for the end of prayer that must be his glory we must aim at his ends and not our own If we seek any thing my Brethren meerly for our own ends to advance our own credits or our own profit we have no aim at all but self in our Petitions If we would have gifts and graces for no other ends but this that we may be applauded and observed if we would have wealth and riches in the world for no other end but this that we may strut and swagger and satisfie our own lusts and so accordingly we may conceive of other things we have cause enough to doubt that Jesus Christ will leave us in such suits as these are yea though we be his own people But if we would have nothing from the Father but in reference to Christ and to his glory if we would have grace and if we would have outward things that we may serve him the better that we may honour him the more we have good grounds to hope that Jesus Christ will second us in such requests as these are Now he will tell the Father There is such a suit of such a member such a Saint of mine I pray thee hearken to it and dispatch it out of hand for it concerneth me aswell as him Fain he would have more grace but I assure thee for I know his heart it is not to be proud or to be lifted up himself but to lift up me with it and to glorifie my name Poor soul he never thinks he gloryfieth me enough and therefore he would have more strength from thee to do it Thou seest how I am interessed in this suit of his and therefore I beseech thee do not put him off but answer him for my sake It is thy great design to glorifie me in the world and if thou wilt but give this Saint of mine more grace he will give me more glory Come let me set thy Treasure open and give him out a large share for I my self shall be a gainer by it And thus far I have shewed you how we may have Jesus Christ to be our Advocate in our Petitions We must walk by his Rule and pray according to his Will as I have laid it open to you both in relation to the Preparation and the Supplication both for the matter manner and the end If thus we do we may be confident of the good word of Christ for us But what if we fail in this I answer in a word and so an end If we fail in the matter of our prayer if that be not according to the will of Christ such a Petition and request as this we may resolve upon is laid by If we fail in the manner of our prayer either it is a total failing or a gradual failing If it be a total failing if we pray without faith without any faith at all without zeal and the like farewell to the success of such petitions If it be but a partial failing and that failing strived against and prayed against the case is very different By Evangelical allay we do what we desire to do in Gods gracious acceptation We pray in faith if we desire to pray in faith we pray with zeal if we desire to pray with zeal We pray according to the Will of Christ if we desire to pray according to the Will of Christ as to the manner of our prayers And if we pray according to his Will but in such a sense as this Christ intercedes and God hears Our Advocate strikes in with us and begs his Father to regard the matter and not the manner of our prayers He is an Intercessor for us to his Father in reference to both these both to the thing desired and the manner of desiring that he would give the one and that he would forgive the other And thus far of the first sort of directions how to judge whether in the Petitions that we make we walk by the Rule of Christ or no. Proceed we to the second sort how to determine whither we act by the Spirit of Christ or no. If in our prayers we act by Christs Spirit there are some measures and degrees of fervency and zeal in them The Holy Ghost is frequently compared to fire in Scripture He shall baptize you saith John the Baptist speaking of our Saviour with the Holy Ghost and with fire that is with the Holy Spirit which is not like water only but like fire too in those that are baptized with it so that where the Spirit is there is an holy heat in those that are partakers of it which shews it self in prayer as in other duties They are fervent in spirit serving the Lord. And though their heat may be allaid and cooled sometimes by outward means like water cast on this fire yet still there is an inward striving and disposition to be fervent The Holy Ghost within them is like fire to this incense I mean the incense of their prayers And though it may be smothered sometimes that it cannot flame or burn up either by afflictions or temptations or desertions yet it is never utterly extinguished in the Saints Although there be not flames perhaps yet there are coals continually on the Altars of their hearts which though they may be raked in the ashes now and then yet at some other times they burn amain Their hearts are hot within them and the fire kindles If we act by Christs Spirit our prayers are not purely natural but spiritual desires For you must know my Brethren that a man may pray yea he may think that he is much assisted by the Spirit in his prayers when all proceeds from his own Spirit and all his prayers may be nothing else but meerly natural desires As when a man perceives himself to be in great distress and sees no way or means to be delivered from it and is convinced and satisfied that God can save him notwithstanding this extremity of danger In such a case these suppositions being made he may enlarge himself to God in prayer and yet he may be stirred and quickned to it by nothing but his own Spirit which is naturally carryed to the use of any means which it conceives may be effectual to such an end as this is So that this man for all his earnestness may not act by Christs Spirit but his own as it is very manifest those wretches did who when they saw themselves invironed round about with dangers and thought that none but God could help them cryed vehemently to the Lord Exod. 14.10 and yet in the succeeding verse it appeareth what they were They shew themselves in their own colours But when a man is carryed high in prayer upon
such grounds and reasons as his spirit naturally is not likely to suggest because they do not any way concern him as a natural man as when upon the apprehension of some great dishonour that will come to God if such a thing should be denyed a man is much enlarged and quickned in his prayers yea when his prayers are against his natural desires when he is earnest with the Lord in secret to help him to pluck out a right eye or to cut off a right hand to mortifie and curse and kill those lusts and those corruptions which naturally are extreamly dear to him and that upon such grounds and motives wherein there is no self respect When he shall seriously and sincerely beg the Lord to give but a little wealth a little honour if he perceive that more will do him spiritual hurt that it will puff him up and make him proud as Agur did Give me not riches feed me with food convenient for me left I be full and deny thee and say Who is the Lord this man is like to act by Christs Spirit If we act by Christs Spirit in our prayers we strive most for spiritual things What do you think the Spirit of Christ will make us long more after earth and earthly things then Christ himself that it will make us more importunate for wealth then grace more earnest after temporal and worldly blessings then after those spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus as the Apostle calls them Ephes 1.3 Is it a likely thing my Brethren that the Spirit should make us struggle more for bodily and outward things then for those things that are more agreeable and suitable to it more near to its own nature I make no question David acted by the Spirit in that Petition and request of his Psal 4.6 There be many that will say Who will shew us any good you must conceive it any temporal or worldly good many that look after this But this is that which I desire saith he Lord lift upon me the light of thy countenance and when thou hast done this Thou hast put gladness in my heart much more then in the hearts of worldly men when their corn and wine increaseth If we act by Christs-Spirit we pray for temporal and worldly things in reference to spiritual ends They that have the Spirit of Christ and they that are devoid of it do both pray for earthly blessings For there are promises of these as well as of the other But now the difference lies in this both aim not at the same ends He that hath the Spirit of Christ desires these outwards blessings moderately with submission that he may serve God with them that he may promote his ends that he may be the abler instrument to help his Church to support his people to advance his glory to appear for his cause Even these desires of his are spiritual although not for the matter of them at least for the end of them But now my brethren on the other side he that hath not Christs spirit desires these outward blessings that he may consume them on his Lusts as the Apostle speaks Jam. 4.3 Ye ask and receive not because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your lusts That you may make provision for the flesh with it and that it may be oyle to nourish and to feed the sinfull flames that are within you And thus it is my brethren with a multitude of men they pray to God for some thing to bestow upon their sensual appetite to serve their carnal turns to satisfie their brutish and voluptuous pleasures and desires They would be in place and power that they may raise their names and families that they may swell and swagger over their inferiours that they may plague their enemies and pleasure those that are observant of them They would have wealth and riches in abundance that they may swimm in full delights and fare delitiously every day Agur measures the conveniency or inconveniency of his outward state as it would fit him more or less for Gods service Not poverty least I deny thee not riches left I forget thee But these men measure it by nothing but their sensual appetite and so their prayers serve their lusts and they would have God himself to serve them too if they could prevail with him And are such desires as these like to be raised by the spirit of Christ what will the spirit stir men up to pray for any thing to nourish and maintain the flesh the carnall part which is the spirits enemy The flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit lusteth against the flesh for those two are contrary one to another And will the spirit notwithstanding strive for that which shall uphold and feed those lusts against which the spirit lusteth Believe it brethren they that pray for any blessings to maintain their lusts with them their pride intemperance c. do not act by Christs spirit Object But you will ask me then How shall we know whether we pray for blessings to consume them on our Lusts how shall we discern that I shall give you some discoveries 1. If you will observe deal impartially and freely with your selves you shall know it by your thoughts The end is first in the intention and last in execution and therefore certainly the heart works much upon it Now my beloved consider what runneth often in your thoughts when you are sick and pray for health and continuance of your lives are your aimes as Davids were that you may praise and glorifie the Lord among the living Psal 6.5 as Hezekiahs were Loth he was to die poor man but wherefore was he so averse from death The grave cannot praise thee death cannot celebrate Isa 38.18 Or do you feed your minds with nothing but pre-apprehensions of the carnal pleasure and delight and satifaction you shall have when you recover So when you pray for outward things do you entertain your spirits with pleasing dreams of honour and ambition by this you may discover what your aims are 2. You shall discern it by the manner of your prayers whether you pray for blessings to consume them on your lusts or no. If so you will be absolute and peremptory in your prayers Carnal desires will make the spirit of a man impetuous and impatient of denial He that aims at satisfaction of his lusts will not be at Gods disposal there will be no sweet submission to the will of God No he must have this or that and he cannot bear a check as Rachel must have children or she dies when once the heart is set on any thing that serves to feed a sensual appetite whether it be the lust of the flesh or the lust of the eye it is violently bent and it must not be denyed 3. You shall discover it by the effect I mean the use of those external blessings which you pray for you pray for health you pray for riches
and the like and you receive them at the hands of God he gives you the desire of your hearts in these things Well now consider with your selves what use you put them to when you have gotten them and what bills you bring in What so much health and so much strength bestowed upon the prosecution of your worldly and ambitious projects and designs so much means and so much time upon riot and excess Item so much upon your pride and so much upon your lusts and so much upon the satisfaction of your malice and revenge so much upon Hawks and Hounds and Whores but nothing upon God his Cause or his poor distressed servants Are these the bills that you bring in to God and will you own them in the latter day Brethren by your layings out you may discover to what intent you have prayed for outward blessings whether to consume them on your Lusts or no And if that hath been your end the spirit hath not been your principle in these petitions If we act by Christs spirit we keep a constant course in prayer We do not pray by fits and starts as Job observeth of the Hyppocrite who hath not Christs spirit Job 27.10 Will he delight in the Almighty will be alwayes call on God No he will be on and off in this duty Our spirits are unconstant and unstable my beloved but Christs spirit is 〈◊〉 not so And hence it is that they that pray by their own spirits are so uncertain in the duty many times Sometimes their spirits stir them up to pray and sometimes they do not Though there be differences in this too for some mens spirits naturally are more ready and more fixed then others are And there may be other things as fear and strong conviction and the like that may hold some certain men almost to a continued practice of the outward duty yet it is very rare that he is constant who acts by his own spirit But now my brethren he that acts by Christs spirit is a steady man in prayer he can appeal to God as David doth Psal 40.9 I have not restrained my Lips Oh Lord thou knowest Christs spirit dwells in him he doth not sojourn in him for a time but he dwells in him as in his fixed and his setled habitation and he dwells in him as a spirit of supplication So the spirit of Christ is called Zech. 12.10 And hence it is that he is alwayes putting him upon the duty upon all occasions so that he is constant in it Christs spirit is at home still though ours be wandring many times even to the other end of all the earth And though Christs spirit seem to be given sometimes as a spirit of consolation yet then he will be present as a spirit of supplication He will set a Saint to prayer even when he seems most indisposed and averse he will not suffer him to lay it by and wholly to neglect the duty as is observable in David I said that I am cut off from before thine eyes saith he Psal 31.22 Nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my prayer Even then I prayed to thee when I was in that temper so in another place from the end of the earth will I cry unto thee even when my heart is overwhelmed Psal 61.2 And whence proceedeth this my brethren surely these prayers of all others flow from Christs spirit as the Apostle teacheth Rom. 8.20 The spirit helpeth our infirmities We know not what to pray for as we ought but then the spirit it self makes intercession for us with sighs and groans that cannot be exprest If we act by Christs spirit we come to God as to a Father we cry Abba Father to him as you have it Gal. 4.6 Because ye are Sons saith the Apostle God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts And what doth that spirit there you have it in the next verse crying Abba Father So that Christs spirit if he act in us makes us address our selves to God as to a Father And that my brethren carries two things in it This spirit makes us come to God with the expectations of Children and with the affections of Children 1. If Christs spirit act in us he makes us come to God in prayer with Child-like expectations Expecting from him all the mercy pitty and compassion which a Child can look for from his own Father He makes us to approach the throne of grace with great assurance of audience and acceptance and success there commonly he doth this 2. But yet I must confess An hypocrite may sometimes have these expectations and a child of God may want them The Jews had Child-like expectations Jer. 3.4 they cryed to God Thou art my Father and wilt not thou that art my Father pitty me and help me sure thou wilt and yet they had no Child-like affections no care at all to please God and therefore it is added in the next words that they said and did as evill as they could But now my brethren he that acts by Christs spirit as he hath Child-like expectations so he hath Child-like affections or if at any time he want his Child-like expectations yet still he hath his Child-like affections Though he be in such a case that he is verily perswaded for the present that God will neither own him nor regard him nor look upon him as a Son yet he loves God still He hath a Childs heart to God even when he thinks that God hath not a Fathers heart to him Though he seem to frown upon him and to hide his face and to turn away his prayers yet he hath dear affections to the Lord notwithstanding all this And this appears by the trouble he is in at God displeasure it grieves him so that he is sick of love as the poor Church was Cant. 2.5 when Christ withdrew himself a while this was her grief I sought him whom my soul loveth I will go into the City and seek him whom my soul loveth I said unto the watchmen Did ye see him whom my soul loveth And so when God withdraws himself from such a one as is endued with his spirit the very soul of such a person loves him still when he is very much afraid that he shall never find God more that God will never shew him favour more when he hath lost his Child-like expectations yet still he maintains his Child-like affections JOHN 17.24 That they also whom thou hast given me be with me c. AND thus far of the manner of our Saviours prayer Proceed we to the matter of it And here we have the persons that he prayes for those whom thou hast given me And then the thing that he desires in the behalf of those persons that they also may be with me where I am As for the persons whom our Saviour prayes for you see they are described here by the Fathers giving them to Jesus Christ Let them be what they will in all considerations and
the devil is in them He keeps the house as Christ speaks While the strong man keeps the house He keeps house in the hearts of wicked men the Devil himself is the house-keeper there there he dwells and there he works as the Apostle speaks Ephes 2.2 he worketh in them they are the Devils house the Devils shop they are the house where he dwells and the shop where he works I say while it is thus with other men while others have the Devil in them they have Jesus Christ in them The strong man is bound and dispossessed of his habitation The Prince of this world is cast out and Jesus Christ the King of glory is come in Ah my Beloved what a happiness is this I wish that I were able to express it to you to set it off as it deserves How would it ravish and transport you and make you to sit down in admiration at your blessedness in this world That you may guess a little at it review the things that have been hinted at before If Christ be in you faith is in you yea all saving grace is in you You are blessed with all spiritual blessings in that you have him in you You have a magazine a treasure of the graces of his holy Spirit So that you are inestimably rich and this riches is Christ in you as the Apostle speaks Col. 1.27 Not Christ without us but Christ within us by his graces is our riches If Christ be in you the Holy Ghost himself is in you as a Spirit of Illumination and a Spirit of Sanctification and as a Spirit of Consolation If you be ignorant you have one within you to enlighten you If you be impure if you have dregs of sin and of corruption in you you have one within you to sanctifie you if you be sad and comfortless you have one within you to comfort you the fountain and the spring of Consolation is within you so that he is at hand in all cases you need not faint or swound away while they fetch a cordial for you If Christ be in you God is in you your hearts are his Temples and the great God of heaven himself is the light and glory of them O blessed hearts that have God to dwell in them But more particulary yet 1. If Christ be in you you have most intimate and near acquaintance and Communion with him It is very much my brethren for Christ Jesus to be with you It was a pretious promise that he made to his Apostles Behold I am with you But for Christ Jesus to be in you is much more This importeth yet more close and sweet Communion Indeed the closest and the sweetest that can be You cannot choose but know him inwardly if he be in you 2. If Christ be in you you have free access to him you need not travail far to speak with Christ he is at hand continually for he is in you so that you may on all occasions make your addresses to him when you please If you have any supplication to present any complaint to make to him do but open your own hearts and you shall find Christ there 3. If you have Christ Jesus in you you are partakers of a confluence of all accommodations comforts satisfactions and delights that the poor heart can reasonably long for or look after For Jesus Christ hath all in him and brings all with him where he comes Indeed my Brethren he himself is all as the Apostle tells us Jesus Christ is all in all Col. 3.11 In all in whom he is my brethren he is all So that in having him we have all There is more in him alone to make us really and fully happy then in all the world without him 4. If Christ be in you as you are happy so you are secure