be not the same Person And in this sense it is impossible for Christs Disciples to be so one in God and Christ as God and Christ the Father and the Son are the one of them in the other Well then our Saviour speaks here of the oneness which is between his Father and himself as he is the Mediator and as he is the Head of his Church For so they are both one as Jesus Christ himself speaks Joh. 10.30 And in another place he uses the very same expression in my Text and tells us that he is in the Father and the Father in him Joh. 14.10 Now the Father is in Christ as he is Mediator of the Church and Christ is in the Father in the same respect that is they are both one especially three ways 1. By Hypostatical union of the Manhood to the Godhead in the Person of our Saviour for the Manhood being joyned to the Godhead in the Person of the Son it must be mediately joyned also to the Father to whom the Son as God is joyned in the nearest tye that can be We have no higher phrase you know my Brethren to express the closest union then to affirm of two that they are one they two are are one and we cannot say more There is a union between faithful friends for there is one heart in two bodies as the Philosopher expresses it There is a nearer union between man and wife for they two are one flesh as the Apostle Paul speaks Ephes 5.31 and therefore they have one name But there is the nearest union between the Father and the Son for they two have one Essence one Nature one Name And so the Godhead being joined to the Manhood in the Person of our Saviour that Manhood by and through that God-head must needs be neerly and indissolubly joyned to God the Father 2. God the Father and the Son are one by dear affection Thus they are in one another and they live in one another as it were by inexpressible and tender love which they bear to one another How doth the Father love the Son beyond expression and that as he is Mediator for under that capacity he speaks of him Isa 42.1 and he seems to glory in it Behold my servant mine Elect in whom my soul delighteth and in another place he gives this attestation out of heaven to him Mat. 3 17. This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased q. d. I have some other children that I love well but This is my Beloved Son above the rest take notice of him this is he And hence he lays him in his bosome next his heart Joh. 1.18 acquaints him with his counsels tells his secrets to him entrusts him with the revelation of them sets him in the highest place next to himself advances him above yea far above all principalities and mights and Dominions and puts more honour on him then he doth on all the creatures And hence the Son is often speaking of the Fathers love to him and on the other side professes his affection to the Father and he would have the world to know it too Joh. 14.31 That the world may know that I love the Father so do I. So that you see here is union of dear love 3. The Father and the Son are one by unexpressable agreement and consent together Though they be divers yet they never differ No they continually mind the same things they will and nill the same things love and hate the same things and this agreement is between the Father and the Son not only as the Son is God but as the Son is Man and Mediator too The will of Jesus Christ as he is Man in all respects accordeth and consenteth with the will of God the Father Or if it were not so it must be sinful and irregular and therefore he submitted still yea even in those things which were against the Nature that he had assumed Not my will but thine be done And thus you see how the Father is in Christ as he is Man and Mediaator and how Christ as Mediator is in God the Father how they are both one viz. by hypostatical union by dear affection by unexpressable agreement and consent together Now we shall easily discover how he would have his Apostles to be one in his Father and himself which is the second thing to be unfolded in the point It is the will of Jesus Christ that his Disciples should not only be one among themselves but that they also should be one in God in the Father and the Son This is the special thing for which he prays That they may all be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us 1. Then as the Father is in Christ as Mediator and Christ as Mediator in the Father by the Hypostatical union so Christ would have his Disciples to be in both of them by the mystical union That as the Manhood of the Son is mediately in God the Father in being joyned to the Godhead of the Son which is one with God the Father so we should also be mediately in the Father in being joyned to the Godhead and the Manhood in the Person of Christ That we should be in the Father by and through Jesus Christ And so indeed are all the members of the body mystical by reason of their union with the Lord Christ Christ is one with God the Father and we are one with Jesus Christ and therefore in a sense we are one with God the Father Jesus Christ is in the Father and we are in Jesus Christ Ephes 1.10 We all are gathered into one in him and therefore we are also mediately in the Father And hence it is that all the Saints are said not only to be one among themselves and to be one in Christ but also to be one in God the Father as in my Text you see I pray for them saith Christ that shall believe on me that they may all be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us not one among themselves but one in us Not in me only but in thee too Not one in me but one in us So that you see believers all of them are in the Father by the Son 2. As God the Father and the Son are one by dear affection so Christ would have all his Disciples to be one both with the Father and himself in the very same manner He would not have them only to be one among themselves by love but he would have them also to be one in God by love He would have their hearts to live in his Father and himself by unexpressible and choice affection That they should find no rest no quiet anywhere but in God and Christ only To be so closely and indissolubly joyned to the Father and himself that nothing in the world should be able to divide them to separate them from the love
A wicked wretch may touch another man indeed and yet never touch God because he is without God there is no union between God and him But whosoever touches him that is in God must touch God in touching him And hence saith the Lord himself Zac. 2.8 He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of mine eye In touching you he toucheth me and that in the most tender place the very apple of mine eye And do you think that God will ever suffer such audacious boldness as this is That he will quietly sit still and let ungodly wretches thrust their fingers into his eyes and pluck the very apples of his eyes out of his head Take this and take all If true believers be in God you then that are out of God endeavour Vse 3 to keep in with them In any case make them your friends and keep them so and do not fall at any difference or odds with them You know not what you lose when you lose their love and their friendship A friend in place they say is worth something And certainly they are in place that are in God the best place that can be And therefore it is good for those that are without and live abroad to have some friends in this place you may fare the better for them and they may do you a good turn and a good office there when time serves Wicked men have had advantage oftentimes by the friendship of believers Moses did a good turn for Pharaoh more then once when he knew not what to do and when he could not help himself Alas poor miserable man he was an alien he lived without God in the world and therefore sends for Moses still who was in God to speak a word for him and he was ready to sollicite hard in his behalf and divers times prevailed for mercy till in the end his heart was hardned to his utter ruine And therefore if you love your selves make much of such friends as these are And thus far of the application of the first branch of the Explication of the point I shall be briefer on the other two Is it the will of Jesus Christ that true believers should be one in God Vse in the Father and himself by dear affection You then that are believers let your hearts be knit to God and Jesus Christ by this indissoluble bond Let love make you all one And as the Father and the Son are one among themselves so be you one in them by love Let your affections to them be so high as to unite you to the Father and the Son And even as dear affection joyns you to your fellow-Saints that you are knit in love as the Apostle Pauls expression is so let it joyn you much more to the Father and the Son for they are infinitely more to be beloved Oh let your hearts no longer live in creature comforts and in creature satisfactions which do so often fail you and deceive you but let them live in God by inexpressable and choice love There live and there rest and there dwell and there nestle as it were in the bosome of the Father and the Son Mark that expression of the Apostle John 1.4.16 God is love and he that dwelleth in Love dewelleth in God and God in him God is love essentially for whatsoever is attributed to God is God And he is the Original and fountain of the love that is Communicated to the Creature All the Love with which we love him or the Creature regularly comes from him It is a ray of the divinity a beam of God a part of the divine nature And seeing God is love in the sence before expressed essentially originally it follows thence as the Apostle John infers that he that dwells in love must dwell in God He that dwells that is continues and abides in love to fellow Saints and fellow-members dwels in God But he that dwells in love to God himself dwells in God much more And therefore I beseech you let your hearts set up their rest in love to God and Jesus Christ there let them fix and dwell let not your love be scattered up and down among the creatures as it is but let it be united all in God and let it joyn and unite you all to God that nothing in the world may ever separate you or divide you from him Brethren you may be the losers by Love of other things or other friends For after your affections and your hearts are set upon them they may forsake you and be unfaithfull and unkind to you And besides you must bestow some pains and travail and expence on those who are indeed beloved by you Or else it is but a dissembling feigned love for love where it is sound and real is very bountiful and very active And hence it is my brethren that there is so little true affection in the world The love of men is for the greater part in complement in shew and in appearance only they will do nothing they will part with nothing for those whom they are pleased to call their friends as they must do if they love in deed and truth But now in loving God my brethren though I acknowledge you must part with all for him yet you shall be no losers by it Though you forgo your friends your houses and estates and all for him you shall have him instead of all Yea you shall not have him only but you shall be in him by this means And therefore I beseech you my beloved grow up into this uniting grace in these divided and distracted times which will not only make you one among your selves but one in God But you will ask me how may this be done I will give you some directions 1. Let prayer struggle for it at the throne of grace It cannot choose but be a pleasing lovely suit indeed to be importunate with God to make us love him and to draw up our hearts to him A man would think that such a sweet request as this should not be turned off with a denial It s true that prayer is the great Catholicon and universal means in all cases But yet it is expedient in a special manner to the attainment and enlargement of this grace of love which is a special gift of the spirit It is the great work of the spirit of God to make us love God and to endear our hearts to him I know that Hope and Patience c. are graces of the Spirit but Love is a prime grace It is a grace of the first magnitude and therefore placed first by the Apostle in that Catalogue of his Gal. 5.22 The Love of God is shed abroad into our hearts saith the Apostle Rom. 5.5 how so by the Holy Ghost that he hath given us And in another place he tells the Saints Ye are taught of God saith he to love one another 1 Thes 4.1 None in the world can teach you this but God only And if none but he
The Father loves believers as he doth Christ Reas For he loves them 1. In Christ 2. Through Christ 1. Vse Depend on him 1. Without doubting 2. By real love 3. Vse Comfort to all true believers In that 1. He will uphold them as he did Christ 2. Assist us in his service 3. Reward his own work in us 4. Hear us 5. Provide for us 3. Doctr. Christs will is even a Law with the Father Reas 1. Being the only Son 2. The Beloved 3. Never asks amiss 4. Sueth for nothing but what he deserver p. 491. Vse How to make Christ our Advocate Ver. 24 Direct 1. To prepare their hearts they must be 1. Purged 2. Humbled 3. Fixed 4. Awakened Then 2. For Matter of prayer search the promises p. 496. Manner Pray without wrath 2. Doubting 3. With much zeal 2. If we pray acted by Christs Spirit 1. There will be zeal 2. Desires spiritual 3. For spiritual things chiefly Not to be spent on lusts 4. We shall pray constantly 2. Doct. It is Christs will that they who are given him should be in heaven Reas He loves them with a love 1. Of benevolence 2. Of Complacency 3. To see his glory 3. Doct. God hath loved Christ from all Eternity Reas Being like him both as God and Man Vse Wo to them that hate Christ They hate Christ 1. Who willingly obey sin 2. Who love and hate that which Christ doth not 3. Who are friends to the Enemies of Christ Contra p. 513. 2. Vse God therefore loveth them that love Christ Christ is amiable and worthy of our love 1. In respect of his perfections p. 515. 2. In respect of our Interest and propriety in him 3. Of his great love to us 4. Of that he hath done for us 3. Vse Admire that he should so use him as he did for our sakes 1. Giving him up to the hands of sinful men and to his own wrath 2. So using him for such as we are p. 517. 4. Vse Comforts to those that belong to Christ that they are loved from everlasting 4. Doct. God is a very just and righteous God Confirmed 1. From the largeness of his Jurisdiction 2. The Immensity of his presence 3. From his inward propensity and disposition 1. Vse This should settle our minds amidst the confusions and disorders of the world 2. Vse Comfort to those that are abused and oppressed 3. Vse Come into him and become his subjects 4. Vse Terror to the ungodly 5. Vse Comfort to the righteous even in Gods Justice 6. Vse Admonition to Magistrates Perswasions to execute Justice 1. It will settle the land 2. Be amiable to God 3. Beneficial to your selves p. 526 7. Vse Meditate on Gods righteousness It will 1. help us against sin 2. Strengthen our faith in prayer p. 528. Ver. 25 Doct. Unbelievers and unsanctified persons know not God in such manner as they ought p. 531. 1. Know him not so as to delight in him 2. Nor so as to serve and obey him 3. Nor so as to know him in Christ Reason 1. Unbelieving Heathens want the means of knowledge 2. Unbelieving Christians want the Spirit to unveil 1. The understanding 2. The Gospel 3. In every unbeliever there 's something 1. Redundant to repell divine Truth 2. Wanting to receive it viz. The Spirit of God 4. They are unwilling to know God p. 535. 1. Vse The misery of unsanctified unbelievers 2. Vse Admire Gods mercy in vouchsafing us the means of knowledge p 537. 2. Doct. That Christ alone knows God immediately and others by his means p. 539. Vse None saved by his own natural knowledge 3. Doct. The most saving knowledge hath defects and imperfections standing in need of farther declaration p. 541. Reason Christ doth not shew them all at once 1. Because they are not capable 2. That he may keep them humble 1. Vse Be not proud of your knowledge 2. Vse Comforts to the humble 1. A sign that thy knowledge is right and sound 2. It 's the measure which Christ hath alloted thee 3. The time is coming when these thy defects shall be supplyed 4. We shall be rewarded according to our practice not our knowledge Ver. 26 Doct. Christ will be making farther declarations of his Fathers Name to the worlds end p. 546. 1. By his written Word and Ministers in all ages 2. By his holy Spirit p. 548. 1. Vse Believe what he hath spoken 2. Expect the execution of his promise 3. Thereunto strive with Christ in prayer p. 549. 2. Doct. The Love which is in true believers comes from God Reason For it cannot be Originally in of or from our selves yet not without means Vse If we want it have recourse to God Love is the chiefest thing 1. That comes from God p. 554. 2. That conformeth us to God p. 554. 3. Doct. Declaration of the Fathers Name is a special means to work love in them Reason 1. Beauty is a part of his Name 2. Goodness 3. Mercy 4. Love p. 557. 4. Doct. Where Love is there Christ is Reason 1. For where Love there the Spirit 2. Faith 3. God is p. 560. 1. Vse Misery of those that love not God and his children 2. Comforts to those that have love in them They have Christ and therefore 1. Have intimate Communion with him 2. Have free access to him 3. Have the confluence of all Accommodations 4. Are secure 2. Let Christ live quiet in your hearts Excellency of Christs prayer An Alphabetical Table of the Chief Heads contained In this TREATISE A ADopted children page 15 Admire the love of God and of Christ page 20 98 146 161 361 455 537 Affections of the heart testified by outward gesture page 11 Affliction should not dismay us See Tribulation page 104 195 290 291 367 Abilities of Christ page 145 Active Obedience of Christ page 157 Our Advancement in Christ page 174 The Apostle and Messenger of God is Christ 142 149 234 235 other Apostles page 407 our Affections are to keep Christs word page 204 213 Apostates from Christ page 41 210 Application of Christ page 158 441 Assurance Means and benefit thereof page 22 our Active and Passive obedience page 203 Authority grace and power of Christs words page 7. 473 Authority of Christ over all men 52 144. for the benefit and Salvation of his people page 72 73 Agreement with God and Christ necessary page 465 Agreement See Unity The benefits thereof page 303 304 All things revealed by Christ in what sense page 236 Aimiableness of Christ page 514 515 Adding to the work of Christ page 168 word of Christ page 241 Absence of Christ from the Father page 265 Ascension of Christ 266. End fruit and benefits thereof page 267 B PArtial Believers page 208 â—99 Belief See Faith Wrought by the Gospel page 443 444 Believers not free from the Law page 61 62 Believe the Trinity page 130 132 the Scriptures page 133 399 in Christ page 149 150 441 Christs word 204. 559
leave the business as it were in medio in suspence they pass to other thoughts and do not fully satisfie themselves in this particular whereas a man should never rest while there is any cloud upon his faith any scruple in his conscience Ah my Beloved will you be slight in such a matter as this is of such infinite concernment whether the God which you have chosen be the right or no How can you but be slight accordingly in all the duties of his service And therefore do not give it over till you be resolved Think with your selves I must determine either on or off either one way or the other And if you be necessitated to resolve our God will carry it from all the rest They that have taken other gods have taken them upon trust they have received them from the custom of the places in which they have been born and bred And most that worship our God take him but in such a way as this is But if you sift the business well you will find cause to stick to him whom you have chosen The more you prove him and examine him the better you will like him And therefore I beseech you do not halt in this business but come to some determination and decision Do as Elijah counsels Israel Be no longer unresolved If Baal be God then follow him but if the Lord be God then follow him Rest not in opinion here but sift it to the full Bring your selves to this disjunction If any other god be true why then there is no other way but I must worship him and serve him But if our God be the right then I must stick close to him If you be at this hand that you will absolutely satisfie your selves before you leave before you give the business over as this you are bound to do you will not leave it any longer in suspence nor suffer any doubtfull thoughts within you unexamined for then they will return again on all occasions you will find that this will strengthen faith exceedingly in this particular Our God will certainly be gainer and have very great advantage by coming on the test with any other Fourthly and lastly set all the Grace and all the strength you have on work in prayer that God himself would satisfie you fully and confirm your faith in this particular That he would leave no doubt within you concerning such a principle as this is which is the very Basis of Religion the foundation that supports the Fabrick of it and beareth up the weight of all the building A man will never come to God by faith or by repentance or obedience unless he first believe that God is Heb. 11.6 And therefore struggle with the Lord about it if faith begin to waver or to fail in any measure say as the Disciples did O Lord encrease our faith Lord strengthen us Lord do not suffer us to shake in this fundamental truth for this doth shake all with it A man may get a common an acquired faith by arguments and reasons and the like it may be brought into a man by custom but that will never satisfie a man compleatly constantly unless he have infused faith and that is the immediate gift of God himself If he will shew himself to any man then he shall see and know and be assured that he is the true God But if he will hide himself he can but only grope after him Use 2 Is it so that our God is the true God and are you satisfied of this do you know him to be so then serve and glorifie him as the true God Let him have that worship and that honour and obedience which the soveraignty of a God calls for If he be not the true God then take your liberty and walk according to your own lusts and according to your own pleasures abridge your selves of nothing to which the byass of your nature carries you take no pains in holy duties hear no more pray no more But if he be indeed the true God and you dare not to deny it then live and walk as if you did believe him to be so Stifle not these principles which you cannot contradict nor lay aside Take heed of doing as the Gentiles did Rom. 1.19 c. they liked not to retain God in their knowledge they had him there but they liked not to retain him because he was a trouble to them fain they would put him out again The apprehension of a God called upon them for some duty and was a curb and a restraint from some evils And therefore they were weary of such thoughts as these and sought to chase them from their meditations To say truth they did not like them and therefore would be rid of them They knew God that they were not able to avoid but yet they glorified him not as God And truly this is just the case of many Christians They do not serve they do not glorifie and worship God according to their knowledge of him They walk not answerably to their principles and to their light in this particular They yield him to be God and yet they do not trust in him they do not live to him they do not love they do not fear him and the like They live without God in the world and they do just as they would do if there were no God at all Now I beseech you my Beloved do but consider the extream danger of such a course as this is It is the ready way to be delivered up to strong delusions and to vile affections as you may see those Gentiles were in the very same case Because when they knew God they glorified him not as God therefore God gave them up to strong delusions in their intellectuall parts that they were vain in their imaginations and their foolish hearts were darkened to vile affections in their sensual part that they committed all uncleanness and burned in their filthy lusts their hearts were like an Oven heated by the Baker they were set on fire of hell And hath it not been thus with many men in our daies they know God in a speculative and discoursive way at least they were convinced that he was the true God but they lived not according to their principles in this respect they abated of their strictness and devotion neglected duties which they had been wont exactly to perform forsook the Ordinances and the Worship of the Lord despised the Word of God glorified him not as God took carnal liberty against their knowledge and against their conscience And now how vain are they become in their imaginations how foolish in their fancies and opinions and conceits How hath God sent on many of them strong delusions to believe lyes that they might all be damned that believe not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness They knew the truth but they had pleasure in unrighteousness They took delight in some unrighteous way or other some secret way of wickedness or
hearts must be carryed out in dear affection to it If this be wanting all the rest is worth nothing You may perish notwithstanding as pesons that are out of Christ and be damned in hell for ever unless you come to love the Word of God as you may see in that remarkable Example 2 Thes 2.10 They received not the love of the Truth saith the Apostle there and what follows that they might be saved No salvation unless the Word the Truth of God be kept in the affections by the loving it And therefore it is added presently for this cause God shall send them strong delusions that they might all be damned Oh then as you desire to have this sweet assurance in your souls that you belong to Jesus Christ and that you shall be saved by him examine whether you have kept the Word of God in this respect or no whether you have it dear in your affections And that you may the better try your selves in this regard I shall give you some discoveries If you love the Word of God you will desire on all occasions to converse with it Desire of union and communion is alwaies an effect and evidence of true affection You shall observe it in the Prophet David who was unparalleled in this respect for infinite affection to the Word of God It is a wonder to consider how his heart was set upon it And hence it was that when he was kept off from the enjoyment of the Word he had such vehement and enflamed desires to be partaker of it He panted and he gasped after it even as the Hart panteth after the water-brooks Oh when shall I appear before God Psal 42.2 when shall I be partaker of his Word and of his Ordinances once again when will it once be So in another place My soul longeth yea even fainteth for the Courts of the Lord where Ordinances were dispensed My heart and my flesh cryes out for the living God Psal 84.2 So that he envies the very Sparrows and the Swallows who were freer then himself to be near that place Yea his longing was so great that he was even heart-broken with it Psal 119.20 My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath to thy judgements at all times And have you such affections and such anhelations in you Let us examine it a little in these two particulars 1. Do you hear the Word of God as often as you may not only now and then when you have nothing else to do and when you have no other business to withdraw you but constantly on all occasions do you attend upon it as your main and chief business do you for the love you bear it neglect and set aside and under-value other things this is the Wisemans admonition Prov. 23.23 Buy the Truth and sell it not Sell it not for a little profit in the field or in the shop but rather buy it and redeem it with your loss of outward things Do you conceive that David of whose high affections you have heard would neglect any opportunity for being made partaker of the Word of God Oh how did he bewail the want of it How would he have struggled for it How eagerly would he have taken it with any outward disadvantage And this is that which Christ commendeth Mary for not for a work of supererogation as doing more then she was bound to do but for a regular account and estimation of the Word setting aside her houshold business that she might be partaker of it Luk. 10.42 Not only they that will not hear the Word of God at all but they that hear it seldom that suffer every worldly business to withdraw them from it will be found not to have loved it and esteemed it as they ought to do How shall we escape saith Paul Heb. 2.3 if we neglect so geeat salvation 2. Do you exercise your selves as in the hearing so in the reading and in the meditation of it Do you converse with the Word of God in private Doth it dwell with you in your houses as the Apostles phrase is Col. 3.16 For this you must know my Brethren that though you should be ordinary hearers of the best Ministry beneath Heaven yet you must not rest in that but you must exercise your selves in reading of the Word of God in private It was the Lords Commandement to the King himself that though he might plead want of leisure more then many others and though he had the ordinary help of the Levites Priests and Prophets more then others as David had both Gad and Nathan yet he must have his Bible still and must be constant in the reading of it as you may see Deut. 47.49 And it was that which cheered and supported Job in his affliction Job 23.12 that he could say uprightly in the presence of the Lord I have esteemed the Word of his mouth more then my necessary and appointed food More duly then he kept his meals he tyed himself to read and meditate in Gods-Word Among the Jews under Antiochus it was made capital for any man to have the Book of God by him And in Queen Maries days you know the danger was not less and then how did they prize a little piece of Holy Writ how did they value a few Chapters of the Bible If a poor a man could get a leaf or two how safely would he keep them in his bosom next his heart as the most pretious things he had How would he wear them out with reading in them God hath dealt more gratiously with us there is now no danger to have a Bible and therefore if we be not constant in the reading and the meditation of it we shew not such affection to it as we ought to do That is the first thing then if you love the Word of God you will desire on all occasions to converse with it both in publique and in private 2. If you love the Word of God you will endeavour to be inwardly acquainted with it we converse with many men with whom we are not intimate And so there are abundance that hear and read the Word of God and yet know little of the meaning of it But if you love it as you ought to do you will not satisfie your selves with this that you read so many Chapters in a day that you attend on every Sermon that is preached unless you find that you do in a measure understand the mind of God and the mind of Jesus Christ in those things If I affect a man exceedingly I shall endeavour what I can to get within him as we use to say not to know his face and to hear his words only but to be inwardly acquainted with his disposition and the purpose of his heart And so if you affect the Word you will strive to get into the bosom of it You will not be contented with a formal superficial knowledge of the letter of it but you will dive into the very bowels of the
c. that in the mean time till he take us up to him to heaven personally he may draw us up to heaven virtually That till we follow him in person we may follow him in heart and in affection that may set them on the things that are above where Christ also fits on the right hand of God If Christ were still among us in the body and in a visible and fleshly way you are not able to imagine how much it would detain us here We should not care much to look higher then the place where Christ is But now he is departed from us into heaven this draws up our affections after him who is so infinitely dear pretious to us for where the treasure is there will the heart be also This makes us to desire with the Apostle to be with him to be dissolved and to be with Christ This makes us keep him company though at a distance It makes us heavenly in our discourses meditations conversations as the Apostle was Phil. 3.30 Our conversation is in heaven from whence we look for the Saviour even the Lord Jesus Christ JOHN 17.11 And now I am no more in the world IS it so that Jesus Christ as he is man is gone away out of this Vse 1 lower world c. Then let us not expect to see him here till he return again from heaven It 's true he shall so come again from heaven as the Apostles saw him going into heaven as you may see Act. 1.11 He shall come down again in a remarkable observable and visible way Behold he cometh with the clouds and every eye shall see him Apoc. 1.7 And in the mean time my Beloved the heavens must contain him or confine him as to his bodily or fleshly presence he must be comprehended there Act. 3.21 I say then as our Saviour Christ himself upon the like occasion Mat. 24.4 Take heed that no man deceive you for many shall come in my name saying I am Christ And though it seem so gross a business that there can be no danger in it yet it is added presently and they shall deceive many so that there may be need of this Caveat And therefore I beseech you my Brethren lay it up against the time of trial come if it ever come upon you For there shall arise false Christs and false Prophets as the true Christs tell us Mat. 24.24 insomuch that if it were possible they shall deceive the very Elect. And therefore if they say unto you Lo here is Christ or there believe them not If they say he is in the Desert go not forth he is in the secret chambers believe it not as Christ addes in that place If a seducing spirit tell you Christ is in such or such a place such or such a one is Christ as some have been so grossly impudent in these times believe him not If a Papist or Ubiquitary tell you Lo here is Christ lo he is corporally present in the Sacrament the bread is really and truly chang'd into his body believe him not No my Beloved do you depend on that which Christ himself affirmeth in my Text and now I am no more in the world as to my bodily and fleshly presence untill you see him come again as the Apostles saw him go away for every eye shall see him when he comes be confident he is not here in this world I say as Christ in the fore-alleadged place Take heed I have foretold you Vse 2 Is it so that Jesus Christ as he is man is gone away c. and that he hath withdrawn his corporal and fleshly presence from us Then let us make the more of the presence of his Spirit by which he is still among us If he be absent from us one way it is good reason that we should the more improve his presence with us in another The chief comfort of the soul consisteth in Communion with the Lord Christ in having fellowship with him Now Christ as he is man is ascended into heaven and so in that respect he is no more in the world We cannot yet go up to him though we would gladly die and be dissolved that we might be with Christ yet it cannot yet be But which way then shall we enjoy Communion with him Why my Beloved because we are not able to go up to him the Spirit will do so much for us that he will bring him down to us and thus though he be absent from us in the body yet he is present with us in the Spirit and will be to the worlds end according to his own promise Matth. 28.20 Lo I am with you always to the end of the world They are the last words of the Chapter and the last words of the Book and there is nothing added but Amen Let it be so and sure it is a sweet close Well then my Brethren let our work and business be to consider with our selves how we may the more enjoy him in the Spirit because we can no longer now enjoy him in the body How we may make the most of that we have And I shall give you the best advise that I am able in this great business If you desire to make the most of the presence of your Saviour in the Spirit now he is absent from you in the body you must be infinitely cautious that you do not grieve that Spirit by which he is present with you If you grieve and trouble him he will withdraw and hide himself from you and then Christ is wholly gone both in the Body and the Spirit too you do not sensibly enjoy him neither one way nor the other and so are in a very sad case Since the presence of the Spirit is all that you enjoy of Christ so that if he be gone my Brethren all is gone you must be very wary that you do not vex the Spirit and cause him to depart from you But you will ask me Which way do we vex and grieve the Spirit we would know it that so we might be careful to avoid it I might speak much of this Subject and draw out my discourse into abundance of particulars but I will say it in a word you grieve the Spirit when you deal unkindly with him any away This is the specal thing that grieves friends when one of them deals unkindely with another and so it is between the Spirit and the soul He comes to us from Christ in much love and much kindness to supply his absence from us and we are unkind to him and this grieves him out of measure Now we are unkind to him especially two ways and that is either when we slight him or resist him 1. When we slight him this is a very great unkindness and that which friends can very ill bear He makes tenders of himself and we take no notice of him he stands knocking at our doors or rather Jesus Christ by him and we let him knock still He would be
