Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A67108
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The great duty of self-resignation to the divine will by the pious and learned John Worthington ...
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Worthington, John, 1618-1671.
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1675
(1675)
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Wing W3623; ESTC R21641
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103,865
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261
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Self-happy and Self-sufficient cannot design his own advantage in laying his Commands upon us that we are not able to gratifie him by any service but being infinitely good he aims at our benefit in so doing That God in the business of Religion and the precepts he requires our observance of seeks not his own but meerly our interest and welfare in that I say he needs not nor is capable of receiving any additions of happiness much less from without himself and therefore he gratifieth and means kindness to us in all his Commands and his Laws are to be numbred among his Favours even his most endearing and obliging ones And he who is thus assured must needs be strongly excited to perform a most hearty ingenuous and chearful obedience to all the declarations of the Divine Will Secondly Humility fits and enables us for Resignation as it also imports patient Submission to all God's Disposals And that First Vpon the same account that we now said it disposeth to active Obedience Namely because it makes us sensible of the infinite disproportion that is between God and us the consideration of which will necessarily convince us that it becomes such despicable Creatures as we are to humble our selves under his mighty hand to lay our selves down in the dust before him instead of fretting and repining at his Providence Secondly Humility disposeth to Patience as it will make us sensible of our moral defects and imperfections our sins and transgressions whereby we are become obnoxious to God's displeasure The sense whereof will force us to acknowledge that he is most righteous whensoever he punisheth and therefore we should accept of the punishment of our iniquity Murmuring and complaining thoughts arise from Pride and a too good opinion of our selves 'T is Self-conceit that makes us misconstrue any of God's dealings as over-rigorous and harsh towards us but to the humble man who is sensible of his manifold miscarriages they appear most just right and equal nay very gentle too in comparison of his deserts He having a deep sense of the Evil of Sin how unreasonable unjust and disingenuous and therefore how unspeakably hainous a thing it is to oppose the Will of the most High God the Supream Governour of the World and Judge of all the Earth to offend infinite Goodness and to return evil to him from whom we have always received good and to whom our Engagements are inexpressibly many and great I say the humble Christian having a great sense of this and being conscious to himself that he hath been this unreasonable unrighteous and disingenuous Creature will under the sharpest afflictions he can suffer in this world say with Ezra Thou hast punished me less than mine iniquities do deserve Thirdly Humility disposeth to Submissive bearing afflictions as it will make us sensible of the exceeding shortness of our understandings our great folly and utter disability to fathom God's Counsels and the reasons of his Providences The Humble Christian will cry out with the blessed Apostle O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out He knows that infinite and unsearchable Wisdom must needs administer the affairs of the world in general and of every person in particular in the best and wisest way and therefore that there is very great reason for whatsoever sufferings he undergoes although they may seem to his shallow capacity to be never so unreasonable Murmuring at any of the Divine Providences is a tacit charging of God as with unrighteousness so with folly and a setting up our Wisdom above God's Fourthly The Humble Christian is likewise sensible of the great need he hath of afflictions That he needs them as Medicines to cure his spiritual Maladies that they are needful as they are preventions of Sin and secure against many temptations and as they are very instructive much of God and himself being to be learnt in the School of the Cross. This man knoweth that not to be corrected in order to his amendment is the greatest of punishments and that no judgment is so dreadful as sin it self and to be given up to an hard heart and seared conscience and therefore he accounts those straits troubles and difficulties he ever and anon meets with as expressions of God's unwillingness he should undo himself It is most certain that the Holy Wise and Good God doth not directly and primarily will punishment as neither doth any good and wise Law-giver to do thus is not justice but cruelty Nor doth he desire the occasions of inflicting punishments viz. the transgression of his Laws Justice is wise and good it hath ever the best of ends namely the discountenancing and preventing of sin and evil and the cherishing and encouragement of goodness and securing the authority of righteous Laws And the humble person considering that God's design in afflicting him is to cure the greater evil of sin by the lesser of suffering and that afflictions are so necessary as that he is seldom long well without them by this means is he the better enabled quietly to submit when he suffers under them Lastly Humility enables a Christian both to Obedience and Patience as it makes him capable of more grace And the more grace the more power he hath both to do and suffer the Will of God Surely saith the Wise man he scorneth the scorners but he giveth grace to the lowly Prov. iii. 34. And St. Peter 1 Epistle v. 5. God resisteth the proud but giveth grace to the humble And again St. Iames Chap. iv 5 6. The Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy but he giveth more grace wherefore he saith God resisteth the proud but giveth grace unto the humble The high mountains are barren but the low valleys are covered over with Corn and the showers of God's grace fall into lowly hearts and humble souls The more poor in spirit the more self-empty the more earnestly desirous of spiritual things and such shall be filled according to Christ's promise Matth. v. 6. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled You know the story in 2 Kings 4 chap. So long as the Widdow had an empty Vessel the Oyl flowed but when there was not another to be gotten it immediately stayed And fo long as God seeth an empty soul that is ready to receive and desirous of his grace he is ready to communicate of his fulness to it A Soul that is poor in its own eyes void of self-glorying and acknowledging its own indigence and withall its utter unworthiness to receive any the least favour from the Divine Bounty is such a one as God looks for to communicate more and more of his Grace and Spirit to To this man will I look saith God even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit c. And thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity whose name is Holy I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of
