A Complete Body of Divinity
5. It must be universal obedience, Psalm 119:6 in 'having a respect unto all God's commandments.' The whole of the commands of God have the same divine stamp upon them. They are one golden chain: whoever takes away one link, breaks the chain; if the connection be destroyed, the whole machine falls asunder. Hear what the apostle James says on this head, chapter 2:10, 11. 'Whoever shall keep the law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he who said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now, if you commit no adultery, yet if you kill, you are become a transgressor of the law.' Obedience to one command will never sanctify disobedience to another. The contempt shown to one is a contempt of the one Lawgiver who appointed the whole. Hear what Christ, the glorious Legislator of the church, has said on this article, 'Whoever shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of Heaven.' Thus the transgressing of one of the least of God's commandments, if any of them can justly be called such, is a breach of the others, however great and important, and that because the authority of God, that gives sanction to the whole, is slighted and contemned. Whoever makes no conscience of any one known duty, discovers hypocrisy in the rest.
6. It must be absolute obedience, like that of Abraham, who, when called to go out into a place which he was not acquainted with, went accordingly, 'not knowing whether he went,' Hebrews 11:8. Subjects are obedient to magistrates, people to pastors, wives to husbands, children to parents; but absolute obedience is due to none but God: for we are to call no man father upon earth, Matthew 23:9. If their commands be contradicted by God's, they are not to be obeyed; but though God's commands be contradicted by all the world, we must obey them, as the disciples refused to obey the commands of the Jewish council, in not preaching in the name of Jesus, because they clashed with the orders of their exalted Master, Acts 4:19. The most unreserved and unlimited obedience is due to the will and command of the great Lord of Heaven and earth, and that without exception or reserve, say to the contrary who will.
7. Lastly, It must be perfect; though now in our fallen state we cannot give any obedience that deserves that epithet. God may and does require of all men in whatever state, Matthew 5 ult. 'Be perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect.' Though he accepts sincere obedience from those that are in Christ, yet he requires of them perfect obedience, and every imperfection is their sin. Though he has not suspended their justification on their perfection, yet it is what they naturally owe to God, whose law is perfect, and must have a perfect obedience performed to it, either by man himself or his surety. The believer, sensible of his utter incapacity to perform such an obedience to the holy law of God, renounces all his own sinful and imperfect, though sincere obedience, and betakes himself to the complete obedience of his Surety, and presents it as his own to God, which he accepts.
In short, all true and acceptable obedience to the will of God flows from a right principle, that of faith and love in the heart. Faith is the hand that unites the soul to Christ, and obedience to God is the fruit of that union. Love is the spring and source of it; for he who loves Christ, keeps his commandments. And it must be directed to a right end, namely, the glory of God. We are not to obey God, in order to stop the mouth of a natural conscience, or gain applause among men, but to grow more like God, and bring more honor and glory to him.
Fifthly, Let us consider on what accounts do we owe this obedience to God. On these principally, namely,
1. Because he is our great and glorious Creator, to whom we owe our life and being. He is our Lord, and we are his subjects; he is our Master, and we are his servants. And therefore it is just and right that we should obey him, and conform to his will. He is everything that speaks an authority to command us, and that can challenge an humility in us to obey. Man holds all of God, and therefore owes all the operations capable to be produced by those faculties, to the sovereign power that endued him with them. Man had no being but from him, and he has no motion without him; he should therefore have no being but for him, and no motion but according to his will. To call him Lord, and not to act in subjection to him, is to mock and put an affront upon him. Hence it is said, 'Why call you me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say?' Luke 6:46.
2. Because he is our chief end, the chief and last end of all being. The Lord has made all things for himself; and of him, and through him, and to him, are all things. His glory should be the ultimate end of all our actions, and the mark to which they should all be directed. He gave being to all things, that they might show forth his praise. All the brute creatures, things animate and inanimate, do this in a passive manner; but men and angels, who are rational agents, are bound to do this actively; and they are designed by God for this very end and purpose.
3. Because he is the conserving cause of all. As he gave man a being, so he upholds and preserves him therein, by his mighty power. The preservation of the creatures is as it were a continued creation; and in order to it there is necessary a continual exertion of divine power, and a constant efflux of providential influence, without which they could not move and act at all. As therefore the life and motions of men depend entirely upon God as their upholder, so that life and those motions should be employed for promoting his glory, and promoting his will.
4. Because of the eminency of his nature, which founds his supreme dominion over us. God is the most glorious and excellent of all beings, and the source and spring of all other beings whatever. He is possessed of all perfections in an infinite and transcendent manner. Whatever perfections, excellencies, and amiable qualities, are scattered among the creatures, they all unite in him in the utmost perfection, and in him they shine with the most resplendent glory.—And therefore he has a just title to the homage and obedience of all his creatures.
5. Because he is our good and gracious Benefactor, from whose bountiful hand all our mercies do flow. It is in him that we live, move, and have our being. Our health, strength, time, and all blessings, spiritual or temporal, that we enjoy, are the fruits of his goodness and providential care. Now, this lays strong obligations upon us to serve and obey him. We find the Lord aggravating the rebellion of the Jews from the care he had taken in bringing them up, and their miraculous deliverance from Egypt, Isaiah 1:2. 'I have nourished and brought up children, but they have rebelled against me,' which clearly implies, that the benefits he had bestowed upon them were strong obligations to a sincere observance of him; and we find him threatening to deprive them of the blessings he had bestowed upon them, and to bring great distress upon them for the neglect of this duty, Deuteronomy 28:47, etc.
6. Lastly, Because he is our Governor and supreme Lawgiver. He is a Lawgiver to all, to irrational as well as rational creatures. The heavens have their ordinances, Job 38:33. All the creatures have a law imprinted on their beings, but rational creatures have divine statutes inscribed on their hearts, as Romans 2:14, 15. 'When the Gentiles, which have not the written law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law, are a law unto themselves; which show the work of the law written in their hearts.' And they have laws more clearly and fully set before them in the word. The sole power of making laws does originally reside in God, Jam. 4:12. 'There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy.' He only has power to bind the conscience. And therefore to him obedience is due from all to whom he has prescribed laws.
I come now to deduce some inferences.
Inference. 1. Does God require from men obedience to his revealed will? Then, in whatever state a man is, he owes obedience to the will of God; and therefore, in the saddest of sufferings, even in Hell, men properly sin against God,—For this obedience is founded on the natural dependence of the creature on its Creator, and the creature can no more be free of it than it can be a God to itself. Much more God's exalting men in the world gives them no allowance to be vile. Whatever men's state be, God requires of them obedience to his will therein; and they are rebels if they with-hold it, and shall be dealt with as such accordingly.
2. The doing of what God does not command can be no acceptable service or obedience to God. Our duty to God is not to be measured by our imaginations, but by the revealed will of God. Therefore, when men make those things to be duties which no revelation from the Lord makes to be so, the Lord may well say, 'who has required these things at your hand?' Nothing but what is commanded of God can lawfully be the object of our duty.
3. Those who never heard the gospel will not be condemned for their not believing it; for the revelation of God's will must go before our actual obligation to do it, Romans 2:12. 'As many as have sinned without law, [that is, the written or revealed law of God] shall also perish without law.' This ought to stir up all who bear the Christian name, to be vigorous and lively in obeying God, particularly the great command of believing in the name of his Son; as considering, that whoever does not so obey and believe the gospel, shall be damned, Mark 16:16.
4. All men are allowed for themselves to examine the will of their superiors, whether in church or state, to see whether it be not against the will of God; and if it be so, not to obey it, 1 Corinthians 10:15. The Bereans were commended for so doing, Acts 17:11. There is a difference between subjection and obedience. These two may be separated in our dealings with men that are our superiors; we may and must refuse obedience to them in evil actions, while subjection to them remains in other things. Thus the apostles showed subjection to the Jewish rulers, while they refused to obey their unlawful commands, Acts 4:8, 9, 19. God alone is Lord of the conscience, and has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, when they in any respect clash with his written word. To obey men's unlawful commands, is to sin against God. But in our relation to God, we owe him both subjection and obedience in all things.
5. Let us remember then, that we owe a duty to God, and that is, that we obey his will. Let us therefore lay out ourselves to do his will, and give that sincere, constant, tender, ready, universal, and perfect obedience to him in all things which he requires, looking for acceptance with God through the merits and mediation of Christ; praying to him, that he may graciously forgive all our acts of disobedience, and cover our very imperfect and sinful obedience with the perfect and complete obedience of his Son, who fulfilled all righteousness in the room of his people.
6. Lastly, Let believers be excited to yield this obedience to the will of God, as they have the most noble encouragement thereto, namely, that whatever God requires of them as an article of duty, there is a promise of ability and strength for the performance thereof contained in his word. Thus he says, Ezekiel 36:27. 'I will cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments, and do them.'—The Lord puts no piece of service in the hands of his people, but he will afford them sufficient supplies of grace for the doing thereof. Let them not, then, decline any duty he lays before them.
THE MORAL LAW, THE RULE OF MAN'S OBEDIENCE
ROMANS 2:14, 15.—For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves; which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another.
THE apostle here shows three things. 1. That the Gentiles have not the law; that is, the law of Moses, or written law. They want the scriptures. 2. That yet they have a law within them, they are a law unto themselves; they have the natural law, which for substance is all one with the moral law. Only it is less clear and distinct, and wants the perfection of the moral law written: several points thereof being, through the corruption of nature, obliterated in it. 3. How they have it. It is not of their own making, nor by tradition, but they have it by nature derived from Adam. The work of that law is written in their hearts; it is deeply inscribed there, and cannot be erased; it is such a work as tells them what is right and what wrong; so their consciences, by virtue thereof, excuse their good actions, and accuse the evil.
Now, this natural law is nothing else but the rubbish of the moral law left in the heart of corrupt man: from whence we gather, that the moral law in its perfection was given to Adam in innocence, while we see the remains of it yet with those of his posterity, who have not the advantage of the written law.
The doctrine arising from the words is,
DOCTRINE. 'The rule which God at first revealed to man for his obedience, was the moral law.
First, It is here supposed, that man always was and is under a law: for being a rational creature, capable of obeying the will of God, and owing obedience to his Creator by virtue of his natural dependence upon him, he behooved to be under a law. The beasts are not capable of government by a law, because of the imperfection of their nature: so those that will be lawless, seeing they cannot lift up themselves to the throne of God, who has no superior, they do in effect cast down themselves to the condition of beasts, whose appetite is all their rule. Indeed all the creatures are subjected to laws suitable to their various natures. Everything has a law imprinted upon its being. The inanimate creatures, sun, moon, and stars, are under the law of providence, and under a covenant of night and day. Hence it is said, Psalm 148:6. 'He has established them forever and ever, he has made a decree which shall not pass.' They have their courses and appointed motions, and keep to the just points of their compass. Even the sea, which is one of the most raging and tumultuous creatures, is subjected to a law. God hedges it in as it were with a belt of sand, saying to it, 'Hitherto shall you come, but no farther: and here shall your proud waves be stayed,' Job 38:11. But much more are rational creatures subject to a law, seeing they are capable of election and choice. Man especially, being a rational creature, is capable of and fitted for government by a law; and seeing he is an accountable creature to God, he must needs be under a law.
Question: How could man be under a law, before the law was given by Moses, for we are told, that the 'law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ,' John 1:17?
Ans. Before the law was given at Sinai, all the race of Adam had a law written in their hearts, even the light of reason, and the dictates of natural conscience, which contained those moral principles concerning good and evil which have an essential equity in them, and the measures of his duty to God, to himself, and to his fellow-creatures. This was published by the voice of reason, and, as the apostle says, Romans 7:12 was 'holy, just, and good:' Holy as it enjoins things holy, wherein there is a conformity to those attributes and actions of God, which are the pattern of our imitation. Just; that is, exactly agreeable to the frame of man's faculties, and is most suitable to his condition in the world. Good; that is, beneficial to the observer of it; for, 'in keeping of it there was great reward.' And thus Adam in the state of innocence had the law of God written on his heart; and therefore it is said, Genesis 1:27 that 'God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him.' This image consisted in the moral qualities and perfections of his soul. He was made after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness. The Lord imparted to him a spark of his own loveliness, in order to communicate with himself in happiness. This was a universal and entire rectitude in his faculties, disposing them to their proper operations. But of this I spoke largely, when discoursing of the creation of man.
Secondly, There are three sorts of laws we find in the word.
1. The ceremonial law, which was given by Moses. This bound only the Jews, and that to the coming of Christ, by whom it was abrogated, being a shadow of good things that were then to come: a hedge and partition-wall between them and the Gentiles, which is now taken down.
2. The judicial law, which was the civil law of the Jews, given also first by Moses, by which their civil concerns were to be regulated, in respect of which the Jewish government was a Theocracy. What a happy people were they under such a government! Yet does it not bind other nations farther than it is of moral equity, being peculiarly adapted to the circumstances of that nation.
3. The moral law, which is the declaration of the will of God to mankind, binding all men to perfect obedience thereto in all the duties of holiness and righteousness. The ceremonial law was given to them as a church in their particular circumstances; the judicial law as a state; but the moral law was given them in common with all mankind. But of these laws I spoke more largely in a preceding discourse.
Thirdly, This moral law is found, 1. In the hearts of all men, as to some remains thereof, Romans 2:15. There are common notions thereof, such as, That there is a God, and that he is to be worshiped; that we should give every one his due, etc. Conscience has that law with which it accuses for the commission of great crimes, Romans 1 ult. This internal law appears from those laws which are common in all countries for the preserving of human societies, the encouraging of virtue, and the discouraging of vice. What standard else can they have for these laws but common reason? The design of them is to keep men within the bounds of goodness for mutual commerce. Every son of Adam brings with him into the world a law in his nature; and when reason clears up itself from the clouds of sense, he can make some difference between good and evil. Every man finds a law within him that checks him if he offends it. None are without a legal indictment, and a legal executioner, within them. This law is found, 2. In the ten commandments summarily. 3. In the whole Bible largely. This is that law which the carnal mind is enmity against in the natural man, which is written over again in the heart in regeneration, Hebrews 8:10; and that was fulfilled by Christ in the room of the elect.
Fourthly, As to the revelation thereof, we may consider three special seasons thereof.
1. It was revealed to Adam in innocency, and to all mankind in him. Not by an audible voice, but it was written in his heart: the knowledge of it was concreated with his pure nature; his understanding was a lamp of light, whereby he plainly saw his duty as it was revealed to him.
Note,
(1.) That it is a part of the moral natural law, that man is to believe whatever God shall reveal, and obey whatever he commands. Accordingly God did reveal to him the symbolical law of the forbidden fruit, for the trial of him; and then the law so extended was the rule of his duty.
(2.) God added to this law a promise of life upon obedience, and a threatening of death upon disobedience. So it was cast into the form of a covenant, called 'the covenant of works.' This prohibition was founded upon most wise and just grounds. As, first, to declare God's sovereign right in all things; and, next, to make trial of man's obedience in a matter very congruous to discover it. For if the prohibition had been grounded on any moral internal evil in the nature of the thing itself, there had not been so clear a testimony of God's dominion, nor of Adam's subjection to it. But when that which was in itself indifferent became unlawful, merely by the will of God, and when the command had no other excellency but to make his authority more sacred, this was a confining of man's liberty, and to abstain was pure obedience.
2. It was revealed to the Israelites again upon mount Sinai, in ten commandments. For Adam having fallen, and so man's nature being corrupted, the knowledge of this law was darkened, however the godly patriarchs kept up the knowledge of it. But in Egypt they had lost much of the sense of it, which made it necessary to be renewed.
3. By Jesus Christ and his apostles, the law was again revealed to the world, the knowledge of it being then much lost among the Jews as well as the Gentiles. And now we have it comprehended in the scriptures of the Old and New Testament.
Fifthly, As to the properties of it, it is,
1. a universal law, binding all men, in all places, and at all times, Romans 2:14, 15. For when the Gentiles, etc.
2. It is a perfect law, comprehending the whole of man's duty to God, and to his neighbor. There were no new duties added to it by Christ, for it was perfect before. So says the Psalmist, Psalm 19:7. 'The law of the Lord is perfect.'
3. It is indispensable and perpetual, Luke 16:17; 'It is easier for Heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail,' Matthew 5:18; 'Until Heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, until all be fulfilled.'
Lastly, For what use is the law revealed? I answer,
1. It was revealed at first, that man by obedience to it might be justified; but now it is not revealed for that end, seeing no man by obedience to it can obtain justification: For 'that the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh,' Romans 8:3. 'Since the fall no mere man can attain happiness by the law; for all are guilty of sin, and cannot possibly yield that perfect obedience which the law requires. 'For there is not a just man upon earth that does good, and sins not,' Ecclesiastes 7:20. 'In many things we offend all.' Yet it is of use,
(1.) To all men in general. It is of a threefold use.
[1.] To let all men know what the holy will of God and their duty is, Micah 6:8. 'He has showed you, O man, what is good: and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?'
[2.] To let all see their inability to keep it, and so to humble them in the sense of their sin. 'By them,' says David, 'is your servant warned. Who can understand his errors? cleanse you me from secret faults,' Psalm 19:11, 12.
[3.] To give them a clear sense of their need of Christ. 'Wherefore serves the law?' says the apostle. 'It was added because of transgressions, until the seed should come, to whom the promise was made,' Galatians 3:19. And says the same apostle, verse 24. 'The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.' And it brings men to Christ,
(1.) As it convinces them of their sin. The prohibitions of the law convince men of their sins of commission; and the injunctions of it convince them of their sins of omission. Hence says the apostle, Romans 3:20. 'By the law is the knowledge of sin,' Romans 7:7. 'I had not known sin but by the law,' etc. There are many things which men had never reckoned sins unless the law of God had discovered them.
(2.) By discovering unto them the dreadful wrath and curse of God that is due unto them for their sins. It tells them, 'Cursed is every one that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them,' Galatians 3:10;
(3.) By awakening their consciences under a sense of their guilt, and apprehensions of their misery, and begetting in them bondage and fear, whereby they are brought to a clearer sight of their need of Christ, and of the perfection of his obedience.
(2.) To the unregenerate: Particularly it is,
[1.] For a looking-glass to let them see their state and case, by convincing them, that 'by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in God's sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin,' Romans 3:20; and so to bring them to Christ, who has wrought out a perfect righteousness for their justification.
[2.] For a bridle to hold them in with its commands and threatenings, who otherwise would regard nothing. 'The law (says the apostle) is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners,' etc. 1 Timothy 1:9.
[3.] For a scourge, vexing and tormenting their consciences, and making them uneasy in a sinful course, rendering them inexcusable, and laying them under the curse.
(3.) To them that are in Christ. It serves,
[1.] To magnify Christ unto them, showing them their obligation to him for fulfilling it in their stead. 'O wretched man that I am! (says the apostle); who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord,' Romans 7:24, 25. 'Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, cursed is every one that hangs on a tree; that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith,' Galatians 3:13, 14.
[2.] To be a rule of life unto them, wherein they may express their gratitude by obeying the law of Christ. So the law leads to Christ as a Redeemer from its curse and condemnation, and he leads back to the law as a directory, the rule and standard of their obedience to him.
Objection But does not the apostle say, Romans 6:14. 'You are not under the law but under grace?' and Galatians 5:22, 23. 'But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, &c.—against such there is no law?'
