6.2 Bear you one anothers burthen and so fulfill the Law of Christ that is the Law of love for that my Brethren is the Law of Christ A new Commandment give I unto you Novum quia renovatum A new Commandment give I unto you that you love one another And what is love but the fulfilling of the Moral Law as the Apostle speaks And yet this same Apostle speaking of this Law of love calls it not the Law of nature but the Law of Christ Bear ye one anothers burthen which is a special act of love and so fulfill the Law of Christ So that the Moral Law you see my Brethren is the Law of Christ and therefore he is pleased to own it and to call it his Commandment John 15.12 to fortifie it with his own authority as in the Sermon on the Mount and to impose the precept of it on the people And that this Moral Law is universal and extends to all flesh appears by this that it is not imposed alone upon the members of the Church but on the very heathen too upon the Kings and Princes of the earth as you may see Psal 2.2 The Kings and Princes of the earth set themselves and the Rulers take Counsel together against the Lord and his Christ saying Let us break their bondâ— asunder and cast away their cords from us that is the Precepts and Commandments not of the Gospel only but also of the Moral Law Which is the Law of nature and obliged not the Jews alone but all the Nations of the world So that no marvel though they both conspire together to rid themselves of these bonds The Heathen rage the people of the Jews imagine the Kings and Rulers not of Jews only but of all the earth stand up and say Let us break these bonds asunder and cast away these cords from us These bonds and cords which are imposed and laid upon us all with which we all of us do finde our selves restrained and bound that is the Precepts and Commandments of the Moral Law So that you see Christ by his Legislative power gives Law to all flesh as to the outward man and to the Members He gives Law to all flesh as to the inward man and to the conscience The Law of Jesus Christ is Spiritual as the Apostle Paul tels us Rom. 7.14 not only in the nature of it but also in the subjects of it It takes hold upon the souls the spirits and consciences of men It captivates their very thoughts 2 Cor. 10.5 And herein Jesus Christ is singular and manifesteth such authority as no one exerciseth but himself It s true that men do oftentimes give Laws unto the outward man and to the members in politick and civil things and then they do it too as Christs Vicegerents and his Deputies they do it under him and by authority from him But it is Christ and he alone that gives Laws unto the Conscience in holy and religious things He delegates the former power to Magistrates who in the same respect are stiled the Ministers of Christ But this authority he makes not over to any of the sons of men And yet he exercises this authority over all the sons of men so that there is not one of them exempted from his Power As Jesus Christ hath a Legislative power so a Judiciary power As he hath a Legislative power to give Laws so a Judiciary power to execute the Laws that he hath given And this is universal too my Brethren as the other is As he gives his Laws to all so he executes his Laws on all flesh And therefore he is called a Judge very often in the Scripture I need not give you instances for they are known yea he is stiled the Judge of all and not alone of all that are alive but even of those that are departed and deceased as you may see that place for instance Acts 10.42 where he is stiled the Judge of the quick and dead It s true that other Judges in the world can judge the quick they can deal well enough with those that are alive but if they die they are gone out of their hands for ever But Jesus Christ is Judge of all flesh quick flesh and dead flesh Judge of quick and dead too Death cannot rescue men out of his hands no my Beloved he can pursue them to eternity and follow them into another world and there can execute the rigour of his wrath upon them to the very utmost And as he is the Judge of all persons so he is Judge of all cases All judgement is committed to him not some but all judgement Job 5.22 whether the case be manifest and open or whether it be hid and secret all is one Christ is Judge of both these and this is singular to Jesus Christ Men can do nothing in a case that is absolutely secret If a murther be committed and nothing be discovered any way no not so much as by a circumstance or by some grounds of strong suspition what can an earthly Judge do He knows the Law is broken but yet he cannot execute the sentence of the Law because he is not able to discover the Offender Now Jesus Christ is not to seek in such Cases To him all things are naked and uncovered And therefore he brings every work to judgement and every secret thing Eccl. 12.14 And the Apostle tels us of a day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to his Gospel Rom. 2.16 So that you see no flesh can escape his judgement let the man be what he will and let the cause be what it will Now this Judiciary power of Christs consists of two things in passing sentence upon all flesh in executing the sentence after it is past A word or two of these in order Christ hath the power of passing sentence upon all flesh All mankinde is under his authority in this respect and they must all appear before the Judgement Seat of Christ as the Apostle Paul speaks 2 Cor. 5.10 there to receive their last doom either of absolution or condemnation Sometimes he passeth sentence on them in the Court of Conscience here he sealeth up mens condemnation to them and makes it to become a certain thing They are condemned already in themselves and there remaineth nothing to them but a certain looking for of judgment as the expression is Heb. 10.27 And on the other side he sealeth up mens absolution he sealeth Pardons to the conscience This he hath power to do and this he doth sometimes on earth Mat. 9 6. The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins At utmost in the last and dreadfull day all the dead both great and small appear before him and receive a sentence from him either the one way or the other as you may see Apoc. 20.12 And as he hath the power of Passing so the power of Executing Sentence upon all Flesh All mankinde is under his authority in
in Paradise no we are branches of such a Vine as never withers we are members of such a head as never dies So that undoubtedly the life of Jesus in us although it be not priviledged from abatements and temptations yet it hath nothing in it that tends to utter dissolution Secondly the life which Jesus Christ bestows upon his people as it hath no inward principles of dissolution in it self so neither is there any outward force that can prevail against it to destroy it Christ will preserve and maintain it in us in spite of any opposition The world may set upon us and endeavour to extinguish this life of holiness and grace in us she may assault us with her violent tentations every way with promises and sweet insinuations on the one side with threats and bloody persecutions on the other But this we may relie upon the world shall never overcome us for Christ hath overcome the world And we must know that Christ hath overcome the world not for himself alone but for his members And as he overcame it for us so he doth overcome it in us too by his grace as the Apostle intimates 1 John 5.5 This is the victory that overcomes the world even your faith The Devil is a far more subtile and pernitious adversary then the world but yet he cannot overthrow this life of grace in any of the Saints The gates of Hell cannot so far prevail against them The Serpent can but bruise the heel of Christ and those that appertain to Christ he cannot touch the head or breast he cannot wound us in the vital parts or take away our life from us The flesh is the worst enemy of all in this respect because it is an inward Enemy and a mortal enemy Either that must die or we as the Apostle Paul insinuates Rom. 8.13 But here 's our Comfort now the the flesh shall die and we shall live Christ will destroy the flesh in us and he will put the Spirit into us and maintain the Spirit in us And by this Spirit we shall live and this life shall be eternal We shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting Gal. 6.8 So that the point you see is fully cleered The life which Jesus Christ bestowes c. For first it hath no inward principles of frailty in it self And secondly there is no outward force that can prevail against it to destroy it But here it may be you will interpose those words of the Apostle Jude in the 12th v. of his Epistle where he speaks of some Revolters who were twice dead for that is his expression there they are trees whose fruit withereth Object twice dead plucked up by the roots And how were they twice dead They were not dead at all in regard of their outward and natural life for they were then alive and working mischief in the Church and therefore out of question his intention must be this First they were dead in trespasses and sins Then for a while in some respect or sence they lived the life of Grace And afterwards they died again and so they were twice dead and how then is the Doctrine true The life which Christ c. For resolution of the Scruple you must know my brethren that a man may live the life of grace either in deed and truth or else in shew and appearance only The Church of Sardis lived in shew she had a name Answ our Saviour tells her that she was alive but she was dead Rev. 3.1 There was but a name of life she had a name that she did live but there was the reality of Death she was dead Now they that live in name only who have the shew and the appearance of the life of Christ may die in shew and in appearance too And therefore the Apostle speaking according to the common apprehension and conceit of men saith they were twice dead Once indeed and really before they gave so much as any outward evidence of life And then again in shew and in appearance when they lost that life of grace which both to others and themselves they seemed to enjoy Now is it so that the life which Jesus Christ c. This then should stay Vse 1 us and support us against the fear of those tentations which threaten us with the destruction of the life of grace It is a great affliction to the Saints sometimes when they are mightily assaulted by Satan and their own corruptions and even ready to be overcome they cry out with relation to their spiritual as Job with respect to his natural life What is my strength that I should hope What grace have I that I should hold out against such violent Encounters as these are How should I hope to live when my life is thus assaulted with such fiery darts without with such distempers noxious humours and such lusts within Oh but remember my beloved Christ gives eternal life to his people a life that is not subject to destruction either by inward weakness or outward violence If ever once you have it from him you can never lose it He that once lives the life of Christ can never die death hath no more dominion over him Is it so my brethren that the life of c. This then may clear and Vse 2 comfort us against the frailty and dissolution of the life of nature It 's true my brethren that is subject to decay it is a perishable life but this is an eternal life That may and will be lost indeed but this endures to all eternity And why then are we so afraid of death why doth it terrifie us and affright us so when it hath done its utmost we shall live for ever Why are we grieved and troubled when they die the death of nature who have the life of Christ in them Truly my brethren we may say of such as our Saviour of the Damsell they are not dead As Christ to Martha when she bewailed the loss of her dear brother Lazarus John 11.26 Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die He shall never die the death that overthrows the life of Christ the life of Grace for so you must conceive him there in that place q. d. Lazarus is a believer and therefore whatsoever thou maist apprehend he is not dead He is not dead in reference to that which is a Christians life indeed no true believer is capable of dying so whosoever liveth and believeth in me can never die It 's true my brethren such may lose the life of nature but that alas is but an image and a shadow and a shew of life The life of grace and holiness is life indeed he that liveth in sin is dead while he lives he that lives in holiness is alive when he dies and if the life of nature be not worth the name of life then certainly the death that overthrows no other but the life of nature deserveth not the name of death And hence the death of
entertained by us and we will not entertain him or if we do it is in such a careless and in such a slight way as if he were not worthy to be looked upon The evil spirit comes and he hath all the welcome that the house can make he finds it swept and garnished the Holy Spirit comes and he is set behind doors He offers holy motions to us he stirs us up to read to pray to humble and afflict our souls to meditate of holy things and we neglect them as if they were not worth the hearkning to He offers sweet and pretious comforts to us and we forsake our own mercy we hanker after other pleasures and delights the comforts of the Spirit will not rellish with us our souls loath this light bread we must have fleshly satisfactions and refreshments spiritual will not serve the turn Brethren this is no good usage the Holy Spirit grieves at this He thinks as well he may he hath deserved better at our hands then this is I have brought down Christ to them and so have comforted and cheered them thinks he and now they slight and grieve me 2. And as we deal unkindly with him when we slight him so we deal more unkindly with him when we oppose him and resist him when we set our selves against him I know the Spirit of grace is irresistible in some respect but yet ad luctam he may be resisted though he cannot ad victoriam and so he is sometimes even by the Lords own people Even they have flesh within them that lusts against this Spirit as the Apostle Paul speaks That doth not slight it and neglect it only but lust against it The Spirit will have this or that done no saith the flesh it shall not the Spirit shall not be obeyed the Spirit will have such a lust cast out that is always crossing him and thwarting with him No saith the flesh it shall not goe The Spirit would have us set about such or such a holy duty the flesh opposes and resists the motion and we are well content it may be at present that it should do so and so we sit still and let all alone say the Spirit what he will Brethren the Spirit takes it very ill to be thus used by us it makes him sad that these whom he hath done so much for should make him such a recompence and that he should be wounded thus in the house of his friends That they should keep and favour fellows there and make them houshold-guests that go to thrust him out of doors when he comes to lodge with them I beseech you think upon it and give him better entertainment that so he may take pleasure to be with you If you desire to make the most of the presence of your Saviour in the Spirit now he is absent from you in the body as you must not grieve him so you must take singular and extraordinary comfort in him for he is sent down as a Comforter you know in Christs absence and therefore this is the special use that you are to make of him It is sad that Christ is gone but it is comfortable that the Spirit is come down from heaven to supply his place and therefore let us see that we take comfort in it Ah my Beloved is not this a sweet and welcome Office of the Spirit to represent Christ to us and so pretious and so sweet a friend as Christ is when he comes in and tells us Christ is gone up indeed to heaven and he will fetch you after him ere it be long that where he is there may you be also And in the mean time he hath taken care of you and he hath sent me down of purpose to be instead of him to you and he would have you look upon me as if he himself were with you Ah my Beloved should not our hearts even leap within us at such news as this Doth not the Spirit comfort us should it not be a ravishing and a reviving thing to us when he comes in Christs stead and supplies Christs room and Christs place Doth not our Saviour Christ himself propound it oftentimes to his Apostles and Disciples for their comfort when they were in heaviness and when their hearts were even about to break within them come be not troubled that I am about to leave you I will send you another Comforter that shall abide with you for ever Joh. 14.16 I have been a comfort to you I confess but I will send you another Comforter one that shall comfort you as much as I have done and one that shall stick to you and shall not leave you as I am about to do but shall abide with you for ever I will not leave you comfortless as Christ adds in the 18. verse No which way will you help it might they say How can we but be comfortless when Christ is gone why this way I will help it might our Saviour say I will come to you and be with you by my Spirit And though the world can never see me while my body is withdrawn and I am only present with you by my Spirit yet you have eyes to see me present with you this way and while you have this presence with you I hope you have no reason to complain that you are left without comfort So that the Spirit is a comforter you see by representing Christ to us yea it is a greater comfort that the Spirit is with us then if Christ himself were with us It is a greater comfort that Christ is present with us by his Spirit then if he should be present with us by his body then the comfort were more narrow but now it is more large then the comfort were more outward but now it is more inward then the comfort were more fleshly but now it is more spiritual and therefore let us take in this comfort If you desire to make the most of the presence of your Saviour in the Spirit now he is absent from you in the body as you must take in the comforts so you must take in the graces of the Spirit for even as Christ is present with you by the comforts so he is present with you by the graces of the Spirit By these he dwells among us though he be in heaven in the body as the Psalmist intimates Psal 68.18 When he ascended up on high he received gifts for men the gifts and graces of the Spirit to bestow on men that the Lord God might dwell among them by those gifts and those graces And therefore the Apostle prays for the Ephesians that Christ might dwell in their hearts by faith one of the principal of those graces Ephes 3.17 Well then my Brethren when Jesus Christ makes tenders of himself to you by these graces let him come in and dwell with you Make the more of this way of his residence and habitation with you because you cannot have him in the other When he offers any
of joy when he promised him you know to his Apostles and Disciples they were full of sorrow and he did this as an antidote against it Come be not troubled saith our Saviour I will send you another Comforter that shall abide with you for ever John 14.16 I have been a Comforter to you I confess but seeing I am ready to depart from you I will not leave you comfortless no I will send you another Comforter one that shall comfort you as much as I have done and one that shall stick to you too and shall not leave you as I am about to do but shall abide with you for ever So that you see one special end of Christ in sending down the Holy Ghost into the hearts of his people is to comfort them and cheer them to be to them not only a spirit of Sanctification but a spirit of Consolation and so discovers that he hath a great regard to the joy of his people Christ gives deliverance to his people that they may be full of joy He hath divers other ends why he becomes a Saviour to them in the day of their distress but this is not the least of all that he may put new joy into their hearts and a new Song into their mouths When he appears to the salvation of his people in doing so he appeareth to their joy as you may see Isa 66.5 That is the End and Drift of his Appearance Christ hath purchased Heaven for his people that they might be full of ioy For Heaven as it is a place of the heigth of holiness so it is a place of the heigth of happiness Here indeed we are in Bochim in a place of weeping we go through a vale of tears and digg up Wells but they are of salt water the rain also fills the pools But when we are arrived at Heaven we shall weep no more but all our tears shall be wiped from our eyes We shall not have a wrinkle in our faces nor a tear upon our cheeks nor a sad thought upon our hearts but all shall be smooth and clear and sweet and that for ever Then we shall be full of joy Christs joy shall be fulfilled in us yea we shall have the fulness of joy Psalm 16. ult Indeed full joy importeth nothing but enough to fill us so much as we are capable of as is commensurate to our capacity as we are able to receive But on the other side the fulness of joy importeth all the measures and degrees of it So that there can be nothing added to it there is nothing wanting to it to make it absolute in all respects It is not to be raised higher any way And this hath Christ prepared and purchased for us By these things it is evident that Jesus Christ would have his people to be full of holy joy But wherefore will he have it to be so Why would he have his people to be full of holy joy Out of self-respect he would have it to be so because by reason of the Reason 1 neerness of his union with his people he hath a kind of share in their comfort As his joy is their joy according to his own expression in my text that they may have my ioy fulfilled in themselves So upon the other side their joy is his joy And as there is a social glory of the head and of the members as the School-expression is as Christ is glorified in the glory of his people 2 Thes 1.12 so there is a social joy of the head and of the members Christ rejoyceth in the joy of his people The Comfort of the members redoundeth also to the Comfort of the head As Christ delights in the prosperity so in the joy of his people When they are joyfull he rejoyceth over them with joy and joyeth over them with singing as his own expression is Zeph. 3.17 Reason 2 Christ would have his people to be full of holy joy to recompence them for their sorrow They are described to be such as mourn Mat. 5.4 That uses to be first with them they use to begin there But then they do not use to end there And therefore it is added presently for they shall be comforted Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted And Christ would have their comfort to be answerable to their sorrow That as his sufferings have abounded in them their consolation also may abound by him as the Apostle speaks 2 Cor. 1.5 Indeed they go forth weeping bearing pretious seed as you may see Psal 126.6 They sow in showry weather in a weeping time In such a time did David sow the seed of true repentance for his sin he wept so much that he made his bed to swimm and watered his Couch with his tears In such a time did Peter sow the same see in a time of bitter weeping Mat. 26. ult But then the harvest makes them ample recompence for all the dark and sad and showry weather in the sowing time They come again with joy and they bring their sheaves with them They scatter it by grains but they gather it by sheaves they have twenty thirty forty yea an hundred fold for one So that if any now should ask me You say that Christ would have his people to rejoyce but what would he not have them mourn too Yes he would have them mourn but in order to rejoycing Sorrow is an unperfect passion and is not for it self but for some higher use as all the rest of the declining passions or affections are As hatred is for love and fear for confidence so sorrow also is for joy unto which it is subservient As lancing is not for it self but for ease and remedy and as a potion is not properly for sickness though it cause it for a season but for health so sorrow is for joy and joy is the end of sorrow in the Saints And Christ intends it to be so You shall be sorrowfull saith Christ to his Disciples but your sorrow shall be turned into Joy John 16.20 He gives to them that mourn in Zion beauty for ashes the oil of gladness for mourning and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness Isa 61.3 The ransom'd of the Lord go out lamenting but they return to Zion with Songs and everlasting Joy upon their heads Isa 35. ult Reason 3 Christ would have his people to be full of holy joy that they may be large in duty Sorrow is a kind of straightning the heart a sad heart is a straigthned heart it is shut up it cannot pray it cannot praise it can do nothing with enlargement And therefore the Apostle calleth mourning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a contraction of the heart 2 Cor. 2.4 And I appeal for this to those whose spirits are opprest with sadness and dejection whether it do not make them indisposed to duty unfit to hear unfit to pray and in a word unfit for any part of Christs service But holy joy upon the
