A Body of Practical Divinity, Sermon 52
Of the Commandments.
Exod. 20.2.
I am the Lord thy God, &c.
2. THE Preface it self, which consists of three parts: 1. I am the Lord thy God: 2. Which have brought thee out of the Land of Egypt: 3. Out of the House of Bondage.
1. I am the Lord thy God.] Where we have a Description of God: 1. By his Essential Greatness, I am the Lord: 2. By his relative Goodness, Thy God. 1. By his essential greatness, I am the Lord; or as in the Hebrew, Iehovah. This name of God sets forth his Majesty: Sanctius habitum fuit, saith Buxtorf, the name Iohavah was had in more Reverence among the Jews, than any other name of God; it signifies Gods Self-sufficiency, Eternity, Independency, Immutability, Mal. 3.6.
Use 1. If God be Iehovah, the Fountain of being, who can do what he will, let us fear this great Lord, Deut. 28.58. That thou maist fear Hashem, Hanicbad Jehovah, this glorious and fearful name Jehovah.
Use 2. If God be Iehovah, the supream Lord, then it condemns the Blasphemous Papists who speak after this manner, Our Lord God the Pope: Is it a Wonder the Pope lifts his Tripple Crown above the Heads of Kings and Emperors, when he Usurps Gods Title, Shewing himself that he is God, 2 Thess. 2.4. The Pope goes to make himself Lord of Heaven, for he will Canonize Saints there: Lord of Earth; for with his Keys he doth bind and loose whom he pleaseth: Lord of Hell, for he can free Men out of Purgatory: But God will pull down these Plumes of Pride, He will consume this Man of sin with the breath of his mouth, and the brightness of his coming, 2 Thess. 2.8.
Use 3. God is described by his relative goodness, Eloeka, Thy God: Had God only called himself Iehovah, it might have terrified us and made us fly from him; but when he saith, Thy God, this may allure and draw us to him: This, though a Preface to Law, is pure Gospel. This word Eloeka, Thy God, is so sweet, that we can never suck out all the Hony in it. I am thy God, not only by Creation, but by Election. This word Thy God, though it was spoken to Israel, yet it is a Charter belongs to all the Saints: For the further Explication, here are three Questions.
Quest. 1. How God comes to be our God?
Resp. Through Jesus Christ: Christ is a middle Person in the Trinity: He is Emanuel, God with us: He brings two differing Parties together: He makes our Nature lovely to God, and Gods Nature lovely to us: He by his Death causeth Friendship, yea, Union: He brings us within the Verge of the Covenant, and so God becomes our God.
Quest. 2. What doth this imply, God being our God?
Resp. It is comprehensive of all good things: God is our strong Tower; our Fountain of living Water; our Salvation: More particularly, God being our God, implies the sweetest Relation.
1. The Relation of a Father, 2 Cor. 6.18. I will be a Father unto you: A Father is full of tender care for his Child: Who doth he settle the Inheritance upon but his Child? God being our God will be a Father to us; a Father of Mercy, 2 Cor. 1.3. the everlasting Father, Psal. 9.7. If God be our God, we have a Father in Heaven that never dies.
2. It imports the Relation of an Husband, Isa. 54.5. Thy Maker is thy Husband. If God be our Husband, he esteems us precious to him as the Apple of his Eye, Zech. 2.8. He imparts his Secrets to us, Psal. 25.14. He bestows a Kingdom upon us for our Dowry, Luke 12.32.
Quest. 3. How may we come to know this Covenant-Union, That God is our God?
Resp. 1. By having his Graces planted in us: Kings Children are known by their costly Jewels: It is not having common Gifts which shews we belong to God; many have the Gifts of God without God; but it is Grace gives us a true genuine Title to God. In particular, Faith is Vinculum Unionis, the Grace of Union: By this we may spell out our Interest in God. Faith doth not as the Mariner, cast its Anchor downwards, but upwards; it trusts in the Mercy and Blood of God, and trusting in God, engageth him to be our God: Other Graces make us like God, Faith makes us one with him.