Ans. Believers are not under the law as a covenant of works, to be either justified or condemned thereby. For the apostle says, 'Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us,' Galatians 3:13; and that there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.' They are neither under the commanding nor the condemning power of that law, seeing Christ has given perfect obedience to it as a covenant of works, so that under that character it can have nothing to demand of them; and has fully satisfied all its demands in point of punishment, having suffered the very penalty threatened therein. So that as a covenant of works they are entirely delivered from it. And as to the fruits of the Spirit in them, they are the product of the Spirit, agreeable to the will and law of God; and no law can be against them, seeing they are agreeable to the very letter and spirit thereof. But believers are still under the law as a rule of life, according to which they are to regulate their hearts and lives. It is the pole star that must direct their course to Heaven, and is of singular use to provoke and excite them to gratitude to Christ, who has perfectly fulfilled it in their room and stead.
I shall conclude with drawing a few inferences from what has been said.
Inference. 1. That the Pope is Antichrist, and that man of sin, who shows himself as if he were God, by commanding things contrary to and inconsistent with the moral law, 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4. The Papists add canons and traditions to the moral law, as if it were in itself an imperfect rule of manners. This is taxing God's wisdom and goodness, as if he knew not to make his own laws, or would not give a sufficient and complete rule to his creatures. This is a provoking sin in the sight of God; and a most dangerous thing it is to add to or impair his holy law. See Revelation 22:18, 19.
2. Is the moral law the rule of our obedience to which we ought to conform ourselves in heart and conversation? Then what ground of reproof is there here to many among you! Are there not many who cast God's words behind their backs, and trample upon his commandments? Some set up their carnal wisdom, as the standard and rule of their actions, and regulate themselves by the dictates of their corrupt reason. Others subject themselves to the law of their lusts and passions. They study to fulfill the desires of their fleshly mind, and to gratify their sensual appetite; but have no regard to the holy law of God. They break all these cords, and cast all the divine commands from them. This their way is their great sin and folly, exposes them to the wrath of God, and sooner or later will bring down Heaven's vengeance on their guilty heads.
3. It is necessary that the law be preached, in order to convince men of their sin, and inability to yield perfect obedience to it, that they may betake themselves to Jesus Christ, who has fulfilled all righteousness for every one that will come to him for deliverance from sin and the wrath to come. It is necessary to be studied and known by all who would attain to true holiness both in heart and life, which principally lies in a sincere and upright obedience to the whole law of God, in dependence upon the grace that is in Jesus Christ. The law is a lamp to their feet, and a light to their path; and the more they study it in its spirituality and extent, the more vigorously will they press after conformity to it.
4. Let us remember we are under a law in whatever case we be; and therefore our actions are a seed that will have a proportionable harvest. And there will be a day of judgment wherein every man's works and actions will be narrowly examined. Let us therefore study to conform ourselves to the holy law of God, being holy as God is holy, and exercising ourselves to keep consciences void of offence both towards God and towards man.
THE MORAL LAW SUMMARILY COMPREHENDED IN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
MATTHEW 19:17.—If you will enter into life keep the commandments.
THIS is Christ's answer to a self-justifier, who expected life by the works of the law. Christ, to convince him of his folly, sends him to the law, saying, If you will enter into life, keep the commandments.
There are only two things which I take notice of here for our purpose. 1. That by the commandments are understood the ten commandments, verse 18 where several of them are specified. 2. That under these commandments he comprehends the whole moral law; for this resolution of the young man's question is founded on that, Galatians 3:12. 'The man that does them shall live in them;' compared with verse 10. 'For as many as are of the works of the law, are under the curse.' The man had deceived himself in taking the commandments only according to the letter, and therefore thought he had kept them; but Christ finds him out new work in these commandments, which he had not thought of.
The doctrine I observe from the text is,
DOCTRINE. 'The moral law is summarily comprehended in the ten commandments.'
In discoursing from this subject, I shall show,
I. How the commandments were given.
II. Why the law was thus given and renewed.
III. How the moral law is summarily comprehended in the ten commands.
IV. Apply.
I. I shall show how the moral law or ten commandments, were given. There are ten commandments, not more nor fewer, as appears from Deuteronomy 10:4 where they are expressly called ten. And therefore the papists, who in some sort leave out the second, split the tenth into two, to make up the number. They were given to the Israelites after they came out of their Egyptian bondage; for they that cast off Satan's yoke, must take on the Lord's. They were given two ways.
1. By an audible voice from the Lord on mount Sinai, accompanied with great terror. Never was law given in such a solemn manner, with such dread and awful majesty, Exodus. 19 Deuteronomy 4:5. Hebrews 12:18. The people were commanded to wash their clothes before the law was delivered to them. By this, as in a type, the Lord required the sanctifying of their ears and hearts to receive it. There were bounds and limits set to the mount, that it might breed in the people dread and reverence to the law, and to God the holy and righteous Lawgiver. There were great thunderings and lightnings. The artillery of Heaven was shot off at that solemnity, and therefore it is called 'a fiery law.' The angels attended at the delivery of this law. The heavenly militia, to speak so, were all mustered out on this important occasion. In a word, the law was promulgated with the marks of supreme majesty; God by all this showing how vain a thing it is for sinners to expect life by the works of the law; and thereby also showing the necessity of a Mediator.
2. The ten commandments were written on two tables of stone, and that by the finger of God himself. This writing them on stone might hold out the perpetuity of that law, and withal the hardness of men's hearts. There were two tables that were given to Moses, written immediately by God himself, Exodus. 31 ult. These Moses brake, chapter 32:16, 19; plainly holding out the entertainment they would get among men. Then other two tables were hewn by Moses, yet written by the finger of God, chapter 34:1; for by the law is the sinner hewed, but by the spirit of gospel-grace is the law written on the heart. These two tables were afterwards laid up in the ark of the covenant, in order to be fulfilled by Christ, who is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes. This writing of the law upon tables of stone is justly supposed to have been the first writing in the world; and therefore this noble and useful invention was of divine origin, and the foundation of all Moses's after writings, which have been so useful to the church in all ages.
II. I shall show, why the law was thus given and renewed.
1. For the confirmation of the natural law. For though there was no need of such a confirmation of the law while man stood, yet such was the darkness of the mind, the rebellion of the will, and disorder of the affections and other faculties, that there remained only some relics of it, which that they might not also be lost, the ten commandments were given.
2. That the same might be corrected in those things wherein it was corrupted by the fall, or defective. And indeed there was great need of it in this respect. For the law of nature in man's corrupt state is very defective. For,
(1.) It cannot carry a man to the first cause of all his misery, even Adam's first sin, and discover the evils of lust and concupiscence that lurk in his heart. Mere natural light can never teach a man to feel the weight and curse of a sin committed some thousands of years before he was born, or to mourn for that filthiness, which he contracted in his conception, and for those sproutings of sin in his nature. The apostle tells us, that this cannot be learned without the law, Romans 7:7. 'I had not known sin but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, you shall not covet.'
(2.) The law of nature is defective, because natural Judgment is thoroughly distorted and infatuated, so that it is ready to reckon evil good, and good evil, light darkness and darkness light. Nature is ready to dictate unto men, that they are 'rich and increased with goods, and stand in need of nothing; while in the mean time they are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.'
(3.) It is defective, because it does not drive men out of themselves for a remedy. The sublimest philosophy that ever was did never teach a man to deny himself, but always taught him to build up his house with the old ruins, and to fetch stores and materials out of the usual quarry. Shame, humiliation, confusion of face, self-abhorrence, condemning ourselves, and flying to the righteousness of another, are virtues known only in the book of God, and which the learned philosophers would have esteemed both irrational and pusillanimous things.
(4.) It is defective, because by nature in particular men never knew nor had experience of a better state, and therefore must needs be ignorant of that full image of God in which it was created. As a man born and brought up in a dungeon is unable to conceive the state of a palace; or as the child of a nobleman stolen away, and brought up by some beggar, cannot conceive or suspect the honors of his blood; so corrupted nature is utterly unable, that has been born in a womb of ignorance, bred in a Hell of impurity, and enthralled from the beginning to the prince of darkness, to conceive, or convince a man of, that most holy and pure condition in which he was created.
3. To supply what was wanting in it, being obliterated by sin. In the ages before Moses, the Lord's extraordinary appearances and revelations were more frequent, and the lives of men were much longer, than they were afterwards. In Moses's time they were reduced to seventy, or little more. These aged patriarchs transmitted the knowledge of the law and men's duty to their descendants; and by this means it was handed down from father to son; but by degrees men's lives were shortened, and following generations were involved in ignorance of God and his law. Therefore, to supply this defect, and to prevent the knowledge of it from utterly perishing, was the law promulgated at Sinai.
4. To evince and convince of the necessity of a Mediator, the people that saw not this defect. When the law was thus given anew, and men saw their utter incapacity to fulfill it, by giving that due obedience it required, they would come, through the conviction of the Holy Spirit, to see the necessity of a Mediator for satisfying the law, both as to its command and penalty.
III. I shall show how the law is summarily comprehended in the ten commandments. To be summarily comprehended in a thing, is to be summed up in it, to be abridged and compendised as it were. The commandment is exceeding broad, and runs through the whole Bible; but we have a summary or short view of it in the ten commands given by the Lord on Mount Sinai. The ten commandments are the heads of all the duties of the law largely contained in the whole Bible. They are the text which Christ himself, the prophets, and apostles expounded. They comprehend the whole duty of man, Ecclesiastes 12:13. There is nothing that God requires but may be reduced to one of these commandments. So faith is a duty of the first command, as it obliges men to believe whatever God reveals. The first commandment concerns the object of worship, requiring us to know and acknowledge God to be the true God, and our God, and to worship and glorify him as such, in heart and life. The second relates to the means of worship, requiring us to receive, observe, and keep pure and entire, all such religious worship and ordinances as God has appointed in his word. The third respects the holy and reverend use of God's names, titles, attributes, ordinances, words, and works. The fourth requires us to sanctify the Sabbath, that day which he has set apart for his own worship and service. The fifth relates to the duties we owe to one another in our several places and relations, as superiors, inferiors, or equals. The sixth requires the preservation of our own life and that of others. The seventh respects the preservation of our own and our neighbor's chastity, in heart, speech, and behavior. The eighth relates to the lawful procuring and furthering the wealth and outward estate of ourselves and others. The ninth requires the maintaining and promoting of truth between man and man, especially in witness-bearing. And the tenth requires us to be contented with our own condition, and to have a right and charitable frame of spirit toward our neighbor and all that is his. And every commandment forbids whatever is opposite to or inconsistent with what it requires.
As to the rules necessary to be observed for the right understanding of the ten commandments, the following things are to be noticed.
1. They respect not only the outward actions, but the inward motions of the heart. The law is spiritual, and so reaches the inward as well as the outward man. It reaches the understanding, will, and affections, and all the other powers and faculties of the soul, as well as our words, works, and gestures. The law is spiritual, Romans 7:14 reaching the heart as well as the life; and therefore we ought to study conformity to it in both. The lawgiver is a spirit, and beholds all the motions and inclinations of the soul, as well as the actions of the body; and is grieved and offended with the impurities of the heart, as well as with the enormities of the life; and therefore he requires an internal obedience, as well as an outward conformity to his will. The law extends to the imagination, that most roving and unstable faculty in man, and to dreams that are bred there.
But some may say, What is to be thought of men's dreaming that they are breaking God's commandments, e. g. profaning the Sabbath-day, swearing, lying, etc. while really they are fast asleep, are not doing so, nor opening their mouths, etc.?
Ans. No doubt it is sin, and will damn you if it be not pardoned, and washed away by the blood of Christ: For,
(1.) The scripture condemns it. Hence the apostle, Jude. 8 speaks of 'filthy dreams that defile the flesh.'
(2.) The consent of the heart unto sin, the delectation that it finds in it, makes a man guilty; and the soul is always a rational agent, and this consent is given to these temptations in sleep.
(3.) A man when awake thinking what he does is sinful, though upon the matter it be not, yet it is sin to him; e. g. a man taking his own goods, which yet he thinks are another man's, is guilty of theft before God: for whatever is not of faith is sin. So is it in this case.
(4.) As these things arise from corrupt nature, so readily they follow on some such motions that people have been taken up with them awake, or from a loose, carnal, and secure frame. They are looked on as sinful by tender consciences.
(5.) As men may do something pleasing to God in a dream, so may they do something to displease him, 2 Kings 3:5.
(6.) The law impressed upon the heart is designed to keep it even in sleep, Proverbs 6:22, 23. 'When you sleep, it shall keep you. For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light.' But you may say, What if a man has been watching against these things, praying against them, etc. and yet in sleep falls into them? I answer, It is still sinful, in so far as the heart complies with the diabolical suggestion; and the truth is, by grace temptation is sometimes resisted in sleep, as well as when we are awake.
2. The commandments require perfection. No partial obedience can be admitted or sustained. The least defect is fatal, and exposes to the curse. This ought to be seriously considered, that we may see our need of Christ's blood and righteousness, to cover and atone for our obedience, and all its defects.
3. Whatever sin is forbidden, the contrary duty is commanded; and where any duty is commanded, the contrary vice is forbidden. For instance, when God forbids us to have any other gods before him, he at the same time commands us to worship and adore him, the only living and true God. When he forbids the profanation of his name, he requires that esteem and reverence should be given to it.—When he forbids to steal, he commands the preservation of our neighbor's goods, by all the means that are lawful and proper for us to use. When he forbids us to kill, he commands love to our neighbor, and the preservation of his life by all lawful means. On the other hand, when God requires us to remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy, he forbids the forgetting and profanation of it. When he commands us to honor our parents, he forbids us to be undutiful or injurious to them. And indeed the nature of the thing itself requires this: for the duties enjoined by the law cannot be performed without shunning the vices which it forbids; and the sins forbidden by the law cannot be avoided, unless the contrary virtues enjoined by it are performed.—This shows the insufficiency of negative holiness; for we must not only do what the law forbids, but perform what it requires; otherwise no obedience is given to it at all.
4. Under one sin or duty, all of the same kind are forbidden and commanded: For instance, when the Lord forbids us to kill, he forbids us also to beat and wound our neighbor; and all envy, malice, and revenge, are forbidden at the same time. When he forbids to commit adultery, he forbids also incest, fornication, and all unclean imaginations, thoughts, purposes, and affections. When he forbids to steal, he forbids rapine, robbery, and all deceitful dealing by false weights and unjust measures. On the other hand, when the Lord commands to have no other God but himself, he commands us to love him, to reverence, worship, and adore him. When he commands us to remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy, he commands us to make conscience of the duties of his worship and service. When he commands us to love our neighbor, he commands us to do all the good offices unto him which are in our power to perform. And when any sin is forbidden, all means and things leading thereto are forbidden. And so gross actions are named, not to pass over lesser ones, but to make them more abominable, while we see how God looks on them, giving them such gross names.
5. The prohibition of the effect includes also the prohibition of the cause, from which the effect flows. For instance, when the Lord forbids the profanation of the Sabbath, he forbids also all those works by which the Sabbath may be profaned. When he forbids impurity he forbids intemperance, drunkenness, gluttony, and whatever may incite thereunto. When he forbids us to kill, he forbids anger and wrath, malice and revenge, from which bloodshed does oft-times proceed. On the other hand, when the law requires chastity, it enjoins also temperance and sobriety, and diligence in those particular callings wherein God has placed men in the world, their being means and helps thereunto, and the source as it were from whence they proceed.
6. The precepts of the second table of the law must yield to those of the first, when they cannot be both performed together. For instance our love to our neighbor must be subjected to our love to God; yes, we are commanded to hate father and mother for Christ, Luke 14:26. When our love to our parents and relations comes in competition with our love to Christ, and is inconsistent with it, then we are not bound unto it: and when the commands of men run cross to the commands of God, then God is to be obeyed rather than men, as the apostles show, Acts 4:19.
7. Whatever God forbids in his law is at no time lawful to be done; and whatever he commands is always our duty. Therefore it is said, Deuteronomy 4:9. 'Only take heed to yourself, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life.' Yet every particular duty is not to be done at all times: for there are many duties enjoined us which suppose certain conditions; and if these be wanting, there is no place for the performance of the duties. For instance, we are commanded to honor our parents; but this supposes they are alive or present with us, or else there can be no place for that duty. But whatever vices are forbidden in God's law, they are at no time lawful to be done. The negative precepts bind us always, and at all times. We are continually to shun and avoid everything that is evil.
8. Whatever is forbidden or commanded with respect to ourselves, we are bound, according to our places and stations, to endeavor that it may be avoided or performed by others, according to the duty of their places. Hence it is said, Exodus. 20:10. 'The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God: in it you shall not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your man-servant, nor your maid-servant, etc.
I shall conclude with a few practical inferences from this subject.
Inference. 1. This doctrine lets us see that the rule of man's obedience is not enrapt up in darkness and shades, is not ambiguous, or hard to be understood. The rule is not far-fetched, and to be found out by hard study and laborious inquiry. No; it is plain and obvious to the common sense and reason of mankind. It is contained in ten plain words, and explained and illustrated in every book of the Bible. Nay, it is in some measure written on the hearts of all men; every son and daughter of Adam has some remains of it written on their hearts, which all the boisterous and dashing waves of corruption have never been able to efface. We may say of it, as the apostle does of the gospel, The rule of your obedience, O man, 'is near you, even in your heart and in your mouth.' So that it is in vain to pretend ignorance of this rule. All pretenses of ignorance in this matter are mere affectation, and most unaccountable.
2. What matter of regret is it, that in a land of light, where the Bible is, which contains in it this rule of obedience, and enforces it with the strongest motives, people should be so ignorant of what is so much their interest and advantage to know! They are woefully ignorant of both the law of God, and the spirituality and extent thereof; and pay no manner of respect to it in their heart or practice.
3. The law is perfect, and requires a full conformity thereto. It requires the utmost perfection in every duty, and forbids the least degree of every sin. So that life and salvation are absolutely unattainable by it, since no man can perform such an obedience to it as it requires. Our salvation is suspended in obedience to the law; which since we cannot perform, let us be induced to betake ourselves to the obedience and satisfaction of Christ, by which the law is magnified and made honorable, and with which God is well pleased; and will be pleased with every sinner that takes the benefit thereof.
4. The commandment is exceeding broad, reaching to every motion, desire, and affection of the heart, as well as to every action we perform. It is a rule both for our hearts and our lives. Let us then study to know this holy law of God in its spirituality and extent, and yield that obedience to it which it requires; sincere, flowing from right principles in the heart, and directed to right ends; universal, in respect of parts, without mincing; cheerful, in respect of the manner; and constant and perpetual, as to the duration. And the Lord give us understanding in all things, to know and do our duty, to the glory of his name.
LOVE TO GOD AND OUR NEIGHBOR, THE SUM OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
MATTHEW 22:37, 38, 39.—You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
MARK 12:30.—You shall love the Lord your God,—with all your strength.
THIS is an answer made by our Lord to a captious question put to him by a learned scribe. If Christ had pitched on any particular command of the ten, the lawyer, for so the questioner is called, would certainly have excepted in some other, and accused him of vilifying some other commands; but Christ gives the summary of both tables of the law, yes, of the whole scriptures touching a holy life: You shall love the Lord your God, etc. In which words may be noticed,
1. The sum of the first table of the law that is, love to the Lord, and that such love is superior and transcendent; such love as gives the whole man to the Lord, with all the strength of all the powers of soul and body.
2. The sum of the second table; that is, love to our neighbor, and that such love as we bear to ourselves, (but not as to God,) sincere and constant.
3. Christ compares the two together, showing that love to God is the command first to be looked unto, and by which the other is regulated, whether as to loving ourselves or our neighbor. The second is like unto it, as having the same authority, and must be joined with the first, and is the fountain of acceptable obedience to the second-table commands, as the first is the true spring of acceptable obedience to the first table duties.
4. He shows the whole law and the doctrine of the prophets, touching holiness, to depend on these as the sum of all.
The doctrine arising from the words is,
DOCTRINE. '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 neighbor as ourselves.'
