the nature of Angels but the seed of Abraham for whom he never suffered and to whom he was never offered They will have something to excuse themselves withall something to plead before the Lord in the great and dreadful day Alâ—s may Devils say there was no possibility of our recovery there was no Mediator between God and us to purchase and obtain our peace there was no pardon tendred to us but you had the eternal Son of God to dye for you for you mankind to shed his blood and to lay down his life for you and yet when all was done and when he came and brought a pardon to you sealed with his blood and besought you to accept of it you even shut him out of doors you would not look upon him nor receive him you baffled him and dodged with him Ah my beloved what heart if it be truly touched can hold from breaking under the sight and sense of such abominable and prodigious wickedness as this is And as the sin is great so in the second place the misery and condemnation will be great also There will be no avoiding of it for how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation Heb. 2.3 There will be no enduring of it it will be infinitely heavy it will be easier for Turks and Pagans in the day of judgement then for such wretches Alas poor souls that as if their condemnation were not deep enough already the incarnation and the passion and the offer of a Saviour the richest mercies in themselves that ever were bestowed upon the Creature should accidentally encrease it That Christ should die and shed his blood to sink men deeper into hell then if he had not died at all for this is the event and issue of it this is a lamentable thing indeed The second sort of such as stoop not to the authority of Jesus Christ and to his Legislative power are such as violate the Law of Love I mean the Moral Law the decalogue the ten Commandments for that my Brethren is the Law of love And therefore the Apostle tels us that love is the fulfilling of the Law he means apparently the Moral Law Rom. 13.10 and he that loveth another hath fulfilled the Law see the eighth verse of that chapter in which respect our Saviour Christ himself divides the Law into these two Commandments Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and the neighbour as thy self what then it may be you will say Doth Christ by his authority impose the moral Law on men the ten Commandments of the Decalogue The Law of faith is his indeed but is the Law of works his too Yes the Law of works is his for he requireth works as well as faith And the faith which he bestows upon his members works by love And love is his own commandment so he cals it John 15.12 This is my Commandment that ye love one another Indeed he rules his Subjects by the Moral Law that is the precepts and commandments of it are the Statutes of his Kingdom It s true when it was first delivered to Adam in the state of innocency it came to him but in the hand of the Creator only But it comes to us my Brethren in the hands of the Redeemer and of the Mediator Jesus Christ who was typified by Moses at the delivery of the Law the second time upon Mount Sinai Gal. 3.19 And hence the precepts of it are stiled not the bonds of God only but the bonds of Christ too Psal 2.2 Let us break their bonds asunder and cast away their cords from us The Gospel all men yield is Christs he is in a peculiar way the author of the Gospel and therefore it is called the word of Christ Now the Commandments of the Law are all of them revived in the Gospel The whole of what the Law requires is for the manner and measure of obedience exacted also in the Gospel there is no duty which the Law enjoyns but it is taught us in the Gospel The Gospel teacheth to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly and righteously and godlily in this present world Titus 2.12 soberly towards our selves righteously towards our Brethren and piously towards our God And these Particulars apparently involve and comprehend all the Commandments of the Moral Law from the beginning of it to the end There being nothing in the Decalogue the Ten Commandments interdicted or required but may be reduced to one of these three heads So then you see my Brethren not the Law of faith only but the Law of works too is Christs Law or if it be not Christs Law it can be no Law at all The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all Judgement to the Son And consequently he that violates this Law of works resisteth the authority of Jesus Christ and the power with which he is invested by his Father to give Law to all flesh And yet alas how many are there who live in the resolved and the constant breach of all the precepts and commandments of the Law of Christ who in their practice daily break these bonds asunder and cast away these cords from them who are not subject to the Law of Christ nor indeed can they be If it be pressed home upon them to bind them to the good behaviour and to restrain them from their sinful and ungracious courses they are out of all patience If the commands of Christ be laid upon them to hold them fast to duty and obedience and to abridge them of their carnal liberty if they be told they must no take their old courses but they must hear and pray and fast and sanctifie Gods holy day and live strictly they will be very much incensed The Law of Christ is too severe and strict for them it curbeth and abridgeth them too much and therefore they will shake it off from them And as the Lunatick who was restored by our Saviour to his reason brake all the bonds and cords with which they bound him so these unreasonable Creatures deal with Christs Law nothing will hold them to obedience Let him lay what command he will upon them they will surely break it that they may live at liberty and walk according to their own humours Yea sin in such by the Commandment becomes exceeding sinful as the Apostle speaks Rom. 7.13 Not by way of declaration for that is not the purpose and intention of the place but by way of Irritation When the Commandment labours to lay hold on sin to bind him and to chain him up then sin begins to lay about him to struggle for his libertie and so by accident to be the more sinful When we press home the precepts of the Law and urge them hard on wicked men as there are some that yield themselves up to the binding power and to the obligation of it so there are others that stand out against the Law and they are much the worse for it
A wicked wretch may touch another man indeed and yet never touch God because he is without God there is no union between God and him But whosoever touches him that is in God must touch God in touching him And hence saith the Lord himself Zac. 2.8 He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of mine eye In touching you he toucheth me and that in the most tender place the very apple of mine eye And do you think that God will ever suffer such audacious boldness as this is That he will quietly sit still and let ungodly wretches thrust their fingers into his eyes and pluck the very apples of his eyes out of his head Take this and take all If true believers be in God you then that are out of God endeavour Vse 3 to keep in with them In any case make them your friends and keep them so and do not fall at any difference or odds with them You know not what you lose when you lose their love and their friendship A friend in place they say is worth something And certainly they are in place that are in God the best place that can be And therefore it is good for those that are without and live abroad to have some friends in this place you may fare the better for them and they may do you a good turn and a good office there when time serves Wicked men have had advantage oftentimes by the friendship of believers Moses did a good turn for Pharaoh more then once when he knew not what to do and when he could not help himself Alas poor miserable man he was an alien he lived without God in the world and therefore sends for Moses still who was in God to speak a word for him and he was ready to sollicite hard in his behalf and divers times prevailed for mercy till in the end his heart was hardned to his utter ruine And therefore if you love your selves make much of such friends as these are And thus far of the application of the first branch of the Explication of the point I shall be briefer on the other two Is it the will of Jesus Christ that true believers should be one in God Vse in the Father and himself by dear affection You then that are believers let your hearts be knit to God and Jesus Christ by this indissoluble bond Let love make you all one And as the Father and the Son are one among themselves so be you one in them by love Let your affections to them be so high as to unite you to the Father and the Son And even as dear affection joyns you to your fellow-Saints that you are knit in love as the Apostle Pauls expression is so let it joyn you much more to the Father and the Son for they are infinitely more to be beloved Oh let your hearts no longer live in creature comforts and in creature satisfactions which do so often fail you and deceive you but let them live in God by inexpressable and choice love There live and there rest and there dwell and there nestle as it were in the bosome of the Father and the Son Mark that expression of the Apostle John 1.4.16 God is love and he that dwelleth in Love dewelleth in God and God in him God is love essentially for whatsoever is attributed to God is God And he is the Original and fountain of the love that is Communicated to the Creature All the Love with which we love him or the Creature regularly comes from him It is a ray of the divinity a beam of God a part of the divine nature And seeing God is love in the sence before expressed essentially originally it follows thence as the Apostle John infers that he that dwells in love must dwell in God He that dwells that is continues and abides in love to fellow Saints and fellow-members dwels in God But he that dwells in love to God himself dwells in God much more And therefore I beseech you let your hearts set up their rest in love to God and Jesus Christ there let them fix and dwell let not your love be scattered up and down among the creatures as it is but let it be united all in God and let it joyn and unite you all to God that nothing in the world may ever separate you or divide you from him Brethren you may be the losers by Love of other things or other friends For after your affections and your hearts are set upon them they may forsake you and be unfaithfull and unkind to you And besides you must bestow some pains and travail and expence on those who are indeed beloved by you Or else it is but a dissembling feigned love for love where it is sound and real is very bountiful and very active And hence it is my brethren that there is so little true affection in the world The love of men is for the greater part in complement in shew and in appearance only they will do nothing they will part with nothing for those whom they are pleased to call their friends as they must do if they love in deed and truth But now in loving God my brethren though I acknowledge you must part with all for him yet you shall be no losers by it Though you forgo your friends your houses and estates and all for him you shall have him instead of all Yea you shall not have him only but you shall be in him by this means And therefore I beseech you my beloved grow up into this uniting grace in these divided and distracted times which will not only make you one among your selves but one in God But you will ask me how may this be done I will give you some directions 1. Let prayer struggle for it at the throne of grace It cannot choose but be a pleasing lovely suit indeed to be importunate with God to make us love him and to draw up our hearts to him A man would think that such a sweet request as this should not be turned off with a denial It s true that prayer is the great Catholicon and universal means in all cases But yet it is expedient in a special manner to the attainment and enlargement of this grace of love which is a special gift of the spirit It is the great work of the spirit of God to make us love God and to endear our hearts to him I know that Hope and Patience c. are graces of the Spirit but Love is a prime grace It is a grace of the first magnitude and therefore placed first by the Apostle in that Catalogue of his Gal. 5.22 The Love of God is shed abroad into our hearts saith the Apostle Rom. 5.5 how so by the Holy Ghost that he hath given us And in another place he tells the Saints Ye are taught of God saith he to love one another 1 Thes 4.1 None in the world can teach you this but God only And if none but he
ought not to condemn and censure him again If he chide us we ought not to chide him again But if he love us we may we must love him again Yea he expecteth that we should return him love for love for he loves to be beloved Is it the will of Jesus Christ that true believers should be one in God Vse in the Father and the Son by sweet agreement and consent Then I beseech you my Beloved comply with Jesus Christ in this particular As God and Jesus Christ agree in every thing so do you agree with them Bring your mind to the mind of God and to the will of God that you may be of one mind and one will Have you no judgement of your own as different from Gods but judge of things as God doth Let his wisdom be your wisdom his reason your reason and his determination your determination Have you no wills of your own my Brethren but let the will of God be your will let it rule and order you Let your will be so melted and resolved into the will of God that as far as it is possible God and you may have but one will That he may never cross you and you may never cross him Consent to him in every thing if he say any thing true Lord if he do any thing good Lord Yea though it be against you in your ends and in your natural desires yet say as Hezekiah to the Prophet when he received a heavy threatning Good is the word of the Lord which he hath spoken Take heed there be no difference between God and you in any thing let not him say one thing and you another will one thing and you another But say you as God says and will you as God wills that so you may be swallowed up in God and that you may be one in him And to this end I propound three things 1. If God and you agree not every way in all respects you are out and not he And therefore it is best in all things to conform your minds and wills to his His mind and his will is always right and yours if they dissent are always crooked and oblique and therefore it is best to bring your mindes and wills to his and not to think to bring his to your own The Malon when he tries the wall that he hath builded by his rule and findes them not to suit together he doth not go and cut the rule and bring it to the wall but he goes and mends the wall till he have brought it to the rule So if your minds and wills do not agree with God's the fault is not in his but yours and therefore you must bend your minds and wills till you have brought them straight like his and not endeavour to make his crooked like your own 2. If God and you agree not every way as you are irregular so you are undutiful You are his servants and you are his creatures and therefore ought in all things to be ruled by him The Masters will must be the servants will in lawful things and therefore in the Civil Law the servant is accounted in the Master and not as a distinct person And much more the Creators will must be the creatures will He gives it being both the beginning and continuance of it and he that gives being may give Law to regulate the motions and the operations of the being that he gives and may not be contested with in any particular 3. If we agree not all in God our agreement and accord among our selves is worth nothing So far it is to be approved as it doth unite in God Then it is good and right indeed when as the Father and the Son agree together so we agree with both of them in the very same things If we be of one mind and heart in things wherein the Father and the Son are not of one mind with us it were better we did differ then unite for we unite not in a right center But if as we be one among our selves so we be one in the Father and the Son this is indeed a blessed union If Brethren so dwell together in unity that all of them do dwell together in this one God this is a happy and a heavenly conjunction And therefore I beseech you my Beloved let us look to this that as we all agree so we all agree in God and Jesus Christ Let us examin still whether our consent in any thing do meet and unite with theirs Let us see what their mind and will is and let us all accord in that together For though we be not one against another if God be against us all it is a very sad case The Apostle John makes mention of love in the truth 2 Joh. 15. Love in error is not to be accounted of but to be avoided rather but love in truth is very pretious consent in error is not to be rejoyced in but consent in truth my Brethren is a comfortable thing For this is consent in God who is so often called Truth in Scripture And if we so agree and so consent we may depend upon it we have Gods agreement and consent with us and therefore let this be our great care that Jesus Christ may have his will in this business according to his prayer in my Text That they may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us JOHN 17.21 That the world may believe that thou hast sent me VVE are upon the matter of our Saviours Prayer for them who should believe in him by his Apostles word And there are two main things as I have noted formerly that he desires in their behalf First that they might be all one Then that they might be all in one place The first of these requests of his he propounds and prosecutes propounds it in the verse which we have even now insisted on That they all may be one c. And then he prosecutes it with divers arguments and reasons in this and the succeeding verses Whereof the first is taken from the furtherance that this neer unity of theirs would be to the acceptance of our Saviour in the world That the world may believe that thou hast sent me That they may all be one as c. Why so That the world may believe c. For Explication of the terms the difficulty lies especially in this viz. what sort of people our Saviour Christ intendeth by the world here For to say truth the world is taken divers ways I think more differently then any other phrase almost in Scripture Sometimes we find it used for elect and sanctified and sometimes for reprobate and unsanctified persons Sometimes we find it taken for believers and sometimes for unbelievers as I could give you instances of both these And when for unbelievers sometimes for those who believe not for the present but shall believe in after times sometimes for those who
