USE OR APPLICATION - Claim of Those Who Never Heard The Gospel On Our Compassion 4/6

 

A word of exhortation to unbelievers and also to believers.

Use Third.  A word of exhortation to you who have not closed with the terms of the gospel, and also to you who have—to believers and to unbelievers.

1. To unbelievers.  Be persuaded to receive the message of the gospel kindly, believingly, into your hearts; it is the best news you can send back to heaven, as a gratulatory return, for the glad tidings that the gospel brings from thence.  Thy embracing Christ preached to thee in the gospel, will be as wel­come news to heaven, I can tell thee, as the tidings of Christ and salvation through him, can be to thee. ‘There is joy in heaven’ at the conversion of a sinner. Heaven soon rings of this.  The angels that sang Christ into the world, will not want a song when he is received into thy heart; for he came into the world for this end.  Christ descended when he came into the world, but now he ascends.  That was an act of his hu­miliation, this of his exaltation.  The highest created throne that God can sit in, is the soul of a believer. No wonder then, that Christ calls all his friends to joy with him at a soul’s return to him and reception of him, Luke 15:9.  What joy is now in heaven upon this occasion, we may collect from the joy it drew from Christ when on earth.  It was some great good news that could wring a smile then from Christ, or tune his spirit into a joyful note, who was ‘a man of sorrows,’ and indeed came into the world to be so.  Yet when his disciples whom he had sent forth to preach the gospel, returned with news of some victorious success of their labours, ‘in that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father,’ Luke 10:21.  Of all the hours of his life, that is the hour wherein Christ would express his joy; which, with the care of the Spirit to record this passage in the history of Christ’s life, shows that Christ had an especial design in that expression of his joy at that time.  And what could it be, but to let us know how much his heart was set upon this work of saving souls? and that, when he should be gone to heaven, if we meant to send any joyful news to him thither, it should be of the prosperous and victorious success the gospel hath over our hearts.  This, this which could make him rejoice in the midst of all his sorrows here on earth, must needs be more joyous to him in heaven now, where he hath no bitterness from his own sufferings—which are all healed, past, and gone—to mingle with the joy of this news.  And, if the kind reception of the gospel be such joyful news to him, you may easily conceive how distasteful the rejecting of it is to him.  As he rejoiced in spirit to hear the gospel prevailed; so he cannot but be angry when it meets with a repulse from the unbe­lieving world.  We find, Luke 14:21 ‘the master of the house’— that is Christ—‘angry,’ when his ser­vants, sent to invite the guests—that is, preach the gospel —return with a denial from those that were bidden (for so their mannerly excuses were interpreted by Christ), yea, so angry, that he claps a fearful doom upon them—‘not one of those which were bidden shall taste of my supper,’ ver. 24.  God can least bear any contempt cast upon his grace.  The Jews, though they had many grievous calamities which befell them for their idolatries and other sins, yet never any like that which the rejecting Christ brought upon them. Under those they relented, but under this they hard­ened.  They would not come when the supper was on the table; and therefore the cloth is drawn, and they go supperless to bed, and die in their sins.  While they shut the door of their hearts against Christ, this padlock, as I may so call it, of judiciary impenitence is fastened to it.  Christ needs take no other revenge on a soul for its refusing him, to make it miserable to the height, than to condemn such a one to have its own desire.  Christ thou wilt not, Christ therefore thou shalt not have.  O unhappy soul thou! that hast offers of Christ, but diest without Christ!  Thou goest with thy full lading to damnation.  None sink so deep in hell, as those that fall into it with a stumble at Christ.  That gospel which brings now good news, will, when thou shalt have a repetition sermon of it at the great day, bring the heaviest tidings with it that ever thy ears heard.

USE OR APPLICATION - Claim of Those Who Never Heard The Gospel On Our Compassion 3/6