own humours O no but on the contrary that we might serve him who hath saved us in holiness and righteousness all the dayes of our lives By one offering of himself he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified saith the Apostle Heb. 10.14 Not them that are justified but them that are sanctified And hence the blood of Jesus which he shed when he was a made a sacrifice to God the Father hath not a pacifying only but a purging quality in it It hath not only a value to satisfie but a virtue to sanctifie The blood of Jesus cleanseth us from all sin 1 John 1.7 Compleatly from the guilt of all in justification and inchoatively from the filth of all in sanctification I might be copious in the proof but this may satisfie to clear the point Christ did not set himself apart to be an offring and a sacrifice to God the Father for his own sake but for his peoples sakes and that to this end that they might be sanctified by this means Reason 1 And the grounds are evident I shall but touch upon them only and hasten to Application For first his scope and purpose in this work of his was not only to preserve his people from destruction but to bring them to salvation not only to deliver them from hell but to obtain their entrance into heaven And truly had he not accomplished both of these he had not been a perfect Saviour he had not saved us to the utmost as the Apostle Paul speaks Now my beloved had he justified us only from the guilt of our transgressions he had done but one of these for guilt is nothing but the obligation or binding over of the sinner to damnation so that in quitting us of this he had but saved us from the wrath to come as the Apostle speaks he had not brought us to the happiness to come And therefore since he had a further aim that he might bring his whole intent about he hath not justified us only and so delivered us from death and condemnation but he hath sanctified us also and so prepared us for life and salvation For without holiness it is impossible to see the Lord To be admitted as inhabitants into that holy habitation concerning which the holy Ghost hath said There shall no unclean thing enter into it Rev 21.27 And therefore our Redeemer sanctified himself to be a Sacrifice for us not that we might be justified only and so delivered from Hell and utter darkness but that we might be sanctified also and so made meet to be partakers of the inheritance with the Saints in light Our Saviour sanctified himself to be a Sacrifice for us not only that Reason 2 we might be justified but that we might be sanctified also because he had a purpose and design not to glorifie us only but to glorifie himself in this business And more particularly and distinctly to glorifie himself in us and to glorifie himself by us 1. It was the project and design of Christ in this great work of his to glorifie himself in us and therefore it was necessary that he should not justifie us only but sanctifie us too For had he justified us only from the guilt of our transgressions his glory had appeared indeed upon us to wit the glory of his mercy but which way had his glory shewed it self in us But now by sanctifying us and by inriching us with all the saving graces of his holy Spirit which far exeeed the brightest and Orient Pearls both in lustre and in value his glory shineth forth in us Now he us glorified in his Saints as the Apostle Paul speaks The glory of his grace appeareth in them and sparkles forth with dazling lustre And as in the Creation of the world is seen his wisdom and his power and God-head and the like So in the renovation and the new creation of some certain persons in it is seen the riches of his grace He doth it that he might make known his glory as the Apostle tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he may declare it in the vessels of his mercy prepared by him unto glory Rom. 9.23 And as the greatness and magnificence of any Prince is seen in the Revenues and the Titles and the Dignities of those whom he hath raised and advanced So in our present gracious priviledges and endowments preparing us for glory in the world to come are seen the unsearchable riches of Christ 2. It was the project and design of Christ in this great work of his to glorifie himself by us And therefore it was necessary that he should not justifie us only but sanctifie us too For had we not been sanctified we should have dishonoured Christ in our whole Conversation But being once regenerated and endowed with saving grace and purified as a peculiar people to himself then we glorifie our Saviour Then we shew forth the vertues and with them the praises of him that hath saved us We cause our works to shine before men and Jesus Christ who strengthneth us to shine in them Now is it so my Brethren that Christ did not set himself apart c. Vse 1 for his own sake but for his peoples sakes that so they might be sanctified by this means My Exhortation shall be somewhat sutable to that of the Apostle on the like occasion Gal. 5.13 Take heed you use not this incomparable grace and mercy of the Lord Christ as an occasion to the flesh by taking any kind of licence thence to give it satisfaction in the lusts thereof It is a dangerous desperate course of many men who apprehending that they are delivered by the death of Christ from all their sins and that the Justice of the Lord is satified and appeased for them are by this means imboldned and encouraged on in their evill ways And when they are reproved for their licentious courses they satisfie themselves with this that Christ hath satisfied for them and that not only for their past and present sins but for their sins to come also so that they need not be afraid to act them nor to be humbled for them after they have done them But I must tell them Christ hath not satisfied for them if he do not sanctifie them He hath not set himself apart to to be a sacrifice for them if he do not set them apart to be a holy and peculiar people to himself And unto such as turn this grace into licentiousness I say as Moses did sometime to Israel Do ye thus requite the Lord O foolish people and unwise Oh Hellish people and prophane yea I protest against them in the words of the Apostle Gal. 5.2 that Jesus Christ shall profit them nothing Vse 2 Is it so That Christ c. Oh how should this provoke and stir us up to strive and labour after holiness and to endeavour every way to clense our selves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit What motive more prevailing can be tendered
to another So his Disciples p. 383. 1. Vse Exam. 1. Strangers to this world are not conformable thereunto 2. Love those of the other world 3. Have another language 2. Vse No wonder that they are made a gazing stock 3. Vse Live like heavenly Citizens 4. Vse Regard not this world nor vanities thereof p. 386 5. Vse Do not desire or phansie long continuance here 6. Vse Why should we be unwilling to part from hence p. 387. 2 Doct. The Word of God is the ordinary means of Sanctification Explicat 1. The work is begun 1. Preparatively by the Law 2. Really by the Gospel p. 389. 2. So it is carryed on 1. Vse Let Ministers be instant and diligent in preaching 1. Though the fruit of their endeavours be not always manifest 2. Though they want success they must labour still 3. So they shall not want recompence 4. The Elect are thereby brought to heaven 391. 2. Vse Let people be perswaded to hear the Word 3. Vse People thrive not in grace because they wait not on this Ordinance 4. Attend upon the Word 5. Vse That ye may profit by the Word Remove 1. Pride 2. Unbelief 3. Strong Passion 4. Prejudice against the Teacher 5. Labour to digest it 6. Use earnest prayer Ver. 17 Doct. The Word of God especially the Gospel is the Truth 1. The Word of God is all Truth 2. The Gospel is the Truth p. 396. Gospel-Truth the most excellent 1. Christ being the most precious subject thereof 2. The most delightful Subject 2. For the maner of revelation most perspicuous 3 For the confirmation 4. For the operation 1. Works grace 2. Infuseth life p. 398. 1. Vse The whole Word to be believed 2. Vse Let us give it the preferment 1. In our Inquisition 2. In our Acceptation p. 401. 3. Vse The Gospel-truth must be accordingly maintained 1. By our Arguments and Reasons 2. By our sufferings 3. Must be obeyed The disobedient reproved Ver. 18 Doct. The Apostles and Ministers of Christ are sent by him Cant. Not only by him But 1. By the Father and Holy Spirit 2. By the Church p. 407 1. Vse They blamed who take this honour upon themselves 2. Vse Therefore the Pastors power but ministerial 3. They must deliver his message p. 410. for his Ends. p. 410. 4. Vse Let the Church prove those that pretend to the Ministery Whether furnished with competent Ability 1. Of Knowledge 2. Of Utterance 3. Whether furnished with propensity and readiness to use their gift 4. Whether qualified with Sincerity p. 412. 5. Vse Entertain his Ministers 1. With double honour 2. Give them audience 6. Vse Bear with their plainess and sharpness of Reproof p. 413. 2. Doct. Ministers Commission not restrained to any Nation or Countrey Reas 1. His Kingdom to be erected 2. Churches to be planted over all the world p. 416. 1. Vse Ministers justified in their propagating the Church in America Promote it with our Prayers 2. Vse Matter of joy and thanksgiving p. 423. 3. Doct. The resemblance of Christs Mission with that of the Apostles The similitude and dissimilitude of their sending In regard of 1. their Authority and Power 2. In regard of Qualification 3. In relation to the Message 4. To the end for which they were sent p. 426. Ver. 19 1. Doct. Christ did willingly set himself a part to be an Offering and a Sacrifice to the Father Reason There was no power able to overcome him p. 432. 1. Vse As the greater was his love so should be our praise 2. Let us learn as willingly to offer up our selves and all we have p. 433. 2. Doct. Christ did offer himself for our Sanctification Reason His Design being not only to preserve and justifie but to save us too and glorifie himself in us 1. Vse Abuse not this grace 2. Be stirred up to strive after holiness 3. A terror to ungratious wretches 3. Doct. Christs Intercession extended to those that shall believe Vse This should encourage us to pray for the unconverted p. 438. 4. Doct. Christ the object of true believers faith Expl. How the Word 2. God 3. Heaven and Salvation the objects of faith p. 440. 1. Vse Be not satisfied with a general assent unto the Word 1. Endeavour to know Christ aright 2. Believe that Christ is such a one 3. Embrace this truth in the heart 2. Vse Hence appears the imperfection of inherent righteousness 3. The perfection of imputed righteousness and Justification 4. Relie on Christs for salvation p. 442 Ver. 20 Doct. The Gospel the instrumental means of faith Expl. The Law prepareth not worketh faith 1. Vse The sad condition of those that want the Gospel 2. Vse Revelations and new discoveries no ground of faith 3. Let unbelievers duly hear the Gospel p. 445. 2. Doct. It is the will of Christ that his Disciples should be one among themselves and one in God Though distant they are one 1. As having one Spirit 2 One faith 3. One heart and affection God and Christ are one 1. By Hypostatical union 2. By dear affection 3. By unexpressible agreement and consent So the Disciples are one in both 1. By mystical union c. 1. Vse Know the glorious priviledge of Christs Disciples It implying 1. Intimate Communion with God 2. Special interest in him 3. It imports great acquaintance with them both 1. They know God more immediately then others do 2. More distinctly p. 452. 3. That they have more easie and familiar access to him 4. More immediate injoyment of all comforts and content 5. The best safety 2. Vse Admire Gods goodness pleased so highly to advance and honour us 3. Vse Walk worthy of such an honour For 1. This aggravates sin committed in him 2. Makes it specially observed by him 3. To be more severely chastised p. 457. 3. Vse Let true believers use this their interest in all exigencies and strâ—ights 4. Let those without God not molest and hurt believers p. 58. 5. Vse Let true believers be knit to God and Christ in love Direct 1. Pray earnestly for it 2. Increase your knowledge of God 3. Have daily more Communion with him 4. Put away the love of worldly things 5. Frequent the company of those that love God 6. Vse Agree with God and Christ in all respects every way Else you are 1. Irregular 2. Undutiful 3. Agreement among our selves is nothing worth Ver. 21 World what it signifies Doct. Unity of Christs Disciples makes the world have better thoughts of their Master p. 466. Vse Divisions of the Church make Christ the Gospel and Religion to be undervalued and little set by Ver. 22 1. Doct. Christ communicates his glory to true believers 1. His Titles 2. Sitting at the right hand 3. Authority and power 4. His three Offices 5. Gifts p. 473. Ver. 23 Christ in believers and God in him for the union of all Doct. This is the perfection of believers union p. 477. Vse The defective union of worldly men 2. Doct.
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
us that there should be consideration had not only of the matter but even of the circumstances c. What then it may be you will ask me do our gestures or doth the manner of presenting our requests to God the outward manner with the voice or otherwise fall under the command of God Are we expresly bound to pray in such a posture in such a way or manner of expression Do these external circumstances appertain to Gods worship I answer No in no case the difference is wide between the bodily exercise and the Spiritual service We are not under any ceremonial Law that binds us to an outward circumstance to a place or to a posture as the Jews of old were And yet there should be due consideration had not only of the matter but even of the circumstances c. and that especially upon these two grounds For These outward circumstances may in case promote the spiritual service Reason 1 The very gesture or the utterance of a prayer may help sometimes to raise and quicken the affection which is the life and Soul of prayer Our hearts are naturally dead and stupid and prophane and stand in need of all good outward helps to stir up zeal and reverence and devotion in them And to this end they have been used by the Saints in Scripture and that not only in their publike but even in their private and their secret prayers when their submiss and humble gestures could have no influence upon other men And consequently had no other use but to help their own hearts As Daniel was exact in this even in his chamber and it is carefully recorded Dan. 6.10 He kneeled upon his knees three times a day and prayed He prayed three times a day and still he was in this posture And it is noted of our Saviour that he kneeled down and prayed Luke 22.10 and this was in Private too So that he did it not with reference to others and therefore a most eminent and worthy man observeth that undoubtedly he saw he needed it himself And if that be admitted assuredly we need such helps and furtherances much more These outward circumstances if they do not further yet they express Reason 2 the spiritual service They testifie the sorrow the humility the affection and the devotion of the heart and the reverence of the soul As in my text our Saviours lifting up his eyes to heaven discovered where his heart was And therefore humble gestures are especially required in publike worship because God will be honoured in the sight of others yea they are sometimes put for all his service Rom. 14.11 As I live saith the Lord every knee shall bow to me And seeing hypocrites in matter of the worship and the service of the Lord are alwayes ready to pretend they have as good hearts as the very best Therefore the Lord is wont to call so often and so earnestly for the external Service of the body and that in the new Testament as well as in the old as you may see that place for instance 1 Cor. 6.20 Glorifie God saith the Apostle there and that not in your Spirit only but in your body also which is Gods Use 1 Now is it so that there should be consideration had not only of the matter but even of the circumstances c. Then First it serves to let them see their error and mistake who utterly neglect such things as these are who take no notice of their outward carriage in such holy duties but rather look upon it as a thing below the observation of a Christian who should be wholly and entirely taken up with their spiritual service And yet as you have heard the Holy-Ghost takes notice of a gesture a cast of the eye in Prayer and sets it down in white and black we need not doubt for our information I must confess the great defect is on the other side men are imployed so much about the form the surface and the outside of religious duties many times that they neglect the main business Their thoughts are exercised so far about the gesture of their body the composure of their words the framing of their voices and the like especially in publike prayer that they have no regard at all to the inward and spiritual service The outward work is infinitely more easie and there is much more ostentation in it And hence it is that the greater part of men are wholly taken up with that which they themselves can do and being done procure them most applause from other men But yet their placing all in forms and outsides and minding nothing else in holy duties doth not justifie at all our running off to the Extream upon the other side No it is possible that even as hypocrites and rotten-hearted wretches may be so intent upon the outside that they have no regard unto the inside So on the other side the holiest and sincerest Christians may be so intent upon the inside that they have no regard at all unto the outside They may so far look after the affection and the zeal and the devotion of the heart which is indeed the main thing to be looked to that they may have no thought at all of the External circumstances of their prayers the gesture or the manner of their utterance which are Considerable notwithstanding as I have made it plain enough and therefore to be wholly careless of them is a failing yea though it should be in the best of Gods people Use 2 And therefore in the second place let me perswade you to think such outward circumstances worthy of your thoughts the very gesture and the utterance of your prayers Let there be due consideration had of such things as these are I would by no means hinder you from having your especial eye on that whereon the eye of God is most when you are making your approaches and addresses to him I mean the carriage of the soul and spirit the inward fervor and humility affection and devotion of the heart without which all the rest is worth nothing But yet let not the gesture of your bodies the utterance of your voice in prayer be utterly neglected by you concerning both of which because I find them in my Text I shall give you some directions As for the gesture of your bodies I shall commend these few things We are not bound to all the self-same gestures which were in use among the people of the Lord of old we read that Joshua and the Elders when they were routed at the Siege of Ai and came before the Ark of God to pray they rent their cloaths and put dust upon their heads Joshua 7.16 And Hezekiah when he came into the house of God to pray at the time when Senacherib besieged Jerusalem he rent his cloaths and put on Sack-cloath Isa 37.1 And this they did not that these fashions were appropriated to the worship of the Lord but because they were in use in those times and
appellation ever and anon on all occasions so that the point to be observed is this DOCTRINE God is the Father of the Lord Christ and so he apprehended him and looked upon him when he was making his Petitions to him The point you see hath two branches First God is the Father of the Lord Christ then Christ did look upon him as a Father and apprehend him as a Father when he was making his Petition to him God is the Father of the Lord Christ I shall not waste away my time to prove it it is so clearly and expresly taught in Scripture every where you shall observe them often owning one another under the relation of a Father and a Son Sometimes the Father owns our Saviour for his Son and this he doth by an immediate attestation out of heaven it self Mat. 3.17 Lo a voice from heaven saying This is my beloved Son Me thinks he seems to point him out to special observation This is he Sometimes our Saviour on the other side acknowledges and owns the Father and this is very usual upon all occasions But how is God the Father of the Lord Christ or in what sense doth he call him Father here no otherwise then we do this will need a little opening To clear it to you in a word or two you must consider that God the Father hath two sorts of sons either he hath sons made or else he hath sons begotten He hath sons made and that both by Creation and Adoption First he is said to be a Father by Creation and thus he hath a kind of universal Fatherhood to all the Creatures And therefore the Apostle stiles him the Father of all Eph. 4.6 He is in this regard the Father of our bodies and the Father of our Spirits The Father of our bodies mediatly and virtually Created in the loins of Adam The Father of our Spirits immediatly and actually infused by himself with this distinction only that there are men who under him are the Fathers of our Flesh but he himself alone is the Father of our Spirits as the Apostle lays it down Heb. 12.9 And in this sense he is the Father of the Angels who were immediately framed and created by his own Almighty hand and therefore are called the sons of God Job 1.6 This Fatherhood of God as I have said is universal and all the Creatures have a share in it so that even all of them may call him Father too as well as we and use the Prophets words Mal. 2.10 Have we not all one Father hath not one God created us And thus our Saviour as a Creature hath an interest in the Fatherhood of God And here he hath an Interest above others though not an interest without others For he is the first-born of every Creature as the Apostle Paul speaks Col. 1.15 And as this Father hath his Sons made by creation so he hath Sons made by Adoption by which a remnant of Mankinde are set apart out of the free and undeserved Grace of God to be the children and the heirs of God And here I see not why our Saviour Christ as Man should not come in for one of the Adopted Sons of God for one I mean above the rest though not for one among the rest so that he hath his Priviledge in this regard as the Apostle intimates Eph. 1.5 God hath predestinated us to the adoption of Children by Iesus Christ Perhaps the meaning may be this first he hath adopted Christ as man and as a creature and then he hath adopted us by him as part of Jesus Christ and as Members of his body And as this Father hath his Sons made both by creation and adoption so he hath his sons begotten and his sons born for both of these expressions we shall finde in Scripture He hath begotten us saith the Apostle Peter 1 Pet. 1.3 Of his own will begat he us Jam. 1.18 And whosoever loves him that begat loves him that is begotten 1 John 5.1 And thus our Saviour also is begotten of the Father and here he hath his priviledge and his preheminence as well as in the rest For he is the first-begotten of the Father Heb. 1.6 when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world herein he is above Men yea he is above Angels For unto which of the Angels said he at any time Thou art my Son this day c. And when he bringeth in c he saith And let all the Angels c. It s true that even we that are his Children are begotten as Christ is he is begotten from eternity but we in time He is begotten so that he partaketh of his substance and of his very essence that begets him We are indeed partakers of the Divine nature but not by communication of the Essence of God but by participation of the properties of God He is begotten of the Father personally taken whereas none of us are so It s true we are the Sons of God begotten by an Act without but we are not the Sons of God the Father taken as distinct from both the other persons of the God-head begotten by an act within as Christ is He is begotten by a proper and peculiar act of God the Father in an unspeakable communication of the Essence of the God-head from the Father to the Son which we are better able to admire then to express for as the Prophet saith who can declare his generation And this for clearing of the former member of the point God is the Father of the Lord Christ Now for the second that Christ did look upon him as a Father and apprehend him as a Father when he was making his Petitions to him You see it evidently and demonstratively in my Text. This is the appellation that he gives him in this prayer all along as I have noted to you heretofore It s true that God is frequently in Scripture stiled the God of Christ as see the place c. Psal 45.7 God even thy God and Christ doth sometimes call him his God as Iohn 20.17 I ascend to my God but to the best of my remembrance he never calls him so in prayer He comes not to him by the name of his God but by the name of his Father that is the sweet and precious name that he delights to call him by when he is pouring out his prayers to him I shall add no more for proof the point is plain God is the father of the Lord Christ and so he apprehended him c. Is God the Father of the Lord Christ this then may serve for sweet Use 1 and precious consolation to the Saints and to those that are in Christ For if God be Christs Father then he is their Father too And this our Saviour Christ himself acknowledges to his Disciples for their comfort I ascend to my Father and your Father My Father but so that he is yours too first mine and then yours My interest indeed in this respect is