wicked such as are given up to strong delusions and to vile affections and leaveing them to the hardness of their hearts to walk according to their own counsels but such as make them fit for the inheritance with Saints in light and work out for them a far more exceeding and transcendent weight of glory God the Father loves believers infinitely even as he doth love Christ his love is like himself nay indeed it is himself for whatsoever is affirmed of God is God And therefore the Apostle saith that God is love 1 John 4.16 so that if any ask Whether God love believers as much as he loves Christ I answer there are no degrees in that which is infinite He loves believers out of measure beyond measure and just so he loves Christ Indeed there are degrees in the effects and declaration of the love of God and this way it is certain God hath shewed more love to Christ then he doth to true believers and yet they share together with him in most of these expressions of his love to him They share together with him in his grace of his fulness they receive and grace for grace They share together with him in his glory as I shewed you very lately And as his glory is eternal so is theirs an exceeding and an eternall weight of glory God the Father loves believers under the same relations that he loves Christ and so in that respect it is the same love He loves them even as he loves Christ Doth he love Christ as his chosen and elect for so he calls him Isa 42.1 why so he loves believers too Doth he love Christ as his servant so he loves believers too Doth he love Christ as his Son so he loves believers too Nay to go beyond Relations doth he love Christ as himself because he is one with him so he loves bevers too for they are one with him in Christ So that you see it plain enough that God the Father loves believers even as c. And it must needs be so For Reason 1 He loves them in Christ Indeed my brethren did he love them as distant and separate from Christ then he might love them with another kind of love But since he loves them as in Christ and so loves Christ and them as one together not asunder but together both must have the same love As he that loves his friend cannot distinguish of the love he bears the head and the remainder of the body so Christ the head and Christ the body as the Church is called with Christ 1 Cor. 12.12 are both involved and wrapt up together in the same love He loves them not asunder but together and therefore certainly he doth not love them differently as to the kind of the affection but alike Christ is his beloved Son in whom he is well pleased not with whom he is well pleased but in whom he is well pleased with all that are in him and that are members of his body Whom he loves he loves in him and therefore whom he loves he loves as him even as he loveth him Reason 2 As God the Father loves believers in Christ so he loves them through Christ and therefore loves them as Christ His love goes through Christ to them in the first place he love Christ and then he loves them through Christ so that is the same for kind at least wherewithall he loves Christ He is the way from God to us the pipe the mean conveyance between God and us and that which he receieveth from the Father as Head and Mediator of the Church he conveyeth down to us The very same and no other The same grace which he receives from God the Father for himself and all his members he conveyeth down to them The same glory which he receives from God the Father he bestows on them as I have shewed you And so the same love which comes flowing from the Father into him he carries down to them too By which it is apparent that God loves believers even as he loves Christ JOHN 17.23 And thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me AND thus far we came on the last occasion by way of explication of the Point Proceed we now to the Application of it according to the branches of the explication in their order Is it so that God the Father loves believers as really and truly as he Vse 1 loves Christ This then should teach us in the first place to depend upon him in all cases and not to doubt him or distrust him who is true and reall to us It s that which we are very subject to when we are brought to streights and difficulties and distresses our hearts are shaken presently and our faith in God fails we are affraid that God will serve us as unfaithfull friends are wont to do when the time of tryal comes That he will leave us succourless in our distresses Oh my beloved I beseech you take heed how you wrong God how you give way to one suspicious thought of him who is so real in his love to you It is an injury of which he cannot choose but be infinitely tender and that the rather and the more because his heart is so unfeignedly endeared to us As friends who love us tenderly if we be alwayes jealous of them it troubles them exceedingly they know not how to take it at our hands so do but think how grievous it will be to God who loves us as he doth his own Son to be suspected still on all occasions and to have his love questioned And therefore seeing God is such a faithfull friend let us commit our selves and all our wayes to him and let us cast our selves upon him without fear in all cases Seeing he loves us really let us trust him perfectly And let us so behave our selves in all conditions that we may make it to appear that we rely upon him fully without the least suspition of his love to us Is it so that God the Father loves believers as really and truly as he Vse 2 loves Christ This then should teach us in the second place to love him truly and really again To be as far as it is possible as undissembled and sincere and cordial in our love to him as he is in his love to us Oh my beloved let us not answer true love with feigned love nor real with pretended love that would be an ill requital We all profess a great deal of affection to the Lord we say we love him but if he should examine us and sift us man by man as once our Saviour did Peter Lovest thou me dost thou love me dost thou indeed could we reply with him Oh Lord thou knowest that we love thee Thou knowest that our hearts are right to thee If God should ask us as Jehu did Jehonadab 2 Kings 10.25 Is thine heart right as my heart is with thy heart can you reply as he It is So you may think indeed and yet
posture she will be when Christ shall have declared his Fathers name to all the Nations under heaven when the Jews shall be converted and when the fulness of the Gentiles shall come in Oh my beloved that will be a joyfull time indeed It s true those times my brethren shall be very comfortable and full of gladness many wayes And this is not the least that people shall be brougbt in to the knowledge of the Lord out of all the quarters of the world and that by heaps and multitudes And when they come thâ—â— shall be brought with gladness and rejoycing as the Psalmist speaks Psal 45.15 With gladness and rejoycing shall they be brought And truly they that have the happiness to live in those dayes cannot but be extreamly taken with it when they behold the Fathers name declared to the people of the Jews and to such multitudes of Nations of the Gentiles so that they shall come thronging in so fast as if they were in haste to be acquainted with him and to know more of him Oh they will be an end at this and their hearts will leap within them There was never such a time since the foundation of the world nor shall be till that blessed season come and therefore let our souls rejoyce in the foresight of it though we never live to see it And thus far of our Saviour faithfullness in the delivery of his Fathers Errand in the discovery of his Fathers name to his people He hath been faithfull and will be faithfull in it In the remainder of the verse he shews the end and reason of it why he hath been so and will be so That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them It is a very great question whether believers be intended here to be the objects or the subjects of the love our Saviour mentions Whether the name of God be manifested to them to this end that they may be beloved by him or to this end that they may love him I must acknowledge all Interpreters almost that I have seen make them the objects not the subjects of this love That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them That is say they may reach to them or come to them their meaning is so as to lay hold upon them and embrace them In plainer terms that thou maist love them with the love wherewith thou hast loved me with the very same affection Against this Exposition there are two Exceptions to which I must confess I know not how to give a cleer Solution For First If this were the intention of our Saviour I have declared unto them thy name that thou maist love them he would have said in probability That thy love may be towards them or That thy love may be upon them rather then That thy love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as here we have it may be in them This is a strange expression to say My love is in a man when my intention is I love him or I have set my love upon him But secondly if when our Saviour Saviour saith that thy love may be in them his meaning be That thou maist love them how shall this be the end of his forementioned delaration of his Fathers name as it is cleerly made in this place I have declared unto them thy name and will declare it that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them That thou maist love them with the love wherewith thou hast loved me Doth Christ declare his Fathers name to men his love his mercy to this end that he may love them Is this a proper means to that end for God to be made known to men that God may love them whom he is made known to Brethren God doth not love men because his name is manifested and declared to them but men love him upon that ground and for that reason the declaration of his name to them is a means to make them love him And therefore I must needs crave leave to think the latter Exposition probable by which believers are made the subjects of the love here mentioned I have declared unto them thy name and will declare it that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them as in the subjects of it That the love which is originally in thy self as in the fountain as all other graces are may be communicated and dispensed from thee to them and become inherent in them You know my Brethren we are said to be partakers of the divine nature 2 Pet. 1.4 not by participation of the essence but by communication of the properties of God when the communicable properties of God as holiness and love and wisdom are dispenst to us So here our Saviour prayes his Father that the love wherewith he hath loved Christ may be given down from him into the hearts of his people that they may have that very property in them also And to this end saith Christ I have declared thy name thy mercy goodness love to them that this love may be wrought in them That by this means their hearts may be enflamed and filled with the love of thee That they may have the love of thee in them as the Apostle hath the very Phrase 1 John 3.17 How dwelleth the love of God in him So here that the love wherewith thou hast loved me that very property may be in them by way of derivation from thee and that by the revealing of thy name to them If this be our Saviours meaning as I can see no other for the present the Observations will be two First The love which is in true believers comes from God The love wherewith true believers love is in a sense the same wherewith God himself loves Or the love wherewith God loves is in a sense in true believers Secondly The declaration of the Fathers name to them is the great means that begetteth love in them DOCTRINE The love which is in true Believers comes from God The love wherewith he loveth is in them saith our Saviour in my text viz. by way of dispensation from him Love is originally primitively and essentially in the Lord and from him it is given down into the hearts of true believers This is part of the divine nature which they are made partakers of as the Apostle speaks 2 Pet. 1.4 This is a print of his Image whereby they are conformed to God and made suitable to God when they love as he doth And consequently as he is such are they in this world So that when an enlightned eye looks first on God and sees that he doth love that he is love and then looks on the believer and sees this grace of love communicated and dispensed from God to him he finds that he is such a one as God is That he is like God in this world though he shall be better like him in the world that is to come This is a beam of his light as
other saving graces are it comes down from the Father of lights as the Apostle James speaks Chap. 1.17 And as the stars shine with a borrowed Luster even so do believers too If there be this or any other brightness in them it is a beam of the divinity a streak and ray of the divine glory They shine because their light is come viz. from God and the glory of the Lord is risen upon them Isa 60.1 And in a word this is a stream of his fountain which runs down from God to us All our fresh springs are in him as the Prophet David speaks Psal 87.7 and consequently all our streams of living waters are from him First the springs of our streams are in him and then the streams of his springs are in us The love wherewith he loveth is in us So that God doth not only teach us love as the Apostle saith ye are taught of God to love 1 Thes 4.9 but more then so he gives us love He doth not only teach it as a Master but he bestows it as a Donour and Dispenser Yea as a Donour of himself to us for when he gives us love he gives us down himself in some measure And therefore by this love he is said to dwell in us Mark that Expression of the Apostle John 1. Epist 4.10 God is love and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him God is love properly essentially for whatsoever is attributed to God is God and he is the Original and Fountain of that love that is communicated to the Creature and by this love he dwells in us So that whoever hath this love in him hath God in him God in the beam as we are wont to say The room that hath the beam in it hath the Sun in it That place of the Apostle John is full 1 Epist 4.7 Love is of God saith he and every one that loves is born of God while he participates in this of Gods nature even as the Son is made partaker of the nature of the Father The Point you see is fully proved The love which is in true believers comes from God Reason And it must needs be so because it is not neither can it be originally in or of or from our selves The heart of man is naturally averse yea even abhorrent from the Love of God And therefore in the state of nature men are said to hate God Rom. 1.30 as in divers other places of the Scripture Indeed it seems to be a little strange that men should naturally hate the chiefest good And true it is that nothing apprehended and presented under the notion reason and the name of goodness can be hated and abhorred But yet the chief good looked upon as evil either in it self or else to him that so conceives and apprehends it may under such a notion be so far from being loved as that indeed it may be hated And thus it is with all unsanctified men So that of our selves you see it is impossible to have the love of God in us But whence must we have it then if we be partakers of it The Apostle clearly shews us Jam. 1.17 Every good and perfect gift is from above From above what 's that why it cometh down from the Father of lights that is from God who is the fountain of it And if every gift be from him every good and perfect gift then surely love which is in some respect the choicest of all other guifts as the Apostle shewes at large is from him too The love which is in true believers comes from God But yet this Caution let me interpose before I come to application You must not apprehend the love which is in true believers to come immediately from God without the use of second means as some have seemed to infer from that place of the Apostle 1 Thess 4.9 As touching love you need not that I write to you for you your selves are taught of God to love As if his meaning were I need not teach it you at all I need not strive to work it and beget it in you by my preaching for you are taught immediately of God himself Whereas indeed he speaks comparatively not as though they had no need at all of his instruction but not such need as many other men who were not taught of God to love As such expressions are very usual in the Scripture which in shew are universal yet to be understood ex parte and in comparison as that for instance John 9.4 If ye were blind ye should have no sin saith Christ none in comparison not simply none But as for love that it is mediately wrought by means as by the preaching of the Gospel is very manifest by this that the Apostles Paul and John especially do so frequently and earnestly perswade and press to it which they need not to have done if God did work it in the hearts of his people immediately by the teaching of his spirit Indeed my brethren every saving grace flows clearly from the upper spring but yet there are some pipes that carry and convey it down to us as the Word and Ordinances and the like And he that lives above them lives above grace too And therefore in my text our Saviour makes his declaration of his Father name by himself and his Apostles and their Successors in the Church the means of working love in the hearts of his people I have declared unto them thy name and will declare it that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them Now is it so my brethren that the love which is in true believers comes Vse 1 from God Here then we are directed where to go and to whom to have recourse for this grace If any man lack wisdom saith the Apostle let him ask it of God And so say I in this case If any man want love to God or to his Brethren let him ask it of God Let him go to God the Fountain and the spring of it and beseech him earnestly to give it down to poor creatures If we find our hearts are cold and dull and flat if they be not inflamed with the love of God let us entreat him to kindle them at his fire Let us begg him that the love which is in him may be in us Let us pray with the Apostle The Lord direct our hearts unto the love of God 2 Thess 3.5 They cannot find the way themselves the way of peace and so the way of love they have not known Now the good Lord himself direct them and guide them into that way It cannot choose but be a pleasing and a lovely suit indeed to be importunate with God to make us love him and to endear our hearts to him A man would think that such a sweet request as this should not be turned off with a denial And that we may the rather struggle in it I shall propound two things 1. Love as it comes from
