The double argument of Paul enforcing his request for the prayers of believers. ‘For which I am an ambassador in bonds.’ 5/5

      (b) Embassies for marriage.  To offer an alliance by marriage between one state and another, this is one great part of the minister’s embassage.  They are sent to let the world know what good-will the God of heaven bears to poor sinners; that he can be content to bestow his only Son and heir in marriage upon them, if they also upon treaty can like the match.  Nay more, both Father and Son desire it.  It is a match which God himself first thought on for his Son. It sprang from the counsel of his own will; and when this great intendment was transacted betwixt Father and Son—as it was before the foundation of the world—the Son declared his liking of it to his Father, yea, expressed the dear affection he bore to mankind; for then it was that he ‘rejoiced in the inhabitable parts of the earth, and his delights were with the sons of men.’  In pursuance of this, ‘when the fulness of time was come,’ he took his progress from heaven to earth, that by marrying our nature he might also enter a near alliance with the persons of believers.  This is the match God's ambassadors come to negotiate with you.  The Scriptures are their credential letters, that confirm, under God’s own handwriting and seal, the truth of all they offer in his name.  There you have the picture of his heavenly Prince they woo your af­fections for drawn to the life in his glory, love, and loveliness, that, by knowing him, you may the better take liking to his person; there are the rich bracelets of the promises, which his messengers are in his name to deliver to those willing souls that shall entertain the motion, and declare their consent to take him for their Lord and husband; yea, they have authority to pronounce the contract, and to promise in Christ’s name marriage, which at the great day he will perform unto them: ‘I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ,’ II Cor. 11:2.  Stand here and adore, ye children of men, this low stoop of divine majesty!  O that ever it should enter into the heart of the great God to match his Son unto his creature, and that not of the noblest house among them! for ‘he took not upon him the nature of angels,’ but of mankind, not in its primitive state, but when it was lapsed and degraded of its primitive glory.  For a high-born prince to take a poor damsel out of the beggar's row, is a thing that yet the world hath not been acquainted with.  But to take one from the meanest cottage were not so strange as to take her from the jail or bar, where she is condemned for treason against his royal person.  Yet this is the very case—the Lord offers to lift up the head of his rebel creature out of prison, where it lies under a sentence of death for horrid treason against his crown and dig­nity, to take it into his bed and bosom.  Truly I know not at which most to wonder; whether at the mercy of God in making love to us, or our pride and folly that are so coy hardly persuaded to entertain the motion. Though Abigail confessed herself unworthy to be David’s wife, yet she was too wise to stand in her own light, by letting slip such an opportunity for her pre­ferment as was not like again to occur; therefore it is said, ‘She made haste to go with David’s servants.’ But alas! how do we either broadly deny, or foolishly make excuse, and hold God’s messengers in suspense from day to day.

           (c) Embassies for commerce and trade.  Suppose a prince had in his kingdom rich commodities, with­out which his neighbour nation could not subsist, nor could find elsewhere; if this prince should send an ambassador to this people, and offer them a free trade, that they might come as oft as they pleased and take of the good things of his land, O how joyfully would such an embassy be embraced!  Man’s happi­ness on earth lies in a free trade and commerce with heaven.  This world is a barren beggarly place.  Noth­ing is here to be had that an immortal soul can live upon or find satisfaction from.  In heaven alone what it needs is to be found.  The food it must live on, the clothes it must wear, are both of the growth of this heavenly country.  Man’s first sin spoiled all his trade with heaven.  No sooner did Adam rebel, but a war was commenced, and all trade with him forbidden. Therefore, in our natural state, we are said to be ‘afar off,’ and ‘without God in the world.’  The sad effects of this loss are to be seen in the forlorn condition of man's soul, which was once was so gloriously arrayed with righteousness and holiness, but now shamefully naked—not having a rag to cover its shame withal.

           Now, God sends his ambassadors to offer peace, and with it liberty to return to its first communion with him: ‘Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.’  He invites all to turn merchants with heaven, ‘Come ye to the waters;’ by which phrase the gospel is compared to a port-town, or its quay-side, to which the crier calls people to repair, and buy commodities that are there landed.  Here it is that God sets forth the riches of his grace to view and sale ‘without money and without price.’  That must needs be a gainful trade which brings in rich treasure without much cost exported.  Here is all the riches of heaven to be had, and no money required for the pur­chase.  Can you hear of this pearl of price, and not turn merchants for it?  Or can your souls be main­tained by your peddling worldly trade?  O, why do ye spend your money for that which is not bread?  It is not necessary you should be rich in the world, but it is necessary you should have Christ and his grace.  In all your pains and travail for the things of this world, you are but merchant adventurers—it is a hazard you get them or lose your labour.  There is no certain rule and method can be learned for growing rich in the world.  There are some poor as well as rich of every trade; but, in this trade for Christ and his grace, there is an office erected to insure all your adventure.  His soul shall live that seeks the Lord; he that hungers after righteousness shall be satisfied.

