The Balm of the Covenant, Application 3 – Consideration 4
VSE III.
The great Question to be decided, is, Whether God be our Covenant-God, and we his People? A Question of the most solemn nature, and such as requires awful attention.
We cannot expect satisfaction in this matter by such an extraordinary way as David had it, but we may know it by,
First, Our Covenant-Engagements.
Secondly, Our Covenant-Impressions.
Thirdly, Our Covenant-Conversations.
First, By our Covenant-Engagements, or Dedications of our selves to God; sometimes called our joyning our selves to the Lord, Zech. 2.11. our yielding our selves to him, Rom. 6.19. our giving our selves to him, 2 Cor. 8.5. The soul that freely and deliberately consents to take or chuse the Lord to be his God, may warrantably conclude the Lord hath taken or chosen him: for our choice of God is but the result of his choice of us. Joh. 15.16. You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you; (i. e.) you could never have chosen me, but in consequence to, and by vertue of my first choice of you.
Well then, let it be seriously considered, whether you have duely consented to take the Lord for your God, and Christ for your Redeemer. This includes two things in it.
1. Your relinquishing of all things inconsistent with him.
2. Your acceptation of all that promotes the glory and enjoyment of him.
1. Your relinquishing of all things that are inconsistent with an interest in him. Except we let these go, God cannot be our God, nor Christ our Redeemer. The things to be relinquished for Christ are in short, both our sinful and our righteous self. Sinful-self must be disclaimed and renounced: for we cannot be the Servants of sin, and the Servants of Christ too, Rom. 6.14.18. and righteous self must be renounced also, or we can have no part or interest in his Righteousness, Rom. 10.3. These are two difficult points of self-denial to part with every beloved Lust, and to give up our own Righteousness. Thousands chufe rather to be damned for ever, than to do either of these.
2. Your acceptance and embracing of all things that promote his glory, and further the enjoyment of him. As all the painful ways of duty, hearing, praying, meditating, and all this with the intention of the inner man, and offering up of the soul to God in these duties, and the more painful ways of suffering for God, and enduring all losses, reproaches, torments, and death for him, if his glory require it, and you be thereunto called. All this is included in your chusing God to be your God. And upon our understanding, and free consent, and sealing to these Articles, we have right to call him our God. Mat. 16.24. If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me. Now have you considered the terms of the Covenant, weighed and balanced all the conveniencies and inconveniencies of Godliness, and then determined for Christ and Holiness, let the cost be what it will; then you have chosen him aright for your God. Many think they have chosen God for their God, that never understood or deliberated these terms. But Non consentit, qui non sentit: He that neither knows nor ponders them, is not capable of giving a due consent.
Secondly, We may discern our Covenant-Interest, in the Covenant-Impressions that are made upon our souls. All Gods Covenant People have a double mark or impression made upon them, viz.
1. Upon their Minds.
2. Upon their Hearts.
1. Upon their Minds, in a more spiritual and efficacious knowledge of God: Jer. 31.33. They shall all know me, from the greatest of them, even to the least of them. This knowledge is said to be given, not acquired by the meer strength of natural Abilities and humane Aids; and given us in the face of Christ, not by the foot-steps of the Creatures only, as he speaks, 2 Cor. 4.6. 'tis the choice teaching of the anointing, 1 Ioh. 2.27. a knowledge springing from inward experience, and spiritual sense; as we know the sweetness of Honey by tasting, better than by all the descriptions and reports that can be made of it.
2. Upon their Hearts, in that gracious tenderness and meltings of it for sin, or the discoveries of Free Grace in the pardon of it. So you read in Ezek. 36.26. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
It is as easie to melt the obdurate Rocks into sweet Syrup, as it is to melt the natural heart into a penitential and tender melting for sin; but now there is a principle or habit of tenderness implanted in the soul, whereby it is disposed and inclined to relent and thaw ingenuously upon any just occasion.
Thirdly, Our Covenant-Interest may be evidenced in and by our Covenant-Conversations. All the knowledge which is communicated to our Minds, and all the tenderness given to our Hearts, do respect and tend to this: Ezek. 36.27. I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes. Habits and Principles are for action and practice: Grace in the heart is for Obedience and Holiness in the life.
It is true, that as our Graces are imperfect, so is our Obedience also. Perfect working is not to be expected from imperfect Creatures. God's own Covenanted People do often grieve him, and provoke him to bring them under the Rod of Affliction; but those their Infirmities break not the Bond of the Covenant, Psal. 89.30, 31, 32. Care and Watchfulness ordinarily goes before them, Conflicts and Resistance accompanies them, and Shame, Grief, and renewed Care usually follows them. 2 Cor. 7.11. By these things (which deserve a more copious discourse than my present design can allow) we may be helped to clear our interest in the Covenant of Grace: and that being done, it should be out of the power of all the Afflictions in the World to sink your Spirits. Let me therefore in the last place add,
VSE IV.
