certainly a forbidden Relation Love not the world saith the Apostle nor the things of the world yet never were more to be found amongst such who are called Christians Thirdly Marriage doth not alwaies spoil Virginity as it signifies Chastity But an heart equally cleaving and inclining to two men will especially if byast to him who is not the Woman's Husband She that hath one true and proper Husband and yet loveth another equally with him or more than he hath lost her Virgin-heart Ah! how many of these are there amongst Professors they are married to Christ in the face of the Church they were baptized into his Name and are under Vows to be the Lord's But as God said of old concerning Ephraim Their heart is divided and therefore they must be found faulty Ah! How many are there that have divided hearts that halt between two Opinions and are not able to conclude with themselves whether Baal be God and they should serve him or God be God and they shall serve him Nay they halt between two Conversations something there is of Heaven in them but alas how much of the Earth how much of sin folly and vanity how much of contradiction to their Profession where 's a Christian Caleb to be found to walk with God fully Fourthly If we have some that are Virgins yet how few beautiful Virgins where 's the beauty the glory of Professors where 's their former shining out before men Ah! call your Children Ichabods call them Ichabods The Glory is departed in a great measure from England from the Professing Party of England Where 's the former sincerity love to God zeal for God plainness of heart sincerity of conversation brotherly love heavenly walking the World the vanities of the World have spoiled Professors beauty The Sun of a little outward prosperity hath shone upon them how are they tanned But in the next place this discourse offers us a fair opportunity to try our Relation to Christ whether we be the Lambs Wife who shall hereafter follow him whithersoever he goes 1. Are you Spiritual Virgins There are tokens of Spiritual as well as Natural Virginity 1. Purity and Chastity in heart as well as outward appearance Blessed are they saith our Saviour who are pure in heart for they shall see God is not thy heart defiled with sensual affections impetuous passions doth not thy Soul cleave to sin and lust 2. Dost thou live like a Virgin an hidden life doth not the world see all that thou hast of a Spiritual life dost thou not like the Pharisees love to pray standing in the Synagogues and in the corners of the Streets more than with thy doors shut about thee in thy closet livest thou any thing of that life which is hid with Christ in God is it thy only and greatest care to please thy heavenly Father and Christ thy great Lord and Master 3. Where 's thy modesty the Virgin blusheth presently when any thing is reflected upon her Art thou ashamed when thou committest iniquity and thy heart reflects it upon thee or hast thou a Whores fore-head that cannot blush I might instance in many particulars more but these are enough to try thy Spiritual Virginity 2. A second note of the Spouse of Christ arising from this Text is a love to Christ Love is a natural plant and groweth in every Soul but love to Christ is a plant from Heaven heavenly a plant sprung up from the seed of God in the Soul If Christ should from Heaven propo und the fame question to thee which while he was on Earth he propounded to Peter couldst thou answer with him Lord Thou that knowest all things knowest that I love thee This Grace of all others is most discernable for love is of an active nature and will hardly lie hid The pantings of thy heart after him the acquiescence complacency and delight of thy heart in him will easily discover it to thee if thou lookest narrowly The natural man cannot say that his Soul cleaveth to Christ or thirsteth after Christ or taketh any complacency in the Lord Christ Thirdly As God is the fountain of good and blessing to his Creatures and as Christ hath a fair inheritance of a Crown an Heaven an incomprehensible glory which is annexed to the fruition and enjoyment of him so the worst of men may have a kind of love for Christ or rather for what he bringeth along with himself unto the Soul Lastly Therefore Dost thou love Christ for the savour of his good Ointments because his name is an Oil or Ointment poured forth He that loveth Christ meerly for his Heaven and Glory is purely selfish in his love I deny not but Moses had an Eye to the recompence of reward and so hath every honest and gracious heart without doubt Christs beneficence and goodness unto us and the benefit which our Souls have and hope to have from Christ is and ought to be a very great attractive and to draw out our hearts more and more in love to Christ but herein is the purity of the Saints love he discovereth such an excellency in the Lord Jesus Christ that were he never to have an Heaven with him yet his heart would cleave to him infinitely delight in him if thou canst say that thou thus lovest the Lord Jesus it will indeed speak thee to be a Spiritual Virgin a Spouse to the Lord Jesus I shall conclude my discourse upon this verse with a threefold word of Exhortation 1. In the first place methinks from this metaphorical expression of Saints under the notion of Virgins I have here a fair opportunity to plead with Virgins to be Saints Virgins generally have the object of their love to seek Lo here a most deserving object for every young man every young woman that heareth me Methinks the holy Spirit points out this in the Metaphor Therefore do the Virgins love thee Christ here expresseth himself under the notion of some beautiful young man beautified and adorned with all the advantages both of nature and of art So that the Virgins must love him I noted to you before that some would have the term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be rather a term of age then either signifying Sex or State oh that I could this day prevail with you who are young men and young women to love the Lord Jesus Christ Youth is an age a time of love full of love but it usually mispends its self upon vain and worthless objects the young man loves his lusts and his pleasures the young woman loveth dancings and foolish sports and vain company and gay and costly attire but how rare is it to find a young man or woman that sincerely loveth the Lord Jesus Christ truly amongst young or old there is hardly one of a thousand but of those that are in the height and heat of their youth hardly one of ten thousand It is too frequent for us to give our marrow to the Devil
new birth Light I black am in your curious Eye And in my own much more But white in my Beloveds sight Since he hath paid my score XVI Look not on me because I 'm black With a too curious Eye Nor with disdain nor let my black Visage you satisfy Much less dis-colour you Behold Sisters and pity me My Blackness is not my delight Ah! 't is my misery XVII The Sun hath scorch'd me with its heat It is by that I am tann'd My Mothers Children also have Touch'd me with unkind hand Their Vineyard they would have me attend Mine own I did not keep The envious one hath collied me While I thus lay asleep XVIII What Souls will not Afflictions tann If they be sharp and long Or who is not discolour'd by Temptations if too strong Worldly distractions spoil the look Of a Religious mind But ah through negligence I have Been to my self unkind XIX But O thou whom my soul loves best Tell me where thou doest use At noon to feed thy flock At noon Do not my Soul refuse When as Afflictions scorch me most Be thou at hand to me And teach my Soul at such a time How it may come to thee XX. O thou Shepheard of Israel Let me but know the hour When most of thee I may enjoy Tast most thy Grace and Power By th' flocks of thy Companions I would not turn aside With thee alone I would converse Be thou O Lord my guide XXI Thou fairest she dost thou not know Where me at noon to see The footsteps of the flock will teach Thee the right way to me Feed by the Shepheards Tents for there I shall most surely abide The Shepheards that derive from me Shall be to thee a guide XXII I have compar'd my love unto The goodly company Of Horses which King Pharaoh draw Made strong by Unity Of Horses which march on to meet The armed men and ne're Do from the glittering Sword turn head But mock at Cowards fear XXIII Thy Cheeks my Love are comely made With rowes of Jewels given Thee by my self Thy lovely neck Adorn'd with Chains from Heaven I will yet give thee further grace Borders of Gold I 'le make And spots of Silver thou shalt have And for thine own them take XXIV O may my dearest Royal Lord From 's Table never stir How sweetly doth my spikenard smell While 's that he sitteth there Even his own Graces will not smell When he is gone from me His Grace in me doth daily need His Royal company XXV My well-beloved is to me Myrrh in a bundle tyed More precious medicinal and sweet Than all the world beside Betwixt my Breasts he shall have place There he shall alwaies lye It is the place for posies There I will this bundle tye XXVI Engaddi's Vineyards have their plants Of Camphire Cypress All Are names too short for me whereby My Dearest Lord to call My sweet companion thou art fair Thou lookest with Doves Eyes Eyes which both meek and harmless are Not sparkling Cruelties XXVII Thou hast a satisfyed Soul A rich contented mind A plain and clean and lowly heart Which is to others kind A tender heart a mournful Eye Exceeding quick These are The things which make me say again Thou art exceeding fair XXVIII Nay my Beloved thou art fair My beauty is to thee As nothing worse than nothing 't is But meer deformity Thou fair art and pleasant too Thy conversation's sweet Thrice happy souls to walk with thee Whom thou dost please t' admit XXIX When thou within my bed dost lodge How soon it waxeth green When thou art gone no fruitfulness In it at all is seen Not a good work at such a time Can my poor soul produce Not an heart chang'd in Churches when Thou art not in the Pewes XXX The Beams and rafters of thy house Of Cedar are and Fir. Sweet beautiful and strong they are Such as shall never stir Thy word and Ordinances Lord Support thy Church for ever O let my Sins within thy house Me sever from it never CHAP. II. MY dearest Lord I 'm like the Rose Which Sharons fields doth grace Like th' Lilly of the Vallies which Doth beautify its place A flower and the noblest flower Which in the Fields doth grow My structure smell and fruitfulness Thy Workmanship all show II. But Lord I dwell i' th' common field And in the Vallies there To winds and weather I 'm exposed I live in daily fear Lest Sharons herds would me devour Or tread me under-foot And leave me nought to speak me thine But only a true root III. As Lillies are amongst the Thorns So I my Love do see The Daughters of the peevish world Are grievous Thorns to thee Yet thou art lovely there and thrivest The ugly Thorns commend My fairest Love and do improve Her while they do her rend IV. My dearest Lord it is enough Amongst Thorns let me be If while I stand there thou wilt be A shadow unto me Amongst the barren Trees in Woods Let me converse if I Thee as an Apple Tree may have That there I do not die V. Thy shade thy pleasant fruit shall be To me enough for food And for protection too while I Traverse th' untrodden wood I like an Hermite sit and sing Thy Apples to my tast Do much excel what other Trees Afford the world for mast VI. God manifested in the flesh O how exceeding sweet When infinite and finite did In one Redeemer meet Thy suffering being tempted is When tempted my relief Saran would rob me of my all Thou hast disarm'd the Thief VII Lord thy compleat obedience Unto thy Fathers will Is all relieves me when I think How often I do ill While I do good But O thy death Who can describe that fruit Which all my soul necessities Exceeds while it doth suit VIII Thy Resurrection thine ascending Unto thy Fathers Th rone Thy sitting there at his Right Hand Thine intercession How sweet they are And then to think That thou again wilt come To Judgment not me to condemn But only fetch me home IX Thine Ordinances Lord in which Thy loves thou dost display The Hony and the Hony-Comb Are not so sweet as they The Spirits sacred fruit those sweet Influxes of thy Grace Are what alone me patient make Of sublunary place X. These things my house of mourning turn drop Into an house of Wine Wine not which from Earths Grapes doth But from thee the true Vine Thy Love O Lord thy Banner is O're me and makes men see Men who thee hate I do'nt belong Unto their company XI Thy Loves thy Banner teaching me Where to resort when move When I fight for a Victory Then I display thy Love 'T is that unites me unto thee And every one that 's thine Where e're those colours I but see I run to them as mine XII
Bridegroom whose it is to bless us with all spiritual blessings in and through him Supposing the latter the believing Soul directeth her request as her beloved directeth when he commands us to pray saying Our Father If the petition be understood as directed to the Lord Jesus Christ Let him kiss me is as much as Do thou kiss me Vicem nominis supplet vis amoris the force of her love supplyeth the omission of his name saith Lud. de Ponte It is a very usual dialect of Scripture to put the 3d Person for the 2d so the Psalmist God be merciful unto us and bless â—us But 3. Qu. What doth the Spouse mean by Let him kiss me with the kisses of his Mouth Some read it He did kiss me with the kisses of his Mouth Thus the ancient Chaldee Paraphrast Blessed be the name of the Lord who gave us his Law written by the hand of Moses his Scribe who wrote it in two Tables of Stone and spake with us face to face as a man who kisseth his Companions through the greatness of his love wherewith he loved us more than threescore and ten Nations But the stile of the Song is rather pathetical and optative than historical and narrative and it is rather referred to Christ as Mediator than to God the Father or the Lord Jesus Christ considered only as God over all blessed for ever besides that the Hebrew word being in the future tense referrs rather to the time to come than to the time past and I see no need of inventing a figure There is a threefold kiss of which you read in Scripture 1. The kiss of the feet Thus the penitent Woman Luk. 7. 38. kissed her Saviours feet 2. The kiss of the hand Job 31. 27. If my mouth hath kissed my hand 3. The kiss of the lips Prov. 24. 26. and so in many other Texts The Schoolmen tell us of a seven-fold kiss a kiss of 1. Love 2. Union 3. Reverence and Honour 4. Adoration 5. Reconciliation and Peace 6. Treachery as Joab kissed Abner and Amasa and Judas kissed Christ 7. Wantonness According to the usages of several Nations there were several sorts of kisses distinguished by their objects and ends they were wont to kiss the head lips cheek shoulders hands backs feet of their superiours inferiours and equals and that for several testimonies which yet I think are reducible to two heads For a testimony of honour reverence and subjection Thus Parents were kissed by their Children Jacob came near and kissed Isaac Gen. 50. 1. Joseph fell upon his Fathers face and kissed him Thus Exod. 18. 7. Moses went out to meet his Father in Law and did obeysance and kissed him and Orpah kissed her Mother in Law Thus the Persians were wont according to the differences of Persons in respect of quality to give differing kisses Equals kissed one anothers lips the Person who was but a little inferiour kissed his superiours Cheek The lower sort fell at their superiours feet and kissed them Thus Idolaters shewed their reverence to their Idols and the true Worshipers of God were by this distinguished They had not kissed Baal 1 Kings 19. 28. and the Idolaters in Israel said Let the men that sacrifice kiss the Calves Hos 13. 2. Thus also we are commanded to kiss the Son least he be angry Psal 2. 12. which Jerome translates Purely worship the Son This is now a kiss wherewith we ought to kiss Christ but this is not the kiss of the Text. Secondly Kisses were used for a testimony of love which sometimes was hypocritical and so the kissing deceitful such were the kisses of Joab and Judas ordinarily real which might be considered either as continued or interrupted Kisses were 1. Used in token of continuing love As appears by the several precepts of the Apostles regulating the use of them by a law of holiness and chastity Rom. 16. 16. 1 Cor. 16. 20 c. Or 2. In token of renewed love and reconciliation Thus Laban kissed Jacob upon their reconciliation Esau kissed Jacob and David kissed Absalom Beza thus gives the propriety of this testimony in affection Whereas our life lies in the breath which goeth out of our lips and our Soul goes away when our breath at last goes the joining of the friends lips and mouths signifies that they are so dear each to other that they could willingly unite Souls if it could be and bestow their lives each upon other The kiss of the text must needs be this In testimonium amoris for a testimony of love But still here remains a question whether she desires the kiss of Reconciliation 2. Or that which is a pledge of continuing love Those who understand the first confess a breach betwixt God and his Creatures which indeed there was made in the beginning of the world which breach is as to the meritorious part made up by the incarnation death and passion of Christ Indeed there was an ancient Covenant of Grace concerning it Gen. 3. revealed immediately but I say it was done quoad pretium by the incarnation and death of Christ according to those Texts 2 Cor. 5. 18 19. Col. 1. 21. Eph. 2. 16. according to the prophecy Dan. 9. 24. And as to the particular application of that purchase it is daily done by the Spirit of God working faith in us by which we are united to Christ Now the question is whether the Spouse here beggeth 1. Christs coming in the flesh being incarnate and dying for us for the fulfilling of the eternal Covenant of Reconciliation to which some encline 2. Or the kiss of Justification the actual reconciliation of the Soul unto Christ and application of Christ to the Soul by fâ—rth 3. Or The further influences of â— Love as pledges of that first Grace and Seals of that Original love of his to the Souls of his People Indeed the Eternal Son of God kissed us and he stooped much to kiss us when he took upon him our nature uniting finite and infinite corruptible and incorruptible when he nothinged himself for us and this was foreseen and so might be desired Abraham saw the day and rejoyced Joh. 10. 48. and not only Origen and Bernard of old but many modern interpreters think that the Spouse here hath a great respect to this matchless testimony of Divine Love which being granted the Text is no other than the breathings and pantings of the Church of God then living or the particular members of it after the Incarnation of Christ which doubtless was a great object of their desires Kings and Prophets and Righteous men desired to see the things which the Disciples saw and did not see them c. Others understand the text of those testimonies of Divine Love which followed the death of Christ particularly The sending of the Spirit It is true this is called The promise of the Father and was so under the old Testament Ezech. 36.
c. and it proceeds from Christ as the great testimony of his love nor indeed doth Christ otherwise testify his special love than by the influences of his Spirit but I cannot tell why we should restrain it to the particular dispensation in the days of Pentecost I think Piscator expresseth the sense well by suum erga me amorem patefaciat let him manifest to me his love let me know that he loveth me yet supposing it the Reconciled Believing Soul that speaks it seems rather to be understood of further grace than the first grace of regeneration and reconciliation unto God the desire seems to be a desire of free familiar communion with Christ This seems to be the main of her request the great sum of her desires the uppermost of her Souls concernments But observe yet further She begs but a kiss not let him imbrace me but let him kiss me She asketh modestly if saith the woman in the Gospel I might but touch the Hem of his Garment Thus the woman of Canaan also Truth Lord but the Dogs eat the crums Thus the Spouse If he would but kiss me Oh! how precious is the least of Christ to a gracious Soul It is better to be kissed by him than to lie in the worlds arms to be a Door-keeper in the House of God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness But thirdly The word is plural One kiss will not serve the turn she is not a stranger but a Spouse The plural number either imports 1. Various dispensations of Grace Or 2dly Repeated influences of the same Grace 1. It may be understood as denoting various dispensations of Grace Beza saith the Lord kissed the Soul thrice 1. In this life when he is by faith united to it 2. In the day of death when the Soul is taken up into the enjoyment of God 3. In the Resurrection when Body and Soul shall be united and together glorified Another reckons up 7 kisses with which the Lord kisseth his Peoples Souls The Grace of 1. Incarnation 2. The descending of the Holy Ghost 3. The preaching of the Gospel 4. Reconciliation to God 5. Sanctification 6. Divine Consolations 7. The kiss of Glory And the same Author makes the Spouses petition comprehensive of all these certain it is there are various dispensations of Grace there is quickning strengthening comforting Grace and there may be frequent repetitions of these to the Soul according to its particular wants and Gods favour towards it and you may indifferently understand the Text in either sense Fourthly The Spouse here doth not only desire kisses but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the kisses of Christs mouth concerning which observe these 2 things 1. The kiss of the mouth was the highest kiss This was the kiss of Love the kiss of Reconciliation Osculum pacis the kiss of the Hand Feet c. was a kiss of honour and reverence and subjection the kiss of the mouth was the kiss of love and friendship of peace and reconciliation 2. I find most Interpreters hinting by this expression something yet more special viz. Communion with Christ in his word The word indeed is the fruit of the lips and cometh out of the mouth and God may seem in some propriety of speech to kiss the Soul with the kisses of his mouth when he speaks to it in his word The Lord will speak peace to his people saith the Psalmist and I create the fruit of the lips peace peace saith the Lord by his Prophet Isaiah some expositors to further this notion have observed that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies sometimes to instruct but I cannot find that usage of it in holy writ Grace is poured forth upon Christs lips she desires those kisses some drive the notion higher observing the difference between the Doctrine of the Law and that of the Gospel the first is terrible the second sweet and comfortable holding forth nothing but the love of God in Jesus Christ reconciling the world to himself not imputing their sins hence the Gospel is called The word of reconciliation Lastly She saith Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth She desires not only to hear the Doctrine of the gospel but that Christ should speak it to her The Preacher speaks to the Ear Christ to the heart Quoties ergo in corde nostro quod de divinis dogmatibus sensibusque quaerimus absque monitoribers invenimus toties oscula nobis á Sponso esse data verbo Dei credimus saith Origen so often as we find God by his word Speaking to our hearts so often doth our beloved kiss us with the kisses of his mouth This is sufficient to have spoken for the Explication of the matter of the Text. There onely remains something more circumstantial to be observed The words are Vox Sponsae The Voice of the Spouse According to the civil usage of our Country and I think most others the Lover speaks first Here the Spouse begins It is so betwixt God and the soul Christ speaks first He is found of those that seek him not and of those that enquire not after him He first loves us and our Love to him proceedeth from his Love first manifested to us But you must not understand her that speaks as one that is a stranger and in a state of disunion with her beloved but as one that is already espoused and made a Spiritual Bride not desiring first grace but further grace which she needeth as well as the first grace for he giveth both to will and to do he is both the author and the finisher of faith and other grace Secondly The words are Vox Volentis The Language of a willing Soul Willing that Christ should come near unto it and take it up into fellowship and communion with himself God's people are a willing people They are indeed made so by a divine power Psal 101. 2. But Certum est nos velle cum volumus saith Aug. It is God who makes us of unwilling Willing When he hath had his first work upon our wills and subdued that strong hold unto himself Then we are willing Nay more Thirdly They are Vox cupientis The voice of a panting Soul not barely content that Christ should kiss it but passionately desiring his kisses They are as much as Oh! that he would kiss me Every gracious Soul passionately desireth fellowship and Communion with Jesus Christ Oh! saith holy David when wilt thou come to me Neither is this all the words are not onely to be considered as a good wish or passionate desire but as a fervent prayer Lastly therefore they are Vox supplicantis the Language of a praying soul where observe What she beggs Not riches not honour not pleasures not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the good things of fortune but the riches of grace her Petition is like that of David Lord lift thou up
Therefore do the Virgins love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This seemeth to be in our dialect an harsh sense and the connexion is not clear To help it therefore Piscator translateth it Quod attinet ad odorem c. As to what belongs to the savour of thy good Ointments c. The Tigurine Version make the middle words as a Parenthesis and translate it thus For the smell of thy good Ointments for thy name is as an Ointment poured out Therefore do the Virgins love thee The only question is whether the Spouses design in these words be to give a reason why her beloved had such an excellent name viz. because of the savour of his good Ointments Or to give a reason why the Virgins loved him or of both these together I think of both The words will bear it But let us come to enquire the import of the words more particularly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The thing spoken of is Ointments these are said to be 1. Good and 2. to have a Smell The Hebrew word from which the word here translated Ointments 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cometh signifies to be fat Deut. 32. 15. Jeshurun waxed fat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jer. 5. 4. This word properly signifieth fatness and usually signifieth Oil or Ointment because of the pinguid nature of those things so Prov. 21. 20. Hos 2. 5. The word signifieth any kind of fatness whether caused by Nature or Art But it is not here to be taken literally he needs no Oils nor sweet Ointments to make him sweet But you must know that those Eastern Countries abounded with plenty of Spices and other sweet ingredients of which several compounds were made Oils and Ointments which were exceedingly grateful to the outward senses of which they made both a Religious and a Civil use They made a Religious use of them 1. In Sacrifices 2. In Consecrations Oil was used in Sacrifices Especially in such as were Eucharistical Hence you read of the Oil of gladness for it testified joy and gladness The first use of it in this kind of which you read in Scripture was Gen 28. 18. When God had preserved Jacob in the Night in token of his thankfulness he took the stone upon which he had slept and set it up for a pillar and powred Oil upon it he did the like again Gen. 35. 14 whether it were done as a note of the consecration of the place to the service of God or an Eucharistical Sacrifice may possibly be questioned by some but the latter seemeth to me most probable considering the subsequent use of Oil under the law to this purpose of which you may read in Leviticus Ch. 2. v. 1. 3. 4. It was not lawful in offerings which were to bring iniquity to remembrance Numb 5. 15. No testimony of Joy might there be shewn It was also used in Consecrations of persons and that either to the Kingly Priestly or Prophetical Office Samuel used Oil in the anointing both of Saul David to the Kingly Office The same you read also in the anointing of Jehu 2 King 10. 3. Elisha the Prophet was anointed So was the High Priest You have a description of the Oil and a particular Precept and direction for the composition of it Exod. 30. 22. This was called the holy anointing Oil with which Aaron and his Sons were anointed The Tabernacle also and the Ark with all things belonging to them were to be anointed with it as you will find in that Chapter Besides this Sacred use of Oil there was also a civil and ordinary use of it Thus they used it either for bodily nourishment the widow 1 Kings 17. 12. Told the Prophet that she had but a little Oil in the cruse Or 2. For delight and pleasure as we now use our sweet powders our dry and liquid perfumes Joab chargeth the woman of Tekoah being to personate a mourner not to anoint her self with Oil. Esther and the other Maids that were to be brought before Ahashuerus were for 6 months to be perfumed with Oils Christ complains of Simon that he had not anointed his head with Oil. Mary anointed Christ with Oil or Ointment Joh. 11. 2. and the Woman poured out a Box of Ointment Spikenard upon his head Now from this civil and sacred use of Oil and the effects the terms of Oil and Ointment and Anointing are also used metaphâ—rically in Scripture Thus Oil and Ointments in Scripture signify the graces of Gods Spirit and Anointing signifies that gracious Divine Act by which we are made partakers of those graces To this sense the Psalmist speaketh God hath anointed thee with the Oil of Gladness above thy fellows Psal 45. 7. which the Apostle applieth to Christ Heb. 1. 9. and St. John expoundeth saying The Spirit was not given unto him by measure which is plainly expressed Acts 10. 38. God hath anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power And as the holy anointing Oil under the old Law wetted not Aarons head alone but ran down upon the Skirts of his Garment so this holy metaphorical Oil doth also Hence as David said Psal 92. 10. Thou hast anointed me with fresh Oil and the People of God then were called the Lords anointed So under the New Testament the Children of God are said to have an unction it is said that this Anointing abideth in them Thus that of St. John is made good Of his fulness we have received grace for grace By Christs Ointments we understand then the Grace that was poured out upon him and which dwelleth in him and in this sense I find the generality of sober Expositors agreed Now these Ointments are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good the signification of which term I opened to you before and when I come to the propositions of Doctrine I shall more particularly shew you the goodness of them in every notion of good But these Ointments are also said to cast a Savour At the savour of thy good Ointments A smell or savour is Qualitas olfactu sensibilis some quality of a thing which we discern by our external sense of smelling being conveyed to us by the mediation of the Air By the smell of Christs Graces we can understand nothing else than the Spiritual sense of the love of Christ which by the mediation and breathing of the holy Spirit of God is discerned by the Soul The word in the Hebrew signifies any perception of a thing it is used Is 11. v. 3. where it is said of Christ that the Spirit of the Lord resting upon him shall make him as we translate it of a quick understanding in the fear of the Lord the Hebrew is he shall be smelled in the fear of the Lord. And Judg. 16. 9. we translate it when it toucheth the fire the Hebrew word is the same when it smelleth the fire that is when the fire cometh to it when
