Ten Sermons, Collection of sermons · Sermon 7
Not as I will, but as thou wilt.
SERMON VII.
Matth. xxvi. 39.
—Not as I will, but as thou wilt.
THE Prophet Isaiah speaking of the Lord Jesus in prophetical terms, in the beginning of the 63. chap. breaks out into this question of admiration, Who is this that cometh in died garments, this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? To which question the Prophet brings this answer in the name of the Lord Jesus, It is I, that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.
It is the great desire of the Church, and of every good soul, to see once that great Saviour marching in the greatness of his strength, arrayed with magnificence: And we expect with certainty of faith his glorious appearing, terrible to his enemies, gracious to his redeemed, when he shall come down from Heaven to judge both the quick and the dead, having the Clouds for his Chariot, millions of Angels for his attendance, Light for his Garment, and Glory for his Crown.
But the Prophet in the alledged Text doth admire his strength and magnificence in the lowest step of his humiliation, when he was treading the Wine-press alone, bearing the sins of the World, clad in a scarlet dyed in his own bloud. Such was he in Gethsemane in the night in which he was betrayed, his Face bowing to the ground, melting in tears, sweating great drops of bloud under the horrible weight of God's wrath against sin.
But that lowest degree of his Humiliation was the highest of his Vertue, for then did he travel in the greatness of his strength. Then did he bear and overcome the high indignation of God against the rebellious world, in the torments of his body and the anguish of his soul, the contradiction of nature and self-love, and Satan aggravating all these to crush him down.
Yet by all these Satan did but bruise his heel; And he with his bruised heel bruised that old Serpent's head. For then Satan had the foil when Christ yielded unto God his Father that meritorious obedience, whereby he denied his self-love and his will, saying, Father, not as I will, but as thou wilt.
In these divine words let us consider, first Christ's Vertues, and then the duty of our imitation. Our meditation upon Christ's Vertue shall be limited to these four particulars: 1. The will of God the Father: 2. The will of his holy Son Jesus: 3. That these two wills, in their seeming difference, subsisted together: And 4thly, how the will of the Son yielded to the will of God the Father.
I. The will of God the Father, was, that his Son should be made an offering for the sins of the world; and that he, the same Son, should be the Priest to offer it. God would have him to be made sin for us, by the imputation of our sin, that we might be the righteousness of God in him. That he, considered as guilty in our behalf, should bear our griefs and carry our sorrows; That he should fulfil the prophecies by being bruised for our transgressions, giving his back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that pluckt off the hair; that he should not hide his face from shame and spitting. Himself did acknowledge so much in his agony. For after he had said, Father deliver me from this hour; He added presently, but for this cause came I unto this hour. This is that which the Father would.
II. That which the Lord Jesus would, or rather that which his humane nature would have craved in that great trial, was, that the Cup of the Cross might pass from him. He was the Son of man, made of a Woman, made like unto us in all things, sin only excepted. It was then natural for him to avoid pain and seek his preservation: Passions to which God is indulgent, commanding us when we are persecuted in one City, to flee to another. Yea if he had not been careful of his preservation, he had been no true man: If he had had no natural interest to overcome, there would have been no merit in his Passion.
III. Then for the third particular how these two wills consisted together, reason will say with great amazement, God will have man to dye, and the man shrinks from it: Christ, God and Man being but one Person, how can he have two different wills, so as to say, Not as I will, but as thou wilt?
Christians, the actions of the Lord Jesus have no need of Apology, but our weakness hath need of instruction. To comprehend. this, as well as we may, we must be certain, that the wrestling of wills in Christ, was not between the Godhead and the Manhood, but in the Manhood alone, which disputed with himself. For man being composed of parts as different as the Earth and the third Heaven; the body being earth, and the spirit the breath of God, hath different inclinations according to the diversity of those two parts of himself. And some of these inclinations may differ without sin, although in the end the flesh must yield unto the spirit, when a greater good which is our duty to God, contradicts our natural lawful inclination. Wherefore there is no sin in a natural desire to preserve our selves, when God calls us to suffer; But there is sin in not mastering that inclination, when the great Master of nature chargeth nature to renounce her self, to follow his will, and serve to his glory.
Now flesh and spirit were sanctified in Christ by the personal union of God and man in him; and both flesh and spirit in him joyned to obey God, and serve to his glory. The humane spirit of Christ instructed by God charged his flesh to undergo the cross for Gods glory in the salvation of Men: The flesh was not resty, but she was not insensible; If she had been so, she should have lost her nature, Christ had not been a perfect man, and could not have been an offering for Man's salvation.