God so it is in some respect the chiefest thing that comes from God It is a grace of the first magnitude and therefore it is placed first by the Apostle in that Catalogue of his Gal. 5.22 The fruit of the spirit is love and then joy and other graces It is an excelling gift and therefore the Apostle Paul to shew the matchless worth and the surpassing value of it admits a kind of Solaecism in his discourse and makes it better then the best of gifts 1 Cor. 12. ult Covet saith he and covet earnestly the best gifts And then immediately annexeth a discourse of love and touching that he saith I shew unto you a more excellent way Indeed it is of greater latitude then other graces it runs through every precept of the Law of God For love is the fulfilling of the Law and that no other grace is It is of greater power then other graces for it sets them all on work And hence the acts of other graces are frequently ascribed to love as 1 Cor. 13.4 c she hopeth she believeth c. It is of greater permanency then other graces then faith or hope And other graces without love are nothing as the Apostle shews at large in that Chapter 2. And as love is the chiefest thing that comes from God so it is the chiefest thing that conformeth us to God It makes us like him more then other graces do God is not said in Scripture to be faith or hope or patience but he is said in Scripture to be Love If we believe God doth not so if we hope God doth not so if we suffer quietly God doth not so Indeed he suffer not at all either by way of passion or compassion But if we love my brethren so doth God In this we do as God himself doth And therefore we may pray for this my brethren in another way then we may pray for other graces according to the pattern in my Text. We cannot pray to God Lord grant us that the faith which is in thee may be in us Lord grant us that the hope which is in thee may be in us But we may pray Lord grant us that the love which is in thee may be in us That the love wherewith thou lovest may be given down to us Vse 2 Is it so that the love which is in true believers comes from God If then we have the love of God in us let us remember whence it came and to whom the glory of it ought to be returned We can hate God of our selves but we can never love him of our selves So that if there be any spark of the love of God in us we may be confident that it was kindled at his fire And therefore let it be continually working upward upward still yea let it never leave ascending till it have joyned it self unto that infinite and endless flame from which it issued and proceeded JOHN 17.26 That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be c. DOCTRINE 2. The Declaration of the Fathers Name to men is one especial means to work the grace of love in them IT is to this end that our Saviour makes it known as you may see expresly in my Text I have declared unto them thy Name and will declare it Why so to what end That the love wherewith thou hast loved me that very property may be in them That as it is in thee it may be wrought in them also And out of doubt the means our Saviour pitches on are useful and available to his ends Indeed men come to know the Father by the discovery of his name to them for so his name is all that makes him known to men And that which worketh knowledge of him doth mediately work love to him So that if the discovery of his name do make men know him as that is very manifest it doth make them love him too That which one affirms of Learning may be applyed to God Non habet Inimicum nisi ignorantem Whosoever knows him clearly loves him truly Indeed while we are unacquainted with him the admirable worth and beauty and excellency that is in him every way doth not take a whit upon us The Philosopher will tell us that the mind must be informed and convinced of the goodness of a thing before the heart will cleave to it or the affections close with it And hence it is that carnal and unsanctified persons love not God because they know him not Or if they know him any way it is not under such a notion as renders him desirable or lovely to them Perhaps they know him as a Judge or an avenger they cannot know him as a Saviour and Redeemer And this is the real cause why the triumphant Saints in Heaven love him more then the Saints Militant on earth because they have a fuller clearer and distincter knowledge of him We see him darkly in a glass they face to face And this is the reason also why we love not God with such a high affection here as we shall do hereafter because we know him not so well we have not such distinct and full discoveries of his name as then we shall attain to So then you see in general that the discovery of the Fathers name to men is one especial means to work the grace of love in them To clear it yet a little further to you I shall shew you particularly and distinctly that there are divers things in Gods name which being manifested and declared unto men are means to win their hearts to him and so to work love in them As The beauty of the Lord is a part of his name and beauty being manifested and discovered is a means to win love It is a great attractive of affection Now herein God excells my brethren in this respect he is incomparably out of measure lovely The greatest beauty in the world is holiness so it is often called as 1 Chron. 16.19 Psal 29.2 To shew that holiness hath beauty in it yea it is called Beauties in the plural number The beauties of holiness Psal 110.3 to intimate that holiness is full of beauty and that it over-matches all the beauties in the world if all of them were put together And therefore this is made in Scripture the greatest beauty of the creature as Sin is the deformity so Grace and Holiness is the beauty of the Soul it adorns the inner man And therefore the Apostle Peter exhorteth Christian women to adorn the hidden man of the heart with this 1 Pet. 3.4 Even with the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit which is of great price in the sight of God And hence it is that holiness is likened to the fairest things to Robes and Gems and Crowns and Gold and Jewels and the like Now God is matchless in this kind of beauty He is holiness it self yea he is infinitely holy And therefore holiness is called the Image of God The holiness that is in men is but
shewed great love O my Beloved if such mercy be discovered to us we cannot choose but do as she did if we survey our lives and find perhaps that we have been grievous sinners beyond the ordinary rate that we were over head and ears in debt to God that there were horrid crimes upon the bill against us scarlet sins and bloody sins and then the Fathers name is manifested to us that he hath been to us The Lord the Lord God merciful and gratious forgiving iniquity transgression and sin And that according to the multitude of his tender mercies he hath blotted out our transgressions how will our hearts come off to him how will they flame with love to God so that we shall cry out O how do we love the Lord we are not able to express it how infinitely dear is God to me The Love of God is a part of his name and this if it be manifest also will beget love in us When it shines forth from God upon our hearts it will reflect and so return to God again This flame will kindle our fire and make it burn that all the waters in the world will never quench it as Cant. 8.7 Many waters cannot quench love neither can the flouds drown it Amor est cos amoris love is the special thing that whets love and that makes it keen and sharp So it is with the love of man and so with the love of God If it be made known to us and if we have assurance of it it will exceedingly indear our hearts to him We love him saith the Evangelist John 1 Epist 4.19 Why so because he loved us first The declaration of his love to us works love in us to him again First he loves us and when we know it then we love him So that the point is fully proved The Declaration of the Fathers name to men is one great means to work the grace of love in them Vse 1 To make a little Application First is it so That the Discovery c. We see the reason then my brethren why a great part of the world have not the love of God in them Though he be altogether lovely yet they love him not at all because his loveliness is hidden from them His name is not declared to them they have no knwledge of his beauty goodness mercy love c. and hence it is that they bear no affection to him They are alienated from him strangers to him love him no more then they do a meer stranger But how comes this to pass by reason of the ignorance and blindness that is in them How many Heathen Nations in the world and Christians by profession are in this condition and so will certainly continue till Jesus Christ declare the Fathers name to them And therefore in the second place if you desire indeed to love God Vse 2 and to grow up in this love Labour to be acquainted with his name Wait on the discoveries of it that Jesus Christ is pleased to make both in publique and in private Wheresoever Christ declares his Fathers name there be you attending on him to see what he will further shew you of his beauty goodness mercy love to you in special and you shall find that as you know more of him your hearts will be accordingly endeared more to him when you are with other Christians discourse of this name of God the greatness of his beauty goodness mercy love and your hearts will burn within you with ardent flames of holy love to his blessed Majesty When you are single and alone study the name of God think of his attributes let them be often in your meditations as you shall see they were in Davids if you read the Book of Psalms and then you will cry out not much unlike as he O my God how do I love thee while I meditate of the beauty of thy glorious Majesty and thy marvailous works And thus far of the first end of our Saviours declaration of his Fathers name That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them The second follows in the last place to be handled And I in them that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them First that love may be in them and then that I may be in them The latter is adjoyned to the former by the connective particle and as that which out of all dispute will keep it company and dwell with it If love be in them I shall be in them too saith Christ I shall be where love is and therefore I have manifested and declared thy name to them in reference to both these That love being wrought in them I may be in them too by this means This I conceive to be the drift and purpose of our Saviour in the words The point suggested then is this DOCTRINE Where Love is there Christ is If love be in a man Jesus Christ is in him too that is out of all question He comes with love into the souls of true believers Brethren Christ is an utter stranger to every soul that hath not true love in it But if you knock at the door of any heart and enquire Is love within is love here If love be there you may conclude that Jesus Christ is there too You see my brethren they are knit together in my Text That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them Love in them and I in them Love and I. To shew that Jesus Christ and Love do always dwell together in the same heart they are not be separated or divided each from other but wheresoever one is there is the other also where love is there Christ is But then you must not understand it of love the passion or natural affection but of love the saving grace of that love which is wrought by the effectual revelation of the Fathers name to men Where this love is there Christ is as I shall make it evidently to appear to you For Where love the saving grace of love is there the spirit is and where the spirit is there Christ is First where love is there the spirit is whose special dwelling in believers is not by his Essence but his graces and chiefly by the grace of love And hence we read of the Spirit of love 2 Tim. 1.7 because the Spirit is the cause of love And hence we also read of the love of the spirit Rom. 15.30 because love is the fruit of the spirit so the Apostle stileth it expresly Gal. 5.22 Yea it is the prime fruit the chief fruit upon which all the rest follow as the Apostle makes it there The fruit of the Spirit is love and then joy peace meekness and so on Love is indeed the special grace by which the spirit of love dwells in us so that where love is there the spirit is Now where the spirit is there Christ is For his inhabitation in the soul
of his people He had not been a Mediator he had not been a King as man but for his people They are the end of his Kingdom and of his power and hence the Execution of it is carried wholly and throughout with relation to the Saints All the authority he exercises is for them and all the judgements that he executeth are for them That which he doth as King and as a Iudge against the world is for them If he rebuke the great ones of the world it is for them as you may see Psal 105.10 He suffered no man to do them wrong but reproved Kings for their sakes and therefore he is called the King of Saints Apoc 15.3 True he is King of all the world his power is over all flesh but this Authority of his relates especially to his people He is peculiarly the King of Saints yea when he walks in ways of wrath and judgement and revenge towards his Churches Enemies he doth this as the King of Saints with relation to the Saints And hence those Sinâ—ers in the fore-alledged Text behold him in that act of pouring out the vials of his wrath upon the Beast they look upon him as the King of Saints And therefore they applaud him by no other name but this they pick and cull out this to magnifie him by They might have said Just and true are thy wayes O Lord Iesus O Lord Christ O Emmanuel or the like But they make choice of this Expression just and true are thy wayes O thou King of Saints To intimate that he did execute those judgments upon Antichrist and his Adherents not as King of the world so much but as the King of his people and for the better government the greater ease and peace and quiet of his people His aim was not so much at the destruction of his Enemies as at the relaxation of his Church He did it not so much out of hatred to the wicked as out of love to his people I deerly love my Saints whose King I am and they are not to be preserved in tranquillity and peace they will be always vexed and troubled and diisturbed unless I take this rigid course with such incorrigible wretches as these are The authority of Iesus Christ with c. must needs be chiefly for the salvation of his own people and not so much for the destruction of the wicked because the wicked might have been destroyed though he had never been invested with this authority as man but his own people could not have been saved The reprobate would certainly have gone to hell though all mankind had not been under the authority of Christ as Man and Mediator but under the authority of God only But the Elect and chosen had not gone to heaven It could not have been so but I make the supposition if it had been so So that his Father need not to have given him this power that wicked wretches might be punished with Eternal death that would have been done of course but that his own might have Eternal Life which they could not have had without Christ That other End had freely been accomplished and attained if Christ had never been incarnate if he had never been invested with this power as man the wicked had been damned But it was absolutely necessary to this end that the Godly might be saved that their Head and Mediator should have power to give Eternal life to them All the world had been destroyed they had been plunged in Eternal death if Christ had not been thus authorized to deliver his and save his And therefore this authority is put upon him by his Father that some might have Eternal life that he might give eternal life to as many believe in him The authority of Jesus Christ c. must needs be chiefly for the good and the salvation of his own people and not so much for the destruction of the world because he is invested with it by his Father out of love to mankind and that which is done in Love must needs be for a good end God did not send his son into the world and put such power upon him out of hatred to it but out of pitty and compassion to his own chosen God so loved the world that he gave his own son John 3.16 he did it out of much love and the End is answerable that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have life everlasting as it is added in the next words This is annexed you see that suits with love whereas if he had done it that unbelievers might be ruined and destroyed if that had been his main intention it had proceeded from another principle a principle of wrath and anger But this he disavows in the succeeding verse God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world by him might be saved And that God did not send his Son and give him power over all flesh out of hatred and displeasure but out of favour and good will and so by consequence his aim must be especially and chiefly at the good of his people The authority c. must needs be chiefly c. because he exerciseth this authority so long and but so long as they have any good to reap by it and when it is no further useful to his people he in some sense resigns it up to him from whom he had it And therefore certainly it is for them and their profit As long as there is an Enemy to hinder the good and comfort and salvation of his people either within them or without them he keeps this power in his hands to curb them and to keep them down And so as the Apostle tels us He must reign till all those enemies be under foot 1 Cor. 15.25 till they be utterly subdued And then when this is done when there is none to trouble or molest his people any longer when he hath past the sentence of eternal condemnation on the wicked and sent them packing unto hell and seemed to say unto his Saints These Enemies which you have seen to day you shall see them again no more for ever when he hath cast out every thing that offendeth that is offensive to his people and made an everlasting separation between the wicked and the godly when he hath cast the wicked into the Lake that burns with fire and brimstone which is the second death and given eternal life to all his people when he hath done them all the good that they are capable of and when there is no further use of his authority for their advantage he even yields it up to him that gave him power over all flesh 1 Cor. 15.28 By which it is apparent that he took this power upon him principally for his peoples sake Is it so that the authority of Jesus Christ with c. is chiefly for the Use 1 benefit and the salvation of his people This then may be one great encouragement among the
