The Ten Commandments
by
Thomas Watson
(1620-1686)
First published as part at A Body of Practical Divinity, 1692
Contents
1.
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Obedience
1.2 Love
1.3 The
Preface to the Commandments
1.4 The Right
Understanding of the Law
2. THE TEN
COMMANDMENTS
2.1 The First
Commandment
2.2 The Second
Commandment
2.3 The Third
Commandment
2.4 The
Fourth Commandment
2.5 The Fifth
Commandment
2.6 The Sixth
Commandment
2.7 The
Seventh Commandment
2.8 The
Eighth Commandment
2.9 The Ninth
Commandment
2.10 The
Tenth Commandment
3. THE LAW
AND SIN
3.1 Man’s
Inability to keep the Moral Law
3.2 Degrees
of Sin
3.3 The Wrath
of God
4. THE WAY OF
SALVATION
4.1 Faith
4.2
Repentance
4.3 The Word
4.4 Baptism
4.5 The
Lord’s Supper
4.6 Prayer
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Obedience
‘Take heed,
and hearken, O Israel; this day thou art become the people of the Lord thy
God. Thou shalt therefore obey the voice of the Lord thy God, and do his
commandments.’
Deut 27: 9, 10.
What is the
duty which God requireth of man?
Obedience
to his revealed will.
It is not
enough to hear God’s voice, but we must obey. Obedience is a part of the
honour we owe to God. ‘If then I be a Father, where is my honour?’
Mal 1: 6. Obedience carries in it the life-blood of religion.
‘Obey the voice of the Lord God,’ and do his commandments. Obedience without
knowledge is blind, and knowledge without obedience is lame. Rachel was fair
to look upon, but, being barren, said, ‘Give me children, or I die;’ so, if
knowledge does not bring forth the child of obedience, it will die. ‘To obey
is better than sacrifice.’
1 Sam 15: 22. Saul thought it was enough for him to offer
sacrifices, though he disobeyed God’s command; but ‘to obey is better than
sacrifice.’ God disclaims sacrifice, if obedience be wanting. ‘I spake not
unto your fathers concerning burnt offerings, but this thing commanded I
them, saying, Obey my voice.’
Jer 7: 22. Not but that God did enjoin those religious rites of
worship; but the meaning is that he looked chiefly for obedience — without
which, sacrifice was but devout folly. The end why God has given us his
laws, is obedience. ‘Ye shall do my judgements, and keep mine ordinances.’
Lev 18: 4. Why does a king publish an edict, but that it may be
observed?
What is the
rule of obedience?
The written
word. That is proper obedience which the word requires; our obedience must
correspond with the word, as the copy with the original. To seem to be
zealous, if it be not according to the word, is not obedience, but
will-worship. Popish traditions which have no footing in the word, are
abominable; and God will say,
Quis quaesivit
haec? ‘Who has required this at your
hand?’
Isa 1: 12. The apostle condemns the worshipping of angels, which
had a show of humility.
Col 2: 18. The Jews might say they were loath to be so bold as to
go to God in their own persons; they would be more humble, and prostrate
themselves before the angels, and desire them to present their petitions to
God; but this show of humility was hateful to God, because there was no word
to warrant it.
What are
the ingredients in our obedience that make it acceptable?
(1) It must
be cum animi prolubio, free and cheerful, or it is penance, not sacrifice.
‘If ye be willing and obedient.’
Isa 1: 19. Though we serve God with weakness, it may be with
willingness. You love to see your servants go cheerfully about their work.
Under the law, God will have a free-will offering.
Deut 16: 10. Hypocrites obey God grudgingly, and against their
will;
facere bonum, but not
velle
[they do good but not willingly]. Cain brought his sacrifice, but not his
heart. It is a true rule, Quicquid cor non facit, non fit; what the heart
does not do, is not done. Willingness is the soul of obedience. God
sometimes accepts of willingness without the work, but never of the work
without willingness. Cheerfulness shows that there is love in the duty; and
love is to our services what the sun is to fruit; it mellows and ripens
them, and makes them come off with a better relish.
(2)
Obedience must be devout and fervent. ‘Fervent in spirit,’ &c.
Rom 12: 11.
Quae ebullit prae
ardore. As water that boils over; so
the heart must boil over with hot affections in the service of God. The
glorious angels, who, for burning in fervour and devotion, are called
seraphims, are chosen by God to serve him in heaven. The snail under the law
was unclean, because a dull, slothful creature. Obedience without fervency,
is like a sacrifice without fire. Why should not our obedience be lively and
fervent? God deserves the flower and strength of our affections. Domitian
would not have his statue carved in wood or iron, but made of gold. Lively
affections make golden services. It is fervency that makes obedience
acceptable. Elijah was fervent in spirit, and his prayer opened and shut
heaven; and again he prayed, and fire fell on his enemies.
2 Kings 1: 10. Elijah’s prayer fetched fire from heaven, because,
being fervent, it carried fire up to heaven; quicquid decorum ex fide
proficiscitur. Augustine.
(3)
Obedience must be extensive, it must reach to all God’s commands. ‘Then
shall I not be ashamed (or, as it is in the Hebrew, lo Ehosh, blush), when I
have respect unto all thy commandments.’
Psa 119: 6.
Quicquid propter
Deum fit aequaliter fit [All God’s
requirements demand equal effort]. There is a stamp of divine authority upon
all God’s commands, and if I obey one precept because God commands, I must
obey all. True obedience runs through all duties of religion, as the blood
through all the veins, or the sun through all the signs of the zodiac. A
good Christian makes gospel piety and moral equity kiss each other. Herein
some discover their hypocrisy: they will obey God in some things which are
more facile, and may raise their repute; but other things they leave undone.
‘One thing thou lackest,’
unum deest.
Mark 10: 21. Herod would hear
John Baptist, but not leave his incest. Some will pray, but not give alms,
others will give alms, but not pray. ‘Ye pay tithe of mint and anise, and
have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgement, mercy and faith.’
Matt 23: 23. The badger has one foot shorter than the other; so
these are shorter in some duties than in others. God likes not such partial
servants, who will do some part of the work he sets them about, and leave
the other undone.
(4)
Obedience must be sincere. We must aim at the glory of God in it.
Finis specificat
actionem; in religion the end is
all. The end of our obedience must not be to stop the mouth of conscience,
or to gain applause or preferment; but that we may grow more like God, and
bring more glory to him. ‘Do all to the glory of God.’
1 Cor 10: 31. That which has spoiled many glorious actions, and
made them lose their reward, is, that men’s aims have been wrong. The
Pharisees gave alms, but blew a trumpet that they might have the glory of
men.
Matt 6: 2. Alms should shine, but not blaze. Jehu did well in
destroying the Baal-worshippers, and God commended him for it; but, because
his aims were not good (for he aimed at settling himself in the kingdom),
God looked upon it as no better than murder. ‘I will avenge the blood of
Jezreel upon the house of Jehu.’
Hos 1: 4. O let us look to our ends in obedience; it is possible
the action may be right, and not the heart.
2 Chron 25: 2. Amaziah did that which was right in the sight of
the Lord, but not with a perfect heart. Two things are chiefly to be eyed in
obedience, the principle and the end. Though a child of God shoots short in
his obedience, he takes a right aim.
(5)
Obedience must be in and through Christ. ‘He has made us accepted in the
beloved.’
Eph 1: 6. Not our obedience, but Christ’s merits procure
acceptance. In every part of worship we must present Christ to God in the
arms of our faith. Unless we serve God thus, in hope and confidence of
Christ’s merits, we rather provoke him than please him. As, when king Uzziah
would offer incense without a priest, God was angry with him, and struck him
with leprosy (2
Chron 26: 20); So, when we do not come to God in and through
Christ, we offer up incense to him without a priest, and what can we expect
but severe rebukes?
(6)
Obedience must be constant. ‘Blessed [is] he that does righteousness at all
times.’
Psa 106: 3. True obedience is not like a high colour in a fit,
but it is a right complexion. It is like the fire on the altar, which was
always kept burning.
Lev 6: 13. Hypocrites’ obedience is but for a season; it is like
plastering work, which is soon washed off; but true obedience is constant.
Though we meet with affliction, we must go on in our obedience. ‘The
righteous shall hold on his way.’
Job 17: 9. We have vowed constancy; we have vowed to renounce the
pomps and vanities of the world, and to fight under Christ’s banner to
death. When a servant has entered into covenant with his master, and the
indentures are sealed, he cannot go back, he must serve out his time; so
there are indentures drawn in baptism, and in the Lord’s Supper the
indentures are renewed and scaled on our part, that we will be faithful and
constant in our obedience; therefore we must imitate Christ, who became
obedient unto death.
Phil 2: 8. The crown is set upon the head of perseverance. ‘He
that keepeth my works unto the end, I will give him the morning star.’
Rev 2: 26, 28.
Use one.
This condemns those who live in contradiction to the text, and have cast off
the yoke of obedience. ‘As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the
name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee.’
Jer 44: 16. God bids men pray in their family, but they live in
the total neglect of it; he bids them sanctify the Sabbath, but they follow
their pleasures on that day; he bids them abstain from the appearance of
sin, but they do not abstain from the act; they live in the act of revenge,
and in the act of uncleanness. This is a high contempt of God; it is
rebellion, and rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.
Whence is
it that men do not obey God? They know their duty, but do it not.
(1) The
not obeying God is for want of faith.
Quis credidit?
‘Who has believed our report?’
Isa 53: 1: Did men believe sin were so bitter, that hell followed
at the heels of it, would they go on in sin? Did they believe there was such
a reward for the righteous, that godliness was gain, would they not pursue
it; but they are atheists, not fully brought into the belief of these
things; hence it is that they obey not. Satan’s master-piece, his draw-net
by which he drags millions to hell, is to keep them in infidelity; he knows,
if he can but keep them from believing the truth, he is sure to keep them
from obeying it.
(2) The
not obeying God is for want of self-denial. God commands one thing, and
men’s lusts command another; and they will rather die than deny their lusts.
If lust cannot be denied, God cannot be obeyed.
Use two.
Obey God’s voice. This is the beauty of a Christian.
What are
the great arguments or incentives to obedience?
(1)
Obedience makes us precious to God, his favourites. ‘If ye will obey my
voice, ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people;’ you shall
be my portion, my jewels, the apple of mine eye.
Exod 19: 5. ‘I will give kingdoms for your ransom.’
Isa 43: 3.
(2) There
is nothing lost by obedience. To obey God’s will is the wav to have our
will. [1] Would we have a blessing in our estates? Let us obey. God. ‘If
thou shalt hearken to the voice of the Lord, to do all his commandments,
blessed shalt thou be in the field: blessed shall be thy basket and thy
store.’
Deut 28: 1, 3, 5. To obey is the best way to thrive in your
estates. [21 Would we have a blessing in our souls? Let us obey God. Obey,
and I will be your God.’
Jer 7: 23. My Spirit shall be your guide, sanctifier, and
comforter. Christ ‘became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that
obey him.’
Heb 5: 9. While we please God, we please ourselves; while we give
him the duty, he gives us the dowry. We are apt to say, as Amaziah, ‘What
shall we do for the hundred talents?’
2 Chron 25: 9. You lose nothing by obeying. The obedient son has
the inheritance settled on him. Obey, and you shall have a kingdom. ‘It is
your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.’
Luke 12: 32.
(3) What a
sin is disobedience! [1] It is an irrational sin. We are not able to stand
it out in defiance against God. ‘Are we stronger than he?’ Will the sinner
go to measure arms with God?
1 Cor 10: 22. He is the Father Almighty, who can command legions.
If we have no strength to resist him, it is irrational to disobey him. It is
irrational, as it is against all law and equity. We have our daily
subsistence from him; in him we live and move. Is it not just that as we
live by him, we should live to him? that as he gives us our allowance, so we
should give him our allegiance?
[2] It is
a destructive sin. ‘The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his
mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that obey not the
gospel.’
2 Thess 1: 7, 8. He who refuses to obey God’s will in commanding,
shall be sure to obey his will in punishing. While the sinner thinks to slip
the knot of obedience, he twists the cord of his own damnation, and he
perishes without excuse. ‘The servant which knew his lord’s will, neither
did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.’
Luke 12: 47. God will say, ‘Why did you not obey? you knew how to
do good, but did not; therefore your blood is upon your own head.’
What means
shall we use that we may obey?
(1)
Serious consideration. Consider, God’s commands are not grievous: he
commands nothing unreasonable.
1 John 5: 3. It is easier to obey the commands of God than sin.
The commands of sin are burdensome — let a man be under the power of any
lust, how he tires himself! what hazards he runs, even to endangering his
health and soul, that he may satisfy his lusts! What tedious journeys did
Antiochus Epiphanies take in persecuting the Jews! ‘They weary themselves to
commit iniquity;’ and are not God’s commands more easy to obey? Chrysostom
says, virtue is easier than vice; temperance is less burdensome than
drunkenness. Some have gone with less pains to heaven, than others to hell.
God
commands nothing but what is beneficial. ‘And now, Israel, what does the
Lord require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, and to keep his
statutes, which I command thee this day, for thy good?’
Deut 10: 12, 13. To obey God, is not so much our duty as our
privilege; his commands carry meat in the mouth of them. He bids us repent;
and why? That our sins may be blotted out.
Acts 3: 19. He commands us to believe: and why? That we may be
saved.
Acts 16: 31. There is love in every command: as if a king should
bid one of his subjects dig in a gold mine, and then take the gold to
himself.
(2)
Earnest supplication. Implore the help of the Spirit to carry you on in
obedience. God’s Spirit makes obedience easy and delightful. If the
loadstone draw the iron, it is not hard for it to move; so if God’s Spirit
quicken and draw the heart, it is not hard to obey. When a gale of the
Spirit blows, we go full sail in obedience. Turn his promise into a prayer.
‘I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes.’
Ezek 36: 27. The promise encourages us, the Spirit enables us to
obey.
1.2 Love
The rule
of obedience being the moral law, comprehended in the Ten Commandments, the
next question is:
What is
the sum of the Ten Commandments?
The sum of
the Ten Commandments is, to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with
all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind, and our
neighbour as ourselves.
‘Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and
with all thy might.’
Deut 6: 5. The duty called for is love, yea, the strength of
love, ‘with all thy heart.’ God will lose none of our love. Love is the soul
of religion, and that which constitutes a real Christian. Love is the queen
of graces; it shines and sparkles in God’s eye, as the precious stones on
the breastplate of Aaron.
What is
love?
It is a
holy fire kindled in the affections, whereby a Christian is carried out
strongly after God as the supreme good.
What is
the antecedent of love to God?
The
antecedent of love is knowledge. The Spirit shines upon the understanding,
and discovers the beauties of wisdom, holiness, and mercy in God; and these
are the loadstone to entice and draw out love to God;
Ignoti nulla
cupido: such as know not God cannot
love him; if the sun be set in the understanding, there must needs be night
in the affections.
Wherein
does the formal nature of love consist?
The
nature of love consists in delighting in an object.
Complacentia
amantis in amato. [The lover’s
delight in his beloved] Aquinas. This is loving God, to take delight in him.
‘Delight thyself also in the Lord’ (Psa
37: 4), as a bride delights herself in her jewels. Grace changes
a Christian’s aims and delights.
How must
our love to God be qualified?
(1) If it
be a sincere love, we love God with all our heart. ‘Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart.’ God will have the whole heart. We must not
divide our love between him and sin. The true mother would not have the
child divided, nor will God have the heart divided; it must be the whole
heart.
(2) We
must love God
propter se,
for himself, for his own intrinsic excellencies. We must love him for his
loveliness.
Meretricius est
amor plus annulum quam sponsum amare:
‘It is a harlot’s love to love the portion more than the person.’ Hypocrites
love God because he gives them corn and wine: we must love God for himself;
for those shining perfections which are in him. Gold is loved for itself.
(3) We
must love God with all our might, in the Hebrew text, our vehemency; we must
love God, quod posse, as much as we are able. Christians should be like
seraphim, burning in holy love. We can never love God so much as he
deserves. The angels in heaven cannot love God so much as he deserves.
(4) Love
to God must be active in its sphere. Love is an industrious affection; it
sets the head studying for God, hands working, feet running in the ways of
his commandments. It is called the labour of love.
1 Thess 1: 3. Mary Magdalene loved Christ, and poured her
ointments on him. We think we never do enough for the person whom we love.
(5) Love
to God must be superlative. God is the essence of beauty, a whole paradise
of delight; and he must have a priority in our love. Our love to God must be
above all things besides, as the oil swims above the water. We must love God
above estate and relations. Great is the love to relations. There is a story
in the French Academy, of a daughter, who, when her father was condemned to
die by hunger, gave him suck with her own breasts. But our love to God must
be above father and mother.
Matt 10: 37. We may give the creature the milk of our love, but
God must have the cream. The spouse keeps the juice of her pomegranates for
Christ.
Cant 8: 2.
(6) Our
love to God must be constant, like the fire which the Vestal virgins kept in
Rome, which did not go out. Love must be like the motion of the pulse, which
beats as long as there is life. ‘Many waters cannot quench love,’ not the
waters of persecution.
Cant 8: 7. ‘Rooted in love.’
Eph 3: 17. A branch withers that does not grow on a root; so
love, that it may not die, must be well rooted.
What are
the visible signs of our love to God?
If we
love God, our desire will be after him. ‘The desire of our soul is to thy
name.’
Isa 26: 8. He who loves God, breathes after communion with him.
‘My soul thirsteth for the living God.’
Psa 42: 2. Persons in love desire to be often conferring
together. He who loves God, desires to be much in his presence; he loves the
ordinances: they are the glass where the glory of God is resplendent; in the
ordinances we meet with him whom our souls love; we have God’s smiles and
whispers, and some foretastes of heaven. Such as have no desire after
ordinances, have no love to God.
The
second visible sign is, that he who loves God cannot find contentment in any
thing without him. Give a hypocrite who pretends to love God corn and wine,
and he can be content without God; but a soul fired with love to God, cannot
be without him. Lovers faint away if they have not a sight of the object
loved. A gracious soul can do without health, but cannot do without God, who
is the health of his countenance.
Psa 43: 5. If God should say to a soul that entirely loves him,
‘Take thy ease, swim in pleasure, solace thyself in the delights of the
world; but thou shalt not enjoy my presence:’ this would not content it.
Nay, if God should say, ‘I will let thee be taken up to heaven, but I will
retire into another room, and thou shalt not see my face;’ it would not
content the soul. It is hell to be without God. The philosopher says there
can be no gold without the influence of the sun; certainly there can be no
golden joy in the soul without God’s sweet presence and influence.
The third
visible sign is that he who loves God, hates that which would separate
between him and God, and that is sin. Sin makes God hide his face; it is
like an incendiary, which parts chief friends; therefore, the keenness of a
Christian’s hatred is set against it. ‘I hate every false way.’
Psa 119: 128. Antipathies can never be reconciled; one cannot
love health but he must hate poison; so we cannot love God but we must hate
sin, which would destroy our communion with him.
The
fourth visible sign is sympathy. Friends that love, grieve for the evils
which befall each other. Homer, describing Agamemnon’s grief, when he was
forced to sacrifice his daughter, brings in all his friends weeping with
him, and accompanying him to the sacrifice, in mourning. Lovers grieve
together. If we have true love in our heart to God, we cannot but grieve for
those things which grieve him; we shall lay to heart his dishonours; the
luxury, drunkenness, contempt of God and religion. ‘Rivers of waters run
down mine eyes,’ &c.
Psa 119: 136. Some speak of the sins of others, and laugh at
them; but they surely have no love to God who can laugh at that which
grieves his Spirit! Does he love his father who can laugh to hear him
reproached?
The fifth
visible sign is, that he who loves God, labours to render him lovely to
others. He not only admires God, but speaks in his praises, that he may
allure and draw others to be in love with him. She that is in love will
commend her lover. The lovesick spouse extols Christ, she makes a
panegyrical oration of his worth, that she might persuade others to be in
love with him. ‘His head is as the most fine gold.’
Cant 5: 11. True love to God cannot be silent, it will be
eloquent in setting forth his renown. There is no better sign of loving God
than to make him appear lovely, and to draw proselytes to him.
The sixth
visible sign is, that he who loves God, weeps bitterly for his absence. Mary
comes weeping, ‘They have taken away my Lord.’
John 20: 13. One cries, ‘My health is gone!’ another, ‘My estate
is gone!’ but he who is a lover of God, cries out, ‘My God is gone! I cannot
enjoy him whom I love.’ What can all worldly comforts do, when once God is
absent? It is like a funeral banquet, where there is much meat, but no
cheer. ‘I went mourning without the sun.’
Job 30: 28. If Rachel mourned greatly for the loss of her
children, what vail or pencil can shadow out the sorrow of that Christian
who has lost God’s sweet presence? Such a soul pours forth floods of tears;
and while it is lamenting, seems to say thus to God, ‘Lord, thou art in
heaven, hearing the melodious songs and triumph of angels; but I sit here in
the valley of tears, weeping because thou art gone. Oh, when wilt thou come
to me, and revive me with the light of thy countenance! Or, Lord, if thou
wilt not come to me, let me come to thee, where I shall have a perpetual
smile of thy face in heaven and shall never more complain, ‘My beloved has
withdrawn himself.’”
The
seventh visible sign is, that he who loves God is willing to do and suffer
for him. He subscribes to God’s commands, he submits to his will. He
subscribes to his commands. If God bids him mortify sin, love his enemies,
be crucified to the world, he obeys. It is a vain thing for a man to say he
loves God, and slight his commands. He submits to his will. If God would
have him suffer for him, he does not dispute, but obeys. ‘Love endureth all
things.’
1 Cor 13: 7. Love made Christ suffer for us, and love will make
us suffer for him. It is true that every Christian is not a martyr but he
has a spirit of martyrdom in him; he has a disposition of mind to suffer, if
God call him to it. ‘I am ready to be offered.’
2 Tim 4: 6. Not only the sufferings were ready for Paul, but he
was ready for the sufferings. Origin chose rather to live despised in
Alexandria, than with Plotinus to deny the faith, and be great in the
prince’s favour.
Rev 12: 11. Many say they love God, but will not suffer the loss
of anything for him. If Christ should have said to us, ‘I love you well, you
are dear to me, but I cannot suffer for you, I cannot lay down my life for
you,’ we should have questioned his love very much; and may not the Lord
question ours, when we pretend love to him, but will endure nothing for his
sake?
Use one.
What shall we say to those who have not a drachm of love in their hearts to
God? They have their life from him, yet do not love him. He spreads their
table every day, yet they do not love him. Sinners dread God as a judge, but
do not love him as a father. All the strength in the angels cannot make the
heart love God; judgements will not do it; omnipotent grace only can make a
stony heart melt in love. How sad is it to be void of love to God. When the
body is cold, and has no heat, it is a sign of death; so he is spiritually
dead who has no heat of love in his heart to God. Shall such live with God
that do not love him? Will God lay an enemy in his bosom? They shall be
bound in chains of darkness who will not be drawn with cords of love.
Use two.
Let us be persuaded to love God with all our heart and might. O let us take
our love off from other things, and place it upon God. Love is the heart of
religion, the fat of the offering; it is the grace which Christ inquires
most after. ‘Simon lovest thou me?’
John 21: 15. Love makes all our services acceptable, it is the
musk that perfumes them. It is not so much duty, as love to duty, God
delights in; therefore serving and loving God are put together.
Isa 56: 6. It is better to love him than to serve him; obedience
without love, is like wine without the spirit. O then, be persuaded to love
God with all your heart and might.
(1) It is
nothing but your love that God desires. The Lord might have demanded your
children to be offered in sacrifice; he might have bid you cut and lance
yourselves, or lie in hell awhile; but he only desires your love, he would
only have this flower. Is it a hard request, to love God? Was ever any debt
easier paid than this? Is it any labour for the wife to love her husband?
Love is delightful.
Non potest amor
esse, et dulcis non esse [Love must
by definition be sweet]. Bernard. What is there in our love that God should
desire it? Why should a king desire the love of a woman that is in debt and
diseased? God does not need our love. There are angels enough in heaven to
adore and love him. What is God the better for our love? It adds not the
least cubit to his essential blessedness. He does not need our love, and yet
he seeks it. Why does he desire us to give him our heart?
Prov 23: 26. Not that he needs our heart, but that he may make it
better.
(2) Great
will be our advantage if we love God. He does not court our love that we
should lose by it. ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, the things which God
has prepared for them that love him.’
1 Cor 2: 9. If you will love him, you shall have such a reward as
exceeds your faith. He will betroth you to himself in the dearest love. ‘I
will betroth thee unto me for ever, in loving kindness and in mercies.’
Hos 2: 19. ‘The Lord thy God will rest in his love, he will joy
over thee with singing.’
Zeph 3: 17. If you love God, he will interest you in all his
riches and dignities, he will give you heaven and earth for your dowry, he
will set a crown on your head. Vespasian the emperor gave a great reward to
a woman who came to him, and professed she loved him; but God gives a crown
of life to them that love him.
James 1: 12.
(3) Love
is the only grace that shall live with us in heaven. In heaven we shall need
no repentance, because we shall have no sin; no faith, because we shall see
God face to face; but love to God shall abide for ever. ‘Love never
faileth.’
1 Cor 13: 8. How should we nourish this grace which shall outlive
all the graces, and run parallel with eternity!
(4) Our
love to God is a sign of his love to us. ‘We love him because he first loved
us.’
1 John 4: 19. By nature we have no love to God; we have hearts of
stone.
Ezek 36: 26. And how can any love be in hearts of stone? Our
loving him is from his loving us. If the glass burn, it is because the sun
has shone on it; so if our hearts burn in love, it is a sign the Sun of
Righteousness has shone upon us.
What
shall we do in order to love God aright?
(1) Wait
on the preaching of the word. As faith comes by hearing, so does love. The
word sets forth God in his incomparable excellencies; it deciphers and
pencils him out in all his glory, and a sight of his beauty inflames love.
(2) Beg
of God that he will give you a heart to love him. When king Solomon asked
wisdom of God, it pleased the Lord.
1 Kings 3: 10. So, when thou criest to God, Lord give me a heart
to love thee, it is my grief I can love thee no more; surely this prayer
will please the Lord, and he will pour out his Spirit upon thee. His golden
oil will make the lamp of thy love burn bright.
(3) You
who have love to God, keep it flaming upon the altar of your heart. Love,
like fire, is ever ready to go out. ‘Thou hast left thy first love.’
Rev 2: 4. Through neglect of duty, or too much love of the world,
our love to God will cool. O preserve your love to him. As you would be
careful to preserve the natural heat in your body, so be careful to preserve
the heat of love to God in your soul. Love is like oil to the wheels, it
quickens us in God’s service. When you find love abate and cool, use all
means to quicken it. When the fire is going out, you throw on fuel; so when
the flame of love is going out, make use of the ordinances as sacred fuel to
keep the fire of your love burning.
1.3 The Preface to the Commandments
‘And God
spake all these words, saying, I am the LORD thy God,’ &c.
Exod 20: 1, 2.
What is
the preface to the Ten Commandments?
The
preface to the Ten Commandments is, ‘I am the Lord thy God.’
The
preface to the preface is, ‘God spake all these words, saying,’ &c. This is
like the sounding of a trumpet before a solemn proclamation. Other parts of
the Bible are said to be uttered by the mouth of the holy prophets (Luke
1: 70), but here God spake in his own person.
How are
we to understand that, God spake, since he has no bodily parts or organs of
speech?
God made
some intelligible sound, or fanned a voice in the air, which, to the Jews
was as though God himself was speaking to them. Observe:
(1) The
lawgiver. ‘God spake.’ There are two things requisite in a lawgiver. [1]
Wisdom. Laws are founded upon reason; and he must be wise that makes laws.
God, in this respect, is most fit to be a lawgiver: ‘he is wise in heart.’
Job 9: 4. He has a monopoly of wisdom. ‘The only wise God.’
1 Tim 1: 17. Therefore he is the fittest to enact and constitute
laws. [2] Authority. If a subject makes laws, however wise they may be, they
want the stamp of authority. God has the supreme power in his hand: he gives
being to all; and he who gives men their lives, has most right to give them
their laws.
(2) The
law itself. ‘All these words.’ That is, all the words of the moral law,
which is usually styled the decalogue, or ten commandments. It is called the
moral law because it is the rule of life and manners. The Scripture, as
Chrysostom says, is a garden, and the moral law is the chief flower in it:
it is a banquet, and the moral law is the chief dish in it.
The
moral law is perfect. ‘The law of the Lord is perfect.’
Psa 19: 7. It is an exact model and platform of religion; it is
the standard of truth, the judge of controversies, the pole-star to direct
us to heaven. ‘The commandment is a lamp.’
Prov 6: 23. Though the moral law be not a Christ to justify us,
it is a rule to instruct us.
The
moral law is unalterable; it remains still in force. Though the ceremonial
and judicial laws are abrogated, the moral law delivered by God’s own mouth
is of perpetual use in the church. It was written in tables of stone, to
show its perpetuity.
The
moral law is very illustrious and full of glory. God put glory upon it in
the manner of its promulgation. [1] The people, before the moral law was
delivered, were to wash their clothes, whereby, as by a type, God required
the sanctifying of their ears and hearts to receive the law.
Exod 19: 10. [2] There were bounds set that none might touch the
mount, which was to produce in the people reverence to the law.
Exod 19: 12. [3] God wrote the law with his own finger, which was
such an honour put upon the moral law, as we read of no other such writing.
Exod 31: 18. God by some mighty operation, made the law legible
in letters, as if it had been written with his own finger. [4] God’s putting
the law in the ark to be kept was another signal mark of honour put upon it.
The ark was the cabinet in which He put the ten commandments, as ten jewels.
[5] At the delivery of the moral law, many angels were in attendance.
Deut 33: 2. A parliament of angels was called, and God himself
was the speaker.
Use one.
Here we may notice God’s goodness, who has not left us without a law. He
often sets down the giving his commandments as a demonstration of his love.
‘He has not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgements they have
not known them.’
Psa 147: 20. ‘Thou gavest them true laws, good statutes and
commandments.’
Neh 9: 13. What a strange creature would man be if he had no law
to direct him! There would be no living in the world; we should have none
born but Ishmaels — every man’s hand would be against his neighbour. Man
would grow wild if he had not affliction to tame him, and the moral law to
guide him. The law of God is a hedge to keep us within the bounds of
sobriety and piety.
Use two.
If God spake all these words of the moral law, then it condemns: (1) The
Marcionites and Manichees, who speak lightly, yea, blasphemously, of the
moral law; who say it is below a Christian, it is carnal; which the apostle
confutes, when he says, ‘The law is spiritual, but I am carnal.’
Rom 7: 14. (2) The Antinomians, who will not admit the moral law
to be a rule to a believer. We say not that he is under the curse of the
law, but the commands. We say not the moral law is a Christ, but it is a
star to lead to Christ. We say not that it saves, but sanctifies. They who
cast God’s law behind their backs, God will cast their prayers behind his
back. They who will not have the law to rule them, shall have the law to
judge them. (3) The Papists, who, as if God’s law were imperfect, and when
he spake all these words he did not speak enough, add to it their canons and
traditions. This is to tax God’s wisdom, as if he knew not how to make his
own law. This surely is a high provocation. ‘If any man shall add to these
things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book.’
Rev 22: 18. As it is a great evil to add anything to a man’s
sealed will, so much more to add anything to the law which God himself
spake, and wrote with his own fingers.
Use
three. If God spake all the words of the moral law, several duties are
enjoined upon us: (1) If God spake all these words, then we must hear all
these words. The words which God speaks are too precious to be lost. As we
would have God hear all our words when we pray, so we must hear all his
words when he speaks. We must not be as the deaf adder, which stoppeth her
ears: he that stops his ears when God cries, shall cry himself, and not be
heard.
(2) If
God spake all these words, then we must attend to them with reverence. Every
word of the moral law is an oracle from heaven. God himself is the preacher,
which calls for reverence. If a judge gives a charge upon the bench, all
attend with reverence. In the moral law God himself gives a charge, ‘God
spake all these words;’ with what veneration, therefore, should we attend!
Moses put off his shoes from his feet, in token of reverence, when God was
about to speak to him.
Exod 3: 5, 6.
(3)If
God spake all these words of the moral law, then we must remember them.
Surely all God speaks is worth remembering; those words are weighty which
concern salvation. ‘It is not a vain thing for you, because it is your
life.’
Deut 32: 47. Our memory should be like the chest in the ark where
the law was kept. God’s oracles are ornaments, and shall we forget them?
‘Can a maid forget her ornaments?’
Jer 2: 32.
(4) If
God spake all these words, then believe them. See the name of God written
upon every commandment. The heathens, in order to gain credit to their laws,
reported that they were inspired by the gods at Rome. The moral law fetches
its pedigree from heaven.
Ipse dixit.
God spake all these words. Shall we not give credit to the God of heaven?
How would the angel confirm the women in the resurrection of Christ? ‘Lo
(said he), I have told you.’
Matt 28: 7. I speak in the word of an angel. Much more should the
moral law be believed, when it comes to us in the word of God. ‘God spake
all these words.’ Unbelief enervates the virtue of God’s word, and makes it
prove abortive. ‘The word did not profit, not being mixed with faith.’
Heb 4: 2. Eve gave more credit to the devil when he spake than
she did to God.
(5) If
God spake all these words, then love the commandments. ‘Oh, how love I thy
law! it is my meditation all the day.’
Psa 119: 97. ‘Consider how I love thy precepts.’
Psa 119: 159. The moral law is the copy of God’s will, our
spiritual directory; it shows us what sins to avoid, what duties to pursue.
The ten commandments are a chain of pearls to adorn us, they are our
treasury to enrich us; they are more precious than lands of spices, or rocks
of diamonds. ‘The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold
and silver.’
Psa 119: 72. The law of God has truth and goodness in it.
Neh 9: 13. Truth, for God spake it; and goodness, for there is
nothing the commandment enjoins, but it is for our good. O then, let this
command our love.
(6) If
God spake all these words, then teach your children the law of God. ‘These
words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart, and thou shalt
teach them diligently unto thy children.’
Deut 6: 6, 7. He who is godly, is both a diamond and a loadstone:
a diamond for the sparkling of his grace, and a loadstone for his attractive
virtue in drawing others to the love of God’s precepts.
Vir bonus
magis aliis prodest quam sibi [A
good man benefits others more than himself]. You that are parents, discharge
your duty. Though you cannot impart grace to your children, yet you may
impart knowledge. Let your children know the commandments of God. ‘Ye shall
teach them your children.’
Deut 11: 19. You are careful to leave your children a portion:
leave the oracles of heaven with them; instruct them in the law of God. If
God spake all these words, you may well speak them over again to your
children.
(7) If
God spake all these words, the moral law must be obeyed. If a king speaks,
his word commands allegiance; much more, when God speaks, must his words be
obeyed. Some will obey partially, obey some commandments, not others; like a
slough, which, when it comes to a stiff piece of earth, makes a baulk; but
God, who spake all the words of the moral law, will have all obeyed. He will
not dispense with the breach of one law. Princes, indeed, for special
reasons, sometimes dispense with penal statutes, and will not enforce the
severity of the law; but God, who spake all these words, binds men with a
subpoena to yield obedience to every law.
This
condemns the church of Rome, which, instead of obeying the whole moral law,
blots out one commandment, and dispenses with others. They leave the second
commandment out of their catechism, because it makes against images; and to
fill up the number of ten, they divide the tenth commandment into two. Thus,
they incur that dreadful condemnation: ‘If any man shall take away from the
words of this book, God shall take away his part out of the book of life.’
Rev 22: 19. As they blot out one commandment, and cut the knot
which they cannot untie, so they dispense with other commandments. They
dispense with the sixth commandment, making murder meritorious in case of
propagating the Catholic cause. They dispense with the seventh commandment,
wherein God forbids adultery; for the Pope dispenses with the sin of
uncleanness, yea, incest, by paying fines and sums of money into his coffer.
No wonder the Pope takes men off their loyalty to kings and princes, when he
teaches them disloyalty to God. Some of the Papists say expressly in their
writings, that the Pope has power to dispense with the laws of God, and can
give men license to break the commandments of the Old and New Testament.
That such a religion should ever again get foot in England, the Lord in
mercy prevent! If God spake all the commandments, then we must obey all; he
who breaks the hedge of the commandments, a serpent shall bite him.
But what
man can obey all God’s commandments?
To obey
the law in a legal sense — to do all the law requires — no man can. Sin has
cut the lock of original righteousness, where our strength lay; but, in a
true gospel-sense, we may so obey the moral law as to find acceptance. This
gospel obedience consists in a real endeavour to observe the whole moral
law. ‘I have done thy commandments’ (Psa
119: 166); not, I have done all I should do, but I have done all
I am able to do; and wherein my obedience comes short, I look up to the
perfect righteousness and obedience of Christ, and hope for pardon through
his blood. This is to obey the moral law evangelically; which, though it be
not to satisfaction, yet it is to acceptation.
We come
now to the preface itself, which consists of three parts: I. I am the Lord
thy God’; II. ‘which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt’; III. ‘out
of the house of bondage’.
I. I am
the Lord thy God. Here 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 it is in the Hebrew,
JEHOVAH. By this great name God sets forth his majesty.
Sanctius
habitum fuit, says Buxtorf. The name
of Jehovah was had in more reverence among the Jews than any other name of
God. It signifies God’s self-sufficiency, eternity, independence, and
immutability.
Mal. 3: 6.
Use one.
If God be Jehovah, the fountain of being, who can do what he will, let us
fear him. ‘That thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, Jehovah.’
Deut 28: 58.
Use two.
If God be Jehovah, the supreme Lord, the blasphemous Papists are condemned
who speak after this manner: ‘Our Lord God the Pope.’ Is it a wonder the
Pope lifts his triple crown above the heads of kings and emperors, when he
usurps God’s title, ‘showing himself that he is God’?
2 Thess 2: 4. He seeks to make himself Lord of heaven, for he
will canonise saints there; Lord of earth, for with his keys he binds and
looses whom he pleases; Lord of hell, for he frees men out of purgatory. 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.
[2] God
is described by his relative goodness; ‘thy God.’ Had he called himself
Jehovah only, it might have terrified us, and made us flee from him; but
when he says, ‘thy God,’ it allures and draws us to him. This, though a
preface to the law, is pure gospel. The word Eloeha, ‘thy God,’ is so sweet,
that we can never suck all the honey out of it. ‘I am thy God,’ not only by
creation, but by election. This word, ‘thy God,’ though it was spoken to
Israel, is a charter which belongs to all the saints. For the further
explanation, here are three questions.
How
comes God to be our God?
Through
Jesus Christ. Christ is a middle person in the Trinity. He is Emmanuel, ‘God
with us.’ He brings two different parties together: makes our nature lovely
to God, and God’s nature lovely to us; by his death, causes friendship, yea,
union; and brings us within the verge of the covenant, and thus God becomes
our God.
What is
implied by God being our God?
It is
comprehensive of all good things. God is our strong tower; our fountain of
living water; our salvation. More particularly, being our God implies the
sweetest relations.
(1) The
relation of a father. ‘I will be a Father unto you;’
2 Cor 6: 18. A father is full of tender care for his child. Upon
whom does he settle the inheritance but his child? God being our God, will
be a father to us; a ‘Father of mercies,’
2 Cor 1: 3; ‘The everlasting Father.’
Isa 9: 6. If God be our God, we have a Father in heaven that
never dies.
(2) It
imports the relation of a husband. ‘Thy Maker is thine husband.’
Isa 54: 5. 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.
Psa 25: 14. He bestows a kingdom upon us for our dowry.
Luke 12: 32.
How may
we know that by covenant union, God is our God?
(1) By
having his grace planted in us. Kings’ children are known by their costly
jewels. It is not having common gifts which shows we belong to God; many
have the gifts of God without God; but it is grace that gives us a true
genuine title to God. In particular, faith is vinculum unionis, the grace of
union, by which we may spell out our interest in God. Faith does not, as the
mariner, cast its anchor downwards, but upwards; it trusts in the mercy and
blood of God, and trusting in God, engages 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. 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? ‘Ye have an unction from the Holy
One.’
1 John 2: 20. 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. Have we had the attraction of the Spirit?
‘Draw me, we will run after thee.’
Cant 1: 4. Has the Spirit, by its magnetic virtue, drawn our
hearts to God? Can we say, ‘O thou whom my soul loveth?’
Cant 1: 7. Is God our paradise of delight? our Segullah, or chief
treasure! Are our hearts so chained to God that no other object can enchant
us, or draw us away from him? Have we had the elevation of the Spirit? Has
it raised our hearts above the world? ‘The Spirit lifted me up.’
Ezek 3: 14. Has 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 we live here, trade we above? Has the Spirit thus lifted us up? By
this we may 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 has given us the hearts of children. Have we
obediential hearts?
Psa 27: 8. Do we subscribe to God’s commands when his commands
cross our will? A true saint is like the flower of the sun, which opens and
shuts with the sun: he opens to God, and shuts to sin. If we have the hearts
of children, God is our Father.
(4) We
may know God is ours, and we have an interest in him, by standing up for his
interest. We shall appear in his cause and vindicate his truth, wherein his
glory is so much concerned. Athanasius was the bulwark of truth; he stood up
for it, when most of the world were Asians. In former times the nobles of
Polonia, when the gospel was read, laid their hands upon their swords,
signifying that they were ready to defend the faith, and hazard their lives
for the gospel. There is no better sign of having an interest in God than
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. ‘My beloved is mine, and I am his.’
Cant 2: 16. When God says 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. Thus we may come to know that God is
our God.
Use one.
Above all things, let us get this great charter confirmed, that God is our
God. Deity is not comfortable without propriety. Let us labour to get sound
evidences that God is our God. We cannot call health, liberty, estate, ours;
but let us be able to call God ours, and say as the church, ‘God, even our
own God, shall bless us.’
Psa 67: 6. Let every soul labour to pronounce this Shibboleth,
‘My God.’ That we may endeavour to have God for our God, consider the misery
of such as have not God for their God, in how sad a condition are they, when
the hour of distress comes! This was Saul’s case when he said ‘I am sore
distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed
from me.’
1 Sam 28: 15. A wicked man in time of trouble, is like a vessel
tossed on the sea without an anchor, which strikes on rocks or sands. A
sinner who has not God to be his God, may make a shift while health and
estate last, but when these crutches on which he leaned are broken, his
heart must sink. It is with him as it was with the old world when the flood
came. The waters at first came to the valleys, but then the people would get
to the hills and mountains; but when the waters came to the mountains, then
there might be some trees on the high hills, and they would climb up to
them; ay, but the waters rose above the tops of the trees; and then their
hearts failed them, and all hopes of being saved were gone. So it is with a
man that has not God to be his God. If one comfort be taken away, he has
another; if he lose a child, he has an estate; but when the waters rise
higher, death comes and takes away all, and he has nothing to help himself
with, no God to go to, he must needs die in despair. How great a privilege
it is to have God for our God! ‘Happy is that people whose God is the Lord.’
Psa 144: 15.
Beatitudo
hominis est Deus [Man’s happiness is
God himself]. Augustine. 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 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 heaven.
(2) If
God be our God, our soul is safe. The soul is the jewel, it is a blossom of
eternity. ‘I was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body;’ in the
Chaldee, it is ‘in the midst of my sheath.’
Dan 7: 15. The body is but the sheath; the soul is the princely
part of man, which sways the sceptre of reason; it is a celestial spark, as
Damascene calls it. If God be our God, the soul is safe, as in a garrison.
Death can do no more hurt to a virtuous heaven-born soul, than David did to
Saul, when he cut off the skirt of his garment. The soul is safe, being hid
in the promises; hid in the wounds of Christ; hid in God’s 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 says to a saint in
covenant, as the king of Israel to the king of Syria, ‘I am thine, and all
that I have.’
1 Kings 20: 4. So saith God, ‘I am thine:’ how happy is he who
not only inherits the gift 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: as if
a thousand vessels were thrown into the sea, there is enough in the sea to
fill them.
(4) If
God be our God, he will entirely love us. Property 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, Jediduth Naphshi, ‘The dearly
beloved of my soul.’
Jer 12: 7. He rejoiceth 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, but opens his heart and fills them.
Psa 145: 16.
(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 there is a storm
without, he will make music 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.
John 14: 16. [2] God will give us a crown of immortality. The
world can give a crown of gold, but that crown has thorns in it and death in
it; but God will give you a crown of glory that 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. He may respite sinners
awhile, but long forbearance is no acquittance; he will throw them to hell
for their sins; but if he be our God, he will not for every failing destroy
us; he bears with his spouse as with the weaker vessel. He may chastise.
Psa 89: 32. He may use the rod and the pruning-knife, but not the
bloody axe. ‘He has not beheld iniquity in Jacob.’
Numb 23: 21. He will not see sin in his people so as to destroy
them, but their sins so as to pity them. He sees them as a physician a
disease in his patient, to heal him. ‘I have seen his ways, and will heal
him.’
Isa 57: 18. Every failing does 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, says 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. ‘This God is our God for ever and
ever.’
Psa 48: 14. Whatever worldly comforts we have, they are but for a
season, and we must part with all.
Heb 11: 25. As Paul’s friends accompanied him to the ship, and
there left him (Acts
20: 38), 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. ‘Ye have
taken away my gods,’ said Micah.
Judges 18: 14. But it cannot be said 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 a child; and a wife sees herself in her husband. We plant the
flower of love among our relations, and the loss of them is like the pulling
off a limb from the body. But if God be ours, with the enjoyment of God we
shall enjoy all our pious relations in glory. The gracious child shall see
his godly father, the virtuous wife shall see her religious husband in
Christ’s arms; and then there will be a dearer love to relations than there
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.’
Use two.
To such as can realise this covenant union we have several exhortations.
(1) If
God be our God, let us improve our interest in him, let us cast all our
burdens upon him: the burden of our fears, our wants and our sins. ‘Cast thy
burden upon the Lord.’
Psa 55: 22. Wicked men who are a burden to God have no right to
cast their burden upon him; but such as have God for their God are called
upon to cast their burden on him. Where should the child ease all its cares
but in the bosom of its parent? ‘Let all thy wants lie upon me.’
Judges 19: 20. So God seems to say to his children, ‘Let all your
wants lie upon me.’ Christian, what troubles thee? Thou hast a God to pardon
thy sins and to supply thy wants; therefore roll your burden on him.
‘Casting all your care upon him.’
1 Pet 5: 7. Why are Christians so disquieted in their minds? They
are taking care when they should be casting care.
(2) If
God be our God, let us learn to be contented, though we have the less of
other things. Contentment is a rare jewel, it is the cure of care. If we
have God to be our God, well may we be contented. ‘I know whom I have
believed.’
2 Tim 1: 12. There was Paul’s interest in God. ‘As having
nothing, and yet possessing all things.’
2 Cor 6: 10. Here was his content. That such who have
covenant-union with God may be filled with contentment of spirit, consider
what a rich blessing God is to the soul.
He is
bonum
sufficiens, a sufficient good. He
who has God has enough. If a man be thirsty, bring him to a spring, and he
is satisfied; in God there is enough to fill the heaven-born soul. He gives
‘grace and glory.’
Psa 84: 11. There is in God not only a sufficiency, but a
redundancy; he is not only full as a vessel, but as a spring. Other things
can no more fill the soul than a mariner’s breath can fill the sails of a
ship; but in God there is a cornucopia, an infinite fulness; he has enough
to fill the angels, therefore enough to fill us. The heart is a triangle,
which only the Trinity can fill.
God is
bonum
sanctificans, a sanctifying good. He
sanctifies all our comforts and turn them into blessings. Health is blessed,
estate is blessed. He gives with the venison a blessing. ‘I will abundantly
bless her provision.’
Psa 132: 15. He gives us the life we have,
tanquam
arrhabo, as an earnest of more. He
gives the little meal in the barrel as an earnest of the royal feast in
paradise. He sanctifies all our crosses. They shall not be destructive
punishments, but medicines; they shall corrode and eat out the venom of sin;
they shall polish and refine our grace. The more the diamond is cut, the
more it sparkles. When God stretches the strings of his viol, it is to make
the music better.
God is
bonum
selectum, a choice good. All things,
sub sole, are but
bona scabelli,
as Augustine says, the blessings of the footstool, but to have God himself
to be ours, is the blessing of the throne. Abraham gave gifts to the sons of
the concubines, but he settled the inheritance upon Isaac. ‘Abraham gave all
that he had to Isaac.’
Gen 25: 5. God may send away the men of the world with gifts, a
little gold and silver; but in giving us himself, he gives us the very
essence, his grace, his love, his kingdom: here is the crowning blessing.
God is
bonum
summum, the chief good. In the chief
good there must be delectability; it must have something that is delicious
and sweet: and where can we suck those pure essential comforts, which ravish
us with delight, but in God?
In Deo quadam
dulcedine delectatur anima, immo rapitur
[In God’s character there is a certain sweetness which fascinates or rather
enraptures the soul]. ‘At thy right hand there are pleasures.’
Psa 16: 11: In the chief good there must be transcendence, it
must have a surpassing excellence. Thus God is infinitely better than all
other things. It is below the Deity to compare other things with it. Who
would weigh a feather against a mountain of gold? God is
fons et origo,
the spring of all entities, and the cause is more noble than the effect. It
is God that bespangles the creation, that puts light into the sun, that
fills the veins of the earth with silver. Creatures do but maintain life,
God gives life. He infinitely outshines all sublunary glory. He is better
than the soul, than angels, and than heaven. In the chief good, there must
be not only fulness, but variety. Where variety is wanting we are apt to
nauseate. To feed only on honey would breed loathing; but in God is all
variety of fulness.
Col 1: 19. He is a universal good, commensurate to all our wants.
He is
bonum in quo omnia bona [the good in
which is every good], a son, a portion, a horn of salvation. He is called
the ‘God of all comfort.’
2 Cor 1: 3. There is a complication of all beauties and delights
in him. Health has not the comfort of beauty, nor beauty of riches, nor
riches of wisdom; but God is the God of all comfort. In the chief good there
must be eternity. God is a treasure that can neither be drawn low, nor drawn
dry. Though the angels are continually spending what is his, he can never be
spent; he abides for ever. Eternity is a flower of his crown. Now, if God be
our God, there is enough to let full contentment into our souls. What need
we of torchlight, if we have the sun? What if God deny the flower, if he has
given us the jewel? How should a Christian’s heart rest on this rock! If we
say God is our God, and we are not content, we have cause to question our
interest in him.
(3) If
we can clear up this covenant-union, that God is our God, let it cheer and
revive us in all conditions. To be content with God is not enough, but to be
cheerful. What greater cordial can you have than union with Deity? When
Jesus Christ was ready to ascend, he could not leave a richer consolation
with his disciples than this, ‘I ascend to my God and to your God.’
John 20: 17. Who should rejoice, if not they who have an
infinite, all-sufficient, eternal God to be their portion, who are as rich
as heaven can make them? What though I want health? I have God who is the
health of my countenance, and my God.
Psa 42: 11. What though I am low in the world? If I have not the
earth, I have him that made it. The philosopher comforted himself by saying,
‘Though I have no music or vine-trees, yet here are the household gods with
me;’ so, though we have not the vine or fig-tree, yet we have God with us. I
cannot be poor, says Bernard, as long as God is rich; for his riches are
mine. O let the saints rejoice in this covenant-union! To say God is ours,
is more than to say heaven is ours, for heaven would not be heaven without
him. All the stars cannot make day without the sun; all the angels, those
morning stars, cannot make heaven without Christ the Sun of Righteousness.
And as to have God for our God, is matter of rejoicing in life, so
especially it will be at death. Let a Christian think thus, I am going to my
God. A child is glad when he is going home to his father. It was Christ’s
comfort when he was leaving the world, ‘I ascend to my God.’
John 20: 17. And this is a believer’s deathbed cordial, ‘I am
going to my God; I shall change my place, but not my kindred; I go to my God
and my Father.’
(4) If
God be our God, let us break forth into praise. ‘Thou art my God, and I will
praise thee.’
Psa 118: 28. Oh, infinite, astonishing mercy, that God should
take dust and ashes into so near a bond of love as to be our God! As Micah
said, ‘What have I more?’
Judges 18: 24. So, what has God more? What richer jewel has he to
bestow upon us than himself? What has he more? That God should put off most
of the world with riches and honour, that he should pass over himself to us
by a deed of gift, to be our God, and by virtue of this settle a kingdom
upon us! O let us praise him with the best instrument, the heart; and let
this instrument be screwed up to the highest pitch. Let us praise him with
our whole heart. See how David rises by degrees. ‘Be glad in the Lord, and
rejoice, and shout for joy.’
Psa 32: 11. Be glad, there is thankfulness; rejoice, there is
cheerfulness; shout, there is triumph. Praise is called incense, because it
is a sweet sacrifice. Let the saints be choristers in God’s praises. The
deepest springs yield the sweetest water; the more deeply sensible we are of
God’s covenant-love to us, the sweeter praises we should yield. We should
begin here to eternise God’s name, and do that work on earth which we shall
be always doing in heaven. ‘While I live will I praise the Lord.’
Psa 146: 2.
(5) Let
us carry ourselves as those who have God to be our God; that is, walk so
that others may see there is something of God in us. Live homily. What have
we to do with sin, which if it does not break, will weaken our interest?
‘What have I to do any more with idols?’
Hos 14: 8. So would a Christian say, ‘God is my God; what have I
to do any more with sin, with lust, pride, malice! Bid me commit sin! As
well bid me drink poison. Shall I forfeit my interest in God? Let me rather
die than willingly offend him who is the crown of my joy, the God of my
salvation.’
II.
Which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Egypt and the house of
bondage are the same; only they are represented to us under different
expressions. The first expression is, ‘Which have brought thee out of the
land of Egypt.’
Why does
the Lord mention the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt?
(1)
Because of the strangeness of the deliverance. God delivered his people
Israel by strange signs and wonders, by sending plague after plague upon
Pharaoh, blasting the fruits of the earth, and killing all the first-born in
Egypt.
Exod 12: 29. When Israel marched out of Egypt, God made the
waters of the sea to part, and become a wall to his people, while they went
on dry ground; and he made the same sea a causeway to Israel, and a grave to
Pharaoh and his chariots. Well might the Lord make mention of this strange
deliverance. He wrought miracle upon miracle for the deliverance of that
people.
(2) God
mentions Israel’s deliverance out of Egypt because of the greatness of the
deliverance. He delivered Israel from the pollutions of Egypt. Egypt was a
bad air to live in, it was infected with idolatry; the Egyptians were gross
idolaters; they were guilty of that which the apostle speaks of in
Rom 1: 23. ‘They changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into
an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts,
and creeping things.’ The Egyptians, instead of the true God, worshipped
corruptible man; they deified their king Apis, forbidding all, under pain of
death, to say that he was a man. They worshipped birds, as the hawk. They
worshipped beasts, as the ox. They made the image of a beast to be their
god. They worshipped creeping things, as the crocodile, and the Indian
mouse. God mentions it therefore as a signal favour to Israel, that he
brought them out of such an idolatrous country. ‘I brought thee out of the
land of Egypt.’
The
thing I would note is, that it is no small blessing to be delivered from
places of idolatry. God speaks of it no less than ten times in the Old
Testament, ‘I brought you out of the land of Egypt;’ an idolatrous place.
Had there been no iron furnace in Egypt, yet so many altars being there, and
false gods, it was a great privilege to Israel to be delivered out of Egypt.
Joshua reckons it among the chief and most memorable mercies of God to
Abraham, that he brought him out of Ur of the Chaldees, where Abraham’s
ancestors served strange gods.
Josh 24: 2, 3. It is well for the plant that is set in a bad
soil, to be transplanted to a better, where it may grow and flourish; so it
is a mercy when any who are planted among idolaters, are removed and
transplanted into Zion, where the silver drops of God’s word make them grow
in holiness.
Wherein
does it appear to be so great a blessing to be delivered from places of
idolatry?
(1) It
is a great mercy, because our nature is prone to idolatry. Israel began to
be defiled with the idols of Egypt.
Ezek 22: 3. Dry wood is not more prone to take fire than our
nature is to idolatry. The Jews made cakes to the queen of heaven, that is,
to the moon.
Jer 7: 15.
Why is
it that we are prone to idolatry?
Because
we are led much by visible objects, and love to have our senses pleased. Men
naturally fancy a god that they may see; though it be such a god that cannot
see them, yet they would see it. The true God is invisible; which makes the
idolater worship something that he can see.
(2) It
is a mercy to be delivered from idolatrous places, because of the greatness
of the sin of idolatry, which is giving that glory to an image which is due
to God. All divine worship God appropriates to himself; it is a flower of
his crown. The fat of the sacrifice is claimed by him.
Lev 3: 3. Divine worship is the fat of the sacrifice, which he
reserves for himself. The idolater devotes this worship to an idol, which
the Lord will by no means endure. ‘My glory will I not give to another,
neither my praise to graven images.’
Isa 42: 8. Idolatry is spiritual adultery. ‘With their idols have
they committed adultery.’
Ezek 23: 37. To worship any other than God, is to break wedlock,
and makes the Lord disclaim his interest in a people. ‘Plead with your
mother, plead: for she is not my wife.’
Hos 2: 2. ‘Thy people have corrupted themselves;’ no more my
people, but thy people.
Exod 32: 7. God calls idolatry, blasphemy. ‘In this your fathers
have blasphemed me.’ Idolatry is devil worship.
Ezek 20: 27, 31. ‘They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to new
gods.’
Deut 32: 17. These new gods were old devils. ‘And they shall no
more offer their sacrifices unto devils.’
Lev 17: 7. The Hebrew word La-sairim, is the hairy ones, because
the devils were hairy, and appeared in the forms of satyrs and goats. How
dreadful a sin is idolatry; and what a signal mercy is it to be snatched out
of an idolatrous place, as Lot was snatched by the angels out of Sodom!
(3) It
is a mercy to be delivered out of idolatrous places, because idolatry is
such a silly and irrational religion. I may say, as
Jer 8: 9: ‘What wisdom is in them?’ Is it not folly to refuse the
best, and choose the worst? The trees in the field of Jotham’s parable,
despised the vine-tree, which cheers both God and man, and the olive which
is full of fatness, and the fig-tree which is full of sweetness, and chose
the bramble to reign over them — which was a foolish choice.
Judg 9. So it is for us to refuse the living God, who has power
to save us, and to make choice of an idol, that has eyes and sees not, feet
but walks not.
Psa 115: 6, 7. What a prodigy of madness is this? Therefore to be
delivered from committing such folly is a mercy.
(4) It
is a mercy to be delivered from idolatrous places, because of the sad
judgements inflicted upon idolaters. This is a sin which enrages God, and
makes the fury come up in his face.
Ezek 38: 18. Search through the whole book of God, and you shall
find no sin he has followed with more plagues than idolatry. ‘Their sorrows
shall be multiplied that hasten after another god.’
Psa 16: 4. ‘They moved him to jealousy with their graven images.’
Psa 78: 58. ‘When God heard this he was wrath, and greatly
abhorred Israel; so that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh.’
Verses 59, 60. Shiloh was a city belonging to the tribe of
Ephraim, where God set his name.
Jer 7: 12. But, for their idolatry, God forsook the place, gave
his people up to the sword, caused his priests to be slain, and his ark to
be carried away captive, never more to be returned. How severe was God
against Israel for worshipping the golden calf!
Exod 32: 27. The Jews say, that in every misery that befalls
them, there is
uncia aurei
vituli, ‘an ounce of the golden calf
in it.’ ‘Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins,
and that ye receive not of her plagues.’
Rev. 18: 4. Idolatry, lived in, cuts men off from heaven.
1 Cor 6: 9. So then it is no small mercy to be delivered out of
idolatrous places.
Use one.
See the goodness of God to our nation, in bringing us out of mystic Egypt,
delivering us from popery, which is Romish idolatry, and causing the light
of his truth to break forth gloriously among us. In former times, and more
lately in the Marian days, England was overspread with idolatry. It
worshipped God after a false manner; and it is idolatry, not only to worship
a false god, but the true God in a false manner. Such was our case formerly;
we had purgatory, indulgences, the idolatrous mass, the Scriptures locked up
in an unknown tongue, invocation of saints and angels, and image-worship.
Images are teachers of lies.
Hab 2: 18. Wherein do they teach lies? They represent God, who
cannot be seen, in a bodily shape. ‘Ye saw no similitude, only ye heard a
voice.’
Deut 4: 12.
Quod invisibile est, pingi non potest.
Ambrose. God cannot be pictured by any finger; not the soul even, being a
spirit, much less God. ‘To whom then will ye liken God?’
Isa 40: 18. The Papists say they worship God by the image; which
is a great absurdity, for if it be absurd to fall down to the picture of a
king when the king himself is present, much more to bow down to the image of
God when God himself is present.
Jer 23: 24. What is the popish religion but a bundle of
ridiculous ceremonies? Their wax, flowers, pyres, agnus Dei, cream and oil,
beads, crucifixes; what are these but Satan’s policy, to dress up a carnal
worship, fitted to carnal minds? Oh! what cause have we to bless God for
delivering us from popery! It was a mercy to be delivered from the Spanish
invasion, and the powder treason; but it is a far greater to be delivered
from the popish religion, which would have made God give us a bill of
divorce.
Use two.
If it be a great blessing to be delivered from the Egypt of popish idolatry,
it shows the sin and folly of those who, being brought out of Egypt, are
willing to return to it again. The apostle says, ‘Flee from idolatry.’
1 Cor 10: 14. But these rather flee to idolatry; and are herein
like the people of Israel, who, notwithstanding all the idolatry and tyranny
of Egypt, longed to go back to Egypt. ‘Let us make a captain and let us
return into Egypt.’
Numb 14: 4. But how shall they go back into Egypt? How shall they
have food in the wilderness? Will God rain down man any more upon such
rebels? How will they get over the Red Sea? Will God divide the water again
by miracle, for such as leave his service, and go into idolatrous Egypt? Yet
they say, ‘Let us make a captain.’ And are there not such spirits among us,
who say, ‘Let us make a captain and go back to the Romish Egypt again’? If
we do, what shall we get by it? I am afraid the leeks and onions of Egypt
will make us sick. Do we ever suppose that, if we drink in the cup of
fornication, we shall drink in the cup of salvation? Oh! that any should so
forfeit their reason, as to enslave themselves to the see of Rome; that they
should be willing to hold a candle to a mass-priest, and bow down to a
strange God! Let us not say we will make a captain, but rather say as
Ephraim, ‘What have I to do any more with idols?’
Hos 14: 8.
Use
three. If it be a mercy to be brought out of Egypt, it is not desirable or
safe to plant one’s self in an idolatrous place, where it may be a capital
crime to be seen with a Bible in our hands. Some, for secular gain, thrust
themselves among idolaters, and think there is no danger to live where
Satan’s seat is. They pray God would not lead them into temptation, but led
themselves. They are in great danger of being polluted. It is hard to be as
the fish, which keeps fresh in salt waters. A man cannot dwell among
blackamoors, but he will be discoloured. You will sooner be corrupted by
idolaters, than they will be converted by you. Joseph got no good by living
in an idolatrous court; he did not teach Pharaoh to pray, but Pharaoh taught
him to swear. They ‘were mingled among the heathen, and served their idols.’
Psalm 106: 35, 36. I fear it has been the undoing of many; that
they have seated themselves amongst idolaters, for advancing their trade,
and at last have not only traded with them in their commodities, but in
their religion.
Use
four. It is a mercy to be brought out of the land of Egypt, a defiled place,
and where sin reigns. It reproaches such parents as show little love for the
souls of their children, whether it be in putting them out to service, or
matching them. In putting them out to service, their care is chiefly for
their bodies, that they may be provided for, and they care not what becomes
of their souls. Their souls are in Egypt, in houses where there is drinking,
swearing, Sabbath-breaking, and where God’s name is every day dishonoured.
In matching their children, they look only at money. ‘Be ye not unequally
yoked.’
2 Cor 6: 14. If their children be equally yoked for estate, they
care not whether they be unequally yoked for religion. Let such parents
think how precious the soul of their child is; that it is immortal, and
capable of communion with God and angels. Will you let a soul be lost by
placing it in a bad family? If you had a horse you loved, you would not put
him in a stable with other horses that were sick and diseased; and do you
not love your child better than your horse? God has intrusted you with the
souls of your children; you have a charge of souls. God says, as
1 Kings 20: 39: ‘Keep this man: if he be missing, then shall thy
life be for his life.’ So says God, if the soul of thy child miscarry by thy
negligence, his blood will I require at thy hand. Think of this, all ye
parents; take heed of placing your children in Egypt, in a wicked family; do
not put them in the devil’s mouth. Seek for them a sober, religious family,
such as Joshua’s. ‘As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.’
Josh 14: 15. Such a family as Cranmer’s, which was
palaestra
pietatis, a nursery of piety, a
Bethel, of which it may be said, ‘The church which is in his house.’
Col. 4: 15.
Use
five. Let us pray that God would keep our English nation from the
defilements of Egypt, that it may not be again overspread with superstition
and idolatry. Oh, sad religion! not only to have our estates, our bodies
enslaved, but our consciences. Pray that the true Protestant religion may
still nourish among us, that the sun of the gospel may still shine in our
horizon. The gospel lifts a people up to heaven, it is
columna et
corona regni, ‘the crown and glory
of the kingdom’; if this be removed, Ichabod, the glory is departed. The top
of the beech tree being cut off, the whole body of the tree withers apace;
so the gospel is the top of all our blessings; if this top be cut, the whole
body politic will soon wither. O pray that the Lord will continue the
visible tokens of his presence among us, his ordinances, that England may be
called, Jehovah-shammah, ‘The Lord is there.’
Ezek 48: 35. Pray that righteousness and peace may kiss each
other, that so glory may dwell in our land.
III. Out
of the house of bondage. Egypt and the house of bondage are the same, only
they are expressed under a different notion. By Egypt is meant a place of
idolatry and superstition; by the house of bondage is meant a place of
affliction. Israel, while in Egypt, were under great tyranny; they had cruel
task-masters set over them, who put them to hard labour, and set them to
make bricks, yet allowed them no straw; therefore, Egypt is called, in
Deut 4: 20, the iron furnace, and here the house of bondage. From
this expression, ‘I brought thee out of the house of bondage,’ two things
are to be noted; God’s children may sometimes be under sore afflictions. ‘In
the house of bondage.’ But God will, in due time, bring them out of their
afflicted state. ‘I brought thee out of the house of bondage.’
God’s
children may sometimes be under sore afflictions,
in domo
servitutis, in the house of bondage.
God’s people have no writ of ease granted them, no charter of exemption from
trouble in this life. While the wicked are kept in sugar, the godly are
often kept in brine. And, indeed, how could God’s power be seen in bringing
them out of trouble, if he did not sometimes bring them into it? or how
should God wipe away the tears from their eyes in heaven, if on earth they
shed none? Doubtless, God sees there is need that his children should be
sometimes in the house of bondage. ‘If need be, ye are in heaviness.’
1 Peter 1: 6. The body sometimes needs a bitter portion more than
a sweet one.
Why does
God let his people be in the house of bondage or in an afflicted state?
He does
it, (1) For probation or trial. ‘Who led thee through that terrible
wilderness, that he might humble thee and prove thee.’
Deut 8: 15, 16. Affliction is the touch-stone of sincerity. ‘Thou
O God, hast proved us; thou hast tried us as silver; thou laidst affliction
upon our loins.’
Psa 66: 10, 11. Hypocrites may embrace the true religion in
prosperity, and court this queen while she has a jewel hung at her ear; but
he is a good Christian who will keep close to God in a time of suffering.
‘All this is come upon us, yet have we not forgotten thee.’
Psa 44: 17. To love God in heaven, is no wonder; but to love him
when he chastises us, discovers sincerity. (2) For purgation; to purge our
corruption.
Ardet palea,
purgatur aurum. ‘And this is all the
fruit, to take away his sin.’
Isa 28: 9. The eye, though a tender part, yet when sore, we put
sharp powders and waters into it to eat out the pearl; so though the people
of God are dear to him, yet, when corruption begins to grow in them, he will
apply the sharp powder of affliction, to eat out the pearl in the eye.
Affliction is God’s flail to thresh off our husks; it is a means God uses to
purge out sloth, luxury, pride, and love of the world. God’s furnace is in
Zion.
Isa 31: 5. This is not to consume, but to refine. What if we have
more affliction, if by this means we have less sin!
(3) For
augmentation; to increase the graces of the Spirit. Grace thrives most in
the iron furnace. Sharp frosts nourish the corn; so sharp afflictions
nourish grace. Grace in the saints is often as fire hid in the embers,
affliction is the bellows to blow it up into a flame. The Lord makes the
house of bondage a friend to grace. Then faith and patience act their part.
The darkness of the night cannot hinder the brightness of a star; so, the
more the diamond is cut the more it sparkles; and the more God afflicts us,
the more our graces cast a sparkling lustre.
(4) For
preparation; to fit and prepare the saints for glory.
2 Cor 4: 17. The stones which are cut out for a building, are
first hewn and squared. The godly are called ‘living stones.’
1 Pet 2: 5. God first hews and polishes them by affliction, that
they may be fit for the heavenly building. The house of bondage prepares for
the house not made with hands.
2 Cor 5: 1: The vessels of mercy are seasoned with affliction,
and then the wine of glory is poured in.
How do
the afflictions of the godly differ from the afflictions of the wicked?
(1) They
are but castigations, but those on the wicked are punishments. The one come
from a father, the other from a judge.
(2)
Afflictions on the godly are fruits of covenant-mercy.
2 Sam 7: 17. Afflictions on the wicked are effects of God’s
wrath. ‘He has much wrath with his sickness.’
Eccl 5: 17. Afflictions on the wicked are the pledge and earnest
of hell; they are like the pinioning of a malefactor, which presages his
execution.
(3)
Afflictions on the godly make them better, but afflictions on the wicked
make them worse. The godly pray more;
Psa 130: 1: The wicked blaspheme more. ‘Men were scorched with
great heat, and blasphemed the name of God.’
Rev 16: 9. Afflictions on the wicked make them more impenitent;
every plague upon Egypt increased the plague of hardness in Pharaoh’s heart.
To what a prodigy of wickedness do some persons come after great sickness.
Affliction on the godly is like bruising spices, which are most sweet and
fragrant: affliction on the wicked is like pounding weeds with a pestle,
which makes them more unsavoury.
Use one.
(1) We are not to wonder to see Israel in the house of bondage.
1 Pet 4: 12. The holiness of the saints will not excuse them from
sufferings. Christ was the holy one of God, yet he was in the iron furnace.
His spouse is a lily among thorns.
Cant 2: 2. Though his sheep have the ear-mark of election upon
them, yet they may have their wool fleeced off. The godly have some good in
them, therefore the devil afflicts them; and some evil in them, therefore
God afflicts them. While there are two seeds in the world, expect to be
under the black rod. The gospel tells us of reigning, but first of
suffering.
2 Tim 2: 12.
(2)
Affliction is not always the sign of God’s anger. Israel, the apple of God’s
eye, a peculiar treasure to him above all people, were in the house of
bondage.
Exod 19: 5. We are apt to judge and censure those who are in an
afflicted state. When the barbarians saw the viper on Paul’s hand, they
said, ‘No doubt this man is a murderer.’
Acts 28: 4. So, when we see the viper of affliction fasten upon
the godly, we are apt to censure them, and say, these are greater sinners
than others, and God hates them; but this rash censuring is for want of
wisdom. Were not Israel in the house of bondage? Was not Jeremiah in the
dungeon, and Paul a night and day in the deep? God’s afflicting is so far
from evidencing hatred, that his not afflicting does. ‘I will not punish
your daughters when they commit whoredom.’
Hos 4: 14. Deus maxime irascitur cum non irascitur. Bernard. God
punishes most when he does not punish; his hand is heaviest when it seems to
be lightest. The judge will not burn him in the hand whom he intends to
execute.
(3) If
God’s own Israel may be in the house of bondage, then afflictions do not of
themselves demonstrate a man miserable. Indeed, sin unrepented of, makes one
miserable; but the cross does not. If God has a design in afflicting his
children to make them happy, they are not miserable; but God’s afflicting
them is to make them happy, therefore they are not miserable. ‘Happy is the
man whom God correcteth.’
Job 5: 17. The world counts them happy who can keep out of
affliction; but the Scripture calls them happy who are afflicted.
How are
they happy?
Because
they are more holy.
Heb 12: 10. Because they are more in God’s favour.
Prov 3: 12. The goldsmith loves his gold when in the furnace.
Because they have more of God’s sweet presence.
Psa 91: 15. They cannot be unhappy who have God’s powerful
presence in supporting, and his gracious presence in sanctifying, their
affliction. Because the more affliction they have, the more degrees of glory
they shall have; the lower they have been in the iron furnace, the higher
they shall sit upon to throne of glory; the heavier their crosses, the
heavier shall be their crown. So then, if afflictions make a Christian
happy, they cannot call him miserable.
(4) See
the merciful providence of God to his children. Though they may be in the
house of bondage, and smart by affliction, yet they shall not be hurt by
affliction. What hurt does the fan to the corn? it only separates the chaff
from it; or the lance to the body? it only lets out the abscess. The house
of bondage does that which sometimes ordinances will not; it humbles and
reforms. ‘If they be holden in cords of affliction, he openeth their ear to
discipline, and commandeth that they return from iniquity.’
Job 36: 8, 10. Oh! what a merciful providence is it that, though
God bruise his people, yet, while he is bruising them, he is doing them
good! It is as if one should throw a bag of money at another, which bruises
him a little, but yet it enriches him. Affliction enriches the soul and
yields the sweet fruits of righteousness.
Heb. 12: 11.
