Forty Sermons, Sermon 14
SERMON XIV. THE CHRISTIANS LIGHT is to shine before men.
Matt. 5. 16.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.
THE words have two parts, a command and a reason of it: the command, Let your light shine before men; the reason, That they may see your good works &c.
The command affords to us this instruction; the life of a Christian is to be fruitful and exemplary. Both these are commanded not onelyonly in the command it self, but proved in the reason, That they may see your good works: there must therefore be works, which are the fruits of virtue. Yea and fruitfulness is every where requir'd by Christ, and if we look upon the current of Scripture and our duty, we shall find that it will not serve a Christian's turn not to bring forth ill fruit, to be onelyonly barren ground, not to have vices bud and sprout within us and grow with an increase of sin; but we must do good. In the Parable of the Sower Matt. 13. 23. But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word and understandeth it, which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth some an hundred fold. We are gods Husbandry, 1 Cor. 3. 9. Now is any of you satisfied with his field, because it plows well and receives the seed most kindly, if it bring you no increase or crop, yield you no harvest? No, saith the Author to the Hebrews c. 6. 8. such ground is nigh to cursing. Why your works they are your crop, your harvest; and when God shall send forth his Reapers, the Angels, if they can find no returns of all God's cultivating you, but all his husbandry, his seedness, and his pains too have bin lost upon you, no increase, but onelyonly barreness, your end is to be burnt; or onelyonly tares, they are to be cast into a furnace of fire, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, Matt. 13. 42. And in like manner by the Parable of fruit treesaMatt. 3. 8, 10. John Baptist, Bring forth fruits meet for repentance; for the ax is laid to the root of the trees, therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewen down, and cast into the fire. And David describing his blessed man Psalm 1. does it, first by shewing he does not bring forth ill fruit. But neither will that serve turn to hear and meditate and talk of the word of God, and not to do it. It is the very same thing as a wilderness upon the water side, a dead barren tree upon the River's bank. No his man is like a tree planted by the rivers of waters, that brings forth his fruit in due season. We are God's Vineyard, Isaiah 5. and he tells us there, what pains he hath bestow'd upon us, v. 2. He fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest Vines &c. v. 4. What could have bin don more to my Vineyard, that I have not don unto it? Now if we do not bring forth grapes, Go to, saith God v. 5, 6. I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard, I will take away the hedg thereof, and it shall be eaten up; break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down. And I will lay it wast, it shall not be pruned nor digged, but there shall come up briars and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. Yea God did not onelyonly lay wast his Vineyard in that Isaiah 5. because it brought forth sower and wild fruit, but our Savior in the Gospel curst a Fig-tree, because it brought forth no fruit. And indeed that barren Fig-tree was the onelyonly thing upon the earth that ever Christ did curse, all his Miracles were mercies, but that. An unfruitful Christian is such a thing a Savior hath no mercy for; a mere negative virtue hath so little claim to Heaven, that it cannot escape the curse of a Jesus.
