drink-offerings to him and the heart of man as believed in by us for God also sets him forth for us to feed upon His flesh as meat indeed and his blood as drink indeed for us John 6.33.55 Judges 9.13 even as of old God had communion with his people in their Sacrifices taking part by the Altar and Priests for himself and giving part to the Sacrificers so both God and his people feed together in Christ Jesus Yea God the Father here would have had his elder Son have come in and eat with him and his other Son and Servants of the feast prepared the fatted Calf only the elder Sons own frowardness kept him out and so he is in bed with his children too sometimes as it is parabolically expressed Luke 11.7 while and they spiritually rest and repose together in Christ Such in a sort their fellowship with him that obey and walk with him 3. With him so as in a sense in him The Church of the Thessalonians that is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ 1 Thess 1.1 and 2 Thess 1.1 and we are in him that is true 1 John 5.20 in him because in Christ as to their hopes heart love faith life Our life is hid with Christ in God Col. 3.3 in him in his eye or view For the eye of the Lord is over the righteous and they are ever in his sight walking with and before him as Noah Enoch Abraham Gen. 17.1 They being his spiritual House and Temple in Christ what was said by him of his Temple typically is true spiritually and more really as to them Mine eyes and my heart saith God shall be there perpetually 2 Chron. 7.16 1 Pet. 3.1 in his hand power and dispose to order hold or uphold them yea to lead guide or carry them in his love All his Saints are in thine hand Deut. 33.3 Psal 139.9 in his minde and remembrance The Lord thinketh upon me saith Psal 40.10 he forgetteth not the cry of the humble Psal 9 12 yea to that purpose they are ingraven as on the palms of his hand so as they are ever before him in all his works Isa 49.15 and set as a signet upon his arm yea they are in his heart his love and choicest affection as a seal upon his heart Cant. 8.6 his heart is ever upon them The Lord loveth the righteous Psal 146.8 His countenance doth behold the just his heart and eye is upon them for good because of Christ the well beloved of his soul as found in him He loveth them with the love wherewith he loves him even with a love of delight and pleasure taking John 17.23 26. with 16.28 Psal 32.18 and 147.11 and 149.4 4. With him they are as children with a loving kinde and careful Father who hath all power and sufficiency to help and succour them and therefore thence great advantages accrue to them because being with him he is also with and for them as is said 2 Chron. 15.2 The Lord is with you while ye are with him on his side and in his presence keeping at home with him and this is through Christ who is Immanuel God with us God and man in one person and the Mediator and band of union between God and man through him the Lord is with that is both on their side and present with them by his power favour and grace for their helpfulness whence they have cause of greatest security in him greatest quietness and confidence as appears from that song of the Virgin Souls Psal 46. The Lord of Hosts is with us the God of Jacob is our refuge as the burthen of the Song and that was the spring of their rejoycing gladness and fear-exceeding-confidence expressed by them verse 2 3 4. Therefore will we not fear though the earth be moved and though the mountains be cast into the depths of the Sea c. For from hence they may be sure of 1. His defence He being infinite both in power goodness and faithfulness and being immutable and eternal in what he is and he having said and promised that he will take the care of and defend them that are with and obey him For on all the glory shall be a defence Isa 4.5 The Lord God is a Sun and a Shield and he will give grace and glory and no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly Psal 84.11 Thence let all that trust in thee rejoyce for thou wilt defend them with favour wilt thou compass them as with a shield Psal 5.11 12. And thence that glorying The Lord is our defence the holy one of Israel is our King Psal 89.18 and who can harm them that are with God as their Father and have him with and nigh to them to defend them as in 1 Pet. 3.13 yea they have his defence both 1. By his Word and his Spirit therein yea his only Son pleading for and justifying them He is near that justifieth me who will contend with me let us stand together Isa 50.7 8. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect those that are in Christ Jesus walking not after the Flesh but after the Spirit to whom there is no condemnation from God It is God that justifieth who is he that condemneth it is Christ that died yea rather is risen again c. Romans 8.1 33 34. 2. By his truth and faithfulness love and favour covering them over as wings and feathers as an Hen her Chickens I will say of the Lord He is my refuge my fortress my God in whom I will trust sayes Psal 91.2 as one resolving to dwell in Gods secret place his Christ his Covenant and then saith his Holy Spirit to such He that so doth shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty and surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the Fowler and from the noysome Pestilence He shall cover thee with his feathers and under his wings shalt thou trust his truth shall be thy shield and buckler ver 1 3 4 5 and With favour will he compass them as with a shield Psal 5.12 3. By his right hand which doth valiantly and brings great things to pass by that he saveth them that trust in him Psal 17.7 even by his glorious power and providence graciously exercised over them for and about them and holding them from falling and all these together in one in Christ Jesus our Lord Ephes 1 19 20. 2. His counsel they may certainly expect that also for he is nigh to them to teach and instruct them in the way wherein they should go and being their Father will not withhold it from them they asking it of him and waiting upon him for it as it is said Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel and that as a consequent of Gods being with him and he with him for so it is said Psal 73.22 23. Nevertheless I am continually with thee thou holdest me by my right hand Thou shalt or wilt guide me by thy
with thank fulness as in Psal 66.1 98 4. 100. 117 Peter the Apostle of the Circumcision tells us the same that God is not willing that any perish but that all should come to repentance and therefore is patient towards us and his long-suffering is to be accounted salvation as be saith Paul also writes as indeed he doth in Rom. 2.4 5. in whose writings he saith are some things hard to be understood which they that are unlearned and unstable namely in the mystery of Christ wrest to their own destruction 2 Pet. 3 9 15 16. now what might those things more likely be then those in which he seems to the unskillful to say that God would have some to perish and that his long-suffering is out of a purpose to destroy them which thou that pleadest so as before is said and such as thou art evidently wrest by your inferences to your destruction Better it is to believe the plain sayings of those holy men which they have delivered as the sum of the doctrine committed to them to be declared by them in all the world as the Apostle Paul expresly says of those passages above recited in 1 Tim. 2.4 5 6. that they are the testimony whereunto he was ordained an Herald or Preacher and an Apostle a Teacher of the Gentiles not in equivocation and deceit for verily God sent not his servants into the world to deceive men with lies but in faith and verity ver 7 judging those understandings of or inferences and doctrines from any other sayings of Scripture about abstruser things that clash with those plain sayings to be mistakes than to lean to such understandings or inferences against them Mind also what our Saviour replyed to one that asked him if there were but few that should be saved and obey his counsel thereupon bidding him to strive to enter the strait gate before it was shut as the next verse implies Luc. 13.24 25. He taught him not to believe according to thy reasonings that either he must be pulled in strive he never so much against it or else there was no admittance for him but all his strivings to enter would be lost labour to him Our Saviour calls all the ends of the earth to look up to him and be saved he being a just God and a Saviour that hath not said to the house of Israel and by consequence to no body else that they should seek his face in vain but he speaks in righteousness and declares right things Isa 45.19 21 22. whosoever comes to him he saith he will in no wise cast them out he coming down from heaven to do his Fathers will and that is that every one that seeth or beholds the Son and believes in him should have everlasting life Joh. 6.37 38 40. Ask therefore and thou shalt receive seek and thou shalt find knock and it shall be opened to thee for he saith not some only that are elected to it but every one that asketh receiveth and he that seeks finds and and to him that knocketh it shall be opened Mat 7.7 8. cease thy reasonings then and instead thereof Incline thine ear and come unto Christ hear and thy soul shall live Isa 55.2 3. Assure thy self God is no respecter of persons if thou hearing consent and obey thou shalt eat the good things of the promised inheritance but if thou persist in thy disobedience thou shalt be destroyed for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it Isa 1.19 20. and let this suffice to those thy reasonings But 2. If thou adde and say some that believe the Doctrine I herein preach take liberty therefrom to sin and may as well as from the other principles for if Christ dyed for all then must all be eternally saved and having liberty to turn to Christ when they will given them through Christ they may be bold to sin still till they please to turn I say breifly 1. That men may and will take liberty too often to sin where none is given them many do abuse Gods goodness and truth to their own destruction and yet his truth and goodness are blameless therein for its usually by believing some lye which they adde to his truth and for which he will reprove them Prov. 30.6 and so thou here addest falshoods to his truth For 2. Neither do the Scriptures nor I nor any that hold closely to them teach thee that all that Christ dyed for must and shall therefore be saved eternally but on the contrary they say that some deny the Lord that bought them as thou dost while thâ—u deniest to believe in and live to him and bring upon themselves swift destruction 2 Pet. 2.1 and that those that Christ dyed for may stumble and turn from him and in so doing may be destroyed and perish Rom. 14.15 1 Cor. 8.11 and upon that account they warn believers to take heed of offending their weak brethren Christ having dyed for all that they that live might live to him will therefore adjudge to a terrible destruction such as refuse to live to him chusing to live to themselves and to their sins 2 Cor. 5.10 11 14 15. 3. Nor do they assert that any man that refuses to turn at Christs calls at the present have liberty given them by him to turn when they will every obstinate holding fast of sin and refusing to turn when he gives liberty in his calls by his grace without which and further than that effects it none have any liberty at all to any thing that is spiritually good forfeits the liberty given and God may should he be severe to take the forfeiture as sometimes he doth upon that account withdraw it and swear in his wrath that men not entring his rest when by his grace they might they shall not enter it afterward if they would Num. 14.22 23 40 41 42. and that making excuses when he calls them and they might come they shall not afterward taste of his Supper to which he call'd them Luc. 14.18 19 24. Every act of willful sinning hardens the heart and grieves Gods spirit and provokes him to depart and cease striving with or drawing a man and if God cease drawing no man can come to Christ without his drawing Therefore take heed of provoking him thereto by such thy murmurings Joh. 6.43 44. Yet a little while the light is with thee walk while thou hast the light least darkness come upon thee and then thou walk thou knowest not whither Joh. 12.35 no man hath power over the spirit either his own to live as long as he list or Gods that it shall work with him as long as he please close with him therefore while it s yet a day of salvation Eccles 8.8 2 Cor. 6.1 2. One thing more I have to warn thee of and I shall conclude namely that thou abuse not any passage in this following Treatise about Gods goodness to great sinners or suddain receiving or comforting any such upon their repentance either to
Christ Crucified and the precious promises therethrough made by his blood ratified are his feeding and nourishment And now behold at this feast of fat things God and his Angels and Servants will rejoyce with the restored convert who shall sit down and feast and rejoyce with them in Christ Jesus Yea God himself by his Spirit calls upon both his restored Son and his ministring Setvants to rejoyce together saying Let us eat and be merry And why not because the sinner hath so greatly sinned but because he who by his sin was so near destruction is by grace reduced and brought back to salvation for so it follows Ver. 24. For this my Son was dead and is alive again was lost and is found and they began to be merry Oh the wonderful grace and love of a merciful Father Here are now no bad tearms given 't is not this Rogue or Vagabond this Adulterer or Murtherer but this my son was dead and is alive was lost and is found And they began to be merry for they had Musick and Dancing saith the next verse not such as he used to have in his riotous living that is sit for Rogues and Whores Bawds and Ruffians but such as may become the Palaces of Religious Princes or the Saints of Heaven such as Davids when he danced before the Ark and as the Virgins and women of Israel used and sometimes the Holy men upon occasions of rejoycing and thanksgiving to God But the Devil will marr this musick and disturb this mirth if he can and to this purpose though he could not prevail with the elder Son to leave his Father and turn Prodigal too but he was hitherto dutiful and obedient yet he will now infuse a bad and envious thought into him against his Brother and put him into a froward and pettish humour against his Father and the Servants and all that forward the such entertainment giving to one so far unlike him in his former demeanour For so it follows Verse 25. Now his elder son was in the field Not with his Father in the house but it may be wandring in his minde or his own wisdom or perhaps about his Fathers business and looking after his affairs in the services of his Law and as he came and drew near to the house to take notice how things were in Gods Church He heard Musick and Dancing he perceived some more than usual mirth and rejoycing and wondering at it Verse 26. He called one of the Servants and asked what these things meant Verse 27. And he the Servant said unto him Thy brother is come thinking that whom their Lord owned for his Son the Servants might well call his Brother And thy Father hath killed the fatted Calf hath made a costly Feast because he hath received him safe and sound A fair answer and well given Thy Father hath killed the fatted Calf as knowing his authority should be great with him and the very saying it was his Fathers act should satisfie and content him Whereas if they had done it and made merry of their own heads without him they might worthily have been charged with rashness by him But yet here is not only the Fathers authority alledged to satisfie him but the ground and reason too upon which the Father did it Viz. Because he hath received thy Brother safe and sound That love to his Brother as well as duty to his Father might work upon him Verse 28. But he was angry and would not go in Was discontented at his Fathers kindeness and love to his Brother and would not joyn with him his Brother and Servants in their merry meeting and rejoycing and in this our Lord brings up this parable to the occasion of it to shew the evil unreasonableness of the Pharisees murmuring and taking offence at Christ for his receiving Publicans and Sinners to hear him and eating with them that it was but like the folly pride and frowardness of such an Elder Son that should be angry at such a Father and his Servants for making merry for and giving good entertainment to a prodigal repentant Son But yet to instruct us in Gods lenity and goodness to all his Children even his pettish Sons too He addes Therefore came his Father out and entreated him A perfect pattern of a loving Father and a right Emblem of God our heavenly Father who when by his authority he might check and reprove the forwardness of a peevish Son and command his coming in waves the exercise of his authority and gives way to his bowelly affection to steer and lead him and therefore he goes out and intreats him It had been the Sons part to judge his Father wiser then himself and to have acquiesced in his wisdom and authority and hearing that the mirth was by his order and at his appointment to have complyed with him But where the Son fails of his duty the Father exercises the more love and laying aside his authority seeks to gain him to a better Decorum by his greater condescension and goodness towards him And well may the Servants intreat froward Children and not be froward and fretful against them when their Lord sets them such a pattern But see how tenacious the passionate creature is of his peevishness instead of the Sons being ashamed that his Father that might command him in should abase himself so as to come out to him and intreat him as if he had shifted place and relation with his Father very sturdily and proudly replies upon him And Verse 29. He whose mouth should have been stopt by the very authority and presence of his Father much more by his intreating him expostulates the matter with him and answering said to his Father Lo these many years have I served thee neither at any time have I transgressed thy commandment and yet thou never gavest me a Kid that I might make merry with my friends Here is a very undutiful demeanour an unchildlike answer no sign of any reverence neither Sir nor Father to usher in his saying but only a charge of unlovingness towards him as if according to the old complaint of froward people he had served God his Father for nought and there was no profit in so doing He draws up an account of his many years Service his great dutifulness and obedience forgetting and quite blotting out of his minde all the great engagements that were upon him toward his Father which might challenge more from him then he did or could have done and he layes a charge against him of neglect or sparingness toward him He had never given him a Kid a lesser matter then the fatted Calf to make merry with his friends Here we meet with a proof of the position we began with that as men are apt to minde and keep strict account of their own righteousness and services so its hard for them that do so not to be proud and from that principle wrangle with God if he in all things please them not in
also greedily with Harlots consumed his living and yet see how unequal the Father between them he in all those years never gave him a Kid which was far less then the fatted Calf though to eat in an honest way and to make merry not with Whores and Drabs but with his friends who he being so dutiful a Son could be no such lewd Varlots but persons of good fashion and honest reputation whereas on the other side his love was such to his other Son that notwithstanding all his badness disobediences and mis-spendings of his substance he could no sooner see him coming towards him but he runs to meet him and quicken him in his pace and instead of chiding him pitties and kisses him and kills the fatted Calf too so soon as he gets him home to feast him And had not this elder Son great reason 〈…〉 his Father and refuse to joyn 〈…〉 with him and his other Son and Servants in such a merry frollick so inconsiderately made as he hath represented it to him have we not many that are ready to be of his minde what when they have said their Prayers a thousand times over been good Church-men honest livers sober persons no Thieves Drunkards Whoremongers Harlots or wicked livers but have as they think served God justly accordingly to the laudible customs of the Church and perhaps also in private Prayers and Devotions hearing Sermons praying in their Families fasting as often and making as many and as long Prayers as the Pharisees strict and zealous in their conversations abstaining from all gross and known sins yet they could never be assured of Gods owning them nor meet with such ravishments of heart as to cause them to rejoyce much in God and to be willing to dye and depart this life and lo here or there a grat Sinner a Whore a Thief a Murtherer a wanton Person being convicted of their Sins and confessing their faults and crying to God for his Mercy listning to and imbracing his Gospel so inwardly filled with and outwardly testifying their sense of Gods love and exceeding comfort and consolation therein that they can glory in God as forgiving them their Sins have hope in their Death and talk of their assurance of Gods favour as if they had been all their lives Saints must not these either be deluded persons or what what shall we say or think of God but as those in Ezek. 18.25 That his wayes are unequal or as in Mal. 2.17 That every one that is evil is good in the sight of the Lord or else where is the God of judgement or judgement of God where the equity of his doings and proceedings with men But thou art holy O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel and wilt be justified in thy sayings and overcome when thou art judged Psal 22.3 and 51.4 stay then and let us see what the Father hath to say to his offended and discontented Son before we justifie his plea and pronounce on his side and that is held forth in the words that I have chosen herein to treat on as followeth CHAP. III. The Text Pharaphrased Verse 31.32 And he said unto him Son thou art ever with me and all that I have is thine It was meet that we should make merry and be glad for this thy Brother was dead and is alive again was lost and is found IT is a true saying of Solomon He that is first in his own cause seemeth just but his neighbour comes and searches him out Prov. 18.17 For here we have an answer confutes all the Son hath said in his passion and clearly evinces the equity of the Fathers carriage between them and of his thus entertaining his Son in his return And first here we may admire the Fathers meekness and gentleness towards a froward passionate Son in that he gives him no bad nor angry language He sayes not thou proud and insolent fellow that offerest to make thy self wiser then thy Father and liftest up thy self above him to call him him to an account and draw a charge against him for his actings as if thou wert wiser and of more authority then he whereas it s thy part and place to submit thy self to him and give him honour in judging him wise and righteous in his doings No such angry speech proceeds from him but only he gently calls him Son and gives him a fair answer to his charge and an account of his doings shewing the great condescension and goodness of God to his pettish people in their spiritual Distempers He sees his Son was in a passion and he would not take the course further to heat and inflame him but seeks to calm him like a loving Father who seeing his Childes Body over-heated and in danger to fall into a Feavour endeavours some wayes its prevention being wiser then his Son he sets not himself to answer him according to his childish folly but exercises love with judgement and discretion towards him and though his Son in his anger would neither vouchsafe to call him Father nor his Brother Brother yet he in whom fury is not but Love Meekness and Charity will not therefore disown or provoke him but pacifie and rectifie him and therefore calls him Son Oh the graciousness of God as a loving Father to froward and male contented Children especially while he sees their frowardness proceeds from ignorance weakness or the strength of temptation a pattern worthy imitation Be we followers of of God as dear children and walk we in love as Christ hath loved us c. Shall we weak purblinde and sinful men be froward with and harsh to our froward brethren when through temptation and weakness envyings swellings and discontents befal them when as our great God and Father is so graciously tender milde and gentle to such yea to our selves when so distempered and discomposed towards him But see again how blinde passion is though it seems to see very much yea and to see more then others that have not their hearts thereby heated and quickned to make diligent observation of things before them It is indeed quick-sighted of what makes for its nourishment and strengthning in its cause but while it looks upon all such things as it were through Multiplying and Magnifying Glasses and sees them more and greater then they be and so represents them it is so filled with the sight of them that it over-looks and sees not other things before it that judgement charity and right reason takes notice of and the sight whereof reduces the other things seen to their due scantling and proportion For the calm judgment and charity of the wise and patient Father the representative of the most wise and merciful God sees and observes here what the Son over-lookt and what might stop the mouth of his most clamorous passion He was Eagle-eyed to see yea more than was to be seen of his own service and obedience which yet in this his passion he shewed but little of but see not