1. Consideration.  Consider what little proportion, as to the number, I mean, do these that embrace the gospel bear with those that continue to reject it —those that desire to keep Christ among us with those that wish him gone and would gladly be rid of him.  Were it put to the vote, would not they carry it by thousands of thousands that care not whether we have a gospel or not?  And doth it not prophesy sadly when the odds are so great?  In all the departures of God from a people, there were ever some holy ones mingled amongst the rout of sinners.  Sardis had her ‘few names which had not defiled their garments;’ but yet the ‘candlestick was removed.’  All that they could get was a promise for themselves in particular—‘They shall walk with me in white,’ Rev. 3:4—but no protection for the church.  God can pull down the house, and provide well for his saints also that he finds there.  A few voices are easily drowned in the outcry of a multitude—a few pints of wine are hardly tasted in a tun of wine—and a little number of saints can do, sometimes, but little to the saving of a wretched people among whom they live.  Possibly, as in a weak body, where the disease hath got the mastery, nature putting forth its summum conatum—its utmost strength—may keep life a while in the body—some days or weeks—but cannot long, without some help to evacuate the distemper; so a few saints, shut up in a degenerate age amongst an ungodly Christ-despising people, may a while prorogue the judgment, and reprieve a while the life of such a people; but if there be no change made upon them for the better, ruin must needs break in upon them.
2. Consideration.  Consider, of these few gracious ones found amongst us that embrace the gospel, how many are new converts—such, I mean, as the gospel hath of late days won to Christ.  I am afraid you will find this little number of saints chiefly to consist of old disciples—such as were wrought upon many years since.  Alas! the womb of the gospel hath been in a great measure shut up of late, as to the bringing forth of souls by a thorough solid work of conversion.  Indeed, if they may pass for converts that baptize themselves into a new way and form of wor­ship, or that begin their religion with a tenet and an opinion, we have more than a good many to show of these.  But in this old age of England’s withered pro­fession, how great a rarity is a sincere convert?  We cannot deny but God is graciously pleased to bring the pangs of the new birth now and then upon some poor souls in our assemblies, that his despised serv­ants may have his seal to confirm their ministry, and stop those mouths which are so scornfully opened against it; yet, alas! it is but here and there one.  And doth not this prophesy sadly to this nation?  I am sure, when we see a tree that used to stand thick with fruit no bring forth but little—may be an apple on this bough, and another on that—we look upon it as a dying tree.  Leah comforted herself from her fruitfulness, that there­fore her husband would love her and cleave to her, Gen. 29:34.  May we not, on the contrary, fear that God will not love, but leave, a people when they grow barren under the means of grace? God threatens as much, ‘Be thou instruc­ted, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee,’ Jer. 6:8. And if God’s soul departs, then he is upon his remove as to his visible presence also.  So indeed it follows, ‘lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited.’  O my brethren, those golden days of the gospel are over when converts come flying as a cloud—as the doves to their windows in flocks.  Now gospel news grow stale; few are taken with them.  Though a kingdom hath much treasure and riches in it; yet, if trade cease, no new bullion comes in, nor merchandise be imported, it spends upon its old stock, and must needs in time decay.  Our old store of saints—the treasure of their times—wears away apace, what will become of us if no new ones come in their room?  Alas! when our burials are more than our births, we must needs be on the losing hand.  There is a sad list of holy names taken away from us; but where are they which are born to God?  If the good go, and those which are left continue bad—yea, become worse and worse—we have reason to fear that God is clearing the ground, and making way for a judgment.
3. Consideration.  Consider the unhappy con­tentions and divisions that are found among the people of God yet left upon the place: these prophesy sadly, the Lord knows.  Contentions ever portend ill. The remarkable departures of God, recorded in Scripture, from the church of the Jews, found them woefully divided and crumbled into parties.  And the Asian churches no less.  Christ sets up the light of his gospel to walk and work by, not to fight and wrangle; and therefore it were no wonder at all if he should put it out, and so end the dispute.  If these storms which have been of late years upon us, and are not yet off, had but made Christians, as that did the disciples, Mark 6:48, to ply their oar and lovingly row all one way, it had been happy.  We might then have  expected Christ to come walking towards us in mercy, and help us safe to land.  But when we throw away the oar, and fall a scuffling in the ship, while the wind continues loud about us, truly we are more like to drive Christ from us than invite him to us, we are in a more prob­able way of sinking than saving the ship and ourselves in it.

USE OR APPLICATION - Claim of Those Who Never Heard The Gospel On Our Compassion 2/6

           And is the world now amended?  Doth Christ in his gospel meet with any kinder usage at the hands of most?  The note that Christ sings is still the same, ‘Come unto me, that ye may have life.’  The worst hurt Christ does poor souls that come unto him, is to put them into a state of life and salvation; and yet where is the person that likes the offer?  O, it is other news that men generally listen after.  This makes the exchange, the market-place, so full, and the church so thin and empty.  Most expect to hear their best news from the world.  They look upon the news of the gos­pel as foreign, and that which doth not so much con­cern them, at least at present.  It is time enough, they think, to mind this, when they are going into another world.  Alas! the gospel is not accommodated to their carnal desires.  It tells them off no fields and vineyards that it hath to give.  It invites them not with the gaieties of worldly honours and pleasures.  Had Christ in his gospel but gratified the cravings of men’s lusts with a few promises for these things—though he had promised less for another world—the news would have gone down better with these sots, who had rather hear one prophecy of wine and strong drink, than [to hear] preach of heaven itself.  Truly, there are but a very few—and those sufficiently jeered for their pains —that like the message of the gospel so well as to receive it cordially into their hearts.  If any one does but give entertainment to Christ, and it be known, what an alarm does it give to all his carnal neighbours!  If they do not presently beset his house, as the Sodomite's did Lot’s, yet do they set some brand of scorn upon him—yea, make account they have now reason enough to despise and hate him, how well soever they loved him before.

