The Trial and Triumph of Faith, Sermon 20
How the conscience is freed from sin, to wit from the Law obligation to actual condemnation, but not fr…m incurring the displeasur of God by breach of a Law, if the beleever shall sin.SERMON XX.
YEa, the Law from the highest bended love, even from love with all the whole soul, and all its strength, Matth. 22. forbiddeth all sin, no lesse then the Gospel of love, which Gospel doth spiritualize the Law to the beleever, but not abolish it: the Gospel addeth a new argument of Gospel-love, because Christ hath died for me, therefore I'le keep the same Law of God, I was under before, only now I fear no… actuall condemnation which is accidentall to the Law, for Christ and the confirmed Angels keep the Law, as a rule of life, yet without any fear of actual condemnation; Nor doth the Gospel more make Davids adultery, not to be against the seventh Commandment to David, then it maketh the Israelites spoyling of the Egyptians of their Earings & Iewels, to be no breach of the eight Commandment: The Grace of Christ doth Priviledge the Believer from condemnation, which condemnation is a meer accident, which doth go and come without hurting the essence of the Law, and its commanding and eternall Morall-directing power: The Law saith (do and live) theres no exception of this, its the will of God eternall; as God is eternall, and obligeth us in Heaven, and for ever, Rev. 22.5. But this (if you doe not, you shall die) hath a large exception; Christ my son shall die for you, and this (if you keep not the Law, you are condemned) to the believer is abolished, and when we are Rom. 7. said to be freed from our first husband, as the woman is freed by Law from her dead husband, and may without sin marry another, and we not under the Law, the word (Law) is taken only for the Law, as given to the sinner: Now the Law should have been Law, though sin had never been, and is Law to the Elect Angels who never sinned, and that is only the Law, under the notion of that sad office of eternall condemnation; the Law could never have been Law, except it had promised eternall life to those who do the Law: but it both is, and should have been Law to believers in Jesus Christ, to the Elect Angels, and yet it doth not, it cannot actually condemn them.
But that the Gospel maketh Adultery to be no sin to Believers, is a blasphemous Assertion: Then commit Adultery, murther, whore, steel; O Believer! these are not sins to thee, but Christs sins, not thine: O turn nor the grace of God into wantonnesse: The Believer hath no conscience of sins: that is, he in conscience is not to fear everlasting condemnation, that is most true, because Christ hath delivered him from that wrath to come, Rom. 8.1. Ioh. 5.24. Faith of eternall life by Jesus Christ cannot consist with fear of eternall condemnation, for then with a legall, and an Evangelick Faith, one person should be obliged to believe things contradictory, and yet both Faiths oblige us to give credence and assent: But that the Believer hath no conscience of sin, that is, that he is to believe theres nothing in him that is sin, is to believe a lie, 1 Joh. 1.8, 9, That he is to confesse no sin, and to be grieved in conscience for no sin, and to sorrow for no sin; that he is to be wearied and laden with no sin, that he is to groan under the burden of no sin, as failing against the love of him that gave a ransom for him; this is a blasphemous dedolencie of conscience, yea, of a conscience past feeling. Beloved in the Lord, The Gospel forbiddeth sorrow, fear, and Agony of conscience in a Believer, apprehending eternall wrath, such a one once truly believing in Christ as the Saviour of sinners, and his Saviour, and now believing the contrary, must believe that his Lord is really changed, that he hath forgotten to be mercifull, that he hath falsified, and altered his his Covenant, Oath and Promise: this were to make God a Liar; But the Gospel forbiddeth not, but commandeth that the justified person sorrow for sin; yea, it commandeth carefulnesse to forbear clearing of the offender, as being in Christ, and desiring to flee to Christ; indignation against himself, in not forgiving himself, fear of offending love and Law in Christ, vehement desire to have peace confirmed, zeal for God, revenge to afflict the soul, 2 Cor. 7.10.11. And in this sense its blasphemy to say that the Gospel taketh away all conscience of sin: Believers humbled for sin, are to be taken off all Law-thoughts, and fear of eternall condemnation, and all thoughts that sorrow is a Penance and satisfactory to offended justice; as we are ready to conceit of our Evangelick rejoicing and holiest works: But they are to sorrow for offended love; for the body of sin breaking out in scandals, I may then have peace with God, in the assurance of remission and removall of eternall wrath; and yet not have peace with my own conscience: 1. Because I may be perswaded that God in Christ hath forgiven me; yet am I not to forgive my self: 2. I am to beleeve that in Christ I am delivered from eternall wra…h, and justified in Christ; and yet to sorrow that I have sinned against Christs love: 3. I may have peace, sense of peace, and Pardon in Christ, and yea a necessary disquietnesse, sorrow, and tears, that I should have been so unthankfull to so lovely a Redeemer: so Christ doth commend the womans tears, as a sign of love, and of the sense of many sins pardoned, Luke 7.44.I may believe the remission of these same very sinnes, which I am to confesse, and for which I am to be sorrowfull. Thou gavest me no water for my feet: But she hath washed my feet with tears: yet many sins were forgiven her, v. 47. Hence, I may 1. Beleeve the Remission of that sin, for which I am to sorrow, and for the Remission of which I am to pray, and which I am to confesse: Nathan said to David, thy sin is pardoned: yet the Spirit of God after that both confessed, sorrowed, prayed for pardon in David: 2. We may comfort those that mourn for sin, from assurance of Pardon, and yet exhort them to be humbled and afflicted in spirit, and to confesse, sorrow, and pray for Pardon; so Antinomians rejoicing evermore after justification, without sorrow, remorse, down-casting for sin at all, is but fleshly wantonnesse: I may have and ought to have a disquieted spirit, and no peace with my self, and yet peace with God, even as the Sea after a storme, and when the winds are gone and the Aire is calmed, hath yet a raging and great motion, by reason of wind inclosed in the bowels of the Sea, and after the cool of a mighty Feaver, yet are the humours in the body stirred and distempered.
