The Trial and Triumph of Faith, Sermon 22
SERMON XXII.
NOw a word of a strong and great Faith, and withall of a weak and fainting Faith. A great Faith. Ingredients of a strong Faith. 1. Strong Praying.For the most I go not from the Text, to find out the ingredients of a great Faith. 1. A strong, praying, and a crying a Faith, is a great Faith. So must Christs Faith have been, who prayed with strong cries and tears: Strong Faith maketh sore sides, in praying as this woman prayed with good will; there's an efficacious desire to be rid of a sinfull temptation, as Paul prayed thrice to be freed of the prick in the flesh. Their Faith is weak, who dare not pray against some Idoll sins: Or, 2. If they pray, its but gently, with a wish, not to be heard.
2. The womans crying, her instant pleading in Faith, yea 1. Above the Disciples care for her;2. Instant pleading yea, above Christs seeming glowmes, who denied her to be his, who reproached her as a dog, argueth great grace, great humility with strong adherence, and so great faith.
2. For Faith …aileth sometimes with a strong tide, and a fair wind; according as the Moone hath an aspect on the Sun, so is it ful, or not ful, when the wheels are set right to the Sun, the clock moveth and goeth right:Strength of grace, required in beleeving. The fairer and more clear sight that Faith hath of Christ, the stronger are the acts of Faith, it cannot bee denied but Faith hath a good, and an ill day: because grace is various, its no strong proof that its not grace.
3. To put Faith in all its parts, in light, in staying on Christ, in affiance, in adherance, in self-diffidence, in submissive assenting forth in all its acts, and to lift the soul all off the earth, requireth Christs high Spring-tide; its not easie to put all the powers that do act in Faith a float, especially because a strong faith is a great vessel, and therefore more of Christs tide is required for weighing Anchor, and lancing forth: The wings of a Sparrow should not raise an Eagle off the earth, the limbs of a Pismire could not suit with a Horse or an Eliphant, there is need of a strong winged soul to believe, especially against hope.
4. To believe Christ, when midnight speaketh blacknesse of wrath, requireth eyes and light of miracles; yea, its a greater work then the very miracles of Christ, Iohn 14.12. But especially when Christ is absent, its with the soul, as with a clock, in which the wheels are broken, the passes or weights are fallen down.
Obj. 1.Obj. 1. But I aim and endeavour to believe, but can do nothing, and without his grace my violence to heaven is without fruit. Ans. 1. Its true, the Semipelagians halfing of the work of believing, and the glory of it between co operating grace and will, as if nature could divide the spoil with the grace of Christ, is damnable pride; but its Gods way to half the work between Christ within, in regard of the habit of grace, and Christ without, in regard of the assisting grace of God, Luke 15.20. While he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and ran and fell on his neck, and kissed him;Christ rewardeth grace with grace. Christ rewardeth not natures aims with grace, nor doth he make gifts the work, and grace the hire, or natures labour the race, and grace the Garland: but he rewardeth grace with grace, and that of meer grace, Joh. 15.3. He hath in his Decree and Promise marshalled such and such acts of grace to stand beside others, and that by Covenant; and therefore believe, that you may believe; pray, that you may pray.
Obj. 2. But who can act saving grace, Obj. 2.without the blowing of saving grace; I can no more do it, then I can command the West wind to blow when I list. Ans. I grant all, nor do I speak this to insinuate, that Free-will sitteth at the helm, or that Grace sleepeth, and Will waketh, the contrary is an evident truth: yet give me leave to say, there's ods between blowing of the winde, and making ready the sails: Though Sea-men cannot make wind, nor is it their fault to want wind, yet can they prepare the Sailes, and hoise them up to welcome the wind; we cannot create the breathings of the spirit, yet are we to misse these breathings; and this is a fitting of the Sails, and we are to join with the spirits breathings. Christ bindeth up the winds in his garment, so as if one look of faith,How grace beginneth all super…naturall works. or halfe a spirituall groane should ransom me from hell, I have it not in stock▪ therefore hath God ordered such a dispensation, that in all stirrings of grace, the first spring, Principium motus, the fountain-rise of calling Jesus Lord, shall be up in Heaven at the right hand of the Father, and the farre end of any gracious thought, is as far above me as the heart of Christ, who is in the Heaven of Heavens, is above the earth, though ye think nothing of it; and better Christ be my Steward, and that the Gospel be at the end of all acts of grace, as that Christ be Free wills debtor: More reason Christ be Creditor then debtor to his Redeemed ones: 2. I know the childe of God may be so far forth lazie, as that its his fault that the winde bloweth not; if we speak of a morall cause. 3. Its his part to joyne with the working of assisting grace, Col. 1.29. Whereunto I also labour, foreign striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily. The Lord hath by free promise, laid holy bands on himself, to give predeterminating grace to his own children to persevere to the end, and to prevent Apostacy and hainous sins inconsistent with saving faith, 1 Cor. 1.8. Jude v. 24. Ier. 32.39, 40, 41. Isa. 54.10. Isa. 59.21.22. Luk. 2….32. 