           O what will God do with this degenerate age we live in!  O England!  England! I fear some sad judgment or other bodes for thee!  If such glad tidings as the gospel brings be rejected, sad news cannot be far off—I cannot think of less than of a departing gospel. God never made such settlement of his gospel among any people but he could remove it from them.  He comes but upon liking, and will he stay where he is not welcome?  Who will that hath elsewhere to go? It is high time for the merchant to pack up and be gone when few or none will buy, nay, when instead of buy­ing, they will not suffer him to be quiet in his shop, but throw stones at him, and dirt on his richest com­modities.  Do we not see the names of Christ's faithful messengers bleeding at this day under the reproaches that fly so thick about their ears?  Are not the most precious truths of the gospel almost covered with the mire and dirt of errors and blasphemies, which men of corrupt minds—set on work by the devil himself—have raked out of every filthy puddle and sink of old heretics and thrown on the face of Christ and his gospel!  And where is the hand so kind as to wipe off that which they have thrown on? the heart so valiant for the truth as to stop these foul mouths from spitting their venom against Christ and his gospel?  If anything be done of this kind, alas! it is so faintly, that they gather heart by it.  Justice is so favourably sprinkled, like a few drops upon fire, that it rather increaseth the flame of their rage against the truth than quencheth it.  A prince calls not home his ambassador for every affront that is offered him in the streets—only when he is affronted and can have no redress for the wrong.

           Objection.  But some may say, Though it cannot be denied that the gospel hath found very unkind entertainment by many among us, and especially of late years—since a spirit of error hath so sadly prevailed in the land—yet, make us not worse than we are.’  There is, blessed be God, ‘a remnant of gracious souls yet to be found to whom Christ is precious —who gladly embrace the message of the gospel, and weep in secret for the contempt that is cast upon it by men of corrupt minds and profane hearts, and therefore we hope we are not in such imminent danger of losing the gospel as your fears suggest.’

           Answer.  If there were not such a sprinkling of saints among us, our case would indeed be desperate, conclusum esset de nobis—the shades of that dismal night would quickly be upon us.  These are they that have held the gospel thus long among us.  Christ had, as to his gospel presence, been gone ere this, had not these hung about his legs, and with their strong cries and prayers entreated his stay.  But there are a few considerations as to these, which, seriously weighed, will not leave us without some tremblings of heart.

USE OR APPLICATION - Claim of Those Who Never Heard The Gospel On Our Compassion 1/6

Use First.  Pity those that never heard word of this good news.  Such there are in the world—whole nations, with whom the day is not yet broke, but a dismal night of ignorance and barbarism continues to be stretched over them—whose forlorn souls are un­der a continual massacre from the bloody butcher of hell!  An easy conquest, God knows, that soul-fiend makes of them.  He lays his cruel knife to their throats, and meets with no resistance, because he finds them fast asleep in ignorance—utterly destitute of that light which alone can discover a way to escape the hands of this destroyer.  What heart, that ever tas­ted the sweetness of gospel grace, trembles not at their deplored state?—yea, doth not stand astonished at the difference of God’s dispensations to them and us?  ‘Lord, why wilt thou manifest thyself to us, and not to the world?’  God pardon the unmercifulness of our hearts, that we can weep no more over them. Truly we do not live so far from the Moors and Indians but we may—by not pitying of them, and earnest desiring their conversion—besmear ourselves with the guilt of their souls’ blood, which is shed continually by the destroyer of mankind.  O how sel­dom is their miserable the companion of our sorrow­ful thoughts, and their conversion the subject of our prayers and desires!  There have been, alas! in the world, more counsels how to ease them of their gold, than enrich them with the treasure of the gospel —how to get their land, than how to save their souls. But the time is coming, when winning souls will be found more honourable than conquering nations. Well, Christian, though thou canst not impart to them what God hath laid on thy trencher, yet, as thou sittest at the feast of the gospel, think of those poor souls, and that compassionately, who starve to death for want of that bread with which thou art fed unto eternal life.  There is an opinion which some have lately taken up, that the heathens may spell Christ out of the sun, moon and stars.  These may seem kinder than others have been to them; but I wish it doth not make them more cruel to them in the end —I mean by not praying so heartily for gospel light to arise among them, as those must needs do who be­lieve them under a sad necessity of perishing without it.  When a garrison is judged pretty well stored with provisions for its defence, it is an occasion that relief and succour comes the slower to it.  And I wish Satan hath not such a design against those forlorn souls in this principle.  If such a lesson were to be got by the stars, we should ere this have heard of some that had learned it.  Indeed, I find a star led the wise men to Christ; but they had a heavenly preacher to open the text to them, or else they would never have understood it.

