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
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
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
interest is so far from being weakned and abated 〈◊〉 that indeed it is strengthened and increased by this means Vse 1 Is it so that all the people of the Lord Christ are belonging to the Father Then certainly they are most excellent and pretious people for he will never own vile things It is a frequent thing in Scripture that admirable and eximious things are said to be the Lords The hill of Sion the hill of God because the excellentest of all other hills Psal 68.15 The trees of Lebanon the trees of the Lord because the excellentest of all other trees And so the Saints the people of the Lord because the excellentest of all other people and surely that must needs be excellent which he owns And therefore let us learn to value them aright and as the Lord in this respect hath made them high above others as he speaks of Israel Deut. 26.18.19 God hath avouched thee to be his own peculiar people to make thee high above all Nations So let us have an high esteem of them let us not slight and disrespect them as carnal men are apt to do because they have a meer outside but let us look upon them as the Fathers as that which he peculiarly owns and that not as his ordinary stuffe but as his Treasure and his Jewels as they are often stiled in the Scripture And though they may be trodden under foot awhile by wicked men we may be confident the time is coming when the Lord will make them up as it is said Mal. 3.17 When he will make up his Jewels when he will take them up out of the mire and wipe them clean from those abasures that have lain upon them to hide their beauty and obscure their lustre and shew them in their brightness and their splendor to the world Is it so that all the people of the Lord Christ do belong c. Then let Vse 2 it be their care and their endevour so to walk and so to carry and behave themselves as a people ought to do who have such near relation both to God and Christ both to the Father and to the Son And hence the people of the Lord are exhorted to be strict and to be holy in a peculiar manner on this very ground as you may see that place for instance Lev. 20.26 You shall be holy to me saith the Lord. And why so For I have severed you from other people that you should be mine And so say I to you my Brethren you are the Lords own people and he hath severed you from others to be his peculiar ones Oh see now that you walk as it becometh those to do who are the Lords and that upon these two grounds For 1. The sins of those who are his own reflect with more disparagement upon him then the sins of others do He suffers not so much in the exorbitancies of other men that appertain not to him as he doth in yours and therefore you should be the more wary Oh let not wicked men have any cause to say of you as the Heathen did sometimes of the people of the Jews the only people of the Lord at that time Ezek. 36.20 These are the people of the Lord and they are gone out of his Land They carried and demeaned themselves so ill that he could not bear with them but he was fain to cast them forth out of the Land which he had bestowed upon them So let not wicked wretches say of you These are the people of the Lord and yet they are proud covetous worldly wanton loose c. Let not his name I pray you be dishonored and blasphemed by your means but think when you are tempted and enticed to any sin Whether it be fit for those who are the Lords own people to do such wickedness and sin against their God 2. As your iniquities who are the Lords dishonour him more so he will chasten you if you miscarry sooner and quicker then he will do other men who are further off from him this should make you yet more cautious that known place is home and apposite to this purpose Amos 3.12 You only have I known of all the families of the earth therefore I will punish you For other families that are not mine as you are and that appertain not to me in such a special manner as you do I shall not be so quick to exercise my Discipline upon them But you are mine own houshold and therefore if you do amiss I will be sure to take a course with you If God see many Aliens to him doing any wickedness he may bear with them long for it concerns him not so much to deal against them but if he spy out any of his own amongst them doing as the rest do he will be sure to single him and call him out from all the rest and say You are my own you appertain especially to me and what will you do as these vile abominable wretches do will you run out with them to the same excess of riot Come I must order you though I let the rest alone I must not suffer you in such courses Is it so that all people of the Lord Christ do belong c. Here then is pretious comfort for the Saints arising from the property and interest that God the Father hath in them For it they be his own and that in such a special and peculiar way as we have shewed we may be confident he will do very much for them and that in divers cases I will name a few of them 1. If they be his own the Father certainly will hear the Son for them he will be easily entreated for those that have such near relation to him If they were only Christs and not his this were enough to make him facile to the Intercession that his own Son makes for them because they appertain to one that is so infinitely dear to him But seeing they are Christs and his too this carries all before it and this is that our Saviour urges in my Text That those for whom he prayed and interceded did aswell belong to his Father as himself so that his Father was as much engaged to hear as he was to pray for them I pray for them whom thou hast given me for they are thine q. d. I hope thou wilt not put me off with a denyal For they are thine as well as mine whom I intercede for 2. If they belong to God the Father we may depend upon it he doth love them and love them very dearly too as those that are so near to him Property and interest is one special ground of love we use to love our own you know yea many times to dote upon them out of measure though there be nothing lovely in them And certainly the Lord hath very dear affections to his own too though they be black yet they are comely in his eyes His love towards them is so great that it covers many faults
as they did in the Parable we have born thy name and we have been called Christians and have been accounted thine and wilt thou not acknowledge us and own us now And Christ shall answer them depart from me I know you not go get you over on the other side among the Goats I tell you you are none of mine Ah my beloved this will be a cooling and a killing word indeed Is it so that Jesus Christ is glorified in all those that belong to him Vse 2 Both in their grace and holiness in this world and in their glory in the world to come This then should be a motive and inducement to us to strive and labour after both these both after grace in this world and glory in the world to come both to be holy here and happy hereafter 1. This should quicken us and stirr us up to labour after holiness and grace that Jesus Christ may be glorified in us If grace were only advantagious to our selves and honorable to our selves as to be really and truly gracious is indeed the greatest honour in the world there were no such reason then why we should labour to attain it and abound with it For then you know we could have no higher aim then only to set up a poor Creature But seeing Jesus Christ is honoured in the grace and holiness and the obedience of his people Oh how should this enflame us with restless and unsatisfied desires of these things How should we covet and covet earnestly the best gifts and labour that we may excell in inward grace and outward obedience that we may set up Jesus Christ the more and that his honour may be the more advanced by us When we are seeking to the Lord for holiness and grace that he would give it out to us and give it more abundantly how should we press and quicken our petitions with this prevailing argument that Jesus Christ will be advanced by it and his glory more enlarged Lord give us more faith love hope patience zeal power against corruption strength to new obedience that Christ may have the more glory We seek not these things to promote our own esteem and reputation and that we may be some body among the Saints but that Christ Jesus may be all in all It is thy great design to glorifie thy Son Christ and this is the ready way to accomplish the design on which thy very heart is set if thou give us more holiness and more grace he will have more glory Thou wilt not honour us so much but Jesus Christ thine own beloved Son will be glorified in us And therefore we beseech thee set thy Treasure open to us and give us out a large share In such a manner the Apostle deals with God in his petitions in that memorable place to this purpose 2 Thes 1.11 12. We pray continually for you saith the Apostle there that God would count you worthy of this calling and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness and the work of faith with power That he would carry on that work of grace upon your souls till he hath brought it to perfection And why so to what end That the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you not that you may be honoured but that Christ may be glorified in you 2. And as this should stirr us up to labour after grace in this world so after glory in the world to come Since Christ is glorified as in the grace so much more in the glory of his people For glory is compleat grace and therefore Christ is glorified in that to admiration as we have shewed you formerly in explication of the point The Apostle speaks of some who seek glory Rom. 2.7 he means the glory of the other world as it is very evident by that which is joyned with it glory and honour and immortality and Eternal life And truly it is not unlawfull for every one of us to seek glory I mean our own eternal glory in the heavens because while we seek that we seek the glory of Christ in it It s that which troubles many of the Saints they think that they are scarce upright because they have so great an eye upon their own glory They doubt their own sincerity meerly upon this ground Indeed my brethren if your own glory and salvation went single and alone it were a greater cause of scruple But since the glory of the Lord Christ is comprehended and involved in it why should you not desire and seek it as subservient to the great and high end And therefore I beseech you my beloved under this notion have respect to it and draw encouragement and sweetness from it amidst the many heavy labours and bitter sufferings of this present life Look up man to the glory that is set before thee press hard towards it be diligent and patient in the expectation of it strive and labour to obtain it while thou considerest with thy self that when thou art glorified Christ will be glorified in thee And so in aiming at thy own glory do thou intend and seek the glory of Christ And this is that which thou maist do yea this is that which thou must do And therefore go on cheerfully embrace the promise that is yet afar of reach at the Crown of glory that is hung out to tempt thee and to toll thee on And let this animate thee most of all that when thou hast attained it Christ will be glorified and admired in thee He whom thy very soul loveth will have one monument the more of his own praise and glory unto all eternity And thus far of the first Consideration that induced our Saviour to become a Suitor for his Apostles and Disciples to his Father viz. the neer relation which they had to his Father and himself by means of which it came to pass that he was glorified in them The second follows now in order to be handled viz. the sad condition they were likely to be in by reason of the near approach of his departure from them to the Father and leaving them behind in an unquiet and malitious world And now I am no more in the world but these are in the world and I come to thee A dolefull and heart-killing word you must conceive it was to his Apostles and Disciples and now I am no more in the world They who left all for him must needs be very much dejected to be left by him And to be left alone in such a wilderness in such a troublesome unpleasing and a vexatious place as the world hath alwayes been to Christs Disciples As long as he was with them he was a very great support encouragement and comfort to them in all conditions and in all cases And therefore now he is about to leave them he thinks it necessary to commend them to the especial care and mercy and protection of his Father There are two things suggested in this dying Song this last
that of the Apostle in the same case Rom. 9.20 Nay but O man who art thou that replyest answerest again disputest against God! All the objections that are made almost against the point in hand are against God too against his mercy justice power c. If you have any thing to say for God it is worth the hearkning to otherwise you have your answer Who art thou that disputest against God do but consider who art thou Vse 2 Is it so that God in his Eternal c. How should this make us to admire at the transcendent riches of his grace and love to us whom he hath chosen to salvation Paul makes it an especial aim of God in his Decree of Reprobation To shew the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy Rom. 9.23 And if we weigh it well we shall easily discern that it doth strangely heighten the exceeding love of God Had he ordained all men to salvation even so his mercy had been out of measure great But that he hath ordained any of us to salvation when on the contrary he hath ordained so many millions to destruction whose state in Nature was no worse then ours whose strength in nature was as great as ours to exempt them from damnation whose care to be reconciled was no less then ours till God was pleased in mercy to prevent us how should this sweeten the favour of the Lord to us in this respect and even ravish us with admiration of his free grace The Lord delights to amplifie his love by this He took not Angels but the seed of Abraham Heb. 2.16 Was not Esau Jacobs brother saith the Lord Yet I loved Jacob and I hated Esau Mal. 1.2 3. Whose soul that hath tasted of it can choose but be amazed at it Hath God preferred me before Angels before so many thousands in the world Oh the unsearchable depth of his love to me How doth it pass all knowledge JOHN 17.12 That the Scripture might be fulfilled AND thus of our Saviours general assertion that he had safely and entirely kept all those that were bestowed upon him by his Father While I was with them in the world I kept them in thy Name those thou gavest me I kept and none of them lost And likewise of his particular exception of Judas who here is called the son of perdition None of them is lost but the son of perdition Now in the following words that none might be offended at the loss of Judas or stumble at his ruine and destruction our Saviour Christ goes on to shew that as it was designed and fore-appointed in the eternal Councel and Decree of God so it was fore-told in Scripture It was not only fore-ordained but it was fore-shewed too So that in his destruction there fell out nothing otherwise then as it was expresly and apparently declared before in Scripture The Scripture was not crost and contradicted in it but verified and fulfilled None of them is lost but the son of perdition that the Scripture might be fulfilled But you will ask me what Scripture where did the Word of God foretel the ruine and destruction of this wretched man I answer David prophesied clearly and expresly of it many hundred years before Psal 109.8 Let Satan stand at his right hand When he shall be judged let him be condemned and let his prayer become sin Let his days be few and let another take his office Judas you know was self-condemned and self-executed too and so his days were few by that means And when he had destroyed himself his place and Office of Apostleship was supplyed by another But you will say perhaps Judas is not named by David in the fore-alleadged Psalm And therefore though the prophesie seem to agree to him and his condition yet how are we assured that he is aimed at in particular in that prediction Why my Beloved though the Prophet David do not name him the Apostle Peter doth apply that Scripture to him Act. 1.20 For having said in the fore-going verses This Scripture must have been fulfilled which the Holy Ghost by David spake before concerning Judas He comes at length to this in the alledged verse For it is written in the Book of Psalms Let his habitation be desolate and let no man dwell therein and his Bishoprick or Charge or Office 〈◊〉 another take so that when he was lost and fell from his Apostleship yâ—â— see that Scripture was fulfilled And yet you must not apprehend the loss of Iudas to be caused by that praediction as if the Prophesie concerning him did really contribute any thing by way of active operation and efficiencie to his destruction Though I acknowledge the expression of my Text may seem to look a little that way None of them is lost but the son of perdition And he is lost that the Scripture might be fulfilled But you must know my Brethren that he had been lost though his destruction had never been foretold in Scripture He was not lost the rather because his loss was prophesied but it was prophesied because he was before from all eternity appointed to perdition And being prophesied when the event fell out accordingly it looked as if the prophesie had been the cause of his destruction So that the particle that as a very learned man observes upon the Text Iudas was lost that the Scripture might be fulfilled denoteth not the true but the appearing cause only Yet thus much it suggests withall which shall be our observation DOCTRINE That whatsoever is foretold in Scripture shall surely be accomplished and fulfilled The issue and event shall answer the prediction every way in all respects And therefore it is often noted not in my Text alone but elsewhere frequently that such and such things came to pass that the Scripture might be fulfilled as you may see that place for instance Mat. 2.14 15. Joseph arose and took the child and departed into Egypt That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet saying Out of Egypt have I called my Son And after in the following verse Herod sent forth and slew the children from two years old and under Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by the Prophet saying In Rama was a voyce heard Lamentation and weeping and great mourning Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted because they are not And so in many other places the Apostles very carefully observe the punctual and exact accomplishment of the antient Prophesies and speak sometimes in such a manner as if things came to pass for no other cause but this because they were foretold in Scripture and that the Scripture might be fulfilled Whereas indeed they had been done though they had never been foretold because they were fore-determined only they would have us know that whatsoever is foretold shal certainly be done in Gods time It is easier saith our Saviour for Heaven and Earth to pass away then for one title of the Word of God to