The sum of all the commands (you see) is love. So the ten commandments are the law of love; they are a law that is chiefly conversant about the heart, which is the seat of love. The scope of them is to unite men to God and to one another; for there is no such cement of hearts as holiness.
The text and doctrine consists of two parts.
I. The sum of the first table of the law is love to God.
II. The sum of the second is love to our neighbor.
I. The sum of the first table of the law is love to God.
Here I shall show,
1. The ingredients of this love to God, whereof it is made up.
2. The properties of it.
3. Why this love is due to God.
4. How love to the Lord stands in relation to other commands.
5. Lastly, Apply.
First, I shall show the ingredients of this love to God, whereof it is made up.
1. Knowledge of him. An unseen but not an unknown God can be loved with all the heart, soul, strength, and mind. Ignorant souls cannot love God; what the eye sees not, the heart likes not: Hell fire may have heat without light: but all heavenly fire has light as well as heat. You must know God.
(1.) Who he is to wit, the Lord Jehovah, the one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These are the object of divine love.
(2.) What he is in his attributes, as an infinite, eternal and unchangeable Being. Comprehend him you cannot, but apprehend him you must, as he has revealed himself. And so when love is shed abroad in the heart, the veil is first taken from the eyes.
2. Chusing him for our God, our chief good and portion, Psalm 73:25. 'Whom have I in Heaven but you? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides you.' You shall love the Lord with all your heart. If we love him not above all, we do not truly love him; if we chose him not for our portion, we love him not above all. The soul that loves the Lord, sees that in him which may satisfy it, nothing out of him that is necessary to make the soul happy. Hence it does, by choice, take up its everlasting rest in him, and finds a match to itself in him.
3. Cleaving to him as our God: Love the Lord your God. Love is a uniting thing; it makes the soul cleave to the Objection You must cleave to the Lord, to his ways, word, etc. Not to be separated from him by whatever wedge the devil or the world may drive. Not to be bribed from him, nor boasted either, Canticles 8:7. 'Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.' And cleave to him as your God; for so he will be loved. He must be your God, before you can love him aright. Thus was it with Adam, and Christ; and thus it is with believers.
Hence it is evident,
(1.) That faith is the first spring of all true obedience. There is no obedience but from love, no love but from faith, whereby God becomes our God.—How can it otherwise be? for although God is in himself the chief good, if he be not ours, the more perfect Being he is, the more terrible an enemy he is.
(2.) The way prescribed by God himself for us to attain love to him, is to apprehend him by faith to be our God; which now can be no otherwise but by faith in Christ. So that to love God, that he may love us, is a preposterous method. But let us labor to embrace Christ, and so to believe God loves us in him; then shall the heart natively flow out in love to him, 1 John 4:19; 'We love him, because he first loved us.'
4. High thoughts and a transcendent esteem of him, Canticles 5:10. 'My beloved is white and ruddy, the chief among ten thousand.' He is the best of beings, the most amiable and lovely, that shines with unparalleled perfections; and therefore is to have the supreme place in our estimation as well as affections. Here our esteem cannot go too high, more than we can reach beyond what is infinite. We cannot launch out too far in admiration of his glory. Thus should we highly and honorably think of him as the best and greatest. It is a sad character of the wicked man, Psalm 10:4 that 'God is not in all his thoughts.'
5. Desire towards him, Psalm 73:25. Whatever other desires we have, the main stream of our desires must run towards the Lord, Psalm 27:4 to the enjoyment of him in this life, and the perfect enjoyment of him hereafter; so that God not being perfectly enjoyed here, it is natural to the lovers of God to desire to 'be with Christ,' Philippians 1:23; 2 Thessalonians 3:5.
6. Lastly, Delight in him, Canticles 1:13. The soul must delight in him, have a pleasure in him. The lover of the Lord is well pleased there is such a being, well pleased with all his attributes, all his relations to us, all his words, ways, and works. And the want of this makes men haters of God in the scripture-sense.
Secondly, I shall show the properties of this love required of us. It is,
1. Sincere, not in word and tongue only, showing much love, Proverbs 23:26, but inwardly, our hearts being with him, to him, and for him.
2. Most strong and vigorous, even as much as we are capable of, all the strength we are masters of. Love may be sincere, though not most intense, and that the gospel may accept: but the law requires a perfection of degrees as well as of parts. The greatest fervor of affection is due to God, and the greatest ardency of love, beyond which we cannot go.
3. Pure and absolute for himself. Not that we are not to love God as our benefactor, Psalm 116:11 but we must love him also and mainly for those excellencies that are in him, Canticles 1:3 for his truth, justice, mercy, holiness, etc.
4. A superlative and transcendent love. We must love God above all creatures whatever, ourselves or others, Luke 14:26. And so must all other loves be swallowed up in his; we must love nothing beside him, but for him, and in due subordination to him.
5. An intelligent love, Mark 12:33. We must love him as those that see good cause to love him. There is no blindness in this love; for there are no faults in the object to be hid; but the better we see, the more we love.
6. Lastly, An efficacious working love, 1 John 3:18. Therefore says the apostle, Romans 13:10. 'Love works no ill to his neighbor: therefore 'love is the fulfilling of the law.' Love devotes the whole man to God, to serve his glory in the world, Romans 14:7, 8 and makes him ready to forego what is dearest to him in the world for God, Acts 20:24 and sets a man on doing and suffering at his call.
Thirdly, I will show why this love is due to God. It is due because of his transcendent excellency, and absolute loveliness. There is nothing in him but what is good; all goodness is in him, and nothing wanting; and each part of goodness is in him infinitely. No love, then, is suitable to him but such a love. There is nothing lovely in the creatures, but what is eminently in him, Matthew 19:17; but there is something wanting in all the creatures, that must stint our love.
Fourthly, I shall show how love to the Lord stands in relation to other commands.
1. It is the chief duty. It is what God mainly requires, and what we ought mainly to aim at. It is the end, to which even faith itself is but the mean, and in that respect is by the apostle preferred to all others, 1 Corinthians 13.
2. It is the comprehensive duty of all, Romans 13:10. As is our love, so will our obedience be. Were our love perfect, our obedience would be so too. It is the fruitful womb out of which proceed all other duties.
3. It is a universal duty; it goes through all. Whatever acceptable service we do, must be done in love; and if it be not done so, it is not accepted. Other duties are the meat, but this is the salt to season all.
Fifthly, I shall deduce some inferences from what has been said.
Inference. 1. What a sweet law is the law of God, that law of love! how rational! how drawing! Did ever prince make a law for his subjects to love him? But God has made such a law: and all his loyal subjects cheerfully obey it, and find their advantage in it.
2. See the excellency of the love of God. The whole law is comprised in love. Would you have the most short way to obedience? then love the Lord. Take a hold of this master-link, and you will draw the whole chain after you. He who loves God, will keep his commandments; for love is the fulfilling of the law.
3. How little obedience or true holiness is there in the world? for how little love to God is there? Alas for the cold hearts that make benumbed hands and feet! Did men love God as he deserves and requires to be loved, could they break his commandments, and live in such carelessness and unconcern about God and his laws, and the important concerns of their souls, as the generality do? Alas! the coldness of professors in the cause of God, is a melancholy evidence that love to him is at a low ebb among us.
4. What an absurd thing is the device of supererogating, and doing more than the law requires? We are required to love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind? Is it possible to go further than that? Nay, can any man attain to such a perfect love? No person that truly loves God can possibly think he exceeds the pitch of loving him required in the law. On the contrary, it is matter of grief to him that he cannot love him enough. Any measure he has attained proves unsatisfying. He will still desire and labor to have his love more increased, and rendered more lively and intense. So far will he be from imagining he loves God more than it is his duty to do.
5. There is no true religion where there is no heart-religion: and there is no respect to the law, where there is no love. It is in vain for men to pretend to be religious, while they have no principle of love to God implanted and operating in their hearts. External obedience is of no avail without internal, founded upon and proceeding from love to God as its source. All true obedience is the fruit of love to God; and where love prevails in the heart, there will be a sincere respect to God's commandments, to his word, his ordinances, and institutions.
6. Let us all be induced to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind: esteeming and preferring him above all other things, acquisitions, possessions, and enjoyments; giving him the chief room in our hearts, delighting and resting in him as our chief good and upmaking portion; desiring to be more and more acquainted with him, and ardently longing to have copious manifestations of his love and grace made to ourselves; and in a sincere respect to all his laws, statutes, and precepts. And let us be ready to part with all we have, all our enjoyments and possessions, however valuable and dear they may be to us; at the Lord's call and command, whenever we can keep them no longer in a consistency with our love to God and his cause. We must forsake all to follow Christ; and lay down our life, rather than not love the Lord our God.
I now proceed to consider the second part of the text and doctrine, namely,
II. The sum of the second table of the law is love to our neighbor.
In discoursing from this point, I shall show,
1. Who is our neighbor.
2. What is that love we owe to our neighbor.
3. How we are to love our neighbor.
4. Lastly, Apply the point.
First, I am to show who is our neighbor. Every man is our neighbor, known or unknown, friend or foe, good or bad, Luke 10:29, 37. This neighborhood is founded on two things especially. 1. That common relation that is among all as branches of one stock, having one common nature, Acts 17:26. 2. The common capacity of all to enjoy the same God, and to meet in him; all men being capable of that happiness, because of their immortal souls capable of enjoying an infinite good. Hence see,
1. How the hatred of evil men and love to them may be reconciled, Psalm 139:21. 'Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate you? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against you? Compare the text, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. We have the common grounds aforementioned whereon to love all men; but forasmuch as sin is a depravation of that common nature, and the only thing that mars men's enjoyments of God, we hate their sins, though we love their persons; as we hate the moth, because we love the garment. Hatred to men's persons, whoever or whatever they be, is inconsistent with this command that enjoins the love of our neighbor as well as the love of God. But to hate and abhor their sins and evil deeds, is quite consistent with love to their persons. And agreeably to this, David's hatred to those who hated God, ultimately terminated on their sins, and not their persons.
2. We see here a ground whereon we ought to love our enemies. Their common nature with us, and their common capacity of happiness with us in the enjoyment of God, remains, though they do evil to us; and therefore we are bid pray for them, Matthew 5:44. 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.
Secondly, I shall show what is that love we owe to our neighbor. In it there is,
1. A due esteem of him, 1 Peter 2:17. 'Love the brotherhood.' There are no persons but who have something for which they are to be esteemed. Some have grace, all have gifts, natural or moral, in greater or less measure, which are from God, James 1:17. None want precious souls, that are of more worth and value than the world. And the pearl must be esteemed precious, though in a dunghill.
2. Benevolence or good-will to them, Luke 6:31. 'As you would that men should do to you, do you also to them likewise.' We are heartily to desire their welfare for time and eternity, to wish them the best things. This good affection we are to bear to all. And this brings in with it a sorrow for the evil that befalls them, and joy in their good and prosperity.
3. Beneficence, doing them what good we can, doing to them as we would be done to, Matthew 7:12. Galatians 4:10. We are not born for ourselves, but for God and our neighbor; and therefore we should lay out ourselves to be useful in the world and to advance the good of mankind, so far as we are capable.
4. Delight, or delight in them, so far as any good thing appears in them, 1 Peter 2:17. 'Honor all men.' This does in a special manner belong to the saints, those excellent ones, in whom should be all our delight, Psalm 16:3. Yet a delight in the good gifts of God in any man, and their amiable qualities and dispositions, is our duty.
Thirdly, I shall show, how we are to love our neighbor: As yourselves, says the text. Here two things are to be noticed.
1. That there is an allowable self-love, a love that we may and ought to bear to ourselves; for that is the rule of love to our neighbor. We are to love our own bodies, by all lawful means to see to their welfare. For, says the apostle, Ephesians 5:29. 'No man ever yet hated his own flesh: but nourishes and cherishes it.' And we are to love our own souls, by all means to endeavor their salvation, and to beware of all that may obstruct it. For, says wisdom, Proverbs 8:36. 'He who sins against me, wrongs his own soul.' We are to love ourselves in God, and for God; for he and not man's self, is his chief end. This becomes sinful self-love, when it does not remain in due subordination to the love of God, or destroys love to our neighbor.
2. In what sense we are to love our neighbor as ourselves? This has a respect both to the matter and to the manner. As to the matter, this likeness lies chiefly in three things.
(1.) That we neither wish evil, nor do evil to our neighbor, more than to ourselves.
(2.) That we wish all good to our neighbor as to ourselves, and be ready to do all we can to procure and further it.
(3.) That we desire these things to our neighbor, out of a true respect to him, and his advantage, not our own.
As to the manner,
(1.) We must love our neighbor as truly and really as we love ourselves. No man feigns a love to himself: so must our love to others be sincere, not like the devouring lips, and the wicked heart.
(2.) Earnestly, as we love ourselves, without coldness and remissness, Matthew 24:12. This is a fire that should never slacken, but burn intensely.
(3.) Constantly, without changing. Though they be not so favorable to us at all times, yet we are still to love them as ourselves. Our love to them must not be suspended on their love to us, and the effects of it: but it must glow to them, even though we meet with ungrateful returns.
Fourthly, I shall now draw some inferences from this point, the loving of our neighbor as ourselves.
Inference. 1. Great need have we to have our self-love rectified. For, as when the rule is wrong, nothing can be right that is regulated by it; so, when our love to ourselves is wrong, we cannot rightly love our neighbor. This is the love of companions in sin, who involve themselves and one another in one common ruin.
2. All the commands of the second table have respect to ourselves in the first place as our nearest neighbor. Thus, 'You shall not kill' that is, you shall not kill yourself nor your neighbor. So the duties of religion are reduced to these three, to 'live soberly, righteously, and godly,' Titus 2:12.
3. Hatred of our neighbor is a universal sin against the commands of the second table; as love to our neighbor is the chief, comprehensive, and universal duty of the second table, so is the hatred of our neighbor, the chief, comprehensive, and universal sin against that table.
4. Several persons are reprovable here.
(1.) Those that in effect do not love themselves, but go on in sinful courses, ruining to their bodies, and ruining to their souls; who treat themselves as the accustomed of enemies. Men must answer to God for this; for their souls and their bodies are not their own, but the Lord's.
(2.) Those that love themselves only, and not their neighbors; who value not how it be with others, if it go well with themselves; and can comfortably build up themselves on the ruin of others. All seek their own things. This is a most base and selfish disposition, destructive of society, and very offensive to God.
(3.) Those that love some of their neighbors, but not all. One will say, Such an one is my enemy; be it so, but yet love to him is law; and his enmity against you cannot dissolve the obligation of the law of God to love him. Love him that he may be your friend; love him, but not his faults. The more need he has of your love, that he may be reclaimed; as we run to the physician for love to the man, not to his disease. The loving and showing love to one that is our enemy, is the fairest and readiest way to reclaim and gain him. If anything will do it, this is the most sensible means.
(4.) Those that love in word, but hate in heart; that love like Joab and Judas: they that speak fair to a man's face, but would cut his throat behind his back. Such a practice is abominable hypocrisy, odious to God, and nauseous to every honest man.
(5.) Those that pretend to love their neighbor, but their love is fruitless; their neighbor is never the better of it. They say they love such a one; but they never give him good counsel, though he stands in need of it; they do him no service, though it be in their power, and his circumstances require it. Such love is all pretense, without substance or reality.
6. Lastly, They that do not love the Lord's people, who are their best neighbors, the substance and strength of a church and nation, who are, as Elijah was, 'the chariots of Israel, and the horsemen thereof.' Love is a duty to them above all men, for what they are in themselves, lovers of God, and all good men, and for the relation they stand in to God, as his people, his redeemed, and sanctified ones, who when the time of their warfare here is accomplished, shall be translated to the kingdom of glory, to the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Not to love them is a great sin, inconsistent with the law and love of God; and to hate them, especially on account of their goodness, is direct rebellion against God, an insult to the Majesty of Heaven, whose subjects and servants they are.
5. Let us study to love our neighbor, and to bury all strifes, animosities, hatred, and malice. For motives, consider,
(1.) That little love to our neighbor is a sad sign of little love to God, 1 John 4:20. 'If a man Say, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?'
(2.) Consider the bond of one common nature, which should cement and knit together all of the same species.—Lions and Wolves do not prey on their own kind, but show kindness to one another. As men are of one common nature derived from Adam, should they not love and show kindness to one another? for they are strictly brethren, and are as strictly bound to love one another as such.
(3.) Consider the love of God and Christ to men. It was most free unmerited, unsought, and unsolicited. They loved not friends but enemies and rebels, who had taken up arms against their Creator and Sovereign Lord. Men had by their sin involved themselves in utter ruin, and could not help themselves. In such deplorable circumstances did God fix his love on them, and send his Son to redeem them from the curse of the law, and from the wrath to come, by laying down his life for them. And shall not such a glorious and unspeakable instance of the love of the great God, and his Son Jesus Christ, to the ruined race of fallen man, excite and stir us up to love our neighbor, and to do him all the service we can, both as to his temporal and eternal interests?
Lastly, How happy would the world be if men loved others as themselves? Suppose ten men; so love would contract ten into one, and multiply one into ten. How happy would each of these ten be, who would have ten hearts to care for him, twenty eyes to see for him, twenty hands to work for him, and twenty feet to travel for him!
Let the Lord's people especially love one another. They are the Sons of God, and the brethren of Christ. God loved them with an everlasting love, and with loving-kindness he drew them to himself. Christ redeemed them at no less price than that of his most precious blood. The Holy Spirit is their Sanctifier and Comforter, and will abide with them forever. They are members of one family, fellow-citizens, and of the household of faith. They are members of one body, of which Christ is the head. They have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one hope of their calling. They have all fled from one city, that of sin and destruction; and they are all traveling unto one heavenly country. They are all clothed with one garment, the complete righteousness of their Surety and High Priest. They are all the spouse of Christ, who is one. They are all brethren, children of the promise. Shall then such persons fall out by the way? Nay, shall they not dearly love one another? 'Be kindly affectionate one to another, (says the apostle), with brotherly love,' Romans 12:10. 'Let brotherly love continue,' Hebrews 13:1. Such love is a sure and infallible sign of your being the friends and followers of Christ. 'By this (says our Lord), shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love to one another.' Be at peace then among yourselves, and show that you are subjects of the Prince of peace, and heirs of the legacy of peace which he has left you.
I have put Boston's section on "The Ten Commandments" on its own page.
OF MAN'S INABILITY TO KEEP THE LAW PERFECTLY
ECCLESIASTES 7:20.—For there is not a just man upon earth, that does good, and sins not.
HAVING at considerable length endeavored to open up and explain the law of God, as abridged in the ten commandments, in some measure in its spirituality and extent, by describing the several duties required, and sins forbidden therein; and shown the absolute impossibility of yielding a perfect obedience thereto, in order to give a title to eternal life; and directed you to come to Christ by faith, as the end of the law for righteousness, that your guilt may be removed by the application of his blood to your consciences, and that you may be sanctified by his Spirit: I now proceed to the exposition of the remaining questions in the Catechism, which I shall mostly discuss in a very short discourse on each, as I have been so long on the former part of this excellent composition.
Here is the undoubted character of all the human race, fixing imperfection and sinfulness on the best of the kind in this world, and so concluding all to be liable to sin, and under it. In the words there are two things.
1. A position, There is not a just man upon earth. By the just man in this text is not meant an evangelically just man, or one just in respect of parts, though not of degrees; but one who is legally so, just in the eye of the law, as having yielded perfect obedience to all its commands; this is plain from the original pointing. Compare Psalm 143:2. 'Enter not into judgment with your servant; for in your sight shall no man living be justified.' By this time the man Christ had not appeared on the earth: so it is meant of mere men. On the earth; to denote that in Heaven they are just in that sense, arrived to legal perfection.