Lamentation for the unkind welcome the gospel finds in the world.

           Use Second.  A sad lamentation may be here taken up, that so good news should have such an ill welcome as the gospel commonly finds in the world. When the tidings were first told at Jerusalem of a Saviour being born, on would have thought—espe­cially if we consider that the Scripture reckoning was now out for the birth of the Messias, and they big with the expectation of his coming—that all hearts should have leaped within them for joy at the news, to see their hopes so happily delivered and accomplished.  But, behold, the clean contrary.  Christ’s coming proves matter of trouble and distaste to them.  They take the alarm at his birth, as if an enemy, a destroyer —not a Saviour—were landed in their coast; and as such, Herod goes out against him, and makes him flee the country.  But possibly, though at present they stumble at the meanness of his birth and parentage, yet, when the rays of his divinity shall shame through his miracles, then they will religiously worship him when now they contemn; when he comes forth into his public ministry, opens his commission and shows his authority—yea, with his own lips tells the joyful message he brings from the Father unto the sons of men, then surely they will dearly love his person, and thankfully embrace, yea greedily drink in, the glad tidings of salvation which he preacheth to them.  No; they persist in their cursed unbelief and obstinate rejecting of him.  Though the Scripture, which they seemed to adore, bear so full a testimony for Christ that it accuseth them to their own consciences, yet they will have none of him.  Christ tells them so much—‘Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me; and ye will not come to me, that ye might have life,’ John 5:39, 40.  Life they desired, yet will lose it rather than come to him for it.

The FIVE PROPERTIES Of a Joyful Message Found In The Gospel 2/2

3. The gospel doth not tell us news we are little concerned in—not what God has done for angels, but for us.‘Unto you,’ saith the angel, ‘is born a Saviour, Christ the Lord.’  If charity made angels rejoice for our happiness, surely then, the benefit which is paid into our nature by it, gives a further pleasure to our joy at the hearing of it.  It were strange that the mes­senger who only brings the news of some great empire to be devolved on a person should sing, and the prince to whom it falls should not be glad.  And, as the gospel’s glad tidings belong to man's nature, not to angels; so in particular, to thee, poor soul, whoever thou art, that embracest Christ in the arms of thy faith.  A prince is a common good to all his kingdom —every subject, though never so mean, hath a part in him—and so is Christ to all believers.  The promises are so laid that, like a well‑drawn picture, they look on all that look on them by an eye of faith.  The gos­pel’s joy is thy joy, that hast but faith to receive it.
4. The glad tidings of the gospel were unheard of and unlooked for by the sons of men.  Such news it brings as never could have entered into the heart of man to conceive, till God unlocked the cabinet of his own good pleasure, and revealed the counsel of his will, wherein this mysterious price of love to fallen man lay hid far enough from the prying eye of the most quick-sighted angel in heaven, much more from man himself, who could read in his own guilty conscience within, and spell from the covenant without, now broken by him, nothing but his certain doom and damnation.  So that the first gospel-sermon preached by God himself to Adam, anticipated all thoughts of such a thing intended to him.  O who but one that hath really felt the terrors of an approaching hell in his despairing soul, can conceive how joyous the ti­dings of gospel mercy is to a poor soul, dwelling amidst the black thoughts of despair, and bordering on the very marches of the region of utter darkness! Story tells us of a nobleman of our nation, in King Henry VIII.’s reign, to whom a pardon was sent a few hours before he should have been beheaded, which, being not at all expected by him, did so transport him that he died for joy.  And if the vessel of our nature be so weakly hooped that the wine of such an inferior joy breaks it, how then could it possibly be able to bear the full joy of the gospel tidings, which doth as far exceed this as the mercy of God doth the mercy of a mortal man, and as the deliverance from an eternal death in hell doth a deliverance from a temporary death, which is gone before the pain can well be felt?
5. The glad tidings of the gospel are certainly true.It is no flying report, cried up today, and liked to be crossed tomorrow—not news that is in every one’s mouth, but none can tell whence it came, and who is the author of it; we have it from a good hand —God himself, to whom it is impossible to lie.  He from heaven voucheth it—‘This is my beloved Son: hear him,’ Luke 9:35.  What were all those miracles which Christ wrought but ratifications of the truth of the gospel?  Those wretches that denied the truth of Christ’s doctrine, were forced many times to acknowledge the divinity of his miracles, which is a pretty piece of nonsense, and declares the absurdity of their unbelief to all the world.  The miracles were to the gospel as seals are to a writing.  They could not deny God to be in the miracles, and yet they could not see him in the doctrine!  As if God would set his seal to an untruth!  Here, Christians, is that which fills up the joy of this good news the gospel brings—that we may lay our lives upon the truth of it.  It will never deceive any that lay the weight of their confidence on it.  ‘This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all accepta­tion, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,’ I Tim. 1:15.  This bridge which the gospel lays over the gulf of God's wrath, for poor sinners to pass from their sins into the favour of God here, and [into the] kingdom of God hereafter, is supported with no other arches than the wisdom, power, mercy, and faithfulness of God; so that the believing soul needs not fear, till it sees these bow or break.  It is called the ‘everlasting gospel,’ Rev. 14:6.  When heaven and earth go to wreck, not the least iota or tittle of any promise of the gospel shall be buried in their ruins.  ‘The word of the Lord endureth for ever; and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you,’ I Peter 1:25.