hope there 's none who hears me this day but is sometimes breathing out the desires of his Soul unto God in Prayer Oh! let this be the lauguage of your Prayers Let him kiss me with the kisses of his Mouth Let others beg of God Riches and Honours and the favours of Men Let others beg the golden Ring but do you desire the kiss Consider The Soul of the rational Creature stands obliged by the law of reason to desire the best things Is there any thing to be compared with special grace this is that more excellent way which the Apostle propounds to be coveted before the best gifts You read in the book of Esther ch 5. v. 9. 11. concerning Haman that he called for his Wife and tells her of the great honour to which the King had advanced him and of his great Riches but saith he all this availeth me nothing while I see Mordecay suting in the Kings Gate When the poor worlding sits down and thinks how God hath blessed him with Riches Honours and whatsoever contentments the creature can afford him hath he not cause to say All this availeth me nothing whil'st I have no assurance of the love of God whil'st for ought I know or have reason to believe the wrath of God may be flaming against me and I one of those who shall after all these sweet enjoyments spend an Eternity in that fire which is prepared for the Devil and his Angels Riches profit not in the day of Wrath no nor any thing else will profit in that day but an interest in Christ How much better is a dinner of Herbs with the love of God than great Treasures with his hatred A morsel of bread with an interest in Christ than a stuffed Ox with the wrath of God Secondly These influences alone will evidence distinguishing love Indeed other gifts may possibly speak no love at all The Israelites desired a King God granted them their desires and saith by his Prophet that he gave them a King in his Wrath. It may be truly said concerning the gifts of God to many a poor Creature he gives them Riches in his Wrath Honours in Wrath outward prosperity in Wrath outward good things dipt in divine vengeance the wrath of God may smoke against them while the quails are betwixt their teeth Poenalis nutritur impunitas This is a secret of Divine Justice which every one seeth not It is the saying of a devout Author that God often useth impios melle suo punire to punish wicked men with their own Hony But God never gives a kiss in Wrath he cannot give osculum Iscarioticum where he kisseth he loveth God throws the good things of this life amongst his Enemies his Friends living in the same world it may be get something of them but they are no distinguishing mercies But whomsoever he kisseth that Soul is certainly beloved of him Thirdly There are no petitions please God so well as those which are put up for spiritual things When Solomon begged of God a wise and understanding heart it is said that the saying pleased the Lord well Yea God shewed that it pleased him well for he received in abundance what he asked not Nor is this hard to be conceived by us who have the same affections towards our own Children had any one of us who are Fathers 2 Children and we should put it to their choice what they would ask of us and the one should ask that we would settle so much land upon him the other should tell us he desired not our lands but should importunately beg that his Father would love him best would not the latter please you best should we not be ready to give that Child-more than it asked You read of the two Daughters of Naomi Orpah and Ruth Ruth 1. 14 15. they both followed their Mother in law while she was full but when she was empty Orpah kisseth her Mother in law and leaveth her Naomi would have had Ruth have done so too but v. 16. Ruth refuseth and tells her Whither thou goest I will go and where thou lodgest I will lodge thy People shall be my People and thy God shall be my God where thou diest I will die and there will I he buried Which is as much as if she had told her that she valued the company of her Mother above all other concerns Did not this think you indear her to Naomi and certainly nothing can more endear a soul to God than for it to judge his favour better than life and his loves more than Wine Now to engage your hearts to prefer the kisses of God before any other good things with which the hand of his providence can make you happy there needs no more than that you should be truly possessed with the notion of your own wants and rightly understand the differences of good He that knows how much more excellent than the Body the Soul of man is will quickly understand that those things which are proportioned to its wants are more desirable goods than those which are only suted to our more outward concerns Study but the excellency of the love of God and the vanity and Earthliness of the Creature the state of your souls by nature and with respect to that guilt which by multitudes of Sins you have contracted from which nothing can excuse you but the blood of Christ nor any thing evidence your absolution to quiet your accusing and condemning consciences but the kisses of his Mouth and you will need no more to evince to you that these coelestial kisses are of all good things the most excellent the most desirable which being well understood the rational Soul directly moveth to a choice and desire of them above and before all other things Sermon III. Canticles 1. 2. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth IT is the Spouse that speaketh she saith not Let him embrace me nor as elsewhere He shall lie all night betwixt my breasts but Let him kiss me Quid tam minimum submissum quam osculetur me is De Ponte his note upon the Text. A kiss is the least token of conjugal love and affection Hence observe The least tokens of Christs special distinguishing love are very desirable to believing Souls The free Love of God shining out through Christ upon souls predestinated unto glory in the pardoning of their sins the acceptation of their persons the renewing of their natures in strengthening quickening comforting influences of grace is what we call the distinguishing Love of Christ being not the effects of his Philanthropy but his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now the tokens of this are more or less or may be so called According to the degree of their Emanation from Christ and the Spirit of Christ Or According to our judgment and apprehension or Estimation 1. According to the degree of their Emanation God whose heart is at all times the same towards his people yet is pleased gradually to
discover it and to manifest himself unto his people As the Sun in the Firmament whose Light in it self is alwaies the same and which hath alwaies the same ability and aptitude to illuminate the Air and to refresh the Earth with its Beams yet gives out its Light variously according to its position in the Firmament or aspect upon the Hemisphere its nearness to or distance from the Object to be inlightened or refreshed or as it is more or less hindered by the interposition of Clouds or Vapours so doth the Sun of Righteousness also diffuse his Beams variously Or as indeed a prudent Father though at all times his heart be full of love to his Children yet in the discoveries and manifestations of it he governeth himself by his own prudence relating to the Child 's good and with respect to the Child's behaviour and demeanour towards him So though whom God loveth he loveth with a great love and to the end yet as to the discoveries and manifestations of it he governs himself by his own Infinite Wisdom and with a great respect to his Peoples carriage and demeanour towards him Hence it is that though every Child of God be beloved of God with the same special and distinguishing Love yet every one lives not under the same manifestations and emanations of it He sheweth to some more to some less to some scarcely any according to the Wisdom of his Counsel and the good pleasure of his own will One soul shall have just light enough to discern that the day is broke in his soul that the Sun is arisen with healing in his wings upon him another shall hardly have so much light as to discern that but shall walk in the dark and see no light Another shall have the Sun of Righteousness more fully shining upon him and be able to say with Job I know my Redeemer lives and that I shall see him with these Eyes and though Worms shall destroy this body yet in my flesh I shall see God Or with Paul Rom. 8. 38. I know and am persuaded that neither life nor death nor any thing shall separate me from the Love of God in Jesus Christ Yea the same soul shall sometimes see its Beloved standing as it were behind the wall and looking in upon it through the Lattice see him in a Glass darkly another time it shall see him with a fuller sight as in the house with it face to face One while it shall only see as by a Wicket of hope open and possibly but imperfectly open neither another while its vision shall be as it were of the Heavens opened and Christ sitting at the right hand of God making intercession for it 2. The more or less of special and distinguishing grace is often measured by the soul's apprehension and particular fancy which judgment possibly is not alwaies according to Truth but yet such as we ordinarily make Thus we commonly judge the comfortable reflections of Divine Love to be the greatest tokens of it The sweetest indeed they are but possibly the strengthening Influences of Divine Grace by which the soul is inabled to perform its spiritual duties and to fight the good fight both against motions to sin from within and temptations to sin from without may be no less manifestations of special and distinguishing grace But take your measures how you will the gracious soul valueth at an high rate the least manifestations of such grace as may evidence to it that it is beloved of God with a special and distinguishing love I do not say the least of these will satisfie such a soul That it will not for the soul in which God hath caused by his Spirit a spiritual thirst after himself is continually crying out Give Give The soul will not be satisfied until in the Resurrection it awakes with God's likeness but in the mean time the least influences of this nature will be to it very precious and desirable The truth of this Proposition will appear to you from the petitions of several of the Servants of God in holy Writ more eminently those which we read of concerning David Psal 4. 6. There be many that say Who will shew us any good Lord saith he lift up the light of thy countenance upon me and in the following words he declares that it should be more to him than the worldlings Harvest or Vintage greater matter of gladness than their increase of Corn Wine or Oil And Psal 84. 9. he asks no more than that the Lord would look upon the face of his Anointed What can be less than Beholding and giving the soul a good look The liberty that the Birds of the Air the Swallow and the Sparrow had to make their Nests about the Lord's Altars one would think argued but a small favour yet David prefers their condition before his One would think the Office of a Door-keeper in the Lord's House were but a small preferment yet David valueth it above a Mansion in the Tents of wickedness The several expressions which David maketh use of in the Psalms to testifie his desires after God such as Beholding Looking upon him Remembring him c. are all evident proofs of this The Woman Luk. 7. 38. counts it honour enough to sit at Christ's feet to wash his feet with her tears and then to wipe them with the hairs of her head The Woman of Canaan is called a Dog and contented with it so she may but lick up the Crumbs under her Master's Table You read of another Woman that cried out If I may but touch the Hem of his Garment The Prophet Zechariah foretold of a time when men should take hold of the Skirt of a Jew saying We will go with you for we have heard God is with you Any thing of Christ is precious to a soul that hath once tasted how good he is Joseph of Arimathea must have his dead body and the Disciples must run to the Sepulchre where he was laid The People of God of old had a favour for the dust of Zion and the stones thereof But much more precious must the least emanations of that virtue be which is in him suited to the wants the spiritual wants of poor souls What can be less than a look a smile a word yet we find these have been very precious to the People of God What can we think of less than the hearing of a Prayer yet David esteemeth this ar an high rate Psal 116. 1 2. For this he professeth his love to God and his resolution to call upon him so long as he lived One would think that of all other Fellowship and Communion with Christ a Fellowship with him in his Sufferings were least desirable St. Paul glorieth in this and speaks of it as a thing desirable Phil. 1. 10. ch 3. 11. And we read of the Apostles praising God that they were thought worthy to suffer for the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ The same Spirit that was in all these
to and in your soul to inable you further to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord. 3. After the beatifical visions of God in another life Learn hence the great difference there is betwixt earthly and spiritual objects of our desires and delights The worlds Crums are little valuable tho some are fond of its Loaves The good things of the world derive much of their value from the quantity of them that it throws into our laps The minimum quod sic the least portions of the pleasures profits or honours of it have little of value in them but the least of Christ is exceeding precious the things of the world affect not the Soul or or its necessities they are not certain pledges of greater measures they will go but a little way to fill the creatures emptinesses but it is otherwise with Spiritual blessings in and through Christ Thirdly You may from hence observe the difference betwixt the Hypocrites and the Saints desires after Christ An Hypocrite may pretend some desires after Christ nay he may really desire something of his love consider Christ as a Saviour as one that brings the Soul to life and immortality so he must necessarily be the object of the desire of every man that hath any view of his own mortality and that Eternal State to which man is ordained Even Balaam saith Oh that I might dye the death of the Righteous that my latter end might he like his But mark ye these are the fullest manifestations of Divine Love these are more than the kisses of his Mouth but for those tokens of love which are below these for such manifestations of the love of Christ as tend to the inabling of the Soul to serve and glorify God by the subduing of Mans will to the will of God the mortification of lusts and corrupt affections these are not at all valuable to a sensual man not indeed to any but to the changed and renewed Soul I do not know any one thing from which a Man may take better measure of himself and a good Christian may better distinguish himself from one that walketh in a vain shew and meerly glorifieth in appearance than this To a good Christian the least of Christs distinguisâ—iâ—g love is exceeding precious and more precious than the greatest portions of the worlds goods The workings of the Spirit of Christ within and upon the Soul subduing the will of Man to the will of God mortifying our Members and the deeds of the Body Taking the affections off the Earth and Earthly things and fixing them on more sublime and spiritual objects the giving of the Soul a good hope through grace these are things which we usually count some of the least tokens of special and distinguishing love Really they are great things nothing of Christ is little but we judge ordinarily according to sense we ordinarily esteem a sense or assurance or full persuasion of the love of God a much greater thing than these But now for a Soul to set an high price and value upon these to be more satisfied more to triumph and rejoice in the conquest of a lust the victory over a temptation than in the conquest of all our Enemies More to desire that our hearts may be filled with love to God desires after God delight in God than to have our Barns filled with Corn or our Purses with Gold and Silver this I take to be such a difference between a Christian indeed and a Christian in a meer Name Title and outward Profession as a Christian may rest in when he is inquiring into his Soul for evidences of the truth of grace Other manifestations of the love of God may be desired for our selves and with a respect only to our selves and the quiet relief and peace of our own Spirits a Christian can desire these only for the glory of God Try your selves therefore Christians by this Touchstone An Hypocrite may desire to know that his Sins are forgiven and that God would not impute Sin to his Soul or that he would impute a righteousness without works an Hypocrite may desire to live with God in glory but these lesser tokens of love he valueth not But alas even the best of Gods People must I fear be here reproved not for their no valuing of these kisses of Christ that is incompetent with a Child of God but for their not enough valuing of them and being too passionate and unsatisfied for want of the comforting manifestations of Divine Love I have before told you that these sensible manifestations of Divine Love are exceedingly desirable and there is no Child of God but is concerned to wish to pray to labour for them But we must take heed that we be not like our little Children whom we shall sometimes see too much slighting and undervaluing and ready to throw away what good things they have because they want some particular thing which they have a mind to which it may be we that are their Parents do not see so proper for them especially under their present circumstances It was lawful for Rachel to wish for to pray for Children but she sinned in saying to her Husband give me Children or else I die Hannah was much in the same error 1 Sam. 1. 8. weeping not eating and vexing her self because she had no Child and in the mean time forgetting that God had given her an Husband who was better to her than ten Sons So it is lawful nay the duty of a good Christian to pray to endeavour for the sweetest and fullest manifestations of Gods love But I have often thought that though these be good things of a Spiritual nature and so vastly differing from the good things of this life yet in this they agree with them that they must be asked with submission to the will of God because they are not de necessariis ad salutem things that are necessary to life and eternal Salvation but such which a Soul may want without any breach of Gods Covenant with the Soul 2. But for a Soul not only too passionately to desire these things which speaketh its not submitting to the will of God in his not dispensing them to it but to over-look deny or undervalue all the tokens for good which it hath received from God meerly because it hath not these and to conclude that it hath nothing of Christs love this is certainly what doth no become a Christian Certainly a Christian ought as much to value himself upon those emanations of grace by which he is inabled to serve and honour God as upon those by which his Soul is rendred more at ease more refreshed and comforted Every kiss of Christ every measure of special distinguishing love is and ought to be precious to a believing Soul Let me in the last place bottom upon this discourse a double word of exhortation The first respecting the Men of the world those I would persuade to leave off their pursuit of
their worldly and sensual satisfactions I would speak to them as one standing this day in wisdoms Porch and crying after them in their hottest pursuits of the world Come and turn your hearts hither you that are simple ones and void of understanding I shall have a fairer opportunity to speak to these when I come to consider the argument by which the Spouse backeth her Petition But alas we had need make these cries often you can see the world and the gay and fine things therein precious and run after them with a swift pace but you can see no excellency in the kisses of Christ nothing for which they should be so desired when alas the world is but like a brave glass which whole is of some value but if broken in pieces the small pieces of it are worth nothing Christ his love is like a wedge of Gold or like a most precious perfume the least particle the least drop of which hath its value there is no emanation of his special loves but is suted to the Souls wants and to some eminent necessity under which the Soul laboureth Hear Solomon speaking to you Prov. 1. 22. How long you simple ones will you love simplicity And Fools hate knowledge Turn you at my reproof I will pour out my Spirit unto you I will make known my words unto you Your reason tells you that a vessel of Silver or Gold is much preferrible to one of Earth or Glass and as for other reasons so for this which you ordinarily say break a vessel of Earth and Glass the pieces are worth nothing but if one of those more valuable mettals be broke the least pieces have their value Why should not the same reason instruct you that Christs favour is to be prefer'd to all the world can afford you a little of the world is not much valuable a plentiful estate the highest pitches of honour a belly full of pleasure that indeed may appear desirable but the least tokens of Christs love the least expressions of his favour are most valuable things The kisses of the world are for the most part but Oscula Iscariotica or Joabitica like the kisses of Judas who in order to the betraying of his Master first kissed him or like the kiss of Joab to Amasa who under pretence of kissing him smote him under the fifth rib and slew him Christ's kisses are kisses of peace and reconciliation of love and favour Secondly This notion calleth to all those that are true Christians and that for three things For a due value of the least tokens of Christs special and distinguishing love look narrowly to make up your judgment whether what you take to be such be such or no and there you must take heed that you do not make conclusions from the gifts of common providence No man can judge of the love or hatred of God to his Soul from any thing which befalls him in this life No man can judge of any special love from Gods giving him a longer life greater measures of health a more plentiful estate or any thing of this nature God gives the worst of men their portion in such things as these No nor â—dly from common gifts such as those of knowledge utterance c. look therefore narrowly to make your judgment and the surest Judgment is from such things as more conform you to the nature or will of God but if you will find aliquid Christi any thing which you can call Christs or speaks his distinguishing love take heed of undervaluing that Secondly It calls to you for the use of all means for proficiency and growth in Grace Such as hearing the Word Prayer the use of all the Ordinances of God for in reason if the least tokens of Christs special love be desirable greater manifestations of it are much more desirable Labour for more holiness more heavenly-mindedness more subjection of your will to the will of God Hath the Lord blessed you with a faith of adherence a power given you from above to cast your Souls upon the Lord Jesus Christ Labour for faith of evidence be like the Travellers to Zion of which David speaketh Psal 84. that go from strength to strength until they all appear before the Lord in Zion It may be a good question sometimes to satisfy a troubled doubting Soul what is the Minimum quod sic the lowest degree or measure of saving grace but it is an ill hearing from a lazy wanton Soul Lastly it calls loudly to us to thirst after Heaven where the believing Soul shall be the Lambs Wife and follow him whithersoever he goes and be blessed with the clearest vision and the fullest imbraces of its beloved Oh how pleasant will the mansions of glory be to those Souls to whom the imperfect views that it hath had of Christ in this life have been so desirable while we are present in the Body even Paul himself owneth himself absent from the Lord. Now indeed we are the Sons of God now we are in a capacity of his kisses tokens of special love sufficient to uphold and refresh our Souls but there we shall be at the rivers of pleasures where there is not only pleasure but fulness of pleasures and that for evermore O Blessed are they that shall be alwaies before the Throne of God seeing their Redeemer with those Eyes and taking their fills of his love Sermon IV. Canticles 1. 2. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth BY the beloveds Kisses mentioned in this Text I have understood Christs special and distinguishing love and the tokens of it by which either as God blessed for ever or as the Mediatour of the world he may discover his kindness to the Children of Men or the Members of his Church in common from whence I have already observed that the heart of a Believer is after distinguishing love Kisses being the least of those Evidences I have shewed That the least tokens of Christs special and distinguishing love are and will be very sweet to Believers Souls But I observe the word is in the plural number Kisses and so may signify either 1. Various dispensations of Grace Or 2. Various repetitions of the same Acts of Grace Hence the next Proposition ariseth That altho the least dispensations of special and distinguishing love be exceeding sweet and precious to Souls which have once tasted how good the Lord is yet their hearts will be after fuller and frequent dispensations and repetitions of it I take both these to be comprehended in the plurality of the term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Grace is a thing which is but one piece considered as it is in God their 's nothing plural in the one Divine Being but as the Sea which is in itself but one yet as it washeth upon several coasts receiveth several names and denominations as the English Sea the Irish Sea and the Baltick Sea So as the Grace of God respecteth the several necessities and wants of us
reasonings of one part of the world that have pretended to more Learning and Knowledge than others and the prophane scoffs and mockings of a more silly part of it at the greatest Mysteries of the Kingdom of God Some by Wisdom know not God being under the meer conduct of reason and tying up themselves to the meer informations of that natural Eye Some knowing less have blasphemed God and the holy things of God counting their own Ignorance a sufficient excuse for their Blasphemy None knoweth the things of God aright but he that is under the Teaching of the Spirit Take the first Principle of all Religion viz. That the holy Scriptures are the Word of God no Soul knoweth this as he ought to know it but he that is under a further Teaching than that of the Church or of Reason much less doth it know the momentous Propositions that are contained in those holy Writings To all knowledge there is required 1. A sufficient Revelation 2. A sufficiency in our faculty to receive and comprehend the Revelation The holy Scriptures are a sufficient Revelation of all Truth There are no Mysteries of the Kingdom of God to be admitted but what are there revealed But we want a visive faculty a sufficiency in our understandings to apprehend and to conceive them till the Lord by the finger of his Spirit toucheth our Ears and saith Ephatha be opened When Peter made his confession of Christ for which Christ blessed him Christ addeth Flesh and blood hath not revealed it to him Secondly The Spirit teacheth by a special Application of the Word to the Conscience The Word as written is no more directed to one man than to another it equally concerneth all men When we Preach we are like Benhadad's Archers we draw Bows at adventures and let the Lord's Arrows fly who is it that directs them betwixt the joints of one harness more than another that when we reprove sin and denounce the Judgments of God against it saith to this or that sinner Thou art the man or when we display the grace of the Gospel and open the Promises of God teacheth one Soul to apply them while another refuseth the comfort of them All special Application of the Word to the Soul which indeed is the true Teaching is from the holy Spirit of God It is the Spirit that was promised Joh. 16. 8. to convince the world of Sin Righteousness and Judgment It is the Spirit which convinceth the Soul of Truth of Wrath of Love indeed of any thing of Spiritual Revelation It is the Spirit that makes the Word stick to the Soul All the Ministers on Earth cannot make a threatning to stick to the heart of an hard and impenitent sinner nor a Promise stick to a broken and contrite heart until the Spirit comes and joyneth with the Ministration of the Word We sometimes meditate of the Lord's terrours and compose Discourses with the best Art we are able and in the vanity of our hearts are it may be sometimes saying within our selves Surely this Sermon will alarum some sinners open some blind Eyes Another time we study the Grace of the Gospel and with the best Art we can compose Discourses to affect Souls with the sense of the love of God in Jesus Christ and are ready to think surely this Discourse will affect some Souls and bring them to love and admire Jesus Christ to seek to him for pardon and forgiveness to receive him as the Saviour of man as their Saviour We go about our work and when we have done we see cause to return unto the Lord that sent us mourning and saying We have laboured in vain and spent our strength for nothing and in vain The Spirit of the Lord moves not upon the face of our waters there 's not one Soul washed from its filthiness The Angel comes not and troubles the waters though our people lye from year to year at the Pool yet possible not a Soul is cured of its infirmity The Word is but a dead letter it is the Spirit that quickeneth whom he pleaseth The Word the Minister teacheth us by communicating notions but the Spirit only teacheth by particular and effectual Application of notions to our Souls advantage Thirdly The Spirit teacheth by evident Demonstration There is a threefold Demonstration of things 1. The Demonstration of Sense Thus it is demonstrable that the Fire burneth that Snow is white all know that spiritual things come under no such Demonstration 2. The Demonstration of Reason thus a proper effect is a demonstration of the cause Some Propositions in Religion are indeed capable of this demonstration The Creation demonstrateth a Creator c. But alas there are very few things in Religion that fall under the demonstration of Reason most Propositions of that nature depend upon Revelation and theâ—truth of them is to be judged from thence That Christ is the eternal Son of God That he took upon him our Nature died for Sinners In short all the main Propositions of Religion all Propositions immediately concerning our Salvation all Articles of Faith are things which fall not under the demonstration of Reason 3. There is therefore Thirdly a Demonstration of the Spirit St. Paul tells us his Preaching was in the Demonstration of the Spirit that is attended with the Demonstration of the Spirit and let Scoffers say what they will if this Demonstration of the Spirit attendeth not all our Preaching we do but beat the Air and labour in vain Logicians rightly tell us of two sorts of Arguments The one they call Topicks the other Demonstrations The difference of them lies in the effects they have upon our minds The former make a thing only probable to us the other make it certain If a notion appears only probable to us we have some doubts and fears and suspicions about the truth of it Nothing is demonstrated to us but that of the truth of which we have no further doubts against which we can make no Objections Now nothing but the Spirit of God thus teacheth The Gifts of Ministers are various the discourses of some may be meer words oratorial discourses these of all others have least influence upon any but airy Souls others more mind their work and knowing that nothing but the Word of God layeth hold on the Conscience endeavour to prove what they say by holy Writ and some in this are more happy than others as they are more skilled in the Scriptures and the true sense of them others are more rational in their discourses men of great parts good reason though the second sort of these best discharge their Office yet the effect of the best is to make a thing but probable to the Soul The Soul will find out some distinctions excuses and evasions until it comes under this Teaching of the Spirit it is an easie thing to make it probable to the Soul that it is in a road and high-way to Hell and eternal destruction that sin is the
