produceth joy which is a little higher then the former is the common gifts and graces of the Spirit of God as working of miracles healing the sicke dispossessing men of Devills and those gifts that among us are now extant as the gift of illumination prayer preaching expounding the Scriptures and if you looke on these things as divided from Christ either the having of them or the exercise of them both these things may bring joy but not full joy The having of them Judas Simon Magus and the disciples whom our Lord compares to the second and third grounds had these gifts amongst them some Matth. 13. more some lesse and they rejoyced saith the text Mat. 13. but you know Iob saith that the joy of the hypocrites is but for a moment And notwithstanding all these gifts yea and the performances or plausible duties which flowe from them without union with Christ men are but hypocrites wee may call them so and so their joy is not full being but for a moment Secondly there is some joy in the acting and exercising of common gifts and graces as wee read in Luk. where the disciples had been abroad casting out Devills and rejoycing therein our Lord checkes them In this saith he rejoyce not that the spirits are subject to you Luke 10. 20. but rather rejoyce that your names are written in Heaven The meaning is not you shall not at all rejoyce for Christ to have a company of poore fishermen persecuted in the world to worke on people so as to dispossesse them of Devills to heale the sicke c. doubtlesse they were in a sort allowed to rejoyce but the meaning is this Rejoyce not that is expect not compleate joy from these things take no such great delight and pleasure in these things but rather rejoyce that your names are written in Heaven that is in a manner the same as if he had said that you have union and communion with the Father and his Sonne Jesus Christ The third good thing wee use to rejoyce in is farre higher then this and yet produceth not fulnesse of joy that is the saving graces of the Spirit of God I pray Beloved understand me in this warily There is a great deale of joy surely in the having or exercising any saving spirituall grace Therefore the Apostle saith righteousnesse and peace and joy in the holy Ghost Rom. 14. 1 Wheresoever there is righteousnesse peace in the heart there joy in the holy Ghost followes And in doing any thing out of a sincere spirit out of the power of grace there is much joy which God allowes us I meet him saith God that rejoyceth and worketh righteousnesse Esa 64. 5. There is no act of righteousnesse that is done in sincerity but it is as meate and drinke to us as our Lord Christ saith John 4. yet for all this there is not there cannot be fulnesse of joy from the apprehension of any grace or the exercise of it in our soules For if you take grace and abstract it from our head Christ but in your thoughts and imaginations for so you may doe it is but as a dead thing as blessed Preston saith it is but a creature and would perish as other creatures were we not united to a Fountaine of grace he that hath most grace in him his grace would die and be extinct Grace is as the beames of the Sun in a house through a window cut off the beames from the Sun shut the window they are gon So I may sum up all these things and comprehend them respectively in those words of the Prophet Behold al yee that kindle a fire compasse your Esa 50. ult selves about with sparkes walke in the light of your fire and in the sparkes that yee have kindled This shall yee have of mine hand yee shall lie downe in sorrow Beloved all these put together certainly make many fine sparkes of joy some more some lesse but if you goe no further yea if it were possible that you who have saving grace should rise no higher and seeke joy no where else all that yee should have at the hand of God in the end would be yee should lie downe in sorrow But lastly there is a fourth good that brings indeed fulnesse of joy and that is the Good if I may so say that is in God himselfe by Iesus Christ For wee cannot thinke a thought of God but only in Jesus Christ and that and that onely brings fulnesse of joy If you ask how It brings it especially 3 wayes First this good is exceeding full and perfect the others are scantie and imperfect Things fully good bring full comfort and joy If a man looke on his owne grace for instance love he shall see little of love but a great deale of envie and hatred or if there be a little delight in God there is withall a great deale of awkwardnesse and aversnesse but if wee looke into the fulnesse of Christ wee shall see unsearchable treasures riches that have no end Ephes 3. 