The FIVE PROPERTIES Of a Joyful Message Found In The Gospel 1/2

Five ingredients are desirable in a message, yea, must all conspire to fill up the joyfulness thereof into a redundancy.

           First Property.  A message to be joyful must be good.  None rejoice to hear evil news.  Joy is the dila­tion of the heart, whereby it goes forth to meet and welcome in what it desires; and this must needs be some good.  Ill news is sure to find the heart shut against it, and to come before it is welcome.

           Second Property.  It must be some great good, or else it affects little.  Affections are stirred according to the degrees of good or evil in the object presented.  A thing we hear may be so inconsiderable, that it is no great odds how it goes, but if it be good, and that great also, of weighty importance, this causeth rejoicing proportionable.  The greater the bell, the more strength is required to raise it.  It must be a great good that raiseth great joy.

           Third Property.  This great good must intimately concern them that hear it.  My meaning is, they must have propriety in it.  For though we can rejoice to hear of some great good befallen another, yet it affects most when it is emptied into our own bosom.  A sick man doth not feel the joy of another’s recovery with the same advantage as he would do his own.

           Fourth Property.  It would much add to the joy­fulness of the news if this were inauditum or insper­atum—unheard of and unlooked for—when the tidings steal upon us by way of surprise.  The farther our own ignorance or despair has set us off all thoughts of so great enjoyment, the more joy it brings with it when we hear the news of it.  The joy of a poor swineherd’s son, who never dreamed of a crown, would be greater at the news of such a thing conferred on him, than he whose birth invited him to look for it, yea, promised it him as his inheritance.  Such a one’s heart would but stand level to the place, and therefore could not be so ravished with it, as another, who lay so far below such a preferment.

           Fifth Property.  To fill up the joy of all these, it is most necessary that the news be true and certain, else all the joy soon leaks out.  What great joy would it afford to hear of a kingdom befallen to a man, and the next day or month to hear all crossed again and prove false?  Now, in the glad tidings of the gospel, all these do most happily meet together, to wind up the joy of the believing soul to the highest pin that the strings of his affections can possibly bear.

1. The news which the gospel hath in its mouth to tell us poor sinners is good.It speaks promises, and they are significations of some good intended by God for poor sinners.  The law, that brings ill news to town.  Threatenings are the lingua vernacula legis —the native language of the law.  It can speak no other language to sinners but denunciations of evil to come upon them; but the gospel smiles on poor sinners, and plains the wrinkles that sit on the law’s brow, by proclaiming promises.
2. The news the gospel brings is as great as good.It was that the angel said, ‘I bring you good tidings of great joy,’ Luke 2:10.  Great joy it must needs be, be­cause it is all joy.  The Lord Christ brings such news in his gospel as that he left nothing for any after him to add to it.  If there be any good wanting in the ti­dings of the gospel, we find it elsewhere than in God, for in the covenant of the gospel he gives himself through Christ to the believing soul.  Surely the apos­tle’s argument will hold: ‘All things are yours and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s,’ I Cor. 3:22, 23.  The gospel lays our pipes close to the fountain of goodness itself; and he, sure, must have all, that is united to him that hath that is all.  Can any good news come to the glorified saints which heaven doth not afford them?  In the gospel we have news of that glory. ‘Jesus Christ, hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,’ II Tim. 1:10.  The sun in the firmament discovers only the lower world; absignat cælum dum revelat terram—O it hides heaven from us, while it shows the earth to us!  But the gospel en­lightens both at once—‘Godliness hath the promise of the life that is now, and of that which is to come,’ I Tim. 4:8.