fatherly authority though that might have been sufficient to have silenced him he also condescends to shew as all the way of the Gospel is a way of condescension that there is reason and equity in what he sayes and that he might see and be silenced and brought to submission he addes For this thy Brother was dead and is alive again was lost and is found Passion had blinded his reason and extinguished his affection to his poor Brother so as he took no notice of any relation between them and pride so transported him that he even scorned to see or own his relation This thy Son saith he to his Father as if he could be his Fathers Son and yet not his Brother or as if a brotherly relation was nothing to challenge and excite compassion love and affection to him Oh forsooth he was so holy just and righteous above his Father it seems that he disdained to own him for or call him his Brother though his Father had owned and called him Son as if he would have intimately said What should I own such a vagabondly Rogue or riotous Rascal or Whoremasterly Spend-thrift as this for my Brother As some such riotous livers amongst us in their own eyes would be ready to say of such though they have confessed their sins and been afflicted for them Should I believe that God will give pardon and peace and assurance so easily to such miscreants But the calm unpassioned and loving Father calls him to a calm remembrance that for all that whatever he had been or done he is yet thy Brother Hath not one God made us yea and of one mold and of the same blood whether Jews or Gentiles bond or free zealous or prophane yea did not one Christ dye for us and being called and brought to him to believe in him and submit to his grace are we not all in him that do so justified and made righteous and the children of God by the faith of Jesus whose blood washes away both the greater sins of the prodigal Spend-thrifts and the lesser murmurings and spiritual distempers of the self-over-weaning Saint or more righteous liver The same good Creditor forgave Simons fifty pence and the sinful womans five hundred Luke 7.41 42. and had it not been that he had forgiven both both might have gone to and lien in the prison neither having to satisfie what was owing Nay a Debtor that owes ten thousand Talents humbling himself to his Creditor and craving forgiveness and being forgiven may walk abroad boldly and look upon his Creditors face securely and confidently when he that owes but fifty pence taking his Brother that owes him less by the throat and being uncharitable to him and being not pardoned or forgiven his less debt by the Creditor may not dare to walk abroad or shew his head for fear of an arrest or be in so good a condition as the far greater Debtor that hath received a discharge for what was owing This thy Brother This was a particle of contempt in the Soâ— toward his Brother when he said This thy Son But a particle of Commiseration and moving to compassion in the Father when he saith This thy Brother as if he would say canst thou behold him and see him here present even this thy Brother so marvellously preserved and recovered and not commiserate him nor rejoyce for him Canst thou so far lay aside all natural affection and banish all remorse or joy from thine heart concerning him This thy Brother was dead was lost as if he would have said Thy evil eye is upon thy brothers doings but my good and merciful eye is upon his sufferings thou takest notice in thy pride envy and passion of what he acted and how he hath lived and aggravatest that to the heighth he ran away spent yea devoured my living and that with Harlots was a Rogue a Whoremaster or the like but my fatherly heart bleeds to think what a case he was in what miseries he met with what sorrows he sustained in his absence went not my heart after him where he went and did not mine eyes behold him under the fig-tree when he began to want and joyned himself as a Servant or an Apprentice to a Citizen of a strange Countrey he that was free born being brought into bondage and he that might have lived as well as thou being reduced to beggery I think upon his servile state and what drudgery work he hath been put to while thou hast lived like a Prince or Gentleman and seest not poverty or want I think on his base employment his hungry belly his ragged and naked back his pining griefs and pinching sorrows even unto phrensie distracting him so grievously that he knew not what he did nor whether he went my tender bowels rowl within me to think of these his sad sufferings yea and then was he most dead when he least see his danger and maddest when he was the merriest He hath eaten the fruit of his own wayes and been filled with his own inventions Thou hast lived pleasurably to him and knowest not what were the sad effects of his sinnings hadst thou thou wouldst have had more pitty on him and compassion towards him He is my Son but he was dead thy Brother and he was dead so great his sufferings sorrows and miseries as bereft him of all life and senses he was lost no where to be found in House or Fields till his own miseries that he pull'd upon himself fell so hard upon him as to make him remember himself and return to me I and thou might call him but he was out of the hearing of our voice My servants might call and seek him but he was gone and not to be heard of Thou lost nothing by serving me but he lost all he had yea himself was lost by deserting me and going from me didst thou lose but a Sheep or Kid thou wouldst resent it and be troubled for it yea thou takest it to heart that I have killed the fatted Calf and was one such creature more to thee then thine own Brother that was dead and lost Oh the mercies of God above our mercies to one another we see and note this and that evil such a one hath done but God knows the dangers they were in the sorrows of their hearts their secret sighs and groans the throbs and sobs that they have met with as the fruits of their sins when Gods Spirit hath been removed and withdrawn or driven from them by their iniquities and rebellions against him the bangs of Conscience and bleedings of heart the fears the despairs the inward horrors and outward feelings of correction sometimes upon them in losses poverty or the like the spiritual death and lostness of their souls from the feeling of Gods presence and the comforts thereof or any aptness or desire to any spiritual action and so the danger of being lost for ever These God hath his eye upon that we see not usually nor are apt
is great in power rich in glory in mercy in wisdom in love and goodness able to do all things good to all and his tender mercies over all his works bountiful to Servants that are but hirelings and serve him only for their own interests and rewards and may not abide in the house for ever being not made Sons How many hired Servants saith the Prodigal are in my Fathers house that have bread enough and to spare Luke 15.17 Yea good to his enemies loving them and doing good to all making his Sun to shine and rain to fall on the good and on the bad the unthankful and evil giving whole Lordships yea and Kingdoms of this world in his great bounty to them also that regard him not bâ—t hate him careful of the very inferiour creatures feeding the Ravens caring for the Fowls of Heaven even the little Sparrows five of which are sold for two farthings and not one of them is forgot before him Yea he giveth food to all flesh for his mercy endureth for ever If David counted it so great an honor and priviledge to be Son in Law to Saul an earthly and mortal King whose breath was in his nostrils and his power of narrow compass in comparison of Gods as well as his goodness Oh what may not a soul promise it self of felicity and happiness in being the Son the adopted and genuine Son of a King so great so full so good so free so liberal to and careful of all even of the worst men and creatures as God is what cannot what will not such a Father do for his Children especially such Children too as obey and abide with him Yea what may they not upon that consideration incourage themselves to look for and expect from him having also such an elder Brother with him as is infinitely perfect and dear to him to plead for them and take away the defects and sailings of their obedience towards him shall he be good to strangers provide for inferiour creatures give large crumbs and offals to dogs and birds and beasts and will he not give what is convenient to his children surely yes Shall he give good things to his enemies and neglect his children surely no. Surely he hath far better things for them then for any others not so near to him nor in such relation with him It is our Saviours argument Consider the fowls of the air for they sowe not neither do they reap nor gather into barns yet your heavenly Father feedeth them Mark the Emphasis Your Father and therefore loves you Your heavenly Father who in that he is heavenly is above all and hath all power and all creatures subject to him and in that he is heavenly is holy and pure from earthly affections as covetousness and other passions which our earthly Fathers are bemudded with He is your Father your heavenly Father yet he feeds them that are of no compare with him to you and to whom he owns no such relation shall he feed them and neglect you what earthly Father will do so to feed his chickens and forget or famish his children much less can or will your heavenly Father Matth. 6.26 and the like in Matth. 10.29 Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing and not one of them shall â—all to the ground without your Father as â—f he would say doth he that is so early related and dearly affected to you who stiles himself your Father and owns you as his Children take such care of so inconsiderable a creature as a sparrow two whereof are sold for a farthing and who are so infinitely below him that he stiles not himself in such a relation to them and can he neglect you who are his Children whom he hath so valued as to give a price greater then heaven and earth even his own Son for you Fear ye not therefore ye are of more value namely with him then many sparrows This then is a relation estating in such a condition as affords exceeding ground of highest confidence and greatest expectation in and through Christ in whom he makes and takes us for his Children of greatest advantages and fullest happiness and in the mean while of all that he that is so great and good can do for us and sees good and meet to be done Behold then what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us who are in Christ Jesus that we should be called the Sons of God Surely it s well worthy of our beholding for there is in it to be seen heighth and strength of love and affection and matter of marvellous consolation and in beholding this we may 2. Behold also how infinitely we are ingaged to God and to our Lord Jesus Christ to love and live to them to honour and glorifie them for what love was that that led the Father to give his only begotten Son to be the Son of Man and thereby exposed to all the miseries of man yea all that man by his sin had deserved as its just reward to be sustained and born by him that he might open the way from destruction to such an high priviledge as Son-ship to God by him and make him the root of it for and to us through what he hath done to him in the body he prepared and gave him could it be less then infinite love in him that moved him to design such exaltation of so base and vile creatures as we by the so great abasement of one so high and glorious as he and oh what love was that in Christ Jesus what grace what pitty what mercy and kindeness not to shrink back from the state of service to make us sons yea from the state of sin and death For he that knew no sin was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him and died for all that through him we might attain such dignity and glory as cannot be valued by us how should it engage our hearts and affections to him and make us ready with all diligence to obey and live to him that to such and so glorious an end died for us and rose again For he was made under the Law for such as were under the Law as in a sense all were Rom. 3.19 that we being redeemed from the Law might receive the adoption of Sons Gal. 4.4 5. 2. Herein also we may see and be instructed into the way whereby sinners may be made the Sons of God even they that are not so but are the children of wrath For as Christ hath by his sufferings opened and made the way for it so he thereby as raised from the dead and taken up to glory in the nature of man and owned as the Son of God and glorified is become the root of Son-ship unto us as is said and therefore the way for us to be made the Sons of God is to receive and close with him the Son of God as God is commending him and setting him forth to us by
and everlasting fire is theirs not they its to avenge them of their enemies the Devil and his instruments and all the evils that here did molest them and to give them infinitely more occasion and provocation for ever to admire his mercy towards them and bless him Psal 145.20 21. Luke 12.32 Mat. 25.35 36 41 46. Isa 66 2â— â—4 A marvellous full and glorious portion and such as passes understanding only there is this difference between the believers enjoyment of it now and hereafter now they have the title to it and the encouragement of the faith and hope of it and so much of it as they need and God sees good for them But hereafter they shall have all that shall be then to be had in the most full absolute and glorious sight and fruition of it Use 1. And the consideration of this with all before may serve 1. To move such to contentation with their condition for what can they want who have such a portion as God and all that are his to satisfie and save them The just shall live by faith and this is a truth to faith not to sense and in living by faith may abundantly and will administer content in every condition and Godliness with contentment is great gain The Lord is my shepheard saith David and thence infers I shall not want yea thence he had abundant experience of Gods provision for him and supplies of him and faithfulness to him in all cases and therefore concludes Surely mercy and goodness shall follow me all the dayes of my life Psal 23.1 6. as thence also or from the like consideration of Gods goodness and the blessedness of all that trust in him he exhorts and incourages others Fear ye the Lord ye holy ones for there is no want to them that fear him the Lions shall lack and be bit with hunger but they that seek the Lord shall want no good thing Psal 34.8 9 10. It s true the dispose of all is in the Fathers hand but he being wise and loving gracious and full of compassion and abundant in goodness and truth cannot nor will suffer his children at home with him to want any thing that may be good for them And it s but a childish humour from which its good that we be weaned to pet and cry and be froward for that that is not good but hurtful for us having all things that are our Fathers and he being free to afford out of it all good for us Be careful in nothing be peevish and discontent in nothing be not covetous of more then we have or of more then he thinks meet to give us into our possession and fruition but be we content with what we have for he hath said I will never leave thee no I will never forsake thee so that we may boldly say the Lord is our helper we will not fear what man can shall do unto us Heb. 13.5 6. Minding what we have in Christ and what ground of confidence that God will give us all things with Christ because he hath not spared Christ but delivered him up for us all let us through him be content with what he gives us either of outward supplies for this life or of spiritual gifts discoveries experiences comforts or the like waiting upon him to give us especially spiritual blessings and taking what he gives without envying at others or murmuring at him for what he gives them But 2. Oh the evil nature of envy frowardness pride and discontent though a man hath all things in Christ and God is faithful to give us all things with him as he sees we need and is good for us and though he gives abundantly like a Father to us yet the froward soul findes no good Prov. 17.20 Frowardness and discontent eats out the good of what we have and deprives us of the comfort of it rendring it as nothing to us and hinders us of what we might further have as being freely exposed to us as may be seen in Haman partly and in this elder Son Haman though he had Honour and Riches and Wife and Children the Favour of the King and as he thought of the Queen too yet the only want of a bow or prostration from Mordecai a slight from him marrs all the mirth from all other things What 's all this to me saith he when he had been telling his Wife and Friends of all his glory and happiness and enumerating all its several particulars so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the Kings gate such a viper is envy and discontent to eat out the bowels of them that breed and nourish it And what less or better here was the case of this Elder Son this righteous person leavened with the Pharisees leaven though all his Father had was his yet all that contents not because his Father had killed for his Brother the fatted Calf and therein testified his love to him and joy for him as if all was lost that fell besides himself But what was he like to lose his share in any thing because of because of his Brothers having part therein surely no. The fatted Calf was not taken from him by being killed for his Brothers welcome there was meat enough in it for him and his Brother too yea for the Father and Sons and Servants and all to feast on and if that could have been too little yet the Son needed not fear want the Father hath enough beside to maintain and satisfie him nor was his love the less to him by being testified thus to his Brother The same feast though made by occasion of his Brother and for his entertainment is free for him also and his Father had intreated him to come in and take part of it there was neither want in his Fathers love nor in the sufficiency of the chear to have made him as merry as his Brother and the rest that were making merry within It was only his own pettish humour and discontent causelesly at his Fathers dealing that was the let that he was not as merry and as well refreshed as any of them his Father would have had him come in and welcome and to be sure his Brother would have been glad to have seen â— much love and freeness in him towards him and all the servants would have liked to have had his company with them and as for the fatted Calf it was an everlasting dish that would have given him with all the rest full satisfaction it was spiritual and living meat like to or better then that the Jews call living water that is Spring-water that while its drawn out or received in its streams is not lessened by mens taking of it but runs still perpetually and increases in its running and meets the person that likes to use it and offers it self of its own accord unto him Such is living bread and meat like the meat in the miracle the loaves and fishes that multiplied in the eating of them increased