1 Ioh. 2.1.2. Yet so as he hath reserved a liberty to himself, to co-operate with them in particular acts as it shall be their sin not his withdrawing of Grace that maketh them guilty, to the end we may know we are in Graces debt, in all good and supernaturall Acts, so 2 Chron. 32.31 Ezechiah was tried of God in the businesse of the King of Babylons Ambassadors; that the King might see that he could not walk to heaven on clay legs, or by his own strength, and the reason is clear; God cannot make a Promise of contributing this bowing and predeterminating Grace, but in a way suitable to Free-grace. For God cannot change Grace unto naturall debt, it remaining grace, for so it should be Grace & no Grace, which is a contradiction: 2. The Lord hath reserved liberty to himself in this promise, that in this or this particular Act (the omission whereof may consist with perseverance in Grace) he may contribute his influence of Grace, or not contribute it; so David hath not actuall Grace at his will and nod, to eschew adultery, and murther as he pleaseth:Foure reasons why Grace in the work of faith must begin, and so begin, as we are guilty in not following. nor Peter to decline an evill hour, when he shall be tempted to forswear his Saviour Christ; nor hath Heman in his hand, Psal. 88. nor the deserted Church power, Psal. 77. to pray and believe, and rejoice in the salvation of God at the disposition of Free-will: But the key is up in the hands of the Kingly Intercessor, At the right hand of the Father that must open the heart; its far to fetch, as far as the Heaven of heavens, to make winde and sailing to Christ-ward; therefore, 3. Seasons of Acts of Grace to believe, to walk in any warmnesse of love to Christ and his members, are fruits of Royall Liberty and Free-Grace; who hath the key of the house of wine, to stay the soul with the Flaggons and Apples of love? Certainly, it is the King himself that taketh the Spouse into His banqueting House, Cant 2.4. And yet so as the omission of all supernaturall duties; yea, our lazinesse in the manner of doing, our failings and sins are imputed to our selves, and not to the not blowing of the wind of the holy spirit, nor to the want of the efficacious motion of the spirit, as Libertines teach, with Arminians; For we so sin through the want of the motions of efficacious Grace, as through the want of a Physicall, not of a morall cause, and so as we are most willing to want that influence, and so are guilty before the Lord: God hath reasons strong and convincing, why he worketh thus; 1. It setteth not Grace to work by ingagement; the spirit of the living creatures is within every wheel of Christ, that it must move from an inward principle; the motion of saving Grace, is Christs heart wheeled about by it self, and by no forraigne cause without it self: Love worketh as Love without bud or bribe from Men or Angels. Grace is both wages and work, the race and the gold to it self. 2. God delights to have men and Angels his debtors. Grace holdeth an open and a free Inne, with all the dainties that Christ can make, to all comers and goers, for nothing but thanks and heartily welcome: Grace maketh no gain of my work. The sweating of Angels, and of the Thousand Thousands that sing up the glory of Christ before the high Throne, is no income to Christs Rent: Grace should not be Grace, if it could Traffique, or buy, or sell with a creature. Angels and men stand in the Books of Free-grace for Millions of borrowed summes. Christs blood and deep love may be praised, but never recompenced: Christs love hath filled this world and the new Paradice with debtors; and Angels can neither read, nor sum, nor cast up the Accompts of Free-grace.3. Grace to the saints and on the saints but Glory is on them, not to them. 3. That we cannot be masters of one good act, without his preventing Grace evidenceth what nature is, and maketh Grace both my staffe and my convey in at Heavens Gates; Nature and Free-will must stoop and do homage to CHRIST. There's a Glory active, and a Glory passive, as there's also Grace active and passive, Free-will is active under Grace, and passive also, & therefore Grace and Mercy, is to the Saints, and upon the Saints; Nature emptieth its lamp upon the golden pipe, the rich Grace of the Mediatour, and Free-will moveth and runneth, but not but as moved, driven, and breathed upon by Free-grace: But as concerning Glory, it hath a more eminent and noble relation; Glory shall be on the Saints as a garment, as a Crown, for they shall be glorified: But no Glory to the Saints, but only, only to the Lamb, to the flower of the Glory of Glory, Jesus the Celebrious, Eminent, most high and adored Prince of the Kings of the earth; and therefore there's room and place left for sin and shame to Free-will in the busines of praedeterminating grace, that nature can but sigh and sin, and Grace sing and be spotlesse and innocent: Christ so draweth, as we sin in not being drawen; Christ so taketh and allureth, that it is our guilt that we are not taken and overcome with the smell of the Kings Oyntments: So is sin the field out of which springeth the Rose, the flower of free and unhired Grace: sin must go with us, as near to heaven as to the threshold of the gates, that the sinner may halt and crook▪ when he moveth his foot on the threshold stone of Glory; that so pardoning Grace may enter the new City with us. 4. The Lord will have us take to heaven with us, a Book of the Psalmes and Praises of Grace, that in that land we may extol and advance Free-grace, and may hold the Book in our hand all the way, and sigh and weep, and sing, and adore the Saviour of Free-grace, and may take Graces bill in our hand into Heaven with us: O how sweet to be Graces drowned and over burdened Debtor? Its good here to borrow much, and professe inability for Eternity, to pay, that heaven may be a house full of broken men, who have borrowed Millions from Christ, but can never repay more, then to read and sing the praises of Graces free. bill; and say, Glory, Glory to the Lamb, How there's a promise of bowing and paaedeterminating grace made to supernaturall acts; yet God reserveth his own liberty. 