WHAT IS MEANT BY THE GOSPEL

       

  What is meant by the gospel.  Gospel, according to the notation of the original word, signifies any good news, or joyful message.  So, Jer. 20:15, ‘Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad’—.  But usually in Scripture, it is restrained, by way of excellency, to signify the doctrine of Christ, and salvation by him to poor sinners.  ‘I bring you good tidings,’ said the angel to the shepherds, ‘of great joy,’ Luke 2:10. And, ver. 11, he addeth, ‘unto you is born....a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.’  Thus it is taken in this place, and generally in the New Testament, and affords this note.

           Doctrine.  The revelation of Christ, and the grace of God through him, is without compare the best news, and the joyfullest tidings, that poor sinners can hear.  It is such a message that no good news can come before it, nor no ill news follow.  No good news can come before it, no, not from God himself to the creature.  He cannot issue out any blessing to poor sinners till he hath shown mercy to their souls in Christ.  ‘God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us,’ Ps. 67:1.

           First.  God forgives and then he gives.  Till he be merciful to pardon our sins through Christ, he cannot bless or look kindly on us sinners.  All our enjoyments are but blessings in bullion, till gospel grace —pardoning mercy—stamp, and make them current.  God cannot so much as bear any good-will to us, till Christ makes peace for us; ‘on earth peace, good-will toward men,’ Luke 2:14.  And what joy can a sinner take, though it were to hear of a kingdom befallen to him, if he may not have it with God’s good-will?

           Second.  Again, no ill news can come after the glad tidings of the gospel, where believingly embraced. God’s mercy in Christ alters the very property of all evils to the believer.  All plagues and judgments that can befall the creature in the world, when baptized in the stream of gospel-grace, receive a new name, come on a new errand, and have a new taste on the believer's palate, as the same water by running through some mine, gets a tang and a healing virtue, which before it had not.  ‘The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity,’ Isa. 33:24.  Observe, he doth not say ‘They shall not be sick.’ Gospel grace doth not exempt from afflictions, but ‘they shall not say, I am sick.’  they shall be so ravished with the joy of God’s pardoning mercy, that they shall not complain of being sick.  This or any other cross is too thin a veil to darken the joy of the other good news.  

This is so joyful a message which the gospel brings, that God would not have Adam long without it, but opened a crevice to let some beams of this light, that is so pleasant to behold, into his soul, amazed with the terror of God’s presence.  As he was turned out of paradise without it, so he had been turned into hell immediately; for such the world would have been to his guilty conscience.  This is the news God used to tell his people of, on a design to comfort them and cheer them, when things went worst with them, and their affairs were at the lowest ebb, Isa. 7:15; Micah 5:5.  This is the great secret which God whispers, by his Spirit, in the ear of those only [whom] he embraces with his special distinguishing love, Luke 10:21; I Cor. 2:12, so that it is made the sad sign of a soul marked out for hell, to have the gospel ‘hid’ from it, II Cor. 4:3.  To wind up this in a few words, there meet all the properties of a joyful message in the glad tidings of the gospel.

Use For Exhortation Of The Saints 4/4

      

         (2.) Often meditate on the holiness of man’s in­nocent state.  It is true now, if a believer, thou hast a principle of holiness planted in thee; but, alas! what is that at present to what thy nature once had?  They who saw the second temple, and remembered not the first, which Solomon built, thought it, no doubt, a glorious fabric; but others, whose eyes had seen the stately work and goodly buildings of the other, could not but rejoice with tears in their eyes.  ‘Many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid,....wept with a loud voice,’ Ezra 3:12.  O! it revived the sad thoughts of the sacking of that glorious structure; and so may this little beginning upon a new foundation of the new covenant, remind thee, with sorrow, to think of the ruins that man, in all his glory, fell into by Satan’s policy!  It is true, in heaven thou shalt have the odds of Adam in paradise, but thou shalt have many a weary step before thou gettest up that hill.  When a man that hath had some thousands a-year hath now but a few pounds per annum allowed him, and the rest sequestered from him for thirty or forty years; it is sad, though comfortable also to think, it shall at last return, and may be, with a great overplus; but at present, he is put to many straits, and fain to make a hard shift to rub through, so as to live anything like his noble descent and family.  Thus it is joyous to the saint to think of heaven when all his means shall come into his hands; but truly his imperfect grace, and the many expenses he is at—from afflictions at God's hands, temptations at Satan’s, mutinies and intestine broils from remaining lusts within doors —do put him into so many sad straits, that the poor soul is fain oft to snap short in his comfort, yea, much ado he hath to keep shop windows open with the little stock he hath.  Hence, the Christian’s getting to heaven is set out as a business of so much difficulty. ‘If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?’ I Peter 4:18.  The wise virgins had no oil to spare.  The Christian shall hold out, and that is even all.  Think of this, and let thy plumes fall.

