and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 desideravit he hath desired Love is nothing else but a willing of good to the object beloved and desire is the eldest Daughter and first fruit of love For the particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore they shew the cause of the believers loving of the Lord Jesus Christ because of the savour of his good Ointments The excellencies of grace which are in him of which it hath a spiritual sense This whole verse comprehends a second Argument by which the Spouse inforceth her first petition The first was drawn from that high esteem which her soul had of the love and grace of Christ 2. This is drawn from that particular affection which she had for him common to all spiritual Virgins which she shews was not brutish and irrational no it was because he was full of grace which was more precious than the most excellent Ointments and she had received the savour of this grace for his discovery of himself to the world as a Saviour and more specially to her soul as her Saviour was as an Ointment poured forth You may now take the substance of these two verses and so of the Spouses first and great petition thus Oh! That it might please my dearly beloved Saviour who is my Spiritual Bridegroom to shew me some token of special love and to multiply those tokens to me more specially in and by the words of his Mouth in Gospel Doctrines to speak unto my Soul which doth really prefer the tokens of his love and influences of his grace before the most choice of all creature comforts My beloved is full of grace and love which is sweet like good Ointment every discovery of himself is as sweet as Ointment poured forth therefore doth my Soul love him and not my Soul only but the Souls of all those who are not deflowered by the world and by lusts From the words thus opened several propositions of truth may be observed The mercies which the believing Soul thirsts after are spiritual distinguishing mercies The least of Christ a kiss is exceeding precious to a gracious Soul Though the least influences of grace be precious to believers yet they will not be satisfied without the fullest dispensations of grace and most frequent repetitions of it Believers have special thirstings after the Word of God The kisses of his Mouth The thirst of a true believer will not be satisfied without a Spiritual inward communion with Christ in his Ordinances The kisses of his Mouth A gracious Soul will be very bold and earnest with God for this spiritual communion with him The Lord Jesus Christ hath Loves A variety of Grace The Loves of Christ are better than Wine than all created comforts whatsoever The believing Souls knowledge of the Excellencies which are in Christ is the ground of its earnest desire of fellowship and communion with him It is an excellent Argument for a Soul to use with God for the obtaining of favours from him if it can truly say that it preferreth his favour before all created goods The Lord Jesus Christ hath good Ointments which cast a savour The name of Christ is as an Ointment poured forth Virgin Souls love the Lord Jesus Christ for those excelling graces which they discern in him Sermon II. Canticles 1. v. 1. 2 3. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his Mouth for his loves are better then Wine Because of the savour c. I Have in my former Exercises opened the Text and named those propositions of Doctrine which are couched in the words or rationally to be deduced from them I come now to the particular handling of them beginning with the first The thirst of a believing Soul is after Spiritual distinguishing mercies Nature teacheth every one to say who will shew us any good Good is a thing that all the creation is enamoured upon God is the fountain of all goodness Every good and perfect gift cometh from above from him who is the father of lights Who being not a debtor to the creature must needs dispense it out freely Hence that goodness of God which is his goodness of Beneficence not only dwelling in him as a piece of his divine perfection But flowing from him as a stream from the fountain of his liberality is properly called Mercy whether it be good to us in respect of its sutableness to our outward and bodily wants or to our more inward and Spiritual necessities Hence the Mercies and savours of God are either Bodily respecting out outward Man or Spiritual respecting our inward man The former such now as life health peace and prosperity riches c. are such as God gives to his Enemies as well as to his Friends he maketh his Sun to rise upon the evil and the good And sendeth rain on the just and unjust Math. 5. 45. Spiritual good things again are either Gifts of common or of Special Grace Gifts of common grace such as knowledge invention memory utterance c. These are indeed Spiritual gifts so called by the Apostle 1 Cor. 12. 1. ch 14. 1. because given out by the Spirit of God and tending to innoble the Spiritual part and they are also called the best gifts 1 Cor. 12. 31. They are so in their kind better than those which only concern the outward man but St. Paul himself mentioneth better than these in the very same Text I shew you a more excellent way Neither are these distinguishing favours but given in common to wicked as well as to good men But now there are Spiritual mercies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so called Not only because they come from the Spirit of Grace and innoble the Spiritual part of man but because they are suted to the greatest necessities of our inward man Such are the grace of Justification Union to and reconciliation with God pardon of Sin and the Senses of that pardon together with all the fruits of the Spirit of regeneration and Sanctification These are the distinguishing favours of God which difference the Child of God from him that is not Now I say these are those favours which the believing Soul thirsteth after and longeth for expressed here under the Metaphor of kisses And properly expressed under that notion Men and women use not to kiss such as they hate but such as they have an affection for It is a civil usage amongst us so to salute strangers indeed but frequency of kisses speaks a distinguishing love and some intimacy of Affection and are not ordinary unless amongst very intimate Friends such as is the Husband and Wife Brethren and Sisters c. But yet a little further When Isay the thirstings of gracious Souls are after such distinguishing tokens of divine love I understand it not Exclusively The Children of God are made up of flesh and blood as well as any others and subject to the same necessities and infirmities
also that they may know that they also shall another day stand righteous before God Nor do I see any reason why they may not go one step further and passionatly desire some strengthning and assisting grace against some particular lusts Some extravagant desires or lusts of the heart of man do not only expose him to the wrath of God in another world but to the wrath of God manifested in this life Such now as the lusts of the flesh drunkenness c. Experience tells us that the pursuit of these ruines mens healths estates reputations whatsoever is desirable to us in this life and concerning such extravagant motions of our affections and passions as have these issues which are contrary to the natural desires of life and health and prosperity in the world I cannot tell any reason but that an hypocrite may sincerly desire of God strength against them But now in this stands the child of God distinguished from all hypocrites In his desire after all grace not this or that kiss but every kiss of Christs mouth every manifestation of the love of God to a soul particularly such manifestations of Gods love as serve not at all to gratify any desires of the flesh whether respecting gain and profit or honour and reputation in the â—â—rld but such as serve to make the soul more holy and spiritual 〈◊〉 like to God more compliant with the will of God in all things the hypocrite desires influences of grace not that he might glorify God but meerly that he might serve a turn Secondly This discourse will let us see The great difference betwixt the desires that are found in the child of God after Grace and those desires which may be found in him after the things of the world The best of Gods people are compositions of soul and body as they have a spiritual part which hath its desires and cravings so they have the cravings of the flesh also their outward necessities justify in them some desires of the things of this life but now these desires are limited If God will be with me saith Jacob and will keep me in the way that I go and will give me bread to eat and rayment to put on so that I come again to my fathers house in peace then shall the Lord be my God Gen. 28. 20 21. Two things saith Agur Prov. 30. 7. have I required of thee deny me not them before I die Remove far from me vanity and lyes give me neither poverty nor riches feed me with food convenient for me The child of God is so far from desiring abundance of the world that he often prayeth against it He would not be full lest as Agur expresseth himself v. 9. he should deny God and say who is the Lord he would not be wholly empty lest being poor he should steal and take the name of God in vain As to grace he is like the horseleaches daughters still crying give give But for the world if he hath food convenient for him he saith to all the world as Esau once to Jacob. I have enough my Brother I have enough keep that thou hast unto thy self No child of God covets all the world His conversation is as to it without covetousness if he hath but Bread to eat and Rayment to put on if he can but make a competent provision for his family and have but something to give to them that want he blesseth God he hath enough but as to grace he may be added as a fifth thing to those four which Solomon Speaks of which never say they have enough Nor indeed do I know two worser evidences against any soul than never to think it hath enough of the world and yet to be satisfyed with any measures of grace I must confess I have been often troubled to see those whom I should otherwise have judged excellent Christians so fond of the enjoyments of this world and so unsatisfyed when the providence of God hath crossed them in those desires and expectations I wish I could see equal pantings in the souls of some who yet would be thought great professors after Christs kisses as I often see in them after the kisses of the world But alas that is impossible that nail would drive out the other Sirs that is a dreadful text which you have 1. John 2. 15. Love not the world neither the things of the world If any man love the world the love of the father is not in him The world is a thing that may be touched with a Saints hands and moderately used for his necessities but it must not be loved it must have no place in the Child of Gods Heart What shall we say then to such Professors as are much more fond of sensual satisfactions to gratify their sensitive appetite than they are of the Grace of God to mortify that appetite to sublimate their affections subjugate their passions to learn them in all Estates to be content to submit their wills unto the will of God How dwelleth the love of Christ in such Souls as are more fond of the worlds kisses than of his But I shall shut up this discourse with a word of Exhortation persuading you to speak after the Spouse in my Text Let him kiss me with the kisses of his Mouth Cease not till you have brought up your hearts to this frame that they cannot be satisfied without something of Christs fulness without some tasts of all the riches of Grace whatsoever I have given you as the reasons of this truth may be used by you as arguments in the case There 's no kiss of Christ no Beam of Grace but hath its lightsomness and glory in it No dispensation of Grace but is suited to some eminent want of the Soul if you discern it not the fault is in your Eyes you do not understand the cases of your own Souls so well as you ought to do it would be no Grace no Love if it were not proportioned to some want in us It will be an hard thing for you to satisfy your Souls in the having any truth of Grace if you find not your Souls thirsting after every manifestation of it There is no influence of Grace but is possible to be obtained There is a fulness of the God-Head in Christ considered as your Mediator and he is therefore full that we might drink abundantly of his fulness but to all these before enlarged upon I shall add two It is an evidence of true Grace to be thirsty after all Grace That Soul loveth not Christ truly that doth not desire that he should love it fully True love is satisfied with nothing less than all of the Beloved and renders the Soul jealous presently if it wants but one good look bestowed upon another Secondly The more thou hast of Grace the more thou wilt doubtless have of Glory I know some question whether there shall be any degrees of glory for my own part I see little
Loves which are much our duty upon this view of our great Lord and Master 1. Love to him 2 Love to our Neighbours especially those in whom any thing of Christs appears 1. It calls to us for Loves to Christ This in point of gratitude If Saith our Saviour you love them which love you what reward have you Do not even the Publicanes the same Our Love to Christ is but a Love to him who hath Loves for us and indeed this speaketh to all men for Love to him but more especially O Love ye the Lord all you his Saints It is the opinion of great Divines that all the world is beholden to Christ as Mediator that from his Mediation there issueth some good to the worst of men But he hath eminently extended his Love to his Saints he hath loved them with a singular Love If there should be Love wanting in their hearts to Christ they should be of all men and women in the world most inexcusable what could he have done for any of the Sons of Men which he hath not done for them What greater thing could they have asked of him then he hath prevented them in asking O Love you the Lord all you they that believe Do you ask me how you should shew your Love to him The first motions of Love are in the heart Love there is seen in delighting in him breathing after him It next shews itself by the lips Speaking well of him to others defending his interest and concern in the world If we come to more external acts That of David Ps 16. 2. 3. is true here O my Soul thou hast said unto the Lord thou art my Lord my goodness extendeth not to thee but to the Saints that are in the earth to the excellent on whom is all my delight Our Love to Christ must be seen in our actings in our stations for the honour glory and concern of Christ in the world In our kindness to the poor flock of Christ Christ calls a want of Love to them a want of Love to himself 25. Math. But that brings me to the Second with a short discourse upon which I shall shut up this discourse 2. It calls you for Love to men especially to those in whom you see any thing of Christ The argument for this ariseth from our duty to study a Conformity to Christ he had a kindness for all when he was born good will towards men was proclaimed by the multitude of the Heavenly host Luke 2. 14. There also lyeth an obligation upon usfrom the law of Christ and from this great Example to be kindly affectionate toward all There lyeth also a Precept upon us to do good to all And again saith the Apostle Owe nothing to any but this That you love one another Indeed there is not the same degree of affection nor the same acts of Love due to all as to that we must be ruled by the Word of God but Love is a debt upon us which is due to all men Therefore wrath hatred anger strife malice are 〈◊〉 where reckoned up by the Apostle as the fruits not of the Spirit but of the flesh In a kind Child of God there should be a general love and kindness to all mankind though to be expressed in a Scriptural order as to the degrees and acts of it So it was in Christ 2. But secondly it calls to you for a more Special distinguishing Love to all those in whom you see any thing of Christ Do good to all saith the Apostle but especially to the houshold of Faith The Soul of every Member of Christ should cleave to these with whom he is united not onely by a common nature being the same flesh and blood with him but by a common faith by the ligament of Members of the same body whereof Christ is the head Give me leave to press this the more upon this argument because I find the Apostle St. John pressing it upon the same Topick 1. John 4. 11. If God so loved us we ought also to Love one another v. 12. If we love one another God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us v. 16. He tells us that God is love and he that dwelleth in Love dwelling in God Every good Christian may see much more in the meanest poorest true Christian to ingage him to Love him or her than Christ could ever see in the highest Saint to oblige or move Christ to love him or her When thou wallowedst in thy blood when thou hadst nothing of the lineament of a Saint in thy Soul not so much as a line of any Spiritual Goodness he passed by thee and it was with him a time of Love as to thy Soul there is not a child of God in the world but there is somthing of holiness and righteousness something of the image and Superscription of Christ to be seen in his Soul something of the Divine nature resplendent in his Soul It may be there is more in some less in others but there is in all some When thou hast a temptation upon thee to aversate thy brother or to turn away thy heart or head or hand from him O remember Christ hath loves and and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in him And that it is he whose heart is full of of Loves for thee who hath commanded thee to Love thy Brother But I have spoken e nough to this first Proposition Sermon X. Canticles 1. 2. For thy Loves are better than Wine IN my last discourse I shewed you that Christ hath Loves kind affections and inclinations to the Children of men and more especially to the Souls of his Saints which he is ready to declare and express yea hath already expressed in acts of kindness and these not of one but various kinds suted to the respective necessities of his people a salve for every Sore a Supply for every want I come now to shew you the quality of his Loves which in my Text is set down positively and comparatively In our translation according to our Idioms or propriety of Speech the positive is to be understood in the comparative particle A thing cannot be called better than another unless it hath some positive absolute goodness in it self but in the Hebrew it is more plainly expressed That saith Are good before Wine It is their way of expressing comparatives It makes no difference in the sense Good before Wine And better than wine are phrases of the same sense In the Explication of the Text I told you that though Wine strictly signifies the juice of the Grape yet by a Synechdoche here it signifyeth all created goods whatsoever can be sweet or profitable or advantageous to us The Proposition is plainly this Prop. The Loves of Christ are good befo e or better than all created comforts and enjoyments whatever I have already shewed you what the Loves of Christ signify viz. His good will his kind affections and inclinations to the Souls of men
of relation hath taken to him that of a Father to let us know there is in his gracious nature something analogous or proportionable to the heart and bowels of Earthly Parents to their Children and accordingly our Saviour argues that if any of our Children ask of us bread we will not give them a Stone nor a Scorpion instead of Fish and thence concludeth that if we being evil know how to give good things to our Children much more will our Heavenly Father give good things to them that ask him You many of you know the heart of a Father To which of you would it not be a great argument to draw you out to any acts by which you could manifest your loves to a Child for your Child to come and beg your love to it telling you that it valueth your love above all things in the world that it had rather have your love your heart towards it than have all the estate you can give it Shall there not be something in the heart of God proportionated to this affection in your hearts Is it possible that a Child of God should come to God and in sincerity say to him Father I beg some tokens of thy special distinguishing love to my Soul thou that knowest all things knowest that I love thee and that my Soul doth value thy loves above all that the world affords and Gods heart should not yearn and his bowels melt towards such a Soul God must say of the voice of such a Soul as Isaac sometimes said It is the voice of my Son Jacob None but a Child can speak such a language 4. Finally No arguments can be of more force to use with God than such wherein the Interest of his own glory is concerned The Glory of God being his own great end which he pursueth in all his actions he useth a great argument to God that saith unto him Father glorify thy self So gracious is God that he gives us leave to fetch arguments from our selves our own wants and the misery we are in which arguments affect God as he is a God full of pity and tender compassion But those arguments which we can fetch from the Interest of his own glory seem to have a greater force as complying with what is the Lords great and chiefest end He that sets an high value and estimate upon the love of Christ giveth God a great deal of Glory preferring him to all things in the world for God cannot be more glorified by the Creature than to be in heart esteemed above and preferred to the whole Creation So as that Soul that goeth to God with this argument doth in effect say Father my Soul hath glorified thee upon the Earth and doth give thee the glory of being the most excellent object and more desirable than all the world besides Now therefore glorify thy self in manifesting of thy love to me that I may further exalt thee in thy rich and free Grace I now come to the application By way of Instruction first we may observe That the meanest Child of God is furnished with a better argument to encourage his hopes in his addresses to the throne of Grace than the greatest and proudest Sinner in the world hath There are arguments which Sinners may use from the infiniteness and freeness of the divine bounty and goodness from their relation to God as his Creatures from the greatness of their misery c. and they may obtain something from God upon these pleas from that infinite goodness and compassion that is in the Divine Nature but no unregenerate man can use this argument which hath in it a much greater force On the other side there is no the meanest child of God not the meanest believer that is in the world but hath this argument to use with God Other arguments may be of avail with God for the obtaining some good things of this life this is of force for the obtaining those of highest consequence relating to the internal and eternal happiness of the Soul Secondly This offers us a great incouragement to examine our selves upon this point Whether we have a due estimate of the loves of Christ Whether we can truly say to our blessed Lord That his loves are better than Wine and that we value them not only above all sensual satisfactions which the profane scandalous Sinner doeth not but above all sensible satisfactions which no unregenerate carnal man doth I remember when our Saviour examined Peter about his love to him he propounded to him this question Joh. 21. 15. Simon Peter lovest thou me more than these I do know that many Interpreters by these in that Text understand his other Disciples standing by There was a time when Peter preferred himself as to his love towards his Master to all the other Disciples Tho saith he all should deny thee yet I would not deny thee Peter since that time was humbled our Saviour had a mind that his humility should be manifested and therefore say some he propoundeth that question to him but I remember Bernard in one of his Sermons upon the Canticles puts another sense upon the words Lovest thou me more than thou lovest these and so it may be referred either to the company with whom he was or to the diversion of fishing they were employed in or to the great draught of fish which they had taken I do but allude to the text who so truly loveth the Lord Jesus Christ if all the persons and things in the world were before him must be able to say I love Christ more than these Admit his friends and nearest relations to be in his Eye all the pleasant and delectable things in the world all the Crowns and Scepters and honours in the world all the Gold and Silver and Houses and Lands in the world in his Eye He must be able to say I love the Lord Jesus Christ more than these yea if his own life be set before him not to be enjoyed without the loss of Christs love he must be able to say that he loves Christ more than that Mat. 10. 37. He that loveth Father or Mother more than me is not worthy of me and he that loveth Son or Daughter more than me is not worthy of me Lu. 14. 26. If any man come to me and hate not his Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Brethren and Sisters yea and his own life also he cannot be my Disciple But I have formerly given you some directions how to try your selves whether the loves of Christ in the apprehension of your Souls are good before Wine and shall therefore add no more on this argument In the third place This notion may be of great use to relieve Christians doubting whether they have any one good Argument to use with God in their applications to him 2. Whether any of their Prayers have at any time pierced the Heavens and been accepted of God A good Christian is often doubting whether
highly expressive of our inward affections It follows We will remember thy Loves more then Wine This is the third thing she promiseth I shall be very short in the explication of this phrase more fully opening the terms when I come to handle the Proposition I shall raise from them Only this the Heb. word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we met with it before v. 2. the Septuagint translate it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the difference is founded I conceive in the cognation of the two words signifying Loves and Breasts they differ only in the points but suppose it were thy Breasts a figure must still be acknowledged because the breasts are near the heart and that is the seat of love so that the sense still must be thy loves thy gracious influences More then Wine that is more then those things which are most pleasant and delightful to us but I opened this v. 2. It follows The upright love thee in the Hebrew it is Vprightnesses or Vpright things love thee so the Hebrew word properly signifieth The same word is used Psal 17. 2. Thy Eyes shall behold upright things The word is found in this form Psal 9. 9. He shall judge the world in righteousness and the people in uprightnesses so Prov. 1. 3. Is 33. 15. Prov. 2. 9. Psal 58. â—2 Psal 75. 3. If we expound it as the letter of the Text is in the abstract the question will be whether it should be read in the Nominative case uprightnesses love thee or in the Ablative in uprightnesses they that is the Virgins love thee If in the first sense the meaning is this Whatsoever is good and right is to be found in thee all the graces love thee that is cleave and are united unto thee The fulness of grace dwelled in him and all vertues and graces were made perfect in him But although this be a truth yet I do not take it to be the sense of the Text and in my further discourses on this Song I shall have occasion once and again to discourse that subject Secondly It may be read in the Ablative case In uprightnesses they love thee that is as Buxtorf expounds it Rectissimè fortiter The Saints love thee most intirely sincerely strongly thus it will afford us this lesson That the Saints love to Christ is a most strong sincere and entire love The Virgins love Christ in uprightnesses not in word and in tongue only but in deed and in truth as St. John expoundeth it they love him with a true and perfect heart But this will fall in the handling of the Doctrine which will arise from the third sense which is more generally accepted and which I shall embrace Thirdly Therefore I agree with those who think the Abstract is here put for the Concrete uprightnesses for the most upright persons The quality for the persons indued with that excellent quality a very ordinary way of speaking in the Hebrew and indeed most languages No wonder my beloved that I should love thee for there is not an upright Soul in the world but loves thee and the more there is of uprightness in any Soul the more that Soul loves thee Uprightnesses love thee Thus now I have largely opened this excellent Text. The Propositions I shall observe from it and handle them if God please in their order are these that follow Souls must first be drawn by God before they will come to Christ or run after him and it is their duty to pray that they may be so drawn The Soul being drawn shall and will run after Christ That Gods drawing one Soul will be a means to make many run after him That God is often very quick in answering his Peoples Prayers That Jesus Christ hath Chambers into which he sometimes brings his Peoples Souls That Jesus Christ is the singular object of the Saints joy in the middest of its mâ—st excellent enjoyments The Gâ—ace receiving Soul will remember his loves more than Wine The upright Soul will love the Lord Jesus Christ and the more upright a Soul is the more it will love him Sermon Xâ—VII Canticles 1. 4. Drawme and We will run after thee I Come to handle more largely those Propositions from this second Petition of the Spouse which in my last discourse I had no more time but to name the first of which was this Prop. Souls must first be drawn by God before they can come to or run after the Lord Jesus Christ I noted to you in my explication of this Petition that there are two principal usages of this word Draw in Holy Writ it sometimes signifieth an alluring by fair carriage and persuasions 2. Sometimes a constraining by force and power both ways the Lord draweth those Souls that come to Christ or that run after him he draweth them suaviter and fortiter sweetly and yet powerfully 1. There is a drawing by Afflictions and Chastisements Afflictions are the Lords Cords If saith Job ch 36. 8 9. they be bound in Fetters and be holden in Cords of Affliction Then he sheweth them their work and their transgressions wherein they have exceeded he openeth their Ear to discipline and commandeth them that they return from iniquity Thus the Lord drew Manasses he was bound by Fetters and carried into Babylon and when he was in affliction he besought the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his Fathers and prayed unto him and he was entreated of him and heard his supplication It is added v. 13. Then Manasses knew that the Lord he was God I know that Bernard thus interpreteth this Text tho he restrains it not to that sense but I must crave leave to dissent from so great a Person not only because I find scarce any Interpreters agreeing with him but because then the thing here prayed for must be Afflictions which I do not know we are commanded to pray for and I am sure nature restraineth us in such a Petition neither are afflictions in their own tendency drawing Cords they are rather called Cords and Fetters to signify their pinching effects than that God ordinarily useth them to draw Souls by unto himself we read of one Thief upon the Cross converted at his last hour and of one Manasses converted by Festers but you have but a single instance of each in Holy Writ and let me further add Manasses his affliction was but Fetters and Imprisonment nothing that affected his head and made him unfit to do any thing but to attend the distempers of his Body nor indeed is there any drawing vertue in an affliction it rather naturally alienateth the Soul from God in my experience in the work of the Ministry I have known many good Men and Women bettered by Affliction but I never knew a bad man or woman by affliction brought home to God it is a fire that so softens the wax and hardeneth the clay and this agreeth with what we have in Scripture
God and whose heart is sincere before God is an upright and righteous Soul In this Sense the upright heart is the Sincere heart Thus David saith of himself I was upright before him 2 Sam. 22. 24. And God saith of Job He is a perfect and an upright man The Proposition must be understood of the latter he that is Evangelically righteous or upright for there are none of the former upon the Earth none that are legally righteous 3. Thirdly As there are degrees of Sanctification so there are degrees of uprightness The text seems to speak of the highest degrees Uprightnesses It is very ordinary with the Hebrew to express the Superlative degree by the plural number besides this is Signified by putting the Abstract for the Concrete we usually call men notoriously vile and wicked by the Abstract names of vice and persons eminently good and virtuous by the Abstract Names of virtue and goodness Those that are highest in grace who do most excel in holiness are fullest of love to Christ Love teacheth every Child of God the weakest babe in grace to cry after Christ and the grown Christian to delight in him and to walk up and down in his name Every righteous every upright Soul loveth Christ and that with a true sincere love though not in an equal degree she saith our Saviour who hath much forgiven will love much Having premised these distinctions let me a little further inquire into the true Notion of these upright men upright by this Evangelical rectitude In short they are such as are justified and Sanctified made righteous through Christs righteousness imputed to them holy through the Sanctification of his Spirit 1. Such as are justified This is the first thing requisite to an upright right man let the unjustified Soul be what it will do what it can it cannot be upright either in heart or way Suppose a stick naturally crooked you may pare it and paint and colour it and cover its crookedness alittle but until it hath been in the fire and bended right it will be crooked still the natural man the Soul not justified by grace not washed with the blood of Christ may be pared by education and brought off from some flagitious and enormous practices he may be coloured and painted over by some acts of moral vertue and some formal performances of religious duties but still in Gods Eye the Soul is a crooked Soul until the Lord hath made it right till it be justified by faith 2. To this uprightness is required not only justification or the removal of the Souls guilt and imputation of a righteousness a perfect righteousness but the sanctification of the heart God never sanctifieth any whom he doth not justify hence no Soul can be said to be an upright Soul that is not justified nor doth the Lord at any time justify a Soul but he at the same time also reneweth and sanctifieth it hence the upright Soul must be a renewed Sanctified Soul But yet in regard our regeneration and sanctification is not as to degrees perfect though as to parts Divines say it is that is the whole man is renewed it may be yet worthy to be inquired from what degrees of Regeneration and Sanctification a man may be denominated an upright man the rectitude of any thing is to be judged from its conformity to some rule The rule of mans uprightness is the Lords Statutes which are right saith the Psalmist Psal 19. 8. holy and spiritual and just and good Rom. 7. Thy judgments are right saith David Psal 119. 75. 128. It is said so of nothing else so as from a conformity to this rule must rightness or uprightness be judged And thus 1. There is an uprightness of judgment when the Soul judgeth according to truth both concerning notions and practices when it judgeth aright concerning truth and is not warped by error and when it judgeth aright concerning the ways of God then the Soul is upright with respect to the understanding and judgment 2. There is an uprightness of the whole Soul with respect to the scope and bent of it when the heart of man doth not stand inclined and bent to sin but the Soul can say with David I hate vain thoughts but thy law do I love I hate every false way c. The man that in all his actions designeth and intendeth the honour and glory of God and obedience to his will though in many things he cometh short and offendeth yet this man is an upright man his end and general scope is right 3. There is an uprightness of will in this the uprightness of a mans intention discovereth itself when to will is present with the Soul as St. Paul saith Rom. 7. Though he wanteth a strength to perform the man or woman in heart willeth the honour and glory of God and this not by fits but steadily and certainly and is really unwilling to do any thing by which God may be dishonoured though through ignorance he may offend and through a natural impotency not being able to love the Lord with all his heart and strength yea and through moral impotency and a mixt infirmity through the great power of temptations whether from the seduction of lust or the violent motions and impressions of Satan 4. There is an uprightness of action which lieth in a true and sincere endeavour to do the will of God and by this both the uprightness of intention and will also is to be judged This is the upright man though he may stumble and fall and oft doth fail who liveth and sinneth not against God And as these holy dispositions are found in the Soul in more remiss or intense degrees so the Soul is more or less upright and the man deserves this honourable denomination less or more These now are the Souls that love Christ To love any object whether person or thing signifieth to take a delight and complacency in it Whether in the thoughts of it if absent as the Apostle saith whom we having not seen yet love or in the contemplation and fruition in converse and communion with it if more present This Praedicate concerning the upright that they love Christ is to be understood exclusively and inclusively concerning the Person of Christ and whatsoever beareth his image and superscription 1. Exclusively these and none but these love him Others may talk of loving Christ but it is but a talk and pretence they love but in word and tongue only not in deed and truth there is something else either lust or the world something or other that hath more of their affection more of their heart then Christ hath 2. Inclusively These and all these love Christ there is not an upright Soul in the world but loves Christ and takes a pleasure complacency in him and preferreth him before his chief joy 3. They love the person of Christ He is in their Eyes altogether desires the chiefest of ten thousand there is nothing in the
is this Thou believing Soul who in my Eyes art more beautiful and lovely then any other Soul in the world if thou beest in any thing ignorant of my will and where to meet me and how to enjoy fellowship and communion with me do not stray from the rule of my word nor vary from the examples of those whom I gave for Shepherds to my People keep close to them to their Doctrine and to my Ordinances administred by them There thou shalt find me There I rest at noon These two verses thus opened afford us several Propositions of Doctrine as matter of further discourse Prop. 1. Christ is he and only he whom the believing Soul loveth Prop. 2. Though there may be a time when such a Soul may conceal and disown its love to Christ yet there will be a time when it will break forth and she will acknowledge it Prop. 3. A gracious Soul desireth nothing more then a quiet full and sweet communion with Christ Prop. 4. Christ hath shades where he resteth and feedeth his flock under the greatest and most scorching Afflictions Prop. 5. Though a pious Soul never slighteth a communion with Christ yet she never prizeth it at an higher rate then in an hour of greatest trials and temptations Prop. 6. Gods People will especially in times of trial and great temptation be prone to fall into sin and error to the scandal of their profession Prop. 7. Sin and Scandal are the two great things which a gracious Soulfears Prop. 8. The Believing Soul is of all other Souls the most beautiful in Christs Eyes Prop. 9. The Beauty of this Soul is not perfect it may in some things be ignorant Prop. 10. The surest way for a Soul to get a perfect instruction in the things that concern its spiritual good and to keep and to enjoy communion with Christ is to feed its self by the Tents of Christs Shepherds and to live according to the examples and directions of his holy Servants recorded in Holy Writ I begin with the first of which I shall speak but briefly Prop. 1. Jesus Christ is he whom the Soul loveth with a singular love I put in the term singular because as I told you the phrase imports it Love is nothing else but the adhaesion or cleaving of the Soul to an object out of a goodness and suitableness which it hath discerned in it with a complacency which the Soul taketh in it which is such as if the Soul wants it it desires it if it enjoyeth it it is glad and rejoyceth in it which being first considered it followeth that look how many objects as there are that have in them any goodness or suitableness to our state so many objects of our love there are in the world And 2. That look how much goodness and suitableness to us we apprehend in one object more than in another so much we love one thing more than another or one person more than another 2. There is also a love that floweth from Union and Relation of which we are not able to give a perfect account the Parent loves the Child and the Husband loves the Wife and the Wife the Husband not alwaies out of Judgment The Husband discerning in the Wife a suitableness to him is not alwaies the cause of love Nor is the Child's love to the Mother or Father alwaies rational flowing from an apprehension of the suitableness of the Parent to it but rather from an impetus of nature an unaccountable complacency in those whom God hath made correlates caused by the God of Nature who hath made them one flesh who so deliberately considereth this will easily understand a double reason of the Believers Love to Christ 1. The first is That Union which is betwixt the believing Soul and the Lord Jesus Christ which is wrought by Faith this produceth this second Union which is that of Love By Faith Christ is united to the Soul and becometh a member of his body and that is followed by this Union of Love The Soul in the same hour wherein it is united by Faith to Christ being taught of God to love the Lord Jesus Christ It 's a piece of its Regeneration which continually followeth Justification and is indeed coaevous with it so that as in the natural Union the same day the man becomes a Father or the Woman a Mother there is a new Emanation of affection and love the Man or Woman that before knew nothing of the heart of a Parent now begins to feel it and in the moral Union betwixt the Husband and Wife the same day that they are married to each other there floweth a reciprocal Affection each to other so as they then begin to know the heart of an Husband and a Wife of which they knew little or nothing before So it is upon the Spiritual Union as the God of Nature influenceth the Souls of persons whom he hath given one to another in natural and moral Relations ordinarily for a reciprocal usefulness one to another So the God of Grace influenceth the Soul put into a spiritual Relation to Christ That the Believer upon his Union with Christ doth find his heart cleaving to and taking a complacency in the Lord Jesus Christ and begins thus to know the heart of a Believer And look as it is in the moral Relation betwixt the Wife and the Husband though the Man may have heard such reports of the virtues and excellencies of the Woman before he hath married her as hath inforced from him a complacency in her yet this bears no proportion to that delight and complacency he taketh in her when she is once married to him So although a Soul upon the large discourses he hath heard of Christ and of his love to Mankind and what he hath done and is ready to do for the Souls of men may have some good thoughts of him and some kind of complacency in his thoughts of him yet there is a vast difference betwixt this and that complacency which the Soul taketh in Christ when it is once by Faith united to him and amongst other habits of grace hath that of Love to God infused into his Soul according to that Rom. 5. 5. The Love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us I know there is a Dispute raised by some whether the natural man's love to God differeth from the Believer's love to God specifically or only gradually I do not think that these spiritual habits fall under those logical measures I am sure it is a love flowing quite from another cause The natural man's love is no more than a natural Plant cultivated by reason the other 's is a fruit of the Spirit so as they differ further than gradually but whether we should call it specifically or no or want a Logical term to express the difference I shall not think it worth my time to enquire 2. A second Reason of the Believer's love and so
affection which a woman may have for many men none of which she intendeth to make her Husband and she may do many common acts of kindness for them so there is a common love which a man may have for Christ and many common actions which they may do in his service the question therefore is how a man or woman may know whether he or she may with confidence look up to Heaven and say O thou whom my Soul loveth Let me add a word or two upon this argument here though I have before spoken much to it 1. I desire you to observe in the first place that the Spouse speaketh here in the singular number O thou whom my Soul loveth so must every Soul do that loveth Christ in truth a divided Soul is alwaies faulry That Soul which hath any thing in Heaven or Earth to be compared with Christ doth not love him It is true that love is a diffusive affection and may respect several objects but note these two things 1. These objects must be only diverse not contrary Contraries naturally expel one another there is nothing but sin and last that is contrary to Christ you cannot saith our Saviour love God Mammon he that saith to any lust O thou whom my Soul loveth cannot in truth say so unto Christ How many in the world by their fondness upon their lusts shew their want of love to Christ 2. Conjugal love admitteth neither parity nor priority The Wife that loveth her Husband as she ought to love him must neither love any other before him or better then other nor yet in a proportion equal with him she must love him before and above all things Our Saviour hath determined this in saying He that loveth Father or Mother or Brother or Sister more then me is not worthy of me and he that loveth Son or Daughter more then me is not worthy of me 2. Soul-love will be known also by Soul-longings Love teacheth the Soul to long after 1. Union with the object beloved 2. A sense of reciprocal love 3. Communion with the object beloved If thy Soul loveth the Lord Jesus Christ it will be seen in thy longings after him in the hour of his apprehended adsence or after such degrees of his presence as thou hast not yet attained and after a sense of his reciprocal love the Soul that truly loves is impatient till it discerneth itself mutually beloved it will also long after communion with Christ you read Davids temper as to this Psal 84. 1 2 3. Psal 42. 1. Psal 63. 1. Alass how few are there whose pulses beat with any strength for God 3. Love thirdly is discovered by a complacency delight satisfaction in the presence of the object beloved according to the degree of its presence As it longeth for its object when absent so it rejoyceth and melts in the embraces of it when present What satisfaction hath thy Soul in an Ordinance or Duty in which thou hast seen the power glory of God the presence of Christ in his Ordinance 4. Love again is seen by the Soul's sorrow for a departed Christ The loving Wife weepeth when she for any time parteth with her Husband and is solitary when he is gone Mary's love to Christ was discerned by her weeping because she knew not where they had laid him And the Jews cryed out when they saw Christ weeping over the grave of Lazarus Behold how he loved him The dispensations of Christ to the Soul sometimes are very dark he seems to be gone and as it were buried out of the Soul's sight how beateth thy heart at such a time art thou afflicted or art thou not 5. If thy Soul loveth the Lord Jesus Christ it will be seen by thy anger a any thing whether in or from thy self or others which grieveth or offendeth him Love to its power will suffer no injury to the Beloved The Wife will not her self abuse her Husband nor to her power will she suffer any other if unwarily ignorantly or in a passion at any time she hath done it she is angry at her self for it and if others do it she is ready to seek a revenge upon them What indignation what revenge saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 7. 11. is produced by godly sorrow which is the effect of love 6. If thy Soul loveth Christ thou wilt reveal all the Secrets of thy Soul to him he shall know all thy griefs all thy desires and wants thou wilt be much in prayer much in secret prayer Dalilah charged Sampson for want of love to her because he had concealed his secrets from her Christ on the contrary justifieth his love to his Disciples Joh. 15. 15. by his telling them all he had heard of his Father 7. If Christ be he whom the Soul loves the Soul will be much in the meditation of him Whatsoever is the object of our Love is much in our thoughts O how I love thy Law saith David Psal 119. 97 99. it is my meditation night and day What room in thy thoughts hath Christ and the things of Christ 8. The Soul that is full of love is like the Fountain which is full and must overflow If we love any persons we are often talking of them upon all occasions talking for them and very often as we can get opportunities talking with them What are thy discourses of Christ to others How dost thou use thy Tongue in discoursing for Christ when there is need What discourses hast thou with Christ in prayer 9. Soul-love is like the Sun that cannot shine upon the Glass of the house but its refracted Beams will pierce thorow and shew themselves upon the walls the floor the pavements A love to Christ will look thorow him and shew it self upon every thing that hath relation to him his People his Ministers his Word and Ordinances Psal 16. 2 3. O my Soul thou hast said unto the Lord thou art my Lord my goodness extendeth not to thee but to the Saints that are in the Earth and to the excellent in whom is all my delight 10. And lastly If you love Christ with your Souls you will keep his Commandments yea if it be to sacrifice an Isaac to pluck out a right Eye or cut off a right Hand This is our Saviour's mark Joh. 14. 15. Obedience is the first and most genuine fruit of Love and if it be such as shall speak a true Love in the Soul to Christ it must be 1. Internal as well as external 2. Universal not partial 3. Constant and not only for a fit But of these things I have spoken before and therefore shall not inlarge c. Sermon XLII Canticles 1. 7. Tell me O thou whom my Soul loveth where thou feedest where thou makest thy flocks to rest at Noon I have done with the first Proposition I observed from these Words from the compellation O thou whom my Soul loveth viz. That Christ is he and the only he whom the believing Soul loveth there
to and in your soul to inable you further to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord. 3. After the beatifical visions of God in another life Learn hence the great difference there is betwixt earthly and spiritual objects of our desires and delights The worlds Crums are little valuable tho some are fond of its Loaves The good things of the world derive much of their value from the quantity of them that it throws into our laps The minimum quod sic the least portions of the pleasures profits or honours of it have little of value in them but the least of Christ is exceeding precious the things of the world affect not the Soul or or its necessities they are not certain pledges of greater measures they will go but a little way to fill the creatures emptinesses but it is otherwise with Spiritual blessings in and through Christ Thirdly You may from hence observe the difference betwixt the Hypocrites and the Saints desires after Christ An Hypocrite may pretend some desires after Christ nay he may really desire something of his love consider Christ as a Saviour as one that brings the Soul to life and immortality so he must necessarily be the object of the desire of every man that hath any view of his own mortality and that Eternal State to which man is ordained Even Balaam saith Oh that I might dye the death of the Righteous that my latter end might he like his But mark ye these are the fullest manifestations of Divine Love these are more than the kisses of his Mouth but for those tokens of love which are below these for such manifestations of the love of Christ as tend to the inabling of the Soul to serve and glorify God by the subduing of Mans will to the will of God the mortification of lusts and corrupt affections these are not at all valuable to a sensual man not indeed to any but to the changed and renewed Soul I do not know any one thing from which a Man may take better measure of himself and a good Christian may better distinguish himself from one that walketh in a vain shew and meerly glorifieth in appearance than this To a good Christian the least of Christs distinguisâ—iâ—g love is exceeding precious and more precious than the greatest portions of the worlds goods The workings of the Spirit of Christ within and upon the Soul subduing the will of Man to the will of God mortifying our Members and the deeds of the Body Taking the affections off the Earth and Earthly things and fixing them on more sublime and spiritual objects the giving of the Soul a good hope through grace these are things which we usually count some of the least tokens of special and distinguishing love Really they are great things nothing of Christ is little but we judge ordinarily according to sense we ordinarily esteem a sense or assurance or full persuasion of the love of God a much greater thing than these But now for a Soul to set an high price and value upon these to be more satisfied more to triumph and rejoice in the conquest of a lust the victory over a temptation than in the conquest of all our Enemies More to desire that our hearts may be filled with love to God desires after God delight in God than to have our Barns filled with Corn or our Purses with Gold and Silver this I take to be such a difference between a Christian indeed and a Christian in a meer Name Title and outward Profession as a Christian may rest in when he is inquiring into his Soul for evidences of the truth of grace Other manifestations of the love of God may be desired for our selves and with a respect only to our selves and the quiet relief and peace of our own Spirits a Christian can desire these only for the glory of God Try your selves therefore Christians by this Touchstone An Hypocrite may desire to know that his Sins are forgiven and that God would not impute Sin to his Soul or that he would impute a righteousness without works an Hypocrite may desire to live with God in glory but these lesser tokens of love he valueth not But alas even the best of Gods People must I fear be here reproved not for their no valuing of these kisses of Christ that is incompetent with a Child of God but for their not enough valuing of them and being too passionate and unsatisfied for want of the comforting manifestations of Divine Love I have before told you that these sensible manifestations of Divine Love are exceedingly desirable and there is no Child of God but is concerned to wish to pray to labour for them But we must take heed that we be not like our little Children whom we shall sometimes see too much slighting and undervaluing and ready to throw away what good things they have because they want some particular thing which they have a mind to which it may be we that are their Parents do not see so proper for them especially under their present circumstances It was lawful for Rachel to wish for to pray for Children but she sinned in saying to her Husband give me Children or else I die Hannah was much in the same error 1 Sam. 1. 8. weeping not eating and vexing her self because she had no Child and in the mean time forgetting that God had given her an Husband who was better to her than ten Sons So it is lawful nay the duty of a good Christian to pray to endeavour for the sweetest and fullest manifestations of Gods love But I have often thought that though these be good things of a Spiritual nature and so vastly differing from the good things of this life yet in this they agree with them that they must be asked with submission to the will of God because they are not de necessariis ad salutem things that are necessary to life and eternal Salvation but such which a Soul may want without any breach of Gods Covenant with the Soul 2. But for a Soul not only too passionately to desire these things which speaketh its not submitting to the will of God in his not dispensing them to it but to over-look deny or undervalue all the tokens for good which it hath received from God meerly because it hath not these and to conclude that it hath nothing of Christs love this is certainly what doth no become a Christian Certainly a Christian ought as much to value himself upon those emanations of grace by which he is inabled to serve and honour God as upon those by which his Soul is rendred more at ease more refreshed and comforted Every kiss of Christ every measure of special distinguishing love is and ought to be precious to a believing Soul Let me in the last place bottom upon this discourse a double word of exhortation The first respecting the Men of the world those I would persuade to leave off their pursuit of