1. How. 2. When. 3. In what measure he doth co-operatthat sitteth on the Throne for evermore: praising for ever in heaven, must be in liew of paying debt. 1. God is not behinde nor wanting to the gracious soul, for there's a promise of Grace here. 2. There is an intercession at hand, and that more mighty now then at Christs first ascension, and shall be more mighty when all Israel shall be converted. There is a stirring required in a gracious spirit, but with sense of natures weaknesse, so as he is to arise, and be doing, and the Lord shall be with him, and he is so to blow upon the coals, as if he could do his alone, though not without the Faith of Dependance upon an immediate acting from Heaven.
Object. 3. But then Adam yet sinlesse was to believe weaknesse and sin in himself, before he sinned. Ans. Not so, but he was to have that which by Analogie answereth to sense of sin, that is a sinlesse consciousness and solicitude,Obj. 3. that if God should withdraw his stirring and predeterminating influence of corroborating him to will and to do, (you may call it Grace) he should fall, and that legs in Paradice without actuall assistance, could not actu secundo, bear the bulk and weight of Adams connaturall and constant walking with God, that Adam might know, before he was a debtor to justice, that he had need of mercy, or the free goodnesse of a surety, such as Jesus Christ, to prevent debt, no l…sse then to pay debt, even as Angels are debtors to Christ their head,Grace to Angels, necessary to prevent possible sins. for Redemption from all possible sinnes, no lesse then we are (though the degrees of altitude of Grace varieth much) the obliged underlings of such a bountifull Landlord, for Repemption from actuall misery.
3. Not to be broken with a temptation.3. That is a great Faith, that is not broken with a Temptation. But 1. taketh strength from a Temptation; as some run more swiftly after a fall, that they may recompence their losse of time; and that is great Faith that argueth from a Temptation, as this woman doth. 2. That is Jobs great Faith, chap. 2.3. That he still holdeth fast his integrity: the word foreign Hazak, is to hold with strength and power, He keepeth fast and with violence his innocency: and Faith maketh him stronger then he was; the word is used, Psal. 147.13, For making stronger the Bars of Ports. And its Jobs praise, chap. 1.22. In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God with folly. 3. Its a strong faith in this Woman, that, in a manner, Conquers Omnipotency by believing; yea, Satan, Winds, Fire from Heaven, Wife, Sabeans, yea, apprehended wrath cannot prevail with Job, to subdue his Faith; in all he standeth by this, Job 15.13▪ Though the Lord should slay me, Ile trust in him; Its great Faith to be at holding and drawing with God; and yet believe and pray, Hos 12.3. Gen. 32.26. And not let the Lord alone, nor give him any rest, Isa. 62.6, 7. till he answer as suppose thy prayers were never heard, and the Acts of believing were but Darts thrown at Heaven and the Throne without any effect; yet because Prayer and believing are acts of honouring God, though they never benefit thee; it argueth strong grace, and so great Faith, that it can be said, there be ten years, twenty years of reiterated Acts of Faith, and prayers of such a man lying up before the Throne, yea, in Christ the high Priests bosome; Let God make of my faith what he will, yet am I to believe: continued believing is Christs due, though it should never be to me gain of comfort or successe: that is a weak man who is thrown down on his back with a blast of wind, or made to stagger with the cast of a straw, or a feather: The temporary faith is in this seen to be soft, that its broken with persecution; When the sun riseth anone, foreign Mat. 13.21. He is offended and withereth quickly: some spirit of soft clay for a scrat with a Pin on his credit, casteth away all his confidence, dispaireth, and hangeth himself as Achitophel: such a Temptation would not once draw blood of a strong believer: Strawes & Feathers and Flax do quickly take fire, and are made ashes in a moment, but not so gold, theres bones and mettall in strong Faith: so the Martyrs Faith, that could not be broken with torments, is proved to be a great Faith, Heb. 11.35, foreign Their bodies were racked out as a drum, and beaten to death after racking, and they would not accept a deliverance: Why? Faith looked to a better resurrection: He who sweateth, panteth up the brow of the mount after Christ, and carrieth death on his back, must have this strong faith, that Christ is worthy of tortures: a strong faith can bear Hell on its shoulders, the Grave, and the sorrows of death, and not crack, nor be broken, Psal. 18.4, 5, 6. Psal. 116.3, 4.