But we are hence led to finde out resolution for divers cases of consciences after justification.Eight cases of conscience resolved from the former doctrine. 1. Many dare not question their state of justification, & so are freed from the storms of apprehended wrath, arising from the guilt of sin: yet there is another storm, within the bowels of the Sea, arising from the indwelling of the body of guilt, the storm before justification is lesse free, lesse ingenuous, more servile, as looking to that Eternall wrath, hanging over the soul for unpardoned sin: this is more free, and is a peaceable, a gracious, and heavenly storm raised, not for sin unpardoned, & the Eternal punishment thereof: but for sin as sin, as indwelling, not for the penall guilt and the sting of Hell in sin, but for the sinfull guilt and the wounding of Christ. 2. Its unpossible this latter storme can be in the soul, till the sentence of justification be pronounced; as none can have the moved bowels of a son, for the offence of a Father, till he be a son.
2. Another case is, that many have an absolute, loose, and laxe peace and calmnesse, great confidence of deliverance from Eternall wrath; and so of a supposed pardon, whose peace is convinced to be but a base outside, and meer paintry and fairding because there is in them no storm for sin as sin, and for the over-motions of boiling lusts; no tendernesse to walk spiritually. A Faith that eateth out the bottome and bowels of conscience, of declining sin and walking with God: is the justification of the Antinomians, of the old Gnosticks, of the naturall men: all our professors are cured, none or few are healed.
3. Full assurance that Christ hath delivered Paul from condemnation: yea, so full and reall, as produceth thanksgiving and triumphing in Christ, Rom. 7.25. Rom. 8.1, 2. may, and doth consist with complaints and outcryes of a wretched condition, for the indwelling of the body of sin, Rom. 7.14, 15, 16.23, 24. Then the justified that are whole, not sick, not pained, are yet in their sins, and not justified, what ever Antinomians say on the contrary.
4. The flesh in the justified cannot complain of indwelling sin; but the flesh mixt with some life of Christ, may raise a false Alaram of sins not pardoned, which are really pardoned; some false grief may and often hath its rise from a false and imaginary ground, as a sanctified soul may praise God through occasion of a lying report of the victory of the Church of God, when there is no such matter; a sanctified child may spiritually mourn for the supposed death of his Father, or that he hath offended his Father according to the flesh, when his Father is neither dead, nor offended at all: So gracious affections, as gracious, may work spiritually upon supposed and false grounds when there is no cause; as that the soul hath grieved his heavenly Father, and that he is displeased, when it is not so.
5. Sin indwelling is a greater evill, then the feared evill of ten hells; and therefore there is more cause of sorrow for sin, confession, disquietnesse of spirit, after justification then before; because sin the only true object of fear and disquietnesse of spirit, is both a ghuest dwelling in the soul, and is more really and distinctly apprehended as a spirituall evil, after the light of faith hath shown us the sinfulnesse of sin, then ever it was discovered to be before.
6. I doubt, if justified souls are to be refuted in their complaints and fears for the indwelling of sin, providing, they fear not eternall wrath, which fear is contrary to faith; and so they fear not, and sorrow not, for that God hath changed the Court, and the wind of his love turned in the contrary air, and he hath forgotten to be mercifull.
7. Faith chargeth us to believe that Grace shall at length finally subdue sin, and as boatmen labour with oars to promove their course in sailing, even when the wind, sails and tide are doing somewhat to promove the course; so doth faith, which purifieth the heart, set the soul on work to perfect holinesse in the fear of God, and believeth also, that God shall work both to will and to do.