Loves which are much our duty upon this view of our great Lord and Master 1. Love to him 2 Love to our Neighbours especially those in whom any thing of Christs appears 1. It calls to us for Loves to Christ This in point of gratitude If Saith our Saviour you love them which love you what reward have you Do not even the Publicanes the same Our Love to Christ is but a Love to him who hath Loves for us and indeed this speaketh to all men for Love to him but more especially O Love ye the Lord all you his Saints It is the opinion of great Divines that all the world is beholden to Christ as Mediator that from his Mediation there issueth some good to the worst of men But he hath eminently extended his Love to his Saints he hath loved them with a singular Love If there should be Love wanting in their hearts to Christ they should be of all men and women in the world most inexcusable what could he have done for any of the Sons of Men which he hath not done for them What greater thing could they have asked of him then he hath prevented them in asking O Love you the Lord all you they that believe Do you ask me how you should shew your Love to him The first motions of Love are in the heart Love there is seen in delighting in him breathing after him It next shews itself by the lips Speaking well of him to others defending his interest and concern in the world If we come to more external acts That of David Ps 16. 2. 3. is true here O my Soul thou hast said unto the Lord thou art my Lord my goodness extendeth not to thee but to the Saints that are in the earth to the excellent on whom is all my delight Our Love to Christ must be seen in our actings in our stations for the honour glory and concern of Christ in the world In our kindness to the poor flock of Christ Christ calls a want of Love to them a want of Love to himself 25. Math. But that brings me to the Second with a short discourse upon which I shall shut up this discourse 2. It calls you for Love to men especially to those in whom you see any thing of Christ The argument for this ariseth from our duty to study a Conformity to Christ he had a kindness for all when he was born good will towards men was proclaimed by the multitude of the Heavenly host Luke 2. 14. There also lyeth an obligation upon usfrom the law of Christ and from this great Example to be kindly affectionate toward all There lyeth also a Precept upon us to do good to all And again saith the Apostle Owe nothing to any but this That you love one another Indeed there is not the same degree of affection nor the same acts of Love due to all as to that we must be ruled by the Word of God but Love is a debt upon us which is due to all men Therefore wrath hatred anger strife malice are 〈◊〉 where reckoned up by the Apostle as the fruits not of the Spirit but of the flesh In a kind Child of God there should be a general love and kindness to all mankind though to be expressed in a Scriptural order as to the degrees and acts of it So it was in Christ 2. But secondly it calls to you for a more Special distinguishing Love to all those in whom you see any thing of Christ Do good to all saith the Apostle but especially to the houshold of Faith The Soul of every Member of Christ should cleave to these with whom he is united not onely by a common nature being the same flesh and blood with him but by a common faith by the ligament of Members of the same body whereof Christ is the head Give me leave to press this the more upon this argument because I find the Apostle St. John pressing it upon the same Topick 1. John 4. 11. If God so loved us we ought also to Love one another v. 12. If we love one another God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us v. 16. He tells us that God is love and he that dwelleth in Love dwelling in God Every good Christian may see much more in the meanest poorest true Christian to ingage him to Love him or her than Christ could ever see in the highest Saint to oblige or move Christ to love him or her When thou wallowedst in thy blood when thou hadst nothing of the lineament of a Saint in thy Soul not so much as a line of any Spiritual Goodness he passed by thee and it was with him a time of Love as to thy Soul there is not a child of God in the world but there is somthing of holiness and righteousness something of the image and Superscription of Christ to be seen in his Soul something of the Divine nature resplendent in his Soul It may be there is more in some less in others but there is in all some When thou hast a temptation upon thee to aversate thy brother or to turn away thy heart or head or hand from him O remember Christ hath loves and and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in him And that it is he whose heart is full of of Loves for thee who hath commanded thee to Love thy Brother But I have spoken e nough to this first Proposition Sermon X. Canticles 1. 2. For thy Loves are better than Wine IN my last discourse I shewed you that Christ hath Loves kind affections and inclinations to the Children of men and more especially to the Souls of his Saints which he is ready to declare and express yea hath already expressed in acts of kindness and these not of one but various kinds suted to the respective necessities of his people a salve for every Sore a Supply for every want I come now to shew you the quality of his Loves which in my Text is set down positively and comparatively In our translation according to our Idioms or propriety of Speech the positive is to be understood in the comparative particle A thing cannot be called better than another unless it hath some positive absolute goodness in it self but in the Hebrew it is more plainly expressed That saith Are good before Wine It is their way of expressing comparatives It makes no difference in the sense Good before Wine And better than wine are phrases of the same sense In the Explication of the Text I told you that though Wine strictly signifies the juice of the Grape yet by a Synechdoche here it signifyeth all created goods whatsoever can be sweet or profitable or advantageous to us The Proposition is plainly this Prop. The Loves of Christ are good befo e or better than all created comforts and enjoyments whatever I have already shewed you what the Loves of Christ signify viz. His good will his kind affections and inclinations to the Souls of men
from God and Heb. 9. 14. the Apostle tells us That the blood of Christ purgeth our Consciences from dead Works to serve the living God Hence the Apostle 1. Cor. 1. 30. Telleth us that Christ is made unto us Wisdom Sanctification and Redemption 5. The 5th great Want of the Soul which I mentioned was Hopes or Assurance of an happy Existence to all eternity This Want now accrueth from the Soul's Immortality The Consideration that God hath created us under an Ordination to an Eternal Existence and State Admitting this which indeed is the main thing that distinguisheth a reasonab'e Soul from the Soul of a brute Creature it is impossible that the Soul should be under any degree of Happiness that hath not some Hopes or Assurance of Glory That its Soul shall go to God when it leaveth the Body And that the Body shall rise again in a joyful Resurrection in which it shall be again united to the Soul that both may live with God for ever Now this is a Good which floweth unto the Soul from the Loves of Christ This needs no further proof than 1. That no Soul is born to this glorious and incorruptible Inheritance for we are by nature Children of Wrath and eternal life is the Gift of God as the Apostle tells us Rom. 6. The Gift of God is eternal Life and it is a gift which cometh from God to us by the Hands of Christ John 17. 2. As thou hast given him Power over all Flesh that he should give eternal Life to as many as thou hast given him And John 10. 28. Speaking of his sheep saith he I give unto them eternal Life and they shall never perish Now as their having a certain right to and their future possession of eternal Life is necessary for them in another Life when this transitory Life shall be determined so the hopes or full assurance of it is necessary for them to make them in any measures happy while they live here And this is in and from Christ also and therefore he is called our Hope 1 Tim. 1. 1. And the the Apostle Col. 1. 27. saith Christ in us is the Hopes of Glory That is all the Hopes we have of Glory are from Christ This is abundantly enough to evince that positive goodness that is in the Loves of Christ their high and sutable conveniencies to the necessities and wants of our Souls I shall in the next place shew you the transcendent Goodness and excellency that is in them that they are as the Text saith Better then Wine or as it is expressed in the Hebrew Idiome good before Wine Wine as I have before shewed you literally Signifies the Juice of the Grape Figuratively whatsoever is good sweet and excellent in the World Now take it in one or both Senses The Demonstration is very easy I shall make it in 3 particulars 1. First all the Goodness that is in Wine taken either litterally for the Juice of the Grape or Figuratively for all created comforts lies in a Sutableness of them and that but for a time neither to the more external wants of a Creature Three things must be yielded concerning all created Goods 1. None of them reach the wants of the Soul which is the best and noblest part of man What do Pleasures Riches Honours whatsoever this world affordeth signify as to the Souls wants It wants Pardon of sins Will any of these procure or purchase it It wants a Righteousness wherein to stand before God Will these procure it It wants Peace of Conscience Will those give it It wants Purity Will they cleanse it It naturally wants a Right and title to Glory and the Hopes or Assurance of it Can any of these help the Soul to it They indeed sute the more external wants of Man The wanton Sense wants grateful Objects They will Supply it The body wants Food and Rayment they will Supply it But for the more inward Spiritual Wants of the Soul they have no Sutableness to them no conveniency But as I have shewed you the Loves of Christ have nay they are not onely suted to the Souls greatest wants but to the Bodies also at least so far as the Soul hath influence on the Body upon the Happiness of which it undoubtedly hath for a good Conscience is a continual feast The Contentment which Grace filleth the Soul with the Mortification and Subduing of the Passions and stubborn Will of Man have a great Reflection upon the Health and chearfulness of the Body So that here is a double Argument to prove the Loves of Christ better than Wine 1. From their Sutableness to the necessities and wants of the Soul which are the wants of the noblest part of man 2. From their sutableness to the wants both of Soul and body by reason of the Reflection which the Souls good hath upon the outward Man even in this Life to say nothing of the joyful Resurrection of the Body and the Happiness both of Body and Soul reunited in the Enjoyment of God for ever 2. All created Comforts last but for a Season and that a little Season They only sute the wants of our Bodies in this Life Riches profit not in the day of Wrath Honours lie down with our Bodies in the dust Pleasures cease when our senses which they gratified are gone Nay very often the Sutableness or gratefulness of these created Goods extinguisheth before the determination of our natural Lives When Barzillai was Fourescore years old his Eye took no pleasure in seeing nor his Ear in hearing There are daies in this Life Eccles 12. 7. in which a man shall say he hath no pleasure in them What do Riches Honours Friends Pleasures signify in a day of Sickness 3. No created good suteth all our wants one suteth one want another fills up another Emptiness none suteth all But the Love of Christ as it suteth our Soul wants So it is Suted to all times and is certain and a Supply to all wants of Souls This is my first Argument to prove his Loves better then Wine 2. Secondly there is no need or want which Wine or created goods supplieth but the Love of Christ will supply and much more eminently and abundantly Let me open this in a few particulars 1. Wine in regard of the Subtile Spirituous nature of it hath a great vertue to exhilarate the Spirits and to raise up the Affection of Joy Hence you read of those who shout by reason of Wine Psal 78. 65. And the Psalmist saith VVine makes glad the heart of Man Psal 104. 15. and Ecc. 10. 19. Wine maketh merry But do not the Loves of Christ do this much more Eph. 5. 19. And be you not drunk with Wine wherein is Excess but be you filled with the Spirit speaking to your selves in Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs making Melody in your heart to the Lord. David Psal 4. cries out Lord lift thou up the light of thy Countenance upon me for thou thereby
shalt make my heart more glad then theirs when their Corn and Wine and Oil increaseth Those who are critical in words in the Latine Tongue distinguish between Voluptas and Gaudium Pleasure they make to be nothing but the Sensual Appetites Satisfaction 't is common to Beasts as well as Man Gaudium or Joy they make to be the procede of the satisfaction of the rational Appetite the first is meerly sensual and beastly the latter alone becometh a Man who is a reasonable Creature I am sure that Mirth which is in the Soul of man that Exhilaration of his Spirits which ariseth from the sense and apprehension of the Love of Christ unto the soul is a Satisfaction to the Rational Spiritual Appetite so the nature of it must be more Spiritual more Suted to the reasonable creature then any Wine or indeed any created comforts can be 2. Wine is of excellent use to allay our thirst and in Physick and Chirugery under deliquiums c. This is a great execellency that is in it Prov. 31. 6. Give wine to those of heavy hearts In Chirurgery it is of use to wash and cleanse wounds c. Hence you read in the Gospel of the good Samaritane that he put Wine and Oil into the wounds of the man that was fallen amongst thieves But in this respect are not the loves of Christ good before Wine Wine onely satisfieth the cravings of nature the drought of the body for want of moisture If a Soul hungers and thirsteth after righteousness Wine will not allay that thirst the Loves of Christ will and surely the thirstings of a Soul are far greater wants than the want of liquor for the body Wine may be of some use in Deliquiums and failures of the Vital and Animal Spirits But if the Soul fainteth for Gods Salvation Wine is of no use the Loves of Christ are Wine may wash and purify the wounds of the body and keep them from putrefaction but the Loves of Christ alone can purify the wounds of a Soul and resist putrefaction there He was annointed to preach glad tidings to the meek to bind up the broken hearted to appoint to them that mourn in Sion Beauty for Ashes and the Oil of gladness for the Spirit of heaviness Isaiah 61. 1 2 3. 3. Wine will make a man forget his affliction Prov. 31. 6 7. Give wine to him who is of a heavy heart let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more but now wine doth this by bringing a man unto a kind of stupefaction or temporary deliration and the Affliction must be meerly external and not in extremity Wine makes a Man forget his affliction onely by putting him besides himself The Loves of Christ have a proportionable effect upon the Soul but of a far more high and excellent nature Let a Soul be bowed down to Hell and not know what to do Let but the Loves of Christ shine upon it in the sealing of any promise it forgets all its poverty and misery The Soul will rejoyce in Sufferings glory in tribulation c. the Martyr cries out that the fire is but as a Bed of Roses So that you see there is never a good quality in Wine but something proportionable to it only infinitely excelling is to be found in Christs loves My last demonstration of the truth of this Proposition is this Wine though it hath many excellent qualities yet hath it also some ill qualities The Loves of Christ are not such There is an excess in Wine saith the Apostle Eph. 5. 18 19. Be not drunk with Wine wherein is excess It is a mocker saith Solomon it will intoxicate breed many diseases many a one perisheth by drinking too much Wine But no Soul ever perished from the excess of Christs love to it no Soul ever contracted any distemper from it he you filled with the Spirit saith the Apostle in the same Text where he tells us there is an excess in Wine Much of what I have said concerning the excellency of the love of Christ above Wine taken in a literal sense is as true concerning it in its figurative sense as it may be supposed and interpreted to signify and created comforts they only are suited to our External wants only they are but temporary and uncertain they also have some ill qualities attending them I shall therefore add no more Doctrinally By way of application We may in the first place observe in o what a degree of debauchery the generality of the Sons and Daughters are fallen Nothing more becomes a Man or Woman considered as a reasonable Creature than to discern aright betwixt things that differ and to judge aright concerning them and accordingly to make our Election and to guide our practice But supposing what you have heard to be truth where is the man of many that rightly discerneth rightly judgeth or aright guideth himself in practice where is the man that judgeth the loves of Christ better than Wine How many are there that judge Wine better then the loves of Christ Wine not in the figurative sense as it signifies all outward created comforts but in the literal sense as it signifieth nothing but the juice of the Grape fermented and a little refined from its dregs doth not every one thus judge that useth Wine immoderately that sits bibbing at a Tavern until the Wine inflameth him Christ by his Apostle Paul hath said Eph. 5. 18 19. Be not drunk with Wine wherein is excess How many are there that tarry long at the Wine that go to seek mixt Wine that look upon wine when it is red when it giveth its colour in the cup when it moveth itself aright till at last it biteth like a Serpent and stingeth like an Adder till it causeth woe and sorrow and contentions and wounds and redness of the Eyes as Solomon Speaketh Prov. 23 29 30 31. and yet have no sense of the Loves of Christ no thoughts of it make no enquiries after it take no course for the obtaining it Do not those poor wretches Love wine better than the Love of Christ that will not abate life a cup of wine to gain it Those that for an intemperate cup of wine will be disobedient to the rule which Christ hath given them My Soul in this contemplation even akes to think what will become of drunkards by whom I mean not those only who reel in the streets and are intoxicated with Wine but those who take a greater pleasure in drinking than in praying or hearing the word of God or obeying his will 2. But if we extend the notion of wine further to signify all sensual Satisfactions all created comforts Lord how many are there in the world that in this betray their folly and discover the corruption and debauchery of humane nature How few are there in the world that do not prefer some creature or other before the loves of Christ indeed as the Poet-saith Trahit sua quemque voluptas
and desireth the continuance of it The Ignorant bold presumptuous Sinner desireth not the Love of God the pardon of Sins he thinks he is sure of all Hence now it is that the believer desires the Loves of Christ it apprehendeth them good possible and what its Soul doth stand indaily and further need of which apprehension is the reason why our Souls desire any thing be it of what nature soever we can desire nothing but what we must apprehend good sutable to us in some of our circumstances possible to be attained and such as either wholly or in some degree at least we need 2. According to the degree of our knowledge or apprehension of the goodness of any object so are our desires after it This will justify itself upon experience in all other things we do not desire them according to the degree of goodness in them for then every man must desire the favour of God Union and Communion with him but according to the degree of our knowledge or apprehension of such a good as such Now there are various degrees of knowledge 1. The first and meanest is the meer act of our Understanding which by the help of our Eyes and Ears gaineth the knowledge of things And thus the vilest of men may know that the Loves of Christ are good yea good before wine that is they may have so read in the Bible so heard from Ministers of the Gospel And even this knowledge may produce in a bad man a desire after these things proportioned to his apprehension Hence such a man may faintly will and lazily desire these things 2. A Second degree of Knowledge is Opinion This riseth a little higher the man who thus knows that the Loves of Christ are good doth not onely know it from reading or hearing but from probable Arguments Nor is it difficult for a wicked man thus also to know that the Loves of Christ are good Assoon as he can be made to believe that there is a God and that he is the Fountain of Good and that Jesus Christ is the Eternal Son of God and Equal with the Father both in Essence and all Divine Perfections his Reason will persuade him that there must be a Goodness yea a transcendent Goodness in Christs Loves But while Flesh and Blood only revealeth this thing unto him his Knowledge is incertain and faint and he is subject to thoughts that he may be mistaken and therefore though he may sometimes desire Christs Love yet it is but by fits and with incertainties according to the Nature of the Knowledge and Apprehension he hath of the truth of the things 3. A Third degree of Knowledge is Persuasion arising from Demonstration Now there is 1. A Demonstration of Sense thus we know the Sun shines the Fire burneth c. 2. A Demonstration of Reason when we can conclude a thing from infallible Principles of natural Reason 3. A Demonstration of Faith which is the Demonstration of the Spirit When men know things from the holy Spirits fully persuading them of the truth of this or that from a Divine Revelation This is the Demonstration of faith 4. There is yet a further and higher degree of Knowledg that ariseth from Experience being a sensible Evidence of the truth of what the Soul had before received a little of from the sight of the Eye and hearing of the Ear and more from the persuasion of the Spirit and some Argumentations within itself I say now that according to the degree of the Souls knowledge and apprehension so are the workings of the Affections This of desire in particular Hence the desires of Believers to the Loves of Christ must necessarily be the strongest For the degree of the Knowledge and Apprehension the Believer hath of the goodness of them is higher than it is possible any other Souls should have Other Souls may have read Books discoursing the Loves of Christ or heard Discourses of that tendency or judge so from Arguments of Scripture which may make such a thing probable to them But none but these have any persuasion wrought in their Souls by the Spirit of God of the Excellency of them none else have had any real Tasts and Experience of them Knowledge and Experience of the Goodness of any Objects being those things which move the Soul to desire them and the degree of the Souls apprehension of such Goodness and Excellency in Objects the ground of the Souls Intention in such desires it must necessarily follow that a good Christians Knowledge and Experience of that Goodness which is in Christs Loves must be the grounds of their desires after them There needeth no Scripture to prove this it is evident to our Reason Yet take the Instance of David Psal 4. 6. David desires of God to lift up the light of his Countenance upon him Observe now v. 7. what made him prefer the light of Gods Countenance to the Worldlings Corn and Wine and Oil Thou hast put gladness into my Heart Accordingly he tells us Psal 9. 10. They that know thy Name will put their trust in thee Hence you shall observe that David concludeth many of his Psalms of Praise with Prayer But will some say If they have had experience of the Loves of Christ why should they yet desire them None desires what they have This is true if our Enjoyments were perfect but there is an heighth and depth and length and breadth of the Love of God in Jesus Christ an heighth which the Soul hath not taken a depth which the Soul hath not fathomed a length and breadth which the Soul hath not measured from end to end It is true we desire nothing but what we want either in whole or in part therefore in Heaven will be no desire That which is perfect will be come and all that which is in part only will be done away But we shall never be filled with the Loves of Christ till our Mortality be swallowed up in Life I come now to the Application We may learn from hence That God must shew some act of Love to us before we can shew any Love to him Desires after the Loves of Christ though sincere are the least and first and lowest motions of our Souls toward God These you have heard must arise from a Knowledge and Experience of the goodness of those Loves Now this Knowledge this Experience must be the Gift of God to and the work of God in and upon the Soul yea and that not in a way of common Grace and Illumination but in a way of special Grace for though a common Illumination may produce some faint desires yet it will produce no sincere and effectual desires because the Knowledge begot by them will be flitting and incertain and attended with Doubts Fears and Incertainties So as till the Lord by his Spirit hath wrought in the Soul a persuasion of Faith commanding the Soul without dispute to give credit to what he hath revealed in his Word
there will be no sincere desires in the Soul after these things The Schoolmen tell us there are three ways by which we gain the Knowledge of a thing By Signs Conjectures and Effects as some Causes are known 2. By the enquiry of our Reason into the nature of it 3. By Divine Revelation The Excellency of the Loves of Christ is a spiritual thing and to be judged upon Spiritual accounts and in a Spiritual manner The natural Man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 2. 14. So as the natural Reason of a Man will serve him very little to the gaining of this Knowledge by the Effects having never experienced it he cannot know it so as there is no other way to know it but by Divine Revelation God saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 2. 10. hath revealed them to us by his Spirit And v. 12. We have received the Spirit which is of God that we might know the things that are freely given us of God So as that I say God must shew some special token of his Love to our Souls for good before we can shew any Love to him or make so much as one step toward him Observe from hence That a Believers Soul moves rationally and accountably enough in all its desires after the Loves of Christ The Souls of Believers are not so unintelligible as some prophane Persons would make them in their Passions for and Motions towards Christs Loves The Knowledge a Soul hath or the Experience which it hath had of the Goodness and Excellency of any Object moves the reasonable Soul to the desires of it Admitting the Believer to see things in another Light than a natural Man hath or can see in to have other Notions of Good and Evil and to take the measures of them from their subserviency to the Spiritual and eternal good of the Soul the Passions and Desires of his Soul after Christs Love are as natural Motions of the reasonable Souls as the Worldlings Desires after Riches or the sensual Mans Passions for such things as gratifie the sensitive Appetite The Reason why every Soul moveth not after these Spiritual Things is because every Soul seeth not the Good and Excellency in them Multitudes hardly know that is believe they have immortal Souls that shall outlive their Bodies in a state of Happiness or Misery or if they know or believe that yet they do not believe that there is no other name under Heaven by which they can be saved but only the name of the Lord Jesus Christ Nor ever had any experience of the Love of God to Souls Their deriding of Religious Passions and the Breathings of pious Souls after the Manifestations of Divine Love flows from their ignorance of them and their unreasonable Rudeness in speaking evil of the things which they know not The original difference betwixt a person truly pious and panting after the Love of Christ and others lies here These Creatures know that they have Souls Souls ordained to an eternal existence either in HÄ—ll or Heaven in eternal Happiness or in eternal Misery They believe what God hath said that there is no other Name under Heaven by which Men and Women can be saved but only the name of Jesus Christ neither is there Salvation in any other That he that believeth on him is not condemned and he that believeth not is damned already the Wrath of God abideth on him and he shall never see Life they do not only read these things in their Bibles and hear them from their Preachers but the Holy Spirit of God hath firmly persuaded them that they do as fixedly believe them as they do any thing of sensible or rational Demonstration they have more waky thoughts with reference to Death Mortality and Eternity are things more in their Eyes than in the Eyes of others Again they have tasted and experienced more of the Love of Christ Allow the Souls of others to be in the same Circumstances they would have alike Motions but because they are ignorant knowing nothing of Spiritual Things or at least nothing as they ought to know it thence it is that their Souls move not this is now but the natural working of reasonable Souls in other cases nor is there any such unaccountable or unintelligible thing in it And indeed this gives us the true Reason why every unregenerate Soul is so cold in its motions toward Christ and also may inform us how far it is possible such a Soul may go in motions of this nature The Reason why such a Soul moves no more is want of Evidence which such a Soul hath of the Goodness of his Loves Simple Goodness and Excellency in an Object is not attractive of the Soul but Goodness apprehended by evidenced and appearing to us All the apprehension that it is possible a natural man should have of the Loves of Christ must be from Reading Hearing or its own Reasoning and concluding from what it hath so heard or read for it wants both the demonstrative persuasion of the Holy Spirit and also any experimental Tasts or sensible Evidence All Knowledge which hath no better Foundation will arise no higher than to beget in the Soul an Opinion and leaves the Soul at some Incertainties and unfixed and hence its Motions towards an Object of which it hath no better Evidence are also incertain and faint and fluctuating Knowledge being the Foundation of Desire Reason will tell us that the Desire must bear proportion with the Knowledge The unregenerate man having no Knowledge of Spiritual things that is productive of more than an Opinion the desire must be incertain and faint according to the nature of the Opinion that causeth it By this also Christians may be able to take some Measures and make up some Judgments of themselves whether the desires they find in their Souls after Christ and his Loves be such as are peculiar to the Souls of Believers yea or no. We usually say that Desires after Grace are Evidences of it and there is a truth in it but all desires are not so for as I have said there may be desires after Christ and his Loves in an unregenerate Man commensurate to that knowledge which he hath of the Goodness of them but this will speak nothing of good to the Soul only such Desires as flow from a Christians Knowledge of Faith and from Experience He that hath only a knowledge of Christ and his Loves from Reading the word or from the Report of Ministers may so far desire Christs Loves as may serve him for his own ends nay though he hath no great Faith as to that eternal State of Happiness to which Christ brings the Soul but hath only received Notions of such ablessed State to which he gives no great credit yet for his own Security because his notions may be true though he hath no great fixed persuasion of them he may yet desire the Loves of Christ so far as to bring him to
diligent in the use of means to have its desires accomplished that Soul shall be made fat That Souls desires shall be accomplished tho it may see it falls short of its duty in the use of means and tho it may be God is not pleased to give the Soul the sensible manifestations of its love so that its desire is deferred and while it is so differred the heart is pained and it meets with some trouble and uneasiness through the not accomplishing of its desires to its sense yet it shall be made fat The hope of the righteous saith Solomon shall be gladness so the desire of such a Soul the diligent Soul shall be satisfaction This is according to the words of our Saviour Mat. 5. 6. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled Thus much I have thought fit to add in this place in answer to that question which we sometimes meet with Whether the desire of grace be grace A true resolution of it is of mighty use sometimes to Souls under melancholick distempers or in an hour of temptation to relieve them where they both want sensible manifestations and a just view of the sincerity of their own actions I shall shut up this discourse with a word of exhortation 1. To all to look to their desires their pretended desires after Christ and his loves That of the Apostle 1 Cor. 16. 22. is a dreadful Curse If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha accursed till the Lord come Love is the complacency of the Soul in an object the first fruit of its desire None hath a true complacency in an object but he desireth an union with it in such a degree as he is capable of Hence every one that liveth under the preaching of the Gospel and hath heard of Christ will pretend to desire him But one desires him from a knowledge by hearsay of the goodness of his loves another desires him from a knowledge of faith a setled persuasion of it wrought in his heart by the Spirit of God and some tasts and experience of it you have heard that the desires of the Soul which arise from a knowledge of report and hearsay are weak and faint and cold and lazy and will speak nothing of good for the Soul that hath them you have heard the other desires are strong and intense vehement and fervent active and diligent Nothing more relieveth a Soul sometimes than to find in itself that though it wanteth a strength to perform yet to will is present with it tho it cannot yet rejoice and delight in the apprehension of his loves yet for these are its desires Nothing more killeth and destroyeth a Soul than to trust to desires of grace as indications of it which indeed are not so O therefore look to your desires after Christ See that they proceed from knowledge and experience For experience indeed it dependeth upon Divine influence and breathing upon the Soul and the holy Spirit of God like the wind breatheth where it pleaseth But see that your knowledge of the goodness of these loves be a knowledge of faith not a meer knowledge from report and hearsay as we may know many things of which we believe nothing that is we know such things are written reported talkt of rake heed this be not all the knowledge your Souls have of the loves of Christ I have shewed you that the Knowledge of Faith is a knowledge of persuasion of the excellency of the loves of Christ in themselves for I am not now discoursing of the persuasion that you have a particular interest in them a firm setled constant persuasion of the Soul that the love of Christ is the most desirable good in Heaven or Earth better then Wine yea better than life itself This is the work of the Spirit of God in the Soul A man can by no study persuade himself of this we can by no art no words no arguments of ours persuade Souls of this All that you can do or which we can advise you to do in this case in the use of such means to the use of which God hath promised his blessing or in the use of which God ordinarily concurreth with his blessing These means are reducible to a few heads 1. His Word 2. His Sacrament 3. Prayer 4. A reformed holy life and Conversation 1. The Word is the great means he hath given you it in writing that you may exercise your selves in it by reading he hath appointed the Ordinance of Preaching that you may receive it by your ears neither reading nor hearing will beget in your Souls such a knowledge of Christs love as will be productive of this knowledge which I call the knowledge of faith but they are both means means within our own power and with the use of which God useth to concur and in the neglect of which noâ—e can expect that the holy Spirit of God should work such a knowledge of the excellency of Christ and his loves as will be productive of these desires after them The Word of God is therefore called the Word of faith not only because it containeth the substance of what we are to believe but because it is that with the use of which God ordinarily concurreth in giving the Soul a power to believe therefore the Apostle tells us That faith cometh by hearing If you would know Christ and his loves read hear the Word of God and that in a conscientious manner but I have had occasion to speak of this under a former proposition 2. The holy Sacrament is another means at least for a further knowledge of Christ and his loves I am not of their minds who think that the Lords Supper is a means for conveighing the first knowledge of faith concerning Christ and his Loves to the Soul if it had Christ doubtless would have given it in commission to his Apostles not only to go and preach to and Baptize all Nations but also to Administer the Supper to them which he did not if any will say both Sacraments are intended I shall not contend but the Apostles practice expoundeth our Saviours precept who baptized none till they believed and made a profession of their true faith in Christ the Sacrament is not a means for ignorant persons and unbelievers to come to the first knowledge of Faith but an excellent means in order to the getting a further knowledge of Faith that is a confirmation of their Faith in the love of Christ 3. A third means is Prayer He gives his holy Spirit in all the manifestations of it to those that ask him 4. The last I mentioned was a reformed holy life and Conversation None know the loves of Christ more fully and effectually then those Souls who walk with him most closely You know the promise of Christs manifestation of himself is to those that love him and keep his commandments but of these things I have before
