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A35541
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The nature and principles of love, as the end of the commandment declared in some of the last sermons of Mr. Joseph Caryl ; with an epistle prefixed by John Owen ...
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Caryl, Joseph, 1602-1673.
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1673
(1673)
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Wing C781; ESTC R4133
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44,437
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144
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of God in all the Cities of men where ever it hath an open chanel and a free course By what hath been said beloved you may perceive what my work the Lord assisting is like to be in handling this Scripture namely to discover to you that Love or Charity which is the end of the Commandment and chiefly indeed to discover to you those blessed springs A pure heart a good conscience and faith unfeigned out of which that charity flows and by which it must be fed day by day And this will I do if God permit But at the present I shall wave all these particulars and speak to one General Point as I hinted before raised from the whole Context and of this Verse or from all the particulars of it laid together and the Point of Doctrine is this DOCT. Those works of Love of Love to man much more of Love to God which are the end of the Commandment must flow from a good spring from a gracious Principle or a Principle of Grace This Point is very plain in the Text plainly collected from it For saith the Apostle Love out of a pure heart and the like Now that pure heart I shall shew clearly afterwards if the Lord bring me to it that the pure heart is a gratious heart So that the Love must flow from a principle of Grace There are three things especially in which the Completion the full Constitution and making up of a good work whether towards God or man doth consist and they must all three concur in the business Evil arises out of any single defect in that which is required Bonum oritur exiâ—te ra cansa malum ex qâ—olibet defectu But a good action must have a concurrence of all things requisite thereunto I name only these three First That the work may be good we must What required to a good work be sure that the matter of it be good It must be good in it self as being according to Rule And It must be good in the mind and in understanding of him that doth it for to do that which is good we not knowing and understanding it to be good or not being perswaded that it is good that action is not good to us Yea the Apostle tells you It is sin whatsoever is not of faith and there he speaks not of justifying faith but of perswading faith what ever is not of faith is sin And 't is possible for one that is in a justified state or one that hath justifying faith yet not to do a thing with a perswading faith and so it may be sin to him That 's one thing Secondly The aim or the end of the work must be good and among all ends that are good the chief and that which can never be left out is the glory of God Matth. 5. 16. Let your light so shine before men that they seeing your good works your works of Love may glorifie your Father which is in Heaven Not glorifie your self not set up self 'T was the setting up of self or the making self the end which corrupted and poisoned all those materially good very good actions of the Pharisees even their alms giving their praying their fasting as you may read at large in Mat. 6. 1 5 16. and those that follow The End doth denominate the action It must have a good end else though the matter be never so good the work is not good Thirdly Which is the matter in hand The Principle or spring of the work must be good 'T is possible for one to do a work that 's good for the matter of it and to have some good ends in it and yet not to do it out of a right principle and this is it which the Text and Doctrine speaks unless the Principle be good the work 's not good As the Fountain is such are the streams that come from it As the Tree is such is the fruit that grows upon it Do men gather Grapes of Thorns or Figs of Thistles Matth. 7. 16. Why the Thorn hath not a Principle in Nature to put forth a Grape the Thistle hath not a Principle in Nature to put forth a Figg and therefore saith Christ A corrupt Tree cannot bring forth good fruit Which words of Christ as they are primarily to be understood concerning false Prophets and their Doctrine so they may be truly applyed to all false professors and their ends they being corrupt they cannot bring forth good fruit If you would draw out of a vessel which is unseasoned or ill scented the liquor will taste of the Cask Now we all by nature are unseasoned yea we are ill scented vessels therefore the liquor that which passes from us considered so must needs have an ill scent an ill taste And hence that cutting question of Christ to the Pharisees Matth. 12. 34. O Generation of Vipers how can ye being evil speak good things They might possibly speak good for the matter Bad men wil often tip their tongues with good words and appear Chrysostom's Golden mouth'd speakers when their hearts are nothing but brass and dross But usually evil men speak evil that which is evil for the matter Their throats are an open sepulchre the poyson of Asps is under their lips as the Apostle speaks quoting it from the Psalms in Rom. 3. 13. And as they usually and naturally for that 's their natural Language speak evil so they always mar the good they speak either by their ill manner of speaking it or by their ill meaning in speaking it As the Devil when he made a confession of Christ and said he was the Son of the most high God it was a confession like that of St. Peter which Christ calls the Rock upon which the Church is built the Devil spake it out of a base intent and the efore Christ threw it away and rebuked him for it So evil men they spoil good speaking with their ill manner of speaking or their ill meaning in speaking and therefore Solomon hath that expression in Prov. 26. 7. As the leggs of the lame are not equal so is a Parable in the mouth of fools A Parable there notes a Divine saying a ruling word a commanding word that 's a Parable a word that should reign over us so saith he a Parable a divine saying in the mouth of a fool are like the leggs of the lame Good words do as it were lisp in the mouth of a bad man and his heart never keeps pace with his Tongue Thus you see Christ saith evil men cannot speak that which is good they cannot speak to the purpose fully now as they that are evil cannot speak so neither can they do good things answerable to the rule or pleasing unto God I do not say they cannot do good things but they cannot do good things answerable to the rule or pleasing unto God And that 's the Apostles conclusion Rom. 8. 8. after a further discourse he comes with his so then here