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-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
can teach us to love our brethren whom we see then much more none but he can teach us to love him whom we do not see and therefore let us earnestly beseech him to help us to take forth this Lesson 2. Let us endeavour to grow up in the knowledge of the Lord and as we know him better we shall love him more That which one affirms of Learning may be well applied to God Non habet inimicum nisi ignorantem He hath such matchless excellency and beauty in him that he that knows him cannot choose but love him Indeed while we are unacquainted with him the admirable worth and lustre that is in him doth not take a whit upon us The Philosopher will tell us that the judgement must be first of all convinced of the worth and value of a thing before the heart will close with it and the affections cleave to it Nec enim potes aut amare quem nescias aut habere quem non amaveris Thou canst not love him thou knowest not nor have him whom thou lovest not And hence it is that wicked and ungodly men love not God or Christ at all because they know him not at all Or if they know him any way it is not under such a notion as makes him beautifull and lovely to them Perhaps they know him as a Judge or an Avenger not as a Father and a Saviour And this is indeed the cause why the triumphant Saints in heaven love him more then the Saints militant on earth because they have a fuller clearer and distincter knowledge of him We see him darkly in a glass but they see him face to face And this is the reason also why we love not God so much on earth as we shall do in heaven viz. because we know him not so well here as we shall do in that place So that our love to God you see is answerable to our knowledge of him as we know him more or less so we love him more or less And therefore if we do desire indeed to love him more let us strive to know him more 3. Another means to grow up in the love of God is to have daily more communion and intimacy with him And this as I conceive it is a means distinct from that which goes before For it is one thing to know him and another to have communion and to be familiar with him We know abundance with whom we have no intimacy in the world No we know them too well perhaps to be familiar with them So we may have a speculative knowledge of the Father and the Son and yet may have no intimate acquaintance with them And this is very necessary to encrease love To kindle and enflame affection as the Philosopher observeth there must be Convictus crebra conversatio They must dine and supp together they must walk and talk together And wheresoever there is strangeness there can be no great love And therefore if we would abound in the love of God and Christ let us have more communion with them Beloved if we be not wanting to our selves we may be very much with God We may speak with him often in a day we may talk with him face to face in our addresses to his holy Majesty we may give him many visits he doth not interdict us but invite us to come and sup with him and be acquainted with him throughly once he is so pretious and so sweet a friend that we shall love him out of all measure 4. Endeavour to the utmost of your power to dispossess your hearts of the unlawful love of worldly things for this is incompatible inconsistent with the love of God If any man saith the Apostle love the world the love of the Father is not in him 1 Joh. 1.15 Let him be what he will my Brethren if he love the world he loves not God And therefore ler not any covetous and wretched worldling make shew of having any love to God For certainly it is not in him The friendship of the world saith the Apostle James 4.4 is emnity with God And therefore if we would be friends of God we must dissolve this friendship with the world Inordinate irregular unlawful love of worldly things must be expelled And as this love is cast out the love of God will come in 5. Be often in the company and fellowship of those that love God Converse with those who are most endeared to him and they will be continually speaking of him and seting forth his excellency beauty love and so will kindle and enflame your hearts towards him They who are full of sweet affections to the Lord if you be much among them will work you to the same temper You may observe it in Cant. 5.10 and the following verses that when those daughters of Jerusalem who at first despised Christ and wondred why the Church his Spouse should praise him so and make such a stir about him yet when they had a while conversed with the Church and heard her speak of Christ with such affection admiring and extolling him above the skies they also fall in love with him and they will go together with the Church to seek him out Whither is Beloved gone say they O thou fairest among women whither is thy Beloved turned aside that we may seek him with thee And thus you see my Brethren frequent intercourse and holy conference with those that love God is one effectual means to fill and to enflame our hearts with love to him 6. Labour to comprehend with all the Saints the greatness of the love of God to you and to assure it to your own souls It is not all the beauty and the excellency in the world that will allure us to the 〈◊〉 love one that we imagine doth not love us But if we see and be assured of the love of God to us this will kindle love to him and make our hearts to melt towards him When we consider with our selves what kindness he hath shewed to us what he hath done for us what matchless and unfathomed love he hath discovered to us this will raise our affections high to him again and make us even sick of love And therefore I beseech you strive to be more and more assured of this for at this flame you must kindle your fire Here you must fetch your little spark of love whereof the Saints are capable in this life from the love of God to you which being kindled in your hearts it will never leave aspiring and flying higher and higher still till it have joyned it self unto that infinite and endless flame from whence it issued and proceeded And indeed as Bernard very well observes we cannot answer God or Christ so well in any thing as love To say the truth we must not answer him in other things If he be angry or displeased with us we ought not be angry or displeased with him again If he condemn and censure us we
you may decieve your own souls The Apostle speaks of some who love the Lord in sincerity Eph. 6.24 by which he intimates that there are some who do not so who love him hypocritically not sincerely whose love to God is like the love of many to their brethren in word and in shew not in deed and in truth and therefore it concerns us to examine whether the love we bear to God be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without dissimulation yea or no as the Apostles phrase is Rom. 12.9 And thus far of the Application of the Point in reference to the first branch of the Explication of it Proceed we to the second Vse 2 Doth God the Father love believers everlastingly even as he loves Christ this then may cheer and comfort up the hearts of all believers who though they have had sweet experience of the love of God to them yet are inclinable to fear that it may be withdrawn again from them And surely there are many such who even waste and pine away themselves in such perplexed thoughts as these are Oh they shall never persevere and continue to the end they shall fall away at last from Gods favour and so they shall be lost for ever Now I beseech you quiet and secure your selves in this particular the Lord that hath begun to love you will persist to love you on to all eternity as he hath loved you from the beginning so he will surely love you to the end As he hath loved you from everlasting so he will love you to everlasting even as he loves Christ When he gives over loving Christ then and not till then my brethren he will give over loving you when he withdraws his heart from Christ the darling of his own bosome he will withdraw his heart from you too Believe it Jesus Christ and you must fare alike in this respect you must be hated or be loved together And therefore do not fear of falling from the love of God though you have many failings many imperfections in you do not doubt that they will cause the Lord to hate you No no the love of God is large enough to cover a multitude of them and none of them shall separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord as the Apostle speaks Rom. 8.39 Observe it well it is a love in Jesus Christ he loveth us in loving Christ as being part of Christ we are involved and wrapt up together with him in the same love so that if our infirmities should separate us from the love of God they must separate Christ with us If God and we part God and Christ must part too Oh think on this my brethren when your fears of losing Gods favour are most prevailing with you and have greatest power upon you This take for all and rest upon it he can no sooner cease to love you then you can cease to love Christ Doth God the Father love believers infinitely even as he loves Christ Vse 3 Oh then what may you not expect from such love as this is A love that hath no bounds no measures What will not God do for you in all conditions and in all cases what will not God give you what will not God forgive you what can you want if God love you in this manner Let your hearts dwell upon the meditation of it especially when you are in trouble When penal miseries are desperate and extream when they are very sore upon you that you know not what to do Think with your selves Is it a likely thing that God will suffer you to perish or miscarry the God that loves you infinitely even as he loves Christ himself Indeed if he did love you only with an ordinary love you had some colour then to doubt that he might be regardless of you But since he loves you so unmeasurably as he doth how can you think that he will stand and see you sink away to ruine and not stretch out his hand to save you Suppose Christ were in your case if it were to be supposed that he were brought to such an exigent as you are how tender would the Father be of him how would his bowels yearn upon him how would he hasten to relieve him What is it thou saith God that are brought to such distress and art thou likely to be ruined and undone what thou my dear and pleasant child my own beloved son Alas I pitty thee I melt upon thee I will help thee presently I will not see thee to continue long in such misery as this is Why my beloved just as God would deal with Christ in such a case even so will he deal with you for he loves you even as he loveth him So when your sins lie heavy on you and you are even afraid that God will never pardon you your provocations are so many and so great you vex him every day and every hour without ceasing you do not give him any breathing time and therefore you are apt to think sometimes his patience will be out at last and you shall pay for all together Indeed my brethren if his love were but as the love of man you had ground enough to fear it For who is able alwayes to forgive injuries without number and without measure But since his love is infinite and there is no end of it it cannot be too narrow and too scant for you What may you not expect from an infinite love Oh my beloved I beseech you do not limit it do not set bounds to it do not think thus far the love of God may cause him to forbear us and forgive us but beyond this it will not go Ah my beloved if you be humble and believing souls it is a bottomless and boundless love to you it will go beyond all that you can think further then you are able to imagine And therefore do not cast away your confidence but roll your selves on this unmeasurable love of God in all cases Your sins are finite that is infinite your sins have limits that hath none Doth God the Father love believers under the same relations as he loves Vse 4 Christ doth he love them as his chosen as his servants as his children This then administers incomparable sweet pretious comfort to all that do in deed and truth believe in Christ The love of God to them is like to that he bears to Christ under all these three relations And this involveth blessed priviledges and carries high things in it as I shall shew you in their order Doth God the Father love believers as his chosen even as he loves Christ Then surely he will never cast them off again as he will never cast off Christ There are some whom God chooses out of a common love to common priviledges and advancements whom in the issue he rejects again he repents that he hath chosen them to such a dignity place and office and so he even casts them off again And
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
righteousness as a mighty stream that violently bears down all before it and will not be diverted from the Channel which it ought to run in As there is no respect of persons with God let there be none with you let every one receive according to his cause and according to his deeds When parties struggle in the bowels of a Nation when there are factions up as there are at this time there is a great temptation to unrighteousness in this respect one must be favourd because he is of such a party another must be rigorously dealt withall because he is of such a party though the cause of both be like It ought to be the care of Magistrates that in the execution of their Office they be not byassed that they be not drawn aside by such low considerations They must not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the Delphian Oracle they must not speak or act in their Administrations so as to comply with any party as if they were afraid of doing that which will displease the strongest side which will not rellish well with those who may do them a displeasure No they must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 judge for Christ and act for God and do as near as it is possible as he would do if he were in their places they must be just as he is And to encourage you to this Consider First This is the ready way to settle and establish and confirm this totering Nation when it shakes and when it is about to fall Justice upholds the pillars of it It is Columna corona Reipublicae There are at this time many things in agitation and many ways and projects thought upon to settle Government among us But when we have run through them all we shall find in the conclusion that nothing in the world will do it like to righteousness Let the form and let the frame of Government be what it will the Throne must be establisht by righteousness Especially when it is first set up Justice is as necessary to confirm a new Government as Miracles to confirm a new Doctrine And if the people find not this if there be tyranny injustice and oppression still that which made the old unpleasing will have the same effect and operation on the new Secondly This Righteousness in your Administrations will make you aimable in the sight of God as God himself is righteous so he loveth righteousness as he acteth it himself so he affecteth it in others The righteous Lord saith holy David loveth righteousness his countenance doth behold the upright Psal 11.7 Righteous he is in all his actings and administrations he is the righteous Lord so righteous and so just that there is none in that respect like him and that out of a principle of love within the righteous Lord loveth righteousness yea he affecteth it and loves it so that he gives no man a good countenance or a good look so much that is not just and righteous too his countenance doth behold the upright the upright and none else But as for those that are unrighteous he abhors them all of them without exception he hateth all workers of iniquity Psal 5.5 Thirdly As it will make you amiable in the eyes of God so you will find it to be very beneficial to your selves They are precious promises that God makes and great rewards that he gives to those that love and do Justice That is a signal one Isa 33.15 He that walketh righteously and speaks uprightly he that despiseth the gain of oppression and shaketh his hands from holding of bribes so that it any put a bribe into his hand before he be aware he shakes it out again and doth not hold it he shall dwell on high his place of defence shall be the munition of the Rocks bread shall be given him his waters shall be sure He shall have honor he shall dwell on high he shall be lifted up above his brethren He shall have sure protection his defence shall be the munition of the Rocks high that the enemy can never reach him and high upon the Rock that he cannot undermine him And as he shall have honor and protection so he shall have provision too bread shall be given him and full provision he shall have bread and water too and this shall be sure to him Bread shall be given him his waters shall be sure And as there is much promised to so there hath been much done for those who have laid out themselves in doing justice You know how Jehu sped and yet he did it in hypocrisie The Kingdom was continued in his line to the fourth generation Phineas it seems was more upright and therefore he had a reward that lasted longer Numb 25.13 He shall have and his seed after him the Covenant of an everlasting Priesthhod because he was zealous for his God to wit in executing justice on that notorious pair of foul offenders Indeed the recompence of him that doth it in sincerity shall last for ever For he shall dwell upon Gods holy Mountain he shall receive an Euge when the great day of reckoning cometh And thus far of the first conclusion God is a very just and righteous God I shall speak very little to the second because indeed it is not large however I shall touch it in a word or two DOCTRINE That Jesus Christ came to him as a righteous God and looked upon him as a righteous God when he was making his petitions to him You see it evidently and demonstratively in the Text this is the appellation that he gives him Righteous Father His thoughts it seems are taken up more with the righteousness of God then any other attribute of his at this time I shall not undertake to shew why he did so he had his reasons in his own breast and bosom Only this is probable he did it that he might be an Example and President to us that we might learn of him to do as he did That when we are approaching to the Throne of grace we might be very much possest with deep and serious contemplations of the righteousness of God Use And therefore to make a little application of the point Let us learn of Jesus Christ how to behave ovr selves when we are making our addresses to the Majesty of God and pouring out our prayers to him We are exhorted very often in the Scripture to be followers of Christ and so to walk and act as we have him for an example in all his imitable ways and actions his practice ought to be a rule to us and therefore let us labour to conform our selves to Jesus Christ in this particular when we are drawing nigh to God in prayer let our thoughts be taken up with meditation of his righteousness let them work much upon this attribute of his It will be very useful to us as I shall shew you in a few particulars 1. The meditation of the righteousness of God will humble us for sin and stir