2. We may know God is our God, by having the Earnest of his Spirit in our Hearts, 2 Cor. 1.22. God often gives the Purse to the Wicked, but the Spirit only to such as he intends to make his Heirs. 1. Have we had the Consecration of the Spirit? If we have not had the Sealing work of the Spirit, have we had the Healing work, 1 Iohn 2.20. Ye have an Unction from the Holy One. The Spirit where it is, stamps the Impress of its own Holiness upon the Heart: It embroiders and bespangles the Soul, and makes it all glorious within. 2. Have we had the Attraction of the Spirit? Cant. 1.4. Draw me, we will run after thee. Hath the Spirit, by its magnetick Vertue, drawn our Hearts to God? Can we say, as Cant. 1.7. O thou whom my Soul loveth. Is God our Paradise of Delight? Our Segullah, or chief Treasure? Are our Hearts so chained to God, that no other Object can inchant us or draw us away from him? 3. Have we had the Elevation of the Spirit? Hath it raised our Hearts above the World? Ezek. 3.14. The Spirit lifted me up. Hath the Spirit made us superna anhelare, seek the things above, where Christ is? Though our Flesh is on Earth, is our Heart in Heaven? Though live here, trade above? Hath the Spirit thus lifted us up? By this we may come to know, that God is our God: Where God gives his Spirit for an Earnest, there he gives himself for a Portion.
3. We may know God is our God, if he hath given us the Hearts of Children. Have we obediential Hearts? Psal. 27.8. Do we subscribe to Gods Commands, when his Commands cross our Will? A true Saint is like the Flower of the Sun, it opens and shuts with the Sun: He opens to God and shuts to Sin. If we have the Hearts of Children, then God is our Father.
4. We may know God is ours, and we have an Interest in him by our standing up for his Interest. We will appear in his Cause, and vindicate his Truth, wherein his Glory is so much concerned. Athanasius was foreign, the Bulwark of Truth, he stood up for it when most of the World were Arrians. In former times the Nobles of Polonia, when the Gospel was read, did lay their Hands upon their Swords, signifying that they were ready to defend the Faith, and hazard their Lives for the Gospel. No better sign of our having an Interest in God, than by our standing up for his Interest.
5. We may know God is ours, and we have an Interest in him, by his having an Interest in us, Cant. 2.16. My beloved is mine, and I am his. When God saith to the Soul, Thou art mine; the Soul answers, Lord I am thine: All I have is at thy Service: My Head shall be thine to study for thee: My Tongue shall be thine to praise thee. If God be our God by way of Donation, we are his by way of Dedication: We live to him, and are more his than we are our own. And thus we may come to know that God is our God.
Use 1. Above all things let us get this great Charter confirmed, that God is our God: Deity is not comfortable without Propriety: Tolle meum & tolle Deum. Aug. O let us labour to get sound Evidences, that God is our God: We cannot call Health, Liberty, Estate ours: O let us be able to call God ours, and say as the Church, Psal. 67.6. God, even our own God shall bless us. Let every Soul here labour to pronounce this Shibboleth, My God. And that we may endeavour after this to have God for our God: Consider 1. The Misery of such as have not God for their God; in how sad a Condition are they, when an hour of distress comes? This was Saul's Case, 1 Sam. 28.15. I am sore distressed; for the Philistins make war against me, and the Lord is departed from me. A wicked Man in time of Trouble, is like a Vessel toss'd on the Sea without an Anchor, it falls on Rocks or Sands: A Sinner not having God to be his God, though he makes a shift while Health and Estate last; yet when these Crutches are broken he leaned upon, his Heart sinks. It is with a wicked Man, as it was with the Old World when the Flood came; the Waters at first came to the Vallies, but then the People would get to the Hills and Mountains: But then the Waters came to the Mountains: Then there might be some Trees on the high Hills, and they would climb up to them: I but then the Waters did rise up to the tops of the Trees: Now all hopes of being saved were gone, their Hearts failed them. So it is with a Man that hath not God to be his God: If one Comfort be taken away, he hath another: If he lose a Child, he hath an Estate: I but then the Waters rise higher, Death comes and takes away all; now he hath nothing to help himself with, no God to go to, he must needs dye despairing. 2. How great a Privilege it is to have God for our God, Psal. 144.15. Happy are the People whose God is the Lord. Beatitudo hominis est Deus, Aug. That you may see the Privilege of this Charter,
1. If God be our God, then though we may feel the stroke of Evil, yet not the sting. He must needs be happy, who is foreign, in such a Condition, that nothing can hurt him: If he lose his Name it is written in the Book of Life: If he lose his Liberty, his Conscience is free: If he lose his Estate, he is possessed of the Pearl of Price: If he meets with Storms, he knows where to put in for Harbour. God is his God, and Heaven is his Haven.