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
you resemble God your Father Jesus Christ his eldest son is the very picture of him as we are wont to say the express of his fathers person They are so like in all respects that he that knoweth one of them cannot but know the other too The resemblance is so perfect and so absolute in all respects that in seeing one of them you see the other And hence said Christ to Philip John 14 19. He that hath seen me hath seen the Father also And truly we that are the younger sons of God though we be not so like him yet we are very much like him And therefore we are said to be renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created us Col. 3.10 And the new man is said to be renewed after God in holiness Ephes 4.24 And are you thus conformed to God do you bear his Image so that every one that sees you and observes you may judge who is your father Are you holy as God is and are you mercifull as God is and are you perfect in desire and endeavour as your Father that is in Heaven is perfect do you love your enemies do you bless them that curse you and pray for them that despitefully use you that you may shew your selves to be the children of your Father who makes his Sun to shine his rain to fall upon the evil and the good Mat. 5.44 are you freely merciful lending and doing good to those where there is nothing to be hoped for but unkindness for your good will that you may make it to appear you are the children of the highest who is kind to the unthankfull and unkinde Luk. 6.35 These are good evidences of your interest in the Father-hood of God But if you be prophane and vicious and cruel and unmerciful as the greater number are I may say to such as you are as once our Saviour to the wicked Jews You are of your Father the Devil and his works you do If God be your Father as you bear your Fathers Image see you have your Fathers Spirit The Spirit of the Father is that which the Apostle calls the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father Rom. 8.15 So that if we be Sons we have this Spirit poured out upon us But you will say that every one almost pretendeth to the Spirit and it is evident that many are deceived in this particular How shall we know infallibly whether the spirit which we think we have be the spirit of the Father yea or no Why my beloved the Spirit of the Father iâ— an active Spirit where it is it leadeth men even where it will it carries them and guides them in its own way And as many as are led by this Spirit they are Sons of God Rom. 8.14 Well then thus far we are clear if we be the Sons of God as we have his spirit so we are led by his Spirit we walk not after the flesh but after the spirit The flesh calls and the spirit calls This is the way walk in it The flesh would have us follow it the spirit would have us follow it And the event is this if we be the Sons of God we leave the flesh and go after Gods Spirit We walk not after c. So then if you would know whether you be the Sons of God examine whether you be guided by his spirit yea or no And this may be discovered by the course you take and by the path in which you walk Gods Spirit guides and leads you always in the way of God which is prescribed and chalked out before you in the word of God And this is clearly and expresly taught us in that alledgement of the Covenant mentioned Exod. 36.27 I will put my Spirit upon you saith the Lord to his people And what shall this Spirit do it shall cause you to walk in my Statutes and to keep my Commandments and do them It shall not give you new directions it shall not shew you new ways and new paths other then those which are beaten out in Scripture but it shall cause you to walk in my Statutes If then you err and wander from the ways of Gods Statutes and walk on in your own ways as the Apostle speaketh of the Gentiles the way of your own hearts which of your selves you choose and follow your ways of drunkenness uncleanness prophanation of Gods holy day c. if you walk in the way of Cain a way of cruelty and malice and run greedily after the error of Balaam for a reward as Jude speaks ver 11. A way of covetousness and unlawfull gain you are not guided by the Spirit of the Father but by the spirit of the wicked one which ruleth in the children of disobedience But if you keep the ways of God the ways of truth and love and holiness and peace the way that is so evilly spoken of by lewd prophane and vitious men And are no sooner swerved from it in the least degree but you are crying to the Lord with Moses Lord shew us thy way with David I am gone astray Lord seek thy servant enquiring of your brethren to direct you and striving to get in again you are guided by the spirit of your father and may be confident that you are the sons of God If God be your Father and you be his children you are a company of singular and choice people As you are like your Father and consequently like your brethren too so you are unlike other men you dwell alone and are not like to other people And as the sons of Kings and Nobles differ from the sons of other men they have another kinde of garb and habit and behaviour Even so the Sons of God the King of Kings do manifestly differ from the children of the world The Lord hath singled them and drawn them out and put them in another way so that they are men of wonder in the world their ways are of another fashion And this declareth them to be the children of the High God he owns them only upon this condition as you may see 2 Cor. 6.17 18. Come out saith God and be ye separate and I will be a father to you and you shall be my sons and daughters saith the Lord God almighty Now my beloved are you thus come out and separated from the world which lies in wickedness as the Apostle speaks have you left your old haunts your old courses your old Companions and Associates with whom you ran out formerly to the same excess of riot are you accounted gazing stocks and wonders to the world because you are so different from them in all your ways And can you say in the uprightness of your hearts that this your singular and holy walking is not in shew and in hypocrisie but in sincerity and truth you may assure your selves you are the sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty But if you walk according to the course and fashion of the world if
and so they make the Son of God as much as in them lies to suffer and to die in vain they spill his precious blood upon the ground as if it were of no value Christ shed his blood to this end that his people might be holy and they will be impure still and wallow in their lusts still They care not what become of it let it be shed in vain for them they reckon not Oh what a high contempt is this to Jesus Christ These men as the Apostle speaks tread underfoot the Son of God they trample on him in Disdain and put him to the greatest shame that can be They that despise and slight the spirit of Christ dishonour Christ himself the Comforter the holy Spirit is the messenger of Christ he is instead of Christ to his people he represents him absent to the soul And therefore he is said in Scripture to be with them in that his holy Spirit is with them Behold I am with you alwayes viz. by my Spirit to the end of the world Mat. 28. ult I will not leave you comfortless saith Christ to his Disciple I will come to you Iohn 14.18 he meaneth not by himself but by his Spirit So that when the Spirit comes Christ comes and therefore it is added presently At that time you shall know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you So that if this sweet Messenger of Jesus Christ who is to us instead of Christ be ill-entreated by us it is apparently a very great indignity to Christ himself And yet how often do we damp the holy motions of this Spirit in our hearts When good desires and gracious purposes are raised and kindled there how often do we smother them and put them out again how frequently do we misuse him who comes with counsel and with comfort and with grace from such a choise and pretious friend as Christ is How do we slight the seasonable caveats that the spirit gives us either for our information or else for our consolation and what is this upon the matter but to despise and slight Christ They that despise and slight the Messengers and the Embassadors of Christ they dishonour Christ himself He is in this respect at the same hand that Princes are the wrongs and the indignities that are done to those they send they take as offered to themselves and truly so doth Jesus Christ His Ministers the Preachers and Dispensers of his Gospel are his Embassadors to men they are instead of Christ as the Apostle Pauls expression is 2 Cor. 5.20 Now then we are Embassadors for Christ we pray you in Christs stead and they that injure or dishonour those that are for Christ and that are in Christs stead must needs dishonour Christ himself Our Saviour is express and plain for this to his Apostles Luke 10.16 He that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me q. d. My Father sent me and therefore he that despiseth me despiseth him And I send you and therefore he that despiseth you despiseth me I shall say little of this Argument for fear of misconstruction I shall but leave it to your selves to judge whether Christ be in this respect despised and dishonoured yea or no. Whether he be abused in those whom he hath sent whose labours he hath blessed and to whom he hath given the seals of their Ministry I hope they will not much complain to any but to Christ that sent them and if he be resolved to bear it I make no question he will give them grace and strength to bear it too and to profit much by it They that fall away from Christ after some acquaintance with him they dishonour and disgrace him For in deserting him they seem to tell the world that there is nothing in him why we should desire him They have tried him and they find him by experience to be such a one as is not worth the keeping any longer And therefore the Apostle speaking of Apostates saith that they put Christ to open shame for that is his expression Heb. 6.9 if they fall away saith he they crucifie the Son of God afresh and put him to open shame A servant looks upon it as a shame and a disparagement if he be put away So if a Servant leave his Master if the reason be not known it is some disgrace to him Men are very apt to think that he is a hard Master that he is faulty in some kind or other and that he deals not well with those that serve him And so when men forsake the service of the Lord Christ they make the world believe that he is an ill Master that there is better wages and more content and satisfaction to be had in the service of sin then the service of Christ And is not this a great dishonour to him And yet how many are there in these latter times who bring disparagement to Jesus Christ by this means and make his service despicable in the eyes of others How many have withdrawn from Jesus Christ of late given over waiting on his holy Ordinances and left performing of those duties to him which they were wont exactly and constantly and duly to discharge They talk of Christian Liberty and this they take to be from the service of Christ whereas it is indeed from the service of sin And so they are more loose and careless and remiss and negligent then they have been in former times These men disgrace Christ whom God hath set himself to honour and so they cross him in his great design Now I beseech you think upon it you that dishonour Christ in any of the ways forementioned or in any other way let it be what it will Remember that it is the purpose and design of God to glorifie his Son Christ and what then will become of you who thwart with him who seek as much as lies in you to hinder him from execution of that which he is so intent upon Will he take it at your hands Nay if he send his Son among you and say as in the Parable Luke 20.13 They will reverence my Son and you upon the other side neglect him and contemn him and abase him every way he will be out of patience with you to be thus crossed by wretched men he will certainly destroy you he will make you know the price of slighting and despising him whose honour is as dear and tender to him as his own Is it so that it hath been the design c Then be we all exhorted to Vse 2 comply with God in this great design of his and to promote it to the utmost of our power Let us endeavour every way to help him in that which he is so intent upon the glorifying of his Son Christ It s true God needs not any of our help he can do his own work and bring his own design and purposes to pass without us he can glorifie his
bound to the obedience of it so as to be justified and saved by this obedience They are not bound to the obedience of it so as the condition of a Covenant of works But they are bound to the obedience of it so as to testifie their faith and love and thankfulness and service to the Lord Christ who hath imposed this Law upon all flesh so that all men yea even believers are under the commanding power of this Law Yea but it will be said by some that Jesus Christ hath made us free Object that he hath purchased liberty for all his members which liberty they are commanded to maintain Gal. 5.1 And this they think and teach to be even from the obligation of the Moral Law True Christ hath made us free indeed but from the servitude of sin Sol. not from the service of himself and from the Law of sin as the Apostle calls it Rom. 7.23 not from his own Law Why should we think that Christ hath shed his blood to free his people from the obligation of his own Law Indeed my Brethren if the Moral Law the Law of love the Law of works were not the Law of Christ as the Apostle calls it Gal. 6.2 I should be easily perswaded to believe his people are exempted from the binding power of it It seemeth reasonable that his members should be freed from any Law but that which he himself gives But the commandment of the Moral Law which is fulfilled in love is his Commandment John 15.12 strengthened with his authority delivered in his hand and name to men and who can think that he should not impose his own Law upon his own people Mark that of the Evangelist Luke 1.74 75. He hath saved us from our enemies and from the hands of all that hate us that we might serve him who hath saved us in holiness to God and in righteousness to man which is indeed the summ and substance of the Moral Law So that the liberty which Christ hath purchased for his people is liberty to keep not liberty to break the Law and that is liberty indeed as David thinks Psal 119.32 I will run the wayes of thy Commadments when thou hast set my heart at liberty To say it in a word my Brethren there is a twofold liberty a twofold freedom the one enjoyed under sin and the other under Christ Under sin we are free to do any thing but good under Christ we are free to do any thing but evil Of the first sort of freedom speaks the Apostle Paul Rom. 6.20 When you were the servants of sin ye were free from righteousness and of the second faith the same Apostle in ver 22. of that Chapter Being the servants of God ye are free from sin Well then our Saviour Christ hath brought us from the former to the latter sort of freedom so that we are at liberty from sin and not at liberty to sin We are at liberty to serve him and obey him and to keep his Law Object But it is objected further out of these words of the Apostle to the believing Romans Rom. 6.19 where he tells them ye are not under the Law but under Grace And if believers are not under it why then how are they subject to the obligation of it Sol. To this I answer that believers are not under it respectively to the coaction of it for they willingly obey it They are not under it respectively to the severe exaction of it for they are delivered from it it comes to them with Evangelical allay and Gospel mitigation They are not under it respectively to the malediction and the condemnation of it for they are not accursed they shall not be condemned by it But they are under the commanding and the binding power the obligation of it notwithstanding because from this they are not neither can they be delivered For if you look upon the substance of the Moral Law it is an everlasting an eternal Law as David calls it Psal 19.7 It sheweth what is good and what is evil in it self and in its nature So that the things that are commanded there are not good because they are commanded but are commanded because they are good And so the things that are forbidden they are not evil because they are forbidden but are forbidden because they are evil And hence this Law is never charged as the Law of the forbidden fruit and as the Ceremonial and Judaical Laws no it is stedfast as the Apostle Paul speaks Heb. 2.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word that was spoken by Angels that is the Moral Law that was delivered by their Ministry is stedfast Indeed this Law the Law of nature was written in the heart of Adam in the state of innocency and Christ intendeth not to blot out any thing that was engraven there but promises to write it out again more fairly for it was much obliterated by the fall in the hearts of his people So runs the tenor of the New Covenant Ier. 31.33 The last Objection that I shall insist upon Object is taken from those words of the Apostle 1 Tim. 1.9 The Law saith the Apostle there is not given to the Righteous And if it be not given to them why then it seems that it belongs not to them any way To this I answer that the Apostles purpose is not that the righteous are not under the command and obligation of the Law for mark it Sol. Adam was exactly righteous and yet it was a Law to him even in the state of innocency it self But this is that which the Apostle means the Law is not given to the righteous so as to force him to obedience so as to be against a righteous man It is not given for his hurt and condemnation He doth not say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lex non est lata but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lex non est posita which intimates an action or a plea against a man So that the Moral Law is not the action or the plea of God against a righteous man to bring him under judgement and to oblige and bind him over to damnation And so it is the same in sense with that which is delivered by the same Apostle in another place speaking of such as are guided by the spirit and express the fruits of it in their lives and conversations Gal. 5.23 He doth not say to such a one but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against such there is no Law Indeed the Moral Law so far as it is against believers is not imposed but removed by Christ He hath blotted out the hand writing of Ordinances that was against us that was contrary to us and took it out of the way nayling it to his Cross Col. 2.14 even the hand writing of Moral ordinances so far as it is against us and contrary to us Christ hath taken out of the way It is against us in the rigor and in the curse and malediction of it and
you more at large hereafter And therefore the Apostle Peter presses those whose salvation he desires that they would grow in the knowledge of the Saviour Iesus Christ 2 Pet. 3.18 And the Apostle Paul desireth God in behalf of the Ephesians that he would give them the spirit of wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of him that is of Christ Iesus Indeed this is the great thing that we must desire to know if we mean to live for ever And therefore Christ is made sometimes the only Object of a Christians knowledge as if there were no other knowledge necessary to that great End When Christ ascended up on high he gave gifts unto men saith the Apostle Eph. 4.8 and what was the intent and aim of those gifts Why to bring men to the knowledge of the Son of God God is not mentioned there but the Son of God only And the Apostle Paul taught the Corinthians nothing else but Christ and yet his aym was that they might be saved I determined to know nothing among you saith he 1 Cor. 2.2 that is I resolved so to manage and carry the course of my Ministry as if I knew nothing but Iesus Christ and him crucified And in the same respect it is that he prefers the knowledge of Christ before all other things yea before all other knowledge as being of the greatest use Phil. 3.8 He doth not only say that it is good but that it is Excellent beyond compare there is an excellency in it Yea doubtless I esteem all things but loss for the excellency of the Knowledge of Christ Iesus my Lord yea life it self but loss for that you see is not excepted in regard of that Knowledge which bringeth us to life Eternal And hence it was that though he spake with Tongues more then they all though he abounded and excelled in all sorts of Learning yet he gloried in nothing but in the knowledge of our Lord Iesus Christ Gal. 6.4 as intimating that especially to be considerable in the main business to make him everlastingly and truly happy But why is not the knowledge of the only true God sufficient of it self to life Eternal unless we also know Iesus Christ whom he hath sent Let us see the reasons of it Reason 1 If we know God and not Christ we know him but as a Creator and a common Saviour a Preserver not as a Sanctifier or Redeemer We know him but in such a way and very short of such a measure as Adam did in the state of Innocency And which way should we come to life Eternal by such a knowledge as this is If we look that God should save us upon this account that he hath made us we are upon a wrong ground Indeed did we continue in the state in which he made us he would be sure to save us too Could we serve him and obey him so absolutely and exactly as Adam could and did while he remained in his first Integrity I must acknowledge then it were enough to life Eternal to know him too in such a way as Adam did in that state there were no other knowledge of him necessary to make us everlastingly and truly happy But we are lost you know in the Creation there we are dead and gone and theretore it is necessary now to know the Lord under another Notion if we mean to live for ever viz. as a Repairer of the ruins of decayed and lost man-kind as a healer of the Natures and a Forgiver of the sins of his people And thus we cannot know him out of Christ and so by Consequence unless we know Christ too The old and the first frame and Fabrick of salvation was over-thrown and over-turned by the fall And if we mean to build it up again we must begin upon another ground a new Foundation God was the only Object of Fundamental knowledge then Christ is at the least the next and the mediate Object of fundamental knowledge now You know my Brethren that confession of the Apostle Peter Mat. 16.16 Thou art Christ the Son of God is made by Jesus Christ himself the Rock on which the Church is founded And other Foundation no man can lay saith the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians Eph. 1.3 11. that is no other sound and solid Foundation then that which is said which is Jesus Christ It s true the same Apostle elsewhere speaks of the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Eph. 2.20 That is the Foundation which the Prophets and Apostles laid not making them the matter of it but the layers of it for so you must conceive his meaning in that Text You are built on the Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles that is on the fundamental Doctrine which the Prophets and Apostles teach of which foundation Iesus Christ himself although he be not all yet he is the chief Corner-stone The Knowledge of God was the chief point in Adams foundation The knowledge of Christ is the chief point in our foundation Christ was not there at all as Mediator but here he is in the first and chief place There are other Corner-stones that rest upon him but he and he alone is the chief Corner-stone on which all the rest are set and who supporteth all the building And therefore he that fails of knowing him must needs fail of life Eternal Secondly the Knowledge of God is not enough to life Eternal unless Reason 2 we know Christ too Because unless we know Christ we know not God as Reconciled unto us We know him only on the terms that he was with us when we fell and that is upon terms of enmity and opposition As long as we remain as Adam left us un repaired and un-renewed vve are enemies to God God is an enemy to us And if we knovv him out of Christ either we knovv him not aright or else we knovv him on such terms as these are Christ is the only Mediator betvveen God and man He came dovvn into the World to take up all the breaches and the differences betvveen his Father and his people and to make peace by the blood of his Cross And how should Christ make peace for us unless we knovv him unless we be acquainted with him unless we put our matter into his hands So that if vve know Christ vve may know God as a friend in and by and through Christ We may look upon him then as Reconciled to us as pacified and appeased tovvards us But if vve know not Christ at all vve cannot know God otherwise then as an Enemy and as a Judge and an Avenger and whether such a knovvledge of him can be life Eternal judge you Thirdly Knovvledge of God is not enough to life Eternal unless Reason 3 vve know Christ too because unless we know Christ and know him in and through Christ vve know him vvithout Interest vve know him but as none of ours We parted vvith the Lord in Adam vve lost him there and all the right