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
an image and a pattern of that holiness which is originally and compleatly in the Lord who hath in this respect all beauty in him Yea it is called the glory of the Lord Rom. 3.23 All have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God which shined in us in the state of innocency Indeed my brethren he hath in him the Sum and the perfection of beauty He hath all in him that doth win and raise nothing that cools or deadens the affection all things to invite nothing to avert love Others there are my brethren who have some things beautiful and comely to invite and draw love but other things uncomely and unbeautiful to keep it off Something or other there is in them that is odd unpleasing and so a bar and hindrance to affection Brethren it is not so with God he is all beautiful and all alluring altogether lovely Others are so in some respects but he is so in all respects He is altogether lovely the allurement of all hearts And the desire of all Nations Hag. 2.7 So he is always in the merit although he be not always so in the event Object But if God be so beautiful what is the reason that men do not love him Answ Because his name in this respect is not made known to them All men are naturally blind you know and blind men cannot judge of beauty until their eyes be anointed with the Eye-salve Apoc. 3.18 to make them see such beauty as this is The beauty of holiness is a spiritual beauty and that is not discerned by a natural Eye There must be a spiritual eye to see and to discern a spiritual beauty And when you have such eyes as these to see the beauty of the Lord your hearts will be enamoured on him you will be in the case the Church was you will be sick of love and say Lord turn away thine eyes for they have overcome us We cannot bear the dazling rayes of such beauty as thine is The goodness of the Lord is a part of his name and goodness being manifested and discovered is a means to draw love Now herein God excels my brethren he is good beyond pattern and beyond measure He is essentially good good without goodness as Austin speaks because indeed he is goodness it self The creatures be good but not goodness Their nature is good but goodness is not their nature But now the nature and substance of God is goodness it self so that he is essentially good and then he is also causally good as Psal 119.68 Thou art good and dost good Thou art good in thy self and thou dost good to the creature so that the earth is full of thy goodness He is eminently good so that whatsoever goodness is to be found among the creatures is eminently and transcendently in God himself Now goodness is the object of love and consequently the allective of affection If we have cause to fear God for his goodness as Hos 3. ult then surely we have much more cause to love him especially since he is not only good in himself but good to us If this part of his name be manifested and made known to us we cannot choose but love him and delight in him That phrase of the Apostle Paul is notable and may be very well applyed to our purpose Rom. 5.7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die but for a good man one would even dare to die Uprightness draws not love as goodness doth One man will hardly love another so much for his uprightness as to die for him but for his goodness manifested to himself on all occasions continually doing good to him he may come to love him so as even to lay down his life for him And even for this cause we shall love God and love him out of all measure so as even to die for him if this part of his name be fully manifested and made known to us The mercy of the Lord is a part of his name and this if it be manifested to us will beget love in us You know the Lord is said in Scripture to be merciful yea to be rich in mercy and that not only because the mercy that he hath is pretious but because there is abundance of this pretious mercy in him For both of these concur to riches there must be something that is pretious and there must be much of it and so it is with God in this case He hath a mass of mercy in him a bottomless and endless treasure such as the wants of all the world are never able to draw dry And as a rich man though he spend exceedingly yet because he hath a treasure the e is no failing no deficiency of his store so God though he communicate his mercy freely to the sons of men yet he cannot be exhausted no there is more behind still it is an infinite a bottomless an endless mercy A mercy that endures for ever Now this rich mercy God lays out as many other ways so chiefly in the pardon of our sins and hence we read of mercies and forgivenesses in God as Dan. 9.9 Mercies as the cause and fountain Forgivenesses as the effect and stream And both you see my brethren in the plural number to shew the over-flowing mercy of the Lord. Indeed my brethren there is mercy in all pardons but in the pardon and remission of the sins of Gods people there is admirable mercy And hence the Prophet wondred at it not knowing what to think or to say of it Who is a God like thee that pardoneth iniquity c. Mic. 7.18 The Prophet is transported and carryed out beyond himself in admiration And mark it well He doth not say There is no man like thee but there is no God like thee Indeed it goes beyond the mercy of any but the true living God to do this In which respect is that expression Hos 11.9 I will not execute the fierceness of my wrath for I am God and not man that speech of the Apostle Paul is full Ephes 1.7 We have remission of our sins according to the riches of his grace Now if this part of Gods name be made known to us it cannot choose but work love in us We love them who forgive us common debts especially if they be great we think that we can never do enough for them or manifest respect enough to them But we have cause to love him more who forgives us such debts as these are which if they should be rigorously exacted of us we were not able to discharge them but must be laid up under everlasting chains Oh my beloved how can this choose but draw out our affection to the Lord The woman in the Gospel had much forgiven her and what was the effect and issue of it Why she loved much Her love was answerable to her pardon Much was forgiven her and she loved much She was a great sinner and she had a large pardon and so accordingly she
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
AN EXPOSITION WITH NOTES Unfolded and Applyed On JOHN 17 th Delivered in Sermons Preached Weekly on the LORDS-DAY to the Congregation in TAVNTON MAGDALENE By GEORGE NEWTON Minister of the Gospel there LONDON Printed by R. W. for Edward Brewster and are to be sold at the Crane in Pauls-Church-yard 1660. To the Honorable Colonel JOHN GORGES Governour of the City of London-Derry and the Castle of Cullmore in IRELAND My duly honoured and dearly beloved Brother SIR NOW you have wrested the following Lectures out of my hands I do but fairly leave them there whence I cannot recover them So that this which I prefix is not so properly a Dedication as an Abdication I must confess I never knew you guilty of Extortion but in this Act. I loath their Cunning who by debasing and disabling secretly design to raise the price of their own labours And do it this way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Oratour speaks though somewhat in another case with much more Artifice then professed Hucksters do But verily these Sermons being preached by such an one as I do really account and know my self to be in my constant weekly course upon the Lords Day and indeed a great part of them twice a day when I had no Assistant with me having besides the Wednesdays Lecture on my weak shoulders and many other Ministerial Employments not without frequent Avocations and diversions which in so great a place are unavoidable will be adjudged by discerning men unfit to have appeared to the world in such a way as this is And herein I shall heartily agree with them Now seeing you alone are faulty here I Dedicate the Book and Blame to you And if the Sword of wounding tongues be bent at me as being troubled with the Epidemical distemper of the Times an itch of being seen in publick you ought in justice to step in between and say as Nisus in the Poet Virg. lib. 9. Aeneidâ—s Me me adsum qui feci in me convertite ferrum And I am confident you will be my Compurgatour in this that no Opinion of any thing in these poor labours worthy of the Press hath had any Influence on this Publication There is besides an apparent disadvantage which I am very sensible of Mr. Aâ—th Bâ—rges viz. That in this Tract I follow One of so great Accomplishments who being next the Light and of a far more perfect Stature then my self must needs cast back a shadow on me Unless I be so far behind him that his shadow will not reach me But if it do I shall as Ionah in another case rest very quietly in that shadow The Subject handled is a choice and precious One as any in the Book of God without Exception This Prayer being as it were a little piece that dropt off from the heart of Jesus Christ as once Eliahs Mantle from his body as he was taking leave of his Apostles and the World together When He was even going forth to suffer He Swan-like sung this dying Song and poured out this precious Prayer being about to pour forth his very blood and life with it And this he did not for his Apostles only then about him but for us also even for us who should in after-times believe through their words A man would think our blessed Saviour when He had such a Task to undergo and such a business to dispatch should have been wholly taken up with the preapprehension of his instant Death and Passion That this should have detained or diverted Him from other thoughts especially from taking care of such poor Worms as we are But that when he was drawing neer to such a Conflict with the Wrath of God and the Indignities and Wrongs of men He should have us in his heart That our dear Friend who loved us and gave Himself for us should think of us and pray for us and speak of us to God the Father with so high affection when his own Soul was heavy to the very Death Such a Prayer made by such a Mediatour at such a time as that was must needs be worthy of the choicest and exactest Observation of the Church in every Age to the end of the world Some Antiquaries tell us of the Diptyches Lindan Annot. in Liturg. S. Petri. pag. 39. much in use in the Primitive Church Which were two leaves or tables bound together on the one of which was a Commemoration of divers famous and renowned Worthies departed in the Faith of Christ and on the other a Commemoration of the like Personages yet alive Much Honoured Sir Joseph Vicecom Obfervat Ecclesiae Dae Missae Apparatu Tom. 4. lib. 7. cap. 17. I shall present you here with a new sort of Diptyches the Tables more exactly answering one another The one containing a Commemoration of a dying Christ and shewing how He pray'd on Earth In which you may also see what is contained in the other Table and how he prays for us in Heaven who ever liveth to make Intercession for us So that if you desire at any time to know how Christ persues the business and pleads the causes of his poor Church at the right hand of his Father you shall do well to have recourse to this Chapter which may be very fitly called a Counterpart of our Saviours Intercession And truly for my own part I must freely and ingenuously profess that I had never known so much of Christ and of his tender Care and Love of poor sinners had I not studyed these Emanations and Effluxes of his precious Soul had I not seen his Breast open in this Chapter and the Names of the twelve Tribes transcribed out of the Breast-plate of the Typical into the heart of the Typified High Priest Fox Act. Mon. ad Annum 1558. And as the Queen of England sometimes said That if they opened her when she was dead they should find Calais written on her heart So when I had the happiness to open Christ in this Prayer though with a most unskilful hand I found the Church engraven deeply on his Heart and saw such things as cannot be uttered The Lord give you and me to know more of that Love which passeth knowledge and to return more Love to Him who pray'd for us and dyed for us We may easily exceed in loving other things and persons We may love more then we are loved we may love more then we should love But here our hearts may take their full swing there is no fear of over-loving Jesus Christ For as Bernard sweetly speaks of our Love to God Bern. De diligendo Deo Modus Deum diligendi est sine modo diligere The same may I as truly say of our Love to Christ The measure of loving Christ is to love him out of measure So hath he loved us ☞ and so should we love him There are especially two great Boons which Jesus Christ begs of his Father for Believers in this
Prayer That they may be one here and that they may be in one place hereafter This Nation seems not to be under the dint of the Influence of this Prayer at this time in which the Lord hath suffered such a spirit of Division a spirit that our Saviour never prayed for to possess his own people So that his Body lies a bleeding the members being miserably rent into pieces He bled indeed sufficiently upon the Cross in his Natural Body but there was suddenly a Consummatum est to that When will there be a Consummatum est to this in his Mystical Body When will Christ say It is enough When will the stream of blood that ran there stop this which runs here When will there be an end of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these after-afflictions of Christ which now he is sat down at rest on the right hand of the Father persue him thither and will not suffer him to be quiet in his glory It 's true the Body of our Saviour in these Nations bleeds not now by cruel Persecutors hands as it hath done in former Ages blessed be the Lord for ever But which is more unnatural and doleful Bella per Aemathios plusquam Civilia campos Lucaâ— lib. 1. it bleedeth by it self one Member bleedeth by another one member bites and devours another and it seems they will do so until they be devoured together Though Jesus Christ hath made them nigh to God and nigh to one another by his blood as the Apostle shews at large Ephes 2 12 13 14. This Cement woe alas this rich and costly Cement will not hold A trifle a Conjecture a suspicion an opinion a notion raised by Art and phansie will do more to sever then the blood of Christ to soder All the wit and art and skill that God hath given men for better purposes and higher ends is now laid out by some to make or to maintain parties Bern. in Caâ—â— Serm. 33. I will not say as Bernard doth Omnes amici omnes inimici omnes necessarii omnes adversarii omnes domestici nulli pacifici But surely it is much at this rate Now the God of Peace himself give us Peace alwayes and by all means And Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace who doth so often and so importunately beg it of his Father for his people as you may see in this Chapter give us to reap in our dayes the blessed fruits of this Prayer That they that are but one Body according to the first branch of our Saviours Prayer may have but one Heart and one Soul in that Body that there may be no Schism in the Body And they that are to be in one place according to the second Branch may keep in one way to that place that they may not fall out by the way so far at least as to divide to part Companies and part ways that they may neither fail of coming in the end to one place nor lose the benefit and comfort of one anothers Company and sweet Communion in the way thither And in that blessed place I hope ere it be long to meet you And though the Sea divide us each from other for a little time on earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for an hours space and that in face or sight and not in heart as the Apostle speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Thess 2.17 Facie non Corde Ambrosian yet through the red Sea of the blood of Christ leaving all our sins behind us as Israel the Egyptians drowned there and dead upon the shore of this world we shall pass on to the Heavenly Canaan where Jesus Christ our Head is and where he prayes so earnestly that we may be Amen Amen Now in the mean time till we get thither because I find by many warnings that I am like to go before you and prevent you as the Apostles phrase is I put this Book such as it is into your hands And as our Saviour when He was no more in this world as his own expression is being as good as gone already did leave behind him this Divine Prayer as a Memorial of his tender Love to all his people Sic parvis componere magna solemus Virg. Eclog. 1. So if it be not odious to compare things of so vast a disproportion I shall desire to leave behind me who am even going too this my unworthy Exposition of the same Prayer as a Memorial of his dear respects to you who is resolved to live and dye Your most affectionate Brother And humble Servant in and through and for Christ George Newton The Analysis and Context of the Prayer and Chapter pag. 1 2 3. Ver. 1 Doctr. The words of Christ very remarkable p. 4. Reasons In respect of the Author whose they were as being the words of him that was 1. The Fathers Son and wisdom 2. Our great Prophet and Preacher p. 5. Matter what the words were as being 1. Gospel-words 2. Spiritual words of life and Salvation p. 6. Manner how they were spoken viz. with grace authority and power p. 7. 1. Vse Therefore Christs words to be highly valued in his Gospel Messengers p. 8. 2. Doctr. The very gesture and utterance of prayer and such like circumstances to be considered p. 10. Reas 1. Being apt to promote and further spiritual service p. 11. 2. Express and testifie the affections of the heart 1. Vse Condemns the neglect of outward bodily worship p. 12. 2 Direct 1. We are not bound to the same gestures as they of old p. 13. 2. Reverend gestures should be most observed in publike 3. Use such as may further not hinder spiritual service 4. Take heed of hypocritical gestures 2. Vocal prayer when necessary and requisite p. 14. 3. Doctâ— God the Father of Christ and so apprehended by him in prayer Expos Sons by Creation p. 15. Adoption p. 15. 1. Vse Consol Being Sons of God in Christ 1. He will hear us 2. He will provide for us p. 17. 3. He will protect us 2. Vse We must therefore obey him as Lord as being our Lord by 1. Creation 2. Redemption 3. Covenant-obligation p. 19. 3. Vse Wonder at his love that would give his Son 4. Vse Learn we to apprehend God as Father 1. Motive This assurance will advance our Confidence 2. Will increase our importunity with God 3. Will make us hopeful of audience and success 4. Will comfort us against our defects and imperfections in prayer p. 22. 5. Marks of Gods Children 1. They are like him in holiness mercy c. 2. Have the Fathers Spirit Signs of that p. 24. 4. Doctr. God hath his set time of doing and we should know that to be the fittest time p. 28. 1. Vse Condemns those who appoint a time to God for the execution of his works p. 29. 2. Vse Be not hasty with God but wait 1. For he waits for us 2. Is not slack but active 3. The fault is in us 4.