to be as mercifull as God is if you look to the degree For as the heavens are higher then the earth so are his thoughts above ours in this particular But yet we may be mercifull as he is though not as mercifull as he is So in the Text our Saviour prayes for his Disciples That they may all be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us The meaning is not that they may be one as nearly that is impossible but as truly as we are That as we are in one another so they may in some respect be all in us How and in what respect they may be so I shall shew at large anon in the mean time the point is this DOCTRINE It is the will of Jesus Christ that his Disciples should not only be one among themselves but that they also should be one in God Indeed it is the will of Jesus Christ that his Disciples should be one Vse 4 among themselves That they should be all one as you have it in my Text Indeed he shed his blood for this purpose Eph. 2.14 that though they be of divers Nations as for instance Jews and Gentiles yet they may be both one as in the fore-alledged Scripture He is our peace saith the Apostle there who hath made both one having abolished in his flesh the enmity to make in himself of twain of Jews and Gentiles one man Though they be of divers places some in heaven and some on earth and though they that are on earth are many of them many thousand miles asunder yet he would have them to be all one It is his project and design to gather all things into one which are in heaven and which are in earth as Ephes 1.10 But you will ask me How can this be done that they that are so distant should be one I answer Very easily because the bonds of this conjunction are not carnal but spiritual So that they may be one without a corporeal or local union From him the head saith the Apostle all the body by joints and bands is knit together Col. 2.19 Part of the body is in heaven and part of it is on earth and here some persons are in one some in another quarter of the earth yet all the body so divided and so distant as you see by joints and bands is knit together And you will easily conceive it when you consider what these bands are 1. They have all one spirit and so in that respect are one I speak not of the spirit or soul of a man but of the spirit of the Lord Christ which being one dwells in all the Saints at once and so makes them one too yea let them be as distant as they will And as the formal reason of the union of the members of the body natural consisteth not so much in contiguity as animation by the same soul so that if any part be mortified and if the soul give over to enliven it it is no more to be esteemed a member notwithstanding its external and corporeal inherence to the body So though the Saints be far from one another in regard of place yet they are closely knit together by the same spirit being joyned to the Lord they are all one spirit and so indeed are all one 2. They have all one faith one at least in fundamentals and one faith makes one as Ephes 4.4 5. They that are of many faiths in fundamentals cannot come so close together to be all one and therefore Jesus Christ when he ascended up on high gave gifts unto men for the work of the Ministry and for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come all both Jews and Gentiles come in the unity of the faith c. So that there is a unity in the faith you see and to say truth my Brethren faith will make a union at a distance as well as if the persons joyned were all together What doth th the corporal or local presence of the parties contribute to the union that is made by faith which is a spiritual and invisible thing and consequently joineth in a spiritual and invisible manner which no division or distance in regard of place can hinder 3. They have all one heart and one affection and so in that respect are one The multitude of believers were of one heart Act. 4.32 Though they were multitudes yet they had but one heart and when there is but one heart there is a great Oness The understanding is the principle of speculation the heart the seat of love and of affection And the Saints are so united and linked togther in affection as if they had among them but one common principle of this affection as if they had but one heart and therefore the Apostle speaking of the faithful saith that they were knit together in love Col. 2.2 The term there used importeth such a knitting as is between the divers parts and peices of a building For so the Saints though there be Millions of them in the world yet they are built up altogether to a spiritual house 1 Pet. 2.5 And love is as it were the morter and the pins the ligaments and tyes of the connexion and elsewhere it is called a bond Col. 3.10 Above all these things put on charity which is the bond of perfectness with which we are perfectly joined together 1 Cor. 1.10 Now love will make a union at a distance as well as near at hand The nearness of the place simply considered in it self contributes nothing to the nearness and to the strength of the affection No love will reach a person at the other end of all the earth as well as if he were just by us in the very next room or in the very next dwelling You see both that and how it is the will of Jesus Christ that his Disciples should be one among themselves which is the first thing in the point But now there is a Second branch he would not have them only to be one among themselves but he would have them also to be one in God This is the special thing for which he is a Suitor to his Father in my Text That they may be all one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us Not one among themselves alone but one in us which is indeed a very high thing Now that you may the better know what Christ intends in this particular you must consider that he speaks to God the Father as man and Mediator in this place For he speaks in prayer here and consequently when he saith As thou Father art in me and I in thee he speaks not of the union which is between his Father and himself as he is God For in that consideration the Father and the Son are so in one another that they are the very same The same Essence for so the union is Identical though they
can teach us to love our brethren whom we see then much more none but he can teach us to love him whom we do not see and therefore let us earnestly beseech him to help us to take forth this Lesson 2. Let us endeavour to grow up in the knowledge of the Lord and as we know him better we shall love him more That which one affirms of Learning may be well applied to God Non habet inimicum nisi ignorantem He hath such matchless excellency and beauty in him that he that knows him cannot choose but love him Indeed while we are unacquainted with him the admirable worth and lustre that is in him doth not take a whit upon us The Philosopher will tell us that the judgement must be first of all convinced of the worth and value of a thing before the heart will close with it and the affections cleave to it Nec enim potes aut amare quem nescias aut habere quem non amaveris Thou canst not love him thou knowest not nor have him whom thou lovest not And hence it is that wicked and ungodly men love not God or Christ at all because they know him not at all Or if they know him any way it is not under such a notion as makes him beautifull and lovely to them Perhaps they know him as a Judge or an Avenger not as a Father and a Saviour And this is indeed the cause why the triumphant Saints in heaven love him more then the Saints militant on earth because they have a fuller clearer and distincter knowledge of him We see him darkly in a glass but they see him face to face And this is the reason also why we love not God so much on earth as we shall do in heaven viz. because we know him not so well here as we shall do in that place So that our love to God you see is answerable to our knowledge of him as we know him more or less so we love him more or less And therefore if we do desire indeed to love him more let us strive to know him more 3. Another means to grow up in the love of God is to have daily more communion and intimacy with him And this as I conceive it is a means distinct from that which goes before For it is one thing to know him and another to have communion and to be familiar with him We know abundance with whom we have no intimacy in the world No we know them too well perhaps to be familiar with them So we may have a speculative knowledge of the Father and the Son and yet may have no intimate acquaintance with them And this is very necessary to encrease love To kindle and enflame affection as the Philosopher observeth there must be Convictus crebra conversatio They must dine and supp together they must walk and talk together And wheresoever there is strangeness there can be no great love And therefore if we would abound in the love of God and Christ let us have more communion with them Beloved if we be not wanting to our selves we may be very much with God We may speak with him often in a day we may talk with him face to face in our addresses to his holy Majesty we may give him many visits he doth not interdict us but invite us to come and sup with him and be acquainted with him throughly once he is so pretious and so sweet a friend that we shall love him out of all measure 4. Endeavour to the utmost of your power to dispossess your hearts of the unlawful love of worldly things for this is incompatible inconsistent with the love of God If any man saith the Apostle love the world the love of the Father is not in him 1 Joh. 1.15 Let him be what he will my Brethren if he love the world he loves not God And therefore ler not any covetous and wretched worldling make shew of having any love to God For certainly it is not in him The friendship of the world saith the Apostle James 4.4 is emnity with God And therefore if we would be friends of God we must dissolve this friendship with the world Inordinate irregular unlawful love of worldly things must be expelled And as this love is cast out the love of God will come in 5. Be often in the company and fellowship of those that love God Converse with those who are most endeared to him and they will be continually speaking of him and seting forth his excellency beauty love and so will kindle and enflame your hearts towards him They who are full of sweet affections to the Lord if you be much among them will work you to the same temper You may observe it in Cant. 5.10 and the following verses that when those daughters of Jerusalem who at first despised Christ and wondred why the Church his Spouse should praise him so and make such a stir about him yet when they had a while conversed with the Church and heard her speak of Christ with such affection admiring and extolling him above the skies they also fall in love with him and they will go together with the Church to seek him out Whither is Beloved gone say they O thou fairest among women whither is thy Beloved turned aside that we may seek him with thee And thus you see my Brethren frequent intercourse and holy conference with those that love God is one effectual means to fill and to enflame our hearts with love to him 6. Labour to comprehend with all the Saints the greatness of the love of God to you and to assure it to your own souls It is not all the beauty and the excellency in the world that will allure us to the 〈◊〉 love one that we imagine doth not love us But if we see and be assured of the love of God to us this will kindle love to him and make our hearts to melt towards him When we consider with our selves what kindness he hath shewed to us what he hath done for us what matchless and unfathomed love he hath discovered to us this will raise our affections high to him again and make us even sick of love And therefore I beseech you strive to be more and more assured of this for at this flame you must kindle your fire Here you must fetch your little spark of love whereof the Saints are capable in this life from the love of God to you which being kindled in your hearts it will never leave aspiring and flying higher and higher still till it have joyned it self unto that infinite and endless flame from whence it issued and proceeded And indeed as Bernard very well observes we cannot answer God or Christ so well in any thing as love To say the truth we must not answer him in other things If he be angry or displeased with us we ought not be angry or displeased with him again If he condemn and censure us we
they could never side with those that are professed adversaries to the Lord Jesus and who endeavour to subvert and overthrow his worship and religion and destroy his people And certainly Christ cannot choose but take them for his enemies and use them like his enemies while they incorporate themselves with those that live in open opposition and hostility against him And as the friends unto the enemies of Christ even so the enemies unto the friends of Christ are enemies to Christ himself They that are adversaries to the Saints who are as it is said of Abraham the friends of God the friends of Christ must needs be adversaries to the Lord Jesus There is a Covenant and a League of love between the Lord and them and the league is not defensive only but offensive too he that toucheth them saith Christ toucheth the Apple of mine eye touch them touch me Zac. 2.8 Nay they are not alone in Covenant with him but more then so my brethren they are one with him And therefore they are called Christ 1 Cor. 12.12 For as the body is one and hath many members and all the members are but one body so also is Christ conceive it Christ in aggregate comprizing all the Church with him for caput corpus unus est Christus as Austin speaks the head and the body is but one Christ and that which is the name of Christ Jer. 23.6 This is his name by which he shall be called The Lord our Righteousness is the Churchss name too Jer. 33.16 This is the name wherewith she shall be called The Lord our Righteousness Indeed his people are the members of his body and he can never be a friend unto the head who is an adversary to the members Now if on triall by the former evidences you find that you hate Christ believe it God hates you The dearer his affection to his Son Christ is the greater is his hatred of the enemies of Christ The union is so neer and the love so infinite between the Father and the Son that God may truly say to Jesus Christ Do not I hate them that hate thee I hate them with a perfect hatred as though they were mine enemies And I will surely take a course with them I will bring them low enough Sit thou at my right hand there sit thou still unmoved and undisturbed till I have made thine enemies thy footstool JOHN 17.24 For thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world IS it so that God the Father dearly loveth Jesus Christ hence then it Vse 2 follows that as he hates them that hate Christ so on the other side he loveth them that love Christ The dear affection that he bears to Christ draws out his very heart to all those that love Christ And this is that which Jesus Christ himself teacheth John 14.21 He that loveth me saith Christ shall be loved of my Father Let him be what he will of what condition or estate he will never so poor and mean and despicable in the world if he do really and truly love me my Father loves that man and loves him dearly for my sake Nay saith the Father this man is my Sons friend he bears a very great affection to my Son Christ and therefore I must needs esteem and love him for my Sons sake I have alwayes loved my Son even from all eternity and that out of all measure and upon this account my love and my affection overflows to all those that love him Oh how should this prevail with every one of us to love Christ and love him dearly since God the Father will requite us to the utmost for all the love we shew to him all the love that we lay out on Jesus Christ he will pay us back again and pay us in the same coin We may depend upon it that we shall have love for love If we love Christ the Father he will love us And is the Fathers love worth nothing Ah my beloved it bringeth with it all the happiness and mercy that a poor soul is capable of And therefore I beseech you let us love Christ let Christ have our love that we may have the Fathers love And here to warm your hearts a little and to draw them out to Christ take notice of these few things 1. View him in himself behold him in the choiceness and excellency of his own beauty There is no spot nor imperfection in him in the very least degree He is fairer then the children of men Psal 45.2 then any of them all let them be what they will for they have blemishes but he hath none All the perfections in the world do meet in him so that there can be nothing added to him Indeed my brethren he is altogether lovely All others have their imperfections and defects something there is unlovely in them but he is altogether lovely And this is that which makes the Church so far in love with him She is taken with his beauty and the delicious savour of his ointments the sweetness of the graces that are in him Cant. 1.3 How is she ravisht in the contemplation of him Cant. 5.8 What is thy beloved more then another beloved say the daughters to her there What is he more saith she me thinks she is an end with that word Why have you no eyes to see He is transcendent incomparable and so describeth him from top to toe and then concludes This is my beloved O ye daughters look upon him this is he As who should say now judge you whether I have cause to love him yea or no. And therefore I am not ashamed to own it and if you meet with my beloved you may tell him that I love him yea that I am sick of love 2. Consider in the next place what he is to you what interest and propriety you have in him Why my beloved he is yours I speak this to believers only And this the Church and Spouse of Christ professeth often I am my beloveds and my beloved is mine and yields this as the reason of the high and dear affection that she bears him A woman you will say hath cause to love her own husband Now Jesus Christ is the husband of the Church she is his wife his spouse his second self she is called by his name We are thine say the people of the Lord the heathen are not so nor are they called by thy name So that the Saints in this respect are infinitely more obliged to love him then these that are without the pale because they have not such relation to him 3. Let the exceeding love of Christ to you draw out your love to him again Amor they say is Câ—s amoris And so let his love be a whet to you Consider he hath loved you and therefore you have reason to love him again This reason doth not hold on both sides we cannot say that we have loved Christ and therefore he hath cause to love us
true believers Now of all these he saith expresly that they know not God You must not understand it absolutely that they know him not at all in no respect and under no consideration The very Heathen know him in a sense and in a measure There is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 somewhat to be known of God by the works of the creation and by the things that he hath made Rom. 1.19 even by the book of Creatures which the Heathens have and study And therefore it is charged upon them afterwards at ver 21. that when they knew God they glorified him not as God They did not glorifie him according to their knowledge of him And if the Heathen who have but the Book of Creatures know the Lord a little Professed Christians who have the Book of Scriptures know him more I say professed Christians who have no interest at all in Christ no truth of saving grace in them even these may go far in a notional speculative discoursive knowledge of the Lord beyond many sound believers and yet these are of the world So that our Saviour means not absolutely when he saith to his Father here The world hath not known thee q. d. they have not known thee at all But they have not known thee so in such a manner and with such a kind of knowledge as I and true believers do Oh Righteous Father the world hath not known thee but I have known thee and these have known that thou hast sent me and I have declared unto them thy name all that is necessary to be known of thee You see the meaning of the words The world here is opposed to Jesus Christ and true believers So that it is not mundus mundus but mundus immundus as Austin calls it It is the unbelieving and unsanctified world saith our Saviour knows not God He means not that they know him not at all but they know him not aright How and in what respects they know him not a right I shall open by and by In the mean time the Point is this DOCTRINE That unbelievers and unsanctified persons know not God at least they know him not in such a manner and with such a knowledge as they ought to do This is the usual Character of such in Scripture This is the Character of unbelieving Heathens they are the Gentiles that know not God 1 Thes 4.5 This is the Character of unbelieving Christians they know not God and obey not the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ 1 Thes 1.8 So that all unbelieving and unsanctified persons whether they be Heathens or professed Christians are ignorant of God yea though they discourse of him and that excellently too and pretend acquaintance with him as those whom the Apostle mentions Tit. 1.16 They profess they know God but in works they deny him Yea though they cry to God as Israel did my God we know thee while they cast off the thing that is good Hosea 8.2 3. yet they know not God indeed Their knowledge of him is not right and sound and consequently is not worthy of the name of knowledge as I shall evidently clear it to you in a few particulars Unbelievers c. know not God in such a manner and with such a kind of knowledge as they ought to do in that they know him not with an affective knowledge so as to love him and delight in him Knowledge in Scripture doth connote affection and that which carries not the heart and the affections with it deserveth not the name of knowledge And therefore men are frequently affirmed in Scripture not to know that which they do not like and love The Ox knows his owner c. but Israel knows not me saith God Isa 1.3 Why certainly they knew him if any people under Heaven knew him with a discursive and a speculative knowledge I but they knew him not with an affective knowledge Their knowledge of him drew not out their hearts to him and therefore in the Lords interpretation and construction it was no knowledge For he saith of them expresly Israel hath not known me In that they know him not with an effective knowledge so as to serve him and obey him with such a knowledge as brings forth practice and obedience That which is separate from this is no knowledge In which respect it is that the Apostle stiles it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 2.20 A form of knowledge There is the shew but not the truth When Christ is said in Scripture to have known no sin we cannot understand it to be meant of intellectual knowledge for then he could not have discoursed of it so that he knew no sin in Paul is he did no sin in Peter They that knew God Rom. 1.18 because they did not live accordingly and glorified him not as God are therefore said not to have kept him and retained him in their knowledge ver 28. God made his wayes and statutes known to Israel he dealt not so with any Nation And yet even of them he saith It is a people that do err in their hearts and they have not known my wayes Psal 95.10 Brethren there is an error in the heart as well as in the brain and a kind of ignorance arising from the will as well as from the understanding and this takes off the name of knowledge from that which is but speculation only And therefore sinners are universally termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ignorant erring persons Heb. 5.2 And that alone is by the Holy Ghost thought worthy of the name of knowledge that sinketh from the brain into the heart and so appeareth in the life setting all on work for God In which respect it is the Covenant of the Lord with his people that he will put his Law into their inward parts and write it in their hearts Not in their minds and understandings only the seat and principle of speculation but in their hearts the principle of action So that they shall not only have it in their minds to know it but in their hearts to practice it and to obey it This only this is right knowledge A good understanding have all they that do his Commandments Psal 119.10 They only understand and know the Lord effectually and savingly that obey the will of God Hereby we know we know him as we ought to do if we keep his Commandments Others may have understanding only these have good understanding For this God sets the finger of a hand against Josiah to point him out to special observation Jer. 22.16 He judged the cause of the poor and needy was not this to know me saith the Lord. q. d. This was knowledge to the purpose this was true and real knowledge of the Lord indeed which made him strict and carefull in the performance of his duty In that that they know him not in Christ and to know God out of Christ is all one as not to know him as I have shewed at large out of the third verse
God so it is in some respect the chiefest thing that comes from God It is a grace of the first magnitude and therefore it is placed first by the Apostle in that Catalogue of his Gal. 5.22 The fruit of the spirit is love and then joy and other graces It is an excelling gift and therefore the Apostle Paul to shew the matchless worth and the surpassing value of it admits a kind of Solaecism in his discourse and makes it better then the best of gifts 1 Cor. 12. ult Covet saith he and covet earnestly the best gifts And then immediately annexeth a discourse of love and touching that he saith I shew unto you a more excellent way Indeed it is of greater latitude then other graces it runs through every precept of the Law of God For love is the fulfilling of the Law and that no other grace is It is of greater power then other graces for it sets them all on work And hence the acts of other graces are frequently ascribed to love as 1 Cor. 13.4 c she hopeth she believeth c. It is of greater permanency then other graces then faith or hope And other graces without love are nothing as the Apostle shews at large in that Chapter 2. And as love is the chiefest thing that comes from God so it is the chiefest thing that conformeth us to God It makes us like him more then other graces do God is not said in Scripture to be faith or hope or patience but he is said in Scripture to be Love If we believe God doth not so if we hope God doth not so if we suffer quietly God doth not so Indeed he suffer not at all either by way of passion or compassion But if we love my brethren so doth God In this we do as God himself doth And therefore we may pray for this my brethren in another way then we may pray for other graces according to the pattern in my Text. We cannot pray to God Lord grant us that the faith which is in thee may be in us Lord grant us that the hope which is in thee may be in us But we may pray Lord grant us that the love which is in thee may be in us That the love wherewith thou lovest may be given down to us Vse 2 Is it so that the love which is in true believers comes from God If then we have the love of God in us let us remember whence it came and to whom the glory of it ought to be returned We can hate God of our selves but we can never love him of our selves So that if there be any spark of the love of God in us we may be confident that it was kindled at his fire And therefore let it be continually working upward upward still yea let it never leave ascending till it have joyned it self unto that infinite and endless flame from which it issued and proceeded JOHN 17.26 That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be c. DOCTRINE 2. The Declaration of the Fathers Name to men is one especial means to work the grace of love in them IT is to this end that our Saviour makes it known as you may see expresly in my Text I have declared unto them thy Name and will declare it Why so to what end That the love wherewith thou hast loved me that very property may be in them That as it is in thee it may be wrought in them also And out of doubt the means our Saviour pitches on are useful and available to his ends Indeed men come to know the Father by the discovery of his name to them for so his name is all that makes him known to men And that which worketh knowledge of him doth mediately work love to him So that if the discovery of his name do make men know him as that is very manifest it doth make them love him too That which one affirms of Learning may be applyed to God Non habet Inimicum nisi ignorantem Whosoever knows him clearly loves him truly Indeed while we are unacquainted with him the admirable worth and beauty and excellency that is in him every way doth not take a whit upon us The Philosopher will tell us that the mind must be informed and convinced of the goodness of a thing before the heart will cleave to it or the affections close with it And hence it is that carnal and unsanctified persons love not God because they know him not Or if they know him any way it is not under such a notion as renders him desirable or lovely to them Perhaps they know him as a Judge or an avenger they cannot know him as a Saviour and Redeemer And this is the real cause why the triumphant Saints in Heaven love him more then the Saints Militant on earth because they have a fuller clearer and distincter knowledge of him We see him darkly in a glass they face to face And this is the reason also why we love not God with such a high affection here as we shall do hereafter because we know him not so well we have not such distinct and full discoveries of his name as then we shall attain to So then you see in general that the discovery of the Fathers name to men is one especial means to work the grace of love in them To clear it yet a little further to you I shall shew you particularly and distinctly that there are divers things in Gods name which being manifested and declared unto men are means to win their hearts to him and so to work love in them As The beauty of the Lord is a part of his name and beauty being manifested and discovered is a means to win love It is a great attractive of affection Now herein God excells my brethren in this respect he is incomparably out of measure lovely The greatest beauty in the world is holiness so it is often called as 1 Chron. 16.19 Psal 29.2 To shew that holiness hath beauty in it yea it is called Beauties in the plural number The beauties of holiness Psal 110.3 to intimate that holiness is full of beauty and that it over-matches all the beauties in the world if all of them were put together And therefore this is made in Scripture the greatest beauty of the creature as Sin is the deformity so Grace and Holiness is the beauty of the Soul it adorns the inner man And therefore the Apostle Peter exhorteth Christian women to adorn the hidden man of the heart with this 1 Pet. 3.4 Even with the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit which is of great price in the sight of God And hence it is that holiness is likened to the fairest things to Robes and Gems and Crowns and Gold and Jewels and the like Now God is matchless in this kind of beauty He is holiness it self yea he is infinitely holy And therefore holiness is called the Image of God The holiness that is in men is but
Prayer That they may be one here and that they may be in one place hereafter This Nation seems not to be under the dint of the Influence of this Prayer at this time in which the Lord hath suffered such a spirit of Division a spirit that our Saviour never prayed for to possess his own people So that his Body lies a bleeding the members being miserably rent into pieces He bled indeed sufficiently upon the Cross in his Natural Body but there was suddenly a Consummatum est to that When will there be a Consummatum est to this in his Mystical Body When will Christ say It is enough When will the stream of blood that ran there stop this which runs here When will there be an end of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these after-afflictions of Christ which now he is sat down at rest on the right hand of the Father persue him thither and will not suffer him to be quiet in his glory It 's true the Body of our Saviour in these Nations bleeds not now by cruel Persecutors hands as it hath done in former Ages blessed be the Lord for ever But which is more unnatural and doleful Bella per Aemathios plusquam Civilia campos Lucaâ— lib. 1. it bleedeth by it self one Member bleedeth by another one member bites and devours another and it seems they will do so until they be devoured together Though Jesus Christ hath made them nigh to God and nigh to one another by his blood as the Apostle shews at large Ephes 2 12 13 14. This Cement woe alas this rich and costly Cement will not hold A trifle a Conjecture a suspicion an opinion a notion raised by Art and phansie will do more to sever then the blood of Christ to soder All the wit and art and skill that God hath given men for better purposes and higher ends is now laid out by some to make or to maintain parties Bern. in Caâ—â— Serm. 33. I will not say as Bernard doth Omnes amici omnes inimici omnes necessarii omnes adversarii omnes domestici nulli pacifici But surely it is much at this rate Now the God of Peace himself give us Peace alwayes and by all means And Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace who doth so often and so importunately beg it of his Father for his people as you may see in this Chapter give us to reap in our dayes the blessed fruits of this Prayer That they that are but one Body according to the first branch of our Saviours Prayer may have but one Heart and one Soul in that Body that there may be no Schism in the Body And they that are to be in one place according to the second Branch may keep in one way to that place that they may not fall out by the way so far at least as to divide to part Companies and part ways that they may neither fail of coming in the end to one place nor lose the benefit and comfort of one anothers Company and sweet Communion in the way thither And in that blessed place I hope ere it be long to meet you And though the Sea divide us each from other for a little time on earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for an hours space and that in face or sight and not in heart as the Apostle speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Thess 2.17 Facie non Corde Ambrosian yet through the red Sea of the blood of Christ leaving all our sins behind us as Israel the Egyptians drowned there and dead upon the shore of this world we shall pass on to the Heavenly Canaan where Jesus Christ our Head is and where he prayes so earnestly that we may be Amen Amen Now in the mean time till we get thither because I find by many warnings that I am like to go before you and prevent you as the Apostles phrase is I put this Book such as it is into your hands And as our Saviour when He was no more in this world as his own expression is being as good as gone already did leave behind him this Divine Prayer as a Memorial of his tender Love to all his people Sic parvis componere magna solemus Virg. Eclog. 1. So if it be not odious to compare things of so vast a disproportion I shall desire to leave behind me who am even going too this my unworthy Exposition of the same Prayer as a Memorial of his dear respects to you who is resolved to live and dye Your most affectionate Brother And humble Servant in and through and for Christ George Newton The Analysis and Context of the Prayer and Chapter pag. 1 2 3. Ver. 1 Doctr. The words of Christ very remarkable p. 4. Reasons In respect of the Author whose they were as being the words of him that was 1. The Fathers Son and wisdom 2. Our great Prophet and Preacher p. 5. Matter what the words were as being 1. Gospel-words 2. Spiritual words of life and Salvation p. 6. Manner how they were spoken viz. with grace authority and power p. 7. 1. Vse Therefore Christs words to be highly valued in his Gospel Messengers p. 8. 2. Doctr. The very gesture and utterance of prayer and such like circumstances to be considered p. 10. Reas 1. Being apt to promote and further spiritual service p. 11. 2. Express and testifie the affections of the heart 1. Vse Condemns the neglect of outward bodily worship p. 12. 2 Direct 1. We are not bound to the same gestures as they of old p. 13. 2. Reverend gestures should be most observed in publike 3. Use such as may further not hinder spiritual service 4. Take heed of hypocritical gestures 2. Vocal prayer when necessary and requisite p. 14. 3. Doctâ— God the Father of Christ and so apprehended by him in prayer Expos Sons by Creation p. 15. Adoption p. 15. 1. Vse Consol Being Sons of God in Christ 1. He will hear us 2. He will provide for us p. 17. 3. He will protect us 2. Vse We must therefore obey him as Lord as being our Lord by 1. Creation 2. Redemption 3. Covenant-obligation p. 19. 3. Vse Wonder at his love that would give his Son 4. Vse Learn we to apprehend God as Father 1. Motive This assurance will advance our Confidence 2. Will increase our importunity with God 3. Will make us hopeful of audience and success 4. Will comfort us against our defects and imperfections in prayer p. 22. 5. Marks of Gods Children 1. They are like him in holiness mercy c. 2. Have the Fathers Spirit Signs of that p. 24. 4. Doctr. God hath his set time of doing and we should know that to be the fittest time p. 28. 1. Vse Condemns those who appoint a time to God for the execution of his works p. 29. 2. Vse Be not hasty with God but wait 1. For he waits for us 2. Is not slack but active 3. The fault is in us 4.