inlarged in my discourses upon some former propositions Sermon XII Canticles 1. 2. For thy Loves are better than Wine I Am now come to the last proposition I observed from these words which I told you might be either considered As a Reason why she desired the tokens of Christs distinguishing loves a reason drawn from her knowledge and experience of the goodness the transcendent goodness of them In this notion I have already spoken to the proposition arising from them Or 2. As an argument of her petition by which she pleadeth with God for the thing which she desired An argument drawn from the value she set upon his love From whence results this proposition Prop. 10. That our value and estimate of the love of Christ above all other things is an excellent argument for a Soul to use with God for the obtaining of it An argument is a mean brought either to prove a proposition or to move the Affections The Logicians bring arguments to prove the just connexion of Subjects and Predicates in propositions The Orator useth them to move mens wills and affections the business of the Soul with God in any prayer is the business of an Orator the Arguments he hath to use are such as may move God to bestow the good things upon him which he desireth If you observe all the prayers of the Servants of God upon Sacred Record you shall find them much to consist of Requests or Petitions and arguments backing or inforcing those requests These arguments you will observe drawn from several heads Sometimes from the Nature of God Sometimes from their relation unto him Sometimes from the promises made in the case Sometimes from the greatness of their misery Sometimes from Gods Power and the freeness of his Grace Psal 25. 7. According to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness sake O Lord. Sometimes from their faith alliance to and dependance upon God Psal 25. 2. O my God I trust in thee let me not be ashamed So from various other heads I say amongst others A Souls just prizing and valuing of the loves of Christ is an excellent argument for a Soul to use to inforce a petition for them 2. The goodness or badness the strength or weakness of an argument derives wholly from its subserviency to its end its cogency or no cogency The End here aimed at is by prayer to obtain the loves of Christ so as the goodness of the arguments to be used in this case depends upon the force they have with God to move him to grant the requests of our lips 3. Persuasive arguments have their force either upon a natural account and that is mostly from the infirmity of our Natures which renders them subject to be affected with fine words passionate expressions we must not imagine that God can be moved with any such thing and therefore fine phrases in prayer are very insignificant things Or else upon a moral and rational account As now amongst men if one can come to another requesting a favour from him and say Sir you promised it me there is a force in this argument upon a moral and rational account such an argument is this in this case If a Soul can go to God pleading for the manifestations of his love unto it and truly tell him that it valueth his love and favour above all created comforts tho the bare naming of this and delivering it in fine significant words will do nothing with God in order to the obtaining of it nay though this affection and temper of our Souls can merit no influence of grace from God yet considering the persections of the Divine Nature and the obligations which God hath laid upon himself It will have a great moral vertue and efficacy and be of great force with him for the obtaining the influences of Divine Grace and the communications of his love Hence I shall desire you in the first place to observe what frequent use the People of God have made of it in their applications to the Throne of Grace David especially Psal 42. 1 2 3. As the Hart panteth after the water-brooks so panteth my Soul after thee O God my Soul thirsteth for God the Living God when shall I come and appear before thee O God His Request there lies in the last words That he might come and appear before God the Argument he useth is from the value he had for such a mercy so as the Hart did not more pant after the water-brooks The same Argument he useth and much in the same case Psal 84. 1 2. The great Petition of that Psalm was for a liberty again to enjoy God in his Ordinances what is the Argument he useth to enforce this Petition How amiable are thy Tabernacles O Lord of Hosts V. 1. My Soul longeth yea even fainteth for the Courts of the Lord my heart and my flesh cryeth out for the Living God So he goes on in a variety of Phrases all expressing but his great value and estimate of such a mercy to that degree that he preferreth the condition of a poor Sparrow or Swallow to his own in the want of it You have him using the same Argument again Psal 63. 1 2 3. O God thou art my God early will I seek thee my Soul thirsteth for thee my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty Land where no water is To see thy Power and thy Glory as I have seen Thee in the Sanctuary Because thy loving kindness is better than life The Petition is much the same and the Argument the same I might instance in many other places of the Psalms but this is sufficient And certainly this were enough if no more could be said to justifie this Proposition That Argument which the man according to God's own heart used and so often used is certainly a good Argument and of due force and efficacy but this was an Argument he often made use of But I shall further shew you the value of this Argument from Reason First This Argument speaketh Christ in the Soul What the Apostle saith in another case No man calleth Jesus Christ Lord but from the Spirit may be applied in this No man can truly say that he prizeth the Loves of Christ above Wine above all created comforts whatsoever but from the Spirit none but the true Christian the truly spiritual man sets any considerable value upon Christ's Loves To you that believe saith the Apostle he is precious Now what Joseph said to his Brethren of Benjamin Bring your Brother Benjamin or see my face no more God hath said to every one of us Bring Christ with you or see not my face We are all transgressors from the womb and God heareth not sinners for their own sakes but for Christ's sake therefore we are commanded to ask in Christ's Name God indeed as our Father by Creation may hear us crying for temporal good things in the day of our wants so he heareth the young Ravens when they cry
for food to him But we are blessed with Spiritual Blessings in Christ and upon the account of Christ he giveth the first grace upon the account of Christ's Intercession pleading for the Application of the purchased Redemption He giveth further grace upon the account of Christ's Intercession for us and the Spirit 's Intercession for us For we know not what to pray for as we ought but the Spirit it self maketh Intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered and he that searcheth the heart knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit because he maketh Intercession for the Saints according to the Will of God Rom. 8. 26 27. Now a due estimate and value of the Love of Christ in a Soul is an Indication of the Spirit of Christ dwelling in the Soul hence it must needs be an Argument of force with God for he that searcheth the heart knoweth the mind of the Spirit making Intercession for the Saints according to the will of God Secondly The force of this Argument lies here in that it layeth hold upon many Promises The Promises are but as so many Bonds in which God hath made himself a Debtor to his Creatures All Promises oblige the truth and faithfulness of those persons that make them God being the true and faithful One cannot lye He is faithful that hath promised saith the Apostle so that if it be a sufficient Argument to use with a man to obtain any thing we would have to tell him He hath promised it it holdeth towards God more strongly as his truth and faithfulness is much more certain and infallible than any Creature is Besides that it is a further advantage when Promises are made upon a due and just consideration for these is not only the truth but the justice also of the person promising is concerned to the fulfilling of them Hence in Scripture you shall ordinarily find the Servants of God pleading the Word the Covenant of God spoken to and made with them Psal 119. 49. Remember thy Word unto thy Servant upon which thou hast caused me to hope and in many other Texts of Scripture I say when a Soul can go to God and say in truth that he valueth his love and favour above Wine above Life above all created comforts this Argument layeth hold upon several Promises of God I will a little enlarge upon this â— It layeth hold upon a Promise of filling and satisfaction Matth. 5. 6. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after Righteousness for they shall be filled It is a mighty large and comprehensive Promise To fill a Soul with the influences of Divine Love is a very great thing It is not easie to fill the covetous man with Wealth but he may be sooner fill'd with Riches than the Soul of a good man with the Love and Grace of God But here is a Promise of being filled Open thy mouth wide saith God and I will fill it To whom is this Promise made To him that hungers and thirsteth after Righteousness Righteousness is Grace whether you take it for the Righteousness of Justification the Righteousness of Christ in which every Soul must stand righteous before God Or the Righteousness of Sanctification habits and acts of Holiness wrought in us and done by us they are both from Grace from the free Love of God shining upon our Souls He that hungers and thirsts after it is he that intensely desires it Hunger and thirst are natural passions arising in us from our want of due aliment nature inforcing in us a sense of that want and of all other they are the most vehement Thence our English Proverb Hunger will break through stone walls and experience tells us to what hard things these passions have brought people not only to eat Carrion but to kill and eat their own Children yea the flesh of their own Arms so as hungring and thirsting after Righteousness importeth vehement desires after Grace which desires testifie the Soul's estimate of it and value for it and to those who thus hunger and thirst the Promise is made that they shall be filled Again such a Soul hath a right to those Promises of all Grace propounded in the most large and comprehensive terms and general phrases as where God promiseth a new heart the water of life his coming unto Souls dwelling in them abiding with them The Soul that can go to God and truly say that he prizeth the Loves of Christ above all things layeth hold of all these Promises of which the holy Scriptures are full Isa 55. 1 2. Ho every one that thirsteth come you to the waters and buy without money and without price buy wine and milk So Rev. 22. 17. Let him that is athirst come and whosoever will let him drink of the water of life freely Joh. 14. 23. If any man love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him So v. 21. He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and manifest my self to him These now and such like are general Promises comprehensive of all the Love of Christ to the Soul in the various manifestations of it according to the Soul 's diversified necessities with respect to its several circumstances Now observe to whom these Promises are made to those that love Christ and in evidence of that love hunger and thirst after him to them the Promises are made 1. That the Father will love that man or woman 2. That both Christ and his Father will come unto him 3. That they will manifest themselves unto them that they will dwell and make their abode with them That they shall have Wine and Milk without money and price Now I appeal to any ordinary capacity what evidence of Love any Soul can give greater than the valuing of his Loves above all other things So that where this can be said in truth to God God is challenged upon a multitude of Promises even so many as are made to the Love of God and Christ and to the Soul's hungrings and thirstings after him Nay there is yet another sort of Promises which such a Soul challengeth viz. all those Promises of a further supply and increase of Grace to those that have the Seed of Grace As Matth. 13. 12. To him that hath shall be given and he shall have in more abundance I might add many more of like nature but there is hardly any of you but know how to furnish your selves with them Now where the Soul can challenge God upon a Promise and lay claim to the mercy which it asketh from an obligation which God by his Word hath laid upon himself to give it This is a great Argument for it toucheth God upon the account of his Truth and Faithfulness 3. Further yet this argument toucheth God as he is a tender Father God you know to let us know his heart to his poor Creatures amongst other names
he may go to God or no whether he hath one good Argument to use which may be of avail with God We have many words to say many Arguments to use and when it is a clear day with the Soul it can easily discern it and fill its mouth with words of several natures but in a dark day under the prevailings of Melancholy or boisterous Temptations it can find many Arguments to deter it from Addresses to God it s own vileness and unworthiness considered with God's purity and holiness the multitude of its sins its former Prayers as it fancieth lying by not answered but it cannot find one Argument to incourage it But every Christian hath at all times many Arguments if he could discern them David made his vileness and unworthiness an Argument Psal 25. Pardon mine iniquity saith he for it is great That 's an Argument all have and at all times Ah! but saith the Soul this is no other than the vilest person hath He may plead the freeness of Divine Grace The Soul that goeth to God for Free Grace can never want an Argument but still this is common and no more encouraging a Believer than another man We may plead our own misery and sad state misery is the object of Grace and Mercy but still this is common The vilest sinner may go and plead with God for mercy because his state is miserable A true Christian would have an Argument of a more special nature and such a one as in the use of he could go boldly and with confidence to the Throne of Grace Admitting this Proposition every good Christian hath such an Argument such an Argument as no unregenerate man hath such an Argument as he may go to God with with boldness and confidence God was never yet wanting to the truly hungring and thirsty Soul after his Love such an Argument as if pleaded with God and being in truth alwaies prevailed with God I shall shut up this Discourse with some few words of Exhortation 1. To all To labour to bring up their hearts to this to prize the favour of God above all other things whatsoever How you shall know whether your hearts be brought up to it or no I have before shewed you but suffer me here to give you some Directions in the case and to press it with some Arguments Until we do find that our Souls do set such an estimate upon the Loves of Christ we can never use it as an Argument with God This is therefore the first thing which we have to do to be restless till we find that we can say it in truth that we value Christ's Loves above all earthly things Nor will this ever be effectually done till the holy Spirit of God comes upon our hearts with its impressions and demonstrations all that we can do will bear no more than the notion of means in order to that blessed end Of that nature much may be directed First Let thy Soul and its immortal state with its condition referring to that state be much in thy thoughts It is one great reason why men neglect and are careless as to the Loves of Christ because they do not remember they have immortal Souls nor consider any future state or their own circumstances relating to it Men know that they have bodies and experience hunger and thirst and cold and so are very busie in taking care what they shall eat and drink and put on but they do not know at least they do not attend to their knowledge of it and have no certain knowledge and persuasion that they have immortal Souls that can no more die with the body than eat drink or sleep with it so as they take no further care than for their outward man Neither do they attend to the consideration of the condition of their Souls with respect to an eternal existence but run away with presumptuous fancies that God will not suffer them to perish for ever determining concerning their Souls according to their fancies and the dictates of their own vitiated reason not according to the revelations of the Divine Will would men think more of their Souls and consider the immortality of them would they determine concerning them according to Divine Revelation it were impossible they should so far as generally they do neglect the care of them They would quickly see that all the good things of the world could not affect the Soul with any good and therefore must needs be invaluable things compared with those things that will secure the Souls happiness both here and for ever If men believed they had immortal Souls their reason would teach them quickly to conclude that they are better than the body which is but earth and which must return to dust and consequently whatsoever is good for the Soul must be infinitely more good than what only serveth the necessities of our earthly part and that neither but for a little time But the truth is as the Fool hath said in his heart there is no God So he hath also said in his Heart I have no Soul no such immortal substance as Preachers talk of there is no such thing as Heaven or Hell most unregenerate men are in their Hearts Atheists The natural reason of all men teacheth them to look after their concerns and interests and to prefer greater before lesser interests and to value what makes for their greatest interests above what is only subservient to an interest of lesser value Mens preference of created comforts before the loves of Christ proceedeth meerly from their ignorance that they have Souls to look after or at least unbelief of it if they notionally know it their not understanding the nature and spiritual concerns of their Souls or at least their erronious fancies and conceptions of an universal Salvation of all or all at least that are baptized the first thing to be done rationally to possess Men and Women of the excellency of Christs loves above Wine above all sensual things or any sensible things is to possess men of this knowledge and to keep their Eyes waking to the consideration of it and to engage them to take their measures of these things from the revelation of the will of God in his word not from their own wild fancies and ratiocinations Secondly Possess your Souls of the impossibility of their receiving of any good any thing suited to their necessities but only from Christ There is no other name given under Heaven there is no Salvation in any other The power over all Souls is committed unto Christ The Father forgives Sins but it is for Christ's sake as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you saith the Apostle we have Redemption forgiveness of Sin through his blood In him we have righteousness peace through him we have access an entrance into the holâ—est of all the Father hath given unto him Eternal life that he should give it to whomsoever he pleaseth There is no good thing suited to a Souls
wants but it deriveth from Christ Good things suited to the more external wants of our Body derive from God as the great preserver of man and flow from that common providence of his which dayly worketh in the upholding and preservation of created Beings but good things for our Souls derive from Christ as Mediator and as they are purchased by his blood so they are dispensed out by his Spirit This now can appear to a Soul from no other light but that of Revelation study therefore the holy Scriptures meditate therein night and day they testify all this concerning Christ A full persuasion of these two things 1. That we have immortal Souls ordained to an eternity either of happiness or misery 2. That nothing but the love of Christ can furnish them with those good things which are proper and necessary for them with respect to their Eternal Happiness are enough to convince Men and Women that the loves of Christ are as much better than Wine and to be preferred to it as the Soul is better than the Body and the things suited to its wants better than those things which are only suited to the wants of the outward man But still I say and every days experience maketh it good Non persuaseris etiamsi persuaseris you shall not persuade Men and Women tho you say enough to persuade them though you shut up their mouths and they having nothing to say such a power hath lust in the heart of man into such a debauchery is the nature of man degenerated Admitting men to believe that they have immortal Souls and that the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God there is nothing in nature hath a fuller evidence than this truth that the loves of Christ are preferrible to all things in the world and a man cannot act like a reasonable creature in preferring any thing unto them yet who believes it who lives up to this demonstration It is God must persuade the Soul of this and till the Soul hath this written and ingraven upon it by the finger of his Spirit it will never so Judge Lastly therefore Pray mightily that God would open your Ears to see this and persuade your Souls of the truth of it for till he doth it in vain are mens persuasions To move you to it consider 1. This will bear some proportion to the love of Christ to mankind Christ loved us more than these more than all the Kingdoms and pleasures and profits and honours of the world yea more than his own life yea he preferred us to the Angels the fallen Angels for he took not upon him the nature of Angels but the nature of man 2. This will speak the Soul to be a wise and understanding Soul Certain it is as I have already shewed you that the loves of Christ are good before Wine The wisdom of a Soul lyeth much in a right discerning betwixt good and evil and betwixt that which is good and that which is more good or better The excellency of a Soul lyeth in its conformity to God he is an Atheist who owneth not God to be the first Being and to be of all Beings the most excellent and perfect Being So as necessarily that Soul that comes nearest in conformity to God must be the most excellent Soul now that Soul which acteth most up to the principles of improved and pure reason and to the rule of that holy Writ which we all confess to be the revealed Will of God and liveth most up to the Divine Pattern doing what God doth that must needs be the most wise excellent understanding Soul Now will not a little reason serve to convince us that Christ is the most excelling Object and therefore to be preferred to all sublunary enjoyments Doth not the Scripture represent him to us as altogether desires as the chiefest of ten thousand as the well beloved of the Father in whom he is well pleased as he whom we ought to love with all our heart all our Soul all our Strength Doth not the Father the Heavenly Father love him above all other objects To which of the Angels said he at any time Thou art my Son this day I have begotten thee and again I will be to him a Father and he shall be to me a Son He was brought up with the Father and daily his delight rejoycing alwaies before him 3. This will speak an heavenly sublimated Soul purged from the dregs of sensuality and from an earthly mind a Soul risen with Christ and seeking the things which are above Col. 3. 1. The preference of Wine any sensual satisfactions or any sensible enjoyments to the loves of Christ speaks a dirty Soul that feedeth upon carrion and can be filled with wind Lastly You have heard what an argument this will supply a Soul with in all its addresses and applications to God for any grace or favour no argument can be more moving more prevailing with God none that layeth hold upon more promises or that toucheth God more as a tender Father O therefore labour for this frame of Spirit and give your Souls no rest until you find that they indeed do prefer the love of Christ before all other things in Heaven and Earth Secondly This notion calleth to all you who profess Godliness and to any thing of the Spirit of Adoption which teacheth to cry Abba Father to take heed of a Carnal mind an heart cleaving to any created comforts in excessive degrees so as for the enjoyment of them or any of them to run the hazard of the loves of Christ you will by it prejudice your souls in a great argument which you might use at the Throne of Grace There are amongst others three distempers of heart which those that would do much with God in Prayer must take heed of 1. A revengeful not forgiving frame of Spirit It is a dreadful Text Mat. 6. 15. But if you forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you Our Saviour hath taught us to pray Forgive us our Debts as we forgive our Debtors 2. A doubting and unbelieving frame of Spirit He that cometh unto God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him he that lifts up his hands unto God must lift up pure hands and that without doubting 3. Thirdly A Carnal heart cleaving to the world preferring the things of the world to the loves of Christ the good things of Grace Lastly Is this such an argument of force with God Let then such as can use it in truth make use of it I doubt not but I speak to many who can in truth say that they value the loves of Christ the tokens of his special and distinguishing love above all earthly contentments when you go to God plead this take unto you words and say Lord let me be made a partaker of thy special distinguishing love thou knowest that my Soul valueth it above mountains of Gold
Rocks of Pearl or ten thousand Rivers of Oil. But possibly some may say This is to plead my own merit I answer no for consider who it is that hath wrought in thy heart this value and esteem Is it not God Did flesh and blood reveal any such thing unto thee thou dost not then plead thy own merit thou only pleadest with God from what he hath already wrought and begun in thee 2. It is but the pleading of the promise which God hath made to them that love him and keep his Commandments 3. Neither dost thou plead thy esteem and value for the loves of Christ as meritorious as thinking that thy prizing the loves of Christ meriteth the further manifestations of them to thy Soul thou only pleadest it as a gracious habit wrought in thy Soul by which God hath fulfilled in thy Soul the condition of the promise thou only beggest of God that he who hath wrought in thy Soul that condition to which he hath annexed his promise would now fulfil also that promise to thy Soul which is annexed to that condition Thus I have finished the discourses I designed upon the first Petition of the Spouse as pressed by her first Argument Let him kiss me with the kisses of his Mouth For thy Loves are better than Wine Sermon XIII Canticles 1. 3. Because of the savour of thy good Ointments Thy name is as an Ointment poured forth therefore do the Virgins love thee I Proceed to the next Proposition which I at first observed from these words which I then largely opened Christ hath good Ointments which cast a savour my meaning is according to my former explication of the words That the Lord Jesus Christ is filled with the graces of the blessed Spirit which in themselves are as good Ointments and whose excellency is discerned by every true Believer by every Soul that is espoused to the Lord Jesus Christ to use the Apostles phrase I have espoused you to one Husband For a further discourse upon this Proposition let me first shew you 1. What I mean by Christs Grace and when I say he is full of the Graces of the holy Spirit 2. In what respects these graces are like to good Ointments 3. What particular graces of the Spirit are thus like to good Ointments 4. Whence it is that they are discerned and more effectually discerned by a gracious heart than another We read in the Psalmist that Christ was anointed mith the Oil of gladness above his fellows Heb. 1. 3. That he was anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power Acts 10. 38. That phrase in the Epistle to the Hebrews borrowed out of Psal 45. as I shewed you is excellently interpreted by John God gave not the Spirit unto him by measure Joh. 3. 34. The Grace of God was said to be upon him Luk. 2. 40. and he is said to be full of Grace and Truth Joh. 1. 14. Grace in Scripture as it relateth unto God is usually taken in one of these two senses 1. For the favour and free love of God by which a Person is accepted of God and so Grace is in St. Pauls Epistles to the Romans and Galatians and in his other Epistles opposed to works thus we are said to be justified by Grace saved by Grace In this sense it is also in Scripture applied to Creatures Esther obtained Grace that is favour in the sight of the King Esther 2. 17. and so in many other Texts Or 2dly it is taken For some holy and virtuous qualities and dispositions by which our Persons being first accepted in Christ we are acceptable unto God Thus it is said Joh. 1. 16. Of his fulness we have all received Grace for Grace thus Love is called a Grace 2 Cor. 8. 6. and in this sense the Apostle telleth the Corinthians God is able to make all Grace to abound to them 2 Cor. 8. 9. In this sense we are commanded to grow in Grace that is in holy virtuous dispositions or habits 2 Pet. 3. 18. It is expounded by 2 Pet. 1. 5. Add to your 〈◊〉 virtue and to virtue knowledge and to knowledge temperance and to temperance patience and to patience godliness and to godliness brotherly-kindness and to brotherly-kindness charity The Grace of Christ is taken in a double sense 1. Subjectively For that free love and favour which is subjected in Christ and being in him as its Fountain floweth from him to cur Souls In this sense Christ is said to be sail of Grace and truth full of love free love towards his Peoples Souls and truly in this sense Grace comes by Jesus Christ for out of him God loveth no Soul In this sense the Apostle wisheth to the Romans Grace and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ Take Grace in this sense Christ is the Subject of it and the medium by whom it floweth from the Eternal Father to the Children of men he himself was from Eternity beloved of God and that both necessarily and freely being his Fathers Son begotten from Eternity the Father loved him delighted in him and indeed in this sense Christ may be said to have been the object of Grace but he was not anointed with this in time he had it from before all times only as to the Grace of Vnion the humane Nature until Christ assumed it was not beloved of God Christ assuming it it became the object of this Grace 2. But secondly the Grace of Christ is also taken objectively for that Grace which was poured out on Christ as Mediator and this is either 1. The Grace of Vnion which is the free love of God assuming the humane nature into a personal union with the Divine Nature in which thing God put a great deal of dignity upon and shewed a great deal of love unto our Nature 2. The grace of Sanctification by which I understand not the same which the Children of God receive upon Regeneration when of unholy they are made holy of impure they are made pure of proud they are made humble c. But those holy dispositions and qualifications which were found in Christ considered as the Son of Man by vertue of the union of the Divine Nature with the Humane Nature and his anointing with the Holy Ghost not given by measure unto him by which he was not only acceptable to his Father as Mediator but he is also exceeding lovely to his Saints So that when I say Christ hath good Ointments abundance of Grace I understand 1. Abundance of free love which dwelt in him as God over all blessed for ever to be dispensed out according to the particular exigencies of all his Peoples Souls 2. Many gracious dispositions which eminently dwelling in the God-Head from all Eternity were also by the Spirit poured out upon the Humane Nature in his Incarnation These are here called by a Metaphor Ointments and good Ointments 1. Because by the communication of these from the Divine