The double argument of Paul enforcing his request for the prayers of believers. ‘For which I am an ambassador in bonds.’ 4/5

 Now, let us see what he expects at the sinner’s hand.  Not to purchase this his favour  with a ransom out of his own purse!  No, he empties his Son’s veins to pay that.  But he requires us, (a) To lay down the weapons of our rebellion—for he cannot in honour treat with us while we have that sword in our hand with which we have fought against him.  (b) To accept our pardon and peace at the hands of free grace; at­tributing the glory of it to the mere mercy of God as the moving, and Christ’s satisfactory obedience as the meritorious cause.  (c)That we shall swear fealty and allegiance to him for the future.  How reasonable these are, those that now reject them shall confess with infinite shame and horror for their folly, when Christ shall pack them to hell by his irrevocable sentence.

           [4.]  When in all this a prince is real in the offers of peace he makes, and gives full security for the per­formance of what he promiseth, this must needs make the ambassador that brings them still the more welcome.  Treaties of peace among men are too often used but as a handsome blind for war—they intend least what they pretend most.  But when an ambas­sador comes plenipotentiary, and enabled to give full security and satisfaction against all fears and jeal­ousies that may arise in the breasts of those he treats with, this gives a value to all the rest.  Now, the great God hath wonderfully condescended to satisfy the querulous hearts of poor sinners.  Guilt hath made man suspicious of God; his own unfaithfulness to God makes him jealous of God’s faithfulness unto him.  Could Satan make Eve so question the truth of God's promise?  He saith but, ‘Ye shall not surely die?’ and she is presently shaken out of her faith on her Maker to believe her destroyer.  O how easy then is it for him to nourish those suspicions which do nat­urally breed now in our unbelieving hearts!  How oft are we putting it to the question, Will God forgive so great, so many sins?  May I venture to believe?  Now God gives his ambassadors full instructions from his word to satisfy all the doubts and scruples which he injects, or which may arise from our own misgiving hearts.  Tota Scriptura hoc agit, saith Luther, ne dubitamus sed certò speremus—the whole Scripture drives at this, to satisfy our doubts, and assure our hopes in the mercy of God.  St. Paul hath a passage something like this, ‘Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope,’ Rom. 15:4.

           There are many expedients men use to satisfy the minds of those they deal with concerning the truth of their promises and certainty of their perform­ing them.  Sometimes they ratify them with their seal set to the writing.  Thus God gives the broad seal of the sacraments, and privy seal of his Spirit, to assure the believer he will perform all he hath promised in his word.  Sometimes witnesses are called in for further security of the conveyance.  Thus in the pur­chase Jeremiah made of his kinsman’s field, he took witnesses to the bargain, Jer. 32:10. See witnesses both in heaven and earth, ready to vouch the truth of what God promiseth, and all agree in their verdict, I John 5:7, 8.  If all these will not do, then an oath is taken, and this useth to be ‘an end of controversies.’  To this also doth God graciously condescend.  Not that God’s promise needs the suretiship of his oath to make it surer—for it is as impossible God should lie when he promiseth as when he swears—but to make our faith stronger, which needs such supporters as these to stay and strengthen it; as is hinted in that sweet place, from which one flower the sincere believer may suck honey enough to live comfortably upon in the hardest longest winter of affliction that can befall him: ‘Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation,’ &c., Heb. 6:17, 18.   Now, the greater the security God enables his am­bassadors to offer poor sinners for the salvation they preach in his name, the more prodigiously provoking is their unbelief and impenitency who reject it.  When Titus Vespasian came into Jerusalem, and saw the unspeakable miseries which the besieged had endured from those three sore plagues, sword, pestilence, and famine, that had so long raged among them, it is said that he broke out into these words, ‘I am not guilty of all this blood which hath been shed, nor of the miseries this people have endured; that by their obstinacy have brought it upon their own heads.’  O how much more may the ambassadors of Christ wash their hands over the heads of impenitent sinners, to whom they have so oft offered pardon and peace in God's name, but they would not hearken, and say, ‘We are free from your blood; it is your own obstinacy and desperate impenitency hath undone your pre­cious souls.  Would you have accepted life at the hands of mercy, you should not have been cut off by the sword of his justice.’