must have or else they are not capable of medling with the affairs and the negotiations of their master And therefore God hath furnished Jesus Christ with powers with ample and compleat authority for the Embassage he hath sent him in All power is given to him without any limitation You see he hath a large Commission and consequently what he doth concerning what he hath received in Commission is as valid and effectuall to all intents and purposes as if God the Father did it He hath not only set his seal to Christs Commission but he hath sealed Christ himself Him hath God the Father sealed Iohn 6.27 So that he came into the world with the stamp and with the seal of God upon him that all men might receive him as sent forth from him As God hath qualified him with authority so he hath qualified him with ability for the effecting of the business and the delivery of the errand which he sent him in He hath made him fully able to go through with it and to that end hath furnished him with a fulness of Merit and a fulness of Spirit A fulness of Merit to make Peace and a fulness of Spirit to preach Peace First as God hath sent him so he hath furnished him with a fulness of Merit to make Peace Made him able to the utmost to satisfie his justice and to obtain his pardon for his people For he is God as well as man in him dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead bodily God that his Merits might be valuable for us Man that his merits might be applicable to us Secondly as he hath furnished him with a fulness of Merit to make Peace so of Spirit to preach Peace The Spirit of the Lord is upon me saith our Saviour Luke 4.18 and by this Spirit he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel as it is added there in that place As he hath sent and appointed me to preach so annointed me to preach And therefore grace is said to be poured into the lips of Jesus Christ Psal 45.2 so that he spake as never man did Iohn 7.46 That some were astonied at his doctrine and all men bore him witness and wondered Luke 4.22 JOHN 17.3 And Iesus Christ whom thou hast sent Use 1 NOW is it so that Jesus Christ is Gods Apostle a Messenger sent c. This then may teach us in the first place to admire the mercy of the Lord both of the Father and of the Son in this business The mercy of the Father in sending Jesus Christ and the mercy of the Son in that he would be sent by him In both of these the grace of God is eminent to admiration Let us here observe and wonder at the mercy of the Sender There was rich grace in this that God the Father sent his Son into the world for our sakes He is his Son his only begotten Son a Son that is extreamly like him the very picture of his Father the express image of his person a Son that never did displease him a Son that he dearly loves in whom his very soul delights in which respect he layes him in his bosom next his heart as a choice and precious thing And yet this Son of his he is content to part withall in some respect that he and we might come together To send him out of his bosom and to dispatch him down into this lower world there to continue for a while that when he returned again he might bring us up with him Had God any need of us that he should send his Son for us Ah my Beloved he is self-sufficient there is enough in him to make him happy everlastingly without us But we must be for ever miserable without him And therefore it was nothing else but free mercy that made him send down his beloved Son to us Herein is love saith the Evangelist 1 Iohn 4.10 not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son Here is love and here is mercy to be spoken of and to be wondered at in all ages Let us here take notice of the mercy of the Son in that he would submit himself so far as to become the Fathers Messenger in this business Though he be man he is the Fathers fellow notwithstanding so he stiles him Zach. 13.7 Awake O sword against the man that is my fellow saith the Lord of hosts Though he be found in fashion as a man he thinks it no robbery to be equall with God every way as good as God Philip. 3.6 And was it not an admirable condescention that when the Father had a Message to dispatch into the world for the recovery of lost creatures Jesus Christ should say to him as once the Prophet in another case Here I am send me I am very well content to be sent of this errand Especially if we consider where and whither he was sent from heaven to earth yea to the lowest parts of the earth as the expression is Ephes 4.9 In a sense to hell it self From the bosom of the Father if not into the place into the state and the condition of the damned In which respect he saith Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell Psal 16.10 He was sent to make peace to reconcile us to his Father as you heard before in Explication of the point and this he was to do by the blood of his Cross as the Apostle shews us Col. 1.20 By his extream and bitter Passion by suffering death it self yea such a shamefull and accursed death upon the Cross accompanied with such ingredients as made him roar and sweat and faint under it And was it not a miracle of mercy that Jesus Christ should yield himself to be sent on such an errand as this is That he should willingly submit himself to be the Fathers Messenger in such a business We need not wonder that he whose love and kindness was so full of wonder should be called wonderfull Isa 9.6 But you will say perhaps Object that this indeed was rare and admirable mercy if Jesus Christ had willingly exposed himself to this for us But it seems he was constrained it was against his will For he was afraid of it Heb. 5.7 Yea more then so he prayed against it Mat. 26.39 Father if it be possible saith he let this cup pass from me To this I answer my Beloved Answ that Christ must be considered in a double notion and respect either as a private man or as a Mediator and a surety for his people Take him as a private man who had assumed a nature to which death was an enemy especially so bitter and so sharp a death as he was now about to undergo and so he justly feared it and declined it Take him as a publick Surety and a mercifull high-Priest and so he willingly submitted to it And this his willingness by reason of his Office was the greater because his will by reason of his nature could not choose but shrink from
did endure And so it will do any of us in the like case This is the victory that overcometh the world even our Faith 1 Joh. 5.4 And therefore when we are so quickly overcome and brought to choose sin rather then affliction it is a sign we want faith By this you see there are too many who do not keep the Word of God in their hearts by believing Now I beseech you my Beloved as you would have this assurance that you are of the number of those that belong to Christ by the donation of the Father keep his words if you observe your Faith to waver or to fail in any point abase and judge your selves for it And that you may the better know how far to judge and how far to acquit your selves in this particular I shall give you some Cautions 1. You are not bound to credit every thing that is presented to you under the name and title of the Word of God To give a suddain and inconsiderate assent to all that the best Minister delivers to you because he teaches it and you are well perswaded of the man You may nay more then so you ought to try before you trust in this case Prove every thing saith the Apostle 1 Thes 5.21 and then hold fast that which is good It is observed of the Bereans that they were not so servilly addicted and engaged to any Teachers how excellent soever their endowments were as to receive upon their credit any thing that they delivered No their manner was to search the Scriptures whether things were so Act. 17.11 And yet it is notable that they are said to have received the Word of God with all readiness of mind for all this The Lord requires no greater readiness of mind then this in entertaining or believing any thing that is delivered in his Name that is to take it upon some trial 2. It is no sign of infidelity to move some questions with an aym at satisfaction concerning things delivered either in or from the Word If it be done with holy reverence and with an humble and sincere desire of satisfaction and instruction it is a very good course So did the blessed Virgin make a question concerning what the Angel had delivered to her Luke 1.34 A question not of opposition but of inquisition How shall these things be This way of making doubts and questions it seems was used in the Jewish Church and Christ approved it by his Example Luk. 2.46 47. So it is said of the Apostle Paul that he reasoned with the Jews out of the Scriptures Act. 17.2 And if such reasonings were more in use not reasonings against the Word but out of the Word there would assuredly be more faith then there is at this day 3. Nay though it be a sign of weakness it is no sign of utter infidelity to have some doubtful thoughts arising in our hearts concerning the most clear and pregnant Truths that are revealed in the Word of God David had such thoughts as these and yet he was a good man though this indeed were no part of his goodness Psal 89.19 37 38. There you have first the Lords assurance that he will establish David and protect him And at last he comes to swear that he will not lye to David his Throne shall endure for ever c. And yet observe how David faileth in the very next words but thou hast cast off and abhorred thou hast made void the Covenant of thy servant This was his great infirmity and yet you see it was not incompatible with grace It may befall a Saint to have such unbelieving thoughts as these provided that he pray against them strive against them and be humbled for them As David was when he had motions to distrust the Providence of God to question this great truth of God as Psal 73. this did so trouble him that at vers 21. he saith his very heart was grieved and he was pricked in his reins because he was so foolish and so ignorant And while it is thus with us we need not thereupon to doubt our interest in Jesus Christ But if we entertain such thoughts as these and bid them welcome when they come c. if we never pray nor strive against our unbelief nor grow up into any certainty in matters of Religion If we resolvedly reject the Word of God either in part or in the whole this is a very sad case If I speak the truth saith Christ why do you not believe me Joh. 8.46 And mark what follows presently ye therefore hear me not that is believe me not because ye are not of my sheep as I said unto you So that it is a formidable thing you see not to believe the Word of Christ It shews that men are none of Christs And therefore let us give assent to the whole Word of God the precepts promises and threatnings that Christ may own us that he may say concerning us to God the Father Thine they were and thou gavest them to me And thus we have dispatched the first and second branch of the discovery Proceed we to the third Have you kept the Word of God in your affections by loving it it is somewhat to remember it it is more to give assent and credit to it but it is most of all to love and delight in it And yet unless you reach to this you can have no assurance that you belong to Jesus Christ and that you are bestowed upon him by the Father The very Devils know the Word of God and think upon it and believe it too they are convinced of the truth of it and yet they are so far from loving it or taking any pleasure in it that they tremble at it They perceive it is against them they look upon it as an Enemy that speaks sad things to them and so they are afraid of it They fear it with a slavish fear and slavish fear casteth out love To say the truth the more they credit it the less they love it and the more they tremble at it And so it is in some degree with wicked and ungodly men They give assent to the letter of the Scripture they believe it to be true but they have no affection to it because it is no friend to them and their courses It crosses them in every thing they have a mind to and therefore they are at enmity with it and their hearts rise up against it they receive the knowledge and in some sort the belief but they do not receive the love of the Truth But you my Brethren must go further yet if you will clear your interest in Jesus Christ you must go beyond Devils yea you must go beyond the best of carnal and unsanctified men you must not satisfie your selves with this that you know the Word of God that you have it in your mindes that you are able to discourse of it that you believe it to be true in all particulars But more then so your
be a Offring and a Sacrifice to God the Father Reason And it must needs be so my brethren for being God there was no greater power then his to master him and overcome him A man is never forced to any thing against his will unless some outward violence prevail against him which he is no way able to resist Now this was not the state and the condition of our Saviour his death was not inflicted on him by an excess of strength in those that gave him up to it His Father was not able to constrain him for he was God and therefore equally Almighty with the Father And men had infinitely less ability to overrule him and to force him to it and therefore it must needs be voluntary of himself and this he cleerly intimateth in that speech of his in the fore-alledged Scripture John 10.17 No man takes my life from me the meaning is no man can take my life from me and therefore it is added in the following words I have power to lay it down that is to lay it down of choice and free election so that I cannot be constrained to it and I have power to take it up again And certainly if he had power to take it up again when he had lost it then he had much more power to keep it when he had it and enjoyed it So that you see he was not neither could he be inforced to die but of his own accord he willingly and freely gave himself to it Use 1 Is it so that Jesus Christ did willingly and freely set himself a part to be an Offering and Sacrifice to God the Father The greater and the more unsearchable was the exceeding riches of his love to us and the greater cause have we to magnifie it and admire it Had he done it by constraint and had be been enforced to it there had been no such matter in it so no such cause of Admiration and Thanksgiving The praise had then been due to him that forced him and not to him that was inforced But this was love as the Apostle John speaks love in the height and with a witness this was unparalleld and matchless love that Christ should willingly and freely lay down his life for us Had his life been taken from him for our sakes this had been no great love but that himself should lay it down freely of his own accord here was love and here was mercy to be spoken of and to be wondred at in all ages What that he should abase himself that he should not be made obedient by another but that he should himself become obedient to the death yea to that shamefull and accursed death that he should willingly expose himself to such abasures to such indignities reproaches scorns and to such unsufferable tortures to such a heavy and intolerable burthen of his Fathers wrath and all for those that were not undeserving only but even ill deserving too that were not friends but enemies Oh let us stand astonished at such a mercy We need not wonder that he whose love and kindness was so full of wonder should be called wonderfull Isa 9.6 Is it so that Jesus Christ did willingly and freely set himself apart to be Use 2 an Offring and Sacrifice to God the Father Then let us learn of him my brethren as willingly if it be possible to offer up our selves our persons our estates our names or lives and all to him to suffer any thing for him again What my beloved did he suffer willingly for us and shall we suffer grudgingly and unwillingly for him did he consecrate himself to be an offering and sacrifice for us and shall not we on our parts consecrate our selves to be an offering and sacrifice for him if he shall call us thereunto did he give himself for us and shall not we as readily give our selves for him again did he take up his Cross and go before and shall not we take up our Crosses too and follow him I do not say we should draw Crosses and afflictions on our selves but if they come upon us for our Saviours sake we should not take them as inforced upon us but we should freely set our shoulders to them and cheerfully submit our selves to bear them And thus far of the first conclusion mentioned The second followeth DOCTRINE 2. Christ did not set himself apart to be an Offring and a Sacrifice to God the Father for his own sake but for his peoples sakes and that to this end that they might be sanctified by this means Not that they might be justified only but that they might be sanctified also He did not do it for his own sake for there was no sin in him and so in that respect he need not to be made a Sacrifice for sin There was no transgression in him and why then should there be an expiation for him But it was for his peoples sake To say the truth all that he did all that he suffered was for their sakes For their sakes he became man for their sakes he became Mediator between God and man for their sakes he became a King a Prophet and a Priest And as a Priest so a sacrifice and offring to the Father for he offered up himself All was for their sakes And that to this end that they might be sanctified by this means Not only that they might be justified but that they might be sanctified also That which was the scope and aim of Gods election Ephes 1.4 He hath chosen us in him that is in Christ to this end that we might be holy and unblameable before him of Gods Vocation 1 Thess 4.7 he hath not called us to uncleanness but to holiness The same my brethren was the end of Christs redemption He sanctified himself that is he set himself apart to be a Sacrifice to God the Father for his peoples sakes that they also might be sanctified as you have it in the Text. He loved his Church and out of the abundance of this love of his he gave himself for her as the Apostle speaks Ephes 5.25 What that he might redeem and justifie her only No my beloved more then this that he might sanctifie and cleanse her too through the washing of Water by the word and that he might present her to himself a glorious Church not having any spot or wrinkle but being holy and without blemish He bare our sins in his own body on the Tree that we being dead to sin might henceforth live to righteousness as the Apostle Peter speaks 1 Pet. 2.24 he dyed for us that we which live should henceforth live no longer to our selves to our lusts and to our ends but to him who dyed for us He hath performed the mercyes promised he hath remembred his holy Covenant he hath saved us from our enemies and from the hands of those hate us Luke 1.74 What that from henceforth we might be our own Masters and live at liberty and walk according to our
Christ one with them Why they are against God and therefore certainly God is not with them but against them and that is a sad union The peace and friendship and confederacy of such is like the tempering of iron brass and clay together that will by no means soder or unite The knot will certainly untie at last the union will dissolve if God and Christ be not engaged in it And as the Hebrews note of the name of man and wife Ish and Ishah that if you take away the letters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which make the Name of God there remains nothing else but Esh and that is fire the fire of discord and dissention So certainly if God be out of any union yea let it be as near as that of man and wife which is one of the nearest in the world there will be fire among the parties to it the fire of jealousie and rage that will devour them and destroy them in the end And it will prove like the unhappy combination between Abimelech and them of Shechem concerning which the Holy Ghost foreshewed Judg. 9.20 that fire should come out of Abimelech and devour the men of Shechem and the house of Millo And fire should come out from the men of Shechem and the house of Millo and devour Abimilech Use 2 Is it so that the perfection of the union of believers stands in this that even as they are one among themselves c. Then truly they have cause to bless the Lord that he is pleased to unite with them to be one with such worms as they are and so to make the union perfect Ah my Beloved if God did not joyn with you if he stood aloof from you what would your Union or Communion each with other profit you or comfort you what would it do without God But seeing God and Christ are in you seeing they are one with you this is indeed a perfect union all are joyned that should be joyned this is a happy and a heavenly Conjunction O my Beloved I beseech you labour so to walk that God and Christ may not withdraw from you It 's true I must confess he never really and totally and finally forsaketh those in whom he dwels but he forsakes them sensibly so that he seems to be no more with them and therefore let it be your study and endeavor to walk so humbly so holily that God and Christ may still delight to dwell with you and to dwell in you and to shew themselves to you that you may know that they are with you Be sure you never joyn in any business in which they will not joyn with you Be sure you never venture upon any action that will provoke them to withdraw from you Oh do no wicked no unclean thing that may offend the holy God Allow no evil in your hearts that may make his being in you uncomfortable and unpleasing to him Do not defile the Temple that he dwells in least you cause him to resolve as once he did in reference to Israel Hos 5. ult I will go and return to my place I will stay no longer with you And thus of the Second Argument with which our Saviour prosecutes his suit which hath been taken from the end at which he aimed in giving them the glory which he had received from God the Father And likewise of the third which hath been taken from the end of Christs inhabitation in believers and of the Fathers inhabitation in himself I in them and thou in me that they may be perfect in one A fourth is added in the following