and of them to the spirits of just men made perfect to be their brethren followers of their faith and to be in the hope of and to have the title and way to their enjoyments and to God the judge of all to protect bless reward and satisfie them And to Jesus the mediator of the New Testament and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things then the blood of Abel to be prepared for kept and brought to the enjoyment of the Glory of God by him and in the vertues of that his precious blood Yea coming to Christ the living stone they are made living stones too and are built up a spiritual house and an holy Priesthood c. A chosen generation a royal Priesthood an holy Nation and a peculiar people to shew forth the praises of God who hath called them out of darkness into his marvellous light Heb. 12.23 24. 1 Pet. 2.5 9. Can there be a better state and condition in a word it s the same condition that the person is in that keeps to God and never departs from him a state of Son-ship to God of being ever with God and having interest in and benefit by all that is his for as Blessed is the man that is undefiled in the way and walks in the Law of the Lord so also Blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered Psal 119.1 and 32.1 2. Blessed is he to whom the Lord will not impute sin c. Both of them are in a blessed state and what can be better then blessed wherin is a removing of all evil and an estating in all that is good either as to the way to it or end attained Such is this condition Good in it self and then it s 2. It s good to others also as 1. To God in such a sense as any thing besides himself can be good to him not as if it added to him who is infinitely perfect in himself and not to be added to by any thing but good to him as its pleasing to him as a satisfaction to his love an attainment of his desired end in all his goodness expressed and testified towards the sinner at least so far as he hath attained He would have all men saved he hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked but rather that he turn and live He hath pleasure then that a wicked man turn and live Ezek 33.11 1 Tim. 2.4 That 's good then to God that 's pleasing or a pleasure and delight to him That that he is glorified in and by even his mercy and truth in Christ are herein glorified Psal 1 â—5 1. Such a person will praise him The living the living they shall celebrate or shew forth thy praises Psal 115.17 18. Isa 38.19 Yea and others will glorifie God in and for such a person as they did in Saint Paul Gal. 2.23 and his house and kingdom is hereby increased and the Kings honour is in the multitude of his Subjects Prov. 14.28 2. To Christ also upon all the same accounts It s matter of joy to him when what he labours for and in succeeds That his Plantation thrives and that any tree of his setting revives and prospers John 15.12 3. To the Holy Spirit for as God is love and Christ the Son of the Father in love and truth so the Spirit is the Spirit of Love and its a rejoycing to love when it hath what it may love and when what it loves succeeds and is well as he is grieved and vexed in his peoples ill-doing and rebelling so he is delighted in their well-doing and repenting Isa 63.10 11. Ephes 4.30 4. To the holy Angels who loving men and their good desire it and in such persons have their desire answered and the number of their blessed company in a sort increased Luke 15.10 Heb. 12.23 5. To their Brerhren whose number is added to or preserved from being in such diminished and whose spiritual desires breathings prayers and endeavours are herein answered and they may have benefit by them in mutual fellowship with them if here surviving or if not yet edification however in the beholding or here-say of the Vertues of Christ and his Sacrifice and the power of the Grace of God appearing in them in their dying 6. Yea to all other men its good either as making them fit to pitty pray for and seek the good of them and be useful to them or as affording inducement to them to repent also and seek God and hope in him and it cannot but be 7. Good to a mans self such and so happy a condition as in which is the confluence of all good to a man Now that that is good and so good surely it is meet that all that are good and love what 's good or may have good by it should rejoyce and be glad for it And so God makes this mirth here and a feast hereat for all that can and will be glad of it and we should make merry by exhorting and exciting all to gladness by all means we can upon such occasions 2. It is meet we should make merry and be glad on such an occasion because of the relation the sinner stood and stands in to us to God and his people especially This thy Brother and ver 24. This my Son Love will lead us to be glad for strangers or enemies if they come to good to what 's truly good to what 's spiritually and eternally good but how much more for a mans own near relation The Lord rejoyces in his works the works of his hands as being all as his works good and holy and just but how much more in man his choice work for whose sake he made and to whose good he ordered all the rest made in his own likeness and image and so his Son but yet how much more for and in those that were and are again Sons in his Son in his only begotten and beloved Sonâ— Those whom he begot with such desire and love as through the gift of his Son and his Son bare and brought forth with the travail of his soul poured out to Death and brought to be his Sons by the Word thereof and by his Spirit breathing therein and whom he nourisht up with the flesh and blood of his Son and vertues thereof Should not the Father rejoyce and make merry to see his Son and so dear a Son in a good condition And should not Brethren make merry and be glad at the preferment good or recovery of their Brethren Would it not be unnatural for Brethren not to rejoyce in love for one another when they do well very well and one as well as another and all well Shall the Angels not so related to us Men be glad of our good and shall not we Men for one another and especially for such as have been our whole Brethren and so are Yea and should not all the Servants be glad of the happiness of their Masters Sons with
pining away in the sense of it and I will go to my Father Go no more after Idols Hosea 14.8 that afford no comfort or profit but to him whose love at first begat hope as well as at first his hands did make me And I will say to him Father I have sinned against heaven and before thee A resolution to confess his sins against God and man against Christ the heavenly one against the Holy Spirit that is from Heaven and against the Word that is from Heaven too and against the Angels in Heaven whose Service and Ministry is abused in our sin And before thee that is in the sight of and so against God himself in all this and in all other his mercies abused All which confession springs from hope in God whence he challenges him for his Father though offended by him but yet addes as humbling himself before him and submitting himself to him and his Dispose Verse 19. I am no more worthy to be called thy Son as if he should say though I am by Creation and by thy former gracious Call Adoption and Regeneration thy Son yet I have forfeited that relation as to thy owning me so any longer and giving me the title and priviledges of a Son I have so defaced thy Image and likenesse in me by my sin and so disobliged thee by my disobedience Make me as one of thy hired Servants Give me but a room in thy house and let me have but their portion who serving thee for themselves only and thy reward are under thy maintenance and protection a speech in which he judges himself and submits himself to any mean condition So his Father would but take him into his house again though to be under the servitude of the Law rather then to be left still to be a drudge to Sin and Satan Thus Sinners come home by weeping cross forfeiting their priviledges honour favour and dignities by their transgressions but all this while here is only repentance resolved on the practice of it must follow the resolution And so it was Verse 20. And he arose and came to his Father there 's the practice of repentance the arising from sin and from the discouragements under the consideration of sin to return and come by Faith Hope and the desire of heart to God to seek after him and submit to him as he discovers himself to us in and by Christ And now see the mercy of God to penitent Sinners painted out in the compassions of a tender hearted Father to his Prodigal but repenting and returning Son for it follows But when he was yet a great way off his Father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him Oh how quick sighted is Love and Charity of what is good fatherly love to a returning lost Childe the love of God to truly penitent Sinners While the Sinner is yet short in his Repentance and a great way off from coming up to God in conformity to what his word requires yet he being really in the way thereto seriously desirous of and endeavouring after it God sees he takes notice pittieth his misery and is ready to encourage and animate him in his Repentance The Son goes towards his Father as being between hope and fear of acceptance with him but the Father runs towards his Son as it were to hasten his endeavours or prevent them with encouragement to more assured confidence of welcome therein yea and before the Son can fall at his Fathers feet with tears of Repentance the Father falls on his neck and kisses him with kisses of his welcome the kisses of his mouth the sweet encouragements of his Word and Spirit which hinder not but quicken the Sons repentant Confession and humbling of himself to him Verse 21. And the Son said to him Father now he may call him so with more boldness as having found before-hand such renewed testimonies of his former kindeness and tender mercies I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight and am no more worthy to be called thy Son The sense of Gods love and mercy quickens confession of sin and self-abasement in the sight of our vileness Ezek. 16.60 61 Nothing humbles and melts so much as Gods love preventing and following us being notwithstanding our unworthiness streamed forth to us and perceived by us But before the Son can say as he pre-resolved Make me as one of thy hired Servants his Father prevents him as follows Verse 22. But notwithstanding the Son had so sinned and judged himself unworthy to be any more called his Son the Father forgiving all past and glad of his lost Sons return said unto his Servants Bring forth the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and shooes on his feet He finds his Son in a poor tattered case in a ragged condition cloathed with vile Apparel or in a manner wholly naked like a Swineheard far unlike what became his Son so sin makes us and he dislikes it and pitties it And now the Servants must apply themselves too to recruit and comfort him and such the gladness of a loving Father to have his lost Son again that forgetting all his offences and not so much as once upbraiding him instead of shutting his doors against him or calling for Rods and Staves to beat and correct him he calls for the best Robe with Ring and Shooes to adorn him which the Servants must apply to him and put upon him too as thinking nothing too good for him to be afforded him He will have him clad and waited on as his Son again to signifie as what sin continued in deprives us of so also how acceptable it is to God that his Servants and Gospel Ministers make it their business to incourage comfort and restore penitent Sinners Yea he addes further Verse 23. And bring hither the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry The poor sinning Childe was hungry as well as ragged ready to Famish and his Father knows his needs and will supply them with what may best shew his love and gladness for his return When he was keeping Swine Bread and Cheese would have been welcome might he have had them yea now being returned he would have been glad and accepted it might he have had ordinary fare and Servants entertainment in his hunger he mentioned only bread enough in his Fathers house but that suffices not his Fathers love to him to testifie how gladly he receives him no if there be one Robe better then another he shall have it to clad him and if one dish better then another he shall have it to feed him the fatted Calf The Righteousness of Christ is the penitent Sinners cloathing and garment the Father gives him The Vertues of Christ and his Spirit incircle his Works as a Ring his Finger The preparations of the Gospel of Peace shod his Feet and the choicest demonstrations of Love and Grace shewed forth and exhibited in
their humours and act not to their mindes and indeed to under-estimate Gods mercy and goodness as much as they over-value their own righteousness for so did this elder son in this froward fit being ready to shift places with his Brother and because he is received in will keep himself out and stand against his Fathers intreaties to justifie himself in his so doing for it was his Brothers reception that was the great thing stirred him as the next words manifest viz. Ver. 30. But as soon as this thy Son was come which hath devoured thy living with Harlots thou hast killed for him the fatted Calf Every word hath weight in it and bespeaks him passionately froward But in a clean contrary carriage towards him to what thou hast had to me assoon without staying to see him sufficiently humbled and penitent as if his Father was too hasty so to receive and respect him and as implying it had been meeter however to have frowned a while yea some long while upon him and made him lie and bewail himself at least for sometime first at his threshold before he had received him and welcomed him but assoon as this thy Son this by way of disdain and thy Son not my Brother as if he scorned to own such a one as he for his Relation much less his Brother but thy Son as if he had had a minde to disown himself a Son or him his Father because he so and so suddenly owned him and as if he only was made a Son by his Father because he so welcomed him As soon as this thy Son was come before any longer probation or tryal was made of the reallity of his repentance though he is he that hath devoured thy living with Harlots See how he as much debases and aggravates his brothers Sin as before he had amplified his own service and righteousness as if there was a direct Diametrical opposition between his own obedience and this follows lewdness He hath devoured thy living as if he had ravenously consumed all and left his Father nothing to live on when as it was but only that portion of it that fell to his lot or division But envy and frowardness is passionately Rhetorical to aggravate what offends with the largest note upon every circumstance transports beyond all bounds of soberness and leads to represent every thing in the worst colours and therefore he also addes that he had devoured his Fathers living with Harlots Though that 's beyond the first relation of his evil courses and more its likely then he had any positive evidence for but what his passion suggested His Father mention'd none of those things to him for gladness of his return but blots them all out with an act of oblivion Ah but the froward Brother will rip them all up and not suffer his Father if it may be in his power so to forget them that if possible he may move him to undo his acts of Grace again and seeing the error of his love expel him his house and make him once more seek his fortune and no doubt but the Pharisaical wisdom of the offended Son would readily suggest that it was a far evener and more just carriage towards him for his Father to have shut his doors upon him then so soon to have received him yea and because he had voluntarily and of his own vain head run from his Father and despised him his House his Brother and whatever else was therein he should now against his will have been made to keep from them and go get his living with those riotous companions he had preferred before them and in those places that he had haunted rather then his Fathers Habitation or at least to have made him bite by it a little after his return and put him into the worst apparel and fed him with the worst fare and not the best his house afforded So much wiser are we apt to be in our pride of our selves and uncharitableness to our sinning Brethren more then the most Holy and only wise God who as he is perfect in Judgment so he hath more love and charity towards them for this seems an intollerable respect to so vile a varlet one whom others of his temper would be ready to call an whoremasterly Villain to make for him such dainty provision as is implied when he addes Thou hast killed for him the fatted Calf Had it been killed for himself before he would have thought it enough to let him taste of it worser fare he thought might have been too good for him but to kill any thing for such a lewd fellow that mattered not to kill his Father by spending his substance to his grief yea to kill the fatted Calf the most reserved dainty that his Father had when as he never at any time gave him a Kid Oh how could he look upon such a partiality without indignation and yet as intimately taxing his Father with such rashness as to act all things without good advisement or fore-consideration or with such blindeness through his too partial affection toward his disobedient Son that he could see nothing either of his deserts from him on the one hand or of his ungracious Sons demerits on the other or of his own too much indulgence to sin as if he hated it more and were better then his Father her prefixes an Ecce before all this heavy charge thus drawn out in length Lo these many years I serve thee neither at any time transgressed I thy Commandement and yet thou never gavest me a Kid to make merry with my Friends but as soon as this thy on was come who hath devoured or swallowed up thy living and there 's an emphasis in that word devoured as if he greedily like a glutton or drunkard without any regard of thee or what should become of thee or thy glory hath eaten or swallowed up all thy living and that with Harlots yet thou hast killed for him the fatted Calf Oh how blinde is Love and Charity how quick sighted how Eagle eyed jealousie and passion how eloquently can anger argue here 's nothing omitted that may exaggerate the Fathers over-sight in his indulgent carriage towards his returned Son as if his Father like some old blinde man had seen nothing but he sees all both for himself and against his Brother and as if his Father had been as injurious to him as fondly indulgent to his Brother if his stomack could bear it so to repute and call him but he will make his Father see how unequally he carried himself between them he therefore sets before him the years yea the many years service he had performed to him whereas so many years his other Son was run from him and had left him to look after his concernments himself for all him yea and the exactness of his obedience to him in all that time never at any time transgressing his Commandment whereas his brother on the contrary not only had not obeyed him but
or tookno notice of his better condition and greater obligements through his Fathers love and freeness towards him which therefore the loving meek and wise Father for curing of his distemper mindes him of saying Son thou art ever with me and all that I have is thine and what 's a Kid or a fatted Calf to an Inheritance that in his distemper was forgotten by him Peevish frowardness and passionate envious distempers are no good guides or counsellors for us to listen to or to be led by in our judgements or goings they see where they should be blinde and are blinde where they should see It is not for us to take notice of our services and obedience but God who is the wiser and best estimator of them and will not undervalue or underweigh them one grain nor come short in the least reward of any thing truly acceptable in them but is ready to reward them like a bounteous King so as to shew his riches of liberality far above any inward excellency they have in them It is for us and more behooful and profitable to minde and take notice of his love and goodness to us to quicken us up to and in our duties and obedience and to preserve us from proud and haughty miscarriages and froward repinings and murmurings at his dealings with us or others The minding Gods goodness to us will beget and nourish love and obedience in us to him and then we shall not need to minde how dutiful and obedient we are to him but rather shall see cause to confess our selves in all we do unprofitable servants to him that have done nothing but what his goodness already extended challenges and makes due from us and so that we cannot challenge any thing of due debt or merit further from him yet he will also such his goodness minde to reward us with rewards undeserved by us and exceeding glorious But as this proud and froward distemper made him overlook the goodness of his condition with his Father and his obligations to him so it blinded him also from seeing what was meet to be done for and toward his returned Brother and the equitableness of his Fathers carriage towards him which therefore his Father to cure him and argue him by reason and judgement out of his distemper mindes him of also It was meet that we should make merry and be glad That by his fatherly authority and wisdom he layes down as a certain truth to be received and believed by his Son as an Oracle proceeding from his more perfect understanding and unerring wisdom teaching his Son who in duty ought to hear his Fathers Instruction about what was meet and not to take upon him to correct his Father and be an instructor and teacher to him The over-eying and over-weaning of our graces services doings duties c. are very apt to yea very certainly and necessarily do puff us up with spiritual pride and that lifts us out of our places and makes us ready to disanul Gods Judgment and condemn the Almighty to justifie our selves and make our selves righteous As God sayes of Job sinning in that way of sin through that root of spiritual pride Job 40.8 and instead of learning of God and Christ to lift up our selves against them quarrel with them and set our selves to inform and teach them doing as St. Peter dâ—… who after he had heard Thou art 〈◊〉 and I will give to thee the Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven by and by lifted up himself as high as the Pope would be upon that Scripture lifted up by men to after and correct his Masters sayings and doings going therein before him and not coming after him him as Disciples and learners use to do to their Masters Mat. 16.18 19 22 23. yea taking him aside and rebuking and advising him as if his Keyes of the Kingdom gave him authority over him and his Doctrine too as the Pope practices upon that pretence with Christ and his Institutions thereby proving himself to be and to deserve the name of a Satan as Christ gave to St. Peter upon that account and we may very safely by the by observe this truth that while the Pope or any else under pretence of having the Keyes of the Kingdom given them do take upon them to alter and correct Christs sayings or doings his Ordinances and Institutions as they do in the order and manner of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper amongst other things coming in with their non abstante though Christ ordered thus yet that notwithstanding we order it otherwise though Christ ordered and the Apostles practised the receit of the Supper in both kindes yet we for all that order it to be received in one kinde only though God hath forbidden the worship of Images and Christ came not to dissolve his Fathers Laws yet we command them to be made and worshipped c. While I say the Pope and his Councils or any else do thus they are so far from being the Rock Foundation or the Head of the Church that they are Satans enemies and adversaries to Christ and his Church and so plainly Antichrists Yet this the pride of gifts places offices and services puffs up men too usually to But the Father would have his froward Son here reduced into better order and as Christ said to Peter come behinde him and hear and learn of him not argue against him and rebuke him as here he did opposing his Fathers practice and order of making merry for his lost Son found again It was meet that we should make merry and be glad Prepare a feast for mirth and make mirth outwardly at it and be glad too inwardly and in heart But he doth not only instruct him and teach him or by his Fatherly wisdom and authority dictate so much to him but also demonstrates the truth of his doctrine by solid and sound reason that he might as well inform his judgement and make him see the truth of his saying with his own eyes or understanding as it were as well as assure him of it upon his own authority and the authority of his saying which ought for it self to be received because he is the Lord though he gave us no other account of it and indeed this is one great difference between the Law and the Gospel The Law delivers precepts from God barely upon the account of his authority Thou shalt do or not do thus for I am the Lord But the Gospel insinuates things to us and perswades us to them by reason as laying down the grounds and reasons why that we might offer to God A reasonable service Rom. 12.1 whence also as Christ is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a name signifying not only word but reason John 1 1. So they that believe not the Gospel are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Absurd or unreasonable men 2 Thess 3.2 and so I say here the better to convince him that he doth not impose upon him meerly by his