(5) If
Israel be in the house of bondage, if the Lord deals so with his own
children, then how severely will he deal with the wicked! If he be so severe
with those he loves, how severe will he be with those he hates! ‘If they do
these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?’
Luke 13: 31. If they that pray and mourn for sin be so severely
dealt with, what will become of those that swear and break the Sabbath, and
are unclean! If Israel be in the iron furnace, the wicked shall lie in the
fiery furnace of hell. It should be the saddest news to wicked men, to hear
that the people of God are afflicted. Let them think how dreadful the case
of sinners will be. ‘Judgement must begin at the house of God; and if it
first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel?’
1 Pet 4: 17. If God thresh his wheat, he will burn the chaff. If
the godly suffer castigation, the wicked shall suffer condemnation. If he
mingle his people’s cup with wormwood he will mingle the wicked’s cup with
fire and brimstone.
Use two.
If Israel be in the house of bondage,
(1) Do
not entertain too hard thoughts of affliction. Christians are apt to look
upon the cross and the iron furnace as frightful things, and do what they
can to shun them. Nay, sometimes, to avoid affliction, they run themselves
into sin. But do not think too hardly of affliction; do not look upon it as
through the multiplying-glass of fear. The house of bondage is not hell.
Consider that affliction comes from a wise God, who prescribes whatever
befalls us. Persecutions are like apothecaries: they give us the physic
which God the physician prescribes. Affliction has its light side, as well
as its dark one. God can sweeten our afflictions, and candy our wormwood. As
our sufferings abound, so does also our consolation.
2 Cor 1: 5. Argerius dated his letters from the pleasant garden
of the Leonine prison. God sometimes so revives his children in trouble,
that they had rather bear their afflictions than want their comforts. Why
then should Christians entertain such hard thoughts of afflictions? Do not
look at its grim face, but at the message it brings, which is to enrich us
with both grace and comfort.
(2) If
Israel be sometimes in the house of bondage, in an afflicted state, think
beforehand of affliction. Say not as Job (29:
18), ‘I shall die in my nest.’ In the house of mirth think of the
house of bondage. You that are now Naomi, may be Mara.
Ruth 1:20. How quickly may the scene turn, and the hyperbole of
joy end in a catastrophe! All outward things are given to change. The
forethoughts of affliction would make us sober and moderate in the use of
lawful delight; it would cure a surfeit. Christ at a feast mentions his
burial; a good antidote against a surfeit. The forethought of affliction
would make us prepare for it; it would take us off the world; it would put
us upon search of our evidences.
We
should see what oil we have in our lamps, what grace we can find, that we
may be able to stand in the evil day. That soldier is imprudent who has his
sword to whet when he is just going to fight. He who forecasts sufferings,
will have the shield of faith, and the sword of the Spirit ready, that he
may not be surprised.
(3) If
afflictions come, let us labour to conduct ourselves wisely as Christians,
that we may adorn our sufferings: that is, let us endure with patience.
‘Take, my brethren, the prophets for an example of suffering affliction and
patience.’
James 5: 10. Satan labours to take advantage of us in affliction,
by making us either faint or murmur; he blows the coals of passion and
discontent, and then warms himself at the fire. Patience adorns sufferings.
A Christian should say as Jesus Christ did, ‘Lord, not my will but thy will
be done.’ It is a sign the affliction is sanctified when the heart is
brought to a sweet submissive frame. God will then remove the affliction: he
will take us out of the iron furnace.
We may
consider these words, ‘Which brought thee out of the house of bondage,’
either, [1] Literally; or [2] Spiritually and Mystically. In the letter, ‘I
brought thee out of the house of bondage;’ that is, I delivered you out of
the misery and servitude you sustained in Egypt, where you were in the iron
furnace. Spiritually and mystically, by which ‘I brought thee out of the
house of bondage,’ is a type of our deliverance by Christ from sin and hell.
[1]
Literally, ‘I brought thee out of the house of bondage,’ out of great misery
and slavery in the iron furnace. The thing I note here is that, though God
brings his people sometimes into trouble, yet he will bring them out again.
Israel was in the house of bondage, but at last was brought out.
We
shall endeavour to show: 1. That God does deliver out of trouble. 2. In what
manner. 3. At what seasons. 4. Why he delivers. 5. How the deliverances of
the godly and wicked out of trouble differ.
God
does deliver his children out of troubles. ‘Our fathers trusted in thee;
they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.’
Psa 22: 4. ‘And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion,’
namely, from Nero.
2 Tim 4: 17. ‘Thou laidst affliction upon our loins, but thou
broughtest us out into a wealthy place.’
Psa 66: 11, 12. ‘Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in
the morning.’
Psa 30: 5. God brought Daniel out of the lions’ den, Zion out of
Babylon. In his due time he gives an issue out of trouble.
Psa 68: 20. The tree which in the winter seems dead, revives in
the spring.
Post nubila
Phoebus [The sun emerges after the
storms]. Affliction may leap on us as the viper did on Paul, but at last it
shall be shaken off. It is called a cup of affliction.
Isa 51: 17. The wicked drink a sea of wrath, the godly drink only
a cup of affliction, and God will say shortly, ‘Let this cup pass away.’ God
will give his people a gaol-delivery.
In what
manner does God deliver his people out of trouble?
He does
it like a God, in wisdom. (1) He does it sometimes suddenly. As the angel
was caused to fly swiftly (Dan
9: 21), so God sometimes makes a deliverance fly swiftly, and on
a sudden turns the shadow of death into the light of the morning. As he
gives us mercies above what we can think (Eph
3: 20), so sometimes before we can think of them. ‘When the Lord
turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream;’ it came
suddenly upon us as a dream.
Psa 126: 1. Joseph could not have thought of such a sudden
alteration, to be the same day freed out of prison, and made the chief ruler
in the kingdom. Mercy sometimes does not stick long in the birth, but comes
forth on a sudden. (2) God sometimes delivers his people strangely. Thus the
whale which swallowed up Jonah was the means of bringing him safe to land.
He sometimes delivers his people in the very way which they think will
destroy. In bringing Israel out of Egypt, he stirred up the heart of the
Egyptians to hate them (Psa
105: 25), and that was the means of their deliverance. He brought
Paul to shore by a contrary wind, and upon the broken pieces of the ship.
Acts 27: 44.
When
are the times and seasons that God usually delivers his people out of the
bondage of affliction?
(1)
When they are in the greatest extremity. Though Jonah was in the belly of
hell, he says, ‘Thou hast brought up my life from corruption.’
Jonah 2: 6. When there is but a hair’s breadth between the godly
and death, God ushers in deliverance. When the ship was almost covered with
waves Christ awoke and rebuked the wind. When Isaac was upon the altar, and
the knife about to be put to his throat, the angel comes and says, ‘Lay not
thy hand upon the child.’ When Peter began to sink, Christ took him by the
hand.
Cum duplicantur lateres, venit Moses:
‘when the tale of brick was doubled, then Moses the temporal saviour comes.
When the people of God are in the greatest danger the morning star of
deliverance appears. When the patient is ready to faint the cordial is
given.
(2) The
second season is, when affliction has done its work upon them; when it has
effected that which God sent it for. As, [1] When it has humbled them.
‘Remembering my affliction, the wormwood and gall, my soul is humbled in
me.’
Lam 3: 19, 20. Then God’s corrosive has eaten out the proud
flesh. [2] When it has tamed their impatience. Before, they were proud and
impatient, like froward children that struggle with their parents; but when
their cursed hearts are tamed, they say, ‘I will bear the indignation of the
Lord, because I have sinned against him’ (Micah
7: 9); and as Eli, ‘It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him
good:’ ‘Let him hedge me with thorns, if he will plant me with grace.’
1 Sam 3: 18.
(3)
When they are partakers of more holiness, and are more full of
heavenly-mindedness.
Heb 12: 10. When the sharp frost of affliction has brought forth
the spring-flowers of grace, the cross is sanctified, and God will bring
them out of the house of bondage.
Luctus in
laetitiam vertetur, cineres in corollas
[Sorrow will turn to joy, ashes to garlands]. When the metal is refined it
is taken out of the furnace. When affliction has healed us, God takes off
the smarting plaister.
Why
does God bring his people out of the house of bondage?
Hereby
he makes way for his own glory. His glory is dearer to him than anything
besides; it is a crown jewel. By raising his people he raises the trophies
of his own honour; he glorifies his own attributes; his power, truth, and
goodness are triumphant.
(1) His
power. If God did not sometimes bring his people into trouble, how could his
power be seen in bringing them out? He brought Israel out of the house of
bondage, with miracle upon miracle; he saved them with an outstretched arm.
‘What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest?’ &c.
Psa 114: 5. Of Israel’s march out of Egypt it is said, when the
sea fled, and the waters were parted each from other. Here was the power of
God set forth. ‘Is there any thing too hard for me?’
Jer 32: 27. God loves to help when things seem past hope. He
creates deliverance.
Psa 124: 8. He brought Isaac out of a dead womb, and the Messiah
out of a virgin’s womb. oh! how does his power shine forth when he overcomes
seeming impossibilities, and works a cure when things look desperate!
(2) His
truth. God has made promises to his people, when they are under great
pressures, to deliver them; and his truth is engaged in his promise. ‘Call
upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver thee.’
Psa 50: 15. ‘He shall deliver thee in six troubles, yea in
seven.’
Job 5: 19. How is the Scripture bespangled with these promises as
the firmament is with stars! Either God will deliver them from death, or by
death; he will make a way of escape.
1 Cor 10: 13. When promises are verified, God’s truth is
magnified.
(3) His
goodness. God is full of compassion to such as are in misery. The Hebrew
word, Racham, for mercy, signifies bowels. God has ‘sounding of bowels.’
Isa 63: 15. And this sympathy stirs up God to deliver. ‘In his
love and pity he redeemed them.’
Isa 63: 9. This makes way for the triumph of his goodness. He is
tender-hearted, he will not over afflict; he cuts asunder the bars of iron,
he breaks the yoke of the oppressor. Thus all his attributes ride in triumph
in saving his people out of trouble.
How do
the deliverance of the godly and tricked out of trouble differ?
(1) The
deliverances of the godly are preservations; of the wicked reservations.
‘The Lord knows how to deliver the godly, and to reserve the unjust to be
punished.’
2 Pet 2: 9. A sinner may be delivered from dangerous sickness,
and out of prison; but all this is but a reservation for some greater evil.
(2) God
delivers the wicked, or rather spares them in anger. Deliverances to the
wicked are not given as pledges of his love, but symptoms of displeasure; as
quails were given to Israel in anger. But deliverances of the godly are in
love. ‘He delivered me because he delighted in me’.
2 Sam 22: 20. ‘Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the
pit of corruption;’ or, as in the Hebrew, Chashiaqta Naphshi.
Isa 38: 17. Thou hast loved me from the pit of corruption. A
wicked man may say, ‘Lord, thou hast delivered me out of the pit of
corruption;’ but a godly man may say, ‘Lord, thou hast loved me out of the
pit of corruption.’ It is one thing to have God’s power deliver us, and
another thing to have his love deliver us. ‘O,’ said Hezekiah, ‘Thou hast in
love to my soul, delivered me from the pit of corruption.’
How may
it be known that a deliverance comes in love?
(1)
When it makes our heart boil over in love to God. ‘I love the Lord because
he has heard my voice.’
Psa 116: 1. It is one thing to love our mercies, another thing to
love the Lord. Deliverance is in love when it causes love.
(2)
Deliverance is in love when we have hearts to improve it for God’s glory.
The wicked, instead of improving their deliverance for God’s glory, increase
their corruption; they grow worse, as the metal when taken out of the fire
grows harder; but our deliverance is in love when we improve it for God’s
glory. God raises us out of a low condition, and we lift him up in our
praises, and honour him with our substance.
Prov 3: 9. He recovers us from sickness, and we spend ourselves
in his service. Mercy is not as the sun to the fire, to dull it and put it
out, but as oil to the wheel, to make it move faster.
(3)
Deliverance comes in love when it makes us more exemplary in holiness; and
our lives are walking Bibles. A thousand praises and doxologies do not
honour God so much as the mortifying of one lust. ‘Upon mount Zion there
shall be deliverance and holiness,’
Obadiah 17. When these two go together, deliverance and holiness;
when, being made monuments of mercy, we are patterns of piety; then a
deliverance comes in love, and we may say as Hezekiah, ‘Thou hast in love to
my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption.’
Use
one. If God brings his people out of bondage, let none despond in trouble.
Say not ‘I shall sink under this burden;’ or as David, ‘I shall one day
perish by the hand of Saul.’ God can make the text good, personally and
nationally, to bring his people out of the house of bondage. When he sees a
fit season, he will put forth his arm and save them; and he can do it with
ease. ‘Lord, it is nothing with thee to help.’
2 Chron 14: 11. He that can turn tides, can turn the times; he
that raised Lazarus when he was dead, can raise thee when thou art sick. ‘I
looked, and there was none to help, therefore mine own arm brought
salvation.’
Isa 63: 5. Do not despond; believe in God’s power: faith sets God
to work to deliver us.
Use
two. Labour, if you are in trouble, to be fitted for deliverance. Many would
have deliverance, but are not fitted for it.
When
are we fitted for deliverance?
When,
by our afflictions, we are conformed to Christ; when we have learned
obedience. ‘He learned obedience by the things which he suffered;’ that is,
he learned sweet submission to his Father’s will.
Heb 5: 8. ‘Not my will, but thine, be done.’
Luke 22: 42. When we have thus learned obedience by our
sufferings, we are willing to do what God would have us do, and be what God
would have us be. We are conformed to Christ, and are fitted for
deliverance.
Use
three. If God has brought you at any time out of the house of bondage, out
of great and eminent troubles, be much in praise. Deliverance calls for
praise. ‘Thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness; to the
end that my glory may sing praise to thee.’
Psa 30: 11, 12. My glory, that is, my tongue, which is the
instrument of glorifying thee. The saints are temples of the Holy Ghost.
1 Cor 3: 16. Where should God’s praises be sounded but in his
temple?
Beneficium
postulat officium [Gratitude should
follow a favour]. The deepest springs yield the sweetest water; and hearts
deeply sensible of God’s deliverances yield the sweetest praises. Moses
tells Pharaoh, when he was going out of Egypt, ‘We will go with our flocks
and our herds.’
Exod 10: 9. Why so? Because he might have sacrifices of
thanksgiving ready to offer to God for their deliverance. To have a thankful
heart for deliverance is a greater blessing than the deliverance itself. One
of the lepers, ‘when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud
voice glorified God.’
Luke 17: 15. The leper’s thankful heart was a greater blessing
than to be healed of his leprosy. Have any of you been brought out of the
house of bondage — out of prison, sickness, or any death-threatening danger?
Do not forget to be thankful. Be not graves, but temples. That you may be
the more thankful, observe every emphasis and circumstance in your
deliverance; such as to be brought out of trouble when you were
in articulo
mortis [at the brink of death], when
there was but a hair’s breadth between you and death; or, to be brought out
of affliction, without sin, you did not purchase your deliverance by the
ensnaring of your consciences; or, to be brought out of trouble upon the
wings of prayer; or, that those who were the occasions of bringing you into
trouble, should be the instruments of bringing you out. These circumstances,
being well weighed, heighten a deliverance, and should heighten our
thankfulness. The cutting of a stone may be of more value than the stone
itself; and the circumstancing of a deliverance may be greater than the
deliverance itself.
But how
shall we praise God in a right manner for deliverance?
(1) Be
holy persons. In the sacrifice of thanksgiving, whosoever did eat thereof
with his uncleanness upon him, was to be cut off (Lev
7: 20), to typify how unpleasing their praises and
thank-offerings are who live in sin.
(2)
Praise God with humble hearts, acknowledge how unworthy you were of
deliverance. God’s mercies are not debts, but legacies; and that you should
have them by legacy should make you humble. ‘The elders fell upon their
faces (an expression of humility) and worshipped God.
Rev 11: 16.
(3)
Praise God for deliverances cordially. ‘I will praise the Lord with my whole
heart.’
Psa 111: 1. In religion there is no music but in concert, when
heart and tongue join.
(4)
Praise God for deliverances constantly. ‘While I live will I praise the
Lord.’
Psa 146: 2. Some will be thankful while the memory of a
deliverance is fresh, and then leave off. The Carthaginians used, at first,
to send the tenth of their yearly revenue to Hercules; but by degrees they
grew weary, and left off sending; but we must be constant in our Eucharistic
sacrifice, or thank-offering. The motion of our praise must be like the
motion of our pulse, which beats as long as life lasts. ‘I will sing praises
unto my God while I have any being.’
Psa 146: 2.
[2]
THESE words are to be understood mystically and spiritually. By Israel’s
deliverance from the house of bondage, is typified their spiritual
deliverance from sin, Satan, and hell.
(1)
From sin. The house of bondage was a type of Israel’s deliverance from sin.
Sin is the true bondage, it enslaves the soul.
Nihil durius
servitute. Cicero. ‘Of all
conditions, servitude is the worst.’ ‘I was held before conversion,’ says
Augustine, ‘not with an iron chain, but with the obstinacy of mine own
will.’ Sin is the enslaver; it is called a law, because it has a binding
power over a man (Rom
7: 23); it is said to reign, because it exercises a tyrannical
power (Rom
6: 12); and men are said to be the servants of sin, because they
are so enslaved by it.
Rom 6: 17. Thus sin is the house of bondage. Israel was not so
enslaved in the iron furnace as the sinner is by sin. They are worse slaves
and vassals who are under the power of sin, than they are who are under the
power of earthly tyrants.
Other
slaves have tyrants ruling over their bodies only; but the sinner has his
soul tyrannised over. That princely thing, the soul, which sways the sceptre
of reason, and was once crowned with perfect knowledge and holiness, now
goes on foot; it is enslaved, and made a lackey to every base lust.
Other
slaves have some pity shown them: the tyrant gives them meat, and lets them
have hours for their rest; but sin is a merciless tyrant, it will let men
have no rest. Judas had no rest until he had betrayed Christ, and after that
he had less rest than before. How does a man wear himself out in the service
of sin, waste his body, break his sleep, distract his mind! A wicked man is
every day doing sin’s drudgery-work.
Other
slaves have servile work; but it is lawful. It is lawful to work in the
galley, and tug at the oar; but all the laws and commands of sin are
unlawful. Sin says to one man, defraud; to another, be unchaste; to another
take revenge; to another, take a false oath. Thus all sin’s commands are
unlawful; we cannot obey sin’s law, but by breaking God’s law.
Other
slaves are forced against their will. Israel groaned under slavery (Exod
2: 23); but sinners are content to be under the command of sin;
they are willing to be slaves; they love their chains; they will not take
their freedom; they ‘glory in their shame.’
Phil 3: 19. They wear their sins, not as their fetters, but their
ornaments; they rejoice in iniquity.
Jer 11: 15.
Other
slaves are brought to correction, but sin’s slaves are without repentance,
and are brought to condemnation. Other slaves lie in the iron furnace: sin’s
slaves lie in the fiery furnace. What freedom of will has a sinner to his
own confusion, when he can do nothing but what sin will have him? He is
enslaved. Thus sinners are in the house of bondage; but God takes his elect
out of the house of bondage, he beats off the chains and fetters of sin; he
rescues them from their slavery; he makes them free, by bringing them into
‘the glorious liberty of the children of God.’
Rom 8: 21. The law of love now rules, not the law of sin. Though
the life of sin be prolonged, yet not the dominion; as those beasts in
Daniel had their lives prolonged for a season, but their dominion was taken
away.
Dan 7: 12. The saints are made spiritual kings, to rule and
conquer their corruptions, to ‘bind these kings in chains.’ It is matter of
the highest praise and thanksgiving, to be taken out of the house of
bondage, to be freed from enslaving hosts, and made kings to reign in glory
for ever.
(2) The
bringing Israel out of the house of bondage, was a type of the deliverance
from Satan. Men naturally are in the house of bondage, they are enslaved to
Satan. Satan is called the prince of this world (John
14: 30); and the god of this world (2
Cor 4: 4); because he has power to command and enslave them.
Though he shall one day be a close prisoner in chains, yet now he insults
and tyrannises over the souls of men. Sinners are under his rule, he
exercises over them a jurisdiction such as Caesar did over the senate. He
fills men’s heads with error, and their hearts with malice. ‘Why has Satan
filled thine heart?’
Act 5: 3. A sinner’s heart is the devil’s mansion house. ‘I will
return into mine house.’
Matt. 12: 44. And sure that must needs be a house of bondage,
which is the devil’s mansion-house. Satan is a complete tyrant. He rules
men’s minds, he blinds them with ignorance. ‘The god of this world has
blinded the minds of them that believe not.’
2 Cor 4: 4. He rules their memories. They remember that which is
evil, and forget that which is good. Their memories are like a strainer,
that lets go all the pure liquor, and retains only the dregs. He rules their
wills. Though he cannot force the will, he draws it. ‘The lusts of your
father you will do.’
John 8: 44. He has got your hearts, and him you will obey. His
strong temptations draw men to evil more than all the promises of God can
draw them to good. This is the state of every man by nature; he is in the
house of bondage; the devil has him in his power. A sinner grinds in the
devil’s mill; he is at the command of Satan, as the ass is at the command of
the driver. No wonder to see men oppress and persecute; as slaves they must
do what the god of this world will have them. How could those swine but run,
when the devil entered into them?
Matt 8: 32. When the devil tempted Ananias to tell a lie, he
could not but speak what Satan had put in his heart.
Acts 5: 3. When the devil entered into Judas, and bade him betray
Christ, he would do it, though he hanged himself. It is a sad and dismal
case, to be in the house of bondage, under the power and tyranny of Satan.
When David would curse the enemies of God, how did he pray against them?
That Satan might be at their right hand.
Psa 109: 6. He knew he could then lead them into any snare. If
the sinner has Satan at his right hand, let him take heed that he be not at
God’s left hand. Is it not a case to be bewailed, to see men taken captive
by Satan at his will?
2 Tim 2: 26. He leads sinners as slaves before him in triumph; he
wholly possesses them. If people should see their beasts bewitched and
possessed of the devil, they would be much troubled; and yet, though their
souls are possessed by Satan, they are not sensible of it. What can be worse
than for men to be in the house of bondage, and to have the devil hurry them
on in their lusts to perdition? Sinners are willingly enslaved to Satan;
they love their gaoler; are content to sit quietly under Satan’s
jurisdiction; they choose this bramble to rule over them, though after a
while, fire will come out of the bramble to devour them.
Judges 9: 15. What an infinite mercy is it when God brings poor
souls out of this house of bondage, when he gives them a gaol-delivery from
the prince of darkness! JESUS CHRIST redeems captives, he ransoms sinners by
price, and rescues them by force. As David took a lamb out of the lion’s
mouth (1
Sam 17: 35), so Christ rescues souls out of the mouth of the
roaring lion. Oh, what a mercy is it to be brought out of the house of
bondage, from captives to the prince of the power of the air, to be made
subjects of the Prince of Peace! This is done by the preaching of the Word.
‘To turn them from the power of Satan unto God.’
Acts 26: 18.
(3) The
bringing of Israel out of the house of bondage was a type of their being
delivered from hell. Hell is
domus
servitutis, a house of bondage; a
house built on purpose for sinners to lie in.
There
is such a house of bondage where the damned lie. ‘The wicked shall be turned
into hell.’
Psa 9: 17. ‘How can ye escape the damnation of hell?’
Matt 23: 33. If any one should ask where this house of bondage
is, where is the place of hell? I wish he may never know experimentally.
‘Let us not so much,’ says Chrysostom, ‘labour to know where hell is, as how
to escape it.’ Yet to satisfy curiosity, it may be observed that hell is
locus
subterraneus, some place beneath.
‘Hell beneath.’
Prov 15: 24. Hesiod says, ‘Hell is as far under the earth, as
heaven is above it.’ The devils besought Christ ‘that he would not command
them to go out into the deep.’
Luke 8: 31. Hell is in the deep.
Why
must there be this house of bondage? Why a hell? Because there must be a
place for the execution of divine justice. Earthly monarchs have their
prison for malefactors, and shall not God have his? Sinners are criminals,
they have offended God; and it would not consist with his holiness and
justice, to have his laws infringed, and not inflict penalties.
The
dreadfulness of the place. Could you but hear the groans and shrieks of the
damned for one hour, it would confirm you in the truth, that hell is a house
of bondage. Hell is the emphasis of misery. Besides the
poena damni,
‘the punishment of loss,’ which is the exclusion of the soul from the
gloried sight of God, which divines think the worst part of hell, there will
be
poena sensus,’ the punishment of
sense.’ If, when God’s wrath is kindled but a little, and a spark of it
flies into a man’s conscience in this life, it is so terrible (as in the
case of Spira), what will hell itself be?
In hell
there will be a plurality of torments, ‘Bonds and chains.’
2 Pet 2: 4. There will be the worm.
Mark 9: 48; This is the worm of conscience. There will be the
lake of fire.
Rev 20: 15. Other fire is but painted to this.
This
house of hell is haunted with devils.
Matt 25: 41. Anselm says, ‘I had rather endure all torments, than
see the devil with bodily eyes.’ Such as go to hell must not only be forced
to behold the devil, but must be shut up with this lion in his den; they
must keep the devil company. He is full of spite against mankind; a red
dragon that will spit fire in men’s faces.
The
torments of hell abide for ever. ‘The smoke of their torment ascendeth up
for ever and ever.’
Rev 14: 2: Time cannot finish it, tears cannot quench it.
Mark 9: 44. The wicked are salamanders, who live always in the
fire of hell, and are not consumed. After they have lain millions of years
in hell, their punishment is as far from ending, as it was at the beginning.
If all the earth and sea were sand, and every thousandth year a bird should
come, and take away one grain, it would be a long time before that vast heap
would be removed; yet, if after all that time the damned might come out of
hell, there would be some hope; but this word EVER breaks the heart.
How
does it seem to comport with God’s justice to punish a sin committed in a
moment, with eternal torment?
Because
there is an eternity of sin in man’s nature. Because sin is
crimen laesae
majestatis, ‘committed against an
infinite majesty,’ and therefore the sin itself is infinite, and
proportionally the punishment must be infinite. Because a finite creature
cannot bear infinite wrath, he must be eternally satisfying what he can
never satisfy. If hell be such a house of bondage, what infinite cause have
they to bless God who are delivered from it! Jesus ‘delivered us from the
wrath to come.’
1 Thess 1: 10. Jesus Christ suffered the torments of hell in his
soul, that believers should not suffer them. If we are thankful, when we are
ransomed out of prison, or delivered from fire, oh, how should we bless God
to be preserved from the wrath to come! It may cause more thankfulness in
us, seeing the most part go into the house of bondage, even to hell. To be
of the number of those few that are delivered from it, is matter of infinite
thankfulness. Most, I say, go to that house of bondage when they die; most
go to hell. ‘Broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be
which go in thereat.’
Matt 7: 13. The greatest part of the world lies in wickedness.
1 John 5: 19. Divide the world, says Brerewood, into thirty-one
parts, nineteen parts of it are possessed by Jews and Turks, and seven parts
by heathens; so that there are but five parts of Christians, and among these
Christians so many seduced Papists on the one hand, and so many formal
Protestants on the other, that we may conclude the major part of the world
goes to hell. Scripture compares the wicked to briers.
Isa 10: 17. There are but few lilies in your fields, but in every
hedge thorns and briers. It compares them to ‘the mire in the streets.’
Isa 10: 6. Few jewels or precious stones are in the street, but
you cannot go a step without meeting with mire. The wicked are as common as
the dirt in the street. Look at the generality of people. How many drunkards
are there for one that is sober! How many adulterers for one that is chaste!
How many hypocrites for one that is sincere! The devil has the harvest, and
God a few gleanings only. Oh, then, such as are delivered from the house of
bondage, in hell, have infinite cause to admire and bless God. How should
the vessels of mercy run over with thankfulness! When most others are
carried prisoners to hell, they are delivered from the wrath to come.
How
shall I know I am delivered from hell?
(1)
Those whom Christ saves from hell he saves from sin. ‘He shall save his
people from their sins.’
Matt 1: 21. Has God delivered you from the power of corruption,
from pride, malice, and lust? If he has delivered you from the hell of sin,
he has delivered you from the hell of torment.
(2) If
you have got an interest in Christ, and are prizing, trusting, and loving
him, you are delivered from hell and damnation. ‘No condemnation to them
that are in Christ Jesus.’
Rom 8:1. If you are in Christ, he has put the garment of his
righteousness over you, and hell-fire can never singe it. Pliny observes,
nothing will so soon quench fire as salt and blood: the salt tears of
repentance and the blood of Christ will quench the fire of hell, so that it
shall never kindle upon you.
1.4 The Right Understanding of the Law
‘Thou
shalt have no other Gods before me.’
Exod 20: 3.
Before I
come to the commandments, I shall answer questions, and lay down rules
respecting the moral law.
What is
the difference between the moral laud and the gospel?
(1) The
law requires that we worship God as our Creator; the gospel, that we worship
him in and through Christ. God in Christ is propitious; out of him we may
see God’s power, justice, and holiness: in him we see his mercy displayed.
(2) The
moral law requires obedience, but gives no strength (as Pharaoh required
brick, but gave no straw), but the gospel gives strength; it bestows faith
on the elect; it sweetens the law; it makes us serve God with delight.
Of what
use is the moral law to us?
It is a
glass to show us our sins, that, seeing our pollution and misery, we may be
forced to flee to Christ to satisfy for former guilt, and to save from
future wrath. ‘The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.
Gal 3: 24.
But is the
moral law still in force to believers; is it not abolished to them?
In some
sense it is abolished to believers. (1) In respect of justification. They
are not justified by their obedience to the moral law. Believers are to make
great use of the moral law, but they must trust only to Christ’s
righteousness for justification; as Noah’s dove made use of her wings to
fly, but trusted to the ark for safety. If the moral law could justify, what
need was there of Christ’s dying? (2) The moral law is abolished to
believers, in respect of its curse. They are freed from its curse and
condemnatory power. ‘Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being
made a curse for us.’
Gal 3: 13.
How was
Christ made a curse for us?
Considered as the Son of God, he was not made a curse, but as our pledge and
surety, he was made a curse for us.
Heb 7: 22. This curse was not upon his Godhead, but upon his
manhood. It was the wrath of God lying upon him; and thus he took away from
believers the curse of the law, by being made a curse for them. But though
the moral law be thus far abolished, it remains as a perpetual rule to
believers. Though it be not their Saviour, it is their guide. Though it be
not
foedus, a covenant of life; yet it
is norma,
a rule of life. Every Christian is bound to conform to it; and to write, as
exactly as he can, after this copy. ‘Do we then make void the law through
faith? God forbid.’
Rom 3: 31. Though a Christian is not under the condemning power
of the law, yet he is under its commanding power. To love God, to reverence
and obey him, is a law which always binds and will bind in heaven. This I
urge against the Antinomians, who say the moral law is abrogated to
believers; which, as it contradicts Scripture, so it is a key to open the
door to all licentiousness. They who will not have the law to rule them,
shall never have the gospel to save them.
Having
answered these questions, I shall in the next place, lay down some general
rules for the right understanding of the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments.
These may serve to give us some light into the sense and meaning of the
commandments.
Rule I.
The commands and prohibitions of the moral law reach the heart. (1) The
commands of the moral law reach the heart. The commandments require not only
outward actions, but inward affections; they require not only the outward
act of obedience, but the inward affection of love. ‘Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thine heart.’
Deut 6: 5.
(2) The
threats and prohibitions of the moral law reach the heart. The law of God
forbids not only the act of sin, but the desire and inclination; not only
does it forbid adultery, but lusting (Matt
5: 28): not only stealing, but coveting (Rom
7: 7).
Lex humana
ligat manum, lex divina comprimit animam
‘Man’s law binds the hands only, God’s law binds the heart.’
Rule 2.
In the commandments there is a synecdoche, more is intended than is spoken.
(1) Where any duty is commanded, the contrary sin is forbidden. When we are
commanded to keep the Sabbath-day holy, we are forbidden to break the
Sabbath. When we are commanded to live in a calling, ‘Six days shalt thou
labour,’ we are forbidden to live idly, and out of a calling.
(2) Where
any sin is forbidden, the contrary duty is commanded. When we are forbidden
to take God’s name in vain, the contrary duty, that we should reverence his
name, is commanded. ‘That thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name,
the Lord Thy God.’
Deut 28: 58. Where we are forbidden to wrong our neighbour, there
the contrary duty, that we should do him all the good we can, by vindicating
his name and supplying his wants, is included.
Rule 3.
Where any sin is forbidden in the commandment, the occasion of it is also
forbidden. Where murder is forbidden, envy and rash anger are forbidden,
which may occasion it. Where adultery is forbidden, all that may lead to it
is forbidden, as wanton glances of the eye, or coming into the company of a
harlot. ‘Come not nigh the door of her house.’
Prov 5: 8. He who would be free from the plague, must not come
near the infected house. Under the law the Nazarite was forbidden to drink
wine; nor might he eat grapes of which the wine was made.
Rule 4.
In
relato subintelligitur correlatum.
Where one relation is named in the
commandment, there another relation is included. Where the child is named,
the father is included. Where the duty of children to parents is mentioned,
the duty of parents to children is also included. Where the child is
commanded to honour the parent, it is implied that the parent is also
commanded to instruct, to love, and to provide for the child.
Rule 5.
Where greater sins are forbidden, lesser sins are also forbidden. Though no
sin in its own nature is little, yet one may be comparatively less than
another. Where idolatry is forbidden, superstition is forbidden, or bringing
any innovation into God’s worship, which he has not appointed. As the sons
of Aaron were forbidden to worship an idol, so to sacrifice to God with
strange fire.
Lev 10: 1. Mixture in sacred things, is like a dash in wine,
which though it gives a colour, yet does but debase and adulterate it. It is
highly provoking to God to bring any superstitious ceremony into his worship
which he has not prescribed; it is to tax God’s wisdom, as if he were not
wise enough to appoint the manner how he will be served.
Rule 6.
The law of God is entire.
Lex est
copulativa [The law is all
connected]. The first and second tables are knit together; piety to God, and
equity to our neighbour. These two tables which God has joined together,
must not be put asunder. Try a moral man by the duties of the first table,
piety to God, and there you will find him negligent; try a hypocrite by the
duties of the second table, equity to his neighbour, and there you will find
him tardy. If he who is strict in the second table neglects the first, or he
who is zealous in the first, neglects the second, his heart is not right
with God. The Pharisees were the highest pretenders to keeping the first
table with zeal and holiness; but Christ detects their hypocrisy: ‘Ye have
omitted judgement, mercy and faith.’
Matt 23: 23. They were bad in the second table; they omitted
judgement, or being just in their dealings; mercy in relieving the poor; and
faith, or faithfulness in their promises and contracts with men. God wrote
both the tables, and our obedience must set a seal to both.
Rule 7.
God’s law forbids not only the acting of sin in our own persons, but being
accessory to, or having any hand in, the sins of others.
How and
in what sense may we be said to partake of, and have a hand in the sins of
others?
(1) By
decreeing unrighteous decrees, and imposing on others that which is
unlawful. Jeroboam made the people of Israel to sin; he was accessory to
their idolatry by setting up golden calves. Though David did not in his own
person kill Uriah, yet because he wrote a letter to Joab, to set Uriah in
the forefront of the battle, and it was done by his command, he was
accessory to Uriah’s death, and the murder of him was laid by the prophet to
his charge. ‘Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword.’
2 Sam 12: 9.
(2) We
become accessory to the sins of others by not hindering them when it is in
our power.
Qui non
prohibit cum potest, jubet [The
failure to prevent something, when it lies within your power, amounts to
ordering it]. If a master of a family see his servant break the Sabbath, or
hear him swear, and does not use the power he has to suppress him, he
becomes accessory to his sin. Eli, for not punishing his sons when they made
the offering of the Lord to be abhorred, made himself guilty.
1 Sam 3: 13, 14. He that suffers an offender to pass unpunished,
makes himself an offender.
(3) By
counselling, abetting, or provoking others to sin. Ahithophel made himself
guilty of the fact by giving counsel to Absalom to go in and defile his
father’s concubines.
2 Sam 16: 21. He who shall tempt or solicit another to be drunk,
though he himself be sober, yet being the occasion of another’s sin, he is
accessory to it. ‘Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest
thy bottle to him.’
Hab 2: 15.
(4) By
consenting to another’s sin. Saul did not cast one stone at Stephen, yet the
Scripture says, ‘Saul was consenting unto his death.’
Acts 8: 1. Thus he had a hand in it. If several combined to
murder a man, and should tell another of their intent, and he should give
his consent to it, he would be guilty; for though his hand was not in the
murder, his heart was in it; though he did not act it, yet he approved it,
and so it became his sin.
(5) By
example.
Vivitur
exemplis [We live by example].
Examples are powerful and cogent. Setting a bad example occasions another to
sin, and so a person becomes accessory. If the father swears, and the child
by his example, learns to swear, the father is accessory to the child’s sin;
he taught him by his example. As there are hereditary diseases, so there are
hereditary sins.
Rule 8.
The last rule about the commandments is, that though we cannot, by our own
strength, fulfil all these commandments, yet doing
quod posse,
what we are able, the Lord has provided encouragement for us. There is a
threefold encouragement.
(1) That
though we have not ability to obey any one command, yet God has in the new
covenant, promised to work that in us which he requires. ‘I will cause you
to walk in my statutes.’
Ezek 36: 27. God commands us to love him. Ah, how weak is our
love! It is like the herb that is yet only in the first degree; but God has
promised to circumcise our hearts, that we may love him.
Deut 30: 6. He that commands us, will enable us. God commands us
to turn from sin, but alas! we have not power to turn; therefore he has
promised to turn us, to put his Spirit within us, and to turn the heart of
stone into flesh.
Ezek 36: 26. There is nothing in the command, but the same is in
the promise. Therefore, Christian, be not discouraged, though thou hast no
strength of thy own, God will give thee strength. The iron has no power to
move, but when drawn by the loadstone it can move. ‘Thou hast wrought all
our works in us.’
Isa 26: 12.
(2)
Though we cannot exactly fulfil the moral law, yet God for Christ’s sake
will mitigate the rigour of the law, and accept of something less than he
requires. God in the law requires exact obedience, yet will accept of
sincere obedience; he will abate something of the degree, if there be truth
in the inward parts. He will see the faith, and pass by the failing. The
gospel remits the severity of the moral law.
(3)
Wherein our personal obedience comes short, God will be pleased to accept us
in our Surety. ‘He has made us accepted in the Beloved.’
Eph 1: 6. Though our obedience be imperfect, yet, through Christ
our Surety, God looks upon it as perfect. That very service which God’s law
might condemn, his mercy is pleased to crown, by virtue of the blood of our
Mediator. Having given you these rules about the commandments, I shall come
next to the commandments themselves.
2. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
2.1 The First Commandment
‘Thou shalt
have no other gods before me.’
Exod 20: 3.
Why is the
commandment in the second person singular, Thou? Why does not God say, You
shall have no other gods?
Because the
commandment concerns every one, and God would have each one take it as
spoken to him by name. Though we are forward to take privileges to
ourselves, yet we are apt to shift off duties from ourselves to others;
therefore the commandment is in the second person, Thou and Thou, that every
one may know that it is spoken to him, as it were, by name. We come now to
the commandment, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’ This may well
lead the van, and be set in the front of all the commandments, because it is
the foundation of all true religion. The sum of this commandment is, that we
should sanctify God in our hearts, and give him a precedence above all
created beings. There are two branches of this commandment: 1. That we must
have one God. 2. That we must have but one. Or thus, 1. That we must have
God for our God. 2. That we must have no other.
1. That we
must have God for our God. It is manifest that we must have a God, and ‘who
is God save the Lord?’
2 Sam 22: 32. The Lord Jehovah (one God in three persons) is the
true, living, eternal God; and him we must have for our God.
[1] To have
God to be a God to us, is to acknowledge him for a God. The gods of the
heathen are idols.
Psa 96: 5. And ‘we know that an idol is nothing’ (1
Cor 8: 4); that is, it has nothing of Deity in it. If we cry,
‘Help, O Idol,’ an idol cannot help; the idols themselves were carried into
captivity, so that an idol is nothing.
Isa 46: 2. Vanity is ascribed to it, we do not therefore
acknowledge it to be a god.
Jer 14: 22. But we have this God to be a God to us, when,
ex animo
[from the heart], we acknowledge him to be God. All the people fell on their
faces and said, ‘The Lord he is the God! the Lord he is the God!’
1 Kings 18: 39. Yea, we acknowledge him to be the only God. ‘O
Lord God of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubim, thou art the God,
even thou alone.’
2 Kings 19: 15. Deity is a jewel that belongs only to his crown.
Further, we acknowledge there is no God like him. ‘And Solomon stood before
the altar of the Lord; and he said, Lord God of Israel, there is no God like
thee.’
1 Kings 8: 22, 23. ‘For who in the heaven can be compared unto
the Lord? who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the Lord?’
Psa 89: 6. In the Chaldee it is, ‘Who among the angels?’ None can
do as God; he brought the world out of nothing; ‘And hangeth the earth upon
nothing.’
Job 26: 7. It makes God to be a God to us, when we are persuaded
in our hearts, and confess with our tongues, and subscribe with our hands,
that he is the only true God, and that there is none comparable to him.
[2] To have
God to be a God to us is to choose him. ‘Choose you this day whom ye will
serve: but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord:’ that is, we will
choose the Lord to be our God.
Josh 24: 15. It is one thing for the judgement to approve of God,
and another for the will to choose him. Religion is not a matter of chance,
but choice.
Before
choosing God for our God, there must be knowledge. We must know him before
we can choose him. Before any one choose the person he will marry, he must
have some knowledge of that person; so we must know God before we can choose
him for our God. ‘Know thou the God of thy father.’
1 Chron 28: 9. We must know God in his attributes, as glorious in
holiness, rich in mercy, and faithful in promises. We must know him in his
Son. As the face is represented in a glass, so in Christ, as in a
transparent glass, we see God’s beauty and love shine forth. This knowledge
must go before choosing God. Lactantius said, all the learning of the
philosophers was without a head, because it wanted the knowledge of God.
This choosing is an act of mature deliberation. The Christian having viewed
the superlative excellences in God, and being stricken with a holy
admiration of his perfections, singles him out from all other objects to set
his heart upon, and says as Jacob, ‘The Lord shall be my God.’
Gen 28: 21. He that chooses God, devotes himself to God. ‘Thy
servant who is devoted to thy fear.’
Psa 119: 38. As the vessels of the sanctuary were consecrated and
set apart from common to holy uses, so he who has chosen God to be his God,
has dedicated himself to God, and will no more be devoted to profane uses.
[3] To have
God to be a God to us, is to enter into solemn covenant with him, that he
shall be our God. After choice the marriage-covenant follows. As God makes a
covenant with us, ‘I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the
sure mercies of David’ (Isa
55: 3); so we make a covenant with him, ‘They entered into a
covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers.’
2 Chron 15: 12. ‘One shall say, I am the Lord’s: and another
shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord;’ like soldiers that subscribe
their names in the muster roll.
Isa 44: 5. This covenant, ‘That God shall be our God,’ we have
often renewed in the Lord’s Supper; which, like a seal to a bond, binds us
fast to God, and so keeps us that we do not depart from him.
[4] To have
God to be a God to us, is to give him adoration: which consists in
reverencing him: ‘God is to be had in reverence of all them that are about
him.’
Psa 89: 7. The seraphim, who stood about God’s throne, covered
their faces (Isa
6), and Elijah wrapped himself in a mantle when the Lord passed
by, in token of reverence. This reverence shows the high esteem we have of
God’s sacred majesty. Adoration consists in bowing to him, or worshipping
him. ‘Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.’
Psa 29: 2. ‘They bowed their heads, and worshipped the Lord with
their faces to the ground.’
Neh 8: 6. Divine worship is the peculiar honour belonging to the
Godhead; which God is jealous of, and will have no creature share in. ‘My
glory will I not give to another.’
Isa 42: 8. Magistrates may have a civil respect or veneration,
but God only should have a religious adoration.
[5] To have
God to be a God to us, is to fear him. ‘That thou mayest fear this glorious
and fearful name, The Lord thy God.’
Deut 28: 58. This fearing God is (1) To have him always in our
eye, ‘I have set the Lord always before me.’
Psa 16: 8. ‘Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord.’
Psa 25: 15. He who fears God imagines that whatever he is doing,
God looks on, and as a judge, weighs all his actions. (2) To fear God is to
have such a holy awe of God upon our hearts, that we dare not sin. ‘Stand in
awe and sin not.’
Psa 4: 4. The wicked sin and fear not; the godly fear and sin
not. ‘How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?’
Gen 39: 9. Bid me sin, and you bid me drink poison. It is a
saying of Anselm, ‘If hell were on one side, and sin on the other, I would
rather leap into hell, than willingly sin against my God.’ He who fears God
will not sin, though it be ever so secret. ‘Thou shalt not curse the deaf,
nor put a stumbling-block before the blind, but shalt fear thy God.’
Lev 19: 14. Suppose you should curse a deaf man, he could not
hear you; or you were to lay a block in a blind man’s way, and cause him to
fall, he could not see you do it; but the fear of God will make you forsake
sins which can neither be heard nor seen by men. The fear of God destroys
the fear of man. The three children feared God, therefore they feared not
the king’s wrath.
Dan 3: 16. The greater noise drowns the less; the noise of
thunder drowns the noise of a river; so, when the fear of God is supreme in
the soul, it drowns all other carnal fear. It makes God to be God to us when
we have a holy filial fear of him.
[6] To have
God to be a God to us, is to trust in him. ‘Mine eyes are unto thee, O God
the Lord: in thee is my trust.’
Psa 141: 8. ‘The God of my rock, in him will I trust.’
2 Sam 22: 3. There is none in whom we can trust but God. All
creatures are a refuge of lies; they are like the Egyptian reed, too weak to
support us, but strong enough to wound us.
2 Kings 18: 21.
Omnis motus fit
super immobili [The immovable is
undisturbed by any commotion]. God only is a sufficient foundation to build
our trust upon. When we trust him, we make him a God to us; when we do not
trust him, we make him an idol. Trusting in God is to rely on his power as a
Creator, and on his love as a Father. Trusting in God is to commit our chief
treasure, our soul, to him. ‘Into thy hands I commit my spirit.’
Psa 31: 5. As the orphan trusts his estate with his guardian, so
we trust our souls with God. Then he becomes a God to us.
But how
shall we know that we trust in God aright? If we trust in God aright, we
shall trust him at one time as well as another. ‘Trust in him at all times.’
Psa 62: 8. Can we trust him in our straits? When the fig-tree
does not flourish, when our earthly crutches are broken, can we lean upon
God’s promise? When the pipes are cut off that used to bring us comfort, can
we live upon God, in whom are all our fresh springs? When we have no bread
to eat but the bread of carefulness (Ezek
12: 19), when we have no water to drink but tears, as in
Psa 80: 5: ‘Thou givest them tears to drink in great measure;’
can we then trust in God’s providence to supply us? A good Christian
believes, that if God feeds the ravens, he will feed his children, he lives
upon God’s all-sufficiency, not only for grace, but for food. He believes if
God gives him heaven, he will give daily bread; he trusts his bond: ‘Verily
thou shalt be fed.’
Psa 37: 3. Can we trust God in our fears? When adversaries grow
high can we display the banner of faith? ‘What time I am afraid, I will
trust in thee.’
Psa 56: 3. Faith cures the trembling in heart; it gets above
fear, as oil swims above the water. To trust in God, makes him to be a God
to us.
[7] To have
God to be a God to us, is to love him. In the godly fear and love kiss each
other.
[8] To have
him to be a God to us, is to obey him. Upon this I shall speak more at large
in the second commandment.
Why must
use cleave to the Lord as our God?
(1) Because
of its equity. It is but just that we should cleave to him from whom we
receive our being. Who can have a better right to us than he that gives us
our breath? For ‘it is he that made us, and not we ourselves.’
Psa 100: 3. It is unjust, yea, ungrateful, to give away our love
or worship to any but God.
(2) Because
of its utility. If we cleave to the Lord as our God, then he will bless us:
‘God, even our own God, shall bless us.’
Psa 67: 6. He will bless us in our estate. ‘Blessed shall be the
fruit of thy ground: blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.’
Deut 28: 4, 5. We shall not only have our sacks full of corn, but
money in the mouth of the sack. He will bless us with peace. ‘The Lord will
bless his people with peace.’
Psa 29: 11. With outward peace, which is the nurse of plenty. ‘He
maketh peace in thy borders.’
Psa 147: 14. With inward peace, a smiling conscience, which is
sweeter than the dropping of honey. God will turn all evils to our good.
Rom 8: 28. He will make a treacle of poison. Joseph’s
imprisonment was a means for his advancement.
Gen 50: 20. Out of the bitterest drug he will distil his glory
and our salvation. In short, he will be our guide to death, our comfort in
death, and our reward after death. The utility of it, therefore, may make us
cleave to the Lord as our God. ‘Happy is that people whose God is the Lord.’
Psa 144: 15.
(3) Because
of its necessity. If God be not our God, he will curse our blessings; and
God’s curse blasts wherever it comes.
Mal 2: 2. If God be not our God, we have none to help us in
misery. Will he help his enemies? Will he assist those who disclaim him? If
we do not make God to be our God, he will make himself to be our judge; and
if he condemns, there is no appealing to a higher court. There is a
necessity, therefore, for having God for our God, unless we intend to be
eternally espoused to misery.
Use one. If
we must have the Lord Jehovah for our one God, it condemns the Atheists who
have no God. ‘The fool has said in his heart, There is no God.’
Psa 14: 1. There is no God he believes in, or worships. Such
Atheists were Diagoras and Theodorus. When Seneca reproved Nero for his
impieties, Nero said, ‘Dost thou think I believe there is any God, when I do
such things?’ The duke of Silesia was so infatuated, that he affirmed,
Neque
inferos, neque superos esse; that
there was neither God nor devil. We may see God in the works of his fingers.
The creation is a great volume in which we may read a Godhead, and he must
needs put out his own eyes that denies a God. Aristotle, though a heathen,
not only acknowledged God, when he cried out, ‘Thou Being of beings, have
mercy on me,’ but he thought he that did not confess a Deity was not worthy
to live. They who will not believe a God, shall feel him. ‘It is a fearful
thing to fall into the hands of the living God.’
Heb 10: 31.
Use two.
Christians are condemned who profess to own God for their God and yet do not
live as if he were their God. (1) They do not believe in him as a God. When
they look upon their sins, they are apt to say, Can God pardon? When they
look upon their wants, they say, Can God provide, can he prepare a table in
the wilderness? (2) They do not love him as a God. They do not give him the
cream of their love, but are prone to love other things more than God; they
say they love God, but will part with nothing for him. (3) They do not
worship him as God. They do not give him that reverence, nor pray with that
devotion, as if they were praying to a God. How dead are their hearts! If
not dead in sin, they are dead to duty. They pray as to a god that has eyes
and sees not, ears and hears not. In hearing the Word, how much distraction,
and what regardless hearts have many! They are thinking of their shops and
drugs. Would a king take it well at our hands, if, when speaking to us, we
should be playing with a feather? When God is speaking to us in his Word,
and our hearts are taken up with thoughts about the world, is not this
playing with a feather? Oh, how should this humble most of us, that we do
not make God to be a God to us! We do not believe in him, love him, worship
him as God. Many heathens have worshipped their false gods with more
seriousness and devotion than some Christians do the true God. O let us
chide ourselves; did I say chide? Let us abhor ourselves for our deadness
and formality in religion; how we have professed God, and yet have not
worshipped him as God.
II. That we
must have no other god. ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
What is
meant by the words, Before me?
It means
before my face; in conspectu meo, in my sight. ‘Cursed be the man that
maketh any graven image, and putteth it in a secret place.’
Deut 27: 15. Some would not bow to the idol in the sight of
others, but they would secretly bow to it; but though this was out of man’s
sight, it was not out of God’s sight. ‘Cursed, therefore,’ says God, ‘be he
that puts the image in a secret place.’ ‘Thou shalt have no other gods.’ 1.
There is really no other god. 2. We must have no other.
[1] There
is really no other god. The Valentinians held there were two gods; the
Polytheists, that there were many; the Persian worshipped the sun; the
Egyptians, the ox and elephant; the Grecians, Jupiter; but there is no other
than the true God. ‘Know, therefore, this day, and consider it in thy heart,
that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath; there
is none else.’
Deut 4: 39. For, (1) There is but one First Cause, that has its
being of itself, and on which all other beings depend. As in the heavens the
Primum Mobile moves all the other orbs, so God is the Great Mover, he gives
life and motion to everything that exists.
(2) There
is but one Omnipotent Power. If there be two omnipotent, we must always
suppose a contest between the two: that which one would do, the other, being
equal, would oppose; and so all things would be brought into confusion. If a
ship should have two pilots of equal power, one would be ever crossing the
other; when one would sail the other would cast anchor; there would be
confusion, and the ship would perish. The order and harmony in the world,
the constant and uniform government of all things, is a clear argument that
there is but one Omnipotent, one God that rules all. ‘I am the first, and I
am the last, and beside me there is no God.’
Isa 44: 6.
[2] We must
have no other god. ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’ This
commandment forbids: (1) Serving a false god, and not the true God. ‘Saying
to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth.’
Jer 2: 27. (2) Joining a false god with a true. ‘They feared the
Lord, and served their own gods.’
2 Kings 17: 33. These are forbidden in the commandment; we must
adhere to the true God, and no other. ‘God is a jealous God,’ and he will
endure no rival. A wife cannot lawfully have two husbands at once; nor may
we have two gods. Thou shalt worship no other god, for the Lord is a jealous
God.’
Exod. 34: 14. ‘Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten
after another god.’
Psa 16: 4. The Lord interprets it a ‘forsaking of him’ to espouse
any other god. ‘They forsook the Lord, and followed other gods.’
Judges 2: 12. God would not have his people so much as make
mention of idol gods. ‘Make no mention of the name of other gods, neither
let it be heard out of thy mouth.’
Exod 23: 13. ‘God looks upon it as breaking the
marriage-covenant, to go after other gods. Therefore, when Israel committed
idolatry with the golden calf, God disclaimed his interest in them. ‘Thy
people have corrupted themselves.’
Exod 32: 7. Before, God called Israel his people; but when they
went after other gods, ‘Now,’ saith the Lord to Moses, ‘they are no more my
people but thy people.’ ‘Plead with your mother, plead; for she is not my
wife.’
Hos 2: 2. She does not keep faith with me, she has stained
herself with idols, therefore I will divorce her, ‘she is not my wife.’ To
go after other gods, is what God cannot bear; it makes the fury rise up in
his face. ‘If thy brother, or thy son, or the wife of thy bosom or thy
friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go
and serve other gods, thou shalt not consent unto him, neither shall thine
eye pity him; but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon
him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.’
Deut 13: 6, 8, 9.
What is it
to have other gods besides the true God? I fear upon search, we have more
idolaters among us than we are aware of.
(1) To
trust in any thing more than God, is to make it a god. If we trust in our
riches, we make riches our god. We may take comfort, but not put confidence
in them. It is a foolish thing to trust in them. They are deceitful riches,
and it is foolish to trust to that which will deceive us.
Matt 13: 22. They have no solid consistency, they are like
landscapes or golden dreams, which leave the soul empty when it awakes or
comes to itself. They are not what they promise; they promise to satisfy our
desires, and they increase them; they promise to stay with us, and they take
wings. They are hurtful. ‘Riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.’
Eccl 5: 13. It is foolish to trust to that which will hurt one.
Who would take hold of the edge of a razor to help him? They are often fuel
for pride and lust.
Ezek 28: 5.
Jer 5: 7. It is folly to trust in our riches; but how many do,
and make money their god! ‘The rich man’s wealth is his strong city.’
Prov 10: 15. He makes the wedge of gold his hope.
Job 31: 24. God made man of the dust of the earth, and man makes
a god of the dust of the earth. Money is his creator, redeemer, comforter:
his creator, for if he has money, he thinks he is made; his redeemer, for if
he be in danger, he trusts to his money to redeem him; his comforter, for if
he be sad, money is the golden harp to drive away the evil spirit. Thus by
trusting to money, we make it a god.
If we trust
in the arm of flesh, we make it a god. ‘Cursed be the man that trusteth in
man, and maketh flesh his arm.’
Jer 17: 5. The Syrians trusted in their army, which was so
numerous that it filled the country; but this arm of flesh withered.
1 Kings 20: 27, 29. What we make our trust, God makes our shame.
The sheep run to the hedges for shelter, and they lose their wool; so we
have run to second causes to help us, and have lost much of our golden
fleece; they have not only been reeds to fail us, but thorns to prick us. We
have broken our parliament-crutches, by leaning too hard upon them.
If we trust
in our wisdom, we make it a god. ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom.’
Jer 9: 23. Glorying is the height of confidence. Many a man makes
an idol of his wit and parts; he deifies himself, but how often does God
take the wise in their own craftiness!
Job 5: 13. Ahithophel had a great wit, his counsel was as the
oracle of God; but his wit brought him to the halter.
2 Sam 17: 23.
If we trust
in our civility, we make it a god. Many trust to this, that none can charge
them with gross sin. Civility is but nature refined and cultivated; a man
may be washed, and not changed; his life may be civil, and yet there may be
some reigning sin in his heart. The Pharisee could say, ‘I am no adulterer’
(Luke
18: 11); but he could not say, ‘I am not proud.’ To trust to
civility, is to trust to a spider’s web.
If we trust
to our duties to save us, we make them a god. ‘Our righteousnesses are as
filthy rags;’ they are fly-blown with sin.
Isa 64: 6. Put gold in the fire, and much dross comes out: so our
most golden duties are mixed with infirmity. We are apt either to neglect
duty, or idolise it. Use duty, but do not trust to it; for then you make it
a god. Trust not to your praying and hearing; they are means of salvation,
but they are not saviours. If you make duties bladders to trust to, you may
sink with them to hell.
If we trust
in our grace, we make a god of it. Grace is but a creature; if we trust to
it we make it an idol. Grace is imperfect, and we must not trust to that
which is imperfect to save us. ‘I have walked in my integrity: I have
trusted also in the Lord.’
Psa 26: 1: David walked in his integrity; but did not trust in
his integrity. ‘I have trusted in the Lord.’ If we trust in our graces, we
make a Christ of them. They are good graces, but bad Christs.
(2) To love
any thing more than God, is to make it a god. If we love our estate more
than God, we make it a god. The young man in the gospel loved his gold
better than his Saviour; the world lay nearer his heart than Christ.
Matt 19: 22.
Fulgens hoc aurum
praestringit oculos [This gold with
its glitter blinds the eyes]. Varius. The covetous man is called an
idolater.
Eph 5: 5. Why so? Because he loves his estate more than God, and
so makes it his god. Though he does not bow down to an idol, if he worships
the graven image in his coins, he is an idolater. That which has most of the
heart, we make a god of.
If we love
our pleasure more than God, we make a god of it. ‘Lovers of pleasures more
than lovers of God.’
2 Tim 3: 4. Many let loose the reins, and give themselves up to
all manner of sensual delights; they idolise pleasure. ‘They take the
timbrel, and the harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ. They spend
their days in mirth.’
Job 21: 12, 13, (mg). I have read of a place in Africa, where the
people spend all their time in dancing and making merry; and have not we
many who make a god of pleasure, who spend their time in going to plays and
visiting ball-rooms, as if God had made them like the leviathan, to play in
the water?
Psa 104: 26. In the country of Sardinia there is a herb like
balm, that if any one eats too much of it, he will die laughing: such a herb
is pleasure, if any one feeds immoderately on it, he will go laughing to
hell. Let such as make a god of pleasure read but these two Scriptures. ‘The
heart of fools is in the house of mirth.’
Eccl 7: 4. ‘How much she has lived deliciously, so much torment
give her.’
Rev 18: 7. Sugar laid in a damp place turns to water; so all the
sugared joys and pleasures of sinners will turn to the water of tears at
last.
If we love
our belly more than God, we make a god of it. ‘Whose god is their belly.’
Phil 3: 19. Clemens Alexandrinus writes of a fish that had its
heart in its belly; an emblem of epicures, whose heart is in their belly;
they seek
sacrificare lari, their belly is
their god, and to this god they pour drink offerings. The Lord allows what
is fitting for the recruiting of nature. ‘I will send grass, that thou
mayest eat and be full.’
Deut 11: 15. But to mind nothing but the indulging of the
appetite, is idolatry. ‘Whose god is their belly.’ What pity is it, that the
soul, that princely part, which sways the sceptre of reason and is akin to
angels, should be enslaved to the brutish part!
If we love
a child more than God, we make a god of it. How many are guilty in this
kind? They think of their children, and delight more in them than in God;
they grieve more for the loss of their first-born, than for the loss of
their first love. This is to make an idol of a child, and to set it in God’s
room. Thus God is often provoked to take away our children. If we love the
jewel more than him that gave it, God will take away the jewel, that our
love may return to him again.
Use one. It
reproves such as have other gods, and so renounce the true God. (1) Such as
set up idols. ‘According to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah.’
Jer 2: 28. ‘Their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the
field.’
Hos 12: 11. (2) Such as seek to familiar spirits. This is a sin
condemned by the law of God. ‘There shall not be found among you a consulted
with familiar spirits.’
Deut 18: 11. Ordinarily, if people have lost any of their goods,
they send to wizards and soothsayers, to know how they may come by them
again. What is this but to make a god of the devil, by consulting with him,
and putting their trust in him? What! because you have lost your goods will
you lose your souls too?
2 Kings 1: 6. Is it not because you think there is not a God in
heaven, that you ask counsel of the devil? If any be guilty, be humbled.
Use two. It
sounds a retreat in our ears. Let it call us off from idolising any
creature, and lead us to renounce other gods, and cleave to the true God and
his service. If we go away from God, we know not where to mend ourselves.
(1) It is
honourable to serve the true God.
Servire Deo est
regnare [To serve God is to reign].
It is more honour to serve God, than to have kings serve us. (2) Serving the
true God is delightful. ‘I will make them joyful in my house of prayer.’
Isa 56: 7. God often displays the banner of his love in an
ordinance, and pours the oil of gladness into the heart. All God’s ways are
pleasantness, his paths are strewed with roses.
Prov 3: 17. (3) Serving the true God is beneficial. Men have
great gain here, the hidden manna, inward peace, and a great reward to come.
They that serve God shall have a kingdom when they die, and shall wear a
crown made of the flowers of paradise.
Luke 12: 32;
1 Pet 5: 4. To serve the true God is our true interest. God has
twisted his glory and our salvation together. He bids us believe; and why?
That we may be saved. Therefore, renouncing all others, let us cleave to the
true God. (4) You have covenanted to serve the true JEHOVAH, renouncing all
others. When one has entered into covenant with his master, and the
indentures are drawn and sealed, he cannot go back, but must serve out his
time. We have covenanted in baptism, to take the Lord for our God,
renouncing all others; and renewed this covenant in the Lord’s Supper, and
shall we not keep our solemn vow and covenant? We cannot go away from God
without the highest perjury. ‘If any man draw back [as a soldier that steals
away from his colours] my soul shall have no pleasure in him.’
Heb 10: 38. ‘I will pour vials of wrath on him, and make mine
arrows drunk with blood.’ (5) None ever had cause to repent of cleaving to
God and his service. Some have repented that they had made a god of the
world. Cardinal Wolsey said, ‘Oh, if I had served my God as I have served my
king, he would never have left me thus!’ None ever complained of serving
God: it was their comfort and their crown on their death-bed.
2.2 The Second Commandment
‘Thou shalt
not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in
heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under
the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I
the Lord thy God am o jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon
the children unto the third and fourth generation of then that hate me; and
shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.’
Exod 20: 4-6.
I. Thou
shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
In the
first commandment worshipping a false god is forbidden; in this, worshipping
the true God in a false manner.
‘Thou shalt
not make unto thee any graven image.’ This forbids not making an image for
civil use. ‘Whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him, It is
Caesar’s.’
Matt 22: 20, 21. But the commandment forbids setting up an image
for religious use or worship.
‘Nor the
likeness of any thing,’ &c. All ideas, portraitures, shapes, images of God,
whether by effigies or pictures, are here forbidden. ‘Take heed lest ye
corrupt yourselves, and make the similitude of any figure.’
Deut 4: 15, 16. God is to be adored in the heart, not painted to
the eye.
‘Thou shalt
not bow down to them.’ The intent of making images and pictures is to
worship them. No sooner was Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image set up, but all
the people fell down and worshipped it.
Dan 3: 7. God forbids such prostrating ourselves before an idol.
The thing prohibited in this commandment is image-worship. To set up an
image to represent God, is debasing him. If any one should make images of
snakes or spiders, saying he did it to represent his prince, would not the
prince take it in disdain? What greater disparagement to the infinite God
than to represent him by that which is unite; the living God, by that which
is without life; and the Maker of all by a thing which is made?
[1] To make
a true image of God is impossible. God is a spiritual essence and, being a
Spirit, he is invisible.
John 4: 24. ‘Ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the
Lord spake with you out of the midst of the fire.’
Deut 4: 15. How can any paint the Deity? Can they make an image
of that which they never saw?
Quod invisibile
est, pingi non potest [There is no
depicting the invisible]. Ambrose. ‘Ye saw no similitude.’ It is impossible
to make a picture of the soul, or to paint the angels, because they are of a
spiritual nature; much less can we paint God by an image, who is an
infinite, untreated Spirit.
[2] To
worship God by an image, is both absurd and unlawful.
(1) It is
absurd and irrational; for, ‘the workman is better than the work,’ ‘He who
has builded the house has more honour than the house.’
Heb 3: 3. If the workman be better than the work, and none bow to
the workman, how absurd, then, is it to bow to the work of his hands! Is it
not an absurd thing to bow down to the king’s picture, when the king himself
is present? It is more so to bow down to an image of God, when God himself
is everywhere present.
(2) It is
unlawful to worship God by an image; for it is against the homily of the
church, which runs thus: ‘The images of God, our Saviour, the Virgin Mary,
are of all others the most dangerous; therefore the greatest care ought to
be had that they stand not in temples and churches.’ So that image-worship
is contrary to our own homilies, and affronts the authority of the Church of
England. Image-worship is expressly against the letter of Scripture. ‘Ye
shall make no graven image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone to
bow down unto it.’
Lev 26: 1. ‘Neither shalt thou set up any image; which the Lord
thy God hateth.’
Deut 16: 22. ‘Confounded be all they that serve graven images.’
Psa 97: 7. Do we think to please God by doing that which is
contrary to his mind, and that which he has expressly forbidden?
[3] Image
worship is against the practice of the saints of old. Josiah, that renowned
king, destroyed the groves and images.
2 Kings 23: 6, 24. Constantine abrogated the images set up in
temples. The Christians destroyed images at Baste, Zurich, and Bohemia. When
the Roman emperors would have thrust images upon them, they chose rather to
die than deflower their virgin profession by idolatry; they refused to admit
any painter or carver into their society, because they would not have any
carved state or image of God. When Seraphion bowed to an idol, the
Christians excommunicated him, and delivered him up to Satan.
Use one.
The Church of Rome is reproved and condemned, which, from the Alpha of its
religion to the Omega, is wholly idolatrous. Romanists make images of God
the Father, painting him in their church windows as an old man; and an image
of Christ on the crucifix; and, because it is against the letter of this
commandment, they sacrilegiously blot it out of their catechism, and divide
the tenth commandment into two. Image worship must needs be very impious and
blasphemous, because it is giving the religious worship to the creature
which is due to God only. It is vain for Papists to say, they give God the
worship of the heart, and the image only the worship of the body; for the
worship of the body is due to God, as well as the worship of the heart; and
to give an outward veneration to an image is to give the adoration to a
creature which belongs to God only. ‘My glory will I not give to another.’
Isa 42: 8.
The
Papists say they do not worship the image, but only use it as a medium
through which to worship God.
Ne imagini
quidem Christi in quantum est lignum sculptum, ulla debetur reverentia
[Not even to a statue of Christ is any reverence owed, since it is only a
piece of carved wood]. Aquinas.
(1) Where
has God bidden them worship him by an effigy or image? ‘Who has required
this at your hands?’
Isa 1: 12. The Papists cannot say so much as the devil,
Scriptum est:
It is written.
(2) The
heathen may bring the same argument for their gross idolatry, as the Papists
do for their image-worship. What heathen has been so simple as to think gold
or silver, or the figure of an ox or elephant, was God? These were emblems
and hieroglyphics only to represent him. They worshipped an invisible God by
such visible things. To worship God by an image, God takes as done to the
image itself.
But, say
the Papists, images are laymen’s books, and they are good to put them in
mind of God. One of the Popish Councils affirmed, that we might learn more
by an image than by long study of the Scriptures.
‘What
profiteth the graven image, the molten image, and a teacher of lies.’
Hab 2: 18. Is an image a layman’s book? Then see what lessons
this book teaches. It teaches lies; it represents God in a visible shape,
who is invisible. For Papists to say they make use of an image to put them
in mind of God, is as if a woman should say she keeps company with another
man to put her in mind of her husband.
But did
not Moses make the image of a brazen serpent? Why, then, may not images be
set tip?
That was
done by God’s special command. ‘Make thee a brazen serpent.’
Numb 21: 8. There was also a special use in it, both literal and
spiritual. What! does the setting up of the image of the brazen serpent
justify the setting up images in churches? What! because Moses made an image
by God’s appointment, may we set up an image of our own devising? Because
Moses made an image to heal them that were stung, is it lawful to set up
images in churches to sting them that are whole? Nay, that very brazen
serpent which God himself commanded to be set up, when Israel looked upon it
with too much reverence, and began to burn incense to it, Hezekiah defaced,
and called it Nehushtan, mere brass; and God commended him for so doing.
2 Kings 18: 4.
But is not
God represented as having hands, and eyes, and cars? Why nay we not, then,
make an image to represent him, and help our devotion?
Though God
is pleased to stoop to our weak capacities, and set himself out in Scripture
by eyes, to signify his omniscience, and hands to signify his power, yet it
is absurd, from such metaphors and figurative expressions, to bring an
argument for images and pictures; for, by that rule, God may be pictured by
the sun and the element of fire, and by a rock; for he is set forth by these
metaphors in Scripture; and, sure, the Papists themselves would not like to
have such images made of God.
If it be
not lawful to make the image of God the Father, yet may we not make an image
of Christ, who took upon him the nature of man?
No!
Epiphanies, seeing an image of Christ hanging in a church, brake it in
pieces. It is Christ’s Godhead, united to his manhood, that makes him to be
Christ; therefore to picture his manhood, when we cannot picture his
Godhead, is a sin, because we make him to be but half Christ — we separate
what God has joined, we leave out that which is the chief thing which makes
him to be Christ.
But how
shall we conceive of God aright, if we may not make any image or resemblance
of him?
We must
conceive of God spiritually. (1) In his attributes — his holiness, justice,
goodness — which are the beams by which his divine nature shines forth. (2)
We must conceive of him as he is in Christ. Christ is the ‘Image of the
invisible God’ as in the wax we see the print of the seal.
Col 1: 15. Set the eyes of your faith on Christ-God-man. ‘He that
has seen me, has seen the Father.’
John 14: 9.
Use two.
Take heed of the idolatry of image-worship. Our nature is prone to this sin
as dry wood to take fire; and, indeed, what need of so many words in the
commandment: ‘Thou shalt not make any graven image, or the likeness of
anything in heaven, earth, water,’ sun, moon, stars, male, female, fish;
‘Thou shalt not bow down to them.’ I say, what need of so many words, but to
show how subject we are to this sin of false worship? It concerns us,
therefore, to resist this sin. Where the tide is apt to run with greater
force, there we had need to make the banks higher and stronger. The plague
of idolatry is very infectious. ‘They were mingled among the heathen, and
served their idols.’
Psa 106: 35, 36. It is my advice to you, to avoid all occasions
of this sin.
(1) Come
not into the company of idolatrous Papists. Dare not to live under the same
roof with them, or you run into the devil’s mouth. John the divine would not
be in the has where Cerinthus the heretic was.
(2) Go not
into their chapels to see their crucifixes, or hear mass. As looking on a
harlot draws to adultery, so looking on the popish gilded picture may draw
to idolatry. Some go to see their idol-worship. A vagrant who has nothing to
lose, cares not to go among thieves; so such as have no goodness in them,
care not to what idolatrous places they come or to what temptations they
expose themselves; but you who have a treasure of good principles about you,
take heed the popish priests do not rob you of them, and defile you with
their images.
(3) Dare
not join in marriage with image-worshippers. Though Solomon was a man of
wisdom, his idolatrous wives drew his heart away from God. The people of
Israel entered into an oath and curse, that they would not give their
daughters in marriage to idolaters.
Neh 10: 30. For a Protestant and Papist to marry, is to be
unequally yoked (2
Cor 6: 14); and there is more danger that the Papist will corrupt
the Protestant, shall hope that the Protestant will convert the Papist.
Mingle wine and vinegar, the vinegar will sooner sour the wine, than the
wine will sweeten the vinegar.
(4) Avoid
superstition, which is a bridge that leads over to Rome. Superstition is
bringing any ceremony, fancy, or innovation into God’s worship, which he
never appointed. It is provoking God, because it reflects much upon his
honour, as if he were not wise enough to appoint the manner of his own
worship. He hates all strange fire to be offered in his temple.
Lev 10: 1. A ceremony may in time lead to a crucifix. They who
contend for the cross in baptism, why not have the oil, salt, and cream as
well, the one being as ancient as the other? They who are for altar-worship,
and will bow to the east, may in time bow to the Host. Take heed of all
occasions of idolatry, for idolatry is devil-worship.