           (3.) Often meditate on thy own personal mis­carriages,  especially in thy unregenerate state.  This kept Paul so humble.  How oft does his unregenerate wicked conversation rise, though not in his con­science, to darken his comfort, yet in his mind, to qualify the thoughts of his gifts and grace, I Cor. 15:9, 10, where he speaks how he ‘laboured more than  them all.’  O how he waylays his pride that possibly might follow such his glorying too close at his heels! and therefore, before he dare speak a word of his present holiness, he bolts the door upon pride, and first falls upon the story of that black part of his life. O how he batters his pride, and speaks himself all to naught!  No enemy could have drawn his picture with a blacker coal, I Cor. 15:7.  He calls himself one ‘born out of time,’ ver. 9, ‘for I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.’  And now having suf­ficiently besmeared and doused himself in the puddle of his former sins, how humbly doth the holy man speak of his transcendent graces! ver. 10.  ‘By the grace of God I am what I am,....and I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God.’  O this is the way of killing this weed of pride, to break up our own hearts, and turn the inside out­ward—I mean humble and abase ourselves for our former abominations.  Pride will not easily thrive in a soul where this plough often walks.  Pride is a worm that bites and gnaws out the heart of grace.  Now you know they are bitter things that must break the bag of worms that are gathered in the stomach.  All sweet things nourish them; they are bitter that scatter and kill them.  O Christian, take some quantity of this aloes often, and with God's blessing thou shalt find ease of that which, if a Christian, thou art troubled withal.  And do not think that this worm breeds only in children—weak Christians, and young novices.  I confess that it is the most ordinary disease of that age. But aged and stronger Christians are not out of dan­ger.  Old David had this worm of pride crawling out of his mouth when he bade Joab number the people. And dost not thou too, oft take thyself in numbering the duties and good works thou hast done, and the sufferings thou hast endured for thy God, with some secret self-applauding thoughts that tickle thee for them?

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3. Be humble when thou art most holy.  Which way soever pride works—as thou shalt find it like the wind—sometimes at one door, sometimes at another —resist it.  Nothing more baneful to thy holiness; it turns righteousness into hemlock, holiness into sin. Never art thou less holy than when puffed up with the conceit of it.  When we see a man blown up and swelled with the dropsy, we can tell his blood is naught and waterish, without opening a vein for the trial.  The more pride puffs thee, the less pure blood of holiness thou hast running in the veins of thy soul. ‘Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright,’ Hab. 2:4.  See an ecce! [behold!] like a sign, is set up at the proud man's door, that all passengers may know a naughty man dwells there.  As thou wouldst not, therefore, not only enfeeble the power of holiness, but also call in question the truth of thy holiness, take heed of pride.  Sometimes, possibly, thou wilt be ready to despise others, and bid them, in thy thoughts, stand off, as not so holy as thyself; this smells of the Pharisee, beware of it.  It is the nature of holiness to depress ourselves, and to give our breth­ren the advantage in measuring their gifts or graces with our own.  ‘In lowli­ness of mind let each esteem other better than them­selves,’ Php. 2:3.  At another time, possibly, thou mayest find a spice of the justi­ciary’s disease hanging about thee—thy heart lean­ing on thy righteousness, and lifting up thyself into confidence of it, so as to expect thy acceptation with, and salvation from, God for that.  O take heed of this, as thou lovest thy life!  I may say to thee as Constantine did to Acetius the Novatian, ‘Set then up thy ladder, and go to heaven by thyself, for never any went this way thither;’ and dost thou think to be the only man that shall appear in heaven purchaser of his own happiness?  Go, first, poor creature, and meas­ure the length of thy ladder by the extent of the holy law, and if thou findest it but one round short of that, thou mayest certainly conclude it will leave thee short of heaven.  If, therefore, thou hast beheld—to allude to that in Job 31:27—thy righteousness, when it hath shined, and thy holiness walking in its brightness, and thy heart thereby hath been enticed secretly, or thy mouth hath kissed thy hand; know this is a great wickedness, and in this thou hast denied the God above.  Thou hast given the highest part of divine worship unto a creature, the created sun of thy inher­ent holiness, which God hath appointed should be given alone to the uncreated Sun of righteousness, the Lord Jesus, ‘the Lord our righteousness.’ Renounce thy plea, as now thou hast laid it, for life and salvation, or else give up thy cause as lost.  Now the more effectually to keep down any insurrection of pride from the conceit of thy holiness, be pleased to take often these soul-humbling considerations into thy serious thoughts.