that after some time taking and attributing the Gifts and Graces of God to themselves and considering and growing full in themselves through them depart from God and run into by-paths and sinful courses tending to the destruction of their souls wasting and consuming Gods gift and talents upon their own and other mens lusts The other sort compared to the elder Son such as after grace received and their call and birth as it were into or in Gods house abide therein and cleave to God and his word and the commands and councels thereof walking justly and holily with God in the main and not departing from him as open sinners do for unto such it may be said as is here said by the Father more fully and proproperly Son thou art ever with me and all that I have is thine as David saith of such Blessed are the undefiled in the way that walk in the Law of the Lord. Blessed are they that keep his testimonies and seek him with the whole heart they also do no iniquity that walk in thy wayes Psal 119.1 2 3. Men that are truly righteous and accepted of God and turn not aside to crooked paths as others do Only here it might be questioned whether such persons may be guilty of such pride and frowardness as is here set forth in the elder Son and his carriage such disdain at erring and repenting Sinners such quarrelling at God and his dealings And it seems to me they may and sometimes have been found and yet are guilty of such like distempers through their over-weaning their own righteousness and walkings and dislike as they apprehend of others wickedness Yea we have divers instances of such like frowardness befalling and exerting it self in such more close-walking Believers and righteous persons upon divers accounts as to say 1. Sometimes because they see and perceive and with a carnal eye which yet may be in true and right Disciples else Christ would not have said to such If thy right eye offend thee pluck it out and cast it from thee do behold and look upon the outward prosperity riches honours and welfare of loose ungodly persons that are and continue to be so and on the other hand reflect upon their own sufferings and troubles Thus we finde that good man Asaph confessing to us that such a view of things had like to have turn'd him aside and made him slip yea it brought him to such a pass as that he was actually envious at the foolish when he saw the prosperity of the wicked and came to this conclusion Verily in vain have I cleansed my heart and washed my hands in innocency for all the day long have I been plagued and chastned every morning Psal 73.13 14. Whence also so frequent warnings and councels given to such by the Holy Ghost Not to envy sinners nor fret themselves because of such as prosper in wickedness and that bring evil devices to pass as is to be seen in Psal 37. Prov. 3.29 31. and 23.17 18. and 24.1.19 20. and the same carnal eye that leads to envy and be discontented at God for the outward prosperity of the openly wicked may lead them to stumble and be displeased at God for giving such upon their repentance more gracious testimonies of his love and ravishing satisfactions and assurance of Salvation then they have proved or felt in their more sober and zealous walking 2. Sometimes because God doth heavily try and exercise them with inward and outward troubles and afflictions therefore over-weaning their own integrity righteousness and good doings they are ready to expostulate with God and condemn and fault him as much as this elder Brother his righteous Father and this was Jobs case and weakness sure it is that he was no Pharisee as that word is used to signifie a seemingly righteous man only and a real Hypocrite for he hath testimony from God that he was a perfect man and upright above any in the Land one fearing God and eschewing evil and he could in truth and did say a great deal of his uprightness and integrity his holy blameless and good demeanor in chap. 29. and 31. more then any man scarce can say I believe and so much as put to silence the jealous and false surmises and groundless charges of his deceitful friends that would have fastned upon him the blame of hypocrisie and wickedness and yet he over-valuing his righteousness and looking and standing too much upon it fell into this distemper to murmur against and fault the Almighty condemning him and disannulling his judgement that he might be righteous as this froward Son did faulting God in vindication of his own integrity as if God punished him without cause and did more to him then he could answer and if a perfect upright man through temptation may fall into such a proud and froward distemper in one case it may be possible also in another 3. But we have instances too of righteous and good men charging God foolishly and murmuring against men for his and their respect to penitent sinners and for his equalizing or seeming to prefer them in his kindness who were below them in their works of righteousness and over estimated goodness A three-fold instance at the least we have of this 1. The believing Jews when they heard that Peter had gone in to Cornelius Acts 11.1 and eaten and drunk with them that were professed Gentiles that is uncircumcised persons murmured at him for it and took him to task till by repeating the whole matter with its grounds and reasons to them he gave them satisfaction and then they indeed acquiesced and glorified God for giving unto them also repentance unto life but before they contended with and accused him and that 's all that we finde this Son did to his Father and as they after St. Peter had opened the matter to them acquiesced so might this Son after this defence made by his Father for-we finde no reply thereto made by him nor further mention of him as we do of the zealous Jews afterward that were Christians Acts 21. â—0 2. The labourers first hired into the Vineyard Matth. 20.1 11. when they came to receive their pay because they that were hired at the eleventh hour of the day receiving their pay first received as much as they who had been hired early in the morning murmured against the Master of the house as if he had done them wrong in making them who had laboured but a little while equal in their pay with them who had born the burden and heat of the day saying These have wrought but one hour and thou hast made them equal with us ver 12. and yet these appear to have been righteous persons for in his answer he excepts not against their saying they had born the burthen and heat of the day as accusing them of falshood in their plea and as if they had been unrighteous loyterers and not labourers and they were rewarded for their work according to agreement
and promise and had the same reward as those last that seemed to be more favoured Their exception against him was not that they had less then he had promised them or then they had been content at first to labour all the day for but only that he made the last that had wrought so little a time equal with them to whom therefore all his answer is Friend I do thee no wrong didst thou not agree with me for a peny is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own is thine eye evil because mine is good take that thine is and go thy way I will give to this last as unto thee ver 13 14 15. Indeed this is not altogether the same case but if righteous rewardable persons such as the Apostles for so the occasion of the parable which was St. Peters taking notice of what they had done for Christ seems to carry it may in consideration of their labours and Gods bounty to others that have laboured less fall into such distempers for his goodness to them because equalized with them in the reward may it not be easier in case God seems to them to prefer such before them therein or rather such as have done him great disservice upon their acknowledging only and repenting of their sin as it happened to St. Paul 3. The Prophet Jonah undoubtedly was a good and gracious man being a Prophet of the Lord and a Type of Christ and yet he fell into a peevish distemper like to this of this elder Son because God had not more respect to him and his honour and credit as a Prophet as he thought its likely it would tend to his disparagement then to repenting Nineveh which was threatned by him before their repentance to be destroyed after forty dayes time The repenting Ninivites were like this repenting Prodigal They believed Gods threatning and repented and put away their evil works and God also repented of the evil which he had threatned to bring upon them and destroyed them not And as the Fathers entertainment of his Son displeased the elder Brother here so did Gods mercy and indulgence to Nineveh displease Jonah there for it is said The thing displeased Jonah exceedingly as if it had been some great evil that had befallen him and he was angry with him and he prayed unto the Lord and said Jonah 4. I pray thee O Lord was not this the saying that I said while I was yet in mine own Land therefore fled I before unto Tarshish for I knew that thou art gracious and merciful long-suffering and of great kindeness and repentest thee of the evil and now O Lord take I beseech thee my life from me for it is better for me to die then to live What a peevish froward temper was this good man in that could have been content to have died for grief that Nineveh was spared whence the Lord said to him Doest thou well to be angry and shewed him his folly in that when Jonah went out of the City and sate and abode on the East-side of it and had made a Booth and sate under it till he might see what would become of the City and God had prepared a Gourd which grew up above Jonah and was a shade to him defending him from the heat of the Sun so that he was exceeding glad of it He also prepared a worme that on the morrow smote the Gourd that it withered and in the morning he prepared an East-winde that was drying and the Sun beat upon Jonah's head so as he fainted so as he then desired to dye rather then to live whereupon the Lord said to him Doest thou well to be angry for the Gourd and he in his great frowardness replyed I do well to be angry to the death justifying himself in his frowardness as this Elder Son did as if God had done him a double injury one in being so merciful to that cruel bloody heathenish City and another in being so harsh to him as to take away the comfort and shelter of the Gourd from him thereby exposing him to so much trouble much what as this Elder Son quarrelled with his Father for his supposed straitness to him and for his goodness to his Brother till God answered him there as the Father did his Son here to allay his heat and passion saying Thou hast pitty on that Gourd that thou never labouredst for neither didst thou make it to grow but it sprung up in a night and perished in a night and should not I have mercy on Nineveh a great City in which are more then six score thousand persons which know not their right hand from their left besides much Cattle Shewing as our Lord in these Parables how apt men are to be pittiful towards and tender over trifles and yet they are ready to take it ill that God so tenders and shews his compassion to the immortal souls of his choice creatures Indeed there was a difference between Jonah and this Elder Son if we take for true his passionate proclaiming his own dutifulness and obedience Jonah could not say as he that he never at any time transgressed any of Gods Commandments for he had but a little be-before gone quite contrary to his Commandement flying to Tarshish when God sent him at the first to preach to Nineveh for which God made him smart by causing him to be cast into the Sea where he had perished had he not upon his repentance and crying to God found wonderous mercy from him in prepaparing a Whale and causing it after three dayes and three nights to vomit him out upon the shore safe and sound But this was such a circumstance as renders the case far more for our advantage for one would have thought that such a notable transgression deserving such and a greater punishment and putting him upon such a need of crying for mercy himself and such a signal unparallel'd mercy obtained of God should have made him more to compassionate others that sinned and more well-pleased that they should in their repentance obtain mercy too Experiences of miseries use to make men more compassionate to others and mercies shewed to our selves should make us more desirous of mercy to others whom like or worse miseries have either layen upon or are at present impending over but it was otherwise with Jonah he that had needed and cryed for and obtained mercy for himself but a little before without which he had been no more heard of even he hardens his heart against such as needed like mercy now and could be angry unto death that God should take such care to call them to repentance and upon their repenting spare them Now if truly righteous persons after great lapses themselves and mercies received may murmur at Gods mercies to others because they obtain mercy upon repentance who had before deserved to have been destroyed how much more may it befall such persons having in their apprehensions never so offended or been in
such a plunge but alwayes in a posture of duty and obedience being puft up thereby to fall into passions and offences to see gross sinners upon an appearingly slighty repentance received to such favours as they have never had experience of the like These things seem to render valid the interpretation of the words that I have given besides the words themselves answered here by the Father to his froward Son Son thou art ever with me and all that I have is thine which agree unto none so properly as unto truly righteous and obedient Children And the words so looked upon though they do not suit just with the generality of the Jews or Pharisees who were Hypocrites nor may be so construed as to render them truly righteous yet by an argument from the greater to the less do more strongly reprove them after this sort If persons truly righteous and in the main dutiful and obedient have no cause to murmur at Gods great mercies towards grievous sinners if upon their repentance they be not only pardoned but also meet with such joyes and expressions of gladness in God and his Servants as themselves never had proof and experience of much less have formal Professors carnal Christians or Hypocrites that have nothing but a form of Worship and an appearance of Godliness and Devotion and that mixed too with great blindeness opposition to Christ his wayes and truth and with many other great latent evils and some open enough too sometimes much less I say have such cause to murmur at Gods mercies to penitent sinners and think themselves slighted in that their formal out-side and Pharisaical Professions are less regarded forasmuch as their formal Devotion and Religion is far short of the grosser Sinners hearty repentance and turning unto God Such sinners might say to them as the Thief upon the Cross to his fellow that mocked at Christ Fearest thou not God seeing thou art in the same condemnaton in as bad a condition by thy resting in an ignorant formal out-side profession without inward life and power and therein indulging thy self in some seemingly less but as well forbidden corruptions such as their swearing by the Temple and by the Altar and thinking themselves guiltless therein when God had forbidden to swear save by his Name and by his Name too customarily rashly or falsly somewhat like mens swearing by their Faith and Troth or by the Mass or by the Name of God customarily and such other Oaths in which they hold themselves innocent Mat 23.16 17 18 19 Yea and adding to thy other sins that that makes thee equal with the chief sinners viz. opposition to Gods Wayes Truths and people even to the Name of his only Son called upon by them as Paul tells us when he had reckoned up many great sinners as ungodly unholy prophane murtherers of Fathers murtherers of Mothers Whoremongers defilers of themselves with mankinde Man-stealers c. for whom he sayes Christ Jesus came into the world to save them yet speaking of himself that had been of the straitest Sect of Religion among the Jews and abhorred and hated those grosser wayes of ungodliness yet because he had in his ignorant zeal for God and his Church and the Traditions of the Elders blasphemed Christ and his Truth and People and been a persecutor of and injurious ro them he stiles himself therefore the chief of sinners as if a greater sinner then those Thieves Whoremongers and Murtherers before spoken of by him thou I say art in as bad a condition as I poor prodigal was in before I repented and how much worse then now I am in having repented such as are so far guilty themselves as the Pharisees more generally had a spice of that persecuting spirit against Christ and his Doctrine have I say no cause to murmur against Gods goodness to repentant sinners but had need rather to repent them with them that they might obtain like mercy also as our Saviour implies that the Publicans and Harlots repentance and being thereupon admitted into Gods Kingdom and so into a state of righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost Rom. 14.17 should have moved the Pharisees to repentance with them of their formal and pharisaical righteousness and other sinful evils found with them To that purpose is what is written in Matth. 21.31 32. Verily I say unto you that the Publicans and Harlots go into the Kingdom of God before you before you Pharisees formal Professors superstitiously righteous for John came unto you in the way of righteousness and ye believed him not but the Publicans and the Harlots believed him and ye when ye had seen it repented not that ye might believe I do not say then that all that murmur at Gods goodness to repenting Sinners are really righteous and the Sons of God No the generality of the Scribes and Pharisees were not so nor were the false Teachers and the Preachers up of Circumcision in the Primitive Churches such who were greatly offended at the Gentiles finding such mercy as to be received in in their uncircumcision in the flesh into the number of Gods Saints and holy ones The Apostle gives them other Characters when he sayes Beware of dogs beware of evil workers beware of the concision Phil. 3.2 and sayes of such That their end was destruction ver 19. and that they were false Apostles deceitful workers messengers and Ministers of Sathan and the like 2 Cor. 11.13 14 15. But I say such as cleave to God their Father and depart not from him in faith or life that are ever with him and have interest in all he hath these are truly righteous persons through Christ in the main though they also may possibly be sometimes leavened with the leaven of the Pharisees their corrupt principles or wayes if they take not heed thereof as is implyed Matth. 16.6 they may have froward sullen peevish and envious fits befal them yea and besides our Saviour for better winning in the Pharisees and taking off their prejudices might and I think did sometime speak to them upon supposal of their being what they judged themselves to be truly righteous as in Matth. 9.13 I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance CHAP. V. A three-fold state of men considered in the Text The first The state of righteous Walkers in three Branches the first Branch opened and applyed THE words then being thus explicated and cleared as to the two Sons therein mentioned let us go forward and I observe in them a threefold state or way of men here spoken to which I shall desire a little briefly to consider as God shall assist therein 1. The good state of truly righteous and obedient persons walking in the fear and obedience of the Lord and that is set forth in the first Branch of the reply of the Father to his elder Son ver 31. Son thou art ever with me and all that I have is thine 2. The sad and deplorable state of persons
departing and wandring from God in the wayes of sin and that is impliedly contained in the latter expressions of the latter part of his reply viz. in these words Thy Brother was dead was lost 3. The comfortable estate of such wanderers returned to God by repentance and that is signified in the whole latter part of the said reply verse 32. It was meet that we should make merry and be glad for this thy Brother was dead and is alive again he was lost and is found Of these in order The first state And first for the good estate of the obeyers and walkers with God it is signified in a three-fold expression viz. 1. In the compellation Son They are the Sons of God 2. In the first Branch of the assertion to him Thou art ever with me They are ever with God And 3. In the latter Branch of it and all that I have is thine They have interest in all that is Gods A happy portion and such as one would think if minded might content any one and preserve them from envying at either the portion of the world or the portion of or Gods dealing with any of their Brethren View we it in each of these Branches in order 1 Branch First They that abide with God and depart not from him but walk righteously before him they are the Sons of God 1. Men might be called the Sons of God by virtue of their Creation in which they received their being of and from God much more then a childe his being from his Parents and so as we noted before it s said The Son of Adam which was the Son of God Luke 3.38 and by the Poet recited and approved by the Apostle Paul Acts 17.28 29. For we are also his off-spring from which the Apostle infers forasmuch then as we are the off-spring of God we ought not to think that the God-head is like to Gold c. For indeed God made man in his own Image and Likeness and therefore also man resembling God in some respects as the Son the Father might there-from be called and accounted his Son But that image and likeness especially as to any holiness purity innocency right knowledge yea or any right of dominion over the creatures liberty of will or the like was wholly lost in our departing from him and sinning against him we being there-through filled with the poison of sin the spawn and likeness of the Devil the old Serpent and inslaved by and to him children of wrath and heirs of destruction though the relation of creatures abode still yet the likeness of children was wholly lost But 2. God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son thereinto to be the Saviour of the world and to that purpose made him of a woman and under the Law that he might bear our sins in his own body on the Tree and by giving himself a ransome and sacrifice to Justice for all men as the Lamb of God take away the sin of the world by bearing and satisfying for it in himself and destroying by his death him that had the power over death even the Devil and his works Heb. 2.14 1 John 3.8 might free us or buy us from under his acquired jurisdiction and tyranny over us and from the wrath and destruction due to us into his own Dispose Lordship and Jurisdiction to be ruled over and disposed of by him John â— 16 17. 1 John 4.14 Gal. 4.4 5. 1 Pet. 2.24 1 Tim. 2.6 John 1.29 Rom. 14.9 For to this end he both died rose and revived that he might be Lord of both quick and dead Now in this that he became man he took the man-hood into unity of person with himself so as in him Man is become the Son of God the only begotten Son of God even the man Christ Jesus as he was also mightily declared to be by the Spirit of Holiness in the Resurrection of the dead as it is said Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Rom. 1.3 4. Acts 13.33 and in that he in that nature hath suffered for us the just for the unjust and is become the propitiation for our sins even for the sins of the whole world and hath received into himself the immeasurable fulness of the Holy Spirit so as he may communicate to us thereof and Baptize us therewith he hath opened a way for us lost men to recover our nighness and likeness to God again that we receiving remission of sins through his Blood might be also adopted and taken into the account of his Sons being begotten by him through the revelation of his Son to us and of the grace in and by him to believe on his Son and approach to hope in and worship him in and by his Son Yea and 3. Because that man-hood which he purposed to cloath his Son with that body he prepared for him he chose and took it of the seed of Abraham Isaack and Jacob therefore to their seed also he of his Grace and Favour gave the adoption of Sons as it is said of the Jews They are Israelites to whom pertaineth the adoption the glory c. Rom. 9.4 when he is speaking of Israel after the flesh and such as for whom he could have wished himself accursed and had great heaviness and continual sorrow in his heart through the consideration of that state of unbelief they then lay in wherefore also of Israel it is said Israel is my Son my first-born and I say unto thee let my Son my first-born go Exod. 4.22 His Son both because Christ his Son in respect of the flesh he was to take was in them or some of them and in respect of the knowledge of Christ they the rest also were called to or also the Covenant the substance of which was Christ as it is said I have given him for a Covenant of the people Isa 42.6 and 49.6 and 55.3 I will make an everlasting Covenant with you the sure mercies of David Which the Apostle interprets to be Christ risen again Acts. 13.34 into which after a sort they were initiated and grafted by Circumcision a seal of the righteousness of the faith that Abraham had being yet uncircumcised as the Apostle saith Rom. 4.11 even the righteousness by the faith of Christ through whom and with respect to whom they were taken into Gods house and accounted and called his Sons and Children yea and there abiding in subjection to his instructions they continued so but many of them not understanding and walking in the Faith of Abraham of the righteousness whereof Circumcision was the Seal but resting short or wandring out of it yea and opposing of it they became so far from being the Sons of God that they were by our Saviour and John the Baptist John 8.44 rightly stiled Serpents a generation of Vipers yea the seed or children of the Devil Mat. 3.8 and 23.33 4. Yea whereas God gave to that people a holy and righteous Law to convince