8. Secondly the good in Christ hath a perpetuity in it as David saith in thy presence is fulnesse of joy and in Psalme 16. the next words pleasures for evermore Beloved there is an end of all the comforts of this world As the Apostle saith those that rejoyce should be as though they rejoyced not they that buy as if they possessed not for the 1 Cor. 7. fashion of this world passeth away and there will be an utter end of those things that are below But what is in God and in Jesus Christ wil be full and fresh to all eternity Thirdly a Saint hath a right and interest in all this Good to all eternity and here comes in the fulnesse of joy and not before The second Question for the opening of this truth is this What manner of union this is that wee have with Jesus Christ that brings in this fulnesse of joy For answer to that take notice of these 4 things First it is a very neere union that a poore Saint hath with Christ I say Saints because poore sinners drunkards enemies to godlinesse they have not yet any share in this union or benefit from it God may in his time give it them but Saints and beleivers they have a neere union with Christ You will say how neere If an Angel were to speake to you he cannot satisfie you fully in this only as farre as our understanding can reach it and the creatures can serve to illustrate these things thus Whatsoever by way of comparison can be alleadged concerning the combination of any one thing with another whatsoever it be in the whole Creation of God that and much more may be said of our union with Jesus Christ To give instances out of the Scripture see what one stick is to another being glewed together see what one friend is to another as Jonathan and David that are said to be woven and knit each
doe with such things but this is that I only ayme at whereas divers conceive that it is their spiritualnesse the excellency of their grace that they are carried on in Pulpits and Presses so vehemently in wrangling and striving about external things it is to be feared that much of that zeale violence and labour is fleshly and were wee more spirituall hundreds I beleive of those Questions would be removed that lie now like stumbling blocks in our way according to that in the 2. of this Epist ver 10. He that loves his brother abideth in the light and there is no occasion of stumbling in him And were wee filled with the knowledge of God the love of Christ humility and selfe-deniall preferring each other before our selves certainely a world of these controversies would soone vanish away As those that are spirituall can speake by experience A second thing I would have you to observe is this The best way to bring either a Sinner to God or to build up a Saint in any grace or in any point of godlinesse whatsoever Obser 2 is the spirituall promulgation manifestation or declaration of Jesus Christ in his person excellencies and Priviledges doings and sufferings c. This is the best meanes therefore John useth onely that he layes down Jesus Christ as one that had beene seene heard felt as it were to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the eternall word that brought eternal life and he expects that this should worke in the soule faith joy c. I beseech you beare with mee beloved I feare we spend a great deale of our time almost in vaine and waste much of our labour when we would bring our owne hearts or others to a duty or stir up a grace we use and urge so many morall Motives and Meanes not that I say but wee may use motives and meanes spirituall and morall but if we did study to open Iesus Christ fully to the soule Iohn 3. 14. if we did lift up the Brazen Serpent so as poore people might behold him we should not need the tenth part of those meanes exhortations and paines that we now take For in the Gospel wee shall see and it is our wisdome to follow the scripture the neerer that the better the Apostles when they went forth to preach they told them a story if I may so speake with reverence of one Jesus Christ that was the word of God and that was become man and how he was crucified at Jerusalem and how he was raised from the dead and all this in a plaine simple spirituall way and manner and while they were telling these blessed stories the Spirit fell upon people and they beleived and had faith wrought in them Faith is not wrought so much in a rationall way I meane in a way of ratiocination as by the Spirit of God comming upon the soules of people by the relation or representation of Christ to the soule and this our Lord himselfe hintes As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the wildernesse even so must the Sonne of Iohn 3. 14. man be lifted up that whosoever beleiveth in him should not perish but have everlasting life You know the very beholding of the brazen Serpent when people were stung God so ordered it that the very beholding should bring help though we know not how to those that were wounded and stung by those Serpents so God hath ordained in his blessed wisdome that the discovery of Jesus Christ the beholding of him the eying of him by faith should be that which shall transforme us into his image and so conforme us to any duty as the Apostle saith wee are transformed while wee behold him with open face to his glory Hence it is that in Scripture 2 Cor. 3. 18. all godlinesse and every point of godlinesse is often called the knowledge of Christ For instance justification in Scripture is called the knowledge of Christ By his knowlede shall my righteous servant justifie many So also sanctification Esay 53. 2 Pet. 3. 