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A90291
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The stedfastness of promises, and the sinfulness of staggering: opened in a sermon preached at Margarets in Westminster before the Parliament Febr. 28. 1649. Being a day set apart for solemn humiliation throughout the nation. By John Owen minister of the Gospel.
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Owen, John, 1616-1683.
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1650
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Wing O808; Thomason E599_9; Thomason E618_7; ESTC R203108
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32,151
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58
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his very call or word gives being to those things which before were not as when he said Let there be light there was light Gen. 1. 3. by that very word commanding light to shine out of darkness 2 Cor. 4. 6. These Demonstrations of Gods Al-sufficiency he considereth in peculiar reference to what he was to believe to wit That he might be the Father of many Nations vers. 11. of the Jews according to the flesh of Jews and Gentiles according to the Faith whereof we speak 1 For the first his Body being now dead and Sarahs wombe dead vers. 19. he rests on God as quickening the dead in believing that he shall be the father of many Nations 2 For the other that he should be a Father of the Gentiles by Faith the holy Ghost witnesseth that they were not a people Hos. 2. 23. the implanting of them in his stock must be by a power that calleth things that are not as though they were giving a new nature and being unto them which before they had not To bottome our selves upon the Al-sufficiency of God for the accomplishment of such things as are altogether impossible to any thing but that Alsufficiency is faith indeed and worthy our immitation It is also the wisdome of Faith to pitch peculiarly on that in God which is accommodated to the difficulties wherewith it is to wrestle Is Abraham to believe That from his dead body must springe a whole Nation he rests on God as he that quickeneth the dead 2 His Faith is commended from the matter of it or what he did believe which is said in general to be the promise of God verse 20. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief And particularly the matter of that promise is pointed at vers. 11. 18. that he should be the father of many Nations that was his being a father of many nations of having all nations blessed in his seed A matter entangled with a world of difficulties considering the natural inability of his Body and the Body of Sarah to be Parents of Children When God calls for believing his Truth and Alsufficiency being ingaged no difficulty nor seeming impossibilities that the thing to be believed is or may be attended withal ought to be of any weight with us he who hath promised is able 3 From the manner of his believing which is expressed Four wayes 1 Against Hope he believed in Hope verse 18. Here is a twofold Hope mentioned one that was against him the other that was for him 1 He believed against Hope that is when all Arguments that might beget Hope in him were against him against Hope is against all motives unto Hope whatever All Reasons of natural hope were against him What Hope could arise in or by Reason that two dead Bodies should be the Source and Fountain of many Nations so that against all inducements of a natural Hope he believed 2 He believed in Hope That is such Hope as arose as his Faith did from the consideration of Gods Alsufficiency this is an Adjunct of his Faith it was such a Faith as had Hope adjoyned with it And this believing in Hope when all Reasons of Hope were away is the first thing that is set down of the manner of his Faith In a decay of all Natural helps the deadness of all meanes an appearance of an utter Impossibility that ever the promise should be accomplished then to believe with unfeigned Hope is a commendable Faith 2 He was not weak in faith vers. 19. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} not weak is the 2d thing Minime debilis Beza He was by no means weak A negation that by a figure {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} doth strongly assert the contrary to that which is denied He was no way weak that is He was very strong in Faith as is afterwards expressed vers. 20. He was strong in Faith giving glory to God And the Apostle tells you wherein this his not weakness did appear saith he He considered not his own body being now dead when he was about an hundred yeers old neither yet the deadness of Sara's wombe verse 19. It was seen in this that his Faith carried him above the consideration of all impediments that might lie in the way to the accomplishment of the promise It is meer weakness of Faith that makes a man lye poering on the difficulties and seeming impossibilities that lye upon the promise We think it our wisdome and our strength to consider weigh and look into the bottome of oppositions and temptations that arise against the Promise Perhaps it may be the strength of our fleshly carnal Reason but certainly it is the weakness of our Faith He that is strong in Faith will not so much as debate or consider the things that cast the greatest seeming improbability yea impossibility on the fulfilling of the promise It will not afford them a Debate or Dispute of the Cause nor any consideration being not weak in Faith he considered not 3 He was fully perswaded verse 21. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} he was persuasionis plenus fully perswaded this is the 3d thing that is observed in the manner of his believing He fully quietly resolvedly cast himself on this That he who had promised was able to performe it As a Ship at Sea for so the word imports looking about and seeing storms and winds arising sets up all her Sayles and with all speed makes to the Harbour Abraham seeing the storms of doubts and temptations likely to rise against the Promise made unto him with full sayl breaks through all to lie down quietly in Gods Al-sufficiency And this is the 3d 4 The 4th is That he staggered not verse 20. This is that which I have chosen to insist on unto you as a choice part of the commendation of Abraham's faith which is proposed for our imitation He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief The words may be briefly resolved into this Doctrinal Proposition All staggering at the promises of God is from unbelief What is of any difficulty in the Text will be cleered in opening the parts of the Observation Men are apt to pretend sundry other Reasons and Causes of their staggering The Promises do not belong unto them God intends not their souls in them they are not such and such and this makes them stagger when the Truth is it is their unbelief and that alone that puts them into this staggering condition As in other things so in this we are apt to have many fair pretences for foul faults To lay the Burden on the right shoulders I shall demonstrate by Gods assistance that it is not this or that but unbelief alone that makes us stagger at the Promises To make this the more plain I must open these two things 1 What is the Promise here intended 2 What it is to stagger at the Promise The promise here mentioned is principally that which Abraham believing it was