And shall we apply this, first to the conviction of their opinions, who think if they lie under no gross customs, if they be not tainted with any foul commissions, they are then in a safe condition? What if they forgive no wrong, why they will do none, and so who shall lay any thing to their charge? Pardon they will not any minute offence, because they avoid the wanting it from others; and they will not hate nor malice, tho they cannot have the bowels of of love, no fellowship of Christian kindness: they have no foul unclean heats, nor no devout ones; no ardencies of lust, nor yet of zeal: so they do not blaspheme God by daily oaths, make no matter of worshipping him by daily Praiers; and if his holy name be not in their execrations, 'tis well enough tho he be not in their Petitions. No tho they go a little further, and besides their doing no gross ills have great Professions of Religion, they have all the leaves and foliage of a Christian, they make a fair shell of Piety, take abundance of pains to do all those things that are to stile them great Professors, plenty of hearing, and abundance of talking, but no doing: if you search the leaves you find no fruit, no constant tenor of good works in every kind of Christian duty; these are but too obvious stratagems of Satan and our deceitful hearts to make us satisfy our selves, either with our condition, tho our Piety look no further than to do no ill, and the positive part of Religion be altogether unregarded by us; or tho we have no more of it, but the Profession. O my Brethren, as to these last remember that the curst Fig-tree had leaves, had fair shew enough to bait our Savior's hunger, and promise him refreshment, and temt him out of the way to it: and to the other, hath God autority onelyonly to forbid, can he command nothing from us? Are we content onelyonly to abstain from something for his sake, but will not do any thing for his, nor Heaven's sake? Is not his Worship as dear to him as our lusts are hurtful to him, and hath he not as much reason to require that we should be devout and holy, as that we should not be profance and filthy? Can all his mercies, all his rewards neither procure nor deserve more of us, than onelyonly not to serve the Devil? Surely, my Beloved, both these sorts of Christians shall find, that in the catalogue of sins to be accounted for, omissions shall be reckon'd, when our Savior comes to pass his sentence at the dreadful day of Judgment. See the tenor of it,bMatt. 25. 41, 42. Go ye cursed, for when I was hungry, ye gave me no meat. 'Tis not ye shall be damn'd because ye stript me, and because ye starved me, but because ye did not relieve me. And 'tis so in the other, not bringing forth fruit, not doing fills up the sentence of final malediction.
But the sadder conviction of this is for the practice of those that are nothing but commissions, whose vice is positive, men that cleanse themselves from holiness, and go on daily perfecting filthiness. If the man, Matt. 25. that received the one Talent, and laid it up safe in a Napkin, and did no ill with, yet because he did no good, was therefore cast into utter darkness, whither, think you, had he bin cast, if he had made that Talent the instrument of his sin, if like the Prodigal he had spent it upon harlots, or upon excesses? And whither shall they be doom'd, who do so? If it be not enough to abstain from sin, what will become of them that do little else but act it? If not to do pass sentence, how will to commit condemn? and if the half righteous shall not be saved,c1 Pet. 4. 18. where shall the ungodly and sinner appear? If the tree with leaves, that was green in foliage be curst, shall not the dry and rotten one be burnt? Alas for these men, what a long stage of duty have they to go thro (if they do intend in this life ever to be better) who have not yet set forth, have entred upon any part; who have not dRom. 13. 12.cast off the works of darkness, which yet, when they have don, they have but half, they must put on the armor of light, such too as will shine: they must be fruitful and exemplary.
And this second quality is indeed the great design of this Text, which hath more force in it than that of a single command; for the verse is a conclusion following upon the three former. He tells them that they are Salt, and Sun, and a City, and a Candle, things that are visible or else diffusive of their vertues, and then concludes Let your light, or rather, So let your light, as a candle gives light unto all that are in the house; So do ye, Let your light shine hefore men.
Light is set here for Christian Holiness and Purity, as I shall shew you; and that most fitly, because nothing so pure as Light, clear as shine and noon-day, nor nothing so diffusive, it shews it self to all: so that the thing meant by it, is an open visible Holiness of Conversation.
Or secondly more especially to represent the Purity of a Christian Life; Light is so clear, that it is set to express the very Holiness of God himself 1 John 1. 5. This then is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you, that God is Light, and in him is no darkness at all. And indeed Light was the very first emanation of God in theeGen. 1. 3. Creation, he said first, let there be light. And it is the most spiritual and pure of all visible corporeal beings, its motions seem instantaneous, and by a kind of omnipresence it fills the medium, and appears entire in every part of it: yea farther, it is not liable to stain or sulliage, sun-shine is as bright upon a Cottage as a Palace, a dung-hill as a bed of Roses; you may extinguish light, but not defile it. No expression comes near the clearness of light, and this our Holiness is to strive after.