words That the world may know that thou hast sent me But that is but a repetition of the very same that hath been used in the 21. ver and in the very same words Only this difference there is in that knowing here is put for believing there For there it is that the world may believe and here it is that the world may know c. To shew that Christ intends not justifying faith in that expression but such a knowledge or acknowledgement of his being sent from God as the very world themselves who never did nor never shall believe are capable of And in that sense I handled it in that place I shall not here insist again upon it but pass to the fifth Argument with which our Saviour prosecutes the self same suit And it is taken from another fruit that it would have in worldly men It would convince them that believers are exceedingly beloved of God If they observed them to live in nearest unity and peace together they would be perswaded thence that they were very much in Gods favour That they may be perfect in one that the world may believe that thou hast sent me and that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me So that here I might observe DOCTRINE That it is an apparent evidence of Gods love when true believers live in unity and peace together It is a sign he bears a singular regard to them when he makes and keeps them one among themselves yea it is such a sign of Gods love as worldly men who have but half an eye to see will mark and take special notice of Let them be one saith our Saviour in my Text why so That the world may know that thou hast loved them If they be knit together in holy indissoluble love the world will see and be satisfied thereby that they are much in thy affection and that thou hast a very dear regard to them And hereby you may see my Brethren Vse what a stumbling block it is to worldly men when there are such perpetual rents and breaches and discords and divisions between those who profess themselves to be believers when they observe them to be always wrangling and contending one against another Why they conclude from hence that certainly God doth not love them nor any such as they are Or if he did he would unite them and sweetly knit their hearts together he would not suffer them to live in such a bitter and uncomfortable and unquiet way No out of question saith the world this cannot be the company of men whom God loves and whom he bears such dear affection to above the rest what ever their pretences be and therefore we will never joyn with them Whereas if there were nothing else but heavenly and holy unity and peace among them the world would know that they are beloved of God and look upon them as the most desirable society of people under heaven But this I do but glance at in my passage by The thing that I intend to fasten and insist upon is the comparison our Saviour hints between his Fathers love to true believers and himself By which he intimates it to be much one For if you mark it well our Saviour saith not only That the world may know that thou hast loved them but that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved
and people that condemned and scourged and crucified the Lord of glory And now my brethren Will you say to me as the Disciples to our Saviour when he told them that one of them should betray him Will you ask me man by man Is it I and is it I No I expect to hear you say It is not I. What I an enemy to Christ I defie it and they that are his greatest enemies will be as bold and resolute in the denyal as any other And therefore as our Saviour gave a sign to the Disciples by which the Traytor might be known so I will give you certain signs out of Scripture by which the enemies of Christ may be discovered First they that are willing to submit to sin and are unwilling to submit to Christ they are enemies to Christ I will a little stand on either branch of this mark They that are willing to submit to sin they are enemies to Christ 'T is true indeed men may be taken captive by it as Saint Paul was they may be forc't to obey it in some certain acts notwithstanding all their striving by the power of a temptation which they are no way able to resist and yet may be the friends of Christ they may unfaignedly and dearly love the Lord Jesus But if they render up themselves to any lust if they make a Covenant with it as being willing and resolved to obey it if not content that they are sold by Adam they sell themselves to sin as Ahab did they are enemies to Christ No man can serve two Masters that are contrary as God and Mammon Christ and sin for saith our Saviour He will love the one and hate the other Mat. 6.24 So then if you be servants voluntarily engaged to any sin as being willing to obey it in the lusts thereof Whether it be drunkenness or swearing or uncleanness or the like If you resolve it is a sweet it is a profitable sin I will not strive nor pray against it because I mean not to forsake it you do indeed hate Christ It may be you do think that you may serve a lust and love the Lord Christ too But you deceive your own souls for the Truth of God hath said it that he that loves the one will hate the other As they that serve Christ hate sin so they that serve sin hate Christ And for the second branch of this mark as they that willingly obey sin so they that are unwilling to obey Christ they are enemies to Christ You are my friends saith Christ to his Disciples if you do whatsoever I command you Joh. 15.14 otherwise you are not And hence he styleth those his enemies who will not have him rule over them Luk. 19.27 Observe it well he saith not simply Those that will not have me raign but those mine enemies that will not have me raign over them bring them forth and slay them before me If then you will not stoop to Christ and to the Scepter of his Kingdom if you will not have him rule you if you will not do the things that he commands you but are resolved to walk according to your own humors and though you are informed what is good and what the Lord requireth of you yet you hate to be reformed and pluck away the shoulder as the Prophet speaks and say with those rebellious wretches Psal 2.3 Let us break his bonds asunder and cast away his cords from us that we may walk at liberty and that there may be no restraint from any thing that seemeth good in our own eyes be not deceived for you are Adversaries of the Lord Christ 2. They are enemies to Christ that love that which Christ hates and hate that which Christ loves It is the property of near and bosome friends to will and nill to love and hate the same things and enemies are just upon the other hand and so it is in this case They that are in love with sin which is the thing the only thing which Christ hates are surely out of love with Christ They that love the Lord hate evil Psal 97.10 and I may say as well They that love evil hate the Lord. It 's true that such as love him may commit it but yet they have a strange antipathy against it they hate it with a perfect hatred and every false way they utterly abhor And hence it is that they endeavour to destroy it to crucifie it every day to put it to the cruellest and basest death and if they had it in their power they would shew it no mercy You would not use a Turk a Toad as such a man would use sin But when a man shall cocker it and stroke it and delight in it when he shall not endure to have it striken with the hammer or wounded with the Sword of Gods Word but shall be ready to do violence to any man that offers it a blow or gives it but an ill word the heart of such a person is not right towards Christ And even as they are enemies to Christ who love that which Christ hates so also they who hate that which Christ loves and that is holiness and grace which he cannot choose but love because it is a beam of his own light a gift of his own spirit a stamp of his own Image a part of his own fulness for of his fulness have we all received and grace for grace But you will say Who hates this I answer they that persecute and scorn and vex their brethren for their strictness and preciseness because they follow that which good is because they fear an oath because they run not out with them to the same excess of riot they are the men that hate grace For it is holiness and grace you see that is the proper object and indeed the formal reason of their hatred And they that hate their brethren for their holiness and grace which they have received from Christ by which they are conformable and like to Christ would hate him so much more then them if he should come and live among them by how much he is holier then they are And therefore let not such as say they could affect and like of such a person well enough but that he is so pure and so precise he will not do as they do pretend any love to Christ For certainly the same affections of spite and malice and reproach which they discover against such men they would with so much greater bitterness express against the Lord Christ if he were conversant upon the earth by how much he exceedeth and transcendeth them in holiness and grace 3. They that are friends to the enemies of Christ and enemies to the friends of Christ are enemies to Christ himself Be they who they will that close with those that live in enmity against Christ and help them in their opposition to his truth and to his cause and to his glory they can never love Christ No if they did
they could never side with those that are professed adversaries to the Lord Jesus and who endeavour to subvert and overthrow his worship and religion and destroy his people And certainly Christ cannot choose but take them for his enemies and use them like his enemies while they incorporate themselves with those that live in open opposition and hostility against him And as the friends unto the enemies of Christ even so the enemies unto the friends of Christ are enemies to Christ himself They that are adversaries to the Saints who are as it is said of Abraham the friends of God the friends of Christ must needs be adversaries to the Lord Jesus There is a Covenant and a League of love between the Lord and them and the league is not defensive only but offensive too he that toucheth them saith Christ toucheth the Apple of mine eye touch them touch me Zac. 2.8 Nay they are not alone in Covenant with him but more then so my brethren they are one with him And therefore they are called Christ 1 Cor. 12.12 For as the body is one and hath many members and all the members are but one body so also is Christ conceive it Christ in aggregate comprizing all the Church with him for caput corpus unus est Christus as Austin speaks the head and the body is but one Christ and that which is the name of Christ Jer. 23.6 This is his name by which he shall be called The Lord our Righteousness is the Churchss name too Jer. 33.16 This is the name wherewith she shall be called The Lord our Righteousness Indeed his people are the members of his body and he can never be a friend unto the head who is an adversary to the members Now if on triall by the former evidences you find that you hate Christ believe it God hates you The dearer his affection to his Son Christ is the greater is his hatred of the enemies of Christ The union is so neer and the love so infinite between the Father and the Son that God may truly say to Jesus Christ Do not I hate them that hate thee I hate them with a perfect hatred as though they were mine enemies And I will surely take a course with them I will bring them low enough Sit thou at my right hand there sit thou still unmoved and undisturbed till I have made thine enemies thy footstool JOHN 17.24 For thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world IS it so that God the Father dearly loveth Jesus Christ hence then it Vse 2 follows that as he hates them that hate Christ so on the other side he loveth them that love Christ The dear affection that he bears to Christ draws out his very heart to all those that love Christ And this is that which Jesus Christ himself teacheth John 14.21 He that loveth me saith Christ shall be loved of my Father Let him be what he will of what condition or estate he will never so poor and mean and despicable in the world if he do really and truly love me my Father loves that man and loves him dearly for my sake Nay saith the Father this man is my Sons friend he bears a very great affection to my Son Christ and therefore I must needs esteem and love him for my Sons sake I have alwayes loved my Son even from all eternity and that out of all measure and upon this account my love and my affection overflows to all those that love him Oh how should this prevail with every one of us to love Christ and love him dearly since God the Father will requite us to the utmost for all the love we shew to him all the love that we lay out on Jesus Christ he will pay us back again and pay us in the same coin We may depend upon it that we shall have love for love If we love Christ the Father he will love us And is the Fathers love worth nothing Ah my beloved it bringeth with it all the happiness and mercy that a poor soul is capable of And therefore I beseech you let us love Christ let Christ have our love that we may have the Fathers love And here to warm your hearts a little and to draw them out to Christ take notice of these few things 1. View him in himself behold him in the choiceness and excellency of his own beauty There is no spot nor imperfection in him in the very least degree He is fairer then the children of men Psal 45.2 then any of them all let them be what they will for they have blemishes but he hath none All the perfections in the world do meet in him so that there can be nothing added to him Indeed my brethren he is altogether lovely All others have their imperfections and defects something there is unlovely in them but he is altogether lovely And this is that which makes the Church so far in love with him She is taken with his beauty and the delicious savour of his ointments the sweetness of the graces that are in him Cant. 1.3 How is she ravisht in the contemplation of him Cant. 5.8 What is thy beloved more then another beloved say the daughters to her there What is he more saith she me thinks she is an end with that word Why have you no eyes to see He is transcendent incomparable and so describeth him from top to toe and then concludes This is my beloved O ye daughters look upon him this is he As who should say now judge you whether I have cause to love him yea or no. And therefore I am not ashamed to own it and if you meet with my beloved you may tell him that I love him yea that I am sick of love 2. Consider in the next place what he is to you what interest and propriety you have in him Why my beloved he is yours I speak this to believers only And this the Church and Spouse of Christ professeth often I am my beloveds and my beloved is mine and yields this as the reason of the high and dear affection that she bears him A woman you will say hath cause to love her own husband Now Jesus Christ is the husband of the Church she is his wife his spouse his second self she is called by his name We are thine say the people of the Lord the heathen are not so nor are they called by thy name So that the Saints in this respect are infinitely more obliged to love him then these that are without the pale because they have not such relation to him 3. Let the exceeding love of Christ to you draw out your love to him again Amor they say is Câ—s amoris And so let his love be a whet to you Consider he hath loved you and therefore you have reason to love him again This reason doth not hold on both sides we cannot say that we have loved Christ and therefore he hath cause to love us
For we never loved him till he loved us first the love began on his side But we may truly say that Jesus Christ hath loved us and therefore we have cause to love him For he prevented us with mercy and with loving kindness as the Prophet speaks and this should win our hearts to him We love him saith the Apostle in the name of all the faithfull 1 John 4.19 Why so what is the cause of this love you have it in the following words because he loved us first Our love is not the cause of his but his love is the cause of ours 4. Survey what Christ hath done for you and see if it deserve not at the least a return of love from you He hath made you that is little in comparison I mean all things were created by him Col. 1.16 but more then this he hath redeemed you from sin from death from hell it self You had been utterly undone and lost for ever had it not been for Jesus Christ But he hath saved that which was lost He hath raised you from nothing to a Kingdom from poverty to matchless riches yea from death to life it self we were dead but are alive all this is Christs doing We use to love them who have saved our lives and surely we have cause to love Christ for he hath saved our lives and that not from a temporal but from eternal death Not from the first alone but from the second death where the worm never dies and the fire is never quenched And therefore he is called our life that is the cause and fountain of it Col. 3.4 When Christ who is our life shall appear So that we may truly call him in the Prophets words the God of our life And therefore we have cause to make him the object of our love and wholly to bestow our hearts upon him to love him by whom we live the life of grace and look to live the life of glory Is it so that God the Father dearly loveth Jesus Christ The more Vse 3 it is to be admired and wondred at that he should use him as he did for our sakes That he should be angry with him that he should hide his face from him and forsake him in a sence that he should load him with such a burthen of his wrath as made him weep and cry and sweat and faint Ah my beloved what an admirable thing is this who can reach the utmost of it in his thoughts had he not cared for Jesus Christ had he born no affection to him it had not been so strange that God the Father should deal with him in this manner But that he should be so extreamly harsh to him in whom his very soul delights that he should handle him so roughly whom he loves so dearly whom he hath ever loved from all eternity this is an admirable thing indeed And that you may the better see the wonder of it the miracle of mercy that is in it let us consider a little more particularly and distinctly how the Father used him and for whose sake he used him so who was so infinitely dear c. 1. Consider how the Father used him who is so infinitely dear to him he gave him up into the hands of sinfull men to deal with him as they pleased There take the darling of my bosome saith the Father revile him mock him beat him spit upon him scourge him pierce him nail him stretch his limbs upon the Cross crucifie him kill him shed his blood take away his life from him wreak all your malice on him to the utmost and though he cry and roar I will not save him I will be far from helping him and from the words of his roaring as the expression is Psal 22.1 Though God doth love him infinitely he left him in the hands of vile men to use him at their own pleasure and they used him bad enough as you may see if you survey the Gospel story Oh the indignities reproaches and contempts that sinfull wretches poured out upon the Lord of glory In which respect the Prophet saith he was despised and rejected and men hid their faces from him as if they were ashamed of him Isa 53.3 I am a reproach of men saith holy David as a type of Christ Psal 22.6 and despised of the people all that see me laugh me to scorn Oh the abasures that he suffered from persons viler then the earth they trod upon and God the Father who so dearly loved him stood by and made as if he saw nothing Nay more then so he suffered much even from his Fathers own hands q He made him sin that is a sacrifice for sin and he made him a curse for us that there was nothing visible upon him for a season but the severest and feircest wrath of a revenging Judge as if he had been utterly accursed from his Father He scourged him most bitterly even till he blead and roared and sunk away under his hand Thus it pleased the Father to bruise him He spared not his own Son Rom. 8.22 Though he were his own Son he laid on and did not spare him He remitted not to Christ the least jot of those exquisite unsufferable tortures that were in justice due to our transgressions He drank off at his Fathers hands the cup of fury he drank the very dreggs and wrung them out All this the Father did to Jesus Christ and more then I am able to express and yet he loved him infinitely all this while and did from eternity and therein lies the great wonder 2. But secondly if we consider for whose sake the Father used him so who is infinitely dear to him the wonder will be yet greater It had not been so admirable had it been for friends but it was for enemies This raises and commends the Love of God saith the Apostle Rom. 8.10 that we being sinners yea being enemies he reconciled us to him by his Son He used a means by giving up his Son to shame to make up all the breaches between us and him and herein lies the quintessence of this business the sparkle in the jewel of the grace of God That he should prefer the good the glory the salvation of his enemies who lived in open opposition and hostility against him before the ease refreshment safety life of his own Son whom he so dearly loved from all eternity That he should rather choose that one whom he loved so exceedingly should die then they should be made a curse then they should undergo the tortures and the pains of hell then they justice resolves they must be undergone either by his beloved Son or his hatefull enemies It must and will be satisfied either by the one or by the other Well then if it must be so his dearest Son shall suffer and his enemies go free yea he shall suffer to the very death rather then they shall be punished saith the Father There go my poor harmless Lamb to