18. Grow in grace in the knowledge of Christ After that by the knowledge of Jesus Christ they were cleansed from their sins c. Truly Beloved every grace is 2 Pet. 2. comprehended in the knowledge of Jesus Christ did we know Jesus Christ aright savingly spiritually effectually we should be full of faith full of godly feare full of humility full of self-deniall full of diligence and readines to every good word and worke so that our maine defect is in that but I passe by that also A third thing be pleased to observe from the coherence of these words that Divine objects seene by faith if it be a saving and right faith carries with them as much evidence certainty and assurance as any naturall thing that wee apprehend by any or all our naturall senses We have seen heard and tasted the more of our senses are imployed to apprehend a thing the more assurance confidence and evidence it carries with it Put the five senses together to discover any naturall object whatsoever that cannot be more sure and certaine to us then all spirituall objects apprehended by a spirituall Christian through a lively faith are to him therefore it is said that faith is the evidence of things not seen Heb. 11. 1. of things invisible he doth not say that faith is an opinion a probability a conjecture or a wild guesse but faith saith he is the evidence of things not seen that is of things that by naturall reason you cannot see yet making them as reall and as evident as any thing wee doe see by reason sense and all And thence Beloved you see that godly men in all ages have been so free to part with their credit to renounce their profit to lay downe their lives for spirituall things sake now did they not apprehend a reality and certainty in them surely they were no lesse then mad men to forgoe substances for shadowes It were no lesse then madnesse for a man to give himselfe up to be a prisener when he might be free to be a foole when he might be accounted wife to be poore when he might be rich if he did not see a reality in spirituall things for which he willingly forsakes and leaves all these other The Saints in all ages have done so wee read in the Epistle to the Hebrew of Moses and Abraham how Heb. 11. they forsooke all Abraham forsooke his countrey Moses forsooke Pharaohs house and they were no children for Moses was forty yeares old saith the Scripture when he refused the pleasures of Pharaohs house to imbrace afflictions with the poore Saints Whence was this thinke you Moses saw him that was invisible how by faith for all that chapter hath reference to and is but an illustration of the first verse Faith is the Heb. 11. evidence of things not seen and all the rest are examples of the same He saw him that is invisible and by the same
good things without measure and wee by ours in measure as it pleaseth him to distribute But excepting these things Jesus Christ and wee are fellowes for so God calls us Therefore Beloved did but the Lord by his holy Spirit unvaile all your eyes and give you but one glance of what the estate of a Saint is that is united to Jesus Christ who in this place would not be a Saint who would not be a Christian who would be a drunkard a swearer a persecuter of godlinesse who I say would be such a one that knowes the treasure riches and happinesse of a Saint in Christ our ignorance of this makes men refuse Christ and goe on in sin For every man naturally bargaines as he apprehends for his gaine and never for his losse that is the reason I say that we bargaine not for Heaven and for Christ because wee thinke it is for our losse and this because God hath not opened our eyes to see the unsearchable riches and treasures that are in Jesus Christ Besides were the happinesse of a Saint rightly understood and seriously considered who would be a backslider you heare what a Saint is he can goe and say to his soule and his fellow Saints our fellowship is with the Father and with Jesus Christ Who would relinquish Christ and all in him for some base lust O saith the Author of the Epist to the Hebrewes let there not be a Heb. 12. 16. prophane man c. Esau was a prophane man he had godly parents and was religiously educated yet the Apostle calls him prophane why because for a little morsell he sold his birth-right and there is a farre greater disproportion betweene the riches of Christ and the base lusts that wee hanker after then betweene Esaus inheritance and Jacobs pottage therefore looke to your selves in these things you that are ancient Professors who begin to backslide apace and take this as a meanes to help thee when thou goest to get such a ones favour to make such a one thy friend to get such an office and the like wherein thou must yeild to sin and joyne with sinners in their wicked designes see what a bargaine thou makest Thou relinquishest Christ Jesus and all thy portion in him to purchase these vaine frivolous things Another Use I will touch but briefely this is the reason why the Lord takes it so well or ill at our hands Vse 2 that wee use his people kindly or unkindly why should the Lord be so much offended to see his poore Saints that are ready to beg at your doores oppressed and wronged persecuted c because even they are one with Jesus Christ That is the reason why on the other side he takes it so kindly that wee doe any thing for them that wee be tender and carefull of the good of his poore Saints because it is to me saith Christ He that bestowes a cup of cold water to one of his little ons in the Mat. 10. 