hast not an inch of time at thy command nor canst command thy Sun to go back or to stand still for an hour If James instruct us not to say To morrow we will go to such a Fair or Market without adding If God will surely vain man should not say at such a time I will repent I will believe I will turn to God without saying If God will let me live to such a time and poor creature what if God will not What if he will say unto thee Thou dilatory fool This night thy Soul shall be taken from thee this year this month thou shalt die O the most unrea sonable vanity of men in venturing Eternity upon such incertain contingencies yet this is the usual delusion Augustine confesseth that his foot was once in this snare he resisted motions for his turning to God with cras cras to morrow to morrow I will do it till at length through the power of grace he brake the snare crying out Cras Domine cur non hodie to morrow Lord and why to morrow why not to day This is but the first thing I would say to these procrastinating Souls and not that which properly resulteth from my former Discourse 2. But though there be an obvious contingency in that yet we may admit that thou shalt live unto the time thou hast prefixed to thy self for thy coming and returning unto God supposing yet that no man cometh to the Son unless the Father draweth how vain are the promises that thou makest to thy self Admit thou dost live to that time and that before that time thy heart shall not be more inamoured upon thy lusts and hardened in thy sinful courses but that then thou shalt have as good and fair convictions as now thou hast Yet art thou sure that God will then draw thee Art thou sure thou shalt then be drawn by the Preaching of the Gospel Admit that Art thou sure of the motions impressions and breathings of the holy Spirit of God The Preaching of the Gospel beareth the same proportion to the healing of the Soul that the Pool of Bethesda bare to the healing of bodily infirmities Men might lie there many years the Gospel tells you of one that lay 36 years yet was not healed the Angel indeed came often down and stirred the waters but none thrust him in There is an healing virtue in the Gospel it is the word of Reconciliation the word of the Kingdom The Spirit of the Lord attends the ministration of it it stirreth the Pool but admit this if there be none to help the poor Soul that is impotent into it it is not healed What knowest thou whether the holy Spirit which breatheth where it listeth will breathe upon thee at thy leisure God said of the Old World My Spirit shall not alwaies strive with man If it be not perfectly in thy own power to turn to God when thou pleasest it is the most unaccountable folly imaginable for any to resist the holy Spirit and to vex it yet promising himself the operations and effects of it when he will be pleased to call for and to admit them But I hear some saying Do not you determine that the grace of God cannot be resisted what need your exhortations then not to resist it 1. I have told you that the grace of God may be opposed and resisted but that Grace by which the heart is changed is powerful and finally cannot be resisted but certainly the common grace of God which the Apostle saith hath appeared to all men may be opposed and resisted and finally rejected and is so by the most of those that sit under it and certain it is that mens opposing and resisting of that common grace may provoke him to deny special grace to the Soul that doth it and will justifie God in the denial of it For we have no reason to complain of God's not doing what was truly and purely his part whiles we have not done what is our part and in our power Now though the change of the heart be an act of Divine Power yet acts of moral Discipline and the avoiding gross and scandalous sins and the performance of some religious Duties which God hath prescribed as means though not in themselves sufficient and effectual are things within our power with the assistance only of that common grace which God denieth to none to whom he doth not deny the Gospel And in these the holy Spirit may be opposed and finally resisted though he shall not be finally resisted by any Soul that is ordained to life and eternal Salvation and it is certainly the duty and wisdom of every Soul to take heed of this Resisting this Vexing the holy Spirit because as I said before God shall for ever be justified in the with-holding his gracious acts of power until man hath done what is in his power To which I think I may add that in the day of Judgment there will be wanting a President so much as of one Soul who hath followed the drawings of his Gospel so far as he had power to whom God hath denied the more powerful drawings of his Spirit making a change in the Soul and subduing it to the obedience of Faith and also because God will not have his Spirit alwaies strive with man because he is but flesh 2. But secondly Even the People of God also fall under this reproof though not for such vexings and resistings of the Spirit as natural and unregenerate men are guilty of yet for Quenching the Spirit in its motions and resistances of it in his operations whence the Apostle saw need of those Precepts 1 Thes 5. 19. Ephes 5. 30. We are prone 1. To Quench the Spirit in its motions to duty and to put them off 2. And to promise our selves if we fall we shall rise again When we find some motions to duty which we have reason to conclude to be from the holy Spirit dwelling in us and sometimes from some more than ordinary suggestions to and impressions made upon us we are too ready to put them off to some other time promising to our selves that we then will obey them and hearken to them not considering that as our first coming to Christ dependeth upon the Father's drawing so our running after him depends upon Christ's and his Spirit 's drawing Now though the Lord never forsaketh the Soul that is his as to necessary grace yet he often deserts it as to gradual manifestations in strengthening and quickening influences See that famous instance Cant. 2. The Lord called at the door of his Spouse saying Open my Love my Dove my Undefiled The Spouse grieveth her Beloved's Spirit she would open in the morning when she should have had her fill of sleep when she should be up and drest she had put off her Coat and how should she put it on she had washed her feet and how should she defile them At length v. 5. She rose to open to her Beloved but
us to be reconciled unto God If the Lord had only sent to us to give us warning of a wrath to come and timely notice to flee from it leaving us meerly to our own wills whether we would hear or forbear accept or refuse This had been love above the usual mercy of men who do not usually spend much time in treating and intreating those enemies whom they can easily crush and tread under foot Yet had God done no more for our Souls though in this he had shewed great love yet we through the natural stubborness and perverseness of our hearts had been undone for ever How many are in a high Road to ruine and eternal destruction whom God hath been thus intreating and beseeching many years 2. But now that the Lord should not only do this but put forth an act of power though not saving them against their wills yet making them willing to be saved and in order to it not verbally but really willing to receive Christ as tendred to them in the Gospel so as not only to be saved by him but to submit to those Laws and Rules in the observance of which they shall obtain Salvation and not only so but that God should assist the Soul in the performance of these acts not only giving it to will but to do also This certainly must transcendently commend the love and goodness of God to those Souls that have experienced such grace That God doth not so much for all speaks indeed severity to them but that he doth it for any speaks his unspeakable goodness and good will to their Souls I say that he doth not this for all speaks to them severity but yet justice and that not only in regard of that stock of sufficient grace wherewith our Pro-parent was intrusted which being lost God is under no obligation to restore but also in regard that God never denieth his special Grace until the Soul hath abused his common Grace 3. Nay lastly That the Lord should take care of our Souls after that we are once brought to Christ that he should put his fear into our hearts to keep us from departing from him and never depart from us to do us good that drawing Grace should follow us all the days of our life This certainly is the heighth of Divine Love more than this God could not have done for any Soul those for whom he hath done this must be highly beloved What now is left for such a Soul to do but to strive after perfection to live in a constant eying this All-sufficient God this Fountain of all Fulness and living in dependance upon him To live in a continual thanksgiving to and love for that God who hath dealt thus graciously with it and in a daily care not to grieve that holy Spirit by which it was first drawn to Christ and by which it is sealed to the day of Redemption and guided and kept that it doth not slip fatally O love you the Lord all ye his Saints Let drawing Grace find no renitency no resistance from any of your Souls God hath done for you more than others what will you do for God nay what can you do for that God who hath not only called but pluckt you out of the horrible Pit Take the Cup of Salvation and be for ever praising the Lord. Again we may from hence learn though not the proximate yet a true and remoter cause why the Gospel is preached to many so ineffectually Our Saviour tells us Many are called but few are chosen Isaiah cried out Who hath believed our report to whom is the Arm of the Lord revealed Paul in his Preaching was to some the savour of life unto life to others the savour of death unto death When Christ himself Preached some believed others were hardened Whence so great a difference when the Word was the same the Preachers the same both to those that believed to those who were hardened They had all reasonable Souls those Souls had all the same powers the same faculties I mean powers and faculties that had the same virtues We see the same in the experience of every day Indeed there may be some Preaching that may bear no better proportion to the instruction of the ignorant or the conviction of a sinner and turning him from his sinful courses than the Clay and Spittle had to cure the blind man's eyes from which no such effect could have flowed but by a miracle but where there is the same Scriptural spiritual lively powerful Preaching we see this effect Two sit in the same seat one's heart is changed the other 's is not one goes on in his leud courses and perisheth for ever the other is converted his heart changed whence is this difference Is it from him that willeth or him that runneth think you or from him that calleth from him that sheweth mercy because and on whom he will shew mercy We will grant that the one doth not make that use of God's common Grace which he might and therefore the Lord righteously with-holds his special Grace But could not the Lord if he pleased influence the one Soul as well as the other to make a good use of his common Grace Hath God think we no influence upon men inclining their hearts to make a due use of his common Grace When men have said what they can the conversion of every Soul is the effect of the Lord 's drawing and when the Lord doth not draw the Soul doth not cannot come or run The natural man hath many things which draw him another way and God is not pleased to put forth his power upon the Soul Indeed properly nothing but our own lusts draw us another way but our natural passions are inflamed several waies You have an instance of the principal of them in the Parable of the Marriage-Feast which the King made for his Son recorded by Luke c. 14. 18 19 20. Matth. 22. v. 5 c. A certain great man Matthew calls him a King made a great Supper Matthew calls it a Marriage for his Son he bade many saith Luke he sent forth his Servants to call them that were bidden to the Wedding saith Matthew They would not come saith Matthew They all with one consent began saith Luke to make excuse They were invited by potent Arguments I have prepared my Dinner my Oxen and my Fatlings are killed and all things are ready come you to the Marriage Matth. 22. 4. In general it is said They would not come they made light of it they made excuse What drew them another way Lu. 14. 18. The first said I have bought a piece of ground and I must go and see it I pray thee have me excused And another said I have bought five yoke of Oxen and I go to prove them And another said I have married a Wife and therefore I cannot come who is this King Even the King of Kings the Lord of Lords who is his Son but the Lord
the worst of all upon the opinion of some conceited righteousness in our selves or some spiritual power and abilities we have or judge our selves to have the latter is Spiritual Pride nor is any thing more opposite to the truth and Grace of the Gospel the whole design of the Gospel is to exalt Christ as the Lord our righteousness and our strength and our great duty is to accept him in that notion nor indeed can he be truly received in any other notion now can it be reasonably imagined that he whose arm useth to bring Salvation when he looketh and seeth there is none to save should bring Salvation to a Soul that apprehends it hath no need at all of him he hath done enough for it in giving it a reasonable Soul and the Preaching of the Gospel These are now some of those great Evils that are consequential to this error imbibed by the Soul but you will say to me what can a Man or Woman in his or her natural state do in order to his being drawn by Divine Grace To this I answer 1. He may not oppose or set himself against the workings of this Divine Grace 2. He may do some things that may be conducive 1. In the first place do not resist the Grace of God nor set your selves in opposition to it You will say then can Grace be resisted did not you tell us it is powerful and shall be obeyed I answer I did tell you that Grace is powerful and cannot be finally resisted but it may be a long time resisted and opposed The holy Spirit is the most potent agent and must at last overcome but it may be vexed and grieved I know what some will say what if I do resist if I do oppose it if God hath determined me to lise and to Grace as the means it shall at last overcome I answer that is true but yet it is no vain counsel to give any to advise them to take heed of such resistings and vexings of the Spirit of God as it is capable of and that upon a threefold account 1. Because he who thus resisteth the Holy Spirit justifieth God in his condemnation and not putting forth such a power of Grace as shall be effectual of its Salvation those who plead so highly for a power in man to what is Spiritually good lay a great stress upon their fancy that if we do not allow this we make the destruction of a Sinner to be from God not from himself but they do not consider two things 1. That whatsoever destruction we derive from Adam is from our selves for in Adam all died saith the Apostle God is neither bound to restore unto us the Grace he once gave us and we lost nor yet unjust in requiring of us the exercise of that power which we once had of his gift and have lost through our own default for the default of our first Parent in whom we all sinned and dyed was our own 2. That the resistance of the holy Spirit in its more common Grace and operations is a sufficient clearing of God in the condemnation of Sinners though he doth not give out his effectual Grace he hath said that to him that hath shall be given The sense of which tho Mat. 13. and in the parallel Text it may be to him that hath any thing of special distinguishing grace shall be more given of the same nature and kind yet is plainly Mat. 25. 29. where it is used in the exposition of the parable of the Talents To him that improveth what he hath and may very well be interpreted into a promise of further Grace to him that makes a good improvement of common Grace The justice of Gods judgment upon those of Hierusalem was from this manifested to the world That Christ would oft-times have gathered them as an Hen gathereth her Chickens under her wings but they would not If a man must be ruined yet surely he should not ruine himself 2. Secondly Tho if thou beest one ordained to life the Grace of God towards thee shall not be finally resisted yet thy resistances and opposition may make the new birth much harder and more full of pain to thee It is a most certain truth that the foundation of God standeth sure the Lord knoweth who are his and not one of those whom the Father hath by his Eternal gift given to Christ shall be lost they may for a time oppose and resist the motions and knocking 's of his Spirit but it shall at last overcome them but the Soul in its coming unto Christ usually meets with the Spirit of bondage making it to fear before it receiveth the Spirit of adoption teaching it to cry Abba Father Now thy opposition and resistances to the Spirit of Grace may keep thee much longer under the Spirit of bondage and for this I appeal to the experiences of all those who have been brought home to Christ whether they have not found the oppositions and resistances which they have made to the knocks and motions of the Holy Spirit have not lain heavy upon them before they have been able to discern a gracious acceptation whether when their faith in Christ hath got above their other sins the follies and vanities of their youth they have not found it stick here They could hope in Christ and in the free and infinite Grace of God through him were it not that they remember how often they refused the tenders of Grace and put off the holy Spirit knocking at the door of their hearts Now what knowest thou O Christian but that thou art an elect vessel one ordained to eternal life and salvation if so thou shalt certainly be brought home to Christ and be saved notwithstanding thy present resistance and opposition but it may be as through fire why shouldest thou make thy new birth more painful and difficult 3. Thirdly When thy Soul is brought home to God if ever thou seest that happy hour it will while thou livest he a grief of heart unto thee to think how long thou didst oppose and resist the Grace of God bringing Salvation in the tenders of it to thy Soul The People of God have their sad and dark hours as well as their hours of light and comfort they will tell you from their own experience that when they reflect a sad Eye upon their former ways they find nothing lying more sad and heavy upon their Souls than their so long resisting and opposing the Grace of God before they submitted to it to all their sins they have added this great iniquity that when the Lord said to them yet Believe and you shall be saved they to go on in their sinful courses put off the Spirit of God from day to day and sent him sad away from their Souls and why should Christians make themselves matter of trouble and sorrow hereafter how graciously soever God will deal with their Souls O therefore let all that wish well to their own Souls be
most of God have been such as have been I will not say most but much in contemplation which brought contemplation afterward into a superstition and a contemplative life to be cried up beyond all sense or reason 4. Lastly Be much in prayer But I have spoke enough upon this argument Sermon XXVII Canticles 1. 4. We will be glad and rejoyce in thee We will remember thy loves more then Wine The upright love thee I Am now come to the Fourth thing considerable in this Second Petition of the Spouse I have done with the Petition Draw me 2. With the Argument by which she inforced her Petition We will run after thee 3. With the Spouse's Attestation of the quick acceptance of her Petition The King hath brought me into his Chambers I have only to consider the Effect that this Love had upon her that is exprest in the words I have now read We will be glad and rejoyce in thee we will remember thy Loves more than Wine I have opened the words before We I and all Believers we who being many are yet one body united by one Spirit Members under the Government of one Head we who have tasted and experienced thy goodness will be glad The word in the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is expressive of the largest dilatation of the heart upon union with its object It is used Isa 65. v. 19. Prov. 24. 23. Psal 21. 1. Psal 2. 11. 13. 11. Zech. 9. 9. and rejoyce in thee The word again here used is often used in the Old Testament Exod. 4. 14. Jer. 31. 13 c. I shall not undertake to justifie the Critical distinction some make betwixt these two words as if one were restrained to the more inward motion of the heart the other more expressive of the more external gestures or actions signifying that affection in thee in Christ as the principal object and in the significations of thy love to us The Proposition is shortly this Jesus Christ and the manifestations of his love to believers Souls particularly in answering prayers are the singular objects of their joy and rejoycing In order both to the explication and confirmation of this Proposition I will guide you a little into the understanding of the nature of Joy 2. Consider how Christ can be the object of the believers joy and is more the object of his joy then of another mans 3. How he is the special singular object of their joy Take joy considered in itself it is but a natural plant a power God hath given to every reasonable Soul the object of it is some good to which it is in some degree united and it is greater or lesser according to the nature of the good or the degree of the apprehension There is in all joy satisfaction and rest and something of musick or melody 1. There is in all joy a Soul satisfying suln ss desire speaks some emptiness in the Soul and is the Souls motion in order to a satisfaction the like might be said of hope but all joy speaketh a Soul satisfaction according to the measure of the joy the rejoycing Soul hath alwaies in it a fulness and a pleasing fulness that is the first thing in the nature of it 2. There is in all joy a rest that quieteth the Soul the desiring thirsty hoping Soul is still in motion being in the pursuit of something which it hath not attained but the rejoycing Soul is at rest David in the hour of his joy saith Return unto thy rest O my Soul For God hath dealt graciously with thee That is a second thing in joy 3. There is in all joy something of musick and melody hence that phrase of leaping for joy hence singing and shouting are the natural expressions of joy thus joy may be described to be a natural power or inclination of the Soul by which having more perfectly or imperfectly obtained an union with the object which it desired or hoped for it is in proportion satisfied and well pleased at rest and keeps as it were a festival within it self Two things are required to make an adequate obiect of this joy 1. The thing must be good 2. We must have some apprehension both of the goodness of it and our union with and interest in it 1. The object that our Souls rejoice in must be something which either is good or which at least we apprehend to be so the nature of good lieth in a suitableness and conveniency of a thing for us and whatsoever we apprehend suited to any of our wants or convenient for us in any of our circumstances that we call good and whatsoever we apprehend under that notion whether it indeed be so or no we love and if we want it we desire it if we apprehend it probable to be our portion we hope for it if we have it or apprehend we have it we delight and take a complacency and rejoice in it 2. So that secondly to make an adequate object of our joy There must be some apprehended union betwixt our Souls and the object we rejoice in For although we can love and take a secret complacency in an object which appeareth to us as good yet it is propriety in it that causeth our joy and rejoycings Thus far now I have only considered and discoursed of joy philosophically as it is a natural affection working upon its proper object Let us now consider it as a grace or sanctified affection Grace doth not plant new powers in the Soul of man it only turns the natural powers to their proper objects Our Saviour tells us there is none good but God God is the Summum Bonum the first and chiefest good nor is any thing good but what deriveth from him Christ is good supremely good as in him there is found what is suited to the greatest wants and emptinesses that the nature of man is exposed and subject to And that the believer more valueth Christ then another man ariseth only 1. From his different apprehension 2. From his different relation to him and interest in him 1. From the different apprehensions of good which the believer hath from those which are in other men I told you before that the nature of good lieth in the suitableness or conveniency of a thing to our wants and emptinesses Man is a creature made up of two essential parts the Body and the Soul that which suiteth the one or the other we call good The Soul is considerable with respect to a present or future state the first is that which alone the most men are sensible of or concerned for We have a threefold perception of an object according to which we judge of the goodness or badness of it 1. The first is by the Eye of sense according to which we judge that good which gratifieth the exteriour senses this of all is the most unmanly judgment of it thus the man of pleasure judgeth those things good which gratify his eyes ears tast sinell
case the experience of every Soul maketh it good it is natural to every man 1. Because in all answers of Prayer there must be a soul satisfaction upon some union with the object which it desired Joy is nothing else but the triumph of the Soul upon its union with the object which it desired Prayer is nothing else but the Souls desire expressed with its voice The answer of Prayers must be the Souls satisfaction in the obtaining of its desires this satisfaction ariseth from its union with its object upon which joy is but a proper and natural result and consequent 2. In all answers of Prayer there is an owning of the Soul by God As the Soul by Prayer owneth God acknowledging him the Fountain of that goodness which it beggeth so God in answering Prayer acknowledgeth the Soul Joh. 9. 31. We know that God heareth not sinners but if any man be a Worshipper of God and doth his will him he heareth All giving in of things prayed for doth not speak the answer of prayers God may hear and relieve the cry of the miserable when he doth noṫ answer the prayer of the righteous I have before hinted to you that there is an answer of our cries which floweth from Gods common providence as he is a God of pity and tender compassions and there is an answer of Prayers which comes from God as a God of truth and faithfulness how to distinguish these two I may possibly shew you in the application in some measure it is the latter answer not the former which is Gods owning and acknowledgment of the Soul as one for whom he hath a favour 3. There is yet one thing more in the answer of prayers last mentioned which to every thinking Christian is matter of great joy That it is that which speaketh the Soul to be beloved of God in Christ and to have Christ for his Advocate and Intercessor at the Throne of Grace It is in him that all the promises are Yea and Amen It is in his name that the believer asketh and it is he that doth the thing desired according to the promise John 14. 13. Whatsoever you shall ask that I will do that the Father may be glorified in the Son and because the thing is confirmed the promise is doubled v. 14. If you shall ask any thing in my name I will do it I shall add no more to the Doctrinal part of my discourse This notion in the first place distinguisheth the Child of God from all Men and Women in the World He is the only man that is glad and rejoiceth in Christ the only person that can say of Christ he is his chief joy 1. There are many that rejoice in their sensual satisfactions There is a man that shouteâ—h by reason of Wine Psal 78. 65. their Vivere est Bibere the pleasing of their Senses their Palate and Eyes and Ears is the greatest good they know after this their Souls move by desires and in the satisfaction of them they rejoice their mirth is madness and their laughter what doth it this of all other is the most sordid joy a rejoycing in iniquity yet this is the chief joy of many poor creatures 2. To others the World is their chief joy Their heart rejoyceth in their labour as the wise man speaketh Eccl. 2. 10. they look on all the work that their hands have wrought and on the labour they have laboured to do and they rejoice the gladness of their heart ariseth from the increase of their Corn and Wine and Oil and they know no better things to rejoice in For this rejoycing in Christ in the sense of his love and the pardon of their sins and the hopes of the glory of God alas how few understand any thing of it I have often had occasion to tell you that the spiritual state of a man or woman is not so much to be determined from his understanding and the notions there men and women may have great degrees of knowledge and yet have unsanctified hearts nor from their external actions An hypocrite may do many things and the best of Gods people in many things offend as from the motions of his will and affections He chuseth the things that please God To will is present with me saith Paul and consequent to this are the workings of the offections Thus a Christian is known by the objects of his love and hatred his hope and fear his desire and jâ—y The last is what I have to do with in this place Joy is one of the fruits one of the fairest fruits of the holy Spirit Gal. 5. 22. will any say to me how shall I know my state by the workings of this affection the answer is in the Text the believer rejâ—yceth in Christ the Apostle tells us that those that are the true circumcâ—sion worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus Phil. 3 3. A believer is not a Stoick as to the things of the World he lives in it and hath need of the things of it but Christ is his chief joy or the head of his joy as David saith of Hierusalem Psal 137. v. 6. But you will say how shall we know this whether Christ be our chief joy I answer 1. Thou wilt not thou canst not rejoice in any course of sin which is contrary unto Christ St. Paul tells us That he delighted in the law of God after the inward man he could not glory in a total freedom from sin he complaineth that he was sometime brought into Captivity to the law of his Members Rom. 7. 22. But he did not rejoyce in iniquity Wicked men sport themselves against God Against whom do you sport your selves Isa 57. 4 Solomon tells us That it is a sport to a fool to do mischief tells us of one who deceiveth his Neighbour and saith am I not in sport his joy is either in the satisfaction of his concupiscible appetite thus St. Peter tells us of some That they count it pleasure to riot in the day time 2 Pet. 2. 13. or in the satisfaction of his irascible appetite thus some sport themselves in doing or beholding mischief they rejoice at the destruction of him that hateth them which was a thing Job purgeth himself from Job 31. 29. or at the destruction of those that they hate they rejoice to do evil Prov. 2. 15. Yea and to see evil done as Edom rejoyced when the Jews were carried into captivity But now the Child of God can be a sharer in none of those joys These joys are incompetent with a rejoycing in Jesus Christ these men rejoyce in those things which crucified Christ I cannot say but a good man under some great temptation mâ—y feel some tickling pleasure in sin and the satisfaction of his appetite through ignorance or passion but he can have no fixed joy in any thing of that nature As a wicked man may have some fit of sorrow for sin so a good man may