Let me tell you this again, that you may be sound in the faith; Christ being God and man, you must not imagine that there was in his Divine nature, or between his two natures of God and man, such a combat as made him say, Not my will, but thy will be done. God is ever the same in his will and nature, and constant to himself. That combat was in that great humane soul of Christ, I say in the humane soul only.
But whereas there are two appetites in man, the one intellectual, the other sensitive; The will of Christ belonging to the intellectual faculty, was ever firm and united with God's will; but the sensitive appetite, though united with God's will, yet trembled, because it was nearer a-kin to the flesh than the intellectual: But while the flesh is trembling, the spirit taketh her and carrieth her away by a perswasive violence to the duty of her obedience.
IV. So then that holy flesh of the Lord Jesus which had not shrunk from her obedience, but only trembled at the terrible punishment, now resigneth her self altogether unto the will of God, takes at his hands the bitter Cup which he presenteth unto her, and drinks it up dregs and all, saying, Father, not as I will, but as thou wilt. As if Christ had said, Father, I deny the inclination of my flesh for her preservation, to follow my higher inclination to obey thee and glorifie thee. I will have no will but thy will: Here our Saviour made his word good, I came down not to do mine own will, Joh. 6.38.but the will of him that sent me. Both in life and death he exactly followed that rule which he had set down unto himself. He was so earnest to do the will of him that sent him, that he forgot his meat for it. My meat (said he) is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. Doing that will was his life and living. For that, and with that he lived and dyed. Welcome was the cup of God's wrath to him, since by drinking that Cup he did the will of him that sent him, and finished his work.
O the infinite love! O the admirable vertue of the Son of God! Here Angels and glorified Saints stoop amazed and attentive, desiring to look into the depth of this wonder of obedience. Seneca saith, that the goodliest spectacle that God beholdeth from Heaven, is a worthy man vigorously wrestling with adversity. Here is a spectacle worthy of God indeed; his own Son wrestling with the tyranny of the World, with the powers of Hell, with the bitterness of the Pains due to sin, with the horrors of God's wrath, and with the deserved love which he bore to his own most worthy and most excellent self. How much was the Father delighted to see his Son victorious by his Humility in his greatest Agony, over all the forces of Satan the Prince of this World? and when nothing remained worthy to be overcome but himself, overcoming his own will with this divine resolution, Father, not my will, but thy will be done.
You see how the Lord Jesus made himself a free-will offering. Without that he could not have made propitiation for our sins, whether you consider him as the Priest or as the Sacrifice. Being the Priest, his will to offer was requisite; for it was a thing never seen that a Priest should be dragged to the Altar to do his Office: and his offering had need to be, not only an act of obedience, but of chearfulness. Then being himself the offering, that he might be a free-will offering, he must be brought to the Altar by his will. It is true, he was forcibly haled to the Cross and crucified: But he could have avoided that force; Yet he yielded to it. His yielding to that force was bringing his will under God's will, that he might fulfil his own words, Joh. 10.18. No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of my self. For herein lieth the price and the efficacy of Christ's Passion, not that he poured his bloud, but that he denied his will to do God's will, and said, and made it good, Father, not my will, but thy will be done.
I purpose not here to treat of the meritorious efficacy of that submission of the Lord Jesus under the will of God in his sufferings, which is the high point of his obedience, and the price of our redemption; but to set before you a pattern for your obedience, that you may learn to say after him, whatsoever God lay upon you, Lord, not my will, but thy will be done.
Our next task then after our admiration of Christ's Vertue is our Imitation. As Christ said so, and did so, so we must; and our greatest reason so to do, is, because Christ did so. For it is not to be believed that Christ preferred God's will before his own will and safety, to get for us an immunity to do our own will and neglect God's will. Nay, if you will be Christ's partners, you must be his followers. One hath his will bent to his Sports, another to his Pots, another to his unlawful gain, another to his Revenge; On God's name let us deny our wills to do God's will: Which if we do heartily, we shall not fail to find God's will towards us good, pleasant and perfect.
Then the duty here prescribed by the example of Christ is self-denial. To deny ones self is a duty not required by the law of Nature, or by the Canons of any other Religion: It is a meer Christian command. For it is the proper work of Christian Religion to reform Nature, melt it, and cast it into a new mould of Grace.