there is no fear of falling from your happiness if you fall Jesus Christ falls with you for he is in you And this is that which makes our happiness in all respects accomplisht that as it is compleat and full so it is permanent and indeficient too The more excellent it is if it were not firm and stable the greater were the fear the greater were the misery of deprivation Fuisse faelicem to have been happy is the greatest unhappiness But this felicity my brethren is enduring In whomsoever Christ is he dwells there he doth not sojourn but he dwells there never to depart again The heart of such a man is his setled habitation of which he saith Here is my resting place here will I dwell for ever So that if Christ be in you you are safe for he will never leave you nor depart from you and then it is impossible that you should perish Ah my Beloved can a man be damned with Christ in him cast into hell with Christ in him separated from the Lord with Christ in him Christ willl not cannot leave him that is once in Christ so that if such a man should go to hell Christ must go to hell in him And now to shut up all since Christ is in you Let me give you this caution let him live quiet in your hearts do not molest him and disturb him there Do not make him vex and fret let it not be a pennance to him to continue in you Let him not suffer by your sins who suffer'd for them But labour every way to please him and to give him satisfaction and content that so the house which he hath chosen meerly for your sakes for he hath heaven to dwell in may not be dark and doleful but delightful to him And thus at length we have dispatched this heavenly Prayer of our Great High Priest and Intercessor Jesus Christ He was even ready to go forth to suffer when he made it Me thinks I hear him saying to his Apostles and Disciples The time is now at hand that I must leave you and be taken from the earth Come let us pray before we part and there withall he lifted up his eyes to heaven and poured out these holy breathings of his Spirit for himself and them Oh what a blessed frame of heart O what a choice and raised temper think you was he in at that time O what a Prayer must that be that was made by such a person in such a company on such an occasion Christ was in heaven in his thoughts and his affections when he uttered it and we have seemed sometimes to be in heaven too while we have handled it and heard it Well it hath been a sweet and precious subject as ever we have dealt upon I shall desire you to review it often and let not any choice impressions that have been made upon you by it out again Let them not be like lines drawn upon the sand no sooner formed but defaced like water spilt upon the ground that is not to be gathered up again Here you have seen the heart of Jesus Christ opened and his affections plentifully flowing out to his people Our prayers shew our hearts to Christ his prayer shews his heart to us Here you have seen how our dear Friend our Head our Husband loved us and had us in his mind and thoughts before he dyed Us I say who now believe as well as them that did believe in former times How earnest and importunate he is with God the Father that we may be one here and that we may be in one place hereafter O let us search into the heart of Jesus Christ laid open to us in this Abridgement of his Intercession for us that we may know it and the workings of it continually more and more until at length this precious Prayer come to have its full effect and we be taken up to be for ever with the Lord that where he is there may we be also Amen FINIS
AN EXPOSITION WITH NOTES Unfolded and Applyed On JOHN 17 th Delivered in Sermons Preached Weekly on the LORDS-DAY to the Congregation in TAVNTON MAGDALENE By GEORGE NEWTON Minister of the Gospel there LONDON Printed by R. W. for Edward Brewster and are to be sold at the Crane in Pauls-Church-yard 1660. To the Honorable Colonel JOHN GORGES Governour of the City of London-Derry and the Castle of Cullmore in IRELAND My duly honoured and dearly beloved Brother SIR NOW you have wrested the following Lectures out of my hands I do but fairly leave them there whence I cannot recover them So that this which I prefix is not so properly a Dedication as an Abdication I must confess I never knew you guilty of Extortion but in this Act. I loath their Cunning who by debasing and disabling secretly design to raise the price of their own labours And do it this way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Oratour speaks though somewhat in another case with much more Artifice then professed Hucksters do But verily these Sermons being preached by such an one as I do really account and know my self to be in my constant weekly course upon the Lords Day and indeed a great part of them twice a day when I had no Assistant with me having besides the Wednesdays Lecture on my weak shoulders and many other Ministerial Employments not without frequent Avocations and diversions which in so great a place are unavoidable will be adjudged by discerning men unfit to have appeared to the world in such a way as this is And herein I shall heartily agree with them Now seeing you alone are faulty here I Dedicate the Book and Blame to you And if the Sword of wounding tongues be bent at me as being troubled with the Epidemical distemper of the Times an itch of being seen in publick you ought in justice to step in between and say as Nisus in the Poet Virg. lib. 9. Aeneidâ—s Me me adsum qui feci in me convertite ferrum And I am confident you will be my Compurgatour in this that no Opinion of any thing in these poor labours worthy of the Press hath had any Influence on this Publication There is besides an apparent disadvantage which I am very sensible of Mr. Aâ—th Bâ—rges viz. That in this Tract I follow One of so great Accomplishments who being next the Light and of a far more perfect Stature then my self must needs cast back a shadow on me Unless I be so far behind him that his shadow will not reach me But if it do I shall as Ionah in another case rest very quietly in that shadow The Subject handled is a choice and precious One as any in the Book of God without Exception This Prayer being as it were a little piece that dropt off from the heart of Jesus Christ as once Eliahs Mantle from his body as he was taking leave of his Apostles and the World together When He was even going forth to suffer He Swan-like sung this dying Song and poured out this precious Prayer being about to pour forth his very blood and life with it And this he did not for his Apostles only then about him but for us also even for us who should in after-times believe through their words A man would think our blessed Saviour when He had such a Task to undergo and such a business to dispatch should have been wholly taken up with the preapprehension of his instant Death and Passion That this should have detained or diverted Him from other thoughts especially from taking care of such poor Worms as we are But that when he was drawing neer to such a Conflict with the Wrath of God and the Indignities and Wrongs of men He should have us in his heart That our dear Friend who loved us and gave Himself for us should think of us and pray for us and speak of us to God the Father with so high affection when his own Soul was heavy to the very Death Such a Prayer made by such a Mediatour at such a time as that was must needs be worthy of the choicest and exactest Observation of the Church in every Age to the end of the world Some Antiquaries tell us of the Diptyches Lindan Annot. in Liturg. S. Petri. pag. 39. much in use in the Primitive Church Which were two leaves or tables bound together on the one of which was a Commemoration of divers famous and renowned Worthies departed in the Faith of Christ and on the other a Commemoration of the like Personages yet alive Much Honoured Sir Joseph Vicecom Obfervat Ecclesiae Dae Missae Apparatu Tom. 4. lib. 7. cap. 17. I shall present you here with a new sort of Diptyches the Tables more exactly answering one another The one containing a Commemoration of a dying Christ and shewing how He pray'd on Earth In which you may also see what is contained in the other Table and how he prays for us in Heaven who ever liveth to make Intercession for us So that if you desire at any time to know how Christ persues the business and pleads the causes of his poor Church at the right hand of his Father you shall do well to have recourse to this Chapter which may be very fitly called a Counterpart of our Saviours Intercession And truly for my own part I must freely and ingenuously profess that I had never known so much of Christ and of his tender Care and Love of poor sinners had I not studyed these Emanations and Effluxes of his precious Soul had I not seen his Breast open in this Chapter and the Names of the twelve Tribes transcribed out of the Breast-plate of the Typical into the heart of the Typified High Priest Fox Act. Mon. ad Annum 1558. And as the Queen of England sometimes said That if they opened her when she was dead they should find Calais written on her heart So when I had the happiness to open Christ in this Prayer though with a most unskilful hand I found the Church engraven deeply on his Heart and saw such things as cannot be uttered The Lord give you and me to know more of that Love which passeth knowledge and to return more Love to Him who pray'd for us and dyed for us We may easily exceed in loving other things and persons We may love more then we are loved we may love more then we should love But here our hearts may take their full swing there is no fear of over-loving Jesus Christ For as Bernard sweetly speaks of our Love to God Bern. De diligendo Deo Modus Deum diligendi est sine modo diligere The same may I as truly say of our Love to Christ The measure of loving Christ is to love him out of measure So hath he loved us ☞ and so should we love him There are especially two great Boons which Jesus Christ begs of his Father for Believers in this
by seven Honourable Ladies and three Noble Gentlemen preserved to posterity by the renowned Iohn Boccacio the first refiner of the Italian prose A Pattern of patience in â—he example of holy Iob being a Paraphrase on the whole Book as an expedient to sweeten the miseries of these never enough to be lamented times The Abridgement of Christian Divinity By Wolleb Englished and enlarged by Alexander Ross The Vanity of the Creature By Edward Reinolds In small twelves A Call to the unconverted to turn and live and to accept of Mercy whilst mercy may be had as ever they will finde mercy in the day of their extremity from the living God By Rich. Baxter Saints solace The sum of all By Chibbal Helvius Colloquies The Protestants practice or the Compleat Christian being the true and perfect way to the Celestial Canaan necessary for the bringing up of Youth and establishing the Old Christians in the faith of the Gospel By a reverend Father of the Church of England A method and instruction for the Art of Divine Meditation together with instances of the several kinds of solemn meditation By Tho White The Church-sleeper awakened in two Sermons By Ios Eyres of Cork in Ireland There is now in the Press a Practical Treatise of Mr. Iohn Brinsly of Yarmouth Entituled The drinking of the Bitter Cup or the Hardest Lesson in Christs School learned and taught by himself viz. Passive Obedience wherein besides divers Doctrinal Truths of great Importance many practical truths are held forth for the Teaching of Christians how to submit to their heavenly Father in suffering his Will both in Life and Death patiently obediently and willingly in octavo AN EXPOSITION WITH NOTES Vnfolded and Applyed On IOHN 17. JOHN 17.1 These words spake Jesus c THE Words of such a friend who is likely to continue take not so deep impression as his who is dying or departing The last farewell of such a one as is dear in our affections is most observed and best remembred A secret winning and commanding power accompanies such parting passages and hence our Saviour Christ was frequent in them when he was ready to be offered up and to be finally withdrawn from his disciples They who left all for him must needs be very much dejected to be left by him And therefore he was wise and merciful to give them Comfort while he was among them and to dispatch them down a Comforter from heaven when he was departed from them Upon the first of these he spends no less then four chapters all tending to confirm and fortifie their hearts against the bitter trials and afflictions which they were to meet withall when he was gone And this he doth by speaking to them and by speaking for them Both wayes he seeks to strengthen them by speaking to them in a way of consolation by speaking for them in a way of supplication The first of these he ends with the foregoing chapter the latter he pursues in this which I intend with Gods assistance to go through withall as I shall have ability and opportunity And therefore in the entrance of this chapter it is said with reference to those which go before These words spake Jesus These words he spake to his disciples in a way of consolation And then immediately is added what he spake for his Disciples in a way of supplication These words spake Jesus and lifed up his eyes to heaven and said Father the hour is come c. So that this Chapter which I am to handle is the Lords prayer From the beginning of it to the end nothing but the Lords prayer Not the Lords prayer which he taught us but the Lords prayer which he made for us Not that which he propounded to us as our pattern but that which he presented for us as our priviledge Whether this were the very prayer which he uttered in the garden when he was in an Agony is much disputed Some think it was the very same for substance and that it is set down more largely here by John then by the rest of the Evangelists because none of them were present when Christ made that prayer but he took Peter James and John with him as you may see Mark 14.33 But this is but a meer fancy For in the first verse of the following chapter it is manifest that Christ went not to the garden till he had ended this prayer Iohn 18.1 When he had spoken these words that is the very prayer we are entering on He went forth with his Disciples over the brook Cedron where was a garden into which he entered Nor is it probable that our Evangelist if he had given us the sum of that prayer would wholly have omitted that which was the main petition in it and which is so exactly mentioned by all the rest of the Evangelists Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me Of which we have not the least hint in this Chapter Besides it is to be observed that our Saviour made that prayer in the garden lying prostrate upon the earth as you may see Mat. 26.39 He fell upon his face and prayed Whereas the prayer we are now about to handle was made with face and eyes erect and lifted up to Heaven These words spake Iesus and lift up his eyes to Heaven and said Father the hour is come c. So that this prayer of our Saviour was evidently and unquestionably made before his coming to the garden of Gethsemane just as he was about to go thither He had been swan-like singing out his dying song in the ears of his Disciples for the space of three Chapters and speaking many things to comfort them being at the point to leave them And having finisht what he had to say he shuts up all with this prayer These words spake Iesus and lifted up his eyes to Heaven and said which having ended immediately away he goes and is betrayed As you may see in the beginning of the following chapter You see then what a Subject we have now to handle A prayer and a prayer made by Christ the great High-priest the Advocate and Intercessor of his people and the last publike Solemn prayer that he made with his Apostles and Disciples just as he was about to suffer He took his last farewell of them in this prayer and therefore you must think it was a Spiritfull a zealous and a pithy one When he was going to be crucified he took his leave in a long oration to them which having done he prayed among them and so left them And truly such a prayer made by such a one as Jesus Christ at such a time and on such an occasion and among such a company must needs be heavenly and ravishing and therefore will deserve our best intention both in handling and in hearing Christ was in heaven in his thoughts and his affections when he made it These things spake Iesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said The Lord in
mercy grant that we may be in heaven while we hear it To make way to the handling of it I shall consider three things First the transition to it Then Secondly the gesture and the carriage of our Saviour in it Thirdly the substance and the matter of it First the transition to it from the former chapter These words spake Jesus these words expressed in the long discourse before Then Secondly the gesture and the carriage of our Saviour in it he lifted up his eyes to heaven while he made it Thirdly the substance and the matter of it and it is wholly for the Church either for himself the head of the Church in reference and with relation to the Church or for the members of the Church First for himself the head of the Church he desireth glorification Father glorifie thy Son in the first verse of the chapter and this in reference and with relation to the Church as is apparent at verse 24. That they may behold his glory Then Secondly for the members of the Church he desireth confirmation and that either for the Apostles and Disciples then about him the members of the present Church Or else for those who were after to be called by their preaching the members of the Church to come In the first place he prayes for the Apostles and Disciples then about him the members of the present Church who were already called and sanctified at the sixth and following verses whom God had given him out of the world I pray for them saith he I pray not for the world In the Second place he prayes for those who were after to be called by their preaching the members of the Church that was to come ver 20. and so on to the conclusion of the Chapter Neither pray I for these alone but for them also which shall believe in me through their word So that this prayer of our Saviour Christ you see is very full It is for himself the head of the Church And it is for the Church which is his body of which alone he is the Saviour and the Intercessor It is for the present Church it is for the Church to come It is for the Apostles and the Ministers the officers and teachers of the Church And it is for the ordinary members of the Church who believe through their words So that whoever appertaineth to the Church let him live in what time he will be he of what condition or estate he will he hath a share in this prayer We must begin with the transition to it These words spake Jesus These words what words the words in the three Chapters next before all tending to establish his Apostles and Disciples which the Evangelist relates exactly for the comfort and confirmation of the Church of Christ even to the worlds end and having done with the relation he shuts it up with this These word spake Jesus and so goes onward to his supplication The point apparently suggested to us here is this DOCTRINE The words that Jesus spake are very fit to be commended to the choicest observation of his Church and people And here they are so carefully and so exactly gathered up by the Evangelist and knit together in a chain every Link of which is precious And having laid them all together he writes this under them These words spake Jesus qâ—d Take heed that you observe and mark them well they are the words not of an ordinary man but of the blessed Son of God the great Prophet of the Church These words were breathed from the lips of Jesus Christ himself and therefore see that you take notice of them and value them accordingly These words spake Jesus indeed the summ and substance of the four Evangelists is but the history of Jesus Christ of his words and of his actions and therefore Luke reduceth all that he hath written in his Gospel to these two heads Acts 1.1 The former Treatise have I made O Theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and teach His treatise as you see consisted of these two things either that which Jesus did or else that which Jesus spake So that his sayings as you see are very memorable and remarkable being by special revelation and direction of the Spirit put in writing and so left upon record for the instruction and the consolation of his people to the worlds end You may observe what care is taken to gather up the words of Jesus as they dropt from him upon all occasions that none of them might perish and be lost by which it is apparent they were things of worth and use and fit to be preserved for posterity And it is noted to the praise of Mary that she kept his Sayings when others lost them yea she kept all his sayings and she kept them in her heart that was the Cabinet in which she put them when others valued them as things of nothing and looked upon them but as loose words And therefore she is set in opposition to them Iohn 2.5 They understood not the sayings which he spake to them but Mary kept all these sayings in her heart She laid them near her heart as choice things It was the promise of our Saviour Christ to his disciples and one of the last he made them and therefore certainly it was a precious one that if they should forget the words that he had spoken to them he would dispatch them down his spirit out of heaven and this should be one great part of his business with them to mind them of such words of his as were slipt out of their minds Ioh. 14.26 The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost shall come and he shall teach you all things and bring all things to remembrance whatsoever I have said to you By which it is apparent that the words which Jesus spake are very fit c. And this will yet appear more fully and distinctly to you if you consider but these three things First whose the words were Then what the words were Thirdly the manner how the words were spoken As for the first of these if you consider whose the words were you will discern them to be very fit to be commended to the choicest observation of the Church The author of them if you look no further will purchase them so much credit They are the words that Jesus spake as you have in my text And shall that which Jesus spake any thing which he delivered be thought unworthy of the notice of his people Why what was Jesus that the words that dropt from him must be so highly valued and esteemed My brethren if you look upon him upwards with relation to the father or if you look upon him downwards with relation to the Church you will see enough for this on all hands 1. If you look upon him upwards with relation to the father you will see reason why his words should be Commended to the choicest observation of his Church and people He is the