mercy grant that we may be in heaven while we hear it To make way to the handling of it I shall consider three things First the transition to it Then Secondly the gesture and the carriage of our Saviour in it Thirdly the substance and the matter of it First the transition to it from the former chapter These words spake Jesus these words expressed in the long discourse before Then Secondly the gesture and the carriage of our Saviour in it he lifted up his eyes to heaven while he made it Thirdly the substance and the matter of it and it is wholly for the Church either for himself the head of the Church in reference and with relation to the Church or for the members of the Church First for himself the head of the Church he desireth glorification Father glorifie thy Son in the first verse of the chapter and this in reference and with relation to the Church as is apparent at verse 24. That they may behold his glory Then Secondly for the members of the Church he desireth confirmation and that either for the Apostles and Disciples then about him the members of the present Church Or else for those who were after to be called by their preaching the members of the Church to come In the first place he prayes for the Apostles and Disciples then about him the members of the present Church who were already called and sanctified at the sixth and following verses whom God had given him out of the world I pray for them saith he I pray not for the world In the Second place he prayes for those who were after to be called by their preaching the members of the Church that was to come ver 20. and so on to the conclusion of the Chapter Neither pray I for these alone but for them also which shall believe in me through their word So that this prayer of our Saviour Christ you see is very full It is for himself the head of the Church And it is for the Church which is his body of which alone he is the Saviour and the Intercessor It is for the present Church it is for the Church to come It is for the Apostles and the Ministers the officers and teachers of the Church And it is for the ordinary members of the Church who believe through their words So that whoever appertaineth to the Church let him live in what time he will be he of what condition or estate he will he hath a share in this prayer We must begin with the transition to it These words spake Jesus These words what words the words in the three Chapters next before all tending to establish his Apostles and Disciples which the Evangelist relates exactly for the comfort and confirmation of the Church of Christ even to the worlds end and having done with the relation he shuts it up with this These word spake Jesus and so goes onward to his supplication The point apparently suggested to us here is this DOCTRINE The words that Jesus spake are very fit to be commended to the choicest observation of his Church and people And here they are so carefully and so exactly gathered up by the Evangelist and knit together in a chain every Link of which is precious And having laid them all together he writes this under them These words spake Jesus qâ—d Take heed that you observe and mark them well they are the words not of an ordinary man but of the blessed Son of God the great Prophet of the Church These words were breathed from the lips of Jesus Christ himself and therefore see that you take notice of them and value them accordingly These words spake Jesus indeed the summ and substance of the four Evangelists is but the history of Jesus Christ of his words and of his actions and therefore Luke reduceth all that he hath written in his Gospel to these two heads Acts 1.1 The former Treatise have I made O Theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and teach His treatise as you see consisted of these two things either that which Jesus did or else that which Jesus spake So that his sayings as you see are very memorable and remarkable being by special revelation and direction of the Spirit put in writing and so left upon record for the instruction and the consolation of his people to the worlds end You may observe what care is taken to gather up the words of Jesus as they dropt from him upon all occasions that none of them might perish and be lost by which it is apparent they were things of worth and use and fit to be preserved for posterity And it is noted to the praise of Mary that she kept his Sayings when others lost them yea she kept all his sayings and she kept them in her heart that was the Cabinet in which she put them when others valued them as things of nothing and looked upon them but as loose words And therefore she is set in opposition to them Iohn 2.5 They understood not the sayings which he spake to them but Mary kept all these sayings in her heart She laid them near her heart as choice things It was the promise of our Saviour Christ to his disciples and one of the last he made them and therefore certainly it was a precious one that if they should forget the words that he had spoken to them he would dispatch them down his spirit out of heaven and this should be one great part of his business with them to mind them of such words of his as were slipt out of their minds Ioh. 14.26 The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost shall come and he shall teach you all things and bring all things to remembrance whatsoever I have said to you By which it is apparent that the words which Jesus spake are very fit c. And this will yet appear more fully and distinctly to you if you consider but these three things First whose the words were Then what the words were Thirdly the manner how the words were spoken As for the first of these if you consider whose the words were you will discern them to be very fit to be commended to the choicest observation of the Church The author of them if you look no further will purchase them so much credit They are the words that Jesus spake as you have in my text And shall that which Jesus spake any thing which he delivered be thought unworthy of the notice of his people Why what was Jesus that the words that dropt from him must be so highly valued and esteemed My brethren if you look upon him upwards with relation to the father or if you look upon him downwards with relation to the Church you will see enough for this on all hands 1. If you look upon him upwards with relation to the father you will see reason why his words should be Commended to the choicest observation of his Church and people He is the
us that there should be consideration had not only of the matter but even of the circumstances c. What then it may be you will ask me do our gestures or doth the manner of presenting our requests to God the outward manner with the voice or otherwise fall under the command of God Are we expresly bound to pray in such a posture in such a way or manner of expression Do these external circumstances appertain to Gods worship I answer No in no case the difference is wide between the bodily exercise and the Spiritual service We are not under any ceremonial Law that binds us to an outward circumstance to a place or to a posture as the Jews of old were And yet there should be due consideration had not only of the matter but even of the circumstances c. and that especially upon these two grounds For These outward circumstances may in case promote the spiritual service Reason 1 The very gesture or the utterance of a prayer may help sometimes to raise and quicken the affection which is the life and Soul of prayer Our hearts are naturally dead and stupid and prophane and stand in need of all good outward helps to stir up zeal and reverence and devotion in them And to this end they have been used by the Saints in Scripture and that not only in their publike but even in their private and their secret prayers when their submiss and humble gestures could have no influence upon other men And consequently had no other use but to help their own hearts As Daniel was exact in this even in his chamber and it is carefully recorded Dan. 6.10 He kneeled upon his knees three times a day and prayed He prayed three times a day and still he was in this posture And it is noted of our Saviour that he kneeled down and prayed Luke 22.10 and this was in Private too So that he did it not with reference to others and therefore a most eminent and worthy man observeth that undoubtedly he saw he needed it himself And if that be admitted assuredly we need such helps and furtherances much more These outward circumstances if they do not further yet they express Reason 2 the spiritual service They testifie the sorrow the humility the affection and the devotion of the heart and the reverence of the soul As in my text our Saviours lifting up his eyes to heaven discovered where his heart was And therefore humble gestures are especially required in publike worship because God will be honoured in the sight of others yea they are sometimes put for all his service Rom. 14.11 As I live saith the Lord every knee shall bow to me And seeing hypocrites in matter of the worship and the service of the Lord are alwayes ready to pretend they have as good hearts as the very best Therefore the Lord is wont to call so often and so earnestly for the external Service of the body and that in the new Testament as well as in the old as you may see that place for instance 1 Cor. 6.20 Glorifie God saith the Apostle there and that not in your Spirit only but in your body also which is Gods Use 1 Now is it so that there should be consideration had not only of the matter but even of the circumstances c. Then First it serves to let them see their error and mistake who utterly neglect such things as these are who take no notice of their outward carriage in such holy duties but rather look upon it as a thing below the observation of a Christian who should be wholly and entirely taken up with their spiritual service And yet as you have heard the Holy-Ghost takes notice of a gesture a cast of the eye in Prayer and sets it down in white and black we need not doubt for our information I must confess the great defect is on the other side men are imployed so much about the form the surface and the outside of religious duties many times that they neglect the main business Their thoughts are exercised so far about the gesture of their body the composure of their words the framing of their voices and the like especially in publike prayer that they have no regard at all to the inward and spiritual service The outward work is infinitely more easie and there is much more ostentation in it And hence it is that the greater part of men are wholly taken up with that which they themselves can do and being done procure them most applause from other men But yet their placing all in forms and outsides and minding nothing else in holy duties doth not justifie at all our running off to the Extream upon the other side No it is possible that even as hypocrites and rotten-hearted wretches may be so intent upon the outside that they have no regard unto the inside So on the other side the holiest and sincerest Christians may be so intent upon the inside that they have no regard at all unto the outside They may so far look after the affection and the zeal and the devotion of the heart which is indeed the main thing to be looked to that they may have no thought at all of the External circumstances of their prayers the gesture or the manner of their utterance which are Considerable notwithstanding as I have made it plain enough and therefore to be wholly careless of them is a failing yea though it should be in the best of Gods people Use 2 And therefore in the second place let me perswade you to think such outward circumstances worthy of your thoughts the very gesture and the utterance of your prayers Let there be due consideration had of such things as these are I would by no means hinder you from having your especial eye on that whereon the eye of God is most when you are making your approaches and addresses to him I mean the carriage of the soul and spirit the inward fervor and humility affection and devotion of the heart without which all the rest is worth nothing But yet let not the gesture of your bodies the utterance of your voice in prayer be utterly neglected by you concerning both of which because I find them in my Text I shall give you some directions As for the gesture of your bodies I shall commend these few things We are not bound to all the self-same gestures which were in use among the people of the Lord of old we read that Joshua and the Elders when they were routed at the Siege of Ai and came before the Ark of God to pray they rent their cloaths and put dust upon their heads Joshua 7.16 And Hezekiah when he came into the house of God to pray at the time when Senacherib besieged Jerusalem he rent his cloaths and put on Sack-cloath Isa 37.1 And this they did not that these fashions were appropriated to the worship of the Lord but because they were in use in those times and
those places to express their grief by So in the self-same place in Joshua they fell down to the ground upon their faces when they prayed And so did Jesus Christ himself as you may see Mat. 26.39 Not that this gesture was peculiar to this piece of service but it was taken from the civil usage of the Country because this was their way of shewing reverence to superiors as you may see Ruth 2.10 And therefore we do well and suitably to the directions and examples of the Scripture that we take up such gestures only in our prayers as are usual in our Country to express our sorrow and dejection or else our civil reverence and respect by Those reverend gestures which we use in prayer should be most observed in publike There may more liberty be taken in private and in secret then there may in publike and open prayer both in the use of outward gesture and in the forbearance of them Some gestures may be used in private prayer which would become us ill in publike in which we should not go remarkably beyond the rest of the Assembly for fear and danger of hypocrisie And gestures on the other side may be forborn in some case in private prayer which yet in publike ought not to be so For evermore in publike as far as it is possible our gesture must be such as may express some reverence and devotion that we may honour God before the People and that our outward posture may not carry in it an appearance of a sleight esteem of God and of his service whereas in private there is greater freedom because indeed there is no need of such Caution But thirdly this must be continually heeded both in publike and in private that the gestures which we use be such as that we do not hinder but rather further the spiritual service It were far better to abate of the reverence of our gesture then the affection of our heart It were far better for a man to stand in prayer then that by the disease and trouble of the other posture he should be distracted and consequently his devotion and his heart should fall That may be allowed the weak in this regard which would not be convenient in the strong The bodily exercise be it of what kind it will is but a means to the spiritual service The end is better then the means and must be more regarded then the means I must not use the means but for the end so far as they are serviceable to the end And much less must I use the means aganist the end We must be very wary that the outward gesture especially in publike prayer do not exceed the inward affection and that we make not shew of more without then there is indeed within for if we do there is hypochrisie Such duties are not done in truth when there is more in shew and in appearance then there is in substance If either of the two be lower then the other it were far better that the outward expression were lower then the inward affection then that the inward c. It were far better that the gesture came short of the heart then that the heart c. It is not good to compass God about with lies meer shews do never please in his service This for the gesture of your bodies when you pray A word or two for your direction touching the use or the omission of the voice in prayer c. And here the first thing that I offer is Those prayers that are publike whether in the family or the assembly wherein one is the mouth of many to the Lord must of necessity be vocall so was our Saviours in my text you see he prayed with his Apostles and Disciples and therefore did no only form a prayer in his heart but expressed it with his mouth he did not only think but speak that they might hear He lifted up his eyes to heaven and said The voice is not of absolute necessity in private prayer For however men who having bodies are endued with ears and senses know not our meaning otherwise then by our words yet God who is himself a spirit knows the meaning of our spirits Sighs may find audience and acceptance with him inward and mental supplications may be in some case more fit then vocal But yet if other circumstances will permit in which your Christian prudence must direct you use your voices We shall observe it to have been the usual practise of the Saints to speak in prayer yea in private prayer as our Saviour did Mark 10.39 God made the tongue aswel as other members of the body and therefore will be served with this as well as them And so the Prophet David praised God with the best member that he had which some expound to be his tongue And therewith bless we God saith the Apostle James 3.9 It is sometimes a quickning to the heart and stirreth up the dead affections to greater fervency and zeal which by continuing in a mental supplication would be apt to languish and decay It keepeth in the heart from wandring by binding it to give exact attendance on the tongue to furnish it with matter and expression whereas in mental prayer it is more apt to slide away and run a roving unobserved Howbeit here I shall not peremptorily prescribe in certain cases to omit the voice is more expedient and therefore I shall shut up all and leave it to your Christian prudence to direct you to pitch upon that way and method of presenting your requests to God which ye will find most to conduce to the affectionate spiritual and heavenly performance of the duty And thus of the transition to our Saviours supplication together with the manner of presenting it to God the Father both his gesture and expression Proceed we now to enter on the Prayer which he makes and here I shall take notice only of these two things the Object of it and the parts of it The Object of it or the Person whom he presents it to you see is God the Father or to come a little nearer God his Father so he stiles him in the entrance of his Prayer Father the hour is come c. and the same phrase he uses all along as you shall see if you survey it from the beginning of it to the end Indeed he gives him once the attribute of Holy and once the attribute of Righteous Father but this is still the appellation that he uses and from whence he never varies If he calls him any thing he calls him Father And in this notion he considers him while he is putting up his prayer to him and therefore this you see my brethren is the first word that he uses when he sets himself to pray Father the hour is come c. I make these addresses to thee as a Father I look upon thee as a Father still while I am pouring out my prayer to thee and therefore he reviews the
not thou art our Father It is repeated twice you see and bound with an asseveration too to shew the strength and certainty of their assurance And in the same perswasion we find them praying in the following Chapter in Vers 8. But now Oh Lord thou art our Father we are the clay and thou the Potter we are the work of thy hands And in the same assurance also let us pray when we are making our addresses to the throne of grace let us apply our selves to God as to a Father The benefit and profit of it will be very great as I shall represent it to you in a few particulars which you may look upon as Motives to perswade This assurance will make us bold and confident in our approaches to the throne of grace it will make us come to God full of holy resolutions whereas if we be destitute of this perswasion when we are drawing nigh to God and know not whether we may call him father yea or no we shall be fearful to approach his presence we shall make but faint prayers And therefore the Apostle tells us that by faith in Christ in whom alone God is a Father to his children that is by this assurance that he is so to us in special we have boldness we have access with confidence to God Eph. 3.11 And this was that which heartened up the Prodigal and filled his languishing and fainting heart with resolution I will arise said he and go to my Father he had been long debating it should seem and ruminating on the business in his wavering thoughts His late miscarriages no question were a great disheartening to him so that he knew not what to do But at last he comes to this I will arise and go to my Father he is my Father and I am his own Son and there is pitty and compassion in a Father to a Son at least to a returning Son though an unworthy one as I have been And therefore let my faults and my discouragements be what they will I will arise and go to him And truly while we apprehend the Lord to be a Judge and not a Father or if a Father not to us but other men we find but small encouragement to come to him But when we look upon him as a Father yea as our Father in the Lord Christ this makes us come with boldness to him This causes us to delight in the Almighty and not to look divertedly but to lift up our face to God as Job speaks As this assurance will make us bold and confident so it will make us earnest and importunate with God It will enable us to pray and not to faint When we consider we are dealing with a Father we shall hang about him when he seems to throw us off we shall tug and wrestle with him we shall take no denyal from him Oh Lord thou art our Father we pray thee hear us pitty us relieve us for we are thine own children A man is never earnest and importunate with one of whose affections he hath no perswasion and they that have not this assurance present but cold and spiritless petitions and requests to God But they that look upon him as a Father as one that hath so near relation and such dear affection to them as one whose bowels of compassion yern towards them in their miseries and wants they will keep no silence they will give him no rest till he have answered them in mercy till he have given them the desire of their hearts This assurance will make us hopefull of audience and success with God Can a woman forget her child and not have compassion on the Son of her womb saith the Prophet Isa 99.65 Can she deny him when he begs and hangs about her It is possible she may there may be such a mother in the world but God is no such Father No he hath infinitely more compassion on his children Oh what a matchless and unconquerable ground of hope is here to those that have this sweet assurance that God is their Father What man is there who if his son asketh bread saith Christ will give him a stone or if he ask a fish will give him a Serpent though the poor child perhaps cannot distinguish the one from the other If ye then being evil know how to give good things unto your children how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to them that ask him And lastly this assurance will hold us up with matchless comfort respectively to the defects and imperfections of our prayers Suppose your little tender child should come to any of you that are Fathers with a lisping stammering tongue moaning for something that he longs to have would you look angrily upon him would you chide and rate him off and send the harmless infant crying from your presence Consult with your own hearts and bowels could you do it and is not God as pittiful to his as you are to your children Alas he is as tenderly affected to them that he sees not their defects so as to slight them and reject them or their weak endeavours for them No as a Father pitties his Children so the Lord pittieth them that fear him Psal 103.13 They are without blame before him in love Ephes 1.4 Though they have many failings yet he doth not blame them so great is his love to them when they look upon their prayers and find this fault and that fault as truly they have cause enough the comfort is that God finds no fault he saith that it is well done And thus he dealt with holy David as himself observeth Psalm 77.2 3. He was in such distress that he was troubled to remember God his very heart was overwhelmed within him a poor prayer you may think that any man could make in such a case as that was And yet that very prayer found acceptance with the Lord as he shews in that place I cried unto the Lord saith he in the first ver of that Psalm and mark what follows he gave ear to me And thus when we do bungle at his service the Lord is apt to take it in good part if we do but what we can and that because he is our Father which if it be considered cannot choose but be a very great encouragement and comfort to us But you will interpose and say perhaps here is encouragement indeed and pretious comfort if we can come to God in prayer with this assurance that he is our Father but how shall we attain to this assurance What are the evidences that we may relye upon in this particular which if we find them in our selves we may be confident to speak to God as to a father we may be bold to cry Abba Father to him I shall lay down a few and make them as distinguishing and clear as I am able to help you in this great business If God be your Father and you be his children you are very much like him
you be carried down the stream with the times and with the places where you live if you have fellowship with the unfruitfull works of darkness hear what the Apostle says 1 John 3.10 you have discovered whose you are and to whom you appertain By this the children of God are manifest and the châ—ldren of the Devil He that doth not righteousness is not of God he is none of Gods children If God be your Father and you be his children you have a dear affection to those who are his children as your selves are There is a tender Love a sweet agreement between you and your fellow brethren If any difference fall out then say as Abraham once to Lot Let there be no strife between us for we are brethren Gen. 13.18 Let brotherly love continue Hebr. 1.12 And the defect of this affection on the other side is an apparent evidence of non-adoption as you may see 1. Joh. 3.10 he that doth not righteousness is not of God saith the Apostle the meaning is he is not the childe of God and he that loveth not his brother what think we then of those whose sons are they who hate and trouble and disquiet those who are indeed the Sons of God and work them all the woe and mischief they can and that because they are so like God because they bear the image of God and the clear impressions of his Holiness upon them If they will know their pedegree they are the Children of the Devil they are the seed of the old Serpent between whom and the womans seed the Lord hath put an unreconcileable and Endless Enmity and Opposition And therefore let not such while they continue in this way of opposition to the Saints presume to come to God and call him Father For if they do they fall into the sin of Ananias in another way Acts 5.4 they lye to God And they have cause to fear that he will even strike them dead before him But if you find within you working and warm affections to your fellow-brethren if your hearts be mightily and vehemently carried out to such and that because you see the Image of your Father shining in them and even as God is even such are they in this world They are so like him whom you love transcendently and incomparably more then all the world besides that you cannot choose but love them and affect them dearly too for his sake and in reference to him So that your delight is in them yea all your delight is in them You find no pleasure or complacency in any other Company but such as theirs is I say my brethren if you love them thus and upon this account it is a comfortable sign that God is a Father to you and you may look upon him as a Father when you are making your petitions to him John 17.1 The hour is come c. ANd thus far of the object of our Saviours prayer or the person to whom he presents it to and that as you have heard is God the Father Proceed we to the parts of it which have been noted to be two according to the paties whom he prayes for In the first place he prayeth for himself the Head of the Church And in the second place he prayes for the inferiour Members of the Church First For himself the Head of the Church he desireth glorification Then for the Members of the Church he desireth confirmation and that for the Apostles and Disciples then about him the Members of the present Church or else for those who were after to believe by their word or to be called by their preaching the Members of the Church to come as I have shewed you formerly when I drew up a short Analysis or resolution of the whole Chapter We are at this time to begin with that part of our Saviours prayer which concerns himself In which you may take notice with me of these three things the rise of it the matter of it and the reasons of it First You have here the rise of it from whence our Saviour takes occasion to present it to his Father The hour is come Secondly You have the matter of it or the thing which he desireth of the Father and this is that he may be glorified Father glorifie thy Son Thirdly you have the reasons of it with which he presseth and enforceth this request of his and they are many and of great importance as God assisting you shall see at large hereafter At this time I shall fasten on the first Particular the rise of this Petition of our Saviour from whence he takes occasion to present it to his Father The hour is come The hour is come What hour is come the hour in which the Father had decreed and fore-appointed to glorifie his Son Christ that hour was come and therefore he desires his Father to execute his purpose now seeing this was his own time But you will say the hour which was now at hand was the hour of Christs Passion in which he was abased and humbled as you may see he was betrayed almost as soon as he had done this prayer And how then could this be the hour in which he was appointed to be glorified of the Father To this I answer that Christ was glorified in some respect even while he suffered he triumphed upon the Cross as the Apostle Paul speaks Col. 2.15 blotting out the hand-writing that was against us and took it out of the way nailing it to his Cross And having spoyled Principalities and Powers he made a shew of them openly triumphing over them in it that is in the same Cross The word that the Apostle uses there alludeth to the fashion of the Roman Conquerours whose manner was to lead their vanquished Captives bound before their Chariots in a glorious way the people gratulating their heroick acts and Victories with loud and joyful acclamations Our Saviour having spoyled Principalities and Powers did somewhat Analogical to this and hence the terms by which those ancient Roman Triumphs were expressed are attributed to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he made a shew of them openly that is he brought them to extream dishonour and made them spectacles of ignominy and reproach and gazing-stocks of shame to men and Angels and this he did upon the very Cross It s true that to a carnal Eye this was the place of his humiliation but to an eye of faith it was the place of his triumphant Exaltation The world sees nothing but dishonour in the Cross of Christ but they that are enlightned see the great work of mans redemption finished there sin and his kingdom broken there and the Devil vanquished and led captive there to Christs eternal honour and their eternal ignominy and confufion So that even with respect to this this time of suffering on the Cross our Saviour Christ might say The hour is come Father glorifie thy Son Or if you look a little further to the time of his ascention and