high Priest became us c. Give me leave upon this argument to make use of the same words Christ hath Loves such a Saviour became the Sons of men and that upon a three fold account 1. As love stands opposed to hatred and wrath and Enmity Considering man as Gods Creature he was not hated of God God hâ—teth not the work of his own hand but considering him as a lapsed creature as degenerated into the Plant of a strange Vine after that God had created him a generous noble plant so he became the object of Gods wrath hatred and Enmity We were Children of wrath by nature saith the Apostle E ph 2. 3. God is angry with the wicked every day How Sutable to us now is it to have a Saviour That is Love and who hath Loves considering the aversion in the holy Divine Beeing from Mankind as rebellious Seed a Seed of Evil doers Who could have suited us to have become a Saviour unto us but one who had akind propension and inclination to us inclining him to the great work of mans Redemption and Reconciliation to God especially also considering that there could be no remission of sins without blood no reconciliation without the reconcilers Death he had need have loves that should dye for his Friend and he much more who should dye for Enemies that were by his death to be made friends 2. As Loves signifies multitude and infinitness of Love We have all a multitude of sins and there is a kind of infiniteness in sin indeed our Acts of Sin are not infinite we cannot number them we cannot measure them but they are to be numbred that is our comfort so that the ballance is on Gods side he hath infinite Mercies But there is an infiniteness of a will to sin in every Sinners heart if a Sinner were let alone he hath such a depth of vileness in his heart that if he were to live infinitely he would sin without limits without bounds infinitely there is an infiniteness in the guilt of Sin we had need of a Saviour that should have Loves an infinite of Love a multitude of Mercies for our multitude of Sins numberless pardons for numberless Sinnings we Sinned yesterday we sin this day and we shall sin to morrow If Christ had not Loves we could have no hopes 3. Thirdly such a Saviour became us As Loves signifyes a Variety of gracious inclinations We have a variety of wants Our wants are not all of one nature we have need of Love to pardon us and to bring us into a state of favour Love to preserve us and uphold us when we are in such a state of favour One or another gracious aspect and inclination of Christ would not have been enough for our Souls which are not onely miserable and stand in need of mercy but poor and stand in need of the riches of divine grace and naked and stand in need of the long White robe of Christs righteousness and blind and stand in need of his Eye Salve We are all Emptiness and stand in need of his fulness that we might receive of his fulness Grace for Grace Less than infinite Loves and variety of gracious inclinations a readiness to serve our Souls in a variety of distresses with a sutable Supply of grace grace suited to every necessity of our Souls could not have fitted our Souls which have not only wants and infirmities but are incompassed about with wants and infirmities Fifthly Let this report of Christ to your Souls ingage you to indeavour to be made the Objects of these Loves I have observed to you before that this text doth not speak of the Love of Christ with respect to his Father but with respect to us to the Sons of men they are the objects of the Loves of Christ here mentioned How should we all study and indeavour that we may be the Beloved the objects of these Loves not of his Love onely but of his Loves Arminians keep a great deal of stir with a Philanthropy in Christ a common Love which he hath for all the Sons and daughters of men Nor is the question betwixt them and other Divines so much about the thing as the extent of it Sober Divines will many of them grant in Christ a common Love to all mankind and speak of some things which they take to be the effects and products of it but admit it yet it is certain he hath also an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a good pleasure of his will or Special kindness to some Souls So he hath Loves that is the benignity and kindness of his inclinations is more to Some than to others Let none of us satisfy our selves to be the Object of Christs Love unless we be the object of his Loves I shall press this onely with One Argument It is this Nothing but the Loves of Christ can serve our Souls as to their true Spiritual and eternal Concernment There is a great stir made in the world about a common Love which Christ should have for all the Sons and daughters of men and there are many that would make the Death of Christ to be the Effect of this Common Love And so conclude that he intentionally dyed for all and Every man Others are not of that mind but yet will allow all men and women in the world to receive some good from Christ and that not onely considered as God over all blessed for ever and one with his Father and so in him we live move and have our Being But as Mediator It is from him they say that the world yet stands that the Gospel is preached to the worst of men I see little in this worth the contending for I would gladly know what real advantage accrueth to any Soul from being the common object of Divine Love Admitting that all shal not be saved for whom Christ dyed which they must hold who hold that Christ dyed for all and every man unless they hold universal Salvation I would fain know what relief any Soul can have from this notion of Christs dying for all which some so much contend for Supposing that all men shall not be saved but those onely whom Christ hath loved with a Special Love Nothing can possibly revive a Soul troubled as to its Spiritual and eternal concerns but some evidence of that It is said of the young man who came to Christ so hopefully Mar. 10. 21. kneeling to him saying Master what good thing may I do that I may obtain everlasting Life that he loved him With that general Love which he hath for all his Creatures especially such as have any seeds of goodness in them yet the Text saith he went away Sorrowful Let us labour for the Special Love of Christ Such tokens of his Love as may distinguish betwixt us and those who shall perish But to shut up this Discourse This notion calleth upon all of us who would be like Christ to have Loves also There are two
But I have I fear said enough not only to convince you that the most men and women in the world are guilty of a false judgment either judging Wine in the literal sense or at least in the figurative sense better than Christs love but also to convince Gods own People that they do not sufficiently live up to and practice what they profess to Believe I might add another thing 6. Whosoever purchaseth Wine or a satisfaction from any creature by a disobedience to the commands of Christ doth most certainly judge that Wine that creature better then Christs loves The demonstration of this depends upon this That no man or woman can truly say they love Christ or groundedly expect that Christ should love them that doth not keep his Commandments or that wilfully ordinarily and presumptuously breaketh them tho there none lives who doth not sin against God I shall shut up this discourse with a word of exhortation which must be to a preference of the loves of Christ before Wine I shall press this exhortation upon you by some arguments My first argument shall be drawn from the reasonableness of this That a reasonable Soul should judge of things not according to any appearances from false representations but as they are I have spoken enough to persuade any person that believeth that he is not a meer lump of flesh but hath a reasonable Soul and that he is not a creature of this life meerly but ordained to an Eternal Existence and that the Soul of every man by nature and his state is such as the holy Scriptures speak it to be that the loves of Christ are more suited to his necessities his true real wants than it is possible that any created comforts should be now admitting this what more doth become areasonable creature than to judge them so All other judgment is but fallacy and deceit and of all deceit and fallacy there 's nothing so unworthy of a man as to cheat and deceive himself Thus every Soul doth that judgeth any thing better than the Loves of Christ Further yet there is nothing more unworthy of a man then to outlaw himself and suffer his passion to domineer over his reason the course of mans Soul according to reason is for his will to follow the dictate of his understanding for him to pursue the things which he judgeth most excellent and though in other things indeed man doth not so ' he seeth that which is better and doth that which he confesseth and judgeth worst yet all this is passion and so far as a man walketh or acteth thus he acteth not reasonably but this is but the first argument and considereth them meerly as men 2. The second shall concern you as Creatures What an indignity do you put upon the Creator to prefer the Creature before him Wine is but a Creature Riches Honours the World and all that is therein it is all but a Creature Christ is God over all blessed for ever It is a mighty degradation of God in our hearts to prefer any thing to his loves How can any man think that God should look upon that Soul that dethroneth him and preferreth some of his creatures yea of the meanest of his Creatures in his affections before him how righteously shall God leave that Soul to the creature as its portion that chuseth it and chuseth it in preference to his loves Thirdly Consider what an ill requital this is of Christs love to you This argument now concerneth you as you are Christians and believe that Christ in the fulness of time left his Fathers Throne and took not upon him the nature of Angels but the nature of Man Christ in his love his redeeming love to you hath manifested a double preference 1. A preference of your good to his own glory and manifestative favour from God his Father Christ indeed in his estate of humiliation was the beloved Son of his Father his Father in that time proclaimed him his only begotten Son in whom he was well pleased But he had not those manifestations of that love as before he was incarnate He was made a curse for us that the blessing of Abraham might come down upon us he cryed out upon the Cross my God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me 2. A preference of you to Angels He took not upon him the nature of Angels but your nature now how ill do you requite this love of your Saviour in preferring a creature to it how can we believe the Gospel and all that it telleth us of the dying loves of Christ and do this Oh therefore let not this be the condemnation of any poor Soul that heareth me this day let none of us incur the guilt of this Idolatry God aggravateth the Peoples sin of Idolatry from this that they said to a stack and to a stone thou art our Father the more base and low and unworthy the object is that is preferred before another the greater is the provocation of the preference Let us then so live so walk as by our conversation to evidence to the world that the Loves of Christ to our Souls are better than all the Wine which the world can afford us Let us not break a divine Precept to embrace any thing which this World can afford us in this we shall be so far from acting like to Christians or Creatures that we shall not act like men possessed of reasonable Souls Let us in our hearts more thirst in the Spirit after Christs Love than the worlds imbraces let us delight more in any reports of the love of Christ any discourses concerning it than in any worldly objects Let us be more diligent in use of means to gain Christs love than to gain the whole world Let us be more satisfied in the enjoyment of any thing of it than if we enjoyed all the World can afford us I remember Solomon saith The blessing of God maketh rich and addeth no sorrow therewith The Loves of Christ make the Soul happy and mixeth no sorrow with that happiness Wine is a sweet liquor but it will intoxicate in time it will grow flat and acid and there is no created good but will at one time or other grow flat sharp if the Soul be not drunk with it There is a satiety in pleasure riches honour there is a time when there will be no pleasure in them when we shall be able to see no goodness at all in them Let us neglect them upon the prospect of the vanity of them and the vexation of Spirit that is in them before we come to experience their vanity and rottenness I have shewed you a far more excellent object Christs loves are better than Wine Sermon XI Cnt. 1. 2. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his Mouth For thy loves are better than Wine FOr thy loves are better then Wine I have handled these 2 Propositions which the matter of these words affords us I have now only
wants but it deriveth from Christ Good things suited to the more external wants of our Body derive from God as the great preserver of man and flow from that common providence of his which dayly worketh in the upholding and preservation of created Beings but good things for our Souls derive from Christ as Mediator and as they are purchased by his blood so they are dispensed out by his Spirit This now can appear to a Soul from no other light but that of Revelation study therefore the holy Scriptures meditate therein night and day they testify all this concerning Christ A full persuasion of these two things 1. That we have immortal Souls ordained to an eternity either of happiness or misery 2. That nothing but the love of Christ can furnish them with those good things which are proper and necessary for them with respect to their Eternal Happiness are enough to convince Men and Women that the loves of Christ are as much better than Wine and to be preferred to it as the Soul is better than the Body and the things suited to its wants better than those things which are only suited to the wants of the outward man But still I say and every days experience maketh it good Non persuaseris etiamsi persuaseris you shall not persuade Men and Women tho you say enough to persuade them though you shut up their mouths and they having nothing to say such a power hath lust in the heart of man into such a debauchery is the nature of man degenerated Admitting men to believe that they have immortal Souls and that the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God there is nothing in nature hath a fuller evidence than this truth that the loves of Christ are preferrible to all things in the world and a man cannot act like a reasonable creature in preferring any thing unto them yet who believes it who lives up to this demonstration It is God must persuade the Soul of this and till the Soul hath this written and ingraven upon it by the finger of his Spirit it will never so Judge Lastly therefore Pray mightily that God would open your Ears to see this and persuade your Souls of the truth of it for till he doth it in vain are mens persuasions To move you to it consider 1. This will bear some proportion to the love of Christ to mankind Christ loved us more than these more than all the Kingdoms and pleasures and profits and honours of the world yea more than his own life yea he preferred us to the Angels the fallen Angels for he took not upon him the nature of Angels but the nature of man 2. This will speak the Soul to be a wise and understanding Soul Certain it is as I have already shewed you that the loves of Christ are good before Wine The wisdom of a Soul lyeth much in a right discerning betwixt good and evil and betwixt that which is good and that which is more good or better The excellency of a Soul lyeth in its conformity to God he is an Atheist who owneth not God to be the first Being and to be of all Beings the most excellent and perfect Being So as necessarily that Soul that comes nearest in conformity to God must be the most excellent Soul now that Soul which acteth most up to the principles of improved and pure reason and to the rule of that holy Writ which we all confess to be the revealed Will of God and liveth most up to the Divine Pattern doing what God doth that must needs be the most wise excellent understanding Soul Now will not a little reason serve to convince us that Christ is the most excelling Object and therefore to be preferred to all sublunary enjoyments Doth not the Scripture represent him to us as altogether desires as the chiefest of ten thousand as the well beloved of the Father in whom he is well pleased as he whom we ought to love with all our heart all our Soul all our Strength Doth not the Father the Heavenly Father love him above all other objects To which of the Angels said he at any time Thou art my Son this day I have begotten thee and again I will be to him a Father and he shall be to me a Son He was brought up with the Father and daily his delight rejoycing alwaies before him 3. This will speak an heavenly sublimated Soul purged from the dregs of sensuality and from an earthly mind a Soul risen with Christ and seeking the things which are above Col. 3. 1. The preference of Wine any sensual satisfactions or any sensible enjoyments to the loves of Christ speaks a dirty Soul that feedeth upon carrion and can be filled with wind Lastly You have heard what an argument this will supply a Soul with in all its addresses and applications to God for any grace or favour no argument can be more moving more prevailing with God none that layeth hold upon more promises or that toucheth God more as a tender Father O therefore labour for this frame of Spirit and give your Souls no rest until you find that they indeed do prefer the love of Christ before all other things in Heaven and Earth Secondly This notion calleth to all you who profess Godliness and to any thing of the Spirit of Adoption which teacheth to cry Abba Father to take heed of a Carnal mind an heart cleaving to any created comforts in excessive degrees so as for the enjoyment of them or any of them to run the hazard of the loves of Christ you will by it prejudice your souls in a great argument which you might use at the Throne of Grace There are amongst others three distempers of heart which those that would do much with God in Prayer must take heed of 1. A revengeful not forgiving frame of Spirit It is a dreadful Text Mat. 6. 15. But if you forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you Our Saviour hath taught us to pray Forgive us our Debts as we forgive our Debtors 2. A doubting and unbelieving frame of Spirit He that cometh unto God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him he that lifts up his hands unto God must lift up pure hands and that without doubting 3. Thirdly A Carnal heart cleaving to the world preferring the things of the world to the loves of Christ the good things of Grace Lastly Is this such an argument of force with God Let then such as can use it in truth make use of it I doubt not but I speak to many who can in truth say that they value the loves of Christ the tokens of his special and distinguishing love above all earthly contentments when you go to God plead this take unto you words and say Lord let me be made a partaker of thy special distinguishing love thou knowest that my Soul valueth it above mountains of Gold
climb up those steps which God hath made for us by which we may ascend into these Chambers we must blame our selves if we abide below But this is not alwaies the cause in some cases we must have recourse to Gods prerogative and must rest in this Even so O Father because it pleaseth thee Some Souls are dignified with a special communion and familiarity with God so was Abraham Moses David yet possibly if we look into the records we have of their lives we shall find more blots in some of them then in some others who we do not read were taken up into such eminent degrees of favour We cannot give just reasons and accounts of all Gods acts of Grace it is enough that God wills them In the mean time if we find but a good hope through grace an heart changed and cleaving to God if we can say with Peter Lord thou that knowest all things knowest that we love thee though we cannot boast of such special providences as others nor of such visions of peace nor of so quick an hearing of our prayers tho we dare not pretend to be such favourites of Heaven yet let us not be discouraged possibly as to us the Lords time is not yet come possibly it never will come God is a great Soveraign and unquestionably free as to these things he knows what is best for us he will deny no good thing to us We may say of the whole Family of God as the Queen of Sheba said of Solomons 1 Kings 10. 8. Happy are thy Men happy are these thy Servants which stand continually before thee and heaá¹™ thy wisdom There are some of Gods Servants that as to these enjoyments are more happy then others but there are none but are happy none but have reason for ever to admire the difference which God hath made betwixt them and others to admire what God hath done for their Souls bringing them out of the horrible Pit if they have not if they cannot see reason to rejoice in such a prospect of Heaven as othershave yet they have reason to rejoice in an equal deliverance from Hell I will shut up this discourse with two words of exhortation 1. The first directed to those who can say with the Spouse The King hath brought us into his Chambers 2. The second to those who walk with God but have not yet arrived at this Are there any who can speak the language of the Spouse and glory in this not only that they are brought home to Christ but that the King hath brought them into his Chambers the Lord hath dignified them with some special favours and manifested himself more to them then unto others the following words of this Text will let them know what is their duty I will saith the Spouse be glad and rejoice in thee and remember thy loves more then Wine 1. Be glad and rejoice in God we are often called to for this rejoycing in the Lord Psal 33. 1. Psal 97. 12. Phil. 3. 1. 4. 4. and in many other Texts Such is the portion of Gods Children such their state and condition that they have a continual cause of rejoycing and giving of thanks be they under what circumstances they can there is ground enough for them in all things to give thanks but they are more eminently obliged to it when they are under the highest manifestations of Divine Love This rejoycing in the Lord is I conceive opposed both to a carnal joy in sensual objects and also to a rejoycing meerly in that ease and satisfaction which the good thing giveth us for which we rejoice As now suppose a rich man giveth a poor man 20 s. it is one thing for the poor man to rejoice in the gift as suited to to â—his necessitous circumstances another thing to rejoice in the love and favour of the giver This is now the duty of the spiritual man he ought not only under the manifestations of divine love to rejoyce in the Lord more then in all the world and all the affluences and contentments of it which is expressed in the next phrase we will remember thy loves more then Wine and is commensurate to what David saith Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me for thou shalt thereby make my heart more glad then in the day when their Corn and Wine increased I say this is not enough for a Soul thus dignified he ought more to rejoice in the favour of God shewed him in these specialties of his favour then in the ease and satiâ—faction which the mercy received giveth unto his Soul And herein lieth the purity of the spiritual mans joy nor is his joy genuine and perfect till it come to this pitch 2. The second phrase in the Text expressive of this dignified Souls duty is We will remember thy loves more then Wine The term remember is taken in Scripture in a great latitude and expressive both of all that affection which is due to the remembrance of the object and of all that practical duty which is consequent to it I shall touch a little upon both these and that very shortly for I shall God willing speak to both these expressions in order more fully 1. Remember Christs loves with the remembrance of the heart I shall instance but in one fruit of this and that is faith Remember his loves so as for them to trust in God more and to cast the care of thy Soul in an hour of distress the better upon him upon consideration of thy past and present experience We are too ready both to forget our sorrows and to forget our comforts to forget our sorrows by giving our selves a liberty to the same sins for which we have smarted and to forget our comforts by giving liberty to the same dejections and despondencies again after the experiences of Gods favour 2. Remember Christs loves practically so as to make them obligations upon your Souls to a close walking with God See the example of David Psal 116. 1 9 12 18. But I shall speak all this over again when I come to handle the next words and shall therefore add no more My second Branch of this Exhortation shall respect those whom God hath not thus far dignified the Lord hath as they hope admitted them into his family but he hath not yet brought them into his Chambers Some communion with God they hope they have and an heart that panteth after a more full and near communion with him but this they have not yet attained to they walk in the dark and see no light the Lord giveth them an heart to pray but they cannot glory in such a full and quick return of prayers as others have they have not that inward joy and peace which as to some Souls is consequential to believing the question is now what they should do what their duty is under their present circumstances I will open it in two particulars 1. Certainly they ought not to despond
otherwise the object of their joy then as it was an evidence of Gods favour It is a great piece of the Spiritual mans art to rejoice in God while he rejoiceth in the creature to make Christ the gladness of his joy as the Psalmist expresseth it now this motion of a pious Soul will appear to be natural supposing him to be first enlightned to discern and to be fully persuaded that the love of Christ to the Soul is the greatest good the rational Soul is capable of this will appear to you if you will but consider these three or four things 1. That the presence and eâ—joyment of some good of which the Soul stands in need and in the pursuit of which it is is the true and natural cause of the motion of that affection which we call joy This is evident both to sense and reason we rejoice not in evil but in good not in an absent but in a present good in the sense and manifestation and apprehension of it 2. That the loves of God and Jesus Christ are the greatest goods in the world and therefore the presence and sensible manifestations of them are the enjoyments and manifestations of the supreme good The very light of nature shewed the Heathen that the happiness of man lay in his union with the greatest good thus far they were agreed by their common reason though they could not so well agree what that chief good was nothing hindred them from agreeing this truth but their want of true knowledge of God and Christ and of the possibility of a poor creatures having an union with him or any kind of enjoyment of him or understanding the need their Souls stood of the loves of Christ for agreeing that the happiness of man lay in an union with the supreme good they wanted but the revelation we have of mans wants and the possibility of this blessed union with and fruition of God but they must have agreed this truth 3. It is but natural to the Soul to rejoice more in the obtaining of a greater good then in the obtaining of what is lesser and to rejoice most in a good most comprehensive of other particular goods though it wanteth those particular good things Who is there who doth not naturally more rejoice in the getting of five hundred pounds than of five because the five hundred pound is a greater good then five who doth not more rejoice in a great stock of mony by him then in a great quantity of Bread or a great Wardrobe of Cloaths the reason is because Mony is comprehensive of these he that hath Mony can buy Bread and Cloths 4 Lastly It is but natural to us to rejoyce in nothing which we apprehend incompetent with that good wherein our chief happiness doth lie Nor in the having of any thing which we enjoy whiles we want that which we look at most of all Rachel was a good Woman Jacob was her Husband to whom she was exceeding dear he had a plentiful estate 't is hard to say what good she wanted save Children only that blessing her heart was upon Jacob was nothing his estate nothing to her she goes to her Husband and cries Give me Children or else I die Now admit a believing Soul to be firmly persuaded that it must live for ever either in eternal happiness or in eternal misery and again to be persuaded That it can never live in eternal happiness without an union with Christ without his love manifested to it in the pardon of its sins and the imputation of his righteousness admit the Soul to be fired in the pursuit of these things as its chief good how is it possible that it should rejoice in any thing incompetent with it or that it should rejoice in any thing with an equal joy as it rejoiceth in this Hence it followeth that Christ must be the singular object of the believing Souls joy 1. Because it is impossible the Soul should rejoice in what is incompetent with the sruition and enjoyment of what it rightly judgeth its chief good Such are all sensual prohibited satisfactions 2. Because it is impossible it should rejoice in what it judgeth a lesser good more then in what it judgeth a greater and transcendent to it 3. Because it knoweth Christ and his loves are comprehensive of all other good for if he hath given us Christ saith the Apostle shall he not also with him give us all things Thus I have opened and shewed you the reason of the Proposition why the Soul rejoyceth in Christ I added and in the manifestations of his love particularly in hearing and answering its prayers I shall give you some reasons of that and then apply the whole discourse But c. Sermon XXVIII Cant. 1. 4. We will be glad and rejoice in thee I Am yet handling the Proposition at first laid down I shewed you the last day how Christ is the singular object of the Spouses joy I added then and the manifestations of his love especially in hearing and answering our prayers Indeed Christ is no otherwise the object of our joy then in the manifestations of his love All joy requireth some sensible manifestation or experience The personal excellencies of Christ make him the object of our love whom saith the Apostle having not seen yet we love Love asks for nothing but amiableness in its object no more doth desire which is the first born of love but joy requires propriety and union Christ manifested to the Soul can alone be the object of joy but I added especially in hearing and answering Prayer that was the case here the Spouse had prayed draw me and we will run after thee she presently triumpheth in the hearing of her Prayers and then addeth we will be glad and rejoice in thee I might have also added prayers put up particularly for spiritual mercies We shall all along in Scripture find this made a great matter of joy in the hearts of Gods people take the instances of Hannah and David Hannah had been 1 Sam. 1. praying unto God for a Child the Lord answered see how she rejoiceth 1 Sam. 2. 1. Hannah prayed and said My heart rejoiceth in the Lord mine Horn is exalted in the Lord my mouth is inlarged over mine Enemies because I rejoice in thy salvation Concerning David we have many instances Psal 31. 21. Blessed be the Lord for he hath shewed me his marvellous kindness in a strong City v. 22. Thou heardst the voice of my supplication when I cried unto thee Psal 3. 4. I cried unto the Lord with my voice and he heard me from his holy place in this he rejoiceth and triumpheth v. 6 8. Psal 6. 8. The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping the Lord hath heard my supplication he will receive my prayer So again Psal 18. 6. again Psal 28. 6. Blessed be the Lord because he hath heard the voice of my supplications so Psal 116. 1. But there needeth no Scripture in the
is full either of such as are excessive drinkers of Wine or Merchants for it but how thin is it of such as have any remembrance of Christs love who as the Apostle tells us died to redeem us from our vain conversation 1 Pet. 1. 18. For we were not redeemed with corruptible things as Silver and Gold from our vain conversation but with the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish who can be said to remember Christs love more then Wine that lives in those sins which crucified him who was the Lord of life Yet is not this the course of the most Men and Women who never think of their dying Saviour to restrain them in their drunkennesses debaucheries in their greatest excesses of Riot Nay how many are there that seldom take the love of Christ into their thoughts the love of their cups and of their Harlots hath made Christs loves to be utterly forgotten by their Souls for how can they say that they remember Christs loves above their lusts that will not quench one lust for his sake they in whom the remembrance of Christs death will not extinguish one vile affection one spark of pleasing lust will not the most of men and women yea such in whose ears the loves of Christ are published every Lords day be found perishing for preferring the very lees and dregs of Wine before the loves of Christ I mean for preferring the basest and most sordid kind of pleasures and satisfactions of the flesh for such are those pleasures which are no more than the gratifying of the sensitive appetite 2. Do not most mens discourses and practice betray them to remember Wine I mean their profitable things before the loves of Christ How much is the world and the things of the world the discourse of all companies upon all occasions how few are the discourses concerning Christ and what he hath done for us an hours discourse of Christs loves in a Pulpit upon the Lords day is thought proportionable to six days discourse about our earthly occasions do we not even grudge the Lord a seventh part of our time for the remembrances of his loves the Lords day is a day to call to remembrance Christs loves It was the day of his resurrection by which he compleated mans redemption the Ministers work is to help us in our remembrance of his loves We have besides our attendance upon the publick ministry a private duty this day incumbent upon us viz. To remember him who died for our sins and rose again for our justification I beseech you consider whether your remembrings of Christs loves upon the Sabbath day bear any proportion to your remembrance of your worldly interests other days I mean not for the proportion of time spent in the one and the other God hath indulged our infirmity in that he hath set apart a seventh day only to himself but examine this whether you remember the loves of Christ on the Lords day as you remember your worldly concerns on any of the other six days do the loves of Christ come into your thoughts as much on the week day as the world comes into your thoughts on the Lords days I sear there is none of us all can say that in this thing our hearts are clean I hope I speak to many who remember the loves of Christ and will never suffer his dying love to go off their thoughts But when we come to these comparative examinations to enquire whether we remember his loves more then we remember our sensual or sensible objects ah how short do we come of the duty of Christians yea of what our selves will own and consess to be our duty Happy is that man that doth not condemn himself even in the thing which he alloweth to be his duty But I had rather spend my time in persuading my self and you to our duty which according to my explication of the text and this propositionwill lye much in two things 1. In a full and perfect remembrance of the Loves of Christ 2. In a remembrance of them proportionable to that degree of goodness and excellency in them I say first in a Scriptual remembrance a full and perfect remembrance of the Loves of Christ I am afraid that we satisfy our selves too much in a Notional formal remembrance of Christs Loves and so please our selves in hearing the Gospel read opened and applyed to our Souls in a formal keeping of the Lords day the day which God hath set apart for us to call to our minds all the acts of our redemption compleated in his resurrection some Churches aware of Peoples awkness to this Spiritual duty have thought fit to appoint other days for a more solemn remembrance of his incarnation and death Nor have I any thing to say against any Christians that will set apart any Special times to remember any Loves of Christ though I do not know that Christ hath left any power to his Church to impose particular times of this nature But alas this is the least part of our duty in the remembrance of his Love We may have a day to remember it in we have such a day every week we may have helps to remember it by The holy Scriptures the Ministers of the Gospel that Preach Christ to their People are such helps But if in these days if with these helps we do not set our selves to meditate of the Loves of Christ to turn our thoughts from other things to the contemplation of and meditation upon the Love of a Christ incarnate the Love of a Christ dying and riseing again from the dead if we do not study to get our hearts affected suitably to such Love with love faith hope c. we do not so live as a People that remember Christ died for our Sins declining whatsoever is contrary to his will and Law in the Gospel do what in us lyeth to promove his honour Glory we are so far from Satisfying our Duty by this formal remembrance of his Love that we are the greatest forgetters of his Love The Jews who never owned him as their Redeemer the Heathen who never heard of his name nor of what he was or did for Sinners can in no propriety of Speech be said to forget his Loves The Christian only the loose Christian the formal Christian he who hears every day of the dying Love of Christ yet goes on to defy him to crucify him afresh and to put him to open shame or he who every Lords day hears the sound of the Loves of Christ and reads of it yet never meditates upon it never suffers his soul by contemplation to pierce into the heights or sound the depths of it whose heart is never truly affected with it so as he hath any Love kindled in his soul towards Christ no breathings after him who exerciseth no faith no hope in him he that lives not in his measure up to it leaving his vain conversation worshiping God in the Spirit
justified of her Children It is enough that the upright love him The upright men are the best men in the world But you will say were there such a beauty such an excellency in Christ why should not every rational man enquire after him and love him The answer is easy Because his beauty his excellency is not obvious to the Eye of sense or to the Eye of reason working from its own principles but only to the Eye of faith that of reason working upon revealed principles The goodness excellency of Christ considered as Mediator doth not lie in a suitableness to our bodily wants no nor to the wants of our Souls considered only as rational and spiritual Beings but in his suitableness to our Souls considered as lapsed and fallen from the happy state wherein they were at first created and by that fall exposed to the wrath of God here and hereafter Now this is revealed only in Holy Writ and is to be discerned only by the Eye of faith So as those who do not by a firm and steady assent agree to the revelation of the word cannot possibly see any excellency in Christ as a Saviour and Mediator between God and Man Secondly Every gracious Soul is from this Proposition justified in all their pangs of love for and toward Christ and in all their actions and sufferings in evidence of this love That there is such a thing as a spiritual love sickness is evident to all those who know any thing of the ways of God with the Soul or the motions of the Soul toward God Let persons of atheistical and profane hearts mock so long as they please no Soul that I know of expresseth more of this nature then his who is stiled by God the man according to Gods own heart Psal 119. 20. My heart breaketh with the longings which it hath to thy judgments at all times Psal 42. 1. As the Hart panteth after the Water-brooks so panteth my Soul after thee O God my Soul thirsteth for God for the living God Psal 63. 1. My Soul thirsteth for thee my flesh longeth for thee Our Saviour I am sure blesseth those who hunger and thirst after Righteousness Mat. 5. what work would the unhallowed wits of our Age have made with such metaphors as these in their Books of drollery c. they are all expressive of those pangs of love that sometimes affect good Christians in the several states of their Souls and besides these more inward motions the Souls of good Christians cannot but express their love by a zeal for his glory a love to his institutions a regard to all his commandments and durst not do many things as to which their Neighbours find no difficulty because they love the Lord Jesus Christ who hath said If you love me keep my Commandments For Christ that they may shew their love by their obedience unto him they are ready to suffer the loss of all things yea and do count them but dung that they may win Christ for this the men of the world mock them let them mock on The upright love him I remember in the story of David we read 2 Sam. 6. 20. That Michal his Wife the Daughter of Saul mocked him for his dancing before the Ark in a linnen Ephod How glorious saith she was the King of Israel to day who uncovered himself to day in the Eyes of the handmaids of his Servants as one of the vain fellows shamelesly uncovereth himself The holy man gives her a very smart answer saith he It was before the Lord which chose me before thy Father to appoint me to be a ruler over the people of the Lord over Israel therefore will I play before the Lord. And I will yet be more vile then thus c. Whiles carnal men mock at the secret sighings and groanings of Gods people at their frequency and strictness at in or to religious duties and call it all whining and canting and what comes next to the end of their lewd Tongues the Child of God is justified in this that the upright love Christ and all these their expressions of love are for and towards him who hath chosen their Souls to Eternal life and the use of all means which he hath made necessary in order to that Salvation and who for ought yet appeareth hath passed over the Souls of these Scoffers and left them to perish in their gainsayings When ch 5. of this Song the Spouse chargeth the Daughters of Hierusalem that if they found her beloved they should tell him she was sick of love They reply What is thy beloved more then another beloved O thou fairest among Women what is thy beloved more then another beloved that thou dost so charge us Cant. 5. 8. 9. See into what an elogy of her beloved she breaks out to the end of that Chap. My beloved saith she is white and reddy the chiefest of ten thousand c. when the men of the world see a gracious Soul panting sighting and breathing after Christ they are ready to speak to the same sense tho in ruder language what is the beloved of this Soul more then anothers beloved what makes these people so full of prayers and tears so full of duty so fond of the ordinances of Christ This justifies such Souls in all their pantings after Christ in all the passions of their Souls for him The upright love him Thirdly From hence Christians may take measures of themselves and make up a judgment of their Souls whether they be upright Souls yea or no very much lieth upon this many are the promises that in Holy Writ we shall find made to upright Souls Perfection of degrees is our mark but what in this life we cannot attain unto all perfection we are capable of is uprightness this may be attained we are therefore highly concerned to inquire upon our uprightness By this we shall know it The Soul that truly loveth Christ that is an upright Soul so as that which we have to examine is the truth of our love to Christ This inquiry also is considerable in respect of the Apostolical Anathema 1 Cor. 16. 22. If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha It is a great point how a Christian shall certainly know his spiritual state he shall know it by his uprightness how shall he know his uprightness that is to be known by his love to Christ But will some say is not this as hard to be discerned as any thing else I answer surely no. If it be no hard thing for a man to know whether he loves such a woman or a woman to know that she loveth such a man or for any to know they love such a friend such a companion why should it be so hard for a Soul to know whether it loveth Christ or no love will work much in the same manner towards all its objects and though the visibility and sensibility of some objects may draw out
more of our passion and excesses of affection yet the reality and truth of our love may certainly be as well discerned rewards a spiritual and invisible object as to one that is more the object of our exteriour senses let us therefore try those measures and see how we will make up our judgment of the truth of our love to a fellow creature what is that which we call love but the delight and complacency and satisfaction of the Soul in an object beloved declared by the pantings and breathings of the heart after it when absent for an union or re-union with it the acquiescence and meltings of the heart upon it when present and an union with it is obtained or apprehended the Souls intercourse and communion with it and free communications of its self unto it its kindness to every person or thing to whom or which the object beloved hath any relation its patient and pleasing bearing his reproofs its readiness to go or run or do any thing at the will and command of such a person its standing up in the defence of him or her its rising up against any that would do them injury or that it hears speak reproachfully or diminutively of him It 's readiness to suffer any thing for his sake c. Surely by some or all these notes we may try our love to Christ and be as certain of it as we can be of the sincerity of our love to any fellow creature let me therefore desire you to propound these few questions to your selves 1. How far is Christ the object of thy thoughts We say 〈◊〉 amor ibi oculus where love is there the Eye will be the reason of that is because our thoughts are much imployed about the object of our love where our treasure is saith our Saviour there will our hearts be also the Psalmist therefore speaking of the wicked man who hath no love for God saith God is not in all his thoughts Psal 10. 4. So long as we live in the world the things of it are so much and so continually the objects of our senses that it is not to be expected but that our thoughts should in a great measure be exercised about the things of it so that I would not put the issue upon that whether the world or Christ have most of our thoughts but certainly Christ will be much in the thoughts of that Soul in whom the love of Christ is Te veniente die te decedente canebat saith the Poet of the lover the Soul that loveth Christ will think of him in the evening when he lieth down and in the morning when he riseth up and David had his waking thoughts in the night season with God God will not have all of the best mans thoughts because he is but flesh and hath some thoughts to take about what he shall eat and drink and put on but God will have much of his thoughts Christ will be much in the thoughts of that Soul that truly loveth him Secondly 2. How are the motions of thy Soul after an absent Christ Christ as to his person is alwaies absent that the Heavens must contain till the end of the World but he is or may be graciously present in his institutions and with respect to his gracious influences and with respect to both these he is often or may be absent the first makes up the desertion of a Church when it is general or a particular person when it is only the affliction of a particular Soul in some cases and by some severer providences kept from the ordinances of God the second is the particular desertion of a gracious Soul not as to necessary but as to gradual influences now how is thy Soul affected to Christ absent when thou canst not enjoy the Ordinances of Christ as thou hast formerly enjoyed them You see the heart and affection of David in this cafe in divers Psalms particularly Psal 42. Psal 63. Psal 84. what breathings what longings what impatience doth he there express So when thou suspectest his absence as to the particular special influences of his grace how doth thy heart move toward him doth it move as the heart of the Spouse moved in the third and 5th Chapters of this admirable Song Seeking him sighing after him enquiring of all like to inform thee how thou mightest recover thy lost peace being restless till thou hast recovered it This is a sign of love 3. How is thy heart affected in any presence or enjoyment of Christ What pleasure what delight and complacency hath thy Soul in the institutions of Christ in the manifestations of his love to thy Soul See the instance of the Spouse as to this Can. 3. 4. I found him whom my Soul loveth I held him and would not let him go until I had brought him into my Mothers House and into the Chamber of her that conceived me v. 5. 1 charge you O you Daughters of Hierusalem by the Roes and by the Hinds of the field that you stir not up nor awake my love until he please A rejoycing in the signs of his love being glad and resolving not again to part with him a fear of offending him and care to please him are all of them signs of a love to the Lord Jesus Christ 4. A freedom of converse and communion with him also speaketh love Christ proves himself his Disciples friend because he had made known to them whatsoever he had received from the Father Joh. 15. 15. Dalilab challenged Sampson for want of love to her because he had concealed his secrets from her The withholding of prayer from God the want of frequency freedom and boldness in prayer speaks want of love to Christ in the Soul frequency freedom and boldness holy boldness speaks a Soul full of love to Christ 5. What affections hast thou to those things and persons that have a relation to Christ that bear his image and superscription the Word and Ordinances of God the Ministers and People of God by this you shall know your love to Christ Again 6. How canst thou bear the reproofs of Christ Our nature doth not love reproof we must love those very well from whom we take reproof quietly Let the righteous smite me saith David it shall be as an excellent Oil which shall not break my head When a Christian can bear the verbal reproofs of Christs Word and Ministers and the real reproofs and chastenings of his rod It is a sign of love 7. What zeal hast thou for the honour and glory of Christ Canst thou not hear him reproached but that his reproaches fall on thee thy blood riseth and thy heart is troubled It is an argument of little love for God or Christ when we can patiently hear them abused and dishonoured Psal 69. 9. The zeal of thine house saith David hath eaten me up and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen on me 8. I must not forget that of our Saviour If you love me