will never own them for his servants who prefer the favour and respects of men above him Mark what the Apostle saith Gal. 1.10 If I yet please men if I seek to please them so that I regard not though I anger and displease the Lord Christ If I yet please men in such a manner in such a way as this I cannot be the servant of Christ If God be the only true God then as you must serve him and none but him so you must fear him and none but him Sanctifie the Lord of hosts himself saith the Prophet Isaiah 8.13 and let him be your fear and dread The Prophet speaks it there exclusively let him be your fear and none else To which effect is our Saviours admonition Luke 12. Be not afraid of them that kill the body and after that have no more that they can do But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear fear him that after he hath killed hath power to cast you into hell I say unto you fear him And therefore we are often rated in the Scripture for our fear of men and creatures as Isa 51.12 13. Who art thou that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die and of the Son of man that shall be made as grass And truly we are very weak in this respect abundance of us We are exceedingly afraid sometimes how men will use us if we fall into their hands and if they come to have us in their power we cannot eate we cannot sleep we are so infinitely troubled and perplexed This violent and raging passion eats out all the comfort of our lives And in the mean time we neglect the Lord who is to be feared as the Prophet David speaks Why you will say then May we not in any case fear creatures No my Beloved not in any case make them the ultimate terminative object of our fears Fear them we may as instruments of Gods anger and then indeed we fear God in them But to fear them for themselves as if they could do evil to us of themselves is even to set them up in Gods stead Indeed if they could do us any mischief without God and which he could not fence us from we had great reason then to fear them and not him But seeing of themselves they cannot strike us and when they do they are but rods in Gods hand we should not eye the rod so much as the hand that strikes with it God would not call for all our fear if any creature could do us any damage without him But seeing he alone is able of himself to save and to destroy I say unto you fear him and none but him If God be the only true God then trust in him and none but him look not to other gods as the expression of the Prophet is Hosea 3.1 put not your trust and confidence in them For that from which deliverance is expected by us that is the thing to which we look and on which our eye is fixed I will lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence my help cometh Psalm 121.1 Now this we may not do from any creature For as it cannot hurt us on the one side so neither can it save us on the other no this is proper to the only true God I am the Lord saith he and there is no God besides me a just God and a Saviour And therefore addeth presently Look unto me and be you saved all the ends of the earth for I am God and none else And therefore let not any of our hearts depart from God at any time and step out to other Saviours Let us not make flesh our arm nor place our confidence in earthly Saviours It s that which we are very apt to do as it is manifest by this that we are so disquieted and troubled in the want and so secure in the enjoyment of these things that our very hearts and spirits do even come and go with them But what are they in Gods stead as once the King of Israel said 2 Kings 5.7 that they should save us and procure our peace Oh my Beloved be exceeding tender how you give his glory to another how you attribute this to any means how you expect deliverance from it If God be the only true God let nothing share together with him in your faith and confidence but let him have this part of worship appropriated to him to put your whole trust in him Use 4 Is it so that our God is the only true God is there no other true God but him only this then should teach us who have chosen him to be our God to be at unity among our selves It s true indeed my Brethren there are many persons in the Godhead but yet there is but one God And therefore we though we be many persons should labour to be one as he is one The argument is the Apostles who presseth us to unity upon the very same ground Eph. 4.3 endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace And this is used as one inducement among the rest to urge it and enforce it on us because there is but one God one only true God as you may see in the sixth verse of that Chapter Indeed if there were many Gods I mean many true Gods there were a manifest and just occasion of division It were but reasonable that there should be rents and breaches among the worshippers of these Gods That every one should vehemently contend for the God whom he fears But if there be but one onely true God whom all of us do serve and worship we may the better be at unity among our selves Yea we should strive the more to be at one to keep our selves in unity that we may be the better like God And this is that which Christ desireth in behalf of his Disciples in the 11. verse of this Chapter Holy father keep through thy own name those whom thou hast given me that they may be one as we are By which he intimates expresly that it is a thing very much to be desired that the worshippers of God should be like God in unity Not like in all respects for so it is impossible that they should be but as God is one in Essence so they should be one in heart and in affection Oh let us labour for this Oneness that we may be in this like God Let there be no separations and divisions but let the Lords Jerusalem be like a City that is at unity within it self And truly there was never greater need to set on this Exhortation than now when God hath suffered such a spirit of division to possess his own people and when the worshippers of the only true God are of so many minds and draw so many waies and have such vehement and such hot contentions and disputes among themselves that they are no way to be pacified and appeased So that the Church had never greater reason to
having heard the Word keep it and bring forth fruit with patience That is the Word is fruitful in them notwithstanding persecutions and afflictions So was it in the Thessalonians as the Apostle testifies of them 1 Epist 2.13 When ye received the Word of God said he ye received it not as the word of man but as it is in truth the Word of God which effectually also worketh in you And what was this effectual operation Constancy in sharp sufferings as you may see in the next verse And yet they would not let it go though they suffered much for it That of the Prophet David is remarkable Psal 119.161 Princes have persecuted me without cause but my heart standeth in awe of thy Word He had rather have them against him then have the Word of God against him They threatned him if he obeyed and kept the Word The Word on the other side that threatned him if he renounced and disobeyed it Whom did he fear most why saith the Psalmist My heart standeth in awe of thy Word Though they be Princes very great men and though they threaten me and persecute me too yet I fear the Word of God more then I fear them I dare not disobey it how much soever I displease them how much soever I may suffer from them This is to keep the Word by obedience passive for it Thus much shall serve for the Explication of the point Now is it so that they whom the Father gives to Jesus Vse do keep his Word Here is a touch-stone then my Brethen by which you may try your selves whether you be given up to Christ or no. I have shewed you heretofore of how great Consequence it is for every one of us to be among the number of the men whom God makes over to his Son Christ Indeed so great that all our happiness both in the present life and that to come consists in it If God the Father bestow us not on Jesus Christ it had been infinitely better for us that we had never been born that he had never made us For we continue in the power and the possession of the Prince of this world his we are and with him must remain for ever Now my Beloved would you know whether you be yet made over to the Son of God or no Examine diligently whether you have kept the Word of God Thine they were saith Christ to God the Father and thou gavest them to me and they have kept thy Word And is it so with you my Brethren Consider it a little and proceed in the discovery according to the branches laid before in Explication of the point Have you kept it in your memories Abundance of you have read and heard much of the Word of God These many years it hath been preached to you you have had precept upon precept and line upon line here a little and there a little you have not been overlaid and dulled ouâ— with long Sermons but you had a little and a little A little on a Sabbath day and a little on a Lecture day Your lessons have been short that you might the better learn them But what have you retained of all this Indeed some of you have laid up these sayings in your hearts as Mary did you have them sure and safe there You have them ready and at hand to bring them forth on all occasions for the Direction and the Consolation of your selves and of your Brethren But for the greater number they have lost all nothing at all sticks by them The Word of God hath come to them as the Apostle says and they have let it go again I must acknowledge there is difference in the memories of men and some are subject to a natural defect so that they fail them strangely in their own affairs which are of most concernment to them But when the memories of men are sure and faithful to them in all other things but hold the Word of God no better then a Sive holds water that lets every drop go this is a very sad case It is a shrewd presumption that they are none of Christs Disciples But you will say How shall we amend this how shall we do that we may keep the Word of God in this respect I will give you two or three Directions 1. Keep your minds close to it let them not rove and wander while you hear it if they do you lose all This is the Apostles counsel to give earnest heed to be intent upon the things we hear to watch the words as they come forth out of the Preachers mouths Heb 2.1 and why so least at any time we let them slip If we would remember well there must not be the least diversion 2. Get a good understanding in the Word of God The observation of the Holy Ghost is notable for this purpose Luk 2.19 They understood not the sayings which he spake unto them But Mary kept all these sayings in her heart They kept them not because they did not understand them that which is not understood will very hardly be remembred They are our understanding hearers that carry all away while ignorant and sottish people keep nothing 3. Value the Word of God more and you shall find you will remember it the better See the necessity the excellency of it and then you will be careful how you lose it Esteem it as the Prophet David did above gold yea above fine gold He whose memory is weakest seldom forgets where he hath laid his gold 4. Strengthen memory by meditation repetition conference of what you hear If it be hard to take in holy Truths chafe them in rub them in and settle them by this means Let them be as a nail well fastned as the expression of the Wiseman is and set home with many strokes that they may not out again 5. Set instantly upon the practice of the truth delivered to you assoon as you hear it act it That which you do you will remember Mark that of the Apostle James 1.25 Not being a forgetful hearer but a doer of the Word The doer then is no forgetful hearer Many men remember nothing because indeed they do nothing 6. When holy truths are gone with you when they are slipt away entreat the Holy Spirit to recal them Mind him humbly of his Office and of the end for which your Saviour sent him down into this lower world to bring things to remembrance which have been taught you Joh. 14.26 JOHN 17.6 And they have kept thy Word TO pass on to the Second branch of this discovery Have you kept the Word of God in your Hearts by believing This is a degree higher and reaches further then the other Many keep it in their memories who do not keep it in their hearts Many remember it who do not believe it And yet unless we do both we can have no assurance that we belong to Jesus Christ by the donation of the Father And is it so with you
did otherwife as the Apostle testifies of them to their commendation 1 Thess 2.13 The word which ye heard of us saith the Apostle there ye received it not as the word of men though ye received it of us who are but men yet ye received it not as the word of men but as it is indeed the word of God Is it so that they that will give the word of God such entertainment Vse 2 as it ought to have must know c. You see then what you are to do if you desire to entertain the word aright and to receive it in such a manner as you ought to do you find perhaps much slightness and irreverence and stubbornness and disobedience in your hearts against it you cannot bring your hearts to such a temper in the reading or the hearing of it as you unfeignedly desire to do your thoughts are wandring or your hearts are unbelieving or your lusts are struggling or your corrupt and carnal reason is gainsaying while you are attending on it Something or other there is still that hinders you from a right receiving of it And this is a continual grief and burthen to you Now my Beloved I will shew you how you shall help all this at once You must come to be assured to know for certain that that which is delivered in or from the Scripture is the word of God If you have any secret unbelief of this any doubt in this particular do what you will in all respects besides and labour what you can you will never bring your selves to give the word such entertainment as it ought to have This one defect will hurt you more then all the means that you can use besides will help you And truly Satan knowing well of how great consequence it is endeavours what he can if not to overthrow us utterly at least to weaken us in this assurance And if he can but weaken us in this and make as faint in this assurance that that which is delivered in or from the Scripture is the word of God he knows he doth much work at once He weakens by proportion our Reverence our Assent Submission and Obedience with it And verily my Brethren though it may not be perceived yet this is that which lies at the bottom and is the main original of all that slightness and incredulity and obstinacy and disobedience which many of the pretious Saints of God discover in themselves in relation to the word and know not how to remedy They are not firmly and inviolably setled and confirmed in this perswasion that it is the word of God Their faith is weak in this particular and so accordingly they are weak in all those things which concern the due and right receiving of it For even as if a man believe it not to be the word of God at all he will give it no fear no faith no submission no obedience So on the other side if he believe it weakly and with many hesitations he will accordingly be weak in all these he will be on and of and up and down according to the ebbings and the flowings of his faith And therefore I beseech you my Beloved strive and labour what you can to strengthen and fortifie your selves in this perswasion which is of such concernment to you And certainly the best among us have need of Confirmation here for we are apt sometimes to waver and to have doubtful thoughts about it And they that are most free from these have yet defects and imperfections in their faith of this as well as other parts of holy truth They have not yet attained to such a pitch but they may be adding to it and go on to further measures and degrees And therefore let it be our labour and endeavour to encrease our faith in this particular and to grow up to full assurance of this inviolable principle that That which is delivered in the Scripture is verily the word of God Now that you may know this for certain I shall do two things First I shall lay down such considerations as make it credible And in the next place I shall shew you what you are to do that it may be certain to you As for the first of these my Brethren there are many things that make it very credible that whatsoever is delivered in or from the Srripture is the word of God I shall name a few of them as 1. The evident accomplishment of all the prophesies contained in it I mean of all excepting those the time of whose fulfilling is not come in It hath been Ruled long ago that De futuris contingentibus non datur determinata veritas Man cannot certainly determine of future things that are contingent He cannot do it of himself and by his own fore-sight Now this the Prophets and Apostles did as by the issue and event is manifest and therefore it appears that in their prophesies they were directed by the All-knowing and Omniscient God 2. It is made credible by the harmonious testimony of the Church in every age who have assented to it and acknowledged and received it as that which comprehendeth and containeth the divine and holy Oracles of God himself And however divers Churches have been at very sharp dissentions about divers other things yet herein they have still agreed and none of them have once so much as questioned whether the Scripture be the word of God or no. 3. It is made credible by the almost incredible consent between the Scribes and Pen-men of it who writing in such divers places tongues and seasons must needs unreconcileably have crossed and thwarted one another had they been guided by their own spirits We see how men that write upon the Scripture differ in their Expositions of it and speak directly one against another How more would the Prophets and Apostles then have jarred unless they had been all directed by the same Spirit We know in reason men would far more easily agree in Explicating Principles already made then in composing those Principles and Rules themselves if every man had liberty to frame what Axioms he thought good himself and to set them down for text And therefore certainly the Pen-men of the Scripture were guided all by one viz. the Holy Ghost himself who lead them into one Truth 4. It is made credible by the effectual and mighty working of it on the hearts and souls of men above all other writings whatsoever For however it be carried in a low and easie stile yet it commands us and prevails upon us more then all the eloquence of men and Angels could possibly do were it united all together And herein I appeal to Gods people let them consider with themselves what wonderful effects it hath wrought upon their hearts how it hath pierced in and made a separation between their very joynts and marrow how it hath even told them all that ever they have done how it hath cast them down with unutterable sorrow and then raised
be known by them Answ I mean as yet in the Condition they were in at that time All things which he heard from God the Father with this intent that they should hear them and be made acquainted with them he had imparted to them to the very utmost so that he had been faithful in the business There is no doubt our Saviour Christ as man had many things revealed to him from his Father which he instilled not into his Disciples for he was perfect in regard of knowledge and they were not so nor could be so in this world But whatsoever was communicated to him as the Mediator and the Prophet of the Church in that behalf and for the information and behoof of his people all this he manifested and made known to them again as far as the estate which they were in would bear it and their condition did require it And this he clearly intimateth in the fore-alleadged place I have yet many things to say to you but ye cannot bear them now And to what end should Christ say that which he knew they could not yet bear why should he lay a burthen on them which was too heavy for their shoulders But if he had said all before how had he many things to say yet He had said all that was to be said before all that his Father had appointed him to say and he had many things to say that were not to be said yet because they were not suitable to the condition they were in at that time But did our Saviour say them afterwards or if he had many things to say and did not say them how was he such a faithful messenger as I have shewn from his Father to his people For clearing this we must distinguish of our Saviours sayings something he was to say to his Apostles and Disciples with his own immediate voyce while he was conversant upon the earth Other things he was to say by his Spirit afterwards and he was very faithfull both ways 1. What things he was to say to his Apostles and Disciples with his own immediate voyce he said all those things He kept nothing back from them He taught them lesson after lesson still as they could learn And so he carryed them along as long as he remained among them So that he might have said at any time while he was with them I have made known all to you all that you are yet to know And whereas he affirmeth in the cited place I have yet many things to say to you if they were such as he was himself to speak to utter to them with his own mouth there is no question to be made he spake them afterwards before he left them and ascended to his Father And it is manifest that after he was risen he conversed with them forty days talking of mysterious things speaking of things pertaining to the Kingdom Act. 1.7 The Kingdom which had been set up in the hearts of a few poor despised ones before but was now to be erected in the Church These and such things as these they could not hear till now and therefore though our Saviour had these things to say yet he said them not till now And now he said them that he might be faithful and that he might discharge the trust that was reposed in him by his Father 2. But there were other things which he was not to say to his Apostles and Disciples by his own immediate voyce while he was conversant among them but by his Spirit afterward when he had left them And these he said accordingly by that Spirit And this is chiefly aimed at and is the main intention of the fore-alleadged Text I have yet many things to say to you but you cannot bear them yet But what then did he say them afterwards Yes he said them afterwards by his Spirit and what the Spirit said he said And therefore it is added presently Howbeit when the Spirit of Truth is come he will guide you into all truth For he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear viz. of me that shall he speak He shall receive of me and shall shew it unto you While Christ was conversant with his Apostles in the flesh they were capable of nothing in a manner It was but little they could bear then and therefore there was little to be shewed to them But when he was ascended once their hearts were presently enlarged to a capacity of greater measures and degrees of knowledge And Christ was now accordingly to shew them and the Church by them much more by his Spirit which he performed with all fidelity as the event hath manifested and declared The point you see is fully cleared Christ hath approved himself a faithful Messenger from his Father to his people For he hath added nothing to his message and he hath taken nothing from it All the words his Father gave him to deliver by himself and by his own immediate voyce he hath delivered All that he gave him to deliver by his Spirit all these he hath delivered too and so he hath been absolutely and exactly faithful every way Hath Christ approved himself a faithful Prophet to the Church a Vse 1 faithful Messenger c. Hath he not failed in speaking any thing that he should have concealed or in concealing any thing he should have spoken hath he not spoken so much as a word too little or a word too much This then may serve to teach us divers things As 1. To hear this Prophet and diligently to observe and mark all that he speaks to us He hath no loose words no vain expressions nothing too little or too much in that which he delivered to us and therefore it must be the better noted and the more valued The words of men yea the exactest of them are sometimes defective and sometimes redundant The words of Christ are not so I speak not this that you should do as some of the Church of Corinth did I am for Paul saith one I am for Cephas said another I am for neither of them said a third I am for Christ only That which Christ himself said I will hear and I will read but I will hear no other man I would not have you hear Christ so as to hear none but him But I would have you hear Christ so as to hear none like him for never man spake like this man And therefore when we meet with his words let us take special notice of them let us fix and dwell upon them and let them rest and dwell in us Let the word of Christ dwell in us richly Let us have an eye to mark them an ear to hear them and a heart to keep them as Mary had of whom it is recorded that she kept all his sayings in her heart How carefully did the Apostle keep that which our Saviour spake though it be no where mentioned in the Gospel and wishes other men to do so too Act.