them of sin and shew them their need of Christ and the forgiveness of their sins through him and to signifie and shadow him out with the grace in and by him that as by a School-master they might be directed to him to seek him and righteousness and life in him Whence it is said Moses wrote of him and the Law witnessed to the righteousness of God that is by the faith of him Gal. 3.23 24 25. John 5.46 Rom. 3.21 Many of them not understanding the Law nor seeing to the end thereof which was Christ for righteousness to every one that believeth Rom. 10.4 being blinded by their unbelief and listning to Satan and closing their eyes and stopping their ears against Gods Doctrine who so speaks of Christ in all his teachings that whosoever hears and learns of him comes to him John 6.45 rested only in the Type Shadow and work of the Law seeking righteousness as it were thereby and not coming to Christ for life nor submitting to him as the righteousness of God but stumbling at him John 5.40 Rom. 10.3 yet these not seeing their sinfulness and the curse they were under by the Law in all their works but conceiting themselves alive in the observations of it took themselves to be the Children of God and are called in a sense as the Children of God either they or the Judaizing Christians which I think the likelier being compared to one of the Sons of Abraham who bare a kinde of Type or representation of God in his two sons But these indeed are servants or such sons as Ishmael the Law gendring to bondage and so bond-men and not such Sons as are ever with God as a Son with his Father but were to be cast out and are cast out with their Mother that bare them from inheriting with those that are indeed his Sons as Isaac was and of this stamp too are they that being ignorant and neglective of the Grace of God in Christ do live upon their duties and observances of outward ordinances under the Gospel 2 Cor. 3.13 14 15. and 4.4 Matth. 13.15 Rom. 9.30 31 32. and 10.3 John 8.41 Gal. 4.22 30. Luke 18.9 11. and such Sons the Pharisees might be But 5. They and they only that being Baptized into Christ or initiated into him do put on Christ or being called of God to him do receive him own entertain and believe in him do by vertue of him and in union with him become the Sons of God in the choice sense of of it and attain that dignity and priviledge so to be made and called being in the gracious call of God to him overcoming them to receive and believe in him born also of God begotten of that immortal seed of his word that lives and abides for ever and in believing on Christ receive by and through him the spirit of Son-ship even the Spirit of the Son framing them to a child-like love to and confidence in God as their Father and infusing into them his Divine Nature and so renewing them in or in them the Image of Christ Jesus his only begotten Son and making them like to him by degrees Who is the first-born amongst many brethren Rom. 8.29 And now sure they that being thus made Sons of God do also follow after and are led by and so retain the Spirit of the Son are and must needs be the Sons of God as it is said To them that received Christ to them he gave this priviledge to become the Sons of God even to those that believe in his name who are born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God John 1.12 13. and Ye are all the Sons of God by faith in Jesus Christ Gal. 4.26 and If ye know that he is righteous ye know that every one that doth righteousness namely in believing on him and so being led by his Spirit is born of him Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the Sons of God 1 John 2.29 and 3.1 and So many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God Rom. 4.14 15. being thereby led into and kept in union with and dependence on the Son of God and made like to him in conformity in righteousness holiness c. And indeed men being made the Sons of God by this divine regeneration into and in the Son of God and brought to God what can unson them again if they abide and tarry with God not departing from him God who at so dear a rate and in so great love hath made them his Sons will not out of mutability of minde unson them again No his gifts and calling are without repenting of them Rom. 11.29 Sins and failings they may have froward passions and peevish distempers as other mens Sons and Children have and may have and therefore as in their infancy and minority under the Law they were under Tutors and Governors to nurture and order them till the time appointed of the Father Gal. 4.1 2 3. So also still they may need to feel the rod of their Father though no longer under the tutorage of Moses Law as formerly as it is said Whom the Lord loveth he chastneth and scourgeth every Son whom he receiveth Heb. 12.6 and such will be their state while here till they come to perfect age To the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ till they see him as he is for then they shall be compleatly like him and have nothing more of ignorance error frowardness or disobedience in them Eph. 4.14 1 John 3.1 2. but those frailties and failings peevishnesses and passions do not unson them unless they wholly turn them out from Christ the Son in whom they have their Son-ship and are Sons Indeed if any depart from him so as to be abolished from him then they fall from that Grace and Favour in which the Believer and abider stands even from the Grace of Son-ship Christ shall profit them nothing Gal. 5.2 3. or as the Parable hath it become Sons dead and lost that are as if they were not and without a reviving perish from Gods presence and if they may be called Sons as Abraham calls the rich man in Hell his Son they can have but only the title and the quondam relation the nighness and priviledges of Sons with their Father and in his house they can never obtain when the gulf is fixt upon them for ever and ever as the Parable hath it in Luke 16.25 26. But the walkers with God the continuers in his Faith Fear and Service must needs be his Sons inasmuch as they abide in Christ his Son Such the first Branch of this hapy state they are Sons of God Vse 1. And is this nothing or is it but a small matter to be a Son of God is it not a very spring in and through Christ of infinite and unspeakable hope and consolation a Son of God who
his Word and Spirit so to be diligent to hear and learn of him that being therein drawn we may come to and believe on him who cannot of our selves come to him nor have any way to be the Sons of God in truth but in and by him received and believed on as the Apostle James also instructs us when having said Of his own good will begot he us by the word of truth that we might be a kinde of first-fruits of his creatures to him James 1.18 19. Then he addes Let every one be swift to hear slow to speak and slow to wrath namely that so he also may be begotten of him to like priviledges In Gods drawing us then with the cords of love and bands of a man take heed of breaking his bands and casting his cords from us of closing the eye and stopping the ear and hardening the heart lest we should see with the eye and hear with the ear and be converted and Christ should heal us and advance us to so high favour and dignity and so we deprive our selves thereof but hear we his voice while its called to day and yield we to his drawings of us to believe in him obey we and follow we after the Holy Spirit sent forth in his Name with his Word and Doctrine to us to convince us of sin and glorifie him to us that in obeying his voice we may be led to him and knowing his name through his light and teaching we may by his renewing quickning vertue be framed and strengthned to believe in him John 6 45. and so being born of Water and of the Spirit may be made the Sons of God in him Phil. 9.10 John 3.3 3. Yea what ground of content with our conditions may we here see being brought into Christ and made thee Sons of God by faith in him what cause or ground is there for such to envy or murmur at others for being high born rich honourable or mighty in this world what 's all the dignity and happiness of the greatest Princes Children or of the wealthiest and most potent Monarchs in comparison of the happiness of those that have God for their Father and can truly say they are born of him How poor and sorry shadows are all titles excellencies and enjoyments to what this dignity admits to and to the substance that is therein should a Princes Son envy another because he is Son to the Mayor of some decayed Corporation or because he wears a few glittering brazen Buttons or silken Ribbands when he happily hath none such but hath that that is ten thousand times more precious on him Nay not only no ground to envy sinners but none to envy any other Sons of God or any of our Brethren for what have they right to but we have also the same having one Father and one infinite Inheritance in and with him all in common though we have not the same stature the same employments the same garb yet we have the same rich powerful and loving Father that is an impartial lover of his Children and designs to make them all his children in sharing his Inheritance amongst them or rather making each of them heirs of the whole ground here is of love rightly considered but of envy and fretting for the Fathers now smiling upon one rather then upon another none 4. Yea what folly and madness must they needs be guilty of that having in and through Christ way made and advantage afforded for attaining this dignity either take up so much content in being the children of some mortal rich or great ones or in having such earthy estates pleasures or fading enjoyments or else are so taken up with care to get and keep some earthy worldly things that will not either satisfie or save them that they utterly neglect and trample under feet like Swine or very luke-warmly and coldly seek after and so miss for want of more hearty seeking such a pearl of so infinite value as this is as if there were more in being the Sons or Daughters of Gentlemen Knights or Princes or more in a few perishing riches deceitful pleasures or empty titles or honours then in being the Sons of the highest and having his favour and affection placed for ever on us Sure this is great folly and madness and yet through the deceits of Sin and Satan it is most common 5. And how might it provoke such as are the Sons of God to cleave to and tarry at home as it were with him and to that purpose to beware of accompanying themselves with the world or being unequally yoaked and bound up with them lest they draw them into disobedience and rebellion and so to deprive themselves of the love and friendship of so high a Father and provoke his anger and displeasure against them but rather take the Apostles counsel and keep to it to Come out from amongst the world and be separate to God in Christ and not touch the unclean things the unclean principles or practices of the world that so God may receive them more and more as his and be their Father and they may be to him as Sons and Daughters Yea as obedient children not to fashion themselves to the lusts of their former ignorance but as he that hath called us is holy to be holy in all manner of conversation 2 Corinth 6.14 17 18. 1 Pet. 1.14 15 16 17. 6. And it may provoke them to behave themselves as the Sons of God and so 1. To be followers of God as dear children imitating him in love mercy and goodness as Ephes 4.32 and 5.1 2. Seeking to honour God as their Father in word and conversation Malachy 1.6 3. And to that end to live chearfully in God not giving way to or sinking under cares and fears c. Phil. 4 4 5 6. 1 Pet. 5.7 Luke 12.32 4. Loving their Brethren as Sons of God also with them Ephes 5.1 2. 5. Putting on and wearing such apparel as becomes such high born persons Putting on as the elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercy meekness humbleness of minde c. Col. 3.9 10 11 12 13. 6. Living above the world and the things of it yea contemning such worldly lusts and delights as far below them 1 Pet. 2 11. Tit. 2.11 12. And great is the advantage of being obedient children to God and not running from him but living as his children with him as follows CHAP. VI. The second Branch opened and applied THOV art ever with me They that are obedient to God and Christ and depart not away through pride and folly from him have the advantage of being ever with him For God doth not as other Fathers sometimes do send away his Children to live from him they that forsake not him shall not be forsaken or thrust away by him They that come unto Christ and so unto God in Christ he will in no wise cast them away or lose them John 6.33 and 18.9 Other Fathers that have divers Children
must send some of them away because they either want love for them all or if not yet have not alwayes room for them all in their Houses and Farms or the like but it s not so with God he hath room enough in his heart for them all and room and bread and provision enough in his house for them all too and for more then all The same love that led him to beget them through the painful sufferings of his Son and the troublesome travels of his Soul and by the powerful influences of his Spirit leads him also to keep and look to them And thus they are in and by vertue of Christ who is their Head and in whom they are as Branches in the Stock or Root John 15.4 as members in the Head or in union with it by Faith and Spirit being in Christ they are in him ever with God for he is ever with him in his presence in his bosom at his right hand in his power and authority ruling and ordering all things for and over and about them and as the great High-Priest making intercession for them We were with God even all men in our first Parents in the Garden of Eden injoying intercourse with him till we in them offended and sinned and then he justly cast us out thence as unclean and nasty creatures and banished us from his presence setting a Cherubim with a flaming Sword in his hand to keep us thence yet not content to leave us so in his pitty and mercy he devised a way a new and living way by which he might without violation to his truth and justice which stood against us as in our selves become sinners admit us again into his presence and have intercourse with us To that purpose he sent his Son into the world for us and he became as a banished person from his presence for a time crying out as forsaken of his Father that so taking away the sentence of banishment by satisfying the demands of Law and Justice in his own body for all men as fallen in Adam and therefore expelled from him he might become himself the way of access the fiery flaming Sword in the hand of the Cherubim that was every way wielded against us being removed by his being made under and bearing the sentence of the fiery Law for us and by him now we may return to God again He hath suffered for us the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God 1 Pet. 3.18 To which purpose being raised again and become the mediator of God and us he calls us by him to himself and though we are so unclean in our selves that he can admit us to no immediate fellowship with himself yet in and by him Who is the way the truth the life the new and living way that makes alive and clean righteous and holy all that enter into and walk in him and so come unto God by him he being made to us of God Wisdom Righteousness Holiness and Redemption there he can speak to and commune with us from off that mercy-seat and admit us to behold him present our selves to and before him and have most intimate and intire fellowship with him and no way or where else By him as the door and gate of life opened for all though strait to the flesh because of its crossness to its corrupt wisdom will and affections and because of the many reproaches persecutions and afflictions attending it so as few finde and enter it he invites all to return to God again Commanding all men by the Gospel every where to repent Acts 17.30 and sending forth his Spirit with his calls in which he stretcheth forth his hand and power that thereby men might be inlivened quickned and strengthned to approach to God by him And through him by that one Spirit all whether Jews or Gentiles that listen to and close with him have access and come to the Father so as they are no longer strangers or forreignors but fellow Citizens with the Saints and of the houshold of God Eph. 2.17 18 19. Prov. 1.23 24 32. and so being made the Sons of God in Christ are also ever with him 1. With him on his side to take part with him as in that sense Hezekiah saith 2 Chron. 32.7 8. There be more with us then there are with him with us is the Lord our God And our Saviour saith He that is not against me is with me and He that is not against us is with us but that is not so properly the sense here As 2. With him nigh to him A people near unto the Lord Psal 148. ult made nigh by the blood of Jesus shed for and sprinkled on them Eph. 2.13 so nigh that he is within their call when they cry and call to him he hears them The Lord is nigh to all that call upon him to all that call upon him in truth he will fulfil the desire of them that fear him he also will hear their cry and he will save them Psal 145.18 19. within his view and favourable sight The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears open to their cries Psal 34.14 within his favourable reach or touch so that he can as he pleases and doth as need is uphold them when they are like to fall and gives them with the right hand of his righteousness what he pleases so nigh him as they may also hear his voice see his face behold his fair beauty take hold of his arm or his strength hold them by him and lean upon him Psal 94.17 18 19. and 34.24 and 63.8 2 Chron. 13.18 and 16.8 Isa 27.4 3. With him in fellowship with him 1 John 2.3 Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ and if we walk in the light as he is in the light then have we fellowship one with another verse 7. that is God with us to take part with us in our sorrows sufferings services c. In all their afflictions he was afflicted and the Angel of his presence saved them in his love and in his pitty he redeemed them he bare them and carried them all the dayes of old Isa 63.9 and we with God to take part with him in his grace strength fulness taking hold of his strength Isa 27.4 and Being filled with his fulness Ephes 3.19 yea they dwell together in one house Christ Jesus in whom all the fulness of the God-head dwelleth bodily and in whom whoso believeth and in exercise of faith eateth or feeds upon him dwells also Col. 2.9 John 6.56 eating and drinking and feasting together for Christ is the bread of God the meat or sacrifice offered to God and accepted of him with and through the vertues of whose sacrifice and sufferings he is cheared and strengthned to forgive sins to give grace and blessing and to work all his works in and for us as he also is the Vine whose juyce chears the heart of God as poured out in
thousand dayes elsewhere Even in fellowship and communion with the Lord under the shinings and in the light of his countenance For the Lord God is a sun and a shield But oh then who would run from him but one day to want the beauty and pleasures safety and satisfactions of his presence and nighness with him who then would venture from him weeks and months to trade in sin and defilement nay nor for an hour seeing He that wandereth from him and so from his place is like a bird that wandreth from her nest He knows not what may befal before he returns again whether he may not be choaked with some bait intangled in some net shot with some bullet so as never to return Prov. 27.9 Good therefore to draw nigh to God and to cleave to him with purpose and resolution of heart never to go from him no not for a moment so as to leave or sin against him We might distinguish between the being ever with God now and the being ever with him hereafter though both are the portion of his obedient children Men may be ever that is perpetually with him now as a Son that serves his Father and dwells with him who is said to be ever with him because alwayes retaining to his house as his abiding resident place though not alwayes in the house as the Son was not now but without in the Fields in the employments and services of his Father abroad or taking therein his recreation and so not alwayes beholding his face seeing his presence and conversing actually with him But the being with him hereafter shall be such a being with him as never to be looking off him or out of the view of his glorious presence and that with eyes more unvailed and apprehensive then now we can have while in earthy tabernacles But I shall pass it the reader may see the difference in 1 Cor. 13.9 10 12. and so I come to the last clause in which the graciousness of the Lord to his obeying children and the happiness of their obedience and abiding with him is expressed viz. CHAP. VII The third Branch opened and applyed AND all that I have is thine Oh wonderful word Oh free hearted bountiful Father who can comprehend this expression all that I have is thine if we consider whose saying it is and to whom we may admire it but we cannot fathom it It s the saying of a rich Father to a dutiful son but at present discontented and undutiful That the Father was rich the Robes in his Wardrobe and the furniture he afforded his returning Prodigal and the feast he made for him with a fatted Calf imply a Lord he was at least and all that he had was a great deal He had no question Towns and Cities Castles and Palaces Farms and Fields Mannors and Mansions stately Buildings and costly Furnitures Silver and Gold Corn and Cattle great Wealth and Substance though the Elder Son in his froward fit saith his other Son had devoured his living it was but peevishly spoken He had livelihood enough yet left for them and never the less for what he had spent him and yet behold how he loves his Son and with what argument able one would think to have prevented his frowardness or upon mention of it to buy him out of it but that sin is unreasonably sinful he perswades him All that I have is thine What 's one fatted Calf and that not fatted for him but only killed for him it seems it was fatted before to all the Estate a vast Inheritance I am sure he whom it represents here is no mean person for the Father here as we have noted signifies God And who can comprehend his riches and yet saith he to his abiding Son All that I have is thine All that God hath who can express it God hath himself he perfectly enjoyes himself and in himself hath infinite Wisdom infinite Power infinite Holiness infinite Truth infinite Glory infinite fulness and satisfaction He hath Christ his only begotten Son One with him and in him is infinite Worth and Preciousness infinite Power Wisdom Fulness Goodness c. An infinitely precious Sacrifice and oblation which prevails with God to whatever it turns it self and able to prevail with men that receive it and understand the worth and preciousness of it He hath him with him and in him his King his Priest his Prophet his Holy One c. And he hath an infinitely Wise Holy Powerful Eternal Gracious Spirit an innumerable company of Blessed Angels as ministring Spirits to attend upon him and obey his commands Yea the whole world and all the creatures in it both in Heaven and Earth are his yea Hell and the Devils are his also his Prison for Offenders and Executioners of his Vengeance the Heaven and all its Hosts the Earth and all its Fulness the Sea and all that passeth through the Waves of it Who can reckon up and much less value his immeasurable riches yet All that I have is thine all theirs that being begotten of him obey and serve him and this proposed to a froward Son to allay and take away his envious passion And this Son a man not an Angel not the only begotten Son but poor earthy man whose original is dust and who after a little while shall return to dust again Well may we cry out with David in admiration hereof Lord what is man that thou takest knowledge of him and the Son of man that thou makest account of him man is like to vanity his dayes are like a shadow It can proceed from no intrinsick goodness of his nor desert by him but from an infinite inexpressible love in God towards him And David spake that there upon a like consideration with this for he had said before Blessed be the Lord my strength which teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight my goodness and my fortress my high tower and my deliverer my shield and he in whom I trust who subdueth my people under me God was all this to him and did all this for him that made him so cry out Lord what is man Psal 144.1 2 3 4. Man hath nothing of his own no not so much as his naked being of himself For he hath made us and not we our selves or his we are we are the people of his pasture â— and the sheep of his hands When he came first into the world by Gods creating him he came naked into it and had nothing that by any right and title as from himself he could call his But such Gods bounty that he had prepared a stately and well furnished world for him before he made him and when he had made him gave it all to him that he subordinately to his word should be the Lord thereof and have rule and dominion over all therein yea and endowed him with rich and precious indowments of his soul for he instampt his image upon him and so by his favour and goodness