not all that is so called page 211 Believers priviledges page 256 379 450 451. 479 480 561 Their sins more hainous page 257 Have many enemies and why page 360 363 458 Object of Believers faith Christ page 439 The Word God Heaven and Salvation page 440 Believers loved as Christ page 478 479 Body of Christ Natural and Mystical page 167 Bodily outward worship not to be neglected page 12 Rules and directions for it page 13 C Certainty of salvation page 80 314 315 Christ the Fathers Son and Wisdom page 5 16 Our great Prophet and Preacher ib. 339 Glorified by the Father page 32 Author of all good to the Church page 34. 72 123 124 To be glorified by us and how page 42 44 One with the Father page 48 Came not to quicken and save all men page 105 Must be known page 119 120 123 Comforts to the sons of God in Christ page 17 22 Comforts to the godly page 17 22 70 253 257 342 452 518 Against injuries of the world page 194 258 352 To the distressed page 290 291 365 524 Our Conscience and Faith not subject to men page 65 Conference page 206 Sons by Creation page 15 19 By Creation all the world is the Fathers page 98 199 Knowledge of our Creation page 119 Christ the Fathers Creature page 160 Curiosity condemned page 183 445 Sinfulness thereof page 184 D. DEath not to be prayed for page 366 c. Believers Dead to the world page 190 Comforts against Death page 89 93 387 Desire good things page 49 Dishonourers of Christ page 38 39 c. 262 Disobedient condemned page 59 70 162 164. 404 Despair not of those that are dead in sin page 103 185 255 438 Disorderly walkers page 162 163 Divine glory communicated to Christ page 173 Discovery of the Father See Manifestation Doubtful are unbelievers page 210 212 Disobedience to the word whence it proceeds page 229 Discord the causes thereof page 296 Evils and inconveniencies thereof page 467 E. WHo the Elect page 192 197 Elect cannot perish page 99 312 End of all is Gods glory page 43 154 Eternal God 129. Eternal love of God page 509 Eternal life from Christ page 86 What it is page 87 To be sought after and how page 90 Christs free gift page 90 Unbought unsought untaught page 92 93 How it consists in knowledge and begun therein page 108 Enemies outward and inward page 353 360 363 Evil. How Christ preserveth from all Evil page 371 372 c. Excellency of Christs people above others page 257 Of the Gospel above other Truths page 397 F FAith page 90 120 129 133 See Belief Father God to be apprehended under that notion page 15 21 The Father glorified by Christ page 46 Fears of failing page 88 185 God must be feared page 117 140 Fearful are unbelievers page 211 Father essentially taken page 198 Free love and mercy of God and Christ page 91 92 147 Faithfulness of Christ and his Ministers 244 246. Signs page 247 Christs word to be kept by Faith page 207 208 226 To be heard with Fear page 225 G. GIft of Christ wonderful page 98 516 517 Some given to Christ in special manner page 97 189 Outward fitting Gestures in prayers requisite page 12 13 Gifts of Christ 35. See Qualification page 412 413 Glory of Christ page 32 33 170 472 Gospel the subject of Christs words page 6 8 To be attended 90. 114. The Instrument of life page 109 398 Means to Sanctification page 389 The Truth page 396 God not slack page 30 Glorifieth Christ page 32 Only true God page 126 Godhead of the Trinity page 128 They that have made choice of God happy page 141 They must glorifie God here who will be glorified hereafter page 152 Vain expecters of future Glory page 153 How God is to be glorified here page 154 The Glory that Christ prayed for page 170 171 Christ Glorified in those that are his page 261 472 H. HAters of Christ page 512 513 Hearers how they may profit by the Word page 395 396 Hearing necessary page 392 445 Heathen people in dangerous state page 121 251 534 Heavenly conversation alliance kindred 190 191. Marks thereof page 385 Honour of God to be aimed at page 49 50 154 Honour from honouring Christ page 44 Hour of God page 28 29 30 Hope of Heaven page 174 Hinderances to obedience page 223 We must be Humble as Christ was page 162 Humiliation of Christ page 161 Hypocritical gestures in prayer page 13 Humility commended page 542 543 Holiness of God page 280 Knowledge thereof very profitable page 281 282 Holiness to be laboured for page 435 I. IDols not to be served 136. Causes of Ignorance page 531 533 Ignorance an impediment to life page 109 Ignorant persons sad condition 113 444 inexcusable page 182 533 534 For the Instruction of others page 115 122 Incarnation of Christ page 178 Impatient are unbelievers page 209 210 Intercession of Christ page 250 252 253 267 340 352 438 Judging and censuring others unlawful page 65. 248 Judgements sent not so much for the destruction of enemies as preservation of friends page 77 How to Judge of true Ministers page 248 249 411 412 Imperfections of the Saints page 296 374 441 541 Joy Christ the Author and Original page 338 None to those that are out of Christ page 341 Means and matter of Joy page 343 348 Marks of spiritual Joy page 350 False Joy page 351 Justification page 442 Justice commended page 526 Justice and righteousness of God page 519 520 to be meditated page 528 A comfort to the righteous page 523 524 K. CHrist Keepeth those that are given him page 201 Word of Christ how Kept in the memory heart page 204 Power of God Keepeth those that belong to Christ page 285 How they are Kept and why page 286 287 312 313 Knowledge to be laboured for page 90 108 109 to 114 The beginning of eternal life page 108 109 Knowledge of God and Christ too necessary page 116 536 537 Knowledge of the Father without the knowledge of Christ is but vain and insufficient page 117 118 The most perfect Knowledge here imperfect page 541 543 L. LAnguage suitable for Christians page 193 385 Law none free from it page 60 Believers under the binding power of the Law page 61 62 How given to the righteous page 63 Law-giver none but Christ page 64 Life from Christ page 82 Life of Sanctification and Justication page 83 Christ our Lord by Creation Redemption Covenant page 19 Life not be valued 89 93 a mercy page 367 Come to Christ for Life page 93 Love towards God how to get and increase it page 460 461 552 553 Love of God and Christ to be admired 20. See Admire Love unto the Word 213. Marks thereof page 214 216 Loveliness of Christ page 515 516 Lusts of our own or others not to be obeyed page 139 Where Love is there is Christ page 558 559 Misery of those that have no
for us saith the Apostle Paul Tit. 2.14 that was the purchase that he made a very dear one you will say He gave himself for us to what end that he might reedeem us from all iniquity from the dominion and power of sin And what now are we masterless And are the reins upon our own necks Now mark what follows presently And purifie us a peculiar people himself a people to himself to serve him and to do his work and to be very earnest in it too and purifie to himself a peculiar people Zealous of good works And so being free from sin we are not left at large my Brethren but we became the servants of Christ Rom. 6 22. This was the End that he intended and propounded to himself in our Redemption he dyed for us that we which live should henceforth live no longer to our selves but to him that dyed for us 2 Cor. 5.15 He hath performed the mercy promised he hath remembred c. he hath saved us from c. Luke 1.74 What that we might from henceforth be our own men and live at liberty and walk according to our own wills Oh no my Brethren but on the other side that we might serve him who hath saved us in holiness and righteousness all the daies of our lives The third is an Engagement of Covenant-obligation we are his Covenant servants and therefore we are bound to serve him if we run away from him we are Covenant-breakers with him Indeed we that are born of those that are in Covenant with him are born his Covenant-servants in a sense For such as the condition of the Parent is Beloved such is the condition of the child as to outward priviledge and as to outward duty too And hence it is perhaps that David saith to God Psalm 116.16 O Lord saith he I am thy servant My servant might the Lord reply Why how so why saith the Psalmist I am the son of thy hand-maid So we whose parents were within the Covenant were born to Christ in some respect for we were born within his family and so to outward view and cognizance belong to his houshold But this is but an outward thing some of us have gone further yet and made a Covenant with the Lord to serve him we were in Covenant all of us with sin by nature and so with death and hell we were at an agreement too But some of us have utterly dissolved that Covenant and entred into Covenant with the Lord Christ We are bound let us obey now we have made this Covenant with him we are the more engaged to serve him and the greater is our sin if we run away from him Use 3 Is God the Father of our Lord Christ The greater is his love to us that he should give Christ for us If he had given but a servant or a friend it had been much that he should part with either of them for an enemy but that he should give us his son his own begotten son to shame to punishment to death for us here is love and here is mercy with a witness The Evangelist me thinks knows not which way to express it and therefore leaves it to the largest heart and the vastest understanding to guess at it John 3.16 God so loved the world So how I cannot tell you it swallows up my apprehensions and expressions And therefore I must leave it to your selves to think of it and reach after it And truly my Beloved did we weigh it well in our advised and deliberate thoughts we should be carried out beyond our selves in an Extasie of wonder What my Beloved that when the Father had but one begotten Son by nature and one that was so well like him the very picture of his Father c. one whom he loved dearly in whom his very soul delighted that he should give him forth out of his bosom for such wretches as we are That he could not spare his Son that he might spare his Enemies behold what love the Father hath declared in this Here is love to be spoken of and to be wondred at in all ages And thus far of the uses of the former member of the point Proceed we now to make some application of the latter Use 1 Is it so my Brethren that as God is the Father of the Lord Christ So Christ did apprehend him as a Father and look upon him as a Father when c. Then let us also apprehend him so and look upon him so who are the sons of God in Christ when we come to God in prayer Let us present our supplications to him under the notion of a Father as Christ did Christ is in this respect our Pattern and Example whom we ought to follow We are required you know to be followers of Christ viz. in all his imitable actions and this is one of those actions We ought to walk as he walked and to pray as he prayed And therefore as his manner was to pray to God himself in this language to come to God as to a Father So he hath taught us also so to pray in the very same language to come to God as to a Father as he did Mat. 6.9 After this manner pray ye Our Father which art in heaven So that we have in this you see the Precept and Example of the Lord Christ his Precept in the cited place and his Example in my Text. And therefore let us learn this lesson of him since he is pleased to teach us both waies both by Precept and Example When we are making our addresses to the Lord in prayer let us endeavour to apply unto our selves the love and father-hood of God in Jesus Christ Let us not satisfie our selves with a general perswasion that he is a gracious Father to all his sons and daughters in the Lord Christ But let us strive for a distinct and a particular assurance that he is our own Father that he is so to us in special and that we are among the number of his children That we may look upon him so and confidently call him so when we are pouring out our prayers to him and so expect the love and mercy of a Father from him And to this very End as the Apostle tells us The Spirit of the Son is sent abroad into our hearts To what End Why to make us cry Abba Father Gal. 4.6 That is to make us pray to God as to a Father while others come to God as to a stranger with whom they have no acquaintance and to whom they have no relation So that you see we have not only the Precept of Christ and the Example of Christ but we have also the Spirit of Christ that we may pray in this manner And therefore in this Faith and confidence the Saints of God have prayed in Scripture So did the Church as you may see Isa 63.16 Doubtless say they thou art our Father though Abraham be ignorant of us and Israel acknowledge us
not thou art our Father It is repeated twice you see and bound with an asseveration too to shew the strength and certainty of their assurance And in the same perswasion we find them praying in the following Chapter in Vers 8. But now Oh Lord thou art our Father we are the clay and thou the Potter we are the work of thy hands And in the same assurance also let us pray when we are making our addresses to the throne of grace let us apply our selves to God as to a Father The benefit and profit of it will be very great as I shall represent it to you in a few particulars which you may look upon as Motives to perswade This assurance will make us bold and confident in our approaches to the throne of grace it will make us come to God full of holy resolutions whereas if we be destitute of this perswasion when we are drawing nigh to God and know not whether we may call him father yea or no we shall be fearful to approach his presence we shall make but faint prayers And therefore the Apostle tells us that by faith in Christ in whom alone God is a Father to his children that is by this assurance that he is so to us in special we have boldness we have access with confidence to God Eph. 3.11 And this was that which heartened up the Prodigal and filled his languishing and fainting heart with resolution I will arise said he and go to my Father he had been long debating it should seem and ruminating on the business in his wavering thoughts His late miscarriages no question were a great disheartening to him so that he knew not what to do But at last he comes to this I will arise and go to my Father he is my Father and I am his own Son and there is pitty and compassion in a Father to a Son at least to a returning Son though an unworthy one as I have been And therefore let my faults and my discouragements be what they will I will arise and go to him And truly while we apprehend the Lord to be a Judge and not a Father or if a Father not to us but other men we find but small encouragement to come to him But when we look upon him as a Father yea as our Father in the Lord Christ this makes us come with boldness to him This causes us to delight in the Almighty and not to look divertedly but to lift up our face to God as Job speaks As this assurance will make us bold and confident so it will make us earnest and importunate with God It will enable us to pray and not to faint When we consider we are dealing with a Father we shall hang about him when he seems to throw us off we shall tug and wrestle with him we shall take no denyal from him Oh Lord thou art our Father we pray thee hear us pitty us relieve us for we are thine own children A man is never earnest and importunate with one of whose affections he hath no perswasion and they that have not this assurance present but cold and spiritless petitions and requests to God But they that look upon him as a Father as one that hath so near relation and such dear affection to them as one whose bowels of compassion yern towards them in their miseries and wants they will keep no silence they will give him no rest till he have answered them in mercy till he have given them the desire of their hearts This assurance will make us hopefull of audience and success with God Can a woman forget her child and not have compassion on the Son of her womb saith the Prophet Isa 99.65 Can she deny him when he begs and hangs about her It is possible she may there may be such a mother in the world but God is no such Father No he hath infinitely more compassion on his children Oh what a matchless and unconquerable ground of hope is here to those that have this sweet assurance that God is their Father What man is there who if his son asketh bread saith Christ will give him a stone or if he ask a fish will give him a Serpent though the poor child perhaps cannot distinguish the one from the other If ye then being evil know how to give good things unto your children how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to them that ask him And lastly this assurance will hold us up with matchless comfort respectively to the defects and imperfections of our prayers Suppose your little tender child should come to any of you that are Fathers with a lisping stammering tongue moaning for something that he longs to have would you look angrily upon him would you chide and rate him off and send the harmless infant crying from your presence Consult with your own hearts and bowels could you do it and is not God as pittiful to his as you are to your children Alas he is as tenderly affected to them that he sees not their defects so as to slight them and reject them or their weak endeavours for them No as a Father pitties his Children so the Lord pittieth them that fear him Psal 103.13 They are without blame before him in love Ephes 1.4 Though they have many failings yet he doth not blame them so great is his love to them when they look upon their prayers and find this fault and that fault as truly they have cause enough the comfort is that God finds no fault he saith that it is well done And thus he dealt with holy David as himself observeth Psalm 77.2 3. He was in such distress that he was troubled to remember God his very heart was overwhelmed within him a poor prayer you may think that any man could make in such a case as that was And yet that very prayer found acceptance with the Lord as he shews in that place I cried unto the Lord saith he in the first ver of that Psalm and mark what follows he gave ear to me And thus when we do bungle at his service the Lord is apt to take it in good part if we do but what we can and that because he is our Father which if it be considered cannot choose but be a very great encouragement and comfort to us But you will interpose and say perhaps here is encouragement indeed and pretious comfort if we can come to God in prayer with this assurance that he is our Father but how shall we attain to this assurance What are the evidences that we may relye upon in this particular which if we find them in our selves we may be confident to speak to God as to a father we may be bold to cry Abba Father to him I shall lay down a few and make them as distinguishing and clear as I am able to help you in this great business If God be your Father and you be his children you are very much like him