keep my Commandments No Soul can so much as pretend to a love to Christ that makes no conscience of keeping the Commandments of Christ 9. The Soul lastly that hath a love for Christ will suffer any thing for his sake it will rather suffer the loss of all things then the loss of Christs favour By these and such like questions and notes as these it will be no hard matter for a Soul to judge of its love to Christ and by that it will be able to judge and determine concerning its uprightness In the last place doth every Soul that is upright love Christ and are the degrees of the Souls uprightness according to the degrees of the Souls love How do we then all stand concerned to love Christ In order to it 1. The Soul must be dispossest of other loves inconsistent and incompetent with the love of Christ Such is the love of all lust of any thing that is contrary to the will of God Such is the excessive and immoderate love of the world Love not the world nor the things that are in the world saith John 1. Joh. 2. 25. If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him in like manner we may say If any man love the world the love of Jesus Christ is not in him 2. Do what in thee lies to persuade thy self of the suitableness of Christ to the staâ—e and needs of thy Soul we love nothing but what appeareth good that is some way suitable to and convenient for us All we can do as to this is to read the Scriptures which alone give a true account of the state of Souls To hear them opened and applied to our consciences by able and faithful Ministers to meditate upon what we read and hear Christ must appear to our Souls an amiable object before we can love him 3. Lastly Pray for the Spirit of Grace both effectually to discover Christs loveliness to you and also to draw out your hearts to love him if we must be taught of God to love our Brethren whom we have seen we must much more be taught of God to love Jesus Christ whom we have not seen Those that think man hath a power in his own will to love God do not consider that we have not a power in and of our selves as we often find upon experience to love a creature whom yet it were our great interest to love O pray pray without ceasing that you may love the Lord Jesus Christ remember that the upright love him there is no upright Soul in the World but loves him 2. Thus thou shalt shew thy self to be upright Nothing more discovereth an upright heart then a sincere Love to Christ Now of how great moment it is for a Christian to discern his uprightness I need not tell you I shall conclude with a bare naming of some Scriptures containing promises made to uprightness leaving them to you at your leisure to meditate upon them Psal 7. 10. The Lord saveth the upright in heart Gods Righteousness belongeth to the upright in heart Psal 36. 10. The End of the upright man is Peace Psal 37. v. 37. Gladness belongeth to the upright in heart Psal 97. v. 11. The Generation of the upright shall be blessed Psal 112. v. 2. Light shall arise upon them in obscurity v. 4. They shall dwell in Gods presence Psal 140. 13. They shall dwell in the land Prov. 2. 21. The way of the Lord is strength unto them Prov. 10. 29. The integrity of the upright shall guide him Prov. 11. 3. His Righteousness shall deliver him v. 6. The upright in the way are the Lords delight v. 20. Righteousness keepeth him that is upright in the way but wickedness overthroweth the Sinner Prov. 13 6. Sermon XXXI Cant. 1. 5. I am black but comely O you Daughter of Hierusalem as the tâ—nts of Kedar as the Curtaines of Solomon v. 6. Look not upon me because I am black because the Sun hath looked upon me my Mothers Children were angry with me they made me the keeper of the Vineyards but my own Vineyard I have not kept IT is the Spouse in this excellent Song of Love that yet Speaks Twice we have heard her Speaking to her Beloved Once Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth begging some distinguishing token of his Special love Her heart suggesting to her that her beloved was far more ready to imbrace her then she was to run after him She spake a Second time Draw me and we will run after thee begging the sweet and powerfull influences of divine grace Here now she interrupteth her applications to her beloved with an Apostrophe to her companions whom she here calleth The Daughters of Hierusalem The verse contains a modest apology which the maketh for her self In which are considerable 1. The persons to whom she maketh it here stiled The Daughters of Jerusalem 2. The Apology it self I am black saith she as the tents of Kedar as the Curtains of Solomon c. In the latter is considerable 1. The thing which she apologizeth for That is her Blackness which she confesseth I am black saith she and illustrateth as the teints of Kedar c. 2. The arguments of her Apology or head from whence it is drawn They are four or five 1. The mixture of comeliness with her blackness I am black but comely 2. The Influence of heaven upon her The Sun saith she hath looked upon me 3. The oppositions she had met with on earth My mothers children were angry with me 4. Her worldly diversions and imployments They made me the Keeper of the Vineyards 5. Her own neglect But my own I have not kept Finally She pleadeth with them that they would not look upon her because she was black But what needed this Apology who faulted the Spouses blackness who questioned her comeliness This is not expressed in the letter of the Text but easily understood Patet quod dett axer ant ei nigredinem improper antes It is apparent saith Bernard that they did detract from her charging her with blackness Neither did the true Church of Christ nor any truely believing Soul ever want those that reproached them The man according to Gods own heart heard some telling him There was no help for him in God We must therefore Suppose our Spouse to have heard some saying to her to this purpose Canst thou think that Christ who is the fairest of ten thousand should kiss the with the kisses of his mouth Thee That art by nature an Ethiopian and by thy renewing actuall Sins hast made thy self much more black and ugly Surely when the King of glory humbleth himself to make love to his Subjects he will chuse one much fairer then thou art Did Aaron and Miriam wonder at reproach Moses because he had married an Ethiopian Num. 12. 1. And should not Christ be the wonderment of the whole creation if he should love one so black as thou art
2 Cor. 12. 6. Lest as he saith any should think of me above that which he seeth in me or that he heareth of me We are to have a care of the corruptions of others hearts as well as our own 3. Look to the simplicity of thy heart in the end of thy action This will indeed be much regulated from the principle if the principle be true the end will be so A man can do nothing out of a true principle of love to God but his end will be the honour and glory of God if the principle be self-self-love the end will be our own honour praise and applause to have the reputation of a religious man in the world and to appear to be what indeed we are not Now if thy end be the honour and glory of God you have heard that is no other way attainable but either by the predication of his goodness or by the doing of his will either in the doing good to others or the preventing of scandals and offences or upholding the credit and reputation of Religion c. But of all these things I have discoursed more fully before Sermon XXXVI Cant. 1. 6. Look not upon me because I am black c. I Have done with the four first Propositions which I observed in these two verses I come to the fifth from those words Look not upon me because I am black Where the Spouse or rather the Holy Ghost by her doth not forbid all looking upon the Spouse whether we understand the Church or the particular believing Soul in the day of her blackness but some particular lookings And this is very usual in Scripture to deliver Propositions generally which yet must be understood in a limited and restrained sense of which a multitude of instances might be given Mat. 18. 3. Except you â—e converted and become as little Children that is in some things as little Children you cannot enter into the Kingdom of God So where Christ saith my Doctrine is not mine the meaning is not mine alone and again If I give testimony of my self that is if I alone gave testimony of my self my testimony is not true So often in precepts and exhortations when thou makest a feast saith our Saviour Luk. 14. 12. call not thy Friends or thy Brethren or thy Kindred that is not them alone There is nothing more ordinary in the phrase of Scripture and particularly in exhortations or prohibitions So here when she saith Look not upon me her meaning is not to dissuade all intuition and beholding her in her blackness but to caution us how to look upon her hence the Proposition was It is our duty to take heed how we look upon the Church or the particular Child of God because they are black What the blackness of the Church or of the particular Soul is I have heretofore largely discoursed Both of them are black through Afflictions and black through Corruptions the Corruptions of particular Souls are personal the Corruptions of the Church are the Corruptions of the body collective through the mixture of undue and corrupt Teachers or Members the reception of false and erroneous Doctrine idolatrous or superstitious Worship or Rites c. In some sense we may not be able to avoid looking upon them as looking signifies no more then the casting of our Eyes upon obvious objects that are before us In some sense it is our duty to look upon them to pity and compassionate them and contribute what we are able toward their help and recovery But in other senses it is our sin to look upon them The business as to which I am to instruct you under this Proposition is how truly to divide betwixt our duty and our sin in this case The Eyes are the windows of the Soul through which most of our affections and passions shew themselves Pride discovereth itself by the Eye hence you read of a Generation whose Eyes are lâ—fâ—y Prov. 30. 13. and David saith of himself O Lord mine heart is not haughty nor my Eyes lofty Psal 131. 1. Love and wantonness discovereth itself by the Eye Hence Peter tells us of Eyes full of Adultery and Job tells us he had made a covenant with his Eyes that he would not look upon a Maid Covetousness and immoderate desires discover themselves by the Eye Prov. 27. 29. The Eyes of man are never satisfied The joy pleasure and satisfaction of the Soul are discerned by the Eye Mine Eyes also shall see my desire on my Enemies Psal 92. 11. Hope looketh through the Eye hence David expresseth his hope in God by the action of his Eyes Mine Eyes are towards the Lord Psal 25. 15. and in many other Texts Pity sorrow and compassion are discovered and expressed by the Eye The Eyes for sorrow wax dim and run down with tears The outward man moveth according to the bent and inclination of the will and affections as a mans will stands bent and his affections are inclined so he moveth so he acteth and this will of man and his affections discovering themselves by the Eye The motions of that are made use of in Scripture to express the several affections and inclinations of the Soul of man The Spouse in this Text must not be understood to caution the Daughters of Hierusalem against the natural motions of their Eyes with reference to her But 1. Against those unkind affâ—ctions towards her which were not suitable to her state and condition 2. Against those unkind effects and actions which ordinarily follow such affections I put in those words unkind and unsuitable because there are affections and actions which are our duties towards the Spouse in the day of her blackness This will lead me to discourse two points under this Proposition 1. The duâ—y of Christians towards the Church of Christ black with Afflictions or through sinful mixtures and corruptions and towards particular Christians under affâ—â—ctions or lapses 2. How Christians may sin in their behaviours towards one or the other under such circumstances First Let me speak as to what is a Christians duty in the ease that I shall resolve in this general position That it is a Christians duty so far to look upon the Church and the particular Christian in the day of their blackness as they may be thereby affected with that due compassion which they owe unto their Brethren and quickned to those acts which brotherly love and compassion calteth to them for Thus not to look upon the Spouse because she is black is our sin So that the duty of a Christian here lieth in two or three things 1. In a sympathy or fellow feeling of a Churches or Christians burdens and misery The Eye naturally affects the heart according to the nature of the object which it seeth Nature itself teacheth a sympathy betwixt members of the same body No one member can be afflicted or pained but the whole body feeleth it and hath some sense of it The Apostle hath compared the Church the
footsteps of the flock 2. Feed thy Kids by the Shepherds Tents O thou whom my Soul loveth or hath loved The Chaldee Paraphrast would have us believe that this seventh verse was Moses his Petition to God when he was about to die for direction from him how the People should be governed when he should be gone and how they should dwell amongst the Heathen whose laws would be more grievous to the sincere part of them then the Sun is to the Traveller at noon day and asking why she should live amongst the Edomites and Moabites who made Idols the companions of the true God and v. 8. the same Paraphrast makes this to be the Lords answer telling his Prophet Moses that if they would not live under the power of the Heathen they must walk in his Commandments and be obedient to the guides he had set over them But doubtless this is a strained sense proceeding from the overgreat fondness of that Interpreter to apply all that is said in this Song to the Jewish Church There are others who according to their different notions of these betwixt whom this Dialogue is instituted carry these words in other senses you know the sense which I have all along followed is that of those and they are the most and the best who make it a Dialogue betwixt the believing Soul or the Church and the Lord Jesus Christ It is then the believing Soul that speaks in this language of a lover O thou whom my Soul loveth Christ is the primary object of the believers love a believer loveth him and none else in a degree to be compared with him or with a love any thing like that love wherewith she loveth him But if she loveth him must she tell him so Modesty maketh the Virgin ordinarily to conceal her passion sinful modesty oft-times maketh her that is a spiritual Virgin to conceal her love to Christ She that may while she is doubting her own sincerity conceal her love to Christ will not conceal it when she lives in any view of it and can say with Peter Lord thou that knowest all things knowest that I love thee Nor when she is to use it as an argument to obtain any favour from him Nor when she is doubting of his love to her how unreasonably soever Nor is the Virgin that is too modest to publish her love to the world so modest as not to own it to him whom she hath resolved upon and chosen for her Husband Bernard hath I think too critical a note upon these words mark saith he she doth not say whom I love but whom my Soul loveth Spiritualem designans dilectionem intimating a spiritual love But yet it is well noted by the learned Mercer that the phrase signifieth more then if she had said Omy Beloved it is as much as if she had said In quem omnes meos affectus effudi saith Beza upon whom I have bestowed my whole heart Tell me where thou feedest where thou makest thy flocks to rest at Noon Thus she expresseth the thing that she would have under a metaphorical expression the sense of which we are to enquire keeping of Sheep and Goats was a very ancient and in those times a noble employment Abel was the first Shepheard you read of Gen. 4. 2. Rachel was a keeper of Sheep Gen. 29. 6. So was Jacob and David as you know before he came to be King over Israel God called him from the Sheepfold Christ takes unto himself the notion of a Shepheard he calleth himself the good Shepheard John 10. 1 2. c. It was prophecied of him that he should feed his flock like a Shepheard Isaiah 45. 11. and his death was prophecied of under the notion of smiting the Shepheard Zech. 13. 7. Mat. 26. 11. The Apostle calls him the great Shepheard and the chief Shepheard In this dialect here the Spouse speaks to him It was not unusual for the Heathens to discourse matters of carnal and sensual love as transactions between Shepheards and some whom they loved The Holy Ghost doth the same here he by Solomon discourseth this matter of Spiritual and Divine love as a transaction betwixt a Shepheard and one who dearly loved him But what would she have she would know where he fed that is where he fed his flocks where he made them to rest at noon the noon as you know is the hottest time of the day and so by the noon I find some understanding a time of affliction To this I find Mercer and Beza inclining Beza thinketh that the Church here beggeth to know how Christ would have his Church governed and ordered in the middest of temptations and persecutions and beggeth for Christs fullest and clearest manifestations of himself to her at such a time so saith Bernard Mercer thinks it is as much as if she had said Lord I am burnt with the Sun shew me that shadow in and with which thou usest to refresh thy Saints in the hour of affliction There is a promise made to the Church Isaiah 49. 10. They shall not hanger nor thirst neither shall the heat or the Sun smite them for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them even by the springs of waters shall he guide them Now the Spouse here in the opinion of these Interpreters begs to know these shadows where the flocks rested at noon I must confess I more incline to another sense The noon was the hottest time of the day and as in our Country where the power of the Sun is nothing so much as in those hot Countries Cattel seek shadows and resting places where they are a little free from the heat of the weather so they were wont to drive their flocks of Sheep into such shadowy places where both the Shepheard and the Sheep were more quiet and at rest which time was the most free time of the day for the Shepheard when any might more freely discourse him according to that of the Poet Fauste precor gelidâ quando pecus omne sub umbrâ ruminet antiquos paulum recitemus amores So that the Spouse desireth to know where he fed where he made his flocks to rest at noon That is where she might have the most free and uninterrupted communion with him For why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions She here implieth that without her Lords direction she was like enough to turn aside She beggeth she might not so turn aside The word in the Hebrew is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we translate it as one turning aside or that turneth aside and so Pagnine interpreteth it Arias Montanus translates it sicut operiens se as one that covereth her self and indeed so the Hebrew word most commonly signifieth Now this covering themselves was either in token of shame or of sorrow or modesty Mourners were wont to cover their faces Ezech. 24. 17. Forbear to cry make no mourning for the dead bind the tire of thy head upon thee and
great and singular love to Christ floweth from his Experimental discerning of that admirable suitableness that is in Christ to his Soul and the exceeding love which he hath shewn to him 1. A Believer hath another kind of persuasion of the Love of Christ and the excellency that is in him than it is possible another should have 1. A persuasion flowing from Faith And 2. Confirmed by Experience I say first flowing from Faith We know a thing by Sense Reason or Revelation the Excellency of Christ falleth not under the demonstration of Sense Reason indeed working upon Principles of Revelation I mean concluding from the Revelation of holy Writ will shew even a natural man much goodness much excellency in Christ But this Knowledge is very far from that certainty which Faith begetteth in the Soul which is a certainty against which the Soul hath nothing to oppose ordinarily Faith is an Evidence and the strongest Evidence to the Soul of what it doth not see by the Eye of Sense and seeth very imperfectly by the Eye of Reason 2. A Believer's Knowledge is confirmed by Experience as he hath heard from the Word of God so he hath seen in the dispensations of God to his Soul His Soul is sprinkled with the Blood of Christ it was lost it is now found It lay under the guilt of sin and through Christ's satisfaction it is acquitted Though every Believer hath not a full persuasion of this yet he hath a good hope through grace and this cannot but kindle in his Soul a vehement flame of love to Christ Bless the Lord O my Soul saith the Psalmist Psal 103. 3 4. and all that is within me bless his holy Name Who forgiveth all thine iniquity who healeth all thy diseases who redeemeth thy life from destruction Nor hath he only some experience of the suitableness of Christ to his Soul considered as a lost undone Soul but he hath as firm a persuasion of Christ's readiness as well as ability to supply all his wants to hear all his prayers to supply all its necessities to bless it with all spiritual blessings there is no Soul that lives in such a view as a Believing Soul of its daily renewing sins and so standing in need of daily repeated acts of pardon daily renewings of spiritual strength c. It knows it is in the power of none to help it but Christ alone he alone sitteth at the right hand of God to make Intercession for the Soul he is he alone who can be its Advocate at the Throne of Grace It is the Spirit of Christ through which he must mortifie the deeds of the body and who must strengthen it with might to all the operations of the spiritual life It is so natural to the Soul to love those that love it that our Saviour saith if you do it what reward have you The Soul thus apprehending Christ its love towards him proceedeth in a natural order and riseth higher as it knoweth that the love which he hath shewed it and doth shew it is the greatest love For greater love than this can no man shew than that a man should die for his friend Christ hath died for it while it was an Enemy We saith the Apostle being Enemies to God were reconciled unto him through the death of his Son The evil from which he delivered it was the greatest evil The reason why the natural man loveth not Christ is because though he hath indeed heard much of Christ and of his love to the Sons of men yet he believeth not or giveth only a faint and careless Assent unto what he readeth and heareth concerning him He hath experienced nothing concerning the evil of sin nor feeleth any need of pardon and so cannot possibly discern or apprehend that goodness and excellency that is in Christ nor that suitableness to a Soul's state that a Believer is apprehensive of And in regard the wants of the body are no way to be compared with the wants of the Soul and the wants of the Soul cannot be supplied from any except only Ministerially but from Christ alone the Soul must necessarily love Christ with a singular love and all other things in subordination unto him so as they must stand in no competition for the Soul's Affection with him much less can such a Soul love any thing that offers it self in opposition to him I might inlarge fuurther in giving you Reasons for such a Soul 's singular love to Christ but I have touched upon this Argument before and these are the two main Reasons of their singular love unto him Their pourings out of their whole hearts their intire Affections into his bosom I shall only add a short Application of this Discourse Let us all by this try our selves whether we be the Spouse of Christ yea or no that is whether we be true believers yea or no and true Members of the Church of Christ by this we shall know it If we can look up to Heaven and say unto Christ O thou whom my Soul loveth There are many who go into the number of those who make up the visible Church who are not the Spouse of Christ or at least shall not be of the number of those hereafter who shall make up the Lambs Wife mentioned Rev. 21. 9. They are not that Spouse mentioned Rev. 19. 7. To whom it is granted that she shall be arrayed in fine linnen clean and white or of those blessed ones who shall be called to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. The contract betwixt the Soul and Christ is made in secret In that contract as in others Christ consents to receive the Soul and the Soul consenteth to receive Christ The former of these indeed is sufficiently in the general declared in the more general call and invitation of the Gospel wherein Christ calleth to all to whom the Gospel is preached to come unto him promising that he will receive them and that he will by no means cast them away yet he hath not there spoken this to any particular person by name only in general to all those who are weary and heavy laden and who come unto him and the Soul is often at a loss in determining concerning the truth of its own acts in coming to and receiving of Christ tendred in the Gospel On the other side the presumptuous man is like the foolish young man in the world that thinks that every young woman who smileth on him or speaketh kindly to him will presently take him for her Husband and concludeth good to himself from every smile of providence but to satisfy the true Christian and to convince others of their folly let every Soul know that there is no Soul can take any comfort of this nature but that Soul only that can truly say unto Christ O thou whom my Soul loveth and certainly would men and women be true to themselves they might from hence determine their Spiritual state But yet as there is a common
their Evils 2. Secondly Friendship speaketh free and ingenuous Love Not the Love of a Child to a Father which is Natural to which he is obliged by a filial duty because of his Fathers care of and provision for him not the Love of a Servant which is purchased by a kind usage and dependance A friend loveth freely The Love of true Friends is ordinarily an inaccountable thing They love one another and can hardly give one another an account of it further than a goodness and excellency a suitableness and likeness which they discern or at least think they see each in other Christs Love to us is free He healeth our backslidings and loveth us freely He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy The reciprocal Love of the believing Soul is not so free and so ingenuous as is his beloveds love to him Yet it is thus far ingenuous that it is not only for that the Soul hath from Christ but for that goodness and excellency which it discerneth in Christ this we had before Because of the Savour of thy good Ointments therefore do the Virgins Love thee 3. Love properly doth not make a friend unless it be mutual and reciprocal Indeed in a large sense a man may be said to be a friend to his Enemy That is to wish well to him and to do him some kind Offices But this is not friendship All Friendship implyeth a reciprocation of Love Christ Loves the believer and every true believer loveth Christ So they are Friends in the strictest and most proper sense Indeed there is a great difference which is well expressed by one of the Casuists thus We will good to him but we do not bestow that good upon him which we will him But he while he willeth good to us also giveth us that good which he willeth and by his loving us maketh us good and lovely But every Child of God truly loveth Christ truly I say that is sincerely though not with that kind or degree of Love with which Christ loveth him Lord saith Peter thou that knowest all things knowest that I Love thee And If any man Loves not the Lord Jesus saith the Apostle let him be Anathema Maranatha 4. Lastly Love of friendship alwaies speaketh Communion betwixt the two Lovers We are bound to Love our Enemies and in every good man there is such a Love even to those that hate them but this is no Love of friendship for the Precept of Love to Enemies obligeth onely against malice and private Revenge and to common Offices of kindness it doth not oblige to intimacy or to any near fellowship and Communion with them We are so far obliged to Love our Enemies as to bear no malice against them to take no private Revenge upon them to be ready to do any acts of kindness for their Souls and any common offices of love But I say we are not by it obliged to make them our intimates nor to keep any fellowship or communion with them But in a Love of friendship there is alwaies Communion or a mutual Communication of the Parties loving each to others Christ gives this account of his love of friendship to his disciples John 15. 15. Henceforth I call you not Servants for the Servant knoweth not what his Lord doth but I have called you Friends for all things I have heard of my Father I have made known to you Christ Communicates himself to believers to such as are his disciples indeed he is in them they in him and he is daily Communicating of his life and strength to them for John 15. 4. Without him they can do nothing They are daily communicating themselves unto him making a secret surrender to him of their hearts their wills their affections Communicating their wants and desires to him by Prayer c. Thus I have justified the notion of Christs Love his friend his Companion to be agreeable to what the Scripture revealeth concerning Christ and the believing Soul This in the first place leadeth us into a just admiration of the Divine Love and condescension Who is this that calleth from Heaven to Earth to the Worms of the Earth and speaketh in this language My Love My Friend My Fellow Is it not he who is the Eternal Son of God God over all blessed for ever he to whom there is none like and besides whom there is no God He whom God calleth his fellow and who thought it no robbery to be equal with the Father And to whom doth he speak Is it not to those who must say to corruption thou art my Mother and to the Worms you are my brethren and my Sisters To those whose Fathers are Amorites and whose Mothers are Hittites who by nature are dead in trespasses and sins unclean Children of unclean Parents Will the Lord Love such Ethioptans as we are by nature Such Enemies as we have shewed our selves by practice Will the Lord make himself a companion to the creature that is but as the dust of his feet What manner of Love and condescension is this For him whom the Eternal Father hath proclaimed to be his Son and that Son in whom he is well pleased in whom the Lord hath set up his rest he whom Kings and Prophets desired to see whom Angels and glorified Saints adore to whom the Father hath given a name above every name he who hath Heaven for his throne the Earth for his footstool and the utmost ends of the Earth for his possession to say to us My Love My Friend My Companion Certainly these terms ought to ravish our hearts and to affect them with in expressible admiration and to whom doth he say thus Is it only to the Glories and beauties of the World To the Emperors Rings Princes and Nobles thereof No he saith thus to every believer even the meanest that treadeth upon the Earth to the most poor distressed afflicted creature to Job that sits upon a dunghill scraping himself with a potsheard to Lazarus that lyeth at the rich mans gate full of sores and begging bread while the Dogs lick his sores to the poorest believer living in the meanest and dirtiest Gottage to those whom the World revileth slighteth scorneth to those who have spit in his face and abused his patience and despised his goodness that have hardened their hearts against him grieved his holy Spirit Yet having repented of these things and being turned to him to these he calleth to these he saith My Love My Friends My Companions He upbraideth them not for their former miscarriages to these he becometh a fellow Prisoner in these he becomes a fellow helper these shall be joint heirs with him Hear O Heavens be astonished O Earth never was Love like this never such matchless Love Let all our Souls swallow up themselves in this gulph of unfathomable Love and while we are sinking let us cry out O the height and depth and length and breadth of the Love of God in Jesus Christ It is a
from expressing exuberant affection to it lest the Child by it take advantage to go on in courses of disobedience Christ dearly loves many a poor Soul that hath its wanton tricks and is full of failings but he will not say to such a Soul Behold thou art fair my Love I will add but one thing more 4. Lastly Possibly Christ hath spoke and spoke it to thee often Behold thou art fair my Love Behold thou art fair but thou hast not heard him I have already told you that many of God's People are very deaf of that Ear. I was about to say there is no better sign of a gracious Soul than not to be too ready to hear such messages of peace God sometimes speaks so as the Soul cannot but hear when he pleaseth to set the Broad Seal of his Spirit unto the poor Soul this indeed is an audible voice and distinguishable enough But God in every Sermon speaks to the Believer Thou art fair my Love thou art fair We never Preach those great Truths of God That whosoever believes shall be saved and whosoever is justified by Faith hath peace with God and such like but God to every Believer that hears us speak Thou art fair my Love thou art fair But alas not one of many hath an Ear to hear no not those who truly believe It is in this case as with Samuel 1 Sam. 3. 4 5. Samuel was young and had not been used to the voice of God God calls him once away he goes to Eli the Lord calls a second time Samuel runs to Eli again and so a third time till Eli instructed and assured him it was the voice of God Till the Spirit of God brings the voice of God in the Gospel to the Ear to the inward Ear of a Christian he will not understand God speaking peace to him when indeed he doth speak it In very deed it is for want of Spiritual Logick The Word of God hath the Proposition He that believes is fair Though a man hath been a Thief a Drunkard a Covetous person c. yet if he be washed if he be justified if he be sanctified in the Name of our God and through the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ he is fair Thus much is plain in the Word 1 Cor. 6. 11. But now when the Soul should come to assume But I am washed I am justified I am sanctified there it fails and these may be the Reasons of a gracious Soul's complaint in this case But I have spoke enough to the first of the five Circumstances which I mentioned I proceed now to a second The Spouse had been admiring Christ comparing him to a bundle of Myrrh to a cluster of Camphire or Copher Now Christ adds Behold thou art fair my Love Behold thou art fair Obs High out-goings of a Soul toward Christ are ordinarily productive of great returns of the Love of Christ upon the Soul Duty in us is not the Father of Grace for who hath given first unto God and it shall be repaid to him again but extraordinary influences of Grace are commonly the wages of great duty It is very seldom that any Soul lets Christ know that he is exceeding dear to it but by the next Post the Soul shall know that it is very dear to Christ Doth God hear Ephraim bemoaning himself thus Thou hast chastised me and I was chastised as a Bullock unaccustomed to the yoke turn thou me and I shall be turned for thou art the Lord my God c. Ephraim shall presently hear God saying Is Ephraim my dear Son Is he a pleasant Child for since I spake against him I do earnestly remember him still therefore my bowels are troubled for him I will surely have mercy upon him saith the Lord. Is the Spouse sick of love Cant. 5. 8. Doth she indeed think her Beloved the chiefest amongst ten thousand c. She shall presently hear him saying Thou art beautiful O my Love as Tirzah c. Turn away thine Eyes from me c. ch 6. v. 4 5. I might instance in many Texts of Scripture but I forbear Will you know the reason of this Take it 1. Negatively 2. Positively 1. Negatively It is not because there 's any merit in duty Christ is no Merchant of Grace he gives it but he sells it not Indeed it is a contradiction to speak of meritorious duty if it be duty it is the payment of a debt on our part and can be no purchase-mony The compass of that Commandment Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy Soul and with all thy strength is of an exceeding latitude there 's no finishing of it by any creature in this life It was from the jejune Interpretation that the Pharisees of old and the Papists of late have put upon the Law of God that they ever dreamt that man was able to perform it much less do any thing of supererogation The foundation-stone of man's Salvation is laid in Grace and the top-stone is Grace too To the whole Building you must cry Grace Grace But Positively 2. It is from the overflowings of Divine Grace in him who is our Fountain-head the Lord Jesus Christ The Eye that weeps for its sin till it can weep no more doth not by its tears make it self an Handkerchief to dry its Eyes but a tender-hearted Saviour moved from his own bowels cannot but afford it one and say unto it why weepest thou The Soul that for Christs sake parts with Father Mother Children Brethren Sisters all doth not by this purchase to it self peace of Conscience or eternal life Alas what proportion is there betwixt things temporal and such as are Spiritual and eternal But he who hath both these to give gives them upon the Souls performing its duty in this particular Matth. 19. 29. The Soul that casts up many a long look to the Lord Jesus Christ and earnestly wisheth for his presence with it and valueth it above the World and seeks for it more then for Gold or hid treasure doth not by this earn Christs Love to it but Christ from the fulness of his grace makes choice of this Soul to reveal himself unto The Prophet Isaiah Ch. 30. v. 18. hath such an expression as this The Lord will wait that he may be gracious unto you Christ is a fountain of Grace a full fountain now when the fountain is brim full of water the water waiteth for an opportunity to diffuse it self it may be there is a bank that hinders the full river that it cannot diffuse its water the water therefore works secretly and softens the bank first till a breach be made and then it emptieth it self by it Christ is a sea a full sea of Grace but sinful man casts up a bank against this sea a bank of unbelief A bank of stone hardning his heart a bank of earth favouring an earthly mind a bank of mud delights in sensual lusts and
the best diligence as to that while I was yet a very young man I had learn'd out of him that it was no Solecism in a Preacher to use ossum for os for saith he an Iron key is better then one made of gold if it will better open the door for that is all the use of the key I had learn'd out of Hierom that a gaudry of phrases and words in a Pulpit is but Signum insipientiae The words of a Preacher saith he ought pungere non palpare to prick the heart not to smooth and coax The work of an Orator is too precarious for a Minister of the Gospel Gregory observed that our Saviour hath not stiled us the sugar but the salt of the Earth and Augustine observeth that though Cyprian in one Epistle shewed much of a florid Orator to shew he could do it yet he never would do so any more to shew he would not The study of words the right placing of them for their better chiming c. I always thought a puerile and pedantick thing fitter for a School boy then a minister of the Gospel Honest Souls when they come to hear the word do not come to see Reeds shaken with the wind of Ostentation and Vain-glory nor yet to see men clothed with the soft rayment of fine expressions and phrases which for the most part like such clothes have least efficacy to warm a Soul or to keep it in any Religious heat they come to hear a Prophet yea more then a Prophet a man that shall reveal the mind and will of God to them To me the most tunable tongues in Pulpits always ring most awke It is beneath the gravity of a Preacher to tickle a wanton Ear. The end of all words is but to convey to our minds the knowledg of things and those are the best words that do that best grandia granditer dicenda I never thought my self further concern'd as to words then to speak intelligibly and so as through no rudeness or indecency of phrase to make Persons nauseate my discourse who had a just Reverence for divine things Words will always follow matter but matter doth not always attend words I bless God I early discerned and avoided this trifling rather desiring to humble that stile which was at my tongues end then to strain my tongue to a dialect which I either thought my People understood not or was beneath the greatness of the subjects of my discourse If any think the portion of Scripture undertaken in these discourses not fit for a Preacher they should do well to consider whether it be not a portion of holy writ and such a portion as the eminentest Divines in all ages and of all persuasions have thought worthy their pains to inquire the sense of Having thus far Apologized for the following discourses I leave them to thy candor and judgment begging Gods blessing upon them to thy Souls advantage April 3. 1683. JOHN COLLINGES The First Chapter of the Song of Solomon paraphrased and turned into English Meeter so as it may be Sung in the Ordinary Tunes in which the English Psalms are sung I. THE Kisses of thy Mouth Dear Lord Let my Soul only have No Earthly thing I do desire No worlds fine things I crave Let me thy Gospel Doctrines have By them O speak to me So by thy Grace that I in them Thy special Love may see II. A Kiss Lord is but a small thing But a Love-token 't is The Least of that is Sweet to me Lord grant me but a kiss One Kiss is sweet but not enough Let me more kisses have My wants are more than one therefore More Kisses I do crave III. Thou hast varieties of Grace My Soul of wants as much As are my wants my dearest Lord O Let thy Loves be such Drunkards are pleas'd with wine but I In it no tast can find O Let me only know that thou To my poor soul art kind IV. The knowledge thou hast given my soul How much thy Loves are worth Above created things is that Alone which draws it forth In breathings after Thee Thy Name Is Ointment poured out Which with its fragrant smell perfumes The places it about V. Therefore the Virgins do thee love The undefiled mind Can satisfaction no where else But in thee only find Every such Virgin will thee love And thee alone desire Thy sweetest Ointments fuel are To feed that sacred fire VI. Lord I should come to thee thou art The term to which I move I should O Lord run after thee In the scent of thy love But I can neither run nor come Unless thou first me draw Either my lusts do me seduce Or Satan doth me aw VII O put forth thine Almighty hand Let power and love constrain My feeble Soul to follow thee And with thee to remain Lay hand O Lord upon my will Then I shall willing be Put strength into my legs and I Shall then run after thee VIII Lord move me first then I shall move And stand no longer still Yea I shall move with strength to do What is thy sacred will I shall not only move but run Make hast and not delay To keep thy precepts if that thou Wilt help me in my way IX It shall be then my meat and drink To do what thou requirest Thou Lord shall then of me receive Whatever thou desirest I shall nor faint nor weary be But persevering run Until the race be finished Which my soul hath begun X. My Lord not I alone but mine Shall also follow thee I shall make known thy ways to all That shall converse with me Sinners by my example shall Be turned to thy Grace When they shall hear how thou to me Hast shewn thy pleasant face XI My Soul melts I did speak but now The King hath answered And me into his Chambers brought Unto his Royal Bed How doth my heart now leap for joy How is my countenance glad My soul can now despond no more It can no more be sad XII In thee O Lord I will be glad Thou art my only joy Thy Loves I will remember when New troubles me annoy The savour of the worlds sweet wines Is a poor transient thing But I shall ne're I trust forget The Love of Christ my King XIII In him all things excelling dwell They 've chosen him their throne The Saints will him sincerely love And will love him alone The more upright the greater love They to the Lord shall bring Who loves them with the greatest love And is the Lord their King XIV You Daughters of Hierusalem The City of my God You who in the same Church with me Have taken your abode Upbrard me not that I am like The Coverings upon Black Kedars Tents I 'm also like Curtains of Solomon XV. I black am from my self but am By Imputation white By th' first birth I am black and dark But by a
new birth Light I black am in your curious Eye And in my own much more But white in my Beloveds sight Since he hath paid my score XVI Look not on me because I 'm black With a too curious Eye Nor with disdain nor let my black Visage you satisfy Much less dis-colour you Behold Sisters and pity me My Blackness is not my delight Ah! 't is my misery XVII The Sun hath scorch'd me with its heat It is by that I am tann'd My Mothers Children also have Touch'd me with unkind hand Their Vineyard they would have me attend Mine own I did not keep The envious one hath collied me While I thus lay asleep XVIII What Souls will not Afflictions tann If they be sharp and long Or who is not discolour'd by Temptations if too strong Worldly distractions spoil the look Of a Religious mind But ah through negligence I have Been to my self unkind XIX But O thou whom my soul loves best Tell me where thou doest use At noon to feed thy flock At noon Do not my Soul refuse When as Afflictions scorch me most Be thou at hand to me And teach my Soul at such a time How it may come to thee XX. O thou Shepheard of Israel Let me but know the hour When most of thee I may enjoy Tast most thy Grace and Power By th' flocks of thy Companions I would not turn aside With thee alone I would converse Be thou O Lord my guide XXI Thou fairest she dost thou not know Where me at noon to see The footsteps of the flock will teach Thee the right way to me Feed by the Shepheards Tents for there I shall most surely abide The Shepheards that derive from me Shall be to thee a guide XXII I have compar'd my love unto The goodly company Of Horses which King Pharaoh draw Made strong by Unity Of Horses which march on to meet The armed men and ne're Do from the glittering Sword turn head But mock at Cowards fear XXIII Thy Cheeks my Love are comely made With rowes of Jewels given Thee by my self Thy lovely neck Adorn'd with Chains from Heaven I will yet give thee further grace Borders of Gold I 'le make And spots of Silver thou shalt have And for thine own them take XXIV O may my dearest Royal Lord From 's Table never stir How sweetly doth my spikenard smell While 's that he sitteth there Even his own Graces will not smell When he is gone from me His Grace in me doth daily need His Royal company XXV My well-beloved is to me Myrrh in a bundle tyed More precious medicinal and sweet Than all the world beside Betwixt my Breasts he shall have place There he shall alwaies lye It is the place for posies There I will this bundle tye XXVI Engaddi's Vineyards have their plants Of Camphire Cypress All Are names too short for me whereby My Dearest Lord to call My sweet companion thou art fair Thou lookest with Doves Eyes Eyes which both meek and harmless are Not sparkling Cruelties XXVII Thou hast a satisfyed Soul A rich contented mind A plain and clean and lowly heart Which is to others kind A tender heart a mournful Eye Exceeding quick These are The things which make me say again Thou art exceeding fair XXVIII Nay my Beloved thou art fair My beauty is to thee As nothing worse than nothing 't is But meer deformity Thou fair art and pleasant too Thy conversation's sweet Thrice happy souls to walk with thee Whom thou dost please t' admit XXIX When thou within my bed dost lodge How soon it waxeth green When thou art gone no fruitfulness In it at all is seen Not a good work at such a time Can my poor soul produce Not an heart chang'd in Churches when Thou art not in the Pewes XXX The Beams and rafters of thy house Of Cedar are and Fir. Sweet beautiful and strong they are Such as shall never stir Thy word and Ordinances Lord Support thy Church for ever O let my Sins within thy house Me sever from it never CHAP. II. MY dearest Lord I 'm like the Rose Which Sharons fields doth grace Like th' Lilly of the Vallies which Doth beautify its place A flower and the noblest flower Which in the Fields doth grow My structure smell and fruitfulness Thy Workmanship all show II. But Lord I dwell i' th' common field And in the Vallies there To winds and weather I 'm exposed I live in daily fear Lest Sharons herds would me devour Or tread me under-foot And leave me nought to speak me thine But only a true root III. As Lillies are amongst the Thorns So I my Love do see The Daughters of the peevish world Are grievous Thorns to thee Yet thou art lovely there and thrivest The ugly Thorns commend My fairest Love and do improve Her while they do her rend IV. My dearest Lord it is enough Amongst Thorns let me be If while I stand there thou wilt be A shadow unto me Amongst the barren Trees in Woods Let me converse if I Thee as an Apple Tree may have That there I do not die V. Thy shade thy pleasant fruit shall be To me enough for food And for protection too while I Traverse th' untrodden wood I like an Hermite sit and sing Thy Apples to my tast Do much excel what other Trees Afford the world for mast VI. God manifested in the flesh O how exceeding sweet When infinite and finite did In one Redeemer meet Thy suffering being tempted is When tempted my relief Saran would rob me of my all Thou hast disarm'd the Thief VII Lord thy compleat obedience Unto thy Fathers will Is all relieves me when I think How often I do ill While I do good But O thy death Who can describe that fruit Which all my soul necessities Exceeds while it doth suit VIII Thy Resurrection thine ascending Unto thy Fathers Th rone Thy sitting there at his Right Hand Thine intercession How sweet they are And then to think That thou again wilt come To Judgment not me to condemn But only fetch me home IX Thine Ordinances Lord in which Thy loves thou dost display The Hony and the Hony-Comb Are not so sweet as they The Spirits sacred fruit those sweet Influxes of thy Grace Are what alone me patient make Of sublunary place X. These things my house of mourning turn drop Into an house of Wine Wine not which from Earths Grapes doth But from thee the true Vine Thy Love O Lord thy Banner is O're me and makes men see Men who thee hate I do'nt belong Unto their company XI Thy Loves thy Banner teaching me Where to resort when move When I fight for a Victory Then I display thy Love 'T is that unites me unto thee And every one that 's thine Where e're those colours I but see I run to them as mine XII
Bridegroom whose it is to bless us with all spiritual blessings in and through him Supposing the latter the believing Soul directeth her request as her beloved directeth when he commands us to pray saying Our Father If the petition be understood as directed to the Lord Jesus Christ Let him kiss me is as much as Do thou kiss me Vicem nominis supplet vis amoris the force of her love supplyeth the omission of his name saith Lud. de Ponte It is a very usual dialect of Scripture to put the 3d Person for the 2d so the Psalmist God be merciful unto us and bless â—us But 3. Qu. What doth the Spouse mean by Let him kiss me with the kisses of his Mouth Some read it He did kiss me with the kisses of his Mouth Thus the ancient Chaldee Paraphrast Blessed be the name of the Lord who gave us his Law written by the hand of Moses his Scribe who wrote it in two Tables of Stone and spake with us face to face as a man who kisseth his Companions through the greatness of his love wherewith he loved us more than threescore and ten Nations But the stile of the Song is rather pathetical and optative than historical and narrative and it is rather referred to Christ as Mediator than to God the Father or the Lord Jesus Christ considered only as God over all blessed for ever besides that the Hebrew word being in the future tense referrs rather to the time to come than to the time past and I see no need of inventing a figure There is a threefold kiss of which you read in Scripture 1. The kiss of the feet Thus the penitent Woman Luk. 7. 38. kissed her Saviours feet 2. The kiss of the hand Job 31. 27. If my mouth hath kissed my hand 3. The kiss of the lips Prov. 24. 26. and so in many other Texts The Schoolmen tell us of a seven-fold kiss a kiss of 1. Love 2. Union 3. Reverence and Honour 4. Adoration 5. Reconciliation and Peace 6. Treachery as Joab kissed Abner and Amasa and Judas kissed Christ 7. Wantonness According to the usages of several Nations there were several sorts of kisses distinguished by their objects and ends they were wont to kiss the head lips cheek shoulders hands backs feet of their superiours inferiours and equals and that for several testimonies which yet I think are reducible to two heads For a testimony of honour reverence and subjection Thus Parents were kissed by their Children Jacob came near and kissed Isaac Gen. 50. 1. Joseph fell upon his Fathers face and kissed him Thus Exod. 18. 7. Moses went out to meet his Father in Law and did obeysance and kissed him and Orpah kissed her Mother in Law Thus the Persians were wont according to the differences of Persons in respect of quality to give differing kisses Equals kissed one anothers lips the Person who was but a little inferiour kissed his superiours Cheek The lower sort fell at their superiours feet and kissed them Thus Idolaters shewed their reverence to their Idols and the true Worshipers of God were by this distinguished They had not kissed Baal 1 Kings 19. 28. and the Idolaters in Israel said Let the men that sacrifice kiss the Calves Hos 13. 2. Thus also we are commanded to kiss the Son least he be angry Psal 2. 12. which Jerome translates Purely worship the Son This is now a kiss wherewith we ought to kiss Christ but this is not the kiss of the Text. Secondly Kisses were used for a testimony of love which sometimes was hypocritical and so the kissing deceitful such were the kisses of Joab and Judas ordinarily real which might be considered either as continued or interrupted Kisses were 1. Used in token of continuing love As appears by the several precepts of the Apostles regulating the use of them by a law of holiness and chastity Rom. 16. 16. 1 Cor. 16. 20 c. Or 2. In token of renewed love and reconciliation Thus Laban kissed Jacob upon their reconciliation Esau kissed Jacob and David kissed Absalom Beza thus gives the propriety of this testimony in affection Whereas our life lies in the breath which goeth out of our lips and our Soul goes away when our breath at last goes the joining of the friends lips and mouths signifies that they are so dear each to other that they could willingly unite Souls if it could be and bestow their lives each upon other The kiss of the text must needs be this In testimonium amoris for a testimony of love But still here remains a question whether she desires the kiss of Reconciliation 2. Or that which is a pledge of continuing love Those who understand the first confess a breach betwixt God and his Creatures which indeed there was made in the beginning of the world which breach is as to the meritorious part made up by the incarnation death and passion of Christ Indeed there was an ancient Covenant of Grace concerning it Gen. 3. revealed immediately but I say it was done quoad pretium by the incarnation and death of Christ according to those Texts 2 Cor. 5. 18 19. Col. 1. 21. Eph. 2. 16. according to the prophecy Dan. 9. 24. And as to the particular application of that purchase it is daily done by the Spirit of God working faith in us by which we are united to Christ Now the question is whether the Spouse here beggeth 1. Christs coming in the flesh being incarnate and dying for us for the fulfilling of the eternal Covenant of Reconciliation to which some encline 2. Or the kiss of Justification the actual reconciliation of the Soul unto Christ and application of Christ to the Soul by fâ—rth 3. Or The further influences of â— Love as pledges of that first Grace and Seals of that Original love of his to the Souls of his People Indeed the Eternal Son of God kissed us and he stooped much to kiss us when he took upon him our nature uniting finite and infinite corruptible and incorruptible when he nothinged himself for us and this was foreseen and so might be desired Abraham saw the day and rejoyced Joh. 10. 48. and not only Origen and Bernard of old but many modern interpreters think that the Spouse here hath a great respect to this matchless testimony of Divine Love which being granted the Text is no other than the breathings and pantings of the Church of God then living or the particular members of it after the Incarnation of Christ which doubtless was a great object of their desires Kings and Prophets and Righteous men desired to see the things which the Disciples saw and did not see them c. Others understand the text of those testimonies of Divine Love which followed the death of Christ particularly The sending of the Spirit It is true this is called The promise of the Father and was so under the old Testament Ezech. 36.