4. Faith staying on God without light of comfort, strong.4. That Faith is argued to be strong that hath no light of comfort, but walketh in darkness upon the Margin & borders of a hundred deaths, and yet stayes upon the Lord, Isa. 50.11. So this woman had no comfort, nor ground of sense of comfort from Christ, except rough answers, and reproaches, yet she believeth, and so must be strong in the Faith, Psal. 3.6. Davids Faith standeth straight without a crooke, when ten thousand deaths are round about him, and Psa. 23.4. He feareth no ill when he walks in the cold and dark valley of the shadow of black death: Heman, Psal. 88.7. Thy wrath lieth hard on me, thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves; Then in his sense, God could do no more to drown him, not waves, but all waves; all Gods waves was on him, and above him, yet ver. 9. Lord, I have called daily upon thee: then he believed daily: Hezekiahs comforts are at a hard pinch, Isa. 39.14. Mine eyes fail, with looking upward, O Lord, I am opressed; yet praying argueth beleeving, Lord undertake for me: We must think Christs sense of comforts was ebbe, and low when he wept, cried, Heb. 5.7. and was forsaken of God; yet then his faith is doubled, as the Cable of an Anchor is doubled, when the storme is more then ordinary, My God, my God: David chideth his cast down soul, when there's no glimpse of comfort with strong Faith, Psal. 42.11. Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him. In swimming well, the less naturall helps to hold up the chin and head, the greater wave, if the swimmer be carried strongly thorow, as it were in despight of the streame, there's the more art: Art may counter-value strength, and sometime wisedom is better then strength: The lesse comfort, if yet you believe at midnight, when the spirit is overwhelmed, the more is the art of believing: when an inward principle is weak, we help it with externalls:The fewer externals that faith needeth, the stronger it is within. That the child must be alured with rewards, as with Apples, a Penny or the like, it is because his sight and desire of the beauty and excellency of learning and Arts, is but weak or nothing at all: sense and comforts are external Subsidies and helps to Faith; and these that cannot believe, but upon feelings, and sense of the sweetness of comforts, are hence argued to have weak and broken inclinations and principles of Faith: the more freenesse and ingenuity of spirit that is in believing, the more strength of faith, for that is most connaturall that hath least need of hire: you need not give hire, reward, or buds to the Mothers affection to work upon her, and cause her to love her Childe: love can hardly be hired, nature is stronger then rewards or any externals: Comforts are but the hire of serving of God, and the results of beleeving in a sad condition. There be some cautions here that are considerable. 1. God leadeth some strong ones to heaven, whose affections are soft as Davids were, Ps. 35.13. and 119.25.28.136.53. Ps. 6.6. And yet Faith is strong, Ps. 22.1. God possibly immediatly working upon the assenting, or believing faculty, leaving the affections to their own native disposition. 2. God useth some priviledged dispensations, so as a strong Believer shal doubt upon no good ground, Ps. 116.11. God so disposing, that grace may appear to be grace, and the man but flesh. 3. Softnesse of affection, and light of comfort, may by accident concur with strong acts of beleeving: for with these, in many, there is little light, much Faith, and they should without these apples given to children, strongly beleeve, and God to confirm his own of meer indulgence sweetneth affections.
Comforts are externals to Faith.But if God give comforts, ordinarily its a sort of indulgence of grace, or the grace of grace. Its true, rejoicing falleth under a Gospel-commandement, Phil. 4.4. yet so, as God hath not tied the sweet of the comfort of believing to believing, that you may know its strength of Faith that is the principle of strong Faith, as intense and strong habits maketh strong acts. God keepeth some in a sad condition all their life, who are experienced believers, and they never feel the comfort of faith, while the splendor of glory glance on their eyes; as one experienced believer kept under sadnesse and fear for eighteen years, at length came to this, I enjoy and rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorious; But he lived not long after. Another living in sadnesse all his life▪ died with comforts admirable. And 3. let this be put as a case of Conscience, why diverse believing and joying much in Gods Salvation all their life, yet die in great conflicts, and to beholders with little expression of comfort and feeling? As divers of the Saints die. Certainly, God 1. Walketh in liberty here. 2. He would not have us to limit the breathings of the Holy Ghost, to jump with our hour of dying. 3. We may make an Idoll of a begun heaven, as if it were more excellent then Christ: To conclude, little evidence, much adherence, speaketh a strong Faith.