42. name of a disciple shall not lose his reward Why so he that receiveth you receiveth me that is the reason so in Mat. 25. I was hungry and you fed me naked and you cloathed me thirsty and you gave me drinke When did we see thee Mat. 25. hungry or thirsty or naked In as much as yee have done it to the least of my members yee did it to me See on the contrary he that toucheth a Saint toucheth the apple of Gods eye And the reason he is so angry is Zach. 2. 8. because now the Father and Jesus Christ and the poorest Saint are really and totally one each with other strike at one strike at all Therefore I beseech you make this use of it be kind to the poore Saints notwithstanding their meannesse outward weaknesses and frailties though they bee poore base and vile yet they have a glorious head and Husband Thou thinkest it is an easie thing to suppresse a poore Saint to overthrow him and overcome him and indeed it were so but that he hath a great partie in Heaven greater then all the world therefore there is no inchantment Mr. Wilkinsons Sermon against Israel as you heard from the Lord this morning Thirdly I would give you in these times when every body speakes of reformation of Religion Vse 3 and the like one word of direction in point of Church fellowship or communion one with another i. Take heed you doe not make any outward externall thing the maine pillar and foundation of your Church-fellowship of your Christian Communion As v. g. if any should conceive the way to constitute a Church to be by an externall Covenant a formall confession baptizing this way or that way I meane by dipping or sprinkling or by conjunction of opinion in some controverted point I doe not at this time condemne or commend any of these things for the matter of them but only this I drive at if you build your Christian fellowship and communion upon any one of these things or such like making them the maine pillar of Christian communion it will be more like a carnall faction then a spirituall communion Take therefore the Apostles rule in the text we have fellowship with the Father and his Sonne Jesus Christ And what followes these things wee write tbat you may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the Father and his Sonne Iesus Christ That is the maine and principall ground of all Church fellowship of Christian fellowship of the Saints one with another Therefore when I have communion with a Saint I must not looke so much whether he be of such an opinion or whether he have taken the Covenant or have been baptized * I speake not this as if my opinion were for rebaptization or against the baptizing of the infants of beleevers the contrary appeares by my practise but only that such difference of opinion should not hinder their mutuall receiving each other to fellowship and communion who are in fellowship with God and Iesus Christ once or twice or ten times but see if he have fellowship with the Father and with Jesus Christ if he hath he is one of the body and a fellow-member and wee must fall in immediately with him though withall I am to use all meanes in love and meeknesse to recall him from his error according to the rules of Scripture But you will say how shall it be knowne that he is such a one I will name but two generall rules the best and the clearest that I know in the whole Scriptures to satisfie you in that In the first place consult with that in Coloss 2. 19. not holding the head saith the Apostle That is when a man sees a Christian for matter of doctrine judgement or opinion to hold the head Jesus Christ to be the Sonne of God and justification by him sanctification from him according to the Scriptures c. though in externall things it may be he doth not as yet
to other see how neere the Father and the Child are how neere the Husband and Wife are one to another see what union is betweene the branches and the vine the members and the head nay one thing more see what the soule is to the body such is Christ and so neere is he and neerer to the person of every true beleiver as Paul saith I live not but Christ liveth in me as if he should say Jesus Christ is to my soule and Gal. 2. 