very great hazard He doth what lies in him to cross the Lord in that which he is most intent upon on which his heart is wonderfully set Great men cannot endure you know to be crossed in their wills or hindered of their purposes and how think you will the great God endure to be affronted and opposed and crossed in such a thing as this is From all Eternity he hath determined with himself to glorifie his Son Christ he hath had it in his heart from everlasting he hath resolved he shall be honoured and that not by men alone but by the very Angels too those eminent and glorious Creatures It is the Fathers pleasure that it shall be so as the Apostle tells us Heb. 1.6 When he bringeth in his first begotten into the world he saith and let all the Angels of God worship him Not serve him and obey him only but worship him with divine and with religious adoration which is the heigth and top of honour with the same honour that belongeth to the Father as Christ himself expresseth it Iohn 5.23 And if he must have honour such transcendent honour from the very Angels must he not have it from inferiour creatures who are far below Angels Yes Gods expects it that at the name that is the power and authority of Jesus every knee should bow not of things in heaven only but of things in earth too that is not of Angels only but of men So that you see the father looks for this at our hands he looks we should do honour to his Son He saith as in the Parable They will reverence my Son Though they have slighted and abused other messengers that I have sent among them yet they will surely reverence my Son It is impossible they should be so unworthy to contemn my own Son And what then do we think of those who dishonour and contemn him notwithstanding will the father who hath sent him to this End that he might be honoured take this well at their hands to be thus crossed in such a great design of his by wretched men To see his own begotten Son despised and scorned whom he hath done so much to honour Why you will say what need you be so earnest upon this particular Who doth dishonour Jesus Christ Who doth despise him or contemn him do we not all acknowledge him to be our Lord and Saviour and the like yes we do all acknowledge him in words indeed we call him Lord. But many of us buffet him and spit upon him in the very same breath There are abundance of us my beloved who in name are Christians who do exceedingly dishonour Jesus Christ whatever their pretences and protestations be and I will shew you briefly who they are All unbelievers do dishonour Christ exceedingly in this respect that they do not close with him That when he is proposed and offered to them in the Gospel they do not take him and receive him on the terms that he is offered but put him off with a denial This is a great dishonour to the Lord Christ It is no less then an implicite scorning and despising of him As if he were so poor a gift that he were not worth the taking Ah my beloved do but think upon it that after Christ hath undergone so much as he hath done for our salvation and after comes a begging to our own doors beseeching us that we will entertain him and receive him and accept of him and that not for his own advantage or profit that accrews to him but meerly for our own good That he should stoop so low even by entreaties to impose himself upon us and we should be inexorable to him and basely thrust him quite away from us and refuse to meddle with him Oh what a horrible indignity is this to Jesus Christ What an unspeakable debasing of him Yet thus all unbelievers use him All I mean where Christ is preached And that may be applied to them which the Evangelist affirmeth of the Jews Iohn 1.11 He came unto his own his own friends his own Kindred his own acquaintance his own nation yea people of his own Country But though they were his own they would not own him nor embrace him He came unto his own and his own received him not And so he comes to these men and that with obsecrations and entreaties too and they clap the door against him and shamefully gâ—ve him the repulse They tell him in effect that he may go to those that need him and look after him or care for him For their parts they will none of him then which there cannot be a viler or more ignominions usage in the world They that despise and slight the blood of Christ they dishonour Christ himself His blood you cannot chuse but think is dear to him and the contemptuous usage of it reflects with high disparagement upon him But you will say who de pises Christs blood are any so unworthy and so base among us yes there are some such among us who use the blood of Christ as if they did account it an unholy thing as if it were but common blood the blood of any ordinary creature which they might freely undervalue at their pleasure And so in doing this they tread underfoot the son of God as the Apostle speaks Heb. 10.29 they throw him down and tread him under foot as if he were but dust or dung or some such base unworthy thing which is the horriblest contempt that can be They tread under foot the Son of God while they account his blood an unholy thing But who accounts it so you will demand Why they that use it so do in effect account it so and truly there are multitudes of such among us When ordinary blood is shed as the blood of any beasts you know we make no reckoning of it we look not after it we spend not any thought upon it it is shed and there 's an end And verily my brethren there are many who make no more of the blood of Christ himself then if it were but common blood then if an Ox or any other beast were slain and so account it an unholy thing They never think upon it unless it be to swear by it they never meditate upon the end for which he shed it or the use which they ought to make of it He shed his blood for us saith the Apostle that we should live no longer to our selves but to him that died for us And yet how many are there who live wholly to themselves notwithstanding all this who seek themselves their own ends their own things and not the things of Jesus Christ He loved his Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it Eph. 5.25 that he might wash it in his own blood Apoc. 1.5 And yet what multitudes are here among us who are not cleansed or washed to this day but tumble in the Kennel still wherein the swine of this world wallow
Christ He loves to see him set up and to see him made glorious and that not only as he is his Son in whom his very soul delighteth but as it hath been his decree and purpose from eternity to have him glorified You hear it hath been the design of God to glorifie his Son Christ and a design on which his heart is set and so the promoting of it by your means must needs be very pleasing to him you may be sure that he will vote it to be acceptable service And even as they that hinder and oppose this great business are opposites to God so they that further and promote it close with him and carry on his business and he will take it very kindly at their hands to have a thing which he is so intent upon brought to pass by their means These things may stir us up my Brethren to comply with God in this great Design of his touching the glorifying of his Son Christ John 17.1 That thy Son may also glorifie thee SO we have done with the two first particulars considered in our Saviours Prayer so far as it concerns himself the rise of it from whence he takes occasion to present it to his Father together with the matter of it or the thing which he desireth of the Father That he may be glorified And we are now arrived at the third and last the Reasons with which he presseth and enforceth this request of his and they are many and of great importance The first is taken from the end why he desireth to be glorified or to have glory from the Father viz. that he might be enabled to bring glory to the Father Father glorifie thy Son that thy Son also may glorifie thee The second Argument is drawn à congruo from the congruity it was but meet and congruous that he should be glorified or that he should have glory from the Father seeing he had power from him He had received power from him and therefore it was fit that he should have glory too for power and glory ought to go together And therefore on this ground our Saviour urgeth it you see Father glorifie thy Son as thou hast given him power over all flesh As thou hast given him power so be prevailed withall to give him glory too the concomitant of power The third is drawn from the deserving Cause Christ had glorified the Father and therefore thinks himself worthy to have glory from the Father I have glorified thee on earth I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do And now O Father glorifie me with thy self and so on At this time I shall pitch on the first Argument with which our Saviour presseth this request of his and it is taken from the end why he desireth to have glory from the Father viz. That he may be enabled to bring glory to the Father Glorifie thy Son that thy Son also may glorifie thee Me thinks he seems to intimate he could not glorifie him much in the condition he was in at present he was in such a state of ignominy and abasure and contempt in relation to the world that he was not capable of bringing in the Father any considerable honour while he remained in this case And therefore he entreats the Father to raise him and advance him that he may do as much for him again Father glorifie thy Son that thy Son also c. So then as we have formerly observed that it is the Design of God the Father to glorifie his Son so hence we may observe DOCTRINE That it is the desire of Christ to have glory from the Father to this end that he may bring glory to the Father You see he begs it only upon this account Father glorifie thy Son What that he may detain and keep it to himself No that he may return it to the Father That thy Son also may glorifie thee If thou wilt glorifie me thou shalt be no loser by it no thou shalt have it back again and that with profit and advantage too thou shalt be glorified by me I will not keep the glory which thou layest out upon me in my own hands but I will give it up entire and undiminished to thy self again It is not for my own sake that I beg it but for thine There were some rays of glory which God was pleased to dart forth upon the Son in his condition of abasure and if you mark his carriage in the Gospel Story you shall find that he was always carefull to make them to reflect on God again As when he did his Miracles which was a means to set him up you know in the eyes of all that saw them he was extreamly cautious that the honour might be rendred to his Father And hence he was not wont to do them in his own name nor in appearance by his own power though both were suitable enough to his condition being God as well as Man but in the name and by the strength and the assistance of the Father And therefore when he raised Lazarus he did not seem to do it of himself though that he might have done as God but lift up his eyes and prayed his Father that he would shew himself in that business that so the glory might be his Iohn 11.42 and addeth that he did it for the peoples sake that stood by that they might know that God had sent him That they might understand that he performed such works as these as one that was subservient to the Father in them and that was sent out by him And therefore he is always minding them on all occasions of his Mission from the Father that so if any thing praise-worthy did appear in him or were done by him it might be rendred and ascribed to the Father The sixth of John is full of such insinuations I come saith he to do the will of him that sent me and not to do my own will at ver 38. And in another place he tells them that he honoured not himself but his Father honoured him Ioh. 8.54 He honours me and I honour not my self I do not keep his honour to my self but I honour him again with which accordeth that expression Iohn 13.31 Now is the Son of man glorified and what follows and God is glorified in him So that you see the Son takes glory from the Father to this end that he may bring glory to the Father And it is very congruous that it should be so because as Man and Mediator Reason 1 he is the Servant of the Father he was sent down by him from heaven upon his errand and upon his business and to do the work which he appointed him to do It was our Saviours own acknowledgement when he had done and ended all I have finished the work said he which thou gavest me to do Joh. 17.4 q.d. I have approved my self a faithfull Servant to thee I have done thy work and I have done it fully and compleatly
And he is often speaking of his being sent out by the Father and that to do his will and not his own his work and not his own to signifie that he was in the state and the condition of a servant to the Father Now a servant must not seek his own honour but the honour of his Master As he must do his Masters will his Masters work and not his own so he must do it for his Masters ends and not his own If his Master set him up he must improve it to his Masters commendation And so our Saviour Jesus Christ being as Man and Mediator in the condition of a Servant to his Father it was his duty in the execution of his Mediatorship to aim at his Masters glory to do all things for his end viz. his glory Or otherwise in doing his Fathers work his Fathers will he might even serve himself and not his Father If any honour did accrew to him in the performance of his Office he was bound to ascribe it to the Father it was his duty as a servant so to do and so accordingly he did and this was one ground of it why he did no otherwise desire to have glory from the Father but that he might bring glory to the Father Reason 2 There may a second reason be assigned as he is God for so he and the Father are one and consequently his glory and the Fathers are one So that no marvel that he desire as God to bring glory to the Father seeing in doing so he brings glory to himself As on the other side it is no marvel that the Father takes occasion still to glorifie the Son seeing in doing so he glorifies himself You shall observe that they are always setting one another up the Father he is always setting up the Son the Son upon the other side is always setting up the Father and it is no wonder that it should be so because in setting one another up they do indeed set up themselves If the Son were to lose the glory that he gives the Father we need not doubt he would be loth enough to part with it So if the Father were to lose the glory that he gives the Son he would not let him have it neither for he hath said He will not give his glory to another But here 's the business now my Brethren when he gives glory to the Son he doth not give it to another but himself And so the Son when he gives glory to the Father he doth not give it to another but himself They are so absolutely one in all respects as God that the glory of the one is the glory of the other And therefore it is said that God is glorified in the Son Iohn 13.31 Mark that expression Not by the Son but in the Son for he is glorified in that the Son is glorified The glory that may seem to be imparted to the Son darts back again upon him by reflection it is doubled by this means and consequently he is not a loser by it but a gainer If he glorifie his Son his Son also glorifies him so that no marvel if there be such an exchange of glory continually between the Father and the Son and putting of it always over to the other That place is very notable to this purpose John 12.28 if it be read as some have rendred it and the Original will fitly bear saith Jesus Christ Father glorifie thy Name the Father answers by a voice from Heaven I have glorified thee not glorified it as in our last Translation but glorified thee and I will glorifie thee again the Son he prays not Father glorifie me but thy self thy own name Father glorifie thy name the Father answers not I have glorified my name my self but I have glorified thee Neuter sibi uterque alteri gloriam attribuens as one notes upon the text The Son desires the Father that he will glorifie himself and not him the Father tells the Son that he hath glorified him and not himself or if you will that he hath done what he desires he hath glorified himself in glorifying him so that the one is glorified in the glory of the other Vse Now is it so my Brethren that it is the desire of Christ to have glory from the Father to the end c. I shall apply it in the first place my beloved to perswade you to learn of Christ in this particular as he himself hath taught you in another case Learn of me for I am meek Learn to be as I am learn to do as I do So be you followers of Christ in this thing and do you learn of him when you desire or seek for any thing at Gods hands any place or any gifts that will advance or set you up among men that you desire it for no other end but this that you may glorifie the Lord with it It is a usual thing with many of us we would get up into some place of dignity we would have extraordinary parts and gifts we would be eminent in knowledge and in grace we would have God to honour us with these things and we are very earnest and importunate with him about it but can we say in the uprightness of our hearts as Christ doth Father we pray that thou wouldst honour us with these things that we also may glorifie thee That by this means we may be capable of bringing thee the more glory It is not to set up our selves that we desire this dignity or these accomplishments in any kinde but that we may advance thee Do we not know that we desire such things as these too many of us meerly for our own ends for the attainment of our own glory that we may get our selves a name that we may be accepted and reputed and esteemed Do not our hearts accuse us that we have such low aims as these are Now I beseech you my Beloved let us conform our selves to Christ in this particular any thing that we desire that will be honourable to us let us desire it in reference to Gods glory if we would have more knowledge and more grace and more ability to holy duties let it not be to this end that we may be some body among the Saints and that our names with Davids may be much set by If we would have more wealth and more power let it not be that we may strut and swell and swagger in the world but that if God shall honour us in this regard we also may glorifie him that having had such honour from him we may bring the more to him And truly if we seek it to this end we have the greater hope to speed with God in our Petitions and to obtain the gifts and blessings that we seek for and that upon a double ground which I shall briefly set before you as inducements to perswade If we desire that which will honour us that we may honour God with it we may be like to
me And having gotten us he seems to glory in us and to be so tender of us as if we were some rich purchase as if we were of very great use to him as you may see in this Chapter all along Sometimes he shows the Father what a high esteem he hath of those whom he hath given him how carefully he teacheth them and showeth them all his Fathers name how tenderly he keeps them how dearly he affects them and how his heart is set upon them Sometimes he beggs his Father for them to preserve them to sanctifie them to make the world know that he loveth them even as he loveth Jesus Christ himself to make them one among themselves and one with him to bring them to the same place where Christ is as if he could not live in Heaven without them Ah my beloved did we follow on this mercy as far as we could reach it in our thoughts we should at length finding no end or bottom in it cry out as the Apostle Oh the depth of the riches c. Are there a certain company of men whom God the Father gives to Jesus Vse 2 Christ then surely they that have the happiness to be of this selected company are in a very good case It is impossible that they should perish and that upon a double ground For First If God the Father give them to his Son Christ you may be sure that Christ will have them the gift of God the Father shall not be in vain to him he will not lose his end in this business If he give them to his Son he will see his Son shall have them If he bestow them upon Christ to be his members he will see they shall in his appointed time be joyned to him and nothing in the world shall keep them off from him It may be many of them who belong to Christ in the eternal Counsel and decree of God are yet without but God will surely bring them in in his season Let them be as averse from Christ and from his wayes as it is possible for men to be let them stand never so far off the Father who hath given them to Christ will certainly take care that they shall come in to him or else his gift were nothing worth And this is that which Christ himself takes notice of Iohn 6.37 all that the Father giveth to me shall come to me Let them be never so unwilling of themselves by nature let them be never so entangled in the snare of Sathan so mightily withheld by him yet however they shall come But what if Christ should not receive them when they come then they may perish notwithstanding Yes if the Father give them and cause them thereupon to come Christ will certainly receive them All that the Father giveth me shall come to me And what follows And him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out Secondly If God the Father give them to his Son Christ as you may be confident that Christ will have them so may you depend upon it that he will keep them when he hath them What do you think that Christ will lose that which his Father gives him That he will not be chary of us for his sake that bestowed us on him We would not lose the gift of a friend especially if he be dear to us and much less would we lose a Fathers gift we would keep such a thing with all care especially if he bestow it on us with this Condition that we keep it for his sake If he tells us that his will and pleasure is we should not lose it we will be very wary how we part with it Now God hath given us to Christ on these terms as he himself acknowledges Iohn 6.39 This is the Fathers will saith he That of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing And he came down into this Lower world to do the will of him that sent him as he professeth very often and therefore certainly he will be carefull of this special charge of his he will observe it very strictly He will be infinitely wary that he lose not any of his Fathers things which he hath given him to keep So that if we be given to the Lord Christ however of our selves we are apt to fall away we may resolve that he will have us and keep as unto life eternal DOCTRINE That Jesus Christ as Mediator hath power to give eternal life to such and all such as are bestowed upon him by his Father but he hath no power at all to give this life to any other The point holds forth both the extent and limitation of the authority of Jesus Christ in this respect The former is expresly mentioned the latter is apparently insinuated in my text First you have here expresly mentioned the extent of the authority of Jesus Christ as Mediator of the Church It is that he may give Eternal life to as many as God hath given him Be they as many as they will be they more or be they less he hath power to quicken them to raise them from the death of sin to the life of grace and glory This he can do de facto as he is God and this he may do de jure as he is God and man as he is Mediator to as many as are bestowed upon him by his Father And then we have apparently suggested too the limitation of the authority of Jesus Christ in this respect For when it is affirmed here that Christ hath power to give Eternal life to as many as God hath given him it is implyed that he can give it to no more There are the bounds of his authority the restraint of his Commission So far it reaches and no further I shall endeavour to evince and clear them both in order First Jesus Christ as Mediator hath power to give eternal life to such to all such as are bestowed upon him by his Father He hath received commission from his Father to forgive their sins and heal their natures and to become the Prince of Life to them by giving them the life of Justification and the life of Sanctification and the life of Glorification He came into the world for this end as you may see Joh. 10.10 I am come that they might have life They Who why his sheep as he explains it both before and after I am the door of the sheep I am come that they may have life and at the 27th verse My sheep hear my voice and I give unto them Eternal life But how comes Christ by these sheep Why by his Fathers own gift And therefore it is added in the very next words My Father which gave them me is greater then all So that it is as if our Saviour Christ had said I am come down into the world to give life to the sheep my Father hath bestowed upon me To all them and no others The Father loves the Son saith John the Baptist
find it in his story that as man he was extreamly troubled at the unbelief and hardness of the peoples hearts He wept over Jerusalem with many tears Why you will say perhaps what needed this he might have wrought upon them and put the life of Grace into them No my Beloved he could not work on many of them he could not raise them to the life of Grace they were not given him by his Father and yet as man he pittied and lamented their condition as we should do in such a case he being in all things like unto us sin only excepted And this methinks should melt the hearts of Reprobates themselves to Christ and make them to relent towards him Alas he pitties you and mourns over you his very bowels yearn towards you He delights not in your ruin and destruction No it is troublesome and grievous to him But why then doth he not relieve and help us you will say Why if you be not given him by the Father it is not in his power to do it It s said indeed that he gives life unto the world as it is in his own expression Iohn 6.33 But that is but in opposition to the Jews not to the Jews alone but to the world to men of all conditions and of all Nations in the world But to the world in general he doth not nay he cannot give it So that the fault is not in him if any of you perish and that you have not life from him you see he is confined and bound up by his Father to a certain number to give this life but to as many as the Father gives him JOHN 17.3 And this is Life Eternal AND thus we have at length dispatched the End for which our Saviour is invested with so large and ample Power over all flesh That he may give Eternal Life to as many as God hath given him But what is Eternal Life what is there comprehended under that expression As when our Saviour once discoursed of Truth he had this question put to him what is Truth So having spoken here of Life Eternal if any of you now should put the question what is life Eternal you have the resolution in the following verse which I am now to enter on And this is life Eternal if you desire to understand it this it is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent So that these words you see are an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Explication of that which is delivered in the former verse in which our Saviour shews expresly what he intendeth by Eternal Life and wherein it consists in the Knowledge of the Father and the Son or of the Father in the Son And here I shall take notice only of these two Particulars viz. the thing explained and the way of Explication The thing explained is life Eternal As for the way of Explication he doth not shew you quare sit why this life Eternal is he doth not open and unfold it by the Causes of it I say he doth not here though he doth in other places but he shews you quid sit what this Eternal life is This saith he is Life Eternal life This is it what is it why it consists you see in holy Knowledge which is set forth both by the Act and Object of it The Act that they might know The Object of it God the Father the only true God and Christ the Son Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent This is life Eternal that they might know thee c. What then Doth there go nothing else to life Eternal but the knowledge of the Father and the Son Doth it consist in this and this only This is a scruple that is very variously resolved by those that write upon the Text. Some think that knowledge here is put for faith by which we live the life of Grace which is Eternal as the Apostle speaks The life which I live I live by the faith of the Son of God And so it is as if our Saviour Christ had said this is Eternal life so to know as to believe in thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent Others conceive that life Eternal here importeth nothing else but the way to Eternal life the ready path that leads to it And that our Saviour shews us here how he brings those to life Eternal who are bestowed upon him by his Father viz. by giving them the saving Knowledge of his Father and himself That he should give Eternal life to as many as thou hast given him And this is life Eternal this is the way to it that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent As far as I can apprehend the scruple might be cleared best by a distinction Eternal life is either Inchoate or consummate Eternal life Consummate consists especially in the compleat and perfect knowledge of God which Schoolmen all Beatifical vision And hence our Saviour Christ himself sets forth our happiness of which we shall be made partakers in the world to come by this that there we shall see God Mat. 5.8 Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God that is we shall know God as knowledge ordinarily is set forth by the sense of seeing in the Scripture Yea we shall know him clearly and distinctly we shall see him face to face And this is that which the Apostle makes the main of the Beatitude and glory prepared for the Saints at the time of Christs appearing 1 Iohn 3.2 We shall see him as he is now we see him as we can then we shall see him as he is we shall know him as we are known viz. of God 1 Cor. 13.12 We shall know God even as God knows us As we are known of God distinctly clearly perfectly so we shall know God He knows us perfectly according to his nature now and we shall know him perfectly according to our nature then as far as our created nature is capable of So we shall know as we are known for as there is a note of Similitude and not of Equality And this shall be our happiness in Heaven and our glorious life there that we shall see the very face of God and not his back parts only as we have done in this world That we shall have him fully and compleatly So that this is Eternal life you see consummate in the Heavens to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent But as I take it the life Eternal mentioned in my Text is that of which the Saints are made partakers in this present life and which our Saviour gives them here in this world As in another place he tells us My sheep hear my voice saith he and I give unto them Eternal life He doth not say I will give them Eternal life hereafter but I give it them for present and therefore it is added in the words immediatly annexed neither shall
will never own them for his servants who prefer the favour and respects of men above him Mark what the Apostle saith Gal. 1.10 If I yet please men if I seek to please them so that I regard not though I anger and displease the Lord Christ If I yet please men in such a manner in such a way as this I cannot be the servant of Christ If God be the only true God then as you must serve him and none but him so you must fear him and none but him Sanctifie the Lord of hosts himself saith the Prophet Isaiah 8.13 and let him be your fear and dread The Prophet speaks it there exclusively let him be your fear and none else To which effect is our Saviours admonition Luke 12. Be not afraid of them that kill the body and after that have no more that they can do But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear fear him that after he hath killed hath power to cast you into hell I say unto you fear him And therefore we are often rated in the Scripture for our fear of men and creatures as Isa 51.12 13. Who art thou that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die and of the Son of man that shall be made as grass And truly we are very weak in this respect abundance of us We are exceedingly afraid sometimes how men will use us if we fall into their hands and if they come to have us in their power we cannot eate we cannot sleep we are so infinitely troubled and perplexed This violent and raging passion eats out all the comfort of our lives And in the mean time we neglect the Lord who is to be feared as the Prophet David speaks Why you will say then May we not in any case fear creatures No my Beloved not in any case make them the ultimate terminative object of our fears Fear them we may as instruments of Gods anger and then indeed we fear God in them But to fear them for themselves as if they could do evil to us of themselves is even to set them up in Gods stead Indeed if they could do us any mischief without God and which he could not fence us from we had great reason then to fear them and not him But seeing of themselves they cannot strike us and when they do they are but rods in Gods hand we should not eye the rod so much as the hand that strikes with it God would not call for all our fear if any creature could do us any damage without him But seeing he alone is able of himself to save and to destroy I say unto you fear him and none but him If God be the only true God then trust in him and none but him look not to other gods as the expression of the Prophet is Hosea 3.1 put not your trust and confidence in them For that from which deliverance is expected by us that is the thing to which we look and on which our eye is fixed I will lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence my help cometh Psalm 121.1 Now this we may not do from any creature For as it cannot hurt us on the one side so neither can it save us on the other no this is proper to the only true God I am the Lord saith he and there is no God besides me a just God and a Saviour And therefore addeth presently Look unto me and be you saved all the ends of the earth for I am God and none else And therefore let not any of our hearts depart from God at any time and step out to other Saviours Let us not make flesh our arm nor place our confidence in earthly Saviours It s that which we are very apt to do as it is manifest by this that we are so disquieted and troubled in the want and so secure in the enjoyment of these things that our very hearts and spirits do even come and go with them But what are they in Gods stead as once the King of Israel said 2 Kings 5.7 that they should save us and procure our peace Oh my Beloved be exceeding tender how you give his glory to another how you attribute this to any means how you expect deliverance from it If God be the only true God let nothing share together with him in your faith and confidence but let him have this part of worship appropriated to him to put your whole trust in him Use 4 Is it so that our God is the only true God is there no other true God but him only this then should teach us who have chosen him to be our God to be at unity among our selves It s true indeed my Brethren there are many persons in the Godhead but yet there is but one God And therefore we though we be many persons should labour to be one as he is one The argument is the Apostles who presseth us to unity upon the very same ground Eph. 4.3 endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace And this is used as one inducement among the rest to urge it and enforce it on us because there is but one God one only true God as you may see in the sixth verse of that Chapter Indeed if there were many Gods I mean many true Gods there were a manifest and just occasion of division It were but reasonable that there should be rents and breaches among the worshippers of these Gods That every one should vehemently contend for the God whom he fears But if there be but one onely true God whom all of us do serve and worship we may the better be at unity among our selves Yea we should strive the more to be at one to keep our selves in unity that we may be the better like God And this is that which Christ desireth in behalf of his Disciples in the 11. verse of this Chapter Holy father keep through thy own name those whom thou hast given me that they may be one as we are By which he intimates expresly that it is a thing very much to be desired that the worshippers of God should be like God in unity Not like in all respects for so it is impossible that they should be but as God is one in Essence so they should be one in heart and in affection Oh let us labour for this Oneness that we may be in this like God Let there be no separations and divisions but let the Lords Jerusalem be like a City that is at unity within it self And truly there was never greater need to set on this Exhortation than now when God hath suffered such a spirit of division to possess his own people and when the worshippers of the only true God are of so many minds and draw so many waies and have such vehement and such hot contentions and disputes among themselves that they are no way to be pacified and appeased So that the Church had never greater reason to