when we threaten judgement when we retain the sins of men when we give them up to Satan either in preaching or in Church-censures when we say of any person Take him Satan our aim must be that Christ may have him that his corruption may be mortified and that he may be saved by this means And therefore let the Ministers of Jesus Christ have this continually in their eye how they may reach this great end Let all his under-officers in the administration of the power which Christ hath put upon them drive at that for which Christ received his that they may bring his people to eternal life as you have it in my Text. Is it so that the authority of Jesus Christ with which c. is chiefly Use 3 for the good c. Then let us apprehend it to be so and let us look upon it so when he is executing this authority and this judiciary power of his upon the enemies of his people even to their utter ruin and destruction When he destroyes his Churches enemies when he consumes them that they may not be as this he doth sometimes by vertue of this power which God hath put into his hands and we have seen it in these latter days let us consider that he doth not this so much for their hurt as for the good of his people That his aim is not so much at the destruction of the one as at the preservation of the other When he is laying on upon them with his keen and glittering sword let this be our meditation Now Christ is doing something for his poor people And this the Saints of old have done And therefore David or whoever else it be that is the author of Psal 136. recording many judgements of the Lords which he had brought upon the Churches enemies makes this the running verse between continually For his mercy endureth for ever He smote all the first born of Aegypt For his mercy endureth for ever He overturned Pharoah and his Host in the red Sea For c. He smote great Kings and slew famous Kings as Sihon King of the Amorites and Og c. For his mercy endureth for ever A man would think he should have rather said he did such things as these because his anger and his wrath endures for ever What mercy was it for the Lord to slay Kings and to destroy Nations truely it was none to them that were destroyed but it was sweet and precious mercy to them for whom they were destroyed And Christ would have it known that in the execution of his vengeance on the wicked he hath not an aspect so much upon the misery he brings the wicked to no his thoughts are taken up with the mercy and the love he manifests to his people And when he layes about him and slashes down the enemies in heaps he seemeth to forget the hatred that he bears to them and to think of nothing else but mercy mercy to his Saints Thus I kill them and destroy them because my mercy c. And therefore let us learn to look upon it so to have such thoughts and apprehensions upon such occasions And that the rather because there is an inconveniency in it many times when we behold Christ in another way We look upon the Judgements which he wreaks and executes upon the Enemies and persecuters of the Church as if he brought them on them out of such a hatred to them as we our selves are apt to have And so our hearts are carried out in wayes of malice and we make Christ upon the matter but the instrument of our revenge Whereas if we did apprehend him as aiming not so much at the destruction and ruine of the wicked as at the good and preservation of his people and as administrations of his power which he sees necessary for the peace and welfare of the Saints our hearts would be in a more sweet and holy temper then they are sometimes in such cases For then my brethren we should see the Love of Christ in all these dispensations of his wrath the more his anger is declared at any time against the wicked the more we should be taken up with thoughts and apprehensions of his love to us The greater fury and displeasure he reveals against them the more we should be led to contemplation of his mercy to our selves Oh what are we that he should have such dear respects to us That he should be so angry with poor creatures and execute such heavy judgements on them for our sakes Use 4 Is it so that the authority c. is chiefly for the Good c. This then methinks should prevail with wicked men yea though they perish to have better thoughts of Christ and milder apprehensions then they have For you must know my brethren that Christ hath many Enemies there are abundance in the world that hate him whose very hearts do rise against him And whence is this but because they look upon him as one that aims at their destruction as one that means to have their blood to ruine them and damn them in the pit of hell for ever Now I beseech you my beloved do not so mistake your selves think not so hardly of the Lord Christ Believe it Jesus Christ hath other purposes then these whatever you conceive of him he came not to judge the world but that the world by him might be saved He came not to destroy you but to save his own people And therefore if you be destroyed thank your selves and not him Your help if you have any is of him but your destruction is of your selves Do but consider I beseech you what Christ hath done what means he hath afforded you for your salvation He hath assumed your nature who are reprobates as well as yours who are elect He hath laid down a price of worth sufficient in it self for your salvation so that there is not one of you excluded from it because it will not reach to you as well as others because it is too narrow and too scant to satisfie for all if all should apprehend it and lay hold upon it No he hath ordered matters so that there is enough put in not for believers only but for them that perish too And that which is put in as it is sufficient for you so it is applicable to you as well as others As it was paid in your nature so any of your nature may partake it if they will lay hold upon it It is a satisfaction which nothing but your unbelief and your refusal can make you uncapable of And hence the Lord will have a tender of it to be made the Gospel to be preached to you as well as others so runs the tenour of his own Commission Go preach the Gospel to every creature Tell every man without exception that there is good news for him that Christ is dead for him if he embrace him Yea Christ himself doth by his Messengers perswade you yea intreat
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
your damnation and eternal ruine And all the honour that you lose him here he will fetch it out again and have his penny-worths upon you in the world to come There you must lie and burn and there is no deliverance thence till you have paid the utmost farthing Is it so that whosoever will be glorified c. you then my Brethren Vse 2 that have thoughts aspiring to the glory of the world to come and that desire to be partakers of it there you see the course you are to take you must make this your work and business how you may glorifie the Lord here how you may set him up and shew him in his beauty and his lustre to the world And though you can make no addition to him in himself yet let this be your endeavour all your days to bring in some accruments to his honour among men that they may honour him the more by your means that so when you come to die you may bespeak him as our Saviour doth when he was ready to be offered up We have glorified thee on earth and now O Father glorifie us with thy self Now there are two ways especially in which you may bring glory to the Lord either in a way of vocal declaration or in a way of real representation And both these ways you must endeavour to bring glory to him here if you desire to have glory from him hereafter First Glorifie him in a way of vocal declaration let your tongues be the Trumpeters of his glory while you are speaking upon all occasions of things that tend to the advancement of the honour and the praise of God Any thing that you conceive will set him up and raise him in the thoughts of those whom you discourse withal be sure that you insist upon it and enlarge it to the utmost let the name and let the attributes and let the works of God lose nothing by your means Glorifie him as Christ did by manifesting and by making known his name to men by telling what he is and what he doth by setting forth his power and mercy and the like that such as hear may magnifie him and admire him Study God-exalting speeches and expressions and discourses and enure your tongues to them that you may have them ready upon all occasions when there is any opportunity for Gods honour Secondly Glorifie him also in a way of real representation and here let him be glorified in what you are and what you do 1. Let God be glorified in what you are let his glory shine upon you by reflexion according to the Prophets Exhortation Isa 60.1 Arise and shine for thy light is come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee Be you the monuments of his praise the emblems of his love and of his mercy the standing pillars on which his goodness is engraven to be read and seen of men Do you shew forth the praises or as we find it rendred in the margent the vertues of him that hath called you 1 Pet. 2.9 That every one that looks upon you observes you may see the goodness and the grace and holiness of God in you That they may say if there be so much in the stream what is there in the spring and in the fountain If there be so much in the beam what is there in the Sun of righteousness himself If there be so much vertue in them that are called what is there then in him that hath called them This makes much for Gods praise and so indeed in shewing forth the vertue we shew forth the praise and the glory of him that hath called us He hath made me saith the Church a polished shaft a choice a special and a polished piece of work and said unto me thou art my servant in whom I will be glorified When God makes such curious pieces and hangs them forth in the view of all the world he is glorified in them 2. Let God be glorified as in what you are so in the second place in what you do yea in every thing you do Let this be the utmost aim of all your actions Your acts of nature as eating or drinking or the like let these be done with reference to Gods glory as the Apostle Paul exhorts to eat and drink to the glory of God 1 Cor. 10.31 Your civil actions your trading dealing and commercing in the world your buying selling giving lending your care and labour in your calling let these have the same end You see the rule is universal in the fore-alledged Text whatsoever else you do Your holy and religious duties let those have this aspect and aim that you may glorifie the Lord and not your selves in them That when men see your good works your frequent hearing praying fasting bounty to the poor Saints they may glorifie not you the doers of them but your Father which is in heaven And in a word my Brethren no action is exempt from this direction And hence saith the Apostle 1 Pet. 4.11 If any speak let him speak as the Oracles of God if any man minister let him do it as of the ability which God giveth that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ What then it may be you will interpose and ask Object may a man aim at nothing else but Gods glory may he propound no other end in any thing he undertakes may he have no respect to others to himself this is a hard saying who can hear it The rule as you have heard is universal Answ but that you may the better understand the meaning of it that your conscience may not be entangled you must know that other ends may be propounded in our actions in a way either of subordination or else of opposition to the glory of God A man may aim at nothing else no other end in opposition to his glory all such must of necessity be laid aside But other ends may be intended in subordination to it they may be looked upon as far as they may be subservient to this which ought to be the ultimate the utmost end of all our actions A man in his endeavours and painful labours in his calling may aim at the increase of his Estate Not that he may be lifted up above his brethren not that he may consume it on his Lusts or make it fuell to maintain his pride or his intemperance or the like These may not be his ends because they stand in opposition to the great and utmost end but that God may be honoured while he is not burthensom by his remissness and his negligence but rather hath to give to him that needeth And while he makes provision for his family and those that have dependance on him which he that provideth not for is worse then an Infidel Thus we must make the very duties of our callings pay tribute to the honour of our God who keeps his servants not as poor men do for need but as rich and
his work as he professes to his Father in my Text I have manifested thy Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have brought it forth saith he into the light and set it in open view for so much that word imports By which he intimateth that his Fathers Name was like a rare and curious piece behinde a curtain like a rich treasure covered or a glorious Image vailed But now saith Christ the vail is taken off the covering is removed the curtain drawn I have exposed my Fathers Name to the veiw of all my people This Christ hath done you see and now let us consider what we are to do No question he hath brought it forth that we might see it that we might feed our eyes upon it that we might grow up in the knowledge of his Fathers Name of the dearness of his love and the sweetness of his mercy the tenderness and the abundance of his compassions unto poor lost creatures This is the Name which Jesus Christ hath manifested to us that we might be acquainted with it Now I beseech you my Beloved let us not by neglecting this discovery go about to frustrate Christ and do as much as in us lies to disappoint him of his purpose Oh let us labour that our knowledge of the Name of God may be in some sort answerable to the revelation that Jesus Christ hath made of it And that as we have since our Saviours coming in the flesh a fuller and a more compleat discovery of it then they in former ages had we may accordingly exceed and go beyond them in the knowledge of it too We may know more of God especially of his love and of his mercy to his people in his Son then they did Or if it be not so to what end is the pains that Christ hath taken to manifest his Fathers Name to us Oh let us be ashamed to come behind the Saints of the Old Testament in the knowledge of this Name who came behind us in the means of this knowledge Is it so That Jesus Christ hath made an absolute c. Then let us satisfie Vse 4 our selves with the discovery he hath made And let us not attempt or undertake to know more of the Father then he hath made known to us Indeed if Jesus Christ had fallen short in this discovery it were but reason that we should exceed and go beyond it If he had not told us all that is fit for us to know it were a congruous thing that we should strive to know more But seeing the discovery he hath made is so compleat and absolute in all respects so that there can be nothing added to it we have cause to rest in it and to content our selves with so much knowledge of the Father as he hath revealed to us Indeed there is an itch in Nature to search into those things especially concerning God which are concealed and hid from us Fain we would see his face when Christ hath manifested but his back-parts to us we would know more of his Nature of his Counsels and Decrees the order of them the measure of them the objects of them then he hath thought expedient to reveal to us We would approach too nigh to gaze we would intrude on those things which we have not seen for which we have no revelation as the Apostle speaks Col. 2.18 And this my Brethren is the evill Genius of these very times men go beyond themselves in sifting into things concerning God and beyond Christ too I mean beyond any thing that he hath manifested of his Father to them Indeed they tell us that Christ reveals it to them by his Spirit But that is not the Spirit of Christ which shews us any thing beyond what he hath written in his Word The business of the Spirit is not to bring us any other truths then those which are revealed in the Word but to clear those to us If any spirit bring us any thing crossing with or but so much as diverse from the Scripture if an Angel dropt from Heaven teach us any other Doctrine he must not be believed but accursed To the Law and to the Testimony saith the Prophet Isa 8.20 If any man or Angel speak not according to this Word let him pretend what light he will it is because there is no light in him And therefore let us satisfie our selves with that which Christ hath manifested of his Father in his Word and in his Gospel Since his discovery is so full let us not seek to go beyond it That speech of God to Moses who whether he were curious or no was very earnest to behold his glory is observable Exod. 33.19 I will make all my good go before thee that is I will discover so much of my self to thee as shall be good for thee to know And this our Saviour Christ hath done compleatly We need no further knowledge of the Father here to make us happy to make us wise unto salvation And therefore let us rest in it And to this end I shall present you with a few Considerations It is a fruit and evidence of pride to strive to know more of the Fathers Name then Christ hath manifested to us It proceeds from a desire to be observed as having something more then ordinary in us and this hath much prevailed with many men in these times to know no more of God then Christ hath shewed us in the Scripture this is no such great matter this will never make them famous And therefore they must have their nice and curious speculations by themselves beyond any written word they must have hidden things discovered to them which other men are not acquainted with that they may be observed to be men of singular depth and extraordinary intercourse with the Spirit of Christ This the Apostle notes in those Impostors Col. 2.18 Intruding into those things which they have not seen But how comes this to pass vainly puffed up by their fleshly mind There is the cause of this intrusion And hence the Prophet David to shew that he was not proud and haughty makes this the evidence Psal 131.1 I do not exercise my self in things that are too high for me It is a grievous sin to labour to know more of God then Christ hath manifested to us It is no better then intrusion on the right of God himself such a man doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the fore-alledged Text Col. 2.18 Intrudes upon anothers right enters on the possession of another Now whose possession are these secret things To whom do they belong to God saith Moses Deut. 29. ult The secret things belong unto the Lord our God but those things which are revealed belong unto us and unto our children So that while we content our selves with these revealed things we are like honest-minded men that keep and use their own and love not to encroach upon their neighbours But if we be not satisfied with the things which God hath manifested