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
long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth Keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin Sometimes his attribute of Justice as that is also called his name in the very same place who will by no means clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the Fathers upon the children and upon the childrens children unto the third and fourth generation Sometimes his attribute of Power is intimated by his name as you may see that place for instance Psal 20.1 The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble the name of the God of Jacob defend thee that is the power of God defend thee And this is that by which our Saviour prayes that his Apostles and Disciples might be kept keep them through thy own name that is through thy own power And so accordingly the point to be observed is this DOCTRINE They that belong to Jesus Christ as long at they remain in this world are kept by the Almighty power of God himself It is the prayer of our Saviour for them in my text you see Holy Father keep them through thy own name whom thou hast given me and therefore out of question they are kept by that name the almighty power of God For Jesus Christ is alwayes heard in every thing for which he is a Suitor to his Father So that his people are as safe as the power of God can make them They are committed by him to his Fathers Custody and he is able very well to keep that which is committed to him as the Apostle Paul speaks 2 Tim. 1.12 And this is clearly intimated in our Saviours speech John 10.29 with reference to his people My Father which gave them me is greater then all Greater in what regard greater in place and dignity No my beloved greater in power and in ability And therefore it is added presently and no man is able to pluck them out of my Fathers hand Many are willing but none is able because his power is infinitely greater then theirs is So in another place he shall be holden up Rom. 14.4 he that is weak shall be held up how so For God is able to make him stand And Jude to the same purpose he is able to keep us from falling verse 24. you see our preservation and support is still ascribed to the power and ability of God by which it is apparent what guards us that we are kept and kept safe by that power That of the Apostle Peter is express and full so that we need to add no more for confirmation we are kept by the power of God saith he through faith unto salvation 1 Pet. 1.5 The point is plain They that belong c. Now to open this a little because you do not see it in the full extent of it you must conceive that such as appertain to Jesus Christ are kept by the almighty power of God Especially two wayes Either by the power of God in them or by the power of God for them Either by the power of God assisting or by the power of God protecting Either by the power of God within them strengthening or by the power of God without them guarding and defending I shall speak to these in order They that belong to Jesus Christ are kept by the Almighty power of God in them assisting them and strengthning them and fortifying them to stand and to hold out both in temptations and afflictions Man is by nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a feeble and infirm thing So weakned and enfeebled with his fail that of himself he is able to do nothing And therefore God communicates his own transcendent power to such as he intends to keep and to preserve so far as they are capable of it And thus however they be weak in themselves yet they are strong in the Lord and in the power of his might as the Apostle speaks Eph. 6.10 He stands by and strengthens them 2 Tim. 4.17 And of this inward strengthning it is that the Apostle speaks Col. 1.11 Strengthned with all might according to his glorious power that is the power of God himself which he gives in to his people and so corroborates them makes them strong as Oaks to bear the burthen that is laid upon them For if you mark it the Apostle saith not the power of God bears our afflictions resists and overcomes our temptations for us but we are strengthened by his glorious power to both these And God is able saith the same Apostle to do abundantly according to his power that worketh in us Eph. 3.20 Observe it well not his power that worketh for us but his power that worketh in us and that makes us able So that you see my brethren it is an infused thing there goes forth power and vertue from the Lord to us and becomes inherent in us Not as one friend may help another that is weak with an external succour and support bearing his heavy burthen for him but giving him ability himself to bear it Even as a man that hath been much enfeebled with along sickness and being now recovered in a measure and his malignant humours purged away encreaseth every day in strength So we my Brethren having been enfeebled by the fall God makes us sound and strong again enables us to do and suffer what he cals us to So that it is an inward and habitual power that we partake infused into the soul by God And God in this respect is strong in us His power is perfected declared to be perfect in our weakness Now my beloved to follow this a little further this glorious power of his the Lord conveyeth into a Christians soul through Jesus Christ The Father hath annointed him with the Holy Ghost and with power as the Apostle Peter speaks Acts 10.38 And upon him the spirit of power doth rest as you have it in the Prophet Isa 11.2 That so from him it might be given out to all his people He is the Conduit-pipe through which the spirit and the graces of it run obtaining them by vertue of his meritorious intercession from his Father and so conveying them to every member as he by reason of his near communion with the manhood being more deeply touched with the feeling of their wants observeth their necessities to be And so to every one of us is given grace and what is grace but power to do and power to suffer power to stand out and not to faint or yield in temptations or afflictions Habitual grace is nothing but the inward strengthening of the soul To every one of us I say is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ Eph. 4.2 that is as he is pleased to distribute And as this power proceeds originally from the Father by and through Jesus Christ so it is wrought immediatly by the Holy Ghost And hence the strength infused into a Christians soul is called the spirit of power as you may see 2 Tim. 1.7 Because indeed it is wrought in us by the
spirit That place of the Apostle Paul is cleer and full to this purpose Ephes 3.16 where he desireth God in the behalf of that people That he would grant them to be strengthened with all might in the inner man How so Why by his spirit as you may see in that place And thus you see both that and how they that belong to Jesus Christ are kept by the almighty power of God in them They that belong to Jesus Christ are also kept by the almighty power of God for them For even as God is strong in them so he is also strong for them And as he makes them strong so he shews himself strong in their behalf as the Expression is 2 Chron. 16 9. The eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the whole earth to shew himself strong in the behalf of those whose hearts are perfect with him And thus they are preserved and kept not only by the power of God strengthing and fortifying them within but also by the power of God protecting them and helping them without And therefore it is said the name of the Lord that is the power of the Lord is a strong Tower the righteous runneth to it and is safe Prov. 18.10 Now security of any person that runneth to a Tower for shelter consists not in his own strength but in the strength of the Tower he runs to A strong Tower will protect a weak man if he can get within it he is safe And such a stong Tower is the name the power of God for the safeguard of his people And thus you see he keeps us through his own name his own power according to our Saviours prayer in my text in a way of protection by giving outward help and succour when we are in great danger And this outward help he gives us two wayes First sometimes immediately by his own power he helpeth us himself by his own almighty arm without the use of second causes and then his arm is made bare He brings in succour to his people as he made the world of nothing and therefore he is said in Scripture to create it as you may see that place for instance Isa 65.18 Be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create for behold I create Jerusalem a rejoycing and her people a joy And thus he kept his people in the fire and in the water and in the wilderness where there were no means at all of preservation he did it meerly by his own name Secondly Sometimes he helps and keeps his people mediately by his power communicated for that end to second causes He raises instruments of their delivery and makes them able to relieve his people as he did the Judges often And as it is observed of David when God was pleased to use him for the help of Israel in a time of great distress he furnished him with power sufficient to go through with the business which he had designed him to And therefore saith the Lord of that instrument of his Psal 89.19 20. I have laid help upon one that is mighty I have exalted one chosen out of the people I have found David my servant with my holy oil have I annointed him Mighty he is to help indeed but it is because I have made him so because I have laid help upon him And so he stirs up some continually to favour and relieve his people he makes the earth sometimes to help the woman men that have nothing else but earth in them but still the power by which they help them is from him Their power is his power and therefore when his people are preserved and kept by them they are kept by his name as you have it in my text and his name must have the glory This shall suffice for explication of the point they that belong to Jesus Christ are kept by the almighty power of God himself And there is pregnant reason for it For first of all no other power but his will keep them and his is every way sufficient And secondly his power is mightily engaged to keep them Reason 1 They that belong to Jesus Christ are kept c. because no other power but his will keep them Kept they must be and none but this alone will do it Alas the adversaries power that is against them is abundantly too strong for any power that can appear for them but that of the almighty God himself The power of all the world and all the strong temptations that are in it of pleasure profit honour which is bent against the Saints you will conceive to be a great matter Yet this is nothing in comparison this is the least part of their danger What think you of the power of all the lusts and the corruptions that are in them that are continually raging warring Who is able of himself to overpower and master these What think you of the power of Satan and his black confederates the power of darkness as it is stiled in the Scripture All the united strength of hell it self nothing but the power of heaven is able to out wrestle this and they that will struggle with it had need be strengthned by that glorious power And hence our Saviour places the security of his Disciples in this That they are kept by him that is greater then all John 10.29 That is of greater strength as I have shewed so that none can pluck them out of his hand Reason 2 They that belong to Jesus Christ are kept c. because as no other power can keep them so this is mightily engaged to be for them And that especially two wayes by the Sons prayer and the Fathers promise 1. By the Sons prayer and that must not be denyed For this we need to go no further then my text Holy Father keep them through thy own name It was one of the last requests he made when he was taking leave of this world and therefore certainly it was successfull Simon Simon saith our Saviour Satan hath desired to winnow thee as wheat But how is Peter kept now Why by our Saviours intercession I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not 2. By the Fathers promise he hath engaged himself by promise to his people many times that his power shall be for them The Covenant is a Constellation and a heap of promises and he is a God in Covenant with them So that as he himself is theirs so all his attributes are theirs too His mercy to forgive them his justice to avenge them his power to keep them The Romans were in league with many people and if those people were in danger they were obliged in point of honour to defend them And so they did with as much diligence and care as they did their own City Even thus it is between the Lord and his people he is in League and Covenant with them and he hath undertaken their protection And therefore if they be in any streight he is bound
to be they may be one even as the Father and the Son are one Holy Father keep them through thy own Name that they may be one as we are So that the Observation clearly intimated here is this DOCTRINE It is a matter of wondrous difficulty and of high Concernment for Christs Disciples to be at neerest unity among themselves Both these particulars I take it are apparently suggested in the words First that it is a point of wondrous difficulty Then that it is a point of high concernment that all that are bestowed on Jesus Christ should as far as men may be be one as God and Christ are one I shall clear them in order from the Text and other Scriptures It is a matter of wondrous difficulty even for Christs Disciples to be at neerest unity among themselves Our Saviour saw it to be very hard for them in all things to agree together and therefore he desires it may be brought about by the Almighty power of God himself Holy Father keep them through thy own Name that they may be one as we are He prays his Father to set his own Almighty power about it to effect it by which he intimateth that it is no easie matter It is observable how the Apostle struggles for it 2 Thess 3.16 The God of peace himself give you peace always by all means So that there is no possibility of having peace unless God himself bestow it unless he bow the heavens and come down and work it in the hearts of his people It is beyond the power of any creature to keep the Saints themselves in unity and peace unless God himself do it And so the Apostle having well considered the wondrous difficulty of it turns himself to God Now the God of peace himself give it q. d. I see no other means will do it and therefore I beseech thee Lord thou who art the God of peace do thou thy self make unity among thy people That phrase of the Apostle is notable to this purpose Eph. 4.3 Endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word there used imports the doing of a thing with much intention with inward care and outward diligence and labour and endeavour to the very utmost The setting of ones self about a business strenuously and with all his might which would not need if it were an easie matter Endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace So that you see it is a matter of wondrous difficulty for Christs Disciples to be at neerest unity among themselves But you will ask me how it should be so A man would think it should be no hard matter for Christs Disciples to be all one for them who are so closely and so neerly joyned so many wayes and by so many tyes who are all one body one spirit who have all one Head one God one Lord one faith one hope one baptism to be at unity among themselves Indeed it is a task almost insuperable to have peace with all the world To say the truth it is impossible as the Apostle Paul insinuates in his exhortation Rom. 12.18 If it be possible as much as lies in you live peaceably with all men But to live peaceably with Saints and fellow members for such to be at unity among themselves what difficulty should there be in this How cometh it to pass that this is such a hard matter That the almighty power of God himself is called down from heaven about it Why my beloved there be many things even in the Saints and Christs Disciples that make the matter difficult And I shall draw them all that I shall mention to these two heads There are some things in which they are too much alike and there are other things in which they differ overmuch and both of them do make it wonderfully hard even for the Saints to be at unity among themselves There are some things in which they are too much alike to agree among themselves They are all the holiest of them too carnal they have too much corruption in them easily to close together And this is that the Apostle Paul observes in the Corinthians 1 Epist 3.3 Whereas there is among you strife and envy and division are you not carnal Is it not very manifest that there is much corruption and much flesh in you And is not this the cause of these dissentions It may be you are apt to think it to be otherwise but mark what the Apostle saith James 4.1 From whence come wars and fightings among you Whence do they come Why hence they come will some men say I am so troubled and molested I am so grosly injured and abused that I cannot live in peace Never was any man so basely used so vilely dealt withall as I have been and that by those that are accounted honest men And hence it is that I cannot be at rest No no saith the Apostle thou art much deceived I had as lief thou hadst said nothing It is the wickedness and the corruption that is in thee that is the true and real cause of all this From hence come wars and fightings among you even from your lusts that warr in your members And I will shew you what those lusts are which make it so extremely hard even for the Saints to be at unity among themselves 1. They are too proud The wise man tels us this hath a stroke in all quarrels Prov. 13.10 And if in all then in the quarrels of the Saints too And truly my beloved were it not for this there would not be such endless and implacable contentions about matters civil as there are sometimes between those that are Christs Disciples It is their pride that neither side will stoop or bow both are high and both are stiff and so there can no possible accommodation or accord be made between them And were it not for pride there would not be such endless and implacable contentions about matters doctrinal This is the true and real cause why men will not indure to be gainsaid and crost in their opinion but presently they fret and fume and fall into an everlasting strife about words whereof cometh envy railing evil surmisings and perverse disputings as the Apostle shewes 1 Tim. 6.4 5. Now would you have the character of such a person as carryes matters in this fashion saith the Apostle he is proud knowing nothing He thinks himself a very knowing man but this is nothing but his pride And hence it comes to pass that men are so unalterable in their fancies and conceipts that having once asserted them and owned them they will not lay them down again no though they be convinced for their honours sake Remarkable and exemplary is the resolution and humility of Job in such a case Job 6.24 Teach me and I will hold my peace and make me know wherein I have erred In which ingenuous disposition did those who differ
and nourish discords and dissentions For these if we will give them entertainment will set our hearts on fire of hell And therefore when our thoughts begin to work apace in any injury or provocation that is offered to us and to tell us strange things that it is not to be born and that it may not be endured let us smother and suppress them let us not give place to them no not for an hour no not for a moment It is observed of Abraham that when the fowls came down upon his sacrifice he drove them away Gen. 15.11 so when such foul and noisome thoughts as these offer to pitch upon our heart let them have no footing there no let us watch them narrowly that we may suddenly chase them away And let us follow the advice of the Apostle Heb. 10.24 Let us consider one another to provoke to love Let us consider that and think on that which may stir us up to love let our imaginations work and dwell upon such thoughts as these and not those which lead on to Contestation and Dissention As we should chase away the thoughts so we should avoid the persons that make and nourish breaches and divisions It is the Apostles Counsel that we should mark them that cause divisions and offences and avoid them Rom. 16.17 Mark them not to join with them but to decline them and avoid them Brethren you shall observe that there are some of all hands whose work it is to make peace and to compose breaches And there are others on the other side who are as busie as it is possible for men to be to make rents and separations and divisions And it is our unhappiness that these dividers work goes onward faster then the others Indeed it is an easie thing for one to rip faster then two or three can sow Alas how many are there in these wrangling times who are continually medling and who make this their work and business to see how they can set men one against another how they can blow the coals of discord and kindle them into a flame how they can heighten the contention and the animosity that is too high already among those who are in name at least and in profession Christs Disciples Now I beseech you my beloved as the Apostle doth the Romans in the fore-alledged Scripture Mark these men let them be of what side they will if they be of this spirit do you set a mark upon them that you may know them another time and that you decline them and avoid them It is a bitter imprecation of the Apostle Pauls Gal. 2.12 I wish they were cut off that trouble you Truly I wish that they who are the troublers of our Sions peace the main and unwearied sticklers in our Church-divisions who would not have things come to an accord and a friendly composition for ends which they best know I wish they were cut off from all communion with the Saints That all the people of the Lord on all sides would look aloof upon them and avoid them as the pests of this Nation And certainly if all men would avoid them and keep off from them they would have the less work and we should have the less trouble If we would be at nearest unity among our selves we must be furnished with abundance of that wisdom which cometh from above as the Apostle cals it James 3.17 For that is gentle peaceable easie to be be entreated full of mercy and good fruits Contentious persons may applaud their own wits and think themselves extreamly wise and subtil in making good the quarrels which they undertake But what saith the Apostle ver 14. if you have bitter strife and envy in your hearts glory not lye not against the truth This wisdom descendeth not from above And if it come not from above from heaven it cometh from beneath from earth from hell it is earthly sensual devilish What ever mens abilities or parts or reaches are if they be alwayes quarrelling and falling out as many are it is apparent that they want this blessed wisdom To say the truth my brethren it is want of wit that is much of the cause of all this Anger resteth in the bosom of fools and so the wise man tells us that every fool will be medling Prov. 20.3 It is an honor for a man to cease from strife but every fool will be medling It is the property of every fool to do so You have a sort of men my Brethren that will be at the end of every quarrel If there be any difference or strife near them they will be sure to have a finger in the pie they will never sit out Now would you know what kind of men these are They are a company of fools a company of busie medling fools and were it not for such Idiots we might have much more peace then we have at this day If men were ballasted with wisdom they would not be a tempering and a making variance as they do And if indignities and wrongs were offered to them they would easily digest them and possess their souls in patience and therefore let us labour after this wisdom and let us follow the advise and counsel of our Saviour Mar. 9 50. Have salt in your selves and have peace one with another First let us have the salt of wisedom in our selves and then we shall have unity and peace with others If we would be one and if we would have peace the blessing we must be under the commanding and the ruling power of peace the vertue It must sit upon the throne in our hearts as the Apostle Paul exhorts Col. 3.15 Let the peace of God rule in your hearts Brethren when you are any way exasperated or provoked so that your passions rise or swell and are ready to break out into intemperate words or actions when you are hardly able to contain your selves then let the ruling power of peace appear by stilling and composing all again And let this holy disposition be so strong within you that neither pride nor wrath nor malice nor any other lust may be able to controll it There is a story that the Swevians had a Law among them that in a fray where swords were drawn if a woman or a child did cry but peace a great way of they were bound to end the quarrel or else he died that struck the next stroke after peace was named So if your passions be at war within you to use the Apostles phrase if they be up in arms and you do but think of peace or any friend perswade to peace let all be husht and quiet presently and let that passion die let it be crucified that dares to stir when peace is mentioned So let the peace of God rule in our hearts let it triumph in all and over all our provocations that we may bear them all with an unmoved and undisturbed spirit Let us be earnest with the Lord in prayer that he would make
Christ And therefore it is called his joy because originally it is his and comes from him to them by way of dispensation and communication that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves So in another place he tells his Apostles and Disciples that if they were obedient to him they should abide in his love And adds immediately these things have I spoken to you that my joy might remain in you that is to say the joy that I give you John 15.11 Indeed it is the fruit and the effect of Christs kingdom erected in the hearts of his people as the Apostle shews us Rom. 14.17 His Kingdom is not meat and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost You shall be sorrowfull saith Christ to his Disciples but your sorrow shall be turned into joy John 16.20 And who can turn it into joy but Christ only But you will ask me how and in what respect is Christ the Author of the joy of his people Beloved I might instance in a multitude of things but I shall draw them all to three heads Christ is the Author of the joy of his people As he is their Prophet to instruct them The state of ignorance my brethren is a state of darkness so it is often stiled in Scripture And that is an uncomfortable state full of fear and full of sorrow But when Christ comes with light and information and instruction when he becomes a Prophet to them he gives them extraordinary comfort In that he gives them light he gives them joy for both of them are joyned together Psal 97.11 Light is sown for the righteous and joy for them that are upright in heart As he is their King to rule them you heard but now that his kingdom stands in joy And hence his subjects are exhorted to rejoyce in him Psal 149.2 Let the Children of Zion be joyful in their King Now as a King my brethren he is many wayes the author of the joy of his people I will name a few of them 1. As he subdues their enemies and gives them peace And this he doth my brethren for he is the King of Salem and the Prince of peace And when he doth it he is an extraordinary comfort to his people When he subdues their enemies within them and so gives them inward peace When he masters and brings under their stubborn and rebellious Lusts and strong corruptions which are such a daily trouble and vexation to them O what a joy is it to his people when according to his Covenant he saves them from those enemies then they serve him without fear Luke 1.75 and if without fear then certainly with great joy So when he saves them from their enemies without them and so gives them outward peace then he gives them joy too Such times have still been celebrated and observed with extraordinary gladness and rejoycing Especially when Babylon goes down the arch-enemy of his Church and his people then Christ hears many Halelujahs for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth Then they that stand upon the glassie sea are in a very chearie frame They sing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb Just and true are thy wayes O thou King of Saints 2. As a King Christ is the Author of the joy of his people as he gives them his spirit For this he doth under the notion of a King and when he doth it then he fils them full of joy The Spirit is the Comforter that is his name so he is stiled very often to shew us what his Office work and business is And therefore joy is made a companion of the Spirit to shew us that they use to go together Act. 13.52 The Disciples saith the Text were filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost and the Apostle tells us that joy is one especial fruit of the Spirit Gal. 5.22 The fruit of the Spirit is live joy And hence the Holy Ghost is called the Oyl of gladness Isa 45.7 As it is the Oyl of gladness it makes glad the heart of man and it makes his face to shine And consequently when our King pours out this Oyl upon his people he pours out joy and gladness with it Then his joy is fulfilled in them because they have this oyl from him He is anointed with it above his fellows it flows down from him the head even to the lowest members of his body 3. As a King Christ is the Author of the joy of his people as he dispenses recompences and rewards to them For this he must do as a King too and when he doth it he makes them overflow with joy and therefore he will have them to be out of measure glad even in the expectation of it Luk. 6.23 Rejoyce and leap for joy saith he and why so for great is your reward in heaven And if they have such cause to be transported in the expectation how much more in the fruition When Christ shall say to every one of his as Mat. 25.21 Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord into the self-same joy which I thy Lord and Master entred first into and took possession of before thee Then indeed the joy of Christ shall be communicated to them Then they shall have his joy fulfilled in them to the very utmost Christ is the Author of the joy of his people as he is their Priest to sacrifice and intercede for them Both ways he is the Fountain of their comfort I shall a little touch them in their order 1. As he is their Priest to sacrifice he is the Author of their joy for by this means he satisfies the justice of his Father for them he frees them from the guilt of all their sins he reconcileth them to God And is he not in this respect the cause of extraordinary comfort to his people Is it not a sad thing for a person to live at enmity with God who made him and will judge him in the great day If peace with God be so infinitely sweet is not enmity with God full of fear and full of horror is it not a doleful thing for any person to be dead in Law bound over to the everlasting wrath and vengeance of the great God in danger every hour to be haled and dragged away to execution and to be cast into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone and is it not a joyful thing to be delivered out of such a state as this is Now this our Saviour as a Priest hath done for his people in a way of satisfaction and so hath given them cause of exceeding great joy as the Angel intimates when he informs the Shepherds where he was born and what he was to do Luk. 2.10 Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy 2. As Christ is his peoples Priest to intercede for them he is the Author of their joy It is an extraordinary comfort to them that Christ appears in heaven for them in all causes to offer up and to