c. and it proceeds from Christ as the great testimony of his love nor indeed doth Christ otherwise testify his special love than by the influences of his Spirit but I cannot tell why we should restrain it to the particular dispensation in the days of Pentecost I think Piscator expresseth the sense well by suum erga me amorem patefaciat let him manifest to me his love let me know that he loveth me yet supposing it the Reconciled Believing Soul that speaks it seems rather to be understood of further grace than the first grace of regeneration and reconciliation unto God the desire seems to be a desire of free familiar communion with Christ This seems to be the main of her request the great sum of her desires the uppermost of her Souls concernments But observe yet further She begs but a kiss not let him imbrace me but let him kiss me She asketh modestly if saith the woman in the Gospel I might but touch the Hem of his Garment Thus the woman of Canaan also Truth Lord but the Dogs eat the crums Thus the Spouse If he would but kiss me Oh! how precious is the least of Christ to a gracious Soul It is better to be kissed by him than to lie in the worlds arms to be a Door-keeper in the House of God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness But thirdly The word is plural One kiss will not serve the turn she is not a stranger but a Spouse The plural number either imports 1. Various dispensations of Grace Or 2dly Repeated influences of the same Grace 1. It may be understood as denoting various dispensations of Grace Beza saith the Lord kissed the Soul thrice 1. In this life when he is by faith united to it 2. In the day of death when the Soul is taken up into the enjoyment of God 3. In the Resurrection when Body and Soul shall be united and together glorified Another reckons up 7 kisses with which the Lord kisseth his Peoples Souls The Grace of 1. Incarnation 2. The descending of the Holy Ghost 3. The preaching of the Gospel 4. Reconciliation to God 5. Sanctification 6. Divine Consolations 7. The kiss of Glory And the same Author makes the Spouses petition comprehensive of all these certain it is there are various dispensations of Grace there is quickning strengthening comforting Grace and there may be frequent repetitions of these to the Soul according to its particular wants and Gods favour towards it and you may indifferently understand the Text in either sense Fourthly The Spouse here doth not only desire kisses but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the kisses of Christs mouth concerning which observe these 2 things 1. The kiss of the mouth was the highest kiss This was the kiss of Love the kiss of Reconciliation Osculum pacis the kiss of the Hand Feet c. was a kiss of honour and reverence and subjection the kiss of the mouth was the kiss of love and friendship of peace and reconciliation 2. I find most Interpreters hinting by this expression something yet more special viz. Communion with Christ in his word The word indeed is the fruit of the lips and cometh out of the mouth and God may seem in some propriety of speech to kiss the Soul with the kisses of his mouth when he speaks to it in his word The Lord will speak peace to his people saith the Psalmist and I create the fruit of the lips peace peace saith the Lord by his Prophet Isaiah some expositors to further this notion have observed that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies sometimes to instruct but I cannot find that usage of it in holy writ Grace is poured forth upon Christs lips she desires those kisses some drive the notion higher observing the difference between the Doctrine of the Law and that of the Gospel the first is terrible the second sweet and comfortable holding forth nothing but the love of God in Jesus Christ reconciling the world to himself not imputing their sins hence the Gospel is called The word of reconciliation Lastly She saith Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth She desires not only to hear the Doctrine of the gospel but that Christ should speak it to her The Preacher speaks to the Ear Christ to the heart Quoties ergo in corde nostro quod de divinis dogmatibus sensibusque quaerimus absque monitoribers invenimus toties oscula nobis á Sponso esse data verbo Dei credimus saith Origen so often as we find God by his word Speaking to our hearts so often doth our beloved kiss us with the kisses of his mouth This is sufficient to have spoken for the Explication of the matter of the Text. There onely remains something more circumstantial to be observed The words are Vox Sponsae The Voice of the Spouse According to the civil usage of our Country and I think most others the Lover speaks first Here the Spouse begins It is so betwixt God and the soul Christ speaks first He is found of those that seek him not and of those that enquire not after him He first loves us and our Love to him proceedeth from his Love first manifested to us But you must not understand her that speaks as one that is a stranger and in a state of disunion with her beloved but as one that is already espoused and made a Spiritual Bride not desiring first grace but further grace which she needeth as well as the first grace for he giveth both to will and to do he is both the author and the finisher of faith and other grace Secondly The words are Vox Volentis The Language of a willing Soul Willing that Christ should come near unto it and take it up into fellowship and communion with himself God's people are a willing people They are indeed made so by a divine power Psal 101. 2. But Certum est nos velle cum volumus saith Aug. It is God who makes us of unwilling Willing When he hath had his first work upon our wills and subdued that strong hold unto himself Then we are willing Nay more Thirdly They are Vox cupientis The voice of a panting Soul not barely content that Christ should kiss it but passionately desiring his kisses They are as much as Oh! that he would kiss me Every gracious Soul passionately desireth fellowship and Communion with Jesus Christ Oh! saith holy David when wilt thou come to me Neither is this all the words are not onely to be considered as a good wish or passionate desire but as a fervent prayer Lastly therefore they are Vox supplicantis the Language of a praying soul where observe What she beggs Not riches not honour not pleasures not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the good things of fortune but the riches of grace her Petition is like that of David Lord lift thou up
Church understands it of the Doctrine of the Law which also suiteth with Davids high commendation of the Law of God in his 19 Psal and in the 119. more largely 2. But reading it Loves possibly they may better interpret it who understand it concerning the Graces of Gods Holy Spirit When we speak of the Grace of Christ we either understand that goodness which is essentially in him as he is the fountain of all Grace full of Grace and Truth the fulness of the God-Head dwelling in him or that goodness which he communicateth to his People in the free pardon of their sins and acceptation of their Persons Or 3 dly Those fruits of his Spirit which abide and dwell in us such as faith love I find some Interpreters both ancient and modern interpreting the Text of the latter So Gregorius Mag. That love to thee and to my Brethren which thou hast wrought in my heart But Beza observeth That it is not usual to Saints to commend their own graces and therefore doubtless it is to be understood of that Grace which is and remains in Christ subjectively of which we are the Objects and to this sense agree the most sober and spiritual Interpreters making the phrase to signify that sweet pleasure which the Soul takes from the feeling of Christs love And possibly this is that Vis lactandi that suckling vertue which Delrio mentioneth which Christs puts forth refreshing the Souls of his Saints with his consolations The word is in the plural number by which the Hebrews were wont not onely to express a multitude of things but also the infinite vertues and dimensions of any thing You must not think saith Beza That in the One Essence of God there are more numerical loves No in him all things are one and he is one But his grace is manifold in respect of our feeling and apprehension and he deals out his love to us in different measures according to our different necessities or capacities The Chaldee Paraphrast with some of the Heb. Doctors understand here the Concret by the Abstract and interpret God's loves to be his beloved people of the Jewish Nation whom he preferreth before Wine viz. before any other Nations threescore and ten Nations to which purpose by their Cabalistical Art they have found out the numerical letters for 70 in the word which we translate Wine But I shall not insist upon so fond and improbable a Notion Having therefore spoken Enough for the Explication of the Subject Thy loves Let us indeavour to understand what is praedicated of this Subject 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They are better then Wine good before wine saith the Heb. Text which is but the same thing in their dialect who so use ordinarily to express the Comparative degree 1. Good in the Philosophical notion of it is whatsoever is the Object of our desire the nature of it lying in a convenience and sutableness of the thing unto our natures which makes it desirable which a thing may be either upon the account of pleasure or profit or nobleness Accordingly the Heb. word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is variously translated merry Esther 1. 10. Beautiful Ruth 3. 7. Thy loves are more good i. e. more sweet pleasant profitable than Wine 2. Wine in its primary signification is the juice of the Grape whose proper Effect it is to make the heart of man merry Psal 104. 15. But this were too low a signification for it in this Text. We must therefore allow a figure The Hebrews were wont under the notion of wine to express all other delectable and pleasant things Hence Ahashuerus his feast is called A Banquet of Wine though it cannot be imagined that Wine was all the guests had for their intertainment It is an usuall Synecdoche to express all things that fall under a common genus by some Eminent Species Some of the ancient Rabbies understood by Wine here quamcunque Laetitiam whatsoever is pleasant and acceptable And in that sence Mercer and the best of modern Interpreters agree For that other interpretation which some make of it who understand by loves Gospel Doctrine and by Wine the Doctrine and dispensation of the Law though it seemeth to have some advantage by the use of Wine in the legal oblations and it be a truth That the Doctrine and dispensation of the Gospel being more sweet and perfect is better than that of the Law which brought nothing to perfection Yet I cannot think it the sense of this Text. Let us conclude then that the words are the Language Either of the Church of God preferring the injoyment of God in the Doctrines and dispensations of his word and Gospel or the words of the believing Soul preferring the influences of divine grace before the sweetest of all creatures comforts And this I take to be the most free and consistent sense and interpretation of the words The particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be conceived here to have a double use Either To give a reason of her former desire that her beloved should kiss her with the kisses of his mouth Which she professeth to be like theirs who desire wine They desire that because it is good She desires these because there is a far greater goodness in these heavenly influences than there is in the best of created comforts by which she shews that she was not carried out to these desires insano quodam affectu sed prudente consilio saith Beza by prudent advice and deliberation reason dictating to us the choice and desire of the things which are most excellent Not by an heady and misguided passion Or else to make an argument which might be advantageous to her for the obtaining of her request drawn from the Estimate of Christs love with which her Soul was possessed Lord I esteem thy favour to me above all created comforts in the world Therefore let not my Soul want it And so it suteth with that of David Psal 4. 6. Lord lift thou up the light of thy Countenance upon us Thou hast put gladness into my heart more than the time that their Corn and Wine increased And thus these latter words of the Text contain the Spouses first Argument by which she urgeth her petition mentioned in the former part of it She proceedeth v. 3. V. 3. Because of the Savour of thy Ointments Thy name is as ointment poured forth therefore do the Virgins love thee The Sept. translate it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Vulg. Latine joyneth the former part of this verse to the former thus Thy breasts perfumed with the best ointments are better than Wine The difference is not much nor is it an easy labour to determine it because the points and stops which make it are of no great antiquity at least as some think the Hebrew translated for a word seemeth to be thus To the smell of thy good Ointments Thy name is as Oil or Ointment poured out
hope there 's none who hears me this day but is sometimes breathing out the desires of his Soul unto God in Prayer Oh! let this be the lauguage of your Prayers Let him kiss me with the kisses of his Mouth Let others beg of God Riches and Honours and the favours of Men Let others beg the golden Ring but do you desire the kiss Consider The Soul of the rational Creature stands obliged by the law of reason to desire the best things Is there any thing to be compared with special grace this is that more excellent way which the Apostle propounds to be coveted before the best gifts You read in the book of Esther ch 5. v. 9. 11. concerning Haman that he called for his Wife and tells her of the great honour to which the King had advanced him and of his great Riches but saith he all this availeth me nothing while I see Mordecay suting in the Kings Gate When the poor worlding sits down and thinks how God hath blessed him with Riches Honours and whatsoever contentments the creature can afford him hath he not cause to say All this availeth me nothing whil'st I have no assurance of the love of God whil'st for ought I know or have reason to believe the wrath of God may be flaming against me and I one of those who shall after all these sweet enjoyments spend an Eternity in that fire which is prepared for the Devil and his Angels Riches profit not in the day of Wrath no nor any thing else will profit in that day but an interest in Christ How much better is a dinner of Herbs with the love of God than great Treasures with his hatred A morsel of bread with an interest in Christ than a stuffed Ox with the wrath of God Secondly These influences alone will evidence distinguishing love Indeed other gifts may possibly speak no love at all The Israelites desired a King God granted them their desires and saith by his Prophet that he gave them a King in his Wrath. It may be truly said concerning the gifts of God to many a poor Creature he gives them Riches in his Wrath Honours in Wrath outward prosperity in Wrath outward good things dipt in divine vengeance the wrath of God may smoke against them while the quails are betwixt their teeth Poenalis nutritur impunitas This is a secret of Divine Justice which every one seeth not It is the saying of a devout Author that God often useth impios melle suo punire to punish wicked men with their own Hony But God never gives a kiss in Wrath he cannot give osculum Iscarioticum where he kisseth he loveth God throws the good things of this life amongst his Enemies his Friends living in the same world it may be get something of them but they are no distinguishing mercies But whomsoever he kisseth that Soul is certainly beloved of him Thirdly There are no petitions please God so well as those which are put up for spiritual things When Solomon begged of God a wise and understanding heart it is said that the saying pleased the Lord well Yea God shewed that it pleased him well for he received in abundance what he asked not Nor is this hard to be conceived by us who have the same affections towards our own Children had any one of us who are Fathers 2 Children and we should put it to their choice what they would ask of us and the one should ask that we would settle so much land upon him the other should tell us he desired not our lands but should importunately beg that his Father would love him best would not the latter please you best should we not be ready to give that Child-more than it asked You read of the two Daughters of Naomi Orpah and Ruth Ruth 1. 14 15. they both followed their Mother in law while she was full but when she was empty Orpah kisseth her Mother in law and leaveth her Naomi would have had Ruth have done so too but v. 16. Ruth refuseth and tells her Whither thou goest I will go and where thou lodgest I will lodge thy People shall be my People and thy God shall be my God where thou diest I will die and there will I he buried Which is as much as if she had told her that she valued the company of her Mother above all other concerns Did not this think you indear her to Naomi and certainly nothing can more endear a soul to God than for it to judge his favour better than life and his loves more than Wine Now to engage your hearts to prefer the kisses of God before any other good things with which the hand of his providence can make you happy there needs no more than that you should be truly possessed with the notion of your own wants and rightly understand the differences of good He that knows how much more excellent than the Body the Soul of man is will quickly understand that those things which are proportioned to its wants are more desirable goods than those which are only suted to our more outward concerns Study but the excellency of the love of God and the vanity and Earthliness of the Creature the state of your souls by nature and with respect to that guilt which by multitudes of Sins you have contracted from which nothing can excuse you but the blood of Christ nor any thing evidence your absolution to quiet your accusing and condemning consciences but the kisses of his Mouth and you will need no more to evince to you that these coelestial kisses are of all good things the most excellent the most desirable which being well understood the rational Soul directly moveth to a choice and desire of them above and before all other things Sermon III. Canticles 1. 2. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth IT is the Spouse that speaketh she saith not Let him embrace me nor as elsewhere He shall lie all night betwixt my breasts but Let him kiss me Quid tam minimum submissum quam osculetur me is De Ponte his note upon the Text. A kiss is the least token of conjugal love and affection Hence observe The least tokens of Christs special distinguishing love are very desirable to believing Souls The free Love of God shining out through Christ upon souls predestinated unto glory in the pardoning of their sins the acceptation of their persons the renewing of their natures in strengthening quickening comforting influences of grace is what we call the distinguishing Love of Christ being not the effects of his Philanthropy but his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now the tokens of this are more or less or may be so called According to the degree of their Emanation from Christ and the Spirit of Christ Or According to our judgment and apprehension or Estimation 1. According to the degree of their Emanation God whose heart is at all times the same towards his people yet is pleased gradually to
Servants of God is yet to be found in the souls of such as have any acquaintance with or relation to the Lord Jesus Christ And indeed our reason will tell us that it must be so if we consider but these following particulars which will give you a reasonable account of the truth of this Proposition The least token of special distinguishing Grace is of an infinitely sweet and salvifick nature and evidence There are common gifts of the Spirit of God which indeed may be sweet and very grateful to a spiritual nature such are the gifts of Prayer and Prophecy c. but yet are not of a saving nature or evidence a man may have them and perish for ever but it is not so with such influences of the Spirit as are tokens of special distinguishing love spiritual gifts are to be coveted because of a subserviency in them to spiritual and saving ends but they are not of a saving nature and have nothing of a saving evidence in them but in the least token of special distinguishing love there is something of an evidence for Salvation the least of it is of a saving nature Faith that is but as a grain of Mustard seed is as much saving as the strongest Faith is The measures of our comforts much depend upon degrees of grace but our Salvation doth not Christ bids Zacheus go home for that day Salvation was come to his house Salvation cometh to the soul that hour in which the least of special love shineth upon it the least of that brings Salvation and consequently is exceeding sweet and must be so if you consider this soul as first seeking the Kingdom of God allarumed with the spiritual sense of its misery by nature it s lost and undone condition in Adam This is the one thing that such a soul seeks after in comparison with which all other things are as dross and dung to it That it may discern it self beloved of God one of those for whom Christ died and whose sins are washed away with his blood for this it hath wept and prayed and resolved to seek after it and resolved not to be silent There is no evidence of special Love but is suited to some great spiritual want of the soul Our souls are exposed to a great variety of wants All the tokens of God's special Love are suited to some or other of these wants Our souls are impotent and weak both to the performance of spiritual duty and to resist our spiritual adversary to this want now strengthening grace is suited They are dull and heavy and move heavily in spiritual duties to this quickening grace is suited They are sad and troubled for fear of God's wrath to this consolatory grace is suited There is no influence of the special Love of God but is suited to some special want or burden of our souls and therefore the least of them must be exceedingly desirable for so every thing is that suiteth our necessities and so much the more as it suiteth some more special and eminent wants If the Sun doth but arise upon the soul it healeth Mat. 4. 2. though it shineth not out in its fullest glory if Christ spreadeth but a wing over it there is healing in that wing His very shadow gives delight to the soul Cant. 2. 2. the least of his fruit is pleasant to its taste If saith the woman I can but touch the Hem of his Garment I shall be whole Such is the purity of the Saints Love that though they may have an Eye to the Recompence of Reward which his Love brings yet they love him for himself who appears to their souls as Totus desideria altogether desirable It is his Love which their souls thirst after now the least special token of Love sheweth that he loves it and his heart cleaveth to it He that valueth the Love of his friend regardeth not the quantum of the Token but the nature of it if it be of such a nature as he doth not ordinarily give to any common friend that is it which he eyeth If a soul can see any thing which speaketh its Lord joyned to it cleaving unto it this is it which makes it valuable A discerning soul will take little joy in gifts of common providence Riches Honours good Relations common gifts It may and will desire these things while it is in the flesh as they fill up some emptinesses in that our state but it can by no means be satisfied with these things As Haman said when he had been telling his Wife of his great preferments and honours All this doth me no good so long as I see Mordecay sitting in the King's Gate my Enemy is honoured and advanced as well as I So it saith The Lord hath given me riches honour c. but all this doth me no good so long as I see the haters of God enjoy as much of these things as I do let me have some special token of God's Love Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth Fourthly The Child of God knoweth That the least token of Christs special love is more worth than all the world There is no proport on betwixt a corpâ—ral and a spiritual good betwixt what is sutable to our flesh and to our wants in this life and what is sutable to our Souls and necessary for us with respect to our eternal felicity The Philosopher could say Animus cujusque est quisque The mind of a Man is the Man The Christian knows that Anima cujusque est quisque The Soul of a Man is the Man What shall it profit a Man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own Soul The sensual Man values his life above those things that are only good because of their subserviency to that The rational man valueth his mind above his flesh and accordingly sets a price upon knowledge and moral Virtue above those things that meerly gratify his sense The spiritual Man valueth his Soul his Soul considered not only as a rational Being but as a Spirit an immortal Spirit capable of the favour of God and an union and fellowship with him and ordain'd to an eternal existence not only above his body which he knoweth is made up of dust moulded up into flesh and blood and bones but above his mind It really is of more value and he is made apprehensive of it hence he cannot but value the least that tendeth to make that happy above any thing else whatsoever Besides he knows himself created to an eternity and believing that his reason teacheth him infinitely to prefer what is good for him with reference to an happy existence to eternity above any thing that can only serve him for the short time he is to be clothed with flesh and to live in this world This Election of the loves of Christ before all things else and the value he puts upon the least tokens and manifestations of it doth naturally and rationally follow his
their worldly and sensual satisfactions I would speak to them as one standing this day in wisdoms Porch and crying after them in their hottest pursuits of the world Come and turn your hearts hither you that are simple ones and void of understanding I shall have a fairer opportunity to speak to these when I come to consider the argument by which the Spouse backeth her Petition But alas we had need make these cries often you can see the world and the gay and fine things therein precious and run after them with a swift pace but you can see no excellency in the kisses of Christ nothing for which they should be so desired when alas the world is but like a brave glass which whole is of some value but if broken in pieces the small pieces of it are worth nothing Christ his love is like a wedge of Gold or like a most precious perfume the least particle the least drop of which hath its value there is no emanation of his special loves but is suted to the Souls wants and to some eminent necessity under which the Soul laboureth Hear Solomon speaking to you Prov. 1. 22. How long you simple ones will you love simplicity And Fools hate knowledge Turn you at my reproof I will pour out my Spirit unto you I will make known my words unto you Your reason tells you that a vessel of Silver or Gold is much preferrible to one of Earth or Glass and as for other reasons so for this which you ordinarily say break a vessel of Earth and Glass the pieces are worth nothing but if one of those more valuable mettals be broke the least pieces have their value Why should not the same reason instruct you that Christs favour is to be prefer'd to all the world can afford you a little of the world is not much valuable a plentiful estate the highest pitches of honour a belly full of pleasure that indeed may appear desirable but the least tokens of Christs love the least expressions of his favour are most valuable things The kisses of the world are for the most part but Oscula Iscariotica or Joabitica like the kisses of Judas who in order to the betraying of his Master first kissed him or like the kiss of Joab to Amasa who under pretence of kissing him smote him under the fifth rib and slew him Christ's kisses are kisses of peace and reconciliation of love and favour Secondly This notion calleth to all those that are true Christians and that for three things For a due value of the least tokens of Christs special and distinguishing love look narrowly to make up your judgment whether what you take to be such be such or no and there you must take heed that you do not make conclusions from the gifts of common providence No man can judge of the love or hatred of God to his Soul from any thing which befalls him in this life No man can judge of any special love from Gods giving him a longer life greater measures of health a more plentiful estate or any thing of this nature God gives the worst of men their portion in such things as these No nor â—dly from common gifts such as those of knowledge utterance c. look therefore narrowly to make your judgment and the surest Judgment is from such things as more conform you to the nature or will of God but if you will find aliquid Christi any thing which you can call Christs or speaks his distinguishing love take heed of undervaluing that Secondly It calls to you for the use of all means for proficiency and growth in Grace Such as hearing the Word Prayer the use of all the Ordinances of God for in reason if the least tokens of Christs special love be desirable greater manifestations of it are much more desirable Labour for more holiness more heavenly-mindedness more subjection of your will to the will of God Hath the Lord blessed you with a faith of adherence a power given you from above to cast your Souls upon the Lord Jesus Christ Labour for faith of evidence be like the Travellers to Zion of which David speaketh Psal 84. that go from strength to strength until they all appear before the Lord in Zion It may be a good question sometimes to satisfy a troubled doubting Soul what is the Minimum quod sic the lowest degree or measure of saving grace but it is an ill hearing from a lazy wanton Soul Lastly it calls loudly to us to thirst after Heaven where the believing Soul shall be the Lambs Wife and follow him whithersoever he goes and be blessed with the clearest vision and the fullest imbraces of its beloved Oh how pleasant will the mansions of glory be to those Souls to whom the imperfect views that it hath had of Christ in this life have been so desirable while we are present in the Body even Paul himself owneth himself absent from the Lord. Now indeed we are the Sons of God now we are in a capacity of his kisses tokens of special love sufficient to uphold and refresh our Souls but there we shall be at the rivers of pleasures where there is not only pleasure but fulness of pleasures and that for evermore O Blessed are they that shall be alwaies before the Throne of God seeing their Redeemer with those Eyes and taking their fills of his love Sermon IV. Canticles 1. 2. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth BY the beloveds Kisses mentioned in this Text I have understood Christs special and distinguishing love and the tokens of it by which either as God blessed for ever or as the Mediatour of the world he may discover his kindness to the Children of Men or the Members of his Church in common from whence I have already observed that the heart of a Believer is after distinguishing love Kisses being the least of those Evidences I have shewed That the least tokens of Christs special and distinguishing love are and will be very sweet to Believers Souls But I observe the word is in the plural number Kisses and so may signify either 1. Various dispensations of Grace Or 2. Various repetitions of the same Acts of Grace Hence the next Proposition ariseth That altho the least dispensations of special and distinguishing love be exceeding sweet and precious to Souls which have once tasted how good the Lord is yet their hearts will be after fuller and frequent dispensations and repetitions of it I take both these to be comprehended in the plurality of the term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Grace is a thing which is but one piece considered as it is in God their 's nothing plural in the one Divine Being but as the Sea which is in itself but one yet as it washeth upon several coasts receiveth several names and denominations as the English Sea the Irish Sea and the Baltick Sea So as the Grace of God respecteth the several necessities and wants of us
necessitous Creatures it also obtaineth several names and admits of several distinctions and is shewed by several Acts. The Grace of God in the sense I am now speaking to it signifyeth nothing but the free love of God looking upon the Sons of Men with respect to the several necessities of their Souls It s variety ariseth from us and our necessities it is not divided in the fountain only in the stream and thus Grace admits of several distinctions which I shall open to you in a few words that you may rightly understand the various notions of it The most famous distinction of it is into that which doth render the Soul acceptable to God and that which is love and freely given but doth not make the Soul acceptable in Gods sight at least not first acceptable or is not that for which God doth at first accept the Soul The first is that which we call the Grace of Justification which is the free love of God shining upon the Soul imputing to it a righteousness without works and not imputing transgression as the Apostle expoundeth it Rom. 4. 6. 8. the second we call the grace of Regeneration and Sanctification which is the love of God freely shewed to the Soul by which its heart is renewed and changed and filled with new habits and dispositions inclining and inabling it to what God requireth of it This is Grace it is from the power and free love of God though it be not that grace for which God at first accepteth the Soul as the Papists say This Grace of Regeneration and Sanctification is also usually distinguished into Habitual and Actual Habitual Grace is nothing else but the free love of God shining upon the Soul inabling it to will and to choose the things that are good and pleasing to God he giveth to will saith the Apostle and we are made willing in the day of his power saith the Psalmist Actual or acting Grace which is the love of God shewed to the Soul in inabling us to do the things that are good for as it is he that giveth to will so it is he who giveth to do both of his own good pleasure and our Lord told his Disciples John 15. 3. Without me you can do nothing There is another distinction of Grace into Preventing and Subsequent Preventing Grace is that love of God which preventeth and goeth before any good motions or actions of ours according to that of the Prophet I was found of them that sought me not and of those that did not inquire after me This is usually called the first grace Subsequent grace is that love of God which followeth this and is variously manifested to the Souls of Gods People In the first we are meerly passive we only receive it in the other we are active There are other notions of grace but I shall instance only in one more Special grace is the free love of God either concerning the being of a true Christian or 2dly Concerning its well being That grace which concerneth the being of a true Christian which quickneth the Soul which before was a Child of Wrath dead in trespasses and sins is either the Grace of Justification and what concerneth that this is first grace and preventing grace Or 2. The grace of Regeneration by which a new heart is given unto us and we are inclined disposed and inabled to the operations of a spiritual life Or Secondly What concerneth the better being of a Christian in the managing of all the actions and concerns of the spiritual life This again is divided into quickning grace strengthening Grace and consolatory Grace 1. Quickning grace may either signify that love of God by which our Spiritual powers habits and inclinations are drawn out into acts 2. Or that whereby a Soul is made more active and lively and free in the service of God which removes those difficulties that heaviness and deadness and dulness which we often find upon our Souls as to spiritual things For this you read David so often praying in Psal 119. Strengthening grace which is the love of God shewed to the Soul in further inabling it both to its spiritual actions and to the managing of the good fight against the World the Flesh and the Devil the Apostle calleth it a being strengthened with might in the inward Man of this Saint Paul speaketh Phil. 3. 13. I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me Consolatory grace which signifieth the love of God shining upon the Soul that is sad and heavy refreshing it either from the view and sense of the truth of its gracious habits or from the sealings of some promise giving the Soul an assurance or full persuasion of the love of God David crieth out when wilt thou comfort me Thus you see the variety of gracious dispensations the love of God is one as it is in him as the fountain but it divideth itself into several streams as it shineth upon divers Souls or the same Soul oft-times in differing circumstances or with respect to divers wants which our Souls have Secondly As there is variety in the dispensations of grace so grace discovers itself in various acts Divines say that the grace of Justification so far as it respecteth the Souls State varieth not Nor is repeated but the acts of grace referring to our justified estate they are repeated God doth not pardon sin before it is committed but repeateth his gracious act in pardoning as the Soul repeateth its transgressions Now this is that which I say in this proposition that the Spouse of Christ the truly gracious Soul is not satisfied with any single dispensation of grace nor with a single act it desires not only the first grace but further grace not only the grace of Justification but the grace of regeneration also not only gracious habits but that it may be excited and quickned to spiritual actions not only that it may do them but that it may do them with some strength and vigour with some life and chearfulness it desires renewed acts of pardon renewed influences of spiritual strength and life Let us but a little see it in the great instance of David the man according to Gods own heart we shall find him speaking to our purpose in several Psalms Psal 19. 13. Cleanse thou me from secret faults there he beggeth for pardoning love will this satisfy this holy man will he think it enough if God pardoneth his Sin see what followeth in that Psalm Keep back thy Servant from presumptuous sins let them not have dominion over me he must have strengthening as well as pardoning grace he desires to be freed from the commanding as well as from the condemning power of Sins Look into the 51 Psalm a Psalm much spent in petitions for special grace v. 7. He prays for pardon Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean wash me and I shall be whiter than the Snow he speaks in an old Testament phrase
which the Soul apprehends of obtaining all grace Let a thing appear to us never so beautiful never so useful yet if we lye under an apprehension of its impossibility to obtain it this moderateth its desires after if nay extinguisheth them for our Reason forbids our Wills to move after things which we apprehend not possible to be obtained But such is the goodness of God towards us that there is no dispensation of his love but he hath somewhere or other promised and revealed to us as possible to be obtained by us Now good apprehended possible to be obtained by us is the proper object of the desires of our Souls we are told that it hath pleased the father that in Christ all fulness should dwell And that the fulness of the God-Head dwelt in him bodily 1 Col. 19. 2 Col. 12. and of his fulness saith the Evangelist Joh. 1. 16. We have all received grace for grace To pass by other interpretations of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some understand Grace suited to all that Grace which is in Christ There is no habit of Grace in Christ suited to our human nature and state but believers may receive something from him in proportion to it There is no love of God to Christ which fitteth us or may fit us in our proportions but we may receive Nay there is no love of God which floweth from the fulness of the Divine Nature of which we are capable but the believer may receive For saith the Apostle the Fulness of the God-Head dwelt in him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bodily In him as our mediator that he might communicate to those that are the members of his body and that I take to be the properest sense of those words Of his fulness that is of the fulness of the God-Head which dwelt in him as Mediator and dwelt in him so as that he could communicate it to those that believed in him Hence he tells us that all power was given unto him both in Heaven and Earth and that the Son of Man had power upon Earth to forgive Sins and that God had given unto him Eternal life that he might give it to whomsoever he pleased so as the Soul apprehends all grace not only beautiful and lovely but also as possible to be obtained by it from Christ and having such apprehensions of it conjoined with its before-mentioned apprehensions of the beauty and excellency of it and the usefulness of it with respect to the various and renewing wants of the Soul it must necessarily desire it This notion may as the other which I have handled shew you 〈◊〉 difference betwixt the desires of the Hypocrite and those of the true Child of God after Grace There may be some desires after Grace in Souls in whom there is no true and real change of heart but they are either terminated 1. In the common gifts and graces of the Spirit Or 2. in the Comfortable manifestations of it 3. Or at furthest in some particular dispensations of it The common gifts and graces of the Spirit of God may be desired by those in whom the love of God doth not dwell By common gifts I mean knowledge utterance an ability to pray to discourse of the things of God c. And the reason is because these may serve a double end which an Hypocrite may have 1. His honour and credit and reputation in the world Common gifts and graces may give Men and Women a great name in the Church of God though they will give a Man no place in the Kingdom of God They may especially as times may go much serve a man both as to his lust of gain and covetousness and also as to his lust of Ambition and seeking after the honour which is from men and serve him to appear as some body in the world and to make him pass for a great Professor and help him to preferments also in the Church and so serve his Belly You have an eminent instance of this in Simon Magus Acts 8. 9. of whom it is said That he used Sorcery and bewitched the People of Samaria giving out himself to be some great one v. 13. He beheld the signs and miracles that were done this Man now to augment his reputation and probably that he might be in a capacity to get more mony than he had been able to get by his tricks of Hocus Pocus and diabolical Arts seeing the Apostles conveying the Holy Ghost to their Disciples by their laying on of hands he did not only desire the graces of the Spirit thus far but offered them mony for that power that upon whomsoever he laid his hands they also might receive the Holy Ghost There is no doubt but whatsoever may promove the lusts of an Hypocrites heart may be the object of his desire Now as a National knowledge of the things of God or the common practical gifts and graces of the Spirit may serve a man as to his profit and advantage or as to his honour and reputation so they mightily gratify the lusts of an Hypocrites heart who doth all to be seen of Men and whose utmost design is but to glory in appearance and in the praise of Men. Besides this they may also serve him very far in the quieting of his natural conscience Natural light discovering to us that there is a God doth also shew us that there is some homage due to him and hence ariseth a natural obligation upon men to be doing something in discharge of this homage to which these common gifts are subservient The like might be said of moral habits which are but common grace men that are 〈◊〉 touched with the love of God or desire to please him may yet see a beauty and a profit too in a moral just and righteous conversation and desire so much grace as may keep him from the scandal and reproach of the world and from the ruining of himself and Family or Relations Nay Secondly his desires may extend to the consolatory manifestations of the love of God the pardon of his sins and the sense of that pardon what should hinder In a time when a Prince is free of his pardons it is not impossible that some of his Subjects may take out their pardons that it may be have no great sense or apprehension that they stand in need of them Hypocrites that live within the compass of the Church of God are often hearing of sin and the wrath of God due to sin to Original sin to Actual Sins to Sins of Omission and Negligence as well as those of Commission and Presumption they also hear daily proclamations of Gods grace and readiness to forgive what should hinder but that they ex abundanti cautela tho they be not touched with any great sense of sin tho they have some good opinion of their own Righteousness may yet earnestly desire to know their iniquities are forgiven and that the Righteousness of Christ might be imputed to them
reason to question it doubtless those that lie most in Christs Bosom here shall sit nearest him upon his Throne hereafter I shall shut up my discourse with four or five directions in this case First Labour to understand the various emanations of special and distinguishing Grace how many ways the Sun of Righteousness may shine upon Souls with healing in his Wings I am afraid many talk of Grace special distinguishing Grace who do not understand it as they ought to do Study to understand Christs saving looks upon Souls and to distinguish them from other looks which have no such saving vertue and evidence in them Christs saving looks upon Souls are either such as evidence pardon of Sin or contribute to the change of the heart in first or further degrees of holiness Or comforting us with the view of our own sincerity take a right notion of Christs kisses Be sure in thy desires of further Grace thou forgettest not to be thankful for what thou hast the least token of love for good to thy Soul is more worth than the world ther 's nothing little in Grace I before observed to you the passions of some Christians who are ready to overlook all that God hath done for their Souls if they want some particular dispensation of Grace which their hearts are set upon Make use of what thou hast To him that hath shall be given It is a saying which our Saviour applyeth to the parable of the sower Mat. 13. 12. Luk. 8. 18. and to the parable of the Talents Mat. 25. 29. In the two first places the meaning may be To him that hath in actual possession so it may be conceived as a promise of further grace to those who have any thing of the truth of grace but in the 25. Mat. 29. it is plainly to be understood of such as make use of and improve what they have for it is spoken with reference to those Servants that had ten Talents and had gained other ten and five talents and had gained other five In thy desires of more Grace distinguish betwixt necessary and comfortable influences betwixt manifestations of the Spirit given thee to profit withal and such as are given thee to make thy life more easy and cheerful the first thou mayest beg more absolutely and be as earnest for them as thou wilt The latter must be asked with more explicite submission to the will of God they being such as are not only not necessary to thy glorifying of God under all circumstances but not necessary to the eternal Salvation of thy Soul such for which the wisdom of God may see more reason under some circumstances to with-hold from thee and that in order to thy edification and improvement in holiness As to such influences though thou oughtest to desire them and to pray for them yet thou oughtest also to be content to wait for them David did so His Eyes failed while he said When wilt thou comfort me Wait upon God in all his own institutions The Ordinances of God are usually called means of Grace because they are usually made use of by God as means in and by which he communicateth his Grace in the several influences of it to our Souls These Ordinances are the Word Sacrament and Prayer The first Grace is usually dispensed to us upon reading or hearing the Word of God and so is further Grace also Therefore the Apostle Peter commands us to desire the sincere Milk of the Word that we may grow thereby I had saith David perished in my affliction if thy Word had not been my delight The Law of the Lord saith David is perfect converting the Soul the Testimony of the Lor d is sure making wise the simple the Statutes of the Lord are right rejoycing the heart the Commandment of the Lord is pure inlightning the Eyes Psal 19. 6. 7. Christs love is a thing different from the Word but it is shewen to the Soul in the use of the Word Infinite instances might be given you of Christs kissing Souls manifesting his special love to Souls is it which I mean by it in the reading and especially in the hearing of the Word there it is that is in the use of that that he usually speaks to the hearts of Men and Women hence the Apostle tells us that the holy Scriptures are able to make the Man of God wise to Salvation and are profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instructions in righteousness Yea and for patience and comfort too Rom. 15. 4. For whatsoever things were written before were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope The Sacrament that is another mean the Sacramental believing eating of the Bread and Wine is an eating of the flesh and a drinking of the Blood of Christ a feeding upon all Christs fulness as Mediator Prayer is a mean of all Grace whatsoever God hath promised in a way of Grace is all promised upon this condition That he will for it be inquired of by his People Walk humbly and uprightly before God The humble he will teach saith the Psalmist Psal 25. and to the humble he will give more Grace Ja. 4. 6. 1 Pet. 5. 5. he dwelleth with those that are of a contrite and humble Spirit to revive the Spirits of the humble and the hearts of those that are contrite and for the upright he hath told us that he will with-hold from them no good thing But this is enough to have also spoken to this Proposition There is another term in the petition of the Text. which I shall take notice of she prayeth not only that her beloved would kiss her and that not with one but many kisses but she adds of his Mouth But of that hereafter Sermon V. Canticles 1. 2. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth I Told you in the close of my last diseourse that I should not yet leave this Text because of the last words of his Mouth which we must either be allowed as a Pleonasme and superfluous or to contain in them yet some further spiritual Instruction The Jews say there is not the least tittle of the Law upon which great things do not depend nor do I fancy the allowing of more Pleonasms in holy writ than must necessarily be allowed I shall therefore take notice of what Origen and Beza and divers others have before me noted from the addition of these words That the believing Soul thirsts after a communion with Christ in his Word Mr. Ainsworth taking special notice of the term kisses understands the Doctrine of the Gospel which is the Word of Reconciliation as kisses are amoris reconciliationis symbola the tokens of love and reconciliation I am sure the notion is in itself true whether the sense of this Text or no. The Law worketh Wrath faith the Apostle the Doctrine of the Gospel alone speaks love and peace Christs Spouse here
our God is towards him a consuming Fire We are in that state as Stubble dry Stubble he is a consuming Fire But the Apostle tells us 2. Cor. 5. 19. That God was in Christ reconciling the World to himself God in Christ is Love toward poor Creatures There are Loves in him Let me a little open the Term. I desire you to take notice of Two things 1. That it is Spoken in the Abstract 2. In the plural number not Love but Loves First Love in the strict and proper Notion of it signifieth the Persons or the Creatures Propension and Inclination to some Object and its Complacency in it And in this Abstract and purer Notion of it it agreeth to the Divine Being and Christ is the Subject of Love There is in the eternal Son of God strong Propensions and Inclinations to do good to the Sons of men To love the Philosopher saith is Velle bonum to will good to another There is in Christ a Propension a strong Inclination to will good to the Sons of Men He hath a Complacency in some of the Sons of Men. Love is a Term that signifies Affections and all our Affections are but the motions of our Wills towards their Objects We say there are no Affections in God That is true But there is something in the Divine Being which is proportionable to what in us we call Affectiions In us Affections are extravagant Motions mutable Passions there are no such things in God In us somthing out of our selves draws out our Love There is no such Passions and Affections in God But if we consider Love in its pure Nature as it is the kind motion of the VVill to an Object so Christ is Love and he hath Loves that is there is in him pure and admirable Propensions and Inclinations of his Will to do good to the Children of Men especially to some particular Souls amongst the Sons of Men. These indeed are not kindled in the Divine Being from any thing in us or out of itself as Flames of Love in the Creature usually are Yet even in Creatures Love oftentimes is an inaccountable thing but in God it is always so he sheweth Mercy because he will shew Mercy and loveth freely That 's the first thing But Secondly The word is plural not Love but Loves God is one and his Love is one Christs Love is one in himself but as the River that went out of Eden to water the Garden of Paradise Gen. 2. 10. was one in its Original and Source but from thence it was parted and became into four Heads So that Oâ—eness of the Divine Propension and Inclination to do good to poor Creatures being out of the Divine Being it divides itself into many Heads and as the Sea which is one in itself yet as it passeth by several Lands and washeth upon various Shoaâ—s receives several Names and so admits of a plural number so the Love of Christ which in him is but one Good-will to poor Creatures yet as it sheweth itself in Serving the necessities of various Souls or the various necessities of the same Soul so it becomes Loves and admits of plurality there is in Christ pardoning Love and an healing Love a strengthening Love and a comforting Love therefore the Spouse saith Thy Loves There is but One Love in Christ but it becomes many when it washeth upon various Shoars and toucheth our diverse wants Thirdly The plural Number speaketh the Dimensions of that Love which is in Christ or rather the want of Dâ—rensions in it The plural number hath no bounds the singular is bounded by Unity but the plural hath no bounds if you be to express Millions of Millions of Millions 't is all still but the plural number Loves reacheth infiniteness When the Spouse saith Thy Loves it is as much as thine infinite unmeasurable Love Christ hath not only a good Will a kind Inclination and Propension to the Sons of Men but an infinite unmeasurable unfathomable Propension and Inclination to do good to the Souls of his Saints The Apostle prayeth for the Ephesians Eph. 3. 17 18. That Christ might dwell in their Hearts by Faith that they being rooted and grounded in Love might be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the bredth and length and depth and beighth and to know the Love of Christ which passeth knowledge heighth and depth and length and bredth are the boundaries of our knowledge but the Love of Christ passeth knowledge Fourthly Love signifies some Specialties of Affection A good man hath Love for many Women but Love's only for the Wife of his Bosom Loves signifie both a common and a singular and special Love Christ hath a Philanthropy or common Love for all the Sons of Men but he hath an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a special Love and Kindness for some Joseph caused all his Brethren to have a Mess set them but for Benjamin a double Mess God gave Esau the Mountains of Edom. There was Love but Jacob had the Blessing Esau had his Love Jacob had his Loves That the Gospel is preached to every Creature is from Christs Love but that any by the Gospel are made New creatures this is from his Loves It is kindness to them that they have the Gospel but a far greater kindness a kindness of another nature to the Soul that it is inabled to receive the Gospel and is turned into the likness of it 5. Loves may signify the Effects and indications of Love and indeed Terms of Affection applyed unto God do very ordinarily in Scripture signify this Et affectum effectum Both the Motion of the Divine Will within itself and the effect of it upon the Creature So it is true that Christ hath Loves his Good-Will to poor Creatures doth not exhaust itself in one or another Emanation in one or another Stream but in various Emanations in a multitude of Streams and thus you see there are two things in the Proposition asserted 1st That in the Lord Jesus Christ there is an infinite unmeasurable Good-Will to the Childr of Men 〈…〉 such of them as are by Faith united to him 2dly That this Good-will of Christ toward them declareth itself in a great variety of Indications and Effects Suted to their various necessities It is not a Love that evaporates in Air as the Love of some impotent persons whose Love towards us terminates within their own Souls These are the two Points I have to prove and they are of exceeding easy demonstration to those who believe the History of the Gospel or the Matter and Propositions of the whole Word of God Solomon tells us of Christ under the notion of Wisdom the Apostle calls Christ The VVisdom of God 1. Cor. 1. 24. that before ever the Earth was when there were no Depths nor Fountains abounding with VVater when God prepared the Heavens and set a compass upon the face of the Deep when he established the Clouds Prov. 8. 24. 25. 31. He was Rejoycing
in the habitable part of his Earth and his Delights were with the Sons of Men. The Apostle tells those of the Ephesians who were Saints and faithful That they were chosen in Christ before the Foundation of the VVorld that they should be holy and without blame before him in Love predestinated unto the Adoption of Children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his VVill. To the Praise of the Glory of his Grace wherein 〈◊〉 hath made us accepted through the Beloved in whom we have Redemption through his Blood the forgiveness of sins according to the Riches of his Grace c. There is no portion of the Word of God that part of it especially which we call the Gospel but affordeth us an abundant proof of this What meant his being made Surety of a better Covenant for us as the Apostle to the Hebrews tell us His being given for a Covenant for the people Isa 42. 6. a Light to the Gentiles to open the Eyes of the blind to bring out the Prisoners from the Prison and them that sit in Darkness out of the Prison-house His being the Lamb slain from the beginning of the VVorld Rev. 13 8. His Speaking by the Mouths of the Prophets as the Apostle tells us His growing up as a tender Plant and as a Root out of a dry ground having no form nor comliness nor beauty to be desired his being despised rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs his bearing our griefs and carrying our Sorrows being Smitten of God and afflicted his being wounded for our Transgressions and bruised for our iniquities when the chastisement of our peace lay upon him His suffering strips that we might â—e healed c. What signified his incarnation his death and 〈◊〉 his resurrection and ascension his taking care for his Gospel to be preach'd to every creature c. his being grieved for the hardness of peoples hearts and troubled for their unbelief his frequent preaching while he was upon the Earth his weeping over Hierusalem his invitations of people to come unto him that they might have life his complaints that they would not come unto him c. I say what do all these things signify from him who needeth not his creature being over all God blessed for ever but that he hath loves an infinite good will to the Children of men No man is at cost taketh pains in any business suffereth hard things to go through it but either out of kindness to himself or to another Our Lord did not do and suffer these things for himself he had no need of them if it were for us it speaks his loves 2. But this is no more than what every one who owneth Christ and the Gospel will easily grant That Christ is Love and hath a Love for the Sons of men yea and that there is an infiniteness and unmeasurableness in the Love of Christ But that he hath Loves in the Other sense Some Specialties of Love some particular propensions to some Souls more than others this is what the proud world cannot so easily digest Yet is this as plain in the Revelation of holy Writ as the other It speaks of an Election or choice of some to Holiness and Happiness before the foundation of the world the choice of Some must suppose the passing by or not electing others experience shews us that not onely the good things of common pro vidence but even the external means of Grace are granted to some not to others 3. Neither doth this grate so much The most perverse opiners in this point must grant the publication of the Gospel an effect of the Love of Christ and that there is a very inequal distribution of it by the wise Providence of God but as to them to whom the Gospel is alike preached they know not how to allow Loves in Christ have they then forgot what the Apostle saith Rom. 9. 6. For they are not all Israel which are of Israel Neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all Children But in Isaac shall thy seed be called that is They who are the Children of the flesh these are not the Children of God but the Children of the Promise counted for the seed And again Rom. 2. 28. 29. He is not a Jew which is one outwardly neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh But he is a Jew which is one inwardly and circnmcision is that in the heart in the Spirit and not in the Letter whose praise is not of men but of God Doth not experience teach us that even where the Gospel is preachd some repent of their sins some are hardened some believe others are lockt up in unbelief some are holy and blameless others are leud and profane But they will say This is not from any Loves in Christ he his alike to all but from the differing motions and inclinations of the will of man I yet ask Whence is it Seing human Souls are Equal and have the same powers and faculties how comes it that one man loveth God and the ways of God another hates and abhorreth every thing almost that hath the image and Superscription of God upon it Is a man a God to himself and the first cause of any motions that are truly and spiritually good Is it not God that giveth to will and to do of his own good pleasure Hath a man any thing which is good which he hath not received If one hath received such a power such an inclination such a disposition from God there is Special Love then Christ hath Loves besides a common Philanthropy a good will to the generality of mankind shewed in other things which will not bring Souls to Eternal Salvation he hath a special Love and kindness to some Souls which he manifesteth in such dispensations to it as shall certainly bring the Soul to Eternal Life and Salvation and these are those of which the text Speaks But I have Spoken enough in evidence of so plain a Proposition as this is I come to the application 1st How should this Revelation of Christ reconcile the world unto him Christ hath Loves for us why should there be found in our hearts or ways any hatred to or opposition against him Yet is not the World full of this What is an opposition to the publication of his Gospel an hatred to his Ministers to his People to his Laws and holy Institutions but an hatred to him Christ hath so judged of it he told some of the first Minister s of his Gospel Math. 10. 14 15. That in the day of Judgment it should be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha than for those that did not receive them and hear his words Wicked men and Enemies to the Gospel are in Scripture called unreasonable men 2. Thessal 3. 2. Absurd men The absurdness and unreasonableness of men that are Enemies to Christ and the Gospel for of such the Apostle speaketh