order to be handled He lifted up his eyes to heaven and said And here you have his gesture and expression His gesture first he lifted up his eyes to heaven while he made it And in the next place his expression he did not meditate or think it only but he said it his Prayer was not mental only but it was a vocal prayer He lifted up his eyes to heaven and said As for the first of these my brethren it was usual with our Saviour to pray with eyes erected and lift up to heaven as I might give you many instances out of the Scripture And out of question it proceeded from the zeal and earnestness of his affections and from the fixedness and the intention of his thoughts he being as it were withdrawn from the earth and from those lower things and wholly taken up to heaven while he prayed He was no longer here below no he was above with God while he was exercised in this duty Indeed it is observed of the Publican that he was contrary to Christ in this regard viz. in the external gesture of his body Our Saviour prayed as you have heard with eyes erected and lift up to heaven The Publican with eyes dejected and cast downward to the earth and yet this carriage also seems to be approved Luke 18.13 The Publican saies the Evangelist would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven but smote his breast saying God be mercifull to me a Sinner And truly both these gestures have their use in prayer the one to manifest a repentance the other to declare our faith The one to shew that we are cast down in our selves the other to discover that we are raysed and lifted up to God But it became not Iesus Christ to pray in such a posture as that wretched creature did because he had no sin in him and consequently no shame nothing to cast him down or hinder him from looking up with boldness and with confidence to God the Father And hence he prayed not like the Publican in a dejected way but lifted up his eyes to heaven and said That leads us to the second thing considered Christ did not meditate or think his prayer only but he said it His prayer was not mental only but it was a vocal prayer he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said Father the hour is come and so on It s true indeed that as a man may say and yet not pray he may utter good petitions and speak a form of Specious words to God and yet he may not pray indeed so as to find acceptance and success with God So on the other side a man may pray and yet yet not say that is not use the voice at all nor utter any words to God in prayer And therefore it is said of Moses that he cried to God when he was silent And the Apostle speaking of the Spirit tells us that he makes request to God sometimes with sighs and groans that are not yea that cannot be expressed Rom. 8.26 So that a man may make request to God without expression as well by meaning as by speaking And therefore it is added in the following verse God knows the meaning of the Spirit that is he understands it and accepts it David prefers the meditation of his heart as well as the petitions of his mouth Psal 19. ult Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart c. And therefore in another place he saith of God Lord thou hast heard the desire of the humble Psalm 10.17 So that you see that Prayer is not tyed to the expression of the tongue For even Ejaculations that are swift and sudden wishes darted from the heart to God the inward anhelations thirstings longings meditations meanings of the Soul are honoured in the Scripture with the name of prayer Such mentall prayers we have cause to think our Saviour sometimes offered to his Father when he was alone But here his prayer it should seem was vocal he uttered it aloud that his Apostles and Disciples who were about him at that time might hear it He lifted up his eyes to heaven and said Now this you see the Holy-Ghost takes special notice of as a remarkable and a memorable thing He doth not only tell us that our Saviour prayed and what his prayer was from the beginning of it to the end But he acpuaints us also with the manner and the circumstances of his prayer He shews us what his gesture was he tells us how he placed his eyes and how he used his voice in prayer These things may seem but small matters and we may look upon them as petty inconsiderable things But wherefore doth the Holy Ghost so carefully take notice of them and set them down in writing for the Church unless they be of some weight and some consideration Methinks he intimateth thus much to us DOCTRINE That there should be Consideration had not only of the matter but even of the circumstances the very gesture and the utterance of a prayer The Spirit of God you see doth not let pass such things as these no he observeth them exactly And therefore surely so should we too He sets them down for our use and there is somewhat to be learned from them For whatsoever things are written are written for our learning as the Apostle Paul speaks And therefore it is usual in the Scripture not only to express the prayers that the Saints have made and that Christ himself hath made but also to describe their outward carriage and behaviour in them which shews that there is something even in that too Sometimes our Saviour Christ is noted to cast himself prostrate upon the earth in prayer as you may see Mat. 26.39 he fell upon his face and prayed And sometimes to look up to heaven as you have it in my text So also when he raised Lazarus John 11.41 he lifted up his eyes and when he healed the deaf man he looked up to heaven Mark 7.34 Sometimes he only sigheth to himself in prayer and we hear of no expression in the sore-alleadged text He Sighed you must conceive in some petition which he then put up to God and said to the deaf man Epphatah be opened Sometimes he utters words also which are audible to others as I might give you divers instances out of his storie in the Gospel So for the Saints sometimes we find them represented sitting as holy David 2 Sam. 7.18 Sometimes standing up as Neh. 9.2 and sometimes kneeling in their Prayers as that is very usual in the Scriptures Sometimes we find them speaking words in prayer and sometimes using meditation only as David so divides his prayer in the fore-alleadged text into the words of his mouth and the meditations of his heart and prayes that both may find acceptance with the Lord Psal 19. ult And all these wayes the holy Ghost takes special notice of and leaves upon record for our instruction by which he teaches
for us saith the Apostle Paul Tit. 2.14 that was the purchase that he made a very dear one you will say He gave himself for us to what end that he might reedeem us from all iniquity from the dominion and power of sin And what now are we masterless And are the reins upon our own necks Now mark what follows presently And purifie us a peculiar people himself a people to himself to serve him and to do his work and to be very earnest in it too and purifie to himself a peculiar people Zealous of good works And so being free from sin we are not left at large my Brethren but we became the servants of Christ Rom. 6 22. This was the End that he intended and propounded to himself in our Redemption he dyed for us that we which live should henceforth live no longer to our selves but to him that dyed for us 2 Cor. 5.15 He hath performed the mercy promised he hath remembred c. he hath saved us from c. Luke 1.74 What that we might from henceforth be our own men and live at liberty and walk according to our own wills Oh no my Brethren but on the other side that we might serve him who hath saved us in holiness and righteousness all the daies of our lives The third is an Engagement of Covenant-obligation we are his Covenant servants and therefore we are bound to serve him if we run away from him we are Covenant-breakers with him Indeed we that are born of those that are in Covenant with him are born his Covenant-servants in a sense For such as the condition of the Parent is Beloved such is the condition of the child as to outward priviledge and as to outward duty too And hence it is perhaps that David saith to God Psalm 116.16 O Lord saith he I am thy servant My servant might the Lord reply Why how so why saith the Psalmist I am the son of thy hand-maid So we whose parents were within the Covenant were born to Christ in some respect for we were born within his family and so to outward view and cognizance belong to his houshold But this is but an outward thing some of us have gone further yet and made a Covenant with the Lord to serve him we were in Covenant all of us with sin by nature and so with death and hell we were at an agreement too But some of us have utterly dissolved that Covenant and entred into Covenant with the Lord Christ We are bound let us obey now we have made this Covenant with him we are the more engaged to serve him and the greater is our sin if we run away from him Use 3 Is God the Father of our Lord Christ The greater is his love to us that he should give Christ for us If he had given but a servant or a friend it had been much that he should part with either of them for an enemy but that he should give us his son his own begotten son to shame to punishment to death for us here is love and here is mercy with a witness The Evangelist me thinks knows not which way to express it and therefore leaves it to the largest heart and the vastest understanding to guess at it John 3.16 God so loved the world So how I cannot tell you it swallows up my apprehensions and expressions And therefore I must leave it to your selves to think of it and reach after it And truly my Beloved did we weigh it well in our advised and deliberate thoughts we should be carried out beyond our selves in an Extasie of wonder What my Beloved that when the Father had but one begotten Son by nature and one that was so well like him the very picture of his Father c. one whom he loved dearly in whom his very soul delighted that he should give him forth out of his bosom for such wretches as we are That he could not spare his Son that he might spare his Enemies behold what love the Father hath declared in this Here is love to be spoken of and to be wondred at in all ages And thus far of the uses of the former member of the point Proceed we now to make some application of the latter Use 1 Is it so my Brethren that as God is the Father of the Lord Christ So Christ did apprehend him as a Father and look upon him as a Father when c. Then let us also apprehend him so and look upon him so who are the sons of God in Christ when we come to God in prayer Let us present our supplications to him under the notion of a Father as Christ did Christ is in this respect our Pattern and Example whom we ought to follow We are required you know to be followers of Christ viz. in all his imitable actions and this is one of those actions We ought to walk as he walked and to pray as he prayed And therefore as his manner was to pray to God himself in this language to come to God as to a Father So he hath taught us also so to pray in the very same language to come to God as to a Father as he did Mat. 6.9 After this manner pray ye Our Father which art in heaven So that we have in this you see the Precept and Example of the Lord Christ his Precept in the cited place and his Example in my Text. And therefore let us learn this lesson of him since he is pleased to teach us both waies both by Precept and Example When we are making our addresses to the Lord in prayer let us endeavour to apply unto our selves the love and father-hood of God in Jesus Christ Let us not satisfie our selves with a general perswasion that he is a gracious Father to all his sons and daughters in the Lord Christ But let us strive for a distinct and a particular assurance that he is our own Father that he is so to us in special and that we are among the number of his children That we may look upon him so and confidently call him so when we are pouring out our prayers to him and so expect the love and mercy of a Father from him And to this very End as the Apostle tells us The Spirit of the Son is sent abroad into our hearts To what End Why to make us cry Abba Father Gal. 4.6 That is to make us pray to God as to a Father while others come to God as to a stranger with whom they have no acquaintance and to whom they have no relation So that you see we have not only the Precept of Christ and the Example of Christ but we have also the Spirit of Christ that we may pray in this manner And therefore in this Faith and confidence the Saints of God have prayed in Scripture So did the Church as you may see Isa 63.16 Doubtless say they thou art our Father though Abraham be ignorant of us and Israel acknowledge us
will never take from you See the event of such a carriage in the close of the forecited parable Mat. 21.41 He will miserably destroy those wicked men Indeed the wickedness of those to whom Christ is never sent is light and little in comparison of theirs He is not sent to Heathen Nations they hear not of him any way God hath not favoured them so far as to dispatch his Son to them to be a Mediator between him and them And therefore their iniquity is comparatively small and their Judgement will be easie But Jesus Christ is sent to you he is the Fathers Messenger to you and if you do not entertain him your sin is great and your damnation will be heavy He will destroy others but he will miserably destroy you So that it will be easier for Tyre and Sydon for Infidels and Heathens in the day of Judgement then for you Consider if you receive this Messenger of God and entertain him as you ought to do he can do very much with God for you You are all out with God by nature he is an enemy to you and you are enemies to him your souls abhor him and his soul abhors you Zach. 11.8 Now Jesus Christ is sent to make peace to make up all the breaches and the differences between God and his people He can make you Gods friends yea he can make you Gods children This was the priviledge of those that entertained him Iohn 1.12 To as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God And this shall be your priviledge if you embrace him And is it such a small thing in your eyes to be the children of the highest to be the sons and daughters of the God of heaven and earth Is it nothing to have free access to God by prayer and by supplication to cry Abba Father to him That whereas others live without God in the world and have no refuge in their troubles we have a Father to betake our selves unto Or is it nothing to have sure protection and defence in such a time as this is For can we think a Father such a Father so powerfull and so mercifull will see his children sink and perish while he is able to relieve them Or is it nothing to have such a great inheritance prepared for us as God provideth for his children that rich inheritance with Saints in light All this we shall be sure to have if we receive this Messenger of God But you will ask me what I mean when I perswade you to receive him I will shew you in a word there go three things to it You must so receive this Messenger of God to hearken to him An Embassador you know is not received unless the Prince or State to whom his Master sends him give him audience A Messenger is not received unless you hear the message that he brings you So Jesus Christ whom God hath sent is not received unless you hear this Prophet unless you hear him in his Ministers unless you hear him in his Gospel-revelations of his mind and will to you You must so receive him to believe in him This is indeed receiving of Christ And therefore it is so explained Iohn 1.12 To as many as received him to them gave c. As received him what is that even to them that believe in his name So that receiving is expounded by believing as if the Holy Ghost had said I mean not by receiving Christ any friendly curteous entertainment that they give him I do not mean receiving him into their houses but I intend receiving him into their hearts by faith And therefore by receiving you must understand believing So do you receive Christ The only acceptable entertainment you can give him is by faith by believing in his name The Messenger of God is ill received unless he have the credit with us to be faithfully believed You must so receive him as to obey him To hearken and to yield to him in that which he delivereth to you in the name of him that sent him You must not think to entertain this Messenger of God as an underling to you so as to rule him no you must be ruled by him When he delivers his Embassage to you from his Father and tells you what his pleasure is as soon as you hear you must obey him There must be no room for disputation or expostulation but obedience You must answer with the Jews and with a better heart then they All that the Lord commandeth we will do And if you thus receive this Messenger of God it will be a blessed time that he ever came to you And thus we have at length dispatched two of the Arguments with which our Saviour presses and enforceth the great petition that he makes to God the Father to be glorified by him Whereof the former hath been taken from the end why he desireth to have glory from the Father viz. that he might be enabled to bring glory to the Father Father glorifie thy Son that thy Son may also glorifie thee The second hath been drawn à Congruo from Congruity it was but meet and congruous that he should have glory from the Father seeing he had power from him As thou hast given him power over all flesh that he should give eternal life to c. And this is life c. The third remaineth to be entred on at this time and this is drawn from the deserving cause Christ had glorified the Father and therefore thinks himself worthy to have glory from the Father I have glorified thee on the earth I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do And now O Father glorifie me with thine own self And here our Saviour doth these two things he minds the Father what himself hath done and then reminds him what he desireth him to do First He minds the Father what himself hath done and that in two particulars I have glorified thee on earth I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do And then reminds him hereupon of that which he desireth him to do And now O Father glorifie me with thine own self As he had said before in the entrance of his prayer Father glorifie thy Son so that he reasons here from the desert to the reward as he might do though we cannot for all the works of Christ were meritorious This he had done for God and therefore this he looks that God should do for him again Begin we now with the first thing which our Saviour Christ had done of which he minds the Father as an inducement to glorifie him with himself I have glorified thee on the Earth To glorifie is either really to make or else to manifest and to declare a person to be glorious Christ could not make his Father glorious because there was no time in which he was not infinitely and compleatly so From everlasting he was absolutely glorious in himself so that in this respect there