Scripture and never leave till you know the heart of it And this is that which the Apostle Paul insinuates Col. 3.16 Let the Word of God dwell in you richly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let it dwell let it be a houshold-guest let it rise and sit and walk dine and sup and lodge with you let it be familiar to you Be you as throughly acquainted with it as any man that dwells in your house with whom you have discourse and dealing every hour And truly if you strive not thus to be acquainted with the Word of God you do not love it as you ought to do 3. If you love the VVord of God you will not easily fall out with it when you find the meaning of it and perceive it is against you in something that is naturally dear to you you will not quarrel with it your hearts will not rise up in enmity against it No your dear affections to it will make you quietly and meekly to submit to it Indeed ungodly men cannot endure the VVord of God the Precepts and Commandements of it are like bonds and cords to them they lay restraint upon them they curb them and they hold them in and hence they are enraged against it They endeavour what they can to break the bonds of God asunder they are always contradicting and opposing and gainsaying and raising quarrels and disputes against the Word because they hate it But now the Saints upon the other side are very much in Love with it and hence it is that the Commandements of it are not grievous to them they agree with their spirits they are written in their hearts Or if at any time it cross them they are not angry with the Word but with themselves that their base hearts should not in every thing agree with it Yea when it is a little sharp and bitter though their stomachs rise at first yet in the issue they submit and say as Hezekiah to Isaiah Isa 39.8 Good is the Word of the Lord which thou hast spoken They find a sweet and pleasing savour even in the sowrest passage of the Word There goes a savour with their knowledge of it as the Apostle Pauls expression is 2 Cor. 2.14 Carnal men may know abundance of the Scripture more then a pretious Saint of God but here is the difference they find no savour in their knowledg of it at least no sweet and pleasing savour No it is distastful to them it doth not suit with their palates it doth not fit their humors A Drunkard knows it is a sin to be intemperate to drink himself down to a beast A wanton and lascivious person knows it is a sin to be unclean but this doctrine doth not please him and so it is in other cases whereas the Truth is sweet to those that are in Christ they look upon it as their friend and love it because it joyns with them against their lusts who are their greatest enemies whom they abhorre and whom they hate with a perfect hatred 4. If you love the VVord of God you will hardly part with it you will not let it go from you if you can keep it any way by any means And much less will you go from it I have not departed from thy judgements saith holy David to the Lord Psal 119.102 for thou hast taught me Brethren there are a sort of men who have a kind of knowledge of the Word of God but they have no love to it and hence it is that they are easily withdrawn from it as multitudes have been in these times while they that have it dear in their affections are rooted and established in the present truth as 2 Pet. 1.12 They are not carryed clean away with every new opinion and conceit as others are They cleave unto the Truths of God with full purpose of heart They are setled in their judgements and resolved in their minds This is undoubtedly the Truth of God I know it to be so I find it to be so by sensible experience in my soul and to this I mean to stick even to the loss of goods and life and all I am resolved that I will not relinquish it what ever hazard I may undergo to hold it whatever Sophisters and slie Seducers object against it 5. If you love the Word of God you will be extreamly troubled when it is slighted and abused it will vex you to the heart to see it undervalued and despised You will be ready to reply in such a case The VVord is a good friend of mine one whom I love dearly from whom I have received much comfort And I am no way able to endure it wounds me to the very soul to see it used in this fashion Beloved these are times in which the VVord of God hath suffered much from wicked and ungodly men It hath been strangely scorned and contemned and even trampled under foot It hath been usual in these days of ours for men to speak against those things that are delivered from the VVord contradicting and blaspheming Now my Beloved how have such things as these affected you and wrought upon you what tears have they drawn from you what sorrow have they wrought in you how often have they sent you over-loaden to your closets there to open all to God It is observed by the Holy Ghost that when Jehoiakim had cut the roll in pieces with a pen-knife which Jeremiah brought him from the Lord and burnt it in the fire upon the hearth they that stood by were not afraid neither did they rent their garments nor manifest their sorrrow Jer. 36.23 24. Beloved some of you have seen as high contempt as this offered to the word of God though not in the same kind And truly if you have not rent your hearts at least if you have not been inwardly afflicted in your spirits and done what you are able to the vindication of it you have shewed but little love to Gods word By these things you may try whether you have kept the word of God in your affections by loving it and so have made it to appear that you belong to Jesus Christ by the donation of the Father Now in the last place let me quicken you a little to the love of Gods word That if you love it not already you may come to love it Or if you love it you may go on to love it yet more And to this end I shall desire you to take notice of how great excellency and admirable use it is to you as I shall lay it open in a few particulars 1. Are you yet in your natural estate the word of God is the means to convert you The Law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul Psal 19.7 Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God Sanctifie them saith our Saviour How By thy truth thy word is truth Joh. 17.17 That speech of Paul is apposite and full God hath chosen you to salvation through sanctification
in their judgements constantly agree they might be quickly brought if not wherein they err to change their minds yet to allay them so with humility and love that they should never break forth into bitterness against their brethren But while they have such a deal of pride among them while they are so alike in this regard it is impossible they should agree together 2. It is impossible even for the Saints to be in all respects at unity among themselves because as they are too proud so they are too selfish Herein they are too near alike easily to close together This is indeed the great make-bate it hath a special hand and is a violent eager stickler in all the quarrels that are driven to and fro among men From hence it is that men are so inflexible and so extremly stiff in their opinions that they will abate nothing nor yield to nothing for quietness and peace sake it is their love not to the truth but to themselves it is their self-love And so it is the selfishness of men that makes them so intent upon their own things that they will have the utmost in a business and urge extremity of right and will not part with any thing almost to purchase pretious peace It is because they love themselves too well and because there is so much of this even in the Saints this makes it wonderfully hard for them to be at unity among themselves I might name other things in which they are too much alike to close so nearly as they should but these shall serve for that branch It is a hard thing for the Saints to live at unity among themselves because as there are some things in which they are too much alike So there are other things in which they differ overmuch so close so nearly as they should together For differences make divisions many times even among Christs Disciples And that you may the better look into the business I will shew you many things in which they differ many times which render a conjunction and a perfect union infinitely hard to be made and kept among them 1. They are of divers tempers and of divers constitutions and those will hardly close together As divers strings unless they be of purpose tun'd alike will not be unisons they will not be of one sound They may be very sweet apart but if you strike them all together they will make a discord So it is in this case some of the Saints are of a melancholy sad and others of a sanguine cheerfull temper The melancholy doth not like the cheerfull the cheerfull doth not like the melancholy Saint Or if he like him in his judgement he cares not to converse with him or not so much at least as with another because he doth not suit his disposition One Saint by reason of his constitution which grace doth never wholly alter is very hot and very active Another Saint is very cold and very dull Those two being so unlike will continually be disliking one another and it may be censuring so that it will be very hard to bring them to so near a close as should be between Christs Disciples 2. They are of divers stations and conditions in the world and in the Church Some are high and some are low some are rich and some are poor The high are ready to despise the low the low are ready to envy the high The rich are ready to despise the poor the poor c. One of them will be apt on all occasions to be perking at the other And this will make a perfect union extremly difficult between them 3. They are of divers interests by reason of their callings judgements opinions habitations outward substance and estates and differences will arise and grow from all these So that it will be hard to keep them quiet and to hold them close together Meum and tuum is the rise of all dissentions it is this same thine and mine that setteth men yea the best men sometimes together by the Ears This is my right and that is thine this is my place and that is thine this is my opinion and that is thine If the interest were one they would be one but sure it cannot be avoided but it will be so different in this world there will be differences now and then even among the Saints themselves It was upon the point of interest that Abraham and Lot fell out though they were both good men And it is noted by the Holy Ghost himself as one especial reason of the strange consent and harmony that was among the primitive Saints because their interest was one Acts 4.32 The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul How so They had all things common neither said any of them that any of the things which he possessed were his own The state of those times my brethren both admitted and required it and we see the fruit of it It is not so and to say truth cannot be so in our dayes and therefore it is much the harder to keep perfect unity among the Saints When once they shall come all to be in one place in one condition of one opinion and to have one inheritance and so to have one common interest among them all when God shall be all in all there will be no more divisions but in the mean time it is impossible they should in every thing agree together 4. They are of divers qualifications There are diversities of gifts saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 12.4 Now these I must acknowledge are intended to beget union But yet by accident by reason of remainders of corruption in the Saints they cause divisions While some are of more judgement and other some of more affection while some are of greater and other some of meaner gifts here are occasions I say not causes but occasions of dissention while some are supercilious and the other envious As soon as the Apostle layes down the distinction between strong and weak Christians Rom. 14.1 there follows disputation and division presently The one despises and the other judges The strong Christian is ready upon all occasions to despise the weak The weak Christian is apt upon the other side to judge the strong The strong slights and the weak censures and so there is a wofull breach of unity and peace among them By these things it is evident my brethren that it is a matter of wondrous difficulty even for Christs Disciples to be at unity among themselves And truly if we seriously consider how like they are in regard of some corruptions and how different they are in Constitutions Stations Interests and Qualifications we will not wonder that the Almighty power of God is invocated by our Saviour to effect it JOHN 17.11 That they may be one as we are AND this for clearing of the former member of the point It is a matter of wondrous difficulty for Christs Disciples to be at nearest unity among