2. The explication of it; There is none who does good, and sins not. There are some who do good, as all the godly; but they sin withal, and that daily, for so the word is to be understood of their using to sin.
The doctrine arising from the words is.
DOCTRINE. 'Legal perfection is not attainable in this life, but the best sin daily.' Or, '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 discoursing from this doctrine, I shall,
I. Show what is legal perfection, or perfect keeping of the commands.
II. Consider the attainableness of this perfection.
III. Show how the saints sin daily, and break the commands.
IV. Confirm the point, That perfection is not attainable in this life.
V. Give the reason of this dispensation.
VI. Apply.
I. I shall show what is legal perfection, or perfect keeping of the commands. It is a perfect conformity of heart and life to the commands of God; and implies,
1. A perfection of the principle of action, Matthew 22:37. 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart.' For if the heart and soul be not sinless and pure, as in innocent Adam and Christ, but be polluted as our nature is, there can be no perfect keeping of the commands of God. That pollution will stain all.
2. A perfection of the parts of obedience. No part must be lacking, every command of whatever nature must be kept: 'For it is written, cursed is every one that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them,' Galatians 3:10. If one be wanting, all is wanting, all is marred. Hence says James, chapter 2:10, 'Whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all.'
3. A perfection of degrees in every part, Matthew 22:37. 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your soul, and with all your mind.' Sincerity is not enough in the eye of the law. In everything one must come to the highest pitch, or there is no perfection.
4. A perfection of duration or continuance, Galatians 3:10 forfeited; without apostasy or defection, continuing to the end; for one bad trip after a course of obedience will mar all.
II. Let us consider the attainableness of this perfection.
1. Adam before the fall was able to have kept the commands perfectly; he might have attained it; for 'God made him upright,' Ecclesiastes 7:29. That law was the rule of Adam's covenant-obedience; and perfect obedience to it was the condition of the covenant, which God could not have proposed to him, if he bad not given him strength sufficient to perform it.
2. The man Christ, who was not a mere man, but God-man, who was not only able to keep the law perfectly, but actually did so. He made out what the first Adam failed in, to the salvation of the elect, and in their stead; and this in the whole extent of legal perfection. His obedience was perfect in the principle, Hebrews 7:26 being holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners;' in the parts, Matthew 3:15. 'It becomes us to fulfill all righteousness;' in the degrees, John 15:13. 'Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends;' and in continuance, Philippians 2:8. 'He became obedient unto death.'
3. The saints in Heaven are able, and do actually perfectly obey whatever God's will to them is: so that though in this life they do not attain it, yet in the life to come all the children of God shall attain perfection, Hebrews 12:23 where mention is made of 'the spirits of just men made perfect;' and there they shall be fully freed from sin, and all possibility of sinning.
4. But since Adam fell, no mere man is able, while in this life, either of himself, or by virtue of any grace now given, to keep the commands perfectly. Of himself he cannot do it; neither is there any measure of grace given to any in this life, whereby they may be enabled to do it: for 'in many things we offend all,' Jam. 3:2. This inability is owing to the remains of corruption that cleaves to every one of them in this mortal state, Romans 7:23; and from which they ardently long to be delivered, verse 24. And there is no promise of grace given in the word, whereby believers may be enabled to keep the commands of God perfectly; nor would it be consistent with the nature of spiritual growth, which is manifestly, like the natural, gradual; and it is certain that the saints do not arrive at their full stature until they come to the mansions of bliss, 1 Thessalonians 3:13.
III. I shall show how the saints sin daily, and break the commands. And here I shall consider,
1. How many ways the commands may be broken.
2. In what respect the saints sin daily.
3. How these failures of theirs break the commands.
First, I am to show how many ways the commands may be broken. They may be broken three ways, in deeds, words, and thoughts.
1. In deeds, done contrary to the command of God, or not done, though required. God's commands are the rule of men's outward life and conversation; and whatever we do or commit contrary to the law, is our sin, whether it be public, private, or secret, Psalm 14:2, 3.
2. In words, either speaking what we ought not, or not speaking what we ought, or speaking what we ought, but not in the manner commanded. (The same is to be said of actions or deeds.) God's commands are a rule to our tongues, and tell us what to speak, how to speak, and what not to speak; and by regardlessness of the rule, the tongue is 'a fire, a world of iniquity,' Jam. 3:6.
3. In thoughts. Here God's law goes beyond men's laws as to the whole kind; for our thoughts are open to God, who is omniscient, as words or actions are equally open to him, Hebrews 4:13 and liable to his law. For says Christ, 'Whoever looks on a woman to lust after her, has committed adultery with her already in his heart, Matthew 5:28. And so one may sin by thinking what he ought not, by omitting of good thoughts, and by not managing good thoughts, in the manner required by the law.
Secondly, I shall show in what respect the saints sin daily, in thought, word, and deed.
1. Negatively: not that the saints fall into gross sins daily, against the letter of the law, either in thought, word, or deed. God will disown those for saints who entertain vile thoughts daily, swear daily, lie daily, do unjust things, or neglect his worship daily, Galatians 5:19–21; 'Now, the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, Adultery, fornication, impurity, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, ravelings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I also have told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.' Such spots are not the spots of God's people. Christ's dwelling by his spirit in them, the breaking of the reign of sin in them by the power of divine grace, and their habitual tenderness and watchfulness, hold them off that way of life. But,
2. Positively. Besides that saints may be surprised into gross sins in thought, word, and deed, sometimes by inadvertency, weakness, and violence of temptation, which is the burden of their souls, they sin every day in thought, word, and deed, when they keep the strictest watch, and have most of the divine assistance. What day passes, if without vile thoughts, yet without vain ones; without idle words, if without mischievous words; when there is not something done or undone, which God's law condemns, though perhaps the world cannot quarrel them? Besides, what good thought is thought, good word spoken, or good deed done by them, which the holy law will not spy a flaw in, as to the manner of its performance?
Thirdly, I am to show how these failures of theirs break the commands, while they sincerely endeavor to obey them. Why, the moral law is the eternal rule of righteousness, and in whatever state the creature be, he is bound to obey his Creator, whether in a state of nature or grace, glory or damnation. And though perfection be not attainable in this life, yet it is the saints' duty, as well as that of others, Matthew 5 ult. 'Be you perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect.' So every coming short of that perfection is their sin, needing to be taken away by Christ's blood.
And thus men daily break the commands of God in thought, word, and deed; which is the only possible way of transgressing the divine law; and our doing so in these respects shows the equity of that charge which the Lord has against every man, 'Behold you have done evil, as you could,' Jeremiah 3:5.
IV. I shall now confirm the point, That perfection is not attainable in this life.
1. The scripture attests, that there is no man without sin, 1 Kings 8:46; 'For there is no man that sins not:' and that 'in many things we offend all,' Jam. 3:2. If any man set up for it in himself, the Spirit of God Bays he deceives himself, 1 John 1:8. See an unanswerable question, Proverbs 20:9; 'Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?
2. The best have a corrupt as well as a gracious principle, making the spiritual combat, never ending until death give the separating stroke, Galatians 5:17. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other; so that you cannot do the things that you would.'
3. We are taught always to pray for pardon, 'Forgive us our debts:' but sinless creatures need no pardons. This clearly shows, that all sin, and so come short of perfect obedience.
4. Lastly, Consider the spirituality of the law, and its extent, with human weakness, and you will see this clearly. And hence it is that perfectionists are strangers to the spirituality of the law: for if they rightly viewed it, they would be far from dreaming of having attained to perfection, which never a mere man did in this life.
Objection Noah was perfect, Genesis 6:9; Job perfect, Job 1:8 Ans. They, and all saints, have a gospel-perfection, which is a perfection of parts. They had a comparative perfection; that is, they were more holy and circumspect than many others. But that they were not legally and absolutely perfect, is clear from Noah's drunkenness and Job's impatience. And where is the saint whose history we have at any length in scripture, but we see their imperfections recorded, to stain the pride of all glory?
But is it not said, 'Whoever is born of God does not commit sin?' 1 John 3:9. Ans. The meaning is not, that the saints do not sin at all; but that they do not commit sin with the full consent of the will; do not take pleasure and delight in it; do not make a trade of it, as unregenerate persons do; and do not commit the sin unto death, 1 John 5:17, 18.
Objection But seeing it is impossible to yield perfect obedience to the law, how is it consistent with the justice and wisdom of God to require of us that which we are not able to perform.
Ans. The laws of God are both possible and just; and there is no duty now required of us which he did not endow us with strength in our creation to perform. Yet in our fallen and corrupted estate, perfect obedience is become impracticable through our weakness and aversion to duty. And there can be no injustice in God to require what is impossible for us to perform, when the impossibility solely arises from our own fault. It is not God, but we ourselves, that have made the perfect observation of his laws impossible; and though we have wasted our stock, and are become bankrupts, yet he may in righteousness exact from us that debt of obedience which we justly owe him.
Objection But are not believers delivered both from the commanding and condemning power of the law, and how are they then bound to yield any obedience to it?
Ans. Believers are certainly delivered as well from the commanding as condemning power of the law, considered only as it is the covenant of works, which requires obedience to it in order to justification; but they are by no means delivered from it as it is the law of Christ, or a rule of duty. For the moral law is the eternal rule of righteousness, a transcript of the divine perfections, which every believer is bound to copy after, and to apply to the blood of Jesus for pardon so far as he falls short of obeying it: for without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Personal holiness is as necessary to the possession of glory, or to a state of perfect holiness and happiness, as is the morning-light to the noon-day warmth and brightness; as is a reasonable soul to a wise, healthy, strong, and full-grown man; as an antecedent is to a consequent; as a part is to the whole; and as motion is necessary to evidence life. And the ten commandments, being the substance of the law of nature, a representation of God's image, and a beam of his holiness, behooved, forever, unalterably to be a rule of life to mankind, in all possible states, conditions, and circumstances. Nothing but the utter destruction of human nature, and its ceasing to be, could divest them of that office; since God is unchangeable in his image and holiness. Hence there being a rule of life to Adam and his posterity, had no dependence on their becoming the covenant of work: but they would have been that rule, though there never had been any such covenant: yes, whatever covenant was introduced, whether of works or of grace, and whatever form might he put upon them, they behooved still to remain the rule of life. No covenant, no form whatever, could ever prejudice this their royal dignity.
V. I shall give the reason of this dispensation. God could make the saints perfect in the moment of conversion. He does it not. So it seems good in his sight. Many things are said to account for this; but what is most satisfying is, that it does exalt the freedom of grace and the power of it most, Ephesians 2:4, 7; 'But God, who is rich in mercy, for the great love with which he loved us—that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus.' The more sins are pardoned to a sinner, he is the deeper in Christ's debt. The faster the root of sin appears in one's nature, the more appears the power of grace in rooting it up. It is surely the glory of our great Pilot, that he brings the broken ship to land, through so many hazards.
Caution. Abuse not this doctrine, to think light of sin because of it. It is the worst of diseases which most men die in, and no man is perfectly cured of until death. Make not your way to Hell the easier, because of the difficulties in the way to Heaven: for they that strive towards perfection here will get it at death, when you sitting still at your ease will be carried down the stream to destruction.
Keep not you some particular lust, because none are perfect: for all the saints are perfect in parts, though not in degrees; so far perfect, as to 'hate every known sin,' Psalm 119:128.
Inference. 1. There is no justification, favor, and peace with God, by our own works, Psalm 143:2. 'In your sight shall no man living be justified.' Far less can there be works of supererogation. We must be justified by the righteousness of Christ received by faith, or not at all.
2. Whatever your attainments be, be not proud of them; your wants and defects may always keep you humble. The barren branches are towering ones, while the fruitful boughs hang down their heads.
3. Inexpressibly miserable is the case of unbelievers. They are without Christ; they must stand or fall by the law, and it is quite beyond their power to keep it.
4. Bear one another's burdens; for every man offends. We are in an hospital where most are dying of their disease, and the best but in the way of recovery.
Lastly, Let the struggling saints long for Heaven, for there the perfection they would gladly be at shall be attained, and not until then. And this may comfort them under all their failures, which they mourn over, that in the other world they shall arrive at full perfection in holiness.
OF SIN IN ITS AGGRAVATIONS
EZEKIEL 8:15.—Turn yet again, and you shall see greater abominations than these.
IF we look on sin absolutely, and in itself, as it is a transgression of the divine law, no sin is small, but a great evil, greater than any evil of suffering, which men can be exposed to: but if we look on sin comparatively, one sin compared with another, all are not alike, but some greater than others, as we see from these words. Wherein may be observed,
1. Great sins which the prophet had seen, shown to him in vision by the Lord himself, who knows the sins of all men, with their nature and qualities, verse 5, 11, 14.
2. Greater sins he was yet to see. He had seen the image of jealousy, namely, the image of Baal, set up at the gate of the altar, verse 5; the chambers of imagery in some of the courts, and the ancients of Israel, at their idolatrous service, verse 10, 11; the women weeping for Tammuz in the court of the women, or of the priests, by which the Lord's courts were turned into stews. These were great abominations, and yet greater than any of these was their worshiping of the sun, verse 16 and that in God's account: for it was done in a more sacred place, at the very door of the temple; it was more public, and had greater contempt of God in it, than the rest.
The text affords this doctrine:
DOCTRINE. 'All sins are not alike;' but 'some sins in themselves, and by reason of several aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God than others.'
In discoursing from this doctrine, I shall show,
I. What is understood by the heinousness of sin.
II. In what respect some sins are more heinous than others.
III. Apply.
I. I am to show what is understood by the heinousness of sin. Its great offensiveness is hereby understood. Sin may be offensive unto men; but we consider it here as sin, and offensive to God. So for sin to be heinous in the sight of God, implies,
1. That it is offensive to God, displeasing to him, and grieving to to his Spirit, Jeremiah 44:4. 'Oh! do not this abominable thing that I hate.' He cannot away with it, he cannot endure it before his eyes, but shows his indignation against it. It is an abominable thing before the Lord; hence it is called filthiness, impurity, vomit, etc all which provoke loathing; so Revelation 3:16 it is said, 'I will spue you out of my month.' It is contrary to his nature and will, and gives him displeasure and offence; and, if it were possible it would disturb his repose, as smoke does to the eyes, Isaiah 65:5. 'These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burns all the day.'
2. It is greatly offensive to God; for that also is implied in the notion of heinousness; every fault is offensive, but some faults are heinous offences. Such an offence is sin to God. It gives him great offence, Psalm 5:4, 5. 'You are not a God that has pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with you. The foolish shall not stand in your sight; you hate all workers of iniquity.' Habakkuk 1:13. 'You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and can not look on iniquity. There is no sin that God is indifferent about, none that he can pass without a mark of his indignation on it: He 'will by no means clear the guilty,' Exodus 34:7.
Now here mark well two things.
1. That all sin is heinous in the sight of God, namely, greatly offensive. There are no small sins before God, though some are greater than others; but the least of them is great in itself, and great in his sight, Habakkuk 1:13 forfeited. This is plainly implied, while it is said, 'Some sins are more heinous than others.'
2. That there are degrees of heinousness. Though the sin which the blinded soul accounts but a mote, is a mountain in the eyes of God and of an enlightened conscience, yet all are not alike for all that; but as some mountains, so some sins are greater than others.
II. I shall show in what respects some sins are more heinous than others.
First, Some sins are in themselves, and in their own nature, more heinous than others. There are some capital offences, as it were, which God's wrath does in a special manner burn against, and which are most provoking to the eyes of his glory: such as murder, Genesis 4:10; oppression, Habakkuk 2:11; which are noted to be crying sins; blasphemy and contempt of God, Exodus 5:2; idolatry, Ezekiel 8; unbelief, rejecting of Christ, and disobeying the gospel, Matthew 22. John 3:19. 2 Thessalonians 1:8. But of all sins the most heinous is the sin against the Holy Spirit, Matthew 12:31.
Secondly, Some sins are more heinous than others by their aggravations; and the greater and more numerous the aggravating circumstances be that attend any sin, it is the more heinous. Now, sins are aggravated, or made greater or more heinous than others,
1. From the persons offending; the more notable they are, the more heinous are their sins; as the greater the fire is, the more mischief will it do, if it go out of its place; the greater the tree is, the more mischief will it do by its fall. Thus one and the same sin is greater in magistrates, ministers, parents, and the aged, than in subjects, people, children and the younger sort. For men's places and offices, which respect the government of others in the way of holiness and justice, aggravate their sins, Romans 2:21. 'You which teach another, teach you not yourself? you that preach a man should not steal, do you steal?' And so do the greater gifts and profession that one has, Luke 12:47, 48. 'That servant which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he who knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whoever much is given, of him shall much be required: and to whom men have committed much, of him will they ask the more.' And so does the greater experience of God's goodness which they have had, as in the case of Solomon, of whom it is said, 1 Kings 11:9. 'The Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice.' For such advantages make their sins more pernicious, in respect of the influence of their example on others, as in the effect of Peter's dissimulation at Antioch, Galatians 2:13 of whom it is said, 'And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. And these advantages carry them over greater obligations they are under to the Lord.
2. From the parties offended. Let men consider whom their sins strike against, if they would see how heinous they are. For as a thurst in a leg or arm is not so much grievous as one at the heart, so is it in this case.
1st, Sins immediately against God, his Son, and his Spirit, are more heinous than such sins against man, any man whatever, 1 Samuel 2:25. 'If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him: but if a man sin against the Lord, who shall entreat for him? Thus lying and dissembling to God, is more heinous than lying to men, as appears in the case of Ananias and Sapphira, Acts 5:4 because of the infinite distance of the immediate objects of the sin. Thus, whereas in all sins of the second table, there is a fault against God, and against man too; yet the fault against God, and the injury done to his glory, is the bitterest ingredient in it. Thus David's sin in the matter of Bathsheba and Uriah was a great sin in respect of these persons; but See how he confesses it, Psalm 51:4. 'Against you, you only have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight.'
2dly, Sins against superiors in the church, state, and family, are more heinous than the same sins are, if done against persons of their own rank and condition. The reason is, because superiority given of God is such a divine impress on a man, that it makes his character in some sort sacred, as in the case of Moses, Numbers 12:8. Hence it is that disobedience to parents is so heinous a sin, Proverbs 30:17. 'The eye that mocks at his father, and despises to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.'
3dly, Sins against those whom we are under special engagements and obligations to, are more heinous than such sins against others we have no such concern in. Religion teaches gratitude, and Sets a black mark on ingratitude, Psalm 55:12. 'For it was not an enemy that reproached me, then I could have born it; neither was it he who hated me, that did magnify himself against me, then I would have hidden myself from him.'
4thly, Sins against the saints and people of God are more heinous than against others, because of their relation to God, as being those in all the world dearest to him, Matthew 18:6. 'Whoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.' Such are sins against weak saints, as being more liable to get harm by them than those who are strong, Romans 14:15. 'If your brother be grieved with your meat, now walk not charitably. Destroy not him with your meat, for whom Christ died.'
Lastly, Sins against the common good of all, or of many; for the wider the effects of one sin go, it is still the worse, Joshua 22:20. 'Did not Achan the son of Zerah commit a trespass in the accursed thing, and wrath fell on all the congregation of Israel? and that man perished not alone in his iniquity.' 'One sinner,' says Solomon, 'destroys much good;' and the more the greater is his sin.
3. From the quality of the offence. A Sin may be vested with such qualities as will make it much more heinous than when divested of them. These evil qualities are many; I will reduce them to two Heads.
(1.) Intrinsic qualities. Thus sins against the letter of the law are more heinous than others; mother-sins, which are big and bring forth many others, besides simple ones; sins consummated by action, as well as while merely in the heart, Jam. 1:15; sins that are scandalous, as well as others not so; sins the injury in which to men admits of no reparation, more than that of others in which it does. This was the reasonwhy death was the punishment of adultery, not of fornication because in this last case the man was obliged to marry the woman.