in the first place that he may be faithful and in the next place that discovery which he makes may be effectual 1. He makes a full discovery that he may be faithful as the Prophet of his Church For if he should not shew his Father to us fully if he should hide any thing of God from us which it concerneth us to know how should he be a faithful Prophet to us And even as if he should not make compleat and perfect satisfaction for us he should not be a faithful Priest So if he should not give compleat instruction to us he should not be a faithful Prophet Indeed his Father hath appointed him my Brethren to make known his Name every letter of his Name to his people and hence he gives him this account when he is even about to leave the world I have manifested c. 2. He makes a full discovery of his Father to his people that the discovery which he makes may be effectual For if he should conceal the least particle the least iota of his Fathers Name which is required to be known necessitate medii to salvation all the rest that he revealeth would be in vain it would be to no purpose If he make not a full discovery in the sense that I have said it were as good that he made none at all And therefore that he may attain the end for which he came into the world for which he executes his Mediatorship in all the offices and branches of it even the Salvation of his people he makes his Father so far known to every one of his that nothing may be hidden from them in the ignorance of which whosoever dies must perish Now is it so that Jesus Christ hath made an absolute compleat and Vse 1 full c. The less are they to be excused and the more to be condemned who yet continue ignorant of God of his Nature and his Will notwithstanding this discovery Though Jesus Christ hath done so much to make his Father known to them yet they continue wholly unacquainted with him They are meer strangers to the Father they do not know so much as a Letter of his Name which Christ hath made so manifest And this is very evident because they do not love him they do not trust in him which they would be sure to do if they did know the Name of God They that know thy Name will put their trust in thee saith the Psalmist Psal 9.10 And so it may be said as well they that know thy Name will love thee and they that know thy Name will fear thee It is impossible but mens affections should be managed and moulded by their apprehensions and that the principles which they have rooted in their understandings should have some influence and operation on their hearts So that if men did but know the wrath of God it could not be but they would fear him if they did know the power of God and know it as engaged for them it could not be but they would trust him and depend upon him If they did know the love and mercy the beauty and the excellency of the Lord it could not be but they would love him But while they shew forth none of this it is apparent that the Fathers Name of which these are but divers Letters as it were is utterly unknown to them Now my Beloved when the Lord shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire to render vengeance unto them that know not God what will become of those men Alas their unacquaintance with him now Christ hath shewed his Name so plainly will be void of all excuse If Jesus Christ had kept his Father close if he had hid his Name his Love his Power his Mercy and the like and had not manifested it to men they might have pleaded something when the day of reckoning comes They might have said alas it is no wonder that the Father is unknown to us for which way should we come to be acquainted with him He dwells in light that no man can approach unto whom no man hath seen or can see But then Christ Jesus will be ready to reply it was a great part of my errand and my business down into the world to help men to the sight of him to manifest his Name to men And I have done it fully and compleatly and therefore if you know him not your sin is wilful and your damnation must be heavy Is it so that Jesus Christ hath made an absolute c. then let us bless Vse 2 and magnifie the Lord Christ that he hath done this necessary work for us that he hath shewed his Father and made known his Name to us We are all of us by nature strangers to him and of our selves we have no means to be acquainted with him Indeed by nature we may come to have some knowledge of a God as the Apostle speaks at large Rom. 1. But the knowledge of the Father in reference to Jesus Christ and to his people is another thing To know God as a Father to his Son Christ and in and through Christ to us to know him by this Name of his is unattainable by any light but that which we receive from Christ himself So that unless he had discovered him we had never known the Father and so had perished everlastingly No man knoweth the Father but the Son and he to whom the Son will reveal him Matth. 11.27 And therefore we are infinitely bound to Jesus Christ that he hath revealed him to us that he hath made such an absolute and full discovery of his Father to his people which if he had not done they had continued strangers to him both in this world and in that which is to come Indeed we might have known him as an angry and a powerful God we might know him as a Judge and an avenger without any help from Christ But as a sweet and gracious Father we had never known him if Christ had not discovered him in such a way and under such a notion to us This Name of his none but Jesus Christ could teach us we could have learned to spell and understand it of no other Master in this world And therefore we are bound the more to Christ and his mercy is the greater that he hath undertaken to instruct us and make us perfect in this sweet Lesson which is indeed the first and greatest in the Primmer of Religion the Name of the Father Vse 3 Is it so That Jesus Christ hath made an absolute c. Then let us be perswaded to address our selves to the performance of that necessary duty which this so large so ample a discovery of the Father calls for viz. To grow up in the knowledge of him and not to rest till we be inwardly and throughly acquainted with him That as the revelation of him in it self is very full so it may be so to us too Beloved Jesus Christ hath done
my Brethren Do you believe the Word of God Do your hearts say Amen to every particle and tittle of it If God should come and put the question to you concerning those particulars of holy Truths which seem most hard to be believed most difficult to be accomplished as once our Saviour did to Martha when he had said I am the Resurrection and the life he that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die Believest thou this Joh. 11.26 Can you return the same answer yea Lord I believe as she did May not the same be charged on abundance of you which God so sharply reprehends in Israel Psal 106.24 They believed not his Word and hearkned not to the voyce of the Lord. Are there not multitudes among us who give no credit to the Word at all who when they hear the truths of God delivered to them do not enquire with Nicodemus only How can these things be but even peremptorily determine they can never be And here because they are of many sorts who do not keep the Word of God in their hearts by believing I will set them in their ranks and proceed with them in order Some there are who question all the Word of God throughout from the beginning of it to the end do not believe one word of it Either they throw it off as false and vain without Consideration in a rash and wilde way or else they soberly resolve the Scripture to be nothing else but the invention and device of Politick and subtile heads to keep fools in awe withal And so they say upon deliberation as David in his haste and in his passion All men are lyars the very Pen-men of the Word of Truth it self The Prophets the Apostles all are lyars As that blasphemous Pope who stiled the Gospel the Fable of Christ These men are flat Atheists what ever their professions be We want not some in these times who are so bold as to declare themselves in this particular and openly to renounce the Word of God And certainly however other men conceal themselves for shame yet there are more of this opinion then we are aware of They do not say with their tongues perhaps but yet with Davids fool they say it in their hearts the Scripture is not Gods Word yea there is no God at all to be Author of the Scripture Others there are who though they do not question all the Scripture yet they do not believe it all they give not absolute belief to every part and parcel of it And since the Word hath in it precepts promises and threatnings and there are some that question one and some another of them we will proceed with them distinctly and in order 1. Some there are who do not give assent to the Divine Authority of all the Precepts of the Word of God Some deny some certain Precepts ' and Commandements by themselves apart The Papists they deny the second Precept Vasques acknowledges that this Commandement interdicts not only the adoring of an Image under the notion of a God but also the adoring of the true God in an Image And further he confesses that they do the very thing that is condemned in this Commandement What then because it will not be obeyed it must be cancelled and repealed and not admitted to have any place among the Moral precepts of the Law of God It was saith he a positive and Ceremonial Law and therefore ceases now in our days And thus they make the Commandement of the Lord of no effect through their tradition Others deny the fourth Commandement and affirm that is also vanished with the Ceremonials that it belongeth not to Christians save only in regard of Moral equity in which respect the Moral and Judicial Laws belong to us also And yet the Lord you see hath placed it in the middle of the Decalogue and hedged it in on every side with other precepts that it might be the safer from the violence of those who seek to raze it out of the Tables But that which these men do by parcels and retail there are another sort who do in gross and as it were by whole sale cast off all the Precepts and Commandements of the Law of God together affirming they are all abolished not only in regard of irritation malediction condemnation but even in regard of obligation And thus with those in Davids time they make void the Law of God These men cannot pray to God as David doth Psal 119.66 Teach me good judgement and knowledge for I have believed thy Commandements And verily if all that are bestowed on Jesus Christ do keep the Word of God in the heart by believing they that renounce it thus seem to be in an ill Condition and they have reason to consider well whether they be given up to Christ or no. Others there are who give no credit or belief to the threatnings of the Word who when they hear them thundered out against them say it is not be with Israel neither shall we see Sword nor Famine Jer 5.12 And are there not a multitude of this opinion For tell me my Beloved when you that know your selves to be unclean livers have heard that dreadful commination Whoremongers and Adulterers God will judge when you that are so glewed to the world that nothing can divide you from it have heard that flaming sentence That no covetous person hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of God when you that wallow in your filthiness you that are lyers swearers drunkards enemies of all goodness have heard that nothing that is filthy or unclean shall come within the new Jerusalem that without shall be lyars and dogs that bark and snarl and snap at holiness that such shall have their portion in the lake c. have you believed these threatnings have you assented to the truth of them Alas my Brethren it is Evident you have not For 1. First If you believe the threatnings you will quake and tremble at them This disposition is observed in the Saints of God in Scripture that as they had believing so they had tender trembling hearts in relation to his threatnings Such a heart had good Josiah his heart was tender when he heard the words that is the threatning words of God his words against Jerusalem 2 King 22.19 not to it to instruct nor for it to comfort but against it to affright Such a heart had holy David Psal 119.12 My flesh trembleth for fear of thee and I am afraid of thy judgements He speaks not of his Judgements actually inflicted for they are felt but of his judgements threatned only and hanging in the Commination for they ate feared I am afraid of thy judgements Of such a temper was the Prophet Hab. 3.16 when I heard my belly trembled my lips quivered at the voyce c. And such a disposition they discovered of whom the Propeht Ezra speaks ch 9. ver 4. they
did endure And so it will do any of us in the like case This is the victory that overcometh the world even our Faith 1 Joh. 5.4 And therefore when we are so quickly overcome and brought to choose sin rather then affliction it is a sign we want faith By this you see there are too many who do not keep the Word of God in their hearts by believing Now I beseech you my Beloved as you would have this assurance that you are of the number of those that belong to Christ by the donation of the Father keep his words if you observe your Faith to waver or to fail in any point abase and judge your selves for it And that you may the better know how far to judge and how far to acquit your selves in this particular I shall give you some Cautions 1. You are not bound to credit every thing that is presented to you under the name and title of the Word of God To give a suddain and inconsiderate assent to all that the best Minister delivers to you because he teaches it and you are well perswaded of the man You may nay more then so you ought to try before you trust in this case Prove every thing saith the Apostle 1 Thes 5.21 and then hold fast that which is good It is observed of the Bereans that they were not so servilly addicted and engaged to any Teachers how excellent soever their endowments were as to receive upon their credit any thing that they delivered No their manner was to search the Scriptures whether things were so Act. 17.11 And yet it is notable that they are said to have received the Word of God with all readiness of mind for all this The Lord requires no greater readiness of mind then this in entertaining or believing any thing that is delivered in his Name that is to take it upon some trial 2. It is no sign of infidelity to move some questions with an aym at satisfaction concerning things delivered either in or from the Word If it be done with holy reverence and with an humble and sincere desire of satisfaction and instruction it is a very good course So did the blessed Virgin make a question concerning what the Angel had delivered to her Luke 1.34 A question not of opposition but of inquisition How shall these things be This way of making doubts and questions it seems was used in the Jewish Church and Christ approved it by his Example Luk. 2.46 47. So it is said of the Apostle Paul that he reasoned with the Jews out of the Scriptures Act. 17.2 And if such reasonings were more in use not reasonings against the Word but out of the Word there would assuredly be more faith then there is at this day 3. Nay though it be a sign of weakness it is no sign of utter infidelity to have some doubtful thoughts arising in our hearts concerning the most clear and pregnant Truths that are revealed in the Word of God David had such thoughts as these and yet he was a good man though this indeed were no part of his goodness Psal 89.19 37 38. There you have first the Lords assurance that he will establish David and protect him And at last he comes to swear that he will not lye to David his Throne shall endure for ever c. And yet observe how David faileth in the very next words but thou hast cast off and abhorred thou hast made void the Covenant of thy servant This was his great infirmity and yet you see it was not incompatible with grace It may befall a Saint to have such unbelieving thoughts as these provided that he pray against them strive against them and be humbled for them As David was when he had motions to distrust the Providence of God to question this great truth of God as Psal 73. this did so trouble him that at vers 21. he saith his very heart was grieved and he was pricked in his reins because he was so foolish and so ignorant And while it is thus with us we need not thereupon to doubt our interest in Jesus Christ But if we entertain such thoughts as these and bid them welcome when they come c. if we never pray nor strive against our unbelief nor grow up into any certainty in matters of Religion If we resolvedly reject the Word of God either in part or in the whole this is a very sad case If I speak the truth saith Christ why do you not believe me Joh. 8.46 And mark what follows presently ye therefore hear me not that is believe me not because ye are not of my sheep as I said unto you So that it is a formidable thing you see not to believe the Word of Christ It shews that men are none of Christs And therefore let us give assent to the whole Word of God the precepts promises and threatnings that Christ may own us that he may say concerning us to God the Father Thine they were and thou gavest them to me And thus we have dispatched the first and second branch of the discovery Proceed we to the third Have you kept the Word of God in your affections by loving it it is somewhat to remember it it is more to give assent and credit to it but it is most of all to love and delight in it And yet unless you reach to this you can have no assurance that you belong to Jesus Christ and that you are bestowed upon him by the Father The very Devils know the Word of God and think upon it and believe it too they are convinced of the truth of it and yet they are so far from loving it or taking any pleasure in it that they tremble at it They perceive it is against them they look upon it as an Enemy that speaks sad things to them and so they are afraid of it They fear it with a slavish fear and slavish fear casteth out love To say the truth the more they credit it the less they love it and the more they tremble at it And so it is in some degree with wicked and ungodly men They give assent to the letter of the Scripture they believe it to be true but they have no affection to it because it is no friend to them and their courses It crosses them in every thing they have a mind to and therefore they are at enmity with it and their hearts rise up against it they receive the knowledge and in some sort the belief but they do not receive the love of the Truth But you my Brethren must go further yet if you will clear your interest in Jesus Christ you must go beyond Devils yea you must go beyond the best of carnal and unsanctified men you must not satisfie your selves with this that you know the Word of God that you have it in your mindes that you are able to discourse of it that you believe it to be true in all particulars But more then so your
Scripture and never leave till you know the heart of it And this is that which the Apostle Paul insinuates Col. 3.16 Let the Word of God dwell in you richly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let it dwell let it be a houshold-guest let it rise and sit and walk dine and sup and lodge with you let it be familiar to you Be you as throughly acquainted with it as any man that dwells in your house with whom you have discourse and dealing every hour And truly if you strive not thus to be acquainted with the Word of God you do not love it as you ought to do 3. If you love the VVord of God you will not easily fall out with it when you find the meaning of it and perceive it is against you in something that is naturally dear to you you will not quarrel with it your hearts will not rise up in enmity against it No your dear affections to it will make you quietly and meekly to submit to it Indeed ungodly men cannot endure the VVord of God the Precepts and Commandements of it are like bonds and cords to them they lay restraint upon them they curb them and they hold them in and hence they are enraged against it They endeavour what they can to break the bonds of God asunder they are always contradicting and opposing and gainsaying and raising quarrels and disputes against the Word because they hate it But now the Saints upon the other side are very much in Love with it and hence it is that the Commandements of it are not grievous to them they agree with their spirits they are written in their hearts Or if at any time it cross them they are not angry with the Word but with themselves that their base hearts should not in every thing agree with it Yea when it is a little sharp and bitter though their stomachs rise at first yet in the issue they submit and say as Hezekiah to Isaiah Isa 39.8 Good is the Word of the Lord which thou hast spoken They find a sweet and pleasing savour even in the sowrest passage of the Word There goes a savour with their knowledge of it as the Apostle Pauls expression is 2 Cor. 2.14 Carnal men may know abundance of the Scripture more then a pretious Saint of God but here is the difference they find no savour in their knowledg of it at least no sweet and pleasing savour No it is distastful to them it doth not suit with their palates it doth not fit their humors A Drunkard knows it is a sin to be intemperate to drink himself down to a beast A wanton and lascivious person knows it is a sin to be unclean but this doctrine doth not please him and so it is in other cases whereas the Truth is sweet to those that are in Christ they look upon it as their friend and love it because it joyns with them against their lusts who are their greatest enemies whom they abhorre and whom they hate with a perfect hatred 4. If you love the VVord of God you will hardly part with it you will not let it go from you if you can keep it any way by any means And much less will you go from it I have not departed from thy judgements saith holy David to the Lord Psal 119.102 for thou hast taught me Brethren there are a sort of men who have a kind of knowledge of the Word of God but they have no love to it and hence it is that they are easily withdrawn from it as multitudes have been in these times while they that have it dear in their affections are rooted and established in the present truth as 2 Pet. 1.12 They are not carryed clean away with every new opinion and conceit as others are They cleave unto the Truths of God with full purpose of heart They are setled in their judgements and resolved in their minds This is undoubtedly the Truth of God I know it to be so I find it to be so by sensible experience in my soul and to this I mean to stick even to the loss of goods and life and all I am resolved that I will not relinquish it what ever hazard I may undergo to hold it whatever Sophisters and slie Seducers object against it 5. If you love the Word of God you will be extreamly troubled when it is slighted and abused it will vex you to the heart to see it undervalued and despised You will be ready to reply in such a case The VVord is a good friend of mine one whom I love dearly from whom I have received much comfort And I am no way able to endure it wounds me to the very soul to see it used in this fashion Beloved these are times in which the VVord of God hath suffered much from wicked and ungodly men It hath been strangely scorned and contemned and even trampled under foot It hath been usual in these days of ours for men to speak against those things that are delivered from the VVord contradicting and blaspheming Now my Beloved how have such things as these affected you and wrought upon you what tears have they drawn from you what sorrow have they wrought in you how often have they sent you over-loaden to your closets there to open all to God It is observed by the Holy Ghost that when Jehoiakim had cut the roll in pieces with a pen-knife which Jeremiah brought him from the Lord and burnt it in the fire upon the hearth they that stood by were not afraid neither did they rent their garments nor manifest their sorrrow Jer. 36.23 24. Beloved some of you have seen as high contempt as this offered to the word of God though not in the same kind And truly if you have not rent your hearts at least if you have not been inwardly afflicted in your spirits and done what you are able to the vindication of it you have shewed but little love to Gods word By these things you may try whether you have kept the word of God in your affections by loving it and so have made it to appear that you belong to Jesus Christ by the donation of the Father Now in the last place let me quicken you a little to the love of Gods word That if you love it not already you may come to love it Or if you love it you may go on to love it yet more And to this end I shall desire you to take notice of how great excellency and admirable use it is to you as I shall lay it open in a few particulars 1. Are you yet in your natural estate the word of God is the means to convert you The Law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul Psal 19.7 Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God Sanctifie them saith our Saviour How By thy truth thy word is truth Joh. 17.17 That speech of Paul is apposite and full God hath chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit and belief of the truth whereto that is to which sanctification and belief he hath called you by our Gospel 2 Thes 2.13 14. 2. Are you wandering from the way as who hath not his deviations The word of God is a light to guide you it is a Lanthorn to your feet as David speaks Thou shalt guide me with thy Counsel Psal 73.14 q. d. although thou do not lead me by the pillar of a cloud and fire as once thou didst thy people in the Desert although thou goest not with me in a visible appearance yet thou hast left me such exact directions such wholesome Counsel in thy word that if I follow that exactly it is impossible I should miscarry 3. Are you ignorant the word of God is a teacher to inform you It giveth understanding to the simple Psal 119.130 And makes them wise unto Salvation 2 Tim. 3.15 There is no knowledge indispensably required to salvation nothing of necessary faith or practice either to be believed or done but is abundantly revealed in the Scripture 4. Are you infirm and weak in grace The word of God is a means to confirm you This was the Instrument by which the Apostles confirmed the Churches Act. 15.4 And as it is the usual means by which the grace of God is begotten in the heart in which respect we find it stiled The word of grace because it works it Acts 20.32 so it is the instrument by which it is confirmed and encreased We grow by sucking the sincere milk of the word 1 Pet. 2.2 And we are built up by it to Salvation 5. Are you in any deep distress The word of God is the means to comfort you Through-comfort of the Scriptures we have hope Rom. 15.4 And David to the same purpose Vnless thy Law had been my delight I should then have perished in my affliction Psal 119.92 And in another place cries out Remember thy word unto thy servant upon which thou hast caused me to hope this is my comfort in my affliction for thy Word hath quickned me Psal 119.49 50. 6. Are you lost as we are all of us by nature The word of God is the means to save you this is the saving doctrine Act. 11.14 The word of life Phil. 2.16 the word that brings men to life and glory The Gentiles saith the Apostle Paul to the Ephesians Ephes 3.6 came to be fellow-heirs and partakers of the promise by the Gospel To sum up all we have cause to love the word to have it dear in our affections for it is the word that guides us it is the word that informs us it is the word that confirms us it is the word that comforts us it is the word that saves us that is the power of God unto salvation with which agrees the Apostles valediction to the Elders of Ephesus Act 20.32 wherewith I take my leave of you at this time I commend you to God and to the word of his grace which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among them that are sanctified JOHN 17.6 And they have kept thy Word WE have been long upon this use of trial and discovery whether we be given up to Christ or no by the donation of the Father Three branches of it we have now dispatcht and are arrived at the fourth and last which God assisting we shall finish at this time Have we kept the word of God as in our minds by remembring and in our hearts by believing and in our affections by loving so in our lives by obeying For all of these as you have heard are comprehended under this expression And this indeed my Brethren as it is the last so it is the heigth the upshot and the sum of all to keep the word of God in the life by obeying Many there are that remember much of it that give assent and credit to it yea that pretend a great deal of affection to the word of God and are indeed much taken with many things that are delivered in it and yet they fail in this which is the main business they do not give themselves up to the practice and obedience of it They leave the rule of God and are a way and rule unto themselves And this was Herods temper right he heard the word of God gladly he took some kind of pleasure in it and therefore out of doubt had some affection to it but when it came to practice and obedience there he failed He did but many things at most he did not all that was delivered to him from the word of God and this was that which marred all and made all the rest worth nothing And so the second ground the stony places in the parable Matth. 13.20 they received the Word of God and that with joy and there must be some love where there is delight and joy and yet no fruit at all follows as you may see in that place And truly there are many such among us who find some taste in the good Word of God as the Apostle speaks Heb. 6.5 There is a pleasing relish in it which they are delighted with as there is something in the Word that may content a palate that is meerly carnal but they make it not their rule in their lives and conversation They sit before the Preacher as the people sits and listen with affection to his words perhaps they are a pleasant sound to them but their hearts are far from stooping to the obedience of the Word no they are for their covetousness their uncleanness and their lusts still Now I beseech you my Beloved see how it is with you in this regard If you will have this sweet assurance in your selves that you are given up to Jesus Christ by the donation of the Father you must keep the Word of God in your lives by obeying it you must not rest in this that you have as you conceive some love to it and that you take some kind of pleasure and delight in it for this a carnal wretch a reprobate may do but you must yeild obedience to it you must be ruled and ordered by it in your ways the Word of God must be a guide to you When you have any thing to do you must not think what is agreeable to your wills humors interests ends and so act accordingly But you must seriously consider with your selves what is agreeable to the direction of the Word of God and to the rule which he hath there prescribed to you and to that you must conform how unsutable soever it may be to your desires or to your aims Thus you must keep the Word of God if you will clear your interest in Jesus Christ in your lives by obeying it And here that you may not be mistaken and deceive your selves I shall desire you to take notice of a few things You must keep it wholly and entirely you must not keep some parts and parcels of the Word of God and leave