other side dilates the heart it spreads it and it widens it and consequently doth not only make it fit for duty but it makes it large in duty It makes it to abound and to exceed in every service that is suitable to joy It carries it beyond the ordinary rate And therefore Jesus Christ would have his people to be full of joy that they may be full of fruit and that they may abound in his service Is it so that Jesus Christ would have his people full of holy Joy Vse 1 Then first it serves to censure those who seek to hinder the Joy of Christs people and to imbitter all their comfort with spitefull molestations and vexations who like the Cananites are thorns in their sides and daggers at their hearts Jesus Christ would have his people to rejoice yea to be full of Joy as their very hearts can hold but they will not suffer it but alwayes seek as much as lies in them to interrupt their comfort and to disturb their peace and joy They disturb them by their persecutions with the hand and with the tongue and which is worse they disturb them by their sins They rail at holiness and holy men blaspheme religion and the name of Christ of purpose to disquiet and to vex his people who cannot choose but mourn and weep for these things Just like the Sodomites of whom the Apostle speaks 2 Pet. 2.8 who vexed the righteous soul of Lot from day to day with their filthy conversation But yet this difference we may observe they did not their prodigious villanies of purpose to disquiet Lot for ought we find What think we shall their portion be my brethren then who pass the Sodomites in villany whose wicked deeds are yet set forth for an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire Is it so that Jesus Christ would have his people full of holy Joy Vse 2 Then in the second place it taxeth such among the Lords people who waste away themselves in heaviness and discontent who are so far from promoting the design of Christ in this particular that they rather strive to cross him and even waste away their hearts in pleasing sadness and affected discontent and surely there are many such among Christs own people who even give themselves over to sorrow and wilfully thrust away this Joy from them Now I beseech you my beloved consider what the will of Christ is and let him have his will in this business use all means possible to have your hearts brim-full of holy Joy And to this end I shall prescibe you some directions Be conversant and studious in the word of Christ There is the fountain of living waters whence every may draw sufficient to refresh his fainting soul in all his troubles and afflictions The statutes of the Lord are right saith David rejoycing the heart Psal 19.8 Through comfort of the Scriptures we have hope saith Paul Rom. 15.4 Philosophers indeed have taught us many wayes to fence and fortifie our hearts against sorrow But when the Lord shall set afflictions home upon the soul and put a sting into them too there is nothing in the world that can cement and cheer us but the comfort that is fetched out of the Scriture We may run in our distress to other means as Saul when he was with a melancholy humor to the minstrel but we shall find that nothing goes the right way and that we grasp at nothing but some empty succors of contentment unless we comfort our selves with these words as the Apostle Paul speaks 1 Thess 4. ult David was cut short of nothing that the world could have afforded to revive his drooping spirit yet he professeth freely that he must have fainted unless he had been staid with better comfort Vnless thy Word had been my comfort I should have perished in my affliction Psal 119.92 And in another place he cries out Remember thy Word unto thy servant upon which then hast caused me to hope this is my comfort my only comfort in my trouble Psal 119.49 50. And therefore at this Fountain let us draw if we mean to have comfort but chiefly let us wait upon the publick preaching of the Word of God which is called the Ministry of reconciliation in which there are divulged glad tidings of good things which should carry something in the power and efficacy of it to work joy For God doth commonly dispense it rather by the way of hearing them by the way of reading the Scriptures And hence saith David Make me to hear of joy and gladness that so the bones that thou hast broken may rejoyce Psal 51.8 It is the Publique Ordinance it is the Publique Ordinance that is the Interpreter one of a thousand that comforts the dejected soul as you may see Job 33.23 Imploy your serious thoughts upon the meditation and survey of that delitious place where there is fulness of all joy and pleasures for evermore into which you that are Christs assoon as you are past through the veil of tears shall enter and there continue and abide for ever There is the place where you shall sigh and weep and mourn no more where all your tears will be wiped away from your eyes and surely did you think upon this joy with which you shall be filled there to over-flowing this would preserve you here from being swallowed up with over-much sorrow we rejoyce saith the Apostle How not in the fruition No in the hope of the glory of God Rom. 15.4 Indeed the Saints of God while they compass and carry their afflictions according to their present state are very pensive and disconsolate and so at once they do an injury to Christ who hath reserved such pretious comforts for them in the world to come And to themselves who have received good assurance that they shall certainly enjoy them in their season but did they walk by faith and not by sight did they not look so much upon the difficulties that they meet with in the way but on the things that are not seen the invisible pleasures of which they shall be made partakers in the end they should soon find cause enough of joy unspeakable and glorious yea even amidst the greatest tribulation of this present life you see how frolike the poor Worldling is if he have gotten a few thousand pounds and built a goodly house and bought a little earth about it and yet his title to it is so uncertain and unsound that the very following night for ought he knows the Lord may turn him out of all and take away his soul from him and make him roar in Hell before the morning But you who by the hand and seal and earnest of the Lord himself have a most certain title to that happiness and joy which neither tongue of men or Angels can express if you have but a wicked disobedient child a froward wife a sickly body or a low estate do waste away your lives in heaviness and discontent and so
will preserve those that belong to Jesus Christ either from the act and guilt or hurt of corruption that is in them I shall a little touch upon them in their order In a qualified sence he keeps them from the act of their corruption so that they act it not at all as thus sometimes and in some certain things he keeps them and withholds them from or not at least as other men They also saith the Prophet David speaking of the Saints do no iniquity Psal 119.3 They sin not saith the Apostle 1 John 3.6 neither can they sin Conceive it not so freely and so remorselesly as others For the seed remaineth in them The spirit lusts against the flesh so that they cannot do the evil that they would at least not all the evil that they would Gal. 5.15 God keeps them by this means from much evil which else they would fall into as to instance in particulars He keeps them wholy from the great and unpardonable sin the sin against the Holy Ghost There is a sin to death saith the Apostle 1 John 5.16 to death not in the merit of it only for so is every sin to death if you look to the desert but in the issue and event And this God surely keeps them from that belong to Jesus Christ so that they never fall into it 2. He keeps them usually from the grosser acts of sin which the Apostle calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the defilements and pollutions of the world 2 Pet. 2.20 being the common mire and kennel in which the filthy Swine of this world wallow and which are termed by the Apostle Paul the works of the flesh which are manifest even to the the dimmest eye even to the light of nature it self Chap. 5.19 Such are adultery drunkenness perjury theft and such like Now from these foul and gross corruptions which cross the principles of common life and honesty in which the lewdest and prophanest wallow God usually keeps them that belong to Jesus Christ 3. He keeps them from committing any known sin resolvedly and with full consent of will Indeed there may be a velleity an incompleat and an imperfect will to sin in those that belong to Christ but a compleat and perfect will there cannot be For flesh and spirit being interwoven and commixt in every faculty and consequently in the will the will so farr as it is sanctified and renewed can never give allowance to the act of sin And whereas wicked and ungodly men are totally addicted and universaly devoted to it they act it wholly and with every part and power being nothing else but flesh It is not so with those that are renewed And hence saith Paul it is not I that do it Rom. 7.17 yet in the verse immediately before he said what I would not that do I. So that there is a double I in Paul I spiritual and I carnal I do it and I do it not Not I that am spiritual or in that part wherein I am spiritual but I that am carnal or in that part wherein I am carnal It is not I that do it but the flesh that dwelleth in me And thus God keeps them from the acts of sin Or if he do not alwayes keep them from the acts he alwayes frees them from the guilt of sin and so in that respect he keeps them from the evil of corruption and therefore he assures it to himself as his peculiar I even I am he that blotteth out thy sin It is God that justifies saith the Apostle Rom. 8.33 And with relation to this act of his he is called a deliverer Rom. 11.26 There shall come out of Zion the deliverer and he shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For this is my Covenant with them when I shall take away their sin God alwayes keeps them that belong to Jesus Christ from the hurt of the corruption that is in them he turns their very sins against their nature by accident to their advantage if all things then all these things work together for the best to them God doth them good even by their sins and by their falls he makes that to promote and further their salvation which seemeth most directly to hinder it and to oppose it Oh the riches of his mercy Blessings and Ordinances by accident do hurt to wicked men And even sins by accident do good to Gods people Thus we have shewed you that God can and will preserve those that belong to Jesus Christ from the evil of temptation and corruption And as God keeps those that belong to Jesus Christ from the evil of temptation and from the evil of corruption so from the evil of affliction I must confess he doth not keep them so that they are utterly exempt from all affliction They have their share and portion of it many times as well as any other men Many are the afflictions of the righteous saith the Psalmist Psal 34.19 not of the wicked only but the righteous too Yea their afflictions oftentimes are more and greater then the afflictions of the wicked are The Prophet David was too sensible of this so that his spirit fretted at it and he was envious at the foolish as himself confesseth Psal 73.3 when he saw the prosperity of wicked men Their strength is firm saith he there are no bands in their death They are not in trouble like other men nor are they plagued like other men no nor like better men Their eyes stand out with fatness they have more then heart can wish These are the wicked saith the Psalmist they prosper in the world But how fares it with David all this while why verily saith he I have cleansed my heart in vain and washed my bands in innocency for all the day long have I been plagued and chastned every morning And this is that which Christ forewarned his Disciples of that in the world they must have troubles there would be no avoiding of it But yet however God keeps them from the evil of affliction in the sence that I shall open to you in a few particulars 1. Sometimes when he sees it best he keeps them from affliction that it doth not touch them for a considerable time together He environs them with loving kindness round about so that no trouble or calamity can find a way to enter and to seize upon them according to that pretious promise Psal 5. ult For thou Lord wilt bless the righteous with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield And thus he dealt a while with Job as Satan enviously suggested to the Lord Job 1.10 Hast thou not made a hedge about him and about all that he hath on every side thou hast blessed the work of his hands and his substance is increased in the Land So David though he were a man of many troubles and afflictions yet he had his Halcyon dayes There was a time when God had made his Mountain of prosperity so strong that he was verily perswaded he
truth thy word is truth And here we have two things to be considered A Supplication and an Explication First We have here our Saviours Supplication to his Father in behalf of his Apostles and Disciples Sanctifie them through thy truth And then we have this Explication in which he shews what he intends by truth viz. the word of God Sanctifie them with thy truth thy word is truth Begin we with the Supplication in which you may take notice with me of these two particulars First the thing desired Sanctification Sanctifie them saith our Saviour And then the outward instrumental means by which he prayes they may be sanctified the truth of God that is the word as he explains it afterwards Sanctifie them through thy truth Both yeild us our this Observation DOCTRINE The word of God is the ordinary Means by which he Sanctifies his people It is the instrument in Gods hands by which he doth this great work He sanctifies them he is the God of all grace he calleth and he makes perfect stablisheth strengthneth settleth them But he doth it by this means according to our Saviours prayer here Sanctifie them through thy truth And here I shall distinctly cleer these two things First that the word of God is the ordinary Means by which he sanctifies his people in a way of inchoation by which he begins that work in them by which he converteth them regenerates them and makes them to become new creatures And this we find abundantly exemplified in the times of the Apostle how mightily the word of God prevailed to the Conversion of their hearers and to the working of unfeigned faith and grace in them You may behold three thousand sinners wrought upon by one Sermon Acts 2.41 And yet again as if these had been a few five thousand by another Sermon Acts 4.4 And hence it is my brethren that the word is called the word of grace because it works grace in Gods people But whether this be the work of the Law or of the Gospel whether one or both of them be the ordinary means by which God sanctifies his people will need to be a little further opened and resolved And I shall shew you from the Scripture that both of them are instruments in Gods hand by which he sanctifies his people 1. God sanctifies his people preparatively by the Law The Law converts and worketh grace by way of preparation It shews a man his sin and his trangression it emptieth him of all opinion of himself it humbles him and layes him low in apprehension of his own unworthiness And so indeed it makes him fit to entertain the grace of God for he will give his grace unto the humble John Baptists rough and rigid preaching of the Law you know my brethren must prepare the way for Christ He must be like a Pioner to go before him to bring down every high exalted thought to make the Mountains levell with the Valleyes He must be like a Harbinger to ride before and take up room for Jesus Christ to write his name upon the heart This heart is taken up for Christ To cause these everlasting doors to be set open to him when he comes And when the heart is thus prepared thus emptied and thus opened once then it is fit for Jesus Christ with all the graces of his spirit to enter in and dwell there And this is all that God doth by the Law he sanctifieth men by way of preparation and predisposition only But 2. The means by which he sanctifieth them indeed and works the truth and the reality of saving grace in them is the preaching of the Gospel and therefore the Apostle puts the question to the renewed Galathians Gal. 3.2 This only would I learn of you saith he received ye the spirit by the works of the Law or by the hearing of faith q. d. for this I appeal to you I put the matter to your consciences whether the saving graces of the spirit were not first wrote in you by the hearing of faith that is by hearing the doctrine of faith which is the Gospel And hence the Gospel is sometimes called the grace of God as you may see that place for instance Titus 2.11 and that not formaliter for so the Gospel is not neither can it be the grace of God neither that grace which is in God I mean his free and undeserved favour nor yet that grace which is communicated and dispensed from him to us I mean the gifts of his spirit whether they be such as appertain to edification or sanctification but effective as the School-men speak the Gospel is the grace of God because the grace of God is the effect and issue of the Gospel The Gospel is the instrumental means of grace and holiness which it effecteth under God and worketh in the hearts of his people And under this expression it is set in opposition to the Law For as the Law doth not reveal the grace of God in Jesus Christ the Mediator and Redeemer as the Gospel doth so neither doth it work the grace of God I mean the saving gifts of his spirit and therefore it is called the Ministration of the Letter and not the Ministration of the Spirit because there goes no spirit with it Or if it carry any of the spirit with it it is the spirit of fear and bondage and legal humiliation and not the spirit of adoption and sanctification But on the other side the Gospel carries spirit in the ministration of it which it conveyes into the heart of those that hear it and embrace it as they ought to do It operateth and begetteth the endowments of the spirit and worketh grace and sanctification And as the word of God is the ordinary means by which he begins the work of Sanctification So it is the means also by which he carries on the same work to further measures and degrees They were sanctified already for whom our Saviour makes this prayer in my text the work was begun in them they were his own Apostles and Disciples and yet for them he prays sanctifie them with thy Truth q. d. Sanctifie them yet more fully make them yet more gratious and more humble and more holy by a more full discovery of the Truth revealed in thy Word to them Sanctifie them with thy truth thy Word is truth Indeed the Word my Brethren as it is incorruptible seed by which men are regenerate and born again to God as the Apostle shews 1 Pet. 1.23 Being born again not of corruptible but incorruptible seed by the Word of God so it is milk which nourishes and makes them thrive and grow while they are but babes in Christ and it is also strong meat on which they feed until they come ad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to a perfect man to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ This for clearing of the point proceed we to the Application Vse 1 Is it so That the Word of God is
blood of Bulls and Goats But now it is confirmed by the blood of Christ himself which is a better and a more effectual confirmation And this is that which the Apostle shews at large Heb. 9.16 and in the following verses So that the blood which ratified the Old Testament was but the shaddow and the Type of that which ratifies the new and therefore this hath the advantage of the other I must confess that the Old Testament was ratified by the death of Jesus Christ in destination for so he was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world But this is ratified by the death of Christ in actual execution which is if not in it self to us at least a cleerer and a better confirmation Gospel truth excelleth for the operation of it it hath effects transcendently beyond all other truth that ever was revealed to the world I shall name but two only suggested in those two great Gospel Epithites the word of grace the word of life 1. Gospel truth works grace Not common grace and common sorrow and humiliation and repentance as the Law doth but saving grace And therefore it is called the word of grace Acts 20.32 It is so exclusively it worketh grace alone without the help and the assistance of the Law in that business Something the Law may do towards us indeed but it doth nothing in the work of grace Of his own will begat he us saith the Apostle by the word of truth that is the Gospel James 1.18 That only that is properly and strictly sanctifying truth Sanctifie them with thy truth 2. Gospel truth infuseth life and that no other truth can do The Law indeed can kill but it cannot make alive It is the Ministry of death and condemnation The Gospel only is the Ministry of life and of Salvation And therefore this exceeds the other and surpasseth it in glory as the Apostle shews at large 2 Cor. 3.6 7 c. In this respect we find the Gospel called the word of life 1 John 1.1 because it is the word that worketh life It is the quickning word that raises men from death to life to the life of grace in this world and to the life of glory in the world to come And thus I think we have sufficiently cleered the point the word of God especially the Gospel is the truth Proceed we now to make some application of it according to the divers branches of the point in order I shall but touch upon the first because I would no be prevented in the second Is it so my brethren that the word of God is all truth then certainly Vse 1 it ought all to be believed This truth on Gods part calls for faith on ours For what is faith but the belief of truth as the Apostle Paul defines it 2 Thes 2.13 He hath chosen us to Salvation through Sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth So that if the word be truth it ought to be believed by us And this our Saviour Christ insinuates in his expostulation with the Jews John 8.46 If I say truth why do you not believe me Though that which is delivered in the word of God be never so improbable never so much above corrupt reason never so impossible to a humane apprehension yet it admitteth not of doubtfull Disputation and Expostulation but rather calls for absolute belief And therefore they are deeply to be censured who give no credit to the word of truth further then their private spirits close with it who do not answer Gods truth with their faith They read it and they hear it preached but they yield no assent to it No they oppose it and dispute against it they are meer Scepticks in religion There are a multitude of such in these times They consent not to wholesome words even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Doctrine which is according to godliness as the Apostle Paul speaks 1 Tim. 6.3 4. Whereas they that have ever felt the saving power of Gods word have their thoughts captivated to it and will say as the Apostle we can do nothing we can speak nothing against the truth 2 Cor. 13.8 These men upon the other side when they hear the truth of God delivered to them speak against it contradicting and blaspheming as the stubborn Jews did Acts 13.45 They do not only ask with Mary how shall this be A question not of opposition but of inquisition Luke 1.34 But even peremptorily determine they can never be And thus they belye the Lord like those of whom the Prophet speaks Jer. 5.12 This in a word for application of the former member of the point We shall now apply the latter Vse 2 Is it so that the word of God especially the Gospel is the truth Is Gospel truth excelling truth Then let us give it the preferment before any other truth both in our inquisition and our acceptation Let us dive into it most and let us value and prize it most First Let us give it the due preferment in our inquisition let us dive into it most and labour more to be acquainted with it then with any other truth Let us read those books let us hear those Preachers and let us nourish those studies which help us most to this knowledge let us make this our main endeavour to be seen in Gospel truth let us undervalue and neglect all other knowledge incomparison of this It is the dangerous mistake of the greater part of men who had rather be acquainted with the matters of the world and to be skild in secular and humane learning then in the doctrine of the Gospel How do abundance plod to dive into the secrets and depths of nature and set their wits upon the tenter-hooks to search into the mysteries of Arts and Trades how do they beat and work their brains to get abundance of experience and skill in worldly dealings and employments but take no pains at all in hearing reading meditation to dive into the mysteries of Jesus Christ Tell me my beloved have you ever among all your earnest strivings after insight either into humane knowledge or into matters of the world been half so studious and industrious to search into this Gospel truth to be acquainted with Christ Jesus who is the subject of the Gospel to know that he was born and lived and dyed for you to know him and the virtue of his resurrection not by speculation only but experience raising you up to newness of life to know that he loved you and gave himself for you Alas the hearts of a great many of you cannot choose but tell you that you have hardly ever spent a serious thought on this And the very best among us cannot choose but say that we have been too slight and careless in our enquiries into this knowledge Ah my beloved had we the spirit of the Apostle Paul or of those blessed Angels who desire to peep and pry into the Gospel truth as you may
