The duty of the people to make known the gospel

           Use Second. To the people.  As it is the min­ister’s task to make known the mystery of the gospel in his pulpit, so your duty to do the same in your lives.  The Christian’s life should put his minister’s sermon in print; he should preach that mystery every day to the eyes of his neighbours, which the minister preacheth once or twice a week to their ears.  As a true-made dial agrees with the sun in its motion, and as a well‑drawn picture resembles the face from which it was taken, so should thy conversation resemble that gospel which thou professest.  Let none have cause to say, what once did of some loose Christians, aut hoc non est evangelium, aut hi non sunt evangelici —either this is not the gospel, or these are not its subjects.  What hast thou to do with any sordid and impure practices, who pretendest to be instructed in this high and holy mystery?  Thy Christian name ill agrees with a heathen life.  If thou sufferest any that is not of thy profession to outstrip thee, yea but to keep pace with thee, in any action  that is virtuous and truly honourable, thou shamest thyself and the gospel also.  What a shame were it to find one in some trivial country school that should be able to pose a graduate in the university!  Thou art trained up in such high and heavenly learning as no other re­ligion in the world can show, and therefore your lives are to bear proportion to your teaching.  It was a sharp reproof to the Corinthian saints, when the apostle said, 6"Jz –<2DT­B@< B,D4B"J,ÃJ,—‘ye walk as men,’ I Cor. 3:3; that is, men in a natural state. And he that walks thus like men, will not walk much unlike the very beasts; for man is become brutish in his understanding, and it is worse to live like a beast than to be a beast.

           Surely, Christians, if you have not your name for nought, you partake of a nature higher than human. Your feet should stand where other men’s heads are; you should live as far above the carnal world as grace is above nature, as heaven is above earth.  Christ would never have stooped beneath angels, but to raise your hearts and lives above men.  He would never have humbled himself to take the human nature, but on a design to make us partakers of the divine; nor would he have walked on earth, but to make a way to elevate our hearts to heaven.  Say not, therefore, flesh and blood cannot bear such an injury or for bear such a sensual pleasure.  Either thou art more than a man, or less than a Christian.  Flesh and blood never re­vealed the gospel to thee, flesh and blood never re­ceived Christ; in a word, flesh and blood shall never enter into the kingdom of God.  If thou beest a Chris­tian, thou art baptized into the spirit of the gospel; thou hast a heaven-born nature, and that will enable thee to do more than flesh and blood can do.  Hast thou no desire to see others converted by the gospel? Wouldst thou steal to heaven alone, and carry none of thy neighbours with thee? 

Now, how shalt thou win them into a good opinion of the gospel, but by such an amiable life as may commend it unto their consciences?  It was a charge long ago laid upon Christianity, that it was better known ‘in leaves of books than in the lives of Christians.’  From hence it is, that many are hardened in their wickedness and prejudice against the gospel.  He is an unwise fisher­man that scareth away the fish which he desires to get within his net.  O offend not those, by scandals in thy life, whom thou wouldst have converted by the preaching of the gospel.  There is now‑a‑days, saith one, much talk, as if the time for the Jews’ conversion were at hand; but, saith he, the loose lives of Chris­tians do so disparage this heavenly mystery, that the time seems further off.  Indeed, the purity of Chris­tians' lives is the best attractive to win others to the love of religion.  Had Christ’s doves more sweet spices of humility, charity, patience, and other heav­enly graces, in their wings, as they fly about the world, they would soon bring more company home with them to the church’s lockers.  This is the gold that should overlay the temple of Christ’s church, and would make others in love with its beauty.  This was one happy means for the incredible increase of con­verts in the primitive times.  Then the mystery of the gospel was made known, not only by the apostles’ powerful preaching, but by Christians’ holy living.  See how they walked, Acts 2:46; and what was the blessed fruit of it ‘They had favour with all the people, and the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved,’ ver. 47.  It would tempt any al­most but a devil—who loves to live in the fire of con­tention, and is desperately hardened against all good­ness—to have entered their names into such a heav­enly society; but when this gold grew dim, then the gospel began to lose its credit in the world, and con­sequently its takings.  Converts came in slower when those that professed the gospel began to cool in their zeal and slacken in the strictness of their lives.

USE OR APPLICATION Reproof and encouragement to ministers.

           Use First. To the ministers.  To reprove some; for encouragement to others.  It reproves,