Its not then good Physick for many exercised in conscience, especially after their first conversion, to apply only the honey and sweetnesse of consolations of the Gospel, as if there were not any need of humiliation and sorrow for sin: Yet it is to be cleared,How we are to-sorrow for pardoned sins. that 1. Sorrow for sin is no satisfaction for sin; for the pride of merit is crafty, and can creep in at a smal hole. We think there is no repentance where there be no tears, & God of purpose withholdeth tears, as knowing when water goes out, wind cometh in. 2. They are tenderly to be bound up, and comforted, in whom sin riseth up with a witnesse. O what pity, and humble on-looking should be here? For a hell of pain in the body is nothing, wheels, racks, whips, hot irons, breaking of bones is nothing; but half a hell in the spirit, is a whole hell. The upper hell, the grave, to Ezekiah is like to swallow him up, when dipped in the lower hell, and covered with the apprehension of wrath. O sweet Jesus! what a mercy that thou swallowed up all hels to believers, and calmed the sea of hell.
Vse. If in Justification, sins be blotted out, cast in the depths of the Sea, Use. 1. To be justified is a state of happiness most desireable.and removed, as if they never had been, the state of Justification must be a condition of sound blessednesse, the most desireable life in the world, Ro. 4.6. Even as David also describeth the blessednesse of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousnesse without works. 7. Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. For consider 1. What an Act of Grace it is in a Prince to take a condemned malefactour from under the ax, the rack, the wheel, and so many hours torture, before he end his miserable life. Or, 2. Suppose he were condemned to be tortured leisurely,Simile and his life continued and prorogated, that bones, sinues, lights, joynts might be pained for twenty or thirty years; so much of his flesh cut off every day, such a bone broken, and by Art the bone cured again, and the flesh restored, that he might for thirty years space, every day be dying, and yet never die. Or, 3. Imagine a man could be kept alive in torment in this case, from sleep, ease, food, clothing, 500. years, or a 1000. years, and boiling all the time in a cauldron full of melted lead; & say the soul could dwell in a body under the rack, the wheel, the lashes and scourges of Scorpions, and whips of iron, the man bleeding, crying, in the act of dying for pain, gnawing his tongue, for ten hundred years; now suppose a mighty Prince, by an act of free grace, could and would deliver this man from all this pain and torture, and give him a life in perfect health, in ten hundred Paradises of joy, pleasure, worldly happinesse, and a day all the thousand years without a night, a summer all this time, without cloud, storm, winter, all the honour, acclamations, love, and service of a world of men and Angels, cloath this man with all the most compleat delights, perfections, and vertues of minde and body, set him ten thousand degrees of elevation, to the top of all imaginable happinesse, above Solomon in his highest Royalty, or Adam in his first innocencie, or Angels in their most transcendent glory and happinesse. Yea, 4. In our conception we may extend the former misery and pain, and all this happines to the length of ten thousand years, this should be thought incomparably the highest act of grace and love, that any creature could extend to his fellow-creature: And yet all this were but a shadow of Grace, in comparison of the love and rich Grace of God in Christ, in the justification of a sinner. 2. Consider, we are freed from the guilt of sin in justification: Now this is the eternall debt of sin, that remaineth after sin,To be justified is a state of solid felicity, in regard of the eternall debt of sin. that none can wash away but Christ, and that this remaineth after sin is acted. 2. That it remaineth for eternity. 3. That it is a misery we are onelyonly in justification delivered from, is cleare in Scripture: 1. Because sin is a debt: After the borrowed money is spent and gone, somewhat in Law and justice remaineth, and this is debt or obligation to make payment to the Creditour. 2. So the Scripture speaketh, Jer. 2.22. For though thou wash thee with Nitre, and take thee much sope, yet thy iniquity is marked before me. Borith, is an hearb that Fullers use for washing and purging, yet is sin such a Leopard-spot, that no Art, no industry of of the creature can remove it, Jer. 17.1. The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and the point of a diamond, it is graven upon the table of their heart, and the horns of your Altars. There is writ remaining after sin is acted. 2. Writ written with a pen of iron, and diamond, to endure for eternity. 3. Not written onelyonly, but ingraved, and indented upon the conscience, 1 Sam. 24.5. When David rent the rob of Saul, his heart smote him, so that it left a hole, or the mark of the stripe behinde it; as when a burning iron is put on the face of an evill-doer, it leaveth behinde it a brand, or a stigma. 2. This is terrible, that this brand is eternall; as the Prophet prayeth, Psal. 109.14. Let the iniquities of his fathers be remembred with the Lord: and let not the sin of his mother be botted out. 15. Let them be before the Lord continually. O dreadfull! The sins of wicked men shal stand up in heaven before the justice of God, so long as God shal live, and that is for ever and ever: So the Lord sweareth, By the excellency of Jacob; That is, by himself, Amos 8.7. Surely, I will never forget any of their works, Joh. 10.8. All that ever came before me, all that came not in by me, the Door, and the Way, they are foreign, Theeves and Robbers. The false Prophets, many of them were dead, yet being dead (saith Christ) this day, they are, in regard of guilt, Theeves and Robbers. To this day, above sixteen hundred years the Jews are guilty murderers; though their fathers who slew the Lord of glory, be dead: This day Cain is a murderer, Judas a traitour, and shall be so long as GOD shall live, and be GOD: Now without shedding of Christs blood, there is no remission of sins, Heb. 9.22. To be delivered from eternall debt, and intituled to an eternall Kingdom, is a life most desireable, & maketh the sinner to stand in the books of Christ, as the eternally ingaged debtor of Grace. Young Heirs, know your blessednesse aright: sinners under eternall debt; you laugh, sport, rejoice: and you are firebrands of wrath: you go singing, and shaking, and tinckling your bolts and fetters of black and unmixed vengeance: Alas, how can you sleep? How can you laugh and sing?