Psalm 106: 37. If you search through the whole Bible, there is
not one sin that God has more followed with plagues than idolatry. The Jews
have a saying, that in every evil that befalls them, there is
uncia aurei
vituli, an ounce of the golden calf
in it. Hell is a place for idolaters. ‘For without are idolaters.’
Rev 22: 15. Senesius calls the devil a rejoicer at idols, because
the image-worshippers help to fill hell.
Use three.
That you may be preserved from idolatry and image-worship. (1) Get good
principles, that you may be able to oppose the gainsayer. Whence does the
popish religion get ground? Not from the goodness of their cause, but from
the ignorance of their people. (2) Get love to God. The wife that loves her
husband is safe from the adulterer; and the soul that loves Christ is safe
from the idolater. (3) Pray that God will keep you. Though it is true, there
is nothing in an image to tempt (for if we pray to an image, it cannot hear,
and if we pray to God by an image, he will not hear), yet we know not our
own hearts, or how soon we may be drawn to vanity, if God leaves us.
Therefore pray that you be not enticed by false worship, or receive the mark
of the beast in your right hand or forehead. Pray, ‘Hold thou me up, and I
shall be safe.’
Psa 119: 117. Lord, let me neither mistake my way for want of
light, nor leave the true way for want of courage. (4) Let us bless God who
has given us the knowledge of his truth, that we have tasted the honey of
his word, and our eyes are enlightened. Let us bless him that he has shown
us the pattern of his house, the right mode of worship; that he has
discovered to us the forgery and blasphemy of the Romish religion. Let us
pray that God will preserve pure ordinances and powerful preaching among us.
Idolatry came in at first by the want of good preaching. The people began to
have golden images when they had wooden priests.
II. I the
Lord thy God am a jealous God. The first reason why Israel must not worship
graven images is, because the Lord is a jealous God. ‘The Lord, whose name
is Jealous, is a jealous God.’
Exod 34: 14. Jealousy is taken, [1] In a good sense, as God is
jealous for his people. [2] In a bad sense, as he is jealous of his people.
[1] In a
good sense; as God is jealous for his people. ‘Thus saith the Lord, I am
jealous for Jerusalem, and for Zion, with a great jealousy.’
Zech 1: 14. God has a dear affection for his people, they are his
Hephzibah, or delight.
Isa 62: 4. They are the apple of his eye,
Zech 2: 8, to express how dear they are to him, and how tender he
is of them,
Nihil carius
pupilla oculi [Nothing is dearer
than the apple of the eye]. Drusius. They are his spouse, adorned with
jewels of grace; they lie near his heart. He is jealous for his spouse,
therefore he will be avenged on those who wrong her. ‘The Lord shall stir up
jealousy like a man of war; he shall roar, he shall prevail against his
enemies.’
Isa 42: 13. What is done to the saints, God takes as done to
himself (2
Kings 19: 22); and the Lord will undo all that afflict Zion. ‘I
will undo all that afflict thee.’
Zeph 3: 19.
[2]
Jealousy is taken in a bad sense, in which God is jealous of his people. It
is so taken in this commandment, ‘I the Lord thy God am a jealous God.’ I am
jealous lest you should go after false gods, or worship the true God in a
false manner; lest you defile your virgin-profession by images. God will
have his spouse to keep close to him, and not go after other lovers. ‘Thou
shalt not be for another man’
Hos 3: 3. He cannot bear a rival. Our conjugal love, a love
joined with adoration and worship, must be given to God only.
Use one.
Let us give God no just cause to be jealous. A good wife will be so discreet
and chaste, as to give her husband no just occasion of jealousy. Let us
avoid all sin, especially this of idolatry, or image-worship. It is heinous,
after we have entered into a marriage covenant with God, to prostitute
ourselves to an image. Idolatry is spiritual adultery, and God is a jealous
God, he will avenge it. Image-worship makes God abhor a people. ‘They moved
him to jealousy with their graven images. When God heard this, he was wrath,
and greatly abhorred Israel.’
Psa 78: 58, 59. ‘Jealousy is the rage of a man.’
Prov 6: 34. Image-worship enrages God; it makes God divorce a
people. ‘Plead with your mother, plead; for she is not my wife.’
Hos 2: 2. ‘Jealousy is cruel as the grave.’
Cant 8: 6. As the grave devours men’s bodies, so God will devour
image-worshippers.
Use two.
If God be a jealous God, let it be remembered by those whose friends are
popish idolaters, and who are hated by their friends, because they are of a
different religion, and perhaps their maintenance cut off from them. Oh,
remember, God is a jealous God; better move your parents to hatred, than
move God to jealousy! Their anger cannot do you so much hurt as God’s. If
they will not provide for you, God will. ‘When my father and my mother
forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.’
Psa 27: 10.
III.
Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and
fourth generation. Here is the second reason against image-worship. There is
a twofold visiting. There is God’s visiting in mercy. ‘God will surely visit
you:’ that is, he will bring you into the land of Canaan, the type of
heaven.
Gen 50: 25. Thus God has visited us with the sunbeams of his
favour; he has made us swim in a sea of mercy. This is a happy visitation.
There is God’s visiting in anger. ‘Shall I not visit for these things?’ that
is, God’s visiting with the rod.
Jer 5: 9. ‘What will ye do in the day of visitation?’ that is, in
the day when God shall visit with his judgements.
Isa 10: 3. Thus God’s visiting is taken in this commandment,
‘visiting iniquity,’ that is, punishing iniquity. Observe here three things.
[1] That
sin makes God visit. ‘Visiting iniquity.’ Sin is the cause why God visits
with sickness, poverty, &c. ‘If they keep not my commandments, then will I
visit their transgressions with the rod.’
Psa 89: 31, 32. Sin twists the cords which pinch us; it creates
all our troubles, is the gall in our cup, and the gravel in our bread. Sin
is the Trojan horse, the Phaeton that sets all on fire; it is the womb of
our sorrows, and the grave of our comfort. God visits for sin.
[2] One
special sin for which God’s visits, is idolatry and image-worship. ‘Visiting
the iniquity of the fathers.’ Most of his envenomed arrows have been shot
among idolaters. ‘Go now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my
name at the first, and see what I did to it.’
Jer 7: 12. For Israel’s idolatry he suffered their army to be
routed, their priests slain, the ark taken captive, of the returns of which
to Shiloh we never read any more. Jerusalem was the most famous metropolis
of the world; there was the temple. ‘Whither the tribes go up, the tribes of
the Lord.’
Psa 122: 4. But for the high places and images, that city was
besieged and taken by the Chaldean forces.
2 Kings 25: 4. When images were set up in Constantinople, the
chief seat of the Eastern empire, a city which in the eye of the world was
impregnable, it was taken by the Turks, and many cruelly massacred. The
Turks in their triumphs at that time reproached the idolatrous Christians,
caused an image or crucifix to be carried through the streets in contempt,
and threw dirt upon it, crying, ‘This is the god of the Christians.’ Here
was God’s visitation for their idolatry. God has set special marks of his
wrath upon idolaters. At a place called Epoletium, there perished by an
earthquake 350 persons, while they were offering sacrifice to idols.
Idolatry brought misery upon the Eastern churches, and removed the golden
candlesticks of Asia. For this iniquity God visits.
[3]
Idolatrous persons are enemies not to their own souls only, but to their
children. ‘Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon their children.’ As an
idolatrous father entails his land of inheritance, so he entails God’s anger
and curse upon his children. A jealous husband, finding his wife has stained
her fidelity, may justly cast her offend her children too, because they are
none of his. If the father be a traitor to his prince, no wonder if all the
children suffer. God may visit the iniquity of image-worshippers upon their
children.
But is it
not said, ‘Every man shall die for his own sin; the son shall not bear the
iniquity of the father?’
2 Chron 25: 4,
Ezek 18: 20. How then does God say, he ‘will visit the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children?’
Though the
son be not damned, yet he may be severely punished for his father’s sin.
‘God layeth up his iniquity for his children’ (Job
21: 19); that is, God lays up the punishment of his iniquity for
his children — the child smarts for the father’s sin. Jeroboam thought to
have established the kingdom by idolatrous worship, but it brought ruin upon
him, and all his posterity.
1 Kings 14: 10. Ahab’s idolatry wronged his posterity, which lost
the kingdom, and were all beheaded. ‘They took the king’s sons, and slew
seventy persons.’
2 Kings 10: 7. Here God visited the iniquity of the father upon
the children. As a son catches an hereditary disease from his father, the
stone or gout, so he catches misery from him: his father’s sin ruins him.
Use one.
How sad is it to be the child of an idolater! It had been sad to have been
one of Gehazi’s children, who had leprosy entailed upon them. ‘The leprosy
of Naaman shall cleave unto thee and unto thy seed for ever.’
2 Kings 5: 27. So it is sad to be a child of an idolater, or
image-worshipper; for his seed are exposed to heavy judgements in this life.
‘God visits the iniquity of the fathers upon their children.’ Methinks I
hear God speak, as in
Isa 14: 21, ‘Prepare slaughter for his children, for the iniquity
of their fathers.’
Use two.
What a privilege it is to be the children of good parents. The parents are
in covenant with God, and God lays up mercy for their posterity. ‘The just
man walketh in his integrity, his children are blessed after him.’
Prov 20: 7. A religious parent does not procure wrath, but helps
to keep off wrath from his child; he seasons his child with religious
principles, he prays down a blessing on it; he is a loadstone to draw his
child to Christ by good counsel and example. Oh, what a privilege is it to
be born of godly, religious parents! Augustine says that his mother Monica
travailed with greater care and pains for his new birth, than for his
natural. Wicked idolaters entail misery on their posterity; God ‘visits the
iniquity of the fathers upon their children;’ but religious parents procure
a blessing upon their children; God reserves mercy for their posterity.
IV. Of
them that hate me. Another reason against image-worship is, that it is
hating God. The Papists, who worship God by an image, hate God.
Image-worship is a pretended love to God, but God interprets it as hating
him. Quae
diligit alienum odit sponsum, ‘she
that loves another man, hates her own husband.’ An image-lover is a God
hater. Idolaters are said to go a whoring from God.
Exod 34: 15. How can they love God? I shall show that
image-worshippers hate God, whatever love they pretend.
[1] They
who go contrary to his express will hate him. He says, you shall not set up
any statue, image, nor picture, to represent me; these things I hate.
‘Neither shalt thou set up any image; which the Lord thy God hateth.’
Deut 16: 22. Yet the idolater sets up images, and worships them.
This God looks upon as hating him. How does the child love his father that
does all it can to cross him?
[2] They
who turned Jephthah out of doors hated him, therefore they laboured to shut
him out of his father’s house.
Judges 11: 7. The idolater shuts the truth out of doors; he blots
out the second commandment; he makes an image of the invisible God; he
brings a lie into God’s worship; which are clear proofs that he hates God.
[3] Though
idolaters love the false image of God in a picture, they hate his true image
in a believer. They pretend to honour Christ in a crucifix, and yet
persecute him in his members. Such hate God.
Use one.
This confutes those who plead for image-worshippers. They are very devout
people; they adore images; they set up the crucifix; kiss it; light candles
to it; therefore they love God. Nay, but who shall be judge of their love?
God says they hate him, and give religious adoration to a creature. They
hate God, and God hates them; and they shall never live with God whom he
hates; he will never lay such vipers in his bosom. Heaven is kept as
paradise, with a flaming sword, that they shall not enter in. He ‘repayeth
them that hate him to their face.’
Deut. 7: 10. He will shoot all his deadly arrows among idolaters.
All the plagues and curses in the book of God shall befall the idolater. The
Lord repays him that hates him to his face.
Use two.
Let it exhort all to flee from Romish idolatry. Let us not be among
God-haters. ‘Little children, keep yourselves from idols.’
1 John 5: 21. As you would keep your bodies from adultery, keep
your souls from idolatry. Take heed of images, they are images of jealousy
to provoke God to anger; they are damnable. You may perish by false
devotions as much as by real scandal; by image-worship, as by drunkenness
and whoredom. A man may die by poison as much as a pistol. We may go to hell
by drinking poison in the Romish cup of fornication, as much as by being
pistoled with gross and scandalous sins. To conclude, ‘God is a jealous
God,’ who will admit of no co-rival; He will ‘visit the iniquities of the
fathers upon their children;’ he will entail a plague upon the posterity of
idolaters. He interprets idolaters to be such as hate him. He that is an
image-lover is a God-hater. Therefore keep yourself pure from Romish
idolatry; if you love your souls, keep yourselves from idols.
V. Showing
mercy unto thousands.
Another
argument against image-worship, is that God is merciful to those who do not
provoke him with their images, and will entail mercy upon their posterity.
‘Shewing mercy unto thousands.’
The golden
sceptre of God’s mercy is here displayed, ‘shewing mercy to thousands.’ The
heathen thought they praised Jupiter enough when they called him good and
great. Both excellencies of majesty and mercy meet in God. Mercy is an
innate propensity in God to do good to distressed sinners. God showing
mercy, makes his Godhead appear full of glory. When Moses said to God, ‘I
beseech thee, show me thy glory;’ ‘I will,’ said God, ‘show mercy.’
Exod 33: 19. His mercy is his glory. Mercy is the name by which
he will be known. ‘The Lord passed by, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord
God, merciful and gracious.’
Exod 34: 6. Mercy proceeds primarily, and originally from God. He
is called the ‘Father of mercies’ (2
Cor 1: 3), because he begets all the mercies which are in the
creature. Our mercies compared with his are scarcely so much as a drop to
the ocean.
What are
the properties of God’s mercy?
(1) It is
free and spontaneous. To set up merit is to destroy mercy. Nothing can
deserve mercy or force it; we cannot deserve it nor force it, because of our
enmity. We may force God to punish us, but not to love us. ‘I will love them
freely.’
Hos 14: 4. Every link in the golden chain of salvation is wrought
and interwoven with free grace. Election is free. ‘He has chosen us in him
according to the good pleasure of his will.’
Eph 1: 4. Justification is free. ‘Being justified freely by his
grace.’
Rom 3: 24. Say not I am unworthy; for mercy is free. If God
should show mercy only to such as deserve it, he must show mercy to none.
(2) The
mercy which God shows is powerful. How powerful is that mercy which softens
a heart of stone! Mercy changed Mary Magdalen’s heart, out of whom seven
devils were cast: she who was an inflexible adamant was made a weeping
penitent. God’s mercy works sweetly, yet irresistibly; it allures, yet
conquers. The law may terrify, but mercy mollifies. Of what sovereign power
and efficacy is that mercy which subdues the pride and enmity of the heart,
and beats off those chains of sin in which the soul is held.
(3) The
mercy which God shows is superabundant. ‘Abundant in goodness and truth,
keeping mercy for thousands.’
Exod 34: 6. God visits iniquity ‘to the third and fourth
generation’ only, but he shows mercy to a thousand generations.
Exod 20: 5, 6. The Lord has treasures of mercy in store, and
therefore is said to be ‘plenteous in mercy’ (Psa
86: 5), and ‘rich in mercy’ (Eph
2: 4). The vial of God’s wrath drops only, but the fountain of
his mercy runs. The sun is not so full of light as God is of love.
God has
mercy of all dimensions. He has depth of mercy, it reaches as low as
sinners; and height of mercy, it reaches above the clouds.
God has
mercies for all seasons; mercies for the night, he gives sleep; nay,
sometimes he gives a song in the night.
Psa 42: 8. He has also mercies for the morning. His compassions
‘are new every morning.’
Lam 3: 23.
God has
mercies for all sorts. Mercies for the poor: ‘He raiseth up the poor out of
the dust.’
1 Sam 2: 8. Mercies for the prisoner: he ‘despiseth not his
prisoners.’
Psa 69: 33. Mercies for the dejected: ‘In a little wrath I hid my
face from thee but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee.’
Isa 54: 8. He has old mercies: ‘Thy mercies have been ever of
old.’
Psa 25: 6. New mercies: ‘He has put a new song in my mouth.’
Psa 40: 3. Every time we draw our breath we suck in mercy. God
has mercies under heaven, and those we taste; and mercies in heaven, and
those we hope for. Thus his mercies are superabundant.
(4) The
mercy of God is abiding. ‘The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to
everlasting.’
Psa 103: 17. God’s anger to his children lasts but a while (Psa
103: 9), but his mercy lasts for ever. His mercy is not like the
widow’s oil, which ran awhile, and then ceased (2
Kings 4: 6), but overflowing and everflowing. As his mercy is
without bounds, so is it without end. ‘His mercy endureth for ever.’
Psa 136. God never cuts off the entail of mercy from the elect.
In how
many ways is God said to show mercy?
(1) We are
all living monuments of his mercy. He shows mercy to us in daily supplying
us. He supplies us with health. Health is the sauce which makes life
sweeter. How would they prize this mercy who are chained to a sick-bed! God
supplies us with provisions. ‘God which fed me all my life long.’
Gen 48: 15. Mercy spreads our tables, and carves for us every bit
of bread we cat; we never drink but in the golden cup of mercy.
(2) God
shows mercy in lengthening out our gospel-liberties.
1 Cor 16: 9. There are many adversaries; many would stop the
waters of the sanctuary that that they should not run. We enjoy the sweet
seasons of grace, we hear joyful sounds, we see the goings of God in his
sanctuary, we enjoy Sabbath after Sabbath; the manna of the word falls about
our tents, when in other parts of the land there is no manna. God shows
mercy to us in continuing our forfeited privileges.
(3) He
shows mercy in preventing many evils from invading us. ‘Thou, O Lord, art a
shield for me.’
Psa 3: 3. God has restrained the wrath of men, and been a screen
between us and danger; when the destroying angel has been abroad, and shed
his deadly arrow of pestilence, he has kept off the arrow that it has not
come near us.
(4) He
shows mercy in delivering us. ‘And I was delivered out of the mouth of the
lion’ (viz., Nero).
2 Tim 4: 17. He has restored us from the grave. May we not write
the writing of Hezekiah, ‘when he had been sick, and was recovered of his
sickness?’
Isa 38: 9. When we thought the sun of our life was setting God
has made it return to its former brightness.
(S) He
shows mercy in restraining us from sin. Lusts within are worse than lions
without. The greatest sign of God’s anger is to give men up to their sins.
‘So I gave them up to their own hearts’ lust.’
Psa 81: 12. While they sin themselves to hell, God has laid the
bridle of restraining grace upon us. As he said to Abimelech, ‘I withheld
thee from sinning against me.’
Gen 20: 6. So he has withheld us from those sins which might have
made us a prey to Satan, and a terror to ourselves.
(6) God
shows mercy in guiding and directing us. Is it not a mercy for one that is
out of the way to have a guide? [1] There is a providential guidance. God
guides our affairs for us; chalks out the way he would have us to walk in.
He resolves our doubts, unties our knots, and appoints the bounds of our
habitation.
Acts 17: 26. [2] A spiritual guidance. ‘Thou shalt guide me with
thy counsel.’
Psa 73: 24. As Israel had a pillar of fire to go before them, so
God guides us with the oracles of his word, and the conduct of his Spirit.
He guides our heads to keep us from error; and he guides our feet to keep us
from scandal. Oh, what mercy is it to have God to be our guide and pilot!
‘For thy name’s sake, lead me and guide me.’
Psa 31: 3.
(7) God
shows mercy in correcting us. He is angry in love; he smites that he may
save. His rod is not a rod of iron to break us, but a fatherly rod to humble
us. ‘He, for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.’
Heb 12: l0. Either he will mortify some corruption, or exercise
some grace. Is there not mercy in this? Every cross, to a child of God, is
like Paul’s cross wind, which, though it broke the ship, it brought Paul to
shore upon the broken pieces.
Acts 27: 44.
(8) God
shows mercy in pardoning us, ‘Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth
iniquity?’
Mic 7: 18. It is mercy to feed us, rich mercy to pardon us. This
mercy is spun out of the bowels of the free grace, and is enough to make a
sick man well. ‘The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick; the people that
dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity.’
Isa 33: 24. Pardon of sin is a mercy of the first magnitude. God
seals the sinner’s pardon with a kiss. This made David put on his best
clothes, and anoint himself. His child was newly dead, and God had told him
the sword should not depart from his house, yet he anoints himself. The
reason was that God had sent him pardon by the prophet Nathan. ‘The Lord has
put away thy sin.’
2 Sam 12: 13. Pardon is the only fit remedy for a troubled
conscience. What can give ease to a wounded spirit but pardoning mercy?
Offer him the honours and pleasure of the world. It is as if flowers and
music were brought to one that is condemned.
How may I
know that my sins are pardoned?
Where God
removes the guilt, he breaks the power of sin. ‘He will have compassion: he
will subdue our iniquities.’
Mic 7: 19. With pardoning love God gives subduing grace.
(9) God
shows his mercy in sanctifying us. ‘I am the Lord which sanctify you.’
Lev 20: 8. This is the partaking of the divine nature.
2 Pet 1: 4. God’s Spirit is a spirit of consecration; though it
sanctify us but in part, yet it is in every part.
1 Thess 5: 23. It is such a mercy that God cannot give it in
anger. If we are sanctified, we are elected. ‘God has chosen you to
salvation through sanctification.’
2 Thess 2: 13. This prepares for happiness, as the seed prepares
for harvest. When the virgins had been anointed and perfumed, they were to
stand before the king (Esth
2: 12); SO, when we have had the anointing of God, we shall stand
before the King of heaven.
(10) God
shows mercy in hearing our prayers. ‘Have mercy upon me, and hear my
prayer.’
Psa 4: 1. Is it not a favour, when a man puts up a petition to
the king, to have it granted? So when we pray for pardon, adoption, and the
sense of God’s love, it is a signal mercy to have a gracious answer. God may
delay an answer, and yet not deny. You do not throw a musician money at
once, because you love to hear his music. God loves the music of prayer, but
does not always let us hear from him at once; but in due season gives an
answer of peace. ‘Blessed be God, which has not turned away my prayer, nor
his mercy from me.’
Psa 66: 20. If God does not turn away our prayer, he does not
turn away his mercy.
(11) God
shows mercy in saving us. ‘According to his mercy he saved us.’
Titus 3: 5. This is the top-stone of mercy, and it is laid in
heaven. Here mercy displays itself in all its orient colours. Mercy is mercy
indeed, when God perfectly refines us from all the lees and dregs of
corruption; when our bodies are made like Christ’s glorious body, and our
souls like the angels. Saving mercy is crowning mercy. It is not merely to
be freed from hell, but enthroned in a kingdom. In this life we desire God,
rather than enjoy him; but what rich mercy will it be to be fully possessed
of him, to see his smiling face, and to lay us in his bosom! This will fill
us with ‘joy unspeakable and full of glory.’
1 Peter 1: 8. ‘I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy
likeness.’
Psa 17: 15.
Use one.
Let us not despair. What an encouragement we have here to serve God. He
shows mercy to thousands. Who would not be willing to serve a prince who is
given to mercy and clemency? God is represented with a rainbow round about
him, as an emblem of his mercy.
Rev 4: 3. Acts of severity are forced from God; judgement is his
strange work.
Isa 28: 21. The disciples, who are not said to wonder at the
other miracles of Christ, did wonder when the fig-tree was cursed and
withered, because it was not his manner to put forth acts of severity. God
is said to delight in mercy.
Mic 7: 18. Justice is God’s left hand: mercy is his right hand.
He uses his right hand most; he is more used to mercy than to justice.
Pronior
est Deus ad parcendum quam ad puniendum
[God is more inclined to mercy than to punishment]. God is said to be slow
to anger (Psa
103: 8), but ready to forgive.
Psa 86: 5. This may encourage us to serve him. What argument will
prevail, if mercy will not? Were God all justice, it might frighten us from
him, but his mercy is a loadstone to draw us to him.
Use two.
Hope in God’s mercies. ‘The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in
those that hope in his mercy.’
Psa 147: 11. He counts it his glory to scatter pardons among men.
But I have
been a great sinner and sure there is no mercy for me!
Not if
thou goest on in sin, and art so resolved; but, if thou wilt break off thy
sins, the golden sceptre of mercy shall be held forth to thee. ‘Let the
wicked forsake his way, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have
mercy upon him.’
Isa 55: 7. Christ’s blood is ‘a fountain opened for sin and for
uncleanness.’
Zech 13: 1. Mercy more overflows in God, than sin in us. His
mercy can drown great sins, as the sea covers great rocks. Some of the Jews
who had their hands imbrued in Christ’s blood, were saved by that blood. God
loves to magnify his goodness, to display the trophies of free grace, and to
set up his mercy in spite of sin. Therefore, hope in his mercy.
Use three.
Labour to know that God’s mercy is for you. He is ‘the God of my mercy.’
Psa. 59: 17. A man who was being drowned, seeing a rainbow, said,
‘What am I the better, though God will not drown the world, if I am
drowned?’ So, what are we the better, though God is merciful, if we perish?
Let us labour to know God’s special mercy is for us.
How shall
we know it belongs to us?
(1) If we
put a high value and estimate upon it. He will not throw away his mercy on
them that slight it. We prize health, but we prize adopting mercy more. This
is the diamond ring; it outshines all other comforts.
(2) If we
fear God, if we have a reverend awe upon us, if we tremble at sin, and flee
from it, as Moses did from his rod turned into a serpent. ‘His mercy is on
them that fear him.’
Luke 1: 50.
(3) If we
take sanctuary in God’s mercy, we trust in it as a man saved by catching
hold of a cable. God’s mercy to us is a cable let down from heaven. By
taking fast hold of this by faith, we are saved. ‘I trust in the mercy of
God for ever.’
Psa 52: 8. As a man trusts his life and goods in a garrison, so
we trust our souls in God’s mercy.
How shall
we get a share in God’s special mercy?
(1) If we
would have mercy, it must be through Christ. Out of Christ no mercy is to be
had. We read in the old law, that none might come unto the holy of holies,
where the mercy-seat stood, but the high-priest: to signify that we have
nothing to do with mercy but through Christ our High-priest; that the
high-priest might not come near the mercy-seat without blood, to show that
we have no right to mercy, but through the expiatory sacrifice of Christ’s
blood,
Lev 16: 14; that the high-priest might not, upon pain of death,
come near the mercy-seat without incense,
Lev 16: 13, to show that there is no mercy from God without the
incense of Christ’s intercession. If we would have mercy, we must get a part
in Christ. Mercy swims to us through Christ’s blood.
(2) If we
would have mercy, we must pray for it. ‘Show us thy mercy, O Lord, and grant
us thy salvation.’
Psa 85: 7. ‘Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me.’
Psa 25: 16. Lord, put me not off with common mercy; give me not
only mercy to feed and clothe me, but mercy to pardon me; not only sparing
mercy, but saving mercy. Lord, give me the cream of thy mercies; let me have
mercy and loving kindness. ‘Who crowneth thee with loving kindness and
tender mercies.’
Psa 103: 4. Be earnest suitors for mercy; let your wants quicken
your importunity. We pray most fervently when we pray most feelingly.
VI. Of
them that love me.
God’s
mercy is for them that love him. Love is a grace that shines and sparkles in
his eye, as the precious stone upon Aaron’s breastplate. Love is a holy
expansion or enlargement of soul, by which it is carried with delight after
God, as the chief good. Aquinas defines love —
Complacentia
amantis in amato; a complacent
delight in God, as our treasure. Love is the soul of religion; it is a
momentous grace. If we had knowledge as the angels, or faith of miracles,
yet without love it would profit nothing.
1 Cor 13: 2. Love is ‘the first and great commandment.’
Matt. 22: 38. It is so, because, if it be wanting, there can be
no religion in the heart; there can be no faith, for faith works by love.
Gal 5: 6. All else is but pageantry, or a devout compliment. It
meliorates and sweetens all the duties of religion, it makes them savoury
meat, without which God cares not to taste them. It is the first and great
commandment, in respect of the excellence of this grace. Love is the queen
of graces; it outshines all others, as the sun the lesser planets. In some
respects it is more excellent than faith; though in one sense faith is more
excellent,
virtute unionis,
as it unites us to Christ. It puts upon us the embroidered robe of Christ’s
righteousness, which is brighter than any the angels wear. In another sense
it is more excellent,
respectu
durationis, in respect of the
continuance of it: it is the most durable grace; as faith and hope will
shortly cease, but love will remain. When all other graces, like Rachel,
shall die in travail, love shall revive. The other graces are in the nature
of a lease, for the term of life only; but love is a freehold that continues
for ever. Thus love carries away the garland from all other graces, it is
the most long-lived grace, it is a bud of eternity. This grace alone will
accompany us in heaven.
How must
our love to God be characterised?
(1) Love
to God must be pure and genuine. He must be loved chiefly for himself; which
the schoolmen call
amor amicitiae.
We must love God, not only for his benefits, but for those intrinsic
excellencies with which he is crowned. We must love God not only for the
good which flows from him, but for the good which is in him. True love is
not mercenary, he who is deeply in love with God, needs not be hired with
rewards, he cannot but love God for the beauty of his holiness; though it is
not unlawful to look for benefits. Moses had an eye to the recompense of
reward (Heb
11: 26); but we must not love God for his benefits only, for then
it is not love of God, but self-love.
(2) Love
to God must be with all the heart. ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart.’
Mark 12: 30. We must not love God a little, give him a drop or
two of our love; but the main stream must flow to him. The mind must think
of God, the will choose him, the affections pant after him. The true mother
would not have the child divided, nor will God have the heart divided. We
must love him with our whole heart. Though we may love the creature, yet it
must be a subordinate love. Love to God must be highest, as oil swims above
the water.
(3) Love
to God must be flaming. To love coldly is the same as not to love. The
spouse is said to be
amore perculsa,
‘sick of love.’
Cant 2: 5. The seraphim are so called from their burning love.
Love turns saints into seraphim; it makes them burn in holy love to God.
Many waters cannot quench this love.
How may we
know whether we love God?
(1) He who
loves God desires his presence. Lovers cannot be long asunder, they soon
have their fainting fits, for want of a sight of the object of their love. A
soul deeply in love with God desires the enjoyment of him in his ordinances,
in word, prayer, and sacraments. David was ready to faint away and die when
he had not a sight of God. ‘My soul fainteth for God.’
Psa 84: 2. Such as care not for ordinances, but say, When will
the Sabbath be over? plainly discover want of love to God.
(2) He who
loves God, does not love sin. ‘Ye that love the Lord, hate evil.’
Psa 97: 10. The love of God, and the love of sin, can no more mix
together than iron and clay. Every sin loved, strikes at the being of God;
but he who loves God, has an antipathy against sin. He who would part two
lovers is a hateful person. God and the believing soul are two lovers; sin
parts between them, therefore the soul is implacably set against it. By this
try your love to God. How could Delilah say she loved Samson, when she
entertained correspondence with the Philistine, who were his mortal enemies?
How can he say he loves God who loves sin, which is God’s enemy?
(3) He who
loves God is not much in love with anything else. His love is very cool to
worldly things. His love to God moves swiftly, as the sun in the firmament;
to the world it moves slowly, as the sun on the dial. The love of the world
eats out the heart of religion; it chokes good affections, as earth puts out
the fire. The world was a dead thing to Paul. ‘The world is crucified unto
me and I to the world.’
Gal 6: 14. In Paul we may see both the picture and pattern of a
mortified man. He that loves God, uses the world but chooses God. The world
is his pension, but God is his portion.
Psa 119: 57. The world engages him, but God delights and
satisfies him. He says as David, ‘God my exceeding joy,’ the gladness or
cream of my joy.
Psa 43: 4.
(4) He who
loves God cannot live without him. Things we love we cannot be without. A
man can do without music or flowers, but not food; so a soul deeply in love
with God looks upon himself as undone without him. ‘Hide not thy face from
me, lest I be like them that go down into the pit.’
Psa 143: 7. He says as Job, ‘I went mourning without the sun;’
chap. 30: 28. I have starlight, I want the Sun of Righteousness;
I enjoy not the sweet presence of my God. Is God our chief good, and we
cannot live without him? Alas! how do they show they have no love to God who
can do well enough without him! Let them have but corn and oil, and you
shall never hear them complain of the want of God.
(5) He
who loves God will be at any pains to get him. What pains the merchant
takes, what hazards he runs, to have a rich return from the Indies!
Extremos currit
mercator ad Indos [The merchant
races to the farthest Indies]. Jacob loved Rachel, and he could endure the
heat by day, and the frost by night, that he might enjoy her. A soul that
loves God will take any pains for the fruition of him. ‘My soul followeth
hard after thee.’
Psa 63: 8. Love is
pondus animae
[the pendulum of the soul]. Augustine. It is as the weight which sets the
clock going. It is much in prayer, weeping, fasting; it strives as in agony,
that he may obtain him whom his soul loves. Plutarch reports of the Gauls,
an ancient people of France, that after they had tasted the sweet wine of
Italy, they never rested till they had arrived at that country. He who is in
love with God, never rests till he has a part in him. ‘I will seek him whom
my soul loveth.’
Cant 3: 2. How can they say they love God, who are not
industrious in the use of means to obtain him? ‘A slothful man hideth his
hand in his bosom.’
Prov 19: 24. He is not in agony, but lethargy. If Christ and
salvation would drop as a ripe fig into his mouth, he would be content to
have them; but he is loath to put himself to too much trouble. Does he love
his friend, who will not undertake a journey to see him?
(6) He
who loves God, prefers him before estate and life. [1] Before estate. ‘For
whom I have suffered the loss of all things.’
Phil 3: 8. Who that loves a rich jewel would not part with a
flower for it? Galeacius, marquis of Vico, parted with a fair estate to
enjoy God in his pure ordinances. When a Jesuit persuaded him to return to
his popish religion in Italy, promising him a large sum of money, he said,
‘Let their money perish with them who esteem all the gold in the world worth
one day’s communion with Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit.’ [2] Before life.
‘They loved not their lives unto the death.’
Rev 12: 2: Love to God carries the soul above the love of life
and the fear of death.
(7) He
who loves God loves his favourites, the saints.
1 John 5: 1.
Idem est motus
animi in imaginem et rem [The mind
reacts to the likeness of an object just as it does to the object itself].
To love a man for his grace, and the more we see of God in him, the more we
love him, is an infallible sign of love to God. The wicked pretend to love
God, but hate and persecute his image. Does he love his prince who abuses
his statue, or tears his picture? They seem indeed to show great reverence
to saints departed; they have great reverence for St. Paul, and St. Stephen,
and St. Luke; they canonise dead saints, but persecute living saints; and do
they love God? Can it be imagined that he loves God who hates his children
because they are like him? If Christ were alive again, he would not escape a
second persecution.
(8) If we
love God we cannot but be fearful of dishonouring him, as the more a child
loves his father the more he is afraid to displease him, and we weep and
mourn when we have offended him. ‘Peter went out and wept bitterly.’
Matt 26: 75. Peter might well think that Christ dearly loved him
when he took him up to the mount where he was transfigured, and showed him
the glory of heaven in a vision. That he should deny Christ after he had
received such signal tokens of his love, broke his heart with grief ‘He wept
bitterly.’ Are our eyes dropping tears of grief for sin against God? It is a
blessed evidence of our love to God; and such shall find mercy. ‘He shows
mercy to thousands of them that love him.
Use. Let
us be lovers of God. We love our food, and shall we not love him that gives
it? All the joy we hope for in heaven is in God; and shall not he who shall
be our joy then, be our love now? It is a saying of Augustine, Annon poena
satis magna est non amare te? ‘Is it not punishment enough, Lord, not to
love thee?’ And again,
Animam meam in
odio haberem. ‘I would hate my own
soul if I did not find it loving God.’
What are
the incentives to provoke and inflame our love to God?
(1) God’s
benefits bestowed on us. If a prince bestows continual favours on a subject,
and that subject has any ingenuity, he cannot but love his prince. God is
constantly heaping benefits upon us, ‘filling our hearts with food and
gladness.’
Acts 14: 17. As streams of water out of the rock followed Israel
whithersoever they went, so God’s blessings follow us every day. We swim in
a sea of mercy. That heart is hard that is not prevailed with by all God’s
blessings to love him.
Magnes amoris
amor [Love attracts love]. Kindness
works even on a brute: the ox knows his owner.
(2) Love
to God would make duties of religion facile and pleasant. I confess that to
him who has no love to God, religion must needs be a burden; and I wonder
not to hear him say, ‘What a weariness is it to serve the Lord!’ It is like
rowing against the tide. But love oils the wheels, it makes duty a pleasure.
Why are the angels so swift and winged in God’s service, but because they
love him? Jacob thought seven years but little for the love he bare to
Rachel. Love is never weary. He who loves money is not weary of telling it:
and he who loves God is not weary of serving him.
(3) It is
advantageous. There is nothing lost by love to God. ‘Eye has not seen, &c.,
the things which God has prepared for them that love him.’
1 Cor 2: 9. Such glorious rewards are laid up for them that love
God, that as Augustine says, ‘they not only transcend our reason, but faith
itself is not able to comprehend them.’ A crown is the highest ensign of
worldly glory; but God has promised a ‘crown of life to them that love him,’
and a never-fading crown.
James 1: 12.
1 Pet 5: 4.
(4) By
loving God we know that he loves us. ‘We love him because he first loved
us.’
1 John 5: 19. If ice melts, it is because the sun has shone upon
it; so if the frozen heart melts in love, it is because the Sun of
Righteousness has shone upon it.
What
means should be used to excite our love to God?
(1)
Labour to know God aright. The schoolmen say truly,
Bonum non
amatur quod non cognoscitur; ‘we
cannot love that which we do not know.’ God is the most eligible good; all
excellencies which lie scattered in the creature are united in him; he is
Optimus
maximus. Wisdom, beauty, riches,
love, all concentrate in him. How fair was that tulip which had the colours
of all tulips in it! All perfections and sweetnesses are eminently in God.
Did we know God more, and by the eye of faith see his orient beauty, our
hearts would be fired with love to him.
(2) Make
the Scriptures familiar to you. Augustine says that before his conversion he
took no pleasure in Scripture, but afterwards it was his chief delight. The
book of God discovers God to us, in his holiness, wisdom, veracity, and
truth; it represents him as rich in mercy, and encircled with promises.
Augustine calls the Scripture a golden epistle, or love-letter, sent from
God to us. By reading this love-letter we become more enamoured with God; as
by reading lascivious books, comedies, romances, &c., lust is excited.
(3)
Meditate much upon God, and this will promote love to him. ‘While I was
musing, the fire burned.’
Psa 39: 3. Meditation is as bellows to the affections. Meditate
on God’s love in the gift of Christ. ‘God so loved the world that he gave
his only begotten Son,’ &c.
John 3: 16. That God should give Christ to us, and not to angels
that fell, that the Sun of Righteousness should shine in our horizon, that
he is revealed to us, and not to others; what wonderful love is this! ‘Can
one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?’
Prov 6: 28. Who can meditate on God’s love, who can tread on
these hot coals, and his heart not burn in love? Beg a heart to love God.
The affection of love is natural, but not the grace of love.
Gal 5: 22. This fire of love is kindled from heaven; beg that it
may burn upon the altar of your heart. Surely the request is pleasing to
God, and he will not deny such a prayer as ‘Lord, give me a heart to love
thee.’
VII. And
keep my commandments.
Love and
obedience, like two sisters, must go hand and hand. ‘If ye love me, keep my
commandments.’
John 14: 15.
Probatio
delectionis est exhibitio operis [We
show our love by performing the work]. The son that loves his father will
obey him. Obedience pleases God. ‘To obey is better than sacrifice.’
1 Sam 15: 22. In sacrifice, a dead beast only is offered; in
obedience, a living soul; in sacrifice, only a part of the fruit is offered;
in obedience, fruit and tree and all; man offers himself up to God. ‘Keep my
commandments.’ It is not said, God shows mercy to thousands that know his
commandments, but that keep them. Knowing his commandments, without keeping
them, does not entitle any to mercy. The commandment is not only a rule of
knowledge, but of duty. God gives us his commandments, not only as a
landscape to look upon, but as his will and testament, which we are to
perform. A good Christian, like the sun, not only sends forth light, but
makes a circuit round the world. He has not only the light of knowledge; but
moves in a sphere of obedience.
[1] We
should keep the commandments from faith. Our obedience ought,
profluere a
fide ‘to spring from faith.’ It is
called, therefore, ‘the obedience of faith.’
Rom 16: 26. Abel, by faith, offered up a better sacrifice than
Cain.
Heb 11: 4. Faith is a vital principle, without which all our
services are
opera mortua,
dead works.
Heb 6: 1. It meliorates and sweetens obedience, and makes it come
off with a better relish.
But why
must faith be mixed with obedience to the commandments?
Because
faith eyes Christ in every duty, in whom both the person and offering are
accepted. The high-priest under the law laid his hand upon the head of the
slain beast, which pointed to the Messiah.
Exod 29: 10. So faith in every duty lays its hand upon the head
of Christ. His blood expiates their guilt, and the sweet odour of his
intercession perfumes our works of obedience. ‘He has made us accepted in
the beloved.’
Eph 1: 6.
[2]
Keeping the commandments must be uniform. We must make conscience of one
commandment as well as of another. ‘Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have
respect unto all thy commandments.’
Psa 119: 6. Every commandment has jus divinum, the same stamp of
divine authority upon it; and if I obey one precept because God commands, by
the same reason I must obey all. Some obey the commands of the first table,
but are careless of the duties of the second: some of the second and not of
the first. Physicians have a rule that when the body sweats in one part, and
is cold in another, it is a sign of a distemper; so when men seem zealous in
some duties of religion, but are cold and frozen in others, it is a sign of
hypocrisy. We must have respect to all God’s commandments.
But who
can keep all his commandments?
There is
a fulfilling God’s commands, and a keeping of them. Though we cannot fulfil
all, yet we may be said to keep them in an evangelical sense. We may
facere,
though not
perficere
[build, though not complete]. We keep the commandments evangelically: (1)
When we make conscience of every command, when, though we come short in
every duty, we dare not neglect any. (2) When our desire is to keep every
commandment. ‘O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!’
Psa 119: 5. What we want in strength we make up in will. (3) When
we grieve that we can do no better; weep when we fail; prefer bills of
complaint against ourselves; and judge ourselves for our failings.
Rom 7: 24. (4) When we endeavour to obey every commandment,
elicere
conatum. ‘I press toward the mark.’
Phil 3: 14. We strive as in agony; and, if it lay in our power,
we would fully comport with every commandment. (5) When, falling short, and
unable to come up to the full latitude of the law, we look to Christ’s blood
to sprinkle our imperfect obedience, and, with the grains of his merits cast
into the scales, to make it pass current. This, in an evangelical sense, is
to keep all the commandments; and though it be not to satisfaction, yet it
is to acceptation.
[3]
Keeping God’s commandments must be voluntary. ‘If ye be willing and
obedient.’
Isa 1: 19. God required a free-will offering.
Deut 16: 10. David will run the way of God’s commandments, that
is freely and cheerfully.
Psa 119: 32. Lawyers have a rule that adverbs are better than
adjectives; that it is not the
bonum,
but the
bene; not the doing much, but the
doing well. A musician is not commended for playing long, but for playing
well. Obeying God willingly is accepted.
Virtus
nolentium nulla est [Righteous deeds
done unwillingly are worthless]. The Lord hates that which is forced; which
is paying a tax rather than an offering. Cain served God grudgingly; he
brought his sacrifice, not his heart. To obey God’s commandments
unwillingly, is like the devils who came out of the men possessed, at
Christ’s command, but with reluctance, and against their will.
Matt 8: 29.
Obedientia
praest and adest non timore poenae, sed amore Dei
[Obedience is the chief thing, and this not through fear of punishment, but
for love of God]. God duties must not be pressed nor beaten out of us, as
the waters came from the rock, when Moses smote it with his rod, but must
drop freely from us as myrrh from the tree, or honey from the comb. If a
willing mind be wanting, the flower is wanting to perfume our obedience, and
to make it a sweet-smelling savour to God.
That we
may keep God’s commandments willingly, let these things be well weighed: (1)
Our willingness is more esteemed than our service. David counsels Solomon
not only to serve God, but with a willing mind.
1 Chron 28: 9. The will makes sin to be worse, and duty to be
better. To obey willingly shows we do it with love; and this crowns all our
services.
(2) There
is that in the law-giver which may make us willing to obey the commandments,
which is God’s indulgence to us. [1] God does not require the
summum jus
as absolutely necessary to salvation; he expects not perfect obedience, he
requires sincerity only. Do but act from a principle of love, and aim at
honouring God in your obedience, and it is accepted. [2] In the gospel a
surety is admitted. The law would not favour us so far; but now God so
indulges us, that what we cannot do of ourselves we may do by proxy. Jesus
Christ is ‘a Surety of a better testament.’
Heb 7: 22. We fall short in everything, but God looks upon us in
our Surety; and Christ having fulfilled all righteousness, it is as if we
had fulfilled the law in our own persons. [3] God gives strength to do what
he requires. The law called for obedience, but though it required brick, it
gave no straw; but in the gospel, God, with his commands, gives power. ‘Make
ye a new heart.’
Ezek 18: 31. Alas! it is above our strength, we may as well make
a new world. ‘A new heart also will I give you.’
Ezek 36: 26. God commands us to cleanse ourselves. ‘Wash you,
make you clean.’
Isa 1: 16. But ‘who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?’
Job 14: 4. Therefore the precept is turned into a promise. ‘From
all your filthiness will I cleanse you.’
Ezek 36: 25. When the child cannot go, the nurse takes it by the
hand. ‘I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms.’
Hos 11: 3.
(3) There
is that in God’s commandments which may make us willing. They are not
burdensome.
[1] A
Christian, so far as he is regenerate, consents to God’s commands. ‘I
consent to the law that it is good.’
Rom 7: 16. What is done with consent is no burden. If a virgin
gives her consent, the match goes on cheerfully; if a subject consents to
his prince’s laws because he sees the equity and reasonableness of them they
are not irksome. A regenerate person in his judgement approves, and in his
will consents, to God’s commandments and therefore they are not burdensome.
[2] God’s
commandments are sweetened with joy and peace. Cicero questions whether that
can properly be called a burden which is carried with delight and pleasure.
Utrum
onus appellatur quod laetitia fertur
[Is a task performed with joy rightly so called]? If a man carries a bag of
money that has been given him, it is heavy, but the delight takes off the
burden. When God gives inward joy, it makes the commandments delightful. ‘I
will make them joyful in my house of prayer.’
Isa 56: 7. Joy is like oil to the wheels, which makes a Christian
run in the way of God’s commandments, so that it is not burdensome.
[3] God’s
commandments are advantageous. They are preventive of evil; a curb-bit to
check us from sin. What mischiefs should we not run into if we had not
afflictions to humble us, and the commandments to restrain us! God’s
commandments keep us within bounds, as the yoke keeps the beast from
straggling. We should be thankful to God for precepts. Had he not set his
commandments as a hedge or bar in our way, we might have run to hell and
never stopped. There is nothing in the commandments but what is for our
good. ‘To keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I
command thee for thy good.’
Deut 10: 13. God commands us to read his word; and what hurt is
in this? He bespangles the word with promises; as if a father should bid his
son read his last will and testament, wherein he makes over a fair estate to
him. He bids us pray and tells us if we ‘ask, it shall be given.’
Matt 7: 7. Ask power against sin, ask salvation, and it shall be
given. If you had a friend who should say, ‘Come when you will to me, I will
supply you with money,’ would you think it a trouble to visit that friend
often? God commands us to fear him. ‘But fear thy God.’
Lev 25: 43. There is honey in the mouth of this command. ‘His
mercy is on them that fear him.’
Luke 1: 50. God commands us to believe, and why so? ‘Believe, and
thou shalt be saved.’
Acts 16: 31. Salvation is the crown set upon the head of faith.
Good reason then have we to obey God’s commands willingly, since they are
for our good, and are not so much our duty as our privilege.
[4] God’s
commandments are ornamental.
Omnia quae
praestari jubet Deus, non onerant nos sed ornant.
Salvianus. ‘God’s commandments do not burden us, but adorn us.’ It is an
honour to be employed in a king’s service; and much more to be employed in
his ‘by whom kings reign.’ To walk in God’s commandments proves us to be
wise. ‘Behold, I have taught you statutes: keep, therefore, and do them; for
this your wisdom.’
Deut 4: 5, 6. To be wise is a great honour. We may say of every
commandment of God, as
Prov 4: 9: It ‘shall give to thy head an ornament of grace.’
[5] The
commands of God are infinitely better than the commands of sin, which are
intolerable. Let a man be under the command of any lust, and how he tires
himself! What hazards he runs to endangering his health and soul, that he
may satisfy his lust! ‘They weary themselves to commit iniquity.’
Jer 9: 5. And are not God’s commandments more equal, facile,
pleasant, than the commands of sin? Chrysostom says true, ‘To act virtue is
easier than to act vice.’ Temperance is less troublesome than drunkenness;
meekness is less troublesome than passion and envy. There is more difficulty
in the contrivance and pursuit of a wicked design than in obeying the
commands of God. Hence a sinner is said to travail with iniquity.
Psa 7: 14. A woman while she is in travail is in pain — to show
what pain and trouble a wicked man has in bringing forth sin. Many have gone
with more pains to hell, than others have to heaven. This may make us obey
the commandments willingly.
[6]
Willingness in obedience makes us resemble the angels. The cherubim, types
representing the angels, are described with wings displayed, to show how
ready the angels are to serve God. God no sooner speaks the word, but they
are ambitious to obey. How are they ravished with joy while praising God! In
heaven we shall be as the angels, and by our willingness to obey God’s
commands, we should be like them here. We pray that God’s will may be done
by us on earth as it is in heaven; and is it not done willingly there? It is
also done constantly. ‘Blessed is he who does righteousness at all times.’
Psa 106: 3. Our obedience to the command must be as the fire of
the altar, which never went out.
Lev 6: 13. It must be as the motion of the pulse, always beating.
The wind blows off the fruit; but the fruits of our obedience must not be
blown off by any wind of persecution. ‘I have chosen you that ye should go
and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.’
John 15: 16.
Use. They
are reproved who live in a wilful breach of God’s commandments, in malice,
uncleanness, intemperance; and walk antipodes to the commandments. To live
in a wilful breach of the commandment is:
(1)
Against reason. Are we able to stand out against God? ‘Do we provoke the
Lord, are we stronger than he?’
1 Cor 10: 22. Can we measure arms with God? Can impotence stand
against omnipotence? A sinner acts against reason.
(2) It is
against equity. We have our being from God; and is it not just that we
should obey him who gives us our being? We have all our subsistence from
him; and is it not fitting, that as he gives us our allowance, we should
give him our allegiance? If a general gives his soldiers pay, he expects
them to march at his command; so for us to live in violation of the divine
commands, is manifestly unjust.
(3) It is
against nature. Every creature in its kind obeys God’s law. [1] Animate
creatures obey him. God spake to the fish, and it set Jonah ashore.
Jonah 2: 10. [2] Inanimate creatures. The wind and the sea obey
him.
Mark 4: 41, The very stones, if God give them a commission, will
cry out against the sins of men. ‘The stone shall cry out of the wall, and
the beam out of the timber shall answer it.’
Hab 2: 11. None disobey God but wicked men and devils; and can we
find no better companions?
(4) It is
against kindness. How many mercies have we to allure us to obey! We have
miracles of mercy; the apostle therefore joins these two together,
disobedient and unthankful, which dyes sin with a crimson colour.
2 Tim 3: 2. As the sin is great, for it is a contempt of God, a
hanging out of the flag of defiance against him, and rebellion is as the sin
of witchcraft, so the punishment will be great. It cuts off from mercy.
God’s mercy is for them that keep his commandments, but there is no mercy
for them that live in a wilful breach of them. All God’s judgements set
themselves in battle array against the disobedient: temporal judgements and
eternal.
Lev 26: 15, 16. Christ comes in flames of fire, to take vengeance
on them that obey not God.
2 Thess 1: 8. God has iron chains to hold those who break the
golden chain of his commands; chains of darkness by which the devils are
held ever.
Jude 6. God has time enough, as long as eternity, to reckon with
all the wilful breakers of his commandments.
How shall
we keep God’s commandments?
Pray for
the Spirit of God. We cannot do it in our strength. The Spirit must work in
us both to will and to do.
Phil 2: 13. When the loadstone draws, the iron moves; so, when
God’s Spirit draws, we run in the way of his commandments.
2.3 The Third Commandment
‘Thou
shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: For the Lord will not
hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.’
Exod 20: 7.
This
commandment has two parts: 1. A negative expressed, that we must not take
God’s name in vain; that is, cast any reflections and dishonour on his name.
2. An affirmative implied. That we should take care to reverence and honour
his name. Of this latter I shall speak more fully, under the first petition
in the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Hallowed be thy name.’ I shall now speak of the
negative expressed in this commandment, or the prohibition, ‘Thou shalt not
take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.’ The tongue is an unruly member.
All the parts and organs of the body are defiled with sin, as every branch
of wormwood is bitter; ‘but the tongue is full of deadly poison.’
James 3: 8. There is no one member of the body breaks forth more
in God’s dishonour than the tongue. We have this commandment, therefore, as
a bridle for the tongue, to bind it to its good behaviour. This prohibition
is backed with a strong reason, ‘For the Lord will not hold him guiltless;’
that is he will not hold him innocent. Men of place and eminence deem it
disgraceful to have their names abused and inflict heavy penalties on the
offenders. ‘The Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in
vain;’ but looks upon him as a criminal, and will severely punish him. The
thing here insisted on is, that great care must be had, that the holy and
reverend name of God be not profaned by us, or taken in vain. We take God’s
name in vain:
[1] When
we speak slightly and irreverently of his name. ‘That thou mayest fear this
glorious and fearful name, The Lord thy God.’
Deut 28: 58. David speaks of God with reverence. ‘The mighty God,
even the Lord.’
Psa 50: 1. ‘That men may know, that thou, whose name alone is
Jehovah, art the Most High over all the earth.
Psa 83: 18. The disciples, when speaking of Jesus, hallowed his
name. ‘Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before
God and all the people.’
Luke 24: 19. When we mention the names of kings, we give them
some title of honour, as ‘excellent majesty;’ so should we speak of God with
the sacred reverence that is due to the infinite majesty of heaven. When we
speak slightly of God or his works, he interprets it as a contempt, and
taking his name in vain.
[2] When
we profess God’s name, but do not live answerably to it, we take it in vain.
‘They profess that they know God, but in works they deny him.’
Titus 1: 16. When men’s tongues and lives are contrary to one
another, when, under a mask of profession, they lie and cozen, and are
unclean, they make use of God’s name to abuse him, and take it in vain.
Simulata
sanctitas duplex iniquitas
[Pretended holiness is merely double wickedness]. ‘The name of God is
blasphemed among the Gentiles through you.’
Rom 2: 24. When the heathen saw the Jews, who professed to be
God’s people, to be scandalous, it made them speak evil of God, and hate the
true religion for their sakes.
[3] When
we use God’s name in idle discourse. He is not to be spoken of but with a
holy awe upon our hearts. To bring his name in at every turn, when we are
not thinking of him, to say, ‘O God!’ or, ‘O Christ!’ or, ‘As God shall save
my soul’ — is to take God’s name in vain. How many are guilty here! Though
they have God in their mouths, they have the devil in their hearts. It is a
wonder that fire does not come out from the Lord to consume them, as it did
Nadab and Abihu.
Lev 10: 2.
[4] When
we worship him with our lips, but not with our hearts. God calls for the
heart, ‘My son, give me thy heart.’
Prov 23: 26. The heart is the chief thing in religion; it draws
the will and affections after it, as the Primum Mobile draw the other orbs
along with it. The heart is the incense that perfumes our holy things; is
the altar that sanctifies the offering. When we seem to worship God, but
withdraw our heart from him, we take his name in vain. ‘This people draw
near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed
their heart far from me.’
Isa 29: 13.
(1)
Hypocrites take God’s name in vain: their religion is a lie; they seem to
honour God, but they do not love him; their hearts go after their lusts.
‘They set their heart on their iniquity.’
Hos 4: 8. Their eyes are lifted up to heaven, but their hearts
are rooted in the earth.
Ezek 33: 31. These are devils in Samuel’s mantle. (2)
Superstitious persons take God’s name in vain. They bring him a few
ceremonies which he never appointed, bow at Christ’s name and cringe to the
altar, but hate and persecute God’s image.
[5] When
we pray to him, but do not believe in him. Faith is a grace that greatly
honours God. Abraham ‘was strong in faith, giving glory to God.’
Rom 4: 20. But when we pray to God, but do not mix faith with our
prayer, we take his name in vain. ‘I may pray,’ says a Christian, ‘but I
shall be never the better.’ I question whether God ever hears or answers
such. It is to dishonour God and take his name in vain; it makes him either
an idol, that has ears and hears not; or a liar, who promises mercy to the
penitent, but will not make good his word. ‘He that believeth not God has
made him a liar.’
1 John 5: 10. When the apostle says (Rom
10: 14): ‘How shall they call on him in whom they have not
believed?’ the meaning is, How shall they call on God aright, and not
believe in him? But how many do call on him who do not believe on him! They
ask for pardon, but unbelief whispers their sins are too great to be
forgiven. Thus to pray and not believe, is to take God’s name in vain, and
highly dishonours God, as if he were not such a God as the word represents
him. ‘Plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon him.’
Psa 86: 5.
[6] When
in any way we profane and abuse his word. The word of God is profaned, in
general, when profane men meddle with it. It is unseemly and unbecoming a
wicked man to talk of sacred things, of God’s providence, and the decrees of
God and heaven. It was very distasteful to Christ to hear the devil quote
Scripture, ‘It is written.’ To hear a wicked man who wallows in sin talk of
God and religion is offensive; it is taking God’s name in vain. When the
word of God is in a drunkard’s mouth, it is like a pearl hung upon a swine.
Under the law, the lips of the leper were to be covered.
Lev 13: 45. The lips of a profane, drunken minister ought to be
covered; he is unfit to speak God’s word, because he takes his name in vain.
More
particularly they profane God’s word, and take his name in vain: (1) That
speak scornfully of his word. ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For since
the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning
of the creation.’
2 Pet 3: 4. As if they had said, the preachers make much ado
about the day of judgement, when all must be called to account for their
works; but where is the appearing of that day? We see things keep their
course, and continue as they were since the creation. Thus they speak
scornfully of Scripture, and take God’s name in vain. If sentence be not
speedily executed, men scorn and deride; but, ‘Judgements are prepared for
scorners.’
Prov 19: 29.
(2) That
speak jestingly. Such are they who sport and play with Scripture. This is
playing with fire. Some cannot be merry unless they make bold with God; they
make the Scripture a harp to drive away the spirit of sadness. Eusebius
relates of one who made a jest of Scripture, and God struck him with frenzy.
To play with Scripture shows a very profane heart. Some will rather lose
their souls than lose their jests. These are guilty of taking God’s name in
vain. Tremble at it. Such as mock at Scripture, God will mock at their
calamity.
Prov 1: 26.
(3) That
bring Scripture to countenance any sin. The word, which was written for the
suppression of sin, is brought by some for the defence of sin. For instance,
if we tell a covetous man of his sin that covetousness is idolatry, he will
say, ‘Has not God bid me live in a calling? Has he not said, “Six days shalt
thou labour;” and “he who provides not for his family is worse than an
infidel”?’ Thus he endeavours to support his covetousness by Scripture. Now,
it is true that God has bid us take pains in our calling, but not to hurt
our neighbour; he has bid us provide for a family, but not by oppression.
‘Ye shall not oppress one another.’
Lev 25: 25. He has bid us look after a livelihood, but not to the
neglect of the soul: he has bid us lay up treasure in heaven (Matt
6: 20); but he has commanded us to lay out, as well as lay up; to
sow seeds of charity on the backs and bellies of the poor, which is
neglected by such. To bring Scripture therefore to uphold us in sin, is a
high profanation of Scripture, and taking God’s name in vain. Again, if we
tell a man of his inordinate passions — that he may be drunk with rash anger
as well as wine — he will bring Scripture to justify it by saying, ‘Does not
the word say, “Be ye angry and sin not”?’
Eph 4: 26. True, anger is good when mixed with holy zeal. Anger
is without sin when it is against sin: but to sin in anger, to speak
unadvisedly with the lips, is to have the tongue set on fire of hell. To
bring Scripture to defend any sin is to profane it, and to take God’s name
in vain.
(4) That
adulterate the word, and wrest it in a wrong sense. Such are heretics, who
put their own gloss upon Scripture, and make it speak that which the Holy
Ghost never meant. As, for instance, when they expound those texts
literally, which were meant figuratively. Thus the Pharisees, because God
said in the law, ‘Thou shalt bind them (the commandments) for a sign upon
thy hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes’ (Deut
6: 8), took it in a literal sense, got two scrolls of parchment,
wherein they wrote the two tables, putting one on their left arms and
binding the other to their eyebrows; and thus wrested that Scripture, and
took God’s name in vain. It was intended to be understood spiritually, of
meditating on God’s law, and putting it in practice. The Papists expound the
words, ‘This is my body,’ literally, of the very body of Christ; as though,
when Christ gave the bread, he had two bodies, one in the bread, and the
other out of the bread, whereas he meant it figuratively as a sign of his
body. Again, when those Scriptures are expounded figuratively and
allegorically which the Holy Ghost meant literally. For example, Christ said
to Peter, ‘Launch out into the deep, and make a draught,’
Luke 5: 4. This text was spoken in a plain, literal sense of
launching out the ship, but the Papists take it in a mystic and allegorical
sense. ‘It proves,’ say they, ‘that the Pope, who is Peter’s successor,
shall launch forth, and catch the ecclesiastical and political power over
the western parts of the world;’ but I think the Papists have launched out
too far beyond the meaning of the text. When men strain their wits to wrest
the word to such a sense as pleases them, they profane God’s word, and take
his name in vain.
[7] When
we swear by God’s name. Many seldom mention God’s name but in oaths, for
which sin the land mourns. ‘Swear not at all,’ that is, rashly and sinfully,
so as to take God’s name in vain.
Matt 5: 34. Not but in some cases it is lawful to take an oath
before a magistrate. ‘Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God and serve him, and
swear by his name.’
Deut 6: 13. ‘An oath for confirmation is the end of all strife.’
Heb 6: 16. When Christ says, ‘Swear not at all;’ he forbids such
swearing as takes God’s name in vain. There is a threefold swearing
forbidden:
(1) Vain
swearing, as when men in their ordinary discourse, let fly oaths. Some
excuse their swearing. It is a coarse wool that will take no dye, and a bad
sin indeed that has no excuse.
Excuse 1.
I swear little trifling oaths; as Faith, or, By the mass. The devil has two
false glasses, which he sets before men’s eyes; the one is a little glass,
in which the sin appears so small that it can hardly be seen, which the
devil sets before men’s eyes when they are going to commit sin; the other is
a great magnifying glass, wherein sin appears so big that it cannot be
forgiven, which the devil sets before men’s eyes when they have sinned. Thou
that sayest, sin is small, when God shall open the eye of thy conscience,
thou wilt see it to be great, and be ready to despair. Thou sayest, they are
but small oaths; but Christ forbids vain oaths. ‘Swear not at all.’ If God
will reckon with us for idle words, will not idle oaths be put in the
account?
Excuse 2.
I swear to the truth. See how this harlot-sin would paint itself with an
excuse. Though it be true, yet, if it be a rash oath, it is sinful. Besides,
he that swears commonly, must sometimes swear to more than is true. Where
much water runs, some gravel or mud will pass along with it; so, where there
is much swearing, some lies will run along with it.
Excuse 3.
I shall not be believed unless I seal up my words with an oath. A man that
is honest will be believed without an oath; his bare word carries authority
with it, and is as good as letters testimonial. Again, the more a man
swears, the less others will believe him.
Juris credit
minus [Less trust is placed in his
oaths. Thou art a swearer. Another thinks an oath weighs very light with
him, and he cares not what he swears to, so that the more he swears the less
others believe him. He will trust thy bond, but not thy oath.
Excuse 4.
It is a custom of swearing I have got, and I hope God will forgive me.
Though among men custom has influence, and is pleadable in law, yet it is
not so in the case of sin; here custom is no plea. Thou hast got a habit of
swearing, and canst not leave it off, is this an excuse? Is a thing well
done because it is commonly done? This is so far from being an excuse that
it is an aggravation of sin. As if one that had been accused of killing a
man, should plead with the judge to spare him because it was his custom to
murder. Would not this be an aggravation of the offence? So it is here.
Therefore, all excuses for this sin of vain-swearing are taken away. Dare
not to live in this sin, for it is taking God’s name in vain.
(2) Vile
swearing, horrid, prodigious oaths not to be named. Swearers, like mad dogs,
fly in the face of heaven; and when they are angered, spue out their
blasphemous venom on God’s sacred majesty. Some in gaming, when things go
cross and the dice runs against them, run against God in oaths and curses.
Tell them of their sin, seek to bring home these asses from going astray,
and it is but pouring oil on the flame; they will swear the more. Augustine
says, ‘They do no less sin who blaspheme Christ now in heaven, than the Jews
did who crucified him on earth.’ Swearers profane Christ’s blood, and tear
his name. A woman told her husband, that of her three sons, one of them only
was his: the father dying, desired the executors to find out which was the
true natural son, and bequeath all his estate to him. The father being dead,
the executors set up his corpse against a tree and delivered to every one of
these three sons a bow and arrows, telling them, that he who could shoot
nearest the father’s heart should have the whole of the estate. Two sons
shot as near as they could to his heart, but the third felt nature so to
work in him, that he refused to shoot; whereupon the executors judged him to
be the true son, and gave him all the estate. Such as are the true children
of God, fear to shoot at him; but such as are bastards, and not sons, care
not though they shoot at him in heaven with their oaths and curses. That
which makes swearing yet more heinous, is, that when men have resolved upon
any wicked action, they bind themselves with an oath to do it. Such were
they who bound themselves with an oath and curse to kill Paul.
Acts 23: 12. To commit sin is bad enough; but to swear to commit
sin, is a high profanation of God’s name, and as it were, calls God to
approve our sin.
(3)
Forswearing, which is a heaven-daring sin. ‘Ye shall not swear by my name
falsely, neither shalt thou profane my name.’
Lev 19: 12. Perjury is calling God to witness to a lie. It is
said of Philip of Macedon, he would swear and unswear, as might stand best
with his interest. ‘Thou shalt swear, The Lord liveth, in truth, in
judgement, and in righteousness.’
Jer 4: 2. In righteousness, therefore, it must not be an unlawful
oath. In judgement therefore it must not be a rash oath. In truth,
therefore, it must not be a false oath. Among the Scythians, if a man did
forswear himself, he was to have his head stricken off; because, if perjury
were allowed, there would be no living in a commonwealth; it would take away
all faith and truth from among men. The perjurer is in as bad a case as the
witch; for, by a false oath, he binds his soul fast to the devil. In
forswearing, or taking a false oath in a court, there are many sins linked
together; plurima
peccata in uno
[many sins in one]; for, besides taking God’s name in vain, the perjurer is
a thief; by his false oath he robs the innocent of his right; he is a
perverter of justice; he not only sins himself, but occasions the jury to
give a false verdict, and the judge to pass an unrighteous sentence. Surely
God’s judgements will find him out. When God’s flying-roll, or curse, goes
over the face of the earth, into whose house does it enter? ‘Into the house
of him that sweareth falsely by my name; and it shall consume the timber and
stones thereof.’
Zech 5: 4. Beza relates of a perjurer, that he had no sooner
taken a false oath, than he was immediately struck with apoplexy, never
spake more, and died. Oh, tremble at such horrid impiety!
[8] When
we prefix God’s name to any wicked action. Mentioning God in connection with
a wicked design, is taking his name in vain. ‘I pray,’ said Absalom, ‘let me
pay my vow, which I have vowed unto the Lord, in Hebron.’
2 Sam 15: 7. This pretence of paying his vow made to God, was
only to cover his treason. ‘As soon as ye hear the sound of the trumpet ye
shall say, Absalom reigneth;’
chap. 15: 10. When any wicked action is baptised with the name of
religion, it is taking God’s name in vain. Herein the Pope is highly guilty,
when he sends out his bulls of excommunication, or curses against the
Christian; he begins with,
In nomine Dei
‘in the name of God.’ What a provoking sin is this! It is to do the devil’s
work, and put God’s name to it.
[9] When
we use our tongues any way to the dishonour of God’s name. As when we use
railing, or curse in our passions; especially when we wish a curse upon
ourselves if a thing be not so, when we know it to be false. I have read of
one who wished his body might rot, if that which he said was not true; and
soon after his body rotted, and he became a loathsome spectacle.
[10] When
we make rash and unlawful vows. It is a good vow when a man binds himself to
do that which the word binds him to; as, if he be sick, he vows if God
restore him, he will live a more holy life. ‘I will pay thee my vows which
my lips have uttered when I was in trouble.’
Psa 66: 13, 14. But Voveri non debet quod Deo displicet; ‘such a
vow should not be made as is displeasing to God;’ as to vow voluntary
poverty, as friars; or to vow to live in nunneries. Jephthah’s vow was rash
and unlawful; he vowed to the Lord to sacrifice that to him which he met
with next, and it was his daughter.
Judges 11: 31. He did ill to make the vow, and worse to keep it;
he became guilty of the breach of the third and sixth commandments.
[11] When
we speak evil of God. ‘The people spake against God.’
Numb 21: 5.
How do we
speak against God?
When we
murmur at his providences, as if he had dealt hardly with us. Murmuring
accuses God’s justice. ‘Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?’
Gen 18: 25. Murmuring springs from a bitter root, it comes from
pride and discontent; it reproaches God and thus takes his name in vain. It
is a sin that God cannot bear. ‘How long shall I bear with this evil
congregation which murmur against me?’
Numb. 14: 27.
[12] When
we falsify our promise; as when we say, if God spare our life we will do a
certain thing, and never intend it. Our promise should be sacred and
inviolable; but, if we make a promise, and mention God’s name in it, but
never intend to keep it, it is a double sin; it is telling a lie, and taking
God’s name in vain.
Use. Take
heed of taking God’s name in vain in any of these ways. Remember the
combination and threatening in the text, ‘The Lord will not hold him
guiltless.’ Here is a meiosis; less is said, and more intended. ‘He will not
hold him guiltless;’ that is, he will be severely avenged on such a one.
‘The Lord will not hold him guiltless.’ Here the Lord speaks after the
manner of a judge, who holds the court assize. The judge here, is God
himself; the accusers, Satan, and a man’s own conscience; the charge is,
‘Taking God’s name in vain;’ the accused is found guilty, and condemned:
‘The Lord will not hold him guiltless.’ Methinks these words, ‘The Lord will
not hold him guiltless,’ should put a lock upon our lips, and make us afraid
of speaking anything that may bring dishonour upon God, or may be taking his
name in vain. It may be that men may hold such guiltless, when they curse,
swear, speak irreverently of God, may let them alone, and not punish them.
If one takes away another’s good name, he shall be sure to be punished; but
if he takes away God’s good name, where is he that punishes him? He that
robs another of his goods shall be put to death, but he that robs God of his
glory, by oaths and curses, is spared; but God himself will take the matter
into his own hand, and he will punish him who takes his name in vain.
(1)
Sometimes God punishes swearing and blasphemy in this life. In the county of
Samurtia, when there arose a great tempest of thunder and lightning, a
soldier burst forth into swearing; but the tempest tore up a great tree by
the root, which fell upon him, and crushed him to pieces. German history
tells of a youth, who was given to swearing, and inventing new oaths; the
Lord sent a cancer into his mouth, which ate out his tongue and from which
he died. If a man blasphemed God, the Lord caused him to be stoned to death.
‘The Israelitish woman’s son blasphemed the name of the Lord, and cursed.
And Moses spake to the children of Israel, that they should bring forth him
that had cursed, and stone him with stones.’
Lev. 24: 11, 23. Olympias, an Arian bishop, reproached and
blasphemed the sacred Trinity; whereupon he was suddenly struck with three
flashes of lighting, which burned him to death. Felix, an officer of Julia,
seeing the holy vessels which were used in the sacrament, said, in scorn of
Christ, ‘See what precious vessels the Son of Mary is served withal.’ Soon
after, he was taken with vomiting of blood from his blasphemous mouth, of
which he died.
(2) If
God should not execute judgement on the profaners of his name in this life,
their doom is to come. He will not remit their guilt, but deliver them to
Satan the gaoler, to torment them for ever. If God justify a man, who shall
condemn him? But if God condemn him, who shall justify him? If God lay a man
in prison, where shall he get bail? God will take his full blow at the
sinner in hell. ‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living
God.’
Heb 10: 31.
2.4 The Fourth Commandment
‘Remember
the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy
work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou
shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant,
nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy
gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that
in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the
Sabbath-day and hallowed it.
Exod 20: 8-11.
This
commandment was engraven in stone by God’s own finger, and it will be our
comfort to have it engraven in our hearts.
The
Sabbath-day is set apart for God’s solemn worship; it is his own enclosure,
and must not be alienated to common uses. As a preface to this commandment,
he has put a memento to it, ‘Remember to keep the Sabbath day holy.’ This
word, ‘remember,’ shows that we are apt to forget Sabbath holiness;
therefore we need a memorandum to put us in mind of sanctifying the day.
I. There is
in these words a solemn command. ‘Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy.’
[1] The
matter of it. The sanctifying the Sabbath, which Sabbath sanctification
consists in two things, in resting from our own works, and in a
conscientious discharge of our religious duty.
[2] The
persons to whom the command of sanctifying the Sabbath is given. Either
superiors, and they are, more private, as parents and masters; or more
public, as magistrates; or inferiors, as natives, children, and servants,
‘Thy son, and thy daughter, thy man-servant, and thy maidservant;’ or
foreigners, ‘thy stranger that is within thy gates.’