20. and so on to the conclusion of the Chapter Neither pray I for these alone but for them also that shall believe on me through their word I must at this time make a little entrance upon our Saviours Prayer in behalf of his Apostles and Disciples who were present with him They were very near to him they were waiting then upon him they were converted immediately by himself and called by his own word and therefore they have the precedency and the preferment in his Prayer And here we have to be considered First the preparation to it and secondly the matter of it The preparation to this Prayer of our Saviour in the behalf of his Apostles and Disciples Discovers first what he himself had done in reference to them And then what they had done in reference to him What they were both in relation to himself and to his Father And where they were viz. In such a place wherein they stood in need of his Prayers These things are interwoven and commixt and we must take them in our progress as we find them Only this would be considered that all of them are premised by our Saviour before he puts up one Petition for them to shew what cause there was why they should be remembred in his Prayers Begin we with the first thing which our Saviour mentions by way of preparation to the Prayer which he makes for his Apostles and Disciples I have manifested thy Name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world And here you may take notice with me of these two particulars First the action of our Saviour in reference to his Apostles and Disciples of which he minds his Father here I have manifested thy Name Secondly the description of the persons to whom he had made known his Fathers Name viz. the men which he had given him out of the world For opening of the former we must examine and resolve what is intended by the Fathers Name which Christ affirmeth here he had made known I have manifested thy Name Some think the meaning to be only this that he had made him known to his Apostles and Disciples under the notion of a Father They knew him as a God before and so did generally all the people of the Jews but as a Father in his Son they had no acquaintance with him Now by this Name our Saviour had discovered him to those whom he had called and sanctified he had brought them now to know him as a Father This is the title he gives him all along from the beginning of his Prayer to the end Father Holy Father Righteous Father and the like This is the name by which he represents him unto his Apostles and Disciples and under which he would have them to conceive and apprehend him as a Father to his Son and as a Father to themselves in him and this is that which he intends as some conceive in this profession I have manifested thy Name c. This is something I acknowledge yea this is very much of that which he intends but yet I think it is not all The Name of God in general is all that makes him known to men wherein soever the nature or the will of God or whatsoever else of God can be imagined or conceived is discovered and made known all this is intimated by the Name of God So that our Saviour in my Text in saying he had manifested Gods Name saith in effect that he had fully manifested and revealed his Father to his people So that there was nothing of him necessary to be known which he had concealed from them He had not hid one letter of his Name from them So that the point to be observed is this DOCTRINE That Jesus Christ hath made an absolute compleat and full discovery of his Father to his people The Name of God sometimes imports his Nature sometimes his Titles sometimes his Attributes sometimes his Ordinances and sometimes his works as I could give you instances of all these And all of these our Saviour had laid open fully to his Apostles and Disciples as he professes to his Father here I have manifested thy Name unto the men which thou hast given me out of the world And this is that which the Evangelist affirmeth of him Ioh. 1.18 No man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him Observe it well it is not said he hath declared something of him but he hath declared him Declared him wholly and compleatly all that is declarable of him he hath made known to his people The protestation which he makes to his Apostles when he was about to leave them runs very much to this purpose Joh. 15.15 All that I have heard of my Father not from my Father but of my Father I have made it known to you Whatsoever I have been informed in concerning my Father at least as Mediator and as the Prophet of my Church I have discovered it to you I have been very faithful to you in the business whatsoever hath been shewn me of my Father for your instruction and your information I have not kept one whit from you I shall add no more for proof that I may have time to shew you How Jesus Christ hath made this full discovery and then why Jesus Christ hath made this full discovery of his Father to his people And in pursuance of the latter I shall examine and resolve why Jesus Christ and none but he hath made it And in the second place why the discovery he hath made is such an absolute and full discovery As for the first of these how Jesus Christ hath made such a discovery of his Father This will be necessary to be known for the distincter understanding of the point And he hath made it principally three ways by his Personal appearance in the flesh by his Word and by his Spirit 1. First by his Personal appearance in the flesh our Saviour Christ hath made some discovery of his Father Jesus Christ as he is Man and as he hath assummed our Nature is the Image and resemblance of his Father And this is that which the Apostle aims at when he saith He is the Image of the invisible God Col. 1.15 by which he intimates expresly that however God be in himself invisible yet there is some resemblance of him in the Lord Christ so that he may be seen in him It 's true indeed that Jesus Christ as God is the invisible Image of God and thus he is the very picture of the Father Heb. 1.3 But as he hath assumed our flesh he is the visible Image of God And this is clearly the Apostles meaning when he saith He is the Image of the invisible God His purpose is not to declare how Jesus Christ is the invisible Image of God the Father from Eternity but visible to us in time And hence he saith not simply who is the Image of God
anticipate a scruple that might be raised in the hearts of those who heard him praying to his Father thus or who in after-times might come to read this prayer of our Saviour as it is here recorded in the Gospel They might consider with themselves on this occasion if Iesus Christ have none belonging to him none that are indeed his own but those that are bestowed upon him by his Father why then it seems all were the Fathers in the first place For no one gives that to another which he hath not first himself Nihil dat quod non habet True saith our Saviour so it is indeed they were my Fathers and I had them all from him Thine they were and thou gavest them to me So that you see the Observation lies before you DOCTRINE That all the people of the Lord Christ were first of all belonging to the Father His they were in the first place and he gave them to the Son And indeed he could not give them if they were not first his own For he that gives a thing alters the property of that which he bestowes passes away the right he had and makes it over to another And so doth God in reference to Iesus Christ He gives him all the people that he hath Iesus Christ hath not a man but by donation from the Father and therefore they were his first And this is that which Iesus Christ acknowledges in this place thine they were and thou gavest them to me And to the same effect he speakes ver 10. of this Chapter Thine are mine and I am glorified in them They that were sometimes thine are now mine Thy interest was first and mine in the second place by donation and conveyance from thy self You see then all the People of the Lord Christ were first of all belonging to the Father Now to unfold the point a little further to you because indeed it needs not proof so much as explication We will examine and resolve a few things First who the Father is to whom the people of our Saviour Christ do first belong Secondly how and in what respect they do first belong to him Thirdly how far the Father parteth with the right he had in those whom he bestows upon our Saviour Christ Whether he makes them over to him so that he himself hath now no longer any right at all in them Or whether only so that Christ and he do share together and have a joynt and mixed right and interest in those people And lastly seeing all do first of all belong to God the Father why he doth not keep them to himself but makes them over to his Son Christ These things would be a little looked into before we come to application As for the first of these my Brethren Who the Father is to whom the people of our Saviour Christ do first belong We must be sure that we be right in this or else we miss in the foundation of the whole business I shall be brief upon the resolution of it now because you may remember I have done it largely heretofore in another case and on another occasion This I desire you to take notice of which Calvin also carefully observes that our Saviour in the Gospel especially in this of John speaking as man and not as God under the name of Father intimates and comprehends the whole Godhead Nor let this seem strange to you for Christ as man is Gods Son not God the Fathers Son alone but the Son of the whole God-head Indeed as God he is the Son of the first person only but as man he is the Son of all the persons As man he is a Creature and he is not God the Fathers Creature only for the works of the Trinity without are individed And therefore Christ is made the Son of God in the same way that Adam is Luk. 3.33 c. And it is very evident that in my Text he spakes to God the Father as a Creature and as a Man for he speakes to him in prayer and prayer is a part of worship and God doth not worship God And when as man he prayes to God you must not think he prayes to the first person only and exclusively but he prayes to all the persons And therefore when he saith to God in prayer thine they were the people which I have were sometimes thine he cannot mean that they were the first persons only for certainly one person prayes not to another but they were the whole Godheads You see then who the Father is to whom the people of our Saviour Christ do first belong Not God personally taken for the first person of the Godhead but God essentially taken for the whole essence of the Godhead as subsisting in the persons And God so taken is the Father of our Saviour Christ as he is man and so he prayes to him in this place So that now the way is open to the second Quaere how and in what respect the people of the Lord Christ were first of all belonging to his Father that is to the whole Godhead before they came to his hands as he is man and Mediator of the Church Beloved they were first of all belonging to his Father in that sense that we have said especially in two respects either as his Created ones or as his Elected ones as his Creatures or his Chosen 1. All the people of the Lord Christ were first of all belonging to his Father as his Creatures His they were for he made them It is the greatest reason in the world that he that makes a thing should own it too that it should be his that made it That he that gives a thing being should have a title to it while it hath a being unless he voluntarily and freely make it over to another And by this means God hath a primitive original and native right in all the world and all the people that are in it Jesus Christ as he is man hath not right to one person I mean originally of himself But how then shall he come to have a people to be his members and to make up a Church a body for him Why God his Father is content to furnish him out of his store Rather then he shall want a Company of men to be his members he will spare him some of his and others he will keep for other purposes to execute his wrath and manifest the glory of his Justice on There are a people for thee saith the Father thou shalt have such and such of mine All the world are mine thou knowest and such a number I will give thee out of the world So many thou shalt have among the Jews and if that be not sufficient thou shalt have as many more as thou wilt ask among the Gentiles Ask of me and I will give thee Psal 2.7 And hence our Saviour speaking of his people acknowledgeth they were his Fathers first I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou
salvation of a soul that it be chosen unless withal it be delivered up to Jesus Christ and made a real living member of his body And therefore God Electeth every soul in Christ he chooseth it in him as the Apostle speaks Eph. 1.4 That is he looks on it in Christ in the instant of Election designeth it in time to be a part of Christ And so accordingly when the appointed season comes he brings this Chosen one of his to Christ and gives it him yea puts it into him There take it to thy self saith he mine it hath been from everlasting by election and now I make it thine by actual union and incorporation I have done my part for it and now do thou do thine I have chosen it do thou save it This shall suffice for clearing of the observation I shall but add a word or two of application And is it so that all the people of the Lord Christ were first of all belonging Vse 1 to the Father then surely he will keep them for the Fathers sake Before he let them go he will consider with himself of whom he had them Brethren you may be confident that Jesus Christ will never lose his people but that he will be infinitely chary and extreamly tender of them because he had them of his Father How do we esteem a Ring a piece of Plate or some thing else that was our Fathers If any one desire it of us if he offer money for it no will such a person say I will not take an hundred times the value for it it was my Fathers and I will not part with it And do you think my Brethren that Jesus Christ doth not love his Father as well as we love ours And therefore when the Devil or the world do go about to get away his people from him when they bid fair for them when they pluck hard at them No saith our Saviour it is in vain I had these people these precious Jewels of my Father and therefore you may spare your labour His they were and he gave them to me and I will surely keep them for his sake that gave them me yea he gave them to me to this end that I should keep them So Christ himself acknowledges John 6.39 This is the Fathers will that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing His Father gave them to him bequeathed them to him by his will And this was upon the Will that he should not lose them too O what a ground of confidence is here that Christ will keep us though we be apt to fall away though the Devil and the world pluck violently at us we may depend upon it they shall not get us out of Christs hands We were his Fathers and he gave us him by Will and that with this Condition that he should not lose us And therefore let us rest upon it he will be carefull of his Fathers Will and he will keep us for his Fathers sake And thus far of the first particular whereof our Saviour minds his Father by way of preparation to the prayer which he makes for his Apostles and Disciples that which he had done for them I have manifested thy name to the men which thou gavest me out of the world thine they were and thou gavest them to me The second follows now in order to be handled that which they themselves had done in reference to God the Father they have kept thy word And here you may take notice with me of these two things which shew themselves to any one that doth but look upon the words First the act of these Apostles and Disciples of our Saviour they have kept And then the object of this act of theirs the thing which he affirmeth they have kept the word of God They have kept thy word And this our Saviour mentions as he doth the rest by way of preparation to his prayer for them to shew what cause there was why they should be remembred in his prayers what did induce him to pray and to be confident that he should speed with God in prayer for them because they had been faithfull and obedient They had kept the word of God and therefore they shall have his word to God in prayer for them he makes no doubt they shall have a word from God by way of mercifull return and gracious answer to his prayer There is the inward and essential and there is the outward and declaratory word of God The inward word the word God The outward word the word of God or the word which comes from God Though not immediately from God to us yet mediately by his Prophets and Apostles and Jesus Christ himself as he was man whom he made his Scribes and Heralds and Embassadors and Mouth God spake in times past to the Fathers by the Prophets Heb. 1.1 he spake by the mouth of the holy Prophets Luke 1.10 The Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost 2 Pet. 1.21 And so for the New Testament the Apostle tell us that in these last dayes God hath spoken to us by his Son Heb. 1.2 and that which God speaks is Gods word Now it is called the word of God in my Text and elsewhere often because it manifesteth and makes known the mind and will of God For as the word of man discovers to us what the man means what he conceiveth in his mind and heart within which else we were by no means able to imagine so the word of God my brethren shews us the heart and mind of God as far as he is pleased to express it and to make it known to us it shewes us what his will and pleasure is What he will have us to do and what he means to do with us And this word the Apostles and Disciples kept that is the term our Saviour uses in my text He made it known to them he shewed them what his Fathers mind and will was and they kept it I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world and they have kept thy word What is intended by that phrase of keeping shall be fully opened when I come to explication of the point in the mean time the observation shall be this DOCTRINE They whom the Father gives to Jesus Christ do keep his word You see it is the Character he gives of those that are bestowed upon him by his Father Thine they were and thou hast given them to me and they have kept thy word And after to the same effect they have received thy word It is usually set down as the property of those who belong to Jesus Christ that they keep his sayings John 14.23 if a man love me saith our Saviour there he will keep my words and his words and the Fathers words are all one And hence there is a blessing poured out on such Luke 11.28 Blessed
this particular I shall in a word or two direct you how to judge of this business 1. You may judge a little by his entrance if he be sent of God he comes in by the door and not by the window The door which Christ sets open to him and not which he himself unlocks and opens with a false Key So that if any question grow in this particular he is able to appeal to all the people as the Apostle sometimes did 2 Thess 2.1 You know our entrance It was not in a clandestine and surreptitious way you of the Church you know it what it was whether it were according to the rule and as be seems a Minister of Christ I leave it to your selves to judge I appeal to your verdict You may discover somewhat whether a Minister be sent of God by his enablement to that Office Whom God sends he qualifies he sends not his message by the hand of a fool When Christ ascended up on high he gave gifts unto men for the work of the Ministry Ephes 4.12 God makes able Ministers of the New Testament 2 Cor. 3.6 As he makes them so he makes them able too indues them in a measure with ability of knowledge and utterance gives them wisdom and a mouth If they be competently able both ways it is an evidence that they are of Gods making and of Gods sending You may judge a little as by their ability so by their propensity to do the Office of a Minister And this is that which the Apostle calls a ready mind to feed the flock 1 Pet. 5.2 A good will to deal out to the people the Gospel of Christ 1 Thess 2.8 Indeed my Brethren when a Minister that hath a Competency both of knowledge and of utterance regardeth not at all to stir up the gift of of God that is in him or to use his abilities for the good of the Church but is idle and remiss prefers his pleasure and his ease before the good and the salvation of the peoples souls you have great reason to suspect him that he is not come from God But if he be content to spend himself and to be spent if he be like a burning and shining light as it is said of John the Baptist burning in his zealous Doctrine shining in his holy life and wasting while he shines to others if it be his meat and drink to do the work that God hath put into his hands such a Minister as this so coming in so qualified so employed beware how you suspect that he is not sent of God JOHN 17.9 I pray for them and I pray not for the world WE have not yet dispatched the Preface or the preparation to our Saviours Prayer in the behalf of his Apostles and Disciples some think indeed that he begins his Prayer for them in the following verse which we are now about to enter on I pray for them I pray not for the world But if you mark it there is nothing in it either of Confession or Petition or Thanksgiving only our Saviour Christ lays down some leading Considerations which induce him to present this Supplication for them to his Father And they are taken either from their relation or from their condition The first is drawn from their relation to his Father and himself I pray for them I pray not for the world but for them which thou hast given me for they are thine And all mine are thine and thine are mine by means whereof it comes to pass that I am glorified in them the next is drawn from the condition they were in and were likely to be in they were at present in the world and they were likely to be in it out of hand without Christ I mean without his visible and corporal and fleshly presence And now I am no more in the world but they are in the world and I come to thee as if he should have added and I must leave them behind me The greater need they had to be recommended by him in his prayers which were the last he was to make with them in this world These are the things that move him to become an earnest suitor to his Father for his Apostles and Disciples in a special manner as he hints in the beginning I pray for them I pray not for the world Now this he speaks exclusively you see as it is very manifest even in the letter of the Text. A man would think it might have been sufficient for our Saviour to have said I pray for them For had he said but so he had implyed that other men were not at all remembred by him in his prayers But he will be express and clear in such a business of such high importance he will shut out the world from having any share at all in this incomparable priviledge in down-right language and in plain terms from being once so much as mentioned in his prayers I pray for them I pray not for the world So that the point to be observed is plain DOCTRINE Christ is an Intercessor to his Father for none but his own people He prays for them and none but them the world are utterly excluded from having share at all in our Saviours Intercession He intercedes for none that are without the pale that he sets up in this Text he doth not speak one word to God for them I pray not for the world saith he I meddle not with them at all in that business But if he pray not for the world who are they for whom he prays I pray for them saith Christ For them for whom why for them whom thou hast given me So that they who are Christ's you see have a peculiar priviledge in this regard for all the Intercession of the Son of God the great High Priest is spent upon them If any sin we have an Advocate with God the Father saith the Evangelist 1 Joh. 2.1 He speaks it there exclusively we have and no others And therefore it is very much to be observed that he saith not If any sin he hath an Advocate for there are many sinners in the world that have no Advocate with God the Father But if any sin we have an Advocate we that believe have Christ to intercede for us And he may have an advocate if he believe if he be one of us let the man be what be will and let his sin be what it will Christ will be an Advocate and Intercessor to his Father for him He ever lives saith the Apostle speaking of our Saviour to make intercession for them Heb. 7.25 Them whom why them who come to God by him as you may see if you reflect upon the former parcel of the verse He is able to save them to the utmost who come to God by him seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them Still you see his intercession is confined to a selected company of men and not extended to the whole world He appears in Heaven