he was a rich creature and in honour with him But man being in honour did not consider so as to resist the temptation of the wicked one but being drawn by him into rebellion against his Maker because he forbad him the tasting of one Tree planted in the pleasurable Garden into which he put him he forfeited all that God bestowed upon him yea both mental and bodily endowments of excellency nay his very life and being and all the whole Creation given him and deserved to have been thrust back into his own nothing again or rather with the Serpent into Hell and destruction far worse then nothing Poor man But oh the riches of the mercy of the Lord that was not well pleased to see his creature man so poor but devised a way how to set him up and inrich him again and to that purpose sent forth his rich Son the Lord in heaven the maker and heir of all things and by making him one with the nature of man made him in the poverty of man that by laying down his infinite riches for man as a price of his redemption yea his rich and precious life as man he might redeem man and inrich him again and so it is said Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ one with his Father complying with and yielding to him in that design that he being rich became poor for your sakes that ye through his poverty might be made rich 2 Cor. 8 9. But how 1. He that made himself or became poor in man made man even the manhood in himself the man Christ Jesus infinitely rich in God by so great a price as so impoverished him having satisfied Justice fulfilled Truth paid the Debt of Man overcame and got the better of what impoverished him having wrought himself out of it as it were and being raised again he was taken up to the Throne of God and accounted of God his Father as he is also judged to be by Men and Angels worthy to receive and be filled with the unsearchable riches of God So in Rev. 5.11 12. The Angels about the Throne with the Beasts and Elders pronounce Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing Yea God and all his fulness is given wholly to him All the fulness of the God-head dwells bodily in him The Father is in him and he in the Father his God his Father the Spirit is upon him his Spirit the Spirit of Christ The Angels of God minister to him and attend upon him his Angels and the Angels of his might Heaven is his Throne yea the heaven and heaven of heavens is the Lords and the earth is his too and all the fulness thereof the world and all that dwell therein yea all power in heaven and upon the earth is given to him Mat. 28.19 The Father hath loved the Son and given him all things John 3.35 So that here we may say in the first place now Lord what is man that thou takest knowledge of him and the Son of man that thou makest such account of him and so the Apostle applies it Heb. 2.6 7 8. And so here in the first place as in the root and foundation all that God hath is mans and man is ever with him the Son of God 2. Through him God makes known himself to other men for he is the light of the world the true light enlightening every one coming thereinto and as God hath done all that he hath done to him in abasing and glorifying him for mans sake and ovt of love and pitty to man and desire of his good Oh the riches of his love and mercy to fallen man God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son and herein is love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his only begotten Son to be the propitiation for our sins John 3.16 1 John 4.10 So he hath in him thus inriched and glorified having by his death and sufferings ransomed man from death and destruction into his dispose wonderfully provided for man even prepared all this infinite fulness in his Son as God-man as an infinite treasury for the inriching of man for the Grace the remission of Sins the redemption from Thrall the fulness of Spirit and all spiritual blessings in him and possession given him it is for us men and for our Salvation and inriching but so to be enjoyed as only in and with him to whom therefore God calls and draws men both by the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering leading men to repentance Rom. 2.4 5. and by the unsearchable riches of Christ as preached in the Gospel to men inviting and alluring them to him that they might be saved by him and inriched with him Ephes 3.8 with Rom. 1 16. 1 Cor. 1.23 2 Cor. 8 9. and they that hereby are begotten to receive him and knowing his name trust in him as they in and through him receive the priviledge of Sons so being made in him the sons of God they also by vertue of him and in him become the heirs of God both as their Father and as their Inheritance joynt heirs with Christ sayes Rom. 8.16 17. for as the Father hath loved the Son so he again loves his Disciples that believe in and follow him and makes and owns them as his Friends and Brethren And as God gave him all things that were and are his so he again gives all his things and they are all things to his brethren All things are yours 1 Cor. 3.21 22. and so the beggars are lifted out of the dust again and the needy from the dunghil and set upon the throne with Princes not the Princes of this world who perish but which is far more excellent with the Princes of his people whose Kingdom shall endure for ever James 2.5 Psal 113.7 8. praised be the Lord though oftentimes they be in appearance as Princes disguised in Beggars habit and state as having nothing and yet possessing all things 2. Cor. 6.10 going on foot while servants even to Sin and Satan ride on horseback Eccles 10.7 This indeed is a mystery that the world sees not because they have not faith and therefore not understanding of it they slight it but the holy Spirit of Truth asserts it All things are yours whether Paul or Apollo or Cephas or world or life or death or things present or things to come all are yours But how theirs 1. Not as to actual possession fruition and enjoyment of all in their own persons and comprehensions for the Kingdom is not yet received by them only prepared for and promised to them that love him but in that respect He that overcometh shall inherit all things and I will be his God and he shall be my Son sayes Revel 21.6 7. See 1 Corinthians 2.9 But 2. In Christ their Head they possess all things He possesses all things for them and
they in him as they are his and he Gods In him we are compleat Col. 2.9 10. And 3. In and through Christ in our persons in title and interest by promise as Abraham Isaack and Jacob did the Land of Canaan while yet they had it not in possession for Israel did not take away wrongfully the Land of Canaan from the Inhabitants they claimed but their own by the gift of him who is the Lord of all the earth and had sworn to give it them and so the Fathers that are said to dye in faith not having received the promises Heb. 11.13 are yet said to have received them Heb. 6.14 that is as to promise or covenant and the title that gave them thereto Thence too the believers are said to be heirs according to promise Gal. 3.29 4. In hope and expectation that being justified by faith ye might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life which God that cannot lye hath promised before the world began Tit. 3.7 and 1.2 5. In usefulness and benefit all things working together for good to them that love him that are the called of God according to purpose Rom. 8.28 And so they that overcome and keep Christs words and keep with God are heirs of all things All that I have is thine Let us take a brief view or survey of their riches 1. God is theirs and all that he is not that he can be comprehended of and by them seeing he comprehends them and all things and is himself incomprehensible but by himself but he is their God their Father their Portion and Inheritance as to be worshipped and acknowledged by them so to inrich save and satisfie them The portion of Jacob is not like unto them he is the former of all things the Lord of Hosts is his name Jer. 10.16 and the Lord is my portion saith my soul therefore will I hope in him Lam. 3.24 I go to my God and your God my Father and your Father saith Christ John 20.17 an infinite portion for in having him we have infinite Wisdom to order and dispose of all things for us and our benefit and of us also for our own greatest happiness and to advise counsel and direct us in all our difficulties infinite power to effect and bring about what in the counsel of his will or wisdom he sees good to be effected and to prevent and hinder remove or destroy what he sees destructive to us infinite strength to bear up all things for us and us in all cases and to strengthen us in all services and sufferings infinite duration to continue and lengthen out our happiness for ever that we may never be deprived of it but enjoy it to eternity infinite goodness to lead him to exercise all his other attributes for our infinite and everlasting advantage infinite truth and holiness to perform all his words and promises to us c. and all this for us in and through Christ Jesus 2. Christ is Gods 1 Cor. 3.23 and he is theirs and all his infinite fulness I am my beloveds and my beloved is mine saith the Spouse Cant. 2.18 and 6.3 He that hath the Son hath life and he that abideth in the Doctrine of Christ that is that continueth in the belief and obedience of it He hath both the Father and the Son 1 John 5.11.2 2 John 9. and it s in having Christ that any man hath God his God and portion and hath all his fulness for him for he that transgresseth and abideth not in the Doctrine of Christ hath not God and it s in him he hath all things who hath and abideth in him even unsearchable riches in him infinite wisdom to order and manage all things with God for us and from God to over and about us and to direct and guide us in all conditions In him righteousness infinite and everlasting for presenting us just and acceptable in the sight of God and in him all the promises of God are yea and Amen affirmed and confirmed true and certain 2 Cor. 1.19 20. Isa 45.23 24. In him holiness infinitely for us and therein dedication to God and renewing into his image and likeness grace to make us holy and renew us and so to make us also Gods Inheritance his chosen generation Royal Priesthood Holy Nation peculiar people In him Redemption even forgiveness of sins through or in his blood Eph. 1.7 Col. 1.14 even infinite plenteousness of Redemption for redeeming us from all iniquities Psal 130.7 8. and so from all troubles miseries bondages death the fruits of sin lying upon us Psal 25.22 Yea even from bodily death and Grave yea from hell and destruction Rom. 8.23 Hosea 13.14 John 11.25 26. in him son-ship heir-ship title to the Inheritance John 1.12 Gal. 3.26 27. Yea in a word This is the record God hath given of his Son that God hath given us eternal life and this life is in his Son he that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life 1 John 5.11 12. 3. God hath an infinitely Holy Spirit which he hath put upon Christ to bring forth Judgement to the Gentiles and this he also gives in and through Christ to them that obey him Acts 5.32 to help their infirmities teach and lead them into the knowledge of Christ glorifying him to them and so into all truth to bring his words to remembrance justifie them in their Consciences sanctifie and wash them in the Blood and Name of Jesus comfort them in their exercises tribulations and temptations be a Spirit of Holiness to and in them leading them in the way of and framing and quickning them to holiness teaching them to pray and groan after God and his Grace and Mercy in Christ for their helpfulness In a word to inhabit and dwell in them through the Word or Faith of Christ and be in them as a spring of living Waters springing up unto everlasting life and gifting them for usefulness to others and so to be as rivers of living waters flowing out of their bellies or inward man to seal them up also to the day of redemption and be to them the anointing and furnisher for Gods Service the earnest of conductor to and raiser up of their dead bodies to the enjoyment of the Inheritance Rom. 8.14.26 27. John 16.14 15. and 14.16 17 26. 1 Cor. 6.11 Isa 11.2 Gal. 5.16 Psal 143.10 and 119.37 and 51.10 11. Zech. 12.10 Eph. 2.22 and 5.18 19. with Col. 3.16 1 Cor. 12.7 John 4.14 and 7.37 38 39. 2 Cor. 1.21 22. Ephes 1 14. and 4.30 4. God hath an innumerable company of Angels to minister to him Dan. 7.10 11. and these are in and with Christ the Believers and Obeyers of him Pitching their tents about those that fear him to deliver and save them Psal 34.7 Bearing them up in their hands and keeping them in all their wayes Psal 91.11 12. Sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation Heb. 1.14 Inâ—iâ—â—â—ing the
in the dishes and upon the trenchers if they had any and in their hands and mouths as they eat it and could they have needed to have eaten of it till this day might have grown upon them yet such this fatted Calf in the spirit and mystery of it unless we take it for some particular visit refreshing and chearing of the repentant sinners heart like to a Posset or a Caudle made by a tender Mother for her almost drowned Childe when being pulled out of the Pit and brought home she puts it to bed and should the other Children that kept themselves in the house and safe from the pit murmur at such a thing as that when they may at all times sit at meat with their Father and eat of his meat yea and if they please take part of that Posset too made for that escaped Childe take it in either sense the murmuring was unreasonable as the acts of envy and discontent all be It was a good saying of an ancient Doctor Tolle invidiam quod meum est tuum est si ego tollo invidiam quod tuum est meum est Take away envy and frowardness and what 's mine is thine too and if I put away envy from me that that is thine is mine with thee This is on the contrary to envy the excellency of Divine Love and Grace it makes all common that may be so lawfully or with expediency and as God gives us an interest in all that he hath leads us to say to our brethren too all that we have is yours for your usefulness as the Saints in the Primitive Church that said nothing that they had was their own they were so free to communicateâ— it to all others also Had this Brother said to his younger Brother as the Father to him welcome home Brother let us live lovingly together and as my Father gives me interest in and the use of all he hath so I freely give thee leave to take part with me in all I have with him and by his gift It had been an entertainment of him worthy such a condition of a Son of such a Father and that that may be proposable to us for imitation 3. This also shews the goodness of living at home with God or walking with him dutifully in his wayes seeing he that is so infinitely full is so infinitely free too to them that love him and keep his Commandments not only a Sun and a Shield but also gives grace and glory and withholds no good thing from them that walk uprightly with him therefore O Lord God of Hosts blessed is the man that trusteth in thee and so abides in thy courts alwayes Psal 84 10 11 12. Whither can we go from God to better our selves as Peter said Whither shall we go thou hast the words of eternal life John 6.68 All is ours if we be with and keep to God and we cannot have more then all by going from God or sinning against God Nay that 's the way to go from all for all is in and with God and without him nothing but sin emptiness vanity and vexation of spirit 4. Therefore also it may provoke us not to leave him but to keep close to him as David or Asaph saith Ps 73.28 It is good for me to draw nigh to or as the vulgar reads it to hold me fast by God seeing then we have all whether would this Elder Son go or what would he do that he will not come to his Fathers house and so to his Father Brother the rest therein what will he exclude himself from his Fathers house and so deprive himself of all and because his Father receives him in will he that is so angry at his Brothers naughtiness out of anger throw himself into his Brothers condition and divest himself of all because his Brother is admitted to a share with him surely he took the course thereto by so doing or would he turn his Father and Brother out of doors or at least his Brother to make room for himself as if the house was too little to hold them both and a Kings Estate too little to maintain them both sure it s better to submit to God and to resist the Devil from whom proceeds such a temptation and by living at home to keep possession of all rather then by standing out or departing to divest our selves of all But if we would keep at home with God we must take these helps and directions against discontent 1. Minde the goodness of God to us in Christ rather then our goodness or good doings for or towards him that was slipt out of this Sons eye when he stands thus at a distance and comes not in the minding his Fathers goodness would have given him such satisfaction as to have contented him in all his service with his Fathers dealings with him and made him thought himself happy that he might so live with and serve him still The application of the medicine informs us of the disease the Fathers minding him what he afforded him and what priviledges he enjoyed with him shews us that the Son had forgot them when he fell into this froward discontented passion 2. Consider the abundant fulness in God the abundant sufficiency in him together with his freeness to satisfie and content us and all others There is room enough saith Abraham to Lot in the land for us both therefore let us not fall out between our selves being brethren Gen. 13.8 9. Had this Brother minded how large his Fathers house was and how large his estate and how free he to communicate it it might have kept him from this murmuring 3. Be not hasty in our spirits but wait for Gods counsels inquire at his mouth and be swift to hear what he hath to say to us and slow to speak slow to wrath James 1.19 This Son was too hasty he should first have heard what his Father could say for his doings before he had given way to his anger 4. When the right eye offends pluck it out and cast it from thee and so when the right hand and foot offends cut them off and cast them from us Cast away the weight that presseth down and the sin that easily besets Keeping our eye single to what is set before us in the testimony of God It was this Brothers looking with an evil eye at his Fathers kindeness to his Brother made him sullen and the minding what his hand and foot had done for his Father how he had wrought and walked for him that puft him up with pride and caused him to think his Brother got too much love that had done worse and less then he Good and needful it is to cast away such considerations as draw to discontent and with draw us from him As it was also the Prodigals eying an excellency in his conceit in having a portion in his own hands and a sufficiency in himself to manage it distinct and apart from his Father that led him