the humble and to revive the spirit of the contrite ones Isaiah lvii 15. Humility disposeth to gratitude and gratitude fits us to receive more from God for a grateful Soul will set a high value upon his blessings and most gladly give him the glory of his grace The humble Christian thinks himself with Iacob less than the least of all God's mercies and consequently he will be heartily thankful for the least and by being thus affected he becomes meet for the greatest and therefore cannot fail of it It is to be observed that when Iacob was in this humble and self-abasing temper it was that he saw God face to face at Peniel Then it was that he was honoured with the name Israel and as a Prince had power with God and men and prevailed But on the contrary Pride and Self-fulness which is ever accompanied with unthankfulness makes men uncapable of receiving the Divine Grace And therefore the Pharisees who gloried in themselves that they were righteous and despised others that were not sick but whole and healthy in their own conceit died of their diseases notwithstanding the great Physician of Souls was so long among them Now there are two graces that Humility gives a peculiar fitness for two of the first magnitude and greatest influence of the greatest use and consequence in a Christians life viz. The Love of God and Faith or Trust in him 'T is evident that Humility hath a peculiar fitness to cherish and increase the grace of Love for the more sensible any one is of his great unworthiness and ill-deservings the more he must needs love God for having so gracious a regard to him the more will he admire and adore the riches of his Grace And 't is as evident that Humility affordeth the like advantage for the Grace of Faith or trust in God for the more sensible a Christian is of his own impotence the more will he rely upon the Divine Power and Goodness for the supply of his wants having so many promises to encourage him The sense of our own weakness will make us distrust our selves the more we distrust our selves the more shall we stay our Souls on God and confide in his Wisdom Power and Grace Now we have particularly shewn of how great efficacy both these Vertues are to enable us to this Duty of Self-Resignation CHAP. VIII That the serious observation of the great Examples of Self-Resignation which are recorded in the Scriptures is of great use and advantage And first of the Example of ABRAHAM VIII EIghthly Look to those lively Patterns and Examples of Self-Resignation set before us in the Holy Scriptures These are of singular use and advantage to be seriously considered For they plainly shew this holy disposition of spirit to be attainable and that God requires herein nothing of us that is impossible Could they do thus and cannot we by the same divine help and power do the like which we have shewn is attainable by us as well as them They were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 subject to like passions with us they were flesh and bloud as we are and naturally as weak and infirm as our selves and God is the same in Power and Goodness now that ever he was And this may commend to us the fulness of the Scriptures that besides the best Precepts and Rules we have the best Patterns and Examples recorded in them of every grace and virtue So that by the guidance and assistance of the Holy Spirit the Christian man may be perfected throughly furnished unto every good work The best Rules of the best life are laid down in the divinely inspired Writings and they are plain and intelligible especially to those that have the good and honest heart but Examples superadded to Rules and Patterns to Precepts make both more instructive and as well encourage as direct our Practice And we having a many worthy Examples upon record of this Self-Resignation the Lesson becomes neither too high nor hard for us to understand or practice How many Precepts have we in Scripture to engage us to Chastity and Purity Meekness and Patience Faith and Charity to an holy resolvedness in owning of God and adhering to his ways and unweariedness in doing good and to every other grace and virtue And have we not besides others the Example of Ioseph for Chastity Moses for Meekness Iob for Patience Abraham for Faith Dorcas and Cornelius for Charity Daniel for an holy resolvedness of spirit in owning God S. Paul for an unwearied Zeal and above all that Example of all Examples for every thing that is holy pure and lovely our Lord Jesus Christ Take we heed then that we be not found ingentium exemplorum parvi imitatores small imitators of mighty examples as Salvian expresseth it But let it be our serious care and holy ambition to transcribe their vertues to write after those fair Copies they have set us to be followers of those blessed Souls wherein they were followers of God and Christ. But our present argument determining us to Self-Resignation let us consider some Examples hereof for our guidance and encouragement First I will present you with that of Abraham Faithful Abraham as he is stiled by the Apostle St. Paul There were ten trials wherewith God was pleased to exercise this good man as they are collected out of his Story by the Hebrew Writers The first and last of which ten were the sorest of all The first was his being called and commanded of God Genesis the twelfth to leave his own Countrey his House and Lands his Friends and Kindred and to go to a place he knew not This Command as unpleasant and grievous as it must needs have been to his flesh and bloud he did not in the least demurr upon obeying But by Faith Abraham when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance obeyed and he went out not knowing whither he went Heb. xi 8. The last was his being commanded to take his onely Son Isaac and to slay and offer him for a Burnt-offering than which there could not be a greater trial We have the Command in Genesis xxii 2. every word of which hath a singular Emphasis and deserves attention Take now thy son thine onely son Isaac whom thou lovest and get thee into the land of Moriah and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of Take now thy Son Not a Beast for Sacrifice not any of the best of his great store of Cattle but his Son Take him now forthwith without any delay Thy Son Isaac Not Ishmael but Isaac his and his Mothers delight and joy as the name signifies Thine onely Son He and Sarah had no other to solace themselves in nor were they ever like to have any other And besides there