by the Gospel as they that cast behind their backs the precepts of the Gospel and will not walk accordingly in their lives and conversations It is a dreadful sentence to this purpose able to break the hearts of wicked men and to shake their joynts in pieces 2 Thess 1.8 The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire rendring vengeance to them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ Indeed as Gospel truth is most excellent so disobedience to this Gospel truth is most dangerous we know what a fearful doom and dreadful sentence the Apostle thunders out against it Heb. 10.26 If we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth the Gospel truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin From which perversly wrested though Novatus did extract that desperate Heresie of his denying hope of pardon unto those who after they were once baptized relapsed into sin Yet those uncomfortable inferences being laid aside this is most evidently taught us in that Scripture viz. That where the mind hath been enlightned once with Gospel truth it tends exceedingly to the increase and aggravation of those sins that are committed after and against it And therefore upon these considerations labour to walk worthy of so glorious a Gospel and so great a Salvation JOHN 17.18 As thou sent me into the world c. AND thus far of our Saviours Prayer in the behalf of his Apostles and Disciples for Sanctification Sanctifie them with thy truth thy word is truth Proceed we to the arguments and reasons with which he urgeth and enforceth this Petition request of his And they are two Whereof the first is taken from the business and employment that he is setting them about viz. the very same in some respect at least which he himself hath hitherto sustained and undergone by the appointment of the Father As thou hast sent me into the world so I have sent them into the world I am now about to send them it is as good as done already For yet they had not their Commission to preach the Gospel to all the world to every creature And therefore thou hadst need to sanctifie them saith our Saviour to his Father by a more full discovery of thy truth to them that so they may be fitted and enabled for such a service as this is It is extreamly necessary that they should be qualified with all the gifts and graces of the Spirit to the very utmost being to go upon the very self same errand and business on which thou hast imployed me Sanctifie them saith our Saviour Why might the Father answer why so Cause enough saith Jesus Christ for as thou hast sent me into the world even so have I also sent them into the world There are two things to be considered in the words There is something positive and there is in the second place something comparative 1. There is something positive in these words which Christ affirmeth positively of himself and his Apostles That which he affirmeth positively of himself is that his Father hath sent him into the world That which he affirmeth positively of his Apostles and Disciples is That he is sending them into the world There is something Comparative in which our Saviour Christ compares his Fathers sending him with his own sending his Apostles As thou hast sent me into the world even so have I also sent them into the world I shall but touch on that which Christ affirmeth positively of himself and that as you have heard is that his Father hath sent him down into the world He would not suffer him to stay in heaven but sent him forth upon some weighty and important business so that the point to be observed is this DOCTRINE That Jesus Christ was sent into the world by the appointment and command of God the Father The word in the Original importeth an authoritative sending which is accordingly submitted to and yield to by the person that is sent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith our Saviour to the Father Thou hast sent me into the world so sent that I accordingly am come into the world I have stoopt to thy mission But this hath for the substance of it been handled on the third verse and therefore I shall wave the further prosecution of it here and pass on to the following words JOHN 17.18 Even so have I also sent them into the world AND thus of that which Jesus Christ hath affirmed of himself in relation to his Father Thou hast sent me into the world Proceed we now to that which he affirms of his Apostles and in them of his succeeding Ministers in relation to himself I also have sent them into the world And here we have to be considered three things First the author of the Mission I I stands for Jesus I have sent Secondly the term or local object of the Mission the world without restraint or limitation all the world I have sent them into the world Not into Judea only but into the world Thirdly the comparison between our Saviours mission of his Apostles and Embassadors and his Fathers mission of himself suggested in the word also I also have sent them into the world as thou sent me into the world even so have I also sent them c. As the parts so the Observations are three First the Apostles and Ministers of Jesus Christ are sent by him they are of Christs own sending Secondly Christ doth not send them particularly or restrictively to any Countrey or to any Nation But their Commission leaves them free to all the world Thirdly Jesus Christ sends his Apostles and his Ministers even as his Father sent him There is a great similitude between Gods sending Christ into the world and Christs sending his Apostles and Ministers into the world I shall handle these distinctly as God shall give ability and opportunity Beginning with the first DOCTRINE The Apostles and the Ministers of Jesus Christ are sent by him they are of Christs own sending For the Apostles they have their very name from sending The word in the Original importeth such a one as is dispatched upon the errand of another upon the business that another sends him in And Christ is often said to send them There are two memorable missions of them mentioned in the Gospel story The first a little after he had called them Mat. 10.1 c. When he had called his twelve Disciples and they were his twelve Apostles as they are stiled ver 2. he gave them power against unclean spirits And these twelve he sent forth ver 1. and after at ver 16. Behold I send you forth saith he as sheep among Wolves The second memorable mission of them was a little after he was risen from the dead and was even ready to ascend Joh. 20.21 Even as my Father sent me so send I you And this is that which the Apostle Paul acknowledges that he was
in But doth our Saviour so with his Apostles and his Ministers yes my Beloved just so he qualifies them with the Spirit too and therefore having said to his Apostles and his Messengers Joh. 20.22 As my Father hath sent me so send I you The very next words are And when he had said thus he breathed on them and said unto them receive the Holy Ghost And so accordingly the Holy Ghost fell upon them abundantly to fill them and enable them for their Ministerial Office even as they were about to go abroad and preach Act. 2. Here is a greater similitude you see between the Fathers sending Christ into the world and Christs sending his Apostles and Ministers into the world in regard of qualification But yet as the similitude is great so is the dissimilitude in this too The unction which the Ministers of Christ received from him though it be like the unction which Christ himself receiveth from the Father in the thing yet it is nothing like it in the measure and degree Though they be both the unction of the Spirit Christs is surpassingly transcendently beyond theirs He is endowed with all the graces of the Spirit of every sort and every kind so that not one of them is wanting in him And therefore it is said in Scripture that in him all fulness dwells that is the fulness of all graces whatsoever But now my Brethren in the Ministers of Christ it is not so in them there is a division of graces though not of the graces of Sanctification yet of the graces of Edification and one is made partaker of a gift which another hath not There are diversities of gifts saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 12. to one is given by the Spirit the word of knowledge to another prophesie c. But all these concur and â—â—er in Jesus Christ so that he is in this respect inricht above them all And as our Saviour is qualified by the Father with all kinds and sorts of graces so with all measures and degrees As he hath all graces in him so each of them is raised and intended to the highest measure so that there can be nothing added to it to make it more compleat and perfect Indeed my Brethren he received not the Spirit by measure from the Father as the Evangelist observes John 4.32 but beyond all measure But now the Ministers of Christ receive from him but a measure of grace as the expression is Rom. 12.3 So much as he sees fit to qualifie them for the work that he imploys them in as you may see Eph. 4.8 When he ascended up on high he gave gifts unto men for the work of the Ministry and for the edifying of the body of it There is a great similitude between the Fathers sending Christ into the world and Christs sending his Apostles and Ministers into the world in relation to the Errand that both of them are sent in Christ sends his Ministers into the world upon the very same errand that the Father sent him into the world For mark it why did God the Father send Christ into the world Truly my Brethren to be his spokesman unto the world as the Apostle shews God who in times past spoke to the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son To preach the Gospel to the world He hath anointed me to preach saith Christ Luk. 4.18 To preach what to preach the Gospel to the poor to heal the broken-hearted to preach deliverance to the Captives c. And why did Christ send his Apostles and Ministers into the world Why to preach the Gospel too That is the sum of their Commission Mar. 16.15 Go preach the Gospel to every Creature The Ministers of Christ are separated to the Gospel as Rom. 1.1 They must preach all Gospel or else all for Gospel ends They must preach Law with Gospel purposes and Evangelical intentions So that the Father sends the Son and the Son sends his Apostles and Ministers upon very the same errand here the similitude is very great But then the dissimilitude is very great too in that the Son whom God the Father sends is transcendently above the Ministers whom Christ sends in the very same business both are Apostles but Christ is the chief Apostle both are Preachers of the Gospel but Christ is the chief Preacher He preaches it with such authority as they are not invested with and with such efficacy too as they can never reach to He preaches by the Spirit to the heart and to the inward man and so he doth it with infallible success They can preach only to the ear and to the outward man and hence they often fail of the desired issue they spend their strength in vain as the Prophet once complained Indeed the efficacy of their preaching dependeth wholly on the work and power of Christ So that you see he is transcendently above them in the same business And then besides Jesus Christ is sent on business which they are not to touch with He is sent about the work of mans Redemption of satisfaction to the justice of his Father by his bitter death and passion which is too heavy and too hard for any Man or Angel to go through with or to have a hand in There is a great similitude between the Fathers sending c. in relation to the end that both of them are sent for Christ sends his Ministers into the world for the very same end that God the Father sent him For why did God the Father send his Son into the world To save his people as the expression is Mat. 1.21 In which respect his Father would not have him called Apollyon a destroyer but Jesus a Saviour It 's true that Christ is set and appointed by his Father for the fall and rising again of many As for the rising of believers so for the fall of unbelievers But this is but by accident and besides the main intention of God in sending and Christ in coming He doth not cause the fall of such as perish so properly and so directly as the rising of such are saved by him Indeed he came into world to save sinners 1 Tim 1.15 not to destroy sinners It 's true that sinners are destroyed by him but this was not the proper end of his coming God did not send his Son to condemn the world but to save the world Joh. 3.17 And so our Saviour Christ himself professeth Joh. 12.47 I came not to judge the world but to save the world Even so he sent his Ministers for the very same end to work together with him in the Conversion and the Salvation of his people by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe 1 Cor. 1.21 To save themselves and those that hear them 1 Tim. 4.16 Here the Similitude again is great between the Fathers sending Christ c. in relation to the end that both of them are sent for But then the dissimilitude is great
be sanctified By consecration a person or a thing is made holy when it is set apart for holy uses In this respect the Sabbath day is holy in this respect the Temple the Utensils and Vessels of the house of God in this respect the Priests were holy Thus all the first born of the Jews were holy and set apart for God And therefore having charged Moses to sanctifie the first born thus he explains it afterwards Exod. 13.2 12. Thou shalt set them apart to God and in a word thus all the Sacrifices and oblations under the Ceremonial Law were holy they were consecrated things For consecrated things are sanctified things as I might give you instances enough in that particular Thou shalt annoint them saith the Lord speaking of Aaron and his Sons Exod. 28.4 and thou shalt consecrate and sanctifie them that they may Minister unto me in the Priests office So after speaking of the Ramm of consecration Aaron and his Sons shall eat it saith the Lord to consecrate them and to sanctifie them Exod. 29.33 Now all the question is in which of these respects our Saviour here is said to sanctifie himself whether by way of qualification or of consecration I must acknowledge I have heretofore conceived it in the former way as in a way of qualification that he made himself holy by the communication of the gifts and graces of the holy spirit to his humane nature For though it be a certain truth that Christ was not neither could be made holy of not holy privatively as man who by the fall had wholly lost his holiness is sanctified and made holy by regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost Yet it is very manifest that Christ was sanctified and made holy of not holy negatively for there was once a time when Christ as man had not this holiness inherent in his humane nature because there was a time viz. before his incarnation when his humane nature had not a being in the world And thus Christ was sanctified for his Apostles and Disciples sake his peoples sake That they might be sanctified That is he was endued abundantly with the gifts of holiness and the graces of sanctification to this end that he might communicate them and dispense them to his people and that they might be sanctified by this means That of his fulness they might all receive and grace for grace So that this looks extreamly well you see as the meaning of the Text. And for their sakes I sanctifie my self that they also might be sanctified through the truth But yet I find interpreters even universally running in another stream and understanding it of being sanctified in a way of consecration The former I suppose they leave because indeed it is not consonant to Scripture phrase For Jesus Christ to say as man that he sanctified himself in a way of qualification That is to say that he endued himself with the sanctifying gifts and graces of the holy spirit It is usually affirmed that God the Father sanctified him That it pleased the Father that in him should all the fulness of the holy spirit dwell Col. 1.19 That God even his God did annoint him with the oyl of his spirit Psal 45.7 And therefore he is called him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world John 10.36 Besides it seems not to be congruous that Christ should pray his Father to sanctifie his Apostles and Disciples because for his part he had sanctified himself with the graces of the spirit to this end that they might be sanctified by communication of those graces to them And therefore I shall run down with the common stream of exposition and understand our Saviour here to tell his Father that he sanctified himself by way of Consecration That he set himself apart to be a Priest an Altar an Offring and a Sacrifice to God the Father for the sins of his people And that to this end that they might be sanctified by this means Not only that they might be justified but that they might be sanctified too And sanctified through the truth through the effectual revelation of the Gospel to them which is called the truth in Scripture Or truly sanctified as it is rendred in the Margine not only in the Type and Figure as the Offrings and Sacrifices of the Ceremonial Law but in reality and truth And on this ground our Saviour prayes his Father to sanctifie his Apostles and Disciples that he might not be disappointed of his great end for which he sanctified himself and made himself an offring to his Father Sanctifie them with the truth And why so Why for their sakes I sanctifice my self I set my self apart to be a Sacrifice to thy justice that they also might be sanctified with the truth The words thus opened yield us out two Observations First Jesus Christ did willingly and freely set himself apart to be an Offring and a Sacrifice to God the Father Secondly he did this for his peoples sakes and that to this end that they might be sanctified by this means DOCTRINE 1. Jesus Christ did willingly and freely set himself apart to be an Offring and a Sacrifice to God the Father He was not forced to become an Expiation for the sins of men No he did it of himself and of his own accord I sanctifie my self saith our Saviour in my text by consecration So he is said to offer up himself Heb. 7.27 To humble himself and to become obedient conceive it passively obedient to the death even the death of the Cross Phil. 2.8 T is true indeed the death and passion of our Saviour was necessary if we look to God the Father and his eternal Counsel and Decree for he was slain in that respect i. e. appointed to be slain from the beginning of the world It was determined to be done as the Apostle speaks Acts 4.28 And therefore it behoved him to suffer as himself speaks Luke 24.46 and he must be lifted up upon the Cross an unavoidable necessity was laid upon him John 3.14 And as his death was necessary if we look to God the Father so it was violent my Brethren if we look to men With murderous and wicked hands they slew him Acts 2.23 They kild and crucified the Lord of glory But if we look to Christ himself his death and passion was a voluntary thing to which he willingly resigned and yielded up himself His life was not extorted from him but he laid it down himself John 10.17 He was delivered up to death by God the Father Acts 2.23 He was delivered up by Judas and the Jews too Mat. 27.2 And yet he freely yielded up himself he loved us and gave himself for us Gal. 2.20 he gave himself for us an Offring and a sacrifice to God Ephes 5.2 He sanctified himself for our sakes and set himself apart to this hard and sharp service so that the Point is plain you see That Jesus Christ did willingly and freely set himself apart to
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
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
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
of this Chapter This shall suffice for clearing of the Observation That unbelievers and unsanctified persons know not God At least they know him not in such a manner and with such a kind of knowledge as they ought to do in that they know him not with an affective knowledge they know him not with an effective knowledge and they know him not in Christ But what may be the causes why the unbelieving world is so ignorant Reason 1 of God I shall lay them open to you both with relation to the unbelieving world Heathen and with relation to the unbelieving world Christian Christian I mean in name though not in truth First for the unbelieving world Heathen it is no wonder that they know not God for they have no means to know him in such a manner as is necessary to salvation It s true that even they have means to know him in a common way as the Apostle shews and proves Rom. 1.19 20. That which may be known conceive it naturally known of God is manifest to them that is the Heathen for God hath shewed it even to them There is an Image and resemblance of him stampt upon the Creatures There are apparent characters and footsteps and impressions of the Godhead of his power and wisdom set upon every thing which he hath made which may be looked upon by every eye How doth his glory shine my brethren in the rare and admirable structure of the world the glorious frame of Heaven and earth And hence it is that David saith The Heavens declare the glory of God c. Psal 19.1 Indeed he tells us afterwards the Law of the Lord is perfect The word of God and that alone is a compleat and perfect help to bring us to the knowledge of God But yet there is some declaration of him in the Creatures the Heavens declare the glory of God And this means the Heathens have The Creatures catechise them and instruct them in the knowledge of a God as Job shewes Chap. 12.7 Ask now the Beasts and they shall teach thee the Fowls and they shall tell thee speak to the Earth and it shall teach thee and Fishes of the Sea shall declare to thee Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of God hath wrought this And therefore the Apostle tells us that even they the Heathen knew God Rom. 1.21 But now they have no means to know him savingly in Christ And this is life eternal to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent This knowledge is not written in the Creature Book and they have not the Scripture Book and how then should they come to it It s true that God is written in the Creature Book but not a word of Christ there God is written in the Heart Book but not a word of Christ there neither The Law is written in the heart by nature but there are no impressions of the Gospel which is the word of Christ Col. 3.16 And hence it is that all the Nations of the world have groped after God and found him too as Acts 17.27 Let a man run from East to West let him ransake all Nations and where he findeth any men there he shall find some notice of God But now my Brethren among which of all these Nations who never had the book of Scriptures shall you find any notice of a Christ any incling of a Saviour or Redeemer No Christ is not so much as named among them They have no glimpse no crevice to give them any light of God in Christ So that it is no wonder though the unbelieving world Pagan know him not in this manner for they have no means to know him Reason 2 But now the unbelieving world Christian hath the means of this knowledge and why then do not they know God true they have the outward means but they want the inward means They have the outward revelation of the word but they have not the inward revelation of the spirit And without this it is impossible for any man to know God And therefore the Apostle prays for the Ephesians that God would give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him Chap. 1.17 By which he intimates that without spirit-revelation they could never come to know him Now this spirit-revelation or unveiling consists in the removal of a double Veil the Veil that lies upon the faculty and the Veil that lies upon the Object 1. In the spirit-revelation which is the only means of knowing God there must be the removal of the Veil that lies upon the faculty the understanding The sence must be unveiled you know or else we cannot see an object though it be before us For what can a blindfolded person see And so it is in this case for every unbelieving person is blindfolded as it were the God of this world hath blinded his eyes The Veil is on their heart that is their understanding 2 Cor. 3 15. And this Veil the Holy Ghost must take away as in the cited place or else though God be by a man as certainly he is not far from every one of us he will not see him But when once this is removed then revelata ac detecta facie as Beza reads it Then we with open and uncovered face behold the glory of the Lord. 2. In that spirit-revelation which is the only means of knowing God there must be the removal of the Veil that lies upon the Object as of the Veil that lies upon the understanding so of the Veil that lies upon the Gospel where God is represented to us in a saving way For you must know my brethren that the Gospel is a veiled and a covered thing it hath a Curtain drawn before it It is a mysterie a secret thing Nay it is not only secret in it self but it is also kept secret Nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for that is the term that the Apostle uses Col. 1.26 Not simply dark or mystical but hid on purpose de industria as Theophilacta observes Among the Jews it was covered with a veil of types and figures and dark expressions And to this day it is hid from natural and carnal men 2 Cor. 4.3 So that however God in Christ be cleerly manifested there let them do what they are able still there is something between them and God that hides him from them that they cannot see him And that is the first reason why unbelieving Christians know not God because they want the inward means of this knowledge viz. spirit-revelation And as they want the inward means of finding out this knowledge when it is closely hidden and covered from them so they want inward capability of receiving this knowledge when it is openly proposed and tendred to them They are so far from being able to go forth to fetch it from abroad that they cannot entertain it when it is brought home to them They have not of
