Selected quad for the lemma: love_n
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A89021
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A sermon preached some years since, by Augustin Medcalf, deceased. Master of Art, prebend of Chichester, and minister of Berwick in Sussex
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Medcalf, Augustine.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing M1583D; ESTC R231100
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19,716
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72
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said Ps 55.22 That he will never suffer the righteous to he moved He looks upon Affliction as a messenger sent from God and thereupon receives it joyfully hearkens to it attentively and obeys it with all submission For he is well assured that our Heavenly Father unlike to our fleshly Parents chastens not his Children as they sometimes do for his pleasure but altogether for their profit and he does it for this blessed end that they may be partakers of his Holiness Heb. 12.10 Every one of Gods rods hath a voice as well as a lash and was sent to instruct as well as to correct the extravagant So that when once God lays his rod upon the back of an humble obedient Soul he presently answers the call of Gods chastisement Speak Lord for thy servant hears Strike on Father for thy child attends O Lord my heart is fixed my heart is fixed I will sing and give praise I will thankfully receive thy corrections and am steadfastly purposed to obey thy righteous judgments 't is true indeed that no chastening for the present seems to be joyous but grievous nevertheless afterwards it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby Heb. 12.11 'T is the consideration of the blessed fruits that affliction brings along with it and springs out of it that makes a good man rejoice in tribulation and heartily thank God for his chastisement he sees how useful it is to reclaim him from some sin he was too much addicted to and to instigate him to the practise of some duties he was too forgetful of or negligent in So that upon the survey of the spiritual benefit he receives by it he cannot but express himself in the language of holy David Psal 109.67 Before I was afflicted I went astray but now since I was afflicted have I kept thy word I now am able to say by my own experience upon the observing the happy reformation of my naughty life that 't is good for me that I have been afflicted because thereby have I learned thy statutes And therefore O Lord since thou hast dealt so well with thy servant in this seasonable afflicting of me continue I beseech thee such thy loving-kindness unto me according to thy word Vers 65. And indeed God hath pass'd his word that he will in much mercy to their souls afflict his dearest servants in their Bodies and Estates in all the concernments I mean of this temporal life that his Wisdom sees will do them most good And should he not do so he would fail in two main Articles of his Divinity which are the great supporters and incouragement of his most beloved Childrens obedience and that is his truth and his love towards them Thus David acquaints us Psal 199.75 I know O Lord that thy judgments are rights and thou in thy faithfulness hast afflicted me Intimating that if God had not afflicted him he would have forfeited his Justice and Veracity by so doing nor would his love be less questionable than his truth if he should utterly leave off correcting his dearest children For this is that the Writer to the Hebrews lays down as a proposition of everlasting verity Heb. 12.6 Whom the Lord loves he chastens and scourges every Son whom he receives God indeed the Apostle tells us expresses his Fatherly love in correcting of his Children by instructing chiding and scourging of them for so the Original doth signifie And lest we should think that affliction alone is enough to intitle us to the relation of Gods Children or should argue with our selves because God scourges every son which he receives therefore every one whom he scourges he receives for his son The Apostle to rectifie this mistake acquaints us that though indeed 't is true that our being without chastisement whereof all are partakers would certainly evince us to be Bastards and not Sons Yet our bare having chastisement is not sufficient to conclude us to be Sons and not Bastards For says he Vers 7. If ye endure not barely if you have chastening God deals with you c. if ye endure if you humbly receive patiently bear thankfully employ and fruitfully improve Gods word and Gods rod Gods chidings and Gods scourgings to your own amendment if they yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness in a conversation of holiness then you may reasonably conclude your selves to be Gods children And for being so related and in this sort afflicted whereby that relation is so clearly discovered you have good cause to rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorious How are men transported and with what exuberances of exultation do they ordinarily entertain an adoption into Caesars Family which puts them in hopes they shall one day sway a Scepter and govern and triumph over the Kingdoms of the Earth And yet what a trivial petit Preferment is this if it be but compared to that inexpressible advancement of being received into the number of Gods Children and admitted to be an heir and a co-heir with the Eternal Son of his love Jesus Christ the righteous King of Kings and Lord of Lords And then how much more reason have they not only more exceedingly to rejoice but themselves to be turned as 't were who have the surest evidence of the King of Heavens love and protection who are able as 't were to produce his gracious Letters-Patents under his broad Authentick Seal of Affliction and to shew in their Bodies and Estates these undeniable marks of their Heavenly Fathers love They who find themselves thus sealed to the day of Redemption can't chuse certainly but keep a perpetual Jubilee all their lives long and in the overflowing exultation of their souls amidst all their crosses and calamities must needs lift up their heads with joy and thanksgiving to that God who hath vouchsafed them one of the most certain and infallible signs of his love and goodness to them whilest he hath been graciously pleased to exercise them with affliction and not only so but to compleat and crown his mercy and loving-kindness to them hath moreover given them patience to bear courage to endure constancy to persevere and wisdom to improve all the crosses he lays upon them to his honour and their own comfort so that methinks if ever a man could be allowed to be a competent Judg of his own felicity he hath the surest grounds to conclude and pronounce himself a happy man when the world possibly thinks him poor and miserable and the most wretched person piteous upon earth See the man whom Eliphaz brings in with a note of admiration as if he had a mind to pick out and shew you that particular person whom all the world so much court and admire and endeavour to make themselves like Behold the happy man says he Job 5.17 Behold him will most people say but alas where shall we ever see him a happy man indeed were a sight worth our beholding we should