was desirous to be gone and to return to him that sent him And therefore this he urgeth very hard when he enrreats his Father to receive him to him self I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do Joh. 17.4 q. d. If I had not done the work for which thou hast dispatched me down into this lower world I should be willing to continue here But I have gone through with it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have made an end of it so that I have no more to do in this world and therefore I beseech thee let me come away to thee Jesus Christ as he is man is gone c. because as he hath no more to Reason 3 do here so he hath very much to do there and therefore is gone thither where his business lies He is called his Fathers servant very often in the Scripture And truly my Brethren he is a diligent and faithful one assoon as he hath done his work in one place away goes he unto another he doth not love to stay and idle there where he hath no work to do but where his business and employment is there is the place that he desires to be And hence it is my Brethren that he went away into the other world because he had much work to do there But you will ask me what that work was I answer 1. He was to triumph there over his Enemies and ours This was a necessary and important business and it was not to be done compleatly here in this world at least not till and in the very act of his departure and this is that which the Apostle pointeth at Ephes 4.8 When he ascended up on high he led Captivity captive He did it not before or after but in that article of time when he ascended when he returned to his own Countrey then he led his Captives with him Even as those Conquerers of old among the Romans when they returned back to Rome after some glorious victory were wont to bring their Captives with them which they had taken in the wars and to lead them by their Chariots in a victorious and triumphant way So Jesus Christ when he had conquered Sin and Death and Hell and was returning out of this world to the immediate presence of his Father to the Country whence he came he did it in a glorious and triumphant way He did not steal away out of the world as if he had ashamed of that which he had done or suffered there as if he had been overcome No he went away triumphing as one that having absolutely conquered and beaten all that stood against him brings along his prisoners with him 2. Jesus Christ is gone away c. that he might send down his Spirit to his people That was another work he had to do the Spirit was not to come down till he came up and therefore he ascended that the Spirit might descend abundantly upon his people And this is that of which he mindeth his Apostles and Disciples when he was about to leave them Joh. 16.7 It is expedient for you that I go away and why so For if I do not go away the Comforter the Holy Spirit will not come While I am with you in the flesh you are so taken up with carnal and fleshly apprehensions of me that you are made incapable of great degrees measures of the Spirit And therefore I must even go away from you that I may send the Spirit to you And so accordingly he did as the Prophet David takes notice Psal 68.18 He ascended upon high and he received gifts for men gifts to bestow on men that the Lord God might dwell among them A strange expression he ascended from them to this end that he might remain and dwell among them Yes he ascended from them in his body that he might dwell among them by his Spirit or by those gifts which he received for men in the preceding words Well then you see he is departed from us not to forsake us but to dwell among us He hath withdrawn the presence of his Body that he might dwell among us by the presence of his Spirit According to that sweet and pretious promise made to his Disciples when he was ready to depart from them Mat. 20.28 Behold I am with you always c. 3. Jesus Christ gone away c. that he might intercede for his people Why you will tell me so he might and so he did while he was resident in this world he offered up strong cries to God and that not for himself alone but for his Church and members too Yea the Chapter we are handling is the Prayer of our Saviour in the behalf of his people so that he might have interceded for them by vocal supplication had he remained still in this world and had he never gone hence Yea but he could not then have interceded for them by personal appearance as he doth now And therefore he is gone to heaven that he may appear in the presence of God for us Heb. 9.24 And is it not a comfort to us to consider that we have such a choise and pretious friend there That we have such an Advocate in Court continually at all times and in all causes That he is always by his Father in his Body and his humane Nature wherein he suffered for his people You know he bare our sins in his body on the tree and in that crucified body he appeareth in the presence of his Father So that he is at hand on all occasions to shew his Father all his wounds and all his scars all the prints and all the marks of his bitter bloody sufferings Oh Father may he say when there is any thing in agitation for his people any supplication for them or any accusation laid against them remember what I have endured for them in this flesh of mine what I have suffered for them in this body here before thee look upon these wounds and scars and for my sake be gratious to them do not deny them their Petitions do not reject them for their unallowed and bewailed imperfections 4. Jesus Christ is gone away c. to make heaven ready for us that so we may be presently admitted when we come And this our Saviour Christ himself who best knows yeelds as the reason of his departure from his Apostles and Disciples when he was about to leave them saith he I go to prepare a place for you Joh. 14.2 when our Saviour Christ entred heaven and passed into the immediate presence of his Father he took possession of it in our name and stead and left it open after him to all his Members He hath in this respect prepared it for us that he hath made it ready to receive us And when we are ready too he will come and receive us to himself that where he is there may we be also as it is added in the fore-alleadged place Joh. 14.3 5. Jesus Christ is gone away
so sad and so uncomfortable to you by reason of your dayly troubles but especially and chiefly by reason of your sins against him you shall look upon it as a mercy this is not to be condemned When Joseph was in prison though he wanted nothing there yet see how earnest and importunate he was with Pharaohs Butler to help him to his liberty Gen. 40.14 Think on me when it shall be well with thee and shew me kindness and help me out of this house Brethren our heaven-born souls are but imprisoned in these earthly Tabernacles we have the manacles and fetters of our lusts about us We cannot walk abroad with liberty and freedom and enlargement c. Oh let us cry to Jesus Christ to shew us kindness and help us out of this house JOHN 17.11 Holy Father keep through thine own Name c. AND thus of the transition to our Saviours supplication in the behalf of his Apostles and Disciples consisting of a heap of grand considerations that induced him to become a suitor for them to his Father Proceed we now to enter on the prayer which he makes for them And here I shall take notice only of these two things The object of it and the parts of it The object of it or the person whom he presents it to is mentioned by his title and his attribute His title here you see is Father and his attribute is holy Holy Father The sweetest title and the choicest attribute As for the first of these the title that begins the object of his supplication here is Father So he stiles him in the entrance of his Prayer and the same phrase he uses all along as you shall see if you survey it from the beginning to the end Indeed he gives him once the attribute of holy as you have it in my Text and once the attribute of righteous Father at the 25. verse But this is still the appellation that he uses and from whence he never varies If he call him any thing he calls him Father And in this notion he Considers him while he is putting up his prayer to him And therefore this you see my Brethren is the first word that he uses when he sets himself to pray Thus he begins his prayer for himself in the first verse of the Chapter Father glorifie thy Son And thus also he begins his prayer in behalf of his Apostles and Disciples in my Text Father keep them through thy own Name So that you see our Saviour looks upon him as a Father still when he is pouring out his prayer to him either for himself or others And this would yeild us matter of very good consideration but that it hath been very largely handled heretofore And therefore I shall pass on from the title Father unto the attribute our Saviour gives him here and that is holy But wherefore doth our Saviour mention this rather then any other attribute of God on this occasion why might he not have said aswell Almighty or Eternal or Merciful or Gratious Father the special reason why he chooses this Expression as far as I conceive cannot be clearly and undoubtedly resolved Indeed he prays for holiness for his Apostles and Disciples afterwards and therefore it was congruous he should seek it of his Father under the notion of a holy God who is holy in himself and who is also the hallower and sanctifier of his people But seeing there are divers other things in his Petitions this doth not seem of weight enough to bind him up to this Expression Once this is clear and manifest that he picks out this attribute of God among the rest and whereas many other lay before him he fixes upon this only He comes to God in Prayer by the name of Holy Father The thing is evident though the particular consideration that induced him to it be unknown So that this observation we may safely pitch upon DOCTRINE As God it holy in himself so Jesus Christ came to him as a holy God and looked upon him as a holy God when he was making his Petitions to him The point you see hath two branches First God is holy in himself Then Jesus Christ came to him as a holy God and looked upon him as a holy God when he was making his Petitions to him I shall pursue them in their order God is holy in himself so he is stiled in my Text you see and that by Jesus Christ himself who of all others in the world is best acquainted with his nature for he came forth out of the bosom of the Father Indeed it is the attribute that he delighteth in and therefore he is called the Holy One 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very often in the Scripture to shew that he excells in this regard so that however there be many others that are holy in a measure yet he is the Holy One there is not one so holy as he is And he is known in the Old Testament by the name of the Holy One of Israel which is ascribed to him more then thirty times The Seraphims which stood before the Throne Isa 6.3 cryed out three times a row Holy Holy Holy is the Lord of Hosts And so accordingly the Beasts that stand about the Throne Apoc. 4.8 rest not day and night saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty To shew that God transcends in holiness he is superlative in this regard for so thrice holy in some Languages is most holy To say the truth this is the attribute that makes him glorious He is great in power fearful in praises but he is glorious in holiness Exod. 15.11 In this respect he is a None-such none to be compared with him none like him not among men only but among the Gods too Who is like to thee O Lord among the gods glorious in holiness fearful in praises doing wonders And hence he glories in his holiness and swears by it Even as the great men of the world are wont to swear upon their honor because it is esteemed among them the most sacred and inviolable thing So God you see my Brethren swears by his holiness Psal 29.35 Once have I sworn by my holiness saith God Once for all and by my holiness having no better or more pretious thing to swear by Let me no longer be esteemed a holy God and that I would be very loth then I inviolably keep the Covenant that I have made to David in my truth So that you see the former member of the point is firm God is holy in himself Now for the second branch that Jesus Christ came to him as a holy God and looked upon him as a holy God when he was making his Petitions to him you see it evidently in the Text this is the appellation that he gives him Holy Father His thoughts are taken up it seems more with the holiness of God then any other of his attributes while he is pouring out his prayers to him I shall not undertake to shew why
present nor our future happiness 1. Our present happiness consisteth in the title that we have to Christ the interest we have in him and the Communion we have with him Can the hatred of the world put an end to this Communion No saith the Apostle Paul Rom. 3.35 Who shall separate us from the Love of Christ shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword as it is written for thy sake are we killed all the day long Nay in all these things we are more then Conquerours through him that loves as For I am verily perswaded that neither death nor life nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor heigth not depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nay to say truth Christ loves us most and hath most communion with us when the world is most against us Then he is specially present with us as he was with Paul Acts 18.9 and with the Martyrs in the Dungeon in the Stocks in the flames And it is certain that Christ doth then reveal himself most sweetly to his people when the world discovers most malignity and rage against them So that it is not all their hatred can keep a Christian from the love and fellowship of Jesus Christ and so by Consequence it cannot keep him from his present happiness 2. And for our happiness to come it cannot hinder that neither It doth not lie so loose my brethren that all the world can take it from us No it is in Gods keeping he openeth and no man shutteth he shutteth and no man openeth He opened Heaven upon Stephen when the world was shewing the utmost of its rage against him And verily a Christian is as near the complement and the perfection of his happiness when he suffers all the wrong and ignominy and contempt that the world can pour upon him and sometimes nearer then he is at other times for that may be the way to it And hence saith Christ in the fore-alledged text Mat. 5.11 Blessed are ye when men revile you Rejoyce and be exceeding glad And why so For great is your reward in heaven JOHN 17.15 I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world c. AND thus far of the second Argument with which our Saviour presseth and enforceth his Petition to his Father in behalf of his Apostles and Disciples that he would keep them through his own name viz. because our Saviour for his own part was even ready to depart from them and to abandon them in such a place where they were hated universally almost the world hath hated them saith Christ Why then a man would think the only way were to remove them out of such a place where they are so ill beloved and so maligned upon all hands If the world hate them because they are not of the world what should they do there any longer the best way were to take them thence and to translate them to a place where they are likely to have more quiet No saith our Saviour I disown that that is not the intent and drift of my Petition I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world c. So that these words my brethren are an Explication of that which is delivered in the former verse that it might not be mistaken Not that our Saviour was afraid his Father would mistake his meaning but he knew they might mistake him who heard him speaking to his Father And therefore as a learned Writer notes upon the text he speaks unto his Father as a man for mens sake because he speaks in their hearing He tells them plainly and expresly what he doth not pray for I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world And then he tels him clearly what he doth pray for but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil Begin we with the first part of the explication in which our Saviour tells his Father plainly and expresly what he doth not pray for I do not pray that thou should take them out of the world So that the point to be observed hence is this DOCTRINE Removal out of this world is not the proper subject matter of Petition You see our Saviour Christ disowns it clearly in my text he would by no means have it thought that he desires his Father to remove his Disciples hence by death to take them out of the world No saith our Saviour that is not the thing I pray for I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world And even as he disowns it in his prayer so should we for we must walk in every imitable thing as we have him for an example And out of doubt he speaks not this for the direction of his Father that he might not be mistaken as I noted even now but on the other side for the instruction of his Apostles and Disciples who were by and heard him pray That they might learn not to exceed their bounds in their petitions And when they seriously consider how they are hated and maligned and abused in the world they might not yet desire the Lord on this account that he would take them hence but rather that he would preserve and keep them here as you have it in my Text I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil And the ground is evident Reason Removal out of this world is not the proper subject matter of Petition because it is not simply in it self a blessing Indeed by accident I must acknowledge death and departure hence is turned exceed ngly to the advantage of the Saints For by it they are freed from evils penal and from evils sinful from suffering and from sinning they are admitted to most near communion with him whom their soul loves and whom their hearts do even gasp after from whose immediate presence they are unavoidably debarred as long as they remain in this world But properly life and continuance in the body is the blessing and therefore it is properly to be desired We find it usually to be propounded in the promise as the reward of holiness and of obedience And in this form we have it in the fifth Commandment which is the first Commandment with promise the only one that hath a promise of the second Table the only one of all the ten that hath a distinct and particular promise And now you will expect I know there should be some transcendent mercy comprehended in such a singular and extraordinary promise as this is And yet it is but long life in this world that thy days may be long in the land c. That promise is a pregnant one to this effect Psal 91. ult with long life will I satisfie him and shew him my salvation First I will satisfie him with long life he
shall live so long on earth till he be full of days even as the stomack that is full of meat till he desire to live no longer till nature be spun out to the uttermost extent and after I will shew him my salvation I will bring him to the place where he shall live for evermore And hence it is because continuance here is properly and in it self a blessing as on the other side the contrary thereto the rooting out of the land of the living is properly and in it self a curse that holyest Saints have deprecated taking hence They have been so far from praying that God would take them out of the world that they have rather prayed against it Lord take me not away in the midst of my days Psal 102.24 How did they plead sometimes for their indangered lives as a prisoner at the bar and when the Lord was pleased to leave them in the world a little longer they were exceedingly affected and enlarged to thankfulness As Hezekiah was you know who penned a Psalm of praise on this occasion and this was the burthen of it The living the living they shall praise thee as I do this day Object But you will interpose and say perhaps Some of the choicest Saints of God have prayed expresly to be taken hence and therefore it should seem to be the proper subject matter of Petition Answ 1. To this I answer such as prayed aright did not make their removal hence by death the proper subject matter of their prayers They did not seek it simply and abstractly by and for it self but in relation to some other thing which they could not have without it It 's true indeed that the Apostle Paul desired to be dissolved and to be with Christ he could not be with Christ he knew unless he were dissolved first and therefore that he might injoy him he was contented to be dissolved for that end Or otherwise he would have been far enough from desiring dissolution And therefore in another place he speaks clearly We would not be unclothed saith he viz. of life and of the body 2 Cor. 5.4 that is not properly the thing that we desire But we would be clothed upon with immortality in heaven If it might be possible we would be clothed upon with that without the putting off of this Indeed he saith before in the Name of all the Saints We that are in this Tabernacle do groan being burthened But yet it was not life considered in it self that was their burthen but with its evil adjuncts and associates which do continually cleave to it and which cannot be severed from it in this world So that if you take life you must take that which comes with it In this respect indeed it is a burthen to the holyest Saints because it is accompanyed with such a burthen of corruption as makes them groan and faint under it But if it be considered simply and abstractly in it self it is not a burthen from which the Saints do groan to be delivered no it is a blessing rather of which they groan to be deprived 2. Most of the Saints who have desired God to take them hence have failed and sinned in those desires of theirs It was their weakness and infirmity they did it out of fear and despondency of Spirit out of passion and impatience And thus it seems Eliah did when he fled from Jezabel 1 King 19.4 And thus it is extreamly probable that Moses did Num. 11.10 15. For it is said he was displeased and in that angry fit he said to God Wherefore hast thou afflicted me If thou deal thus with me kill me I pray thee out of hand and do not let me see my wretchedness And thus it is apparent Jonas did who being crost in a punctilio in a point of honor out of a pettish foolish childish humour will go die forsooth God must take away his life These imperfections of the Saints are left upon record in Scripture not as marks to be aimed at but as rocks to be declined Vse Now to proceed to make some Application of the point My Brethren is it so that removal out of this world is not the proper subject matter of Petition Then let not any of us make it so when we are putting up our supplications and requests to God When we consider how the world hates us how it pours contempt upon us how it follows us with troubles persecutions and afflictions so that we see but little hope that we should ever live contentedly and quietly and freely here it may be we are weary of it and ever ready to desire the Lord that he would remove us from it To wish with Israel in a pang of discontent Numb 11.1 Would God we were dead And with Eliah It is enough Lord take away our lives 1 King 14.4 It 's that which many of us are too apt to do when we are over-loaden with the cares and troubles of this world to reach after deliverance and redress and ease by this means And therefore when we find our hearts are running out in such a way as this is let us call them in again let us correct our selves and say as our Saviour in my Text O Lord we pray not that thou wouldst take us out of the world we are far from such impatience we are content to wait thy leisure to tarry till thy time come And here to keep you from such extravagancies and irregular desires I shall present you with a few things It is a special mercy of the Lord to give us life and to continue us in this world though in a comfortless and sad condition David was in a sorry case afflicted persecuted and oppressed when he put up that prayer to the Lord Deal bountifully with thy servant or be beneficial to thy servant that I may live and keep thy Word Psal 119.17 He counted it a benefit to live how troublesome soever his condition were It 's that which even Nature teaches us to reach after Skin for skin and all that a man hath will he give for his life And yet a life with nothing else some will count worth nothing You know my Brethren all that God himself did promise to some very gratious men in times of common trouble and calamity was only this they should have their lives for a prey and that was all for great things were not to be looked for Jer. 39.38 and 45.5 And yet that was a great mercy If we be not taken hence perhaps we may enjoy the mercy to out-live troubles It is mercy to live in them but it is greater mercy to live beyond them and this if we be quiet and content and patient for ought we know may be our portion And this was that which David promised to himself when he was almost over-come and over-whelmed with his afflictions and distresses I shall not die but live saith he and declare the works of the Lord Psal 118.17 Me thinks he gathers up