The Father loves believers as he doth Christ Reas For he loves them 1. In Christ 2. Through Christ 1. Vse Depend on him 1. Without doubting 2. By real love 3. Vse Comfort to all true believers In that 1. He will uphold them as he did Christ 2. Assist us in his service 3. Reward his own work in us 4. Hear us 5. Provide for us 3. Doctr. Christs will is even a Law with the Father Reas 1. Being the only Son 2. The Beloved 3. Never asks amiss 4. Sueth for nothing but what he deserver p. 491. Vse How to make Christ our Advocate Ver. 24 Direct 1. To prepare their hearts they must be 1. Purged 2. Humbled 3. Fixed 4. Awakened Then 2. For Matter of prayer search the promises p. 496. Manner Pray without wrath 2. Doubting 3. With much zeal 2. If we pray acted by Christs Spirit 1. There will be zeal 2. Desires spiritual 3. For spiritual things chiefly Not to be spent on lusts 4. We shall pray constantly 2. Doct. It is Christs will that they who are given him should be in heaven Reas He loves them with a love 1. Of benevolence 2. Of Complacency 3. To see his glory 3. Doct. God hath loved Christ from all Eternity Reas Being like him both as God and Man Vse Wo to them that hate Christ They hate Christ 1. Who willingly obey sin 2. Who love and hate that which Christ doth not 3. Who are friends to the Enemies of Christ Contra p. 513. 2. Vse God therefore loveth them that love Christ Christ is amiable and worthy of our love 1. In respect of his perfections p. 515. 2. In respect of our Interest and propriety in him 3. Of his great love to us 4. Of that he hath done for us 3. Vse Admire that he should so use him as he did for our sakes 1. Giving him up to the hands of sinful men and to his own wrath 2. So using him for such as we are p. 517. 4. Vse Comforts to those that belong to Christ that they are loved from everlasting 4. Doct. God is a very just and righteous God Confirmed 1. From the largeness of his Jurisdiction 2. The Immensity of his presence 3. From his inward propensity and disposition 1. Vse This should settle our minds amidst the confusions and disorders of the world 2. Vse Comfort to those that are abused and oppressed 3. Vse Come into him and become his subjects 4. Vse Terror to the ungodly 5. Vse Comfort to the righteous even in Gods Justice 6. Vse Admonition to Magistrates Perswasions to execute Justice 1. It will settle the land 2. Be amiable to God 3. Beneficial to your selves p. 526 7. Vse Meditate on Gods righteousness It will 1. help us against sin 2. Strengthen our faith in prayer p. 528. Ver. 25 Doct. Unbelievers and unsanctified persons know not God in such manner as they ought p. 531. 1. Know him not so as to delight in him 2. Nor so as to serve and obey him 3. Nor so as to know him in Christ Reason 1. Unbelieving Heathens want the means of knowledge 2. Unbelieving Christians want the Spirit to unveil 1. The understanding 2. The Gospel 3. In every unbeliever there 's something 1. Redundant to repell divine Truth 2. Wanting to receive it viz. The Spirit of God 4. They are unwilling to know God p. 535. 1. Vse The misery of unsanctified unbelievers 2. Vse Admire Gods mercy in vouchsafing us the means of knowledge p 537. 2. Doct. That Christ alone knows God immediately and others by his means p. 539. Vse None saved by his own natural knowledge 3. Doct. The most saving knowledge hath defects and imperfections standing in need of farther declaration p. 541. Reason Christ doth not shew them all at once 1. Because they are not capable 2. That he may keep them humble 1. Vse Be not proud of your knowledge 2. Vse Comforts to the humble 1. A sign that thy knowledge is right and sound 2. It 's the measure which Christ hath alloted thee 3. The time is coming when these thy defects shall be supplyed 4. We shall be rewarded according to our practice not our knowledge Ver. 26 Doct. Christ will be making farther declarations of his Fathers Name to the worlds end p. 546. 1. By his written Word and Ministers in all ages 2. By his holy Spirit p. 548. 1. Vse Believe what he hath spoken 2. Expect the execution of his promise 3. Thereunto strive with Christ in prayer p. 549. 2. Doct. The Love which is in true believers comes from God Reason For it cannot be Originally in of or from our selves yet not without means Vse If we want it have recourse to God Love is the chiefest thing 1. That comes from God p. 554. 2. That conformeth us to God p. 554. 3. Doct. Declaration of the Fathers Name is a special means to work love in them Reason 1. Beauty is a part of his Name 2. Goodness 3. Mercy 4. Love p. 557. 4. Doct. Where Love is there Christ is Reason 1. For where Love there the Spirit 2. Faith 3. God is p. 560. 1. Vse Misery of those that love not God and his children 2. Comforts to those that have love in them They have Christ and therefore 1. Have intimate Communion with him 2. Have free access to him 3. Have the confluence of all Accommodations 4. Are secure 2. Let Christ live quiet in your hearts Excellency of Christs prayer An Alphabetical Table of the Chief Heads contained In this TREATISE A ADopted children page 15 Admire the love of God and of Christ page 20 98 146 161 361 455 537 Affections of the heart testified by outward gesture page 11 Affliction should not dismay us See Tribulation page 104 195 290 291 367 Abilities of Christ page 145 Active Obedience of Christ page 157 Our Advancement in Christ page 174 The Apostle and Messenger of God is Christ 142 149 234 235 other Apostles page 407 our Affections are to keep Christs word page 204 213 Apostates from Christ page 41 210 Application of Christ page 158 441 Assurance Means and benefit thereof page 22 our Active and Passive obedience page 203 Authority grace and power of Christs words page 7. 473 Authority of Christ over all men 52 144. for the benefit and Salvation of his people page 72 73 Agreement with God and Christ necessary page 465 Agreement See Unity The benefits thereof page 303 304 All things revealed by Christ in what sense page 236 Aimiableness of Christ page 514 515 Adding to the work of Christ page 168 word of Christ page 241 Absence of Christ from the Father page 265 Ascension of Christ 266. End fruit and benefits thereof page 267 B PArtial Believers page 208 â—99 Belief See Faith Wrought by the Gospel page 443 444 Believers not free from the Law page 61 62 Believe the Trinity page 130 132 the Scriptures page 133 399 in Christ page 149 150 441 Christs word 204. 559
do as much as in us lies to dis-invest him of that power which God hath given him over all flesh And with this argument it is that the Apostle Paul disswades them from self-revenge in the fore-alledged Scripture Rom. 12.19 Dearly beloved avenge not your selves and why so because in so doing you enter on the right of Christ for it is written vengeance is mine it is not yours no it is mine and I will repay it either by my self or by my ordinance By self-revenge as you invade the right of Christ so you stay and hinder Christ from taking vengeance for you on your enemies You give not place to his wrath as the Apostle Paul expresseth it in the forecited Scripture Rom. 12.19 He would avenge you and you would not suffer him but you will do it with your own hands He offers to step in and right you and you will not give him the place no you justle him aside by a revengeful righting of your selves And therefore it is just with him to leave you to your selves in this business and truly this among the rest may be the cause why many men lie under such unsufferable wrongs why they are so abused and oppressed without any remedy why Christ forbeareth to avenge them because they will not give him way they will get into the seat they will be medling with his office and authority and therefore he stands by and looks on As therefore we desire that he that hath authority to right us should put to his own hand let us acquit our hearts and hands as much as it is possible of self-revenge I say to every one of you as Solomon Prov. 20.22 Say not I will render evil I will revenge but wait on Christ and he will save you And thirdly as by self-revenge you give no place to Christ so you give place to the Devil you deny the place to Christ and you let the Devil have it And therefore the Apostle Paul having disswaded us from wrath which tendeth to revenge Let not the Sun go down upon your wrath adds this immediately in the succeeding words neither give place to the Devil Eph. 4.27 And is not this a fearful thing to justle Iesus Christ aside that we may let the Devil in to make room for such a guest as Satan is and that by putting Jesus Christ by For it is Satan my beloved that makes such work in mens hearts and stirs them up to such unwarrantable practices as these are Lastly By taking vengeance on our Brethren we do exceedingly provoke Christ to take vengeance upon us We take vengeance upon others and all that we gain is this we cause the Lord to take vengeance on our selves we do not only hinder him from executing wrath for us but we provoke him to execute his wrath upon us Because that Edom hath dealt against the house of Judah saith the Lord by taking vengeance what follows I will take vengeance upon Edom Ezech. 25.12 If Christ come in and find his family together by the ears he will be in a rage too and he will take an order with them altogether Manasseh against Ephraim and Ephraim against Manasseh and they together against Judah And what is the event of these contentions why the Lord is against them all For all this his anger is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still Isa 9.21 He deals with us my Brethren as we deal with others with the froward saith the Psalmist thou wilt shew thy self froward Psal 18.25 If we be unjustly froward to our Brethren he will be justly froward toward us If we lay on upon our brethren he will lay on upon us Let these considerations keep us from revenge And because it is a very hard thing to forbear especially when opportunities are put into our hands For if a man find his Enemy at an advantage will he let him go free 1 Sam. 24.20 I shall give you two directons which will be very helpful to you to cause you to abstain from self-revenge First you must put away those carnal Lusts and in the next place you must put away those carnal reasons which incline you to revenge You must put away those carnal lusts which incline you to revenge you must subdue and mortifie them to the utmost of your power These are the true real causes of it they are within and not without you Whereas there is strife among you saith the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians are you not carnal 1 Cor. 3.3 Is it not very manifest that there is much corruption much flesh in you It may be you may think it to be otherwise but mark what the Apostle saith Jam. 4.1 From whence come wars and fightings among you whence is it that it is but a word and a blow an injury and a revenge whence is it why hence it is will some men say I am so troubled and molested I am so wronged and abused that I cannot suffer it No no saith the Apostle thou art very much deceived it is thy pride self-self-love envy passion that are the true and real causes why thou canst not hold thy hands from whence come wars and fightings among you even from your lusts If there were no wars within there would be no wars without If these corruptions and unruly lusts within were throughly mortified and subdued these outward provocations would never cause such hot contentions as they do You must put away those carnal reasonings that incline you and provoke you to revenge For these if you will give them entertainment will set your hearts on fire of hell And therefore you must do as Abraham did when there was like to be some difference between him and his Nephew Lot It s probable he was assaulted with such thoughts as these What wilt thou yield and stoop to him it is his duty to submit to thee shall Lot thy Nephew have his choice of all the Land and thou his aged Unkle be content to take the boyes leavings But Abraham hearkens not to such suggestions So Moses when he was contemned vilified and set at nought no doubt he had his passions in him though he were a meek man and they were apt enough to work and stir and secretly to egg him on to this or the like purpose What wilt thou suffer such a gross abuse shall they go smooth away with such a bold affront and base indignity as this is No let them know that they have mis-behaved themselves towards their betters But Moses patiently allays and stils such thoughts as these and meekly puts up all without distemper I might exemplifie in David when he was abused by Shimei who was his Subject and that in such a base unworthy and unsufferable way no doubt he had his inward risings and he had one at hand that was an end to take revenge for him and yet he calms all we hear no more but this Let him curse c. So when our thoughts begin to work apace
God in him and hence our Saviour said to Philip when he entreated him to shew him the Father he that hath seen me hath seen the Father also If we would know God vve must seek to know Christ and vve shall know God in him And therefore let us set our selves to this business to know God and Iesus Christ whom he hath sent yea to know God in Jesus Christ and to this I shall perswade vvith some Motives First till you know God in Jesus Christ you can have no assurance of any blessing from God either spiritual or temporal that any thing comes to you in a Covenant-way for all the Promises of God are made in Christ They are the Promises of God indeed as they are called 2 Cor. 1.20 but they are made in Jesus Christ they are in him Yea and in him Amen as it is added there in that place So that if you know God and not Christ you know him not as making any promise to you You may know him as a threatner this he doth with reference to Christ but you can never know him as a Promiser at least not as a Promiser to you in special You have no Promise of the Lord for any thing no Promise of the Lord will reach to you to profit you as long as you know not Christ the means of Conveyance Look over all the book of God consider all the precious Promises contained in it from the beginning of it to the End and this resolve if you know not God you have no right to in any one of them nor shall you ever if you so continue be a whit the better from them God hath made Jesus Christ his Steward he hath put all things into his hand as vve may see Mat. 11.27 All things are delivered unto me of my Father saith our Saviour so that they come not to us but through him they go all through his hands God hath made him heir of all things as the Apostle speaks Heb. 1.2 So that you see my Brethren all is his and Consequently we can have nothing but from and by and through him Till you know God in Jesus Christ the Blessings which you have from God you have them not in love and mercy So that indeed you can find no true and kindly relish in them For this is that vvhich sweetens all the Blessings of the Lord when a man can say as Iacob of his Children Gen. 33.5 These are the Children which God hath graciously given thy servant As David being rescued out of danger The Lord delivered me saith he because he delighted in me 2 Sam. 22.20 Then are his Blessings and Deliverances sweet indeed vvhen we can relish love in them vvhen vve can look upon them as the fruits of mercy Alas vve know God poureth out his Blessings abundantly on many men not in love but in displeasure He gave them their desire saith the Psalmist of the Jews that perished in the Wilderness but while the meat was in their mouthes the wrath of God went out against them and slew the fattest of them Psalm 78.31 they had the Blessing but they had it with a curse The Lord did curse their blessings to them and so he doth to all that know him not in Jesus Christ who is his first Beloved and in whom he loves others Christ is the only Way of Intercourse between God and our souls He is the Way from God to us He is the Channel and the Pipe in which the stream of Gods love runs down to us So that there is not one drop of Love from God to any soul but it is conveyed and carried to it in and by and through Christ Out of Christ we have no Love and consequently nothing in Love Till you know God in Jesus Christ as he gives nothing in Love to you so he takes nothing in Love from you Do what you will or what you can he is never pleased vvith you He accepts of no Duties no service you perform to him This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Matth. 3.17 Observe it well for it is very notable He doth not say with whom I am well pleased but in whom I am well pleased In whom I am well pleased with all with vvhom I am well pleased with all that are in him and with no man out of him If you know God in Christ you may know him as a God vvell pleased vvith you otherwise you cannot He hath made us accepted in the Beloved saith the Apostle Eph. 1.6 First Christ is the Beloved of the Father and then vve are beloved and accepted in him Till you know God in Jesus Christ you know him not as one that pardons and forgives you but as one that charges all your sins upon you In him we have Redemption through his blood saith the Apostle even the forgiveness of our sins Eph. 1.7 We have not pardon but in him Him hath the Lord set forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood saith the Apostle Rom. 3.25 God hath made him the Mercy-seat the seat of Mercy from vvhich Mercy is dispensed And whereas formerly the Mercy-seat under the Law vvas placed within the Vail and so vvas hidden both from the people and the Priests the High-Priest only had access to it and that but once a year neither The Lord hath now set forth this Mercy-seat to the view of all men that all may have access to it And as the High-Priest came not to the Mercy-seat without blood Levit. 16.14 even so may no man hope to have mercy from the Lord in the forgiveness of his sins but through the blood of Jesus Christ if he know not God in him he can expect no pardoning mercies from him Till you know God in Jesus Christ you cannot come to God with any boldness or with any confidence No man cometh to the Father but by me saith Jesus Christ John 14.6 He must make our way to God In him saith the Apostle we have boldness and access with confidence Ephes 3.12 so that we can hold up our heads with courage and lift up our faces to him as the expression is Job 22.26 But if we know not Jesus Christ how can we be but flat and faint in our approaches to the throne of Grace It is in his name that we must desire the blessings that we seek for at the hands of God and whatsoever we ask the Father in his name he will give it us John 16.23 It is in his name that we must return the praise for blessings that we have received giving thanks to God the Father by him Col. 3.17 If we draw blessings down from God we must do it through Christ If we send praises up to God we must do it through Christ If we have no acquaintance with the Lord Christ how shall we come to God with prayers how shall we come to God with praises with what heart or encouragement shall we draw nigh to God either to