And that 's the third Use which I shall briefly make of this point and so I shall conclude Use 3. Is it so That those good works that flow from a good Principle are pleasing to God Why then we see the necessity of Regeneration Christ saith in 3 John 3. Verily verily There 's a strong and a double asseveration Verily verily I say unto you except a man be born again he cannot enter into the kingdom of God We are not born with this pure heart with this good conscience with this faith unfeigned which are the requisites to a good work in the Text. We are not born with these for Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean Not one Not one among the sons of men Job 14. 4. A pure heart a good conscience faith unfeigned are the issues of the new birth Education cannot make the heart pure It must be Revelation which makes the heart pure Good Education it may change the Life and the Conversation As they say To study Arts and Philosophy it takes off the roughness that is in mans nature didicisse fideliter dâ—tes Emollit mores and doth smooth them and frame them very much for excellent uses Good literature and education it may civilize but it cannot spiritualize It may change a mans course but it cannot change his nature that 's only done by Regeneration Now I say a mans state his nature must be changed he must have a pure heart which we never have till our natures are changed He must be good before he can do good spiritually Mark that word of the Apostle Ephes 2. 10. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them Mark it here are good works But how do we come to these good works Why We are his workmanship saith he we are his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God works us before we can work for him he makes us good before we can do good Saith he We are his workmanship And then created or so created in Christ Jesus to good works We by union to Jesus Christ come to have a spiritual principle to carry us out in the doing of all good works Here 's your way You must be Gods workmanship before you can do Gods work You must be new creatures created in Christ Jesus unto good works before you can do them A Crab-tree will never yield pleasant fruit untill you change the nature of it Take a Crab-tree and plant it in the best soil that you have and water it and dress it and prune it as much as you can yet this Crab-tree will bear nothing but Crabs sowre fruit till you come to graft it and then your grafting of it doth change the nature of the stock and it hath another principle and so then it brings forth good fruit So it is in this case Take the best natured man in the world plant him in the best soil in the best ground in Church-ground plant him in the house of God and there let him be watered by the â—ain of holy Doctrine and let him be dâ—â—â—t and cultivated every day 〈…〉 â—ill bâ—ing forth nothing 〈…〉 nothing but unsavoury fruit till he himself be changed Though he be under all those spiritual means yet till those means have wrought effectually in him his actions are all unsavoury 'T is only by our implantation into Jesus Christ that we become fit to do good so as is acceptable unto God 'T is this that makes the change For as in nature the graft doth change the stock so in grace the stock doth change the grafted branch As we are grafted into Christ he changes the branch being planted into Christ by the power of the Spirit we are then made like him and then we bring forth fruits of righteousness which are to the glory of God by him Mark the expression Being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Christ That is by vertue of union with Christ of implantation and ingrafture into Christ When once it is thus then all your fruits are sweet fruit and pleasant fruit it is well tasted Why it is done First From a principle of life in Christ And Secondly It is done from a principle of Love unto Christ and then when your works whether respecting God or man are thus done then they are the fulfilling and the final end of the Commandment For then they come from the pure heart Of which hereafter if God will I may speak And so much at the present of the point in General That until there be a good Principle there cannot be a good work SERMON II. Jan. 6. 1672. 1 TIM 1. 5. Now the end of the Commandment is Charity out of a pure heart and of a good Conscience and of Faith unfeigned HAving shewed that every good work which is to answer to the Commandment of God must flow from a good spring I shall now come to speak of the springs from whence they flow Beginning with that which is first in the Text A pure heart The end of the Commandment is charity out of a pure heart A pure heart is the point I am now to speak to and the matter I am to make discovery about It being in order in this Text the first of those three most blessed springs out of which all duties well pleasing unto God must proceed A pure heart Two things are here to be spoken to First What is meant by heart And Secondly What by purity of heart And so put both together A pure heart For the first I need not stay to spend time to shew you what is meant by the heart It being that which you have so often heard By heart the Scripture often intends the whole inner man And sometimes it intends some special faculties of the inner man The understanding is noted by the heart the will by the heart the affections by the heart the conscience by the heart And in this large sense we are to take the word heart here only bating the reference of it unto Conscience which is spoken of as the second distinct spring from whence good actions flow The heart then here is the understanding the will the affections Indeed what ever lyes in the bosome of man you may call his heart Yet I shall not prosecute the point in this distinctness of these particular faculties of the soul shewing how the understanding is pure which is by its freedome from error and clear light in divine truths How the Will is pure which is by its freedom from the bondage from the obstinacy and rebellion which doth naturally wholly possess it and by having a freedome in choosing good and refusing that which is evil Nor shall I stay strictly to shew what the purity of the affections is namely their freedom from all inordinacy and irregularity either as to the object upon which they are fixt or as to the measure and degree in which they