there praying to be delivered from those that are unreasonable upon many accounts but eminently in this that they hate do all the despight mischief they can to him who is full of Loves to them We shall sometimes find in men and women a strange aversion from such as truly Love them they cannot get up their hearts to love a man or woman that Loves them but it is very brutish very unreasonable for any of us to hate and malign and to seek to destroy one that Loves us Such brutes are all those that are Enemies to Christ and his Gospel Christ hath Loves for us these Loves are declared in his Gospel that declareth God in Christ reconciling the world to himself not imputing their sins the publication of the Gospel is a great act of this Love the faithful Ministers of the Gospel are the Messengers to publish this Love what an unreasonable thing it is now for men to make them the But of their malice I remember when the Jews cryed out concerning Christ Crucify him Crucify him and Pilate asked them why What evil hath he done They like a company of unreasonable bruits could give him no answer but still they cryed out the more Crucify him Crucify him Doth not the same brutish cry hold up even at this day in some wretches mouths They can give no reasonable account why they should oppose the publication of the Love of Christ to poor lost Sinners yet they do it with a rage reaching up to Heaven This is now to be unreasonable men why should you persecute him who loveth you Yet verily as St. Paul said of himself The more he loved the Galathians the less he was beloved of them So it feareth with Christ and all that hath relation to him the more faithful the Minister of Christ is in preaching the Gospel the more diligent and zealous he is to gain Souls to Christ the most hated he is and the reason is because it thus fared with Christ Joh. 15. 18. If the world hateth you you know it hated me before it hated you But Oh let this reconcile your hearts unto Christ That he hath Loves No ingenuous man but will repay Love for Love He who repayeth hatred for Love is of the Devil eminently he doth Evil without a provocation because he Loves to do Evil. Secondly What an Invitation doth this Notion afford to the most miserable forlorn Souls to Kiss the Son to receive and close with the Lord Jesus Christ Whilest our Lord was upon the Earth he told the people That when he was lifted up he should draw all men after him Alas that this word All in that Text must be englished by Many Christ is lifted up upon the Cross and therein he hath shewed us that he hath Loves Infinite Loves For Greater Love than this hath no man shewn than that a man lay down his Life for his Friends Yet this is greater Love while we were Enemies he dyed for us Yet how few are drawn after him How few can be persuaded to accept him as their Lord and Saviour What is the reason one man is drawn after his sensual Appetites after his Lusts and those draw quite from Christ Men cannot be his Disciples except they deny themselves mortify their Members Others are drawn after the World and are not at leasure to come to Christ and besides the friendship of the World is enmity with God! Others have some thoughts of coming to Christ but they are afraid Christ should not receive them I shall have occasion to Speak to the 2 d sort when I come to the next Proposition to shew you that Christs Loves are better then Wine Indeed both to the first and Second I might Speak as Saul once to his Courtyers will the Son of Jesse give you Vine-Yards c. Can the World can your Lusts give you Peace of Conscience and joy in the holy Ghost Will they bring you to the favour of God and to eternal Life But they are onely the 3 d Sort whom I would here Speak to Is there a Soul here that is almost persuaded to be a Christian A Christian not in Name but in Deed and is afraid Christ should not be willing to receive it Hear what God saith 2 Cor. 6. 17. Come out from amongst them and be you separate saith the Lord and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you Observe what I have bin discoursing Christ hath Loves an Inclination and Propension to do good to the Sons of Men He hath declared it in a variety of gracious Acts from before the Foundation of the World It encouraged the Servants of Benhadad to go to Ahab to beg their Masters Life that they had heard that the Kings of Israel were merciful Kings Let this be an incouragement to you to come to Christ to hear that Christ is a merciful High Priest who casteth away none that cometh unto him Certainly it would incourage the greatest malefactor to go to a Prince to beg his pardon and to thâ—oâ— himself into the arms of his grace and mercy if he could but be persuaded that the Prince were full of Love and had a particular propension and inclination of kindness to the family from which he derived This you have heard particularly made good to you concerning Christ You that have been the greatest trangressors the oldest Sinners yet return and come I remember when Isaac told Esau that Jacob had come before him and got the blessing he replyed Father thou hast many blessings bless me also It may be you may be thinking so in your hearts such and such persons they have obtained the blessing they had not been so vile so prosane as I have been O but yet remember the Lord Jesus Christ hath many blessings not Love but Loves come unto him and he shall bless thee also When thy thoughts are overwhelm'd in the thoughts of thy sins sink them again into the thoughts of Christs Loves thou wilt find that is as great a depth as the other is Yea thou will find the same difference as betwixt the Shore and the main Sea Near the Shore the Mariner may find it several fathom water enough to drown a man But off at Sea he finds himself out of the soundings all the lines he hath will find no bottom So a Soul in the thoughts of his sins may find himself beyond his depth he is drowned in the thoughts of them Ah but yet there is a Sounding his Sins are not Infinite so there is a sounding but if he lancheth his thoughts into the depths of Gods grace and Christs Loves there is no soundings let therefore no Soul be discouraged from coming unto Christ Fourthly Hath Christ Loves How sutable a Saviour hath God provided for poor sinful creatures The Apostle to the Hebrews Heb. 7. 26. having said of Christ v. 25. That he is able to the uttermost to Save them that come unto God by him addeth For such an
Every one is not alike taken with every sensual object the Apostle tells us we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every one hath his proper lust and corruption by which he is drawn away the lusts of the flesh are one mans proper lust the lust of the Eye is anothers proper lust the pride of life is anothers Separate from mankind drunkards lascivious persons vain persons persons that are covetous and too greedy of the worlds riches ambitious men whose God is honour and applause credit and reputation in the World how few will you leave But I hear some say this is an hard censure upon mankind men indeed are flesh and blood man hath natural Senses and naturally seeks the gratification and Satisfaction of them but we hope we do not prefer the satisfaction of them before the Loves of Christ shewed in the pardon of sin peace of conscience purity of heart the hopes of glory This were a very sad thing and it is a very hard judgment to pass upon any Soul we must plead not guilty to this Indictment Say you so my next question is how will ye be tryed will you be tryed by the ordinary rules of tryals of your preference in other cases answer me then or call your souls to answer themselves in some few questions What do you most delight to hear of what do you please your selves most in what do you imploy your selves most in the pursuit of what do you most postpone and put behind in the motions of your lives which do you most neglect for the other c. 1. What do you most delight to hear of The loves of Christ are not the objects of any sense but the Ear but they may be heard of Sermons should be principally such discourses discourses of Christs love we preach Christ Crucified canst thou be patient to hear discourses of the loves of Women discourses of worldly businesses of vanity many hours and canst thou not with the like patience and delight sit out a Sermon of one hour art thou never saying when will this vain idle discourse be done this discourse that tends nothing to the good of my Soul and yet often saying when will this Sermon be done Judge then whether thy Soul judgeth the loves of Christ better than Wine There are those that can rise up early in the morning that they may follow strong drink and continue till night till Wine inflame them and canst not thou rise up early to hear of the love of Christ and sit an hour or two till the report of his love inflameth thy Soul Hadst thou rather hear a wanton idle story than a Gospel story how dost thou then prefer the loves of Christ before Wine thou manifestly givest the preference to a sensual satisfaction 2. What do you most please your thoughts in the contemplation meditation of My meditation of him saith David shall be sweet Our thoughts must feed themselves with some objects we are so incompassed with the straits and necessities of this life with the various diversions and temptations that I think it unreasonable to put the tryal there Whether have the loves of Christ or worldly objects most of your thoughts none would acquit themselves upon such an inquiry But which are your Souls most pleasant Bread which are your sweetest meditations this will try a Soul undoubtedly such objects as a Soul most preferreth it will be most pleased in the contemplation of But is this the case of the most of men can they say that though they have more thoughts upon the World and sensible objects in it yet the meditations upon the World and the other are rather thoughts of necessity than of delight and pleasure Thirdly What do you most imploy your selves in the pursuit of Is it sensible satisfactions or Christs love I do not here mean by most a frequency of action or length of time but a warmth and fervency and intension of affection and a Christians circumstances and station in the world may be such as will inforce him to spend more of his time and more of his action about worldly than about spiritual things but which doth the Soul press most hard after which pursuit hath most of the strength and vigour of the inward man That doubtless hath the preference in the mans judgment it is an ill sign to see a man work hard and pray coldly lazily perfunctorily when men spend their strength for that which is not bread when a man so toileth in his pleasures when he presseth so hard after the World that his whole heart may be discerned and read in those pursuits and but half his heart can be discerned in his pursuits after the loves of Christ he comes late to an Ordinance of God he sleeps when he is there he doth the work of his God negligently My Soul saith David presseth hard after thee it is an excellent sign when tho the motions of the Soul be after the World yet the pressings hard of the Soul are after Christ and his loves 4. In the motions of your lives what do you most postpone and put behind that which is most postponed is least preferred Let my Tongue saith the Psalmist Psal 137. 6. cleave to the roof of my mouth if I prefer not Hierusalem before my chief Joy We have an English saying That meat and drink may be had but work may stay it intimates our preference of meat and drink before labour the end of which is chiefly to procure meat and drink Do you say I must pray I and my House must seek the Lord I must hear that my Soul live my labour in my calling that may stay It is a very ill sign that the Soul prefers earthly things before heavenly things when he postpones the means to obtain things heavenly to the means for obtaining things that are earthly when every trifling business will turn him off from prayer reading hearing the Word It is true there is a time for all things But when the Worlds time is admitted to jostle out Gods time and Gods time is not reserved to him and the worlds time never yields to Gods time it is a very ill sign that Christs loves have not the preference in the Soul Lastly Which do you most neglect for the other Our Saviour telleth us Mat. 6. 24. No man can serve two Masters for either he will love the one and hate the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other the neglect of one thing to give place or room to another sufficiently argueth the preference of that for which we make room before that by the neglect of which we make room for it Do you neglect the world and the things of the world to give room for the loves of Christ and the means to obtain them or do you neglect the loves of Christ and the means he hath appointed for the gaining of them for the world and the means you are to use for the gaining of it
and desireth the continuance of it The Ignorant bold presumptuous Sinner desireth not the Love of God the pardon of Sins he thinks he is sure of all Hence now it is that the believer desires the Loves of Christ it apprehendeth them good possible and what its Soul doth stand indaily and further need of which apprehension is the reason why our Souls desire any thing be it of what nature soever we can desire nothing but what we must apprehend good sutable to us in some of our circumstances possible to be attained and such as either wholly or in some degree at least we need 2. According to the degree of our knowledge or apprehension of the goodness of any object so are our desires after it This will justify itself upon experience in all other things we do not desire them according to the degree of goodness in them for then every man must desire the favour of God Union and Communion with him but according to the degree of our knowledge or apprehension of such a good as such Now there are various degrees of knowledge 1. The first and meanest is the meer act of our Understanding which by the help of our Eyes and Ears gaineth the knowledge of things And thus the vilest of men may know that the Loves of Christ are good yea good before wine that is they may have so read in the Bible so heard from Ministers of the Gospel And even this knowledge may produce in a bad man a desire after these things proportioned to his apprehension Hence such a man may faintly will and lazily desire these things 2. A Second degree of Knowledge is Opinion This riseth a little higher the man who thus knows that the Loves of Christ are good doth not onely know it from reading or hearing but from probable Arguments Nor is it difficult for a wicked man thus also to know that the Loves of Christ are good Assoon as he can be made to believe that there is a God and that he is the Fountain of Good and that Jesus Christ is the Eternal Son of God and Equal with the Father both in Essence and all Divine Perfections his Reason will persuade him that there must be a Goodness yea a transcendent Goodness in Christs Loves But while Flesh and Blood only revealeth this thing unto him his Knowledge is incertain and faint and he is subject to thoughts that he may be mistaken and therefore though he may sometimes desire Christs Love yet it is but by fits and with incertainties according to the Nature of the Knowledge and Apprehension he hath of the truth of the things 3. A Third degree of Knowledge is Persuasion arising from Demonstration Now there is 1. A Demonstration of Sense thus we know the Sun shines the Fire burneth c. 2. A Demonstration of Reason when we can conclude a thing from infallible Principles of natural Reason 3. A Demonstration of Faith which is the Demonstration of the Spirit When men know things from the holy Spirits fully persuading them of the truth of this or that from a Divine Revelation This is the Demonstration of faith 4. There is yet a further and higher degree of Knowledg that ariseth from Experience being a sensible Evidence of the truth of what the Soul had before received a little of from the sight of the Eye and hearing of the Ear and more from the persuasion of the Spirit and some Argumentations within itself I say now that according to the degree of the Souls knowledge and apprehension so are the workings of the Affections This of desire in particular Hence the desires of Believers to the Loves of Christ must necessarily be the strongest For the degree of the Knowledge and Apprehension the Believer hath of the goodness of them is higher than it is possible any other Souls should have Other Souls may have read Books discoursing the Loves of Christ or heard Discourses of that tendency or judge so from Arguments of Scripture which may make such a thing probable to them But none but these have any persuasion wrought in their Souls by the Spirit of God of the Excellency of them none else have had any real Tasts and Experience of them Knowledge and Experience of the Goodness of any Objects being those things which move the Soul to desire them and the degree of the Souls apprehension of such Goodness and Excellency in Objects the ground of the Souls Intention in such desires it must necessarily follow that a good Christians Knowledge and Experience of that Goodness which is in Christs Loves must be the grounds of their desires after them There needeth no Scripture to prove this it is evident to our Reason Yet take the Instance of David Psal 4. 6. David desires of God to lift up the light of his Countenance upon him Observe now v. 7. what made him prefer the light of Gods Countenance to the Worldlings Corn and Wine and Oil Thou hast put gladness into my Heart Accordingly he tells us Psal 9. 10. They that know thy Name will put their trust in thee Hence you shall observe that David concludeth many of his Psalms of Praise with Prayer But will some say If they have had experience of the Loves of Christ why should they yet desire them None desires what they have This is true if our Enjoyments were perfect but there is an heighth and depth and length and breadth of the Love of God in Jesus Christ an heighth which the Soul hath not taken a depth which the Soul hath not fathomed a length and breadth which the Soul hath not measured from end to end It is true we desire nothing but what we want either in whole or in part therefore in Heaven will be no desire That which is perfect will be come and all that which is in part only will be done away But we shall never be filled with the Loves of Christ till our Mortality be swallowed up in Life I come now to the Application We may learn from hence That God must shew some act of Love to us before we can shew any Love to him Desires after the Loves of Christ though sincere are the least and first and lowest motions of our Souls toward God These you have heard must arise from a Knowledge and Experience of the goodness of those Loves Now this Knowledge this Experience must be the Gift of God to and the work of God in and upon the Soul yea and that not in a way of common Grace and Illumination but in a way of special Grace for though a common Illumination may produce some faint desires yet it will produce no sincere and effectual desires because the Knowledge begot by them will be flitting and incertain and attended with Doubts Fears and Incertainties So as till the Lord by his Spirit hath wrought in the Soul a persuasion of Faith commanding the Soul without dispute to give credit to what he hath revealed in his Word
call Love We naturally love what we apprehend good though we view it but at a distance from us Many a man that hath no Learning nor is ever like to have it yet loves Learning as it hath in it an innate Excellency as it is an ornament to him that hath it and makes him more useful to the world than his Neighbour In Christ's excelling graces which dwell in him eminently and essentially there is such a lustre and brightness and glory that to make the Soul take a complacency in him there needeth no more than that it be enlightened to see know and understand Christ Hence it is that many a Soul convinced of the filthiness of sin and of the fulness of that Excellency which is in Christ before ever it have received him so as to apprehend its Interest in him yet loves admireth him passionately desireth a part and portion in him saith within it self Oh that my Soul were brought unto Christ Oh that this Christ were my Christ my Jesus c. 2. But there is not only a transcendent goodness and excellency in Christ's Name but also a Relative Goodness Our reasonable Natures force us to love any thing which appeareth to us to be Good and Excellent but we much more love it when we discover in it a suitableness to our state and condition and the more goodness and suitableness we discern in any Object in proportion to our state and wants the more a great deal do our hearts cleave to it and long after it Now every Child of God is apprehensive enough of the proportion which the Name of Christ bears to the wants the various wants that it hath It wants a Mediator a Saviour an Advocate an Intercessor and this that Soul is sufficiently sensible of and therefore its heart cleaveth unto Christ and cryeth out Whom have I in Heaven but thee Or what have I upon the Earth to be compared with thee This Soul seeth that there is nothing in Heaven or Earth that so suiteth the Soul of a Child of God as Christ doth Hence his love to him is stronger than the Grave and his jealousie burns like fire 3. The Virgins must needs love Christ upon the discoveries of himself to their Souls because these discoveries command and teach the Soul to love him Our love to Christ proceeds you see upon rational grounds but not wholly upon rational Principles for we are taught of God saith the Apostle to love one another and if without a Divine Teaching we cannot love our Brethren whom we have seen we shall much less love Christ whom we have not seen Indeed this is the first cause of any love from our carnal hearts to Christ at all it is true No Sacrifice from our hearts flameth or can ascend towards God until fire hath first come down from Heaven and kindled it when indeed love is thus kindled in the Soul the fire increaseth in the Soul as the apprehensions of Christ's Excellencies and discoveries of himself do increase in the Soul from the experiences we have of God or the improvements of our Reason upon Revelation to shew us more of the Excellency of Christ I come now to the Application In the first place This may convince us That even amongst Professors there are many that glory in appearance and not in reality They are no Virgins they have no love for the Lord Jesus Christ The world it is to be hoped is not so full of such as go for Virgins in a carnal sense and are none as it is of such as go for Virgins in a spiritual sense and are none Unmarried they are but you must understand it only with reference to Christ who is the only proper adequate match for a reasonable Soul they are without Christ indeed but not without a-Mate First Too many are Whores instead of Virgins You shall in Scripture observe that sin especially Apostacy is compared to Whoredom and those that live in sin to such as live in Adultery God of old complained of his People that he was broken with their whorish heart Ah! how many Professors are there in the world of whom we may say the same God is broken with their whorish heart How many spots are there in our Assemblies How many of our Virgins that have at least such black spots upon their faces as cannot be allowed to be the spots of God's Children Some are gone a whoring after other Gods Reconciled they call it to the Church of Rome Oh! tell it not in Gath publish it not in the Tents of Askelon that Protestants should ever again lick up that Vomit and be so sottish as to adore a piece of bread for God or fall down before a Graven Image Blessed be God there are not many whom God hath thus given over I mean not many Professors though too many that have been baptized into the Name of Jesus Christ But how many more have defiled themselves with damnable or at least very dangerous Opinions You read of the Daughter of Jephtah that she went up to the Mountains three months to bewail her Virginity The Mountains are places of solitude How were it to be wished for many that they would go and sit alone that they would go up to the Mountains of Solitude and bewail the loss of their Spiritual Virginity They were sound Christians in appearance but they have lost their soundness They were fond of Ordinances and Duties but they have cast off Duties and Ordinances They were of the number of Virgins as we thought and we were bound in charity so to think we judged by the outward appearance but they have defiled themselves Secondly Many are wedded and no Virgins We do not call married Women Virgins 'T is true they are not so in one sense as the notion of a Virgin signifieth a solute or single person but yet they may be so in another sense as the notion of a Virgin signifieth one that is pure and chast But now if you can imagine a Woman married to a Beast or married incestuously this marriage would spoil her Virginity in the fairest notion of it The Soul married to Christ is yet a Virgin for she is married but to one Husband and him the proper Husband for a poor Soul so that that Soul is yet a Virgin But now the voluptuous sensual Soul that is united to a base and sordid lust or the covetous worldly Soul that is united to the gain and filthy lucre of the world is no Virgin no more than an incestuous Wife is in any notion a Virgin and how many of these are to be found in the Tents of persons professing to Religion How many Demas's who have forsaken and forgotten their Religion and have embraced the present World Judas's who have betrayed their Master and their Brethren for a few pieces of Silver Surely the Soul the high-born Soul of man is of too noble an extract too spiritual a substance to be united to the Earth This is
certainly a forbidden Relation Love not the world saith the Apostle nor the things of the world yet never were more to be found amongst such who are called Christians Thirdly Marriage doth not alwaies spoil Virginity as it signifies Chastity But an heart equally cleaving and inclining to two men will especially if byast to him who is not the Woman's Husband She that hath one true and proper Husband and yet loveth another equally with him or more than he hath lost her Virgin-heart Ah! how many of these are there amongst Professors they are married to Christ in the face of the Church they were baptized into his Name and are under Vows to be the Lord's But as God said of old concerning Ephraim Their heart is divided and therefore they must be found faulty Ah! How many are there that have divided hearts that halt between two Opinions and are not able to conclude with themselves whether Baal be God and they should serve him or God be God and they shall serve him Nay they halt between two Conversations something there is of Heaven in them but alas how much of the Earth how much of sin folly and vanity how much of contradiction to their Profession where 's a Christian Caleb to be found to walk with God fully Fourthly If we have some that are Virgins yet how few beautiful Virgins where 's the beauty the glory of Professors where 's their former shining out before men Ah! call your Children Ichabods call them Ichabods The Glory is departed in a great measure from England from the Professing Party of England Where 's the former sincerity love to God zeal for God plainness of heart sincerity of conversation brotherly love heavenly walking the World the vanities of the World have spoiled Professors beauty The Sun of a little outward prosperity hath shone upon them how are they tanned But in the next place this discourse offers us a fair opportunity to try our Relation to Christ whether we be the Lambs Wife who shall hereafter follow him whithersoever he goes 1. Are you Spiritual Virgins There are tokens of Spiritual as well as Natural Virginity 1. Purity and Chastity in heart as well as outward appearance Blessed are they saith our Saviour who are pure in heart for they shall see God is not thy heart defiled with sensual affections impetuous passions doth not thy Soul cleave to sin and lust 2. Dost thou live like a Virgin an hidden life doth not the world see all that thou hast of a Spiritual life dost thou not like the Pharisees love to pray standing in the Synagogues and in the corners of the Streets more than with thy doors shut about thee in thy closet livest thou any thing of that life which is hid with Christ in God is it thy only and greatest care to please thy heavenly Father and Christ thy great Lord and Master 3. Where 's thy modesty the Virgin blusheth presently when any thing is reflected upon her Art thou ashamed when thou committest iniquity and thy heart reflects it upon thee or hast thou a Whores fore-head that cannot blush I might instance in many particulars more but these are enough to try thy Spiritual Virginity 2. A second note of the Spouse of Christ arising from this Text is a love to Christ Love is a natural plant and groweth in every Soul but love to Christ is a plant from Heaven heavenly a plant sprung up from the seed of God in the Soul If Christ should from Heaven propo und the fame question to thee which while he was on Earth he propounded to Peter couldst thou answer with him Lord Thou that knowest all things knowest that I love thee This Grace of all others is most discernable for love is of an active nature and will hardly lie hid The pantings of thy heart after him the acquiescence complacency and delight of thy heart in him will easily discover it to thee if thou lookest narrowly The natural man cannot say that his Soul cleaveth to Christ or thirsteth after Christ or taketh any complacency in the Lord Christ Thirdly As God is the fountain of good and blessing to his Creatures and as Christ hath a fair inheritance of a Crown an Heaven an incomprehensible glory which is annexed to the fruition and enjoyment of him so the worst of men may have a kind of love for Christ or rather for what he bringeth along with himself unto the Soul Lastly Therefore Dost thou love Christ for the savour of his good Ointments because his name is an Oil or Ointment poured forth He that loveth Christ meerly for his Heaven and Glory is purely selfish in his love I deny not but Moses had an Eye to the recompence of reward and so hath every honest and gracious heart without doubt Christs beneficence and goodness unto us and the benefit which our Souls have and hope to have from Christ is and ought to be a very great attractive and to draw out our hearts more and more in love to Christ but herein is the purity of the Saints love he discovereth such an excellency in the Lord Jesus Christ that were he never to have an Heaven with him yet his heart would cleave to him infinitely delight in him if thou canst say that thou thus lovest the Lord Jesus it will indeed speak thee to be a Spiritual Virgin a Spouse to the Lord Jesus I shall conclude my discourse upon this verse with a threefold word of Exhortation 1. In the first place methinks from this metaphorical expression of Saints under the notion of Virgins I have here a fair opportunity to plead with Virgins to be Saints Virgins generally have the object of their love to seek Lo here a most deserving object for every young man every young woman that heareth me Methinks the holy Spirit points out this in the Metaphor Therefore do the Virgins love thee Christ here expresseth himself under the notion of some beautiful young man beautified and adorned with all the advantages both of nature and of art So that the Virgins must love him I noted to you before that some would have the term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be rather a term of age then either signifying Sex or State oh that I could this day prevail with you who are young men and young women to love the Lord Jesus Christ Youth is an age a time of love full of love but it usually mispends its self upon vain and worthless objects the young man loves his lusts and his pleasures the young woman loveth dancings and foolish sports and vain company and gay and costly attire but how rare is it to find a young man or woman that sincerely loveth the Lord Jesus Christ truly amongst young or old there is hardly one of a thousand but of those that are in the height and heat of their youth hardly one of ten thousand It is too frequent for us to give our marrow to the Devil
most absurd to imagine that a Soul should ever call these things bitter till it be convinced of a more excellent good and the incompetency of its fruition both of the one and of the other Could it be any thing less than a powerful act of Divine Grace that could make Moses willing to refuse the pleasures of Pharaohs Court and the honour of being called his Son and to chuse rather to suffer affliction with the people of God counting the reproach of Christ greater riches then the Treasures of Aegypt O study and adore the power of faving and effectual Divine Grace Do but consider your own weakness and the mighty power of Satan in tempting and you will be convinced that there had need be a divine power exerted in the collation of saving Grace 2. But yet as it is mighty and powerful so it is also sweet we are drawn to Christ but it is with the cords of a man the divine power put forth hath the will for the object which is not forced but melted renewed changed by the influence of the mighty God upon it Indeed the will is not capable of violence but yet it is capable of a divine influence sweetly renewing and changing it the Soul is made willing and then it wills and chuseth desires delights in the things which are good and acceptable in the sight of God Grace doth not meerly exhibit and propose Christ as a lovely and beautiful object altogether desires it doth not only furnish the Gospel and fill the mouths of Ministers with suasive arguments but it fills the Soul the inward man with a powerful divine influence which quite reneweth and changeth it and altereth the byass and inclination of it This is the nature of saving grace effectual grace thus it differs from that Grace of God which may shine upon reprobates which they may finally resist and abide still in darkness This notion in the next place wonderfully commendeth the love of God to those Souls that are made partakers of this Grace of God that bringeth Salvation that maketh a Soul meet for the inheritance of the Saints in light The great boast which those who maintain the contrary systeme of Doctrine to what I have maintained make is that their Doctrine doth vastly more commend the love of God to mankind Let us try that a little According to their Notion of the Grace of God it is no more than might have been consistent with the Eternal perdition of all mankind for they say God hath determined no particular person unto eternal life Christ hath laid down a price no more for the Soul that is saved than for those that perish In the Acts of his Providence he doth no more for one than another Both have the Gospel both have the common assistances of the Spirit and one hath no more than another both have Souls of the same species indued with the same faculties both might have resisted the Grace of God and that finally Now do not these mightily magnify Grace who will allow no more of it then what is consistent with the eternal destruction of all men yet neither are they consistent to themselves in their doctrine of Grace so far as they will allow any thing to it they pretend the advancement of the love of God by their conditional Election incertain Covenant universal Redemption common Grace yet they cannot deny but that the far greater part of the world hath not so much as the means of grace the sound of the Gospel is not in their Ears and how little of it is there in Popish Countries where the People have not the Bible in their own language and hear stories and tales out of the Legends instead of the Gospel nay in Protestant Countries how many places are there where People have Stones instead of Bread Scorpions instead of Fishes where they from the Pulpit hear little of Christ or the great motives of the Gospel to faith and holiness so as to make out their notion of their Doctrines commending the love of God they must find out a way to Christ and Salvation for more than three parts of the world without Christ and that an ordinary way too or but few of them will be saved yet in this extraordinary that their Salvation must be without the Gospel and the potent motives and arguments of it the Preaching of it and the ordinary concurrence of the Holy Spirit with it The opinion of Divineâ— on the other side is this That God out of the Mass of Mankind whether considered as created or to be created they are not so universally agreed did chuse a certain number of Persons great in itself but small in comparison of the whole number of mankind as to whom he willed a Kingdom of life and glory and also chose them and ordained them to obtain this life by having Redemption through the Blood of Christ the forgiveness of sins and by being holy and unblameable before him and to this end sent his Son to die for them and gives to the most of them whom he thus ordained to life and to faith and holiness as the means of it his Gospel and the Ministry of it by which he intreateth all those to whom it is Preached to be reconciled to God but for those whom he hath ordained to life he powerfully and effectually worketh in them by the Spirit of his Grace by which their hearts though they may for a time oppose and resist yet are subdued to the obedience of faith and drawn unto Christ and by which also being come to Christ they are drawn after him being by his power through faith preserved to Salvation Now whether is the Love of God more seen to mankind in the certain Salvation of many though comparatively but few and ordering of causes accordingly Or in such an ordering of causes as it was possible notwithstanding any thing God had done for man all might have perished And whether is God more glorified by our predication of him as one who though from all eternity he knew who would believe and live holily and who would not yet left it possible that all men should believe if they would Or by the predication of him as one who knowing all things because he willed them so being the first cause of all good in the creature ordered all things according to the good pleasure of his own will In the mean time this Drawing Grace which we maintain infinitely commendeth the Love of God to those who are thus drawn if we consider 1. The infinite distance of God from the creature He is a self-sufficiency to himself and in order to his happiness needed not the company of any creatures Now if there were no more in drawing grace than some would make drawing with the Cords of a Man intreating and persuading Souls to be reconciled to God his love might be just matter of admiration and astonishment Who are we that God should treat us and send Embassadors to intreat
God even the God of Israel only he desires that the Lord would be merciful to him as to his bowing down in the House of Rimmon They are neither uniform nor steady and constant in their service of God they seem to run in publick duties but follow them into their Families and Closets there they halt They appear like those that run in duties of more external communion with God but halt in duties of more secret heart communion with God Nor are they constant that of the Apostle to the Galatians is applicable to them Gal. 5. 7. You did run well who hindered you Heretofore one would have thought them in a great zeal for God but they are grown cold and remiss and are very careless of their conversations these never truly ran though they appeared to others to have ran at least they never ran so as to obtain It is said Isaiah 40. 12. That they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up with wings like the Eagle they shall run and not be weary walk and not faint 3. How many more are there that seem to stand at a stay We cannot say they halt that they are not uniform or not constant they are not to be accused of any notorious lapses or goings backward but alas they are come yet but to a little pitch in religion their knowledge of the things of God is but little that of the Apostle Heb. 5. 12. is applicable to them Whereas for the time they might have been teachers of others they had need be themselves taught the first principles of Religioṅ and must be spoken to as Babes in Christ such as had need of milk and not of strong meat and truly this is much the fault of good People they do not grow in the knowledge of Christ we see something of heat in them in whom we want a great deal of light Others seem to be increased in light but to be decayed in heat and warmth for God sure we are we see a great decay of religion amongst Christians or at least but a small improvement they have in profession seem'd to be such as have walk'd with God a long time we do not see them running yet It is true some plants grow downward in the root when they do not grow upward into the air so as their growth is not so sensible and difcernable So it is possible there may be some such Christians who though their proficiency may not so much appear in their outward performances which requires a growth in gifts and parts yet they may be grown more in faith and love and hatred of sin and resolution for God c. and this is a good running in Grace they grow best who grow in the root not those who improve most in leaves and more exterior branches of Christian profession 2. If Christians cannot satisfy themselves that they run in any sense it would be enquired from whence they are hindered whether from some cause from within or from without 1. A man may be hindered in his bodily running by some inward obstructions bodily decay or weakness this must be cured or purged out Christians ought to search whether they have no secret lust no love to the world no greedy desire to be rich nothing of sensuality which weakens their Souls and keeps them from this running after Christ 2. As a man may be kept from running from some external cause So may a Christian also be hindered in his spiritual race from some ill company with which he is linked from some impressions of his grand adversary the Devil From the withdrawings of Divine Grace those measures of it I mean which are necessary to a Christians running though not to the upholding of the spiritual life If a Christian be hindred from such ill company as he cannot avoid or from some temptations of Sathan or from such divine desertions he is the object of our pity but not to be hastily censured or condemned but in the mean time he ought to lie under convictions of his duty to run though it be his misery that at present he cannot run Secondly We may from hence learn one great reason Why many move not at all after Gȯd and also of that uneven pace which is discernable even in the best of God's People The greater part of the World moveth not after Christ at all One Man runs after his sensual satisfactions anoher after sensible enjȯyments making hast to be rich few after Christ◠What is the reason The Scripture layeth the fault upon the immediate proximate cause that is Man 's perverse will he will not come to Christ that he might live but there is an higher cause for no more would any other Soul have done if the Lord had not drawn it and made it partaker of his powerful special Grace had it pleased the Lord to have done as much for those other Souls they would have come they would have run likewise But you will say then mens Damnation is from God and is not caused so much from their not running as from God's not drawing I have before spoken to this Objection but it comes again a cross me I will add but a word or two or rather repeat what I have already said in the case The Objection were indeed considerable if 1. God did not in some degree draw every Soul to whom the Gospel is preached 2. If the Sinner did to his utmost obey those drawings and God yet denied his further and more effectual Grace But as I have before shewed you there is no Soul that liveth under the preaching of the Gospel but is drawn drawn by Exhortations Arguments Promises of reward c. the proper Cords of a Man Nay there are none amongst the Heathens but are drawn by the Cords of common gracious Providence God saith the Apostle leaveth not them without witness Now though none of these Cords are sufficient to draw the Soul home to Christ yet they are sufficient with that power which is left in the will of Man to ingage him to many acts of Reformation and to the performance of many acts of moral discipline yea and of Religion too that part of it which lyeth in Bodily exercise if men will not do what they have a power to do how shall their destruction be from God for denying them his special grace Especially when we say That although the good use of common Grace meriteth nothing at the hand of God yet God doth never deny his special Grace but where common Grace is first wilfully abused and thus the destruction of Sinners lyeth at their own Doors not because that if they would they might repent believe and turn to God but because that if they would they might make such an use of the common Grace of God as in the use of it God would not be wanting to them in the giving them that further power to Spiritual acts which they have not of themselves But
he woula go to Hell Being it seems naturally persuaded that cruel bloody and uncharitable men could never be happy in another life 4. I will add a fourth thing though not beforementioned which experience hath constantly shewed us to be of very great force to draw others viz. A bold and couragious Suffering for the Name of Christ It hath been a constant Observation that the Blood of Martyrs hath been the seed of the Church Men naturally are inclined to think there is a great deal in that Religion which will make men so Valiant as to die in the defence and asserting of it There is yet one thing more upon which this much depends that is 5. A Christians communicativeness both of his gifts and of his experiences 1. Of his gifts his knowledge and other gifts by which he informs Christians of the Truth and persuades and argues them out of their sinful courses Come saith David I will teach you the sear of the Lord O that there were more of this in the World than there is how few are those Christians that have either grace or confidence enough to mind others of their conditions and to call upon them to look after Eternity We can call upon our Children and Friends to mind their Worldly concerns we are communicative euough to them of what we know which may help them as to them but how little do we call upon them to strive to enter in at the strait Gate to make their Calling and Election sure What should the reason of this be Is it unbelief or is it carelesness Is it unbelief do we not then believe an Immortal Eternal state of Souls into which no Souls can come but bv and through Christ as the way It cannot be this is the Object of our Hope it is the great thing we have in expectation if we had hope only in this Life we were of all men most miserable Are we confident that our Children our Friends or Neighbours are in the road to this blessed state Certainly there are many of them of whom we can have no such hopes How are we then silent if we know better things then they know why do we not instruct them St. John saith He that hath of this Worlds goods and seeth his Brother in want and releives him not how dwells the love of God in h m 1 Jo. 3. 17. What shall we say of those who have of the goods that relate to another World the Treasures of Spiritual knowledge and seeth his Child his Friend in want and to his power relieves him not how dwells the love of God or of his Childs or Friends Soul in him Dalilah asked Sampson how he could say to her that he loved her when he kept his secrets from her which she was not concerned to know but how canst thou say thou lovest thy Yoke-fellow thy Child thy Friend and concealest from them what thou knowest with reference to their Spiritual and Eternal good and which it is as much their concern to know as it is thine I remember Christ doth thus prove himself his Disciples friend John 15. 15. I have called you Friends for all things which I have heard of my Father I have made known to you that is all things which my Father hath let me know and which are of concern for you to know Thus Christ hath discharged the Office of a Friend to our Souls and should not we do likewise Do we know any thing concerns our near Friends Souls with reference to their Eternals happiness and do we conceal our knowledge from them how do we discharge the Office of Friends to them how dwells either the love of God or the love of them in our Souls 2. Nor is the communicativeness of our own Experiences What we have seen as well as what we have heard of less use or less our duty I know it is a thing which profane Persons may mock at but let them mock on Wisdom shall be justified of her Children I am sure we meet with David and Paul and others of the Servants of God of whom we have a sacred Record very frequent in it Come saith David and I will tell you what God hath done for my Soul I know Men may boast beyond their line or measure they may boast of experiences they never had experiences must be fulfillings of Promises But certainly there can be nothing as a mean more powerful to draw others to a running after Christ in the ways of Holiness then the knowledge of what others have found and experienced in them I am sure it was the practice of the Woman of Samaria of Andrew and Peter and that with great success O let every one of us who have in our hearts any love for God any zeal for the glory of God any kindness for the Souls of others being our selves drawn so behave our selves that others allured by our examples persuaded by our arguments may also run after Christ Let those that cannot as yet discern the Savour of his good Oyntments be helped to discern them at second hand while our Lips feed many and our Garments smell of Myrrh Aloes and Cassia Sermon XXIV Cant. 1. 4. The King hath brought me into his Chambers I Have done with the Spouses Petition Draw me and with the argument by which she impleaded her Petition She would then run after him and of the alteration of the number in the promise we will run not I but we I come now to the third thing which I took notice of in the verse which I called The Spouses attestation of her beloveds favour in the answer of her Petition That is in the words I have now read The King hath brought me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto his in Ward-Rooms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Closet His Chambers so we translate it What is necessary for the opening of the words you have heard before It was but even now that we heard the Spouse praying draw me and promising that if the Lord would hear and answer her Prayers both she and others would run after him How presently is her tone altered and her prayer turned into praise Hence I observed Prop. That God is pleased sometimes to make a very quick return to his Peoples Prayers But before I handle this I shall take a little notice of the name she here giveth to her Beloved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the King The word is the same that is every where used to express the sole dominion of a Person over others a term very properly given to Christ and that not only as he is God over all blessed for ever and so the Psalmist telleth us that his Throne is established in the Heavens and his Kingdom ruleth over all but in respect of his Mediatory Kingdom as he is the Lords King whom he hath set upon his holy Hill of Sion Psal 2. 6. to whom he hath given the Heathen for his inheritance and the uttermost part of the Earth for
treated in Gods Chambers 2. But Secondly There being no merit in any thing we do or suffer at Gods command why should we think God obliged thus to reward the highest degrees of faith or holiness What if God will hear one believers prayers sooner then anothers what if he will give one such Soul more peace then another who shall say unto him what doest thou or why am I thus and others are otherwise we certainly ought to allow the freest and most sovereign agent what priviledge we every one claim for our selves with reference to our Children Servants Friends whiles every of us receives more then we deserve what reason have we to repine because others have more then we 4. I beseech you consider whether this fruit floweth not from a root of Pride Why should my Eye be evil because anothers is good Why should I repine because God is kinder as I think to another Soul then to me if I did not secretly think that I had deserved as much and as well as those if not better The humble Soul looks upon itself as meriting nothing and therefore prizeth every influence of Divine love The Dogs eat the crums said the poor Woman I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof saith the Centurion therefore speak the word only Now if this be thy root of thy complaint be assured there is not a more bitter one in all the wilderness of nature There is no Soul at further distance from obtaining at the hand of God then that Soul that challengeth God as a debtor to his Creature if thy Soul saith as Haman to whom should the King more delight to honour then me thou art like enough to meet with as great disappointment as he did God sets himself to pull down the Soul that exalts itself above measure God will keep Souls swell'd with this tumor with Thorns in their flesh for their buffetings it is enough if they find his grace sufficient for them 5. If it doth not argue this yet it speaketh a discontent at and dissatisfaction with Gods methods in the conduct and government of thy Soul in order to that end to which he hath appointed thee This frame of spirit is sinful enough it is indeed a branch that groweth out of the root of pride Gods general promise is that he will with-hold no good thing from them that live uprightly and that all things shall work together for the good of them that love God but we must leave the judgment of good to the wisdom of God who knoweth what is good for us while we repine at Gods dispensations we either shew our distrust and unbelief in these promises or assume the judgment of good to our selves paramount to the judgment of God No sin more provokes God then this of murmuring and repining It was the great sin of the Israelites which at last provoked God to swear in his wrath they should never enter into his rest Let us therefore learn thankfully to acknowledge what grace we have received and with silence and patience to wait for what further manifestations of it we desire and judge our Souls to stand in need of 2. Hath the King of glory whom we serve Chambers wherein he treateth the Souls of his Subjects not only Mansions but Chambers further degrees of gracious influxes manifestations Let us then learn from hence That no man serves God in any degrees of service for nothing some indeed shall have greater degrees of reward then others none shall serve him for nothing there is a reward for every righteous Soul He that serveth God in truth and sincerity though with a great deal of weakness and imperfection though he comes into his Service at the last hour yet he shall have his penny he shall have Heaven and Glory If any will come in to Gods Service in the morning and work in the heat of the day and labour for God more abundantly he shall not lose his reward nay he shall be rewarded according to his work as there are degrees of active working Grace so there are degrees of manifestative love and this by the way 1. It is a great encouragement to those that are young to turn into the ways of the Lord betimes Josiah and Timothy and Enoch were all of them such as began early to walk with God Of Josiah it is said Chron. 2. 34. That when he was but eight years old he began to seek after the God of David his Father what special favour he had from God his story will tell you he was early taken into the Chambers of glory and while he was upon the Earth God treated him in his Chambers he would not in his days bring the intended evil upon Judah Enoch walked with God the Text saith he was not for God took him Timothy was a great Favourite used as a great instrument for God and doubtless these three and so those others who have early given up themselves to God and continued to the end will hereafter be found in some degrees of glory above others 2. It is a great incouragement to men and women to put out themselves mightily for God to love the Lord according to the tenour of the first and great Commandment with all their Soul and all their strength all their might God hath degrees of love to reward degrees of holiness service though possibly there may be some rare instances wherein the wisdom of God as unsearchable is to be adored and not to be found out and we may see some who appear to us more exemplary in holiness then others yet clouded under darker dispensations walking in the dark and seeing no light yet ordinarily it is otherwise those who walk most in the light of holiness have more of the light of Gods countenance enjoy most peace and have most manifestations of Gods special love and this now lets us see what a difference there is betwixt the service of God and the service of the Devil or the service of the world many a one serves the world and gets little and those that make themselves least drudges to it get most of it he that serves the Devil in serving corruption the more he toils in that service the more torment he hath But the more a man serves God the more peace the more inward rest and sweetness he hath 3. This discourse may give some relief to such Christians whose hearts are right with God but yet their attainments are not proportionable to others The King hath not brought them into his Chambers indeed the fault of this may be in our selves and where it is so we have reason to blame our selves and to sit down in silence and endeavour for the time to come to mend our pace in the ways of holiness there are Stairs by which Christians usually ascend into these Chambers come up I mean into this near degree of communion with God if we will not do what in us lies to
most of God have been such as have been I will not say most but much in contemplation which brought contemplation afterward into a superstition and a contemplative life to be cried up beyond all sense or reason 4. Lastly Be much in prayer But I have spoke enough upon this argument Sermon XXVII Canticles 1. 4. We will be glad and rejoyce in thee We will remember thy loves more then Wine The upright love thee I Am now come to the Fourth thing considerable in this Second Petition of the Spouse I have done with the Petition Draw me 2. With the Argument by which she inforced her Petition We will run after thee 3. With the Spouse's Attestation of the quick acceptance of her Petition The King hath brought me into his Chambers I have only to consider the Effect that this Love had upon her that is exprest in the words I have now read We will be glad and rejoyce in thee we will remember thy Loves more than Wine I have opened the words before We I and all Believers we who being many are yet one body united by one Spirit Members under the Government of one Head we who have tasted and experienced thy goodness will be glad The word in the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is expressive of the largest dilatation of the heart upon union with its object It is used Isa 65. v. 19. Prov. 24. 23. Psal 21. 1. Psal 2. 11. 13. 11. Zech. 9. 9. and rejoyce in thee The word again here used is often used in the Old Testament Exod. 4. 14. Jer. 31. 13 c. I shall not undertake to justifie the Critical distinction some make betwixt these two words as if one were restrained to the more inward motion of the heart the other more expressive of the more external gestures or actions signifying that affection in thee in Christ as the principal object and in the significations of thy love to us The Proposition is shortly this Jesus Christ and the manifestations of his love to believers Souls particularly in answering prayers are the singular objects of their joy and rejoycing In order both to the explication and confirmation of this Proposition I will guide you a little into the understanding of the nature of Joy 2. Consider how Christ can be the object of the believers joy and is more the object of his joy then of another mans 3. How he is the special singular object of their joy Take joy considered in itself it is but a natural plant a power God hath given to every reasonable Soul the object of it is some good to which it is in some degree united and it is greater or lesser according to the nature of the good or the degree of the apprehension There is in all joy satisfaction and rest and something of musick or melody 1. There is in all joy a Soul satisfying suln ss desire speaks some emptiness in the Soul and is the Souls motion in order to a satisfaction the like might be said of hope but all joy speaketh a Soul satisfaction according to the measure of the joy the rejoycing Soul hath alwaies in it a fulness and a pleasing fulness that is the first thing in the nature of it 2. There is in all joy a rest that quieteth the Soul the desiring thirsty hoping Soul is still in motion being in the pursuit of something which it hath not attained but the rejoycing Soul is at rest David in the hour of his joy saith Return unto thy rest O my Soul For God hath dealt graciously with thee That is a second thing in joy 3. There is in all joy something of musick and melody hence that phrase of leaping for joy hence singing and shouting are the natural expressions of joy thus joy may be described to be a natural power or inclination of the Soul by which having more perfectly or imperfectly obtained an union with the object which it desired or hoped for it is in proportion satisfied and well pleased at rest and keeps as it were a festival within it self Two things are required to make an adequate obiect of this joy 1. The thing must be good 2. We must have some apprehension both of the goodness of it and our union with and interest in it 1. The object that our Souls rejoice in must be something which either is good or which at least we apprehend to be so the nature of good lieth in a suitableness and conveniency of a thing for us and whatsoever we apprehend suited to any of our wants or convenient for us in any of our circumstances that we call good and whatsoever we apprehend under that notion whether it indeed be so or no we love and if we want it we desire it if we apprehend it probable to be our portion we hope for it if we have it or apprehend we have it we delight and take a complacency and rejoice in it 2. So that secondly to make an adequate object of our joy There must be some apprehended union betwixt our Souls and the object we rejoice in For although we can love and take a secret complacency in an object which appeareth to us as good yet it is propriety in it that causeth our joy and rejoycings Thus far now I have only considered and discoursed of joy philosophically as it is a natural affection working upon its proper object Let us now consider it as a grace or sanctified affection Grace doth not plant new powers in the Soul of man it only turns the natural powers to their proper objects Our Saviour tells us there is none good but God God is the Summum Bonum the first and chiefest good nor is any thing good but what deriveth from him Christ is good supremely good as in him there is found what is suited to the greatest wants and emptinesses that the nature of man is exposed and subject to And that the believer more valueth Christ then another man ariseth only 1. From his different apprehension 2. From his different relation to him and interest in him 1. From the different apprehensions of good which the believer hath from those which are in other men I told you before that the nature of good lieth in the suitableness or conveniency of a thing to our wants and emptinesses Man is a creature made up of two essential parts the Body and the Soul that which suiteth the one or the other we call good The Soul is considerable with respect to a present or future state the first is that which alone the most men are sensible of or concerned for We have a threefold perception of an object according to which we judge of the goodness or badness of it 1. The first is by the Eye of sense according to which we judge that good which gratifieth the exteriour senses this of all is the most unmanly judgment of it thus the man of pleasure judgeth those things good which gratify his eyes ears tast sinell