1. The vainglorious preachers; that, instead of ‘making known the mystery of the gospel,’ makes it his errand into the pulpit to make himself known; who blows up his sermon, as butchers do their flesh they sell, with a windy pomp of words, and frames their discourse rather to tickle their ears, than to profit their souls; to send them home applauding the preacher for his wit and parts, rather than admiring the excellencies of Christ and riches of his grace. Thus many, alas! who should be factors for Christ, play the merchants for their own credit.  They are sent to woo souls for Christ, and they speak one word for him and two for themselves.  This is a great wickedness, which blessed Paul solemnly clears him­self of, ‘Nor a cloke of covetousness; God is witness: nor of men sought we glory, I Thes. 2:5, 6.  O how sel­dom are any converted by such sermons!  These gloriæ animalia—vainglorious preachers, they may be, like Rachel, fair, but their ministry is like to be barren.
2. Abstruse preachers; who do not make the mysteries of the gospel known, but make truths plain in themselves mysterious by their dark perplexed discourses upon them.  This was the unhappiness of the schoolmen, that ruffled and ensnarled the plain­est truths of the gospel with their harsh terms and nice questions, which else might have been wound off by an ordinary understanding.  What is said of some commentators, ‘The places on which they treat were plain till they expounded them,’ may be said of some preachers, their text was clear till their obscure dis­course upon it darkened it.  What greater wrong can a preacher do his hearers than this?  The preacher is to open scriptures; but these turn the key the wrong way, and lock the up from their knowledge.  They are to hold up the gospel glass before their people, whereby they may see to dress their souls, like a bride, against their husband’s coming; but by that time that they have breathed on their text, it is so obscured that they cannot see their face in it.  That water is not the deepest that is thickest and muddy; nor the matter always the most profound when the preacher’s expression is dark and obscure.  We count it a blemish in speech, when a man's pronunciation is not distinct.  I know not then how it should come to be thought a perfection to be obscure in the delivery of our conceptions.  The deeper and fuller the sculp­ture in the seal is, the clearer the impression will be on the wax. The more fully any man understands a thing, the more able he will be to deliver it plainly to others.  As a clipped stammering speech comes from an impediment in the instruments of speech, so a dark and obscure delivery of our thoughts bewrays a defect in our apprehensions; except it should come from an affectation of soaring high in our expressions above the reach of vulgar understandings—and this is worst of all.
3. The mere moral preacher; the stream of whose preaching runs not in an evangelical channel. Moral duties he presseth, and sins against the moral law he exclaims against.  Neither dare I blame him for that.  The Christian’s creed doth not vacate the ten commandments.  One of the first sermons our Sa­viour preached was most of it spent in pressing moral duties Matt. 5.  And never more need to drive this nail to the head than in our days, in which Christianity hath been so wounded in its reputation by the moral dishonesty of many of its professors.  But I level my reproof against them for this, that they do not preach the law evangelically, and make that the main design of their ministry for which they received their commission, and that is, ‘to make known the mystery of the gospel’—‘to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the fellow­ship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ,’ Eph. 3:8, 9.  Did it make the father un­dervalue Cicero’s works—which otherwise he ad­mired for their eloquence—only because his leaves were not perfumed with the sweet name of Jesus Christ?  Surely then it is a foul blot upon their ser­mons and labours, who reveal little of Christ and the mystery of the gospel through the whole course of their ministry.  The woe is pronounced not only against the non-preaching minister, but the not-gospel-preaching minister also: ‘Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel,’ I Cor. 9:16.  An ethic lecture will not make thy people ‘wise unto salvation.’  It were well if thou couldst preach thy drunken neigh­bour sober and the riotous temperate.  But this is no more than Plato did for his Polemo.  This may make them men that were before beasts; but thou must get them to be saints, regenerate ones; preach them out of themselves, as well as out of their flagitious prac­tices; from the confidence of their righteousness, as well as from the love of their sins; or else thou leavest them short of heaven.  Well then, smoke, yea fire, them out of their moral wickednesses, by the threat­enings of the law; but rest not till thou hast ac­quainted them with Christ, and the way of salvation by him.  In a word, preach moral duties as much as thou wilt, but in an evangelical strain.  Convince them they cannot do these without grace from Christ, for want of which the heathens’ virtues were but splendida peccata—gilded vices.  Per fidem venitur ad opera, non per opera venitur ad fidem—we must come to good works by faith, and not to faith by good works.  The tree must be good before the fruit it bears can be so.  ‘Without me ye can do nothing.’  And then convince them, when they are most exact in moral duties, that this must not be their righteousness before God; the robe which they must cover their souls with—if they would not be found naked in his sight—must not be the homespun garment of their own inherent righteousness wrought in them, but of Christ’s righteousness which he wrought for them.

   It affords a word of sweet encouragement to the faithful ministers of Christ.  Haply you have been long at work for Christ, and see little fruit of your labours; your strength is even spent, and candle almost at the socket of old age; but your people are still carnal and obstinate, no sun will tan them, no arguments move them, filthy they are, and so will continue; to hell they will go, no gate can stop them; thou hast done thy utmost to reclaim them, but all in vain.  This is sad indeed—to them, I mean—thus to go to hell by broad daylight, while the gospel shows the whither every step of their sinful course leads them.  But thou hast cause of much inward peace and comfort, that thou hast done what God expects at thy hands.  Remember thy work is, ‘To make known the mystery of the gospel,’ and upon their peril be it if they embrace it not.  God never laid it upon thee to convert those he sends thee to.  No; to publish the gospel is thy duty, to receive it is theirs.  Abraham promiseth to discharge his servant of his oath, if the woman which he was to woo for his son would not follow him; and so will God clear thee of their blood, and lay it at their own door.  ‘If thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness,...he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul,’ Eze. 3:19.  God judgeth not of his servants’ work by the success of their labour, but by their faithfulness to deliver his message.  ‘Though Israel be not gath­ered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord,’ Isa. 49:5.