(2.) Extrinsic qualities; which again are of two sorts.
[1.] Being done against means whereby one might be with-held from sin, Matthew 11:21, 22. 'Woe unto you, Chorazin, Woe unto you, Bethsaida: for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for you.' Thus one's sinning against mercies drawing them from their sin, judgments and rebukes from the word or providence, from God or men, sinning against the light of one's own conscience, do all of them aggravate sin.
[2.] Being done against bonds one has taken on him against the sin, when men sin against purposes and resolutions of amendment, against their covenants and engagements to the Lord, whereby they are bound to stand off from such courses, Ezekiel 17:19.
4. From the manner of committing it. Who can imagine, but sin done deliberately, and willfully, and presumptuously, is more heinous than sin committed through inadvertency and weakness? If one be impudent in his sin, delight in it, and boast of it; if he go on in it obstinately, fall into it frequently, and relapse into it after convictions and humblings for it; every one of these aggravates the guilt.
5. From the time of it, as in the case of Gehazi, 2 Kings 5:26 where Elisha says to him, 'Went not mine heart with you, when the man turned again from his chariot to meet you? is it a time to receive money, and to receive garments, and olive yards, and vineyards, and sheep, and oxen, and men-servants, and maid servants?' Thus sins committed on the Lord's day, immediately before or after divine worship, are more heinous than at other times. And so is sinning just after reproofs, warnings, engagements; or in a time when the anger of the Lord is going out against the land, family, or person, as Ahaz in his distress.
Lastly, From the place of it. Thus in a place where the gospel is preached, sin is more heinous than elsewhere, Isaiah 26:10. 'Let favor be showed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the Lord.' Sins done in public before others, are more heinous than those in secret; for in the former many may be denied, as in the case of Absalom, lying with his father's concubine on the house top.
A few inferences shall conclude this subject.
Inference. 1. Never think light of sin, nor slightly of Christ, and your need of him, since all sin is heinous in God's sight, and exposes the sinner to his just vengeance.
2. There will be degrees of torment in Hell, though the least degree will be dreadful, Matthew 11:21 since there are degrees of sinning.
3. No wonder God's anger go out against us, and the land wherein, and the generation among whom we live: For heinous are our sins beyond those of many, and a frightful look may we get of them in this glass. Magistrates, ministers, parents, the aged, professors, sons and daughters of the Lord, have corrupted their ways, as well as others. Our sins have struck immediately against God, and against those who are vested with his authority in the state, in the church, and in families, against his people, and the common good. Sins against the letter of the law, scandalous offences abound, over the belly of light, mercies, and judgments, covenants national, sacramental, and personal; and these continued in obstinately, in a time when the Lord's hand has oft been stretched out and drawn in again, in a land of light.
4. Repent, and flee to the blood of Christ for pardon, if so be our heinous sins may not be our ruin.
5. The means of grace which we enjoy will either promote our salvation, or they will aggravate our damnation.
6. When you examine yourselves, and think on your sins, consider the several aggravations of them; and lie deep in the dust before the Lord on account thereof; and, through the grace of God, abstain from every sin, and all appearance of evil.
OF THE DESERT OF SIN
GALATIANS 3:10.—It is written, Cursed is every one that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
THOUGH some sins be greater than others, yet there is no sin but deserves damnation, which we can no where better learn than from the voice of the law, which is the verdict of a just God upon the demerit of sin. This verdict in the text is found written, Deuteronomy 27 ult. 'Cursed be he who confirms not all the words of this law to do them.' And herein consider,
1. The party condemned by the law; every sinner. The law condemns him for omissions as well as commissions, for breaking off from obedience as well as never entering upon it; for every sin, even the least sin, the least breach of the law; as well as the greatest: Cursed is every one that continues not in all things, etc.
2. The doom pronounced in all these cases, is God's wrath and curse; Cursed is he who continues not in all things, etc. This curse binds over to wrath in this life and that which is to come. It is God's own voice in his law, whose justice will not allow him to fix a punishment on sin greater than it deserves. Hence the doctrine is,
DOCTRINE. 'Every sin deserves God's wrath and curse, both in this life and that which is to come.'
Here I shall show,
I. What is God's wrath and curse, which every sin deserves.
II. What this wrath and curse is.
III. That there is no sin which does not deserve God's wrath and curse.
IV. Deduce some inferences.
I. I shall show, what is God's wrath and curse which every sin deserves.
First, God's wrath is no passion nor is there any perturbation in God, though an angry God. His wrath is a fire without smoke, and may be taken up in these two things.
1. God's displeasure against the sinner, Psalm 5:4, 5. 'For you are not a God that has pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with you. The foolish shall not stand in your sight: you hate all workers of iniquity.' Sin makes the soul loathsome and hateful in God's sight, kindles a holy fire in his heart against the sinner. Were the sun continually under a cloud, and the heavens always covered with blackness, none of these would be comparable to the state of a sinner under wrath, Psalm 90:11. 'Who knows the power of your anger?'
2. God's dealing with sinners as his enemies, whom he is incensed against, Nehemiah 1:2. 'God is jealous, and the Lord revenges, the Lord revenges and is furious, the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries: and he reserves wrath for his enemies.' Isaiah 1:24. 'Ah! I will ease me of my adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies.' The wrath of a king is as the roaring of a lion; what then must the wrath of God be, an enemy, whom we can neither fight nor flee from, neither outwit nor outbrave? Of this wrath it is said, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.'
Secondly, His curse is his separating one to evil, Deuteronomy 29:21. 'And the Lord shall separate him unto evil, out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses that are written in this book of the law.' It is a devoting the sinner to destruction, to all the direful effects of the divine wrath. It is the tying of the sinner to the stake, setting him up for the mark of God's vengeance, that a broken law and offended justice may disburden all their arrows into him, and that on him may meet together all miseries and plagues, flowing from the wrath of God.
II. I shall show, what is God's wrath and curse in this life and that which is to come.
1. In this life they comprehend all the miseries of this world which one meets with on this side of time, miseries on the body, relations, name, estate, employment; miseries on the soul, as blindness, hardness, vile affections, horrors of conscience, etc. and, finally, death in the separation of soul and body. Thus they make a flood of miseries in this life.
2. In the life to come, they comprehend eternal death and damnation, and an eternal being under the punishment of loss and sense in Hell. So they make a shoreless sea of miseries in the life to come. But of both these I spoke largely in a former part of this work. [Vol. I.]
III. I proceed to show, that there is no sin which does not deserve these, but that every sin deserves this wrath and curse.
1. The wages of every sin is death, Romans 6:23 that is, eternal death, as is clear from the opposition to eternal life, Romans 5:12. 'As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.' Job 24:19. 'The grave consumes those which have sinned.'
2. Every sin is a breach of the law; and he who breaks it in one point, is guilty of all, Jam. 2:10. He who is guilty of all deserves the wrath of God both in this life and that which is to come. The commands of the law have all one author, whose majesty is offended by whatever breach; they all meet in one command, namely, love, and every sin is against that; the law requires universal obedience.
3. Christ died for all the sins of all his elect, 1 Peter 3:18. 1 John 1:7. Wherefore, since he suffered God's wrath and curse for them, they certainly deserve it.
4. The least sin will condomn a man, if it be not forgiven, Matthew 5:19; even idle words, Matthew 12:36, 37; and all must be forgiven graciously, Psalm 103:2; wherefore God might in justice not forgive them; and if never forgiven, they may be ever punished.
IV. I come to show, why every sin deserves so much. The reason is, it is a kind of infinite evil; and therefore, since the punishment is deservedly proportioned to the offence, it deserves infinite punishment. Sin is an infinite evil in two respects.
1. In respect that the guilt and defilement of it is never taken away, but endures forever, unless the Lord himself in mercy do remove it. The party offended is the eternal God, whose being never comes to an end; The sinner never being able to expiate and put away his offence, Romans 5:6 it ever remains, unless the Lord himself do remove it, as in the elect by his Son's blood; wherefore the party offended, and the offence over remaining, the punishment must needs be eternal; for no unclean thing can ever enter Heaven, therefore the sinner must be forever excluded and punished.
2. In respect it wrongs an infinite God. It is evident among men, that the demerit of a crime rises and falls according to the quality of the person against whom it is committed; so that a crime against one's prince is punished with death, that would not be so, if against a person of meaner condition. Since God, then, is of infinite dignity and majesty, the offence against him deserves infinite punishment. And because the creature, being finite, is not capable of punishment infinite in value, therefore it is necessarily infinite in duration. There is a manifold wrong to God in the least sin.
(1.) It wrongs his infinite sovereignty, Jam. 2:10, 11. He is Sovereign Ruler of his creatures; his will must be their law, since by his will they were created. But every sin casts off the natural yoke of his sovereign authority, and sets up the sinner's will against it. So that it is accounted a fighting against God, Acts 5:39.
(2.) It wrongs his infinite goodness, Exodus 20:1, 2. All the good natural, moral, or spiritual, which the creature has, it has it from God, who is the fountain of all good. So that sin is a doing ill for good, the worst of ills for all the good one ever at any time enjoyed. Yes, it is a turning of the good received from God against him; as if one advanced from the dunghill by his prince, should use all his favors in rebellion against him.
(3.) It wrongs his holiness, Habakkuk 1:13. He cannot endure unholiness. He is omniscient and omnipresent; so sin brings into the presence of the great King, that which by all things he cannot endure to look at. It sets up the worst of defilement before his spotless holiness; and does in its own nature tend to deface the glory of it.
(4.) Lastly, It breaks his law, the eternal rule of righteousness, 1 John 3:4. It is all right, and of perpetual equity, and is the hedge which God has set about his rational creatures: but sin breaks down that hedge, and breaks over it. And the sinner is a rebel against the King's law, 1 Samuel 15:23; and in effect sets God at defiance, inasmuch as it breaks the law, to which such a penalty is annexed.
I shall now deduce some inferences.
Inference. 1. Let this commend the love of Christ in dying for sinners, Romans 5:8. O matchless love, which made him willing to be made a curse for us, that we might be delivered from the curse of the law! Every sin deserves God's wrath and curse. What a flood of wrath behooved then to come on him, when he stood in the stead of a whole elect world!
2. Let this convince you of the ill that is in sin. There is more ill in the least sin than the greatest sufferings. Therefore never say, in compliance with a temptation, It is but a little one; for the least sin will make you eternally miserable in Hell: and can you account that a little evil which exposes to God's curse here and hereafter?
3. Inexpressibly terrible is the deserving of many sins, and gross sins, when the least of them deserve God's wrath. If one do so, how great must that wrath be, which thousands and millions deserve? If an idle word deserves God's wrath and curse, what must deliberate lying words deserve, but a deep footing in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.
4. Let believers admire free grace, pardoning mercy, and sin-atoning blood, Psalm 32:1; that secures them from bearing the desert of their sin. Let them live to the Lord, by whom they live. Think not little of your sins, O believer, though there be now no condemnation for you, being in Christ Jesus, Romans 8:1; for every one of your sins deserves, though they cannot bring on, God's wrath and curse. Yet tremble at the thoughts of sin; for you are like the three children in the fiery furnace, compassed with a fire of sin that would burn you up, but the effect of it is stopped by the mediation of Christ.
Lastly, Sinners, be convinced of your alsolute need of Christ. You must be in him, else you are ruined forever. Can you bear that wrath which incensed justice will inflict on all that are out of Christ? Can you get free of it without him? Wherefore be alarmed, and exhorted to flee from the wrath that is to come, by fleeing to the Lord Jesus who delivers all his people from it.
OF THE MEANS OF SALVATION IN GENERAL
HEBREWS 2:3.—How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?
A SINNER having heard that sin deserves God's wrath and curse, the question that natively follows is, What way one may escape them? This is answered by the weighty question in the text, How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation? Which we may take up in these two things.
(1.) There is no escaping for sinners, if they neglect the great salvation; they perish without remedy.
(2.) They that do not neglect it, shall surely escape. Here let us consider,
1. The danger sinners are in by their sin. They are in, hazard of perishing under God's wrath and curse; for that is the just recompense of every sin, Hebrews 2:2; of God's wrath consuming them, and his curse binding them down under it forever. He intimates, that all are liable to God's wrath and curse, while he says, How shall we escape, etc.
2. The way how they may escape; namely, by not neglecting, but falling in with the great salvation. The words intimate,
(1.) That there is a possibility of escaping; sinners are not shut up hopeless under the curse.
(2.) The way of escape is not by fleeing from the Judge, and the execution of his sentence: nay, he is omniscient and omnipresent; one cannot outwit him, or get away from his sight, or out of his reach. Nor is it by resisting for he is omnipotent, and none can outbrave him, nor make head against him. But he may escape by falling in with the means of escape appointed by himself, and required by him to be made use of by us. He has provided us with a salvation, a great one; that is, the gospel, which teaches the way of eternal salvation. He requires us, not to neglect it, but to improve it for our escape. It is neglected by unbelief, impenitency, and not using the means prescribed. On the contrary, then, he requires of us faith and repentance, which are the substance of the gospel, Acts 20:21; 'testifying to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ;' and he requires of us the use of the means by which the salvation held forth in the gospel is obtained, Proverbs 8:34; 'Blessed is the man that hears me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors:' for surely they neglect and slight the gospel, who do not believe, repent, or use the ordinary means of obtaining the salvation.
The test affords the following doctrine.
DOCTRINE. 'Whoever would escape God's wrath and curse must not neglect, but fall in with the great salvation,' or, 'To escape the wrath and curse of God due to us for sin, God requires of us faith in Jesus Christ, repentance unto life, with the diligent use of all the outward means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of redemption.'
For explaining this, I shall show,
I. The necessity of faith in Jesus Christ, in order to one's escaping the wrath and curse of God.
II. The necessity of repentance, in order to the same end.
III. Answer the question, Are faith and repentance in men's power, since God requires them of them?
IV. Show the connection between faith and repentance, and escaping the wrath and curse of God.
V. The necessity of the diligent use of all the outward means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of redemption.
VI. Deduce an inference or two.
I. I shall show the necessity of faith in Jesus Christ, in order to one's escaping the wrath and curse of God due to him for sin. It is absolutely necessary; no man can escape God's wrath and curse without it. For,
1. There is no pleasing God without it, Hebrews 11:6. The reason is, because he is only pleased with Jesus Christ, and those who are in him or united to him, Matthew 17:5. If one should weep for his sins until no moisture were left in his body, fast his flesh to a skeleton, and watch ever so carefully against his sin, if he have not faith, he is a lost man; he cannot please God, but must lie forever under his displeasure.
2. It is the great duty of the gospel, whereby one is made partaker of the remedy provided, and without which neither your persons nor performances can be accepted. 'It is the work of God,' John 6:29; 'the command of God,' 1 John 3:23. Your persons will ever be under condemnation without it, John 3:18. And all your other duties will be but ciphers in God's account, multiply them as you will, if faith be not at the head of them.
3. It is that which enters one into the covenant of peace; unites him with Christ, and by which he comes to partake of all saving benefits. If you would escape God's wrath, you must be within the covenant; you must believe, that is, consent to the marriage-covenant, John 6:35. There is no escaping wrath without being in Christ, and united to him, Romans 8:1. That union is by faith, Ephesians 3:17. We must be justified, and that is by faith, Romans 5:1; and sanctified, which is also by faith, Acts 15:9.
4. Salvation and damnation turn upon this very point. Here is the decision of the case, Mark 16:16; 'He who believes shall be saved; but he who believes not shall be damned.' Unbelief will undoubtedly ruin you, Psalm 2 ult. 'Kiss you the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little.' Unbelief is a rejecting of Christ; and they cannot escape who refuse the remedy of sin, Luke 19:27; 'Those mine enemies that would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.'
II. I proceed to show the necessity of repentance, in order to one's escaping this wrath and curse. No adult person can be saved without it. As for infants dying in their tender years, and such others who are not capable of actual faith and repentance, in so far as the Spirit dwells in them, they have the seed of those graces, and shall undoubtedly be saved.
1. The Word of God certifies us, that whoever does not repent shall perish, Luke 13:5. Your souls, then, lie at stake. The sinner is gone away from God, and so is come under the curse. His soul is left in pawn that he shall return; so if he do not return the pawn is lost, and lost forever.
2. Heaven's door is bolted against all impenitent sinners; it is not so wide as to let in a sinner with a burden of unrepented-of guilt upon his back, Revelation 21:27; 'There shall in nowise enter into it anything that defiles, neither whatever works abomination, or makes a lie.' So Heaven you cannot see, and Hell you cannot escape, if you repent not. It is the call of the gospel to you; which, if it be not obeyed, see the effect, 2 Thessalonians 1:7, 8. 'The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven, with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.' To this narrow point the matter is brought, Repent or perish, Ezekiel 18:30, 31; 'Repent and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby you have transgressed, and make a new heart, and a new spirit; for why will you die, O house of Israel?'
3. Repentance is the other duty of the gospel; thereby signifying, that without repentance there is no possibility but we must perish under God's wrath and curse. John the Baptist preached repentance, so did Christ himself, the apostles, etc. How can one think then to escape without it?
4. True faith does always bring along with it true repentance, Zechariah 12:10. 'I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications, and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born.' It is the great gift which Christ is exalted to give, Acts 5:31; as he is a Savior. So impenitent sinners have no part in Christ, nor in his salvation, Matthew 1:21; and therefore they must perish.
III. I proceed to consider the question, Are faith and repentance in men's power, since God requires them of them? Ans. They are not. For God's demands of us are the measure of our duty, but not of our strength, which reaches not to these. For,
1. They are the gifts of God, and the operations of his special grace, Ephesians 1:19. Acts 5:31. And where sovereign pleasure does not determine to give and work them, the party lies under the power of unbelief and impenitency. Hence it is God's grace and good-will which makes one differ from another; not man's free-will. Hence says our Lord, 'I thank you, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in your sight,' Matthew 11:25, 26.
2. Sinners by nature, and in themselves, can do nothing which is good, and therefore cannot believe nor repent, John 15:5. 'Without me you can do nothing,' 2 Corinthians 3:5. 'Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves: but our sufficiency is of God.' In particular they cannot believe, John 6:44. 'No man can come to me, except the Father which has Sent me, draw him.' They cannot repent, Jeremiah 13:23. 'Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may you also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.' They are dead in sin, and must be quickened, yes, created in Christ Jesus to good works. They are in bondage to sin and Satan, 2 Timothy 2:26; therefore cannot come to Christ, nor turn to God, until effectual grace bring them forward, Acts 26:18. 'Open their eyes, and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.'
Objection How then can God require them of us?
Ans. 1. God gave man this power, and he has lost it by his own fault, Ecclesiastes 7:29. 'God has made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions.' If a debtor squander away his substance, the creditor has still a right to require what he owes him: so, though man has lost his power to perform, God has not lost his right to require the duty.
2. Men will not believe their own impotency. They will promise, resolve, and delay to believe and repent, as if these duties were in their own power; they will slight the motions of God's Spirit; yes, they are throwing away the remains of natural light and strength, that have escaped out of the ruins of the fall. So that God may very justly require these of them, to convince them, and stir them up to seek grace.
IV. I proceed to show the connection between faith and repentance, and escaping the wrath and curse of God due to us for sin. Those who believe and repent shall certainly escape. God has said it, that they shall, John 5:24. 'He who hears my word, and believes on him that sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life,' Ezekiel 18:30. 'Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin.' Nay, they are got beyond it already, Romans 8:1. 'There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.' In the moment the sinner comes into Christ, he is no more liable to eternal wrath, nor to the curse; for he is not under the law, but under grace: and the utmost he is liable to, is fatherly chastisements, Psalm 89:30–33. Thus faith and repentance have the connection of appointed means prescribed by God himself, which, by his blessing, are rendered subservient to this great end, of obtaining salvation. Faith is the hand that receives Christ and his righteousness, as the all of salvation, John 1:12; and repentance unto life consists in that godly sorrow for sin, flowing from faith, which is the exercise of all who are concerned about the salvation of their souls, Jeremiah 50:4. 2 Corinthians 7:11.