20. body as the soule is to the body of a naturall man that acts quickens it naturally Beloved there is a marvellous neerenesse in this union Secondly it is the most reall union these things make for our joy for it was not in vaine that Christ spake of these things before he went to Heaven that their joy might be full I say it is a most reall union As there is a greater neerenesse so there is a greater reality in our union with Christ then is betweene any naturall things whatsoever they are but shadowes of spirituall things It is not a notionall union as some conceive that Christ and wee are united as the object is united to the understanding for when a man conceives of any thing that thing is united in an abstracted metaphysicall way to the understanding so hypocrites may have a great deale of union with Christ they may goe far and have much knowledge and light in the apprehension of spirituall things You may see the difference of this union by comparing that union an husband hath with his wife and that union which his minde and understanding hath with any other person it is not as when a mans understanding conceiveth of another woman by meere imagination and thought of her there is a kind of union betweene her and his understanding But this is another kind of union that is betweene a man and his wife by the bond and tye of Matrimony that is a reall union that is conceived by some to be the meaning of that place Hos 2. I will marry thee in faithfulnes judgement or in truth as some read it I will marry thee in truth I would not have you think the union betweene Christ and the Saints is nothing but a poore empty Notion or imagination but I will marry thee in truth i. thou shalt be my wise in reality as much or rather more really then man and wife are united by Marriage Thirdly It is a totall union that is betweene Jesus Christ and his poore Saints Oh this is full of comfort if you looke on it spiritually that is whole Christ is united to the whole beleever soule and body Thou hast all Christ whatsoever thou canst conceive to be in the Father or in Jesus Christ 't is really and wholly thine as I could give instances had I time out of Scripture Thou art one with him in his Nature in his Name thou hast the same Image and grace and Spirit in thee as he hath the same precious promises the same accesse to God by prayer as he thou hast the same love of the Father all that he did or suffered thou hast a share in it all is thine thou hast his life and death as the Apostle saith so on thy part he hath thee wholly thy Cor. 4. nature thy sinnes the punishment of thy sinnes thy wrath thy curse thy shame so he would have thee all thy wit thy wealth thy strength all that thou art or hast and canst doe for him so thou hast Jesus Christ It is a totall union My Beloved is mine and I am his whole Christ from top to toe is mine and all that I am have or can doe for evermore is his it is totall Lastly it is an inseparable union it can never be broken I will make saith God an everlasting Covenant with them that I will not turne away from them to doe them good I will put my feare in their hearts that they shall not depart from me Jeremiah 32. This is a glorious word but the poore Christian will say T is true thou wilt not turne away from me I know thou wilt not but I shall turne away from thee I turne every day towards sin and Satan Why saith God I will put my feare in thy heart tbat thou shalt not turne away from me we shall be kept together for evermore and never separated Thence Paul triumphantly challenges al enemies in heaven or rather in Hell to doe their worst to breake this knot Who shall separate us from the love of God in Christ shall tribulation Rom. 8. distresse famine c come all that can together and see if that blessed union betwene me Christ shall ever be broken or dissolved by all that you can doe Now Beloved a word or two of Use I will wave the other Question that happily would be necessary for the further opening of this Doctrine because I will not weary you you see what fulnesse of joy is and what this union is and by what you have heard already you may easily convince your selves that fellowship and union with Jesus Christ will bring fulnesse of joy to the soule The uses are these briefly The first is this you may hence behold if the Lord Vse 1 open your eyes for so it must be what a glorious state and condition God hath placed a Christian in a poore Saint be he never so meane or miserable otherwise in the eye of the world his condition what is it He is one with Jesus Christ as Christ is one with the Father There is a blessed place in Zachary where Jesus Christ is called Gods fellow Awake oh sword against my shepheard Zach. 13. 7. against the man my fellow Christ is one with the Father he is his fellow and every Saint is Christ's fellow he is anointed with the oyle of gladnesse above his Psal 45. 7. fellowes Christ is Gods fellow and wee are Christ's fellowes There is a kind of analogicall proportion not Geometricall of equalitie as they call it betweene Christ and Saints in every thing run them over in your thoughts and take a view of all Christ what he is in his Person in his glory in his Spirit in his graces in his Fathers love and in the accesse he hath to the Father in all these with what more you can imagine in Christ wee are in a sort fellowes with him Only with this difference that you may not stumble Christ hath the preheminence in all things every Col. 1. thing in its owne order The Father is above all and wee by him all comes from the Father first to Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 15. and all wee have is by Marriage with Iesus Christ and wee must abide in our union with Christ as he doth abide with his Father Moreover betweene him and the person of the Father there is an Essentiall union and ours is virtuall by the power of the Spirit of God he by his union hath all