meat the Flock shall be cut off from the sold and there shall be no Herd in the stalls yet I will rejoyce in the Lord and I will joy in the God of my Salvation The believing Soul can rejoyce in nothing without Christ and it can rejoyce in Christ when it hath nothing more to rejoyce in Let a gracious Soul have but the sense of God's Love in Christ to his Soul he can say to all the world as Esau though not upon such a consideration said to his Brother Jacob I have enough my Brother I have enough keep what thou haft unto thy self Am I justified and regenerated have I peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ have I the pardon of my sin and a righteousness wherein I can stand before God it is enough If the Lord will not give me Bread to eat nor Children to continue my name if I die Childless so I do not die Christless it is enough If I have not Raggs to cloth me nor an Estate to leave Portions to six and also to seven yet I have said to the Lord Thou art my Portion it is enough Hence ariseth a good Christian's contentment in all Estates I have learned saith Paul in all estates to be content content to want content to abound content to have little or much as the Lord pleaseth If the Lord will take away such a man's Children Estate c. he saith with Job The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken blessed be the Name of the Lord. If I have my part in Christ saith he I have yet enough Omnia mea mecum porto I have my All as the Philosopher is reported to have said when his City was on fire and his Neighbours reflected on him going out and carrying nothing along with him nor concerning himself for the share of Estate he had in it If the Believer considereth his body he seeth a crazy constitution diseases growing upon him if he looks into his Family and seeth it empty of Children if into his Grounds and seeth them bring forth nothing but Weeds and Thistles if into his Stalls and seeth them empty of Cattel yet if he looks into his Soul and finds any evidences of the Love of Christ he can rejoyce in them this must be understood when he seeth himself stript naked not by his own wicked hands but as Job was by the effective Providence of God for the loss of the things of this life the good things of the common Providence of God caused by our own sinful hands and miscarriages oft-times hinder this Joy as they make it difficult to us to see the Love of God in and under them 4. And lastly This Soul rejoyceth in Christ Primarily Emphatically Supremely The Child of God is a parta ker of flesh and blood and hath a sensitive appetite which when gratified necessarily causeth a joy proportionate to the good which it receiveth hence he rejoyceth in the good things of common Providence as well as another man but not as much as another man not upon the same account that another man doth Christ is the Believer's chief Joy and as his title to the good things of this life differs from the title of another so his joy in them differeth from the joy of another All men may have a natural legal title to the good things of this life Dominion and Title is not founded in grace but it is mended by grace Another man derives from God as the Lord of the whole Earth who by his common Providence distributeth portions to the Sons of men as he pleaseth but the believer doth not only derive from God as the supreme Lord but from Christ all is yours and you are Christs and Christ is Gods saith the Apostle so that while he rejoiceth in the gifts of common Providence he rejoiceth in Christ because he rejoyceth in these things as coming from the hand of a Father reconciled to him by the blood of Christ he rejoiceth in the good things of this life as the loving Wife reioiceth in some present made her by her Husband not so much in the fineness or costliness of it though that may also please her humor as in the kindness and love of her Husband shewed in giving it her So the believer more rejoyceth in the goodness of God shewen to him in any dispensation of Providence then in the thing which God hath given him or her and he supremely rejoiceth in Christ whiles he rejoiceth in a lower comfort Let me shew you this in the instance of Hannah whose story you have 1 Sam. ch 1 2. She was the Wife of Elkanah she had no Children and was passionately desirous of the blessing of Children an affection common to all of that sex especially and for which there was some more special reason in that Age and Nation partly because of the promise of a numerous issue to Abraham so as the Women that were Barren lookt upon themselves as hardly the genuine Children of Abraham at least not sharers in his blessing partly because they knew the Messias was to be born of a Jewish Woman and every Child-bearing Woman might have an expectation to be his Mother Under this great affliction she applies her self to God by prayer the Key of the Womb is one of those Keys which the Jewish Doctors say God keepeth in his hand God hears her prayer she conceiveth and brings forth Samuel as in the first Chapter she names him Samuel to testify her joy in receiving him as an answer of her Prayer upon which she dedicates him to the Lord 1 Sam. 1. 28. So in the second Chapter she sings a Song of praise mark the phrase of it 1 Sam. 2. 1. Mine heart rejoyceth in the Lord my Horn is exalted in the Lord. Her Child was the next object of her joy but how doth she rejoice in him the primary object of her joy was the Lord her great joy in Samuel was as God by giving him to her shewed her his love and that he had not shut out her supplications from him She rejoyced in God Supremely in Samuel Subordinately in God Emphatically in her Child more remissly Thus doth a good Christian rejoice in Christ thus is he the singular object of a believers joy David calleth God the gladness of his joy we translate it his exceeding joy Psal 43. 4. The Prophet Isaiah faith Isaiah 29. 19. The meek shall encrease their joy in the Lord and the poor amongst men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel Yet the proximate cause was v. 20 Because the terrible one was brought to nought and the scorner consumed and all those that watched for iniquity cut off Hence Christ commandeth his Disciples not to rejoice in this that the Devils were subject to them but that their names were written in the Book of Life Doubtless the subjection of Devils to them was true matter of joy ah but it was no primary object no supreme object of their joy no
case the experience of every Soul maketh it good it is natural to every man 1. Because in all answers of Prayer there must be a soul satisfaction upon some union with the object which it desired Joy is nothing else but the triumph of the Soul upon its union with the object which it desired Prayer is nothing else but the Souls desire expressed with its voice The answer of Prayers must be the Souls satisfaction in the obtaining of its desires this satisfaction ariseth from its union with its object upon which joy is but a proper and natural result and consequent 2. In all answers of Prayer there is an owning of the Soul by God As the Soul by Prayer owneth God acknowledging him the Fountain of that goodness which it beggeth so God in answering Prayer acknowledgeth the Soul Joh. 9. 31. We know that God heareth not sinners but if any man be a Worshipper of God and doth his will him he heareth All giving in of things prayed for doth not speak the answer of prayers God may hear and relieve the cry of the miserable when he doth noṫ answer the prayer of the righteous I have before hinted to you that there is an answer of our cries which floweth from Gods common providence as he is a God of pity and tender compassions and there is an answer of Prayers which comes from God as a God of truth and faithfulness how to distinguish these two I may possibly shew you in the application in some measure it is the latter answer not the former which is Gods owning and acknowledgment of the Soul as one for whom he hath a favour 3. There is yet one thing more in the answer of prayers last mentioned which to every thinking Christian is matter of great joy That it is that which speaketh the Soul to be beloved of God in Christ and to have Christ for his Advocate and Intercessor at the Throne of Grace It is in him that all the promises are Yea and Amen It is in his name that the believer asketh and it is he that doth the thing desired according to the promise John 14. 13. Whatsoever you shall ask that I will do that the Father may be glorified in the Son and because the thing is confirmed the promise is doubled v. 14. If you shall ask any thing in my name I will do it I shall add no more to the Doctrinal part of my discourse This notion in the first place distinguisheth the Child of God from all Men and Women in the World He is the only man that is glad and rejoiceth in Christ the only person that can say of Christ he is his chief joy 1. There are many that rejoice in their sensual satisfactions There is a man that shouteâ—h by reason of Wine Psal 78. 65. their Vivere est Bibere the pleasing of their Senses their Palate and Eyes and Ears is the greatest good they know after this their Souls move by desires and in the satisfaction of them they rejoice their mirth is madness and their laughter what doth it this of all other is the most sordid joy a rejoycing in iniquity yet this is the chief joy of many poor creatures 2. To others the World is their chief joy Their heart rejoyceth in their labour as the wise man speaketh Eccl. 2. 10. they look on all the work that their hands have wrought and on the labour they have laboured to do and they rejoice the gladness of their heart ariseth from the increase of their Corn and Wine and Oil and they know no better things to rejoice in For this rejoycing in Christ in the sense of his love and the pardon of their sins and the hopes of the glory of God alas how few understand any thing of it I have often had occasion to tell you that the spiritual state of a man or woman is not so much to be determined from his understanding and the notions there men and women may have great degrees of knowledge and yet have unsanctified hearts nor from their external actions An hypocrite may do many things and the best of Gods people in many things offend as from the motions of his will and affections He chuseth the things that please God To will is present with me saith Paul and consequent to this are the workings of the offections Thus a Christian is known by the objects of his love and hatred his hope and fear his desire and jâ—y The last is what I have to do with in this place Joy is one of the fruits one of the fairest fruits of the holy Spirit Gal. 5. 22. will any say to me how shall I know my state by the workings of this affection the answer is in the Text the believer rejâ—yceth in Christ the Apostle tells us that those that are the true circumcâ—sion worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus Phil. 3 3. A believer is not a Stoick as to the things of the World he lives in it and hath need of the things of it but Christ is his chief joy or the head of his joy as David saith of Hierusalem Psal 137. v. 6. But you will say how shall we know this whether Christ be our chief joy I answer 1. Thou wilt not thou canst not rejoice in any course of sin which is contrary unto Christ St. Paul tells us That he delighted in the law of God after the inward man he could not glory in a total freedom from sin he complaineth that he was sometime brought into Captivity to the law of his Members Rom. 7. 22. But he did not rejoyce in iniquity Wicked men sport themselves against God Against whom do you sport your selves Isa 57. 4 Solomon tells us That it is a sport to a fool to do mischief tells us of one who deceiveth his Neighbour and saith am I not in sport his joy is either in the satisfaction of his concupiscible appetite thus St. Peter tells us of some That they count it pleasure to riot in the day time 2 Pet. 2. 13. or in the satisfaction of his irascible appetite thus some sport themselves in doing or beholding mischief they rejoice at the destruction of him that hateth them which was a thing Job purgeth himself from Job 31. 29. or at the destruction of those that they hate they rejoice to do evil Prov. 2. 15. Yea and to see evil done as Edom rejoyced when the Jews were carried into captivity But now the Child of God can be a sharer in none of those joys These joys are incompetent with a rejoycing in Jesus Christ these men rejoyce in those things which crucified Christ I cannot say but a good man under some great temptation mâ—y feel some tickling pleasure in sin and the satisfaction of his appetite through ignorance or passion but he can have no fixed joy in any thing of that nature As a wicked man may have some fit of sorrow for sin so a good man may
rejoycing in him living up in a close obedience to his Law this is the man that forgetteth the Loves of Christ But yet if there be a Soul that hath experienced the Loves of Christ in a particular application to it self that hath given it self a liberty to the flesh and walked in a contrary course to what the Law of Christ requireth this Soul yet more forgets his Loves because he had a deeper impression of them upon his heart the Love of Christ made an impression only upon the others Ears but it hath entred into this man's Soul He is the greatest forgetter of his Love You shall observe in holy Writ that all sin is exprest under the notion of forgetting God Psal 50. 22. and in a multitude of other Texts and this not only because a forgetting of God is the cause of all the Violations of his Law which we could not violate if we remembred God as we ought to do but because indeed all sin in God's account is an actual ' forgetting of him God accounts us to know to remember no more than we are affected with and live up unto Therefore Christians let us make it our business not only to call to mind the Loves of Christ but to remember them in that sense which God calleth a remembrance of them 2. Let us not satisfie our selves with a bare remembrance of his Loves but labour to remember them more than Wine more than the most sweet and pleasant the most gainful and profitable things which this world affords Think that you hear Christ speaking in your Ears in the language in which he once spake to Peter setting all the pleasant and gainful things in the world before you and then saying to you Christians Love you me more than these Let me shew you the reasonableness of this 1. Consider if thou canst not say so Thou dost not answer the Loves of Christ in any degree I am now speaking to such as are Christians not in name and profession only but in deed and in truth Such a one may suppose all the fallen Angels under Christ's Eye even those Legions in the Air and in the bottomless Pit Creatures in their Original more perfect and glorious than man but fallen from their first Integrity and think he heareth Christ saying to him Poor Soul I have loved thee more than all these I died not for these I died for thee I took not upon me the Nature of Angels but the Nature of the seed of Abraham 2. He may suppose all the Heathen Nations under Christ's Eye The great Emperours of Turkey Persia China and other parts of the world with the millions of Souls under their jurisdiction and think that he heareth Christ again saying to him Poor Soul I have loved thee more than these Thou hearest my Gospel Read and Preached every Lord's Day hast thou not seen hast thou not heard These great Nations of the world and all the great Rulers of them never heard the joyful sound I was never Preached in their Streets they were never wooed never intreated to come to me that they might have life I have loved thee more than these Further yet thou mayest fancy all the prophane men all the sensual and carnal men all Hypocrites all unregenerate men whose hearts are yet locked up under unbelief under Christ's and thy Eye and suppose that thou hearest thy great Lord and Saviour saying to thee Poor Christian I have loved thee more than all these They are yet wallowing in their native blood as thou wert before I passed by thee in my time of love and said unto thee live they are yet Children of wrath in an hourly danger of having it come upon them to the utmost I have plucked thee out of Sodom Thy heart by nature was as hard as theirs as much prejudiced against thy own salvation I have made thee to differ I have loved thee more than all these May I rise one step higher to commend the Love of Christ to thy remembrance thou mayest fancy all that glory which Christ had with his Father from before the beginning of the world all the blessed company of Heaven all the riches of Christ's glory and felicity before his and thy Eye and fancy that thou hearest Christ say to thee My poor creature I have in a sense and for a time loved thee more than these I left my Father's Throne and right Hand him whom I was alwaies before brought up with him I left all to come down from Heaven to Earth to take thy flesh to be born of a Virgin and to be laid in a Manger to live a poor and contemned life in the world to die a shameful and ignominious death and all this to purchase for thee Eternal Life and Salvation and to redeem thee from thy vain conversation Have I not loved thee more than these What doth the Apostle say less than this when he saith 2 Cor. 8. 9. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich yet for your sake he became poor that you through his poverty might be made rich In what degree then canst thou be said to answer the Loves of Christ if when there is set before thee no more than the pleasures of sin which are but for a season the profits and enjoyments of this life which thou canst have no more than a Lease for Life of if thou canst not say Yea Lord thou that knowest all things knowest that I remember thy Love more than these Either this intoxicating Wine of sinful lusts and pleasures how gratifying soever they be to my fleshly appetite or this pleasant and gainful Wine of worldly Riches Estate Honour Preferment c. Oh that Christians would think of this 2. The second Consideration is yet more dreadful viz. He is not worthy of the Loves of Christ who doth not remember them more than Wine What Christ sometimes said of Love is as true concerning this remembrance of his Loves which is an act of Love Matth. 10. 37. He that loveth Father or Mother more than me is not worthy of me and he that loveth Son dâ— Daughter more than me is not worthy of me And what he saith there of natural Relations is doubtless as true concerning sensible Enjoyments in this world Riches and Honours c. which are objects of your love much beneath reasonable creatures in nearest relation to uâ— It is certainly as true That man or woman that remembers any sensible Enjoyment and is more affected with it than the Loves of Christ is not worthy of his Loves Certainly nothing more becometh us who pretend to be creatures endued with reason than to value things according to their measure and their true and just valuation You will say he is not worthy of a Jewel of great price that valueth a Pebble before it And by the way this will be enough to convince us all that we are saved by Grace and have what Love we have from Christ freely
For who is not guilty of a great Errour in this particular We think of sensible things more than of the Loves of Christ they are more the objects of our meditations the subjects of our discourses and the marks of our actions It is well for us that our Salvation doth not depend upon the perfection of our gracious acts and that we have another Righteousness than that of our own to appear in before God That when our Consciences check us in this particular and tell us that we do not remember Christ's Loves more than Wine yet the Gospel relieveth us by telling us that he was made of God for us Righteousness and we can remember that this Christ whose Loves we should remember after a better manner than we do is the Lord our Righteousness an High Priest that can have compassion on our infirmities he in whom we are compleat But yet neither will this relieve us unless we humble our selves before God for our failures in this particular Fly to him for pardon and endeavour even in this thing to perfect holiness and that bringeth me to the last thing I have to do viz. To offer you my Advice in order to the bringing up of your hearts to this just valuation and remembrance of these Loves of Christ 1. Labour to understand them We can meditate upon nothing but what we have some notion of we can remember nothing but what we have had some notion of There are the loves of God and the loves of Christ indeed the loves of Christ are the loves of him who thought it no robbery to be equal with the Father who is God over all blessed for ever but by the loves of Christ I mean the kindness which floweth to us from Christ as God-man united in one Person as our Mediator There is a love and kindness which floweth to us from the providence of God working either more generally and extending to all or more specially towards some There is also a love and kindness which floweth from Christ as our Redeemer Mediator Saviour Both these loves are to be remembred but the latter more especially are called the loves of Christ understand the loves of God in the effluxes of his good providence More especially understand the loves of Christ as the Saviour of Man there are also some of these more common to others some more special to some Of the first sort are the Gospel and the publication of it to us of the latter sort are those effects of grace which are wrought in us in the justification of our Souls the change of our hearts the renovation of our natures the strengthenings quicknings and consolations of the Spirit of Christ Labour to understand all your good things as coming from the hand of God and to understand the kindness of God in them see your good things as mercies as Divine gifts and then study them 1. In the suitableness of them to your States In this lies the nature of all good from this must be judged the degrees and measures of good that are in every grateful thing 2. In the freeness of them Freeness is indeed of the nature of grace take away freeness and you take away the nature of grace which must flow freely without any merit in the creature or it is no more grace but debt no more love but justice If you understand not Christ's Loves it is impossible you should duly remember them 2. Labour for to find the experience of the Loves of Christ in the best and most salvifiâ—k manifestations There is a love of God seen in giving us our Wine for it is God that gives us our Corn and Wine and Oil and multiplies our Silver and Gold We must look for higher things then these or else it is impossible we should remember them more then these The best manifestations of love must be discerned in the giving us those things which more suit our state and are suitable to greater wants Neither shall we effectually remember these till we find we have a propriety in them You will upon experience in all things find that it is propriety which gives us the sweetness in any good thing Supposs a brave and noble House or Estate we may look upon it and admire it and it may please us but it is propriety in such an estate that must make it sweet and pleasant to us We may have a kind of love for a Prince of whom we hear that he is just and merciful and endowed with many other qualities acceptable to humane nature but we shall not much delight in him nor remember his love until our selves have in some measure tasted and experienced it an interest and property in the love of another that is it which gives it an impression upon our Souls God hath commended his love to the world in sending Christ to die for sinners Christ hath commended his love to them in coming into the world and dying for them not for all but for those that shall believe in him men may talk of this love of Christ and use their Rhetorick a little about it in the magnifying of it but till their own Souls come to be washed with this blood till they come to have their iniquities forgiven and their sins covered it is not to be expected that his love should affect them much or sink any thing deep into their Souls so as to be revived by any effectual remembrance 3. Would you remember the loves of Christ as you ought to do more then Wine Set then your selves sometimes for soliloquy and meditation When the Sound of the Gofpel passeth into our ears we receive a little of it but transient things affect not much nor leave any great impressions upon us Meditation upon a Subject is the Souls standing and dwelling upon it it is like the digestion of our food there is nothing can be conceived a more rational means to affect the Soul with any thing or to make it fit for the memory to reflect upon then meditation One great reason why we remember the loves of Christ no better nor more is because we are not at leisure our heads are so unreasonably full of wordly cares and employments the cares of the world so choke and fill up our thoughts that we have no leisure to meditate or stand upon the thoughts of Christs loves or any spiritual objects Would Christians allow themselves more time to fix their thoughts upon spiritual objects to pierce into the depths of divine love to consider what Christ hath done for them in particular they would better remember them 4. Take heed of any wilful sinnings against his love Sinning as I told you before is usually set out in Scripture under the notion of a forgetting God and forgetting his loves Psal 78. 11. Psal 106. 13 21. the committing of sin frequently is like the continual dropping of water upon a thing which washeth and weareth out impressions upon it Besides it is natural to us
not to desire or to be willing to remember the kindness of a friend whose kindness we have abused Sin puts the tast of Christs love out of the Soul A remembrance of Christs love so as to be in any measure duly affected with it is incompetent with wilful and presumptuous sinning None but the holy and heavenly Soul remembreth the loves of Christ 5. Lastly Wait upon God in ordinances in hearing the Word in the Holy Sacrament of his Supper The ordinances of the Gospel are not only means of grace but great helps to Christians memory as to Christs loves we preach a Christ crucified there his loves come to our ears in the Supper you have a representation of a Christ crucified there his loves his dying love is set before your Eyes both are helps to the mind of that man or woman who desireth to feed his thoughts upon the loves of Christ But to shut up all Pray that is a general prescription in order to the obtaining of any mercy from the hand of God amongst other blessed effects of the holy Spirit of God promised by Christ to his Disciples this was one John 14. 26. He shall bring to your remembrance the things which you have heard of me it is the influence of the Spirit of grace that quickneth and inableth us to bring Christs love to our remembrance our Saviour hath taught us how to obtain this blessed remembrancer Luke 11. 13. He giveth his holy Spirit to them that ask him Sermon XXX Cant. 1. 4. The Vpright love thee Or Heb. Vprightnesses love thee STill it is the Spouse that speaketh She had prayed Draw me and promised that being drawn both she and others would run after Christ She had received a gracious answer to her prayer The King had brought her into his Chambers In this she hath Triumphed We will be glad and rejoice in thee For this she hath covenanted that she would remember the Loves of her Beloved more then all the pleasant or profitable things in the world Which she expresseth under the Metaphoricall notion of Wine Now lest any should say to her Why so fond O thou fairest amongst women to justify her self in this rapture of Joy this extacy of love she may be conceived to add these words The upright love thee or as the Hebrew is Uprightnesses love thee the words may be variously rendred with consistency enough to the Grammar of the Hebrew text 1. Uprightnesses or right things love thee The Same word is used Psal 17. 2. Thine eyes shall behold right things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be right or to appear so The word is used in the form that it is here Psal 9. 9. He shall judge the World in righteousness and the People 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in uprightnesses It is used Prov. 1. 3. Is 33. 15. Prov. 2. 9. Psal 75. 2. If we expound the phrase as it is literally according to the abstract Righteousnesses or Right things the Question will be whether it should be read as in the Nominative case Uprightnesses love thee or as in the Oblique case which the Heb. prefix seems to import In Uprightnesses they love thee accordingly the sense will be very different for if we read it as in the Nominative case the import of it seems to be to set out the Excellency of her beloved as he who was the very seat of all excellent things in whom did all fulness dwell even the fulness of the God-head all righteousness all Equity whatsoever is good If we read it as in the Ablative case as the prefix in the Hebrew seemeth to guide us The import of it seems to be to express to us the nature of the Saints love to God which is not in word or in tongue onely but in deed and in truth in uprightnesses that is as Buxtorf expoundeth it Rectissime fortiter most intirely intensely sincerely thus I say it denoteth the truth and reality of the believing Souls love to Christ 2. But our translators have thought fit to translate it otherwise conceiving the abstract here put for the concrete Uprightnesses for upright men possessed of uprightness this is very usual in the Hebrew dialect and indeed in most languages so the sense is this Do not wonder that I love Christ and am so affected with the injoyment of him there is never an upright Soul in the world but loves him all upright Souls love him Thus the Proposition is plain Propos Upright Souls love Christ To this I shall Speak in my ordinary method by Explication Confirmation Application Under the first I shall give you the true notion of Uprightness and an üpright soul shew you in what sense the Proposition is true The Question may well be propounded Who is the upright who is the righteous man For the Psalmist tells us the Apostle Rom. 3. confirmeth it There is none righteous no not one and although God at first made man upright Eccles 7. 29. Yet the world is so warped by men seeking out to themselves inventions that the prophet Micah 7. 2. Tells us there is none upright amongst men To resolve this difficulty I shall first give you two or three distinctions concerning righteousness or uprightness without which we shall hardly understand the true notion of an upright man 1. There is an uprightness of heart Psal 32. 11. Shout for joy all you upright in heart so Psal 94. 11. Judgment shall return unto righteousness and all the upright in heart shall follow it And there is an uprightness of way or conversation Prov. 29. 27. The upright in his way is an abomination so◠Psal 37. 14. The wicked man seeketh to slay such as be of upright conversation Indeed it is true there is no man who is upright in his heart but he will also be upright in his way for the upright directeth his way Prov. 21. 29. but there is a seeming uprightness of way when the heart is not upright with God Prov. 14. 12. There is a way which seemeth right unto a man but the end thereof are the ways of death The Proposition must be understood of such as are upright not in their way only seemingly but both in heart and in way 2. Secondly there is a Legal and there is an Evangelical righteousness or uprightness The legal righteousness or uprightness lyeth in a full and perfect conformity to the Law of God In this sense it is as true That there is none righteous no not one none upright amongst men as that there is none who liveth and sinneth not against God for the least Flye maketh this box of ointment to stink all Sin is crookedness and the least crookedness spoileth this rightness But then there is an Evangelical righteousness and uprightness and thus every Soul that is justified by grace through the imputation of Christs righteousness is a righteous Soul and every Soul that is Sanctifyed and renewed the bent of which is towards
world so sweet and pleasant to their thoughts as to think of Jesus of Nazareth him that was incarnate of the Virgin that died upon the cross for sinners all their contemplations and meditations of him are exceeding sweet and their hearts exercised about them melt in them 4. They love whatsoever bears the image and superscription of Christ The Gospel that gives them the history of Christ and revealeth to them his will the ordinances of Christ in which the loves of Christ are set forth represented opened applied to the Souls of people The members of Christ even every Soul in which they can but see aliquid Christâ— as Bucer speaks any thing of the features of Christ This is enough to have spoken for the explication of the Proposition For the proof of it 1. Look into the Word of God see if you can find an instance either of an upright man who did not love Christ or of an bypocrite or unregenerate man that did love him Abraham believed and it was imputed to him for righteousness he was one that walked with God and was perfect that is upright he loved Christ Our Lord saith of him Abraham saw my day and rejoyced Simon and Anna and Peter and Mary Magdâ—lene all were upright Persons they all loved Christ On the other side there is not so much as one instance of an unjustified unregenerate Soul that had any real love for Christ no not when they saw him here in the flesh It is said of the young Pharisee who came to our Saviour Mat. 19. that when Christ saw him he loved him but he had no love for Christ for when he bid him go sell all that he had and he should have treasures in Heaven it is said he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions Judas followed Christ and so did the Capernaites but Judas carried the bag and the Capernaites followed him for the loaves None of them loved Christ in sincerity and truth We need no other instances then what our own age affordeth us But we need no Scripture in this case Reason will evince the necessary truth of this Proposition if we consider that all love is founded either 1. In the apprehended goodness and excellency of the object beloved Or 2. In some similitude and likeness c. Or â—loweth 3. From some instinct of which we can give no very just account I will begin with the last first 1. Love to another often proceeds from some inaccountable instinct we see this very ordinary amongst us the heart of a woman cleaveth to a man or of a man to a woman â—o the heart of one friend is knit to another and we are able to give our selves no great account of it the man loveth the woman to whom he had a former aversion and the woman loveth and chuseth the man for her Husband that she did never think of and they can give themselves no account of the change which they find in themselves this is undoubtedly a providential instinct or influence of which we can give no account The Souls love to Christ also floweth from an instinct of God an influence of special grace for certainly if we must be taught of God to love one another to love the brethren whom we have seen and daily do see and much that is lovely in them we have much more need to be taught of God to love Christ whom we have not seen and whose excellency and amiableness is only matter of faith to us Hence it appeareth that no unrenewed no unsanctified heart none but the upright Soul can possibly love the Lord Jesus Christ for this love is no natural habit no man by nature loveth Christ nor is it any acquired habit but an infused habit and indeed a piece of regeneration 2. Love to an object is founded in an apprehension of some goodness and excellency in that object we cannot love any object that appeareth to us evil or unlovely Now none but the renewed and regenerate Soul can possibly see any goodness and excellency in Christ for it is spiritually discerned besides the reason of love in us to any object is not so much the abstracted goodness and excellency of the object as its relative goodness unto us now none but the Soul that is justified and regenerate Soul hath in any thing tasted of the love of God or hath found him in any degree good as to it 3. Lastly Whereas love is founded in likeness in some similitude of nature or disposition and qualities there is such a dissimilitude between a natural man whether he be one that is profane and flagitious or meerly moral and formal and hypocriticaâ— that this Soul cannot love the Lord Jesus Christ who is holy and harmless and separate from sinners and the very same reasons make it necessary for every Soul to love Christ for every such Soul is renewed and regenerate and taught of God to love the Lord Jesus Christ every such Soul is beloved of him and under some apprehensions and experience of the love of God in Christ unto it every such Soul finally hath the Image of God renewed in it in righteousness and holiness and by grace wrought up into a conformity to Christ and the more upright the Soul is the more is the image of God renewed in it the more it hath tasted the special love of Christ the more it hath received of the potent influences of Divine Grace hence it must needs love Christ more I now come to the application In the first place This may let us know That Christ is a most excelling object and the non-adherence of our hearts to him is a piece of the natural crookedness and defection of the Soul of man The goodness or excellency of an object is not to be determined from a vulgar judgment Learning is an excellent thing the foolish ignorant person doth not so judge it nor look after it this detracts nothing from the excellency of it Wise men value it It hath no enemies but the ignorant man Now the judgment of the best and wiser part of the world their value and prizing of it is enough to commend it though fools hate knowledge So the upright mans loving Christ is a sufficient evidence of the transcendent goodness and excellency that is in him tho the loose and profane man the formal hypocritical man hath no love at all for him There are thousands in the world in the Christian world whose conversations testify that they can see no beauty no excellency in Christ at all to them he grows up as a root out of a dry ground in their Eyes he hath no beauty no comeliness at all They stand and admire what sweetness Gods people have in their meditations and contemplations of him what is that sometimes makes them so sick of love for him so breaking with longings after him as holy David expresseth it The business is not what fools judge of Wisdom in the mean time Wisdom is
poured out upon me The reason of this interpretation is their dream that they are the only Church of God in the World But the text is not to be so restrained The true Church of Christ or the truly believing Soul here speaks unto any others That they would not look asquint upon her because she was black Ne torvum intueamini nec velut per contemptum despiciatis so Mercer glosseth upon the words do not look upon me with an Eye of despight scorn or contempt As the Leviat han beholdeth all things Job 41. 34. so Mr. Ainsworth interpreteth it or as he addeth not with a rejoycing pleased or Satisfyed Eye according to that Obadiah v. 12. Edom should not have Looked upon the affliction of his brethren Or not with an astonishing admiring look As the Apostle commandeth us not to think it strange concerning the fiery tryal and 1. Thessal 2. 3. that none should be moved by the Churches afflictions knowing that God had appointed them thereunto The English Annotators add not with a partial eye beholding my blackness and not my comeliness no nor yet with a dull deâ—jected or despendent Eye Nor yet so as to take a Copy from me for your imitation Do not thus look upon me because I am black 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is a little difference in the form of the word from the word as used before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is the observation of some critical Interpreters that this change of the form of the word maketh a diminution in the sense So as it should be read because I am something black a little black duskish subnigra fusca thus Arias Montanus translates it Nunâ— se corrigit saith Genebrard here she correcteth her self She had said before she was black Now she altereth her phrase and speaks to this sense I am indeed something brown but not so black as you take me to be thus I said critical Interpreters in the Hebr. carry it Mercer also and Mr. Ainsworth our English Annotators take some notice of it And Mr. Ainsworth quotes a text where another word much of the same form is translated something red We have now probably the sense of the words O you that are the People of God do not look upon me with a scornful abominating Eye to flee from me and avoid me Nor yet to take out a Sinful Copy from me you men of the world do not scorn do not clap your hands at me do not stand amazed because you see me full of trouble and affliction do not look upon me on one side partially I am indeed something black but not coal black not wholly black The Sun hath looked upon me The Arabick version reads it The Sun hath declined me but Avenarius tells us the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifyeth to look wistly and directly upon an Object in that first Conjugation it is used but thrice in holy Writ Job 20 9. The Eye also that saw him shall see him no more Job 28. 7. There is a path which the Vultures Eye hath not seen The third is this text So as the ordinary reading is not to be declined But concerning the Sun mentioned in this text there is a great Variety amongst Interpreters 1. some understand bY the Sun here the Sun of Righteousness the Lord Jesus Christ who is so called Malachy 4. 2. and according to this sense I find Delrio giving a singular sense of these words which he calleth the Tropological sense As if these words were not brought in by the spouse as a reason of her blackness but only as a reason why they should not despise her by reason of her blackness Tho I am black saith she yet the Sun of righteousness the Lord Jesus Christ hath looked on me and hath clothed me with his Righteousness therefore you ought not to despise me There is a great truth in this If we can Charitably judge concerning any soul that God hath received it if we see any Person so living so aright ordering his conversation that we cannot but think he or she is one whom the Lord loves and who is accepted of him we ought not to despise them because we see them guâ—ley of some failings or altho we find them made black through a pressure of trials and afflictions But this seemeth not to be the sense of the words 2. Others understanding by Sun here the Sun of Righteousness make another improvement of the Notion Christ The Sun of Righteousness hath lookt upon me and I am become black that is Vile in my own Eyes This is truth the more the Lord looketh upon any Soul the more mean and low and vile it is in its own Eyes When our Lord looked upon Peter he went out and wept bitterly Isaiah cryeth out Woe is me I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell amongst a People of unclean lips for my Eyes have seen the King the Lord of hosts The more the Lord looketh upon any Soul or the more a Soul looketh up to and upon God the more vile it iudgeth its self but tho this be true yet I cannot judge it the truth of this place where I take the Spouse to be apologizing for her blackness in her outward appearance to others tho it be also true That Exercises of repentance and mortification do not commend Souls to the Eye of the world tho they highly commend them unto God Bernard hath yet a 3d improvement of this notion Ejus amore langâ—eo God by casting an Eye upon my Soul hath so drawn out my heart after him that I faint and am broken with longings for and after him this maketh me so unlovely and black in your Eyes I find both these last mentioned notions in Bernard Thus the Souls blackness had only been occasioned accidentally from the Sun 's looking upon her 2. I find that some by the Sun in the Text understand the fruits of the Spirit such as zeal which inflameth the Soul where it is and as it were burns it up as it is written The zeal of thy house hath Eaten me up Brotherly Love which teacheth the Soul to weep with those that weep from which ariseth what the world miscalleth a blackness 3. But I find the generality of Interpreters by the Sun in the Text understanding Persecutions and Afflictions Delrio and Bernard after the mentioning some other notions yet fix upon this as the most probable sense of this phrase and we have in the Gospels a Text of Scripture which justifieth this Metaphorical acception of the term It is that Maâ—th 13. 6. in the Parable of the sower In the parable our Saviour telleth them that the seed which sell upon the Stony ground when the Sun was up was scorched which he interpreteth v. 21. when Tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word they fall away In this sense I shall fix so the sense is this It is true I am black but be not offended do not contemn
but from that faith in the Precepts Promises and Threatnings of the Word from that love fear and obedience to God which ought to have principled those acts and if they had been so would have made those acts more intense certain steddy and uniform if these be wanting the Life-colours are wanting to the Picture Other things make but up the Skeleton of the duty and are but as a draught of the lines of the Face without the Life-colours which seldom have much beauty in them and the Soul notwithstanding all this fair and splendid outside is in his eyes but as a painted Sepulcher within which is nothing but a stench and rottenness and the bones of dead men So that no Soul that is without Faith without the fear and love of God and that acteth not out of obedience to Christ in what it doth but is black wholly black in the Lords eyes how fair soever in its own eyes or the eyes of the men of the world and what Augustine said of old of the best and most vertuous actions of the Heathens is true of the best actions of these titular Christians they are but Splendida Peccata Splendid Sinnings Thus now I say the true Christian standeth distinguished from unbelievers of all sizes whatsoever none of them are comely but wholly black in the eyes of Christ because they have none of his comeliness put upon them The glorified Saint is altogether whitehe hath not onely washed his garments in the Blood of the Lamb but he is also delivered from the infirmities of humane nature from the Sin that easily besetts him the weight that presseth him down the war in his members from the lustings of the flesh against the Spirit the law of his members so often rebelling against the law of his mind and bringing him into a captivity oft times to the law of Sin and is now presented before Christ without spot or wrinkle This is the felicity of his State The Apostle saith that we are now the Sons of God but it doth not yet appear what we shall be Sin here maketh us black affliction and sorrow make us appear more black then we are the translated Soul neither sinneth nor yet suffereth or sorroweth any more the state of the Child of God differeth from these because he is black it differeth from the state of the unbeliever in this life because he is not onely black but also comely hence you may understand the error of those who dream of a state of perfection which the People of God may and do attain in this life some go very high in blasphemy telleng us that we are Christed and Godded and that the believer is as spotless as Christ c. The Apostle indeed tells us we are made partakers of the Divine Nature but it is one thing to be made partakers of another thing to be transformed into the Divine Nature Christ is the chief of ten thousand altogether desires there is no spot no blemish in him The best of Gods people is black as well as comely black through inherent corruption and unrighteousness tho comely in respect of imputed righteousness and inherent habits of grace and holiness The Apostle tells us that by one mans disobedience many were made Sinners and that we are all by nature children of wrath Eph. 2. 3. Those who would have Christ to die for every man being pinched with that question What did Christ then purchase for those that shall never be saved some of them answer he purchased for all a totall freedom from Adams Sin I know no line in Scripture to justify that it was after Christ had dyed that the Apostle tells us we are all by nature children of wrath but he that can fancy that he liveth and sinneth not against God and so is not black through actual sin doth yet more foully deceive himself certainly he must not look into the perfect law of God or else is not able to distinguish white from black If he looked into the divine law he would quickly with Saint Paul see that the law is Holy and Spiritual and Just and Good and that the best of men is but carnal sold under Sin Let not then any glory in a fancyed perfection it is but a glorying in appearance not in reality All that the Spouse gloryeth in is that she was not altogether black It is a true saying of Mr. Calvin that it is the greatest piece of our perfection to be sensible of our imperfections As vain is the glorying also of them who glory in an exemption from afflictions that this Sun hath not lookt upon them afflictions have not scorched them as they have scorched others the Apostle tells us that if we be without chastening then are we Bastards and not Sons It is not our glory to be free from them but to indure them not to be wholly exempted from them but under them to exercise our faith and patience and to glorify God in the Fires The motto of a Child of God is Black but Comely black through remaining lusts and coruptions comely through imputed righteousness and inherent habits of grace and holiness Black through Affliction and Persecution Comely in and under them glorifying God in the Fires by the exercises of Faith and Patience From hence every inquisitive Christian may take just measures of himself he is not to judg of himself by his blackness whether it be the blackness of renewing sin and corruption or the blackness of Affliction and Worldly Opposition and Persecutions Let him examine himself 1. Whether he hath not a mixture of grace with corruption Sin in dominion is not indeed consistent with grace but Sin in being is there are Twins which struggle one with another in every good Soul Every Christian will find he hath a flesh to be crucified members to be mortified and a law in his members some impetuous motions of lust at some times but let him examine whether he doth not find also a Spiritual part and a law in his mind the flesh indeed lusteth against the Spirit that is a Christians blackness but doest thou not also find the Spirit lusting against thy flesh that is thy comliness A true Christian is not to judge himself from the freedom of his Soul from sin but from the war and combate of his Soul with sin He in the Gospel that said I believe Lord help my unbelief expressed the lively Image of every true Christian So doth St. Paul more largely Rom. 7. 18 19 20. For I know in me that is in my flesh there dwelleth no good thing for to will is present with me but kow to perform that which is good I find not For the good that I would I do not but the evil which I would not that I do now if I do that which I would not it is no more I that do it but sin that dwelleth in me I find then a law that when I would do good evil is present with me
was in my blood live he hath fixed his Love upon me who was by birth an Ethiopian he hath hung a Chain about my neck I am black but I am comely I have met with a story of a Minister who going to visit and pray with a poor creatureâ— possessed by the Devil the Devil thought to have stopt his mouth by objecting to him some sins committed by him in his youth The holy man answered confessing the charge but Satan saith he upon my repentance Christ hath since that washed me with his blood Another story I have met with of a worthy Person who lying upon his sick bed and being alone one opens the door and comes in in the habit of a Scrivener with a Pen and Inkhorn and Paper andsetting himself down at the table in the Chapter called the sick man by name and told him he was sent from God to take account of him of all the sins he had done for which he must presently go and answer to God before his Judgment seat The good man rightly apprehending that it was the Devil had assumed an habit to tempt and distrub him bid him go on and write first Gen. 3. 15. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel Upon which the evil Spirit presently disappeared Speaking only from my memory I may forget some circumstances but this is the substance of the story What the Devil in these cases did by a more audible voice he doth yet every day by impressions made more secretly upon the Spirits of some or other that fear God For tho conscience will of it self often bring sin to remembrance and reflect sins upon the Soul committed long before yet they are some times reflected with such violence and degrees of terror and attended with such strong motions and sollicitations to despair of Divine mercy and to self murder that it is but reasonable to judge there is more in them then the ordinary workings of conscience In such a dark hour as this it will be a great relief to a Soul to think that the Spouse of Christ is black but comely Doth the Devil then object thy blackness whether by reason of past or present sins in bar to thy trust and confidence in God for the forgiveness of them through the blood of Christ Reply to him Satan I have been black I confess it I am black but I am comely also having my Garments washed and rouled in the blood of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the World I am as the Tents of Kedar they are black but I am also as the Curtains of Solomon they are exceeding beautiful 3. It also relieveth a Christian under Persecutions and afflictions and against the Worlds upbraidings because of them The Barbarians concluded Paul a Murtherer because they saw a Viper cleaving to his hand and the men of the World are very prone to judge and condemn the People of God for what happeneth to them in this life they see the blackness of Gods Peoples visages under affliction and persecution but the love of God in chastening them that they might not be condemned with the World the exercises of their faith and trial of it and its appearing more precious then that of Gold their patience its perfect worâ— hâ—se are things in which their comeliness appeareth in and under afflictions these are things which they do not see Gods People are also ready to conclude against themselves because of their tryals but there is no just reason for it afflictions are but a blackness of the skin the Child of God may notwithstanding them be within exceeding beautiful and comely The tents of Kedar though they had black and unlovely coverings and outsides yet within might be fill'd with Spices and Riches I shall shut up this discourse with some few words of exhortation to that duty which this notion of truth calls to us for 1. It calleth to all the People of God for humility a mean and low opinion of themselves beauty is often a great temptation to Pride whether it be natural or artificial The Daughters of Sion were haughty and walked with stretched forth Necks and wanton Eyes Isaiah 3. 16. Spiritual beauty gives no advantage to a Soul to think of it self above what it ought to think In all reason we should have been some cause to our selves of that whereof we glory we should have some propriety in it and there should be in it some perfection The comeliness of Gods People is neither natural nor any acquest of their own There are three things which may keep the most comely of Gods Children humble First The consideration of their former blackness Let but any of them look back to the rock out of which they are hewen and to the hole of the Pit out of which they were digged and they will see no reason to be exalted above measure their Father was a Syrian their birth was of the land of Canaan their Father was an Amorite their Mother an Hittite and in the day wherein they were born they were cast out to the loathing of their persons not salted not swadled at all Nor was this all there is none of them but had their conversation in times past according to the Prince of the power of the Air fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind Children of Wrath by nature c There is none of them but hath reason to pray that the Lord would not remember the sins of their youth against them and to beg of God that for them he would not write against them bitter things nor make them to possess their years of vanity None of them but before Christs comeliness was put upon them had been guilty of sin enough to make them to walk softly all the days of their lives Secondly The consideration of their present blackness is enough though they are comely yet they are black still they have a body of death a law of their members the lustings of the flesh against the Spirit sins that easily beset them weights that often press them down the beauty of the best of Gods People is but like the beauty of the Moon which is full of spots hath a dark part and often suffers great Eclipses and all whose light is borrowed He observeth not his own heart that doth not see enough in the imperfect and extravagant motions of it to keep him humble Thirdly The third is the consideration from whence he deriveth his beauty If men and women would but debate a little with their own reason they would see no reason to be proud of a comeliness arising from any external Ornament it is something beneath a Reasonable Being to be beholden to a Stone Jewels are no more or a little Earth such are Gold and Silver a Plant or a Fly or a Silkworm or a Sheep a little Wool or Flax for
that which should commend him or it No artificial beauty is our own and so a thing not to be gloried in All the comeliness of a Child of God is a derived comeliness His blackness is his own his comeliness is from another it is Christ that hath made him to differ he hath received his beauty and therefore ought not to glory as if he had not received it And this in the second place ought to mind them of their duty of thankfulness and admiration of â—he love of Christ When saith David I consider the Heavens the work of thy hands the Moon and the Start which thou hast ordained what is man that thou art mindful of him and the Son of man that thou visitest him Yet David in that Psalm is speaking of no more then Gods more common mercies of Creation and Providence but what greater reason hath a Child of God to cry out Lord what is man that thou shouldst remember him Lord What was I that thou shouldst remember me and fix thy love and put thy comeliness upon me I was by nature an Ethiopian and have contracted much more blackness by my conversation in the world now that the Lord should make us comely through his comeliness that he should fix his love upon any of our Souls and put any of his Chains about our Necks What manner of love was this To which of the Angels said he at any time aâ— Zech. 16. 8. When I passed by thee and looked upon thee behold thy time was a time of love and I spread my skirt over thee and covered thy nakedness yea I sware unto thee and entered into a covenant of life with thee saith the Lord God and thou becamest mine Or as Jer. 3. v. 14. Turn O backsliding Children saith the Lord for I am married unto you To which of them hath he at any time said my Love my Dove my Vndefiled We had none of us either Beauty or Portion Christ hath given us both Admire the height and depth of Divine Love and consider what an ingratitude it would be if any of us should now like Israel Ezek. 16. 15. Trust in your own beauty and play the Harlotâ— and pour out fornications on every one that passeth by Bestow our hearts our love and affections upon any objects contrary to him beneath and besides him whether it be not reasonable that we should be wholly to him and for him who are wholly from him and are nothing but what we are in him Thirdly This notion calleth to the people of God not to be overmuch disquâ—eted and dejected It is one thing to walk humbly that is our duty another thing to walk dejectedly that is our infirmity we have no reason to be proud because we are black nor yet to despond and be dejected because in Christs Eyes if we be upright if we prepare and fix our hearts to seek the Lord we are comely We have no reason because of our blackness to glory in our selves but we have reason to rejoice and to glory in our comeliness which though indeed Christs comeliness yet being puâ—upon us becometh ours A believer hath therefore hath nothing to do but to see that his interest in Christ be clear and to see to wash his feet and he is clean every whit We have reason to consider our ways to reflect upon our infirmities to be humbled for our failings and to walk humbly at all times in the sense of them but still to incourage our selves in the Lord our righteousness to hope in God and rejoice in Christ tho we have no confidence in the flesh either in any priviledges of our birth or in any works of our own Lastly This Doctrine calleth upon all not to look upon the Spouse of Christ because she is black They are the words of our Spouse following in the next verse but the proper application of what she saith in this verse the use which she desireth her Brethren to make of this her imperfect and black state Something God willing shall be spoken hereafter more largely for the explication of those woâ—dâ— then the streightness of my time will now allow I shall therefore reserve the fuller explication of this duty until I come to the next verse and shall give you but a short tast and specimen of what I shall then more fully inlarge upon 1. We ought not to look upon the Spouse of Christ in these circumstances with a supercilious scornful and censorious Eye The Eye is the Oâ—gan of the body by which the Soul first taketh the cognisaâ—ce of a thing and is suitably affected there are two false rules by which we judge of persons 1. When we judge of them by particular actions 2 When we judge of them by external acâ—idents the first of them indeed is more proper then the latter because they are the fruit of the Soul the other are forreign and adventitious neither of them are a safe rule of Judgment not the former because none is to be denominated from single and particular acts and this the Philosopher will teach us and indeed if this rule of judgment should be true what judgment must have passed upon Lot Noah Abraham Jacob Job David Pâ—teâ— all the most eminent Servants of God whose names are upon Sacred Record they were all guilty of irregular acts Not the latter for it is not that which is accidental to a man but that which proceedeth from him that defileth a man Take therefore heed of a censorious scornful Eye when you look upon the People of God in their blackness consider that you also may be tempted that although you now stand yet you may fall 2. Look not upon her with a pleased and satisfied Eye The Eye is that Organ of the Booy which giveth the Soul delight content pleasure and satisfaction in the object Psal 92. v. 11. Mine Eye also shall see my desire upon mine Enemies We have naughty and corrupt hearts ready to take a secret delight and pleasure in the slips and failings of our Brethren let this be far from you either to rejoice in the real blackness the failings and miscarriages of any whose general conversation is not unworthy of the Gospel or to rejoice in any of their afflictions we are to weep with those that weep not to rejoice when we see our Brethren weep The first rejoicing is opposite to your duty with respect to the honour of God which suffereth by others sins as well as our own The second is eminently contrary to that love and fellow-feeling and compassion which we owe unto our Brethren Thirdly look not upon them so as to take out a copy for your imitation Rocks stand up in the Sea and lights stand upon the Land to give Ships notice of Rocks and Sands not that Mariners should run upon them but that they may avoid them for this end also are the failings and sins of Gods People Recorded in Holy Writ When you see a Child of God