But thirdly, most of all to represent the open visibility of Christian virtue. Nothing is so easily seen as Light, for indeed nothing can be seen but by it: in a moment it will scatter it self over the whole Hemisphere; yea Heaven it self does not bound the Sun-shine, and it passes thro the Firmament. Even so diffusive should our Piety be, shining before men, and like the Sun's light too spreading into Heaven, shining before Angels, and making them rejoice. A Christian is not to suffer any man to walk in the dark either of ignorance or of sin, whom his knowledg or example may recover; he must instruct and enlighten the mind, he must reform and enlighten the will and the affections. His pious actions must be always shining in his eyes to guide and stir him up, and every one must be Christ's star to lead to him. They that be wise, saith Daniel c. 12. 3. shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever. Yea they are to shine so as they may turn many, that shining being both their glory and their duty. And St Paul tells how they are to shine Phil. 2. 15. Be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world. All men look upon you, and therefore you are to give them good example. They are as watch-towers upon the sea, that have lights placed in them to guide the Mariners into safe harbor, to teach them how to shun the rocks: and this they are to do both by their own practice and by reproof. Eph. 5. 11, 13. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. But all things that are reproved, are made manifest by the light. When those foul acts that are don of them in secret, are reproved by a man that hath this Divine Light in him, then it appears how foul and wicked they are, which the darkness of their souls would not let them see. John 3. 20. it is set down as the property of light to reprove evil deeds by discovering to them the ugliness of their courses, and shewing the fair example of a contrary life, to turn them from the evil of their ways. This is to let their light shine before men.
Another expression is of a Candle v. 15. of which the ground is the same with that of the other, the Light of the world, onelyonly the Type sinks a little. The Light there had a larger Sphere; for the Sun gives shine to all the world, but the Candle here gives light but unto all that are in the house, as our Savior words it, or at least that are in the room. Now this Emblem was also very necessary: the greatest part of men are of a lower rank and emploiment than their example should have influence upon very many, or that their actions should be called Sunshine; the acts of their calling are low, and so are those of their Piety and Religion, not considerable enough to be view'd or look'd upon by many others; they are not any thing notably, and how then can they be exemplary in their lives? They are too much clouded both in their fortunes and their emploiments and their faculties to send forth any Raies, they cannot shine. Why yet for these our Savior hath a Type here in his Sermon, as also a great part of his life was the very practice of this exemplariness in a very low and ordinary condition. From the time that he disputed with the Doctors at twelve years old, the shine and glory of which action may seem enough to have temted one to shew forth his light in an eminent manner, to have presently undertaken emploiments, wherein he might have bin seen; yet till the time that he was thirty years old he retired himself, and was subject to his Parents, living with, and serving them privately at Nazareth Luke 2. 51. who, God knows, were of a very mean condition, and consequently so was he, working with his hands in a mean trade. Now all this while how did his light shine before men, when it was immur'd in a Carpenter's work-house? Why even then it did in exemplary humility, great obedience, pious carriage, and virtuous diligence, ordering his conversation in that very mean condition, so as that made him gracious in the sight of God and of men v. 52. So that from his behavior in that low estate men accounted him a very good person. And then, whosoever thou art, be thou never so low, Christ hath shewed thee how to shine before men, as he did, tho he were the Son of Righteousness. Thou canst not be too mean to be obedient, to be careful in thy service, to be harmless, never doing or speaking ill of any body: thou canst not be too low to be abased, nor consequently to have occasion to shew forth patience, meekness, and longsuffering, and gentleness, those glorious, however humble, virtues. And this is truly to make thy light shine before men. Tho thy example be not big enough to be look'd upon by a whole Shire, nor yet a Parish, nor a Township, thou canst not be accounted the light of the world; yet be thou never so little, thou maiest shine forth as a Candle, give example to the Family in which thou art by those virtues of being harmless. If thou have not so much Piety, so much Light as will shine abroad and make a day, yet give a roomful of example, let none grope thro ignorance, or fall into sin in the house where thou dost dwell, if thy small light of knowledg can instruct, or thy good carriage and encouragements can perswade him. And this especially concerns them that are set out to