the valley of the shadow of death among men among Devils among temptations and corruptions and afflictions of all sorts of all sizes yet I will not be afraid for Christ hath interceded for me to the Father and he will certainly preserve me from the hurt of all these He will keep me from every evil work and preserve me to his heavenly Kingdom JOHN 17.16 They are not of the world even as I am not c. AND thus far of the Second Argument with which our Saviour presseth and enforceth his Petition to his Father together with the Explication of it To this he adds a repetition of that which he delivered word for word before as you shall see if you compare them both together They are not of the world even as I am not of the world He said before I have given them thy Word and the world hath hated them because they are not of the world even as I am not of the world And here again they are not of the world even as I am not of the world So that you see my Brethren Repetition of the self same thing and in the self same words in Prayer is not to be condemned in all cases Our Saviour as he is our Mediator to pray for us so he is our Master too to instruct us how to pray Master say the Disciples to our Saviour Luk. 11.1 teach us to pray as John also taught his Disciples And he teaches us to pray not by his precept only but by example too And in the latter way he teaches us in this place to fetch over things again that have been said before in prayer yea sometimes in the very same expressions And in another place the Holy Ghost observeth of him that he prayed a second and a third time saying the very same words Matth. 26.44 He could have varied but he would not varie because his judgement and affection led him into the very same tract wherein he had gone once or twice before And so when repetitions are not of necessity but out of choise because the zeal and fervor of the speaker draws him and invites him to it they are sometimes of very good use Indeed our Saviour I acknowledge interdicteth repetitions but mark what repetitions my Beloved Battologies vain repetitions When ye pray 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 use no vain repetitions as the Heathens do and as the Papists do who use to babble over so many Pater Nosters and so many Ave Maries and think to be heard for their much speaking as it is added there in that place Mat. 6.7 Observe it well our Saviour saith not use no repetitions but use no vain repetitions And when they flow from the strength of the affection that knows not which way to get off from some considerable and important thing as you may note in David and other Saints in Scripture they are not vain but to very good purpose What was our Saviours purpose in the repetition that he uses in my Text is diversly conceived by those that write upon it Once this is evident to me there is the same occasion for the repetition that there was for the mention of the self-same thing before Before the hatred to which they were exposed in the world and here the evil which they were like to suffer from the world of both which this was the true reason because indeed they were not of this world but of another There saith our Saviour the world hath hated them how so They are not of the world even as I am not of this world Here saith our Saviour I pray thee Father keep them from the evil of the world Why are they like to suffer evil from the world how so The same again They are not of the world even as I am not of the world And he would have it to be very well observed that all the hatred and injurious dealing to which his poor Disciples were exposed in the world proceeded not from any fault of theirs but it was meerly upon this account because they were not of the world but were conformable to Christ himself in this particular The world likes them much the worse because they were in this respect like Christ I shall not now insist upon the words as considered in dependence and as they are a reason of the evil usage which Christs Disciples use to meet withal in this world For this I did when I last met with them But I shall take them absolutely as considered in themselves And so they yield us out this general Observation DOCTRINE That Christs Disciples are in this respect like Christ himself that they are of another world as he is There are two things in the point which I shall clear distinctly and in order First Christ himself is not of this world but of another Then Christs Disciples are in this respect like him They are like him many ways in many things and especially in this among the rest That they are not of the world as he is not of the world As for the first of these That Christ himself is not of this world but of another you see it is his own express assertion in my Text I am not of this world He doth not say I am not in this world for that indeed he could not say when he made this prayer Nay he saith the contrary but a verse or two before These things speak I in the world But I am not of this world this he affirmeth here and in divers others places Though he were really a man yet he was not like other men at least not like worldly men in this regard as he told the Pharisees Joh. 8.23 Ye are of this world I am not of this world Now to open this a little I shall shew you particularly and distinctly that Jesus Christ when he was here in this world yet he was not of this world but of another especially in these respects As first because he came from another world And secondly because he lived in another world And thirdly because he went to another world I shall follow these in order 1. Jesus Christ when he was here in this world yet he was not of this world but of another because he came from another world And he was more properly of the world he came from then of the world he sojourned in for a little space only And thus he argues with the Jews in the fore-alleadged Scripture Joh. 8.23 Ye are from beneath I am from above saith he And what doth he infer upon it Ye are of this world I am not of this world You see both the clauses answer one another Ye are from beneath and therefore ye are of this world I am from above and therefore I am not of this world In this respect he is called the Lord from heaven 1 Cor. 15.47 Observe it not the Lord in heaven but the Lord from heaven and that not only with relation to his second but also to
to our thoughts then this is Ah my Beloved were there nothing in the world but this alone to quicken us and egge us on to purity and a holy conversation no peace of conscience waiting on it no inward joy and comfort of the Holy Ghost no fruit of sanctity no reward of it neither in the present life nor in that which is to come whereas it hath the promises of both I say my Brethren were there nothing else to move us this of it self were sufficient to perswade viz. That Christ in all those torments those abasures those agonies and horrors which he suffered when he sanctified himself and set himself apart to be a sacrifice to God the Father aimed at this that he might sanctifie us to himself that we for whom he suffered might be holy And shall we now like base unthankful and unworthy wretches endeavour to the utmost of our power to thwart and cross him in his purpose to frustrate and make void his end Hath he laid down his life to this end that we might be pure and shall we notwithstanding be prophane Hath he shed his pretious blood to this end that we might be holy and shall we notwithstanding be unclean Is this the reckoning that we make of all those exquisite and those unutterable pangs and tortures which our Saviour suffered when not his body only but his soul was made an offering for sin that we regard not though he suffer them in vain I say to you my Brethren as the Church Lament 1.12 Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by Shall all those wounds those stripes those horrors he endured those streams of pretious blood be shed in vain Oh think upon it you that rot away in your corruptions and that by weltring in the goar of your abominable sins and though you have been frequently advised intreated besought to wash you and to make you clean yet are resolved to be filthy still For you make the Son of God as much as in you lies to suffer to die in vain you spill this pretious blood and tread it under foot And be assured of this your sin is infinitely great and your damnation will be heavy in the world to come And therefore as King David once when his three Worthies had adventured to fetch him water from the Well of Bethel with the apparent and extreamest hazard of their lives refused utterly to drink it or to taste of it Be it far from me saith he for is not this the blood of these men 2 Sam. 23.17 Even so say you when you are tempted and enticed by Satan or your lusts to any fin to be drunken or unclean or to defraud or over-reach your brother or the like Oh be it far from me to do this thing for is not this the blood of Jesus Christ He shed his blood to purifie me and to make me clean from such sins as these are Is it so that Christ c. Oh how should this astonish all prophane Vse 3 and graceless persons Me thinks the thought of this should even break their hearts amidst their greatest earthly pleasures and contentments For what do they imagine that Christ will fail of his intention or that he will attain but half his purpose That since he sanctified himself to be a sacrifice to God the Father for his people that they might be sanctified he will ever justifie and save them whom he never sanctifieth That he will fall short of that which was his scope and aim in this business Oh foolish fancie and absurd imagination Nay Jesus Christ himself hath said yea he hath sworn the contrary and if you will not take his word I hope you will believe his Oath This the is oath that he hath sworn that all they that are saved by him from the guilt and from the punishment of all their sins shall serve him too in holiness So that if any filthy and unsanctified person should be saved Jesus Christ must be forsworn which were blasphemous to imagine And thus we have at length dispatched the first part of our Saviours prayer for the Church and are arrived at the Second In the first place he prays as I have shewed you for his Apostles and Disciples then about him the members of the Church that then was who were already called and sanctified whom God had given him out of the world I pray for them saith he I pray not for the world and this part of the prayer he shuts up with the verse which we have even now ended And now my Brethren in the second place he comes to pray for those who were after to be called by their preaching or their writing who were to be the members of the Church that was to come Neither pray I for these alone but for them also that shall believe on me through their word And here we have in general these two main things to be considered 1. Christs description of the persons for whom he now becomes a Suitor to his Father them which shall believe on me through their word 2. The matter of the prayer which he makes for these persons That they may all be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee and so on At this time we shall enter on the first of these and that is Christs description of the persons for whom he now becomes a suitor to his Father and they in general are true believers who are described three ways First by the time of their faith they are not such as did believe when Christ put up his Supplication to his Father but such as should believe in after-times Secondly by the object of their Faith they should believe in Jesus Christ Thirdly by the instrumental means of this faith they should believe in Christ through the Apostles word I shall speak a word or two of the circumstance of time by which our Saviour here describeth those for whom he prays they are not such as did believe when Christ put up this supplication to his Father but such as should believe in after-times Neither pray I for these only for my Apostles and Disciples who believe in me already but for them also who shall believe on me through their word So that you see DOCTRINE Our Saviours Intercession is not confined to those who believe but it extends to those who shall believe though for the present they have no faith at all in them It reaches to believers by Election to all that are appointed to believe to the end of the world I pray saith Christ for them also for all them which shall believe on me through their word And as God loves believers by Election though for the present they be unbelievers as I have shewed you very lately so Christ prays for all such Indeed he died for all such for all such as shall believe and not for such alone as do believe and therefore he must needs pray for all such For both the branches of
his Priesthood must of necessity be co-extended and so for whomsoever he is a Priest to sacrifice for them also he is a Priest to intercede as he hath offered up himself for them so he hath offered up his prayers for them and will do to the worlds end Use And this to give you but a touch of Application may serve to hearten us exceedingly when we are are putting up our prayers for them who are as yet without the pale who have as yet no faith or grace at all in them It may be they are neer to us Parents Children Husbands Wives and we are often carried out in prayer for them that God would yet shew mercy to them that he would yet prevail upon them and cause them to come in to Jesus Christ That he would break their stubborn lusts and work unfeigned faith in them And while we are breathing out our souls to God in such a way as this is we are surpized with distrustful thoughts that we shall never speed in this request of ours God will never be entreated and so upon a sodain our affections cool our hearts grow dead and flat within us In such a case as this is it may be some encouragement and comfort to consider that Jesus Christ for ought we know hath prayed and may be praying to the Father for the very same person though for the present he believe not yet he may be such an one as shall believe as is appointed to believe in after-times And then he is as you have heard within the compass of our Saviours Intercession so that the prayers that we make for him are seconded by Christ in heaven While we are asking such a child or such a friend of God it may be Christ is asking him or her of God too according to the Covenant of the Father with the Son Ask of me and I will give thee And therefore let us not grow cold or faint in such a suit as this is but let us follow and pursue it to the utmost Let us not cease to pray for such a person let us not cast him out of our prayers whom Jesus Christ hath not cast out of his I pray saith he for such as shall believe and this for ought we know may be one of that number And thus far of the first particular by which our Saviour Christ describeth those for whom he prays viz. the time of their believing They are not such as did believe when Christ put up this supplication for them to the Father but such as should believe in after-times Proceed we to the second thing by which he sets them forth and that is by the Spirit of this faith of theirs they should believe in Jesus Christ Neither pray I for these alone saith Christ here but for them also which shall believe on me He doth not say for them which shall believe on God or for them which shall believe the Word of God but for them which shall believe on me so that the point to be observed is this DOCTRINE That true Believers do pitch their Faith on Jesus Christ and make him the object of it Christ is the object of a true beleiving faith So he is represented in my Text you see The faithful do beleive on him It 's true indeed that faith in general which even Reprobates and Devils have looks with an equal eye on all the Book of God assenteth to the truth of all in gross But justifying faith whith is the faith whereof we speak picks out this special object Jesus Christ which is imbraced and received By him saith the Apostle Paul that is by Christ and none but him all that believe are justified from all those things from which they could not have been justified by the Law of Moses Act. 13.39 The Law will never justifie us but condemn us No we are justified by faith in Christ and him alone who is revealed and manifested to us in the Gospel The Rightousness of God that is the righteousness which makes us righteous the righteousness of man will never do it No it must be the righteousness of God himself This is ours by faith in Christ as the Apostle shews Rom. 3.22 He that believeth in the Son hath life Joh. 3. ult Observe it well he saith not in the Father nor the Holy Ghost though certainly we must believe in both these But Christ is the immediate object of the faith which justifieth or of it as it justifieth He that believeth in the Son hath life the life of holiness and the life of righteousness for both of them are very clearly meant in that place Object But you will say perhaps Is not the Word of God and is not God himself and is not everlasting life the object of our faith how then is Christ as I have said and Christ alone the next and the immediate object of it Sol. To this because it is compounded as it were of divers things I must answer divers ways 1. For the Word of God that is not properly the object of the faith that justifieth but is so called by a figure because it holds forth and exhibits Christ who is indeed the proper object of this justifying faith Or secondly the Word of God although it may in some respects be called the object of faith that justifieth yet not qua justificat not as it justifieth as the School speaks It 's true that justifying faith believeth other things propounded in the Word of God But faith as it justifieth lays hold on Christ and him only not knowing any other thing here but Jesus Christ and him crucified 2. As for the second thing propounded in the Querie True it is that God the Father is the Object of our faith I mean the faith which justifyeth but not the next and the immediate Object of it Christ must be first laid hold upon and God in Christ Such trust have we through Christ in God saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 3.4 Even Turks and Jews and Arrians boast of faith in God you know amd yet because they apprehend not Jesus Christ they miserably lose their own souls He that denyeth and so by consequence believes not in the Son can never have the Father as you may see 1 John 2.23 He is like a man goes about to grasp a thing that is too big for him a large and smooth round-bodyed Cup it slips away out of his fingers whereas he might have held it by the handle The faith which justifies us my beloved apprehendeth Christ receiveth and layeth hold on him and then as it is added in the fore-alledged Scripture He that hath the Son hath the Father also 3. As for the third particular propounded whether salvation and eternal life be the object of our faith To say the truth salvation and eternal life is not so properly believed as hoped for Nor can it be so fitly called the object as the consequent and end of faith So the Apostle calls it 1 Pet.