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 Second.  The gospel itself saves not, except it be made known.  ‘If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost,’ II Cor. 4:3.  Where God sends no light, he intends no love.  In bodily sickness a physician may make a cure, though his patient knows not what the medicine is that he useth.  But the soul must know its remedy before he can have any healing benefit from it.  John is sent ‘to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins,’ Luke 1:77.  No knowledge, no remission.  Christ must be lift up on the pole of the gospel, as well as on the tree of the cross, that by an eye of faith we may look on him, and so be healed, John 3:14. ‘Look unto me, and be ye saved,’ Isa. 45:22.  A man that sees may lead another that is bodily blind to the place he would go.  But he that would go to heaven must have an eye in his own head to see his way, or else he will never come there.  ‘The just shall live by his faith,’ Hab. 2:4, not by another’s.  A proxy faith is bootless.  Now saving faith is a grace that sees her object; it is ‘the evidence of things not seen,’ Heb. 11:1; that is, which are not seen by sense.  ‘I know,’ saith Paul, ‘whom I have believed,’ II Tim. 1:12.  Therefore faith is oft set out by knowledge: ‘And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent,’ John 17:3.  Now, how can they know Christ and life eternal, till the gospel be made known, which bringeth him and life by him to light? II Tim. 1:10.  And by whom shall the gospel be made known if not by the ministers of it?  Thus far the apostle drives it: ‘How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?’ Rom. 10:14. So that this great work lies at the minister’s door.  He is to ‘make known the mystery of the gospel.’

           Objection.  But what need now of preaching? this was the work of those that were to plant a church.  Now the church is planted and the gospel made known, this labour may be spared.

           Answer.  The ministry of the gospel was not in­tended only to plant a church, but to carry on its growth also.  What Paul plants, Apollos comes after and waters with his ministry, I Cor. 3:6.  When the foundation is laid, must not the house be built?  And this Christ gave ministers to his church for, ‘For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,’ Eph. 4:12.  The scaffold is not taken down till the building be finished, but rather to raised higher and higher as the fabric goes up.  Thus Paul went on in his ministry from lower points to higher, from foundation to su­perstructory truths, Heb 6:1.  A famous church was planted at Thessalonica, but there was something ‘lacking in their faith,’ which Paul longed to come and carry on to further perfection I Thes. 3:10.  Surely they that think there is so little need of preaching, forget that the gospel is a mystery—such a mystery as can never be fully taught by the minister or learned by the people; neither do they consider how many engineers Satan hath at work continually to undermine the gos­pel, both as it is a mystery of faith and godliness also. Hath not he his seedsmen that are always scattering corrupt doctrine?  Surely then the faithful minister had need obviate their designs by making known the truth, that his people may not want an antidote to fortify them against their poison.  Are their not corruptions in the bosoms of the best, and daily temptations from Satan and the world to draw these forth, whereby they are always in danger, and oft sadly foiled?  In a word, is not grace planted in a cold soil, that needs cherishing from a gospel ministry?  Do we not see, that what is got in one Sabbath by the preaching of the word, is, if not lost, yet much im­paired, by the next?  Truly our hearts are like lean ground, that needs ever and anon a shower or else the corn on it withers and changeth its hue.  O what barren heaths would the most flourishing churches soon prove if these clouds did not drop upon them! The Christians to whom Peter wrote were of a high form, no novices, but well grounded and rooted in the faith; yet this did not spare the apostle his further pains: ‘I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth,’ II Peter 1:12.

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           Second Observable.  Wherein lies the work of a gospel minister—‘to make known the mystery of the gospel.’ You have had the sublime nature of the gos­pel set forth: it is a mystery.  Here the minister’s work is laid out; he is with all possible clearness and perspicuity to open this mystery and expose it to the view of the people.  Mark, ‘the gospel’ is his subject, and ‘to make it known’ is his duty.  So runs the min­ister’s commission for his office, ‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,’ Mark 16:15.  We hear people sometimes saying, The preacher is beside his text; but he is never beside his errand so long as it is the gospel he makes known. Whatever is his text, this is to be his design. His commission is to make known the gospel; to deliver that therefore which is not reductive to this is beside his instructions.  Nothing but the preaching of the gospel can reach the end for which the gospel min­istry was appointed, and that is the salvation of souls, ‘After that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe,’ I Cor. 1:21.  The great book of the creation had lain long enough open before the world’s eyes, yet could they never come to the saving knowledge of God, by all that divine wisdom which is written with the finger of God in every page thereof.  Therefore it pleased God to send his servants, that by preaching the gospel, poor souls might believe on Christ, and believing might be saved. No doctrine but the gospel can save a soul; nor the gospel itself, except it be made known.