the rest out of your practice and obedience No you must keep it all throughout without restraint or limitation if you will make it to appear that you belong to Jesus Christ Thou hast given them to me saith our Saviour in my Text and they have kept thy Word Observe it well he saith not They have kept some portion of thy Word or They have kept it in some certain things they have obeyed some rules and some directions of it but they have kept thy Word you must conceive it all thy Word without any reservation They have not willingly allowed themselves in any disobedience to the least iota of it And thus it is with those that are bestowed on Jesus Christ they are obedient to the Word in all things and so they make it to appear that they are men of proof indeed that they are tried Christians as the Apostle shews 2 Cor. 2.9 To this end did I write to you that I might have the proof of you and whether you would be obedient in all things They can say as David doth Psal 119.104 Through thy precepts I get understanding therefore every false way I utterly abhorre Assoon as I get so much understanding from thy Word and from thy Law to know that such a way is false and leads not to the happiness and comfort which it seems to promise I do not follow it and keep it as I did before no I decline it and abhorre it yea I abhorre it utterly I never touch more with it let it be what it will never so sweet so pleasing so delightful so accustomed to me Through thy Law I get understanding therefore every false way I utterly abhorre And is it so with you my Brethren Turn in upon your selves a little and consider how farre you are acquainted with the Word and Will of God how far the Lord hath shewed what is good and what he requires of you so that you are convinced of it and then examine whether you fall short in nothing whether you come fully up to the obedience and the practice of it whether you keep the Word entirely so that you do not fail in any thing advisedly and customarily of which your understandings are informed and which you know to be a duty Tell me Beloved is there no such thing is the Conscience quiet now doth it lay nothing to your charge no neglect of any thing you should have done doth it not tell you that in this and that particular you know the rule and yet you have not walked accordingly In such or such a thing you have gone quite and clean against it Brethren if your hearts accuse you God is greater then your hearts and knoweth all things Go home and judge your selves for it Commune with your hearts and say Herein I see I have been faulty I have not kept the Word of God my practice hath not been in every point according to the Rule no I have failed in this and that and the other thing But now I am resolved in good earnest by the grace of Jesus Christ to take another course as far as it is possible I will not swerve a whit nor vary in my conversation from the Word of God This I acknowledge I have done which I know well enough I ought not to have done This I confess I have neglected which I know I should have done but now it shall be so no more My aim shall be to keep the Word as far as humane weakness and infirmity will suffer wholly and entirely Thus you must do if you will make it to appear that Christ hath any share in you As you must keep the Word wholly so you must keep it cordially too As you must obey it all so you must obey it all with all the heart Your obedience to the Word must flow from principles of heartiness and love withâ—n and not from base respects and ends without And this is that which the Apostle testifies of the Romans Rom. 6.17 Ye have obeyed from the heart saith he the form of Doctrine that hath been delivered to you or whereto you were delivered as it is rendred in the margent you have obeyed it and you have obeyed it from the heart so that your obedience was voluntary free delightful you found complacencie and pleasure in it you needed nothing else to carry and incline you to it but the inward motion disposition and affection of the heart You had enough within you to quicken you and stir you up to the obedience of the Word of God And thus it is with those that are bestowed on Jesus Christ they obey it heartily while others do it meerly out of self-ends All their motives and inducements to the obedience which they yeild are from without either they are drawn by force or they are hired or they are frighted to it Their hearts meerly of themselves do nothing with them in the business Jehu was large enough in his obedience to the command and will of God as to the matter of the things he did with reference to Ahabs house To say the truth he did all every thing that God would have him But he failed in this particular he did nothing heartily nothing out of love to God but all for his own ends and therefore all he did was worth nothing See what an ample attestation he received from God himself 2 King 10.13 Thou hast executed that which was right in my eyes and hast done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in my heart He had not omitted any particular and yet because it was not cordially done for God but meerly for himself that he might bring about his own designs he met with a revenge instead of a reward as you may see Hos 1.4 How far doth Artaxerxes go Ezra 7.23 Whatsoever is commanded by the God of heaven let it be diligently done You see to what a pass this Heathen Prince is brought he will do any thing for God any thing that he requires let it be what it will he will obey But what is that which moves him to it is it a principle of love to God doth he do it heartily No it proceeds from noting else but fear of wrath and vengeance as it is apparent in the latter member of the verse for why should there be wrath upon the Realm of the King and of his Sons Now I beseech you try your selves in this particular you obey the Word of God yea and it may be you are large in your obedience as to the matter of the thing required But do you as it is observed of the Romans obey it from the heart or from some other principle if there is nothing else to move you would your hearts carry you to this obedience Have you that within you still that would hold you in from sin and stir you up to duty if there were no inducement from without Can you say as David doth Psal 10 8. Lord I delight to do
as they did in the Parable we have born thy name and we have been called Christians and have been accounted thine and wilt thou not acknowledge us and own us now And Christ shall answer them depart from me I know you not go get you over on the other side among the Goats I tell you you are none of mine Ah my beloved this will be a cooling and a killing word indeed Is it so that Jesus Christ is glorified in all those that belong to him Vse 2 Both in their grace and holiness in this world and in their glory in the world to come This then should be a motive and inducement to us to strive and labour after both these both after grace in this world and glory in the world to come both to be holy here and happy hereafter 1. This should quicken us and stirr us up to labour after holiness and grace that Jesus Christ may be glorified in us If grace were only advantagious to our selves and honorable to our selves as to be really and truly gracious is indeed the greatest honour in the world there were no such reason then why we should labour to attain it and abound with it For then you know we could have no higher aim then only to set up a poor Creature But seeing Jesus Christ is honoured in the grace and holiness and the obedience of his people Oh how should this enflame us with restless and unsatisfied desires of these things How should we covet and covet earnestly the best gifts and labour that we may excell in inward grace and outward obedience that we may set up Jesus Christ the more and that his honour may be the more advanced by us When we are seeking to the Lord for holiness and grace that he would give it out to us and give it more abundantly how should we press and quicken our petitions with this prevailing argument that Jesus Christ will be advanced by it and his glory more enlarged Lord give us more faith love hope patience zeal power against corruption strength to new obedience that Christ may have the more glory We seek not these things to promote our own esteem and reputation and that we may be some body among the Saints but that Christ Jesus may be all in all It is thy great design to glorifie thy Son Christ and this is the ready way to accomplish the design on which thy very heart is set if thou give us more holiness and more grace he will have more glory Thou wilt not honour us so much but Jesus Christ thine own beloved Son will be glorified in us And therefore we beseech thee set thy Treasure open to us and give us out a large share In such a manner the Apostle deals with God in his petitions in that memorable place to this purpose 2 Thes 1.11 12. We pray continually for you saith the Apostle there that God would count you worthy of this calling and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness and the work of faith with power That he would carry on that work of grace upon your souls till he hath brought it to perfection And why so to what end That the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you not that you may be honoured but that Christ may be glorified in you 2. And as this should stirr us up to labour after grace in this world so after glory in the world to come Since Christ is glorified as in the grace so much more in the glory of his people For glory is compleat grace and therefore Christ is glorified in that to admiration as we have shewed you formerly in explication of the point The Apostle speaks of some who seek glory Rom. 2.7 he means the glory of the other world as it is very evident by that which is joyned with it glory and honour and immortality and Eternal life And truly it is not unlawfull for every one of us to seek glory I mean our own eternal glory in the heavens because while we seek that we seek the glory of Christ in it It s that which troubles many of the Saints they think that they are scarce upright because they have so great an eye upon their own glory They doubt their own sincerity meerly upon this ground Indeed my brethren if your own glory and salvation went single and alone it were a greater cause of scruple But since the glory of the Lord Christ is comprehended and involved in it why should you not desire and seek it as subservient to the great and high end And therefore I beseech you my beloved under this notion have respect to it and draw encouragement and sweetness from it amidst the many heavy labours and bitter sufferings of this present life Look up man to the glory that is set before thee press hard towards it be diligent and patient in the expectation of it strive and labour to obtain it while thou considerest with thy self that when thou art glorified Christ will be glorified in thee And so in aiming at thy own glory do thou intend and seek the glory of Christ And this is that which thou maist do yea this is that which thou must do And therefore go on cheerfully embrace the promise that is yet afar of reach at the Crown of glory that is hung out to tempt thee and to toll thee on And let this animate thee most of all that when thou hast attained it Christ will be glorified and admired in thee He whom thy very soul loveth will have one monument the more of his own praise and glory unto all eternity And thus far of the first Consideration that induced our Saviour to become a Suitor for his Apostles and Disciples to his Father viz. the neer relation which they had to his Father and himself by means of which it came to pass that he was glorified in them The second follows now in order to be handled viz. the sad condition they were likely to be in by reason of the near approach of his departure from them to the Father and leaving them behind in an unquiet and malitious world And now I am no more in the world but these are in the world and I come to thee A dolefull and heart-killing word you must conceive it was to his Apostles and Disciples and now I am no more in the world They who left all for him must needs be very much dejected to be left by him And to be left alone in such a wilderness in such a troublesome unpleasing and a vexatious place as the world hath alwayes been to Christs Disciples As long as he was with them he was a very great support encouragement and comfort to them in all conditions and in all cases And therefore now he is about to leave them he thinks it necessary to commend them to the especial care and mercy and protection of his Father There are two things suggested in this dying Song this last
grace consider with your selves Now Jesus Christ draws nigh to me he that is above in heaven and with relation to his bodily and fleshly presence is no more in this world is in another way coming into my soul And therefore do not shut the doors against him but bid him very welcome when he comes when he offers more knowledge faith love hope patience let not these offers be refused Remember when you take in these you take in Christ with them in the presence of his Spirit So much as you enjoy of these so much you enjoy of Christ and therefore seek and value every saving grace the more and be the readier to receive and entertain it because it brings Christ with it Is it so that Jesus Christ as he is man is gone away c. Then let us Vse 3 also go away out of the world to him that we may be where he is I say as Christ to his Disciples in another case Arise let us go hence Jesus Christ is gone you hear and why then do we stay behind him why do we tarry here when Christ is gone It 's true we cannot go to him in the body but yet as Christ though he be absent from us in the body yet he is present with us by his Spirit so we upon the other side though we be absent from him in the body let us be present with him in the Spirit and as he comes from heaven to us by his Spirit though his body stay there so let us go from earth to heaven to our Saviour in our spirits though our bodies stay here But you will ask me How may this be done or how may we be present with our Saviour in our Spirits I Answer 1. We may be present with him in the thoughts and meditations of the Spirit These are the proper actings of the soul the inner man and if our thoughts be much upon him we are in this respect much with him And therefore I beseech you my Beloved let us feed our selves continually with sweet and pretious thoughts of Jesus Christ though we be here below and must continue so till Christ be pleased to take us to himself yet let our minds ascend to heaven and let our thoughts and meditations be where Christ is Oh let us think upon him in the day and in the night upon our beds when we are still and have nothing to distract us then let our hearts be filled with sweet soliloquies with ravishing and transporting thoughts of Christ that we may speak to him as David did Psal 104.34 How pretious are the thoughts of thee O Lord How great is the sum of them It passes my Arithmetique to cast them up 2. Let us be present with our Saviour in the affections of the Spirit let our spirits cleave to him though we be absent from him in the body Where Jesus Christ our treasure is there let our hearts be also That as Elisha said to Gehazi once Went not my heart with thee when at that very time he was sitting in his house and Gehazi was abroad 2 King 5.26 So we may say to Jesus Christ though in another way However we be absent from thee in the body yet is not our heart with thee as the Apostle to the Thessalonians We Brethren being taken from you in presence not in heart 1 Thes 2.17 so we to Jesus Christ Oh Lord though we be separated from thee in our bodies we are not separated from thee in our hearts They are continually with thee nor shall they be divided from thee 3. Let us be present with our Saviour in the desires and anhelations of the Spirit let them be always mounting up where he is he is gone and in the mean time till he come again to us let us long to go to him Oh let us build no Tabernacles on the Tabor of this world since our Saviour is not here But let us look upon our selves as banished men as the Apostle did knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord 2 Cor. 5.6 and so let us groan earnestly to get to Christ as he did Let us be always breathing gasping fainting after Jesus Christ and putting out our heads to see when he will come and receive us to himself that where he is there may we be also And thus far of the first particular suggested in the words the departure of our Saviour out of this lower world to the immediate presence of his Father And now I am no more in the world but I come to thee The second follows now in order to be handled and that is his Disciples stay behind him But these are in the world and are where they are like to be and where they are to tarry and remain when I am gone The world in which our Saviour Christs Apostles and Disciples were and were to stay must be conceived to be the very same which Christ himself was now about to leave and from which he was ready to depart viz. this lower world beneath heaven that from which he was to go in that were his Disciples and Apostles to remain And now I am no more in the world but these are in the world the self same world in which I am to be no more But why is this alleadged by our Saviour to his Father here that the Apostles and Disciples were to stay in this world apparently to shew what cause he had to mention them in his Petitions and to commend them to the special care and mercy and protection of his Father As in the words that are immediately annexed Holy Father keep them through thy own Name q. d. I am even now about to leave them and to leave them in the world and thou knowest what a place the world is how troublesome unpleasing and vexatious it hath continually been to my Disciples and therefore I beseech thee Father keep them have a special eye upon them who are to stay behind me in such a place as this is So that the point apparently suggested here is this DOCTRINE The world hath alwayes been and is an evil and uncomfortable place to Christs Disciples It is a sad and doleful place to live in and hence our Saviour seeemeth to bewail the case of his Apostles and Disciples in my Text These are in the world saith he as if he should have added and that is but an ill place Now that I may the better clear it and evince it to you I shall shew in what respects the world is such an evil and uncomfortable place to Christs Disciples It is in this respect an evil and uncomfortable place to Christs Disciples that it is a place of suffering In which they are continually to be exposed to many tryals and to many troubles Though they be in the world yet they are not of the world and therefore they are hated by the world as Jesus Christ himself informeth his Disciples John 15.19 If ye were of
sheep were not his own he might leave them as a prey to the devouring and ravening Wolf as he himself informs us in that same Similitude Joh. 10.12 The hireling flees and leaves the sheep because the sheep are not his own and cares not for the sheep and the Wolf catcheth and scattereth the sheep But Jesus Christ is not the Shepherd only but the owner of the sheep he keeps them not for wages but for love and for the property he hath in them and therefore certainly he will be careful of them to the utmost Those whom the Father gives him he will keep Indeed they are the Sons portion The Lords portion is his people Deut. 32.9 And what follows He kept them as the Apple of his Eye What do you think that Jesus Christ will lose his portion which his Father gives him That he will be so wretchless that he will not keep his own his own goods Nay more then so his own members the very apples of his Eye Will he suffer men or Devils to rent away his limbs from him to pluck his very eyes out of his head take this and take all We may be sure that Jesus Christ will keep us safe who are bestowed upon him by his Father as for his Fathers sake and for his own sake so for our sakes too And that upon a double reckoning or account For first of all we cost him dear and secondly we are very dear to him 1. We cost him dear he paid a great price for us and therefore he will know how he goes from us We cost him prayers he hath not one of us among the Gentiles without asking Ask of me and I will give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance saith the Father to the Son Psal 2.7 Otherwise I will not Christ is faign to beg for us before he gets us of the Father Nay more then so we did not cost him breath only but we cost him blood too He is the Lord that bought us as the Apostle Peter calls him and bought us not with gold and silver and such corruptible things but with his own most pretious blood 1 Pet. 1.19 And if he lose us in the end he hath a very ill bargain No my Beloved we may rest upon it that Jesus Christ will never suffer the purchase of his prayers the purchase of his blood to perish he never spent his breath and much less will he spend his blood in vain 2. And as we cost him dear so we are very dear to him His heart is infinitely set upon his Church and people he loves them out of all measure so that you may be sure he will be loth to see them perish He looks upon them as his Jewels Mal. 3.17 and as his own peculiar treasure Psal 135.4 And he will keep his Treasure and his Jewels safe take his trash who will And thus you have seen the grounds on which you may be confident that if the Father have bestowed you on the Son he will not lose you No you are safe enough depend upon it it is impossible that you should ever perish or miscarry But you will interpose and say perhaps Object This Doctrine serves to make men negligent and careless and secure For if they be preserved and kept so absolutely safe by Christ they need to take no care to keep themselves For answer let it be considered 1. Sol. That Christ doth keep men by themselves And hence saith the Apostle James This is Religion for a man to keep himself unspotted of the world James 1.27 And Paul advises Timothy to keep himself pure 1 Tim. 5.22 And 2. if any of you who belong to Christ remit your watch and grow secure and neglect to keep your selves though Christ will not lose you yet you may lose Christ as the Church did when she lay upon her bed and would not open Cant. 5.6 You may be wofully deserted by him both in regard of grace and peace And though you cannot fall away yet you may fall most fearfully to the dishonor of the Lord and of Religion and the irreparable wounding of your Names while you have a day to live Though you cannot wholly lose the inward habits of your graces yet you may lose the exercise of them And though you cannot lose the Essence yet you may lose the sense and comfort of all the graces that you have Though it be utterly impossible that you should perish in reality yet you may perish in your own conceit and apprehension you may be brought to such a sad condition that you may look upon your selves as reprobates and cast-aways and think your selves undone creatures And though Christ will not suffer you to go to hell yet he may make you cry in your heart and in your bones as David did and set you on the rack of such unutterable agonies and horrors and affrightments that you may feel a Hell in this world Now for a last use of the Point this may afford a seasonable admonition Vse 3 to all the Deputies and under-Officers of Jesus Christ If Christ who is the Fathers servant and the Fathers Shepherd do keep them safe who are committed to him by the Father you then who are the Servants and the Shepherds and the Officers of Christ should learn of him to keep them safe as far as lies in you who are committed to your custody and care by Jesus Christ 1. Ministers are Christs Shepherds in the Church as Christ is the Fathers Shepherd and as the Father commits his people to the Son to keep so Christ commits them to his under-Officers and to his Ministers to keep and therefore it concerneth them to hearken to the advice of the Apostle to the Elders of Ephesus Act. 20.28 Take heed to your selves and to all the flock over which Jesus Christ hath made you Over-seers to feed the Church of Christ which he hath purchased with his own blood yea to the admonition of Jesus Christ himself to Peter Joh. 21.15 Simon son of Jonas lovest thou me dost thou love me dost thou indeed why if thou dost Keep my Lambs feed my Sheep If you have any love to Christ your Master see that none of his be lost by your default by want of any pains you could have taken wâ—th them in heat by day and cold by night for want of any admonition or instruction that you could have given them And be assured of thâ—s that if any of them perish by your carelesness and your neglect you will have a very sad account to make when the day of reckoning comes their blood will Jesus Christ require at your hands Oh let it not be said of you that you do not Custodire gregem sed perdere non pascere sed mactare Not keep the sheep but lose them not feed the flock but feed upon it Be sure that you be faithful to your great trust that you may give up your account with joy and that when Christ shall call
other side dilates the heart it spreads it and it widens it and consequently doth not only make it fit for duty but it makes it large in duty It makes it to abound and to exceed in every service that is suitable to joy It carries it beyond the ordinary rate And therefore Jesus Christ would have his people to be full of joy that they may be full of fruit and that they may abound in his service Is it so that Jesus Christ would have his people full of holy Joy Vse 1 Then first it serves to censure those who seek to hinder the Joy of Christs people and to imbitter all their comfort with spitefull molestations and vexations who like the Cananites are thorns in their sides and daggers at their hearts Jesus Christ would have his people to rejoice yea to be full of Joy as their very hearts can hold but they will not suffer it but alwayes seek as much as lies in them to interrupt their comfort and to disturb their peace and joy They disturb them by their persecutions with the hand and with the tongue and which is worse they disturb them by their sins They rail at holiness and holy men blaspheme religion and the name of Christ of purpose to disquiet and to vex his people who cannot choose but mourn and weep for these things Just like the Sodomites of whom the Apostle speaks 2 Pet. 2.8 who vexed the righteous soul of Lot from day to day with their filthy conversation But yet this difference we may observe they did not their prodigious villanies of purpose to disquiet Lot for ought we find What think we shall their portion be my brethren then who pass the Sodomites in villany whose wicked deeds are yet set forth for an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire Is it so that Jesus Christ would have his people full of holy Joy Vse 2 Then in the second place it taxeth such among the Lords people who waste away themselves in heaviness and discontent who are so far from promoting the design of Christ in this particular that they rather strive to cross him and even waste away their hearts in pleasing sadness and affected discontent and surely there are many such among Christs own people who even give themselves over to sorrow and wilfully thrust away this Joy from them Now I beseech you my beloved consider what the will of Christ is and let him have his will in this business use all means possible to have your hearts brim-full of holy Joy And to this end I shall prescibe you some directions Be conversant and studious in the word of Christ There is the fountain of living waters whence every may draw sufficient to refresh his fainting soul in all his troubles and afflictions The statutes of the Lord are right saith David rejoycing the heart Psal 19.8 Through comfort of the Scriptures we have hope saith Paul Rom. 15.4 Philosophers indeed have taught us many wayes to fence and fortifie our hearts against sorrow But when the Lord shall set afflictions home upon the soul and put a sting into them too there is nothing in the world that can cement and cheer us but the comfort that is fetched out of the Scriture We may run in our distress to other means as Saul when he was with a melancholy humor to the minstrel but we shall find that nothing goes the right way and that we grasp at nothing but some empty succors of contentment unless we comfort our selves with these words as the Apostle Paul speaks 1 Thess 4. ult David was cut short of nothing that the world could have afforded to revive his drooping spirit yet he professeth freely that he must have fainted unless he had been staid with better comfort Vnless thy Word had been my comfort I should have perished in my affliction Psal 119.92 And in another place he cries out Remember thy Word unto thy servant upon which then hast caused me to hope this is my comfort my only comfort in my trouble Psal 119.49 50. And therefore at this Fountain let us draw if we mean to have comfort but chiefly let us wait upon the publick preaching of the Word of God which is called the Ministry of reconciliation in which there are divulged glad tidings of good things which should carry something in the power and efficacy of it to work joy For God doth commonly dispense it rather by the way of hearing them by the way of reading the Scriptures And hence saith David Make me to hear of joy and gladness that so the bones that thou hast broken may rejoyce Psal 51.8 It is the Publique Ordinance it is the Publique Ordinance that is the Interpreter one of a thousand that comforts the dejected soul as you may see Job 33.23 Imploy your serious thoughts upon the meditation and survey of that delitious place where there is fulness of all joy and pleasures for evermore into which you that are Christs assoon as you are past through the veil of tears shall enter and there continue and abide for ever There is the place where you shall sigh and weep and mourn no more where all your tears will be wiped away from your eyes and surely did you think upon this joy with which you shall be filled there to over-flowing this would preserve you here from being swallowed up with over-much sorrow we rejoyce saith the Apostle How not in the fruition No in the hope of the glory of God Rom. 15.4 Indeed the Saints of God while they compass and carry their afflictions according to their present state are very pensive and disconsolate and so at once they do an injury to Christ who hath reserved such pretious comforts for them in the world to come And to themselves who have received good assurance that they shall certainly enjoy them in their season but did they walk by faith and not by sight did they not look so much upon the difficulties that they meet with in the way but on the things that are not seen the invisible pleasures of which they shall be made partakers in the end they should soon find cause enough of joy unspeakable and glorious yea even amidst the greatest tribulation of this present life you see how frolike the poor Worldling is if he have gotten a few thousand pounds and built a goodly house and bought a little earth about it and yet his title to it is so uncertain and unsound that the very following night for ought he knows the Lord may turn him out of all and take away his soul from him and make him roar in Hell before the morning But you who by the hand and seal and earnest of the Lord himself have a most certain title to that happiness and joy which neither tongue of men or Angels can express if you have but a wicked disobedient child a froward wife a sickly body or a low estate do waste away your lives in heaviness and discontent and so