it So that here was rich mercy Had he done it by constraint had he been enforced to it there had been no such matter in it I confess of admiration or thanksgiving The praise had then been due to him that forced him and not to him that was enforced But that he should go forth of such an errand willingly for our sakes that he should willingly expose himself to such a death for those who were not friends but enemies both to his Father and himself This was love as the Apostle Iohn speaks Love in the heighth and with a witness love to astonishment and admiration Is it so that Jesus Christ is Gods Apostle a Messenger c. Then be Use 2 you all entreated to receive him and to give him entertainment when he comes Do not reject and slight a Messenger that comes from such a one as God is you cannot but acknowledge that you owe so much to any one whom God sends as to give him fair quarter and to shew him all the kindness that you can Indeed the carriage of the world to Jesus Christ in this respect is very shamefull and unworthy The Evangelist observes it Iohn 1.10 11. that for the greater part he is neglected slighted and despised on all hands He came into the world saith he but they refused him they did not account him worth the looking after And why so the cause is evident they knew him not as it is added there in that place But yet the Jews a man would think who were his own of whom he came according to the flesh who knew the prophesies concerning him should have received and entertained him No for the greater number of them they were as bad and as averse as it was possible for men to be He came unto his own his own friends his own kindred his own acquaintance his own Nation the people of his own Countrey but though they were his own they would not own him nor embrace him He came unto his own and his own received him not Yea more then so it is observed with reference to them that God sent his Son among them and they cast him out and slew him Mat. 21.39 Now I beseech you my Beloved be not you like those men Since Jesus Christ is Gods Apostle and his Messenger since he is sent from God to you let him be received by you When he comes to your doors let him not stand knocking there till his head be full of dew and his locks with the drops of the night No open presently and let him in and entertain him with such honour and respect as is agreeable and suitable to him who comes immediately from God who is the Messenger and Embassador of the great God of heaven and earth And that you may the rather be prevailed withall I shall present you with a few considerations Consider Jesus Christ as he is sent forth from God so he is sent on your business The errand which he comes about concerns you and therefore you have cause to look after him If he were sent into the world about a matter that you had not to do withall and that concerns you not at all there were some colour that you should neglect him that you should leave him to be entertained by those whose business he is come about For what have you to do with him that comes upon a message to another man But sure the errand and the business which our Saviour comes into the world about is yours it is but reason that he should be entertained by you And as the business which he comes about concerns you so it concerns you for your good and your advantage It might be your business and yet it might be but a bad business such as you have no cause to hearken much after nor to give any welcome entertainment to him that is employed about it It might be for your hurt and for your ruine and your condemnation But Jesus Christ is not sent into the world at least he is not sent immediately and directly upon any such errand The Father disavows it and saith he did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world by him might be saved John 3.17 And so doth the Son too Iohn 12.47 I came not to judge the world but to save the world So that you see Christ is the Messenger of God for good to you He is not come to judge you and condemn you but to save you He comes not with a Writ of death but with a Pardon and a Pardon sealed with his own blood and therefore you have cause to bid him welcome He is sent to make Peace for you and to preach Peace to you as I have shewed you formerly The Spirit of the Lord is upon me saith our Saviour Isaiah 61.1 he hath annointed me to preach good tidings to the meek he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. You see the errand he is sent upon is all sweetness the message which he brings is nothing else but glad tidings of good things And therefore let his very feet be beautifull let his reception and his entertainment be answerable to his business Consider that the Father who hath sent the Son into the world expects he should be well received and entertained by you He looks for this at your hands that you should honour his Embassador and use him with respect for his sake Especially since he is not his Embassador in ordinary as he hath many such among you every Minister is so No my Beloved Jesus Christ is more then so he is the Extraordinary Messenger and Embassador of God and therefore he will have him entertained with extraordinary honour and respect And this is that which he suggesteth in the parable Mat. 21.37 Last of all he sent his Son saying they will reverence my Son He had sent many other Messengers before and they despised and abused them as you may see in that place But last of all he sent his Son the greatest and the best Embassador he had to send and said though they have slighted other Messengers of mine yet surely they will reverence my Son Though they have abused my servants they will not deal so with my Son it is impossible they should be so unworthy to despise my Son So that you see my Brethren when God sends his Son to you he looks he should be well received and entertained by you Consider that if you deceive his expectation he will take deep revenge upon you If when he hath dispatched his own Son to you you will not give him entertainment but shut the doors against him as it were and turn him off with a refusall it will fall heavy on you in the end It is such a base affront and high indignity to God and Christ as he
me This out of question is a truth in some sense or else he would not have the world to know it How it must be understood I shall shew you by and by In the mean time the point is this DOCTRINE That God the Father loves believers even as he loves Christ himself This is much I must acknowledge And yet you see it is the clear express assertion of the Text Thou hast loved them saith Christ even as thou hast loved me To make way to the opening of it this must be premised as a thing to be fore-known that Christ must here be looked upon as Man and Mediator of the Church so he hath been considered all along this prayer Now under this consideration the Father loves believers as he loves him But you will ask me How as he doth him what is the sense of that expression there lies the weight of all indeed and therefore I shall lay it open to you in a few particulars 1. God the Father loves believers as really and truly as he loves Christ as he hath loved Christ so he hath also loved them He hath not loved Christ and not them but he hath loved Christ and them The one of them as well that is as truly as the other And even as all the love which he declares to Jesus Christ is real and from the very heart-root if I might express it so so all the love which he discovers to believers is of the very same stamp It is a love without dissimulation in all respects as high and dear and cordial as it seems to be 2. God the Father loves believers everlastingly even as he loves Christ And everlastingly he loves them upon both hands à parte ante and à parte post from everlasting to everlasting First he loves believers from everlasting even as he loves Christ for as the time cannot be mentioned look back as far as you are able wherein the Father did not love the Son so neither can the time be mentioned wherein he did not love believers You know Election was from everlasting and therefore love must be from everlasting too which is indeed the Cause and Fountain of Election as Ephes 1.5 Having predestinated us to be his children in Christ Jesus according to the good pleasure of his will You see Election flows from the good pleasure of the will of God that is not only from that pleasure of his will which in it self is good for so doth Reprobation too but from the pleasure of his will which is good to us his creatures It issues from his love that is his free and undeserved favour So that you see he bears good will to true believers even in the instant of Election which is from all Eternity and so by consequence before they have a being in the world And this he doth in Christ as the Apostle shews Ephes 1.3 he chooses us in Christ In the first place he chooses Christ and then he chooses us in Christ He loves and chooses him first as Man and Mediator of the Church and then he loves and chooses us in him with the same love with which he loves him Secondly God the Father loves believers to everlasting even as he doth love Christ as he doth never cease to love Christ so he doth never cease to love them His love to them is like his love to Christ himself immutable he never alters it nor takes it off again The Mountains may depart and the Hills may be removed but his kindness shall not depart from his people neither shall the Covenant of my peace be removed saith the Lord that hath mercy upon thee Isa 54.10 No it is an everlasting kindness ver 8. an everlasting love Jer. 31.3 A mercy that endures for ever Psal 106. So that as he loveth Christ from the beginning to the end so he loves believers too He loveth them in this respect even as he loveth him But hath not God been very angry Object and displeased with those whom he hath seemed to love in former times have they not most bitterly complained of it as the Church Lament 5. ult where she concludeth her discourse though not her misery with this wofull Epilogue But thou hast utterly rejected us thou art very wrath against us And how then shall we take it for a truth that God doth never cease to love believers as he doth never cease to love Christ True it is the Lord is many times offended with believers Sol. as he was with Christ himself He was offended with our Saviour for believers sins he is offended with believers for their own sins Iniquity wheresoever he finds it whether by imputation or commission makes him angry But you must know my brethren that it is one thing to be angry with a person and another thing to hate him It s true indeed that hatred cannot stand with love for it desireth the not being of the object of it but anger may consist with it And even as we are angry many times with those we love best and who are infinitely dear to us so God was angry with his dearest Son and he is angry with his dearest Saints and with his best beloved people and yet his love is firm and constant and unalterable to them notwithstanding as will appear if you consider First the shortness Secondly the fruits of this anger First Gods anger with his people is no lasting anger There is so great a mixture of love and kindness and compassion in it that it is overcome again upon a suddain it is very quickly gone Indeed his anger to the wicked is an anger like his love to his people everlasting They are a people with whom the Lord is angry for ever But his anger to his people is but short It is but little and that little is nothing it is but for a moment Isa 54.8 and that is recompensed with everlasting kindness too In a little wrath have I hid my face from thee for a moment but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy en thee It s true that David said in his distress that God had cast him off and that his love and mercy was clean gone for ever But he corrects himself again in his advised and deliberate thoughts and ingenuously confesses that he spake the former in his haste Psal 31.22 and that the latter was his infirmity Psal 77.10 Secondly as for the second the effects of Gods anger are such as relish strongly of his love to his people They are not such as he is wont to shew on reprobates and vessels of wrath They are not rigorous punishments to satisfie his justice but loving chastisements to hinder and prevent the execution of it For when they are afflicted they are not punished in propriety of speech but chastned and that to this end that they may not be condemned 1 Cor. 11.32 They are not such as fit them for destruction and border on damnation as those which he inflicteth on the
respects besides it matters not in this of what Nation Condition Station Disposition or Conversation for the present if God have given them to him his will is that they be with him where he is But then we must distinguish as we have done before of the Fathers giving to the Son The Father gives men to the Son either for outward Ministration or inward union and incorporation Either to be his servants or to be his members In the first sence Judas was himself given to the Lord Christ to be his Minister and his Apostle as Christ himself acknowledges ver 12. Those whom thou gavest me I kept and none of of them is lost but the Son of perdition Now they who in this sence are given to the Lord Christ to be his Ministers and Servants only not his members are not the men for whom he prayes in this place that they also may be with him where he is because he knows they are appointed for another place Judas was so bestowed upon him and yet he was a lost Creature The Father gave him to the Son and he lost him as you may see in the forecited Text never to enjoy him more But now there are another sort whom God the Father gives to Christ for inward union whom he bestows upon him for to be members of his body And they must needs be with him who are in him And therefore out of question these are they for whom he prayes Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am But where was Christ when he spake these words Why he was upon the earth he was here in the world what then doth he desire that true believers might be with him here Is that the aim of his petition No it is a higher thing for which he is Suitor here their being with him in a higher and more glorious place Only you must conceive him here to speak as his usual manner is as if he were in heaven already As ver 11. of this Chapter And now I am no more in the world So in my Text Father I will that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am That is in heaven where I am to be and whither I am now going So that it is as if I were already there it being such a certain near approaching instant thing and in that place I would have all those to be whom thou hast given me by election and whom in thine eternal Counsell and Decree thou hast appointed to be members of my body Father I will c. So that the Point to be observed is this DOCTRINE It is the will of Jesus Christ that all that are his own by the donation of the Father shall be in heaven where he is There are two things in the Doctrine which I might prove clear in order before I come to Application First that there are some certain men whom God the Father hath made over to the Son that belong to Jesus Christ and are his own by donation from the Father Secondly that it is the will of Christ that they who are so his own shall be in heaven where he is There are some certain men who belong to Jesus Christ who are his own by donation from the Father And he gives them to the Son by his Decree from everlasting and by the execution of the same Decree in time This I do but mention here because it hath been largely handled on ver 12. Now for the second branch that it is the will of Christ that they who are so his own shall be in heaven where himself is you see it is the Suit he makes to God the Father in my Text Father I will that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that is in heaven where I am to be In heaven where I am already in my Godhead and where I am to be very shortly in my Manhood there I will have them to be also And for this end our Saviour Christ is gone to heaven even to make heaven ready for his people that so they may be presently admitted when they come He yields it as one special cause of his departure from his Apostles and Disciples when he was about to leave them saith he I go to prepare a place for you Joh. 4.2 When he entred into heaven and passed in to the immediate presence of his Father he took possession of it in our name and stead and left it open after him to all his members He hath in this respect prepared it for them that he hath made it ready to receive them And when they are ready too he will come and receive them to himself that where he is there may they be also as it is added Joh 14.3 And upon this account it was that the Apostle Paul desired to be dissolved because he was assured that assoon as that was over he should be with Christ Phil. 1.23 and so he teaches us expresly in another place that all that sleep in Christ Jesus shall be for ever with the Lord 1 Thes 4.17 By which it is apparent that it is the will of Christ that all that are his own by the donation of the Father shall be in Heaven where himself is But you will ask me Why will he have them to be there To this I answer that a man would think it necessary by reason of the union between Christ and them that seeing they are one they should be in one place But you must know my brethren that the corporeal and local presence of the parties contributes nothing to the union that is made between Christ and his members which is a spiritual and invisible thing and which no neerness in regard of place can further no distance in regard of place can hinder So that Christs people may be in him though they be not with him in the sence wherein I speak I mean not with him in the same place Their being with him locally in heaven is no way necessary to their union with him Or were it so the Saints on earth were in a very ill case Well then this cannot be the reason why Christ would have his people to be in one place with him that they may be one with him They may be this without the other But there are divers other weighty reasons of the Point I shall name a few of them Reason 1 Christ would have his people be in heaven where himself is because he hath a dear affection to them his heart is carried out exceedingly in love to them And more particularly and distinctly he loves them with a love of benevolence and he loves them with a love of complacency 1. Christ would have his people be in heaven where himself is because he loves them with a love of benevolence With such a love as makes him with them all the good that they are possibly capable of Now my beloved what greater good can be