Eat the crums.] The dogs desire but the least,The smalest and worst things of Christ are incomparably above the most excellent things on earth. and (to speak so) the refuse of Christ. Doct. The meanest, and worst things of Christ (to speak so) are incomparably to be desired above all things. 1. Any thing of Christ is desirable; but to lay hold on the skirt of a Jew, Zac. 10.23. Because Christ that is with him is good. Yea, the dust of Zion is a thing that the servants of God take pleasure in, Psal. 102.14. The dust and stones of Zion, are not like the earth; and the mules of the holy grave, as Papists fondly dream, and are but earth; but because the Lord Christ dwelleth there, therefore are they desirable. The people carried their old harps to Babylon with them, and Iosephs bones must be carried out of Egypt to Canaan: Why Canaan was Christs land, his dwelling: Why, but we are to love the ground that Christs feet treadeth on. This I say not, that I judge it holy earth, that is Popish superstition; but that such is Christs excellencie, that any thing that hath the poorest relation to him, is desirable for him. 2. A poor woman, Luke 7. sought no more of him, but to wash the feet of Christ, and kisse them: Another woman, Matth. 9.21. If I may but touch the border of his garment, I shal be whole. Mary Magdalen sought but to have her arms filled with his dead body, Joh. 20.15. She saith, weeping, to the Gardiner, as she supposed; Sir, if thou hast born him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I wil take him away. To Joseph of Arimathea, his bloody winding sheet, and his dead, and ho…ed, and torn body in his arms, are sweet. Christs Clay is Silver, and his Brasse Gold. 3. Christs …harpest rebukes are sweet oyl; the wounds …nd the holes that the sweet Mediatour maketh … the soul, when he smiteth with the rod of his …outh, are with child of comforts, he rebuked …ot the Serpent, as not minding salvation to Sa…an, but rebuked Evah, intending the promised …od for her. O what sweetnesse of love is that …pression? Jer. 31.20. For since I spake against Ephraim, I do earnestly remember him, I will … have mercy on him, saith the Lord. Then rebuking of Ephraim, which is called; speaking against him is dipt in mercy, Hos. 11.7. My people are bent to back-sliding; this is a rebuke sharp enough: yet he chides himself friends with the people, v. 8. How shall I give thee up; O Ephraim, mine heart is turned within me. Here is kissing, and love wrapped about rebuks… so Jer. 3.1. Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; but see mercy: Yet return to me, saith the Lord. 4. His black and sowre Crosse is sweet and honied with comfort, his dead Body a bundle of myrrhe, Cant. 1.13. The smell of which is strong, and fragrant, and sweateth out precious gum rejoycing in tribulations, Rom. 5.3. Count it joy, all joy, when ye fall in divers temptations, Jam. 1.2. The Eagles smell heaven in the crosse, and Christ in it, Gal. 6.14. Yea, the refuse and the worst of Christs crosse, the shame and the reproaches of Christ, are sweeter and choicer to Moses, then the Treasures, Riches, yea, then the Kingdome of Egypt, and the glory of it, Heb. 11. ver. 26, 27. yea, the shame and blushing on Christs fair face, Heb. 12.2. which he suffered under the Crosse, is fairer then Rubies, and Gold, and hath the colour of the Heaven of Heavens. Nebuchadnezzar hath more pain & torment in persecuting, Dan. 4.19. then the three children had in being persecuted: There's pain and fury in active persecution: He was full of fury, and the form of his visage changed; but there is joy unspeakable and glorious in passive persecution. Christs sanctified crosse droppeth honey, 1 Pet. 1.6. 5. Christs glownings and sad desertions, though to the believer, they be death and hell: yet have much of heaven in them: So Psal. 30.7. Thou turnedst away thy face, and I was troubled, foreign Niuhal, I was troubled like a withered flower that loseth sap and vigor: So, Exod. 15.15. The Dukes of Edom, foreign Niuhaln, were amazed; yet at that time David prayed, cryed, and was heard, ver. 8, 9, 10. The sweetest communion that Christ seeketh of us on earth is prayer, Cant. 2.14. and Cant. 5. Desertion is death it self, and a death to the soul. 6. I opened to my beloved, and my beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone; And what was the Churches case? My soul went forth from me. The Arabick▪ My soul departed, I died, So is death described by the like phrase, Gen. 35.18. Rachels soul was in departing, for she died: And when men are stricken with sudden fear, the heart is said to goe out: So, Gen. 42.28. The soul of Josephs brethren departed, that is, they were extreamly amazed, When they found their money in their sacks. The like was the case of the Church when CHRIST departed, she died for sorrow, the soul departed from the soul, because her Lord and beloved was gone: Yet even that death, that soul-hell in the want of Christ was a Heaven, it was a sweet and comfortable season, then hath she a commuion with him, in a most heavenly manner. 