into that separation and with-drawing from his Father which brought upon him all this misery that befel him which now after so large a view taken of the elder Brothers state comes in the next place as the second Branch of this Text to be considered by us viz. CHAP. VIII The second state of wanderers from God in two Branches opened and applyed THE misery of departing and wandring from God implyed in these words This thy Brother was dead was lost a two-fold metaphorical expression to represent it by Let us briefly and but briefly consider them Branch 1. Was dead A sinner by leaving God and running after sin and Satan brings death upon himself becomes as a dead man So Solomon tells us too Prov. 21.16 He that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall abide in the congregation of the dead For as the Apostle saith also to the Believers Rom. 8.13 If ye walk after the flesh ye shall dye and it must needs be so for 1. With God is the fountain of life Psal 36.9 In his favour is liâ—e Psalm 30.5 and his eternal Word or Son is that eternal life that was with the Father in the beginning in whom was life and that was manifested in these last dayes more fully to us 1 John 1.2 with John 1 4. The Spirit of God is life and the spirit of life Rom 8.2.10 by whom God through Christ breaths in life and so this God this one Father Son and Spirit having life in himself gives life also to others as he pleases and hath given to all life and breath and all things and so in the beginning when he made man made him of the dust of the earth and breathed in him the breath of life and man became a living soul Gen. 2.7 both as his body and person was made alive in the world indued with breath sense motion and understanding and also as his soul or inward man being upright and having its dependance on God being in subjection to his Word and Spirit in his image and likeness and so in his favour while upright he was owned of him and in union with him and had peace and joy and spiritual life in himself as so deriving it from him but in departing from him his word and command which is life and tends to life also is death and man so doing he dyed Spiritually First as to the loss of the favour of God in which was his life and of his subjection to God and fellowship with his Word and Spirit the fountain and conveyor of life and he fell under his displeasure in and from which is death even the death of the spirit of man inasmuch as the favour and fellowship of God his Word and Spirit being withdrawn his life was withdrawn with them and inasmuch as it lay open to his anger to inflict misery upon it and so the inward state of the soul and spirit became unquiet dead without sense of the life of God the favour spirit and operations of his grace in it and was filled with fear shame guilt as the effects of the life withdrawn and misery deserved and exposed to and then bodily death as to its principles entred and so the sentence for dying at Gods pleasure bodily and for ever had not mercy looked upon man and prevented followed also Gen. 2.17 and 3.18 19 Rom. 5.12.18 2. But God rich in mercy looking back upon his prodigal Son man here devised his recovery and to that end sent his Son or Word that eternal life that was with him and made him flesh and in that flesh mortal and under the sentence of death that was upon man and accordingly delivered him up to death for our Sins who by his death destroyed him that had the power of death that is the Devil and swallowed up death from off the nature of man as it is in him and filled it with immortallity and eternal life so as he having dyed dyeth no more death hath no more dominion over him but the fulness of the God-head dwells in him bodily and all the fulness of his favour grace and blessing in which is life yea and the Spirit of Life is in and upon him so as he also in dying and by his death inasmuch as it was sustained by him for us even for all men hath obtained a release of all men from under that first Death and Judgement in which all universally and alike were condemned to dye as it did and must have stood upon us without his interposing and hath the ordering of Death and Grave and Hell in his hand and dispose with power and authority to bring us thereout and enliven and quicken soul and body yea and invest them with immortality and eternal life as pleases him he being in himself and for mankinde the resurrection and the life the deliverer and the raiser and the only ground or foundation cause and effector of the Resurrection in others either as to soul or body and the life quickning them and in which they being quickned live John 11.25 Yea in him is and God hath given to us even to the same us whom he commands to believe which is all men or men indefinitely eternal life so as that in partaking of him we partake of the Resurrection and are raised up in and by him in our spirits and partake of life spiritual life and so whosoever believeth in him though dead in himself is enlivened by him and shall live and being made alive in believing and going on yet to believe shall not dye shall not lose this life that he hath in and by him for ever but is alwayes in the raised state as to his state spiritually and shall be so at the last day bodily too and so alwayes in the favour of God in which is life in a justified state from sin and wrath curse and death and in a state of acceptation with God and heir-ship to the life promised further of God in and by him and hath his interest in and fellowship with God the fountain of life and the Spirit of God and its influences who is the Spirit of life and gives and upholds life as it is said He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life and so as all mankinde are in a released state from the destructiveness of the first death as in and of it self and in a possibility of life because in the hand of Christ where is life even spiritual and eternal life yea both for soul and body as in a root and fountain for them and communicable to them so all such of men as in hearing and receiving the Word and Doctrine of Christ which is called the word of life and life Acts 5.20 John 6.63 Prov. 4.13 because Christ objectively is in it as the matter of it set forth in and by it and his Spirit which is life and the Spirit of Life accompanies it and breaths in it are therein by the
Spirit quickned and raised to spiritual life endued with spiritual sense and perception of spiritual things and so of God and Christ and to spiritual breath and desires after them and motion towards them and in them and so spiritual understanding peace joy satisfaction according to the measure of Christ partook of by them but yet so as the room enlightned by the Sun retains its light by admitting that light from without into it so as if that be withdrawn and shut out the light within is gone or as the branch lives in the stock and root so as if it be separated therefrom it dies and withers so is it here The soul in thinking ro live on it self or what it hath in it self yea what life it hath received in it self from Christ and so with-drawing from Christ and from his Word and Spirit loses its life and dies as it lets slip departs from and rejects Christ or the Knowledge Faith and Spirit of God and Christ so it departs from and le ts slip its life Whence that of Moses Deut. 32.46 47. Set your hearts to all the words that I testifie amongst you this day for it is not a vain thing for you or an empty word for you for it s thy life and in this word as the Hebrew words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you shall prolong your dayes and so Prov. 4.13 Lay fast hold of instruction let her not go keep her for she is thy life and ver 23. Keep thy heart above all keeping or with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life and the Apostle John 2 John 9. tells us that He that transgresseth and abideth not in the Doctrine of Christ hath not God that is as by the opposition in the next branch of the verse appears the Father and the Son and so by consequent the Spirit of both they are strangers from the life of God and so without God and Christ in the world Ephes 4.18 and 2.12 and so they are dead 1. Spiritually as being deprived of spiritual life and destitute of it being in departing from the Word of God and obedience of the Spirit of Christ therein 1. Gone from Christ and his Spirit and the Spirit of Christ departed and gone from them as to any enlivening or living efficacies in them as a principle of spiritual life in them though in this there may be as a gradual departing from the word of God and from God and Christ and the Spirit therein so a gradual with-drawing and dying of the spiritual life in them as it is in the natural life when a man forsakes his meat that should preserve life in him yea and then 2. There is a spending consuming or dying of the spiritual gifts or efficacies of the Spirit of Life formerly infused and found in them though there may be for a time somewhat of these abiding as it is in a branch that though the life of it be gone yet something of the sap and greenness the effects of that life abide for a time and go away by degrees John 15.5 6. and as the heat in a dead body after the life and soul is gone yet something of the heat and warmth often abide that was the effect of the soul and life while there but that 's decreasing too and goes away at last and this may be signified in the Parable by the Prodigals spending his portion or substance in riotous living it was not all gone so soon as gone from his Father but it soon after went away and was spent though yet the rational sense as a man a natural man may abide and so he began to be in want he was sensible there was not that of gifts parts and graces fore-received from the Spirit of God as used to be but that there was a loss of those things and so of his comfort and hope springing from them they were gone but then 3. There is a senselessness of spiritual and divine things properly such and of his state in that respect no sight and view of the Glory of God that is in the face of Jesus nor of his excellencies and preciousness the Vertues of his Blood and Sacrifice no hearing of his Calls Counsels Instructions no spiritual hearing of his Voice when wholly gone from God and Christ he is deaf to all these things nor knows nor regards the meaning of them no taste and rellish of the Grace and Favour of God to and in his Spirit no sense and feeling of the joyes of Gods Salvation and the workings and breathings of his Grace in him Prov. 23.35 nor of his judgements upon him no savour or taste of his graciousness nor smell of his ointments could he but finde gifts or parts or some such things or have but the love respect or favour of such as admired him before it s all he desires is sensible of the want of or troubled about 4. There is no breath no spirit in any of his profession if the carkass of that remain an outward form of godliness there may be and of religious acts but no breath in them no divine force power or vertue from Christ as the body without the spirit is dead so faith without the works of it or that works nothing in the soul or upon others is dead James 2.26 Nor is there any inward spiritual breathing after God or towards him as is seen in the Parable where when the Prodigal began to be in want he hath no sense or remembrance of his Father or Fathers house nor desire after it but all spiritual things being gone he goes further from his Father and joyns up himself to a Citizen of that Countrey puts himself servant or an Apprentice to his lust or to Satan wholly to be given up and be at the beck thereof and to seek satisfaction in and from it as the Apostle saith His servants ye are to whom ye obey whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness Rom. 6.16 and so he only savors the things of the flesh now and desires the husks that the Swine feed on which this Citizen set him to keep even such things as bruitish men delight and rejoyce in and have their comforts from Nor 5. Is there any motion God-ward in him no creeping stirring much less going towards him in his heart or spirit but as a Swine-heard a moving only as a rational or bruitish man after the Swine and their husks after and with evil sensual and wicked persons but as no thought or desire after so no seeking to go to his Father till he came to himself from out of that spiritual swoon or death as we often finde the Scripture tells us the way of sinners is that being gone from God when they fall into misery or want yet they return not to God that smites them nor seek healing and help in Christ but run after dead works or empty lying vanities asking counsel but not of God and covering with a cover but
for hunger Now he is awakened both to a sense of his state and to an understanding where he may finde relief or rather this was as Aqua vitae infused into him 2. An inward desire and breathing after that relief and help that he is made apprehensive of and whereof he had had before the taste and experiment for that 's implyed in his resolving to go to his Father for it that he desired and breathâ—d after it So the sinner brought into minde and remembrance of God and his goodness in Christ in his reviving again hath effected in him a desire to finde that goodness again which he had proved before and that he hath again heard of and remembers And this is a gasping for life and breath again upon the Aqua vitae or Water of Life infused 3. An inward hope that he may be made partaker thereof again in giving diligence to return to God in Christ for it and to seek it in him and in his favour and love towards him and indeed therein life is more compleatly entred or breath recovered and the soul more properly lives in the receiving this hope and having it begotten in the heart and though it be but of a possibility and some likelihood of being made a partaker of satisfaction again in God and Christ Whence proceeds and springs as a further action of life 4. An inward purpose and resolution of quitting his present posture in which this thought of God and his goodness coming upon it found it This state of sinning keeping Swine maintaining and nourishing bruitish lusts affections and appetites in the objects whereof the Soul and spirit findes no satisfaction together with a purpose to rise up from under those discouraging complaints and despairs under which it before lay pining and to betake it self by faith and repentance unto God its Father from whom and whose house it had departed and to confess its sin and vileness and submit it self to his disposing I said I will confess my sin Psal 32.4 5. I will arise and go to my Father and I will say to my Father Father I have sinned against heaven and before thee and am not worthy to be called thy Son make me as one of thy hired Servants This like the moving and stretching himself when a person is come to himself and revives 5. A putting that resolution into practice strengthning those things that they might not dye again by still remembring his Father and still retaining in minde the fulness of his Fathers house and his great goodness to all therein of whatsoever condition and so he rose up both from his sinful way practise state and condition and from his pining away in himself and in the poring upon his own want and wretchedness and betook himself towards his Father by faith and repentance like the revived man's turning himself that he may get up 6. Being thus made alive by the Grace of God understood and yielded to as common in its gracious workings in the soul as infusing principles of life while he is yet but begun to act and exercise that life in putting sin resolutions into performances his Father sees him and pitties him and runs meets imbraces and kisses him that is while the soul is thus turning to God and going back towards him in the exercise of faith and repentance though but in their beginnings God in the greatness of his compassion and goodness closes with it returns to it accepts it incourages and helps it and speaks comfortably to it kisses it with the kisses of his mouth and therein further puts life and strength into it making it more to hope for his pardon and mercy toward it And this is like the giving the hand to a reviving man endeavouring to turn himself and to arise to help him up therein and then 7. He more confidently though yet humbly and penitently confesses his sins and wretchedness to his Father and humbles himself to him and so exercises repentance in these acts of it Father I have sinned against heaven and before thee and am not worthy to be called thy Son wherein he is like to Daniel on his knees and hands or as one that begins to speak 8. And then he receives a full and free pardon of all his former sins and offences and is made alive with the life of justification implyed in his calling for and putting upon him the best robe even the righteousness of his Son which he will have his Servants and Ministers also to declare to him or put upon him being in his Fathers gracious acceptation imbracing and kissing him as it were inwardly and in the Court of Heaven forgiven before and now he is indeed alive from the dead and as a man upon his legs again while he is not only inwardly quickned but also outwardly by his Fathers sentence proclaimed as an acquit and justified person whom he will not call to an account for his former mispending his living nor execute judgment upon him to death according to the law in that behalf provided against rebellious and stubborn Children that are gluttonous and drunkards Deut. 21.20 but being a new man is owned in Christ in whom he presents him to himself just and righteous and now he hath received him safe and sound ver 27. 9. And so is further acknowledged as his loving Son while the ring is put upon his finger for ornament or espousing the soul to himself again in righteousness and faithfulness and his feet shod to prepare him to walk up and down as his Son before him and herein he is fully restored to his former state of favour with his Father and Fathers House and to his pristine Dignity And in these things Branch 2. He is found The repenting converted sinner that returns to God is found again found passively not that he found himself or recovered himself but the good Shepheard that came to seek and save that that was lost Findes him and he is found when he comes back again Though the wayes by which that good Shepheard seeking findes may be different and here seems to be implyed to be 1. By neglecting him as to appearance or suffering him to wander after his own hearts lust till he be quite lost and perishing Till he eat the fruit of his own way and be filled with his own inventions till he fall down hungry and thirsty and his soul faints in him Psal 107.4 5. as is said in Hos 5.15 I will go and return to my place as it were leaving them and letting them take their own course till misery and affliction come upon them till they acknowledge their offences for then in their affliction they will seek me early To further which also God 2. In the mean while by a secret ordering Providence suffers not the sinner to finde the life of his own hands or not to continue so to do but to be reduced to more misery and want daily and to be crost in and disappointed of his
expectations in all his wayes which is that he sayes in Hos 2.6 That he would hedge up the sinners way with thorns and make a wall that she shall not finde her paths and she shall follow after her lovers but shall not overtake them and shall seek them but shall not finde them then shall or will she say I will go and return to my first Husband c. Just as this Prodigal meeting with a Famine in one place and pined with hunger none giving him husks in the other place was that way found or brought to himself to say How many servants in my Fathers house have bread enough c. And I will arise and go to my Father c. And the way in which God usually doth this is exprest in the same place of Hosea namely by taking away his gifts or which is the same suffering them to be spent till they come to nothing and then discovering her lewdness in the sight of her lovers and pressing her so with his judgments that none deliver her out of his hand as the Prodigal was made so poor and vile that no man regarded him to give him husks with the Swine and so destroying all her former gifts and rewards from her lovers take away all her mirth and all that might support her c. 3. By presenting and bringing to the sinners minde in this sad lost condition himself in his goodness and grace in Christ drawing the soul out from its holes and caves its fields and bruitish swinish company into the wilderness a solitary mournful repenting state and there he is said properly to finde her as it is said Hos 13.5 I did know thee in the wilderness in the land of great drought which is in Deut. 32.10 He found him in a desert forsaken land in the waste howling Wilderness c. And in Jer. 2.24 The wilde Asse in the wilderness that snuffs up the winde at her pleasure and none can turn her away in her occasion with whom all that seek her will not weary themselves any longer yet in her moneth sayes he they shall finde her that is in the time of trouble when her pains come upon her and God is brought to her minde then she will say Arise and save us as ver 27. And indeed when this is hearty and earnest as here then he may be said to be found and in the next step to it for he is properly found 4. In Gods seeing or taking notice of him in his thinking on and returning to him for that 's it in which a thing is properly found when that that could not be espyed or seen any where before falls suddenly into the sight and is seen and discerned Now his eye is more properly set upon the creature when he mindes regards and notes it so as to observe it by way of gracious respect to it as in Isa 57.18 I have seen his wayes and I will heal him and so he is said to hear them then too Jer. 31.18 19 20. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thou hast chastised me and I was chastised as a Bullock unaccustomed to the yoke turn thou me and I shall be turned for thou art the Lord my God Surely after I was returned I repented c. Then God sees and hears the sinner when he begins to bemoan himself and repent and look towards God and then Is Ephraim my dear Son is he a pleasant childe for since I spake against him I earnestly remember him still therefore my bowels are troubled for him I will sure have mercy upon him saith the Lord. And then a repenting sinner being thus found is and may be said to be a person found 1. In the way to God thinking of him in Christ desiring after him hoping that he may finde help and mercy with him resolving to return to him and putting such resolutions of repentance into practice humbling himself in the belief of his goodness and hope of mercy as is seen And herein 2. In the eye respect and gracious observance of the Lord having respect to him as Isa 66.2 To that man will I look that is poor and trembleth at my word He respecteth the lowly but the prond he knows afar off Psal 138.6 such as think they can live without him 3. In the heart or compassions of the Lord there he is found He saw him and had compassion upon him to pitty his misery hear his bemoanings help his infirmities I will sure have mercy upon him as before in Jer. 31.20 4. In the arms of the Lord who meets him speedily falls upon his neck and kisses or embraces him Now he is found indeed when he hath him in his arms in the inclosures of his grace gracious power and protection and promises 5. In his dear Son In whom he saw and thought upon his Fathers goodness and through whom he received life and motion towards him resolutions and actual performances of faith and repentance towards him and came to him but now is instated into him and declaredly accepted in him the beloved Made in Christ Jesus 1 Cor. 1.30 Ephes 1.6 found in him Phil. 3.8 9. and then he is more fully and formally found when in and through him accepted So was Cornelius before an actual positive and explicite knowledge of him and enwrapping him about as it were with an explicite discovery of him and giving in the justification forgiveness of sins life and peace in him as explicitly believed on by him his prayers and tears were accepted before through him and upon his account but then he was more properly found in him when he was so invested with the knowledge of him and righteousness in and by him in the actual receit of remission of sins and the Holy Ghost in his Name believed on and so the Prodigal here in the best robe put upon him and then 6. In his Fathers house received in by his Father set amongst his Children and having there liberty and room again to go in and out amongst them Now he is found indeed of God and his people too And thus a repenting returned sinner of a lost perisht man is found again yea found now safe because in his Fathers love acceptance approbation in Christ and in his Fathers house and tuition and sound because now healed of all hurts before-got by his Fathers compassion and goodness extended to him Whereupon follows CHAP. X. The third Branch opened and the whole applyed THAT his condition now is such as its meet to be rejoyced for and in It was meet that we should make merry and be glad for this thy Brother was dead and is alive again was lost and is found To be rejoyced for by making merry each other as it were and by being glad in inward heart and outward demonstration in entertaining him with a Feast and with Musick the voice of Thanksgiving and Melody and with Dancing Exulting leaping or orderly moving our selves in shewing our gladness and setting forth the