The gospel alone can save a soul, and this only when known

           First.  No doctrine but the gospel can save a soul.  Galen may learn you to save your health if you will follow his rules. Littleton and other law-books will teach you how to save your estates.  Plato and other philosophers will learn you how to save your credits among men, by an outward just inoffensive life.  Their doctrine will be a means to save you from many nasty and gross sins, by which you may be ap­plauded by your neighbours on earth, and perhaps less tormented in hell, where Fabricius finds a cooler place than Cataline.  But it is the gospel alone where­by you can be taught how to save your souls from hell and bring them to heaven.  But what do I speak of these?  It is not God’s own law—the moral, I mean—that is now able to save you.  God would never have been at such a vast expense—in the bloodshed of his Son—to erect another law, viz. the law of faith, if that would have served for this purpose; Gal. 2:21, ‘for if righteousness come’—yea, or could come—‘by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.’

           Question.  Why then do ministers preach the law?

           Answer.  They preach it as they should, they preach it in subserviency to the gospel, not in opposition.  Qui scit benè distinguere inter legem et evangelium, Deo gratias agat, et sciat se esse theo­logum—he that knows how to distinguish well be­tween the law and the gospel, let him bless God, and know that he then deserves the name of a divine.  We must preach it as a rule, not as a covenant, of life. Holiness, as to the matter and substance of it, is the same that ever it was.  The gospel destroys not the law in this sense, but adds a strong enforcement to all its commands.

           Again, we may and must preach the law as the necessary means to drive souls out of themselves to Christ in the gospel.  The gospel is the net with which we should catch souls and draw them out of their sinning sinking state.  But how shall we ever get them to come into it?  Truly never.  Except we first beat the river with the law’s clubs—threatenings, I mean—sin­ners lie in their lusts, as fish in the mud, out of which there is no getting them but by laying hard upon their consciences with the threatenings of the law.  ‘Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound,’ Rom. 5:20; that is, in the con­science by con­viction, not in life by commission and practice.  The law shows both what is sin, and also what sin is.  I mean it tells when we commit a sin, and what a hateful and dangerous thing we do in committing of it—how we alarm God, and bring him with all his strength into the field against us.  Now this is neces­sary to prepare a way for the sinner’s entertaining the gospel.  The needle must enter before the thread with which the cloth is sewed.  The sharp point of the law must prick the conscience before the creature can by the promises of the gospel be drawn to Christ.  The field is not fit for the seed to be cast into it till the plough hath broken it up.  Nor is the soul prepared to receive the mercy of the gospel till bro­ken with the terrors of the law.

   

Exhortation to study the mystery of the gospel 3/3

 (2.) Thou must become a disciple to Christ. Men do not teach strangers that pass by their door, or that come into their shops the mystery of their trade and profession; but their servants, and such as are willing to be bound apprentices to them.  Neither doth Christ promise to reveal the mysteries of the gospel to any but those that will give up their names to be his servants and disciples: ‘Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables,’ Mark 4:11.  When once thou hast subscribed to the covenant of the gospel, thy indenture is sealed, Christ is now thy master he takes thee for one of his family and charge, and so will look to thy breeding and education; but for those on whose hearts and affections he hath no hold, they come may be to the ordinance, but, when the sermon is done, return to their old master again.  Sin is still their trade, and Satan their lord; is it like that Christ should teach them his trade?  The mystery of iniquity and of godli­ness are contrary; the one cannot be learned till the other be unlearned.

           (3.) If thou wouldst learn this mystery to any purpose, content not thyself with a brain-notional knowledge of it.  The gospel hath respect both to the head and heart—understanding and will.  To the un­derstanding it is a mystery of faith; to the heart and life it is a mystery of godliness.  Now these two must not be severed: ‘Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience,’ I Tim. 3:9.  Here is both the manna, and a golden pot to keep it in—truth laid up in a pure conscience.  Knowledge may make thee a scholar, but not a saint; orthodox, but not gracious. What if thou wert able to write a commentary on all the Bible, and from the Scripture couldst confute all the errors and heresies which were at any time broached and vented against the truth; what would this avail thee, when thy own lusts confute, yea confound, thyself?  ‘If I understand all myster­ies,...and have not charity, I am nothing,’ I Cor. 13:2. He that increaseth knowledge, and doth not get grace with his knowledge, increaseth sorrow to himself, yea, eternal sorrow.  It would be an ease to gospel sinners in hell if they could rase the remembrance of the gos­pel out of their memories, and forget that they ever knew such truths.  In thy knowledge therefore of gos­pel mysteries, labour for these two things especially:

           (a) To see thy propriety in them.  Herein lies the pith and marrow of gospel knowledge.  When thou findest what Christ hath done and suffered for poor sinners, rest not till thou canst say with Paul ‘who loved me, and gave himself for me,’ Gal. 2:20.  When thou readest any precious promise, thou shouldst ask thy own soul, as the eunuch did Philip concerning that place of Isaiah, ‘Is it spoken to me, or of some other?’  Am I the pardoned person?  Am I one in Christ Jesus, to whom there is no condemnation?  How impatient were those two prisoners till Joseph had opened their dream, that they might know what should befall them!  The Scripture will resolve you whether your head shall be lift up to the gibbet in hell, or to the king's court in heaven.  Now in reading or hearing it preached, this is it thou shouldst listen after and inquire to know—where it lays thee out thy portion, whether in the promise or in the threatening. There is a sweet feast the gospel speaks of, but am I one of Christ’s guests that shall sit at it?  There are mansions prepared in heaven, but can I find one taken up for me there?