be Lights to walk before them in knowledg: Husbands, Masters, Parents, or any others, whose emploiment is to instruct or govern, of whom whosoever he be that by any evil carriage of his own gives ill example to those he hath to deal with, if they follow it, (as 'tis not to be expected but they will) he multiplies his guilt, and derives on himself all the sins that are his imitations. The vices of all that follow him are all his retainers, his is a family of sins, and the imitations of his Children are to be imputed to him; he is Father of villany, and hath a whole off-spring of guilt too: and all the sins that are don by his example, will appear the same thing as the Devil at the day of Judgment, and claim their Father; there the brood of iniquity will come and challenge him, and there alike curse their Parent and the Devil to whom they equally, and as accursedly relate, as those that joined to beget their vices, that have destroy'd them eternally, both Parents of their destruction. This is certain hence, for he that but puts out the Candle, is accessary to all the falls and hurts that the darkness causeth. Now thy good Example is the Candle, which if thou do not shew forth, thou leavest them in the dark. And then if not to walk holily in all thy actions be a thing of so much guilt, it would be worth the sad serious consideration of every man, whom any others do but hear or look upon, especially if those whose age makes them capable of little else but imitation, to bethink themselves that every oath or curse of theirs may teach some others, every obscene word may stir up others lust, and instruct others what to learn hereafter: every passion, every drunkeness may make the ignorant believe those sins are not so foul, which are so customary with those that know more than they do, and by often seeing them may be invited to them; and so for other sins. And if they do, how many sins shall they have to answer for, besides their own, which, God knows, are an infinity, too many? What an invitation may one take for this from that happy consideration, that an innocent carriage, an holy Example does contribute to the blessedness of all the Souls that look upon me? Let others take delight to entertain the desires of those that keep them company with the pleasures of sin or vanity, to furnish them with instruments of delightful folly; but let me be instrumental to their being happy to eternity: I had rather be a lover of their Souls, than of their mirth. Let me be useful to the glory of my God, and the Salvation of those that are about me; which certainly I am in a good measure, if I can but have a care of approving all my actions so, as may give others no occasions to sin, but may effectually attract them to my profession. Then I do cooperate with the Bloud of Christ; for that was poured out to buy men from their vain conversation, from which if my Example will but help to reduce them, I shall save Souls, and in my Light they shall see a Light of everlasting Glory on themselves, and my Light also will shed Glory towards God; for so I glorify my Father which is in heaven, the reason of the precedent command.
And this is incumbent especially in a dark season, such as this to which we are condemned; wherein to say nothing of those mists of error in which the generality of us are lost, engaged in a confused crowd of Religions, tost up and down with a tumult of pretending opinions, and either wholly in the dark, or having onelyonly false lights that do misguide us, so that we know not which way to get out. Omitting these, there is a grosser darkness does inhabit with us, such as that which makes Hell the Region of utter darkness. 'Tis not ignorance but wickedness that dwells there, and that is the Region not of mistakes, but of impiety, and we go on in such a constancy of works of darkness, as does require an everlasting night to cover, and go on in such a fearlesness, as if that night could hide us from that God, who clothes himself with light. And what is the duty in relation to such a season? You have it Phil. 2. 15, 16. That ye may be blameless and harmless, the Sons of God, without rebuke, unblemish'd in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom shine ye as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life. A severe harsh injunction, that man must therefore have the stricter care that his life be blameless and unblemish'd, must therefore be more forward in devotions & holy performances, because most men about him are far otherwise, because he lives among loose people. The contrary indeed might prove a good encouragement to live a blameless life, because I live amongst harmless holy people; for then what provocation have I to be otherwise? Besides the shame of being otherwise among such would abundantly restrain me, when if I did commit any enormity I must be look't upon as a stain and blemish in the very beauty of Holiness, look like a Negro in the midst of glorious beauties, as a dash of Hell in the Landshape of Heaven: besides this, 'tis easier to be harmless among those that are so. If the generality of persons were truly pious, how could any one almost be otherwise among them that are so dispos'd, as neither to provoke, nor give admission to a sin, where every one