II. The
arguments to obey this commandment of keeping holy the Sabbath are,
[1] From
the rationality of it. ‘Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work;’ as
if God had said, I am not a hard master, I do not grudge thee time to look
after thy calling, and to get an estate. I have given thee six days, to do
all thy work in, and have taken but one day for myself. I might have
reserved six days for myself, and allowed thee but one; but I have given
thee six days for the works of thy calling, and have taken but one day for
my own service. It is just and rational, therefore, that thou shouldest set
this day in a special manner apart for my worship.
[2] The
second argument for sanctifying the Sabbath, is taken from the justice of
it. ‘The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God;’ as if God had
said, The Sabbath-day is my due, I challenge a special right in it, and no
other has any claim to it. He who robs me of this day, and puts it to common
uses, is a sacrilegious person, he steals from the crown of heaven, and I
will in nowise hold him guiltless.
[3] The
third argument for sanctifying the Sabbath, is taken from God’s own
observance of it. He ‘rested the seventh day;’ as if the Lord should say,
Will you not follow me as a pattern? Having finished all my works of
creation, I rested the seventh day; so having done all your secular work on
the six days, you should now cease from the labour of your calling, and
dedicate the seventh day to me, as a day of holy rest.
[4] The
fourth argument for Sabbath-sanctification, is taken
ab utili,
from the benefit which redounds from a religious observation of the Sabbath.
‘The Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it.’ God not only appointed
the seventh day, but he blessed it. It is not only a day of honour to God,
but a day of blessing to us; it is not only a day wherein we give God
worship, but a day wherein he gives us grace. On this day a blessing drops
down from heaven. God himself is not benefited by it, we cannot add one
cubit to his essential glory; but we ourselves are benefited. This day,
religiously observed, entails a blessing upon our souls, our estate, and our
posterity. Not keeping it, brings a curse.
Jer 17: 27. God curses a man’s blessings.
Mal 2: 2. The bread which he eats is poisoned with a curse; so
the conscientious observation of the Sabbath, brings all manner of blessings
with it. These are the arguments to induce Sabbath-sanctification.
The thing
I would have you now observe is, that the commandment of keeping the Sabbath
was not abrogated with the ceremonial law, but is purely moral, and the
observation of it is to be continued to the end of the world. Where can it
be shown that God has given us a discharge from keeping one day in seven?
Why has
God appointed a Sabbath?
(1) With
respect to himself. It is requisite that God should reserve one day in seven
for his own immediate service, that thereby he might be acknowledged to be
the great Plenipotentiary, or sovereign Lord, who has power over us both to
command worship, and appoint the time when he will be worshipped.
(2) With
respect to us. The Sabbath-day is for our interest; it promotes holiness in
us. The business of week-days makes us forgetful of God and our souls: the
Sabbath brings him back to our remembrance. When the falling dust of the
world has clogged the wheels of our affections, that they can scarce move
towards God, the Sabbath comes, and oils the wheels of our affections, and
they move swiftly on. God has appointed the Sabbath for this end. On this
day the thoughts rise to heaven, the tongue speaks of God, and is as the pen
of a ready writer, the eyes drop tears, and the soul burns in love. The
heart, which all the week was frozen, on the Sabbath melts with the word.
The Sabbath is a friend to religion; it files off the rust of our graces; it
is a spiritual jubilee, wherein the soul is set to converse with its Maker.
I should
next show you the modes, or manner, how we should keep the Sabbath day holy;
but before I come to that, we have a great question to consider.
How comes
it to pass that we do not keep the seventh-day Sabbath as it was in the
primitive institution, but have changed it to another day?
The old
seventh-day Sabbath, which was the Jewish Sabbath, is abrogated, and in the
room of it the first day of the week, which is the Christian Sabbath,
succeeds. The morality or substance of the fourth commandment does not lie
in keeping the seventh day precisely, but keeping one day in seven is what
God has appointed.
But how
comes the first day in the week to be substituted in the room of the seventh
day?
Not by
ecclesiastic authority. ‘The church,’ says Mr Perkins, ‘has no power to
ordain a Sabbath.’
(1) The
change of the Sabbath from the last day of the week to the first was by
Christ’s own appointment. He is ‘Lord of the Sabbath.’
Mark 2: 28. And who shall appoint a day but he who is Lord of it?
He made this day. ‘This is the day which the Lord has made.’
Psa 118: 24. Arnobius and most expositors understand it of the
Christian Sabbath, which is called the ‘Lord’s-day.’
Rev 1: 10. As it is called the ‘Lord’s Supper,’ because of the
Lord’s instituting the bread and wine and setting it apart from a common to
a special and sacred use; so it is called the Lord’s-day, because of the
Lord’s instituting it, and setting it apart from common days, to his special
worship and service. Christ rose on the first day of the week, out of the
grave, and appeared twice on that day to his disciples,
John 20: 19, 26, which was to intimate to them, as Augustine and
Athanasius say, that he transferred the Jewish Sabbath to the Lord’s day.
(2) The
keeping of the first day was the practice of the apostles. ‘Upon the first
day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul
preached unto them.’
Acts 20: 7;
1 Cor 16: 2. Here was both preaching and breaking of bread on
this day. Augustine and Innocentius, and Isidore, make the keeping of our
gospel Sabbath to be of apostolic sanction, and affirm, that by virtue of
the apostles’ practice, this day is to be set apart for divine worship. What
the apostles did, they did by divine authority; for they were inspired by
the Holy Ghost.
(3) The
primitive church had the Lord’s-day, which we now celebrate, in high
estimation. It was a great badge of their religion to observe this day.
Ignatius, the most ancient father, who lived in the time of John the
apostle, has these words, ‘Let every one that loveth Christ keep holy the
first day of the week, the Lord’s-day.’ This day has been observed by the
church of Christ above sixteen hundred years, as the learned Bucer notes.
Thus you see how the seventh-day Sabbath came to be changed to the first-day
Sabbath.
The grand
reason for changing the Jewish Sabbath to the Lord’s-day is that it puts us
in mind of the ‘Mystery of our redemption by Christ.’ The reason why God
instituted the old Sabbath was to be a memorial of the creation; but he has
now brought the first day of the week in its room in memory of a more
glorious work than creation, which is redemption. Great was the work of
creation, but greater was the work of redemption. As it was said, ‘The glory
of this latter house shall be greater than of the former.’
Hag 2: 9. So the glory of the redemption was greater than the
glory of the creation. Great wisdom was seen in making us, but more
miraculous wisdom in saving us. Great power was seen in bringing us out of
nothing, but greater power in helping us when we were worse than nothing. It
cost more to redeem than to create us. In creation it was but speaking a
word (Psa
148: 5); in redeeming there was shedding of blood.
1 Pet 1: 19. Creation was the work of God’s fingers,
Psa 8: 3, redemption was the work of his arm.
Luke 1: 51. In creation, God gave us ourselves; in the
redemption, he gave us himself. By creation, we have life in Adam; by
redemption, we have life in Christ.
Col 3: 3. By creation, we had a right to an earthly paradise: by
redemption, we have a title to a heavenly kingdom. Christ might well change
the seventh day of the week into the first, as it puts us in mind of our
redemption, which is a more glorious work than creation.
Use one.
The use I shall make of this is, that we should have the Christian Sabbath,
we now celebrate, in high veneration. The Jews called the Sabbath, ‘The
desire of days, and the queen of days.’ This day we must call a ‘delight,
the holy of the Lord, honourable.’
Isa 58: 13. Metal that has the king’s stamp upon it is
honourable, and of great value. God has set his royal stamp upon the
Sabbath; it is the Sabbath of the Lord, and this makes it honourable. We
should look upon this day as the best day in the week. What the phoenix is
among birds, what the sun is among planets the Lord’s-day is among other
days. ‘This is the day which the Lord has made.’
Psa 118: 24. God has made all the days, but he has blessed this.
As Jacob got the blessing from his brother, so the Sabbath got the blessing
from all other days in the week. It is a day in which we converse in a
special manner with God. The Jews called the Sabbath ‘a day of light;’ so on
this day the Sun of Righteousness shines upon the soul. The Sabbath is the
market-day of the soul, the cream of time. It is the day of Christ’s rising
from the grave, and the Holy Ghost’s descending upon the earth. It is
perfumed with the sweet odour of prayer, which goes up to heaven as incense.
On this day the manna falls, that is angels’ food. This is the soul’s
festival-day, on which the graces act their part: the other days of the week
are most employed about earth, this day about heaven; then you gather straw,
now pearl. Now Christ takes the soul up into the mount, and gives it
transfiguring sights of glory. Now he leads his spouse into the wine-cellar,
and displays the banner of his love. Now he gives her his spiced wine, and
the juice of the pomegranate.
Cant 2: 4,
8: 2. The Lord usually reveals himself more to the soul on this
day. The apostle John was in the Spirit on the Lord’s-day.
Rev 1: 10. He was carried up on this day in divine raptures
towards heaven. This day a Christian is in the altitudes; he walks with God,
and takes as it were a turn with him in heaven.
1 John 1: 3. On this day holy affections are quickened; the stock
of grace is improved; corruptions are weakened; and Satan falls like
lightning before the majesty of the word. Christ wrought most of his
miracles upon the Sabbath; so he does still: dead souls are raised and
hearts of stone are made flesh. How highly should we esteem and reverence
this day! It is more precious than rubies. God has anointed it with the oil
of gladness above its fellows. On the Sabbath we are doing angels’ work, our
tongues are tuned to God’s praises. The Sabbath on earth is a shadow and
type of the glorious rest and eternal Sabbath we hope for in heaven, when
God shall be the temple, and the Lamb shall be the light of it.
Rev 21: 22, 23.
Use two.
‘SIX days shalt thou labour.’ God would not have any live out of a calling:
religion gives no warrant for idleness. It is a duty to labour six days, as
well as keep holy rest on the seventh day. ‘We hear that there are some
which walk among you disorderly, working not at all. Now, them that are
such, we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus, that with quietness they
work, and eat their own bread.’
2 Thess 3: 11. A Christian must not only mind heaven, but his
calling. While the pilot has his eye to the star, he has his hand to the
helm. Without labour the pillars of a commonwealth will dissolve, and the
earth, like the sluggard’s field, will be overrun with briers.
Prov 24: 31. Adam in innocence, though monarch of the world, must
not be idle, but must dress and till the ground.
Gen 2: 15. Piety does not exclude industry. Standing water
putrifies. Inanimate creatures are in motion. The sun goes its circuit, the
fountain runs, and the fire sparkles. Animate creatures work. Solomon sends
us to the ant and pismire to learn labour.
Prov 6: 6;
30: 25. The bee is the emblem of industry; some of the bees trim
the honey, others work the wax, others frame the comb, others lie sentinel
at the door of the hive to keep out the drone. And shall not man much more
innate himself to labour? That law in paradise was never repeated. ‘In the
sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.’
Gen 3: 19. Such professors are to be disliked who talk of living
by faith, but live out of a calling; they are like the lilies which ‘toil
not, neither do they spin.’
Matt 6: 28. It is a speech of holy and learned Mr Perkins, ‘Let a
man be endowed with excellent gifts, and hear the word with reverence, and
receive the sacrament, yet if he practice not the duties of his calling, all
is but hypocrisy.’ What is an idle person good for? What benefit is a ship
that lies always on the shore? or armour that hangs up and rusts? To live
out of a calling exposes a person to temptation. Melanchthon calls idleness
the Devil’s bath, because he bathes himself with delight in an idle soul. We
do not sow seed in ground when it lies fallow; but Satan sows most of his
seed of temptation in such persons as lie fallow, and are out of a calling.
Idleness is the nurse of vice. Seneca, an old heathen, could say,
Nullus mihi per
otium dies exit; ‘No day passes me
without some labour.’ An idle person stands for a cipher in the world, and
God writes down no ciphers in the book of life. We read in Scripture of
eating the ‘bread of idleness,’ and drinking the ‘wine of violence.’
Prov 31: 27;
4: 17. It is as much a sin to eat ‘the bread of idleness,’ as to
‘drink the wine of violence.’ An idle person can give no account of his
time. Time is a talent to trade with, both in our particular and general
callings. The slothful person ‘hides his talent in the earth;’ he does no
good; his time is not lived, but lost. An idle person lives unprofitably, he
cumbers the ground. God calls the slothful servant ‘wicked.’ ‘Thou wicked
and slothful servant.’
Matt 25: 26. Draco, whose laws were written in blood, deprived
those of their life who would not work for their living. In Hetruria they
caused such persons to be banished. Idle persons live in the breach of the
commandment, ‘Six days shalt thou labour.’ Let them take heed they be not
banished from heaven. A man may as well go to hell for not working in his
calling, as for not believing.
Having
spoken of the reasons of sanctifying the Sabbath I come now to
III. The
manner of sanctifying the Sabbath.
[1]
Negatively. We must do no work in it. This is the commandment. ‘In it thou
shall do no manner of work.’ God has set apart this day for himself;
therefore we are not to use it in common, by doing any civil work. As when
Abraham went to sacrifice he left his servants and the ass at the bottom of
the hill; so, when we are to worship God on this day, we must leave all
worldly business behind, leave the ass at the bottom of the hill.
Gen 22: 5. As Joseph, when he would speak with his brethren,
thrust out the Egyptians, so, when we would converse with God on this day,
we must thrust out all earthly employments. The Lord’s day is a day of holy
rest. All secular work must be forborne and suspended, as it is a
profanation of the day. ‘In those days saw I in Judah some treading
winepresses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and lading asses; as
also wine, grapes and figs, and all manner of burdens which they brought
into Jerusalem on the Sabbath-day; and I testified against them. Then I
contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto them, “What evil thing is
this that ye do, and profane the Sabbath-day?’ ”
Neh 13: 15, 17. It is sacrilege to rob for civil work the time
which God has set apart for his worship. He that devotes any time of the
Sabbath to worldly business, is a worse thief than he who robs on the
highway; for the one does but rob man, but the other robs God. The Lord
forbade mamma to be gathered on the Sabbath.
Exod 16: 26. One might think it would have been allowed, as manna
was the ‘staff of their life,’ and the time when it fell was between five
and six in the morning, so that they might have gathered it betimes, and all
the rest of the Sabbath might have been employed in God’s worship; and
besides, they needed not to have taken any great journey for it, for it was
but stepping out of their doors, and it fell about their tents: and yet they
might not gather it on the Sabbath; and for purposing only to do it, God was
very angry. ‘There went out some of the people on the seventh day for to
gather, and they found none. And the Lord said, How long refuse ye to keep
my commandments and my laws?’
Exod 16: 27, 28. Surely anointing Christ when he was dead was a
commendable work; but, though Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James,
had prepared sweet ointments to anoint the dead body of Christ, they went
not to the sepulchre to embalm him till the Sabbath was past. ‘They rested
the Sabbath-day, according to the commandment.’
Luke 23: 56. The hand cannot be busied on the Lord’s-day but the
heart will be defiled. The very heathen, by the light of nature, would not
do any secular work in the time which they had set apart for the worship of
their false gods. Clemens Alexandrinus reports of one of the emperors of
Rome, who, on the day of set worship for his gods, put aside warlike affairs
and spent the time in devotion. To do servile work on the Sabbath shows an
irreligious heart, and greatly offends God. To do secular work on this day
is to follow the devil’s slough; it is to debase the soul. God made this day
on purpose to raise the heart to heaven, to converse with him, to do angels’
work; and to be employed in earthly work is to degrade the soul of its
honour. God will not have his day entrenched upon, or defiled in the least
thing. The man that gathered sticks on the Sabbath he commanded to be
stoned.
Numb. 15: 35. It would seem a small thing to pick up a few sticks
to make a fire; but God would not have this day violated in the smallest
matters. Nay, the work which had reference to a religious use might not be
done on the Sabbath, as the hewing of stones for the building of the
sanctuary. Bezaleel, who was to cut the stones, and carve the timber out for
the sanctuary, must forbear to do it on the Sabbath.
Exod 31: 15. A temple is a place of God’s worship, but it was a
sin to build a temple on the Lord’s-day. This is keeping the Sabbath-day
holy negatively, in doing no servile work.
Works of
necessity and charity however may be done on this day. In these cases God
will have mercy and not sacrifice. (1) It is lawful to take the necessary
supplies of nature. Food is to the body as oil to the lamp. (2) It is lawful
to do works of mercy, as helping a neighbour when either life or estate are
in danger. Herein the Jews were too nice and precise, who would not suffer
works of charity to be done on the Sabbath. If a man was sick, they thought
they might not on this day use means for his recovery. Christ charges them
with being angry because he had wrought a cure on the Sabbath.
John 7: 23. If a house were on fire, the Jews thought they might
not bring water to quench it; if a vessel leaked on this day, they thought
they might not stop it. They were ‘righteous overmuch;’ it was seeming zeal,
but wanted discretion to guide it. Except in these two cases, of necessity
and charity, all secular work is to be suspended and laid aside on the
Lord’s-day. ‘In it thou shalt do no manner of work.’ This arraigns and
condemns many among us who too much foul their fingers with work on that
day; some in dressing great feasts, others in opening their shop-doors, and
selling meat on the Sabbath. The mariner will not put to sea but on the
Sabbath, and so runs full sail into the violation of this command. Others
work on this day privately, put up their shop-windows, and follow their
trade within doors; but though they think to hide their sin under a canopy,
God sees it. ‘Whither shall I flee from thy presence?’ ‘The darkness hideth
not from thee.’
Psa 139: 7, 12. Such profane the day, and God will have an action
of trespass against them.
[2]
Positively. We keep the Sabbath-day holy, by ‘consecrating and dedicating’
this day to the ‘service of the high God.’ It is good to rest on the
Sabbath-day from the works of our calling; but if we rest from labour and do
no more, the ox and the ass keep the Sabbath as well as we; for they rest
from labour. We must dedicate the day to God; we must not only ‘keep a
Sabbath,’ but ‘sanctify’ a Sabbath. Sabbath-sanctification consists in two
things: (1) Solemn preparation for it. If a prince were to come to your
house, what preparation would you make for his entertainment! You would
sweep the house, wash the floor, adorn the room with the richest tapestry
and hangings, that there might be something suitable to the state and
dignity of so great a person. On the blessed Sabbath, God intends to have
sweet communion with you; he seems to say to you, as Christ to Zacchaeus,
‘Make haste and come down, for this day I must abide at thy house.’
Luke 19: 5. Now, what preparation should you make for
entertaining this King of glory? When Saturday evening approaches, sound a
retreat; call your minds off from the world and summon your thoughts
together, to think of the great work of the approaching day. Purge out all
unclean affections, which may indispose you for the work of the Sabbath.
Evening preparation will be like the tuning of an instrument, it will fit
the heart better for the duties of the ensuing Sabbath.
(2) The
sacred observation of it. Rejoice at the approach of the day, as a day
wherein we have a prize for our souls, and may enjoy much of God’s presence.
John 8: 56. ‘Abraham rejoiced to see my day.’ So, when we see the
light of a Sabbath shine, we should rejoice, and ‘call the Sabbath a
delight:’ this is the queen of days, which God has crowned with a blessing.
Isa 58: 13. As there was one day in the week on which God rained
manna twice as much as upon any other day, so he rains down the manna of
heavenly blessings twice as much on the Sabbath as on any other. This is the
day wherein Christ carries the soul into the house of wine, and displays the
banner of love over it; now the dew of the Spirit falls on the soul, whereby
it is revived and comforted. How many may write the Lord’s day, the day of
their new birth! This day of rest is a pledge and earnest of the eternal
rest in heaven. Shall we not then rejoice at its approach? The day on which
the Sun of Righteousness shines should be a day of gladness.
Get up
betides on the Sabbath morning. Christ rose early on this day, before the
sun was up.
John 20: 1. Did he rise early to save us, and shall not we rise
early to worship and glorify him? ‘Early will I seek thee.’
Psa 63: 1. Can we be up betimes on other days? The husband man is
early at his slough, the traveller rises early to go his journey, and shall
not we, who on this day are travelling to heaven? Certainly, if we loved God
as we should, we should rise on this day betimes, that we may meet with him
whom our souls love. Such as sit up late at work on the night before, are so
buried in sleep, that they will hardly be up betides on a Sabbath morning.
IV. Having
dressed your bodies, you must dress your souls for hearing the word. As the
people of Israel were to wash themselves before the law was delivered to
them, so we must wash and cleanse our souls; and that is done by reading,
meditation, and prayer.
Exod 19: 10.
[1] By
reading the word. The word is a great means to sanctify the heart, and bring
it into a Sabbath-frame. ‘Sanctify them through thy truth,’ &c.
John 17: 17. Read not the word carelessly, but with seriousness
and affection; as the oracle of heaven, the well of salvation, the book of
life. David, for its preciousness, esteemed it above gold; and for its
sweetness, above honey.
Psa 19: 10. By reading the word aright, our hearts, when dull,
are quickened; when hard, are mollified; when cold and frozen are inflamed;
and we can say as the disciples, ‘Did not our heart burn within us?’ Some
step out of their bed to hearing. The reason why many get no more good on a
Sabbath by the word preached, is because they did not breakfast with God in
the morning by reading his word.
[2]
Meditation. Get upon the mount of meditation, and there converse with God.
Meditation is the soul’s retiring within itself, that, by a serious and
solemn thinking upon God, the heart may be raised up to divine affections.
It is a work fit for the morning of a Sabbath. Meditate on four things.
(1) On the
works of creation. This is expressed in the commandment. “The Lord made
heaven and earth, the sea,’ &c. The creation is a looking glass, in which we
see the wisdom and power of God gloriously represented. God produced this
fair structure of the world without any pre-existent matter, and with a
word. ‘By the word of the Lord were the heavens made.’
Psa 33: 6. The disciples wondered that Christ could, with a word,
calm the sea, but it was far more astounding with a word to make the sea.
Matt 8: 26. On the Sabbath let us meditate on the infiniteness of
the Creator. Look up to the firmament and see God’s wonders in the deep.’
Psa 107: 24. Look into the earth, where we may behold the nature
of minerals, the power of the loadstone, the virtue of herbs, and the beauty
of flowers. By meditating on these works of creation, so curiously
embroidered, we shall learn to admire God and praise him. ‘O Lord, how
manifold are thy works, in wisdom hast thou made them all.’
Psa 104: 24. By meditating on the works of creation, we shall
learn to confide in God. He who can create, can provide; he that could make
us when we were nothing, can raise us when we are low. ‘Our help is in the
name of the Lord who made heaven and earth.’
Psa 124: 8.
(2)
Meditate on God’s holiness. ‘Holy and reverend is his name.’
Psa 111: 9. ‘Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil.’
Hab 1: 13. God is essentially, originally, and efficiently holy.
A11 the holiness in men and angels is but a crystal stream that runs from
this glorious fountain. God loves holiness because it is his own image. A
king cannot but love to see his own effigies stamped on coin. God counts
holiness his glory, and the most sparkling jewel of his crown. ‘Glorious
unholiness.’
Exod 15: 2: Here is meditation fit for the first entrance upon a
Sabbath. The contemplation of this would work in us such a frame of heart as
is suitable to a holy God; it would make us reverence his name and hallow
his day. While musing; upon the holiness of God’s nature, we shall begin to
be transformed into his likeness.
(3)
Meditate on Christ’s love in redeeming us.
Rev 1: 5. Redemption exceeds creation; the one is a monument of
God’s power, the other of his love. Here is fit work for a Sabbath. Oh, the
infinite stupendous love of Christ in raising poor lapsed creatures from a
state of guilt and damnation! That Christ who was God should die! that this
glorious Sun of Righteousness should be in an eclipse! We can never admire
enough this love, no, not in heaven. That Christ should die for sinners! not
sinful angels, but sinful men. That such clods of earth and sin should be
made bright stars of glory! Oh, the amazing love of Christ! This was
Illustre amoris Christi mnemosynum. Brugensis. That Christ should not only
die for sinners, but die as a sinner! ‘He has made him to be sin for us’
2 Cor 5: 21. He who was among the glorious persons of the
Trinity, ‘was numbered with the transgressors.’
Isa 53: 12. Not that he had sin, but he was like a sinner, having
our sins imputed to him. Sin did not live in him, but it was laid upon him.
Here was an hyperbole of love enough to strike us with astonishment. That
Christ should redeem us, when he could not expect to gain anything, or to be
advantaged at all by us! Men will not lay out their money upon purchase
unless it will turn to their profit; but what benefit could Christ expect in
purchasing and redeeming us? We were in such a condition that we could
neither deserve nor recompense Christ’s love. We could not deserve it; for
we were in our blood.
Ezek 16: 6. We had no spiritual beauty to tempt him. Nay, we were
not only in our blood, but we were in arms against him. ‘When we were
enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son;’
Rom 5: 10. When he was shedding his blood, we were spitting out
poison. As we could not deserve, so neither could we recompense it. After he
had died for us, we could not so much as love him, till he made us love him.
We could give him nothing in lieu of his love. ‘Who has first given to him?’
Rom 11: 35. We were fallen into poverty. If we have any beauty,
it is from him, ‘It was perfect through my comeliness which I had put upon
thee.’
Ezek 16: 14. If we bring forth any good fruit, it is not of our
own growth, it comes from him, the true vine. ‘From me is thy fruit found.’
Hos 14: 8. It was nothing but pure love for Christ to lay out his
blood to redeem such as he could not expect to be really bettered by. That
Christ should die so willingly! ‘I lay down my life.’
John 10: 17. The Jews could not have taken it away if he had not
laid it down. He could have called to his Father for legions of angels to be
his life-guard; but what need for even that, when his own Godhead could have
defended himself from all assaults? He laid down his life. The Jews did not
so much thirst for his death, as he thirsted for our redemption. ‘I have a
baptism to be baptised with, and how am I straitened till it be
accomplished?’
Luke 12: 50. He called his sufferings a baptism; he was to be
baptised and sprinkled with his own blood; and he thought the time long
before he suffered. To show Christ’s willingness to die, his sufferings are
called an offering. ‘Through the offering of the body of Jesus.’
Heb 10: 10. His death was a free-will offering. That Christ
should not grudge nor think much of all his sufferings! Though he was
scourged and crucified, he was well contented with what he had done, and, if
it were needful, he would do it again. ‘He shall see of the travail of his
soul, and shall be satisfied.’
Isa 53: 11. As the mother who has had hard labour, does not
repent of her pangs when she sees a child brought forth, but is well
contented; so Christ, though he had hard travail upon the cross, does not
think much of it; he is not troubled, but thinks his sweat and blood well
bestowed, because he sees the man-child of redemption brought forth into the
world. That Christ should make redemption effectual to some, and not to
others! Here is surprising love. Though there is sufficiency in his merits
to save all, yet some only partake of their saving virtue; all do not
believe. ‘There are some of you that believe not.’
John 6: 64. Christ does not pray for all.
John 17: 9. Some refuse him. This is ‘the stone which the
builders refused.’
Psa 118: 22. Others deride him.
Luke 16: 14. Others throw off his yoke. ‘We will not have this
man to reign over us.’
Luke 19: 14. SO that all have not the benefit of salvation by
him. Herein appears the distinguishing love of Christ, that the virtue of
his death should reach some, and not others. ‘Not many wise men after the
flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called.’
1 Cor 1: 26. That Christ should pass by many of birth and parts,
and that the lot of free grace should fall upon thee; that he should
sprinkle his blood upon thee; ‘Oh, the depth of the love of Christ!’ That
Christ should love us with such a transcendent love! The apostle calls it
‘Love which passeth knowledge.’
Eph 3: 19. That he should love us more than the angels. He loves
them as his friends, but believers as his spouse. He loves them with such a
kind of love as God the Father bears to him. ‘As the Father has loved me, so
have I loved you.’
John 15: 9. Oh, what an hyperbole of love does Christ show in
redeeming us! That Christ’s love in our redemption should be everlasting!
‘Having loved his own, he loved them unto the end.’
John 13: 1. As Christ’s love is matchless, so it is endless. The
flower of his love is sweet; and that which makes it sweeter is that it
never dies. His love is eternized.
Jer 31: 3. He will never divorce his elect spouse. The failings
of his people cannot quite take off his love; they may eclipse it, but not
wholly remove it; their failings may make Christ angry with them, but not
hate them. Every failing does not break the marriagebond. Christ’s love is
not like the saint’s love. They sometimes have strong affections towards
him, at other times the fit is off, and they find little or no love stirring
in them; but it is not so with Christ’s love to them, it is a love of
eternity. When the sunshine of Christ’s electing love is once risen upon the
soul, it never finally sets. Death may take away our life from us, but not
Christ’s love. Behold here a rare subject for meditation on a Sabbath
morning. The meditation of Christ’s wonderful love in redeeming us would
work in us a Sabbath-frame of heart.
It would
melt us in tears for our spiritual unkindness, that we should sin against so
sweet a Saviour; that we should be no more affected with his love, but
requite evil for good; that like the Athenians, who, notwithstanding all the
good service Aristides had done them, banished him out of their city, we
should banish him from our temple; that we should grieve him with our pride,
rash anger, unfruitfulness, animosities, and strange factions. Have we none
to abuse but our friend? Have we nothing to kick against but the bowels of
our Saviour? Did not Christ suffer enough upon the cross, but we must needs
make him suffer more? Do we give him more ‘gall and vinegar to drink?’ Oh,
if anything can dissolve the heart in sorrow, and melt the eyes to tears, it
is unkindness offered to Christ. When Peter thought of Christ’s love to him,
how he had made him an apostle, and revealed his bosom-secrets to him, and
taken him to the mount of transfiguration, and yet that he should deny him;
it broke his heart with sorrow; ‘he went out and wept bitterly.’
Matt 26: 75. What a blessed thing is it to have the eyes dropping
tears on a Sabbath! and nothing would sooner fetch tears than to meditate on
Christ’s love to us, and our unkindness to him.
Meditating
on a Lord’s-day morning on Christ’s love, would kindle love in our hearts to
him. How can we look on his bleeding and dying for us and our hearts not be
warmed with love to him? Love is the soul of religion, the purest affection.
It is not rivers of oil, but sparks of love that Christ values. And sure, as
David said, ‘While I was musing the fire burned’ (Psa
39: 3), so, while we are musing of Christ’s love in redeeming us,
the fire of our love will burn towards him; and then the Christian is in a
blessed Sabbath-frame, when, like a seraphim, he is burning in love to
Christ.
(4) On a
Sabbath morning meditate on the glory of heaven. Heaven is the extract and
essence of happiness. It is called a kingdom.
Matt 25: 34. A kingdom for its riches and magnificence. It is set
forth by precious stones, and gates of pearl.
Rev 21: 19, 21. There is all that is truly glorious; transparent
light, perfect love, unstained honour, unmixed joy; and that which crowns
the joy of the celestial paradise is eternity. Suppose earthly kingdoms were
more glorious than they are, their foundations of gold, their walls of
pearl, their windows of sapphire, yet they are corruptible; but the kingdom
of heaven is eternal; those rivers of pleasure run ‘for evermore.’
Psa 16: 11. That wherein the essence of glory consists, and makes
heaven to be heaven, is the immediate sight and fruition of the blessed God.
‘I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.’
Psa 17: 15. Oh, think of the Jerusalem above!
This is
proper for a Sabbath. The meditation of heaven would raise our hearts above
the world. oh, how would earthly things disappear and shrink into nothing,
if our minds were mounted above visible things, and we had a prospect of
glory! How would the meditation of heaven make us heavenly in our Sabbath
exercises! It would quicken affection, would add wings to devotion, and
cause us to be ‘in the Spirit on the Lord’s-day.’
Rev 1: 10. How vigorously does he serve God who has a crown of
glory always in his eye!
[3] We
dress our souls on a Sabbath-morning by prayer; ‘When thou prayest, enter
into thy closet,’ &c.
Matt 6: 6. Prayer sanctifies a Sabbath.
(1) The
things we should pray for in the morning of the Sabbath. Let us beg a
blessing upon the word which is to be preached; that it may be a savour of
life to us; that by it our minds may be more illuminated, our corruptions
more weakened, and our stock of grace more increased. Let us pray that God’s
special presence may be with us, that our hearts may burn within us while
God speaks, that we may receive the word into meek and humble hearts, and
that we may submit to it, and bring forth fruits.
James 1: 21. Nor should we only pray for ourselves, but for
others.
Pray for
him who dispenses the word; that his tongue may be touched with a coal from
God’s altar; that God would warm his heart who is to help to warm others.
Your prayers may be a means to quicken the minister. Some complain they find
no benefit by the word preached; perhaps they did not pray for their
minister as they should. Prayer is like the whetting and sharpening of an
instrument, which makes it cut better. Pray with and for your family. Yea,
pray for all the congregations that meet on this day in the fear of the
Lord; that the dew of the Spirit may fall with the manna of the word; that
some souls may be converted, and others strengthened; that gospel ordinances
may be continued, and have no restraint put upon them. These are the things
we should pray for. The tree of mercy will not drop its fruit, useless it be
shaken by the hand of prayer.
(2) The
manner of our prayer. It is not enough to say a prayer; to pray in a dull,
cold manner, which asks God to deny; but we must pray with reverence,
humility, fervency, and hope in God’s mercy.
Luke 22: 44. Christ prayed more earnestly. That we may pray with
more fervency, we must pray with a sense of our wants. He who is pinched
with wants, will be earnest in craving alms. He prays most fervently who
prays most feelingly. This is to sanctify the morning of a Sabbath; and it
is a good preparation for the word preached. When the ground is broken up by
the slough, it is fit to receive the seed; when the heart has been broken by
prayer, it is fit to receive the seed of the preached word.
V. Having
thus dressed your souls on a morning, for the further sanctification of the
Sabbath, address yourself to the hearing of the preached word.
When you
sit down in your seat, lift up your eyes to heaven for a blessing upon the
word to be dispensed; for you must know that the word preached does not work
as physic, by its own inherent virtue, but by a virtue from heaven, and the
co-operation of the Holy Ghost. Therefore put up a short ejaculatory prayer
for a blessing upon the word, that it may be made effectual to you.
The word
being begun to be preached, hear it with reverence and holy attention. ‘A
certain woman, named Lydia, attended unto the things which were spoken of
Paul.’
Acts 16: 14. Constantine, the emperor, was noted for his reverent
attention to the word. Christ taught daily in the temple: and ‘all the
people were very attentive to hear him.’
Luke 19: 48. In the Greek, ‘they hung upon his lip.’ Could we
tell men of a rich purchase, they would diligently attend; and should they
not much more, when the gospel of grace is preached unto them? That we may
sanctify and hallow the Sabbath by attentive hearing, beware of these two
things in hearing: distraction and drowsiness.
[1]
Distraction. ‘That ye may attend open the Lord without distraction.’
1 Cor 7: 35. It is said of Bernard, that when he came to the
church-door, he would say, ‘Stay here all my earthly thoughts.’ So should we
say to ourselves, when we are at the door of God’s house, ‘Stay here all my
worldly cares and wandering cogitations; I am now going to hear what the
Lord will say to me.’ Distraction hinders devotion. The mind is tossed with
vain thoughts, and diverted from the business in hand. It is hard to make a
quicksilver heart fix. Jerome complains of himself, ‘Sometimes when I am
about God’s service,
per porticus
diambulo, I am walking in the
galleries, and sometimes casting up accounts.’ How often in hearing the
word, the thoughts dance up and down; and, when the eye is upon the
minister, the mind is upon other things. Distracted hearing is far from
sanctifying the Sabbath. It is very sinful to give way to vain thoughts at
this time; because, when we are hearing the word, we are in God’s special
presence. To do any treasonable action in the king’s presence is high great
impudence. ‘Yea, in my house have I found their wickedness.’
Jer 23: 11. So the Lord may say, ‘In my house, while they are
hearing my word, I have found wickedness; they have wanton eyes, and their
soul is set on vanity.’
Whence do
these roving and distracting thoughts in hearing come?
(1) Partly
from Satan. The devil is sure to be present in our assemblies. If he cannot
hinder us from hearing, he will hinder us in hearing. ‘When the sons of God
came to present themselves before the Lord, Satan came also among them.’
Job 1: 6. The devil sets vain objects before the fancy to cause a
diversion. His great design is to render the word fruitless. As when one is
writing, another jogs him that he cannot write even, so when we are hearing,
the devil will be jogging us with a temptation, that we should not attend to
the word preached. ‘He shewed me Joshua the high-priest standing before the
angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him.’
Zech 3: 1.
(2) These
wandering thoughts in hearing come partly from ourselves. We must not lay
all the blame upon Satan.
They come
from the eye. A wandering eye causes wandering thoughts. As a thief may come
into the house at a window, so vain thoughts may be at the eye. As we are
bid to keep our feet when we enter into the house of God (Eccl
5: 1), so we had need make a covenant with our eyes, that we be
not distracted by beholding other objects.
Job 31: 1.
Wandering
thoughts in hearing rise out of the heart. These sparks come out of our own
furnace. Vain thoughts are the mud which the heart, as from a troubled sea,
casts up. ‘For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts.’
Mark 7: 21. As the foulness of the stomach sends up fumes into
the head, so the corruption of the heart sends up evil thoughts into the
mind.
Distracted
thoughts in hearing proceed from an evil habit. We inure ourselves to vain
thoughts at other times, and therefore we cannot hinder them on a Sabbath.
Habit is a second nature. ‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard
his spots? then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil?’
Jer 13: 23. He that is used to bad company, knows not how to
leave it; so such as have vain thoughts to keep them company all the week,
know not how to get rid of them on the Sabbath. Let me show you how evil
these vain distracting thoughts in hearing are: —
[1] To
have the heart distracted in hearing, is a disrespect to God’s omniscience.
God is an all-seeing Spirit; and thoughts speak louder in his ears than
words do in ours. ‘He declareth unto man what is his thought.’
Amos 4: 13. To make no conscience of wandering thoughts in
hearing, is an affront to God’s omniscience, as if he knew not our heart, or
did not hear the language of our thoughts.
[2] To
give way to wandering thoughts in hearing is hypocrisy. We pretend to hear
what God says, and our minds are quite upon another thing. We present God
with our bodies, but do not give him our hearts.
Hos 7: 11. This hypocrisy God complains of. ‘This people draw
near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed
their hearts far from me.’
Isa 29: 13. This is to prevaricate and deal falsely with God.
[3] Vain
thoughts in hearing discover much want of love to God. Did we love him we
should listen to his words as oracles, and write them upon the table of our
heart.
Prov 3: 3. When a friend whom we love speaks to us, and gives us
advice, we attend with seriousness, and suck in every word. Giving our
thoughts leave to ramble in holy duties, shows a great defect in our love to
God.
[4] Vain
impertinent thoughts in hearing defile an ordinance. They are as dead flies
in the box of ointment. When a string of a lute is out of tune, it spoils
the music; so distraction of thought puts the mind out of tune, and makes
our services sound harsh and unpleasant. Wandering thoughts poison a duty,
and turn it into sin. ‘Let his prayer become sin.’
Psa 109: 7. What can be worse than to have a man’s praying and
hearing of the word become sin? Would it not be sad, if the meat we eat
should increase bad humours? How much more when hearing the word, which is
the food of the soul, is turned into sin!
[5] Vain
thoughts in hearing offend God. If the king were speaking to one of his
subjects, and he should not give heed to what the king says, but be thinking
on another business, or playing with a feather, would not the king be
provoked? So, when we are in God’s presence, and he is speaking to us in his
word, and we mind not much what he says, but our hearts go after
covetousness, will it not offend God to be thus slighted?
Ezek 33: 31. He has pronounced a curse upon such. ‘Cursed be the
deceiver, which has in his flock a male, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a
corrupt thing.’
Mal 1: 14. To have strong lively affections is to have a male in
the flock; but to hear the word with distraction, is to give God duties
fly-blown with vain thoughts, and to offer to the Lord a corrupt thing,
which brings a curse. ‘Cursed be the deceiver.’
[6] Vain
thoughts in hearing, when allowed and not resisted, make way for hardening
the heart. A stone in the heart is worse than in the kidneys. Distracted
thoughts in hearing do not better the heart, but harden it. Vain thoughts
take away the holy awe of God which should be upon the heart; they make
conscience less tender, and hinder the efficacy the word should have upon
the heart.
[7] Vain
and distracting thoughts rob us of the comfort of an ordinance. A gracious
soul often meets with God in the sanctuary, and can say, ‘I found him whom
my soul loveth.’
Cant 3: 4. He is like Jonathan, who, when he had tasted the honey
on the rod, had his eyes enlightened. But vain thoughts hinder the comfort
of an ordinance, as a black cloud hides the warm comfortable beams of the
sun. Will God speak peace to us when our minds are wandering and our
thoughts are travelling to the ends of the earth?
Prov 17: 24. If ever you would hear the word with attention, do
as Abraham when he drove away the fowls from the sacrifice.
Gen 15: 2. When you find these excursions and sinful wanderings
in hearing, labour to drive away the fowls; get rid of these vain thoughts;
they are vagrants, and must not be entertained.
How shall
we get rid of these vagabond thoughts?
(1) Pray
and watch against them. (2) Let the sense of God’s omniscient eye overawe
your hearts. The servant will not sport in his master’s presence. (3) Labour
for a holy frame of heart. Were the heart more spiritual, the mind would be
less feathery. (4) Bring more love to the word. We fix our minds upon that
which we love. He that loves his pleasures and recreations, fixes his mind
upon them, and can follow them without distraction. Were our love more set
upon the preached word, our minds would be more fixed upon it; and surely
there is enough to make us love the word preached; for it is the word of
life, the inlet to knowledge, the antidote against sin, the quickener of all
holy affections. It is the true manna, which has all sorts of sweet tastes
in it; the pool of Bethesda, in which the rivers of life spring forth to
heal the broken in heart; and a sovereign elixir or cordial to revive the
sorrowful spirit. Get love to the word preached, and you will not be so
distracted in hearing. What the heart delights in, the thoughts dwell upon.
[2] Take
heed of drowsiness in hearing. Drowsiness shows much irreverence. How lively
are many when they are about the world, but in the worship of God how
drowsy, as if the devil had given them opium to make them sleep! A drowsy
feeling here is very sinful. Are you not in prayer asking pardon of sin?
Will the prisoner fall asleep when he is begging pardon? In the preaching of
the word, is not the bread of life broken to you? and will a man fall asleep
over his food? Which is worse, to stay from a sermon, or sleep at a sermon?
While you slept, perhaps the truth was delivered which might have converted
your souls. Besides, sleeping is very offensive in a holy assembly; it not
only grieves the Spirit of God, but makes the hearts of the righteous sad.
Ezek 13: 22. It troubles them to see any show such contempt of
God and his worship; to see them busy in the shop, but drowsy in the temple.
Therefore, as Christ said, ‘Could ye not watch one hour?’ so, can ye not
wake one hour?
Matt 26: 40. I deny not but a child of God may sometimes, through
weakness and indisposition of body, drop asleep at a sermon, but not
voluntarily or ordinarily. The sun may be in an eclipse, but not often. If
sleeping be customary and allowed, it is a very bad sign, and a profanation
of the ordinance. A good remedy against drowsiness is to use a spare diet
upon the Sabbath. Such as indulge their appetite too much on a Sabbath, are
fitter to sleep on a couch than pray in the temple. That you may throw off
distracting thoughts and drowsiness on the Lord’s-day, and may hear the word
with reverend attention, consider —
(1) It is
God that speaks to us in his word; therefore the preaching of the word is
called the ‘breath of his lips.’
Isa 11: 4. Christ is said now to speak to us ‘from heaven,’ as a
king speaks in his ambassador.
Heb 12: 25. Ministers are but pipes and organs, it is the Spirit
of the living God that breathes in them. When we come to the word, we should
think within ourselves, God is speaking in this preacher. The Thessalonians
heard the word Paul preached, as if God himself had spoken unto them. ‘When
ye received the word of God, which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the
word of men, but (as it is in truth) the word of God.’
1 Thess 2: 13. When Samuel knew it was the Lord that spake to
him, he lent his ear.
1 Sam 3: 10. If we do not regard God when he speaks to us, he
will not regard us when we pray to him.
(2)
Consider how serious and weighty the matters delivered to us are. Moses
said, ‘I call heaven and earth to record this day, that I have set before
you life and death.’
Deut 30: 19. Can men be regardless of the word, or drowsy when
the weighty matters of eternity are set before them? We preach faith, and
holiness of life, and the day of judgement and eternal retribution. Here
life and death are set before you; and does not all this call for serious
attention? If a letter were read to one of special business, wherein his
life and estate were concerned, would he not be very serious in listening to
it? In the preaching of the word your salvation is concerned; and if ever
you would attend, it should be now. ‘It is not a vain thing for you; because
it is your life.’
Deut 32: 47.
(3) To
give way to vain thoughts and drowsiness in hearing, gratifies Satan. He
knows that not to mind a duty, is all one in religion as not to do it. ‘What
the heart does not do, is not done.’ Therefore Christ says of some,
‘Hearing, they hear not.’
Matt 13: 13. How could that be? Because, though the word sounded
in their ear, yet they minded not what was said to them, their thoughts were
upon other things; therefore, it was all as one as if they did not hear.
Does it not please Satan to see men come to the word, and as good stay away?
They are haunted with vain thoughts; they are taken off from the duty while
they are in it; their body is in the assembly, their heart in their shop.
‘Hearing, they hear not.’
(4) Each
Sabbath may be the last we shall ever keep; we may go from the place of
hearing to the place of judging; and shall not we give reverend attention to
the word? Did we think when we come into God’s house ‘Perhaps this will be
the last time that ever God will counsel us about our souls, and before
another sermon death’s alarm will sound in our ears; with what attention and
devotion should we feel, and our affections would be all on fire in hearing!
(5) You
must give an account for every sermon you hear.
Redde rationem:
‘Give an account of thy stewardship.’
Luke 16: 2. So will God say, ‘Give an account of thy hearing.
Hast thou been affected with the word? Hast thou profited by it?’ How can we
give a good account, if we have been distracted in hearing, and have not
taken notice of what has been said to us? The judge to whom we must give an
account is God. Were we to give account to man, we might falsify accounts;
but we must give an account to God.
Nec donis
corrumpitur, nec blanditiis fallitur.
Bernard. ‘He is so just a God that he cannot be bribed, and so wise that he
cannot be deceived.’ Therefore, having to give an account to such an
impartial Judge, how should we observe every word preached, remembering the
account! Let all this make us shake off distraction and drowsiness in
hearing, and have our ears chained to the word.
VI. IN
order to hear the word aright, let the following things be attended to: —
[1] Lay
aside those dispositions which may render the preached word ineffectual. As,
(1)
Curiosity. Some go to hear the word preached, not so much to get grace, as
to enrich themselves with notions: having ‘itching ears.’
2 Tim 4: 3. Augustine confesses that, before his conversion, he
went to hear Ambrose for his eloquence rather than for the spirituality of
the matter. ‘Thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that has a
pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument.’
Ezek 33: 32. Many go to the word to feast their ears only; they
like the melody of the voice, the mellifluous sweetness of the expression,
and the novelty of the opinions.
Acts 17: 21. This is to love the garnishing of the dish more than
the food; it is to desire to be pleased rather than edified. Like a woman
that paints her face, but neglects her health — they paint and adorn
themselves with curious speculations, but neglect their soul’s health. This
hearing neither sanctifies the heart nor the Sabbath.
(2) Lay
aside prejudice. Prejudice is sometimes against the truths preached. The
Sadducees were prejudiced against the doctrine of the resurrection.
Luke 20: 27. Sometimes prejudice is against the person preaching.
‘There is one Micaiah, by whom we may inquire of the Lord, but I hate him.’
1 Kings 22: 8. This hinders the power of the word. If a patient
has an ill opinion of his physician, he will not take any of his medicines,
however good they may be. Prejudice in the mind is like an obstruction in
the stomach, which hinders the nutritive virtue of the meat. It poisons the
word, and causes it to lose its efficacy.
(3) Lay
aside covetousness. Covetousness is not only getting worlds gain unjustly,
but loving it inordinately. This is a great hindrance to the preached word.
The seed which fell among thorns was choked,
Matt 13: 22; a fit emblem of the word when preached to a covetous
hearer. The covetous man is thinking on the world when he is hearing; his
heart is in his shop. ‘They sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy
words, but their heart goes after their covetousness.’
Ezek 33: 31. A covetous hearer derides the word. ‘The Pharisees,
who were covetous, heard all these things, and they derided him.’
Luke 16: 14.
(4) Lay
aside partiality. Partiality in hearing is, when we like to hear some truths
preached, but not all. We love to hear of heaven, but not of self-denial; of
reigning with Christ, but not of suffering with him; of the more facile
duties of religion, but not those which are more knotty and difficult; as
mortification, laying the axe to the root, and hewing down our beloved sin.
‘Speak smooth things’ (Isa
30: 10), such as may not grate upon the conscience. Many like to
hear of the love of Christ, but not of loving their enemies; they like the
comforts of the word, but not its reproofs. Herod heard John the Baptist
gladly; he liked many truths, but not when he spake against his incest.
(5) Lay
aside censoriousness. Some, instead of judging themselves for sin, sit as
judges upon the preacher; his sermon had either too much gall in it, or it
was too long. They would sooner censure a sermon than practice it. God will
judge the judger.
Matt 7: 1.
(6) Lay
aside disobedience. ‘All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a
disobedient people.’
Rom 10: 21. It is said of the Jews that God stretched out his
hands in the preaching of the word, but they rejected Christ. Let there be
none among you that wilfully refuse the counsels of the word. It is sad to
have an adder’s ear and an adamant heart.
Zech 7: 11, 12. If, when God speaks to us in his word, we are
deaf, when we speak to him in prayer, he will be dumb.
[2] If you
would hear the word aright, have good ends in hearing. ‘Come to the word to
be made better.’ Some have no other end in hearing but because it is in
fashion, or to gain repute, or stop the mouth of conscience; but come to the
word to be made more holy. There is a great difference between one who goes
to a garden for flowers to wear in her bosom, and another that goes for
flowers to make syrups and medicines. We should go to the word for medicine
to cure us; as Naaman the Syrian went to Jordan to be healed of his leprosy.
‘Desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.’
1 Pet 2: 2. Go to the word to be changed into its similitude. As
the seal leaves its print upon the wax, so labour that the word preached may
leave the print of its own holiness upon your heart.
Labour
that the ‘word’ may have such a virtue in you, as the water of jealousy, to
kill and make fruitful; that it may kill your sins, and make your souls
fruitful in grace.
Numb 5: 27.
[3] If you
would hear the word aright, go to it with delight. The word preached is a
feast of fat things. With what delight do men go to a feast! The word
preached anoints the blind eye; mollifies the rocky heart; it beats off our
fetters, and turns us from the ‘power of Satan unto God.’
Acts 26: 18. The word is the seed of regeneration, and the engine
of salvation.
James 1: 18. Hear the word with delight and complacency. ‘Thy
words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was the joy and rejoicing
of mine heart.’
Jer 15: 16. ‘How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter
than honey to my mouth.’
Psa 119: 103. Love the word that comes most home to the
conscience; bless God when your corruptions have been met with, when the
sword of the Spirit has divided between you and your sins. Who cares for the
physic which will not work?
[4] If you
would hear the word aright, mix it with faith. Believe the truth of the word
preached, that it is the word by which you must be judged. Not only give
credence to the word preached, but apply it to your own souls. Faith digests
the word, and turns it into spiritual nourishment. Many hear the word, but
it may be said of them, as in
Psa 106: 24 ‘They believed not his word.’ As Melanchthon once
said to some Italians ‘Ye Italians worship God in the bread, when ye do not
believe him to be in heaven;’ so, many hear God’s words, but do not believe
that God is; they question the truth of his oracles. If we do not mix faith
with the word, it is like leaving out the chief ingredient in a medicine,
which makes it ineffectual. Unbelief hardens men’s hearts against the word.
‘Divers were hardened, and believed not.’
Acts 19: 9. Men hear many truths delivered concerning the
preciousness of Christ, the beauty of holiness, and the felicity of a
glorified estate; but, if through unbelief and atheism, they question these
truths, we may as well speak to stones and pillars of the church as to them.
That word which is not believed, can never be practised.
Ubi male
creditur, ibi nec bene vivitur [When
belief is unstable, conduct also wavers]. Jerome. Unbelief makes the word
preached of no effect. ‘The word preached did not profit, not being mixed
with faith in them that heard it.’
Heb 4: 2. The word to an unbeliever is like a cordial put into a
dead man’s mouth, which loses all its virtue. If there be any unbelievers in
our congregations, what shall ministers say of them to God at the last day?
Lord, we have preached to the people thou sentest us to, we have showed them
our commission, we have declared unto them thy whole counsel, but they have
not believed a word we spake. We told them what would be the fruit of sin,
but they would not heed. They would drink their sugared draught, though
there was death in the cup. Lord, we are free from their blood. God forbid
that ministers should ever have to make this report to him of their people.
But this they will be forced to do if their hearers live and die in
unbelief. Would you sanctify a Sabbath by hearing the word aright? Hear it
with faith. The apostle puts the two together, ‘belief and salvation.’ ‘We
are of them that believe to the saving of the soul.’
Heb 10: 39.
[5] If you
would hear the word aright, hear it with meek spirits.
James 1: 21. Receive the word in
mansuetudine,
‘with meekness’. Meekness is a submissive frame of heart to the word.
Contrary to this meekness is fierceness of spirit, when men rise up in rage
against the word; as if the patient should be angry with the physician when
he gives him a medicine to purge out his bad humours. ‘When they heard these
things, they were cut to the heart, and gnashed on him [Stephen] with their
teeth.’
Acts 7: 54. ‘Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in a prison
house.’
2 Chron 16: 10. Pride and guilt make men fret at the word. What
made Asa enraged but pride? He was a king, and thought he was too good to be
told of his sin. What made Cain angry when God said to him, ‘Where is Abel,
thy brother?’ He replied, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ What made him so
touchy but guilt? He had imbrued his hands in his brother’s blood. If you
would hear the word aright, lay aside your passions. ‘Receive the word with
meekness;’ get humble hearts to submit to the truths delivered. God takes
the meek person for his scholar. ‘The meek will he teach his way.’
Psa 25: 9. Meekness makes the word preached to be an ‘ingrafted
word.’
James 1: 21. A good scion grafted in a bad stock changes the
nature of it, and makes it bear good and generous fruit; so, when the word
preached is grafted into men’s hearts, it sanctifies them and makes them
bring forth the sweet fruits of righteousness. By meekness it becomes an
ingrafted word.
[6] If you
would hear the word aright, be not only attentive, but retentive. Lay it up
in your memories and hearts. The seed ‘on the good ground are they, which,
having heard the word, keep it.’
Luke 8: 15. The Greek word for ‘to keep,’ signifies to hold the
word fast, that it does not run from us. If the seed be not kept in the
ground, but is presently washed away, it is sown to little purpose; so if
the word preached be not kept in your memories and hearts, it is preached in
vain. Many persons have memories like leaky vessels. If the word goes out as
fast as it comes in, how can it profit? If a treasure be put in a chest and
the chest be not locked, it may easily be taken out; so a bad memory is a
chest without a lock, out of which the devil can easily take all the
treasure. ‘Then comes the devil and taketh away the word out of their
hearts.’
Luke 8: 12. Labour to keep in memory the truths you hear. The
things we esteem are not easily forgotten. ‘Can a maid forget her ornaments
or a bride her attire?’
Jer 2: 32. Did we prize the word more, we should not forget it so
soon. If meat does not stay in the stomach, but rises up as fast as we eat
it, it cannot nourish; so, if the word stays not in the memory, but is
presently gone, it can do the soul but little good.
[7] If you
would hear aright, practice what you hear. Practice is the life of all.
‘Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the
tree of life.’
Rev 22: 14. Hearing only will be no plea at the day of judgement
— merely to say, ‘Lord, I have heard many sermons.’ God will say, ‘What
fruits of obedience have ye brought forth?’ The word preached is not only to
inform you but reform you; not only to mend your sight, but to mend your
pace in the way to heaven. A good hearer opens and shuts to God as the
heliotrope to the sun.
(1) If you
do not hear the word to practice it, you lose all your labour. How many a
weary step have you taken, your body has been crowded, and your spirit
faint, if you are not bettered by hearing! If you are as proud, as vain, and
as earthly as ever, all your hearing is lost. You would be loath to trade in
vain, and why not to hear sermons in vain? ‘Why then labour I in vain?’
Job 9: 29. Put this question to your own soul: Why labour I in
vain? Why do I take all these pains to hear, and yet have not grace to
practice it? I am as bad as ever! Why then do I labour in vain?
(2) If you
hear the word, and are not bettered by it, you are like the salamander, no
hotter in the fire; and your hearing will increase your condemnation. ‘That
servant which knew his lord’s will, neither did according to his will, shall
be beaten with many stripes.’
Luke 12: 47. We pity such as know not where to hear; it will be
worse with such as care not how they hear. To graceless disobedient hearers,
every sermon will be a faggot to heat hell. It is sad to go loaded to hell
with ordinances. Oh, beg the Spirit to make the word preached effectual!
Ministers can but speak to the ear, the Spirit speaks to the heart. ‘While
Peter spake, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word.’
Acts 10: 44.
[8] Having
heard the word in a holy and spiritual manner, for the further
sanctification of the Sabbath, confer with the word. We are forbidden on
this day to speak our own words, but we must speak of God’s word.
Isa 58: 13. Speak of the sermons as you sit together; which is
one part of sanctifying the Sabbath. Good discourse brings holy truths into
our memories, and fastens them upon our hearts. ‘Then they that feared the
Lord, spake often one to another.’
Mal 3: 16. There is great power and efficacy in good discourse.
‘How forcible are right words!’
Job 6: 25. By holy conference on a Sabbath, one Christian helps
to warm another when he is frozen, and to strengthen another when he is
weak. Latimer confessed he was much furthered in religion by having
conference with Mr. Bilney the martyr. ‘My tongue shall speak of thy word.’
Psa 119: 172. One reason why preaching the word on a Sabbath does
no more good is because there is so little good conference. Few speak of the
word they have heard, as if sermons were such secrets that they must not be
spoken of again, or as if it were a shame to speak of that which will save
us.
[9] Close
the Sabbath evening with repetition, reading, singing Psalms, and prayer.
Ask that God would bless the word you have heard. Could we but thus spend a
Sabbath, we might be ‘in the Spirit on the Lord’s-day,’ our souls would be
nourished and comforted; and the Sabbaths we now keep, would be earnests of
the everlasting Sabbaths which we shall celebrate in heaven.
Use one.
See here the Christian’s duty, ‘to keep the Sabbath-day holy.’
(1) The
whole Sabbath is to be dedicated to God. It is not said, Keep a part of the
Sabbath holy, but the whole day must be religiously observed. If God has
given us six days, and taken but one to himself, shall we grudge him any
part of that day? It were sacrilege. The Jews kept a whole day to the Lord;
and we are not to abridge or curtail the Sabbath, as Augustine says, more
than the Jews did. The very heathen, by the light of nature, set apart a
whole day in honour of false gods; and Scaevola, a high-priest of theirs,
affirms that the wilful transgression of that day could have no expiation or
pardon. If any one robs any part of the Christian Sabbath for servile work
or recreation, Scaevola, the high priest of the heathenish gods, shall rise
up in judgement to condemn him. Let those who say, that to keep a whole
Sabbath is too Judaical, show where God has made any abatement of the time
of worship; where he has said, you shall keep but a part of the Sabbath; and
if they cannot show that, it robs God of his due. That a whole day be
designed and set apart for his special worship, is a perpetual statute,
while the church remains upon the earth, as Peter Martyr says. Of this
opinion also were Theodore, Augustine, Irenaeus, and the chief of the
fathers.
(2) As the
whole Sabbath is to be dedicated to God, so it must be kept holy. You have
seen the manner of sanctifying the Lord’s-day by reading, meditation,
prayer, hearing the word, and by singing of psalms to make melody to the
Lord. Now, besides what I have said upon keeping this day holy, let me make
a short comment or paraphrase on that Scripture. ‘If thou turn away thy foot
from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the
Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable: and shalt honour him,
not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine
own words.’
Isa 58: 13. Here is a description of rightly sanctifying a
Sabbath.
‘If thou
turn away thy foot from the Sabbath.’ This may be understood either
literally or spiritually. Literally, that is, if thou withdrawest thy foot
from taking long walks or journeys on the Sabbath-day. So the Jewish doctors
expound it. Or, spiritually, if thou turn away thy affections (the feet of
thy soul) from inclining to any worldly business.
‘From
doing thy pleasure on my holy day.’ That is, thou must not do that which may
please the carnal part, as in sports and pastimes. This is to do the devil’s
work on God’s day.
‘And call
the Sabbath a delight.’ Call it a delight, that is, esteem it so. Though the
Sabbath be not a day for carnal pleasure, yet holy pleasure is not
forbidden. The soul must take pleasure in the duties of a Sabbath. The
saints of old counted the Sabbath a delight: the Jews called the Sabbath
dies lucis, a day of light. The Lord’s day, on which the Sun of
Righteousness shines, is both a day of light and delight. This is the day of
sweet intercourse between God and the soul. On this day a Christian makes
his sallies out to heaven; his soul is lifted above the earth; and can this
be without delight? The higher the bird flies, the sweeter it sings. On the
Sabbath the soul fixes its love on God; and where love is, there is delight.
On this day the believer’s heart is melted, quickened, and enlarged in holy
duties; and how can all this be, and not a secret delight go along with it?
On a Sabbath a gracious soul can say, ‘I sat down under his shadow with
great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.’
Cant 2: 3. How can a spiritual heart choose but call the Sabbath
a delight? Is it not delightful to a queen to be putting on her wedding
robes in which she shall meet the king her bridegroom? When we are about
Sabbath exercises, we are dressing ourselves, and putting on our wedding
robes in which we are to meet our heavenly bridegroom the Lord Jesus; and is
not this delightful? On the Sabbath God makes a feast of fat things; he
feasts the ear with his word, and the heart with his grace. Well then may we
call the Sabbath a delight. To find this holy delight, is to ‘be in the
Spirit on the Lord’s-day.’
‘The holy
of the Lord, honourable.’ In the Hebrew, it is glorious. To call the Sabbath
honourable, is not to be understood so much of an outward honour given to
it, by wearing richer apparel, or having better diet on this day, as the
Jewish doctors corruptly gloss. This is the chief honour that some give to
this day; but by calling the Sabbath honourable, is meant that honour of the
heart which we give to the day, reverencing it, and esteeming it as the
queen of days. We are to count the Sabbath honourable, because God has
honoured it. All the persons in the Trinity have honoured it. God the Father
blessed it, God the Son rose upon it, God the Holy Ghost descended on it.
Acts 2: 1: This day is to be honoured by all good Christians, and
had in high veneration. It is a day of renown, on which a golden sceptre of
mercy is held forth. The Christian Sabbath is the very
crepusculum
and dawning of the heavenly Sabbath. It is honourable, because on this day
‘God comes down to us and visits us.’ To have the King of heaven present in
a special manner in our assemblies, makes the Sabbath-day honourable.
Besides, the work done on this day makes it honourable. The six days are
filled up with servile work, which makes them lose much of their glory; but
on this day sacred work is done. The soul is employed wholly about the
worship of God; it is praying, hearing, meditating; it is doing angels’
work, praising, and blessing God. Again, the day is honourable by virtue of
a divine institution. Silver is of itself valuable; but when the royal stamp
is put upon it, it is honourable; so God has put a sacred stamp upon this
day, the stamp of divine authority, and the stamp of divine benediction.
This makes it honourable; and this is sanctifying the Sabbath, to call it a
delight, and honourable.
‘Not
doing thine own ways.’ That is, thou shalt not defile the day by doing any
servile work.
‘Nor
finding thine own pleasure.’ That is, not gratifying the fleshly part by
walks, visits, or pastimes.
‘Nor
speaking thine own Words.’ That is, words heterogeneous and unsuitable for a
Sabbath; vain, impertinent words; discourses of worldly affairs.
Use two.
If the Sabbath-day is to be kept holy, they are reproved who, instead of
sanctifying the Sabbath, profane it. They take the time which should be
dedicated wholly to God, and spend it in the service of the devil and their
lusts. The Lord has set apart this day for his own worship, and they make it
common. He has set a hedge about this commandment, saying, ‘Remember;’ and
they break this hedge; but he who breaks this hedge, a serpent shall bite
him.
Eccl 10: 8. The Sabbath day in England lies bleeding; and oh!
that our parliament would pour some balm into the wounds which it has
received! How is this day profaned, by sitting idle at home, by selling
meat, by vain discourse, by sinful visits, by walking in the fields, and by
sports! The people of Israel might not gather manna on the Sabbath, and may
we use sports and dancings on this day? Truly it should be matter of grief
to us to see so much Sabbath-profanation. When one of Darius’s eunuchs saw
Alexander setting his feet on a rich table of Darius’s, he wept. Alexander
asked him why he wept? He said it was to see the table which his master so
highly esteemed now made a footstool. So may we weep to see the Sabbath-day,
which God highly esteems, and has honoured and blessed, made a footstool,
and trampled upon by the feet of sinners. To profane the Sabbath is a great
sin; it is a wilful contempt of God; it is not only casting his law behind
our back, but trampling it under foot. He says, ‘Keep the Sabbath holy;’ but
men pollute it. This is to despise God, to hang out the flag of defiance, to
throw down the gauntlet, and challenge God himself. Now, how can God endure
to be thus saucily confronted by proud dust? Surely he will not suffer this
high impudence to go unpunished. God’s curse will come upon the
Sabbath-breaker; and it will blast where it comes. The law of the land lets
Sabbath-breakers alone, but God will not. No sooner did Christ curse the
fig-tree, but it withered. God will take the matter into his own hand; he
will see after the punishing of Sabbath violation. And how does he punish
it?
(1) With
spiritual plagues. He gives up Sabbath profaners to hardness of heart, and a
scared conscience. Spiritual judgements are sorest. ‘So I gave them up unto
their own hearts’ lust.’
Psa 81: 12. A sear in the conscience is a brand-mark of
reprobation.
(2) God
punishes this sin by giving men up to commit other sins. To revenge the
breaking of his Sabbath, he suffers them to break open houses, and so come
to be punished by the magistrate. How many such confessions have we heard
from thieves going to be executed! They never regarded the Sabbath, and God
suffered them to commit those sins for which they are to die.
(3) God
punishes Sabbath-breaking by sudden visible judgements on men for this sin.
He punishes them in their estates and in their persons. While a certain man
was carrying corn into his barn on the Lord’s-day, both house and corn were
consumed with fire from heaven. In Wiltshire there was a dancing match
appointed upon the Lord’s-day; and while one of the company was dancing, he
suddenly fell down dead. The ‘Theatre of God’s Judgements’ relates of one,
who used every Lord’s-day to hunt in sermon-time, who had a child by his
wife with a head like a dog, and it cried like a hound. His sin was
monstrous, and it was punished with a monstrous birth. The Lord threatened
the Jews, that if they would not hallow the Sabbath-day, he would kindle a
fire in their gates.
Jer 17: 27. The dreadful fire which broke out in London began on
the Sabbath-day; as if God would tell us from heaven he was then punishing
us for our Sabbath profanation. Nor does he punish it only in this life with
death, but hereafter with damnation. Let such as break God’s Sabbath see if
they can break those chains of darkness in which they and the devils shall
be held.
Use
three. It exhorts us to Sabbath holiness.
Make
conscience of keeping this day holy. The other commandments have an
affirmative in them only, or a negative; this fourth commandment has both an
affirmative in it and a negative. ‘Thou shalt keep the Sabbath day holy,’
and, ‘thou shalt not do any manner of work in it,’ shows how carefully God
would have us observe this day. Not only must you keep this day yourselves,
but have a care that all under your charge keep it; ‘Thou, and thy son, and
thy daughter, and thy man-servant, and thy maidservant;’ that is, thou who
art a superior, a parent or a master, thou must have a care that not only
thou thyself, but those who are under thy trust and tuition, sanctify the
day. Those masters of families are to blame who are careful that their
servants serve them, but have no care that they serve God; who care not
though their servants should serve the devil, so long as their bodies do
them service. That which Paul says to Timothy,
Serva depositum,
‘That good thing, which was committed unto thee, keep,’ is of large meaning.
1 Tim 1: 11. Not only have a care of thy own soul, but have a
care of the souls thou art entrusted with. See that they who are under thy
charge sanctify the Sabbath. God’s law provided, that if a man met with an
ox or an ass going astray, he should bring him back again; much more, when
thou sees the soul of thy child or servant going astray from God, and
breaking his Sabbath, thou shouldest bring him back again to a religious
observation of this day.
That I
may press you to Sabbath-sanctification, consider what great blessings God
has promised to the strict observers of this day.
Isa 58: 14. (1) A promise of joy. ‘Then shalt thou delight
thyself in the Lord.’ Delighting in God is both a duty and a reward. In this
text it is a reward, ‘Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord;’ as if
God had said, If thou keep the Sabbath conscientiously, I will give thee
that which will fill thee with delight; if thou keep the Sabbath willingly,
I will make thee keep it joyfully. I will give thee those enlargements in
duty, and that inward comfort, which shall abundantly satisfy thee; thy soul
shall overflow with such a stream of joy, that thou shalt say, ‘Lord, in
keeping thy Sabbath there is great reward. (2) Of honour. And ‘I will cause
thee to ride upon the high places of the earth.’ That is, I will advance
thee to honour,
ascendere
faciam; so Munster interprets it.
Some, by the high places of the earth, understand Judea; so Grotius. I will
bring thee into the land of Judea, which is situated higher than the other
countries adjacent. (3) Of earth and heaven. ‘And I will feed thee with the
heritage of Jacob;’ that is, I will feed thee with all the delicious things
of Canaan, and afterwards I will translate thee to heaven, whereof Canaan
was but a type. Another promise is, ‘Blessed is the man that does this, that
keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it.’
Isa 56: 2. ‘Blessed is the man;’ in the Hebrew it is,
‘blessednesses.’ To him that keeps the Sabbath holy, here is blessedness
upon blessedness belonging to him; he shall be blessed with the upper and
nether springs; he shall be blessed in his name, estate, soul, progeny. Who
would not keep the Sabbath from polluting it that shall have so many
blessings entailed upon him and his posterity after him? Again, a
conscientious keeping of the Sabbath seasons the heart for God’s service all
the week after. Christian the more holy thou art on a Sabbath, the more holy
thou wilt be on the week following.
2.5 The Fifth Commandment
‘Honour thy
father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the
Lord thy God giveth thee.’
Exod 20: 12.
Having done
with the first table, I am next to speak of the duties of the second table.
The commandments may be likened to Jacob’s ladder: the first table respects
God, and is the top of the ladder that reaches to heaven; the second
respects superiors and inferiors, and is the foot of the ladder that rests
on the earth. By the first table, we walk religiously towards God; by the
second, we walk religiously towards man. He cannot be good in the first
table that is bad in the second. ‘Honour thy father and thy mother.’ In this
we have a command, ‘honour thy father and thy mother;’ and, second, a reason
for it, ‘That thy days may be long in the land.’ The command will chiefly be
considered here, ‘Honour thy father.’
I. Father is
of different kinds; as the political, the ancient, the spiritual, the
domestic, and the natural.
[1] The
political father, the magistrate. He is the father of his country; he is to
be an encourager of virtue, a punisher of vice, and a father to the widow
and orphan. Such a father was Job. ‘I was a father to the poor, and the
cause which I knew not, I searched out.’
Job 29: 16. As magistrates are fathers, so especially the king,
who is the head of magistrates, is a political father; he is placed as the
sun among the lesser stars. The Scripture calls kings, ‘fathers.’ ‘Kings
shall be thy nursing fathers.’
Isa 49: 23. They are to train up their subjects in piety, by good
edicts and examples; and nurse them up in peace and plenty. Such nursing
fathers were David, Hezekiah, Josiah, Constantine, and Theodosius. It is
well for a people to have such nursing fathers, whose breasts milk comfort
to their children. These fathers are to be honoured, for —
(1) Their
place deserves honour. God has set these political fathers to preserve order
and harmony in a nation, and to prevent those state convulsions which
otherwise might ensue. When ‘there was no king in Israel, every man did that
which was right in his own eyes.’
Judges 17: 6. It is a wonder that locusts have no king, yet they
go forth by bands.
(2) God has
promoted kings, that they may promote justice. As they have a sword in their
hand, to signify their power; so they have a sceptre, an emblem of justice.
It is said of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, that he allotted one hour of the
day to hear the complaints of those who were oppressed. Kings place judges
as cherubim about the throne, for distribution of justice. These political
fathers are to be honoured. ‘Honour the king.’
1 Pet 2: 17. This honour is to be shown by a civil respect to
their persons, and a cheerful submission to their laws; so far as they agree
and run parallel with God’s law. Kings are to be prayed for, which is a part
of the honour we give them. ‘I exhort that supplications, prayers,
intercessions, be made for kings, that we may lead a quiet, peaceable life,
in all godliness and honesty.’
1 Tim 2: 1. We are to pray for kings, that God would honour them
to be blessings; that under them we may enjoy the gospel of peace, and the
peace of the gospel. How happy was the reign of Numa Pompilius, when swords
were beaten into ploughshares, and bees made hives of the soldiers’ helmets!
[2] There is
the grave ancient father, who is venerable for old age; whose grey hairs are
resembled to the white flowers of the almond-tree.
Eccl 12: 5. There are fathers for seniority, on whose wrinkled
brows, and in the furrows of whose cheeks is pictured the map of old age.
These fathers are to be honoured. ‘Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head,
and honour the face of the old man.