V. I shall now show the necessity of using all the outward means whereby Christ communicates to his people the benefits of redemption.
1. God has peremptorily required this, Luke 13:24. 'Strive to enter in at the strait gate,' namely, that we strive in the appointed means of grace and salvation. And so he has particularly enjoined us the conscientious performance of each of them.
2. We have no ground to expect grace or salvation but in the use of the means, Proverbs 8:34. 'Blessed is the man that hears me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors,' Proverbs 2:3–5. 'If you cry after knowledge, and lift up your voice for understanding: if you Seek her as silver, and search for her as hidden treasures: then shall you understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God.' 'Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God,' Romans 10:17.
3. The neglect of the means is a contempt of the thing. If we would be healed, we would lie at the pool. If not, we say we care not for cure.
And there is required here, not a careless or merely superficial use of the outward means, but a diligent one; that is an embracing of every opportunity that God in his providence gives us for attending upon them, a careful improvement of them, and a looking earnestly to him for his blessing upon them, without which they will not contribute to our spiritual advantage, 1 Corinthians 3:6, 7.
Question: What is our ability in this point? Ans. The use of outward means is not beyond our reach. One may without saving grace, read, hear, pray, and consider his case. And by these one may attain the highest pitch of preparation for the grace of God, in legal convictions, fears, sorrows for sin, and natural (though not saving) desires of grace. Therefore do what you can; it may be, while you are doing what you can, God will do for you what you cannot do for yourselves, Acts 8:22.
Question: Has God promised to save and convert those who do what is in their power in the use of means? Ans. We dare not say it. But, 1. It is possible. 2. It is probable.
I shall conclude with two inferences.
Inference. 1. Then as ever you would escape God's wrath and curse due to us for sin, repent and believe. Come to Christ; turn from your sins unto God. There is no safety otherwise, but this way you shall be safe. No sin of your's will ruin you, if you believe and repent; and nothing will save you if you do not.
2. Be diligent in the use of the means of salvation. They are laid before you, while they are by the sovereign disposal of Providence, kept from others. Neglect them not, as you would be found to reject the counsel of God against yourselves. And satisfy not yourselves in the bare use of them, but seek grace and salvation in them from Jesus Christ, they being the appointed means of grace.
OF FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST
JOHN 1:12.—But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in his name.
FAITH in Jesus Christ being the main thing required for one's escaping the wrath and curse of God, we come now to speak of it particularly, from these words. In which we have,
(1.) The nature,
(2.) The fruit of faith, namely, the privilege and dignity of adoption into God's family. Passing the latter, [See vol. I.]
We may take notice of the former, namely, the nature of faith, As many as received, etc. Wherein consider,
1. What it is in the general. It is a saving grace, for by it one becomes a child of God, and so an heir of Heaven.
2. What it is in particular,
(1.) The object of it is Christ, he, his name, his person, with his benefits. The acts of it, saving the sinner, are,
[1.] Receiving him; this is explained to be believing. Now, receiving implies an offer of him made to the receiver, which is done in the gospel.
[2.] Resting on him; for it is not a mere believing him, by an historical assent to his word, but a believing on his name, which imports a fiducial recumbency or relying on him, as one who believes another is said to rest on his word.
(2.) The subjects of it are many; not all, but some, namely, the elect of God, quickened by the spirit of regeneration, compare verse 13. 'Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.' These receive Christ for salvation; for he offers himself as a Savior, and the fruit of it in the text is saving.
The doctrine founded on the text is,
DOCTRINE. 'Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace whereby we receive, and rest upon him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel.'
Here we will consider,
I. How faith in Christ is a saving grace.
II. Whence it proceeds.
III. The subject of faith.
IV. The object of it.
V. The saving and justifying acts of it.
VI. The end of these acts of faith.
VII. The ground and warrant of it
VIII. Lastly, Draw an inference or two.
I. I shall show, how faith in Christ is a saving grace. There are four sorts of faith spoken of in scripture.
(1.) Historical faith, which is a bare assent to the truths of God, Jam. 2:19. 'You Believe that there is one God; you do well. The devils also believe and tremble.'
(2.) A temporary faith, which is such an assent, joined with some affection to the truths of God, though unsanctified, like that of the stony ground hearers, Luke 8:13. 'who when they hear, receive the word with joy; but these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.'
(3.) The faith of miracles, which is a belief of the Lord's working some miraculous effect by us, or in us, upon some intimation of his word concerning it, 1 Corinthians 13:2.—'Though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains.' All of these may be in reprobates, and none of them are saving.
(4.) Saving faith, already described from the text.
It is called saving faith, because all that have it shall certainly be saved forever, from sin and God's wrath; yes, as soon as one has it, salvation is his, it is in his possession as to the beginnings of it, Acts 16:31. 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.'
It saves us, not as an act or work, fulfilling the condition of a new law; for so it is excluded, with all other works, from the causing of our salvation, Romans 3:27, 28. 'Where is boasting then? it is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay, but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude, that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.' But it saves us as an instrument, apprehending Christ and his salvation, Romans 3:22. 'Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all, them that believe; for there is no difference.' It is as the looking to the brazen serpent, which saved the stung Israelites; or as the hyssop dipped in blood, and sprinkling the leper, that cleansed him.
II. I come to show, whence this faith proceeds.
1. It is not from our natural powers, the power of man's free-will. 'No man can come to me,' says Christ 'except the Father which has sent me, draw him,' John 6:44. It is not a flower of nature's garden; otherwise one should make himself to differ from others.
2. It is a special gift of God. Hence says the apostle to the Philippians, chapter 1:29. 'Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ,—to believe on him.' It is wrought in the heart by his divine power, 'through the faith of the operation of God, Colossians 2:12. No less power can produce it, Ephesians 1:19. It is ascribed, as to the working of it, to the Father, John 6:44 forfeited; to the Son, Canticles 1:4. 'Draw me;' but in a special manner to the Spirit, Galatians 5:22. 'The fruit of the Spirit is—faith; therefore he is called 'the Spirit of faith,' 2 Corinthians 4:13.
The outward means which the Lord usually makes use of to beget faith in one's heart, is the word, the word of the gospel, preached, heard, or read, Romans 10:17. 'Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.' This is the incorruptible seed which the new creature is framed of, 1 Peter 1:23 the vehicle of saving influences, Galatians 3:2.
III. I proceed to consider the subject of faith. It is not all men, 2 Thessalonians 3:2. 'For all men have not faith.' They are rare ones who get it, Luke 18:8. 'When the Son of man comes, shall he find faith on the earth? But they are,
1. Elect sinners; they only obtain it, Titus 1:1. And they all do obtain it sooner or later, before they go off the world, Act 13:48. 'As many as were ordained to eternal life believed.' The subjects of it are those of the Old Testament as well as those under the New. Hence the apostle to the Hebrews, speaking of the former, says, chapter 11:13. 'These all died in faith.' The subjects of it also are elect infants dying in infancy, though they have not actual faith; who, though they knew nothing of the matter, like the Israelitish infants, Deuteronomy 1:29 have the seed or spirit of faith. This is the general character of the subject. But,
2. More particularly, elect convinced sinners are the subjects of it, John 16:8, 9. 'When he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: Of sin, because they believed not on me.' The plough of the law goes through the heart, in some measure, before this seed be cast into it, Galatians 3:23, 24. 'Before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith, which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.' So that an unconvinced, insensible sinner, is an unbeliever. But,
3. Yet more particularly, elect, convinced, quickened sinners, are the subject thereof, as appears from the text and the following verse. Regeneration in the order of nature goes before believing, and faith is the first vital motion of the regenerated soul. There is first a passive reception of Christ into the soul, whereby Christ comes into the dead soul, and quickens it, and then actual believing, or active receiving of Christ, is the first motion of the new creature. But most particularly,
4. Lastly, Not only the understanding, but the heart and will of such a one, is the subject of faith, where it has its seat; the understanding knowing and assenting, and the will embracing and consenting, Isaiah 53:11. 'By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many,' Romans 10:10. 'With the heart man believes unto righteousness.'
IV. I proceed to consider the object of faith.
1. The real object in general is the whole Word of God, and therefore no falsehood can be under faith, Titus 1:2. But the special real object of it is the promise of the gospel, Acts 16:31. 'Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,' etc. for therein Christ the Savior is held forth to a poor sinner. Faith looks to the whole word; it is persuaded of a divine authority in the commands, and an immoveable truth in the threatenings and promises. Every promise of the word it looks to, and comes wrong to none, while the believer lives in this world, and it lasts: it is a bee that roves through all these flowers in the garden of God's word. But as it is saving and justifying, it settles upon the promise or offer of Christ in the gospel. And,
(1.) The testimony of the word, concerning Christ's ability to save, is a special object of faith in this case, Mark 9:33. 'If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes.' Sin is a dead weight, which the soul finds itself unable utterly to hoist up; but the gospel holds out Christ to be able to remove it, Hebrews 7:25. 'He is able to save unto the uttermost.' Faith assents to this too, Psalm 65:3. 'Iniquities prevail against me: as for our transgressions, you shall purge them away.'
This assent in both cases may be mixed with doubting, yet true, Mark 9:24. 'I believe; help you mine unbelief.' If the soul have as much faith of both, as to venture itself on Christ, though the bride sign the contract with a trembling heart, though the doubting will never be commended, the subscription will be sustained.
2. The personal object of faith is,
(1.) General: God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as we profess in the creed, John 14:1. 'You believe in God, believe also in me.'
(2.) Special; Jesus Christ, as in the text. He is the object of faith, as it saves and justifies the sinner, typified by the brazen serpent in the wilderness, to which the wounded Israelites were to look, and the look was healing, John 3:14, 15. And Christ's person is the primary object of justifying faith, Isaiah 45:22. 'Look unto me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth.' And his benefits, merits, righteousness, etc. are the secondary objects thereof, Philippians 3:8, 9. 'Yes, doubtless, and I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.'
V. I proceed to consider the saving and justifying acts of faith. These are,
1. Receiving him as he is offered in the gospel, as in the text; cordially closing with him, and heartily consenting to take him as he is offered. Hereby the spiritual marriage-tie between Christ and the soul is made. Christ gives his consent in the gospel offer, and the sinner gives his by faith closing with the offer. Now, he is offered in the gospel in all his offices. So faith is a receiving of Christ,
(1.) As a Prophet to be our Teacher, Guide, and Leader, renouncing our own wisdom, Matthew 17:5.
(2.) As a Priest, renouncing all merit and confidence in one's self, duties, and sufferings, and betaking one's self to Christ, his obedience and death, for all, Isaiah 45:24. 'Surely shall one say, In the Lord have I righteousness and strength.'
(3.) As a King, renouncing all strange lords, and receiving him for absolute Governor in the soul, and over the whole man, yielding to bear the yoke of his commands, and the yoke of his cross. Isaiah 26:13. 'O Lord our God, (says the church), other lords besides you have had dominion over us: but by you only will we make mention of your name.'
2. Resting on him as he is offered in all his offices too, Isaiah 26:3, 4. 'You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you: because he trusts in you. Trust you in the Lord for ever; for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.' 2 Chronicles 16:8. 'You did rely on the Lord.' The soul has a burden of weakness and ignorance, and therefore rests on him as a Prophet; I a burden of guilt, but rests on him as a Priest, laying the weight on his blood; a burden of strong lusts and temptations, but rests on him as a King.
This receiving and resting has a most special eye to the priestly office of Christ, faith in his blood. It is a looking to him as lifted up on the cross, Isaiah 45:22; eating of his flesh, and drinking of his blood, John 6:53; and submitting to his righteousness, Romans 10:3. This receiving and resting upon Christ for salvation is in many places called believing in, or trusting on, Christ as our Savior.†
VI. I am to show, what is the end of these acts of faith. It is for salvation, Christ's whole salvation.
(1.) Salvation from sin, Matthew 1:21. 'He shall save his people from their sins.'
(2.) From wrath, 1 Thessalonians 1 ult. 'Which delivers us from the wrath to come;' from the guilt, defilement, dominion, and indwelling of sin. So it is for justification and sanctification. And faith receives and rests on him alone for all these, Galatians 2:16. 'Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ; that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.' So it is a going out of one's self to Christ for all.
VII. I come now to consider the ground and warrant of faith. This is the gospel-offer,
(1.) The sinner has his invitation, Isaiah 55:1. 'Ho, every one that thirsts, come you to the waters, and he who has no money: come you, buy and eat, yes come, buy wine and milk without money, and without price.'
(2.) The declaration of God's good pleasure in their so doing, John 6:29. 'This is the work of God, that you believe on him whom he has sent.' And, lastly, his peremptory command, 1 John 3:23. 'And this is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ.'
I shall conclude with a very few inferences.
Inference. 1. Faith is a precious thing, 2 Peter 1:1. Not to be sworn by, but sought of the Lord. It saves the precious soul, and wraps it up in precious promises.
2. It is a most necessary grace; for it is that which brings Christ and the soul together. And without it, it is impossible to please God, Hebrews 11:6.
3. It is of perpetual use while here; it is an eye, hand, and foot to the soul, Psalm 27:3; and at death it does the last office to the man, supports him when all other comforts fail, Hebrews 11:13.
4. Lastly, Seek faith to have it wrought, actuated, and strengthened in you; and for that cause, diligently attend ordinances, the preaching of the word particularly; for 'faith comes by hearing.' Romans 10:17.
OF REPENTANCE UNTO LIFE
ACTS 11:18.—Then has God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.
REPENTANCE is an inseparable companion of faith, so that the soul blessed with faith in Christ will be also endowed with repentance towards God.
This is a conclusion drawn by the believing Jews from the account Peter had given them of what passed with respect to his receiving the Gentiles into Christian fellowship, with which they rest satisfied, namely, That God had given repentance to the Gentiles. Where consider,
1. A blessing granted; repentance unto life; so called, to distinguish it from legal repentance, and the sorrow that is unto death. This true repentance is unto life; for, by God's appointment, it must go before eternal life; and whoever have it shall be sure of that.
2. The parties to whom it was granted; the Gentiles, those who were once without hope and without God in the world.
3. The author of it, God. It is his gift, as well as faith is. He works it in the heart.
The doctrine of the text is,
DOCTRINE. 'To those whom God designs for life, he gives repentance unto life. They come all through this strait gate who enter into life.' Or, 'Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, does, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience.' Here I shall show,
I. What are the kinds of repentance.
II. The general nature of repentance unto life.
III. Who is the author of this repentance.
IV. The springs of it.
V. The parts thereof.
VI. Deduce an inference or two for application.
I am to show, what are the kinds of repentance. They are two.
1. Legal repentance, such as was in Judas, and may he in other reprobates, and so is not saving, Matthew 27:3 being produced by law terrors, without gospel-grace changing the heart.
2. Evangelical repentance, peculiar to the elect, which is that in the text, and is the only true and saving repentance, of which we speak. The general difference between them lies here, that in this last, one repents of his sin as it is sin, or offensive to God, as David did, Psalm 51:4 saying, 'Against you, you only have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight;' in the other, only as it brings wrath on him, Genesis 4:13.
II. I proceed to show, the general nature of repentance unto life. It is a saving grace, 2 Timothy 3:2–5. disposing the soul unto all the acts of turning from sin unto God.
1. It is not a transient action, a sigh for sin, a pang of sorrow for it, which goes away again; but it is an abiding grace, a new frame and disposition, fixed in the heart, disposing one to turn from sin to God on all occasions, Zechariah 12:10. 'I will pour upon' the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications, and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born.'
2. Nor yet a passing work of the first days of one's religion; but a grace in the heart, setting one to an answerable working all their days. The heart being smitten with repentance at conversion, the wound is never bound up to bleed no more, until the band of glory be put about it.
3. It is not a common grace, as legal repentance is, but a saving one; distinguishing one from a hypocrite, and having a necessary connection with eternal life.
III. I shall show, who is the author of this repentance.
1. Not men themselves; it is not owing to one's natural powers, Jeremiah 22:23. 'Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may you also do good that are accustomed to do evil.' The stony heart is beyond man's power to remove.
2. It is God's free gift, and wrought by the power of his Spirit in the heart, Ezekiel 36:26, 27. 'A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments, and do them,' Jeremiah 31:18, 19. 'I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus, You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke; turn you me, and I shall be turned; for you are the Lord my God. Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh; I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth.' Sometimes notorious sinners become penitents, as Manasseh, Paul, etc. Where he is the matter, the knottiest timber is as easy for the Spirit to work as any other, Zechariah 12:10 forfeited.
The means the Spirit makes use of is the word; hence we read of preaching repentance. And
(1.) The law serves to break the hard heart, Jeremiah 23:29. ('Is not my word like a fire? says the Lord; and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?' It is like the Baptist preparing the way for the Messiah's coming. Hence it is called 'The Spirit of bondage,' Romans 8:15.
(2.) The gospel serves to melt the hard heart, like a fire, Jeremiah 23:29 forfeited; and so bow and bend it from sin unto God. The soul is driven by the law, but drawn by the gospel. The Lord comes in the still small voice.
IV. I proceed to show, the springs of this repentance. There are two opened in the heart by the Holy Spirit.
1. A true sense of sin. And in this there are two things.
(1.) A sight of it, Psalm 51:3. 'My sin is ever before me.' The man's eyes are opened, and he sees his sinfulness of nature, heart, lip, and life; the evil of his sin, in the misery and danger of it to himself, and the dishonor it does to God.
(1.) A painful feeling of it, Acts 2:37. The sin which sat light on them before, becomes a burden which they are not able to bear; for now they are roused out of their lethargy and feel their sores: it is a burden on their spirits, backs, and heads. They are filled with terror, anguish, and remorse, at the sight, as was the Philippian jailor, 16:30. This is necessary for repentance, because otherwise the sinner will never part with his sin, nor prize Christ and his grace, Revelation 3:17. He will reign as king without Christ, until he feel his lost estate, as did the prodigal, Luke 15.
2. An apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, Joel 2:12, 13. 'Turn you even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning. And rend your heart and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repents him of the evil.' The eye of faith is opened to see and believe, that there is forgiveness and mercy to a poor sinner, that though the sinner has destroyed himself, yet in God is his help; there is hope in Israel concerning this thing. This can only be apprehended aright through Jesus Christ, Zechariah 12:10 forfeited. Not mercy for mercy's sake, but Christ's sake: 'God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself,' etc. This is necessary. For without it, one will either,
(1.) Go on in secret despair, casting off the thoughts of his case, and making the best of it he can, Jeremiah 2:25. 'You said There is no hope. No: for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go.' Or,
(2.) Lie down in tormenting despair, like Judas. Both which will fix sin in the heart, and bar out repentance. And since God is a consuming fire to the workers of iniquity, and without satisfaction there can be no remission, there is no apprehending of mercy but through Christ.
V. I proceed to show, the parts of repentance. These are two, humiliation and conversion, Joel 2:12, 13 above quoted.
1. Humiliation. The sinner goes from God by the high-way of pride and self-conceit; but always comes back the low way of humiliation. Grace pulls him down from the seat of the scorner, and lays him at the Lord's feet, 1 Peter 5:6. 'Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.' It makes him like Benhadad's servants, who came to the king of Israel girded with sackcloth, and ropes on their heads, in the most humiliating posture. In it there is,
(1.) Sorrow for sin, a kindly sorrow for the offence and dishonor done to a holy gracious God, Zechariah 12:10 formerly cited, defacing his image, transgressing his law, grieving his Spirit, and furnishing spear and nails to pierce a Savior.