           (b) Labour to find the power and efficacy of gospel truths upon thee.  When our first parents had eaten that unhappy fruit which gave them and all mankind in them their bane, it is said then ‘they knew that they were naked;’ doubtless they knew it before their fall, but now they knew it with shame; they knew it, and sought for clothes to cover them, of which they found no want before.  I only allude to the place.  Many know what sin is, but it is not a soul-feeling knowledge: they know they are naked, but are not ashamed for their nakedness; they see no need of Christ’s righteousness to cover it, and of his grace to cure it.  Many know Christ died, and for what he died; but Christ’s death is a dead truth to them, it doth not procure the death of their lusts that were the death of him.  They know he is risen, but they lie still themselves rotting in the grave of their corruptions. They know Christ is ascended to heaven, but this draws not their souls after him.  A philosopher, being asked what he had got by philosophy, answered, ‘It hath learned me to contemn what others adore, and to bear what others cannot endure.’  If one should ask, What have you got by knowing the mystery of the gospel?  Truly you can give no account worthy of your acquaintance with it, except you can say, I have learned to believe what flesh and blood could never believe have taught me, and to do what I never could, till I had acquaintance with its heavenly truths.  This is to know ‘the truth as it is in Jesus,’ Eph. 4:21.  Had a sick man drunk some potion—which if it works will save his life, if not, will certainly be his death—O how troubled would he be while [until] he sees some operation it hath upon him! what means would he not use to set it awork!  If gospel truths work not effectually on thee for thy renovation and sanctifi­cation, thou art a lost man; they will undoubtedly be ‘a savour of death’ to thee.  O how can you then rest till you find them transforming your hearts and as­similating your lives to their heavenly nature!  Thus Paul endeavoured to know the power of Christ’s resurrection quickening him to a holy life here, without which he could not attain to a joyful resurrection hereafter, Php. 3:10, 11. The gospel is a glass, but not like that in which we see our bodily face.  This only shows what our feature is, and leaves it as it was; but that changeth the very complexion of the soul ‘from glory to glory,’ II Cor. 3:18.

Exhortation to study the mystery of the gospel 2/3

  Of all creatures in this visible world, light is the most glorious; of all light, the light of the sun without compare excels the rest.  Were this eye of the world put out, the earth would be a grot, a grave, in which we should be buried alive.  What were the Egyptians while under the plague of darkness but like so many dead men? they had friends, but could not see them; estates abroad in the fields, but could not enjoy them. Now what is the sun to the sensible world, that is Christ in the gospel to the intellectual world of souls. Without this ‘light of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ,’ what can the soul do or enjoy aright?  Man’s soul is of high, yea royal extraction, for God is ‘the Father of spirits;’ but this child meets his heavenly Father in the dark, and knows him not: ‘He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not,’ John 1:10.  And as it is of high birth, so intended for a high end, to glorify and enjoy God its Maker.  Now, for want of the knowl­edge of Christ it can do neither, but debaseth itself to the drudgery of sin and sensual embraces of the creature instead of God, for whom it was at first made; like the son of some great prince, who, not knowing his royal descent, casts himself away in mar­riage on some beggar’s daughter.  O how should we prize and study this mystery therefore that brings us to the true knowledge of God, and the way how we may recover our interest in him and happiness with him!  Man’s primitive happiness consisted in God’s love to him and his likeness to God.  The gospel dis­covers a way how man may be restored to both.  The first it doth, as it is a mystery of faith, by revealing Christ and his atonement for our reconciliation with God; the latter, as it is a mystery of godliness, and the instrument with Christ useth in the hand of his Spirit to create man anew, and as it were the tool to re-engrave the image of God upon him with.

           Question.  But how may we be led into the sav­ing knowledge of this mystery?

           (1.) Think not how to obtain it by the strength of thy reason or natural parts.  It is not learned as other secrets in nature or human arts, of which those that have the most piercing wit and strongest brain soon­est get the mastery.  None have been more mistaken, or erred more foully in their apprehensions about gospel truths, than the greatest scholars, sons of reason, and men admired for their parts and learning; the cause whereof may be partly their pride and self-confidence, which God ever was and will be an enemy to; and also because the mysteries of the gospel do not suit and jump with the principles of carnal reason and wisdom.  Whence it comes to pass that the wiser part of the world, as they are counted, have com­monly rejected the grand principles of evangelical faith as absurd and irrational.  Tell a wise Arian that Christ is God and man in one person, and he laughs at it, as they did at Paul when he mentioned the resurrection of the body, Acts 17:32, be­cause the key of his understanding fits not the wards of this lock.  When a merit‑monger hears of being justified by faith, and not by works, it will not go down with him. It seems as ridiculous to him that a man should be justified by the righteousness which another fulfills, as for a man to live by the meat another eats, and be warm with the clothes another wears.  Tell him, when he hath lived never so holily, he must renounce his own work, and be beholden to another’s merit; you shall as soon persuade him to sell his estate, to get his living by begging at another's door.  These are ‘hard sayings,’ at which they take offence, and go away, or labour to pervert the simplicity of gospel revelation to their own sense.  Resolve therefore to come, when thou readest the gospel, not to dispute with thy Maker, but to believe what he reveals to be his mind. Call not divine mysteries to give an account to thy shallow understanding.  What is this but to try a prince at a subject’s bar?  When thou hast laid aside the pride of thy reason, then thou art fit to be admit­ted a scholar in Christ’s school, and not till then.