1. Asking at the watchmen for him. 2. In binding sad charges on the Daughters of Jerusalem, to commend her to God by prayer. 3. Then was she sick of Love for him. 4. Then fell she out in that large Love rapture, in a most heavenly praise of him, in all his vertues, My welbeloved is white and ruddy, and the chief amongst ten thousand, &c. Here then the Hell, that Christ throweth the Saints in, in their Desertions, is their heaven. 6. The meanest and lowest relation with Christ, is honour: John Baptist placeth an honour, in unloosing the Latchets of his shooes, and thinketh to bear his shooes is more honour then he deserveth, Joh. 1.27. David a great Prophet appointed to be a King: O if I might be so near the Lord, as to be a door-keeper in his house, Ps. 84.10. He putteth a happinesse on the Sparrow, and the Swallow, that may build their nests beside the Lords Altar: Then the fragments and crums that his dogs eateth, must be the dainties of heaven,What must Christ himself be in excellencie when the worst things of Christ are so desireable. and Christs water the wine of heaven. Now if any the lowest thing of Christ, the Morsell of his dogs be desireable; how sweet must himself be, if the parings of his bread be sweet? What must the great loafe Christ himself be? Christ himself is so taking a Lover, he hath a face that would ravish love out of Devils, so they had Grace to see his beauty; he could lead captive all hearts in hell, with the lovelines of his countenance, which is white and ruddy, and pleasant as Lebanon, if they had eyes to behold him. O he himself is an unknown Lover; he hath neither brim nor bottome, his Gospel is the unsearchable riches of Christ; his Gospel is but a creature; How unsearchable must he himself be? The wise man, Prov. 30.4. putteth a riddle upon all the wisest on the earth, Solomon & all: What is his name? We know neither name nor thing, Isa. 53.8. Who shall preach his generation? O what a mercy … that he will give sinners leave to love him? Or honour us so much that we may lay our black and spotted love, on so lovely and fair a Saviour? That such an infinite and desireable love as Christs Love, should come (to borrow that expression) within the sides of thy love and heart, is a wonder; Alas, its a narrow circle and not capacious to contain him and his love, that passeth knowledge, Eph. 3.19. foreign. It over passeth and transcendeth far the narrow comprehension of created knowledge either of men or Angels. To seek Grace is desireable; but suppose any person were a Masse, and nothing but composed of pure Grace, and yet want Christ himself, he should be but a broken lamed creature; put a soul in heaven, and let him be hated of Christ (if that were possible) Heaven should be Hell. Imagine devils were standing with their black chains of darknesse, even up in the Heaven of Heavens, and the Plague of being hated of Christ on their soul, and that they could see him that sitteth on the Throne, and somewhat of the Rayes and Beames of that fulness of God that is in Christ; yet should Devils still be Devils, they wanting Christ the heaven of Angels and glorified men. What a flower? What a Rose of love and light must CHRIST be,The excellencie of Christ farther illustrated who filleth with smell, light, beautie, the four sides, East and West, South and North of the Heaven of Heavens, and his glory? Suppose in the hour of our last farewell to time, all creatures void of Reason, Heavens, Stars, Light, Air, Earth, Sea, dry Land, Birds, Fishes, Beasts, were in a capacity to love us, and they with Men and Angels, should let out upon us the fulnesse; yea, the Sea of all their love (as its a sweet thing to be lovely and desireable to many) yet this were nothing to him who is, Cant. 5.16. All desires, or all loves: So Vatablus rendereth it, Christus est totus desideria: He is a Masse of love, and love it self; lovely in the womb, the ancient of dayes became young for me; lovely in the Crosse, even when despised and numbred with theeves; lovely in the grave, lovely at the right hand of God, lovely in his second appearance in glory: yea, all desirable, Cant. 