is full either of such as are excessive drinkers of Wine or Merchants for it but how thin is it of such as have any remembrance of Christs love who as the Apostle tells us died to redeem us from our vain conversation 1 Pet. 1. 18. For we were not redeemed with corruptible things as Silver and Gold from our vain conversation but with the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish who can be said to remember Christs love more then Wine that lives in those sins which crucified him who was the Lord of life Yet is not this the course of the most Men and Women who never think of their dying Saviour to restrain them in their drunkennesses debaucheries in their greatest excesses of Riot Nay how many are there that seldom take the love of Christ into their thoughts the love of their cups and of their Harlots hath made Christs loves to be utterly forgotten by their Souls for how can they say that they remember Christs loves above their lusts that will not quench one lust for his sake they in whom the remembrance of Christs death will not extinguish one vile affection one spark of pleasing lust will not the most of men and women yea such in whose ears the loves of Christ are published every Lords day be found perishing for preferring the very lees and dregs of Wine before the loves of Christ I mean for preferring the basest and most sordid kind of pleasures and satisfactions of the flesh for such are those pleasures which are no more than the gratifying of the sensitive appetite 2. Do not most mens discourses and practice betray them to remember Wine I mean their profitable things before the loves of Christ How much is the world and the things of the world the discourse of all companies upon all occasions how few are the discourses concerning Christ and what he hath done for us an hours discourse of Christs loves in a Pulpit upon the Lords day is thought proportionable to six days discourse about our earthly occasions do we not even grudge the Lord a seventh part of our time for the remembrances of his loves the Lords day is a day to call to remembrance Christs loves It was the day of his resurrection by which he compleated mans redemption the Ministers work is to help us in our remembrance of his loves We have besides our attendance upon the publick ministry a private duty this day incumbent upon us viz. To remember him who died for our sins and rose again for our justification I beseech you consider whether your remembrings of Christs loves upon the Sabbath day bear any proportion to your remembrance of your worldly interests other days I mean not for the proportion of time spent in the one and the other God hath indulged our infirmity in that he hath set apart a seventh day only to himself but examine this whether you remember the loves of Christ on the Lords day as you remember your worldly concerns on any of the other six days do the loves of Christ come into your thoughts as much on the week day as the world comes into your thoughts on the Lords days I sear there is none of us all can say that in this thing our hearts are clean I hope I speak to many who remember the loves of Christ and will never suffer his dying love to go off their thoughts But when we come to these comparative examinations to enquire whether we remember his loves more then we remember our sensual or sensible objects ah how short do we come of the duty of Christians yea of what our selves will own and consess to be our duty Happy is that man that doth not condemn himself even in the thing which he alloweth to be his duty But I had rather spend my time in persuading my self and you to our duty which according to my explication of the text and this propositionwill lye much in two things 1. In a full and perfect remembrance of the Loves of Christ 2. In a remembrance of them proportionable to that degree of goodness and excellency in them I say first in a Scriptual remembrance a full and perfect remembrance of the Loves of Christ I am afraid that we satisfy our selves too much in a Notional formal remembrance of Christs Loves and so please our selves in hearing the Gospel read opened and applyed to our Souls in a formal keeping of the Lords day the day which God hath set apart for us to call to our minds all the acts of our redemption compleated in his resurrection some Churches aware of Peoples awkness to this Spiritual duty have thought fit to appoint other days for a more solemn remembrance of his incarnation and death Nor have I any thing to say against any Christians that will set apart any Special times to remember any Loves of Christ though I do not know that Christ hath left any power to his Church to impose particular times of this nature But alas this is the least part of our duty in the remembrance of his Love We may have a day to remember it in we have such a day every week we may have helps to remember it by The holy Scriptures the Ministers of the Gospel that Preach Christ to their People are such helps But if in these days if with these helps we do not set our selves to meditate of the Loves of Christ to turn our thoughts from other things to the contemplation of and meditation upon the Love of a Christ incarnate the Love of a Christ dying and riseing again from the dead if we do not study to get our hearts affected suitably to such Love with love faith hope c. we do not so live as a People that remember Christ died for our Sins declining whatsoever is contrary to his will and Law in the Gospel do what in us lyeth to promove his honour Glory we are so far from Satisfying our Duty by this formal remembrance of his Love that we are the greatest forgetters of his Love The Jews who never owned him as their Redeemer the Heathen who never heard of his name nor of what he was or did for Sinners can in no propriety of Speech be said to forget his Loves The Christian only the loose Christian the formal Christian he who hears every day of the dying Love of Christ yet goes on to defy him to crucify him afresh and to put him to open shame or he who every Lords day hears the sound of the Loves of Christ and reads of it yet never meditates upon it never suffers his soul by contemplation to pierce into the heights or sound the depths of it whose heart is never truly affected with it so as he hath any Love kindled in his soul towards Christ no breathings after him who exerciseth no faith no hope in him he that lives not in his measure up to it leaving his vain conversation worshiping God in the Spirit
not to desire or to be willing to remember the kindness of a friend whose kindness we have abused Sin puts the tast of Christs love out of the Soul A remembrance of Christs love so as to be in any measure duly affected with it is incompetent with wilful and presumptuous sinning None but the holy and heavenly Soul remembreth the loves of Christ 5. Lastly Wait upon God in ordinances in hearing the Word in the Holy Sacrament of his Supper The ordinances of the Gospel are not only means of grace but great helps to Christians memory as to Christs loves we preach a Christ crucified there his loves come to our ears in the Supper you have a representation of a Christ crucified there his loves his dying love is set before your Eyes both are helps to the mind of that man or woman who desireth to feed his thoughts upon the loves of Christ But to shut up all Pray that is a general prescription in order to the obtaining of any mercy from the hand of God amongst other blessed effects of the holy Spirit of God promised by Christ to his Disciples this was one John 14. 26. He shall bring to your remembrance the things which you have heard of me it is the influence of the Spirit of grace that quickneth and inableth us to bring Christs love to our remembrance our Saviour hath taught us how to obtain this blessed remembrancer Luke 11. 13. He giveth his holy Spirit to them that ask him Sermon XXX Cant. 1. 4. The Vpright love thee Or Heb. Vprightnesses love thee STill it is the Spouse that speaketh She had prayed Draw me and promised that being drawn both she and others would run after Christ She had received a gracious answer to her prayer The King had brought her into his Chambers In this she hath Triumphed We will be glad and rejoice in thee For this she hath covenanted that she would remember the Loves of her Beloved more then all the pleasant or profitable things in the world Which she expresseth under the Metaphoricall notion of Wine Now lest any should say to her Why so fond O thou fairest amongst women to justify her self in this rapture of Joy this extacy of love she may be conceived to add these words The upright love thee or as the Hebrew is Uprightnesses love thee the words may be variously rendred with consistency enough to the Grammar of the Hebrew text 1. Uprightnesses or right things love thee The Same word is used Psal 17. 2. Thine eyes shall behold right things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be right or to appear so The word is used in the form that it is here Psal 9. 9. He shall judge the World in righteousness and the People 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in uprightnesses It is used Prov. 1. 3. Is 33. 15. Prov. 2. 9. Psal 75. 2. If we expound the phrase as it is literally according to the abstract Righteousnesses or Right things the Question will be whether it should be read as in the Nominative case Uprightnesses love thee or as in the Oblique case which the Heb. prefix seems to import In Uprightnesses they love thee accordingly the sense will be very different for if we read it as in the Nominative case the import of it seems to be to set out the Excellency of her beloved as he who was the very seat of all excellent things in whom did all fulness dwell even the fulness of the God-head all righteousness all Equity whatsoever is good If we read it as in the Ablative case as the prefix in the Hebrew seemeth to guide us The import of it seems to be to express to us the nature of the Saints love to God which is not in word or in tongue onely but in deed and in truth in uprightnesses that is as Buxtorf expoundeth it Rectissime fortiter most intirely intensely sincerely thus I say it denoteth the truth and reality of the believing Souls love to Christ 2. But our translators have thought fit to translate it otherwise conceiving the abstract here put for the concrete Uprightnesses for upright men possessed of uprightness this is very usual in the Hebrew dialect and indeed in most languages so the sense is this Do not wonder that I love Christ and am so affected with the injoyment of him there is never an upright Soul in the world but loves him all upright Souls love him Thus the Proposition is plain Propos Upright Souls love Christ To this I shall Speak in my ordinary method by Explication Confirmation Application Under the first I shall give you the true notion of Uprightness and an üpright soul shew you in what sense the Proposition is true The Question may well be propounded Who is the upright who is the righteous man For the Psalmist tells us the Apostle Rom. 3. confirmeth it There is none righteous no not one and although God at first made man upright Eccles 7. 29. Yet the world is so warped by men seeking out to themselves inventions that the prophet Micah 7. 2. Tells us there is none upright amongst men To resolve this difficulty I shall first give you two or three distinctions concerning righteousness or uprightness without which we shall hardly understand the true notion of an upright man 1. There is an uprightness of heart Psal 32. 11. Shout for joy all you upright in heart so Psal 94. 11. Judgment shall return unto righteousness and all the upright in heart shall follow it And there is an uprightness of way or conversation Prov. 29. 27. The upright in his way is an abomination so◠Psal 37. 14. The wicked man seeketh to slay such as be of upright conversation Indeed it is true there is no man who is upright in his heart but he will also be upright in his way for the upright directeth his way Prov. 21. 29. but there is a seeming uprightness of way when the heart is not upright with God Prov. 14. 12. There is a way which seemeth right unto a man but the end thereof are the ways of death The Proposition must be understood of such as are upright not in their way only seemingly but both in heart and in way 2. Secondly there is a Legal and there is an Evangelical righteousness or uprightness The legal righteousness or uprightness lyeth in a full and perfect conformity to the Law of God In this sense it is as true That there is none righteous no not one none upright amongst men as that there is none who liveth and sinneth not against God for the least Flye maketh this box of ointment to stink all Sin is crookedness and the least crookedness spoileth this rightness But then there is an Evangelical righteousness and uprightness and thus every Soul that is justified by grace through the imputation of Christs righteousness is a righteous Soul and every Soul that is Sanctifyed and renewed the bent of which is towards
to it without works and not imputing sin as the Apostle expounds the whole business of justification Rom. 4. 5 8. Thus now every believing Soul becomes a righteous Soul in the Eye of God through the righteousness of Christ put upon it This is indeed what some modern wits laugh at But as we say in other cases let them laugh that win so every serious Soul will think it hath cause of rejoycing if it hath thus won Christ to use the Apostles expression Phil. 3. 8. which he expoundeth in the very next words v. 9. And be found in him not having my own righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by faith and I would have all that love their own Souls look to be one of that circumcision which the Apostle speaketh of in that Chapter v. 3. Which worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh Some trust in Chariots faith the Psalmist some in Horses but we will remember the name of the Lord our God Psal 20. 7. I do but allude to that Text. There are some that trust to a righteousness of other Saints so do the Papists some trust in a righteousness of their own so do they also amongst others some trust to the meer free grace of God without any regard to a perfect righteousness but we will trust alone in Jesus Christ and in his righteousness I fear what follows in the Psalmist v. 8. will be found true in the day of Judgment Those will be brought down and fall but those that trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and his righteousness will rise and stand upright Those that trust in the good works of other Saints will find at that day they will have none to spare there will not be enough for themselves and much less to lend to others as the wife Virgins told the foolish Virgins in the Parable wanting Oâ—l and offering to borrow of them and those who trust to a righteousness of their own will find that they do but trust to a Spiders webb and which hath these two qualities analogous to a Spiders web 1. That it is a thing spun out of their own bowels 2. That the least touch of it sweeps it away it is what upon examination when judgment is laid to the line and this righteousness to the plummet will be found to be no such thing as will cover the Souls nakedness a bed too short for a Soul to stretch it self in Gods sight upon They say the great Cardinal Bellarmine dying confessed that it was safest to trust to the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ whether he said so or no I am sure it will be found so There is an original blackness which cleaveth to every Soul the not belief of which is possibly the foundation error as to this great point 1. A blackness of imputation The Apostle tells us that in Adam all died we were all in the loins of that our first Parent what he lost he lost for us we in him plucked a fruit of the Tree of forbidden fruit and so loft that Original Righteousness in which God at first made man and became black and unrighteous 2. An inherent blackness for having lost the image of the heavenly we were born with the Image of the Earthly which lay in a Native aversion from God and a Native proneness and aptitude to sin against God This is seen in our native ignorance and blindness stubborness and perverseness in our naturally vile affections turbulent and impetuous passions things very far from the Image of God and hence we are all by nature saith the Apostle Eph. 2. 3. Children of Wrath. To say nothing of those actual sins which are consequent to this native blackness all our thoughts words and deeds contrary to the law of God Divines think the natural blackness of the Soul is well set out by the Prophet Ezek. 16. Thy birth is of the land of Canaan thy Father was an Amorite thy Mother an Hittite In the day wherein thou wert born thy Navel was not cut neither wert thou washed in water to supple thee thou wert not salted at all nor swadled at all none Eye pitied thee to do any of these things for thee but thou wert cast out in the open field to the loathing of thy person in the day wherein thou wert born All this while here is no appearance of any thing but filthiness and blackness Now how cometh this black and most filthy creature to be made clean and comely see v. 6. I said unto thee while thou wert in thy blood live There is what we call effectual calling v. 7. I have caused thee to multiply and thou art increased and waxed great and come to excellent Ornaments v. 8. When I passed by thee it was a time of Love yea I spread my skirt over thee and I covered thy nakedness yea I sware unto thee and entred into a covenant with thee and thou becamest mine Then washed I thee with water there the Spouses blackness began first to wear off yea I thoroughly washed thy blood off thee and I anointed thee with Oil. the Psalmist tells us Oil makes the face to shine I clothed thee also v. 14. And thy renown went forth among the Nations for thy beauty for it was persect through my comeliness put upon thee saith the Lord thy God God there under the similitude of a wretched new born Infant and the care of a Parent for it setteth out the woful state of the Jews and Gods care for them and as Divines judge the wretched state of every Soul by nature till washed by Christs blood and made comely by Christs comeliness is also by that similitude excellently expressed but it is plain enough from other texts that our comeliness of righteousness that righteousness wherein we must stand righteous before God is put upon us by Christ and his comeliness though by imputation made ours 2. Christ makes us righteous by putting his Spirit into us Hence he promiseth to put his Spirit into his people and you read of the holy Spirit dwelling in believers and working in them This is the comeliness of Regeneration and Sanctification which is called the Sanctification of the Spirit the Spirit of Christ in us whose fruits Gal. 5. 22. are love joy meekness c. Indeed whatsoever rendreth a soul comely and beautiful in the eye of reason upon the union of which holy Spirit with the soul the soul becomes a new creature old things are passed away and all things are become new In the same hour wherein Christ saith to the soul I will be thou clean he also saith I will be thou pure and holy an habitation for God through the Spirit undefiled in the heart and in the way This is also metaphorically set out by the same Prophet Ezekiel 16. 10 11 12. I decked thee also with ornaments and I put
bracelets upon thy hands and a chain about thy neck and I put a jewel upon thy forehead and ear-rings in thine ears and a beautiful crown upon thy head What do all these metaphorical expressions signify but the various habits of grace with which Christ adorneth the new creature in the day of its new birth in the day when he removeth from it the guilt of its iniquity he doth not only wash and cleanse it with his blood from the guilt of its Sin but he reneweth and sanctifieth it and furnisheth it with all habits of grace This is also Christs comeliness for as the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily so himself received the Spirit without measure that he might measure it out by measures to his people and they might of his fulness receive grace for grace The holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ and all its operations are his Christ tells his Spouse in this Song that she had ravished his heart with the chains about her neck but there is not a jewel in those chains but cometh out of Christs cabinet he giveth those chains with which himself is ravished though these divine powers and habits be his yet being once given and by us produced into Acts they are truely and inherently ours Our Faith Love Patience Meekness Joy c. Our stock of grace upon which our souls live yet not without the daily influence of Christ and assistance of his spirit and this stock is capable of augmentation or diminution as it pleaseth God to let out upon us or to withdraw from us and as we more or less improve it tho indeed Christ hath a constant inspection upon his Spouses treasury and will take care that it shall never so fail but there shall be a seed of God abiding in the soul continually and the grace of Regeneration in it shall be like a spring of water whose waters fail not This now is the Spouses real beauty and comliness which makes her inwardly comely tho she be externally black comely in Christs eyes and comely in the eyes of judicious Christians tho black in the Worlds eyes who judg from external accidents or in the eyes of less judicious Christians either judging from outward accidents or particular acts or from some corrupt passion in themselves 3. They must be comely in Christs eyes because he judgeth not of comeliness from the outward appearance nor yet from single spots and defects but according to the heart the scope and intention of that and from the more constant tenour of the Souls actions The speaking of a few words to this will prevent an objection How Christ can judg a soul comely that is yet full of spots infirmities and defects for even the best of men sinneth seven times a day and who can tell how often he offendeth I say Christ judgeth not from the outward appearance man judgeth so but God judgeth from the heart he looketh at the inward man how that is nor doth he there judg from every particular motion any more then from any particular act in our conversation but from the sincerity and uprightness of the heart If there be a willing mind it is accepted The World judgeth from the outward appearance and indeed that is one disadvantage with reference to the World that the spouse of Christ is under she is Nigra extrinsecus formosa intrinsecus Black outwardly but comely inwardly The Kings Daughter saith the Psalmist Psal 45. is all glorious within A good Christian is like a Merchants warehouse which is full of rich wares and commodities tho little appeareth without The hypocrite is lâ—ke a Pedlars stall where all is exposed and perhaps much more then the pretended owner is worth There is a double judgment of the comeliness of Virgins the one is sensuall from the lines and colour of the face the Symmetry of parts the other is rational from the complexion of the soul Knowledg Ingenuity Modesty Sobriety c. Those who judg the former way may be deceived that which the Vulgar calleth beauty is deceitful and vain and fading the person that is possessed of it is very often unlovely enough through a crooked and froward disposition and badness of humour the latter maketh the true judgment men judg of the comeliness and beauty of persons meerly from the visage and outside so the children of God are by them judged unlovely and black as Ravens If they see the Church or Child of God tossed with tempests and afflâ—cted groaning under the sense of sin they presently judg them according to the outward appearance black Christ looketh upon the heart the bent and scope of that its sincerity and uprightness its purity and holiness The World again judgeth of men by single acts tho Philosophy teacheth us that from them none is to be denominated either virtuous or vicious God doth not so which is remarkable in the two famous instances of Job and David Job you know had great fits of impatience yet saith God Behold the patience of Job David was a man of very great failings his defiling of Bathsheba his murder of Uria his numbring of the People were three to name no more yet God doth not onely mention him as a man whose heart was perfect a man according to Gods own heart But in all the following story of the Kings of Judah God mentions him as a Pattern telling us that such a one did walk according to David or such a one did not do according as David had done The Apostle also tells us that we have an high Priest that can have compassion on our Infirmities upon the ignorant and those that are out of the way All which makes it appear that Christs judgment of the Beauty and comliness of persons is not from single acts but from a constant and general course of life and conversation Now every true believer sets his heart to seek the Lord and to walk before God with a true and perfect heart and tho he faileth in many particulars yet the Lord overlooketh them and judgeth of the Soul only from its â—â—ope and intention and the general course of his actions hence it is that the spouse of Christ tho in some respects she be black and in the Worlds eyès she appeareth black yet in truth and in the Judgment of Jesus Christ she is comely Sermon XXXIII Canticles 1. 5. I am black but comely O you daughters of Jerusalem as the tents of Kedar as the Curtaines of Solomon My business in this exercise is but to apply my last discourse Where I shewed you how and in what sense the Spouse of Christ is Black and yet comely black in her own eyes in the worlds eyes and somtimes so in the eyes of her weaker Brethren but comely in Christs eyes and in the eyes of her more judicious Brethren Having a great comliness in some of her blackness and a comeliness besides her blacknes Black through remaining Just and corruption through Afflictions
doubtless were the Israelites in Jeroboam's time not only to the men of Judah who adhered to the true Worship of God and the sincerer part of the Ten Tribes who left them and came to Hierusalem to worship But the generality of the Israelites in Ahab's times in the sight of Elijah and those seven thousand whom God told Elijah he had at that time in Israel who had not bowed their knee to Baal nor kissed him with their lips The Use of this will be very short only warning us to be very tender in this point very careful of having to do with these Vineyards It is inconsistent with the keeping of our own the things which God hath committed to our trust It renders Churches and particular Souls also black It is an abatement to our beauty and comeliness These things are spots in our beauty shadows to our glory Nothing more offendeth the Eyes of the Divine Glory nothing more provoketh the Lord to jealousie To those who consideringly read the History of the Jewish Church recorded in the Old Testament nothing need be added upon this Argument I come now to the second sense of these words to which I told you I more inclined to From whence the Proposition is this Prop. That great intanglements in secular affairs will make the Spouse of Christ to appear black Demas did once appear white twice you have an honourable mention of him Col. 4. 14. Luke the beloved Physician and Demas salute you He is reckoned amongst Paul's fellow-labourers Philemon v. 24. but the world made him black 2 Tim. 4. 10. Demas saith the Apostle hath forsaken us and imbraced the present world Martha was doubtless white in her Lord's Eyes yet being cumbred about many things she appeared something black Mary had chosen the better part Luk. 38. 40 41. The Apostles left their Nets when they followed Christ When therefore one askt leave of our Saviour before he followed him to go and bury his dead Christ replied Let the dead bury the dead follow thou me You know the excuses those made Matth. 22. that were invited to the Marriage Feast one had bought a Farm another had bought five yoke of Oxen. Our Saviour hath determined Matth. 6. 24. No man can serve two Masters but either he will cleave to the one and neglect the other or neglect the one and be overcareful for the other What need we any Scripture in the case shew me that man or woman that is intangled in a multitude of worldly affairs and hath not lost something of his beauty if he or she ever had any as to the power and practice of Religion Holiness But it will be demonstratively clear to us if we consider either how much of our time the world will take up or how much of our strength and spirits how it will distract and divide us how much it will allure and intice us or to how many scandals it will expose us Of all these I shall speak a word or two 1. I say first if we consider how much of our time worldly occasions take up All humane actions require time as well as place There is no religious action but requireth time and the more time is spent in our worldly employments the less must or can be spent in religious duties the more our intanglements are in secular affairs the less time we must spend in the acts of our more immediate homage to God Alass how little time hath he who is much imployed in the world for reading hearing praying for any religious service and this is the ordinary plea that men make for the non-performance of them they have no time to read the Scriptures or to pray in their Families or to instruct them or to hear the Word or to imploy their thoughts upon spiritual things Solomon saith of the covetous man that the multitude of his riches will not let him sleep It may be said of others the multitude of their businesses will not let them pray or keep up any course of Religion in their Families it suffers but a few to spend the Lords Sabbath as they ought to do they are so far from sparing God any of their own time that they are more ready to steal his time though it be but one day of seven 2. Secondly Worldly businesses do not only take up much of our time but also much of 〈◊〉 spirits and strength God doth not only require our love and such acts of homage in testification of our love as he hath prescribed but also that we should love him and do those acts with all our hearts with all our might and strength and excess of worldly labour and business wasts our Spirits takes away that might and strength which we fhould spend in the service of God Ah what heartless lifeless prayers and religious duties are performed by men and women taken up with an undue proportion of secular imployments 3. Thirdly They fill the head with a multitude of distractions 1 Cor. 7. 35. The Apostle upon this account v. 34. commendeth a single life to those to whom God had given that gift for saith he The unmarried Woman careth for the things of the Lord that she may be holy both in Body and Spirit but the married Woman careth for the things of the World that she may please her Husband And this saith he I speak to you for your own profit not that I might cast a snare upon you but for that which is comely and that you may attend upon the Lord without distraction Distractions in religious services though they appear not to the world yet really are the blackness of the Soul and it is our duty as much as in us lyeth to serve the Lord with the greatest attention of our thoughts and with as few distractions as we can now the more we are incumbred with secular affairs the greater we shall find our distractions in the service of God For as it is upon the ringing of a Bell though the man's hand be off the Rope and the Bell begins to be still yet for some time we shall discern a din in the sides of the Bell caused from its former motion and agitation So will every observing Christian find that when his hand is off his secular business yet his head will for some time be working upon it and this more especially sheweth a preparation of heart necessary for those in particular who are much imployed in worldly business before they draw nigh to God in the Solemn Duties of his Worship that the noise of their secular affairs may be out of their heads and they may serve the Lord without distractions and not be like to the People whom God complaineth of Ezek. 33. 31. They said come and let us go and hear the Word of the Lord. And saith God they come unto thee as the People cometh and sit before thee as my People and they hear thy words but they will not do them for with their
is this Thou believing Soul who in my Eyes art more beautiful and lovely then any other Soul in the world if thou beest in any thing ignorant of my will and where to meet me and how to enjoy fellowship and communion with me do not stray from the rule of my word nor vary from the examples of those whom I gave for Shepherds to my People keep close to them to their Doctrine and to my Ordinances administred by them There thou shalt find me There I rest at noon These two verses thus opened afford us several Propositions of Doctrine as matter of further discourse Prop. 1. Christ is he and only he whom the believing Soul loveth Prop. 2. Though there may be a time when such a Soul may conceal and disown its love to Christ yet there will be a time when it will break forth and she will acknowledge it Prop. 3. A gracious Soul desireth nothing more then a quiet full and sweet communion with Christ Prop. 4. Christ hath shades where he resteth and feedeth his flock under the greatest and most scorching Afflictions Prop. 5. Though a pious Soul never slighteth a communion with Christ yet she never prizeth it at an higher rate then in an hour of greatest trials and temptations Prop. 6. Gods People will especially in times of trial and great temptation be prone to fall into sin and error to the scandal of their profession Prop. 7. Sin and Scandal are the two great things which a gracious Soulfears Prop. 8. The Believing Soul is of all other Souls the most beautiful in Christs Eyes Prop. 9. The Beauty of this Soul is not perfect it may in some things be ignorant Prop. 10. The surest way for a Soul to get a perfect instruction in the things that concern its spiritual good and to keep and to enjoy communion with Christ is to feed its self by the Tents of Christs Shepherds and to live according to the examples and directions of his holy Servants recorded in Holy Writ I begin with the first of which I shall speak but briefly Prop. 1. Jesus Christ is he whom the Soul loveth with a singular love I put in the term singular because as I told you the phrase imports it Love is nothing else but the adhaesion or cleaving of the Soul to an object out of a goodness and suitableness which it hath discerned in it with a complacency which the Soul taketh in it which is such as if the Soul wants it it desires it if it enjoyeth it it is glad and rejoyceth in it which being first considered it followeth that look how many objects as there are that have in them any goodness or suitableness to our state so many objects of our love there are in the world And 2. That look how much goodness and suitableness to us we apprehend in one object more than in another so much we love one thing more than another or one person more than another 2. There is also a love that floweth from Union and Relation of which we are not able to give a perfect account the Parent loves the Child and the Husband loves the Wife and the Wife the Husband not alwaies out of Judgment The Husband discerning in the Wife a suitableness to him is not alwaies the cause of love Nor is the Child's love to the Mother or Father alwaies rational flowing from an apprehension of the suitableness of the Parent to it but rather from an impetus of nature an unaccountable complacency in those whom God hath made correlates caused by the God of Nature who hath made them one flesh who so deliberately considereth this will easily understand a double reason of the Believers Love to Christ 1. The first is That Union which is betwixt the believing Soul and the Lord Jesus Christ which is wrought by Faith this produceth this second Union which is that of Love By Faith Christ is united to the Soul and becometh a member of his body and that is followed by this Union of Love The Soul in the same hour wherein it is united by Faith to Christ being taught of God to love the Lord Jesus Christ It 's a piece of its Regeneration which continually followeth Justification and is indeed coaevous with it so that as in the natural Union the same day the man becomes a Father or the Woman a Mother there is a new Emanation of affection and love the Man or Woman that before knew nothing of the heart of a Parent now begins to feel it and in the moral Union betwixt the Husband and Wife the same day that they are married to each other there floweth a reciprocal Affection each to other so as they then begin to know the heart of an Husband and a Wife of which they knew little or nothing before So it is upon the Spiritual Union as the God of Nature influenceth the Souls of persons whom he hath given one to another in natural and moral Relations ordinarily for a reciprocal usefulness one to another So the God of Grace influenceth the Soul put into a spiritual Relation to Christ That the Believer upon his Union with Christ doth find his heart cleaving to and taking a complacency in the Lord Jesus Christ and begins thus to know the heart of a Believer And look as it is in the moral Relation betwixt the Wife and the Husband though the Man may have heard such reports of the virtues and excellencies of the Woman before he hath married her as hath inforced from him a complacency in her yet this bears no proportion to that delight and complacency he taketh in her when she is once married to him So although a Soul upon the large discourses he hath heard of Christ and of his love to Mankind and what he hath done and is ready to do for the Souls of men may have some good thoughts of him and some kind of complacency in his thoughts of him yet there is a vast difference betwixt this and that complacency which the Soul taketh in Christ when it is once by Faith united to him and amongst other habits of grace hath that of Love to God infused into his Soul according to that Rom. 5. 5. The Love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us I know there is a Dispute raised by some whether the natural man's love to God differeth from the Believer's love to God specifically or only gradually I do not think that these spiritual habits fall under those logical measures I am sure it is a love flowing quite from another cause The natural man's love is no more than a natural Plant cultivated by reason the other 's is a fruit of the Spirit so as they differ further than gradually but whether we should call it specifically or no or want a Logical term to express the difference I shall not think it worth my time to enquire 2. A second Reason of the Believer's love and so