themselves by nature so much as a receptivity or an immediate passive capability of saving knowledge For there is somewhat in them superfluous and there is somewhat in them defective somewhat too much and somewhat too little 1. In every unbeliever there is somewhat that repells divine knowledge and that keeps out the beams of truth And that is carnal reasoning and carnal wisdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 8.7 The wondrous perspicuity and sharpness of conceit that is in any man that is but flesh is so far from helping him to know God that it doth but hinder him And the ground is evident for such a person leanes to his own wisdom he doth not yield himself up to be taught of God but weighs those things that are divine and supernatural in the ballance of his reason As far as that will reach he is content to go And where that faileth him as infinitely short it falls there he desists and what he is unable to perceive by this is foolishness to him as 1 Cor. 2.14 The natural man receiveth not the things of God for they are foolishness unto him They are not so indeed and in themselves they are but so to him He is too wise to take in such foolish things and therefore the Apostle saith not many wise 1 Cor. 1.16 and tells us plainly that if we ever mean to attain to saving knowledge we must be renewed in the spirit of our mind Eph. 1.24 that is in the highest purest and the most refined part of it As spirits are the quintessence of things that are most abstract from dross and that have least of earth in them Even these must be renewed or saving knowledge will not be received 2. In every unbeliever and unsanctified person as there is something redundant that repells divine knowledge so there is something wanting to receive it and that is the spirit of God Saving truths are often called the things of the spirit as 1 Cor. 2.14 Now my beloved the things of our own spirits carnal natural and worldly things our own spirits will take in but the things of Gods spirit Gods spirit only will take in Though they be brought home to our doors if Gods spirit be not there to take them in if he be not at home to entertain them and receive them it is all to no purpose And this is the case of the natural man he hath not the spirit of God and therefore he receiveth not the things of the spirit because he hath no principle within him that is agreeable and suitable unto them And this is that which the Apostle aims at when he saith we speak wisdom to them that are perfect 1 Cor. 2.6 That is to them that have all the parts of a spiritual man whereof the spirit is the principal the doctrine which we teach is accounted wisdom But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the animal man the souly man the man that hath a soul indeed but no spirit I mean none of Gods spirit he perceives not these things nor can he know them And why so because they are spiritually discerned And he poor man hath not the spirit to discern them by And therefore though he hear the words of God and Christ he never knows the mind of God or Christ as it is added in the end of that Chapter I shall add but one reason more unbelievers and unsanctified persons know not God because as they are of themselves unable in the respects which have been mentioned so they are unwilling also to know God They will not understand Psal 82.5 They are wilfully ignorant as 2 Pet. 3.5 God comes and shews himself to them and they say to God Depart from us for we will not the knowledge of thy wayes Light is offered and they shut their eyes against it So that it may be said of such Their eyes have they closed lest they should see with their eyes They need not to ascend up into heaven to bring God down from thence that they may see him No the word that manifesteth and revealeth God is nigh to them Rom. 10.6 They need not to go far to hear it and to hear of God in it But many will not step out of their doors to meet with God and to be acquainted with him If any light break in upon them by which they have a glimpse of God they even thrust it out again They do as the Gentiles did Rom. 1.19 they liked not to retain God in their knowledge They had him there but they liked not to retain him they had no mind to keep him there feign they would put him out again the apprehension of a God called upon them for love and duty and obedience and was a curb and a restraint from many evils and therefore they were weary of such thoughts as those and sought to chase them from their minds To say the truth they did not like them and therefore would be rid of them And thus it is with many Christians These are the reasons why unbelieving and unsanctified persons know not God Vse 1 Now to descend to application In the first place here we see the misery of unbelieving and unsanctified persons For all that know not God are in an infinitely sad condition They are exposed to his fiercest wrath and most direfull indignation The ignorant of God as you may see Jer 10.28 are made the object of a fearfull imprecation yea the ignorant of God among the Heathen who are deprived of the means though not of all yet at the least of any saving knowledge of him and yet the Prophet prayes Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that have not known thee And what then will become of the ignorant of God among Christans If ignorance of God yea though it be invincible expose men to the vengeance of the Lord and damn them everlastingly because the knowledge of him is required necessitate medii to salvation what will it do if it be wilfull and affected If Jeremy desire the Lord to pour his fury on the heathen who yet have not so much as the outward means of knowledge What rivers and what floods of indignation think you will be poured out on them who have the means and will not learn nor be instructed by them what will they do when the day of judgement comes when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven c. rendring vengeance to them that know not God as 2 Thes 1.4.8 I beseech you think upon it and lay it seriously to heart you that have long enjoyed the means and yet know very little of the nature or the will of God Or if you know with a notional discoursive knowledge you know him not with an affective and effective knowledge You glorifie him not as God you do not walk according to your knowledge of him And so your knowledge is as good as no knowledge You may and many do delude themselves with this conceit that though they dye in this
the world There will be some elect continually to be brought in by this means Some to be added to the Church some to be joyned to the body mystical untill the dispensation of the fullness of time which the Apostle mentions Eph. 1.10 when all things shall be gathered into one which are in heaven and which are on earth So that you see my brethren Jesus Christ will be continually making further declarations of his Fathers Name to other Nations and to other persons But how will he make these further declarations Brethren he will not do it in his own person or by his own immediate voyce But he will do it other wayes 1. By his written word and Ministers in all ages for that which they declare in his name and by authority from him Jesus Christ himself declares To this end Christ hath set some in the Church some Ministers of all sorts as the Apostle tells us 1 Cor. 12.28 And that is out of all dispute in the universal Church which is not limited to any Countrey or to any age That so there might be continually some in all Churches and in all ages to publish what is to be manifested of his Father And hence said Christ to his Apostles Mat. 28.20 Lo I am with you to the end of the world They were not to continue for their own parts by many hundred years so long And therefore it must also stretch to those who were to follow them in the office and the work of Gospel preaching till it be published universally to all Nations in the outward promulgation and in the inward and effectual revelation to all persons to whom it is appointed so to be revealed Which was not done you know by the Apostles it was but begun by them and must be carrried on till it be finished by other Ministers to the end of the world And therefore when our Saviour Christ ascended and consequently could no longer teach his Church immediately in his own person he gave gifts unto men such gifts as he never gave before And he gave some Apostles Prophets Evangelists Some temporary some perpetual for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry How long Till we all come all that are chosen whether Jews or Gentiles in the unity of the Faith unto a perfect man So that the Ministry shall be continued till all be gathered into Christ that shall be gathered and that is till the end of the world 2. Christ makes these further declarations of his Fathers name in every age by his spirit As he declares it outwardly to other persons by his word so he declares it inwardly to other persons by his spirit to his elect in every age to the end of the world And therefore when our Saviour Christ withdrew his corporal and fleshly presence he sent his spirit down to teach his people to lead them into all truth And by that spirit he declares his Fathers name and will do to the worlds end And he assured his Apostles in the place even now alledged Mat. 28.20 when he was even about to leave them as to his fleshly presence with them Lo I am with you alwayes viz. by my spirit to the end of the world That is with you and such as you are with you and your Successors still in every age as long as the world endureth Go ye therefore and teach all Nations and my spirit shall be with you So that what you teach all without he shall teach my elect within powerfully and with success till the last man be gathered in And then shall the end come Is it so that Jesus Christ will be continually making further declarations of his Fathers name to other Nations and to other persons to the end of the world Vse Then let us seriously consider what our dutie is in reference to this work which will be beautifull and glorious beyond all comparison and what Christ expects of us If he will do as he hath said let us examine what we are to do and what duty lyeth upon us relating to it in the mean time And here I shall propound a few things 1. Let us give him so much credit as to believe what he hath spoken And though it seem improbable that Christ should manifest his Fathers name to all Nations That all the Countreyes in the world should come to know him and to be acquainted with him yet seeing Christ hath undertaken it and bound himself by faithfull promise to his Father that as he hath declared his name already so he will be continually making further declarations of it to other persons and to other Nations let us say Amen to it As Mary sometimes when she had staggerd at the difficulty of the Promise at length recovered out of that fit of unbelief and set the seal of faith to it Be it according to thy word 2. Let our hearts be full of hope in reference to this business Since Christ hath undertaken it let us expect the execution of it Our Saviours words my brethren are a promise to the Father what he will do in after times for his people Saith he I will declare thy name to them And therefore as it is our duty to believe the promise so to expect the good things promised To be continually in a waiting frame looking and harkning after the accomplishment of this eximious work of his spying if we can see the day break and the Fathers name shine forth to other Nations who never had a glimsp of it by any Gospel Revelation till in the end from the rising of the Sun unto the going down of the same his name be great among the Gentiles according to that Prophesie relating to these latter times and ages of the world Mal. 1.11 3. Let us strive with Christ in prayer that he would make good the word that he hath spoken to the Father before so many witnesses Oh my beloved when ye look on many Heathen Nations that yet are overwhelmed in ignorance and Egyptian darkness that yet know nothing of the Fathers name when you look on many Christians in profession that yet are even in as bad a case as they some of which it may be have relation to your selves go to Jesus Christ and say O Lord thou hast professed that thou wilt declare thy Fathers name to other persons and to other Nations to the end of the world Lord there are such Nations there are such persons who yet are strangers to the Father who know no more of God in Christ then the very beasts that perish O be intreated to declare thy Fathers name to them Lord manifest the Father to them that they may know him to salvation 4. Let our hearts be full of joy while we are looking forward to the accomplishment of this work O let it chear our spirits under all the sinking damps and deep discouragements that are upon them in relation to the Church to think in what a blessed state and glorious
other saving graces are it comes down from the Father of lights as the Apostle James speaks Chap. 1.17 And as the stars shine with a borrowed Luster even so do believers too If there be this or any other brightness in them it is a beam of the divinity a streak and ray of the divine glory They shine because their light is come viz. from God and the glory of the Lord is risen upon them Isa 60.1 And in a word this is a stream of his fountain which runs down from God to us All our fresh springs are in him as the Prophet David speaks Psal 87.7 and consequently all our streams of living waters are from him First the springs of our streams are in him and then the streams of his springs are in us The love wherewith he loveth is in us So that God doth not only teach us love as the Apostle saith ye are taught of God to love 1 Thes 4.9 but more then so he gives us love He doth not only teach it as a Master but he bestows it as a Donour and Dispenser Yea as a Donour of himself to us for when he gives us love he gives us down himself in some measure And therefore by this love he is said to dwell in us Mark that Expression of the Apostle John 1. Epist 4.10 God is love and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him God is love properly essentially for whatsoever is attributed to God is God and he is the Original and Fountain of that love that is communicated to the Creature and by this love he dwells in us So that whoever hath this love in him hath God in him God in the beam as we are wont to say The room that hath the beam in it hath the Sun in it That place of the Apostle John is full 1 Epist 4.7 Love is of God saith he and every one that loves is born of God while he participates in this of Gods nature even as the Son is made partaker of the nature of the Father The Point you see is fully proved The love which is in true believers comes from God Reason And it must needs be so because it is not neither can it be originally in or of or from our selves The heart of man is naturally averse yea even abhorrent from the Love of God And therefore in the state of nature men are said to hate God Rom. 1.30 as in divers other places of the Scripture Indeed it seems to be a little strange that men should naturally hate the chiefest good And true it is that nothing apprehended and presented under the notion reason and the name of goodness can be hated and abhorred But yet the chief good looked upon as evil either in it self or else to him that so conceives and apprehends it may under such a notion be so far from being loved as that indeed it may be hated And thus it is with all unsanctified men So that of our selves you see it is impossible to have the love of God in us But whence must we have it then if we be partakers of it The Apostle clearly shews us Jam. 1.17 Every good and perfect gift is from above From above what 's that why it cometh down from the Father of lights that is from God who is the fountain of it And if every gift be from him every good and perfect gift then surely love which is in some respect the choicest of all other guifts as the Apostle shewes at large is from him too The love which is in true believers comes from God But yet this Caution let me interpose before I come to application You must not apprehend the love which is in true believers to come immediately from God without the use of second means as some have seemed to infer from that place of the Apostle 1 Thess 4.9 As touching love you need not that I write to you for you your selves are taught of God to love As if his meaning were I need not teach it you at all I need not strive to work it and beget it in you by my preaching for you are taught immediately of God himself Whereas indeed he speaks comparatively not as though they had no need at all of his instruction but not such need as many other men who were not taught of God to love As such expressions are very usual in the Scripture which in shew are universal yet to be understood ex parte and in comparison as that for instance John 9.4 If ye were blind ye should have no sin saith Christ none in comparison not simply none But as for love that it is mediately wrought by means as by the preaching of the Gospel is very manifest by this that the Apostles Paul and John especially do so frequently and earnestly perswade and press to it which they need not to have done if God did work it in the hearts of his people immediately by the teaching of his spirit Indeed my brethren every saving grace flows clearly from the upper spring but yet there are some pipes that carry and convey it down to us as the Word and Ordinances and the like And he that lives above them lives above grace too And therefore in my text our Saviour makes his declaration of his Father name by himself and his Apostles and their Successors in the Church the means of working love in the hearts of his people I have declared unto them thy name and will declare it that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them Now is it so my brethren that the love which is in true believers comes Vse 1 from God Here then we are directed where to go and to whom to have recourse for this grace If any man lack wisdom saith the Apostle let him ask it of God And so say I in this case If any man want love to God or to his Brethren let him ask it of God Let him go to God the Fountain and the spring of it and beseech him earnestly to give it down to poor creatures If we find our hearts are cold and dull and flat if they be not inflamed with the love of God let us entreat him to kindle them at his fire Let us begg him that the love which is in him may be in us Let us pray with the Apostle The Lord direct our hearts unto the love of God 2 Thess 3.5 They cannot find the way themselves the way of peace and so the way of love they have not known Now the good Lord himself direct them and guide them into that way It cannot choose but be a pleasing and a lovely suit indeed to be importunate with God to make us love him and to endear our hearts to him A man would think that such a sweet request as this should not be turned off with a denial And that we may the rather struggle in it I shall propound two things 1. Love as it comes from
God so it is in some respect the chiefest thing that comes from God It is a grace of the first magnitude and therefore it is placed first by the Apostle in that Catalogue of his Gal. 5.22 The fruit of the spirit is love and then joy and other graces It is an excelling gift and therefore the Apostle Paul to shew the matchless worth and the surpassing value of it admits a kind of Solaecism in his discourse and makes it better then the best of gifts 1 Cor. 12. ult Covet saith he and covet earnestly the best gifts And then immediately annexeth a discourse of love and touching that he saith I shew unto you a more excellent way Indeed it is of greater latitude then other graces it runs through every precept of the Law of God For love is the fulfilling of the Law and that no other grace is It is of greater power then other graces for it sets them all on work And hence the acts of other graces are frequently ascribed to love as 1 Cor. 13.4 c she hopeth she believeth c. It is of greater permanency then other graces then faith or hope And other graces without love are nothing as the Apostle shews at large in that Chapter 2. And as love is the chiefest thing that comes from God so it is the chiefest thing that conformeth us to God It makes us like him more then other graces do God is not said in Scripture to be faith or hope or patience but he is said in Scripture to be Love If we believe God doth not so if we hope God doth not so if we suffer quietly God doth not so Indeed he suffer not at all either by way of passion or compassion But if we love my brethren so doth God In this we do as God himself doth And therefore we may pray for this my brethren in another way then we may pray for other graces according to the pattern in my Text. We cannot pray to God Lord grant us that the faith which is in thee may be in us Lord grant us that the hope which is in thee may be in us But we may pray Lord grant us that the love which is in thee may be in us That the love wherewith thou lovest may be given down to us Vse 2 Is it so that the love which is in true believers comes from God If then we have the love of God in us let us remember whence it came and to whom the glory of it ought to be returned We can hate God of our selves but we can never love him of our selves So that if there be any spark of the love of God in us we may be confident that it was kindled at his fire And therefore let it be continually working upward upward still yea let it never leave ascending till it have joyned it self unto that infinite and endless flame from which it issued and proceeded JOHN 17.26 That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be c. DOCTRINE 2. The Declaration of the Fathers Name to men is one especial means to work the grace of love in them IT is to this end that our Saviour makes it known as you may see expresly in my Text I have declared unto them thy Name and will declare it Why so to what end That the love wherewith thou hast loved me that very property may be in them That as it is in thee it may be wrought in them also And out of doubt the means our Saviour pitches on are useful and available to his ends Indeed men come to know the Father by the discovery of his name to them for so his name is all that makes him known to men And that which worketh knowledge of him doth mediately work love to him So that if the discovery of his name do make men know him as that is very manifest it doth make them love him too That which one affirms of Learning may be applyed to God Non habet Inimicum nisi ignorantem Whosoever knows him clearly loves him truly Indeed while we are unacquainted with him the admirable worth and beauty and excellency that is in him every way doth not take a whit upon us The Philosopher will tell us that the mind must be informed and convinced of the goodness of a thing before the heart will cleave to it or the affections close with it And hence it is that carnal and unsanctified persons love not God because they know him not Or if they know him any way it is not under such a notion as renders him desirable or lovely to them Perhaps they know him as a Judge or an avenger they cannot know him as a Saviour and Redeemer And this is the real cause why the triumphant Saints in Heaven love him more then the Saints Militant on earth because they have a fuller clearer and distincter knowledge of him We see him darkly in a glass they face to face And this is the reason also why we love not God with such a high affection here as we shall do hereafter because we know him not so well we have not such distinct and full discoveries of his name as then we shall attain to So then you see in general that the discovery of the Fathers name to men is one especial means to work the grace of love in them To clear it yet a little further to you I shall shew you particularly and distinctly that there are divers things in Gods name which being manifested and declared unto men are means to win their hearts to him and so to work love in them As The beauty of the Lord is a part of his name and beauty being manifested and discovered is a means to win love It is a great attractive of affection Now herein God excells my brethren in this respect he is incomparably out of measure lovely The greatest beauty in the world is holiness so it is often called as 1 Chron. 16.19 Psal 29.2 To shew that holiness hath beauty in it yea it is called Beauties in the plural number The beauties of holiness Psal 110.3 to intimate that holiness is full of beauty and that it over-matches all the beauties in the world if all of them were put together And therefore this is made in Scripture the greatest beauty of the creature as Sin is the deformity so Grace and Holiness is the beauty of the Soul it adorns the inner man And therefore the Apostle Peter exhorteth Christian women to adorn the hidden man of the heart with this 1 Pet. 3.4 Even with the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit which is of great price in the sight of God And hence it is that holiness is likened to the fairest things to Robes and Gems and Crowns and Gold and Jewels and the like Now God is matchless in this kind of beauty He is holiness it self yea he is infinitely holy And therefore holiness is called the Image of God The holiness that is in men is but
shewed great love O my Beloved if such mercy be discovered to us we cannot choose but do as she did if we survey our lives and find perhaps that we have been grievous sinners beyond the ordinary rate that we were over head and ears in debt to God that there were horrid crimes upon the bill against us scarlet sins and bloody sins and then the Fathers name is manifested to us that he hath been to us The Lord the Lord God merciful and gratious forgiving iniquity transgression and sin And that according to the multitude of his tender mercies he hath blotted out our transgressions how will our hearts come off to him how will they flame with love to God so that we shall cry out O how do we love the Lord we are not able to express it how infinitely dear is God to me The Love of God is a part of his name and this if it be manifest also will beget love in us When it shines forth from God upon our hearts it will reflect and so return to God again This flame will kindle our fire and make it burn that all the waters in the world will never quench it as Cant. 8.7 Many waters cannot quench love neither can the flouds drown it Amor est cos amoris love is the special thing that whets love and that makes it keen and sharp So it is with the love of man and so with the love of God If it be made known to us and if we have assurance of it it will exceedingly indear our hearts to him We love him saith the Evangelist John 1 Epist 4.19 Why so because he loved us first The declaration of his love to us works love in us to him again First he loves us and when we know it then we love him So that the point is fully proved The Declaration of the Fathers name to men is one great means to work the grace of love in them Vse 1 To make a little Application First is it so That the Discovery c. We see the reason then my brethren why a great part of the world have not the love of God in them Though he be altogether lovely yet they love him not at all because his loveliness is hidden from them His name is not declared to them they have no knwledge of his beauty goodness mercy love c. and hence it is that they bear no affection to him They are alienated from him strangers to him love him no more then they do a meer stranger But how comes this to pass by reason of the ignorance and blindness that is in them How many Heathen Nations in the world and Christians by profession are in this condition and so will certainly continue till Jesus Christ declare the Fathers name to them And therefore in the second place if you desire indeed to love God Vse 2 and to grow up in this love Labour to be acquainted with his name Wait on the discoveries of it that Jesus Christ is pleased to make both in publique and in private Wheresoever Christ declares his Fathers name there be you attending on him to see what he will further shew you of his beauty goodness mercy love to you in special and you shall find that as you know more of him your hearts will be accordingly endeared more to him when you are with other Christians discourse of this name of God the greatness of his beauty goodness mercy love and your hearts will burn within you with ardent flames of holy love to his blessed Majesty When you are single and alone study the name of God think of his attributes let them be often in your meditations as you shall see they were in Davids if you read the Book of Psalms and then you will cry out not much unlike as he O my God how do I love thee while I meditate of the beauty of thy glorious Majesty and thy marvailous works And thus far of the first end of our Saviours declaration of his Fathers name That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them The second follows in the last place to be handled And I in them that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them First that love may be in them and then that I may be in them The latter is adjoyned to the former by the connective particle and as that which out of all dispute will keep it company and dwell with it If love be in them I shall be in them too saith Christ I shall be where love is and therefore I have manifested and declared thy name to them in reference to both these That love being wrought in them I may be in them too by this means This I conceive to be the drift and purpose of our Saviour in the words The point suggested then is this DOCTRINE Where Love is there Christ is If love be in a man Jesus Christ is in him too that is out of all question He comes with love into the souls of true believers Brethren Christ is an utter stranger to every soul that hath not true love in it But if you knock at the door of any heart and enquire Is love within is love here If love be there you may conclude that Jesus Christ is there too You see my brethren they are knit together in my Text That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them Love in them and I in them Love and I. To shew that Jesus Christ and Love do always dwell together in the same heart they are not be separated or divided each from other but wheresoever one is there is the other also where love is there Christ is But then you must not understand it of love the passion or natural affection but of love the saving grace of that love which is wrought by the effectual revelation of the Fathers name to men Where this love is there Christ is as I shall make it evidently to appear to you For Where love the saving grace of love is there the spirit is and where the spirit is there Christ is First where love is there the spirit is whose special dwelling in believers is not by his Essence but his graces and chiefly by the grace of love And hence we read of the Spirit of love 2 Tim. 1.7 because the Spirit is the cause of love And hence we also read of the love of the spirit Rom. 15.30 because love is the fruit of the spirit so the Apostle stileth it expresly Gal. 5.22 Yea it is the prime fruit the chief fruit upon which all the rest follow as the Apostle makes it there The fruit of the Spirit is love and then joy peace meekness and so on Love is indeed the special grace by which the spirit of love dwells in us so that where love is there the spirit is Now where the spirit is there Christ is For his inhabitation in the soul
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