(2.) Shame, a holy shame for sin, Romans 6:21. 'What fruit had you in those things whereof you are now ashamed?' They see now their spiritual nakedness, pollution, disappointed expectations from sin, and reproach discovered, which fill the soul with blushing.
(3.) Self-loathing, Ezekiel 36:31. 'Then shall you remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loath yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities, and for your abominations.' They see a fullness of sin in them, and the complicated aggravations of their sin, which make them to smite on their breast, as the publican did, Luke 18:13 as deserving to be pierced through the heart it bred in; to smite on the thigh, as Ephraim did, Jeremiah 31:19 as if he desired to break the legs that carried him out of God's way.
(4.) Penitent confession, Jeremiah 3:13 accusing and condemning themselves.
2. Conversion, or returning. Of which there are two parts.
1st, Turning away from sin, 2 Timothy 2:19. To repent of sin, and continue in the habitual practice of it, is a contradiction. They turn from it,
(1.) In heart, by a hearty and sincere hatred of it. Psalm 119:104. 'I hate every false way.' They hate it as an evil, the worst of evils, worse than sufferings. They hate it sincerely as sin, universally and irreconcilably. They look on it as God does, as that abominable thing which he hates.
(2.) In their life and conversation; they get clean hands.
[1.] They turn from the gross pollutions of the outward man, in the habitual practice of these, Psalm 24:3, 4. 'Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? and who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands, and a pure heart; who has not lift up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.' A profane life is the mark of an impenitent state, Galatians 5:21. 'They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.' The true godly may make gross slips; but if they be habitually gross in their lives, there is no difference between Christ's sheep and the devil's goats.
[2.] They are tender with respect to sins of common infirmity, making conscience of words and action, as Paul did, Acts 24:16. 'Herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men.' What others count light, they will count great: even these as burdens to them, which they groan under, and as iron fetters they would gladly be freed of, Romans 7:24. 'O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?'
2dly, Turning to God. By faith man returns to God as a portion, by repentance as a Lord and Master, like a runaway servant. And he returns,
(1.) To God himself. Sinners departing from God, dislike not only their service, but their Master, Luke 19:14. But returning they are disposed to love him and like him as a Master.
(2.) To his duty to God, Acts 9:6 to the practice of every known duty, and spirituality in duty. This is new obedience, which a penitent turns to,
[1.] In full purpose, Psalm 119:106 no more doubting whether to fall in with it or not, or delaying or putting it off any more.
[2.] In sincere endeavors, Acts 24:6.
Inference. 1. An impenitent heart is a sad sign of a lost state, Romans 2:5. While you live so, you are far from God; and if you die so, you are lost forever.
2. That repentance which is not evangelical and true is little worth. You must have more than Judah's repentance, if ever you see Heaven.
3. To pretend to repentance, and never forsake sin, is vain.
4. To leave sin, and not take up the contrary duties, is not repentance.
5. Go to the Lord by faith for the grace of repentance.
OF CHRIST'S ORDINANCES IN GENERAL
ISAIAH 12:3.—Therefore with joy shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation.
THIS song looks to the days of the gospel, wherein Christ having come and purchased salvation, the tidings of it are carried through the world in the gospel, and it is communicated to Jews and Gentiles through the means of grace. Here we have,
1. A benefit to be had in the church, water, that is, gospel grace, the benefits of Christ's redemption, as suitable to needy, fainting souls, as water to the thirsty. See John 4:14 and 7:37.
2. The way of its communication to poor sinners. It is to be drawn out of the wells of salvation. These are gospel-ordinances, the wells in this valley of Baca for the life of souls, and refreshment of spiritual travelers. All the elect capable to draw, do draw out of them. This is the sense, whether the allusion be to the wells in the wilderness for the Israelites, or to the Jews fetching water out of the spring of Siloam at the feast of tabernacles in the night, with mirth and music, to the temple, and pouring it on the altar.
The text furnishes this doctrine.
DOCTRINE. 'The Lord's ordinances are the wells of salvation to the elect.' Or, 'The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of redemption, are, his ordinances, especially the word, sacraments, and prayer; all which are made effectual to the elect for salvation.'
Here I shall show,
I. What is understood by a means of salvation.
II. What are these means of salvation.
III. What makes any ordinance a mean of grace.
IV. To whom are the Lord's ordinances made effectual.
V. Whence their efficacy proceeds.
VI. Deduce an inference or two.
I. I am to show, what is understood by a means of salvation. It is that by and through which the Lord Jesus does by his Spirit convey grace and salvation into a soul. That is a mean or mids between the Lord and the soul, which he uses for communication of grace from himself to the soul, 1 Corinthians 1:21. 'For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.' Chapter 3:5. 'Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom you believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?' The which may be used with expectation of good thereby. These means are some of them outward, some inward; some ordinary, others extraordinary.
II. I come now to show, what these means of salvation are.
1. The inward means is faith, Hebrews 4:2. 'Unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.' This ordinarily requires an outward means to work it by. But being wrought, it is the great inward means of communication between Christ and the soul. This is the mean of entering us into the covenant, of repentance, justification, reconciliation, sanctification, etc. It is the bucket whereby one draws the water out of the wells of salvation; and the want of it in most that come to them, makes them go away without water.
2. Extraordinary means are whatever the Lord in his sovereign wisdom is pleased to make use of extraordinarily for conveying grace into the hearts of his elect, as he did a voice from Heaven for the conversion of Paul, Acts 9:4, 5. None can limit sovereignty. He may use what means he will, and bring about his purposes of grace by means unknown to us. What means the Lord makes use of in the case of elect idiots, such as are deaf or blind, and so incapable of reading or hearing the word, and yet may get grace and be saved, who can determine? Or perhaps he does it without means altogether. But,
3. The outward and ordinary means are the Lord's own ordinances, Romans 10:14, 15. 'How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!' They are called outward, because they are something without ourselves; ordinary, because though ordinarily the Lord makes use of them for these holy ends, yet he has not tied himself to them, but may work without them, as seems good in his sight, Acts 9:4, 5. Now these are,
1st, In the general, all the ordinances of God without exception, which he has set up in his church for that end, namely, the word, sacraments, prayer, church-communion or fellowship, Acts 2:42; which being managed by mutual instruction, admonition, consolation, and watching over one another, are of great use to promote the salvation of souls; church-government, discipline, and censures, Matthew 18:17: religious fasting, 1 Corinthians 7:5; singing of psalms, Ephesians 5:19; swearing by the name of God, when duly called thereto, Deuteronomy 6:13; and whatever are God's institutions in his church.
2dly, The most special means of grace and salvation are the first three, the word, sacraments, and prayer, Acts 2:42.
(1.) The word preached or read. This has been a well of salvation to many, and a means of grace, Acts 2:41. About three thousand souls together drank of this well, and lived. It is the seed which the new creature is formed of; and though a despised ordinance, yet the great means of God's appointment for bringing sinners into a state of grace, 1 Corinthians 1:21 forfeited.
(2.) The sacraments, baptism and the Lord's supper. In both, the people of God have drank to the salvation of their souls, though they are not converting ordinances, but sealing ones, supposing the efficacy of the word to precede; as is evident in the case of the Ethiopian eunuch, Acts 8:39. 1 Corinthians 10:16.
(3.) Prayer, public, private, and secret. This is a very special means of grace, and a most ordinary way of communion between Christ and a soul. So that one no sooner grows concerned about his soul, but he uses this means, as Saul did, of whom it is said, Acts 9:11. 'Behold, he prays.' It is a means by which divine influences have flowed plentifully to many a soul, and none of the Lord's people can live without it.
III. I shall now show, what makes any ordinance a mean of grace, a well of salvation, out of which one may in faith look to draw water for his soul, or get spiritual good by. The Papists and church of England think human institution sufficient, else they had never made so many significant ceremonies and actions in religion, for which there is no divine warrant, as crossing in baptism, kissing the book in swearing, etc. In the use of which they think one has ground to expect good to his soul; but all these, being but human ordinances and inventions of men, are not means of grace, but of sinning; not wells of salvation, but broken cisterns, that can hold no water; nay, they are rather puddles, that defile the soul, instead of nourishing it. For,
1. No ordinance whatever can avail without a particular blessing; for the efficacy of ordinances is not natural, or from themselves. Now, men cannot annex a blessing to their ordinances and institutions, to make them effectual for the good of souls, though both church and state join for it. And we have no ground to expect the Spirit's working with tools that are not of his own making. Therefore their institution is vain, and their use too, Matthew 15:9. 'In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.'
2. Men's institutions or ordinances, in respect of God, are forbidden, and condemned by the Lord's word, namely, in the second commandment. The want of a divine warrant is sufficient to condemn anything of this sort, if it be never so likely in the eyes of human wisdom, Matthew 15:9 just quoted. See Jeremiah 32:35. 'And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech, which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination to cause Judah to sin.' And they must needs be blasted institutions, since the institution is an invading of Christ's royal prerogative, Matthew 28:20; who has directed his servants to teach his people to 'observe all things whatever he has commanded.'
3. Men's use of them is not only useless, but worse, not only to no good purpose, but to ill purpose; for the using of them is will-worship, which is sinning against the Lord, Colossians 2:20–23. 'Wherefore, if you be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world are you subject to ordinances, (Touch not, taste not, handle not: which are all to perish with the using), after the commandments and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship and humility, and neglecting the body, not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh.' It provokes God, and brings on wrath on the users of them, Hosea 5:11, 12. 'Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment; because he willingly walked after the commandment. Therefore will I be unto Ephraim as a moth: and to the house of Judah as rottenness.'
That which makes any ordinance a means of grace or salvation, what one may justly look for good of to his soul, is divine institution only, Matthew 28:20 forfeited: therefore the first question in all ordinances ought to be, 'Whose is this image and superscription?' That appointment is to be found in the Lord's word, Isaiah 8:20. 'To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.' That is 'sufficient to make the man of God perfect,' 2 Timothy 3:16, 17; and therefore contains the whole ordinances he is to meddle with for the salvation of himself or others. The institution of some ordinances is more clear in the word than others; but whatever ordinance has divine warrant, express or by good consequence, is a divine ordinance and means of grace. And to these his own ordinances the Lord has confined us, Deuteronomy 4:2. 'You shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish ought from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.'
IV. I proceed to consider, to whom, the Lord's ordinances are made effectual.
1. Not to all who partake of them, Isaiah 53:1. 'Who has believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?' Many come to these wells who never taste of the water. I think it an unwarrantable expression, that all God's ordinances do attain their end, in the salvation or damnation of all that come under them; for damnation is not the end of any of God's ordinances, but salvation. And the scriptures adduced to prove it, namely, Isaiah 55:10, 11. 'For as the rain comes down, and the snow from Heaven, and returns not thither, but waters the earth, and makes it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it;' 2 Corinthians 2:15, 16. 'For we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish; to the one we are the savor of death unto death; to the other the savor of life unto life: and who is sufficient for these things?' will not prove it; for the former respects only God's end in sending his word, the other the event, but neither of them the end of the ordinance. Damnation is the effect or consequence of the contempt or misimprovement of ordinances, but by no means the end thereof.
2. But to all the elect they are effectual, unto whom they come, Acts 13:48. 'As many as were ordained to eternal life believed.' John 10:26. 'You believe not, because you are not of my sheep.' To the elect only they are effectual for their salvation, which is their end.
V. I am to show, whence the efficacy of ordinances proceeds. It does not proceed from any virtue in themselves, or in him that administers them, but from the Spirit of the Lord working in them and by them, 1 Corinthians 3:7. But this I shall speak to more largely in a posterior discourse.
I conclude with a few inferences.
Inference. 1. Sad is the case of those who are in such a wilderness, as there are no wells in, nor any of God's ordinances. 'Where no vision is, the people perish.' This is the dismal case of the Pagan world. Which should move us to pray that the Lord may send the light of the gospel to these dark places of the earth.
2. The filling up of the wells in a land, by removing ordinances from a people, is a sad stroke. Where the word and sacraments are not, there is no church there; and consequently God has no people to save there. O let us cry to the Lord, that this may never be our unhappy case.
3. The defiling of the wells is a sad matter for those who drink of them, whether it be by error in doctrine, superstition in worship, or uninstituted government of the church: but worst of all, where they are poisoned with damnable heresies and idolatry, as in the apostate church of Rome. Let us pray for, and strive to maintain, purity of doctrine, worship, and government.
4. Heinous is the sin of the neglect or contempt of the wells of salvation, which God has opened unto them. Let despisers and neglecters of ordinances consider this, and what they will answer when God rises up to call them to an account. Alas! this is one of the great grounds of the Lord's controversy with the present generation, which loudly calls to deep humiliation before him.
5. Great is the sin and loss of those who come to the wells, but never draw of the water nor taste it: who are never bettered by ordinances, but remain as dead and unconcerned about their souls as if the means of salvation were not given to them.
6. Lastly, Prize the ordinances. Prepare for them, and duly improve them; remember they are the ordinary means of salvation: therefore seek to enjoy God, and to have communion with him, in them, otherwise they will be in vain as to you.
HOW THE WORD IS MADE EFFECTUAL TO SALVATION
EPHESIANS 6:17.—The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
IN these words we have,
(1.) A particular piece of the Christian armor recommended, the Word of God, the revelation of his mind communicated to us in the scriptures, with which every one who minds for Heaven should be familiarly acquainted.
(2.) A particular piece of its commendation; it is the sword of the Spirit; that is, it is that which the Spirit of the Lord uses in fighting the battles of the Lord, and conquering an elect world to Christ, and bringing them, through all opposition from the devil, the world, and the flesh, into the heavenly Canaan. And therefore it cannot but be of singular use to a Christian in the spiritual warfare. It is but the sword, but the Spirit cuts with it.
The doctrine of the text is,
DOCTRINE. 'The Word of God is the sword the Spirit makes use of for raising up a kingdom to Christ.' This more fully in the words of the Catechism, runs thus: 'The Spirit of God makes the reading, but especially the preaching of the word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners, and of building them up in holiness and comfort, through faith unto salvation.'
In handling this subject, I shall show,
I. In what respects the word is an ordinance of God, and mean of salvation.
II. What are the ends for which the Lord has appointed these means and ordinances of reading and preaching the word.
III. Consider the efficacy of the word.
IV. Improve the subject in some inferences.
I. I am to show, in what respects the word is an ordinance of God and mean of salvation.
First, The reading of the word is an ordinance of God, and mean, of salvation, of God's own appointment. The Bible is this word, and God has given it to us, and appointed it to be read.
1. The public reading of it in the congregation is God's ordinance, and a mean of salvation. And we find it in scripture performed by the teachers of the people, Nehemiah 8:8; 'So they read in the book, in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.' Verse 2, 3. 'And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation, both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding, upon the first day of the seventh month. And he read therein before the street that is before the water-gate, from the morning until mid-day, before the men and the women, and those that could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.' And so the reading of the word claims a place among public ordinances. Hence reading and expounding a passage of scripture every Lord's day in the church, is a laudable and well-warranted practice in this church.
2. The private reading of it in families, Deuteronomy 6:6, 7, 8, 9; 'These words which I command you this day, shall be in your, heart. And you shall teach them diligently unto your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them upon the posts of your house, and on your gates,' Psalm 78:5; 'For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children.' Every family ought to be a church; and as they are to speak to God by prayer, so they are to hear God speak to them, by reading his word. And this they ought to do every morning and evening, as well as command their children and servants to read it by themselves.
3. Secret reading of it by one's self, Deuteronomy 17:19; 'It [the law or Word of God] shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life,' John 5:39; 'Search the scriptures.' By this means the soul converses with God in his word. And those who do not make a practice of daily reading the scripture, are none of the Lord's people, whatever otherwise they may profess.
Hence it is evident, that the people not only may, but ought to read the Bible, and therefore it ought to be translated into the vulgar languages. Which highly condemns the Anti-christian church of Rome, which takes away the key of knowledge from the people, by prohibiting them to read the Word of God.
Secondly, The preaching of the word is an ordinance of God, and mean of grace, 1 Corinthians 1:21; 'It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.' But though all may read the word, yet none ought to preach it, but those who, being qualified for it, are duly called thereto, 2 Corinthians 3:6; 'Who has made us able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit, Romans 10:15; 'How shall they preach except they be sent?' 1 Timothy 4:14; 'Neglect not the gift that is in you, which was given you by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.' Though the reading of the word, as well as the preaching, is a mean of salvation, yet the preaching of it is the special means, though a despised ordinance in the world; therefore called foolishness, 1 Corinthians 1:21. It is the most ancient of the two. Noah was a preacher, before the Bible was to take his text from, 2 Peter 2:5; and so was Enoch before him, Jude. 14. In this work Christ himself spent the time of his making public appearance in the world, namely, preaching the kingdom of God. It is the mercy of the church of God, that they have the Word of God as a lamp always burning: but the preaching of it is the snuffing of the lamp, by which it gives the greater light. And for this reason the preaching of the word should be attended to by all, if ever they expect to be saved.
II. I proceed to show what are the ends for which the Lord has appointed these means and ordinances of reading and preaching the word.
First, For sinners out of Christ they are appointed means of two great and necessary purposes.
1. Of their conviction, 1 Corinthians 14:24, 25. 'But if all prophesy, and there come in one that believes not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all; and thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face, he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.' The sinner naturally is asleep in sin, and the word awakens him; he is bold and daring, and will not consider his sin, nor duty either; but the word brings him to the bar, judges him, convicts him, and condemns him. And,
(1.) It discovers his sin to him.
[1.] What are his sins. It comes home so close to him, as if it said, 'You are the man.' It goes out through and in through him, and opens up his very heart, tells him of himself what none in the world were privy to, but only God and his own conscience, 1 Corinthians 4:2–5. This is what the spouse means by the watchmen's finding her,' Canticles 3:3. Who has told the minister? say many, when the minister drawing his bow at a venture knows not whom it hits, until the party touched cries out, but I the minister directs the arrow, Hebrews 4:12. And many a time have we seen the reproof laid in seasonably for the sin, that one could not miss it, if but going on straight in the ordinary.
[2.] What the heinous nature of sin is, Hebrews 4:12. God's word pulls off the paint and varnishing from the man's sin, and discovers it in its loathsome nature, and killing aggravations. It makes him see the evil in it, that he never saw before, Acts 26:18.
(2.) It discovers his misery out of Christ, Acts 2:37. The sinner sees in the word, as in a glass, his lost state without a Savior; perceives himself bound over to death with cords of guilt, which fills him with fear, terror, anxiety, and remorse.
2. Of their conversion, Psalm 19:7; 'The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.' The word is the means which God has chosen for bringing sinners to himself, Acts 26:18; for raising the dead soul to life, for regeneration, and the working of faith and repentance. This effect of the word we take up in these two particulars.
(1.) The word is the mean of driving the sinner out of himself to Jesus Christ by faith, as it did Peter's hearers, Acts 2:37, 38; 'Faith comes by hearing.' The law goes before and condemns the sinner, and discovers him a lost man. The gospel follows with the glad tidings of salvation, and the soul is persuaded to embrace them.
(2.) It is the mean of driving the sinner out of his sins unto God, Acts 20:21; it sets fire to his nest in sin, and brings him to the Lord as a Master, and to a compliance with his will as his duty.
Secondly, For saints they are means appointed for their edification or building up, Acts 20:32. The church of Christ in this world is but a building, and not yet finished; and every particular saint's state in this world is but an unfinished building: and therefore they must have the word continued with them, as the scaffolding is with the house until it get on the topstone, Ephesians 4:11–13. And the reading and preaching of the word are;
1. Means of building them up in holiness, the foundation of which is laid in them at conversion, Acts 20:32. As they are born again of the incorruptible seed of the word, so they are nourished by these breasts; by the same means they had their spiritual life, they get it more abundantly, 1 Peter 2:2. It does so by,
(1.) Establishing them in the good they have attained, setting them to hold it fast over the belly of temptations, Ephesians 4:14. By the reading and preaching of the word, the truth according to godliness is riveted in them, that the longer they live under the means, they are more confirmed in the Lord's way.