is so truly meek as to bear any thing, and yet every one so virtuously just as to offer nothing unfit; such humble patience as to entertain any cross, any vexation quietly, and yet such meek true-hearted charity as not to give any? Indeed if every body that one hath occasion to converse or deal with were a full Christian, there could be no discontent at all, Heaven would be upon Earth: and then if I were in the midst of such a Nation or People, there were Argument enough to make me harmless, both because I should have no occasion to be otherwise, and because I must be so, that I might be unblemish'd. But a perverse and crooked Generation as it deserves no kind of dealing but its own, to return them the like is but just dealing one would think, and onelyonly recompence, not injury. So not to do is almost impossible: perversness is so great a goad, that with the froward thou wilt shew thy self froward, saith David to the Lord Psalm 18. 26. and then to tell me I must be harmless, because I live in the midst of a perverse and crooked Generation, looks like a very unreasonable reason. This is the sense of men. But truly this is to discourse against Text, and perfectly to go against that duty which the Scripture does so strictly enjoin upon those very grounds for which they refuse it. This is so far from doing without disputing, that we would reason our selves out of our obedience with those very reasons, for which God says we should obey. And truly very justly; for when is any use of light but in the dark? 'Tis then most time for us to shine, when there is nothing else but works of night about us. When thou art engag'd in the conversation of those profane people, or by any occasion cast into the company of them; when either custom, or passion, or carnal inclinations make them without regard of God and Piety transgress or break one or more Commandments, if thou be a Christian, and consequently pretend to those things here which Christ says every Christian is, if thou be a Light, then God hath cast thee where there is some business, some emploiment for thy light; and truly that hath several things to do in such a case. One is to reprove Eph. 5. 11, 13. And truly as to this duty of reproving, that is if the persons offending be such, as either are my charge, or such; as preserving that respect that is due to Autority and distance, I may speak to freely, then clearly to reprehend them; or if they be otherwise, then by some humble gesture or other meek manner to give them to see that sense I have, and every Christian ought to have of their sins, and that tho I respect their persons, yet I dislike and detest the crime, is such a piece of Piety, as if there were no other engagement to but that of Friendship, methinks it should prevail with me. For should I see my company that I pretend a kindness to, or any of them that I call friend, going to drink a cup of poison either heedlesly or in an humor, or stab himself in a frolick, when probably by speaking I might hinder it, at leastwise I may hope to do somwhat towards it, if I but beg them to be kinder to my friend, and not to stab or poison him that I have a kindness for, not to destroy my friendship; shall I think I have a friendship for him, if I would not so much as make essay to hinder it, but let him take this course of ruin? Shall I say, I have a kindness for him, when I would not so much as mind him of that precipice he stood upon the edg of, nor offer to desire him back? Or is it indeed more friendship to pledg him in the dagger or the poison, or when I see him at the brink of headlong destruction to thrust him forwards, and to throw my self down with him? This is indeed the way of the world's kindness, but God deliver me from such a friend, I can have legions of such as those in Hell: the Devil hath bin shewing me such kindness constantly ever since I did know what sin was, offering me the company and the delights of sin, urging me forwards to them. No sure I that should think that man had scarce affection for me, who would not tell me to prevent a little danger, or a mischief; or that should but see a great unhandsomness about my habit, or foul stain upon my face, which probably would make me laugh'd at by the company I was then going into, and should not care to give me warning, should much less think he lov'd me that would not tell me of a spot or deformity, which would render me hateful to God and all the holy Saints and Angels, nor come to keep me from eternal condemnation. I think he loves me most that labors heartily to do me most good, and he that endeavors to make me blessed, does that. And truly can you tell me what other very great use there is of friendship (which yet is one of the greatest desirables in this world) besides this of having one that will heartily mind the making of me better, and so helping me forwards that which is infinitely and everlastingly my greatest concernment? All other uses may be had without it, but a faithful Monitor, a Reprover cannot be had without it. The benefit of such reproof, where it is follow'd, is the worthy issue of such an excellent thing as holy friendship, God-like love. And indeed the kindness of reproving befits well the most bosom-friendship, that it tied by the utmost engagements