truth thy word is truth And here we have two things to be considered A Supplication and an Explication First We have here our Saviours Supplication to his Father in behalf of his Apostles and Disciples Sanctifie them through thy truth And then we have this Explication in which he shews what he intends by truth viz. the word of God Sanctifie them with thy truth thy word is truth Begin we with the Supplication in which you may take notice with me of these two particulars First the thing desired Sanctification Sanctifie them saith our Saviour And then the outward instrumental means by which he prayes they may be sanctified the truth of God that is the word as he explains it afterwards Sanctifie them through thy truth Both yeild us our this Observation DOCTRINE The word of God is the ordinary Means by which he Sanctifies his people It is the instrument in Gods hands by which he doth this great work He sanctifies them he is the God of all grace he calleth and he makes perfect stablisheth strengthneth settleth them But he doth it by this means according to our Saviours prayer here Sanctifie them through thy truth And here I shall distinctly cleer these two things First that the word of God is the ordinary Means by which he sanctifies his people in a way of inchoation by which he begins that work in them by which he converteth them regenerates them and makes them to become new creatures And this we find abundantly exemplified in the times of the Apostle how mightily the word of God prevailed to the Conversion of their hearers and to the working of unfeigned faith and grace in them You may behold three thousand sinners wrought upon by one Sermon Acts 2.41 And yet again as if these had been a few five thousand by another Sermon Acts 4.4 And hence it is my brethren that the word is called the word of grace because it works grace in Gods people But whether this be the work of the Law or of the Gospel whether one or both of them be the ordinary means by which God sanctifies his people will need to be a little further opened and resolved And I shall shew you from the Scripture that both of them are instruments in Gods hand by which he sanctifies his people 1. God sanctifies his people preparatively by the Law The Law converts and worketh grace by way of preparation It shews a man his sin and his trangression it emptieth him of all opinion of himself it humbles him and layes him low in apprehension of his own unworthiness And so indeed it makes him fit to entertain the grace of God for he will give his grace unto the humble John Baptists rough and rigid preaching of the Law you know my brethren must prepare the way for Christ He must be like a Pioner to go before him to bring down every high exalted thought to make the Mountains levell with the Valleyes He must be like a Harbinger to ride before and take up room for Jesus Christ to write his name upon the heart This heart is taken up for Christ To cause these everlasting doors to be set open to him when he comes And when the heart is thus prepared thus emptied and thus opened once then it is fit for Jesus Christ with all the graces of his spirit to enter in and dwell there And this is all that God doth by the Law he sanctifieth men by way of preparation and predisposition only But 2. The means by which he sanctifieth them indeed and works the truth and the reality of saving grace in them is the preaching of the Gospel and therefore the Apostle puts the question to the renewed Galathians Gal. 3.2 This only would I learn of you saith he received ye the spirit by the works of the Law or by the hearing of faith q. d. for this I appeal to you I put the matter to your consciences whether the saving graces of the spirit were not first wrote in you by the hearing of faith that is by hearing the doctrine of faith which is the Gospel And hence the Gospel is sometimes called the grace of God as you may see that place for instance Titus 2.11 and that not formaliter for so the Gospel is not neither can it be the grace of God neither that grace which is in God I mean his free and undeserved favour nor yet that grace which is communicated and dispensed from him to us I mean the gifts of his spirit whether they be such as appertain to edification or sanctification but effective as the School-men speak the Gospel is the grace of God because the grace of God is the effect and issue of the Gospel The Gospel is the instrumental means of grace and holiness which it effecteth under God and worketh in the hearts of his people And under this expression it is set in opposition to the Law For as the Law doth not reveal the grace of God in Jesus Christ the Mediator and Redeemer as the Gospel doth so neither doth it work the grace of God I mean the saving gifts of his spirit and therefore it is called the Ministration of the Letter and not the Ministration of the Spirit because there goes no spirit with it Or if it carry any of the spirit with it it is the spirit of fear and bondage and legal humiliation and not the spirit of adoption and sanctification But on the other side the Gospel carries spirit in the ministration of it which it conveyes into the heart of those that hear it and embrace it as they ought to do It operateth and begetteth the endowments of the spirit and worketh grace and sanctification And as the word of God is the ordinary means by which he begins the work of Sanctification So it is the means also by which he carries on the same work to further measures and degrees They were sanctified already for whom our Saviour makes this prayer in my text the work was begun in them they were his own Apostles and Disciples and yet for them he prays sanctifie them with thy Truth q. d. Sanctifie them yet more fully make them yet more gratious and more humble and more holy by a more full discovery of the Truth revealed in thy Word to them Sanctifie them with thy truth thy Word is truth Indeed the Word my Brethren as it is incorruptible seed by which men are regenerate and born again to God as the Apostle shews 1 Pet. 1.23 Being born again not of corruptible but incorruptible seed by the Word of God so it is milk which nourishes and makes them thrive and grow while they are but babes in Christ and it is also strong meat on which they feed until they come ad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to a perfect man to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ This for clearing of the point proceed we to the Application Vse 1 Is it so That the Word of God is
his Priesthood must of necessity be co-extended and so for whomsoever he is a Priest to sacrifice for them also he is a Priest to intercede as he hath offered up himself for them so he hath offered up his prayers for them and will do to the worlds end Use And this to give you but a touch of Application may serve to hearten us exceedingly when we are are putting up our prayers for them who are as yet without the pale who have as yet no faith or grace at all in them It may be they are neer to us Parents Children Husbands Wives and we are often carried out in prayer for them that God would yet shew mercy to them that he would yet prevail upon them and cause them to come in to Jesus Christ That he would break their stubborn lusts and work unfeigned faith in them And while we are breathing out our souls to God in such a way as this is we are surpized with distrustful thoughts that we shall never speed in this request of ours God will never be entreated and so upon a sodain our affections cool our hearts grow dead and flat within us In such a case as this is it may be some encouragement and comfort to consider that Jesus Christ for ought we know hath prayed and may be praying to the Father for the very same person though for the present he believe not yet he may be such an one as shall believe as is appointed to believe in after-times And then he is as you have heard within the compass of our Saviours Intercession so that the prayers that we make for him are seconded by Christ in heaven While we are asking such a child or such a friend of God it may be Christ is asking him or her of God too according to the Covenant of the Father with the Son Ask of me and I will give thee And therefore let us not grow cold or faint in such a suit as this is but let us follow and pursue it to the utmost Let us not cease to pray for such a person let us not cast him out of our prayers whom Jesus Christ hath not cast out of his I pray saith he for such as shall believe and this for ought we know may be one of that number And thus far of the first particular by which our Saviour Christ describeth those for whom he prays viz. the time of their believing They are not such as did believe when Christ put up this supplication for them to the Father but such as should believe in after-times Proceed we to the second thing by which he sets them forth and that is by the Spirit of this faith of theirs they should believe in Jesus Christ Neither pray I for these alone saith Christ here but for them also which shall believe on me He doth not say for them which shall believe on God or for them which shall believe the Word of God but for them which shall believe on me so that the point to be observed is this DOCTRINE That true Believers do pitch their Faith on Jesus Christ and make him the object of it Christ is the object of a true beleiving faith So he is represented in my Text you see The faithful do beleive on him It 's true indeed that faith in general which even Reprobates and Devils have looks with an equal eye on all the Book of God assenteth to the truth of all in gross But justifying faith whith is the faith whereof we speak picks out this special object Jesus Christ which is imbraced and received By him saith the Apostle Paul that is by Christ and none but him all that believe are justified from all those things from which they could not have been justified by the Law of Moses Act. 13.39 The Law will never justifie us but condemn us No we are justified by faith in Christ and him alone who is revealed and manifested to us in the Gospel The Rightousness of God that is the righteousness which makes us righteous the righteousness of man will never do it No it must be the righteousness of God himself This is ours by faith in Christ as the Apostle shews Rom. 3.22 He that believeth in the Son hath life Joh. 3. ult Observe it well he saith not in the Father nor the Holy Ghost though certainly we must believe in both these But Christ is the immediate object of the faith which justifieth or of it as it justifieth He that believeth in the Son hath life the life of holiness and the life of righteousness for both of them are very clearly meant in that place Object But you will say perhaps Is not the Word of God and is not God himself and is not everlasting life the object of our faith how then is Christ as I have said and Christ alone the next and the immediate object of it Sol. To this because it is compounded as it were of divers things I must answer divers ways 1. For the Word of God that is not properly the object of the faith that justifieth but is so called by a figure because it holds forth and exhibits Christ who is indeed the proper object of this justifying faith Or secondly the Word of God although it may in some respects be called the object of faith that justifieth yet not qua justificat not as it justifieth as the School speaks It 's true that justifying faith believeth other things propounded in the Word of God But faith as it justifieth lays hold on Christ and him only not knowing any other thing here but Jesus Christ and him crucified 2. As for the second thing propounded in the Querie True it is that God the Father is the Object of our faith I mean the faith which justifyeth but not the next and the immediate Object of it Christ must be first laid hold upon and God in Christ Such trust have we through Christ in God saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 3.4 Even Turks and Jews and Arrians boast of faith in God you know amd yet because they apprehend not Jesus Christ they miserably lose their own souls He that denyeth and so by consequence believes not in the Son can never have the Father as you may see 1 John 2.23 He is like a man goes about to grasp a thing that is too big for him a large and smooth round-bodyed Cup it slips away out of his fingers whereas he might have held it by the handle The faith which justifies us my beloved apprehendeth Christ receiveth and layeth hold on him and then as it is added in the fore-alledged Scripture He that hath the Son hath the Father also 3. As for the third particular propounded whether salvation and eternal life be the object of our faith To say the truth salvation and eternal life is not so properly believed as hoped for Nor can it be so fitly called the object as the consequent and end of faith So the Apostle calls it 1 Pet.
wicked such as are given up to strong delusions and to vile affections and leaveing them to the hardness of their hearts to walk according to their own counsels but such as make them fit for the inheritance with Saints in light and work out for them a far more exceeding and transcendent weight of glory God the Father loves believers infinitely even as he doth love Christ his love is like himself nay indeed it is himself for whatsoever is affirmed of God is God And therefore the Apostle saith that God is love 1 John 4.16 so that if any ask Whether God love believers as much as he loves Christ I answer there are no degrees in that which is infinite He loves believers out of measure beyond measure and just so he loves Christ Indeed there are degrees in the effects and declaration of the love of God and this way it is certain God hath shewed more love to Christ then he doth to true believers and yet they share together with him in most of these expressions of his love to him They share together with him in his grace of his fulness they receive and grace for grace They share together with him in his glory as I shewed you very lately And as his glory is eternal so is theirs an exceeding and an eternall weight of glory God the Father loves believers under the same relations that he loves Christ and so in that respect it is the same love He loves them even as he loves Christ Doth he love Christ as his chosen and elect for so he calls him Isa 42.1 why so he loves believers too Doth he love Christ as his servant so he loves believers too Doth he love Christ as his Son so he loves believers too Nay to go beyond Relations doth he love Christ as himself because he is one with him so he loves bevers too for they are one with him in Christ So that you see it plain enough that God the Father loves believers even as c. And it must needs be so For Reason 1 He loves them in Christ Indeed my brethren did he love them as distant and separate from Christ then he might love them with another kind of love But since he loves them as in Christ and so loves Christ and them as one together not asunder but together both must have the same love As he that loves his friend cannot distinguish of the love he bears the head and the remainder of the body so Christ the head and Christ the body as the Church is called with Christ 1 Cor. 12.12 are both involved and wrapt up together in the same love He loves them not asunder but together and therefore certainly he doth not love them differently as to the kind of the affection but alike Christ is his beloved Son in whom he is well pleased not with whom he is well pleased but in whom he is well pleased with all that are in him and that are members of his body Whom he loves he loves in him and therefore whom he loves he loves as him even as he loveth him Reason 2 As God the Father loves believers in Christ so he loves them through Christ and therefore loves them as Christ His love goes through Christ to them in the first place he love Christ and then he loves them through Christ so that is the same for kind at least wherewithall he loves Christ He is the way from God to us the pipe the mean conveyance between God and us and that which he receieveth from the Father as Head and Mediator of the Church he conveyeth down to us The very same and no other The same grace which he receives from God the Father for himself and all his members he conveyeth down to them The same glory which he receives from God the Father he bestows on them as I have shewed you And so the same love which comes flowing from the Father into him he carries down to them too By which it is apparent that God loves believers even as he loves Christ JOHN 17.23 And thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me AND thus far we came on the last occasion by way of explication of the Point Proceed we now to the Application of it according to the branches of the explication in their order Is it so that God the Father loves believers as really and truly as he Vse 1 loves Christ This then should teach us in the first place to depend upon him in all cases and not to doubt him or distrust him who is true and reall to us It s that which we are very subject to when we are brought to streights and difficulties and distresses our hearts are shaken presently and our faith in God fails we are affraid that God will serve us as unfaithfull friends are wont to do when the time of tryal comes That he will leave us succourless in our distresses Oh my beloved I beseech you take heed how you wrong God how you give way to one suspicious thought of him who is so real in his love to you It is an injury of which he cannot choose but be infinitely tender and that the rather and the more because his heart is so unfeignedly endeared to us As friends who love us tenderly if we be alwayes jealous of them it troubles them exceedingly they know not how to take it at our hands so do but think how grievous it will be to God who loves us as he doth his own Son to be suspected still on all occasions and to have his love questioned And therefore seeing God is such a faithfull friend let us commit our selves and all our wayes to him and let us cast our selves upon him without fear in all cases Seeing he loves us really let us trust him perfectly And let us so behave our selves in all conditions that we may make it to appear that we rely upon him fully without the least suspition of his love to us Is it so that God the Father loves believers as really and truly as he Vse 2 loves Christ This then should teach us in the second place to love him truly and really again To be as far as it is possible as undissembled and sincere and cordial in our love to him as he is in his love to us Oh my beloved let us not answer true love with feigned love nor real with pretended love that would be an ill requital We all profess a great deal of affection to the Lord we say we love him but if he should examine us and sift us man by man as once our Saviour did Peter Lovest thou me dost thou love me dost thou indeed could we reply with him Oh Lord thou knowest that we love thee Thou knowest that our hearts are right to thee If God should ask us as Jehu did Jehonadab 2 Kings 10.25 Is thine heart right as my heart is with thy heart can you reply as he It is So you may think indeed and yet
such grounds and reasons as his spirit naturally is not likely to suggest because they do not any way concern him as a natural man as when upon the apprehension of some great dishonour that will come to God if such a thing should be denyed a man is much enlarged and quickned in his prayers yea when his prayers are against his natural desires when he is earnest with the Lord in secret to help him to pluck out a right eye or to cut off a right hand to mortifie and curse and kill those lusts and those corruptions which naturally are extreamly dear to him and that upon such grounds and motives wherein there is no self respect When he shall seriously and sincerely beg the Lord to give but a little wealth a little honour if he perceive that more will do him spiritual hurt that it will puff him up and make him proud as Agur did Give me not riches feed me with food convenient for me left I be full and deny thee and say Who is the Lord this man is like to act by Christs Spirit If we act by Christs Spirit in our prayers we strive most for spiritual things What do you think the Spirit of Christ will make us long more after earth and earthly things then Christ himself that it will make us more importunate for wealth then grace more earnest after temporal and worldly blessings then after those spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus as the Apostle calls them Ephes 1.3 Is it a likely thing my Brethren that the Spirit should make us struggle more for bodily and outward things then for those things that are more agreeable and suitable to it more near to its own nature I make no question David acted by the Spirit in that Petition and request of his Psal 4.6 There be many that will say Who will shew us any good you must conceive it any temporal or worldly good many that look after this But this is that which I desire saith he Lord lift upon me the light of thy countenance and when thou hast done this Thou hast put gladness in my heart much more then in the hearts of worldly men when their corn and wine increaseth If we act by Christs-Spirit we pray for temporal and worldly things in reference to spiritual ends They that have the Spirit of Christ and they that are devoid of it do both pray for earthly blessings For there are promises of these as well as of the other But now the difference lies in this both aim not at the same ends He that hath the Spirit of Christ desires these outwards blessings moderately with submission that he may serve God with them that he may promote his ends that he may be the abler instrument to help his Church to support his people to advance his glory to appear for his cause Even these desires of his are spiritual although not for the matter of them at least for the end of them But now my brethren on the other side he that hath not Christs spirit desires these outward blessings that he may consume them on his Lusts as the Apostle speaks Jam. 4.3 Ye ask and receive not because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your lusts That you may make provision for the flesh with it and that it may be oyle to nourish and to feed the sinfull flames that are within you And thus it is my brethren with a multitude of men they pray to God for some thing to bestow upon their sensual appetite to serve their carnal turns to satisfie their brutish and voluptuous pleasures and desires They would be in place and power that they may raise their names and families that they may swell and swagger over their inferiours that they may plague their enemies and pleasure those that are observant of them They would have wealth and riches in abundance that they may swimm in full delights and fare delitiously every day Agur measures the conveniency or inconveniency of his outward state as it would fit him more or less for Gods service Not poverty least I deny thee not riches left I forget thee But these men measure it by nothing but their sensual appetite and so their prayers serve their lusts and they would have God himself to serve them too if they could prevail with him And are such desires as these like to be raised by the spirit of Christ what will the spirit stir men up to pray for any thing to nourish and maintain the flesh the carnall part which is the spirits enemy The flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit lusteth against the flesh for those two are contrary one to another And will the spirit notwithstanding strive for that which shall uphold and feed those lusts against which the spirit lusteth Believe it brethren they that pray for any blessings to maintain their lusts with them their pride intemperance c. do not act by Christs spirit Object But you will ask me then How shall we know whether we pray for blessings to consume them on our Lusts how shall we discern that I shall give you some discoveries 1. If you will observe deal impartially and freely with your selves you shall know it by your thoughts The end is first in the intention and last in execution and therefore certainly the heart works much upon it Now my beloved consider what runneth often in your thoughts when you are sick and pray for health and continuance of your lives are your aimes as Davids were that you may praise and glorifie the Lord among the living Psal 6.5 as Hezekiahs were Loth he was to die poor man but wherefore was he so averse from death The grave cannot praise thee death cannot celebrate Isa 38.18 Or do you feed your minds with nothing but pre-apprehensions of the carnal pleasure and delight and satifaction you shall have when you recover So when you pray for outward things do you entertain your spirits with pleasing dreams of honour and ambition by this you may discover what your aims are 2. You shall discern it by the manner of your prayers whether you pray for blessings to consume them on your lusts or no. If so you will be absolute and peremptory in your prayers Carnal desires will make the spirit of a man impetuous and impatient of denial He that aims at satisfaction of his lusts will not be at Gods disposal there will be no sweet submission to the will of God No he must have this or that and he cannot bear a check as Rachel must have children or she dies when once the heart is set on any thing that serves to feed a sensual appetite whether it be the lust of the flesh or the lust of the eye it is violently bent and it must not be denyed 3. You shall discover it by the effect I mean the use of those external blessings which you pray for you pray for health you pray for riches
and the like and you receive them at the hands of God he gives you the desire of your hearts in these things Well now consider with your selves what use you put them to when you have gotten them and what bills you bring in What so much health and so much strength bestowed upon the prosecution of your worldly and ambitious projects and designs so much means and so much time upon riot and excess Item so much upon your pride and so much upon your lusts and so much upon the satisfaction of your malice and revenge so much upon Hawks and Hounds and Whores but nothing upon God his Cause or his poor distressed servants Are these the bills that you bring in to God and will you own them in the latter day Brethren by your layings out you may discover to what intent you have prayed for outward blessings whether to consume them on your Lusts or no And if that hath been your end the spirit hath not been your principle in these petitions If we act by Christs spirit we keep a constant course in prayer We do not pray by fits and starts as Job observeth of the Hyppocrite who hath not Christs spirit Job 27.10 Will he delight in the Almighty will be alwayes call on God No he will be on and off in this duty Our spirits are unconstant and unstable my beloved but Christs spirit is 〈◊〉 not so And hence it is that they that pray by their own spirits are so uncertain in the duty many times Sometimes their spirits stir them up to pray and sometimes they do not Though there be differences in this too for some mens spirits naturally are more ready and more fixed then others are And there may be other things as fear and strong conviction and the like that may hold some certain men almost to a continued practice of the outward duty yet it is very rare that he is constant who acts by his own spirit But now my brethren he that acts by Christs spirit is a steady man in prayer he can appeal to God as David doth Psal 40.9 I have not restrained my Lips Oh Lord thou knowest Christs spirit dwells in him he doth not sojourn in him for a time but he dwells in him as in his fixed and his setled habitation and he dwells in him as a spirit of supplication So the spirit of Christ is called Zech. 12.10 And hence it is that he is alwayes putting him upon the duty upon all occasions so that he is constant in it Christs spirit is at home still though ours be wandring many times even to the other end of all the earth And though Christs spirit seem to be given sometimes as a spirit of consolation yet then he will be present as a spirit of supplication He will set a Saint to prayer even when he seems most indisposed and averse he will not suffer him to lay it by and wholly to neglect the duty as is observable in David I said that I am cut off from before thine eyes saith he Psal 31.22 Nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my prayer Even then I prayed to thee when I was in that temper so in another place from the end of the earth will I cry unto thee even when my heart is overwhelmed Psal 61.2 And whence proceedeth this my brethren surely these prayers of all others flow from Christs spirit as the Apostle teacheth Rom. 8.20 The spirit helpeth our infirmities We know not what to pray for as we ought but then the spirit it self makes intercession for us with sighs and groans that cannot be exprest If we act by Christs spirit we come to God as to a Father we cry Abba Father to him as you have it Gal. 4.6 Because ye are Sons saith the Apostle God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts And what doth that spirit there you have it in the next verse crying Abba Father So that Christs spirit if he act in us makes us address our selves to God as to a Father And that my brethren carries two things in it This spirit makes us come to God with the expectations of Children and with the affections of Children 1. If Christs spirit act in us he makes us come to God in prayer with Child-like expectations Expecting from him all the mercy pitty and compassion which a Child can look for from his own Father He makes us to approach the throne of grace with great assurance of audience and acceptance and success there commonly he doth this 2. But yet I must confess An hypocrite may sometimes have these expectations and a child of God may want them The Jews had Child-like expectations Jer. 3.4 they cryed to God Thou art my Father and wilt not thou that art my Father pitty me and help me sure thou wilt and yet they had no Child-like affections no care at all to please God and therefore it is added in the next words that they said and did as evill as they could But now my brethren he that acts by Christs spirit as he hath Child-like expectations so he hath Child-like affections or if at any time he want his Child-like expectations yet still he hath his Child-like affections Though he be in such a case that he is verily perswaded for the present that God will neither own him nor regard him nor look upon him as a Son yet he loves God still He hath a Childs heart to God even when he thinks that God hath not a Fathers heart to him Though he seem to frown upon him and to hide his face and to turn away his prayers yet he hath dear affections to the Lord notwithstanding all this And this appears by the trouble he is in at God displeasure it grieves him so that he is sick of love as the poor Church was Cant. 2.5 when Christ withdrew himself a while this was her grief I sought him whom my soul loveth I will go into the City and seek him whom my soul loveth I said unto the watchmen Did ye see him whom my soul loveth And so when God withdraws himself from such a one as is endued with his spirit the very soul of such a person loves him still when he is very much afraid that he shall never find God more that God will never shew him favour more when he hath lost his Child-like expectations yet still he maintains his Child-like affections JOHN 17.24 That they also whom thou hast given me be with me c. AND thus far of the manner of our Saviours prayer Proceed we to the matter of it And here we have the persons that he prayes for those whom thou hast given me And then the thing that he desires in the behalf of those persons that they also may be with me where I am As for the persons whom our Saviour prayes for you see they are described here by the Fathers giving them to Jesus Christ Let them be what they will in all considerations and
respects besides it matters not in this of what Nation Condition Station Disposition or Conversation for the present if God have given them to him his will is that they be with him where he is But then we must distinguish as we have done before of the Fathers giving to the Son The Father gives men to the Son either for outward Ministration or inward union and incorporation Either to be his servants or to be his members In the first sence Judas was himself given to the Lord Christ to be his Minister and his Apostle as Christ himself acknowledges ver 12. Those whom thou gavest me I kept and none of of them is lost but the Son of perdition Now they who in this sence are given to the Lord Christ to be his Ministers and Servants only not his members are not the men for whom he prayes in this place that they also may be with him where he is because he knows they are appointed for another place Judas was so bestowed upon him and yet he was a lost Creature The Father gave him to the Son and he lost him as you may see in the forecited Text never to enjoy him more But now there are another sort whom God the Father gives to Christ for inward union whom he bestows upon him for to be members of his body And they must needs be with him who are in him And therefore out of question these are they for whom he prayes Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am But where was Christ when he spake these words Why he was upon the earth he was here in the world what then doth he desire that true believers might be with him here Is that the aim of his petition No it is a higher thing for which he is Suitor here their being with him in a higher and more glorious place Only you must conceive him here to speak as his usual manner is as if he were in heaven already As ver 11. of this Chapter And now I am no more in the world So in my Text Father I will that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am That is in heaven where I am to be and whither I am now going So that it is as if I were already there it being such a certain near approaching instant thing and in that place I would have all those to be whom thou hast given me by election and whom in thine eternal Counsell and Decree thou hast appointed to be members of my body Father I will c. So that the Point to be observed is this DOCTRINE It is the will of Jesus Christ that all that are his own by the donation of the Father shall be in heaven where he is There are two things in the Doctrine which I might prove clear in order before I come to Application First that there are some certain men whom God the Father hath made over to the Son that belong to Jesus Christ and are his own by donation from the Father Secondly that it is the will of Christ that they who are so his own shall be in heaven where he is There are some certain men who belong to Jesus Christ who are his own by donation from the Father And he gives them to the Son by his Decree from everlasting and by the execution of the same Decree in time This I do but mention here because it hath been largely handled on ver 12. Now for the second branch that it is the will of Christ that they who are so his own shall be in heaven where himself is you see it is the Suit he makes to God the Father in my Text Father I will that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that is in heaven where I am to be In heaven where I am already in my Godhead and where I am to be very shortly in my Manhood there I will have them to be also And for this end our Saviour Christ is gone to heaven even to make heaven ready for his people that so they may be presently admitted when they come He yields it as one special cause of his departure from his Apostles and Disciples when he was about to leave them saith he I go to prepare a place for you Joh. 4.2 When he entred into heaven and passed in to the immediate presence of his Father he took possession of it in our name and stead and left it open after him to all his members He hath in this respect prepared it for them that he hath made it ready to receive them And when they are ready too he will come and receive them to himself that where he is there may they be also as it is added Joh 14.3 And upon this account it was that the Apostle Paul desired to be dissolved because he was assured that assoon as that was over he should be with Christ Phil. 1.23 and so he teaches us expresly in another place that all that sleep in Christ Jesus shall be for ever with the Lord 1 Thes 4.17 By which it is apparent that it is the will of Christ that all that are his own by the donation of the Father shall be in Heaven where himself is But you will ask me Why will he have them to be there To this I answer that a man would think it necessary by reason of the union between Christ and them that seeing they are one they should be in one place But you must know my brethren that the corporeal and local presence of the parties contributes nothing to the union that is made between Christ and his members which is a spiritual and invisible thing and which no neerness in regard of place can further no distance in regard of place can hinder So that Christs people may be in him though they be not with him in the sence wherein I speak I mean not with him in the same place Their being with him locally in heaven is no way necessary to their union with him Or were it so the Saints on earth were in a very ill case Well then this cannot be the reason why Christ would have his people to be in one place with him that they may be one with him They may be this without the other But there are divers other weighty reasons of the Point I shall name a few of them Reason 1 Christ would have his people be in heaven where himself is because he hath a dear affection to them his heart is carried out exceedingly in love to them And more particularly and distinctly he loves them with a love of benevolence and he loves them with a love of complacency 1. Christ would have his people be in heaven where himself is because he loves them with a love of benevolence With such a love as makes him with them all the good that they are possibly capable of Now my beloved what greater good can be