           Objection.  But must we cease to be men when we become Christians?

           Answer.  No; we cease not to be men, but to be proud men, when we lay aside the confidence of our own understanding to acquiesce in the wisdom and truth of God.  An implicit faith is absurd and irra­tional when a man requires it of us, who may deceive or be deceived in what he saith.  But when God speaks, it is all the reason in the world we should believe what he saith to be true, though we cannot comprehend what he saith; for we know he who is infinite wisdom cannot himself be deceived, and he who is truth and faithfulness will not deceive us.

Exhortation to study the mystery of the gospel 1/3

Use Third. Be you provoked, who are yet stran­gers to this mystery, to get the knowledge of it—yea, endeavour to gain an intimate acquaintance with it.  To move you thereunto, I shall make use of the two arguments: 1. Consider the Author of this mystery.  2. The subject-matter of it.

1. Argument.  Consider the Author of the mys­tery of the gospel.  That book must needs be worth the reading which hath God for the author; that mys­tery deserves our knowledge which is the product of his infinite wisdom and love.  There is a divine glory sitting upon the face of all God's works.  It is impos­sible so excellent an artist should put his hand to an ignoble work.  ‘O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all,’ Ps. 104:24.  But there is not the same glory to be seen in all his works. Our apostle tells us ‘there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon; one star differs from another in glory.’  Now, among all the works of God that of man’s redemption may well pass for the master-piece.  The world itself was set up to be a stage for the acting of this piece of providence, where­in B@8LB@\648@H F@N\" J@Ø 1,@Ø—‘the manifold wisdom of God,’ is so curiously wrought, that angels themselves pry into it, and are wrapped up into an admiration of it, Eph. 3:10; I Peter 1:12.  God’s works deserve our study, and those most wherein he hath drawn the clearest portraiture of himself.  The gospel mystery therefore, above all other, should be searched into by us, being the only glass in which the glory of God is with open face to be seen.
2. Argument.  Consider the subject-matter of the gospel—Christ, and the way of salvation through him. What poor and low ends have all worldly mysteries! one to make us rich, another to make us great and honourable in the world, but none to make us holy here or happy hereafter;—this is learned only from the knowledge of Christ, who is revealed in the gos­pel, and nowhere else.  No doubt Solomon’s natural history, in which he treated ‘of all trees from the cedar to the hyssop, of all beasts, fowls, and creeping things,’ was a rare piece in its kind; yet one leaf of the gospel is infinitely more worth to us than all that large volume would have been;—so much more precious, by how much the knowledge of God in Christ is better than the knowledge of beasts and birds.  And we have reason to think it a mercy that the book is lost and laid out of our sight, which we should have been prone to have studied more than the Bible; not that it was better, but more suitable to the mould of our carnal minds.  But, to a gracious soul, enlightened with saving knowledge, no book to this of the Bible. Paul was a bred scholar; he wanted not that learning which commends men to the world, yet counts all dung and dog’s meat in comparison of ‘the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ his Lord,’ Php. 3:8.  Well might he call it dog’s meat; for a man may feed all his lifetime on human learning, and die, in Scrip­ture sense, a dog at last.  It was the saying of Bona­venture, that he had rather lose all his philoso­phy than one article of his faith.  We read that those, Acts 19, were no sooner converted but they burned their books of curious arts.  Neither were they losers by it; for they had got acquaintance with one book that was worth them all.

         

Several duties which the mysterious nature of the gospel imposes on believers 3/3

    Again, bear with weaknesses in the practical part of religion.  Godliness, as well as the doctrine of our faith, is a mystery.  All the servants in a shop cannot work alike.  Some bungle at more than other—as their parts and experience are less.  All saints are not of a height.  Christ hath some children in his family that are led with strings, as well as others that go strongly without such help.  Some act more upon pure gospel principle—love, and a spirit of adoption; others have not yet worn off their legal fears and terrors.  Some are got higher up the hill of faith, and have clearer apprehensions of their spiritual state; others are nearer the bottom, who, as the sun newly risen above the horizon, are wrapped up with many clouds of perplexing fears and doubts.  In a word, some are got further out of their passions, have greater mastery over their corruptions, than other of their brethren.  Pity thy weak brother, and take him by the hand for his help; but despise him not, God can make even him stand, and suffer thee to fall. Christ doth not quench the smoking flax, why should we?  The weak Christian is welcome to his heavenly Father, as well as the strong; why should he not be so to his brethren?  But, alas! the proverb here is too true, ‘Better speak to the master than the man; the father, than the child.’  Those that can be so bold with God, dare not be free with their fellow-servants and brethren.