Divines will set forth the opposition between Nature and Grace to very good purpose, saying, that Nature teacheth self-love, and Grace teacheth self-denial. And in that subject they insult a little more than needs upon Philosophers for their maxim, That a vertuous life is a life according to Nature.
But there is a misunderstanding in it. For true Philosophy by a life according to Nature, meaneth a life according to the dictate of right reason. Now right reason finds in Nature lessons against the disorder of passions and the flattery of self-love. Certainly their moralities of cutting short the desires and hopes of men, and yielding in all things to the orders of the great Maker of Nature, and Governor of the World, comes very near the Christian self-denial. Thus the doctrine of the Church is justified by them that lived out of the verge of the Church, and Nature is pleading for Grace.
Hence it is that the doctrine of preferring sufferings for righteousness sake before an unrighteous prosperity, and subjecting our will unto the will of God, is readily received as long as no more is required of us but a rational speculation and assent of the understanding to the truth of it. But when the same doctrine calls upon our practice in hard trials, then the sensual part of our spirit picks a quarrel with it; and if the will of God call us to suffer for righteousness, we are apt to invert Christ's words, and say, Father, not thy will, but my will be done. Wherefore we have need to study the doctrine of self-denial. For to glorifie God in our afflictions with a full concurrence of our will with God's will, is that which we are called unto by our profession of being Christ's Disciples.
For first we have his command for it, Matth. 16.24. If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and follow me. That is, Will ye be my Disciples? Will you be partakers of my kingdom of glory? Then whensoever it shall be my will that you seal your faith in me by your sufferings, consult not with flesh and bloud, but bring your will under my will, and the love of your selves under your love to me. Silence your reason that it may have nothing to object against your duty, but forsake all interests for the grand interest of my glory.
This exhortation to silence your reason is not to perswade you to unreasonable performances.Rom. 12.1 God requires of us a reasonable service. Christian Religion is the great mistress of right reason. Apprehend once that your true self is in God, in whom you breath, and live, and move, and have your being; and so if you espouse any interest which pulls against God, you pull against your original being, and bend against the great principle of your self. Wherefore the wise Disciple of Christ shall acknowledge no other self-interest but that of God's will and glory: And those interests that repine against God's will and glory, he will reject as inconsistent with his well being, because they are inconsistent with his duty.
He will say; Loving my GOD, and caring only to please him, is the ready way to procure my benefit, since I am in God.Psal. 73. I will then be of David's mind; To draw near unto God is my good.
Whereas I should make my self remote from God my good, if I confined my affections and my interest within the narrow limits of my petty temporal advantages and sensual delights. Then indeed, being out of the road of my duty to my God, I should be also out of the way of my soveraign good. I will then turn a learner of the Philosophy of Isaiah, that the way to bless ones self on earth, Isa. 65.16.is to bless himself in the God of truth. And to that of my Saviour Jesus, He that findeth his life, shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake, Mat. 16.25.shall find it.
It is the great task of the Christian soul to yield freely unto the will of God, and to labour to obey and fulfil it as much as in him lyeth.
For that end two things lye upon us to do: The one to search the impediments that hinder the will of man from agreeing with the will of God; The other to furnish our selves with the necessary helps to remove those impediments, and to bring our wills under God's will.
1. The first impediment is the large scope which we give to our desires, and the licence we allow to our passions. For a man used to indulge much unto his own will, hath much ado to curb it, when it is crost by a contrary. will of God, and when duty and necessity call him to make his will stoop under God's will; or when he desireth things out of his reach with over-great earnestness. For greediness is a will contrary to God's revealed will, who limits the desires of all Men, Kings and all, to the begging of their daily bread. And if our will be contrary to the will of God's command, can we complain if we see our will crost by the will of his decree? If you ask evil things, or make good things evil by ill asking, or ill purchasing, find it not strange that God's will keeps no correspondence with yours.
And labour not only to remove your unlawful desires, but to refrain the eagerness of the lawful; for lawful desires of temporal things turn unlawful when they grow fervent: that fervency being contrary to the humble, meek and calm temper, requisite to be always ready to submit unto God's will.
2. A second impediment is our presumption. We think our selves so wise in our projects, that we hardly perswade our selves that God can do better. Hereby God is moved to jealousy, and provoked to oppose us; for he delighteth to confound the wise of this World, and to befool the crafty fetches of conceited Politicians. But that man who is lowly conceited of himself, shall easily submit his will unto the wiser will of God.