     

The double argument of Paul enforcing his request for the prayers of believers. ‘For which I am an ambassador in bonds.’ 3/5

           [2.] When such a puissant prince sends his am­bassadors for peace to a people that have already felt the impressions of his power, and are pining under the bleeding miseries which their war with him has brought upon them, O how would they run to open their city gates to his ambassador!—as willingly surely as Noah opened the window to receive the dove that brought the olive‑branch after that dismal flood.  This is the deplored state which the ministry of the gospel finds mankind involved in.  What a forlorn condition hath our war with heaven brought us into! Do we not feel the arrows of divine vengeance sticking in our very hearts and consciences?  The curse of God cleav­ing to every faculty of our souls and member of our bodies?  Are not all the creatures in arms against us? and doth not hell from beneath open its devouring mouth upon us, ready to swallow us in everlasting destruction?  And yet we are so stout that we can find no lodging in our town for his ambassadors, but a prison? no entertainment to the offers of peace they make, but contempt and scorn?

           [3.] When the terms of peace he brings are hon­ourable.  Gold, we say, may be bought too dear, and so may the peace of one state with another; as when Nahash the Ammonite offered peace to the men of Jabesh‑Gilead, but upon condition that they should have ‘every one his right eye thrust out, to lay it as a reproach on Israel,’ and therefore was rejected with just indignation; they resolving rather to die with hon­our than live with shame.  It is the custom among many of this world’s princes to make their demands according to the length of their sword.  When their power is great it is hard to have peace on easy terms. Now this, one would think, should make the min­isters of the gospel and their message infinitely wel­come to poor sinners, that, though they come from the great God that may make his own demands—for who may say to God, ‘What doest thou?’—and might not only require the eye out of your head, but force the very heart out of your body; yet offers peace on such gracious terms, that we could not possibly have framed them so to our own advantage, had we been left to draw them, as he of his own free grace is pleased to propound them; there being nothing in the whole instrument of peace provided for himself, besides the securing of his own glory in our salvation. See, a little, what he offers to poor sinners, and what he requires of them again.  He offers to seal an act of oblivion, wherein all wrongs done to his crown and dignity in the time of our hostility against him shall be forgiven and forgotten.  So runs the promise, ‘He will forgive them their iniquities, and remember them no more.’  He will not only forgive what is past, but receive our persons into favour for the future.  A prince may save a malefactor's life, but forever banish his person from court.  But God promiseth access into his presence.  ‘By whom also we have access by faith into this grace (or favour) wherein we stand,’ Rom. 5:2.  Yea, he promiseth to restore the sinner to all that by his rebellion was forfeited.  Treason taints the blood, degrades from honour, and confiscates the estate; God offers to take off the whole curse which befell the sinner for his rebellion, and restores him to his primitive dignity.  He ‘gives them power to be­come his children,’ John 1:12, and, as his children, makes them his heirs, and that not to a Cabul here below only, but to heaven itself, an inheritance in light beyond all expression glorious; for godliness hath both the promise of this life and that which is to come.

          

The double argument of Paul enforcing his request for the prayers of believers. ‘For which I am an ambassador in bonds.’ 2/5

 (1.) In the greatness of the Prince from whom they come.  Ambassadors have their respect according to the rank of their master that sends them; the greater the prince, the more honourable is his mes­senger.  Now, the ministers of the gospel come from the great God, who is ‘King of kings and Lord of lords’—by whom they reign and of whom they hold all their principalities.  This is their Master in whose name they come.  Therefore Moses, when he was to deliver his message to Israel, bids them ‘ascribe great­ness to that God’ whose name and will he was to publish, Deut. 32:3.  The potentates of the world have found to their cost how deeply God takes himself concerned in the affronts that are done to his serv­ants.  What brought Israel's flourishing kingdom to ruin but their mocking his messengers and misusing his prophets?  Then ‘the wrath of God arose against his people, till there was no remedy,’ II Chr. 36:16.  We cannot despise the messenger and honour his master that sends him, Luke 10:16.  Few are so bold as to say with that proud king, ‘Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice?’ Ex. 5:2.  But too many dare say, Who is the minister, that I should obey his message? —repent at his summons, tremble at the words he delivers? forgetting, alas! they have God’s authority for what they say; and so, by a slanting blow, they hit God himself in contemning his ambassador.

           (2.) In the greatness of the Person whose place the minister supplies.  Ministers are but deputy am­bassadors; Christ himself had the first patent; called therefore ‘the Messenger of the covenant,’ Mal. 3:1; and ‘the Apostle...of our profession,’ Heb. 3:1.  From him the ministers receive their authority: ‘All power is given unto me,...Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,’ Matt. 28:18.  So, II Cor. 5:20, ‘We pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.’  As if the apostle had said, We do but deliver that message which Christ should and would have done had he not been called to heaven about the affairs of his church; and therefore hath left us as his deputies to carry out that ministry which himself began when he was here below.  Now, what an honour is it for a poor creature to stand up in Christ’s room and bring that message to poor sinners which was first committed unto him?