Lev 19: 32. Especially those are to be honoured who are fathers
not only for their seniority, but for their piety; whose souls are
flourishing when their bodies are decaying. It is a blessed sight to see
springs of grace in the autumn of old age; to see men stooping towards the
grave, yet going up the hill of God; to see them lose their colour, yet keep
their savour. They whose silver hairs are crowned with righteousness, are
worthy of double honour; they are to be honoured, not only as pieces of
antiquity, but as patterns of virtue. If you see an old man fearing God,
whose grace shines brightest when the sun of his life is setting, O honour
him as a father, by reverencing and imitating him.
[3] There
are spiritual fathers, as pastors and ministers. These are instruments of
the new birth. ‘Though ye have ten thousand instructors, yet have ye not
many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.’
1 Cor 4: 15. The spiritual fathers are to be honoured in respect
of their office. Whatever their persons are, their office is honourable;
they are the messengers of the Lord of Hosts.
Mal 2: 7. They represent no less than God himself. ‘Now then we
are ambassadors for Christ.’
2 Cor 5: 20. Jesus Christ was of this calling; he had his mission
and sanction from heaven, and this crowns the ministerial calling with
honour.
John 8: 18.
These
spiritual fathers are to be honoured ‘for their work’s sake.’ They come,
like the dove, with an olive branch in the mouth; they preach glad tidings
of peace; their work is ‘to save souls.’ Other callings have only to do with
men’s bodies or estates, but the minister’s calling is employed about the
souls of men. Their work is to redeem spiritual captives, and turn men ‘from
the power of Satan unto God.’
Acts 26: 18. Their work is ‘to enlighten them who sit in the
region of darkness,’ and make them ‘shine as stars in the kingdom of
heaven.’ These spiritual fathers are to be ‘honoured for their work’s sake;’
and this honour is to be shown three ways: —
(1) By
giving them respect. ‘Know them which labour among you and are over you in
the Lord, and esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake.’
1 Thess 5: 12, 13. I confess the scandalous lives of some
ministers have been a great reproach, and have made the ‘offering of the
Lord to be abhorred’ in some places of the land. The leper in the law was to
have his lip covered; so such as are angels by office, but lepers in their
lives, ought to have their lips covered, and to be silenced. But though some
deserve ‘no honour’, yet such as are faithful, and make it their work to
bring souls to Christ, are to be reverenced as spiritual fathers. Obadiah
honoured the prophet Elijah.
1 Kings 18: 7. Why did God reckon the tribe of Levi for the
first-born,
Num 3: 13; why did he appoint that the prince should ask counsel
of God by the priest,
Num 27: 21; why did the Lord show, by that miracle of Aaron’s rod
flourishing, that he had chosen the tribe of ‘Levi to minister before him,’
Num 17; why does Christ call his apostles ‘the lights of the
world’; why does he say to all his ministers, ‘Lo, I am with you to the end
of the world;’ but because he would have these spiritual fathers reverenced?
In ancient times the Egyptians chose their kings out of their priests. They
are far from showing this respect and honour to their spiritual fathers who
have slight thoughts of such as have the charge of the sanctuary, and do
minister before the Lord. ‘Know them,’ says the apostle, ‘which labour among
you.’ Many can be content to know their ministers in their infirmities, and
are glad when they have anything against them, but do not know them in the
apostle’s sense, so as to give them ‘double honour.’ Surely, were it not for
the ministry, you would not be a vineyard but a desert. Were it not for the
ministry, you would be destitute of the two seals of the covenant, baptism
and the Lord’s Supper; you would be infidels; ‘for faith comes by hearing;
and how shall they hear without a preacher?’
Rom 10: 14.
(2) Honour
these spiritual fathers, by becoming advocates for them, and wiping off
those slanders and calumnies which are unjustly cast upon them.
1 Tim 5: 19. Constantine was a great honourer of the ministry; he
vindicated them; he would not read the envious accusations brought against
them, but burnt them. Do the ministers open their mouths to God for you in
prayer, and will not you open your mouths in their behalf? Surely, if they
labour to preserve you from hell, you should preserve them from slander; if
they labour to save your souls, you ought to save their credit.
(3) Honour
them by conforming to their doctrine. The greatest honour you can put upon
your spiritual fathers, is to believe and obey their doctrine. He is an
honourer of the ministry who is not only a hearer, but a follower of the
word. As disobedience reproaches the ministry, so obedience honours it. The
apostle calls the Thessalonians his crown. ‘What is our crown of rejoicing?
are not ye?’
1 Thess 2: 19. A thriving people are a minister’s crown. When
there is a metamorphosis, a change wrought; when people come to the word
proud, but go away humble; when they come earthly, but they go away
heavenly; when they come, as Naaman to Jordan, lepers, but they go away
healed; then the ministry is honoured. ‘Need we, as some others, epistles of
commendation?’
2 Cor 3: 1. Though other ministers might need letters of
commendation, yet Paul needed none; for, when men heard of the obedience
wrought in these Corinthians by Paul’s preaching, it would be a sufficient
certificate that God had blessed his labours. The Corinthians were a
sufficient honour to him; they were his letters-testimonial. You cannot
honour your spiritual fathers more, than by thriving under their ministry,
and living upon the sermons which they preach.
[4] There
is the domestic father, that is, the master. He is paterfamilias, ‘the
father of the family’; therefore Naaman’s servants called their master,
father.
2 Kings 5: 13. The centurion calls his servant, son.
Matt 8: 6. (Greek.) The servant is to honour his master, as the
father of the family. Though the master be not so qualified as he should be,
yet the servant must not neglect his duty, but show some kind of honour to
him.
(1) In
obeying his master
in licitis et
honestis, ‘in things that are lawful
and honest.’ ‘Servants, be subject to your masters; not only to the good and
gentle, but also to the froward.’
1 Pet 2: 18. God has nowhere given a charter of exemption to free
you from your duty. You cannot disobey your earthly master but you disobey
your master in heaven. Think not that birth, or high parts, no, nor even
grace, will exempt you from obedience to your master. To obey him is an
ordinance of God; and an apostle says, ‘They that resist the ordinance,
shall receive to themselves damnation.’
Rom 13: 2.
(2) The
servant’s honouring his master, is seen in being diligent in his service.
Apelles painted a servant with his hands full of tools, as an emblem of
diligence. The loitering servant is a kind of thief, who, though he does not
steal his master’s goods, steals the time which he should have employed in
his master’s service. The slothful servant is called a ‘wicked servant.’
Matt 25: 26.
(3) The
servant is to honour his master by being faithful. ‘Who then is a faithful
and wise servant?’
Matt 24: 45. Faithfulness is the chief thing in a servant.
Faithfulness in a servant is seen in six things: [1] In tenaciousness; in
concealing the secrets the master has intrusted you with. If those secrets
are not sins, you ought not to betray them. What is whispered in your ear
you are not to publish on the house-top. Servants who do this are spies. Who
would keep a glass that is cracked? Who would keep a servant that has a
crack in his brain, and cannot keep a secret? [2] Faithfulness in a servant
is seen in designing the master’s advantage. A faithful servant esteems his
master’s goods as his own. Such a servant had Abraham; who, when his master
sent him to transact business for him, was as careful about it, as if it had
been his own. ‘O Lord God of my master Abraham, I pray thee send me good
speed this day, and show kindness unto my master Abraham.’
Gen 24: 12. Doubtless Abraham’s servant was as glad he had got a
wife for his master’s son, as if he had got a wife for himself. [3]
Faithfulness in a servant is seen in standing up for the honour of his
master. When he hears him spoken against, he vindicates him. As the master
is careful of the servant’s body, so the servant should be careful of the
master’s name. When the master is unjustly reproached the servant cannot be
excused if he be possessed with a dumb devil. [4] Faithfulness is, when a
servant is true to his word. He dares not tell a lie, but will speak the
truth, though it be against himself. A lie doubles the sin. ‘He that telleth
lies, shall not tarry in my sight.’
Psa 101: 7. A liar is near akin to the devil.
John 8: 44. And who would let any of the devil’s kindred live
with him? The lie that Gehazi told his master Elisha, entailed leprosy on
Gehazi and his seed for ever.
2 Kings 5: 27. In a faithful servant, the tongue is the true
index of the heart. [5] Faithfulness is, when a servant is against
impropriation. He dares not convert his master’s goods to his own use. ‘Not
purloining.’
Tit 2: 10. What a servant filches from his master, is damnable
gain. He who enriches himself by stealing from his master, stuffs his pillow
with thorns, on which his head will lie very uneasy when he comes to die.
[6] Faithfulness consists in preserving the master’s person, if unjustly in
danger. Banister betrayed his master the Duke of Buckingham, in King Richard
the Third’s reign; and the judgements of God fell upon the traitorous
servant. His eldest son became mad; his daughter, of a singular beauty, was
suddenly struck with leprosy; his younger son was drowned, and he himself
was arraigned, and would have been executed, had he not been saved by his
clergy. That servant who is not true to his master, will never be true to
God or his own soul.
(4) The
servant is to honour his master, by serving him, as with love, so with
silence, that is, without repining, and without replying. ‘Exhort servants
to be obedient unto their own masters, not answering again.’
Tit 2: 9. In the Greek, ‘not giving cross answers.’ Some servants
who are slow at work, are quick at speech; and instead of being sorry for a
fault, provoke by unbecoming language. Were the heart more humble, the
tongue would be more silent. The apostle’s words are, ‘not answering again.’
To those servants who honour their masters, or family-fathers, by
submission, diligence, faithfulness, love, and humble silence, great
encouragement is given. ‘Servants, obey in all things your masters according
to the flesh, not with eye-service, knowing that of the Lord ye shall
receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ.’
Col 3: 22, 24. In serving your masters, you serve Christ, and he
will not let you lose your labour; ye shall receive the ‘reward of the
inheritance.’ From serving on earth, you shall be taken up to reign in
heaven, and shall sit with Christ upon his throne.
Rev 3: 21.
Having
shown how servants are to honour their masters, I shall next show how
masters are to conduct themselves towards their servants, so as to be
honoured by them.
In general,
masters must remember that they have a master in heaven, who will call them
to account. ‘Knowing that your Master also is in heaven.’
Eph 6: 9. More particularly: —
(1) Masters
must take care to provide for their servants. As they appoint them work, so
they must give them their meat in due season.
Luke 17: 7. They should see that the food be wholesome and
sufficient. It is most unworthy of some governors of families, to lay out so
much upon their own back, as to pinch their servants’ bellies.
(2) Masters
should encourage their servants in their work, by commending them when they
do well. Though a master is to tell a servant of his faults, yet he is not
always to beat on one string, but sometimes to take notice of that which is
praiseworthy. This makes a servant more cheerful in his work, and gains the
master the love from his servant.
(3) Masters
must not overburden their servants, but proportion their work to their
strength. They must not lay too much load on their servants, to make them
faint under it. Christianity teaches compassion.
(4) Masters
must seek the spiritual good of their servants. They must be seraphim to
kindle their love to religion; they must be monitors to put them in mind of
their souls; they must bring them to the pool of the sanctuary, to wait till
the angel stir the waters.
John 5: 4. They must seek God for them, that their servants may
be his servants; and must allow them time convenient for secret devotion.
Some are cruel to the souls of their servants; they expect them to do the
work about the house, but abridge them of the time they should employ in
working out their salvation.
(5) Masters
should be mild and gentle in their behaviour towards servants. ‘Forbearing
threatening.’
Eph. 6: 9. ‘Thou shalt not rule over him with rigour, but shalt
fear thy God.’
Lev 25: 43. It requires wisdom in a master to know how to keep up
his authority, and yet avoid austerity. We have a good copy to write after
our Master in heaven, who is ‘slow to anger, and of great mercy.’
Psa 145: 8. Some masters are so harsh and implacable that they
are enough to spoil a good servant.
(6) Be very
exact and punctual in the agreements you make with your servants. Do not
prevaricate; keep not back any of their wages; nor deal deceitfully with
them, as Laban did with Jacob, changing his wages.
Gen 31: 7. Falseness in promise is as bad as false weights.
(7) Be
careful of your servants, not only in health, but in sickness. If they have
become sick while in your service, use what means you can for their
recovery; and be not like the Amalekite, who forsook his servant when he was
sick; but be as the good centurion, who kept his sick servant, and sought to
Christ for a cure.
1 Sam 30: 13;
Matt 8: 6. If you have a beast that falls sick, you will not turn
it off, but have it looked to, and pay for its cure; and will you be kinder
to your horses than to your servants? Thus should masters carry themselves
prudently and piously, that they may gain honour from their servants, and
may give up their accounts to God with joy.
[S] The
natural father, the father of the flesh.
Heb 12: 9. Honour thy natural father. This is so necessary a
duty, that Philo the Jew placed the fifth commandment in the first table, as
though we had not performed our whole duty to God till we had paid this debt
of honour to our natural parents. Children are the vineyard of the parent’s
planting, and honour done to the parent is some of the fruit of the
vineyard.
II.
Children are to show honour to their parents,
{I] By a
reverential esteem of their persons. They must ‘give them a civil
veneration.’ Therefore, when the apostle speaks of fathers of our bodies, he
speaks also of ‘giving them reverence.’
Heb 12: 9. This veneration or reverence must be shown: —
(1)
Inwardly, by fear mixed with love. ‘Ye shall fear every man his mother and
his father.’
Lev 19: 3. In the commandment the father is named first, but here
the mother is first named. Partly to put honour upon the mother, because, by
reason of many weaknesses incident to her sex, she is apt to be more
slighted by children. And partly because the mother endures more for the
child.
(2)
Reverence must be shown to parents outwardly, both in word and gesture.
In word:
and that either in speaking to parents, or speaking of them. In speaking of
parents, children must speak respectfully. ‘Ask on, my mother,’ said king
Solomon to his mother Bathsheba.
1 Kings 2: 20. In speaking of parents, children must speak
honourably. They ought to speak well of them, if they deserve well. ‘Her
children arise up, and call her blessed’ (Prov
31: 28); and, in case a parent betrays weakness and indiscretion,
the child should make the best of it, and, by wise apologies, cover his
parent’s nakedness.
In gesture.
Children are to show reverence to their parents by submissive behaviour, by
uncovering the head, and bending the knee. Joseph, though a great prince,
and his father had grown poor, bowed to him, and behaved himself as humbly
as if his father had been the prince, and he the poor man.
Gen 46: 29. King Solomon, when his mother came to him, ‘rose off
his throne, and bowed himself unto her.’
1 Kings 2: 19. Among the Lacedemonians, if a child had carried
himself arrogantly or saucily to his father, it was lawful for the father to
appoint whom he would to be his heir. Oh, how many children are far from
thus giving reverence to their parents! They despise their parents; they
carry themselves with such pride and neglect towards them, that they are a
shame to religion, and bring their parents’ grey hairs with sorrow to the
grave. ‘Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother.’
Deut 27: 16. If all that set light by their parents are cursed,
how many children in our age are under a curse! If such as are disrespectful
to parents live to have children, their own children will be thorns in their
sides, and God will make them read their sins in their punishment.
[2] The
second way of showing honour to parents is by careful obedience. ‘Children,
obey your parents in all things.’
Col 3: 20. Our Lord Christ herein set a pattern to children. He
was subject to his parents.
Luke 2: 51. He to whom angels were subject was subject to his
parents. This obedience to parents is shown three ways: —
(1) In
hearkening to their counsel, ‘Hear the instruction of thy father, and
forsake not the law of thy mother.’
Prov 1: 8. Parents are, as it were, in the room of God; if they
would teach you the fear of the Lord, you must listen to their words as
oracles, and not be as the deaf adder to stop your ears. Eli’s sons
hearkened not to the voice of their father, but were called ‘sons of
Belial.’
1 Sam 2: 12, 25. And as children must hearken to the counsel of
their parents in spiritual matters, so in affairs which relate to this life
as in the choice of a calling, and in case of entering into marriage. Jacob
would not dispose of himself in marriage, though he was forty years old,
without the advice and consent of his parents.
Gen 28: 1, 2. Children are, as it were, the parents’ proper goods
and possession, and it is great injustice in a child to give herself away
without the parents’ leave. If parents should indeed counsel a child to
match with one that is irreligious or Popish, I think the case is plain, and
many of the learned are of opinion that here the child may have a negative
voice, and is not obliged to be ruled by the parent. Children are to ‘marry
in the Lord;’ not, therefore, with persons irreligious, for that is not to
marry in the Lord.
1 Cor 7: 39.
(2)
Obedience to parents is shown in complying with their commands. A child
should be the parents’ echo; when the father speaks, the child should echo
back obedience. The Rechabites were forbidden by their father to drink wine;
and they obeyed him, and were commended for it.
Jer 35: 14. Children must obey their parents in all things.
Col 3: 20. In things against the grain, to which they have most
reluctance, they must obey their parents. Esau would obey his father, when
he commanded him to fetch him venison, because it is probable he took
pleasure in hunting; but refused to obey him in a matter of greater
concernment, in the choice of a wife. But though children must obey their
parents ‘in all things,’ yet
restringitur ad
licita et honesta; ‘it is with the
limitation of things just and honest.’ ‘Obey in the Lord,’ that is, so far
as the commands of parents agree with God’s commands.
Eph 6: 1. If they command against God, they lose their right of
being obeyed, and in this case we must unchild ourselves.
[3] Honour
is to be shown to parents in relieving their wants. Joseph cherished his
father in his old age.
Gen 47: 12. It is but paying a just debt. Parents brought up
children when they were young, and children ought to nourish their parents
when they are old. The young storks, by an instinct of nature, bring meat to
the old ones when, by reason of age, they are not able to fly. Pliny calls
it Lex
pelargica [a law of the storks]. The
memory of Aeneas was honoured for carrying his aged father out of Troy when
it was on fire. I have read of a daughter, whose father being condemned to
be starved to death, who gave him in his prison suck with her own breasts;
which, being known to the governors, procured his freedom. Such children, or
monsters shall I say, are to blame who are ashamed of their parents when
they are old and fallen into decay; and when they ask for bread give them a
stone. When houses are shut up, we say the plague is there; when children’s
hearts are shut up against their parents, the plague is there. Our blessed
Saviour took great care for his mother. When on the cross, he charged his
disciple John to take her home to him as his mother, and see that she wanted
nothing.
John 19: 26, 27.
III. The
reasons why children should honour their parents are: —
[1] It is a
solemn command of God, ‘Honour thy father,’ &c. As God’s word is the rule,
so his will must be the reason of our obedience.
[2] They
deserve honour in respect of the great love and affection which they bear to
their children; and the evidence of that love both in their care and cost.
Their care in bringing up their children is a sign their hearts are full of
love to them. Parents often take more care of their children than for
themselves. They take care of them when they are tender, lest, like wall
fruit, they should be nipped in the bud. As children grow older, the care of
parents grows greater. They are afraid of their children falling when young,
and of worse than falls when they are older. Their love is evidenced by
their cost.
2 Cor 12: 14. They lay up and they lay out for their children;
and are not like the raven or ostrich, which are cruel to their young.
Job 39: 16. Parents sometimes impoverish themselves to enrich
their children. Children never can equal a parent’s love, for parents are
the instruments of life to their children, and children cannot be so to
their parents.
[3] To
honour parents is well pleasing to the Lord.
Col 3: 20. As it is joyful to parents, so it is pleasing to the
Lord. Children! is it not your duty to please God? In honouring and obeying
your parents, you please God as well as when you repent and believe. And
that you may see how well it pleases God, he bestows a reward upon it. ‘That
thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.’ Jacob
would not let the angel go till he had blessed him; and God would not part
with this commandment till he had blessed it. Paul calls this the first
commandment with promise.
Eph 6: 2. The second commandment has a general promise to mercy;
but this is the first commandment that has a particular promise made to it.
Long life is mentioned as a blessing. ‘Thou shalt see thy children’s
children.’
Psa 128: 6. It was a great favour of God to Moses that, though he
was a hundred and twenty years old, he needed no spectacles: ‘His eye was
not dim, nor his natural force abated.’
Deut 34: 7. God threatened it as a curse to Eli, that there
should not be an old man in his family.
1 Sam 2: 31. Since the flood, life is much abbreviated and cut
short: to some the womb is their tomb; others exchange their cradle for
their grave; others die in the flower of their age; death serves its warrant
every day upon one or other. Now, when death lies in ambush continually for
us, if God satisfies us with long life, saying (as in
Psa 91: 16), ‘With long life will I satisfy him;’ it is to be
esteemed a blessing. It is a blessing when God gives a long time to repent,
and a long time to do service, and a long time to enjoy the comforts of
relations. Upon whom is this blessing of long life entailed, but obedient
children? ‘Honour thy father, that thy days may be long.’ Nothing sooner
shortens life than disobedience to parents. Absalom was a disobedient son,
who sought to deprive his father of his life and crown; and he did not live
out half his days. The mule he rode upon, being weary of such a burden, left
him hanging in the oak betwixt heaven and earth, so as not fit to tread upon
the one, or to enter into the other. Obedience to parents spins out the
life. Nor does obedience to parents lengthen life only, but sweetens it. To
live long, and not to have a foot of land, is a misery; but obedience to
parents settles land of inheritance upon the child. ‘Hast thou but one
blessing, O my father,’ said Esau. Behold, God has more blessings for an
obedient child than one; not only shall he have a long life, but a fruitful
land: and not only shall he have land, but land given in love, ‘the land
which the Lord thy God giveth thee.’ Thou shalt have thy land not only with
God’s leave, but with his love. All these are powerful arguments to make
children honour and obey their parents.
Use one. If
we are to honour our fathers on earth, much more our Father in heaven. ‘If
then I be a father, where is mine honour?’
Mal 1: 6. A father is but the instrument of conveying life, but
God is the original cause of our being. ‘For it is he that has made us, and
not we ourselves.’
Psa 100: 3. Honour and adoration is a pearl which belongs to the
crown of heaven only.
(1) We show
honour to our heavenly Father by obeying him. Thus Christ honoured his
Father. ‘I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of
him that sent me.’
John 6: 38. This he calls honouring God. ‘I do always those
things which please him.’ ‘I honour my Father.’
John 8: 29, 49. The wise men not only bowed the knee to Christ,
but presented him with ‘gold and myrrh.’
Matt 2: 11. So we must not only bow the knee, give God adoration,
but bring him presents, give him golden obedience.
(2) We show
honour to our heavenly Father by advocating his cause, and standing up for
his truth in an adulterous generation. That son honours his father who
stands up in his defence, and vindicates him when he is calumniated and
reproached. Do they honour God who are ashamed of him? ‘Many believed on
him, but did not confess him.’
John 12: 42. They are bastard-sons who are ashamed to own their
heavenly Father. Such as are born of God, are steeled with courage for his
truth; they are like the rock, which no waves can break; like the adamant,
which no sword can cut. Basil was a champion for truth in the time of the
emperor Valens; and Athanasius, when the world was Arian, appeared for God.
(3) We show
honour to our heavenly Father by ascribing the honour of all we do to him.
‘I laboured more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God
which was with me.’
1 Cor 15: l0. If a Christian has any assistance in duty, any
strength against corruption, he rears up a pillar and writes upon it,
‘Hitherto has the Lord helped me.’ As when Joab had fought against Rabbah,
and had like to have taken it, sent for king David, that he might carry away
the honour of the victory; so when a child of God has any conquest over
Satan, he give all the honour to God.
2 Sam 12: 27, 28. Hypocrites, whose lamp is fed with the oil of
vain glory, while they do any eminent service to God, seek to honour
themselves; and so their very serving him is dishonouring him.
(4) We show
honour to our heavenly Father by celebrating his praise. ‘Let my mouth be
filled with thy praise, and with thy honour all the day.’
Psa 71: 8. ‘Blessing and honour and glory and power, be unto him
that sitteth upon the throne.’
Rev 5: 13. Blessing God is honouring God. It lifts him up in the
eyes of others, and spreads his fame and renown in the world. In this manner
the angels, the choristers of heaven, are now honouring God; they trumpet
forth his praise. In prayer, we act like saints, in praise like angels.
(5) We show
honour to our heavenly Father, by suffering dishonour, yea, death for his
sake. Paul did bear in his body the ‘marks of the Lord Jesus.’
Gal 6: 17. As they were the marks of honour to him, so they were
trophies of honour to the gospel. The honour which comes to God, is not by
bringing the outward pomp and glory to him, which we do to kings; but it
comes in another way, by the suffering of his people, by which they let the
world see what a good God they serve, and how they love him, and will fight
under his banner to the death.
God is
‘worthy of honour.’ ‘Thou art clothed with honour and majesty.’
Psa 104: 1: What are all his attributes but glorious beams
shining from this sun? He deserves more honour than men or angels can give
him. ‘I will call on the Lord who is worthy to be praised.’
2 Sam 22: 4. He is worthy of honour. We often confer honour upon
those that do not deserve it. To many noble persons, who are sordid and
vicious, we give titles of honour: they do not deserve honour; but God is
worthy of honour. ‘Blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all
blessing and praise.’
Neh 9: 5. He is above all the acclamations and triumphs of the
archangels. O then, let every true child of God honour his heavenly Father!
Though the wicked dishonour him by their flagitous lives, let not his own
children dishonour him. Sins in them are worse than in others. A fault in a
stranger is not so much taken notice of as in a child. A spot in black cloth
is not so much observed, but a spot in scarlet attracts every one’s eye; so
a sin in the wicked is not so much wondered at, it is a spot in black; but a
sin in a child of God is a spot in scarlet, which is more visible, and
brings odium and dishonour upon the gospel. The sins of God’s own children
go nearer to his heart. ‘When the Lord saw it, he abhorred them, because of
the provoking of his sons and of his daughters.’
Deut 32: 19. O forbear doing anything that may reflect dishonour
upon God. Will you disgrace your heavenly Father? Let not God complain of
the provocations of his sons and daughters; let him not cry out, ‘I have
nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.’
Isa 1: 2.
Use two.
Does God command us to honour father and mother? Then let children put this
great duty in practice; be living commentaries upon this commandment. Honour
and reverence your parents; not only obey their commands, but submit to
their rebukes. You cannot honour your Father in heaven unless you honour
your earthly parents. To deny obedience to parents, entails God’s judgements
upon children. ‘The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey
his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagle
shall eat it.’
Prov 30: 17. Eli’s two disobedient sons were slain.
1 Sam 4: 2: God made a law that the ‘rebellious son should be
stoned;’ the same death the blasphemer had.
Lev 24: 14. ‘If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which
will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother; then
shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the
elders of his city, and all the men of his city shall stone him with stones,
that he die.’
Deut 21: 18, 19, 21. A father having once complained, ‘Never had
a father a worse son than I have;’ ‘Yes,’ said the son, ‘my grandfather
had.’ This was a prodigy of impudence hardly to be paralleled. Manlius, when
grown old and poor, had a son very rich, of whom he desired some food, but
the son denied him relief, yea, disowned him from being his father, and sent
him away with reproachful language. The poor old father let fall tears in
grief. But God, to revenge the disobedience, struck the unnatural son with
madness, of which he could never be cured. Disobedient children stand in a
place where all God’s arrows fly.
Use three.
Let parents so act that they may gain honour from their children.
How should
parents so act towards their children as to be honoured and reverenced by
them?
(1) Be
careful to bring them up in the fear and nurture of the Lord. ‘Bring them up
in the admonition of the Lord.’
Eph 6: 4. You conveyed the plague of sin to them, therefore
endeavour to get them healed and sanctified. Augustine says that his mother,
Monica, travailed more for his spiritual birth than his natural. Timothy’s
mother instructed him from a child.
2 Tim 3: 15. She not only gave him her breast-milk, but ‘the
sincere milk of the word.’ Season your children with good principles
betides, that they may, with Obadiah, fear the Lord from their youth.
1 Kings 18: 12. When parents instruct not their children, they
seldom prove blessings. God often punishes the carelessness of parents with
undutifulness in their children. It is not enough that in baptism your child
is dedicated to God, but it must be educated for him. Children are young
plants which you must be continually watering with good instruction. ‘Train
up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart
from it.’
Prov 22: 6. The more your children fear God, the more they will
honour you.
(2) If you
would have your children honour you, keep up parental authority: be kind,
but do not spoil them. If you let them get too much ahead, they will condemn
you instead of honouring you. The rod of discipline must not be withheld.
‘Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell.’
Prov 23: 14. A child indulged and humoured in wickedness, will be
a thorn in the parent’s eye. David spoiled Adonijah. ‘His father had not
displeased him at any time, in saying, Why hast thou done so?’
1 Kings 1: 6, 7, 9. Afterwards he became a grief of heart to his
father, and was false to the crown. Keep up your authority, and you keep up
your honour.
(3) Provide
for your children what is fitting, both in their minority and when they come
to maturity. ‘The children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the
parents for the children.’
2 Cor 12: 14. They are your own flesh and, as the apostle says,
‘No man ever yet hated his own flesh.’
Eph 5: 29. The parents’ bountifulness will cause dutifulness in
the child. If you pour water into a pump, the pump will send water again out
freely; so, if parents pour in something of their estate to their children,
children worthy of the name will pour out obedience again to their parents.
(4) When
your children are grown up, put them to some lawful calling, wherein they
may serve their generation. It is good to consult the natural genius and
inclination of a child, for forced callings do as ill, sometimes, as forced
matches. To let a child be out of a calling, is to expose him to temptation.
Melanchthon says,
Odium balneum
diaboli [Idleness is the devil’s
pleasure resort]. A child out of a calling is like fallow ground; and what
can you expect should grow up but weeds of disobedience.
(5) Act
lovingly to your children. In all your counsels and commands let them read
love. Love will command honour; and how can a parent but love the child who
is his living picture, nay, part of himself. The child is the father in the
second edition.
(6) Act
prudently towards your children. It is a great point of prudence in a parent
not to provoke his children to wrath. ‘Fathers, provoke not your children to
anger, lest they be discouraged.’
Col 3: 21.
How may a
parent provoke his children to wrath?
(1) By
giving them opprobrious terms. ‘Thou son of the perverse rebellious woman,’
said Saul to his son Jonathan.
1 Sam 20: 30. Some parents use imprecations and curses to their
children, which provoke them to wrath. Would you have God bless your
children, and do you curse them?
(2) Parents
provoke children to wrath when they strike them without a cause, or when the
correction exceeds the fault. This is to be a tyrant rather than a father.
Saul cast a javelin at his son to smite him, and his son was provoked to
anger. ‘So Jonathan arose from the table in fierce anger.’
1 Sam 20: 33, 34.
In filium pater
obtinet non tyrannicum imperium, set basilicum
[A father exercises a kingly power over his son, not that of a tyrant].
Davenant.
(3) When
parents deny their children what is absolutely needful. Some have thus
provoked their children: they have stinted them, and kept them so short,
that they have forced them upon indirect courses, and made them put forth
their hands to iniquity.
(4) When
parents act partially towards their children, showing more kindness to one
than to another. Though a parent may have a greater love to one child, yet
discretion should lead him not to show more love to one than to another.
Jacob showed more love to Joseph than to all his other children, which
provoked the envy of his brethren. ‘Now Israel loved Joseph more than all
his children, and when his brethren saw that, they hated him, and could not
speak peaceably to him.’
Gen 37: 3, 4.
(5) When a
parent does anything which is sordid and unworthy, which casts disgrace upon
himself and his family, as to defraud or take a false oath, it provokes the
child to wrath. As the child should honour his father, so the father should
not dishonour the child.
(6) When
parents lay commands upon their children which they cannot perform without
wronging their consciences. Saul commanded his son Jonathan to bring David
to him. ‘Fetch him to me, for he shall surely die.’
1 Sam 20: 31. Jonathan could not do this with a good conscience;
but was provoked to anger. ‘Jonathan arose from the table in fierce anger.’
1 Sam 20: 34. The reason why parents should show their prudence
in not provoking their children to wrath, is this: ‘Lest they be
discouraged.’
Col 3: 21. This word ‘discouraged’ implies three things. Grief.
The parent’s provoking the child, the child so takes it to heart, that it
causes premature death. Despondency. The parents’ austerity dispirits the
child, and makes it unfit for service; like members of the body stupefied,
which are unfit for work. Contumacy and refractoriness. The child being
provoked by the cruel and unnatural carriage of the parent, grows desperate,
and often studies to irritate and vex his parents; which, though it be evil
in the child, yet the parent is accessory to it, as being the occasion of
it.
(7) If you
would have honour from your children, pray much for them. Not only lay up a
portion for them, but lay up a stock of prayer for them. Monica prayed much
for her son Augustine; and it was said, it was impossible that a son of so
many prayers and tears should perish. Pray that your children may be
preserved from the contagion of the times; pray that as your children bear
your images in their faces, they may bear God’s image in their hearts; pray
that they may be instruments and vessels of glory. One fruit of prayer may
be, that the child will honour a praying parent.
(8)
Encourage that which you see good and commendable in your children.
Virtus laudata
crescit [Goodness increases when
praised]. Commending that which is good in your children makes them more in
love with virtuous actions; and is like the watering of plants, which makes
them grow more. Some parents discourage the good they see in their children,
and so nip virtue in the bud, and help to damn their children’s souls. They
have their children’s curses.
(9) If you
would have honour from your children, set them a good example. It makes
children despise parents, when the parents live in contradiction to their
own precepts; when they bid their children be sober, and yet they themselves
get drunk; or bid their children fear God, and are themselves loose in their
lives. Oh if you would have your children honour you, teach them by a holy
example. A father is a looking-glass, which the child often dresses himself
by; let the glass be clear and not spotted. Parents should observe great
decorum in their whole conduct, lest they give occasion to their children to
say to them, as Plato’s servant, ‘My master has made a book against rash
anger, but he himself is passionate;’ or, as a son once said to his father,
‘If I have done evil, I have learned it of you.’
2.6 The Sixth Commandment
‘Thou shalt
not kill.’
Exod 20: 13.
In this
commandment is a sin forbidden, which is murder, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ and
a duty implied, which is, to preserve our own life, and the life of others.
The sin
forbidden is murder: ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Here two things are to be
understood, the not injuring another, nor ourselves.
I. The not
injuring another.
[1] We must
not injure another in his name. ‘A good name is a precious balsam.’ It is a
great cruelty to murder a man in his name. We injure others in their name,
when we calumniate and slander them. David complains, ‘They laid to my
charge things that I knew not.’
Psa 35: 11. The primitive Christians were traduced for incest,
and killing their children, as Tertullian says,
Dicimur
infanaticidii incestus rei [They
charge us with infanticide and label us incestuous]. This is to behead
others in their good name; it is an irreparable injury. No physician can
heal the wounds of the tongue.
[2] We must
not injure another in his body. Life is the most precious thing; and God has
set this commandment as a fence about it, to preserve it. He made a statute
which has never to this day been repealed. ‘Whose sheddeth man’s blood, by
man shall his blood be shed.’
Gen 9: 6. In the old law, if a man killed another unawares, he
might take sanctuary; but if he killed him willingly, though he fled to the
sanctuary, the holiness of the place would not defend him. ‘If a man come
presumptuously upon his neighbour, to slay him with guile, thou shalt take
him from mine altar, that he may die.’
Exod 21: 14. In the commandment, ‘Thou shalt do no murder,’ all
sins are forbidden which lead to it, and are the occasions of it: As,
(1)
Unadvised anger. Anger boils in the veins, and often produces murder. ‘In
their anger they slew a man.’
Gen 49: 6.
(2) Envy.
Satan envied our first parents the robe of innocence, and the glory of
paradise, and could not rest till he had procured their death. Joseph’s
brethren, because his father loved him, and gave him a ‘coat of divers
colours,’ envied him, and took counsel to slay him.
Gen 37: 20. Envy and murder are near akin, therefore the apostle
puts them together. ‘Envyings, murders.’
Gal 5: 21. Envy is a sin which breaks both tables at once; it
begins in discontent against God, and ends in injury against man, as we see
in Cain.
Gen 4: 6, 8. Envious Cain was first discontented with God, by
which he broke the first table; and then fell out with his brother and slew
him, and thus broke the second table. Anger is sometimes ’soon over,’ like
fire kindled in straw, which is quickly out; but envy is deep rooted, and
will not quench its thirst without blood. ‘Who is able to stand before
envy?’
Prov 27: 4.
(3) Hatred.
The Pharisees hated Christ because he excelled them in gifts, and had more
honour among the people than they. They never left him till they had nailed
him to the cross, and taken away his life. Hatred is a vermin which lives
upon blood. ‘Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the
blood of the children of Israel.’
Ezek 35: 5. Haman hated Mordecai because he would not bow to him,
and presently sought revenge, by getting a bloody warrant sealed for the
destruction of the whole race and seed of the Jews.
Esth 3: 9. Hatred is ever cruel. All these sins are forbidden in
this commandment.
How many
ways is murder committed?
We may be
said to murder another twelve ways. (1) With the hand; as Joab killed Abner
and Amass. ‘He smote him in the fifth rib, and shed out his bowels.’
2 Sam 20: 10. (2) With the mind. Malice is mental murder.
‘Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer.’
1 John 3: 15. To malign another, and wish evil against him in the
heart, is murdering him. (3) With the tongue, by speaking to the prejudice
of another, and causing him to be put to death. Thus the Jews killed the
Lord of life, when they inveighed against him, and accused him falsely to
Pilate.
John 18: 30. (4) With the pen. Thus David killed Uriah by writing
to Joab to ‘set Uriah in the forefront of the battle.’
2 Sam 11:15. Though the Ammonites’ sword cut off Uriah, yet
David’s pen was the cause of his death; and therefore the Lord tells David
by the prophet Nathan, ‘Thou hast killed Uriah.’
2 Sam 12: 9. (5) By plotting another’s death. Thus, though
Jezebel did not lay her own hands upon Naboth, yet because she contrived his
death, and caused two false witnesses to swear against him, and bring him
within the compass of treason, she was the murderer.
1 Kings 21: 9, 10. (6) By putting poison into cups. Thus the wife
of Commodes the emperor killed her husband by poisoning the wine which he
drank. So, many kill little children by medicines that cause their death.
(7) By witchcraft and sorcery — which were forbidden under the law. ‘There
shall not be found among you an enchanter, or a witch, or a consulter with
familiar spirits.’
Deut 18: 10, 11. (8) By having an intention to kill another; as
Herod, under a pretence of worshipping Christ, would have killed him.
Matt 2: 8, 13. So, when Saul made David go against the
Philistines, he designed that the Philistine should have killed him. ‘Saul
said, Let not mine hand be upon him, but let the hand of the Philistines be
upon him.’
1 Sam 18: 17. Here was intentional murder, and it was in God’s
account as bad as actual murder. (g) By consenting to another’s death; as
Saul to the death of Stephen. ‘I also was standing by and consenting unto
his death.’
Acts 22: 20. He that gives consent is accessory to the murder.
(10) By not hindering the death of another when in our power. Pilate knew
Christ was innocent. ‘I find no fault in him,’ he said, but did not hinder
his death; therefore he was guilty. Washing his hands in water could not
wash away the guilt of Christ’s blood. (11) By unmercifullness. By taking
away that which is necessary for the support of life; as to take away the
tools or utensils by which a man gets his living. ‘No man shall take the
upper or the nether millstone to pledge, for he taketh a man’s life.’
Deut 24: 6. Or by not helping him when he is ready to perish. You
may be the death of another, as well by not relieving him, as by offering
him violence. If thou dost not feed him that is starving, thou killest him.
How many are thus guilty of the breach of this commandment! (12) By not
executing the law upon capital offenders. A felon having committed six
murders, the judge may be said to be guilty of five of them, because he did
not execute the felon for his first offence.
What are
the aggravations of this sin of murder?
(1) To
shed the blood of another ceaselessly; as to kill another in a humour or
frolic. A bee will not sting unless provoked, but many when not provoked,
will take away the life of another. This makes the sin of blood more bloody.
The less provocation to a sin the greater sin.
(2) To
shed the blood of another contrary to promise. Thus, after the princes of
Israel had sworn to the Gibeonites that they should live, Saul slew them.
Josh 9: 15.
2 Sam 21: 1. Here were two sins bound together, perjury and
murder.
(3) To
take away the life of any public person enhances the murder, and makes it
greater, as to kill a judge upon the bench, because he represents the king’s
person. To murder a person whose office is sacred, and comes on the King of
heaven’s embassage; the murdering of whom may be the murdering of many.
Herod added this sin above all, that he shut up John the Baptist in prison,
much more to behead him in prison.
Luke 3: 20. To stain one’s hands with royal blood. David’s heart
smote him because he did but cut off the lap of king Saul’s garment.
1 Sam 24: 5. How would David’s heart have smitten him if he had
cut off Saul’s head?
(4) To
shed the blood of a near relation aggravates the murder, and dyes it of a
deeper crimson. For a son to kill his father is horrid. Parricides are
monsters in nature.
Qui occidit
patrem, plurima committit peccata in uno.
Cicero. ‘He who takes away his father’s life, commits many sins in one;’ he
is not guilty of murder only, but of disobedience, ingratitude, and
diabolical cruelty. ‘He who striketh his father or mother, shall be surely
put to death.’
Exod 21: 15. Then how many deaths is he worthy of that destroys
his father or mother! Such a monster was Nero, who caused his mother,
Agrippina, to be slain.
(5) To
shed the blood of any righteous person aggravates the sin. Hereby justice is
perverted. Such a person being innocent, is unworthy of death. A saint being
a public blessing, lies in the breach to turn away wrath; so that to destroy
him is to pull down the pillars of a nation. He is precious to God.
Psa 116: 15. He is a member of Christ’s body; therefore what
injury is offered to him is done to God himself.
Acts 9: 4.
Though,
however, this commandment forbids private persons to shed the blood of
another, unless in their own defence, yet, such as are in office must punish
public offenders, even with death. To kill an offender is not murder, but
justice. A private person sins if he draws the sword; a public person sins
if he puts up the sword. A magistrate ought not to let the sword of justice
rust in the scabbard. As he should not let the sword be too sharp by
severity, so neither should the edge of it be blunted by too much levity.
Neither
does this commandment prohibit a just war. When men’s sins grow ripe, and
long plenty has bred surfeit, God says, ‘Sword, go through the land.’
Ezek 14: 17. He encouraged the war between the tribes of Israel
and Benjamin. When the iniquity of the Amorites was full, he sent Israel to
war against them.
Judges 11: 21.
Use one.
It should be for a lamentation that this land is defiled with blood.
Numb 35: 33. How common is this sin in this boasting age!
England’s sins are written in letters of blood. Some make no more of killing
men than sheep. ‘In thy skirts is found the blood of the poor innocents.’
Jer 2: 34. Junius reads it, in alis; and so in Hebrew, ‘in thy
wings’ is found the blood of innocents. It alludes to the birds of prey,
which stain their wings with the blood of other birds. May not the Lord
justly take up a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because
‘blood toucheth blood’?
Hos 4: 2. There are wholesale murders. And that which should
increase our lamentation is, that not only man’s blood is shed among us, but
Christ’s blood. Profane flagitious sinners are said to ‘crucify the son of
God afresh.’
Heb 6: 6. (1) They swear by his blood, and so, as it were, make
his wounds bleed afresh. (2) They crucify Christ in his members. ‘Why
persecutes thou me?’
Acts 9: 4. The foot being trodden on, the head cries out. (3) If
it lay in their power, were Christ alive on earth, they would nail him again
to the cross. Thus men crucify Christ afresh; and, if man’s blood so cries,
how loud will Christ’s blood cry against sinners?
Use two.
Beware of having your hands imbrued in the blood of others.
But such a
one has wronged me by defamation, or otherwise; and if I spill his blood, I
shall but revenge my own quarrel!
If he has
done you wrong, the law is open; but take heed of shedding blood. What!
Because he has wronged you, will you therefore wrong God? Is it not doing
wrong to God to take his work out of his hand? He has said ‘Vengeance is
mine; I will repay.’
Rom 12: 19. You would undertake to revenge yourself; would be
plaintiff, and judge, and executioner, in yourself. This is a great wrong
done to God, and he will not hold you guiltless.
To deter
all from having their hands defiled with blood, consider what a sin murder
is. It is (1) A God-affronting sin. It is a breach of his command, and
trampling upon his royal edict. It is a wrong offered to God’s image. ‘In
the image of God made he man.’
Gen 9: 6. It is tearing God’s picture, and breaking in pieces the
King of heaven’s broad seal. Man is the temple of God. ‘Know ye not that
your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?’
1 Cor 6: 19. The man-slayer destroys God’s temple; and will God
endure to be thus confronted by proud dust?
(2) It is
a crying sin.
Clamitat in
coelum vox sanguinis [The voice of
blood cries to Heaven]. There are three sins in Scripture which are said to
cry. Oppression.
Psa 12: 5. Sodomy.
Gen 18: 21. Bloodshed. This cries so loud, that it drowns all the
other cries. ‘The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the
ground.’
Gen 4: 10. Abel’s blood had as many tongues as drops, to cry
aloud for vengeance. This sin of blood lay heavy on David’s conscience;
though he had sinned by adultery, yet, what he cried out for most was, this
crimson sin of blood. ‘Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God.’
Psa 51: 14. Though the Lord visits for every sin, yet he will in
a special manner make ‘inquisition for blood.’
Psa 9: 12. If a beast killed a man it was to be stoned, and its
flesh was not to be eaten.
Exod 21: 28. If God would have a beast stoned that killed a man,
which had not the use of reason to restrain it, much more will he be
incensed against those who, against both reason and conscience, take away
the life of a man.
(3) Murder
is a diabolical sin. It makes a man the devil’s first born, for he was a
murderer from the beginning.
John 8: 44. By saying to our first parents, ‘Ye shall not die,’
he brought death into the world.
(4) It is
a cursed sin. If there be a curse for him that smites his neighbour
secretly, he is doubly cursed that kills him.
Deut 27: 24. The first man that was born was a murderer. ‘And now
art thou cursed from the earth.’
Gen 4: 11. He was an excommunicated person, banished from the
place of God’s public worship. God set a mark upon bloody Cain.
Gen 4: 15. Some think that mark was horror of mind, which, above
all sins, accompanies the sin of blood. Others think it was a continual
shaking and trembling in his flesh. He carried a curse along with him.
(5) It is
a wrath-procuring sin.
2 Kings 24: 4.
It
procures temporal judgements. Phocas, to get the empire, put to death all
the sons of Mauritius the emperor, and then slew the emperor himself; but he
was pursued by Priscus, his son-in-law, who cut off his ears and feet, and
then killed him. Charles IX, who caused the massacre of so many Christians
at Paris, died from blood issuing out of several parts of his body. Albania
killed a man and made of his skull a cup to drink in. His own wife, soon
afterwards, caused him to be murdered in his bed. Vengeance as a bloodhound
pursues the murderer. ‘Bloody men shall not live out half their days.’
Psa 55: 23. It brings eternal judgements. It binds men over to
hell. The Papists make nothing of massacres, because theirs is a bloody
religion; they give a dispensation for murder, if it be to propagate the
Catholic cause. If a cardinal puts his red hat upon the head of a murderer
going to execution, he saves him from death. Let all impenitent murderers
read their doom in
Rev 21: 8: ‘Murderers shall have their part in the lake which
burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.’ We read of
‘fire mingled with blood.’
Rev 8: 7. Such as have their hands full of blood must undergo the
wrath of God. Here is fire mingled with blood, and this fire is
inextinguishable.
Mark 9: 44. Time will not finish it, tears will not quench it.
[3] We
must not injure another in his soul. This is the greatest murder of all,
because there is more of God’s image in the soul than in the body. Though
the soul cannot be annihilated, it is said to be murdered when it is
deprived of its happiness, and is for ever in torment. How many are soul
murderers!
(1) Such
as corrupt others by bad example. The world is led by example; especially by
the examples of great ones, which are very pernicious. We are apt to do as
we see others before us, especially those above us. Such as are placed in
high power, are like the pillar of cloud; where that went, Israel went. When
great ones move, others will follow them, though it be to hell. Evil
magistrates, like the tail of the dragon, draw the ‘third part of the stars
after them.’
(2) Such
as entice others to sin. The harlot by curling her hair, rolling her eyes,
laying open her breasts, does what in her lies to be both a tempter and a
murderer. Such a one was Messalina, wife to Claudius the emperor. ‘I
discerned a young man, and there met him a woman with the attire of a
harlot; so she caught him and kissed him.’
Prov 7: 10, 13. Better are the reproofs of a friend, than the
kisses of a harlot.
(3)
Ministers are murderers, who either starve, or poison, or infect souls. [1]
That starve souls. ‘Feed the flock of God which is among you.’
1 Pet 5: 2. These feed themselves and starve the flock; either
through non-residing, they do not preach, or through insufficiency, they
cannot. There are many in the ministry so ignorant that they had need to be
taught the ‘first principles of the oracles of God.’
Heb 5: 12. Was he fit to be a preacher in Israel, think ye, who
being asked something concerning the decalogue, answered he never saw any
such book? [2] That poison souls. Such are heterodox ministers, who poison
people with error. The basilisk poisons herbs and flowers by breathing on
them; so the breath of heretical ministers poisons souls. The Socinian, who
would rob Christ of his Godhead; the Armenian, who by advancing the power of
the will, would take off the crown from the head of free-grace; the
Antinomian, who denies the use of the moral law to a believer, as if it were
antiquated and out of date — poison men’s souls. Error is as damnable as
vice. ‘There shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in
damnable heresies, denying the Lord that bought them.’
2 Pet 2: 1. [3] That infect souls by their scandalous lives. ‘Let
the priests which come near to the Lord sanctify themselves.’
Exod 19: 22. Ministers who by their places are nearer to God,
should be holier than others. The higher the elements are, the purer they
are; air is purer than water; fire is purer than air. The higher men are in
office, the holier they should be. John the Baptist was a shining lamp. But
there are many who infect their people with their bad life; they preach one
thing, and live another.
Qui Curios
simulant et bacchanalia vivunt [They
make a show of goodness, but live a life of riot]. Like Eli’s sons, they are
in white linen, but have scarlet sins. Some say, that Prester John, the lord
of Africa, caused to be carried before him a golden cup full of dirt; a fit
emblem of such ministers as have a golden office, but are dirty and polluted
in their lives. They are murderers, and the blood of souls will cry against
them at the last day.
(4) Such
as destroy others by getting them into bad company, and so make them
proselytes to the devil.
Vitia in
proximum quamque transiliunt [Our
vices leap on to the man next to us]. Seneca. A man cannot live in the
Ethiopian climate but he will be discoloured with the sun, nor can he be in
bad company but he will partake of their evil. One drunkard makes another;
as the prophet speaks in another sense. ‘I set before them pots full of
wine, and cups, and said unto them, Drink ye wine;’ so the wicked set pots
of wine before others, and made them drink till reason be stupefied, and
lust inflamed.
Jer 35: 5. Such are guilty of the breach of this commandment. How
sad will it be with those who have not only their own sins, but the blood of
others to answer for! So much for the first thing forbidden in the
commandment, the injuring of others.
II. THE
second thing forbidden in this commandment is, injuring ourselves. ‘Thou
shalt not kill:’ thou shalt do no hurt to thyself.
Thou shalt
not hurt thy own body. One may be guilty of self-murder, either 1.
Indirectly or occasionally. Or, 2. Directly and absolutely.
[1]
Indirectly and occasionally; as
(1) When a
man thrusts himself into danger which he might prevent. If a company of
archers were shooting, and one should put himself in the place where the
arrows fly, so that an arrow kills him, he is accessory to his own death. In
the law, God would have the leper shut up, to keep others from being
infected.
Lev 13: 4. If any should be so presumptuous as to go to a leper,
and get the plague of leprosy, he might thank himself for his own death. (2)
A person may be guilty of his own death, in some sense, by neglecting the
use of means for preserving life. If sick, and he uses no remedy; if he has
received a wound, and will not apply a cure, he hastens his own death. God
commanded Hezekiah to lay a ‘lump of figs upon the boil.’
Isa 38: 21. If he had not done so, he would have been the cause
of his own death. (3) By immoderate grief. ‘The sorrow of the world worketh
death.’
2 Cor 7: 10. When God takes away a dear relation, and any one is
swallowed up with sorrow, he endangers his life. How many weep themselves
into their graves! Queen Mary grieved so excessively for the loss of Calais,
that it broke her heart. (4) By intemperance or excess in diet. Surfeiting
shortens life.
Plures periere
crapula, quam gladio [More perish by
drink than by the sword]. Many dig their grave with their teeth. Too much
oil chokes the lamp. The cup kills more than the cannon. Excessive drinking
causes untimely death.
{2] One
may be guilty of self-murder, directly and absolutely.
(1) By
envy. Envy is
tristitia de
bonis alienis, ‘a secret repining at
the welfare of another.’
Invidus alterius
rebus macrescit opimis. ‘An envious
man is more sorry at another’s prosperity, than at his own adversity.’ He
never laughs but when another weeps. Envy is a self-murder, a fretting
canker. Cyprian calls it
vulnus occultum,
‘a secret wound;’ it hurts a man’s self most. Envy corrodes the heart, dries
up the blood, rots the bones. Envy is ‘the rottenness of the bones.’
Prov 14: 30. It is to the body what the moth is to the cloth,
that eats it and makes its beauty consume. Envy drinks its own venom. The
viper, which leaped on Paul’s hand, thought to have hurt Paul, but fell into
the fire itself.
Acts 28: 3. So, while the envious man thinks to hurt another, he
destroys himself.
(2) By
laying violent hands on himself, and thus he commits
felo de se;
as Saul fell upon his own sword and killed himself. It is the most unnatural
and barbarous kind of murder for a man to butcher himself and imbrue his
hands in his own blood. A man’s self is most near to him, therefore this sin
of self-murder breaks both the law of God, and the bonds of nature. The Lord
has placed the soul in the body, as in a prison; and it is a sin to break
open this prison till God opens the door. Self-murderers are worse than the
brute-creatures, which will tear and gore open one another, but not destroy
themselves. Self-murder is occasioned usually by discontent, and a sullen
melancholy. The bird that beats itself in the cage, and is ready to kill
itself, is a true emblem of a discontented spirit.
Whence
comes this discontent?
This
discontent arises — (1) From pride. A man who swells with a high opinion of
himself, and thinks he deserves better than others, when any great calamity
befalls him, is discontented, and in a sudden passion will make away with
himself. Ahithophel had high thoughts of himself, his words were esteemed
oracles, and he could not bear to have his wise counsel rejected. ‘He put
his household in order, and hanged himself.’
2 Sam 17: 23. (2) From poverty. Poverty is a sore temptation.
‘Give me not poverty.’
Prov 30: 8. Many have brought themselves to poverty by their sin;
and when a great estate is boiled away to nothing, they are discontented,
and think it better to die quickly, than languish in misery, and the devil
soon helps them to dispatch themselves. (3) From covetousness. Avarice is a
dry drunkenness, a horse-leech that is never satisfied. The covetous man is
like behemoth. ‘Behold he drinketh up a river,’ and yet his thirst is not
allayed.
Job 40: 33. The covetous miser hoards up corn; and if he hears
the price of corn begins to fall, he is troubled, and there is no cure for
his discontent but a halter. (4) From horror of mind. A man has sinned a
great sin, has swallowed down some pills of temptation the devil has given
him, and these pills begin to work in his conscience, and the horror becomes
so great, that he chooses strangling. Judas having betrayed innocent blood,
was in such an agony of conscience, that he hanged himself; as if, to avoid
the stinging of a gnat, any one should endure the bite of a serpent. I can
see no ground of hope for such as make away with themselves; for they die in
the very act of sin, and cannot have time to repent.
Hurting
our own souls is forbidden in the command, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Many who
are free from other murders, are guilty here. They murder their own souls.
They wilfully damn themselves, and throw themselves into hell.
Who are
they that murder their own souls?
(1) They
wilfully murder their souls who have no sense of God, or the world to come,
and are past feeling.
Eph 4: 19. Tell them of God’s holiness and justice, and they are
not at all affected. ‘They made their hearts as an adamant stone.’
Zech 7: 12, ‘The adamant,’ says Pliny, ‘is insuperable, the
hammer cannot conquer it.’ Sinners have adamantine hearts. When the prophet
spake to the altar of stone, it rent asunder, but sinner’s hearts are so
hardened in sin (1
Kings 13: 5), nothing will work upon them, neither ordinances nor
judgements. They do not believe in a God; they laugh at hell. Thus they
murder their own souls, and throw themselves into hell as fast as they can.
(2) They
wilfully murder their own souls who resign themselves to their lusts, let
what will come of it. The soul cries out in you, I am killing myself; I am
murdering myself. They ‘have given themselves over to work all uncleanness
with greediness.’
Eph 4: 19. Let ministers speak to them about their sins, let
conscience speak, let affliction speak, they will have their lusts, even
though they go to hell for them. Do not these murder their own souls? As
Agrippina, mother of Nero, said,
occidat modo
imperet, let my son kill me, so he
may reign; so many say in their hearts, let our sins damn us, so that they
but please us. Herod will have his incestuous lusts, though it costs him his
soul; and for a drop of pleasure men will drink a sea of wrath. Do not these
massacre and damn their own souls?
(3) They
murder their souls who avoid all means of saving them. They will go to
plays, to drunken meetings, but will not set their foot in God’s house, or
come near the sound of the gospel-trumpet; as if one that is diseased should
shun the bath for fear of being healed. These are self murderers as much as
one who has the means of cure offered him, but chooses rather to die.
(4) They
voluntarily murder their souls who take false prejudices against religion;
as if it were so strict and severe that they must live a melancholy life,
like hermits and anchorites, and drown all their joys in tears. It is a
slander which the devil casts upon religion, for there is no true joy but in
believing.
Rom 15: 1, 3. No honey is so sweet as that which drops from a
promise. Some men foolishly take up a prejudice against religion; they are
resolved never to go to heaven, rather than go through the strait gate. I
may say of prejudice, as Paul to Elymas, ‘O prejudice, thou child of the
devil, thou enemy of all righteousness,’ how many souls hast thou damned?
Acts 13: 10.
(5) They
wilfully murder their own souls who will neither be good themselves, nor
suffer others to be so. ‘Ye neither go [into the kingdom of heaven]
yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.’
Matt 23: 13. Such are they who persecute others for their
religion. Drunken meetings may escape punishments from them, but if men meet
to serve God, all severity will be used. They are resolved to shipwreck
others, though they themselves are cast away in the storm. Oh! take heed of
murdering your own souls. No creature but man willingly kills itself.
III. THE
positive duty implied in the command is, that we should do all the good we
can to ourselves and others.
[1] In
reference to others. We should endeavour to preserve the lives and souls of
others. [2] In reference to ourselves. We should preserve our own life and
soul.
[1] In
reference to others. We are to preserve the life of others. We should
comfort them in their sorrows, relieve them in their wants, and like the
good Samaritan, pour wine and oil into their wounds. ‘I was a father to the
poor.’
Job 29: 16. ‘The blessing of him that was ready to perish came
upon me.’
Ver 13. It is a great means of preserving the life of another to
relieve him when he is ready to perish. When there was a great dearth in
Rome, Pompey provided corn for its relief; and when the mariners were afraid
to sail thither in a tempest, he said, ‘It is not necessary that we should
live, but it is necessary that Rome be relieved.’ Grace makes the heart
tender, it causes sympathy and charity. As it melts the heart in contrition
towards God, so in compassion towards others. ‘He has dispersed, he has
given to the poor.’
Psa 29: 9. This commandment implies that we should be so far from
ruining others, that we should do all we can to preserve the lives of
others. When you see the picture of death drawn in their faces, administer
to their necessities; be temporal saviours to then; draw them out of the
waters of affliction with a silver cord of charity. That I may persuade you
to this, let me lay before you some arguments: —
(1) Works
of charity evidence grace. As Faith. ‘I will show thee my faith by my
works.’
James 2: 18. Works are faith’s letters of credence. We judge of
the health of the body by the pulse where the blood stirs and operates; so
Christian, judge of the health of thy faith by the pulse of charity. The
word of God is the rule of faith, and good works are the witnesses of faith.
It evidences also Love. Love loves mercy; it is a noble bountiful grace.
Mary loved Christ, and how liberal was her love! She bestowed on Christ her
tears, kisses, and costly ointments. Love, like a full vessel, will have
vent; it vents itself in acts of liberality.
(2) To
communicate to the necessities of others is not left to our choice, but is
an incumbent duty. ‘Charge them that are rich in this world that they do
good; that they be rich in good works.’
1 Tim 6: 17, 18. This is not only a counsel, but a charge. If God
should lay a charge upon the inanimate creatures, they would obey; if he
should charge the rocks, they would send forth water; if he should charge
the clouds, they would melt into showers; if he should charge the stones,
they would become bread. And shall we be harder than the stones, not to obey
God when he charges us to ‘be rich in good works?’
(3) God
supplies our wants, and shall not we supply the wants of others? ‘We could
not live without mercy.’ God makes every creature helpful to us: the sun to
enrich us with its golden beams; the earth to yield us its increase, veins
of gold, crops of corn, and store of flowers. God opens the treasury of his
mercy; he feeds us every day out of the alms-basket of his providence. ‘Thou
openest thy hand, and satisfies the desire of every living thing.’
Psa 145: 16. Does God supply our wants, and shall we not minister
to the wants of others? Shall we be as a sponge to suck in mercy, and not as
breasts to milk it out to others?
(4) Herein
we resemble God, to be doing good to others. It is our excellence to be like
God. ‘Godliness is Godlikeness.’ When are we more like him than in acts of
bounty and munificence? ‘Thou art good, and does good.’
Psa 119: 68. ‘Thou art good,’ there is his essential goodness;
and ‘doest good,’ there is his communicative goodness. The more helpful we
are to others, the more like we are to God. We cannot be like God in
omniscience, or in working miracles; but we may be like him in doing works
of mercy.
(5) God
remembers all our deeds of charity, and takes them kindly at our hands. ‘God
is not unrighteous to forget your labour of love which ye have shewed
towards his name, in that you have ministered to the saints.’
Heb 6: 10. The chief butler may forget Joseph’s kindness, but the
Lord will not forget any kindness we show to his people. ‘I was an hungred
and ye gave me meat; thirsty, and ye gave me drink.’
Matt 25: 35. Christ takes the kindness done to his saints as done
to himself. God has a bottle for your tears, and a book to write down your
alms. ‘A book of remembrance was written before him.’
Mal 3: 16. Tamerlane had a register to write down all the names
and good services of his soldiers; so God has a book of remembrance to write
down all your charitable works; and at the day of judgement there shall be
an open and honourable mention made of them in the presence of the angels.
(6)
Hardheartedness to others in misery reproaches the gospel. When men’s hearts
are like pieces of rock, or as the scales of the leviathan, ‘shut up as with
a close seal,’ you may as well extract oil out of flint, as the golden oil
of charity out of them.
Job 41: 15. They unchristianize themselves. Unmercifullness is
the sin of the heathen. ‘Unmerciful.’
Rom 1: 31. It eclipses the glory of the gospel. Does the gospel
teach uncharitableness? Does it not bid us ‘draw out thy soul to the
hungry’?
Isa 58: 10. ‘These things I will that thou affirm, that they
which have believed in God, might be careful to maintain good works.’
Tit 3: 8. While you relieve not such as are in want, you walk in
opposition to the gospel; you cause it to be evil spoken of, and lay it open
to the lash and censure of others.
(7) There
is nothing lost by relieving the necessitous. The Shunammite woman was kind
to the prophet, she welcomed him to her house, and she received kindness
from him another way; he restored her dead child to life.
2 Kings 4: 35. Such as are helpful to others, shall ‘find grace
to help in time of need.’ Such as pour out the golden oil of compassion to
others, shall have the golden oil of salvation by God poured out to them;
for ‘a cup of cold water’ they shall have ‘rivers of pleasure.’ God will
make it up some way or other in this life. ‘The liberal soul shall be made
fat.’
Prov 11: 25. It shall be as the loaves in breaking multiplied;
or, as the widow’s oil, increased in pouring out.
1 Kings 17: 16. An estate may be imparted without being impaired.
(8) To do
good to others in necessity keeps up the credit of religion. Works of mercy
adorn the gospel, as the fruit adorns the tree. When ‘one light so shines
that others see our good works,’ it glorifies God, crowns religion, and
silences the lips of gainsayers. Basil says nothing rendered the true
religion more famous in the primitive times, and made more proselytes to it,
than the bounty and charity of Christians.
(9) The
evil that accrues by not preserving the lives of others, and helping them in
their necessities. God often sends a secret moth into their estate. ‘There
is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.’
Prov 11: 24. ‘Whose stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he
also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.’
Prov 21: 13. ‘He shall have judgement without mercy, that has
shewed no mercy.’
James 2: 13. Dives denied Lazarus a crumb of bread, and Dives was
denied a drop of water. ‘Depart from me, ye cursed; for I was an hungred,
and ye gave me no meat.’
Matt 15: 41. Christ says not, ‘Ye took away my meat;’ but ‘Ye
gave me no meat;’ ye did not feed my members, therefore ‘depart from me.’ By
all this, be ready to distribute to the necessities of others. This is
included in the commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Not only thou shalt not
destroy another’s life, but thou shalt preserve it by ministering to his
necessities.
It is
implied that we should endeavour to preserve the souls of others: counsel
them about their souls; set life and death before them; help them to heaven.
In the law, if one met his neighbour’s ox or ass going astray, he must bring
him back again.
Exod 23: 4. Much more, if we see our neighbour’s soul going
astray, we should use all means to bring him back to God by repentance.
[2] In
reference to ourselves. The commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ requires
that we should preserve our own life and soul. It is engraven upon every
creature that he should preserve his own natural life. We must be so far
from self-murder, that we must do all we can to preserve natural life. We
must use all means of diet, exercise, and lawful recreation, which, like
oil, preserves the lamp of life from going out. Some have been tempted by
Satan to believe they are such sinners that they do not deserve a bit of
bread, and so they have been ready to starve themselves. This is contrary to
the commandment, ‘Thou shalt do no murder,’ which implies that we are to use
all proper means for the preservation of life. ‘Drink no longer water, but
use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake.’
1 Tim 5: 23. Timothy was not, by drinking too much water, to
overcool his stomach, and weaken nature, but to use means for
self-preservation — to drink ‘a little wine,’ &c.
This
commandment requires that we should also endeavour to preserve our own
souls.
Omnia si perdas animam servare memento
[Though you lose all else, remember to save your soul]. It is engraven upon
every creature, as with the point of a diamond, to look to its own
preservation. If the life of the body must be preserved, much more the life
of the soul. If he who does not provide for his own house is worse than an
infidel, much more he who does not provide for his own soul.
1 Tim 5: 8. A main thing implied in the commandment is a special
care for preserving our souls. The soul is a jewel, a diamond set in a ring
of clay; Christ puts the soul in balance with the world, and it outweighs
all.
Matt 16: 26. The soul is a glass. in which some rays of divine
glory shine; it has in it some faint idea and resemblance of a Deity; it is
a celestial spark lighted by the breath of God. The body was made of the
dust, but the soul is of a more noble origin. God breathed into man a living
soul.
Gen 2: 7.
(1) The
soul is excellent in its nature. It is a spiritual being, ‘it is a kind of
angelical thing.’ The mind sparkles with knowledge, the will is crowned with
liberty, and all the affections are as stars shining in their orb. The soul
being spiritual, it is of quick operation. How quick are the motions of a
spark! How swift the wing of a cherubim! So quick and agile is the motion of
the soul! What is quicker than thought? How many miles can the soul travel
in an instant! The soul, being spiritual, moves upwards, it contemplates God
and glory. ‘Whom have I in heaven but thee?’
Psa 73: 25. The motion of the soul is upward; but sin has put a
wrong bias upon it, and made it move downward. The soul, being spiritual,
has a self-moving power; it can subsist and move when the body is dead, as
the mariner can subsist when the ship is broken. The soul, being spiritual,
is immortal (Scaliger),
aeternitatis
gemma, ‘a bud of eternity.’
(2) As the
soul is excellent in its nature, so in its capacities. It is capable of
grace, it is fit to be an associate and companion of angels. It is capable
of communion with God, of being Christ’s spouse. ‘I have espoused you to one
husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.’
2 Cor 11: 2. It is capable of being crowned with glory for ever.
Oh! then, carrying such precious souls about you, created with the breath of
God, redeemed with the blood of God, what endeavours should you use for the
saving of these souls! Let not the devil have your souls. Heliogabalus fed
his lions with pheasants: the devil is called a roaring lion: feed him not
with your souls. Besides the excellence of the soul, which may make you
labour to get it saved, consider how sad it will be not to have the soul
saved; it is such a loss as there is none like it; because in losing the
soul, you lose many things with it. A merchant in losing his ship, loses
many things with it: he loses money, jewels, spices, &c.; so he that loses
his soul, loses Christ and the company of angels in heaven. It is an
infinite loss — an irreparable loss; it can never be made up again. ‘Two
eyes and one soul.’ Chrysostom. Oh! what care should be taken of the
immortal soul! I would request but this of you, that you take as much care
for the saving of your souls as you do for getting an estate. Nay, do but
take as much care for saving your souls as the devil does for destroying
them. Oh! how industrious is Satan to damn souls! How does he play the
serpent in his subtle laying of snares to catch souls! How does he shoot the
fiery darts! He is never idle; he is a busy bishop in his diocese; he
‘walketh about seeking whom he may devour.’
1 Pet 5: 8. Now, is it not a reasonable request to take as much
care for saving your souls as the devil does for destroying them?
How can we
have our souls saved?
By having
them sanctified. Only the ‘pure in heart shall see God.’ Get your souls
inlaid and enamelled with holiness.
1 Pet 1: 16. It is not enough that ‘we cease to do evil;’ which
is all the evidence some have to show, and lose heaven by short shooting;
but we must be inwardly sanctified. Not only the ‘unclean spirit’ must go
out, but we must be filled with the Holy Ghost.
Eph 5: 19. This holiness must needs be, if you consider God is to
dwell with you here, and you are to dwell with him hereafter.
God is to
dwell with you here. He takes up the soul for his own lodging. ‘That Christ
may dwell in your hearts.’
Eph 3: 17. Therefore the soul must be consecrated. A king’s
palace must be kept clean, especially his presence chamber. The body is the
temple of the Holy Ghost.
1 Cor 6: 19. The soul is the sanctum sanctorum; how holy should
it be!
You are to
dwell with God. Heaven is a holy place. ‘An inheritance undefiled.’
1 Pet 1: 4. And how can you dwell with God till you are
sanctified? We do not put wine into a musty vessel; and God will not put the
new wine of glory into a sinful heart. Oh, then, as you love your souls, and
would have them saved eternally, endeavour after holiness! By this means you
will have a fitness for the kingdom of heaven, and your souls will be saved
in the day of the Lord Jesus.
2.7 The Seventh Commandment
‘Thou
shalt not commit adultery.’
Exod 20: 14.
God is a
pure, holy spirit, and has an infinite antipathy against all uncleanness. In
this commandment he has entered his caution against it; non moechaberis,
‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ The sum of this commandment is, The
preservations of corporal purity. We must take heed of running on the rock
of uncleanness, and so making shipwreck of our chastity. In this commandment
there is something tacitly implied, and something expressly forbidden.
1. The
thing implied is that the ordinance of marriage should be observed. ‘Let
every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.’
1 Cor 7: 2. ‘Marriage is honourable and the bed undefiled.’
Heb 13: 4. God instituted marriage in paradise; he brought the
woman to the man.
Gen 2: 22. He gave them to each other in marriage. Jesus Christ
honoured marriage with his presence.
John 2: 2. The first miracle he wrought was at a marriage, when
he turned the ‘water into wine.’ Marriage is a type and resemblance of the
mystical union between Christ and his church.
Eph 5: 32.
In
marriage there are general and special duties. The general duty of the
husband is to rule. ‘The husband is the head of the wife.’
Eph 5: 23. The head is the seat of rule and judgement; but he
must rule with discretion. He is head, therefore must not rule without
reason. The general duty on the wife’s part is submission. ‘Wives, submit
yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.’
Eph 5: 22. It is observable that the Holy Ghost passed by Sarah’s
failings, not mentioning her unbelief; but he takes notice of that which was
good in her, as her reverence and obedience to her husband. ‘Sarah obeyed
Abraham, calling him lord.’
1 Pet 3: 6.
The
special duties belonging to marriage, are love and fidelity. Love is the
marriage of the affections.
Eph 5: 25. There is, as it were, but one heart in two bodies.
Love lines the yoke and makes it easy; it perfumes the marriage relation;
and without it there is not
conjugium
but
conjurgium [not harmony but constant
wrangling]. Like two poisons in one stomach, one is ever sick of the other.
In marriage there is mutual promise of living together faithfully according
to God’s holy ordinance. Among the Romans, on the day of marriage, the woman
presented to her husband fire and water: signifying that as fire refines,
and water cleanses, she would live with her husband in chastity and
sincerity.
II. The
thing forbidden in the commandment is infecting ourselves with bodily
pollution and uncleanness. ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ The fountain of
this sin is lust. Since the fall, holy love has degenerated to lust. Lust is
the fever of the soul. There is a twofold adultery.
[1]
Mental. ‘Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her has committed
adultery with her already in his heart.’
Matt 5: 28. As a man may die of an inward bleeding, so he may be
damned for the inward boilings of lust, if it be not mortified.
{2]
Corporal; as when sin has conceived, and brought forth in the act. This is
expressly forbidden under a
sub poena.
‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ This commandment is set as a hedge to keep
out uncleanness; and they that break this hedge a serpent shall bite them.
Job calls adultery a ‘heinous crime.’
Job 31: 2: Every failing is not a crime; and every crime is not a
heinous crime; but adultery is flagitium, ‘a heinous crime.’ The Lord calls
it villany. ‘They have committed villany in Israel, and have committed
adultery with their neighbours’ wives.’
Jer 29: 23.
Wherein
appears the greatness of this sin?