against them Thus David complains Psal 35. 11. that in the day of his ealamity False witnesses did rise up against him and laid to his charge things that he knew not The men of the world whose malice and hatred prompteth them to injurious actions against innocent persons conceive themselves obliged to defend themselves against the common reason of the world which teacheth them to cry out against such acts of violence with raising lies and slanders concerning such as they so oppress and persecute he that is any thing acquainted with the Psalms of David or other parts of Holy Writ will find that what we see in the age we live in was but the old practice of wicked and profane Persons ashamed to own the true cause of their hatred and malice It was Matchiavels maxime Fortiter calumniare aliquid adhaerebit lay loud enough though never so false upon thy adversaries something will stick to them and indeed it is hardly imaginable but it should 2. A second reason of this judgment is because the most of men judge of blackness and comeliness by a meer sensual Eye The life of the Spouse is an hidden life her beauty is an hidden beauty The world doth not consider the afflictions of Gods People Spiritually as they are the tokens of Divine Love for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every Child whom he receiveth nor as they purge away the Souls dross and take away its Tin as they melt it and try it and give faith a perfect exercise and patience a perfect work nor are they able to discern the Souls exercises of faith and patience of humility and meekness and quiet submission to the will of God The afflicted Spouse may not only be exceeding beautiful in the Eyes of Christ but in the Eyes of the Saints and People of God in their affliction and tribulation and the generality of men yet see no beauty and comeliness in them because their beauty is spiritually discerned all that is external is blackuess and unloveliness they are only glorious within 3. The generality of men and women in the world judge of the love and hatred of God by what is before men in this life The beauty of the Spouse of Christ lieth in two things 1. In her acceptation with God 2. In her habits of grace and the exercise of them both these are hidden from the Eyes of the world they see not the internal frame of a believers Soul as I but now told you and as their habits of grace are hidden things the world knoweth us not faith John so their state of favour and acceptation with God is an hidden thing also they cannot understand how God should love him or her against whom he suffers men to prevail to such a degree so that the wicked devours the men that are more righteous then they they judge of Gods love and hatred to Souls by what in this life happens to them The Apostles phrases 2 Cor. 4. 8 9. are all riddles to them we are troubled saith he on every side but not distressed we are perplexed but not in despair persecuted but not forsaken cast down but not destroyed I have done with the Doctrinal part of my discourse Is this the lot of the Spouse of Christ to be Sun-burnt with afflictions and persecutions Is it their lot to be afflicted and will afflictions make them black and appear more black then possibly they are what then is our duty 1. In the first place it is certainly our duty to expect afflictions of this nature and to expect such usage under them as the people of God before us have constantly met with Our Saviour Christ having given to his hearers the law of his Discipleship Lu. 14. v. 27. And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my Disciple addeth further v. 28. 29 30 31. For which of you intending to build a Tower sitteth not down first and counteth the cost whether he hath sufficient to finish it left happily after he hath laid the foundation and is not able to finish it all begin to mock him saying this man began to build and was not able to finish Or what King going to make war against another Ring sitteth not down first and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand Or else while the other is yet afar off he sendeth an Embassage and desireth conditions of peace Our Saviour Christ by those two similitudes teacheth us all the duty of a pre-consideration a thinking before hand what may afterwards happen to us in the profession of religion and the owning of him and the profession of the Gospel It is certainly a true saying Mala inopinata graviora the less prospect we have of evils the more inexpected they come upon us the more heavy they prove to us unthought of evils are alwaies most intolerable because we are least prepared for them Let every good Christian therefore live in view of those Afflictions which the Apostle calleth the Afflictions of the Gospel 2 Tim. 1. 8. Either because they constantly or most ordinarily follow the profession of it or because indeed it is unreasonable to think that any person should either adhere to the propositions of truth contained in it or live up to the rule of life which the Gospel prescribeth and be free from them If saith our Saviour John 15. 18. The world hateth you you know it hated me before it hated you and v. 20. Remember the word that I said unto you the Servant is not greater then the Lord if they have persecuted me they will also persecute you These things saith our Saviour John 16. 1. 2 3. I have spoken unto you that you should not be offended they shall put you out of the Synagogues yea the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth God good service It is a most unreasonable thing for men to meet with more pleasing things and prosperity in the profession of Religion then the Author of that Religion or any of his Disciples ever met with or then he hath told us we should meet with in the profession of it who knew all things or that we should expect more tranquillity in the profession of Religion then the nature of that profession considered together with the ignorance and corruption of the world doth promise the professors of it It is true there is nothing in the nature and profession of the Christian Religion considered singly and apart by itself that is unlovely or disobliging to any it is a Religion full of good will toward men But considering this Religion together with the corruption of the world there is much in it which he that looketh but with a rational Eye will see that the world is never like to bear better then it hath hitherto done it tieth a man up to believe Propositions according to the revelations of the Word To live
of God Let us take heed that we be not made black by afflictions of this nature which we shall be if by them we be moved from our good opinion of the ways of God from our profession or practice of them there is no sinner more black then the Apostate See 2 Pet 2. 20. 21. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ they are again intangled therein and overcome the latter end is worse with them than the beginning For it is better sor them not to have known the way of righteousness then after they have known it to turn from the Holy Commandment delivered unto them Indeed failings in a time of Persecution are caused from a double cause Sometimes meerly from the fear of life or some great danger that will befall to men if they adhere to their former profession failings of this nature make a Soul look black but many such recover themselves and the Lord who can have compassion upon our insirmities pities them and recovers them out of the snare of the Devil this is a blackness we ought to avoid by putting on the whole Armour of God that we may be able to stand in the day of the Lords Battel But there is another defection which is occasioned by Persecutions and Afflictions of this nature That is when men out of a greater love to other ways in a time of tryal renounce the truths of God they have formerly owned and forsake the ways of God in which they have formerly walked to these now Persecutions and Afflictions of this nature are but a slight occasion of their defection and Apostacy and this eminent difference you will find betwixt the others and these The others though they may be prevailed withal to warp and start aside because of the greatness of the temptation it was Peters case in the High Priests Hall yet will never be prevailed with to speak evil of and to revile the truths of God which they have owned nor the ways of God in which they have formerly walked and others yet walk The others being prevailed upon to their Apostacy meerly from the lusts of their hearts and the greater love they have alwaies had tho like Hypocrites they have concealed it to looser principles and a looser way of living take themselves concerned to reproach their former ways and those who yet walk in them This is a dreadful blackness not a tincture upon the face only but a tincture of the heart which by occasion of Persecution for the Gospel breaketh out into the more exteriour conversation To enforce this caution I shall only mention three things 1. That this is the affection only of the stony ground Mat. 13. 6 21. It is a certain sign that those never received the Seed of the Word into honest and good hearts that they never had any root in themselves who when tribulation and persecution ariseth because of the word by and by they are offended He that receiveth the truth in the Love of it cannot so easily abandon the profession of it 1 John 2. 19. They went out from us they were not of us for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us The day of Persecution and tribulation for the Gospel sake is the day of the manifestation and discovery of hypocrites I do not think that all shrinking in a time of persecution is a note of hypocrisy there is a shrinking through fear in the time of great temptation so Peter shrank But for men to make a defection out of a principle of lust and greater Love to other ways and to reproach and speak Evil of the ways of God which by the way is a certain indication of such a defection this speaketh the man or woman to be no better then an hypocrite nor ever to have been other tho to serve his lusts he disguised himself with a mask of holiness and Religion 2. Secondly consider That no sinner so reproacheth the good and holy ways of God as such a sinner doth He tells the World that he hath tryed them that there is nothing in them that nothing but the ignorance prejudices of his education youth led him into them that the ways of sin profaneness of Formality and Superstition are better and therefore he is at last grown wiser then to take such pains to go to heaven If I would pick out a wretch out of the whole herd of sinners to reproach God to blaspheme the Gospel and the ways of holiness I would pick out onethat had been formerly a professor and had turned away from his profession this wretch pretendeth from experience to justify what others do but loosely discourse 3. Thirdly no sinners must expect a more dreadful Vengeance The reason is evident because none sin against more light There is no man who hath made a profession and lived in any practice of Religion but knows that there is no iniquity in it nothing but what suteth the common reason of mankind not debauched through lust and that those who in any measure live up to the profession of the Gospel are if sober heathens were to be judges the best of men with respect to all duty which the light of Nature teacheth toward the Divine Being and all good offices towards men I say there is none who hath made any profession but knows this and in all his Evil speaking of them doth not sin like an heathen nor like a profane man who speaketh ill of the things he knoweth not but speaketh contrary to the dictate of his own conscience I would not have this understood of those who are made black through these afflictions from the temporary prevailing of a strong temptation these with Pâ—ter tho they fall yet go out and weep bitterly and are recovered and made stronger by their fall but of those others before mentioned to whom Affliction and Persecution are but the externall occasions to draw out the lusts of their hearts which waited but for an opportunity to discover its self 2. Finally to shut up this discourse let this caution us from Judging the Spouse of Christ black because the Sun hath looked upon her You have heard that this is but the Worlds judgment not according to any measures of truth or righteousness To this End 1. Root your selves in this truth That none can judge of Gods Love or hatred from what happeneth to him in this life It is Solomons Maxime and a great truth God governeth the World according to the just Oeconomy of his Providence with respects unto his own wife Ends and no spiritual judgment can be made of the state of any from those administrations oft-times he maketh Princes to go on foot when servants ride on horse back and the wicked to devour those that are more righteous then they 2.
mouths they shew much love but their heart goeth after their covetousness Christ in the Parable of the Sower compareth some hearers of the Word to the ground that received the Seed amongst Thorns the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choked the Word and made it become unfruitful It is a great blackness of a Christian not to have his heart with God in Religious Services so as the Lord as the Prophet expresseth it is nigh in his mouth and far from his reins and it is a blackness that will cover the face of every man and woman that converseth too much with the world Paul therefore rightly adviseth the Corinthians that they should use the world in a careless manner that those that rejoyced in the affluences of it should be as if they rejoyced not and those that bought as if they possessed not and those that used the world as not abusing it But saith he I would have you without carefulness 1 Cor. 7. 30 31 32. 4. Worldly imployments have often an ill influence upon Christians to intice and allure them to sin not only by omissions of duty but by the commissions of things which are contrary to their duty there is a sensible sweetness in worldly enjoyments and those are the product of worldly business and imployment The Devil baiteth all his Hooks with some piece of the World or other Some with the sensibly sweet part of it some with the gay and splendid part of it some with the richer and more profitable part of it It is an hard thing for Christians to keep Vineyards and not drink some of that intoxicating Wine which is the fruit of them When Samuel gave up his account as a Judge in 1 Sam. 12. 3. Behold saith he here I am witness against me before the Lord whose Ox have I taken or whose Ass have I taken or whom have I defrauded whom have I oppressed or of whose hand have I received any bribe Paul in like manner thus acquitteth himself to the Church of Ephesus Acts 20. 33. I have coveted no Mans Silver or Gold or Apparel But shew me the Man or Woman that hath been much incumbred with worldly affairs and can say I have coveted no Mans House or Land or Silver or Gold or that can say To whom have I told a lie for my gain or said it hath cost me so much when indeed it did not Or whom have I done injustice to in a bargain Commonly the best of the Market which such Christians have is that of Zacheus Luke 19. If I have taken any thing from any man by unjust dealings I restore him fourfold 5. Lastly A too great incumbrance with the world leaves a blot upon Christians in the common repute of the world if they escape real blots from it Holy Men in the Greek are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is men who are not Earthly and the world expects it of such as profess to Religion and Godliness that they should be persons looking for better Houses then those made of Clay even an House in the Heavens not made with hands and for a better Country and a more induring substance Hence a too great pursuit of the world becometh a greater blot to Persons professing to an heavenly conversation then unto others Our conversation is in Heaven saith the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our trading and business is in Heaven I shall only add two or three words for application of this discourse This in the first place giveth us all an opportunity to bewail the disadvantage we have all received from the fall of Adam It was a curse which upon the fall fell upon all the Posterity of Adam Gen. 3. 19. In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat thy Bread till thou return to the ground I do not think that if man had continued in innocency he should have lived idly but Mercers opinion is very probable his labour should rather have been for delight then for necessity or rather his labour should not have been so great as now it is the Thorns and Thistles which the ground now naturally brings forth and in the prevention and extirpation of which the labour of the Husbandman is so much were clearly the effect of the curse upon the Earth Gen. 3. 18. a lively-hood for the Sons of Men had doubtless been got at a cheaper rate with lesser labour and man had been at a great deal more liberty and leisure for a communion with God and have had more time for his immortal Soul then his worldly occasions will now permit or allow This may be a profitable meditation for the poorer sort of Christians whom the need of Bread for themselves and the want of a just provision for their Families restrain from spending so much time in communion with God as they would to sit down and think of the woful effect and fruit of the sin of Adam that first sin of man which reduced the Sons and Daughters of men to these miserable necessities Secondly Observe from hence what an advantage those have whom the liberal hand of Divine Providence hath delivered from such a miserable servitude to secular affairs If they will make themselves slaves and drudges to the World they may but the Providence of God hath not put them upon any necessity so to do God hath given them Estates to live upon Servants to toil for them I will but offer two things to the consideration of these 1. How inexcusable will you be if you do not keep your own Vineyards well Your own Vineyards are your Souls those immortal Substances ordained to an Eternity ennobled with Reason and many gifts and faculties by which if you will you may bring forth much fruit to the honour and glory of God if now you be not found mighty in the Scriptures much in reading hearing prayer close in your walking with God c. You cannot plead that you want leisure A morning and evening Service God under the Law required and in the same proportion doubtless under the Gospel though not by way of Sacrifice properly so called I observe of David and Daniel that they prayed thrice in a day Psal 55. 17. Evening and morning and at noon will I pray and cry aloud saith David Of Daniel we read Dan. 6. 10. that he kneeled three times a day and prayed and gave thanks unto God as he did before-time They were both great men and at more leisure than ordinary Jews they considered this and as God had doubled their portions so they thought it reasonable in some measure to proportion their duties to their circumstances 2. Secondly Consider how little you will have to say if you so far intangle your selves in the world as it becometh a snare to your Souls Who pitieth him that is burned who for meer wantonness puts his finger in the fire Hath God given us food and rayment Jacob begged no more The Apostle commandeth us if we have so
much to be therewith content It is an excellent Exhortation which the Apostle hath given and those are especially capable to receive to whom God hath given a plenty in this world Heb 13. 4. Let your conversation be without covetousness and be content with those things which you have for God hath said I will never leave nor forsake you Let this caution us all in the last place to take heed how we keep Vineyards how we make our selves drudges and slaves to secular imployments Take heed of such a Service to the world as is inconsistent with that duty and service which you owe unto God You cannot serve two Masters you cannot serve God and Mammon Suffer me to allude to that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 5. 9 10. I wrote saith he to you an Epistle not to keep company with Fornicators yet not altogether with the Fornicaters of this world or with the Covetous or the Extortioners or the Idolaters for then you must go out of the world But now I have wrote to you not to keep company if any Brother c. I do but allude to the Text. Brethren I have this day been speaking to you to have a care of medling with the world because it wasts your time spends your spirits distracts your thoughts allureth and inticeth you to the too much love of it because it will be a blot upon your Profession yet I would not be understood as if I had been persuading you to the lives of lazy Monks and Nuns and Hermites if you will have nothing to do with the world you must not live in it God hath commanded us in the sweat of our face to eat our bread The Apostle bids that those who would not labour should not eat and hath told us that he would have us to labour with our hands that we might have something to give to those that want and hath told us that he who provideth not for his family is worse than an Infidel and hath denied the Faith Only take heed how you converse with it that you be not by it defiled that it takes not up too much of your time nor wasts too much of your spirits and strength that it leadeth you not into temptation distracteth not your hearts in holy duties Keep thy foot when thou goest into the House of God look to your thoughts and affections when you draw nigh unto God in holy services and duties use the world so as thou mayest have time for Religious duties in thy family and mayest not by thy worldly concerns be distracted in them I would speak to you in this case as Paul doth in the case of servitude to men and of Marriage Are you by the Providence of God loosed from the world seek not to be bound to it Do your necessities call and for the present bind you to it Till God by favourable Providence loosen you from it do not loosen your selves by idleness and laziness It is possible thou mayest be God's free-man while thy necessities bind thee to worldly business I confess thou hast an hard task but saith the Apostle Let every man in the Calling wherein and whereto he is called abide therein with God Mark that last term not without God not in a neglect of his duty to God but with God Labour to have manum in clavo oculos in coelo to be in thy heart thoughts and affections with God whiles thou art imployed in thy lower business and concerns in this life Sermon XL. Canticles 1. 6. But my own Vineyard I have not kept THe Spouse by which I understand the Church of Christ and every particular believing Soul that is a true member of it is yet apologizing for her blackness or appearing blackness from the causes of it three of which she hath already assigned 1. Her afflictions or persecutions The Sun hath looked upon me 2. Her opposition from false Brethren My Mothers Children were angry with me 3. Her submission to Idolatrous or Superstitious Rites Or her too great intanglements in secular affairs They made me saith she the keeper of their Vineyards She comes now to a fourth Her own too much neligence My own Vineyard I have not kept 1. The Spouse had hitherto not much charged her self she had charged her blackness upon her afflictions and Persecutions upon the opposition she had met with from false Brethren and upon her intanglement in Secular affairs but was there no fault in her self here now she comes to lay much of the blame upon her self My own Vineyard faith she I have not kept Gods dispensations of Providence to me saith she have been some cause of my blackness The opposition I have met with from false Brethren have yet been a greater cause but the truth is saith she notwithstanding both these had not the fault been my own I had not been so black I might have kept my Vineyard better then I have done The truely gracious and humble Soul will not as to its failings excuse it self wholly It may charge something upon forreign causes out of its self either from God or Satan or men but will not discharge its own naughty and corrupt heart The hypocrite chargeth God and the Devil and men highly but seldom chargeth himself or if at all very faintly The reason lyeth in the pride of his heart which will not suffer it to stoop so low as to give God glory or to take any shame to its self 2. Secondly Observe what words they are which these words immediately follow They made me the keeper of the Vineyards but my own Vineyard I have not kept The Soul that is too much abroad is ordinarily too little at home he or she that must have an Oar in every ones Boat seldom hath his own Boat well governed Such a Soul is like the gadding housewife whose own house rarely is well lookt after This happeneth especially when the Soul is much abroad about secular concerns the Soul though it be of a Spiritual nature yet is very capable of being laden with and mired in thick Clay No Soul is so careless of things of an Eternal concern as those Souls which are most careful and sollicitous about things transitory and perishing There is a kind of inconsistency betwixt the business of the world and the business of Heaven the prefent world and that which is to come Nor is any Church so neglective of the Vineyard with which God hath betrusted it as that Church that hath bowed down to impositions of false worship But I shall not largely discourse either of these points though there be a good foundation in the text for it There are vet two other 3. Thirdly It is the Spouse that here complaineth saying My own Vineyard I have not kept Hence observe Even Gods own People are to ready to neglect the Vineyard with which God hath betrusted them 4. Fourthly In that she assigneth this as one and that no small cause of her blackness observe Prop. The
Souls beautiful by prescription of good works not flowing from a true faith in Jesus Christ indeed the truely beautiful Soul will maintain good works for necessary uses and not be seen in any part of the world or in any station in it but clothed with them the Kings Daughter though all glorious within yet must have her garments also smell of Myrrh Aloes and Cassia but these are not her onely beauty in the Eyes of her beloved she still cries out O Lord my righteousness is all as a menstruous cloth as an unclean thing I am altogether in my self as a filthy and unclean thing 4. The beauty of the Child of God is not onely Adherent but also Inherent Justification is his beauty this I call adherent he is in a state of favour with God hath a right to be called his Child Regener at ion is his inherent beauty and makes not onely a change in his state but in his nature and temper Justification maketh an alteration in the Souls state and relation to God before that it was an enemy now a Child it cannot be properly said to be any thing inherent in us rather adherent to us without it the Soul cannot be comely in the Eyes of Christ those who in Johns vision were seen clothed in white were such as were washed in the blood of the lamb Let the Vertues of mens Souls be never so eminent their actions never so splendid yet while they are not justified they cannot be fair in the Eyes of Christ who judgeth not according to the outward appearance but according to the heart But yet this is not all the Spouse's beauty In the same moment wherein by justifying the sinner God maketh a change in his state he also maketh a change in his heart this cannot be alone neither is it causative of the other Those are wonderfully vain that charge us with asserting that God can be pleased with an unholy Soul or that any such Soul is fair and lovely in the Eyes of that God who is of purer Eyes then that he can behold any iniquity This is what Protestants do affirm That God reckoneth the righteousness or comeliness of Christ unto to the Soul and so makes us comely and in the same moment gives his Spirit to it to renew sanctifie it and dwell in it that both these make up the Spiritual beauty comeliness but God doth not accept our Persons upon the latter but upon the former account yet we say This conformity of the heart to the will of God wrought by regeneration is a great part of the Souls comliness Thou hast saith Christ ravished my heart my Sister my Spouse thou hast ravished mine heart with one of the Chains about thy neck Cant. 4. 9. This we also further say That although this inherent beauty be not that for which Christ accepteth the Person of a Child of God yet God is well pleased with it and it doth much increase Gods manifestative love towards a Person John 14. 21. 5. Fifthly The beauty of the Child of God is a desirable beauty desirable to God Indeed all beauty is desirable this is to God desirable You must understand it safely All desire in the creature speaketh some want and indigences in God it only speaks complacence Psal 45. 4. So shall the King desire thy beauty the meaning is no more then be well pleased with thy Beauty God is well pleased with their Souls and his will moveth toward them and the enjoyment of them not to fill up any vacuity or emptiness in himself but to fill up their emptinesses with the sulness of himself who filleth all in all Thus the Schoolmen say truly That though the creature works and moves to supply his own indigence yet God never moveth nor worketh but to communicate his own perfection and fulness 6. The beauty of the Child of God is a never fading beauty Corporeal beauty is vain age sickness contagious diseases many accidents either greatly abate or destroy this This Spiritual beauty though it may abate yet shall never sail It is one of Gods gifts to the Soul which are without repentance It is caused from the seed of God which abideth in the Soul The appearance of it to the world may abate but its beauty cannot wholly fail and perish It is as the air of the Soul resulting from its state of Justification which altereth not and from the infused habits of Regeneration which cannot dye 7. Lastly It is not apersect beauty The adherent beauty of Gods People is perfect the Soul that is justifyed from the guilt of one sin is justifyed from the guilt of all sins God never forgives in part if we understand by forgiving remitting the obligation sin layeth us under to Eternal death But the inherent beauty of the Children of God is imperfect we know in part and love in part sincerity is all we can glory in all our perfection as to that The habits of grace infused in Regeneration are capable of increase and augmentation nor will any be perfect in them till he comes to dye No nor then neither for though the actings of some grace proportioned to our indigent mortal state will then cease and so in that sense may be said to be perfected yet Love and delight in God habits of Grace which we shall carry with us into and exercise in another world shall be made perfect there But in the exercises of our habits of grace the best of Gods People are much more imperfect laying many a black parch upon a fair face which the pure God seeth and can distinguish from Beauty spots Though for them he will not cast his people off Thus far I have shewed you the nature of the Spouses beauty I shall now shew you whence it is that such a Soul in the Eyes of Christ is the fairest amongst Women This will appear but reasonable if we consider That their beauty is Christs workmanship I told you before that it is not an artificial beauty nor natural but created and superinduced upon the Soul The holy Scripture calls man Gods Generation Acts 17. 29. and borroweth the expression from an Heathen Poet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they saw that by the light of Nature The Apostle tells us Eph. 2. 10. That we are Gods workmanship created to good works which God had before ordained that we should walk in them God had ordained it Christ wrought it Whatsoever of good a Child of God hath in him it is all from God he is begotten of God John 1. 13. We are created by him to good works and he worketh in us to will and do Are we justified and is that any part of our beauty We are justifyed by his grace washed in his blood Except I wash you saith Christ you have no part in me It is natural to us all to account any thing best and fairest to which our selves have contributed any thing as a cause The Father and Mother value
their own Child above any others The man of art takes most delight in his own workmanship God can do nothing but what is truly and highly good and he cannot but be most pleased in his own work 2. Secondly The beauty of the Child of God is Christs beauty and lyeth in the Souls assimilation or being made like unto Christ Is he justifyed It is by the imputation of his righteousness Is he regenerated It is through his Spirit and by his regeneration the image of God and Christ is renewed in him in Knowledge righteousness and holiness the like mind is in him that was in Christ Likeness is the Mother of Love and all Love floweth from some likeness or conceived likeness in the object beloved Christ cannot but love that Soul that is made partaker of the Divine nature renewed according to his image made like unto himself The believer was predestinated to be conform to the Image of the Son by Faith Regeneration he is made conform renewed according to the image of God according to the Apostles phrase If Jacob knew his sons coat again and the sight of it was enough to set the Fathers bowels on yerning Christ will doubtless know his own robes and cannot but account that Soul most beautiful that is adorned with dressed in them This in the first place may serve to convince us of the truth of what John tells us 1. John 5. 19. That the whole world lyeth in wickedness For these Souls whom Christ judgeth and calleth the fairest amongst Women The most lovely and beautiful Souls are those who in the Eyes of the generality in the world are counted the most unlovely despicable and contemptible Persons in nature in so much that Godly men and women may take up the words of the Apostle 1 Cor. 4. 9. concerning himself and those of his own order 1 Cor. 4. 9. We think that God hath set as forth as it were appointed unto death for we are made a spectacle to the world to angels and to men We are fools for Christs sake profane leud men they are wise we are weak they are strong they are honourable we are despised the People of God in the present age in all former ages are they who hunger and thirst who are naked and buffeted and have no certain dwelling place yet they labour working with their hands being reviled they bless being persecuted they suffer it being defamed they intreat yet are they made as the filth of the world as the off-scouring of all Nations even to this day Thus it was under the Old Testament the prophet complained in his time Isa 59. 15. That truth failed and he who departed from evil made himself a prey but he addeth and the Lord saw it and it displeased him that there was no judgment It was so under the New Testament who was more despised and rejected of men then Christ Who was more reviled contemned abused both in words and deeds then John the Baptist Christ and his blessed Apostles and all the Primitive Christians Christ foretold his disciples that the world should hate them that they should speak of them all manner of Evil persecute them turn them out of their Synagogues c. It is so in our times if there be in any places Persons fearing God and working righteousness Persons that make a conscience of their waies that fear an Oath that durst not drink and swear and curse and blaspheme the living God as others do that make conscience of their worshipping God and are a little more strict and frequent in it then others are These are the Persons against whom the world spits all their venom against whom their hands are lifted up men may meet together to drink and revel to hear leud and profane Songs and Plays but not to pray not to consider and exhort one another to love and to good works what is this an Evidence of but that the world lyeth in wickedness Christ judgeth pious Souls the fairest Souls these are they sor whom he died Whom he calls his Sister his Spouse the fairest Souls in the creation these are those Souls whom the World sets up as marks to shoot all their invenomed arrows bitter words against to offer all affronts and indignities unto Shall not the Lord visit for these things Shall he not be avenged on such a generation Shall a gallant in the World draw his Sword upon the man that affronts his Paramour or Mistress a wanton Woman that he hath espoused or to whom his heart cleaveth and shall the Lord bear these affronts these injuries offered to Souls that are more precious in the Eyes of their Lord then all the world is beside Hear what the Lord said by his prophet as to that antient People of his Isa 43. 2 3. I am the Lord thy God the holy one of Israel thy Saviour I gave Egypt for thy ransom Ethiopia and Seba for thee Since thou wert pretious in my sight thou hast been honourable and I have loved thee therefore will I give men for thee and People for thy life Was this spoken for the Jews only think we or did this concern the profane part of the Jews or those only that feared the Lord walked in his commandments and worshiped him in Spirit and in truth That it was not to be understood with reference to or upon the account of the leud and profane part of the Jewish Nation is evident by Gods declared detestation of them by the same prophet and by others of his Prophets If it were spoken with reference to such as feared God and walked in his commandments and kept close to the rule of Worship which he had given them it holds good still to all Souls that fall under that Character They are precious in Gods fight honourable he hath loved them the holy one of Israel is their Saviour and the worlds hatred of them profane mens reviling contemning abusing them is but a continued Evidence that the world knoweth them not and speaketh evil of and doth evil to things and Persons they know not Or that it lieth in wickedness in a vile and wicked Error of judgment judging those vile and base whom God judgeth precious and honourable and those worthy of hatred whom he loveth though the Lord may for a time suffer his good righteous Servants to be thus reviled thus treated thus abused by leud and ungodly men for the trial of their faith and for the exercise of their patience and that some of the blood of his Saints may be poured into the cup of wicked mens sins that the cup of their iniquities may be full and they may fill up their measures of sinning That upon them may come all the righteous blood of his People which hath been shed yet be assured the Lord will not suffer it alwaies but awake as one out of sleep plead the cause of his People and give Egypt for their ransom and Ethiopia and Seba
believe nothing which the Scripture saith of Heaven or Hell and a World to come nothing of God or Christ nothing that I or any other can say will be enough God must persuade Japhet to come dwell in the tents of Sem. 3d Branch I shall shut up this discourse with two or three Words of Exhortation to such as this blessed Bridegroom dignifieth with this honourable compellation of the fairest amongst women 1. First let every such Soul be in some measure reconciled to itself There is a great difference betwixt Christs apprehension of many a pious Soul and its own apprehension of it self There is none so high in the Eyes of Christ none oft times so low in its own Eyes as the believing Soul is Paul calls himself the greatest of sinners and the least of Saints David calls himself a worm and no man Psal 22. Yea and I shall by and by shew you that low and mean apprehensions of our selves are a great part of our duty much of our beauty Yet there may be an extream in these apprehensions If these apprehensions hinder our faith in Christ our chearfull and comfortable walking before God our chearful looking up to God and calling him Father and coming with boldness to the throne of grace they are so far from a Christians duty that they are his sinful failings It is too ordinary amongst Christians to take so much shame to themselves that they know not how to give glory to God the glory of their being what they are to use Saint Pauls phrase Thou hast Christian many failings and infirmities thou seest much naughtiness and corruption in thine heart What then though thou beest not the fairest amongst the glorious Angels and glorified Saints Yet thou mayest be one of the fairest amongst women the glorified Saints have no spot in their garments no ill lineaments in their faces thou hast some but so have all that are on this side of the blessed mansions Thy spots may be no more then the spots of Gods Children and if they be not thou mayest be one of the fairest amongst women 2. Let every believing Soul learn hence to be humble That they are the fairest some of the fairest amongst Souls yet on this side Heaven this indeed is matter of glorying and rejoicing But then to consider that this is not their native complexion but an adventitious beauty that it is not an artificial but a created beauty This though it doth not take away all glorying all boasting from them yet it restâ—â—â—ineth them in their boasting and glorying to make their boast and to glory onely in the Lord if they look to the rock out of which they were hewed to the hole of the Pit from which they were digged they will find they derived not their beauty from thence they were in the quarry as unlovely rude stones as any others it is the Lord that hath hewed them out that hath polished them and of grace hath superinduced that beauty upon them wherein they glory and if they have received their beauty they have no reason to glory as if they had not received it I say he that considereth this and that now at the best he is not without spots his beauty is not perfect at least that part of his beauty which is inherent in him is not perfect this will shew a thinking Christian eternal cause to walk softly towards men and humbly as well as thankfully toward God Grace leaves no room for giveth no advantage unto pride hence though a believer most excelleth all other Souls yet he ordinarily least excelleth them in his own apprehensions 3. Let this engage every believer to high admiring thoughts of the Lord Jesus Christ Christ in this Text calls his Spouse the fairest amongst women you will find she requiteth him Chap. 5. 10. My beloved is white and ruddy the chiefest amongst ten thousand And certainly we have all the reason imaginable constraining us to this admiration of Christ we were by birth Ethiopians Our Father was a Syrian consider us in our selves as separate from Christs comeliness put upon us We are altogether black he is all glory all beauty altogether desires as the Spouse expresseth it Christ is to be admired of all them that believe we should never think of Christ but with admiring thoughts never solemnly discourse of him but in forms of admiration If Christ can see so much beauty in us who are poor creatures poor worms of the Earth who have no beauty but what he hath put upon us and into us certainly we must be very blind if we can see no beauty no loveliness nothing to be desired in him who is the bright Image of his Fathers glory and the express Image of his Person whom all the Angels adore and admire and in whom the Soul of the everlasting Father resteth and is well pleased and who is his great delight 4. Lastly Hath Christ stiled the believing Soul the fairest amongst women How do all such Souls stand concern'd to preserve their beauty Your beauty is your holiness the favour of God your acceptableness to him and his love towards you The state of Justification indeed cannot be lost the seed of God doth and shall abide in the Soul But yet your luster may be lost his manifestative love to you may be withdrawn your honour in the World may be lost You may walk like one covered besides the flocks of those who are the companions of Christ Is the vain woman so curiously careful to preserve her beauty that she will spare any time any mony for it will she avoid any thing that may be a stain in it How shall she rise up in Judgment against the loose careless and negligent Christian that doth not through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body that doth not wash himself continually in the tears of repentance and beg the daily imputation of Christs righteousness to cover his new appearing nakedness That in his converse with the World doth not set a strict watch over his heart at the doors of his lips upon all his converse with men left he should receive any impression from the dirty World in which he lives which may be a blot upon his beauty in the Eyes of an holy God or in the Eyes of holy men But I have spoken enough to this Proposition raised from the compellation O thou fairest amongst women Sermon XLV Cant. 1. 8. If thou knowest not O thou fairest amongst Women Go thy way forth by the footsteps of the Flock and feed thy Kids by the Shepherds Tents MY business in my last exercise was to shew you the nature of her beauty whom the blessed lover here calls the fairest amongst Women I shall at this time shew you a Spot in her beauty from the Supposition in the Text If thou knowest not It is true that Suppositions neither in holy Writ nor in our Idiom do not alwaies contain positions of undoubted truth Sometimes things that are impossible or
condescension beyond the grasp of our faith The greatness of it causeth in us a difficulty to believe it Who is a God like our God a Saviour a Redeemer an Husband like our Saviour our Redeemer our Spiritual Husband When they told David that he should have Michal the Daughter of Saul to Wife and persuaded him to it Seemeth it to you saith he a small thing to be a Son-in-law to a King If there be any of you not affected with this Love this transcendent Love give me leave to speak to you in the language of David Seemeth it to you a small thing to be the beloved the friends the companions of the Lord Jesus Christ Ah! That I could send you away this day admiring the divine Love that he should take the fellowship of our nature upon him that he should make us his fellow Citizens admit us to a fellowship with him both in grace here and in glory hereafter that he should be our Companion in tribulation our Companion in labour and follow Soldier But I leave this to be further improved by you in your more private meditations 2. Secondly This notion is of wonderful use to relieve and comfort the People of God under all their present afflictions or fears of greater The face of things as to Gods People hath been a long time gathering blackness and there is this day a great blackness Prisons in the Primitive times were more the habitations of Gods People then Palaces God grant we may not see them to be so again we have been so used to beds of Feathers Down that the thoughts of a bed of straw make us shrink so wedded to our own Country that a strange land appeareth to us a strange thing The Providence of God looketh as if it were preparing Prisons and Fetters and banishments for his People and the hearts of Gods People are every where as sad as the times What a wonderful comfort and relief to the People of God at such a time is it for them to hear the Lord Jesus Christ calling them his Companions His Companions in tribulation and to call himself their fellow Souldier and fellow Prisoner There are a great many arguments with which the suffering Servants of God may be relieved Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer said the Angel to the Church at Smyrna Behold the Devil shall cast some of you into Prison that you may be tryed and you shall have tribulation that you might be tryed and you shall have tribulation for ten days Rev. 2. 10. There are several arguments 1. It is the Devil that cast Saints into Prison He doth it by men as his instruments but he filleth them with their rage and malice 2. It is that they may be tryed God permits it the Devil could have no power against a believer more then against Christ if God did not permit it The Devil and his instruments design is to ruin and to destroy them Gods end is to try them 3. It shall be but a tribulation for ten days a short time The rod of the wicked shall not always rest upon the lot of the righteous Well but how shall they hold out these ten days See Isaiah 43. 1 2. Thus saith the Lord that created thee O Jacob and he that formed thee O Israel Fear not for I have Redeemed thee I have called thee by thy name thou art mine When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee When thou walkest through the fires thou shalt not be burnt neither shall the flame kindle upon thee In the ten days of tribulation the Child of God shall not be alone he that Redeemed them will be with them This was made good to the three Children in the fiery fornace in Babylon Dan. 3. 24. Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire saith Nebuchadnezzar lo I see four men loose walking in the middest of the fire and they have no hurt and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God He was with Daniel Daniel 9. 22. With Paul and Silâ—s Acts. 16. They could never else have sang in the Prison at midnight Let the People of God lift up their heads as Moses seeing him who is invisible Only take the caution of Peter 1. Pet 4. Let none of you suffer as a Murderer or as a Thief or as an Evil doer or as a busy body in other mens matters But if any man suffer as a Christian let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God one this behalf Let men look that they suffer for righteousness sake that is to avoid sinning against God all such suffering is for righteousness sake then they shall never be alone Saul Saul why saith Christ persecutest thou me calling out of Heaven to Paul when he was in his full carreer of persecution of the Church No man can expect that Christ should be a companion to him in his tribulation while he suffereth meetly for his stomach or out of humour much less if he suffereth for doing that which is plainly sinful and which he ought not to have done but if he suffereth to avoid sin against God to keep himself unspotted from the World as he is made a partaker of Christs sufferings so Christ will be a partaker of his sufferings his Companion in suffering and whensoever Christs glory shall be revealed he shall be glad with exceeding joy It is a marvelous sweet notion to suffering Christians to hear that Jesus Christ is and will be their Companion in sufferings fear not therefore Christians in despight of evil men and evil times to keep a good Conscience but Jam. 1. 2. Count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations A good Conscience was yet never in Prison alone Nor will this be strange to us if we consider that even death it self though it makes Soul and Body part Company yet it doth not make Christ and a believer part Company Our Bodies shall be raised from the Grave by the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us Rom. 8. 11. There are two great arguments amongst others to comfort the People of God in all their noons of Afflictions 1. That even then they are Christs fellows They then are in the fellowship of his death Phil. 4. 10 11. They suffer with him Rom. 8. 17. They are made conformable to his death Christ is magnified in their body They make up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ 2. That Christ will then be their fellow it is to the Spouse at Noon that he saith here O My Love My Fellow c. When the World is spitting their Venom shewing their utmost Malice and hatred even then Christ is calling to them and saying My Love When the World is casting them out as Pestilent fellows then is Christ saying unto them My Companions Then will he be with them and manifest himself as a friendly Companion to them In
may not want it and it would be to her of no profitable use only it may be serve for Pride or ostentation but no tender husband with-holds from his Wife what he knoweth her to need But the Child of God never hath so much faith but he seeth cause to cry out Lord help my unbelief he is in daily want of Spiritual strength complaining of weakness and impotency so as supplies of grace are a daily good to gracious Souls and Christ can withhold no such thing from them Desire doth yet more engage the love of a correlate and the more passionate and vehement the desire of the beloved is the more he that loves moveth towards her Satisfaction The Philosopher saith to Love is to will that which is good to another though indeed love rather lyeth in a complacency which one taketh in another of which the willing of good is but a first fruit and an effect good he tells us is that which all desire The nature of good lyes in a Sutableness and conveniency to our needs for the supply of some vacuity or emptiness in us all the effluxes and emanations of divine grace are such suted to some great wants of our Souls and not only so but also to the desires of every gracious man and Woman who is continually crying give give and God cannot be wanting either to supply the necessities or to answer the cravings and importunities of his Peoples Souls He hears the desire of the humble Psal 10. 17. And giveth them their hearts desire Psal 21. 3. Lastly The interest of Gods own honour and glory is concerned in his giving of more grace The loving husband buyeth his Wife Chains and Jewels And fine Clothes and when she hath a good stock he is yet adding to the stock his love to her his desire to Satisfy her desires so far as he is able in all things convenient are the great grounds but yet he hath also some Eye to his own honour and Reputation by it he is taken notice of in the World as one that is able to do such things and also as one to whom his Wife is very dear this blessed Lover first aimeth at his own honour Hereby faith Christ is your Father glorified if you bring forth fruit much fruit of holiness requireth much of the seed of God much grace as the Principle productive of it for without his influence the Soul can do nothing Further grace is necessary to uphold and maintain what grace he hath already bestowed It is also necessary to the production of that much fruit by which God is glorified by his People in the World Grace in its true exercise is a lovely thing in the sight of the World Men that hate the practice of grace in themselves yet love it in another Hence the Apostle 1 Pet. 2. 12. commandeth Christians to have their conversation honest amongst the Gentiles that whereas they speak against them as evil doers they may by their good works which they shall behold glorifie God in the day of their visitation The Children of God are like Stars which shine from a borrowed light God hath all the honour of their well doing The man that walketh piously devoutly humbly in his conversation towards God and in the exercise of justice and righteousness humility and meekness mercy and charity and bounty towards men that is moderate and sober in the use of prosperity and patient in the time of adversity doth by this conversation commend himself to all that part of the World that hath yet any remainder of reason left whose passions have not out-lawed their reason and transformed them into Beasts And look as when the Wife is excellently attired it draweth the Eyes of all after her sets them upon enquiry whose Wife she is the honour redoundeth to the Husband out of whose Purse her Ornaments are known to come So when men see Christians abounding in the fear of the Lord in faith love in meekness sobriety liberality to the Poor love to their Enemies a doing good to all the honour doth not only redound to them but the Name of Christ for their sake is also well spoken of the grace of God in them is commended and magnified I come now to the Application In the first place I cannot but observe from this Text how Christ condesâ—endeth to our weakness that he might make himself and his grace desirable to us Why doth not our Lord speak plainly I will give them more grace I will communicate more of my self unto them He doth so in some other Texts here he clotheth his discourse with metaphors and compareth his grace to things which we much desire and which are very lovely and admirable in our Eyes This is observable there is hardly any thing which while we live in the World is either necessary for our use or delightful to our senses which our fleshly appetite longs for to which Christ some where or other hath not compared himself and the influences of his grace Is Bread necessary I am saith he the bread of life John 6. Is water necessary He compares himself to living water John 4. Yea to a fountain of living water Is meat and drink necessary My flesh saith he is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed Is clothing necessary and fine and rich clothing desirable Come saith he buy of me white rayment that thou mayest be clothed that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear Rev. 3. 18. Is Linnen necessary And fine Linnen desirable Rev. 21. 8. To the bride the Lambs Wife is granted that she should be arayed in fine Linnen clean and white Is Physick sometimes wanting to us The whole saith he speaking of himself need not the Physitian but the sick Is salve necessary sometimes to us I counsel thee saith he Rev. 3. 18. To Anoint thee with Eye-salve Is rest and ease desirable Come saith he to me all you that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest Is Gold and Silver are rows of Silver and Chains of Gold borders of Gold and studs or spots of Silver desirable I Counsel thee saith he to buy of me Gold tryed in the fire that thou mayest be rich and here in my Text thy Cheeks saith he are comely between the rows of Jewels Thy neck with Chains of Gold we will make for thee borders of Gold and studs of Silver Ez. 16. 10 11 12. I clothed thee with bâ—oidered work and shod thee with badgers Skins and I girded thee about with fine Linnen and covered thee with Silk I also decked thee with Ornaments and I put Bracelets upon thy hands and Ear-rings in thine Ears and a beautiful crown upon thine head What is the meaning of all this but I bestowed my love my grace upon thee How doth our blessed Lord humble himself to make himself his favour and grace the object of the most vain and airy Souls desire Observe Secondly that Christs graces are
Servants v. 10. They hated him that rebuk d in the gate and abhorred him that spake sprightly v. 12. They afflicted the just They took Bribes and turned aside the poor in the gate from their right These are they of whom God saith I will not smell in your Solemn assemblies To the same purpose God speaks Jer. 6. 20. To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba and the sweet Cane from a far Country Your burnt offerings are not acceptable nor your Sacrifices sweet unto me And Isaiah 2. 11 12 13 14. Look as it is with some very strong natural ill savours they do not only themselves offend our nostrils but they so infect the whole air which should bring the sweeter savour of some other things which we have about us to our nostrils that nothing smells sweet we smell nothing but the Castoreum or other stinking thing so it is with rampant lusts and corruptions with notorious Scandalous sins whether the acts of impiety towards God such are Idolatry c. Or acts of injustice and uncharitableness towards men they send forth such a strong and ill savour in the nostrils of God that the Lord can smell a sweet savour of nothing they do that live in such sins he will not smell in their Solemn assemblies their Sacrifice are abomination to God God cannot away with the calling of their assemblies Ah how many are there whose smells are of this nature 2. Neither are these smells only offensive to God but to the Church of God The Protestant Religion may speak to these Simeons and Levies You have troubled us you have made me to stink amongst Papists and Atheists and God grant that these spots in the assemblies of Protestants in our time cause not the latter part of Jacobs Words to be verifyed upon us That our Enemies gather not together against us and slay us and we be destroyed 2. We may learn from hence That a true Child of God need not set a Trumpet to his own mouth to blazon and proclaim his vertues The Wise man saith Let anothers mouth praise thee and not thy own The Child of God needs not that his own mouth should praise him His Spikenard will send forth the smell thereof and that is alwaies a pleasant smell Good Wine needeth no Bush we say We have a saying That Virgins should be seen and not heard God's Virgins should be so they should be seen acting and exercising their gracious habits not heard admiring themselves for them It is the Pedler that goeth about the Country proclaiming his Pins Points and Laces The rich Merchant though better furnished leaves himself to the report that others shall give of his Warehouse The naughty woman praedicates her own vertues whiles the woman that is truly vertuous trusts her reputation to those who see and observe her to speak of her as they find her You need not write upon a Box of Spikenard This is Spikenard the smell will tell you what it is From what you have heard you may observe That every one is not to be condemned whose Spikenard sends not forth so strong a smell as anothers There is no Child of God but hath his Spikenard his Box of Spikenard his measure of grace but every one hath not the same measure The least of the Believer's Spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof But I have shewed you before that in the People of God there are differences in degrees of grace None can lay claim to the name of a Believer or a Child of God but he must have some faith some love some gracious habits and must bring forth some fruits of holiness proportionable to his measure of grace One Christian hath not the like measures of grace as another nor the like influence of heat from the Sun of Righteousness to elicit the smell of those good habits But of the necessity of that I shall speak more under the next Proposition If a Christian's Soul be kept from scandalous and presumptuous sins if he liveth up to those measures of knowledge and light which God hath given him if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as we say in the generality of his conversation he walks close with God though in some things his foot slippeth a Christian is not to be condemned if his Spikenard sends forth the smell thereof though larger quantities in others and under more incouraging and glistering circumstances send forth a greater and stronger smell 4. A Christian may hence take some comfort who doth not see his own grace It is the case of many a good Christian yea almost of every good Christian at one time or another he cannot see his own Faith or Love or it may be any other habit of grace with which the Lord hath blessed him Others possibly can see much good much of God in him he can see nothing in himself This often perplexeth a Christian who thinks that he should know himself best But the judgment of others is not alwaies to be despised as no foundation of comfort Grace casts its smell and there may be a time when a Christian's grace and Spiritual life may be more discernable to others than to himself Nay there are several such times times of natural disturbances from Melancholy times of Divine Desertion times of great Temptation In all such times others are better Judges of the People of God's grace and sincerity than themselves are these things cast a mist before their Eyes 5. I shall conclude this Discourse with a word of Exhortation To do what in us lies that our Spikenard may send forth the smell thereof It amounteth to that of our Saviour Let your Light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in Heaven I shall press it with two Arguments 1. It is no Spikenard that sendeth forth no smell no pleasant smell James tells us that Faith without works is dead that is it is no true Faith John calleth pretended love to God without love to the Brethren no love Tantum es quantum agis a man is so much and no more a Christian than he acts and liveth like a Christian 2. There is nothing so scandalous in the World so dishonourable to God so dangerous and infignificant to our selves as the name of Saints without the smell of Saints The World expects that things and persons should in some measure answer their names hence it is that the falls and slips of Christians make a greater noise and give a greater offence to the World than the grosser actions of persons who make no pretences to Religion and Godliness For Branches in Christ which bring forth no fruit Christ tells us the Husbandman his Father will cut them off These are they who bring up an evil report upon the waies of God and make them to be abhorred Nor can an empty name be of any significancy to our selves I shall shut up this Discourse with a few Directions 1.