A word of Consolation to your dejected and drooping hearts, upon this sad and mournful occasion. Why are you so troubled? and why do Thoughts arise in your Hearts? Methinks there hath been so much of Support and Comfort already discovered to you in this blessed Covenant, that could your Faith but once fix upon it, and realize and apply it, I might lay down my Pen at this period, and say the Work is done, there needs no more; but knowing how obstinate deep sorrows are, and how difficult a Task the comforting of an afflicted mind is, I will for a close, superadd a few Considerations more, to all that hath been urged and argued before.
Consideration I.
Consider how small and trivial the Comforts, whose loss you bewail, are in comparison with Jesus Christ, who is still your own, under the Bond of a sure Covenant. A Son, an only and a promising Son, is a great thing, when he stands in comparison with other Creature-comforts; but surely he will seem a small thing, and next to nothing, when set by, or compared with Jesus Christ. Behold, the Father, Son, and Spirit! Pardon and eternal salvation are this day presented in the Covenant of Grace before your souls, as your own. God, even our own God shall bless us, Psal. 67.6. When you feel your hearts wounded with such a thought as this, I cannot embrace my Children in my arms, they are now out of my reach; then bless and admire God, that the arms of your Faith can embrace so great, so glorious a Saviour, and that you can say, My beloved is mine, and I am his.
Consideration II.
Consider what evil days are coming on, and what a mercy it is to your dead, that God hath taken them away from the evil to come, Isai. 57.1, 2. There are two sorts of Evils to come, viz. Evils of Sin, and Evils of Suffering; and 'tis no small favour to be set out of the way of both. The Grave is the hiding-place where God secures some from the dangers of both.
We are apt to promise our selves times of Tranquility, and then it cuts us to think that our dear Ones shall not partake with us in that Felicity: but if we wisely consider the sins or the signes of the times, we have more cause to rejoyce that God hath set them out of harms way.
All things seem to conspire and work towards a day of great Temptation and Tribulation. Now as Christ told his Disciples, who were so dejected because he was to leave them, Ioh. 14.28. If ye loved me, ye would rejoyce, because I said, I go to the Father: so truly you would much better express and manifest your love to your Children, in your satisfaction in the will and appointment of God, in taking them into rest and safety, than in your dejections and sorrows for their removal. Surely they are better where they are, than where they were, whom God hath housed in Heaven out of the storm and tempest. And could your dead Friends that are with Christ, have any more intercourse with this World, and see your tears, and hear your sighs for them, they would say to you, as Christ did to those that follow'd him wailing and mourning, Weep not for us, but for your selves, and such as remain in the World with you, to see and feel the calamities that are coming on it.
Consideration III.
Consider how near you are to that blessed State your selves,III. where God shall be all in all, and you shall feel no want of any Creature-comfort, 1 Cor. 15.28.
Creature-comforts are only accommodated comforts to this animal life we now live, but shortly there will be no need of them; for God will be all in all: that is, all the Saints shall be abundantly satisfied in and with God alone. As there is water enough in one Sea to fill all the Rivers, Lakes, and Springs in the World; and Light enough in one Sun to enlighten all the Inhabitants of the World: so there is enough in one God eternally to fill and satisfie all the blessed Souls in Heaven, without the addition of any Creature-comfort. God is compleat satisfaction to all the Saints, in the absence (I cannot say want) of Wives and Children, Meats and drinks, Estates and sensitive Pleasures: There will be no more need of these things, than of Candles at Noon-day. You shall be as the Angels of God, who have no concernment for Relations.
Your fulness of years, infirmities of Body, and I hope I may add your improvements in Grace, speak you not far short of this blessed State: and though you may seem to need these comforts in the way, your God shall supply all your wants.
Consideration IV.
IV.To conclude, whatsoever your troubles, wants, fears, or dangers are, or may be in your passage to this blessed State, the Covenant of Grace is your security, and by vertue thereof your troubles shall open and divide, as Iordan did, to give you a safe passage into your eternal Rest.
Look as when the Israelites came near the Land of Promise, there was a swelling Iordan betwixt it and them, which seemed to forbid their farther passage and progress; but it's said, Iosh. 3.17. The Priests that bore the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, stood firm on the ground in the midst of Iordan; and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Iordan. Just so it is here: The Covenant of Grace stands on firm ground in the midst of all the deep Waters of Tribulation you are to pass through, to secure unto you a safe passage through them all. Rejoyce therefore, and triumph in the fulness and firmness of this blessed Covenant, and whatsoever Affliction your God shall please to lay upon you, or whatsoever Comfort he shall please to remove from you, still comfort and encourage your selves, as David here doth, Yet hath he made with me an everlasting Covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire; although he make it not to grow.
FINIS.