Praises of God Yea this is a thing meet to be joyed in and for 1. By God his Father himself for so he puts in himself here not only its meet that thou shouldst make merry but we I and thou too A wise Son makes a glad Father Prov. 10.1 My son be wise and make my heart glad that I may answer him that reproacheth me Prov. 27.11 Though this Son had done foolishly in departing and running away from his Father and when he began to be an hungry in joyning himself to a Citizen of that Countrey yet he did wisely when coming to himself he repented and returned and the Father here rejoyces and hath wherewith to answer his other Son reproaching him So also in Prov. 23.15 16. My Son if thy heart be wise my heart shall rejoyce even mine yea my reins shall rejoyce when thy lips speak right things It s meet a Father be glad of his Sons welfare 2. By his Brother or Brethren it is meet we should make merry and be glad not only I but thou also with me for should not brethren love one another and be glad they may enjoy one anothers company in health and safety and therefore be glad when any of them escapes any danger and the more the greater the danger was that is escaped and then 3. By the Servants also that attend on them There is joy in the presence of the Angels of God over one sinner that repenteth ver 10. and I have no greater joy saith one of Gods Servants in the Gospel then to hear or see that my Children walk in the truth yea and to repent and turn from swervings too so the Apostle Paul the Servant of Christ Now I rejoyce saith he not that ye were made sorry but that ye were made sorry to repentance 2 Cor. 7.9 4. But most of all by the sinner himself made alive again and found of his Father and in his Fathers house amongst his Brethren whether in the lower rooms while here or in the upper chambers as the Thief or Malefactor that day he dyed was in Paradise O give thanks to the Lord for he is good for his mercy endureth for ever Let the redeemed of the Lord say so whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy c. Psal 107.1 2. Quest But why is it meet to make merry and be glad for such a one upon such an occasion surely there is great and good reason for it Answ 1. Because of the goodness of the condition it self in which a repentant sinner is found or brought into Good things are matters of joy when had and enjoyed here 's nothing but good in this state good it is in it self and good to all others therefore worthy joy and mirth and gladness 1. Good in it self for 1. It is a state of life and life is good in it self and therefore matter of promise which it would not be if not good for we do not use to promise what we judge bad and if God judged life bad or it were so in it self God would not promise it He is just he shall surely live Ezek. 18.9 It s matter of prayer Oh that Ishmael might live before thee Gen. 17.18 Let Reuben live and not dye Deut. 33.6 And its matter of praises Psal 1â—9 175 Let my soul live and it shall praise thee and let thy judgements help me Yea it s a matter of Christs purchase that he came into the world to procure and give yea the principal matter I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly John 10 10. and therefore surely life is good a great good Yea skin for skin said the adversary and all that a man hath will he give for his life 'T is usually so but especially spiritual life the life of the soul in Christ and so in the favour of God is good The life which is in the path of righteousness wherein is no death Prov. 12.28 And this is the state the sinner is taken into upon repentance and coming back to God in Christ as in Ezek. 18.17 If the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed and keep all my statutes and do that that is lawful and right he shall surely live he shall not dye and ver 22. He shall live So in Chap. 33.11 Turn and live Being brought back to God in and by Christ the only way by which any can come or be brought to God John 14.6.7 he lives in and by Christ who is the Resurrection and the life so as that whoever believes in him whatever he be or hath been though never so dead yet he shall live and living and believing in him he shall live for ever John 11.25 26. And so it s said here He is alive again Object Oh! but the repenting Malefactor upon the Cross dyed for all his repentance Answ As to his body he did and all must and that as so inflicted on him was the fruit of his sin not of his return yea as to its sentence a means of his return from his sin but that which was the fruit of his repentance was that he lived to God Being judged according to 〈◊〉 in the flesh but living according to God in the Spirit 1 Pet. 4.6 and so his soul lived and went that day to Paradise and lived for ever His death as it was the fruit of his sinning was matter of sadness but as it was a means to his repentance so it was to be joyed in but much more the life of his soul and eternal life promised to and to be enjoyed by both soul and body in the Resurrection the fruits or consequents of repentance are matters of unspeakable joy and gladness if a Childe fall into the fire will not the mother rejoyce to see him snatched out of it and live safely and in health again though with causing the scorched skin to peel off surely yes 2. It is a state of being found a found state a state wherein a sinner is not lost from God and his goodness to his Brethren and fellow Servants but is found in and with them known owned and approved with God and with men Angels of one minde â— God and so is with them under the gracious approving knowledge of God and under his gracious care counsel defence c. and in unity with all that are well and happy found in a large and spacious house in and under the enjoyment of or title to large Provisions richest Furniture sweetest Relations and Friends abiding and eternal safety and satisfactions Come to Mount Sion the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem to be of them as Ephes 2.19 20. and to an innumerable company of Angels to have fellowship with them and protection by them to the General Assembly and Church of the first-born whose names are written in heaven as owned of God and inrolled as heirs of heaven and its infinite glory and happiness to be with
rebuking his fellow sufferer for his reproaching Christ acknowledging the justness of their sufferings and our Saviours innocency and praying Christ to remember him when he came into his kingdom he heard this comfortable word which doubtlesse strengthened his confidence and gave him full assurance of his salvation Verily I say unto thee this day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Surely this was written for an incouragement even for such offenders also to hope in God by Jesus Christ and betake themselves to him for mercy in an humble acknowledgement of their offences and of his power to forgive and help them which that they also may obtain of him even to the giving them large confidence in him and full assurance of their salvation Christ's graciousness to him doubtless doth testifie that none may say what should such hainous sinners dye like Saints though yet in one sense such dye not as Saints while they glory not in nor justifie the cause of their death as those that dye for Christ and righteousness sake may and often do but in that regard take shame to themselves and acknowledge the righteousnesse of the shame and punishment ordered to them as deserved by them and submit themselves thereto And surely it would be too great an injury to the grace of God and to his love to mankind and to their welfare and too great a derogation to the vertues of the precious blood and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus to imagine that such mercy may not be shewed to them that are so great sinners both as to make them in their receit of it hearty in their repentance and chearful in their spirits under their sufferings in the hope of God's salvation Object Ah! but the suddainnesse of the conversion and speedinesse of the consolations and the coming so easily by them without more drooping and humiliation makes some question They expect such great sinners should long lye under dejection and sadness before they get a good word from God and if not so they are apt to conclude them under a delusion or but hypocrites in their profession of joy and consolation Answ Truly I would not be misunderstood to speak in behalf of any that are not truly penitent and turned in to Christ or that are daubed with untempered morter and slightly healed Yet this is evident that sometimes the grace of God makes quicker work in mens conversion and he more speedily comforts them thereupon than the wisdom of the flesh or of man judges fitting as by this Parable appears as also by the carriage of the Pharasees toward Christ often censuring him for his receiving sinners while it appears they were not satisfied of their conversion I conceive had they been first made Pharasees they would not then have been offended and judged them sinners still The woman that at Simon 's house stood behind Christ and washed his feet with her tears c. had not satisfied the Pharasee that she was a convert for then would he not have had indignation thereat nor said in his heart If this man were a Prophet he would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him for she is a sinner Luc. 7.39 Surely Christ knew her better then he did and knew her to be a real convert though it seems she had not so publickly bewailed her self and bewailed her sin as to satisfie the Pharasee that she had left it And what appears to have been the sorrow and humiliation of the Malectour we finde nothing said thereof and yet evident tokens appear of his real conversion and he had speedy absolution For 1. He rebuked his fellow for his carriage towards Christ as if he had been turned a suddain Preacher of repentance to him Fearest thou not God seeing we are in the same condemnation 2. He confessed his sins and justified the righteousness of his death submitting himself upon that account to bear it patiently And we indeed justly for we receive the due reward of our deeds 3. He confessed Christ and justified him in his sufferings and that when the whole multitude the Princes Priests and zealous Pharasees and learned Rabbies the chief builders did most of all reject him despise and deride him And when he was in his deepest sufferings But this man hath done nothing amiss 4. He in this lowest case of Christ when his own Disciples durst not own him owns and professes his faith in him that he was Lord and King and that he should have the kingdom and so that God would glorifie him through and after those his sufferings saying Lord remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom And 5. In that faith he calls upon him as upon the Saviour of the world or of sinners saying Lord remember me c. as intimately professing his faith that he could forgive and save and blesse him We finde no great lamentation for his sin nor dejection under the sense of it but yet a better confession of faith we scarce finde from any of the Apostles who were now shrunk from him Yea Peter that thought to have stood it out denied him See here how suddainly and silently the grace of God may work a notable alteration as to conversion and then see the speediness of Christ in forgiving and comforting He lets him not hang long drooping to his death upon the Crosse but presently tells him This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise And was it not so with David he said he would confess his sin and God forgave the punishment of it He said but I have sinned and Nathan replies the Lord also hath taken away thy sin thou shalt not dye Psal 32.5 2 Sam. 12.13 So Peter had but begun to speak to the Gentiles and presently the Holy Ghost fell on them and they spake with tongues without any long humbling them first for the sins of their Gentilism or bringing them into the profession of Judaism by circumcision as it seems the Disciples of the Jews had some thought he should have done by their quarrelling with Peter for his eating with and receiving them Acts 11. Yea and Peter himself says what was I that I could withstand God! as if there might be some such leaven in him also as to have kept them longer out from comfort and made them more humbled first before he would have received them had they been at his disposing Truly I suspect it s our hypocrisies or want of thoroughness in coming off from our idols our sticking long in the place of the breaking forth of children that increases and lengthens our throws and sorrows Hos 13.13 As while David kept close his sin his bones waxed old and he roared out with daily disquiets Psal 32.1 2. the heart that comes off soon and roundly from its sin is sooner comforted So the compassionte Father here so soon as he sees his Sons resolution and finds him upon his way to him yea While he was yet a great way off presently runs to
meet him and falls upon his neck and kisses him Oh hasty Father and too passionately fond thinks his Pharasaical Son to shew so much love before no more humbling He was not yet fallen on his knees scarce and behold his Father falls upon his neck He had not yet confessed his sins only says he would and the Father prevents him with his compassion and before he could utter all he had to say calls for the fatted calf and the best robe to feed and cloth him and therefore he hears of it afterward As soon as this thy Son was come that hath devoured all thy substance with harlots thou hast killed for him the fatted calf And so how apt are we to say Oh! they must be soundly humbled before we may shew them any hopes of mercy towards them and yet indeed its hope of mercy here that humbled him yea the best and sweetest humbling is after the receit of mercy Then Mary loved much and wept much when much was forgiven Luc. 7.47 and so in Ezeck 16.60 61 62 63. when God remembers his Covenant with adulterous and idolatrous Jerusalem and makes an everlasting Covenant with them then she shall remember her ways and be ashamed c. yet if God speedily comfort men we are ready to say it was some delusion they were not humbled enough But what is that that men call humbled enough I fear as some are not humbled and ashamed for their sins so some may mistake and idolize it If by being humbled enough they mean so as to give satisfaction for their sins or make an amends for them that 's an enough that none can attain to and therefore Christ humbled himself to death the death of the Crosse for us Philip. 2.7 and was not he humbled enough for us think we it is upon the account of his humiliation and not of ours that God receives satisfaction and forgives us None can be sufficiently humbled for the least abuse of any mercy to deserve the forgiveness of it thereupon but in Christ God is the best estimator of our being humbled so as to be fitted to receive what Christ's humiliation and sufferings for us have purchased and he seems to men sometimes to accept of a small measure or time of humbling as the instances before recited make manifest And if God speak peace to any upon short and slight humbling to appearance yea or when he sees us go on frowardly turning aside in the way of our 〈◊〉 if he see our way and heal us and create the fruits of his lips peace to us as Isa 57.17 18 19. seems to import who or what are we that we should limit or fault the Holy One When God comforts any how can they be dejected would we have them play the hypocrites to humour us counterfeit terrour and dejection when God speaks peace to them surely no. Again we vain creatures are apt to judge of mens being humbled by the outside the sad countenance plenty of tears sorrowful tones wringing of hands c. but God sees the heart And God that knows the heart bare them witness says Peter speaking of the Gentiles so suddainly in their uncircumcision received in by him And indeed we may find the Scriptures mention persons as well humbled and so as God counts them meet to be comforted When 1. They having sinned do or are willing to ingenuously confesse and not hide cloke extenuate or plead for their sin and filthinesse and turn from them So in Prov. 28.13 He that bideth his sins shall not prosper but he that confesseth and forsaketh them finds mercy And in 1 Joh 1.9 If we confesse our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness Though this confession as to particulars is not needful to be made publike to all men but to God I said I would confesse my sins to the Lord and thou forgavest me Psal 32.5 and in some cases to some faithful men Jam. 5.16 that are concerned and the heart made free to 2. When they see themselves so vile and their sins so hainous that they cannot take comfort in any of their confessions weepings humiliations fastings but go out of all to the grace of our Lord Jesus and his precious blood Psal 51.1 2.7.16 17. And indeed they are proud persons that have their hope in other things as their weepings humiliations c. for they think so well of themselves as to conceive some excellency in such their acts that they may do something in their worthiness with God to procure his acceptance of them It 's a greater act of humility or humiliation to see such emptiness or nothingness in them all as to disown any resting in them or comfort from them but only to hope in the mercy of God and the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ And 3. In case God lead them out to sorrows and griefs bring shame and sufferings upon them to be willing to yield our selves to God To be afflicted and mourn and weep Jam. 4.9 Accept the punishment of ones iniquity and bear the indignation of the Lord till his wrath be past as having sinned against him Mic. 7.8 9. This God himself makes the character of an humble heart in his sight when in the view of him the uncircumcised heart is humbled and they accept of the punishment of their iniquity confessing that they have walked contrary to God and he hath walked contrary to them Lev. 26.40 41 42. and that was the great act of Christ's humbling himself for us that he accepted the punishment of our iniquity and yielded up himself to bear it quietly not repining or grudging thereat And here also in this Parable the Prodigals humiliation appears in this chiefly that rising and coming to his Father he confesses his sin submits himself to bear the shame of having his Father or Servants see his poor estate and to be in any place how mean soever that his Father would put him in though of an hired servant so he might but be received And surely when we finde any that have been great sinners turned in from their evil ways confessing their sin and vilenesse and submitting to the grace of Christ to seek their absolution rest and righteousnesse there submitting themselves to walk in his ways and bear his chastisements and if in so doing yea though there be some imperfections in their so doings they meet with refreshings and rejoycings in God and Christ and in the riches of his grace we may rejoyce in their behalf as here the family are called upon by the Father Let us make merry and be glad Though others that are prophane scoffers may take occasion from such falls and miscarriages of professors of the truth to jear and blaspheme for which and for whom we have cause in such cases to be sad and grieved and others take occasion thereby to abuse God's goodnesse and mercy to such to harden themselves in sin for whom we
our meat and drink our drink that our heavenly Father hath provided for us we shall never be merry Fasting and mirth are not meet concomitants but feasting and mirth Our Father hath killed for us the fatted calf indeed he bid his Servants do it and so they do in a sort in their ministerial holding forth Christ crucified for us Yea all are his servants they that crucified Christ did but therein what his hand and counsel had determined to be done Act. 4.28 But the Son puts it upon the Father Thou hast killed for him the fatted calf God hath prepared him for us delivered him up for our sins and raised him again for our justification Sets him forth in the Gospel as a sacrifice offered up for our sins and gives him to us as the bread of life to eye and believe in exercise faith in and so feed upon him We are not put upon it or called upon in this feast to bring any dish with us but only to eat what he hath prepared and made ready for us It will make our Father's heart glad to see us accept his love and eat heartily of his meat and eat together like brethren lovingly He will not think his fatted calf ill bestowed on us if we will but eat heartily on it Yea therein he hath delighted its meat and drink to him his Sons obedience and righteousnesse and in and through him its as meat and drink to him to see us eat heartily on him too Do not look upon our meat only though its good to look on it too for it s so lovely and altogether pleasing to an enlightned eye that it will allure us to eat but also eat of it feed on it put it in our mouths let it go down into our bellies or hearts Cause our bellies to eat and fill our bowels with it Ezek. 3.3 If thou confesse with thy mouth Jesus the Lord and in thine heart believe that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved Rom. 10.10 But what have we no drink to our meat yes yes I warrant you our Father keeps a good bountiful house he hath a cup of good wine for us spiced wine the most choise wine the blood of the grape and yet it s but the fatted calf still For his flesh is meat indeed his being incarnate and made flesh for us his being delivered up to death for our ransome and redemption He as therein the way for us to God the mediator of God and us the receptacle for us and convayer of the grace and blessing of God to us This is our meat and its meat indeed And his blood is drink indeed his abasement and sufferings as obtaining for us and confirming to us the New Testament and its precious promises which are all in him by vertue of this his most pretious blood obtaining for us the continual pardon of our sins yea and Amen Affirmed and confirmed or ratified for and to us This this and the love herein testified is drink indeed Joh. 6.55 His love is better than wine will cause the lips of those that are asleep to speak Cant. 2.2 and 7.9 come then let us eat together of this meat this is better than to feed on the flesh of our own arms Isa 9.20 That 's pittiful stuff that is what we can do and gather up to and for our selves by our own strength our fastings prayers whinings pinings works of righteousnesse of our own doings our humblings and self abasements as reflected on by us The flesh and blood of this fatted calf is ten thousand times better it will make us strong to labour and work what is good and make us thankful to him that gives it to us and to acknowledge our selves infinitely unworthy such a dish to have been prepared for us but these things are the fruits and effects of it fed on not the meat we are to eat much lesse what is but the issue of our own power and strength Come then Brethren let us sit at it here and eat and drink heartily if we will be merry and glad and make our Father merry and glad and our Brethren merry and glad Let 's eat and drink and be merry here This will never make us Epicures nor drunkards nor riotous eaters of flesh Here is no excesse in this feast eat and drink of it what we can Eat we that that is good and let our souls delight themselves in fatnesse Hereto we are invited and called upon Isa 55.2 3. And here call we upon one another too as our Lord doth upon us all Eat oh friends yea drink yea drink abundantly of my love as some translate that Cant. 5.1 Our Father will never chide us or tax us for it as gluttonous eaters of flesh or drunkards I say for eating our fills here nor shall we need to spare this fatted calf is a living dish that will grow upon us in the eating it the more we eat the more we may eat and the more we eat of it the more welcome And the wine here will do like the oil in the miracle increase as we empty it or drink of it Here 's a Princely feast no law to limit us how much to eat or drink Oh! that all the Epicures drunkards and gluttons in the world would lay aside their epicurism in which they spend and wast God's creatures and break his laws and bring upon themselves misery and destruction and turn gluttons and drunkards here if they can Yea here its lawful and a priviledge to be drunken for so some read that in Cant. 5.1 Drink and be ye drunken oh my beloved or with my love And to be sure if Christ make men drunk he will never fault them for it if men drink here till they loose their own understanding reason senses it will never harm them for they loose them not for the worse as in bodily and sinful drunkennesse to be made like beasts but for the better to be made like Angels or conformable to Christ To be drunk into his Spirit his will mind judgment and to be carried above not beneath our selves Here we may call for cups and flagons too Stay me with flagons Cant. 2.5 be not drunk with wine then wherein is excesse but be filled with the spirit of love and of Christ there 's no excesse in that Eph. 5.18 19. This wine will exhilarate or chear us while it assures us of God's love in Christ and ascertains us of the injoyment of his promises yea and convays them to us This wine will indeed make glad our hearts Let 's eat drink and be merry then here not for tomorrow we shall dye but and we shall never dye We shall never drink our selves dead here as the drunkards of this world do but we shall drink our selves alive we shall drink death away and drink our selves into eternal life For whoso eateth my flesh saith our Lord and drinketh my blood hath eternal life Joh 6.56 And this will