         Duty.  Is the gospel a mystery?  Then Chris­tian, long for heaven; there, and only there, shall this mystery be fully known.  The great things which were spoken concerning the gospel church made many saints and prophets before Christ’s time desire to see those happy times wherein such revelations should be made; how much more should we long for heaven, where this great mystery shall be fully opened, and every box of this cabinet unlocked, in which lie so many precious jewels to this day unseen by any saint on earth!  Then it will be said, ‘The mystery of God is finished,’ Rev. 10:7.  Here we learn our knowledge of it by little and little, like one that reads a book as it comes from the press, sheet by sheet; there we shall see it altogether.  Here we get a little light from this sermon, a little more from the next, and thus our stock increases by the addition of a few pence thrown in, some to‑day, and more to-morrow; but there we shall have all at once.  Here we learn with much pain and difficulty; there without travail and trouble. Glorified saints, though they cease not from work, yet rest from labour.  Here passion blinds our minds, that we mistake error for truth and truth for error; but then these clouds shall be scattered and gone.  Here the weakness of natural parts keeps many in the dark, and renders them incapable of apprehending some truths, which other of their brethren are led into; but there the strong shall not prevent the weak, the scholar shall know as much as his master, the people as their minister.  Here the squabbles and conten­tions among the godly do leave the weaker sort at great uncertainty what to think concerning many truths; but there they shall all agree—which comforted that holy man on his death-bed, that he was going thither where Luther and Calvin were reconciled.  Here we are disturbed in our inquiries after truth—one while the necessary occasions of this world divert us, another while the weakness and infirmities of our bodies hinder us; but in heaven our bodies will call for none of this tending, we shall need provide neither raiment for the back nor food for the belly.

           O happy death, that will ease us of all the aches of our bodies and conflicts in our souls!  Thou art the only physician to cure all the saints’ distempers in both.  When that blessed hour comes, then lift up your heads with joy, for it will lead you into that blissful place where you shall see Christ, not a great way off, with the eye of faith in the optic glass of an ordinance or promise, but, with a glorified eye, be­hold his very person, never more to lose the sight of him.  Thou shalt not taste his love in a little morsel of sacramental bread and sip of wine, but lay thy mouth to the fountain, and from his bosom drink thy full draught.  Thou shalt no more hear what a glorious place heaven is, as thou wert wont to have it set forth by the sorry rhetoric of a mortal man preaching to thee of that with which himself was but little ac­quainted; but shalt walk thyself in the streets of that glorious city, and bless thyself when thou art there, to think what poor low thoughts thou and thy minister also had thereof, when on earth thou didst meditate, and he did preach, on this subject.  One moment’s sight of that glory will inform thee more than all the comments and books written of it were ever able to do.  And dost thou not yet cry out, How long will it be, O Lord, most holy and true, before thou bringest me thither?  Is not every hour a day, day a month, month a year, yea age, till that time comes?  As Bernard, upon those words, ‘A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me,’ John 16:16, passionately breaks forth—pie Domine, modicum illud vocas, in quo te non videam?  O modicum, modicum longum—holy Lord, dost thou call that a little while in which I shall not see thee?  O this little is a long little while!

Several duties which the mysterious nature of the gospel imposes on believers 2/3

   (2.) Rest not in thy present practice, as it is a mystery of godliness.  Let not a little grace serve thy turn, when thou mayest have more; which that you may do,

           (a) Compare not thyself with those that have less than thyself, but look on those that have far exceeded thee.  To look on our inferiors occasions pride, ‘I am not this publican,’ saith the Pharisee; but look on other more eminent than ourselves will both preserve humility, and be a spur to diligence.  Miltiades’ vic­tories would not suffer Themistocles, then a young man, to sleep.  The progress that some have made in grace—didst thou but keep them in thine eye—would not suffer thee to be quiet, who art now lagging so far behind, till thou hast overtaken them.  May be thou hast got some victory over thy passion, and art not such a bedlam in thy fury as others; but didst thou never hear how meek a man Moses was, that could bear the murmurings of the multitude, yea envy of his brother and sister, and yet his heart not take fire? Thou hast some good affections towards God, but how far short of holy David’s zeal, whose heart did run out to God as soon as his eyes were open in the morning?  ‘When I awake I am still with thee.’ Thrice a day, yea seven times a day, he would praise his God. Thou hast some patience, but hast thou learned to write after Job’s copy?  Thou art not without faith, but art thou like Abraham—strong in faith to follow God when thou knowest not whither he will lead thee?

           (b) The grace thou hast will soon be less, if thou addest not more to it.  Thou art upon a swift stream; let thy oar miss its stroke, and thou fallest backward. There is not such a thing in religion as a saving trade of godliness.  Some men in their worldly trade can say at the year’s end they have neither got nor lost; but thou canst not say thus at the day’s end.  Thou art at night better or worse than thou wert in the morning.