we thrive apace in knowledge then we grow to perfectness then the Church of Christ goes up But till the stones be joined close together there will be no edifying that is in English no building It is of great concernment to the entertainment of Christ Jesus in the world that his Disciples be at nearest c. If they be alwayes wrangling and contending others will not come among them No they will stand off from them and from the Master which they serve if he be owned and followed by none but by a company of quarrelsome contentious people And hence is that Petition of our Saviour in behalf of his Apostles and Disciples at ver 23. of this Chapter In my text he prayes the Father that they may be one even as the Father and himself were one And in the cited verse he renews the same petition that they may all be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they may be one in us And why so That the world may believe that thou hast sent me q. d. If my disciples be not one among themselves if they be rent asunder by a spirit of division the world will not believe that I came forth from thee who art the God of love and peace that thou hast sent me down into the world to be a Mediator and a Peace-maker to make up all the breaches and the differences between thee and thy people They will look strangely upon me and I shall never bring them to believe that I am come on such an errand as this is And therefore I beseech thee Father that I may be entertained under the Notion of a Mediator that the world may believe that thou hast sent me on this business do thou take care that my Disciples may be at unity among themselves It is of great concernment to the happiness of Christs Disciples that they be at neerest c. Among the eight beatitudes the third in order falleth to the meek and peaceable Mat. 5.5 And if the meek and peaceable be blessed then certainly the fierce and furious are accursed It is a pretty observation of Ludolphus out of Bede on that place Heaven is promised to the pure blessed are the pure in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven Earth is promised to the meek Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth So there remaineth nothing else but hell for the contentious and impure spirit Ah my beloved would we avoid the curse and would we be partakers of the blessing would we have heaven and earth to be our portion Let us be pure and peaceable let us make and keep peace and so the blessing of the God of peace will be upon us And therefore David having broken out into a passionate and pithy commendation of the unity of brethren behold how good and pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity it is like pretious oyntment c. Psal 133.2 he shuts up all with this conclusion There the Lord commanded the blessing and life for evermore There where brethren live in unity and love there the Lord commands blessing it cannot choose but come upon them for the Lord himself commands it And this blessing it is life and this life it is eternal There the Lord commanded the blessing and life for evevermore Vse 1 Now to proceed to application Is it so my brethren that it is a matter of wondrous difficulty and of great concernment for Christs Disciples to be at neerest unity among themselves Then let this quicken us and stirr us up who would be taken to be Christs Disciples to labour after this oneness and to endeavour to the utmost of our power to get and keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace You hear it is a matter of great concernment and therefore it is worth the striving for It is a matter of wondrous difficulty and therefore is not to be had without striving Now I beseech you my beloved let us set our selves to this business There was never greater need them now when God hath suffered such a spirit of division to possess his own people And when the members of the body mysticall of Christ are of so many minds and draw so many wayes and have sometimes such vehement and hot contentions and disputes among themselves So that the Church had never greater reason to cry out as Rebecca sometimes did when she had parties in her womb If it be so why am I thus and therefore we had need to put some spirit into this perswasion and you had need to put some spirit into your endeavours and if the Lord will put his spirit of unity and peace into us it may subdue and overcome the spirit of division which reigns too much abroad in these times But you will ask me How may we attain this and what are we to do that we may come to be at neerest unity among our selves Though it be very difficult as you have heard it may be compassed notwithstanding by the blessing of the Lord upon the use of these directions You must endeavour to the utmost of your power to mortifie those lusts and those corruptions that incline you to dissentions I shewed you formerly in explication of the point that the cause of our divisions is within and not without us They do not come so much from outward provocations as inward corruptions If there were no lusts within there would be no wars without as the Apostle James insinuates And verily if our corruptions as pride and passion and self-love were throughly mortified within those outward provocations would never cause such wofull rents and such implacable contentions as they do And therefore let us set our selves effectually and throughly to subdue these lusts of ours though they be naturally as dear and near as the members of our bodies let us persue them to the very death as the Apostle Paul advises Col. 3.5 Mortifie therefore your members which are upon the earth Let nothing satisfie us till we have the life of them Let us not wound them only but destroy them that ought to be the Christians aim as the Apostle shews Rom. 6.6 that the body of sin may be destroyed Our lusts seek our life either they must dye or we And they seek Gods life Omne peccatum est Deicidium And they have sought Christs life and brought him to a shamefull and accursed death And therefore let us seek their lives too and never satisfie our selves till we have the blood of them Let it be far from any of us to nourish or to cherish our corruptions to favour them or to deal kindly with them any way No let us dash this Babylonish brood against the stones let us shew them no mercy And when they are once destroyed our differences and debates will end with them As we must mortifie our carnal lusts so we must chase away out of our hearts our carnal reasonings that foment
should never be removed And there are many promises of special preservation from dangers and distresses made to those who have an interest in God and Christ I might heap up a multitude of such but there is one Psalm of David that seems to be a short Compendium and abridgement of them all viz. Psal 91. He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler and from the noisome Pestilence He shall cover thee with his feathers his truth shall be thy shield and buckler thou shalt not be afraid for the terrour by night nor for the arrow that flyeth by day nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness nor the destruction that wasteth at noon-day A thousand shall fall at thy side and ten thousand on thy right hand but it shall not come nigh thee Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold it Thou shalt see it seize on others but for thy own part thou shalt be exempt from it There shall no evil befall thee neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling For he shall give his Angels charge over thee to keep thee Now these and such like promises the Lord makes good to his even in the very letter of them when in the infiniteness of his love and wisdom he sees it most expedient for them 2. Or if God do not keep them from affliction that it doth not touch them he keeps them that it doth not stay too long with them The rod of trouble though it strike them yet it doth not rest upon them It is on and off again in due time It s true God often suffers those who belong to Jesus Christ to be brought into affliction but then he doth not leave them there his manner is to bring them out again To deliver them from evil according to that passage in the Lords prayer And therefore he is stiled the deliverer of his people and the God of their salvation He that is our God is the God of salvation and to the Lord God belong the issues from death not from inferiour dangers only but from death it self And hence salvation is ascribed to him as his peculiar It is of the Lord sath Jonah Chap. 2.9 Salvation belongeth to the Lord saith David Psal 3.8 and his blessing upon his people It is his work to save us from distresses and afflictions the secondary means are subordinate to him they move but as he acts them And this is very usual with him if he prevent not the afflictions of his people that they do not come upon them yet he delivers them at length from those afflictions assoon as they have done their work in them yea let them be as many as they will Psal 34.19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivereth them out of all 3. Or if God do not keep them who belong to Jesus Christ from the evil of affliction by way of preservation or deliverance from it he keeps them many times by way of preservation and delivery in it So that though it seize upon them it is no pain or trouble to them And thus he kept the three Confessors he did not save them from the furnace but he saved them in the furnace Dan. 3.27 The fire had no power upon their bodies nor was a hair of their head singed neither were their Coats changed nor the smell of fire did pass upon them According to that pretious promise Isa 43.2 when thou passest through the waters I will be with thee and through the rivers they shall not overwhelm thee when thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burned neither shall the flame kindle upon thee Or if not thus he qualifies his people so with inward peace and comfort and assurance that they feel not what they feel They are so ravished and transported to an extasie of holy joy that they are in a sort insensible even of the greatest torment that humane cruelty can devise to inflict Unto the righteous saith the Psalmist ariseth light in darkness glorious comfort even in the midst of greatest troubles Psal 112.4 Thy light shall rise in obscurity saith God Isa 58.10 And thy darkness shall be as the noon-day Such light did there arise to some of the blessed Martyrs when it was darkest with them in regard of outward comforts so that they sung in the prisons in the irons in the flames they were not able to contain themselves by reason of the sodain flash of joy that came breaking in upon them which made them to forget the miseries and torments which they suffered yea though the fire did kindle on them and consume them into ashes yet many of them warbled out melodious accents in the flames professed that they were amidst the fire as in a bed of down and spices where they felt nothing else but admirable joy and comfort These men you see did more then conquer they did triumph in the very midst of their unparalleld and matchless sufferings so that they might have taken up that comfortable speech of the Apostle Rom. 8.37 In all these things we are more then Conquerors And what were those things see at the 35. verse In tribulation and distress and persecution and famine and nakedness and peril and sword then which there are no greater outward evils in the world In all these things we are more then Conquerors through him that loved us 4. Or if God do not keep his people from the smart at least he keeps them from the hurt of their afflictions The world indeed may persecute them and that to the very death they may take away their names their estates their lives from them but though they kill them they can never hurt them God keeps them from the evil of all this from the evil in the world as you have it in my Text what ever comes upon them they are no losers in the main but gainers rather All things are for their sakes saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 4.15 for their profit and advantage Yea though the outward man perish by reason of the length or violence of the affliction the inward man is renewed day by day Their afflictions work out for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory They may suffer grievously their sufferings may deprive them of the life of nature but they cannot deprive them of the life of grace or glory They may be persecuted but they cannot be forsaken totally and finally they may be cast down but they cannot be destroyed 2 Cor. 4.9 They may be destroyd as men but they can never be destroyd as Saints In this respect they are like Mount Sion that can never be removed The rain descended saith our Saviour and the floods came and the wind blew and beat upon the house and it fell not for it was founded upon a rock Mat. 7.25 q.d. Nothing can hurt or overthrow him that is built on Jesus Christ he shall stand fast for evermore Nay to go a little further God doth not only
to be as mercifull as God is if you look to the degree For as the heavens are higher then the earth so are his thoughts above ours in this particular But yet we may be mercifull as he is though not as mercifull as he is So in the Text our Saviour prayes for his Disciples That they may all be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us The meaning is not that they may be one as nearly that is impossible but as truly as we are That as we are in one another so they may in some respect be all in us How and in what respect they may be so I shall shew at large anon in the mean time the point is this DOCTRINE It is the will of Jesus Christ that his Disciples should not only be one among themselves but that they also should be one in God Indeed it is the will of Jesus Christ that his Disciples should be one Vse 4 among themselves That they should be all one as you have it in my Text Indeed he shed his blood for this purpose Eph. 2.14 that though they be of divers Nations as for instance Jews and Gentiles yet they may be both one as in the fore-alledged Scripture He is our peace saith the Apostle there who hath made both one having abolished in his flesh the enmity to make in himself of twain of Jews and Gentiles one man Though they be of divers places some in heaven and some on earth and though they that are on earth are many of them many thousand miles asunder yet he would have them to be all one It is his project and design to gather all things into one which are in heaven and which are in earth as Ephes 1.10 But you will ask me How can this be done that they that are so distant should be one I answer Very easily because the bonds of this conjunction are not carnal but spiritual So that they may be one without a corporeal or local union From him the head saith the Apostle all the body by joints and bands is knit together Col. 2.19 Part of the body is in heaven and part of it is on earth and here some persons are in one some in another quarter of the earth yet all the body so divided and so distant as you see by joints and bands is knit together And you will easily conceive it when you consider what these bands are 1. They have all one spirit and so in that respect are one I speak not of the spirit or soul of a man but of the spirit of the Lord Christ which being one dwells in all the Saints at once and so makes them one too yea let them be as distant as they will And as the formal reason of the union of the members of the body natural consisteth not so much in contiguity as animation by the same soul so that if any part be mortified and if the soul give over to enliven it it is no more to be esteemed a member notwithstanding its external and corporeal inherence to the body So though the Saints be far from one another in regard of place yet they are closely knit together by the same spirit being joyned to the Lord they are all one spirit and so indeed are all one 2. They have all one faith one at least in fundamentals and one faith makes one as Ephes 4.4 5. They that are of many faiths in fundamentals cannot come so close together to be all one and therefore Jesus Christ when he ascended up on high gave gifts unto men for the work of the Ministry and for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come all both Jews and Gentiles come in the unity of the faith c. So that there is a unity in the faith you see and to say truth my Brethren faith will make a union at a distance as well as if the persons joyned were all together What doth th the corporal or local presence of the parties contribute to the union that is made by faith which is a spiritual and invisible thing and consequently joineth in a spiritual and invisible manner which no division or distance in regard of place can hinder 3. They have all one heart and one affection and so in that respect are one The multitude of believers were of one heart Act. 4.32 Though they were multitudes yet they had but one heart and when there is but one heart there is a great Oness The understanding is the principle of speculation the heart the seat of love and of affection And the Saints are so united and linked togther in affection as if they had among them but one common principle of this affection as if they had but one heart and therefore the Apostle speaking of the faithful saith that they were knit together in love Col. 2.2 The term there used importeth such a knitting as is between the divers parts and peices of a building For so the Saints though there be Millions of them in the world yet they are built up altogether to a spiritual house 1 Pet. 2.5 And love is as it were the morter and the pins the ligaments and tyes of the connexion and elsewhere it is called a bond Col. 3.10 Above all these things put on charity which is the bond of perfectness with which we are perfectly joined together 1 Cor. 1.10 Now love will make a union at a distance as well as near at hand The nearness of the place simply considered in it self contributes nothing to the nearness and to the strength of the affection No love will reach a person at the other end of all the earth as well as if he were just by us in the very next room or in the very next dwelling You see both that and how it is the will of Jesus Christ that his Disciples should be one among themselves which is the first thing in the point But now there is a Second branch he would not have them only to be one among themselves but he would have them also to be one in God This is the special thing for which he is a Suitor to his Father in my Text That they may be all one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us Not one among themselves alone but one in us which is indeed a very high thing Now that you may the better know what Christ intends in this particular you must consider that he speaks to God the Father as man and Mediator in this place For he speaks in prayer here and consequently when he saith As thou Father art in me and I in thee he speaks not of the union which is between his Father and himself as he is God For in that consideration the Father and the Son are so in one another that they are the very same The same Essence for so the union is Identical though they