incision into the tree 2. They set something to receive it The incision is made already The Souldiers made that when they pierced thy Saviours side There is nothing left for thee to do but to open thy heart to receive those influences of grace which freely drop from a crucified Christ yea God must do that too The truth is thou hast nothing to do more then to go up to the mountain of Myrrh to wait upon God in his Ordinances to sit under Gospel dispensations and to look up to Heaven for further grace Only remember the full Soul loaths the Hony-Comb the full dish receives not the most precious liquor and while thy Soul is full of the love of the World and love of lusts it receives no Myrrh while it is full of the love of pleasures wantonness froth and idleness it is like the riven dish that holds nothing But to come to a conclusion Is Christ to the Believers as a bundle of Myrrh Then hear me O you Children of the most high I will urge but two things upon you as an improvement of this Notion 1. Vse him as a bundle of Myrrh I will press this in three things 1. Be often taking the savour of him The woman that hath a rare smelling flower or perfume wears it in her bosom she suffers not the first to dye in her Garden nor the latter to evaporate in her cabinet but she is often smelling of it Oh that the Children of God would make as much use of Christ that they would not let his sweetness in a Gospel ordinance evaporate into the Air nor the sweetness of his mediatory actions revealed in the Gospel die in sheets of Paper but that they would study the Scriptures meditate on the Word think over Gospel Sermons when they have heard them Oh that they would wear the remembrance of Christs actions upon their hearts every day how sweet would it be to their Souls How pleasant to their thoughts the lazy student loseth the sweetness of those thousand notions that are in his Books because he never reads his Books nor spends time in studying them The negligent Christian loseth much of that infinite sweetness that his Soul might have by reflecting upon the Gospel story and Gospel truths for want of meditating upon them 2. Be exceeding careful to preserve the influences of Christ upon your Souls and your experiences of his love Shall the woman bind up her sweet flowers in a posy and the Lady carefully tye up her perfumes in bags and glasses that they might not lose their scent and she the sweetness of them And shall a Christian possessed of the sweet influences of grace possessed of the presence of Jesus Christ do nothing to preserve it Say with the Spouse here he shall lodge all night betwixt my breasts do as the Spouse Cant. 3. When she had found him whom her Soul loved she held him she would not let him go till she had carried him to her Mothers house to the house of her that conceived her Bind up your experiences of the Love of Christ in so many bundles and do what in you lyes to preserve his influences in the Vigour of them would you know how you might preserve them There is no better way then for you to keep up in your Souls an high value and esteem of them it is ordinarily for want of love that the Beloved withdraws himself 3. You are communicative of your sweet perfumes The Lady cannot wear her strong perfumes but others whom she cometh near will partake of her sweetness It is of the Nature of the perfume to season the whole Air. She will hardly have a perfume bat out of a desire to have it taken notice of she will be holding it to the Nostrils of others Oh that you who are possessed of the Lord Jesus Christ this bundle of Myrrh would be as communicative of that also That you would be commending Christ as the Woman of Samaria did John 4. to your Neighbours Kindred Children Friends Acquaintance that they also might follow after him in the savour of his precious ointments This is a piece of Christians duty When thou art converted saith our Saviour to Peter strengthen thy Brethren Thus to do good and to distribute forget not for with such service God is well pleased But to come to a conclusion 2. Is Christ to the believers a bundle of Myrrh Let not them be as bundles of Nettles to him The Bundle of Myrrh gives a pleasant smell cheereth the senses The bundle of Nettles Pricketh and offendeth and grieveth the Nostrils It is the Apostles exhortation Eph. 4. 30. Grieve not the holy Spirit by which you are sealed to the day of redemption The Exhortation is to holiness of Conversation The Argument is from the love of Christ to you The love of God constraineth saith the Apostle There are many arguments to press holiness from none so ingenuous none so constraining to an ingenuous Soul as the sweetness of Jesus Christ to it It breaks the heart of an ingenuous Child to remember its frowardness to an indulgent Father and a tender Mother Love worketh much upon a good Nature Study this Argument and the force of it upon your Souls to make you perfect holiness in the Lords fear Sermon LV. Cant. 1. 13. He shall lye all night betwixt my Breasts I Have united the bundle of Myrrh in my Text that I might give you the fuller smell thereof Christ is the Posie of his Saints we must now find him a convenient place the Text assigns him a Posies place about or betwixt the breasts not upon her shoulders as if he were her burthen nor behind her back where she could not view him but in her breast where she may be alwaies pleasing her senses with him The Psalmist Psal 16. 8. says I have set the Lord alwaies before me he is at my right hand therefore I shall not be moved De Ponte notes that the believing Soul in the time of spiritual Combate setteth Christ at her right hand but in the time of Peace she lodgeth him betwixt her breasts It was an old usage saith Atheneus to anoint the breast with Myrrh because of its vertue to strengthen the heart here our Spouse placeth her bundle of Myrrh Not to trouble you with the strained fancies of Interpreters concerning the Spouse's breasts In mammis signum amoris the place betwixt the breasts is near to the heart and the seat of the beloved Object it is the beloved Husband and the Beloved Babe that is allowed to lodge betwixt the breasts She might have said he shall lodge near my heart but she rather chuseth to say betwixt my breasts which are an outward part nigh to the heart intimating that she would not only bear Christ upon her heart but express her love by living to Christ in her outward conversation But not to overstrain the Metaphor she doth not say he shall come but he shall lodge or lodge all
give to the Poor and if I have taken anything from any by false accusation I restore him fourfold Will he have Peter gird himself and come to him upon the waters Peter will do it immediately Doth he call Simon and Andrew from their Nets to follow him upon a promise that they shall be made Fishers of men and doth he by and by require James and Zebedee to do the like they immediately leave their Father forsake their Nets and follow him Mark 1. 16 17 18. 2. The phrase signifies as much as I will entertain him with the highest Evidences of most cordial Affection I have more than once noted that the heart lies under the left breast however the breasts are the place of love It were endless to enlarge upon those several Scriptures expressing the satisfaction of gracious Souls upon the presence of Christ with them or his returns of presence to them One or two of them shall suffice The first shall be that of David Psal 146. You will discern upon the reading of that Psalm that God had returned to his Soul in Influences of mercy testifying his gracious presence he had heard his supplication v. 1. Inclined his Ear unto him v. 2. helped him v. 6. Mark with what a satisfaction his Soul receiveth these Influences v. 2. I will call upon him as long as I live v. 7. Return unto thy rest O my Soul v. 12. What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits I will take the cup of Salvation c. v. 16. Oh Lord truly I am thy Servant I am thy Servant and the Son of thy handmaid c. How welcome is the presence of God to Davids Soul Do you use to say to your friend Sir what shall I provide for you I think my self much beholden to you I am much your Servant for this kindness rejoiced to see you c. Observe if David here speaketh not much the same language The other instance shall be that of the Spouse Cant. 3. 4. when she had recovered her beloved I found him whom my Soul Loveth I held him and would not let him go untill I had brought him into my Mothers house and into the Chamber of her that canceived me The Child knoweth not how to express its love to its friend better then by bringing him or her home to its Mothers or Fathers house What need any further evidence then that exuberance of joy which is found in every gracious Soul upon any return of divine love which may evidence Christa abiding with it 3. Vehement passions will also discover a gracious Souls desires to the Enjoyment of Christ and his abidings with the Soul When they saw our Saviour weep over Lazarus his grave Joh. 11. They cry out How he loved him He that seeth a Friend mourn when his Friend is gone from him or perhaps but going the woman jealous of any whom she but suspects would draw away her husband from her falling into fits of passion whes he doth but fear such a thing will easily conclude that this friend this Wife is eagerly desirous of the presence and abiding of his friend or her husband with her and Secondly he that observes the jealousy of a gracious Soul over the Lord its Saviour and of every sin of Omission or Commission which it suspecteth as that which may probably separate betwixt his Soul and it He that observeth what slavish fear the Christian yet living in the enjoyments of God is often tormented with left he should lose his beloved presence oâ— takes notice of his weepings even till he can weep no more when he lies but under a perhaps false apprehension that he hath withdrawen himself in displeasure how his Eye oft-times consometh with grief how he makes his bed to swim and wateroth his Couch with tears must needs conclude that the abidings of Christ with the Soul are great objects of its desire And no wonder though they be so as we shall see by enquiring upon the third question Qu. 3. Whence it is that a gracious Soul is so desirous of Christ's lodgings and abidings with it To make a thing the object of a reasonable Soul's desire it is required That the understanding conceive it under the Notion of good and some good which it wanteth and may possibly obtain and according to the degree of goodness apprehended in an object proposed so is the motion of a reasonable Soul's desire more or less towards it Now that which appears to us as good appears so 1. Under the notion of profitable and advantageous Or 2. Under the notion of sweet and pleasant or under the notion of vertaous and honourable It is almost impossible to conceive but that the spiritually enlightened Soul should apprehend the abidings of Christ with it transcendently good upon all these accounts 1. Under the notion of Vertuous and Honourable What greater honour can betide a poor creature than to have the Almighty pitch his Tents in and with it for the Lord of Heaven and Earth to make his abode with a Worm the Eternal Son of God to dwell with Dust and Ashes yea and delight to dwell and continue with it Such honour have all the Saints and no wonder if they be so fond of it Doth Abigail think it an honour to be but a Servant to an Earthly David and Mephibosheth judge it an honour to be admitted to eat Bread at his Table What is it then to have the Son of God in the Arms of our Souls and to have him dwell in our hearts and make his abode there 2. Nor certainly can any thing be more sweet to a gracious Soul The joy and peace that peace which passeth all understanding which is the issue of believing ebbs and flows according to the abidings of Christ with the Soul His presence makes an Heaven and his absence makes an Hell there There are two Passions which are like overflowing Floods and drown a Soul's beauty and comfort Fear and Grief the presence of Christ with the Soul keeps them both under The Soul of the Saint cannot fear when it knows that it is He that saveth it and upholdeth it with the hand of his Righteousness and the Children of the Bride-Chamber himself told us cannot mourn while the Bridegroom is with them 3. For the advantage which accrews to the Soul by the abidings of christ with it besides that already mentioned in the quiet and holy security which it hath by his company which is infinitely above the value of all other concernments I say besides that the advantage is exceeding great I will mention but two things 1. Its enemies are still when the Captain of our Salvation is in our quarters there 's no great fear that the enemy will beat them up The tempter hath nothing to say whiles he that succours the tempted is speaking peace to the Soul God must first say to the Devil behold this Soul is in thy hands before he can meddle with it And our
viz. why the Spouse here compareth her Beloved to a Cluster of Copher Yet in that I find them most reasonably well agreed That whatever Plant it was either the Herb of it or the Juice of it was exceeding sweet and the Spouse here compareth Christ to it to denote that exceeding and abundant sweetness which her Soul had tasted in him And so this Text speaketh but the same in another phrase which she had said before A bundle of Myrrh is my Beloved to me she means the samething when she here saith A cluster of Camphire or Copher is my Beloved to me that is exceeding sweet and precious When I spake to the other expression I spake so fully to that point of the infinite Sweetness that is in Christ that I have nothing to add upon that Subject only I remember that I then took notice that I did not judge the term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 redundant but exclusive My Beloved is not sweet to others they smell no sweetness in him but to Me he is a cluster of Camphire as a bundle of Myrrh sweet infinitely sweet above all other sweet things most sweet The Proposition which I shall only insist upon is this Prop. That the true believing Soul sees peculiar Excellencies and tasts a peculiar Sweetness in Christ which others do not see nor tast This Doctrine supposeth 1. That there is such an overflowing Fountain of goodness and sweetness in Jesus Christ that even those who are not Believers may discern some sweetness and excellency in him 2. It asserts That there is a peculiar excellency and sweetness in him discernable to the Believer which others do not discern The former is a truth As a good woman may so far approve her self to all that see her or hear of her that they may in heart admire her and praise her and have a general love for her but yet this woman may to her Husband in respect of her peculiar suitableness to him and more immediate and intimate converse with him be ten thousand times more precious in his Eyes than unto others So it is with the Lord Jesus Christ a wicked man who is far enough from saving Faith or any special Interest in Christ may yet have a general love for him Give me leave alittle to enlarge upon this supposed part of the Proposition 1. By enquiring upon what bottom this general love can stand 2. By making some Inferences from it The grounds of it may be 1. Real or 2. Supposed and mistaken The truth is such is the Lord Jesus Christ such a Fountain of sweetness that there is real ground for all the Sons of men to love him I will hint you two or three 1. The first shall be his humbling himself for the good of mankind The Evangelist saith Joh. 3. 16. That God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son c. Arminians cannot understand what the greatest part in the World as to the matter of Redemption have to thank God for if Christ were not given with equal respect to one as to another or at least as others qualifie to purchase a possibility for all But certainly if one should say such a one so loved such a Family that he gave his whole Estate to a Child of it we might understand it though every Member of the Family neither had nor were in possibility to have part and part like It is very questionable whether the Angels ever shared in the death of Christ any way yet I believe they love Christ for his dying for men And to that end Eph. 3. 10. the manifold Wisdom of God is by the Church made known to them Beneficence or doing good to others especially such as are in misery is a thing so commends it self to the reason of man that we cannot but have a love for such as are bountiful though we never tast of their bounty We see it in ordinary experience if we that live here be rational and ingenuous hear that one who lives in the furthest parts of England hath given all his Estate to good uses though we have no share in them yet we love the man for it And certainly if you could suppose a reasonable creature who should but hear that Christ the Eternal Son of God came down from Heaven and died upon the Cross for some men though he knew he were none of them yet it would be a ground of love to him considered as a reasonable creature But secondly a ground of it may be The certain apprehension of some good which even the Unbeliever enjoyeth from Christ It is said by many and those too such as can by no means agree that Christ died equally for all or that he purchased a possibility of Salvation for all that yet there is none who lives but is for his life and preservation beholden to the death of Christ and that all receive this good from him which may to rational men evidence a ground of Love I must confess I cannot too boldly strike this string for I much doubt whether the standing of the World and the common preservation of men flows from the Death of Christ as the Issue of his purchase I should rather ascribe it to the gracious Providence of God of which even the Death of Christ also is an Issue 3. Certain it is that whatever the intention of Christ in dying was such is the Wisdom of Divine Providence That the Gospel is held forth indefinitely Whosoever believeth shall be saved So that there is no ground for any Soul to conclude I was none of those considered in the purchase of Christ and there is ground sufficient in the intrinsecal value and sufficiency of the Death of Christ considered together with the indefinite Proposal of the Covenant of Grace to encourage every man under hope of finding mercy with him to come unto him Now which is there of us that should hear of a liberal man worth many thousands of pounds that should have freely determined with himself to spend it all upon our Family and should make a general offer to us that to so many of us as would come to him he would give a share sufficient would not as a reasonable creature judge himself engaged to love him even before we should so go to him and receiveour share Give me leave only to infer two things from this Discourse That there is sufficient ground for God to condemn those for want of love to Christ who yet never had a saving sight of him All men deserve to be Anathema Maranatha whose hearts yern not toward Christ whether ever they had any saving experience of the Love of Christ to their Souls or no. I speak but as a reasonable creature If I were sure that I were shut out of Christ's thoughts when he died upon the cross and that he would never save my Soul yet I see reason enough why I ought to hate my self and condemn my self if I should not love
the pleasure she hath by the thoughts of him when he is present Qu. 2. What diligence doest thou use to preserve the sweet savour of Christ unto and upon thy Soul Christ considered in himself is not like a flower that may lose its scent and sweetness no he cannot lose that sweetness which is essential to him he would cease to be Christ if he could cease to be sweet to a lost and and undone Soul but although he retains his sweetness yet thou mayest lose thy savour of it He may not be sweet to thee There are two sorts of Souls who savour very little of Christs sweetness 1. The Soul that lies under guilt of sin the thoughts of Christ to that Soul are ordinarily very terrible 2. The Soul that is choaked with Worldly Incumbrances The freer the Soul can keep it self from distracting cares for the World or from the renewing guilt of sin the sweeter will the thoughts of Christ be unto it Now if Christ be as a Cluster of Copher to the Soul It will be very careful to preserve the sweet savour that it hath of him And by this thou shalt know if Christ be indeed to thee as a Bundle of Myrrh or a Cluster of Copher But thus much shall serve to have spoken to this verse Sermon LVII Cant. 1. 15. Behold thou art fair Behold thou at fair thou hast Doves Eyes THere is a great harmony of Interpreters in the version of the words of this Text out of the Heb. into their several Languages excepting only that what we according to our dialect translate My Love they translate sometimes My Neighbour or My Kinswoman or My Companion for which you also perceive our Margents give an allowance and that some translate a Dove some Doves Eyes and the Arabick differing from all thy Eyes are as a pair of Doves There is no other difference And this is so inconsiderable that I shall spend no time in indeavouring to reconcile it All Interpreters agree that it is the Bridegroom which now speaketh He who acteth that part I mean in this Song The Lord Jesus Christ The Person he speaketh to and of is the believing Soul which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My beloved or My Campanion c. It is of the Foeminine form in the Hebrew which is that which leads Interpreters to conclude that it is the Spouses speech It is a word often used in this form in this Song and I think no where else so in all the Scripture In the sentence you have considerable 1. The matter of it in two Propositions Thou art fair thou hast Doves Eyes 2. The manner of expressing it 1. The words are doubled Thou art fair Thou art fair 2. Here is a double Ecce Prefixed Behold Behold There are in the Text 2. Propositions 1. The Spouse of Christ is fair 2. The Spouse of Christ hath Doves Eyes 1. Prop. The Spouse of the Lord Jesus Christ is fair The believing Soul is a beautiful Soul to the main of this Proposition I have very lately spoken when I spake to the compellation v. 8. where Christ had called her the fairest among Women I then discoursed the Nature of her beauty and shewed you 1. That it was not a corporeal but a Spiritual beauty 2. Not a visible but an invisible beauty 3. Not a Native but an adventitious beauty 4. Not an artificial but a created beauty 5. Not an adherent beauty only but an inherent beauty also 6. A desirable beauty 7. A durable beauty 8. Not a perfect beauty And having spoken so fully to it there where also the same word is used I intend not to repeat it here only I shall take notice of some circumstances by which the Proposition is advantaged in this Text. And They are four or five 1. He had told her before She was the fairest amongst Women Not satisfied with that he repeateth his Love to her again and telleth her she is fair she is fair 2. The Soul had been commending Christ that he was as a bundle of Myrrh as a Cluster of Camphire to her Christ upon her expressing affection to him replies Behold thou art fair c. 3. When he calls her Fair he adds My Love Thou art fair my Love 4. It is not barely exprest Thou art fair but here is an Ecce prefixed Behold thou art fair 5. Lastly He doth not speak it singly But he doubles his words Thou art fair Thou art fair and the term Behold is repeated too Behold thou art fair Behold Thou art fair Here is none of these five circumstances but will afford us a meditation which will be either informative or sweet or profitable to us Give me leave therefore to speak a word to each of them He had told the Spouse before she was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fairest amongst Women But not Satisfied with that he tells her again Thou art fair my Love Thou art fair Christ doth not only speak peace but he repeats peace to the believers Soul God often appears to Abraham and Jacob to assure them that he was their God Once have I spoken and twice have I heard it saith the Psalmist that Power belongs unto God There is many a Soul that can say Once hath God spoken yea twice have I heard it that the Love of God belongs to me There is many a Christian that can say In such an Ordinance I heard God speaking peace at such a time I found this Spirit witnessing with my Spirit that I was his Child Christ in this consulteth 1. His Peoples infirmities 2. His own glory 1. Christ I say in this thing consulteth 1. His Peoples infirmities They are many which make them need this two chiefly 1. The Believers Soul is dull of hearing The Apostle chargeth the Hebrews Heb. 5. 11. That they were dull of hearing which made the repeating fundamental truths necessary for them There 's nothing in the World that a gracious heart would more gladly hear then this that it is fair in the Eyes of Jesus Christ and yet nothing that it is more dull to hear the reason is because it so eagerly desires it and prizeth it so highly that it cries out It is too good news to be true You shall observe in the World a double disposition in men some are disposed almost wholly to fear others to over much confidence Hence at such a time of changes in the state as this is one man be a thing never so true and to his mind yet he hardly believes he is naturally disposed to fear the worst Other men let things be never so improbable yet they will hope and talk as confidently as if the thing they would have were done It is much from their natural temper they are disposed to confidence c. Take now an unbelieving natural man and he is disposed to bless himself and hope well of his condition you have his copy Deut. 29. 19 20. He saith I shall have peace though I walk
objects Christ now cannot shew his grace to such a Soul the bank hinders where he pleaseth indeed he worketh secretly takes away the heart of stone and makes it an heart of flesh takes away unbelief vanity earthly mindedness sensual affections and then he emptyeth the treasuries of grace upon the Soul In a word to apply this No wonder then to hear many a poor wretch complain that God never yet spake peace to his Soul others indeed have heard their beloved hath said to others behold thou art fair my love behold thou art fair but they never yet heard such a voice Let me ask thee who thus complainest this question Did Christ ever yet hear thee say as a bundle of Myrrh is my beloved unto me he shall lye all night betwixt my breasts Hast thou served Christ with Ordinary expressions of duty How canst thou expect to be feasted by him with extraordinary returns of mercy If thy breathings after him have been faint and short what reason hast thou to expect that his breathings should be so full upon thee He is indeed a full ocean of free grace but it may be thou hast cast up a bank against him it may be thou hast clogg'd him with an hard heart and unbelieving heart a vain heart a filthy sensual heart Wonder not O Christian that he is so little towards thee in a way of mercy if thou beest scant towards him in thy way of duty There is a generation of men and women in the world who are taken notice of to behave themselves as if they thought that all the World were made to serve them and they not made to serve any but they are an unreasonable generation and sober persons so account of them and accordingly slight them Oh that there might not be such an unreasonable Christian found in the World who should so much as think in his heart that Christ stands concerned to open all his Treasuries of Love upon his Soul which in the mean time hath scarce a thought of doing any thing more than ordinary for the Lord Jesus Christ if thou findest thy heart cold in duty frozen in affections toward Christ wonder not at all if thou findest the bowels of thy Saviour which yern upon others tied up towards thee And I fear me this is the cause of most complaints of this nature although it may be possible that this is not the case of every such complaining Soul witness David Psal 22. 1 2 3 4. 2. What an ingagement doth this Notion of Truth lay upon the Sons and Daughters of men to stretch out their Souls for and towards God Certainly if there be any thing in the World of force to open a Soul for Christ this will do it to hear that Divine Grace keeps pace with our duty and that the proper way to have Christ speak to us and say Thou art fair my Love Thou art fair is for us to get up our hearts in a readiness to say and say it in truth As a bundle of Myrrh is my Beloved to me The Psalmist cries out Psal 34. 12. What man is he that desireth life and loveth many days that he may see good Depart from evil and do good seek peace and pursue it Give me leave to speak to all you who fear the Lord in the same dialect What man is there amongst you who would not gladly have Christ speak peace unto your Souls and whisper the words of my Text in your Ears Thou art fair my Love thou art fair O let Christ be yet more and more precious to you let him have the strength of your Love that you may have the seal of his Love let the World know and let him know that he is dear in your Eyes that you may know that you are fair in his Eyes But this is enough for the second Circumstance which I observed I pass to a third Thou art fair my Love thou art fair It is not said thou O man or thou O woman art fair but thou my Love art fair It is both the observation of our own Annotators and some others Obs The Spouse of Christ is fair as she is His Love I observed to you before that the word signifies Amica Socia a Friend and a Companion the Object of ones love and the Companion of ones life This is not after the manner of the Children of men amongst them Beauty raiseth Love but with Christ it is Love that raiseth Beauty Locutio verbi infusio Doni Christ in calling her fair makes her fair Ezek. 16. 14. Thy Beauty was perfect through my comeliness which was put upon thee saith the Lord God A good complexion with a lovely air of the countenance and a due proportion of bodily parts makes the Children of men fair to a sensual Eye An head well furnished with Notions of Learning and a mind indued with vertuous generous dispositions makes a man fair and beautiful to a rational Eye But it is Grace alone that can make the Soul fair to the Divine Eye 1. Nature doth it not for all are by Nature Children of wrath Eph. 2. 3. like the Infant not cut not washed not swadled Ezek. 16. We are by Nature all Blackamores in the Eyes of God our Father an Amorite our Mother an Hittite 2. Art will not do it Though thou wash thee with Nitre and take thee much Sope yet thine iniquity is marked before me saith the Lord Jer. 2. 22. The Pharisees were men who used as much Art as others yet their Beauty to our Saviour's Eye rose no higher than to the Beauty of a Painted Sepâ—lchre that outwardly is beautiful but within full of rottenness so little that our Saviour saith Publicans and Harlots should as to the Kingdom of Heaven have the preheminence before them 3. Grace then alone must do it Those who are Christ's Love are fair only so far forth as they are his Love his Companions There is a double Grace the first of Justification the second of Sanotification according to the first the Believer is Christ's Love according to the second the Believer is Christ's Companion 1. I say first the Grace of Justification this is gratia gratum faciens that Grace by which the Soul is accepted of God It is the free Love of God shewn to the humbled Soul upon its exercise of Faith pardoning its sins reckoning over the Righteousness of Christ unto it and accepting it as righteous in and through Christ this changeth the Soul's state this is it which taketh away its filthy garments and covereth the Soul with Christ's Robes with this is conjoined the Grace of Regeneration by which God changeth the Soul's nature and disposition old things pass away with it and all things become new this is no quality infused into us or inherent in us but the free and pure love and good will of Christ imbracing us 2. The second is the Grace of Sanctification this makes the Believer the Companion of
brought in thus speaking How beautiful is the glory of thy Holiness while thou dwellest amongst us and freely hearest our prayers whiles thou abidest in our beloved Bed our Children are multiplied upon the Earth we increase and multiply like a Tree planted by the Rivers of water whose Leaf is beautiful and its Fruit much But I have all along observed too great a fondness in that Reverend Interpreter to apply all spoken in this Song to the Jewish Synagogue because once she was the only Beloved of God not attending this as a Prophecy concerning also such as should be received into Divine favour when God should have said to his Antient People Loammi you are not my People We have therefore by the Spouse here all along understood the Church of God in all times and more particularly believing Souls which are here brought in thus speaking to Christ Behold thou art fair my Beloved yea pleasant Also our Bed is green The words in our English Translation are punctually translated Nor is there any considerable difference amongst Interpreters rendring them in their several Versions We shall therefore fall immediately to consider the sense of the words as they lie before us which are a Reply unto what Christ had said v. 15. He had told the believing Soul that she was fair she was was fair she had Doves Eyes She now replys in the words of the Text Behold thou art fair my Beloved yea pleasant also our Bed is green Where you have 1. Her usual friendly Compellation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My Beloved my Love my Nephew my Uncle my Kinsman I gave you an account of the significancy of that word before 2. A note of Attention or Admiration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Behold I shewed you in my Discourses on the 16th verse the usage of that particle in Scripture 3. A double Assertion 1. Thou art fair to which she adds yea pleasant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. The second in those words Our Bed is green He had told the Spouse v. 16. that she was fair she now replies Behold thou art fair my Beloved Pulchritudo ejus dilectio ejus saith Bernard His love to his Spouse is his beauty Et ideo major quia praeveniens which is so much the greater because it prevents us And saith he she therefore loves more because she discerns her self prevented and overcome in Love It is as much as if she had said Doth my dearest Saviour say I am fair who am by Birth an Ethiopian black with original corruption and upon whom the Sun hath lookt Nay My Beloved thou art much more fair Let the World be invited to behold thy Beauty Behold thou art fair my Love Observe Prop. 1. The Beauty of our Saviour doth infinitely transcend the Beauty of his Saints Prop. 2. The sense of the value which Christ puts upon his Saints will and ought to engage them to put an high value upon him Give me leave to speak something to the first of these Propositions before I pass on to the other words of the Text. I begin with the first Prop. 1. Christ's Beauty doth infinitely transcend the Beauty of his Saints The Saints are Stars and there is not the least Star but hath its lustre and glory but yet there is a difference of Stars in glory and the glory of the Sun of Righteousness of the Star that came out of Jacob is far more eminent than the Beauty of other Stars which are set in inferiour Orbs. Pulchritudo est qualitas per quam aliquid pulchrum est Beauty is a quality from which any thing is made beautiful That is beautiful which is lovely Pulcher quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or quod pollet charitate There is a corporeal Beauty and there is a mental Beauty the corporeal Beauty is nothing else besides a certain loveliness that ariseth from a due proportion of bodily parts and due temperament of humours and a comely bodily figure The mental Beauty is a loveliness which ariseth from a well tempered Soul adorned with good natural dispositions moral habits or spiritual infused habits of Graces When I speak of the Saints Beauty and of Christ's Beauty I understand it of a spiritual loveliness in them arising from that Grace which dwelled in Christ essentially as God and was poured out upon-him without measure as Mediator and is derived from him to all that truly believe in him Now I say this Beauty in Christ doth infinitely transcend that of the Saints I will shew it you in some few particulars which you may gather from what I said before concerning the Saints Beauty I shewed you that the Saints Beauty was not native and primitive but derivative not essential but accidental not perfect but imperfect I told you that it was indeed durable but yet the degrees of it might fade Let me now open to you the transcendent Excellencies of Christ's Beauty 1. And more generally It is a glorious incomprehensible and most incomparable Beauty When the Word was made flesh and came and dwelt amongst the Sons of men they beheld his glory as the glory of the only begotten of the Father full of Grace and Truth Joh. 1. 14. In all created Beauties there is not equality There are some faces more beautiful and some minds more beautiful and lovely than others which yet have their loveliness too Beauty is a quality which is capable of degrees There is a glory in Christ's Beauty which is not to be found in the Beauty of any Saint The Apostle tells us that the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily And the Evangelist that his glory was like the glory of the only begotten Son of God he was full of Grace and Truth Now if you ask me what this glory is what Tongue is able to express it Every one sees a glory in the Sun 's Light excelling the glory of the Stars but wherein the Excellency is more than in the fulness of the Light none is able to determine Here it is true which the Vulgar Latine makes the sense of Prov. 25. 27. Qui scrutatur Majestatem opprimetur à gloria While the Soul sets it self to fathom the transcendent Divine Excellencies that are in Christ it is overcome with glory as the Eye is with the Light of the Sun that looks too wistly upon it as the Boy that appeared to the Auncient who had promised his People to open to them the Doctrine of the Trinity unlading water out of the Sea into a little hole with a Spoon and told him that he should sooner have done that work than he would have opened the Doctrine of the Trinity So I may say in this case Christ is every way wonderful The Prophet concerning his Birth cries out Who shall declare his Generation I may here cry out Who shall declare his glory Thus much we can say that his Beauty is extensively and intensively more than that of the most eminent Saint in the World that it
particular Soul is But God himself supplieth that place Now The Word and Ordinances of the Gospel though they be not Anima Mundi the Soul of the World Yet they are Anima Eâ—clesiae as it were the Soul of the Church of God without which the Church would be no such thing as the Church of the Living God They are those things which make the Church to be a Church and the whole Church to be but one Church Let this therefore engage every Christian to prize the Word and to prize the Ordinances of the Gospel That 's the first Branch Hence in the second place you may observe what is a sad Symptom of a decaying Church and by this you may also discern a lame and imperfect Church Look as in a Building there are some more principal Beams and pieces of Timber without which there can be no House no Building Others that are integral parts without which the Building is not compleat yet the House may be an House though lame and imperfect So it is in this case without the Doctrine of Faith and some Ordinances of Worship the Church is no Church If any part of the Doctrine of Faith be wanting or corrupted in a Church the Church is however true yet lame and imperfect Suppose a Church wholly want some Ordinances as some do the Ordinances of Ecclesiastical Censures yet they are not by this made no Church if they have the Doctrine of Faith and some Ordinances of Worship much less ought a Church to be so censured for the temporary want or suspension of the Exercise of some Ordinances which was the case of the Jewish Church in the Wilderness as to Circumcision but yet the Church that wanteth such Ordinances is imperfect and lame And again I say this is a sad Symptom of a decaying Church when either the Doctrine of Faith or Ordinances of Worship are denied or corrupted in it for these are the Beams and Rafters of the House and every one grants that House to be a decaying declining House where the Beams and Rafters are rotten We need no further Evidence of this than what we have in God's Epistles to the seven Churches of Asia recorded by St. John in the second and third Chapters of the Revelation The Church of Smyrna was a decaying Church The Doctrine of Balaam and of the Nicolaitans was holden in it The Church of Thyatira was a decaying Church for the Woman Jezebel taught and seduced the Servants of God in it And but a while after these Rafters and Beams being decayed these Houses of God fell and to this very day lie in their rubbish From that time that Jeroboam set up the Calves at Dan and Bethel and the Kings of Judah set up Altars in Groves the Church of the Jews was a declining decaying Church and the Rulers of it and Members of it having no heart timely to repair and reform it the House fell It is true God raised it again after the Captivity but it decaying the second time fell and lies buried in its Ruines this day Thirdly From this Notion may be drawn a great argument both for unity and uniformity Vnity in matters of faith Vniformity in matters of practice The Doctrine of unity in the Church of the Gospel is exceedingly pressed in Scripture scarce is there any one of the Epistles of the Apostles in which it is not again and again pressed Be of one mind there is a double union which is our duty to labour after The first is unit as fidei the unity of faith as to the understanding The second is unit as Charit at is quoad affectum the unity of Love and Charity as to the affections The latter of these hath been highly pleaded for in these sinful and wofully divided times and indeed never more need of it but it hath not been duly considered that considering the corrupt state of man The former union must be the Mother of the latter For as all love is founded in some similitude so this love and affection where it hath any where grown up to its due heighth we shall find hath been founded in the similitude of understanding and de facto it is evident that amongst Christians of different persuasions in the things of God there hath seldom been an intireness of cordial affection Indeed these things ought not to be therefore I do not Commend them nor yet blame the exhortation of brethren of divided Principles to an union in affection forbearing one another where all things have not been alike revealed to all but such is the corruption of our natures that this is rather optandum then sperandum to be wished for rather than hoped for if there could be unity in Judgment and uniformity in practice which the Apostle calls a thinking and a speaking the same things the other union of affection would follow more readily O let us labour for this There is but one truth but one true rule of Worship This Doctrine these rules are contained in the Word of God these are the Beams and Rafters of the Church and if the same Beams and Rafters run through the whole Church and be upon every part of the roof we may expect that the building should be strong and durable on the other side the difference of these Beams and Rafters whiles one Church holds one thing in maâ—ter of faith another Church holdeth another thing nay whiles one particular Christian believes one thing another Christian believes another thing whiles this Church or this Christian Worships God after one way and order another Church or other Christians they Worship God after another way though indeed it is possible their differences may not be so great but they may yet agree in one and the same head the Lord Jesus Christ and so both parties differing may at lest be saved yea it may be their differences are not so great but there may be a just forbearing one of another provided all Christians were of equal understandings or that they rightly understood each other yet doubtless this breach of unity as to matters of Judgment in things relating to the Doctrine of Faith and breach of Vniformity as to matters of practice is a great weakening of the Church of God and much spoileth the beauty and glory of it O therefore study unity and study uniformity you strengthen the building by both these you weaken it by dividing or disagreeing at least to open notice It is to me very remarkable that St. Paul almost in every Epistle presseth these things and Phil. 4. 2. when but two women dissented he thought it worthy of his pains to persuade them to it I beseech Euodias and I beseech Syntyche that they be of the same mind in the Lord. Doest thou therefore O Christian differ from other Christians amongst whom thou livest in any matter of faith or in any matter of practice as to fellowship in Ordinances sit not down Satisfied but labour for this unity for