(1) It is
a breach of the marriage-oath. When persons come together in a matrimonial
way, they bind themselves by covenant to each other, in the presence of God,
to be true and faithful in the conjugal relation. Unchastity falsifies this
solemn oath; and herein adultery is worse than fornication, because it is a
breach of the conjugal bond.
(2) The
greatness of the sin lies in this: that it is a great dishonour done to God.
God says, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ The adulterer sets his will
above God’s law, tramples upon his command, affronts him to his face; as if
a subject should tear his prince’s proclamation. The adulterer is highly
injurious to all the Persons in the Trinity. To God the Father. Sinner, God
has given thee thy life, and thou dost waste the lamp of life, the flower of
thine age in lewdness. He has bestowed on thee many mercies, health, and
estate, and thou spendest all on harlots. Did God give thee wages to serve
the devil? It is injurious to God the Son, in two ways. As he has purchased
thee with his blood. ‘Ye are bought with a price.’
1 Cor 6: 20. Now he who is bought is not his own; it is a sin for
him to go to another, without consent, from Christ, who has bought him with
a price. As by virtue of baptism thou art a Christian, and professes that
Christ is thy head, and thou art a member of Christ; therefore, what an
injury is it to Christ, to ‘take the members of Christ, and make them the
members of a harlot’?
1 Cor 6: 15. It is injurious to God the Holy Ghost; for the body
is his temple. ‘Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost
which is in you?’
1 Cor 6: 19. And how great a sin is it to defile his temple!
(3) The
sin of adultery lies in this: that it is committed with mature deliberation.
There is contriving the sin in the mind, then consent in the will, and then
the sin is put forth into act. To sin against the light of nature, and to
sin deliberately, is like the dye to the wool, it gives sin a tincture, and
dyes it of a crimson colour.
(4) That
which makes adultery so sinful is, that it is needless. God has provided a
remedy to prevent it. ‘To avoid fornication, let every man have his own
wife.’
1 Cor 7: 2. Therefore, after this remedy prescribed, to be guilty
of fornication or adultery, is inexcusable; it is like a rich thief, that
steals when he has no need. This increases the sin.
Use one.
The church of Rome is here condemned, which allows the sin of fortification
and adultery. It suffers not its priests to marry, but they may have their
courtesans. The worst kind of uncleanness, incest with the nearest of kin,
is dispensed with for money. It was once said of Rome,
Urbs est jam
tota lupanar, Rome was become a
common stew. And no wonder, when the Pope, for a sum of money, could give a
license and patent to commit uncleanness; and, if the patent were not
enough, he would give them a pardon. Many of the Papists judge fornication
to be venial. God condemns the very lusting.
Matt 5: 28. If God condemns the thought, how dare they allow the
fact of fornication? You see what a cage of unclean birds the church of Rome
is. They call themselves the Holy Catholic Church; but how can they be holy
who are so steeped and parboiled in fornication, incest, sodomy, and all
manner of uncleanness?
Use two.
It is a matter for lamentation to see this commandment so slighted and
violated among us. Adultery is the reigning sin of the times. ‘They are all
adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker.’
Hos 7: 4. The time of King Henry VIII was called the golden age,
but this may be called the unclean age, wherein whore-hunting is common. ‘In
thy filthiness is lewdness.’
Ezek 24: 13. Luther tells us of one who said, ‘If he might but
satisfy his lust, and be carried from one whore-house to another, he would
desire no other heaven’; and who afterwards breathed out his soul betwixt
two notorious strumpets. This is to love forbidden fruit, to love to drink
of stolen waters. ‘Son of man, dig in the wall; and when I had digged,
behold a door; and he said, Go in and behold the wicked abominations that
they do here.’
Ezek 8: 8, 9. Could we, as the prophet, dig in the walls of many
houses, what vile abominations should we see there! In some chambers we
might see fornication; dig further, and we may see adultery; dig further,
and we may see incest, &c. And may not the Lord go from his sanctuary? ‘Sees
thou the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth, that I
should go far off from my sanctuary?’
Ezek 8: 6. God might remove his gospel, and then we might write
Ichabod on this nation, ‘The glory is departed.’ Let us mourn for what we
cannot reform.
Use
three. For exhortation, to keep ourselves from the sin of adultery. ‘Let
every man have his own wife,’ says Paul, not his concubine, nor his
courtesan.
1 Cor 7: 2. That I may deter you from adultery, let me show you
the great evil of it.
(1) It is
a thievish sin. It is the highest sort of theft. The adulterer steals from
his neighbour that which is more than his goods and estate; he steals away
his wife from him, who is flesh of his flesh.
(2)
Adultery debases a person; it makes him resemble the beasts; therefore the
adulterer is described like a horse neighing. ‘Every one neighed after his
neighbour’s wife.’
Jer 5: 8. Nay, it is worse than brutish; for some creatures that
are void of reason, yet by the instinct of nature, observe some decorum and
chastity. The turtle dove is a chaste creature, and keeps to its mate; and
the stork, wherever he flies, comes into no nest but his own. Naturalists
write that if a stork, leaving his own mate, joins with any other, all the
rest of the storks fall upon it, and pull its feathers from it. Adultery is
worse than brutish, it degrades a person of his honour.
(3)
Adultery pollutes. The devil is called an unclean spirit.
Luke 11: 24. The adulterer is the devil’s first-born; he is
unclean; he is a moving quagmire; he is all over ulcerated with sin; his
eyes sparkle with lust; his mouth foams out filth; his heart burns like
mount Etna, in unclean desires; and he is so filthy, that if he die in this
sin, all the flames of hell will never purge away his uncleanness. And, as
for the adulteress, who can paint her black enough? The Scriptures calls her
a deep ditch.
Prov 23: 27. She is a common drain; whereas a believer’s body is
a living temple, and his soul a little heaven, be spangled with the graces,
as so many stars. The body of a harlot is a walking dung hill, and her soul
a lesser hell.
(4)
Adultery is destructive to the body. ‘And thou mourn at the last, when thy
flesh and thy body are consumed.’
Prov 5: 11. It brings into a consumption. Uncleanness turns the
body into a hospital, it wastes the radical moisture, rots the skull, and
eats the beauty of the face. As the flame wastes the candle, so the fire of
lust consumes the bones. The adulterer hastens his own death. ‘Till a dart
strike through his liver.’
Prov 7: 23. The Romans had their funerals at the gate of Venus’s
temple, to signify that lust brings death. Venus is lust.
(5.)
Adultery is a drain upon the purse; it wastes not the body only, but the
estate. ‘By means of a whorish woman, a man is brought to a piece of bread.’
Prov 6: 26. Whores are the devil’s horse-leeches, sponges that
suck in money. The prodigal son spent his portion when he fell among
harlots.
Luke 15: 30. The concubine of King Edward III, when he was dying,
got all she could from him, and even plucked the rings off his fingers, and
so left him. He that lives in luxury, dies in beggary.
(6)
Adultery destroys reputation. ‘Whoso committeth adultery with a woman, a
wound and dishonour shall he get, and his reproach shall not be wiped away.’
Prov 6: 32, 33. Some, when they get wounds, get honour. The
soldier’s wounds are full of honour; the martyr’s wounds for Christ are full
of honour; but the adulterer gets wounds, but no honour to his name. ‘His
reproach shall not be wiped away.’ Wounds of reputation no physician can
heal. When the adulterer dies, his shame lives. When his body rots
underground, his name rots above ground. His base-born children are living
monuments of his shame.
(7) This
sin impairs the mind; it steals away the understanding; it stupefies the
heart. ‘Whoredom and wine take away the heart.’
Hos 4: 11. It cats out all heart for good. Solomon besotted
himself with women, and they enticed him to idolatry.
(8) This
sin incurs temporal judgements. The Mosaic law made adultery death. ‘The
adulterer and adulteress shall surely be put to death;’ and the usual death
was stoning.
Lev 20: 10;
Deut 22: 24. The Salons commanded persons taken in this sin to be
burnt. The Romans caused their heads to be stricken off. Like a scorpion,
this sin carries a sting in its tail. The adultery of Paris and Helen was
the death of both, and the ruin of Troy. ‘Jealousy is the rage of a man.’
Prov 6: 34. The adulterer is often killed in the act of his sin.
Adultery cost Otho the emperor, and Pope Sixtus IV their lives.
Laeta venire
Venus, tristis abire solet [Lust’s
practice is to make a joyful entrance, but she leaves in misery]. I have
read of two citizens in London, in 1583, who, having defiled themselves with
adultery on the Lord’s-day, were immediately struck dead with fire from
heaven. If all who are now guilty of this sin were to be punished in this
manner, it would rain fire again, as on Sodom.
(9)
Adultery, without repentance, damns the soul. ‘Neither fornicators, nor
adulterers, nor effeminate, shall enter into the kingdom of God.’
1 Cor 6: 9. The fire of lust brings to the fire of hell.
‘Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.’
Heb 13: 4. Though men may neglect to judge them, yet God will
judge them. But will not God judge all other sinners? Yes. Why then does the
apostle say, ‘Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge’? The meaning is,
he will judge them assuredly; they shall not escape the hand of justice; and
he will punish them severely. ‘The Lord knoweth how to reserve the unjust to
the day of judgement to be punished, but chiefly them that walk in the lust
of uncleanness.’
2 Pet 2: 9, 10. The harlot’s breast keeps from Abraham’s bosom.
Momentaneum est quod delectat, auternum quod cruciat
[The delight lasts a moment, the torment an eternity]. Who for a cup of
pleasure would drink a sea of wrath? ‘Her guests are in the depths of hell.’
Prov 9: 18. A wise traveller, though many pleasant dishes are set
before him at the inn, forbears to taste, because of the reckoning. We are
all travellers to Jerusalem above; and when many baits of temptation are set
before us, we should refrain, and think of the reckoning which will be
brought in at death. With what stomach could Dionysius eat his dainties,
when he imagined there was a naked sword hung over his head as he sat at
meat? While the adulterer feeds on strange flesh, the sword of God’s justice
hangs over his head. Causinus speaks of a tree growing in Spain, that is of
a sweet smell, and pleasant to the taste, but the juice of it is poisonous.
This is an emblem of a harlot; who is perfumed with powders, and fair to
look on, but poisonous and damnable to the soul. ‘She has cast down many
wounded, yea, many strong men have been slain by her.’
Prov 7: 26.
(10) The
adulterer not only wrongs his own soul, but does what in him lies to destroy
the soul of another, and so kills two at once. He is worse than the thief;
for, suppose a thief robs a man, yea, takes away his life, the man’s soul
may be happy; he may go to heaven as well as if he had died in his bed. But
he who commits adultery, endangers the soul of another, and deprives her of
salvation so far as in him lies. Now, what a fearful thing is it to be an
instrument to draw another to hell!
(11) The
adulterer is abhorred of God. ‘The mouth of strange women is a deep pit: he
that is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therein.’
Prov 22: 14. What can be worse than to be abhorred of God? God
may be angry with his own children; but for God to abhor a man, is the
highest degree of hatred.
How does
the Lord show his abhorrence of the adulterer?
In giving
him up to a reprobate mind, and a seared conscience.
Rom 1: 28. He is then in such a condition that he cannot repent.
He is abhorred of God. He stands upon the threshold of hell; and when death
gives him a push, he tumbles in. All this should sound a retreat in our
ears, and call us off from the pursuit of so damnable a sin as uncleanness.
Hear what the Scriptures say: ‘Come not nigh the door of her house.’
Prov 5: 8. ‘Her house is the way to hell.’
Prov 7: 27.
(12)
Adultery sows discord. It destroys peace and love, the two best flowers that
grow in a family. It sets husband against wife, and wife against husband;
and so causes the ‘joints of the same body to smite one against another.’
This division in a family works confusion; for ‘A house divided against a
house falleth.’
Luke 11: 17.
Omne divisibile est corruptibile.
Use four.
I shall give some directions, by way of antidote, to keep from the infection
of this sin.
(1) Come
not into the company of a whorish woman; avoid her house, as a seaman does a
rock. ‘Come not nigh the door of her house.’
Prov 5: 8. He who would not have the plague, must not come near
infected houses; every whore-house has the plague in it. Not to beware of
the occasion of sin, and yet pray, ‘Lead us not into temptation,’ is, as if
one should put his finger into the candle, and yet pray that it may not be
burnt.
(2) Look
to your eyes. Much sin comes in by the eye. ‘Having eyes full of adultery.’
2 Pet 2: 14. The eye tempts the fancy, and the fancy works upon
the heart. A wanton amorous eye may usher in sin. Eve first saw the tree of
knowledge, and then she took.
Gen 3: 6. First she looked and then she loved. The eye often sets
the heart on fire; therefore Job laid a law upon his eyes. ‘I made a
covenant with my eyes, why then should I think upon a maid?’
Job 31: 1. Democritus the philosopher plucked out his eyes,
because he would not be tempted with vain objects; the Scripture does not
bid us do this, but to set a watch before our eyes.
(3) Look
to your lips. Take heed of any unseemly word that may enkindle unclean
thoughts in yourselves or others. ‘Evil communications corrupt good
manners.’
1 Cor 15: 33. Impure discourse is the bellows to blow up the fire
of lust. Much evil is conveyed to the heart by the tongue. ‘Set a watch, O
Lord, before my mouth.’
Psa 141: 3.
(4) Look
in a special manner to your heart. ‘Keep thy heart with all diligence.’
Prov 4: 23. Every one has a tempter in his own bosom. ‘Out of the
heart proceed evil thoughts.’
Matt 15: 19. Thinking of sin makes way for the act of sin.
Suppress the first risings of sin in your heart. As the serpent, when danger
is near, keeps his head, so keep your heart, which is the spring from whence
all lustful motions proceed.
(5) Look
to your attire. We read of the attire of a harlot.
Prov 7: 10. A wanton dress is a provocation to lust. Cuttings and
braidings of the hair, a painted face, naked breasts, are allurements to
vanity. Where the sign is hung out, people will go in and taste the liquor.
Jerome says, they who by their lascivious attire endeavour to draw others to
lust, though no evil follows, are tempters, and shall be punished, because
they offered the poison to others, though they would not drink.
(6) Take
heed of evil company.
Serpunt vitia
et in proximum quemque transiliunt
[Vices spread abroad and spring on to any standing by]. Seneca. Sin is a
very catching disease; one tempts another to sin, and hardens him in it.
There are three cords that draw men to adultery: the inclination of the
heart, the persuasion of evil company, and the embraces of the harlot; and
this threefold cord is not easily broken. ‘A fire was kindled in their
company.’
Psa 106: 18. The fire of lust is kindled in bad company.
(7)
Beware of going to plays. A play-house is often a preface to a whorehouse.
Ludi
praebent semina nequitiae [Plays
furnish the seeds of wickedness]. We are bid to avoid all appearance of
evil: and are not plays the appearance of evil? Such sights are there that
are not fit to be beheld with chaste eyes. Both Fathers and Councils have
shown their dislike to going to plays. A learned divine observes, that many
have on their death-beds confessed, with tears, that the pollution of their
bodies has been occasioned by going to plays.
(8) Take
heed of mixed dancing.
Instrumenta
luxuriae tripudia [Dances are
instruments of wantonness]. From dancing, people come to dalliance with
another, and from dalliance to uncleanness. ‘There is,’ says Calvin, ‘for
the most part, some unchaste behaviour in dancing.’ Dances draw the heart to
folly by wanton gestures, by unchaste touches, and by lustful looks.
Chrysostom inveighed against mixed dancing in his time. ‘We read,’ he says,
‘of a marriage feast, and of virgins going before with lamps, but of dancing
there we read not.’
Matt 25: 7. Many have been ensnared by dancing; as the duke of
Normandy, and others.
Saltatio
adadulteras non ad pudicas pertinet
[Dancing is the province not of the chaste woman, but of the adulteress].
Ambrose. Chrysostom says, where dancing is, there the devil is. I speak
chiefly of mixed dancing. We read of dances in Scripture, but they were
sober and modest.
Exod 15: 20. They were not mixed dances, but pious and religious,
being usually accompanied with singing praises to God.
(9) Take
heed of lascivious books, and pictures that provoke to lust. As the reading
of the Scripture stirs up love to God, so reading bad books stirs up the
mind to wickedness. I could name one who published a book to the world full
of effeminate, amorous, and wanton expressions, who, before he died, was
much troubled for it, and burned the book which made so many burn in lust.
To lascivious books I may add lascivious pictures, which bewitch the eye,
and are incendiaries to lust. They secretly convey poison to the heart. Qui
aspicit innocens aspectu fit nocens. Popish pictures are not more prone to
stir up idolatry than unclean pictures are to stir up to concupiscence.
(10) Take
heed of excess in diet. When gluttony and drunkenness lead the van,
chambering and wantonness bring up the rear. Vinum fomentum libidinis; ‘any
wine inflames lust;’ and fulness of bread is made the cause of Sodom’s
uncleanness.
Ezek 16: 49. The rankest weeds grow out of the fattest soil.
Uncleanness proceeds from excess. ‘When I had fed them to the full, every
one neighed after his neighbour’s wife.’
Jer 5: 8. Get the ‘golden bridle of temperance.’ God allows
recruits of nature, and what may fit us the better for his service; but
beware of surfeit. Excess in the creature clouds the mind, chokes good
affections, and provokes lust. Paul did ‘keep under his body.’
1 Cor 9: 27. The flesh pampered is apt to rebel. Corpus
impinguatum recalcitrat.
(11) Take
heed of idleness. When a man is out of a calling, he is ready to receive any
temptation. We do not sow seed in fallow-ground; but the devil sows most
seed of temptation in such as lie fallow. Idleness is the cause of sodomy
and uncleanness.
Ezek 16: 49. When David was idle on the top of his house, he
espied Bathsheba, and took her to him.
2 Sam 11: 4. Jerome gave his friend counsel to be always well
employed in God’s vineyard, that when the devil came, he might have no
leisure to listen to temptation.
(12) To
avoid fornication and adultery, let every man have a chaste, entire love to
his own wife. Ezekiel’s wife was the desire of his eyes.
Chap 24: 16. When Solomon had dissuaded from strange women, he
prescribed a remedy against it. ‘Rejoice with the wife of thy youth.’
Prov 5: 18. It is not having a wife, but loving a wife, that
makes a man live chastely. He who loves his wife, whom Solomon calls his
fountain, will not go abroad to drink of muddy, poisoned waters. Pure
conjugal love is a gift of God, and comes from heaven; but, like the vestal
fire, it must be cherished, that it go not out. He who loves not his wife,
is the likeliest person to embrace the bosom of a stranger.
(13)
Labour to get the fear of God into your hearts. ‘By the fear of the Lord men
depart from evil.’
Prov 16: 6. As the embankment keeps out the water, so the fear of
the Lord keeps out uncleanness. Such as want the fear of God, want the
bridle that should check them from sin. How did Joseph keep from his
mistress’s temptation? The fear of God pulled him back. ‘How can I do this
great wickedness, and sin against God?’
Gen. 39: 9. Bernard calls holy fear, janitor animae, ‘the
door-keeper of the soul.’ As a nobleman’s porter stands at the door, and
keeps out vagrants, so the fear of God stands and keeps out all sinful
temptations from entering.
(14) Take
delight in the word of God. ‘How sweet are thy words unto my taste.’
Psa 119: 103. Chrysostom compares God’s word to a garden. If we
walk in this garden, and suck sweetness from the flowers of the promises, we
shall never care to pluck the ‘forbidden fruit.’
Sint castae
deliciae meae scripturae [Let the
Scriptures be my pure pleasure]. Augustine. The reason why persons seek
after unchaste, sinful pleasures, is because they have no better. Caesar
riding through a city, and seeing the women play with dogs and parrots,
said, ‘Sure they have no children.’ So they that sport with harlots have no
better pleasures. He that has once tasted Christ in a promise, is ravished
with delight; and how would he scorn a motion to sin! Job said, the word was
his ‘appointed food.’
Job 23: 12. No wonder then he made a ‘covenant with his eyes.’
(15) If
you would abstain from adultery, use serious consideration. Consider, [1]
God sees thee in the act of sin. He sees all thy curtain wickedness. He is
totus
oculus, ‘all eye.’ The clouds are no
canopy, the night is no curtain to hide thee from God’s eye. Thou canst not
sin, but thy Judge looks on. ‘I have seen thy adulteries and thy neighings.’
Jer 13: 27. ‘They have committed adultery with their neighbours’
wives; even I know, and am a witness, saith the Lord.’
Jer 29: 23. [2] Few that are entangled in the sin of adultery,
recover from the snare. ‘None that go to her return again.’
Prov 2: 19. This made some of the ancients conclude that adultery
was an unpardonable sin; but it is not so. David repented. Mary Magdalene
was a weeping penitent; upon her amorous eyes that sparkled with lose, she
sought to be revenged, by washing Christ’s feet with her tears. Some,
therefore have recovered from the snare. ‘None that go to her return,’ that
is, ‘very few;’ it is rare to hear of any who are enchanted and bewitched
with this sin of adultery, that recover from it. Her ‘heart is snares and
nets, and her hands are bands.’
Eccl 7: 26. Her ‘heart is snares,’ that is, she is subtle to
deceive those who come to her; and ‘her hands are bands,’ that is her
embraces are powerful to hold and entangle her lovers. Plutarch said of the
Persian kings, ‘They were captives to their concubines,’ they were so
inflamed, that they had no power to leave their company. This consideration
should make all fearful of this sin. Soft pleasures harden the heart. [3]
Consider what Scripture says, which may
ponere obicem,
‘lay a bar in the way’ to this sin. ‘I will be a swift witness against the
adulterers.’
Mal 3: 5. It is good when God is a witness ‘for us’, when he
witnesses to our sincerity, as he did to Job’s; but it is sad to have God a
‘witness against us.’ ‘I,’ says God, ‘will be a witness against the
adulterer.’ And who shall disprove his witness? He is both witness and
judge. ‘Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.’
Heb 13: 4. [4] Consider the sad farewell the sin of adultery
leaves. It leaves a hell in the conscience. ‘The lips of a strange woman
drop as a honeycomb, but her end is bitter as wormwood.’
Prov 5: 4. The goddess Diana was so artificially drawn, that she
seemed to smile upon those that came into her temple, but frown on those
that went out. So the harlot smiles on her lovers as they come to her, but
at last come the frown and the sting. ‘Till a dart strike through his
liver.’
Prov 7: 23. ‘Her end is bitter.’ When a man has been virtuous,
the labour is gone, but the comfort remains; but when he has been vicious
and unclean, the pleasure is gone, but the sting remains.
Delectat in
momentum, cruciat in aeternum [He
gains momentary pleasure and then eternal torment]. Jerome. When the senses
have been feasted with unchaste pleasures, the soul is left to pay the
reckoning. Stolen waters are sweet; but, as poison, though sweet in the
mouth, it torments the bowels. Sin always ends in a tragedy. Memorable is
that which Fincelius reports of a priest in Flanders, who enticed a maid to
uncleanness. She objected how vile a sin it was, he told her that by
authority from the Pope he could commit any sin; so at last he drew her to
his wicked purpose. But when they had been together a while, in came the
devil, and took away the harlot from the priest’s side, and, notwithstanding
all her crying out, carried her away. If the devil should come and carry
away all that are guilty of bodily uncleanness in this nation, I fear more
would be carried away than would be left behind.
(16) Pray
against this sin. Luther gave a lady this advice, that when any lust began
to rise in her heart, she should go to prayer. Prayer is the best armour of
proof; it quenches the wild fire of lust. If prayer will ‘cast out the
devil,’ why may it not cast out those lusts that come from the devil?
Use five.
If the body must be kept pure from defilement, much more the ‘soul of a
Christian must be kept pure.’ The meaning of the commandment is not only
that we should not stain our bodies with adultery, but that we should keep
our souls pure. To have a chaste body, but an unclean soul, is like a fair
face with bad lungs; or a gilt chimney-piece, that is all soot within. ‘Be
ye holy, for I am holy.’
1 Pet 1: 16. The soul cannot be lovely to God till it has
Christ’s image stamped upon it, which consists in righteousness and true
holiness.
Eph 4: 24. The soul must especially be kept pure, because it is
the chief place of God’s residence.
Eph 3: 17. A king’s palace must be kept clean, especially his
presence-chamber. If the body is the temple, the soul is the ‘Holy of
holies,’ and must be consecrated. We must not only keep our bodies from
carnal pollution, but our souls from envy and malice.
How shall
we know our souls are pure?
(1) If
our souls are pure, we flee from the appearance of evil.
1 Thess 5: 22. We shall not do that which looks like sin. When
Joseph’s mistress courted and tempted him, he ‘left his garment in her hand,
and fled.’
Gen 39: 12 He was suspicious to be near her. Polycarp would not
be seen in company with Marcion the heretic, because it would not be good
report.
(2) If
our souls are pure, the light of purity will shine forth. Aaron had
‘Holiness to the Lord’ written upon his golden plate. Where there is
sanctity in the soul, there ‘Holiness to the Lord’ is engraven upon the
life. We are adorned with patience, humility, good works, and shine as
‘Lights in the world.’
Phil 2: 15. Carry Christ’s picture in your conversation.
1 John 2: 6. O let us labour for this soul purity! Without it
there is no seeing God.
Heb 12: 14. ‘What communion has light with darkness?’
2 Cor 6: 14. To keep the soul pure, have recourse to the blood of
Christ: which is the ‘fountain open for sin and uncleanness.’
Zech 13: 1. A soul steeped in the briny tears of repentance, and
bathed in the blood of Christ, is made pure. Pray much for a pureness of
soul. ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God.’
Psa 51: 10. Some pray for children, others for riches; but pray
thou for soul purity. Say, ‘Lord, though my body is kept pure, yet my soul
is defiled, I pollute all I touch. O purge me with hyssop, let Christ’s
blood sprinkle me, let the Holy Ghost come upon me and anoint me. O make me
evangelically pure, that I may be translated to heaven, and placed among the
cherubim, where I shall be as holy as thou wouldst have me to be, and as
happy as I can desire to be.’
2.8 The Eighth Commandment
‘Thou
shalt not steal.’
Exod 20: 15.
AS the
holiness of God sets him against uncleanness, in the command ‘Thou shalt not
commit adultery;’ so the justice of God sets him against rapine and robbery,
in the command, ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ The thing forbidden in this
commandment, is meddling with another man’s property. The civil lawyers
define
furtum, stealth or theft to be ‘the
laying hands unjustly on that which is another’s;’ the invading another’s
right.
I. The
causes of theft.
[1] The
internal causes are, (1) Unbelief. A man has a high distrust of God’s
providence. ‘Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?’
Psa 78: 19. Can God spread a table for me? says the unbeliever.
No, he cannot. Therefore he is resolved he will spread a table for himself,
but it shall be at other men’s cost, and both first and second course shall
be served in with stolen goods. (2) Covetousness. The Greek word for
covetousness signifies ‘an immoderate desire of getting;’ which is the root
of theft. A man covets more than his own, and this itch of covetousness
makes him scratch what he can from another. Achan’s covetous humour made him
steal the wedge of gold, a wedge which cleaved asunder his soul from God.
Joshua 7: 21.
[2] The
external cause of theft is Satan’s solicitation. Judas was a thief.
John 12: 6. How came he to be a thief? ‘Satan entered into him’.
John 13: 27. The devil is the great master-thief, he robbed us of
our coat of innocence, and he persuades men to take up his trade; he tells
men how bravely they shall live by thieving, and how they may catch an
estate. As Eve listened to the serpent’s voice, so do they. As birds of
prey, they live upon spoil and plunder.
II. The
kinds of theft.
[1] There
is stealing from God. They are thieves who rob God of any part of his day.
‘Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.’ Not a part of the day only, but the
whole day must be dedicated to God. And, lest any should forget this, the
Lord has prefixed a memento, ‘remember.’ Therefore, after morning sacrifice,
to spend the other part of the Sabbath in vanity and pleasure, is spiritual
theft. It robs God of his due, and the very heathen will rise up in
judgement against such Christians; for the heathen, as Macrobius notes,
observed a whole day to their false gods.
[2] There
is stealing from others. A stealing away souls, as heretics, by robbing men
of the truth, rob them of their souls. Stealing money and goods. There is
(1) The
highway thief, who takes a purse, contrary to the letter of the commandment.
‘Thou shalt not rob thy neighbour.’
Lev 19: 13. ‘Do not steal.’
Mark 10: 19. This is not the violence which takes the ‘kingdom of
heaven by force.’
Matt 11: 12.
(2) The
house-thief, who purloins and filches out of his master’s cash, or steals
his wares and drugs. The apostle says, ‘Some have entertained angels
unawares’ (Heb
13: 2), but many masters have entertained thieves in their houses
unawares. The house-thief is a hypocrite as well as a thief; for he has
demure looks, and pretends to be helping his master, when he only helps
himself.
(3) The
thief that shrouds himself under law, as the unjust attorney or lawyer, who
prevaricates and deals falsely with his client. This is to steal from the
client. By deceit and prevarication, the lawyer robs the client of his land,
and may be the means of ruining his family, and is no better than a thief in
God’s account.
(4) The
church-thief or pluralist, who holds several benefices, but seldom or never
preaches to the people. He gets the golden fleece, but lets the flock
starve. ‘Woe be to the shepherds of Israel.’
Ezek 34: 2. They ‘fed themselves, and fed not my flock;’
ver. 8. These ministers will be indicted for thieves at God’s
bar.
(5) The
shop-thief, who steals in selling. He who uses false weights and measures
steals from others what is their due. ‘Making the ephah small.’
Amos 8: 5. The ephah was a measure the Jews used in selling. Some
made the ephah small, and gave scant measure, which was plainly stealing.
‘The balances of deceit are in his hand.’
Hos 12: 7. By making their weights lighter, men make their
accounts heavier. He steals in selling who puts excessive prices on his
commodities. He takes thrice as much for an article as it cost him, or as it
is worth. To overreach others in selling, is to steal money from them. ‘Thou
shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him.’
Lev 19: 13. To defraud him is to rob him; to overreach others in
selling is a cunning way of stealing, and is against both law and gospel. It
is against the law of God. ‘If thou sell ought to thy neighbour, ye shall
not oppress one another.’
Lev 25: 14. It is against the gospel. ‘That no man go beyond, and
defraud his brother.’
1 Thess 4: 6.
(6) The
usurer, who takes by extortion from others. He seems to help another by
letting him have money in his necessity, but gets him into bonds, and sucks
out his very blood and marrow. I read of a woman whom Satan had bound (Luke
13: 16), and truly he is almost in as bad a condition whom the
usurer has bound. The usurer is a robber. A usurer once asked a prodigal
when he would leave off spending? The prodigal replied, ‘I will leave off
spending what is my own, when thou leanest off stealing from others.’
Zacchaeus was an extortioner who, after his conversion, made restitution.
Luke 19: 8. He thought all he got by extortion was theft.
(7) The
trustee, who has the orphan’s estate committed to him, is deputed to be his
guardian, and manages his estate for him; if he curtails the estate, and
gets a fleece out of it for himself, and wrongs the orphan, he is a thief.
This is worse than taking a purse by violence, because he betrays his trust,
which is the highest piece of treachery and injustice.
(8) The
borrower, who borrows money from others, with an intention never to pay them
again. ‘The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again.’
Psa 37: 21. What is it but thievery to take money and goods from
others, and not restore them again. The prophet Elisha bade the widow sell
her oil, and pay her debts, and then live upon the rest.
2 Kings 4: 7.
(9) The
last sort of theft is, the receiver of stolen goods. The receiver, if he be
not the principal, yet is accessory to the theft, and the law makes him
guilty. The thief steals the money, and the receiver holds the sack to put
it in. The root would die if it were not watered, and thieving would cease
if it were not encouraged by the receiver. I am apt to think that he who
does not scruple to take stolen goods into his house, would as little
scruple to have stolen them.
What are
the aggravations of this sin?
(1) To
steal when there is no need; to be a rich thief.
(2) To
steal sacrilegiously; to devour things set apart to holy uses. ‘It is a
snare to the man who devoureth that which is holy.’
Prov 20: 25. Such an one was Dionysius, who robbed the temple,
and took away the silver vessels.
(3) To
commit the sin of theft against checks of conscience, and examples of God’s
justice; which, like the dye to the wool, dyes the sin of a crimson colour.
(4) To
rob the widow and orphan. ‘Ye shall not afflict the widow or fatherless.’
Peccatum clamans [This sin shrieks
aloud]. ‘If they cry unto me, I will surely hear them.’
Exod 22: 23.
(5) To
rob the poor. How angry was David that the rich man should take away the
poor man’s lamb! ‘As the Lord lives, he shall surely die.’
2 Sam 12: 5. What is inclosing of commons but robbing the poor!
[3]
There is a stealing from a man’s self. A man may be a thief to himself.
How so?
(1) By
niggardliness. The niggard is a thief; he steals from himself in not
allowing himself what is needful. He thinks that lost which is bestowed upon
himself; he robs himself of necessaries. ‘A man to whom God has given
riches, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof’
Eccl 6: 2. He gluts his chest and starves his belly; he is like
the ass that is loaded with gold, but feeds upon thistles; he robs himself
of what God allows him. This is to be punished with riches; to have an
estate and want a heart to take the comfort of it.
(2) A
man may rob himself by foolishly wasting his estate. The prodigal lavishes
gold out of the bag; he is like Crates, the philosopher, who threw his gold
into the sea. The prodigal boils a great estate to nothing. He is a thief to
himself who spends away that estate which might conduce to the comfort of
life.
(3) He
is a thief to himself, by idleness, when he misspends his time. He who
spends his hours in pleasure and vanity robs himself of that precious time
which God has given him to work out salvation in. Time is a rich commodity,
because on well spending present time a happy eternity depends. He that
spends his time idly and vainly, is a thief to himself; he robs himself of
golden seasons, and by consequence, of salvation.
(4) A
man may be a thief to himself by suretiship. ‘Be not thou one of them that
are sureties for debts.’
Prov 22: 26. The creditor comes upon the surety for debt, and so,
by paying another’s debt, he is a thief to himself. Let not any man say he
would have been counted unkind if he had not entered into a bond for his
friend. Better thy friend should count thee unkind than all men count thee
unwise. Lend another what you can spare; nay, give him if he needs, but
never be a surety. It is no wisdom for a man so to help another as to undo
himself. It is to rob himself and his family.
Use one.
For confutation of the doctrine of community, that all things are common,
and one man has a right to another’s estate. This is confuted by Scripture.
‘When thou comest into the standing corn of thy neighbour, thou shalt not
move a sickle unto thy neighbour’s corn.’
Deut 23: 25. Property must be respected; God has set this eighth
commandment as a hedge about a man’s estate, and this hedge cannot be broken
without sin. If all things be common, there can be no theft, and so this
commandment would be in vain.
Use two.
For reproof of such as live by stealing. Instead of living by faith, they
live by their shifts. The apostle exhorts that ‘every man eat his own
bread.’
2 Thess 3: 12. The thief does not eat his own bread, but
another’s. If there be any who are guilty of this sin, let them labour to
recover out of the snare of the devil, by repentance, and let them show
their repentance by restitution.
Non remittitur
peccatum nisi restituatur ablatum.
Augustine. ‘Without restitution, no remission.’ ‘If I have taken away any
thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.’
Luke 19: 8. Ill-gotten things may be restored by one’s own hand,
or by proxy. Better a thousand times restore goods unlawfully gotten, than
stuff your pillow with thorns, and have guilt trouble your conscience upon a
death-bed.
Use
three. For exhortation to all to take heed of the sin of thieving; which is
against the light of nature. Some may endeavour to excuse this sin. It is a
coarse wool that will take no dye, and a bad sin that has no excuse.
I am
(says one) grown low in the world, and trading is bad, and I have no other
way to a livelihood.
(1) This
shows great distrust in God, as if he could not provide for thee without thy
sin. (2) It shows sin to be at a great height, that, because a man is grown
low in the world, therefore he will
Acheronta
movere [knock at Hell’s door], go to
the devil for a livelihood. Abraham would not have it said, that ‘the king
of Sodom had made him rich.’
Gen 14: 22. O let it never be said, that the devil has made thee
rich! (3) Thou oughtest not to undertake any action upon which thou canst
not pray for a blessing; but thou canst not pray for a blessing upon stolen
goods. Therefore take heed of this sin;
lucrum in
arca, damnum in conscientia [you
gain materially, but your conscience suffers loss]. Augustine. Take heed of
getting the world with the loss of heaven.
Use
four. To dissuade all from this horrid sin, consider — (1) Thieves are the
caterpillars of the earth, enemies to civil society. (2) God hates them. In
the law, the cormorant was unclean, because a thievish, devouring creature,
a bird of prey; by which God showed his hatred of this sin.
Lev 11: 17. (3) The thief is a terror to himself, he is always in
fear. ‘There were they in great fear,’ is true of the thief.
Psa 53: 5. Guilt breeds fear: if he hears but the shaking of a
tree, his heart shakes. It is said of Catiline, he was afraid of every
noise. If a briar does but take hold of a thief’s garment, he is afraid it
is the officer to apprehend him; and fear has torment in it.
1 John 4: 18. (4) The judgements that follow this sin. Achan the
thief was stoned to death.
Josh 7: 25. ‘What sees thou? And I answered, A flying roll. . . .
This is the curse that goes forth over the face of the whole earth; I will
bring it forth, saith the Lord, and it shall enter into the house of the
thief’
Zech 5: 2, 3, 4. Fabius, a Roman censor, condemned his own son to
die for theft. Thieves die with ignominy, the ladder is their preferment:
and there is a worse thing than death; for while they rob others of money,
they rob themselves of salvation.
What is
to be done to avoid stealing?
(1) Live
in a calling. ‘Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labour,
working with his hands.’
Eph 4: 28, &c. The devil hires such as stand idle, and puts them
to the pilfering trade. An idle person tempts the devil to tempt him.
(2) Be
content with the estate that God has given you. ‘Be content with such things
as ye have.’
Heb 13: 5. Theft is the daughter of avarice. Study contentment.
Believe that condition best which God has carved out to you. He can bless
the little meal in the barrel. We shall not need these things long: we shall
carry nothing out of the world with us but our winding sheet. If we have but
enough to bear out our charges to heaven, it is sufficient.
2.9 The Ninth Commandment
‘Thou shalt
not bear false witness against thy neighbour.’
Exod 20: 16.
THE tongue
which at first was made to be an organ of God’s praise, is now become an
instrument of unrighteousness. This commandment binds the tongue to its good
behaviour. God has set two natural fences to keep in the tongue, the teeth
and lips; and this commandment is a third fence set about it, that it should
not break forth into evil. It has a prohibitory and a mandatory part: the
first is set down in plain words, the other is clearly implied.
I. The
prohibitory part of the commandment, or, what it forbids in general. It
forbids anything which may tend to the disparagement or prejudice of our
neighbour. More particularly, two things are forbidden in this commandment.
[1]
Slandering our neighbour. This is a sin against the ninth commandment. The
scorpion carries his poison in his tail, the slanderer carries his poison in
his tongue. Slandering ‘is to report things of others unjustly.’ They laid
to my charge things that I knew not.’
Psa 35: 11. It is usual to bring in a Christian beheaded of his
good name. They raised for a slander of Paul, that he preached ‘Men might do
evil that good might come of it.’ ‘We be slanderously reported; and some
affirm that we say, “Let us do evil, that good may come”.’
Rom 3: 8. Eminence is commonly blasted by slander. Holiness
itself is no shield from slander. The lamb’s innocence will not preserve it
from the wolf. Christ, the most innocent upon earth, was reported to be a
friend of sinners. John the Baptist was a man of a holy and austere life,
and yet they said of him, ‘He has a devil.’
Matt 11: 18. The Scripture calls slandering, smiting with the
tongue. ‘Come, and let us smite him with the tongue.’
Jer 18: 18. You may smite another and never touch him.
Majora sunt
linguae vulnera quam gladii [The
tongue inflicts greater wounds than the sword]. Augustine. The wounds of the
tongue no physician can heal; and to pretend friendship to a man, and
slander him, is most odious. Jerome says: ‘The Arian faction made a show of
kindness; they kissed my hands, but slandered me, and sought my life.’ As it
is a sin against this commandment to raise a false report of another, so it
is to receive a false report before we have examined it. ‘Lord, who shall
dwell in thy holy hill?’
Psa 15: 1.
Quis ad coelum? ‘He that backbiteth
not, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour;’
ver. 3. We must not only not raise a false report, but not take
it up. He that raises a slander, carries the devil in his tongue; and he
that receives it, carries the devil in his car. [2] The second thing
forbidden in this commandment is false witness. Here three sins are
condemned: (1) Speaking. (2) Witnessing. (3) Swearing that which is false,
contra
proximum [against your neighbour].
(1)
Speaking that which is false. ‘Lying lips are abomination to the Lord.’
Prov 12: 22. To lie is to speak that which one knows to be an
untruth. There is nothing more contrary to God than a lie. The Holy Ghost is
called the ‘Spirit of Truth.’
1 John 4: 6. Lying is a sin that does not go alone; it ushers in
other sins. Absalom told his father a lie, when he said that he was going to
pay his vow at Hebron, and this was a preface to his treason.
2 Sam 15: 7. Where there is a lie in the tongue, the devil is in
the heart. ‘Why has Satan filled thine heart to lie?’
Acts 5: 3. Lying is a sin that unfits men for civil society. How
can you converse or bargain with a man when you cannot trust a word he says?
This sin highly provokes God. Ananias and Sapphire were struck dead for
telling a lie.
Acts 5: 5. The furnace of hell is heated for liars. ‘Without are
sorcerers, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.’
Rev 22: 15. O abhor this sin!
Quicquid dixeris
jura tum putes [Consider your every
word an oath]. Jerome. When thou speakest, let thy word be as authentic as
thy oath. Imitate God, who is the pattern of truth. Pythagoras being asked
what made men like God, answered,
cum vera
loquuntur, ‘when they speak the
truth.’ The character of a man that shall go to heaven, is that ‘He speaketh
the truth in his heart.’
Psa 15: 2.
(2) That
which is condemned in the commandment is, witnessing that which is false.
‘Thou shalt not bear false witness.’ There is a twofold bearing false
witness: 1. There is bearing false witness for another. 2. Bearing false
witness against another.
Bearing
false witness for another; as when we give our testimony for a person who is
criminal and guilty, and we justify him as if he were innocent. ‘Which
justify the wicked for reward.’
Isa 5: 23. He that seeks to make a wicked man just, makes himself
unjust.
It is
bearing false witness against another, when we accuse him in open court
falsely. This is to imitate the devil, who is the ‘accuser of the brethren.’
Though the devil is no adulterer, yet he is a false witness. Solomon says,
‘A man that beareth false witness against his neighbour, is a maul and a
sword.’
Prov 25: 18. In his face he is hardened like a hammer: he cannot
blush, he cares not what lie he witnesses to; and he is a sword: his tongue
is a sword to wound the person he witnesses against in his goods or life.
‘There came in two men, children of Belial, and witnessed against Naboth,
saying, Naboth did blaspheme God and the king:’ and their witness took away
his life.
1 Kings 21: 13. The queen of Persia being sick, the magicians
accused two godly virgins of having by charms procured the queen’s sickness;
whereupon she caused those virgins to be sawn asunder. A false witness
perverts the place of judicature; he corrupts the judge by making him
pronounce a wrong sentence, and causes the innocent to suffer. Vengeance
will find out the false witness. ‘A false witness shall not be unpunished.’
Prov 19: 5. ‘If the witness be a false witness, and has testified
falsely against his brother; then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to
have done unto his brother;’ if, for instance, he had thought to have taken
away his life, his own life shall go for it.
Deut 19: 18, 19.
(3) That
which is condemned in the commandment is, swearing to what is false; as when
men take a false oath, and by that take away the life of another. ‘Love no
false oath.’
Zech 8: 17. ‘What seest thou? I said, a flying roll,’
chap. 5: 2. ‘This is the curse that goes forth, and it shall
enter, saith the Lord, into the house of him that sweareth falsely by my
name; and it shall consume it, with the timber and stones thereof;’
ver 3, 4. The Scythians made a law that when a man bound together
a lie with an oath, he was to lose his head; because these sins took away
all truth and faith from among men. The devil has taken great possession of
those who dare swear to a lie.
Use one.
For reproof. (1) The church of Rome is reproved, which dispenses with a lie,
or a false oath, if it promotes the Catholic cause. It approves of an
officious lie; and holds some sins to be lawful. It may as well hold some
lies to be lawful. God has no need of our lie. It is not lawful to tell a
lie,
propter Dei gloriam [for the glory
of God], if we were sure to bring glory to God by it, as Augustine speaks.
(2) They
are reproved who make no conscience of slandering others. ‘Thou fittest and
slenderest thine own mother’s son.’
Psa 50: 20. ‘Report, say they, and we will report.’
Jer 20: 10. ‘This city (i.e. Jerusalem) is a rebellious city, and
hurtful to kings and provinces.’
Ezra 4: 15. Paul was slandered as a mover of sedition, and the
head of a faction.
Acts 24: 5. The same word signifies both a slanderer and a devil.
1 Tim 3: 11. ‘Not slanderers;’ in the Greek, ‘not devils.’ Some
think it is no great matter, to misrepresent and slander others; but it is
to act the part of a devil. Clipping a man’s credit, to make it weigh
lighter, is worse than clipping coin. The slanderer wounds three at once: he
wounds him that is slandered; he wounds him to whom he reports the slander,
by causing uncharitable thoughts to arise up in his mind against the party
slandered; and he wounds his own soul, by reporting of another what is
false. This is a great sin; and I wish I could say it is not common. You may
kill a man in his name as well as in his person. Some are loath to take away
their neighbour’s goods — conscience would fly in their face; but better
take away their corn out of their field, their wares out of their shop, than
take away their good name. This is a sin for which no reparation can be
made; a blot in a man’s name, being like a blot on white paper, which will
never be got out. Surely God will visit for this sin. If idle words shall be
accounted for, shall not unjust slanders? The Lord will make inquisition one
day, as well for names as for blood. Oh therefore take heed of this sin! Was
it not a sin under the law to defame a virgin?
Deut 22: 19. And is it not a greater sin to defame a saint, who
is a member of Christ? The heathen, by the light of nature, abhorred the sin
of slandering. Diogenes used to say, ‘Of all wild beasts, a slanderer is the
worst.’ Antonius made a law, that, if a person could not prove the crime he
reported another to be guilty of, he should be put to death.
(3) They
are reproved who are so wicked as to bear false witness against others.
These are monsters in nature, unfit to live in a civil society. Eusebius
relates of one Narcissus, a man famous for piety, who was accused by two
false witnesses of unchastity. To prove their accusations, they endeavoured
to confirm it with oaths and curses. One said, ‘If I speak not true, I pray
God I may perish by fire:’ the other said, ‘If I speak not true, I wish I
may be deprived of my sight.’ It pleased God that the first witness who
forswore himself should be burned in the flames, his house being set on
fire: the other being troubled in conscience, confessed his perjury, and
continued to weep so long that he wept himself blind. Jezebel, who suborned
two false witnesses against Naboth, was thrown down from a window and ‘the
dogs licked her blood.’
2 Kings 9: 33. Oh, tremble at this sin! A perjured person is the
devil’s excrement. He is cursed in his name, and seared in his conscience.
Hell gapes for such a windfall.
Use two.
For exhortation. (1) Let all take heed of breaking this commandment, by
lying, slandering, and bearing false witness. To avoid these sins get the
fear of God. Why does David say, ‘The fear of the Lord is clean’?
Psa 19: 9. Because it cleanses the heart from malice, and the
tongue from slander. ‘The fear of the Lord is clean:’ it is to the soul as
lightning to the air, which cleanses it. Get love to your neighbour.
Lev 19: 18. If we love a friend, we shall not speak or attest
anything to his prejudice. Men’s minds are cankered with envy and hatred;
hence come slandering and false witnessing. Love is a lovely grace; love
‘thinketh no evil.’
1 Cor 13: 5. It puts the best interpretation upon another’s
words. Love is a well-wisher, and it is rare to speak ill of him we wish
well to. Love is that which cements Christians together; it is the healer of
division, and the hinderer of slander.
(2) Let
those whose lot it is to meet with slanderers and false accusers — [1]
Labour to make a sanctified use of it. When Shimei railed on David, David
made a sanctified use of it. ‘The Lord has said unto him, Curse David.’
2 Sam 16: 10. So, if you are slandered, or falsely accused, make
a good use of it. See if you have no sin unrepented of, for which God may
suffer you to be calumniated and reproached. See if you have not at any time
wronged others in their name, and said that of them which you cannot prove;
then lay your hand on your mouth, and confess the Lord is righteous to let
you fall under the scourge of the tongue. [2] If you are slandered, or
falsely accused, but know your own innocence, be not too much troubled; let
your rejoicing be the witness of your conscience.
Murus aheneus
esto nil conscire sibi [Let this be
a bulwark, to know oneself guiltless]. A good conscience is a wall of brass,
that will be able to stand against a false witness. As no flattery can heal
a bad conscience, so no slander can hurt a good one. God will clear up the
names of his people. ‘He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light.’
Psa 37: 6. As he will wipe away tears from the eyes, so will he
wipe off reproaches from the name. Believers shall come forth out of all
their slanders and reproaches, as ‘the wings of a dove, covered with silver,
and her feathers with yellow gold.’
(3) Be
very thankful to God, if he has preserved you from slander and false
witness. Job calls it ‘the scourge of the tongue;’
chap 5: 21. As a rod scourges the back, so the slanderer’s tongue
scourges the name. It is a great mercy to be kept from the scourge of a
tongue; a mercy that God stops malignant mouths from bearing false witness.
What mischief might not a lying report or a false oath do! One destroys the
name, the other the life. It is the Lord who muzzles the mouths of the
wicked, and keeps those dogs, that snarl at us, from flying upon us. ‘Thou
shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion, from the strife of tongues.’
Psa 31: 20. There is, I suppose, an allusion to kings, who being
resolved to protect their favourites against the accusation of men, take
them into their bed-chamber, or bosom, where none may touch them. So God has
a pavilion, or secret hiding-place for his favourites, where he preserves
their credit and reputation untouched; he keeps them from the ’strife of
tongues.’ We ought to acknowledge this to be a great mercy before God.
II. The
mandatory part of the commandment implied is that we stand up for others and
vindicate them when they are injured by lying lips. This is the sense of the
commandment, not only that we should not slander falsely or accuse others;
but that we should witness for them, and stand up in their defence, when we
know them to be traduced. A man may wrong another as well by silence as by
slander, when he knows him to be wrongfully accused, yet does not speak in
his behalf. If others cast false aspersions on any, we should wipe them off.
When the apostles were filled with the wine of the Spirit, and were charged
with drunkenness, Peter openly maintained their innocence. ‘These are not
drunken, as ye suppose.’
Acts 2: 15. Jonathan knowing David to be a worthy man, and all
those things Saul said of him to be slanders, vindicated him. ‘David has not
sinned against thee; his works have been to thee-ward very good. Wherefore
then wilt thou sin against innocent blood, to slay David without a cause?’
1 Sam 19: 4, 5. When the primitive Christians were falsely
accused for incest, and killing their children, Tertullian wrote a famous
apology in their vindication. This is to act the part both of a friend and
of a Christian, to be an advocate for another, when he is wronged in his
good name.
2.10The Tenth Commandment
‘Thou shalt
not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife,
nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any
thing that is thy neighbour’s.’
Exod 20: 17.
THIS
commandment forbids covetousness in general, ‘Thou shalt not covet;’ and in
particular, ‘Thy neighbour’s house, thy neighbour’s wife, &c.
I. It
forbids covetousness in general. ‘Thou shalt not covet.’ It is lawful to use
the world, yea, and to desire so much of it as may keep us from the
temptation of poverty: ‘Give me not poverty, lest I steal, and take the name
of my God in vain’ (Prov
30: 8, 9); and as may enable us to honour God with works of
mercy. ‘Honour the Lord with thy substance.’
Prov 3: 9. But all the danger is, when the world gets into the
heart. Water is useful for the sailing of the ship: all the danger is when
the water gets into the ship; so the fear is, when the world gets into the
heart. ‘Thou shalt not covet.’
What is it
to covet?
There are
two words in the Greek which set forth the nature of covetousness.
Pleonexia, which signifies an ‘insatiable desire of getting the world.’
Covetousness is a dry dropsy. Augustine defines covetousness
Plus velle quam
sat est; ‘to desire more than
enough;’ to aim at a great estate; to be like the daughter of the
horse-leech, crying, ‘Give, give.’
Prov 30: 15. Or like behemoth, ‘He trusteth that he can draw up
Jordan into his mouth.’
Job 40: 23. The other word is Philarguria, which signifies an
‘inordinate love of the world.’ The world is the idol: it is so loved, that
a man will not part with it for any good use. He may be said to be covetous
not only who gets the world unrighteously, but who loves it inordinately.
[1] For a
more full answer to the question, ‘What is it to covet?’ I shall show in six
particulars, when a man may be said to be given to covetousness: —
(1) When his
thoughts are wholly taken up with the world. A good man’s thoughts are in
heaven; he is thinking of Christ’s love and eternal recompense. ‘When I
awake I am still with thee,’ that is, in divine contemplation.
Psa 139: 18. A covetous man’s thoughts are in the world; his mind
is wholly taken up with it; he can think of nothing but his shop or farm.
The fancy is a mint-house, and most of the thoughts in a covetous man’s mint
are worldly. He is always plotting and projecting about the things of this
life; like a virgin whose thoughts all centre upon her suitor.
(2) A man
may be said to be given to covetousness, when he takes more pains for
getting earth than for getting heaven. He will turn every stone, break his
sleep, take many a weary step for the world; but will take no pains for
Christ or heaven. After the Gauls, who were an ancient people of France, had
tasted the sweet wine of the Italian grape, they inquired after the country,
and never rested till they had arrived at it; so a covetous man, having had
a relish of the world, pursues after it, and never ceases till he has got
it; but he neglects the things of eternity. He would be content if salvation
were to drop into his mouth, as a ripe fig into the mouth of the eater (Nahum
3: 12); but he is loath to put himself to too much sweat or
trouble to obtain Christ or salvation. He hunts for the world, he wishes
only for heaven.
(3) A man
may be said to be given to covetousness, when all his discourse is about the
world. ‘He that is of the earth, speaketh of the earth.’
John 3: 31. It is a sign of godliness to be speaking of heaven,
to have the tongue turned to the language of Canaan. ‘The words of a wise
man’s mouth are gracious;’ he speaks as if he had been already in heaven.
Eccl. 10: 12. So it is a sign of a man given to covetousness to
speak always of secular things, of his wares and drugs. A covetous man’s
breath, like a dying man’s, smells strong of the earth. As it was said to
Peter, ‘Thy speech bewrayeth thee;’ so a covetous man’s speech betrayeth
him.
Matt 26: 73. He is like the fish in the gospel, which had a piece
of money in its mouth.
Matt 17: 27.
Verba sunt
speculum mentis. Bernard. ‘The words
are the looking-glass of the heart,’ they show what is within.
Ex abundantia
cordis [From the abundance of the
heart].
(4) A man
is given to covetousness when he so sets his heart upon worldly things, that
for the love of them, he will part with heavenly; for the ‘wedge of gold,’
he will part with the ‘pearl of price.’ When Christ said to the young man in
the gospel, ‘Sell all, and come and follow me;’
abiit tristis,
‘he went away sorrowful.’
Matt 19: 22. He would rather part with Christ than with all his
earthly possessions. Cardinal Bourbon said, he would forego his part in
paradise, if he might keep his cardinalship in Paris. When it comes to the
critical point that men must either relinquish their estate or Christ, and
they will rather part with Christ and a good conscience than with their
estate, it is a clear case that they are possessed with the demon of
covetousness.
(5) A man
is given to covetousness when he overloads himself with worldly business. He
has many irons in the fire; he is in this sense a pluralist; he takes so
much business upon him, that he cannot find time to serve God; he has scarce
time to eat his meat, but no time to pray. When a man overcharges himself
with the world, and as Martha, cumbers himself about many things, that he
cannot have time for his soul, he is under the power of covetousness.
(6) He is
given to covetousness whose heart is so set upon the world, that, to get it,
he cares not what unlawful means he uses. He will have the world
per fas et nefas
[by fair means or foul]; he will wrong and defraud, and raise his estate
upon the ruins of another. ‘The balances of deceit are in his hand, he
loveth to oppress. . . . Ephraim said, ‘Yet I am become rich.’
Hos 12: 7, 8. Pope Sylvester II sold his soul to the devil for a
popedom.
Use. ‘Take
heed and beware of covetousness.’
Luke 12: 15. It is a direct breach of the tenth commandment. It
is a moral vice, it infects and pollutes the whole soul.
(1) It is a
subtle sin, a sin that many cannot so well discern in themselves; as some
have the scurvy, but do not know it. This sin can dress itself in the attire
of virtue. It is called the ‘cloak of covetousness.’
1 Thess 2: 5. It is a sin that wears a cloak, it cloaks itself
under the name of frugality and good husbandry. It has many pleas and
excuses for itself; more than any other sin: as providing for one’s family.
The more subtle the sin is, the less discernible it is.
(2)
Covetousness is a dangerous sin, as it checks all that is good. It is an
enemy to grace; it damps good affections, as the earth puts out the fire.
The hedgehog, in the fable, came to the cony-burrows, in stormy weather, and
desired harbour; but when once he had got entertainment, he set up his
prickles, and never ceased till he had thrust the poor conies out of their
burrows; so covetousness, by fair pretences, winds itself into the heart;
but as soon as you have let it in, it will never leave till it has choked
all good beginnings, and thrust all religion out of your hearts.
‘Covetousness hinders the efficacy of the word preached.’ In the parable,
the thorns, which Christ expounded to be the care of this life, choked the
good seed.
Matt 13: 22. Many sermons lie dead and buried in earthly hearts.
We preach to men to get their hearts in heaven; but where covetousness is
predominant, it chains them to earth, and makes them like the woman which
Satan had bowed together, that she could not lift up herself.
Luke 13: 11. You may as well bid an elephant fly in the air, as a
covetous man live by faith. We preach to men to give freely to Christ’s
poor; but covetousness makes them like the man in the gospel, who had ‘a
withered hand.’
Mark 3: 1. They have a withered hand, and cannot stretch it out
to the poor. It is impossible to be earthly-minded and charitably-minded.
Covetousness obstructs the efficacy of the word, and makes it prove
abortive. They whose hearts are rooted in the earth, will be so far from
profiting by the word, that they will be ready rather to deride it. The
Pharisees, who were covetous, ‘derided him.’
Luke 16: 14.
(3)
Covetousness is a mother sin, a radical vice. ‘The love of money is the root
of all evil.’
1 Tim 6: 10.
Quid non mortalia
pectora cogis, auri sacra fames! [O
accursed lust for gold! what crimes do you not urge upon the human heart!]
Virgil. He who has an earthly itch, a greedy desire of getting the world,
has in him the root of all sin. Covetousness is a mother sin. I shall make
it appear that covetousness is a breach of all the ten commandments. It
breaks the first commandment; ‘Thou shalt have no other gods but one.’ The
covetous man has more gods than one; Mammon is his god. He has a god of
gold, therefore he is called an idolater.
Col 3: 5. Covetousness breaks the second commandment: ‘Thou shalt
not make any graven image, thou shalt not bow thyself to them.’ A covetous
man bows down, though not to the graven image in the church, yet to the
graven image in his coin. Covetousness is a breach of the third commandment;
‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.’ Absalom’s design
was to get his father’s crown, which was covetousness; but he talked of
paying his ‘vow to God,’ which was to take God’s name in vain. Covetousness
is a breach of the fourth commandment; ‘Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it
holy.’ A covetous man does not keep the Sabbath holy; he will ride to fairs
on a Sabbath; instead of reading in the Bible, he will cast up his accounts.
Covetousness is a breach of the fifth commandment; ‘Honour thy father and
thy mother.’ A covetous person does not honour his father, if he does not
feed him with money. Nay; he will get his father to make over his estate to
him in his lifetime, so that the father may be at his son’s command.
Covetousness is a breach of the sixth commandment; ‘Thou shalt not kill.’
Covetous Ahab killed Naboth to get his vineyard.
1 Kings 21: 13. How many have swum to the crown in blood?
Covetousness is a breach of the seventh commandment, ‘Thou shalt not commit
adultery.’ It causes uncleanness; you read of the ‘hire of a whore.’
Deut 23: 18. An adulteress for money sets both conscience and
chastity to sale. Covetousness is a breach of the eighth commandment ‘Thou
shalt not steal.’ It is the root of theft: covetous Achan stole the wedge of
gold. Thieves and covetous are put together.
1 Cor 6: 10. Covetousness is a breach of the ninth commandment;
‘Thou shalt not bear false witness.’ What makes the perjurer take a false
oath but covetousness? He hopes for a reward. It is plainly a breach of the
last commandment; ‘Thou shalt not covet.’ The mammonist covets his
neighbour’s house and goods, and endeavours to get them into his own hands.
Thus you see how vile a sin covetousness is; it is a mother sin; it is a
plain breach of every one of the ten commandments.
(4)
Covetousness is a sin dishonourable to religion. For men to say their hopes
are above, while their hearts are below; to profess to be above the stars,
while they ‘lick the dust’ of the serpent; to be born of God, while they are
buried in the earth; how dishonourable is this to religion! The lapwing,
which wears a little coronet on its head, and yet feeds on dung, is an
emblem of such as profess to be crowned kings and priests unto God, and yet
feed immoderately on terrene dunghill comforts. ‘And seekest thou great
things for thyself? seek them not.’
Jer 45: 5. What, thou Baruch, who art ennobled by the new birth,
and art illustrious by thy office, a Levite, dost thou seek earthly things,
and seek them now? When the ship is sinking, art thou trimming thy cabin? O
do not so degrade thyself, nor blot thy escutcheon! Seekest thou great
things? seek them not. The higher grace is, the less earthly should
Christians be; as the higher the sun is, the shorter is the shadow.
(5)
Covetousness exposes us to God’s abhorrence, ‘The covetous, whom the Lord
abhorreth.’
Psa 10: 3. A king abhors to see his statue abused, so God abhors
to see man, made in his image, having the heart of a beast. Who would live
in such a sin as makes him abhorred of God? Whom God abhors he curses, and
his curse blasts wherever it comes.
(6)
Covetousness precipitates men to ruin, and shuts them out of heaven. ‘This
ye know, that no covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in
the kingdom of Christ and of God.’
Eph 5: 5. What could a covetous man do in heaven? God can no more
converse with him than a king can converse with a swine. ‘They that will be
rich fall into a snare, and many hurtful lusts, which drown men in
perdition.’
1 Tim 6: 9. A covetous man is like a bee that gets into a barrel
of honey, and there drowns itself. As a ferry man takes in so many
passengers to increase his fare, that he sinks his boat; so a covetous man
takes in so much gold to increase his estate, that he drowns himself in
perdition. I have read of some inhabitants near Athens, who, living in a
very dry and barren island, took much pains to draw a river to the island to
water it and make it fruitful; but when they had opened the passages, and
brought the river to it, the water broke in with such force, that it drowned
the land, and all the people in it. This is an emblem of a covetous man, who
labours to draw riches to him, and at last they come in such abundance, that
they drown him in perdition. How many, to build up an estate, pull down
their souls! Oh, then, flee from covetousness! I shall next prescribe some
remedies against covetousness.
[2] I AM,
in the next place, to solve the question, What is the cure for this
covetousness?’
(1) Faith.
‘This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.’
1 John 5: 4. The root of covetousness is distrust of God’s
providence. Faith believes that God will provide; that he who feeds the
birds will feed his children; that he who clothes the lilies will clothe his
lambs; and thus faith overcomes the world. Faith is the cure of care. It not
only purifies the heart, but satisfies it; it makes God our portion, and in
him we have enough. ‘The lord is the portion of mine inheritance, the lines
are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.’
Psa 16: 5, 6. Faith, by a divine chemistry, extracts comfort out
of God. A little with God is sweet. Thus faith is a remedy against
covetousness; it overcomes, not only the fear of the world, but the love of
the world.
(2) The
second remedy is, judicious considerations. As what poor things these things
below are that we should covet them! They are far below the worth of the
soul, which carries in it an idea and resemblance of God. The world is but
the workmanship of God, the soul is his image. We covet that which will not
satisfy us. ‘He that loveth silver, shall not be satisfied with silver.’
Eccl 5: 10. Solomon had put all the creatures in a retort, and
distilled out their essence, and behold, ‘All was vanity.’
Eccl 2: 11. Covetousness is a dry dropsy — the more a man has the
more he thirsts.
Quo plus sunt
potae, plus sitiuntur aquae [The
more water is drunk, the more is craved]. Ovid. Worldly things cannot remove
trouble of mind. When King Saul was perplexed in conscience, his crown
jewels could not comfort him.
1 Sam 28: 15. The things of the world can no more ease a troubled
spirit than a gold cap can cure the headache. The things of the world cannot
continue with you. The creature has a little honey in its mouth, but it has
wings to fly away. These things either go from us, or we from them. What
poor things are they to covet!
The second
consideration is the frame and texture of the body. God has made the face
look upward towards heaven.
Os homini sublime
dedit, coelumque tueri jussit [He
gave man an uplifted face, with the order to gaze up to Heaven]. Ovid.
Anatomists observe, that whereas other creatures have but four muscles to
their eyes, man has a fifth muscle, by which he is able to look up to
heaven; and as for the heart, it is made narrow and contracted downwards,
but wide and broad upwards. As the frame and texture of the body teaches us
to look to things above, so especially the soul is planted in the body, as a
divine spark, to ascend upwards. Can it be imagined that God gave us
intellectual and immortal souls to covet earthly things only? What wise man
would fish for gudgeons with golden hooks? Did God give us glorious souls
only to fish for the world? Sure our souls are made for a higher end; to
aspire after the enjoyment of God in glory.
The third
consideration is the examples of those who have been condemners and
despisers of the world. The primitive Christians, as Clemens Alexandrinus
observes, were sequestered from the world, and were wholly taken up in
converse with God; they lived in the world above the world; like the birds
of paradise, who soar above in the air, and seldom or never touch the earth
with their feet. Luther says that he was never tempted to the sin of
covetousness. Though the saints of old lived in the world they traded in
heaven. ‘Our conversation is in heaven.’
Phil 3: 20. The Greek word signifies our commerce, or traffic, or
citizenship, is in heaven. ‘Enoch walked with God.’
Gen 5: 24. His affections were sublimated, and took a turn in
heaven every day. The righteous are compared to a palm-tree.
Psa 92: 12. Philo observes, that whereas all other trees have
their sap in their root, the sap of the palm-tree is towards the top; and
thus is an emblem of saints, whose hearts are in heaven, where their
treasure is.
(3) The
third remedy for covetousness is to covet spiritual things more. Covet
grace, for it is the best blessing, it is the seed of God.
1 John 3: 9. Covet heaven, which is the region of happiness — the
most pleasant clime. If we covet heaven more, we shall covet earth less. To
those who stand on the top of the Alps, the great cities of Campania seem
but as small villages; so if our hearts were more fixed upon the Jerusalem
above, all worldly things would disappear, would diminish, and be as nothing
in our eyes. We read of an angel coming down from heaven, and setting his
right foot on the sea, and his left foot on the earth.
Rev 10: 2. Had we been in heaven, and viewed its superlative
glory, how should we, with holy scorn, trample with one foot upon the earth
and with the other foot upon the sea! O covet after heavenly things! There
is the tree of life, the mountains of spices, the rivers of pleasure, the
honeycomb of God’s love dropping, the delights of angels, and the flower of
joyfully ripe and blown. There is the pure air to breathe in; no fogs or
vapours of sin arise to infect that air, but the Sun of Righteousness
enlightens the whole horizon continually with his glorious beams. O let your
thoughts and delights be always taken up with the city of pearls, the
paradise of God! It is reported of Lazarus that, after he was raised from
the grave, he was never seen to smile or take delight in the world. Were our
hearts raised by the power of the Holy Ghost up to heaven we should not be
much taken with earthly things.
(4) The
fourth remedy is to pray for a heavenly mind. Lord, let the loadstone of thy
Spirit draw my heart upward. Lord, dig the earth out of my heart; teach me
how to possess the world, and not love it; how to hold it in my hand, and
not let it get into my heart.
II. Having
spoken of the command in general, I proceed to speak of it more
particularly. ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not
covet thy neighbour’s wife,’ &c. Observe the holiness and perfection of the
law that forbids the
motus primo primi,
the first motions and risings of sin in the heart. ‘Thou shalt not covet.’
The laws of men take hold of actions, but the law of God goes further, it
forbids not only actions, but desires. ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s
house.’ It is not said, ‘Thou shalt not take away his house;’ but ‘Thou
shalt not covet it.’ These lusts and desires after the forbidden fruit are
sinful. The law has said, ‘Thou shalt not covet.’
Rom 7: 7. Though the tree bears no bad fruit, it may be faulty at
the root; so though a man does not commit any gross sin, he cannot say his
heart is pure. There may be faultiness at the root: there may be sinful
covetings and lustings in the soul.
Use. Let us
be humbled for the sin of our nature, the risings of evil thoughts coveting
that which we ought not. Our nature is a seed-plot of iniquity; like
charcoal that is ever sparkling, the sparks of pride, envy, covetousness,
arise in the mind. How should this humble us! If there be not sinful acting,
there are sinful covetings. Let us pray for mortifying grace, which like the
water of jealousy, may make the thigh of sin to rot.
Why is the
house here put before the wife? In Deuteronomy the wife is put first.
‘Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour’s wife, neither shalt thou covet
thy neighbour’s house.’
Deut 5: 21.
In
Deuteronomy the wife is set down first, in respect of her value. She (if a
good wife) is of far greater value and estimate than the house. ‘Her price
is far above rubies.’
Prov 31: 10. She is the furniture of the house and this furniture
is more worth than the house. When Alexander had overcome King Darius in
battle, Darius seemed not to be much dismayed, but when he heard his wife
was taken prisoner, his eyes, like spouts gushed forth water, for he valued
his wife more than his life. But in Exodus the house is put before the wife,
because the house is first in order, the house is erected before the wife
can live in it; the nest is built before the bird is in it; the wife is
first esteemed, but the house must be first provided.
[1] Then,
‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house.’ How depraved is man since the
fall! He knows not how to keep within bounds, but covets more than his own.
Ahab, one would think, had enough: he was a king; and we should suppose his
crown-revenues would have contented him; but he was coveting more. Naboth’s
vineyard was in his eye, and stood near the smoke of his chimney, and he
could not be quiet till he had it in possession. Were there not so much
coveting, there would not be so much bribing. One man takes away another’s
house from him. It is only the prisoner who lives in such a tenement that he
may be sure none will seek to take it from him.
[2] ‘Thou
shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife.’ This is a bridle to check the
inordinate and brutish lusts. It was the devil that sowed another man’s
ground.
Matt 13: 25. But how is the hedge of this commandment trodden
down in our times! There are many who do more than covet their neighbours’
wives! they take them. ‘Cursed be he that lieth with his father’s wife; and
all the people shall say, Amen.’
Deut 27: 20. If it were to be proclaimed, ‘Cursed be he that
lieth with his neighbour’s wife,’ and all that were guilty should say,
‘Amen,’ how many would curse themselves!
[3] ‘Thou
shalt not covet thy neighbour’s man-servant, nor his maidservant.’ Servants,
when faithful, are a treasure. What a true and trusty servant had Abraham!
He was his right hand. How prudent and faithful he was in the matter
entrusted with him, of getting a wife for his master’s son!
Gen 24: 9. It would surely have grieved Abraham if any one had
enticed away his servant from him. But this sin of coveting servants is
common. If one has a good servant, others will be laying snares for him, and
endeavour to draw him away from his master. This is a sin against the tenth
commandment. To steal away another’s servant by enticement, is no better
than direct thieving.
[4] ‘Nor
his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.’ Were there no
coveting ox and ass, there would not be so much stealing. First men break
the tenth commandment by coveting, and then the eighth commandment by
stealing. It was an excellent appeal that Samuel made to the people when he
said, ‘Witness against me before the Lord, whose ox have I taken, or whose
ass, or whom have I defrauded?’
1 Sam 12: 3. It was a brave speech of Paul, when he said, ‘I have
coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel.’
Acts 20: 33.
What means
should we use to keep us from coveting that which is our neighbour’s?
The best
remedy is contentment. If we are content with our own, we shall not covet
that which is another’s. Paul could say, ‘I have coveted no man’s gold or
silver.’ Whence was this? It was from contentment. ‘I have learned, in
whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.’
Phil 4: 11. Content says, as Jacob did, ‘I have enough. ‘Gen
33: 11. I have a promise of heaven, and have sufficient to bear
my charges thither; I have enough. He who has enough, will not covet that
which is another’s. Be content: and the best way to be contented, is, (1)
Believe that condition to be best which God by his providence carves out to
you. If he had seen fit for us to have more, we should have had it. Perhaps
we could not manage a great estate; it is hard to carry a full cup without
spilling, and a full estate without sinning. Great estates may be snares. A
boat may be overturned by having too much sail. The believing that estate to
be best which God appoints us, makes us content; and being contented, we
shall not covet that which is another’s. (2) The way to be content with such
things as we have, and not to covet another’s, is to consider the less we
have, the less account we shall have to give at the last day. Every person
is a steward, and must be accountable to God. They who have great estates
have the greater reckoning. God will say, What good have you done with your
estates? Have you honoured me with your substance? Where are the poor you
have fed and clothed? If you cannot give a good account, it will be sad. It
should make us contented with a less portion, to consider, the less riches,
the less reckoning. This is the way to have contentment. There is no better
antidote against coveting that which is another’s than being content with
that which is our own.