2. If God be our God, then our Soul is safe: The Soul is the Jewel, it is a Blossom of Eternity, Dan. 7.15. I was grieved in the midst of my Body. In the Chaldee it is, In the midst of my Sheath. The Body is but the Sheath; the Soul is the Princely part of Man, which sways the Scepter of Reason: It is a Celestial Spark, as Damascen calls it: If God be our God, the Soul is safe as in a Garison. Death can do no more hurt to a vertuous Heaven-born Soul, than David did to Saul, when he cut off the lap of his Garment: The Soul is safe, being hid in the Promises; hid in the Wounds of Christ; hid in Gods Decree: The Soul is the Pearl, and Heaven is the Cabinet where God will lock it up safe.
3. If God be our God, then all that is in God is ours: The Lord saith to a Saint in Covenant, as the King of Israel to the King of Syria, 1 Kings 20.4. I am thine and all that I have. So saith God, I am thine: How happy is he who not only inherits the Gifts of God, but inherits God himself? All that I have shall be thine, my Wisdom shall be thine to teach thee, my Power shall be thine to support thee, my Mercy shall be thine to save thee. God is an infinite Ocean of Blessedness, and there is enough in him to fill us: If a thousand Vessels be thrown into the Sea, there is enough in the Sea to fill them.
4. If God be our God, he will intirely love us: Propriety is the ground of Love: God may give Men Kingdoms, and not love them; but he cannot be our God and not love us: He calls his Covenanted Saints Iediduth Naphshi, The dearly beloved of his Soul, Jer. 12.7. He rejoyceth over them with Joy, and rests in his Love, Zeph. 3.17. They are his Refined Silver, Zech. 13.9. His Jewels, Mal. 3.17. His Royal Diadem, Isa. 62.3. He gives them the Cream and Flower of his love: He not only opens his hand and fills them, Psal. 145.16. but opens his Heart and fills them.
5. If God be our God, he will do more for us than all the World besides can. What is that? 1. He will give us Peace in Trouble: When a Storm without, he will make Musick within: The World can create Trouble in Peace, but God can create Peace in Trouble: He will send the Comforter, who as a Dove brings an Olive Branch of Peace in his Mouth, Iohn 14.16. 2. God will give us a Crown of Immortality: The World can give a Crown of Gold; but that Crown hath Thorns in it, and Death in it; but God will give a Crown of Glory which fadeth not away, 1 Pet. 5.4. The Garland made of the Flowers of Paradise never withers.
6. If God be our God, he will bear with many Infirmities: God may respit Sinners a while, but long Forbearance is no Acquittance; he will throw them to Hell for their Sins. But if God be our God, he will not for every failing destroy us: He bears with his Spouse, as with the weaker Vessel: God may Chastise, Psal. 89.32. He may use the Rod and the pruning Knife, but not the Bloody Axe, Numb. 23.21. He hath not seen Iniquity in Jacob: He will not see Sin in his People, so as to destroy them: He sees their Sins so as to pity them; he sees them as a Physician sees a Disease in his Patient to heal him, Isa. 57.18. I have seen his Iniquities and I will heal him: Every failing doth not break the Marriage Bond asunder: The Disciples had great Failings, they all forsook Christ and fled; but this did not break off their Interest in God: Therefore saith Christ at his Ascension, Tell my Disciples I go to my God and to their God.
7. If God be once our God, he is so for ever, Psal. 48.14. This God is our God, Gnolam Vagned, for ever and ever. Whatever worldly Comforts we have, are but foreign, for a Season, Heb. 11.25. We must part with all, as Paul's Friends did accompany him to the Ship and there left him, Acts 20.28. So all our earthly Comforts will but go with us to the Grave and there leave us. You cannot say you have Health, and shall have it for ever: You have a Child and shall have it for ever: But if God be your God you shall have him for ever: This God is our God for ever and ever. If God be our God, he will be a God to us as long as he is a God: You have taken away my God, saith Micah, Iudges 18.24. But it cannot be said so to a Believer, that his God is taken away; he may lose all things else, but cannot lose his God. God is ours from everlasting in Election, and to Everlasting in Glory.
8. If God be our God, we shall enjoy all our Godly Relations with him in Heaven. The great Felicity on Earth is to enjoy Relations; a Father sees his own Picture in his Child; a Wife sees a piece of her self in her Husband. We plant the Flower of Love among our Relations, and the loss of them is like the pulling a Limb from the Body. But if God be ours, with enjoying God, we shall enjoy all our pious Relations in Glory. The gracious Child shall see his Godly Father; the Virtuous Wi…e shall see her Religious Husband in Christs Arms; and then there will be a dearer Love to Relations than ever was before, though in a far different manner; then Relations shall meet and never part; and so shall we be ever with the Lord.