A SERMON PREACHED Some Years since BY AVGVSTIN MEDCALF DECEASED Master of Art Prebend of Chichester and Minister of Berwick in Sussex LONDON Printed in the Year 1679. PHIL. IV. 4. Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoyce MY Text presents us not only with the duty but the incomparable priviledg of every faithful obedient Christian who is here enjoined a service so satisfactory pleasing and advantageous that as no man in the world besides can have half the reason to do it at all so every good Christian hath all the reason in the world to perform it always To be pleased and satisfied to be merry and joyful one would think were a service so natural and delightful to all the world that the very commanding of it would appear one of the vainest and most needless injunctions imaginable and to do all this upon the justest score and upon a never-failing account to entertain and accept preserve and always keep in ones possession an inexhausted Fountain of joy such as will supply all our wants serve all our necessities gratifie and please us in all conditions to place this joy of ours in God in whose presence is fulness of joy and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore To command a Christian to do this one would fancy at first hearing it were a very superfluous Precept it looks all one as if a man should be desired not to be a stock or stone or swine for if he were but a man much less a Christian man he cannot but do it of his own accord without commands or entreaties And yet Heaven knows such degenerate creatures are we grown that God is fain to oblige us to that by positive express command which did we behave our selves in the least like Christian people we could not but perform by a meer inclination of nature Nay did but a man observe the general dejectedness sullenness murmurings and repinings that are to be met with in the conversation of most Christians against the dealings and disposings of God himself 't would let us see sufficient reason why St. Paul should in this very Epistle so often inculcate and impress this one duty He thought it not enough to say My brethren rejoyce in the Lord Cap. 3.1 but as if people were apt to forget nothing more than what they should and cannot when they truly understand it but delight in most he repeats his Injunction in the words of the Text Rejoyce in the Lord always Nay as if this bare repetition were not sufficient but that people would sill persist to neglect it though they both know it and remember it too he does redouble and impress it over again hereby intimating it to be a duty of that concern that it can never be too much repeated because after all the insisting upon it 't is every where amongst all sorts of persons too little practised and therefore says he in the next words and again I say Rejoyce Now to rejoyce in God always is evermore to have a heart and mind so disposed and ordered that it can in an humble waiting constant depending and faithful serving of God derive and continue to its self an inexpressible comfort satisfaction and delight from this one consideration that the Lord is her God this secures that in all conditions whatsoever she is certainly under the protection of his Providence and the care of his love and in the arms of his mercy And this happy assurance does beget and break open such a fountain of joy in the soul as does never or at least never need leave streaming until it empty it self into those Rivers of joy that are at Gods right hand for we shall find that the consideration of having the Lord for his God does furnish the obedient humble Christian for of such only I would have this whole Discourse understood with two such mighty arguments of joy that the due weighing of them cannot chuse but make him in all conditions to rejoice in this Lord yea and again I say to rejoice 1. The obedient good Christian may very justly rejoice in God always because he is secure the Lord will so order and govern the concernments of this temporal life as shall be most for his benefit and advantage 2. He may again rejoice in the fame God and that always too because he is secured by him that he shall be prepared for and hereafter put in possession of a better even a heavenly life with himfelf in his glorious Kingdom 1. The obedient good Christian may very justly rejoice in God always c. for the performance of this he hath the express promise of the God of mercy and truth with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning For St. Paul having laid down this as a Proposition of unquestionable truth We know that all things work together for good to them that love God Rom. 8.28 He triumphantly proceeds to conclude That none of the miseries of this inferior world can do us the least hurt because they cannot separate us from the protection of Gods Providence nor the gracious disposals of his mercy and the over-ruling beneficialness of his love 'T is not says he Vers 35. tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword that shall separate us from the love of Christ And therefore none of these can hinder his mercy from doing us good in and by our afflictions Nay says he Vers 37. in all these things we are more than conquerours through him that loved us There are few indeed but will readily grant men may justly rejoice in God when the world smiles upon them and their contrivances are seconded with success so that by this means they prosper in the world have riches in possession flourish like a green bay-tree and do even what they list who is he so wretched but hath gladness in his heart in the time that his corn and wine and oyl increases when their oxen are strong to labour when their barns are full of corn when there is no leading into captivity no want nor complaining in their houses when their sheep bring forth thousands and ten thousands in their streets then men can be content to thank God for his goodness and rejoice in him for the great bounty he bestows upon the children of men But if this very God should by his wise and gracious Providence change the scene of their affairs give their fruits to the caterpiller and their labour to the grashopper blast the work of their hands strike their flocks with hot thunder-bolts and bring an evil disease amongst their herds should he make them poor in their estates sick in their persons unprosperous in their undertakings forsaken of their friends and a reproach and derision to them that are round about them how ready would they then be to forget the joy of their heart and the rock of their Salvation and think themselves sufficiently excused and justified