3. THE LAW AND SIN
3.1 Man’s Inability to keep the Moral
Law
Is any man
able perfectly to keep the commandments of God?
No mere man,
since the fall, is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of
God, but does daily break them, in thought, word, and deed.
‘In many
things we offend all.’
James 3: 2. Man in his primitive state of innocence, was endowed
with ability to keep the whole moral law. He had rectitude of mind, sanctity
of will, and perfection of power. He had the copy of God’s law written on
his heart; no sooner did God command but he obeyed. As the key is suited to
all the wards in the lock, and can open them, so Adam had a power suited to
all God’s commands, and could obey them. Adam’s obedience ran parallel with
the moral law, as a well made dial goes exactly with the sun. Man in
innocence was like a well tuned organ, he was sweetly in tune to the will of
God; he was adorned with holiness as the angels, but not confirmed in
holiness as the angels. He was holy, but mutable; he fell from his purity,
and we with him. Sin cut the lock of original righteousness where our
strength lay; it brought a languor and faintness into our souls; and has so
weakened us, that we shall never recover our full strength till we put on
immortality. What I am now to demonstrate, is, that we cannot yield perfect
obedience to the moral law.
I. The case
of an unregenerate man is such, that he cannot perfectly obey all God’s
commands. He may as well touch the stars, or span the ocean, as yield exact
obedience to the law. A person unregenerate cannot act spiritually, he
cannot pray in the Holy Ghost, he cannot live by faith, he cannot do duty
out of love to duty; and if he cannot do duty spiritually, much less
perfectly. Now, that a natural man cannot yield perfect obedience to the
moral law, is evident. (1) Because he is spiritually dead.
Eph 2: 1. How can he, being dead, keep the commandments of God
perfectly? A dead man is not fit for action. A sinner has the symptoms of
death upon him. He has no sense; he has no sense of the evil of sin, of
God’s holiness and veracity; therefore he is said to be without feeling.
Eph 4: 19. He has no strength.
Rom 5: 6. What strength has a dead man? A natural man has no
strength to deny himself, or to resist temptation; he is dead; and can a
dead man fulfil the moral law? (2) A natural man cannot perfectly keep all
God’s commandments, because he is born in sin, and lives in sin.
Psa 51: 5. ‘He drinketh iniquity like water.’
Job 15: 16. All the imaginations of his thoughts are evil, and
only evil.
Gen 6: 5. The least evil thought is a breach of the royal law;
and if there be defection, there cannot be perfection. As a natural man has
no power to keep the moral law, so he has no will. He is not only dead, but
worse than dead. A dead man does no hurt, but there is a life of resistance
against God that accompanies the death of sin. A natural man not only cannot
keep the law through weakness, but he breaks it through wilfulness. ‘We will
do whatsoever goes out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of
heaven.’
Jer 44: 17.
II. As the
unregenerate cannot keep the moral law perfectly, so neither can the
regenerate. ‘There is not a just man upon earth, that does good and sinneth
not;’ nay, that ‘sins not in doing good.’
Eccl 7: 20. There is that in the best actions of a righteous man
that is damnable, if God should weigh him in the balance of justice. Alas!
how are his duties fly-blown! He cannot pray without wandering, nor believe
without doubting. ‘To will is present with me, but how to perform I find
not.’ In the Greek it is, ‘How to do it thoroughly I find not.’
Rom 7: 18. Paul, though a saint of the first magnitude, was
better at willing than at performing. Mary asked where they had laid Christ;
for she had a mind to have carried him away, but she wanted strength: so the
regenerate have a will to obey God’s law perfectly, but they want strength;
their obedience is weak and sickly. The mark they are to shoot at, is
perfection of holiness; but though they take a right aim, yet do what they
can, they come short of the mark. ‘The good that I would, I do not.’
Rom 7: 19. A Christian, while serving God, like a ferry man that
plies the oar, and rows hard, is hindered, for a gust of wind carries him
back again: so says Paul, ‘The good I would, I do not,’ I am driven back by
temptation. Now, if there be any failure in a man’s obedience, he cannot be
a perfect commentary upon God’s law. The Virgin Mary’s obedience was not
perfect; she needed Christ’s blood to wash her tears. Aaron was to make
atonement for the altar, to show that the most holy offering has defilement
in it, and needs atonement to be made for it.
Exod 29: 37.
If a man has
no power to keep the whole moral law, why does God require it of him? Is
this justice?
Though man
has lost his power of obeying, God has not lost his right of commanding. If
a master entrusts a servant with money to lay out, and the servant spends it
dissolutely, may not the master justly demand it? God gave us power to keep
the moral law, which by tampering with sin, we lost; but may not God still
call for perfect obedience, or, in case of default, justly punish us?
Why does God
permit such an inability in man to keep the law?
He does it:
(1) To humble us. Man is a self-exalting creature; and if he has but
anything of worth, he is ready to be puffed up; but when he comes to see his
deficiencies and failings, and how far short he comes of the holiness and
perfection which God’s law requires, it pulls down the plumes of his pride,
and lays them in the dust; he weeps over his inability; he blushes over his
leprous spots; he says with Job, ‘I abhor myself in dust and ashes.’ (2) God
lets this inability be upon us, that we may have recourse to Christ to
obtain pardon for our defects, and to sprinkle our best duties with his
blood. When a man sees that he owes perfect obedience to the law, but has
nothing to pay, it makes him flee to Christ to be his friend, and answer for
him all the demands of the law, and set him free in the court of justice.
Use one.
Here is matter of humiliation for our fall in Adam. In the state of
innocence we were perfectly holy; our minds were crowned with knowledge, and
our wills, as a queen, swayed the sceptre of liberty; but now we may say,
‘The crown is fallen from our head.’
Lam 5: 16. We have lost that power which was inherent in us. When
we look back to our primitive glory, when we shone as earthly angels, we may
take up Job’s words, ‘Oh that I were as in months past!’
chap 29: 2. that it were with us as at first, when there was no
stain upon our virgin nature, when there was a perfect harmony between God’s
law and man’s will! But, alas! how is the scene altered, our strength is
gone from us; we tread awry at every step: we come below every precept; our
dwarfishness will not reach the sublimity of God’s law; we fail in our
obedience; and while we fail, we forfeit. This should put us in deep
mourning, and spring a leak of sorrow in all our souls.
Use two. Of
confutation. (1) It confutes the Armenians, who cry up the power of the
will. They hold they have a will to save themselves. But by nature, we not
only want strength, but we want will to that which is good.
Rom 5: 6. The will is not only full of weakness, but obstinacy.
‘Israel would none of me.’
Psa 81: 11. The will hangs forth a flag of defiance against God.
Such as speak of the sovereign power of the will, forget ‘It is God that
worketh in you both to will and to do.’
Phil 2: 13. If the power be in the will of man, then what need is
there for God to work in us to will? If the air can enlighten itself, what
need is there for the sun to shine? Such as talk of the power of nature, and
their ability to save themselves, disparage Christ’s merits. I may say (as
Gal 5: 4), ‘Christ has become of no effect to them.’ They who
advance the power of their will in matters of salvation, without the
medicinal grace of Christ, do absolutely put themselves under the covenant
of works. I would ask, ‘Can they perfectly keep the moral law?’
Malum oritur ex
quolibet defectu [Evil is manifested
in any blemish at all]. If there be but the least defect in their obedience,
they are lost. For one sinful thought the law of God curses them, and the
justice of God condemns them. Confounded be their pride, who cry up the
power of nature, as if, by their own inherent abilities, they could rear up
a building, the top whereof should reach to heaven.
(2) It
confutes that sort of people who brag of perfection; and who, according to
that principle, can keep all God’s commandments perfectly. I would ask such
whether at no time a vain thought has come into their minds? If there has,
then they are not perfect. The Virgin Mary was not perfect. Though her womb
was pure (being overshadowed by the Holy Ghost), yet her soul was not
perfect. Christ tacitly supposes a failing in her.
Luke 2: 49. And are they more perfect than the blessed Virgin
was? Such as hold perfection, need not confess sin. David confessed sin, and
Paul confessed sin.
Psa 32: 5;
Rom 7: 25. But they are got beyond David and Paul; they are
perfect, they never transgress; and where there is no transgression, what
need for confession? Again, if they are perfect, they need not ask pardon.
They can pay God’s justice what they owe; therefore, why pray, ‘Forgive us
our debts’? Oh, that the devil should rock men so fast asleep, as to make
them dream of perfection! Do they plead, ‘Let us therefore as many as be
perfect be thus minded’?
Phil 3: 15. Perfection there, is meant of sincerity. God is best
able to interpret his own word. He calls sincerity perfection. ‘A perfect
and an upright man.’
Job 1: 8. But who is exactly perfect? A man full of diseases may
as well say he is healthful, as a man full of sins say he is perfect.
Use three.
For encouragement to regenerate persons. Though you fail in your obedience,
and cannot keep the moral law exactly, yet be not discouraged.
What comfort
may be given to a regenerate person under the failures and imperfections of
his obedience?
That a
believer is not under the covenant of works, but under the covenant of
grace. The covenant of works requires perfect, personal, perpetual
obedience; but in the covenant of grace, God will make some abatements; he
will accept less than he required in the covenant of works. (1) In the
covenant of works God required perfection of degrees; in the covenant of
grace he accepts perfection of parts. There he required perfect working,
here he accepts sincere believing. In the covenant of works, God required us
to live without sin; in the covenant of grace he accepts of our combat with
sin. (2) Though a Christian cannot, in his own person, perform all God’s
commandments; yet Christ, as his Surety, and in his stead, has fulfilled the
law for him: and God accepts of Christ’s obedience, which is perfect, to
satisfy for that obedience which is imperfect. Christ being made a curse for
believers, all the curses of the law have their sting pulled out. (3) Though
a Christian cannot keep the commands of God to satisfaction, yet he may to
approbation.
How is that?
(1) He gives
his full assent and consent to the law of God. ‘The law is holy and just:’
there was assent in the judgement.
Rom 7: 12. ‘I consent unto the law;’ there was consent in the
will.
Rom 7: 16.
(2) A
Christian mourns that he cannot keep the commandments fully. When he fails
he weeps; he is not angry with the law because it is so strict but he is
angry with himself because he is so deficient.
(3) He takes
a sweet complacent delight in the law. ‘I delight in the law of God after
the inward man.’
Rom 7: 22. Greek: ‘I take pleasure in it.’ ‘O! how love I thy
law.’
Psa 119: 97. Though a Christian cannot keep God’s law, yet he
loves his law; though he cannot serve God perfectly, yet he serves him
willingly.
(4) It is
his cordial desire to walk in all God’s commands. ‘O that my ways were
directed to keep thy statutes.’
Psa 119: 5. Though his strength fails, yet his pulse beats.
(5) He
really endeavours to obey God’s law perfectly; and wherein he comes short he
runs to Christ’s blood to supply his defects. This cordial desire, and real
endeavour, God esteems as perfect obedience. ‘If there be a willing mind, it
is accepted.’
2 Cor 8: 12. ‘Let me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice.’
Cant 2: 14. Though the prayers of the righteous are mixed with
sin, yet God sees they would pray better. He picks out the weeds from the
flowers; he sees the faith and bears with the failing. The saints’
obedience, though short of legal perfection, yet having sincerity in it, and
Christ’s merits mixed with it, finds gracious acceptance. When the Lord sees
endeavours after perfect obedience, he takes it well at our hands; as a
father who receives a letter from his child, though there be blots in it,
and false spellings, takes all in good part. Oh! what blotting are there in
our holy things; but God is pleased to take all in good part. He says, ‘It
is my child, and he would do better if he could; I will accept it.’
3.2 Degrees of Sin
Are all
transgressions of the law equally heinous?
Some sins in
themselves, and by reason of several aggravations, are more heinous in the
sight of God than others.
‘He that
delivered me unto thee, has the greater sin.’
John 19: 11. The Stoic philosophers held that all sins were
equal; but this Scripture clearly holds forth that there is a gradual
difference in sin; some are greater than others; some are ‘mighty sins,’ and
crying sins.’
Amos 5: 12;
Gen 18: 21. Every sin has a voice to speak, but some sins cry. As
some diseases are worse than others, and some poisons more venomous, so some
sins are more heinous. ‘Ye have done worse than your fathers, your sins have
exceeded theirs.’
Jer 16: 12;
Ezek 16: 47. Some sins have a blacker aspect than others; to clip
the king’s coin is treason; but to strike his person is a higher degree of
treason. A vain thought is a sin, but a blasphemous word is a greater sin.
That some sins are greater than others appears, (1) Because there was
difference in the offerings under the law; the sin offering was greater than
the trespass offering. (2) Because some sins are not capable of pardon as
others are, therefore they must needs be more heinous, as the blasphemy
against the Holy Ghost.
Matt 12: 31. (3) Because some sins have a greater degree of
punishment than others. ‘Ye shall receive the greater damnation.’
Matt 23: 14. ‘Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?’ God
would not punish one more than another if his sin was not greater. It is
true, ‘all sins are equally heinous in respect of the object,’ or the
infinite God, against whom sin is committed, but, in another sense, all sins
are not alike heinous; some sins have more bloody circumstances in them,
which are like the dye to the wool, to give it a deeper colour.
[1] Such
sins are more heinous as are committed without any occasion offered; as when
a man swears or is angry, and has no provocation. The less the occasion of
sin, the greater is the sin itself.
[2] Such
sins are more heinous that are committed presumptuously. Under the law there
was no sacrifice for presumptuous sins.
Num 15: 30.
What is the
sin of presumption, which heightens and aggravates sin, and makes it more
heinous?
To sin
presumptuously, is to sin against convictions and illuminations, or an
enlightened conscience. ‘They are of those that rebel against the light.’
Job 24: 13. Conscience, like the cherubim, stands with a flaming
sword in its hand to deter the sinner; and yet he will sin. Did not Pilate
sin against conviction, and with a high hand, in condemning Christ? He knew
that for envy the Jews had delivered him.
Matt 27: 18. He confessed he ‘found no fault in him.’
Luke 23: 14. His own wife sent to him saying, ‘Have nothing to do
with that just man.’
Matt 27: 19. Yet for all this, he gave the sentence of death
against Christ. He sinned presumptuously, against an enlightened conscience.
To sin ignorantly does something to extenuate and pare off the guilt. ‘If I
had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin,’ that is, their sin
had been less.
John 15: 22. But to sin against illuminations and convictions
enhances men’s sins. These sins make deep wounds in the soul; other sins
fetch blood; they are a stab at the heart.
How many
ways may a man sin against illuminations and convictions?
(1) When he
lives in the total neglect of duty. He is not ignorant that it is a duty to
read the Word, yet he lets the Bible lie by as rusty armour, seldom made us
of. He is convinced that it is a duty to pray in his family, yet he can go
days and months, and God never hears of him; he calls God Father, but never
asks his blessing. Neglect of family-prayer, as it were, uncovers the roof
of men’s houses, and makes way for a curse to be rained down upon their
table.
(2) When a
man lives in the same sins he condemns in others. ‘Thou that judges, does
the same things.’
Rom 2: 1. As Augustine says of Seneca, ‘He wrote against
superstition, yet he worshipped those images which he reproved.’ One man
condemns another for rash censuring, yet lives in the same sin himself; a
master reproves his apprentice for swearing, yet he himself swears. The
snuffers of the tabernacle were of pure gold: they who reprove and snuff the
vices of others, had need themselves be free from those sins. The snuffers
must be of gold.
(3) When a
man sins after vows. ‘Thy vows are upon me, O God.’
Psa 56: 12. A vow is a religious promise made to God, to dedicate
ourselves to him. A vow is not only a purpose, but a promise. Every votary
makes himself a debtor; he binds himself to God in a solemn manner. Now, to
sin after a vow, to vow himself to God, and give his soul to the devil, must
needs be against the highest convictions.
(4) When a
man sins after counsels, admonitions, warnings, he cannot plead ignorance.
The trumpet of the gospel has been blown in his ears, and sounded a retreat
to call him off from his sins, he has been told of his injustice, living in
malice, keeping bad company, yet he would venture upon sin. This is to sin
against conviction; it aggravates the sin, and is like a weight put into the
scale, to make his sin weigh the heavier. If a sea-mark be set up to give
warning that there are shelves and rocks in that place, yet if the mariner
will sail there, and split his ship, it is presumption; and if he be cast
away, who will pity him?
(5) When a
man sins against express combinations and threatening. God has thundered out
threatenings against such sins. ‘God shall would the hairy scalp of such an
one as goes on still in his trespasses.’
Psa 68: 21. Though God set the point of his sword to the breast
of a sinner, he will still commit sin. The pleasure of sin delights him more
than the threatenings affright him. Like the leviathan, ‘he laugheth at the
shaking of a spear.’
Job 41: 29. Nay, he derides God’s threatenings. ‘Let him make
speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it:’ we have heard much what God
intends to do, and of judgement approaching, we would fain see it.
Isa 5: 19. For men to see the flaming sword of God’s threatening
brandished, yet to strengthen themselves in sin, is in an aggravated manner
to sin against illumination and conviction.
(6) When a
man sins under affliction. God not only thunders by threatening, but lets
his thunderbolt fall. He inflicts judgements on a person so that he may read
his sins in his punishment, and yet he sins. His sin was uncleanness, by
which he wasted his strength, as well as his estate. He has had a fit of
apoplexy; and yet while feeling the smart of sin, he retains the love of
sin. This is to sin against conviction. ‘In his distress did he trespass yet
more; this is that king Ahab’
2 Chron 28: 22. It makes the sin greater to sin against an
enlightened conscience. It is full of obstinacy. Men give no reason, make no
defence for their sins, and yet are resolved to hold fast iniquity.
Voluntas est
regula et mensura actionis [An
action can be measured and judged by the will involved], the more of the
will in a sin, the greater the sin. ‘We will walk after our own devices.’
Jer 18: 12. Though there be death and hell at every step, we will
march on under Satan’s colours. What made the sin of apostate angels so
great was that it was wilful; they had no ignorance in their mind, no
passion to stir them up; there was no tempter to deceive them, but they
sinned obstinately and from choice. To sin against convictions and
illuminations, is joined with rejection and contempt of God. It is bad for a
sinner to forget God, but it is worse to condemn him. ‘Wherefore does the
wicked condemn God?’
Psa 10: 13. An enlightened sinner knows that by his sin he
disobliges and angers God; but he cares not whether God be pleased or not,
he will have his sin; therefore such a one is said to reproach God. ‘The
soul that does ought presumptuously, the same reproacheth the Lord.’
Numb 15: 30. Every sin displeases God, but sins against an
enlightened conscience reproach the Lord. To condemn the authority of a
prince, is a reproach done to him. It is accompanied with impudence. Fear
and shame are banished, the veil of modesty is laid aside. ‘The unjust
knoweth no shame.’
Zeph 3: 5. Judas knew Christ was the Messiah; he was convinced of
it by an oracle from heaven, and by the miracles he wrought, and yet he
impudently went on in his treason, even when Christ said, ‘He that dips his
hand with me in the dish, he shall betray me:’ and he knew Christ meant him.
When he was going about his treason, and Christ pronounced a woe to him,
yet, for all that, he proceeded in his treason.
Luke 22: 22. Thus to sin presumptuously, against an enlightened
conscience, dyes the sin of a crimson colour, and makes it greater than
other sins.
[3] Such
sins are more heinous than others, which are sins of continuance. The
continuing of sin is the enhancing of sin. He who plots treason, makes
himself a greater offender. Some men’s heads are the devil’s minthouse, they
are a mint of mischief. ‘Inventors of evil things.’
Rom 1: 30. Some invent new oaths, others new snares. Such were
those presidents that invented a decree against Daniel, and got the king to
sign it.
Dan 6: 9.
[4] Those
sins are greater which proceed from a spirit of malignity. To malign
holiness is diabolical. It is a sin to want grace, it is worse to hate it.
In nature there are antipathies, as between the vine and laurel. Some have
an antipathy against God because of his purity. ‘Cause the Holy One of
Israel to cease from before us.’
Isa 30: 11. Sinners, if it lay in their power, would not only
enthrone God, but annihilate him; if they could help it, God should no
longer be God. Thus sin is boiled up to a greater height.
[5] Those
sins are of greater magnitude, which are mixed with ingratitude. Of all
things God cannot endure to have his kindness slighted. His mercy is seen in
reprieving men so long, in wooing them by his Spirit and ministers to be
reconciled, in crowning them with so many temporal blessings: and to abuse
all this love — when God has been filling up the measure of his mercy, for
men to fill up the measure of their sins — is high ingratitude, and makes
their sins of a deeper crimson. Some are worse for mercy. ‘The vulture,’
says Aelian, ‘draws sickness from perfumes.’ So the sinner contracts evil
from the sweet perfumes of God’s mercy. The English chronicle reports of one
Parry, who being condemned to die, Queen Elizabeth sent him her pardon; and
after he was pardoned, he conspired and plotted the queen’s death. Just so
some deal with God, he bestows mercy, and they plot treason against him. ‘I
have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.’
Isa 1: 2. The Athenians, in lieu of the good service Themistocles
had done them, banished him their city. The snake, in the fable, being
frozen, stung him that gave it warmth. Certainly sins against mercy are more
heinous.
[6] Those
sins are more heinous than others which are committed with delectation. A
child of God may sin through a surprisal, or against his will. ‘The evil
which I would not, that I do.’
Rom 7: 19. He is like one that is carried down the stream
involuntarily. But to sin with delight heightens and greatens the sin. It is
a sign the heart is in the sin. ‘They set their heart on their iniquity,’ as
a man follows his gain with delight.
Hos 4: 8. ‘Without are dogs, and whosoever loveth and maketh a
lie.’
Rev 22: 15. To tell a lie is a sin; but to love to tell a lie is
a greater sin.
[7] Those
sins are more heinous than others which are committed under a pretence of
religion. To cheat and defraud is a sin, but to do it with a Bible in one’s
hand, is a double sin. To be unchaste is a sin; but to put on a mask of
religion to play the whore makes the sin greater. ‘I have peace offerings
with me; this day have I paid my vows; come let us take our fill of love.’
Prov 7: 14, 15. She speaks as if she had been at church, and had
been saying her prayers: who would ever have suspected her of dishonesty?
But, behold her hypocrisy; she makes her devotion a preface to adultery.
‘Which devour widows’ houses, and for a show make long prayers.’
Luke 20: 47. The sin was not in making long prayers; for Christ
was a whole night in prayer; but to make long prayers that they might do
unrighteous actions, made their sin more horrid.
[8] Sins of
apostasy are more heinous than others. Demas forsook the truth and
afterwards became a priest in an idol temple, says Dorotheus.
2 Tim 4: 10. To fall is a sin; but to fall away is a greater sin.
Apostates cast a disgrace upon religion. ‘The apostate,’ says Tertullian,
‘seems to put God and Satan in the balance; and having weighed both their
services, prefers the devil’s, and proclaims him to be the best master.’ In
which respect the apostate is said to put Christ to ‘open shame.’
Heb 6: 6. This dyes a sin in grain, and makes it greater. It is a
sin not to profess Christ, but it is a greater to deny him. Not to wear
Christ’s colours is a sin, but to run from his colours is a greater sin. A
pagan sins less than a baptised renegade.
[9] To
persecute religion makes sin greater.
Acts 7: 52. To have no religion is a sin, but to endeavour to
destroy religion is a greater. Antiochus Epiphanes took more tedious
journeys and ran more hazards, to vex and oppose the Jews, than all his
predecessors had done to obtain victories. Herod ‘added this above all, that
he shut up John in prison.’
Luke 3: 20. He sinned before by incest; but by imprisoning the
prophet he added to his sin and made it greater. Persecution fills up the
measure of sin. ‘Fill ye up the measure of your fathers.’
Matt 23: 32. If you pour a porringer of water into a cistern it
adds something to it, but if you pour in a bucketful or two it fills up the
measure of the cistern; so persecution fills up the measure of sin, and
makes it greater.
[10] To sin
maliciously makes sin greater. Aquinas, and other of the schoolmen, place
the sin against the Holy Ghost in malice. The sinner does all he can to vex
God, and despite the Spirit of grace.
Heb 10: 29. Thus Julia threw up his dagger in the air, as if he
would have been revenged upon God. This swells sin to its full size, it
cannot be greater. When a man is once come to this, blasphemously to despite
the Spirit, there is but one step lower he can fall, and that is to hell.
[11] It
aggravates sin, and makes it greater, when a man not only sins himself, but
endeavours to make others sin. (1) Such as teach errors to the people, who
decry Christ’s deity, or deny his virtue, making him only a political head,
not a head of influence: who preach against the morality of the Sabbath, or
the immortality of the soul; these men’s sins are greater than others. If
the breakers of God’s law sin, what do they that teach men to break them?
Matt 5: 19. (2) Such as destroy others by their bad example. The
swearing father teaches his son to swear, and damns him by his example. Such
men’s sins are greater than others, and they shall have a hotter place in
hell.
Use. You
see all sins are not equal; some are more grievous than others, and bring
greater wrath; therefore especially take heed of these sins. ‘Keep back thy
servant from presumptuous sins.’
Psa 19: 13. The least sin is bad enough; you need not aggravate
your sins, and make them more heinous. He that has a little wound will not
make it deeper. Oh, beware of those circumstances which increase your sin
and make it more heinous! The higher a man is in sinning, the lower he shall
lie in torment.
3.3 The Wrath of God
What does
every sin deserve?
God’s wrath
and curse, both in this life, and in that which is to come.
‘Depart
from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.’
Matt 25: 41. Man having sinned, is like a favourite turned out of
the king’s favour, and deserves the wrath and curse of God. He deserves
God’s curse.
Gal 3: 10. As when Christ cursed the fig-tree, it withered; so,
when God curses any, he withers in his soul.
Matt 21: 19. God’s curse blasts wherever it comes. He deserves
also God’s wrath, which is nothing else but the execution of his curse.
What is
this wrath?
I. It is
privative; that is, deprives of the smiles of God’s face. It is hell enough
to be excluded his presence: in whose ‘presence is fulness of joy.’
Psa 16: 11. His smiling face has that splendour and beauty in it
that ravishes the angels with delight. This is the diamond in the ring of
glory. If it were such a misery for Absalom, that he might not see the
King’s face, what will it be for the wicked to be shut out from beholding
God’s pleasant face!
Privatio Divinae
visionis omnium suppliciorum summum
[To be deprived of the sight of God is the greatest of all punishments].
II. This
wrath has something in it positive. It is ‘wrath come upon them to the
uttermost.’
1 Thess 2: 16.
[I] God’s
wrath is irresistible. ‘Who knoweth the power of thine anger?’
Psa 90: 2: Sinners may oppose God’s ways, but not his wrath.
Shall the briers contend with the fire? Shall finite contend with infinite?
‘Hast thou an arm like God?’
Job 40: 9.
[2] God’s
wrath is terrible. The Spanish proverb is, The lion is not so fierce as he
is painted. We are apt to have slight thoughts of God’s wrath; but it is
very tremendous and dismal, as if scalding lead should be dropped into one’s
eyes. The Hebrew word for wrath signifies heat. To show that the wrath of
God is hot, therefore it is compared to fire in the text. Fire, when in its
rage, is dreadful. So the wrath of God is like fire, it is the terrible of
terrible. Other fire is but painted to this. If when God’s wrath is kindled
but a little, and a spark of it flies into a wicked man’s conscience in this
life, it is so terrible, what will it be when God shall ‘stir up all his
wrath’?
Psa 78: 38. How sad is it with a soul in desertion! God then dips
his pen in gall, and ‘writes bitter things;’ his poisoned arrows stick fast
into the heart. ‘While I suffer thy terrors, I am distracted; thy fierce
wrath goes over me.’
Psa 88: 15, 16. Luther, in desertion, was in such horror of mind,
that nec
calor, nec sanguis superesset [no
warmth or blood remained]; he had no blood seen in his face, but he lay as
one dead. Now, if God’s wrath be such towards those whom he loves, what will
it be towards those whom he hates? If they who sip of the cup find it so
bitter, what will they do who drink its dregs?
Psal 75: 8. Solomon says, ‘The king’s wrath is as the roaring of
a lion.’
Prov 19: 12. What then is God’s wrath? When God musters up all
his forces, and sets himself
in battalia
against a sinner, how can his heart endure?
Ezek 22: 14. Who is able to lie under mountains of wrath? God is
the sweetest friend but the sorest enemy.
(1) The
wrath of God shall seize upon every part of a sinner. Upon the body. The
body, which was so tender that it could not bear heat or cold, shall be
tormented in the wine press of God’s wrath. Those eyes which before could
behold amorous objects, shall be tormented with the sight of devils. The
ears, which before were delighted with music, shall be tormented with the
hideous shrieks of the damned. The wrath of God shall seize upon the soul of
a reprobate. Ordinary fire cannot touch the soul. When the martyrs’ bodies
were consuming, their souls triumphed in the flames; but God’s wrath burns
the soul. The memory will be tormented to remember what means of grace have
been abused. The conscience will be tormented with self-accusations. The
sinner will accuse himself for presumptuous sins, for misspending his
precious hours, and for resisting the Holy Ghost.
(2) The
wrath of God is without intermission. Hell is an abiding place, but no
resting place; there is not a minute’s rest. Outward pain has some
abatement. If it be the stone or colic, the patient has sometimes ease; but
the torments of the damned have no intermission; he who feels God’s wrath
never says, ‘I have ease.’
(3) The
wrath of God is eternal. So says the text. ‘Everlasting fire.’ No tears can
quench the flame of God’s anger; no, though we could shed rivers of tears.
In all pains of this life men hope for cessation — the suffering will not
continue long; either the tormentor dies or the tormented; but the wrath of
God is always feeding upon the sinner. The terror of natural fire is, that
it consumes what it burns; but what makes the fire of God’s wrath terrible
is, that it does not consume what it burns.
Sic morientur
damnati ut semper vivunt [Those that
are lost will so die as to remain always alive]. Bernard. The sinner will
ever be in the furnace. After innumerable millions of years the wrath of God
is as far from ending as it was at the beginning. If all the earth and sea
were sand, and every thousand years a bird should come and take away a
grain, it would be a long while ere that vast heap of sand were emptied; but
if, after all that time, the damned might come out of hell, there would be
some hope; but this word ‘Ever’ breaks the heart.
How does
it consist with God’s justice to punish sin, which perhaps was committed in
a moment, with eternal fire?
On account
of the heinous nature of sin. Consider the Person offended; it is
Crimen laesae
majestatis [a charge of the highest
treason]. Sin is committed against an infinite majesty, therefore it is
infinite, and the punishment must be infinite. Because the nature of man is
but finite, and a sinner cannot at once bear infinite wrath, therefore he
must be satisfying in enmity what he cannot satisfy at once.
(4) While
the wicked lie scorching in the flames of wrath, they have none to
commiserate them. It is some ease of grief to have some to condole with us;
but the wicked have wrath and no pity shown them. Who will pity them? God
will not. They derided his Spirit, and he will now laugh at their calamity.
Prov 1: 26. The saints will not pity them. They persecuted them
upon earth, therefore they will rejoice to see God’s justice executed on
them. ‘The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance.’
Psa 58: 10.
(5) The
sinner under wrath has no one to speak a good word for him. If an elect
person sins, he has one to intercede for him. ‘We have an advocate, Jesus
Christ the righteous.’
1 John 2: 1. Christ will say, ‘It is one of my friends, one for
whom I have shed my blood; Father, pardon him.’ But the wicked who die in
sin have none to solicit for them; they have an accuser, but no advocate;
Christ’s blood will not plead for them; they slighted Christ and refused to
come under his government, therefore Christ’s blood cries against them.
[3] God’s
wrath is just. The Greek word for vengeance signifies justice. The wicked
shall drink a sea of wrath, but not one drop of injustice, It is just that
God’s honour be repaired, and how can that be but by punishing offenders? He
who infringes the king’s laws deserves the penalty. Mercy goes by favour,
punishment by desert. ‘To us belongeth confusion of face.’
Dan 9: 8. Wrath is that which belongs to us as we are simmers; it
is due to us as any wages that are paid.
Use one.
For information. (1) God is justified in condemning sinners at the last day.
They deserve wrath, and it is no injustice to give them that which they
deserve. If a malefactor deserves death, the judge does him no wrong in
condemning him.
(2) See
what a great evil sin is, which exposes a person to God’s wrath for ever.
You may know the lion by his paw; and you may know what an evil sin is by
the wrath and curse it brings. When you see a man drawn upon a hurdle to
execution, you conclude he is guilty of some capital crime that brings such
a punishment; so when a man lies under the torrid zone of God’s wrath, and
roars out in flames, you must say, ‘How horrid an evil sin is!’ They who now
see no evil in swearing, or Sabbath breaking, will see it looks black in the
glass of hell-torments.
(3) See
here a handwriting upon the wall; that which may check a sinner’s mirth. He
is now brisk and frolicsome, he chants to the sound of the viol, and invents
instruments of music (Amos
6: 5); he drinks ‘stolen waters,’ and says, ‘they are sweet;’ but
let him remember that the wrath and curse of God hang over him, which will
shortly, if he repent not, be executed on him. Dionysus thought, as he sat
at table, that he saw a naked sword hang over his head; but the sword of
God’s justice hangs over a sinner, and when the slender thread of life is
cut asunder it falls upon him. ‘Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let
thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth . . . but know thou, that for
all these things God will bring thee into judgement.’
Eccl 11: 9. For a drop of pleasure thou must drink a sea of
wrath. Your pleasure cannot be so sweet as wrath is bitter. The delights of
the flesh cannot countervail the horror of conscience. Better want the
devil’s honey than be stung with the wrath of God. The garden of Eden, which
signifies pleasure, had a flaming sword placed at the east end of it.
Gen 3: 24. The garden of carnal and sinful delight is surrounded
with the flaming sword of God’s wrath.
Use two.
For reproof. The stupidity of sinners is reproved who are no more affected
with the curse and wrath of God which is due to them. ‘None considereth in
his heart.’
Isa 44: 19. If they were in debt and the sergeant was about to
arrest them, they would be affected with that; but though the fierce wrath
of God is ready to arrest them, they remember it not. Though a beast has no
shame, he has fear: he is afraid of fire; but sinners are worse than
brutish, for they fear not the ‘fire of hell’ till they are in it. Most have
their consciences asleep, or seared; but when they shall see the vials of
God’s wrath dropping, they will cry out as Dives, ‘Oh! I am tormented in
this flame!’
Luke 16: 24.
Use three.
For exhortation. (1) Let us adore God’s patience, who has not brought this
wrath and curse upon us all this while. We have deserved wrath, yet God has
not given us our desert. We may all subscribe to
Psa 103: 8, ‘The Lord is slow to anger;’ and to
ver 10, ‘He has not rewarded us according to our iniquities.’ God
has deferred his wrath, and given us space to repent.
Rev 2: 21. He is not like a hasty creditor, who requires the
debt, and gives no time for payment; he shoots off his warning-piece, that
he may not shoot off his murdering-piece. ‘The Lord is long suffering to
usward, not willing that any perish.’
2 Pet 3: 9. God adjourns the assizes, to see if sinners will
turn; he keeps off the storm of his wrath: but if men will not be warned,
let them know that long forbearance is no forgiveness.
(2) Let us
labour to prevent the wrath we have deserved. How careful are men to prevent
poverty or disgrace! O labour to prevent God’s eternal wrath, that it may
not only be deferred, but removed.
What shall
we do to prevent and escape the wrath to come?
[1] By
getting an interest in Jesus Christ. Christ is the only screen to stand
betwixt us and the wrath of God; he felt God’s wrath that they who believe
in him should never feel it. ‘Jesus which delivered us from the wrath to
come.’
1 Thess 1: 10. Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace was a type of God’s
wrath, and that furnace did not singe the garments of the three children,
nor had ‘the smell of fire passed upon them.’
Dan 3: 27. Jesus Christ went into the furnace of his Father’s
wrath; and the smell of the fire of hell shall never pass upon those that
believe in him.
[2] If we
would prevent the wrath of God, let us take heed of those sins which will
provoke it. Edmund, successor of Anselm, had a saying, ‘I had rather leap
into a furnace of fire, than willingly commit a sin against God.’ There are
several fiery sins we must take heed of, which will provoke the fire of
God’s wrath. The fire of rash anger. Some who profess religion cannot bridle
their tongue; they care not what they say in their anger; they will even
curse their passions. James says, ‘The tongue is set on fire of hell;’
chap 3: 6. Oh! take heed of a ‘fiery tongue,’ lest it bring thee
to ‘fiery torment.’ Dives begged a drop of water to cool his tongue. Cyprian
says he had offended most in his tongue, and now that was most set on fire.
Take heed of the fire of malice. Malice is a malignant humour, whereby we
wish evil to others; it is a vermin that lives on blood; it studies revenge.
Caligula had a chest where he kept deadly poisons for those against whom he
had malice. The fire of malice brings men to the fiery furnace of God’s
wrath. Take heed of the sin of uncleanness. ‘Whoremongers and adulterers God
will judge.’
Heb 13: 4. Such as burn in uncleanness are in great danger to
burn one day in hell. Let one fire put out another; let the fire of God’s
wrath put out the fire of lust.
(3) To you
who have a well-grounded hope that you shall not feel this wrath, which you
have deserved, let me exhort you to be very thankful to God, who has given
his Son to save you from this tremendous wrath. Jesus has delivered you from
wrath to come. The Lamb of God was scorched in the fire of God’s wrath for
you. Christ felt the wrath which he did not deserve, that you might escape
the wrath which you have deserved. Pliny observes, that there is nothing
better to quench fire than blood. Christ’s blood has quenched the fire of
God’s wrath for you. ‘Upon me be thy curse,’ said Rebekah to Jacob.
Gen 27: 13. So said Christ to God’s justice, ‘Upon me be the
curse, that my elect may inherit the blessing.’ Be patient under all the
afflictions which you endure. Affliction is sharp, but it is not wrath, it
is not hell. who would not willingly drink in the cup of affliction that
knows he shall never drink in the cup of damnation? Who would not be willing
to bear the wrath of man that knows he shall never feel the wrath of God?
Christian,
though thou mayest feel the rod, thou shalt never feel the bloody axe.
Augustine once said, ‘Strike, Lord, where thou wilt, if sin be pardoned.’ So
say, ‘Afflict me, Lord, as thou wilt in this life, seeing I shall escape the
wrath to come.’
4. THE WAY OF SALVATION
4.1 Faith
What does
God require of us, that we may escape his wrath and curse due to us for our
sin?
Faith in
Jesus Christ, repentance unto life, with the diligent use of all the outward
means, whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption.
I begin with
the first, faith in Jesus Christ. ‘Whom God has set forth to be a
propitiation through faith in his blood.’
Rom 3: 25. The great privilege in the text is, to have Christ for
a propitiation; which is not only to free us from God’s wrath, but to
ingratiate us into his love and favour. The means of having Christ to be our
propitiation is, ‘Faith in his blood.’ There is a twofold faith,
Fides quae
creditur [the faith which is
believed], which is ‘the doctrine of faith;’ and
Fides qua creditur
[the faith by which we believe], which is ‘the grace of faith.’ The act of
justifying faith lies in recumbency; we rest on Christ alone for salvation.
As a man that is ready to drown catches hold on the bough of a tree, so a
poor trembling sinner, seeing himself ready to perish, catches hold by faith
on Christ the tree of life, and is saved. The work of faith is by the Holy
Spirit; therefore faith is called the ‘fruit of the Spirit.’
Gal 5: 22. Faith does not grow in nature, it is an outlandish
plant, a fruit of the Spirit. This grace of faith is
sanctissimum
humani pectoris bonum [the most
hallowed possession of the human heart]; of all others, the most precious
rich faith, and most holy faith, and faith of God’s elect: hence it is
called ‘precious faith.’
2 Pet 1: 1. As gold is most precious among metals, so is faith
among the graces. Faith is the queen of the graces; it is the condition of
the gospel. ‘Thy faith has saved thee,’ not thy tears.
Luke 7: 50. Faith is the ‘vital artery of the soul’ that animates
it. ‘The just shall live by his faith.’
Hab 2: 4. Though unbelievers breathe, they want life. Faith, as
Clemens Alexandrinus calls it, is a mother grace; it excites and invigorates
all the graces; not a grace stirs till faith sets it to work. Faith sets
repentance to work; it is like fire to the still; it sets hope to work.
First we believe the promise, then we hope for it. If faith did not feed the
lamp of hope with oil, it would soon die. It sets love to work. ‘Faith which
worketh by love.’
Gal 5: 6. Who can believe in the infinite merits of Christ, and
his heart not ascend in a fiery chariot of love? It is a catholicon, or
remedy against all troubles; a sheet anchor cast into the sea of God’s mercy
to keep us from sinking in despair. Other graces have done worthily; thou, O
faith, excellest them all. In heaven love will be the chief grace; but while
we are here love must give place to faith. Love takes possession of glory,
but faith gives a title to it. Love is the crowning grace in heaven, but
faith is the conquering grace upon earth. ‘This is the victory that
overcometh the world, even our faith.’
1 John 5: 4. Faith carries away the garland from all the other
graces. Other graces help to sanctify us, but faith only has the honour to
justify us. ‘Being justified by faith.’
Rom 5: 1.
How comes
faith to be so precious?
Not that it
is a more holy quality, or has more worthiness than other graces, but
respectu objecti
[with respect to its object], ‘as it lays hold on Christ the blessed
object,’ and fetches in his fulness.
John 9: 36. Faith in itself considered, is but
manus mendica,
‘the beggar’s hand;’ but as this hand receives the rich alms of Christ’s
merits, so it is precious, and challenges a superiority over the rest of the
graces.
Use one. Of
all sins, beware of the rock of unbelief ‘Take heed lest there be in any of
you an evil heart of unbelief’
Heb 3: 12. Men think, as long as they are not drunkards or
swearers, it is no great matter to be unbelievers. This is the gospel sin,
it dyes your other sins in grain.
(1) Unbelief
is a Christ-reproaching sin. It disparages Christ’s infinite merit as if it
could not save; it makes the wound of sin to be broader than the plaister of
Christ’s blood. This is a high contempt offered to Christ, and is a deeper
spear than that which the Jews thrust into his side.
(2) Unbelief
is an ungrateful sin.
Ingratus vitandus
est ut dirum selus, tellus ipsa foedius nihil creat
[The ungrateful man is to be avoided like a fearful crime; the world herself
produces nothing more shameful]. Ingratitude is a prodigy of wickedness; and
unbelief is being ungrateful for the richest mercy. Suppose a king, to
redeem a captive, should part with his crown of gold, and when he had done
this should say to the redeemed man, ‘All I desire of thee in lieu of my
kindness, is to believe that I love thee.’ If he should say ‘No, I do not
believe any such thing, or that thou carest at all for me;’ I appeal to you
whether this would not be odious ingratitude? So is the case here. God has
sent his Son to shed his blood; he requires us only to believe in him, that
he is able and willing to save us. No, says unbelief, his blood was not shed
for me, I cannot persuade myself that Christ has any purpose of love to me.
Is not this horrid ingratitude? This enhances a sin, and makes it of a
crimson colour.
(3) Unbelief
is a leading sin. It is the breeder of sin.
Qualitas malae
vitae initium summit ab infidelitate
[A life of wickedness has unbelief as its point of origin]. Unbelief is a
root sin, and the devil labours to water this root, that the branches may be
fruitful. It breeds hardness of heart; therefore they are put together.
Mark 16: 14. Christ upbraids them with their unbelief and
hardness of heart. Unbelief breeds the stone of the heart. He who believes
not in Christ, is not affected with his sufferings, he melts not in tears of
love. Unbelief freezes the heart; first it defiles and then hardens.
Unbelief breeds profaneness. An unbeliever will stick at no sin, neither at
false weights, nor false oaths. He will swallow down treason. Judas was
first an unbeliever, and then a traitor.
John 6: 64. He who has no faith in his heart, will have no fear
of God before his eyes.
(4)
Unbelief is a wrath procuring sin. It is
inimica salutis
[an enemy of salvation]. Bernard.
John 3: 18.
Jam condemnatus
est [he is already condemned], dying
so, he is as sure to be condemned as if he were so already. ‘He that
believeth not on the Son of God, the wrath of God abideth on him.’
John 3: 36. He who believes not in the blood of the Lamb, must
feel the wrath of the Lamb. The Gentiles that believe not in Christ will be
damned as well as the Jews who blaspheme him. And if unbelief be so fearful
and damnable a sin, shall we not be afraid to live in it?
Use two.
Above all graces set faith to work on Christ. ‘That whosoever believeth in
him should not perish.’
John 3: 15. ‘Above all, taking the shield of faith.’
Eph 6: 16. Say as queen Esther, ‘I will go in unto the king: and
if I perish, I perish.’ She had nothing to encourage her; she ventured
against law, yet the golden sceptre was held forth to her. We have promises
to encourage our faith. ‘Him that comes unto me, I will in no wise cast
out.’
John 6: 37. Let us then advance faith by a holy recumbency on
Christ’s merits. Christ’s blood will not justify without believing; they are
both put together in the text, ‘Faith in his blood.’ The blood of God,
without faith in Christ, will not save. Christ’s sufferings are the plaister
to heal a sin-sick soul, but this plaister must be applied by faith. It is
not money in a rich man’s hand, though offered to us, that will enrich us,
unless we receive it. So Christ’s virtues or benefits will do us no good
unless we receive them by the hand of faith. Above all graces set faith on
work. It is a faith most acceptable to God upon many accounts.
(1) Because
it is a God-exalting grace. It glorifies God. Abraham ‘was strong in faith,
giving glory to God.’
Rom 4: 20. To believe that there is more mercy in God and merit
in Christ than sin in us, and that Christ has answered all the demands of
the law, and that his blood has fully satisfied for us, is in a high degree
to honour God. Faith in the Mediator brings more glory to God than
martyrdom, or the most heroic act of obedience.
(2) Faith
in Christ is acceptable to God because it is a self-denying grace; it makes
a man go out of himself, renounce all self-righteousness, and wholly rely on
Christ for justification. It is very humble, it confesses its own indigence,
and lives wholly upon Christ. As the bee sucks sweetness from the flower, so
faith sucks all its strength and comfort from Christ.
(3) Faith
is a grace acceptable to God, because by faith we present a righteousness to
him which best pleases him; we bring the righteousness of Christ into court,
which is called the righteousness of God.
2 Cor 5: 21. To bring Christ’s righteousness, is to bring
Benjamin with us. A believer may say, Lord, it is not the righteousness of
Adam, or of the angels, but of Christ who is God-Man, that I bring before
thee. The Lord cannot but smell a sweet savour in Christ’s righteousness.
Use three.
Let us try our faith. There is something that looks like faith, and is not.
Pliny says there is a Cyprian stone which is in colour like a diamond, but
it is not of the right kind; so there is a spurious faith in the world. Some
plants have the same leaf with others, but the herbalist can distinguish
them by the root and taste; so something may look like true faith, but it
may be distinguished several ways: —
(1) True
faith is grounded upon knowledge. Knowledge carries the torch before faith.
There is a knowledge of Christ’s orient excellencies.
Phil 3: 8. He is made up of all love and beauty. True faith is a
judicious intelligent grace, it knows whom it believes, and why it believes.
Faith is seated as well in the understanding as in the will. It has an eye
to see Christ, as well as a wing to fly to him. Such therefore as are veiled
in ignorance, or have only an implicit faith to believe as the church
believes, have no true and genuine faith.
(2) Faith
lives in a broken heart. ‘The father cried out with tears, Lord, I believe.’
Mark 9: 24. True faith is always in a heart bruised for sin.
They, therefore, whose hearts were never touched for sin, have no faith. If
a physician should tell us there was a herb that would help us against all
infections, but it always grows in a watery place; if we should see a herb
like it in colour, leaf, smell, blossom, but growing upon a rock, we should
conclude that it was the wrong herb. So saving faith always grows in a heart
humbled for sin, in a weeping eye and a tearful conscience. If, therefore,
there be a show of faith, but it grows upon the rock of a hard impenitent
heart, it is not the true faith.
(3) True
faith is at first nothing but an embryo, it is minute and small; it is full
of doubts, temptations, fears; it begins in weakness. It is like the smoking
flax.
Matt 12: 20. It smokes with desires, but does not flame with
comfort; it is at first so small, that it is scarce discernible. They who,
at the first dash, have a strong persuasion that Christ is theirs, who leap
out of sin into assurance, have a false and spurious faith, The faith which
comes to its full stature on its birth-day is a monster. The seed that
sprung up suddenly withered.
Matt 13: 5, 6.
(4) Faith
is a refining grace, it consecrates and purifies. Moral virtue may wash the
outside, but faith washes the inside. ‘Purifying their hearts by faith.’
Acts 15: 9. Faith makes the heart a temple with this inscription,
‘Holiness to the Lord.’ They whose hearts have legions of lust in them, were
never acquainted with the true faith. For one to say he has faith, and yet
live in sin, is, as if one should say he was in health when his vitals are
perished. Faith is a virgin grace, it is joined with sanctity. ‘Holding the
mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.’
1 Tim 3: 9. The jewel of faith is always put in the cabinet of a
pure conscience. The woman that touched Christ by faith, fetched a healing
and cleansing virtue from him.
(5) True
faith is obediential. ‘The obedience of faith.’
Rom 16: 26. Faith melts our will into the will of God. If God
commands duty, though cross to flesh and blood, faith obeys. ‘By faith
Abraham obeyed.’
Heb 11: 8. It not only believes the promise, but obeys the
command. It is not having a speculative knowledge that will evidence you to
be believers. The devil has knowledge; but that which makes him a devil is
that he has no obedience.
(6) True
faith is increasing. ‘From faith to faith,’ i.e. from one degree of faith to
another.
Rom 1: 17. Faith does not lie in the heart, as a stone in the
earth, but as seed that grows. Joseph of Arimathaea was a disciple of
Christ, but was afraid to confess him; afterwards he went boldly to Pilate
and begged the body of Jesus.
John 19: 38. A Christian’s increase in faith is known two ways: —
By
steadfastness. He is a pillar in the temple of God, ‘Rooted and built up in
him; and established in the faith.’
Col 2: 7. Unbelievers are sceptics in religion; they are
unsettled; they question every truth; but when faith is on the increasing
hand, it does
stabilire animum
[strengthen the spirit], it corroborates a Christian. He is able to prove
his principles; he holds no more than he will die for; as that martyr woman
said, ‘I cannot dispute for Christ, but I can burn for him.’ An increasing
faith is not like a ship in the midst of the sea, that fluctuates, and is
tossed upon the waves; but like a ship at anchor, which is firm and
steadfast.
A
Christian’s increase in faith is known by his strength. He can do that now
which he could not do before. When one is man-grown, he can do that which he
was not able to do when he was a child; he can carry a heavier burden: so a
growing Christian can bear crosses with more patience.
But I fear
I have no faith, it is so weak!
If you have
faith, though but in its infancy, be not discouraged. For, (1) A little
faith is faith, as a spark of fire is fire. (2) A weak faith may lay hold on
a strong Christ; as a weak hand can tie the knot in marriage as well as a
strong one. She, in the gospel, who but touched Christ, fetched virtue from
him. (3) The promises are not made to strong faith, but to true. The promise
does not say, he who has a giant faith, who can believe God’s love through a
frown, who can rejoice in affliction, who can work wonders, remove
mountains, stop the mouth of lions, shall be saved, but whosoever believes,
be his faith never so small. A reed is but weak, especially when it is
bruised; yet a promise is made to it. ‘A bruised reed shall he not break.’
Matt 12: 20. (4) A weak faith may be fruitful. Weakest things
multiply most. The vine is a weak plant, but it is fruitful. The thief on
the cross, who was newly converted, was but weak in grace; but how many
precious clusters grew upon that tender plant! He chided his fellow-thief.
‘Dost thou not fear God?’
Luke 23: 40. He judged himself, ‘We indeed suffer justly.’ He
believed in Christ, when he said, ‘Lord.’ He made a heavenly prayer,
‘Remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.’ Weak Christians may have
strong affections. How strong is the first love, which is after the first
planting of faith! (5) The weakest believer is a member of Christ as well as
the strongest; and the weakest member of the body mystic shall not perish.
Christ will cut off rotten members, but not weak members. Therefore,
Christian, be not discouraged. God, who would have us receive them that are
weak in faith, will not himself refuse them.
Rom 14: 1.
4.2 Repentance
‘Then has
God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.’
Acts 11: 18.
Repentance
seems to be a bitter pill to take, but it is to purge out the bad humour of
sin. By some Antinomian spirits it is cried down as a legal doctrine; but
Christ himself preached it. ‘From that time Jesus began to preach, and to
say, Repent,’ &c.
Matt 4: 17. In his last farewell, when he was ascending to
heaven, he commanded that ‘Repentance should be preached in his name.’
Luke 24: 47. Repentance is a pure gospel grace. The covenant of
works would not admit of repentance; it cursed all that could not perform
perfect and personal obedience.
Gal 3: 10. Repentance comes in by the gospel; it is the fruit of
Christ’s purchase that repenting sinners shall be saved. It is wrought by
the ministry of the gospel, while it sets before our eyes Christ crucified.
It is not arbitrary, but necessary; there is no being saved without it.
‘Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.’
Luke 13: 3. We may be thankful to God that he has left us this
plank after shipwreck.
I. I shall
show first the counterfeits of repentance.
[1] Natural
softness and tenderness of spirit. Some have a tender affection, arising
from their constitution, whereby they are apt to weep and relent when they
see any object of pity. These are not repenting tears: for many weep to see
another’s misery, who cannot weep at their own sin.
[2] Legal
terrors. A man who has lived in a course of sin, at last is made sensible;
he sees hell ready to devour him, and is filled with anguish and horror; but
after a while the tempest of conscience is blown over, and he is quiet. He
then concludes he is a true penitent, because he has felt some bitterness in
sin, but this is not repentance. Judas had some trouble of mind. If anguish
and trouble were sufficient for repentance, then the damned would be most
penitent, for they are most in anguish of mind. There may be trouble of mind
where there is no grieving for the offence against God.
[3] A
slight superficial sorrow. When God’s hand lies heavy upon a man, as when he
is sick or lame, he may vent a sigh or tear, and say, ‘Lord, have mercy;’
yet this is not true repentance. Ahab did more than all this. ‘He rent his
clothes, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly.’
1 Kings 21: 27. His clothes were rent, but not his heart. The eye
may be watery, and the heart flinty. An apricot may be soft without, but it
has a hard stone within.
[4] God
motions rising in the heart. Every good motion is not repentance. Some think
if they have motions in their hearts to break off their sins, and become
religious, it is repentance. As the devil may stir up bad motions in the
godly, so the Spirit of God may stir up good motions in the wicked. Herod
had many good thoughts and inclinations stirred up in him by John Baptist’s
preaching, yet he did not truly repent, for he still lived in incest.
[5] Vows
and resolutions. What vows and solemn protestations do some make in their
sickness, that if God should recover them they will be new men, but
afterwards they are as bad as ever! ‘Thou saidst, I will not transgress;’
here was a resolution: but for all this, she ran after her idols. ‘Under
every green tree thou wanderest, playing the harlot.’
Jer 2: 20.
[6]
Leaving off some gross sin. (1) A man may leave off some sins, and keep
others. Herod reformed many things that were amiss, but kept his Herodias.
(2) An old sin may be left to entertain a new one. A man may leave off riot
and prodigality, and turn covetous; which is merely to exchange one sin for
another.
These are
the counterfeits of repentance. Now, if you find that yours is a counterfeit
repentance, and you have not repented aright, mend what you have done amiss.
As in the body, if a bone be set wrong, the surgeon has no way but to break
it again, and set it aright; so you must do by repentance; if you have not
repented aright, you must have your heart broken again in a godly manner,
and be more deeply afflicted for sin than ever.
II. This
brings me to show wherein repentance consists. It consists in two things:
humiliation and transformation.
[1]
Humiliation. ‘If their uncircumcised hearts be humbled.’
Lev 26: 41. There is, as the schoolmen say, a twofold
humiliation, or breaking of the heart. (1) Attrition; as when a rock is
broken in pieces. This is done by the law, which is a hammer to break the
heart. (2) Contrition; as when ice is melted into water. This is done by the
gospel, which is as a fire to ‘melt the heart.’
Jer 23: 9. The sense of abused kindness causes contrition.
[2]
Transformation, or change. ‘Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.’
Rom 12: 2. Repentance works a change in the whole man. As when
wine is put into a glass of water, it runs into every part of the water, and
changes its colour and taste; so true repentance does not rest in one part,
but diffuses and spreads itself into every part.
(1)
Repentance causes a change in the mind. Before, a man liked sin well, and
said in defence of it, as Jonah, ‘I do well to be angry;’ chap 4: 9; or I
did well to swear, and break the Sabbath. When he becomes penitent, his
judgement is changed, he looks upon sin as the greatest evil. The Greek word
for repentance signifies after-wisdom; when, having seen how deformed and
damnable a thing sin is, we change our mind. Paul, before conversion, verily
thought he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus (Acts
26: 9); but, when he became a penitent, he was of another mind.
‘I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ
Jesus.’
Phil 3: 8. Repentance causes a change of judgement.
(2)
Repentance causes a change in the affections, which move under the will as
the commander-in-chief. It metamorphoses the affections. It turns rejoicing
in sin into sorrowing for sin; it turns boldness in sin into holy shame; it
turns the love of sin into hatred. As Ammon hated Tamar more than ever he
loved her (2
Sam 13: 15), so the true penitent hates sin more than ever he
loved it. ‘I hate every false way.’
Psa 119: 104.
(3)
Repentance works a change in the life. Though repentance begins at the
heart, it does rest there, but goes into the life. It begins at the heart.
‘O Jerusalem, wash thy heart.’
Jer 4: 14. If the spring be corrupt, no pure stream can run from
it. But though repentance begins at the heart, it does not rest there, but
changes the life. What a change did repentance make in Paul! It changed a
persecutor into a preacher. What a change did it make in the jailer!
Acts 16: 33. He took Paul and Silas, and washed their stripes,
and set meat before them. What a change did it make in Mary Magdalene! She
who before kissed her lovers with wanton embraces, now kisses Christ’s feet;
she that used to curl her hair, and dress it with costly jewels, now makes
it a towel to wipe Christ’s feet; her eyes that used to sparkle with lust,
and with impure glances to entice her lovers, now become fountains of tears
to wash her Saviour’s feet; her tongue that used to speak vainly and
loosely, now is an instrument set in tune to praise God. This change of life
has two things in it: —
[1] The
terminus a quo, a breaking off sin. ‘Break off thy sins by righteousness.’
Dan 4: 27. This breaking off sin must have three qualifications.
(1) It must be universal, a breaking off all sin. One disease may kill as
well as more. One sin lived in, may damn as well as more. The real penitent
breaks off secret, gainful, habitual sins; he takes the sacrificing knife of
mortification, and runs it through the heart of his dearest lusts. (2)
Breaking off sin must be sincere; it must not be out of fear, but upon
spiritual grounds; as from antipathy and disgust, and a principle of love to
God. If sin had not such evil effects, a true penitent would forsake it out
of love to God. The best way to separate things that are frozen, is by fire.
When sin and the heart are frozen together, the best way to separate them is
by the fire of love. Shall I sin against a gracious Father, and abuse that
love which pardons me? (3) The breaking off sin must be perpetual, so as
never to have to do with sin any more. ‘What have I to do any more with
idols?’
Hos 14: 8. Repentance is a spiritual divorce, which must be till
death.
[2] Change
of life has in it
terminus ad quem,
a returning unto the Lord. It is called ‘Repentance towards God.’
Acts 20: 21. It is not enough, when we repent, to leave old sins;
but we must engage in God’s service; as when the wind leaves the west, it
turns into a contrary corner. The repenting prodigal not only left his
harlots, but arose and went to his father.
Luke 15: 18. In true repentance the heart points directly to God,
as the needle to the north pole.
Use. Let
us all set upon this great work of repentance; let us repent sincerely and
speedily: let us repent of all our sins, our pride, rash anger, and
unbelief. ‘Without repentance, no remission.’ It is not consistent with the
holiness of God’s nature to pardon a sinner while he is in the act of
rebellion. O meet God, not with weapons, but tears in your eyes. To stir you
up to a melting penitent frame: —
(1)
Consider what there is in sin, that you should continue in the practice of
it. It is the ‘accursed thing.’
Josh 7: 11. It is the spirits of mischief distilled. It defiles
the soul’s glory; it is like a stain to beauty. It is compared to a
plague-sore.
1 Kings 8: 38. Nothing so changes one’s glory into shame as sin.
Without repentance sin tends to final damnation.
Peccatum transit
actu, manet reatu [The moment of sin
passes, the guilt remains]. Sin at first shows its colour in the glass, but
afterwards it bites like a serpent. Those locusts in
Rev 9: 7, are an emblem of sin: ‘On their heads were crowns like
gold, and they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the
teeth of lions, and there were stings in their tails.’ Sin unrepented of
ends in a tragedy. It has the devil for its father, shame for its companion,
and death for its wages.
Rom 6: 23. What is there in sin then, that men should continue in
it? Say not it is sweet. Who would desire the pleasure which kills?
(2)
Repentance is very pleasing to God. No sacrifice like a broken heart. ‘A
broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.’
Psa 51: 17. Augustine caused this sentence to be written over his
bed when he was sick. When the widow brought empty vessels to Elisha, the
oil was poured into them.
2 Kings 4: 6. Bring God the broken vessel of a contrite heart,
and he will pour in the oil of mercy. Repenting tears are the joy of God and
of angels.
Luke 15: 7. Doves delight to be about the waters; and surely
God’s Spirit, who once descended in the likeness of a dove, takes great
delight in the waters of repentance. Mary stood at Jesus’ feet weeping.
Luke 7: 38. She brought two things to Christ, tears and ointment;
but her tears were more precious to Christ than her ointment.
(3)
Repentance ushers in pardon. Therefore they are joined together. ‘Repentance
and remission.’
Luke 24: 47. Pardon of sin is the richest blessing; it is enough
to make a sick man well. ‘The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick; the
people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity.’
Isa 33: 24. Pardon settles upon us the richer charter of the
promises. Pardoning mercy is the sauce that makes all other mercies relish
the sweeter; it sweetens our health, riches, and honour. David had a crown
of pure gold set upon his head.
Psa 21: 3. That which David most blessed God for, was not that
God had set a crown of gold upon his head, but that he had set a crown of
mercy upon his head. ‘Who crowneth thee with mercies.’
Psa 103: 4. What was this crown of mercy? You may see in
ver 3: ‘Who forgiveth all thine iniquities.’ David more rejoiced
that he was crowned with forgiveness than that he wore a crown of pure gold.
Now, what is it that makes way for pardon of sin but repentance? When
David’s soul was humbled and broken, the prophet Nathan brought him good
news. ‘The Lord has put away thy sin.’
2 Sam 12: 13.
But my
sins are so great, that if I should repent, God would not pardon them!
God will
not go from his promise. ‘Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord,
and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you, for I am merciful.’
Jer 3: 12. If thy sins are as rocks, yet upon thy repentance, the
sea of God’s mercy can drown them. ‘Wash you, make you clean.’
Isa 1: 16. Wash in the lever of repentance. ‘Come now, and let us
reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall
be as white as snow;’
ver 18. Manasseh was a crimson sinner; but when he humbled
himself greatly, the golden sceptre of mercy was held forth. When his head
was a fountain to weep for sin, Christ’s side was a fountain to wash away
sin. It is not the greatness of sin, but impenitence, that destroys. The
Jews, who had a hand in crucifying Christ, upon their repentance found the
blood they had shed was a sovereign balm to heal them. When the prodigal
came home to his father, he had the robe and the ring put upon him, and his
‘father kissed him.’
Luke 15: 20, 22. If you break off your sins, God will become a
friend to you; all that is in God shall be yours; his power shall be yours,
to help you; his wisdom shall be yours, to counsel you; his Spirit shall be
yours, to sanctify you; his promises shall be yours, to comfort you; his
angels shall be yours, to guard you; his mercy shall be yours, to save you.
(4) There
is much sweetness in repenting tears. The soul is never more enlarged and
inwardly delighted than when it can melt kindly for sin. Weeping days are
festival days. The Hebrew word to repent, nicham, signifies
consolari,
‘to take comfort.’ ‘Your sorrow shall be turned into joy.’
John 16: 20. Christ turns the water of tears into wine. David,
who was the great mourner in Israel, was the sweet singer. And the joy which
a true penitent finds, is a pre-libation and foretaste of the joy of
paradise. The wicked man’s joy turns to sadness: the penitent’s sadness
turns to joy. Though repentance seems at first to be thorny and bitter, yet
of this thorn a Christian gathers grapes. All which considerations may open
a vein of godly sorrow in our souls, that we may both weep for sin, and turn
from it. If ever God restores comfort, it is to his mourners.
Isa 57: 18. When we have wept, let us look up to Christ’s blood
for pardon. Say, as that holy man,
lava, Domine,
lacrimas meas: ‘Lord, wash my tears
in thy blood.’ We drop sin with our tears, and need Christ’s blood to wash
them. This repentance must be not for a few days only, like the mourning for
a friend, which is soon over, but it must be the work of our lives; the
issue of godly sorrow must not be stopped till death. After sin is pardoned,
we must repent. We run afresh upon the score, ‘we sin daily, therefore must
repent daily.’ Some shed a few tears for sin; and when, like the widow’s
oil, they have run awhile, they cease. Many, if the plaister of repentance
begin to smart a little, pluck it off; whereas the plaister of repentance
must still lie on, and not be plucked off till death, when, as all other
tears, so these of godly sorrow shall be wiped away.
What shall
we do to obtain a penitential frame of heart?
Seek to
God for it. It is his promise to give a ‘heart of flesh’ (Ezek
36:26); and to pour on us a spirit of mourning.
Zech 12: 10. Beg God’s ‘Holy Spirit.’ ‘He causeth his wind to
blow, and the waters flow.’
Psa 147: 18. When the wind of God’s Spirit blows upon us, then
the waters of repentant tears will flow from us.
4.3 The Word
The third
way to escape the wrath and curse of God, and obtain the benefit of
redemption by Christ, is the diligent use of ordinances, in particular, ‘the
word, sacraments, and prayer.’
I begin
with the best of these ordinances.
The ‘word
. . . which effectually worketh in you that believe.’
1 Thess 2:13.
What is
meant by the word’s working effectually?
The word
of God is said to work effectually when it has the good effect upon us for
which it was appointed by God; when it works powerful illumination and
thorough reformation. ‘To open their eyes, and turn them from the power of
Satan unto God.’
Acts 26: 18. The opening of their eyes denotes illumination; and
turning them from Satan to God denotes reformation.
How is the
word to be read and heard that it may become effectual to salvation.
This
question consists of two branches.
How may
the word be read effectually?
That we
may so read the word that it may conduce effectually to our salvation,
(1) Let
us have a reverend esteem of every part of canonical Scripture. ‘More to be
desired are they than gold.’
Psa 19: 10. Value the book of God above all other books. It is a
golden epistle, indited by the Holy Ghost, and sent us from heaven. More
particularly to raise our esteem, the Scripture is a spiritual glass, to
dress our souls by. It shows us more than we can see by the light of natural
conscience. This may discover gross sins; but the glass of the word shows us
heart-sins, vain thoughts, unbelief, &c. It not only shows us our spots, but
washes them away. The Scripture is a magazine out of which we may fetch
spiritual artillery to fight against Satan. When our Saviour was tempted by
the devil, he fetched armour and weapons from Scripture; ‘it is written.’
Matt 4: 4, 7. The holy Scripture is a panacea, or universal
medicine for the soul; it gives a recipe to cure deadness of heart,
Psa 119: 50; pride,
1 Pet 5: 5; and infidelity,
John 3: 36. It is a physic garden where we may gather a herb or
antidote to expel the poison of sin. The leaves of Scripture, like the
leaves of the tree of life, are for the ‘healing of the nations.’
Rev 22: 2. Should not this cause a reverential esteem of the
word?
(2) If we
would have the written word effectual to our souls, let us peruse it with
‘intenseness of mind.’ ‘Search the Scriptures.’
John 5: 39. The Greek word, ereunate, signifies to search as for
a ‘vein of silver.’ The Bereans ’searched the Scriptures daily.’
Acts 17: 11. The word anakrinontes signifies to make a curious
and critical search. Apollo was mighty in the Scriptures.
Acts 18: 24. Some gallop over a chapter in haste and get no good
by it. If we would have the word effectual and saving, we must mind and
observe every passage of Scripture. That we may be diligent in the perusal
of Scripture, consider that the word written is
norma cultus
[the only standard of conduct], the rule and platform by which we are to
square our lives. It contains in it all things needful to salvation; what
duties we are to do, and what sins we are to avoid.
Psa 19: 7. God gave Moses a pattern how he would have the
tabernacle made; and he was to go exactly according to the pattern.
Exod 25: 9. The word is the pattern God has given us in writing,
for modelling our lives. How careful, therefore, should we be in pursuing
and looking over this pattern!
As the
written word is our pattern, so it will be our judge. ‘The word that I have
spoken, the same shall judge him at the last day.’
John 12: 48. We read of the opening of the books.
Rev 20: 12. One book which God will open is the book of the
Scripture, and will judge men out of it. He will say, ‘Have you lived
according to the rule of this word?’ The word has a double work — to teach,
and to judge.
(3) If we
would have the written word effectual, we must bring faith to the reading of
it; believe it to be the word of the eternal Jehovah. It comes with
authority, and shows its commission from heaven. ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ It
is of divine inspiration.
2 Tim 3: 16. The oracles of Scripture must be surer to us than a
voice from heaven.
2 Pet 1: 18, 19. Unbelief enervates the virtue of Scripture, and
renders it ineffectual. First men question the truth of the Scripture, and
then fall away from it.
(4) If we
would have the written word effectual to salvation, we must delight in it as
our spiritual cordial. ‘Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and thy
word was the joy and rejoicing of my heart.’
Jer 15: 16. All true solid comfort is fetched out of the word.
The word, as Chrysostom says, is a spiritual garden, and the promises are
the fragrant flowers or spices in this garden. How should we delight to walk
among these beds of spices! Is it not a comfort, in all dubious perplexed
cases, to have a counsellor to advise us? ‘Thy testimonies are my
counsellors.’
Psa 119: 24, is it not a comfort to find our evidences for
heaven? And where should we find them but in the word?
1 Thess 1: 4, 5. The word written is a sovereign elixir, or
comfort, in an hour of distress. ‘This is my comfort in my affliction, for
thy word has quickened me.’
Psa 119: 50. It can turn all our ‘water into wine.’ How should we
take a great complacence and delight in the word! They only who come to the
word with delight, go from it with success.
(5) If we
would have the Scripture effectual and saving, we must be sure, when we have
read the word, to hide it in our hearts. ‘Thy word have I hid in my heart.’
Psa 119: 11. The word, locked up in the heart, is a preservative
against sin. Why did David hide the word in his heart? ‘That I might not sin
against thee.’ As one would carry an antidote about him when he comes near a
place infected, so David carried the word in his heart as a sacred antidote
to preserve him from the infection of sin. When the sap is hid in the root,
it makes the branches fruitful; when the seed is hid in the ground, the corn
springs up; so, when the word is hid in the heart, it brings forth good
fruit.
(6) If we
would have the written word effectual, let us labour not only to have the
light of it in our heads, but its power in our hearts. Let us endeavour to
have it copied out, and written a second time in our hearts. ‘The law of his
God is in his heart.’
Psa 37: 31. The word says, ‘Be clothed with humility.’
1 Pet 5: 5. Let us be low and humble in our own eyes. The word
calls for sanctity. Let us labour to partake of the divine nature, and to
have something conceived in us which is of the Holy Ghost.
2 Pet 1: 4. When the word is thus copied out into our hearts, and
we are changed into its similitude, it is made effectual to us, and becomes
a savour of life.
(7) When
we read the holy Scriptures let us look up to God for a blessing. Let us beg
the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, that we may see the ‘deep things of
God.’
Eph 1: 17,
1 Cor 2: 10. Pray God that the same Spirit that wrote the
Scripture would enable us to understand it. Pray that God would give us the
‘savour of his knowledge,’ that we may relish a sweetness in the word we
read.
2 Cor 2: 14. David tasted it as ‘sweeter than the honeycomb.’
Psa 19: 10. Let us pray that God would not only give us his word
as a rule of holiness, but his grace as a principle of holiness
How may
we hear the word that it may be effectual and saving to our souls?
(1) Give
great attention to the word preached. Let nothing pass without taking
special notice of it. ‘All the people were very attentive to hear him.’
Luke 19: 48. They hung upon his lips. ‘Lydia, a seller of purple,
which worshipped God, heard us, whose heart the Lord opened, that she
attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.’
Acts 16: 14. Give attention to the word, as to a matter of life
and death. For this purpose have a care to banish vain impertinent thoughts,
which will distract yell, and take you off from the work in hand. These
fowls will be coming to the sacrifice, therefore we must drive them away.
Gen 15: 2. An archer may take a right aim; but if one stand at
his elbow, and jog him when he is going to shoot, he will not hit the mark.
Christians may have good aims in hearing; but take heed of impertinent
thoughts which will jog and hinder you in God’s service. Banish dullness.
The devil gives many hearers a sleepy sop, so that they cannot keep their
eyes open at a sermon. They eat so much on the Lord’s-day that they are more
fit for the pillow and couch than the temple. Frequent and customary
sleeping at a sermon shows high contempt and irreverence of the ordinance.
It gives a bad example to others; it makes your sincerity to be called in
question; it is the devil’s seedtime. ‘While men slept, his enemy came and
sowed tares.’