of this world. This where it did speed (and they that love in earnest will desire and labor that it may) would be sure to breed a kindness as lasting as their Souls, they need feel no decay of it, while there is an Heaven to reward the good success of such Reproofs. And a much greater kindness too 'twould be than any little carnal endearments, and the merits of mutual delights beget common interests, and common pleasures, and common children are not like common salvation; when one of these pairs shall look upon the other as the Angel that watches over him to keep him from from falling into evil, as Lots two Angels that took him by the hands to hurry and to force him out of Sodom: as one to whom he does not onelyonly owe his share of the comforts of this life, but the comforts of Religion and the Hope of Eternity. This must cement beyond all carnal Unions; and he that evermore hath a friend whom he dares trust, and hath no interest disjointed from his own, would give a commission, and desire that friend to reprehend him in whatever thing he sees amiss: however I may be passionate at the time, yet let this be your warrant; do it, I may think on it afterwards; do not let me be ruin'd, because in that hot moment I would be angry to be saved; if you love me, love my happiness, and not the satisfaction of an instantaneous passion, or the letting me enjoy that present folly. Rather than see me hot with anger, will you see me dwell with everlasting burnings? When I come to my self, the heat will change into devout, and into loving warmths; and if I do recover by it, both our Souls at last in one close Pyramid of zealous and affectionate Flame will mount to Heaven.
Now I have said all this, and do consider that by almost all the world reprehensions and kindnesses are thought two very distant things, I know not whether all this will signify much, nor may be would it more, if I should press this property of Light, this kind of shine that a Christian is bound to, reproof of whom them he sees sin from the reason of the Text, the glory that will accrew to God by it. When in a loose and vicious company a Sinner does run on in a full carrier, transgress without a rub, if there be no one there that is fit, and dares owne Piety and the Lord of it, they are quite put out of countenance, and vice becomes creditable in that company; and accordingly you may see many that otherwise are not very apt to sin, yet then they will offer at little Atheistical beginnings of it: they will endeavor, because they will be in the fashion of the company. And this is one of Satans advantageous seasons, when as we see if there be but one by of a sober and discreet virtue, that dares speak meek reason, or dares when they do swill their Souls in filthy folly of one or other sort, or are loud in the rants of vice by disliking gestures, let them know that such unclean entertainments are detestable to a sober person, or withdraws abruptly, & by such a departure shews, that he scorns to stay to behold or hear such impurities; this often does not onelyonly hinder those beginners, take them off that would have bin dabbling, but does somtimes a little damp the progress of the most professed Sinner. It is a bridle to his neck, he will not march so furiously in his carrier of oaths, or of obsceness, or whatever other sin; he does not indulge himself so full a licence: and so by this means God gets some respect, and Religion a little repute, when they see it hath some followers, and God hath some that will not see him dishonored. And truly, my Brethren, do but consider what a storm it does use to raise in any man to hear an absent Friend or Relation abused, or evil spoken of. If we be in any degree of them the world calls Gentlemen, then nothing but the sword must make return to such a word, nothing but life and soul can answer, nothing but bloud and death repair: and 'tis this resentment we, in whose company the disgrace was offer'd, think ourselves more concern'd, than that Friend that was the subject of. And then methinks you should not think it strange, if there be some that do believe they have so much relation to God, and that he hath approv'd himself to be so much their Friend, they cannot but take it unkindly, and speak, when they hear him affronted, and see him dishonor'd. And methinks too it should not be unreasonable to expect this from all of us to whom God hath bin Friend enough, that we should do this handsom, this noble glorious thing, as to right the Lord in companies where we are, and to credit our Maker; and not let vice exalt over him, where we shall chance to be. Truly, my Brethren, this is the least that God hath reason to expect from us, even the reproof of our words, that of our open holy lives, by which as the wicked say in Wisdom 2. 12. The Righteous do reprove their thoughts, and upbraid them with their offending the Law, and object to their infamy their transgressions. This is strictly and to an high degree required by God of every one of us, that we may have influence upon others, to be open and exemplary, to shine before men, that they may see our good works, and glorify our Father which is in Heaven, which was the reason of the command, and the end of our very being. Now to God the Father &c.