3. Another impediment is our wilfulness and way-wardness, so great as though we would make to our selves a God that had no other office but to be an executor of our passions. We complain of light troubles, and sometimes of good things, and find fault with God's will when it is most beneficial. For as Children wantonly brought up, grow pettish and wilful; so Men that had always the World at will, will storm at the least thing that crosseth their passion, and will repine against God's good pleasure. Such Men have need to meditate upon this lesson of the Apostle to the Hebrews, You have not yet resisted unto blood, Heb. 12.3. & 4.be not weary and faint in your minds. As if the Apostle said, If in great and hard trials you must not be weary and faint, but freely say, Lord, not as I will, but as thou wilt; much more in small and easie exercises of your patience. If we must strengthen our courage to resist unto bloud, shall we not instruct our wills to wean themselves of their wanton appetites? Let us exercise our wills to patience in small crosses, to inure them to patience and obedience when we shall be called to bear the Cross of Christ, and suffer for his cause.
4. A fourth impediment that keepeth us from yielding to God's will, is our impatience. We cannot expect God's time. We would have our desires satisfied presently, his Church delivered immediately, his truth and righteousness to triumph without delay. But God doth not go so fast to work as we would have him. He suffers his Church to be trodden under by his enemies, and the Synagogue of Satan to be built with the ruines of his Temple. Must we therefore murmur against his will? Stay, we know not yet what God will do. You shall see that God suffers his fierce enemies to fill themselves that they may burst. By high degrees he brings them to the steep of a precipice, that they may break their necks with a fall. They shall fall into the Pits of God's vengeance, either living or dead. The tears of the Church in the mean while are showres that bring to him a joyful harvest, and God makes use of those tears to wash her spots away. My brethren, though you should stay till after death to see the Churches troubles, and your several sorrows end in glory, the gain is worth the staying for. Tarry the Lord's leasure, be of good courage, Ps. 27. ult.and he shall strengthen your heart: Wait I say on the Lord. God will do well for us in an acceptable time, if we may have the grace to trust in him and do good. The greatest part of most mens sorrows is their impatience.
5. The root of impatience is unbelief, the last and the greatest impediment of the quiet yielding of our wills unto the will of God. For why do we so shake the yoak and kick against the rod, when God afflicts us? If we dare confess the plain truth, too many think that God doth not do well by doing so. Do we believe that God doth it out of love, or that he is able to bring forth good out of the evil he sends us? Our fears (which are wilful sorrows heaped over the necessary) bring God's all-seeing knowledge in question, and his wisdom, and his power, and his love. Either we believe not these, or we do not think of them; and therefore we think not of them, because we do not firmly believe them, and rely not upon them. But whosoever believeth these with a true faith, God's wisdom, his Power, his Wisdom, and his Love to us in Christ, will be easily perswaded to have no will but God's will. To remove these impediments, and conform our wills unto God's will, let us use the following helps.
1. The first is, to apprehend well how impossible it is to hinder God's will, how idle to oppose it, how vain to complain of it, especially when the thing is past and done. Will you attempt to cause with your fears, that your dead friend had not dyed, or that a thing done had not been done? Must God to please you, wind back the time past, as you do your Watch? God will have it so, you must will it too. Even the Politicians of this World will teach us to comply with that which we cannot overcome. When they are defeated of their purpose, they will seem to intend that which they cannot mend. What they seem to do with Men, we must do really with God. We must intend what God will have, whatsoever we intended before: since we cannot speed by drawing against him, we must draw with him. Our strugling against the will and actions of God, is like the fluttering of Birds newly taken: The Fowler that carrieth them in the Cage goeth never the flower for their fluttering. We may struggle, but we must go, since we are carried by the great hand of Providence. It is for mad men to blow against the Wind, and stand quarrelling with the storm: Wise men will run to a shelter. Now our shelter is God's providence. We must shroud our selves by faith under the very hand that strikes us.
2. Another great help to make us soon yield to God's will in our afflictions, is to remember, that God afflicts us to frame us to patience; And that God may not need to afflict us, vve must be patient betimes. God dealeth vvith us as a Father that chasteneth his Child: If the Child cry too loud, he vvill strike till he hold his peace. Let us silence our cries, and our very will, at the first blows, lest God strike till we will what he willeth. Our clamors against God's rod, instead of staying his blowes will redouble them. Wise Parents rebuke their Children for saying peremptorily, I will. So God dealeth with us. He seems many times to say to us, Since you will have it, you shall not. But bow under his will, and he will fulfil your modest desires:Ps. 145.19. He will fulfil the desires of them that fear him, he also will hear their cry, and will save them.