           (c) It is the design of the gospel to give grace in great measures.  Christ gives life, ‘and that more abundantly,’ John 10:10.  Now shall the fountain be so large, and the pitcher we carry to it so little?  Where­fore doth God open his hand to such a breadth in the promise, but to widen our desires and encourage our endeavours?

           (d) The more grace thou hast got, the easier it will be to add to it.  A little learning with more dif­ficulty by a young scholar, than a great deal more afterwards.

3. Duty.  Bear with one another’s imperfections. You see the gospel is a mystery, do not wonder there­fore that any are not presently masters of their art. Christ bears with the saints’ imperfections; well may the saints one with another.  How raw were the dis­ciples in their knowledge—how long did they stand at one lesson before they could learn it!  ‘Do you now believe?’ says Christ, John 16:31.  He had borne with them long, and inculcated the same thing often, before it entered their minds; yet, alas! we can hardly have a good opinion of, or hold communion with, those that are not every way of our judgment, and cannot see things so clear as ourselves.  Surely we mistake the nature of the gospel, as if there were none but plain points in it.  Blessed be God, as to the prin­ciples necessary to salvation, though their nature be high and mysterious, yet they are clearly and plainly asserted in the word.  ‘Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness,’ I Tim. 3:16.  Godliness is a mystery, but it is ‘without controversy.’ As to the main fundamental points and practices of it there is no dispute among the faithful; but there are some points more remote from the vital parts of religion that have knots not easily untied, which makes some difference of judgment.  But it is not every excess or defect makes a monster—as six or four fingers on the hand—but an excess or defect in some principal part; neither doth every mistake make a monster in re­ligion.  Remember that the gospel is a mystery, and you will bear with one  another’s ignorance the better.  And, when love hath once laid the dust which passion and prejudice hath blown into our eyes, we shall then stand at greater advantage for finding out truth.

       

Several duties which the mysterious nature of the gospel imposes on believers 1/3

   Use Second. Several duties pressed upon the saints, who are instructed in the mystery of the gos­pel, by way of exhortation.

1. Duty.  Be thankful that ever God revealed it to thee.  O what a mercy this is, that thou hast ‘life and immortality brought to light,’ that thy ears hear this joyful sound!  Never came such joyful news to town as the gospel brings.  What a poor nation was this of ours before the gospel day broke among us! Bless God thy lot is cast where this sun is up.  The gospel indeed was early preached in the world.  Adam had it soon after his fall; but a short gospel, a mystery, indeed, to him, wrapped all up in one promise, and that a dark one.  But now that one wedge of gold is beaten out into the whole Bible—a gospel written at length, and not in figures.  You hear the gospel not preached in law terms, as the Jews did under Moses’ pedagogy; but gospel in gospel language.  The veil is taken off which hid the beauty of gospel truths from their face.  You hear it after it hath been rescued out of Antichrist’s hands, by whom for many ages it was kept prisoner.  You live not in those dark times when gospel truths were embased with the mean alloy of schoolmen’s subtleties and superstitious vanities —when more stones were given to break the teeth, than bread to feed the souls, of people.  The conduit of the gospel now runs with wine, not twice or thrice a year, on some gaudy festival day, but constantly. Every Sabbath‑day you have your fill of its sweetest truths.  Were it not sad, if they should be found to have been more thankful for the little drawing of gos­pel light which then but peeped forth, than you for its meridian light, who live to see the Sun of righteous­ness with his healing wings spread forth upon you? But especially bless God for any inward light and life thou hast received from this gospel.  God hath done more for thee in this, than for thousands thou livest among, and those no means ones either.  To this day God hath not given thy carnal neighbours eyes to see, nor hearts to perceive, that mystery which is unfolded unto thee.  Are you thankful to him that hath taught your worldly trade, by which you pick a small liveli­hood for your body?  O what praise then dost thou owe to thy God, who, by instructing thee in this mys­tery, hath learned thee as art for saving thy soul! Trumpeters delight to sound where they have the best echo; God delights to give his mercy to those that will most resound his praise.
2. Duty.  The gospel is a mystery, therefore rest not in thy present attainments; either in thy knowl­edge, as it is a mystery of faith, or thy practice, as it is a mystery of godliness.

           (1.) Rest not in thy present knowledge.  It is like thou knowest much to what once thou didst; but thou knowest little to what thou mayest.  Some books are learned at once reading, but the gospel is a mystery that will take up more than thy lifetime to understand it.  Mysteries are here sown thick; thou diggest where the springs rise faster upon thee the further thou goest.  God tells not all his secrets at once—‘here a little, and there a little;’ ‘many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased,’ Dan. 12:4.  The merchant’s ship takes not all in her lading at one port, but sails from one to another for it; neither doth the Christian enrich himself with this heavenly trea­sure all at one time or in one ordinance.  The true lover of learning gives not over his chase and pursuit for a little smattering knowledge he gets, but rather, having got the scent how sweet learning is, puts on with fuller cry for what he wants. The true doctor studies harder than the freshman, because, as he knows more of learning, so by that knowledge he un­derstands his own deficiency better; for the higher he ascends the hill of learning, the more his prospect en­largeth, while the other, standing at the bottom, thinks he knows all in his little.