have a command more then another in it to make our addresses to God nor any to which any promise is made nor concerning which it can be said God hath in it more Manifested himself to People seeking him yet there are two sort of places in which we have more advantage then in others for a communion with God 1. Places of Solitude 2. Places where 2 or 3 meet together or a greater number of Gods People so meet to pray or in any manner to Worship God 1. The first give us advantage by freeing us from the noises business and distractions of the World hence you read of Jsaac's going into the field for meditation and our Saviour's going so often up to a mountain for Prayer Mar. 6. 46. Matth. 14. 23. 2. The second gives us advantage as from the promise of God made to the assemblies of his People so from the influence that the Affections of pious Souls in holy duties have one upon another of which it is an hard thing to give an account but it is no more then I believe any good Christian will find upon his or her experience that their hearts are otherwise affected when they are in a society of serious Christians praying to God or performing any acts of Worship then when they are alone Hence it is that you find serious Christians so covetous of opportunities to withdraw into their closets or when they may join with other serious and consciencious Christians in more publick Worship If any shall for the further explication of this notion ask me from whence a more full free and uninterrupted communion with God is to be adjudged and determined I answer shortly I have before told you That all communion speaks a mutual or reciprocal communication of two or more each to other God communicateth himself to the Soul in his influences of grace the Soul communicateth it self to God in the actings and exercises of its gracious habits so as the fulness freedom and more near communion with God is to be judged from several things 1. First from the attention of the Souls thoughts in the duty A Soul hath more or less communion with God in a duty as his thoughts more or less deviate and wander from the thing he is about When there is a meer bodily service performed either by the lips or knee or Eye the duty is but a mere formality the Soul hath no communion with God in it in Praying the man doth not Pray nor in hearing hear nor in singing sing As to this the best of Gods People must cry God be merciful to us sinners so that the degree of perfection attainable in this life as to this thing is but comparative some may have more of this attention then others or more at one time then at another but none is perfect in this thing Only the pious Soul as in other things so in this thing is striving after perfection pressing forward towards the mark and daily humbling himself for his imperfection and flying to Christs intercession and advocation and exercising faith on his more perfect righteousness A second thing wherein a fuller communion with God on the Souls part lyeth is fervency of Spirit this chiefly respecteth the duties of Prayer and Praise The effectual Prayer must be servent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Prayer which setteth the whole Soul on work and while we sing we must make melody in our hearts to the Lord Eph. 5. 19. Prayer is oft times in Scripture expressed under the notion of crying wrestling with God pouring out of the heart before the Lord Psal 142. 2. Psal 62. 8. David calleth this a pressing hard after God Psal 63. 8. some think it is a metaphor from hounds pursuing their game in view 3. A third thing is a Freedom of Spirit This is as I take it that which David calls largeness of heart Psal 119. v 32. I will run the way of thy commandments when thou shalt enlarge my heart There is no good man but findeth his heart more free to duty and in duty at one time then at another there is a straitness of heart which at some times is the great grievance and incumbrance of pious Souls it is caused sometimes from immoderate sorrow sometimes from fear sometimes from one cause sometimes from another but what ever the cause be it certainly abates the Souls communion with God at least its communications of it self to God And by consequence a freedom of Spirit a readiness of heart to duty with a liberty not of tongue onely but of Spirit also for without the latter the former is but hypocrisy advantageth and promoveth the Souls communion with God 4. A fourth thing which maketh the Souls communion with God more full is An ability more strongly to exercise its saith upon God without doubting whether it be in a stronger adherence or more firm persuasion 5. On Gods part the Souls communion is more full when it receiveth from God more influences of grace testifying his acceptance of the Souls addresses unto him or filling it with the sensible manifestations of his love or inabling it more fully to communicate it self unto God that it can be more attent in its thoughts more fervent in Spirit more free to and in its performances or exercise its faith more powerfully and strongly This I conceive to be enough to have spoken in the explication of the Proposition hinting you both wherein this more full and free communion with God is discernable and also what those times or places are where and when it may most ordinarily and probably be obtained which I conceive is the thing which the Spouse in the text expresseth her desire towards and which she begs that her beloved would instruct her as to That this is the desire of every good Christian appeareth 1. From its deprecation of those things which would hinder it and avoiding them so far as it can Those things that hinder it are 1. Intestine lusts and motions to sin Vanity of thoughts c. 2. Diabolical Suggestions Now there are no two things which the pious Soul more deprecateth then these two Worldly distractions Observe David how he bewailed his dwelling in Meshek And having his habitation in the tents of Kedar and how bitterly in three several Psalms he bewails his being banished from Hierusalem Psalm 42. Psal 84. Psal 63. So Psal 120. v. 5. How sadly doth St. Paul bewail his body of death Rom. 7. 24. 2. From its thirstings after times and opportunities of communion with God of which also you have instances in all the Psalms before mentioned Psal 86. 11. He prays for an heart united to fear the Lords name Psal 86. 11. And rejoiceth in a fixed heart Psal 57. 7. Psal 208. v. 1. Nor indeed can it possibly be otherwise as will appear to any Soul that understandeth what communion with God is That which is the object of any rational Souls desire must come under the notion of good and
green pastures for his flock in the day time and a secure fold for them at night yea and a fitting shadow for them at noon Christ doth so for his little flock to whom it 's his his Fathers and his will to give a Kingdom There shall be no want of those that fear him In the day time of their lives he feeds and protects them by his providence he nourisheth them by his ordinances and daily influences of grace In the night of death he folds their Bodies in the grave their Souls in Abrahams bosom It is the work of a Shepherd to provide and look out pasture for his sheep when that ordinary pasture is burnt up like a wilderness It is our great Shepherds work to provide feeding and resting places when either publick trials afflictions and persecutions debar them of their ordinary subsistence upon common providence or ordinary and more publick dispensations of publick ordinances and institutions the common food of their Souls But you will say to me what are these shadows from the heat these feeding and resting places which Christ hath provided wherein to feed and rest his flock at such a Noon 1. First he feedeth them upon the promises either more general or more specially suited to their particular trials Jeremiah saith Jer. 15. 16. I found thy words and did eat them and they were the joy and rejoicing of my heart Jeremy possibly there speaketh of the word of Prophecy which was as welcome to him as his meat But what was the word of Prophecy but the revelation of the will of God to him which when it was foretelling some judgment to come upon the People is more ordinarily called The Burden of the Lord The Believing Soul also in the Noon time of his Affliction and tryal finds the word of the Lord this he digesteth by faith and they become the joy and rejoycing of his heart By these things men live said Hezekiah some understand his affliction Others the promises of God made to him in the day of his Affliction The carnal heart understands not this food it is to him all one with feeding upon the air The promises are onely yea and Amen in Christ they are as shew bread of which none but the Royal Priest-hood can eat when the Child of God hath nothing else to eat he will yet feed upon a promise I had perisht saith David in my affliction if thy word had not been my delight Psal 119. v. 92. Latimer is said to have made his last meal upon that promise 1 Cor. 10. 13. Faithful is God who will not suffer us to be tempted above what we are able It is also reported of one Mr. Midgely a Minister in Yorkshire that being under horrid temptations to destroy himself and going once to the water side with design to do it carrying in his pocket the New Testament he paused a while to read a little and happily fell upon that text Mat. 1. 28. 29. Come unto me all you that are weary and heavy laden and I will ease you upon the reading of which he said to himself or to God rather sayest thou so I will not then drown my self yet The large field of the promises is one of those green pastures Where Christ at Noon feedeth his flock and maketh them to rest It is a feeding place which is at all times green the promises contain the Sure mercies of God He that liveth upon meer Sensible enjoyments feedeth but upon Grass and Flowers The Grass will wither and Flowers will fade But the word of the Lord abideth for Ever and there are some promises or others which sute the Soul in all its states and circumstances of Tryal and affliction 2. Secondly Christ sometimes feeds his flock at noon upon Special Providences And these are also of several sorts either of Protection from the Evil or Sustentation in and under trouble or deliverances out of trouble sometimes when thousands and ten thousands fall on their right and left hand The Plague shall not come nigh their dwellings according to the promise Psal 91. v. 7. In a time of famine Corn shall be fetched out of Egypt for Jacobs Family the Prophet shall be fed by a raven or the multiplying of the little meal in the widows barrel and the little Oyl in the cruse Sometimes they shall by some miraculous or at least inexpected waies and means be delivered out of trouble so were the three Children in the fiery fornace Daniel in the den of Lions of these there are multitudes of instances in Ecclesiastical History 3. Thirdly He sometimes feeds his People by Special influences either of strengthening or comforting grace In the multitude of my perplexing thoughts saith David thy comforts delight my Soul Psal 34. v. 19. As the sufferings of Christ abound in us saith the Apostle so our consolations abound by Christ 2 Corinth 1. 5. He will saith Job put strength into me Hence the Servants of God are inabled to rejoyce in tribulation under sicknesses have professed that they were never better and in great trials have rejoiced with a joy unspeakable Rejoycing in tribulation floweth not from the Tribulation For no affliction is joyous but grievous but from the influences of God upon the Soul in and under its tribulation Some one or other of these waies and means Christ feedeth his flock in a time of Trial and maketh them to rest in the Noon time of Trials and afflictions I proceed to the application of this discourse This in the first place commendeth the love of Christ to his little flock They say the Devil leaves the Witch when she is once in Gaol or upon trial for her life how true that is I cannot tell but certain it is that his Servants have no great help from him in an hour of straits and adversity this indeed speaks no love which never so much or so clearly shineth as through a Cloud of sad Providences Solomon tells us that a friend is made for an hour of adversity But herein is the Love of Christ manifested to those that have relation to him my Soul saith Mary Luk. 1. 4647. doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath rejoyced in God my Saviour for he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden Christ regardeth the low estate of his People he leaveth them not when they are in distress Isaiah 43. 1 2. Fear not for I have redeemed thee I have called thee by thy name when thou passest through the waters I will be with thee and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee when thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burnt neither shall the flame kindle upon thee For I am the Lord thy God the holy one of Israel thy Saviour This lets us see the wonderful difference betwixt the state and condition of believers and unbelievers The world hath no places where to make their flocks to rest at Noon The Devil takes no care for his flock at
and they will find at last that God will give men for them and People for their lives Possibly some will say to us but how shall we know these whom Christ calls the fairest amongst women if we knew them we should give a a due respect to them It is true the Apostle saith The world knoweth us not Nor can they perfectly know them for the Kings Daughter is glorious within saith the Psalmist But yet our Saviour tells you Math. 7. 16. By their fruits you shall know them do men gather grapes of Thorns or Figs of Thistles even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit Will you know what is good fruit see Gal. 5. 22. The fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace long suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness temperance against these there is no law No law of God Add to this Phil. 3. 3. We are the circumcision which Worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Jesus Christ and have no confidence in the flesh these are the true Jews that are such inwardly in the heart and in the Spirit and not in the letter whose praise is not of men but of God See you therefore any man or woman or any party of men and women in the World who disclaiming any confidence in the flesh any priviledges of birth or Church-state or the merits of any works they have done or can do place their hope for Salvation in Jesus Christ alone trust in him rejoyce in him and Worship God in the Spirit tho it may be not with those external rites and Ceremonies that you do nor under the same circumstances yet heartily Worship God according to the rules which God hath given them that Love God and have a love to all men though more especially to those that fear God and desire to live in Peace as much as in them lyes with all men that are gentle and meek not giving way to rude and boisterous Passions that are good in their behaviours temperate no drunkards no unclean Persons but squaring their lives by the rule of reason because it is also the law of God Let me tell you that against these there is no law No law of God which is the regula regulans the rule by which all the rules and laws of men must be guided or they are nullities and no rules at all These are those whom that God whom you own as your Creator and the great Lord of Heaven and Earth that Christ whom you call your Redeemer your Saviour and who most certainly shall be your Judge and give unto you at the last according to what you have done in the flesh calls the fairest amongst women the most beautiful and lovely Souls in the whole creation judge you whether you ought not so also to call so to account them so to deal with them These are the best men and women in your Cities Parishes c. Take â—reed of using hard Speeches concerning them God will for them execute Judgment as well as for ungodly deeds much more take heed of any hard actions against them he that toucheth them toucheth the apple of Gods Eye Zech. 2. 8. Deut. 32. 10. They have prayed with David Psal 17. 8. Keep me as the apple of thine Eye God hath said concerning them Zech. 2. 8. He that toucheth them toucheth the apple of his Eye Be wise now therefore O ye Princes be instructed O you men of the Earth whether great or small be assured Christ will revenge his Spouses quarrels even the quarrels of all those whom he judgeth the fairest amongst women Let none think to cover their malice against Religion and Godliness under pretences of executing humane Laws the Apostle saith against such is no law no law that will be justified by the law of God no law that will justify either the lawgivers in making it or the Executors in execution of it 1 Tim 1. 9. The law is not made for a righteous man but for the lawless and disobedient for the ungodly and for sinners for unholy and profane for Murderers of Fathers and Murderers of Mothers for Whoremongers for those who defile themselves with mankind for Man-Stealers for Lyars for perjured Persons and other things contrary to sound Doctrine The law that is the law of God is not made for them that is to punish afflict torment them it is made for them to live according to the rule of it It is made to protect them For rulers are not a terror to good works but the evil Rom. 13. 3. And all Magistrats ought to be Ministers of God to Christians for good Rom. 13. 4. Now all humane laws must be either in affirmance of the law of God and to force that or in civil things left to their power as they shall judge to be most for the publick Peace or necessary to uphold Nations and Polities O therefore take heed what you do lest you be found fighters against God Much less let any think to cover their malice with pretences that the Persons they run upon with such a rage are hypocrites Hypocrisy can be but in the heart when there is no contradiction in the conversation that man is no judge of But is it not possible to reconcile at least some part of the men of the World to those to whom the Lord Jesus Christ hath given such a Character Is he not a better Judge then men are Will you make your selves believe for a cloak for your rage that these men are not what they pretend to be I would ask you but one question are they not more righteous then you Are they not more in reading the Word Hearing Prayer Fasting and are not these things duties commanded in that Word which you own to be your rule and to be holy just and good are they not stricter in the observation of Sabbaths Which is so great a piece of Religion that the Prophet expresseth a great part of it under that notion Isa 56. 4 6. Into their hearts you cannot look but their Words are audible do not they fear an Oath more Do they swear and curse and Blaspheme like you or many others do they exceed Heathens Dii omnes deaeque te perdant by their Dammees do they rail and revile and lye like other men Do they drink and whore steal and murder gripe and oppress is not the contrary to this the beauty of a Soul in the Eye of humane reason You have therefore no reason to judge them none of those whom Christ calls the fairest amongst women you must own they are fairer then you or any of your converse and stamp You must find some in the World that are better then your selves or they must be the most comely and beautiful Souls Sirs I beseech you consider how much it becometh a man as a man to judge according to truth And what can be a better standard then the judgment of Christ O let not the People of
absurd and false are supposed in order to the forming of a true conclusion But in the Text it is certain that it doth Our Lord in saying If thou knowest not Supposeth that the Spouse might not know and therefore he directeth her in the latter part of the Text. It is certain that the term know in Scripture doth not alwaies signify the comprehending the thing spoken of in our understanding it sometimes signifieth to approve sometimes to attend to what we know sometimes to Experience I take here the first and most natural signification of the term to be the Sense If If thou knowest not that is if thou beest ignorant If thou beest at a loss At a loss for what I told you that to perfect the Sense we must supply something from the foregoing verse from the matter of the Spouses Petition She had desired him to tell her where he fed his flock where he made them to rest at noon Where she might have the best freest and least interrupted fellowship and communion with him especially in a time of great distress and affliction To this he answereth O thou fairest amongst Women If thou knowest not that is if thou knowest not where I feed my flocks nor where I make them to rest at noon Go thy way c. The words might lead me to a more general discourse of the imperfection of a believers state in this life Or to a more particular discourse concerning those grains of ignorance which may be allowed a gracious Soul But as the first is too general so the latter is too hard a task until the world be better agreed then it yet is about the number of fundamental truths necessary to be known and believed in order to Eternal life and Salvation Besides I think my Text considered as an answer to the preceding petition guides me to another thing The Spouses request was to be instructed how she might enjoy a full and free communion with her Lord especially in a time of trial and distress with reference to this petition her Lord answereth her If thou knowest not Supposing she might as to this at some times be ignorant and at a loss The Proposition is plain Prop. That even the best of Gods People the fairest amongst Women may sometimes be at a great loss where and how to maintain their desired communion with Christ I shall open the Proposition in three conclusions Then confirm and apply it 1. The Souls communion with Christ lyes in their reciprocal communications of themselves each to other All communion is made up of a mutual communication of two or more Persons I have discoursed the nature of communion largely in some of my former discourses and therefore shall say little of it now Onely I say all communion lyes in a mutual and reciprocal communication Thus two friends have communion each with other by frequent meetings together mutual discourses and communications of the Secrets of each others hearts one to another The Subjects in this communion are Souls clothed with bodies and their communion is bodily But now the Soul considered with Christ as its correlate in this communion are Spirits and their communion is more Spiritual The Soul performeth its part in it by the secret exercise of the powers God hath given it upon Christ as the object By Spiritual Meditations the exercise of faith love hope desire joy and delight c. By giving up its will to his will assenting to what he dictateth in his word consenting to what he there commandeth c. Christ communicates himself to the Soul by the secret influences of his Spirit opening and inlightening the understanding bowing and inclining the will influencing the affections convincing strengthening quickening comforting the Soul Indeed there is a more external communion with God but separated from this it signifieth nothing to the Souls advantage so we are said to have communion with God in reading and hearing his word praying receiving the Sacraments the Soul hath in these no further fellowship communion with God then it in them exerciseth these more inward powers in more external acts by the advantage of the bodily members so far as it poureth out itself to God in prayer by the words of the lips or opens its heart to God in hearing the word receiveth it with faith and love and meekness c. So far and no further hath the Soul in these duties any communion with God Nor doth God communicate himself to the Soul that is not made to believe and obey what it heareth further then to let it know his will with the advantage of such arguments as his Ministers are inabled to use by vertue of those gifts which he hath given them to fit them for their ministration 2. There can be no union between Christ and that Soul with whom Christ hath not a constant communion communion is the Daughter of union according to the nature of the union Wherever communion wholly ceaseth the union is dissolved Indeed where the communion is voluntary not from a natural cause there may be great differences in the degrees of it but wholly interrupted it cannot be hence God and Christ have a constant communion with the believing Soul this is by the Spirit of God given to them and dwelling and working in them and the seed of God abiding in them Our union with Christ is preserved by the same means by which it was at first made which was by Gods first communication of his power and goodness to the Soul and the Souls communication of itself by faith to him Thus the Vnion was first made between God and the Soul thus it is and must be maintained and upheld The reason why we say the Soul once in a state of grace cannot fall from it either finally or totally is not from the ability and certainty of their own wills however renewed and sanctified but from the more constant and certain influences of the Spirit of Grace which is given to the Soul dwelleth in it and worketh in it Christ hath not only promised to come to them that love him and keep his Commandments but to make his abode with him hence the union between Christ the Soul is not only compared to the moral union between the Husband and Wife Eph. 5. 30. but to the natural union between the Vine and the Branches John 15. 1. betwixt which while they remain united there is a constant communication and in very deed did not the Soul of a believer daily receive divine influences and communications it must wither and die as naturally as the Branch doth when the union is broken betwixt it and the Vine and this our Saviour teacheth us John 15. 4. As the Branch cannot bring forth fruit unless it abideth in the Vine so no more can you except you abide in me 3. Although the Souls communion with Christ can never be wholly interrupted and broken yet it may be more of less and sometimes indiscerned by the Soul I
at Peace with God All that can be said to relieve the Child of God under this complaint to ease him under this burden is this That this misery which befalleth him is but what is common to the very best of men it is a priviledge reserved for the Saints in glory to live in a not interrupted communion with God To be ever with the Lord beholding his face to live in the sense of such a constant communion with Christ as doth afford the Soul a perfect Satisfaction The sublunary Saint is often crying out Tell me O thou whom my Soul loveth where tho u feedest This dispensation indeed will speak thee sensibly miserable and sad but it will not speak thee to have no relation to Christ I shall shut up this discourse with a Word or two of exhortation Pleading with you to do what in you lies to avoid such a state and to keep your selves within the knowledg where Christ feedeth where he makes his flocks to rest at noon 1. Consider first That as the Spiritual life of any Soul lyes in its union and communion with Christ So the comfort of his life lyeth in his sense of this communion and knowledge how at all times and in all conditions to Support and to maintain it Our Saviour tells us that As the branch cannot bring forth fruit unless it abide in the Vine so neither can we except we abide in him John 15. 4. That Soul which hath no communion with Christ is as certainly dead as the body is that hath no communion with the head or the branch that hath no communion with the stock Now it is true Sense is not necessary to Spiritual life We live saith the Apostle by faith not by sight But the comfort of the Soul doth depend upon sense and knowledge it is true as to a Christians comfort not to live and not to know that we live are much the same thing as to its happiness it is not but I say as to his comfort it is What quiet can a Christian have in his breast what Peace in his conscience What joy in the Holy Ghost that feeleth no intercourses is sensible of no inward communion betwixt his Soul and Christ 2. Hence consider Secondly That to the waky Christian there is no greater misery upon the Earth then what ariseth from his apprehensions of his having no communion with Christ All the enjoyments of the World will be nothing of Satisfaction to such a Soul it is an evil Nullis medicabilis herbis I say with a waky soul it will be thus some Souls are in a profound sleep they never think of Eternity never consider their latter end they are ignorant and know not the relation that Christ hath to a State of Eternal happiness that as Eternal life is the gift of God so it is through Christ for that the Father hath given into his hands the Power of Eternal life and he giveth it to whomsoever he pleaseth Now these Souls though they have no fellowship no communion at all yet they have no misery no grief from it But I say to the Soul that is awake to consider the Grave the Eternity to which he is hastening 't is the greatest burden imaginable to lye under apprehensions that his fellowship is not with the Father and with the Son Jesus Christ 3. Thirdly consider that of all evils those lye heaviest and most sadly upon the Soul concerning which the man or woman is conscious that he himself hath been accessary to them and a cause of them Let a good Christian be at loss for his communion with God let the cause of it be what it will he is sad enough but if his heart smites him that he himself hath been the cause of it Oh! insupportable burden of that reflection he cannot bear the thoughts of his destroying his Soul by his own hands of this you may make an easy judgment by considering the frame of your Spirit under such accidents though of a much lighter nature it is sad enough for a man to lose his estate for a Mother to lose her Child but for the man to think that he lost his estate through his own supine negligence or for a Mother to think she hath been the death of her Child These are wounds healed usually with great difficulty So for a Soul to think it hath lost its communion with its dear Lord by its own supine negligence or any voluntary act of its own which it might have avoided This maketh a deep wound in the Soul But will some say what should what can we do to uphold our communion with Christ and to maintain a sense of it Let me here speak two words The first to such as have their beloved in view and do yet injoy desired communion with him 2. To such as have lost this view in order to their recovery of it To the first I say 1. Be much with him whom your Soul loveth What the Prophet said of Gods presence of Providence is as true concerning the presence of God in gracious influences 2. Chron. 15. 2. The Lord is with you while you are with him if you seek him he will be found of you Souls that are much with God seldom lose their sight of him ordinarily the Souls of men and women first withdraw the communications of themselves unto him through levity and wantonness then Christ withdraweth both in justice to punish in them that levity and in wisdom to make them to seek after him Hos 5. 15. I will go and return to my place until they acknowledge their offence and seek my face in their affliction they will seek me early That Soul is seldom or never at a loss to know where Christ feedeth his flocks that keepeth a constant correspondence with him Be much in Prayer especially secret Prayer much in Heavenly meditation and contemplation when the Spouse after her loss Cant. 3. 1 2 had found her beloved I held him saith she and would not let him go How doth the Soul hold Christ so as she will not let him go but by faith and constant and frequent acts of fellowship and communion with him 2. Secondly Take heed of grieving the holy Spirit It is the Apostles Counsel Eph. 4. 30. Grieve not the holy Spirit by which you are sealed to the day of Redemption We maintain our fellowship with Christ by the Spirit That takes of Christs and giveth to us and again it takes of ours and giveth to Christ by the Spirit we Pray by its assistance we exercise faith Love c. Christ by his Spirit communicateth himself to us and we by the Spirit do communicate our Souls to him Take heed therefore you grieve not this Spirit either by any presumptuous sinnings or by quenching its motions or resisting its operations Let every Knock every motion and impulse every impression of the holy Spirit be very valuable to and regardable in the Eyes of your Souls 3. Thirdly Maintain in