           (3.) In the excellency of the message they bring. There are three kinds of embassies in the world which make way for their honourable entertainment that are the messengers to bring them to any state—embassies for peace, embassies for marriage, and embassies for trade.

           (a) Embassies for peace.  Beautiful are their feet, and honoured are their persons, that bring glad ti­dings of peace along with them; especially four things concur in their embassage, which will all be found in the minister’s negotiation.

           [1.] When an ambassador comes from some puissant prince whose power is formidable and arm­ies irresistible.  An ambassador from such a prince, to a people naked and unarmed, for peace and amity, O how welcome is his approach! Such a king we come from.  He offers not peace because he cannot main­tain a war or stands in need of our friendship.  Sin­ners need his favour, but he fears not their hostility. Never could they yet shoot any of their arrows so high as heaven, but all have come down upon their own heads.  What can he that spits against the wind, but look to have it blown back upon his own face? and he that fights with God, but expect to have his weapons beat back to his own head?  Worldly princes treat when they cannot fight.  Think not so of the great God.  His instruments of death are ready.  No place where he hath not his armed troops able to fetch in his proudest enemies.  No creature so little but con­tains an army in it big enough to tame the proudest king in the world.  The worm under Herod’s foot, at God’s command, shall seize on him and eat out his heart. O with what fear and trembling should the ambassadors of this God be received!  When Samuel the prophet came to Bethlehem, ‘the elders of the town trembled at his coming, and said, Comest thou peaceably?’ I Sam. 16:4.

The double argument of Paul enforcing his request for the prayers of believers. ‘For which I am an ambassador in bonds.’ 1/5

           We are at length got to the last general head in the words—the double argument with which the apostle backs his request, the more effectually to provoke them to the remembrance of him in their prayers.  First. Taken from his office—‘for which I am an ambas­sador.’  Second. From his present af­flicted state—‘an ambassador in bonds.’

An argument for Paul’s request, taken from his office.

           First argument. Paul enforces his request for his people’s prayers by an argument taken from his office.  Ambassadors being messengers of state, sent by princes abroad about great affairs of their king­dom, it behoves all good subjects to wish them good speed and success in their embassy.  Upon this ac­count, Paul, being sent from the great God in embas­sage as the apostle of the Gentiles, desires the church’s prayers for a happy success to the message he brings.

           Note.  Ministers of the gospel are God’s ambas­sadors.  The apostle doth not monopolize this title, as if none were so beside himself; for elsewhere he reads others in the commission, ‘We are ambassadors for Christ,’ II Cor. 5:20—that is, we apostles who are now upon the place, and in the employment of the gospel, and such also as shall be despatched after us to the end of the world upon the same errand.  The author­ity of the apostles’ extraordinary commission, and that which ordinary ministers after them have, is the same for substance, only they had their mission im­mediately from Christ’s mouth, and were ecumenical; whereas ordinary ministers receive it from the church by an authority derived from Christ, and are fixed to their particular orbs, and are to lie as ambassadors legier in some one place whither they are sent.  In handling this point we shall inquire into these three particulars.  First. Why ministers are called ambassa­dors.  Second. Why God would send ambassadors to his poor creature.  Third. Why he useth weak men and not glorious angels, to be his ambassadors in this negotiation.

Why ministers are called ambassadors. 

           First. Let us inquire why ministers are called ambassadors: and that is, 1. To set out the dignity of their function.  2. To set out the duty of their func­tion.

The dignity of the ministry is expressed by the title ‘ambassadors.’

1. Ministers of the gospel are by God designated ambassadors, to set out the dignity of their office. God by this title would procure and honourable esteem of the ministers’ calling in the hearts of all those to whom they are sent.  This is more necessary to the good success of their message than is generally thought.  I know very well that what ministers speak on this subject, they are thought in it to be rather kind to themselves, than friends to the gospel.  Men are prone to interpret it as a fruit of their pride, and an affectation they have of some outward grandeur and worldly pomp which they design to gain by such a magnificent title.  The apostle himself was sensible of this, and therefore, when he had called for that respect which was due to the minister’s function —‘Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God’—he gives a caveat, that they would ‘judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come,’ I Cor. 4:1, 5. Then it shall be known from what spirit it is that we ministers magnify our office, and have been acted by in our function; and also by what spirit they are moved who vilify and despise both it and our persons for our calling's sake.  Now the dignity of gospel ambassadors will appear in three things.