6.10. his countenance white and ruddy, 11. his head, a golden head; his headship and government desirable; his locks bushie and black; his counsels deep, various, unsearchable; his eyes as Doves, chaste, pure, and can behold no iniquity; his cheeks, or two sides of his face, as a bed of spice, and sweet smelling flowers: his face manly, comely as Lebanon: his lips like Lillies, dropping sweet smelling Myrrhe: his Gospel smelleth of heaven: his hands pure, his works holy, fair, as Gold-rings set with Beril: his belly, or breast and bowels, as bright Yvory overlaid with Saphires: that is, his breast and belly, that containeth his bowels, his heart and affections, are as Yvory, bright and glorious: and Yvory overlaid, covered and adorned with Saphires, that are precious stones of a sea-blue, and heavenly colour, because his bowels and inward affections are full of love, tendernesse of mercy, and the compassion of his heart, most heavenly: his legs are pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold: his wayes and government like marble-pillars, upright, white, pure, and set on gold, solid, firm, stable, that Christ cannot slip or fall: his Scepter a Scepter of righteousnesse, and his Kingdom eternall, and cannot be shaken: his countenance as the mountain Lebanon, his person eminent, goodly, high, great, tall, fruitfull as Cedars: his mouth most sweet, his words and testimonies as honey, or the honey comb: yea, …ll creatures are weak, and Christ strong: all …se, he precious: all empty, he full: all black, …e fair: all foolish and vain, he wise, and the …ly Counseller, deep in his counsels and wayes. The speciall Evangelick sin that we are guilty of,The high esteem of Christ in foure grounds. is unbelief, Joh. 16.9. and this floweth from a low estimation that we have of Christ, and therefore these considerations are to be weighed in our estimation of Christ.
1. The wisdom or folly of any man is most seen in the estimative faculty, for it denominateth a man wise; many are great Judges, and learned, as the Magicians of Chaldea, and Philosophers, who know wonders, hidden things, and causes of things, and yet are not wise, but fools, Rom. 1.21. and vain in their imaginations, because there is a great defect in their estimative faculty, in the choice of a God, ver. 22.23. the practicall mind is blinded, and they chuse darknesse for light, evill for good, a creature for their God. By faith, Moses, when he was come to age, Heb. 11.25.refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter; and chose, rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. And how is his faith made faith? And how is it evident, that he was not a raw, ignorant and foolish childe when he made the choise? But a man ripe, come to years, and so as wise as he was old: It is proved, because his estimative faculty was right, v. 26. Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches then the treasures of Egypt. He is a wise man, who maketh a wise choise, and for thi… cause Esau is called, Heb. 12.26. foreign, a profane man, from foreign confudit, he had not wise…dom to put a difference between the excellency of the birth-right, and a morsell of meat; so Ezech. 22.8. foreign, is to confound Gods Sabbath with another day: A profane wicked man hath not wisdome to esteem God and Christ above the creature, but confoundeth the one with the other.
2. Our esteem of Christ is to be pure, chaste, spirituall, and so to work purely; that is, the formall reason why we esteem of Christ, must be because he is Christ, and not because Summer goeth with Christ; nay, not because he comforteth, but because he is God, the Redeemer, and Mediatour; its a chaste love, and a chaste esteem, if the wife chuse to love her husband, because he is her husband, as the sense esteemeth white to be white under the notion of such a colour. The operation of every faculty is most pure, and kindly, when it is carried toward its object, according to its formall reason, without any mixture of other respects, extraneous and by-reasons, are more whorish, lesse con-naturall, not so chaste; there is some wax in our honey, and this we should take heed unto; the elective power is a tender piece of the soul.
3. Estimation produceth love, even the love of Christ; and love is a great Favourite, and is much at Court, and dwelleth constantly with the King; to be much with Christ, especially in secret, late and early, and to give much time to converse with Christ, speaketh much love▪ and the love of Christ is of the same bignesse and quantity with Grace, for Grace and Love keep proportion one with another.