Gods hour will come p. 30. 5. D ctr It hath been the Fathers design and purpose to glorifie his Son Christ p. 32. Confirm 1. From the Titles given to Christ 2. From his names in reference to Christ 3. Place at his right hand 4. Authority and Power given him 5. From his offices of highest honour King Priest and Prophet All good to the Church being by him only 1. Procured p. 34. 2. Revealed p. 34. 3. Dispensed p. 34. 6. From his being qualified with fitting gifts p. 35. Reas As the Recompence of his sufferings 2. That the Father may be glorified in the Son p. 36. 1. Vse Terror to those that dishonour Christ 1. To Unbelievers that refuse him 2. To self-seekers and unsanctified persons p 39. 3. To them that slight the Spirit of Christ 4. His Mâ—ssengers p. 40. 5. To those that forsake Christ and fall away from him 2. Vse Comply with God to glorifie Christ Not only with but against our own honour p. 42. Motives 1. All things made to that end 2. It is the way to be honoured 3. It is most acceptable to God p. 44. 6. Doctr. Christs desire to glorifie the Father is to this end that he may bring glory to the Father p. 46. Reas He was therefore Mediator and the Fathers servant 2. As God he is one with the Father p. 48. Vse Desire good things but in reference to Gods glory 1. Then we may be sure to speed God himself being concerned p. 49. 2. Christ will intercede for us p. 49. 2. Vse Give God the honour of our gifts How Christ hath power over all flâ—sh by his Legislative power p. 53. Judiciary power p. 53. 7. Doctr. All mankind under the authority of Christ as he is man and Mediator of the Church p 52. Christ hath power of passing sentence upon all flesh executing sentence upon all flesh Vse They taxed who submit not to Christs Authority and Law As 1. Unbelievers their 1. Sin Against God Christ p. 56. 2 Danger 2. The Uncharitable or Disobedient p. 58. Arguments against them p. 59. None free from the Law p. 60. Believers are under the power of the Law p. 61 62. The Law how not given to the Righteous p. 63. 2. Vse Christ being our only Lawgiver doth not discharge our obedience to men p 64. Our faith and conscience not subject to men 3 One man not to censure and judge another without Authority 4. Vse Against private revenge p. 66. Direct against self-revenge Put away 1. Carnal lusts 2. Carnal reasons and provocations p. 68 Thereby you 1. Invade Christs property Hinder Christ from doing vengeance 3. Give place to the Devil 4. Provoke Christ to take vengeance on you p. 67. 6. Vse Comply with Christs authority and endeavour to please him p. 69. 7. Vse Terror to wicked men Comfort to the godly p. 70. 8. Doctr. Christs authority over all Fesh is chiefly for the benefit and salvation of his own people p 72. Reas His Mediatorship was to that end 2. The wicked might have been destroyed but not his people otherwise saved p. 74. 3. The Father out of love invested him with this power 4. His authority remains but so long till his people reap good by it p. 75. 1. Vse Our encouragement to stoop to this authority of his 2. Ministers directed how to use their power received from Christs p 76. 3 Vse His Judgements executed not so much for the destruction of Enemies as the preservation of his friends p. 77. 4. Let the wicked have better thoughts of Christ that he came not for their destruction p. 79. 5. Believe the certainty of salvation 6. Vse How we are bound to be thankful to the Father and the Son p. 81. 9. Doctr. They that are Christ's have life from Christ p. 82. Life of Sanctification p 83. Justification p. 83. Vse Examination 1. Quickned by Christ are strangely altered 2. Long after spiritual food 3. Are acted by the principles of that life 4. They live to Christ not unto themselves p. 85. 2. Vse To be thankful to Christ Ver. 2 1. Doctr. The life which Christ bestows upon his people is eternal Confirm 1. For it hath no inward principles of frailty 2. No outward force can prevail against it to destroy it p. 87. 1. Vse Supports us against temptations and fears of failing 2. Comfort against the frailty of natural life p. 89. 3. Vse Not content with this life seek for that which is eternal by 1. Endeavouring for the light of knowledge 2. Saving faith 3. Attending to the Gospel 2. Doctr. Eternal life is Christs free gift p. 91. Reas that life being by those that are his 1. Unbought p. 92 2. Unsought p. 92 3. Unthought p. 92 1. Vse It should encourage all to come to Christ for life 2. Fear not to lose this life Ver. 2 3. Doctr. God the Father gives some to Christ in special manner p. 97. Reas All the world is the Fathers by Creation Vse Strange that the Father should give and Christ should accept of such a gift 2. Vse The Elect cannot perish 1. Such a gift being not vain 2. Christ will not lose or reject such a gift 4. Doctr. Christ as Mediator hath power to give life to such as are so bestowed and to none else p. 101. Reas He being the Fathers Minister and Servant Vse 1. Despair not of those that are dead in sins p. 103. 2. Be not proud of their Prosperity and high condition in the world nor cast down with affliction p. 104. 3. Vse Christ came not to quicken and save all men Ver. 3 Knowledge how life eternal Doctr. The life of Grace which is eternal is begun in holy Knowledge p. 108. Confirm For the great impediment to life is ignorance 2. Christ the Efficient gives it by working in us Knowledge 3. Knowledge and the Gospel the instrumental means of life 4. Gods first work in us is the englightning our understanding p. 109. 1. Vse Learn to value Knowledge 2. Sad condition of the ignorant 3. Labour for holy knowledge Follow Christ in his Gospel Ordinance p. 114. Grace p. 114. Duty p. 114. 4. Vse Do what you can to instruct others Preaching Faith 2. Doctr. The knowledge in which eternal life consists is the Knowledge of God and Christ too p. 116. 1. We must so know God as to fear and obey him 2. That is but vain without the knowledge of Christ p. 117. Reason 1. For that is but the knowledge of our Creation in which we were lost 2. Without this we know not God as reconciled p. 119. 3. Without knowledge of Christ we know him not as ours 4. We do but know him without Faith p. 120. Vse 1. The dangerous state of Heathen people 2. Let Ministers instruct their people in such a knowledge p. 122. 3. Labour to know Christ Motives 1. Till then you can be assured of no blessing from God 2. You can have no blessing in love 123. 3. No
duty you do to him can be accepted 4. You can hope for no pardon of sin 5. Cannot come to God with boldness 124. What meant by the only true God p. 126. viz. the whole Essence of the Godhead 3. Doctr. That the Father Son and Holy Ghost is the only true God p. 128. Reason For he only hath being of himself 2. He is the living God 3. None can do that which he doth 4. He only is Eternal 1. Vse Be stirred up to confirm your faith of this Motives 1. For then the more and better we shall walk with him 2. Serve and obey him p. 130. Direct 1. Give full assent to the Scriptures 2. Know him to be above all other Gods 3. Be resolved not doubtful of this point 4. Pray for faith in this particular p. 133. 2. Vse Obey serve and honour him as the true God p. 134. 3. Vse Let us have no other God but him only p. 135. Serve the Lord and not Idols p. 136. Times p 138. Lusts neither your own nor that of others p. 139. 2. Fear none but him 3. Trust in him alone p. 140. 4. Vse Learn from hence to be at unity among our selves 5. Learn to see our happiness of having chosen him for our God p. 141. 4. Doctr. That Christ is the Apostle or Messenger of God p. 142. Explication 1. Sent from God and from heaven How possible p. 143. 2. Into the world 3. The errand on which he was sent viz. to make peace preach peace 4. Therefore fitly qualified with 1. Authority 2. Ability Fulness of Merit to make peace p. 145. Spirit to preach peace p. 145. 1. Vse Admire the mercy of the sender 2. Of him that would be sent Void of fear and constraint p. 147 2. Be all intreated to receive and entertain him For 1. His errand is your business 2. It 's for your good and advantage 3. The Father expects you should honour his Embassadour and Son 4. He will avenge the refusers of him 5. This Messenger can prevail with God for you p. 149. Direction 1. Receive him so as to hearken to him 2. To believe in him 3. To obey him p. 150. 5. Doct. Whoever wil be glorified with God in heaven must glorifie him first on earth p. 152 Reason It is the everlasting counsel and decree of God Vse 1. Against vain expecters of future glory p. 153. 2. Vse Learn to glorifie God here 1. By a vocal declaration 2. By a real representation in what you 1. are p. 154. 2. do p. 154. Gods glory how to be our aim in all Ver. 4 1. Doctr. That Christ was ordered by his Father in the work he did in this world p. 156. Expl. Christ was so ordered in his works of Satisfaction His obedience Active p. 157. Passive p. 158. Application p. 158. As by the 1. Promulgation of the Word 2. Internal operation of the Spirit p. 159. Reas 1. Christ was the Fathers creature 2. The Fathers servant p. 160. 1. Vse Admire the humble condescension of Christ 2. Learn to be humbled in like manner and to suffer willingly p. 161. 3. Vse Some do the good others the evil which God hath not given them to do p. 162. Danger of neglecting Gods order p. 164. How Christ had finished the work before his Passion p. 165. 2. Doct. Christ did not do his work by halves but went through with it p. 166. Sufferings of Christs body Natural Mystical 1. Vse Who guilty of adding to the works of Christ 2. Let us persevere in our work and finish it Five Motives hereunto p. 169. Ver. 5 What glory Christ prayed for Doct. Christ as Man in some measure partaker of the divine glory 1. By the grace of union 2. By the grace of dispensation from the Father p. 173. 1. Vse Know the advancement of our nature in the Person of Christ 2. Their personal advancement that belong to Christ partly in 1. Fruition 2. Assured expectation 3. This should make us despise the shame of this world 2. So to walk as not to be a shame to Christ p. 174. Ver. 6 How Christ had manifested Gods Name Doct. Christ made an absolute and compleat discovery of his Father to the people 1. By his Personal appearance in the flesh 2. By his Word and Gospel 3. By his Spirit p. 178. 2. Q. Why Christ only makes this discovery R. 1. None but he is able 2. None but he is fit to make this discovery p. 180. 3. Q. Why the discovery he makes is so full and absolute R. 1. As being the faithful Prophet of his Church 2. That the discovery may be effectual 1. Vse The ignorant inexcusable 2. Learn to bless his Name for this discovery 3. Grow up in the knowledge of this Name made known p. 182. 4. Vse Be satisfied with the discovery which Christ hath made search not beyond it Pride Sin Danger vanity thereof p. 184. 5. Vse Walk worthy of this discovery i. e. Despair not under sin or misery p. 185. 2. Doct. Some the Father giveth to Christ out of the world 2. A certain number of them 3. Being once the Lords they are no longer of the world Confirm 1. The actual members of Christ are dead with Christ and of another world as are their kindred and alliance p. 190. 3. Their habitation is spiritual so is their action and traffique 1. Vse Therefore the world storms and rageth at mens being given up to Christ 2. Examin Are we given up to Christ p. 192. Marks 1. They are not conformable to this present world 2. They speak the language of another world p. 193. 3. They dearly affect their Countreymen 3. Vse Think not strange of ill usage in the world p. 194. 4. Vse Regard not the things of this world 5. Follow not a multitude to sin It s safe and honorable to be retired 6. Be not troubled at worldly troubles 3. Doct. All Christs people were first belonging to the Father p. 197. 1. The Father essentially taken 2. All belonged to God 1. By Creation 2. By Election 3. Christs people not so his as not the Fathers 1 Vse Christ will tenderly keep those that are so given him Word of God Inward and Essential p. 202. Outward and Declaratory p. 202. 4. Doct. They whom the Father gives to Christ keep his word p. 203. Christs Word is kept In the memory by retaining In the heart by believing In the affections by loving In the life by obeying with obedience Active Passive Vse Exam. Are we so given up to Christ that we keep his Word p. 205. 2. Vse Direct For helping memory 1. Be intent and fix your mind on the Word 2. Get a good understanding 3. Value the Word 4. Strengthen the memory by meditation repetition conference 5. Set instantly to practice the truth you hear 6. Pray for the Spirit to do his Office 3. Vse of Examination Do we keep Christs word by Faith Some believe none of it 2. Some but part of it
wished to true Believers then to be with Christ in heaven To be in heaven where they shall be absolutely and compleatly holy and happy where they shall never sin and where they shall never suffer any more where holiness and happiness shall be both perfect where there is fulness of joy and pleasure for evermore and to be with Christ there of whose immediate prefence true believers are inavoidably debarred as long as they remain in this world While they are at home in the body they are absent from the Lord as 2 Cor. 5.6 But when they come to heaven they shall be with him they shall have the compleat and full fruition and enjoyment of him which is the greatest happiness that can be To be with Christ is best of all 1 Phil. 23. To be with Saints on Earth is good though they be imperfect here and though by reason of their imperfections they be the less delightfull and the less beneficial to us To be with Saints in heaven is better because they are perfect there There are the spirits of just men made perfect But to be with Christ there is best of all This is so good that there is nothing better there is no higher happiness attainable by any creature And therefore Christ would have his people to enjoy it to be in heaven where himself is because he loves them with a love of benevolence 2. Jesus Christ would have his people to be in heaven where himself is because he loves them with a love of complacency because he takes delight in them and friends that delight in one another think it not sufficient to be present each with other by the presence of their hearts and spirits No if it be possible they will be present each with other in their bodies too as you may see in Jonathan and David what shifts they made to come together So Jesus Christ who loves his people out of measure is not content that he is with them in his spirit and that they are again with him in their spirits No this is not enough but he must have their bodies with him too he must enjoy their company in heaven or else it is not well there Christ is not fully satisfied till he enjoy the sweet Society of his beloved Saints in heaven with whom he hath such intimate and dear acquaintance while they are here upon earth And hence he beggs his Father for them to bring them to the same place where himself is as if he could not live in heaven without them Father I will that c. 2. There is a second reason added in the Text which I shall handle Reason 2 only under that consideration Father I will that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am And why so might the Father ask him Why that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me as it is added in the next words That they may see the lustre which I sparkle with The glory of Christs humane nature in heaven is exceeding great The Evangelist who saw it through the dimm spectacles of humane frailty endeavours as he can to set it forth Saith he his Countenance was as the Sun that shineth in his strength Apoc. 1.16 But this was but a short resemblance Our Saviour Christ who knew it better carries it a little higher The Son of man saith he shall come in the glory of the Father Mat. 16.27 In comparison of whose incomparable lustre and transcendent brightness the Sun it self is but a shaddow Now Christ would have his people be in heaven where himself is that they may see this glory which he sh nes withall But why would he have them see it what shall they gain by it 1. While they see it they cannot but exceedingly rejoyce in it It cannot but transport them even to an extasie of joy to see him whom they love so infinitely sparkle forth with such dazling raies of glory Oh will the poor believer say This is my head my husband whom my soul loveth that is become so out of measure glorious There was a time when he was black and when there was no form nor beauty in him when wretched men made him vile and ignominious and when they hid their faces as if they were ashamed of him But now he shines forth as the Sun that hath been masked with a gloomy cloud This is he that died for me that shed his blood for me that loved me and gave himself for me Oh how my heart is ravished to behold his glory 2. While they behold it as they shall rejoyce in it so they shall partake of it And that especially two wayes both by union and reflection First they shall partake of it by union for being one with Jesus Christ they cannot choose but share together with him in his glory And as the glory of the members redoundeth to the glory of the head in which respect it is that the Apostle saith that Christ shall be admired in all them that believe So on the other side the glory of the head redoundeth much more to the glory of the members Secondly And as they shall partake hereof by union so also by reflection when they see Christ while they behold the glory of the Lord they shall be transformed into the same image from glory to glory Their vile bodies shall be conformed to his glorious body Phil. 3.21 And while they see him as he is they shall be like him as the Apostle John insinuates 1 Epist 3.2 They shall bear the very image of the heavenly Adam 1 Cor. 15.48 And as the face of Moses shined when he had been with God upon the Mount so when we come to be with Christ in heaven and to behold his glory there we shall reflect it back again and so shall shine together with him in the same glory And this is another reason why Christ will have his people to be with him that they may see his glory and seeing may partake of it both by union and reflection Use Now to descend to application Is it the will of Christ c. Here then you see the singular and extraordinary happiness of Christs people If they were alwayes to remain to set up their perpetual abode in this world it would be very sad with them It is a vale of tears a most uncomfortable place especially to Christs people in which they are not like to have a quiet hour almost as long as they remain in it But now the comfort is that it is the will of Christ that they that are bestowed upon him by his Father shall not alwayes stay here that he will have them come to heaven where himself is That he will not alwayes leave them in this vale of tears but he will one day bring them to a place of joy there to enjoy himself for ever to keep no longer at a distance from him but to be with him where he is To be with Christ in any