inclined to it by his inward Disposition he hath a self propensity to righteous dealing The righteous Lord loveth righteousness Psal 11.7 his very heart is set upon it as he acteth without so he affecteth it within There are many in the world that do justice who yet do not love justice They execute it out of Politick respects and reasons only or out of affectation of applause with men not out of inward inclination and affection The Judge of whom our Saviour Christ makes mention Luk. 18.2 did the poor widdow justice and yet he calls him an unjust Judge because he did not execute it out of love to justice but himself To wit that he might quit himself and rid his hands of the unwearied importunities of such a sutor as would not give him rest till he had done it Because this widow troubleth me I will avenge her not because her cause is just His aim was not to do her right but obtain his own quiet But herein God excells he doth justice and that because he loves justice He doth not execute it by compulsion and constraint or out of by-sinister ends but out of the affection that he bears it and the dear regard he hath to it And this is that which he professeth of himself Isai 16.8 I the Lord love judgement Vse 1 Is God a very just and righteous God This then may serve to quiet us and calm our troublous and tumultuous thoughts about the great disorders and confusions that we discover in the world It may preserve us from repining against God and charging him foolishly What though the wicked prosper in the world what though their eyes stand out with fatness while the people of the Lord are troubled and afflicted and distressed Will you presume to question Gods Justice Rather conclude the Lord is righteous and where you cannot fathom his proceedings cry out with the Apostle Paul O the depth and the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgements and his ways past finding out Let Davids error be your caution I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperous state of wicked men Psal 73.3 They are not in trouble neither are they plagued like other men But as for me I have washt my hands in vain for all the day long I have been plagued and chastned every morning It was no fair and equal dealing as it seemed to him he knew not what to make of these proceedings And where was Jeremiah when reasoning with him of his judgements as he calls it Jer. 12.1 he thus expostulateth the case Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously He could conceive no reason for it and therefore takes upon him to call the Lord to coram how he could warrant his proceedings If such blasphemous thoughts assault us my Beloved let us remember that of Austin The judgements of the Lord are aliquando aperta aliquando ecculta semper justa sometimes secret sometimes open always just yea just when they are secret when with the Prophet Jeremiah we cannot see the reason of his judgements And let us have it always in our thoughts that the time is drawing on when the justice of the Lord which in this present life is cover'd and obscur'd shall be revealed and made bare-fac't to the world to wit at the great day of retribution which is therefore called in Scripture The day of Revelation of the just judgement of God which here is hid in the prosperity of the wicked and the pressures of the righteous Is God a very just and righteous God Then let it comfort and encourage Vse 2 those who are abused and injured and opprest by them who are too strong and mighty for them so that they know not which way in the world to help themselves against them Consider with your selves you who are in this condition though others do you wrong yet God will surely do you right and he will do it readily for he takes delight in it He hath prepared his Throne for judgement and he shall judge the world in righteousness saith David Psal 9.8 And what doth he infer upon it He will be a refuge to the oppressed And therefore let all those that are oppressed fly to this refuge and let the righteousness of God support them and uphold them against the wicked and unrighteous dealing that they find from men He loveth righteousness and therefore he will surely do you right he hateth iniquity and therefore he will surely punish them that do you wrong And therefore go and cry to him tell him how you are used by those that over-power you in the world and that you have no friends nor means to help your selves and so beseech him earnestly to shew himself and to appear for you say as Hezekiah did Isa 38.14 O Lord I am opprest undertake for me and be confident of this that you cannot easily put any business into the hands of God that he takes more delight to do O it is a thing that pleaseth him exceedingly he loves it dearly to do them right that suffer wrong and to avenge the wrong they suffer upon those that do it He loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity yea the less able you are to relieve and help your selves the more he loves to do you justice And therefore takes upon himself the special care of those who are most destitute of earthly succour as the fatherless and widdows and the like A Father of the fatherless and a judge of the widdows is God in his holy habitation Psal 68.5 Vse 3 Is God a very just and righteous God This then may be a motive and inducement to us to stand no longer out against him but to come in to him and become his subjects It is a great advantage to the subject and a special benefit when he that is invested with Supream authority and power will not abuse it any way to the damage of his people Our earthly Governors are very seldom so upright but they will strain their power a little now and then and it may be not a little to incroach and to intrench upon the liberty upon the property upon the rights and priviledges of the Subject But God my Brethren is a righteous God yea he is so incomparably just that though he be Omnipotent and doth what pleaseth him in heaven and earth so that none can stay his hand nor say unto him What dost thou By means of which Almightiness of his he might oppress his subjects at his own pleasure and need not fear that they will rise against him to recover and resume their right from him Yet he doth nothing else but right to them he doth not injure them or wrong them any way Yea he ruleth righteously not out of politick respects and reasons only but out of inward inclination and affection O my Beloved who would not be subject to such a King as this is
an image and a pattern of that holiness which is originally and compleatly in the Lord who hath in this respect all beauty in him Yea it is called the glory of the Lord Rom. 3.23 All have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God which shined in us in the state of innocency Indeed my brethren he hath in him the Sum and the perfection of beauty He hath all in him that doth win and raise nothing that cools or deadens the affection all things to invite nothing to avert love Others there are my brethren who have some things beautiful and comely to invite and draw love but other things uncomely and unbeautiful to keep it off Something or other there is in them that is odd unpleasing and so a bar and hindrance to affection Brethren it is not so with God he is all beautiful and all alluring altogether lovely Others are so in some respects but he is so in all respects He is altogether lovely the allurement of all hearts And the desire of all Nations Hag. 2.7 So he is always in the merit although he be not always so in the event Object But if God be so beautiful what is the reason that men do not love him Answ Because his name in this respect is not made known to them All men are naturally blind you know and blind men cannot judge of beauty until their eyes be anointed with the Eye-salve Apoc. 3.18 to make them see such beauty as this is The beauty of holiness is a spiritual beauty and that is not discerned by a natural Eye There must be a spiritual eye to see and to discern a spiritual beauty And when you have such eyes as these to see the beauty of the Lord your hearts will be enamoured on him you will be in the case the Church was you will be sick of love and say Lord turn away thine eyes for they have overcome us We cannot bear the dazling rayes of such beauty as thine is The goodness of the Lord is a part of his name and goodness being manifested and discovered is a means to draw love Now herein God excels my brethren he is good beyond pattern and beyond measure He is essentially good good without goodness as Austin speaks because indeed he is goodness it self The creatures be good but not goodness Their nature is good but goodness is not their nature But now the nature and substance of God is goodness it self so that he is essentially good and then he is also causally good as Psal 119.68 Thou art good and dost good Thou art good in thy self and thou dost good to the creature so that the earth is full of thy goodness He is eminently good so that whatsoever goodness is to be found among the creatures is eminently and transcendently in God himself Now goodness is the object of love and consequently the allective of affection If we have cause to fear God for his goodness as Hos 3. ult then surely we have much more cause to love him especially since he is not only good in himself but good to us If this part of his name be manifested and made known to us we cannot choose but love him and delight in him That phrase of the Apostle Paul is notable and may be very well applyed to our purpose Rom. 5.7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die but for a good man one would even dare to die Uprightness draws not love as goodness doth One man will hardly love another so much for his uprightness as to die for him but for his goodness manifested to himself on all occasions continually doing good to him he may come to love him so as even to lay down his life for him And even for this cause we shall love God and love him out of all measure so as even to die for him if this part of his name be fully manifested and made known to us The mercy of the Lord is a part of his name and this if it be manifested to us will beget love in us You know the Lord is said in Scripture to be merciful yea to be rich in mercy and that not only because the mercy that he hath is pretious but because there is abundance of this pretious mercy in him For both of these concur to riches there must be something that is pretious and there must be much of it and so it is with God in this case He hath a mass of mercy in him a bottomless and endless treasure such as the wants of all the world are never able to draw dry And as a rich man though he spend exceedingly yet because he hath a treasure the e is no failing no deficiency of his store so God though he communicate his mercy freely to the sons of men yet he cannot be exhausted no there is more behind still it is an infinite a bottomless an endless mercy A mercy that endures for ever Now this rich mercy God lays out as many other ways so chiefly in the pardon of our sins and hence we read of mercies and forgivenesses in God as Dan. 9.9 Mercies as the cause and fountain Forgivenesses as the effect and stream And both you see my brethren in the plural number to shew the over-flowing mercy of the Lord. Indeed my brethren there is mercy in all pardons but in the pardon and remission of the sins of Gods people there is admirable mercy And hence the Prophet wondred at it not knowing what to think or to say of it Who is a God like thee that pardoneth iniquity c. Mic. 7.18 The Prophet is transported and carryed out beyond himself in admiration And mark it well He doth not say There is no man like thee but there is no God like thee Indeed it goes beyond the mercy of any but the true living God to do this In which respect is that expression Hos 11.9 I will not execute the fierceness of my wrath for I am God and not man that speech of the Apostle Paul is full Ephes 1.7 We have remission of our sins according to the riches of his grace Now if this part of Gods name be made known to us it cannot choose but work love in us We love them who forgive us common debts especially if they be great we think that we can never do enough for them or manifest respect enough to them But we have cause to love him more who forgives us such debts as these are which if they should be rigorously exacted of us we were not able to discharge them but must be laid up under everlasting chains Oh my beloved how can this choose but draw out our affection to the Lord The woman in the Gospel had much forgiven her and what was the effect and issue of it Why she loved much Her love was answerable to her pardon Much was forgiven her and she loved much She was a great sinner and she had a large pardon and so accordingly she
the devil is in them He keeps the house as Christ speaks While the strong man keeps the house He keeps house in the hearts of wicked men the Devil himself is the house-keeper there there he dwells and there he works as the Apostle speaks Ephes 2.2 he worketh in them they are the Devils house the Devils shop they are the house where he dwells and the shop where he works I say while it is thus with other men while others have the Devil in them they have Jesus Christ in them The strong man is bound and dispossessed of his habitation The Prince of this world is cast out and Jesus Christ the King of glory is come in Ah my Beloved what a happiness is this I wish that I were able to express it to you to set it off as it deserves How would it ravish and transport you and make you to sit down in admiration at your blessedness in this world That you may guess a little at it review the things that have been hinted at before If Christ be in you faith is in you yea all saving grace is in you You are blessed with all spiritual blessings in that you have him in you You have a magazine a treasure of the graces of his holy Spirit So that you are inestimably rich and this riches is Christ in you as the Apostle speaks Col. 1.27 Not Christ without us but Christ within us by his graces is our riches If Christ be in you the Holy Ghost himself is in you as a Spirit of Illumination and a Spirit of Sanctification and as a Spirit of Consolation If you be ignorant you have one within you to enlighten you If you be impure if you have dregs of sin and of corruption in you you have one within you to sanctifie you if you be sad and comfortless you have one within you to comfort you the fountain and the spring of Consolation is within you so that he is at hand in all cases you need not faint or swound away while they fetch a cordial for you If Christ be in you God is in you your hearts are his Temples and the great God of heaven himself is the light and glory of them O blessed hearts that have God to dwell in them But more particulary yet 1. If Christ be in you you have most intimate and near acquaintance and Communion with him It is very much my brethren for Christ Jesus to be with you It was a pretious promise that he made to his Apostles Behold I am with you But for Christ Jesus to be in you is much more This importeth yet more close and sweet Communion Indeed the closest and the sweetest that can be You cannot choose but know him inwardly if he be in you 2. If Christ be in you you have free access to him you need not travail far to speak with Christ he is at hand continually for he is in you so that you may on all occasions make your addresses to him when you please If you have any supplication to present any complaint to make to him do but open your own hearts and you shall find Christ there 3. If you have Christ Jesus in you you are partakers of a confluence of all accommodations comforts satisfactions and delights that the poor heart can reasonably long for or look after For Jesus Christ hath all in him and brings all with him where he comes Indeed my Brethren he himself is all as the Apostle tells us Jesus Christ is all in all Col. 3.11 In all in whom he is my brethren he is all So that in having him we have all There is more in him alone to make us really and fully happy then in all the world without him 4. If Christ be in you as you are happy so you are secure there is no fear of falling from your happiness if you fall Jesus Christ falls with you for he is in you And this is that which makes our happiness in all respects accomplisht that as it is compleat and full so it is permanent and indeficient too The more excellent it is if it were not firm and stable the greater were the fear the greater were the misery of deprivation Fuisse faelicem to have been happy is the greatest unhappiness But this felicity my brethren is enduring In whomsoever Christ is he dwells there he doth not sojourn but he dwells there never to depart again The heart of such a man is his setled habitation of which he saith Here is my resting place here will I dwell for ever So that if Christ be in you you are safe for he will never leave you nor depart from you and then it is impossible that you should perish Ah my Beloved can a man be damned with Christ in him cast into hell with Christ in him separated from the Lord with Christ in him Christ willl not cannot leave him that is once in Christ so that if such a man should go to hell Christ must go to hell in him And now to shut up all since Christ is in you Let me give you this caution let him live quiet in your hearts do not molest him and disturb him there Do not make him vex and fret let it not be a pennance to him to continue in you Let him not suffer by your sins who suffer'd for them But labour every way to please him and to give him satisfaction and content that so the house which he hath chosen meerly for your sakes for he hath heaven to dwell in may not be dark and doleful but delightful to him And thus at length we have dispatched this heavenly Prayer of our Great High Priest and Intercessor Jesus Christ He was even ready to go forth to suffer when he made it Me thinks I hear him saying to his Apostles and Disciples The time is now at hand that I must leave you and be taken from the earth Come let us pray before we part and there withall he lifted up his eyes to heaven and poured out these holy breathings of his Spirit for himself and them Oh what a blessed frame of heart O what a choice and raised temper think you was he in at that time O what a Prayer must that be that was made by such a person in such a company on such an occasion Christ was in heaven in his thoughts and his affections when he uttered it and we have seemed sometimes to be in heaven too while we have handled it and heard it Well it hath been a sweet and precious subject as ever we have dealt upon I shall desire you to review it often and let not any choice impressions that have been made upon you by it out again Let them not be like lines drawn upon the sand no sooner formed but defaced like water spilt upon the ground that is not to be gathered up again Here you have seen the heart of Jesus Christ opened and his affections plentifully flowing out to his people Our prayers shew our hearts to Christ his prayer shews his heart to us Here you have seen how our dear Friend our Head our Husband loved us and had us in his mind and thoughts before he dyed Us I say who now believe as well as them that did believe in former times How earnest and importunate he is with God the Father that we may be one here and that we may be in one place hereafter O let us search into the heart of Jesus Christ laid open to us in this Abridgement of his Intercession for us that we may know it and the workings of it continually more and more until at length this precious Prayer come to have its full effect and we be taken up to be for ever with the Lord that where he is there may we be also Amen FINIS
we thrive apace in knowledge then we grow to perfectness then the Church of Christ goes up But till the stones be joined close together there will be no edifying that is in English no building It is of great concernment to the entertainment of Christ Jesus in the world that his Disciples be at nearest c. If they be alwayes wrangling and contending others will not come among them No they will stand off from them and from the Master which they serve if he be owned and followed by none but by a company of quarrelsome contentious people And hence is that Petition of our Saviour in behalf of his Apostles and Disciples at ver 23. of this Chapter In my text he prayes the Father that they may be one even as the Father and himself were one And in the cited verse he renews the same petition that they may all be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they may be one in us And why so That the world may believe that thou hast sent me q. d. If my disciples be not one among themselves if they be rent asunder by a spirit of division the world will not believe that I came forth from thee who art the God of love and peace that thou hast sent me down into the world to be a Mediator and a Peace-maker to make up all the breaches and the differences between thee and thy people They will look strangely upon me and I shall never bring them to believe that I am come on such an errand as this is And therefore I beseech thee Father that I may be entertained under the Notion of a Mediator that the world may believe that thou hast sent me on this business do thou take care that my Disciples may be at unity among themselves It is of great concernment to the happiness of Christs Disciples that they be at neerest c. Among the eight beatitudes the third in order falleth to the meek and peaceable Mat. 5.5 And if the meek and peaceable be blessed then certainly the fierce and furious are accursed It is a pretty observation of Ludolphus out of Bede on that place Heaven is promised to the pure blessed are the pure in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven Earth is promised to the meek Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth So there remaineth nothing else but hell for the contentious and impure spirit Ah my beloved would we avoid the curse and would we be partakers of the blessing would we have heaven and earth to be our portion Let us be pure and peaceable let us make and keep peace and so the blessing of the God of peace will be upon us And therefore David having broken out into a passionate and pithy commendation of the unity of brethren behold how good and pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity it is like pretious oyntment c. Psal 133.2 he shuts up all with this conclusion There the Lord commanded the blessing and life for evermore There where brethren live in unity and love there the Lord commands blessing it cannot choose but come upon them for the Lord himself commands it And this blessing it is life and this life it is eternal There the Lord commanded the blessing and life for evevermore Vse 1 Now to proceed to application Is it so my brethren that it is a matter of wondrous difficulty and of great concernment for Christs Disciples to be at neerest unity among themselves Then let this quicken us and stirr us up who would be taken to be Christs Disciples to labour after this oneness and to endeavour to the utmost of our power to get and keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace You hear it is a matter of great concernment and therefore it is worth the striving for It is a matter of wondrous difficulty and therefore is not to be had without striving Now I beseech you my beloved let us set our selves to this business There was never greater need them now when God hath suffered such a spirit of division to possess his own people And when the members of the body mysticall of Christ are of so many minds and draw so many wayes and have sometimes such vehement and hot contentions and disputes among themselves So that the Church had never greater reason to cry out as Rebecca sometimes did when she had parties in her womb If it be so why am I thus and therefore we had need to put some spirit into this perswasion and you had need to put some spirit into your endeavours and if the Lord will put his spirit of unity and peace into us it may subdue and overcome the spirit of division which reigns too much abroad in these times But you will ask me How may we attain this and what are we to do that we may come to be at neerest unity among our selves Though it be very difficult as you have heard it may be compassed notwithstanding by the blessing of the Lord upon the use of these directions You must endeavour to the utmost of your power to mortifie those lusts and those corruptions that incline you to dissentions I shewed you formerly in explication of the point that the cause of our divisions is within and not without us They do not come so much from outward provocations as inward corruptions If there were no lusts within there would be no wars without as the Apostle James insinuates And verily if our corruptions as pride and passion and self-love were throughly mortified within those outward provocations would never cause such wofull rents and such implacable contentions as they do And therefore let us set our selves effectually and throughly to subdue these lusts of ours though they be naturally as dear and near as the members of our bodies let us persue them to the very death as the Apostle Paul advises Col. 3.5 Mortifie therefore your members which are upon the earth Let nothing satisfie us till we have the life of them Let us not wound them only but destroy them that ought to be the Christians aim as the Apostle shews Rom. 6.6 that the body of sin may be destroyed Our lusts seek our life either they must dye or we And they seek Gods life Omne peccatum est Deicidium And they have sought Christs life and brought him to a shamefull and accursed death And therefore let us seek their lives too and never satisfie our selves till we have the blood of them Let it be far from any of us to nourish or to cherish our corruptions to favour them or to deal kindly with them any way No let us dash this Babylonish brood against the stones let us shew them no mercy And when they are once destroyed our differences and debates will end with them As we must mortifie our carnal lusts so we must chase away out of our hearts our carnal reasonings that foment
and nourish discords and dissentions For these if we will give them entertainment will set our hearts on fire of hell And therefore when our thoughts begin to work apace in any injury or provocation that is offered to us and to tell us strange things that it is not to be born and that it may not be endured let us smother and suppress them let us not give place to them no not for an hour no not for a moment It is observed of Abraham that when the fowls came down upon his sacrifice he drove them away Gen. 15.11 so when such foul and noisome thoughts as these offer to pitch upon our heart let them have no footing there no let us watch them narrowly that we may suddenly chase them away And let us follow the advice of the Apostle Heb. 10.24 Let us consider one another to provoke to love Let us consider that and think on that which may stir us up to love let our imaginations work and dwell upon such thoughts as these and not those which lead on to Contestation and Dissention As we should chase away the thoughts so we should avoid the persons that make and nourish breaches and divisions It is the Apostles Counsel that we should mark them that cause divisions and offences and avoid them Rom. 16.17 Mark them not to join with them but to decline them and avoid them Brethren you shall observe that there are some of all hands whose work it is to make peace and to compose breaches And there are others on the other side who are as busie as it is possible for men to be to make rents and separations and divisions And it is our unhappiness that these dividers work goes onward faster then the others Indeed it is an easie thing for one to rip faster then two or three can sow Alas how many are there in these wrangling times who are continually medling and who make this their work and business to see how they can set men one against another how they can blow the coals of discord and kindle them into a flame how they can heighten the contention and the animosity that is too high already among those who are in name at least and in profession Christs Disciples Now I beseech you my beloved as the Apostle doth the Romans in the fore-alledged Scripture Mark these men let them be of what side they will if they be of this spirit do you set a mark upon them that you may know them another time and that you decline them and avoid them It is a bitter imprecation of the Apostle Pauls Gal. 2.12 I wish they were cut off that trouble you Truly I wish that they who are the troublers of our Sions peace the main and unwearied sticklers in our Church-divisions who would not have things come to an accord and a friendly composition for ends which they best know I wish they were cut off from all communion with the Saints That all the people of the Lord on all sides would look aloof upon them and avoid them as the pests of this Nation And certainly if all men would avoid them and keep off from them they would have the less work and we should have the less trouble If we would be at nearest unity among our selves we must be furnished with abundance of that wisdom which cometh from above as the Apostle cals it James 3.17 For that is gentle peaceable easie to be be entreated full of mercy and good fruits Contentious persons may applaud their own wits and think themselves extreamly wise and subtil in making good the quarrels which they undertake But what saith the Apostle ver 14. if you have bitter strife and envy in your hearts glory not lye not against the truth This wisdom descendeth not from above And if it come not from above from heaven it cometh from beneath from earth from hell it is earthly sensual devilish What ever mens abilities or parts or reaches are if they be alwayes quarrelling and falling out as many are it is apparent that they want this blessed wisdom To say the truth my brethren it is want of wit that is much of the cause of all this Anger resteth in the bosom of fools and so the wise man tells us that every fool will be medling Prov. 20.3 It is an honor for a man to cease from strife but every fool will be medling It is the property of every fool to do so You have a sort of men my Brethren that will be at the end of every quarrel If there be any difference or strife near them they will be sure to have a finger in the pie they will never sit out Now would you know what kind of men these are They are a company of fools a company of busie medling fools and were it not for such Idiots we might have much more peace then we have at this day If men were ballasted with wisdom they would not be a tempering and a making variance as they do And if indignities and wrongs were offered to them they would easily digest them and possess their souls in patience and therefore let us labour after this wisdom and let us follow the advise and counsel of our Saviour Mar. 9 50. Have salt in your selves and have peace one with another First let us have the salt of wisedom in our selves and then we shall have unity and peace with others If we would be one and if we would have peace the blessing we must be under the commanding and the ruling power of peace the vertue It must sit upon the throne in our hearts as the Apostle Paul exhorts Col. 3.15 Let the peace of God rule in your hearts Brethren when you are any way exasperated or provoked so that your passions rise or swell and are ready to break out into intemperate words or actions when you are hardly able to contain your selves then let the ruling power of peace appear by stilling and composing all again And let this holy disposition be so strong within you that neither pride nor wrath nor malice nor any other lust may be able to controll it There is a story that the Swevians had a Law among them that in a fray where swords were drawn if a woman or a child did cry but peace a great way of they were bound to end the quarrel or else he died that struck the next stroke after peace was named So if your passions be at war within you to use the Apostles phrase if they be up in arms and you do but think of peace or any friend perswade to peace let all be husht and quiet presently and let that passion die let it be crucified that dares to stir when peace is mentioned So let the peace of God rule in our hearts let it triumph in all and over all our provocations that we may bear them all with an unmoved and undisturbed spirit Let us be earnest with the Lord in prayer that he would make