4. He who duely esteemeth Christ, is a noble bidder, and so a noble and liberall buyer, he outbiddeth Esau. What is pottage to Christ? He overbiddeth Iudas: What is silver to Christ?Phil. 3.8 Yea, foreign, all things is the greatest count can be cast up; for it includeth all prices, all summes, it taketh in heaven, as its a created thing: Then, all things, the vast and huge Globle and Cirle of the capacious world, and all excellencies within its bosome or belly; nations, all nations; Angels, all Angels; Gold, all Gold; Jewels, all Jewels: Honour and delights, all honour, all delights, and every all beside, lieth before Christ, as feathers, dung, shadows, nothing: To wash a sinner, is the eminencie of love, and the highest esteem of him; But, O what a mercy, that Christ should defile his precious, sinlesse, Royall, and Princely blood, by dipping in such a loathsome, foul, and deformed creature as a sinner is, Rev. 1.5.
Dogs eat the crums.] Here be degrees of persons, and things, in our Fathers house: Children, and dogs: yet dogs which the Lord of the house owneth: here is a high table, and bread: and a by-board, or an after-table, and crums for dogs: here be persons of honour, Kings sons cloathed in Scarlet, and sitting with the King at dinner, when his Spikenard sendeth forth a smell; and here be some under the table, at the feet of Christ, waiting to receive the little drops of the great honey-comb of rich grace, that falleth from him: Follow Christ, and grace shall fall from him; his steps drop fatnesse, especially in his Palace, 1 Joh. 2.12.13.14. There be in our Lords house little children, babes; there be in it also experienced ancient Fathers (for Grace hath gray haires for wisedom, not for weaknesse:) there be strong men also: Christ was once a little stone, but he grew a great mountain that filled the whole earth: yea, and the heaven too: Christ is a growing childe: In Christs lower firmament, there be stars of the first and second magnitude: and in his house, vessels of great, and of small quantity, cups and flagons, Isa. 22.24. yet all are fastened upon the Golden-nail, Jesus Christ. 2. All are in the way, the plants all growing, but one is a grain of mustard seed, and a rose not broken out to the flower, and another is a great tree: its morning, and but the glimmering of the rayes of the day-star in one, and its high Sun, perfect day, near the noon-day with another: Strong father Abraham, mighty in believing, was once a babe on the breasts, that could neither creep, nor stand, nor walk. The love of Christ in its first rise, is a drop of dew that came out of the womb of the morning, the mother in one night brought forth an hoste, an innumerable millions of such babes, and covered the face of the earth with them. But this drop of dew groweth to a Sea that swelleth up above hell and the grave, Cant. 8.6, 7. It is more then all the floods and seas of the earth, and floateth up to the Heaven of Heavens, and up, and in, it must be upon Christ, 1 Pet. 1.8. Ye see not Christ, yet ye love him. It overfloweth Christ and taketh him, and ravisheth his heart: It is a strong chain that bindeth Christ, when the grave, sin, death, devils, could not bind him, Can. 4.9. Act. 2.24. 3. Christs way of administration, is a growing way, his Kingdom is not a standing, nor a sitting, nor a sleeping Kingdome: But its walking, and posting. Thy Kingdome come. An increasing Kingdom, a growing peace, Isa. 9.7. Of the increase of his Government and peace (there shall be) no end: In regard of duration even in heaven, there shall be a growing of his Kingdom: There's not yesterday, and to morrow, and the next year in heaven: yet there's a negative increase, glory and peace shal ascend in continuance and never come to an height: the Sun never decline, the long day of Christs glory and peace shall never end. Christ is saying even now, Father, I must have all my children up with me, that where I am, there they may be also: And therefore the head draws up to him now a finger, then a toe: now an arm, then a leg: he hath been these sixteen hundred years since his Ascension, drawing up by death, whole Churches, the Saints at Corinth, at Rom…, at Philippi: The seven Candlesticks, and the seven Stars of Asia, are long ago up above Orion, and the seven Stars: and are now shining up before the Throne: This consecrated Captain of our Salvation, will not sleep till his Fathers house be filled, till all the numerous ofspring, and the Generations of the first born, be up under on roof with their Father. Heaven is a growing Family, the Lord of the house hath been gathering his flocks into the fair fields of the Land of Praises, ever since the first Abel died; and all down along, the believers were gathered to their Fathers.