           (1.) Often meditate on the infinite holiness of God.  When men stand high their heads do not grow dizzy till they look down.  When men look down up­on those that are worse than themselves, or less holy than themselves, then their heads turn round. Looking up would cure this disease.  The most holy men, when once they have fixed their eyes a while upon God’s holiness, and then looked upon them­selves, they have been quite out of love with them­selves, and could see nothing but unholiness in them­selves.  After the vision the prophet had of God sitting on his throne, and his heavenly ministers of state, the seraphim, about him, covering their faces and crying, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts:’ how was this gracious man presently smitten with the sense of his own vileness?  They did not more cry up God as holy, than he did cry out upon himself as ‘unclean,’ Isa. 6:3, 5.  So Job, ‘Now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself,’ Job 42:5, 6.  Never did the good man more loathe himself for the putrid sores of his ulcerous body, when on the dunghill he sat and scraped himself, than now he did for the impurities of his soul.  We see ourselves in a dark room, and we think we are fine and clean; but would we compass ourselves with the beams of God’s glori­ous majesty and holiness, then the sun rays would not discover more atoms in the air, than the holiness of God would convince of sin to be in us.  But it is the trick of pride not to come where it may be outshined; it had rather go where it shall be adored, than where it is sure to be put to shame.

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 Again, the gospel-shoe will not come on thy foot so long as swelled with any sinful humour—I mean any unrighteousness or unholy practice—till assuaged and purged out by repentance.  Consider the gospel in its preparation.  Art thou in a fit case to suffer cheerfully for God, or patiently for God, as thou art? No more than a soldier in a disease, sick abed, is to make a hard march.  Unholiness weakens the soul as much as sickness doth the body, and indisposeth it to endure any hardship.  ‘O spare me’ a little, ‘that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more,’ Ps. 39:13.  David was not yet recovered out of that sin, which had brought him exceeding low, as you may perceive, vv. 10, 11.  And the good man cannot think of dying with any willingness till his heart be in a holier frame.  And for the peace of the gospel —serenity of conscience and inward joy—alas! all unholiness is to it as poison is to the spirit which drinks them up.  Throw a stone into a brook, and though clear before, it presently is royled and muddy. ‘He will speak peace unto his people,....but let them not turn again to folly,’ Ps. 85:8.  Mark, here, what an item he gives, ‘But let them not turn,’ and as if he had said, ‘Upon their peril be it, if they turn from holy walking to folly; I will turn from speaking peace, to speak terror.’

           Again by thy negligence in thy holy walking thou endangerest thy faith, which is kept in a good con­science, as the jewel in the cabinet.  Faith is an eye. All sin and unholiness casts a mist before this eye.  A holy life, to faith, is as a clear air and medium to the eye.  We can see farther in a clear day.  Thus faith sees farthest into the promise, when it looks through a holy, well-ordered conversation.  Faith is a shield; and when does the soldier drop that out of his hand but when dangerously wounded?  And if faith fail, what will become of hope, which hangs upon faith, and draws all her nourishment from her, as the sucking child doth from the nurse?  If faith cannot see a pardon in the promise, then hope cannot look for salvation.  If faith cannot lay claim to sonship, then hope will not wait for the inheritance.  Faith tells the soul it hath ‘peace with God,’ then the soul ‘rejoiceth in the hope of glory,’ Rom. 5:1, 2.  And now, Christian, what hast thou yet left for thy help?  Wilt thou betake thyself to the sword of the Spirit?  Alas! how canst thou wield it when, by thy unholy walking, thou hast lamed thy hand of faith that should hold it? This sword hath two edges.  With one it heals, with the other it wounds—with one it saves, with the other it damns.  O it is a dreadful weapon when it strikes with its wounding, damning side; and for the other side thou hast nothing to do with it while in any way of unholiness.  Not a kind word in the whole Bible spoken to one sinning.  Now, poor creature, think, and think again; is there any sin worth hazarding all this confusion and mischief, which, if thou beest resolved to have it, will inevitably befall thy soul?