(2.) Cleansing them from remaining evils in their heart and life, Psalm 19:9. Coming to this glass, they get their spots discovered to them, that they may wipe them off. So the word is the pruning-hook of the great Gardener, John 15:2, 3; and the engine for demolishing the remaining strong holds of the rebels, 2 Corinthians 10:4, 5.
(3.) Pressing and helping them forward to the good thing lacking, 2 Timothy 3:16, 17; and so the effect is, that they 'all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord,' 2 Corinthians 3:18. It helps them still to add a cubit to their stature, showing them more of the truth and the duties of holiness.
2. A means of building them up in comfort, Romans 15:4. They are liable to many griefs in the world; but it is appointed to be their great cordial, and sovereign remedy against all their griefs. And this it does,
(1.) By setting their case in a true light, Psalm 73:17.
(2.) By affording suitable remedies for their case, from the precious promises and doctrines of it suited to every case, Isaiah 40:1, 2. 'Comfort you, comfort you, my people, says your God. Speak you comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she has received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins.'
III. I shall consider the efficacy of the word. Concerning which observe,
1. The parties to whom it is effectual. Its convincing efficacy it may have on the reprobate, as Felix, Acts 24:25. Its converting efficacy it has on the elect only, Acts 13:48. 'As many as were ordained to eternal life believed.' Its edifying efficacy, both in holiness and comfort, it has on the saints.
2. The spring of its efficacy is not from itself, nor the preacher, but from the Spirit's operation by and with it, 1 Corinthians 3:5, 6. 'Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom you believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered: but God gave the increase.
3. The inward mean which the Spirit makes use of to render it efficacious, is the faith or belief of it, resting upon God's faithful word for the efficacy, Hebrews 4:2.
I shall conclude with a few inferences.
Inference. 1. Prize your Bibles, and read them diligently in your families, and by yourselves, and look on that exercise as a mean appointed of God for your souls' good, John 5:39. 'Search the scriptures.' Alas! the dust of many people's Bibles will be a heavy witness against them at the great day: which should excite us all to the careful perusal of them.
2. Prize the preaching of the word, and attend it conscientiously; and remember that the neglecting and deserting it is not such a light thing as many look on it to be; since it is the spiritual means which the Lord makes use of in converting sinners, and edifying saints; and is necessarily productive of the most terrible consequences to those who despise it.
3. Let not the one jostle out the other. God has joined them; do not you then put them asunder. Think not that because you hear the preaching, therefore you may neglect reading the Bible; nor to sit at home without necessity on the Lord's day, thinking to do as well with your Bibles, as attending the dispensation of the word. For as the preaching sends you to your Bible, your Bible would send you to the preaching, if you would hearken to it, 1 Corinthians 1:21. And the Bible is read in vain, if it do not inspire you with a sincere love to the preaching of the word.
4. The word is necessary, for saints as well as sinners. It is false growth by which people grow beyond it, either in preaching or reading, before they get to Heaven. Nay, all such growth and progress is an arrant delusion.
5. Lastly, Look to the Lord himself for the efficacy of the word; and labor to believe the word, that it may profit your souls. For without faith the word will be unprofitable to you; and without the influence of the Spirit, you will reap no benefit by it.
HOW THE WORD IS TO BE READ AND HEARD
LUKE 8:18.—Take heed therefore how you hear.
THIS is an admonition inferred by our Lord from the parable of the sower in the preceding part of the chapter, in which he had shown the very different events of people's hearing the word. To some it is effectual, to more it is not: Take heed therefore how you hear, says he. Much depends on the right manner of hearing the word; and the case is the same as to the reading of it, for therein we are to hear God speak by his word. Men may hear what is very good, yet get no good by it, unless they hear in the due manner.
The doctrine of the text is,
DOCTRINE. 'As the hearers of the word would profit by it, they should take heed how they hear it.'
Here I shall consider that one point, How we should hear? or 'How the word is to be read and heard, that it may become effectual to salvation?' Ans. 'That the word may become effectual to salvation, we must attend thereunto with diligence, preparation, and prayer; receive it with faith and love; lay it up in our hearts; and practice it in our lives.'
There are three things necessary to be heeded and practiced, if we would so manage these ordinances, as they may become effectual for our salvation.
I. Some things are to go before hearing.
II. Some things are to go along with it.
III. Some things are to follow after it.
I. Some things are to go before hearing; namely, preparation and prayer.
First, Preparation. We should prepare ourselves for the ordinances, as Jacob said, Genesis 35:2, 3. 'Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments. And let us arise, and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went.' It is true, God may by his sovereign grace catch the unprepared heart by his word, as he says, Isaiah 65:1. 'I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not:' and there are not wanting instances of such a surprising dispensation of grace. But it is the way of preparation in which we have ground to look for good by it, Isaiah 64:5. 'You meet him that rejoices, and works righteousness; those that remember you in your ways;' otherwise we are not in the way of getting good by it.
This preparation lies in these five things.
1. Getting the heart impressed with an awful sense of the majesty and holiness of that God into whose presence we are going, and whose word we are to hear, Psalm 89:6. Though the voice is on earth, the speaker is in Heaven, and we should consider it so as to come to hear what God says to us, Acts. 10:33. And the more this be on our spirits, we may expect the more good by the word, Isaiah 66:2.
2. Banishing out of the heart worldly cares that are lawful at other times, Matthew 13:7. We should say to all these as Abraham did to his young men, 'Abide you here,—and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, Genesis 22:5. The heart going after the world at such a time, renders the word ineffectual: but a contrary disposition is a token for good.
3. Application of the blood of Christ to the soul for removing guilt, and doing away any controversy between God and the soul, Amos 3:3. 'How can two walk together, except they be agreed?' Psalm 26:6. 'I will wash mine hands in innocency: so will I compass your altar, O Lord.' The laver stood before the entrance into the temple, that they might wash there who were to go in: so spiritually, 'before the throne there is a sea of glass like unto crystal,' in which filthy polluted souls are to wash, before they be admitted to the throne, Revelation 4:6. And happy they who come thus washed to hear the word; for they may expect to hold communion with Christ therein.
4. Purging the heart of carnal and corrupt lusts and affections, 1 Peter 2:1, 2. This is to put off one's shoes when coming on the holy ground, laying by the earthly frame, and putting on a heavenly one. For what good effect can be expected on the heart, filled with corrupt lusts, passions, and prejudices, nourished and not striven against; surely none at all. Whereas, if the heart be purged from these, the happiest effects may be looked for. It is impossible to profit by the word, where the heart is full of vain and carnal thoughts and projects.
5. Lastly, Stirring up in the heart spiritual desires, 1 Peter 2:2. 'As new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, longing for communion with God, seeing his glory in the sanctuary, the supply of soul wants, and particularly for something suitable to our case. And therefore a deep consideration of our own case is a necessary part of preparation, 1 Kings 8:38 and, if properly attended to, would be attended with great blessings.
This preparation for the ordinances is necessary, considering two things especially.
(1.) The greatness of him with whom we have to do, Hebrews 12:28, 29. 'Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire. One would not rush without consideration into the presence of his prince: why then should one rush thoughtlessly into the presence of his God?
(2.) The weight of the work. To hear God's mind declared to us is a business of the greatest importance; eternity depends on it to us; life and death hang upon our improving or not improving it, 2 Corinthians 2:16. 'To the one (says the apostle) we are the savor of death unto death; and to the other the savor of life unto life.' And were this duly considered, it would stir us all up to the most diligent preparation.
Secondly, Prayer. We should be much in prayer before we go to ordinances, family prayer and secret prayer, and therefore ought not to spend the Lord's day morning so as not to have time for these. If you would have good of the word read or preached, pray, and pray earnestly before it; Pray,
1. For assistance to the minister. Hence the apostle says, 'Brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified,' 2 Thessalonians 3:1. Pray that the Lord himself would come out with him, directing him, instructing him, and exciting him, what to speak, and how to speak. It is rare to see a lively people under a dead ministry; and therefore people's own interest should engage them in concern for ministers.
2. For a meal to yourselves, Psalm 119:18. 'Open you mine eyes, that I may see wondrous things out of your law.' Pray that God would direct the word to your case, and send it home on your hearts with his blessing, that you may be enlightened, sanctified, strengthened, humbled, or raised up by it, as your case requires. And in order to attain this, pray and wrestle earnestly,
3. For an outpouring of the Spirit in his own ordinances, agreeably to the Lord's own promises, Proverbs 1:23. 'Behold, I will pour out my Spirit unto you; that yourselves and others may be bettered by the word.' Every one should be concerned for the success of the gospel, not to themselves only, but to others also. Love to God and our neighbors' souls should engage to this, 2 Thessalonians 3:1 above cited.
Now, both this preparation and prayer beforehand being done, beware you lean not on them, but remember that all depends on the Spirit's influences, and that he is debtor to none, Canticles 4:16. 'Awake, O north wind, and come you south, blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out.' John 3:8. 'The wind blows where it wills.' Cry therefore that the Spirit may render the word effectual.
II. Some things are to go along with hearing.
First, Attending unto the word diligently. This implies,
1. Waiting diligently upon the ordinances, so as people make it their business to catch opportunities of the word, and let none slip which Providence will allow them to overtake. That they hang on about the Lord's hands in the galleries of ordinances, laboring to keep the tryst which God makes with sinners there, 1 Timothy 4:13. They that are only chance-customers to ordinances, whose attendance is ruled by their own conveniences, without conscience of duty, causing them to take them only now and then as their fancy takes them, cannot expect good of them. 'Blessed is the man (says the personal Wisdom of God) that hears me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors,' Proverbs 8:34.
3. Diligent attention to the word, Isaiah 55:2. 'Hearken diligently unto me;' listening carefully to it, as a matter of the greatest weight, keeping the mind off other things in the time, and bending it wholly unto the word. In this there are four things comprehended.
(1.) Outward gravity and composure, without which attention is marred, Luke 4:20. If men do believe it to be God's word which they are hearing, this is as little respect to it, as they can show, namely, outward gravity; and therefore they are not to lay down their heads and sleep, nor to gaze hither and thither, far less to laugh, or to go out and in, here and there, in the time. This kind of behavior, is not without contempt of God, who speaks to men by his word.
(2.) A fixing and bending of the ear and mind to what is spoken. Hence is that counsel of the wise man, Proverbs 2:1, 2. 'My son, if you will receive my words, and hide my commandments with you; so that you incline your ear unto wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding.'—People must take care that they be not wandering in their heart while the Lord's words sound before them. If the heart wander, and be thinking on other things, how can the word do them good, while Satan has thus stolen away the heart?
(3.) A discerning of what they hear, so as to distinguish between truth and error, the corn and the chaff, Mark 4:24. 'Take heed what you hear:' and therefore to mark always the agreement between what is preached and the written word, for which the Bereans are highly commended, Acts 17:11. For they attend not rightly to the word who do not thus endeavor to discern what they hear.
(4.) An endeavoring to know the mind of God in his word, to hear with understanding. This is to attend not only to the words, but to the things enrapt up in these words; as Lydia did, 'whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul,' Acts 16:14. It is not enough to hear the words, but the message from the Lord is to be weighed and seriously considered, and the mind of God taken up therein.
There is great need of attending unto the word with diligence, and making serious work of it. For,
(1.) The matter in hand is of the greatest weight; it concerns eternity; it is a treaty of peace between God and our souls; the proposal of a method to preserve our souls from ruin, Luke 16:29. 'They have Moses and the prophets: let them hear them;' and this proposal is not to be carelessly managed. And God himself is the Speaker; and what he speaks should be diligently attended to, for his sake; to prevent the breaking out of his wrath, which is threatened against those who do not hearken to him.
(2.) Because at best we will have much ado to hear well as we ought. We are naturally dull of hearing the Lord's word, Isaiah 58:4, 5. 'They are like the deaf adder that stops her ear, which will not hearken to the voice of the charmer, charming never so wisely.' And oft-times there is a locked door between him and us. Hence he is represented thus, 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock,' etc. Revelation 3:20. And there is a thick wall of separation also between him and us, Isaiah 59:2. 'Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, that he will not hear.' And there is always much noise about us as long as the tempter is to the fore. Therefore the highest attention is requisite.
3. Lastly, If we do not thus attend, we lose, and our loss is great. Thomas missed one occasion of meeting with Christ, and unbelief got in upon him. And that word which we miss may be the most suitable to our case, which therefore Satan watches to carry off from us. Therefore we should never miss one occasion of hearing the word.
Secondly, Receiving the word rightly. This lies in two things.
1. Receiving it with faith, Hebrews 4:2. It is the mouth of the soul, by which one receives the sincere milk of the word, and drinks water out of the wells of salvation, and without which one gets no good of it to his salvation; but it is as water spilt upon the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. It must be received,
(1.) With a faith of assent, believing it to be true and right, assenting to the truth and righteousness of the precepts, promises, and threatenings of it, Psalm 119:128, 160. 'I esteem all your precepts concerning all things to be right. Your word is true from the beginning.' It has a divine authority; itself is God's testimony, which therefore for itself is to be believed; and where the power of it comes, it captivates the soul into the belief of it, 2 Corinthians 10:5. This is to receive the kingdom of God as a little child, Luke 18:17.
(2.) With a faith of application, applying it to ourselves, Job 5 ult. 'Hear it, and know you it for your good.' The Lord's word is compared to the falling rain or dew, Deuteronomy 32:2. The soul in receiving it should be as the dry and gaping ground swallowing it up as it falls, Psalm 143:6. 'My soul thirsts after you as a thirsty land.' But most people are like the smooth stones, which send it off themselves to those about them. Now, this application is that which makes the plaster stick, and nothing else will do it. If the word be not applied, it can do no more good, than a plaster unapplied can heal the wound.
Now, the word is to be applied by us, for all the ends for which it is appointed, namely, for our conviction, Acts 2:37 our conversion, John 4:45 our edification in holiness, 1 Peter 2:2 and comfort, Romans 15:4 for the informing our judgments, and rectifying our will and affections; in short, for all the purposes of our salvation; otherwise we receive it in vain.
2. Receiving it with love, 2 Thessalonians 2:10. Faith receives the word as true, love receives it as good, and good for us, Isaiah 39 ult. 'Good is the word of the Lord which you have spoken,' said Hezekiah to the prophet. It is good for us in all the parts of it, for we need them all; the threatenings as well as the promises; its reproofs as well as its consolations. And there is a threefold love which we owe to the Word of God.
(1.) A love of esteem, highly prizing it, Job 23:12. 'I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.' Psalm 119:72, 'The law of your mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver.'
(2.) A love of desire after it, 1 Peter 2:2. 'As new born babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that you may grow thereby;' a longing for it.
(3.) A love of delight in it, Psalm 119:162. 'I rejoice at your word as one that finds great spoil.'
We owe this love to the word for the author's sake, Psalm 119:159. 'Consider how I love your precepts;' for its intrinsic excellency, Psalm 119:140. 'Your word is very pure; therefore does your servant love it;' and for the necessity and usefulness of it to us, as 'light that shines in a dark place,' 2 Peter 1:19; as our food, Job 23:12 forfeited; nay, as our very life and breath. Deuteronomy 32:47.
Thirdly, Laying it up in our hearts, Our hearts and memories are to be storehouses for the word, and there we are to lay it up, as it comes to our hands, Psalm 119:11. 'Your word have I hidden in mine heart, (says the Psalmist), that I might not sin against you.' How can those expect good of the word who let it go just as it comes? But we should catch hold of it, retain it and not forget it.
We should lay it up as a precious and enriching treasure, Colossians 3:16 'Let the Word of God dwell in you richly:' As a thing that we are in hazard of losing, and being robbed of, Matthew 13:4; and as what we will have use for afterwards, Isaiah 42:23. 'Who will hearken and hear for the time to come?' Suppose it reach not your present case, it may be useful for what will be your case. You are traveling through the wilderness: lay up the word as the traveler does his directions for the way.
The best way to lay it up is, to let it have deep impression on your spirits while you hear it, and to lift up your eyes to the Lord, that he may fix it in your heart, Psalm 119:93. 'I will never forget your precepts,' 2 Timothy 1:12. 'I know in whom I have believed.'
III. Some things are to follow after hearing the word.
1. Meditation on it in your hearts, Psalm 1:2. The Psalmist thus describes the good man: 'In his law does he meditate day and night.' This is the harrowing of the seed sown, and the mean to sink it down in the soul, to keep it fast, Luke 9:44. 'Let these sayings sink down into your ears.' This is the way to guard the word, that it may not slip away, Hebrews 2:4; and a sovereign help to a leaking memory. Ensure yourselves to meditation on the word, and you will find your memories surprisingly strengthened: one particular will bring on another, and one truth meditated on will recall another to your remembrance, and afford you vast delight and pleasure.
2. Conferring of it on your discourse. This was enjoined to the Israelites by Moses, Deuteronomy 6:6, 7. 'The words which I command you this day shall be in your heart: and you shall teach them diligently unto your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.' Luke 24:14. 'And they talked together of all those things which had happened.' The repeating over again of the Lord's word, has sometimes had a relish with it, more taking than at its first coming to the man. Hence says the spouse, Can. 2:10. 'My beloved spoke and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.' Talking of it thus on your way from the church, and in your own houses, will be most beneficial to you.
3. Lastly, The main thing is practicing it in your lives, Luke 8:15. 'That on the good ground are they which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience:' wiping off your spots, and adorning yourselves in holiness of life, by the glass of the word, Jam. 1:25. 'Whoever looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the word,' etc. The word heard, but not practiced, will sink men deeper in damnation; but heard and practiced too, will bring them into eternal salvation. O then be careful to practice what you hear, otherwise it will do you no good.
I shall conclude with an inference or two.
Inference. 1. No wonder most of the hearers of the gospel get no good of it. They are at no pains to prepare for hearing it, wrestle not in prayer for the Lord's blessing upon it, receive it neither with faith nor love, are not solicitous to lay it up in their hearts, and as little to practice it in their lives. How then can they reap benefit by it, when they use not these commanded means?
2. Here is the way to get good of the word, however little good is done by it this day. Prepare for hearing it; pray earnestly for the blessing of God to accompany it: receive it with faith and love; lay it up in your hearts: and reduce it to practice in your lives.
THE DUTY OF ATTENDING ORDINANCES ENFORCED
ACTS 10:33.—Immediately before I sent to you: and you have well done that you are come. Now therefore are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded you of God.
As attendance upon the public ordinances is one of the special means whereby Christ communicates the benefits of redemption to us, I have chosen this text in order to enforce, farther upon you, the duty of a diligent attendance upon them.
Our Lord Jesus, the only King and Head of his church, has appointed ministers his ambassadors to declare his mind unto his people; and though he could teach his people without them, yet the ministry is his ordinance, and by the foolishness of preaching he saves them that believe. Here we have,
1. A call to Peter related. The person calling is Cornelius, a soldier. A Gentile he was, yet a proselyte: a good man, but one who as yet knew not the doctrine of Christ crucified. The person called was Peter; him God honored to break the ice for the calling of the Gentiles, and to take down the first stone in the partition wall between Jews and Gentiles. The call itself is in these words, I sent. He had sent three men to invite Peter to his house, verse 7. The reason of the call is thus expressed, Therefore, because he had the command of God for that effect. He made quick dispatch in the call; it was done immediately after the mind of God was discovered to him.