thus he dealt you know with Saul and Judas But he chose Christ out of a special and peculiar love never to be reversed again And just so he chose us in and by and through Christ out of the very same love and with the very same intentions in reference to revocation that he chose Christ And what will God cast away his people whom he hath foreknown from everlasting whom he hath chosen in his Son Christ before the foundation of the world was laid as the Apostle speaks Eph. 1.4 No no his choice of us is as unalterable as his choice of Christ himself And when he casts away Christ then and not till then my brethren will he cast away us Doth God the Father love believers as his servants even as he loves Christ Then surely he will deal with us in this regard much as he dealt with Christ as I shall shew you in a few particulars 1. He will uphold us as he did uphold Christ A Master will uphold his servant in any business or employment that he setteth him about Especially a servant that he loves So did God uphold Christ and he seems to glory in it and to call us to observe it Isa 42.1 Behold my Servant whom I uphold I am resolved to bear him out meddle with him he that dare Indeed when the appointed time was come he gave him up to suffer what he had designed him to But in the interim he bore him out so that no projects no attempts could take against him they could not seize upon him they could not hurt him saith the Gospel story because his hour was not yet come Even so will God uphold us untill our hour be come too For we are servants whom he loves even as he loved Christ And as he is a loving so he is an al-sufficient and almighty Master as he said to Abraham when he took him to be a Covenant-servant to him Gen. 17.1 And therefore he will be not only a reward but a shield to his servants a shield and an exceeding great reward as his own expression is Gen. 15.1 A reward for their salvation and a shield for their protection 2. God will assist us in his service as he did assist Christ Christ had a piece of work you know in hand that was very difficult so that he sweat and that not ordinary sweat but drops of blood trickling down upon the earth Yea more then so he fainted while he was about it But God his Master that employed him took a special care of him and sent an Angel down from heaven of purpose to comfort him and strengthen him Luke 22.43 And when as man he feared how he should hold out and how he should go through with the business as to any self sufficiency as a Creature and so wept and cried to God he had a very sweet return as you may see Heb. 5.7 When in the dayes of his flesh he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears to him that was able to save him he was heard in that he feared Just so doth God support us in the work he calls us to for we are servants whom he loves even as he loved Christ If he perceive the service that we have in hand to be too difficult and hard for us then in comes God and puts his own hand to the work What canst thou not go through with it Come let me help thee saith the Lord. It is observed of the Levites that God helped them 1 Chron. 15.26 And the Apostle tells us that the spirit helpeth our infirmities Rom. 8.26 he stands against us and bears up the burthen with us So that the weakest servants of the Lord need not fear the hardest service or the heaviest burthen when he hath such a one to help him and when those everlasting arms are underneath him as the Prophet speaks Deut. 33.27 What said the Lord to Paul when he was hard bestead and when he was about to faint My grace is sufficient for thee And this made Paul to say I can do all things through Christ that strengthneth me Phil. 4.13 3. Out of this love God will reward us for the service that he enables us to do as he did reward Christ As soon as he had done his work he had his wages down upon the nail for he was heard in that prayer John 15.4 I have glorified thee upon earth I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do and now Oh Father glorifie me with thy self And so as soon as we have ended and dispatched the business that God hath put into our hands we shall receive our own reward according to our own labour Having had the fruit to holiness we shall receive the end eternal life If we be faithfull to the death we shall receive the Crown of life Apoc. 2.10 If we continue in the Vineyard to the Evening we shall have our penny If we hold out to the period of our lives when we shall come to dye we may conclude with God as Christ doth in the forealledged place We have glorified thee on earth we have finished the work which thou gavest us to do and now O Father glorifie us with thy self and we may sing our dying Song with the Apostle 1 Tim. 4.7 We have fought a good fight we have finished our Course henceforth there is laid up for us a Crown of righteousness which God the righteous Judge will give us Doth God the Father love believers as his Children even as he loves Christ doth he affect them under that relation too and that as he doth Christ Then surely he will shew him self a loving Father to them as he doth to Christ and that especially in two respects 1. He will hear them as he doth hear Christ You know it is but ask and have with Christ Thou art my Son saith God the Father to our Saviour Psa 2.6 this day I have begotten thee And what follows Ask of me and I will give thee And this is that which Christ himself acknowledges John 11.42 Father I thank thee because thou hast heard me Yea so he might in that particular and yet he might deny him in another But mark what followes presently and I know thou hearest me alwayes Thou art my Father and I am thy Son and hence it is that thou art so inclinable to hear me to let me have my own asking Even so will God hear us in every thing that we desire according to his will for we are Children also whom he loves even as he loves Christ And therefore as it was but ask and have with Christ just so it is with us too Ask and it shall be given you Mat. 7.7 And that because he is our loving Father as he is Christs Our heavenly Father will undoubtedly give good things to them that ask him 2. He will provide for us as he doth for Christ You know he hath provided well for Christ He is not his Son
and the like and you receive them at the hands of God he gives you the desire of your hearts in these things Well now consider with your selves what use you put them to when you have gotten them and what bills you bring in What so much health and so much strength bestowed upon the prosecution of your worldly and ambitious projects and designs so much means and so much time upon riot and excess Item so much upon your pride and so much upon your lusts and so much upon the satisfaction of your malice and revenge so much upon Hawks and Hounds and Whores but nothing upon God his Cause or his poor distressed servants Are these the bills that you bring in to God and will you own them in the latter day Brethren by your layings out you may discover to what intent you have prayed for outward blessings whether to consume them on your Lusts or no And if that hath been your end the spirit hath not been your principle in these petitions If we act by Christs spirit we keep a constant course in prayer We do not pray by fits and starts as Job observeth of the Hyppocrite who hath not Christs spirit Job 27.10 Will he delight in the Almighty will be alwayes call on God No he will be on and off in this duty Our spirits are unconstant and unstable my beloved but Christs spirit is 〈◊〉 not so And hence it is that they that pray by their own spirits are so uncertain in the duty many times Sometimes their spirits stir them up to pray and sometimes they do not Though there be differences in this too for some mens spirits naturally are more ready and more fixed then others are And there may be other things as fear and strong conviction and the like that may hold some certain men almost to a continued practice of the outward duty yet it is very rare that he is constant who acts by his own spirit But now my brethren he that acts by Christs spirit is a steady man in prayer he can appeal to God as David doth Psal 40.9 I have not restrained my Lips Oh Lord thou knowest Christs spirit dwells in him he doth not sojourn in him for a time but he dwells in him as in his fixed and his setled habitation and he dwells in him as a spirit of supplication So the spirit of Christ is called Zech. 12.10 And hence it is that he is alwayes putting him upon the duty upon all occasions so that he is constant in it Christs spirit is at home still though ours be wandring many times even to the other end of all the earth And though Christs spirit seem to be given sometimes as a spirit of consolation yet then he will be present as a spirit of supplication He will set a Saint to prayer even when he seems most indisposed and averse he will not suffer him to lay it by and wholly to neglect the duty as is observable in David I said that I am cut off from before thine eyes saith he Psal 31.22 Nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my prayer Even then I prayed to thee when I was in that temper so in another place from the end of the earth will I cry unto thee even when my heart is overwhelmed Psal 61.2 And whence proceedeth this my brethren surely these prayers of all others flow from Christs spirit as the Apostle teacheth Rom. 8.20 The spirit helpeth our infirmities We know not what to pray for as we ought but then the spirit it self makes intercession for us with sighs and groans that cannot be exprest If we act by Christs spirit we come to God as to a Father we cry Abba Father to him as you have it Gal. 4.6 Because ye are Sons saith the Apostle God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts And what doth that spirit there you have it in the next verse crying Abba Father So that Christs spirit if he act in us makes us address our selves to God as to a Father And that my brethren carries two things in it This spirit makes us come to God with the expectations of Children and with the affections of Children 1. If Christs spirit act in us he makes us come to God in prayer with Child-like expectations Expecting from him all the mercy pitty and compassion which a Child can look for from his own Father He makes us to approach the throne of grace with great assurance of audience and acceptance and success there commonly he doth this 2. But yet I must confess An hypocrite may sometimes have these expectations and a child of God may want them The Jews had Child-like expectations Jer. 3.4 they cryed to God Thou art my Father and wilt not thou that art my Father pitty me and help me sure thou wilt and yet they had no Child-like affections no care at all to please God and therefore it is added in the next words that they said and did as evill as they could But now my brethren he that acts by Christs spirit as he hath Child-like expectations so he hath Child-like affections or if at any time he want his Child-like expectations yet still he hath his Child-like affections Though he be in such a case that he is verily perswaded for the present that God will neither own him nor regard him nor look upon him as a Son yet he loves God still He hath a Childs heart to God even when he thinks that God hath not a Fathers heart to him Though he seem to frown upon him and to hide his face and to turn away his prayers yet he hath dear affections to the Lord notwithstanding all this And this appears by the trouble he is in at God displeasure it grieves him so that he is sick of love as the poor Church was Cant. 2.5 when Christ withdrew himself a while this was her grief I sought him whom my soul loveth I will go into the City and seek him whom my soul loveth I said unto the watchmen Did ye see him whom my soul loveth And so when God withdraws himself from such a one as is endued with his spirit the very soul of such a person loves him still when he is very much afraid that he shall never find God more that God will never shew him favour more when he hath lost his Child-like expectations yet still he maintains his Child-like affections JOHN 17.24 That they also whom thou hast given me be with me c. AND thus far of the manner of our Saviours prayer Proceed we to the matter of it And here we have the persons that he prayes for those whom thou hast given me And then the thing that he desires in the behalf of those persons that they also may be with me where I am As for the persons whom our Saviour prayes for you see they are described here by the Fathers giving them to Jesus Christ Let them be what they will in all considerations and
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
is by the Spirit and so it is explained by all Expositors with one consent where Christ is said to dwell in and be in us as such expressions are very frequent in the Scripture He is with us by his Spirit and in us by his Spirit as we are the habitation of God so we are the habitation of Christ through the Spirit as it is in Ephes 2. ult And as the Spirit dwells in us by love so Christ dwells in us by the Spirit so that where love is there the Spirit is and where the Spirit is there Christ is That is the first thing Where love is there faith is and where faith is there Christ is Where love is there faith is And therefore you shall find them often knit together and made inseparable in the Scripture Faith and Love I need not give you instances Virtutes Christianae sunt connexae as a Father speaks All saving graces are united and conjoyned they are made up together in a chain so that if but one link be wanting all the rest are useless If all of them be not united not one of them is in sincerity But Faith and Love have a more near relation one to the other then the rest have Faith to Love hath the nature of a Cause Love to Faith the nature of an Evidence Faith worketh love love proveth faith Faith without Love is a dead Belief Love without Faith is a frozen Charity So that where love is there faith is Now beloved where faith is there Christ is Faith takes in Jesus Christ into the soul and makes him to inhabit there And therefore he is said expresly to dwell in the heart by faith Ephes 3.17 And he received gifts for men saith David Psal 68.18 Yea for the rebellious also that the Lord may dwell among them And if he dwell among and in us by his gifts then certainly by faith which is principal of those gifts So that where love is there faith is and where faith is there Christ is That is the second thing Where love is there the Father is and where the Father is there Jesus Christ the Son is where love is there the Father is God is love saith the Apostle 1 Joh. 4.8 he is Essentially so as I have shewed you and consequently God and love cannot be separated each from other He can no more be severed or divided from it then he can be divided from his Essence And therefore the Apostle adds in the aforesaid place that he that hath the grace of love in him dwells in God and God in him So that where love is God is Now my Beloved where God is there Chist is For he and the Father are one and consequently they must always be together You are not ignorant that Christ and God the Father are often said to be in one another as in that place which we have largely handled in the 21 verse of this Chapter That they may all be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee As Christ is God the Father and himself are one Essence In that consideration they are so in one another that they are the very same The same Essence for so the union is Identical though not the same Person As Christ is Man the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son by the union of the Manhood to the Godhead in the person of our Saviour for the Manhood being joyned to the Godhead in the person of the Son it must be mediately joyned also to the Father with whom the Son as God is one So that in both considerations Christ is one with God the Father and if they be one they must be together they cannot be in all respects asunder who are one So that where love is God is and where God is Christ is That is the third thing By this time I suppose the point is clear where love is there Christ is For 1. where love is there the Spirit is 2. Where love is there faith is 3. Where love is there God is Now is it so my brethren That where love is there Christ is That Vse 1 he is there and only there where love is for so it must be understood exclusively Then in the first place what a sad condition are they in who have not this love in them who have not love to God nor to his children Nay who indeed are Enemies to both who hate God and hate his people and that with a perfect hatred as multitudes there are of such my Brethren and that not in Hell only among the Devils and the damned crew but on earth among men who taste continually of the goodness of the Lord yea in the very bosom of the Church it self There were false brethren in the Church of the Philippians who notwithstanding all their glorious protestations were Enemies to Christ as the Apostle tells them and that with tears Phil. 3.18 And surely there are many every where and in every Congregation who pretend much love to Christ and yet do really and truly hate him It is not every one that calls him Rabbi Master as false Judas did that kisses him and bows before him that hath indeed the love of Christ in him No men may make a flourish and a shew of love to Christ and yet may be as hearty enemies to him and to his members as Judas Pilate and the Jews were And truly multitudes of such there are among us and every place swarms with them Now my Beloved in what a sad and lamentable case are these men For they that have no love in them have no Christ in them neither they that are without love are without Christ too And so they are exposed to all those matchless miseries which follow being without Christ such as no tongue is sufficient to express as I have laid them open largely to you on Ephes 2.12 Is it so my brethren that where love is there Christ is They then Vse 2 that find upon undoubted evidences that they have this love in them may take incomparable comfort hence For they may be hence assured that they have Jesus Christ in them If love be in them Christ is in them as is apparently suggested in my Text That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them If that be in them I shall assuredly be in them too and therefore I have manifested and declared thy name to them that love and I may dwell in them Ah my Beloved what an admirable thing is this that Jesus Christ should live in you as the Apostles phrase is Gal. 2.20 that your hearts should be his house in which he dwells and walks and dines and sups and lodges every night so that he is at home in your hearts that while he is a meer stranger to the remainder of the world that while they are so far from having Jesus Christ in them that they have the Devil in them Christ is not in them but