3. I was saying, that unbelief is the greatest hindrance of our submission to the will of God: Likewise faith is the principal help to bow our will under God's will. Methinks it is a reasonable motion to a Child of God, that he would trust in his Father's love. Should it be a hard thing to perswade God's Children to have a good opinion of God their Father? After he hath given you his Son, and by him redeemed you from Hell, and made you his Children and Heirs of his Kingdom, is it hard for you to believe that he loveth you, and will send you no evil but for your good? Shall ye have much ado to be perswaded that God is wiser than you, and doth that which is best for you?
4. Whosoever loveth God's glory, hath a great help at hand to conform his will unto God's will, if he remember that God willeth nothing but for his glory, and that his glory is his Children's good. This was it that strenthned Christ in his agony, and that which inclined his will to follow Gods will. How great was his agony, when he said to his Father, Now is my soul troubled, Joh. 12.27.and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour, but for that end came I unto this hour. His help to make himself strong in that deep bitterness of his soul, was to alledge unto God his Father the interest of his glory, Father, glorifie thy name. Upon which his Father answered him by a voice from Heaven, I have glorified it, and I will glorifie it again. This, this, set his mind at rest, and made him freely to take the bitter Cup which God presented to him, saying, Father, not as I will, but as thou wilt.
5. A main help to make us speak so, is to exercise our selves in the Love of God; that perfect love which casteth out fear, and refineth the heart from all the dross of self-love and self-interest, and nobly begets a most strict union of our will with God's will. For this being the effect of love, to change the lover into the beloved object; when the love of God hath got possession of a soul, it changeth the will of Man into the will of God: so that a Man hath no more any other will but God's will, and desires nothing but in subordination to God's will. The only skill to have always our will fulfilled, is to will always what God willeth. David had found that skill, Psal. 37.4. Delight thy self in the Lord, and he will give thee the desires of thy heart. For having no will but his, we have all our desires, if not in retail, yet in the great. Since God is the Soveraig disposer of all events, if we make our will to concur with that soveraign disposition, our will is done when God's will is done.
Certainly since God resents an infinite felicity in the satisfaction of his will; our resigning and making over our will to his will, imparts to us a felicity proportionate to the degree of our resignment. Our will being ingrafted into God's will, gets an identity or sameness with his will. Thus self-denial for his sake is a holy association with God; And our partnership in his will, doth interest us in all the happiness and glory which God takes in the execution of his will. Wherefore glorified Saints & blessed Angels, whose with hath the most exact and exquisite conformity with God's will, have also the greatest conformity with God's felicity and glory that can exist in creatures. Whereas the Apostate Spirits in their confirmed repugnancy against God's will, have also a total privation of God, and in it the extremity of wretchedness.
The will of God is that primum mo…ens, that first mover, which moveth all things: And to the shame of man be it spoken, in all the orbs of natural and moral things there is nothing retrograde against that supreme Mover, but the wills of Men and Devils. Come, let our will follow that great course of the will of our Maker. Let not the freedom wherewith the Creator hath endowed our souls, serve to set them vainly and wickedly against their Maker, but to add chearfulness to their obedience.
7. When all is said, Here is the Example. Here is the precept of Christ confirmed by his practice. Let us look up unto Jesus the Author and finisher of our faith, who having all the terrors of God's wrath upon him, denied his will to follow God's will, which called him to the cross, answering to Gods call, Father, not my will, but thy will be done. Who in all his life, and more in his death, exprest this sentence, Psal. 40.7. meant of him, and applied to him, Heb. 10.9. Lo I come to do thy will, O God. And see what followeth in the Text. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ. For it is by that will of Christ submitted to God's will, even unto the death of the Cross, that propitiation was made for us, and our eternal glory purchased. For which, eternally glory be given unto thee Lord Jesu, the Author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before thee, induredst the Cross, despising the shame, and art set down at the right hand of the Throne of God. Now to him that hath loved us, and washt us from our sins in his own bloud, and made us Kings and Priests, unto God and our Father, To him be glory now and for ever more, Amen.
The End of the Seventh Sermon.