all his feeding in green and fat Pastures who when an Evil day comes and the Lord by his Providence calleth out to the World Who is on my side Who is afraid or ashamed to appear for God own his Truths and sacred Institutions Christ hath not compared us to Asses that couch under burdens but to a more generous sort of creatures to Horses to Horses in Pharaoh's Chariots Look upon your selves as such Be not like the cowardly Cur that runs away as soon as a Man takes but up a stone to throw at him We read of Christians in the Primitive times that they would expose themselves to their Tormentors telling them They were Christians In Queen Mary's time the Persecutors cursed the People of God and said They had a mind to burn Oh that Christians in these times had such a courage as the wicked Apostates and their most furious Adversaries might think that Christians in the defence of the Gospel had a mind to suffer whatever their wicked hands durst do against them Certainly he who hath given Christians the grace of fortitude and courage expecteth the exercise of it 2. But secondly This Doctrine calleth aloud to Christians for Unity Christ hath not compared us to Horses in a Field but in a Chariot where they are united Horses in Chariots draw by couples and that maketh their draught the more easie Oh that my head were a fountain of waters my eyes rivers of tears that I might weep day and night for the Divisions amongst the People of God This hath made almost every Horse draw singly and hath almost mired the Lord's Chariots 1. I beseech you consider how God's Enemies are united Gebal Ammon and Amalek Papists and Atheists are united in their opposition to Truth and Holiness against every person and everything which hath any thing of the stamp and impression of God upon it Is it not time for all Protestants to unite all such especially as are Christians not in name only but in deed and in truth It may be we cannot unite in every Principle or Ecclesiastical Practice we have different apprehensions and we cannot reconcile them Can we not forbear one another in love who hath made us more infallible than our Brethren 2. I beseech you consider what already have been the fruits of our breaches and disunion and what is likely to be the further issue of them if not in time prevented Popery is increased many absurd and blasphemous Opinions are propagated what will the end of these things be Shall we not be made a common prey pugnant singuli vincuntur universi while men fight singly they are overcome universally You that have any savour of the things of God upon your Souls that have sense of things and how dismal the state of them is and is like to be I beseech you lay these things to heart The whole Ministry of the Gospel the Ordinances of God are struck at One Truth of God is cryed down after another Lay these things to heart and while you are persuaded that your Brethren own the same common Faith with you and pursue the same common design of the glory of God and Holiness as the means to it give an allowance to them in some things wherein you differ do not arrogate Infallibility to your selves believe it is possible you also may be mistaken and though you are bound to live by your own Faith and walk according to your own Faith and Persuasion yet do not pronounce an Anathema against all that are not just of your size Lay aside your heats and animosities and your differences which are of far less moment than the whole Interest of Christ and his Gospel is I shall conclude my Discourse as the Apostle begins his second Chapter to the Philippians If therefore there be any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the Spirit if any bowels of mercy Let me add If any concern for the honour and glory of God or the Interest of Christ or Religion in the Nation fulfil the comparison of my Text and be you yet at last like a company of Horses in Pharaoh 's Chariots being like minded having the same love being of one accord and of one mind and do the same thing in bearing a joint Testimony for God Sermon XLIX Cant. 1. 10. Thy Cheeks are comely with rows of Jewels Thy neck with Chains of gold THE Blessed Lover in this song goes on yet in the commendation of his Spouse He had before commended her from her more inward beauty he had called her The fairest amongst women he had compared her to a Company of Horses in Pharaohs Chariots those Phrases had respect to her inward indowments He knoweth not how to leave he here goes on in her further commendation thy Cheeks are comely with rows of Jewels thy Neck with Chains of gold These Phrases speak Riches for Jewels and Gold are things of value and her beauty her artificial beauty For these are Ornaments supposed to add to the beauty and comeliness of the Person that wears them Only there is something looks a little odd according to the guise of our Country where Women use to wear ropes of Pearl about their Necks or Wrists or Jewels on their Breasts or in their Ears but how these should reflect a beauty on her Cheeks is hard to understand but we understand not the fashions of other Countries We read Isa 3. 21. Of Nose Jewels in use amongst the Jews which dressers of Women in our times would find hard to put on And if a way could be found for that we should judge them very strange Ornaments But let me first open the words Our translators add some Words here to compleat the sense In the Hebrew is no more then Thy Cheeks are comely with rows and thy Necks with Chains Our Interpreters not being able to conceive what rows except of Jewels could adorn the face have added these Words to the former part Nor able to conceive what Chains should adorn the Neck of a woman except of Gold or Pearls And having added 〈◊〉 to the former words they add here not of Pearl nor jewels but of Gold Neither are other Interpreters agreed about the translation of the other Words either as to the matter or form As to the form the Septuagint reads the Word as a question How comely are thy Cheeks But most other Interpreters read them positively and indicatively as we read them that difference is not much But there is yet a greater difference as to the matter of the words for the Seventy read it How fair are thy Cheeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as of a Turtle The Arabick and Vulgar Latin follow them The Syriack Interpreters translate it thy Cheeks are fair in thy locks Pagnin Montanus and most others read it according to the sense our translation puts upon it Let me at least attempt to reconcile this difference The Word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which unquestionably
and the further grace of God merited It is all given We will saies Christ make for thee The porro esse as well as the esse the aboundings as well as the first breathings and motions of Spiritual life are all from God 4. Lastly He speaketh in the Plural Number We will make This is either spoken Stylo Regio in the stile of a Prince Christ is a great King Or else as it is said Gen. 1. 26. Let us make man to denote the Plurality of Persons in the Divine Being and the concurrence of the whole Trinity in the collation of Grace and more Grace upon believers It is a rule in Divinity omnia opera Trinitatis adextra sunt indivisa All the works of the Trinity out of itself and with relation to the creatures are individed what is the Act of one Person is the work of all three Persons The Father created the Son createth and the Holy Ghost createth So in the works of Providence The Father worketh hitherto and the Son worketh This is eminently true in that noble work of Providence The Collation of special grace John 14. 23. If any man love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him and We will come unto him and make Our abode with him The Text being thus opened you see to what point in Divinity it leadeth us The Doctrine is this Prop. That Christ is ready to give out more grace more Spiritual Ornaments to the Souls of believers where he seeth the Cheeks of his Saints already comely with Rows of Jewels and their Necks with Chains of Gold he will still be preparing for them Chains of Gold with Spots of Silver To this purpose is the promise Matth. 13. 12. To him that hath shall be given and he shall have in more abundance It was the end of his coming into the World not only that his People might have life but that they might have it more abundantly John 10. 10. And he acteth in the dispensations of his grace according to and in fulfilling of the end of that his coming He giveth out pardoning grace abundantly Isaiah 55. 6 7. He will abundantly pardon even according to and much above the abundings of sin in the creature As sin hath abounded grace shall much more abound Rom. 5. And as sin reneweth so his gracious acts of pardoning are renewed also Sanctifying grace and that indeed is properly the Ornament of a believer he giveth abundantly He fills the Souls of his People with joy and peace in believing that their Souls may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost Rom. 15. 13. He maketh the Souls of his People to abound in loves hence the aboundings in this gracious habit are made the matter of the Apostles prayer 1 Thes 3. 12. They could not grow in grace if he were not alwaies ready to give out more grace for all Acts must proceed from habits and a growth and improvement in gracious Acts must flow from an increase of the power and principle of acting If any one asks the reason of this Liberality of Christ to his Spouse it is not hard to assign it 1. That fulness of Grace and Love which is in him is the great ground and cause of it what makes the loving Husband who knoweth that his Wife is already full stockt with Cloaths and Linnen and Rings and Jewels and other Ornaments that yet he can never go abroad but he must bring her home something to add to her stock in these things but only first he finds that his purse will hold out to it He hath wherewithal to do it 2. His Love and kindness to his Wife is such as constraineth him to it so as he can never think she hath enough and he is still giving to her as if she had nothing Christ is a fountain of fulness the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily and of his fulness saith John we receive grace for grace The full fountain runneth over neither doth he lose any thing by his communication while he giveth grace he is but like unto the Sun which loseth no light by imparting its light to the World Then his Love to his Saints is infinite transcendent he must not be outvyed by his creatures Doth therefore a loving Husband when his Wife hath already a competent wardrobe and a competent number of Ornaments yet add to her stores and so much to supply her wants as to shew his own Love and kindness to her How much more shall the Lord Jesus do it So that in this reason there are indeed three The first is that infinite fulness of grace that is in him which cannot terminate it self in him without a communication to the creature the Second is the nature of his communication which is such that he loseth nothing by it He saith we will make thee borders of Gold men and women are not so forward to give what they have aliunde from without themselves As what they have from themselves and are no losers by the communication of The term make doth not denote a non praeexistence All the Chains of Gold with which Christ adorneth his Spouse are coaevous with Christ himself given out in the pursuance of an Eternal purpose purchased with the blood of Christ but it signifieth that Christ hath them of his own And then thirdly His exceeding Love to his Spouse causeth the giving of them out It is said of Paul Acts 18. 5. That he was pressed in Spirit and Testified c. Christ is pressedin Spirit with Love to the believing Soul His heart is ravished as he afterward expresseth it in this song Thou â—ast ravished my heart my Sister my Spouse This love is the great and first moving cause of these communications as the loving husband that hath an estate which will bear it and a Wife wherein he greatly delighteth is alwaies giving her such things as he judgeth will be pleasing and acceptable unto her so our blessed Lord having first made his grace acceptable to the Soul and then loving that Soul that hungreth and thirsteth after him with a transcendent love cannot but be daily Satisfying such a Soul with his good things 2. A second Reason of this is the Renewing wants of his Spouse Love doth not giveâ—bare measure but sheweth it self further than in a bare supply of wants Ministring also to the pleasure and delight of the Person beloved but to wants and desires it cannot be wanting the Soul of a Christian through the revival of lusts and corruptions within itself and through the repetition of temptations and in regard of Gods various dispensations to it stands in need of the daily increase of grace Nogood Soul hath so much grace but it still wants A prudent husband though very loving and tender may judg his Wife hath Ornaments enough and therefore may cease to add to her stock though she may not have some particular Ornament because though she hath it not yet she
it listeth May not the King sit or rise up from his Table when he pleaseth I answer It is true that our God as to his manifestative presence with the Souls of his People governeth himself according to the good pleasure of his will and his own infinite and unsearchable wisdom The King oft-times riseth up from his Table when the Soul of his Child is able to give it self no account what distaste he hath taken nor what hath made him to go away from it and not to give out his influence as at other times but yet it is as true that at other times he withdraweth for the punishment of his Peoples sins either of Omission or Commission and there are some means to be used in order to the keeping of his presence with us upon the Omission or neglect of which he withdraweth and hideth his face and he ordinarily departech not from the Soul but upon some distast given to him I shall therefore conclude this discourse with a few directions given in order to the keeping ofhis presence with us To keep to the Metaphor here used there are four or five things which will make a serious and ingenuous Person make hast from a Table or depart from a place where he might have made a longer stay or abode 1. The frowardness or ill humour of his host 2. A discerned want of love or attendance 3. An ill intertainment 4. The dulness or unpleasantness of the company 5. A discerned slight or carelesness of his presence To avoid these 1. Take heed of grieving his holy Spirit quenching the motions of it Rev. 3. 20. Behold I stand at the door and knock if any man will open I will come in and sup with him and he shall sup with me O Christs coming in and supping with the Soul and allowing the Soul to sup with him signifies what is here in the Text expressed by the Kings sitting at his Table And the Spouses Spikenard sending forth the smell thereof now this dependeth upon the Souls opening when Christ stands at the door and knocketh he knocketh by the motions of his holy Spirit the Soul openeth by its willingness to receive imbrace and obey such motions the reason why this great King riseth up from his Table is because when he knocketh the Soul is not obedient to his motions he pipeth to the Soul and it doth not dance He mourneth to it and it doth not weep it doth not answer his motions to it according to the nature of them but denyeth delayeth or disputeth God telleth the presumptuous sinner Prov. 1. 24. That Because he hath called and he refused because he stretcheth out his hand and he doth not regard but he sets at nought all his Counsel and would none of his reproof he would laugh at their calamity and mock when their fear cometh c. As a Child of God cannot be guilty of sinning to such a degree as setting at nought all the Lords Counsel and refusing all his reproof So he cannot be under such a severe threatning as is there mentioned But as the Child of God may in some degrees be guilty of such sinning not hearkening to and obeying all the motions of Gods holy Spirit not receiving all its reproof So for this he may be punished in his measure by Gods withdrawings of his manifestative presence take therefore the Apostles Counsel Eph. 4. 30. And grieve not the holy Spirit whereby you are sealed unto the day of Redemption 2. Let this great King want no love no attendance no reverence nor obedience while he sits with you When Christ was at meat in the house of Simon the leper Mary brought a box of Spikenard and poured it on his head Mar. 14. 3. Christ sits still while the Ointment was poured out it was not the smell of the Spikenard but the love of her that brought it which made the room pleasant to him He stirred not from the Table at Marthas house so long as Mary sate at his feet and Martha served him Hear what he saith Job 14 23 If any man love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him Say you to all the powers and faculties of your Souls to all the members of your bodies as the Virgin Mary said to the Servants at the wedding in Cana of Galilee where Christ was present Joh. 2. 5. Whatsoever he saith unto you do it That is the way to keep him still sitting at his Table in your Soul 3. Take heed there come nothing to your Table that shall distast him Every ill smell of lnsts and corruptions will disturb him this made him to hate the Jewish feast days and not to smell in their Solemn assemblies Amos 5. 21. If you look into Isaiah 1. 11 12 13. Ch. 66. v. 3. Jer. 7. 8 9 10. You will see what sins will make him to rise up from his Table All formality and hypocrisy in your behaviour toward him all gross and Scandalous sinnings c. When in stead of wine he meets with the poison of Dragons instead of sweet grapes he meeteth with grapes of gall and clusters of wormwood he will not long sit at his Table in that Soul 4. Not only the apparent badness and rudeness but the dulness and unpleasantness of a company makes an ingenuous man rise up from his Table Take heed of heaviness and dulness inactivity and want of delight in your communion with God 5. Lastly As a discerned carelesness and slighting of a friends Company makes the stay of an ingenuous Person with his friend much shorter then it otherwise would have been So any careless slighty behaviour toward this great King may make his stay and abode with your Souls in the sensible manifestations of his love much shorter then it otherwise might have been He will be a welcome guest where-ever he abideth on the other side he doth not easily rise up or depart from a Table where the Soul inlargeth it self in testifying the gratefulness of his presence to it by offering him all the entertainment it can afford him giving up of it self to him daily importuning him not to leave him Thus you shall find our Spouse doing Cant. 3. 4. I found him whom my Soul loveth I held him and would not let him go untill I had brought him into my Mothers house and into the Chamber of her that conceived me Sermon LIII Canticles 1. 12. A bundle of Myrrh is my Beloved unto me he shall lie all night betwixt my Breasts YOU may by the Language spoken understand who it is that speaks it is the Spouse for she talks of her breasts Our business is to consider what she saith She hath already exprest her grateful sense of her beloveds presence with her and the advantage she had by it her graces cast a precious savour By the advantage of his company and influence She goes on still in the Language of one that loveth
him I remember what the Jews said for their Centurion He hath loved our Nation and built us a Synagogue this I am sure of Christ hath loved mankind he hath purchased salvation for some of them O my Soul if thou beest forgotten of God yet love him who would so far humble himself as to pity dust and ashes 2. Hence secondly No wonder if there be some love to Christ appearing in those who have no share nor interest in him It hath been the assertion of some that Common grace and special grace differ not specifically but gradually I think the assertion amongst understanding men but a contest of Logical terms I no way doubt of the truth of this That an unbeliever may love Christ in a sense But the Love of the Child of God vastly differs being an infused habit and of another species Whatsoever is presented to us under the Notion of good whether so really or apparently is plainly the proper object of our love Now such may Christ appear even to an unbeliever who is far from having tasted how good the Lord is hence even in a carnal man there may be desires after Christ good wishes to the interest of Christ upon the Earth yea and he may do much for the Service of Christ either from a general Notion of Christs excellency or 2dly which I should have mentioned before from a supposal that he hath as good a share and interest in Christ as any other though in this possibly he may be mistaken And this is very useful for us to consider that we may not build too great confidences from such desires which we find in our Souls or any such external actions without a due inquiry after their Principle But enough of this I come to the positive part of the Proposition 2. That there is a peculiar excellency in Christ which the believing Soul sees and savours and is not discernable to others My beloved saith the Spouse is a Cluster of Camphire unto me They said to her in 5th of this Song v. 9. What is thy beloved more then another beloved O thou fairest amongst women what is thy beloved more then anothers beloved that thou so strictly chargest us She answers v. 10. My beloved is white and ruddy the chiefest of ten thousand c. For the opening of this I will propound two questions 1. What are those peculiar excellencies which the believer sees in Christ more then another sees 2. How comes the believing Soul to be more eagle eyed then his neighbour To the first 1. The believer sees further into the heighths and depths of redeeming love in the general then another man doth The heighth of redeeming love is too great for a reasonable man to take the Astronomer is lost at taking the heighth of this Star we must be strengthned with might by the Spirit in the inward man Christ must dwell in our hearts by saith and we must be rooted and grounded in love before we shall be able with all Saints to comprehend what is the breadth length and depth and heighth and know the Love of Christ which passeth knowledge The unbeliever living under the light of the Gospel is like the blind man whose Eyes Christ hath once touched and he seeth something of he excellency of Christ but alas he seeth men like trees Christ must touch him again before he sees things clearly the believer seeth Christ as another thing to what the unbeliever seeth 2. The believer discerns a particular respect of Christ to his Soul Ah this this is it which makes Christ as a Cluster of Camphire it is sweet to a rational Soul to see a Saviour Buâ— infinitly sweet for it to see him as its Saviour to cry out my Lord my God Propriety in a good sweetens it infinitly unto a Soul the believer sees Christ as his Christ his Saviour It is sweet to poor Creatures who are so far enlightened as to see the World lyeth in darkness to know that he is the true light enlightning all that come into the World but infinitly more sweet to the Soul when it sees that he hath enlightened it in particular A good woman to a reasonable man is pâ—etious and he loves her quatenus good and vertuous but if she becomes his Wife that strangely indears her to him and shews her a peculiar excellency in him 'T is sweet to a reasonable man that is enlightened to see that all the Sons of Adam are by nature under misery to see that Christ came to Redeem them from this misery and Curse but how sweet must it be for this Soul to apprehend that he hath redeemed it in particular from this misery I shall not need to enlarge further upon this which in so plain Doth any ask Qu. 2. Whence it is that the believing Soul seeth such a peculiar sweetness and excellency in Christ I answer 1. From that special illumination which attends regeneration There is a Common illumination and there is a special illumination the Common illumination is the work of Gods Spirit concurring with the Preaching of the Gospel inabling men to understand and give some general assent to what is there revealed but when the Lord comes to deal savingly with the Soul it opens the Eyes of the Soul to a fuller clearer and more certain sight of Gospel mysteries 1 Cor. 2. 10. God revealeth to his Saints by his Spirit those things which the Princes of the World though they heard the Gospel never knew what things Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard nor can it enter into the heart to conceive A Commonly enlightned Soul upon the Preaching of the Gospel may see the same things that a believer sees that Christ died c. But it sees them not so fully and clearly as upon special saving illuminations when the Spirit dealeth with the Soul as it were by demonstration and gives it to see a Christ crucified as it were before its Eyes There are two things especially which the Soul upon conversion doth doubtless see after a quite other manner then it saw them before conversion 1. The sinfulness and mischief of sin A man meerly reasonable may see the ugliness and sinfulness of some sins such as are contrary to the light of nature c. A man Commonly enlightned may see more of the sinfulness and danger both of these and of other sins but when the Spirit of God cometh savingly to work in the Soul it seeth the sinfulness and danger even of these sins after another manner sin then becomes exceeding sinful Rom. 7. 13. It then thinks it sees Hell fire before it and is dropping into it and so hath a clearer sight of the danger of it 2. The excellency of Christ is doubtless seen by it too after another manner Of this there needs no greater evidence than the Souls strange workings of affections towards him its groanings after him longings for an interest in him c. 2. This proceeds also from the Souls
the pleasure she hath by the thoughts of him when he is present Qu. 2. What diligence doest thou use to preserve the sweet savour of Christ unto and upon thy Soul Christ considered in himself is not like a flower that may lose its scent and sweetness no he cannot lose that sweetness which is essential to him he would cease to be Christ if he could cease to be sweet to a lost and and undone Soul but although he retains his sweetness yet thou mayest lose thy savour of it He may not be sweet to thee There are two sorts of Souls who savour very little of Christs sweetness 1. The Soul that lies under guilt of sin the thoughts of Christ to that Soul are ordinarily very terrible 2. The Soul that is choaked with Worldly Incumbrances The freer the Soul can keep it self from distracting cares for the World or from the renewing guilt of sin the sweeter will the thoughts of Christ be unto it Now if Christ be as a Cluster of Copher to the Soul It will be very careful to preserve the sweet savour that it hath of him And by this thou shalt know if Christ be indeed to thee as a Bundle of Myrrh or a Cluster of Copher But thus much shall serve to have spoken to this verse Sermon LVII Cant. 1. 15. Behold thou art fair Behold thou at fair thou hast Doves Eyes THere is a great harmony of Interpreters in the version of the words of this Text out of the Heb. into their several Languages excepting only that what we according to our dialect translate My Love they translate sometimes My Neighbour or My Kinswoman or My Companion for which you also perceive our Margents give an allowance and that some translate a Dove some Doves Eyes and the Arabick differing from all thy Eyes are as a pair of Doves There is no other difference And this is so inconsiderable that I shall spend no time in indeavouring to reconcile it All Interpreters agree that it is the Bridegroom which now speaketh He who acteth that part I mean in this Song The Lord Jesus Christ The Person he speaketh to and of is the believing Soul which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My beloved or My Campanion c. It is of the Foeminine form in the Hebrew which is that which leads Interpreters to conclude that it is the Spouses speech It is a word often used in this form in this Song and I think no where else so in all the Scripture In the sentence you have considerable 1. The matter of it in two Propositions Thou art fair thou hast Doves Eyes 2. The manner of expressing it 1. The words are doubled Thou art fair Thou art fair 2. Here is a double Ecce Prefixed Behold Behold There are in the Text 2. Propositions 1. The Spouse of Christ is fair 2. The Spouse of Christ hath Doves Eyes 1. Prop. The Spouse of the Lord Jesus Christ is fair The believing Soul is a beautiful Soul to the main of this Proposition I have very lately spoken when I spake to the compellation v. 8. where Christ had called her the fairest among Women I then discoursed the Nature of her beauty and shewed you 1. That it was not a corporeal but a Spiritual beauty 2. Not a visible but an invisible beauty 3. Not a Native but an adventitious beauty 4. Not an artificial but a created beauty 5. Not an adherent beauty only but an inherent beauty also 6. A desirable beauty 7. A durable beauty 8. Not a perfect beauty And having spoken so fully to it there where also the same word is used I intend not to repeat it here only I shall take notice of some circumstances by which the Proposition is advantaged in this Text. And They are four or five 1. He had told her before She was the fairest amongst Women Not satisfied with that he repeateth his Love to her again and telleth her she is fair she is fair 2. The Soul had been commending Christ that he was as a bundle of Myrrh as a Cluster of Camphire to her Christ upon her expressing affection to him replies Behold thou art fair c. 3. When he calls her Fair he adds My Love Thou art fair my Love 4. It is not barely exprest Thou art fair but here is an Ecce prefixed Behold thou art fair 5. Lastly He doth not speak it singly But he doubles his words Thou art fair Thou art fair and the term Behold is repeated too Behold thou art fair Behold Thou art fair Here is none of these five circumstances but will afford us a meditation which will be either informative or sweet or profitable to us Give me leave therefore to speak a word to each of them He had told the Spouse before she was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fairest amongst Women But not Satisfied with that he tells her again Thou art fair my Love Thou art fair Christ doth not only speak peace but he repeats peace to the believers Soul God often appears to Abraham and Jacob to assure them that he was their God Once have I spoken and twice have I heard it saith the Psalmist that Power belongs unto God There is many a Soul that can say Once hath God spoken yea twice have I heard it that the Love of God belongs to me There is many a Christian that can say In such an Ordinance I heard God speaking peace at such a time I found this Spirit witnessing with my Spirit that I was his Child Christ in this consulteth 1. His Peoples infirmities 2. His own glory 1. Christ I say in this thing consulteth 1. His Peoples infirmities They are many which make them need this two chiefly 1. The Believers Soul is dull of hearing The Apostle chargeth the Hebrews Heb. 5. 11. That they were dull of hearing which made the repeating fundamental truths necessary for them There 's nothing in the World that a gracious heart would more gladly hear then this that it is fair in the Eyes of Jesus Christ and yet nothing that it is more dull to hear the reason is because it so eagerly desires it and prizeth it so highly that it cries out It is too good news to be true You shall observe in the World a double disposition in men some are disposed almost wholly to fear others to over much confidence Hence at such a time of changes in the state as this is one man be a thing never so true and to his mind yet he hardly believes he is naturally disposed to fear the worst Other men let things be never so improbable yet they will hope and talk as confidently as if the thing they would have were done It is much from their natural temper they are disposed to confidence c. Take now an unbelieving natural man and he is disposed to bless himself and hope well of his condition you have his copy Deut. 29. 19 20. He saith I shall have peace though I walk