Matt 13: 25 O shake off drowsiness, as Paul shook off the viper!
Be serious and attentive in hearing the word. ‘For it is not a vain thing
for you, it is your life.’
Deut 32: 47. When people do not mind what God speaks to them in
his word, God as little minds what they say to him in prayer.
(2) If
you would have the word preached effectual, come with a holy appetite to the
word.
1 Pet 2: 2. The thirsting soul is the thriving soul. In nature
one may have an appetite and no digestion; but it is not so in religion.
Where there is a great appetite for the word, there is for the most part
good digestion. Come with hungering of soul after the word, and desire it,
that it may not only please you but profit you. Look not at the garnishing
of the dish more than at the meat — at eloquence and rhetoric more than
solid matter. It argues both a wanton palate and surfeited stomach to feed
on salads and dainties rather than on wholesome food.
(3) If
you would have the preaching of the word effectual, come to it with
tenderness upon your heart. ‘Because thy heart was tender.’
1 Chron 22: 5. If we preach to hard hearts, it is like shooting
against a brazen wall, the word does not enter. It is like setting a gold
seal upon marble, which takes no impression. O come to the word preached
with a melting frame of heart! It is the melting wax that receives the stamp
of the seal; so, when the heart is in a melting frame, it will better
receive the stamp of the preached word. When Paul’s heart was melted and
broken for sin, he cried, ‘Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?’
Acts 9: 6. Come not hither with hard hearts. Who can expect a
crop when the seed is grown UPON stony ground?
(4) If
you would have the word effectual, receive it with meekness. ‘Receive with
meekness the ingrafted word.’
James 1: 21. Meekness is a submissive frame of heart to the word
— a willingness to hear the counsels and reproofs of the word. Contrary to
this meekness is fierceness of spirit, whereby men are ready to rise up in
rage against the sword. Proud men, and guilty, cannot endure to hear of
their faults. Proud Herod put John in prison.
Mark 6: 17. The guilty Jews, being told of their crucifying
Christ, stoned Stephen.
Acts 7: 59. To tell men of sin, is to hold a glass to one that is
deformed, who cannot endure to see his own face. Contrary to meekness is
stubbornness of heart, whereby men are resolved to hold fast their sins, let
the word say what it will. ‘We will burn incense unto the queen of heaven.’
Jer 44: 17. O take heed of this! If you would have the word
preached effectually, lay aside fierceness and stubbornness, receive the
word with meekness. By meekness the word preached comes to be ingrafted. As
a good scion that is grafted in a bad stock changes the nature of the fruit
and makes it taste sweet, so, when the word is ingrafted into the soul, it
sanctifies it, and makes it bring forth the sweet fruit of righteousness.
(5)
Mingle the word preached with faith. ‘The word preached did not profit them,
not being mixed with faith.’
Heb 4: 2. If you leave out the chief ingredient in a medicine, it
hinders the operation; do not leave out the ingredient of faith. Believe the
word, and so believe it as to apply it. When you hear Christ preached, apply
him to yourselves. This is to put on the Lord Jesus.
Rom 13: 14. When you hear a promise spoken, apply it. This is to
suck the flower of the promise, and turn it to honey.
(6) Be
not only attentive in hearing, but retentive after hearing. ‘We ought to
give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any
time we should let them slip;’ lest we should let them run out as water out
of a sieve.
Heb 2: 1. If the ground retain not the seed sown into it, there
can be no good crop. Some have memories like leaking vessels: the sermons
they hear are presently gone, and there is no good done. If meat does not
stay and digest in the stomach, it will not nourish. Satan labours to steal
the word out of the mind. ‘When they have heard, Satan comes immediately,
and taketh away the word that was sown.’
Mark 4: 15. Our memories should be like the chest of the ark,
where the law was put.
(7)
Reduce your hearing to practice. Live on the sermons you hear. ‘I have done
thy commandments.’
Psa 119: 166. Rachel was not content that she was beautiful, but
her desire was to be fruitful. What is a knowing head without a fruitful
heart? ‘Filled with the fruits of righteousness.’
Phil 1: 11. It is obedience that crowns hearing. That hearing
will never save the soul which does not reform the life.
(8) Beg
of God that he will accompany his word with his presence and blessing. The
Spirit must make all effectual. Ministers may prescribe physic, but it is
God’s Spirit must make it work. ‘He has his pulpit in heaven that converts
souls.’ Augustine. ‘While Peter yet spake, the Holy Ghost fell on all them
which heard.’
Acts 10: 44. It is said, the alchemist can draw oil out of iron.
God’s Spirit can produce grace in the most obdurate heart.
(9) If
you would have the word work effectually to your salvation, make it familiar
to you. Discourse of what you have heard when you come home. ‘My tongue
shall speak of thy word.’
Psa 119: 172. One reason why some people get no more good by what
they hear, is that they never speak to one another of what they have heard;
as if sermons were such secrets that they must not be spoken of again; or as
if it were a shame to speak of matters of salvation. ‘They that feared the
Lord spake often one to another... and a book of remembrance was written.’
Mal 3: 16.
Use one.
Take heed, as you love your souls, that the word become not ineffectual to
you. There are some to whom the word preached is ineffectual. (1) Such as
censure the word; who, instead of judging themselves, judge the word. (2)
Such as live in contradiction to the word.
Isa 30: 9. (3) Such as are more hardened by the word. ‘They made
their hearts as an adamant stone.’
Zech 7: 12. And when men harden their hearts wilfully, God
hardens them judicially. ‘Make their ears heavy.’
Isa 6: 10. The word to these is ineffectual. Would it not be sad,
if a man’s meat did not nourish him; nay, if it should turn to poison? O
take heed that the word preached be not ineffectual and to no purpose!
Use two.
Consider three things: —
(1) If
the word preached does us no good, there is no other way by which we can be
saved. This is God’s institution, and the main engine he uses to convert
souls. ‘If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be
persuaded though one rose from the dead.’
Luke 16: 31. If an angel should come to you out of heaven, and
preach of the excellency of the glorified estate, and the joys of heaven,
and that in the most pathetic manner — if the word preached does not
persuade, neither would you be wrought upon by such an oration from heaven.
If a damned spirit should come from hell, and preach to you in flames, and
tell you what a place hell is, and roar out the torments of the damned, it
might make you tremble, but it would not convert, if the preaching of the
word will not do it.
(2) To
come to the word, and not be savingly wrought upon, is that which the devil
is pleased with. He cares not though you hear frequently, if it be not
effectually; he is not an enemy to hearing, but profiting. Though the
minister holds out the breasts of the ordinances to you, he cares not as
long as you do not suck the sincere milk of the word. The devil cares not
how many sermon-pills you take, so long as they do not work upon your
conscience.
(3) If
the word preached be not effectual to men’s conversion, it will be effectual
to their condemnation. The word will be effectual one way or other; if it
does not make your hearts better, it will make your chains heavier. We pity
those who have not the word preached, but it will be worse with those who
are not sanctified by it. Dreadful is their case who go loaded with sermons
to hell. But I will conclude with the apostle, I am ‘persuaded better things
of you, and things that accompany salvation.’
Heb 6: 9.
4.4 Baptism
‘Go ye,
therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them,’ &c.
Matt 28: 19.
I. The way
whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of redemptions, is, in the
use of the sacraments.
What are
the sacraments in general?
They are
visible signs of invisible grace.
Is not the
word of God sufficient to salvation? What need then is there of sacraments?
We must not
be wise above what is written. It is God’s will that his church should have
sacraments; and it is God’s goodness thus to condescend to weak capacities.
‘Except ye see signs, ye will not believe.’
John 4: 48. To strengthen our faith, God confirms the covenant of
grace, not only by promises but by sacramental signs.
What are
the sacraments of the New Testament?
Two:
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
Are there
no more? The Papists tell us of five more, viz., confirmation, penance,
matrimony, orders, and the extreme unction.
(1) There
were but two sacraments under the law, therefore there are no more now.
1 Cor 10: 2, 3, 4.
(2) These
two sacraments are sufficient; the one signifying our entrance into Christ,
and the other, our growth and perseverance in him.
II. The
first sacrament is baptism. ‘Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations,
baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost; teaching them,’ &c. ‘Go, teach all nations;’ the Greek word is ‘Make
disciples of all nations.’ If it be asked, how should we make them
disciples? It follows, ‘Baptising them and teaching them.’ In a heathen
nation, first teach, and then baptise them; but in a Christian church, first
baptise, and then teach them.
What is
baptism?
In
general, it is a matriculation, or visible admission of children into the
congregation of Christ’s flock. More particularly, ‘Baptism is a sacrament,
wherein the washing or sprinkling with water, in the name of the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, does signify and seal our ingrafting into Christ, and
partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace, and our engagement to be
the Lord’s.’
What is
meant by the parent when he presents his child to be baptised?
The
parent, in presenting the child to be baptised, (1) Makes a public
acknowledgement of original sin; that the soul of his child is polluted,
therefore needs washing from sin by Christ’s blood and Spirit; both which
washings are signified by the sprinkling of water in baptism. (2) The parent
by bringing his child to be baptised, solemnly devotes it to the Lord, and
enrols it in God’s family; and truly it is a great satisfaction to a
religious parent to have given up his child to the Lord in baptism. How can
a parent look with comfort on that child who was never dedicated to God?
What is
the benefit of baptism?
The party
baptised has, (1) An entrance into the visible body of the church. (2) He
has a right sealed to the ordinances, which is a privilege full of glory.
Rom 9: 4. (3) The child baptised is under a more special
providential care of Christ, who appoints the tutelage of angels to be the
infant’s life-guard.
Is this
all the benefit?
No! To
such as belong to the election, baptism is a ‘seal of the righteousness of
faith,’ a laver of regeneration, and a badge of adoption.
Rom 4: 11.
How does
it appear that children have a right to baptism?
Children
are parties in the covenant of grace. The covenant was made with them. ‘I
will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee, for
an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.’
Gen 17: 7. ‘The promise is to you and to your children.’
Acts 2: 39. The covenant of grace may be considered either, (1)
More strictly, as an absolute promise to give saving grace; and so none but
the elect are in covenant with God. Or, (2) More largely, as a covenant
containing in it many outward glorious privileges, in which respects the
children of believers do belong to the covenant of grace. The promise is to
you and to your seed. The infant seed of believers may as well lay a claim
to the covenant of grace as their parents; and having a right to the
covenant, they cannot justly be denied baptism, which is its seal. It is
certain the children of believers were once visibly in covenant with God,
and received the seal of their admission into the church; where now do we
find this covenant interest, or church membership of infants, repealed or
made void? Certainly Jesus Christ did not come to put believers and their
children into a worse condition than they were in before. If the children of
believers should not be baptised, they are in worse condition now than they
were in before Christ’s coming.
[1]
Objections. The Scripture is silent herein and does not mention infant
baptism.
Though the
word infant baptism is not in Scripture, yet the thing is. Mention is not
made in Scripture of woman’s receiving the sacrament; but who doubts but the
command, ‘Take, eat, this is my body,’ concerns them? Does not their faith
need strengthening as well as others? So the word Trinity is not to be found
in Scripture, but there is that which is equivalent to it. ‘There are Three
that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and
these Three are one.’
1 John 5: 7. So, though the word infant baptism is not mentioned
in Scripture, the practice of baptising infants may be drawn from Scripture
by undeniable consequence.
How is
that proved?
The
Scripture mentions whole families baptised; as the household of Lydia,
Crispus, and the jailer. ‘He was baptised, he and all his.’
Acts 16: 33. Wherein we must rationally imagine there were some
little children. If it be said, there is no mention here made of children; I
answer, neither are servants named; and yet it cannot be supposed but that,
in so great a family, there were some servants.
But
infants are not capable of the end of baptism; for baptism signifies the
washing away of sin by the blood of Christ. Infants cannot understand this;
therefore what benefit can baptism be to them?
Neither
could the child that was to be circumcised understand circumcision; yet the
ordinance of circumcision was not to be omitted or deferred. Though an
infant understand not the meaning of baptism it may partake of the blessing
of baptism. The little children that Christ took in his arms, understood not
Christ’s meaning, but they had Christ’s blessing. ‘He put his hands upon
them and blessed them.’
Mark 10: 16.
But what
benefit can the child have of baptism if it understand not the nature of
baptism?
It may
have a right to the promise sealed up, which it shall have an actual
interest in when it comes to have faith. A legacy may be of use to the child
in the cradle; though it now understand not the legacy, yet when it is grown
up to years, it is fully possessed of it. But it may be further objected: —
The party
to be baptised is to be engaged to God; but how can the child enter into
such an engagement?
The
parents can engage for it, which God is pleased to accept as equivalent to
the child’s personal engagement.
If baptism
comes in the room of circumcisions, and the males only were circumcised,
what warrant is there for baptising females?
Gen 17: 10.
Females
were included, and were virtually circumcised in the males. What is done to
the head is done to the body; the man being the head of the woman.
1 Cor 11: 3. What was done to the male sex was interpretatively
done to the female.
[2] Having
answered these objections, I come now to prove by argument, infant baptism.
(1) If
children during their infancy are capable of grace, they are capable of
baptism; but children in their infancy are capable of grace, therefore they
are capable of baptism. I prove the minor, that they are capable of grace,
thus: if children in their infancy may be saved, then they are capable of
grace; but children in their infancy may be saved; which is thus proved:
that if the kingdom of heaven belongs to them, they may be saved; but the
kingdom of heaven may belong to them, as it is clear from, ‘Of such is the
kingdom of God’ (Mark
10: 14); who then can forbid that the seal of baptism should be
applied to them?
(2) If
infants may be among the number of God’s servants, there is no reason why
they should be shut out of God’s family; but infants may be in the number of
God’s servants, because God calls them his servants. ‘He shall depart from
thee, and his children with him, for they are my servants.’
Lev 25: 41. Therefore children in their infancy, being God’s
servants, why should they not have baptism, which is the
tessera,
the mark or seal which God sets upon his servants?
(3) ‘But
now are they (your children) holy.’
1 Cor 7: 14. Children are not called holy, as if they were free
from original sin; but in the judgement of charity they are to be esteemed
holy, and true members of the church of God, because their parents are
believers. Hence that excellent divine, Mr Hildersam, says, ‘that the
children of the faithful as soon as they are born, have a covenant holiness,
and so a right and title to baptism, which is the token of the covenant.’
(4) From
the opinion of the fathers and the practice of the church. The ancient
fathers were strong asserters of infant baptism, as Irenaeus, Basil,
Lactantius, Cyprian, and Augustine. It was the practice of the Greek church
to baptise her infants. Erasmus says that infant baptism has been used in
the church of God for above fourteen hundred years. And Augustine, in his
book against Pelagius, affirms that it has been the custom of the church in
all ages to baptise infants. Yea, it was an apostolic practice. Paul affirms
that he baptised the whole house of Stephanus.
1 Cor 1: 16.
Having
seen Scripture arguments for infant baptism, let us consider whether the
practice of those who delay the baptising of children till riper years, be
warrantable. For my part, I cannot gather it from Scripture. Though we read
of adult persons, and grown up to years of discretion, in the apostles’
times, being baptised, yet they were such as were converted from heathenish
idolatry to the true orthodox faith; but that in a Christian church the
children of believers should be kept unbaptised for several years, I know
neither precept nor example for it in Scripture, but it is wholly
apocryphal. The baptising of persons, grown up to maturity, we may argue
against
ab effectu, from the ill consequence
of it. They dip the persons they baptise over head and ears in cold water,
and naked; which, as it is indecent, so it is dangerous, and has often been
the occasion of chronic disease, yea, and of death itself; and so is a plain
breach of the sixth commandment. How far God has given up many persons, who
are for deferring baptism, to other vile opinions and vicious practices, is
evident, if we consult history; especially if we read the doings of the
Anabaptists in Germany.
Use one.
See the riches of God’s goodness, who will not only be the God of believers,
but takes their seed into covenant with them. ‘I will establish my covenant
between me and thee, and thy seed after thee, to be a God unto thee and to
thy seed.’
Gen 17: 7. A father counts it a great privilege, not only to have
his own name, but his child’s name put in a will.
Use two.
Those parents are to be blamed who forbid little children to be brought to
Christ; and withhold from them this ordinance. By denying their infants
baptism, they exclude them from membership in the visible church, so that
their infants are sucking pagans. Such as deny their children baptism, make
God’s institutions under the law more full of kindness and grace to children
than they are under the gospel; which, how strange a paradox it is, I leave
you to judge.
Use three.
For exhortation. (1) Let us who are baptised, labour to find the blessed
fruits of it in our own souls; not only to have the signs of the covenant,
but the grace of the covenant. Many glory in their baptism. The Jews gloried
in their circumcision, because of their royal privileges; to them belonged
the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants.
Rom 9: 4. But many of them were a shame and reproach to their
circumcision. ‘For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through
you.’
Rom 2: 24. The scandalous Jews, though circumcised, were, in
God’s account, as heathens. ‘Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians to me?
saith the Lord.’
Amos 9: 7. Alas! what is it to have the name of Christ, and want
his image? What is baptism of water without the baptism of the Spirit? Many
baptised Christians are no better than heathens. O let us labour to find the
fruits of baptism, that Christ is formed in us (Gal
4: 19); that our nature is changed; that we are made holy and
heavenly. This is to be baptised into Jesus.
Rom 6: 3. Such as live unsuitable to their baptism, may go with
baptismal-water on their faces, and sacramental bread in their mouths, to
hell.
(2) Let us
labour to make a right use of our baptism. Let us use it as a shield against
temptations. Satan, I have given up myself to God by a sacred vow in
baptism; I am not my own, I am Christ’s; therefore I cannot yield to thy
temptations, for I should break my oath of allegiance which I made to God in
baptism. Luther tells us of a pious woman, who, when the devil tempted her
to sin, answered, Satan, baptizata sum, ‘I am baptised;’ and so beat back
the tempter.
Let us use
it as a spur to holiness. By remembering our baptism, let us be stirred up
to make good our baptismal engagements; renouncing the world, flesh, and
devil, let us devote ourselves to God and his service. To be baptised into
the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, implies a solemn dedication of
ourselves to the service of all the Three Persons in the Trinity. It is not
enough that our parents dedicate us to God in baptism, but we must dedicate
ourselves to him; this is called living to the Lord.
Rom 14: 8. Our life should be spent in worshipping God, in loving
God, in exalting God; we should walk as becomes the gospel.
Phil 1: 27. We should shine as stars in the world, and live as
earthly angels.
Let us use
it as an argument to courage. We should be ready to confess that Holy
Trinity, into whose name we were baptised. With the conversion of the heart
must go the confession of the tongue. ‘Whosoever shall confess me before
men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God.’
Luke 12: 8. Peter openly confessed Christ crucified.
Acts 4: 10. Cyprian, a man of a brave spirit, was like a rock,
whom no waves could shake; like an adamant, whom no sword could cut. He
confessed Christ before the pro-consul, and suffered himself to be
proscribed; yea, chose death rather than betray the truths of Christ. He
that dare not confess the Holy Trinity, shames his baptism, and God will be
ashamed to own him at the day of judgement.
Use four.
See the fearfulness of the sin of apostasy! It is renouncing our baptism. It
is damnable perjury to go away from God after a solemn vow. ‘Demas has
forsaken me.’
2 Tim 4: 10. He turned renegado, and afterwards became a priest
in an idol-temple, says Dorotheus. Julia the apostate, Gregory Nazianzen
observes, bathed himself in the blood of beasts offered in sacrifice to
heathen gods; and so, as much as in him lay, washed off his former baptism.
The case of such as fall away after baptism is dreadful. ‘If any man draw
back.’
Heb 10: 38. The Greek word to draw back, alludes to a soldier
that steals away from his colours; so, if any man steal away from Christ,
and run over to the devil’s side, ‘my soul shall have no pleasure in him;’
that is, I will be severely avenged on him; I will make my arrows drunk with
his blood. If all the plagues in the Bible can make that man miserable, he
shall be so.
4.5 The Lord’s Supper
‘And as they
did eat, Jesus took bread,’ &c.
Mark 14: 22.
Having
spoken to the sacrament of baptism, I come now to the sacrament of the
Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper is the most spiritual and sweetest
ordinance that ever was instituted. Here we have to do more immediately with
the person of Christ. In prayer, we draw nigh to God; in the sacrament, we
become one with him. In prayer, we look up to Christ; in the sacrament, by
faith, we touch him. In the word preached, we hear Christ’s voice; in the
sacrament, we feed on him.
What names
and titles in Scripture are given to the sacrament?
It is
called,
Mensa Domini, ‘The Lord’s table.’
1 Cor 10: 21. The Papists call it an altar, not a table. The
reason is, because they turn the sacrament into a sacrifice, and pretend to
offer up Christ corporally in the mass. It being the Lord’s table, shows
with what reverence and solemn devotion we should approach these holy
mysteries. The Lord takes notice of the frame of our hearts when we come to
his table. ‘The king came in to see the guests.’
Matt 22: 11. We dress ourselves when we come to the table of some
great monarch; so, when we are going to the table of the Lord, we should
dress ourselves by holy meditation and heart consideration. Many think it is
enough to come to the sacrament, but mind not whether they come in ‘due
order.’
1 Chron 15: 13. Perhaps they had scarce a serious thought before
where they were going: all their dressing was by the glass, not by the
Bible. Chrysostom calls it, ‘The dreadful table of the Lord:’ and so it is
to such as come unworthily. The sacrament is called
Coena Domini,
the Lord’s supper — to import, it is a spiritual feast.
1 Cor 11: 20. It is a royal feast. God is in this cheer: Christ,
in both natures, God and man, is the matter of this supper. It is called a
‘communion.’ ‘The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body
of Christ?’
1 Cor 10: 16. The sacrament being called a communion, shows: —
(1) That
this ordinance is for believers only, because none else can have communion
with Christ in these holy mysteries.
Communio fundatur
in unione [Communion is based upon
union]. Faith only gives us union with Christ, and by virtue of this we have
communion with him in his body and blood. None but the spouse communicates
with her husband; a stranger may drink of his cup, but she only has his
heart, and communicates with him in a conjugal manner; so strangers may
drink of the cup, but believers only drink of Christ’s blood, and have
communion with him.
(2) The
sacrament being a communion, shows that it is
symbolum amoris
[a symbol of love], a bond of that unity and charity which should be among
Christians. ‘We being many are one body.’
1 Cor 10: 17. As many grains make one bread, so many Christians
are one body. A sacrament is a love-feast. The primitive Christians, as
Justin Martyr notes, had their holy salutations at the blessed supper, in
token of that dearness of affection which they had to each other. It is a
communion, therefore — there must be love and union. The Israelites did eat
the Passover with bitter herbs; so must we eat the sacrament with bitter
herbs of repentance, but not with bitter hearts of wrath and malice. The
hearts of the communicants should be knit together with the bond of love.
‘Thou braggest of thy faith’ says Augustine, ‘but show me thy faith by thy
love to the saints.’ For, as in the sun, light and heat are inseparable, so
faith and love are twisted together inseparably. Where there are divisions,
the Lord’s supper is not properly a communion but a disunion.
What is the
Lord’s supper?
It is a
visible sermon, wherein Christ crucified is set before us; or, it is a
sacrament of the New Testament, wherein by receiving the holy elements of
bread and wine, our communion with Christ is signified and sealed up to us;
or it is a sacrament divinely instituted, wherein by giving and receiving
bread and wine, Christ’s death is showed forth, and the worthy receivers by
faith are made partakers of his body and blood, and all the benefits flowing
from thence.
For further
explaining the nature of the Lord’s supper, I shall refer to its
institution.
‘Jesus took
bread.’ Here is the master of the feast, or the institutor of the sacrament.
The Lord Jesus took bread. He only is fit to institute a sacrament who is
able to give virtue and blessing to it.
‘He took
bread.’ His taking the bread was one part of his consecration of the
elements, and setting them apart for a holy use. As Christ consecrated the
elements, so we must labour to have our hearts consecrated before we receive
these holy mysteries in the Lord’s supper. How unseemly is it to see any
come to these holy elements, having hearts leavened with pride,
covetousness, or envy? These, with Judas, receive the devil in the sop, and
are no better than crucifiers of the Lord of glory.
‘And
blessed it.’ This is another part of the consecration of the element. Christ
blessed it. He blesseth and it shall be blessed. He looked up to heaven for
a benediction upon this newly-founded ordinance.
‘And brake
it.’ The bread broken, and the wine poured out, signify to us the agony and
ignominy of Christ’s sufferings, the rending of Christ’s body on the cross,
and the effusion of blood which was distilled from his blessed side.
‘And gave
it to them.’ Christ’s giving the bread, denotes giving himself and all his
benefits to us freely. Though he was sold, yet he was given. Judas sold
Christ, but Christ gave himself to us.
‘He gave it
to them;’ that is, to the disciples. This is children’s bread. Christ does
not cast these pearls before swine. Whether Judas was present at the supper
is controverted. I incline to think he was not, for Christ said to the
disciples, ‘This is my blood, which is shed for you.’
Luke 22: 20. He knew his blood was never shed effectually and
intentionally for Judas. In eating the passover, he gave Judas a sop, which
was a bit of unleavened bread dipped in a sauce made with bitter herbs;
Judas having received the sop, went out immediately.
John 13: 30. Suppose Judas was there, he received the elements,
but not the blessing.
‘Take,
eat.’ This expression of eating denotes four things; (1) The near mystic
union between Christ and his saints. As the meat which is eaten incorporates
with the body, and becomes one with it, so, by eating Christ’s flesh, and
drinking his blood spiritually, we partake of his merits and graces, and are
mystically ‘one with them.’ ‘I in them.’
John 17: 23. (2) ‘Take, eat.’ Eating shows the infinite delight
the believing soul has in Christ. Eating is grateful and pleasing to the
palate; so feeding on Christ by a lively faith is delicious.
Nullus animae
suavior cibus [The soul knows no
sweeter food]. Lactantius. No such sweet feeding as on Christ crucified.
This is a ‘feast of fat things, and wines on the lees well refined.’ (3)
‘Take, eat.’ Eating denotes nourishment. As meat is delicious to the palate,
so it is nourishing to the body; so eating Christ’s flesh and drinking his
blood, is nutritive to the soul. The new creature is nourished at the table
of the Lord to everlasting life. ‘Whose eateth my flesh, and drinketh my
blood, has eternal life.’
John 6: 54. (4) ‘Take, eat,’ shows the wisdom of God, who
restores us by the same means by which we fell. We fell by taking and eating
the forbidden fruit, and we are recovering again by taking and eating
Christ’s flesh. We died by eating the tree of knowledge, and we live by
eating the tree of life.
‘This is my
body.’ These words,
Hoc est corpus
meum, have been much controverted
between us and the Papists. ‘This is my body;’ that is, by a metonymy; it is
a sign and figure of my body. The Papists hold transsubstantiation — that
the bread, after consecration, is turned into the very substance of Christ’s
body. We say, we receive Christ’s body spiritually; they say, they receive
Christ’s body carnally; which is contrary to Scripture. Scripture affirms,
that the heavens must receive Christ’s body ‘until the times of the
restitution of all things.’
Acts 3: 21. Christ’s body cannot be at the same time in heaven
and in the host. Aquinas says, ‘It is not possible by any miracle, that a
body should be locally in two places at once.’ Besides, it is absurd to
imagine that the bread in the sacrament should be turned into Christ’s
flesh, and that his body which was hung before, should be made again of
bread. So that, ‘This is my body,’ is, as if Christ had said, ‘This is a
sign and representation of my body.’
‘And he
took the cup.’ The cup is put by a metonymy of the subject for the adjunct,
for the wine in the cup. It signifies the blood of Christ shed for our sins.
The taking of the cup denotes the redundancy of merit in Christ, and the
fulness of our redemption by him. He not only took the bread, but the cup.
‘And when
he had given thanks.’ Christ gave thanks that God had given these elements
of bread and wine to be signs and seals of man’s redemption by Christ.
Christ’s giving thanks shows his philanthropy, or love to mankind, who did
so rejoice and bless God that lost man was now in a way of recovery, and
that he should be raised higher in Christ than ever he was in innocence.
‘He gave
the cup to them.’ Why then dare any withhold the cup? This is to pollute and
curtail the ordinance, and alter it from its primitive institution. Christ
and his apostles administered the sacrament in both kinds, the bread and the
cup.
1 Cor 11: 24, 25. The cup was received in the ancient church for
the space of 1400 years, as is confessed by two Popish councils. Christ says
expressly, ‘Drink ye all of this.’ He does not say, ‘Eat ye all of this;’
but ‘Drink ye all;’ as foreseeing the sacrilegious impiety of the church of
Rome, in keeping back the cup from the people. The Popish council of
Constance speaks plainly but impudently, ‘That although Christ instituted
and administered the sacrament in both kinds, the bread and the wine, yet
the authority of the holy canons, and the customs of the mother church,
think good to deny the cup to the laity.’ Thus, as the Popish priests make
Christ but half a Saviour, so they administer to the people but half a
sacrament. The sacrament is Christ’s last will and testament ‘This is my
blood of the New Testament.’ Now, to alter or take away any thing from a
man’s will and testament, is great impiety. What is it to alter and mangle
Christ’s last will and testament? Sure it is a high affront to Christ.
What are
the ends of the Lord’s supper?
(1) It is
an ordinance appointed to confirm our faith. ‘Except ye see signs ye will
not believe.’
John 4: 48. Christ sets the elements before us, that by these
signs our faith may be strengthened. As faith comes by hearing, so it is
confirmed by seeing Christ crucified. The sacrament is not only a sign to
represent Christ, but a seal to confirm our interest in him.
But the
Spirit confirms faith, therefore not the sacrament.
This is not
good logic. The Spirit confirms faith, therefore not the sacrament, is, as
if one should say, ‘God feeds our bodies, therefore bread does not feed us;’
whereas, God feeds us by bread, so the Spirit confirms our faith by the use
of the sacrament.
(2) The end
of the sacrament is to keep up the ‘memory of Christ’s death.’ ‘This do ye
in remembrance of me.’
1 Cor 11: 25. If a friend gives us a ring at his death, we wear
it to keep up the memory of our friend; much more ought we to keep the
memorial of Christ’s death in the sacrament. His death lays a foundation for
all the magnificent blessings which we receive from him. The covenant of
grace was agreed on in heaven, but sealed upon the cross. Christ has sealed
all the articles of peace in his blood. Remission of sin flows from Christ’s
death. ‘This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many, for
the remission of sins.’
Matt 26: 28. Consecration, or making us holy, is the fruit of
Christ’s death. ‘How much more shall the blood of Christ purge your
conscience?’
Heb 9: 14. Christ’s intercession is made available to us by
virtue of his death. He could not have been admitted an advocate if he had
not been first a sacrifice. Our entering into heaven is the fruit of his
blood.
Heb 10: 19. He could not have prepared mansions for us, if he had
not first purchased them by his death: so that we have great cause to
commemorate his death in the sacrament.
In what
manner are we to remember the Lord’s death in the sacrament?
It is not
only an historical remembrance of Christ’s death and passion. Judas
remembered his death and betrayed him; and Pilate remembered his death and
crucified him: but our remembering his death in the sacrament must be, [1] A
mournful remembrance. We should not be able to look on Christ crucified with
dry eyes. ‘They shall look on him whom they have pierced, and mourn over
him.’
Zech 12: 10. O Christian, when thou lookest on Christ in the
sacrament, remember how often thou hast crucified him! The Jews did it but
once, thou often. Every oath is a nail with which thou piercest his hands;
every unjust sinful action is a spear with which thou woundest his heart.
Oh, remember Christ with sorrow, to think thou shouldst make his wounds
bleed afresh! [2] It must be a joyful remembrance. ‘Abraham rejoiced to see
my day.’
John 8: 56. When a Christian sees a sacrament-day approaching, he
should rejoice. This ordinance of the supper is an earnest of heaven; it is
the glass in which we see him whom our souls love, it is the chariot by
which we are carried up to Christ. When Jacob saw the wagons and the
chariots which were to carry him to his son Joseph, his spirit revived.
Gen 45: 27. God has appointed the sacrament on purpose to cheer
and revive a sad heart. When we look on our sins we have cause to mourn; but
when we see Christ’s blood shed for our sins we rejoice. In the sacrament
our wants are supplied, our strength is renewed; there we meet with Christ,
and does not this call for joy? A woman that has been long debarred from the
society of her husband is glad of his presence. At the sacrament the
believing spouse meets with Christ; he saith to her, ‘All I have is thine;
my love is thine, to pity thee; my mercy is thine, to save thee.’ How can we
think in the sacrament on Christ’s blood shed, and not rejoice?
Sanguis Christi
clavis paradisi; ‘Christ’s blood is
the key which opens heaven,’ else we had been all shut out.
(3) The end
of the sacrament is to work in us an endeared love to Christ. When Christ
bleeds for us, well may we say, ‘Behold how he loved us!’ Who can see Christ
die and not be ‘sick of love?’ That is a heart of stone which Christ’s love
will not melt.
(4) The end
of the sacrament is the mortifying of corruption. To see Christ crucified
for us is a means to crucify sin in us. His death, like the water of
jealousy, makes the thigh of sin to rot.
Numb 5: 27. How can a wife endure to see the spear which killed
her husband? How can we endure those sins which made Christ veil his glory
and lose his blood? When the people of Rome saw Caesar’s bloody robe, they
were incensed against them that slew him. Sin has rent the white robe of
Christ’s flesh and dyed it of a crimson colour. The thoughts of this should
make us seek to be avenged on our sins.
(5) Another
end is the augmentation and increase of all the graces, hope, zeal, and
patience. The word preached begets grace, the Lord’s supper nourishes it.
The body by feeding increases strength, so the soul by feeding on Christ
sacramentally.
Cum defecerit
virtus mea calicem salutarem accipiam.
Bernard. ‘When my spiritual strength begins to fail, I know a remedy,’ says
Bernard, ‘I will go to the table of the Lord; there will I drink and recover
my decayed strength.’ There is a difference between dead stones and living
plants. The wicked, who are stones, receive no spiritual increase; but the
godly, who are plants of righteousness, being watered with Christ’s blood,
grow more fruitful in grace.
Why are we
to receive this holy supper?
(1) Because
it is an incumbent duty. ‘Take, eat.’ And observe, it is a command of love.
If Christ had commanded us some great matter, would we not have done it? ‘If
the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done
it?’
2 Kings 5: 13. If Christ had enjoined us to have given him
thousands of rams, or to have parted with the fruit of our bodies, would we
not have done it? Much more when he only says, ‘Take,’ and ‘Eat.’ Let my
broken body feed you, let my blood poured out save you. ‘Take,’ and ‘Eat.’
This is a command of love, and shall we not readily obey?
(2) We are
to celebrate the Lord’s supper, because it is provoking Christ to stay away.
‘Wisdom has furnished her table.’
Prov 9: 2. So Christ has furnished his table, set bread and wine
(representing his body and blood) before his guests, and when they wilfully
turn their backs upon the ordinance, he looks upon it as slighting his love,
and it makes the fury rise up in his face. ‘For I say unto you, that none of
those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.’
Luke 14: 24. I will shut them out of my kingdom, I will provide
them a black banquet, where weeping shall be the first course, and gnashing
of teeth the second.
Should the
Lord’s supper be often administered?
Yes. ‘As
often as ye eat this bread.’
1 Cor 11: 26. The ordinance is not to be celebrated once in a
year, or once only in our lives, but often. A Christian’s own necessities
may make him come often hither. His corruptions are strong, therefore he had
need come often hither for an antidote to expel the poison of sin. His
graces are weak. Grace is like a lamp, which if it be not often fed with oil
is apt to go out.
Rev 3: 2. How then do they sin against God who come but very
seldom to this ordinance! Can they thrive who for a long time forbear their
food? Others there are who wholly forbear, which is a great contempt offered
to Christ’s ordinance. They tacitly say, Let Christ keep his feast to
himself. What a cross-grained piece is a man! He will eat when he should
not, and he will not eat when he should. When God says, ‘Eat not of this
forbidden fruit;’ then he will be sure to eat: when God says, ‘Eat of this
bread, and drink of this cup;’ then he refuses to eat.
Are all to
come promiscuously to this holy ordinance?
No; for
that were to make the Lord’s table an ordinary. Christ forbids to ‘cast
pearls before swine.’
Matt 7: 6. The sacramental bread is children’s bread, and it is
not to be cast to the profane. As, at the giving of the law God set bounds
about the mount that none might touch it, so God’s table should be guarded,
that the profane should not come near.
Exod 19: 12. In primitive times, after sermon was done, and the
Lord’s supper was about to be celebrated, an officer stood up and cried,
‘Holy things for holy men;’ and then several of the congregation departed.
‘I would have my hand cut off,’ says Chrysostom, ‘rather than I would give
Christ’s body and blood to the profane.’ The wicked do not eat Christ’s
flesh, but tear it; they do not drink his blood, but spill it. These holy
mysteries in the sacraments are
tremenda hysteria,
mysteries that the soul is to tremble at. Sinners defile the holy things of
God, they poison the sacramental cup. We read that the wicked are to be set
at Christ’s feet, not at his table.
Psa 110: 1.
That we may
receive the supper of the Lord worthily, and that it may become efficacious:
—
I. We must
solemnly prepare ourselves before we come. We must not rush upon the
ordinance rudely and irreverently, but come in due order. There was a great
deal of preparation for the passover, and the sacrament comes in the room of
it.
2 Chron 30: 18, 19. This solemn preparation for the ordinance
consists: —
[1] In
examining ourselves. [2] In dressing our souls before we come, which is by
washing in the water of repentance and by exciting the habit of grace into
exercise. [3] In begging a blessing upon the ordinance.
[1] Solemn
preparation for the sacrament consists in self-examination. ‘But let a man
examine himself, and so let him eat.’
1 Cor 11: 28. It is not only a counsel, but a charge: ‘Let him
examine himself. ‘ As if a king should say, ‘Let it be enacted.’ These
elements in the supper having been consecrated by Jesus Christ to a high
mystery, represent his body and blood; therefore there must be preparation;
and if preparation, there must be first self-examination. Let us be serious
in examining ourselves, as our salvation depends upon it. We are curious in
examining other things; we will not take gold till we examine it by the
touchstone; we will not take land before we examine the title; and shall we
not be as exact and curious in examining the state of our souls?
What is
required for this self-examination?
There must
be a solemn retirement of the soul. We must set ourselves apart, and retire
for some time from all secular employment, that we may be more serious in
the work. There is no casting up accounts in a crowd; nor can we examine
ourselves when we are in a crowd of worldly business. We read, that a man
who was in a journey might not come to the Passover, because his mind was
full of secular cares, and his thoughts were taken up about his journey.
Num 9: 13. When we are upon self-examining work, we had not need
to be in a hurry, or have any distracting thoughts, but to retire and lock
ourselves up in our closets, that we may be more intent upon the work.
What is
self-examination?
It is the
setting up a court of conscience and keeping a register there that by a
strict scrutiny a man may see how matters stand between Got and his soul. It
is a spiritual inquisition, a heart-anatomy, whereby a man takes his heart
in pieces, as a watch, and sees what is defective therein. It is a dialogue
with one’s self ‘I commune with my own heart.’
Psa 77: 6. David called himself to account, and put
interrogatories to his own heart. Self-examination is a critical enquiry or
search. As the woman in the parable lighted a candle and searched for her
lost groat, so conscience is the candle of the Lord.
Luke 15: 8. Search with this candle what thou can’t find wrought
by the Spirit in thee.
What is the
rule by which we are to examine ourselves?
The rule or
measure by which we must examine ourselves is the Holy Scripture. We must
not make fancy, or the good opinion which others have of us, a rule to judge
of ourselves. As the goldsmith brings his gold to the touchstone, so we must
bring our hearts to a Scripture touchstone. ‘To the law and to the
testimony.’
Isa 8: 20. What says the word? Are we divorced from sin? Are we
renewed by the Spirit? Let the word decide whether we are fit communicants
or not. We judge of colours by the sun, so we must judge of the state of our
souls by the sunlight of Scripture.
What are
the principal reasons for self-examination before we approach the Lord’s
supper?
(1) It is a
duty imposed: ‘Let him examine himself.’ The passover was not to be eaten
raw.
Exod 12: 9. To come to such an ordinance slightly, without
examination, is to come in an undue manner, and is like eating the passover
raw.
(2) We must
examine ourselves before we come, because it is not only a duty imposed, but
opposed. There is nothing to which the heart is naturally more averse than
self-examination. We may know that duty to be good which the heart opposes.
But why does the heart so oppose it? Because it crosses the tide of corrupt
nature, and is contrary to flesh and blood. The heart is guilty; and does a
guilty person love to be examined? The heart opposes it; therefore the
rather set upon it; for that duty is good which the heart opposes.
(3) Because
self-examination is a needful work. Without it, a man can never tell how it
is with him, whether he has grace or not; and this must needs be very
uncomfortable. He knows not, if he should die presently what will become of
him, to what coast he shall sail, whether to hell or heaven; as Socrates
said, ‘I am about to die, and the gods know whether I shall be happy or
miserable.’ How needful, therefore, is self-examination; that a man by
search may know the true state of his soul, and how it will go with him to
eternity!
Self-examination is needful, with respect to the excellence of the
sacrament. Let him eat
de illo pane,
‘of that bread,’ that excellent bread, that consecrated bread, that bread
which is not only the bread of the Lord, but the bread the Lord.
1 Cor 11: 28. Let him drink
de illo poculo,
‘of that cup;’ that precious cup, which is perfumed and spiced with Christ’s
love; that cup which holds the blood of God sacramentally. Cleopatra put a
jewel in a cup which contained the price of a kingdom: this sacred cup we
are to drink of, enriched with the blood of God, is above the price of a
kingdom; it is more worth than heaven. Therefore, coming to such a royal
feast, having a whole Christ, both his divine and human nature to feed on,
how should we examine ourselves beforehand, that we may be fit guests for
such a magnificent banquet!
Self-examination is needful, because God will examine us. That was a sad
question, ‘Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having a wedding garment?’
Matt 22: 12. Men are loath to ask themselves the question, ‘O my
soul! art thou a fit guest for the Lord’s table?’ Are there not some sins
thou hast to bewail? Are there not some evidences for heaven that thou hast
to get?’ Now, when persons will not ask themselves the question, then God
will bring the question to them, How came you in hither to my table, not
prepared? How came you in hither, with an unbelieving or profane heart? Such
a question will cause a heart-trembling. God will examine a man, as the
chief captain would Paul, with scourging.
Acts 22: 24. It is true that the best saint, if God should weigh
him in the balance, would be found wanting: but, when a Christian has made
an impartial search, and has laboured to deal uprightly between God and his
own soul, Christ’s merits will cast in some grains of allowance into the
scales.
Self-examination is needful, because of secret corruption in the heart,
which will not be found out without searching. There are in the heart
plangendae
tenebrae, Augustine, ‘hidden
pollutions.’ It is with a Christian, as with Joseph’s brethren, who, when
the steward accused them of having the cup, were ready to swear they had it
not; but upon search it was found in one of their sacks. Little does a
Christian think what pride, atheism, uncleanness is in his heart till he
searches it. If there be therefore such hidden wickedness, like a spring
running under ground, we had need examine ourselves, that finding out our
secret sin, we may be humbled and repent. Hidden sins, if not searched out,
defile the soul. If corn lie long in the chaff, the chaff defiles the corn;
so sins long hidden defile our duties. Needful therefore it is, before we
come to the holy supper, to search out these hidden sins, as Israel searched
for leaven before they came to the passover.
Self-examination is needful, because without it we may easily have a cheat
put upon us. ‘The heart is deceitful above all things.’
Jer 17: 9. Many a man’s heart will tell him he is fit for the
Lord’s table. As when Christ asked the sons of Zebedee, ‘Are ye able to
drink of the cup that I shall drink of?’
Matt 20: 22. Can ye drink such a bloody cup of suffering? ‘They
say unto him, We are able.’ So the heart will suggest to a man, he is fit to
drink of the sacramental cup, he has on the wedding-garment.
Grande profundum
est homo. Augustine. ‘The heart is a
grand impostor.’ As a cheating tradesmen will put one off with bad wares, so
the heart will put a man off with seeming grace, instead of saving. A tear
or two shed is repentance, a few lazy desires are faith, just as blue and
red flowers growing among corn, look like good flowers, but are beautiful
weeds only. The foolish virgins’ vessels looked as if they had oil in them,
but they had none. Therefore, to prevent a cheat, that we may not take false
grace instead of true, we had need make a thorough search of our hearts
before we come to the Lord’s table.
Self-examination is needful, because of the false fears which the godly are
apt to nourish in their hearts, which make them go sad to the sacrament. As
they who have no grace, for want of examining, presume, so they who have
grace, for want of examining, are ready to despair. Many of God’s children
look upon themselves through the black spectacles of fear. They fear Christ
is not formed in them, they fear they have no right to the promise; and
these fears in the heart cause tears in the eye; whereas, would they but
search and examine, they might find they had grace. Are not their hearts
humbled for sin? What is this but the bruised reed? Do not they weep after
the Lord? What are these tears but seeds of faith? Do they not thirst after
Christ in an ordinance? What is this but the new creature crying for the
breast? Here are, you see, seeds of grace; and, would Christians examine
their hearts, they might see there is something of God in them, and so their
false fears would be prevented, and they might approach with comfort to the
holy mysteries in the Eucharist.
Self-examination is needful with respect to the danger of coming unworthily
without it. He ‘shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.’
1 Cor 11: 27.
Par facit quasi Christum
trucidaret [It is as if he
were butchering Christ]. Grotius. God reckons with him as with a crucifier
of the Lord Jesus. He does not drink Christ’s blood, but sheds it; and so
brings that curse upon him, as when the Jews said, ‘His blood be upon us and
our children.’ Than the virtue of Christ’s blood, nothing is more
comfortable; than the guilt of it, nothing is more formidable.
(4) We must
examine ourselves before the sacrament, on account of the difficulty of the
work. Difficulty raises a noble spirit. Self-examination is difficult,
because it is an inward work, it lies with the heart. External acts of
devotion are easy; to lift up the eye, to bow the knee, to read over a few
prayers, is as easy as for the Papists to tell over a few beads; but to
examine a man’s self, to take the heart in pieces, to make a Scripture-trial
of our fitness for the Lord’s supper, is not easy. Reflexive acts are
hardest. The eye cannot see itself but by a glass; so we must have the glass
of the word and conscience to see our own hearts. It is easy to spy the
faults of others; but it is hard to find out our owns. Self-examination is
difficult, with regard to self-love. As ignorance blinds, so self-love
flatters. What Solomon says of love, ‘Love covereth all sins,’ is most true
of self-love.
Prov 10: 12. A man looking upon himself in the flattering glass
of self-love, his virtues appear greater than they are, and his sins less.
Self-love makes a man rather excuse himself, than examine himself; self-love
makes one think the best of himself; and he who has a good opinion of
himself, does not suspect himself; and not suspecting himself, he is not
forward to examine himself. The work, therefore, of self-examination being
so difficult, requires the more impartiality and industry. Difficulty should
be a spur to diligence.
(5) We must
examine ourselves before we come, because of the benefit of
self-examination. The benefit is great whatever way it terminates. If, upon
examination, we find that we have no grace in truth, the mistake is
discovered, and the danger prevented; if we find that we have grace, we may
take the comfort of it. He who, upon search, finds that he has the
minimum quod sit,
the least degree of grace, he is like one that has found his box of
evidences; he is a happy man; he is a fit guest at the Lord’s table; he is
heir to all the promises; he is as sure to go to heaven as if he were in
heaven already.
What must
we examine?
(1) Our
sins. Search if any dead fly spoils sweet ointment. When we come to the
sacrament, as the Jews did before the passover, we should search for leaven,
and having found it we should burn it. Let us search for the leaven of
pride. This sours our holy things. Will a humble Christ be received into a
proud heart? Pride keeps Christ out.
Intus existens
prohibet alienum [Its presence
within blocks the entrance of any other]. To a proud man Christ’s blood has
no virtue; it is like a cordial put into a dead man’s mouth, which loses its
virtue. Let us search for the leaven of pride, and cast it away. Let us
search for the leaven of avarice. The Lord’s supper is a spiritual mystery,
to represent Christ’s body and blood; what should an earthly heart do here?
The earth puts out the fire; so earthliness quencheth the fire of holy love.
The earth is
elementum
gravissimum [the heaviest of the
elements], it cannot ascend. A soul belimed with earth cannot ascend to
heavenly cogitations. ‘Covetousness, which is idolatry.’
Col 3: 5. Will Christ come into the heart where there is an idol?
Search for this leaven before you come to this ordinance. How can an earthly
heart converse with that God which is a spirit? Can a clod of earth kiss the
sun? Search for the leaven of hypocrisy. ‘Beware ye of the leaven of the
Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.’
Luke 12: 1. Aquinas describes it as
simulatio
virtutis: hypocrisy is ‘the
counterfeiting of virtue.’ The hypocrite is a living pageant, he only makes
a show of religion; he gives God his knee, but no heart; and God gives him
bread and wine in the sacrament, but no Christ. Oh, let us search for this
leaven of hypocrisy and burn it!
(2) We must
examine our graces. I shall instance one only — our knowledge.
We are to
examine whether we have knowledge, or we cannot give God a reasonable
service.
Rom 12: 1. Knowledge is a necessary requisite in a communicant;
without it there can be no fitness for the sacrament. A person cannot be fit
to come to the Lord’s table who has no goodness; but without knowledge the
mind is not good.
Prov 19: 2. Some say they have good hearts, though they want
knowledge; as if one should say, his eye is good, but it wants sight. Under
the law, when the plague of leprosy was in a man’s head, the priest was to
pronounce him unclean. The ignorant person has the plague in his head, he is
unclean; ignorance is the womb of lust.
1 Pet 1: 14. Therefore it is requisite, before we come, to
examine what knowledge we have in the main fundamentals of religion. Let it
not be said of us, that ‘unto this day the vail is upon their heart.’
2 Cor 3: 15. In this intelligent age, we cannot but have some
insight into the mysteries of the gospel. I rather fear, we are like Rachel,
who was fair and well-sighted, but barren: therefore,
Let us
examine whether our knowledge be rightly qualified. Is it influential. Does
our knowledge warm our heart?
Claritas
intellectu parit ardorem in effectu
[Clearness in the understanding breeds zeal in the doing]. Saving knowledge
not only directs but quickens; it is the light of life.
John 8: 12. Is our knowledge practical? We hear much; do we love
the truths we know? That is the right knowledge which not only adorns the
mind, but reforms the life.
[2] This
solemn preparation for the sacrament consists in dressing our souls before
we come. This soul-dress is in two things:
(1) Washing
in the lever of repenting tears. To come to this ordinance with the guilt of
any sin unrepented of makes way for further hardening of the heart, and
gives Satan fuller possession of it. ‘They shall look on me whom they have
pierced, and they shall mourn for him.’
Zech 12: 10. The cloud of sorrow must drop into tears. We must
grieve as for the pollution, so for the unkindness in every sin which is
against Christ’s love who died for us. When Peter thought of Christ’s love
in calling him out of his unregeneracy to make him an apostle, and to carry
him up to the mount of transfiguration, where he saw the glory of heaven in
a vision, and then of his denying Christ, it broke his heart: ‘he wept
bitterly.’
Matt 26: 75. To think, before we come to a sacrament, of sins
against the bowel-mercies of God the Father, the bleeding wounds of God the
Son, the blessed inspirations of God the Holy Ghost, is enough to fill our
eyes with tears, and put us into a holy agony of grief and compunction. We
must be distressed for sin, be divorced from it. Before the serpent drinks
it casts up its poison; in this we must be wise as serpents. Before we drink
of the sacramental cup we must cast up the poison of sin by repentance.
Ille vere
plangit commissa, qui non committit plangenda.
Augustine. ‘He truly bewails the sins he has committed who does not commit
the sins he has bewailed.’
(2) The
soul-dress is the exciting and stirring up the habit of grace into a lively
exercise. ‘I put thee in remembrance, that thou stir up the gift of God
which is in thee,’ that is, the gifts and graces of the Spirit.
2 Tim 1: 6. The Greek word to stir up, signifies to blow up grace
into a flame. Grace is often like fire in the embers, which needs blowing
up. It is possible that even a good man may not come so well disposed to
this ordinance, because he has not before taken pains with his heart to come
in due order, to stir up grace into vigorous exercise; and though he does
not eat and drink damnation, yet he does not receive consolation in the
sacrament.
[3] A
solemn preparation for the sacrament consists in begging a blessing upon the
ordinance. The efficacy of the sacrament depends upon the co-operation of
the Spirit, and a word of blessing. In the institution, Christ blessed the
elements: ‘Jesus took bread and blessed it.’ The sacrament will do us good
no farther than it is blessed to us. We ought, before we come, to pray for a
blessing, that it may not only be a sign to represent, but a seal to
conform, and an instrument to convey Christ and all his benefits to us. We
are to pray that this great ordinance may be poison to our sins, and food to
our graces. As with Jonathan, when he tasted the honeycomb, ‘and his eyes
were enlightened;’ so by receiving this holy Eucharist, our eyes may be
enlightened to ‘discern the Lord’s body.’
1 Sam 14: 27. Thus should we implore a blessing upon the
ordinance before we come. The sacrament is like a tree hung full of fruit,
but none of this fruit will fall unless shaken by the hand of prayer.
II. That
the sacrament may be effectual to us, there must be a right participation of
it, which consists in four things.
[1] When we
draw nigh to God’s table in a humble sense of our unworthiness. We do not
deserve one crumb of the bread of life; we are poor indigent creatures, who
have lost our glory, and are like a vessel that is shipwrecked; we smite on
our breasts, as the publican, ‘God be merciful to us sinners.’ This is
partaking of the ordinance aright. It is part of our worthiness to see our
unworthiness.
[2] We
rightly partake when at the Lord’s table we are filled with breathing of
soul and inflamed desires after Christ, which nothing can quench but his
blood. ‘Blessed are they which thirst.’
Matt 5: 6. They are blessed not only when they are filled, but
while they are thirsting.
[3] A right
participation of the supper is, when we receive it in faith. Without faith
we get no good. What is said of the word preached, it ‘did not profit them,
not being mixed with faith,’ is true of the sacrament.
Heb 4: 2. Christ turned stones into bread: unbelief turns the
bread into stones, that do not nourish. We partake aright when we come in
faith. Faith has a twofold act, an adhering, and an applying. By the first
we go over to Christ, by the second we bring Christ over to us.
Gal 2: 20. This is the grace we must set to work.
Acts 10: 43. Philo calls it,
fides oculata
[the eye of faith]: it is the eagle-eye that discerns the Lord’s body; it
causes a virtual contact, it touches Christ. Christ said to Mary, ‘Touch me
not,’ &c.
John 20: 17. She was not to touch him with the hands of her body;
but he says to us, ‘Touch me,’ touch me with the hand of your faith. Faith
makes Christ present to the soul. The believer has a real presence in the
sacrament. The body of the sun is in the firmament, but the light of the sun
is in the eye. Christ’s essence is in heaven, but he is in a believer’s
heart by his light and influence. ‘That Christ may dwell in your hearts by
faith.’
Eph 3: 17. Faith is the palate which tastes Christ.
1 Pet 2: 3. It causes the bread of life to nourish.
Crede et
manducasti [Believe and thou hast
fed]. Augustine. Faith makes us one with Christ.
Eph 1: 23. Other graces make us like Christ, faith makes us
members of Christ.
[4] We
partake aright of the sacrament when we receive it in love.
(1) Love to
Christ. Who can see Christ pierced with a crown of thorns, sweating in his
agony, bleeding on the cross, but his heart must needs be endeared in love
to him? How can we but love him who has given his life a ransom for us? Love
is the spiced wine and juice of the pomegranate which we must give to
Christ.
Cant 8: 2. Our love to this superior and blessed Jesus must
exceed our love to other things; as the oil runs above the water. Though we
cannot, with Mary, bring our body ointment to anoint his body, we do more
than this, whence bring him our love, which is sweeter to him than all
ointments and perfumes.
(2) Love to
the saints. This is a love-feast. Though we must eat it with the bitter
herbs of repentance, yet not with the bitter herbs of malice. Were it not
sad if all the meat we eat should turn to bad humours? He who comes in
malice to the Lord’s table turns all he eats to his hurt. ‘He eateth and
drinketh damnation to himself.’
1 Cor 11: 29. ‘Come in love.’ It is with love as with fire which
you keep all the day upon the hearth, but upon special occasions make
larger. We must have love to all; but to the saints, who are our
fellow-members here, we must draw out the fire of our love larger; and must
show the largeness of our affections to them, by prizing their persons, by
choosing their company, by doing all offices of love to them, by counselling
them in their doubts, comforting them in their fears, and supplying them in
their wants. Thus one Christian may be an Ebenezer to another, and as an
angel of God to him. The sacrament cannot be effectual to him who does not
receive it in love. If a man drinks poison and then takes a cordial, the
cordial will do him little good, so he who has the poison of malice in his
soul, the cordial of Christ’s blood will do him no good; come therefore in
love and charity.
Use one.
From the whole doctrine of this sacrament learn how precious should a
sacrament be to us. It is a sealed deed to make over the blessings of the
new covenant to us. A small piece of wax put to a parchment is made the
instrument to confirm a rich conveyance or lordship to another; so these
elements in the sacrament of bread and wine, though in themselves of no
great value, yet being consecrated to be seals to confirm the covenant of
grace to us, are of more value than all the riches of the Indies.
Use two.
The sacrament being such a holy mystery, let us come to it with holy hearts.
There is no receiving a crucified Christ but into a consecrated heart.
Christ in his conception lay in a pure virgin’s womb, and, at his death, his
body was wrapped in clean linen, and put into a new virgin tomb, never yet
defiled. If Christ would not lie in an unclean grave, surely he will not be
received into an unclean heart. ‘Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the
Lord.’
Isa 52: 11. If they who carried the vessels of the Lord were to
be holy, they who are to be the vessels of the Lord, and are to hold
Christ’s blood and body, ought to be holy.
Use three.
Christ’s body and blood in the sacrament are a most sovereign elixir or
comfort to a distressed soul. Having poured out his blood, God’s justice is
fully satisfied. There is in the death of Christ enough to answer all
doubts. What if sin is the poison, the flesh of Christ is an antidote
against it! What if sin be red as scarlet, is not Christ’s blood of a deeper
colour, and can wash away sin? If Satan strikes us with his darts of
temptation, here is a precious balm out of Christ’s wounds to heal us.
Isa 53: 5. What though we feed upon the bread of affliction, so
long as in the sacrament we feed upon the bread of life? Christ received
aright sacramentally, is a universal medicine for healing, and a universal
cordial for cheering our distressed souls.
4.6 Prayer
‘But I give
myself unto prayer.’
Psa 109: 4.
I shall not
here expatiate upon prayer, as it will be considered more fully in the
Lord’s prayer. It is one thing to pray, and another thing to be given to
prayer: he who prays frequently, is said to be given to prayer; as he who
often distributes alms, is said to be given to charity. Prayer is a glorious
ordinance, it is the soul’s trading with heaven. God comes down to us by his
Spirit, and we go up to him by prayer.
What is
prayer?
It is an
offering up of our desires to God for things agreeable to his will, in the
name of Christ.
‘Prayer is
offering up our desires;’ and therefore called making known our requests.
Phil 4: 6. In prayer we come as humble petitioners, begging to
have our suit granted. It is ‘offering up our desires to God.’ Prayer is not
to be made to any but God. The Papists pray to saints and angels, who know
not our grievances. ‘Abraham be ignorant of us.’
Isa 63: 16. All angel-worship is forbidden.
Col 2: 18, 19. We must not pray to any but whom we may believe
in. ‘How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?’
Rom 10: 14. We cannot believe in an angel, therefore we must not
pray to him.
Why must
prayer be made to God only?
(1) Because
he only hears prayer. ‘Oh thou that hearest prayer.’
Psa 65: 2. Hereby God is known to be the true God, in that he
hears prayer. ‘Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou
art the Lord God.’
1 Kings 18: 37.
(2) Because
God only can help. We may look to second causes, and cry, as the woman did,
‘Help, my lord, O king.’ And he said, ‘If the Lord do not help thee, whence
shall I help thee?’
2 Kings 6: 26, 27. If we are in outward distress, God must send
from heaven and save; if we are in inward agonies, he only can pour in the
oil of joy; therefore prayer is to be made to him only.
We are to
pray ‘for things agreeable to his will.’ When we pray for outward things,
for riches or children, perhaps God sees these things not to be good for us;
and our prayers should comport with his will. We may pray absolutely for
grace; ‘For this is the will of God, even your sanctification.’
1 Thess 4: 3. There must be no strange incense offered.
Exod 30: 9. When we pray for things which are not agreeable to
God’s will, it is offering strange incense.
We are to
pray ‘in the name of Christ.’ To pray in the name of Christ, is not only to
mention Christ’s name in prayer, but to pray in the hope and confidence of
his merits. ‘Samuel took a sucking lamb and offered it,’ &c.
1 Sam 7: 9. We must carry the lamb Christ in the arms of our
faith, and so shall we prevail in prayer. When Uzziah would offer incense
without a priest, God was angry, and struck him with leprosy.
2 Chron 26: 16. When we do not pray in Christ’s name, in the hope
of his mediation, we offer up incense without a priest; and what can we
expect but to meet with rebukes, and to have God answer us by terrible
things?
What are
the several parts of prayer?
(1) There
is the confessors part, which is the acknowledgement of sin. (2) The
supplicatory part, when we either deprecate and pray against some evil, or
request the obtaining of some good. (3) The congratulatory part, when we
give thanks for mercies received, which is the most excellent part of
prayer. In petition, we act like men; in giving thanks, we act like angels.
What are
the several sorts of prayer?
(1) There
is mental prayer, in the mind.
1 Sam 1: 13. (2) Vocal.
Psa 77: 1. (3) Ejaculatory, which is a sudden and short elevation
of the heart to God. ‘So I prayed to the God of heaven.’
Neh 2: 4. (4) Inspired prayer, when we pray for those things
which God puts into our heart. The Spirit helps us with sighs and groans.
Rom 8: 26. Both the expressions of the tongue, and the
impressions of the heart, so far as they are right, are from the Spirit. (5)
Prescribed prayer. Our Saviour has set us a pattern of prayer. God
prescribed a set form of blessing for the priests.
Numb 6: 23. (6) Public prayer, when we pray in the audience of
others. Prayer is more powerful when many join and unite their forces.
Vis unita
fortior [A united force is
stronger].
Matt 18: 19. (7) Private prayer; when we pray by ourselves.
‘Enter into thy closet.’
Matt 6: 6.
That
prayer is most likely to prevail with God which is rightly qualified. That
is a good medicine which has the right ingredients; and that prayer is good,
and most likely to prevail with God, which has these seven ingredients in
it: —
[1] It
must be mixed with faith. ‘But let him ask in faith.’
James 1: 6. Believe that God hears, and will in due time grant,
believe his love and truth; believe that he is love, and therefore will not
deny you; believe that he is truth, and therefore will not deny himself.
Faith sets prayer to work. Faith is to prayer what the feather is to the
arrow; it feathers the arrow of prayer, and makes it fly swifter, and pierce
the throne of grace. The prayer that is faithless is fruitless.
[2] It
must be a melting prayer. ‘The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.’
Psa 51: 17. The incense was to be beaten to typify the breaking
of the heart in prayer. Oh! says a Christian, I cannot pray with such gifts
and elocution as others; as Moses said, ‘I am not eloquent;’ but can’t thou
weep? Does thy heart melt in prayer? Weeping prayer prevails. Tears drop as
pearls from the eye. Jacob wept and made supplication; and ‘had power over
the angel.’
Hosea 12: 4.
[3] Prayer
must be fired with zeal and fervency. ‘Effectual fervent prayer availeth
much.’
James 5: 16. Cold prayer, like cold suitors, never speed. Prayer
without fervency, is like a sacrifice without a fire. Prayer is called a
‘pouring out of the soul,’ to signify vehemence.
1 Sam 1: 15. Formality starves prayer. Prayer is compared to
incense. ‘Let my prayer be set forth as incense.’
Psa 141: 2. Hot coals were to be put to the incense, to make it
odoriferous and fragrant; so fervency of affection is like coals to the
incense; it makes prayer ascend as a sweet perfume. Christ prayed with
strong cries.
Heb 5: 7.
Clamor iste
penetrat nubes [Such a cry pierces
the clouds]. Luther. Fervent prayer, like a powder engine set against
heaven’s gates, makes them fly open. To cause holy fervour and ardour of
soul in prayer, consider, (1) Prayer without fervency is no prayer; it is
speaking, not praying. Lifeless prayer is no more prayer than the picture of
a man is a man. One may say as Pharaoh, ‘I have dreamed a dream.’
Gen 41: 15. It is dreaming, not praying. Life and fervency
baptise a duty, and give it a name. (2) Consider in what need we stand of
those things which we ask in prayer. We come to ask the favour of God; and
if we have not his love all we enjoy is cursed to us. We pray that our souls
may be washed in Christ’s blood; if he wash us not we have no part in him.
John 13: 8. When will we be in earnest, if not when we are
praying for the life of our souls? (3) It is only fervent prayer that has
the promise of mercy affixed to it. ‘Ye shall find me, when ye shall search
for me with all your heart.’
Jer 29: 13. It is dead praying without a promise; and the promise
is made only to ardency. The a tiles among the Romans, had their doors
always standing open, that all who had petitions might have free access to
them; so God’s heart is ever open to fervent prayer.
[4] Prayer
must be sincere. Sincerity is the silver thread which must run through the
whole duties of religion. Sincerity in prayer is when we have gracious holy
ends; when our prayer is not so much for temporal mercies as for spiritual.
We send out prayer as our merchant ship, that we may have large returns of
spiritual blessings. Our aim in it is, that our hearts may be more holy,
that we may have more communion with God and that we may increase our stock
of grace. The prayer which wants a good aim, wants a good issue.
[5] The
prayer that will prevail with God must have a fixedness of mind. ‘My heart
is fixed, O God.’
Psa 57: 7. Since the fall the mind is like quicksilver, which
will not fix; it has
principium motus,
but non
quietus [a principle of
restlessness, not of peace]. The thoughts will be roving and dancing up and
down in prayer, just as if a man who is travelling to a certain place should
run out of the road, and wander he knows not whither. In prayer we are
travelling to the throne of grace, but how often do we, by vain cogitations,
turn out of the road! This is rather wandering than praying.
How shall
we cure these vain impertinent thoughts, which distract us in prayer, and,
we fear, hinder its acceptance?
(1) Be
very apprehensive in prayer of the infiniteness of God’s majesty and purity.
His eye is upon us in prayer, and we may say as David, ‘Thou tellest my
wanderings.’
Psa 56: 8. The thoughts of this would make us
hoc agere,
mind the duty we are about. If a man were to deliver a petition to an
earthly prince, would he at the same time be playing with a feather? Set
yourselves, when you pray, as in God’s presence. Could you but look through
the keyhole of heaven, and see how devout and intent the angels are in their
worshipping God, surely you would be ready to blush at your vain thoughts
and vile impertinences in prayer.
(2) If you
would keep your mind fixed in prayer, keep your eye fixed. ‘Unto thee lift I
up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens.’
Psa 123: 1. Much vanity comes in at the eye. When the eye wanders
in prayer, the heart wanders. To think to keep the heart fixed in prayer,
and yet let the eye gaze, is as if one should think to keep his house safe,
and yet let the windows be open.
(3) If you
would have your thoughts fixed in prayer, get more love to God. Love is a
great fixer of the thoughts. He who is in love cannot keep his thoughts off
the object. He who loves the world has his thoughts upon the world. Did we
love God more, our minds would be more intent upon him in prayer. Were there
more delight in duty, there would be less distraction.
(4)
Implore the help of God’s Spirit to fix your minds, and make them intent and
serious in prayer. The ship without a pilot rather floats than sails. That
our thoughts do not float up and down in prayer, we need the blessed Spirit
to be our pilot to steer us. Only God’s Spirit can bound the thoughts. A
shaking hand may as well write a line steadily, as we can keep our hearts
fixed in prayer without the Spirit of God.
(5) Make
holy thoughts familiar to you in your ordinary course of life. David was
often musing on God. ‘When I am awake, I am still with thee.’
Psa 139: 18. He who gives himself liberty to have vain thoughts
out of prayer, will scarcely have other thoughts in prayer.
(6) If you
would keep your mind fixed on God, watch your hearts, not only after prayer,
but in prayer. The heart will be apt to give you the slip, and have a
thousand vagaries in prayer. We read of angels ascending and descending on
Jacob’s ladder; so in prayer you shall find your hearts ascending to heaven,
and in a moment descending upon earthly objects. O Christians, watch your
hearts in prayer. What a shame is it to think, that when we are speaking to
God our hearts should be in the fields, or in our counting-houses, or one
way or other, running upon the devil’s errand!
(7) Labour
for larger degrees of grace. The more ballast the ship has the better it
sails; so the more the heart is ballasted with grace, the steadier it will
sail to heaven in prayer.
[6] Prayer
that is likely to prevail with God must be argumentative. God loves to have
us plead with him, and use arguments in prayer. See how many arguments Jacob
used in prayer. ‘Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother.’
Gen 32: 11. The arguments he used are from God’s command ‘Thou
saidst to me, Return to thy country;’
ver 9; as if he had said, I did not take this journey of my own
head, but by thy direction; therefore thou canst not but in honour protect
me. And he uses another argument. ‘Thou saidst, I will surely do thee good;’
ver 12. Lord, wilt thou go back from thy own promise? Thus he was
argumentative in prayer; and he got not only a new blessing, but a new name.
‘Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast
thou power with God, and hast prevailed;’
ver 28. God loves to be overcome with strength of argument. Thus,
when we come to God in prayer for grace, let us be argumentative. Lord, thou
callest thyself the God of all grace; and whither should we go with our
vessel, but to the fountain? Lord, thy grace may be imparted, yet not
impaired. Has not Christ purchased grace for poor indigent creatures? Every
drachm of grace costs a drop of blood. Shall Christ die to purchase grace
for us, and shall not we have the fruit of his purchase? Lord, it is thy
delight to milk out the breast of mercy and grace, and wilt thou abridge
thyself of thy own delight? Thou hast promised to give thy Spirit to implant
grace; can truth lie? can faithfulness deceive? God loves thus to be
overcome with arguments in prayer.
[7] Prayer
that would prevail with God, must be joined with reformation. ‘If thou
stretch out thy hands toward him; if iniquity be in thy hand, put it far
away.’
Job 11: 13, 14. Sin, lived in, makes the heart hard, and God’s
ear deaf. It is foolish to pray against sin, and then sin against prayer.
‘If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.’
Psa 66: 18. The loadstone loses its virtue when bespread with
garlic; so does prayer when polluted with sin. The incense of prayer must be
offered upon the altar of a holy heart.
Thus you
see what is the prayer which is most likely to prevail with God.
Use one.
It reproves (1) Such as pray not at all. It is made the note of a reprobate,
that he calls not upon God.
Psa 14: 4. Does he think to have an alms who never asks it? Do
they think to have mercy from Cod who never seek it? Then God would befriend
them more than he did his own Son. Christ offered up prayers with strong
cries.
Heb 5: 7. None of God’s children are born dumb.
Gal 4: 6.
(2) It
reproves such as have left off prayer, which is a sign that they never felt
the fruit and comfort of it. He that leaves off prayer leaves off to fear
God. ‘Thou castest off fear, and restrainest prayer before God.’
Job 15: 4. A man that has left off prayer, is fit for any
wickedness. When Saul had given over inquiring after God he went to the
witch of Endor.
Use two.
Be persons given to prayer. ‘I give myself,’ says David, ‘to prayer.’ Pray
for pardon and purity. Prayer is the golden key that opens heaven. The tree
of the promise will not drop its fruit unless shaken by the hand of prayer.
All the benefits of Christ’s redemption are handed over to us by prayer.
I have
prayed a long time for mercy, and have no answer. ‘I am weary of crying.’
Ps 69: 3.
(1) God
may hear us when we do not hear from him; as soon as prayer is made, God
hears it, though he does not presently answer. A friend may receive our
letter, though he does not presently send us an answer. (2) God may delay
prayer, yet he will not deny it.
Why does
God delay an answer to prayer?
(1)
Because he loves to hear the voice of prayer. ‘The prayer of the upright is
his delight.’
Prov 15: 8. You let the musician play a great while ere you throw
him down money, because you love to hear his music.
Cant 2: 14.
(2) God
may delay prayer when he will not deny it, that he may humble us. He has
spoken to us long in his word to leave our sins, but we would not hear him;
therefore he lets us speak to him in prayer and seems not to hear us.
(3) He may
delay to answer prayer when he will not deny it, because he sees we are not
yet fit for the mercy we ask. Perhaps we pray for deliverance when we are
not fit for it; our scum is not yet boiled away. We would have God swift to
deliver, and we are slow to repent.
(4) God
may delay to answer prayer, that the mercy we pray for may be more prized,
and may be sweeter when it comes. The longer the merchant’s ships stay
abroad, the more he rejoices when they come home laden with spices and
jewels; therefore be not discouraged, but follow God with prayer. Though God
delays, he will not deny. Prayer
vincit
invincibilem [conquers the
invincible], it overcomes the Omnipotent.
Hos 12: 4. The Syrians tied their god Hercules fast with a golden
chain, that he should not remove. The Lord was held by Moses’ prayer as with
a golden chain. ‘Let me alone;’ why, what did Moses? he only prayed.
Exod 32: 10. Prayer ushers in mercy. Be thy case never so sad, if
thou canst but pray thou needest not fear.
Psa 10: 17. Therefore give thyself to prayer.