1. Vse is, that we despise not the day of smal things; Gods beginning of great works is smal. What could be said of a poor womans throwing of a stool at the man who did first read the new Service Book in Edenburgh? It was not looked at as any eminent passage of Divine Providence; yet it grew till it came up to Armies of men, the shaking of three Kingdomes, the sound of the Trumpet, the voice of the Alarm, the lifting up of the Lords Standart, destruction upon destruction, garments rowled in blood, and goeth on in strength, that the vengeance of the Lord, and the vengeance of his Temple, may pursue the Land of Graven Images, and awake the Kings of the Earth to rise in Battle against the great Whore Babylon, that the Jews may return to their Messiah, and Israel, and Judah ask the way to Zio…, with their faces thitherward, weeping as they go: that the Forces of the Gentiles, and the Kingdoms of the world, may become the Kingdoms of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ. And this act of a despised woman▪ was one of the first steps of Omnipotencie; God then began to open the mouth of the Viall of his wrath, to let out a little drop of vengeance upon the seat of the Beast, and ever since the right arme of the Lord awaking, hath been in action, and in a growing Battle against all that Worshipped the Beast, and received his mark on their right hand, and their forehead; and who knoweth but Christ is in an act of conquering, to create a new thing on the earth, and subdue the people to himself. Omnipotencie can derive a Sea, a world of noble and glorious works from as smal a Fountain as a straw, a ram-horn, yea, Jawbone of a dead Asse. God can put forth omnipotencie in all its flowers and golden branches of over-powering and incomparable excellencies, upon meer Nothing, the winde is an empty unsolid thing, the Sea a fluid and soft, and ebbing creature; yet the wind is Gods chariot, he rideth on it, and the Sea his walk, his paths are in the great waters.
2. Vse. A crum that falleth from Christs Table, hath in it the nature of bread, some weak ones complain, O I have not the heart of God like David, nor the strong faith of Abraham to offer my son to death for Christ, nor the burning fire of the zeal of Moses, to wish my name may be razed out of the Book of life, that the Lord may be glorified; nor the high esteem of Christ, to judge all but losse & dung for Jesus Christ, as Paul did. But what if Christ set the whole loafe before the children, is it not well? If thou lie but under Christs feet, to have the crums of mercy that slippeth through the fingers of Christ? The lowest room in heaven, even behinde the door is heaven. 1. There's a minimum quod sic, the lowest measure, or grain of saving Grace, and its saving Grace; a drop of dew is water, no lesse then the great Globe and Sphere of the whole element of water is water, a glimmering of morn-dawning light is light, and of the same nature with the noon-light, that is in the great body of the Sun, the motion of a childe newly formed in the belly, is an act of life; no lesse then the walking and breathing of a man of thirty years of age in his flower and highest vigour of life; the first stirrings of the new birth, are the workings and operations of the holy Ghost, and the love of God even now shed abroad in our hearts by the holy Ghost, shall remaine the same in nature, with us in heaven, 1 Cor. 13.8, 9, 10. 2. Christ doth own the bruised reed, and the smoaking flax, so far forth, as not to crush the one, nor to quench the other, and can with tender cautelousnesse of compassion, stoop, and with his arm go between the lambe on the margin and brink of Hell, as to save it from falling down headlong over the brow of the Mountain; he, Ps. 147.3, Healeth the broken in heart, and as a Chyrurgion (so Vatablus expoundeth it) bindeth up their wounds, and putteth the broken bones in their native place again; and whereas young ones are easily affrighted, yea, and distracted with fear, when sudden cryes and hideous War-shouts surpriseth them; Christ affrighteth not weak consciences with shouts, to put poor tender souls out of their wits, with the shouts of Armies of the terrours of Hell in the conscience: yea, Isa. 42.2. The meek Lord Jesus shall not cry, nor lift up (a shout) nor cause his voice be heard in the street. O what bowels! What stirrings, and boylings, and wrestlings of a pained heart touched with sorrow, are in Christ Jesus? When he saw the people scattered as sheep having no sheapherd, foreign He was bowelled in heart, Math 9.36.his bowels were moved with compassion for them. O how sweet! That thy sinfull weaknesse should be sorrow and pain to the bowels & heart of Jesus Christ: so as infirmity is your sin, and Christs pitty and compassion: can the Father see the childe sweat, wrestle under an over-load while his back be near broken, and he cry, I am gone, and his bowels not be moved to pitty, and his hands not stretched out to help? Were not the bowels and heart of that Mother made of a piece of the nether Milstone, had she not sucked the Milk and breasts of a Tyger, and seemed rather to be the Whelp of a Lyon, then a woman, who should see her young childe drowned and wrestling with the water, and crying for her help, and yet she should not stir, nor be moved in heart, nor run to help? This is but a shadow of the compassion that is in that heart dwelling in a body personally united to the blessed Godhead in Jesus Christ. We should have tender hearts toward weak ones; considering, 1. That Christ cannot disinherit a son for weaknesse. 2. Love is not broken with a straw, or a little infirmity. 3. All the vessels of Christs house, are not of one size. 4. Some mens infirmities are as transparant Christall, easily seen through; others have infirmities under their garments. 5. We shal see many in heaven, whom we judged to be cast-awayes, while they lived with us on earth. 6. Many go to Heaven with you, and you hear not the sound of their feet in their journey.