rigid Ministry must prepare the way for Christ He must be like a Pioner to go before to bring down every high exalted thought to make the Mountains levell with the Vallies The Law must bite and sting men with the curses and the terrors of it and so work inclinations in them to look up to Jesus Christ who is the brazen Serpents Antitype erected in the Gospel And this is all the Law can do it can but fit a man for Jesus Christ and prepare a man for faith which is indeed and properly effected in him by the Gospel This is the royall and triumphant Chariot in which the Son of God comes riding gloriously into the soul and so dwelleth there by faith as the Apostle Paul speaks Eph. 3.17 And hence the Gospel hath the name of faith in Scripture as you may see that place for instance Gal. 1.23 because it worketh faith in the hearts of Gods people Is it the Gospel word that makes believers Then surely they are in Vse 1 an infinitely sad Condition who want the Gospel who want it wilfully as the Jews do and have done many hundred years They have it but they put it from them as the Apostle speaks They receive the Prophets words but they receive not the Apostles words And how then should they believe through their word And there are others in the world who want it necessarily or of necessity and through the just severity and righteous judgement of the Lord upon them Many persons many Nations are in this lamentable case to this day They have no Gospel and so no means at all to work faith in them without which there is no salvation No they are shut up under unbelief as the Apostle speaks Rom. 11.32 God hath concluded them in that condition There they are and there is no coming out the door of wrath is shut upon them whose miserable case in bowels of compassion we have cause to pitty though they pitty not themselves Is it the Gospel word that makes believers then certainly it is no Vse 2 other word that is the means or ground of faith We have a company of men in our times that believe strange things that bottom faith upon a strange foundation Revelations and discoveries of a spirit that hath no commerce at all no agreement with the Gospel let the Apostles word be what it will if they have another word from that which they conceive to be the spirit of God they believe that and not this whereas the spirit that brings men any other Gospel then that which the Apostles taught though he come from heaven it self ought not to be believed but accursed And yet alas how confident have many been in their assent to such discoveries as have been clear against the Gospel and against the Apostles words Ah my beloved this is not revelation but delusion this is not faith but unbelief Our Saviour speaking in my Text of all that should believe from that time in which he prayed to the end of the world describes them to be such as should believe through the Apostles word Not through any other word but that of the Apostles only that which they preached and that which they writ which they have left recorded in the Scripture If any man believe through any other word or any other revelation that accordeth not with this he is none of Christs beleivers none of them which he owns none of them for which he prayes I pray for them that shall believe on me through their word For them and none but them He that believes through any other word you see is out of Christs prayer Vse 3 Is it the Apostles word the Gospels word that makes believers you then that are as yet without faith be hence prevailed withall to hear it and to attend upon it This is that which the creature can do I mean by general influence of common Providence without any supernatural grace and therefore this do you do It is the word of faith as I have shewed you formerly and when the Lord is pleased to concurr with it it worketh faith in those that hear it It s true you are not able to convert your selves or to believe in Jesus Christ but the Apostles word the Gospel is a fit instrument for this purpose Faith comes by hearing and therefore hear that you may believe You that are strangers to the life of faith be you entreated and prevailed withall to put your selves under the powerfull preaching of the Gospel as the Apostle speaks be swift to hear lay hold on every opportunity to be partakers of this holy Ordinance and then perhaps it may in time become a word of faith to you Wait diligently on the doors of Wisdoms house listen attentively to them that teach you Apostolical doctrine and who knows but you may yet believe through their word And thus of Christs description of the persons for whom he here becomes a Suitor to his Father Them which shall believe on me through their word Proceed we to the matter of the prayer which he makes for these persons And there are two main things that he desires in their hehalf First that they may be one next that they may be in one place together The first of these he proposes in the verse that I have read and prosecutes in the succeeding verses 1. He proposes it in the verse that I have read that they may all be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us 2. And then he prosecutes this Suit of his with divers arguments and reasons to ver 24. as God permitting we shall see hereafter In the proposal of this Suit of his you may observe that it is both expessed and amplified First it is nakedly expressed in plain terms that they may all be one Secondly then it is amplified by a Similitude in which our Saviour shews how he would have them to be one as thou father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us A strange expression if you look upon it with a superficial view That the Disciples of our Saviour may be one in some respects is very easie to imagine But how they should be one as God the Father and the Son are one how they should be in God and Christ as they are in one another is very hard to be conceived Yet this is the expression of our Saviour to his Father in my Text That they may all be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us For clearing this beloved you must know that as in Scripture many times is a note of similitude not of equality It intimates the truth and the reality of that wherein likeness stands and not the measure and degree I might give many instances wherein that Particle is so taken See Luke 6.36 Be mercifull as your heavenly Father is mercifull It is impossible for any man
neither do believe nor shall believe Now all the question is which of these three sorts of people our Saviour Christ denoteth by the world in this place There is no colour to conceive that the world should here be taken for believers for such as did then believe when Christ spake these words the very next word that he adds doth evidently cross and dash that That the world may believe that thou hast sent me So then the world in this place apparently importeth unbelievers But whether such as beleived not for the present but should believe in after times Or such as neither did believe nor should believe Whether elected unbelievers or reprobated unbelievers will need a little briefly to be enquired and resolved Some of no small authority conceive that by the world is meant elected unbelievers such as did not then believe but should believe in after times conceive it with a saving and a justifying faith and that the rather for Christs Disciples unity among themselves And hence he prays That they may all be one as thou Father c. that the world may believe that thou sent me But if our Saviour had intended justifying faith in these words in probability he would have said that the world may believe in me They are but poor believers that come no further then barely to assent to this that Jesus Christ is sent of God the Father a reprobate may do this Besides which carries me exceedingly me thinks the world is here apparently opposed to such as did believe and should believe with a justifying faith Our Saviour mentions it as opposite to both these In the first place you know he prays for such as did believe when he made this prayer and then for such as should believe in after times Neither pray I for these only but for them also that shall believe on me that they may all be one c. That the world who neither do believe nor shall believe with a justifying faith may yet by this means be so far convinced as historically to assent to this That thou hast sent me q. d. This is that which I desire that they who shall in after times believe by my Apostles word may by their unity so far convince and work upon the world that never shall believe as that they may be brought to this at least to acknowledge that thou hast sent me For so believing here is nothing else but knowing or acknowledging and therefore in the 23. verse that word is used I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one that the world may know that thou hast sent me You see the meaning of the words The point to be observed is this DOCTRINE The unity of Christs Disciples is one especial means to cause the world to have the better thoughts and apprehensions of their Master Though this will not convert the world and bring them to be true believers yet this will very much convince the world and make them look with a better eye on Christ and on the Doctrine of the Gospel when they that teach it and profess it harmoniously agree among themselves And hence is this Petition of our Saviour here that they may all be one c. that so the world although it be an enemy to me yet seeing the consent and love and unity of my Disciples of them that own me and profess me may be even forced to acknowledge and confess that I am sent of God that my Doctrine is of God and that I am not as the world is apt to think a seducer and impostor q.d. If my Disciples be not one among themselves if they be rent asunder by a spirit of division the world will never yield that I came forth from thee who art the God of love and peace That thou hast sent me down to be a Mediator and a Peace-maker to make up all the breaches and the differences between thee and thy people They will look strangely upon me and they will never be perswaded to acknowledge that I am come on such an Errand as this is And therefore I beseech thee Father that I may be entertained under the notion of a Mediator and that I may be looked upon as sent by thee do thou take care that my Disciples be at unity among themselves Now here I shall a little more distinctly shew you that the unity of Christs Disciples in Doctrine and Opinion and in Affection and in Conversation is one especial means to cause the world to have the better thoughts of Christ himself The unity of Christs Disciples in Doctrine and Opinion is one especial means c. If they maintain and hold the same things if they teach the same things they will the sooner gain the approbation and assent of those that are without But if they wrangle and contend this will make them more averse from Jesus Christ from the Gospel And truly no one thing almost hath kept men more aloof from Christ and the Doctrine of Salvation in and by through him then the perpetual hot and endless controversies and Disputes that have been among the Teachers of the Gospel Nay if they be not able to agree among themselves say they that are without even let them all alone we will carry till they do And therefore the Apostles still were very circumspect to manifest agreement and consent among themselves in that which they delivered to the people because they knew of how great consequence it was to further the success efficacy of their Doctrine It is observable that Paul joyns one or two together with himself in his Epistle sometimes Sylvanus sometimes Sylvanus and Timotheus who were not inspired men as it is probably conceived and so could not add a whit to the divine authority of his Epistle But yet he shews how they accorded all together for the better satisfaction of the people So the Apostles and the Elders and the Brethren go joyntly all together in the Resolutions of the Synod at Jerusalem Acts 15.23 that their decrees might find the readier entertainment among those to whom they sent them And though it be a certain and confessed truth that the agreement and consent of teachers neither doth nor can work saving faith in any The word it self my brethren as it is the Object so it is the instrumentall cause of faith yet it may prepare the heart and work it up to better thoughts and apprehensions both of Christ and of the Gospel The unity of Christs Disciples in affection and in conversation is one especial means c. If they live in unity and love and sweet accord together they that are Aliens to religion strangers to Jesus Christ and to his Gospel will think the better of them for their sakes But if they be continually brawling and opposing one another this keeps others off from Christ If he be owned and followed by none but by a company of wrangling quarrelsome contentious people they will
thus he dealt you know with Saul and Judas But he chose Christ out of a special and peculiar love never to be reversed again And just so he chose us in and by and through Christ out of the very same love and with the very same intentions in reference to revocation that he chose Christ And what will God cast away his people whom he hath foreknown from everlasting whom he hath chosen in his Son Christ before the foundation of the world was laid as the Apostle speaks Eph. 1.4 No no his choice of us is as unalterable as his choice of Christ himself And when he casts away Christ then and not till then my brethren will he cast away us Doth God the Father love believers as his servants even as he loves Christ Then surely he will deal with us in this regard much as he dealt with Christ as I shall shew you in a few particulars 1. He will uphold us as he did uphold Christ A Master will uphold his servant in any business or employment that he setteth him about Especially a servant that he loves So did God uphold Christ and he seems to glory in it and to call us to observe it Isa 42.1 Behold my Servant whom I uphold I am resolved to bear him out meddle with him he that dare Indeed when the appointed time was come he gave him up to suffer what he had designed him to But in the interim he bore him out so that no projects no attempts could take against him they could not seize upon him they could not hurt him saith the Gospel story because his hour was not yet come Even so will God uphold us untill our hour be come too For we are servants whom he loves even as he loved Christ And as he is a loving so he is an al-sufficient and almighty Master as he said to Abraham when he took him to be a Covenant-servant to him Gen. 17.1 And therefore he will be not only a reward but a shield to his servants a shield and an exceeding great reward as his own expression is Gen. 15.1 A reward for their salvation and a shield for their protection 2. God will assist us in his service as he did assist Christ Christ had a piece of work you know in hand that was very difficult so that he sweat and that not ordinary sweat but drops of blood trickling down upon the earth Yea more then so he fainted while he was about it But God his Master that employed him took a special care of him and sent an Angel down from heaven of purpose to comfort him and strengthen him Luke 22.43 And when as man he feared how he should hold out and how he should go through with the business as to any self sufficiency as a Creature and so wept and cried to God he had a very sweet return as you may see Heb. 5.7 When in the dayes of his flesh he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears to him that was able to save him he was heard in that he feared Just so doth God support us in the work he calls us to for we are servants whom he loves even as he loved Christ If he perceive the service that we have in hand to be too difficult and hard for us then in comes God and puts his own hand to the work What canst thou not go through with it Come let me help thee saith the Lord. It is observed of the Levites that God helped them 1 Chron. 15.26 And the Apostle tells us that the spirit helpeth our infirmities Rom. 8.26 he stands against us and bears up the burthen with us So that the weakest servants of the Lord need not fear the hardest service or the heaviest burthen when he hath such a one to help him and when those everlasting arms are underneath him as the Prophet speaks Deut. 33.27 What said the Lord to Paul when he was hard bestead and when he was about to faint My grace is sufficient for thee And this made Paul to say I can do all things through Christ that strengthneth me Phil. 4.13 3. Out of this love God will reward us for the service that he enables us to do as he did reward Christ As soon as he had done his work he had his wages down upon the nail for he was heard in that prayer John 15.4 I have glorified thee upon earth I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do and now Oh Father glorifie me with thy self And so as soon as we have ended and dispatched the business that God hath put into our hands we shall receive our own reward according to our own labour Having had the fruit to holiness we shall receive the end eternal life If we be faithfull to the death we shall receive the Crown of life Apoc. 2.10 If we continue in the Vineyard to the Evening we shall have our penny If we hold out to the period of our lives when we shall come to dye we may conclude with God as Christ doth in the forealledged place We have glorified thee on earth we have finished the work which thou gavest us to do and now O Father glorifie us with thy self and we may sing our dying Song with the Apostle 1 Tim. 4.7 We have fought a good fight we have finished our Course henceforth there is laid up for us a Crown of righteousness which God the righteous Judge will give us Doth God the Father love believers as his Children even as he loves Christ doth he affect them under that relation too and that as he doth Christ Then surely he will shew him self a loving Father to them as he doth to Christ and that especially in two respects 1. He will hear them as he doth hear Christ You know it is but ask and have with Christ Thou art my Son saith God the Father to our Saviour Psa 2.6 this day I have begotten thee And what follows Ask of me and I will give thee And this is that which Christ himself acknowledges John 11.42 Father I thank thee because thou hast heard me Yea so he might in that particular and yet he might deny him in another But mark what followes presently and I know thou hearest me alwayes Thou art my Father and I am thy Son and hence it is that thou art so inclinable to hear me to let me have my own asking Even so will God hear us in every thing that we desire according to his will for we are Children also whom he loves even as he loves Christ And therefore as it was but ask and have with Christ just so it is with us too Ask and it shall be given you Mat. 7.7 And that because he is our loving Father as he is Christs Our heavenly Father will undoubtedly give good things to them that ask him 2. He will provide for us as he doth for Christ You know he hath provided well for Christ He is not his Son
that he is a Son for there are sons whom fathers will deny in every thing almost because they have deserved ill of them and so they bear but little love to them But Christ is not such a Son no as he is a Son so he is a beloved son it is the Fathers attestation of him Mat. 3.17 This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased And that is a second reason why Christ may have even what he will of God the Father because he bears such dear affection to him And this is intimated also in the Text it self saith Christ in the words mediately before which we have even now dispatched thou hast loved me saith he and what follows Father I will q. d. I know thou will let me have my will because thou lovest me Reason 3 Yet this is not sufficient neither that he is a Son and a beloved Son too For there are sons that are very well beloved who yet will ask that of their fathers many times which would be neither beneficial for them to receive nor honourable for their fathers to bestow upon them and God himself hath some of these sons who now and then put up their supplications and requests for that which would be neither good for them to have nor him to give and therefore they receive the answer that the two Disciples did Ye know not what ye ask But Jesus Christ is none of those sons he never faileth in the least degree in the matter or the manner of his prayers He never asketh what he should not ask he never asketh what he should in such a manner as he should not And that is a third reason why he may have even what he will of God the Father because as he is a Son and a beloved Son so he is such a Son as never asketh any thing amiss he never prays but just according to his Fathers own will His will as he is Man and Mediator agrees in every thing and all respects with the will of God the Father And therefore while the Father lets our Saviour have his will he hath his own and if he should not let him have his will he should not have his own neither We that are adopted sons are many times mistaken in the supplications that we make to God we do not ask according to his will and hence it is my Brethren that he doth not always hear us But Jesus Christ who is the Fathers own begotten Son is never at a loss in this respect He never misses of conforming his desires to his Fathers own pleasure and hence it is that his Will is a law with God the Father Reason 4 And then there is a fourth reason which is more then all the rest why Christs Will is a Law with God the Father because indeed he willeth nothing but that which he deserves of him If he sue for any thing as Mediator in the behalf of his people it is but that which he hath dearly bought and paid for So that his Father ought not in justice to deny him His Intercession as Divines observe is nothing else but the presenting of his merits to the Father And this is that which makes him bold and confident as you see him in my Text Father I will have it thus That which I seek I have purchased with my blood and therefore let me not be wronged but let me have what I have paid for Father I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am q. d. Thou knowest that I have bought that place for them and I have satisfied thee for it to the very utmost and therefore I will have them to be there and I must not be denyed Now is it so my Brethren that the will of Christ is as it were c. Vse 1 The first serves to let us see their happiness who have Christ to speak for them They who have him to be their Intercessor and to present his supplications and requests for them are in a very good Condition for they can want no good thing They might stand begging long enough themselves and never speed But if Christ do undertake to plead for them if he put in a good word for them all is ended presently they have a gracious answer out of hand God may deny them as I shewed you while they are speaking for themselves but if Christ speak for them he can never be denyed he may have what he will of God the Father O the the blessedness of those to whom this glorious priviledge belongs and who have such a powerful Advocate as Christ is Is it so that the will of Christ c. why then if we have any suit Vse 2 to make or any supplication to present let us not go directly to the Father but let us get the Lord Christ to speak for us And then we may be confident that all is sure We may be denyed but he cannot But how shall we make Christ to be our Spokesman and our Advocate in all supplications that we make to God I will give you two directions 1. We must walk by his Rule the Rule that he would have us guide our prayers and our supplications by We must be sure to put up such petitions and none but such as are agreeable to his will For as the Father will not grant the suit that is not suitable to his will if we ask any thing according to his will he hears us otherwise he doth not so Christ will not take the suit that is not suitable to his will And to say truth that is the reason why the Father doth not grant it viz. because the Son doth not present it and pursue it for if he do it never fails of audience or success If Christ undertake it once his Father never puts it off with a denyal His will is as it were a Law with God the Father Brethren our Saviour is not such an Advocate as pleads for fees and undertaketh any thing that any Clyent puts into his hands No what he likes and what he hath a mind to he pursues and prosecutes with God the Father and never leaves till he obtain a grant from him but if he mislike the suit if it agree not with his mind or will he never speaks a word in it and then it never speeds with God For as the Father granteth all that Christ desires so he denyeth all in which he doth not shew himself an Intercessor If Christ the Mediator do not own it the Father never gives assent to it And therefore he must be engaged and interested in every suit we make to God by framing it agreeably to his will 2. We must act by his Spirit who knows his mind as the Apostle tells us 1 Cor. 2.11 and what will surely take and rellish with him Beloved if the Spirit draw up the Petition Christ will present and follow it and get it signed But if the Spirit have no hand in it