THE Stedfastness of PROMISES And the Sinfulness of STAGGERING Opened in a SERMON Preached at Margarets in Westminster before the PARLIAMENT Febr. 28. 1649. Being a day set apart for solemn Humiliation throughout the NATION By John Owen Minister of the Gospel LONDON Printed by Peter Cole and are to be sold at his Shop at the sign of the Printing-Press in Cornhil neer the Royal Exchange 1650. TO THE COMMONS OF ENGLAND IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED SIRS THAT God in whose hand your breath is and whose are all your wayes having caused various Seasons to pass over you and in them all manifested That his VVorks are Truth and his VVayes Judgment calls earnestly by them for that walking before him which is required from them who with other distinguishing mercies are interested in the specialty of his protecting Providence As in a view of present Enjoyments to Sacrifice to your Net and burn Incense to your Drag as though by them your Portion were Fat and Plenteous is an exceeding provocation to the Eyes of his Glory so to press to the residue of your Desires and Expectations by an Arm of Flesh the Designings and Contrivances of Carnal Reason with outwardly appearing Medium's of their Accomplishment is no less an Abomination to him Though there may be a present sweetness to them that finde the life of the hand yet their latter End will be to lie down in sorrow That you might be prevailed on to give Glory to God by stedfastness in believing committing all your wayes to him with Patience in wel-doing to the Contempt of the most varnished Appearance of Carnal Policy was my peculiar aim in this ensuing Sermon That which added ready willingness to my Obedience unto your Commands for the Preaching and Publishing hereof being a serious Proposal for the Advancement and Propagation of the Gospel in another Nation is here again recommended to your Thoughts by Your most humble Servant in our Common Master J. O. March 8th 1649. The stedfastness of PROMISES AND The sinfulness of STAGGERING Opened in a SERMON Preached at Margarets in Westminster before the Parliament Febr. 28. 1649. Rom. 4. 20. He staggered not at the Promise of God through unbelief IN the first Chapters of this Epistle the Apostle from Scripture and the constant practice of all sorts of men of all Ages Jews and Gentiles Wise and Barbarians proves all the world and every individual therein to have sinned and come short of the glory of God And not only so but that it was utterly impossible that by their own strength or by virtue of any assistance communicated or priviledges enjoyed they should ever attain to a righteousness of their own that might be acceptable unto God Hereupon he concludes that Discourse with these two positive Assertions 1 That for what is past every mouth must be stopped and all the world become guilty before God Chap. 3. v. 19. 2 For the future though they should labour to amend their wayes and improve their Assistances and Priviledges to a better advantage then formerly yet by the deeds of the Law shall no flesh be justified in the sight of God v. 20. Now it being the main drift of the Apostle in this Epistle and in his whole Employment to manifest that God hath not shut up all the Sons of men hopeless and remediless under this Condition he immediatly discovers and opens the rich Supply which God in Free-grace hath made and provided for the delivery of his Own from this calamitous estate even by the Righteousness of Faith in Christ which he unfoldeth asserteth proves and vindicates from Objections to the end of the 3d Chapter This being a matter of so great weight as comprizing in it self the summe of the Gospel wherewith he was entrusted the honor and exaltation of Christ which above all he desired the great design of God to be glorious in his Saints and in a word the chief subject of the Ambassage from Christ to him committed to wit That they who neither have nor by any means can attain a Righteousness of their own by the utmost of their workings may yet have that which is compleat and unrefusable in Christ by beleiving he therefore strongly confirms it in the fourth Chapter by testimony and example of the Scripture with the Saints that were of old Thereby also declaring That though the manifestation of this Mystery were now more fully opened by Christ from the bosome of the Father yet indeed this was the only way for any to appear in the presence of God ever since Sin entred into the world To make his Demonstrations the more evident he singleth out one for an example who was eminently known and confessed by all to have been the friend of God to have been righteous and justified before him and thereon to have held sweet Communion with him all his dayes to wit Abraham the father according to the flesh of all those who put in the strongest of all men for a share in Righteousness by the Priviledges they did enjoy and the works they did perform Now concerning him the Apostle proves abundantly in the beginning of the fourth Chapter That the Justification which he found and the Righteousness he attained was purely that and no other which he before described to wit a Righteousness in the forgiveness of Sins through Faith in the blood of Christ Yea and that all the priviledges and exaltations of this Abraham which made him so signal and eminent among the Saints of God as to be called the Father of the faithful were meerly from hence That this Righteousnesse of Grace was freely discovered and fully established unto him an Enjoyment being granted him in a peculiar manner by Faith of that promise wherin the Lord Christ with the whole spring of the Righteousnes mentioned was enwrapped This the Apostle pursues with sundry and various Inferences and Conclusions to the end of Vers 17. Chap. 4 Having laid down this in the next place he gives us a Description of that Faith of Abraham whereby he became Inheritor of those excellent things from the Adjuncts of it That as his Justification was proposed as an Example of Gods dealing with us by his Grace so his Faith might be laid down as a pattern for us in the receiving that Grace Now this he doth from 1 The foundation of it whereon it rested 2 The matter of it what he believed 3 The manner of it or how he believed 1 From the bottome and foundation on which it rested viz. The Omnipotency or Al-sufficiency of God whereby he was able to fulfil whatever he had engaged himself unto by promise and which he called him to believe vers. 14. He believed him who quickneth the dead and calleth those things which be not as though they were Two great Testimonies are here of the power of God 1 That he quickneth the dead able he is to raise up those that are dead to life again 2 He calleth things that are not as though they were by