Christ will have none neither We have two Advocates and Intercessors to the Father An Intercessor or an Advocate within us an Intercessor or an Advocate without us An Intercessor to plead in us and to plead by us and an Intercessor to plead for us In the first sense the Spirit is our Intercessor so the Apostle calls him Rom. 8.20 In the Latter Christ only Now these two Advocates or Intercessors are agreed you get not one of them without the other Christ will not be your Lawyer unless you make the Spirit your Attorney And as the Father never grants that which Christ doth not present and plead before him So our Saviour never pleads that which the Spirit doth not frame and draw up If the Petition which you tender be of the Spirits forming in you Christ entertains and urges it without any more ado and so the Father gives assent to it If then you would have Christ to be your Advocate you must engage him by his Spirit your Supplications and Petitions must be the voyce of his Spirit in your hearts the Holy Ghost must raise and frame them there you must take heed they be not barely natural desires as the Petitions of abundance are which seek for nothing else but that which nature craves for on natural principles and for natural ends And that they be not only the voyce of your own spirits but that they be the voyce of Christs spirit and if Christs Spirit make you prayers if he make Intercession in you with sighs and groans Christ will make Intercession for you and then the Father will be sure to hear you For if he deny you he must deny Christ too that pleads for you and that he never doth as you have heard His will is as it were a law with God the Father he may have what he will of him JOHN 17.24 Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me AND thus far I proceeded on the last occasion to discover to you how we may have Jesus Christ to be our Spokesman and our Advocate in all Petitions that we make to God We must walk by his Rule and we must act by his Spirit But now because the thing is weighty and of very great concernment and it is no easie matter for every one to judge and to determine whether in his supplications he walk by Christs Rule and act by Christs Spirit I shall give you some directions in reference to both these And in the first place I shall shew you how you may discover whether in the Petitions that you make you walk exactly by the Rule of Christ or no whether you pray according to his will or no. And to this end my Brethren you must search the Scriptures in which the will of Christ is manifested touching this as well as other points of duty And then compare your prayers with the Rule in all particulars to see whether they agree with it or dissent from it as the Apostle stirring up the Romans to offer up acceptable service to the Lord Rom. 12.1 to this end in the following verse advises them to prove and to find out what the will of God is the same advice I give you See what the will of God and what the will of Christ is and then examine how your prayers suit with it whether they be framed and ordered by your own invention or by his direction And here you must take notice what the will of Christ prescribes touching the preparation to them the matter and the manner and the ends of them it regulateth all these Well then the first thing that you are to do is to consider what the will of Christ is in reference to preparation and how your practice suits with it For you must know that Christ will have you pray with preparation You must not rush into the presence of the Lord like the Horse into the battel not remembring where you go nor what you are about to do No you must set about it seriously and with much deliberation so is the rule of Christ Eccles 5.2 3. Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thy heart be hasty to utter any thing before the Lord. Our hearts must be prepared to the duty as the Prophet Davids was And this consists in divers things I will name a few of them 1. That our hearts may be prepared they must be purged they must be washed and cleansed from every known sin If thou prepare thine heart saith Zephar Job 11.13 which preparation is to prayer as it is apparent by the following words and stretch out thine hands towards him Well if thou so prepare thy self what must thou do then Why If iniquity be in thine hand put it far away from thee and let not wickedness dwell in thy Tabernacle as it is added in the next words And hence saith David If I regard iniquity in my heart any known iniquity if I do not commit it only in my life but regard it in my heart my heart is not fit to pray the Lord will not hear my prayer Psal 66.18 The promise of acceptance with him is made to such and none but such as fear him so far at least as to desire and to endeavour to depart from evill He will fulfil the desire of such as fear him he also will hear their cry and save them Psal 145.19 2. That our hearts may be prepared they must be humbled both in the sense of the transcendent Majesty and Glory of the Lord and of our unworthiness We must endeavour to possess them with an awful apprehension of the greatness of the Lord whom we are making our approaches to that we may pray in reverence and holy fear according to the Psalmists exhortation Psal 2.11 Serve the Lord with fear saith he and according to his practice and example Psal 5.7 in thy fear will I worship towards thy holy Temple And hence the Saints in the beginnings of their prayers when they have buckled to the duty have been wont to set the Lord upon the Throne and there to represent him in his greatness by reckoning up his glorious attributes And then to vilifie and to abase themselves exceedingly before him That they might bring their hearts by this means to a frame and temper fit for prayer In such a disposition was the heart of the Centurion when he sought to Christ for mercy Luk. 7.6 7. He did not think himself worthy that Christ should once come under his roof And so the prodigal that said to his Father I am not worthy to be called thy son Luk. 15.21 3. That our hearts may be prepared they must be fixed They must be setled upon God and on the words we utter to him They must not rove and wander up and down as they are very apt to do They must attend the business that they are about In such a disposition was the heart of David when he was about to praise the Lord My heart is fixed O
slaughter in their stead there go his blood and life and all He shall bleed and bleed to death that they may be healed and live Oh the narrow hearts of men how far short do they fall of comprehending such a miracle of mercy Well may the Angels wonder at it and desire to peep into it Yea the blessed Lord himself whether as wondring at or willing to make us wonder at this admirable business hath called the nane of Christ Wonderfull Vse 4 Is it so that God the Father hath dearly loved Jesus Christ from all eternity This then may serve for sweet and pretious consolation to all them that belong to Christ for they may be hence assured that God hath loved them from all eternity even as he did Christ For if you mark it well our Saviour speaks here of the love the Father bare him as man and Mediator as the head of his Church and so he loved him not alone but he loved his members in him and he loved his members with him Indeed he loved him as Mediator in reference to those for whom he was to make peace and loved him as a head in reference to those who were to be members of his body and as he had not been a Mediator and a head but for the working of their salvation whom God appointed thereunto so neither had he been beloved in that capacity and under that consideration but upon the same account and consequently if he were beloved as man and Mediator and head of his Church from everlasting his people and his members were beloved from everlasting too without whom he was no head They were designed to be members by the same decree by which he was designed to be head And as they were elected in him so they were beloved in him before the foundation of the world But you will ask me Which way doth this yield you out such pretious comfort that you have been beloved of God from all eternity 1. It is a comfort to consider that the great and glorious God of heaven and earth should think of such poor worms as we from everlasting much more that he should set his love upon us The world it may be looks upon us as not worth the speaking of as not worth the thinking of much less as worthy of the least respect And this it may be troubles and dejects us now and then But this may cheer us and encourage us upon the other side that God himself did think upon us yea and dearly love us too from all eternity when we had not a being in the world save only in the Counsel and Decree of God he made more of us then these men do now we have a gratious being 2. It is a comfort to consider that God and we have been such old friends that he hath loved us from all eternity For it is like the love will hold that hath been of such standing We have a Proverb Change not an old friend for a new because the new is like to be more fickle God hath been an old friend time out of mind And therefore he is like to be the more constant From everlasting he hath loved us and therefore we may safely rest and rely on his love 3. If God have loved us from everlasting then he hath loved us all along since that time Before we had a being in the world and since we had a being before we had a gratious being when we were dead in trespasses and sins And if he loved us then assuredly he will not cease to love us now notwithstanding all our unallowed imperfections and defects He will continue and go on to love us still till he have lodged us with himself in glory Oh how should this revive the hearts of those among the Saints who are so apt to doubt the love of God because they sin so often and so much against him Why man God loved thee when thou didst sin against him more then now thou dost he loved thee when thou hatedst him and therefore certainly he will not hate thee now thou lovest him No he that loved thee from the beginning will love thee also to the end He that loved thee from everlasting will love thee to everlasting and nothing in the world shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And thus we have at length dispatched the body of our Saviours prayer and are arrived at the close or the conclusion of it In which his drift and purpose is to render his Disciples for whom he hath petitioned all along before very acceptable and very gratious to his Father and so to leave them in his hands And that upon this account because they only had the true and saving and affective knowledge of him They only were acquainted with him when as all the world beside were strangers to him And it was reason he should rather do for them then do for strangers Oh righteous Father the world hath not known thee but I have known thee and these have known that thou hast sent me and I have declared unto them thy name q. d. And now to shut up all and to come to a conclusion I pray thee Father to consider this for close of all That the world for whom I have not said a word in all my prayer nay for whom I have professed not to pray I pray for these I pray not for the world yet they the world are wholly ignorant of thee and unacquainted with thee But I that have put up this prayer to thee know thee very well no one in the world better And they for whom I have put up this prayer know thee too by my means for I have manifested and declared thee to them And therefore I am confident that thou wilt hear and answer me in their behalf None know thee in the world but I and they I that pray and they for whom I pray Remember that and I have done I say no more but even leave thee to consider whether thou wilt hear and answer me for them or no Oh righteous c. the world c. In this conclusion of our Saviours prayer I shall consider but these two things To whom he speaks and What he speaks for close of all First to whom he speaks and that you see my brethren is to God whom he stileth righteous Father Secondly what he speaks in the remainder of the two verses which may be very well divided by the subjects of his speech the persons that he speaks of viz. the world himself and true believers as we shall see at large hereafter Begin we with the person that he speaks to and him he mentions by his title and his attribute His title here you see is Father his attribute is righteous righteous Father As for the first of these my brethren I have shewed you more then once that Father in this prayer of our Saviour is not personally taken for the first person of
faith in expectation in Petition I shall speak to them in order Let our hearts be lifted up in faith with reference to this work Let them be raised to a full and firm belief that it shall surely be accomplished in the Lords own time Christ hath sent forth his Ministers about it and brought it on a great way and therefore let us rest upon it that he will surely finish it in his season It may be you may look upon it as a thing almost impossible that all the Nations of the world should turn to Christ and receive him for their King But if you will cast back your eye on the beginnings of this glorious work you cannot but acknowledge that it was as hard to bring it on to what it hath attained already in the world as to perform that which remaineth to be done All that which we expect is not so hard as that which Christ hath done already If you had seen him here upon the Earth and his fishermen about him you would not have imagined that so many Nations would ever have been brought in to him as there are at this day When he sent out a company of poor despised men to preach the Gospel and to draw men in to him by telling them they must deny themselves and they must take up their Cross and suffer persecution for his sake they must forsake all leave all and follow him you would have thought this had been an unlikely way to do very great matters And yet by such improbable unlikely means as these hath Christ been entertained in many Nations and many Countreyes and multitudes of people have been brought to stoop to him And therefore seeing he hath done so much already and that in such a strange way as you would never have believed if you had not seen it done you may the better cast your selves upon him with this assurance that he will overcome the difficulties that are yet behind that he that hath begun the work and prospered it so far as he hath done will finish it untill he hath brought in the fulness of the Gentiles to his Church and Kingdom from one end of the earth unto the other Object But you will ask me now perhaps What would you have us to believe that all the people of the world shall accept of Jesus Christ and receive him for their King and be the Subjects of his Kingdom Why then it seems there should be no tares no Goats no wicked when that time comes Sol. No my beloved this is not the thing at which I aim And therefore you may not be mistaken you must remember that distinction of the Kingdom of Christ Iesus into the Kingdom of power and the Kingdom of grace The first of these indeed is universal and doth already reach to all places and to all persons Though all be not the subjects of the grace of Christ yet all are subject to the power of Christ And hence the Psalmist tells us that his Kingdom rules over all Psal 103.19 And that he is the King of all the earth Psal 47.7 he is King of all the places in the earth yea and of all the persons in the earth either one way or the other Either he is a gracious King to rule them or a powerfull King to break them And thus his Kingdom doth already reach to all Countreys and to all people But now my brethren for the second Kingdom which we have called the Kingdom of grace that is also in a sence to stretch and to extend it self to all places and to all people I shall clear it very briefly 1. It is to stretch and to extend it self to all places and to all Countreyes The Church of Jesus Christ is to be Catholick in this respect and so by consequence his Kingdom too it is to be erected and set up in all Nations And hence the Holy Ghost affirmeth that all the people Languages and Nations in the world shall serve him And the Apostle tells us that in the business of sanctification or setting up the Kingdom of Christ Jesus in the hearts of men there is neither Greek nor Jew neither Scythian nor Barbarian but Christ is all in all That is the Jew is not preferred before the Greek and neither of them is preferred before the Scythian and Barbarian but all of them are one to Christ and Christ is one to all of them and he will have a Church and Kingdom as well among the Scythians and Barbarians as among the Jews themselves 2. And as this Kingdom is to stretch and extend it self to all places and to all Countreyes so it is also to extend it self to all people That is to all degrees and sorts of people though not to all of those sorts And as there is no Nation so there is no condition or estate or rank of men excluded from the grace of Jesus Christ nor barred from being subjects of his gratious Kingdom here and of his glorious Kingdom hereafter Let our hearts be lifted up in expectation of this glorious work Since Christ hath sent forth his instruments about it to gather Churches and to erect his Kingdom over all the world and since the work hath prospered very far and now is going on amain among the Indians let us not lye still and idle as if we knew not what is a doing in the world Now Christs work is in his hand let our eyes be in our heads and let it raise up extraordinary expectations in us The Prophet having had a glymps of this most excellent and glorious work in contemplation when it was not yet begun is on tip-toe presently Isa 62.1 And so let us especially now we behold it in the execution let us lift up our heads and look let us get up on our watch-towers where we may have more advantage to see if by any means we can discover more of it and let our spirits be continually reaching after the fufilling of it as being full of hope about it Let our hearts be lifted up in supplication for the accomplishment of this work Not that we can change the Lord by any means or antedate his Counsels and Decrees but yet if we would have such glorious works to come to execution it is extreamly necessary for us to do that on which the execution of them is suspended in the Scripture I will build the ruined and I will plant the desolate and desert places saith the Lord Ezek. 36.37 I will build the ruined Nation of the Jews which was a Church in former times and I will plant the desolate and desert places of the Gentiles I the Lord have spoken it and I will do it But yet on this condition that I will be enquired of by my people The Lord will surely come my brethren in his own appointed season and gather Churches and erect his Kingdom over all the world But in the mean time he will have his people pray Thy Kingdome come he will have
them hasten him and fetch him by their prayers that he may say unto them as the Angel did to Daniel Dan. 10.12 From the first day that thou didst set thy self to understand thy words were heard and I am come for thy words And here to quicken you a little I shall present you with a few Considerations 1. The Lord expects you should be very earnest and importunate with him this business He hearkens after supplications and looks that men should ply him hard Thus saith the Lord the holy one of Israel and his maker Isa 45.11 Ask of me things to come concerning my Sons command you me q. d. There are great things to come that I am doing for my Church what is the reason that ye are so stil and that I hear of no Petitions from you touching these things You are alwayes plying me for present things but I delight to hear you pleading with me for those glorious things to come which I will surely do for my people Come put in your Petitions and requests concerning them and I will stoop so low to be commanded by your prayers Ask of me things to come concerning my Sons and concerning the work of my hands command ye me 2. Consider in the second place to quicken you in prayer that this is such a business as is worth your earnestness assure your selves you cannot lay out too much heat and zeal upon it When once the Lord hath gathered in a people to him over all the world the Church shall have perfection of beauty It is a very high expression but you shall see it is applied to Sion Psal 50.2 And it is meant apparently my bretren of the Gospel Sion of the Gospel Church for in the following parcell of the Psalm the Lord rejecteth Jewish worship Indeed the Churches happiness shall be so great in those dayes that it is called heaven very often in the Scripture And so the Saints who are to be the Members of that Church are said to dwell in heaven Apoc. 13.6 Indeed my brethren it shall be heaven upon earth 3. Consider that the bringing in of people over all the world to Christ will be an extraordinary honour to him the enlargement of his Kingdom is the enlargement of his glory It adds exceedingly you know my brethren to the Luster of a Kingdom when it hath many people under it and when the territories of it are amplified and enlarged It s no such glory my beloved to be the King but of a little City or a little Island or of a small and inconsiderable company of men But to be the King of many Nations and of many Kingdoms to have a multitude of people in subjection this is a glorious thing indeed In this respect the Empire of Christ Jesus in the latter times shall be unparalleld when once the Jews come in and bring the fulness of the Gentiles with them And therefore out of love to Jesus Christ and regard to his glory we should be intent upon it 4. Consider that the bringing in of people over all the world to Jesus Christ will be very beneficial and advantagious to our selves Perhaps we do not apprehend it to be so this Countrey is come in already to the profession of the Gospel we are come in already and what need we care so much for other Nations and for other people We are well enough our selves and why should we look after others Yes my beloved we have reason to look after others for till all others that belong to Christ of all the Nations of the world be gathered in we are not in so good a case as we shall be afterwards We are in Christ perhaps and that is well for us indeed but others of his people by election of many other Countreyes are as yet without and we without them cannot be made perfect as the Apostle shews Heb. 11. ult We without them are members in a sence of an imperfect body We without them have but imperfect grace nay though we were in heaven already we could have but imperfect glory Till all that appertain to Christ be gathered in of all Nations so long as there is but a man without there can be no day of judgement and so no full reward no complement of our beatitude And therefore we have reason to help on this glorious work to the utmost of our power because till it be accomplished it cannot be so well with us as it will be afterwards we without them cannot be made perfect Is it so that Iesus Christ sends forth his Ministers to gather Churches and to erect his Kingdom over all the world Here then is matter of rejoycing and thanksgiving for us the once rejected and neglected people of the Gentiles There was a time my brethren when we were set without the verge the reach of mercy When the poor Gentiles liv'd and we too liv'd without God without Christ without a promise without Gospel when Christ did never send to them to invite them to come in and when he had no Scepter but in Jewry no subjects in a manner but among that people Alas my brethren Christ was a King in those dayes to break the Gentiles by his power but he was not a King to rule them by his grace But now my brethren in these Gospel dayes there is no such respect of persons with him as the Apostle shews Acts 10.34 In every Nation and in every people he hath or shall have some to serve him and to be accepted with him And therefore whereas formerly he sent his messengers to none but to V se 3 the people of the Jewish Nation and gave them an express Injunction Goe not into the way of the Gentiles In which respect it was that Peter was scrupulous to preach the Gospel to Cornelius Now he sends forth his Ministers to all the world to all Nations now he enlargeth their Commission Go preach the Gospel to every Creature So that we Gentiles are included in it All Countreys People Callings Nations are alike to Christ in this respect the publication of the Gospel and the tender of Salvation belongeth to them all alike and if they entertain it and embrace it whether they be Jews or Gentiles whether they be Males or Females whether they be bond or free they shall have salvation by him How great a cause have we my brethren that are Gentiles of rejoycing and thanksgiving that Jesus Christ should send to us that the word is come to us as it is to all the world that we should have the Gospel published and revealed to us That we who formerly were utterly shut out from the enjoyment of the means of our salvation should have as full and free a title to them now as the very Iews themselves Nay that we should have the preferment of the Jew in that by the abundant blessing of the Lord upon the means the Churches of the Gentiles which were wholly desolate and barren heretofore should be more